The Magical Path of No Mind

Caspar David Friedrich, ‘Woman in Front of the Setting Sun’. 1817.

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Molly Hankins May 8, 2025

Reaching a state of magical trance, uninfluenced by conscious or subconscious thought, is an essential element of practicing any form of magic. As described by the chaos magician and author Peter J. Carroll, “To work magic effectively, the ability to concentrate the attention must be built up until the mind can enter a trancelike condition.” If our untamed mind is interfering with our magical will, the effects we seek to create will be short-circuited. Often this materializes as a  fear of failure, over-attachment to outcome, or some egoic identification. Our minds are meaning-making machines, and that function is what we have to bypass by focusing on meaningless phenomena. 

Carroll suggests we still our minds by steering our thinking away from meaning. This alters consciousness enough to enter a heightened state of gnosis, achieved by generating different forms of inhibitory and excitatory states of mind that quiet  the inner monologue. Inhibitory states involve a progressive stilling of the body and mind until only a single object of concentration remains. Excitatory states, on the other hand, are attained by raising the body and mind to an extremely high pitch of excitement so that singular focus becomes possible as all other sensory input is overwhelmed. “Let the mind become as a flame or a pool of still water,” Carroll wrote in his chaos magic manual Liber Null and Psychonaut. 

Inhibitory methods are akin to different forms of meditation. First there is the “death posture”, where the body’s physical stillness trains the mind to respond in kind. When thoughts arise, they are to be pushed into the unconscious, which serves as a repository for all thinking that would interfere with the singular focus of magical will. 

Mirror gazing is another inhibitory approach. It involves placing a mirror about two feet away and staring into it, while holding as still as possible. Gazing at a fixed object, preferably in nature while the body remains motionless, is another method. Fasting, sleeplessness, and other form of physical exhaustion are other inhibitory methods of inducing gnosis.

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“Singular focus is easy to hold in this state because the current of energy feels so strong it overloads all sensory and mental input.”

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Walking meditations and magical trance can offer both inhibitory and excitatory approaches to gnosis inducement, depending on the precise methods used. For both slow, inhibitory walking or fast, excitatory walking, Carroll recommends blurring your vision so as not to focus on anything in particular. Gnostic conditions emerge from the body being occupied with the act of walking and the mind busy averting focus. Magical trance can come from inhibitory concentration on a meaningless object or excitatory methods such as chanting, dancing, over-breathing, and even laughter. Laughter is the highest emotion according to Carroll, because it can contain the full spectrum of every other emotion from ecstasy and grief. The excitatory paths to gnosis all involve some form of overload, and the easiest to access is emotional overload. Tapping into fear, anger and horror is where the most potency lies, but extreme experiences of love and grief can also be utilized. Physical pain is also an easy, albeit potentially dangerous onramp to single-pointed thinking. Lyrical exaltation through emotive poetry, song and prayer is another powerful means, and sexual arousal is a very potent gnostic practice. This method is amplified by prolonging the state of sexual excitation, whether by yourself or in partnered sex. 

An obvious question surrounding these practices is what does gnosis feel like? The answer is not the same for everyone, but when I successfully achieve a gnostic state it feels like my locus of consciousness relocates to the very center of my body and expands all the way up my spine through the top of my head. I feel my awareness and thoughts collapse into this central column and experience a surge of energy moving upwards. Singular focus is easy to hold in this state because the current of energy feels so strong it overloads all sensory and mental input. The practice of inducing gnosis means holding the state for as long as possible, even if only a few seconds, and building up stamina from there with repetition. 

Any regular meditation practice can also act as a gnosis accelerant. When our nervous system and inner monologue get used to being stilled on a daily basis, it becomes easier to access singular gnostic focus, regardless of the practice being used. Simply watching our breath, using a mantra and listening to binaural tones are all effective meditation methods that strengthen our natural magic abilities and our sense of interconnectedness with all of life.

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Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.

David Mamet

The Slippery Slope from Anger to Rage

Young Greeks Attending a Cock Fight, 1846. Jean-Léon Gérôme.

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Suzanne Stabile May 6, 2025

The Wisdom of the Enneagram informs how I see the world and spurs my desire to have an offering for those searching for greater understanding and peace. After more than thirty years of learning and teaching, I am more aware than ever of our need to accept that there are nine distinctly different ways of seeing and interpreting the world around us. None are right or wrong; they are expansive rather than limiting, and they are nuanced beyond our imagination.

In my offerings for Tetragrammaton, I’ve spent some time focused on the idea that we each have a default emotion, waiting to take up space in our lives if we aren’t clear about what we’re feeling. And recently I’ve felt we are living in a moment when anxiety and anger are falling on all of us unbidden and often hidden from our awareness.

Anger is the dominant emotion for Enneagram Eights, Nines, and Ones, and it is a hard emotion to define. One source called it “a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility,” but I think we can agree that we use those words now as stand-alone emotions. The other two default emotions for Enneagram Triads are shame—for Twos, Threes, and Fours—and fear—for Fives, Sixes, and Sevens. Anger and rage are more observable and therefore easier to identify than the other two. However, all of these emotional responses are both comforting and destructive in equal measure as they influence the behavior of the nine personality types.

Enneagram Eights, Nines, and Ones are in the Anger Triad, which is often referred to as the Gut Triad or the Body-Centered Triad. They receive information from the environment first in their core, or gut, which often causes a reactive rather than a measured response. All three numbers or personality types build “walls” between what they consider self and not-self, and each is built for the distinct purpose of providing the most personal safety.

For Enneagram Eights, the ego-boundary is primarily focused outward, against the environment, and their focus of attention is also outside of themselves. Eights put out a wall of energy so that nothing can get too close, shutting themselves off from vulnerability. They keep their guard up most of the time, and the more wounded they are, the tougher they make it for others to get through.

Type Ones also hold a boundary against the outside world, but they are far more interested in maintaining an internal boundary. They are vigilant about protecting themselves. We all have parts of ourselves that we don’t want to look at or that we don’t trust or approve of—parts of ourselves that make us feel anxious and unprotected. Unlike other numbers, Ones spend a lot of energy trying to hold back unconscious impulses that arise in themselves. “I hate that feeling, and I don’t want it!” they say, or “I have to find a way to stop reacting to everyone and every wrong thing that seems to surround me.” It requires a lot of energy to maintain such strong inner boundaries.

Nines invest lots of energy in protecting their ego boundaries. Internally, they are trying to keep in anything that would cause trouble, and they maintain a strong external boundary trying to keep out anything that would steal their peace. This requires a significant amount of effort, and it is the primary reason Nines have the least energy of all the types. It also explains why they don’t have as much energy as they would like for living and engaging more fully with the world.

There is so much to say about anger because it touches our lives in memorable and altogether different ways. It can be helpful, then, to identify the different ways of expressing these feelings for each of the three numbers.

Eight anger is straight-up, and then it’s over. Everyone involved, and even outside observers, know when an Eight is angry. Once it is expressed, it is finished—except for the lingering effect it has on the other person.

For Nines, anger is a more passive emotion. The peacemakers believe it is in their best interest to protect themselves by expressing anger indirectly. They choose behavior that lets others know they are angry, then hope for the impossible. They want the target of their anger to figure out the reason for their disapproval, apologize for it, and hopefully never do it again—whatever “it” is.

Enneagram Ones don’t believe anger is an acceptable response, so they rename their angry feelings as impatience, anxiety, or frustration. In choosing a substitute, they usually feel better despite it not helping to negotiate a lasting understanding in relationships.

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“Will I have the humility to avoid the temptation to defend myself, trying to prove that I’m right?”

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Anger is something that happens to your whole body. It’s an emotional response that you consciously feel. At its core, anger is an internal awareness of specific thoughts, feelings, and desires, and yet it is often described in other ways: “I can’t handle much more of this!” or “I obviously thought he was a better person than he is!” For all three personality types, knowing who is to blame is very important, and once the responsibility for the bad behavior is assigned, there is a tendency to simply move on.

Think about these expressions of anger and how they show up in your life. Do you yell, scream, argue, use sarcasm and cynicism, or slam things? As is true with fear and shame, at times we all spiral into behaviors that don’t serve us well. Thankfully, everything contains its opposite. Father Richard Rohr says, “Anger is good and very necessary to protect the appropriate boundaries of self and others. On the other hand, anger becomes self-defeating and egocentric when it hangs around too long after we have received its message.”

Considering that anger has a message for us, the question becomes: can we hear it if we have limited our options by reacting rather than listening? Anger tells us that something is significantly wrong, and it gives us the energy to try to make things right. At its best, anger reveals our concern for fairness, rightness, and justice. There are many times when being angry has motivated me to make changes in my life or to face problems that I have been avoiding, and I know the same is true for others.

Anger has the potential to be redirected toward greater understanding and mutually agreeable solutions. We can even use the energy it offers to move toward transformation, but we have to slow down enough to notice what is happening around us. These questions can be helpful: Are people moving toward me or away from me? In listening to the story I’m telling myself, fueled by my anger, do I pause long enough to ask myself if it’s true? Or is it just fiction that exacerbates my feelings and justifies my bad behavior? And finally, will I have the humility to avoid the temptation to defend myself, trying to prove that I’m right?

Rage is an instinctive reaction to the feeling that we must suppress ourselves in one way or another. When we are feeling judged, misunderstood, justified in our behavior, and empowered to protect ourselves, it’s hard to recognize the slippery slope that awaits us, where the space between anger and rage can be obscured by a lack of awareness. It is helpful to remember that rage is an intensified, growing anger that will be difficult to control. It is wise, therefore, to make every effort to manage anger before we become aware that anger is managing us.

Now, more than ever, we need to be mindful of the energy that accompanies anger. For all that can go wrong—and there is plenty—anger almost always increases and then regenerates the amount of energy we feel. The wisdom that comes from exploring, and perhaps limiting, our options is easily ignored when we are invigorated by a charged exchange, without stopping long enough to consider the consequences.

One of my favorite stories begins with a second-grade boy running down a long hallway in the Sunday School building, trying to catch the Pastor.

“Pastor Joe, please wait! We need your help.”
“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you in Sunday School?”
“I ran out to try to catch up with you. We really need you to come to our class right away.”
“Okay. But why?”
“Because we are all behaving badly and we don’t know how to stop ourselves!”

The distance from anger to rage is not very far, and in the absence of an intervention, our ability to stop ourselves before it’s too late is unlikely. Anger can be a powerful and positive motivator, but it can also become a raging, uncontrolled force that hurts us and others. It is helpful to remember this: regardless of how painful our experiences are or may be, they are just painful experiences—until we add the response of anger or rage.

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Suzanne Stabile is a speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher who has taught thousands of people over the last thirty years. She is the author of ‘The Path Between Us’, and coauthor, with Ian Morgan Cron, of ‘The Road Back to You’. She is also the creator and host of The Enneagram Journey podcast. Along with her husband, Rev. Joseph Stabile, she is cofounder of Life in the Trinity Ministry, a nonprofit, nondenominational ministry committed to the spiritual growth and formation of adults.

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Tyler Cowen Playlist

Tyler Cowen May 5th, 2025

Death of the artist is not the only reason not to finish a work, but as you will see in this playlist it is a very common reason. Or sometimes they just get tired of the song.

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Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as chairman and general director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. With colleague Alex Tabarrok, Cowen is coauthor of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution and cofounder of the online educational platform Marginal Revolution University.

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Hannah Peel Playlist

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Mercury Prize, Ivor Novello and Emmy-nominated, RTS and Music Producers Guild winning composer, with a flow of solo albums and collaborative releases, Hannah Peel joins the dots between science, nature and the creative arts, through her explorative approach to electronic, classical and traditional music.

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Eight of Cups (Tarot Triptych)

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Name: Indolence, the Eight of Cups
Number: 8
Astrology: Saturn in Pisces
Qabalah: Hod of He

Chris Gabriel May 3, 2025

The Eight of Cups is the inevitable hangover that follows the overindulgence of Sevens’ Debauch. Here, the pleasures that have defined the past two cards in the suit are completely dulled. This is a painfully boring situation. 

In Rider, we find a man departing from a rocky shore. Eight cups are stacked on the sand and a sad Moon gazes down upon him. He dons a red cloak,red boots, and walks with a stick. This is an image straight out of Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, when after his lengthy complaints and fantasies he says “Here I am on the shores of Breton. Let the cities light up in the evening. My day is done; I’m leaving Europe.”

In Thoth, we have eight cups atop eight sickly, pale lily pads, as two withering lotuses spew water into the system. The waters are swampy and the sky is filled with dark clouds. This card is the heavy dull weight of Saturn in the depths of the Piscean. It is the high pressure one feels when deep sea diving.

In Marseille, we have eight cups and a sprawling flower. In this card, Jodorowsky sees an image of fullness, rather than hangover. Qabalistically this card is “The Intelligence of the Queen”,hich here we can take to mean “knowing when enough is enough”. While Rider and Thoth fall into overindulgence and depression, Marseille exercises restraint.

This is a fairly hopeless card: the party is over, and what remains is a hangover. Often, we indulge to achieve a “high”, to have pleasures, sensual and emotional, and we generally just can’t get enough of these, so we overindulge. Saturn, as the strict and authoritarian planet, despises overindulgence and punishes accordingly with a hangover. If we stay up all night, we suffer the next day - what goes up must come down. If we can accept this, we can achieve the more enlightened position of Marseille, we can get just enough pleasure tonight and not ruin tomorrow.

The boredom and depression this card represents can ultimately serve us though, for it is in stillness and inactivity that the seeds of movement are born. It is only through a willing delve into the depth that we can achieve any heights. 

Materially, the card draws up images of Leviathan and strange deep sea life. In our lives, this tends to signify a period of melancholy and depression, or directly a hangover. It may simply be “bad air” or dark clouds over one's head. If we willingly accept the heavy darkness of the depth, we will rise to even greater heights

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, READINGS

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Adam D’Angelo

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How Should One Read a Book? (Pt. 2)

Guiseppe Antonio Petrini, c.1735.

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First given as a speech at Hayes Court Common school in Kent at the start of 1926, and then adapted and published in the Yale Review the same year, Woolf’s impassioned ode to reading remains a seminal text. She reminds us that reading is not a passive activity, and that if each book only comes alive through active choices by its reader, it is worth considering how we as a consumer can elevate and enliven the literature we choose to read. The writer and reader are connected, and it is our duty to approach each new book as a different beast, to use our qualities of imagination, insight, and judgement, not rest on laurels of past works but follow our instincts to find the heart, truth, and beauty of each text anew.

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Virginia Woolf, April 15, 2025

If, then, this is true—that books are of very different types, and that to read them rightly we have to bend our imaginations powerfully, first one way, then another—it is clear that reading is one of the most arduous and exhausting of occupations. Often the pages fly before us and we seem, so keen is our interest, to be living and not even holding the volume in our hands. But the more exciting the book, the more danger we run of over-reading. The symptoms are familiar. Suddenly the book becomes dull as ditchwater and heavy as lead. We yawn and stretch and cannot attend. The highest flights of Shakespeare and Milton become intolerable. And we say to ourselves—is Keats a fool or am I?—a painful question, a question, moreover, that need not be asked if we realized how great a part the art of not reading plays in the art of reading. To be able to read books without reading them, to skip and saunter, to suspend judgment, to lounge and loaf down the alleys and bye-streets of letters is the best way of rejuvenating one’s own creative power. All biographies and memoirs, all the hybrid books which are largely made up of facts, serve to restore to us the power of reading real books—that is to say, works of pure imagination. That they serve also to impart knowledge and to improve the mind is true and important, but if we are considering how to read books for pleasure, not how to provide an adequate pension for one’s widow, this other property of theirs is even more valuable and important. But here again one should know what one is after. One is after rest, and fun, and oddity, and some stimulus to one’s own jaded creative power. One has left one’s bare and angular tower and is strolling along the street looking in at the open windows. After solitude and concentration, the open air, the sight of other people absorbed in innumerable activities, comes upon us with an indescribable fascination.

The windows of the houses are open; the blinds are drawn up. One can see the whole household without their knowing that they are being seen. One can see them sitting round the dinner table, talking, reading, playing games. Sometimes they seem to be quarrelling—but what about? Or they are laughing—but what is the joke? Down in the basement the cook is reading a newspaper aloud, while the housemaid is making a piece of toast; in comes the kitchen maid and they all start talking at the same moment—but what are they saying? Upstairs a girl is dressing to go to a party. But where is she going? There is an old lady sitting at her bedroom window with some kind of wool work in her hand and a fine green parrot in a cage beside her. And what is she thinking? All this life has somehow come together; there isa reason for it; a coherency in it, could one but seize it. The biographer answers the innumerable questions which we ask as we stand outside on the pavement looking in at the open window. Indeed there is nothing more interesting than to pick one’s way about among these vast depositories of facts, to make up the lives of men and women, to create their complex minds and households from the extraordinary abundance and litter and confusion of matter which lies strewn about. A thimble, a skull, a pair of scissors, a sheaf of sonnets, are given us, and we have to create, to combine, to put these incongruous things together.There is, too, a quality in facts, an emotion which comes from knowing that men and women actually did and suffered these things, which only the greatest novelists can surpass. CaptainScott, starving and freezing to death in the snow, affects us as deeply as any made-up story of adventure by Conrad or Defoe; but it affects us differently. The biography differs from the novel. To ask a biographer to give us the same kind of pleasure that we get from a novelist is to misuse and misread him. Directly he says “John Jones was born at five-thirty in the morning of August 13, I 862,” he has committed himself, focussed his lens upon fact, and if he then begins to romance, the perspective becomes blurred, we grow suspicious, and our faith in his integrity as a writer is destroyed. In the same way fact destroys fiction. IfThackeray, for example, had quoted an actual newspaper account of the Battle of Waterloo in“Vanity Fair,” the whole fabric of his story would have been destroyed, as a stone destroys abubble.

But it is undoubted that these hybrid books, these warehouses and depositories of facts, playa great part in resting the brain and restoring its zest of imagination. The work of building up a life for oneself from skulls, thimbles, scissors, and sonnets stimulates our interest in creation and rouses our wish to see the work beautifully and powerfully done by a Flaubert or a Tolstoi. Moreover, however interesting facts may be, they are an inferior form of fiction, and gradually we become impatient of their weakness and diffuseness, of their compromises and evasions, of the slovenly sentences which they make for themselves, and are eager to revive ourselves with the greater intensity and truth of fiction. 

It is necessary to have in hand an immense reserve of imaginative energy in order to attack the steeps of poetry. Here are none of those gradual introductions, those resemblances to the familiar world of daily life with which the novelist entices us into his world of imagination.All is violent, opposite, unrelated. But various causes, such as bad books, the worry of carrying on life efficiently, the intermittent but powerful shocks dealt us by beauty, and the incalculable impulses of our own minds and bodies frequently put us into that state of mind in which poetry is a necessity. The sight of a crocus in a garden will suddenly bring to mind all the spring days that have ever been. One then desires the general, not the particular; the whole, not the detail; to turn uppermost the dark side of the mind; to be in contact with silence, solitude, and all men and women and not this particular Richard, or that particularAnne. Metaphors are then more expressive than plain statements.

Thus in order to read poetry rightly, one must be in a rash, an extreme, a generous state of mind in which many of the supports and comforts of literature are done without. Its power of make-believe, its representative power, is dispensed with in favor of its extremities and extravagances. The representation is often at a very far remove from the thing represented, so that we have to use all our energies of mind to grasp the relation between, for example, the song of a nightingale and the image and ideas which that song stirs in the mind. Thus reading poetry often seems a state of rhapsody in which rhyme and metre and sound stir the mind as wine and dance stir the body, and we read on, understanding with the senses, not with the intellect, in a state of intoxication. Yet all this intoxication and intensity of delight depend upon the exactitude and truth of the image, on its being the counterpart of the reality within. Remote and extravagant as some of Shakespeare’s images seem, far-fetched and ethereal as some of Keats’s, at the moment of reading they seem the cap and culmination of the thought; its final expression. But it is useless to labor the matter in cold blood. Anyone who has read a poem with pleasure will remember the sudden conviction, the sudden recollection (for it seems sometimes as if we were about to say, or had in some previous existence already said, what Shakespeare is actually now saying), which accompany the reading of poetry, and give it its exaltation and intensity. But such reading is attended, whether consciously or unconsciously, with the utmost stretch and vigilance of the faculties, of the reason no less than of the imagination. We are always verifying the poet’s statements, making a flying comparison, to the best of our powers, between the beauty he makes outside and the beauty we are aware of within. For the humblest among us is endowed with the power of comparison. The simplest (provided he loves reading) has that already within him to which he makes what is given him—by poet or novelist—correspond.

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“The book upon which we have spent so much time and thought fades entirely out of sight. But suddenly, as one is picking a snail from a rose, tying a shoe, perhaps, doing something distant and different, the whole book floats to the top of the mind complete.”

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With that saying, of course, the cat is out of the bag. For this admission that we can compare, discriminate, brings us to this further point. Reading is not merely sympathizing and understanding; it is also criticizing and judging. Hitherto our endeavor has been to read books as a writer writes them. We have been trying to understand, to appreciate, to interpret, to sympathize. But now, when the book is finished, the reader must leave the dock and mount the bench. He must cease to be the friend; he must become the judge. And this is no mere figure of speech. The mind seems (“seems,” for all is obscure that takes place in the mind) to go through two processes in reading. One might be called the actual reading; the other the after reading. During the actual reading, when we hold the book in our hands, there are incessant distractions and interruptions. New impressions are always completing or cancelling the old. One’s judgment is suspended, for one does not know what is coming next.Surprise, admiration, boredom, interest, succeed each other in such quick succession that when, at last, the end is reached, one is for the most part in a state of complete bewilderment. Is it good? or bad? What kind of book is it? How good a book is it? The friction of reading and the emotion of reading beat up too much dust to let us find clear answers to these questions. If we are asked our opinion, we cannot give it. Parts of the book seem to have sunk away, others to be starting out in undue prominence. Then perhaps it is better to take up some different pursuit—to walk, to talk, to dig, to listen to music. The book upon which we have spent so much time and thought fades entirely out of sight. But suddenly, as one is picking a snail from a rose, tying a shoe, perhaps, doing something distant and different, the whole book floats to the top of the mind complete. Some process seems to have been finished without one’s being aware of it. The different details which have accumulated in reading assemble themselves in their proper places. The book takes on a definite shape; it becomes a castle, a cowshed, a gothic ruin, as the case may be. Now one can think of the book as a whole, and the book as a whole is different, and gives one a different emotion, from the book received currently in several different parts. Its symmetry and proportion, its confusion and distortion can cause great delight or great disgust apart from the pleasure given by each detail as it is separately realized. Holding this complete shape in mind it now becomes necessary to arrive at some opinion of the book’s merits, for though it is possible to receive the greatest pleasure and excitement from the first process, the actual reading, though this is of the utmost importance, it is not so profound or so lasting as the pleasure we get when the second process—the after reading—is finished, and we hold the book clear, secure, and (to the best of our powers) complete in our minds.

But how, we may ask, are we to decide any of these questions—is it good, or is it bad?—how good is it, how bad is it? Not much help can be looked for from outside. Critics abound; criticisms pullulate; but minds differ too much to admit of close correspondence in matters of detail, and nothing is more disastrous than to crush one’s own foot into another person’s shoe. When we want to decide a particular case, we can best help ourselves, not by reading criticism, but by realizing our own impression as acutely as possible and referring this to the judgments which we have gradually formulated in the past. There they hang in the wardrobe of our mind—the shapes of the books we have read, as we hung them up and put them away when we had done with them. If we have just read “Clarissa Harlowe,” for example, let us see how it shows up against the shape of “Anna Karenina.” At once the outlines of the two books are cut out against each other as a house with its chimneys bristling and its gables sloping is cut out against a harvest moon. At once Richardson’s qualities—his verbosity, his obliqueness—are contrasted with Tolstoi’s brevity and directness. And what is the reason of this difference in their approach? And how does our emotion at different crises of the two books compare? And what must we attribute to the eighteenth century, and what to Russia and the translator? But the questions which suggest themselves are innumerable. They ramify infinitely, and many of them are apparently irrelevant. Yet it is by asking them and pursuing the answers as far as we can go that we arrive at our standard of values, and decide in the end that the book we have just read is of this kind or of that, has merit in that degree or in this. And it is now, when we have kept closely to our own impression, formulated independently our own judgment, that we can most profitably help ourselves to the judgments of the great critics—Dryden, Johnson, and the rest. It is when we can best defend our own opinions that we get most from theirs.

So, then—to sum up the different points we have reached in this essay—have we found any answer to our question, how should we read a book? Clearly, no answer that will do for everyone; but perhaps a few suggestions. In the first place, a good reader will give the writer the benefit of every doubt; the help of all his imagination; will follow as closely, interpret as intelligently as he can. In the next place, he will judge with the utmost severity. Every book, he will remember, has the right to be judged by the best of its kind. He will be adventurous, broad in his choice, true to his own instincts, yet ready to consider those of other people.This is an outline which can be filled, in at taste and at leisure, but to read something after this fashion is to be a reader whom writers respect. It is by the means of such readers that masterpieces are helped into the world.

If the moralists ask us how we can justify our love of reading, we can make use of some such excuse as this. But if we are honest, we know that no such excuse is needed. It is true that we get nothing whatsoever except pleasure from reading; it is true that the wisest of us is unable to say what that pleasure may be. But that pleasure—mysterious, unknown, useless as it is—is enough. That pleasure is so curious, so complex, so immensely fertilizing to the mind of anyone who enjoys it, and so wide in its effects, that it would not be in the least surprising to discover, on the day of judgment when secrets are revealed and the obscure is made plain, that the reason why we have grown from pigs to men and women, and come out from our caves, and dropped our bows and arrows, and sat round the fire and talked and drunk and made merry and given to the poor and helped the sick and made pavements and houses and erected some sort of shelter and society on the waste of the world, is nothing but this: we have loved reading.

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Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th century modernist authors. An important part of the contemporary literary scene, Woolf’s relevance has only grown in the near century since her passing, and her pioneering essays on artistic theory, literary history, women's writing, and the politics of power have become touchstones for contemporary thought.

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Iggy Pop Playlist

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Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. Since forming The Stooges in 1967, Iggy’s career has spanned decades and genres. Having paved the way for ‘70’s punk and ‘90’s grunge, he is often considered “The Godfather of Punk.”

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King and Prince of Disks (Tarot Triptych)

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Name:  King of Disks, Prince of Disks
Astrology: Taurus
Qabalah: Vau of He

Chris Gabriel April 26, 2025

The King of Disks is a man of the land, and each representation rests amid fertile soil. The fruits of the labor abound, this is a man made rich by his hard work and at the height of earthly power: growth and accumulation. The work of the suit was all investment for these ultimate returns.

In Rider, the King looks demurely upon the pentacle he balances  upon his knee. His cloak is verdant, covered in grapes and vines, his crown is rosy, and his cowl is scarlet. His other hand holds a sphere topped scepter. The throne is adorned with four Bulls and the ground below him is full of flowers and vines. His castle stands in the background.

In Thoth, we have the Prince of Disks working the field, lowly compared to the King who enjoys the harvest. Doing the labor needed to produce fruit, he is naked but for his helmet, which is topped with a winged bulls head. He is riding in a bull drawn chariot surrounded by vegetable life: onions, tomatoes, flowers, and wheat. He grasps a sphere within which there is a tesseract and bears a scepter topped with the globe and cross. Both he and his bull look ahead.

In Marseille, we find a unique King. Unlike the other three he wears no crown, just a hat to keep the sun from his eyes. A simple and hardworking man, he sits in nature rather than in the palace. There is soil under his feet, life is sprouting from it. He holds one coin, and looks aside to another in the distance. He has chosen the ploughshare over the sword.

The suit of Disks deals with the material world and the things that make it up. Through the course of the suit, we watch the seed grow, change, wither, and then flourish. The King of Disks enjoys these processes and cycles, and is made rich by them. This is how one can master people as well, not by dictating their behaviour, but by putting them in the right environments, providing the proper conditions, and allowing them to grow on their own. A good farmer does not always need to intervene, they simply give nature freedom to flourish.

The Prince is the younger King, actively farming, knowing with absolute certainty that his hard work will produce a brilliant harvest. In many ways, this is the situation of any working person. We work aware of the season we are in, we plant seeds and work the fields to accumulate wealth, to later direct others, and to eventually retire. Most Kings will fight to the death to retain their power and control, the King of Disks is the opposite. He does what must be done and retires happily.

History gives us examples of Kings and leaders who abandoned the palace in favor of the plough. George Washington, the first president of the United States, established democracy instead of making himself king. This decision brought comparison to the Roman consul and dictator Cincinnatus, who after overcoming an invasion over the course of sixteen days immediately relinquished power and returned to his farm. 

When we pull this card, we may meet a figure who embodies the King of Disks, an older, wealthy, simple man. We may also need to embody this sort of natural wisdom in order to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

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