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Ritual Magic and the Witch Cult
by
Good Evening. I am going to talk to you for some forty minutes about ritual magic after which I hope we can have some questions and an interesting discussion. Then if there is time I will go on to tell you a little about the witch cult, which is of much less importance. My credentials are that for three years in my youth I was a member of Aleister Crowley's Order of the Silver Star (or A∴A∴) in which he taught me some of the ritual magic that he had learned in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. I shall however omit the sexual side as it is a bit tricky for a public lecture and I am not prepared to answer questions on it. Part of my large collection of relevant manuscript material is already in the library of Warburg Institute. Later I came to know the ritual maiden of the St. Albans coven of the witch cult, but I never tried to become a warlock myself. Since those days I have moved on to study Buddhism and Hinduism while still remaining a Christian of sorts.
Ritual magic is designed to develop the extrasensory powers latent in each one of us, so that we can realise our spiritual nature and so that we can be reborn as spiritual beings. This is called theurgy. But magic is also concerned with techniques for causing change to occur in accordance with will by manipulating the subtle forces of nature. This art of causing change to occur in accordance with will is called goety and much nonsense is written about it. If your will is the will of God it is white magic, if it is ego tainted, it is gray and if it is mainly egotistical it is black.
Ritual magic has nothing to do with Satanism but Satanists use many of its techniques which the magicians had taken from, and are still taught by the major religions.
Now all major religions accept the idea of a Godhead, or ultimate absolute, though each of them calls it by a different synonym. As it can neither be imagined, nor experienced by a human being it does not concern us here. But emanating from it is a purely spiritual dimension or level which is formless and some say timeless. It can be experienced by us while still on earth, and it usually described in terms of light. The way to it is through silent unmoving contemplation on the accessible aspect of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Christian Trinity. This type of contemplation is now rare in our church, but is still taught fairly widely in the Advaita Vedanta of Hinduism, in the Mahamudra of Tibet and in Zen. Magic is not concerned with this level of pure spirit.
The next denser or more material dimension contains several levels which I shall treat as one to avoid confusing you. It is reasonably accessible to each one of us through prayer, ritual, visualization practices and various types of meditation. Ritual magic is concerned exclusively with this world (which magicians call the astral plane). It is a mental and emotional realm of dream and vision in which the five senses function in a subtle way. Most of us enter it once or twice in our lives by chance. It includes all the heavens and hells of form together with the beneficent and averse hierarchies of spiritual and demonic beings. Here in Christianity can be found angels, archangels, principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, glories, cherubim and seraphim with at their head Christ and the Virgin in forms that we can envision. There too are Satan and his legions. The Judaic hierarchy is identical for we adopted it, except that IHVH (Jehovah) in his envisioned form as Adonai replaced Christ and there is no exact equivalent to the Virgin. The magician uses their Hebrew name when working Qabalistic Magic. There too are the equivalent hierarchies of all major and minor religions and subsystems such as the Enochian one of the Elizabethan magician Dr. John Dee. Last but not least the Jungian archetypes are found there as well.
On this plane or level the principal aim of all religions is to attain what magicians call the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. In Christianity this is the Knowledge and Conversation of Christ or the Virgin. In Buddhism of a Bodhisattva or Yidam, in Hinduism of the deity of your choice which is a wide one. In every case this is done through prayer aided by ritual and technical practices like visualization, until the object of your choice is there in vision clearly as if normally in the room and you converse together. In Christianity and theistic Hinduism this occurs through grace. In Buddhism and magic it happens through hard and exact work.
But this astral world can be entered in other ways—for instance we all do so on different levels in dreams and vision. For a vision is or should be a dream while you are awake about the subject of your choice. They seem to be of the same physical order as those produced by drugs and those experienced by the inmates of lunatic asylums. They may even be spontaneous and healthy. Those that occur in an asylum are caused by some breakdown or change in the brain or nervous system. Unless halted by drugs, electric shock treatment, or natural recovery they can lead to the complete break up of a personality. However, unless you fall for heroin you have a slightly better chance of survival if you can enter the astral world with a hallucinogen without becoming an addict. But unless you are a fully trained meditator you are not in control of the experience. At times you enter a hell on a bad trip. If you enter heaven on a good one, you are in danger of becoming obsessed by the experience which you are unable to assimilate. You become less effective to cope with life as it is down here. Worse still such creative ability as you have will suffer. On the other hand if you enter by the following ritual and meditational paths under a qualified teacher in one of the major religions, you are likely to become disoriented and may possibly become what is known technically as a Saint in Christianity, enlightened in Buddhism and "liberated while alive" in Hinduism. Theoretically you van obtain the same result through ritual magic.
But magic as taught in the West today is a hot curry with trimmings like Bombay duck taken from different religious traditions. Moreover it omits the built in safeguards taught by the major religions which are designed to prevent inflation of the ego and the consequent fall by the wayside, where you become a victim to the way of power.
In all major religions and the ritual magic of the Jews the devotee or magician lies at the feet of his deity to cause change to occur in accordance with the will of that deity. He acts as a channel through which the divine power flows.
But in Western occultism the magician is very rarely a devotee. Having taken a vow to become more human he develops his latent powers to become the god or whatever it may be. He remains in complete personal control throughout to further his own will.
I will now describe the visualization practice that Crowley and the Golden Dawn taught to enable one to become what is called a god. Supposing the god is Horus you begin by describing him: "I am He the bornless one with the head of a hawk" and so on. As you say all this slowly, you build up in your mind's eye the life size figure of the god facing you across the room. Then you are silent but imagine Horus repeating all the words back to you. In time the god can be there in the room, but the experience is subjective. It is a controlled work of the creative imagination, which develops your latent powers of clairvoyance and clairaudience.
In the next stage you address the god in prayer and finally as the god you answer yourself. I found it an excellent method of inflaming myself, but never did it long enough or well enough to feel that Horus was really there.
The ritual for attaining the knowledge and conversation of what Crowley and the Golden Dawn called their Higher Genius or Augoeides was on similar lines. This Higher Genius equated with the daimon of Socrates, the Philemon of Jung and the Holy Guardian Angel of Abramelin. The ritual is based on one in Papyrus XLVI (Greek) in the British Museum and is full of what are called barbarous words of evocation, many of which are corrupt transliterations from spoken Egyptian into written Greek. Magical rituals are full of these "barbarous words" a number of which correspond to the seed syllables or bija mantras to be found in Buddhist and Hindu rituals. They have a recognizable effect in inflaming one if vibrated correctly.
The ritual opens with the words: "Thee I invoke the Bornless One. Thee that didst create the earth and the heavens"—and so on. Then follows a string of barbarous words and names beginning: "Ar O Go Go Ru Abrao." Here repetition of the "R" sound and the long vowels indicates a positive force connected with fire that inflames and destroys.
The second section begins: "I am He the Bornless Spirit, I am the Grace of the World, the Heart Girt with the Serpent is my name"—and so on with more barbarous words. Finally having become the Bornless One at least in theory you proclaim "All Spirits of heaven, earth, air, and water and every spell and scourge of God are obedient unto me." It takes about half an hour if you do it properly. It is surprisingly effective, but normally results in an inflated ego.
In the Hebrew qabalistic system, however, you remain at the feet of Adonai, the Lord, or the Holy Guardian Angel, or of whatever it may be. There is a good description of the six months magical retreat that is an essential preliminary to the "Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage" in the book of that title. But you have to compose and write the rituals yourself. Once you have experienced the Knowledge and Conversation, you are then qualified to practice goety and cause change to occur in accordance with will. You then charge the 49 talismans which give you control of the 316 servitors, demons or subtle forces on the astral plane that are peculiar to the Abramelin tradition.
If you stick closely to the rules, there is a reasonable chance that the angel, god, or whatever it may be, will be the real thing and not just what you would like it to be. But one is not competent to judge whether it is the real thing oneself. The experience—as with a good trip on LSD—is too euphoric for personal judgment, so that you become obsessed by it. Totally unable to handle it, at any rate to start with, you are carried away and in much the same state as a drunk man lying in a ditch. You are lost if you have not at hand a competent adept, guru or spiritual advisor who has in turn been trained by another who has worked successfully in the same tradition. He can check from his own tested experience whether or not your God or guardian angel is what it should be. In Christianity your visionary idea of what it should be is called a devil in the guise of an angel.
Remember, however, that neither in the pagan Egyptian or Qabalistic traditions, nor in the major religions with one major exception, do you ever lie at the feet of or make a contract with Satan or any demon. The exception occurs in the Tibetan Vajrayana. If you are excessively positive and self-willed, your lama may give you for a time a demon in the form of a guardian deity to tame you.
Now do these spiritual and demonic beings exist on the astral plane? Have they a life of their own out there independent of us, or do we merely project them there temporarily from our own subconscious by using our imagination? Yes, they exist on that plane and can be experienced by those of us who are mentally sick, have taken an hallucinogen, or developed the necessary clairvoyance. If you meet one of what I call the powerful elemental forces of nature, as I have done once, you sense it is as something totally alien to humanity and so powerful that you have to exert all your technical knowledge of mantra and experience in visualizing a protective symbol such as a pentagram—in order to avoid obsession. It was there in a definite spot in the room behind my right shoulder, but to the front and the left of the person seated opposite to me in the circle.
In Christianity, Islam and Hinduism these beings are believed to have an independent life of their own on their own plane. In Buddhism and Jungian psychology we project them out of our subconscious. But after experiencing one of the apparently powerful ones, one cannot accept that one could have contained it for years within, without blowing up. One can spend hours arguing about it. What matters is that one can experience it. Anyone who has done so deliberately in that type of dream or vision which is far more vivid, emotionally powerful and obsessive than anything in normal life is asking for trouble if he has no experience in the rules for controlling himself or it.
The basic rules for control are complicated. You need instruments consecrated by yourself, such as a robe, wand, sword, bell, cup, incense burner, altar, a circle and a triangle outside it for the averse hierarchy. Then for some six months you should have practiced each night the banishing ritual of the pentagram by visualizing pentagrams and the four archangels standing with wings outstretched and touching round your bed. It is far from easy to imagine the one behind your head. This is said to be the origin of the nursery rhyme:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Bless the bed that I lie on
The ritual that you use to inflame yourself must be appropriate to the being that you seek and be based on the principle of correspondences. The Western magician relies as a memoria technica on the qabalistic diagram or mandala called the Tree of Life. Crowley compiled tables of these correspondences and published them in a book called 777. Thus the god known as Mercury, Hermes or Thoth, the archangel Mikhael, twin serpents, opals, storax, violet or purple, an octagon, the number 8, the quality of truthfulness and so on are all different facets of the Sephira of Splendour, (Hod). The equivalent mandalas in Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are of different patterns and the correspondences derived from them have been preserved orally but have not yet been published in proper detail.
Until you have memorized all these correspondences so that you can attribute them to the relevant deity or whatever it might be, you cannot compose the ritual which adequately expresses Osiris, Thahaotahe, Hua, Buer, or whatever being you want to invoke to worship, or become.
It is a complex business in which strict accuracy is essential. Sound (the correct intonation of the relevant name of the being), the color and geometrical or pattern or sigil for the lamen or talisman and the perfume from the incense in the smoke of which the being will materialize and so on—all must be appropriate. The technique for checking that which you get is the same. For instance, if you are seeking the knowledge and conversation of a virgin goddess and she appears in a red robe, she will not be a virgin goddess.
You should never deliberately enter the world of vision, or even take an hallucinogen without previously laying down what you intend to see and knowing how to attract it. This is done be the preparatory ritual before entering the vision. In all cases you start with a banishing ritual to clear the air, and end with another one if you are dealing with the averse hierarchy. In Buddhism, however, you close by reabsorbing it all into yourself.
In Hinduism these magical techniques form part of what is called Tantra and in Tibetan Buddhism of what is called Vajrayana, the Way of Power. But the Tibetan lama will not teach you the rituals until you have performed 100,000 full length ritual prostrations while repeating certain mantras and visualizing certain forms. This effectively weakens one's ego and lessens the danger of inflating it. Equally important you develop the necessary control in your world of vision on the astral plane. Ignorant meddlers—which applies to most Western occultists—are only asking for trouble when they insist on running before they can walk.
Goety is the art of causing change to occur in accordance to will. Let me now give you an example of how to practice it. In 1898 Allan Bennett, whose motto in the Golden Dawn was the Hebrew for "Let There Be Light," decided to consecrate or charge a talisman to protect from obsession Dr. Felkin, another brother in the order. In the triangle outside the circle is a brazier from which a cloud of strong smelling incense is rising. In front of the brazier lies a talisman inscribed with the correct sigil and demonic names. Within the circle Brother "Let There Be Light" performs the banishing ritual of the pentagram, which opens with the words "Ateh Malkuth, ve Geburah, ve Gedulah, le Olahm, Amen," (To Thee the Kingdom, Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen.) Make the qabalistic cross while repeating the formula. As Brother "Let There Be Light" touched himself, he made, as I did, the qabalistic sign of the Cross and identified himself with Adonai the Lord.
After completing the banishing ritual to clear the air he invokes in turn Osiris Triumphant, the divine self of Dr. Felkin and the "Archangel Mikhael who art like unto God." Next as Osiris enters he evokes or orders up into the outside triangle, outside the circle the relevant "creature of talismans." When it is visible to him in the cloud of materializing incense he cries "I travel upon High, I tread upon the Firmament. I raise a Flame with the Flashing Lightning of mine Eye. I fly forward in the splendour of the Daily Glorified Ra. Thou art Myself, Mine Image, My Shadow. I have fashioned thy Form. I have fashioned thy Soul. I have made Thee a creature of my Thought. Powerful art Thou for ever against the Larvae that possess." This took him some twenty minutes in which his powers of creative imagination were working at full stretch. The quotations are from the original manuscript of the ritual composed by him in my collection.
You will find no apparent reference to all this in the Goetia and Grimoires. Like so many oriental tantric texts they were written to deceive the uninitiated public while at the same time revealing the secret for those entitled to it through their initiation.
Supposing your girl betrayed you and you want to find out who the boy is. You consult the Grimoire of Honorius. There you will find that you should pluck out the tongue of a live toad, and place it between her breasts while she is asleep. No magician worth his salt would dream of making such an ass of himself. Bilfares is a toad-headed demon who can get a girl to talk. To pluck out his tongue means to conjure him and order him to do your will. So you prepare the room, consecrate your circle, light the materializing incense in the triangle outside the circle and perform the banishing ritual in the circle. After working yourself up, you become Adonai the Lord, summon up Buer and conjure him. After twenty minutes of intense creative imagination and development of will power, it would be surprising if you could not get a girl to talk.
Magic to be effective depends on working up what is called in the Qabalah a rashith-ha-galgalim, or whirling vortex of forces which is done in the rituals. But we all do this at least in a mild way and without knowing it when we really want something, and often get it as a result. If you want money you are more likely to get it in a big way by following the rules of finance than by charging a talisman. Crowley would have led a more comfortable life had he not relied upon the relevant talisman to raise funds. Small amounts would arrive mysteriously just in time to avert complete disaster, but never enough to remove anxiety. It is the same with the law. Rely on a good barrister rather than magic. I have seen the Abramelin talisman that Crowley charged to influence the mind of a judge, and he lost more cases than he won. Hitler was more effective in influencing people than any known magician in the past or the present. So do not fall for the glamour of magic.
Christ, the Buddha, Mohammed and the Saints in all the major religions developed unconsciously their latent magical powers as a by-product of their religious practices and way of life. Then they only used these powers rarely and never for personal reasons. Occultists and magicians in the West who deliberately set out to develop these powers and to use them fall by the wayside, as did Crowley and other members of the Golden Dawn. Those who attained the Knowledge and Conversation of their Holy Guardian Angel, or whatever you call it, quarrelled together. Annie Horniman fell for what she called The Purple Adept, Dr. Felkin first for Ara ben Shemesh and then for the mythical Christian Rosenkreuz, while Mathers [MacGregor Mathers] who founded the Order was at the mercy of what he called Lux Saeculorum and Crowley fell for an Egyptian spirit called Aiwaz. Each claimed that they were in touch with the secret head of the order. As a result it only took fifteen years for the order to splinter into quarrelling fragments. And so it is today with the mushroom growth of occult orders here and in the States. So choose your major religion and if you want to develop your spirituality do so under its wings. Beware of the glamour of magic.
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