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The examples that you cite seem to all point to an origin in Fundamentalist Christian writings, so it is no wonder that they point out examples that support a “Christian” conclusion. Many people here have addressed them in one way or another, so I am going to point out an alternative view for you, that if you think it through may help you get a different perspective on who and what Jesus might have been which would be totally incompatible with fundamentalist ideas about “Jesus”, and if Jesus is not who the fundamentalists say he is, then no notions derived from fundamentalism can be true. Back in the late Seventies I read a book called: Jesus the Magician by Morton Smith which was part of my own research into the problem of “the historical Jesus”, and thought that it was a fascinating view of Jesus, and just as well argued as the books that said that Jesus was a nice young Rabbi whose teachings were distorted by Paul, and the ones that argued that he was a zealot revelutionary, and, well the list goes on, oh, it did include one that argued that he was an allegory for the hallucinogenic Amanita Muscaria mushroom, which by the way ruined that scholar's career, and he was not a minor figure in Biblical scholarship either. Each one of these different portraits of such an important figure took what little we do know and wove totally different and mutually exclusive pictures of Jesus, each one argued very well by scholars, that I reached the conclusion that it would be impossible to tell who or what the historical Jesus really was, though I was pretty sure that he was not a mushroom. I tended to view him, if he actually existed at all, as possibly a religious activist with a background in some form of religious esotericism which could have been magic, like Morton Smith said, or maybe he was an Essene, these are not mutually exclusive by the way, that is how things remained from the mid Eighties until recently when I was looking for internet resources that related to Morton Smith's book, I found this fascinating site: Jesus as a Magician Which is a very well researched and tightly argued doctoral thesis which updates Smith's work and rectifies such criticisms as this: and is one of the most interesting and compelling discussions I have read. After reading it, as far as I was concerned the idea that Jesus was an actual person and that he really did practice magic, became, to me at least, the most likely interpretation of the Gospels, and if so then, as I said earlier, all fundamentalist doctrines can safely be ignored.

i kept hearing the word 'tosser' in my mind: I am assuming that you mean "tosser" instead of a "keeper", if this is so this person is obviously very manipulative and is toxic just to be around, whether they possess any type of psychic power or knowledge. Obviously "tosser" is part of a pattern of denigration designed to make you feel that you are lucky he is only treating you like dirt. I cannot disrecommend Jason Miller's book too heartily, and yes I do mean don't read it. He is as far as I can tell a competent enough writer and practitioner, but I have never read his books and unless someone wants to pay me to read and review them I probably never will. I don't need them, and you don't need what Protection and Hex Reversal Magick has to teach, and unless you get deeply into the study and practice of magic, probably never will. Instead get yourself: Spiritual Cleansing by Draja Mickaharic and read it with what I have to say here in mind: You need to heal and grow yourself, until you dwarf spiritual pygmies like this troll.

A while ago I posted this: And BaquaKicksAss, who use to post with us frequently, posted the instructions below on baths: I could write my own instructions on baths, but couldn't improve much on these, the only thing I would suggest is not using Van Van Oil, but the herbs I suggest they are readily available and inexpensive, adding a little lemon oil or peel, but definitely not juice, to the mixture is a good idea especially in the case of depressed moods, or darkness, my nick name for lemon oil is "liquid sunshine". Starjumper's advice is also workable "rage magic" and has a long history, going back to shamanic war magic, and could work: Though unless you have experience working in this type of thing I wouldn't recommend any intoxicants, as they can open you up and make self control a little more difficult. if you read Fangshi's post: You will see that anger played a large part in dispersing the oppressing energy. My suggestions are a little more gentle, and probably better for people without much experience. If you have no particular Deity that you care to invoke, my personal recommendation would be The Heavenly Lord Taiyi, about whom I posted in my Personal Practice here: The Heavenly Lord Taiyi Where you can find a good picture of him that you can download and print if you want, and some comments about him.

I bought this book mostly to learn how to design my own fu, which is a Chinese style talisman, and in that regard I am not disappointed, in other regards it is a little disappointing, but these are more because of personal inclination, and should not dissuade someone else, but more of that later. As a reference work for creating fu, this book is very useful. It discusses in detail the traditional forms that fu take, In other words the basic blueprints with which fu are designed, and then provides a very complete guide to the symbols with which these blueprints are then filled in to “furnish” the fu, these are apt metaphor's because one of the traditional forms that a fu takes is called its “house”. The book itself has a detailed Table of Contents and an index, both of which are useful in actually studying a book on a practical level. The detailed notes at the end not only provide extra elucidation to the text, but valuable online links to such sites as the Chinese Text Project, for some of the traditional texts that she cites, greatly increasing the value of this book as a starting point for more profound levels of study. A fu is a Chinese talisman, and it is useful to ask what a talisman is, in this regard the etymology of the Western term, talisman, is rather interesting and also provides insight into a deeper level of understanding of what a talisman should be. Talisman comes from the Greek work telos, meaning end or goal, and as talismans are also symbolic in nature, the talisman can be considered to be a “wish list” of sorts in symbolic form, but if that was all it was, well it wouldn't be much would it? No, a talisman is intended not merely to be a wish list, but something which helps to make those wishes come true, and this is where the magical part comes in, because this symbol once decided upon and prepared physically, must be made efficacious, or “ling” (灵, líng, efficacious / effective / to come true / spirit ) as the Chinese call it, and this is where the various methods of “empowering”, to use Ms. Wen's term, and a fairly good one it is actually, because it covers a lot of more specific procedure's, such as “charging”, “consecration” and others very well, and she also provides in her books some good basic beginner methods to empower talismans. Now this business of empowerment is important because the whole idea is to make the talisman from a symbolic representation into something that has “causal” power to bring something about, in this case the fulfillment of ones wish to obtain a desired goal, which brings us back to telos and the notion of “final causes”, at its most profound and interesting a fu, or talisman, must become empowered to act as a “final cause” within ones magical activity, but more about final causes at the end of this discussion. How are fu empowered? They are empowered through ritual actions, and Ms. Wen provides a good enough introduction to basic ritual, including a large selection of tradtitional Chinese tools of magical ritual, as well as basic ritual procedure, as well as invocations, mostly in mantra form, for calling upon higher powers, ritual “movements”, which in Chinese magic will often involve actually stepping through various cosmic patterns related to such important sources of power, such as the stars of the Big Dipper, or the Nine Stars of one form or Chinese astrology, and a short discussion of “mudras”, or “hand seals” as Professor Jerry Alan Johnson calls them, which are used to control and direct the flow of qi in the ritual. Now ritual is a very misunderstood aspect of these types of activities, and now is hardly the place to get into the details of how and why it is a good thing to know and practice, but having literally decades of study and experience in the practice of magic, I can only say that it is definitely worth the time and effort to master. Now as to what disappointed me about this book. Well, since my personal bent is Daoist, there is simply not enough Ritual Daoism in it. No Heavenly Lord Taiyi, who is an extremely important god in Daoist work, a god of compassion, who protects and saves, his closest comparison functional comparison in the West would be Jesus, and he can be viewed as the male equivalent of Quan Yin, though rather than being a Buddhist borrowing he has a long history in China, having been among other things the most important deity in the Han Dynasty. He is very powerful and as a patron for the independent practitioner of Chinese styles of magic, a great ally to have. Most of the mantras are for Buddhist and even Hindu deities, though granted most Ritual Daoists don't use mantra that much, I would have liked to have seen more treatment of native Chinese deities and practices, though she does discuss several Chinese deities of importance, and such popular shen as the Eight Immortals. In her defense, such a discussion would have added to what is already a very long book, and I can understand why she didn't make space for more, at almost 600 pages, this was a lot of writing on here part, and a lot of reading and study on the part of the prospective fu practitioner, but t about $20.00 this is a great place to start one's study of the craft of fu, though as I mentioned in my previous post, this is for medium to advanced beginner's, the study of fu is not a study for complete beginners. If people are interested I can post more about what one should study in order to practice fu successfully. Earlier I mentioned "final causes" as an important part of talismanic magic, whether of East or West, and a short discussion of final causes might be a good way to end this, while pointing in new directions. While the notion of final causes is a Western idea, being part of a system called "the four causes", which was explicated and formalized by Aristotle, I have found it very useful in thinking about magic in general and talismanic magic in particular, and while Chinese philosophy doesn't have these four causes worked out in detail, many aspects of Chinese magical practice lend themselves to such analysis, especially since the Chinese already have as an important part of their thinking the notion of li (理, principle, inner essence), a fundamental part of Chinese cosmology, which corresponds to what in the West are called "formal causes", which are part "the four causes", which I mentioned earlier. I have posted on this is several places on the Dao Bums, and in particular its importance to understanding traditional Western magic here: Agrippa and Aristotle: the Aristotelian background of the Occult Philosophy Which among other things analyses the Daoist concepts of De or virtue and Wuwei or nonaction in terms of the four causes to demonstrate the usefulness of such ideas for the integration Chinese and Western esoteric philosophy and practice.

I posted about this book here and here, and as noted in the second link, received it as Christmas present (It does help to have strange friends). I have been far busier in the new year than I thought and so I have not had a chance to do a detailed analysis, but it seems to be a good introduction to the topic for a medium to advanced beginner in magic. As for Professor Johnon's Book, Daoist Magical Talismans, it is certainly loaded with valuable information, but none of the Daoist Magic series is intended for beginners. If I have time I will try to work up a more detailed review. By the way, the friend who gave this to me also ordered Benebel Wen's Tarot book and really likes it. ZYD

A lot could be written about this, the root of evocation in Western Ceremonial Magic is an ancient Roman Military rite: And the military aspects continue into the Middle Ages, where key magical paraphernalia, such as the magic sword is of military origin, and some of the Spirits of the Goetia, give soldiers and raise armies. In his works on Daoism Michael Saso talks about Military Magic and the Dao of the Left, and describes how works on Military Magic were obtained in mainland China and brought to Taiwan by Master Chuang's ancestors, The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang. Weather control was considered an important part of Military Magic, which is why a lot of information about Thunder Magic, the main form of Military Magic appears in Prof. Jerry Alan Johnson's book Daoist Weather Magic and Feng Shui. However, all of this was transmitted with a great deal of secrecy, and was not always approved of, by the highest religious authorities. For example his superiors in the Zhengyi sect disapproved of Master Chuang's practice of Military Magic, among other things, considering it Heterodox and denied him higher levels of official status because of it. In any case the traditions go back centuries have survived here and there, and were an important part of the more ancient practices where they had official sanction, such as the Roman Military rites, but as the major modern religions took over, with their emphasis on peace and non-violence, such practices fell more and more into disfavor. Just some short quick notes, which I hope are helpful. Edit: Added clarifying statement "In Western Ceremonial Magic" to first paragraph to read "the root of evocation in Western Ceremonial Magic"

I haven't reviewed all of these posts, so I hope that by posting I am not repeating anything. The Wikipedia article on Yidams is a fair point to begin on Buddhists aspects of the practice, and yes in "self Generation" you imagine that "you are a Yidam", but there are a wide variety of practices, and the practice is not exclusive to Buddhism. Doing a search for "deity yoga", the name for the discipline as a whole, will produce a lot of information. As I said the practice of assuming divine forms, or transforming into a deity is actually common, there are Hindu forms, Daoist forms, ancient Egyptian forms, and practices in Western Theurgy that involve such procedures. I myself practice the Ritual Daoist form of "Transforming into a Deity to refine Qi". Professor Jerry Alan Johnson has several examples of Ritual Daoist procedures for doing this in his books on Daoist Magic. ZYD Edit: Slight reformatting and replaced a wordy repetition of practices with procedures.

I had been thinking about posting about Don Kraig's Modern Magick, but really haven't had time for a proper post, but just as a quick note, I can vouch for Golden Dawn techniques in general and for Don's book as a good introduction to them. I didn't use the book to learn, since by the time it came out I had been practicing magic for about 20 years, but I did know Don when he was writing it, and we remained in touch. Don was a very intelligent fellow, and had 15+ years of experience in magic and maybe ten years teaching in local classes, by the time he wrote it. I have some criticism of it, but not as much as I have of Bardon's work. If I have time I will post more. ZYD

Since this whole subsection is about Western Esoteric practices, the magic in question is Western Ceremonial Magic as it was revived in the NIneteenth and Twentieth Centuries, and particularly as practiced in The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and it offshoots, and the popular styles of magical practice derived from it. Secondary to this is teachings of a quasi-tantric school called the Ordo Templi Orientis which is more of a Twentieth Century phenomena. Both of these schools have roots that reach back to antiquity and which reached their high points in the Renaissance. By the time the Western "revival" of esoteric doctrines occurred these roots were not well understood, and what was created by the revival of magic is a mixed bag which reaches its high point in the Golden Dawn, the doctrine and practices of which are of considerable value. The field of Western magic is a large one, with many aspects, and what I have said above does not and is not intended to do justice to those aspects, but just to answer the question. ZYD Edit: Added paragraphs after the first.

Even though I am very busy, I am going to take a little time for a short post here. To understand part of these issues you need to understand Aristotle's treatment of causality, because that is what this thread is all about, causality, and from Hellenistic times to 1700, the default theory of causality among the educated was Aristotle's Four Causes. That is why I made a special thread about them in my posts about Agrippa here: Aristotle's Four Causes in Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy and attempted to show their usefulness in the understanding of an important aspect of magical tradition, that of "occult virtues", here: Occult Virtues as formal causes in occult philosophy Which is why this bears repeating here: Rituals also have "occult virtues", as systems of representation with a well formed logical structure. This is an aspect of rituals that is completely lost in modern magic. In thinking about causality in magic in Aristotelian terms, the magician and his training become an efficient cause, but also the whole root of his ability to do magic is the "occult virtue" of his "soul" as a microcosm and its reflection in the macrocosm. The occult virtues of natural things, of times and places and yes, even of ritual and verbal formulae, are the result of formal systems as the expression of the the Platonic "ideas" existing in the "archetypal" world, and magic becomes very much the study of the formal properties of such systems, whether expressed in Natural, Astrological, or Ceremonial magic. As for egregores, I am familiar with its origin in fiction, and the details of how it became used in magic are not important, but if I recall correctly Levi used the term, but it had certainly become a technical term by 1900. I spent a about year of intense study, beginning in the summer of 1968, with the most complete book of theory on them in English, Mouni Sadhu's, The Tarot, so I certainly know about them and their use and construction, but the whole theory and practice is little understood these days either. While my study of Sadhu's book was before I read Agrippa, what I learned from Sadhu can definitely be assimilated into that framework and even benefits from it. This is why I said here: In regard to Roman Catholic sacraments, while Aristotle's four causes contributed to the discussion of them, at least to believers their efficacy has to be assigned, not to anything magical, but the grace of God manifest through the covenant with "the Church". That said the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is probably the most interesting interpretation of the Eucharist among the Christian sects from an esoteric and magical point of view. As I said I am busy and I don't have much time right now to elaborate on any of the above.

Yes, this seems to have become a rather dull thread, so I will spice it up a bit, and talk a little about The Greater Key of Solomon, and some uses that I have made of its planetary seals in the past, and how a creative adaptation of their descriptions can be useful. As an example lets take the seventh seal of the Sun: the purpose of which is described as: Most of us don't have much use for this sort of stuff on a daily basis, but some thinking about the nature of the Sun and the idea of being “imprisoned or detained in fetters of iron” and being “immediately delivered and set at liberty”, struck me as having another possible use in what is traditionally called “uncrossing”, a procedure that is usually used in lifting a hexed or cursed condition, but which I quickly found had a lot of other uses as I describe here: Uncrossing as an important part of positive magic in this post I examine how uncrossing can be an important part of what I would call “positive” spell casting, and the reason why I posted about uncrossing in a thread about “spells that always work”, is because uncrossing does almost always work and also, as I point out, often it is the necessary preliminary to a more successful spell then would otherwise be achieved. Because of this effect uncrossing became one of the important sub elements of all my practical magic work. So my advice to the would be magician is learn about “uncrossing” and to paraphrase a chess adage “Uncross early and often”. More if there is interest and as time allows. ZYD Edit: Minor spelling

I had this exchange in another thread, but I think it is very apropos the original question, especially on the Dao Bums where the background of even our little magic section here is Dao: Think about it in terms of becoming independently wealthy. If you spend your money on this, that or the other thing, you will never be able to achieve enough wealth to be independent. One of the Rothchilds described real wealth as having enough money that one could live on the interest from ones interest, in other words that one had so much of monetary principle that it was never tapped at all, but continued to accrue interest and feed the principle, but that the interest generated by ones interest was what one would have available to spend freely and live a life befitting a Rothchild. When your jing, qi and shen are so developed the that your core energy is not tapped by playing magical tricks for people, you can do them without harming yourself. There are other ways to approach the matter, but this summarizes the situation from the perspective of "body" based cultivation, but basically the key in any case is, to put a cliche in the right order, one should strive to be Wise, Healthy and Wealthy, because a wise man, will preserve his health while he accrues his wealth, whether spiritual or temporal. Modern Western magic is very weak on its health maintenance methods, and any traditional ones, such as Galenic medicine and Hermetic medicine are no longer living traditions, though Western Hermetic practices have undergone a significant revival in the last fifty years. Chinese methods are part of a living tradition of medicine and physiology, as well as a meditative and ritual tradition that again, has been maintained as a living tradition. That is part of the reason why, circa 1970, I started studying the Chinese systems, which wasn't easy then, bearing in mind the paucity of information available. In the long run I have found the Chinese and Western systems complementary, but that is another story, and a long one. I hope this is helpful. Edit: After posting I realized that I had not copied over the introductory paragraph from the word processor that I use to prepare most of my posts. So I added it.

In regard to its scientific equivalent, this is my current opinion: (Emphasis added, ZYD) The closest modern conception to qi in this sense of “primary substance” would be the “energy of the vacuum”, though I personally like to think of it as a four dimensional “substance” that underlies Space/Time, Matter/Energy and to extend it to a biological context Consciousness/Body. This is based on simple Special Relativity and doesn't even involve us with “quantum weirdness” . . . Which brings us to this for more traditional Western correspondences: Aether would be closer to the Buddhist element of space/void, or the Hindu element of Akasha: While Aether has a long pre-history in Greek, the use of Aether as “fifth” element is specifically Aristotelian, and has to do with his theory of natural motion and in particular the natural motion of the “celestial spheres” which was a circular motion, so that the notion of circular motion is essential to the definition of Aether from Hellenistic times through the Nineteenth Century, where it survived because of such demonstrations of a naturally occurring circular motion that arises in magnetic and optical experiments, as the “ether” through which Maxwell's electromagnetic waves were supposed to propagate. This circular motion was discovered by the great experimental physicist Michael Faraday and first demonstrated in his: Faraday's Homopolar motor The Faraday Effect Its association with “void” and akasha is an artifact of late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth century speculation by Occultists influenced by the Theosophical Society. It is not necessary to skip forward to the Eighteenth Century, because Patristic Christianity, the shared basis of both modern Roman and Orthodox Christianity did not stamp out Hellenistic Philosophy, but assimilated it, as I have outlined in my discussion on Agrippa and the religious views of his time here: and in subsequent posts in that thread, which is a short enough thread that people can read the whole thing in an hour or less. The notion of “spirit” is an important part of Agrippa's explanation of and defense of magic as I have dealt with here: He chose “spirit” because it was an important part of the worldview of the time and not some obscure esoteric doctrine which might inspire the suspicion, and thus possible animosity, of his readers. first Christianity, and then later, post-Enlightenment scientific materialism: It should be clear from my further posts on Agrippa cited above, that pre-Reformation Christianity was not hostile to "pagan" learning, but on the contrary maintained and preserved it. Even early Protestantism had a side of it which preserved aspects of the traditional worldview through the Seventeenth and into the early Eighteenth Century. It was the reintroduction and revival of Epicureanism into European thought, starting circa 1600, which is the root of what became "post-Elightentmant scientific materialism", which is a long story in itself. Well this is a long post, but it at least outlines the various traditional Western correspondences to qi, from the hylo-morphism of Aristotle, where qi is primordial substance and thus part of everything, to its meaning of "vital force" or bio-energy, even its related senses of emotion are somewhat covered in this "spirited" discussion and into possible modern "scientific" correspondences.

The quick answer is that Daoist recognize and practice “Tulpa-like” phenomena. That of course, is hardly much of an answer is it? First let's clarify what I mean by “Tulpa-like”. At is most basic level this is only bio-energy infused with intent. The most general name being “thought form”, whether you call it qi or prana, spirit, odic force or whatever it is basically the same energy and the same energy with similar practices. On the Buddhist side, it goes back to Indian Buddhism and yogic practices. In China there certainly does seem to be a native tradition and it makes sense within the overall context of Chinese physiology and cosmology going back to ancient times. I say Chinese because both Daoists and Confucians are rooted in the same cosmology and likely to use such practices. On the practical side Jerry Alan Johnson describes the creation and use of “thought forms” of various complexity for a variety of uses in both his qigong healing and Daoist magic books. There may be other sources, but I am very familiar with these books, where "thought forms" very much a part of the teaching and are used in both healing and magic. I could have said all this a week ago, but I have been busy and also the question stimulated a certain curiosity about the subject and its Chinese background. I know a lot about magic East and West, and while Dr. Johnson's treatment seems very strongly grounded in Chinese beliefs and practices, I always feel a little better if I can find a Chinese name for something, so I wanted to look a little deeper, and went to this site: Spirit Possession on Magic SEA Underground which I discovered a few years ago and is really interesting and informative, though you do have to have a good background in order to make any practical use of it. The particular link above is one of the results of my search for “thought form”, which shows that at least in contemporary discussion the term is used among native practitioners, at least when writing in English, however, that really was not good enough for me, so I dug a little deeper and went to his Chinese section where “thought form” came up with this: 思想的形状 (Thought Form) on SEA Rojak Talk I took 思想的形状 to my standard online Chinese-English dictionary, MDBG and came to the conclusion that 思想的形状 was a modern translation into Chinese of “thought form” and thus had no bearing on traditional usage, however I was able to dig deeper into the page thanks to Google Translate, which, by the way, has really improved a lot since I first tried using it, and came up with this: Which is almost an intelligible translation! I have bolded the key phrae, poly gas refining shape, which is a translation of 聚气炼形, in which 聚气, is translated as "poly gas", but in this context would be better translated as "condensing qi". The character 炼, "refining", is used a lot in Daoist discussion, meaning to refine or smelt, as in metallurgy, and has references to alchemy. Among other things metal ores were purified or refined before they were molded into a shape (形). So here we have a traditional phrase associated with Daoist practice and which could have been taken from a "Thought Forms 101" course. I hope this is helpful Edit: Minor word usage, changed "of" to "and" somewhere above.

I hope that I am correct in assuming that this, is in relation to this: While there is little doubt in my mind that recitation of Psalms was an important part of earlier magical practice, it is only a matter of how one practices magic and not the more important aspect of theory which determines what and how you practice, and it is the fundamental flaws in Western magical theory as it developed into what I call neo-magic in the Nineteenth Century that are of primary concern to me. The theoretical structure which was lost in the period from 1600 to 1800 is basically that which Cornelius Agrippa expounds at great length in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy. I have often compared these three books to a three volume textbook of magical engineering, in which just about every aspect of the theory of magic is dealt with, and in so far as possible, illustrated with examples. This theoretical structure is applicable to any magical practices from any culture or time, and can contribute an understanding of the whys and wherefores of any type of magical practice, and allow one to understand and work successfully with the practical, magical aspects of anything from shamanism to Tibetan Buddhism, and of course my personal favorite, Ritual Daoism. I don't have time now to enter into a long discussion of why I say this, but again I have posted in great length about Agrippa and the deficiencies of neo-magic on the Dao Bums. A simple search of my posts using the name “Agrippa” will produce a lot of information as well as searching my posts for rational and ratonalism, because I consider Agrippa's theoretical structure to a rational theory of magic, and there are many posts that explain why. What happened from 1800 on, was a reduction of magical theory, particularly in the Nineteenth Century, it was all a matter of the will power and imagination of the magical practitioner. During the Twentieth, particularly under the influence of Aleister Crowley, mental and emotional states, particularly ecstatic ones became gained in importance, to a certain extent replacing will. These changes threw out many babies as well as the soap with the bathwater. Again searching my posts for reductionism and reduction will produce a lot of information on my arguments against these changes. As for practice, I brought up the topic of the Golden Dawn. I consider the Golden Dawn to be the high point of neo-magical thought and practice. It is practically the only aspect of Western magic in the last two hundreds years that I consider worthy of deep study. In this regard what I said here is relevant: I approached the Golden Dawn Temple and its ritual system as if I were retro-engineering a complex circuit board, and in the process I learned a great deal about the structure of magic and its practice. On many levels it was well worth doing. People who wish to dismiss the Golden Dawn are welcome to do so. It is their loss, not mine. You don't need to join a "Golden Dawn" organization to study this material, all of my study of this was in the 70s with Regardie's first treatment of the Golden Dawn tradition. It does, of course, require a lot of thought and reading in related literature to understand it, but it is worth the effort.

You seem to be saying that you did nothing but the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, I hope that I am either misreading you or you have not said enough about your practice. Whatever you were doing, pardon me if I take the liberty of explaining a little about how one should work with this type of material. The Banish Ritual of the Pentagram is only part of a larger system, all banishing should be followed by invocation, and one should be doing the Middle Pillar exercise on a regular basis also. One should work up to a facility in practicing all the ritual parts together. To make an analogy to kata, each ritual sequence is like a specific block, throw, and/or punch combination, and they are to be worked together into larger structures, a typical example would be to set up a regular system in which one started with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, followed it with the Lesser or Greater Invocations of the Pentagram, performed the Rose Cross Ritual and then proceed to the the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram and then the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram, for each day of the week following the pattern of the Planets, combined then with some invocations of the Planetary Archangels and Angels, and this would only be like a beginning kata for learning the basics while making connections between your Microcosmic energy and the Macrocosmic Powers. Also these techniques originated in the Golden Dawn, though they are often taught outside of that context, but they need to be studied within the context of the Golden Dawn Temple and its structure, just like a mantra exists within the context of a Mandala. For example, it is only by understanding the structure of the Golden Dawn Temple that one will realize the fundamental importance of the Rose Cross Ritual. There are a lot of ways to "get a strong energy field", Western Ceremonial magic is certainly one of them. I learned all of this in the late Sixties and Early Seventies, and expanded into a lot of other interesting areas thanks to it, but dabbling in this stuff in particular, can get you into a lot of trouble. For those interested in it, I would still recommend Don Kraig's Modern Magick, all the internet "wunder kids" learned from it and it is still an excellent introduction to the subject, though through all of my years of study and practice, I do consider Western magic as practiced post 1800 to be fundamentally flawed in terms of theory and aspects of its practice. I have discussed this elsewhere on the Dao Bums in considerable detail. I hope this is helpful. Edit: Minor change to spelling, added an is up there somewhere.

I said in my previous post that I wanted to deal with some aspects of it in my post on Chapter xvi, well it's that time. The aspects that I wished to deal with here were mostly the examples given in Chapter xivi for the operation of the property of the Soul that extends itself into other things. Now remember first of all that the agency of this extension is the Spirit of the World and that the Spirit of the World will be the agency by which the “Vertues pass from one thing to another” in the this discussion of Chapter xvi, but first let me remind you of what I said above about the example given in Chapter xiv: Just to clarify, Gilbert is not attributing to Della Porta the mistake of thinking that diamonds hinder loadstones, but rather the discovery that it is false. It is rather the false idea that one can rub iron or steel on diamonds and magnetize them that Gilbert is accusing Della Porta of doing. Della Porta is possibly confusing the static electrical attraction that can develop from rubbing certain things on stones, such as amber, with a true magnetic attraction, the differences between which, were only being clarified in the Seventeenth Century. And now on to Chapter xvi: First I wish to emphasize the principle here which is that "souls" as the forms of things manifest "Occult Virtues" by which, ". . . they not only work upon all things that are neer them, by their Vertue . . . “, but also they, “. . . infuse into them a like power, through which by the same Vertue they also work upon other things . . .". So that whereas the previous chapter had spoken about a virtue of the diamond extend through the Spirit of the World interfering with the power of a loadstone to attract iron, this one puts forward another possibility founded in the Spirit of the World, that the virtue of one thing can be communicated to and infused into another thing, so that the second one now has the same power as the first, which is primarily illustrated by, “. . . the Loadstone, which Stone indeed doth not only draw Iron Rings, but also infuseth a Vertue into the Rings themselves . . .”. A very important pricinple for the practice of magic, and on that is called the “principle of contagion”, a principle mostly used as a means of connecting with someone or something that was once connected with them, to influence them, but as seen here can also be used to create an independent object with a power like that of the originating object. This is a perfect place to remind people of what I said here: So, bearing in mind what I said about the false doctrine of the diamond hindering the loadstone, let's look at Agrippa's “outlandish” supporting illustration for this chapter: This illustration, with its recommendation of wearing a prostitutes panties, and its implications of kinky cross-dressing, is about as outlandish as it gets! And of course it is open to all sorts of modern and purely reductionist psychological interpretations. The more conservative recommendation to use the mirror of a prostitute, also has psychological interpretations, but as an illustration of something becoming charged up, albeit unconsciously by the prostitute, would be far more in line with even Nineteenth Century theories involving objects being charged with animal magnetism. However, one needs to look at all of the illustrations and ask, what do these things have in common and how are they illustrative of the principles, what does a prostitutes panties have in common with, “. . . the halter wherewith a man was hanged . . ”, which would give either of them, “. . . certain wonderfull properties . . .”? Oh, and in case you are wondering "halter" in this case means the hangman's noose, and not another stylish garment with an implication of cross-dressing. Why did Agrippa chose these as illustrations of the principle that: Which, unlike the illustration of the diamond and the loadstone, is still an accepted part of science, though given a very different interpretation. A fact which needs careful consideration of another sort, such as, while it is obvious that it is a good illustration of the principle which Agrippa is putting forth, how would it be understood in terms of the worldview that Agrippa is assuming, and within that worldview, how would other aspects of it be understood, such as, “why don't copper rings become magnetized?”, or “is the fact that modern science explains the phenomena in a certain way fundamentally incompatible with Agrippa's worldview?”. It is only by asking yourself and answering questions like this, about those oddities of ancient learning that Agrippa uses to illustrate his principles, that you will be like Agrippa's judicious bee: And can also receive "no little profit, and much pleasure".

I'm sorry to be so long in posting this, because what I am going to discuss in my next few posts is as important a part of the Doctrine of Occult Virtues as is the background in Aristotle's Four Causes, which I outlined in my opening post and have covered in detail in my posts on Aristotle and Agrippa. This important aspect is “the Spirit of the World”, one of the concepts that was to survive into neo-magical theory as Mesmer's animal magnetism, which was an important aspect of Nineteenth Century magical theory, but has receded into the deep background in the Twentieth. First Agrippa's quote and then a discussion of why it is neglected in the Twentieth Century: As can be seen from the number of passages that have been bolded above, there is a lot to talk about in this chapter and it is one of the key chapters to understanding and putting Classical Magic into practice, I will deal with the most important aspects here and comment on others in later discussions. the vertues of things did depend upon these; because it is the property of the Soul to be from one matter extended into divers things, about which it operates: Agrippa has been recapitulating part of his discussion of the Great Chain of Being, which I dealt with in my first post of this series, and this principle follows directly from what was said just before it, that, “For there is nothing of such transcending vertues, which being destitute of Divine assistance, is content with the nature of it self”, in other words there is a constant outpouring of Virtue from the higher to the lower, as higher levels of Virtue are communicated to lower orders of being which are influenced by them. Remember that in all of this, Virtue means Power in other words the ability to effect or do something or affect something, and, as will become evident as we proceed, this power is conceived of as fundamentally a “generative” power, something which is closely modeled on the “generation” of plants and animals as will be made apparent as we go along. the Soul of one thing went out, and went into another thing, altering it, and hindering the operations of it: I will return to this and the following example of the operation of an Occult Virtue in my post on Chapter xvi, where I will deal with this type of citation in more detail. the Diamond hinders the operation of the Loadstone, that it cannot attract Iron: No of course diamonds don't hinder loadstones as was recognized shortly after Agrippa wrote, "a very old falsehood about the diamond, in speaking of a power contrary to that of the loadstone (WikiSource, On the Magnet, by William Gilbert, Book III. Chap. 13)". Gilbert attributes this discovery to Della Porta, who, however, makes the opposite mistake of making diamonds into something that will magnetize iron, but more about this later as noted above. the Soul is the first thing that is moveable, and as they say, is moved of it self; but the body, or the matter is of it self unable, and unfit for motion, and doth much degenerate from the Soul, therefore they say there is need of a more excellent Medium, viz. Such a one that may be as it were no body, but as it were a Soul, or as it were no Soul, but as it were a body, viz. by which the soul may be joyned to the body: This is an extremely important passage because in the next century Descartes was to create the mind/body dualism which leaves this “medium” out of the picture completely and plagued Western Philosophy from the Seventeenth Century onward with this problematic model, but it has also permeated Western Culture to such an extent that the default worldview of Westerners and any person or society sufficiently influenced by Western thinking, is what I call “Closet Cartesianism”, which is usually stated informally in terms different from Decartes, but not free from the fundamental conception and its problems. It is commonly formulated these days as “a ghost in a machine”. There are two rarer worldviews which developed from this in the Eighteenth Century, the denial of the ghost and the consequent reduction of the world and its to contents to a machine filled with machines, and which developed into hard core materialism or the denial of the machine to preserve the ghost, as represented by Berkeley's “idealism”, which found a home in Romanticism, and the progenitors of “New Age” thinking and is responsible for the “the world is an illusion” idea. they conceive such a medium to be the spirit of the World, viz. that which we call the quintessence: because it is not from the four Elements, but a certain first thing, having its being above, and besides them: This sense of quintessence is fundamentally Aristotelian and should be born in mind, but there is also another sense of a union of the five essences which is derived from alchemy. The Golden Dawn usage of spirit seems to be mostly influenced by the notion of Akasha derived from Indian traditions which was the extended by the alchemical usage, the sense in which Agrippa is using it does not seem to have survived, at least not explicitly in the Golden Dawn. such a kind of spirit required to be, as it were the medium, whereby Celestiall Souls are joyned to gross bodies Note that in the older traditions, spirit as a medium is required, no dichotomy such as Descartes created was allowed, or even conceived of as possible. This spirit is after the same manner in the body of the world, as ours is in the body of man. For as the powers of our soul are communicated to the members of the body by the spirit, so also the Vertue of the Soul of the World is diffused through all things by the quintessence: This is a very simple, but powerfully suggestive application of the Microcosm/Macrocosm and doctrine, and I will say more about it in a moment. nothing found in the whole world, that hath not a spark of the Vertue thereof: In essence this means that there is no such thing as dead matter, as it was later envisioned during the Seventeenth Century. This is very important because a Closet Cartesian always thinks of matter as dead and “inanimate”, that is “soulless” and has a lot of trouble with thinking of Occult Virtues and using them as a real part of magic, but rather only as props for his show, or at best things which he can charge with his “Will Power” and intent, but do not and cannot contribute anything to the efficacy of the magic. By this spirit therefore every occult property is conveyed into Hearbs [herbs], Stones, Metals, and Animals, through the Sun, Moon, Planets, and through Stars higher then the Planets: In the first part it is made clear that it is through this “spirit” that all of the magical powers inherent in the natural world are distributed by the higher powers, and in the second part is an anticipation of the possibility of an Astrological Magic, the Natural Magic aspect of which is developed further in Book One, and other aspects are developed in Book Two. It is this strong integration of the whole subject which is implied in Agrippa's original definition of Magic and is worked out in considerable detail throughout. Now this spirit may be more advantageous to us, if any one knew how to separate it from the Elements: or at least to use those things chiefly, which do most abound with this spirit: To return to my discussion of the passage beginning “This spirit is after the same manner in the body of the world, as ours is in the body of man.”, I asked myself, “what would 'most abound with this spirit”, than the living image of the whole, the very Microcosm itself?” and this was part of my reason for pursing qigong and other forms of Chinese esoteric training. I wasn't all of it of course, I was already interested in and had been for a couple of years before I read Agrippa, because of quote from Dion Fortune, related to ectoplasm and evocation, but this passage certainly reinforced my interest in such practices. Jerry Alan Johnson also employs an ectoplasm theory in his discussions of spirit appearances and even includes pictures in his books which he claims are real ectoplasmic manifestations. Most of his references to ectoplasm can be found in Daoist Magical Transformation Skills (The Temple of the Celestial Cloud, 2012), for example p. 28 on shape-shifting and magic, a discussion of materialization on p.40, and a discussion of qi and ectoplasm on pgs. 67-68, with a picture of a purported spirit manifestation on p. 68. This picture is also shown on p. 61, as part of an account of a magical summoning to "obtain a spirit helper". For these things, in which this spirit is less drowned in a body, and less checked by matter, do more powerfully, and perfectly act, and also more readily generate their like: for in it are all generative, & seminary Vertues: This brings out clearly the “generative, & seminary” of the spirit. Internal alchemy, which I had started to study about year before I read Agrippa in Charles Luk's Taoist Yoga book, deals very much with extracting and harnessing the “generative, & seminary” powers of the body. Its relevance to external alchemy is emphasized in the next excerpt. For which cause the Alchymists [alchemists] endeavour to separate this spirit from Gold, and Silver: In this case the effort is mistaken, but the idea is still there, that this “generative, & seminary” power is even present in the mineral kingdom. Which brings us back to the earlier excerpt, "nothing found in the whole world, that hath not a spark of the Vertue thereof", affirming that the Spirit of the World does indeed animate everything, and the whole world is "alive". if thou shalt afterward project upon any matter of the same kind (i.e.) any Metall, presently will turn it into Gold, or Silver. And we know how to do that, and have seen it done: but we could make no more Gold, then the weight of that was, out of which we extracted the spirit. For seeing that is an extense form, and not intense, it cannot beyond its own bounds change and imperfect body into a perfect: which I deny not, but may be done by another way: Anyone familiar with basic modern chemistry will recognize this as an early description of techniques now used in plating which harness the electromotive force by exploiting what is called the electromotive series, but I can't get into more details on this, however, this extraction “may be done by another way”, but again this is not the place to describe such procedures, aside from noting that they are procedures of laboratory alchemy and involve the use of, and creation of actual substances, some of which I may describe later. Well, that wasn't quite as long as I thought it might be, but it is still longer than I like posts to be, because such posts are a lot to chew on, but I couldn't see a good way to shorten it, however, I will try to expand on many of the points raised here. Edit: Minor spelling

Well Jim D., if nothing else you are a Jim Dandy reductionist, but are you really a critical thinker? A question perhaps too large and unwieldy to answer here, so I will address some other ones now. About your dismissal of “chi” or qi as a “vitalist” bio-energy, as it is usually thought of around here, you are probably wrong, but I will postpone a consideration of that until I have discussed where you are definitely wrong and that is of qi as fundamental substance. Discussing qi and its cross cultural equivalents I posted this a while back: (Emphasis added, ZYD) The closest modern conception to qi in this sense of “primary substance” would be the “energy of the vacuum”, though I personally like to think of it as a four dimensional “substance” that underlies Space/Time, Matter/Energy and to extend it to a biological context Consciousness/Body. This is based on simple Special Relativity and doesn't even involve us with “quantum weirdness”, but when you throw that in, the type of reduction which you are making becomes even more difficult. This is why I say that your dismissal of qi as bio-energy is only probably wrong, because outside of the interpretation of qi as primordial substance, which would of course include the brain/neuron structure that you are considering, there is a great deal of room for phenomena that are “not dreamt of in your philosophy”. I can understand this reductionism, it reminds me of myself before I did about a decade of study into the history and philosophy of science in an effort to find a model that could reconcile my mystical and scientific tendencies. That model was to emerge from my study of Classical Philosophy and particularly Platonism. Now this is a long enough post anyway and so I am going to close it with some recommended reading, first about Quantum Mechanics and consciousness, and then about neurology and “magic”. I started reading Henry Stapp circa 2000 and found his ideas very suggestive, while this book: Mindful Universe; Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer disappointed me because it broke no new ground in Stapp's interpretation, it is still an excellent one volume introduction to his thinking, however, I really loved this book: and strongly recommend it. As for Neurology and “magic” anyone who is seriously examining such things as the topic of this thread, should thoroughly familiarize themselves with the ideas covered in this book: Which happens to be a very good read also. Well that is about all that I can put into this now, too much time has already gone into thinking out the post above.

Based on my own experience Daoist teachings about the “Inner Gods” are not metaphorical, but are real and provided a level of integration in practice that goes beyond mere “energy” into the sphere of intelligent guidance of organic function. Case in point, in a transmission ceremony of the “Three-Five Surveyors of Merit”, i.e., the Three Pure Ones and the Five Virtuous Emperors, during the transmission of the Green Emperor of the East and the Liver, among other things, a woman complained of feeling extreme heat, like being in an oven, which dissipated after a few minutes. It turned out that this woman, a licensed acupuncturist, had very difficult menses, but the menstrual period immediately afterward passed without her even noticing it. Her subsequent periods were hardly noticeable, lacking pain from cramping, emotional distress and the heavy bleeding that her skill in acupuncture had not alleviated. The woman had not mentioned her difficulties before the rite and it was not done as any type of healing, rather as a ritual transmission for initiatory purposes. In short the “healing” was a spontaneous effect of the ritual and not any intended result, and as such indicates agency on the part of the Virtuous Green Emperor of the Liver. This is just one example I could cite of what seems to be more than merely an energy transmission involved in such rites. I mention this for information sake only and will not discuss the matter beyond this. Ritual Daoism, my preferred term for “Religious Daoism”, has its own equivalent of Deity Yoga and a wide variety of internal practices related to such “Internal Deities”. The origin of the teaching is in the Microcosm/Macrocosm relationship which is fundamental to both Daoism and Confucianism. While its origin in China is not completely clear it makes an early appearance in the work of Mencius in the Fourth Century BCE. It is also essential within the Western Traditions of Mysticism and Magic, where its origin is basically epistemology worked into a supporting ontology, metaphysics and cosmology. In other words it is not just new age woo woo, nor ancient Western or Chinese metaphorical jibber jabber.

It's only my guess, but I think Nungali is objecting to the planetary associations of the two squares, the square of four in Durer's work is usually associated with Jupiter and the warm, moist sanguine humor, while the square of three is associated with Saturn and the cold, dry melancholic humor. He could be pointing out part of the antidote to melancholic humor, but since there is only one, there are no others to compare and see if he continued the theme of looking to the curing or balancing humor. Maybe the symbol of the balance has something to do with that idea, or it could simply be Saturn's exaltation in Libra. The humors do appear in a few other Durer works, but not the magic squares.

What it speaks to quite eloquently are the limitations of Jung's mind, whether “linear” or not, and it is the same type of limitation that “causes” him to think of “synchronicity” as “acausal”, because his definition of causality is that of Nineteenth Century “scientific” reductionism, which he confuses with reason and rationality. I have posted a little on Jung and magic and psychology here: and a little more about Jung and my preferred “psychology” here: was lost on a lot of people because Plotinus psychology is a real psyche-ology, a study of Soul that includes the soul of the world among others. I have a book whose charming title Soul-Sisters, certainly belies its dense text and scholarly rigor. Probably a published doctoral thesis, its full title is Soul Sisters; A Commentary on Enneads IV 3 (27), 1-8 of Plotinus (Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1980) by Wypkje Helleman-Elgersma. It is a work on what I call the communion of all souls, for in Plotinus all souls are of the same essence and form a great family, sisters in this case because of the feminine gender of psyche in Greek. What a difference from the confused "collective unconscious" of Jung, to say nothing of the many "still stuck at the beginning of the Twentieth Century neurologists" who still dominate the field. There are of course exceptions among neurolgists and I have posted a little on them, but I don't have time to look those up, still, I did want to make a little time for you. From the Plotinian perspective even "physics" is "psychological", but nonetheless "real" and "objective" as a class of interactions between our souls and the soul of the world manifesting in a rigorously mathematical form. . . . (Emphasis added, ZYD) a class of interactions between our souls and the soul of the world manifesting in a rigorously mathematical form: What I mean by this is that a view of "the laws of gravity" and the "laws of electromagnetism" as mathematical descriptions of "substantial forms", which are the "formal causes" of our experience of "common sense", by which I mean the common sensory experience of "the world", the observation of which is the basis of physics. Plotinus' psychology is based on Plato's teachings and the result is a "rational" model of magic and how it works. It is "rational" because it is the working out of a coherent worldview starting from Platonic first principles. In spite of common usages involving "rational", "scientific" and "materialism", rationality is not identical with Nineteenth Century materialism, which materialism is proof of the adage, "garbage in, garbage out". Reasoning from materialist first principles naturally results in materialist conclusions which cannot be made into a coherent worldview no matter how hard one tries. The whole of Twentieth Century physics was a large scale reductio ad absurdum refutation of materialism. Finally at the risk of being verbose, but to clarify further the Romantism/Reductionism dichotomy, I will quote from my post on Romanticism in the Eliphas Levi thread: the thematic guide of the previous site is useful: So useful is it in fact, that the link is a large part of why I quoted the above post. Please read it, it is short and packed with information, and you will see a lot of ideas that characterize both Jung and modern magic. For those who have missed them, I hope to return to my discussion of Crowley et. al. shortly

I almost started a thread on this myself, though I might have limited it to Jung himself, after reading the following post: This certainly has nothing to do with the tradition of magic as it developed in the West from the Hellenistic Period to the Nineteenth century. I doubt that it really has anything to do with magic as thought of in many other cultures either. A tradition needs to be understood on its own terms, then one is in a position to make changes to it, otherwise one is like a surgeon ignorant of anatomy. God help his poor patients. Though I have made a lifetime study of magical traditions, I am not a traditionalist, I am a pragmatist and I want to be like the surgeon who knows his patients anatomy before cutting out this, or lopping off that, just because it doesn't made sense to me, which is what the modern "experts" on magic that I have read, seem to do all the time. I don't have any more time to waste on such nonsense.

Thanks for the clarification, that is what I more or less thought. More about Papus and the French school of Occultism in a bit, first we need a little review general history. One of the important things to bear in mind with neo-magical theory is the extent to which the beginnings of the magical revival corresponded to the development of Romanticism. Romanticism itself has beginnings as early as the late Eighteenth Century, in Philosophy with Rousseau and in the arts and literature with the Sturm and Drang movement. Toward the end of the Eighteenth Century these movements, which were more rebellions against the restraint of neo-classicism became fused with a growing dissatisfaction with the “scientific materialism” being loudly put forward by the Evangelical Atheists of “D'Holbach's Coterie”. Circa 1800 a group of philosophical thinkers hijacked Kant's philosophy and basically created a movement that conflated reason and logical thinking with materialism and encouraged both anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism, though at the same time creating a type of approach to spiritual phenomena which I call “spiritual empiricism”, which is in some ways an imitation of “scientific empiricism”. It is under the Aegis of Romanticism and its descendants that the Magical Revival and the "Journey to the East” were undertaken, and the whole of modern “mysticism and magic” is more or less tinged by Romanticism, which of course includes the Dao Bums. At least a little familiarity with Romanticism is a good thing, you may even see aspects of yourself there. This cite is a good beginning point because it separates out important themes that are fundamental to Romanticism: Thematic Analysis of Romanticism The Wikipedia article covers this in more detail, but having the thematic guide of the previous site is useful: Romanticism Article on Wikipedia The intellectual, artistic, social and spiritual descendants of Romanticism are a diverse bunch, with Nazi and Hippies being distant cousins, just like Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart are cousins, though you couldn't tell it from anything other then their family trees. As the Nineteenth Century developed there was a tendency, following the influence of Hegel, to want to reconcile opposites, thus was born the wish to reconcile magic and mysticism with science. This tendency has already been observed in the wish to model older magic on mesmerism, but is also alive today, though mesmerism plays little part, having been replaced by Jungian psychology. In my own opinion magic has not benefited by these attempts to reconcile it with science, in part because they have not understood magic on its own terms, nor did they have the view of science that we have today. Generally these attempts have resulted in a diminution of magic as the "Archetypes in the Mind of God" have become the mere archetypes of the collective unconscious. The extreme was reached a little after 1900 when in the mind of one man, magic became mere neurology. That man's name was Edward Alexander Crowley, whose non de plume, was Aleister Crowley. I will cover more about him and the French schools in the next few posts. Edit: Spelling

Someone might wonder where this thread has gone also. For those who had missed my contributions, they may be pleased to know that I will be returning to post more and to examine: Part of the reason for this is that someone did actually PM me about this thread and we had a short discussion which got me thinking more about neo-magic and my own development and the particular importance of this: to my eventual understand of the Golden Dawn and that it is basically an understanding of how magic was conceived pre-Crowley and thus magic as understood by the founders of the Golden Dawn, among other things it should be remembered that Mathers spent most of his time in Paris and that Papus was a member of the Paris temple of the Golden Dawn. Curiously Regardie's Golden Dawn, is one of the handful of Anglo-occultism books to make it into Sadhu's Bibliography. This pre-Crowley understanding would also help with understanding Dion Fortune, or any other Occult author writing in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Centuries. For those who don't already have a copy or would like a nice study copy which they can mark up and make a mess of, a PDF version can be downloaded from here: Sadhu's Tarot in PDF I will repeat that this is, very purposefully, not an easy book to understand, but if you want to really understand the Golden Dawn as the founders and high ranking members did, this is the book. I should note that Sadhu uses the Continental system of the Tarot cards following Levi and with his attributions of Planets and Zodiac signs to them arrives at a different set of meanings ascribed to them then the Golden Dawn. I may expand upon this at some point, but it is not germane now. The Golden Dawn's teachings are literally the high point of neo-magical theory and practice and they were and remain important to me for reasons which I hope to discuss here, as well as the contribution of Aleister Crowley to neo-magical theory. Crowley's prolific output makes him probably the single most influential author on Neo-magic, or magick, as he preferred, than any other, and he did make some contributions to the post 1900 version of neo-magical theory which were very influential and continue to be. In my opinion they were not good and I will examine these issues shortly, unless there is serious objection from the OP.