You’ll have to go here but I wanted to bring up one part in particular.

At the very first of it, I talk about Digital Serfdom.

Listen, when it comes to reading, I find eBooks to be not only enjoyable but fun. The fact that I don’t have to carry but one device with all my books on it, that’s a plus for me. Reading fiction or some non-fiction like Midnight In The Garden of Good And Evil by John Berendt, Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson or The Dirt by Motley Crue, I’ve read and enjoyed eBooks.

When it comes to books you need to study, that’s a different can of worms people. When it comes to text with which you need to engage, having eBooks as a backup or something to take with you to read here or there where you can, cool but have the physical copies because they can’t be altered or revised once you have them.

Some things, eBooks just won’t cut it. At least, not for me. Your mileage can vary, no harm, no foul. Back up those eBooks though, if you can. I really do not want you to lose your library.

So let’s sit down, have a chat.

What did ya think? A few books aside, all of this would have taken up maybe one shelf at my public library. Just one. Now for a public library shelf, a lot of this plopped onto that shelf, it’s gonna seem random as hell. Not only that but all these books like Magick In Theory And Practice by Aleister Crowley and Magick For Beginners by J.H. Brennan (I got that one for nostalgia…it was one of the books that got me started) is going to seem really odd like who are these books even for? Right?

To be fair, I said the same thing about a great many titles I saw that shall remain nameless here. Not because I think it would be incendiary to mention them, no, that’s not it. When they pay me to mention them, then I will.

Here, on my three shelves, they’re completely reasonable. This is a guy advancing a Vitki path.

I’d be willing to bet that very little of my library means a thing to you and that’s alright. If there are a few titles in there that make you raise an eyebrow, yeah, go ahead and look into those. See where you wind up.

That’s the point.

For whatever reason you’re here.

Somewhere out there one of you is looking at a stack of books that have been recommended on your faith somewhere and you’ve been wanting to really explore it and you just don’t know where to start.

That’s exactly why you’re here. I was in the same boat.

Even if it’s only one title. Take that one, now put it with whatever you have right now, okay. Now, the next thing you need to do is clear your mind and really think about this.

You’re about to enter or deepen a relationship with The Divine (whatever that looks like to you) …how open are you?

This is why the honest self-assessment tool N.M.E./Meditations is so crucial.

Forget the visualizations and all of that stuff right now. Forget perceptions, this is important.

If you’re not open to being shaped by the experience, nothing will work.

Recapping so far, if you don’t have a clear mind, nothing else you do will work. You can’t perform the functions if you can’t concentrate, think, and visualize. Your banishing for negative energies is even in question at this point.

Past that, this changes what you consistently notice and prioritize.

Listen, part of the way through N.M.E. I took a good, hard, literal look in the mirror and I’m not speaking metaphorically here, I’m speaking in the crude matter, five-sense reality on this one, I didn’t recognize the image staring back at me.

I knew it was me but it wasn’t. Something wasn’t quite right and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

Fact is, I’d been spending my entire time being molded by my experiences and in some of the worst ways possible (which happens when you encounter or offer resistance) but also in some of the ways I’d actually wanted. The end result was this being staring back at me. He was always there. A combination of the experiences I’d had and my own conscious decisions had cleared away all of the excess from the outer layer. This is what was underneath.

Over time, that changed. I got used to it. Everything is pretty settled now.

I’ve been able to go through all of this with a much calmer and clearer mind. For once, I’m getting what I couldn’t with the groups; A course of study that will help me put it into practice.

That’s what is most important. I’m gonna talk about the theology and cosmology stuff from time to time and even the practices.

What I really want is for you to take that library, make it your own. You can do physical, eBooks, audiobooks, whatever works for you but make it a library of your titles.

Next, figure out what each of your books do, every book should have a job and if it doesn’t do that job, it doesn’t earn its spot on the shelf or on your device’s storage.

Then, track them like a University or Trade School and be brutally honest with yourself. I’ll show you what that looks like next week.

The hard fact is that this only works if you do.

I know you’ve heard that about a million times but here’s where it’s all different. You’re not accountable to anyone…but you.

You fail? Okay, so you failed, so what? Do it again. Have some perspective. You know there are people still looking at N.M.E. and biting their nails. Some of them haven’t even bought the first cheap ass notebook or pen. They’re still thinking about it. You didn’t. You just jumped right in and got started. The ones still thinking about it, they’ll do it on their own time. If you decide you want nothing at all to do with the magick aspect of this stuff, that’s cool by me, I really only care about one thing; Don’t Disappoint Yourself.

Disappointing yourself is the absolute worst thing you can do. You’re allowed to fail. You’re allowed to fail repeatedly. You’re not allowed to quit. You know what I mean.

It’s all about consistency. Do it until you can, not until you can’t.

Two people I admire for their minds and their discipline to their respective crafts; Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and Aleister Crowley. The problem with both of them was they did it until they couldn’t. Everything they wrote came from a place of extremes. It was extractive.

We’re not. That’s not us. We do it until we can. We’re sustainable in that regard. The end I really want you to reclaim is this. You deepen your relationship with your own faith. You gain an understanding of it that no one else will have and have such a connection with it that it inspires you to build something of your own, share it with others and instruct them on how to do the same.

The structure doesn’t change in the least, it just accomodates you.

Let me share something with you. The Magnusson Library isn’t there to just teach me how to further my spiritual path, that’s part of it. I have two Bibles in there and The Urantia Book. I’ve owned those books before I owned the rest and, I’m including them. This work doesn’t stand up in an honest debate if I don’t know how to properly test it. Not only that, I’m noting where different cosmologies have points of agreement or connective tissue.

You can do the same thing. It helps to keep things honest from time to time.

You might think that I’m trying to build witty comebacks and that might only be partially true. What’s actually true is that I’m doing the intellectual equivalent of building an arsenal that I hope I never have to use.

That goes back to having integrity and once you’ve done the banishing on your mental noise, another on the exterior noise and then you’ve gotten yourself to the point where you can sit in the stillness and the quiet without reaching for a phone or some other thing to distract you, a lot of this stuff will start falling into place.

You’ll start moving away from shit that straight up doesn’t align with you. You’ll already have examined your core beliefs.

Think of it like being Robocop when he was overloaded with corporate nonsense to make him take a softer approach, essentially making him a multi-million-dollar doormat. He grips the cables on the transformer, blasts himself backward, reboots and then…Prime Directives Restored.

That’s what you’ll do. Restore right back to your old Prime Directives. This is all the sense, reason and clarity you had before people began to try to keep you boxed in and your shadow stepped in for the defense…and then became the thing it tried to protect you against. Isn’t that really weird? Our psyches can do really strange stuff, sometimes. I don’t pretend to try to understand it but if you can map the tactics, that’s data you can break down.

As Ice-T once so eloquently enunciated, “Snatch ya brain back, Zombie. Snatch it back and hold it!”

That was Johnny Mnemonic in case you needed a source for that quote.

Here’s the added benefit to doing N.M.E. first; your note-taking and analysis for everything you read and study, you don’t just read and then write something down. You engage with it, question it, analyze it, find the parts that really sing out and then you start mapping your way through it. In short, you’re literally snatching your brain back.

The most liberating aspect of this is that you’re the entire church.

You’re the founder, the board of directors, the archivist, the theologian, the student and, eventually, the teacher. Every role that would normally be distributed across an institution is consolidated into one person.

You.

At some point, though, knowledge stops being something you collect and starts becoming something you carry. Once you’ve built a working practice, tested it against reality and learned how to articulate it clearly, you’re no longer just responsible for your own development. People start asking questions. They ask what you’re reading. What you’re studying. Why you’re doing it. Sometimes they’ll ask for guidance.

That’s where the next step enters the picture.

First thing’s first, you need to understand what it is you’re getting into.

Like I said, this is all on you now if you choose to pick it up and run with it.

Get Ordained. Yep. It’s literally that easy.

Let’s be clear on what this does for you and it does the following:

• Officiate weddings where recognized by state and local law.

• Sign marriage documents when permitted by the jurisdiction.

• Conduct funeral and memorial services.

• Lead religious or spiritual ceremonies.

• Perform naming ceremonies, blessings, dedication ceremonies, and other rites of passage.

• Provide spiritual guidance, pastoral support, or religious instruction as a minister.

• Identify themselves as an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church.

• Establish a ministry or religious organization, subject to applicable laws and regulations.

• Perform ceremonial functions for their own community, congregation, family, or organization.

• Receive ministerial credentials and documentation from the ULC verifying ordination.

• Use ministerial titles such as “Minister,” “Reverend,” or similar religious honorifics within the context of their ministry.

• Create and conduct their own worship services, study groups, educational programs, or spiritual gatherings.

• Develop and teach their own religious or spiritual framework, provided they do so lawfully.

• Serve as a religious officiant for life-cycle events such as weddings, funerals, and vow renewals.

In terms of what it is I am doing here for you, this is what it means for the program currently under review and slowly being released. These will be your functions:

1. Officiant — conducting weddings and ceremonies.

2. Teacher — organizing and transmitting knowledge.

3. Pastoral Figure — providing guidance and support.

4. Custodian of Ritual — preserving and performing rites.

5. Founder or Steward — creating and maintaining a ministry, study group, or religious community.

6. Successor-Maker — training others to carry the work forward.

The key thing is knowing the laws in your state or municipality. Most people focus on the ordination itself. The real responsibility begins after that.

You get your ordination and then you grow into that role. It’s not just something you get and then slap a bunch of books on your shelf and claim authority. You wear a lot of different hats and some days, you’re going to have to listen to stuff that has nothing at all to do with you and you can do nothing about except offer that ear or that shoulder and sometimes, that’s the only magick you truly need to perform.

It’s not flashy or D&D levels of heroic. In fact, you could do a bit of work for someone, it works and they’ll never know about it.

Depending on where you are, that might be for the best.

I have to prepare you for a solid fact.

No one may show up.

Think about what is being asked here. I’m going to continue doing this work and there’s a good chance that no one’s going to pick it up and this is me just being real with you.

I’m asking people to do stuff that I would do and have done.

I’m also aware of how many people tell me these words on a daily basis, “I couldn’t do that.”

I’ll be straight up honest with you, I usually don’t outwardly respond to that. I just nod and continue talking a bit about it.

Inside, I’m confirming exactly what they said. You’re right, you can’t. You decided that before you ever got started. I won’t be able to reach you…but I understand.

This is why N.M.E. and clearing your mind is so important because those are the exact thoughts that are limiting you and you probably think it’s the world at large. It’s not. Sorry for that abrupt spoiler but everything will come down to clearing your mind and changing the things you tell yourself.

For those of you with minds open even a centimeter, this will be revelatory. It’s going to be painful but once you get through all that and you’re on the other side, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do that sooner.

I know I did. And next week, I’m going to show you exactly how to build the structure that makes this possible. The Program is coming.

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