Armadel Project for 2026

  

Grimoire Armadel. Actual title: Liber Armadel seu totius cabalae perfectissima brevissima et infallabilis scientia tam speculativa quam practiqua

Translation (Latin): The Book of Armadel, or the whole Cabala, a most perfect, brief, and infallible science, both speculative and practical

It has long been a dream of mine to publish the Grimoire Armadel with all the additional elements and restructuring needed to make it a completely usable grimoire. I would consider it to be the highest achievement amongst all the books I have published and will publish. I decided this last autumn to try to make this dream a reality. Mathers had translated this manuscript from around 1897 through 1899, when he submitted the Book of Abramelin to be published, but this work was never published until around 1980, when his various papers and manuscripts were supposedly acquired by Gerald Yorke, and he and Frances King published a hardcover edition with an introduction through the publisher Samuel Weiser. A later edition, published in 2001, by Weiser, had a soft cover and an introduction by William Keith.

Here is a link to the edition that was published by Weiser. 

First and foremost, I wanted to find an original digital copy of this manuscript from the Arsenal Library in Paris, France, to begin my  work. I didn’t have a clue how to go about requesting that file, and a friend and neighbor said she would try to help me out, since she was an accredited academic. She was, unfortunately, not successful. The reason why I wanted a digital copy is to validate and verify the work that Mathers did, and to what else might be lurking in the pages. I also felt that what was published was either missing some parts, or was structured in some peculiar manner that made it difficult to use as a working grimoire. While I had extracted some seals from the grimoire to use in my gateway icons, and I found them to be very powerful indeed, I felt a strong desire to get the original manuscript, since it had some mysteries that I wanted to resolve.

As for the manuscript, the original version was likely written in the early to middle 17th century, likely part of a family of German Faustian grimoires, which was the veritable golden age of magical grimoires. The actual manuscript that I was looking for in the Arsenal Library was a translated copy penned in the late 17th century and was supposedly confiscated by the famous and first Lieutenant General of the Paris Police (Gabriel Nicholas de la Reynie) who led a purge of cunning folk, alchemists, poisoners, divinators, diabolists, abortionists, and sooth-sayers from the Paris area, who made it a business catering to the gullible whims and dark fancies of the upper class men and women attending the King's court in Versailles. 

This pogrom was triggered by the notorious and infamous Affair of the Poisons scandal (1677) that rocked the court of Louie XIV. De la Reyine, as head of the police, aggressively pursued this perceived social menace for several years, so it went on for seven years until it quietly ended in 1684. It was, in many ways, a kind of Witchcraft persecution, since most of the victims were women, accused of heresy and poisoning, and several were burned as such. I believe that this grimoire was likely part of the larger confiscated hoard that these cunning folk possessed, and they ended up in the possession of de la Reyine. Additionally, De la Reynie's large collection of books, which contained many costly and rare papers and manuscripts written in Greek and Latin, were later purchased by d’Argenson (who became the next Lieutenant General of Police) another wealthy book collector, and that massive library ultimately ended up in the Bibliotheque de l’Arsenal collection, and then into the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF). 

No other version of this grimoire has turned up amongst the collections and libraries examined by academics who now are studying this literature. While it is rumored that there might be a German copy in some other place or location, which is possible, it has not appeared amongst any of the writings or reports from those academics who are studying them. It might be that the original German version was lost or destroyed. I believe that there are other copies or versions of this grimoire yet to be discovered, but none have surfaced so far. Since the Armadel was only known to a few French antiquarians and occultists like Mathers, it had little notoriety, Since a translated version only appeared in 1980, it likely that this obscure grimoire may exist in other libraries or collections and fail to be noticed by academics. However, a companion manuscript in the same set of book in the Arsenal Library, the Book of Abramelin, was found to exist in German, and it was an earlier and more complete copy than the French version. Some authors have commented that the tradition of the Armadel has more affinity to German grimoires than the French versions, and others have disagreed.

I have written a blog article about this grimoire and you can find it here.

So, to continue with my story, I was at a loss on how to find this manuscript. I searched the internet, but was not able to find any mention of the actual source. I found out that much of the Arsenal library had been digitized and was part of the BNF collection, but looking for it seemed like a fool's errand, since I found that the public face of the online BNF was not very helpful, especially for someone who doesn't speak French. I only lucked out when I had adjusted my web search to Liber Armadel (instead of the Grimoire Armadel) and found this web page, which had the BNF documents hyperlinked. It was a review written by Dan Harms (Papers Falling from an Attic Window) of the book Editions du Monolithe edition of the Armadel, although it was called Liber Armadel in the text. 

Curiously, the manuscript number that I possessed was incorrect, and the link in the article shows two manuscripts as the source and not one, as I had originally thought. These are the BNF manuscript numbers MS #826 and MS# 2494. I then proceeded to download these two large PDF files of the BNF manuscripts, just as anyone else could do. These two manuscripts were available to the public without any kind of protection, other than a copyright disclaimer embedded in the documents, and pages of the manuscripts were stamped with the Arsenal imprint. 

What I discovered is that the source of Mather’s translation consisted of two manuscripts and not one. MS #826 contains just the Liber Armadel with four pages of text added after the manuscript end vignette, the text of which was never translated. These I set out to translate them myself with my rudimentary skills, but my wife used ChatGPT to translate them from the cursive straight into English. That astonished me, but I am not very trusting or willing to rely on that approach and I wanted to find someone who has the time and can read French and Latin to help me. The other manuscript contains the Liber Armadel grimoire in the first set of pages, but the rest of the manuscript contains another lengthy ad hoc grimoire not associated with the Armadel material. 

No one knows who the author or authors of the Aramdel were, nor what was the original source text, but the manuscripts appear to have been professionally scribed by local artisans for a fee. Still, I could imagine that the manuscripts had once belonged to Abbe Etienne Guibourg, or maybe Adam Lesage, two men out of the 32 mostly women who were the primary victims of the prosecution. Guibourg was a corrupted, debauched, and defrocked priest who reputedly performed several black mass rites; Lesage was the magician and spell caster of the accused group. These individuals were part of the informal group that the principle suspect, called La Voisin (Catherine DeShayes), ran as a profitable underground business. They, unlike many of the women, were not executed, but lived the rest of their lives imprisoned through the legal artifice “lettre de cachet.”

I have already started examining the manuscripts, and as I stated, translated the four pages after the end of the Armadel MS #826, and I have carefully looked over that text and found some remarkable things. The last four pages of this book were never translated by Mathers in his manuscript, which was published finally in 1980. The amazing great seal of the Uriel Operation was published, but not the accompanied text. Of course, all this appears after the end of the book, and it was not deemed important enough for Mathers to translate and include in his book. That omission turned out to be an incredible mistake, since those four pages in MS # 826, (129 - 132), contained the whole key to the grimoire. As it turned out, those four pages, translated by AI, were the key to the whole grimoire, and that surprised me. I am sure that it will astonish my readers as well, since this is the key that unlocks the process of activating the grimoire. I will keep that article from the public for now, but it will be an important part of my own rendition of this grimoire. 

By a most curious turn of events, I have managed to teamed up with a French translator, Eric Gazano, who also happens to be a French national and lives just outside of Marseilles. We met on my author's Facebook page, where he introduced himself. I have shared the two online documents with him, and we have shared messages with each other. I won't be using ChatGPT to translate the manuscripts. That was just a one-time deal, and what it translated will be checked over by Eric. There isn't actually a lot of translation work to be done, because Mathers did a respectable job of translating the two manuscripts, at least the Liber Armadel part. Also, the second manuscript has a lot more material that is completely outside of the my target grimoire, which is of doubtful interest to me.

Here is one of the books that Eric has published. 

Still, I want to compare the two manuscripts with the English translation that Mathers has done, looking for any text that was omitted that would be useful for building a modern grimoire. That is my sole purpose to writing this book. However, MS #2494 is a full grimoire manuscript with Armadel enclosed within it, but additionally, it has many pages of untranslated and never published material. There is obviously two different hands writing this larger book, and some of the pages in the middle are very difficult to read because the ink has faded so badly. I have told Eric that translating and publishing this unknown material would impress the English occult audience, thus making the contents of MS #2494 more accessible. I promised to get him some needed contacts to do this task, and some of my friends could help as well.

One question that I do have is what sections from the two manuscripts were used by Mathers to produce his manuscript, or if only MS #826 was the sole source as some have speculated, and that's where a translator will come in handy. We can also see if Mathers made any translation mistakes or omissions, and where the two manuscripts differ from each other. I am not able to pay Eric for his work, since he has the option of translating the bulk of the second volume, which has a hundred or more extra pages of an eclectic period grimoire to examine, translate and publish if he wishes. I will put his name on the future book as the translator when it is published, and give him some useful PR, and help him publish his work in the U.S., depending on what he has to offer. Getting publishers to publish occult books in France these days without academic credentials is tough for someone who doesn't have the right connections, unlike the U.S. in that regard. At least that is what Eric has told me during our conversations. 

My plan is to take the translation that Mathers has already made, including material that he did not include in his work, and produce a modern magical grimoire that can be used by pagans, witches and ceremonial magicians in the English speaking world. Right now, the translated book that was first published in 1980, and later, a second publisher came out with a new version that was practically the same. Both were eminently fascinating, but was not very usable. In other words, it requires someone to develop a methodology for working magic with the incredible seals found in that book. So, it not only requires translating and deciphering, but also organizing and structuring so that it fits into a modern system of magic. I have my work cut out for me.

All of these occurrences, discovering PDFs of the manuscripts online, connecting with Eric, and getting a lot of support from my publishers seems to be telling me that now is the time for me to start working on this project. This is so exciting and it will be one of my life's long ambitions to publish a workable version of the Liber Armadel for English speaking occultists and magical practitioners.

Here and here are the links to the two BNF manuscripts:

Frater Barrabas

Qabalah and Magic - When Combining them is Good

I have completed making edits and modifications to my book project, “Practical Qabalah for Occultists” and I have signed a contract with Crossed Crow Books and submitted the manuscript as part of the contractual obligation. This book is a republishing of the Llewellyn book “Magical Qabalah for Beginners,” which they decided not to republish and thus, returned the rights to me. I had the last manuscript version of the book in MS Word and also the galley PDF, and went through the manuscript and made updates to it so that it would more closely conform to the galley version, and also to make some additional changes, such as gender pronouns and other minor tasks, like capitalization consistency, etc.

What I found was that after all these years since 2012, I didn’t need to add or revise any of the content. Additionally, the text of the manuscript was written incredibly well, and in fact, it was probably some of the best writing that I have used in any of my books since that time. I guess it was a combination of passion and inspiration that made the writing of that book turn out so well. In some cases, I found the text to be almost lyrical, especially when describing the twenty-two paths. Going over the book with a fine eye for editing, I found that it was an excellently written book, and I was surprised that Llewellyn had made the decision to cease its publication. I am certain that CCB will be happy to take the revised edition and add it to their catalogue, perhaps sometime in late 2025 or early 2026.

Needless to say, this book represents a comprehensive background and practice of an occult version of the Qabalah, made relevant to Pagans and Witches and anyone else who is not of the Abrahamic religious faiths. What that means is that the book promotes a practice and methodology that doesn’t require anything additional. It is a complete and whole spiritual and mystical discipline by itself. There are magical aspects in the practices shown in this book, but they are more like theurgy than ceremonial magic. In fact, there really isn’t any ceremonial magical components in the book. The significance of this statement is that the Qabalah stands by itself, without any other practices or metaphysical attributes needed to make it a complete discipline.

Here is a quotation from my book, taken from the last chapter.

In the Book of Abramelin, the author, Abraham the Jew, tells his youngest son that he is giving him the wisdom of his knowledge of magic (in the book that he has written) because he must give the knowledge of the Qabalah to his eldest son. So it would seem that he has deemed to divide his wealth and wisdom between his two sons and the eldest receives, of course, the greater share. When I first read this passage, I was quite astounded, since it seemed to say that the knowledge of the Qabalah, in and of itself, was superior to the knowledge of magic. Here is the passage, found in the first book, chapter 9 (p. 34), where Abraham tells his son Lamech:

“The art of wisdom has its foundation in the secrets of the highest and in the holy Kabbalah, which belongs to your eldest brother Joseph, and not to you.”

 It would seem, then, that knowledge of the Qabalah is not only greater than the knowledge of magic, but that through it, one could gain everything that magic would give and more. According to the Book of Abramelin, a mastery of the Qabalah is superior to the knowledge and practice of magic, and between the two, it is the greater prize by far. This concept becomes even more amazing to us when we consider that the purpose of the Book of Abramelin was to successfully invoke and manifest one’s Holy Guardian Angel.

To complete a practice of the esoteric Qabalah, one only needs to engage deeply with one’s religious faith, whether that be Wicca or some form of modern Paganism, and to use the practices in my book to build a complete religious, mystical and theurgic discipline. Ostensibly, an occultist can use my book and not have to perform any other magical rites to project their theurgic magic into the world.

So, if this is true then how do we employ the Qabalah into our ritual or magical ceremonial practices. The actual truth of the matter is that high forms of magic typically rely on an intrusion of the Qabalah to be merged with it so that it might have a greater impact in both the material and spiritual worlds. These forms of magic need the Qabalah, but the Qabalah doesn’t need any forms of ritual or ceremonial magic to achieve its objectives. Additionally, I have written five books on advanced ritual magical practices that can used by Witches or Pagans that doesn’t incorporate the Qabalah. That means that a Witch or Pagan could perform rituals of invocation, evocation, elemental magic, talismanic magic and sacramental theurgy without having recourse to the Qabalah. What that demonstrates is that the Qabalah is a distinct discipline, and that a magician can employ the Qabalah into their magic, but that choice is completely optional - there is no requirement to do so.

If employing the Qabalah into the practice of ritual or ceremonial magic is completely optional, then when would it be useful or optimal to combine it with the practice of magic? One of my complaints, and the reason why I wrote the “For Witches” series of books without any recourse to the Qabalah, is that I find that it has been overused. Not every ritual has to include Qabalistic attributes. Even the Golden Dawn did not always flavor their rituals with the Qabalah, although they did more often than was necessary, in my opinion. Yet I find that the Qabalah is used in a lot of rituals these days, as if to give them the authenticity that they might lack without it. My approach is to use the Qabalah when it is appropriate to do so, and then only when the function of the Qabalah is critically important to the working. Overuse, in my opinion, makes the Qabalah redundant, and diminishes its importance and its potency. Let me define where using the Qabalah is appropriate, then we can focus on where it would be redundant.

Tree of Life and the Four Worlds as a Map

The Inner Planes, as the domain of the World of Spirit, is actually formless and cannot be mapped or understood by any kind of model or structure. Since everything is related to the One in that domain, when truly apprehended, it appears as a unity without any differentiation. It is beyond conscious apprehension, and it defies the rational logic of language or the structures of the mind. It is like a mirror, and it reflects back to us our beliefs, religious signs, symbols, and metaphors, and the logical structures that we use to help define what it is. Yet none of these artifices approximate the true nature that it expresses. It is the great singularity, and beyond it, is the greater emptiness. Even the Qabalah, with its ideas of Ain Soph Aur can only dimly approximate the true nature of this phenomenon. This is true with all of the various religious, esoteric or occultic approaches to understanding the One that is the source and the ultimate object of all conscious beings. However, the protean flexibility of the One allows us to use models and language to stimulate and engage with this Unity, and we can therefore use the models, symbols, constructs and various glyphs to emulate our experience of it. But, we must never fail to understand that the models and linguistic artifices that we might use will always fall short of truly defining it.

The Qabalistic Tree of Life represents a model of the emanations that generated the many lights of consciousness from the One through a mathematical sequence of the numbers 1 through 10. This model uses the Pythagorean base-10 approach to describing the waves of emanations, but certainly other systems of numeration could be used. While numbers represent the emanations that flowed from the One to the Many, there is also a circuitous pathway for the Many to return to the One, and that is represented by the 22 Pathways that connect the 10 numbered spheres or containers of the light of the One. These Pathways are given the attributes of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, symbolizing that the means to regaining the apprehension and absorption of the One is through the holy literature of the Tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible.

Numbers, letters and words, waves of emanation and paths to unity, are the attributes of the Tree of Life. Yet there is also the finite structure of the Tree, and its placements of the ten emanations, and the relationships between them via the paths, that show its remarkable utility. These components can represent the structure of the Inner Planes, approached from the manifestation of individual consciousness and the ensouling of material beings from the unified and mysterious source. They are given various symbolic attributes, consisting of the four elements, the seven planets, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the thirty-six decans, the seventy-two quinians, the trumps of the Tarot, various Deities and metaphysical concepts of all religions throughout the world, and colors, perfumes, incense, gem stones, metals, minerals, herbal medicines, and every conceivable mental attribute and material element in the world of humanity. The Qabalah unites everything within its structure of emanations and paths.

Additionally, the Four Qabalistic Worlds also represent a map of the Inner Planes, since it is a four-fold definition of the Emanations and Pathways of the Tree of Life, collecting the myriad of attributes within the four worlds of the Absolute, Creation, Formation, and Manifestation, where the One became the consciousness of the Many. Organized within these four Worlds are the various residents, both of spirit and mind, which would represent the Godhead attributes, Super Archangels, Archangels, Angels and Demons, and the spirits of the Earth and the Underworld. These domains of consciousness are populated by various entities, as the emanations and paths are refracted through the Four Worlds, producing a more comprehensive spiritual map of what is largely a domain that is wholly and completely unified into a single expression of Being residing within infinite emptiness. The importance of the Qabalah is that is gives a structure and order to something that has no order or structure, but through the Tree and Worlds, we can apprehend in a small part of the truth, and thereby gain a significant spiritual perspective of the whole.

Another important factor is that the many different attributes of the 10 Sephiroth, 22 Pathways and the Four Worlds can be placed into tables of correspondence, thereby giving intrinsic meaning and comparative commonality to very different associated elements. Each Sephirah and Path has other attributes that help to give it meaning, such as the planets or signs of the zodiac, and to these are associated colors, gem stones, metals, plants and herbs, various Deities from other pantheons, and a host of other attributes. Singularly, they are not as meaningful except when combined and grouped together where they gain their greater importance.

For instance, a simple list of spirits in any order by itself is not as meaningful as when it is placed within a matrix associated with attributes of the Tree of Life, and fixed within one of the Four Worlds. Then each spirit in the list inherits a whole catalogue of attributes and a spiritual hierarchy to help qualify it, including a sigil to specifically identify it. When performing an invocation of a spirit and using this kind of table or matrix to characterize and qualify it, then that operation is what I call invoking through a grid or matrix, and it produces the best results because the spirit is fully defined before being summoned.

Therefore, the Tree of Life, the Four Worlds, and the tables of correspondences represent a significant methodology for defining the Inner Planes, characterizing various hierarchies of spirits and giving individual entities an identity, function and purpose. Defining the Inner Planes in this manner makes them accessible to the practicing magician, and gives a disciplined methodology to the mystic who seeks to regain that once state of One that is the source of all. The Qabalah functions as a universal repository of all religious and spiritual symbols, and embodies a spiritual discipline for both the mystic and the magician. It provides a roadmap through a world that has no distinctive geographic features, habitations, roads or pathways, milestones showing the distance traveled, nor does it contain any idea of a destination, since to enter that domain is to unwittingly and immediately arrive at one’s objective.

Arithmology - Number and Letter/Word Manipulation

Determining and defining the domain of the Inner Planes is one of the features of the Qabalah, however, it is not the only important and valuable technique. Since the Emanations are numbers and the Pathways are letters, then it would be obvious that mathematics and literature would be the products of these attributes. Although the Qabalah is limited regarding mathematics, it would be conceivable that any mystical system of numeration would be readily expandable to include geometry, algebra, trigonometry, differential and integral calculus, linear algebra, and beyond. However, the numbers are not only quantities, but they have an intrinsic esoteric value, so that working with them, and with alphabetic letters, which have their own intrinsic meanings, to form equations can be understood as having an occult value as well as a mathematical value. Still, this is beyond our consideration here, since we must limit our discussion to the traditional Qabalah and my profound lack of mathematical expertise.

Systems of arithmology in occult studies within the Qabalah include the practices of Geomancy, Notariqon and Temurah. Additionally, there are the tools of magic squares equating letters and numbers, the inherent numeric values associated with the letters of the alphabet, and the use of alphabet wheels that allow for the production of linear vectors representing the sigil of a name or phrase. Branching off of that methodology is the modern mechanism of generating sigil or glyphs from lettered names or phrases. Each of these techniques serve a magical and occult purpose, and they are used to expand the power of numbers, letters and words.

Gematria is a system of number substitution for letters, where the numeric values of the letters in a word are added together to get a total value. The value for specific words and phrases is then compared in a compilation called a Sepher Sephiroth, a book of numbers. The basic premise in Gematria is that words and phrases that have the same numeric value must be strongly related. This technique is most useful when the occultist has a body of written lore or holy scriptures upon which to apply, extracting occultic relationships between different words and phrases. It is less useful for someone who doesn’t have sacred writings, because then the words subjected to this kind of scrutiny do not have the context of holy writ to build meaning. I have found Gematria to be interesting, but I have found that some occultists overuse it, such as the manner that Kenneth Grant has employed it to announce as fact the most tenuous connections through Gematria. Without any critical alternative proof or corroboration, Gematria alone does not satisfy the need for deriving solid occult knowledge. This is, of course, my opinion.

Notariqon is the art of building and exploding acronyms. I have found this technique to be very useful, since I have used it to construct magical formulas where letters, words and declarations are expressed at certain ritual point intervals (like the four watchtowers or angles, or any combination), and then a combined formula word is derived when the letters and words are joined, causing the circle nodes that they represent to be unified. These formula words can be words unto themselves or they can have no meaning other than representing the holistic expression of the letters set to the circle points. All my advanced ritual workings use this mechanism so that the layers within a series of rituals are sealed and expressed in a unified manner, and the final expression of the working is where the first letters of each formula would be used to build a formula that would define the working as a unified structure.

While I use Notariqon to fashion and build acronyms and explode them as words that represent meaningful phrases, it is likely that a Qabalistic practice uses sacred writings would focus that methodology on deriving and building deeper meanings within the text of the scriptures. Since I don’t have that feature in my religion, I can use this technique in a more creative and free-flying manner. I still generate deeper meanings and themes when I employ it in my rituals, but it doesn’t tie back to any scriptures, which would give such constructs even more depth and meaning.

Temurah is a system of letter substitution, function primarily as a set of ciphers where the Hebrew alphabet is broken into two columns of 11 letters, and the association of one letter to its pair is the how letters are substituted. There are a total of 24 different ciphers that can be developed from this mechanism, where the alphabet is split in two and realigned to produce letter pairs. This technique can be used to uncover occult aspects of words or phrases, or it can be used to either disguise writings or to discover coded messages that used this technique to hide their true meaning from the profane.

Another technique of Temurah is used to substitute letters for numbers so they might be used to draw sigils and seals on magically numbered squares. This technique is called the Aiq Bkr or Qabalah of Nine Chambers, since it is a table of nine cells that contain like numbers distinguished by their factor of ten. Thus the first cell would contain the numbers 1,10,100, for the letters Aleph, Yod and Qoph, and if a Qabalist had to fit the letter Qoph into a magic square for Jupiter, whose max number is 16, then they would have to exchange it for a Yod to use the number 10 in the square.    

Aiq Bkr requires the use of what is known as magic squares, and these squares are associated with the seven planets, from Saturn (3), Jupiter (4), Mars (5), Sun (6), Venus (7), Mercury (8) and the Moon (9). Magic squares are used to create sigils and seals for spirit names that fit within the category of one of the planets. Magic squares, however, is a system unto itself, and represents both a Qabalistic discipline and a system of magic.

Since Temurah employs a system to derive sigils and seals for spirit names using magic squares, then any other methodology used to produce the same product could be loosely associated with this discipline. Thus, the use of alphabet wheels to draw sigils, and the system that Spare developed to produce sigils and glyphs would also be a part of this occult technology.

The systems of arithmology are important to the practice, research and determination of meaning in the study of the Qabalah, but they are also very important in the writing and development of magical rituals and ceremonies. Since I have applied this methodology to most of the magical rituals that I have devised, especially the advanced rites, then this is a technique that is most useful and universal to my approach to ritual magic. I don’t use Gematria, but forms of Notariqon and Temurah are ubiquitous in the magical technology that I employ.

When to Use the Qabalah

This brings us to our final considerations about when it is appropriate to employ the Qabalah in ritual magic. First of all, I use forms of Notariqon and Temurah in nearly all of the my magical rites. If we consider the use of occult acronyms, both their expression and exposition, and the use of various types of sigils, then I make use of these techniques everywhere, but they just aren’t obvious or deliberately Qabalistic.

Where I employ the Tree of Life and the Four Worlds is wherever I need to work with a map of the Inner Planes. There might be other approaches to determining these kind of structures and their seemingly limitless tables of correspondences, but when I am performing any kind of invocation, evocation or in some manner, traversing the Inner Planes through my magic, then I will employ the Qabalah directly in my rituals, and add significant details and depth to my working that it would otherwise not possess.

If I am working simple of forms of magic, such as elemental, basic spirit conjurations, simple forms of talismanic magic, sacramental theurgy, or initiation ordeals, then I don’t have to use the Qabalah. This is why I was able to write the five books in the “For Witches” series without any recourse to the Qabalah. However, any complex magic that is being worked through a symbolic grid or that requires a spiritual hierarchy, or is traversing the Inner Planes will use the Qabalah, and my more advanced magic, which employs these methodologies, does indeed make extensive use of it.

This is the rule that anyone who would use the Qabalah in rituals and ceremonies should apply to their work. I would recommend using the Qabalah only when you need it, otherwise, I would recommend sticking with simpler methodologies so as not to overuse it. Overusing the Qabalah is to make it less meaningful and significant in one’s magical work, and I would advise you, my reader, to avoid that pitfall.

Frater Barrabbas 

Writing Abramelin Lunar Ordeal

 

Recently, like over the Thanksgiving holidays, while I have been struggling to recover from a low grade diagnosis of pneumonia, I started writing and assembling the book “Abramelin Lunar Ordeal,” which is the eleventh book that I written since 2006. Like Liber Nephilim, there was a lot of material that had already been written, and I had sorted that material out so I could pull it into my manuscript. Therefore, it only took me around two weeks to complete the manuscript, but now I will need to fully edit it, insert footnotes and citations, insert the proposed artwork and diagrams, produce the bibliography and the index list. I have also signed a contract with Crossed Crow Books to publish this book, and I will need to submit the manuscript before March 1, 2024. Of course, I will be able to complete all of this work well before the due date. While I was able to use a lot of material that I already had, I also added a lot of new text and completely revised the rituals. This will be another book available in soft and hard covers, as well as a deluxe hand bound collector’s edition.

What I needed to write up that was missing in my blog posts or documentation was the background and motivation for developing an alternative method for manifesting ones Holy Guardian Angel, also known as the person’s Atman, or Godhead. I refer to this entity also as the Higher Self, agreeing with the Theosophists, who also saw this as the inner deity, but contradicting Crowley and other magicians who saw the HGA as separate and independent of the person. I don’t agree with that perspective, and because as a Witch I am intimately familiar with my own internal godhead and its ultimate nondual link to the Unity of All Being, known to the Neoplatonists as the One, I believe that everyone has within them a deity. Most of us are unconscious of this being, and some of us make contact with such a being nearly impossible (those who might be considered as soulless). There are many names for this entity, but it is the God of our head, as the African Traditional Religions call it.

The traditional Abramelin ordeal, as encapsulated in Mather’s French translation, outlined a preparatory phase required to obtain the ultimate objective of knowledge and conversation with one’s Holy Guardian Angel. That period of preparation was focused on the extreme piety of prayer, meditation, fasting, purification, total abasement, and atonement covering a period not less than six months, where the final month was spent in complete sequestration. In other words, the preparation was wholly religious and mystical and lacked any kind of magical operations. The environment and one’s person were to be kept clean and ordered, the prayer room or tabernacle needed to have eastern and western windows and a floor covered by sand, with a small altar. This period of absolute concentration on the objective could not be interrupted and then restarted. It had to be a continuous period of religious and liturgical obligations that intensified as the final period of sequestration occurred. Many have attempted this working, and some have succeeded and others have failed, and some who have succeeded have made it a point of pride and accomplishment.

However, this is not the only ordeal that can assist the operator in achieving the K and C of the HGA, and in fact, there are many other operations available to magicians to use, either from the older grimoires or from new approaches (such as the Beatification rite found in Sworn Book). Additionally, this six month working was not the final word, since an older and more complete version was recently translated and published from an original German manuscript. This version proposed a working lasting 18 months, and consisting of a solar cycle with the Passover and Feast of the Tabernacles as the pivot points. The older manuscript appeared to be more Jewish in its cultural perspective, and I believe that it represents the more accurate rendition of this important preparatory working. This new version doesn’t contradict anyone having used the older and shorter version, but I would imagine that the longer version of the working would be even more effective in helping the operator achieve their objective. It also demonstrated that the cycles imbedded into the working consisting of three six months periods of the solar calendric cycle of Jewish holy days. When I read that and understood what it implied, I believed that it was quite a revealing discovery, making the overall working more meaningful.

While I had admired the Abramelin working, I knew early on that I would never have the resources or opportunity to perform it. Once out of college, I became a working stiff, and I never had the luxury of being able to take an entire month off from work, not to mention equip, pay bills and feed myself. This working was always beyond my means, so I could read and study it, but I couldn’t actually try to perform it. I knew that starting something like this would require me to complete it, so I declined to figure that out and instead sought out other methodologies for obtaining a kind of magical enlightenment. When the new version came out and showed that the working should actually last 18 months with three months of sequestration, I felt that it was even more completely out of my reach. However, the pattern of three six month periods using a solar calendar cycle gave me some ideas for developing an alternative approach.

As anyone who knows me or has read my writings will tell you, I am not someone who believes in following the stricture of any tradition. Years ago I had developed my own tradition and it had served me so well that I was able to pass it on to others. That was the magical lore of the Order of the Gnostic Star that I had helped to found back in the 1980's. This has allowed me the freedom to develop my own mysteries, ordeals and magical workings, building a path that one could follow and undergo conscious and spiritual evolution through the methods of ritual magic. I am not the only one who has developed their own magical system, since in order to perform ritual magic in the modern age I believe it requires one to build a system that is personally meaningful and that has a practical and relevant basis in the current times. Therefore, I have always felt it to be my prerogative to adopt and adapt magical lore from the past into my personal magical system when such lore is needed, but mostly avoid engaging with it.

So, when I discovered that the Abramelin working consisted of three six month periods, spanning a year and six months based on the solar calendar, I wondered if this same ordeal could be adapted to work within a lunar period of one and a half cycles, or around 40 days. Since the moon was much more important to me than the sun, due to my Witchy bias, I saw this as a possible replacement. The shorter duration would need to be filled with a more intensive regimen of ritual work, because the period of sequestration would only be three days. What I had to do was to fill that period with the most powerful workings I could develop that would lead operator to undergo a full conscious transformation and personal transfiguration.

What I needed was an environment that contained a holy tabernacle (similar to the sandy floored temple in the traditional working), and I came up with the idea of invoking all of the angels of the Seraphim and Cherubim in a four week period, which I had previously determined to be four angels for each group, and fuse them into an octagon vortex to br joined with the elected Element Godhead, which would generate a highly charged and sacralized environment. I added to that a three-part gateway that included the western and eastern gateways (double gateway of initiation) and a crossing gateway using the northern and southern nodes and the ultra-point for the gateway of ascension, opening up the operator to the absolute spiritual plane.

Upon that foundation, I decided to use my revised version of the Bornless or Headless One invocation rite that had an ascent up the pyramidal steps of the four Qabalistic Worlds to a fifth temple at the top of the pyramid structure where the Bornless One invocation was to be performed. Since I had determined that the Bornless One invocation was a surrogate rite to acquire the K and C of the HGA (according to Crowley and others), I felt that the combination of ritual layers would lead the operator to experience a powerful transformation. I also incorporated other rites, both from the PGM and the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkruetz, to assist in the merging the expanded conscious state of the HGA into the mind of the operator. I had developed all of this lore and decided to test it out during the holiday season of 2009.

What I discovered when I performed this ordeal, from November 2009 through January 2010, was that it not only produced the expected results, it had a profound and permanent effect on my life. From that moment forward I was no longer the same person. The ordeal worked as I had envisioned it, and I also posted edited versions of my diary entries to this blog. There were complexities to my experience with this ordeal, and in fact there was an important ritual that was missing, which I was able to add and perform in 2011 to complete it. I now had a variation of the Abramelin working that was lunar based and that would produce, if faithfully deployed, a similar kind of transfiguration including the revelation of the HGA. I made these rituals and writings available to my brothers and sisters in the Order of the Gnostic Star, but none in the Order attempted to perform this ordeal.

Many years have passed since that tremendous occurrence, and the effects of that ordeal still are having an impact on me. After I completed that working, I came up with new and creative ideas, and my writing efforts were and are stimulated and guided by my Higher Self, or HGA. I may not have conscious contact with this Godhead at all times, but it is there when I focus on it or when I need help. I owe it most of the creative work that I have achieved in the years since, and this contact has allowed me to more accurately look into my spiritual foundation and my past steps and to judge what I have done and where I must go, so that I might know my future path as it leads me to the end of life and beyond.

So, we come to my recent work, and I can say that the ordeal that I have prized above all of my previous workings will now appear in a comprehensive book. The documentation that I wrote years ago for members of my Order has been revised along with the rituals that I performed. The blog posting of my diaries will be gone over and synchronized where appropriate with my actual diary entries, and the book will aid anyone who wants to test my hypothesis that there is a viable and practical alternative to the traditional Abramelin working.

My book will have the title: “Abramelin Lunar Ordeal: An Alternative Magical Journey” and it will likely be released sometime in March 2025. It will represent my last book for the time being, but I will have eleven books in print by then, and it will be sufficient until such a time as I am able to rewrite and package the other books that I have planed in the future.
 
Here is the book synopsis that will be used to market the book.

Over a hundred years ago MacGregor Mathers published a book that introduced to the magicians of the 20th century the magical ordeal penned by an obscure German Jewish occultist. That book was called “Book of Abramelin the Sage” and contained an arduous preparation practice that lasted six months manifesting the Holy Guardian Angel that would instruct and guide the adherent. The book contained many magical squares of notorious potency. To use them, the magician had to undergo many months of prayer, meditation, fasting, purification, abasement, and a period of complete sequestration. Another version of this working, recently published, had the working last for eighteen months with three months of sequestration.

Many magicians attempted this arduous task, some succeeded and some failed. This working was typically beyond the means and resources of your average magician. This was the challenge to achieve the knowledge and conversation with their Holy Guardian Angel. However, Frater Barrabbas took this challenge and used it to forge a whole new magical ordeal. He decided to base it on a lunar cycle instead of a solar cycle, crafting an ordeal that could be accomplished in seven weeks with three days of sequestration, thus making its performance more practical.

Frater Barrabbas sought to create a powerful series of magical workings that would produce the promised state of transfiguration and manifest one’s Holy Guardian Angel. He used invocations of the four Seraphim and Cherubim in a four-week period, along with the Element Godhead, to produce a holy tabernacle of godhead and angelic intelligence. He chose a revised version of the Bornless or Headless One invocation rite of GD fame as the apex. He plumbed the PGM to extract three more rituals to add to Bornless rite. These rituals and more he has written into a book, including the diaries entries where he performed this working back in 2009 to validate it. All of this lore and instruction are encapsulated in the book “Abramelin Lunar Ordeal,” a unique and profound contribution to the art of ritual magic. Now, the Sacred Magic of Abramelin is available using a new, condensed paradigm.

If you want a taste of what this book might contain, you can examine these past blog postings that I put into a single web page. These are my thoughts, comments and my highly edited diaries associated with the working when I performed it back in 2009. There are no rituals nor any background documentation, so that will be reserved for the book itself. Also, the book will contain the mostly unedited diaries from my Liber Spiritus.

Here is the blog link to all of the earlier postings. You can find it here.

Frater Barrabbas

Is Achieving K & C of the HGA Important?

Some magicians in the blogosphere have recently stated that they think that the huge importance placed on a magician achieving the knowledge and conversation with his or her holy guardian angel is rather overblown. It has become something of a badge of honor for some, but I couldn’t agree more with the pundits’ opinion. However, I would stress that some cautionary insights be included to the overall argument.

While it seems to be have become something of status symbol for individuals who have claimed to have undergone the traditional Abramelin ordeal, the actual achievement represents something that harkens back to antiquity itself. In those times, the signature achievement of any sorcerer of repute was that he had acquired, in some manner, a familiar spirit. Whether you call it a person’s genius, higher self, indestructible spirit, over-soul, augoeides, eudaimon or holy guardian angel, it is, in my opinion, variations on the theme of possessing a familiar spirit. I think that all of these entities are one and same, although not everyone would likely share my point of view.

Anyone who has perused the spells listed in the PGM will quickly discover that there were quite a number of different techniques for acquiring the vaunted familiar spirit, and this is still true today. While some purists would thumb their noses at anyone who had claimed to achieve the K & C without performing either the six or eighteen month Abramelin ordeal, I believe that there are as many different ways of achieving this important goal as there are magicians currently practicing the Western mystery tradition. The Bornless One invocation rite (ala Crowley or the Golden Dawn), the Abramelin Lunar ordeal, the Pyramidos rite (again, Crowley), the rite of Beatification (as found in Liber Juratus), summoning a spirit guide, family animal totem, departed ancestor or nature ally (as found in various earth-based religions), and numerous other rites represent the same analogous trial, which is achieving the intimate companionship of a spiritual mediator.

(We won’t spend any time here discussing my belief that there should be some kind of mechanism or peer group assessment to validate that a magician has indeed succeeded in this quest other than just taking his or her word on it. Presently, it seems like many individuals are claiming to have undergone the traditional Abramelin ordeal. Still, it seems to me like there are far too many who are making this claim in order for it to be credible, but woe betide to anyone who would contradict or challenge the claimants to somehow prove their claims. That, of course, is another topic for another time.)

Another point about this whole theme is that acquiring a familiar spirit was one of the first steps that any credible magician would undertake in order to be considered a legitimate sorcerer for-hire. It would seem that having this spiritual aid was what separated the adepts from the would-be dabblers, and I think that this is still a valid consideration. Achieving this quest doesn’t represent the end of all quests for the magician, instead, it represents the very beginning of a more serious practice of ritual magick.

In other words it is just one of many steps to becoming an adept magician, so it is neither a mark of prestige or specialness. It represents that the magician has the ability to mediate the world of spirits with the mundane world, and that he or she has the ability to enact changes in both worlds. A magician with a familiar spirit could also be assumed as having access to inner plane contacts, since he or she would be able to make important spiritual associations through the intercession of that spirit agent.

So it would seem that this achievement, although important, should be never seen as some kind of exclusive club for purist aficionados of the Abramelin system of magick. While I honor those who have taken the time and effort to perform the original Abramelin ordeal, I don’t believe that their achievement somehow makes them better than any other magician.

Unlike the adherents of the “grimoire only” crowd, I happen to know that there are many ways of achieving this goal, and that each ordeal should actually be unique and appropriate to the magician and his or her path. To my way of thinking, successfully mastering a custom path is much more legitimate and authentic than just following what is written in some book or grimoire. We are all impacted by our choices, but one path or choice is not necessarily superior to another for everyone. Anyway, that’s my two cents on this controversy.

Frater Barrabbas  

Summary and Conclusion of the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal Working

Enough time has passed that I need to examine all that happened during my seven week ordeal and to analyze and examine it from a higher level perspective than what I was able to determine after completing each individual working. I need to put the whole process together and examine it, using what I know about occult symbolism and spiritual phenomena to classify what was experienced during that entire period of time. I am certain that as more time passes, I may have additional thoughts and insights to report, but for now, it’s important that I attempt to summarize what occurred and explain this process from a more abstract and theoretical perspective.

What I can deduce almost immediately is that this newly devised ordeal does indeed successfully achieve the same results that the traditional ordeal achieved, which is the knowledge and conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel. So I can say that the new ordeal is efficient, succinct and works quite well. That much I can say without any doubts or confusion - there is now a new way of undergoing this classic ordeal. What can’t be said is that it produces exactly the same results or that it is in any way an analogous working. The Abramelin Lunar Ordeal working is quite different than the traditional Abramelin ordeal working, although I believe that they produce a kind of similar effect on the operator.

Since I have not worked the traditional ordeal (nor can I, even if I wanted to), then I really have little to compare between the two processes, other than what I know about mystical and magickal practices, since the Abramelin ordeal is entirely mystical and devotional. My version of this ordeal is almost entirely magickal, with some elements of the devotional and mystical processes included in its formulation and deployment. These were added while the overall ordeal was being undergone, and were not really part of the original plan. The final mix of magickal workings and mystical devotion produces the correct combination of actions within sacred space that produce the same result as the traditional ordeal. So I can say with some degree of confidence that the lunar ordeal is in its final form. I will certainly rewrite and refine the specific rituals themselves, but the pattern of the ordeal is, I believe, complete.

I also believe that the invocation of the archangel Ratziel was crucial to the ordeal, even though that particular magickal working wasn’t part of the ordeal proper. For those who would want to duplicate this ordeal, it would be a requirement to perform this working as well as all of the rest in sequence. If we consider that the lunar ordeal covers the progression of Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Spirit, then the pre-ordeal working would cover the “Self” and would be part of the process that prepared one for the beginning of the ordeal. I will include this working in the structure of the ordeal, even though I will consider it to be optional. Any magician who elects to undergo this ordeal may perform this working, an alternative working or none.

The ordeal should be broken up into seven sections, starting with the pre-ordeal working, then proceeding through the four elements, Spirit and then concluding with the Abramelin ordeal and the Bornless One invocation rite. I believe that I can make a summary of each section and a final analysis.

Pre-ordeal Working: This working was performed the evening of November 7th. I had to fashion a new sigil, and the results of the invocation of Ratziel gave me the license and the authority to proceed with the ordeal. I received the protection and blessing of Ratziel and used his sigil as a passport in my invocations of the eight Super-archangels. I also concluded that a fast was in order, abstaining from red meat, eating sparingly (except for religious feasts) and adopting a vegetarian diet during the actual weekend workings.

“Ratziel also imparted to me that he had a hand in influencing and inspiring me to formulate this ordeal, even though the credit for doing so is still completely my own. So what this means is that a bit of angelic providence has inspired and guided me to formulate this working. I must admit that I am greatly intrigued, and it would seem that the spiritual hierarchy is in agreement with what I am about to do. ”

First weekend - Element of Earth: Nov 21 & 22. The first weekend working was accomplished without a lot of difficulties and seemed to show that the path of this ordeal was blessed with good intentions and auspicious occurrences. The results of the invocation of Zahriel was joyous and happy, Yophiel was intense, restrained, but gentle and kindly. 

A quote from the invocation of Zahriel:

“Joyous existence - the happiness and great innocent pleasure in all of life - even when it seems like a burden to one. I saw a vision of a gaily dressed entity, like the Ghost of Christmas Present in Dickens' story, “A Christmas Carol,” amidst a halo of golden and brilliant lights. I felt all of the goodness that I have ever done for others compressed into a single moment of joyous and ecstatic happiness - an illumination of joyousness! I realized that knowing and being grateful for life was an important foundation to enlightenment, which can’t occur without that sense of gratification.”

A quote from the invocation of Yophiel:

“Devotion consists of the expressed and constant demonstration of the love of the Deity - giving offerings and purely worshiping it. This also includes forgiving the errors and follies of others, as well as giving alms to the poor and supporting one’s spiritual community. One should give either service or money to those who are bereft as a demonstration of spiritual solidarity with the human race.”

So two words that would fully represent this working is “joyous existence” and “devotion - the giving of offerings and worship” - both of these expressions powerfully colored the first weekend working. They caused me to change and modify how I was perceiving my life and how I was perceiving the needs of others. I became a bit of a philanthropist as well as a person who began to realize the beauty and joy of life itself.


Second Weekend - Element of Air: November 27 & 28. The second weekend working was quite difficult, although not as difficult as later parts of the ordeal. I had caught a nasty cold and it affected everything that I attempted to do. It did not stop the second weekend working from being performed, and I managed to experience a fairly rapid recovery, but the sickness colored the second weekend working, even though by the next week, all signs of it were gone. The results of the invocation of Yehoel was mind blowing, causing me to experience a kind of powerful mental expansion. Ophaniel exposed me to the power of judgement that is part of the Cherubim character, I was judged but found of reasonable integrity and intention to be allowed to continue the working. Obviously, if I had been found wanting, the ordeal would have come to grinding halt at this point.

A quote from the invocation of Yehoel:

“Yehoel told me that the true will is discovered through the resolution of parables, riddles, paradoxes and puzzles about the nature of reality, chance (fortune), and inherent capabilities (and flaws) associated with the individual. So the true will is not something that is straightforward, it’s more of a profound personal mystery - one that requires a constant focused inquiry. However, all personal destinies are resolved at the same point - ultimate union with the godhead, whether a person realizes that truth or not.”

A quote from the invocation of Ophaniel:

“You have achieved the midpoint of the working, and the beginning of the really more challenging and difficult parts of the ordeal. The seraphim will inspire you, and the cherubim will challenge you, as you have never been inspired or challenged before. The cherubim are the keepers of the gateway of the godhead and they will test and judge you as either worthy or unworthy. Fulfilling their requirements is extremely important. It must be done with an open heart and a transparent motivation - anything less will cause the ordeal to fail. You will not be able to bring all eight of these super-archangels together without incurring a kind of curse on yourself - so be warned, and prepare yourself!”

So from these two spirits I received wisdom about one’s spiritual will or destiny, and the need to fulfill the special requirements given to me by the Cherubim. As I have indicated, these two entities had a very powerful impact on my workings and permanently altered my attitude and sense of compassion for others.


Third Weekend - Element of Water: December 5 & 6. The third weekend working was more difficult and challenging than the previous two. While I was able to heal myself of the cold I had caught, now my mundane world, particularly my job, presented obstacles to completing the working. I persevered and used the power of my will to ensure that the working was done at the appointed times, but I certainly was challenged. Metatron amazingly planted a “seed of wisdom” inside my soul and Kerubiel taught me how to nurture and empower that seed, telling me not only what it was but how to maximize it, so that it would become the source of my wisdom and compassion. I also was told to re-examine the Gnostic tract Hymn to the Pearl, which I did, and I posted it as a separate article.

A quote from Metatron:

“This is my gift to you, Oh sojourner of the spiritual paths of super-celestial magick. It is the seed of spiritual love and greatest wisdom. Care for it, nurture it with love and your passion for God, believe in it as the link between you and your goal. If you do this, then the seed will open and unveil its glory unto your soul. If you fail, then it shall become a dead thing, which shall embitter and curse your very quest to its source. You must choose your path wisely and carefully so that the gift is a great boon to you instead of a barrier.”

A quote from Kerubiel:

“I reveal this wisdom to you - a great seed has been planted in you, and only the greatest passion and love of God will cause it to open and reveal its secrets. When giving devotions to your godhead, remember the poetry of Rumi, Hafiz and Kabir - and other poetry of the love to God, such as the Psalms. Sing praises to God, whom you love and adore, and the seed will reveal to you its inner most secrets and greatest glory.”

Kerubiel also instructed me to add additional features to the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal. I needed to extract the three final days of the traditional Abramelin ordeal and incorporate them into my own working. This means that I would begin with prayers, atonement purification and fasting starting on December 28 through the day of the invocation of the Bornless One, which is December 30. I was also supposed to perform a macro ritual to reconnect with all eight Seraphim and Cherubim prior to performing the rite of bringing them together into the empowered octagon. Since I didn’t have an excess of time, I decided to pair the Elements together, working on Earth and Water one evening, and Air and Fire the following evening. The results were excellent, so that is how I would recommend that additional pair of workings be accomplished.

The Element of Water brought the aspect of devotion and love of God powerfully into the working, and felt my heart and soul open up and align itself with the targeted Godhead of the Element of Water.


Fourth Weekend - Element of Fire: December 11 & 12. The fourth weekend working was probably the most profound of the four weekends, with the elementary structures of a kind of nascent enlightenment beginning to expand and reveal itself in me. This not to say that I have achieved enlightenment, but that the foundation for it has been established. Seraphiel caused in a profound sense of time distortion, where visions and dreams that I had when a youth nearly exactly 37 years ago were revisited again, and it seemed as if they were happening simultaneously. Rikbiel gave me complete affirmation that my attempt at the Abramelin ordeal would be successful, but that I would be tested even more intensely than I have already been tested. I was acquitted of having delusions about myself or of having questionable motivations about my search for enlightenment. All was in readiness for the next phase of the ordeal.

A quote from Seraphiel:

“Frater Barrabbas Tiresius, we have indeed met before a long time ago in your perceptions, but only moments ago for me. Although which came first is unknown to me, for time is indeed strange and disjointed where I stand.”

And:

“So I have quickened this seed planted in you by Metatron. So it shall grow and expand until it reveals its mysteries to you - soon. Take care to continue to nurture it with good deeds, compassionate intentions and devotions of the love of the Godhead. All will be revealed to you soon enough by my counter part, the Cherub of Fire.”

A quote from Rikbiel:

“These are the ghosts of the future that will be happening soon. They represent the fact that I have appeared to you even before the invocation, due to the weight of having successfully invoked the previous seven of these great angelic spirits. I bless you on this chosen path of the ordeal, and I shall aid you in your quest. It will be another new path opened up for others, for that is what you must do once this ordeal is accomplished. Beware, though, for I must warn you that having passed me, you are locked into this ordeal and cannot turn aside. It must be accomplished, there is no turning back, for madness and self destruction shall overtake you if would deem to quit at this time.”

After these workings were completed, I managed to find the original drawing and posted it with a report that I placed in my blog. I was quite amazed at this phenomenon of time distortion, which occurred with both spirits. With Seraphiel, I was transported back 37 years into my past, and Rikbiel showed me impressions and visions of what was to come. I sensed the coming difficulties, but actually I had no clue what those challenges would be like. What I sensed were like ghosts of time, and the actual future events were still obscured and maintained their mysteries until they happened. Thus there was no way for me to prepare for what was to befall me in the final three days. What I did know was that the ordeal would be successfully completed - I sensed the joy of the moment, but nothing in between.


Fifth Weekend - Solstice Feast and Charging of the Magick Ring. December 19, 20 & 21. This represented a week of rest, since the New Moon occurred on December 16, and the energy of the working began to become quiet and internalized. I performed the ring consecration on the eve of the Solstice proper and sealed the rite with the first rays of the sun on the morning of the Winter Solstice. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, but the ritual produced an intense amount of energy that went into the rings that I had purchased and consecrated for Grace and myself. The rings were wrapped up in purple velour and allowed to incubate for week or so (more than three days).


Between the fifth and sixth weekend I performed a macro ritual to invoke all of the Seraphim and Cherubim by pairs of Elements. On December 23 I performed this rite for Earth and Water, briefly reinvoking all of the Seraphim and Cherubim for that pair of Elements. On December 24, I performed the same macro rite for Air and Fire, reinvoking the Seraphim and Cherubim. I received powerful impressions, visions and communications during both sessions. The first thing that was communicated to me was the name of the Goddess aspect of the Godhead Element of Water, which was Aset-Sophia.

This is what the combined Spirits of Earth and Water communicated to me: “Do not indulge in the sadness and death of the ego. Understand what this actually represents to one on your path. [Here I got a sense to examine the writings of Ken Wilber on this subject - Death of the Centauric level of development.] If you are bereft and overly mourn its passing, then you are greatly in error. Use your alignment to the Godhead to bring joy and bliss to your heart. The only necessary tears are those that are shed for joy and not misery or unhappiness. Don’t be dramatic or make this transition more difficult than it should be.”

This is what the combined Spirits of Air and Fire communicated to me: “You have been thinking about what was missing in your thoughts about the article ‘Magick and the Science of the Impossible’, and it has escaped you. We shall reveal it to you, as a sign of our bond with you in this ordeal. The missing consideration is the mind model which you call the assumption of “As If”.” And also: “The ordeal must remain structured as you have already determined it. For this ordeal is meant to be harsh and difficult, not harmonious and easy to accomplish.”

I had received from the combination of super-archangelic spirits the final pieces of the ordeal, some of which I had neither realized or anticipated when I had initially designed it. This was an indication that the ordeal was shaping and evolving itself, revealing to me the optimal form. This was knowledge that could only be received by one who was undergoing it, showing in its variations and revelations how authentic was this process. If I were faking the whole thing, then everything would have been perfectly pre-determined, with no surprises or additional revelations.


Sixth Weekend - Element of Spirit - Invocation of the Godhead Element of Water and generation of the Ogdoadic Tabernacle: December 26. As a change in plans, I decided to consolidate all of the weekend’s working into a single, therefore performing the Invocation of the Godhead Element of Water, Ogdoadic Godhead Vortex and the Triple Tetrahedral Gate rites in a single evening. This turned out to be both an efficient use of time and it was not tiring or exhausting to me. I also got to experience the full maximization of the manifestation of the specific Goddess aspect that was my key to enlightenment. I even managed to integrate a sigil for both Shadai Al Chai and Aset-Sophia, producing a sigil form that was both fascinating and quite powerful looking. Drawing the eight spirits of the super-archangels together into an octagon of power was both thrilling and climactic. I felt all of the spirits merge together to form a nexus of light, wisdom and power that encircled the Godhead Element of Water, which had manifested as a kind of combination of Aphrodite and Persephone - lover and maiden.

Then the following occurred, as reported in my journal: “At first I saw the four outer pylons as pillars of golden fire, with a larger pillar of blue fire in the center of the circle, with scarlet lines of force marking the cross-roads. The four outer pillars of fire began to bow towards the center pillar of fire until they merged with it, and then there was only one massive pillar of fire, only its color had changed to green with a golden core, and the cross-roads became a deep violet color. This image faded away completely, being replaced by a vision into which I was completely immersed. There was a diffused white light but no details, and in the midst of it all I sensed the super-empowered presence of the Godhead manifest with accompanied sensations of complete awe and astonishment from me.”

Then I experienced a vision into which I was fully immersed. I had no sense of reality around me, only the vision exited for me. I was walking on a beach that was clouded with mist and fog, it was warm and also quite brilliant. I then saw what I presumed to be a manifestation of the Goddess appear before me. I wrote in my journal: “Then a woman came walking forth from the ocean waves, she was obviously thoroughly wet and glistening with salty water. She was neither tall nor short, but seemed around the same height as myself. She wasn’t naked either, but wore some kind embroidered white shift that was wet and clung to her body, leaving her legs and arms naked. She was pale but not exceptionally so, her face was incredibly beautiful. She had long hair that was braided into numerous strands, probably of a light brown, but fitted with golden beads that made it look blonde.”

The Goddess spoke to me, and this is what she said: “I am here and have come, as you desired me so. I have been waiting for you to come for untold aeons. This place, where the water meets the earth is the sacred meeting ground of mortal life and eternal spirit. In this guise that you see me now, I shall aid and help you to complete your quest. That quest is to awaken the God within you into full awareness, so that you and he, and me, might join in eternal embrace. I am your godly muse! Seek me in the days of your ordeal.”

I was deeply haunted by the vision of the Goddess, and she traveled with me as I entered the final three days of the ordeal.


Seventh Weekend - Final Ordeal and Invocation of the Bornless One: December 28, 29 & 30. 
Because the Full Moon occurred on the night of December 31, I had to complete the ordeal just before that day, so I had decided to undergo the ordeal from Monday through Wednesday. Therefore, it wasn’t really the seventh weekend, but the seventh major working. The ordeal began at dawn on Monday morning, and I, completely sequestered from the world, proceeded to perform devotions, atonement exercises, fasting, purification, prayers, meditations and contemplations for the entire time, taking only small amounts of time out for personal duties and a few tasks that had to be done (like shoveling show). I even slept in an annex of the temple so as to never be too far from the sacred space. 

The final three days tested my resolve like nothing else that I have encountered previously. Somehow during the second day of the ordeal, I had seriously twisted my back and ended up with a very painful and uncomfortable lower back, which seemed quite capable of interrupting the working altogether. I actually did contemplate quitting, but decided not to quit when I realized that such an auspicious time would not be easily repeated. I persevered, determined to complete the working even if I had to use a staff or a cane to get around. In the end, I didn’t need to use any aids. The power itself temporarily healed me so that I was not only able to perform the rite, but I performed it more powerfully and fully than I have ever performed it before. I believe the magick ring helped me, since I put it on and asked for healing energies.

In my journal I reported the following experiences associated with the successful invocation of the Bornless One: “So what has been revealed to me is that the HGA is integral to one’s being and functions as one’s spiritual dimension. What I was seeking and attempting to connect with was always there. When I apprehended this truth, it was so simple and so familiar to me. It was all of the “good” that I have ever felt or shown to others, the love and devotion that I have shown the Godhead, my true spiritual self from infancy to death and beyond. It was such a miraculous and minor thing, always attached to me and a part of me, even though I was unaware of it most of the time. However, I needed to perform this massive and difficult ordeal to get me to detach enough from my mundane preoccupations to become truly aware of it, probably for the first time in my life - although I realized that it had been always there at the very pinacle and edge of my being. As time goes forward from this point of realization, a greater awareness will unfold, teaching and guiding me, helping me to elevate my consciousness in a manner that nothing else could compare. The world has become my teacher, and my HGA is the master guide who will aid me in my lessons of life, death and the Greater Spirit.”


Final Analysis and Summary: The final analysis has to be that the intention nearly always outweighs the mechanism used in a magickal working. If the intention is solid, then the working will be successful. This is true even if the ritual working or ordeal is imperfect or highly flawed. Also, all of the required elements must be expressed in the working, yet the sequence of their expression is not that important. This means that a ritual working can be worked out of sequence and the end results will still be potent and valid. Of course this is not an excuse for shoddy ritual design and poor execution. The better the design and the more esthetic the execution, then the results will be more profound and personally empowering.

This seems to be an important rule in the practice of magick, and it has some amazing consequences. Whether we use the traditional grimoires and lore to perform our magick, or whether we wholly and completely invent it anew, either approach will work if the intent is solid. If the magician understands what he or she is trying to do, and realizes the mechanisms that are needed to trigger deep psychological states of consciousness and so cause a complete transcendental transformation of the personality. I believe that what I have fashioned in this new version of the Abramelin Ordeal is valid and works as advertised. Some of the things that occurred during this working were quite indicative that it was a true magickal ordeal. These can be listed by the following points.

• Structure of ordeal evolved while it was performed,
• Ordeal was dynamic and had a high degree of spontaneity,
• Spirits produced unexpected or unanticipated results,
• Ordeal had corroboration from objective observer,
• Ordeal candidate was challenged, almost to the point of failure,
• Ordeal followed expected patterns for spiritual enlightenment, even though many of those patterns were previously unknown.

What is required to complete the analysis is that someone else needs to undertake the rituals of this ordeal and perform them, and then compare their results with mine. When several individuals have completed this process, then and only then, will I be able to say definitively that a new system of magick has been developed and proven to work in most cases. I look forward to that day.

Frater Barrabbas 

Thoughts and Rebuttals About the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal

I have recently read some comments that I found listed in some online groups where individuals have taken certain umbrage to my postings about the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal. These were written by pundits who have questioned why a pagan and a witch like me would bother to master and perform the Abramelin ordeal, even if I were using a lunar based cycle. Some of the comments seem to indicate that my previous articles have either not been read or they have been misunderstood. There is also the supposed problem that I couldn’t possibly be qualified to do this kind of work because I am not an adherent of the appropriate kind of creed. They wonder why I would bother to invoke angels, goetic demons and supposedly work with the grimoires that use them? What is the purpose to this kind of magick if I am not part of the over-all spiritual and theological domain that drives the old grimoires and their systems of magick? One would consider either a monotheist, Christian Diabolist, follower of the Left Hand Path or a deeply chthonic pagan to be the obvious practitioner of these kinds of workings. Am I mixing systems because I am confused, deranged or just plain sloppy?

Of course, adherents of Thelema, which is a nominally neopagan creed, are encouraged to make use of the old grimoires and to some extent, so are chaos magicians, who use any creed or system that works for them. Yet these same individuals think that Wiccans should stay away from such dark magick as “goety”, perhaps to protect their fragile nerves or over active imaginations. Of course this opinion flies in the face of the fact that classical witchcraft has lionized the reclamation of chthonic deities for over forty years.

I have also had the temerity to state my beliefs about the ethical use of goetic demons and I have criticized others for making use of the infernal princes in their workings (such as Lucifuge, Beelzebub, Ashtoreth, Satan and others). Am I perhaps being a bit hypocritical in stating my opinions and then seemingly contradicting them with my actual magickal practices? In short, some have questioned whether I am behaving like some kind of moralizing and narrow minded fool who is squeamish about anything that involves dark magick. Some have also said that I had a lot of gall to criticize the use of the Grimoirum Verum, but then greedily appropriate the magick squares found in book four of the Book of Abramelin. Some have questioned my sincerity, others feel that I have unusual Christian biases in my work, causing me to bounce back and forth in an inconsistent fashion between those things that I like and others that I feel are “evil.”

The articles that I have previously written, which can be found in this bog, contain the answers to all of these questions and criticisms. For the previous nine months I have patiently, consistently and carefully written up my thoughts on these topics. I believe that I have presented a very thorough basis for what I do and why I do it. So, to answer these various pundits and explain why I actually bothered to perform a lunar based version of the Abramelin Ordeal, I have decided to write up this article and hopefully put them to rest once and for all. I will also quote some of the more important past articles where I have made my opinions unambiguously clear.

Let’s tackle the first criticism, which is why I perform theurgy to summon angels, particularly if I am a professed witch and a pagan. I have answered this question in an earlier article, where I have expounded that angels and demons are part of the matrix of the union of being, which some have labeled as God, but which I refuse to name or identify. Instead, I just consider it an unnamed quality, allowing me to avoid the hazards of seeing the spiritual world as a battle ground between good and evil, light and dark. I believe this quote from that article pretty much states how I perceive things.

“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.”

If I am able to explain why a witch and a pagan would work magick using angels, then I must also be prepared to explain why I would traffic with goetic demons. I do not consider them infernal spirits or necessarily evil or bad, just powerful entities that represent dark magick, the kind of magick that can cause dramatic changes or even destroy things or people. I have taken two paragraphs from this next article because they explain my point rather succinctly.

“I see demons as spiritually negative, but more like a natural negativity - the dark Yin to the light Yang. Angels are like the agents of control who maintain the spiritual status quo, and demons are the agents of chaos who break up the status quo and counteract the laws of nature, including, perhaps, even the physical laws of nature. Where one could see angels as a kind of masculine force, demons would be feminine. They symbolize the archetypal opposition of light and darkness in nature, but without the connotation of good and evil. Angels represent the perfect mathematics of Euclidean space and Newtonian/Einsteinian physical laws, and demons would represent the curved and distorted intricacies of Non-Euclidean space and the convolutions of Quantum mechanics.”

“Since demons of any kind represent the opposite quality of angels, then we could assume that they would represent chaotic, disruptive and even stochastic spiritual forces and intelligences. Obviously, we would want to engage such forces and intelligences in a very controlled environment, but conversely, such entities would be useful in breaking through old patterns and dealing with internal flaws within the psyche, or even engaging in processes that would be considered outside of the normal space time continuum. Such a controlled use would require either the assistance of the Holy Guardian Angel, a hierarchy of archangels and angels, or a combination of both.”

Some have rightly speculated that the term demon is actually a mistranslation of the Greek word daimon (plural diamones), which means basically “supernatural spirit between the gods and man” with no other connotations. However, sorcerers and magicians in antiquity did distinguish between spirits that were good and malevolent. We also have the examples of the Akkadians who spent an enormous amount of effort in cataloging these various spirits, including many evil spirits. It may also be possible that the combination of influences from the Akkadians, and later Persians, may have powerfully influenced Jewish religious beliefs to such a degree that they adopted and adapted these classifications, thus deriving their own system, which ended up in Jewish magickal writings and practices. Jewish grimoires written in Hebrew seemed to incorporate the use of demons and infernal princes into their workings before such spirits were used in Christian grimoires. I may use the term demons and daimones (or Latin daemones) interchangeably, but I am denoting those entities associated with the Jewish “unredeemed” spirits, and the Christian demonic or goetic spirits.

While I believe that goetic demons as defined above are useful but not essential to the practice of ritual magick, I don’t share the same opinion about the infernal hierarchy that is associated with them. While it is quite possible that these spirit names are corrupted versions of archaic godheads, some of whom may even be lost to time and history, their association with Jewish and Christian diabolism makes them quite difficult to reclaim without any negative associations clinging to them. Since the late middle ages these entities have been considered powerfully evil spirits inimical to the Godhead and humanity. I believe that any effort aimed at reclaiming them would have to fight against an enormous current of popular belief and Christian doctrine. I suspect that such a battle would ultimately be lost, due to the centuries of time and the millions of Christian followers whose beliefs and faith would have to countermanded.  This has to do with the power of the Christian “egregore” or group mind, something that any practitioner of magick should be very much aware of. However, my reasons for rejecting the infernal hierarchy are based on occult philosophy and the following two paragraphs below adequately explain my reasons for that rejection.

“However, in Qabbalistic lore, which represents the ground basis of practical ritual magic, the Deity represents a perfect and harmonious unity, which means that everything else is subsumed into it and an integral part of it. Nothing is outside or apart from that unity, which is to say that all things spiritual and ensouled are actually one and indivisible at the level of the Godhead. Thus there is no duality and no conflict between good and evil except in the material world of humanity. We could even say that there is no difference between good and evil amongst the living creatures of the earth - only humanity makes such distinctions. Therefore the Infernal Hierarchy is part of a human perspective of the spiritual world that divides it into good and evil, and of course, that division is illusory and at higher levels of consciousness, even absurd.

We can, however, deal with this infernal hierarchy if it is defined as being the mirror image of the positive angelic hierarchy, and then only if they are both considered integral and in some kind of union. This would make the infernal hierarchy a kind of dark side or unconscious shadow of the angelic reality of light. It may also benefit us to realize that the daemons of the Goetia have an additional hierarchy that further joins them to the greater hierarchy of the Godhead. So at the level of the Qabbalistic world of Atziluth, these differences become nullified, but may have a reality in Briah, Yetzirah and especially Assiah, where good and evil are encountered in the acts and judgments of humanity. As the Qliphoth is said to shadow the Sephiroth and acts as the backside of the Tree of Life, so too would the daemons represent the dark reflections of the angelic beings that they mirror.”

My reasons for putting together a lunar based Abramelin ordeal is because for a witch and pagan, the lunar cycle is used for nearly all magickal workings, both material and spiritual. This does not mean that as a pagan I ignore the solar cycle, it’s just that the lunar cycle lends itself to the operation of the mysteries of the deeper self and the solar cycle represents the mysteries of the changing earth. I discovered that working material based magick using the specific lunation cycle, lunar mansions, phases and zodiacal signs of the moon produce the best results. So I basically assumed that the lunar cycle could also be used for larger ordeals.

The next two paragraphs are from the article in which I examined the nature of the Abramelin ordeal, where I state that I just couldn’t arrange the time to perform the original rite, either in the French (6 months) or German versions (18 months). I decided to consider other alternatives, and came to the conclusion that maybe a lunar based cycle might be a more sensible solution. First, I state that for me lunar based magick is used for material based magick.

“Recently, I have been examining the power and potential of lunar based magic and its associated mysteries. I put the entire Elemental and Talismanic Elemental systems of magic squarely into the matrix of lunar based magic.”

Then I attempted to see how the lunar cycle could be used to build an Abramelin-like ordeal. The structure and time period seemed to be workable and able to be integrated into my busy life.

“Yet this ordeal is decidedly solar based, since each phase is six months in length, and there are three phases. I began to ponder that since I am neither Jewish nor Christian, and since my faith is an earth-based spirituality, why would I follow a solar cycle for this kind of ordeal? Why not a lunar based cycle? Since a lunar cycle takes only 28 days to complete, then breaking it in half and building an ordeal that would cover three phases or one and a half cycles of the moon would be quite appropriate. Like the traditional Abramelin working, there would be three phases, but instead of using an annual sacred holiday, like the Passover as the starting point, I would start at a point in the lunar cycle that would connote “beginnings,” and that would most certainly be the new moon.”

Whether one considers my assumptions above to be questionable and flawed since they seem to go against what is traditional for this working is irrelevant to me. The fact that I have performed this ordeal and successfully obtained the same result should be proof enough that my theory was correct. What this means is that an adherence to the old grimoires is not necessary and that new directions can and probably should be developed. This does not mean that the old traditional methods are either wrong or out dated, all it does is dispel the myth that the old grimoires have any kind of monopoly on advanced magickal lore and practice.

I am including the note that I attached to my analysis of the lunar based ordeal to answer the accusation that my primary purpose for performing the Abramelin ordeal, even in its newer form, was to acquire use of the magick squares and command the infernal spirits. The primary purpose of performing the Abramelin ordeal is the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, whom I also refer to as my higher self, augoeides or spiritual genius. That is the only really important reason for doing this ordeal as far as I am concerned. I did choose twenty-two of the squares to consecrate and use in my magick, but all of them are mostly for the gaining of knowledge, such as obtaining visions, etc. They are also consecrated and activated by the HGA, who assumes the role of the spiritual arbiter in all things magickal. I have found that many of the squares are useless, affording the magician with powers and abilities that could be easily supplanted by off-the-shelf technology. Other squares grant one with powers and abilities that are unethical or just plain absurd. Knowledge is my main conjuring quest these days, since all of my material based operations only require a simple earth based magick. Earth magick is more easily achieved than evocation and doesn’t usually require conjuring spirits.

The following two paragraphs pretty much state what I think of the infernal servitors that one is supposed to have power over as well as the magick squares. These issues were dealt with in an article on the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal.

“A note about the demons and their servitors: In the original book there are an ancillary set of tasks that consisted of summoning and mastering the unredeemed spirits, namely the demonic kings and their dukes, and that these same demons gave servitors who operated the many magic squares. It is my belief that summoning demons and gaining servitors from them is magically superfluous. This is just my opinion, of course, yet since I have rewritten the entire ordeal then I can also modify the manner that the magical squares are deployed. Some have found this linkage between the magic squares and the demons troubling, and some have sought to white-wash or explain it away as some kind of cathartic ordeal. Yet in all versions of the book, it is quite plain that the purpose of invoking and manifesting the HGA is to gain mastery over the demons, to seek from them servitors to perform tasks directly, or to use them to empower and activate the magic squares. It’s also possible to seek from the HGA or the demons additional magic squares. The magic of the Abramelin system is powered by demonic spirits existing in a rigid spiritual hierarchy, even if they are completely dominated and mastered by the magician through the assistance of the Godhead and the HGA.

It’s my belief that the HGA, who is like a personal godhead for the magician, can do all of these tasks. If one is successful in invoking the HGA into some form of manifestation, then there is little need to command demons to do certain tasks. The power of the magician’s magick, the depth of his wisdom and the strength of his will, fortified and magnified greatly by the HGA will enable him to perform any working or accomplish any possible objective. The Abramelin book dictates that the magician should not summon the HGA unless absolutely required. My theory is that the HGA would become ever-present to the magician who successfully invoked it into manifestation, and that the magician would function almost like an avatar, having the vision and depth of a godhead acting through his conscious mind. It could be easily argued that such a great accomplishment would allow the magician to find a route to complete enlightenment and union with the Godhead, and that all of the other operations may seem irrelevant or even grossly petty to such a mind-state. So for this reason, I doubt needing the supernatural intercession of demons to perform magical feats - they should be possible by the magician’s will, fortified as it is with the power, wisdom and majesty of the Augoeides.”

One last point that I would like to discuss is that all of the rituals that I used in the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal were designed and formulated without recourse to any of the old grimoires. I may occasionally pick out some interesting thing here and there (such as using some of the characters from the Grimoire Armadel to decorate the gate keys) or reclaim some words of power from the PGM or other sources, but for the most part, all of this ritual lore is original and built up from the basic structures that I developed over a quarter century ago, when I managed to merge the magickal systems of classical witchcraft with the Golden Dawn. Some might see this as a lazy bastardization of either discipline, but building up a new system like this from scratch is no small achievement. So when I say that my system of magickal evocation is very different than what is used in the grimoires, you can believe that to be true. All the pieces fit neatly together, the ritual system is modular and reusable, and the structures of the ordeals are complex and even have a kind of elegance. In short, I have developed a complete system of theurgy and evocation outside of the discipline of the grimoire tradition. This should prove that such an undertaking is not only possible, but in my opinion, it’s also most desirable.

Frater Barrabbas