Magic - Practicality, Speculation and Mysticism

 

A while back, Clifford Hartleigh Low published the following axiom on his Facebook page, which started up an interesting dialogue between various practitioners of ritual and ceremonial magic. I have a great deal of respect for Clifford and I have had the occasion of recently meeting and talking with him. He is a solid practitioner of magic, and I have no doubt about that, but he also loves to create controversies, and his statement on Facebook did instill quite a bit of back and forth discussions.

Here is what he said:

“Magic which has no practical aim is not actually mysticism, but performance art.”
Clifford Hartleigh Low - 8/27/2024

We should focus on the word “practical” since it is the key phrase that makes the whole sentence logical and sensible. I think examining the word in an online dictionary might be the place to start in attempting to carefully parse this statement. The reason I am recommending this approach is because there is a semantic trap placed into this sentence that makes it irrefutable.

Here is what the Merriam-Webster online diction has to say about the definition of the word “practical.” You can find it here.

Practical - of, relating to, or manifested in practice or action : not theoretical or ideal. Disposed to action as opposed to speculation or abstraction. Synonyms: useful - virtual - workable.

So the word “practical” is based on action that is useful, purposeful, and workable, as opposed to speculative, abstract or theoretical. We can assume that “practical aim” is anything that has a useful or workable purpose. Since any magic, even the most poorly contrived and badly performed, has some kind of aim or purpose, then it would fit the paradigm. By definition, any kind of magic or ceremony is performed with a purpose, focus, or aim in mind. So, is there such a thing as a magical ritual that has no practical aim? In order to understand this idea, we would need to find the antonym of practical and see how that would fit with the statement.

Antonyms of the word “practical” would be unrealistic, impractical, impracticable, useless, silly, idealistic, visionary, imprudent, and ridiculous. Looking at the antonyms gives us a better place to judge a magical working or ritual. If the aim is unrealistic, useless, silly, or even ridiculous, then it could be rejected as impractical. If someone were to perform magic whose aim was to be silly or even ridiculous then one could argue that it is not magic, but some kind of performance art that is being acted.

Somehow, I can’t imagine someone doing a parody of a magical rite, but then again, I have not seen everything that is being done out there in the world, and my public and online presence is rare these days. However, I have heard that YouTube and other online video shows contain some really idiotic and ridiculous performances that are supposedly being pawned off as legitimate magical workings. Yet I have so little time to go scouring the internet for false magic, and I would hope that a little bit of critical thinking can reveal when someone is selling something that is supposedly magical but actually is a delusion or a deceitful con.

This paradigm could be used as a weapon or tool to judge someone else’s magic as impractical, silly or even ridiculous. However, if the magic someone is performing actually works to any degree at all, then it meets the requirements of the paradigm. I have seen some of the most poorly done rituals and ceremonies, and somehow, they managed to work, although not always as advertised or planned. Magic is a peculiar phenomenon and it doesn’t function in a logical and linear fashion. So, someone can say that another magician’s magical rituals are just performance art and not real magic, but that doesn’t make it true. It is just another way of putting someone down at the expense of elevating oneself, and that kind of dick waving is just pathetic and boring.

The words “idealistic” and “visionary,” although impractical, might be something that we wouldn’t want to reject too quickly. However, the whole idea of the opposite of the word practical brings up the dichotomy of theory vs. practice, and this seems to be one of the conditions for the statement. Still, what we want to further examine are the concepts of ideation, vision, and theory as opposed to practice to fulfill the role of antithesis to the paradigm that Clifford said. I believe that we can dispense with discussing the parody of magic, even though sometimes it is important to laugh at ourselves and shake up our hubris and over-serious preoccupation with magic and the occult. Let us then examine the place that ideals, visions and theories pose in the working of magic, since I believe that this is the creative force that aids and directs what we develop and perform as a magical working.

I have often had dreams, visions or insights of the moment that lead to some really cutting edge breakthroughs in the development of my magical ritual lore. Additionally, I have done research, analyzing various topics in a purely speculative manner that has helped me to develop a new approach to ritual workings. Because I tend to work with themes in the rituals that I write, those characterizations of rituals are developed by doing research and examining hints and speculative insights that I might have at the time.

Categorizing ritual models, methodologies, and generalizing about certain classes of rituals can help me understand my direction, dimly illuminating the magical workings that I have performed in the past and how they impacted later workings, developing a kind of process time line. All of this is, of course, theory and speculation and it plays a critically important part in the building and developing magical systems. Is it part of the magic that I work? I believe that the answer has to be yes, it is a part of the magic that I work. However, this speculation and theorizing sometimes leads to dead-ends, but merely being able to analyze the magic that I develop and perform is important, even if it doesn’t directly lead to a new discovery or something of a practical value.

All of these activities are part of my initiatory process, and I would be narrow minded if I excluded them from my consideration about what is magic, and whether impractical or theoretical approaches are not also magical when in the context of my overall work. I can’t discriminate and judge some things to be inherently magical because they involve my practical work while other activity would be deemed either non-magical or perhaps even performance art? Am I doing this theoretical speculation just to amuse myself? This is where a practical application and a theoretical or speculative approach are both important to the practice of magic, and they cannot be separated. That would make Clifford’s paradigm to be more a kind of tautology than an accurate statement apprizing someone’s approach to magic as valid or invalid.

Mysticism, however, is another whole subject area unto itself, although magic and mysticism can merge in the areas of theurgy and the ultimate goal, which is union with the Godhead. Still, the methods and the approach are completely different. Qabalah in its purest form is a type of mysticism, but when merged with ritual or ceremonial magic, it becomes a very high form of theurgy, and in fact, that was likely the intent of the savants who developed the original Kabbalah in the middle ages. None of these methodologies lack purpose, direction, objectives or precise ritual steps; thus none of them would ever be considered performance art.

There is merit in Clifford’s paradigm, which is to separate the sublime from the ridiculous, and to filter out those who promote types of magic that are not magic at all but forms of entertainment. It is also rewarding to think about magic in different ways and to examine our work in a dialectic conversation. In our online media-saturated world, there are all kinds of posers and con artists, and some of them pretend to be Witches, Pagans, ceremonial or ritual magicians. However, anyone who is seriously seeking to discover the meaning and purpose of their lives in this world through the art and practice of magic, will likely perform rites and ceremonies that have a very sober purpose and an objective.

Frater Barrabbas

I am NOT a Ceremonial Magician

It still keeps happening. People refer to my writings as “ceremonial magic” and to me as a ceremonial magician. In some cases, it is used as a pejorative, as if being a ceremonial magician means that I am not really a Witch, Pagan, or a self-made magical user. Of course, I clearly am all of those, but I am not a ceremonial magician, and what I promote as a system of magic is not ceremonial magic. I have written about this issue before, but because it still occurs, even innocently by people who either don’t know much about magic, or by those who should actually know better, I feel the need to restate it here in this article.

Ironically, ceremonial magicians have unequivocally stated that the magic I promote is not ceremonial magic, and that makes me not one of them. If ceremonial magicians don’t think that I am a ceremonial magician, then I must not be a ceremonial magician. That is quite logical. After all, they should know their own kind. In fact, one Thelemite ceremonial magician years ago said that my magic “stinks of Witchcraft,” which is an impolite way of saying that there are strong and obvious traces of my Witchcraft roots in the magic that I perform and promote in my books. There are also some traces of the magical ritual system of the Golden Dawn, but the base and foundation of the magic that I work is completely founded on the rituals of Gardnerian-Alexandrian Witchcraft. I use a consecrated magic circle to start all of my ritual workings, and I don’t use the LBRP or the LIRP (lesser pentagram banishing and invoking rituals) to begin my workings. That fact, right away, should distinguish me from a ceremonial magician. I also don’t rely on the writings of any grimoires, modern or ancient, so overall, that would make my rituals to not be a part of the corpus of ceremonial magic, and thus, I am not a ceremonial magician.

So what exactly is ceremonial magic? Some have said that it is specifically Golden Dawn magic, but that would only cover elemental and talismanic magical workings. To invoke angels or demons, a magician would have to employ other magical tech, and this is where the old grimoires of the previous age have their value. The author Joseph Liziewski promoted a grimoire only and spirit model only methodology of magic that appeared to give precedence to the grimoires from the Renaissance over any modern system of magic. While his methodologies have been seriously questioned, the movement that he created established a theme and definition for ceremonial magic. It became associated with a combination of Golden Dawn magic along with the older grimoires, and the four books of Occult Philosophy variously written by Agrippa that also became available to the reading public. Throw in the writings of Paracelsus and the Hermetic corpus and you have the defined discipline of ceremonial magic. It is a hybrid of old and new tech, but it relies on the themes and methodologies established in the previous age and reinterpreted to fit into the practices and beliefs of the post-modern world. While Liziewski promoted regaining a kind of orthodox religious approach, such as Catholicism or Calvinistic Protestant Christianity, others have either approached this kind of magical working with either a Thelemic, archaic Christian, or even a kind of religious agnosticism. There was an important reason that Liziewski promoted regaining an orthodox faith, as we shall see.

The big question is where do I fit in within this collection of old and new magical methodologies? And the answer is, I don’t fit in. While it is true that I have purloined and appropriated various lore, barbarous words of evocation, sigils, seals and notae into my magical practice, the entire methodology of how I work magic and my perspective on magical tech is quite different than what ceremonial magicians are using in their work. We are both engaging in a practice that is part of the occulture of the post modern age, and our activities are performed in a modern world ruled by science.

Ceremonial magic is a hybrid of new and old practices, particularly since the religious and spiritual perspectives of the 16th and 17th century are no longer either relevant or even in evidence today. That mind-set has to be recreated within a modern intellectual context, and with the social and cultural influences of academia and science, it is all too obviously contrived and fantasized, becoming part of the “As If” function of the psychological model of magic. This fact doesn’t either diminish nor falsify the practice of ceremonial magic. It is an component that all practitioners use to break out of the imposed rationality of the scientific and secular social perspective in which we live. It’s just that where I have no problem admitting this fact, other practitioners, especially ceremonial magicians, seem to deny that it is a critical factor in their magical work. It would also nullify the belief that ceremonial magicians use only the spirit model in their magic, but that is a topic for another article.

Principally, what distinguishes the magic that I work is that every magical working that I perform begins with a godhead assumption and has, therefore, a component of liturgical obligations and practices that are an integral part of my magic. This methodology was developed in the Golden Dawn, but it became a central liturgical event in modern Witchcraft and Paganism. It was not used as a mask to empower the magician, as it was used in the Golden Dawn, but more as a means to directly contact, engage and embody Pagan Deities for an intimate communion. Since modern Witchcraft and Paganism does not make a distinction between religion and magic, liturgical practices are also considered magical practices, and this makes the kind of magic performed by these adherents more like a form of theurgy than a form of ceremonial magic. The fact that a Witch or Pagan is performing magic in the guise and impersonation of a godhead makes that magic quite different than what a ceremonial magician would perform.

While a religious engagement is not specifically required in the modern practice of ceremonial magic, it still has a part to play in the invocation/evocation of angels and demons. The first stage in summoning a spirit is purification, and that might include a more rigorous alignment of the magician to either an orthodox religious practice or one that is aligned to modern faiths, such as Thelema. The old grimoires are filled with prayers and exhortations to a monotheistic Godhead, so one would think that the magician would have to have some kind of psychological alignment to that Deity in order to make such words of power effective and potent. There is also an element of self-abasement and expiation that goes with the purification process. While a magician could lightly skip through this first step for evocation, it would make the overall magical approach weakened and less significantly meaningful. This is the reason why Lisiewski proposed that ceremonial magicians adopt some kind of orthodox religious engagement so that the context of the prayers, invocations and exhortations in the old grimoires would be more personally meaningful and psychologically potent.

Additionally, a ceremonial magician would rely on the themes, structures, guidelines, and translated verbiage of the grimoire text, treating it as the final authority. They must adhere faithfully to the testaments of the old grimoire and only make substitutions where otherwise absolutely required to complete the working. What that means is that the grimoire is the primary ruling guide for the working, and mistakes, deviations, and unwarranted substitutions could cause the working to fail. Because our minds are shaped by our culture and the prevalence of science and secular government, a ceremonial magician must spend a great deal of time erasing that mind-set and imbuing it with a spiritual perspective that would allow for the practice of invocative magic. That process, then, becomes the focus and principal foundation for learning to master the magic of the old grimoires, which means that a faithful adherence to the rites and practices, and the archaic religious immersion, becomes the ruling methodology for a successful ceremonial magician. A mistake in performing a ritual could require the magician to banish and later have to redo it since some degree of perfection is required. As you can see, the whole discipline of ceremonial magic, especially when using the old grimoires, is a rigorous and strict methodology, which is similar to what Lisiewski was originally promoting in his books. One has to replace the missing cultural and religious key-stone that was a part of the practice of magic in the previous age to effectively use the old grimoires in the current age.

Working magic through a Pagan or Witchcraft religious praxis, even with the rites of spirit conjuring, is completely different than what is done in ceremonial magic. This is why I refer to the kind of magic performed by Pagans and Witches as ritual magic as opposed to ceremonial magic. I would include some Thelemites in this group, and I believe that most of them perform magic using the pagan model established by Crowley. Thelema has similarities to modern Witchcraft and Paganism. In many cases, Thelemic religious practices are more like their Witchcraft and Pagan cousins, and it some ways, they are almost identical. This is because Thelema was the first and earliest magical practice to depart from the monotheistic faiths that have dominated the practice of ceremonial magic in the West. As long as one engages in the core rite of godhead assumption and connects that to a Pagan liturgical practice, then a Thelemite would be considered a ritual magician instead of a ceremonial magician, although I have met many who prefer to be considered ceremonial magicians.

One very important factor in the practice of ritual magic as opposed to ceremonial magic is the use of the godhead assumption rite, and that core liturgy trumps any other external religious or magical process. What that means is that the ritual magician is free to incorporate whatever materials that they find are useful, esthetically pleasing or empowering from a myriad of modern occult or antique sources, and thereby build up their own personal magical practice. The Godhead that they worship, embody and personify, gives them the authority to do whatever is required to make their magic effective and empowering. That means that performing a ritual can allow for a greater degree of flexibility, allowing the ritual magician to make inspired changes to the ritual working as it is being performed. I have experienced this kind of phenomenon myself, and it always leads to a more interesting and empowering outcome. The will of the practitioner is aligned with the will of the chosen godhead, and invariably, as ritual magicians become more accomplished and linked to that godhead, the more the magic that they perform becomes a form of theurgy, or god-based work. I have found that Theurgy is the most effective form of magic, outside of talismanic magic, and it is baked into the practices of ritual magic,

Another significant factor in the magic that I work is that the magic circle that I employ is a boundary between the sacred and the profane worlds, representing a demarcation that divides the world into a sacred precinct enclosed within the circle, and the profane, mundane world external to it. The circle is not a protection from spiritual contagion, since everything that a Witch or Pagan would conjure, summon, invoke or generate occurs within the circle. Unlike the circle used in a ceremonial magical rite, there is no external gateway or magic triangle where the conjured spirit might appear, constrained and controlled. A ceremonial magician uses an empowered magic circle to protect them from the spirits that they invoke. A Witch or Pagan performs all of their magic within their magic circle, and the spirit appears within that domain, so the operator must have assumed a powerful godhead to protect and authorize them to command spirits and to diplomatically treat with them as allies, with agreements and offerings. In a Witchcraft circle, one does not peer into the spirit world with a magic mirror or shew stone since the spirit world is all around those who are within the magic circle. While a scrying device can be used to receive portents, prophecies and visions, within the sacred space of a magic circle, any form of divination becomes a sacred rite of revelation. Thus, a Witch or Pagan performs ritual magic and experiences a full immersion into the domain of the summoned or conjured spirit.

As you can see, the practice of ceremonial magic and ritual magic are fundamentally different, and a ritual magician requires a very different approach to their magic than what a ceremonial magician would require. Gaining a strong alignment with a personal aspect of their chosen Deity is of paramount importance to the practicing ritual magician, and they begin this work as a Witch or a Pagan learning to perform their basic liturgical exercises, gradually becoming more experienced, aligned and then linked to that Deity over time. When they have matured in this liturgical work then they are ready to begin to practice more advanced forms of magic, functioning as a ritual magician within their Witchcraft or Pagan praxis.

This represents the path that I have followed since the early 1970's, and I have grown and matured following it, inventing a complete system and methodology of magic during my journey. I consider myself a self-made ritual magician through and through. While I may distinguish myself and what I do regarding my practice of magic, I also respect all other methods and techniques of magic, both modern and antique. My respect, however, doesn’t stop me from appropriating lore from the magic of the previous age, but then I am merely following the guidance and precepts as inspired by my Deities, so I don’t incur any blame or fault for taking this kind of cavalier approach. I believe that magicians in previous ages followed this practice, acquiring religious and ritual lore from numerous source and using that to build up their lore and repertoire of spells and rites.

Therefore, now that I have spent some time writing this article to explain why I do not practice ceremonial magic and that I am not a ceremonial magician, it is my hope that folks will fully realize that I am quite serious when I make this distinction. What I am is a Witch and a ritual magician, and I am proud to make that claim.

Frater Barrabbas

Will-Based Magic vs Theurgy

 

 

Goddess of Witchcraft

A while back I attended a class presented by Taylor Elwood, who has been a mentor and friend to me for many years. He was there to help me in the first stage of my literary pursuits. Taylor is also an amazingly brilliant and creative man, and has many books and other media available for those who might be interested in a very fresh and modern approach to magic. We do have in common a disdain for traditionalists and grimoire purists, and we approach magic in a creative and experimental manner. Anyway, in his class, Taylor said that will-based magic has many limitations, and by itself, can often fail more often than succeed. He discussed his own history to emphasize his point that human-centric magic is not the optimal approach to working magic. I heartily agree with this perspective, and I consider it one of the rules of magic.

However, after pondering his words, I was unable to find a time in my life except when I was a teenager just starting out in magic where this kind of rule reduced my expected outcome for any and all magic that I worked. The only successful workings that I managed to perform were with the aid and alignment to my personal Goddess, whom I saw as the Goddess of Witchcraft. I also suspect that beginners fail more often than succeed simply because they are learning about what works for them, and what doesn’t work. It is a continual sorting process that shapes all magical development, from the beginning and throughout one’s magical career.

Still, once I was initiated into Witchcraft proper back in 1976, it profoundly changed both the scope and the rate of success of my magic. It was no longer a matter of hit or miss for me, but it became apparent to me that knowing where to apply my magic and exactly when, and ensuring that I had multiple plans and did the mundane work, was I was able to achieve whatever I set out to do. The only thing that evaded me was finding a mate, but for that situation I had a profound blockage and an inability to clearly see what was internally blocking me. The spirits that I had engaged with over time continually told me what the problem was and how to resolve it, but I was unable to really comprehend and take action to make myself successful in that pursuit as well. Thus, most of my magical workings were successful except in the matter of love, and I have not had any situation where I experienced a complete failure or breakdown regarding my magic and its outcome. (Ultimately, even that issue was resolved over time.)

Listening to Taylor’s short biography and how he had to make a major paradigm shift in his magical thinking, thereby realigning his magical work to ensure a more successful outcome was fascinating, and the contrast between our two paths couldn’t be more stark. However, what Taylor talked about is something that other magicians have related during all too brief moments of personal revelation. If you are a magician, you will likely talk about your successes and achievements and omit any discussion about your failures, and for anyone practicing magic, the failures will outnumber the successes, especially in the beginning. It would appear the Thelemic creed that our true will is indomitable is an erroneous assumption, particularly if we forget that our supposed True Will might be something that is beyond or even contrary to our personal ambitions at the moment. It would seem that our True Will is more bound to our higher selves than to our petty egos. At any rate, the True Will is a misnomer that I don’t consider in any of my magical workings, as we shall see.

All of these thoughts and considerations had me pondering, since I saw a contrast between the experiences and history of what Taylor underwent and what I have experienced. What is the difference between our two paths that might make a difference between what we both experienced over the years? Additionally, we will need to differentiate between the kinds of the magic where the will would play a greater part in magical workings, and where either spirits or planetary archetypes play a greater role. Depending on the type of magic worked, the role of the magician’s will is quite different, so it cannot be either a consideration nor a stumbling block for some kinds of magic. There is also a specific kind of magic where the individual will plays no part at all, but we will get to that consideration in this discussion as well.

If I were to choose forms of magic where the magician’s will plays a critical role then I would pick the energy and information models of magic. Magical energy needs to be visualized in some manner so that it can be generated, but essentially breath and bodily movement are the drivers for that kind of magic. What is required of the magician is where they will imprint the collected and compressed energy field with their desire and then exteriorize it. Information model forms of magic are where symbols and language are manipulated, but it is the will that projects and sets the magical objective in motion. These two models rely heavily on the use of the magician’s will to set the outcome.

Additionally, the magician must also perform various mundane steps to ensure that the outcome is inescapably set, or at least as much as possible. What I have found is that the magician must also work divination both before and after the working to make certain that they have not unwittingly erected any blockages or counter aspirations that might stop or degrade the outcome. As you can see, a will-based magical operation, in order to have a chance of success, must be reduced down to the simplest expression and thoroughly examined to determine that it is clear of any other internal or external impediments or distractions. Any other derivation may prove to be fatal to the outcome of a magical working. What that means is that a will-based working must focus on a single objective at a time so that the energy or manipulated symbols or sigils will apply a more concentrated  magical effect to the overall desired outcome. This is why complex or multiple outcome magical objectives will likely fail to produce results because the energy is dispersed or the symbology is too multifaceted and ambiguous.

The spirit model of magic is not as affected by the will of the magician to set the magical objective of a working. The magician’s will is focused on the task of successfully performing the evocation, and constraining and binding the spirit. If that process is successful, then the outcome will more likely be a success than a failure. However, there are other factors that make this kind of working fraught with failure, and that revolves around the nature and quality of the spirit and the relationship between the spirit and the human operator. Questions that need to be answered in this regard are whether the spirit is the proper agent and has the capability to meet the magician’s objective, and whether the spirit is amendable to doing the work for the magician. Is their relationship on a solid and cooperative foundation? As you can see, there are quite a number of variables involved, so even successfully conjuring a spirit will not necessarily mean that the magical objective will be fulfilled.

Perhaps the least will-based kind of magic is talismanic magic. Generating a talismanic field and charging a metallic talisman artifact during an auspicious moment, not to mention the preparations, research and development needed, requires a level of discipline and consistency that a honed and empowered will can greatly ensure a successful completion. A talisman is where the magician’s objective coincides with the astrological auspices and the combination of planetary archetype and element foundation to forge a charged artifact that will send out its magic continuously as long as the magician keeps a periodic conscious connection with it. A talisman can have its target altered but not its basic qualities, and it can be given to a client to aid and assist them. It is quite versatile, however, it is completely dependent on the combination of the talismanic field, the auspices active at the time of its creation, and the kind or quality of change that it can promote. Some talismanic fields are fast acting but limited in the duration or depth of the change, and others are slow but produce long-lasting changes. The greatest variables are to be found in the natal chart of the operator, since generating a talismanic field cannot overcome aspects and attributes found in the baseline of one’s personality, as determined by the natal chart. Overall, talismanic magic is least reliant on the magician’s will, but it has other, more complex, considerations that must be tackled to ensure success.

That leaves us with few other magical methodologies to consider, but one that has dominated my magical life is the question of the role that Deities, the Higher Self and one’s initiatory “process” plays in the working of magic. Since I was initiated a many years in the past, nearly 50 years ago, I have operated as a Witch under the alignment and in an intimate association with the Deities of my craft, most specifically, the Goddess of Witchcraft. However I have view her, she has been with me since even before I was initiated, but became dominant when I was initiated. That means that every magical working that I have performed since I was initiated was through and within her. She has been my most powerful authority, guide, teacher, law-giver, arbiter, and my principal intercession between the world of spirit and myself.

Additionally, there is my Higher Self, or the God Within, that I have invoked numerous times through the use of variations of the Bornless or Headless One Rite. Whenever I work magic, I do it under the godhead assumption of my internal Deity, so my magical workings are empowered by this singular connection. Since I was initiated many years ago, I have discovered that there is an interactive magical “process” that has been strategically engaged with me while I have endured the fortunes and failures of my mundane and magical life. That initiatory process has ensured that my life’s path has help and assistance so that I will ultimately achieve my overall purpose and directive in life. Sometimes that direction is a mystery to me, other times it is briefly revealed to me in a breath-taking manner. I have faith that my life’s path will not lead to disaster and that there is always a path that can help me mitigate any crisis that I have encountered.  The combination of my Higher Self God-Within and my initiatory process has kept me from encountering a disaster or experiencing complete failure.

How I would define this particular magical and spiritual path that I am progressing through is that it is based on theurgy, or God Work. I am never performing any kind of magic or liturgy without the engagement or intercession of my Deity, both within me and without me. While I may desire, seek and attempt to will something, my work will be for nought unless the Deity is brought into the working. Actually, I would never perform any working without that engagement and connection since it is part of my magical practice. As a Witch practicing theurgy, what I personally will in regards to magic has to be in alignment with my Deity or I won’t make the attempt. I determine the will of the Gods through a more sacred and formal practice of divination, where they are involved in the revelation of what is or what will be. I am also operating in my daily life with an array of talismanic artifacts with all 28 of the Talismanic Elementals actively set, so I can direct magical energy to given direction whenever I might need it. While I am not wealthy, I am comfortably well-off, and so far, my life has qualities that lend to my subjective definition as being ‘charmed.”

So, it would seem that of all of the systems of the magic, theurgy has very little will-based attributes, since the operator has, for the most part, surrendered themselves to the will of the Deity. There is no need to strictly control everything (and everyone), and there is a still-point when my mind and the Deity merge together briefly at the height of a godhead assumption. There is also the requirement for periodic and regular liturgical practices that ensure I am always engaged, aligned and connected to the Deity. This is not a process where the magic is performed once with the optimistic hope that it will produce the desired results. Like talismanic magic, it is a cyclic, periodic and continual process, and it fully objectifies the inward godhead connection into the outer material world. That is the premise of God Work, and it is a methodology that I have used for nearly my entire magical career. I am a Witch, ritual magician, and my magic is theurgic in nature. Since the Deity is involved in this work, the only will that is present is the will of that godhead, both within me and without me. My own will is merely aligned to that greater will, and my magic has been much more successful because of it.

I don’t know a lot about Taylor’s biography, or how other magicians have approached this issue, but I do know that the will of the individual has some severe limitations in regards to will-based magic. Perhaps initiation into a pagan magical tradition might help overcome that limitation, or individuals can learn to modify their approach, just as Taylor has done to create an entirely new paradigm for their magical work. However, I do know that my petty will was sacrificed to the Goddess decades ago, and whenever I have attempted to unwisely to resurrect and wield it, whatever I think I am doing has amounted to a lot of nothing. Fighting against the Gods when you are supposed to be their arbiter in this world is a fruitless exercise, and one that court trouble and spiritual disharmony. Divination is the key to knowing the Will of the Gods; it is to that process of divination and what it reveals to me that I adopt as my unerring directions and guidance in life. Of course, I also talk to the Gods and they talk back, but that is another topic for another time.

Frater Barrabbas

Thoughts on Wealth and Magical Power

Spring has finally come to the Great White North, and the leaves are starting to bud. It is looking a lot nicer since the browns and greys of winter after the snow-melt and rains have become green with the promise of warmer weather and a verdant rebirth. Still, there are cool days and a quite a lot of rain, but at least it’s rain and not snow. Despite the fact that the warmer days of summer are approaching us again, I find myself overloaded with work, so I can only gaze at the wondrous changes through my window.

Presently, I have begun the arduous task of transitioning from my old job and role to one that is new. I need to focus on mastering new skills, dusting off knowledge and techniques long stale and getting up to speed with a completely different technology. These are delightful things for me to do because I always love new challenges and learning to master new technologies. I am grateful that my company is giving me this opportunity to re-tool, but I can hardly blame them. Finding people with my business knowledge is quite difficult, since what I do isn’t just limited to knowing how to use fancy technological applications. The fact that I also know how to write is also somewhat unique to an IT professional, so I can see the practical reasons why my employers want to give me the opportunity to retool. It’s far cheaper and faster to allow me to extend my abilities than it is to hire someone with all of the abilities that they require.

Thus, my work related on-the-job training and the massive workload will keep me busy for quite some time. This is why I haven’t been writing articles for my blog lately and why I am not likely to write much in the future either. I am just too busy making certain that I can continue to function as I have done previously in my career, and so manage to continue getting a good paycheck to put a roof over my head and food on the table. I am not wealthy but I am also not poor. I have been quite fortunate and I am grateful for what I have been able to accomplish in my life so far.

I know all too well that things can and do change, and the fickle finger of fate can just as easily afflict one with misfortune as it can seemingly award one with good fortune. I would like to believe that my magical abilities have helped to shape my fortune over the extent of my lifetime, but it could have also been my ability to periodically reinvent myself and to be fairly practical minded when it came to money and career choices. I like to think of myself as a man of magical power and arcane ability, since I am a witch and a ritual magician. Yet when it comes to talking about magical power and how that mysterious quality can impact one’s temporal and material reality, then things can become murky or even a bit confused. Allow me to explain what I mean by this statement.

There are essentially two basic kinds of magical workings that most ritual and ceremonial magicians might perform, and these consist of the works of thaumaturgy and theurgy. Thaumaturgy can be defined as essentially making things happen in the material world based on a combination of magical and mundane steps. Thaumaturgy is therefore mainly concerned with producing material effects regardless of the medium (such as energy, spirits, psychology, etc.). Typically, a thaumaturgical operation will be able to “bend” probability so that something that has a distinct possibility of occurring can be “willed” into becoming manifest. Theurgy, on the other hand, is concerned with spiritual insights, wisdom, occult knowledge and conscious illumination. Therefore, when magicians talk about influencing events through the application of magical rituals, they are usually talking about thaumaturgy. When they talk about transformations and transcendence, they are talking about theurgy.

In my book “Disciples Guide to Ritual Magick” I have discussed the nature and quality of the concept of magical power. I have maintained that it is a subjective phenomenon that has more to do with the experience of magic and its apparent meaningfulness. A powerful magical ritual is one that has profound meaning and significance for the magician. Magical power is therefore a metaphor for the emotional experiences of meaningfulness, profound significance, and insightful synergy that accompanies a successful working.

Of course, a working that fails to produce the desired effects could also appear similarly ground-breaking, but magicians typically remember their successes and try to mitigate or even forget their failures. I often refer to a magician recounting his or her exploits and successful magical workings as “tales of power.” They have a tendency of magnifying over the years and with the many renditions. (I suppose that the failed workings and misadventures would be called the “tales of folly.”)

A powerful magician is one who can not only get the desired results that he or she is striving to achieve, but does so in an obvious and profound manner. This is to say that really good magic always produces far more than just the desired outcome. It teaches, instructs, guides and ultimately leads one to a greater level of being than what might have been otherwise. What I am implying here is that thaumaturgy can and does lead the magician to theurgy, although not always and certainly not immediately.

Even so, magical power should never be confused with real power in the material world. While it is possible that the archetypal magician should be materially successful, perhaps even wealthy and widely influential, this seldom ever occurs. Why is this so? Why are magicians to be found in mostly the middle or lower classes and not amongst the wealthy elite? Shouldn’t magical power be synonymous with material power?

Anton Lavey once drily stated that real occult masters and men of magical power should reside in a station of life commensurate with their magical prowess, that is amongst the elite, and if they didn’t, then they were just a bunch of deluded frauds. I read this bit of hyperbole in Anton’s monthly periodical “The Cloven Hoof” and I can see that some folks have taken it to heart over the years. This belies the fact that Anton himself passed away leaving a very modest and meager estate behind him. He was also something of a steadfast atheist and didn't believe in any "occult powers."

Needless to say, I have often sensed a bit of snobbery and a sneering quality of prejudice from the quips and comments made by middle class white male magicians who like to look down their noses at those who are materially below them, including those men or women of color who are not part of the supposed elite of middle class magicians. Of course, whatever material stability one has these days has been bought dearly for the price of actual material freedom, since the typical working stiff can’t afford not to have a job and a career in order to survive. There are some lucky few who make a living offering their occult services for a fee, but the rest of us have to work a mundane job in order to make a living, and that takes us away from what we would rather be doing with our time. However, those magicians who are doing well money-wise have managed to leverage their middle class roots and privileges into a stable material existence, but this could change at any time. Misfortune occurs every day and happens to everyone at some point, but those who are rich and powerful are less impacted by it.

Additionally, look at the general population of the U.S. and see who is most engaged with the practice of magic. The number of middle class magicians and their potential middle class clients is quite small compared to the rest of the population of middle class folk. This is not so in the lower classes, particular the ethnic minorities and non-white people living in urban areas. There are far more magicians operating in these communities and people who will engage them for a modest fee than in any other community or class. When you think about it, doesn’t that really make sense?

When upper class people seek retribution for a wrong that they experienced at the hands of someone else do they go see a magician or a root conjuror? No, they go see their lawyers and sue the crap out of their would-be perpetrators, or they pull some influential strings and cause all sorts of woe to those sorry bastards who have wronged them. They don’t need any magic because their money and influence is all the “magic” that they ever need, and it usually protects and empowers them quite well. They can afford to be rich assholes when we would never consider behaving in that way. The rest of us poor schmucks have to make do with intimidation, physical threats and perhaps even violence, and if that can’t be done, then we either have to lump it or perhaps engage in some magic either on our own or by hiring a magician, witch or root conjuror.

 

For this reason, the very powerful, well connected and wealthy elite have viewed the practice of magic, particularly thaumaturgy, as disdainfully irrelevant. To them the religious status quo has always been an integral part of their outer social image. They might be interested in oddities or attracted to novelties, but in most cases, when they indulge in such matters they are just considered harmless wealthy eccentrics. They actually don’t deviate too much from social norms because it’s bad for business. So for this reason magic has always been and always will be the proclivity of poor and powerless people because they don’t have the means of throwing their weight around, whether by material power or by the threat of violence. They are, in a word, the little people that the rich and powerful treat with indifference or scorn. I count myself as part of that faction of “little people” regardless of my paycheck, since misfortune could easily take away everything that I have materially achieved in my lifetime. There is little difference between the urban poor and myself, at least when compared to the mega-rich, so I should always consider my material interests when voting. You can bet that I don't vote for Republicans or Libertarians.

Do my words bother you? Do you feel the need to dispute what I am saying because you think magicians should be powerful in all areas of their lives? Well, then, here’s a little test. Compare your vaunted material power and swagger to that of the Koch brothers and see how it stands up. I am certain that you will handily lose that comparison. They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars attempting to buy the supposed democracy that we live in, and they are gradually succeeding. For instance, instead of talking about what we need to do about climate change and how we should mitigate its dire effects, we are instead talking about whether or not it is real. The scientific consensus is that climate change is practically a fact, agreed to by over 97% of scientists. The global ice caps are melting at an unprecedented pace and it is obviously due to the high levels of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere. How did so much carbon-dioxide get into the atmosphere? Simple, from the massive burning of fossil fuels. Heavy mechanized farming has also greatly contributed to the green-house gas effect. Still, we have the majority of conservative politicians and media pundits denying that climate change is even happening, and all too many people are foolishly agreeing with them.

This is only one of several conservative themes that are completely absurd yet nevertheless are being seriously played out in our country, pitting lies and hyperbole against scientific fact. Modest gun control as a form of second amendment abrogation is one, Obamacare as a national disaster is another and voter fraud is still another. Not to mention the supposed fake scandals that are being acted out by the Republicans in Washington against an administration that is boringly bereft of scandal. Why is this happening? Does the fact that the Koch brothers own a major share of the fossil fuel industry have any bearing on why the conversation about climate change is stale-mated by those who outright deny its reality? As Bob Dylan sang: “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”

Progressive policies tend to assist the many for the sake of taxing the wealthy few, and so they are a method smoothing over social and economic inequalities. They don’t in any way discourage anyone from becoming wealthy, and in fact, they greatly assist in social and economic mobility. However, such policies have been demonized by those who wish to enlarge and expand economic inequality. Want to guess who is pushing such ideas into the political consensus? The Koch brothers and their mega-rich allies!

To humorously misquote Ronald Reagan, let me boldly tell my fellow Americans, “Rich people aren’t the solution to our problems, they are the problem!”

We magicians and witches are natural subversives working against the established order. Whatever you have is just waiting to be taken away by the .1%, so struggling against the system, whether clandestinely or openly, is the only way for us to survive. Thinking that we have powers to directly influence the world that we live in is a time honored illusion indulged in by middle class magicians. We can, in the end, only influence ourselves, and even then we are not immune to misfortune. So, don’t be fooled into thinking that you are safe from economic calamity, because you aren’t.

Even great magicians have their ordeals, difficulties and times of hardship. Misfortune has always been the true test of one’s character, personal strength and personal empowerment. Therefore, it is better to admire the magician who comes from a poor family and succeeds than to admire some arm-chair magician who has never had to struggle and fight for what he has.

Frater Barrabbas

Whence Cometh Spring?

April has come and there are only a few indications that anything much has changed from winter to a verdant spring. It is a cold and lifeless spring so far, which is probably just as confusing for the returning geese as it is for the humans and creatures that have endured the long winter. While the snow is slowly receding, the lakes and ponds are still iced up, and only the brilliant sunshine seems to indicate that the season has indeed changed. We got an early spring last year and this year we get to experience a very slow transition, which will likely extend winter like conditions into May. This is not unusual for this part of the country, but it is somewhat depressing. The receding snow only reveals a brown and lifeless undercoat with no indication of any kind of new life. Also, the spring peepers are mostly silent, although I have heard, from time to time during the sunny afternoons, some singular croaking somewhere in the fields.

(Of course, as I was writing this article, Mother Nature dropped a couple of inches of wet sloppy snow on the land, and it looks again like a winter-scape. Well, so much for spring! I guess we’ll have to wait a few weeks for warmer temperatures in order for all of the snow to completely disappear. It is depressing in a way and also a slight shock to one’s sensibilities. The supposed end of winter had many starting to come out of their months long hibernation, but now they have receded back into the winter-like torpor. Welcome to the tundra-like experience of the northern Midwest plains.) 

The long harsh winters make all of us here in Minnesota avid seekers of any sign of spring, sometimes even desperately. Some will even wear shorts when the temperature gets into the late 40's or early 50's. My career workload has finally dropped down to just maintenance, and I am now contemplating a period of self-study and training to assist me in making the transition from my current project to future projects once this one has lapsed. I have also put together my resume and sent it to the corporate leaders as requested so that they can find new prospects for me to be assigned, and I have also indicated that I am willing to relocated, provided that the relocation package is reasonable and helpful.

This means that my tenure in the tundra is nearing an end, since my company has now indicated that they are open to relocating key employees once again. This is how I managed to move every few years back in the 1990's and into the early 2000's. I have decided that I will pursue employment possibilities in other locations by undergoing yet another corporate move. I have endured six corporate relocations, but this time I am a home owner and not a renter. It will obviously be more complicated than previously. Since I have proven my value quite dramatically in the last several months to my corporate overlords, I am quite certain that I will be getting a new project to work on in the months ahead, and also, a relocation deal.

Over the course of the last few months I have still not engaged in any ordeals or extensive magical workings. It has been a period of reading, research, pondering over the meaning of this or that, and a lot of self-examination. Lately, this has become very productive indeed, since I seem to have stumbled upon a mother lode of insightful and thought provoking treasures.

Two lines of thought have guided my steps recently. These thoughts have produced two different directions for research, and they have both now converged together. The first thought was that if the Chaldean Oracles would represent an actual sacred book, at least for the late Classical period of Neoplatonism, then having the original Greek language version would be very helpful. I wanted to find this text because it would fit in with my thoughts about building up a completely Greek version of the Qabalah. To build a Qabalah, one needs to have sacred writings in the basic language proposed - in this case, Greek. So, I began to search for a book that contained the original Greek language version of the Chaldean Oracles. It turns out that there was only one book that fit this requirement and it was long out of print.

My other line of thought was that somehow Neoplatonism could be completed by adding some strains of Indian Philosophy to it. I have long felt that there was something very important missing from Neoplatonic philosophy, and that “something” can be identified by a simple concept. As a practicing ritual magician and witch, I have long known of the fact that there is within me (and every other human being) a Deity, which I have called the God/dess Within. This concept is analogous to the Indian concept of the Atman. However, according to Advaita Vendanta, there is no difference between the Absolute Godhead and the Individual Godhead, where it is said that Brahman and Atman are one (and indivisible). (I have discussed this idea previously in an article, and you can find it here.)

What that means is that we all have within us a direct path to the realization of our own Godhead as revealed in the One. Assumption of the Godhead is one mechanism to developing this realization, but what it means is that there is no complete separation and distinction between the Absolute Godhead and the Godhead within each and every human being. This is quite a profound realization and, I might add, it doesn’t appear in the various Neoplatonic writings where the distinction between humanity and the Godhead is quite rigorously enforced. This is why Neoplatonism talks about the theurgy of  “ascension” as a method of returning to the One. However, it would seem that returning to the One is actually not possible for anyone but a very small minority. In Indian Philosophy the concept of “returning” doesn’t exist. It is more of an internal revelation (a transformation and a spiritual evolution); it is, in a sense, discovering what was a fact inside of oneself from the very beginning. I believe that this distinction between Indian and Neoplatonic philosophy is also to be found in the practice and experience of modern witchcraft and paganism, or at least where Godhead assumption (as the Draw) is central. 

So over the course of the last few weeks I have been very busy reading and studying the books "Chaldean Oracles" by Ruth Majercik and the anthology "Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy" edited by the late Paulos Mar Gregorios, which I might declare is very heady stuff. Yet the combination of these two perspectives is helping me to make a breakthrough of sorts.

I believe that Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy are both monist systems developed within a pagan religious environment. However, Indian Philosophy has had a much longer and continuous evolving life-span. In fact, I suspect that Indian philosophy made breakthroughs that Neoplatonism might have made as well if only it had continued in the same spirit and direction over the course of centuries instead of being uprooted from Athens and Alexandrian and then slowly waning in the remote fastness of Harran.

Another distinction is that Indian Philosophy is, for the most part, a living religious and philosophical tradition, where the praxis that represents its foundation is still being worked today. This is so unlike Neoplatonism, which has had to be reinvented based on a lot of fragmentary lore. I believe that it might be possible that certain schools of Indian Philosophy, such as the Indian Tantras, could be used to help complete and evolve Neoplatonic philosophy to a more complete and mature form, and perhaps even help to formulate a comprehensive praxis. That is my belief and the intention behind my work, however, we will see how it works out in the months ahead.

One thing that is tragic about the Chaldean Oracles as they exist today (and it’s something that I hadn’t fully realized) is that this work exists only in fragments. The complete text has never been found. What we have are the quotations that other late classical authors have written about it and these quotations were preserved to the present times. However, at least now I have those remaining fragments in their original Koine Greek. Ms. Majercik's book has been out of print for years and is only available as a scanned copy that can be downloaded from the internet. I realize that downloading a copy (as I have done) is to facilitate a process that I can’t fully condone, but the only copies that are available are being sold for over two thousand dollars. I could also maybe get a copy through inter-library loan and then wait for weeks if it does show up, but this was the quickest way to get a copy. I am hoping that someday the author or publisher will deem to reprint a new version and make it available to everyone who wants a copy.

Yet I am once again quite taken with this mysterious work. If ever there was a book of sacred writings for Hermetic Pagans, it was the Chaldean Oracles. This book was produced through a form of magical skrying, where the senior Julian acted as the magician, and his son, the skrier. As quoted from Ms. Majercik’s introduction, “The Chaldean Oracles are a collection of abstruse, hexameter verses purported to have been ‘handed down by the gods’ (theoparadota) to a certain Julian the Chaldean and/or his son, Julian the Theurgist, who flourished during the late second century C. E.” She goes on to say that the oracle verses were derived from the theurgic techniques of calling and receiving. It is, therefore, quite singularly amazing that these verses derived from theurgic rituals were regarded as authoritative from Porphyry to Damascius (3rd to 4th centuries). Even so, what has come down to us today are just some of the verses, or at least the most important or profound of these. We also don’t really know the sequence that these fragments originally occurred in the original work, and it can only be hoped that some future discovery will locate a complete copy of this work.

Still, what fragments we possess have always astounded and perplexed me, but Ms. Majercik's commentaries are the most illuminating that I have ever read. The Gnostic sect, the Sethians, particularly were engaged with this work and its inspirations can be found throughout those Naghamadi texts that have survived. We can see the effects of this work in the magical texts of the Greek Magical Papyri, too.

With these books in hand, I feel like I have some pretty profound answers to some questions that I have been asking for quite a long time. I will write all of these musings up in my blog in the very near future.

Frater Barrabbas

Afterthoughts - Paganicon 2013

A Bitter Cold Vernal Equinox to you, too.

 Well, I made it through another Paganicon, although this year my attendance was very brief compared to last year. I didn’t get a room at the hotel, and I was only able to stay a few hours on Saturday and Sunday. Weekends are usually the only quality time that my girlfriend and I have together since she started her clinical training in a town that is a two hour drive south from our home. Also, I had other responsibilities to attend to, such as getting back to feed and let out our dog. As long as Grace is undergoing this educational process, my ability to go on any extended trips is quite limited. The weather was also pretty odious, even for the Twin Cities, and it was yet another factor. I have never been a big fan of the northern winters, and this year my patience has been really taxed.

I only got to attend one workshop besides my own, and that was one presented by Brandy Williams on the topic of “Pagan Theurgy,” which also covered a brief history of Neoplatonism. I missed out on Orion Foxwood’s workshop, “Candle and the Crossroads” because of a need to tend to some mundane concerns. I managed to sneak in and get around 10 minutes of his talk, but then didn’t want to disturb the talk by trying to go back, and by then it was nearly over. I also got to talk a while with Brandy and share some thoughts and ideas about magic, occultism, Thelema and being a part-time author. I didn’t get a chance to chat with Orion, which was disappointing. I would very much like a chance to chat with him, but there have been few opportunities when we have met previously, mostly at Pantheacon. He is an inspirational individual, and I have many questions to ask him and topics of mutual interest. Perhaps some day we will get that opportunity, particularly if I continue to make myself available for gatherings.

Brandy Williams is quite an excellent author and writer. I have secretly modeled my literary ambitions after hers, and I have often admired her, at least from a distance. So she has kind of functioned as a role model for me, starting out as an Immanion author and continuing to write and publish for other publishers as well. I was very delighted to spend some of my precious time talking with her about various subjects. Her approach to magick, paganism and occultism is nothing short of inspirational. I got a number of ideas and thought provoking insights in my mind just from attending her class on Theurgy. I was happy to acknowledge to myself that the system of magick that I use has all of the points of Neoplatonic Theurgy amply covered, including statue animation. It appears that a number of us are getting very deeply into Iamblichus and the writings of the late pagan Neoplatonists, knowing that they represent the point in time where we should pick up their work and continue moving it into the far future.

I got to tell her that my pet idea is that the Indian esoteric philosophers of the golden age of Indian culture, which occurred as Rome slipped into the dark ages, seemed to continue on where the Neoplatonic philosophers had left off in Harran. Where Iamblichus stated that the human soul can never be of the same substance or level of being as the Gods, the discipline of Advaita Vendanta showed that the Godhead in every man and woman is commensurate with the absolute Godhead (“there can be no difference between Brahman and Atman”). I sense that there is a continuity of the esoteric strain of philosophy from Europe, to Harran, and thence, to India, where it continued to thrive and grow. Perhaps we in the West can finally complete Neoplatonism by considering Indian esoteric philosophy to be its crowning achievement. I will have to think more about this interesting insight. 

Lunch on Saturday was spent with my friend Steven Posch who I consider to be one of the living pagan treasures in our community of Paganistan (a term he has famously coined). He is a pagan poet of great renown, an excellent public liturgist, rabble rousing Jewitch and all around excellent gadfly. He is also avidly pursuing the secrets of the late demise of Baltic paganism only recently becoming available to the west, and in this area, he is acquiring a great deal of authentic pagan lore, ostensibly to pad out his own particular linage and witchcraft practice. He’s one of the few who actually knows how to count to 20 using the Witchcraft language. Lunch with Steve is always full of interesting conversation and banter.

My friend Paul Rucker, who is something of an illuminating pagan artist, along with Helda HedgeWalker and others hosted a visual presentation at the Sacred Gallery Space. While Paul was quite busy and I only saw him in passing, the Sacred Gallery was quite an exquisite exhibition of pagan artists. I sat in the gallery, which was a converted suite, for a short while fully galvanized by the beauty and artistry of the paintings and works of art carefully placed over most of the wall space. It was done tastefully and to great effect. I am only sorry that I couldn’t tell him how much I liked and appreciated what he and others had accomplished.

I also got to hang out for a little while with a group of young friends. In talking with them and spending my last lunch with them, I found that perhaps I am not so much a dinosaur as I had thought. In the beginning of my autumn years, I probably do have something of importance to pass on to younger members of my pagan and wiccan community. We will see if I have any relevant thoughts or ideas in the decades to come when I am nothing more than a forgotten monument in some graveyard.

My class was very sparsely attended, but at least those who attended were very engaged with what I was teaching and understood what I was attempting to communicate. They were a bright group of individuals, and they also bought a number of my books as well. I have been selling my copies of MARM volumes 1 though 3 at a huge discount because the MARM Omnibus edition should be coming out in the next few weeks. In the next couple of months I will reprise a more extended version of my Practical Qabalah in Brief workshop at the local occult bookstores and see if more people will be interested in attending. Based on that experiment, I will either move forward with putting together a weekend long intensive workshop, or I will consider the Qablah not be a good topic to try to teach in the Twin Cities.

A final note - my travels to and from the Paganicon hotel were made more precarious by a freak winter storm that happened on Friday. I had to leave quite early Saturday morning to make the 32 mile trip to the hotel, and the roads were not sufficiently cleared to make the trip easy. In my neck of the woods (literally) the roads were hazardous and even the freeway system was not completely clear. Thankfully, the traffic was light, but it was a slightly harrowing trip to get to the hotel in time to deliver my presentation. After that morning trip, the roads were quite clear and bare, even though the weather was quite cold. Here it is nigh on the Vernal Equinox add it feels more like January weather. I have noticed no signs of spring and it is likely that winter will continue well into April, which is not an uncommon thing. Only the brightness and warmth of the sun betrays the lateness of the season, and then it can only be experienced while sitting in a car, where the inside heats up to coatless temperatures rather quickly.

I have to say that I am quite over winter, even though nature hasn’t caught on to my mood or up to my expectations. Such a winter that we have had only makes me long for warmer climates. I guess you could say that I am wishing to leave the Twin Cities and when I have these kinds of impressions, the reality is not too long in coming. I sense that I might just get an opportunity to move somewhere else in the next couple of years. I had not previously felt that way, but I do feel it now. I will take it as a kind of omen and as I have said, time will tell how it all turns out.

Frater Barrabbas

Mysticism and Magick

There has been another discussion about the distinction between magick and mysticism, and I wanted to weigh in on the subject just so my readers don’t make the mistake of thinking that magick should be completely distinct from mysticism, or that the greatest magick doesn’t have a bit of mysticism included in it. I think that David Griffin has eloquently responded to what he perceives is problematic in a recent blog article posted by Donald Michael Kraig and if you are curious about the discussion, you can find it here. Anyway, onward with the presentation of my point of view on this subject.

First of all, the spiritual disciplines of ritual or ceremonial magick and mysticism are completely different and nearly contrary to each other. Mysticism requires an ego-less factor of devotion and surrender to the Deity in order to foster spiritual union. The whole purpose of mysticism, whether Eastern or Western, is to completely empty the self of all personal engagement with the world and the self. What remains is a void that is to be filled with the spiritual being and essence of the Deity once a certain combination of selflessness and a passionate desire for union with God has been achieved. A crisis can and often occurs when this revelation doesn’t emerge soon enough, leaving the depleted self to feel empty, loathsome and worthless while it is painfully waiting for the promised spiritual redemption - it’s called the Dark Night of the Soul. (Magicians usually don’t experience the Dark Night of the Soul. They have plenty of other types of spiritual crises to deal with. I’ll talk about those in a future article.)

Mysticism might seem to be passive, but it’s actually quite active if we are to consider spiritual desire and an aching, hungering passion for union to be powerful drivers of the personality. A mystic is often not sequestered from the material world, but he or she has indeed renounced it in favor of the spiritual world. In many cases this spiritual path achieves union with the Deity at the cost of the self and the world at large, since there is little desire nor any need to re-engage with the world once the mystic has achieved his or her goal. In some cases, though, the spiritual impetus of the Deity itself will push the mystic to reach out and teach others what he or she has achieved. However, selfless service to the greater good and an ego-less state is required for this work to be properly engaged within the material world. Even so, a spiritual vocation in the outer world is always looked upon with suspicion by an avowed mystic, since it is all too easy to relapse to the previous unsanctified state.

Magick is completely the opposite of mysticism. Instead of eliminating the ego, the task of magicians is to identify and merge their essence wholly and completely within the heart and core of the Deity; to amplify their identities until there is no difference between Godhead and the human psyche. A magician has the audacity and temerity to directly approach the Deity on an equal footing and to aggressively seek union with it. Such a direct approach has a very high price, too, I might add. While the mystic is typically tolerated by mainstream religions, the magician is considered an apostate and avowed blasphemer. He or she is seldom tolerated, and is often aggressively prosecuted, since the fully developed path of the magician would completely abrogate all of the tenets or practices of organized religion. I might also add that if the magician fails in his endeavor, then often a kind of terrible ego inflation and temporary madness can ensue.

Instead of renouncing the material world, the magician exults in a mastery and complete emersion within that domain. Magicians approach the world with unbridled optimism and an anticipatory joy, since they believe fully in themselves and their abilities to engage with the world. The material world is the magician’s resource of a myriad of possibilities - it is the solution and not the problem. I have often remarked that Thelemites make really good magicians because they understand the necessity of being bold and dynamic in their magick, due in no small part to their allegiance to the Godhead Horus and the Aeon of Horus. Magicians, like any good pagan, also see the world as being in a sacralized state of grace, and that material work is also the work of the Deity.

So, it would seem that magick and mysticism, treated as distinct spiritual paths, are quite startlingly opposed to each other. However, there is a difference between mysticism as a spiritual path and certain mystical elements. Of course, this must be in regards to the powers and reality of the Deity who must be the magician’s primary source of inspiration and power in the material world, whether that fact is realized or not.

Pure magick without any mystical elements whatsoever is lot like thaumaturgy or hoodoo magic. It is a methodology consisting of exercising a specific formula to acquire a given end, without much or any recourse to the Deity or the world of Spirit. This kind of magic is completely divorced from spirituality or the concerns and considerations of the Godhead, and so it is also completely portable from person to person without any consideration to their particular religious beliefs. Thaumaturgy is loosely defined as the magic of performing specific operations with selected material items to gain some kind of magical effect that is almost always focused on matters in the material world. Although this kind of magic is quite powerful if used by someone who potently believes in its efficacy, it doesn’t typically change, or for that matter, challenge the practitioner. This kind of magic, in my opinion, is as far from any type of psychic or spiritual transformation that one could possibly perform, so it is lacking an important quality that I feel is essential to the art of magick. That quality consists, of course, of mystical elements.

If I were to compare the magick that I work with pure thamaturgy then I would have to say that the most glaring difference is that I work with and through the Deity. While that personal Cult of Deity that I work with in my magick is actually my higher self elevated to the level of a Godhead, it still represents a powerful religious activity that completely opens me up to the World of Spirit. When I work magick, I am undergoing, however brief, a transition between my human nature and the nature of the Godhead that I am also assuming.

Since all of the magick that I work is through that developed and assumed attribute of Deity, then I am also open to all of the transformative possibilities that such a connection has the power to produce. I combine psychic and spiritual transformations with specific magical operations that I call ordeals. This is a type of magical theurgy, so it is not at all like the magic that is performed just to gain some material end. The ultimate goal of theurgy is to become one with the Deity, and in this case, that Godhead is nothing less than the Unity of All Being, or the One. Its trigger point is my higher self, also known as the God/dess Within, and through this artifice, I seek to become one with the ultimate Godhead. Everything that I do from a magical standpoint is focused on that greater goal, even when I perform such a humble task as writing an article for my blog, which is yet another form of magick.

So what are the mystical elements in the magick that I perform? That’s a good question, but it is simply given that my magick requires a complete and comprehensive spiritual alignment in order to be effective and capable of transporting me (or anyone else) ultimately into perfect union with my Deity. Keep in mind that while my goal might be union with the Deity, it is done on my terms and through my own individual process. I am the one approaching the Deity, and instead of destroying my ego I am working through a godhead assumption to make it one and the same with that Godhead. Instead of renouncing the world, I see it as being more sacralized and imbued with spirit every step that I take, until someday the two worlds will merge into one world. Additionally, I suspect that this union of magick and religion is due to the fact that I am a witch and a practitioner of ritual magick. My expectations were long ago grounded in a blended mixture of religious liturgy and high magick, and this is how I function today in the world.

Spiritual alignment consists of just four important practices, and one could easily see them as religious based and perhaps even a bit mystical. However, they are done in the service of a spiritual discipline oriented to ritual magick, and that makes all the difference. These practices are devotion, invocation, communion and assumption. I will briefly describe each of these practices, but avid readers of my blog will have encountered these definitions previously.

We need to keep in mind that I am referring to the specific Deities associated with the magician’s personal religious cult, and chief amongst those Godhead forms is the crystalized imago of the godhead reflection of the spiritual self, higher self, Atman, or God/dess Within. When I focus on the pantheon of my personal cult, I do so as chief celebrant, congregation and deified intermediary, or demi-god. All actions of spiritual alignment done through this pantheon are neither narcissistic nor are they egotistical. The self that is being glorified has nothing to do with what I call the “petty” ego, or the lower self. That self which I glorify is my higher self, and according to Eastern philosophy, there is no real difference between my true self as Godhead and the ultimate Godhead - they are one and the same! (The problem is learning to master that lesson in the real world and not become something of a raving lunatic.)

Devotion: These are the primary liturgical practices that include offerings, sacrifices and spiritual service done in the name of the Deity. Offerings include votive offerings, along with prayers and intentions to connect and to dwell in the spiritual essence of that Godhead. Sacrifices are gifts given directly to the Deity, or things that are given up for that Deity. Offerings and sacrifices can be in the form of flowers, incense, food and drink. Fasting is also a form of sacrifice, and so is the isolation of goods and implements to be used solely for the services to that Godhead. Spiritual service is fundamentally what is given first to the shrine of the Deity in the form of upkeep and work, and secondly, as service to the community. These services are done without compensation, so they could also be seen as a form of sacrifice.

Invocation: This is where the chief celebrant summons the spiritual essence of the Godhead into some kind of material manifestation, however subtle. Invocations can be commands, but they are more often enticements, flattery and adoration (like the talk of a lover to his or her beloved). Invocations are therefore often hymns, paeans, orisons as well as summoning with words of power and glorification. This is usually directed to a statue lovingly placed on a shrine or even to a person masquerading as the Deity. Such a focus of invocation and devotion is to a magical being called an Eidolon, and it is often a very magickal occurrence.   

Communion: This where material objects are imbued with a spiritual essence, making them into sacraments. Generating sacraments can only be done through the mediation of the Godhead, so that spiritual presence must first be tangibly materialized before the process of sacramentation can be performed. It is also assumed that the sacraments represents something material associated with the body of that Godhead. Although salt and water, wine and cakes are the typical medium for sacraments, representing the tears/sweat, blood and flesh of the Deity, other materials can be made into sacraments as well. These would include oils, balms, perfumes, lotions, and even certain types of food. All of these are considered to be products of the Body of the Godhead or at least the abundant products of that Deity’s grace. Sacraments can be used to charge other items, such as magical tools, vestments, sigils, talismans, or even the body of the magician itself through a sacramental bath and anointing. Rituals of communion are often variations on the magical Mass rite 

Assumption: The greatest test of any spiritual alignment is the sacral rite of Godhead assumption. This rite can assume many different forms, but the end result is where the celebrant assumes the identity and character of the target Godhead through the use of an intense trance technique, identification process and the magical techniques of opening the gateway of the soul. What actually occurs is that the Yechidah emerges into consciousness in the guise of the spiritual essence of the target Godhead. In this manner the magician’s higher self as God/dess Within becomes fully embodied within the conscious being of the magician, however briefly and to whatever depth. Other assumption rites would include the Bornless One invocation, the Rite of the Beautification, and the Abramelin Ordeal (either solar or lunar based). All of these rites are of a strategic magical character and could hardly ever be a part of a monotheistic religious rite or a mystical religious rite, since they would be considered spiritually arrogant, idolatrous or highly blasphemous in nature. (Hindu and Western Paganism, of course, would be exempt from this consideration.)

So, these are the four practices of alignment which I use in my theurgistic form of ritual magick. While some of them might be considered rather pious and mystical in nature, but taken as a whole and within the context of the higher self as the primary Godhead and the obvious artifice of ritual magick, they are decidedly antithetical to religious orthodoxy and contrary to a mystical spiritual discipline. Still, such practices, although highly magical, also incorporate mystical elements, therefore, I can say without any guilt or contradiction that I am a magician practicing a form of ritual magick that blends religious liturgy with the techniques of high magick. Yet and even so, I am not a mystic!

Frater Barrabbas 

Qabbalistic Theurgy and Evocation Methods

Sorry - this blog article was removed pending the publication of “Magical Qabalah for Beginners” published by Llewellyn Worldwide - you can find this material in that book, published on January, 2013.

FB

Thoughts About Angels - to invoke or not invoke

There is a compelling argument that says if you aren’t Christian, Jewish, Islamic or perhaps even Zoroastrian, then the concept of angels is meaningless, perhaps even antithetical. As a nominal witch and adherent to an earth-based spirituality, I would probably count as one of those to whom angels have no relevance. Except for the minor problem that I also consider myself a magician and practitioner of ritual and ceremonial magick. Ritual magicians are supposed to believe in and traffic with angels as a part of the discipline of theurgy. So one might conjecture that I find myself between a rock and a hard place - to believe in entities who would probably judge me to be an apostate. That could be a tough proposition were it not for the fact that angels are not necessarily owned by monotheistic faiths. That their history is complicated and that monotheism is a recent derivation. It is also likely that angels predate the creation of that creed, since true monotheism would not have been promulgated by Jews until the reign of King Josiah, in the 7th century BCE. Prior to that time, there was no belief in a single monotheistic deity. All religions in the west and near east were polytheistic.

I will seek in this article to explain why I would want to invoke and traffic with angels, and how that would fit in with my obvious pagan and wiccan beliefs. Some in my path perceive angels as being a part of the Judeo-Christian religious system and have rejected them as they have rejected those creeds. I think that there is a way of integrating these entities into a workable structure if we can consider that there is such a thing as the Union of All Being even within paganism and wicca.

Angels are perceived as direct emissaries of the unified Godhead, an aspect of Deity that witches would understand as the Divine Union - symbolized by the union of the archetypal male and female (as in the Hierogamos). A greater mystery is that all of the Gods and Goddesses are in fusion, and that fusion represents an omnipresent but faceless unity of all being. So as a witch and ritual magician, I subscribe to the concept of the union of being as exemplar of all deities, a kind of God of Gods, but having no name, image or persona itself. This does not detract from the individual deities that I have personally experienced - they are distinct and very real. However, there is a greater mystery than the gods themselves, and that mystery is the sacred union of all parts creating a design greater than their individual facets. An anagram for this idea could be symbolized by a star device, such as a pentagram - where the individual lines form a structure that is greater than the sum of its parts. What I am saying here is that union is the origin and ultimate destiny of all spirits, which includes the gods.

So in a fashion all beings have the same common destiny, whether as gods, goddesses, deified humanity, or the myriad spirits of the earth. Angels are divine emissaries emanating from that union of all being, acting as guides, teachers, or personified gnosis. As a witch and a pagan who believes in the union of all being, I consider emissaries who are connected to and acting for that holistic godhead as extremely important. I also consider the various gods, goddesses, ancestors and earth spirits that I have encountered as extremely important. So I have a pious respect for all spiritual beings, and none are judged as being greater than another (since all are one in the One), even if some may be more personally relevant to me. This means that angels are just as important to me and my spiritual and magickal work as the entire pantheon of pagan deities and nature spirits.

As a ritual magician and a witch, I work theurgy to conjure angels just as readily as I invoke the gods. Angels are a kind of godhead, similar to the gods that I venerate as a pagan witch. These beings are the only faces that the unknown and unknowable union of all being can possess, so their use and invocation is both profound and ultimately necessary. To practice theurgy then is to extend the liturgy and practice of a witch and pagan, and it doesn’t contradict those practices, but instead makes them all the more greater and powerful.

Some witches in some traditions have given a name to this unity of all being, which they call the Dryghton, but have not so much as attempted to really develop or define this entity. It remains an enigmatic and mysterious quality, but one that is quite ancient and found in the older pagan creeds. For instance, in ancient Egypt, the name for god was neter, but there was an unknown godhead that they called Neter, representing the source of all of the gods. I think that I can understand and appreciate this definition as a witch and a ritual magician probably better than the average paleolinguist, who has puzzled over this concept for the last century.

To recap: As a witch and a ritual magician, I have found the use of angels in ritual magic to be both useful and important to my spiritual development. Theurgy is one of the hallmarks in the practice of ritual magick, and those who have mastered it would be considered adepts of high magick. Since in our religion the practice of magic is considered an obligation, there should be no limits to what one might work or experiment with that mandate in mind. Thus I am completely comfortable working earth magic as well high magic - summoning gods, goddesses, making oblations and offerings, venerating my ancestors, and invoking angels.

Frater Barrabbas Tiresius