Raisin Affairs

LON MILO DUQUETTE VISITS AUSTRALIA!!

The road to hell is paved with good intentions of maintaining my poor neglected blog. And indeed the road to Hell was explored (if not really trod) this weekend past. Arguably one of the foremost occultists writing and practising in the (Western) world today, Lon Milo Duquette, and one of my favourite occult writers, has just completed (or will after his lecture for the OTO and Masonic folks tonight) the Sydney leg of his first ever Australian tour. I had heard rumours of this tour for over a year, and dates finally manifested about four or five months ago. When I heard I cleared my diary and spared (almost) no expense.We had the following:

Thursday: Introduction to Enochian Magic
Friday: Spirits of the Tarot
Saturday: Introduction to Crowley's Thoth Tarot (day workshop)
Sunday: Qabalah: Zen of the West (day workshop)
Monday: Introduction to Solomonic Magick - Goetia.

As it happened I could only afford one of the day workshops, so I went with the Qabalah - the Tarot evening lecture was enough, and as I understand there wasn't a lot I wouldn't already know, or couldn't work out myself. However it sounded like it would have been pretty awesome - aparently he went through each of the Major Arcana and dissected their origins, and the imagery in each of the Thoth deck and their significance/s and all the things you don't notice. Apparently Justice is the Fool's wife! Sorry I missed it, but glad I could do all the others.

I'm gonna do a separate post for each of the workshops because their focus was quite different, even though many of the elements beld into eachother - unavoidable in Western occultism. My companions for the weekend were e:.C:.T:. Sorors L and V and Frater D, and a few other folks I know, or met there including a Gnostic priest who is the only other individual I've met who was loopy enough to construct a bodybuilding altar (gave me ideas for mine actually) and proposed we go into partnership (in the gym that is).

The whole weekend has really galvanised me, and in more ways than simply being charged with an electrical current. Duquette's approach to spiritual inquiry and the practical exploration of self, divinity and the universe is at once profoundly deep, and profoundly whimsical. Possibly my favourtie quote from the lectures was "The big magic is becoming Solomon, not doing the Magic [itself]" which reminded me so strongly of the e:.C:.T:. aphorism: "It is the work of the magician to change his mind." Duquettes special skill to is to make complex and daunting ideas straighforward and understandable (if not necessarily easy or simple).

So here is the story of my "adventure" this weekend, and it was an adventure, because as Lon says, every adventure makes you a different person, which I am now more keenly aware of than ever...