Swamp Mystics Mini Con and Liber Nephilim

I was honored last week to attend the second annual Swamp Mystics mini convention in Tallahassee, FL. They asked me to be the headliner for the gathering, and I agreed. This was an event put on by my friends Erich and Alannah, who I have known for many years. I had initiated Erich into the Order of the Gnostic Star back in the early 1990's before I moved to Santa Fe, and I gave him the complete library of magical rituals and lore associated with that organization. I have periodically given him updates so that he has been one of the few individuals that has been privy to my work, both as a ritual magician and a founding member of the Order. Over the many years of our friendly exchange, Erich is one of the few individuals who has continued to develop his own techniques and methodologies based on the lore of the Order. In fact, of all the individuals who have been involved with the lore of the E.S.S.G., he is the only one who is currently active and using this lore in an adapted form.

While I had lived in Tallahassee from 1990 to 1994, I had performed nearly all of the workings associated with the conjuration of the Nephilim in my rented townhouse located on Keily Run, off of Old St. Augustine road on the southeast side of town. I met Eric during the last year of my residence in that town, and he was a most apt and precocious student. Since that time, Erich and his wife Alannah have formed the Temple of Limitless Light and brought the practice of ritual magic in vogue in the area of the panhandle of Florida. Swamp Mystics was an idea that they hatched a year previously, and it had been a very successful event, so they decided to promote a bigger venue this year. The event was located at a spacious Air B&B mansion that was generously sponsored by the owner, who was also deeply interested in magic and the occult. You can find the link for the event here, and see what was planned and the speakers who contributed to its success.

True to its theme and location, it rained off and on for the entire period of my visit to Tallahassee. My wife and I did not see the sun or blue skies until we were almost to the airport in Jacksonville on our return drive. We had opted to fly into Jacksonville and then rent a car to travel to Tallahassee, which was a lot cheaper than flying directly. The wet and the rain didn’t succeed in dampening the spirit of the occasion because there were several major speakers at the event, and we were buoyed by the exchange of ideas and by the demonstration of magic that occurred every day that we were there. We adapted to the rainy periods, and the beautiful mansion that where we stayed gave us refuge from the rain when it occurred.

This visit was kind of a home coming for me, although the folks that I met were not the same folks that I knew back when I lived in Tallahassee. Except for Erich and Alannah, everyone was someone new that I had not met before, but because of Eric, they knew about me. As the headliner with both a discussion/lecture and a ritual to perform, I was quite busily engaged and was only able to attend a few of the classes that were offered. However, on Friday night and Saturday night there were intense rituals performed, the first night by Erich, Alannah and the speakers, and the second night, I performed the Mass of the Great Goddess. On Friday night, a series of rituals were performed using the Archetypal Gate ritual to invoke the archangel Raziel, and this was performed outdoors in a covered stage that overlooked the pool in the gated back yard. The property was large, consisting of many acres that included a blue berry farm and many old oak trees covered in Spanish moss. In this beautiful and haunting space we shared our lore and performed magic to enrich the experience of the event.

When the invocation of Raziel was completed, I felt the presence of the archangel, who I had invoked many times in the past, particularly for the most powerful ordeals that I had performed in the previous years. He touched my mind and we shared some past experiences, and then he asked me in a kindly and humorous fashion, “What have you done, Barrabbas? What have you unleashed by publishing your works?” His question was not an interrogation, but a reminder that I had been challenged with the task years ago to present my methodologies and magical lore to the public, and I was now successfully completing that task. Liber Nephilim was now in print, and I had arranged for fifteen copies to be mailed to the event. In February, my book Abramelin Lunar Ordeal would be published, making that methodology available to my reading public for the first time. All of this lore was the most advanced magical techniques that I had developed, and much of it was developed in Tallahassee over 30 years ago. I was returning to the place where it all began, except that now I had revised the magical lore so that it could be performed by any experienced occultist or magician.

On Saturday evening I performed the Mass of the Great Goddess inside the mansion foyer and front room to a goodly sized crowd of attendees. I hadn’t said this Mass rite over seven years, and in fact, I was still in my wintering stage, so I had doubts about my ability to perform this ritual working. I even suggested that it be skipped to Alannah because the timing was running late and our bellies were full of good food. However, I was told that this ritual was a very important part of the event, so I had to persevere and perform it. By the time it started, I felt less full of food and able to perform this rite. Eric and Alannah, and the attendees performed the circle consecration and a Rose Ankh vortex rite, and then the focus shifted to me. I had set up a makeshift altar that was approximately the correct size, and I had variations on the standard mass kit to work with.

While I had doubted that I would have the stamina to perform this extended Mass rite, I surprised myself by performing it with more power and ability than I had assumed I possessed. I not only impressed my audience, but I impressed myself! The Mass was said with the greatest magical power and precision that I have ever performed it. I stumbled over a few of the barbarous words of evocation while saying the introit, but overall, it was a magnificent presentation, and I was in awe of what I had done. I had believed that due to age and lack of practice that I would perform this rite poorly, but as it turned out, I had so many years of magical practice in my past, and so much untapped energy that I was able to connect with the powers and inspiration that I had believed were long dormant. That event opened my eyes to the fact that I was not yet over the hill, and in time, I would have the opportunity to perform more workings and ordeals before the day when I would be truly retired, incapable or simply dead.

Swamp Mystics mini convention was only for one day, but I had another task on the following evening. I had discussed with Alannah the possibility of initiating her into the Alexandrian tradition of Witchcraft, giving her both first and second degree initiations in a hybrid of the traditional Lexie initiation that would allow her to assume the role of a priestess and be able to initiate men into the craft. When she would have elevated a male practitioner to the same degree as herself, she could perform the great rite and be a fully vested third-degree Witch. I left that task in her hands, but a second degree Witch priestess can be given full authority to initiate and run a coven. Additionally, I gave her the complete set of lineage documents for my Alexandrian line, which amounted to over 800 pages of written lore and history. I am handing my Witchcraft lineage off to women that I believe are worthy of this investiture so that it will continue on after I am no longer in this world. It is part of my task to distribute my legacy to worthy individuals, and I will continue to do this work while I still have the strength and stamina to do it.

Alannah’s initiation was performed in Eric’s small but efficient temple in the home they share, and we had the privilege to work this rite with two other people from New Orleans, Erich and my wife. The rite was performed effectively and even smoothly, and the end result produced a very charged and empowered Alannah. I had successfully passed my Witchcraft lineage to her, and now she can function as both a ritual magician of the Order of the Gnostic Star and also as an Alexandrian Witch Priestess. Giving this lineage to her was significant to me, because it was the one thing that I had not yet passed on to the town that I once called home, but now, all my magical and spiritual lore are fully grounded in the wonderful and mysterious location of Tallahassee. It is my hope that others in that community will be able to engage and share in the twin lineages that I have placed there. It is a legacy that will continue to bless and empower others as they further extend their magical and spiritual process.

Overall, I felt that the mini convention of Swamp Mystics was a great success. It was very magical, but the people were friendly and fun to be with. I also happened to sell a lot of my books, and Liber Nephilim was so successfully promoted that there was only one book left in that set of fifteen. I felt that the people in that location were ready to engage with my more advanced lore, and that the Temple of Limitless Light had done a lot of work to help folks get to that point of instruction. Returning to this place after so many years was an important stage in my own magical and spiritual process. I was reminded that after decades of magical work and study, I still have the capability to work powerful magical rituals and ceremonies, and that although I am no longer young or even middle aged, I remain a competent practitioner of the magical arts.

Frater Barrabbas

Frater Barrabbas Author Literary Tour - Part 8 - Sacramental Theurgy For Witches

 

This book, unlike the previous, is still in manuscript form and hasn’t been submitted to Llewellyn for publication. I am pretty certain that they will want to publish once they get it, since it fits into a set of books that are good sellers. (Note: I am signing a contract to publish this book soon.) It makes good business sense to continue a series if it is popular and people are buying the books. Still, I am not in the literary business to make money as much as I am writing books to ensure that my legacy of knowledge and practical experience is shared with a large audience. Perhaps I can even imagine that these books might be getting used and thus changing the way that Witches and Pagans practice their magic. I can only hope that such a process is underway.

I wrote this book last summer and it only took me two months to complete it. A lot of the material used in the book I already had on hand, and I was very keen on sharing that material with my community. Still, one might ask what could sacramental theurgy possibly have to do with Witches and Pagans. The title sounds kind of pretentious and very high-brow, sort of like some book on philosophical magic or some trendy breed of ceremonial magic. Of course, I don’t write high-brow books on Witchcraft magic. I leave that to the academics, whose works on the history of magic and witchcraft are now becoming more numerous and quite fascinating. This book is purely about a kind of Witchcraft praxis that is advanced, but it is actually quite obvious and deals with something that is fundamental to Witchcraft religious magic.

Here is the advertisement that I have written to be used with this book when it is published.

Theurgy is defined as a magical operation that induces the Deity to perform a paranormal operation to benefit an individual or a group or to refrain or block an occurrence that would cause harm. The Greek word ‘theurgy’ is interpreted to mean, “God Work”, so it is a form of high magic that directs the supernatural powers of the Deity to either make something materialize or to block something from happening. A theurgist is someone who has the ability to directly converse with the Gods and Goddesses and to either urge them to act or to abrogate their powers and assume their identity and then perform the desired work.

While this kind of religious magic was considered the ultimate mastery possessed by Neoplatonic philosophers of late antiquity, such a practice and its associated perspective is very relevant today for modern Pagans and Witches. It is, in fact, the natural evolution of our practices of liturgy and magic that the two approaches should become united into an advanced formulation of magic, a kind of Witchcraft Theurgy. This evolution is already occurring today, and in fact it represents the cutting edge of Witchcraft practices that certain select senior members of our community are developing and practicing in private gatherings, covens and groves.
 
Witchcraft Theurgy can be divided into two basic categories: sacramental magic and the mysteries of transformation. In both of these categories the Deities are engaged and their impact enlarged so that the magic performed is done explicitly through them. This would require not only defining the Deities in greater intimate detail than what is typical in a coven or group, but it would also require expanding the scope of Deities so that the world surrounding these Witches would be filled with Deities representing the cosmic, regional and local geographic domain of the covenstead.

The core concept presented in this book is that when someone undergoes the ritualized process of godhead assumption, anything that they bless or imbue with their assumed powers becomes a sacred object, whatever its form. In traditional Witchcraft, the drawing down of the moon is followed with the rite of cakes and wine, which functions as a form of communion between the living Deity and the coven of Witches. It follows that anything else so blessed by that godhead, such as oils, balms, amulets, tools or even initiated members, becomes imbued with the powers and essence of that Deity. What is missing is, of course, the bloody sacrifice, but everything else is there to tie these modern practices to some of what was done in antiquity. This is, then, the basis for the generation of sacraments, and their use in Witchcraft or Pagan magic is a kind of magic defined as theurgy. It is also the foundation through which the mysteries are experienced and heightened. This is because it is through the Deities and our intimate contact with them that this kind of magic is possible.

When pagan religious cults were banned and disappeared in the Roman empire certain practices were absorbed into Christianity. While the obvious animal sacrifices were no longer practiced, other offerings were encouraged. Catholics had replaced the pagan bloody sacrifice with the consecration and offerings of wine and bread and brought into vogue the concept of transubstantiation to justify that such offerings were in reality the blood and body of Christ. Such a replacement in a religious context brought the ancient ideas of magic into the cultic practices of Christian liturgy. This is because the concept of transubstantiation is a magical one, and it has nothing to do with theology or sacred writings - it is a magical substitution.

Those magical ideas also caused the spread of ideas that other sacraments, such as baptism water, consecrated oils and balms, as well as relics, the blessings of bishops, prelates and even anointed kings carried the attributes of godhead within them and could be used to charge and bless both the community and individual possessions and undertakings. These were old magical ideas that had been a part of the religious practices of the pagan era, and now were brought into the religious practices of Christianity. It is ironic that a supposed monotheistic religion became so infused with idolatry and magical practices that both Islam and Judaism found the practices of Christianity liturgy offensive. It is also no wonder that such practices brought about the reformation in the 16th century. By the 20th century, the Catholic church had quietly shelved those ideas that were magical and pagan in origin, and even changed the mass to remove all such “superstitions” from their practices.

Yet to the late 20th century practicing Witches and Pagans, such ideas fit perfectly within their creeds and praxis, so some of those rites were reverse engineered into the rituals that adherents of these new religions practiced. What you had were practices of godhead assumption, as derived from both the Catholic mass rite and the practices of the Golden Dawn, and the rite of communion of cakes and wine consecrated by the hand and breath of the godhead. I saw that appropriation as the first step down a slippery slope, which led into the magical well of full and complete ownership of the magic that was once used by Christian Catholics. What was once used to bolster the faith within a population of recently converted pagans could now be used to enhance the religious magic of a modern Witchcraft and Paganism.

As I have stated, the core of the magical religious practices of these new faiths was the rite of drawing down a targeted Deity into the body and mind of a specialized and trained adherent. In the new faiths of Witchcraft and Paganism, it was not only conceivable that a person could masquerade and personify their chosen Deity, it was an expected part of the praxis. With such a ritual acting as the central feature of this new pagan faith, it would seem a natural evolution that all things that are holy and sacramental would come from this transformed individual through their blessings of touch, blowing of breath and kiss.

While this was something that ancient pagan cults would have allowed, it was not actually part of their regimen. They had beautiful temples, priests and priestesses and grand statues to represent their deities for the state religion, but a lot of religious activity went on in the private sphere, and this is where sacred persons could assume the mantle of a deity on a temporary basis and act as intermediaries for the personalized aspects of the Deities. What actually transpired in these private religious occurrences are not plainly known nor understood, but it is likely that they modeled what passes today as the practices of home-based worship, the giving of offerings and prayers and the making of sacrifices. These rites are practiced in some form in modern day India, and from them we can deduce the practices of ancient pagans in the Greco-Roman world.

Still, this practice of godhead assumption brought the numena of the Deity into the group so that the adherents could commune and worship that Deity directly and intimately. A human personifying a Deity could then also bless substances, such as cakes, wine, oils, anointments and jewelry (as amulets). There could also be requests for aid, healing, prophecy and guidance. This rite was where the worshipers and the godhead met to strengthen the spiritual bonds and empower the members. This practice became the center of cultic practices for both Witchcraft and modern Paganism.

One of the issues that I have with this practice is that it can lead to abuse and coercion, particularly if the person personifying the godhead was also the leader of the group. I have presented suggestions that the rite of godhead assumption be performed by someone who has prepared themselves for this exclusive act, while the leadership of the group be performed by others who not so engaged in the process of godhead assumption. I feel that it is necessary that the leadership of covens should not also be engaged with performing the godhead assumption so that they are not empowered as to become unassailable autocrats of the coven. After all, who would argue with the powers and commandments of the coven Deities? Instead, temporal authority should not be mixed with temporary Deity based empowerment. I believe that the mixture is toxic to the proper governance of a coven or group.

Additionally, I believe that the coven or group should be able to judge the level of manifestation of the Deity that occurs during a godhead assumption. There should be built in mechanisms that can be used to judge the efficacy of the drawing down rite. I present 10 stages that a drawing down rite can be observed to achieve when the godhead manifests through the target medium. First, I believe that there should be three simple questions that are presented to the medium when the godhead is fully manifested. The first two are simply questions that request the godhead to define itself by name and quality, and to describe its nature and character. A third question is secretly determined by the group without the prior knowledge of the medium, and it is requested to the Deity to outline its purpose for that evening’s working. 

The coven, apart from the sequestered medium, has determined the purpose of the evening’s work, and if the medium is able to clairvoyantly and accurately describe that purpose, then the group can be certain that the manifestation of the Deity is truly a powerful one. Other phenomena can also occur when the divine is immanently and tangibly present, and these I outline in the description of the ten stages. I also briefly discuss what a regressive godhead assumption is, and that it should be gently stopped and aid given if the medium should show signs of a seizure or bodily stress. The coven should document each and every godhead assumption and give a grade, based on the ten stages of Deity manifesting.

There is, however, a practice that is above and beyond the coven drawing down rite, and that is the full godhead personification. This is lifetime practice, but it can be immediately approached through an ordeal of devotion and the single minded focus and immersion into the being and persona of a selected Deity. The true regimen is a three month ordeal that starts out in a regular devoted fashion and becomes more intensive and focused as the moon goes through three cycles. A lesser ordeal has only one lunar cycle, but this is the kind of ordeal where a person seeks to be fully engaged and immersed within the spiritual body of the Deity. Some individuals will make this kind of ordeal and work their life’s sole purpose, where all else in life is sacrificed so that the sage is free to occasionally act and function as a full personification of the godhead. What she or he does while in that state of personification becomes the Deity performing blessings, empowerment, generating sacraments and aiding in the magical endeavors of initiated members. This, too, is sacramental theurgy in its most intensive and impressive style.

Other ritual workings are discussed in this book, such as the triple consecration rite of specific cult objects, such as the Stang, Besom, Cauldron, various statues or busts of the Deity, and individual amulets. These are considered sacred place-markers or representations of the Goddesses and Gods and function as both sacred objects as well as magical tools. The rituals of the mass and the benediction, reverse engineered from their Catholic sources and rewritten to celebrate and worship the Deities of the coven or group are presented, with full examples of those rites. The mass generates sacraments in a similar manner to a drawing down rite, and the benediction is used to super-charge a magic temple using the sacraments from the mass rite. These two rites are used to sacralize any magical working so to manifest within such a working the aid and manifestation of the Deity. I also present the methods of consecration of amulets and relics, and even the animation of a statue, bust of picture of a Deity, representing the full spectrum of sacramental theurgy. Still, I also discuss the elements of sacred sexuality and how it can employed in the magical workings of Witches or Pagans.

In the final section of the book, I cover the temporal mysteries of the sun and the moon, and present magical rites to be used for lunar and solar mystery workings. Another important mechanism in this kind of magic is the sacred grove, and I not only define the grove and how it is to be developed and used for working sacramental magic outdoors in the awesome beauty of nature. This brings the reader to the final chapter where I discuss the elements and workings of a Grand Sabbat that bring all of the previously discussed tools, methods and practices together in a powerful that brings to life the material embodiment of the Goddesses and Gods through personification into a temporary sacred community of Witches and Pagans.

I believe that this book will bring together practices and approaches to Witchcraft from a liturgical and magical perspective together into a single powerful practice, where the Deity will be directly engaged and embodied to assist in the magical aspirations of the individual, the group and the greater community. This book will be the capstone to these kinds of practices, and make more obvious the sacramental theurgy that is a natural function of the modern Witchcraft and Pagan practices.

Frater Barrabbas

How Have I Offended Thee, Let Me Count the Ways

When I was a young man there wasn’t the plethora of books on magic and the occult and there wasn’t the internet to search for topics or contact other like-minded individuals like there is today. There were libraries that had little or no books or information about the topics that I wanted to know about. Some of the more popular occult books in the library were stolen or lost and seldom replaced. The few occult bookstores that existed were stocked with either prohibitively expensive books or cheap or almost useless paperbacks. As a youth with limited resources, I was left for the most part to the ministrations of my limitless imagination, and in the early years it functioned in an almost unbounded manner.

What I had to do in order to practice the art of magic was cobble together the various bits and pieces that I found in the sparse book sources available to me and fill in the gaps with a great deal of imagination. In those beginning years my magical system was more imagination than actual magical facts, and its effectiveness suffered accordingly. Over time, as I acquired more information, most notably from the Golden Dawn and Crowley’s writings, I was able to assemble together a very workable system of magic that was quite effective and worked for me. It was very individualistic and personalized, but it did allow me to begin to explore the magical world as I understood it.

I had very few teachers at that time, and except for a four-year stint in the coven from hell, I didn’t belong to any traditional groups or orders. I was, for the most part, self-taught and self-directed. By the mid 1980's I had developed a system of magic that was capable of achieving a full invocation or evocation of a demigod or spirit, although the mechanisms were cumbersome and laborious. I had managed to bring together the energy and spirit models of magic, adding some elements of the psychological and informational models as well, to produce a magical system that I considered unique at the time.

A few years later I was asked by some friends to write up the operant rituals for a magical order based off of the personal magical system that I had already developed. This new magical system was like the old one except all of the personalized and idiosyncratic elements were replaced with the elements and themes that the group as a whole had agreed to. I continued to work on this new depersonalized system of magic and pushed it to a number of directions that I though prudent, although I did receive the affirmation and buy-in from the members of my group. When the magical temple group dissolved I continued to develop this system of magic and it’s what I use today.

Because I had started my magical avocation in a time of limited resources, I had gotten into the habit a long time ago of appropriating lore and techniques from other magical traditions to build up my own magical system. Of course, if someone asked me where I got this or that particular technique or lore I would tell them instead of pretending that I had invented it myself. There were plenty of elements of this magical system that I had invented, but I never tried to take credit for something that I didn’t invent myself. I was happy to appropriate techniques and lore from other traditions, but I didn’t feel the need to lie about it. I just naively assumed that what I was doing was natural for anyone who practiced magic. I believed that we were all, more or less, thieving magpies when it came to the cool stuff that we encountered in our studies. 

My course work and study path was also motivated by what I might be able to appropriate and make usable in my own system of magic. What I didn’t know at the time is that there were quite a number of people who were devoted to their external traditions of occultism and magic, and who would take a very dim view of anyone who appropriated their lore to pad their own personal system of magic. I was truly innocent and I felt that most of this lore was antique, part of the common domain (if it was published or publicly posted), and available for me to use or not as I wished. Since I was generous with my knowledge, to a point, I felt that everyone else would be as well. I gave copies of my ritual lore to friends and associates and never thought that this material was my exclusive property nor part of some traditional edifice that I had to protect.

Extracting lore and magical techniques and ritual structures from the Golden Dawn didn’t earn me any criticism or demerits from the members of that tradition because back in the 1970's there wasn’t really any official Golden Dawn order that was functioning. Regardie had published the rituals and initiations of the Golden Dawn decades ago and I happily pillaged that lore to figure out how magic really worked and how I could develop and produce my own rituals. Later on, what I developed was far enough removed from the Golden Dawn that there were only some remote similarities to that lore and my own. I certainly deviated from that tradition when I adopted the septagram as my emblem for planetary magic. I was also developing a system of magic that had as its foundation the magical practices and methodologies of witchcraft, so I was following a path that was contrary to the one of ceremonial magick and unique to my own situation.

During my early years I had been exposed to the Protestant Christian church in the Midwest, and I recall that it was a church devoid of magic and supernatural emanations. The liturgy was dull, monotonous, and had little or no artistry. It had wonderful music, but it was only the gigantic pipe organ and the trained choir that elicited any kind of artistic appreciation from me. The congregation sang hymns together (some loudly out of tune) and the pastor monotonously preached his meaningless and banal sermon. The whole religious travesty lasted around an hour or two, grinding through a predictable schedule of events, depending on if there was a special religious holiday (and there were few of those) or if it was just another boring Sunday like all the others. Because I was a kid with a very over-active imagination, my church experience was as bland, dismal and forgettable as any other enforced activity. It is no wonder that I abandoned the church as soon as I was old enough to do so. I sought out other forms of religious experience later on when I realized that I had a powerful sensory ability to “feel” and “sense” spiritual occurrences, unlike many of my friends and acquaintances. I was drawn to the gothic media displays of supernatural fantasy at a young age, and when I entered my mid-teens I discovered Witchcraft, much to my joy.

Since I was raised a Protestant, I had always been curious about the Catholics who went to other churches that appeared more exotic and seemingly magical than what I had experienced. They even had their own schools to teach their children all about their religion and other obscure topics. I always sort of envied my Catholic friends, and for the same reason I had envied my Jewish friends, even considering at one point to convert to Judaism. However, once I got into Witchcraft, I had spurned all things Christian and particularly the Christian youth movement that I called “Jesus Freaks” or “Hippies for Jesus,” which had left me cold. I verbally sparred with them and acted the antagonist because I found that their aggressive attempts to convert me were both insulting and demeaning. I had left Christianity behind me, or so I thought. Still, it was hard to be deaf to Christianity when you lived in a society that was so Christian in its bias and perspective.

Later on, when I was in the coven from hell, my teacher and mentor, Christopher Synn (Bill Schnoebelen), pursued a religious and magical path that coopted Catholic liturgy for its magical practices. When I was exposed to Michael Bertiaux at the same time, he too used Catholic and Orthodox liturgy as part of his magical workings. Christopher took the Tridentine Mass and rewrote it for his own purposes and the resultant ritual working was very impressive, so I followed his example. He also bestowed on me an Old Catholic ordination, and later on, one of his woman students who had received a consecration from him, conferred upon me the consecration of a bishop. Christopher had been consecrated by Michael Bertiaux, so I now had that lineage as my own. I developed my own set of Mass rites and used them to establish a sacramental system of magic. I used this magic to charge and empower my temple for the greater ordeals that I sought to perform within that sacralized space.

Over time I had mixed selected and rewritten Catholic liturgy into my magical system and had made it friendly to my Wiccan, Pagan and Gnostic sensibilities. I considered myself to be a gnostic pagan bishop with a heavy slant towards the magical use of sacraments to empower my tools and working space, and also to declare my higher spiritual perspectives and insights. I was using the Mass rite and the benediction rite for specific magical purposes, and my overall magical perspective was quite medieval in its use of sacraments, reliquaries and sacramental tools. I even blessed my parchment sigils used for invocation and evocation with the sacramental wine produced in the Mass rite, and I offered to my personal deities and tutelary spirits the consecrated host and wine.

My first experience at outrage against what I was naively doing was when I met one of the foremost gnostic bishops operating in the country at that time. I won’t reveal his name, but he was also an author and was involved with the Theosophical Society. We met and seemed to get along quite well, but when we were alone in my car while I was driving him to our order’s temple, he asked me if I followed the horrific practices of Michael Bertiaux, using semen and blood to charge and bless talismans. I assured him that I didn’t engage in that kind of practice, and he seemed quite relieved and happy. Then I told him that I had written my own Mass and benediction rites and used the sacramental host and wine to do the things that Bertiaux had been doing. He turned white as a sheet and gave me a look of complete horror. We didn’t talk about it for the rest of that evening and he seemed to have gotten over what I had shared with him. Later on, long after he had left to go back to his home, he wrote a missive against anyone who either wrote their own unsanctioned Mass rites or who used the sacraments for anything other than what they were intended, to communicate the congregation. I had outraged him with my heterodoxic  practices and my allegiance to (what he had called) magical superstition. He was only the first of many people that I had outraged with my magical system, but he would not be the last.

I have always approached my magical study and work with an idea of expanding what my magical system was capable of achieving. I was following a system and a regimen that was quite plain to me, and also to those few who had been part of the temple work done years ago. I have always approached a problem with the knack of trying to resolve it with what I already had, and to use my well developed techniques and lore to build a working or a series of rituals that would accomplish what I needed them to do.

In this way I had decided to apply this expertise that I had developed for many years to achieving the Knowledge and Conservation of my Holy Guardian Angel, or what I had conveniently perceived as my Atman or Higher Self. Since the Bornless or Headless Rite had been appropriated to work this kind of ordeal, and the Abramelin ordeal had been promoted as a more arduous alternative, I decided to combine them together. However, what I was going to produce was not only a hybrid, but it would likely produce a different effect and impact than the original workings. I understood this, yet I believed that I could achieve the same outcome, which was the vaunted K and C. I didn’t want to approach this ordeal in a passive manner and spend 3 months unemployed to successfully completed the Abramelin working. So, I chose instead to use the cycles of the moon, since the Abramelin working called for at most (in the German edition) 1.5 solar cycles, or 18 months. I would instead formulate my working using lunar cycles, and 1.5 lunar cycles is 90 days. I also would seek to invoke the four Cherubim and Seraphim consecutively as part of the ordeal and crown it with an elaborate Bornless Rite. It worked quite amazingly well and it did powerfully transform me. It gave me the ability to establish a connection with my HGA, Atman or Higher Self, and as far as I am concerned, that was the objective.

However, my joy was short-lived, because there were a cadre of individuals who had performed the Abramelin ordeal exactly as it was written in the grimoire, and who spent enormous amounts of time and resources to accomplish it. The fact that I was saying that I did it in 90 days without having to retire from the world for a few months was quite galling to them. I had written up all my experiences and techniques into a series of blog articles and I had maintained that what I did was indeed different, but I knew that it had at least achieved for me the same overall goal. Their opinion was that I couldn’t have accomplished anything other than self-delusion, and I was an obvious fraud for suggesting that anyone could come up with a replacement methodology on their own. I had violated a tried and true tradition, and I was something of a upstart or worse. That was the second group that had I offended, and I am sure that even today when one of these stalwarts discovers my blog articles on this subject that they will continue to be offended. (I do get emails from time to time to let me know how wrong or evil I am for crafting this alternative proposal.)

The next outrage was when I put together my own version of the Portae Lucis working, as formulated and written by Jean Dubuis. I had found some of his translated material on the internet and I was greatly intrigued by what he had written. I also bought one of his translated books and I steeped myself for months in his writings. Based on my studies, I determined that the Portae Lucis was a powerful and very valid working. However, there were a number of elements in it that either didn’t interest me or I felt was incompatible with my own system of magic. I understood what needed to be done and how Mr. Dubuis had done it, so I took that working and translated it into a specific talismanic working with strong Qabalistic overtones. 

I understood the objective of the rite, but I found that I had other resources that would get me there. What I left out were the Spagyric alchemical operations producing specific magical medicines that would aid in the physical component of the working. I also used an active method of charging the talismans, and expanded the working to include all 28 of the lunar mansions deployed into charging seven metallic talismans, four of which would be used in the operation. Because I was using planets and elements, I felt that the combination would be magically potent enough to replace the alchemical medicines. In my opinion, the revised method worked, even though I couldn’t (and didn’t) declare that they were the same. What I achieved was different than the traditional method, and the effect was different as well. But I believed that the objective achieved was similar, and the results of the magic that I experienced are still being felt and processed by me to this day, four years later.

However, when a group leader of a Yahoo group dedicated to the Portae Lucis working asked me to join his group, I happily agreed. He had wanted me to join because he felt that my different approach might be valuable to the group. I thought that this kind of openness to other techniques and alternative approaches was very broad minded, and I foolishly believed that I would be welcomed and treated as an equal. 

When I joined the Yahoo group, introduced myself and then posted links to my blog articles where I described what I had done to accomplish this ordeal, I was astonished at the outrage that I experienced from its members. I was verbally savaged by a few members of this group! They declared that I had no right to take this material and adapt it to my own needs. They thought that I was audacious and delusional to think that something that I had developed could even be considered as an alternate to what the great occultist Jean Dubuis had laid down for his followers. Who the hell did I think I was to even consider modifying this great traditional working? I quickly left the group, with apologies to the group leader, and I didn’t look back. (I felt the door slam on my butt as well - poor innocent fool that I was.)

Now I understand that not everything I do or say is right and perfect, nor do I have any kind of monopoly on truth when it comes to magic. I am first and foremost a student of the occult and magic, and also religiously, a Witch and a Pagan. I have written things in the past on my blog that are either wrong or based on incomplete information. Over time my opinions have evolved and changed, and I have left a record of these changes over the last several years in my various writings. I am not ashamed to be either schooled by others or shown to have made erroneous or incorrect statements. It is in my nature to acquire lore and information from any and all applicable sources, so I have no problem being shown something new or given a more accurate perspective on something. I have, if nothing else, developed a certain resilience and adaptability in the many years that I have matriculated my own way of working magic and worked on my particular system of ritual magic.

However, the fact that I am able to perform the same kind of magical evocations as others who are vested in the nascent tradition of grimoire magic seems to have annoyed some people. Add to that my propensity for appropriating materials from these same grimoires to serve my personal magical system seems to them cavalier, unsanctioned and disrespectful. That I have stated my opinion that many magicians (having no other recourse) seek to pull together their own system of magic because the various grimoire sources are incomplete, incompatible to current religious perspectives or no longer part of the social-cultural context has also gained me some rather intense condemnation and even personal attacks. From my perspective of having spent decades building up my own magical system from very sparse occult and magical resources (until recently), such a pathway seems intuitively obvious to me, but seemingly highly untraditional and unorthodox to them. According to some, I appear to lack the requisite qualifications to have any opinions on the grimoire tradition, so it would seem that there is another group that I have offended with my magical workings and associated opinions.

Perhaps the only group that I haven’t offended yet are the chaos magicians. I have picked up a number of useful techniques from that group, most notably the methodology of sigil magick, and I continue to find their perspectives and insights both refreshing, baffling and intriguing. I am not crazy about some of their operating philosophies and I would never mix and match deities and demigods from disparate religious traditions. I would also never bother to invoke Cthulhu or Yog Sothoth, since I consider them fictitious entities produced by the neurotic nightmares and racist insinuations of the author H.P. Lovecraft. I have a strong and intimate connection with the entities that I work through and with, and I would never approach them in a cavalier and dismissive manner. However, I understand that the anti-tradition of Chaos Magick consists of a series of working ideas and suggestions, and that each chaos magician pursues their own path and develops their own magical system replete with paradigms based on personal experience. I probably have more in common with them than any other group, including the hosts of the BTW and Wiccan groups that I have met and know.

What can I deduce from all of this outrage and anger that I appear to have caused in some folks in the various occult and magical traditions? I have steadfastly proceeded on my path without any malice, greed or egotism. I am nothing more or less than a student, and my knowledge, even based on years of experience, is decidedly imperfect. Do I insist that I am always right in whatever I do or say - absolutely not! Do I listen to others even when they shower me with disdain and disapproval, of course, how can I not?

Regardless of what others may think, I am still working with the system of magic that I have matriculated and built up over the decades, and I am loath to drop or discard it for the next new shiny thing that others are infatuated about, however compelling. Instead, I will look it over, and if it looks useful or fills a need that is lacking in my own system, I will shamelessly appropriate, modify and mutate it so that it fits seamlessly with my existing magical system. Some may think that I am just being a pirate or a magpie, but because I do spend time altering the lore to fit into what I am already doing then I think that I am more than just an occult or magical-lore thief. I am an artist, but more like a spray-paint graffiti artist, perhaps. However, it still angers and outrages those who consider themselves the arbiters of a sacred tradition and the defenders against revisionism. I just think that nothing really is sacred or forbidden for me to purloin if I find it needful unless it is oath-bound material, and if it is published by someone then it is no longer oath-bound.

To all of those magician magpies out there who see some merit in what I am doing, if nothing else than justifying their own eclectic approach, I make common cause and solidarity. For those who are outraged by my activities and who condemn my unorthodox approaches I can only wonder at their emotional insecurity and baseless complaints, and they are quite baseless as far as I am concerned.

You could say that I am naive and stupidly innocent in my piratical approach to occult and magical lore because I don’t understand how my actions are a cause for outrage and dismay among the proper adherents of these traditions. Crossing these boundaries is just asking for trouble, you would probably declare, but still I am steadily proceeding with the activity of building up my magical system and will continue this work until the day I die. If you have a problem with what I am doing then you can either seek to school me, guide me with additional and important insights or just get out of my way. Otherwise, I am pursuing what I deeply and passionately believe I need to pursue, and I will not be stopped by what I see as puffed up posers who think that they are proper representatives and information marshals of an imperious and perfected tradition. To them, I will make my braying donkey call and scornfully but inexorably move on.

Frater Barrabbas - the Lone Donkey, braying in the wilderness.       

Magical Gnostic Eclesia - Magical Layers

Magic as layers of prismatic energy structures.

One of my favorite quotes from the movie Shrek goes like this:

Shrek: Ogres are like onions.
Donkey: They stink?
Shrek: Yes. No.
Donkey: Oh, they make you cry.
Shrek: No.
Donkey: Oh, you leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin' little white hairs.
Shrek: NO. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.
Donkey: Oh, you both have layers. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions.

The magical workings that I perform have many layers of prismatic energy structures, one on top of the other, arranged from the foundation to the most intricate final pieces. Because I work with a vortex energy container I can build up these layers over time instead of having to do it all in one evening’s working. I have previously written about the vortex and its qualities, and you can find that article here.

The vortex allows me to perform a working in parts and thereby build up the complete structure in stages so that it achieves the final climactic working at precisely the right moment. That might take a whole weekend, or it might take a few weeks in a row. This characteristic allows me to carefully build up an overall working and focus on a strategic stage that is one of several parts of it. The result is an accumulation of all of the previous workings integrated into a holistic composition of prismatic energy structures, symbolic meanings, themes and occult ideals. Magical formulas are used to tie and bind all of the disparate parts together functioning like matching seams, uniting both the individual sections performed at a single night’s working as well as the overall working that spans days or even weeks.

As far as I am aware the use of the vortex and the unification of layers and stages of a magical working are unique methods. Even so, I didn’t invent this ritual technique from nothing. I did use other ritual examples as the model for this technique and evolved it over time. The source model for this kind of magic can be found in the Golden Dawn ritual for the Rose Cross and the formula for LVX. This was a simple rendition used in a specific ritual instance that I experimented with so many years ago, and I discovered that it could be integrated into any ritual and used to unite all of the parts. It functions as a kind of summary or recap that recapitulates the whole ritual in a simple formula. Yet studying that original Golden Ritual I came up with a more complex hybrid technique that I use today. It allows me to have many levels or layers to a ritual complex, but it integrates the various parts into a whole structure. Without it, the layers would easily become disassociated and break down into distinct processes separate from the holistic working.

While the vortex functions as a centralized container that holds all of the layers together, the various formulas at each stage, and the grand formula at the end ties everything together and fosters a powerful singularity of energy that functions as the overall core of the ritual working. I have presented this methodology in greater detail in two previous articles posted in November of 2010, and you can find them here, and here. 

However, allow me to quote a couple of paragraphs from the second part of that two-part article on Sacred Geometry in the Energy Theory of Magick, which succinctly (although a bit redundantly) describes what the magical formula does when deployed in a magical ritual.

“Formula letters are specifically used to pull the points of the ritual structure together at the terminus or ending of that magickal event. This is done in a process that is called “Analysis of the Keyword” as found in the Golden Dawn ritual of the Rose Cross. Therefore, the formula letters (often in Hebrew, but also represented by Greek, Latin, Coptic or Arabic) are used to build the keyword, which acts as the touchstone for the entire ritual structure. How this is done is that the letters of the keyword are intoned at the associated points in the magick circle, along with the devices, declarations, signs (gestures) and visualized colored energies, and then when the ritual structure is complete, the formula letters are intoned together to form the keyword and a final declaration is made in the center of the magick circle.

In this manner, all of the points of the ritual structure are fused into a single keyword and a single declaration. The analysis of the keyword construct can be performed at the end of each ritual structure, and it can be performed at the end of the final ritual structure in a functional ritual. By establishing a synopsis of the fully functional ritual and the ritual structures that are contained by it, a powerful resonance of union and fusion is produced, representing the perfect expression of Spirit within a ritual magickal construct. Having this element throughout a ritual causes a subtle emulation of the spiritual essence of the godhead to be manifest in the working. This factor will ensure that the rite produces a transformative effect when it is performed. ”

I might also add that the formula employs the Qabalistic method of Notaricon, which is used to generate and explode formula acronyms. I can also use the method whereby the letters of a formula are matched against specific Tarot cards and also Pathways on the Tree of Life. Of course, I have to comparatively create analogues for the Hebrew letters if the formula happens to be based on a language other than Hebrew, such as Greek, Coptic, Arabic or Latin.  

Anyway, all of these various structures that I employ in the creation of a ritual working function as mechanisms to express and establish energies structures and also to integrate all of these various structures into a seamless whole. It might seem very complex and even cumbersome at first glance, but when breaking any of my rituals down to their essential structure and associated elements, it is actually quite simple, elegant and efficient. A magician can expand such a ritual so that there is quite a bit of declarative verbiage that has to be expressed, or it can be kept to a minimum so that the ritual actions and expression are emphasized instead. It really comes down to the tastes and esthetics of the magician who is authoring the rite. Some magicians are minimalists and others are quite verbose, and still others like to establish a balance between these two extremes so that others may participate in the ritual and not miss any of the subtle and important meanings and significance expressed with it.Too little verbiage makes a ritual cryptic and idiosyncratic, and too much verbiage makes a ritual lifeless, dull and exceedingly boring.

However, there is also an element of the sacred that is an important and strategic part of my more elaborate and ordeal based magical workings. How I employ the sacred in my workings, besides the obligatory assumption of Godhead, is to build a very special sacral magical foundation into every important and strategic magical working. This is done whenever I employ the magical mass to energize, empower and sacralize the working. Immediately after I perform the circle consecration rite, I will perform a magical mass (to generate sacraments and partake of communion) and then I will perform a kind of simple benediction rite, placing charged and consecrated host fragments to the eight nodes of the magic circle and the central altar. What this does is to consecrate, sacralize and greatly empower the magical environment. I call this basic foundation the Magical Eclesia or Sacred Magical Domain.  

The established magical circle will contain the sacred power generated by the mass, and the very magic circle will be charged with the holy sacrament, making it inviolable. It also ensures that the magical working that is performed within that sacred container is blessed and sanctioned by the holy spirit and the various deities functioning through the media of the magical mass. Therefore, the magical mass rite has to be associated with a specific pantheon, and it must also focus on a specific godhead within that pantheon that represents the sacrificed deity. The reason why there has to be a sacrificed godhead is that such a deity then becomes the embodiment of the sacramental wine and bread, and without such a deity attribute the whole mechanism of the mass is invalid. Perhaps this explains why the Christian church glorified the crucified savior and made it central to the mass communion rite, since the emphasizing the Roman method of executing a seditious prisoner seems so odd to outsiders. However, in the context of the mass communion rite it makes perfect sense.

So the theme and pantheon associated with the magical mass sets the entire spiritual tone for the magical working. If the theme happens to be gnostic, then the spiritual entities and forces will be related to a specific system of gnosis. This is also true if the theme is pagan, theosophical, thelemic, Enochian or related to some other spiritual-magical system. However, when I use the term gnosis, what I am really referring to is the process whereby a person directly and intimately encounters Spirit in whatever form it is perceived and sensed. This encounter with Spirit is important because it reinforces the magician connection with the Godhead and also opens up the world of spirit for magical operations.

This technique of using sacraments to perform feats of magic isn’t new, since it was until recently an important trope of the Catholic church. In fact, I picked up the idea from both Michael Bertiaux and Bill Schnoebelen, and I suspect that while Michael merely talked about it, Bill was the one who actually made use of it. What I did was greatly expand on the idea and incorporated it into the core rituals for the intermediate and advanced magical systems of the Order. I can also recall that Stephen Hoeller reacted with outright horror so many years ago when I told him exactly what I was doing when performing a mass. While other traditions, including the Catholic, approach the mass as a central rite and vehicle for maintaining a tangible connection with the espoused spiritual pantheon, I have advocated using the mass as a purely magical generator of power, and secondarily as a media for spiritual communion. I believe that my approach to the mass is rather unique amongst the adherents of the Western Mystery tradition. It is also likely that my approach would be mildly shunned or outright condemned by the other traditions.

Unfortunately, I have written only a couple of articles on the topic of the magical mass and the use of sacraments in magic, as well as magical relics and reliquaries. I have two articles that I wrote for members of my Order, but these have not yet been released in their current form to the public. Therefore, the two articles that I have posted to my blog will have to suffice in giving my readers a general overview to the topic of performing a magical mass and using the sacraments to empower one’s magical rituals, and you can find them here, and here. At some time in the future I will endeavor to publish the other two articles, probably along with the material associated with invocation and evocation.

The Magical Eclesia is the sacramental foundation for all magical ordeals and the practice of higher invocations and evocations in the Order. The use of the wine and host to initiate the quickening process of spirit manifestation is built into the rites of invocation and evocation as practiced in the Order of the Gnostic Star. Combined with the vortex and other specific magical techniques, the Magical Eclesia produces a profound and transformative impact on the ritual workings layered through it, generating an occult process whereby thoughts become symbolic form and symbolic form becomes spiritual manifestation. Using such a mechanism as the Eclesia allows the powerful fusion of the energy techniques of magick to merge hostically with the spirit techniques of magick, producing a hybrid that is greater than either one alone.

Frater Barrabbas

Temple Architecture - Why and Wherefore - Part 2

A Temple Shrine

 This is the second part of the two part series on temple architecture. This article concerns itself with the more advanced architecture needed for working advanced ritual magick. 

Temple Architecture for Advanced Ritual Magick

Once you get past the basic workings and start performing more elaborate ordeals, such as those that are practiced in the Order of the Gnostic Star, then you will require some additional tools, but these can be either made or purchased by you without jeopardizing your monthly budget. Additionally, you might find that performing more elaborate ritual workings might require somewhat more temple space, which would be a consideration. These extra tools are particularly used in the ritual workings of invocation, evocation and more advanced types of workings. Having a separate room of some kind makes these kinds of working far less intrusive then they might be otherwise.

Central Altar: Whether you decided to place your altar in the center of the circle or not, to work more advanced ritual workings, you will need to have a special small altar in the center of the circle. I typically use a small folding table, which I can remove if I need more space in that area. If you have placed your simple altar in the center of the circle, you will have to move it to one of the watchtowers, if possible. The central altar is used for establishing a powerful focus at that point in the magick circle, and this is important for invocation and evocation magick, as well as all forms of talismanic magick. Having a central altar is a way of being able to accumulate magickal tools and devices within the inner magick circle, when that structure becomes important to the magick that you might perform.

Watchtower Altars: More advanced magical workings require the building up and the focusing of certain activities at each of the cardinal points. The four Angles will still need to be marked, but the Watchtowers now assume a more important and layered kind of ritual structure, similar to what was done by having a central altar. Correspondences can now be placed at each of the Watchtowers so as to establish a greater and permanent kind of magical power associated with each. These tables can be quite small, but they have the added advantage of being able to hold multiple open flames or oil lamps without endangering oneself. In my temple, I actually use lamps that have each of their glass shields tinted to one of the four colors that are used as representations for the four Elements, so that they illuminate the colors that I use for symbolizing the Watchtowers. By doing this, I have added the correspondence of color to the Watchtowers. Also, in my temple, I have arranged my furniture so that I also have some kind of table space for the four Angles as well. Yet this has made the periphery of the temple a bit crowded with furniture, but it does work out quite well, ensuring that the lamps placed in the Angles are elevated.

Temple Shrine: A temple shrine is a table that is placed at one of the four Watchtowers to hold the statues, symbols and offerings for the magician’s personal pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. Offerings include flowers, incense, food and drink, as well as some kind of vigil lights. I have actually placed three animated statues on my shrine, which represent my three personal Goddesses who powerfully operate in my personal magick. Before I perform any kind of magical operation, I often say a Mass and feed these statues, so as to awaken and fortify them.

Trigons and Gate Keys: I have found that the use of charged and consecrated trigons and the three gate keys are quite strategic in the advanced workings that I perform. A trigon can be placed on one of the four Watchtower altars, or the central altar if it is to be used in conjunction with an inner circle ritual structure. A trigon can even be used as a base for standing on during a godhead assumption, where all of the chakras would be super-charged and imprinted by the figures and devices painted on its surface. Gate keys are talismanic images placed at each of the three gate points for a Gateway ritual structure. When deploying a Gateway ritual structure, I often place a Tarot trump over the gate key so as to further qualify them as I place them on altars at the periphery of the magick circle.

How I came up with the name that I use for a trigon is that it’s based upon the very first trigon that I developed so many years ago. It consisted of the symbolic structures of a circle containing an equal-lateral triangle depicted upon a rectangular piece of wood. The trigon is typically made out of wood and is a rectangle measuring 18 inches long and 14.5 inches high. The trigon is typically painted a flat black for the background, and has the designs and other decorations painted over it. I usually either spray the trigon with a protective latex covering, or brush over the dried and finished design with a glossy clear latex gel.

In my collection of trigons I have created one for each of the four Watchtowers and I also have one that is used specifically for Godhead assumption. I have trigons that are used in the central magical circle, and they incorporate the star pattern designs of the Septagram, Eneagram, Undecigram (eleven pointed star) and the Quintedecigram (septagram enclosed within an octagon).

As for the gate keys, some years ago I devised three gate keys and then manufactured them. I used three blocks of wood that were approximately 3.5 × 7 × 1 inches (being length, height and width, respectively); and upon a flat black background I painted the magical squares and sigils to empower them. Over the years that I have used these gate keys, I have found them to be quite powerful and extremely useful. Having a special marker for each of the three gateway points is also an important feature in my system of magick, since it helps one to be visually aware of the overlaying of the previous ritual structures with that of the gateway ritual structure.

Other Considerations: An elaborate temple can have some additional features, which I have found to be both useful and esthetically pleasing. When I lived in apartments, I would use the master bedroom in a multi bedroom apartment for the temple, and in some cases, this master bedroom came with an adjoining bathroom as well. You could sequester yourself in the master bedroom temple space and have access to the bathroom to perform your magical ablutions (taking a sumptuous bath for cleansing and anointing) without ever having to either leave or re-enter the temple confines. Once the door was closed, I wouldn’t have to re-emerge until the magical work was completed.

A painted or tiled magick circle graphically depicted on the temple floor is another one of those esthetically pleasing tools that I would love to own. Early in my magical career, I had an elaborate magick circle painted on two sheets of very thin particle board, and these were nailed to the floor. Of course, since that time, I have mostly lived in apartments that had wall to wall carpeting. So such a split circle painting proved to be not very practical, since it couldn’t be easily secured to the floor, and I didn’t want to punch holes through the carpet and into the floor boards using nails. I also had to tape the two halves together, and this required constant maintenance because the tape would loose its adhesion over time.

I quickly abandoned that large painted circle even though it was quite beautiful. However, it was awkward, required regular maintenance and it was difficult to move around. An alternative to such a contraption would be to use some kind of canvas floor cover with a circle painted over it, but I never found anything that would really work for me. Perhaps the optimum would be to have a special tiled floor installed with a magick circle depicted on it as a kind of beautiful mosaic. That would certainly be costly (and permanent), but it would also be highly esthetic, at least to me.

A more elaborate temple would also have corresponding elaborate decorations. You could put up appropriate pictures, have banners in the East and West, floor length curtains, veiled sections of the temple, black and white pillars (either painted or constructed) on either side of the altar. Instead of using pillars, I have a decorated obelisk placed in the center of the circle. I also use various natural and faceted crystals in my magick, including the use of a crystal wand (transmutar wand), crystal athame, base crystal (placed on or below the main altar) and a large crystal on a necklace (controller or transformation crystal). I have previously posted an article about how I use crystals in my ritual magick, and you can read that here. Additional esthetic elements would be colored lights, a strobe light, a stereo system (for music - a very important element indeed), and lots of handy storage areas for all the supplies and various accouterments used in the performance of ritual magick. Keep in mind that I like having everything that I need around me in case it might be needed, even if it wasn’t actually called for in the ritual text.   

Still other additional tools that are good to have around would be a nice collection of swords and daggers, an assortment of wands for various uses, a staff or two, a besom for ritual cleansing, and a Mass kit. If you are going to say a Mass as part of your magical regimen (and this is required in the magick of the Order of the Gnostic Star), then you will need a special set of tools and vestments. A basic Mass kit consists of a golden chalice, paten, a pix (small golden container used to store hosts), cruets (for the wine and water), and some vestments for the chalice and paten. These vestments are the corporal, purificator, the pall, the chalice veil, and the burse (for carrying the unconsecrated hosts). 

The corporal is a piece of plain white cloth that is 15 inches square, and this cloth is laid down on the center of the altar cloth, and the chalice is placed upon it. The purificator is a plain white cloth that is about 14 inches long and 9 inches wide. It is folded three times along its length, becoming a narrow band of cloth that is 14 inches by 3 inches. The purificator is used to wipe the fingers, mouth, cleaning and drying the mass chalice. The purificator is placed on the top of the chalice, with its ends hanging equally over either side. The patten is placed on top of purificator, centered over the chalice. The pall is a double piece of linen about 5 to 7 inches square, and has a piece of flat cardboard inserted into it, to stiffen it. The pall is placed on top of the patten, purificator and chalice. It’s used to cover the hosts that are placed on the patten prior to saying mass. The chalice veil is placed over the pall, veiling the chalice completely. The chalice veil is often made out of the same material and color as the special mass vestments.

There are also vestments that the celebrant wears to perform a Mass. These would be, at the very least, a chasuble, cincture and a stole. The stole is a long strip of cloth about 3 to 4 inches wide and from 7 to 8 feet in length, made of the same material as the chasuble. The stole is worn centered around the neck, across the shoulders, crossed over the chest and fastened in place with the cincture, which is a cord worn around the waist. The cincture is a thick cord with tasseled ends that’s usually four to five yards in length. It’s doubled around the waist, tied in the front, and the ends are tucked at either side so they don’t interfere with walking and moving. Over the stole and the cincture is placed the chasuble, which is a poncho like covering that has a hole for the head and neatly lays over the shoulders and down on both the back and front, covering the inner robe almost to the feet. The chasuble is usually worn over an inner robe (called the alb, because it was white), but I typically wear my working robe as my inner robe in these situations.

As you can see, more advanced and elaborate ritual workings require more tools, equipment, furniture, vestments and other supplies. Adopting this system of magick will ultimately require a large room to perform the rituals and store all of the furniture and equipment. In the days when I lived in apartments, I would typically look for one that had at least two bedrooms, and that the master bedroom would be roughly 13 square feet (4 meters), or slightly more. I have found that many two bedroom apartments have a master bedroom that is at least this size. In fact, I even found an appropriate sized affordable apartment when I lived in Santa Fe, which was a very restrictive and expensive housing market. So I believe that finding a suitable place to live and also have access to a large enough temple is quite achievable, depending on your budget and living arrangements.

Of course, if you are thinking of hosting a group in your temple, then having more space is even more of a requirement. The above dimensions for a standard temple that would make use of the space in a typical two bedroom apartment would only be sufficient to house a handful of members, and we are talking about maybe two or three people actively performing ritual in the temple space. You might get a few more people in that space, but they would have to be consigned to the temple’s periphery, either standing or sitting on a cushion so there would still be enough room for ritual activities.

If you had a group of more than five individuals, then you would need to add and extend a few more feet to the dimensions of the temple. Finding an apartment with a master bedroom that large would be difficult and quite probably hard to afford. This is where the group would have to consider pooling their resources and renting a separate space for group ritual activities.

All you really need is a large room and some storage space, and that’s it. However, you would have to equip this temple with everything needed, and it would have to be in a secure and relatively quiet location. This might be a rather expensive and involved proposition for any group to contemplate. However, depending on the number of members and their level of financial commitment, enforcing a strict payment of monthly dues might be able to cover such an expense without it becoming a financial burden to any of the members. Having the use of an external temple space that is not attached to one’s living space could also be used by individuals performing their own personal magick. Such a convenience might be well worth paying into a financial pool that would be used to rent and equip an external temple for individual and collective use. 

Temple of My Dreams

I am lucky that I have had access for many years to a temple that has allowed me to work fairly elaborate rituals and even involve a few friends in that magick. My current home has both an indoor temple (with a fire place) and an outdoor grove that is completely sequestered. However, the home that I own was not designed specifically with a temple in mind, so it has some irregularities and slight inconveniences, such as the fact that the temple space isn’t rectangular and there is no adjoining bathroom with a large tub, which is something that I do occasionally miss.

So if I were a rich man and money wasn’t a concern, what kind of temple living complex would I design? In other words, what is my optimum fantasy in regards to a temple. I have had my dream temple in my mind for many years, but I have never had either the opportunity or the money to make it a reality. Considering my age and the financial restrictions of retirement, I doubt that I will have such an opportunity in the future, either. Yet putting aside all of the practical considerations and other reasons why such a dream temple could never be realized, I would like to share that dream temple with you. Who knows, maybe someday, some wealthy magician will incorporate my dream temple into their building plans.

The most elaborate temple complex that I have considered is one where each cardinal direction or Watchtower would have its own complete magick circle and central altar complex. So there would be four complete magick circles each with their own Watchtowers and Angles, and these four magick circles would intersect to form a large central magick circle, with its own altar, shrine and other furniture. All five central altars would be fully equipped with their own chalices and patens, lamps of art, daggers, swords, wands, staffs, and any other equipment needed to work magick. The central magick circle would house the pantheon shrine and represent the central or core magical work. The four outlying Watchtower circles would represent an Element based magical system, such as what I have called the Tetrasacramentary, which would be a entire system of magick for each element sacramental system.

Certain classes of rites would be performed at one of the outlying Watchtower circle complexes, and elaborate rites involving a synthesis of all four would be performed in the central circle complex. Each Watchtower circle complex would have its own coordinated colors for the altar cloths and decorations, making each nearly a distinct and separate temple, or four temples in one. I actually have a system of magick called the Tessarenoi (Greek for Four Temples) that works a complete ordeal for each of the four sacramental systems. The fifth sacramental system has the emblem of the Star, and symbolizes all four sacraments merged into quintessence. When I work with these systems of magick, I perform them within the same temple complex - only the vestments, sacraments and some decorations are changed. In my ideal environment, I would use a separate temple complex to work each one.  

Therefore, my dream temple consists of a building whose main design would be an equal arm cross. The center would be occupied by the central magick circle temple complex, and the four wings would house the four Watchtower circle temple complexes. I would also install a system of portable walls, so that each wing could be isolated from the rest of the structure if that was required. By opening or closing the portable walls, the wings and the central area could become separate chambers or a single massive temple area, shaped like an equal arm cross. Additionally, each wing would be decorated and the walls painted an element color, and the tile floor would also be of a matching color. I would want vaulted ceilings in the wings, and a circular skylight in the central temple. The windows in the wings would be high, circular shaped, and filled with appropriately colored stained glass. The lighting would be computer controlled and would consist of a combination of indirect lighting and strategically placed spotlights, some of which would use colored filters. There would also be a digital sound system, with hidden speakers placed in all four wings and in the central area, as well as a video recording system that would cover every area of the temple complex.

An example of such a temple complex can be found in the horror movie “Masque of the Red Death,” which is a 1964 Vincent Price movie. Surrounding the great ball room are a series of four temples devoted to various spiritual perspectives, and painted and decorated in a single color. The last temple in the series, which is colored black, was dedicated to the Devil himself. My dream temple is somewhat based on that series of different colored temples depicted in that movie.

The temple would also house a large elaborate bathing facility, with showers, wardrobes, and a large Jacuzzi pool conveniently located in adjacently to the equal-arm temple complex.

As for living space, I would choose to locate that in a separate building altogether, with an enclosed walk-way between the temple building and the residence. The living space would be able to accommodate several adults comfortably. Bedrooms would consist of small simple sleeping cells, with most of the living space allocated to the dining room, kitchen, meeting rooms and the library. There would also be a recreation room to watch video, listen to music, play games and just socialize. If this residence sounds like an elaborate and expensive kind of magical monastery, then that would a good label for it. I could also imagine that the location for this place would somewhere in the pristine mountains, so that one could easily find amazing vistas at any time of the day or night.

So that’s my dream temple, and if you inspired by it, maybe it could be your dream temple as well. I doubt if I will ever get to realize this amazing place in the material world, but it is a place that I do seem to visit, sometimes even often, in my dreams and astral projections.

Frater Barrabbas

Concepts About the Magical Mass

I thought that it would be useful to take the introduction of my article on the Magical Mass part two and present as an article to your consideration. The magical mass is an integral part of the ritual magic that I work, and it is also a basic staple of the magic of the Order.

The magical mass is an integral part of the ritual lore of the Order. Even the degree structure simulates that of the Catholic Church and there is a mixing of the concepts of magician and priest. The mass is used to generate magical power and produces a field or atmosphere of spiritual influences, functioning as the power base for advanced magical workings. Certainly, elemental and talismanic workings do not need such a base, but evocation does require it, so the initiate of this Order is expected to master this ritual. From the third degree onward, magical workings require some kind of magical mass and also the performance of some kind of benediction. Yet the initiate needs to understand how the magical mass works and why it is necessary.

The magical mass is a complex ritual that has many components and is derived from the pre-Vatican II mass liturgy, which is known as the Tridentine Mass. I cannot assume that the reader of this article is knowledgeable of this rite, since it was completely replaced with a new mass liturgy in the late 1960's through the authority of Pope Paul VI. Therefore, this article will serve as a heuristic device to instruct initiates in the structure of the original mass and how it has been expropriated into specialized mass rites for use in magical workings. We will fully examine all of the parts of the original Tridentine Mass and explain about the nature of the magical qualities of those sections (if any) and why they are important (or not) to a magical mass. The purpose of this exploration is to show that certain sections of the original mass are important to the performance of a magical mass and can’t be omitted without destroying the function of the ritual itself.

This is the second article about the magical mass and it contains a lot more detail about the structure of that rite than the previous one. In the first article we examined the topic of the magical mass along with the phenomenon of cultural expropriation, how the ritual of the mass was extracted into the communion rites of Wicca and Neopaganism. We also examined the proponents of using the mass in a ritual magical context, as opposed to a purely liturgical one. In this article we will continue with our analysis of these rites, and focus on four basic topics. These topics are:

• Introduction and basic components of the magical mass
• Uses of the magical mass - the specific function in ritual magical workings
• An analysis of the Catholic Mass and its basic structure
• An analysis of the various magical masses used in the Order.

The emphasis of this article will be on the various magical mass rites that are used in the Order of the Gnostic Star, since these rites serve both a liturgical and a magical function. A liturgical function is where the mass is performed in a strictly religious setting and a magical function is where a mass is performed to energize and sacralize an environment and/or tools for a specific magical operation. So the mass rites in the Order serve to propagate a spiritual theme that is neopagan and also reminiscent of some ancient forms of Gnosticism and Hermeticism, which is the bulwark of our magical heritage and organization.

In the Order, the mass is performed specifically to generate sacraments that are used to charge the magic circle and to vitalize the rites of magical evocation, using the sacraments instead of a bloody sacrifice.  More advanced workings require the use of the magical mass to establish the spiritual purity and powers associated with their more lofty objectives. The magician functions as both magical practitioner and ordained priest in order to perform these advanced rites, and the initiatory grades of the Order reflect this requirement.

I would like to reiterate and discuss the basic components of the magical mass as taken from the previous article (the Magical Mass part one). There are seven basic components, and they are:

1. Devotions and offerings to the Godhead - preparations for communion
2. Invocation of the Godhead - creation of an Image or Imago
3. Assumption of the Godhead - priest/ess assumes a trance and becomes the Eidolon
4. Blessing of the Drink and Food via the breath and/or other tool or mechanism
5. Offering the Sacraments and their veneration
6. Communion
7. Thanksgiving

Devotion, prayers and verbal offerings set the spiritual tone of the mass and they identify the pantheon of spiritual entities that the mass is targeting. The offerings can be physical, often representing a sanctification of the ritual area through burning incense and aspurging with lustral water. Other offerings can be made, including the setting of food and drink to be consumed exclusively by the spirits, the arraying of flowers and bouquets and even the deploying and arranging of statues and figurines. All of these practices represent the devotional nature of enticing and drawing the spiritual entities of the pantheon into the domain of the temple or grove.

The performance of meditations, prayers, contemplation, rosaries or prayer-bead-counting, adoration, the saying of psalms of praise and glorification are also used to establish the religious base for the performance of the mass. In addition, the celebrant, assistants, and even the congregation should have performed some kind of personal ablutions to cleanse themselves both externally and internally. Those who perform or even attend the mass are in a highly rarefied mental state, prepared to experience spiritual phenomena on the highest level possible. The magical mass is not conducted like a typical Sunday service in a church, with a bored and half-present congregation and performed by an indifferent clergy. A magical mass is conducted by initiated magicians for a specific magical effect, and so its relevance is acute and most profound

Specific godhead invocations of various types typify a magical mass. These invocations are not just the typical exhortations to the gods of the targeted pantheon. They are magical invocations, and may include magical words of power and statements of profound spiritual insight. These invocations are meant to magically summon the spirits of the pantheon in a tangible manner that a non-magical mass would never attempt.

The first major deviation in a magical mass from one that is not magical is that the assumption of the Deity is neither assumed nor implied, but is, in fact, performed in a deliberate manner, so that the priest and celebrant briefly becomes imbued with the spiritual powers and authorities of the godhead associated with the targeted pantheon. This stage is critical to a magical mass, so it is always deliberate and never just merely assumed. In some cases, the assistants and the congregants may treat the celebrant as if he or she were the physical embodiment of the god, becoming a kind of eidolon of the Deity (such as with the Grail High Priestess in the High Solemn Mass of the Grail).

The blessing of food and drink, which are to be consumed by the congregation and also used in the magical working, is done by the celebrant acting as the eidolon or physical representative of the godhead. All actions that are so performed are considered sacred magical acts. In this manner, the process of transubstantiation is made possible since it is an operation of the godhead and not one of mortal humanity. The celebrant uses the hands and the breath to bless and transform the bread and wine into elements of the godhead. The act of transubstantiation causes the host or bread fragments and the chalice of wine to become the analogue of the flesh and blood of the godhead - a living sacrifice of the Deity for the benefit of humanity. Blessings are made through these sacraments, since they are living artifacts of the godhead and imbued with great spiritual power; they emanate a spiritual force associated with the Deity. The operation of transubstantiation and the use of the sacraments to project the power of the godhead are truly magical processes and represent the core actions of the magical mass.

As analogues of the physical substances of the godhead, the sacraments are venerated and worshiped as if they were the godhead itself. This further verifies their potent connection with the Deity, in whose name these substances were transformed. The magician celebrant glorifies these substances, and in addition to partaking of them and dispensing them to the assistants and congregants, they are also used to empower the magic circle, sacralizing it in a manner that makes it of one substance with the godhead, a veritable exemplar of the Deity. Thus the magic circle becomes the body and spirit of that godhead. All actions that are performed within it are now imbued with the authorities and powers vested in that Deity, giving them greater relevance and spiritual force.

In addition, magical tools, such as the transmutar wand, sigils and characters drawn on parchment are exposed to both the consecrated bread and wine so as to consecrate them as well. A small amount of wine and a fragment of host are placed in a small container, and this is put in the triangle of evocation. It is used as the means of manifesting the summoned spirit. The sacralizing of the magic circle is performed in the magical rite of benediction, which is an ancillary ritual that is used to project the powers of the host into the eight points of the power octagon.

Communion is where the sacraments are given as sacred food and drink, to be consumed by all partakers as a special method of spiritual and magical fortification. The communion operation also acts as a mechanism where a powerful alignment is forged between the godhead and the recipients, so that the Deity has achieved a potent union with all those who have drunk and eaten of its symbolic blood and flesh.  As previously stated, communion is also where the sacraments can be used to charge tools, bless talismans, sigils and magical characters, and even feed the magically activated statues of the deities of the magician’s personal pantheon.

When communion is completed, then the magician as priest performs the proper ablutions on the mass utensils, such as the chalice and patten, and follows this up with a series of thanksgiving prayers. After receiving the blessing and sacrament of the godhead and spirits of the pantheon, it is important to thank them for their gifts, to glorify the alignment between them and the partakers, which has now been tangibly renewed and fortified.

The basic mass structure above contains only the most essential elements, and we will see that all of the magical masses employed in the Order use a more elaborate ritual pattern than what is presented above, and this includes the abbreviated mass used by the third degree initiate (Acolyte) for the purpose of magical invocation and evocation.

The chalice and the paten are the basic tools used for the saying of a magical mass. The chalice is usually made of a precious metal, such as silver or gold, although ceramic or glass can also be used. The chalice is typically a foot or more in height, and is used exclusively for the mass. It is often consecrated and blessed before use, although using it exclusively for the mass will naturally consecrate and bless it. The paten is a disk or plate made of the same material as the chalice, and is usually around three to six inches in diameter.

In addition, the magician priest can make use of another tool, and that is called a pyx. A pyx is a container used to carry hosts that are already consecrated, and is typically a round metallic box with a hinged cover. The pyx is usually made from precious metals or has gold plating on the inside. Consecrated hosts should be handled with care, as if they were an activated fragment of the godhead itself (which from a magician’s standpoint, they are). They should be kept in either a pyx, a ciborium (a chalice with a tight fitting cover), enclosed in metallic foil (such as gold, silver, brass or even aluminum), or in a monstrance.

A monstrance is a device that displays an enclosed host through a window (for devotion and veneration), but can be held or stood upon the altar. The design of this device is described as an elaborate golden sun-burst with a crystal core mounted on a stand and topped by a cross, but simpler versions consist of just a windowed container with a simple stand. If it is used, the monstrance holds a consecrated host and acts as an elaborate lens, used to project the powers of the host throughout the temple environment. It is not required to be used in our magical lore, since the host is not kept whole. It is rather broken up into eight pieces and these are distributed to the four watchtowers and four angles of the magick circle.

Other items that are used in the magical mass are fully described in the greater article on the magical mass, but these represent the basic tools that one should collect and reserve for the saying of a magical mass. The magician uses the same strict rules that an ordained priest uses in the care and deliberations given to the performance of this rite.

Frater Barrabbas