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However, modern and classical sources would classify goetia differently: The modern tendency is to classify Goetic forces as psychological and to view them as projected outward. This goes back to Crowley and his 'initiated interpretation of Ceremonial Magic', an essay which prefaced his own edition of the Goetia. It is Crowley who, in the early Twentieth Century starts the fashion of viewing goetic evocation as 'psychotherapy'. In this regard he is radically at variance with tradition. Israel Regardie, who started his career as Crowley's disciple and advocate refined the relationship in his The Tree of Life. In this work he made an equation with the two principle psychoanalytic schools of the period, the Freudian and the Jungian. The Freudian school was associated with goetic evocation as a means of dealing with 'repressed complexes' which were objectified by being evoked, interpreting evocation etymologically in a way much at variance with its real historical origin. The Jungian school was associated with invocation and with the idea of psychological integration based on the 'invocation' of divine 'archetypes'. The etymology of 'evoke', as a calling out of oneself, is an invention of twentieth century occultists and as I have pointed out elsewhere: Much at variance with the real one: An etymology which I learned from the OED long before Wikipedia was even a glimmer in someones imagination. Something which owes its origin to military magic is hardly likely to be a beginners practice for balancing the psyche is it? Simple, yes. Quicker, probably. Safer, definitely. Why one should practice magic at all, much less Goetic evocation is an interesting question. When I was a kid starting out 50 or so years ago, I simply accepted the view of the neo-magical 'establishment' that ceremonial magic was the spiritual path of the West as Yoga was of the East and proceeded to practice it. The intervening decades have shown that matters are not so simple and that there was a great deal of stuff going on in the background to this, aside from it also being a ridiculous oversimplification. In the case of Crowley's 'Initiated Interpretation . . .', part of the background was an ongoing polemic with A. E. Waite. Waite was very critical of the whole ceremonial magic enterprise and Crowley had to find a way of defending it, thus the 'Initiated Interpretation …' was created. It has no connection with traditional interpretations and is simply the most egregious example of the incursion of reductionism into the magical tradition. Decades later Crowley characterized himself as a complete materialist about the time he wrote it. The texts that are the precursors of what is now called Goetia seem to have been a single text in the Middle Ages and may have been nothing more than a catalog of spirits without any mention of techniques for dealing with them. However the Goetia was used in the Middle Ages, it was not likely to have been a beginning technique, but an advanced one. Sometime in the Sixteenth Century is was combined with several other works to create a work usually called Lemegaton or Lesser Key of Solomon. If I have time I will examine this more closely, but I will suggest now that the reason for this was to act as a set of preliminary practices which one would undertake before proceeding to the Goetia. I will further suggest that there is an even wider context in which the Lemegaton should be interpreted, and that this wider context is Agrippa's Three Books on Occult Philosophy. I have posted elsewhere on the Tao Bums about this and may try to link these posts into the discussion. It is certainly like a tantric practice, but is it a tantric practice for beginners? As for why to practice goetia: If an intelligent, experienced, capable and well grounded practitioner like BaquqKicksAss chooses to investigate and practice Goetia, that is good enough reason for me in and of itself, but beginners are much better off using some of those '10 different ways'. Another very experienced and capable practitioner which we are fortunate enough to have here on the Tao Bums said: a post which I seconded at the time: Unlike Crowley who could not conceal his contempt for traditional accounts, I at least do them the courtesy of trying to understand them before dismissing them. If I have time I will try to bring some of my posts elsewhere over to this thread to explicate my position. Finally, while I don't particularly like the tone of this post, I have spent enough time just getting a few of the necessary points across, I just don't have time for sugar coating it now. I may post more on what I find interesting in Van Dusen, it is interesting enough to be a thread of its own.

Now for some serious consideration: Nothing, Nungali is and is not correct: Nothing, I presume. He was referring to their origins ... but they are okay now: is correct, but there is more to it than this. Maybe they got 'lifted up' ... on sepulchers : partially correct, tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz actually, by way of the Formula of the Enterer, 'Z' what I mean? (for those who lack the necessary initiatory savvy, its double entendre time, 'Z' = see, as in 'see what I mean', but also a reference the Golden Dawn 'Z' documents.) I hope to post something more serious on this. Here is the more serious consideration and I apologize for it being a discussion in a Chinese context by observing, that I have already written this and don't have time right now to create a whole new discussion. Now to provide some context, a few years ago a wrote a 30+ page monograph titled 'The 金光神咒: Thunder Magic Incantation or Golden Light Invocation?' The title of its first section is 'A tale of Two Translations' one of which has received some attention here on the Tao Bums: There are some points of interest in the subsequent discussion, there is also an interesting discussion here: Dan Tian and Daoist Mantras The other translation is: It started out as a comparison of the Chinese text with these two translation, but was eventually expanded to include a translation by Jerry Alan Johnson. At one point I offer my own version of a translation. One of the things which I emphasize throughout the discussion is the importance of context for understanding and thus translating the original. In my conclusion I examine the widest context, that of Daoist religious soteriology, after discussing the Divine Golden Light Incantation's relevance to the Rite of Cosmic Renewal, I continue: Which is, except for a few appendices, the conclusion of the study. The study is not finished though I would say about 95% done, so it is not available for general readership. I hope to finish it up in a few months. Obviously the above is in a Daoist context, but I believe that it is absolutely applicable to the Western Magical context also. More if I have time.

Oh, no good reason. A phrase which I chose to spill over from double entendre into triple and quadruple, and as for gains they are mostly ill-gotten. At its absolute 'goodest', maybe they can become the equivalent of Dharma protectors, some of whom are very unsavory in their origins, but it is a bigger subject than I have time for now, though I will try to get back to it if I can. Right now I am just kind of having fun with it. You Pisces are all alike. From what I have found, many seem to think that they are stronger/better at getting things done since they are demons. I mean even when I tell folks some $10 incense would work just as well for their particular project (sometimes that really is the case): This is so totally true, but I would say rather you don't call on the unibomber to build a shed. Even the one he lived in was not much. There are so many beautiful and lovely ways to get what one wants through magic, but magic is also so much more than that. In most peoples eyes yes, but as I said above it so much more than that. traveling around the world just to pick up a few souvenirs: While buying them from the local equivalent of the mafia.

If we don't watch out people will even go back to the ever so chic French spelling, Goeçia. It will be the end of civilization as we know it. I don't necessarily object to ending civilization as we know it, but I don't think this is the way. Also about Vassago, Waite does say that 'he is by nature good' in The Book of Ceremonial Magic. He must have fallen in with some rowdy teddy boys and been arrested in a sweep. Though Waite does list two seals for him, one for white magic, maybe he has an evil twin. Maybe he only thinks he has one. Now about Bune . . . He is associated with wealth you know. Though the weird stuff about sepulchers would give me pause for thought.

Yes, it is absolutely true that it is both OK and not OK to 'release certain information to certain individuals and/or the general public.' Knowing to whom and when is what Wisdom is all about. Get it first and the details are easy to deal with. Plato says as much in his dialogue Euthedemos. Few people listened to him then or now. Too bad we would all be better off if more people did. Do people need to be properly prepared/trained to handle the various relative truths ? Absolutely, they also need to be properly trained to handle any type of truth, not just relative truths. Does the spirit only let one receive the information that one is ready to handle ? Don't be silly. The truth goes anywhere it can. It is like a seed, but how it grows depends on the soil that it finds. This is what the whole business of preparation is all about. That's where Wisdom comes in. Did I mention Wisdom before? The following posts are about two types of truth with some serious and interesting overlapping: The above is the 'mystical' type of truth. Below is the 'magical' type of truth. It was the sheer idiocy of the vast majority of students of magic that made the biggest contribution to my decision to stop teaching magic. Baquakicksass' statements are all too typical. These things can harm both oneself and other people. Most people studying 'magic' don't really believe in it, they just hope that it exists, getting them to take these things seriously is well nigh impossible. Then there are the 'Power Freaks' . . . need I say more about them? Wisdom helps you to discriminate between these types and guides you with how to deal with them. Did I mention Wisdom yet? The mystical type of truth is simply so far outside of most peoples belief systems that, yes it can be yelled from any place and no one is going to understand it, who is not prepared to do so. It is not so much self protecting, as just too obscure. May as well try to tell dwellers in tropical countries about snow (I took this example from the musical 'The King and I', can't find a nifty YouTube clip though.). They just don't get it. Not likely too either, at least not without the right preparation. That's where Wisdom comes in. Have I mentioned Wisdom yet? Perhaps one has to stumble a few times before they catch on - i.e., a self regulating process? Hopefully they don't break their leg, or knock someone else over in the process. Would you teach a 5 year old child to manufacture things that can go boom ? You don't teach them to play with matches either, but the nasty little brats will take them when you are not looking and get into all sorts of mischief, won't they? Wisdom would help with raising children. It would also help with the question of whom to teach an what to teach them and when. Have I mentioned the importance of Wisdom yet? Funny thing about Wisdom, everyone already thinks they are the wisest person in the world, so you can't interest them in it. Oh well.

Leland published Aradia in 1899, Crowley 'received' Liber Al in 1903. Liber Al, as you probably already know, indicates that Crowley was already widely read as it refers to 'Obeah and Wanga', African Diaspora terms, which may have been floating around in his unconscious. So it is possible that he may have been familiar with Aradia too. Somewhere I read about Crowley saying that he had met some witches in his early years, but didn't want to be bossed around by a woman. Unfortunately I cannot place the reference right now. Also is should be remembered that A. O. Spare had his witch teacher. Wikipedia on Liber Al's use of 'Obeah and Wanga' (I was surprised to see that an entry this specific existed.) An interesting correlation Rex, I don't think it exactly correlates, but it is suggestive. Positive emotional states are a big help in magic and meditation, but then any intense emotions can be harnessed if one is properly trained. The oddest one that I found was one based solely on anger. The way in which it was harnessed was quite interesting, not as negative as it sounds on the surface. Thanks for the Glenn Morris link, I have heard of him, and know that he is highly thougt of, but have never studied his material. As for the secret of the 'secret smile', it is definitely a unique smile and cannot be faked. My own research indicates that it happens when the 'pleasure center' of the brain, like in those rat experiments, is stimulated. I have different ways of accessing it based on my NLP experience. Edit: Italicized first 'Liber Al' after Crowley.

My comparison and synthesis of Western and Chinese esoteric systems started in the early Seventies when I started comparing Western alchemy with Chinese alchemy in form of Charles Luk's Taoist Yoga. It has continued to be an interesting and fruitful endeavor in the forty years since then. If I thought this type of comparison was really meaningful I would come back with something to the effect that since Yesod was is the reproductive organ of the Microprosopus that it is perfect to represent the lower Dan in its function as the 'cauldron of jing', but I don't find such superficial comparisons either interesting or particularly meaningful. I don't find them interesting or meaningful because they take superficial resemblances and shuffle them around to make a pretty picture which people who like such things then oooh and aaah over. If that is what you want to do, save yourself some time and trouble and buy Yudelove's book. Get it here if you want: Yudelove's pretty picture book And if you really want to do some staggering superficial comparisons of your own, here is some real food for fantasy, I mean thought: (Image from To Become a Sage, Chapter One, University of Washington) The text and commentary on this can be found here: To Become a Sage, Chapter One, University of Washington Be forewarned the diagram, text and commentary is all by Confucians and can be harmful to the unexamined presuppositions of 'Taoists'. On the other hand if you really want to do something interesting and practical start with Western geomancy, a short introduction to which can be found here: Wikipedia on Geomancy and also here: Wikipedia on the Geomantic Figures Here are the Geomantic figures and one can see immediately why they might have relevance to the I Jing: (Illustration from Wikipedia on Geomancy) Hint: think Nuclear Trigrams, there is much more of course. Elsewhere on the Tao Bums I have noted: Most modern 'magickians' have not stepped outside the conceptual box created by Aleister Crowley of Geomancy being related only to the 'magic of earth', this is so wrong as to be laughable, if it did not trivialize an important and powerful system of magic. Simply learing about Geomancy and investigating it with a combination of analytic skill and creativity can reveal so much that it is amazing. Just as an example, what I learned about the art and science of magical binding from the study of geomancy was worth all the time and effort that I put into that study a thousand times over. Geomancy is one of the most interesting and fruitful ways of making a cultural bridge between Chines and Western systems. There are more, but I have said enough for today. Edit: I realized that I accidentally left out the third quote in the series at the top, it is in particular to this third quote that my comments about the 'reproductive organ of the Microprosopus' is directed and they make less sense without it.

I rather agree with Baquakicksass here, though I am perhaps not as keen on Geoffrey James as she seems to be. I prefer the books of Robert Turner, Elizabethan Magic and The Heptarchia Mystica of John Dee. Aside from having the same name as an important 17th Century English writer and authority on magic, he was one of the major figures in the 60s revival of magic in England. He started with the Golden Dawn system, but then returned to the original material and wrote on it in the early 80s. Regrettably mistakes and possibly sources of corrupting influence started in the early 17th Century and influenced various sources up to and including the Golden Dawn. If I have time and there is interest I may document these elements. Rather stuck for time now. I did some posts on Enochian under my Theurgia-Goetia, on Gods and Demons thread, they begin here: Enochian Magic and the Structure of the Lemegaton Again my being able to reply to any questions about that material depends on finding the time to do so.

Lest someone think that an 'electro-temple' is some stunning innovation of chaos magic, the following quote should be edifying. It is from the second printing of Emma Harginge Britten's Ghost Land, first published in 1875 or 76. After describing the most remarkable visionary experiences, the subject of these 'Autobiographical Sketches' reveals the actual physical form of the temple: The account is perhaps partly or wholly fictive and the visions grandly elaborated, but it shows that the notion of 'electro-magic' is hardly a recent phenomena. Though certainly an innovation from the time of Agrippa's Three Books, it is neatly assimilated under the rubric of Natural and Mathematical Philosophy, with especially as we get more in the direction of radionics, whether in its medical or magical context. Naturally neo-magical theorists such as Donald Tyson would dismiss the whole business as a woeful crutch for for magus wannabes who do not possess the necessary will power and imagination. Only time and practice will tell.

Just a quick note. To return to the OP: There is in reality no line between magic and religion. It is not observed in any but Western Cultures and was introduced as a Chrisitan/Pagan polemical device to distinguish the 'miracles' of 'True Religion', i.e. Christianity from the false seeming 'miraculous' phenomena produced by magicians. The mysticism starts with Plato and the magic develops from there. Time to introduce Eudorus of Alexandria: muddled concepts of psyche: I haven't read all of the the article in question because I am already familiar with the general issues, but one of the problems with Dillon's interpretation of Plato, is that Dillon takes the 'as much as we can' part of the Theaetetus quote and reads into it 'as mere mortals', this is where he is in disagreement with John Rist, who in Eros and Psyche takes the big view of the 'human being' as not merely confined to the human body in this world, but as living soul whose actions are reflected in the world of nature as a body. This living soul is a manifestation of the All and as such is quite capable of becoming 'God-like'. This idea, based on the Macrocosm/ Microcosm relation is fundamental to Plato's cosmology and Psychology (Psychology as the study of the Soul in the traditional sense and not its modern one.) a type of ‘pure philosophy’: Within this Hellenistic context what does 'pure philosophy' mean? It means the path to realizing and expressing one's divine nature in the world. It means magic. Any other meaning of philosophy must justify itself to its original model. In this regard Agrippa's Occult Philosophy succeeds admirably, almost all post 1700 'philosophy' , which now provides the model for 'pure philosophy' does not. surely relevance to current time, location and culture is an issue: Most Occultists have no idea of magic's historical context, this is the biggest issue facing the understanding of Magic as it existed from the Hellenistic period to the Renaissance and its relevance to the modern practice of magic.

I agree with Apech. Aside from the fact that historically, Hermetic materials survived because they were viewed as important to the early Christian Church, Lactantius in particular praised them, there are Christian works of magic, Marisilio Ficino Christian Platonism is one of the most interesting intellectual edifices to ever edify the world, worthy of study even if one does not care about Christianity per se, but is interested in its formal structure, as I am, and many other interesting aspects that could be explored. There is a constant interweaving between the Abrahamic religions and Hermetic and Occult topics throughout the Hellenistic, Medieval and Renaissance periods into modern times. Creating a special Christian sub-forum would create protected soap boxes for fundamentalist rants, keeping Christianity in the Hermetic and Occult section at least can be used to keep it on track for esoteric, historical and intellectual purposes. For the reasons I have listed above and because it continues an already bad trend of sub-forum proliferation, I propose we cross a Christian sub-forum off the agenda.

You might visit: http://daoistmagic.com/guide-to-buying-books/ Where they have a guide. I checked on Amazon and what they have there is Volume One for $119, which seems a bit much since I believe that they are available directly from Dr. Johnson's organization for $65.00 per volume plus shipping. As I mentioned Volume Two is the one that deals with introductory topics on Daoist magic and is actually very helpful, but Volume One has a lot of useful information in it and they make a great introduction to the subject. Just by themselves a person could lay a good foundation in a couple of years and also find out if one had a real vocation for this type of practice. We also have Dr_D here who is an ordained Daoist Priest/practitioner here and he may be helpful to you in this regard.

In Daoism "remote perception" is often taken as a fruit of advanced meditative disciplines, but is also cultivated as a specific skill. If I wanted to go through a pile of books I could cite a lot of examples of both types. One that comes immediately to mind is the discussion of and instructions for such practices in Jerry Alan Johnson's books. He starts to deal with the matter in Volume 2 of his medical qigong series beginning on p. 165 he deals with such matters in the context of shen training. He develops the matter in considerable detail in his various books on Daoist magic.

I do have all of his Daoist Magic books and four of his medical qigong books. In terms of his previous books there is a lot of material that is 'new', by which I mean that he has not written about it in his other books, though I have known about or worked with some of it for a long time. I posted on the Tao Bums a couple of years ago that one should start with his medical qigong books: They seem to agree with me because their guide to buying Daoist books recommend buying the first two of the medical qigong books first. You can find the guide here: http://daoistmagic.com/guide-to-buying-books/ Knowing what I do about his work this guide seems a sensible approach to me. I haven't gone through and taken a look at what may be new or not, but as I am in a position to do so I will bear it in mind and post about it as I can. Edit: changed quide to guide

Here is the second post on the Holy Guardian Angel which I mentioned in the previous post: It is, thank you. Do you know about subsequent attempts at Knowledge and Conversation by Crowley? I remember reading about him doing a modified temple as he traveled through China, and I thought it was for this ritual, but it could have been for another. Much of the additional information you provided I was not aware of, but is excellent for perspective. Is the the Agrippa book you are talking about? http://www.amazon.com/Three-Occult-Philosophy-Llewellyns-Sourcebook/dp/0875428320/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y You say that the HGA is mentioned in other places. Do you have other references than the Abremelin text that you can recommend for someone looking to work toward establishing conversation/union? Crowley has not been a major object of interest for several decades. He has some interesting things to say, but I came to the conclusion that the best of the Beast was assimilated by Regardie and well used in his works and adaptation of the teachings of the Golden Dawn. Based on my study of Crowley I would say that he never returned to following the original method of Abramelin, but instead chose to employ a version of an ancient invocation taken from the Harris papyrus and first used by him in print as "the preliminary invocation of the Goetia" in his publication of the first book of the Lemegaton in 1903. He subsequently wrote study of it which was titled Liber CCCLXV. On page 226 of Magick in Theory and Practice he describes if as the most potent invocation extant and used "by the Master himself in his attainment". He there refers the reader to the complete text and his analysis of it on page 265. Where it is made clear that the attainment in question was "the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel". Further in the commentary on page 274 in his commentary on Line 5 he makes a reference to the Neophyte ceremony of the Golden Dawn, "...the Hierophant is the perfected Osiris, who brings the candidate, the natural Osiris, to identify with himself.", to which I will return in a moment. Regarding his trip to China I read about it so long ago that I could not comment on it at this time. I might be more interested if I thought Crowley's attempts at Sino-Occidental synthesis was a worthwhile contribution. As it is I find it as sterile as a mule, the unnatural offspring of two otherwise very fruitful systems. The failure of which is made all the more ironic by his failure to recognize the inherent value of Western Geomancy and its applicability as a cross cultural bridge. In terms of traditional sources, no one makes as big a deal of the Guardian Angel as Abramelin, building a whole system around it. This could be because a significant subtext of the work is the notion of Religious conversion and the need to provide a procedure that can be used by any religion. This fact may indicate that the text itself may date from the late 16th Century when religious conversion was both figuratively and literally a burning issue. Aside from the spirit that I mentioned in my original post, the second section of the third book of the Lemegaton, the Pauline Art, has a procedure for contacting a zodiacal spirit ruling the degree of your rising sign. It can be found online here: http://www.esoterica...mon/paulina.htm The two Chapters that I cite from Agrippa can be found on the same site here: Book III, Chapter XXI: http://www.esoterica...pp3b.htm#chap21 Book III, Chapter XXII: http://www.esoterica...pp3b.htm#chap22 and contain some interesting information. If I have time I may post them and comment on them. The site itself is an excellent online resource. The Agrippa book that I mention both is and is not the one which you reference. The Agrippan text is worthwhile, the editor/commentator was not really up to the task. He comments copiously on irrelevancies such as the Paschal Taper (see note p. 572), but can't explain Occult Virtues, a fundamental and much misunderstood aspect of traditional magic. He vaguely understands the importance of Plato to understanding Agrippa, but is blind to Aristotle. You have to know the material better than he does to know when to attend to or when to ignore his comments, but then you don't need his comments do you? When I was teaching Western Magic I emphasized an approach integrating Natural Magic, Astrological Magic and Ceremonial Magic in the Agrippan tradition. I did not emphasize the "Holy Guardian Angel" at all, though I did think about recommending the spirit Camael from the Grimoire of Armandel to some advanced students if they wanted to work with it. I never pursued the matter and eventually stopped teaching, largely because few people have any real vocation for magic and were wasting their time and mine. If you or anyone else is interested in knowing what approach I would use now you can read my posts here: http://thetaobums.co...gic#entry291148 Which begins a long series of posts where you will also learn about Occult Virtues among other interesting things. I would not recommend pursuing work with the "Holy Guardian Angel", for reasons that may be clearer after you read my posts, but if you or anyone else absolutely, positively wants to do that sort of thing I would recommend pursuing rituals of the type described in the Shin subsection of the Shin section of the Z2 documents of the Golden Dawn, the basic text of which can be found on pages 178-181 of Book Four of Regardie's The Golden Dawn. Regardie provides good example rituals on pages 248 to 265, the second one of which is an adaption of Crowley's "Bornless Invocation" in the format of the Golden Dawn Neophyte formula. Regrettable the more recent Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic does not deal with these ideas as well as the earlier work and is inferior in its treatment of one of the aspects of the Golden Dawn system which is, as far as I am concerned, the most interesting and valuable of the Golden Dawn's contributions to Western Esoteric knowledge. This brings us back, as I said I would, to Crowley's reference to the Neophyte Ritual. I hope that all this is helpful to you and anyone else who may read it. That ends my two posts in the Holy Guardian Angel thread Edit: Corrected 'much understood aspect' to 'much misunderstood aspect', here and in my original post.

Hello Nungali, To start to address one aspect of your post: ]Maybe you need ‘magic memory theatre’ (see my last post in What is Mind) ? Which I did and here is my response, which I repeat here for the benefit of those who may find any of this interesting: At the bottom of the Wikipedia article is a reference to The Art of Memory by Frances Yates, which is the classic study of the art of memory, a practice that goes back to ancient Greek rhetoric. I read this book almost 40 years ago, you can read it now if you want: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/art-of-memory-frances-a-yates/1116994498?ean=9780226950013 A book which Tao Bums may find interesting is The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence, which is about the first Jesuit missionary to enter China. It provides fascinating insight into Chinese society circa 1600 and is a good discussion of the art of memory itself. As an example the Jesuit mission was so well funded with silver that the Chinese were convinced that the Jesuits must have been master alchemists, a misconception which Ricci, a master of the Jesuit equivalent of 'skillful means' was only to happy to leave in place. It really is a good read: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-memory-palace-of-matteo-ricci-jonathan-d-spence/1001834798?ean=9780140080988 I do have actually have an excellent memory, big enough to hold all sorts of pertinent data, for years if need be, and a wonderful tendency to forget the irrelevant. After decades of study there is a lot to remember and it is not all about magic and stuff, but about all sorts of things which eventually help to fill in the big picture. So I really never was attracted to the idea of a memory palace and never worked with it, though, if I started teaching again I would certainly employ the concept with students. By the way, the above is an excellent example of nested quotes and how you can pull them off of different threads and assemble them into lovely posts. More to come.

BaguaKicksAss and Nungali I don't wish to derail this interesting thread and I appreciate both of your fascinating contributions to it, but the following exchange leads me to believe that neither of you understands the position of the Golden Dawn in the Western Esoteric Tradition and the unique and important contribution that it makes to it: Ha! Had to put my glasses on to check ... RUDE evocations ... okay ( Phew! ... nude Victorian GD magicians evoking nekkid - YOIKS! ) Certain mindsets require certain ceremonies ... or are invented by them.. 'GD style magic stuff' is quiet Emperor / mars / martial / forcing style ... one can (again, depending on the mindset and development), approach the subject and/or practice from an Empress / Venus / persuasive style ...( or just drug them with a magic potion so they cant help themselves { venes, venenum, venom, poison, charm, magic philtre } no offence to Venusians, but anyone who has been 'shot with Cupid's arrow' will agree, or those who have had another shot with cupids arrow with their name on it The following is a quote from the Fourth Book attributed to Agrippa as it appears in Barrett's The Magus: I chose The Magus because it would have been more readily available and thus influential during the 19th Century than the original. It can be seen within its wider context here: http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa/agrippa4.htm#chap12 I will note that I am familiar with Wierus' statement that Agrippa did not write the Fourth Book, but I am also aware that he then stated that it was otherwise worthy to be included with his teachers own works, a judgment without which I would be much more hesitant to cite the Fourth Book, and I am sorry that I cannot now readily reference that now. (Too big a memory, too many books!). A far too influential example of these types of 'rude evocations' can be found at the end of the process of the Goetia, which can be reviewed here: http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/goetia.htm With this type of information available to people several centuries before the inception of the Golden Dawn, why should such 'rude evocations' be blamed specifically on the Golden Dawn? And more importantly what about them can be specifically tied to some aspect of the Golden Dawn ritual system? And by 'ritual system' I mean the Golden Dawn initiatory rituals and the magical procedures derived from them and not some ancillary material, such as the rituals of the pentagram and hexagram. The Golden Dawn ritual system provides a specific context for ritual within a very powerful formal system. Within that context it is possible to perform a wide variety of traditional material, some rude, some sweet as honey, it depends on the operator and the needs of the operation. This ritual context also changes the meaning of certain aspects of tradition that may appear within it, and so it is not possible to make superficial comparisons. By the way medieval evocation is the Western counterpart to Daoist military magic, of which Thunder Magic is the fundamental component. So such martial 'rudeness' is not limited to the West. Even the name 'evocation' comes from an ancient Roman military rite in which the Gods of a besieged city were 'called out' of that city and invited to join the Roman side. Finally I wish to make clear that in general based on your posts I find both of you interesting and well informed, but based on the above I see no reason to think that you are well informed about the Golden Dawn, I could be wrong about this and welcome correction, I am only basing this on the above exchange and some things BaguaKicksAss has posted before. Nungali you are new here, but you are obviously an interesting and valuable contributor to the Tao Bums. BaguaKicksAss, has of course shown her value here many times before.

Sorry to be so long to get back to you on this. I have been very busy and have also been doing some posting on other threads which are of greater interest to me. You may find them interesting if you haven't noticed them already, they are Confucian Qi Gong and Platonism and Hellenistic Spirituality. Almost all modern numerology goes back to the work of Walter Gorn Old who wrote under the name of Sephariel. You can read a little about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepharial This also has a list of his writings. He was probably the first occultist to write a version of the Dao De Jing. Dion Fortune chides him for translating Laozi as "the Old Boy", which she considers to be disrespectful. Laozi as "Old Boy" is perhaps a little overly literal, but a suggestive translation nonetheless. I am sure Gorn Old meant no disrespect by it. I always liked his Manual of Occultism. It covers a lot of ground including from astrology and numerology, to alchemy and magic and his ideas are an interesting take on all these subjects. I hope this is helpful.

rethinking and open minded examination: There are several reasons for this, not the least of which was that my first encounter with Plato was so negative that I could hardly imagine how anyone could take him seriously, but more of that in moment. my personal journey to my understanding of Plato: I think about myself forty-five years ago and I know that if someone had come to me and said, "I am a great seer and I will tell you your future, mmmm... in your late twenties you will make a serious study of Plato, around thirty, you will adopt Platonism as your fundamental worldview ...." I would have looked at my copy of Aleister Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice in one hand and the Tao Te Ching in the other and I would have burst out laughing so hard that I would have been bent over with laughter. "...hold it, don't laugh too hard, there is more...further around the age of fifty you will read a book that will have a profound influence on you. You will suddenly see the value of Confucianism and more importantly create a profound synthesis of Platonic and Confucian teachings..." That would of been it, I would have rolling on the floor. If I could have organized my thoughts long enough I might have been reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes (senior, the poet, not Junior, the jurist) charming poem 'The Height of the Ridiculous' (Curious? Read it here: http://elfinspell.com/WitandHumor1Holmes.html), but I don't think I could have composed myself enough for several hours at least. Obviously I was not your average seventeen year old science nerd of the late sixties, though my understanding of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem and my emerging model of what science was did contribute to my acceptance of the Tao Te Ching. So, how did Plato fail to make the cut? Part of it was an encounter with Book One of The Republic. The rest was a set of culturally accepted memes about reason and irrationality and how mysticism and magic were irrational. Untangling these memes was to be an important part of the journey, but one that is too complex for one posting, saying why I thought the First Book of The Republic was ridiculous is easy. Here were these two sock puppets one named "Thrasimokus", that's how I pronounced it at the time, and another named "Sockratease" and Thrasimokus was saying that Justice was the advantage of the strong, which everyone knows it isn't and Sockratease was saying no it isn't and pointing out how silly Thrasimokus was for saying so. In the end Socktratease says well maybe Justice is the advantage of the strong anyway. Hmmmm . . . seem terminally lame to you? It sure did to me. Years later I was to realize that Thrasymachus, probably probably pronounced more like Thra-sim-ah-khus, and Socrates (sorry, not So-crates, but not Sock-anything either, on the authority of one of Plato's dialogs, it would be something like So-cray-teez, but the tease is in there somewhere.) were not talking about Justice at all, but 'Dike' (to avoid embarrassment it's pronounced dee-kay.) and the reason why it seemed so silly to me was because Plato had won the argument that was raging in Athens at the time, so that the word Justice now means pretty much what Plato thought it should. What Dike really was had become very controversial at the time and traditionally meant something to the effect of "the way of things". Everyone knew what "the way of things" was, if you were bad the Goddess Dike would be offended and bad things would happen to you. The new view was that "the way of things" is that the strong rule to their advantage to exploit the weak. The goddess Dike, either didn't exist, didn't care enough to do anything, or didn't have the power to do anything, even if she did care. Today we might say that Thrasymachus idea is the sad reality, but it is not justice. That sure is what I thought and I thought it because, like I said Plato's idea of Justice has become the accepted view, so much so, that looked at in that light, Thrasymachus just seems like a clown for saying what he does. Socrates' lame sounding ending is why his opponents called him, "Socrates of Foxtown", because what he really meant by saying that Justice is the advantage of the strong, is that it is to the real benefit of the strong to rule justly, to create a society in which the real needs of all citizens are met and there is no exploitation. Such a society would be to the real advantage of the strong, not to the false appearance of advantage which greed and foolishness present to the "strong", but I didn't know any of that at the time, so Plato was out. The realization above was a long way off, though I started part of the journey that summer of 1968 when I began to read Mouni Sadhu's Tarot. I have realized that this personal part may take too long, so I will intersperse it with what this thread is really all about, Platonism and Hellenistic spirituality. So my next post will be how to find Plato's Gorgias in the 'Sermon on the Mount'. Until then, I do hope that I have made it perfectly clear how stupid I thought Plato was, until I was forced by circumstance to study and understand him.

he may have been a Rabbi: Many authors have tried to domesticate him as a 'Rabbi', I am doubtful about it. I first came across this tack in Maccoby's The Myth-maker, an interesting study in which Jesus is portrayed as nice Jewish boy and the onus of creating Christianity is shifted to Paul, the myth maker of the title. You can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mythmaker-Paul-Invention-Christianity/dp/0062505858 My personal favorite portrayal of Jesus is Jesus the Magician by Morton Smith. This is as close to a must read for anyone interested in Gnosticism and the magic of the period as it gets, and also, a compelling portrait of the "historical" Jesus. I don't accept it either, but I consider it a more likely approach than most. You can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Magician-Charlatan-Son-God/dp/1569751552 Neoplatonism plus Jesus: Slight anachronism there Seth Ananda, technically it would have been Middle Platonism plus Jesus. That still leaves him in very good company. The life of Philo of Alexandria for example, perfectly brackets the life and ministry of Jesus, as well as the period of the Pauline epistles. You can read about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo One of the reasons why I haven't posted more in this thread, after giving it an enthusiastic welcome, was I noticed a tendency to treat Platonism as a late and extraneous interpretation of the Gospels. As far as I am concerned this is basically Protestant mythology, created as part of Reformation anti-Catholic rhetoric. I started to review my research in the 70s and 80s that lead me to this conclusion and to collect material to correct this, but did not have time to organize and post them. As my thinking evolved and this thread grew, I decided to put that material in its own thread, one which also addresses wider issues. That is why I started "Platonism and Hellenistic Spirituality', which I hope to get back to shortly. I am also posting on Confucian qigong in the General Discussion Forum and so my time has to be split between them.

Apparently no one has been reading their Jerry Alan Johnson. On page 448 in a section titled 'Using Blood Magic for Training Plant Spirits' of Daoist Mineral, Plant and Animal Magic, he describes the technique in some detail and includes a picture. Eating eggs is only the training period, which takes ten years total. When mature it wants a chicken a week and will leave nothing but feathers. If you don't feed it regularly it will turn against you. Plant magic gone awry is the theme of one of my favorite movies of all time 'A Chinese Ghost Story'. Sit back and enjoy the ride: http://youtu.be/Q5ACbxt6F0Q I may have more to say about this another time. Edit: Rushed again, I forgot to put in the title of the book. Second edit: Rats! I just noticed there are no subtitles. Rushed again. Oh well. I'll see if I can find one with subs to post, but it will have to wait, no time now. Watch it a bit you'll get the idea anyway. Third edit: Ok, I just had to take the time. This one is in parts, but has subtitles:

http://www.amazon.com/Taoist-Ritual-Chinese-Society-History/dp/0028964802 Actually the nine stars, though the trigrams are an important aspect of the star's symbolism and also the twelve earthly branches. I used a description of a practice of Master Chuang in Saso's book and material from Lagerway's and came up with a ritual of my own which turns out to be a close relative of a Maoshan Thunder Magic technique Jerry Alan Johnson describes in Daoist Magical Incantations, Hand Seals, and Star Stepping on pgs. of 136-137 the 2006 edition and pgs. 268-269 of the 2012 final edition. I adapted the material so that my version is close to, but not exactly the same as that given by Professor Johnson. I had a version for personal use and one that could be used for cleansing and exorcising people, places and things. I did a lot of creative adaptation of material from Saso, Lagerway and Livia Kohn. They seemed to work quite well. The 3 X 3 magic square is the core of Doaist Meditation and Magic. I don't believe that they use the other squares in their practices, though they may. They were certainly aware of them in mathematics. The rest of my exploration of magic squares was in the context of Western magic, or higher levels of Mathematical magic that are not part of any tradition, but part of the potential for magic that exists in many types of mathematics. Edit: Corrected spelling of exactly in 'but not exactly' above.

Following an adolescent interest in expanding the type of mathematics used in esotericism, which I was later to put under the general topic 'Mathematical Philosophy' following the categories of occult philosophy of Cornelius Agrippa, I did a lot of work with magic squares which I have characterized as 'sacred linear algebra' in the following post: I was replying to one of our members who is fond of asking questions, some very good and others, such as the ones he was asking in this case, not very edifying. The thread ended at this point and I have not had time to return to the topic until now, and the reason why I bring it up now is that, had I continued with the above thread, I would have cited this Yi Jing astrology as just such an example of the application of the formal system embodied in the he/luo diagrams. The technique of the astrology is hardly the type used to solve a set of linear equations, being simple arithmetic, but it does show that interesting and useful information lies in the most unexpected places and only waits for the right analytic system to bring it shining forth. Occasionally there is talk on the Tao Bums about Sacred Geometry, Sacred Linear Algebra anyone? Since you had relocate the thread which I reference in the above quote, I thought pulling this up would be useful and interesting as illustrating one application. Most of my work would take us well outside the area of purely Daoist Magic and is highly technical anyway, but basically it is possible to create magic squares of just about any size and to represent just about any complex magical system on them. Regarding uses within Daoist Magic, years ago I took the material in Saso and Lagerway (a less well known academic authority on Daoist ritual who covers much the same ground) and let my fingers do the walking, creating a basis for Daoist ritual in which one has 'the whole world', if not exactly in one's hand, at least on one's fingers. While I was reading some of Jerry Alan Johnson's material years later, I was amused to discover that this is a Maoshan Thunder Magic technique.

Sham-Wow, Thanks for posting this link! I have visited the site many times and it is certainly interesting, kind of a South East Asian (SEA) Petite Albert, it is a trove of interesting information ranging from natural magic spells to Daoist Thunder Magic. To really appreciate this a person does need a good background in practical magic and I also think that the blogger should have banner in big letters that reads "Kids, don't try this at home!". Aside from that the blogger's English is good and the posts entertaining and informative about popular magical practices in a very magical part of this big world. Thanks again and welcome to the Tao Bums.

When this topic first appeared I did not have much time to respond, but I did think that a simple reframe might be useful. This is roughly like asking a group of martial artists, please post your techniques that always work, or a group of doctors, please post your medicines or operations that always work. The response will be basically the same. Oh no martial art technique works all the time, opponents are different, what is the skill level of the persona applying the technique, etc. The doctors will answer in a similar way. Most people posting here have in one one way or another addressed these issues, but someone reading them might think that were just dancing around the fact that magic is unreliable in itself, which it is not, but it is also not different from several other important practical endeavors like martial arts and medicine. That said, one of the most useful practical procedures I ever used is called in the US, "uncrossing". The name has its origin in the voodoo traditions, particularly the New Orleans traditions. The root concept is that uncrossing is lifting a curse, a person who had been cursed was referred to as "crossed", meaning that one of the Ghuede, the spirits of death and the the dead, whose fundamental symbol was the grave cross, had been invoked and set upon the victim, thus the need to "uncross" the victim. As I studied the uncrossing procedures, the ingredients in the oils and powders, candles and other things used, I noticed that they were all as much healing as anything else and came up with another metaphor for crossed, "crossed" wires, "crossed" connections and things like that. Whatever else one may do in regard to a curse, such as sending it back, etc. the real essence is helping the victim, this is what uncrossing does. Uncrossing as healing quickly became a fundamental part of my approach to spell casting. Here is an example: so and so has broken up with their heart's desire, so and so will die if they do not get heart's desire back, rather doing a love spell, you do an uncrossing, if they are "destined" for each other, their relationship will be healed and they will reunite and live happily ever after, if they are not "destined", then so and so meets new and probably much better heart's desire and wonders what they ever saw in ex heart's desire, problem solved. Maybe even ex heart's desire finds someone more suitable too. Take money, always start by uncrossing a person's money, not with a money spell. The uncrossing will open things up and then one may go ahead with a money spell if that seems appropriate, with the ground cleared by the uncrossing, the money spell will work much more effectively. Uncrossing just about never fails, in the rare cases in which it does, then it acts like a diagnostic and will often reveal the direction in which one needs to go, maybe the person really needs a curse lifted, that will become apparent too. I hope that people find this interesting and useful.