It’s been two years since I did this ritual. To commemorate it, and to archive it elsewhere (just in case), I’m posting the original text in full below. I’ll write a retrospective for a later post.
Any system of magic should be able to explain at least most, if not all, occult events, as well as stay internally consistent within itself. A significantly robust system becomes a map of the world, and the strange or weird failures of a system are usually explained away in revisions made by future occultists and mages. Up to this point, I believe that the numogram has not been put through its paces as an occult system, though it has been around significantly long enough that it SHOULD have been. This, I think, has more to do with the culture that created it than a failing of the system itself.
As an occultist first and foremost, it is my job to put magic to the test. My first interactions with the numogram, years ago, did not excite me. This is, in part, was because I did not know what I was looking at. I was not ready to be the first to evoke entities or (re)discover secrets, which I suspected was the case. Implicitly, I felt that the numogram and, as an extension, lemurian time sorcery, was a system that had yet to be "turned on". Perhaps everyone in the past was too afraid to be the first, or they didn't really want to be the first. Hyperstition, however, only comes to full fruition once the stories and systems in place become real. This becoming-real is a fundamentally occult process, not unlike any other occult process. It is possible that early CCRU encounters with the numogram were so numbered and insane that nobody ever bothered to write them down into a legitimate book of shadows. Or, being philosophers and artists first and foremost, they were blindsided by the true occult nature of their system and weren't sure how to handle it. I certainly don't know, and I believe we may never find out. Maybe, at the end of it all, it's a joke by the universe being played only on me. I accept my fate.
An anecdote relevant to this is particularly salient here. A band I was into several years ago, with songs named such as "Ars Goetia", was playing in my town. I went with a friend and we ended up meeting a band member. When I asked her whether or not the band were actually occultists, she shrugged and said, "You know, as much as anyone else is really. We've dabbled but we aren't serious about it." The occult is an inherent part of art and of philosophy. But there is a difference between art and The Arte, and many people believe they can play at one and not the other.
What I'm getting at here is this: how many times have you heard of people actually using time-sorcery? I don't mean talking about using it, saying "wouldn't it be cool if"... I mean drawing the circle and making the call. Is it none? As an example, take the amazing text Unleashing the Numogram, which stands to date as the most complete (though still mostly incomplete at this point) resource on the actual magical system. The author of the text states clearly that most of the ideas are rooted in theoretical understandings of the numogram. These understandings are amazing, but we're still looking at the foundation of something that has never been put to the test.
So I determined to put it to the test. Here is what I learned.
First, we must understand what time-sorcery is and how we access it. The Pandemonium page makes it clear: "Pandemonium is the complete system of Lemurian demonism and time sorcery. It consists of two principal components: Numogram (time-map) and Matrix (listing the names, numbers and attributes of the demons). "
Ok, so we have a system with two parts that are equally important. Up to this point, lots of people have done math on the numogram to make it do all kinds of interesting and weird things. Whether any of them have actually traveled it I cannot say, but their conclusions are still incredibly important. However, I have seen very little data regarding the lemurs, or demons, of the matrix. At best, people play a bit with decadence/subdecadence and then find it unfulfilling, returning to other things that are inherently more interesting. I think the reason for this is that we're missing something fundamental about decadence, and subdecadence is the only game worth playing, but in order to do so we have to understand the secret of the four chaotic xenodemons.
Re: decadence. I think the system is useless unless we determine what the AOE angelic index is. However, it's important to point out that none of us, I think, want to be an AOE shill. We want to be lemurian time-sorcerers. So we must play subdecadence and include zero as well as the chaotic xenodemons. However, we cannot simply draw a new line on the outside of the numogram connecting 9::6 and say that we have solved the problem. Moreover, I do not believe we have to. The answer is already found in gates that we already have which connect the Warp and the Plex to the time-circuit, namely gt-15, gt-36, and gt-45.
Starting with gt-15, which flows from zone 5 to 6. It does this because 5+4+3+2+1=15, which plexed = 6. But, simply put, what if we subtracted during plexing, instead of adding? The gate instead leads from 5 to 4. More interestingly, however, a connection between 5 and 6 can also lead back to 4. Or, gt-15, backwards, leads to 4. So we can traffic between the Warp and the time-circuit freely, through what I have called subplexing, since you're subtracting something that you would normally add.
We can also do this with gt-45 to get 1, or gt-36 to get 3. This means that if you travel to the Warp or the Plex, you can get back. This means two things: firstly, that you can now trace real routes for chaotic xenodemons to travel, secondly, that if you as a time-sorcerer get "stuck" on the "outside" of time, you can find your way back. Whether or not you, personally, can or will succeed on that point is a different question, but it means you are not theoretically doomed, and can make the trek there and back without complete annihilation (though not without scars).
Once I understood this, I knew it was time to test the pandemonium system as a legitimate system of magic. I planned a syzygetic demon evocation cycle, starting with Katak, then to Djynxx, then Murmur, then Uttunul, and ending with Oddubb. I originally planned to evoke each one night at a time over five nights, but decided instead to them all consecutively in one night. The total cycle took only a few hours, which wasn't so bad, but I have suspicions as to why which I will go over later. It was also exhausting, so not recommended at all.
The general outline of each ritual involved a moment of grounding before-hand, then lighting a candle before calling the demon in question to appear within a triangle drawn on a black mirror. In each of these rituals, I asked the same five questions: who are you? What do you represent? What do you offer the sorcerer? What do you ask in return? What is your advice? Let us begin with Katak.
Katak, 5::4, bear your teeth to me, show me your claws, join us in the hunt.
Who are you?
Katak. Destroyer of Worlds. Doombringer (but not 663).
What do you represent?
Violence, pain, suffering, change, cataclysm, loss, grief, revenge.
What do you offer?
Breakthrough. Torturous collapse.
What do you ask in return?
Physical sacrifice.
Advice?
Get out while you still can. But you already saw that coming, huh?
Djynxx, 6::3, child-stealer, woe dealer, come unto me. We have business to attend and feasts to eat.
Who are you?
Djynxx. Baby eater. Messy crook. Quiet schemer. Sly dog. At your service~
What do you represent?
Teeth. Many many teeth. Too many. I'm parched. But really, I'm a dealer, a trader, wealth generator. Deceiver.
What do you offer?
Bad deals, lost objects found. Money... but not for free. Exchanges. Information.
What do you ask in return?
I am here to negotiate. What does a person have to offer? What can I screw them out of? Who knows. Usually they give up too easy.
Advice?
Bring a friend. Or two. I get lonely.
Murmur, 8::1, queen of the deep, lend your eyes to our plight so that we may find a line of flight.
Who are you?
Murmur. So simple, infinite. Bask.
What do you represent?
Deep time, ancient life, ocean, sea, swimming. Thoughtful. All-presence.
What do you offer?
Sight. Knowing. Growing.
What do you want?
To be left alone.
Advice?
You know what to do. Do it. Now let me go.
Uttunul speaks, tendrils reaching through, 9::0.
What? Do? You? Want? Either die or fuck off. I have no use for you. You have no use for me. Get out.
Oddubb, 7::2, bubble over and join our fun! Quicken as we go in for the kiss.
Who are you?
I am Oddubb. The cute one. ^w^
What do you represent?
Bubble technology, joy, care, love, sex, desire. Aphrodite coming out of the sea foam, but I'm the foam.
What do you offer?
Deepest desires fulfilled.
What do you ask in return?
Unconditional love.
Advice?
Stay healthy and follow your heart.
While clearly some of them were more interested in speaking to me than others, I did succeed in making contact with all five syzygetic demons. They seemed low-energy, and when I tried to call upon less important members of the Pandemonium Matrix I got no response at all. It seems as though the fledgling system needs some kind of energetic boost before it comes alive and we can begin to understand the full extent of its usefulness. I did a private ritual after the syzygetic cycle to try to accomplish this, but until we get more information we won't know for certain the overall outcome.
It is at this time that I invite others to participate in a similar ritual on their own. If you're in my orbit, you'll likely hear soon about plans in the works for a more group-oriented cycle, otherwise you're welcome to do your own experiments.