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Thank you all for your interest and responses. If by result you mean the result aimed for or hoped for then yes, it is a result, as bubbles has aptly pointed out here: The final cause of a statue may be as a decoration in a temple. Its formal cause may be that of a conventional "form" of a deity, which is of course the "formal cause". The sculptor, no matter how inefficient he is, is the efficient cause, because he is the "maker", the root is from the Latin facere, to make. Good observation there, this is where these ideas start to become useful to magic. Long before there was Chaos Theory, there was Order Theory and in Order Theory, the "attractor", great, strange or whatever was called the Telos, the which is an Anglicization of the Greek word rendered as "Final". Read about it here on Wikipedia In Traditional Magic it is the Formal and Final causes that are most important, in what I call neo-magic, the are completely ignored and the magician is viewed as the efficient cause through his/her will power and imagination. These differences in theory strongly affect how Magicians practice magic, so they are not trivial, but very important and in my experience have a strong practical effect. It should also be noted that Traditional Magic does not ignore the magician as an efficient cause, but develops that and even extends the possibilities by developing the formal causes in the magician, the most famous example of which is in the famous Macrocosm/Microcosm doctrine. Since formal and final causes where important not merely to what are now "esoteric" disciplines, like magic and alchemy, but were the whole basis of Hellenistic and Medieval Natural Philosophy and thus of ancient physics, it is not correct to limit Traditional Magic to the purely phsychological interpretations that are given in neo-magic. This is part the reason why I have characterized Traditional Magic as Platonic physics and Agrippa's Three Books on Occult Philosophy as a textbook of Platonic engineering and part of the reason form my "inversion" of the usual perspective here: Which points to what I mean by the reconciliation of magic and science. The reason why I adopted the framework of Traditional Magic was exactly because I was not a traditionalist, but a pragmatist, I saw it then as I still see it now, as being the best theoretical framework for the practice of magic.

For some time I have been asking myself how best I can further the topic of the study of Agrippa, and the conclusion that I came to was to clarify the relationship between Agrippa's Occult Philosophy and the Philosophy of Aristotle. It is simply not possible to get a good understanding of Agrippa without an appreciation of Aristotle, in particular his doctrine of the “Four Causes”. Other aspects of Aristotelian thinking are important also, but it starts with these “Four Causes”. In the modern world the basic tendency is a viewpoint created in the Seventeenth Century in which the basic categories are mind and matter and objective and subjective. If you watch the discussions here on the Tao Bums and elsewhere you will see these terms bandied about with little attempt to understand them, but with a great deal argued from them. I will deal with them and their effects on the Modern Mentality in a series on Agrippa and the Scientific Revolution, but for now the most important thing is to understand what those Revolutionaries found so revolting about the worldview Circa 1500 and what about it may have been worth preserving or reviving as part of our understanding of Traditional Magic and its application to modern magic. This is the beginning of the Wikipedia article on the Four Causes: The further discussion in the article is also worthwhile. This is a fair first step, but in order to understand its application to Agrippa and to other aspects of the Occult Philosophy of his age we will have to dig deeper. That is the intent of this thread and I will examine all of these in more detail and their relationship to other aspects of Aristotle's thinking and then their applicablity to understanding how and why Agrippa thought magic and by extension alchemy and other “esoteric” arts should be practiced. As I develop this thread I will expand on the above, examine them for their applicability to understanding Agrippa, how to understand modern magic in these terms, why they are relevant to an understanding of modern science and how they can reconcile science and magic, and extend magical theory and practice. Questions and comments are welcome and I will answer them according to relevance and as time permits, in some cases putting an answer off until more groundwork has been laid, even to the extent of answering it in another thread, such as the one I am thinking about the Scientific Revolution.

I started being dissatisfied with what I was later to term neo-magic in the early 1970s and in particular in the period from '72 to '74, did a complete rethinking of the theory of magic based on Volume One of Agrippa's Occult Philosophy and experiences with laboratory alchemy and readings in alchemical literature. Based on some things that Dion Fortune had said in some of her books, even around 1970 I was interested in Chinese martial arts for qi cultivation with a look to learning about cultivating "etheric" energies and "ectoplasm". Jerry Alan Johnson mentions ectoplasm at several points in his books on Daoist magic. Nice to see that the neo-magicians are finally catching up with me.

Pelted with fruit, not to worry. Like any grumpy, amoral primate suitably riled, I will pelt you with "crap" like this: Wierd, old uncle Al just trying to "keep the balance" is he? How you can still quote from Crowley after waving goodbye to your old Thelemic associates, as it seems you are doing here: Is beyond me. Don't you realize that it is exactly because of Crowley that they "couldnt quiet (sic, I am not sure quite what was intended here) manifest it"? Doesn't it occur to you that there is something fundamentally wrong in the way he thought about and taught his so called magick? Whatever value there may be in some aspects of what he says, is countered by defects such as what I quoted above, and unfortunately, it is not how the few intelligent people take what good he says, it is how the many idiots take what is bad in what he says that matters. That and the fact that the tons of his faux magic available and his supposed position as an authority have closed the minds of many people to any real understanding of magic. Grumpy . . . I have my reasons.

Hmmm ... now I am contemplating I may have practised some 'competent magic' after all ! ( 4 outa 4 aint bad ). [Actually this caused a falling out with a group I was associated with ; on the one hand they seemed to think my view and practice of magic was ... ... chuckles behind my back and comments that got back to me .... all that shit ... ... and on the other hand they all seemed to want the 4 things above - couldn't quiet manifest it and couldnt understand how it managed to fall in my lap. .... bye-bye then Based on how you are quoting me, I wasn't sure whether I had written the above passage clearly enough so to avoid future misunderstanding, I added a little extra in order to make it clearer: So, you still may have been practicing competent magic, though it may or may not have been in the sense which I intended. On the other hand, some people are just lucky whether they practice magic or not.

Here is the general structure of Book One. If we make an index which first gives these broad categories and then when each of these main topic chapters is introduced create a sub-index for the other individual chapters, that might be a good way to organize the material. Chapters One and Two introduce the subject of the Magician, what he studies and what he practices. How Magicians Collect vertues from the Three-fold World, is Declared in these Three Books. Followed by Chapter Two, which is developed as the content of Books One, which outlines and discusses the Theory and Practice of Natural Magic,Two, which outlines and discusses the Theory and Practice of Mathematical Philosophy and Celestial Magic,and Three, which outlines and discusses the Theory and Practice of Ceremonial Magic. Chapter Three then introduces a Theoretical account of Natural Magic which continues until Chapter Thirty-four where he begins to describe the practice of Natural Magic Of the Four Elements, their Qualities, and Mutual Mixtions. Introduces the topic of the elements, chapters 3-9 One of the most important and misunderstood aspects of traditional magic is that of "Occult Virtues". Agrippa introduces them here: Of the Occult vertues of Things Developed in Chapters 10-21, of which chapters 10-14 are of critical importance. In the Nineteenth Century when Magic was being revived there were not many people who really understood how Occult Virtues fit into the philosophy and worldview of the Renaissance. When I was first reading Agrippa's first Book back in 1972-74, these chapters were to have a very strong influence on me developing a totally different view of magic and its practice than I had developed from my reading of late Nineteenth and Twentieth Century authors. How Inferior Things are Subjected to Superior Bodies, and how the Bodies, the Actions, and Dispositions of Men are Ascribed to Stars and Signs. Developed in Chapters 22-33, these are the reflections in the natural world of the subjects dealt with in Book Two. Agrippa Starts his discussion of the practice of Natural Magic with Chapter Thirty-four, which deals with how the correspondence of “inferiors” with “superiors” can be used to draw down into certain preparations of natural things. How, by Natural Things and their vertues, We may Draw Forth and Attract the Influences and vertues of Celestial Bodies. Developed in Chapters 34-39 The application of “superiors” in the “binding” of natural phenomena and other matters is a very important aspect of the practice of Natural Magic. In modern times, except for some people with, shall we say, uncommon sexual proclivities, binding probably has a bad name. There is of course a lot more to the magical art of “binding”, then is ordinarily considered, but as far as binding goes, who wouldn't want to live in a locale one found perfect, in an abode which one found “enchantingly” attractive, and do work that one found to be amazingly fulfilling? This is how spirits bound should feel about their "binding" and any binding that falls short of this is just incompetent magic, and there will be trouble in the long run. The magical system of Geomancy is the practical key to good binding. Of Bindings; what Sort they are of, and in what Ways they are wont to be Done. Developed in Chapters 40-74 However there are certain important chapters in this section that introduce important sub-topics within the subject of binding.: Introduces the subject of Divination, Of Divination, and the Kinds thereof. Developed in Chapters 53-60 Agrippa considers traditional Anthropology and Psychology here: Of the Forming of Man, of the External Senses, also those Inward, and the Mind; and of the Threefold Appetite of the Soul, and Passions of the Will. Developed in Chapters 61-68, these are expanded in significant ways in Book Three. And finally gets around to dealing with the virtue and power of words as sounds created in the natural world and which "naturally" have a strong correspondence with what is “superior” Of Speech, and the Occult vertue of Words. Developed in Chapters 69-74 The links are of course to Joseph Peterson's Twilight Grotto so that the casual reader of this thread can see what I am talking about these chapters as being important organizational points. I will also note that this post was rather hastily assembled, my apologies for any errors, but I do hope that it is useful. Edit: Under the section "Of the Occult vertues of Things", I changed difference to different. Under "Of Bindings; what Sort they are of, and in what Ways they are wont to be Done", I changed 72 to 74 in the sentence on chapters developed in that topic. Edit two: Added the sentence, "This is how spirits bound should feel about their "binding" and any binding that falls short of this is just incompetent magic, and there will be trouble in the long run." under binding to avoid any misunderstanding.

I'll have some more specific suggestions about how an index could be organized when I discuss the larger structure of the text, there are certain key chapters which could be put in an index in the first post and then a sub-index could be created when that chapter is reached. Right now links to the major posts on the development of the development of the Roman Catholic Church from its roots in Hellenistic Judaism on, these are referenced in historical order not the order of the posts: Hellenistic Roots of the Judeo/Greek synthesis of Patristic Christianity It should be noted that even the Gospels and the letters of Paul, the supposed bedrock of Christianity, there is considerable evidence of Greek influenced thinking. The Roman Catholic Church of 1500 My introductory post and rationale for looking at the History of the Roman Church Prisca Theologica One Which is immediately followed by: Prisca Theologica Two One of our members, Manitou, brought brought up the question of Idolatry in relation to the Hermetica and the doctrine in the "To Aesclepius, or the Perfect Sermon", that resulted in this post which addresses part of the reason why properly conducted magic could be countenanced by an open minded enough cleric: Latria and Dulia, when something is Idolotrous and when it it not Finally of the major posts on Christianity this one on Deification: is an attempt to show that non-Protestant branches of Christianity have traditions of deification as part of their teaching. These doctrines do become important in Agrippa's teachings and are based, both on Psalms: and its reference by Jesus in John 10:34: It is also an idea supported by many pagan traditions. Christianity, definitely not your run of the mill slave religion. In between all of these were some interesting discussions, at some points becoming mostly a dialogue between Nungali and myself, but many interesting people contributed and I hope that they will also do so in the future.

I always try to provide online references where possible, this sometimes means doing a lot of searching just to make a post. For older books online copies are available, but for newer ones there is always the library and the miracle of inter-library loan. I have sometimes been amazed at one can get through inter-library loan. Once you have it you can scan it and then study it at your leisure. Now that you are posting more chapters, I will comment more. I do hope that you will provide some of your own insights, as I think that your experience and perspective is valuable. I will probably start with a discussion of how to read Agrippa and then an analysis of the larger structure. I will also give some references to the worldview of the time to understand how Agrippa saw the world in which he lived. This is particularly important because the "Scientific Revolution", of which I have indicated Agrippa's The Vanity and and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences, indirectly contributed is one of the biggest blocks to our understanding of Agrippa and how to apply his rules of magic practically. I will also do a detailed analysis of the elements and have some recommended reading from older sources about them. I am now doing some teaching locally and related to that I am going back and revising teaching material that I wrote in 1986-87, which was a very good (if I do say so myself), practical introduction to Natural Magic and explains in detail what Agrippa taught and how it affects practice. These are lecture outlines, but I am thinking of writing them out as essays and I might post them here online, though if I do it will probably be in my Personal Practice section.

I agree these can get a little messy, but it could be good in order to answer people's concern's as one goes along. I don't know if you have read the tread from the beginning, but I was at great pains to make clear the context of Christianity at the time Agrippa wrote as part of my analysis of his letter to the reader. To symphathise with him, we need move into his shoes, to "be" like him, to take on his mindset and values.: I completely agree with this approach and it reminded me of something I posted earlier: putting on a different kind of thinking-cap: This root metaphor and the psychological technique that is implied by it is probably the most important thing that I learned from this book. Granted I was already thinking in terms that made this passage make perfect sense to me, bringing together under the image of a thinking-cap all that I had thought about modeling, etc. was a profound idea, that in some ways presages everything I was later to learn about in studying NLP. To understand Agrippa, you need to think like Agrippa and put on the thinking cap of a believing Roman Catholic of the learned tradition circa 1500. This doesn't mean that you need to keep it on, as a matter of fact you need to learn to put on and take off a series of Thinking-caps and learn to create meta Thinking-caps that allow you to rise to a greater understanding than either of the lesser ones allows you to achieve. So, do yourself a favor, read at least the first chapter of this book, if you read all of the book, you will be better able to understand the Scientific Revolution and be better understand the underlying principles of Agrippa's worldview. You'll thank me for this recommendation, really you will. Finally, I will note for all of you who may consider this to be nothing but an exercise in 'intellectualism' for its own sake. Nothing could be further from the truth. Granted I enjoyed all this research, but mostly because I love solving problems and creating maximizing strategies. The motive for all the historical research which I undertook was to answer questions that came up within the context of my practice and ultimately they have profound practical consequences for how I think about and practice magic. I hope that by reading this thread my research will enlarge and enhance the thinking and practice of all who read it. To understand Agrippa in his own terms is a laudable goal and the only real way to benefit from the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, it is a lot of work, but absolutely worth the effort.

I came across this book while doing some searching: Becoming a god in the Christian Tradition on Barnes & Noble Here is the publishers overview: Here is the Table of Contents: I haven't read the book, but nothing about it is surprising to me, except perhaps how important it was to Greek orthodoxy, because of course in order to understand Agrippa's Occult Philosophy and also the historical development of Western thought, I did a lot of study of the history and development of Christianity and had come across these ideas already, if not summarized in such a net and handy form. I am putting this here as a final exclamation point to my consideration of the Christian background to Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy. It is addressed to those who imagine that they know what Christianity is all about and make blanket statements about Christianity and "the Christians", as if they all slept under the same blanket, far from being true, many don't even sleep in same bed, much less the same bedroom. For those interested in a closer look it can be read online here: The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition on Librarum I will emphasize again that all I have posted about Christianity in this thread is for historical context, which is important, since context determines meaning, I have no interest in the practice of Christianity or even Christian magic, except historical, nor would I recommend it, but as I said at the beginning, if you really want to understand Agrippa you have to understand Christianity as Agrippa perceived it circa 1500, not the popular versions, whether positive or negative, bandied about today.

This effect is a main part of why I teach people magic through drawing and all of magic stems from a generalization and extension of this effect. What is a drawing, it is a representation of something. What is a talisman or a symbol, it is a representation of something. What is a ritual, it is a representation of something. And what is the world in which we live, move and have our being, in the Platonic perspective on which such magic as that of Agrippa is based, it is a representation of of "the mind of God", a phrase which I use hesitantly, but is more likely to convey the idea then more technical formulations. To connect with the creative power of art, is to connect with the creative power of the universe. This level of concentration is not necessary to practice magic, but you already know that. You can probably already do most of Winger talks about, you just need to extend it. However it is useful to get better control of the mind. The brain doesn't like concentrating on one thing which is why your simple shapes go "wacko", it just takes time to learn that control and for you there may be better methods to achieve it, too many for me to give details now. Unseen_Abilities posted this while I was working on the above: A sigil is just a representation of something, Agrippa talks about them. They entered modern magic as a separate technique largely through the work of Austin Osman Spare as popularized by Kenneth Grant and others. Demystifying magic is great and stripping it down is good as long as one really knows what can be stripped away and what should be left in place. Just how simple it can be can be seen from this from Agrippa's Third book of Occult Philosophy: I quote this because there is a misapprehension among modern magicians that older magic is full of long winded and unnecessary rituals. While holding fast to a single technique many babies have been tossed out with the bath water.

My, my, . . .what did magicians do before they had Aleister Crowley to tell them all about yoga, and where would Crowley be if he hadn't climbed mountains with Oscar Eckenstein? Crowley himself practiced magic before he met Eckenstein, by his own account successfully, but he just didn't have the power of concentration that Eckenstein chided him about it. Indeed his evocation of the goetic spirit that he thought 'spirited' Allen Bennett off to the sunny climb of then Ceylon to 'cure' his asthma, was before he started such practices. What did he do back then? You don't suppose he practiced Golden Dawn style magic do you? On a serious note, listen carefully to anything BaquaKicksAss says about magic, I would say it is worth its weight in gold, but unfortunately that wouldn't be saying much, so just treasure her insights, even if they don't weigh very much. Right now I don't have much time to say more, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to make Crowley the subject of my own amusement and to praise the insight of an accomplished practitioner. I hope to have more time in a few weeks, and can weigh in more at that time, though I will for now say that I did an awful lot of practice of the Middle Pillar exercise based on Israel Regardie's The Art of True Healing in my late teens in the late Sixties. It was very useful, but after that I went very far afield. More later, I hope. Edit: Changed it to if in "even if they don't weigh much".

You are most certainly welcome. Discovering the Confucian Dao was one of the happiest discoveries of my life. I wish it had made that discovery about age thirty rather than fifty! I strongly recommend the works of Tu Weiming. Especially Humanity and Self-Cultivation, which came to my hands in an odd manner, and was of inestimable benefit. I don't have time for that story now. I am glad you are reading the Doctrine of the Mean, it is a wonderful book and in many ways the key to Confucian magic and Alchemy. Two things that have probably never occurred to most people. I prefer to call Zhongyong "Concentrating/focussing (on/in) the Center". Good luck.

I don't have much time right now, but to address these quickly: There are many ways that it could be used, a standard way that one would begin is by using them as "doorways" to explore the energies and connect with them. On a level of magic, each of the trigrams have correspondences classes and categories in the world, from plants, animals, people, occupations, etc. Using these as a guide one knows what Trigram to use for any particular purpose and also ritual elements that can be used to connect. The Trigrams also have connections with the Nine Stars and the Nine Stars are important in Chinese magic. Jerry Alan Johnson gives traditional "hand seals" for each of the Trigrams and I have found these to be useful ways of connecting, but of course they are not necessary. The Hexagrams themselves can be used to describe an existing situation, either by an analysis based on ones understanding or using divination to get a description, then a Hexagram representing the desired state can be chosen and the changing lines are worked with to create a change. As a cross cultural approach the figures of Geomancy are binary also and consist of four lines, they can be used to represent the "nuclear hexagram" of any hexagram giving you an inner doorway to a situation. There is also an interesting series of illustrations in Jou, Tsung Hwa's The Tao of I Ching, which can be explored. The limitation on these things is ones knowledge, creative imagination and technical expertise. This would require a much longer discussion, but to give a pointer that relates to to what I said above: and refer you to my posts under: Confucian Qi gong I took my Tao Bums name, Zhongyongdaoist from the original Chinese of "The Doctrine of the Mean", Zhongyong.

Excellent summary and more or less what I had in mind when I wrote this: To learn to use the Yi Jing is to learn about the core of Lǐ, 礼, often rendered as "propriety". Proper action is action that is cosmogenic, and aims to promote harmony and restore healthy order, both in the individual and his/her environment. This is what being a Jūn​zǐ, 君子, the "Superior Man" of Wilhelm/Baynes, is all about. It is about living a life from ones personal center in relation to the Absolute. Of course you can also use it for magic.

As I noted a long time ago: Someone seriously interested in magic owes it to their "future" to become both good at divination and to figure out how to apply those systems to magical practice. I would particularly like to emphasize the importance of Geomancy in practical magic. Thanks to Aleister Crowley this system, which was a foundation art of traditional magical practice, doesn't get anywhere near the respect or attention that it deserves and which it will repay handsomely.

I have looked at some of your recent posts including your astrological chart. Having done so I agree with you, you are very different and you are rare, not many people here are equipped to understand you, but I do. You have the chart of someone who in ordinary life would be a police detective, possibly involved in undercover work, or attracted to special forces or things like that, but you are attracted to magic and the occult, so you will find yourself involved in the magical equivalent. I don't want to discuss the matter in open forum, beyond saying that an 'ethical hex' is an act of tough love, it is not an act of personal revenge, it is done as a last ditch effort to save someone, or a group of someone's who are so lost in power trips that the only thing they understand is power and the only way to get them to respect you, and thus maybe to listen to you, is beat them senseless. Regrettably even that may not reform them, but since it is, or should be a last resort, you know that you have done all you can. The problem is maintaining balance and the right perspective. You need to anchor your 'sky hook' on the highest ontological levels and center yourself in the cosmic center. Anything less is a danger to yourself and others.

Pardon me if I begin as I ended: and give the full quote from which you excise this: "Or, as it refers to above - " in magic it is preferable to use the Sidereal Zodiac."" Which in full read: "for purposes of working with the Arabic Lunar Mansions in magic it is preferable to use the Sidereal Zodiac" I am a stickler for detail, but it is exactly this sense of detail combined with external time constraints which makes the present discussion so frustrating for me and why I felt it necessary to point out the article again. It is about all that I have time for right now and the most useful thing that I could contribute under the overall circumstances. I have noted that you are concerned about Aboriginal star lore and constellations, but what they have to do with Zodiacs is an interesting question, one that has concerned me a lot in my studies in Chinese astrology: Chinese astrology has lots of interesting star lore and at least one of its astrologies, Zi wei dou shu, is pretty much completely a 'star' astrology, with no 'zodiac' involved at all. On the other hand the Chinese do have a well formed Zodiac, as pointed out above, which seems to have very little relation to Chinese stellar cosmology. How these systems relate and how star lore becomes 'astro-nomos' and 'astro-logos', in other words how the primary data of star lore is turned into systems of 'star classification' and 'star logic' is a complex and interesting study. Too many questions, too little time. they are more about the properties of a period of time and not about the properties of a subset of stars occupying a particular position in space: I emphasized this to point out time is as important as space and that astrology is as much about time cycles as geometry and especially in more traditional astrology, those cycles as discrete blocks of time tend to trump planetary positions in space. I prefer to view both space and time as discrete 'sections' of higher dimensional space/time and to interpret astrology as sacred information theory, or in the words of the fundamental metaphor for astrology that I worked out circa 1970, 'astrology is the body language of the Cosmic Mind'. I hope that you and Michael Sternbach, a most welcome new voice here on the Tao Bums, will continue to have a fruitful and interesting discussion. I have simply tried to add to it as best as I can for now.

Regardie himself says in the Golden Dawn that the Golden Dawn Liber H is a transcription of Sloane 307, The Golden Dawn, Book One, Vol. 1, p. 85 (Third Edition, 1970). Dr. Thomas Head, well known as an authority, had been kind enouth to give me a copy of the Liber H in the mid 1970s and when I requested the Enochian microfilms from the British Library in the late 70s Sloane 307 was on the list. It is an anonymous manuscript in a very legible Italic hand and was much easier to read than the Enochian originals in their Secretary hand. Judging by the contents the author only had access to the True and Faithful Relation. He misreads the section in the True and Faithful Relation on the attributes of the lesser angles and this mistake is repeated in the Golden Dawn usage, compare The Golden Dawn, Book 2, Vol. 4, p. 327(Third Edition, 1970) to Turner's treatment in Elizabethan Magic, p. 68 (Element Books, 1989), based on Dee's orignal transcription. Frederick Hockley apparently had Sloane 307 copied in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, and this may explain the Golden Dawn's using it. I take Sloane 307 to be late Seventeenth Century and one of the curious things about it is that, rather then being merely notes, it seem to be written like instructions. I thought at the time it might have been written as instructions for a small group or something trying to practice in the Seventeenth Century from material in the True and Faithful Relation The 666s in Rudd appear because of misreading the Secretary hand 'b', a mistake which could not be made by someone with access to the Tabula Bonorum and enough smarts to make the connection.

Enochian magic has nothing to do with Crowley. It came about centuries before he was even conceived: Exactly the same could be said about Qabalah, but I know that are particularly sensitive about Enochian magic, as am I also, but I was rushed, as usual, and didn't observe the nicities like: The Abyss, Crowley inspired Pseudo-Qabalistic Interpretaion The Abyss, Crowley inspired Pseudo-Enochian Magic Interpretation There, happy now? We can leave it to Nungali to come post a vociferous defense of Crowley when he comes on.

As a general piece of information, the 'abyss' and 'crossing the abyss' have a very specific technical meaning in Modern Western Magic, particularly that derived from Aleister Crowley and his law of Thelema, or those teachings which are inspired by his work, but not specifically Thelemic. Here are too links which may help explain it better: The Abyss Qabalistic Interpretaion The Abyss Enochian Magic Interpretation Both of which basically derive from Aleister Crowley. Dark nights of the sould are more like the "mini abyss" which BaquaKickass mentions. She knows all this of course, she is just doing some rethinking. Always a good thing.

This can be subitled Hermetism, Qabalah, Rosicrucianism, Ceremonial Magic, Occultism and more: These are some of the possible subtitles. An example would be: - Western Esoteric Traditions {formerly Hermetic and Occult}: Western Mysticism and Magic, such as Hermetism, Qabalah, Rosicrucianism, Ceremonial Magic, Occultism and more - Other Traditions: Covers western philosophy, logic and reason, etc: I would simply drop this. The reason being, that as I have said Western Esoteric Traditions have reason at their core, whether people realize that or not and almost every Western Philosophy, except the late Roman Epicurianism of Lucretius, which became the basis of modern materialism, can at least be brought in, insofar as it can be, if it contributed to these esoteric traditions, or or provides context for understanding them, it can be brought in, otherwise it would be excluded and what other traditions are we then concerned with? I also don't think it would get much posted in it, or much attention in general. It would amount to wasted cyber-space and possible increase clutter.

One reason why I dislike this is because, Western Philosophy in the form of Plato and Aristotle and their descendants run through the whole of all of Western 'mysticism, esoteric, magic, and religion, etc'. For example, it is very easy to find ideas that are common to Middle Platonism in the Hermetica, how much does one find of 'The Book of the Dead'? The same holds for 'Gnostic' Christianity and is common to other Hellenistic 'neo' traditions, so much so that the standard scholarly take on these is that they are culturally adapted popular manifestations of Platonism. Also logic and reason are a fundamental part of these Western Traditions, it is only events taking place in period from 1750 to 1850 which associate reason and logic almost exclusively with materialism, whereas, especially Plato, but also Aristotle, were at great pains to use reason and logic to banish the early Greek atomist schools and were so successful that they are vilified by modern materialists. It is already defacto a mixed bag, and one with so many posts on such a wide set of topics that attempting to separate them leads to too many small bags. So on a practical level a title that represents this mixed bag status may be warrented. That is why I favor 'Western Traditions', with the option of making it 'Western Esoteric Traditions', as at least some type of filter. This would allow a challenge to say, a Christian fundamentalist rant, but allow Gnosticism, and the same goes for Sufism within Islam. It should be remembered that there are only a handful of members who post here regularly and a few more handfuls of people who follow it. This leads to a form of self limitation, that has kept the forum more or less on track, though it long ago went outside the limits implied by 'Hermetic/Occult'. Finally, there are people who come here as guests and do read these posts, which means that a good purpose overall is being served by the forum.

When the idea that became the 'Hermetic/Occult' section was proposed I never liked calling it 'Hermetic', which is only part of a larger set of interrelated traditions. At the time I suggested Western Esoteric Traditions, or even simply Western Traditions. This can be subitled Hermetism, Qabalah, Rosicrucianism, Ceremonial Magic, Occultism and more and tagged in various ways, but if you look at the content it is far broader than just Hermetism. At this time none of these topics have been developed enough to merit further subdivisions. It should be born in mind that the Abrahamic religious traditions have been an important part of these, as well as the traditional Pagan religious systems. Even Theosophy, while it certainly has drawn on Indian traditions, is rather more of a repackaging of these by and for Westerners and has been extremely influential in the development modern Western 'occultism'.

should I now worry about my evil cutthroat ex business partners using 'bend over' oil on me?: You probably should have been worried from the beginning. These days there is far too much magical and other knowledge running around for people to simply ignore the possibility. Bend Over oil is highly effective, there are other oils that can be used, but such forcing is seldom necessary, unfortunately many people attracted to business are also attracted to control and think that without some form of 'controlling' oil or powder they won't get what they want. BaquaKicksAss is correct: The only thing I would add to it is that you can never go wrong with uncrossing money situations first, sometimes that is enough to start the flow, but if one doesn't uncross first, or do a combined operation, then prosperity magic by itself may not be successful, or lead to unsatisfactory results. The uncrossing can help to get rid of the negative feelings that many people have about money and which often sabatage success. As a simple historical note, the magical author to first really emphasis getting money matters straight as a part of ones practice wrote under the name of Ophiel in the 1960s and early 70s. His books, though oddly written, actually contain some profound insights and are still of value. Also one of the reasons why I came to like Confucianism is because of its good balance between spiritual realization and worldly success.