Manifesto of Aletheia

1. Aletheia means Truth.

2. This Truth means Truth of Being.

3. In order to unconceal this Truth one needs to Work against forgetting.

4. Two keys for Remembering this Truth are forms and will.

5. The mirror of Remembering is between natural birth and death, but its source is beyond them.

6. The nature of Remembering is sacred and it is the source of pure religiousness.

7. Aletheia reflects zeitgeist of the world of forgetting, offering principle for Remembering.

Aletheia.

On books and music

I have been reading, writing, and translating books quite a bit lately.

I finished Aarne Kinnunen’s biography on Friedrich Nietzsche recently. It was interesting to read such a work from 1960 CE. Some decades have brought interesting touch of time to the work, although it is was a pretty regular view on Nietzsche, his life and works.

Another book that I finished recently was Aino Kontula’s Rexi on homo ja opettajat hullui. This diary of a teacher did cause some pretty heated discussion among Finnish teachers soon after it was published earlier this year. I need to say that I was somewhat disappointed with the book. It was supposed to be sort of an expose on how tough it can be to be a teacher, a brutally fresh and honest look at the job. I do not have as long experience on the field as the writer of the book does, but my general impressions of the book were that if the writer really sees her job the way she wrote about it, she should consider some other job. The book was a bit too much whining in tone for me, and I think it didn’t bring much any fresh light on the subject. I found the book to be also surprisingly boringly written. As such the theme of a teacher’s diary sounds good, but I think it could be done better than here. All in all, this was ok reading, nevertheless.

My first book’s English translation is in the hands of my proof-readers now. I guess there is going to be some editing of the text (there always is more than I think) before the book gets printed. I met my publisher today and created covers to the book at the headquarters of Voimasana. The art I used in the covers is created by Roland Winkhart. The cover of The Left Hand Path is presented here for the first time to the public.

I am still also translating The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage into Finnish (plus preparing a foreword to it) and writing Aletheia: In search of Self-Remembering. The latter of these projects has been in a very dynamic phase lately. After being inspired by the daemon in Ruissalo yesterday, I penned a Manifesto of Aletheia. It might end up into this blog too sooner or later.

Due to these writing projects and some other factors, my next creative steps in the world of music has needed to wait. Things take their time. Meanwhile, I heard that Cosine Nomine used samples from my CD Terra Hyperborea in his recent gig in Helsinki. There has also been some talk with a friend from Texas about his possible remixes of some of my Terra Hyperborea stuff. Knowing that he does killer stuff, the idea alone sounds goods.

Lastly a confession. I mentioned a little time ago that I would start to read J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Ring Trilogy in the beginning of June. Well, I started to read it already.

Slice of non-naturalness, II

Happy weekend

Meditation on the banks of the river Lethe

I have been listening to the before mentioned Cantata Sangui song over and over again. It seems like heavy listening is not killing the song but just making it better. Not only is this song brilliant in itself, but it must have been additionally grazed by the lady who’s name the song bears. The daemonically majestic, otherwordly beautiful, unstoppably powerful, and eternally mysterious breathes throughout the music. I am moved of this song and its synchronistic magic like Nietzsche of Bizet’s Carmen in 1881 CE.

As I was listening to the song over my morning coffee, I felt that there were few things that I wanted to write about in relation to the daemon of my destiny.

Every now and then I have been asked to write more about Aletheia. I have written relatively little directly about her. But there are some straightforward entries about her also in this blog, though. You can look f.ex here and here in relation to this. And if you go digging you might find even more from the archives.

I am a firm believer of indirect teaching in relation to initiation. This means that I think that you can’t capture the essence of initiatory teaching into written language alone and to declare that 'here it is', impersonally codified as a universal truth for all to learn as such. Some great writers have managed to write texts that from some angle can be pretty convincing regarding truths of existence, but I don’t dare to count myself as such a writer. And as a matter of fact, I have more or less purposefully and regularly tried at times to write as suspiciously as Gurdjieff in his Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson in order to make my readers to doubt what I say and to learn for themselves if there is some or any kind of sense in what I say. This might be something to keep in mind also regarding this blog.

Indirect teaching is about creating conditions where those with a certain kind of inner need can feed the spark they have within. Such conditions can be and often are also formal, but for those with eyes those conditions are much broader. They involve the whole multidimensional web between those who want to teach, study and learn. The teaching breathes in and out of that web for those who thirst for its truth. Initiates, the living personal examples of that truth, their exchange with each other, is the key here.

What makes initiatory schools or groups or relationships so precious comes all from there. No wisdom can be codified in its proper fullness to only a slice of the whole. Wisdom can be shared, though. But it is shared at its best from person to person, face to face, in unique conditions of time and space. In that kind of context also written words can take their place at their best in relation to initiation.

The more I am breathing in aletheia, the more I am stunned by her mystery and power. And as this takes place, the more I seem to become blessed with wonderful individuals who come to my life and share with me things that speak of aletheia too. In these conditions aletheia is learned at its best: in an esoteric relationships between those who seek to ‘remember themselves’.

I might have some intellectual skills, but I am not first and foremost an intellectual by my character. I am first of all an initiate of the heart of being, a fire-breathing entity of the eternal spring. The best I might have to share is not shared via my writings but via in person contacts. It is because of this that I have not written more directly about aletheia. Aletheia is first of all about a holistic (and as such, sacred) potential of the whole human being. You can’t cook Lemon Tagliatelli only with ½ rind of a lemon. I am still daredevil enough to try to offer some useful recipe to get a taste of aletheia, as one of my current writing project hints.

The Order of the Great Bear of the Temple of Set prepares currently for its annual the Book of Life-project (those with copies of my first book can read more about the project from there). Traditionally this project has been about writing an autobiography with an initiatory point of view. This year we are turning to the other direction and focusing via our dreams, hopes, and wills towards the potential future. There will be talk, writing, and magic involved with this. And here we come to the last subject that I thought to say few words about this time – happiness.

My garden of initiation and its tools might help one to realize a mortal life as a moment between natural birth and death. It can be like closing eyes for a moment and opening them again, seeing 'it all' in a moment right before the great inevitable and then understanding what carpe diem or vive hodi means. Beauty that grows with bright colours in such a pressure shines lust for life, acute feeling of wonder in being alive, joy in transcendental experience of one’s will and of realizing that what one can Remember means that one is potentially something more than just a wretched mortal worm. Sacred truth might unconceal itself, being and becoming unite.

But the natural aspect of the divine human animal is easily stressed and depressed by being reminded of these things. Those who seek to be in eyes of Aletheia and have her in their eyes, have known and will know that conscious efforts to truly be able to ‘be’ and ‘to do’ is one helluva place to be in. Those who have taken part to the Book of Life-project during the previous years know how depressing it can be to remember oneself. The general human condition drinks heavily of Lethe every single day. What keeps an initiate sane here is ability to laugh at oneself and to learn what makes one happy.

To be ‘too serious’ is not to be serious enough. To truly be serious means that you are also able to not take yourself ‘too seriously’. Blind are those goddesses and gods who are not able to laugh and to dance on the banks of the river Lethe!

Remember yourself.

No longer in eyes of Aletheia

Something significant took synchronistically place in my universe yesterday. I had felt for days that inspiration to write Aletheia: In search of Self-Remembering was growing to new heights. I felt the presence of aletheia to require some reflection that evening. Interestingly, soon after deciding to do that I received a prehear of a Cantata Sangui song. And the song? No longer in eyes of Aletheia.

In addition to being personally stunningly significant, the song is also truly enchanting in itself. I have understood that it is going to be part of the band's coming CD. Based on this prehear that's something to certainly look for.

I thank Thuleia and Wooki for being messengers of the lady Aletheia regarding this song to me.

Pipe of the day, II

The pipe of the day is my favorite, Savinelli churchwarden.

This blog-entry is dedicated to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930 CE), who's birthday was yesterday. Sir Doyle created one of the most famous fictitious pipe-smokers, Sherlock Holmes. For more on the subject, see my friend Ensio Kataja's blog.

Sherlock Holmes did smoke churchwarden and so did another famous and fictitious character - Gandalf (or at least they both have smoked churchwarden in movies or episodes about them). I guess it is quite needless to state the common knowledge that also the creator of the old wizard and the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien, was a pipe-smoker too.

I have been thinking about reading the Ring trilogy this summmer. I might end up with the book and my churchwarden under some old tree in Ruissalo or in the Turku castle surroundings during the next month. Want to read the book too and to share the reading experience here in the blog? Be prepared. This blog might turn very Tolkien the next month.

Slice of non-naturalness

Hard rock hallelujah!

They won! Wow! Congratulations to the band!

Back from the camp of holy guardian angel

I’m back in the city from an international school’s camp where I worked for three days. The shamanistic workshop that I had created for the occasion in nature went fine. I am confident that a good number of students succeeded to send some signals through drumbeats in the spirit of the workshop into their subjective universes. Those signals are most likely returning to them at proper times in future.

Those three days in nature worked well for me in the spirit of my first book’s chapter on the magic of travelling – stepping outside of my everyday environment with an open mind shed some useful light to my routines. I have some new ideas and energy. If you don’t have my first book at hand and would like to read about something similar though, pick up John Symond’s The Great Beast and read about Crowley’s reasons for sending his students in isolation for a while in their search to acquire conversation with one’s “holy guardian angel”. If you don’t have these books at hand (and even if you have them both) I suggest you to go camping anyway. By doing so with proper mental preparation you actually have a fairly good chance to be inspired by your “holy guardian angel” (or hamingja/fylgja, if you prefer Nordic/Germanic magical context as I do) in a non-verbal numinous way. Maybe you could even acquire a “conversation” with that entity. Go and try.

One of the means that Magus of the Word Thelema used in his search for acquiring a conversation with his “holy guardian angel” was that of the magical operation of Abra-Melin. I am currently in process of translating the classical grimoire involved into Finnish and also writing an introduction to the tome in an effort to put the book in a useful and fresh cultural/historical/magical context. The book is going to be published by Voimasana at some point the early next year.

Now that my first book The Left Hand Path is out of my hands in its full English draft and under checking of the team of my proof-readers, there is also more time to my other writing projects. The most important of these to me is the manuscript for Aletheia: In search of Self-Remembering. My schedule in writing this book has changed and might change again. As writing this text is sort of conversation with my “holy guardian angel” that can be called Aletheia, I can’t dictate a strict deadline for myself in the process. The text gets ready when it gets ready, when the numinous manifests itself in words within the context of the book to me.

Three days away from keyboard means tons of unchecked emails. It makes huxleyan in me to raise my eyebrows. Is technology really serving us or are we serving technology? Are all these technical devices really giving us more time to focus on essential matters of our lives, liberating us from necessary time-consuming routines of daily life, giving us a chance to have more time to be free, self-expressing persons? Or are all these devices part of a technological current of Western culture that has started to live life of its own that we need to work for? Is this technological culture paradoxically tending to support culture that has more quantity on this and that over quality of essential things and experiences of life? How Max Weber’s iron-cage of Western rationality and George Ritzer’s McDonaldization of Western society are present in your life? What kind of good and less good dimensions they have for you? As most of things, this is not a black and white-scenario, but more a gray one. Technology is means for something and as such it is a neutral, just like a knife or a pen. Interpretation and experience of tools use is another matter then.

Back in 1991 CE emails didn’t exist. I used hours to typewrite a letter to Don Webb and others I corresponded with. After writing a letter I needed to go to a post office and pay for a letter to be sent to the States. It took about a week to arrive there, and then some time from Mr. Webb to write me back. The quantity of posts shared back then was very small when compared to what I am getting nowadays via email, but quality back then was generally speaking much better back then to what it is now. It really made you to think what you are saying and why if it took a week for a letter to arrive to its destination and another week or two to get response.

If you ask from me, the vision of Max Weber and George Ritzer is undoubtedly true. This doesn’t mean that we are in some huxleyan nightmare, though. Tools are tools, nothing more, nothing less.

Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Love is the Law, Love under Will.

Interview on sonic magic

I was interviewed to the coming issue of Vox Paganorum recently. In the article that touches upon sonic magic there are also Cosine Nomine, Ovro, and Niko Skorpio interviewed. I think that anyone interested in the subject will find the article interesting.

Slices of happiness

Here's a spontaneously created list of few things that brought me happiness this morning: Sound of a coffee maker. A surprise package from Norway. Airguitar. Ticket to Suzanne Vega's concert. Getting finished with full English draft of my first book. Creating a gift. Engrish. Shamanistic workshop I'm creating for an international school's camp. Sunflowers. X-ray photo of my skull. Lihat Puntarissa 10/16-cartoon.

What would your spontaneous list be like?

Pipe of the day

Poker and the master game

Those who know me in person or have read my second book know, that I am not big on playing games. I used to play chess, even pretty well, when I was younger. Then my skills in that game got rusty, and if I got thrilled about any game it was something that appealed to an ameba in deep dark levels of my brain via Tetris or Worms 2. I just don't get much thrills from games. The only game I guess I enjoy is "the master game", as presented by Robert S. de Ropp in his book with the same title. To summarize, the master game could be said to equal to initiation, a process of self-exploration and actualization.

A friend of mine, Hrabanaz, is a talent in poker and it has been fascinating to talk with him about similarities between the game and the master game. It was a pleasure to see that he put a great entry into his blog about the subject recently. The entry can be found from here. There is also a very insightful aletheia-twist in the text...

What kind of games you enjoy and why?

From under my medieval hat

I found a great medieval hat today. Now I know what I’m going to wear in my head this year during the medieval fair of Turku, probably my favourite annual thing in the city. With that hat and my churchwarden pipe I guess I look like some character who escaped from Tolkien’s books. At least I speak a language pretty close to that universum.

I met my book’s publisher yesterday. The English translation of my first book Vasemman Käden Polku (The Left Hand Path) is about to be ready in its full draft. The draft should be ready during this weekend. The Finnish version of the book is going into its 3rd print later this year or early next year. It is going to be a hardcover version, most likely with black covers and silver texts and pentagram on its covers and back. The third print will also be a bit edited and updated and there will be a new introduction to the book too, in addition to the original one. There will possibly also be some never before seen drawings from me in the book.

I got my hands into Niko Scorpio’s new CD Escape from Heaven finally yesterday. Anyone who is familiar with Niko’s earlier materials will notice that this is brand new, fresh and dynamic, born out of an individual who knows how to transform essence into sound and in this case also into sonic magick. The CD has played almost non-stop on the background for a day for me now... This is brilliant multi-layered material, where sound supports visual images and texts (that are great art in themselves) and the other way around too. The CD sounds great already with the first hearing, but leaves the listener with an evident feeling that it needs more digesting. The more you listen to it, the better it gets. Partly this is so due to the universal law with all great art – they offer a substantial mirror for your Self. Without doubt, this is going to be among my “Best CD’s of the year”.

Two days ago I watched a film from my all-time top ten – The Holy Mountain. This movie is a bit like Niko Scorpio’s latest CD, or Liber AL vel Legis for that matter. It does not open it it’s fullness at first, no matter that it leaves you with a profound inspiration and sense of awe. The Holy Mountain is a nuisance to watch if you like easy movies. The movie is a riddle or a mirror. It is full of esoteric lessons, beginning with a seemingly harsh note from the movie’s alchemist: You are excrement. You can change yourself in gold.

That’s enough for now. Real life awaits us beyond the computer screen.

Yerba Maté, anyone?