Today is your last chance to get a heavily discounted edition of the Winter Edition of the Hermetic Tablet. At midnight US time the 30 per cent discount comes off. Order your paperback here ($31) or the deluxe hardback first edition here ($41) and type in the code NEWYEAR30 to get your discount. This issue has some really interesting articles for those interesting in the Golden Dawn system and ceremonial magic so is well worth it.
Year: 2015
Open letter to the Grandmaster of A.M.O.R.C.
Ave Julie Scott It is with some concern that I note that your order is issuing cease and desist letters against those esoteric orders using the words the “Rosicrucian Order” The latest case was The Rosicrucian Order of the Golden Dawn which has neither the will nor the legal muscle to defend itself. While I accept that your order has the right to trademark its name and its variations it morally does not have the right to identify itself as “The Rosicrucian Order.” There are many other Rosicrucian Orders with a pedigree equal to and possibly greater than A.M.O.R.C. In the historical line of my own group, the term “Rosicrucian Order” has been part of our secret Second Order work since 1890. Rosicrucianism
Dr Who and the problem of immortality
Last night’s episode of Dr Who got me thinking about the nature of immortality and humanity's relationship with Gods. In the “Girl who Lived,” the Doctor created an immortal girl Ashildr (Maisie Williams). She had to write down stuff because soon her memories became overloaded, she forgot about the many lives she had lived and called herself “me”. Immortality changed her making her care less about other humans. Bored, she spent her time robbing people for a modicum of excitement. Immortality kills off feelings like love, desire and right and wrong. It is the “mayflies” as the Doctor calls them which have life correct because they hang onto every bit of life they have. The problem of immortality was first noticed by the Greek writer
Sharing real occult information with everyone is impossible
I appear to have created a stir with this blog in which I said I had a series of realisations lately and suddenly lost the urge to try sharing serious occult information outside my group. The move prompted claims that I was either making it up, or that there was something wrong with me for not wanting to share. I was being arrogant. But really it has become too difficult. Sharing has been a big part of my life. When I was at primary school I was more or less suspended as a ring leader of a lunch swapping racket. Kids coming to school who were bored with what their mothers made for them could swap elements of their lunch for
WHY OCCULT FUNDAMENTALISM FAILS
Since the 20th century we have seen the rise of fundamentalism in the religious world – the idea that you can only understand God through a literal interpretation of what has been written down in religious texts. Fundamentalism offers a form of stability. The follower does not have to think, they just do what they are told and read the text. Often, they don’t even have to study, just rely on someone else’s interpretation of the sacred text. Since the 1990s a similar trend has arisen in occultism. It is not as overtly religious but it is based on a similar principle. Namely that there is an occult text, teaching, or statement which must be taken literally and followed to the letter. This
TEN REASONS WHY PUBLIC OCCULTISM IS DYING
The writing is on the wall for Public Occultism. Its glory days are over and even those who are trying to keep the lights on are finding it hard to pay for the power bill. I have been quiet lately because I have had a few breakthroughs that have provided me with all the answers I needed to make magic work and why it doesn’t. This is pretty big, but unlike the other revelations which I have tended to share with the wider occult community, I don’t have much impulse to share any of this outside my own magical order. It is the sort of thing I will hint at if I write my books, but I don’t really feel like
HEROES IN MAGIC
In the Geometric Greek period (8th Century BC), there was an interesting development from Ancestor Worship to the worship of Heroes. This was inspired by the rise of Homer and other poets. The belief was that the Heroes had been so significant in life that they could act as go-betweens between the living and the dead. Despite their often bloodthirsty acts in life, they became defenders, healers and oracles and guaranteed fertility of the land. The idea that they had created an access of power by their heroic acts is similar to the idea of Christian saints which came much later. In this case, they filled a role often associated with stone circle’s as the guardians of the land. Often they were fixed
NITA HICKOK HAS DIED
Nita Hickok died yesterday. For those who didn’t know her, Nita was a self-taught eclectic magician who placed herself at the hard business-end of exorcism work and psychic self-defense work. We worked in completely different ways but shared techniques. She correctly identified the source of some attacks when at the time I could not even believe that anyone would be bothered to attack me. Not only that she gave some pretty good proof and allowed me to carry out some counter measures. Indirectly these lead to the creation of MOAA. Her skills were in demand, particularly in the Philippines where she appears to have stirred something up in the local magic scene somewhat jealous of what she could do. In the end her rivals shot
BAD OCCULT GROUPS DO NOT MEAN OCCULT GROUPS ARE BAD
Aaron Leitch has been venting about Lodge haters who believe that magic has no place in groups. First law of journalism is that if someone says something then you have to work out why. Aaron has been lucky. His lodge is run by two competent people and its members are not attempting power trips. The nay sayers on the other hand either have no experience of groups at all or have had bad ones and assume that all groups behave the same way. Many nay sayers from the US usually describe themselves as “libertines” which means that they want to do what they like and get very shitty if someone says they can't. I have seen both sides. I have been in shit groups
HOW PHILOSOPHY HELPS MAGICAL DEVELOPMENT
Humans are extremely bad at learning from the past, yet at the same time they cling onto concepts which are long out-of-date. This is caused by the way we learn. For evolutionary reasons humans had to learn a lot of things very quickly and our brains are hardwired to accept the first idea we are told from a "perceived authority" without question. This is logical as we do not want to distrust everything and most things we will need to understand the first time. Besides much of what we learn will not be used again for some time. When a solution turns out to be wrong it takes effort to remove it. This why we often continue to believe things which are