I’ve been thinking about this tweet since Jack Chanek sent it the other day. (I don’t know his work, but I’ve been dipping my toes into the world of online occultism for the first time in a decade, and so discoveries abound.) I said in reply that I don’t think the gods necessarily perceive us temporally, at least in the way we do. I’m sure the observation was prompted by the fact we’re entering the dying end of the year, and one of the things I had in mind happened around this time of the year too. I thought it worth remembering.
I’ll leave the people I’m talking about anonymous, though anyone who has been around London occultism for a while will probably recognise it. The story isn’t about the personalities, though, really – whether important or little-known – but about what ritual can do.
It’s just a house, I tell myself – one of those tall, imposing Victorian affairs in North London. It’s 2004 and I’m nervous. It’s before Google Maps – I used to carry around a pocket A-Z and addresses scribbled on scraps of paper – and I’m early. I’d been invited, along with my initiators, to a Gnostic Mass to be held at the home of a well-known but discreet couple who had been performing it privately for many years; both would at that point already be over seventy years old. I like to be on time: it’s courteous, and respects other people’s time as equally important to your own. (It is also a rare quality among occultists.) In fact, because I’m nervous, I’m early, which is nearly as bad as being late. Knowing where the house is, I find a place nearby to sit and drop into some meditative breathing, the anchor of my daily practice then and now. Despite the chill in the air I can feel my shoulders relax, smell the woodsmoke on the breeze.
Yes, it’s just a house. Writing nearly two decades later I’m more aware of how much postwar occultism depended on domestic spaces like that: detached, or with thick enough walls and big rooms, which might be given over, semi-permanently, to ritual work. Twist the perspective a bit and it could be something out of a horror flick, or a Sunday tabloid exposé: the ingenuous neophyte lured into obscene rites hidden behind the doors of a house just like yours – or your neighbours’. So many magical groups owed their persistence to the simple fact they had somewhere suitable and guaranteed for regular meetings – it’s hard to resist a comparison between witches’ covens and ancient clandestine house churches. (You might write a parallel history of chaos magic and squatting, too.) Some of the initiations I would take in the following years would be in very grand settings, or outdoors in some secret place, but by far the majority – and some of the most significant – would be conducted behind unassuming doors like this.
Nervousness is often excitement wedded to risk. To understand why I was excited you have to understand something of the way the occult community in Britain worked back then: a variety of public or semi-public discussion groups, social events or beginners’ classes with various groups – publicly admitted and less so – hovering in the background. There was an elaborate dance of hinting and nudging, of feeling out and testing, and (sometimes) waiting for someone to have the courage to ask. It gave the sense that there was a lot going on behind the curtain; I’d say in retrospect that perception both was and wasn’t true. I was very young, but assiduous in my own personal work, and I had taken my first initiation; I was active in lots of the public email groups and social ‘scene’ – but this felt like the first invitation into a more guarded and trusted part of the community. I wanted to be worthy of it, and I wanted to impress; that was the risk. Thus the nerves.
Max Ernst, Rose de Noël (c. 1965)
I’d also been intensely interested in the Gnostic Mass itself for a couple of years, though I had no interest in the OTO. It is a beautiful and powerful ritual, subtly patterned and constructed. I’d used portions of its invocations in other rituals, meditated on its structure to try to understand it better. I though I knew and understood the powers involved, but I would be surprised that evening.
It turned out I didn’t have to go in alone: I met my initiators (through whom the invitation had come) just down the road from the house. Here’s a measure of how much I wanted to make a good impression: I’d been told to bring a robe, but the instructions were otherwise vague. So – in a move almost parodically in keeping with my Virgo ascendant – I’d hand-washed and ironed both my black and my white robe, and folded both carefully in my bag. (It turned out black was the order of the day.) A benefit of long spiritual practice has been to ease, even if only slightly, this somewhat neurotic tendency to overprepare; it is also why I had to spend a bit longer than most novices mastering the apparently elementary practice of relaxation. We robed and we were led into the temple.
Have you ever had your consciousness changed just by walking into a room? It happens. Some of it is just what the psychonauts call ‘set and setting’, sure: the rising haze of incense smoke, the light of candles, the two pillars and the diaphanous veil hanging between them. But sometimes walking into a room in which magic has been practiced regularly can be like opening the door on a hot oven. Do magic in a room for long enough and the brickwork gets haunted. You might have felt like that when someone starts an invocation and something plunges through the long run of your spine, and pulls at the back of your neck. It was like that that night.
Before that evening a friend had said to me ‘well, they’re getting on a bit – don’t be surprised if they can’t quite pull it off any more.’ How short-sighted and arrogant youth can be. At the start of the ritual, the priest comes forth from the tomb, as if dead: it is the priestess who will restore him to life. He says: ‘I am a man among men. How should I be worthy to administer the virtues to the Brethren?’ Those words have particular resonances in Crowley’s magical system, but they chime differently when spoken by a man in his mid-70s emerging from the grave – called out of the tomb by the voice of a priestess with whom he has built a practice over decades, whose voice must be more familiar to him than his own. Age makes the combination of frailty and strength in that question more apparent. Just the length of any life, with its inevitable alloy of failure and success, adds gravity to its simple premise: I am a man among men. True rituals, you might say, make meaning in excess of their authors’ intentions.
Participating in a ritual in which one has, apparently, nothing to do can sometimes be difficult. It requires cultivating generous and absorbed attention to the action, a ‘presentness’ that almost every contemporary cultural imperative pushes against. I found no difficulty, though, because I was transfixed by the priest and priestess: the Mass depends on that current of intensity between them, a basis, a kind of tuning note for the powers they are bringing down. But I was also seeing something else, an intimacy at once public and yet inaccessible to anyone else in the room, at times as if there was no-one else in the temple.
Crowley doubtless envisaged his priest and priestess younger, perhaps more obviously virile or stereotypically buxom. His erotic imagination tended toward the cliche. As the ritual continues, the priestess is seated on the altar behind a veil – in this case a sheer gauze – and she disrobes as the priest makes his invocation, justly famous and beautiful:
O circle of Stars whereof our Father is but the younger brother, marvel beyond imagination, soul of infinite space, before whom Time is Ashamed, the mind bewildered, and the understanding dark, not unto Thee may we attain, unless Thine image be Love. Therefore by seed and root and stem and bud and leaf and flower and fruit do we invoke Thee.
It’s hard to account for the sublimity of that moment. She was regal behind the veil, absolutely beautiful, and I was absorbed, certain I was in the presence of a mystery. We use words that aren’t really precise to describe that moment – overshadowing, presence – but as she recited the exultant invocation in reply I found myself profoundly moved: ‘I am the blue-lidded daughter of sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky. To me! To me!’
Part of what moved me was the age of her body: marked by time and age and work, the kind of body usually invisible, disliked, undesired enthroned on the altar. It recast all those words of sensual ecstasy – the naked brilliance, the voluptuous, the daughter, all pleasure and purple – which alway risk being bywords for instrumental personal gratification. I felt afterwards like a constellation of words and their meanings had slipped their shackles, expanded and rearranged themselves.
I want to be precise, because it was this moment that has been on my mind. The divine beauty I perceived was not a brief image of the beauty of youth emerging as a trace through an aged body, as if to redeem the fact of age. It was instead a beauty particular to, constituted by, age, and – importantly – no less sensual because of it. As a very young adult, it displaced and refashioned what I thought about beauty and the body, a matter of particular struggle for a young gay man. All that stood unrealised and unexpressed but dawning when I stood before that altar just a little later and declared, feeling the depth of the words with new meaning: there is no part of me that is not of the gods.
*
After the rite, we ate and drank together, with much conversation among longstanding friends and – yes – some occult luminaries. I’m sure I was intensely earnest as I often was back then. I was so worried, so often, that people wouldn’t see how seriously and sincerely I took things. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was also in the foothills of a serious spiritual crisis of the kind sincere young people sometimes go through. Part of that was wondering how to do what I wanted to do in the world, while also maintaining a spiritual life – given the social and professional taboos involved in open practice. Another part was the realisation – which I was running from – that the initiatory route I was taking was one I didn’t want. That what was calling me was elsewhere. There were other contingent factors, too boring and personal to write about here.
I don’t know whether the priestess saw this in me, intense and serious as I must have been. I know now that these things are often more visible to others than one expects. Later in the evening, she took me into the temple and put into my hand the sword that had been used in the ritual, one that had been passed down from a founder of one of her magical traditions. It is again hard to describe the meaning of that small gesture, which was one of trust and kindness, freely given. I realised then, and it remained true in all the consternation of the following years, as now, that my commitment to the mysteries was absolute. That remained true even when doubting my place in them, or the tradition I found myself in. That there was nowhere I would rather be, that it felt as right, as familiar and solid, as that sword in my hand.
I never got to thank either priestess or priest properly for that evening. Both now are dead, though their legacy continues. It’s hard, really, to know how I could have done so adequately. I hope this short note also goes some way to conveying my gratitude.
Meditation is recommended by Denning and Phillips at various points in their work, but it is rarely emphasised as a foundational practice. This short addition to the Steps of the Foundation series of posts is a reflection on the role it has played for me in practice, and gathers some of the scattered references to meditation in the published Ogdoadic material. For the aspiring magician, meditation has three functions: one using the trained meditative mind to unfold and integrate texts and symbols; another, developing the skills of concentration, openness and focus needed in ritual magic; another, in ‘mystical’ meditation, a transformation and illumination of the spirit.
One word, many meanings
We should briefly think about the word ‘meditation’ itself, which can sometimes be an unhelpful one, summoning images of a saffron-clad monk turning his mind off, with the gentle chime of temple bells and a curling plume of incense. Successive generations of occult teachers bear responsibility for this, as they sought to supplement what they perceived as a badly degraded western tradition with techniques derived (sometimes badly mangled) from esoteric Buddhism. In fact, as we will return to later, sublime noetic silence is not unknown in the west: being ‘alone with the alone’ was greatly desired by later Platonists and their inheritors. But an emphasis on total mental silence misrepresents the range of meditative practices in Indian and Tibetan sources, and obscures the shades of meaning the word possessed in European thought. In Crowley’s system, responsible for much of this overemphasis in 20th century magical culture, it is combined with a range of pointless if characteristic exercises in sadism. The aim in elementary meditative practices is not to achieve non-thought, but to concentrate one’s thought and attention – with minimal deviation or wandering – on an object, principle, symbol, or to achieve (as far as possible) mental dwelling purely in the single present moment. These are achievable goals. The ability to return at will to this ‘still point of the turning world’ is a very helpful one in magic.
In the long span of European spiritual thought, ‘meditation’ usually meant bringing the mind to bear on an appropriate object. Some Stoics, certainly, knew something like it; Christian scriptural devotion works in a similar way. The form of mental attention intended is not excessively rational, nor the mental recitation of material got by rote – involving instead a calm pursuit of chains of association, allowing the intuition to descend and guide the reflection. (To use the jargon of western magic, the desire is that the ruach is guided by the neshamah.) In appendices to each volume in the first edition of The Magical Philosophy, Denning and Phillips give a series of exercises using flashing tablets as a means of developing this skill; these exercises are condensed into a single brief reference in the combined edition’s guide to practice. They recommend the absolute beginner construct tablets for Jupiter and Mars, and meditate on these for a week each, in succession. (Note here the very strong emphasis, very early on, on balance between the powers, a theme repeated through the Aurum Solis material.) The exercise can be repeated for all seven planetary powers, and then go well beyond them. I have conducted sequences of meditations on traditional magical images, the Major Arcana (fairly regularly), as well as texts – including ritual speeches, but also highly allusive alchemical texts and passages of the Corpus Hermeticum.
This form of meditation, sometimes called discursive meditation by modern magicians, is a great boon. Some distinctions ought perhaps to be made: direct meditation on a power, though not an invocation itself, will bring some kind of contact with it. It is not unusual to feel one’s concentration ‘picked up’ and recognised by that power – the feeling is unmistakable though difficult to describe, and can come with an overwhelming jolt of emotion or mental disposition suitable to that power. Sometimes one feels a symbol unfolding itself to the mind: thus some magical groups give students specific symbolic meditations to foster deeper connection with its egregore. Defects in mental attention are more noticeable and more easily corrected than when trying to silence the mind altogether; love for the ever-creative perceiving mind and a gentle but unswerving return to the object will develop the skill much more securely than brutalising the body.
There is, however, another form of meditation in western spiritual traditions, strikingly similar to some yogic practices. This is the use of certain psycho-spiritual techniques – visualisation, repetition of divine names or prayers, withdrawal from the senses – to encounter the divine light. This mystical, or contemplative, form of meditation seems to have been discovered and rediscovered – or transmitted – among diverse spiritual traditions, often upsetting more conventionally religious practitioners whenever it broke out. The Aurum Solis technique of ‘Rising on the Planes’, given in a little-discussed section of Mysteria Magica, may produce an analogous effect. But one of the most potent forms of this meditation was publicly outlined in one of Denning and Phillips’s mass-market New Age paperbacks – effectively powerful little bits of occultism dressed up in voguish ‘80s pop jargon. They called it, with a nod to its origins, the Tabor Formulation. We will return to this crucial form of meditation below.
The ’70s have a lot to answer for.
Two further points on the question of ‘East’ and ‘West’. There has long been a scholarly movement questioning the usefulness of the ‘western’ in ‘western esotericism’. Certainly in a time when all sorts of claptrap about innate ethnic spiritual traditions gets smuggled in under the name of esotericism, it is useful to stress that esoteric thinkers in the west have often looked to sources they perceived as older and outside their culture for wisdom – Chaldaeans, Arabs, Indians or Tibetans. If it is still cogent to talk about western esotericism – and I think it is – then it is a tradition that is highly porous, often hungry for wisdom from elsewhere and just as often disclaiming the sources of that wisdom.
On that note, though, I believe there are great benefits for magicians in engaging in some of the basic Indian and Tibetan meditative techniques which have made their way to the west. So-called ‘shamatha’ or ‘shinay’ technique – sometimes called ‘calm abiding’ – is a superb foundation for any meditative exercise discussed here. Many of the Buddhist centres in Europe and the US teach introductory classes in (putatively) non-denominational formats; one London centre has a decent pair of recordings online.
But why meditate?
At the outset I suggested that meditation is an essential foundation for (this kind of) magic. Most of the reasons I gave were instrumental, e.g., that developing mental direction and focus is essential for invocation. That is, meditation is important because it allows us to do something else. This is of a piece with the graded curriculum-style approach to magical training taken by most older magical orders, which build up by deepening and expanding a set of fundamental ritual practices. They’re also structured according to certain magical-experiential landmarks, which simply recognise that – in general – repeated practice brings on experiences which, while individualised, are predictable and recurrent. My quibbles with this style of instruction aside – that it would benefit from incorporating some of the last century’s advances in pedagogy, and disliking its infinite capacity to inspire stupid competitions about ‘rank’ – it is a better start to magical practice than the consumerist pick-’n’-mix approach common today, partly because it should decentre the instincts towards consumption and immediate gratification on which much of contemporary society is based.
Meditation also has benefits in its own right. Among them is the capacity to recognise the way the individual mind moves, exercise control over it, direct it, still it or open it. It can grant awareness of the emotional manipulation common in advertising or mass media. And it can grant insight – sometimes initially painful and unwelcome – into the emotional and mental burdens, often unconscious, which pattern and sometimes warp our lives. These are especially helpful in the world of occultism, where many seekers who wash up on its shores do so injured and ill-treated, suffering and harming in turn. This is not a sneer: the world is a frequently cruel place, and often specially cruel to those who feel the yearning for spirit. Few make it into adulthood without carrying some such burden; modern occulture tends, perversely, to reward people who feign having overcome all such problems, and discourages its prominent names from talking honestly about them. The cyclically-repeating dramas which periodically tear through public-facing occultism look, with a little distance, like symptoms of just such problems. The powers of discrimination, self-possession and insight granted by meditation are significant remedies for these afflictions; I know some candidates for whom these meditative gifts turned out to be everything they needed from their initial attraction to magic, utterly transformative in themselves. They are essential for all of us, especially solitary magicians – not least in interactions with the wider occult ‘scene’, where capacity for discrimination is essential.
There is a wider point here. Denning and Phillips often write that magic is a way of freedom. That is true, and it is also a good test: if a particular practice makes one feel less free, more fearful or diminished, or a tradition demands unthinking loyalty and open wallets, then it’s probably harmful. There are nuances: sometimes binding ourselves to a discipline might make us more free, or we might give up our freedom to speak about certain things as a sign of respect and trust – but in both cases the sense ought to be that such commitments enhance, rather than diminish, our sense of agency. Freedom, however, is not always easy: the corollary of increasing agency and freedom is increasing responsibility for one’s decisions, a prospect which can initially be terrifying. But magic, even in its most highly spiritualised form, has always concerned itself with liberating the practitioner from powers which predetermine or constrain his or her life – sometimes understood as the disposition of the birth chart – and remedying their afflictions. Thus Ficino, in whom Saturn’s black flowed strongly, hung his neck with gold and danced in a secret place to the Sun.
It might be objected that none of this is magic proper, but a combination of psychological self-examination, spiritual exercise and self-improvement. Quite so. The theurgy taught in the Ogdoadic tradition combines spiritual transformation with its practical magic, a combination which recognises that one informs the other – and that combination is as ancient and venerable as disciplines which focus solely on either meditation or spirit-calling. (I stress this point because there has been much bad-tempered polemic on the issue in recent years.) The tradition also avoids the habit of some more staid schools, which insist on many years of meditative practice before engaging in practical magic at all, preferring to allow the one to develop alongside the other, thus intentionally speeding up the transformation. The speed of this transformation makes a strong meditative practice desirable: would you build a temple on shifting sand? If the personal insights and gradual transformation gained from meditation – discursive, contemplative, ‘calm abiding’ – seem less magical than the power of scrying, spirit invocation or talismanic consecration, that is fair. But it is worth stressing that almost all magical traditions incorporate such work of rectification into their earliest stages – whether elemental initiations, first degree, first hall, pronaos. To repeat: there are few skills as important and transformative as the ability to anchor oneself to the still point of the turning world.
The Uncreated Light
As Denning and Phillips give it, the Tabor Formulation proceeds very simply thus:
Stage One: Simple Breathing – Lower your gaze, fixing it upon your navel or a point in that region. Breathe in an even, gentle manner as deeply as you can without strain. If your mind wanders, as soon as you notice bring it back gently but firmly to your breathing.
Stage Two: Awareness of the Light – Entering into the second stage of the meditation, on an in-breath be aware of a nebulous radiation of golden light, which is also a radiation of love, from just below your sternum; it seems to form a luminous cloud about midway between your navel (at which you continue to gaze down) and your chin.
You don’t have to do anything about that light. Simply be aware of it, of being illuminated by it, of being loved by it. Accept that awareness; don’t think about it, don’t even try to aspire to it. Just keep on being conscious of it, and of your breathing.
Stage Three: Silent Utterance – Retaining awareness of your breathing and of the light, silently “utter” mantrams – phrases or single words – which you feel to be suited to your meditation: formulate each word distinctly in your mind, but with no vocalization or movement of the mouth. You will need two mantrams to use together, one for the in-breath and one for the out-breath. Their chief purpose is to express in brief compass something of your essential relationship with the Cosmos. It is to affirm your bond of oneness with the Cosmos: that bond in which you are sustained by the beneficence of the Whole, at the same time participating actively in the Whole. You are a living and purposing component of it, giving forth again with blessing that which you receive.
We’ll return to the question of what phrase to use below. Two very brief notes on this technique: the next post in this series will take in the Ogdoadic tradition’s method of awakening the centres, but here it’s worth noting that the solar plexus centre is distinct from the heart centre proper. It is used in psychic operations, like the formation of the astral double, but not included in the standard (middle pillar-like) rousing of the centres. That the light is first experienced through the emotional and instinctive nature governed by this centre, rather than the higher rational faculties, may chime with the chapters on the Holy Guardian Angel in Book IV of The Magical Philosophy.
Students of Christian mysticism will immediately notice the source of this technique: Hesychasm. Derived from the word ἡσυχία, meaning ‘stillness’, this internally-directed form of prayer involved psycho-spiritual techniques similar to those used by modern occultists. It flourished among Athonite monks, who silently recited the Jesus Prayer while gazing downwards, thus mocked by opponents of Hesychasm as navel-gazers. The light experienced by advanced practitioners was interpreted by Gregory Palamas as the ‘uncreated light’ seen on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. (Those interested in the occult uses of music may find it suggestive that the drone in Byzantine chant – the ison – is taken to represent the Tabor Light.) The Greek Orthodox compilation of mystical theology, the Philokalia, has extensive reflections on this practice, especially in its fourth and fifth volumes. Here it is shorn of its Christian trappings and non-denominationally ‘universalised’.
Lee Mullican, Peyote Candle (1951)
A Hermetic Hesychasm?
This might give the conscientious modern magician pause. Many of us are less confident than our predecessors that the inner technology of a method can be so easily separated from its given cultural form. Even if Christ and the Agathodaimon, for instance, are two expressions of the same solar mystery, is the ritual repertoire for one so easily transferred to the other? (In this case, at least, many ancient Orthodox writers are happy to talk about the psycho-spiritual technique as distinct from its prayerful content and orientation; this, of course, they see as a danger.) Other problems arise: the states we seek using this technique, and the manner in which we use it, are precisely those about which Orthodox thinkers are at best ambivalent – in fact, many of them would think it dangerous, irreligious and disordered. But in too ready a rejection of a thousand years of writing on this form of meditation, we risk losing some of the wisdom which can enhance our practice.
I don’t worry so much about the magpie nature of modern magic, though I try not to be an ass about it. Hermes is also the god of thieves. I am especially relaxed about adapting this practice, because I believe very similar techniques are likely to have been used by non-Christian mystics throughout the Mediterranean basin in late antiquity. The parallel is often drawn between the posture adopted by Jewish mystics ‘going down’ to the Merkava and the Hesychast gaze, but something similar is at play in Plotinian spiritual exercises as well as later Iamblichean theurgic technique. I am also absolutely certain that a similar method was used by ancient Hermetists. Consider the famous opening of the first tract of the Corpus Hermeticum, where the speaker enters a state similar to sleep, κατασχεθεισῶν μου τῶν σωματικῶν αἰσθήσεων, ‘my bodily senses suppressed’: an emphasis on withdrawal from the bodily senses also characterises early Hesychast writing. It is through this withdrawal from the outer senses that Hermes encounters a vision of limitless divine light and its shepherding mind (ὁρῶ θέαν ἀόριστον, φῶς δὲ πάντα γεγενημένα – C.H. I.4). That tract was certainly supposed to inspire recognition in its readers of meditative techniques they themselves used.
A little thought along these lines will be enough to dispel the notion that meditation is an alien graft on to western magic. In its discursive form, it was so common a spiritual practice as to be unremarkable for most of the last millennium; in its contemplative form it is recognisable in the pagan desire for henosis – union with The One – and in precious traces in hermetic and theurgic texts. It is recognisable in mystical traditions in Eastern and Western churches, though often condemned by their official authorities. Though there are certainly forms of magic which can be done without it – ecstatic forms of witchcraft, natural magic – meditation, in at least its discursive form, is a key foundation stone for modern ritual magic.
Of Words and Warnings
Discursive meditation is best brought to perfection by doing; the rest of this note focuses on contemplative meditation of the Tabor Formulation type. Denning and Phillips recommend choosing a short phrase or mantra to accompany the rhythm of the breath, and give examples: ‘Light and life fill me / I share my abundance with all’, or ‘Energy / Ecstasy!’ Both are fine as they go, though their New Age formulations now seem a little dated, and of course they would horrify an Athonite monk.
It’s always fun to horrify a monk, however hypothetical, but there might be something worth listening to as well. Hesychasts utter the Jesus prayer because their meditation is precisely that, a form of prayer. However strongly we dislike the prayer’s pleading for mercy and repeated self-identification as ‘a sinner’, it does stress the partiality and finitude of the individual – that divine presence is an act of grace, not a mark of personal power or election to sainthood. One need not share Christianity’s theology of grace to see there is something important in its emphasis on inwardly-directed humility, especially as a guard against spiritual delusion. There are two way to incorporate this insight into practice: one is to formulate the phrase more clearly as a prayer – perhaps taking inspiration from the various hymns in the Hermetica (especially CH I and XIII). Another is, simply, to adopt a humbler, more reverent attitude: not of cringing self-abasement, which is just the shadow of self-importance, but the calm joy which can come from participation in the light.
Personally, my experience of this kind of meditation includes a sense that one’s own intellectual structures are clumsy approximations of the real, a sense almost like being a little brother marvelling at an older, infinitely more complex, loving and wiser mind. So different, in fact, that even the word ‘mind’ isn’t right for it, and my phrasing here is only a partial, sublunary approximation. It’s no accident that the verb for seeing used in the Poimandres – θεάομαι – refers to a different, visionary kind of seeing; it is also the verb Plato uses for the sight of those who have left the shadow-world of the cave.
For practitioners who work with the divine powers of the Ogdoadic tradition, orienting this practice to the Agathodaimon is another potent option. A future essay will discuss the Agathodaimon more fully, but it suffices here to say that he is the solar theurgic deity par excellence, and utterly fitting for invocation in this practice. The two phrases I have used in this practice are the god’s name – ‘Knouphis / Agathodaimon’ – on in- and out-breaths, and a paired epithet derived from the wider tradition: ‘who comes forth as the phoenix / who shines as the morning star’.
Wash the Dishes, Sweep the Floor
Meditation is not magic, though it is an immensely helpful foundation for magical work. Mystical meditation of this kind should form part of a magical routine, rather than replacing it entirely. Many classic occult authors warn against merely seeking absorption in the infinite; one of the most desirable magical skills is the development, from long practice, of the ‘Janus-faced’ position of the soul, pointing both inward and outward at once. Denning and Phillips borrow that phrase from one of Ficino’s most touching letters, and though it is a skill few of us will master as a permanent state it is a key to unlocking deeper levels of practice. They were more circumspect about drawing from the treasury of writing on Hesychasm, doubtless ambivalent about its ascetic Christian disposition, there are two points from the literature useful to us.
Many Hesychasts write at length about the danger of spiritual delusion; many of them would categorise everything we do under exactly that category, if not demonic obsession. Nonetheless there are insights to be gleaned from the extensive writings on πλάνη (planê, lit. wandering), or spiritual delusion. In particular, these case studies stress cases where people have received flattering visions or intensified their spiritual regimen and begun to think of themselves as special, saintly or prophet-like. Anyone who has watched an occult group fall apart because of inflated egos or delusions of singularity will recognise these symptoms (which are sometimes associated with excessive invocation of Solar powers.) The remedy prescribed in the monastic tradition is usually a grounding, earthly kind of humility: sweeping the floors, washing the dishes, digging the garden. It’s an insightful remedy, placing us back in the body, a human among other humans.
One sign of incipient planê among occultists is an excessive intensification of the daily regime, to the detriment of other aspects of personal life. Its remedy is two-fold: first, the adoption of some volunteering work which actively benefits the living world and, ideally, exerts the body. That might be soup kitchen volunteering, given the number of homeless in our great cities, or active restoration of the natural world, given how important our changing climate is. Involvement in political movements around these issues is also an option, though many of the same risks of ego inflation attend that arena; a good remedy to that is absorption in the tiresome, dutiful service part of political work. The second aspect is the development of a strong practice of discursive meditation, through which any visions or revelations ought to be integrated into the waking mind – with detachment and compassion, understanding the powerful but personal and subjective symbols with which the living cosmos communicates.
The Philokalia lays great emphasis on the spiritual director or confessor, in the same way that many Tantric texts lay emphasis on the guru (this is not the only point of striking similarity between these two spiritual traditions – a subject for another time.) Even within traditional magical orders today such a close supervisorial relationship is rare, although admirably more common than it used to be a couple of decades ago. The practice of the magical diary, and regular examination of its entries to discover recurrent themes and patterns, partially remedies this absence – provided it is filled in honestly. Nonetheless, the decrease in serious ‘communities of practice’ means that the individual magician often has to bootstrap their own development, sometimes without trusted friends to check in with: the internet has, as ever, proven a double-edged sword in this regard. As I get a little older, I am struck by how much I return to the question of community and its relation to spiritual practice, and how surprisingly little many occultists have to say about it.
The Hesychast literature also outlines three stages of the mystical life: purification (κάθαρσις, katharsis), contemplation (θεωρία, theoria), and divinisation (θέωσις, theosis). This division is very ancient indeed, and goes back at least to Pseudo-Dionysius; the latter two stages are sometimes also called illumination (φωτισμός, photismos) and perfection (τελείωσις, teleiosis). Some later writers are keen to stress that progress between them is not linear, as if they can be checked off and forgotten, attained for all time. But initiates of many western magical traditions will recognise a common structure here: the First, Second and Third Hall initiations of the Aurum Solis and its descendant orders can be seen to map, though imperfectly, to these stages. The same, naturally, can be said of the magical work of the sefirot of the middle pillar in ascending order. Though by no means is all of it applicable, much of the literature on these stages can provide precious insight to an often neglected aspect of western occultism. It is perhaps worth noting in conclusion that the sole active inner body of the Aurum Solis before Osborne Phillips relinquished his role as grand master was explicitly oriented to the practice of theosis.
The next post in this series will return to our foundational ritual practices, with an examination of the practice of the light-body, the Clavis Rei Primae – which, in truth, sits somewhere between meditation and ritual. When I finish a session of Tabor meditation, I typically close with this adoration derived from the Hermetica, and so I do here:
O Powers within me, hymn the One and All: chant in harmony with my will, all ye Powers within me!
Holy Gnosis, illumined by thee, through thee I hymn the light of thought, I rejoice in the joy of the mind. All ye Powers, chant with me!
This is the third in a series of ‘deep dives’ into the foundational rituals of the Ogdoadic tradition. As in earlier essays, everything in here is the fruit of my own work: it is entirely unofficial. It might help to read the essay on the Calyx, especially, prior to reading this one, as it is an essential part of the Setting of the Wards of Power. Practice of the Wards represents the student’s first step into ritual proper; like the Calyx, it is a deceptively simple ritual which repays practice and contemplation.
The ritual text of the Setting of the Wards of Power (hereafter ‘Wards’) can be read on the ORS website. It is, of course, also available in Denning & Phillips’s classic presentation of the rituals of the Aurum Solis. Any half-educated magician will notice its similarities with – and perhaps its differences from – the Golden Dawn’s pentagram ritual. We will come to these. I’ve appended some practical notes on ritual performance, culled from my own diaries, to the end of this post.
On visualisation and practice
Magical visualisation is a frequent stumbling block for beginners. Many occult groups instruct the student to undertake a battery of exercises, like maintaining the mental image of a red triangle or a green square for a period of time, in order to build up the faculty. I’ve used those exercises myself: they’re helpful in developing a skill often atrophied today, but they can also be immensely (and unnecessarily) boring. If such exercises are used, they should be alongside actual ritual performance, rather than for a period of months before doing any actual magic.
Why? Visualisation is not just about the use of mental muscle, but the opening of the subtle senses. The power being invoked ought to form a feedback loop to reinforce – or even change – the visualisation. This does not obviate the need for training and developing the skill, but it does speed it along. Because visualisations can be difficult to hold, it’s also tempting to conduct much of the ritual with eyes closed, but this risks making the ritual too much a mental abstraction and weakening its effect. Even if it is useful to reinforce the visualisation with closed eyes, opening them and affirming its reality in the sensible world is a good idea before moving on to the next phase. (This may initially make the ritual slower than it would otherwise be. The skill of standing between the worlds comes with time, but it comes.)
Needless to say this is not a hard and fast rule: there are very few of those in magic. There are also techniques – pathworking, meditation, some middle pillar-like exercises, empowerment of a ritual space – which work well with closed eyes and withdrawal from the senses. But in general, the embodied and physically present form of the ritual will provide a stronger foundation should it one day become necessary to perform it with no outward sign at all. It is always best to learn through doing.
But what does it do?
Like its Golden Dawn analogue, the Wards serves as an exorcism, balancing and sanctification of place. In their notes on the ritual, Denning & Phillips write:
“The purpose of the present ritual is to demarcate and prepare the area in which the magician is to work, with astral and Briatic defenses. The ritual consists of both banishing and invocation: the four Elements having been banished from the Circle in their naturally confused and impure state, the mighty spiritual forces ruling the Elements are invoked into symbolic egregores, to become Guardians of the Circle.”
Banishing and exorcism of the place of work are de rigueur in ritual magic: the grimoires offer a proliferation of exorcisms of both elements and places. As the equal emphasis on the invocatory part of the rite suggests, this is more than just a simple sweeping of the astral floor. Just like the Calyx, there are levels to this little rite which are not obvious at first glance, and only open out through practice and reflection; though it works on the working space as described, it also works on the magician herself. There are two obvious functions of the ritual according to the quotation above: cleansing the space and defending the magician. I would add a further two: establishing a rectified and perfect miniature cosmos, and by doing so balancing and empowering the magician. These two also make it, implicitly and subtly, a ritual introduction to theurgy.
Banishing, purity and spiritual fear
Perhaps it is worth spending a little time on a modern problem. A friend who runs a prominent occult shop mentions to me that the most frequent request they get at the counter is for a spell, or a ritual, or a guide on how to purify and cleanse; browsing the magical internet, similar questions about dangerous energy, astral parasites, or ever more elaborate forms of purification are very common. Fears about maleficent spirits or curses abound, as do hawkers of expensive bits of rock or pewter offering to rid you of them. This is not new – anti-curse magic is abundant in all historical periods – but it is a little alarming that it’s so prominent, sometimes to the exclusion of much else. We live in an anxious age, but even that doesn’t suffice to explain it.
A culture (or individual) with a hypertrophied sense of purity, and a deep fear of contamination – and which thinks of all interactions with the world and with other people as an opportunity for such contamination – is a very damaged one, prey to paranoia and obsession. Perhaps some of the emphasis laid on banishing in 20th century magical curricula is responsible for this, albeit dilutely and at some remove. Tacitly received ideas about a fallen world and personal sin might also be at play, and such received ideas are harder to break with emotionally and instinctively than many believe. Of course malicious magic exists – nor is it that rare – but this is a warning against an occult version of scrupulosity, once recognised as a serious spiritual disorder. (Phil Hine has written recently and perceptively about ‘astral hygiene’ in a similar context.)
The phrase quoted above, about the ‘naturally confused and impure state’ of the elements, should not be read as articulating a moral abhorrence of the sensual world. (Denning and Phillips are clear elsewhere in rejecting that kind of cosmic pessimism.) We might think of it as being closer to chemical rather than moral purity, or that the little universe that the magician constructs in the circle represents the perfected cosmos, free of the mutability and admixture in which we usually encounter the elements. I will have more to say on the symbolic cosmos below, and return to the question of ‘the fall’ and how to think about the material world in a later piece. Briefly, ideas about impurity or fallenness describe something obviously very common in human spiritual experience – suffering the flux and reflux of the sublunary world – but the primary key in which western seekers feel this is a useless and toxic blend of guilt and shame, or (through negation) a shallow hedonic antinomianism. Neither is useful for the magician. Magic, though it has its periods of abstraction and withdrawal, ought generally involve us more in the many wonders of the world, even while ceasing to be beholden to them.
A well-executed daily practice of the Wards, then, does have clear effects on the magician as well as the space in which it’s performed. Along with the other foundational practices, it strengthens the will and thus brings to awareness our habitual, programmed or automatic behaviours – and what lies behind them. It also strengthens the intuition, which means it combines well with a daily divinatory practice. Naturally, it is very useful as an all-purpose exorcism, whether in a place haunted by terrible events or simply somewhere stress and difficulty have left an imprint. It is safe and even beneficial to practice it where you sleep, and in my experience this means a richer dream life.
On the Magic Circle
‘Nigromantic’ Magic circle with strong quaternary elements, including the names of the four demon kings of the directions. Sloane MS 3853 f.74r
The Wards bear the imprint of the Victorian occult revival, but the concept of the magic circle is far older. Scattered (and mostly ambiguous) examples of magic circles survive from the ancient world, but it is in the grimoires of medieval and early modern magic that they are most recognisable to us. A full examination of the history is beyond the scope of this essay, but there are two traits worth noticing in the older traditions. The first, and most obvious, is the stress laid on the protective function of the circle, e.g. in the preface to the English version of the Heptameron (1655): ‘they are certain fortresses to defend the operators safe from the evil Spirits.’ But the tradition also hints at why a circle is used by the magician, and these discussions present many useful avenues for deepening magical practice. The locus classicus is Agrippa, in his chapter on geometrical figures (II.xxiii):
A circle is called an infinite line in which there is no Terminus a quo, nor Terminus ad quem, whose beginning and end is in every point, whence also a circular motion is called infinite, not according to time, but according to place; hence a circular [form]1 being the largest and perfectest of all is judged to be the most fit for bindings and conjurations; Whence they who adjure evil spirits, are wont to environ themselves about with a circle.
1 – The translation here is more than usually haphazard; Agrippa’s Latin means essentially ‘the form of a circle is the best of all lineal figures’, thus my small emendation.
A scholar might detect distant echoes of Aristotle’s Physics in this passage, or perhaps the aphorisms of the medieval Book of 24 Philosophers. Most striking for magicians, though, is that Agrippa also goes on to discuss the pentagram as well as the significance of the quaternary, the ‘most firm receptacle of all Celestial powers’. This sequence of chapters is especially concerned with the resonances between microcosm and macrocosm, the secret signatures and sympathies by which magic operates. And it suggests one of the keys to the many designs for circles in the grimoire tradition, which combine the infinite symbol of the circle with the fourfold symbol of the material world – usually by cardinality of some kind, whether at quarters or cross-quarters. The circle for the infinite, the square or the cross for the material. That is, the circle itself is a miniature kosmos. (Ancient defenders of pagan theurgy also argued this about the circular design of temples: see Sallustius, Peri theon… § XV.)
Two quite distinct qualities of the practicing magician come out of the grimoire material on magical circles. Firstly, that he or she is powerful: amplified by standing inside a living symbol the magician can call up – or down – Agrippa’s ‘Celestial powers’. But, second, that he or she is vulnerable: that those powers may harm, obsess, derange as much as heal, transform or enlighten. The juxtaposition of these qualities reveals a truth: magical practice involves a risky opening of the self to the cosmos; the openness that makes us vulnerable is also the route through which power comes and spirits are called. One goal of magical training is to cultivate and direct this openness while learning to protect against its risks. But at its core is that openness and vulnerability: magic that risks nothing achieves nothing. The second power of the magician is to dare.
Agrippa is often a useful prompt for meditation, but is also a useful because Victorian occultists often turned to him when developing their grand and sometimes unwieldy magical syntheses. Much of the foundation material for modern ceremonial magic was drawn from Agrippa’s own early modern synthesis. Transmission of this kind is usually textual, but one might also speculate about the impact of the illustrations in De Occulta Philosophia. A few pages on from our quotation above, a reader will find a mysterious and evocative illustration in the chapter on the human body (II.xxvii), which combines the circle, the quaternary and a human being wielding pentagrams in both hands. Did this image linger in the minds of the eventual redactors of the Golden Dawn’s pentagram ritual, who must have stared at it, entranced, under the lamplight in the reading room at the British Museum?
Ritual Roots
Like the Golden Dawn’s pentagram ritual, the Wards maintains the defensive and symbolic aspects of the magic circle mentioned above, but adds to it techniques of mental concentration, visualisation and vocalisation. Whereas before the symbols and divine names may simply have been drawn on the floor, these rituals ‘activate’ them through the magician’s body, in a way very typical of late Victorian occultism and its 20th century descendants. (I’ve written about this before, and noted that in the earliest extant GD manuscripts these inner techniques are absent; whether they were passed mouth-to-ear or developed a little later I leave to the reader’s judgement.) The centrality of these techniques puts the rituals of the 20th century Aurum Solis and the Ogdoadic tradition firmly in the mainstream of post-Victorian revival magic – just like the Stella Matutina, the A∴A∴, initiatory Wicca and many others.
Is this, then, just the pentagram ritual with the serial numbers filed off, gussied-up in Greek drag? No: it draws influence from other sources, and includes significant changes to the structure and function of the ritual. For instance, the flinging of the pentagrams into the quarters suggests the influence of Crowley’s Star Ruby (first published 1913 but known to most magicians from 1929’s Magick in Theory and Practice.) Unlike many ceremonial magicians of their period, Denning and Phillips do not share the dislike for Crowley common among their peers; their mentions are rarely overt but are complimentary. Other influences on the implicit cosmology of the wards – explored below – allow us to date this recension, at least, to the mid-20th century. (This is not a suggestion that the predecessor occult societies to the Aurum Solis did not exist; I am fairly certain they did.)
That is what textual criticism tells us, what of magical experience? I have already indicated some of the rite’s beneficial effects, but it also feels subjectively distinct from the pentagram ritual. The two have a similar effect in clearing the space, of course. But the cosmogonic symbolism is stronger in the Wards: it is a ritual drama creating a symbolically complete universe in miniature, a form common to many diverse spiritual traditions. In particular the interplay between the body of the magician as the axis mundi, the medium through which magical work happens and link between above and below, is much more strongly emphasised in the Wards. Unlike the pentagram ritual, the Wards is not modular: the tradition uses other methods for elemental invocation. It does, however, teach a great deal of basic ritual structure and regular practice will help develop an intuitive sense of fitness about other rites. With every performance of the rite, the magician recreates his universe, stepping out of linear time into the circular time of ritual; it is a daily practice of rectification of the microcosm. This symbolic balancing invokes real powers, which act on both the magician and the space in which the rite is performed.
N.B.: When magicians talk of the symbolic we do not mean it in the sense common today, as the opposite of actual or real. In a tradition that stretches as far back as Iamblichus, symbols are living things, connected in secret bonds, and magic of all kinds depends on their use. For us, the world is alive with powers and connections, and much of the art of magic is learning how to use those symbols to connect to the forces they embody: the world is a great, living theophany. We might easily understand the pentagram or the circle as symbols, but in this sense so too are the colours, scents, stones and names used in magic. Ancient magicians sometimes called them συνθήματα, sunthemata. In modern magic there are also special symbols which connect the magician to the powers of a particular tradition. The Tessera, which sits on the altar of every Ogdoadic magician, is one such symbol.
The Wards as Cosmogonic Ritual
Let us think about the Wards as a cosmic drama. First the magician empowers and orients himself with the Calyx. The tracing of the circle of mist recalls the infinite pre-creation waters – the deep – common to ancient myths. The circle itself is, of course, a symbol of infinite potentiality. The Greek invocation that follows is of two ancient images generative cosmic potential, recalling Orphic myths and, implicitly, the White Goddess and Black God of the Ogdoadic tradition. Then, in each quarter, the pentagram is made and the divine name of each element called: like all creation myths, it begins with division and ordering of the infinite. Note that this moves counter-clockwise, and by its conclusion the magician has effectively traced a circled cross in the space – a figure uniting the circle and the quaternary, and a traditional symbol of the manifest world. By another Greek invocation he affirms his position as the link between the celestial and the material, the axis mundi. An invocation of the four rulers follows: the great powers disposing and ordering the material world, again affirming the quaternary. The creation accomplished, the magician reaffirms his relation to the divine and concludes the rite with the Calyx.
Other lenses can be fruitfully applied to this rite – Kabbalistic, Hermetic, or according to the House of Sacrifice formula. All complement each other. All of them inform my thinking about the cosmogonic aspects of the rite. It’s my intention in the following to offer – rather than everything possible to say on the matter – cues and readings which flow back into practice and deepen our appreciation of what’s happening in the work. While I offer these as fruits of my own practice with the rite, I would also suggest that practice must come first, to feed in to reflection and meditation, which feeds back into practice. There is a danger, when simply reading texts on magic, to become overwhelmed by details or to feel one has understood simply by reading. I hope these are spurs to deeper practice rather than arid intellectual completion.
The Calyx has already been examined in detail: here it opens the rite with the descent of spirit into matter, at the centre of the space. The still point of the turning world. It corresponds to the inspiring breath, Pneuma.
The Circle. (Principle: Sarx)
Little more needs to be said about the circle itself, the symbolism of which is covered above. Note that the circle is visualised as a wall of mist surrounding the magician. This is helpful because mist is a good analogy for the pliable, shifting medium through which magic works – called by some the ‘astral light’. Similar willed visual-imaginative work is done when learning the first stages of astral projection, emitting the nefesh as a mist from the solar plexus. Whatever this medium is called, it is responsive to human will, thought and consciousness; reflecting on this it is easy to see the clearing effect this rite might have on old habits and ideas the magician might be carrying around.
This mist is also the primordial waters of creation, and as in all creation myths the magician must divide the waters and give order to them. (The ancient historian Eudemus records a trace of Orphic myth that puts fog, along with time and desire, at the very start of the universe [fr. 150, qtd. Dam. Pr. III.163.19].) Kabbalistically-inclined magicians may feel here a distant echo of tsimtsum, the process of deliberate withdrawal of the godhead from itself to form the space of creation. There is a deep chain of symbolic linkages between the astral substance, the primordial waters, and the moon as governess of the tides and ruler of magic; these repay meditation.
A textual and ritual note: in the first edition of The Magical Philosophy, instruction is given to perform the circle widdershins, i.e., counter-clockwise. In later editions, the instruction is given instead to perform it clockwise. This reflects a change in the practice of the original A∴S∴. The magical effect is relatively slight, but having done it both ways, I find the widdershins turn helpful if the rite is preceding works of negation, diminution, banishment or disguise. (Denning and Phillips lay out the use of widdershins circumambulation in Paper XIV of Mysteria Magica.) As a complete daily ritual, though, I turn with the course of the sun, clockwise.
The First Invocation.
The magician vibrates two Greek phrases, which translate as ‘The Dove and the Waters’ and ‘The Serpent and the Egg’. These are two images of primordial generation. Though no instruction is given to visualise anything, the images are naturally suggestive, and can cause visuals of great intensity to rise in the mind, along with a sense of enormous latent power and potency. Both images allude strongly to Orphic creation myths, though their resonance is not purely Orphic – the spirit moving over the waters (or the void) is of course also a key part of the Genesis creation myth. The story of Phanes, or Protogonos – the first-born god emerging from the cosmic egg – is fairly familiar. Worth stressing here is that Protogonos is co-extensive with the entire cosmos: in one myth the universe blinks out of existence when he is swallowed by Zeus. M.L. West, for this reason, among others, compares him to the Vedic Prajāpati. (Many of the fragmentary details concerning Phanes-Protogonos are worth meditation: for instance, Damascius’s assertion that he is the first god knowable to human beings.) Through the use of these symbols, then, the tradition makes an explicit link to the Orphic mystery cults of antiquity, their later Neoplatonic interpreters, and their apparent central themes – especially resurrection and regeneration.
But the images also have specific resonance within the Ogdoadic tradition: they symbolise Leukothea and Melanotheos (lit. ‘the White Goddess’ and ‘the Dark God’), two of the deities central to Ogdoadic magic – the third, the Agathodaimon, appears slightly later in the ritual. They also suggest the two pillars, black and white, of the magical temple – between which the whole tapestry of the universe is woven. It is unsurprising that the parent deities are invoked at this stage of the rituald. It is not, however, a full and direct invocation of these powers.
A textual note: the images, though most are Orphic in ultimate derivation, are also clearly influenced by Robert Graves’s imaginative and idiosyncratic reconstruction of a ‘Pelasgian’ creation myth in his Greek Myths. Graves’s insistence that the ancient myths recorded fragments of a pre-Olympian cult of the Mother Goddess was, of course, hugely influential on the course of modern neopaganism, druidry and witchcraft. Such influence suggests that this particular recension of the Wards is unlikely to predate the mid-1950s. (It is possible, and quite likely, that other versions of this ritual preceded it.)
Although I am not particularly inclined to ipsosephy – the Greek equivalent of gematria – there are some resonances worth drawing out in these phrases: πέλεια, the dove, shares its value with ἱέρεια, meaning ‘priestess’. The Peleiades – doves – were also the sacred women of the mother goddess Dione at Dodona, the most ancient oracle in Greece. The total value of the second invocation sums to 12, suggesting the belt of the zodiac and the great cosmic serpent with which Melanotheos is associated.
The Wards (Principle: Dike)
In each quarter, proceeding anti-clockwise, the magician performs a complex gesture – first bringing his hands to form a triangle at his brow and visualising a blazing pentagram, then flinging this pentagram outward into the mist wall. The hands should spread, and the pentagram should be seen to grow before bursting in shimmering light in the mist. The spreading hands resemble the horns of a great stag, and so this gesture is called ‘Cervus’. At each point he vibrates the appropriate divine name: first that of spirit, and then that of the element as the pentagram is flung. This is the banishing part of the ritual proper, and thus its correspondence to the principle of justice, Dike.
This action is similar to the many exorcisms and prayers involving the four directions which recur across many religious traditions when marking out sacred space, or calling for protection – the common Jewish Shema before sleep, or St. Patrick’s Breastplate (sect. 8) spring to mind. The specific genealogy of the Wards is ultimately from Eliphas Lévi’s ‘Conjuration of the Four’, and – as suggested above – influenced by the pentagram ritual and Crowley’s Star Ruby. This ritual sequence banishes and fortifies the circle: it really is a sweeping of the astral floor. It is also the first part of the ritual structured by the quaternary, and thus symbolically addressed to the tangible world, rather than the circular or axial focus of preceding steps.
The symbolic lore of the pentagram is vast: it is the pre-eminent symbol of command and magical power. Here its aspects as a symbol of protection, the magus as microcosm, and the government of spirit over and through matter are especially relevant.
Some brief notes of interest: the assignment of the elements to the quarters is the same as in the Golden Dawn, and are taken from Ptolemy’s elemental attributions of the winds (in Ptol. Tetr. I.10). This attribution is shared by virtually all post-Victorian ceremonial magic, though other modes of assigning the elements to the quarters are possible: using zodiacal attributions, as in Agrippa, and placing fire in the east – sometimes still deployed in some planetary workings – and a Kabbalistic tradition stemming from Zohar II.24a, which has never to my knowledge been used by Western magicians.
The Cervus gesture should flow naturally with the rhythmic breath – it is also the first training in the projection of magical force. Notably the divine name of spirit – Athanatos or Ischuros – always precedes work with a particular element. (The two divine names for spirit is, I think, another legacy of the Golden Dawn – though like many Victorian innovations there is precedent for it in the wider tradition.)
Again, some brief examination of the divine formulae may be helpful. The two Spirit names, Athanatos and Ischuros mean respectively ‘undying’ and ‘mighty’. The name for Air, Selaê-Genetês, means ‘Father of Light’, an epithet of Apollo and appropriate for the rulership of the East. The name Theos for Fire means simply ‘God’, but ultimately derives from words related to a proto-Indo-European root meaning ‘shining’ (cf. the holy and formless shining fire of the Chaldaean Oracles). Pankrates, the name for Water, means ‘All-Powerful’ – a name especially appropriate for water’s power over physical and emotional life. Earth is assigned the name Kyrios, meaning ‘Lord’, mirroring the Hebrew assignation of Adonai to the same element; its value in isopsephy is 800, the value of the letter Omega (assigned to Saturn) and ὕπνος, hypnos, meaning sleep. There is food in all these names for meditation; in magical practice one ought to be entirely absorbed in the vibration of the name itself.
The Second Invocation
The circle banished and warded, the magician now stands in the centre of the place of working, upright and vibrates a Greek phrase translated as ‘Earth and the Blood of Heaven’. This is a moment of great symbolic importance in the ritual, for multiple reasons:
Like the preceding invocation, it is delivered in the centre of the place of working, but the invocation calls on the Agathodaimon, the Ogdoadic deity attributed to Tiferet, the sun, and tutelary spirit for the magician’s theurgic development. As with the previous calling, the invocation is indirect but significant; the previous images of potential are followed now by the image of the descent of spirit into matter. The Agathodaimon is central to the magical work of the system, and this moment of daily contact with him is vital.
The phrase continues the Orphic resonance of the ritual, recalling not only the ancient myth that human beings were created from the blood of the Titans (see West, p.165) but the initiatic phrase inscribed on the Orphic lamellae to be used as a password in the afterlife: Γης παις ειμί και ουρανού αστερόεντος – ‘I am a child of Earth and Starry Heaven…’ It is also worth noting that the ancients thought ichor a distinct substance from human blood.
The axial moments of this ritual are of great interest – all those at which the magician is at the centre of the circle with his attention directed towards the divine. The literature here is vast and uneven, but closely linked to the cosmogonic aspect of the ritual. The fundamental practices of the tradition all involve work through the central column of the magician’s subtle body: the Calyx, these moments within the Wards, and all the formulae of the Clavis Rei Primae (similar to the Middle Pillar exercise) – and from this perspective it can be seen how they interlock and reinforce each other. When I have meditated on these moments, I have often seen the magician as a great cosmic tree, its roots deep in the darkness and its boughs entwined with stars. Significantly, one of the more advanced magical practices involves the assumption of the godform of the Agathodaimon as a serpent rising along the spinal column. (I will say more on this in my notes on the Clavis Rei Primae.)
Students of the Kabbalah may find meditative resonances in the sequence of actions here: first the banishing of confused and chaotic elements, then the descent of the spirit – as with the Kings that were in Edom. This parallel is suggestive, not direct.
The Agathodaimon is a solar deity, and it is striking that this allusion to him should precede the invocation of the elements in their pure and rectified form. The traditional Ogdoadic design of the Disk, the magical weapon of Earth, shows the colours of each element governed and illuminated by the rays of the sun.
The Four Regents (Principle: Eleos.)
Raising his arms to the Tau posture, palms down, the magician invokes the four Briatic Regents, or Archontes, governing the elements. These regents are equivalent to the Archangels in Hebrew working, i.e. extremely potent and pure facets of divine power. Denning and Phillips give specific elemental forms for visualisation, but also give notes for contemplation – the winds of the east and the spiritual aspiration they carry, the divine intoxication of the southern fires, and so on. (These are reproduced at the Citadel of Pharos website.) Getting all these layers in place at the same time is a serious exercise, and may at first take several cycles of breath to establish each figure fully: it is worth paying attention to whether one in particular is causing difficulty, as it may indicate special work is needed on something governed by that element.
The Tau position occurs frequently in ritual: it is a sign governing the material world and the magus at its balancing point. Most frequently, with palms upturned, it is used in invocation of the highest powers – the divine name governing an operation, or as in the Ogdoadic formula The Magician, the divine spark above the head. Here, with palms down, it is a gesture of materialisation – manifesting the power of the elemental regents. It is worth noticing the way the orientation of the body changes by assuming the posture and changing the position of one’s hands. The body is the instrument through which we do magic: its movements matter.
The invocation of the four regents completes the symbolic cosmos: the four elements are present in their pure forms. In another sense, the four elements have been rectified: i.e., the ritual action symbolises one of the fundamental steps of magical development, mastery of the four elements – including their microcosmic reflections in the psyche. Many magical systems place this work in their first grade, but it is often neglected or scanted because it is unglamorous and requires honesty and self-examination. ‘Adepts’ who then proceed to blow their psyche apart are testament to its importance. No temple stands without a firm foundation. The Wards is an excellent basis and aid for this work; meditation and invocation of each of the regents in turn also helps.
The names of the four regents are also titles or epithets: Soter, meaning ‘saviour’ applied to many gods but especially Dionysos and Zeus (and for theurgists, in its feminine variation, Hekate); Alastor, ‘avenger’, with varying shades of moral significance in antiquity; Asphaleios, ‘foundation’, an epithet of Poseidon understood as referring to him as giver of safety on the seas; Amyntor, ‘defender’, and note that the elemental weapon of earth is sometimes called the shield. Denning and Phillips refer to the forms they give for these four regents as symbolic egregores, i.e., general-purpose symbolic forms specifically pertaining to their rule over the elements. The symbols are very obvious, though it should be noted that the sickle held by Amyntor instances the strong connection between Saturn and Earth that runs through the system. It is my experience that continued use of these forms will individualise them to some degree. They should not be deliberately altered by the magician’s imagination, however. The reason for this is worth stressing: they are not just symbolic forms of the elemental kings, but they are specifically forms used by magicians within this tradition every time we perform this rite. It is one way of linking our individual work to the wider work and power of the tradition, or like following tracks already made for us. This is one reason behind the strict instruction sometimes given in early training not to change this-or-that specific part of a rite or programme. It’s an instruction usually worth heeding.
The rite concludes as it begins, at the centre of the place of working, as the magician centres himself on the divine spark through the Calyx, and the final principle of the House of Sacrifice: Kudos.
The Uses of the Wards
The two primary uses of the Wards have already been indicated: as a ritual that clears, sanctifies and prepares a space for magical work, and as an individual rite which – through daily repetition – contributes to the spiritual transformation of the magician. This latter effect is greatly enhanced by also practicing the Clavis Rei Primae, akin to the Middle Pillar exercise: all the foundational practices inform and reinforce each other. It is also the rite that the magician will most often perform to open more elaborate workings (one variation, The Setting of the Wards of Adamant, elaborates and makes explicit the symbol of the circled cross as a representation of the specific divine powers of the tradition.) It is easy to take for granted, but honed and mastered it can change a space very rapidly; appreciation of its hidden depths develop through practice.
I’ve suggested above that one of the effects of the Wards is an increase in self-awareness, and in particular awareness of habitual actions which have outlived their usefulness. This is one consequence of a more general fortification and charging of the magician’s subtle body. Daily invocation of the kings of the four elements will also likely work to transform the parts of the psyche under their rule – leading some practitioners to a difficult early confrontation with acquired habits, dogmas, or empty forms of life which no longer suit them. This work is all to the good, but it conceals a risk – delaying progress in the work for an endless cycle of self-analysis, or frequent sharp and ill-considered changes in direction. It is worth thinking of oneself with love – and remembering that you are offering all of yourself for transformation and irradiation by divine power, not only the parts you think already worthy. One method I suggest: delineate the natal chart as a key to psychic makeup, paying attention especially to elemental distribution. Construct the sigils of each of the four regents using the elemental presigilla and the kamea of Malkuth (all given in Mysteria Magica.) Continue the daily regimen as normal but time each ritual to begin in the appropriate elemental tide, dedicating a week to each, decorating the space appropriately and adding in a daily meditation on the element, its regent, and in particular its effect in one’s life. This is both a helpful exercise as well as a nice training in gathering appropriate correspondences and decoration for the working space.
This elemental practice of theurgy points us towards the development of the light-body. The next post in this series will examine the set of practices related to the subtle body: the charging and development of the centres of activity, and their centrality to this form of magic.
Appendix: some notes on practice
I thought it might be useful to add these very practical notes, which are culled from my own magical diaries, to supplement the instructions. They are, I think, useful principles for ritual work in general.
Confidence and clarity of purpose is more important than perfect visualisation. Visualisation will come in time, as the magical senses open up. It may also come in different ways, including auditory phenomena, or a sense of something akin to pressure: I often experience the closing of the circle as a satisfying, almost audible clinking sound.
Self-doubt is lethal. Relaxation and trust in oneself, the powers, and the efficacy of the ritual is essential. This is not a state that can be achieved by trying for it, or indeed by telling someone else to strive for it. Take the internal policeman off duty for the duration of the work. A period of ten minutes of meditation prior to the work can help induce this at first.
As the pentagrams are flung rather than physically traced, it’s useful to build them up – and specifically their motion when flung – in the visual imagination. What does each phase of process look like? What does it feel like to have a symbol of power burning between your hands and then flinging it out to a quarter? Revisiting these questions with the experience of practice is helpful.
The ritual should be led and timed through your breath, ideally neither rushed nor languorous. Allow your breath to guide you. It is worth walking through it several times using the rhythmic breath to ‘pin’ the visualisations to certain sequences of breathing.
Vibration of the divine names should be treated as a kind of personal transubstantiation: you are taking the name into your body and activating it, becoming more like it. (See the previous essay on the Calyx for more on this idea.) Again, it may take some time at first to build up the technique. Experimentation with the vibratory exercises given by Regardie can help as well, although it is not necessary to import this technique into the rite itself.
The Archontes – the four elemental guardians invoked at quarters – are not ciphers, but real and individual spiritual presences. They are not extensions of the individual will. Meditation on their forms, and seeking out experience of their elements in the world, will help strengthen the invocation.
Stick at it. Self-punishment for missing a day here or there early on is counterproductive. (But if you are inclined to self-punish in this way, or drawn to demanding structures which provide you an opportunity for self-punishment, you might find regular practice forces you to confront that.)
In memorising rituals, I often find it helpful to draw or paint diagrams, which lay out the rite schematically; these figures can even sometimes become mandala-like themselves. They might be made with great and colourful elaboration and careful calligraphy, or they may tend to the more schematic. Though I would never share a photograph of my personal grimoire, this digital diagram suggests what the more functional version might look like. The letter Psi in the centre represents the magician with arms upraised, ready to receive the divine influence, as in the Calyx.
Wallace Berman, Untitled (Mandala with Aleph Center), c.1965
This little essay is prompted by a discussion with a friend about the seriousness of magical oaths and obligations, the duties they entail, and when – if ever – it’s permissible to break them. This is a funny area. It’s the sort of thing practitioners occasionally speak about with each other but which less often makes it into the books, unless to burnish one’s own credentials by insisting everyone else is a terrible, illegitimate oathbreaker. I think it worth writing a little about, though, because a number of interesting questions – about magic, about spiritual change – come into focus through it. I will return to the ‘steps of the foundation’ series very soon.
Some context and definitions: said friend and I both have wide and varied experience in traditions that teach practical magic, but which also teach the use of magical techniques for spiritual development, and put candidates through initiation ceremonies which (when worked correctly) induce new states of consciousness and help accelerate that change. These span ecstatic witchcraft and formal – if at times no less ecstatic – ceremonial. Beyond my consideration are the oaths and pacts individual magicians might make with spirits, but some parallels will be obvious. When I talk about the ‘magical community’, I mean everyone engaged in magical practice who is also connected in some way – however slight – to others doing the same. (This includes, for instance, just reading their output, or lurking on an email list, as well as participation in covens, groups, or orders.)
Silence and Secrecy
Magicians are terrible at keepingsecrets. Which is to say several things: first, that the ‘magical community’, which has no central authority, functions by exchange of gossip and stories, and like any other human community prurience and strategic misrepresentation are rife. Second, there are rewards – sometimes monetary but more often prestige and social power – for seeming in the know. Third, magicians are nosy: we’re typically curious about how other people do things, some of us because we get off on telling people they’re wrong, others because we like stealing things that work. Fourth, magicians are inveterate teachers: we like passing things on, and we like keeping things alive. Combine all these and you get a community which values secrecy rhetorically but delights in its breach.
Motives are mixed, as separating them out thus shows us. The historical study of magical traditions and the great wave of publication of occult material in the 20th century brought many benefits, not least of which it is much harder to trade on ancient and secret lineages to profit from or abuse a sincere but naive seeker. But the power of silence is still taught as one of the cardinal virtues of magical practice. (In one tradition of ceremonial magic, the candidate is supposed to meditate daily on the four powers of the magician – to know, to dare, to will, to keep silence – in turn for the four weeks prior to their first initiation. It is no accident that silence is the theme of the week preceding the ceremony itself.) Why do we still value silence and secrecy?
Social prudence: even if you are able to be open about your practice, others that you meet in magical groups will not be. Although some parts of Europe and America pay lipservice to a distinction between personal belief and public or professional life, in reality there are unpleasant consequences for an interest in the occult. In Britain, the tabloid press remains hungry for stories which expose witches and magicians, as happened sporadically to members of Gardnerian and Alexandrian covens in the postwar decades. Such exposés are frequently devastating for people at their centre. I also expect the social penalty for interest in the unorthodox to increase as this century unspools.
Psychological commitment: a commitment to remain silent about magical work frees the magician in two ways: freedom from the interest of others and thus the human need to impress, and freedom to be honest about and absorbed in the work itself. This is especially important in the early days of building magical discipline, and unlearning the common compulsion to show off or brag.
Magical efficacy. This can also be split into two branches. It is generally helpful to remain silent about practical magical workings (at least) until they have achieved their ends, partly because the knowledge someone is working magic to a particular goal might trigger unwanted complications. But theurgic magic directed towards personal transformation, vision, or ecstasy also benefits from silence: an urge to communicate these experiences too quickly can cause us to too readily ‘fix’ them, rather than allowing them to properly transform us and unfold their deeper implications. (The consequences of these experiences – ‘initiatory’ in the fullest sense, but only sometimes taking place in rituals of initiation – can take years to fully unfold.)
The association of secrecy with magic and the mysteries is ancient and venerable. In one of the surviving fragments of On Philosophy from Oracles, Porphyry warns against too easily publishing mystical secrets, and specifically pays attention to the motives for doing so: “do not […] cast them before the profane for the sake of your reputation [δόξες] or for the sake of gain [κέρδους] or for the sake of any other unholy flattery [κολακείας].” (in Euseb. PE IV.8) So specific a list of motives has the odour of experience in it. It is usually argued that the ancient Mediterranean observed the taboo on disclosing the mysteries very closely, given how little evidence survives of their content: perhaps here we see a record of a more complex story. These three motives remain useful goads to self-examination – and to bear in mind when reading other authors.
It’s well known that the ancient world made a distinction between two different kinds of occult secrecy: aporrheton, a communicable secret which it is forbidden to communicate, and arrheton, a secret of the mysteries which can only be experienced rather than directly communicated in language. Porphyry, in fact, uses the latter term immediately after the passage I quoted. This distinction persists: you can sometimes hear occultists claim the only real secrets are the latter kind, or even that these are the only secrets they are obligated to keep. (An easy job, if they’re not linguistically communicable.) But aporrheta can include a vast amount of information – the identity of participants, ritual content, magical records, methods and techniques, recipes – and this is what is usually guarded by oaths of secrecy. One of the word’s other applications in antiquity provides a suggestive metaphor: it sometimes referred to commodities forbidden from export, essential to the functioning of the city. The circle of trust formed by magical secrecy is as important as a city’s supply of grain.
The Obligation: Why do we swear oaths?
Although it has some arguable ancient analogues, and writers on witchcraft in particular claimed that witches swore dire oaths to conceal their Satanic gatherings, the modern magical oath ultimately springs from Freemasonry. Typically it contains a commitment to keep secret all the secrets of the group, a commitment to magical work (often replacing the social commitments of the Masonic oath), and a section committing oneself to various grand guignol punishments should that oath be broken. In consonance with its Masonic origins, it is also sometimes called ‘the obligation’, and this is a useful way to think about it: it is a series of commitments made, with utmost seriousness, to one’s own spiritual development, and to the people in the group and tradition in which one works – including the chain of dead magicians who preceded you. ‘Obligation’ shares with ‘religion’ a root meaning ‘to bind’, and to take a magical oath is to voluntarily bind yourself to something greater than yourself. It ought to represent a serious commitment of time and energy. It is not a light matter, though oaths are sometimes made lightly. There are many wise folk tales which should warn us about lightly-made oaths.
(In many traditions, the seriousness and scope of the oath changes by degree, as the candidate is woven deeper into the mystery and takes on more responsibility for it. It is also useful to stress the obligations ought to be two-way: if a candidate takes on duties, he or she is also entitled, for instance, to clear instruction, attention to his or her development, and good and thoughtful supervision. None of this need be arduous, but this is one reason some traditions are cautious about hurrying people towards initiation.)
The magical component of the oath is also worth mentioning very briefly. Oaths of magical commitment are often made by solitary practitioners, classically as part of the pursuit of the Holy Guardian Angel. (Some traditions, including some branches of the A∴A∴, associate an oath to complete a particular magical work with each grade.) When these are included in initiatory oaths, they can be thought of as swinging the group’s egregore behind that work, but also as demonstrating that the group’s rituals, rules, workings – much of its aporrheta, that is – exists ultimately to further that goal.
There is also a much more down-to-earth reason for combining magical and initiatory oaths. Oaths are not especially important in periods where everything works, for the initial burst of enthusiasm, where one can’t wait to get in the circle. They matter in the dry and dark periods because they are commitments to other human beings as much as commitments to spiritual development – and it is those commitments which can bring us through the fallow. Often periods of magical difficulty can be akin to feeling overwhelmed with responsibility, of truly being responsible for one’s own life with everything that entails: one of the functions of the oath is to establish a bedrock for those periods, one decision which you have already taken out of your own hands.
Wallace Berman & Jay DeFeo, Untitled, 1959.
Of Oathbreaking
The development of magic in the 20th century owes a great deal to oathbreakers. The shape of western magic was changed profoundly by Aleister Crowley and – far more so – Israel Regardie’s disclosure of the materials of the Golden Dawn. (Many others have disclosed previously private material with varying degrees of legitimacy, but those two stand apart simply for the breadth of their influence.) Regardie is the more interesting case than Crowley, whose disclosure owed as much to his titanic narcissism as it did a serious esteem for the GD corpus. Regardie narrated his experience of the order, and his rationale for breaking his oath of secrecy in What You Should Know About the Golden Dawn. The book is still worth reading as an account of a moribund magical order, and for the obvious admiration Regardie had for a magical system ill-stewarded by the ‘inepti’.
Regardie took his oaths seriously, but believed he was in an emergency. Faced with a choice between allowing the system to die out and publishing its papers to allow it to be reborn, he broke his oath for a higher end. The many groups and individuals who drew from that treasure house – some tacitly, some openly – testify that his judgement was correct. (I am aware of one British Golden Dawn group which disparaged Regardie as an oathbreaker but used his books extensively. They will not be alone in that.) More than simply making material available, Regardie’s other work significantly changed how it was received: it encouraged people to pick it up and work it, with the result that almost every candidate seeking initiation in a magical group today will have had far more magical experience that their Victorian equivalents. Arguably it is this experimental attitude which led many of his readers to generate new approaches to ritual magic, like shedding its masonic accoutrements or the generation of entirely new systems. (The approach of the OSOGD, now sadly closed, is also worth highlighting.)
Regardie is an interesting case of more fundamental obligations prevailing over oaths, and he was clear about his motives. Even administered half-heartedly, the vows Regardie would have made in his Adept initiation – while strapped to the cross of obligation – could not fail to strike him as serious. It’s clear he took the ethical problem seriously. It is all the more striking, then, that he took the decision to publish the GD papers fully, rather than circulate them in private. There’s much to reflect on in this decision: publishing opened the material out to many more interested parties than could ever be part of private networks, allowing greater experimentation, and guaranteed preservation of the material – allowing it to be rediscovered. It also perhaps reflects how few – even among interested parties – are interested in really pursuing the work. Appearing to break his oaths, Regardie instead sparked a magical renaissance.
Obligations to others
What about our other obligations? In Regardie’s case, obligation to the tradition itself prevailed over the formal vow. There are, conceivably, situations where somebody’s partial disclosure and profit from secret materials (or careless publication of techniques without safeguard or context) might prompt others to publish. There are also, sadly, situations where abuse inside a tradition may confront us with the need to disclose not only material but identities. Both cases can be understood as acts of greater fidelity to the tradition itself.
The other major obligation many feel is historical. This includes professional historians who are also initiates, but also initiates who feel compelled to work with interested historians. Reasons for such collaboration are manifold, but include: desire that magic should take its proper place in western culture, revisionism of inaccurate history, a hope that truthful magical history might help us to avoid some of the mistakes our predecessors made, a kind of ethical obligation to history itself. It’s a commendable desire to want to know more about where we come from, and to insist on those answers being true. In general, proper historical attention to magic is a boon: it’s dispelled harmful myths, mostly rid us of the worst excesses of lineage-mongering, and gone some way to demonstrate the breadth and persistence of magic in western culture. Much of this has been accomplished by careful textual and archival work, but has also relied – especially in the history of witchcraft – on disclosure by initiates, particularly of the names and identities of dead (and, less often, still-living) practitioners.
For many, those disclosures have become very easy to make, even to the point that I’ve met initiates who very freely disclose who’s involved in what, even in fairly public settings. (The borders between knowledge, gossip and rumour are not well-policed here, either.) Public magicians, or those who are generally open about their practice, sometimes fail to remember their ethical obligations to others who do not have that luxury. This touches directly on the third component of magical oaths: not about personal practice, not about secret material, but about personal identity. Even in close-knit magical groups it is hard to gauge what consequences someone might suffer as a result of their practice being made public – familial, social or professional. This goes doubly so for people to whom we are less intimately connected. People are rarely killed for an interest in magic, at least in Europe and North America, but lives are still blighted, careers ruined and families torn up for it – more so than might widely be known.
There’s no point in pretending the ethical issues here aren’t real, or are easily solved. Like many others, I am eager for better-sourced, clearer histories, especially of postwar British occultism. But in deciding if, and what, to disclose, perhaps we ought to return to our oaths rather than simply shrug them off. Nothing in any magical oath says it is purely context-dependent, something that somehow doesn’t apply simply because you’ve decided to write a book. Our obligations to others do not disappear simply because we have decided they are now too cumbersome. The point of any oath is that when we feel it chafe, we are reminded of the commitments and high intentions we made when we took it. To shrug it off isn’t a neutral act, especially when undertaken without consultation with others – what does it suggest you think about the people and powers with whom you stood when you took that oath? About how reliable your word is? Group magical work also depends on trust: to damage it needlessly is an act of spiritual vandalism.
But there are times when disclosure of the identities of past initiates is either unavoidable or even desirable. Some useful questions to ask in that situation include: is this my secret to give away? What do my oaths say? What good comes of disclosing this identity? What harms? What did this person want while they were alive – and do they have any surviving magical colleagues I can talk with about it? What about their surviving family? Do they know – and would it harm them for it to come out? Can we use pseudonyms and achieve the same end? What do others think? It is no accident that these are all ethical questions, which should focus us on our obligations, remind us of our involvement in a community, and involve us in thinking about others’ comfort as well as our own. Incorporation into the historical record is not the sole good, impossible to gainsay.
Jay DeFeo, Jewel, 1959
Magical ethics and spiritual athletics
This is one area where magical practice brushes up against worldly concerns, and prompts ethical problems. It’s far from the only one. It’s a different category of ethical problem to, for instance, whether it is a good idea to work magic for someone without their knowledge, or the justifiability of curses. It’s far closer to questions like how one handles an initiate who has recently taken an initiation and then decides it is time to quit everything, leave their partner, sell their possessions and live in a cave – or how one recognises such crises in oneself. These are questions experienced magicians ought to talk about among themselves more often than we do. It is my contention that the western esoteric tradition – patchwork, rickety and ill-transmitted though it can be – contains many resources for answering these questions within it.
One reason these are overlooked is because oaths are sometimes made in the heat of the moment, during an initiation, with very little preparation of the candidate. Of course, this is sometimes just initiators passing on what was done to them: one of my very first initiations was done this way. But it would be helpful in building a firm foundation if initiators encouraged their candidates to think about commitments, oaths, obligations – even if in general terms – before the ceremony itself.
My above emphasis on magical oaths – and the four powers of the magician – means to stress the resources the tradition offers us. Meditation and reflection on them will reveal great and unexpected depth. Western magical traditions sometimes portray the practitioner as a kind of spiritual athlete, honing common capacities to unusual levels. There is, of course, a lot to that: magic arrives through unusual means, entails strange practices, and transforms the practitioner in unexpected ways. This can at times be daunting or seem isolating. The oath – the ligatio, and the obligation it entails – reminds us that we do not do it alone. It reminds us that in our quest to be more deeply and more fully human, we do not cease being human in every other respect, in need of others and needed in our turn. Our discipline is not always easily attained. To make time on the anniversary of an initiation to reread one’s oaths is an askêsis, not in the sense of mortification or self-denial, but of personal discipline and self-fashioning. Given those oaths often contain some of the very highest aspirations of western esoteric tradition, perhaps we could do with reminding of them more often.
