Determination and Self-Determination

Determination means the will to get the job at hand done.

Self-determination means something different; more akin to independence of choice, but coupled with the "get the job done" factor as well.

To succeed at magick, one must have both determination and be self-determined - determination is required because magick is hard, and self-determination is required because it is essentially a lonely path. Only you can choose to start it, and to persist.

So You Want to Be a Magickian...

The imaginary Don Juan told the self-imagined Carlos Castaneda that anyone who actually wanted to be a "man of knowledge" was like a cracked gourd, which would split open if actually filled with water. Real men of knowledge didn't volunteer for the job, they were shanghaied.

Israel Regardie recommended psychoanalysis as a necessary precursor or adjunct to magickal work. He had seen too many "cracked gourds" in his day.

So if you want to be a magickian, I have two recommendations for you:

1. Consider your motives very carefully. As Carlos Castaneda would say, conduct a ruthless self-inventory, and don't sentimentalize or gloss over your real motives.

2. Take the time to lay a good foundation; read before you practice.

Here are a few preparatory steps I recommend:

• Get a copy of the Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune. It is the finest work on Western Qabalah ever written. If it bores you, tough, reading through this stuff is good medicine for repairing any major or hairline cracks in your "gourd." Simply reading it will help to balance your magickal psyche and prepare you for the "real work." Hint: read the chapter on any Middle Pillar sephiroth by itself; but when you read chapters on sephiroth on the outlying columns, read them in pairs so they balance you out. With respect to the paths, read back to the Middle Pillar sephiroth after reading about any path.
• Get a decent, generalist book on astrology and read it - not so much for how to cast a chart, but the description of the astrological influences and traits. Once again, this has a subtle balancing effect.
• Start taking regular walks. These can strengthen and calm you.
• Do a gym workout, or possibly take a yoga class. These strenghten and calm you.

If you take these steps, and aren't doing drugs, you should be ok.

If you still want to practice magick after 3-6 months of this preparatory work, then proceed. More discussion in the next entry.

Why Grades Are Important in the Golden Dawn

Grades in the Golden Dawn are based on the Qabalistic Tree of Life. They constitute both preparation and permission to work "higher" levels of the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is a way to look at the universe - where universe includes "everything" exterior and interior, and not just what astronomers see and catalog. The universe inside as well as the universe outside.

The Tree of Life doesn't exist as an object in itself, and I personally doubt every aspect of the universe can be crammed somewhere onto the Tree without also popping up somewhere else in slightly different form, or overlapping. Life just doesn't seem to work in such "neat" categories. On the other hand, the Tree of Life is a darn good approach to self-development and a lot - a very large lot - of the everyday universe (exterior and interior) can be associated in a pleasing, harmonious, and/or rational way onto the Tree of Life. Hey, everyday we have to choose what we focus on and what we ignore, and the Tree of Life is a set of rules and principles on how to focus on things in the astral plane.

Other good road maps/models are astrology and the trigrams and hexagrams of the I Ching. Unfortunately there aren't, to my knowledge, any good initiatory systems based on those two models. Certainly there aren't any systems as readily accessible to the Western student as the Tree of Life. Actually, most the planets are attributed to the Tree of Life so a good way of working with them is to study the Tree of Life.

Part of Golden Dawn practice was known as "path working" and involved self-directed meditations up the Tree of Life. As the practioner moved along different portions of the Tree of Life, he/she had to give the Grade Signs to progress beyond the guardians posted at each portal. Sometimes the meditations were so vivid as to constitute "waking dreams" and this is what "astral projection" is really all about.

Personally I believe you can jump right in at any path, any sephiroth (the paths are the tubes between the circles, the circles are the sephiroth) and have a meditation or astral experience. However, it is also clear that the quality of the meditation experience will improve vastly if you start at the bottom and "walk" your walk up the Tree; consider the paths and sephiroth you have to transit as a necessary "warm up" exercise. Similarly, I believe the Grade Signs and initiations are not essential to path working, but add immensely to the quality of the result. The more you immerse yourself in the system, the better the results, much better than jumping in cold.

In short, the Grades and their initiations are similar to school; it helps to go through the process a step at a time. As the teachings and experiences of each Grade sink in, the next Grade becomes more accessible. The initiations bring everything to a focus.

Practicing in Accordance with the Golden Dawn Materials

There are basically three approaches to Golden Dawn work:

1. Do it completely on your own, or in conjunction with like-minded individuals who are also beginners;

2. Find an active Golden Dawn temple and join; or

3. Do some preliminary work and then join a temple.

I used to subscribe strongly to #2, but have come to believe that the published materials and comments are so rich that some very solid work can be done alone, on your own, in actually advancing through the outer grades and not just in picking and choosing preparatory rituals designed for individual practice to study and work on.

Keep in mind that Golden Dawn work is essentially divided into three areas: graded initiations, which are required before receiving certain knowledge lectures; preparatory exercises, such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, Rose Cross Ritual, Analysis of the Key Word (INRI) etc.; and knowledge lectures and other study.

I have no doubt that a pure-hearted, properly motivated individual can practice the preparatory exercises to great benefit, and study the knowledge lectures and larger body of published works they suggest. The question is whether one can "receive the grades," or some semblance of them, by reading the initiatory rituals carefully, imaginatively engaging in them, or actually carrying them out without full temple paraphenalia and full temple officers.

My conclusion is that the best initiation is from a group that has already done solid work itself, but that to a large extent you can also "haul yourself up" by your own bootstraps - which is essentially what the founders of the Golden Dawn and their most infamous student, Aleister Crowley, did. Doing it yourself is harder, but free from the political infighting and social issues attendant to groups. Also, you have more "ownership" of the results yourself.

You should be cautioned that some active temples take a dim view of self-initiation, and will refuse to initiate you into any ritual you have even read beforehand, much less "self-initiated" yourself in via active imagination. On the other hand, one group invites self-initation in the outer orders (up to Adeptus Minor), and has taken the position that the publication of outer Golden Dawn materials has to be recognized at this stage of the game as an accomplished fact and de facto invitation to participate "at large."

In the course of this blog I will hopefully explore self-initation and the available source materials more.

On Western Initiatory Orders and Their Grades

Before I can talk about western initiatory orders like the Golden Dawn, I need to talk a little about the evolution of religion in the west.

Basically, before Catholicism there were many religions, many temples, many groups. There were the public religions/temples that celebrated holy days (now known as "holidays" in the vernacular) and performed ceremonies and healings for the public; and there were the so-called "mystery" groups which were more secretive and focused on personal and group spiritual growth and the acquisition of spiritual/magickal powers. There were also itinerant practitioners ranging from charlatan to village wise-woman to shaman to magickian.

In short, the marketplace was wide open and abundant.

As Catholicism grew in power and stamped out rival religions, imposing an almost Orwellian mind-control on the middle ages, the only remaining diversity came from four sources: fraternal orders which were the province of the nobility (for example, Knights of the Garter); special orders within Catholicism itself (for example, the Dominicans and the Jesuits); and the Jewish communities scattered throughout Europe. Everyone else had to shut up or be persecuted.

It is rumored that some noble families and some fraternal organizations, societies, or clubs maintained certain "pagan" practices on the sly, hidden from the almost all-powerful Church. Outer fraternal and noble orders developed rituals and initiations for their members which were quas-religious in tone. So long as these groups were Christian on their face and didn't snub the Church, they could practice what they wanted. The Church wanted to dominate the nobility, but could never quite do so. Of course, the nobility had to publicly support the Church, which it did, except for the hilarious example of Henry VIII who schismed the Church so he could get one more divorce.

Within the Church, some priests and monks were rumored to practice magick, and the grimoires of fairly old pedigree suggest that something was going on. Although many portions of such grimoires are ludicrous, modern magickians have been able to adapt/decode them so as to produce startling results. No one would suspect that a monk or priest was practicing a grimoire, as opposed to keeping it around to recognize a witch or warlock when one appeared. The most famous acknowledged member of a Catholic order to practice magick was Eliphas Levi of the 19th century, who was taking orders before leaving to avoid a scandal for his occult writings.

Finally, since they were "off the map" from the standpoint of the Church, Jews were able to preserve the Qabalah and its associated mystical and magickal practices, and these two provided an invaluable contribution to western initiatory orders.

As the "Age of Enlightenment" began to replace the Dark Ages via the influence of "science," a humanistic movement emerged in the West. This was quite a revolution, to place man/woman at the center of the field of inquiry, rather than God. Once man/woman was at the center of inquiry, his/her personal spiritual development, as opposed to "being saved by grace," became a legitimate subject to explore.

The greatest example of a humanistic/spiritual emergence at this time was the famous Fama Fraternitas, supposedly a published call by a secret Rosicrucian society to meet to form a new religious order for a new age. The most likely explanation for the Fama Fraternitas is that no such Rosicrucian organization existed at that time, and that the Fama Fraternitas was produced by an inspired writer who wanted to tweak the Church's nose while motivating liberal humanists to perhaps establish such an order themselves - which over the following centuries, they did.

Another emerging influence were the Masonic orders, which were open to merchants and not just nobility. As a middle class emerged in Europe, the Masonic orders were very appealing, both as business and fraternal orders and as holders of secret "keys" to heaven. Masons included ritually awarded degrees or grades. As the Qabalah was studied by some Masons, it made its way into the degree structure of Masonry, but much of the inner lore of Masonry was hidden from its members.

The final impetus to the establishment of initiatory orders was the extensive contact with India and its systems of gurus and initiations. Finally, the connection was made between spiritual potency/knowledge and a staged system of "initiations" or introductions, empowerments. Just as the system of priestly ranks bestowed power within the Church, so the system of mystic grades in the Golden Dawn was intended to bestow power within the mystic structure laid out by the Qabalistic Tree of Life. In short, Masonic orders bestowed prestige with their degrees; Rosicrucian orders (for Rosicrucian underpinnings became an important part of the Golden Dawn) bestowed actual spiritual power and authority. This spiritual power and authority manifested on the "astral plane" where grade signs could be used to cross portals on the paths of the Tree of Life; and on the authorization to practice planetary invoking/banishing ceremonies, to open by watchtower, and to practice the Dee/Kelly system of Enochian magick.

The Golden Dawn is cetainly the most famous initiatory order to emerge out of this hodge-podge of influences. Although its founders, high ranking Masons, claimed to have discovered a cipher manuscript, originating from a Frau Sprengel in Germany, authorizing the establishment of a Golden Dawn temple in England, most students of the occult view this as a howler along the lines of the Mahatma letters Blavatsky used to justify her control of the Theosophical Society. In fact, Masons almost always demand some pedigree or higher authority, and the "charter" from an imagined German secrety society seemed to fit the bill.

That having been said, the founders of the Golden Dawn were brilliant, and made stunning use of Theosophical Society occult teachings; European occult teachings from Eliphas Levi and others; Qabalistic works (one founder translated Qabalistic writings); grimoires (the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon, for example); Masonic principles of grade, rank, and ritual; and whatever Egyptology materials they could crib from the British Museum. They "stole" on a grand scale and put together an occult initiatory process that is unsurpassed to this day. The Golden Dawn materials published by Crowley and Regardie are truly "do it yourself" manuals for the budding occultist.

Which brings me to the topic of the day: how can you benefit from an initiatory order while keeping your political soul sane?

LBRP part 2

Did you know that the trigrams of the I Ching can be oriented around a circle? That the trigrams at the cardinal points (NEWS - North, East, West, South) have a particular meaning?

That the four Western elements (fire, air, water, earth) correspond to the four cardinal points of the compass? That "elemental" theories are widespread in both the East and the West (they use five elements, we use four - but we have a "secret" fifth element, spirit)?

I was surprised to learn that philosophic elements also play an important role in Dzog Chen, the highest meditation teaching in the original Bon religion of Tibet and also in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, two traditions that are richly endowed and active, unlike the Western occult movement which was pretty much driven underground by the emergence and domination of Christianity. These traditional elements are also known as the "elements of the wise" or "philosophic elements" to distinguish them from chemical elements (the periodic table elements we learned in high school) popularized by science. The difference between studying the chemical elements and studying the philosophic elements is the clever youngster can figure out how to make stinky compounds and rudimentary gunpowder with chemistry, while the clever adult can learn how to increase the supply of vitality (prana, chi) and mental well-being through the philosophic elements.

An easy way to begin actual "elemental" work (other than just meditating on the qualities of each elements or working with Tattva symbols) is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, since it involves visualizing a circle with Archangels, representing the four elements, at the cardinal points of the compass. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram equilibrates the four elements at the periphery of the circle with spirit represented by the practitioner at the center of the circle. As part of this simple (to perform) ritual, light is drawn down into the microsmic practitioner from the macrocosmic Source-of-All-Things, then the elements are invoked at the periphery, and center and periphery play off and enhance each other

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, or LBRP, is ordinarily a 3 minute or so ritual used to cleanse a working space of unwanted, or negative, influences before beginning an actual ceremony such as the invocation of an Archangel or Enochian entity or evocation of spirit. As such it is often taken for granted, but if properly used is a real god-send.

The LBRP is broken down, in the published Golden Dawn materials, into the Qabalistic Cross (given this name to distinguish it from "crossing oneself" in the Roman Catholicism) and the actual Banishing. There is also a Golden Dawn practice known as the Middle Pillar which can be incorporated to great advantage into the LBRP at the end of the ritual.

There are no "best places" or "best times" to perform the LBRP, although a clean, uncluttered room helps, and upon waking and at bedtime seem like natural times to perform it. It should go without saying that privacy helps.

You may benefit from washing up a bit, use your own judgment, it's more a matter of how you feel about yourself than how the spirit world might feel about you. Same discretion applies to your clothing; you need to feel comfortable, focused, and clean.

Prior to the actual LBRP, you need to compose yourself, which you can do in any number of ways. Coming off a moderate exercise or stretching routine, after a relaxing walk, are each good alternatives to jumping straight from television or intense music. Even a few deep breaths and a couple of moments of interior quiet can go a long way. Personally, I have found a "calm down" induced by hatha yoga, tai chi, chi gung and similar exercises which have a physical-prana-meditative blend to be the very preparation, to put me in the right frame of mind and lead to really astounding interior states of peace, power, and clarity from the actual LBRP. However, keep in mind you probably have limited time, and the main focus must be on the LBRP itself and not the prelminary preparation.

Moderate lighting, or even a dark room, make it easier to focus on the visualized portions of the LBRP.

1. Face West, towards the dawn, draw deep deep deep a breath and intone "Ateh" as you touch the space above your head and imagine a ball of white light above your head.

2. Bring your hand down to point at your feet, and as your hand comes down imagine pure white light, soothing and at the same time powerful, coursing down through your body to your feet. When it reaches the feet intone "Malkuth" and imagine a ball of white light under your feet.

3. Touch your right shoulder with your left hand, and as you do so, imagine a shaft of white light from the vertical column expanding to your right shoulder and forming a white ball of light there. Intone "Ve Geburah" and feel the psychic vibration of the words in the ball of white light at your right shoulder. Keep your left hand at your shoulder.

4. Touch your left shoulder with your right hand, similar visualization of light to the shoulder, ball of light, intone "Ve Gedulah." Keep your right hand at the left shoulder.

5. Open your arms wide so that they are perpendicular to your body (form a cross) and imagine the shaft of white light extending out each side to the palms of your hands; imagine a white glow on each hand.

6. Bring your hands to your solar plexus, imagining you are bringing the light/energy from each hand to your solar plexus/heart region. Intone "Le Olahm, Amen" and as you do imagine a ball of white light forming at the solar plexus region inside your body along the column of white light you formed at the beginning of this Qabalistic Cross. As noted in the first LBRP posting, "Amen" can be prounounced "aumgn" which is like "om" but with a nasal expiration at the end.

7. This concludes the Qabalistic Cross or QC which is at the start of the LBRP.

In the next post, Part 3, I will discuss the banishings at each quarter, the LBRP itself. I will probably break up the LBRP into the banishings, then the Archangelic invocations. Time permitting I will then discuss the Middle Pillar.

Please note that in the Qabalistic Cross, you should have a sense of drawing down light from the highest source you can imagine, into the first ball of light above your head. I will attempt to discuss this more later.

The Secret of Alchemy

There are those who say Alchemy is the precursor to chemistry; that Alchemy is the wishful attempt to gain immortality through obscure medicines; or that Alchemy is a foolish quest to make gold out of lead.

The secret of Alchemy is that it is a system of personal development; a religion disguised as a profit making center, to avoid persecution during the Inquisition and its predecessor mind-set.

Not all Alchemists knew this secret, some spent their lives looking for medicines and transmutations of base metals and accidentally developed pharmacy and chemistry along the way.

The Philosopher’s Stone is nothing other than the mind, which can transform base metal – the ordinary human consciousness and body – into “gold” or a more (pun intended) refined state of existence. This point of view is actually problematic for most medieval Christians due to the view that the mind is corrupt and grace must come from outside, from God.

The Philosopher’s Stone is the “medicine of the wise” because it leads to mental balance and alertness, which also extend life.

You can spend a lot of brain damaging time trying to puzzle out the secret language of Alchemy, but here are some tips to get you started in actual practice:

1. Find a comfortable upright posture. The spine should be reasonably straight. Hatha yoga seating positions like the Lotus or Half Lotus (with the legs tilted downwards by putting a cushion under only your butt) are good because it is harder to get drowsy. I find that standing postures also work well.

2. Observe your own mind in action. Identify thoughts; the empty space between thoughts, and the observer. Find a state in between excessive ruminating and torpor. Brighten your awareness. Awareness is the Philosopher’s Stone. We are born with it, but we wear it out and let the battery run down. Recharge yourself, recognize it, cherish it, watch if grow brighter over the years, in a decade look back and see how you have changed. There is no mantra, no breath counting, no visualization. Just observing, then relaxing the observer.

3. Build up some inner heat through sex. You know what I mean – the glow you have if you are making out and stop. Sure, there is some frustration, but there is also some heat. Find ways to build up the heat. Observe whether the heat goes out of you if you climax, or whether there is a warm afterglow. Experiment with intercourse for the sake of just feeling good, rather than hitting an orgasm, then stop and meditate, or space out, or go to sleep. Try a week without sex; a week with sex but no orgasm. The thing is, you have to experiment. There is always a little heat associated with sex, just tune into it, listen to your body, and try to enhance it.

4. In your sitting position, imagine there is heat at the base of your spine, and mentally flow the heat up your spine into your head; expand it into your head, then take it back down to the base of your spine. Do this two or three times a few times a week. Don’t get addicted.

If this works for you, then keep exploring and never look back. You have changed your life: that is Alchemy.

"Portable Darkness" - a Crowley reader

When I looked at this book in first edition printing back in 1989, I thought it was a terribly skimpy selection of Crowley's writings. I was also concerned that the heavy editorial content interwoven with the selections would skew a natural, spontaneous reading of Crowley's work. At that time I felt that reading Crowley in situ instead of in anthologies was a much better approach. Now I have come around to see "Portable Darkness" not so much as a selection of Crowley's work, but as an extended critical essay on Crowley with sufficient original source material (Crowley's own words) thrown in to make an informed judgment on whether you like Crowley, and on whether the editor/commentator is making good points. As such it is completely without precedent and invaluable. The author is an extremely intelligent man.

I should also add that the material on so-called western tantra is very complete in itself and includes some works simply not available elsewhere, unless you are a member of an occult group. For this reason alone, it is an invaluable addition to any occultist's library, particularly occultists with a respect for Crowley.

If you want to round out your Crowley library, I highly recommend "Book 4, Magick in Theory and Practice," in the very usefully annotated edition prepared by the OTO head Hymanaeus Beta; "Magick without Tears," less profound that Book 4, but easier to read; "Gems from the Equinox" which purportedly (but does not quite) includes all the magickal writings from Crowley's original opus "The Equinox;" and "Holy Books of Thelema" which includes all the "revealed" or transmitted, Class A writings.

Some of (maybe most of) Crowley's writings are as impenetrable as Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, which is to say, not impossible but certainly poetically grandiose and mind-numbing for anyone but a hardcore English lit major. Book 4 or Magick in Theory and Practice is an exception, the only true grimoire (grammar or rules of magick) produced in the 20th century (Bardon straddling the line between a grimoire and the ultimate self-improvement book for the aspiring occultist).

Finally, the summer beach book par excellence is Magick in Theory and Practice in the inexpensive, non-annotated Dover edition. While you won't be able read the Greek or Latin, unlike Beta's "Book 4" you will be able to carry it in a backpack without getting a hernia.