polyphanes' stuff

As I’ve referenced countless times on my blog in the past when talking about the classical Hermetic texts, Litwa’s Hermetica II is a fantastic resource for lots of the lesser-read ones among them, especially the Stobaean Fragments but also plenty of other texts that aren’t the Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius, Armenian Definitions, or the Nag Hammadi Hermetica; it’s a treasure trove of so much that I…

A while back, I mentioned that I was participating in Esotericon NW‘s second year, a gathering of esoterically-minded speakers presented to the Masonic community and hosted by Verity Lodge No. 59.  I’m glad to say that my presentation not only went well but also appears to have been well-received, and it was a delight to work with the good worshipful master of the lodge and get engaged in…

I live by my to-do list.  It’s a habit I picked up in college when I started to get overwhelmed between multiple classes, papers, tests, events and the like, and a to-do list makes sense for something like that.  Personally, I prefer a simple text file or the like for mine; I like the convenience of having a digital to-do list with me being able to move tasks around, and the satisfaction of…

Gosh, it’s already been two years since my Reading the Hermetica blogpost series kicked off; how time flies, and how much changes in such a short time!  Granted that making series of posts isn’t a terribly uncommon thing for me, that one is one I’m proud of, since not only did that series do what I could to help make the classical Hermetic texts more accessible, but also offers no little bit of…

I think I speak for us all when I say that it’s fascinating to watch how our own evolution of practices and rituals changes over time.  Seeing how influences and trends come and go, practices get developed and set aside, focuses of research arise and abate always gives me a lot to think about, seeing them all like waymarks on a long trip or reminiscing on a walk around town about past dates or…

It has, admittedly, been a little quiet around here.  While being online in general is always an excitement, and especially in these exciting times of ours where there’s never a dull moment (no matter how much we wish there were), my big creative focus has continued to be on the Hermetic Synaxis stuff I mentioned last year.  It’s a hefty work, and I’m as much impressed as I am in admiration of…

It’s been quiet here lately, I admit; between the chaos of the old year ringing in the new, making almanacs for 2026 for people,  using a pickaxe to dig out my way through snowcrete in this bitterly cold winter, teaching my Hermetic Synaxis stuff to my test group (it’s going fantastic with the testers!), and…well, <waves vaguely at the outside world>, it’s been a bit of a busy time.  I’m still…

At long last, and after a good bit of time in development and testing: version 3 of The Adocentyn Temple Almanac (TATA v3) has been completed and ready for ordering, just in time for people to get underway with their 2026 planning! Click here to request your personalized and customized ritual planning almanac, all for just US$20! The Adocentyn Temple Almanac is a fine-tuned one-year almanac…

For this week’s Reading the Kybalion discussion, we’re woefully continuing our reading and discussion of The Kybalion, focusing on chapter XV (“Hermetic Axioms”). This week’s adverb for the reading is “woefully” because we still (somehow) have more to read, but in reality, we should feel a bit of relief; this is the last week we have to read anything we haven’t yet from the Kybalion, since we’re…

For this week’s Reading the Kybalion discussion, we’re lamentably continuing our reading and discussion of The Kybalion, focusing on chapters XIII (“Gender”) and XIV (“Mental Gender”). Only a few chapters left, my friends; we’ve made it through six of the Kybalion’s principles, and now we’re on the last, the ridiculous and risible principle of gender. Unfortunately, WWA has seen fit to break it…

For this week’s Reading the Kybalion discussion, we’re deplorably continuing our reading and discussion of The Kybalion, focusing on chapters XI (“Rhythm”) and XII (“Causation”). Last week, we discussed two of the Kybalion’s principles, vibration and polarity, complete with all the bad science and worse understandings that WWA proliferates in his work. WWA is taking an incremental approach where…

For this week’s Reading the Kybalion discussion, we’re grievously continuing our reading and discussion of The Kybalion, focusing on chapters IX (“Vibration”) and X (“Polarity”). Last week, we finally got into the second half of this damnable mess of a book, having wrapped up a prolonged delving into the maze of twisty little passages (all alike, of course) of the Kybalion’s definition and…

For this week’s Reading the Kybalion discussion, we’re dismally continuing our reading and discussion of The Kybalion, focusing on chapter VIII (“Planes of Correspondence”). Last week, we finally wrapped up our sojourn into the Kybalion’s exploration of mentalism and how it constructs (however sloppily and vaguely) its notion of “The All”.  The Kybalion spent so much time on this because, being a…

For this week’s Reading the Kybalion discussion, we’re despondently continuing our reading and discussion of The Kybalion, focusing on chapters VII (“‘The All’ in All”) and VIII (“Planes of Correspondence”). Last week, we continued our multichapter (and thus multiweek) sojourn into the Kybalion’s definition and understanding of its own principle of mentalism, the idea that all is Mind and thus…

It seems like every new day brings with it some new reminder that the Butlerian Jihad is one of those sci-fi ideas that really actually should be employed at some point soon.  Nowadays, every company, every search engine, every social media network, every software update is trying to push some variant or other of whatever they mean by “AI” down everyone’s throats, whether they want it or not, and…