I am currently busy writing a longer essay on an inofficial magus-degree ritual that emerged from the margins of the Order of the Gold- and Rosy Cross in the late 18th century. Central to this text, published in the spirit of the original Rosicrucians, is the motto ‘The True and the Good’ [Das Wahre und Gute].
In ancient Islamic societies the animal realm was closely connected to the realm of the jinn. Julius Wellhausen in his widely published ‘Remains of Arabic Paganism’ (Reste Arabischen Heidentums, 1897) asserted that Islamic ‘zoology is at the same time demonology’; a notion that sounds rather familiar to the student of Ancient Egyptian magic.
Just recently Josephine McCarthy rediscovered some of her archive treasures and made them available for free on the Quareia website. Amongst these texts, are four particular magical operations that focus on our relationship with and active support to the ecological environment we are an integral part of.
Just recently in 2017 FULGUR added a set of 10 outstanding doorways to the already existing body of magical expedition maps. Their breathtaking book 'Decad of Intelligence' is a beast so rare and precious, it actually is not a book at all. It is the kind of object you will not want to place on a shelf, but rather allow it to breathe in your temple.
In four short commentaries we’ll shine a light on some of the magical scenes this wonderful action movie is taking us into. The following brief comments are not at all meant to ‘explain’ the respective scenes, but to draw our attention to specific places in the narrative of a movie that might deserve a second viewing...
(...) Now, to make this project happen everyone's contribution is required. Whether you want to help through pre-ordering your copy now or instead through a crowdfunding donation - every little helps! This project has been carried for years by very few people, they have brought it a huge way - and so close to its realisation. I truly hope in the next 21 days we can bring it over the finishing line jointly.
(...) what I had misunderstood is what the term ‘work’ actually stands for. The Latin word ‘producere’ can be translated literally as to ‘bring forth’ or ‘draw out’. So in my simple Western mind ‘work’ was something that flowed from the inside outwards. From intend to action and from action to result. I understood work as the process of achieving a state of change by means of applying ourselves to the world. May it be through the help of our hands, of our minds or words. Whatever interface between us and the world we choose to use, work was an active noun, the opposite of death almost, and altogether a pretty safe sign for being alive.
Let’s begin with a very simple thought: There is a man inside of us and a man outside of us. Both of these men are not us. The one outside of us is marked by our skin, the bones and blood and nerves we are clothed into. He - or she - is what the Gnostics called the living grave. Nothing could be more misjudging of its possible power and beauty and divine alignment. The man inside of us on the other hand often remains buried and un-contacted until the day the man outside of us dies.
Now, in my eyes we are confronted here with an essential consideration about the nature of the Great Work. And that is the question of its pace and speed. People often say ‘You cannot speed up the harvest.’ Often when I hear this I get impatient and think to myself: ‘Right. But you can certainly forget to sow, water and shield your crops.’ (...) So the question that emerges seems to be: How do we marry the virtues of discipline, focus and commitment with their balancing counter-weights of letting go, accepting, experiencing and immersing ourselves into what is offered to us? In short: how do we marry our male and female sides to become one in the Great Work?
Last night I woke up from a strange dream. I had visited the remains of Gustav Meyrink's old house 'Home to the Last Lantern'. -- Here is the story of what happened next and where this dream guided me over the course of a day...
Over the last weeks I spent a lot of time diving deep into current research on empathy and its relation to the common psyche of mages and witches. I summarised what I learned in this article. Yet, once finished realisation hit me that I had missed an essential point. What this was, was to reflect on the purely practical implications of empathy in magic - outside of the realms of psychology, sociology and history. So here it is...
Imagine a place full of light. Blinding light as you see it high up on the mountains. That is where we are. We are sitting on a stone bench right below a mountain peak. The ridge is ragged. So much so that people in the valley down below know the story of angels with golden saws who had come down and once given the mountain head its current form.