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Gnostic Voudon Workbook

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10:10 / 05.03.04

Just observed that you said "read about" not "approach" in that post, so I apologise for being a bit snarky. That's fair enough, it's an interesting and fascinating area.

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10:31 / 05.03.04

Heh, yes, I'd like to just say that I have absolutely no intention of making deals with scorpian loa.

After reading GM's ordeal I'd have to be pretty crazy to want to do that, and I'm not that unhinged. I simply want to read about it, that's all.

Then again, in cases like this I usually regret reading these things afterwards. For example, months back I began research on the qliphoth and things of that nature (not actually experiencing them in daily life, mainly using the idea as a vehicle to explore my dark side) and I've been feeling ill ever since. But that's probably just a coincidence.

Phex: Dorset Doom

14:13 / 05.03.04

Sypha Nadon: Dark Side? Where do you cut the line? D'ya draw a line down the middle of yourself and declare one side Nice Nadon and the other Nasty Nadon?

That particular part of the Invisibles (the 'Seasons of Ghouls' episode) had me intrigued too. The Were-Spider thing comes up in it, Jim Crow approaches the Scorpion Loa in a Were-Spider form, which seems to be the equivilant of a bow and curtsey for the Astral-plane insectiod royalty. I suppose that if I dissect my motivations, like a Tarantula sipping liquid organs from a hummingbird, I guess this week's desire to get the GVW comes from the glamour of touring those 'edgy' planes as opposed to clawing up the tree of life.
Mark of an immature Mage that is. I'd better go back to making sigils to get girls to like me

18:49 / 05.03.04

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that you don't learn about Les Mysteres from a book, 200 quid or not, you learn from meeting and interacting with The Powers.

Well, exactly. The map is not the territory, after all.

And voudoun as a major world religion - ooooooh, yes! Because then we could get it into the RE curriculum. And I would be qualified to teach it.

'And today, children, we're going to practise invoking Chango. Now, have you all brought your red and white candles, cigars, cake, and really nasty rum? Good...Now light up, drink, and dance like a wild muthafucka! Moo hoo ha ha! Chango mani cote!'

That's what this country's crying out for - a proper sense of pageantry and ritual.

19:51 / 09.04.04

The VGW is what it says, a Workbook. It is 613 pages of the most intensely packed teaching I've encountered, some very difficult, not work for beginners. It covers a huge range of the more espteric aspects of gnostic magick and Voudoo. The original price was $29.95 but it went out of print because of missing drawings. TOTS are slow in reprinting it.

Kenneth Grant usefully says that you will not find magic like this for sale anywhere else. If you're able to follow it and do the exercises - they are not arbitrary (some of the hardest I've ever had to do) you'll never be the same again. You do unlock very real powers.
Some of the papers are narrative, like those on the Choronzon club but mostly it's practical (or at least gives you much to contemplate).
The only problem yer general occult fraternity has is MB's determination "Your path is always your own". It's no -ism, no religion. It's no clubby thing. You become magickally very self-reliant. Your progress, if you join TOTS, is measured in various ways and there's a real emphasis on spiritual development.
Effectively it's a lifetime's work. So $200 is nothing therefore. (The Monastery training will cost you $600 if you buy the four years in bulk). You need almost no other magical teaching. My copy has all but fallen apart after 7 years and I'm still not through to the end. There is always more to do.

Be aware, if you do try to get a copy - you need the missing drawings that were published separately. You can get so far without them but some of the veves, notably the Ghede ones, will speed up your progress through the relevant chapters, saving you the need to travel internally to find them, and the time it takes to determine you weren't bluffed (i.e deluding yourself).
Agreed, everyone will respond differently to MB's teaching but for me there was no turning back, never a shred of doubt.

20:12 / 09.04.04

Another point, rereading some of the posts. The Dark Side is there and has to be dealt with. Dark is not necessarily evil. It is the counterpoise to light. You use dark forces just as you use the light in your projects. There are extremes that you're taught about but you do not deal with them unless it proves necessary in your projects. By the way, some running of the "dark side" of the tree is useful. The Voudouists are not so scared of it as the Crowleyan/Grant lot.
You learn that the Loa are indifferent to human morality. Some are better at what us mortals call dark workings, others, light (such it is in Vodou). You call upon them as necessary. No Loa will castigate you for small mistakes if you're doing your best.
Finally a certain breadth of sexuality is necessary to assimilate all the work - but this is true of Vodou as much as Voudoo and the VGW.

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22:39 / 09.04.04

Well, I've always been more interested in reading about voodoo then actually practicing it, as it seems very hardcore to me and, considering my usual delicate mental state, would probably drive me insane, as I'm still mostly a beginner at the occult, despite having been studying it (and practicing it slightly) for 2 years now.

Anyway, some dealer on Amazon was selling the workbook for $260. Seems like a good deal, I thought, buying it. Few days later I get an e-mail message from the dealer saying he is actually out of stock. Damn! That book is #1 on my must get list, Kenneth Grant's "Outside the Circles of Time" being number 2. But hear me now and believe me later: I will get these books, sooner or later.

06:37 / 10.04.04

Ben Fernee had one a few weeks ago, complete with the drawings. Maybe more expensive, though...

07:37 / 10.04.04

Huh

Prices are getting worse. There are several on Abebooks.com and Abebooks.co.uk right now. Maybe worth bookmarking the site. I've used them from England and they're fine. In fact they get some pretty weird stuff there from time to time. Maybe the Kenneth Grant (not that he's weird but I've heard that the book you mention is rare. Well, he IS nicely weird!)

Everyone is badgering TOTS to reprint the Workbook. I'm hoping MB has been persuaded to write in less convoluted, abstruse terms. Simple English (something Grant wouldn't appreciate!) seems out of the reach of most Occult writers!

23:59 / 07.06.04

Revised Edition - release date pending...

00:18 / 08.06.04

Been after this myself for a few years,my mate had a copy and gave it to someone as a gift then tried to get a new one to no avail.He wasn't a happy man.Do any of you lot(in the UK)own a copy.Perchance a trip to the local photocopy shop might be in order for the sake of your fellow magicians.You wouldn't be ripping Bertiaux off if it's not in print,and you're only covering your own costs.
I've a couple of rare editions that I will try to reprint on the cheap some dayf or the sake of the propogation of holy knowledge.

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00:42 / 08.06.04

Bah, that's nothing. I've been hearing about that revised edition forever now. Don't hold your breath.

On the other hand, have you seen the prices of most of that shit on that site? Bertriax's got a real racket going on over there.

12:37 / 08.06.04

I think there's something really suspect about western chaos magicians slavering all over Bertiaux's material in order to try and learn the secret mysteries of dark and scary Voodoo, being prepared to fork out large sums of money for it, etc...

The idea of approaching and trying to build bridges with the various very active and vibrant African-diaspora religious communities that exist in virtually every major city, and from whose culture and traditions Bertiaux's work principally draws from, never seems to be an option does it.

Yeah, you'll most likely be given the cold shoulder or worse, but if you're not prepared to go and engage with these communities in any sense, yet desperately want to learn Voodoo from the VGW, then isn't that slightly dubious?

13:07 / 08.06.04

If nothing else, Bertiaux has an entertaining line in prose:

From: http://homepage.sunrise.ch/homepage/prkoenig/otoa.htm

"Meanwhile, Bertiaux considers the "Caliphate" as "passé." Also Manuel Lamparter thinks it "not possible to join."
Bertiaux uses a strong language: "Our Purpose is to Exploit Every Avenue of Thelemic Opportunity in Order to Take Advantage of it - by hilarous - deed, deceit, cunning + sheer diabolic Genius! ...
We are out for sheer power + good times - I say - CHORONZON!
The purpose of the CHORONZON CLUB is to destroy the OTO + make sodomized mutes out of its members!
... OTO groups are too religious + use religious terms entirely too much - i.e. "supershakti," "goddess," "MAAT," etc. In fact they belong in the long disconnected romantic movement. So they are very unconnected with reality. We, on the other hand, are "scientists" + NOT poetic bull shiters!
... At the present time the C\C\ is interested in ...

Time-travel - past, present, + future explorations.
SEX-magic of a horrific type -
Elemental Explorations + work with very low energies
attacking any body who get too close to it -
magical mathematical formulae to blow up our enemies!
a secret method of control of the Quantum mechanic world of physics via fellatio -
getting more Energies out of our XVI° System -
making friends with like minds in other countries -
eating + drinking -
fucking + sucking -
organizing gnostic Systems or Kliphotic exploration -"
(Bertiaux, letter dated 10 January 1989 -- ceská verze: Dopis Michaela P. Bertiauxe Garymu M. Kelly/Martinovi)
As soon as when you have become a member: "Taxes must be paid in acceptable euro-currency of XI° issue - Nice big Nazi cock Meisters! Paid to fat, dirty, perverted Bricaudian (sun) French underground (plutonian) captors of Germanic Gods. Macho-Hunk-Stud-Officers held captive by dirty French Gnostic perverts."

Nutty as a fruit cake though. Sounds like more occultnik weirder-than-thou power tripping to me.

They'd all be happier gardening, mark my words.

trouser the trouserian

13:14 / 08.06.04

Oh I dunno, Gypsy, recalling that bit in the VGW about the magical power of cottaging, I think Bertiaux'd be up for a bit of slavering...

trouser the trouserian

13:20 / 08.06.04

a secret method of control of the Quantum mechanic world of physics via fellatio

Now you really can't resist an offer like that, can you?

13:40 / 08.06.04

Note for anyone intending to spend 200 smackers: The VGW is like this all the way through except more obscure and bizarre. It's a fucking huge waste of money. Blag a photcopy of the first 10 chapters (the only understandable bit), contact the spirits involved and write your own.

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

21:02 / 08.06.04

There's not much I can add that hasn't been said by others. Don't expect to learn about Voodoun from this book, what is included in the VGW is a sort of science-fiction meets chaos magick meets hoodoo in a bar and then fuck each other while high on radioactive tarantula venom while Kenneths Grant and Anger watch from the sidelines.

I have the first 10 chapters (which is a basic treatise on candle magick through MB's interesting paradigmatic window) and I've read the rest. Yeah, there's some powerful shit in there, but it really does turn into odd psycadelica shortly after chapter 10.

Still, having gone into it way too fast, way too cocky and wayy unprepared, I do have to pass along the warning to not fuck with the insect loa. It's like messing with the Quillipoth except they're cunning and have a completely alien agenda. That said, they can be amazingly powerful allies.

10:33 / 09.06.04

I found a site that's got at least some kind of write-up on what to expect from the GVW.

I'd summarize, but I still don't understand what Beautrix is on about.

Part 1

Part 2

11:29 / 09.06.04

You'll notice that that writer mentions copies of the book being printed without the veves. I have it on good authority that all copies of the book without the genuine veves printed in them are cursed, and no matter how much you pay for it, if you buy one you will suffer a lingering and unpleasant death not long thereafter.

15:57 / 09.06.04

'The Temple is a space-ship because it is a way of moving through the different spaces of consciousness. In fact the gestures of the ritual are designed to build a spherical vehicle for the priest's activities in other worlds. The priest is a spider because what he is doing is actualiy bringing into his own life the experience of other worlds, and then he's joining himself through the web of his consciousness, to all the different parts of the spiritual experience.'

more from Bertiaux here in an interesting interview... http://www.room23.de/2006.html

10:04 / 14.06.04

I have also been looking for this book online for a long while now.

My proposition is that I would be willing to pdf or photocopy Outside the Circles of Time in exchange for the GVW as a pdf or photocopy.

Any takers?

10:10 / 14.06.04

Also...

Just realized that the GVW is twice the size of Outside the Circles of Time.

I'd throw in another Grant book as pdf or photocopy to even it out, if desired.

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