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Moving content to my own site

As of December 2019 I'll be publishing content exclusively on my own website at http://infernalgeometry.com

The Tumblr posts worth keeping have already been moved over.

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Available today at https://www.amazon.com/Infernal-Geometry-Left-Hand-Path-Magical/dp/1620558165/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=infernal+geometry&qid=1558462190&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull (as well as Barnes and Noble and other retailers big and small).

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Have you been looking for a serious book that combines weird tales (HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, etc.), semiotics, a postmodern (but rooted in the deep past) system of operative communication, and geometry? Look no further!

After a long wait... the release date for Infernal Geometry and the Left-Hand Path is finally here. In addition to the default choice for many of ordering through Amazon, it is also available in many Barnes and Noble stores in major metro areas.

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Words Run Amok

[Note: This is the first in a bit of branching out for this blog into something I had always intended to do with it; namely, interspersing various musings from my passion for linguistics. As you'll see, this interest often intersects in various ways with my other more esoteric interests.]

Language/Culture X has Y words for Z

Did you know the Eskimos "have 50 different words for snow"? You've no doubt heard it in any case (with the number, in a real life game of "telephone" gone wild, slowly increasing over time). I've never been clear on why this seems to be most well-known the example of vocabulary supposedly run amok. Of course, it's entirely incorrect on at least two levels.

To begin with, Eskimo is not only an inaccurate term but is now considered to be a bit on the pejorative side. Nor is it the case that generally more accurate terms, like Inuit and Yupik, should be substituted in an over-simplified search-and- replace; these are just the two best known groups of people who have inhabited the far north long enough to be considered native to the region. But this is not the main point I'm getting to.

If your culture places a particular value on highly nuanced variations of a common thing, your language will reflect this. Setting aside the tendency of Inuit and related languages to construct compound words whose length would bewilder even a German speaker, the resulting compounds can still generally be treated as variations on the root word (each component is itself a word or prefix of some kind, and understanding of the meaning of the whole can be gained from breaking it into and analyzing these components).

We do the same type of compounding in English, but it's just that the way our language combines different words and particles to create more complex words leaves them separate (thus forming phrases instead of new standalone words). Thus we can have fluffy snow, slushy snow, snow flurries, etc. as different "names" for snow even though we parse them as just the noun snow with clarifying adjectives. If English created compound words through lengthening, we could just as easily (given different turns of the quirks of language evolution), ended up with fluffsnow, slushysnow, flursnow, frozenskystuff, etc.

Now imagine a non-English speaker from a tropical island encountering this strange weather phenomenon that they are barely familiar with, and who doesn't know that snow can come in different 'kinds' like our manipulated examples -- they'd likely just claim that English has (at least) four words for snow.

[As an aside, I also think there is a subtle racial component to the "Eskimos have 50 words for snow" canard. Similarly to how much of 'ancient aliens' speculation amounts to an implication of "these 'primitive' brown-skinned people couldn't possibly have figured this out on their own!", the snow vocabulary issue carries an implication of "don't these silly people know they could just reuse a word and add adjectives like we do in 'sensible' English?"]

English (especially American English) has more words than I can count for car (or more generally, four-wheeled street vehicle). We have sedans, coupés, SUVs, RVs, convertibles, hatchbacks, sportscars, trucks, buses, compacts, limousines, clunkers, beetles, minivans, Fords, Porsches, etc. etc. etc. If you speak a language other than English, and have a frame of reference that either doesn't distinguish between or have an awareness of these varieties, you'd likely just translate them all as the lowest common denominator of 'car', 'vehicle', etc. After all, they each are types of passenger vehicles and if your primary motivation is just to get from point A to point B without having to walk, that description is sufficient enough. Languages use different names for distinctions their host cultures find meaningful, even when there is still a general category that captures the meaning sufficiently for many purposes; those distinctions are easily lost when a culture that doesn't place the same emphasis or awareness on those categories translates them into their own language.

[You could do the same example with computers (Apple, PC, tablet, mainframe, etc.), phones (mobile, landline, flip phone, iPhone, phablet, etc.), trees (oak, ash, birch, elm, yew, pine, cedar, etc.) or with virtually any common object where sometimes you need to make a specific enough distinction between its varieties that a different word, compound or not, is appropriate].

Translation Loss in Contextualizing Iceland Magic

This same translation problem, where essential meaning is lost if the translation simplifies into a 'lowest common denominator' word, pops up in two specific places in the study (and revitalization) of pre-Christian religion. My examples will draw primarily from northern Germanic studies, as that's where my familiarity lies.

In Old Icelandic, there are many different terms that are often homogenized in translation to words like 'magic' and 'witchcraft'. Non-magic using cultures tend to collapse all such terms into more broad and simplified ones, in part because they don't grok all the distinctions and so the terms are really just synonyms for each other (rather than retaining the importance they originally had that necessitated breaking the concepts into different words).

One operation is not the equivalent of another, and thus essential meaning is lost when replacing all words in the same category with a more generic gloss. Some Old Icelandic terms that are usually translated as merely 'magic' or 'witchcraft' include:

galdur - from the verb gala (the 'singing' of ravens, an animal closely connected with Óðinn). This is vocal/verbal magic, often involving runes. This is the most common specific type of magical practice mentioned in the Eddas and the sagas.

seidh - a form of ecstatic trance magic; a full discussion of its practice and etymology is beyond scope of this post

gandur - use of magical wand/staff (Tolkien borrowed from the Eddic poem Völuspá ("Prophecy of the Seeress") the dwarf name Gandalf ("wand elf") for his famous wizard)

fjölkynngi - means something like 'deeply skilled magic'. There's not much information available on the particulars of this form in existing sources of the period.

fornekja - The first part, forn, means "old" (e.g., as in Forni, "the old man/one", a byname of Óðinn). This is magic rooted in knowledge of the deep past (you must dig deeply into the roots of things in order to be fully transformed by them). The term is often translated into the generic (and thus mostly meaningless) gloss of 'witchcraft'.

Ignoring Nuance in Concepts of the Soul

The concept of the soul is greatly oversimplified in the Judeo-Christian-derived version we typically associate with it today.

The soulcraft of the Germanic peoples reveals far greater nuance, and a much better map for working with the concept. The Old Icelandic ideas and descriptions here are adapted from Edred Thorsson's The Nine Doors of Midgard, but are well documented especially in the Icelandic forms used here. (See also his master's thesis, published as Sigurdr: The Rites of Transformation, under his given name of Dr. Stephen E. Flowers).

There are at least eight parts of the body/soul complex in the old Icelandic phenomenology. These include:

hamr - the force that gives shape to objects, mutated by the individual human will

önd - the animating principle of the entire complex ("breath")

hugr and minni - the cognitive and reflective faculties (from the same roots as Óðinn's ravens Huginn and Muninn)

fylgja - the faculty for storing/transmitting individuality in a mysterious pattern throughout one's life (and beyond). Often visualized as a contra-sexual being, or an animal form

hamingja - usually translated as a person's innate 'luck', or the power to cause changes within the world

(Another meaningful breakdown, usually collapsed to the oversimplified concept of 'soul', is that of the ancient Egyptians: khat (body emanation), ren (name emanation), khabit (shadow emanation), ab (heart emanation), ba (core emanation), ka (transmigration emanation), sekhem (neter emanation), akh (star emanation). See Dr. Michael Aquino's Mindstar for a fuller explanation).

Languages are nearly infinitely flexible things. The way that vocabulary arises, especially for commonly used or encountered objects, is driven both by the rules of the language for creating new words that 'fit' within its phonology, and also by the distinctions that are considered meaningful. We shouldn't be any more surprised by the ways different languages collapse and combine elements to form new concepts than we should continue to be by the fascinating multiplicity of language itself.

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The release date for my book has finally been set, along with the pre-order page.

https://www.innertraditions.com/infernal-geometry-and-the-left-hand-path.html

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Bio from an upcoming conference

Toby Chappell is a musician and writer currently residing in Georgia. He has been enamored with the esoteric and the strange for as long as he can remember, pursuing these as gateways into unraveling the mysteries of existence and self-awareness.

Some of Toby's interests include the connections between Starry Wisdom and the Left Hand Path, the study of how semiotics and language reflect and enhance effective thought and action, and the Northern European esoteric traditions including the Runes. Influenced by the treatment of the unusual, the esoteric, the imaginal and the mysterious by such authors as Fritz Leiber, Herman Hesse, Stefan Grabinski and H.P. Lovecraft, his quest is always to seek the deeper Mystery behind the things that capture his interest (knowing that the truth always remains partially hidden).

He is the author of the forthcoming Infernal Geometry and the Left Hand Path: The Magical System of the Nine Angles, which explores the history and development of angular magic within the early Church of Satan and then in the Temple of Set starting in 1975. Lovecraft, Pythagoras, geometry (sacred and otherwise), semiotics -- all these influences and more come together in this system first outlined in "The Ceremony of the Nine Angles" (written by Michael Aquino for Anton LaVey's 1972 book, The Satanic Rituals).

A member of the Temple of Set since 2000, Toby currently serves as the seventh Grand Master of the Order of the Trapezoid within the Temple. The Order, whose meaning and purpose reach far into the dim past, was formally consecrated as a Knighthood dedicated to the Prince of Darkness by Dr. Michael Aquino in 1982 at the Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia, Germany. Toby has written numerous articles on Satanism, angular magic, the runes and H.P. Lovecraft in Runes, the private journal of the Order.

In the last decade he has given interviews on various magical and initiatory topics to the KHPR: The Voice of Darkness podcast, the Daimonosophy 2.0 podcast, and the Church of Mabus radio show.

Toby's music and occult pursuits intersect in the solo projects Eyes of Ligeia (starry wisdom and ambient doom), and Misdreamt (found sounds, electo-acoustic experimentation, and apophenia). Over the last 13 years he has given various performances under the Eyes of Ligeia banner, both solo and with a group. In 2011 he created a new soundtrack for the silent film Faust (1926); this was commissioned by and performed at the German Cultural Center in Atlanta, along with other performances in the southeast and New York City.

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The Work continues

It's been a while since I posted anythere here, but not for lack of interest or anything worthwhile to say. I've had three major (public) projects that have been taking the majority of my attention over the last few months:

Finalizing the manuscript and other details for my book Infernal Geometry and the Left Hand Path: The Magical System of the Nine Angles, which now has a release date of May 21, 2019.

Preparing a very limited printed version of some of the same ideas in that book, focusing on the essential elements. That small volume, Through Angles Mirrored With Thoughts: An Introduction to Angular Magic, is now available. However, it is only (outside of special circumstances) available from my personally in face-to-face settings. This is done partially to preserve the limited nature of the text (45 copies only), and also to have it function as in integral part of a mouth-to-ear exchange about the topics in the book rather than just another book showing up on your doorstep in a small cardboard box.

Finally, I will be speaking at the International Left Hand Path Consortium in St. Louis, MO the weekend of July 13-15, 2018. My speaking topic is an overview of the subject matter of these two books.

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The crucial bit is in a quote within the article: "I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else's; it's always what I've already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom."

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Starry Wisdom and the Left Hand Path, Part IV

The Big Dipper was known to the Egyptians as the Thigh of the Bull, or simply the Seven Stars, and was very closely associated with the god Set; Bata began as a farmer tending to cows, and one of his final remanifestations was into that of a bull, followed by being reborn as a pharaoh and then a god who is a form of Set.

The Seven Stars, or more specifically an area just behind them called Re Sataue, are known in the Egyptian Book of the Dead as the Habitation that is Hidden. In one of oldest versions of that book the deceased, after surviving certain ordeals, then exclaims: "I have entered into the Habitation that is Hidden, and I hold converse with Set."  This further demonstrates the importance of the star cult to the afterlife at that time.

In another instance of the 19th and 20th Dynasty obsession with stellar symbolism made into action, there is a papyrus from that period commonly referred to as the Cairo Calendar. Its name in hieroglyphics can be rendered as "An introduction to the beginning of infinity and the end of eternity". Originally interpreted only as a guide to lucky and unlucky days, recent academic research (by High Priestess Emeritus Patty Hardy) has demonstrated that it also describes a complex and detailed timekeeping system based on the rising         and setting times for certain stars at specific times of year. Each marker is           described as the "going forth" of the god or goddess associated with that star, further reinforcing the symbolic aspects of associating the rites and attributes of what one does on earth with what goes on in the sky above, and for providing the individual with a means to read and shape his or her destiny.

A key concept in the Starry Wisdom of the Egyptians is the word s'ba.

The word s'ba can be translated as star, door, or to teach. Why this curious          complex of meanings? Those of you familiar with Egyptian soul lore may recognize the word ba, often rendered simply as "soul" but more precisely understood to be the individual's enduring sense of self-awareness. Reading the word s'ba as "to impart a ba" makes the significance of "to teach" evident.

The door or gate is a familiar theme in the occult, and also the stories of             Lovecraft, acting as links between the conventional reality recognized by society, and other realms of possibility.  Gates must be transcended, often at great cost, in order to gain access to knowledge not available in any other way. The bridge between the cosmic and the earthbound is represented in the Mythos by Nyarlathotep, himself the true identity of the Haunter of the Dark, who is summoned from the stars via the Shining Trapezohedron.  As the story says, combining the different meanings of the word s'ba: "These people say the Shining Trapezohedron shows them heaven & other worlds, & that the Haunter of the Dark tells them secrets in some way."

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Starry Wisdom and the Left Hand Path, Part III

Part I: http://stonyrubbish.tumblr.com/post/170557352358/starry-wisdom-and-the-left-hand-path-part-i 

Part II: http://stonyrubbish.tumblr.com/post/170558073383/starry-wisdom-and-the-left-hand-path-part-ii

The symbolism attached to the patterns of the night sky, the constellations and asterisms, are a means of encoding learning and myth, and spurring new insights into the workings of the cosmos and how the Self relates to it. Since the 1960s and the computer analysis done on the alignments of Stonehenge by Dr. Gerald Hawkins of Boston University, many of our previously accepted timelines of human development have been challenged in a new field called archeo-astronomy. This in turn reinforces the idea that the more we understand the cosmos and humanity's place within it, and how and when certain insights were gained in our intellectual history, the more opportunity there is for applying the insights gained from study of the heavens to one's own development and understanding. 

There is an inherent power that comes from being able to advise rulers and predict celestial events through careful study of the cycles that govern human behavior.

The ancient and likely original black art of astrology provided a means of applying knowledge held only by an elite. Eclipses and other seemingly irregular events are often predictable, and knowledge of them can be made to serve the purposes of those in power, but often more information than is available through casual observation is required. Precise record keeping, and the ability to encode and interpret knowledge, is also a necessity.

The astrologer who wielded this knowledge would have held a great deal of behind the scenes influence. The astrologer applying this understanding to his own purposes would have personal power unavailable even to the rulers he served.

One of the earliest civilations that applied Starry Wisdom that touched all facets of its society was that of Egypt. It is well-known that the Egyptians tracked the year's first heliacal rising of Sirius, when after a 70 day absence it reappears in the east just prior to sunrise. This event was both the beginning of their new year and the harbinger of the critically necessary annual flooding of the Nile. But like much of Egyptian history and mythology, the connections go far deeper.

As far back as the 2nd Dynasty (beginning ca. 2900 BCE), a foundation laying ceremony called the Stretching of the Cord is recorded. The pharaoh, assisted by Seshat, the goddess of temple records, brings the cosmic order as derived from the stars down to earth to be reflected in the orientation of the temple being built. Seshat was normally depicted wearing a leopard hide, the spots of which were associated with the stars of the night sky.

Compare this aspect of the pharaoh as the agent of the gods on earth, the bridge between the worlds, to Lovecraft's writings on the role of Nyarlhathotep:

"And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet."

The 19th and 20th Dynasties (spanning 200 years beginning ca. 1300 BCE), were those dominated by royal families who were loyal to the god Set. The pharaohs of these dynasties were especially interested in Starry Wisdom: one of the defining features of the funerary practices of the Setian dynasties is that of the astronomical ceiling, of which the most famous of those still intact is from the tomb of Seti I.

The astronomical ceilings functioned as maps for the pharaoh's akh, or active essence, to become a star and find its way to its place in the heavens as one of the neteru (that is, the gods). This transformation is also told of in a story that dates from the time of Seti II, called "The Tale of Two Brothers". In this tale, a farmer named Bata undergoes a series of ordeals and metamorphoses which culminate in his transformation into a star in the Big Dipper.

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The origins of my path

My path to the Temple of Set could be summed up as: Teenage metalhead in the Deep South discovers Satanism, and imagines his favorite bands are really in league with the Prince of Darkness.  Later finds out that for 99.99% of them it's just a marketing gimmick, but thinks there might be something to this Satan thing anyway. Eventually discovers the truth is much deeper and stranger than he ever imagined.

Like many others, I first heard of the Temple because of the Aquinos' appearance on the Oprah Satanism exposé in 1988 (I was 14 at the time).  I had recently read an excerpt from The Truth About Witchcraft Today, recounting Hans Holzer's encounter with the Church of Satan. I was fascinated by the description of Satanism as something more viable and honorable than the caricature which was prevalent then.

So when I saw this very logical and sincere sounding man with odd eyebrows on TV (along with his captivating and equally grounded wife), I had already been introduced to the idea of Satanism as a noble pursuit and was able to absorb what they were saying, while observing how they ripped apart the nonsense that was being presented by others as fact.  While I remembered seeing these people take a stand for the truth, I didn't actually remember the name "Temple of Set" and it was years later before I realized that was who I had seen.

In my college years, after exploring and rejecting various forms of paganism and purely philosophical approaches, and coming to see Satanism as a metaphysical dead end, in the early days of the World Wide Web I read about the Temple on a website comparing various Satanic organizations. Of all the organizations I read about there, the Temple's material seemed the least ludicrous and made the most sense.

In my college years, after exploring and rejecting various forms of paganism and purely philosophical approaches, and coming to see Satanism as a metaphysical dead end, I read about the Temple on a website in the early days of the World Wide Web.  Of all the organizations I read about there, the Temple's material seemed the least ludicrous and made the most sense.

While it would be another three or four years before I joined, my exposure to the Temple then framed a lot of my explorations during that interlude as I learned how to make myself into someone who could actually benefit from being a part of the Temple, even though actually joining it was not initially my goal.

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Speaking at 2018 International Left Hand Path Consortium

I'll be speaking at the 2018 International Left Hand Path Consortium in St. Louis in July.  More info at https://lefthandpathstl.com/

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Angular Magic in the Church of Satan and Temple of Set

I'm not ready to reveal all of the details yet (and some details are not yet settled, like publication date), but I will have a book -- my first! -- coming out sometime in 2018.

The book will cover the history and practice of angular magic -- a unique approach to magic pioneered by Anton LaVey and further developed by Michael Aquino, Stephen Flowers, and others. Angular magic takes influence from the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and related writers, the "Command to Look" of photographer William Mortensen, the number mysticism of Pythagoras, and their manifestations through Anton LaVey's Law of the Trapezoid. These ideas and techniques have continued to be refined through the work of the Order of the Trapezoid in the Temple of Set, even though they have rarely been publicly discussed until now.

This will be published by a major publisher of high quality, scholarly esoteric books, which I'll reveal once the info is available on their website (the contract has already been signed, the fully marked up manuscript has been submitted, etc. so it's official and definitely happening, but just not ready to announce).

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Starry Wisdom and the Left Hand Path, part II

Part I: http://stonyrubbish.tumblr.com/post/170557352358/starry-wisdom-and-the-left-hand-path-part-i

Part III: http://stonyrubbish.tumblr.com/post/170878046998/starry-wisdom-and-the-left-hand-path-part-iii

Many assume the Left Hand Path attraction to 'darkness' to be merely aversion to daylight and to ordinary socialization. In contrast, think about the incredible courage it took to go off by oneself and just gaze at the stars instead of remaining in the safety of light, shelter, and other humans. Further, consider the idea that much could be learned by the study of patterns in the sky and their reflection in human thought and behavior; this shows something critical about the individual, self-aware pysche and its cultivation. This takes the LHP beyond merely focusing on being the "other", but now into the realm of the transcendent.

In the Right Hand Path religions -- the religions of the day side -- all creation is    considered to spring from a single cosmic figure often represented by or closely        connected to the sun. A critical distinction between the Paths of the Right and the     Left is mirrored in this solar/stellar dichotomy.

The Right Hand Path takes its cues from the sun, which defines the times, orders human  life, dominates agriculture, and functions as the prototype for cosmic order in its     regularity.

The Left Hand Path in contrast is stellar. The night sky becomes an entrance not a barrier, allowing one to see multiple points of light -- and to be aware of others present but hidden due to ever increasing distance. Many of these points of light are   themselves suns, scattered throughout the sky, many if not most with entire planetary systems orbiting them. The individual is symbolized by this -- after all, every man and every woman is a star. The Self is a gravitational center of worlds; not one, like our  sun, but many.  Such a worldview encompassing this plurality grants liberty to its fellow beings that cannot exist in a solar worldview.

The individual, self-aware, self-evolving psyche functions as a prism: these    experiences of the objective world are transformed, reshaped into a diverse range of structures of understanding, such as scientific thought, myth, religion. The study of this in turn leads to thinking of the night sky as a mirror in which the psyche sees itself. The stars are not only "out there", but interior reflection allows us to see ourselves in them.

Observation of the patterns in the night sky has been with humanity since its dawn. This was illustrated quite effectively by Arthur C. Clarke in the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which a curious ape nicknamed "Moonwatcher" gazes at the moon in wonder, and this curiosity makes him one of the more successful subjects of an experiment at transforming that latent intelligence of these creatures into something more as they make the next evolutionary leap forward.  This leap is connected to the later evolution of the astronaut David Bowman, as those who dare to aspire to what can be glimpsed through the night sky are transmuted by the profound experience.

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Starry Wisdom and the Left Hand Path, part I

Part II: http://stonyrubbish.tumblr.com/post/170558073383/starry-wisdom-and-the-left-hand-path-part-ii

Part III: http://stonyrubbish.tumblr.com/post/170878046998/starry-wisdom-and-the-left-hand-path-part-iii

This is the first in a series of posts about Starry Wisdom and the Left Hand Path. They are derived from notes from my talk at International Left Hand Path Consortium in Atlanta in 2016.

In these posts I will be writing about Starry Wisdom, elements of H.P. Lovecraft's stories drawn from his experiences as an amateur astronomer, and the relation of both of these to the Left Hand Path.

The connection between Starry Wisdom and the Left Hand Path derives from the way that   cosmology shapes and reflects human thought. This connection is necessary for the transcendent forms of the Left Hand Path that focus on the capacity of the individual for self-directed, mindful evolution.

The phrase "Starry Wisdom" itself comes from H.P. Lovecraft, in the short story "The Haunter of the Dark". In this story the 'disliked and unorthodox' Starry Wisdom Sect use a many-angled scrying stone to contact an entity who fears the light and originates from beyond the visible stars.

Starry Wisdom is the study of the night sky's effect on individuals, from the deep past and the formation of uniquely human intelligence and self-awareness, to the present where symbolism related to the movements of the heavens is implicit in much of religion, philosophy and other concerns about humanity's place within the cosmos.

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The Sidereal Messenger review

This is a few months old, but is an important review of my latest CD as Eyes of Ligeia. It captures both what I was attempting to create musically, but even more importantly has some good insights into the subject matter and aesthetic that recognize it as a coherent work of art that is far more than the sum of its parts.

http://doom-metal.com/reviews.php?album=3121

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Remanifestation

After a long absence of blogging with any regularity, I'm getting back into the habit while at the same time concentrating my various interests in one location.

Beyond just the origins of this blog in sharing my adventures in minimalism, expect it now to cover a wide variety of topics, including music (mine and others), turning over various obscure stones in the realm of the esoteric, and perhaps some writing about my interest in linguistics and its implications in consciousness and thought.