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Hey guys, I am hoping to formulate an anointing oil dealing with manifestation upon the physical plain, as represented by the Sephiroth, Malkuth, on the Qabalah. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here-- perhaps more knowledgible on all things Crowley than myself-- could aid me in locating Uncle Al's herbal-, E.O.-, and perfume-attributations to this respective sphere in the Qabalah [Malkuth]. Some that I have found so far are:
* GALANGAL: According to the Wikipedia entry for Abramelin Oil, "This oil is compounded of four substances. The basis of all is the oil of the olive. The olive is, traditionally, the gift of Minerva, the Wisdom of God, the Logos. In this are dissolved three other oils; oil of myrrh, oil of cinnamon, oil of galangal. The Myrrh is attributed to Binah, the Great Mother, who is both the understanding of the Magician and that sorrow and compassion which results from the contemplation of the Universe. The Cinnamon represents Tiphereth, the Sun -- the Son, in whom Glory and Suffering are identical. The Galangal represents both Kether and Malkuth, the First and the Last, the One and the Many, since in this Oil they are One. [...] These oils taken together represent therefore the whole Tree of Life. The ten Sephiroth are blended into the perfect gold." However, upon checking my copy of Crowley's "Magick, Book Four, Liber ABA, I could not locate this citation.
* POMEGRANATE: from his 777. Recently I have found a supplier for Pomegranate Absolute (or was it an oleo resin?)!
* DITTANY OF CRETE: Malkuth's attributed "perfume" in 777.
* LILY: 777's attributed "plant" to Malkuth; probably because Lilith is associated with this Sphere, according to Crowley. Hmmm...I wonder if I could find a Lily Tincture somewhere, as I do not have access to enough fresh flowers to presently yield my own.
* STORAX: Now, I don't know if Crowley specificaly attributes Malkuth with STORAX, but, he attributes it to "Earth of Earth" in his 777; after all, Malkuth is associated with the Earth.
Take Care
This article links to all of the components of the Office of the Readings for the Thelemic High Holy Days, March 20th through April 10th. It will serve as a general reference for anyone who would like to perform this series of rituals in upcoming years. "The Rite of the Office of the Readings" is performed for all of the readings following "The Invocation of Horus" on March 20th. It may also be used with "The Prologue of the Unborn" on March 19th at your own discretion. We've done it both ways over the years.
RITUALS
"The Invocation of Horus"
"The Rite of the Office of the Readings"
READINGS
March 19th - "The Prologue of the Unborn"
March 20th - Saturn/Earth, The Universe
March 21st - Fire/Spirit, The Aeon
March 22nd - Sol, The Sun
March 23rd - Pisces, The Moon
March 24th - Aries, The Emperor
March 25th - Mars, The Tower
March 26th - Capricornus, The Devil
March 27th - Sagittarius, Art
March 28th - Scorpio, Death
March 29th - Water, The Hanged Man
March 30th - Libra, Adjustment
March 31st - Jupiter, Fortune
April 1st - Virgo, The Hermit
April 2nd - Leo, Lust
April 3rd - Cancer, The Chariot
April 4th - Gemini, The Lovers
April 5th - Taurus, The Hierophant
April 6th - Aquarius, The Star
April 7th - Venus, The Empress
April 8th - Luna, The Priestess
April 9th - Mercury, The Magus
April 10th - Air, The Fool
If you would like to perform this series and have questions, feel free to e-mail me here.
All Office of the Readings posts may also be viewed here.
Suggested ebooks:
Tuesday Lobsang Rampa - The Cave Of The Ancients
Dion Fortune - The Machinery Of The Mind
Alice Hoffman - The Book Of The Sagas
Sadly, there today still exist leaders of "Golden Dawn" orders who view the Golden Dawn as a dead object of historical curiosity. These clowns throw traditional Golden Dawn sanctity of initiatic secrecy to the wind.
Like maggots fighting over pieces of a rotting Golden Dawn corpse, the Golden Dawn Clowns rush to publish under their own name any documents remaining unprofaned from the early Golden Dawn. I have written extensively on such self-destructive insanity here and here.
Which maggot will get the biggest piece?
Alpha Omega Adepts do not behave like this. Unlike "The Exquisite Corpse Golden Dawn Orders," the Alpha et Omega (founded by S.L. MacGregor Mathers in 1906) knows the Golden Dawn never died, since the Third Order remained active behind the scenes, even during the few years that no outer order temples remained visible.
Mathers' A.O. is a traditionalist Golden Dawn order. For example, we still value initiatic secrecy and classical Gollden Dawn initiation with candidates physically present in real Golden Dawn temples. We have no need for cheap notoriety, since the Alpha Omega is completely different than today's merely "Golden Dawn" orders.
Why?
Because the A.O. today is the only Golden Dawn order remaining under the direct protection and supervision of the The Secret Chiefs of the Golden Dawn's Third Order.
And this means a LOT!
For example, the merely "Golden Dawn" orders don't even have any traditional Golden Dawn teachings, beyond Theoricus Adeptus Minor. They all dead-end with the beginners' material published by Crowley and Regardie, and republished "ad nauseum" by the Golden Dawn Clowns.
The A.O. is different. The Secret Chiefs have given vast additional secret magical materials for our Second Order curriculum, like the keys that unlock Agrippa's magical systems only outlined in "De Occulta Philosophia."
Moreover, unlike the merely "Golden Dawn" orders, the Alpha Omega uses entirely unpublished magical hierarchies for elemental and astrological magick. This keeps our magick both therugical and potent, as it is not corrupted by use by any Tom, Dick, or Harry for "who knows what."
Sadly, the Alpha Omega having so much of substance to offer our students makes us unpopular with envious Golden Dawn leaders. This is why these "Golden Dawn Clowns" have been rushing to publish all of our early Alpha Omega documents and initiation rituals.But what the Golden Dawn Clowns do not realize is that they are not hurting the Alpha et Omega at all with such self-destructive behavior. They are merely making fools of THEMSELVES.
Every time that the Golden Dawn Clowns publish another one of our A.O. documents, the Secret Chiefs simply give the Alpha et Omega even more unpublished material!
Take, for example, how the Golden Dawn Clowns several years ago began publishing early versions of our A.O. initiation rituals.
In response, the Secret Chiefs simply released additional material to us to revise all of our A.O.rituals with!
So despite all of the best efforts of the Golden Dawn Clowns to harm our order by publishing our rituals...
"ALL of the initiation rituals of the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega still today remain unpublished and unprofaned."
This week, the Golden Dawn Side Show reached an even greater degree of silliness, when a GD author published what they falsely claim is the 1906 version of the Alpha et Omega's Adeptus Major (6=5) ritual, a version written by S.L. MacGregor Mathers.
Guess what? It turns out what they published is, in reality, only a tiny fragment of our original Alpha Omega 6=5 ritual!...
Section 4 of the ritual to be exact!
The author could have avoided making a complete Harlequin of themselves, by asking why the number "4" is there at the top of the front page of the manuscriupt FRAGMENT they thought was the whole enchilada!
I guess that is what you get when you go rummaging around in other people's dust bins. Contrary to false advertising, the bulk of the 1906 (Mathers) version of our Rosicrtucian Order of Alpha et Omega, Adeptus Msajor (6=5) ritual remains safely protected and out of the greedy hands of the Golden Dawn Clowns.
More importantly, the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha Omega trashed this old version of our 6=5 initiation ritual long ago, knowing that it was only a question of time before one of the Golden Dawn Clowns tried to publish it any way!
"The Alpha et Omega, Adeptus Major (6=5) initiation ritual was thoroughly revised in recent years under the direct guidance and supervision of the Secret Chiefs of the Third Order of the Golden Dawn."
Enough is enough already. Why not, let's all get on with the real work of the Golden Dawn, namely SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT, and end the Side Show of cheap profanation once and for all?
Don't worry, gentle reader, the Golden Dawn Side Show will surely end soon enough - if for no other reason than because the clowns are running out of pies.
Mike from Magick Of Thought was asking me some questions about the different kinds of magical links on one of the older threads. In light of that discussion, this seems like as good a time as any to go over the different kinds of magical links and how they work. Magical links let magicians to cast spells on people, places, or objects without needing to be in direct contact with them.
Magical links follow Sir James Frasier's two primary laws of magick, generally refered to as the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contagion. In "The Golden Bough" Frasier writes:
"If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: that like produces like, or that the effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed."
The first principle, the Law of Similarity, states that when any two objects share a particular property that property can allow one to influence the other. The more properties the two objects have in common, the stronger the link. The stongest similarity link is going to be a current image of the target, such as a recent photograph. The second principle, the Law of Contagion, states that once any two objects have come into contact one can be used to influence the other. The closer the contact, the stronger the link. The strongest contagion link is going to be created by something that not only came into contact with the target but which was once part of it, such as hair, blood, fingernail clippings, and so forth.
A third law of magick has been proposed by some practitioners, generally refered to as the Law of Opposites. This law states that when two objects are of opposite natures one can be used to influence the other. As far as I can tell from my own work, though, this law is essentially useless in the context of practical magick. I hypothesize that The reason for this is that the meaning of "opposite" is subjective. Is red the opposite of green? Male the opposite of female? Dog the opposite of cat? Salt the opposite of pepper? When you start trying to break things down like this it gets silly pretty fast. And if you're sloppy about your definitions you wind up with a tautology - similar things influence each other but so do dissimilar things. That is, everything influences everything else. From the standpoint of ritual design this is not helpful.
The Law of Opposites does have a particular application in mystical spirituality. For the development of spiritual realization it is important to understand that when you define X you automatically define Not-X as well. For Good to exist as a distinct thing Evil must exist as well, in that Evil can also be defined as Not-Good. Furthermore, the process of enlightenment involves, among other things, the evolution of a perspective that can accomodate both as complementary rather than exclusive. When talking about properties of the physical world rather than components of consciousness, though, this utility is profoundly limited. It is telling that the last group clinging to the Law of Opposites as applying to the physical world, practitioners of homeopathic medicine, have largely abandoned it in favor of the more similarity-based "water memory" model over the course of the last two decades.
What magical links conduct is probability shifts. When you cast a spell on an object linked to a target, any influence cast on the object will also surround the target. The strength of the transmitted shift will be directly proportional to the strength of the link. This may be modeled as a simple percentage, in which we for example would define a link that transmits 80% of a shift a link of.8, a link that transmits 50% of a shift a.5, and so forth. This is essentially how the L (Link) variable is used in both my operant equation and Peter Carroll's original equation on which mine is based. Direct contact is always a 100% link, or 1.0, whether you are casting a spell on yourself or on someone or something that is physically present in the temple. What this means is that most of the time casting over a link is going to be at least somewhat less effective than casting directly.
A trick that Hoodoo practitioners commonly use to get around this problem is to enchant powders, oils, or other substances and place them strategically so that they will come into direct contact with the target. This results in the creation of a 1.0 link due to direct contact even though the spell itself was performed earlier in a different location. The ceremonial schools raely teach or work with this method but it is easy enough to adapt using a resource like "Liber 777", which lists various herbs, incenses, and materials associated with particular powers. Any material appropriate to a particular power can be used to contain a shift related to that power, which provides the ceremonialist with many different options. As long as the target comes into contact with the enchanted material the spell's probability shift will be transferred optimally.
Mike's first question was in regard to the use of names as magical links. Essentially a name can be used in two ways, as a weak similarity link and as an identifier. You can cast a spell giving only the target's name as a link, but this is not a particularly effective method. You generally want to augment it with a better similarity link like a photo and/or a better contagion link like hair clippings. As an identifier, though, names are much more useful. For example, let's say that you enchant a powder to dump across your target's doorway and they live in an apartment building. You don't necessarily want everyone walking in and out of the building to be affected by the spell, just the individual you have targeted. So in your enchantment your statement of intent would include the target's name. That way the shift will only transfer to the named individual, not to anyone who touches the powder. This also renders the powder safe for you, the magician, to touch without risking exposure to the spell's probability shift.
Mike's next questions were related to whether or not links could be used to target "energy work" based magick, such as Qigong healing. In my experience the answer is yes, but there are some limitations involved. Chinese researchers have proposed that Qigong's healing effects may at least in part be produced by infrasonic waves emitted from the hands of Qigong masters, and such waves cannot be transmitted by a magical link. However, energy work also seems to include a probability-shift based component and that can be transmitted just like any other magical effect. I will say that I have been able to produce distance-healing effects that incorporate Qigong, but direct contact has always worked better. I suspect this is due to the absence of infrasonic waves when performing a distance-healing, not necessarily just because the shift degrades when passing over the link. If that's the case there's going to be an upper limit to this sort of effect and direct contact is always going to produce the best results.
The best way to build a strong link is to exploit the two basic rules to the greatest possible degree. In other words, you should have a current image that if at all possible is augmented by something that has come into contact with or come from the target. In theory, one of the best possible links you could have to a target is a Polaroid instant photo, seeing as the photons from the target will have made direct contact with the picture, representing both a similarity and a contagion link integrated together. This may mean that magicians could be a new market for Polaroid cameras, which are unfortunately being replaced by digital cameras that only create similarity links.
The image accompanying this article shows how these principles are applied in radionics - that is, magick performed by an electronic device. The TARGET LINK is what I'm talking about in this article. The TREND is the term that radionics practitioners use for the probability shift. The TREND LINK doesn't really have a correllate in ceremonial magick, but in radionics it represents the connection to the probability shift that you are creating, which is envisioned as being related to a particular energy frequency. The LIFE FORCE FIELD is what I refer to as the general field of consciousness, which may be represented as consisting of information, energy, or both depending upon one's model of what consciousness is made up of.
UPDATE: It seems I spoke too soon about there being no real equivalent to the radionics "trend link" in ritual magick. As I replied to Frater Barrabbas in the comments, a device like a planetary tablet or some other symbolic representation of a particular magical power or vision would seem to fit the bill. So for a Jupiter ritual, my usual go-to example, the magical qualities of Jupiter would correspond to the Trend and a device bearing the symbols, characters, and names of power associated with that planet would correspond to the Trend Link.
Suggested ebooks:
Jarl Fossum - Seth In The Magical Texts
Peter De Abano - Heptameron Or Magical Elements
Aubrey Bell - The Magic Of Spain
