Lucite.org Slipping Away

Lucite.org will be down for a while since we are fleeing from a coterie of chaos magicians that are after the solution to a puzzle they are too stupid to comprehend for themselves. I can receive mail at "resident" for the time being and will reply to the backlog from a temporary address shortly. Email forwarding from the domains no longer works, but I will repair the lucite.org mail form today. It hasn't worked for the past few months, I imagine. Now it will! Well, until the site goes down again. Mazinga plays guitar with both paws now.

Lucite.org Going Dark

Mazinga and Adrian will be moving at the end of the month, so Lucite.org, Winterkills.com and related services will be out of commission for a while. Lucite.org-related domains will be redirected to this externally hosted blog.

I can still be contacted via e-mail for the time being.

"A Mathematical Description of an Eight Dimensional Universe"

The linked story above (also saved in the lucite.org archive under "quantum hermeneutics") describes a theoretical propulsion device in eight-dimensional Heim-Dröscher space... Exactly as developed in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension:

"After publishing the mass formulae, Heim never really looked at hyperspace propulsion again. Instead, in response to requests for more information about the theory behind the mass predictions, he spent all his time detailing his ideas in three books published in German. It was only in 1980, when the first of his books came to the attention of a retired Austrian patent officer called Walter Dröscher, that the hyperspace propulsion idea came back to life. Dröscher looked again at Heim's ideas and produced an "extended" version, resurrecting the dimensions that Heim originally discarded. The result is "Heim-Dröscher space", a mathematical description of an eight-dimensional universe.

"From this, Dröscher claims, you can derive the four forces known in physics: the gravitational and electromagnetic forces, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. But there's more to it than that. "If Heim's picture is to make sense," Dröscher says, "we are forced to postulate two more fundamental forces." These are, Dröscher claims, related to the familiar gravitational force: one is a repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate. And the other might be used to accelerate a spacecraft without any rocket fuel." (Visit the headline link for more from New Scientist.)

Joke

A Kabbalist walks into a bar, and the bartender asks him, "Why the Long Face?"

John Annesley Company Cradled Panels

I've received some custom panels from John Annesley Company, and now am experimenting with bismuth grounds in earnest. Of three 16"x20", one suffered a couple slight dings in transit, so that will be the one to begin with. A 4'x5' panel is on its way.

John has otherwise crafted the panels so well that it is a shame to put paint on them! I will be posting pictures of works in progress here; quite soon, I hope.

Angelic Iconography in the First Pre-Christian Century?

The following fragments are from a corpus of works J. Strugnell called "The Angelic Liturgy," which describes angelic adoration and earthly worship as being concurrent and connatural. They are works of early Merkevah mysticism termed "Hekalot," or "Palaces," that aim to comprehend the environment of the Throne Chariot and the compartments/abodes of the angels, and clearly mark the coincidence of the Supernal with the mundane. "All that is above, thus also below."

In this respect, the passages may hint at the true configuration of the numinous Teraphim: sculpted, painted, or engraved representations of elohim (angels) fixed in alcoves in homes and places of worship... a functional prototype for Orthodox icons. Aniconism may also help to explain the dearth of explicit information about the manufacture of Teraphim, since they were regarded by some as an undesirable remnant of Aramaean paganism, while others venerated them on the same level as the priestly Ephod.

The passages are given as related by Geza Vermes in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (note that "gods" is a literal translation of "elohim," or angels):

4Q405 14-15, i

... tongue of blessing from the likeness [of the gods] issues a [v]oice of blessing for the King of those who exalt, and their wonderful praise is for the God of gods ... their many-coloured ... and they sing ... the vestibules by which they enter, the spirits of the most holy inner Temple ... [And the likene]ss of the living 'gods' is engraved on the vestibules by which the King enters, luminous spiritual figures ... [K]ing, figures of a glorious l[ight, wonderful] spirits; [amo]ng the spirits of splendour there are works of (art of) marvellous colours, figures of the living 'gods' ... [in the] glorious innermost Temple chambers, the structure of [the most ho]ly [sanctuary] in the innermost chambers of the King, design[s of 'go]ds' ... likeness of ... most holy ... [the Temple] chambers of the Ki[ng] ...

4Q405 19 ABCD

The figures of the 'gods' shall praise Him, [the most] h[oly] spirits ... of glory; the floor of the marvellous innermost chambers, the spirits of the eternal gods, all ... fi[gures of the innermost] chamber of the King, the spiritual works of the marvellous firmament are purified with salt, [sp]irits of knowledge, truth [and] righteousness in the holy of [ho]lies, [f]orms of the living 'gods', forms of the illuminating spirits. All their [works (of art)] are marvellously linked, many-coloured [spirits], artistic figures of the 'gods', engraved all around their glorious bricks, glorious figures on b[ri]cks of splendour and majes[ty]. All their works (of art) are living 'gods', and their artistic figures are holy angels. From beneath the marvellous inner[most chambers] comes a sound of quiet silence: the 'gods' bless ...

University of Washington in Infrared

May Eve

Cop Car in Infrared

Why are there two IR shadows beneath the cop car--to change traffic lights?

"Motives Surrounded the Painting with the Breath of the Precious One"

Frau Dr. Renate Gold offers a rigorous look at the preparation of bismuth grounds in Painted Wood: History and Conservation, Part 3, from a 1994 symposium organized by the Wooden Artifacts Group of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.

"The magic wismutglanz shining through between the multicolored motives surrounded the painting with the breath of the precious one."

All Irregularities Will Be Handled by the Forces Controlling Each Dimension

Lucite.org Bismuth & Amber Angelic Iconography
Lucite.org is currently writing icons according to time-honored Orthodox tradition, yet featuring novel developments particular to the veneration of angels. Such developments include resurrecting the hitherto lost art of treating artifacts with precipitated bismuth and employing non-denominational expression.

Examples of Lucite.org icons and other works will be found in the Atelier section of the site. In addition to works available on the site, commissions for writing icons of individual Holy Guardian Angels are considered, being fascinating to create for both artist and patron.

The icons are not consecrated in any way other than the extreme care in execution and choice of materials. Most Orthodox icons are effectively mass-produced and blessed to meet demand. For angelic icons that might meet a variety of faiths, solemnities are left to the receiver, as it is nobody's bismuth but theirs.

Iconoclasm and Aniconism
Throughout history, periods of iconoclasm and aniconism have emerged in each of the patriarchal religions. Even today, disputes develop about the differences between veneration, idolatry, and simple regard.

Lucite.org takes the position of an iconodule, and sees the pigment and substrate of an icon no differently than the ink and page of a holy book. Therefore, Lucite.org icons are are said to be "written" rather than depicted, much as a calligrapher might render a florid representation of the Basmala.

The Lustre and Magic of Bismuth
Bismuth is a non-toxic silver-white crystalline heavy metal with a cold pink sheen. It is brittle and has a white crystalline fracture. Bismuth crystallizes in rhombohedra belonging to the hexagonal system, having interfacial angles of 87° 40'. The tarnish of bismuth is iridescent. It oxidizes over time to a warm grey patina according to its exposure to humidity. Varnishing, especially with a fossil or alkyd resin, mitigates oxidation. Bismuth is too brittle to be applied as leaf, so it is applied either pulverized or in solution, and then burnished with a wolf tooth or agate to its characteristic sheen.

Antique objects with bismuth grounds or chasing generally show a dull metallic surface due to the yellowing of varnish linoxyns over time. Conservators might reverse this with the removal of varnish layers and oxidation and re-varnishing, or re-application of bismuth in extreme cases. However, the appearance of bismuth under aged linoxyns is generally agreeable, and few conservators would find it necessary to modify an artifact to such extent. Bismuth, as a surface coating, has proved more durable than silver leaf. Examples of bismuth decoration we can consult today are 300 years old or older, yet they still exhibit finesse of execution and the marvel of an unusual material, though the warm silvery finish and blue-red iridescence is ablated.

Over time, the art of bismuth decoration was utterly lost, and is now found only in rare artifacts that have survived lifetimes of use or hinted at in arcane alchemical texts.

Bismuth is the most diamagnetic of all metals so it is the most suitable material for magnetic levitation experiments.

Though brittle, bismuth is super-elastic and can be stretched 300-400% in length with gradual force.

The thermal conductivity of bismuth is lower than that for any metal except mercury. When ignited in the presence of oxygen, bismuth produces blue-white fire and yellow fumes.

Bismuth is highly resistant to electricity, and has the greatest increase in electrical resistance of any element when subject to a magnetic field ("Hall effect").

Bismuth is radioactive only in theory, with a half-life a billion times the current age of the universe, which is to say that it is inert for all practical purposes.

Rarer bismuth minerals include complex sulphides, copper bismuth glance or wittichenite, silver bismuth glance, bismuth cobalt pyrites, bismuth nickel pyrites or saynite, needle ore (patrinite or aikinite), emplectite, and kobellite; the sulphotelluride tetradymite; the selenide guanajuatite, and walpurgite.

The radio talk show host Art Bell possesses bismuth-rich material (coined "Art's Parts") purported to be from the skin of a UFO that some believe crash landed at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.

Bismuth is anecdotally said to neglect the laws of gravity in certain conditions that have yet to be seen in experimentation. Bismuth is related by elemental column to ununpentium, or eka-bismuth, a theoretical element (pending confirmation of its recent production at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory). This element, too, has fired the imaginations of both the science fiction and UFO research communities.

Bismuth In Antiquity
If the Ancients knew of bismuth, it may have been under a different name or mistaken for a different element, such as antimony, lead, or tin. Bismuth and its oxides were probably used as beauty products during antiquity, just as antimony is in the Book of Enoch. Indeed, the antimony of the Book of Enoch probably indicates bismuth rather than toxic stibnite, which would have been recognized as a poison like arsenic prior to wide adoption as a cosmetic.

The Hebrews may have called bismuth chashmal, which is otherwise translated as a celestial sort of "amber," or "electrum." The word is repurposed to mean "electricity" in Modern Hebrew, although the term most likely denoted fossil amber originally.

Incidental bismuth is found in a number of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age alloys in the region of the Taurus Mountains in present-day Turkey. Such alloys and artifacts diffused throughout Syria and the Levant thereafter.

The earliest examples of bronze-tin alloys containing bismuth come from Tell Judeidah on an east-west trade route about 250 kilometers southeast of mines at Bolkardag. They are thought to derive from the same source of ore, namely that from Aladag (Sayre et al. 1992).

Two examples in particular are a fragment from the electrum helmet on a maquette of a nude male warrior with mace and spear (Braidwood and Braidwood 1960:315, fig. 241, pl. 58), and one from an electrum torque on a female maquette. Spectrographic analysis of the two fragments revealed incidental bismuth included as a component of silver ore alloyed with gold and copper (Braidwood and Braidwood 1960: fig. 245, 315), while the maquettes themselves were of tin bronze (Braidwood, Burke, and Nachtrieb 1951).

Other Chalcolithic lead artifacts are thought to include the same silver-tin-lead-bismuth alloys, particularly an artifact from Tarsus (ancient Tarshish) and a curious lead coil dated to the Early Bronze Age (Goldman 1959:435:no.3). Excavations at Tell Raqa'i in Syria produced a copper pin and slag dated to the third millennium BCE that are also identified with Taurus ores.
An interesting archaic knife was forged by the occupants of the temple site in Macchu Picchu, Peru and found to be a bronze alloy incorporating 18% bismuth (Gordon, R., and J. Rutledge, 1984, Bismuth Bronze from Macchu Picchu, Peru. Science, 223: 585-586).

The Modern History of Bismuth
Bismuth is among rare elements found in the cobalt and nickel mines of Saxony, England, and Bolivia, and Peru.

The technique of bismuth painting originated in southern Germany and Switzerland in the sixteenth century. The relatively few extant examples of bismuth application include heirloom beech boxes, ornamental wooden plates, and altar decor. Bismuth was also manufactured as bright metallic ink for manuscript illumination according to early alchemical recipes.

In alchemy, the symbol for bismuth is the same as that for the zodiacal sign of Taurus. In cursive form, the symbol is like a figure eight with an open top loop.

The earliest examples of bismuth decoration date to around 1490, and by 1613 the governing council of Nuremburg had regulated the trade with the institution of a bismuth painters guild.

Basileus Valentinus (1565-1624) mentioned bismuth (wismut) as a metal in 1450 (noting a chronological discrepancy), and Agricola (1494-1555) and Paracelsus (1493-1541) mentioned it sometime afterward. Paracelsus remarked on its brittleness by terming it a "bastard" or "half-metal." In De natura fossilium Libri X (1546), Agricola marked bismuth (wissmuth, plumbum cineareum) as an "ash grey lead."

A document from a bismuth mine at Schneeburg is dated 1477, which attests not only to its identification at this early date, but also to its widespread use. Bismuth was classed with lead and tin as one of three types of lead. Since silver was often discovered beneath veins of bismuth, the folk belief arose that it was naturally transmuting into silver.

Edmund von Lippmann cited twenty-one different names for bismuth in his book on its history. Claude-François Geoffroy dit Geoffroy cadet offered the synonyms Demogorgon, Étain de Glace, Étain Gris, Glaure, and Nymphe in the Mémoires de l'académie française for 1753. His citations of Demogorgon and Nymphe are from Paracelsus' notebooks and may be epithets according to Paracelsus' view of bismuth as a bastardized compound, a chimerical metal. Geoffroy died the same year, losing all interest in research.

Johann Heinrich Pott (1692-1777) made a study of bismuth in 1769, as Exercitationes chemicae de Wismutho.

Torbern Olaf Bergman (1735-1784) recognized that bismuth was an elemental metal and noted the properties and reactions in his Opuscula.

In J. Carrington Sellars' Chemistianity, he calls bismuth Heyan, according to his own chemical nomenclature.

Nations of the Rephaim

Lucite.org has created a versioned map of the ancient tribes of the Nephilim. This extraordinary rendition is a baseline for a chronological series of maps that will show the inexorable extension of an evil empire through the Near East. Of course, I mean that of the spooky Rephaim. You may also notice that this is a work in progress.

Immortal, Inbred, and Promiscuous

The genealogies of the fallen Watchers are now available in GEDCOM 5.5 format for browsing in any current family tree software. The GEDCOM .ged file includes greater detail and annotation than the Visio diagram. The GEDCOM .pdf diagram is machine-generated from the .ged file and informs less than the Visio diagram, but may be a step ahead of the Visio diagram in terms of accuracy.

Since these fellows were immortal, inbred, and promiscuous, the GEDCOM file is a nice way to test the normalization of your favorite family tree software. The file was created with Family Tree Maker 2006, which appears to present convoluted relationships fairly well. It is unable to deal with dates prior to 100 CE, however, and these are included as notes when available.

Opening of the Gate

My grandfather, Wayne Robbins, used to say: "A man can't do much when his brain is afire with agony, when his blind eyes are dangling down onto his cheeks, dripping blood and optic humor..."

He and his brother, Dane Gregory nee Ormond Robbins, wrote pulp horror and detective fiction in the 30s and 40s under a handful of noms de plume, before the wartime morality spike spiked a market for spicy stories that had carried the family rather well through lean times.

Lucite.org is in the process of rescuing the work of these two brothers from the ravages of acidic paper, cover art collectors, and even their perceived literary value. As time allows, I will offer some of these old, ignored pulp stories for your entertainment, plus several unpublished stories from the detective and shudder genres.

For now, Lucite.org presents "The Thing in Search of a Body," a charming tale of a rough-hewn hammer murderess. A list of the two brothers works are also available, as well as some of Wayne's correspondence in the Lucite.org archive.

If you are a pulp collector and think you might be able to help recover some of these stories or trade some doubles, please let me know.

The Generations of the Bene ha-Elohim

These are the generations of the infamous Watchers, the Sons of God from Genesis 6 who took to wife the daughters of Cain and thereby begat a race of monsters and heroes. These genealogies are culled from Tanakh, Canaanite mythology, Jewish pseudepigrapha, the Kabbalah, the Quran, and other tales of the Djinn and mankind.

Relationships were originally set down from 1985-1990, and must be worked through again to add notes on nomeclature and cite references. This material looks forward to a comprehensive opus called Sepher Abdiel. There are liable to be a number of errors at the moment, yet work progresses.

The chart is already really fricking big, though, and that is what is most important. Use your Acrobat Reader to zoom to 200%, then move around with the "hand" tool and see if you can find Paris Hilton in there.

Smoking Out the Tenebrists: What Are Shadow and Light?

Shadow is the absence of light and only arises from the oppositions of dense bodies, when opposed to luminous rays. Shadow is of the nature of darkness and illumination is of the nature of light. The one conceals and the other reveals. They are always joined together in company on bodies, and shadow is of greater power than light, because it banishes and completely deprives bodies of light, and light can never wholly chase away the shadows of bodies, that is to say of dense bodies.

Shadow derives from two things that are dissimilar to each other, because one is corporeal and the other immaterial. The corporeal one is the opaque body and the immaterial is the light. Thus light and body are the causes of shadow.

Shadow is a mixture of darkness with light and it will be of greater or lesser depth according to whether the light that is mixed with it is of greater or lesser strength.

--Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo on Painting, Ed. Martin Kemp)

Angeltech SOA Primer

A Service-Oriented Architecture Primer is now available among the Angeltech Models. This short treatment offers general technical definitions of SOA and related concepts in order to better understand the Angeltech Visual Kabbalah (sm) analogies. The primer is written from a systems architecture POV.

Milton

Milton saw a nine-day fall
To the deeps of Hell from Heaven's Hall.
See, nine days shocked, I got messed up
Ten worlds down and all dressed up.
And now I see that he was right,
But I can't say I see the light--
Just shadows casting shadows 'cross the sprawl.

Milton saw a nine-day fall
Through brawling Chaos and Night withal.
See, nine days rocked, I got roughed up.
Ten steps back, but still puffed up.
Milton's familiar angel,
That bright-eyed one named Abdiel--
He is the very one who took the call.

Milton saw a nine-day fall
Arc through the aether like a fireball.
See, nine days clocked. I'm so fucked up.
Tenfold crazed, all pride sucked up.
My Legion driven as foaming swine,
The Blessed pressed us to steep decline--
They hurled me headlong from the crystal wall.

Bridge:
Avengers on my heels all the way
With songs of Te Deum and Kyrie.

I lived by the word
And I lived by my sword.
I once loved a woman
And I once loved...

Ruskin as Artist

Ruskin's Elements of Drawing

"The Elements of Drawing is a searchable and browsable online version of the teaching collection and catalogues assembled by John Ruskin for his Oxford drawing schools..."

Descend from Heaven Urania, by that Name

Lucite.org has a new song available in the War in Heaven collection entitled Descend from Heaven Urania, by that Name. It features harp, soloist, a guy that says "lucite," a sample of the theme from the 1968 Romeo and Juliet movie, and drum and bass. It's kind of a chill out tune.

Urania is the Greek muse of astronomy, and Milton applied her name to his inspiring imago. Apparently, his aims were somewhat higher than Calliope, the patron of poetry, could handle. He addresses her in Paradise Lost Book Seven, actually:

"Descend from heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine
Following, above th' Olympian hill I soar.
Above the flight of Pegasean wing.
The meaning, not the name, I call; for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwell'st, but heavenly born:
Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,
Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of th' Almighty Father, pleased
With thy celestial song. Up led by thee,
Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy tempering. With like safety guided down,
Return me to my native element;
Lest from this flying steed unreined (as once
Bellerophon, though from a lower clime),
Dismounted, on th' Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.
Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound
Within the visible diurnal sphere:
Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude: yet not alone, while thou
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east. Still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few;
But drive far off the barbarous dissonance
Of Bacchus and his revelers, the race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture, till the savage clamor drowned
Both harp and voice, nor could the Muse defend
Her son. So fail not thou, who thee implores;
For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream."

Anyway, I have no such lofty aims, no such muse, so there is just a chill out tune.

Book of the Secrets of Raziel

A site by Reb Moshe with more than a little to do with angelology.

Chariots of Fire

And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.

And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.

And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.

And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.

Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.

As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.

Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.

And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went.

As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.

And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.

Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces.

The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.

Eye

Dynamic Tikkunim of the Yetzirah Cube of Soul

On the cellular composition of the soul and divine physiognomies (partzufim)
of the Yetzirah Magic Cube of Soul (Lucite.org, June 10, 2005, updated May 16, 2006).

On November 13, 2003, mathematicians Walter Trump and Christian Boyer used a network of PCs to compute a perfect order-five magic cube with its thirty diagonals intact. Here, the cube is associated with:

• Five modes of the soul described by the Ari, Isaac Luria, in his Zoharic extension Shaar ha Gilgulim, The Gate of Transmigrations: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida.
• Five conceptual domains of the emanated sephiroth: Malkuth, "The Six," Binah, Chakmah, and Kether.
• Five Worlds of Emanation: Atzilut, Yetzirah, Beriyah, Assiyah, and Adam Kadmon.

The Modes of the Soul

The five modes of the soul are Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida. These five modes in composition are known by Notarikon (an acronym formed by the initial Hebrew consonant of each mode): NRNChY.

Each mode represents a level of divinely emanated light that decreases in magnitude from the mode nearest the source of emanation, Yechida, to the mode farthest away from En Sof, Nefesh.

In the tables of the Yetzirah Cube of Soul, you will find that each of the least four modes is associated with one of the five Worlds of emanation, AYBA' (Notarikon: Atzilut, Yetzirah, Beriyah, Assiyah, and Adam Kadmon). Each human soul is vast, unhindered by the perimeters of flesh, stretching out across all created worlds from the mundane to the Supernal. Souls are intrinsic parts of the created worlds, and the rectification (tikkun) of aparticular mode also enhances its related world. Conversely, a soul given to evil further degrades the worlds that it spans.

A soul begins life in the mode of Nefesh, with the least amount of spiritual awareness, but each soul has the potential to ascend to greater levels. Though the fallen state of Man prevents any soul from ascending to the rarefied modes Chaya and Yechida, Moses showed that the potential has not been lost altogether.

Additionally, each mode is associated with a particular partzuf, or divine physiognomy, which is a figurative aspect of God reflected in the diagram.

On Tikkun (Excerpted from Quaknin, Mysteries of the Kabbalah)

"Tikkun Hatsot

"The kabbalists suggest reading certain specific psalms, which they group in various categories. These different groupings include mystical poetry and lamentations recited in the middle of the night during a ceremony of which kabbalists are particularly fond and which is called tikkun hatsot, that is to say "the redress or redemption said around midnight.

"Tikkun hatsot consists of two tikkunim, tikkun Rakhel and tikkun Leah. Tikkun Rakhel, the first group of psalms, means "the redress or redemption of Rachel." This group includes Psalms 137 and 79. Tikkun Leah, or "the redress and redemption of Leah," contains Psalms 24, 42, 43, 20, 67, 111, 51, and 126.

"Tikkun Kelali

"After several years of investigation and meditation, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov perfected a tikkun that combines the power of all the other tikkunim and is called the 'general tikkun' or 'tikkun kelali.' A collection of ten psalms, it should be recited in the following order: 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150."

Dynamic Tikkunim

Using the Yetzirah Cube of Soul, a kabbalist creates dynamic tikkunim associated with specific pathwork. A tikkun is identified according to two selected axes of the the desired modes of soul, emanated domains, or partzufim, and the third reveals the Psalm numbers and order of recitation.

Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
Leon: WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I'M NOT HELPING?
Holden: I mean you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?
[Leon has become visibly shaken]
Holden: They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response. (pause) Shall we continue?

Godmode

Lucite.org has added a "Godmode" link for each album in the music section. Godmode will allow you to stream an entire album in Windows Media Player, and move back and forth through the playlist as you would with your own playlists.

This should make it easier for you to listen to an entire Lucite.org album... at least functionally.

Feast of Guardian Angels!

This feast, like many others, was local before it was placed in the Roman calendar. It was not one of the feasts retained in the Pian breviary, published in 1568; but among the earliest petitions from particular churches to be allowed, as a supplement to this breviary, the canonical celebration of local feasts, was a request from Cordova in 1579 for permission to have a feast in honour of the guardian angels. (Bäumer, "Histoire du Breviaire", II, 233.) Bäumer, who makes this statement on the authority of original documents published by Dr. Schmid (in the "Tübinger Quartalschrift", 1884), adds on the same authority that "Toledo sent to Rome a rich proprium and received the desired authorization for all the Offices contained in it,
Valencia also obtained the approbation in February, 1582, for special Offices of the Blood of Christ and the Guardian Angels."

So far the feast of Guardian Angels remained local. Paul V placed it (27 September, 1608) among the feasts of the general calendar as a double "ad libitum" (Bäumer, op. cit., II, 277). Nilles gives us more details about this step. "Paul V", he writes, "gave an impetus to the veneration of Guardian Angels (long known in the East and West) by the authorization of a feast and proper office in their honour. At the request of Ferdinand of Austria, afterwards emperor, he made them obligatory in all regions subject to the Imperial power; to all other places he conceded them ad libitum, to be celebrated on the first available day after the Feast of the Dedication of St. Michael the Archangel. It is believed that the new feast was intended to be a kind of supplement to the Feast of St. Michael, since the Church honoured on that day (29 September) the memory of all the angels as well as the memory of St. Michael (Nilles, "Kalendarium", II, 502). Among the numerous changes made in the calendar by Clement X was the elevation of the Feast of Guardian Angels to the rank of an obligatory double for the whole Church to be kept on 2 October, this being the first unoccupied day after the feast of St. Michael (Nilles, op. cit., II, 503). Finally Leo XIII (5 April, 1883) favoured this feast to the extent of raising it to the rank of a double major.

Such in brief is the history of a feast which, though of comparatively recent introduction, gives the sanction of the Church's authority to an ancient and cherished belief. The multiplicity of feasts is in fact quite a modern development, and that the guardian angels were not honoured with a special feast in the early Church is no evidence that they were not prayed to and reverenced. There is positive testimony to the contrary (see Bareille in Dict. de Theol. Cath., s.v. Ange, col. 1220). It is to be noted that the Feast of the Dedication of St. Michael is amongst the oldest feasts in the Calendar. There are five proper collects and prefaces assigned to this feast in the Leonine Sacramentary (seventh century) under the title "Natalis Basilicae Angeli in Salaria" and a glance at them will show that this feast
included a commemoration of the angels in general, and also recognition of their protective office and intercessory power. In one collect God is asked to sustain those who are labouring in this world by the protecting power of his heavenly ministers (supernorum . . . . praesidiis . . . . ministrorum). In one of the prefaces, God is praised and thanked for the favour of angelic patronage (patrociniis . . . . angelorum). In the collect of the third Mass the intercessory power of saints and angels is alike appealed to (quae [oblatio] angelis tuis sanctisque precantibus et indulgentiam nobis referat et remedia procuret aeterna" (Sacramentarium Leonianum, ed. Feltoe, 107-8). These extracts make it plain that the substantial idea which underlies the modern feast of Guardian Angels was officially expressed in the early
liturgies. In the "Horologium magnum" of the Greeks there is a proper Office of Guardian Angels (Roman edition, 329-334) entitled "A supplicatory canon to man's Guardian Angel composed by John the Monk" (Nilles, II, 503), which contains a clear expression of belief in the doctrine that a guardian angel is assigned to each individual. This angel is thus addressed "Since thou the power (ischyn) receivest my soul to guard, cease never to cover it with thy wings" (Nilles, II, 506).

For 2 October there is a proper Office in the Roman Breviary and a proper Mass in the Roman Missal, which contains all the choice extracts from Sacred
Scripture bearing on the three-fold office of the angels, to praise God, to act as His messengers, and to watch over mortal men. "Let us praise the Lord whom the Angels praise, whom the Cherubim and Seraphim proclaim Holy, Holy, Holy" (second antiphon of Lauds). "Behold I will send my angel, who shall go before thee, and keep thee in thy journey, and bring thee into the place that I have prepared. Take notice of him, and hear his voice" (Exodus 23; capitulum ad Laudes). The Gospel of the Mass includes that pointed text from St. Matthew 28:10: "See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven." Although 2 October has been fixed for this feast in the Roman calendar, it is kept, by papal privilege, in Germany and many other places
on the first Sunday (computed ecclesiastically) of September, and is celebrated with special solemnity and generally with an octave (Nilles, II, 503). (See ANGEL; INTERCESSION.)

(Newadvent.org)

Stormbringer

Here are the robo-lyrics from Stormbringer, a new Lucite.org trance track
found on the K'un album:

A storm passes over a lake in the valley.
A myriad of raindrops fall,
Each indistinguishable amid the torrent.
Rain batters the still waters of the lake until it seethes
Over slow shadows of incomprehensible fish,
And the dull silver gleam of unseeing eyes peering up to the surface through
roiled muck.
Each drop is drawn down from the black heaven
On an invisible line,
By the gravity of its allotted time,
By the suction of an oblong box plunged into rain-wet earth,
Or a door softly shut as a lover leaves estranged,
The same gravity that drew down the brightest angels,
Wings crumpled as love letters,
Eyes screwed shut, jaws clenched, limbs folded about wracked figures,
Anticipating impact.
So my life is spent,
Indistinguishable amid the torrent.
Some rain falls on uneven terrain,
And the hills rush up to meet me.