The Moon is one of the most important planets for magic acting as a transformer for supernal and planetary powers. This makes the Moon's position of the Moon and its phase a critical timing feature in ritual or talisman consecration. Talisman lore requires the planet or zodiacal force is in a good position. We are told that the ritual performed during the correct planetary hour, but the books generally ignore the Moon. The moon gods, such as Thoth and Hekate, are often magical gods, and this hints that while the planets might represent the ritual or talisman’s purpose, the Moon is its magical power. So if the Moon is off or weakened, you might have a perfect intention but lack the magic
Book review: Changing meanings in the Hermetica
I have been reading a translation of the Corpus Hermetica by David Myatt and in his footnotes he says that key words that have been used in past English translations have been incorrect. The issue being that words, such as Nous being translated as “Mind” have modern associations which are too far away from the original idea. Some of the words he suggests as meanings which point to the original Greek meanings turn the Hermetica (and Greek philosophy) on its head and reveal how far we have fallen away from the original intent. Nous is a hugely important word in the Hermetica and yet the word “mind” does not really do it justice. If you see it meaning mind you could be
Things you need to remember about historical magical systems
In looking at ancient systems and texts there are shedloads of pitfalls for those who have worked within a system and those who are self-taught. When people have started to suggest that you do not have undergo that basic training in a system and can just launch into ancient texts and cobble together a workable system, I wonder how. I love adopting a historical approach to magic – my bookshelf is no longer dominated by modern occult classics and has been replaced with academic texts and different translations of source texts. It is part of my make-up that I love history (up until the renaissance where I lose interest.) It is natural then that my path would involve taking a historical
The main Hermetic Principle
If you had to boil down Hermetic thought into a single idea, then you are left with a saying which would be familiar to those who know their Led Zeppelin lyrics (and the Three Musketeers). It would also prove inconsistent with the Kybalion and other modern beliefs as to what Hermetics really are. All is one and one is All. Meditating on this one phrase can keep you up at night and when accepted as truth and applied to most magical or spiritual situations it answers most questions. Hermetics is a very wide church and binding it to too many ideas is tricky but the idea of a Monad is consistent. It means that everything is made up of One Thing or a
Occult(ish) lessons Coronavirus lockdown taught me
Being locked down during the Coronavirus and having your life being put on hold has taught me a couple of things which are important for the occult path. Some dismantle a few esoteric myths; others were just things I learnt on along we way. It does not matter how experienced you are in magic, or how good, there are somethings which are bigger than you and you cannot deal with (or are meant to) magically. Even if I were able to do a ritual to eradicate the Coronavirus I would not be allowed out of my house for a couple of weeks. No amount of magic will change that. If you look at this issue wider, it means that other
Using your Nous
One of the closest things that the Kybalion comes to a real hermetic thought is the statement that “everything is mind.” In its Principle of Mentalism, the Kybalion claims that “Everything that happens has to be a result of a mental state which precedes it. For anything to exist, thoughts had to form first, which then form physical reality or manifestation. While this ends up with new-age bollocks such as “Your thoughts are seeds, plant positive seeds in your mind garden” the idea appears to be based around the corruption of the sound Platonic/ Hermetic concept that God is something called Nous. The word Nous can be literally translated as Mind. Those who inspired, and wrote the Kybalion, thought it logical to
The real Hermetic Principles
While people mistakenly believe the new-age pseudoscientific mishmash which is the Kybalion is hermetic, few have looked at Corpus Hermetica to work out what the real Hermetic Principles are. There are far more than seven but here are 11 which I produced, without too much effort (there are many more). 1. God is One Thing which is unknowable and having built creation within itself. If anything is a division, then it is only an illusion. It contains within itself everything. If in doubt remember that everything is One Thing. This has a huge impact on those looking for dualities such as Good and Evil for if such dualities are real, they are illusions within God. So if we can’t know God
Hermetic use of stories
The Hermetic tradition is all about Thoth and so words are really important. However collections of words called stories have a life of their own and and important too. In my novel “When a Tree Falls,” I wrote this about stories, mostly as a joke. However, like many things in that book, it was all true. “It is a secret known only to journalists, novelists, and storytellers that there are only fourteen unique stories in the world. These archetypal stories come from one source. The names, places and material facts of the story might change throughout history, but always the essence is the same. Even stories that twist and turn until you are not sure what the outcome will be will
More on Daemons
The idea that Daemons are partly human-made and partly divine appears to have hacked off those who are religious or that believe that Ancient texts do not support the idea. My goal in making these ideas available is to show how magic works, why it does not, and how it is different from religion. To briefly recap, a human cannot connect directly to an invoked spiritual force and unconsciously creates a messenger or Daemon for it based on their perception. The nature and power of the Daemon depend on the human’s ability to tune their ideas to that aspect of the divine force. Humans often mistake their Daemon for divine energy. This happens naturally in religion and is why some of
Connecting to your God with a Daemon
There is a magical process of connecting to a god, any god, which is nearly scientific and has been a feature of religion without ever being mentioned -- a Daemon. In “Making Imagination” I said that all gods exist but are reflections of a central divine unity which divides itself into seven (or nine) different functions or rays. These functions are given masks by humans which give a Divine form for acting with that human. Organised religion is where humans agree on some of the general nature of these forms and sets common rules but even within that umbrella each person sees their God slightly differently. Pagans were clear on the difference between these masks and the real gods behind them. A