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This is about Imagined ritual. Its given with permission from Enoch Tan.
Thelema is the will. Part of it is about doing the entire ritual in the mind instead of physically. It's like the analogy of the group who visualized throwing basketball into the hoop compared to the group which practiced physically. Both did their mental/physical training respectively for 30 days. In the end, there was only slight different between their results. But both groups had significant improvement compared to another group which did no practice at all.
Thelema means to do magick in a way that is purely mental. All of magick is about using the Will and the Imagination. Both are right brain faculties, compared to Reason and Logic of the Left brain.
The essence of magick is thelema. That does not mean one should not do ritual, because ritual can be used for the purpose of assisting thelema. Ritual done by itself has no meaning. All ritual is meant to serve thelema. After all, the definition of magick is the act of causing change in accordance with Will.
For Ritual and Psionics there is a little difference. To personally use "magick" is also to refer to any kind of phenomena you cause or affect using a much deeper part of yourself than some do for psionic work. For psionics, you use your pre-conscious and sub-conscious minds (or parts of the mind) with suggestion or action; for "magick," you use something deeper. Your soul as inner energy to power the calling of the active force and elemental energy, as the active force with a directive will by the soul.
Except to some they are the same energy, just that they are charged differently
and magic uses the soul. Where psionics use the sub-conscious. When you use magic ritual, you cause a negative drawing force and when you use psionics you can cause a push force that causes effects. So in essence, magic uses everything that psionics does and more.
Psionics is more pure mind force in technique. Although a more encompassing psionic theory also goes into a lot of magickal stuff.
Enoch Tan has the website of http://www.MindReality.
The Golden Dawn, that venerable organization whose secret initiations, rituals, practices and articles became the legacy of modern western occultism, is sincerely the most lauded and celebrated tradition in our time. Yet once this cache of secret lore was published and made available to the general public, first by Aleister Crowley, then Israel Regardie, Dion Fortune and numerous others, it became a part of the occult foundation of the western world. That legacy was reworked and extended with much additional lore, although faithfully built on the existing foundation. All of western occultism owes this organization a great debt of gratitude and respect.
Nearly everyone who is practicing western occultism has at one time or another studied this material or read books that were written by those who studied or practiced it. Even though it was the intention of the original founders of this semi secret order that this lore remain confidential, we are all better occultists for its revelation and extensive public evolution in print and in the teachings of active practitioners. This is especially true for anyone who has aspired to practice ritual or ceremonial magick in the Western Mystery Tradition. Such students often begin with the Golden Dawn corpus and then expand beyond that to creative speculation and experimentation. So we should consider that such individuals as S. L. MacGregor Mathers and William Wynn Westcott were far ahead of their time, and that they assisted in creating a tradition of occultism that continues to influence students and engage potential practitioners of magic to this day. That being said, we should first understand the nature of the specific magical lore of the Golden Dawn and its contribution to ritual and ceremonial magic. To do this we must turn to a period of time and its lore that much predated the Golden Dawn.
If one examines the ritual lore of the old grimoires, such as the Key of Solomon and the Lemegaton, one will find therein a magical system of Elemental, Planetary, Theurgic and Goetic ceremonial magic. Much of the basic practices of the ceremonial magician are omitted, since they are assumed to be known by the practitioner. The processes of self purification, atonement, fasting and the pious engagement of one's religious foundation were all well known and basically assumed. Whether one was Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant Christian or Jew, the entire spiritual discipline of a practicing magician incorporated the religion that one was born into. All of the rites of pious self purification and spiritual engagement were part of the normal preoccupations of lay persons and clergy. No one was ignorant of these most important spiritual practices, and so they were not part of the written practices contained in the grimoires, unless there were special and ancillary practices that the practitioner needed to perform.
The religious faith and beliefs of the average person in those times were far more powerful than they are at present, even amongst the most orthodox and conservative religious individuals today. In those times, one assumed that if angels or demons were called, that they would invariably appear, especially if one were foolish enough to call upon the devil and his minions. Simply stepping into a world of extra piety and fervent religious practice is all that was required of an individual to prepare himself for the supernatural apparitions of ceremonial magic. One did not need to learn to see into the spirit world, assume a trance state or receive some kind of special initiation in order to be able to traffic with the spirit world. It was assumed to be out there, just as the material world was out there.
Unfortunately, we can no longer be as materially naive or as blindly faithful as our ancestors were five hundred or more years ago. For us the spirit world isn't just out there, it can only be perceived or apprehended through a rigorous process of meditation, trance induction and the maintenance of powerful altered states of consciousness. Without these aids, we are locked into a mundane world that seems to be filtered of the exceptional and the preternatural, allowing our senses to only see what is average and natural. This doesn't mean that we can't at times sense something that is beyond our senses, it just means that under ordinary circumstances, we don't typically see paranormal phenomena. Since these various practices were very much a part of the Golden Dawn regimen, and that Crowley added classical yogic techniques to this repertoire, we can assume that the members of the Golden Dawn saw the importance of learning how to acquire altered states of consciousness, too.
This because people's basic level of faith and belief had become potently influenced by secularism, science and rationalism. Unlike our forebears, we don't typically see fairies, earth spirits, demons and angels and such. If we see anything at all, it's usually UFOs or perhaps Jesus' face in a cereal bowl. Our rationalism has been reinforced by hand held video phones and digital cameras, which usually don't capture such phenomena or show it to be illusory. Of course those who profess to seeing such things with or without some kind of visual proof are typically dismissed as incredulous fools or individuals who misinterpreted what they saw. The mundane world lacks any intersection with the paranormal world, unless one is rigorously trained to see it and happens to be in an altered state of consciousness when something paranormal occurs. The spirit world for the mass of humanity has become very subtle, almost invisible, inhabiting the same space as our material and mundane world, but incapable of being grasped or realized by anyone unless done with complete deliberation.
When we examine the practices of the traditional Shaman, we note that much time is spent learning to master altered states of consciousness, but that average folk in such societies admit to having paranormal experiences as a matter of their everyday lives. To be a specialist requires special training, and the Shamic training is so rigorous that some don't even survive the transition. With this fact in mind, it would seem that there would be two paths for the magician of the late middle ages - the specialist and the intellectual dilettante. The old grimoires would not have differentiated between these two individuals. We could assume that the dilettante would have experienced the phenomena of spiritual manifestation and magic without a specialized training. However, such training would have produced a master magician compared to the average individual who just sought to bend fate with magic to obtain a quick fortune. We might assume that such a specialized training would have existed, since within the monasteries such rigorous practices were routine, and some of them were also part of popular knowledge.
However, specific practices, such as attaining clairvoyant sight, projecting oneself into the world of spirit, and learning to communicate intimately with spirits would have required an expertise that would not have been available to the public. So the true seeker of magical mastery in those times would have had to learn such a discipline from an expert. Yet the average person could sense supernatural good and evil as a matter of course, since the Church and the Synagogue would have inculcated this sensibility into its congregants. This being the case, then some practices outlined in the old grimoires would have required some kind of specialized training, others would have not required it. An examination of the Book of Abramelin, a supposed 15th century grimoire, is a case in point. All that is required of the adherent is an extreme piety that is subjected to eighteen months of an ordeal of self purification and atonement. Such a long and arduous ordeal would have undoubtably produced the expected results, and would have been something that the typical pious religious man could have been expected to accomplish. That is probably no longer the case, and the later adaptation of this ordeal, as found in Crowley's Liber Samekh is a case in point. To this simple ordeal he added his own variation of the Golden Dawn rite of the Invocation of the Bornless One to give it more potency, and he greatly shortened the duration.
So as we can see, in the present time, the basic practices and the regimen of yogic exercises and trance techniques are the foundation upon which all ritual and ceremonial magic are performed. One learns to meditate, visualize, use various systems of divination and incorporate the Qabbalah into a methodology of assuming altered states of consciousness. To this are added the yogic practices of asana, prana-yama, mantra and mandala. This foundation is practiced and mastered until it is automatic, allowing the practitioner a methodology for immediately assuming an altered state of consciousness through which to experience the numinous world of magic, spirits and the inner planes.
The Golden Dawn also passed on to us techniques for purifying the temple space, inviting or opening it to subtle spiritual influences, exorcizing or invoking spirits, warding the self, aligning the self, and generating a powerful energy field for healing and protection. These techniques were found in the rituals of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram, the Lesser Hexagram ritual, the Qabbalistic Cross, the Middle Pillar and the ritual of the Rose Cross.
In addition, there were was a ritual used to project the four Elements, such as the Superior Pentagram rite, and a ritual used to project the seven planets, such as the Superior Hexagram rite. Added to this was a ritual mechanism for determining the signs of the Zodiac, which often was a combination of Element and Ruling Planet, and one had the whole spectrum of ceremonies used in the practice of magic.
There were also techniques of invoking planetary angels, such as Crowley's invocation of Bartzabel, an angelic spirit of Mars, as published in the Equinox, volume I, number IX (p. 119). Beyond this lore were the old grimoires themselves, and the Golden Dawn members passed around manuscript translations of the Key of Solomon, the Lemegaton-Goetia, Book of Abramelin, and the Grimoire Armadel. Some members made use of the Greater and Lesser Key of Solomon, and a few others attempted the ordeal of the Book of Abramelin, but most of this additional lore was fairly beyond their abilities to use and incorporate.
One might ask why this additional lore didn't just neatly fit into the Golden Dawn ritual lore? The obvious answer is that Mathers and others did not have the tools or the understanding of such books, even though they were fairly well translated and annotated. We may not have the tools today to understand them, even though there has been a great deal of historical analysis recently performed. It is also true that the Golden Dawn system was for the most part very different than the magic lore of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, since it was developed using occult principles and teachings that were modern. Times had irrevocably changed, and perhaps had Mathers or Crowley sufficient time and motivation they may have wed the two systems together, but this was not to be. One could even conceivably argue that the two systems of magic are incompatible, particularly since the magic of the old grimoires requires a deep and profound faith in orthodox religious tenets that can no longer be supported or believed in by anyone alive in the modern western world.
It is my opinion that there is a great gap between the beliefs and perceptions of the average modern individual and someone living five hundred years ago. That gap makes the grimoires of the previous epoch unworkable. We can extract out parts of the ritual lore of the old grimoires, or use the barbarous words of invocation, sigils, characters, talismans, amulets and tools, and plug these into modern practices and rituals, and they will work quite well. However, one can't take the old grimoires and use them as is, since we're no longer the same people with the same beliefs and culture that existed in those times. We require the use of an extreme regimen of practices, producing powerful altered states of consciousness, just to apprehend the paranormal world. We also need to use ritual structures and symbolism that makes sense to us in our present post modern times. These are the limitations in regards to the lore of the old grimoires, but these are also our opportunities to expropriate and incorporate various lore, elegantly crafted together with modern ideas and artistic sensibilities, to fashion a new magic for a New Age.
The Golden Dawn lore is our admitted and even admired foundation, but it is incomplete when compared to what the magicians of the previous epoch were capable of achieving. So we are now dedicated to building and crafting a new magical lore, based on what has been done, both in the previous two centuries, and inserting old designs and lore from the old grimoires to give our new magic an aesthetic appeal and sense of timeless antiquity. However, the magic that we perform today is not the original magic of the Golden Dawn, nor is it anything like the magic of the late Middle Ages. It is a new magic most appropriate and fitting to the early twenty-first century, and a marvelous part of the post modern occult world that we live in.
Frater Barrabbas Tiresius
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Aleister Crowley: The Wickedest Man in the World
I did post the whole darn thing on here because there are several bad versions outon the web which clash, so this is the best lineup I could manage! I posted this here because I found a Wiccan publication which stated that Crowley was 'misunderstood' as though he's a victim of sorts which really seems to ignore the majority of hisactions which even he called evil.
I have watched this documentary twice to try to understand the thought process of the man who has labelled as the Wickedest Man in the World by the press in his time. Nearly all of his actions go against the Wiccan 'do as ye will but harm ye none' where you could say that Crowley's version would be 'do exactly what you like in this lifetime whilst using others for your magick.' Sorry, I'm trying not to be biased here, but it's VERY hard! I could easily have some people arguing with me over that, but really, why do so many people defend him? Sure, it's a free world, but the radicals of the 60s who were inspired by his complete defiance of morality seemed to only mimick Crowley's completely free self expression and hedonism alone as some
sort of a pioneer. As a minister says in this documentary, it seems that those who applaud Crowley do so by envisioning him as a 'benign humanist' - when in actual fact, he had no care for others which you will see in this documentary as he clearly rebels against his parents' beliefs as "a victim of his own idea of Christianity." Crowley has done a great deal to inspire the Ordo Templis Orientis (most of these videos come from their fan page) and Satanism.
You can make up your own mind from this documentary - as I always stand as the moralist, completely unable to understand the motivations of a man who would happily walk all over others to form his spiritual path. The second video repeats itself (I couldn't find the one version) and I apologise for the sound going out of sync - the version I had seems to have disappeared. I'll post another set of videos relating to the house he lived in in Loch Ness which they don't really go into, which is fascinating in itself.
The man surely can be admired for his adamant desire to travel, taste and explore to the limits with great passion. He must have undertaken incredibly amounts of research in order to undertake the variations of rituals from a range of cultures - and without the internet, that means hard work! He really did try various hats and remained somewhat open minded to be able to explore a variety of religious orders before creating the Thelema.
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" is the lesson we take away from this. He abused and destroyed the lives of others and took that into his own hands - dying friendless and penniless in a home for the aged. Certainly do not deny yourself life, but remember to have compassion in perfect love and perfect trust.
Keywords: love magick spells in the middle ages order templi orientis make a love spell occult practices in india black magic curses make voodoo doll making a candle egyptian sun god ra
I recently read an article by Jason Miller who complained about other writers using the term "model" when talking about a type of magick that they work. You can see his article here. I would have to say that I agree completely with what Jason said, but whenever I have used the term "model" I have always made certain that my audience knew that I was talking about a theoretical construct. In short, a model, in regards to magickal practice, is just a heuristic device, which is a fancy way of saying that it is a learning tool. I have often said that no one works with just one of the several models of magick that I have proposed, and that in the real world, magicians work magick using several of them simultaneously. It's useful to talk about magickal models because it allows one to see a distinct quality of magick that may or may not be operating in what a person really does when they work magick.
The bottom line is to not confuse a theoretical discussion of a magickal model with the real thing, which is more complex and dynamic than what a single model would entail. Like all mental structures that are useful for classification, they have their uses and limitations. In the area of magick, one should never confuse a model, diagram or structure for what it is representing. We are dealing with phenomena that is difficult to classify, so if we simplify things to better understand it, then that doesn't mean that the simplified explanation or theory is the thing itself - it is a theory that is useful for understanding something, nothing more.
When I discuss the energy model, or the spirit model, the psychology model, the chaos model or the rhetorical model of magick, I am discussing theoretical approaches to understanding magick. No one uses just one model, and even if they did, there would be more to what they were doing than what is understood by the model. However, using models as a theoretical construct allows us to see the various aspects or techniques of a magickal system, which otherwise, would be opaque and incapable of analysis. The purpose of classifying something is to categorize it in a general manner so it can be compared to other analogous things.
I believe that I set the tone for this discussion early on in one of my articles, where I said:
"Like the analogy for food, there are also several different theories about magic, and all of them take a very specific model and methodology and apply it exclusively. So there is a theory of magic that is based on Spirit, another one based on Energy, and still another one based on Psychology. All of them are correct as far as they go, but all of them are limited to a single model and their associated assumptions. I would also consider them to be gross generalizations, but models are good learning devices, since they challenge and help us to accurately think about the way something really works."
And also, the statement:
"Witchcraft has the unusual advantage that liturgy and magical crafts blend together to form a single praxis. Devotional invocations to the gods can also be magical spells meant to cause changes in the material world. As we will see when examining the other theories, witchcraft is a hybrid, combining many theories into a blended and practical perspective."
So as you can see, I have been careful about talking about the various models of magick. I never state that a true system of magick conforms to just one model, and in fact almost all of them have at least three or more models active in them. Yet I will be certain to state this fact from time to time when I talk about models so no one gets any ideas that they are anything more than a learning device.
Frater Barrabbas
Suggested ebooks:
Solomonic Grimoires - The Emerald Tablets Of Hermes
Anonymous - The Laws For Witches
Nick Farrell just published yet another long flame attack (yawn) on the Alpha et Omega, rife with the customary "ad hominum" attacks on GH Frater S.R. and myself. (The article just above Farrell's: "Limited Number of Golden Dawn Tarot Meditation Sets Available.")
What is most telling about this latest rant is how Mr. Farrell opens by trying to hawk his latest Golden Dawn rehash book by setting our order up as straw men in a transparently desperate sales gimmick.
Here we have the truth of the matter.
Farrell is fanning flame war merely to peddle his books and tarot trinkets!
Well, to this I say:
"AW COME ON, NICK. THE GOLDEN DAWN IS NOT A BAZAAR. WE AT THE ALPHA ET OMEGA COULD CARE LESS WHAT YOU WRITE OR WHAT TRINKETS YOU SELL. WHEN IT COMES TO THE ALPHA ET OMEGA, ALL YOU HAVE ANYWAY ARE LONG SINCE DISCARDED VERSIONS OF A.O. RITUALS AND DOCUMENTS, LONG AGO EITHER UPDATED OR SUPPLEMENTED WITH NEW MAGIC FROM THE SECRET CHIEFS...... SO PUBLISH AWAY TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT. IT IS YOUR KARMA, NOT MINE.HOW ABOUT GIVING THE GOLDEN DAWN COMMUNITY A BREAK, THOUGH, AND FIND SOME OTHER WAY TO PEDDLE YOUR TRINKETS THAN TO SUBJECT AN ENTIRE ESOTERIC COMMUNITY TO YOUR TANTRUMS AND ANTICS. I WILL NOT COMMENT ON YOUR OFT-REPEATED MISREPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE LINEAGES OF THE ALPHA OMEGA, AS WE HAVE REFUTED SUCH NONSENSE FROM YOU OVER AND OVER ALREADY IN MANY PLACES. I WILL ONLY MENTION THAT THE REAWAKENING OF THE AHATHOOR TEMPLE IS A COMPLETELY UNRELATED MATTER, AND THAT THE ALPHA OMEGA'S STATEMENT ABOUT OUR GOLDEN DAWN LINEAGES HAS ALWAYS REMAINED CONSTANT, DESPITE YOUR ABSURD LIES TO THE CONTRARY.I KNOW YOU HOPED THAT YOUR "SECRET A.O." GOLDEN DAWN REHASH BOOKS WOULD BE DEVESTATING TO OUR ORDER. I AM SORRY TO DISAPPOINT YOU, NICK, THE BOOKS AND TRINKETS YOU SELL ARE COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO US. WE REVISED ALL A.O. RITUALS LONG AGO AND YOU HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE WHATSOEVER OF THE CONTENT OF OUR PRESENT RITUALS, SO PLEASE QUIT ACTING LIKE OSCAR THE GROUCH NOSING AROUND IN OTHER PEOPLE'S GARBAGE. IN REALITY, WE HERE AT THE ALPHA ET OMEGA ARE SWIMMING IN AN OCEAN OF NEW MAGIC RECENTLY RELEASED BY THE SECRET CHIEFS OF THE GOLDEN DAWN'S THIRD ORDER, SO WE COULD CARE LESS ABOUT WHATEVER OLD MUSTARD STAINED A.O. CAST OFFS YOU FIND IN THE TRASH. SO PLEASE, NICK - STOP TRYING TO PEDDLE YOUR BOOKS, SEMINAR CDS, AND TAROT MEDITATION SETS BY ACTING LIKE A SCHOOLYARD BULLY THROWING TEMPER TANTRUMS TO GET ATTENTION. I AM NOT SURE ABOUT IN YOUR MOAA, BUT WE HERE AT THE ALPHA ET OMEGA, HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO WITH OUR TIME, LIKE PRACTICING NEW MAGICK. Finally, it is clear you have not learned from the lesson of Robert Zink. You obviously think the Golden Dawn community is your own private playground and you can go on attacking the Alpha Omega all you like without consequences. But there is one factor you have not properly considered...What to you think the Secret Chiefs must think about your constant attacks on the Alpha et Omega at a time when they have just given the Golden Dawn the greatest gift of new magick since the founding of the order?Whether you believe the Secret Chiefs are real or not does not matter one whit. The Secret Chiefs are physical. The Secret Chiefs have been working very hard of late to transmit all of the new magick right now to the Golden dawn community, while you are making a complete fool of yourself. So continue with your silly attacks on the Alpha Omega and the Secret Chiefs all you like. But just remember... Whether you believe in them or not, and even though they are remaining silent on the sidelines... The Secret Chiefs are observing everything...
"The Only Thing Sacred to a Farengi is Profit."
BY DAVID GRIFFIN
