Uxrocr THs Ttunuss SucnnrsOr THe Tnrs Or Lrt

The Qabalah-a truly ancient system of mysti-cal philosophy-is at the very heart of Westernmagical tradition. Its central symbol is the Treeof Life, a resonant metaphor of the balance andinteraction of cosmic emanatiorls, culminatingin the Ain Soph Aur-the Limitless Light and Ul-timate Source.

This book takes you on a journey through thebranches of the Tree of Life and examines its im-ages and philosophy in relation to astral magic,creative visualization, magic mil:rors, Names ofPower, the Tarot, Arthurian legends, and muchmore .. .

. Experience inner worlds and adventureso Achieve past life memoryo Learn to use the Tarot for self-analysis

o Relate the Tree of Life to your daily lifeo Learn the techniques of ritual performance

. Explore magic's principles and philosophy

o Use the exercises for practical applicationsas well as for overall magical/spiritualdevelopment

o Relate myths to your own experience

o Design an Arthurian Tarotr Get to know yourself at the deepest level,

and construct an astral Body of Light anda magical name to match,,;;,t.i I l,,,,lt I rlrurr

llll liirjl t{ llrrrl.,f.lli)1,! ! ! ! liE.lnl.rt tl,l I tr,iltrl

l.L'rl!:r,=-r 'liilll

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ArourTHpAumonAlan Richardson was born in Northumberland, Englandin 1951, and has been writing on the topic of magic formanyyears. He does not belong to anyoccult group or so-ciet/, does not take pupils, and does not give lectures orany kind of initiation. He insists on holding down a full-time job in therealworld likeanyothermortal. That, afterall, is part and parcel of the real magical path.He is mar-ried with four children and lives very happily in a smallvillage in the southwest of England.

To Wrure To Tns AunronIf you wish to contact the author or would like more in-

formation about this book, please write to the author incare of Llewellyn Worldwide and we will forward your re-quest. Both the author and publisher appreciate hearingfrom you and learning of your enjoyment of this book andhow it has helped you. Llewellyn Worldwide cannot guar-antee that every letter written to the author can be an-swered, but all will be forwarded. Please write to:

Alan Richardsonclo Llewellyn Worldwide

P.O. Box 54383{81, St. Paul, MN 551540383, U.S.A.Please endoee a self-addresse4-st3f envelope fc reply, or $1.00

If ouBide the U.S.A., endose international postal reply coupon.

FnsE Clreroc Fnona LruwurrvNFor more than 90 years Llewellyn has brought its read-

ers knowledge in the fields of metaphysics and human po-tential. Leam about the newest books in spiritual guid-ance, natural healing astrology, occult philosophy andmore. EnFy book reviews, new age articles, a calendar ofevents, plus current advertised products and services. Toget your free copy of the New Tittts, send your name andaddress to:

The Lle"unllyn N eat TimreP.O. Box 54383481, St. Paul, MN 55164J383, U.S.A.

Llewell5rn's New Age Series

MAGICATGATEWAYS

(A New, Expanded, and Revised Publicationof An Introduction to the Mystical Qafulah)

AraNRrcHnRDSoN

1W2Llewellyn Publications

St. Paul, Minnesota 5516tL0383, U.S.A.

Magical Gateunys. Copyright @ 7974,1981 and 19 !12 byAlan Richardson. All rights reserved. Printed in th-eUnited States of America . No part of this book may be usedor reproduced i1 any manner *hatsoever without permis-sion in writing from Llewellyn Pr,rblications except in thecase of brief quotations embodied in critical artiiles andreviews.

FIRST LLEWELLYN EDITION, 1992

9igi"fqy published as An lntrductbn to tlu MysticalQabalah(The Aquarian Press, 7974)

Cover art by Lissanne LakeInterior Egypian illustrations by Billielohn

library of Congress C,ataloging-in-Publication DataRichardson, Alan, 1951-

Magical gateways / Alan Richardson.p. cm. - (Llewellyn's new age series)

"Anew, expanded, and revised publication of Anintroduction to the mystical qabalah.' Znd ed. 1981.

ISBN 0-8754248141. Cabala.2. Magic. 3. Symbolism. 4. Tree oflif+Miscellanea. I. Richardson, Alan, 1951-Intncduction to the mystical qabalah.II. Title.

8F1521.R53 1992135'.4--dc20 92-77U4

CIP

Llewellyn PublicationsA Division of Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.P.O. Box 64383, St. Paul, MN 551544383

LrrwrLLYN's Nnw Acn SsnrcsThe "INew Age"-it's a phrase we use, but what doesit mean? Does it mean that we are entering theAquarian Age? Does it mean that a new Messiah iscoming to correct all that is wrong and make Earthinto a Garden? Probably not-but the idea of amaiorchangeis there, combined with awareness that Earthcan be a Garden; that wir, crime, poverty, disease,etc., are not necessary "evils."

Optimists, dreamers, scientists . .. nearly all of usbelieve in a 'tetter tomorrow," and that somehowwe can do things now that will make for a better fu-ture life for ourselves and for coming generations.

In one sense, we all know there's nothing new un-der the Heavens, and in another sense that every daymakes a new world. The difference is in our con-sciousness. And this is what the New Age is allabouh i(s a maior change in consciousness foundwithin each of us as we learn to bring forth and mani-fest powers that humanity has always potentiallyhad.

Evolution moves in "leaps." Individuals struggleto develop talents and powers, and their effortsbuild a "power bank" in the Collective Unconscious-ness, the soul of humanity that suddenly makesthese same talents and powers easier access for themaiority.

You still have to learn the "rules" for developingand applyrng these powers, but it is rnore like a "re-leaming" than anew learning, because with the NewAge it is as if the basis for these had become genetic.

::

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R

Other Books by AIan RichardsonlGate o! Maorc Mythical & Magical Dnrways

to tle Othmporld

Prirete;s: The Life and Magic of Dion FortuncEarth Goil Rbing: The Return of the Male MystuiaTwentieth Cmtury Magtc anit tlrc Old ReligionInnn Guide to Egypt

With Geoff Hughes:Ancient Magick for a Nan Age

To William G, Gray,

for showing me a straight and narrow path,lnlf a lifetime ago

il1

CONTENTS

Preface ..... xi

l.MagicandSymbols. ... 1

2. The Magical Philosophy

3. The Cross and the Elements . . . . 35

4.TheMiddlePillar ....45

5. The Banishing and lnvoking Ritual . . . 55

6. Astral Magic 65

7. The Tarot and the Tree of Life . . . 85

8. Mythological Magic . 103

9. Group Work and the lndividual 121,

10. The Mysteries of Knowing 133

11. Egyptian Magic . .

12. Past Lives Revisited . 1,61,

Conclusion . 177

Appendix . . 179

Llseful"Boolcs. ...183

$q

",

Pref ace

This book offers an introduction to the very es-

sentials of magic. It shows magic to be a spiri-tual system which every person can use to en-hance his or her life. The techniques given aretried and tested methods which will, in time,expand the consciousness of the individual-whether that individual is a Christian, a Pagan,or something else, it makes no difference. At theend of the book the reader will have a broadgrasp of those major aspects which comprisethe Western Esoteric Tradition, as it exists to-day. More importantly, each reader will also beleft with ideas on how this Tradition may be de-veloped in the decades to come, and of the parthe or she might play in this development.

The emphasis at all times is upon the individ-ual, and on the efforts that each person mustmake. The study and practice of magic as de-scribed herein requires no membership of anygroups, no knowledge of ancient languages,and no worship of any individual, living or

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xii I Magical Gatanrys

dead. I personally belong to no group, havestudied the peculiar philosophy oflhe eabalahfor twenty years without evei once being able torecognize a single Hebrew letter, and have notfo11d that my magic has suffered in any way.

This book is in fact simplistic, and deliber-ately so. Whether this is an excuse for superfici-ality and shallowness, or a sincere attempt toget to the root of things, is something that read-ers must decide for thernselves.

Although the practice of magic can enhanceand transform a person's life, it is actually in thelast conscious moments before death that it re-ceivs its full iustification. We might call this theParable of the Two Brothers (or Sisters!). Onebrother has no interest in magic or any otherspiritual system, and scorns it as mere escap-ism; the other works at magic with all of hisheart. At the moment before death, however,two distinctions occur, theleast important beingthat the magician has actually got something tolook fonryard to. (And if that proves to be false,as his scornful brother would insist, then afterdeath it hardly matters anyway.) But the trulyimportant distinction is in what the two have tolook backupon. Both will have known love, se&relationships, jobs, careers, profits and debts,laughter and sorrow and children and travel.The magician will have the full range of experi-ence, the same intense memories as his skepti,cal brother, but on top of these, in areas denied

Preface I xiii

the latter, the magician will be able to look backalso upon a life that extended through morethan the usual dimercions. The magician willbe able to lookbackupon inner experiences thatwere nothing less than extraordinary.

In the practice of magic, the student willlearn to link with energies and levels of con-sciousness that can transform his or her life.These energies will come through in a perfectlynatural way. In the magical scheme each indi-vidual consciowness is part of one great, corpo-rate whole. We are one another, in fact. Changeswithin the heart and mind of the magician willeventually affect the heart and mind of thewhole race. Each person must learn, therefore,that he or she has a responsibility to work magicas brightly as he or she can. In a very true sense,the world, the future, depends upon it.

To say that magic is escapist is nonsense. Realmagic requires too much hard work. We mightas well criticize top-class athletes for taking uptheir sports in order to avoid the so-called "re-alities" of life. We might as well criticize any hu-run attempts at self-improvement in anysphere. No one works harder at life than the ma-gician.

And the astonishing thing about magic isthat it always works-though never when thenewcomerwants, md rarely how.Rituals whichI performed with specific intent in the mid-70s,for example, finally worked themselves

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through in the late 80s. Only then, older andwiser, could I see that the timing of this was ac-tually perfect.

The original draft of this book was writtenwhile I was still a teen-ager. I say this not as aboast, but as a desperate attempt to apologizefor the crassness of the first edition, which wasfinally published by Aquarian Press in 1974,with the excruciating title An Introduction to theIvlystical Qabakh.The second edition, written inMorgantown, West Virginia, and which formsthe substance of the present text, was partlydone under the prompting of certain "innercontacts" that had been nudging at my psycheduring the interim years. This present edition,with a mercifully decent title seeks to bring thewhole scheme up to date.

I^ *y early years of magical practice, as anintensely lonely youth (which youth isn't?), Iwanted nothing more than to join a group andbe taken under the wing of some all-wise andall-knowing Adept. However, circumstances(fate, location, whatever) all seemed to conspireagainst the possibility, so that I was alwaysforced to work alone. The techniques and no-tions given herein, then, are essentially thosewhich irupired my often inglorious but neverfruitless early years, and which later on gaveme theconfidence to enter some strange and lu-minous realms indeed. I never became a greatmagician. I cannot claim that even now, thirty

Preface lxt

years later-although in my naughtier mo-ments I sometimes do-but I have seen and ex-perienced some great and wonderful things be-cause of magic, and had my life transformed.Who could ask for more?

So the techniques do work Your lives canbeenhanced. The effort alone will bring wisdom.

-Alan Richardson

Wessex, EnglandBeltaine, 1991.

Magic and Symbols

When I was a youth I borrowed A.E. Waite'sBook of Ceremonial Magic from the library andwalked home in something of a daze. It mighthave been a portion of the True Cross I held. Allthc tales about such books came back to me. Ithought about the members of the clan Stewartniho would wear magically protective bands ofiron around their foreheads before they daredto even open the mysterious tome called the RedBook of Appin When I finally got Waite's bookhome the glamour of the signs, seals and sigilssent me into a trance. I spent hours copyingthem on to paper or using them in various cir-cumstances hoping for a wondrous effect. I amstill waiting, however.

It took a while for me to realize that they didnothing but exercise my draughtsmanship. Butall the same, I was sure that soon I would findsome truly magical symbols which would pro-vide the results I wanted, such as openingdoors

1.

2 | Magical Gateutays

at a touch, projecting me off into the astralplane, and making me irresistible to women.None of which ever occured.

Of course I was bemused and befuddled bytoo much indiscriminate reading on occultismand my own innocence. My g"llibility wasmatched only by that of the writers whosebooks I had believed in implicitlp both partiesbelieving that certain secret glyphs possesseduntold power.

Much later it became clear that symbols haveabsolutely no power in themselves. Drawingsof magical images or electric circuits have no in-trinsic power, but by applying the principlesthey schematize, remarkable results can be ob-tained. The pentacles which I had so fruitlesslycopied became useful only after I had under-stood their pu{pose. Th"y must be understoodto have any value. A person trying to succeed inmagic without understanding the symbolism,will be as big a failure as a driver who carmotunderstand the road signs.

What is Magic?Everything hangs upon what one under-

stands by the term "ma$c." First of all, it isnothing to do with giving individuals incred-ible powers, any more than that the sole pur-pose of life is the accumulation of money. So farno one has surpassed the definition of magic as"the art of causing changes to occur in con-

Magtc anil Symbols | 3

sciousness," but we usually approach the fieldin such a state of confusion that even such a sirn-ple statement makes no sense at all.

The concept of ritual magic tends to evoketwo reactioni within people. The first (and the

one no doubt felt by the reader) is one of intenseglamour and romance, even though the studentis not quite sure what the topic involves. The

second in sheer disbelief and a vague sense ofembarrassment.

What we might do here, however, is to an-

swer our own question by looking at these dis-believing types and seeing how they too are

practitioners of magic did they but know it."l'he first kirrd of disbeliever is one who has

flrrn rcligious beliefs of his own and regardsanything else as an aberration. Yet a Catholic,for example, in going to Mass, experiences anact of pure ceremonial magic which might belnterpreted by the outsider as having cannibal-lstic overtones, but yet which invariably has a

profound emotional impact within the partici-pant. A change has occurred in his conscious-ness. He feels a little better for it, and closer toGod.

The other kind of disbeliever is one who is arationalist, non-religious, and who is assuredthat ritual magic plays no part in ftls life. But un-less he is the type of person who has neverfallen in love even in the slightest degree, hewould be very wrong indeed. The act of falling

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4 I MaSTAI Gatantays

in love is a ceremony of magic in itself, capableof effecting the most far-reaching changes inconsciousness of all. The lover has only to smileor cock an eyebrow and depths within the be-loved tremble. The couple share little rites andacts and secret words which are nonsense to theoutsider but charged with meaning to the lov-e19. Simple gestures come to have devastatingeffect. Whatever the outcome of the affair itivery existence does something to broaden thepsyche of the besotted. Magic at its highest.Changes occurring in consciousness.

The magic we will be studying in this bookmust be looked at in exactly these terms. Thetechniques must be seen as means of selfdis-covery and self-perfection. The ultimate aim ofa magician must inevitably be the same as thatof any priest: wholeness, both human and Di-vine. Whether the disciplines produce side-ef-fects in the psychic fields is very much secon-dury to whether they help make one into a bet-ter and wiser person.

It has to be acknowledged at the outset thatmost people come to magic with some vaguelydefined but very strong urge to gain power. Thepresent writer was no exception. Most of us liverather dult lives and exist as dissatisfied andoften rather pathetic people. Magic seenu to of-fer a meaurs of by-passing the usual routes toearthly power, and, with a few symbols and aminimum of effort, hints at infinite possibility.

Magic and Symbols I 5

In reality, however, while the infinite possibil-Ity is most definitely there, the idea of mini-murn effort could not be further from the truth.

A true magician is doing no less than aimingfor the Ultimate (however he defines that).Metaphorically speaking, magic is a means ofturning inside ourselves, grabbing ourselves'and hauling ourselves uP by the scruff of theneck to whatever standards we choose to as-

plre.We did it all when we were children, in fact-

A child evolves and matures into adulthood byeopying the grownuPs, learning from watchinglht'm, and by simulating an adult world bynu.lns of play. A child adapts to the world byrt prorlucing it in his own terms in play, gradu-nlly enlarging his concepts until he can dis-pcnsc with play-acting adult situations. In simi-lar ways, a magician evolves toward God-hoodusing rituals designed to reproduce the InnerWorlds. Child to adult, and adult to God, is ther.volutionary route; although we all tend to geta little stuck along the way to both.

The Meaning of SymbolsWhere do symbols fit into all this? Again,

look at the world around .. .

The gestures of a traffic police officer arebased upon a definite system. Each arln move-ment has a symbolic meaning, which if misun-derstood can result in serious trouble. Each let-

6 | Magical Gatamys

ter on this page is a symbol that is used to ex_press ideas and thoughts in visible form. Theseletters are far more potent than any Egyptian hi-eloglyphs, simply because you can understandthem, and because they have an effect uponyour consciousness. The formuliae and equa_tions usd in science express ideas clearly andsimply-to the user, but remain incomprehensi-ble to the uninitiated. Symbols are a heans ofcommunicatiorL a form of shorthand. Nor isthere anything esoteric about their application.Poets use them, the blind and the dealuse them,magicians and children also use symbols to linkwith actualities around them.

Yugi._rymbols work on common-sense prin-cipJes. How else? Where a magical concept ortechnique goes against your conunon sensethen leave it and wait either for further under-standing, or different techniques. In ritualmagic every gesture must have a meaning. Theyare not used for their aesthetic qualities, but be-cause they are physical-representations of inneractualities. When a magician forrnulates, for ex-ample, the Qabalistic Cross, he does so becauseit is a logical, necessary gesture, and not for dra-matic effect.

The experienced magician operates on levelsof consciousness which are somewhat differentfrom ordinary experience. The only way he candescribe these is by using symbols common tous which are lower analogues of that which he

Magtc and Symbols | 7

is describing. Accounts of primitive peoplemeeting advanced technology and attemptingto describe modern artifacts will supply a paral-lel here. Symbols are a link between the knownand the unknown, the outer and the inner.

The Lesser and Greater MysteriesThis is not to say that occult teachings cannot

be assimilated except through metaphors. Inmagic there are the Les.ser and Greater Myster-les. The former are the basic teachings whose in-tellectual contents are available to all. TheGreater Mysteries can only be understoodthrough experience; they cannot be taught inwords. The best that can be done is to providesymbols that the student may use as lenses tobring into focus his own blurred intimations ofsomething greater in this world than himself.That is why it is useless searchiog books for anyTme Secret. It does not exist. Books and teach-ers can only give a few inadequate methods toreach the wisdom that is nowhere else butwithin the seeker.

In one of his books Aleister Crowley la-mented that at his initiation he was given nomore than a few astrological symbols and. triv-ial details that he knew already. Yet that is allthat any genuine group can possibty give-abasic scheme of symbols which the studentmust learn to develop himself. This is a hardthing to swallow, as we all tend to build up en-

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8 | Magical Gatamys

cyclopedic knowledge of rituals and the quali-ties of superconsciousness, and are inclined toexpect more (and more advanced) information,rather than less. Yet what is the value of hoard-ing occult details if they do not result in someprogression of experience? It is like a youngchild building up a collection of love poems andanecdotes about the beauty of falling in love. Hemay reach puberty knowing all the symptomsand effects, but this knowledge crumbles be-side the reality. Similarly, a student may, byanalysis of thesymbolism connected witli say,Hermes, gain a good idea of what that god islike, but until he actually makes some sort ofHermes contact he will not really know.

In Western Magic, then, we can be given nomore and no less than two basic symbols: theequi-armed Celtic Cross, and that of the Tree ofLife. The rest is rp to us, for there is no dogma,no secret teachings, no mysterious Adepts noranything which can help us avoid doing a greatdeal of work to expand these from diagrams ina book out to vast potentials within onr per-sonal universes.

Ideally, of course, we should finish the bookat this poing but human nature being what it is,there is an obligation to guide the studentthrough the mass-some might say the mo-rass-of symbols and techniques within themagical tradition. It must always be borne inmind, howeve4 that no matter how glamorous

Magtc and Symbols | 9

some of these may seem, there are only twosymbols which are important-the circle-crossand the Tree. Without a solid grasP of these, therest of them are no more than distractions.These are the electrical circuits which we willattempt to energize.

And we must remember that all the imagesgiven are products of our own making. Whenwe talkabout gods, goddesses, angels and arch-angels, we refer to personifications of abstractqualities, and we are using these figures to giveour minds something to "grip onto." These Per-sonified images are used to enable us to makecontact with benign inner intelligences, buttheir shapes are entirely of our making. Usingone of the more traditional magical systems, forexample, w€ might refer to the ArchangelGabriel, and the element of Water; but in doingso we must remember this: water is a physicalparallel of certain qualities within our psyche;the figure of Gabriel is a symbol of these samequalities at a certain level of operation. As wewill show later there are other symbols that canbe used if the Judaeo-Christian elements are nolonger sympathetic, but in any case they are ofour creation. The point cannot be repeated toooften.

Concept AssociationStudents who come to the Qabalah for the

first time will very quickly find different books

10 | Magical Gatantays

contradic tin g each other concernin g allocationsof symbols to particular Spheres. The truth is,each source is right in so much as they get re-sults, and it is by concept association that we ac-tually achieve them.

We have all at one time seen the hero in a filmforce some villain into submission simply bygrabbing his holstered gun, without drawing it.Behind this is the basic psychology of conceptassociation. The villain knows that if the gun isdrawn, primed, aimed and fired, a chemical re-action will occur which will have an unpleasanteffect. Thus a simple gesture evokes powerfulfeelings of fear. It also shows that we get out ofsymbols what we put into them. The unknow-ing would be unafraid of the gun becauire hewould not associate the gesture with instantdeath.

A flippant example? Not really. The laws ofmagic are the laws that govern our evolution. Itis the magician's task to see these liaws in opera-tion in every aspect of life, no matter how ap-parently trivial or ludicrous.

When we come to work on the images of theTree of Life and the circle-cross we will pour somuch of ourselves into certain areas that whenwe choose to release it all we can do this andmore, and direct our consciousness along cho-sen lines and with deterrnined intensity. Withexperience, for example, intonation of the God-name for the sphere of the Sun, should posi-

=+_ -=

Magic and Symbols 111.

tively inflame us with the sense of Beauty andPerfect Balance which are the qualities of thatsphere as it appears upon the Tree of Life. A realchange in consciousness. A real piece of magic.

For those who expected powers, occultdomination and the rest, this will come as a realdisappointment. Yes, it is to be admitted thatmagic can glve these if the student u/ere to sethis sights so pathetically low, but would it notbe better in the long run to aim for real wisdom,understanding and insight into life and living?

If nothing else, maglc can give a certain spar-kle back to modern life. It gives us a chance tofind the numinous within the most mundane ofevents. In a dying, woeful planet it can give usback a little ronurnce, and a glimpse of worldswithin and beyond this one. It is not in anysense escapist. Anyone who has labored day af-terday at all the numerous facets of magtc bothintellectual and practical, and who has paid thetolls that magic will inevitably demand, andwho has, on top of all this, got on with hisworkaday job and tried to make a good life forhis family (no easy matter either) will lcrow thatthe real escape is to keep one's head down andignore all thoughts of spiritual possibility. Themagical path is lonely and hard and has to walkin parallel with the routine one-which islonely and hard enough in itself.

ln different ways we need magic more thanwe have ever done. The Swiss psychologist

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72 | Magical Gatanays

C.G. Iung had a tower of his own design builton the edge of a lake, at Bollingen. There wereno modern amenities within this tower, and itwas shut off from the modern world. Hewanted to keep in touch with his elemental na-ture and he would go there when he felt theurge to write, corunune with himself, or bealone. In old age he would still chop his ownfirewood, do his own cooking, and have con-versations with his pots and pans as he did so.To him it was vital that Western Man redis-cover magic. He saw life in terms of myths andrituals and the religious quest. Over and aboveall the self-styled Adepts and Hierophants,Iung was by far the greatest magician of thiscentury. And he was entirely seU-taught, withnot the slightest hint of Tibetan Lamas, SpacePeople, or Arabian mystics guiding him fromsecret sanctuaries c/o Post Office boxes.

And finally, for those people who are at-tracted by magic but who still have so-called"rational" objections to the talk of gods andgoddesses and angels, we can take comfortfrom Brodie-Innes' statement which I quotehere from memory: 'nVhether gods and de-mons really exist or not is beside the poin| theimportant thing is that the universe behaves as

though they do." With that statement in mindand with the magical scheme regarded as aparadigm, w€ can go a long way indeed. Inwhichever direction we choose.

The Magical Philosophy

At this point we must look at what is meant bythe term -Qabalah." Simply, it is from the He-brew "QBL:' which can be translated in thesense of "from mouth to ear," implying oral tra-dition. Alternative spellings include "Kab-balan-" and 'Cabalia." The system with whichwe are dealing, however, is a modern develop-ment which revolves around the glyph knownas the Tree of Life. The system of emanationsdepicted by this glyph it by no means the onlyaspect of the Qabalah, but is the one which of-fers the most scope for development along ourpresent lines.

The system was evolved into its present formby occultists n/ithin the "Order of the GoldenDawn" and similar groups. It is not, as somewould hint, antediluvian, nor pre-Christian,nor even pre-medieval. From a purist's view-point the Qabalah of twentieth- century occult-ismbears little resemblance to that described in

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74 | Magical Gatanays

the Zohar.Which is only right and proper. Our spelling,

our dress, our music, our mores/ our style all de-velop through the centuries and so must ourmagic. There are ma.ny technical terms usedwithin the scheme which are of Hebrew origin,and likewise many images. But bearing in mindall that we have said about using symbols, thesecan be no more than "empty vessels" waitingfor us to fill them with our own essence. Wemust not think that we are getting subtly in-volved in any form of judaism. Hebrew is usedhere as l^atin is used by the medical fraternity.And as we shall see later, there is no reason whywe should not eventually and completely An-glicize or Celtictze or re-interpret the Qabalahentirely in the idiom of one's own country. In-deed it may well be waiting for each man to dothat.

However, before this ambitious step shouldbe taken, w€ should look at what other peoplehave done.with the glyph so far, so that we uurydetermine how best we may improve upon it-when we are experienced.

In this book, however, it will onlybe possibleto give the basics of the philosophy behind theTree. Anything more would bog the readerdown too soon. Serious students will necessar-ily hunt out the more advanced works and pro-gre$s of their own accord.

So what is the Tree of Life?Figute T.TrreTree of Life

76 | Magical Gata oays

Basically, it is a diagram which depicts theoperating forces of the universe. Iust as astrol-ogy classifies human character into twelve dis-tinct types, so the Tree of Life has ten essentialcategories into which the qualities of life can bedivided._By studying each Sphere or Sephira(plural Sephiroth) separately, or in relatibn tothe others, we can study the mechanism of lifeon every plane. To understand this better, let uswork down from the top of the Tree.

The Movement of Creative EnergyKether, the highest Sphere, represents the Ul-

timate, God, the First Cause, which manifestedfrom the absolute Nothingness of Ain SophAur. Kether is at the summit of the middle pillarflanked by the right- and left-hand pillirs ofpositive and negative polarity respectively. It isfrom this first Sphere that the creative enerryproceeds and descends through the Spheresuntil it reaches the physical plane, representedby Malkuth. Do not interpret this "descent,, inliteral terms, however. This is only an approxi-mation of the development of the Spheres onthe various planes. The creative energy thentravels a zigzag path in the numbered ordershown in the diagram. This process is best de-scribed by analogy, and if this particular con-cept of emanation is understood, then the stu-dent is well on the way to understanding theprimary symbolism of the Tree.

-G.

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G$it

The Magical Philosophy 117

Imagine, therefore, a trail of inflammablechemical substances of graded densities, eachin contact with the next in line. The finest sub-stance at one end represents Kether, while thedensest at the other is Malkuth. The remainingSpheres are represented by the intermediatesubstances.

Picture, then, a flame applied to the Kether-icchemicals. As it travels down the line, the flamechanges in quality and character, according tothe nature of the different chemical reactions.

If one transmutes this analogy to its spiritualequivalent, one should have a rough idea-avery rough idea---of the basic emanationist the-ory (reali zing, of course, that the passage of the"flatrfie" is a continuous process).

]ust as each chemical in our analogy Pro-duced a different quality flame, so does each

Sphere generate a different quality of spiritualforce affecting life of every kind and degree.

Balancing ForcesSo each Sphere is endowed with certain char-

acteristics which affect us here on Malkuth, thephysical plane. To illustrate this, let us look atChesed and Geburah.

Chesed represents constructive energy, gen-ial forces as described by the word "Mercy'' inits widest sense. Geburah, its diagrammatic op-posite, is symbolie of destructive energl, thecleansing, scourging forces necessary to coun-

18 I Mastcal Gata uays

teract Chesed. Chesed buitds up forms,whether in the field of howes or lharacter;Geburah smashes these down when th"y haveoutlived their usefulness. And then Chesedsteps in again to build bigger and better housesor characters on the old ruins. Look at the GreatFire of London fora physical example. For spiritual examples, look at how man learn+ iomseemingly catastrophic events shattering his se-curity, to build up a better, more matureiharac-ter.

In English terms, Chesed and Geburah areknown in their abstracts Mercy and justice.

fh.y are balanced by the Beauiy and perfectBalance of Tiphereth, which means Love.

The same idea applies to the other twinsBinah-Chockmah, and Netzach-Hod.

- The gpposite forces of the outer Spheres findtheir balance in the Spheres of the midab pillar,and in this action there is an important lesion tobe learned. The lesson is that man must build abalanced personality before he can safely tacklethe most practical aspects of the Mysteries. Hemust learn to balance his own internal forces bycounteracting any undesirable traits with theirgPPosing influences. The archetypal hippies,for example, could do with a gooddor" of Hoa-ic reason and logic to balance them.

Of course this is a simplified explanation.Some might say over-simpiified. Butit must beremembered that the point of this book is not to

The Magical PhilosoPltV I tg

grve the reader a thorough groun$ing in theptritosophy behind the Tree. Instead, it is an at-

iempt to show how magical techniqu"g Td sys-

tems are derived from the Tree. The followingdescriptions of the Spheres are meant as guide-lines only.

So now we will study the Tree of Life, start-ing at the Source.

Ain Soph AurThis is perhaps the hardest concept to grasP,

becawe there aie no concrete ways to describeit. It is the most abstract concept of all, but also

the most important, for it is out of Ain Soph Aurthat all proceeds.

To trinslate, it means-Ain:Nothingness- AinSoph: Limitlessness. Ain Soph Aur: Limitless

Light.In character, it is Absolute Nothingness, Pre-

ceding even Kether. We cannot posit it by iug-gling words around. We can onf attempt to

[ain some sort of rudimentary understandittg,and hope to grow in it-

In Eastern terms, it is Nirvana. But that does

not mean that we are talking about a mystical

experience; it is only such when rnan achieves

it. Ain Soph Aur is the source from which Eve-

rything inanifests. Those familiar with the

Theosophical writings may know the concept

of the 'bays and Nights of Brahma"" This idea

states that at vast periodic intervals, the whole

iffi.

20 I Magical Gataaays

of the manifest universe returns to the source of\qtli"gess. This is the Unmanifest, the Veilsof Negative Existence, or Ain Sqph e"i.-

The-light analogy is used beojuse fijf,t is themost abstract, unsubstantial symbol

"ipuUt" of

equating.Tyan$ picture this absolute nothingness be-

:9*Tg denserata focal point, until Ke"ther, theFirqt Sephla, or Sphere manifests. Kether be_comes the Limitless Light in Extension.

,- _ 9o$rcTa3 y"8,e? -Undoubtealy. But dont

be deterred. No one can understar,a tnis con_cept fully without experiencirg it, and to Jo thismeans to transcend God_hood even.

But where does this all lead us? What is thepractical i-mportance of this concept?The earlier definition of magic siated that the

magician uses rituar to create *pi.it"r cosmoswithin him. Thus when we study and appty ttreAbsolute Nothingness of Ain Soph A.,i'#tnir,ourselves as far as is possible, lnything'tf,""procl$ing from conscio,rsness witi be,rilt u__pered by other concepts, because there l.s noother c9.1c9nt beyond iru, one. Thus Nothing_ness will form the absolute bedrock oi yo*knowledge and understanding. It will bdome*:,:_ff:T4"t" cerrainty upon which to rery.lnylrung directed from your mind during the

:,Y:I,*{|F p"re and unsurried Uy o""?r"p-pmg rnfluences. Or such is the basic ideal, any_way.

The Magical Philosoplry | 21

When \Me come to syrnbols and images relat-ing to this, wewill find Ain Soph Aur conspicu-ously absent from the appendix at the back ofthis book. Any image must necessarily be tooconcrete for the concept of Negative Existence,of Nothingness. All we can use are images of themost nebulous kind, such as a simple circle, orthe glyph for infinity, with the node represent-ing Kether. However, most of the symbol-ap-plication we will be studying concerns theSpheres, so we will now turn to Kether.

KetherThe word Kether means the Crown. It is in-

deed the crown of the Tree. The word suggeststhe kingly qualities of power, wisdom, iusticeand every other quality the archetypal kitgshould possess.

Kether equates with omnipotence, omnis-cience, and the First Cause. It is called variouslythe Ancient of Days, the Most High, and Macro-prosopus and others.

Situated at the top of the Middle Pillar ofEquilibrium, Kether represents the absoluteperfection of God. As it is the first Sphere fromwhich all the others manifest, it contains theperfected essence of all of them.

Its spiritual experience is Union with Go d, af-ter which is only Nirvana. But we must notthink that Kether is the "best" of the Spheres.

Qabalistic teaching asserts that each is as spiri-

22 | Magical Gataoays

tually necesmry, and therefore as holy, as therest, that l\dalkuth is as holy as Kether.

There is a wide variety of symbols for Kether,and these will be dealt urith separately. Here,we are just concerned with their natures andqualities. This said, we move to

Chockmah and BinahClnckmaft means ,1Visdom.. It is at the top of

the positive, or masculine pillar, with all thatthese words imply in theif absolute or arche-typal senses. It is power of Kether in dynamicaction, stirnulating and energizing Binah.

Binah means 'understanding,; and. is situ_ated opposite Chockmah at the top of the nega_tive, or feminine pillar. It is reclptive to theflowing power of Chocknah, and'is known asthe "Great Sear" or "Great Mother.r, Chockmahbeing the Supernal Father, the analogy with hu-T"l yexu3tity is obvious. Rernember though,that the physical worlds are dim reflections ofthe spiritual, not vice versa.

Chockmah and Binah, therefore, are forceand fonr-r respectively.

In human terms,, Binah equates with every-thTg related to stability of form serving to pro_vide life. That is, Binah is the archetypaiWo*U,the archetypal Temple. chockmatr is tr,e forcewhich energizes these forms.

Remember thouglr, that as yet they are onlytheidms of force and form, which matlriali ze as

The Magical PhilosoplV I ZS

actualities on lower levels.

Chesed and GeburahChesed (also known as Gedulah) means

Mercy, or Compassion. As we noted earlier, it isconcerned with up-building forces.

Geburah, which relates to Strength, Severityand ]ustice, breaks up, destroys and temperswith ]ustice the vices of Chesed-ic over-indul-gence. It is a corrective force in the highestsense.

In human terms, the misuse of the Chesed-icforces can lead to self-indulgence, hypocrisy,and bigotry. Similarly, Geburah misused canresult in cruelty and senseless vandalism anddestruction. This is where the idea of balance isnecessary, else chaos will result.

The planets Mars and ]upiter are assigned toGeburah and Chesed respectively. The associa-tion of Mars with the forces of war is obvious.The word "martial" typifies the nature ofGeburah. It expresses the violent energy, deter-mination and rigid discipline of this sphere. |u-piter, meanwhile, relates to fatherliness, protec-tiveness, and joviality as opposed to the stern-ness of Mars.' Geburah teaches us that it is sometimes nec-essary to suffer certain hardships which changeour lives, our characters. Chesed helps us re-gain our stability after these events, and buildagain from the ashes of the old"

&

24 I Magical Gatantays

TipherethThis Sphere balances the forces of Chesed

and Geburah. It is the centrar sphere on theTree, and it relates to Beauty, Harmony, andPerfect Balance. It possesses in baranced formthe benevolence of ehesed and the fierceness ofGeburah.

It relates to the higher mental consciousness,as o_pposed to ordinary psychism, and its spiri_91.*perience glves a visi,on of the harmony ofthings, and the mysticar symborism of sacrificeand crucifixion.

Its planet is the sun, which can nurture or de-stroywith its heat. Sun-types can be proud, con_ceited and egotisticar, bul they *tr'ulto be de-voted people imbued with a great determina_tion.

Tiphereth relates to Christ, and other Sun-qods, and is given titles such as The LesserCountenance, The Son, and others.

Netzach and HodNetmch means 'Tictory,,, while Hod means

"Glory."If Hod is the Sphere of the Intellect, then Net_

zach is the Sphere of Emotion. As such, Hodgoverns ceremonial and ritual magc, whileNetzach is concerned with erementir and na-lure contacts.

Netzach relates to thethe sheer thrill of living

senses and passions,and enjoyment of in-

The Magical Philosophy | 25

stinctual pleasures. Its planet is Venus, goddessof love and all things natural. Netzach is every-thing in the personality which is spontaneousand instinctive. Its spiritual experience is visionof Beauty Triumphant.

At its higher levels, Netzach is characterizedby unselfishness of love, but again, there are thelower levels of sheer animal sensuality and '1iv-ing for kicks."

Hod is the Reasoning Mind, the mind of thecold, hard intellectual incapable of emotions-unless it is balanced by Netzach, that is. It is aSphere of logic and insight, truthfulness and in-spiratiory as well as the falsehood and trickeryarising out of high degrees of cunning.

Its planet is Mercury, which rules messages,eloquences of speech and everything that theterm "mercurial" suggests. The Greek equiva-lent Hermes is responsible for the magical artsbeing referred to as "hermetic," for rememberthis is the Sphere of ritual magic.

YesodYesod means "Foundation." It relates to the

subconscious mind which is the basis, or foun-dation, of our personality, and also to theetheric substance which is the foundation oflife. Yesod balances Hod and Netzach, just asTiphereth balances Chesed and Geburah.

The governing planet is the Moon, which re-flects light on to us from the Sun (which Sun?).

*&:l#-

26 I Magical Gatanays

The tides of the ocean and the human soul aregrrid{ by the Moon. It is said to influer,"" tt "qo*F of planets, and is linked wirh theperi-

ods of Tl/omen.It is the Astrat Light-impressionabre and

malleable--which holds the ihages and fanta_s1T-creal"d by our minds, and th6 is the natureof Yesod, which is also the groupsoul or animamundi. The virtue of yesoa ii inaependence, tt eindependence of one who has outgrown theneed for others !o-:,rpp9rt him, if,y"i.uUy,emotionally,_ mentally ina spirituaily. Tf,i, i,the.independence needed orrih" o..jt p"tn. ftis the realization thar you and only youlii g*inside yourself and do your evoliiip it is inerealization that evolution will mean some hardwork. Not sqplphgly, the main danger atYesod is that of idlenJsi, which makes tnE

"uo_phyte {:t:y in taking the path, makes f,i* p"i itoff until he loses momentum, and grindJ; ahalt.

Malkuth is not related to a particular ele.

The Magicat Philosoplr l ZZ

force should be directed at Netzach, whereAuriel and Venus are symbols of growth andfertility. More of this later though.

One of the inner aspects of Malkuth is con-nected urith the etheric plane and the act of dy-ing, for one of the titles of Malkuth is The Gateof Death.

The basis of rihral magic is in Malkuth, forthe physical symbolism in connection with themental and emotional forces of Netzach, Hodand Yesod attempts to take the magician evenhigher up the tree.

The Hidden Sephir*DaathAnd now we are going to shock you by men-

tioning Daath, the "hidden Sephira." This is thedotted lihe in between Kether and Tiphereth.

Modern Qabalists are of the opinion that thisis another Sphere and there is a great deal of dis-pute about its purpose and symbolism. Wemust mention it here because it has a momen-tary relevance to the Middle Pillar exercisedealt with later.

Essentially, Daath is the bridge over theAbyss which separates Divinity from thatwhich is not quite divine. The Abyss preventsanything less than perfect from reaching theupper triad. It can be crossed by means ofDaath, which means Knowledge-the knowl-

"dg* of experience. This is all we really need to

know for our practical purposes.

MalkuthMalkuth, tl. Kingdom, is the physical

world. It is the final Sp_trere, absorbing tfiequ;U-ties of rhe othegs, and giving ptrysiJ* toh= tothe less rnaterial forces." v

ment, but contains thern all, because the fc,,r,elements together are essentiar to h{ari"tr*,* uo-istence. Thus operations involving tfre Uu.tn_

28 | Magical Gatanays

Relating Yotrr Experience to the TreeSo now we have worked briefly through the

Tree of Life. Remember that saery aspect-of ex-perience can be categorized into one or more ofthe Spheres, and we must try to do this with thelhings in our world. We may see a stern father,fg1- gtlple, spanking a particularly unrulychild. This would be seen ai Geburah in action.later we may see the same uuln filled with com-passion and forgiveness and decide that this isChesed. And finallp we nury see father and sonreconciled and happy, and be sure that this isTiphereth, the Sphere of Harmony, making itspresence felt within the pair of them. A doJtor,receiving a call gnJhe telephone before drivingover to use his skills to heal someone,s woundslis an example of Hod in action, the planet Mer_cury relating to communicatiory tiavel, intel-lect, and healing of hurts and wounds. A youngloy composing a love letter and plotting waysin which he can just happen to 6ump iito hisfancy and all the white wrestling witir his nas-cent lusts is an example of Hod, Netzach andYesod at work Bearing in mind Binah,s title of"Sorrorn/' and the name, which means ,under_standing," we can appreciate that the highestqualities of the latter can arise if we can"copewith our suffeting and sorrows. while in termsof the dynamic energies of Chockmah, wemiglt ponder Blake's saying: ,,The road.s of ex_cess lead to Wisdom.,,

The Magical Philosoplry | 29

A study of astrology here is a great advan-tage, the character of each planet relating to itsSphere. In practical magic we can use this to ourbenefit. For example, a ritual dealing with theforces of Geburah would take place on Tuesday(ruled by Mars) at the specific hour ruled byMars. Now whether there really are cosmicforces around at those times which will aid ourrituals is not important. By choosing to performthe ritual according to this scheme you areadopting a particular frame of mind fromwhich it will be easier to, so to speak, "take off ."

Of course, we can begin to see the Tree of Lifenow on several levels: nucrocosmically it rep-resents the structure of the universe and theforces which shape our lives; microcosmically itrepresents the inner structure of Man and thequalities of the Self which attempts to assert it-self against the Universe. This is iust a restate-ment of "As above, so below." Man is a mini-ature of the universe.

The Importance of Numbers and ColorsAlthough there is an entirebranch of number

study known as the gematria, it is somethingthat I feel is of only limited importance to themodern magician. On a more simplistic levelwe can note that each Sphere is numbered in or-der of descent, so that Chesed is four, and Net-zach seven. Thus a square would symbolizeChesed, and a beautiful seven-pointed star Net-

ff

30 | Magical Gatamys

zach and venus. Anyone worki^g in the liatterSphere rnight, perhaps, have seven candles ar_ranged into the star-shape for the same reasonswe gave abovetelajing to rituals dealing withmartial forces. Further, at the end of a rilral, amagician usually gives ten knocks on the floor.As he does so he visuarizes the spheres in order,-*tlli.g himself to descend in consciousnessback to the levels of Malkuth, the tenth sphere.

colors also. have a prace of some importance.Each Sphere has its own particula, .ilo, ,,fre_quency," as we might term it. In the advancedstudies on the topic wiu be found comprex andcomprehensive charts, but here we ,,eid do noT9t" than Fve a basic outline. We might add atthis point also that this is by no means a science.kol pop_ular occultists iend to imply that acertain color means a certain thing,

-but too

mu9\.emphasis on this leads .r, .r.fu close totrivializing the whole topic. so colors for thespheres as given here should be regarded in thesam_e fight as any other symbol.

Malkuth, traditionally, is given the four col_ors of citrine, olive, russet arrd black, which hintat the different colors of the Elements as theyappear in nature.

. Y"rg9 is given the colors of silver_violet, orviolet-blue, to capture the pecuriar quarities ofmoonshadows.

. r FIod is given the color of orange tcl expressthe quality of intellect, while Netzlch barinces

The Magical PhilosoplrV I Sl

it with green, for this Sphere has connectionswith the peculiar emotions that beautiful coun-tryside can inspire in us.

Tiphereth is traditionally given the color ofrose-pink, flecked with gold, but this is so muchthe sphere of the Sun that any brilliant visuali-zation of this orb will suffice.

Geburah, the martial sphere, is obviouslyequated with rd, while Chesed has the moretranquil color of a rich blue.

Binah, the sphere of Sorrow, is colored black,while Chockmah nearest to God is given as iri-descence.

Kether itself is beyond mere color, and is as-cribed the quality of utter brilliance.

Thus returning to what we said about theGeburah ritual, we can expand it more andhave it take place on a Tuesday, at the hour ofMars, lvith red as the dominant colorwithin thecolor, and the pentagon as the dominant sym-bol.

The Narnes of PowerThese, quite understandably, fascinate most

people. We are still hooked into the concept thatthere might, after all, be some maglc wordwhich can do everything for us. The Names,like our own names, are no more than keys. Ifwe hear someone calling us, then dependingupon who does so, and how th"y do so, we reactinside in different ways. Aoy teacher knows

32 | Magical Gatamys

that the first thing he must do with any class islearn all the names. That is the first step towardgaining any real discipline and (evenhrally) af-fectionate response from them. There is a the-ory that the Names are designed to stimulatethe psychic centers (chakras), which seem tohave physical correspondences with the endo-crine glands, but we will mention this more in alater chapter. More likely their value is that theyare, at present, "none sense" words which wewill deliberately fill with the highest conceptswe can imagine. Like very private pet names, infact. When intoned during the working the aimis to tune into the particular energies being in-voked and change our coruciousness, for theduration of the rite, into that frequency.

Speech as a whole should be adapted to thenature of the Sphere concerned. Norrnal con-versational tones for Malkuth, stern tones forGeburah, and an awestruck whisper for Kether.

So we can see from this that everything canbe interrelated and interconnected. Everylrungmust point toward the same idea so that themind can concentrate its force into definitechannels of pin-point intensity. The degree ofconcentration needed is very great, and natu-

1ally there is an early tendency to msh things.But they should be done carefully and slowlyhowever, so that the full force of visualizationcan be exertecl. For it is the visualized imagesbehind the ritual gestures which are important.

The Magical PhilosaphY | 33

They give power to the gestures and achieve re-ality within the Astral Light, which is the same

as the unconscious mind.

Expanding OurselvesBut why? Someone must still be asking. W

raise our consciousness to the levels of Chesed?

What witl happen?Harking back to what we said about magic

being primarily a means of making us into bet-ter, wiser people, then surely any extension ofconsciousness, any development in experiencewill serve to broaden our minds, to use a verytrite phrase. One can take a lesson here from AChristmas Carolby Chartes Dickens. ftrooge ex-

isted for much of his adult life in a state of mean-ness, bitterness, and downright cruelty. Sud-denly, after a most extraordinary extension ofconsciousness, he found himself able to func-tion in other, beneficent areas. He found him-self pushed into the realm of |upiter, or Chesed,

witli its largess, its humanity, and its sense ofhumor. No one can deny that a change in his

consciousness did not make him into a betterman. The only difference is that in our case'

magic is a voluntary Process. :.-::,:G

G

3

The Cross and the Elements

The other main glyph wed within the WesternMagical Tradition is that of the circle-cross, theCeltic cross, the equi-armed cross of the Ele-ments, to give it various names. It is no morethan a circle equally divided by u cross inside it,yet it is as all-encompassing as the Tree of Lifeitself.

In the Tree, Malkuth is known as the Sphereof the Elements. This, in fact, is our circle-cross.All of the magical operations made possible bythe Tree's unique plan necessarily take placewithin Malkuth. The circle-cross therefore, isour launching-point for ascending the Tree.(The rest of the Spheres fit into this fourfold sys-

tem rather neatly, but we have saved this for theappendix to avoid clouding the issue here.)

The Circle Crossln ancient tirnes in Western Europe, where

the seasons are clearly definedo a four-point

35

G

) .fl'ru"

35 | Magical Gataoays

analysis of heavenly patterns ulas inevitable.The day was clearly seen to consist of dawn,noon, dusk, and nigh$ the year had sha{p sea-sons of spring, suuuner, autumn and winter;while the constituent qualities of the worldwere known to consist of Air, Fire, Water andEarth.

The body, for instance, was Earth; the bloodwas Water; the breath Air; and the bodily heatwas Fire.

Nowadays we might refer to these same Ele-ments as solids, liquidsr g€ls€s, and radiations,byt in so doing we have in no wise supersededthe old designation.

It was (and is) only logical to see that theseElements had parallels on different levelswhich could be extended indefinitely. In ]unglsspeculations the four modes could be deter-mined as being Sensations (Earth), Feelingovater), Thought (Air), and Intuition (FirelWhile astrologically the twelve signs aregrouped into four triplicities which relite to theElements, thus:

Firs Aries, Leo, SagittariusAin Gemini, Libra, AquariusWater: Scorpio, Pisces, CancerEarth: Taurus, C-apricorn, Virgo

We can see within this particular ordering ofthe Elements a distinct staging process of-io-

TheCross and tlrc Elernents | 37

creasing density from Fire downward' This re-

lates tJ the so-called "Four Worlds" of the

Qabalists, which we can categorize as follows:

Fire Atziluth EmanationAir Briah CreationWater Yetzirah FormationEarth Assiah Action

We can see this at work in the urge to paint a

picture, perhaps. A spark (Emanation) is struck*itttitt tire arfist's piyche which is nearly im-

perceptible, Unmanifest Thought, almosl {9t itgradda[y expands into vague brrt powerful im-

[ulses to paint (Creation) which eventually be-

gir, to tnupu into specific designs G.om.nation)

ind are brought to fmition after much physicaleffort (Action).

So this shows that the Elements can also be

used to refer to the most subtle and intangible

aspects of our thoughts. They refer thgn, to.the

four bases of our physical and spiritual worlds.were we to make a urier list of correspondences

so far it would look like this:

Fire/Il,a dia ti o ns/ Summer/Le o/ltla n d/-Emana ti on

Air/G as edS pring/Aquarius/Sword/CreationWater/Li quiaVl'utum*Scolpi o/Cup/FormationEarth/S oli,d sft\rin ter/Taurus/ Shield/A ction

The list can obviously be extended infinitely,and in a later chapter we will add a few more at-

;,:.

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38 | Magical Gatanays

tributions, but there is sufficient there to showthat the actual physical elements are worthlessin themselves. The important thing is that whenyou stand at one of the quarters of the magic cir-cle there will be a vast range of concepts in yourmind relating to that quarter, giving it an im-pact within you.

The design of the circle-cross is a mandala, asymbol of the psyche in perfect equilibrium. Itis what we aspire toward when we come togractigg magic. A person who is essentially"airy/'for example, should make more efforts tobring out of himself more of the other Elements.His aim, after all, is to become Whole. The de-sign is also the basis of most group ritual-thatis, workings along inner lines with other sym-pathetic people. But we will leave a discusiionof that for another chapter.

Four God-FormsTraditional magic uses the images of four ar-

changelic figures placed at the Quarters of thecircle-cross: they are Raphael, Michael, Gabriel,and Auriel. These are the main god-forms formuch magical working.

There are two main ideas as to what these im-ages actually do.

First, there is the idea that by energizingthese figures (which, remember, are personin-cati-on1 of qralities within our own psyches)with the highest aspects of our selves, *e are, in

The Cross anil tlrc Elements I 39

effect, sending out a signal into the innerworlds. At a certain point this will be answeredby evolved and specialized inner entities whocan judge by the quality of this signal that theymight want to associate with and help us. Theimages are thus seen as points of contact be'tween this and the otherworld, and are used bythe entities as vehicles, for the duration of theworking. Ina uery crude sense it is like advertis-ing oneG qualities in a newspaPer in thehope ofattracting a suitable partner who might share

your ideals, although it would not be wise topush that analogy too far.

The second theory holds that these imagespush through instead into the Collective Un-conscious, and that what comes through are se-

lected aspects of the racial grouP-mind. It is as

though we could tap those parts of the geneticstructure (if that is the right term) which containall of manis unconscious inherited learning.

There are nulny other theories but these are

the two rnain ones. But as to which theory is amore likely explanation as to what the Gods re-

ally are, I frankly don't worry.The traditional archangels of the Quarters,

then, are:

RaphaelMichaelGabrieiAuriel

EastSouthWestNorth

SwordWandcupShield

i*, .

ltFffr

4A I Magical Gatantays

Th"y are invariably described as follows:

Raphael. Predominantly a yellow-orange fig-ure-, young with sharp intelligent eyes, he wearsa short Grecian-style tunic for eise of move-ment (in another guise he is Mercury, god oftravel). In his hand is a large sword and embla-zoned on his cloak is a caduceus, which you canglimpse as the wind flutters the cloalq forRaphael, god of Au, is a wind-blown figure.

Miclnel. A figure clad in the colors of Fire,golden-haired, strong, and radiant. He wears abreastplate emblazoned with a lion,s head andcarries a spear. He is sensed as being a strong,energetic figure, and one who can be as uncom-promising as he is helpful.

Gabiel.Clad in long robes of shades of blueand violet. His face is pale with deep-set fea-tures. He holds aloft a silver goblet ana is sur-rounded by u sense of Water. His is the type ofcharacter one would term "deep.,,

Auiel. The colors of nature are his, for hisElement is the Earth, so his long robes are olive.green, brown, citrine and russet, trailing theground around him. In his hand is a shieldwhich is understood to represent a portion ofthe Earth's c.uryature, while e*anaiing frornhim is a sense of growth and fertility.

The Cross anil tlu Eletnents | 41'

Now although we have used the masculinegender for all of these god-forms it is clear thatgods themselves must react with goddesses. So

Gabriel and Auriel should ideally be given asense of feminine qualities. A young and ma-hrre woman respectively, perhaps. Or in thisfeminist age there is no reason why these quali-ties cannot be ascribed to the two positive Ele-ments of Air and Fire. It is up to the user to de-termine what feels right, regardless of what hishead tells him. We shall be suggesting an alter-native scheme to this in a later chapter anyway.

The Magical WeaponsWe have mentioned the four Weapons in

passing several times. These are the means-ihe tools-through which the god-forms findactive expression.

The Sword. Of all the four instruments this isthe only one which does not have an obviousnatural equivalent, unless it be in the crudeform of a piece of ingged flint, or simiLar. Thesword was the weapon which required the fur-thest leaps of proto-science to achieve. It re-quired a degree of intellect and application that*as [ttle short of wondrous. We shall comeback to this weapon's significance in a liater

chapter, but meanwhile we might mentionW.G. Gray's speculation that the sword was

originally an arrow-an obvious Air attribu-

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42 | Magical Gatantays

tion. The quality of the sword is that it can cutthrough obsbacles iust as surely as reason andlogic can cut through many problems.

The Wand. Both a staff which can aid the trav-eler and an offensive or defensive weapon.Early, nafural versions of the wand, or spear,were just fire-hardened sticks. They were usedalso in the control of fire, either as pokers, or astorches in themselves.

We can see here that arrow and spear are butdifferent-sized versions of the same thing. In-deed, were we to view the magical universe inpurely dualist terms then it would be one ofBlack and White, or Fire and Water. In the pre-sent scheme, however, Fire and Air are seen tobe aspects of the same, positive, dynamic en-ergy. Which brings us to their counterparts:

TheCup. Apart from the associations with theHoly Grail which we will go into later, the cupwas originally the cauldron, the communalbowl from which the tribe drew its nourish-ment and also learned something about beingsocial creatures. The very life of the tribe cameforth out of the pot, as the fmit of love camefrorn the womb.

The Pmtacle. The shield, or pentacle (or pan-tacle) was, aeeording to Gray, a piece of mate-rial used for scraping the surface of the earth as

The Cross anil tle Elanois | 43

an early spade, for the planting of seed' This

was the tribe's insurance and protection against

famine. Again later on, we shall see somethingof the shield's peculiar tink with the concept ofsacred stones. Both rePresent endurance, pro-

tectioru and the Earth itself.Again we can see that a cup is but a version of

the ihield folded more into itself-or con-

versely so. They are complementary energles'

Circle-Cross CoresPondencesSo, anticipating some of the later chapters a

little, *" *igt t t ow expand the list of fourfoldattributiots gin"n earlier and see what we have:

Sword Wand CuP ShieldEast South West NorthDawn Noon Dusk NightSptiog Summer Autumn WinterMerfin Arthur Nimue Morgana

Raphael Michael Gabriel AurielLG Light Love Learning

Thought Intuition Feeling^ Sensation

Hearirg Sight Taste/Smell Touch

Air Fiie Water Earth

Aquarius Leo ScorPio Taurus

tutio Lion Eagle Bull

And so on ad infinitum.As can be seen, the more the student works at

it, the greater the number and Pressure of the

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44 | Magical Gatanays

concepts that build up behind a single key im-age such as the Magical Weapon is intended tobe. When a magician takes up his wand (or rodorspear) and holds it aloft in a particularway,itis a signal to his unconscious to unleash the vasthoard of wand-qualities within the magician'spsyche.

Ideallp of course, the student will go on tomake actual physical versions of these, butwithout this preliminary work on the conceptsthat will "charge" the Weapons, they will be nomore than useless.

At this moment however, having given basicoverviews of the Tree of Life and the CelticCross, let us look in some detail at an actual andtraditional piece of magical working.

The Middle Pillar

The basis of this chapter is the exercise of theMiddle Pillar. This technique, when analyzed,shows the basis of most Qabalistic magic.

Look at Figure 2. This shows the Microcos-mic Tree of Life. It is a symbolic rePresentationof the Tree within the human bodY.

What we are specifically concerned with isthe Middle Pillar. The Spheres of this pillar co-

incide with the top of the head (Kether); thethroat (Daath); the solar plexus (Tiphereth); thegenitals (Yesod); and the feet (Malkuth).

Those of you familiar with yogc systems willbe aware that these locations bear close rela-tionship to the chakras. More precisely, thechakras relate as follows:

Muladhara Chakra MalkuthSwadisthana Chakra YesodManipura Chakra TiPherethAnahata Chakra TiPhereth

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4

46 | Magical Gatmtays

Visuddhi ChakraAina ChakraSahasrara Chakra

ColorGod-name

The Miilille Pilhr | 47

DaathDaathKether

The Muladhara Chakra is "remov&" fromthe base of the spine to beneath the feet, where itis regarded as a storage center.

The aim of the exercise is to circulate forceivithin the aura, to vitalize it and charge it. Oncethis is done, the energy can be turned to achievespecific ends which we will deal with in turn.

Look at the charts. What relates to lQtherwhich we can use? Colors? God-names? Quali-ties? Selecting these we get:

Brilliant radianceEheieh(pron oun ced, Ehy -hry - eh)

Claracteristics Omnipotence,Omniscience; the CreativePower; Perfection

So, visuahr-e this briiliantly radiant Sphereabove your head. Pronounce the God-namerhythmically, and as vibratorily as possible.Imagine the Sphere pulsating with the power ofthe Name; imagine the inside of that Sphere asthe universe itself, pounding and throbbingwith the Narne; and as you say it, bear in mindthe qualities of Kether. Remernber this is not aglass sphere, it is alive, swirling with energy.

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Figure 2. TIE Microcosmic Men

aB I Magicnl Gataaays

Moving Down the PillarThen progress down the Pillar. From the base

of Kether shoots a beam of pure energy whichflares into the Sphere Daath. The proces.s isagain the same, except that the color is grap andthe God-name Jehovah Elohim compoundedfrom the god-names of Geburah and Binah(pronoun ced, Y eh-ho-uoh El-Lo-heem).

Continuing down the Pillar, the correspon-dences are as follows:

The Miildle Pillar | 49

with it.To apply the exercise so far, yotr should be in

a room by yourself, lyiog or sitting relaxed.Hands should be clasped and feet together tocomplete the "circadt."

Circulating Force Within the AuraNow that the chakras are energizd, we turn

to the task of circulating force within the aura.This is done by combining breathing tech-niques with visualization-the system in yogaknown as pranayama.

Visualize the egg-shaped aura around yourbody. Then as you exhale steadily, innagine abrilliant force traveling down theleft side of theaura, from top to bottom. Hold it there. Now,picture this force flowing up the right side frombottom to top, as you inhale. Then repeat thisseveral times. The whole picture should be of aband of force in synchronized circulation withyour breathing, flowing down one side into theothet and up again.

Then do the same again, except this time theforce flows down the whole front of the aura,and up the whole back. Exhalation takes the en-ergy from the head down over the body to thetoes, inhalation sucks the energy back up to thehead.

The exercise is completed by the "fountain"technique. Having cornpleted. the precediogsteps, exhale strongly and steadily, visualizing

TipherethGod-name

Color

YesodGoil-name

Color

MalkuthGod-name

CoIor

Solar plexusjehovah Eloah va Daath(Yeh-hwe-aah El-oh vay Daas)Yellow

GenitalsShaddai el Chai(Slnrdi el lcce)

Violet-blue

FeetAdonai ha Aretz(Ardonay ha aretz)Olive, russet, black

Obviously you will need to re-acquaint your-selves with the characteristics of each Sephira,and also give yourselves new information bysearching the charts. This is good, because youwill be forced to check and reeheck your infor-mation until you become thoroughly familiar

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5a I Magical Gatatsays

a column of light shooting up through the bodyfrom the feet, and out through the top of thehead. As it comes out it sprays like a fountain, orIike the Sahasrara Chakra as seen by clairvoy-ants. On inhalation the spray curves down theUmits of the aura to the feet again. And so on.

The energy travels up the spine, taking theroute of the Kundalini, which may offer a clueto some of you wanting to study it further.

We have now energized our psycho-spiritualcenters, revitalized the aura, and chargd our-selves with energy. Or at least we should havedone it if we have performed the exercises cor-rectly. And this means building meanings intothe God-names, actually trying to feel the en-ergy as it flows through the body, and in, outand down through the aura.

As in sport, achievement depends upon con-stant practice and traini.g. A few halfheartedattempts at this exercise will achieve little. Simi-larly, training in sports implies more than just afew desultory push-ups.

Gaining New QualitiesThis particular exercise can be applied to-

ward practical ends. Sensational writers alwayspromise wondrous effects on the materialplane, so we may as well look at the rationalebehind this, for there is no doubt that magic canbe used to gain things on this level.

Let us suppose that the student has reached a

The Midille PiIIar | 51

stage in the practice of this exereise when he can

really feel the energies flowing and being di-rected as he chooses (and he will reach thisstage). Let us supPose ftrrther that he wishes totravel. What he would now do, after complet-ing the Middle Pillar technique is to visualizehis aura turning into bright orang+ shiningwith the light of Hod. He would be in the rnidstof this light, looking out, sufftrsed by the wholeglow. As he visualizes this he intones the god-name of Elohim Tzavoos as he identifiesstrongly with the qualities of Fvfercury andtravel, and communication" He wills trirnself tobelieve that all the forces of travel in the r':.ni-

verse are achieving a sympathetic vibrationwith him which will lead to his achieving hisgoal.

Having finished this, the practitioner, as he

goes about his daily work, should bend hismind to the thoughts of travel and to the possi-bilities that ndght bring it about. He may findthat if he starts applying, he wlll gain a travelscholarship; or he may find a $Frnpathetic rela-tive; or a fltrn of money may come lris way toenable his wish to fulfill itself. If worked onstrongly enough and often the aim will indeedrnanifest itself through ordrnary channels, yetwith definite funpulses from inner levels. Butmore than this, the magician achneves his effectby puttrng hiir-rself into a ft"arne,uf ueinil wirich itr

actively attuned to the possibilities and the half-

52 | Magical Gatalays

chance. He opens his eyes and his will to areasin his life that he may not have noticed beforeand makes efforts along these lines.

Alternatively, he may use the s.une spherefor a job in, say teachir,g. In this case he wouldformulate his image of the type of job and pro-ceed in the same way. What he would not do thenext day,however, is sit back and wait for an of-fer to appear miraculously through his letter-box. Like any mortal being he would have tosupply the Malkuth qualities by writing appli-catioru, looking at the lists of vacancies, andkeeping his ears open for any forthcomingposts. When he does finally get the sort of job hewants it may well be because at the interviewhewas so attuned to the teacher qualities of Hodand Mercury that he was the obvious choice.

Obviously, what this technique enables is forthe user to evoke chosen qualities within him-self. In less complex ways we can do this bysinging songs when we feel inspired, or bydancing, orby countless othermeans. This exer-cise, however, consciously aims at evoking cer-tain areas, and with specific intensity. We canuse it to make ourselves feel courageous andstrong by using Geburah; to make ourselvesfeel more harmonious through Tiphereth. Yetthese qualities are to be regarded as there al-ready, and the exercise as a means of bringingthem out and developing them. It is not a ques-tion of courage, or whatever, being grafted on

The Middle Pillar | 53

frorn an outside source.hr his excellent essay The Art of True Healing

(from which this technique is unashamedly sto-

len), Israel Regardie Soes into some detail re-

garding the practical application of the Middlepiilar exercGe. Those interested should referthemselves accordingly.* In all the attempts togain material benefit through magical means,

however, we must bear in mind the old maximthat what we ask for is very often not what wewant. Or to quote from W-E. Butler: "Be verycareful what you ask for in magic, because youmight be unlucky-and get it." It is like the per-son who desires nothing more than to be rich,and who finds, on achieving his desire, that it isat the cost of familp friendship, and health. Ifwe are to ask for anything at all in magic itshould be in the reatrm of higher qualities, ratherthan tangible things, for if there is any one lawin this universe it seems to be that there is aprice to pay for everything.

"The essay can be found in Regardie's Founilations of PracticelIfugic (Aquarian Press, 19nr.

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The Banishing amd

lnvoking Ritual

The very glamorous concept of a banishing rit-ualis no more than an atternpt to create, as faraspossible, a sterile spiritual atmosphere in andlround the operator. It is no more than what a

surgeon would do. The magician's aim is to tryand simulate the conditi.on of Ain Soph Aurwithin the place of working. A definite sphereof force is created around the magician in per-forrning this, and even the least psychic of peo-ple can feel a real difference in the atrnosphere.

What rve will briefly anal.yze here is the clas-

sic "Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram." Thiswas a rihral devised within the scherne of theGolden Dawn. It is still regarded by rnany-ifnot most-magicians as the standard techniquefor the particular purpose. But while it is an ef-fective and valuable piece wc hat'e te remem-ber that it was created almost a century ago' The

56 | Magical Gateeoays

men and women who devised the GoldenDawn workings were doing so for their owntime. Modern versions of the banishing ritualoften do without the god-forms and pentaclesentirel/, usin& in one instance, a 3-D version ofthe circle-cross. So while we ought to study thisPentagram ritual in its classic form for the sakeof understanding our magical foundations, andwhile it is still a potent and fascinating tech-nique, u/e must bear in mind the idea that it israther dated. However it is grven here as meansof introducing the student in a short simple wayto the method and meaning of rnagic, and be-cause it is almost a summary of all the tech-niques we have discussed so far.

The Qabalistic CrossThe first part of the Ritual is the Qabalistic

Cross. This can be used prior to other ritualsthan banishing rituals. It is a device for "switch-ing on." It sym-bolizes the beginning of the rites,and their dedication to God.

Begin by facing east. This can be geographi-cal east, or mystical east, which is simply infront of you, no matter the actual direction. Thisis where darkness turns Light, presided over byRaphael who associates with Sephira Hod andritual magic.

Briog your arrrs from your sides out and upin a wide sweep and down to a spot just abovethe forehead (Kether). Your hands should be

The Banishing and lrcoking Ritual | 57

palms together as in prayer.This done, say "To thee Godr" then btiog

your hand down to the soliar plexus and say "Bethe Kingd orn" ;btiog them up to the right shoul-der, " ... and the Powe{'; aaoss to the leftshoulder, " Arrd the Glory . . . " Then cross yourarrns against your body and say " . . . Unto theAges of Ages, Amen." As you do this, visualizea beam of brilliance traveling from above thehead down to the feet, then completing the crossfrom right to left shoulder.

In this case, we substitute Tiphereth forMalkr"rth (the tcingdom), because stooping totouch the Malkuth center at the feet wouldmake the actual rite clumsy. Thus Tiphereth be-comes a symbolic Malkuth for the purpose ofgrace and ease.

Those of you who studied the diagrtun of theMicrocosmic Man will realize that the Powerand Glory refer to Geburah and Chesed (also

called Gedulah) situated at the right and leftshoulders. As the beam comes down, visualizethe Divine Force coming to Earth, to link Manwith God for the performance of this rite. Simi-larly, visualize the scourging, purifying force ofGeburah cleansing the aura, and the steadyingforces of Chesed, balancing these forces, andsteadying the aura. Finally, visualize the radi-ant cross and yourself as gigantic, echoing thewords across the universe.

These words in Hebrew are "Ateh (Artafl,

58 | Ivlagical Gatanays

Malkuth, ve Geburah ve Gedulah, le Olahm.Amen."

Some of you may realize that this is not thetraditional method; that is, we use both hands,instead of only the first and second fingers ofthe right hand, as in the more established ver-sion. But it is important to develop originalideas. It is important to modify and evolve ex-istiog techniques. It does not matter whetherthey are unsuitable for others, as long as theyare suitable for you, then they are valid. Tryboth variants of the Qabalistic Cross (there areothers). See which "feels right" for you. Canyou think of any improvements? Try them.They may not be very satisfactory but they area step in the right direction.

Tracing a Five-Pointed StarStill facing east, trace in the air in front of you

a large five-pointed star. Start at the bottorn left-hand point of the star. Right hand stretcheddown across your body, bring it up above andin front of you to create the top point, down andto the right to create the bottom right-handpoint. Continue so that the other points areabout level with your shoulders, and finishwhere you started. As your hand travels, visu-alize the star being formed out of glowing en-ergy coming through the tips of your first andsecond fingers. So now you have a liarge, slffi-

{'tt#t

W'

$i

tr'ft,,x

]t"

';i'

,&,#,}},.&1

\:,1'

The Banishing and lnooking Ritual | 59

j\, ',.^.

' Alr| -

'I /*

v

WaterTru

Earthf)

Spirit

Figure 3. TIE F iw-P ointd Star

60 | Magical Gatatsays

metrical five-pointed star glowing in the air infront of you, in your imagination. This star isthen energized by stabbing the center and utter-ing one of the Words of Power. All very glamor-ous.-but what is the significance?

Well, here is one interpretation.We use the right hand to begin with. We

could relate this to Geburah, which rules theshoulder of the Microcosmic Man. Rememberwe are tr1nng to create a Pure atmosphere, andGeburah is the constructively scourging forceto help us do so.

We use the first and second fingers of theright hand, which could be symbolic of rods orspears, which relate to Michael, Fire andTiphereth, Sphere of balance and harmony.

AIso we begin at the point marked Earth onthe diagram and trace up to Spirit. Symbolicperhaps that we are transmuting earthly condi-tions to conditions of pure spirit. dnd the actualshape of the star-five-pointed-symbolizesGeburah again. Yet there are countless other in-terpretations. There is nothing profound aboutthis one. Look for your own and the ritual willgain power.

Having energized the center, turn 90" to yourright and do the same again, then twice moreuntil you are facing east again. Now visualizethe four great stars surrounding You, glowing,set at the limits of the space available.

TheBanishing anil Inaoking Ritwl | 57

Building the ArchangelsWe now begin to build the archangels. Turn

back and read about them. Remember that con-stant visualization will "solidift', on astral lev-els forms which will be ensouled by the corre-sponding intelligences. These archangels willact as channels for contacting the forces theyrepresent. Being concerned with the creativelevels of energy, they also act as mediators offorces which might otherwise be overwhelm-ing.

So, arrns outstretched (why?), we visualizeRaphael first. Now intone, "Before me Raphael;behind me Gabriel; on my right hand Michaelon my left hand Auriel. For around me flamethe pentagram, and above me shines the six-rayed star." As the archangels are mentioned,sense the feelings of Air, Water, Fire and Earth.Picture it as vividly as you can. Dwell upontheir characteristics as you name them. There isno hurry. Finally finish the ritual by formulat-ing the Qabalistic Cross again.

If you are not familiar with this ritual, it mayseem complicated, but in practice it is much eas-ier than it reads. Of course it would have beensimpler for you if the instructions had beentabulated. But in the case of this book, the pur-pose is not to tell hout todo the rituals, but ratherwhy to do them; or at least get you thinking foryourself. That is why the information is notgrouped conveniently in one place.

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62 I Magical Gataoays

Further AspectsNow you know how to purify a place in

preparation for magical work. There is yet an-other aspect of this ritual, however, which willshed further light on it. With only one variationthe method can be used to invoke particuLarforces. The vari.ation is simply that you bepothe star at the point marked "sptrit," and tracedown to the Earth point, and so on.

In banishio& use the word "Adonai" as youstab the center of the star. As you intone theword, picture yourself as a mighty lord cleans-ing the Quarter you face by power of cornmandand gesture.

In invoking, the word is chosen according tothe Sphere you are dealing with. Thus op€ra-tions of Venus would use the God-narne of hlet-zach. As you invoke this force you imagine itcoming "down" and filling you in answer toyour calling. Also, the archangels face towardsyou when invoking, and frwey when banishing.

So now you know how to banish unwantedforces, invoke wanted forces, and circulateforce within your aura. Within the variety ofthese techniques are the bases for the whole ofritual magic. When you come to create yourown rituals, you will use these $ame rnethods,even though the application will be different.

The lower triad of the Tree-Hod, Netzach,Yesod-Fves us a clue to these teclutiques. lnfact it is sometimes known as the "magical tri-

The Banishing and Irwoking Ritwl | 63

angle." Hod supplies us with the intellectualrealsoningbehind the ritual; Netzach gives ittheflair a.d sympathy; and Yesod links intellectand emotion t-o subconscious levels so that theconcepts take effect as described before'Malhth meanwhile supplies the physical basis

for ritual.

Your Own NameOne technique which might be of value in

connection with the Banishiog Ritual is to re-

peat your own narne to yourself, seeing the let-lets, and hearing your voice booming across theuniverse and echoing back to you. Imagine thatthe whole of your life-force 'is in that name.

Now cut off the last letter of the lurme but keepon intoning it within your mind. Now anotherletter and another, and as each letter is omittedfeel your personality fading, feel your wholeself dissolving until the final letter of your nameis gone and you are iust Void and Nothingness.This is another and sonic attempt to achievesome sembLance of the quality of Ain Soph Aurwithin. Use it to reinforce and supplement theBanishing Ritual if necessary. The medievalcharm based on the word Abracadabra ts relatedto this aim. By identrfying an illness with theword, then reducing the letters in the word, theillness w.rs supposed to fade accordingly.

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6a I Magical Gataoays

ABRACADABRAABRACADABRABRACADABABRACADAABRACADABRACAABRACABRAABRABA

And after this we would emphasize the needto return to normal consciousness by u reversalof these techniques.

Astral Magic

The technique we will study now is one relyingentirely upon the imaginative faculty, withoutthe support of any ritual gestures.

Essentially it involves the creation of forms inthe Astral Light which are used as vehicles forthe Inner Intelligences they are aimed at. Theseforms are also known as "telesmatic images."

This system of working is generally knownas Astral Magic. It belongs to the realm ofYesod, sometimes called "The Treasure Houseof Image."

In some cases, the method involves visualiz-ing yourself as a particular character in a sym-bolic mental drama, the aim being to evoke thequalities and experiences of that character inyourself"

You may well question the validity of thissystem. The obvious criticism is that the userwill be living in a dream fantasy land, a self-induced fairy-tale.

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56 | Magical Gataoays

This is true of course if the user forgets thecorrect approach to symbolism-the approachwe have stressed throughout the book. We areassuming, however, that the user is a compe-tent magician, using a controlled symbol-sys-tem, aware that the images are his outn creation.

Even so, where is the psychology behindthis? Where is the contact with everyday life?

In answer, turn back to our earlier definitionof magic as a means of growing up.

Hero FiguresAt various stages of llfe, we all have the need

of myth and hero figures. The are necessary.They supply us with symbols of aspiration.They show us something of the standards lveshould try to achieve.

In very young children, the hero figures aretheir parents, whom they copy and identifywith in their games. Iater, they graduatethrough traditional folk-heroes to contempo-rary ones. In each case, the children hope to beable to recreate the experiences and attitudes ofthese figures within themselves.

Some of these we outgrow, like Santa Clausand Robin Hood; others we continually aspireto, particularly in the fields of religion andsport.

This is why the family is so important. If theparents supply the appropriate hero qualities,the child will benefit. Unforhrnately, this is not

Astral Magic | 67

always the case. Often, the child has to find hisown hero figures. For example, a child lackingin paternal influences may choose a figure ex-pressing manliness and virility. Hopefully hedoes not choose to copy the local thug.

We outgrow these images when we have ab-sorbed the qualities built into thern by ourimagination. It is simply a matter of identity-seeking, which is a step on the way to fulfillingthe maxim of "Man-Know Thyself."

Atl this is in the realm of Yesod, the plane ofIllusion" Think back to the tirnes of your firstlove. Think how that person seemed to be themost perfect creature alive, yet how the illusionfaded slightly if not completely with time. Webuild up images around things which eitherfade with our own increasing maturity, or re-main because their qualities are still above ourown immediate potential.

Yesod is concerned very much with the for-mative years of pubertp when the need formyth figures is great. But the lesson of Yesod isone of independence on all planes in all ways"As more and more of the Yesod-ic qualities areabsorbed, the dependence on heroic and father-mother figures becomes less and less. It is aprocess of seeing through the glamour of thingswhich obscures the true essence. Much of thehideous glamour of magic is there because wehave put rt there ourselves, anci one of the pur-poses of this book is to strip some of this glam-

58 I Magical Gatamys

our away.Although this is an apparent digression from

Astral Mutr., it is important that we under-stand the psychology of every day behind it, forhow else can magic work?

Background IdeasRemember it is not the images themselves

that are important, but the forces or collectiveexperiences behind them. The mental psycho-dramas involve archetypal symbols and char-acters taking part in situations beyond our nor-mal experiences. We try to absorb some of theseexperiences, or rather, b.iog out of ourselvesthe qualities we are lookin gfor,using carefullychosen symbols which will link with inner actu-alities.

Changing ideas about the symbols will showup as changes in the symbols themselves. Greatconcentration is needed, for it is useless to rushthrough the working. You must take it slowly,examining and analyzing each step, each sym-bol, building new concepts into them. As theconcepts develop, the symbols will gain inPower.

Essentially, Astral Magic is meditation mate-rialized to visual imagery. Some find this morepalatable than the meditative analysis of ab-stract concepts, but \Me must think about this.Many people take to this way of working be-cause the relative austerities of mysticism be-

,Astral Magb I 69

come dull and boring.

A WorkingHowever, let us look at a typical piece of

working and then analyze it.Sit or lie comfortably, breathing calmly and

steadily. Empty your mind of all extraneousthoughts and images.

The journey begins from a beach-not an or-dinary beach, but one $rith sand of citrine andolive colors.

You are lying on this beach, a few yards fromthe sea, with the beach itself stretching away be-hind you to infinity. The sun burns down, butits rays do not tan. Instead they inflame youwith a desire to trap the rays at their source andabsorb them within the innermost recesses ofyour being" You reach out to catch them, totouch the sun which seems so huge and near,but you fail and sink back on the sand.

Beneath you feel the earth, firm and solid andmassive, with you as a mere speck upon the sur-face. It offers firm and solid comfort, far rnorethan that distant sun. Even so . ..

But you are drawn away from these thoughtsby the sense of the sea so near to you. Sitting up,you look across its waves of surging violet. Sud-denly, the whole surface is disturbed by amighty figure, a classical Neptune, rising out ofthe sea. Laughingly he raises a silver cup filledwith sparkling liquid, and offers it to you, thcn

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70 | Magical Gatalays

sinks invitingly back into the sea before you canaccept.

Deeply moved by this awesome, god-likefigure, you pace the nine steps down to the surfand wade in, and as you do so, you melt intothesea: you become the sea and feel its curents andtides as your own.

For a seeming eternity you stay in that statecompletely at one with the sea, but gradually,persistently, there comes a beckoning call fromabove.

The caller is Michael clad in his robes of fireand pointing at you with his spear. Seeing thekindly wisdom in his eyes, you remernber youroriginal urge, and call out to him urith all theforce of your spiritual yearning.

You re-organize into a compact entity. Nolonger are you the sea; it is time to reach further.

Gripping the butt-end of the spear which isoffered to you, you pull yourself up to faceMichael. Immediately behind him is a colossalsun within easy reach in but a few steps.Michael smiles at the fear and hesitation youshow, but taking you gently by the shoulder, heleads you towards that sun. As you get nearer,you realize that it emanates spiritual intensityrather than physical heat, and the rays engulfyou, blotting out everything but the swirlinggolden clouds flecked with rose and salmoncolors, which stream and shape into a whirl-pool.

'4stral Magic 171

You cannot see lvlichael now, but yot-l sense

his presence nearby. AU you are aware of is be-

ing sucked into that vortex, and throwu out onto firm ground again.

The worst is over, and as you look around,you feel a confidence and inspiration that youhave never known before, you feel that you are

on the fringe of a known but long-forgottenland. The colors of fire, the flame-shaPd moun-tains in the distance, all conspire to set alightsomething inside you. But your imrnediate con-cern is the road that you are standing on, abroad road leading to a building in the distanee'and straddted by a huge gotrden hexagram.Mi,chaei is back by this time, and he gives you apush in the small of your back to set you out to-wards that place. As you step through the hexa-gram you feel like a Tizard that has lost his oldskin-lighter, happier. Close to the buildingnow, you pause at the bottom of the six largeand high steps leading up to the doorway . ..

On either side of the doorway is a lion, growl.-ing. But rernember that you have corne a longwa! rgone through some strange ancl new exPe-riences, and to turn back at this stage would bethe action of an undedicated coward. Now youwalk a sure and steady line between the lionswhich you find are not as big as they hadseerned at a distance, and certainly not as fright-ening.

The inner chamber now" Six-sicled, with an

72 | Magical Gatamys

altar in the middle large enough to take a per-son lying down. And so you do so .. .

Now invoke the spirit of whatever sun-con-tact you want to make, using whatever systemyou use, be He Apollo, Osiris, Michael, Christor Whoever. For the purposes of this workingwhich is essentially Qabalistic, let us useMichael. Realize that the person who has beenleading you was just an earthly image of youown creation, ensouled by a partial essence ofyour own Michael-ic qualities leading you here.Now that you have raised your consciousnessnearer to that of the Source, invoke Michaelhimself that He may enfold some of theTiphereth qualities within you.

Whatever it is that you want to achieve, visu-abzei| see yourself in the future as you want tobe in relation to the qualities you are aiming for.Or perhaps you want some answer to a ques-tion that is concerned with the affairs ofTiphereth. If so, then ask it. Do not expect somebooming voice to answer, however. Rather lookfor some quiet realization in the near future.

The important thing now is to retrace yoursteps exactly the way you came. You have justraised your consciousness somewhat (how fardepends upon experience), and now you mustreturn to normal levels, so go through the stagesof your journey in reverse, until you end up atthe beach again.

'Astral Magic 173

Analyzing the WorkingAs stated, there is no reason why this cannot

be adapted to Pagan practice. The hexagram is auniversal symbol of opposites in perfect bal-ance: Fire and Water, Male and Female, Positiveand Negative. It is a symbol of us all as we copewith the good and bad, the bright and dark, thelucky and the unlucky aspects within us.Tiphereth is the realm of the Sun, that spherewhich holds all things in its orbit, and which it-self is comprised of colossal, opposing energiesheld in perfect balance. Whatever God or God-dess the magician may identify as being centralor radiant to his cult, can be used with or with-out the six-pointed star. Working along theselines, in this direction, means that the magicianwill be entering areas of individual and collec-tive experience in which the principle of 'nVill-ing Sacrifice" occurs.

In a simple way readers can make a start atcontacting the essence behind each of thespheres by asking themselves a series of simplequestions:

Malkuth.'Have I ever asked why am I here?What am I doing?

Yesoil: Have I ever had intense, evocativedreams?

Hod: Have I ever gained satisfaction from rrsinlgmy intellect?

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Nelwch: Have I ever known moments of greatpassion and romance?

Tipherethr Have I ever willingly sacrificed any-thing for the sake of others (e.9. sacrificing acareer for the sake of children)?

Geburah: Have I ever rnade a stern but absolute-ly impartial decision on any situation?

Chesed: Have I ever been genercus for the sakeof being generous?

Einah: Have I ever known great sorrow whichhas brought understanding?

Clwcknah: Have I everknown a great surging ofjoy in which all things seemed possible?

Kether: Have I ever known the still, snnall voicewithin?

These and other questions can literally beasked of yourself, and those experiences whichforrn the answers remembered as intensely as

possible. It is as if certain groupings of braincells were being explored in sequence, and acti-vated in varying ways at varying levels. Themore we can relate every aspect of our ownlives to the groupings or Spheres in question,the greater potential we have for illuminatingourselves. Symbols such as the hexagram thenbecome a means of tuning into the energies weseek.

Astral Magic 175

As with everything else, these very simplequestions are purely examples. We can andshould ask ourselves many others. The magicaltechniques using the visuabzd. journey andspecific symbols are integral to this process.They are often me€ms of formulating questionsand receiving ans$rers before we are consciouslyaware of having asked. Using them all together,we can create a battering ram which can smashthough barriers in the mind.

Although we began in this instance by start-ing from a beach, many of these workings beginfrom a temple, the direction of exit being gov-erned by the type of working. Some of the pre-liminary exercises in magical training involvethe creation of an inner temple. It is the astraltemple created by a trained imagination whichis most important, rather than the physical,outer temple. It is the astral equivalents of themagical \^/eapons which actually give themtheir force, linked as they are with the subcon-scious mind. The principle is quite readilyfound in lovers' keepsakes: to anyone else theymay be items of junk; to the lovers concernedthey are treasures indeed, which can retain a cu-rious power of enchantment for the rest of one'slife. It is the memories, associations, and sub-conscious links which thus glve the items theirpower. This is why you must visualize the tem-ple or weapons or whatever, embodying theconcepts you want. Take modern advertise-

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ments which read something like: "How to be areal man, and prove irresistible to women!" Inmost cases the secret is in imagining yourself asa smooth, suave charmer and repeating thatwell-known phrase which suggests: "Hour byhour, day by day,I'm more attractive in everyway." The ideas here are much the same, beingaimed at bringing out certain qualities bymeans of the controlled imagination.

Visualizing a TempleSo let us now begin to visuahze a temple,

build it piece by piece, and set it firmly in the as-

tral levels of our minds. Let it be in whateveroutward shape which appeals to you-a castle,a cottage, or something in the Grecian style-but it is wiser in the early stages to keep it as

simple as possible. Inside it should be a four-walled affair to correspond with the Elements.It is going to be the starting point for the magi-cal workings, so the floor tiles might be coloredaccording to the scheme of Malkuth. The wallsmight possibly be hung with tapestries depict-ing the Man, Lion, Bull and Eagle of Aquarius,Leo, Taurus and Scorpio. The altar could be adouble cube of black and white upon which islaid the magical weapons, covered by a silkcloth.

These are the general details, the rest youmust imagine for yourself, for it is you who willbe working in it, no one else. Visualize the scene

Astral Magic | 77

strongly and regularly, beginning from herewith your Astral Magic, leaving by a hiddendoor behind the appropriate tapestry and re-turning by the same.

Over a period of time you will come to alterthe shape and style of this astral temple as youwould a real house. Eventually it will fix itselffi*ly nrithin your mind. Perhaps we mightthink of it in terms of ]ung's tower at Bollingen.Here is a place we go to when we want to shutout the mundane and trivial and attempt tocommune with our deepest selves. We must es-pecially learn to visualize the approach and en-trance-way to this temple. The opening of thisdoor should be a deliberate signal to shrug offthe last vestiges of the petty and the mundane,and leave outside anything which is inconsis-tent with the concept of this as a temple.

At one level what we are doing is creating atleast one place within our world where every-thing is peaceful, secure, and devoid of thecrassness of the outer world. This is why timeand concern should be devoted to building upthis image. It is, after all, a temple, holy placeand sanctuary, where can be found the qualitiesof spiritual stimulus, warmth, nourishment,and security.

Aleister Crowley, in his trek across China, re-alized that due to the relative nature of time andspace, he could actually bring his temple inScotland to him, so to speak. Of course he meant

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the astral equivalent of the physical temple, inwhich he could perform just as effectively.When we talk about something being on the as-tral plane, however, we are simply saying that itis in the unconscious mind. So the inner tem-ple-no matter how sinple-is all that we needto work from, even if it is at present impossibleto set asid.e an actual room for the purpose.

While on these lines, here is another exampleof visualizing which may be useful.

Begin in your temple, standing next to the al-tar facing east. Now imagine yoursel.f growing,quickly and steadily, growing far above thetemple which is at your feet somewhere below,seeing the curvature of the earth become a fullcircle as the whole globe beneath you. See thestars coming closer as you grow ever bigger, see

the earth disappear completely, feel yourselfabsorb suns, planets and galaxies, until there isnothing else to absorb and you stand supremeas the Heavenly Man himself. What do you feelnow? What are the implications of this? WhatpracticaL pu{pose could this exercise have?

These qr.lestions you have to answer foryourself, as no two persons' reactions are thesame for any given stimulus.

Cf course there i.s no reason at all why youshcr.rld not combine these techniques withsome of the ritual methods or Middle Pillar ex-ercises, and your own ingenuity will tell youhow.

,4stral Magic 179

The Magical PersonalityWe mentioned earlier the use and value of

hero figures and god-forms, and detailed thecharacteristics of the four major Elemental fig-ures. What we must consider now is the crea-tion of our own magical personality.

It is obvious that while we contain the wholeof the Tree within ourselves, nevertheless byvirtue of our individuality we tend to gravitatetoward one Sphere, or one Element. In the earlystages of study efforbs must be made to gain anunderstanding-a connectia,n-with all theSpheres, but there comes a point when the ma-ture student will inevitably, almost impercepti-blp find himself specializing in one particulararea.

Something of this is hinted in the "Grades"within magic, from Neophyte up to lpsissimus,taking in all the varieties of Adeptship on theway. Nowadays the idea of vertical progress isvery much outmoded, and rightly so, but itdoes give us the idea that we can cleave to a par-ticular Sphere. Thus in the old system an Adep-tus Major would be a specialist in the Sphere ofGeburah; that is, his psyche is such that itpurely expresses the uncompromisin g qualitiesof ]ustice, severity, and courage. On the otherhand, someone else may tend to exemplify andchannel the qualities of Venus. But the latter isin no wise inferior in spiritual status. Thus a"priest" of the Moon is every bit as potent as a

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"priest" of ]upiter, but in differing ways.It is an obvious point, perhaps, but one well

worth emphasizing.What we must eventually determine is our

precise area of specialization. Usually it will bequite obvious: after all, to be reading so far in abook on magic in the first place indicates at leastsome self-awareness. But whether it is obviousor not, the following is a useful exercise.

Magic MinorThis involves no more than examining your'

self in the light of each Sphere and determininghow you measure up. Get a good book on as-

trology and see how each planet functions andmalfunctions within yourself. Supplement thiswith readings on the Spheres of the Qabalah it-self. Brutal honesty is required. There is noearthly use in trying to glamorize yourself toyourself. It can be a salutatory experience to see

just how lacking we are in areas we had noteven dreamt of before. It can be rather like hav-ing some utterly disinterested authority figuregiving us a long and blistering list of our faults.

After this, regular returns to this "magic mir-rot''can help reinforce our attempts to progresstoward greater wholeness, and prevent com-placenry. It is also a means of combating the pe-culiarsrnugness that is inherent in many occult-ists, who mistake this attitude for one of suPe-rior wisdom.

'Astral Magic | 81,

However, assuming that the student hasbuilt some secure foundations and is quite cer-tain of his own Sphere, what must he do now?

He must conceive of the very highest quali-ties of Self-hood to which he would aspire.Again, there ought to be nothing petty withinthis conception, nothing banal. He must deter-mine the type of person he wills to be and in hismeditations try tofeelsome of thesequalities; heought to create internal scenes whereby hemanifests these qualities in various fields of ac-tion.

This is the first step, but one which will carryon over an entire lifetime as his insight and as-pirations expand.

The second step is to create the vehicleswhich will contain this vast cloud of concepts.

This is, in magic, the rather nice term "Bodyof Light," which generally refers to the astralbody but which we can adapt to mean the self-image of the magician operating at his deepestlevels of consciousness.

The student then, must determine whichSphere is most 4kin to himself. In most cases ofcourse one of the Paths would be more appro-priate, but in the early days the relatively clear-cut Spheres are easier to use. Let us assumethen, that the Sphere of Yesod is chosen.

Somehow, from the mass of lunar symbol-ism, a design must be chosen. Let us imaginethat the magician sees himself in silver-violet

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robes, adorned with lunar images, a head-bandwith a crescent symbol set on his brow, andwith a cowl, perhaps. He sees himself dressedlike this. If he is unhappy with his everydayphysical shape then he can alter it in his imagi-nation into what he deems appropriate. Whenin his imagination he is adorned thus, he exem-plifies all of the highest qualities of the Moon hehas been studying and sensing for years. The as-sumption of this image (or god-form, if youlike) is the signal to assume those greater-than-normal qualities. He becomes a Priest of theMoon indeed, functioning more closely to-wards his true Self. But only for the duration ofthe rite.

In time, when the student has some surervisualization of the images, he may come tomake his own robes to match these inner ones,but at present it is still early stages.

Magical NamesWe mentioned earlier the use and value of

the "Names of Powe/' connected with eachSphere. One of the tasks of the magician is tocreate his own Magical Name which will sumup the qualities toward which he aspires. In thefirst stages of study we can simply use the god-name of a Sphere, but when shades and subtle-ties become apparent to the inward gaze, wehave to find some Name to summanze them. Itis common knowledge that the pen name of the

Astral Magic | 83

English occultist Dion Fortune was derivedfrom her motto "Deo non Fortuna"; W.B. Yeats'Magical Name (or Motto) was "Demon estDeus Inversus," or D.E.D.I. as he would signhimself; Aleister Crowley began as "Per-durabo" (l Will Endure unto the End") and de-veloped to "To Mega Therion," the Great Beast.

Now our own Narnes do not need to be inLatin, Greek, or anything else beyond our ken.They do not have to take the form of mottoes,either. Ary invented word which somehowsums up what you feel to express your highestSelf will do. What is important is that you donot publicize the Nanne; that you tell no one-no matter how close they are. It is to becorneyour one secret, your ultimate Mystery. It willexpress whoyouare. When the Narne is found itwill provide one of the most important of all thekeys to invoking and controlling very great lev-els of energy indeed. We should spend timethrowing together combinations of words andsyllables even though the early results will in-evitably sound weak-not to say silly. How-ever, as is the way with magic, the right namefor the moment will eventually assert itself. Itwill feel right. It may change over the years butso do we all. It is up to us to initiate the process.

Switching OffSo now we have a whole range ot techniques

whereby we can slip out of our mundane con-

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sciousness and key ourselves into a magicalpersonality that can project us into new reaknsof experience. We must always be careful how-ever/ to make deliberate efforts to "switch off"when the workings are ove!'. This shifting ofgear is a cornrnon enough occurrence in every-day life. The man who dorninates his subordi-nates at work and yet who is submissive athorne is simply exercising different aspects ofhis nature. There should be situations in all ofour lives whereby we can use several gears, oth-erwise we would end up straining the engines"Ritual and the Magical Personality provide theextra gear and the broad road to be able tocruise with ease at high speeds for a while.

TThe Tarot and the Tree of ilife

One of the most important aspects of the West-ern MagicaL Tradition is the Tarot deck, and itsretrationship to the paths on the Tree of Life.

The origins of the pack are unimportant.Whether they are from ancient Egypt or rnedie-vaL Europe d.oes not matter.The fact is that theyprovide us with a wealth of profound imagerywhich we can use to push even further inward.

The deck itself is split into two portions: theMajor Arcana, consisting of 22 cards, and theMinor Arcana, consisting of 56 cards dividedinto four suits which parallel those of the play-ing cards we know today"

Now whether by accident or design the cardsof the Major Arcana seern taiLor-made for the 22paths on the Tree, but it is here that generationsof students have become ensnared. by attemptsto find the "true" system of attribution" How-ever, we hcpe by now that it is apparent there isno such thing. The irnages of the Tarot are there

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86 | Magical Gatantays

for the individual to interpret for himself andthw gain a rneasure of real affinity with them"Likewise, it is a test of his own perception forhim to be able to place the cards upon the Treeaccording to his understanding of both. It is

quite irrelevant that Crowley or Waite or For-tune might have writtensomething about a Par-ticularcard if you yourself suspect a completelydifferent interpretation. Adhere to your ownanalysis-but keep a flexible attitude.

There are of course many varieties of Tarotdecks. Perhaps too many if the truth wereknown. Some, such as the Robin Wood Tarot,and the Reed/Cannon Witches Tarot, plus theI{ew Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot are excellent.Some would have been better off saving a fewtrees by neverbeing published at all. But for ourpresent purposes we will use the irnages of theWaite/Rider version.

A.E. Waite, even taking into account the erain which he wrote, rnust rank as one of the mostexcnrciatingly boring and obfuscated of all theoccult writers" Yet somehow, in collaborationwith Pamela Colman Smith, he has presentedus with a truly extraordinary symbol-systemfor use in the Qabalistic scherne.

The deck on its own, though, is rather likehaving a road maP in thick fog which will onlybecome useful when some landrnarks can be

found to enable us to srient ourselves. The landmarks in this casebeing the Spheres on the Tree.

TheTarot and the Tree of Life I t7

This is the value in making the effort to alignthe cards with the various paths; it wiII give avery definite sense of direction and new impe-tus.

The paths, as we might irnagine, are impor-tant in themselves. Crudely prt, the areas inwhich the qgalities of the Spheres meet andmingle. Thus the path between Yesod and Net-zach is, very basically, that area within our psy-che where instincts and emotions are blended.This in itself our course says nothing, which iswhy a visual symbol at this point becomes ofenorrnous value in helping us to focus.

Fortunately no two students agree as towhich of the major cards ought to fit on whichpath; or if they do agree on this then they dis-agree on the intelpretation. Which is as itshould be. It reminds us that there is no dogrnawithin the magical tradition.

F th* past century the most usual way to at-tribute the cards had been simply to equate thefirst card with the first path and so on dbwn theladder, pushing the card known as 'The Fool,,in at the end" Or else "The Foolr" zetorwould berelated to the first path and the Major Arcanawould follow on from that. Undoubtedly thesemethods have yielded some valuable inlorma-tion but,I feel, they have limited themselves byfeeling obliged to retain the numerical se-quence of the deck

Of all the differing arrangemenb the one that

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SS I Magical Gatanays \seems most reasonable is that given by W-G.Gray in his brilliant book Magical Ritual Meth-ods.

As we can see from Figure 4, the deck appears to fall naturally into terms of positive,negative and neutral, as does the Tree itself.Starting with the Middle Pillar we not a Pro-gression from Malkuth to Kether by way ofMbon,Sun, and Star. If nothing else, these cardsactually relate to the correct planetary Spheres,which they do not in many of the other systems.Interestingly enough, the progression of relig-ious worship often takes just such a path: fromthe lunar and matriarchal systems of the Celts,for example, changtng gradually to the solarand patriarchal systems as Christianity was in-troduced; leading to the intense and purely in-dividual stellar consciousness within our-selves. Or perhaps to some stellar religionwhich may be forthcoming in the AquarianAge.

On the left-hand or negative pillar we can see

cards like "The Devilr" "Death r" 'The HangedMan," and 'The Tower," while the positive sideof the Tree contains "The Empress," "TemPer-ance," "Strength," 'The Empero{'<ll essen-

tially beneficent and semre images. :

The three horizontal paths equate with dif-ferent levels of fate,or free'wilt 'The Wheel ofFortune" being Pure random chance eventsarising from the qualities of reason or ronrance

TheTarot anil theTree of Life | 89

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Wheel of Fortune

Figure 4.

TheTarot and theTree of Life | 91

Figure 6.

90 | Magicnl Gatanays

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Figure 5.

92 | Ma$cal Gatalays \and. the whims of both; "]ustice" which is morepurely karma, and which connects with ourethical sense as well; and "ludgement" which isour own assessment of our life in the light ofmature wisdom and understand.ing-such as issaid to occur as part of the after-death experi-ence.

At the very bottom of the Tree we see "TheWorld" and 'The Fool.," symbolic of unin-dividuated humanity of two different types,while just above them are symbols of what wehave been talking about throughout this wholebook "The Magician" and "The Priestess."They are both linked with Yesod, and remem-ber that it is through connection with the un-conscious that magic works. In the forrner wehave the purely Hermetic type, while in the lat-ter we have the Crphic. Even a cursory glance atthe "High Priestess" with its symbols of sea,moon, and sexuality shows it to be an especiallyrelevant attribution.

But not, in any sense, the cowecf one. Onlyyou can find that.

With "The l-overs" \Me can see something ofthe mechanics of love, and. it is a wonder why,with the huge solar image of Michael abovethem, no one has sought fit to put this card inthis position before. While opposite, in "TheChariot," is the sort of person whose intellect issuch that he develops an acute iruight into theworld at large even though he hirnself rarely

TheTarot and theTree of Life | 93

goes out into it, and is fastened into one place asthe charioteer of this card is fastened into a cu-bic stone. The Philosophe/s Stone, perhaps.

The image of the lightning-struck 'Towey''connecting Tiphereth and Geburah is obvious,while we can see both solar and jovian symbolswithin the card known as €trength."

"The Hanged Man" and "Temperance" atthe supemal levels on the Tree show differentways toward wisdom and understanding,while at the very top "The Hermit" and "TheHierophant" show different ways to expressthese quatrities for the benefit of those soulsstruggling up after thenn.

It is impossible to go into any depth about in-dividual cards and paths here; but iust to show,however, how well the Waite Tarot deck fitsinto the scheme, let us take a brief look at justone of the cards and its path.

The HermitThis is the ninth card of the Major Arcana. It

features a tall patriarch in robes of dark gray orblack, standing on a mountain top. His face is inprofile, he holds a lantern in his right hand anda staff in his left. In the distance are other snow-covered peaks.

We rnust note that in Grat's system of attri-butions this card is placed on the path betweenKetherand Binah. We might note that he sharesthe same colors as the latter Spherq and is a =-

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creature of Silence, which is also one of the titlesof Binah. His face is remarkably like the MagicalImage of Kether-a bearded tiing, seen in pro-fil*while the mountain-top symbolism re-minds us that we are indeed dealing with con-sciousness at supernal levels. Taking the her-mit's staff as the center-line, if we equate thiswith the Middle Pillar, then we can see that thelantern is being held at the Binah position" Wernight decide that he is looking down at strug-gliog humanity and lightning the way for them.Unlike his counterpart "The Hierophant" orMaster Magician, he leads by example ratherthan by precept.

At this point the student should also apply asirnilar approach to the position of "TheHierophant" and determine how the two com-plement and balance each other, working downthe whole Tree in the same way. Ignore theusual divinatory meanings given to each cardand simply regard each image as a new piece ofart to be interpreted in the light of certain princi-ples" In the early efforts it may seern that verylittle of original value is forthcoming, but as thestudent gets increasingly familiar with bothTarot and Tree it will come to feel as though adam is beginning to burst.

In this way each card will begin to "cornealive" within the psyche, broadening the limitsof awareness. This is all that rs meant when oc-cultists talk about imprinting the Tarot or the

TheTarot anil theTree of Life I gS

Tree within the aura. It is not, as might be irnag-ined, a case of magicians going about as thoufhthey had fairy-lights within their auras, fJs-tooned like Christmas trees; rather does it meanthat these arcane glyphs have rooted into theunconscious simply because their user hasworked hard at putting them there. We seeagain the lower Spheres in action within thisprocess: Malkuth, the physical process in-volved. in the student sitting down with pen1nd paper to analyze the glyphs; Netzach, thedesire and imagination providing the impulse;intellect and all the processes needed for-inter-pretation coming from Hod; while yesod i.q thebowl of the unconscious-the powerhousts-which will store all the data for future use.

Tarot MagicWhen the student gets tired from this consid-

erable effort he can choose an exstic diversionto get him over the dry patch. This involves oneof the visualization techniques whereby a Tarotcard is imagined as a living scene into which it ispo_subfe to step. You might find yourself ,,in-side" the card of 'The Chariot.,'you will talk tothe charioteer and ask him why he is embeddedin stone, what is the significance of the black3$ yrute sphinxes, and of the canopy abovehim. Even if there is no apparent resuli or elsenothing more than a fanciful response fromyour own imagination, it is still a means of be-

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coming so thoroughly acquainted with the im-ages that you become like best friends, gradu-ally giving and receiving thoughts that couldnever come from strangers.

We could begin with the Tarot card 'TheMoon." After all the preliminary clearing andtuning techniques have been done and the as-tral temple created, we find ourselves lookinginto the scene of that card, and determining toexplore that path which leads from Malkuth toYesod. ln our rnagical form we find ourselvesfacing the pylon gate in a twilight land, withwild beasts howling at either side of us. What,we ask ourselves, is taking place behind thosesquare windows high up in each tower? What isthe significance of the tears that the lunar orbseems to be shedding? What will we find at theend of this rough road when we get beyond thedistant peaks? We must then visualize our-selves as actually walking along this path, keeping a lookout for the denizens of the worldaround. Images will arise. Nonsensical onesperhaps, but interesting nonetheless. When wefinally crest the peaks depicted in this card wewill see, perhaps, a Moon Temple, surroundedby nine maidens and Mysteries taking placewithin. The task is then to seek admittance tothis place (Yesod) and see what else we maylearn.

At the end, no matter how little we may feelthat we have achieved, w€ must retrace our

TheTarot anil theTree of Life | 97

steps until we find ourselves back in our ownIittle astral temple and ready to step back intoMalkuth again.

It is an interesting technique and one whichcan yield surprising results in time, but it mustbe emphasized that it is, by and large, a diver-sion. The real work can only be done throughmental sweat and conscious study of each card.No matter how splendid the visions that mayarise during any astral magical exercises, unlessthe student can relate these to fundamental con-cepts and experiences within his mundaneworld then he will find them of no earthly use.Inducing visions is easy. The hard thing is to in-duce wisdom.

DivinationUsing the cards for this purpose is an excel-

lent way to learn more about them. The impor-tant thing in this process is not in being able topredict the future but in learning how the cardscan relate to each other, and modify each other.

Most sfudents are advised to use the famed"Ancient Celtic Method" of divination whicn- isgrven with virtually every deck. In truth themethod is neither particularly ancient nor espe-cially Celtic. It is not even very clear.

Also, it is extraordinarily hard to do a divina-tion for yourself. For other peopl*particu-larly unhappy people with a real and pressingneed for some glimpses of the road ahead-thc

9S I Magical Gatantays \Tarot deck can come alive, as any reader willknow. The rnessages behind the glyphs willspring out almost unbidden. For yourse[ in asimilar state, the spread often does no morethan give expression to your gravest, most pes-simistic fears.

Magically, while H/e may occasionally beable to foresee forthcoming events with surpris-ing clarity and accuracy, there comes a pointwhen we actually create that future which liesmuch further ahead. That is, we do not so muchglimpse it as make it happen. This is Magic in itshighest sense.

We should actually begin with a spread forourselves, though, no matter how difficult thismay be to interpret. After shuffling the deckand cutting it in whatever nunner seems ap-propriate with either hand, we can place thefirst ten cards in the positions of the Spheres,starting with Malkuth and working upward.

This, we must realiz.e, offers a pictorial repre-sentation of our character and psy che at this mument of time. By analyzing each card in the lightof each Sphere, we undergo a very real kind ofpsychoanalysis. This may be appallingly diffi-cult at first, if we are still in the stage of 'Gee,who aml?" but it gets easier (and often more un-pleasant) as we get to know ourselves more.Don't approach the deck in the hope of flattery.

The Spheres can be crudely categorized as:

TheTarat anil theTree of Life | 9g

10. Environment.

9. bnstinctual drives and dreams.

8. Mental life and/or occupation.

7. Emotional life.

6. That which is central to the querent's life.

5. That which will come to affect it. Karmicbalances.

4. Home and security.

3. Greatest worries.

2. Greatest hopes.

1. What the querent can hope for.

It is like the Rorschach ink-blot test. What doy_ou *e? If , say,The Hanged Man appears in theSphere of Venus, what possible message canthis hold? In what way can this be symbolic ofIour love life? Are you being turned upside-down because of some great passion, peihaps?Or if there is no great passion in your life at all,perhaps you need to overtum a possible selfishand unattractive personality in order to de-velop the radiance and insight that might at-tract a mate? You have to decide for yourself.Ignore the instruction booklets" Decide foryourself, always.

No one should get too obsessive about this

rcO I Magical Gataoays

kind of self-analysis however.hard and consistently and withhonesty is one thing. Becoming

\\\Working at itexquisite self-obsessional is

another.As stated, when you do a spread for yourself

the cards will often say the very last things youmight want to hear. But as a new-born magicianyou must never be afraid to challenge them,and thus challenge Fate itself. This is one of theclassic ways to wisdom, after all.

You could actually identify your idealspread and deliberately place the cards in thepattern of the Tree, putting whichever youwould most want to appear in the appropriateSphere. The spread which then presents itselfbefore you represents the person you mostwant to be. Calling up your god-figure againyou can affirm: "In the name of (N) this is what Iwill to be," while visualizing these images inyour aura. In time, with effort and will, you willgrow into them. By thenr 1lou will have decidedthat the next phase of personal growth will usesome completely different images.

A fast, very simple method of using the cardsis to cut the deck first thing in the morning andask of it: "Show me a card which might symbol-ize the day ahead." At the end of the day, afteranalyzing the events in light of that single card,you can then ask "Now show me the card whichwill symbolize the lessons I have to learn fromtoday." Speak to the deck out loud. Treat it as a

TheTarot anil theTree of Ufe | 101.

conscious entity. Play games with it.Another very simple technique is to choose

one card to represent yourself, often known asthe Significator. Usually you would choosefrom one of the Court Cards: a King or Queenfor an older person, a Knight or Page/Princessfor someone younger. However there is noth-ing wrong with a little bit of arrogance, once in awhile, so it might be easier to choose somethingfrom the Major Arcana.

While holding the Significator, then, andbrooding over a particular problem which iscausing you concern, you can shuffle the deck,insert the Significator, and shuffle it again. In asense, you are sending the card out like a detec-tive whose job it is to track down the true sourceof your worries. All you do then is simply cutthe pack and see what card appears. This, youwill understand, will hold a symbolic answer tothe question.

Using the cards in conjunction with the Treeis like an astrologer determining what effect aplanet will have in any given House. Howeverthere is no standard method for Qabalistic divi-nation. Nor should there be for any method ofdivination. It is all a matter of how the individ-ual relates to the energies within him, usingsymbols that provide a direct route to the sub-conscious mind. There is nothing easy about it,no way of avoiding hard work.

Quite simply, magical understanding is like

1.02 I Magicnl Gatantays

the starlight in The Hermifs lantern. If youwant it, there is a long, lonely and bitter climb toreach it, and there are no shortcuts. Rememberthat the_ lo.g correspondence tables of organi-zations like The Order of the Golden Dawn andthe rest were composed by ordinary people ascapable of erratic thinking, and filled to thebrim with as many personal quirks and idi-osyncrasies as the rest of us.

You must never be in awe of self-styled ad-gptt and spiritual teachers. If they demand awefr9T lou, then they are not worth botheringwith. As regards the use of the eabalah and thEpractical methods of application, there is actu-a]ly so much magical lumber ly*g aroundthese days that we can do no bettei than make aclean sweep_at the very beginning of things. Re-turn to AinSoph Aur. Get back to Nothingness.Start with the very basic images of the TrJe andcircle-cross and build up from there. Say toyourself: "I am what I am-and my magic willbe a reflection of this."

It is not easy, but it is the best way of all.

Mythological Magfc

In an age when so nulny people are desperate tofind their roots and vahdate themselves eitherby tracking back their genealogy or else bychasing after their past lives, it is vital that weget back to our spiritual sources. Much, if notall, of Jung's work showed how important itwas for every man to have his own myth and toIive it out. In the same way we must corne to dothe same with the ancient irnages of those my-thologies which strike the greatest chordswithin. It is hardly surprising that people arebeginning to do just that, for as lung said "Eve-rything old is a sign of somethirg coming." Thecurrent renaissance of myth and myth-basedfantasy, such as deluges the bookstands thesedays, is a sign of the changing consciousness ofour tirnes.

In magic, as we have seen, many of the rna jorimages or archetypes are drawn from tht'Judaeo-Christian tradition which clorrrin,rl{,H

I

=

1.03

1.04 | IvIagical Gatatnyn .\

our Western heritage. Yet the fact is that toyoung minds the idea of archangels and the likeis not especially sympathetic and is even quiteembarrassing-even when that person under-stands the purely symbolic nature of these.Now although there are sound psychologicalreasons why we ought not ignore these old im-ages (and indeed why we oughf to begin ourtraining with them) we might at some pointcome to consider the use of images from moreappealing sources closer home. As a youngman scrutinizing A.E. Waite's ponderous text, Icould not have imagined using anything otherthanludaeo{hristian imagery. As Imove withreasonable grace into middle dBe,I relish myPaganism.

Every race and country has its own mythol-o1y, of course, which is often Unked to the"spirit of place" and the actual soil. The my-thologies and spiritual practices of the NativeAmericans, for exarnple, were not so very far re-moved from what was practiced in pre-Druidictimes in Western Europe, but modified by land-scape and climate. ]ust as the history of a nationcan be described in terms of successive inva-sions by different peoples, over long periods oftime so can the mythologies of each- be re-garded as akin to rock strata. Sorne magicians,then, are quite happywith the judaeo-Christiansurface on which they stand, in the dust ofwhich they inscribe their Circles of Art. Others

Mythological MnSrc | rcs

are constantly impelled to dig deeper. Yet allthe levels support, nourish, or give drainage tothe others, if the truth were known. The Pagan,Wiccan heritage is in no way inferior to theChristiary and vice-versa. While at the end ofthe day, or the beginning of the eo& it will bethe new upsurge of the Native American tradi-tion which will provide the generatioru to comewith the soaring heights they will need; whilethe religious and mythologrcal topsoil of thepresent, will sink down to become the bedrockof the future.

Amencans, in fact, are in a unique position.As shown in my book Earth God Rising, ancientimpulses figure just as much in the national lifeof the New World as they ever did in the witch-haunted lands of the OId. Presidents Lincolnand Kennedy, for instancer provide clear mod-ern parallels to the Pagan exemplars of the Di-vine Kiog and Sacrificed God. And even numi-nous, charismatic figures from the world ofrock music and the movies can be seen as mani-festations of inner energies relevant to us all. InEurope these energies are often sununoned andstirrerJ from the remote past and brought for-ward into the present by various occult groupsof both Pagan and Christian inclinations. InAmerica similar energies sparkle in the presentand have the potential for opening up the fu-ture. If this seenrs paradoxical at the moment,then it will become clear the moment that the in-

106 | Magical Gataoays

dividual makes links with such imagery.That which occrrrred over thousands of

years in Europe and elsewhere, often comes tothe boil within a few generations in America.There is an old Celtic myth about the bubblingcauldron of the Goddess, which can give a per-son all knowledge if they can just drink from it.America, the melting pot, can be regarded by itsinhabitants as just such a cauldron. It is up to theindividual to stand on tiptoes and peer over thebrim, into the bubbling contents, and use the [a-dles of choice and whim to scoop out whateverseems most nourishing.

There is no reason, therefore, why a modernAmerican may not work the magic of Egypt orGreece, or of the Native American tradition.There is no reason why he or she may not workwith Merlin or Odin, or Quetzacoatl. Thesernythological or magico-religious systems areall levels of consciousness, laid one atop theother, though not one of them is in any wayspiritually superior to the others. ln personalterms, as an Englishman of Celtic backgroundand tone, pledged to the Horned God, Ihave oc-casionally felt compelled to work with theEgyptian pantheons also-and there is not onedrop of Egyptian blood within me.

The only question that American readersneed ask themselves about the systems of othernations is, do they appeal? Do they strike anychords within the heart? And the fact is, that

Mythological MnSu 1107

while neophytes may fool themselves intothinking that they are shrdyrng old mythologyin order to awaken near-forgotten gods, it is re-ally these same gods who are studying them tnorder to awaken their potentials.

Again, as an Englishman, I should only writeabout what I know best, and have experienced.So if I am to give any example of how we mayapply the Tree of Life to some apparently un-structured systems, then the best example I canFve is that of the Arthurian cultus.

Several important writers have dealt withthis elsewhere,in different ways, notably Chris-tine Hartley in her Western k$stery Tradition,and Gareth Ifuight in his Secret Tradition in Ar-thuian l*gend. Both of them insist that the taleswithin the Arthurian Cycle contain fragmentsof occult lore of incredible age, and that Arthur,Morgan le Fay and the rest were hereditary in-itiatic titles rather than specific historical per-sonages.

In many ways the Arthurian images offer thebest of both worlds: Christiansand Pagans alikecan find whatever they need within that tradi-tion. I know many Christian magicians whoresonate to the energies of Merlin; and no mem-ber of Wicca could possibty wish for a bettercontact than Morgan le Fay. The actual centralfigure of Arthur Pendragon was hailedthroughout England Scotland and Wales,among the Celts and the Anglo-saxons; he was *:

GG-

C

108 | Magical Gatantays

venerated all over Western Europe also, as farafield as Italy and Germany. In a strange butvery potent way his cultus also staked a veryimportant claim before that gate to the Other-world known as Hollywood.

It is a major topic, and clearly there is nospace here to go into much detail---cspeciallyabout some of the Celtic equivalents-but Ihope to throw out enough to excite the readerinto his own researches.

Arthur and TipherethArthur is central to the whole scheme. With-

out him it falls apart. He is a solar figure par ex-cellence. Consider the three Magical lmages ofTiphereth (see Figure 7):

Child: Arthur was born of an illicit (and. magi-cally arranged) union between UtherPendragon and Igraine. The babe Arthur wasspirited away by Merlin to be raised in the For-est Sauvage. The tales of his coming into thisworld depict him as a true Wonderchild.

Piat-King; Arthur was always moie thanjust another regent. He was credited with amaz-ing deeds of a spiritual nature. His court wasmore than a court and something of a holy as-sembly instead. Christine Hartley opines that"Arthur" was in fact an initiatic title handeddown through the ages.

Mythological Magic | 109

==.'*:<F

G

{f

Figure 7.

L10 | Magical Gataoaye \.Sauificed God: After the last battle Arthur is

seen to have sacrificed himself for his country.Yet like all Sacrificed or Solar Gods he does notdie but is carried away to Avalon, resting untilhe is needed, when he will rise again. The paral-lel between this and the Christ image is obvi-ous. Researchers have also pointed to the con-nections between Arthur, St. George, and St.Michael.

In Celtic terms \Me can see similar qualities inCu Chulainn, Eochaid Airem and Tuan MacCairill; and also with Taliesin and Llew LlawGyffes.

The Holy Grail-YesodThis is the very foundation of Camelot and

Arthu/s reign. It is what transforms Arthurandhis knights from a mere body of chivalry into aGoodly Company whose questing was in morethan purely physical realms. The Grail gave theArthurian epic its power. The concept of theGrail as a cup fits in well with Yesod's symbol-ism as a container and receiver and means ofstoring impressions. The symbols of cup, water,unconscious, and Grail are all profoundlylinked. Thus Yesod is the powerhouse--the un-conscious-which contains all our instinctualdrives; and the Holy Graifs arrival at Cameloton Pentecost was what Bave the Round Table itsimpetus, its raison d' etre.

The cauldron myths are close equivalents in

Mythological Mngrc |77L

the Celtic realms of course, and notable exam-ples are in those cauldrons or pots owned byKeridwen,Dagda, Bran, ldatholwych and Pry-deri.

Cannelot and MalkuthThis is the Western ideal of the perfect world,

a gleaming, pleasant and seflrre place. Notheaven as such but an earthly equivalent, an ac-orrate model. It is the sense of what we aspire tobuild in our own lives. The Irish parallel of theFour Holy Cities (Finias, Falias, Gorias andMurias) with the four Treasures (or MagicalWeapons) forms a neat attribution to thisSphere too.

Merlin and HodAn obvious equation given Hod's link with

the Hermetic Path. Merlin and Hod are both"initiators" in the sense that they begin things.It was Merlin's magrc which enabled Uther tosleep with Igraine in the first place, while he isUnked with both the Sword in the Stone and Ex-calibur. He was the guide and mentor of Ar-thur, a role which typifies Mercur5ls nature. Heis omnipresent throughout the West thoughoften with other names, sr.lch as l^ailoken in theCeltic lands and Scottish borders. He is closelylinked to the smith-gods which are so impor-tant in all European myths, so we can see paral-lels with Creidne, Govannon, as well as with

1.12 | Magicat Gatanayn \...

more magical types such as Gwydion, Dian-cecht, Manawyddan and Mongan too, althoughthat figure is more approPriate to the Path con-necting Hod and Tiphereth.

Netzach and NimueNimue or Vivienne, the young enchantress,

the otherworldly creature of irresistible charm,a true Venus-figure. Merlin could not resist her,and no m€ut can. She is seen as Fand, DoonBuidhe, Blodeuwedd (the "flower ladt'') and innegative aspect as the young Irish goddessFlidias, with her insatiable lwt.

Guinevere and ChesedThis is the sphere of stability and expansion

and increase; the task of every ki.g being to findhimself a queen and ensure this. Without onethe monarchy would be incomplete. In the ear-lier French versions Guinevere was far from be-ing the silly feckless woman who ruined Came-lot, but a force in her own right-learned, witty,humane, and popular. A fine equivalent is thegoddess Bridget, or Bride, the hearth-goddess,while comparable figures include Etain,Grainne, and Olwen.

Lancelot/Mordred and GeburahBoth of them in different ways rumaged to

bring about Camelot's destruction, Mordred bydesign and l"ancelot by the result of his love for

Mythological Magic I 113

the queen. They are alter egos to some extent. Insome versions, however, it is Mordred who isGuinevere's lover and whose dark figurehearkens back to the Irish Mider, and earlierstill to the Greek myths of the Underworld.Other figures include Diarmaid and Kulhwch"

Morgan Ie Fay and BinahHere we come to the Triple Goddess symbol-

ism of the third Sphere, common to most my-thologies. In this case we have the three sistersMorgana, Morgause, and Elaine. Sources differas to which of the two former slept with Arthur,their half-brother, but for our present purposesMorgana is the better choice. She is the QueenWitch and her name means "sea-bornt'-lgfgv'ence to the "Bitter Sea" which is one of the eso-teric titles of Binah. Thus in giving birth toMordred, from her womb came the forceswhich eventually brought the breakdown of thecycle. She is directly equated with the Irish Mor-rigu.", and her two iisters Babd and Macha,while Keridwen also is a major figure for Binah,as with Don and Danu.

The Round Table and ChockmahA single figure at this point could fit conven-

iently (such as Galahad and Perceval, bothGrail-winners) but better still is the astrologicalimage of the circle of the zodiac itself, which isthe traditional "mundane chakra" Ior Chock-

ft

114 | Magicel Gatantays \..mah. Not a single planet, understand, but thecomplete wheel of collective experience whichtotals Wisdom. The obvious parallel is that ofthe Round Table, a body of perfect men directedto the highest aspirations and balanced arounda single point in harmony and equatity. In Ire-land we might consider, collectively, the godsof light known as the Tuatha de Danann, orFinn MacCumhail's '?ed Branch Knights"; orelse individual figures such as Dagda (con-nected r^rith Morrigane), Lugh, the High God,or even Cu Chulainn again because of his pecu-liar dynamic nahrre, and whose whole deathfastened to a single standing stone reeks ofChockmah symbolism at a certain level.

Avalon and KetherThis is the heaven-point, where Camelot

transcends toward the concept of the HolyRealm of Logres and its blissful otherworld ofAvalon. Equivalents are to be seen in Annwn,and also in Tir na'n Og. However we mwt re-member that Kether, however we analogize it,is always the highest concept to which we canpossibly aspire. Avalon represents one possibleattribution, but perhaps the best one is still thatof God himself.

These are meant as guidelines only, for it isobvious that in the Celtic areas particuliarly,each image is open to much dispute. One ad-vantage of these is that we have an immediate

Mythological MaSu I 115

sympathy with them. We can use them just aswell as the traditional correspondences as longas we can think of them as more than humanfigures. Whatever the demerits of the old ar-changelic images they at least have the advan-tage of being, for most of us, blank and clearforms without any suggestions of taint. Wemust therefore try not to think of Arthur as jr.lst

some di*y but tough old Romano-British war-rior who lived in the sixth century, but a verita-ble Sun-god of native traditions. Let us, then,look at a very simple rite which might help usget them fixed in such an attitude.

InvocationAfter all the preliminary work has been

done, the magician faces east. Instead ofRaphael however, this tirne he visualizes Mer-lin, according to his own conception of thatMage. He says: "Befsre me Merlin . . . " The fig-ure in this case is not wielding the sword but of-fering it to the magician. He remernbers howMerlin is connected with the magical swords inthe Arthurian cycle, and feels the breeze flow-ing against, indeed cutting through him" FIefeels the qualities of life, vitality, sharp intellect,and zestful questioning.

Turning to the south he acknowledges Ar-thur in the same way, instead of the sun-godMichael. He $ees him with his spear or lance(called inWales "Ron") and feels the qualities of

116 | Magicnl Gatalays \ \

light, strength, courage, authority and intuitionflowing into waves of heat.

The west next, and the beautiful youngNimue. He sees her as through a pool. She car-ries the bejeweled and wondrous scabbardwhich had such potent healing pon/ers, and themagician feels a sense of depth and tides, ebband flow, and the qualities of love, passion, de-fght and rapture.

The north now and Morgana in starlight,holding the shield which was given to Galiahad,emblazoned with a cross of ever-fresh blood,and the sense of slow growth and seasons,crops and plants around her, expressing thequalities of learning (in the experiential ratherthan the academic sense), endurance, maturity,tolerance.

Facing back to the east again he visualizesthese figures around him then actually beginsto walk slowly around the circle, clockwise, ateach Quarter pausing to assume the role of thatgod-form and attempting to project the appro-priate qualities. He circles inward, spiralingslowly to the center.

At the end of the rite, facing east once more,he turns to each Quarter and takes a slowbreath, as he does so visualizing himself as ab-sorbing each god-image, willing each one totake root \ rithin himself-willing himself to be-come a more complete person through these.

Again, we can tune ourselves into each

MYthological Mo* | 117

sphere by some more simple contemplations,which can be adapted according to the sexes:

1. You know Avalon if you have ever felt anykind of "heavenly homesickness" and anurge to return to the Source.

2. You understand the Round Table if youhave ever felt uplift"d by membership of aclose and harmonious grouP or family.

3. You have felt Morgan if you have everknown the dark and broodiog powers ofWoman.

4. You know Guinevere if you have everturned a house into a home-or loved twopeople equally at the same time.

5. If you have ever been drawn to the edge ofmadness by living too much, then youknow l,ancelot--or if you've ever fought forlove.

5. If you have held a family or a workplace or aclassroom together, and often suffered forit, then you know Arthur.

7. If you can recall the delights of infatuation,or wept in movies, then Nimue is not too faraway.

8. The moment you practice magic, heweversimple, you become Merlin.

118 | Magical Gatantayn

9. If you have dreamed of something greaterthan yourself, which could transform lou,thenyou've glimpsed the Hoty Grail.

10. If you have ever had an ideal of a perfectplace to live, then Camelot beckons.

Now these are hardly high-powered philo-sophical questions, and they relate to only verysimple aspects of the spheres concerned, butth-ey do serve to show how we can make mythsrelate to our own experience.

Arthurian TarotObviously there is as much scope for this as

for the foregoing. We can all design our ownTarot, but it does not necessarily have to take ona visual form. We do not actually have to drawthe images. Again the scheme given on thepaths here is meant as no more than a device towhet the student's appetite. There is not thespace to go into detail but we could begin, forexample, by comparing the Waite card ,,The

Empero/' with the tales of Galahad and theSiege Perilous; or'The Tower/ with Lancelot,scastle of joyous Gard where he eloped withGuinevere (previously called, incident alhy,Castle Dolorous); or ,,The Magician,' with thelame Fisher-Kinp or "The Hanged Man" withArthur/s death and his transport in the barge toAvalon in company with the Three Queens.

So what the ieader must do now is find out as

Mythological Magic | 1.19

much as he can about whatever mythologymost appeals to his nature. The more he learns,and the more he plays around with the imagesby means of such master-glyphs as the Tree ofLife or circle-cross, the more energy becomesavailable for making his magic come alive.

At the same time he can adapt every aspect ofhis daily life to this purpose. The more he stud-ies mythology, even of the simplest kind, themore he will become aware that his own life isnot that far removed from the great impulsessymbolizud by the most ancient tales.

==*

Et

IQroup Work and the Individual

When we hear about ritual magic for the firsttime we inevitably conjure up visions of robedmen and women in a circle. In a ritual basedupon the circle-cross desigR, for example, the"officers" of the Quarters try to project the ap-propriate qualities to create the psychic inter-play and balance of the forces of life, within aminiature cosmos of their own. This is ratherlike a gyroscope which depends upon the per-fect balance of all its parts to stay in a constantposition in regard to all else. Indeed, the gyro-scope even looks like an expanded version ofthe circle-cross, and in a group ritual involvingfour people, each representing one of the Quar-ters, the same cyclic balance can be achieved.Eventually, though, the ideal is that you be-come the center or axis of your own cosmosrather than the outer periphery.

to how group work can be so efficacious

1.27

::

rc

R

122 I Magical Gatalays

We all know the great joy that derives fromoccasional gatherings with our nearest anddearest. There is a peculiar and very definitegroup-mind created which can cause simulta-neous impulses within the whole group. De-spite the diversity of characters there is never-theless a remarkable sense of unity, and welearn from this. Qualities frorn others tend torub off on us. It tends to provide a sense of deepwell-being.

In groupwork the aim is to create just such aharmonious unit, but one whose effects arelikely to be even rnore far-reaching as the aim istoward Inner levels of amity. The efficacy of rit-ual work in groups is not because there is morepower as such, but more harmony-moreWholeness"

The sirnpXe rituals given in earlier chapterscan easily be worked with others. Instead of oneperson visualizing the god-forms of the Quar-ters, they can be reBresented by actual people,eaeh one in harmony with his Elernent. Theywould be likely to meet seasonallf, and thusalign theurselves with the earth's own sweeparound the sun, and all its changes therein.They will align thernselves with the natural har-nnony of things at magical levels and find bal-anee within a chaotic world. In the earlieststages a good beginning rnight be for compan-rons to jointty practice the exercises of I'arot"patla-wotrking," the whole group taking a jour-

Group Work and the Indiaidual | 1.23

ney through "The Moon" with one person di-recting out loud and asking the others in turnwhat they can see. A definite unity of responsecan result from this. The operators can be sirn-ply sitting next to each other with eyes closedand holdinghands. Verysimple. Very effective.

The moment a person begins to do magicalwork, he or she sends out a signal on the innerplanes. If the work is steady and determinedand thus produces a strong signal, then it willsoon be answered-often in the most sulpris- "ing ways. In due course people of similar affini-ties will be drawn into the orbit of the magicianin question. The possibility of forming a groupwill arise.

The important thing is not what techniquesare being used, but in the fact that the magicianis actually doing something, regularly and withdetermination. The inner contacts, which arethe true sources of magical energy, arenot con-cerned with how naive or downright silly a per-son's first attempts at magic are, but in whetherthey are doing anything at all, with dedicationand some attempt at originality. Besides, theword "slly" originally meant "holy." So thereis no room in magic for those who might sneerat the early rituals and exercises of others.

Even so, the fact remains that some souls doSeem fated never tn bp allrrwpr{ ar.rpcc tn :rr}rrgroup, through no fault of their own. Th;rr w.r:,the case with myself. By the time tha I r r rr"r r r I r, ,r

t'-..

L24 | Magical Gatanays

ship of such became available to me, I was nolonger interested, and quite happy to continueon my own, with all the difficulties and themany freedoms that this entails.

Each person does in fact "belong." No matterhow isolated they may be in physical and geo-graphical terms, apparently consignd (or con-demned) to a lifetime of solitary magic, they areactually part of one corporate whole. They aremembers of an inner group (tribe, clan, call itwhat you will) which exists partly in this worldand partly in the next. Therefore, not all of themembers are incamate. And the earthly ones donot need to be connected in spatial terms.

The members of my own small "clan," for ex-ample, have gathered over nuny years. Theyare scattered over the world. We have nevernnet en masse and never shall. Some of themhave no overt interest in magic at all. Yet I knowthat each one is there, somehow, and part of me,and always has been, and that our individualwork and consciousness in some strange wayalways gels.

tr say this simply to offer the consoling rnes-sage: we are never alone. The only danger to thestudent of magi.c is if he jumps into it too soonvia the numerous corunercial cults that exist.There is no denying the appeal of these. I per-sonallv wasted endless time and monev onthem-although even that was a test of mypowers of discernment and discrimination.

Group Work and the Indiaidual I 1,25

There can be few Lamas, Galactic Magi andGreat Masters who do not have my rulme ontheir maili.g lists from years ago. The real mag-cal groups are formed by those people whohave gravitated toward each other and feel suf-ficient empathy to wish to share on deeper lev-els. As indicated, it is no more than a matter ofvery good friends who may or may not haveshared previous lives together, and who rnay ormay not have some spiritual potency, gatheringtogether as would anyone else. To put the corn-mercial groups into context, let us assume thereader has a group of people whose companyhe particularly enjoys, such as old schoolfriends; or it might be a single person like a bestfriend or spouse. The companionship here is ofparamount value in his life" He would notdream, therefore, of advertising in a magazinefor other people to share this deep harmony,much less offer to teach it for a monthly fee.

Too often we are swayed by the claims of theself-styled Adepts. Clairns which are madewith incredible sincerity. In each case we hearourselves asking: "IIe sounds like he means it.Why should he lie? He must be speaking thetruth. Why should he lie?"

For power, adulation, wealth, an enrapturedfollowing, wealth . .. In this material world thequestion ought to be: Why shouldn'f he?

betore they get smug, oeeuitrsrs ar€ tfie mostinnocent of people in this respect. People do lie,

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1.26 | Magical Gatanays

of course they do. Or else they take dmgs, orfool themselves. What often seems to occur isthat the budding Great Master has a visionaryexperience of some sort. What he does, how-evetr, is credit the vision with intrinsic and exter-nal reality, and thus he becomes taken in bysomething which is only syrnbclic of uncon-scious elements within his psyche, having aqr.rasi-validity at very best. Visions occur inYesod, remember, the lvloon and Sphere of trlu-sion. The crude levels of which are broached bypsychedetric elrargs or a raw natural psychism.This may well be why $ome of these cult figuresare so very sincere about the most absurd teach-ings, because they really have seen something.On top of that, with a following of excitable andcredulous peopleo the group-mind is enough togrve the cutrtist sonte of the pswers which hedoes claint. I suspmt that thls is wh,y the GoldenDawn in its wisdorn had a technique known asthe "Testing of the $pirits" which was designedto cheek such delusions" If the "ad.ept" in ques-tion had Sone nn to analyze hts visiorus as puresymbols he rnight have gon€ on to scmethingvery potent i.ardeed, instead of trapping himselfat a fu:w level.

In looking at all these cults we rrright take onegreat ex*mplar of Westem spirituality-the fig-ure *f Christ'*anr! ask E:rurselves: trA/nuld Heteaeh by ccrrespondence csurse? Would Godreject us if we failed sur trronthly payments?

Group Work and the Iniliuidual I 127

Would Jesus advertis e in Papular Mechanics?No, if we are sincerely cornmitted to the

magical and mystical path the right people willfind their ways to us in good time. While all theoccult powers that cults and sensational litera-ture promise are far less important than thequestion of whether the magician is, at heart, agood and kindly person.

It witl be seen, then, that there are countlesslevels of magical practice and training. Wemight draw a brief chart of these on Inner andOuter levels (see the following page).

A very simple and off-the-cuff chart to showthe different apprc,aches to magic in the lowerSpheres, but one which is rneant to imply thatthe outer levels are as sacred and capable of giv-ing as much illumination as the inner.

In fact one of the so-called "Oaths" that usedto be taken at a certain grade in the hierarchicalstructures of old systems was that we rnustcome to view every event, action and circum-stance as a direct and secret dealing betweenthe spirit of the seeker and God. There is no rea-son at all why we cannot begin with this ap-proach right away. Its value is that we come tosee our outward circumstances in a very differ-ent light than before. And if we can direct ourlives according to the highest qualities of theTree, then so much the bretter"

Which is easier said than done, God knows.

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128 | Magical Gatanaye

Inner

Malkuth Magic Circles,Invocations,Creation of'nVeapons" &Ritual Practices

Yesod Astral Magic,Evocation ofImages,"Fat Memories,"Conditionin&Consciousness

flod Occult Study,Analysis,Researchinto MagicalTechniques,Meditation

Netzach MagicalIdentification,PassionateCommitment,OccultEnthusiasm,Surnmoning ofEnergies

0uter

EverydayWorld,Home,Work,Employment,Discrimination

Dreams,Sex,lvlemories,SeU-Awareness,Independence

Conversation,Travel,Communication,Reading,Observing,Musing

Romance,High Spirits,Rapture,Courtship,Pleasure

Group Work ard the Iniliuiilwl | 129

There is no doubt that that much over-usedword 'tarma" plays the maior part in how orwhen-or even where-an individual makeslinks with like-minded souls. A Person couldfeel inflicted by endless runs of bad luck, diffi-cult circumstances which are not (apparently)of his own making, and ground down by un-pleasant and recurent situations at home orwork.

All that anyone can ask for in these times isjustice, pure and simple. Which is why theEgyptian god Thoth, Lord of justice, was oftenregarded as the most important deity, for wecan bear any hardship, any loss, if we can find areason for it, or if we can believe that we aresomehow paying our debts by suffering thus,or-best of all-if we surely know that matterswill be redressed in our favor before very long.If justice is being done, or will be done on ourbehalf, then we can endure all things if we canbelieve this.

In grave situations within your own life,then, you can call up your own Lord of Justice.Whether this is Thoth in typical Egyptian form,or an aspect of the Christ, or the Dark Goddesseven, does not matter so much as that your pleais a passionate and heart-felt one. You can dothis in connection with any of the foregoingrihrals and techniques. The plea itself should gosomething like this:

730 | Magical Gatantays

Yit is ngh! and proper tlnt I am being tomade suffer this situation, or that Suchinil-such is doing this to me, tlun I wilt try and ac-cept it, and try to learn wlntwer leisons arenecessry . Help me in this. But if this sitwtionis unjust, and if Such-and-such is being com-pletely unfair, tlun please redras the balance.Bring justice into my life.

Create your own words along these lines, iny!$own speech rhythms. Imagrne that you areoffering your problem up to ttre deity in ques-tion.

And then sit back and wait.The one thing you must realize is that if you

are truly being made to learn some much-needed lesson in life, and if the problems are ofyour own making and no one else's, then thisapparently simple magical act will bring therest of the karmic energies throu gh at oice. Tfyou were unhappy before, and cursed withseeming bad luck, then you will be staggered bywhat is about to come.

But at least the situation will be brought to ahead very quickly, and you can get that karmiclesson over with more quickly than otherwise.And youwill have a balance in your life at theend of it.

On the other hand, you may very well findthat chronic problems clear up quite suddenly,that the hated Such-and-such is given his or her

Group Work and the lniliniilual | 131-

comeuppance in the most aPPropriate way. Notrue magician would ever actively curse an-other, because he who clrrses always has to paya price for such an act, one way or another. Butthere is no reason why we should not call downthe powers of Geburah in this rnanner and seekthat levet of ]ustice which is everyone's right.

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10The Mysteries of Knowing

In the eatly chapter on the Tree of Life webriefly mentioned and thel dismissed thesphere of Daath. We can look at this in a littlemore detail now because it giVes us a glimp$e ofwhere humanity can go from here.

Daath means sin'rply '/lrrowledge:' It ie notlmowledge in the intellectual, academic serlse;

it hds nothing to do with university degrees orthe ability to lwap up a simple concept inswathes of verbiage in order to give it a spuri*ous substance. Daath is Pure experience<rrather the impact that such experience hasuponthe psyche. When a rnan'and a ruoman knoweach-oiher in the old Biblical sense, then they arein touch with Daath.

Ctearly Malkrrth and Daath must be con-nected. The artist and occultist Austin rOsrnan

Spare touched on this in a cnrde, dark sort ofway,when he stated that 'Xfuowledge is the ex-crement of experience.o But then again he was a

1.33

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134 I Magical Gatamys

crude and dark sort of nun. For polite purposes(not alwlls_the best or most effective) ne migt thave said "Knowledge is the residue of experi_ence." Or in yet other terms: Daath is the es-sence of Malkuth.

As the old Qabalists were quite concerned topoint out, Daath was not a sphere as such. ,,The

spheres number ten and no1 nine; ten and noteleven" they affirmed, because Daath was seenmore as a potential, or a sense of immanence. Itstraditional symbol is the Empty Roorn, whichwas the true secret of what actually lay behindthe temple veil of the Holy of Holiei. Oaath wasalso the,bridge across the dreaded Abyss whichis so beloved of occult fiction writers.

It was the mystic and philosopher G.I.Gurdjieff who based his own- spiritual systemupon the notion that m;u:t has noloul, only a po-tential. This potential, he iruisted, could-beachieved only through inner work. And so atone level it was the Mysteries of Daath he wastouching upon.

This may become clearer when we considerthe esoteric belief that Malkuth,s original posi-tion upon the Tree of Life was in facl at Diath.Thus the Tree, before the Fall, would havelooked like Figure 8. This points to the beliefthat Mankind once existed is free and blissfulspirits in a perfectly harmonious universe. Theu:srulrrnony was caused wnen tnese free sprnm"fell into matter." Fell into Malkuth. pribr to

The Mystria of Kruwing | 135

=Figure 8. TIE Perfected Tree

136 I Magical Gatantays

that the lowest realms were to be found in theastral levels of Yesod, which name means Foun-dation, and which is seen to be exactly thatupon what might be called the perfected Tree.

Daath can therefore be regarded as ,Tnner

Earth." All of those spiritual systems whichposit the living consciousness of the land andembrace the notion that we can be united withthe land in a magically symbiotic relationshipare linked with the Daath revelation.

We experience, and thus we knout.Link with the consciousness of the Earth be-

neath, and we canknout things that will help ustouch the stars.

L:r this respect the magic of Daath is linkedwith the images of caves (or sometimes tunnels)within sacred mountains. In the latter case wefind outstanding lumps of the densest matterwhich humans look to for heavenly salvation.Such mountains are found in every country,among every race. In almost all cases local mythalso links them with mystic caves buried deepwithin. These caves are held to contain hero fig-ures, or treasures of a magical, talismanic na-ture. Entering such caves invariably transformsthose who find their way in.

Of course this is a clear echo of the Qabalisticsymbol of the Empty Room which yet concealsthe greatest of secrets. And modern life beingwhat it is, occtrlt literature of a certain kinaabounds with tales of mysterious caves in mys-

The Mystuire of Ktuwing I 137

tic mountains which contain artifacts of stellarorigin-advanced technologies from the mostdistant past. Writers such as Bulwer-Lytton,George Hunt Williamson, Erich von Danikenand Lobsang Rampa (to name just a few) haveall touched upon this theme in different ways,although in truth we should not take any ofthem too seriously.

In this respect there is a hill near me which issaid to be the home of Puck, the King of the Fair-ies. It was linked with the Knights Templar inmedieval times. It is said to be hollow and con-tain the golden figure of a sacred ram. All ofthese things and more were said before theSpace Ag" began. Now it is seen as the focus ofmassive UFO activity and is believed by someto contain a homing beacon for these craft,which some observers insist come from withinthe hill.

All of the latter are myths for our time, asC.G. Iung observed. In previous centuries menand women were 'tarried off' by fairies or de-mons, Now they are aMucted by extra-teres-trials. All part of the Mysteries of Death if webut knew it.

Long before the present penchant for alienabductions (and let it be said now that hypnoticregressions "proving" the latter are probablythe most inaccurate, deceptive, and largely use-less techniques in the spiritual reper-toire)-long before these became popular, ma-

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138 | Magical Gatatayo

gicians were making active use of the 'Cave inthe Mountain" imagery. My book TwentiethCentury Magic contains the diaries of CharlesSeymour from the late 1930s, in which this genu-ine Adept describes his contact with the inner-plane entity known as Cheiron, an otherworldbeing who helped him write '"The Otd Relig-ion." As an essay on self-initiation into the Pa-gan mysteries of what was termed the 'GreenRay," this has yet to be surpassed. According toSeymour this entity Cheiron had (and has) anevolutionary interest in humanity, and u/aslinked--obviously-wi th the star-system of Al-pha Centauri. Obviously because Cheiron was,in mythological terms, the leader of all the cen-taurs according to Greek tales. The informationand energies that Seymour channeled fromCheiron was of a very high order indeed, butmore important for our present purposes con-tains all the themes of Man and Nature linkingwith the stars by means of an empty spacewithin a holy mountain.

When Seymour visualized that cave withinhis imagination, and in a very real sense enteredtherein to meet Cheiron,hekltmt that this was agenuine experience in another dirnension" Butthe important thing is that none of us needs toaccept this on trust. We must find ovr &Dnknowing, our own gnosis" We must experiencethe world of matter in our own wolr as alreadystated, and draw energies into that Ennpty

Tlrc Mysteria of Krcaing I 139

Room or Mystic Cave which lies within ourown psyches.

Wi can make a beginning by using any of theritual or imaginative techniques already de-scribed to prepare clear conditions for a Work-iog. If you already know of a sacred mountain,or site of aoy kind which appeals to you (and

don't \Morry about anyone else) then either go

there-literally--or build it up in your imagr-nation as intensely as possible. If you are actu-ally there then make simple acknowledgmentsto the resident spirits, and then to the Elements,before visualiziog a cave buried deep withinthe earth. Visualize yourself stepPing out ofyour body and making your way through theground toward it. If you are unable to be therein the flesh then visualize a nalrow road lead-ing to the place in question, rising gradually to a

mid-point on the mountain slopes. Visualize ananow fissure where your rocky Path ends.

Step through this and on and down a long, sub-terranean passageway which gleams with itsown light. Try to sense the massive weight ofthe rock and minerals around You, increasing as

you descend. At the end of the passage see aheavy and impossibly ancient door, bearing thesymbol of the equi-armed circle-cross which isthe oldest (and safest) of all images, and noticethe brilliant shafts of light which sPear out fromthe gaps between the door and its frame. Pause,

take a breath, Emd open that door .. .

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The Mystaia of Ktnwing | 747

This and many variations of the same has be-come almost a standard technique for making adirect link with what some might call Guides,others Guardiant and others still "inner con-tacts." It is impossible to say what you will see.

It may be no more than a radiance with a verystrong sense of presence behind it, which mayor may not make its identity clear with furthercontacts. It maybe something visually startling,such as a clear and very real image of whateverentity looks after the seeker's best interests.Or-it rnust be faced-nothing very much maysaem to happen at all. But even in the latter casethe magician is still expanding his conscious-ness and experience by his very effort, and thiswill come to have effects that wiU only gradu-ally be apparent. The Empty Room within thepsyche will start to spaikle. Gnosis will begin.

The foregoing technique can be bolstered ifthe magician can procure or bring back an ac-tual piece of rock from the sacred place in ques-tion. After that, no matter where he might be ingeographical terms, he can always put himself"in touch" with his power-source--quite liter-ally-holding the stone while working at thepurely visual techniques described.

Failing that, crystal is a wondrous aid. Themagician can mentally project the image of thesacred mountain into the crystal and carry onthe Working as given. Failin gtlnt,he or she canuse a smoke-blackened mirror, or a bowl of

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1.42 I Magical Gatantays

d3lk liquid, or any of the traditional scryingaids to effect entry into this C-ave.

It is while we do Work of this nature that wesometimes touch upon the highest aspects oftalismanic magic-.,although ihese ."" oftendistract us from the true nlture of Daath, Erdcause the Em_pty Room to become very clut_tered indeed. It is the knowledge that mitter is,or can be, imbued with spiritrnl energy. That|umps of crystal, for example, can helpio t u*_form us from within. In anoth",

"r"a'the prac-

tice of alchemy sought to transmute base o-tt"tinto gold at d briof tn" alchemist to immortal-ity along the way. And although modern scien_tific

_kngwledge discourages most people frompracticinglhi" art today, there is no reason why-th"y could not, for exarnple, create a system

fased upon home wine-rnakiog! The stages offermentation can be made to pirallel theiraditional alchemical stages exactly; the act of gath-ering the raw material from a particular-trolysite at a particular time can be mlde into a Wic_can-type act in its own right. And at the end of itthe alchemist will actuatty have somethingwhich can (legally) alter consciousness for sac-

itd".tul purposes. When I did it myself usingdandelions from the foot of Glastohl,rry Tor,my purpose was not to achieve the philoso_pher/s Stone, so much as to become philosopherStoned, in the most genteel of senses. '

In truth the wine I made was dreadful. But

The Mystria of Knouting I 1.43

the experience of making it was something else.The Mysteries of Daath are perhaps more

closely entwined with the concept of Time thanthose of any other sphere. As Henri Bergsonwrote "Time is the ratio of the resistance of Mat-ter to Spirit." When the two are united we be-come outside of Time. In an area of conscious-ness where Time does not edst. A space be'tween the worlds which parallels the cavewithin the Mountain.

There is onelevel in which we can regard thisspace as the gap between what we are, andwhat we know we should be. It is the gap be-tween what our morhal warps and quirks com-pel us to persist in being, and that which our in-ner spark is qgite certain we could be. Most ofus spend a lifetime trying to cross that Bap, or indespair because we do not know how, or elseare afraid to try. All of this, on a purely psycho-logical level, is but a lower analogue of thatdreaded Abyss in which the evil and the night-nures of the entire universe can be found, andwhich Daath is said to straddle.

So at the simplest level the Mysteries ofDaath teach us how to cross the gap betweenwhere we are, spiritually, and where we will tobe, by the act of knowing ourselves. By holdingfirm to whatever self-gnosis we achieve, we canpluckup the courage to traverse our own night-nures. We can get closer to the Source.

This Eap, this Abyss, also has another func-

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144 | Magical Gatantays

tion which Austin spare hinted at in the earliermention$ qrot", and which W.G. Gray statesg"it* explicitly in his l"adder of Lights, in whichhe shows the Abyss to find its physical parallelin humans within the eliminative system. Thatis, there is a psycho-spiritual function within uswhich is quite able to break down bad merno-ries and personal trauma in such a way as theycan be-in effect--excreted frorn our system.Used accordingly, such waste matter will findits own place, ultimately providiog a fertilizerthat can benefit everyone. Modern psychology,unable or unwilling to accept the necessity orpossibility of such a function, is all too oftenguilty of reaching into cesspools.

This may sound gnm, or disturbing, but theprocess of knowing your$elf must necessarilytake in some truly abysmal revelations. b:r th-eold tradition this gap / crack/abyss---<ail itwhat you will--<ould be traversed by walkingover a Bridge of Swords, the latter thernselvesbeing known as the Swords of Truth" In brief,truth hurts. Self-truth most of all. We can get allcut up. And if we are not mercilessly honestwith ourselves, if \ /e are not fearless and ex-tremely well balanced, then we can fall in andspend the rest of our life waltowing.

No, it really isn't easy. Which is why we needhelp from those entities on the other side

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11

Egyptian Magic

When we begin to put all these themes andtechniques together for the first time, and. per-haps try to take steps away from the judaeo-Christian emphasis of the traditional Qabalah,it is often easier to start off using the Egyptiansystem. Not that the techniques themselvesbear any resemblance to that which would havebeen practiced during the Pyramid Ag*, for ex-ample, but because the energies involved pre-sent thernselves via imagery which has becornealn"lost universalized over the rnillennia. Be-sides which the Egyptian deities had such spe-cific fornu that they are actually quite easy tovisualize. In contrast, the spirit of Baldur, for ex-amp1e, may have vast appeal for the intendingpractitioner of the Norse tradition, but his ac-fual appearance is a matter for individualwhim. For the novice, attempts to assume sucha god-iorm often resuit rn a rrno or vrsuairzedfuzziness and uncertainty which can detracL

74sE.

7461U*giql Ciltwys

from the rst of the el(ercise- But with Egyptianlv{asic,

" it has hn d;&;;';;";?" pastl*sty-at least, the rines ani cotors & pos-Lures of the deities can be seen in countlessources, lvith only mihor variations.

The Ka posture

" involves'no more than staonitg wiiliJ t -gether

""d- arms *i""d * i" rig;,rr rO. mo*

done in zuch a spiritless fashion th"e *aposture isan anpfy littteLxercise. But we can fin it siglgrgil energf with suqprising ease,

,. Blsimpleand subtle atteraUons of the lunds1r.e. by making them derrched or open, f."iog"pyFq or forward, stmight or Ulted), we canWke the fta posture erqrito _rage or victory,s,trpplication or surner.ie". SpJrtsm*

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:hq${ "ld unconscioustl expiess the ka pos_tgre when they have woniheiievent, and are inthe throe orelutaunn t.lnirr rttry tt",ir"prot,c!3nges the same gesture ir **a uy -irlri"n,zurendering. Someone who has had'geat and:lop*.td t":I will often gtance,rpfiarJ ar,afling his anns likewise in a & postrrie of thanksto the deity responsible.

Try a y".i:y o-f such -postures, varying the

angle and inclination of tfre anns and tire ula-y,adopting the appropriate mannerisms io, *.he40tion But at the same time try to feel theemotion concerned: triumph or aeUgtrt, pt-*a_

Egyptianlvlnxk 1747

Figure 10.TIE I& Posture (itlustrdion by Billie lohn).

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148 | Magical Gata uyn

T& yea*io& or perhaps even divine submis_sion to a greater win than yours. Great actorspd -magicians do this ,ort of thing an the iime,for the two crafts are closelv linked.

After a while, we can tuu* to synchronizethis with a breathing exercise.

. A9opt as eleganf a stance as you can, onelu"9 resting lightly on top of the other

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level_ oj your groi". at fi.rt do no more thanstand there for a rittre while breathing regurarlyand deeply (though not unnaturalf ,oi fn.i,take a slow and_ aegner breath ana'Uring yo,r,hands yp to the level of your solar plexus]ai thesame time visuarizi.g a corumn bf p,rte bril-liance being brought up from the base oi yo.r,spine. Breathe out, but lieep your hands u.i th"column of ligl'r1 in the r"tt i ptac". Then breathein again and bring your hands and the light upto the level of your throat this time," yourthumbs linked as though forming the symdol ofa bird in shadow-pray. And finaily at ihe thkdbreath ral-se your hanas into the ka postur" itr"rwhjlg s-ee{g the light carry on into your headand indeed spuming out fiom the crown dur_ing your exhalation.

sometimes the right takes on a rear inner in-tensity during the exhalation rather than the in-halation. Try it and decide what feers rigr,i r".yourself.

Tl,e iuunuuung ugnt can be seen to spray outinto the shape of the auric egg as aesc.iUea in

Egyptian Ma* I 149

the Exercise of the Middle Pillar in an earlierchapter. And at this point similar work can be

done in terms of color visualization and energyprojection"

Once a degree of mastery has been achievedwith this, we can also build into it exercises re'lating to the endocrine systern. As detailed inThe Inner Guide to Egypt, written by myself andB" Walker-fohn, the Ancient Egyptians truly be-lieved that their country wa$ an earthly mirrorfor the heavens above, and that Man was an ex-

pression of thern both. That is to say certainMystery Centers of Ancient Egypt could be

seen as earthly analogues of certain stellar ener-gies; while at the same time these earthly andstellar centers found direct equivalents withinthe endocrine glands of similar function"

Thus starting at the bottom, the testes or ova-ies would equate with the energies of Thebes;the pancreas would relate to the Mysteries ofAbydos; the adrenal glands linked with Her-nnopolis; the thymrc with Mernphis; the thy-roid and parathyroid with Heliopolis; the pin-eal with KhrebiU and lastly the pituitary withAlexandria.

The actual Egyptian names of these placescan then be turned into '"Words of Fowe/'which are no less effective than the Hebrewgod-names used in traditional Qabalistic exer-cises"

(For the sake of the present exercise, and for

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L50 | Magical Gateunp EgyptianMa* l1'51'

reasons that we cannot detail here, the pihritaryand pineal can be energized at the same time as

the thyroid.)

CenterThebesAbydosHermopolisMemphisHeliopolis

Egyptian NaneUas (Wass or Wast)AbtuKhemnuMen-neferAunu

Visualize these centers on your body as iew-els which glow accordingly when the risinglight touches them. Synchronize your breathingas you see fit. You need not worry about exact

pronunciations of each word, or exact patternsof innahtion. ]ust work at it, and find whatworks best for you.

Astral MasksAgain, in time, a new phase can be intro-

duced in this exercise of the ka posture, and one

which involves the donning of astral maslcs as a

preliminary to assuming the full god-form.What the magician must do first is find any

bookwhich may contain details of the Egyptiangods and goddesses. Read as much as possibleabout their functions. Horus, for example, canbe seen in simple terms as the young wamior

Bod, champion of light, destroyer of darkness.Assuming the appropriate la posture for these

7if,uitary Gland

Tineal Gland

Thymue

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Tancreas

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EgyptianMagic 1153

FtgureT3.Thelcastatue of King Auibre' Hor of tluTsthDy'nasty from his tomb ot Dah*r (illustration by Billielolm).

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qualities, then visualize also the Horus hawk-head upon yourself. Not just as a convenientaddition to your own cranium, but an actualtransforrnation of yourself. Do this while inton-ing the name Heru (the true version of Horus)in whatever manner is most resonant.

Men or wonnen can do this exercise, althoughthe latter may prefer the vulture-goddess ofMut, or the lion-goddess Sekhmet, whrt hadgreat powers of healing as well as a willingnessto tear apart einyone who might harm her chil-dren"

The same work can be done with Anubis, thejackatr-god known as the Opener of the Waywhose metabolisrn is able to derive spirihral en-ergies frorn what others might see as dead meat;in other words, bright wisdom from the mostdismal experience"

Osiris, the ferti.trity god, is invariably hurnanin fonn but he wears the splendid headpiece,the atef-ctrowrl, which proclainns him as l-ord ofthe Underworld and also a Hclrned God. Histrue name is Asar"

All of the strange anirnal cr hird heads, all ofthe *readpieces" sueh* as the vulfure wings orcrescent rnoCIn, all of these provide skr;rrp andeasily visualized symbols that we can build intoour seLf-imagery a$ .r /e use the rca pcsture.

We can also begin tc ask *urselves the sameserles of questions that we etescrrDeo ear.!,rer:

Egyptian Mogic | 155

Have you ever felt young and vigorous and achampion of truth and fair play? Then you canlink with Horus.

Have you ever held down a good job andbuilt up a home? Then you can know Isis-whose true name is Aset.

Have you ever made anything grow? (Noneed to be too literal here.) Then you can knowOsiris.

Have you ever kept yourself to yourself andreveled in secrets? You can make links withNephthys.

Have you ever experienced death andgained insights from it? You can make contactwith Sokaris"

Have you ever gained personal power fromconfronting the dark aspects of your psyche?Then you can know Anubis.

Have you ever tried bringing order into achaotic situation? Then you can link with Maat.

Have you ever enioyed knowledge for thesake of knowledge? Then you can know Thoth.

And on and 0n and oh, throughout thert1:rese/'l nanfhpnnc nf .a lnc+ ronlrtr re.rhinL afi'll cr*,' .

ists within us. A vital part of the magic is actu-ally learning how to ask ourselves these ques-

156 | Magical Gatamyn

tions.If we wish to tie all of this in with the afore-

mentioned imagery of the Qabalah itself, per-haps by associating the Egyptian deities withthe Spheres, then there is infinite scope for theindividual.

One could, for example, decide to work withthe Sphere of the Moon, known in the Qabalah*as Yesod, but which would in the Egyptianscheme fit in quite nicely with Thebes, and theMoon-gods there, as well as with the ovaries,the Mysteries of Women, and the months of theyear. Using the Tarot card The Moon as a gate-way you could visualize yourseff going be.tween the two towers and across the brow of thehill into the Temple of Mut, the great vulture-goddess whose naune is actually u root for"motherr" andwhose temple was once frontedby a sacred lake shaped like the embryo in thewomb. No need to give here one of those "path-workings" which are so often merely an exflrsefor the writer to indulge to purple prose. If Mutwants you, if she has any resonance at all withinyour psyche, she will be more than happy tohelp you create a very real path of your own to-ward her.

The main thing to bear in mind, always, isthat it is just as unwise to mix magical systemsas it is to mix drinks. If you decide to fashionsomething along Egyptian lines, it should notinvolve archangels from the particular Sphere

Egyptian Magic | 157

Ptah

Seldtrut

(illustntions on Wg6 757-159 by Billic lohn)

1.58 | Magiul Gatamys Egyptian Magic | 759

concerned, or useHebrew 't{ames ofPower."

The framework ofthe Tree of Life is initself neutral (as istheTarot to a Large ex-tent), but if you wantto build it up withEgyptian imagery orwhatever, then whenyou begin to workthrough it you mustlearn to switch offfrom the traditional

version before switching onto whatever fre-quencies you have now decided to use.

Which is why, although the Egyptian ten-ters" in the ka posture have direct parallels withthe Hebrew Sephira, we do not use the god-names of the liatter to energize the former. Infact, if the original Egyptian names had notbeen known then it would have been better forthe magician to make up "nonsense" sonics ofhis own.Just as ridiculous nicknames betwe-enlovers can take on real meaning and influencebetween the people concerned, so can fancifulsounds be used for the highest magical pur-Poses.

Klmum

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19Past Lives Revisfted

One of the things which invariably happenswhen a person begiru and sustairu magicalwork, is that circumstances arise, dreams or vi-sions develop, which seem to indicate the cer-tainty of a past life.

Of course, one of the immediate criticismsprovoked by all those antagonistic to the wholemagical process is that such experiences are nomore than compensatory boosts to the ego.Without having the slightest experience of suchthings themselves, or of any intimacy withgenuine practitioners of the art, they invariablyinvoke names like Cleopatra or Napoleon topoke fun and grve themselves an air of de-tached wisdom. While there certainly are in-adequate individuals who do seek to gain sub'stance by claiming to have been someone ex-alted from history, these same individualscould never undergo real magical training.They would make these claims however their

76L

162 | Magtcd Gateuays

lives progressed. In practice, however, none ofthe genuine Adepts of my acquaintance haveever shown any great interest in who they mayhave been in iaiuer epochs. They **J (aniare) too b*y getting on with their Work in thisIife to be hooked on past lives. Only ChristineH"+l*y, whose farmemories are adequately re-corded io *y Twentieth Century lfugir gave areasonably exalted identity as Merit-aten, aprincess from Ancient Egy?t. But it was a mat-ter of_supreme indifference to her whether any-one else believed her, and her everyday life wasextraordinary enough as it was, without takinginto account her magic. And as she herself said,princesses in Ancient Egypt rl/ere a dime adozen, It was no great deal.

Even so, the topic of reincarnation is by nomealg as simple as the standard philosophywould seem to suggest. There is no doubt ihat"far memories" gained from hypnotic regres-sion are always immensely detailed, and emo-tionally convincing, but tests have shown againand again how inaccurate those details reallyare. That is not to say that all hypnotic regres-sions are no more than visionary deceptions,but they are best admired as demonstrations ofthe mind's wonderful ability to create cohesiveepics that are essentially fictional in nature.Which does not mean that we cannot get uris-dorn and delight from such things. But no oneshould accept that a thing has been "prov&,,

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Past Uaes Roisited I 153

because it was demonstrated by the process ofhypnotic regression.

Quite often, also, a person can tune in to pastevents in the most unexpected circumstances.Such events can replay themselves before hisinner vision with immense lucidity. This is theidea that certain places can retain their ownmemories, stored away within the stones likeon a videotape, and spontaneously replayingthemselves to the astonished inner gaze of par-ticular souls. The latter may experience these sointensely that the assumption is made of havinggone through these events in a past life. It maywell be so, but there is also the possibility toconsider that he was acting as no more than a re-ceiving apparatus.

Yet another possibility which can affect thewhole experience of "far memo$' is the factthat when a magician makes contact with an in-ner-plane entity of historical fact, images andexperiences of the entity will often filterthrough into the rnagician's consciousness.Often, hecanbe tempted to thinkhew&s that en-tity in question. It is a natural temptation. Eve-

ryone succumbs to it for a little while in theearly phases of magical work.

All of which can go toward explaining whythe gods are supposed to destroy whoever be-comes gurlty of hubris.--or overwhehtiogpride.

It is never because the gods feel challenged,

164 | Magical Gatamys

and thus determined to humble the wretch con-cerned. It is because hubris stops the magicianfrom becoming a clear and effective channel fortfreir energies. The magrcian can no longer dothe Work as it should be done. So the godJ with-draw and leave him to deal with th-eir echoesand shells only; and soon the man destroyshimself.

When the magician first plugs into whatmight be termed a "MagScal Current,,-which,like Time, is experienced but almost impossibleto define-external events occur whichleem tobe clear examples of some cosmic power send-ing "signs" to confirm the veracity of the con-tact. These events often take the form of reincar-national sagas involving groups of people.

For example, in the early TAslbegan work onan as yet unpublished novel based around theisle of Lindisfarne in the 7th century. Lindis-farne is an island only a mile off the northeastcoast of England, reachable twice a day by roadwhen the tide recedes, and regarded by manyas one of the major power-centers of Britain.Historically it ranks alongside Iona as one of thelast bastions of Celtic Christianity, was thesource of the dazzJrngand illuminated Lindis-fl*" Gospels, and was seen to keep the light ofCivilization,flickering at a time when it wis go-ing out all over Europe. No sooner had I startedwriting than people began to appear in the mostunlikely and unexpected ways, all of whom

Past Lioes Reuisited | 165

had Lindisfarne fascinations for the same pe-riod. The name itself would crop up in everyconceivable source: in newspapers, magazines,on television documentaries, or on the radio viathe songs of the once-famous folk-rock group ofthat name. Always appearing at apparentlycrucial or significant moments, though often inthe most insignificant ways, and always with astaggering freguency of occunence.

On and on this went, a saga involving incred-ible levels of coincidence, drawing in manypeople who became as surprised as myself, theevents and their omens circling around my ownlife constantly, but never quite linking up in anysolid mandala of revelation.

My conclusion at that time was that I hadonce been a monk on Lindisfarne-perhapseven the Prior-and that the rest of the eventscould be explained by the concept of group re-incarnation. Really it was a delicious.time. For anumber of years I lived with the notion thatonce, in the Dark Ag"t, I had been a monk on atiny island amid the gray sea with seals andgulls for company.

However, I eventually had to admit the his-torical details which presented themselves in avariety of ways were wrong. Sure, they pos-sessed enough half-tmth and quasi-possibilityto lead me down many false paths, but at theend of the day there was no avoiding the factthat they were wrong. End of story.

165 | Magical Gata oays

As far as I can explain it now (and explana-tions are not always wise or necessary) the act ofbrooding upon Lindisfarne acted like the touchupon the keyboard of some cosmic computer.The computer itself, which exists in all dimen-sions, did no more than display before me allthe references it had on that iopic, doing so in amultitude of experiential wayJeven though thereferences (like identical names in a telefhonedirectory) did not necessarily bear any reiation-ship to each other.

Not so much egg on the face as ego on thefacg but every magician goes through this sortof thing- It is enthralling while it lasts. The onlydanger lies in getting hooked on the twists andturns of the apparent saga, rather than concen-trating on the energy behind it.

Yet over and above all of these ,,explana-

tions" for what seems to be reincarnationr-manypeople still ds have experiences in which theyknow to their bones that they have lived beforein a particular place at a particular time. Thisknowledge can be so intense, so impossible toarticulate, that the person concerned has nocompulsion to tell anyone else, no burning de-sire to seek docrrmentary proof. Knowing withall your heart can be enough.

Personally I believe that while reincarnationof the 'tlassical" kind does occur, it is by nomeans universal. We are not all guaranteed a re-turn. I believe that it does happen in the case of

Past Liws Reuisiteil | 167

sudden or violent death. Or else when the mag-cian or mystic concerned is so closely attuned inhis own lifetime to his own Higher Self.

As I have written elsewhere, quoting thewords of Charles Seymour, a personality incar-nates but never reincarnates. It is the HigherSelf which does so, sending little bits of itselfinto incarnation each time in order to gain expe-rience. Thus a particular Higher Self (regard itas a group mind/soul, or superconsciow cor-porate entity) can have numerous souls in in-carnation at any one time-+ven extendingthrough time. It is perhaps not so much that wehave previous lives, as other lives. Like thebeads on a necklace, all connected by the s€une

thread. Glimpses we may have of what seein tobe previow lives can often be other aspects ofour own Higher Self as they exist in a differenttime. Parts of ourselvesn in fact. We are one an-other, all over again.

To this extent tr believe that a part of myselfonce existed (or exists) in the 19th Dynasty ofAircient Egypt as a junior scribe. Also that thislink helped Billie John and myself to bti.gthrough that relatively complete and "neut"magical system described in our Inner Guide toEgypt. All of which was under the aegis of theentity shown in Figure 15.

But if all this could somehow be disprovedtomorrow it would cause me no devastation atall. Life is too short for that.

168 | Magical Gatanays

Figure 75. (illustration by Bittblolm).

Past Lioes Rmbited | 169

Techniques for RecallAll of this said and done, it is human nature

to try and stimulate what may or may not begenuine far memories of a genuine past life.Christine Hartley reached a stage toward theend of her life where she simply created a blankscreen before her mind's eye and asked her in-ner contacts to show her what she wanted/needed to know.

The trick behind this at one level is to act likewe do when we play games with very youngchildren, watching them while pretending notto. It helps to concentrate on the breath as it goesin and out of our nostrils, visualizing it as purelight, while at the sarne time keeping the innergaze lightly upon the blank screen. Picturesarise with surprising ease but these are quicklybroken if the startled viewer turns his fult con-sciousness onto them. Again, they are not nec-essarily from past lives. They may not be morethan the astral equivalent of junk mail. Which iswhy a preliminary invocation to whatever en-tity the magician thinks appropriate should beused.

Many of the visualization techniques areakin to path-workings. We can add a simplepiece of tactile back-up here by making our ownMobius Strip. This is made by taking a narrowlength of paper and bringing the two ends to-gether to form a loop. |ust before you do so,however, give one of the ends a haU twist and

170 | Magical Gatantays Past Lioes Rr'oisiteil | 177

colored vortex. Feel the auric curents aroundyour body rising and falling like the sea as youbreathe in and out.

Then, with an act of will, move into the aina'svortex, spinning around and down, into yourown forehead and the velvet night of the braincavity.

We all know what the brain actually lookslike. Look up an illustration after reading thisand fix upon the main parts. Picture it like an as-

' teroid in the depths of interstellar space. Alump of living rock, Uned and fissured. Circle it.Be aware of the two halves. Look at the cere-brum and cerebellum. It is in the liatter, tuckedaway on the underside, that our minute andconcentrated spark of consciousness must go.Float to the front of the cerebellum and see thegreat mass of the rest of the brain above. See oneof the lines between the convolutions open outinto a crack, and then a clear opening. Head intoit, toward the heart of the cerebellum itself,twisting and turning through what seerns like amaze. Here, in the middle of the most ancientpart of the brain, find yourself in a crystallinecave, the walls of which you just know can re-flect images from your own ancestral memoriesat least, and perhaps beyond these to somethiogelse again.

Ask whatever higher power you cleave to forpermission to see what needs to be seen. Andthen wait . ..

thgl ioin them up. If you srudy this loop your4/i[ find that it actually has become a figurewith one side. Inside and outside has ceased toexist. A continuous pencil line can be drawnaround it without having to take the point offthe paper. The visualization techniqres can berun through while the magician sits quietlyrunning this through his fingers like a transdi-

' mensional rosary.The fingers will be remindi.g the subcon-

scious that ultimately there is no outer and no

Tlet, no past and no future, and that they areall one. The imaginative faculty, meanwhile,can be working through whatever sequence ofvisualizations have been chosen, although at acertain point you should keep the fingers stillupon the loop-over point and just hold the Mo-bius Strip.

The visualization itself could go somethinglike this .. .

- Picture yourself standing outside your bodyIooking at yourself as you sit or lie in a relaxed,secure manner. Then imagine yourseU shrink-ing into a tiny pinpoint of light-shrinking intoyour essence. As Aleister Crowley once said,"Every Man aRd Wonun is a Star," and youmight think of your essence as being like this,with your body vast before you.

Close up on your own face. See it filliog yourwhole vision, the pores like craters. See theajnachakra-the third eye--like a whirling; multi-

172 | Magical Gatantays

Whatever happens, whatever you experi-ence, as always return by the same route andthen write down whatever you remember, nomatter how trivial this may seem.

Such techniques as the latter are more effec-tive when done with the help of someone, pref-erably of the opposite sex, holding hands andhaving one parbrer narrating the journey and'the other experiencing it. In reality not every-one is able to find such a willing partner, andtheir spouses, no matter how loving and supportive they might be in other areas, are notnecessarily in sympathy with this aspect oftheir partners' natures.

Yet there is a simple and undemanding partytrick by which anyone can demonstiaie tothemselves, and others, the ease with which vi-sions can be made to arise. Once done, the in-tending magician can then approach his or herown path-workings with a new sense of confi-dence.

At any small, congenial gathering, wherethere are no major distractions, you can offer todemonstrate a five minute psycho-analysis toany willing volunteer. This can be done at a din-ner table or sprawled around the living room-the more casual the circumstance the better. In-sist upon the lighthearted nature of the experi-ment. Do not try to drag in occult overtones.Tell the rest of the party that they can partici-pate also as long as they keep quiet, and wait

Past Uoes Raisiteil | 173

until afterward to share their own experiences.Tell the volunteer that he need simply sit backand listen while you present to him the outlineof an imaginary journey, markud by variousstages, all of which can yield to psychologicalinterpretations which you will describe liater.

1. Tell the volunteer to imagine that he is in awood. Ask him what sort of wood it is (i.e. darkand menacing, light and cheery, deciduous orevergreen, etc.). Ask him what season it is.What he can see as he looks around. Then askhim how he feels about being there in the wood.Is he happy? Intimidated? Anxious?

(What invariably happens is that the imagerybuilds up with such strength that you will notneed to "lead" the person at all, just ask himquestions so that you can get a good idea ofwhat he is seeing.)

2. Tell him that there is a path stretching be-fore him. Again, get him to describe the path.

3. As he now walks along this path tell himthat he finds a key lying on the ground beforehim. Get him to pick this up and describe it, asbefore.

4. Further along he finds a ctrp. Question asbefore.

5. Further still he comes to a clearing in themiddle of which is a massive bear-and an ex-tremely menacing one. Tell him that he has toget to the other side somehow. Get him to de'scribe how he will do this, in any way that he

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174 | Ivlagical Gatanays

wants.5. He then comes to a body of water. eues-

tion as before. Ask him how he plans to getacross it.

7. On the other side is a wall which he sooncomes to. It stretches from one side of the worldto the other, as far as the eye can see. proppdagairct it is a ladder. Get the volunteer to climbthe ladder and describe what he sees on theother side.

End of party game.Now insist at this point that the interpreta-

tions which you will grve are for fun only (andthey are), and most certainly not to be taktsn se-riously.

Thus the wood will represent hbw the volun-teer views his life at the moment-<heery orscary, dark or delightful, wintry or in full sum-mer. The path through it a symbol of how hesees his own progress, whether this is viamuddy twists and turns, getting nowhere, or ona broad dry path. The key is a symbol of theego-small or massive, bright or dull. The cup,a symbol of the emotional state. How a persondeals with the bear in the clearing is a symbol ofhow he tends to confront problems-head on,or sneaking around the side. The body of wateris a symbol of the sex drive. The wall on theother side is a symbol of death, and of what aperson might expect to see on the other side.

It cannot be emphasizd too strongly here

:

t:

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Past Uos Revisited | 175

that this is a lighthearted game, no more, bestdone among friends after a few glasses of wine.When the Welsh Poet David Annwn did this tome ruuily years ago (and this is always a one-ofO my key was a massive device, bigger than abazooka, which I could scarcely lift; my crrpwas a filthy cracked affarr, disgusting inside; Ihid from the bear and skirted around i$ mybody of water was a massive, seething lake,boiling with ichthyosaurii and other primitivecreatures, which I crossed on the smallest ofboats while giving Tarzan calls; but beyond thewall I saw ... marvelous things.

It is a liaugh, no more (and what is wrongwith that?); but after you've played this game afew times you can get a real sense of the possi-bilities behind true magical path-workings,such as you might find tnThe Shining Patlabyhlores Ashcroft-Nowicki, which is effectivelyan experiential exploration of the Tree of Lifeusing its deepest symbolism. You can then goon with some confidence to fashion somethingfor yourself that may or may not involve others-As will happen with such maglc, the effective-ness of this party game develops:ls you think ofthe best ways to put it across to each person. Nogood reading from a script. No goodbeing pon-derous or pompous. Do it with friends, for thefriendliest of purposet and work your magiclikewise.

The true disciplines of maglc are never €r$/,

lfr$

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176 | Magical Gatantayo

as I've said time and time again, but there is noreason why we should not have a little funalong the way. And if you can't occasionallylearn to poke fun at yourself, then don't evenbother making the journey inward.

i

I

Conclusion

By now you will have within your grasP the es-

sential techniques which form the backbone ofthe Western Magical Tradition as it has existedfor most of this century and a little before. Youcan banish unpleasant atrnospheres, Punfyplaces of working, build patterns in your auraind create gates into other dimensions. Yourtask now is to use these techniques and improveupon them, thus making sure that this sarneTradition in a century's time has gone on atleast a few steps. Never get bogged down bydogma, or timidity; set no limits on your imagp-

nation. Work your magic with all the passion,elegancen and basic human decency that youcan conunand.

777

Appendix

E

w

Figure 16.

179

180 | Magical Gatanays

This is just one inteqpretation of the Tree as ar-ranged on the circle-cross. The Spheres of theMiddle Pillar are held to form a central axiswith Tiphereth at the center and, if we imaginethat we are looking down upon a sphericalshape, Kether at the top pole with Yesod at thebottom. Malkuth is the whole thing in itself.

There are other variations of course, but thisis one of the least inelegant. One of the vari-ations would hold to the above pattern but addMalkuth with Binah; Kether with Hod andGeburah; Tiphereth in the south with Chock-mah; and Yesod to the west. Choose for your-self.

KetherMundaneChakraArchangelGod-NameMagicallmage

ColorSymbols

ChockmahMundaneChakraArchangelGod-NameMagicallmageColorSymbols

BinahMundaneChakraArchangelGod-NameMagicallmageColorSymbols

ChesedMundaneChakraArchangelGod-NameMagical ImageColorSymbol

GeburahMundaneChakraArchangelCod-NameMagical ImageColorSymbols

Appmdix 1781

MetatnrnEheiehThe face of a bearded patriarchshowninprofileBrillianceThe point within a circle, the node ofthe cosmic lemniscate, the crown

ThezodiacRatzielJehovah, Yahweh, Yod He Vau HehA bearded male figure, full faceIridescent gray,flecked with lightThe straight line, the phallus, the rod

SaturnTzaphkielJehovahElohimA mature womanBlack,darkhuesThecup,thelamp

JupiterTsadkielEIA benevolent kin g enthronedBlueThe square, the cornucopia, laughter

MarsKhamaelElohimGiborA sternkingin his chariotRedThe scourge, the sword, the pentagon

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1.82 | Mngtcal Gatamys

TipherethMundaneChakraArchangelGod-NameMagicallmage

ColorSymbols

NeEadrMundaneChakraArchangelGod-Name

*ff"ImaseSymbols

HodMundane ChakraArchangelGod-NameMagical ImageColorSymbols

YesodMundaneChakraArchangelGod-NameMagical ImageColorSymbols

MalkuthMundane ChakraArchangelGod-Name

Hff"ImageSymbols

TheSunMichaelfehovahAloahvaDaasAdrild,apriest-king,asacrificed godSalmon-pinh sold fl eckedThehexdgram]therose

VenusAuriel|HVHTzavoosA beautiful, naked femaleEmeraldThe girdlg the seven-pointed star

MercuryRaphaelElohimTzavoosA hermaphroditeOrange-yellowThe caduceus, the serpent

TheMoonGabrielShaddaiel ChaiimA powerful, naked manViolet-blueThecup,themirror

EarthSandalphonAdonaihaAretzA crowned queen (Nature)Citrine, oliv6, russet, blackSandals, thealtar

Useful Books

Books often seem to have their own innatepower to make themselves aPPear when wened them. They come looking forus, even if weare completely unaware of thern. Even so, wecan give a few suggestions for worthwhile fur-ther reading.

The Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune is stillthe best book ever written on that subject."Dion Forfune" was the pen name of a womanwho died in't946, and whose importance as awriter, magician, and visionary is only now be-ing recognized. Her two novels The SeaPriestess

and Moon Magic are without cornpare, andteach more about real magic than most techni-cal books can ever hope to achieve. Amongmany other books she also wrote that curiousand often intensely beautiful book Psychic StA-Defence, which is more a magical autobiogra-phy than anything else, and which gives nu-merous practical methods of Proven effective-ness.

183

184 | Magical Gatalays

Those people who would like to go furtherinto the QBL itself should read W.G. Gray's Lad-der of Lights,which looks at the Tree from a com-pletely different angle, and which is appropri-ately subtitled l&bbalah Renwata. And pavidG odwin's excell ent Cabalistic Ency clopedia pr o-vides a dictionary of Cabalism as understoodand inteqpreted by the various Hermetic socie-ties of the West.

Israel Regardie's Foundations of PracticalMagic contains his long essay 'The Art of TrueHealing" which gave the first exposition of theMiddle Pillar Exercise. While The Magician-His Training and Work by W.E. Butler has an at,mosphere all its own.

In the realms of ritual magrc pure and simple,there is the immensely practicat Temple Magicby W.G. Gray againo Modern Magickby DonaldMichael Kraig, and the Ritual Magic WorAbookby Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki.

These are suggestioru only. In truth, thebooks you will most need are probably alreadymaking their cunning ways toward you-ifthey haven't already done so.

Sray IN ToucnOn the following pages you will find listed, with their cur-rent prices, somEbf ihebooks and tapes now available onrelattrd subjects. Your book dealer stocks most of these,and will stock new titles in the Llewellyn series as they be-come available.To obtain a FREE COPY of our latest full catalog of new ti-tles as they are released, iust write to the addres-s below. Ineach 80-pase catalos ser[t out bimonthlv, you will find ar-ticles, reiridivs, the litest information oriMw Age topics, alisting of news and events, and much more. It is an excitingand iiformative wav to itay in touch with the New AeEand the world. The first copy will be sent free of charge afidvou will continue receivine it as lone as vou are anhctiveinail customer. You may YubscribeTo flu fteutetlvn Neu)Timesby sendins,a$7.06 donation in the U.S.A. arid Can-ada ($2d.00 oner"seas, first class mail). Order your copy to-day!

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zOTH CENTURY MAGIC AND THE OLD RETIGIONby Alan RidrardsonThis magical reggrd details the work of two senior magp-cians{harles Seymoi.' and Ct}uistine Hartley-wittihDion Fortune's Soiietyof the Inner Light duriqi the years7937 to1939.Using juxtaposed excerp,ts from Seymour and Hartley'smagical diaries together with biographical prefuces con-taining unique insights into thebackground and nature ofthgsoci$y, Alan Richardson paints a fascinating pictureof Dion Fortune and her fellow adepts at the peak of theirmagical c,rneers.

Ortginally published as Dancers to tlu Gds, now with anew introduction and the addition of Seymour/s long es-say, 'The Old Religionf' a manual of self-initiation

-this

new editionretains Dion Fortune's "lost" novels, the past-life identities of her Secret Chiefs, and much more.04792479-5,288 pgs.,6x9,photoe $12.95

ANCIENT MAGICKS FORA NEW AGEbyAlan Richardson and Geoff HugheeWith two sets of personal magickal diaries, this book de-tails the work of magicians from two different eras. In it,you can learn what a particular magician is experiencingin this day and age, how to follow a similar path of yourown, and discover correlations to the workings of tradi-tional adepi from almost half a century ago.

The first set of diaries is from Christine Hartleyand showsthe magick performed within the Merlin Temple of theStella Matutina, an offshoot of the Hermetic Order of theGolden Dawn, in theyearsl9(M1.The ssond set is fromG-eoff !hg!o, and details his magickal work during1984S5. Although he was not at that time a member of aoyformal group, the magick he practiced was underthe sameaegrs as Hartley's. The third section of this book, writtenby Hughes, shows how you can become yonr own Priestor hiestess and make contact with Merlin.AA7il2471-9,320 pgs,6xg,illustrated $12.95

EARTH GOD RISINGbyAtan RidrardeonTbday, in an age that is witnessing the return of the God-dess on all levels, the idea of one more male deity may ap-pear to be a step backward. But along with looking toward;he feminine F** as a cure for our personal and socidills, we mus{ remerrber to invoke those forgotten andoositive aspects of out most ancient God. The Horned God

frovides tliebalane needed in this New Ag", ?Id !r9 mustbe invoked as clearly and as ardently as the Goddess towhom he is twin.This book shows how to make dirst contact with yourmost ancient potentials, as exemplifid by the Goddessand the Horndi God. Using the simplest techniques EffthGoilRsingshows how we can create our own mystery andbtiog about real magical transformations.o47E42472-7r236p"gs.,*U4xS,illustrated 99.gs

GROWING THE TREE WITHINby William GrayThe Qabalah is often considerd the basic genetic Patternof Western esotericism. When we study the Qabalah, openourselves to it and work with it as an Inner Activity, wegain wisdom that will illuminate our individual-paths toperfection. Qabalah means "ge$ing wiseo inthebroadestpossible sense.

Forrrerly titled Tlu Talking Ttu, lhis boot presenl! al ex-haustivd and systematic analysis of the 22 Paths of the Treeof Life. It indudes a detailed and comprehensive studyofthe symbolism of the Tarot cards in which author WilliamGr"y pr€sents a viable yet unorthodox method of allocat-ingihe Maior Arcana to the Paths. Of particularinterest ishii attempt at reaching a better understanding of the na-ture of thi English alphabet and its correspondence to theTree of Life.A$7il2-268-3,468pgs.,6x%illustrated $14.95

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GODWIN'S CABALISTIC ENCYCLOPEDIAby David GodwinThis is the most complete correlation of Hebrew and E^g-lish ideas ever offered. The practicing Cabalist or studentno longer needsaccess to alargenumberof books on mys-ticism, magic and the occult in order to trace down the ba-sic meanings, Hebrew spellings, and enumerations of thehundreds of terms, words, and names that are included inthis book.Included are: all of the two-letter root words found in Bib-lical Hebrew, the many n€unes of God, the planets, the as-trological signs, nurnercus angels, the Shem ha-Mephorash, the Spirits of the Getia, the correspondencesof the 32 Paths, a cbmparison of the Tarot and th-e Cabala, aguide to Hebrew pronunciation, and a complete edition ofAleister Crowley's valuable book Sqlur Sqhiroth.Here is a book that is a must for the shelf of all Magicians,Cabalists, Astrologers, Tarot students, Thelemites, andthose with any interest at all in the spiritual aspects of ouruniverse.0a792-2924,58p9s.,6x9 S15.00

THE GOLDEN DAWNby Israel RegardieThe Original Account of the Teachings, Rites and Ceremo-nies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as re-vealed by Israel Regardie, with further revision, expan-sion, and additional notes by Regardie, Cris Monnastre,and others.

Also included are initiation ceremonies, important ritualsfor consecration and invocatiory methods of meditationand magical working based on the Enochian Tablets, stud-ies in the Tarot, and the system of Qqbalistic Correspon-dences that unite the world's religions and magical tradi-tions into a comprehensive and practical whole.

This volume is designed as a study and practice curricu-lum suited to both group and private practice<ne of themost complete encyclopedias of Western Magick.0475/;2463{,840 p9s,6xg,illustrated $19.95

A GARDEN OF POMEGRANATESby Israel RegardieWtrat is the Tree of Lifie? It's the ground plan of theQabalistic system+ set of symbols used since ancienttimes to study the Universe. The Tree of Life is a geometri-cal arrangernent of ten sephiroth, or spheres, each of whichis associa-ted with a different archetypal idea, and?2pathswhich cpnnect the spheres.

AGarilenof Pomegratules combines Regardie's own studieswith his notes on the works of Aleister Crowley, A.E.Waite, Eliphas I-evi and D.H. lawrence. \o longer isthewisdorn olthe Qabalah to be held secret!The needs of to-day place the burden of growth upon each and every Per-son+ach has to undertake the Path as his or her own re-sponsibility, but every help is grven in the most ancientahd yet most modern teaching here known to humankind.087'il2490-5,160p9s.,5-714i8 $8.95

THE MIDDLE PILLARby Israel RegardieBetween the iwo outer pillars of the Qabalistic Tree of Life,the extremes of Mercland Severity, stands 'The MiddlePillar," signifying one who has achieved equilibrium inhis or her own self.

Integration of the human personality is vital to the cun-tinuance of creative life. Without it, man lives as an out-sider to his own true self. By combining Magic and Psy-chology in the Middle Pillar Ritual/Exercise (a magicalrneditation technique), we bring into balance the opposingelements of the psyche while yet holding within their es-senc€ and allowing full expression of man's entire being.

In this book, and with this practice, you will learn to: un-derstand the psyche through its correspoldences on theTree of Lifu; &pand self-awareness, thereby inlensifyingthe inner growth process; activate creative and intuitivepotentials; understand the individO4 _thogght patternswtrictr control evety facet of personal behavior; regain thesense of balance and peace of mind that everyone needs forphysical and psychic health.-o+izgzssS-{,176pgs.,*ll4x8

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MODERN MAGICKby Don KraigMdem ningi&is the most comprehensive step-by+tep in-troduction to the art of ceremonial magic ever offered. Theeleven lessons in this book will guide you fiom the easiestof rituals and the construction of your magickal toolsthroughthe highest forms of magick: designingyour ownrituds and doing pathworking. Along the way you willlearn the secrets of the Kabbalah in a clearand easy-to-un-derstand maruler. You will also discover the true secrets ofinvocation (channeling) and evocation, and the missinginformation that will finally make the ancient gnrrcires,suchas the IGys of Sabmon, not only comprehensible, butusable. Mdern Magick is the perfect guidebook for stu-dents and classes. It will also help to round out the knowl-edge of long-time practitioners of the magickal arts.O$7il2324€,6ffi pgs.,6xg,illustrated S14.95

SIMPLIFIED MAGICby Ted AndrewsThe qualities for accelerating an individual's growth andspiritual evolution are innate, but even those who recog-nize such potentials need an effective means of releasingthem. The ancient and mystical Qabala is that mean$.

A person does not need to become a dedicated Qabalist inorder to acquire benefits from the Qabala. Simplifd Mngicoffers a simple understanding of what the Qabala is andhow it operates. It provides practical methods and tech-niques so that the energies and forces within the systemand within ourselves can be experienced in a manner thatenhances growth and releases our greater potential. ztr eadq knowing ab wlutety nothing ab out tlu Qabala could ryplythe rutlnds in thisbookwith naticeabb success!

The Qabala is a system for personal attainment and magicthat anyone can learn and put to use. The secret is that thernain glyph of the Qabal4 theTree of Life, is adtlrin you. Bylearning the Qabala you will be able to tap into the Tre'slevels of consciousness, and bring peace, healing, power,love,light and magic into your life.0S7542-015-X,208 pgs., mass markeb illustrated fE.gS

ARCHETYPES ON THE TREE OF LIFEby Madonna ComptonTheKabbalisticTreof Life is theageless mystiel map tothe secrets of the Universe. By working with its 10 circularpaths and ?2lfuiear ones, you can find answers to life'smost prcfound q3restions. By mapping archetypes on theTree, you can trac€ mythological and religious themes aswell as those synrbols that stir the psyche on deep innerlevels. It can help bring out your latent powers and de-velop your full potential.Arefuyp on the Tre af L{z symbolically examines the

and uses of the 22 paths based upon their corre-spondences with the Tamt trumps and Hebrew letters.The first haff of the book is a scholarly approadt to deci-phering the ardretypal symbols behind the etiology of theHebrew letters, names and numbers. The second half isdesigned to enhance creativity and intuition throughmeditations and exercises that bring the material alive inthe reader/s subconscious.087W2-tHr336pge.rsxgrillustrated $12.95

A I(ABBAIJ\H FOR THE MODERN WORTDby Migene Gonzalez-WipplerIf you have ever been intimidated by the Kabbalah in thepast, and never studied itsbeauty,this isthebodkforyou.It clearly and plainly explains the complexities of the Kab-balah. This is an ideal book for newcomers to the study ofIGbbalah or mysticism and spirituality in general.

In this boolg Gonzalez-Wippler shows that the ancientKabbalists predicted the New Phpics. She goes on to dis-cuss such topics as: PliancKs Quantum Theory, G_od andLight, Ardretypes, Synchrcnicig, the Collective Uncon-scious, the Lemaitre 'tsig Bang" Theory, Einstein's Th*ryof Relativityand much more.

A l<nbb alnh for tle MoilernWorld unites psychology, physicsand Western mysticism in such a dearly written form thatit makes omplex lGbbalistic ideas easyto,understand.087il2-29&.I,255pgs.,5-1l4xS,illugtrated $0.95

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THE NEW GOLDEN DAWN RITUAL TAROT DECKby Sandra Tabatha CiceroThe original Tanct deck of the Hermetic Order of theGolden-Dawn has been copied and interpretqd qanytimes. While each deck has its own special flair, TlvNeatGolilcn Dawn Ritual T arot Deck may well pe the most impor-tant new Tarot deck for the 1990s and beyond.

From its inception 100 years ago theGolden Dawn contin-ues to be the authority on the initiatory and meditativeteachings of theTarot.-Now, for the first time ever, a deckincorpdrates not only the traditional Tarot imaggs brrt-"l*all ofihe temple symbolism needed for use in the GoldenDawn rituals. Thil is the first deck that is perfuct both fordivination and for ritual work.

Meditation on the Mapr Arcana cards can lead to a light-ning flash of enlightenment and spiritual understandingin tf,e Western mlgickal tradition. TluNew Golden DawnRitt;tal Tarot Deck was encouraged by the late IsraelRegardie, and it is br anyone who wants a reliable Tarotdeck that follows the Western magickal tradition.047il2-138-5,79<,atcldeck&booklet $24.95

THE TEMPLE OF ISIS ECY?TIAN TAROT DECKby IshbelThere are many Tarot decks on the market today, buj ac-cording to Ishbel, the original Egyptian tarot predatesthem all. This deck features the actual cards used by theEgyptians in CI00 B.C. The 22Ma1or Arcana cards depicttlid ictual Egyptian deitie$-you will magrca!1 se thebrces that determine your destiny. The 56-card Minor Ar-cana is composed of both picture and number cards.

Is someone working magic against you? Can you gain theaffections of the per-son of your dreams? Use these cards todiscrcver the answers to these and any other questions.

You will also learn to incorporate the Tarot with numerol-ogy, how to explore the ten levels of the Egypian-Tree ofLIfu, and how tb recognize the Egypian Tarot as the fore-mnner of all modern Tarot decks.0{7542-333-7,78.<ard deck &booklet $lll.gs

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