Fundamental Principles of Magical Theory

By Frater S.C.F.V.

Introduction – Theoretical Underpinnings of Magical Practice

It is a common observation within the magical community that  magicians tend to be pragmatists; we favour what works. The history of magic has also tended to be a history of experimentation that has stretched through the Egyptians, onwards through the Greeks, the Medieval grimoire magicians, the Elizabethan and Renaissance occultists, and on through the Victorian into the present day. As Dr. Stephen Skinner and others have suggested, the methods that have stood the test of time have tended to do so because they were thoroughly tried and found reliable in the crucible of practice, while less effectual practices were pruned like dying branches from a thriving tree.

For many, the question of how magic works is a moot point. For these practitioners, all that matters is that it does work. I sympathize with the view that it ultimately does not matter whether the spirits evoked in magical ceremonies are merely forces within human consciousness and psychology, as Ms. Dion Fortune and others contend, or whether they are objectively-existing entities, as Dr. Stephen Skinner and others suggest. Whether the final analysis reveals the truth to have been one way or the other, I will still have found the Way of magic to be a path worth walking that brims with mystery, insight, adventure, and avenues for development. As Jake Stratton-Kent once put the matter,

“I’ve found working with spirits as autonomous entities is the most straightforward and effective method. I remain largely agnostic as to the hows and whys.”

Having made these prefatory comments, it seems to me that humbly attempting to tease out and make sense of some of the fundamental principles that undergird the mechanics of our magical work can be a worthwhile exercise. I maintain this view regardless of where we happen to fall on the perennial continuum of positions between the extremes of “magic is entirely psychological and subjective” and “magic is entirely spiritual and objective.”

The truth, if the Golden Mean of Aristotle, the Middle Way of the Buddha, the Doctrine of the Mean of Kung fu’tze (“Confucius”) and other great sages are to be trusted, is likely to fall somewhere in the middle. Perhaps magic, like all other natural phenomena, has tetradimensional aspects that can be described as being at once subjective, intersubjective, objective, and interobjective, as Ken Wilber’s integral theory might suggest.

In this essay, I will attempt to lay out 16 of what I consider to be the fundamental principles in which Western ceremonial magic has tended to ground its magical theory. For the time being, I will have to humbly set aside the fine points of historical derivation and parallels within African Traditional Religions, Santeria, Shamanism, and so on that Dr. Stephen Skinner, Mr. Aaron Leitch, and Mr. Jake Stratton-Kent have so eloquently covered in their fine scholarly analyses. For more on these aspects, I can’t recommend their works highly enough.

My own magical background is primarily in the Golden Dawn tradition, and less so in Enochian, Solomonic, and Sufi practices, so I will have to confine my discussion to what I have learned from studying and working within these traditions. In this analysis, I will be drawing on the key works within these traditions, on some of the principles outlined in Real Magic (1971) and Authentic Thaumaturgy (1998) by Isaac Bonewits, as well as on additional sources to develop as coherent an account of the fundamental principles of magical theory as is currently in my power.

1. The Principle of Understanding as Power

Definition:  “Understanding a thing gives power over it; the more intricate and multidimensional our understanding of a phenomenon, the easier it is to control it.”

This principle is a foundational principle of science; sciences have evolved through the progressively fine-tuned evolution of experimental, technological, and conceptual methods of studying and understanding natural phenomena, which have granted humanity progressively more control over phenomena that were previously taken to be chaotic and beyond our power. As Sir Francis Bacon pointed out in his Meditationes Sacrae (1597), “ipsa scientia potestas est” (‘knowledge itself is power’).

In Qabalistic magic, Understanding or Binah (בינה‬) is one of the Supernal Sephirot from which all of the more differentiated functions and forces of the Tree of Life emerge. Qabalistic magicians aim to understand the wisdom of the principles of the cosmos to facilitate our work as co-creators with the Divine in the Four Qabalistic Worlds. The principle of understanding as power is applied in Solomonic magic in the careful selection of specific astrological times to craft ritual implements, consecrate talismans, and perform evocations. Similarly, in Enochian magic, it is applied based on the suggestion that the understanding of the Watchtowers, Heptarchia Mystica, and Aethyrs enables the magician to work with the angels within each of these sub-systems.

Similarly, within the Golden Dawn system, as magicians proceed through the Grades, their understanding of the symbols and principles employed in the G.D. rituals deepens and becomes increasingly multilayered, which in turn, allows their magical operations to become increasingly finessed by the time they begin practical work in the Inner Order. In short, according to this foundational principle, applied magical understanding grants magical power.

2. The Principle of Self-Understanding

Definition: “The Way of Adepthood involves understanding and working with all aspects of one’s being, from strengths to weaknesses, the high to the low, and the above to the below.”

In Rosicrucian alchemy, central to the prima materia that the initiate aims to transmute through the Great Work are the various aspects of his or her being. These aspects must be understood–following on the principle of undertstanding as power–and equilibrated so that we do not sabotage ourselves as we are all too apt to do.

In the Golden Dawn system, for instance, Initiates spend the Outer Order Grades systematically studying and working with the various elemental forces and aspects  of their being from their Earthy physical aspects, to their Watery intuition and emotions, their Airy intellect, their Fiery Will, passion and desire, and the all-balancing force of Spirit, which crowns the elemental pentagram in the Portal Grade.

The importance of self-knowledge is an ancient teaching that was well-known to the Ancient Greek Magicians; indeed, Xenophon reports that above the entrance to the Temple of Delphi, the words γνῶθι σεαυτόν or “know thyself” were inscribed. Plato’s writings inform us that Socrates, in his work with his own daemon, took these words very much to heart.

In a similar fashion, Qabalistic magicians aim to bring the various parts of their being into alignment, from the physical body (Gu’ph) to the sensing energetic soul (Nephesh) through the sense of individual personhood and the personal I (Ruach) and unto the higher Self, Awareness, and Will of the Yechidah, Chiah and Neshamah.

In Franz Bardon’s Initiation Into Hermetics, the Psychic Training in Step I requires the aspirant to construct the “white and and black mirrors of the soul,” which are lists of his or her strengths, weaknesses, virtues and faults, so that they may be frankly examined and worked upon along the Path. Authentic development presupposes self-knowledge because we cannot transform aspects of ourselves of which we are not aware.

Indeed, the importance of self-knowledge on the magical Path cannot be overemphasized. The consequences of failing to do this work can be severe. The history of occultism is replete with examples of otherwise brilliant and proficient magicians who fell prey to their own unabated or unexamined arrogance, egotism, delusions of grandeur, paranoia, and unbridled abuse of power over their students.

Countless working groups and Orders have been ripped asunder by the failure of their members to do this all-important work. It is indeed essential to the Great Work and vital to harmonious human existence more generally.

3. The Principle of Equilibration

Definition: “Cultivate balance.”

The Neophyte Grade Ritual of the Golden Dawn enjoins the Initiate to  “study well that Great Arcanum, the proper equilibrium of mercy and severity, for either unbalanced is not good; unbalanced severity is cruelty and oppression; unbalanced mercy is but weakness and would permit evil to exist unchecked, thus making itself as it were the accomplice of that evil..” The ceremony later adds that “unbalanced force is evil, unbalanced mercy is but weakness, unbalanced severity is but oppression” and places the Throne of the Hegemon “between the Columns” in the “Place of Balanced Power, between the Ultimate Light and the Ultimate Darkness.”

The importance of balancing and equilibration is everywhere to be found in the methods and theories of magic. In the Golden Dawn, the magician equilibrates the elemental aspects of their being in the Outer Order Grades over the long term, but works at the short-term equilibration of energy within their Sphere of Sensation each time they perform the Qabalistic Cross.

The Solomonic magician stands in a balanced and elaborate circle of protection from within which he or she calls spirits into the Triangle. The Qabalist studies the balanced glyph of the Tree of Life with its Middle Pillar between the Pillars of Severity and Mercy. In the Great Table of Enochian magic, the Four Watchtowers of the East, West, North and South are balanced by the unifying and governing power of the Black Cross from which the G.D. derived the Tablet of Union. Franz Bardon’s Hermetic initiation path involves the balanced cultivation of the Mental, Physical, and Psychic aspects of one’s being and their four elemental dimensions in equilibrated unison. Similarly, the Tarot is balanced in its Four Suits, the Tetragrammaton in its Four Letters, the Zodiac in its 12 Signs, Triplicities, and Quadruplicities, and so on. The magical worldview is structured around balance within balance.

From another perspectice, in order to remain grounded, the magician must walk the tightope between faith and skepticism or risk toppling into delusion, imbalance, obsession, or self-destruction. Magical ceremonies, in the Western tradition, are frequently built around balanced frameworks, with openings, middle phases, and closings which mirror the openings. The Way of the Adept is the Way of Balanced Powers.

4. The Principle of Images 

Definition: “By Symbols and Images, magical forces can be mobilized and directed in accordance with Will.”

One of the most impactful phrases in the Neophyte Grade Ritual of the Golden Dawn is that “by Names and Images, all Powers are wakened and reawakened.” The entire Golden Dawn system is founded on this single line. The Principle of Images speaks to the first part of this key fornula. In magical practice, images and symbols are used to activate, awaken, direct, and mobilize the forces they represent in order to bring about the results for which we aim.

Interestingly enough, magic by means of images seems to have emerged first as the prinordial form of magical practice par excellence and magic by means of words, to have appeared later on with the development of more abstract aleph-bets and alphabets from pictograms. Egyptian magic is an interesting case that straddles this divide with its potent picture-words, the hieroglyphs.

Images are systematically applied in the Golden Dawn system’s use of ritual Diagrams, in the Hieroglyphics on the Black and White Pillars, in the Implements and Lamens of the Officers, and most spectacularly, in the massive meta-symbol that is the Vault of the Adepti. The Solomonic grimoires also make thorough use of images in the Seals, Sigils, and the complex symbols that are to be inscribed on the Circles and ritual tools of the magician.

Agrippa’s Magic Squares provise ways of generating pictorial sigils from names. Qabalistic pathworking, Tattwa work, and Tarot magic all employ symbols as means of evoking changes in the microcosm of the magician’s conscious and subconscious mind, and gateways to access the forces of the macrocosm.

The connection between images and power is not so foreign to us even today. Indeed, it is well-known to all users of social media, who invest countless hours in manipulating the images by which they represent themselves to shape their social standing in the eyes of others — essentially a form of picture magic.

It is a principle that is well-known to marketers, corporate branders, artists, designers, and countless other fields. It is no coincidence that scientists use imaging methodologies, graphic representations, and mathematical symbols to represent the forces they aim to understand and direct in accordance with their Will.

Of course, this principle as applied in magic works on more planes than just the physical, mental, or emotional; it operates from Eliphas Levi’s “astral light” up into the higher planetary, zodiacal, Enochian aetheyric, and other realms, but it represents an instance of the same general idea in practice.

It is worth noting that according to anthropologist Henri Breuil, some of the earliest images found in the caves of Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France may have been drawn by prehistoric shamans in an attempt to ensure a successful hunt. The sympathic magical theory underlying these early cave rituals may have been that to possess the image of the animal was to possess power over the animal as well as the means of communing with the spirit of an animal to be hunted to reassure it that it would be treated with gratitude, respect, and killed as painlessly as possible.

5. The Principle of Names and Words of Power

Definition: “Names grant power over the things named.”

The link between names and magical power is a fundamental magical idea and a truly ancient one indeed. The Torah suggests that God spoke the world into being by means of the Word and ancient Babylonian mythology describes the creative acts of Marduk through his capacity to “speak magic words.” Words and Names of Power were so central to the magic of the Egyptians that kings and priests often erased the names of certain people and gods from all past monuments to magically and symbolically erasing them from the universe and from history.

As another example, Sufis who practice the Islamic form of prayer-based magic called Ruqya often carefully select God Names from the 99 Names of Allah that are suited to the matter at hand (e.g. in a prayer to have knowledge revealed, Al-Lateef (the Knower of Subtleties) or Al-Haadi (The Provider of Guidance) might be used, Al-Hafiz (the Guarding One) might be used in a protection ritual, and Al-Kareem (the Bountiful One) might be used in a ritual requesting financial blessings).

As previously mentioned, name and word-based magic is as old as written and spoken alphabets themselves. The Golden Dawn system makes thorough use of Divine Names in its rituals from the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagam up through its most complex ceremonies. Qabalistic magic is fundamentally grounded in meanings and numerical values given to the Hebrew letters. Similarly, the magicians of the Solomonic grimoires inscribe Names of God on their implements and Circles and evoke and invoke by means of these names. Spirits in the grimoires are evoked both by means of these Divine Names for authority and through Conjurations using the names of Spirits alongside their sigils and Seals. It is no coincidence one of the Enochian systems of magic largely functions by systematically conjuring angelic beings by means of Names extracted from the Watchtowers.

In short, the essential idea here, as Mr. Boneswit points out, is that “certain words are able to alter the internal and external realities of those uttering them, and their power may rest in the very sounds as much as in their meaning.” The former especially holds true when one is working with the so-called “barbarous words” whose names are unknown to the magician, but are nonetheless able to exert effects through the sheer force of their utterance. Indeed, in bhakti yoga and Sufi dhikr, Mantras and Names of God are said to contain the presence of Divinity within their very sound and letters. It is a principle worth thinking deeply about since it lies at the core of all we do.

6. The Principles of Correspondence and Sympathy

Definition: Drawing directly from Mr. Bonewits here, “if any two or more patterns have elements in common, the patterns interact “through” those common elements, and control of one pattern facilitates control over the other(s), depending among other factors upon the number, type and duration of common elements involved.”

Ceremonial magic is largely based on an elaborate system of correspondences. In Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1531), for instance, numerous stones, plants, perfumes, and other objects are attributed to various archetypal Planets and Zodiacal signs. Mr. Aleister Crowley’s Liber 777 (1909) and Dr. Stephen Skinner’s Complete Magician’s Tables (2006) present more elaborate systems of correspondences that associate countless elements, spirits, stones, herbs, godforms, angelic choirs, and so on with Qabalistic Sephirot, Planets, Zodiacal Signs, and many other archetypal forces. It is echoed in the careful selection of metals and herbs in the Solomonic grimoires, in the sympathetic magical work of the African Traditional Religions, and in the notion of the Vodoun Doll used in the Haiti Vodoun tradition.

In constructing a magical ceremony, once carefully selects items based on their correspondences. A working for a Venus talisman, for instance, may feature a rose, a green altar cloth, images of attractive nude men or women, the Empress Tarot card, and so on and be performed during the Planetary Hour of Venus on the Day of Venus (Friday). By concentrating sympathetic elements that are associated or share a symbolic affinity, and charging them with directed force in accordance with a Willed outcome, the magician attempts to create a kind of “harmonic resonance” that is in line with the object of their working.

This principle is based on the observation, noted by the Buddha in his doctrine of interdependent co-arising, by multiple Indigenous Wisdom traditions, and by the Qabalah among other systems, that all things are interdependent, interconnected, and inextricably interwoven with one another. When things have an infinity or association with one another, they tend to interact and influence one another. Nothing exists separately; everything exists in a great web of inter-being. In the Kybalion of the Three Initiates, this principle is echoed in the Principle of Correspondence, which it explains in these terms:

“This Principle embodies the truth that there is always a Correspondence between the laws and phenomena of the various planes of Being and Life. The old Hermetic axiom ran in these words: “As above, so below; as below, so above.” And the grasping of this Principle gives one the means of solving many a dark paradox, and hidden secret of Nature. There are planes beyond our knowing, but when we apply the Principle of Correspondence to them we are able to understand much that would otherwise be unknowable to us. This Principle is of universal application and manifestation, on the various planes of the material, mental, and spiritual universe–it is an Universal Law. The ancient Hermetists considered this Principle as one of the most important mental instruments by which man was able to pry aside the obstacles which hid from view the Unknown. Its use even tore aside the Veil of Isis to the extent that a glimpse of the face of the goddess might be caught. Just as a knowledge of the Principles of Geometry enables man to measure distant suns and their movements, while seated in his observatory, so a knowledge of the Principle of Correspondence enables Man to reason intelligently from the Known to the Unknown. Studying the monad, he understands the archangel.”

In the magical worldview, everything is interconnected; the seemingly many are really One. This One emerged from infinite nothingness and now appears as All. Is the universe, as perceived by the magician, ultimately nondualistic, dualistic, or grounded in nothing? All of the above, and neither. Or, differently stated, each of these models is partially true and can offer a useful framework within which to work magically.

7. The Principles of Contagion and Metonymy 

Definition: “Changes to the part can affect the whole; the part can represent the whole.”

A metonym is a way of naming a whole by one of its parts, or naming one object or person by means of something closely associated with it. For instance, a King may be referred to as “the Crown.” The principle of metonymy is one of the most ancient magical principles of all. Many Indigenous and Traditional religions contain applications of it. It is related to the principle of contagion, or the notion that two objects that were once in contact will continue to remain in contact regardless of their spatial distance from one another, like two quantum entangled particles on different sides of the universe that display state changes that are completely in harmony.

Ancient and Indigenous magical traditions may apply this idea to work magic on an individual by using a lock of their hair, a fingernail, a drop of blood, a piece of clothing, or an object that once belonged to them. The Vodoun doll creates an effigy of a person, often incorporating one of their hairs, which the magician manipulates to magically impact the targeted person. In the ceremonial magic tradition, this principle is one of the principles that underpin the charging of talismans and is closely related to the principle of correspondence and sympathy.

8. The Principles of Antipathy and Reversal

Definition: “Qualities, symbols, and energies can be used against their opposites.”

This principle is, in essence, the correlative opposite of the principle of sympathy. It suggests that anything contrary to the nature of a thing can be used to exorcise it, banish it, dispel it, or drive it out. This principle is central to the structure of banishing rituals such as the Golden Dawn’s Pentagram and Hexagram rituals. It’s also central to the functioning of Solomonic Conjurations, magic Circles, Exorcisms, and Banishings, particularly in work with the Goetia. In this tradition, for instance, Holy Water is used to constrain and control Goetic spirits. Similarly, protective amulets that are designed to ward off the influences of contrary forces represent applications of the principle of antipathy, such as the ‘evil eye’ amulets used in Greek magic or the protective amulets constructed for both the living and the dead in Ancient Egyptian magic.

Related to this is the principle of reversal, which can be stated as “what can be magically done can be magically undone.” There are limits to this notion, of course, due to the principle pointed out in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, namely, that Nature tends toward disorder. With that said, the principle can still be useful in magical operations. A Solomonic Exorcism is, in essence, a reversal of the notion of possession or a spirit inhabiting another living being or nonliving object, as in an Exorcism of Water or Fire. In the Golden Dawn’s Neophyte Grade Ritual, similarly, the Circumambulation of the Light, which is used to create a vortex of Light within the Temple, is followed by the Reverse-Circumambulation of the Light to reverse and undo the creation of this vortex.

9. The Principle of Probability-Shifting

Definition: “Because of the link between cause and effect, magical operations can make events more or less likely to occur.”

As every scientist notes and as the Buddha stated long ago, certain conditions are such that when they are present, they are more likely to bring about other related conditions. Certain effects tend to follow the occurrence of particular causes of contributory causal factors. Philosophy further analyzes the notion of causes into ‘sufficient conditions,’ which are enough to bring about particular outcomes on their own, and ‘necessary conditions’ which individually contribute to a particular outcome, but are not sufficient to bring them about by themselves.

In other words, the more contributory causal factors are present with the power to bring about that situation, the more probable it becomes. This is the basis of the principle of probability shifting as applied in magic. A magical operation is designed to shift the probability that something will or will not happen, to either increase it or decrease it, to promote its occurrence, or dissuade it. The greater the energy and Will invested into the working, the chain of sympathetic and corresponding forces involved in the ceremony, and the use of appropriate Names and Images, to name but a few forces, the more the probability can be shifted, this principle holds.

“Earth Balance – Yin and Yang Art” by Sharon Cummings

10. The Principle of Polarity

Definition: “Everything that exists has an opposite, a complementary pole, a quality with the power to balance it.”

This principle is related to the principle of balance or equilibration, and indeed, is the reason that the principle of equilibration is possible. As mathematics points out, all true equations are balanced. As Newton’s Third Law suggests, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Taoist magic is quick to remind us that Yin flows into Yang, and that one cannot work with one force without the other. In the Qabalistic Tree of Life, Sephirot attributed to opposite polarities balance one another, like Mercury balancing Venus, or the Greater Benefic of Jupiter and the greater Malefic of Saturn.

The practical application of this principle suggests that a ritual to gain money for the magician must involve someone else losing that money. To know light, darkness must also be known. Death presupposes life. A ceremony to attain a job deprives someone else of that same job. Growing into a new state implies growing out of an old one. When one person gains power, someone else loses it. Therefore, we must be careful about what we do magic to achieve; actions can have unintended consequences, often far more than we anticipate.

The Kybalion of the Three Initiates speaks of this principle in this way:

 “Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its
pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are
identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet;
all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be
reconciled.”

In the magical worldview, everything is dual AND it is nondual. It is One in its twoness and two in its Oneness. The seemingly Other is the Self in disguise; the Self contains the Other.

11. The Principle of Karmic Consequence

Definition: “As you reap, you shall sow.”

This principle is related to the principles of cause and effect and probability shifting. As we reap, we tend to sow. Wiccans combine this notion with a notion of exponential effects multiplying through interconnected networks of phenomena to develop their notion of the ‘threefold law,’ namely, that we receive in return three times what we sow in the long term. This may or not be true all of the time; some people invest tremendous amounts of money only to lose it, for instance, and sometimes a kindhearted action like helping another person can lead one to be killed, or an intentionally cruel action like attempting to harm someone by destroying their property can unintentionally benefit them by releasing them from having to worry about it. Very often, the selfish, petty and cruel prosper and the kind, compassionate, and wise are punished. The world is complex indeed as magicians and scientists alike both wholeheartedly agree.

What is certainly true is that it tends to be the case, as a general rule, that we tend to reap as we sow in one form or another. People who repeatedly do magic to harm others tend to be harmed by their own work in some way, even as basically and psychologically as feeding the aspects of themselves that are hostile, destructive, biased towards the negative, and so on. In this respect, like tends to attract like, as the principle of correspondence and sympathy points out. Harmful intent tends to attract harm in kind; generous and kind intent tends to attract like responses. It’s no surprise that coworkers quickly determine who is cooperative and aim to cooperate more with them and withdraw their cooperation from those who don’t cooperate with them. In Sanskrit, the word ‘karma’ literally means ‘action,’ for consequences are related to the notion of action, which brings them about as causes to their effects. And if we reap what we so,w then it seems prudent to sow carefully.

12. The Principle of Personification

Definition: “Anything can be treated as a person.”

This principle is an ancient one. It has its roots in shamanistic animism, the roots of many of the Indigenous Traditions that birthed the first magical practitioners, in which everything is seen to have some form of spirit or life to it. It is an idea that survived into the Medieval Solomonic Grimoires, such as the Key of Solomon, where we find magicians speaking to fire, for instance, as “oh thou Creature of Fire.” The Golden Dawn’s Inner Order Magic applied the same Solomonic formula to their Talismanic magical methods, in which the Magician may speak to a talisman as if it were a person, saying “Oh thou Creature of Talismans.”

Ancient Greek magicians personified the abstract principles of the Element of Wind as “the Four Winds” or Anemoi--Boreas, Zephyrus, Notus, and Eurus–and worked with them in their different aspects in this way. Donald Micheal Kraig, in his Modern Magick, applies this principle to exorcise unwanted personality traits, habits, thoughts, or emotions from the magician with what he calls the I.O.B. Technique (Identify, Objectify, Banish) by personifying them and banishing them. St. Francis of Assisi used this principle to commune with Nature and spoke of “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon;” the Haudenoshaunee Indigenous Nation similarly refers to the moon as ‘Grandmother Moon.” In short, the principle of personification makes magical use of the human tendency to detect agency and mobilizes it to open up lines of communication for the purposes of initiation, empowerment, and the achievement of magical goals.

“Spell Pierce Invocation” by Joseph Meehan

13. The Principle of Invocation

Definition: “Bring an entity or force into your consciousness to communicate with or experience it from within.”

Invocation is one of the most important and ancient principles and practices in the magician’s repertoire. It involves bringing an entity or force into your sphere of sensation to commune with it or communicate with it from within. The Solomonic grimoires are replete with invocations of God and the Archangels and the Grade Rituals and LRP of the Golden Dawn are no different in this respect. In the Rites of Eleusis in Ancient Greek, the goddess of agriculture, Demeter, and her daughter, Persephone, were invoked by the psychopomps during the celebration of the Lesser and Greater Mysteries.

Prayer is the most common form of invocation, but far more elaborate invocations are possible. A devotee surrendering themselves to the Deity of their devotion to the point of identifying with them through repeated invocation is a well-known practice within the tradition of Bhakti Yoga as discussed in the Bhagavad Gita. Invocations of the Holy Spirit are common in Rosicrucian magical traditions.

One of the most sophisticated forms of invocation was practiced by the Ancient Egyptian priests. This technique, later referred to by the Golden Dawn as godform assumption, involves formulating and cloaking oneself in the astral form of an entity and performing actions and experiencing thoughts, feelings, and visions from their perspective. As practiced by the Ancient Egyptians, this method was employed invoke and garb oneself in the form of the Egyptian neteru, the name they gave to the god/goddess forces with which they worked, which carries various meanings, such as “supreme,” “great,” “deity,” “renewal,” and “divine.” In the Golden Dawn system, Officers assume and hold various godforms astrally for the duration of the ceremony as they manipulate the flows of energies in the Temple and make changes to the Initiate’s Sphere of Sensation as lucidly explained in Pat Zalewksi’s Golden Dawn Rituals and Commentaries (2010).

Jake Stratton-Kent describes an alternative to godform assumption he calls the astral assumption of theriomorphs or ‘animal forms.’ As he explains this practice:

Warping myself or my ‘astral body’ into the appropriate animal or beast-headed deity to – say – consecrate a talisman, connects with deeply primal magical currents.

14. The Principle of Evocation

Definition: “Summon an entity or force to external appearance.”

While invocation involves taking an entity or archetypal force into one’s Sphere of Sensation, evocation involves the corollary experience of causing the spirit to appear as experienced outside of the magician.  This is the primary method that is applied, for instance, in the Goetia of the Lemegeton, to cause spirits to appear to visual appearance in the Triangle of Art outside of the Magician’s Circle.

The grimoiric tradition abounds with methods of invocation. In the Solomonic tradition, spirits may be helped to appear to visible manifestation by manipulating the movements of candlefire, shifting the appearance of incense smoke, or appearing in a black mirror.

The Golden Dawn magicians developed their own methods of evocation based on the Z-formulae embedded in the Grade Rituals. In the Enochian system of John Dee, angelic forces may be evoked into a crystal ball and produce visions there-through. In short, invocation is bringing a being in, while invocation is bringing a being into being experienced as external to your human form.

15. The Principle of Scrying

Definition: “Gazing into a medium can enable one to see visions or receive messages one could otherwise not access.”

The principle of scrying embodies one of the key magical techniques that are used in practical magic. According to some anthropologists, the practice of scrying dates as far back as 3000 B.C.E. in China where cracked eggs were used as a form of scrying and divination. Scrying may be performed to obtain personal guidance, revelations, inspiration, as a tool for divination, or to communicate with a force or entity, as in the principle of evocation.

The most commonly-used media for scrying are reflective, refractive, clear, or luminescent surfaces such as a bowl of water, a crystal ball, a black or ordinary mirror, a stone like the topaz used by Aleister Crowley to scry the Enochian Aethyrs in the Vision and the Voice (1911).

The Ancient Egyptians reportedly scryed into a vessel filled with oil. Nostradamus scryed into a bowl of clear water to receive his prophecies. The Oracle of Delphi allegedly scryed into a special spring to obtain answers to the questions posed by Kings and peasants alike. The Aztec Yucatan shamans are said to have scryed into reflective crystals and gemstones. In all of these cases the principle is the same: by means of a carefully-selected medium, the magician can augment his or her powers of astral perception to receive messages or visions.

16. The Principle of Murphy

Definition: “If it can go wrong, it probably will.”

Last, but not least, in this brief attempt to survey the principles that underlie magical practice, I must not neglect to point out the principle of Murphy, otherwise more commonly known as Murphy’s Law. Despite all of our best efforts and most-carefully designed rituals, things can and often do go wrong. Lon Milo DuQuette reports in My Life With the Spirits (1999), for example, that he accidentally had cinnamon-infused Abramalin oil run into his eyes during an evocation and had to leave the Circle and run screaming into the bathroom!

I once neglected to properly take astrological influences into account when consecrating a Saturn talisman and ended up making one that gave an Adept friend of mine splitting headaches every time he looked at it. On another occasion, I failed to print out one of the key pages of my two-hour consecration ceremony and had to ad lib it on the fly. Other friends have run out of incense during evocations, leaving the spirit with nothing to manifest with and had the spirit tell them “you need more incense than this…”, or knocked over candle sand set the Temple on fire. Long story short: if it can go wrong, it probably will, and in the most annoying way possible, so be careful!

Conclusion

In this essay, I have attempted to provide a selection of fundamental magical principles that magicians have used throughout the history of magic to gain a sense of what they were doing in ritual, and which are still current to the understandings of contemporary practitioners myself. The way of magic is a way of experimentation, discovery, investigation, and experience. Like the sciences, in magic, theory and practice continue to emerge and be evolved as both persevering solitary individuals and the collective community of practitioners push its frontiers ever forward.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
~ Arthur C. Clarke, in Profiles of the Future (Revised edition, 1973)

In LVX,
Frater S.C.F.V.

***

Did I leave anything out or present any unintentional inaccuracies? Have you found any other principles to be worth including? Please feel free to share your feedback in the comments. I am an eternal beginner on this Way and benefit a great deal from what I learn from all of you who are wiser than I, thank you!

An Untraditional Golden Dawn Banishing Dagger

Hello dear friends,

I hope you are all doing well! After 7 years since I joyfully served as Ceremonial Magic Moderator here at our beloved Occult Corpus, I’ve finally found my way back home to OC. It feels good to be back and see these insightful posts from all of you again!

During my time away, I was studying the Eastern traditions and was initiated into Zen through Myokyo Zenji, into Advaita Vedanta through Swami Omkarananda and into Kashmir Shaivism through shaktipat diksha from Swami Swarupananda Mahamandaleshwar Maharaj. I was also continuing my studies in therapy and social work and working with survivors of the Holocaust and older adults in palliative care; social work is, for me, my focus of Rosicrucian healing work and service. Finally, after doing some extensive Jungian ‘active imagination’ work, I’ve returned to the Western Mystery tradition to study and practice Qabalah, magic, astral alchemy, tarot, skrying, and pathworking once again.

Now, onto the topic of this thread: Have any of you created any unconventional or untraditional implements of your own in your ceremonial work?

If so and you would be willing to share them, I would love to see what you’ve created and hear about the rationale behind it.

To begin the conversation, here is a dagger I recently created for use in banishing and invoking Pentagram and Hexagram work in the G.D. tradition. As you may know, in the G.D., a dagger with a simple black handle is generally used for this purpose, unadorned with symbolism. This is what I used in the past. Recently, however, I felt inspired to push this teaching a little further. Chic Cicero is the only G.D. adept I know of who sometimes adds symbols to his banishing/invoking daggers; he uses the Eye of Horus because Horus is the Godform of the Hiereus in the Outer Order and the Banishing dagger is symbolically linked to the Hiereus Sword.

I accept that idea and integrated it as well, but I wished to go further by bringing in pentagrammatic elemental alchemical symbolism (for Pentagram work) and planetary hexagrammic symbolism (for Hexagram work) as well as some Enochian and Grimoiric aspects.

As you can see in the pictures, the front side of the dagger handle features the pentagram with the sigils of the alchemical elements, the hexagram with the sigils of the planets, the Eye of Horus, the word LVX, and my own version of John Dee’s Enochian PELE Solomonic ring, with the PELE letters translated into Enochian instead of being written in English.

The back side of the dagger includes the first letters of my magical Motto written in Enochian script. The use of Enochian is untraditional, but the writing of one’s motto on the dagger handle is fairly traditional. What is very untraditional here, but works well for me, is the use of two sigils, one from the Black-Handled Knife of the Key of Solomon and one from the White-Handled Knife, symbolizing banishing and invoking powers respectively to balance these dual aspects of ritual work that I intend to use the dagger for.

The result is an elementally, planetarily, and Solomonically balanced ritual implement for general planetary and elemental banishing and invoking work.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this untraditional approach and see examples of your own untraditional implements if any.

In LVX,
Frater S. C. F. V.

Slicing the Airy Intellect and Directing the Fiery Will: On the Symbolic Associations Between Fire and Wands and Air and Daggers

By Philosophadam or Frater S.C.F.V.

Recently, an Occult Corpus member named dgcleveland posted a wonderful question about the traditional associations between the Elements of Fire and Air with Wands and Daggers respectively. Here is the context of his question, in his words:

“I am always a little shaken when I read a book that starts talking about Elemental Weapons because the attributions given them is always so counter intuitive to me that I have trouble getting past that point. If any of them bothered to give a reason for the associations I’d be fine, but they simply give them as if no other alternative should be considered and no explanation should be necessary.
So I’ll pose them here and see if anyone has any thoughts or can point me in the right direction.

Water is obvious. Whether Tarot suit or elemental tool, a Cup/Chalice is the only logical option being the vessel to hold liquid in. Earth is fair enough. Penticles, Disks, and Coins are all sysmbols of earth, being made of stone, metal, or the like.

Fire and Air are where I get turned around. Golden Dawn/OTO seem to attribute these as Fire=Wand and Air=Blade/Dagger/Sword and I am having trouble finding any documentation on the reason here. Let me explain my reasoning for thinking that the associations should be switched, and I welcome discourse and critique on the matter.

Associating Blades with Fire makes so much sense I can hardly understand any other attribution. Fire is destructive as a blade cuts and destroys but it is also a tool for building as a blade is. Fire represents power and fury and danger, just as a blade represents power and fury and danger. Fire causes death, just as a blade causes death. Fire protected early man’s camps and homes just as blades protected early man. Even its very construction demands the joining of blades with fire, being forged in the fires during their creation.

As for Air and Wands, I admit that is sort of a “well they’re what’s left” scenario. But I back it up with a few logical connections. Wands, batons, scepters, and staves have always represented authority and intelligence, being held by kings, conjurers, shamans, and priests, just as Air is the element attached to intelligence, logic, and authority. Likewise, wands are made of wooden branches, something that is destroyed by fire, yet withstands the rigors of wind all the time.I admit, I am at a loss for either historical attributions for these weapons or modern interpretation, so any help, links, or information presented for or against my thoughts here would be appreciated.”

Here was my response to his inquiry:

Dear Dgcleveland,

I applaud how you are critically analyzing the received traditions. All too often, occultists simply take the received traditions as points of faith because they are said to be grounded in ‘ancient sources’ and the words of ‘past masters.’ I, however, am a member of the camp of occultists who believe that occultism progresses only through dialogue, reevaluation, and critical examination. So, I am always happy to see people questioning the ‘authorities.’

Now, to respond to your question, I can only provide a form of a Golden Dawn interpretation, since this is the main occult tradition within which I have worked. As others have pointed out, for the Golden Dawn, in the microscopic sphere, Air is the element of Intellect while Fire is the element of Directing Will. Earth is the realm of the physical Body and water is the realm of Emotions and the Unconscious.

The Intellect, and hence, the element of Air, is seen as an instrument for making distinctions. Distinctions are conceptual slicings; they cut two concepts apart to distinguish them. They slice up the nondual reality into dual categories. Because the Intellect is so intimately associated with making ‘slices’ of this kind, the Dagger is the element tied to Air. The Dagger slices through the Air when swung just as the Intellect slices through the Mind when used. The expressions a ‘sharp wit,’ a ‘keen intellect’ and an ‘honed reason’ are idiomatic reflections of the intuitive insight embodied in the dagger-Air association.

The fire-want correspondence is less intuitive. To fully understand it, we need to understand both the microcosmic interpretation of the Fire element and the traditional shape of the wand that the Golden Dawn had in mind. Within the Golden Dawn tradition, Fire is associated with the directing power of Will, and it is this aspect of direction that connects it to the wand, which is essentially a ‘pointing’ and ‘directing’ tool. Moreover, the Four Elemental weapons are connected to the Four Suits of the Tarot and the Fire element connects to the Suit of Wands. This Suit was also historically called ‘Staves,’ however, and the staff is both a traditional implement of the magus and what one carries when one is moving in a particular direction or traveling. In the first case, it was an instrument of direction used to direct magical currents and spirits to do the Will of the magician, another connection to the Fire element. In the second case, the association with moving in a direction connects with the directing power of Will embodied by the microcosmic fire.

There are still more profound nuances in the symbolism, however. The traditional Staff had a bulb at the end and the Golden Dawn fire wand has such a bulb as well. This is an intentional reference to the shape of the phallus. The phallus here is seen as tool for directing the active power of creation which drives reproduction and the coming into being of new life. In this way, the phallus is seen as a symbolic expression of the Will to create. The sexual power associated with the phallus is also often linked to fire in traditional tropes and symbolism; we speak of ‘fiery lust,’ ‘being fired up,’ driven by ‘flaming passion’ and other such expressions. In the Golden Dawn, it is the creative association with the directing power of Will that has importance here and the phallic shape of the Fire Wand channels these symbolic associations to deepen the symbolism. I hope this proves helpful.

12 Key Skills and Traits for the Beginning Magician

A poster named Neptune on Occult Corpus asked the very good question of what skills and qualities the beginner in magic–and magicians in general–should strive to develop. Here is a list of 12 such abilities and characteristics that I have found incredibly important in my own practice:

1. Meditation – the specifically the ability to concentrate, silencing all unrelated thoughts, on a single thing for an extended period of time (starting with a few minutes and working up to a few hours–the required time for long ceremonial magical operations, if you intend to pursue that path). One can sit comfortably on a chair with hands on one’s thighs and the spine straight, or on a cushion in a meditative pose (asana). One can either meditate on a single object or image for an extended period of time, or simply observe the breath coming in and going out and allow the mind to settle down. This latter approach, called Zazen in the Zen Buddhist tradition, is my preferred meditation technique.

2. Visualization – the ability to call up images in your mind and hold them there, beginning with simple things (e.g. a yellow X) and leading up to full-color figures (e.g. a godform).

3. Creativity – the ability to come up with original and creative solutions, ideas for rituals, etc. One way to develop creativity is to take a given object and try to come up with as many possible uses for that object as you can. For instance, a paperclip. At first, you may only be able to come up with 10, but gradually this will increase to 50 and higher. Then you’ll learn to think outside the box — why not make the paperclip 50 feet tall? Why not give it neon lights? etc.

4. Willpower – the ability to direct your will towards something and intensify it. Cultivate this by doing exercises that heighten your will, e.g. willing not to use a certain word for a whole week, willing to give up something you frequently do or enjoy for a week, willing yourself to take up a practice for a week, etc.

5. Critical reason – the occult is replete with great wisdom, but also with a great deal of utter nonsense and crap. Learn to discriminate. Study some basic logic and logical fallacies. Learn to be skeptical and to think carefully.

6. Energy manipulation – by whatever means you wish: psionics, visualization and willpower (e.g. in the Qabalistic Cross), Qi Gong or Tai Chi, Wiccan-style ‘raising energy,’ etc. Any way to raise energy within your sphere of sensation and direct it as you will.

7. Ritual practice – the ability to carry out a ritual with a formal beginning, middle, and end. Learn a Wiccan ritual or a Golden Dawn ritual or a Thelemic ritual and practice it until you master it. Learn to enter an altered state of consciousness while in the ritual state.

8. Breath control – or pranayama – the ability to deepen the breath and thereby calm the whole body and mind. Start with the fourfold breath, 4 second breathe in, 4 second hold, 4 second breathe out, 4 second leave lungs empty. Gradually work up to 4 movements of 8 seconds instead of 4. Then you can try bringing it up to 10 or so seconds so you are breathing 1 or 2 times per minute. This is a very deep state of consciousness. I use this kind of breathing especially for the Middle Pillar Exercise.

9. Self-hypnotism – I only recently began to study this area of occult practice after a suggestion from Poke Runyon. However, I believe it can be helpful for any form of magic, to hypnotize oneself and then enter ritual thereafter, coming out of the hypnotic state with the competion of the ritual. In the hypnotic state, the conscious mind and unconscious are working together. This is a fertile and potent state of mind.

10. Basic artistic skills – in magic, especially in chaos and ceremonial magic, we often make and use tools. It can be helpful to learn how to draw sigils, how to paint wands, etc. Learn how to use acrylic paint, acrylic varnish (overlay it over the dried acrylic to give it a shiny sheen and brighten the colors), as well as paint pens and markers. You can also cut complicated shapes out of foamboard with an exact knife, cover them with electrical tape so they don’t flake apart, and paint over them. This was how I constructed the Keryx’s Wand within the Golden Dawn system.

11. Mindfulness – this is the ability to be very aware of your body, the flow of your thoughts, the movements of your feelings, and the content of your senses. Learn to witness the movements of your mind without getting involved with them – learn to see when your mind is clinging to something (attachment), pushing something away (aversion), to pretending it knows something it doesn’t (ignorance). Your mindfulness will weaken the pull of these things over time and needless suffering will subside. You will get more peaceful as well. Mindfulness is essential for magic both because it cultivates a calm, fulfilling life and because it allows you to be aware when the results of your magic manifest in your own body-mind and in the world around you. Without mindfulness, your ritual may yield its effect while you do not even notice that it has done so!

12. Compassion and awareness of interdependence – compassion is the ability to care for others and feel for them on a level of equality, realizing that their concerns matter as much as your own and that they suffer just like you do. Developing compassion will make you a deeper human being and positively enhance all of your relationships and interactions with others. Try to meet people on a level of care and respect. Awareness of interdependence is the ability to recognize the connections between yourself, others, and the world around you. See how the apple you eat depends on the whole water cycle, on oxygen and carbon dioxide in the whole atmosphere, and on the sun thousands of miles away. See how you depend on the apple for food and hence on all of these things as well. Trace the lines that connect all things. Cultivating compassion and awareness of interdependence will save you from the trap of egotism into which far too many magicians fall.

Developing these skills and qualities will be of great benefit to the Neophyte and Adept alike, regardless of one’s magical path.

Take care,
Adam

On the Ciceros’ Neophyte Grade Ritual

January 12, 2011

A Frater recently shared some concerns about the length of the Neophyte ritual and its ‘unwieldiness’ within a small physical space for a solitary practitioner.  He asked if he might shorten the ritual or condense it.  My position on the issue was perhaps not what he wanted to hear, namely, that he should make all of the requisite implements and perform the ritual in its entirety.  However, I have strong reasons for holding the viewpoint that I do.  Here was my response:

First of all, I’d like to say that I can sympathize with your concerns.  Space was an issue in my personal temple as well.  However, I have performed the Neophyte ritual as written by the Ciceros in its entirety several times, both for myself and as a group ritual for other Neophytes, and can attest to its power.  Its performance does not really require much space at all.  If you can fit a small altar in the center of your room and have some small stations for the elemental candles in the quarters, etc. you can perform it without difficulty.  If you have enough space to perform the LBRP, you have enough space to perform the Neophyte ritual.

I would also like to emphasize the value and importance of making the required ceremonial implements for the ritual.  These include the officer lamens, Hierophant’s wand, Hegemon’s wand, Keryx’s wand, pillars (at least spray-painted all white and all black if you do not wish to paint on all of the hieroglyphics), a sword or knife for the Hiereus, a cross and triangle for the altar, and a lantern for the Keryx.  These visual symbols make all of the difference and really enhance the power of the ritual on the psychological level, as well as, arguably, on the astral level.  These items do not take up all of that space.  My room is quite tiny and I can fit all of them, including the pillars and wands, within less than a square foot of space.

Now onto the ritual and the issue of trimming it down.  The ritual follows the original G.’.D.’. Neophyte initiation quite closely, only differing in the addition of personal astral work (via the godform visualizations) and in collapsing all of the information that was previously revealed in a fast-paced interrogation of one officer by another into shorter speeches.  Once you get more deeply into the Z documents and the commentaries on the Neophyte ritual by  G.’.D.’. adepts such as Regardie, Zalewski, and others, you’ll see that every little detail in the ritual has significance on multiple levels from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic; Qabalistically and astrally, every movement and every word has a specific function within the larger scheme of the ritual.

If you opt to chop up the ritual, you not only deviate from the initiatory formulae of the Golden Dawn, but lose a great deal in the overall impact of the ceremony and in the subtler effects thereof.  Moreover, one might argue that one who has not properly undergone the Neophyte Initiation in its original or adapted Ciceronian form cannot justifiably claim the Grade of Neophyte within the G.’.D.’. system precisely because they have not gone through the requisite Initiatory experience as defined by the G.’.D.’. system.  I have performed the ceremony with another Initiate in a truly tiny space and we had no difficulty performing the ritual in its entirety.  I would highly recommend that you do so.

The Neophyte Grade Ritual is a majestic, beautiful, and if performed correctly, very powerful ritual.  It is deeply moving and along with the Adeptus Minor Initiation considered to be one of the most powerful and important rituals in the whole Golden Dawn system.  All of the formulae of the entire G.’.D.’. system are prefigured within the Neophyte ceremony and it is the ceremony that connects one to the currents of archetypal force embodied by the Godforms of which the officer forms of the outer Order are representatives.

As for holding off initiation, I say, as soon as you feel your visualization abilities are sufficiently adequate to allow you to manage the complex godform visualizations, as soon as you have some experience with bringing down the Light and directing energy, and as soon as you have constructed all of the necessary implements (we have a thread in the CM forum about ceremonial implements that features pictures of all of the required tools as I interpreted them–feel free to ask me if you would like any tips for making any of them), then feel free to perform the ceremony.  It is not the size of the space that matters, but the readiness of the magician to receive Initiation.  I’ll say it again: if you have enough space to do the LBRP, you have enough space to perform the Neophyte ritual.

In closing, it is a beautiful ritual of purification, consecration, being brought into the Light, and the wisdom of balance.  Beautiful poetic verses are contained within it as well as profound philosophical and mystic truths.  It is also also a true test, for it requires extraordinary, sustained focus and energy over a period of nearly 3 hours to perform properly.  It is a test as every initiation should be, an opening onto a new way of living, a true investiture of the 0=0 grade, and a beautiful ritual of dramatized transformation. Far from not being ‘worthwhile on any level,’ as some have dubbed it, for the student of the Golden Dawn system of magic, I’ve found it to be is worthwhile on every level.

A Brief Defense of the Golden Dawn System of Magic

On the Occult Corpus website, a poster by the name of alwayson posted a thread entitled ‘How to Become Better than a Golden Dawn Magician,’ in which he claimed that one could easily do just what he claimed in his title by practicing a modernized form of the Lesser Key of Solomon.

My first question was how many authentic “Golden Dawn magicians” he had met. Did you really mean people who knew the LRP and the Middle Pillar ritual and claimed to be Adepts? Or people who have done Kraig’s five exercises for each element and claim the Grades of Zelator to Philosophus? While I own and appreciate Kraig’s Modern Magick, I found his claim that the magician who had done these short exercises, constructed the Elemental Weapons, and done the other ritual and Tarot work leading up to that point could claim the grade of Adeptus Minor without even knowing the basic astrological and zodiacal knowledge given in the First Knowledge Lecture of the Neophyte suspect.

There are few authentic Golden Dawn magicians today who actually work through the grades as they were intended to be worked and take the time to deeply engage with and reflect on the knowledge and rituals given in each grade. Thus, it is difficult to make broad statements about ‘Golden Dawn Magicians’ and their efficacy and inefficacy. Certainly, someone who works the Key of Solomon as it was intended to be worked, using the correct invocations and physical implements would probably be a more attuned, experienced, and knowledgeable magician that one who simply knows the LBRP and the Middle Pillar Ritual. However, this says nothing of those who have worked through the whole Golden Dawn curriculum.

To position myself in this debate, by the way, I still have a great deal to learn and have only just scratched the surface of this incredible system. I am also not a G.’.D.’. fundamentalist; I plan to devote deep study to the Grimoires and the Enochian systems after I have complete my grade work in the Golden Dawn.  In fact, McGregor Mathers himself regularly practiced the Grimoiric systems– there is a precedent for departing outside the flexible boundaries of the G.’.D.’. within the tradition itself.

In addition, Chic and Tabatha Cicero may have their detractors, but take a look at their Knowledge Lectures for the grades from Neophyte to Portal. They are incrediblyextensive. After only completing the Neophyte grade of 0=-0–and I mean here, thoroughly completing it, not rushing through it in a month–the Neophyte will be well-versed in the Hebrew letters and their numerical values, meanings, and symbolic appearances, in the Ancient Planets and their sigils, rulerships, exaltations, detriments, falls, symbolic values, governed qualities, and keywords, in the Zodiacal signs and their sigils, images, triplicities, quadruplicities, key phrases, key words, prominent positive and negative traits and calendrical intervals, in the Four Elements and their sigils, English, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin names, temperature/moisture qualities, energetic properties, and symbolic valences, in the types of Qabalah, in the Tree of Life and the Sephiroth in terms of their numbers, symbols, intelligences, astrological spheres, philosophical meanings, as well as practical meditations, the LRP, the Rite of Elemental Equilibration, Adoration of the Lord of the Universe, Daily Adorations, Berakah, Body Awareness Exercise, and Extra Sensory Awareness Exercise. And this is only in the first, Probationer grade!

The Golden Dawn is an incredible syncretic system that couples 19th century magical theoretical ideas with ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance occult theories from throughout the history of occultism. It was not the only valid magical system; there are many, and the Grimoiric systems are incredibly powerful in their own right. However, it is an incredibly influential and enduring system from which many people, like myself, derive a great deal of meaning, spiritual sustenance and value. There are more or less accomplished magicians in every tradition, whether Grimoiric or Golden Dawn, and we must be open to and ready to acknowledge this. Being mindful of this diversity should make us wary of blanket statements about how to be ‘better than a Golden Dawn magician’ just as it should make us wary about general statements of ‘Grimoiric magicians.’

As a final point, in the course of the thread, a debate developed about whether or not physical tools were important in ceremonial magic operations.  My own position on this issue is clear; I am a firm advocate of the importance and value of ceremonial tools to enhance ritual practice (those who know me know that I practice what I preach in this regard and spend hours constructing my ceremonial implements). I believe many modern magicians are incredibly lazy; ‘can I use a stick for the Hierophant’s wand?’ we sometimes hear. Our instant-gratification culture tends to forget how the ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance magicians spent hours constructing their physical tools and stressed their importance and value in ritual work. As Frater Yechidah pointed out, rituals can work without the properly-fashioned tools, but they are much enhanced with them; just as we might ask ‘why use a hand when a hammer will do?,’ we might ask why use a stick when a proper Hierophant’s wand will embody the symbolism of the Middle Pillar and the lightning rod which brings down the Light from Kether to Malkuth? The most effective ceremonial practice encompasses both the physical and the astral levels, the Above and the Below. The magician works simultaneously on both levels and embodies the truth of the ancient Hermetic principle of “As Above, so Below, and as Below, so Above.”