The Caretaker

UNTITLED MAGIC TEXT - 11/18/2021

Added 2021-11-18 19:05:09 +0000 UTC

OUTLINE

SAUCES

Magic: A History - Chris Godsen

The Golden Bough - James A. Fraiser

The Aurora - Jacob Boehme

Occult Philosophy of the Elizabethans - Frances Yates

The Hidden Church - A.E. Waite

The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic. - Oxford University Press

The Handbook of Contemporary Animism

Experiencing the Impossible: The Science of Magic - Gustav Khun

The Myth of Disenchantment - J.A. Josephson-Storm

A History of Western Astrology - N. Campion

Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine - J. Scurlock

Magic in Ancient Egypt - G. Pinch

WHAT IS MAGIC AND WHY SHOULD YOU CARE

“Magic is an impossible thing to define. It is something felt, something done, and a quality something can have. It is the difference between the house and the home. It is the held hand. It is what we fear about the dark.”

In my time as an occultist, the question I am asked more than anything is “I want to learn, where do I start?” and I have been frustrated for lack of an acceptable answer. The Occult is a broad and diverse field. There are texts on alchemy, on witchcraft, on spiritualism, and ritual magic, but nothing that quite covers everything an interested mind could be looking for.

If you are interested in magic, welcome. My goal for this text is to give the burgeoning practitioner all of the tools they need to build a practice that feels like their own. ”

Further Reading: Claude Levi-Strauss, James Frazer The Golden Bough,

WHAT IS “THE OCCULT”?

The word Occult comes from the Latin word “occultus” meaning “that which is hidden, secret, or clandestine”. Occult knowledge is knowledge of the strange, esoteric, and paranormal, as opposed to knowledge of the measurable world.

As a theologist studies the religions of the world, the occultist studies the magic of the world. The occult is a broad umbrella, one that covers corners of history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, psychology, cults, and conspiracy theories. It requires understanding a broad range of topics, including science and religion, for to understand what the Occult is, one must understand what it is not.

The relationship between magic, science, and religion is complex and intertwined. They are distinct, but braided together in the yarn of history. Magic and religion often blend, coexisting in the same space, defining themselves by the other, or existing in open conflict. Magic and science have been intertwined for most of history, before there were chemists, there were alchemists, before there were scientists, there were natural philosophers, before there were doctors, there were exorcists. The split between magic and science is a recent one historically speaking, and while magic and science are distinct from each other, magic is the soil in which science is grown, and magic is the frontier beyond where science has tread.

Magic, religion, and science exist as a triple helix, an eternal golden braid. The shape of that braid changes depending on the culture of study, and the historical moment.

LEARNING HOW TO LEARN ABOUT THE OCCULT

If there is a first rule of magic, it is this: “Do your homework”

THE SHORE OF NIGHT: A PREMIER OF THE ESOTERIC

Herein lies the branch: Beyond Dacia, Beyond the Danube. Perpendicular to the world of light and thought and waking men.

Herein lies the now: A now before time and sky and the reign of men. A now after in turn, when the wheels have ceased their turning and the weavers have aged to dust.. An eternal now, cthonic-deep and endless.

Here upon the empty page did the acolyte fall, slipping through the cracks in the world to the darkened sea which was not a sea, cthonic-deep and endless. .

Said the acolyte “Who are you? My work remains undone, bid me return to my study.”

Said the god: “I am Lord of the Lethe-Font and Soporific Crown, Foot of the Ebony Bed, Bearer Keeper to the Gates of Horn and Ivory. I am sleep, dear guest.”

Said the acolyte to Sleep: “Honored am I for your kind assistance, and though I am fearful I have incurred a debt that may be impossible to repay, I must ask a question.”

Said Sleep “Ask.”

Said the Acolyte: “Pray tell me master, where are we? The world is dark and silent. Even held in your divine grasp I feel as if I am falling.

Said Sleep: “Fallen you have, dear guest, down through the cracks in my demesne. Hold still, dear guest, for we alight on the deep shore, on the realm of my dearest mother.”

And lo did the gods alight upon the shore, cthonic-deep and endless. Here the sand was soft-white and cool. Here the shore grass of deepest violet swayed in the wind-that-was-not-wind. Here the sea was starlit night, and it did shimmer with pale stars, distant and iridescent. Here did the acolyte gaze upon the deep shore, to where the horizon was not, to the sea of stars that reached up to the sky-which-was-not-a-sky.

Said the acolyte: “It is beautiful here.”

Said Sleep: “Yes.”

Said the acolyte: “I am afraid.”

Said Sleep: “This is natural. This is wise.”

Said the Acolyte to the god: “Dear master, I do not wish to linger upon your shores overlong. Duties you must have, and mine own work remains undone, but it is beautiful here. I would ask...”

Here did the Acolyte falter, eyes wide upon the deep and sleeping world, their eyes like stars.

Said the Acolyte: “I would ask to stay, to wander, if only for a while. It is beautiful here.”

And with these words did a great darkness sweep across the shore.

And so did Sleep kneel upon the pale sand. “Mother comes.”

And so did the Acolyte kneel in turn.

And so did Night come.

For but a moment did the Acolyte behold the form of night. Borne was she in gossamer veil, in cloth-bound eyes, in shroud. About her neck was a chain of darkest metal, bound with a lock. And in her hand was a lightless lamp.

Said Night:

Said the Acolyte: “My lady, I do not understand.”

Said Night:

Said the Acolyte: “My lady, I am sorry. I do not understand.”

Said Night:

Said the Acolyte: “My lady, I wish to understand.”

And night was gone.

It was then that sleep did rise.

Said Sleep: “Are you curious, dear guest? Do you wish to learn?”

Said the Acolyte: “Yes.”

Said Sleep: “Then follow.”

A SHORT HISTORY OF MAGIC

(Start Here, Considering cutting previous section, or moving it to the middle of the text after the history bit. This is the tone we want to hit.)

If one wishes to build a practice from scratch, they must first count the stars.

27,000 years ago when the world was harsh and cold, in a place now known as Dolni Vestonice in the Czeck Republic, three boys were buried. Their faces were painted ocre-red and their bodies were decorated with bones and teeth and warm clothing made from plant fibers. Near the grave were the fragments of a limestone rod with twenty-nine marks upon it, written in a pattern of 5,7,7,5,5, commonly interpreted to be a notation of a lunar month.

If the marks upon this relic do indeed represent a lunar month, this broken limestone rod represents the earliest known record of a human being gazing at the night sky, and attempting to understand what they see. In this we find the root, the soul of magic; to look beyond, and desire understanding.

WINTER - THE GREAT BEFORE:

50,000-10,000 BCE - The Ice Age

If one wishes to understand magic, they must start at the beginning. Ever since humanity emerged blinking and hungry from the mud and long winter, magic has been a part of us.

But before there was writing, there was oral history, and before there was oral history, there was silence. Before this, nothing can be known for sure. China, Africa, and Australia all bare evidence of ritualistic rock art and complex burial practices. It is impossible to know the specifics of these practices, or if they can even be considered magical in nature, but they are the first glimmers of a human relationship with something beyond. Before there were words, before there were stories to understand, magic itself had yet to take shape, existing in a primordial state.

And then there were stories. The myriad indigenous cultures of Australia and the Torres Strait Islands to this day practice a form of historical record-keeping in which stories are passed from parent to child with other relatives ensuring the story is repeated accurately. This method of sharing storytelling has allowed these cultures to retain ancient stories with incredible fidelity.

The Ngarrindjeri people of what is now South Australia tell stories of Ngurunderi, a legendary ancestral character who features prominently in their mythology. In one story, Ngurunderi chased his wives until they sought refuge by fleeing to Kangaroo Island—which they could do mostly by foot. In anger and frustration, Ngarrindjeri caused the seas to rise, turning the women into the series of rocks that now line the strait between Kangaroo Island and the mainland.

Scientists have recently confirmed that the rise in the sea level which drowned the Kangaroo Strait occurred roughly 9,800 to 10,650 years ago. The story can presumably be dated in kind.

Magic is culturally defined. It shifts and changes and grows along with a culture, blending and warping as it is influenced by other cultures, it blends, fractures, branches, and takes root in an eternal waltz with the tides of history. Two magicians separated by seas and time may dance to the tune of history, but the dance will be different, defined by how they learned, where they learned, what dance means to them, to their family, their people, and their culture.

A magician from cuba may dance the rumba
with a waltzing mage from france,
the jazz-hall magi may swing and jive,
but all of them will dance.

10,000 - 6000 BCE - The Spring Age

Ritual structures begin to appear as humans become less nomadic, Catalhoyuk, Lepinski Vir, Star Carr. The first evidence of items constructed for explicit ritual use.

The Ice Age fades. The air warms. Humanity pulls itself from long winter. One does not need to travel as far for food. The climate grows steadily warmer and humans grow steadily less nomadic.

In the hills of what is now southeastern Anatolia, a sprawling stone structure was unearthed. It was carved into the peak of a low hill, far from any rivers or wells, its great cisterns open to the sky to catch the rain, an island in a sea of grass.

Göbekli Tepe features carvings of animals, arms, and hands. It is impossible to know the significance of these carvings, they could have served an important ritual purpose, or been simple decoration for a place of residence. We cannot know the meaning assigned to these objects, because we cannot understand the minds that made them.

6000-1000 BCE - Dawn of the Magicians

[fold this into the next section]

The climate becomes warm and stable enough that humans are able to construct farms and form regular migratory patterns. The first magic wands appear in northern africa. Early magical practices emerge in connection with metallurgy. Humans begin to create permanent settlements. Evidence of consistent magical and religious practices emerges around grain storehouse temples and ball courts. Oral histories describe explicit magical practices. The first cuneiform tablets describe early forms of astrology and alchemy. China and the middle east begin to show evidence of ancestor worship and divination practices. Europe develops magical practices associated with the home. Humans are found buried with large quantities of bronze. Beliefs in angels, demons, astrology, and wards emerge.

METRODYNE - MAGIC IN THE AGE OF CITIES

[Cut this section down. We want to give an overview of magical history, not a treatise of it. Examples of individual spells should be given in later sections that detail each spell type. The goal of the history section should be to detail the sheer diversity of relationships that humanity can have to magic.]

The long winter falls, summer rises. As the world changes, so does magic.

With the ice age gone, the climate becomes stable. Agriculture allows for the production of enormous quantities of grain, which in turn requires storage. The construction of great stone temple-complexes became commonplace.

[old draft begins below here]

Here in the west, magic begins with Egypt and Mesopotamia. The climate has become regular enough to settle down, dig some holes, stack up some rocks into a ziggurat, and form magico-religious relationships with the world. Society is different now! Some people farm, some people run around with swords, and some very very lucky people have big houses and fancy hats. The world is becoming more hierarchical, and therefore so do the gods.

Humanity looks to find its place in an increasingly arcane ladder of gods and forces. Magic in this period is often described as a cosmotheology: There are many gods whose nature transcends human power and comprehension, but the universe as a whole is also worshipped, and can be engaged with on an individual level.

The Mesopotamian pantheon was a complex and shifting thing, but like most early religions, it was rooted in observation of the physical world. Anu was god of the sky, Sin was the moon, Ishtar was venus, but with the rise and fall of the various mesopotamian empires, the god or gods considered supreme would regularly change. One year it was Anu, the next it was Marduk.

The mesopotamian relationship to the gods was one of reverence and transaction. Humans were made from clay and blood and the body part of a god, and our half of the deal was to feed and clothe and celebrate the gods. In return the gods would make the crops grow and keep the weather clear.

The gods were incarnated on earth through their statues, the physical likeness of a god was considered to be a physical manifestation of the being itself. The statues were not simply images of the gods, they were the god; living things that required food and water and entertainment. The gods were the peak of the hierarchy of being, they had to be kept happy, but they were closer to forces of nature than beings who could be bargained with. To converse directly with the gods took a special priest-king, whose position higher up the metaphysical ladder allowed them some divine privileges with the divine.

One of the first official practitioners of magic in recorded history were the Mesopotamian Asipu They were a respected and highly trained class of clerics, scholars, healers, and workers of the minor spirits that plagued everyday life in 7th century BC Assur.

Every Asipu was familiar with a body of work known in english as the Exorcists Manual, a compendium of spells and rites and rituals that was necessary reading for any aspiring to master the craft of išippūtu, or exorcism. It details a myriad of rites and spells, including incantations to be spoken while fumigating an insect-infested field with juniper wood, the correct invocations to free the body of evil spirits brought on by scorpion stings, as well as rituals that give protection during travel, or divine the correct place to build a home or settle a city.

One of the most important jobs of an Asipu was divination, which itself fell into one of two broad categories: astrology and extispicy. Recovered mesopotamian astrological texts like the Enuma Anu Enlil detail over 6,000 different omens and signs that the Asipu must be aware of. The moon’s appearance on the first day of a month was an omen of good fortune, a halo around the moon was an omen of success for the king. The sheer amount of omens detailed would be impossible for any one practitioner to remember, though it is likely that only knowledge of the major omens was a necessity for astrological work. Much the same is true of extispicy, which was structured as a dialogue between the haruspex and the gods. A question was asked and an animal was gutted, the answer could be found in the shape of the entrails to follow.

The Asipu held a respected place in society. Being a magician was a good and honorable trade that took time, study, and focus to perfect. Entire family lineages would pass on the trade from parent to child. In turn, there is also evidence of less savory magical practitioners. The essebu (owl-man), snake-charmer (muslahhu), and the quadistu-woman all offered their services in the streets of ancient Mesopotamia. While the specifics of their work is unknown, it is known that they were regularly accused of witchcraft.

Magic in Mesopotamian society functioned on the basis of perception. The world was understood to be a logical place that followed logical rules, even if the specifics of those rules existed beyond understating. Magic was a question of knowledge and perception, of being able to observe the world and to know what was significant, and what was not.

There is a phrase that marks the end of many mesopotamian divinatory texts, and I believe it summarizes the whole of mesopotamian magic. “He who knows, may see it; he who does not know, may not.”

Egypt occupies a more significant space in magical history than Mesopotamia. Greater interaction with ancient Greece and Rome has left modern scholars with a more complete picture of Egyptian society, but a picture that must be detached from the greco-roman understanding of Egypt.

In 2006, Anthropologist J. Baines wrote: “Recent scholarship has consolidated a consensus that “magic” was integral to Egyptian thought, in which it was a basic cosmic force, not a marginal or disruptive phenomenon.”

In contrast to the competing city-states of Mesopotamia, the Nile valley delta was likely unified by conquest. Egypt was a whole, and at its peak was The Pharaoh, a single god-king who was a manifestation of Horus on earth, and responsible for interfacing with the divine for the purposes of keeping his people fed, safe, and fertile.

Egyptian magic places strong influence on transition and flux. The world is constantly shifting and re-combining with itself, breaking and flowing into periods of change and “Maat” or balance. The gods themselves were born from this cosmic flux. Where the gods of mesopotamia were personified and concrete elements of the world like wind or storms, the gods of Egypt were embodiments of complex ideas whose borders constantly overlapped. They could mix and split and combine and manifest in a multitude of ways.

Additionally, the ancient Egyptians had no concept of a separation between worlds. There was no higher realm only accessible to divinity, no hidden dimension of spirits and the dead, the world was a single continuous whole, with magic and religion existing in the same space.

One of the most important forces in egyptian magic is heka. It is both a natural force and a set of practices, and its effects on the world are dependent on who is manipulating it. Everything is subject to, even the gods, who were also seen as manifestations of its power. Heka was one of the primary modes by which maat was maintained, and though anyone could manipulate heka, the task often fell to humans who were especially gifted in its use.

The practice of heka varied greatly, from simple rituals could be performed to heal illnesses and protect a home from minor spirits, to priests with a lifetime of training in the nature of heka. Priests had defined duties that they were required to perform for the public good, but were also not barred from engaging in private magical practices (for a fee).

Temples were state-funded affairs, larger temples held a scriptorium where texts were produced and copied, a library where the texts were available to read, and a series of classrooms where the intellectual and religious arts were taught. They were designed not for group worship, but for solitude. Though solitude which was broken regularly by festivals.

Words were essential to egyptian magic, and given the ever-shifting nature of the egyptian universe, stories came in cycles. A foundational narrative was the struggle between Osiris and Seth, Osiris being associated with order, and Seth being associated with chaos. Their rivalry spans all of time, with Osiris being killed and mummified after Seth defeats him in combat. The exact nature of Osiris’s death is never explicitly told, as it was believed that words could bring the situation into the world, make it more “real” in a sense.

Symbols were seen to have similar power. Some of the oldest magical artifacts known to magicians are crescents of ebony or ivory inscribed with images of the gods. The gods were depicted with a myriad of human and animal parts, and the act of creating their image was a deliberately magical one akin to giving the gods the attributes of the animals they were incarnated as; the strength of a hippo, the swiftness of a crane, the ferocity of a lion, etc.

Additionally, all images and depictions could exist in active and dormant states. If the practitioner could perform the correct rituals, say the right words, the image would activate.

The Egyptian conception of death was a foundational element of their magico-religious culture. To die well, one wants their akh, or soul, to reside eternally in Duat, the realm of Osiris, where it will be happy for all eternity. However, to reach Duat, the Akh must navigate the dangers of the underworld. The dead were often buried with maps of the underworld featuring hazards such as lakes of fire, rivers of fire, mounds, and demons with knives. To do this, a person's vital force, their Ka, was necessary. Ka stemmed from the physical body, which must be preserved after death for the Akh to reach Duat. Such maps are laid out in the Egyptian Book of Two Ways.

While learning about Egypt and its relationship to magic is of historical importance, its legacy in western magic is arguably more important. It was in Egypt that the idea of The Occult first emerged. Egypt was, to the rest of Occult History, the mother of the magicians.

It is here that the anthropological history of the world and the occult history of the world diverge.

(Maybe mention china? Prehistoric Europe? Eurasian steppe/shamanism?)

(Probably talk about prehistoric europe here, specifically their shit with lake worship)

This brings us to the first millennium bce.

Jewish Magic

(Talk about jewish magic because it’s going to come up again. Run this shit by experts because this needs to be solid as hell.)

*Jewish magic defines demons and angels. Talk Raphael binding Ashmedai.

*Talk about Ashmedai’s possible lineage from the iranian Aesma Daeva

*Further reading: Gideon Bohak

*Talk about sheydim being sensitive to smells

*mandrakes, Ba’as root

*Charismatic ideas (mention jesus)

*gorallot

*Note the significant change from worshipping statues

*Shift from the first to second temples and monotheism

*How magic changes under monotheism

(Talk about the roman empire)

*how it overlaps with jewish magic (Thanks roman-jewish wars)

*macabean revolt

**Talk about babylonian jewish magic vs Palestinian jewish magic

*babylonian incantation bowls

*Western Jewish magic and its thing for engaved amulets and jewels, Lamelle

*Greco-roman Tabulae Defixiones

*Voces Magicae

*Note the first emergence of magical papyri and books

*GREEK MAGICAL PAPYRI

*Coptic Magical Codexes

*Tetragrammaton

*Interplay with the greek world.

*CHARACTERES (Probably Graceo-Egyptian)

*Sepher Ha-Razim

*Greek assignment of numerical values to letters

*Mention the importance of sound to incantations

*Speakin in tongues

*Salian Incantations

*ABRACADABRA

*Word Traingles QPRGYH

*Jewish relationship to astrology (Ask someone about this)

*Shimmush Tehillim (medival text)

*Index Librorum Prohibitorum

*Sepher Raziel ha-Malakh (Practical Kabbalah)

*”Jewish Magic still exists in the present, and it s msot famous when practiced by non-jewish celebrities; shorn of almost all its truly a magic for the modern age.”

*Zohar

*There is so much here but we have to shorten it

GRECO-ROMAN MAGIC

*Oracles in the big temples

*Seers: Manteis, Chresmologoi

*Incanters: Epodoi

*Wonder-workers: Thaumatopoioi

*interpreters of wonders: tetraskopoi

*speakers to the dead: Goetoi

*root-cutters and herblorists: Rizotomoi, pharmakeis

*Greek culture spreads to the borders of india and northern africa, many combinations are common

*Rise of the Polis

*egypt annexed in 31 bce.

*constantine becomes christian in 312 bce

*Christianity becomes the state religion in 391 bce

*Greek religion had no dogma, no official creed, no holy book, no priesthood, and no church.

*started around 800 bce.

*Its less accurate to consider roman imperium in the same way that we think of, say, british imperium. Roman imperium did not seek to wipe out conquered cultures, it sought submission. Rome was not a predator consuming prey, it was a parasitic vine growing over a tree. Ideas were not siphoned per se, they were circulated throughout the empire.

*Talk about Julia Kindt and her views on greco-roman religion.

*The greek gods were instantiations of aspects of the world, things that could be bargained with on a transactional basis.

*Rome had a similar view, as evidenced in Do ut des: “I give, that you might give”

*None asked a question without getting an answer, what no mortal knew was what the god would say.

*Esther Eidinow’s views on greek religion, less as individualism and more as a way of dealing with the anxiety of an unpredictable world.

*phthonos, envy driven spells, greco-roman magic had an air of enjoying the suffering of others

*People were not necessarily religious, and as one travelled, worshipping at local shrines in the local way was seen as practical and good

*Scholars are still unravelling the christian mindset when trying to look back on greco-roman religion.

*Greeks especially believed that everyone worshipped the same gods in different ways. A greek travelling to judea would see their god and say “damn, yall really like apollo huh”

*While there was no dogma or doctrine, impiety was still possible, early philosophers like Anaxagoras were exiled for claiming that the sun was a rock not a god.

*Oracles were deeply important.

*Temple of Apollo

*Delphic Amphikitiony

*THE PYTHIA, and her social and political importance

MAGIC IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Ends with Newton
Humor theory
John Dee
Saints, tinctures, demons and angels

Medieval magic

Kieth Thomas “The medieval church...appeared as a vast reservoir of magical power, capable of being deployed for a variety of secular purposes.”
Godsen: “It is impossible to understand Medival magic without embedding it within the context of the church, and medieval society more generally.”
Talk about how the roman empire fell in like 410 but continued to influence life
Talk about humorism here, as an example of as above so below
Talk about the spheres of the world, medival cosmology, ideas like the sublunary world and the Primum Mobile and empyrean heaven
Robert Grossteste
Demonology
NEOPLATONISM
Poltinus
The texts of Alfonso X of Castile
Lapidario
Picatrix
Libro de las formas e imagenes
Libro de astromagia
St Augustine, everything has its own angel

Everyday magic of the medieval world

Harley Roll
Abrahams eye
Holy water Godsen 364
Communion with angels, Angelology in general
Ars Notoria
Notae - Magical medival diagrams
Cecco d’Ascoli and floren
Simon Magus
Isidore of Seville
Magic and early pogroms
Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno, etc
Agrippa

Magic in the renaissance

What changed?
Godsen: 367 “Magic did not die out at this point, but transmuted into something new. Underlying much Renaissance thought was the search for the hidden and for allegorical links between things that might appear different; the term occult had a positive element in the sense that many magicians felt they were revealing and bringing to light hidden aspects of reality.”
Iatrochemistry
HERMETICA
Marsilio Ficino, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Porphyry
Pico della Mirandola: “The elemental fire burns, the celestial gives life, and the supercelestial loves”
The chain of being

Alchemy

History of the term alchemy
The emerald tablet
Chains of being
Jabir Ibn Hayaan, Gerber
Robert Chester, Book of Composition of Alchemy
12th century Toledo
Albertus Magnus
Roger Bacon
Akkadian distillation and Ur-Material
Paracelceus

Astrology

Simon Foreman
Richard Napier
Elias Ashmole
“The human body is where alchemy and astrology meet” Godsen 377

John Dee

Aa crucial criticism of Catholicism by Protestants was that it was magical.
Both were interested in light
Newtons ideas about gravity were prefigured by dee
Philosophia naturalis principa mathematica
Dee was a neoplatonist, and not a charlatan, he worked from an existing body of theory
Dee was particularly influenced by kabbalistic ideas, specifically those dealing with the geometry of letters
Dont forget edward kelley
Mysteriorum libri quinque
Book of Enoch
Dee as inspiraion for Prospero

Newton

Newton did practice astrology, though to a lesser extent
Newton was an alchemist
Transmutation
“Newton was searching for material transmutations that occurred down at some micro-structural level.” Godsen 384
(Include that cool ass sketch from his notes about the philosophers stone)
Consider including the quotes godsen did in 385

Witchcraft

Put this section before Newton
Ideas about black magic and sympathy for the devil
Deaths from witchcaft number about 80,000
Be sure to note that most of those people were probably not witches
Trial of Peter Stumpp
Maybe touch on paranoia here
Helen Duncan and the HMS Barham

Early Modern Magic:

Perhaps cut this, unsure of the structure
The idea that demons were mesmerized by a line
Hexafoils
The reformation personalizing relationships with god and how that effected magic
“Spiritual Middens” godsen 393
“Astrological practice for Physick”
WITCH BOTTLESSSSSS
The idea that newmodern witchcraft represents some unbroken line of paganism is probably wrong 395
A false decline of magic
Appalachian witchcraft, the prominence of divination and cunningfolk despite writing to the contrary
Newton being the last alchemist
BLAVATSKY

MODERN MAGIC

SPIRITUALISM
ANIMAL MAGNETISM
Ghost Club (.org)
Society for Psychical Research (.uk)
Dickens,
YEATS
Seances (Incude that anecdote about seances being a common tool for black leftists in america)
Anti-Native sentiments
Houdini, A magician among the spirits
Conan Doyle, Edge of the unknown, The History of Spiritualism
Clashes between enchanted worldviews and empiricism
“Were people divided into body and spirit, with the latter surviving the death of the body?” 401
Communication between worlds
FREUD and the unconscious, its relation to psychometry
Mention that time that freud was a medium in the 1920s
CROWLEY, his inspiration from Wilde and Nietzche
Book of the Law
The New Age
Temple of the Golden Dawn
Ordo Templi Orientis

Contemporary Magic

“Around 75% of the adult population hold some belief in magic and the paranormal (source??)”
Pew research mentions that 79 percent of those polled felt miracles still occur today as in ancient times (2007)
Ouija board
Gerald Gardener
Freemasons / Rosicruticans
Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn
Ordo Templi Orientis
Wicca
Neopaganism
Chaos Magic
Satanism?
The New Age

Magic in the modern world

Where does this leave us?
Let me show you
Hence the rest of the book
Extending being beyond the body
Being as Ecology
The sentience of matter
“Where science asks ‘Can we do this?’ Magic asks ‘Should we?’” Godsen 432

THE ROOTS - MOUTH OF THE LABYRINTH

Said Sleep to the Acolyte: “Behold with thine fast-shut eyes dear guest, for herein lies the vale deep.”

And the Acolyte did behold a strange and twisting valley like a bowl carved into the earth-which-was-not-earth. It was here that the night sky like seawater did cascade, flowing down down down the great spiraling aqueduct through mountain and forest and ruin to the great cistern below.

Said the Acolyte: “It is beautiful.”

Said Sleep: “It is treacherous.”

Said the Acolyte: “What lies at the center?”

Said Sleep: “The palace umbral, manse of my dearest mother night.”

Said the Acolyte to Sleep: “How must I reach it? These cliffs are tall and steep and I bare not wings.”

Said Sleep: “Along these dream-carved cliffs must you walk, through the forests and mountains and ruins old.”

Said the Acolyte: “But where, master sleep, do I begin? From this high place the vale seems a maze, a labyrinth of bridges and knots and false paths. I fear I will be lost.”

Said Sleep: “And fear you must, dear guest. For here the dream is deep. To be lost here is to be lost for good.”

Said the Acolyte to Sleep: “Will you not guide me?”

Said Sleep to the Acolyte: “I cannot. This place is not mine to know. The work must be yours, dear guest, and yours alone.”

Said the Acolyte: “I understand.”

Said Sleep: “You do not, dear guest, you do not. I must leave you here to your exploration. I have mine own duties to which must attend.”

It was then that the Acolyte did walk, along the dream-carved paths of stone-which-was-not-stone

Ever deeper.

THE FIRST BRANCH - WINTER

And the dream said: “Close your eyes.”

Beyond these walls there is nothing but the endless dark.”

And the Acolyte did close their eyes.

And the Acolyte was quiet for a long while.

And the Acolyte said in soft whisper: “In my dreams I have felt this before. A pinprick in the shroud, a glimmering, so distant, so faint, so far away.”

And the Dream said: “Go. Seize it. Take it in your hands.”

And the Acolyte said: “I dare not. I feel if I reach for it swiftly it will vanish, blown into nothing like an ember on the wind.”

And the Dream said: “You must be gentle.”

And the Acolyte said: “It is so far away.”

And the Dream said: “You must be patient.”

And the Acolyte said: “It is so fragile.”

And the Dream said: “You must be humble.”

And the Acolyte said: “It is mine.”

And the Dream said: “Open your eyes.”

It was then that the light did return, rushing in to fill the gap. There in the Acolyte’s hand was an unember, a speck of velvet dark, fragile, distant, and wanting.

From the folds of his quilted robe did Sleep draw a lantern. “Place the ember within.”

And the Acolyte did place the ember within the lantern, but the oil did not light.

Said the Acolyte: “I do not understand.”

But Sleep was gone.

THE SECOND BRANCH - STONE

THE THIRD BRANCH - SEA

THE FOURTH BRANCH - HEARTH

THE FIFTH BRANCH - CORPSE

THE SIXTH BRANCH - MACHINE

THE SEVENTH BRANCH - LIGHT

THE PALACE UMBRAL

SECTION TWO: THE THEORY OF MAGIC

Magic comes in three overarching forms. These archetypes are defined on the overall goals of the practitioner; Transcendent magic, Transactional Magic, and Transformative magic.

Transcendent magic is used when interacting with forces that are beyond human control. The universe is bigger than us. The wheel of fortune is turned by the tide of fate and we humans are here to bear the consequences. Storms level our homes, mysterious relatives die and leave us fortunes, electronics catch spontaneous fire, every moment of every day we are subject to forces that we understand, but are beyond our ability to effect.

An astrologer checks the signs for the betrothed, determining the most auspicious day for marriage. A monk sits in silence, pondering the nature of god. A young woman chooses a green dress for her date, dates always seem to go better when she wears green.

We read the stars, we cast runes, we draw cards, all in an attempt to gain insight into the machinations of the world, to touch something untouchable. For are we not made of the same matter as storms and gold and fire? Are we not pulled by the same gravity? Are we not warmed by the same sun and cooled by the same night? For all its marvellous and ineffable complexity, we are not distinct from the world in any way that matters.

Transactional magic is used for forming, maintaining, and breaking contracts with the universe in its myriad forms. Payment made, bargain kept. A priest offers prayer to god in hopes that a sinner will be pardoned. A shaman bangs a drum as the people dance, offering the sound and frivolity to the spirits in hopes that they will bring rain. Students rub the head of a bronze dog statue for good luck on their finals.

There is often an element of personification to transactional magic, to make a bargain with something implies an intelligence with which a bargain can be made. However, this Other is not necessary for transactional magic. A campfire warms us at the cost of burning through its wooden fuel. The actual mechanitions of the bargain are often irrelevant.

The universe is an easy thing to personify. If there is beauty to be found in the human experience, it is found in our ability to see ourselves in the world. The sky may storm and rage and we ask it what is wrong. Is it upset? Is there anything we can do to help? Perhaps if we cooked some meat and wine over a fire, the smoke would drift up to the sky and it would stop raining.

Transformational magic Is used to turn one thing to another, and to imbue things with special properties. A priest stands over a basin of water, making it holy. A viking warrior kills a bear and brings its bones to the smith, who will burn them in the kiln to turn iron to steel. A mother stares over the counter to her children as she stirs a pot with love.

The wonders of the physical world are endless. Today we understand every chemical reaction that facilitates the fermentation of grape juice into wine, every step has been recorded, catalogued, and fine-tuned with the sharpest tools available to science. None of this has made the transformation any less magical.

Understand that hard distinctions are antithetical to a proper understanding of magic. These three archetypes are not hard categories. They are a triple intersection that mix and blend and overlap. Consider a place where a mountain range, a forest, and a grassland meet. There are no hard borders between the biomes, forest fades into grassland, the woods climb the slopes of the mountain, as do the grasses and flowers.

MAGIC AND RELIGION

Magic and religion do not have a fixed relationship. Every culture has a unique balance of the two. Godsen lays out five major relationships: Magic as dominant force, magic with an emphasis on lineage, magic and religion as equals, religion dominant and magic ambiguous, and a dominance of science religion and magic in that order.

Where does current western society fall? It is difficult to say. Attempting to define the interplay between science, religion, and magic in the modern world would be a tall order for any anthropologist, and I am not an anthropologist, I am an occultist.

That said, there are practitioners of magic from every religious background on earth. Each religious doctrine and culture will create a different relationship with magic, and ultimately it falls to the practitioner to determine what they want that relationship to be. A practitioner can be Christian, Musilm, Atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, or anything else under the sun. There is no gate.

In fact, dear reader, if your religious beliefs are an important part of your life, I would encourage you to look at your religious history. Every religion on earth has its esoterica.

THE SEVEN LAWS OF MAGIC

Magic is a narrative force. Where religion has doctrine, magic has rules. I have attempted to define the rules here.

The Law of Contagion - The part of the thing is the whole of the thing. Once together, always together. Magic performed on a strand of hair will affect the entire body. Magic performed on a shard of a building will affect the entire building. Not all connections are made equal, magic performed on a cup with your lipstick on it will have less of an effect than magic performed on a phial of your blood. Magic using this law is known as Thaumaturgy.

The Law of Sympathy: The image is the thing. Like attracts like. A drawing or representation of something can gain its properties. A photo or drawing of you will have a similar thaumaturgical connection to you. Combining sympathy and contagion is the basis for poppet magic.

The Law of Correspondence: As Above, So Below. The gods are like us and we are like them. When viewed closely, atoms resemble solar systems. The big effects the small. The idea that there is a sort of harmony between similar patterns no matter their size. This is the basis behind astrological magic.

The Law of Resistance: Some things are more magically conductive than other things. Everything exists on a spectrum of “magical“ to “mundane“ and the less magic something is, the harder it is to effect with magic. The same extends to people who, for whatever the reason, simply have a harder time interacting with magic.

The Law of Balance: Magic seeks equilibrium, and therefore, every magical action has a cost. No magical act takes place without some sort of power behind it. Energy will not move unless something is moving it, be it a practitioner or the natural energy of the moon. A body in motion will stay in motion, a body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.

The Law of Reciprocity: If you don’t know where its pointed, its pointed at you. If it doesn’t have enough energy, it will get energy from you. The process of getting hit with your own improperly constructed spell is known as Recoil. Safe practice often involves setting up wards to act as a barrier between you and any mistakes.

The Law of Reversal: That which is done by magic can be undone by magic. For every spell there is a counterspell, for every ritual a counterritual. Every ward can be hexed, every curse can be dispelled. This does not mean countermeasure will be easy or efficient.

THE FIVE QUALITIES OF A MAGE

Elphias Levi, in his 1896 book Transcendental Magic, outlined four essential qualities of a mage. They are as follows: Scire, Velle, Audere, and Tacere.

Noscere - To Know - Associated with the element of air, intelligence, and discernment. A practitioner must know themselves and their practice. They must know the lore of herbs, stones, symbols, or whatever they may be working with. They must understand the hard facts of their craft, and be able to discern reality from illusion. One cannot manipulate an image if one does not understand its bounds. Additionally, one must understand that magic is not free from the mechanics of the world. If an idea does harm, the mage must leave it behind.

Velle - To Will - Associated with the element of fire, with belief, discipline, and willpower. A practitioner must apply their knowledge! To do magic is to make art, to make art is to be known. This is terrifying! A practitioner must have the willpower to be known, to put themself into their craft, to allow themselves to fail and practice. We are steel from the kiln, and we must hammer ourselves into better shapes if we wish to grow. Pain is not necessary for growth, but hammers a heavy; to wield the tools of growth requires effort and careful focus. Magic is a constant effort of refinement and re-analysis. It is called a practice for a reason.

Audere - To Dare - Associated with the element of water, with challenge, tenacity, and ambition. A practitioner must be able to do things with their whole heart. Far too many practitioners are embarrassed by their practice, this will not do. It is human instinct to second guess ourselves, to response to criticism and mockery with indignance. When a practitioner is called cringe, two paths open before them. To take the path of the reed is to simply not respond, to allow others to think you are silly, and continue on your merry way. To take the path of the oak is to hold strong, to recognize that magic is, at the end of the day, a bit silly, and to respond with a resounding “yeah its cringe lol.”

Tacere - To Keep Silent - Associated with the element of earth, with calm, with understanding and humility. A practitioner must understand that the world is always stranger than it seems, that there are ideas beyond what words can convey, and experiences beyond what the mind can comprehend. There are things that cannot be explained, only learned firsthand. This is the Esoteric. Most of all, a practitioner must remain humble. True understanding of the Occult --real Esoteric Knowledge-- can feel powerful, and the practitioner must not allow this to make them arrogant. Remember, no matter how many books by historical weirdos we read, we still have to use the toilet.

Each of these qualities is a corner of a pyramid, when combined, they form the foundation for:

Ire - To Go - Associated with the spirit. A practitioner must remain balanced, and a practitioner must practice.

TYPES OF SPELLS

Warding is magic that seeks to protect. It is the magical defense of people, the scaring away of evil spirits, the consecration of places or objects. Warding is proactive, it is the construction of magical defenses.

Synmancy is a broad and common form of magic. As people move through their lives, they form relationships with their environment. Bonds are formed with people, places, animals, plants, things, ideas, anything that can be important to a person. Synmancy is magic that forms, strengthens, breaks, changes, or manipulates those bonds.

Divination is any magic that deals with foretelling the future. This can take many forms and many scopes, from a single person drawing tarot cards in preparation for a date, to an oracle foretelling the fate of a nation.

Augury is the complement to divination, where divination seeks to understand the future, augury attempts to understand the past. Roman settlers often kept an augur with them when a city was in need of construction. The augur would disembowel birds to examine their entrails. Was the bird hydrated? Well fed? Did it show signs of disease? A well-fed, well-hydrated, healthy bird, meant a place rich in natural resources, and ideal for settling.

Necromancy is any magic that deals with dying, death, and the dead. It deals with ideas of how to die, what happens after, and how to stay dead with elegance and poise. Common practice involves speaking to the dead, ensuring they are comfortable, and ensuring that they do not bother the rest of us.

Zoimancy is magic that deals with the body; medicine, sickness, health, healing, and possession. Where wards are proactive, dealing with the defense of something, zoimancy deals with management and repair. Wards are the walls around the castle and the guards who patrol them, but zoimancy are the masons who maintain the walls, and the soldiers who come to repel invaders. Before there was germ theory, there were spirits.

Alchemy is magic that deals with understanding and effecting transformation. This also covers Artifice, the construction of magical objects.

Amoramancy is magic that deals with the manipulation of desire. The magic of love, sex, wanting, and yearning.

ON CURSES

A curse is essentially any spell done with harmful intent. A hex is any form of spell meant to unravel or dispel other workings. If wards are walls, a curse can be a battering ram, a stealthy assassin, or an invading army who lays siege to the castle. In this same fashion, a hex could be the pots of tar used to burn down the ram, the patrols who catch the assassin, or the legion of riders who break the siege into disarray.

Magic is culturally defined, and it is rare to see forms of magic that are either inherently good or inherently evil. The common dichotomy of White Magic versus Black Magic is, in my opinion, limiting. A scalpel is a tool of medicine, but can just as easily be used to gouge out an eye. Magic is much the same.

For a more occult analysis of this concept, let us look to the idea of the Left and Right Hand Paths. The right hand path is often associated with adherence to a sort of moral code, where the right hand path is associated with resistance to the current social and religious paradigm, the incorporation of sex into magic, and general rejection of social conventions.

Within this conception of magic, those who define the normal, the orthodox, also define the abnormal, the heterodox. Those seeking to reject the dominant order of the world are themselves slaves to it. It is my belief that participation in the occult should be one of curiosity, an exploration of the wondrous and strange things that humans can do, any notion of arcane power or higher wisdom must come after.

THE FIVE STAGES OF UNDERSTANDING

(learning)

1 - Data - Cast a wide net, absorb as much relevant data as possible, draw the lines around what will become the body of knowledge.

(collation)

2 - Information - Structured Data. Take the raw data and organize it, form tables, draw diagrams, find relationships between the data points, placing the data points on a graph.

(analysis)

3 - Knowledge - Useful information. Once information is understood to the point where it can be applied effectively, it becomes knowledge. Understanding that the data points follow a formula.

(Experimentation)

4 - Insight - understanding the underlying forces behind Knowledge. Understanding that the formula can be used to predict future data points.

(Practice)

5 - Wisdom - Application of that deep knowledge. Understanding when to apply the formula, when it will or will not be useful.

BUILDING YOUR CRAFT

Learn to meditate
Learn the rules of magic
If you plan to venerate something, learn about it
Learn the rules of YOUR magic, not all spell structures are created alike
Setting up a workspace
Practice building spells
Research research research

Common sorts of spells

Intro to summoning
Intro to Sigilcraft
Intro to herblore

Building your craft

Customizing your practice

HOW TO LEARN ABOUT THE OCCULT

If there is an unofficial rule of magic, it is this: “Do your homework.” But this is easier said than done. Before one can really learn about the occult, one must learn how to learn about the occult. Doing research into ordinary topics can be difficult, and doing research into the occult can be a minefield of racism, pseudoscience, and predatory ideologies. In this section, I will cover how to do research, as well as cover some red flags to look out for.