16 & 87

I selected two chapters from Crowley's Book of Lies as today's daily divination: 16 & 87. I have no further explanation to offer.

16

 THE STAG-BEETLE

    Death implies change and individuality if thou be
      THAT which hath no person, which is beyond the
      changing, even beyond changelessness, what hast
      thou to do with death?
    The bird of individuality is ecstasy; so also is its
      death.
    In love the individuality is slain; who loves not love?
    Love death therefore, and long eagerly for it.
    Die Daily.



87

 MANDARIN-MEALS

    There is a dish of sharks' fins and of sea-slug, well set
      in birds' nests...oh!
    Also there is a souffle most exquisite of Chow-Chow.
    These did I devise.
    But I have never tasted anything to match the

                                 (?)

      which she gave me before She went away.
        March 22, 1912. E. V.

Note: In th book, a sigil appears in place of (?).

Wedpud

I did a bibliomantic divination using James Joyce's Finnegans Wake this afternoon on th train. Basically, that means I pointed to a random line on a random page & made note of it to see what advice it offers. I got th following, from page 572:

Live well! Iniivdluaritzas! Tone!

Perhaps it represents a call to enjoy myself & pay attention to sound & color.

[This I set out to do as I wandered in wonder around th Shedd Aquarium today. If you want to experience pure absurd beauty, watch an octopus move from point A to point B; what a ridiculously beautiful world, this!]

As for Iniivdluaritzas! who knows? I came up with an anagram:

vain lizard suit I!

Joyce may not have meant that, but I do like it.

This may represent th beginning of a larger project. I've got lots of little divination systems that amuse me. I tentatively mapped six of them to th six sides of a die for potential use:

1 .. Deck of Lies

[Th Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley consists of 93 chapters & their commentaries; I created a deck of 93 cards allowing me to select from th chapters at random.]

2 .. I Ching
3 .. Tarot
4 .. 8 colors of magick

[Peter Carroll proposes an 8-dimensional model of various "magicks" - I'd roll a D8 to pick one magick to focus on for that day: pure, war, thinking, sex, ego, love, wealth, death.]

5 .. Finnegan's Wake
6 .. 6 Reality Tunnels

[Another Peter Carroll idea. See MUSICK.]

I won't adhere to this too strictly; I'll allow for spontenaity & probably change this mapping as I go. In fact, I have already found that combining th Deck of Lies with th 8 magicks works quite well, so I may combine those on th map & put something else on it. I welcome suggestions.

[I may eventually add Ifa, an African system of 256 stories related to Santeria & Voudou, to th mix, when I aquire this book.]

I do all this to disorder my personal universe & create new pathways for spontaneous growth & other pretentious-sounding twaddle. Also for something to do. Don't call me superstitious; I remain agnostic about everything everywhere.

[Everything is stupid & meaningless, & I fucking love it!]

I hope you've had a ludicrous 23rd of May (Slave Time)!
Much love to all,
~Androse th Nim

Crowley's Book of Lies

Yough.

I just discovered that a book I've recently become semi to somewhat obsessed with, Aleister Crowley's Book of Lies can be read in its perplexing entirety at sacred-texts.com/oto/lib333.htm.