Spiritual Quest * Self Realization * Individuation * Initiatory Magic * Mysticism * Holy Wisdom * Inner Contact
Georg Dehn's
THE ABRAMELIN EFFECT
Quest for Abramelin, the Mage
Our quest for self realization can spontaneously mirror others
who have gone before. Dehn deliberately retraced Abraham's journey
to rediscover the sacred wisdom and initiatory magic of Abramelin the Mage.
ABRAMELIN 3.0
A Cryptoporticus Video Production, by Iona Miller, 2010
SEE VIDEO HERE - http://vimeo.com/15289808
The Sun of the One I love has risen in the night,
Resplendent, and there will be no more sunset...
I saw my Lord with the eye of the heart, and I said
"Who are you?" and he said "Your Self." --Hallaj
Resplendent, and there will be no more sunset...
I saw my Lord with the eye of the heart, and I said
"Who are you?" and he said "Your Self." --Hallaj
Uncanny Intelligence. Inspired creativity. In many traditions the fount of creative vision and the source of divinatory insight is located in an intelligent ‘other’, whether this is termed god, angel, spirit, muse or daimon, or whether it is seen as an aspect of the human imagination and the activation of the ‘unconscious’ in a Jungian sense. From the artistic genius to the tarot reader, the sense of communication with another order of reality is commonly attested. Such communication may take the form of a flash of intuitive insight, psychic or clairvoyant ability, or spiritual possession. In art and literature many forms have been given to the daimonic intelligence, from angels to aliens, and in the realm of new age practices encounters with spiritual beings are facilitated through an increasing variety of methods including shamanism, hypnotherapy, mediumship, psychedelics, channelling and spirit materialization. Theories of divinatory practices such as astrology, tarot or I Ching often assume a spirit or god-like intelligence at work in symbolic interpretation, and guardian angels abound in self-help literature.
MAGICAL MENTORING: ABRAMELIN served as a Master mentor to ABRAHAM, the Jew of Worms. Where are you in the process of realizing your magical art, of becoming a Master of Art? Master Mentors understand that every student has an art inside him or her, and has a Master who is meant to come out. The term Master comes from the model of apprenticeship, leadership education and from the Renaissance Arts, including Magic. Masters strive to learn how to recognize those elements in the world that emanate beauty, have symmetry and synergy. They are trained to feel and act authentically. They strive to find strength through balance. A Master is more than well-trained and much more than an expert. A Master has both a broad and deep understanding of his Art, recognizing patterns in history, in humanity, and connections between people throughout time and various cultures. A Master understands how his Art connects to the world as a whole. By mastering one Art, a Master becomes a Master in life in general.
There is a Master and an Art Inside Everyone - Michelangelo wrote, “Beauteous art, brought with us from heaven, will conquer nature; so divine a power belongs to him who strives with every nerve. If I was made for art, from childhood given a prey for burning beauty to devour, I blame the mistress I was born to serve.” All of us bring an art from heaven. Each of us has a specific vocation or mission in life -- to fulfill or realize our unique potential. The aspirant is a receptacle that needs to be filled. Master Mentors understand that every student has an art inside him or her, and has a Master who is meant to come out. They understand that they are not really the teacher. The Master within the student is the true teacher. They see their role as bringing the art or the Master to the surface.
The inner temple within the soul is the most sacred. Before a true spiritual contact with the higher energies, we must cleanse his thoughts, desires and passions of all that belongs to the lower nature. Inhibiting forces, characterized as demons, must be driven out from the heart. In this way the soul becomes the true temple befitting the arrival of the true master. Before one can invite the divine energies to abide in one's being, a sacred place must be prepared for them. When the "Divine" consecrates this holy place, then this temple become the holy of holies. It becomes a most sacred place, infused by a most wonderful presence called the Holy Guardian Angel in Magick or the Self in psychology -- a representation of our unlimited potential.
There is a Master and an Art Inside Everyone - Michelangelo wrote, “Beauteous art, brought with us from heaven, will conquer nature; so divine a power belongs to him who strives with every nerve. If I was made for art, from childhood given a prey for burning beauty to devour, I blame the mistress I was born to serve.” All of us bring an art from heaven. Each of us has a specific vocation or mission in life -- to fulfill or realize our unique potential. The aspirant is a receptacle that needs to be filled. Master Mentors understand that every student has an art inside him or her, and has a Master who is meant to come out. They understand that they are not really the teacher. The Master within the student is the true teacher. They see their role as bringing the art or the Master to the surface.
The inner temple within the soul is the most sacred. Before a true spiritual contact with the higher energies, we must cleanse his thoughts, desires and passions of all that belongs to the lower nature. Inhibiting forces, characterized as demons, must be driven out from the heart. In this way the soul becomes the true temple befitting the arrival of the true master. Before one can invite the divine energies to abide in one's being, a sacred place must be prepared for them. When the "Divine" consecrates this holy place, then this temple become the holy of holies. It becomes a most sacred place, infused by a most wonderful presence called the Holy Guardian Angel in Magick or the Self in psychology -- a representation of our unlimited potential.
The Book of Abramelin, Classic Occult Text
Modern Translation & Commentary by Georg Dehn (Ger.) and Steven Guth (Eng.)
Summary:
In his introduction, Abraham narrates to his son the story of how he came upon the great magician who became his Master Mentor in a small town, Araki near Nag Hamadi, on the banks of the Nile river. His interest in various magickal practices had led him on a tour of the civilized world, seeking out magicians and Qabalists, taking what he could learn from each.
After describing how he came to learn the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, Abraham proceeds to explain in great detail the entire necessary operation, from the selection of an appropriate place, to the summoning of various spirits and demons to do the bidding of the magician. The book carefully details the qualifications necessary to become a magician, protections, asceticisms, purifications, evocations, vestments and prayers.
The goal of paramount importance to the operation is the invocation, or knowledge and conversation, of the Holy Guardian Angel. This is the first written use of this term, which is now extremely common in modern occult literature. The Holy Guardian Angel, considered by many modern magicians to be the "Higher Self" or Augoeides, assists the magician through the remainder of the operation. The next step of the process is to evoke the denizens of hell, and force their allegiance and submission to the magician. Once the magician has mastered the evocation of good and evil spirits, commanding those spirits to do his will, and overcoming rebellious spirits, he can begin putting the spirits to work.
The last part of the book gives specific instructions for clairvoyance, divining metals and treasure, warding off evil magick, healing illness, levitation, transportation, making oneself invisible, creating illusions, reading minds, and many various powers and magicks, both white and black, which the magician may now utilize.
The "Abramelin operation," as it is often called, in reality consists of two separate operations. The first operation, the attainment of knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, is the perfection and purification of the Self. It opens the path of communication between man and Divine. In the second operation the evil demons, who are sometimes considered the magician's "lower Self" or negative character traits, are conquered and commanded to do the magician's bidding by force of will and magick. This second operation would therefore fall into the category of medieval magick called goetia.
In his introduction, Abraham narrates to his son the story of how he came upon the great magician who became his Master Mentor in a small town, Araki near Nag Hamadi, on the banks of the Nile river. His interest in various magickal practices had led him on a tour of the civilized world, seeking out magicians and Qabalists, taking what he could learn from each.
After describing how he came to learn the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, Abraham proceeds to explain in great detail the entire necessary operation, from the selection of an appropriate place, to the summoning of various spirits and demons to do the bidding of the magician. The book carefully details the qualifications necessary to become a magician, protections, asceticisms, purifications, evocations, vestments and prayers.
The goal of paramount importance to the operation is the invocation, or knowledge and conversation, of the Holy Guardian Angel. This is the first written use of this term, which is now extremely common in modern occult literature. The Holy Guardian Angel, considered by many modern magicians to be the "Higher Self" or Augoeides, assists the magician through the remainder of the operation. The next step of the process is to evoke the denizens of hell, and force their allegiance and submission to the magician. Once the magician has mastered the evocation of good and evil spirits, commanding those spirits to do his will, and overcoming rebellious spirits, he can begin putting the spirits to work.
The last part of the book gives specific instructions for clairvoyance, divining metals and treasure, warding off evil magick, healing illness, levitation, transportation, making oneself invisible, creating illusions, reading minds, and many various powers and magicks, both white and black, which the magician may now utilize.
The "Abramelin operation," as it is often called, in reality consists of two separate operations. The first operation, the attainment of knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, is the perfection and purification of the Self. It opens the path of communication between man and Divine. In the second operation the evil demons, who are sometimes considered the magician's "lower Self" or negative character traits, are conquered and commanded to do the magician's bidding by force of will and magick. This second operation would therefore fall into the category of medieval magick called goetia.
Grimoire Magic: the Wisdom & the Secret
Writing itself was originally imbued with occult or hidden power and was the preserve of priest-magicians. Tangible magical archives are the tip of the occult iceberg of oral and folk traditions. Therefore, a book of magic is also a magical book. The knowledge they contain and the gnosis they imply have been widely suppressed yet are fundamental to the history of the last 2000 years.
Written magic spread from the Middle East of pre-historic Mesopotamia into Europe, but its roots remain in their countries of origin. For example, there is a solid connection between The Picatrix (Ghâyat al-Hakîm fi'l-sihr) and the Kurdish-speaking Yezidis with Indo-European roots and the Harranian Sabians. The central figure of Yezidi faith is Melek Taus, a benevolent angel depicted as a peacock that fell from grace but redeemed himself. In repenting, the angel wept for 7,000 years filling seven jars which quenched the fires of hell (Yezidi, Melek Taus).
The Picatrix, (The Aim of Sages), influenced Occultists since it was first collated in 10th century Arabia. Primarily a handbook on talismanic magic, the book also serves as a compilation of Arabic texts on hermeticism, astrology, alchemy and magic in the 9th and 10th centuries. Used by Marsilio Ficino, William Lily, and a host of other astrologers and magicians past and present, the four volume work describes a way of working with planetary energies that is grounded in both astrological practice and material reality.
The Corpus Hermetica sparked revolutionary beliefs, creating an Egyptian revival that is not yet over. The Greeks and Egyptians worshipped Hermes-Trismegistus as Hermes and Thoth, respectively. Hermetic texts are the basis of sympathetic magic. Astrological magic also filtered in from India to the writings of Islamic Arab and Persian scientists and magicians. Purported Books of Enoch containing astronomical, astrological, and angelic lore were circulating at the time of Jesus. From the Ptolemaic era of Hellenistic syncretism, Egypt became the center of magical fusion for Greeks, Romans, Christians, Jews, and later Muslims. It was reknown as the home of the most adept magician priests.
Written magic spread from the Middle East of pre-historic Mesopotamia into Europe, but its roots remain in their countries of origin. For example, there is a solid connection between The Picatrix (Ghâyat al-Hakîm fi'l-sihr) and the Kurdish-speaking Yezidis with Indo-European roots and the Harranian Sabians. The central figure of Yezidi faith is Melek Taus, a benevolent angel depicted as a peacock that fell from grace but redeemed himself. In repenting, the angel wept for 7,000 years filling seven jars which quenched the fires of hell (Yezidi, Melek Taus).
The Picatrix, (The Aim of Sages), influenced Occultists since it was first collated in 10th century Arabia. Primarily a handbook on talismanic magic, the book also serves as a compilation of Arabic texts on hermeticism, astrology, alchemy and magic in the 9th and 10th centuries. Used by Marsilio Ficino, William Lily, and a host of other astrologers and magicians past and present, the four volume work describes a way of working with planetary energies that is grounded in both astrological practice and material reality.
The Corpus Hermetica sparked revolutionary beliefs, creating an Egyptian revival that is not yet over. The Greeks and Egyptians worshipped Hermes-Trismegistus as Hermes and Thoth, respectively. Hermetic texts are the basis of sympathetic magic. Astrological magic also filtered in from India to the writings of Islamic Arab and Persian scientists and magicians. Purported Books of Enoch containing astronomical, astrological, and angelic lore were circulating at the time of Jesus. From the Ptolemaic era of Hellenistic syncretism, Egypt became the center of magical fusion for Greeks, Romans, Christians, Jews, and later Muslims. It was reknown as the home of the most adept magician priests.
The Bornless One
Some Say Abramelin, Some Say Abra-Melin
The Book of Abramelin is a medieval grimoire or magical recipe book full of devils and angels in the style of The Picatrix, the Greater Key of Solomon, the Lesser Key of Solomon, also known as The Lemegeton and the Sixth and Seventh Books of Mose. The later is actually derived from Abraham's Second Book.
If St. Germain's Triangular Book is the most secretly held esoteric text, Abramelin is among the most widely referenced and imitated. But that was not true until 100 years ago, when Mathers translated it from the French. Abramelin concealed its secret until the Occult Revival, while less authentic, more sensational grimoires proliferated. DeLaurence barely mentions Mathers in his popular reprint of The Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin. The missing parts of the original MS remained dormant through the era of pulp grimoires and mass-market divination.
Such grimoires have been feared as well as valued and revered. These books of magic are also repositories of knowledge, some of which wound up in European libraries outside their cultural context of specific periods and places. The Abramelin text is distinguished by the likelihood that the author, Abraham of Worms, actually made a pilgrimage to the Egyptian hermitage of the magus and copied an ancient text there. Researcher Dehn has found evidence that Abramelin, who lived near Nag Hammadi and the Valley of the Kings was influenced by local gnosticism and other syncretistic beliefs, including Coptics, Sufis and the cult of a "Nameless Angel". None of this could have been deduced by an untraveled European author.
Some say “The devil is in the details,” meaning solutions break down when you examine them closely enough. Some say “God is in the details,” meaning opportunities for discovery and creativity come from digging into the details. Both are true, but the latter is more interesting. "The daemon is in the details" is more encompassing. The "Knowledge and Conversation" of the Holy Guarding Angel is a vital part of the Abramelin Operation to embody. To Crowley, finding one's true will or purpose in life was the only justifiable use of such Knowledge or gnosis; any other use was black magic.
The Book of Abramelin is a medieval grimoire or magical recipe book full of devils and angels in the style of The Picatrix, the Greater Key of Solomon, the Lesser Key of Solomon, also known as The Lemegeton and the Sixth and Seventh Books of Mose. The later is actually derived from Abraham's Second Book.
If St. Germain's Triangular Book is the most secretly held esoteric text, Abramelin is among the most widely referenced and imitated. But that was not true until 100 years ago, when Mathers translated it from the French. Abramelin concealed its secret until the Occult Revival, while less authentic, more sensational grimoires proliferated. DeLaurence barely mentions Mathers in his popular reprint of The Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin. The missing parts of the original MS remained dormant through the era of pulp grimoires and mass-market divination.
Such grimoires have been feared as well as valued and revered. These books of magic are also repositories of knowledge, some of which wound up in European libraries outside their cultural context of specific periods and places. The Abramelin text is distinguished by the likelihood that the author, Abraham of Worms, actually made a pilgrimage to the Egyptian hermitage of the magus and copied an ancient text there. Researcher Dehn has found evidence that Abramelin, who lived near Nag Hammadi and the Valley of the Kings was influenced by local gnosticism and other syncretistic beliefs, including Coptics, Sufis and the cult of a "Nameless Angel". None of this could have been deduced by an untraveled European author.
Some say “The devil is in the details,” meaning solutions break down when you examine them closely enough. Some say “God is in the details,” meaning opportunities for discovery and creativity come from digging into the details. Both are true, but the latter is more interesting. "The daemon is in the details" is more encompassing. The "Knowledge and Conversation" of the Holy Guarding Angel is a vital part of the Abramelin Operation to embody. To Crowley, finding one's true will or purpose in life was the only justifiable use of such Knowledge or gnosis; any other use was black magic.
Invocation
Aleister Crowley adopted Mathers's partial translation of The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage from the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Holy Guardian Angel became the foundation of his magical system of Thelema. Crowley equated it with the Genius of the Golden Dawn, the Augoeides of Iamblichus, the Atman of Hinduism, the kabbalistic Ruach, and the Daemon of Plato. The "Silent Self," is genuine divine nature. A Tibetan master has said: When day and night become a circle of infinite luminosity you will be living the spiritual greatness of life itself in human flesh.
Crowley made its frequent invocation paramount:
"It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step—crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple."
Even though the Holy Guardian Angel is, in a sense, the “higher self”, it is often experienced as a separate being, independent from the adept. In modern terms, it is an encounter of ego and archetype, the I and the Not-I. “Knowledge and Conversation" with one's Angel as self-realization or self-actualization marks it as a singular process/goal in magic. Yet no matter how we strive, we can never fully embody our conscious and unconscious potential, so the angel remains "The Bornless One".
As for the fleur de lys, in the Typhonian Tradition it represents the kingly man that Crowley extols and the inheritor of the Grail Bloodline. In The Vision and the Voice, Crowley is conversing with his Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass, who says: "or I am not appointed to guard thee, but we are of the blood royal, the guardians of the Treasure-house of Wisdom: the blood royal, the Sangraal of the Holy Grail."
Thus, the Holy Guardian Angel is the personification of the immortal bloodline collective consciousness, a genetically-carried and accessible connection back through the mists of time that constitutes genius: One Blood, One Life, One Love
Crowley made its frequent invocation paramount:
"It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step—crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple."
Even though the Holy Guardian Angel is, in a sense, the “higher self”, it is often experienced as a separate being, independent from the adept. In modern terms, it is an encounter of ego and archetype, the I and the Not-I. “Knowledge and Conversation" with one's Angel as self-realization or self-actualization marks it as a singular process/goal in magic. Yet no matter how we strive, we can never fully embody our conscious and unconscious potential, so the angel remains "The Bornless One".
As for the fleur de lys, in the Typhonian Tradition it represents the kingly man that Crowley extols and the inheritor of the Grail Bloodline. In The Vision and the Voice, Crowley is conversing with his Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass, who says: "or I am not appointed to guard thee, but we are of the blood royal, the guardians of the Treasure-house of Wisdom: the blood royal, the Sangraal of the Holy Grail."
Thus, the Holy Guardian Angel is the personification of the immortal bloodline collective consciousness, a genetically-carried and accessible connection back through the mists of time that constitutes genius: One Blood, One Life, One Love
Worms, the Dragon City
Abramelin, the Mage
The Abramelin grimoire is framed as an autobiography in which Abraham of Worms describes his journey from Germany to Egypt and reveals Abramelin's magical and Kabbalistic secrets to his son Lamech. Internally the text dates itself to the year 1458. His tale of visiting various magicians is a "meetings with remarkable men" that pre-dates the similar quest of Gurdjieff and the re-creation of the journey by Dehn.
The story involves Abraham of Worms passing his magical and Kabbalistic secrets on to his son, and tells how he acquired his knowledge. Abraham recounts how he found Abramelin the Mage living in the desert outside an Egyptian town, Arachi or Araki, which borders the Nile. Abramelin's retreat sat atop a small hill surrounded by trees. He was an Egyptian mage and taught a powerful form of Kabbalistic magic to Abraham. He was a "venerable aged man", and very courteous and kind. He discussed nothing but "the Fear of God", leading a well-regulated life, and the evils of the "acquisition of riches and goods."
Abramelin extracted a promise from Abraham that he would give up his "false dogmas" and live "in the Way and Law of the Lord." He then gave Abraham two manuscript books to copy for himself, asking for ten gold florins, which he took with the intention of distributing to seventy-two poor persons in Arachi. Upon his return fifteen days later, after having disposed of the payment money, Abramelin extracted an oath from Abraham to "serve and fear" the Lord, and to "live and die in His most Holy Law." After this, Abramelin gave Abraham the "Divine Science" and "True Magic" embedded within the two manuscripts, which he was to follow and give to only those whom he knew well.
Angel and demon lore traces back to the times of Zoroaster and has roots in Babylonia. The main difference in modern practice of such rites is the religious practice within Judaism and the secular practice of the Western Occult Tradition. The practice is not limited to the Golden Dawn or Thelema lineage, but the most commentary on the subject has come from that quarter. That bias can be overcome by expanding the meaning of the operation by viewing it in a cross-cultural context and through its effects as described in Jung's depth psychology. It is a means of connecting with our upwelling geyser of creativity that is the fountain of our transcendent nature. This effect is amplified and stabilized in The Middle Pillar Exercise.
The story involves Abraham of Worms passing his magical and Kabbalistic secrets on to his son, and tells how he acquired his knowledge. Abraham recounts how he found Abramelin the Mage living in the desert outside an Egyptian town, Arachi or Araki, which borders the Nile. Abramelin's retreat sat atop a small hill surrounded by trees. He was an Egyptian mage and taught a powerful form of Kabbalistic magic to Abraham. He was a "venerable aged man", and very courteous and kind. He discussed nothing but "the Fear of God", leading a well-regulated life, and the evils of the "acquisition of riches and goods."
Abramelin extracted a promise from Abraham that he would give up his "false dogmas" and live "in the Way and Law of the Lord." He then gave Abraham two manuscript books to copy for himself, asking for ten gold florins, which he took with the intention of distributing to seventy-two poor persons in Arachi. Upon his return fifteen days later, after having disposed of the payment money, Abramelin extracted an oath from Abraham to "serve and fear" the Lord, and to "live and die in His most Holy Law." After this, Abramelin gave Abraham the "Divine Science" and "True Magic" embedded within the two manuscripts, which he was to follow and give to only those whom he knew well.
Angel and demon lore traces back to the times of Zoroaster and has roots in Babylonia. The main difference in modern practice of such rites is the religious practice within Judaism and the secular practice of the Western Occult Tradition. The practice is not limited to the Golden Dawn or Thelema lineage, but the most commentary on the subject has come from that quarter. That bias can be overcome by expanding the meaning of the operation by viewing it in a cross-cultural context and through its effects as described in Jung's depth psychology. It is a means of connecting with our upwelling geyser of creativity that is the fountain of our transcendent nature. This effect is amplified and stabilized in The Middle Pillar Exercise.
Self-Knowledge
"As an empirical concept, the self designates the whole range of psychic phenomena in man. It expresses the unity of the personality as a whole. ... it is a transcendental concept, for it presupposes the existence of unconscious factors on empirical grounds and thus characterizes an entity that can be described only in part, but for the other part, remains at present unknowable and illimitable." --Jung, [32, ¶789].
Magic is an art. Its medium is the unbound self. In magick, the Holy Guardian Angel's power is in the secret and its secret is in the power. It can not be told because it is experiential. The self is transcendent because it points to an unlimited future and unbounded creative expansion of the evolutionary process. This is something that no being can comprehend finitely. Of course we can have some sense of the future structure of the evolutionary process, but that tells us nothing of its essence. It tells us nothing of what it is like to be a more highly evolved being. Augoeides is an obscure Greek term meaning "luminous body" or "shinning image". It is a synonym for the body of light and the Holy Guardian Angel.
The most substantial difference consists in the location of the immortal or divine spirit of man. The ancient Neoplatonists held that the Augoeides never descends hypostatically into the living man, but only more or less sheds its radiance on the inner man – the astral soul. The Kabbalists of the Middle Ages maintained that the spirit, detaching itself from the ocean of light and spirit, entered into man's soul, where it remained through life imprisoned in the astral capsule.
During the period in China, 1906, Aleister Crowley was performing his Sammasati meditations to explore the causal roots of his karma. Even though he acknowledged that "cause" itself was an illusory concept, the term "Augoeides" came into Crowley's thoughts as the name of the central god-form of his Abra-Melin Operation. Augoeides signifies one's Higher Genius in the Golden Dawn teachings, and in classical Greek "glittering" or "self-glittering one," employed in the third century in De Mysteriis by the Neoplatonist Iamblichus. Augoeides became Crowley's new name for his Holy Guardian Angel.
Jung saw the Self as one of the archetypes. It signifies the coherent whole, unified consciousness and unconscious of a person - 'the totality of the consciousness and unconscious psyche." It is expressed in mandalas which symbolically integrate the four (in One) cardinal directions, and/or the four elements (fire, earth, air and water). The self is transcendent because it points to an unlimited future and unbounded creative expansion of the evolutionary process.
This totality is something that no being can comprehend. Of course we can have some sense of the future structure of the evolutionary process, but that tells us nothing of its holistic essence. It tells us nothing of what it is like to be a more highly evolved being, wielding full emergent potential. The human and divine self are co-existent. We can derive and embody meaning from trying to imagine and connect with our luminous bodies.
Chapter 6 of The Picatrix grimoire is devoted to the manifestation of the spiritual essence of the wise man, which is called his "perfect nature". The incantation for this "perfect nature" is described according to two pseudo-Aristotelian hermetic treatises, al-Istamâtîs and al-Istamâhîs (pp. 198-210), the latter of which survives complete, the former in fragments only. Following this are prophecies, quoted from al-Istamâhîs, of Alexander's victory over the Persians, and Alexander is advised to invoke the pneumata of his "perfect nature". The author, citing a text which he claims to be Persian, tells how the King of the Persians learned from his description that Alexander was invincible (pp. 201-203). Then come "historical" notes on the most ancient philosophers, who were aware of this pneuma, and information concerning the spiritual forces at work in talisman and soul alike. Both these sections are taken from al-Istamâhîs (pp.203-205), and the chapter ends with sayings by Socrates and Hermes on the essence of the perfect nature, from the same source (pp. 205-206).
Magic is an art. Its medium is the unbound self. In magick, the Holy Guardian Angel's power is in the secret and its secret is in the power. It can not be told because it is experiential. The self is transcendent because it points to an unlimited future and unbounded creative expansion of the evolutionary process. This is something that no being can comprehend finitely. Of course we can have some sense of the future structure of the evolutionary process, but that tells us nothing of its essence. It tells us nothing of what it is like to be a more highly evolved being. Augoeides is an obscure Greek term meaning "luminous body" or "shinning image". It is a synonym for the body of light and the Holy Guardian Angel.
The most substantial difference consists in the location of the immortal or divine spirit of man. The ancient Neoplatonists held that the Augoeides never descends hypostatically into the living man, but only more or less sheds its radiance on the inner man – the astral soul. The Kabbalists of the Middle Ages maintained that the spirit, detaching itself from the ocean of light and spirit, entered into man's soul, where it remained through life imprisoned in the astral capsule.
During the period in China, 1906, Aleister Crowley was performing his Sammasati meditations to explore the causal roots of his karma. Even though he acknowledged that "cause" itself was an illusory concept, the term "Augoeides" came into Crowley's thoughts as the name of the central god-form of his Abra-Melin Operation. Augoeides signifies one's Higher Genius in the Golden Dawn teachings, and in classical Greek "glittering" or "self-glittering one," employed in the third century in De Mysteriis by the Neoplatonist Iamblichus. Augoeides became Crowley's new name for his Holy Guardian Angel.
Jung saw the Self as one of the archetypes. It signifies the coherent whole, unified consciousness and unconscious of a person - 'the totality of the consciousness and unconscious psyche." It is expressed in mandalas which symbolically integrate the four (in One) cardinal directions, and/or the four elements (fire, earth, air and water). The self is transcendent because it points to an unlimited future and unbounded creative expansion of the evolutionary process.
This totality is something that no being can comprehend. Of course we can have some sense of the future structure of the evolutionary process, but that tells us nothing of its holistic essence. It tells us nothing of what it is like to be a more highly evolved being, wielding full emergent potential. The human and divine self are co-existent. We can derive and embody meaning from trying to imagine and connect with our luminous bodies.
Chapter 6 of The Picatrix grimoire is devoted to the manifestation of the spiritual essence of the wise man, which is called his "perfect nature". The incantation for this "perfect nature" is described according to two pseudo-Aristotelian hermetic treatises, al-Istamâtîs and al-Istamâhîs (pp. 198-210), the latter of which survives complete, the former in fragments only. Following this are prophecies, quoted from al-Istamâhîs, of Alexander's victory over the Persians, and Alexander is advised to invoke the pneumata of his "perfect nature". The author, citing a text which he claims to be Persian, tells how the King of the Persians learned from his description that Alexander was invincible (pp. 201-203). Then come "historical" notes on the most ancient philosophers, who were aware of this pneuma, and information concerning the spiritual forces at work in talisman and soul alike. Both these sections are taken from al-Istamâhîs (pp.203-205), and the chapter ends with sayings by Socrates and Hermes on the essence of the perfect nature, from the same source (pp. 205-206).
Sacred Magic
Georg Dehn & Steven Guth
The Book of Abramelin is the first modern translation of this magical work since Mathers’s original but incomplete translation over 100 years ago. The tome obsessed Aleister Crowley, who attempted the ritual at his Boleskine Castle on Loch Ness. Mathers only had a French exemplar of the partial text, which he called The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. Earlier, more reliable German versions were discovered, translated and published by Dehn in 1995/2001, in German. The English translation with Steven Guth followed. Not only is the language updated, but Georg Dehn, the compiler and editor, has sourced his work from all extant manuscripts, while Mathers used just one. The result is a stunning new translation that set the occult world abuzz.
The question remains, how can the Abramelin working be practice outside the embedded structure of the Jewish calendar, rites and Torah study? Can it be effectively adapted for the Western Magical Tradition and practiced by esoteric gentiles? Those attempts at an all-inclusive awakening to one's essential nature have certainly been made, with varying results. Awareness is an endless expanse of evenness and exaltation.
Systematized Evocation
The Book of Abramelin - A New Translation by Dehn and Guth is arguably the finest contribution to modern esotericism in a generation. The author clearly defines the distinctions between classical kabbalah, 'mixed-kabbalah' (Mediterranean syncretism), and the 'Sacred Magic' as he is presenting it. It includes voluminous important material left out of Mathers’s work, including an entire Part 2 filled with magical recipes, important distinctions in the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel ritual, and complete word grids that were only partially completed by Mathers. The 72 demons are the decans, whose acronyms can be subjected to Gematria. This is an essential work for any serious practicing magician or student of occult history.
The Book of Abramelin is the first modern translation of this magical work since Mathers’s original but incomplete translation over 100 years ago. The tome obsessed Aleister Crowley, who attempted the ritual at his Boleskine Castle on Loch Ness. Mathers only had a French exemplar of the partial text, which he called The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. Earlier, more reliable German versions were discovered, translated and published by Dehn in 1995/2001, in German. The English translation with Steven Guth followed. Not only is the language updated, but Georg Dehn, the compiler and editor, has sourced his work from all extant manuscripts, while Mathers used just one. The result is a stunning new translation that set the occult world abuzz.
The question remains, how can the Abramelin working be practice outside the embedded structure of the Jewish calendar, rites and Torah study? Can it be effectively adapted for the Western Magical Tradition and practiced by esoteric gentiles? Those attempts at an all-inclusive awakening to one's essential nature have certainly been made, with varying results. Awareness is an endless expanse of evenness and exaltation.
Systematized Evocation
The Book of Abramelin - A New Translation by Dehn and Guth is arguably the finest contribution to modern esotericism in a generation. The author clearly defines the distinctions between classical kabbalah, 'mixed-kabbalah' (Mediterranean syncretism), and the 'Sacred Magic' as he is presenting it. It includes voluminous important material left out of Mathers’s work, including an entire Part 2 filled with magical recipes, important distinctions in the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel ritual, and complete word grids that were only partially completed by Mathers. The 72 demons are the decans, whose acronyms can be subjected to Gematria. This is an essential work for any serious practicing magician or student of occult history.
Spiritual Quest
The ultimate goal of Abramelin's Art is to gain direct conversation with your Holy Guardian Angel (HGA). There is also the book Abraham writes to his son, as an explanation of how the Treasure and the Art came into his hands. Anyone familiar with the Mathers version will also recognize the last book. It consists of magical squares that produce sundry effects by way of the spirits that are bound to them.
Piety is the suggested prerequisite for occult power. Today we might call it 'compassion,' for in giving and receiving are the forces of Life multiplied. An 18 month initiation involves fasting, prayer, study of the Holy Books, and doing good deeds (mitzvahs). The rite culminates in a union between the prospective Magi and the Divine, completing both in the process commonly called self-realization or self-actualization. Living from the authentic self, it is verb, not a noun; 'presence in the now,' an ongoing process rather than goal.
Abramelin is famous largely because Crowley became famous. Crowley became aware of the book entitled The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage from George Cecil Jones, a member of the Golden Dawn. Describing the full procedure for “Knowledge and Conversation,” it gave him the term "Holy Guardian Angel." Crowley identified the "influence" of the HGA with the path Gimel as a 'negative existential', and sums up the book in The Equinox of the Gods:
The aspirant must have a house secure from observation and interference. In this house there must be an oratory with a window to the East, and a door to the North opening upon a terrace, at the end of which must be a lodge. He must have a Robe, Crown, Wand, Altar, Incense, Anointing Oil, and a Silver Lamen. The terrace and lodge must be strewn with fine sand. He withdraws himself gradually from human intercourse to devote himself more and more to prayer for the space of four months. He must then occupy two months in almost continuous prayer, speaking as little as possible to anybody. At the end of this period he invokes a being described as the Holy Guardian Angel, who appears to him (or to a child employed by him), and who will write in dew upon the Lamen, which is placed upon the Altar. The Oratory is filled with Divine Perfume not of the aspirant's kindling. After a period of communion with the Angel, he summons the Four Great Princes of the Daemonic World, and forces them to swear obedience.On the following day he calls forward and subdues the Eight Sub-Princes; and the day after that, the many Spirits serving these. These inferior Daemons, of whom four act as familiar spirits, then operate a collection of talismans for various purposes. Such is a brief account of the Operation described in the book.
Piety is the suggested prerequisite for occult power. Today we might call it 'compassion,' for in giving and receiving are the forces of Life multiplied. An 18 month initiation involves fasting, prayer, study of the Holy Books, and doing good deeds (mitzvahs). The rite culminates in a union between the prospective Magi and the Divine, completing both in the process commonly called self-realization or self-actualization. Living from the authentic self, it is verb, not a noun; 'presence in the now,' an ongoing process rather than goal.
Abramelin is famous largely because Crowley became famous. Crowley became aware of the book entitled The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage from George Cecil Jones, a member of the Golden Dawn. Describing the full procedure for “Knowledge and Conversation,” it gave him the term "Holy Guardian Angel." Crowley identified the "influence" of the HGA with the path Gimel as a 'negative existential', and sums up the book in The Equinox of the Gods:
The aspirant must have a house secure from observation and interference. In this house there must be an oratory with a window to the East, and a door to the North opening upon a terrace, at the end of which must be a lodge. He must have a Robe, Crown, Wand, Altar, Incense, Anointing Oil, and a Silver Lamen. The terrace and lodge must be strewn with fine sand. He withdraws himself gradually from human intercourse to devote himself more and more to prayer for the space of four months. He must then occupy two months in almost continuous prayer, speaking as little as possible to anybody. At the end of this period he invokes a being described as the Holy Guardian Angel, who appears to him (or to a child employed by him), and who will write in dew upon the Lamen, which is placed upon the Altar. The Oratory is filled with Divine Perfume not of the aspirant's kindling. After a period of communion with the Angel, he summons the Four Great Princes of the Daemonic World, and forces them to swear obedience.On the following day he calls forward and subdues the Eight Sub-Princes; and the day after that, the many Spirits serving these. These inferior Daemons, of whom four act as familiar spirits, then operate a collection of talismans for various purposes. Such is a brief account of the Operation described in the book.
Unique Features
Features of Dehn's translation include:
* There is a fourth book, in addition to the three Mathers translated from the French edition. This book deals with what Abraham calls the "mixed kabbalah". It is in effect a formulary of folk cures, charms, and nostrums that are not to be found at all in the Mathers edition.
* Instead of six months, the operation detailed here, is a much more complex 18 months.
* The squares from the final book that mesmerize so many students are completely different in the original German than they are in the manuscript Mathers worked from. Instead of 242, mostly incomplete squares, the German manuscripts show 251 squares, and every single one of them is completely filled in. That is to say, the Mathers version gave not only an incomplete list of squares, but out of the ones that are listed, two thirds are not completely filled in. What lines in the squares are filled in, you quickly discover, are misspelled, out of order, and almost wholly in disagreement with the original sources the present author uses.
* Dehn goes to great lengths retracing the steps of Abraham, making a case for his historical reality, as well as the hermitage of Abramelin, the "old father" himself. Abraham von Worms, long thought to be a pseudonymous figure, is suggested to be a well-known 14th century Jewish scholar, Rabbi Jacob ben Moses ha Levi Moellin, more commonly known as MaHaRIL.
Georg Dehn is a life-long student of all things esoteric, which led him on the quest to not only translate The Book of Abramelin, but also to follow the original seeker's footsteps through the Middle East and eventually to the hermitage at Araki. He is the founder and publisher of Edition Araki, a German publishing company specializing in the occult. Dehn is the author of many works, Abramelin being the first to be translated into English. He lives in Leipzig, Germany. English translator, Steven Guth is Australian. Their "soror mystica," filmmaker Iona Miller is American.
Get the Book: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Abramelin-New-Translation/dp/089254127X
See the Video: [in production]
PREVIEW: http://books.google.com/books?id=yPh9uxQfFYAC&dq=georg+dehn+abramelin&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=XjpsTLmBNYS6sQPL9uSjBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
SCRIBD: http://www.scribd.com/doc/27833749/The-Book-of-Abramelin-German-to-English-Translation-Von-Worms-Abraham
* There is a fourth book, in addition to the three Mathers translated from the French edition. This book deals with what Abraham calls the "mixed kabbalah". It is in effect a formulary of folk cures, charms, and nostrums that are not to be found at all in the Mathers edition.
* Instead of six months, the operation detailed here, is a much more complex 18 months.
* The squares from the final book that mesmerize so many students are completely different in the original German than they are in the manuscript Mathers worked from. Instead of 242, mostly incomplete squares, the German manuscripts show 251 squares, and every single one of them is completely filled in. That is to say, the Mathers version gave not only an incomplete list of squares, but out of the ones that are listed, two thirds are not completely filled in. What lines in the squares are filled in, you quickly discover, are misspelled, out of order, and almost wholly in disagreement with the original sources the present author uses.
* Dehn goes to great lengths retracing the steps of Abraham, making a case for his historical reality, as well as the hermitage of Abramelin, the "old father" himself. Abraham von Worms, long thought to be a pseudonymous figure, is suggested to be a well-known 14th century Jewish scholar, Rabbi Jacob ben Moses ha Levi Moellin, more commonly known as MaHaRIL.
Georg Dehn is a life-long student of all things esoteric, which led him on the quest to not only translate The Book of Abramelin, but also to follow the original seeker's footsteps through the Middle East and eventually to the hermitage at Araki. He is the founder and publisher of Edition Araki, a German publishing company specializing in the occult. Dehn is the author of many works, Abramelin being the first to be translated into English. He lives in Leipzig, Germany. English translator, Steven Guth is Australian. Their "soror mystica," filmmaker Iona Miller is American.
Get the Book: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Abramelin-New-Translation/dp/089254127X
See the Video: [in production]
PREVIEW: http://books.google.com/books?id=yPh9uxQfFYAC&dq=georg+dehn+abramelin&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=XjpsTLmBNYS6sQPL9uSjBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
SCRIBD: http://www.scribd.com/doc/27833749/The-Book-of-Abramelin-German-to-English-Translation-Von-Worms-Abraham
Dehn-Guth Translation: Spiritual Science of Spirit Evocation
.Theurgy
The quest for Abramelin is the timeless quest for Light and the Knowledge that is gnosis. Mage-ic is to be distinguished from craft practice for personal gain, which serves the personality rather than the transformative process. The Abramelin material is only for use after the magician has undergone a ritual purification and profound spiritual transfiguration. Otherwise conjuring up shadow elements of the personality will sabotage the archetypal process of spiritual rebirth, just as we see in the therapeutic psychological transformative process. The solitude demanded by Abramelin is a metaphorical return to the womb, an incubation that minimizes outside input and facilitates healing and rebirth.
In the Egyptian temples of Imhotep an art of healing known as incubation was practiced. It is known that Imhotep is the architect who designed the first known pyramid for the Pharaoh Zosar around 2700 B.C. A pyramid is resurrection machine. He developed a reputation as a magician and healer and some 2000 years later came to be regarded as a god. People with illnesses went to his temple where he appeared to them in their dreams and healed them. This tradition was carried on in the Greek temples with the healing God Asklepios. The 'inner healer' is an aspect of the superluminal angel.
Supercharging the Soul with Spirit
Functioning as a sort of a spiritual software for reprogramming psychophysical being, purifications, fasting and prayer lead to transcendent experience. Thus, Abramelin's aim of Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel, is a quest for Knowledge, for gnosis of experiential realization, healing and oneness with the otherwise missing or dormant parts of the higher self. It remains "secret" because it is an experiential journey which cannot be conveyed, except conceptually, any other way. The difference is that of reading a recipe versus tasting the dish.
Self Actualization
Abramlin's method is likely traditional, an authentic technique for acquiring a "Maggid" or angelic spiritual teacher. Without a firm foundation and ennobling of personality, the formulas will not work correctly and take their toll on the non-adept. That seed must be within the person in order for it to grow and flower in creative genius. Magic is an art form that manipulates etherial energies that are nevertheless dynamic and quite real. Conscious exchange with one's spiritual soul mate -- the Holy Guardian Angel -- will not be achieved without the proper psychological ingredients.
The spiritually motivated continue this quest today with the aim of self-realization and God-realization. Under several names, many pursue the transformative process described psychologically by Maslow and others as self-actualization. It describes the maturity and depth of the personality that has connected with and is actively embodying unfolding spiritual potential. The creative energies are channelled into self-transformation. The scattered and contrary energies of the collective unconscious are brought into the light of conscious dialogue and symphonically coordinated with the growth process. The opposites are reined in dynamic tension.
The quest for Abramelin is the timeless quest for Light and the Knowledge that is gnosis. Mage-ic is to be distinguished from craft practice for personal gain, which serves the personality rather than the transformative process. The Abramelin material is only for use after the magician has undergone a ritual purification and profound spiritual transfiguration. Otherwise conjuring up shadow elements of the personality will sabotage the archetypal process of spiritual rebirth, just as we see in the therapeutic psychological transformative process. The solitude demanded by Abramelin is a metaphorical return to the womb, an incubation that minimizes outside input and facilitates healing and rebirth.
In the Egyptian temples of Imhotep an art of healing known as incubation was practiced. It is known that Imhotep is the architect who designed the first known pyramid for the Pharaoh Zosar around 2700 B.C. A pyramid is resurrection machine. He developed a reputation as a magician and healer and some 2000 years later came to be regarded as a god. People with illnesses went to his temple where he appeared to them in their dreams and healed them. This tradition was carried on in the Greek temples with the healing God Asklepios. The 'inner healer' is an aspect of the superluminal angel.
Supercharging the Soul with Spirit
Functioning as a sort of a spiritual software for reprogramming psychophysical being, purifications, fasting and prayer lead to transcendent experience. Thus, Abramelin's aim of Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel, is a quest for Knowledge, for gnosis of experiential realization, healing and oneness with the otherwise missing or dormant parts of the higher self. It remains "secret" because it is an experiential journey which cannot be conveyed, except conceptually, any other way. The difference is that of reading a recipe versus tasting the dish.
Self Actualization
Abramlin's method is likely traditional, an authentic technique for acquiring a "Maggid" or angelic spiritual teacher. Without a firm foundation and ennobling of personality, the formulas will not work correctly and take their toll on the non-adept. That seed must be within the person in order for it to grow and flower in creative genius. Magic is an art form that manipulates etherial energies that are nevertheless dynamic and quite real. Conscious exchange with one's spiritual soul mate -- the Holy Guardian Angel -- will not be achieved without the proper psychological ingredients.
The spiritually motivated continue this quest today with the aim of self-realization and God-realization. Under several names, many pursue the transformative process described psychologically by Maslow and others as self-actualization. It describes the maturity and depth of the personality that has connected with and is actively embodying unfolding spiritual potential. The creative energies are channelled into self-transformation. The scattered and contrary energies of the collective unconscious are brought into the light of conscious dialogue and symphonically coordinated with the growth process. The opposites are reined in dynamic tension.
Creative Genius
The arduous regimen builds dynamic energy that facilitates the spiritual breakthrough and an indissolvable bond with one's creative genius. The HGA is its imaginal embodiment. Love for the divine counterpart is an intrinsic part of the inspirational process. In the language of depth psychology, we can call this a capacity to intimately dialogue at will with one's genius, or daemon as Plato called it. Empathy needs a "face." Though it inspired him his whole life, Plato had a passive relationship with it, whereas Abramelin's magic is definitely pro-active. It meets the divine halfway, inviting it in. Attainment of the goal is a state change that makes a person a creative dynamo.
Crowley acknowledged that the Abra-Melin Operation was not the only method by which the adept could contact his Holy Guardian Angel. He writes:
It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each of us; a secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother's God, or the Rite that invokes Him.
Just as Crowley states each person has his separate Guardian Angel, he later claims these Angels change. In Magick Without Tears he presents a different view of the Holy Guardian Angel which is no longer the "Silent Self."
Now, on the other hand, there is an entirely different type of angel; and here we must be careful to remember that we include gods and devils, for there are such beings who are not by any means dependent on one particular element for their existence. They are microcosms in exactly the same sense as men and women are. They are individuals who have pick up elements of their composition as possibility and convenience dictates, exactly as we do ourselves...I believe that the Holy Guardian Angel is a Being of this order. He is something more than a man, possibly a being who has already passed through the stage of humanity, and his peculiarly intimate relationship with his client is that of friendship, of community, of brotherhood, or Fatherhood. He is not, let me say with emphasis, a mere abstraction from yourself; and that is why I have insisted rather heavily that the term "Higher Self" implies "a damnable heresy and a dangerous delusion."
The term Holy Guardian Angel has become so profound in the Western magical tradition that it is abbreviated HGA even in non-English-speaking countries. As with many such terms as this one, the Holy Guardian Angel has acquired various meanings from "Silent Self" to "Higher Self" to "Cosmic Consciousness" signifying the divine spark in each man and woman. Perhaps this variety of meanings caused Crowley to feel the need to later clarify it.
However, the Self characteristically appears as an encounter between the I and the Not-I, ego and archetype. Crowley called Aiwass his angel and an alien; he looks "alien." Even though the Holy Guardian Angel is, in a sense, the “higher self”, it is often experienced as a separate being, independent from the adept. Much like Abramelin, Crowley did fnally find his angel in Egypt. The proof is in the pudding. Only fear holds our creativity prisoner.
THE AIM REMAINS THE SAME
The master on a relative level, the appearing aspect, is ultimately the magical display of awareness itself. There, the master, self-manifest empty awareness, abides primordially together with me. I release my mind, this knowing, into all-encompassing awareness.If there is cause for delusion, let there be delusion; deluded phenomena are traceless in empty movement. If there is cause for liberation, let there be liberation; the ground of liberation is baseless, without foundation. I have reached the self-manifest Lama's exalted kingdom beyond the ordinary mind's reference points - O how wonderful! -- Dudjom Rinpoche, Tibetan Master
Crowley acknowledged that the Abra-Melin Operation was not the only method by which the adept could contact his Holy Guardian Angel. He writes:
It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each of us; a secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother's God, or the Rite that invokes Him.
Just as Crowley states each person has his separate Guardian Angel, he later claims these Angels change. In Magick Without Tears he presents a different view of the Holy Guardian Angel which is no longer the "Silent Self."
Now, on the other hand, there is an entirely different type of angel; and here we must be careful to remember that we include gods and devils, for there are such beings who are not by any means dependent on one particular element for their existence. They are microcosms in exactly the same sense as men and women are. They are individuals who have pick up elements of their composition as possibility and convenience dictates, exactly as we do ourselves...I believe that the Holy Guardian Angel is a Being of this order. He is something more than a man, possibly a being who has already passed through the stage of humanity, and his peculiarly intimate relationship with his client is that of friendship, of community, of brotherhood, or Fatherhood. He is not, let me say with emphasis, a mere abstraction from yourself; and that is why I have insisted rather heavily that the term "Higher Self" implies "a damnable heresy and a dangerous delusion."
The term Holy Guardian Angel has become so profound in the Western magical tradition that it is abbreviated HGA even in non-English-speaking countries. As with many such terms as this one, the Holy Guardian Angel has acquired various meanings from "Silent Self" to "Higher Self" to "Cosmic Consciousness" signifying the divine spark in each man and woman. Perhaps this variety of meanings caused Crowley to feel the need to later clarify it.
However, the Self characteristically appears as an encounter between the I and the Not-I, ego and archetype. Crowley called Aiwass his angel and an alien; he looks "alien." Even though the Holy Guardian Angel is, in a sense, the “higher self”, it is often experienced as a separate being, independent from the adept. Much like Abramelin, Crowley did fnally find his angel in Egypt. The proof is in the pudding. Only fear holds our creativity prisoner.
THE AIM REMAINS THE SAME
The master on a relative level, the appearing aspect, is ultimately the magical display of awareness itself. There, the master, self-manifest empty awareness, abides primordially together with me. I release my mind, this knowing, into all-encompassing awareness.If there is cause for delusion, let there be delusion; deluded phenomena are traceless in empty movement. If there is cause for liberation, let there be liberation; the ground of liberation is baseless, without foundation. I have reached the self-manifest Lama's exalted kingdom beyond the ordinary mind's reference points - O how wonderful! -- Dudjom Rinpoche, Tibetan Master
Sacred Psychology
Magical ritual is psychodrama and like therapy it changes you in the process.
Invocation is the calling up and embodiment of a spiritual energy in oneself. Evocation is the calling up of seemingly supernatural agents as familiars. Imaginal embodiment facilitates a dialogue with those energies that coordinates it with the personality and will of the magician. The aspirant simultaneously explores the breadth and depth of the transpersonal realm and the realization of self as microcosm. There are many dimensions to our lives; not all of them are visible to the naked eye, but they can and do manifest for the dedicated visionary or seer.
Correcting the Historical Record
The Western magical tradition has come down to us in fragmentary form, since much of the material was never codified or was lost in translation. Correlation of related materials is required to set the historical record straight. Some might even argue that such oversights were intentional to protect the ancient wisdom from the mundane and materialistic, figuring a true mage would discern the distinctions hidden from the profane. A contemporary scholar, monk, rabbi or zaddik, for example, might easily catch such gaffs.
For example, all rites require a Banishing Ritual, a purification addressing the four directions and their corresponding elements (Fire, Air, Water and Earth), to clear the working area of extraneous forces and help focus one's energies. But mistakes in the construction and execution of such ceremonies are perpetuated from magical predecessors who had more limited sourcing information. Errors are copied and recopied. Modern research in esotericism is attempting to correct such errors. Just as Mathers made errors in his translation of Abramelin, the magicians of the Golden Dawn and others must be excused if not blamed for their oversights. We must revert to other sources for accurate traditional practice or its co-option becomes virtually meaningless.
Medieval Magic
With regard to the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram: Alphonse Louis Constant (Elias Levi) had already published a version of the so-called 'Qabalistic Cross' in his *Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie* in 1855 (in which he confuses the assignment of Earth and Water to the points of the Compass, which is then perpetuated by the Golden Dawn, et aliter) -- *Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual* by Eliphas Levi, pages 227-228. (View at GoogleBooks) http://tinyurl.com/27kaqcp
A four-fold arrangement of angels was ready to hand in a popular Hebrew prayerbook found in many Synagogues throughout Britain: " Prayers Before Retiring to Rest at Night. " To be said three times:- " In the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, may Michael be at my right hand; Gabriel at my left; before me, Uriel; behind me, Raphael; and above my head the divine presence of God. " -- from *The Authorized Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire*, Translated by Simeon Singer, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1900, Sixth Edition, page 297. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/29dw653
Trachtenberg offers other relevant data: 'Already in the pages of the Talmud we read that "the demons keep away from everyone who recites the Shema before retiring." An increasingly elaborate scheme of prayer grew up around this nocturnal recitation of the Shema (Kriat Shema she'al ha-Mita), to reinforce its protective powers, and coupled with straightforward pleas for deliverance from "the terrors that threaten by night" were potent Biblical verses and Psalms, magic names, appeals to the angels, three- and seven-fold repetitions, prayers with obscure mystical connotations, etc. There was no attempt to disguise the purpose of this prayer service; it was frankly admitted time and again that "it exists only because of the demons."
This night-prayer offers an interesting illustration of the tenacity of magical and superstitious forms. One of its constituents invokes the protection of the angels: "at my right Michael, at my left Gabriel, before me Uriel, behind me Raphael." This is nothing more than a Jewish version of the ancient Babylonian incantation, "Shamash before me,
behind me Sin, Nergal at my right, Ninib at my left," or, "May the good Shedu go at my right, the good Lamasu at my left," etc. ' ~ from : *Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion* by Joshua Trachtenberg, page 156.
Preview - http://tinyurl.com/29anp9e
Automatic Writing
Automatic Writing in Zoharic Literature and Modernism, שם הכותב וכתיבה
אוטומטית בספרות הזוהר ובמודרניזם, by Amos Goldreich (Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism 24; 2010, 408 pages, ISBN 1-933379-17-0, in Hebrew).
This richly detailed monograph explores the phenomenon of mystical and magical techniques which induce a different state of consciousness that leads to literary production. The impetus of the study is the suggestion, offered in the celebrated testimony of R. Isaac of Acre, that R. Moses de León was able to write the Zohar using shem ha-kotev, a magical application of the divine name. It has been demonstrated that the later stratum of the Zohar, that is Tiqqunei ha-Zohar, was actually written using this technique. All scholarly treatments of the topic, including new evidence from manuscript sources and a history of related phenomena amongst kabbalists, and on through the development of similar techniques in modernism, such as automatic writing experiments in early twentieth-century English occultism and French surrealism, are all discussed at length in this monumental study.
Invocation is the calling up and embodiment of a spiritual energy in oneself. Evocation is the calling up of seemingly supernatural agents as familiars. Imaginal embodiment facilitates a dialogue with those energies that coordinates it with the personality and will of the magician. The aspirant simultaneously explores the breadth and depth of the transpersonal realm and the realization of self as microcosm. There are many dimensions to our lives; not all of them are visible to the naked eye, but they can and do manifest for the dedicated visionary or seer.
Correcting the Historical Record
The Western magical tradition has come down to us in fragmentary form, since much of the material was never codified or was lost in translation. Correlation of related materials is required to set the historical record straight. Some might even argue that such oversights were intentional to protect the ancient wisdom from the mundane and materialistic, figuring a true mage would discern the distinctions hidden from the profane. A contemporary scholar, monk, rabbi or zaddik, for example, might easily catch such gaffs.
For example, all rites require a Banishing Ritual, a purification addressing the four directions and their corresponding elements (Fire, Air, Water and Earth), to clear the working area of extraneous forces and help focus one's energies. But mistakes in the construction and execution of such ceremonies are perpetuated from magical predecessors who had more limited sourcing information. Errors are copied and recopied. Modern research in esotericism is attempting to correct such errors. Just as Mathers made errors in his translation of Abramelin, the magicians of the Golden Dawn and others must be excused if not blamed for their oversights. We must revert to other sources for accurate traditional practice or its co-option becomes virtually meaningless.
Medieval Magic
With regard to the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram: Alphonse Louis Constant (Elias Levi) had already published a version of the so-called 'Qabalistic Cross' in his *Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie* in 1855 (in which he confuses the assignment of Earth and Water to the points of the Compass, which is then perpetuated by the Golden Dawn, et aliter) -- *Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual* by Eliphas Levi, pages 227-228. (View at GoogleBooks) http://tinyurl.com/27kaqcp
A four-fold arrangement of angels was ready to hand in a popular Hebrew prayerbook found in many Synagogues throughout Britain: " Prayers Before Retiring to Rest at Night. " To be said three times:- " In the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, may Michael be at my right hand; Gabriel at my left; before me, Uriel; behind me, Raphael; and above my head the divine presence of God. " -- from *The Authorized Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire*, Translated by Simeon Singer, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1900, Sixth Edition, page 297. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/29dw653
Trachtenberg offers other relevant data: 'Already in the pages of the Talmud we read that "the demons keep away from everyone who recites the Shema before retiring." An increasingly elaborate scheme of prayer grew up around this nocturnal recitation of the Shema (Kriat Shema she'al ha-Mita), to reinforce its protective powers, and coupled with straightforward pleas for deliverance from "the terrors that threaten by night" were potent Biblical verses and Psalms, magic names, appeals to the angels, three- and seven-fold repetitions, prayers with obscure mystical connotations, etc. There was no attempt to disguise the purpose of this prayer service; it was frankly admitted time and again that "it exists only because of the demons."
This night-prayer offers an interesting illustration of the tenacity of magical and superstitious forms. One of its constituents invokes the protection of the angels: "at my right Michael, at my left Gabriel, before me Uriel, behind me Raphael." This is nothing more than a Jewish version of the ancient Babylonian incantation, "Shamash before me,
behind me Sin, Nergal at my right, Ninib at my left," or, "May the good Shedu go at my right, the good Lamasu at my left," etc. ' ~ from : *Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion* by Joshua Trachtenberg, page 156.
Preview - http://tinyurl.com/29anp9e
Automatic Writing
Automatic Writing in Zoharic Literature and Modernism, שם הכותב וכתיבה
אוטומטית בספרות הזוהר ובמודרניזם, by Amos Goldreich (Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism 24; 2010, 408 pages, ISBN 1-933379-17-0, in Hebrew).
This richly detailed monograph explores the phenomenon of mystical and magical techniques which induce a different state of consciousness that leads to literary production. The impetus of the study is the suggestion, offered in the celebrated testimony of R. Isaac of Acre, that R. Moses de León was able to write the Zohar using shem ha-kotev, a magical application of the divine name. It has been demonstrated that the later stratum of the Zohar, that is Tiqqunei ha-Zohar, was actually written using this technique. All scholarly treatments of the topic, including new evidence from manuscript sources and a history of related phenomena amongst kabbalists, and on through the development of similar techniques in modernism, such as automatic writing experiments in early twentieth-century English occultism and French surrealism, are all discussed at length in this monumental study.
Magic in Theory & Practice
Theory underlies ALL human experience including every seemingly raw observation or assertion of true fact. Theory is the vehicle of all conscious experience. Simply put, theory-making consists of setting forth an assertion, no matter how trivial or grand, in which we claim "If this, then that." In other words, theory is functional prediction. Practice provides the experiential meat on the bones of theory. One makes the experiment for and upon oneself.
Consciousness is rooted in our genetic predisposition to construct theory. The structure of theory is narrative. Theory is "story" that we tell to, among, and with others, real and imaginal, as in our imaginal "selves". Imaginal does not mean "unreal," but is a quality of psyche or soul and psychic experience.
The construction of narrative (i.e. theory), is no more mysterious than the behavior of birds gathering twigs and bits of string to shape into a nest in which they will thereafter reside, along with their developing offspring. Instead of twigs and string, we gather up our self-created vocal and gestural material and shape it into symbolic-narrative nests of varying utility, in which we reside, and without which we are not and cannot be conscious.
Our narratives, symbols, and imaginative constructs are the very stuff of the conscious, inter-subjective mind. They expand awareness into regions well beyond the senses and well beyond the present. At the same time, however, they throw a veil of illusion over reality-in- itself, making "reality" always a human reality. Theories are constructs, thus contents of the mind, whether personal or universal. Our stories, symbols, & images conceal as much as they reveal, but what they give us is our lived reality. They provide meaning.
"Or does it happen because self-concealing, concealment, lethe, belongs to a-letheia [revealing] not just as an addition, not as a shadow to light, but rather as the heart of aletheia?" (M. Heidegger)
Ennobling Consciousness
Every conscious being comes into existence in the context of theory shared by others as narrative, and thereafter in continuous interaction with others and the substantive world at large. It is in this complex ongoing interaction of story-tellers predicting their way through the world that theory comes to be accepted and taken-for-granted. Theory that comes to be taken-for-granted (e.g. Self-evident or "proven") forms the foundation for the edifice of subsequent theory we construct continually.
All theories are (partial) models of how the holistic world works -- paradigms of being with certain basic assumptions and presumptions. We cannot extricate ourselves from theory --- we cannot be conscious of ourselves from outside our narrative nests. This 'belief barrier' can only be overcome by practices designed to give-up self-awareness (i.e. non-consciousness) for primordial awareness. The initial stages of this process have content -- symbols and images -- while the most exalted realizations are steady states of content-free Being, often associated with deep meditation.
Consciousness is rooted in our genetic predisposition to construct theory. The structure of theory is narrative. Theory is "story" that we tell to, among, and with others, real and imaginal, as in our imaginal "selves". Imaginal does not mean "unreal," but is a quality of psyche or soul and psychic experience.
The construction of narrative (i.e. theory), is no more mysterious than the behavior of birds gathering twigs and bits of string to shape into a nest in which they will thereafter reside, along with their developing offspring. Instead of twigs and string, we gather up our self-created vocal and gestural material and shape it into symbolic-narrative nests of varying utility, in which we reside, and without which we are not and cannot be conscious.
Our narratives, symbols, and imaginative constructs are the very stuff of the conscious, inter-subjective mind. They expand awareness into regions well beyond the senses and well beyond the present. At the same time, however, they throw a veil of illusion over reality-in- itself, making "reality" always a human reality. Theories are constructs, thus contents of the mind, whether personal or universal. Our stories, symbols, & images conceal as much as they reveal, but what they give us is our lived reality. They provide meaning.
"Or does it happen because self-concealing, concealment, lethe, belongs to a-letheia [revealing] not just as an addition, not as a shadow to light, but rather as the heart of aletheia?" (M. Heidegger)
Ennobling Consciousness
Every conscious being comes into existence in the context of theory shared by others as narrative, and thereafter in continuous interaction with others and the substantive world at large. It is in this complex ongoing interaction of story-tellers predicting their way through the world that theory comes to be accepted and taken-for-granted. Theory that comes to be taken-for-granted (e.g. Self-evident or "proven") forms the foundation for the edifice of subsequent theory we construct continually.
All theories are (partial) models of how the holistic world works -- paradigms of being with certain basic assumptions and presumptions. We cannot extricate ourselves from theory --- we cannot be conscious of ourselves from outside our narrative nests. This 'belief barrier' can only be overcome by practices designed to give-up self-awareness (i.e. non-consciousness) for primordial awareness. The initial stages of this process have content -- symbols and images -- while the most exalted realizations are steady states of content-free Being, often associated with deep meditation.
Origin of the Manuscript
The book exists in the form of six manuscripts and an early printed edition. The provenance of the text has not been definitively identified. The earliest manuscripts are two versions that date from about 1608, are written in German and are now found in Wolfenbuttel. Another two manuscripts are in Dresden, and date from about 1700 and 1750 respectively.
The first printed version, also in German, dates to 1725 and was printed in Cologne by Peter Hammer. A partial copy in Hebrew is found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and dates from around 1740. A manuscript copy existed in French in the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal in Paris, an institution founded in 1797. The French copy has since disappeared, but is available on microfilm.
All German copies of the text consist of four books: an autobiographical account of the travels of Abraham of Worms to Egypt, a book of assorted materials from the corpus of the practical Kabbalah (including some which is duplicated in the German-Jewish grimoire called "The Sixth and 7th Books of Moses") and the two books of magic given by Abramelin to Abraham. The well-known English translation by S.L. MacGregor Mathers from the French Manuscript in Paris contains only three of the four books. The Hebrew version in Oxford is limited to Book One, without reference to the further books.
Of all the extant sources, the German manuscripts in Wolfenbuttel and Dresden are taken by scholars to be the authoritative texts. According to respected Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem, the Hebrew version in Oxford was translated into Hebrew from German. An analysis of the spelling and language usage in the French manuscript indicates that it dates to the 18th century, and that it was also likely copied from a German original. Although the author quotes from the Jewish Book of Psalms, the version given is not from the Hebrew rather, it is from the Latin Vulgate, a translation of the Bible employed by Roman Catholics at that time.
The German esoteric scholar Georg Dehn has argued that the author of The Book of Abramelin was Rabbi Yaakov Moelin (Hebrew 13651427), a German Jewish Talmudist and posek (authority on Jewish law). (ref Georg Dehn, The Book of Abramelin: A New Translation, transl. by Steven Guth, Ibis Publishing, 2006)
The first printed version, also in German, dates to 1725 and was printed in Cologne by Peter Hammer. A partial copy in Hebrew is found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and dates from around 1740. A manuscript copy existed in French in the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal in Paris, an institution founded in 1797. The French copy has since disappeared, but is available on microfilm.
All German copies of the text consist of four books: an autobiographical account of the travels of Abraham of Worms to Egypt, a book of assorted materials from the corpus of the practical Kabbalah (including some which is duplicated in the German-Jewish grimoire called "The Sixth and 7th Books of Moses") and the two books of magic given by Abramelin to Abraham. The well-known English translation by S.L. MacGregor Mathers from the French Manuscript in Paris contains only three of the four books. The Hebrew version in Oxford is limited to Book One, without reference to the further books.
Of all the extant sources, the German manuscripts in Wolfenbuttel and Dresden are taken by scholars to be the authoritative texts. According to respected Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem, the Hebrew version in Oxford was translated into Hebrew from German. An analysis of the spelling and language usage in the French manuscript indicates that it dates to the 18th century, and that it was also likely copied from a German original. Although the author quotes from the Jewish Book of Psalms, the version given is not from the Hebrew rather, it is from the Latin Vulgate, a translation of the Bible employed by Roman Catholics at that time.
The German esoteric scholar Georg Dehn has argued that the author of The Book of Abramelin was Rabbi Yaakov Moelin (Hebrew 13651427), a German Jewish Talmudist and posek (authority on Jewish law). (ref Georg Dehn, The Book of Abramelin: A New Translation, transl. by Steven Guth, Ibis Publishing, 2006)
Magic Word Squares
Hebrew is an alphanumeric alphabet. Therefore, each letter is also a number, or has a numerical value depending on its position and usage in a given word. When letters are arrayed within a square, their geometrical positions can be joined to create or find hidden messages. More than puzzles, they are mytical talismans to focus and direct the concentration and attention toward breakthroughs. Gematria is a another means of decoding intrinsic messages embedded within text. These grids in Book Four are to be used only after mastery of Book Three. Dehn offers an example beyond their mathematical complexity: the word NASA emerges from the square for "traveling in the air on a cloud."
The practical magic of Abramelin (found in both Book III of the French text, and Book IV of the German original) centers around a set of talismans composed of magic word squares. These are similar to traditional magic squares, though the latter are usually composed of numbers, while Abramelin's squares contain letters. Commonly word squares are used as puzzles or as teaching aids for students.
In the context of Abramelin, the focus becomes mystic. Each square should contain words or names that relate to the magical goal of the square. A parallel is found in the famous Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas word square, an altered version of which is also found among Abramelin's squares. Dehn deduced that the spirit names are derived from Hebrew names with German alphabetic pronunciations.
For example, a square entitled "To walk under water for as long as you want" contains the word MAIAM, the Hebrew and Arabic word for "water". A square for recovering treasures of jewelry begins with the word TIPHARAH (a variant of Tiferet), which can mean "golden ring" in Hebrew and is also the name of the sphere of "Beauty" on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
The practical magic of Abramelin (found in both Book III of the French text, and Book IV of the German original) centers around a set of talismans composed of magic word squares. These are similar to traditional magic squares, though the latter are usually composed of numbers, while Abramelin's squares contain letters. Commonly word squares are used as puzzles or as teaching aids for students.
In the context of Abramelin, the focus becomes mystic. Each square should contain words or names that relate to the magical goal of the square. A parallel is found in the famous Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas word square, an altered version of which is also found among Abramelin's squares. Dehn deduced that the spirit names are derived from Hebrew names with German alphabetic pronunciations.
For example, a square entitled "To walk under water for as long as you want" contains the word MAIAM, the Hebrew and Arabic word for "water". A square for recovering treasures of jewelry begins with the word TIPHARAH (a variant of Tiferet), which can mean "golden ring" in Hebrew and is also the name of the sphere of "Beauty" on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
Oil of Abramelin
The Anointing Oil - Exodus
30:22 God spoke to Moses, saying: 30:23 You must take the finest fragrances, 500 [shekels] of distilled myrrh, [two] half portions, each consisting of 250 [shekels] of fragrant cinnamon and 250 [shekels] of fragrant cane, 30:24 and 500 shekels of cassia, all measured by the sanctuary standard, along with a gallon of olive oil. 30:25 Make it into sacred anointing oil. It shall be a blended compound, as made by a skilled perfumer, [made especially for] the sacred anointing oil. 30:26 Then use it to anoint the Communion Tent, the Ark of Testimony, 30:27 the table and all its utensils, the menorah and its utensils, the incense altar, 30:28 the sacrificial altar and all its utensils, the washstand and its base. 30:29 You will thus sanctify them, making them holy of holies, so that anything touching them becomes sanctified. 30:30 You must also anoint Aaron and his sons, sanctifying them as priests to Me. 30:31 Speak to the Israelites and tell them, 'This shall be the sacred anointing oil to Me for all generations. 30:32 Do not pour it on the skin of any [unauthorized] person, and do not duplicate it with a similar formula. It is holy, and it must remain sacred to you. 30:33 If a person blends a similar formula, or places it on an unauthorized person, he shall be cut off [spiritually] from his people.
The Incense
30:34 God said to Moses: Take fragrances such as balsam, onycha, galbanum, and pure frankincense, all of the same weight, as well as [other specified] fragrances. 30:35 Make [the mixture] into incense, as compounded by a master perfumer, well-blended, pure and holy. 30:36 Grind it very finely, and place it before the [Ark of] Testimony in the Communion Tent where I commune with you. It shall be holy of holies to you. 30:37 Do not duplicate the formula of the incense that you are making for personal use, since it must remain sacred to God. 30:38 If a person makes it to enjoy its fragrance, he shall be cut off [spiritually] from his people.
It is not surprising that the redolent Oil of Abramelin has a prominent role in the magical operation. The recipe is adapted from the Jewish Holy anointing oil of the Tanakh, which is described in the Book of Exodus attributed to Moses. Oil was a mystic element for consecration, dedication and divination in antiquity. But the Talmud cautions against copying or using this oil for other reasons, so it begs the question how the magicians escaped the injunction. It makes a case for altering the formula, if for no other reason.
Anointing with sacred oil recurs many times in The Bible. Oil also played a role in magic. Jewish oil magic is a traditional practice that was highly influenced by the Egyptians and Babylonians.Babylonians practiced oil magic as long back as 2000 BCE. All the Jewish ' healing cures ' and magical prescriptions in old manuscripts are copies from much older originals.
Aromatic plant materials were highly valued. Oil has been connected with ceremonies and formulas at least since the time of the Talmud. Oil is used for divination purposes, for ' whispering a charm ', for magical healing. One whispers the charm over oil in the vessel and not over oil in the hand, one does anoint oneself with the oil from the hand, but one does not anoint oneself with the oil from the vessel, as oil used for magical purposes must not be used for any other purpose.
Babylonian texts shed light on later Jewish documents. It can be demonstrated Egyptian oil magic comes from Babylonia:
' Thou being praised, I will praise thee, O oil,
I will praise thee, thou being praised by the Agathodaemon ; thou
being applauded (?) by me myself, I will praise thee for ever,
O herb-oil otherwise true oil O sweat of the Agathodaemon...
We recognize the Greek AION, Agathos Daimon or Agathodaemon (Greek: ἀγαθός δαίμων, "noble spirit") as a daemon - a personal companion spirit, similar to the Roman genius, ensuring good luck, health and wisdom. Various forms of Sumero-Babylonian superstition spread to the whole of the ancient civilized world, and how many of these superstitions have survived up to the present day in East and West.
There are, especially among English-speaking occultists, numerous variant forms of Abramelin Oil.
Abramelin oil In the English translation by Steven Guth of Georg Dehn's edition, which was compiled from all the known German manuscript sources,the formula reads as follows:
Take one part of the best myrrh, half a part of cinnamon, one part of cassia, one part galanga root, and a quarter of the combined total weight of good, fresh olive oil. Make these into an ointment or oil as is done by the chemists. Keep it in a clean container until you need it. Put the container together with the other accessories in the cupboard under the altar. Guth's translation of the recipe may be incorrect. The German sources clearly list "Calmus" or "Kalmus". Guth has translated these as "galanga root". Galangal root is a ginger-like root. Although barely used in Europe today, both galangals were formerly imported in great quantity, as medicine and spice. Galangal was known to the ancient Indians, and has been in the West since the Middle Ages. Its stimulant and tonic properties are recognized by the Arabs who ginger up their horses with it, and by the Tartars, who take it in tea. In the East, it is taken powdered as a snuff, and is used in perfumery and in brewing.
It is likely that neither cinnamon or cassia were the plants called that today. They were likely Arabic plants known as Qirfah and Salikhah. In antiquity "cassia" - kasía (κασία), qəṣi`â (קסיה[ usually meant certain local or widely traded Cinnamomum species. Later, by 8th C. AD, the Far East imports replaced them. Cassia has also been confused with the flowers of sweet acacia, also called opopanax. The uncertainty about identities has created considerable confusion in ritual too. The Sprig of Acacia in Freemasonsymbology in occasionally proposed to be actually a "cassia". Said "cassia" led to the grave of "the Widow's Son" Hiram Abiff, an allegorical master craftsman that cannot be aligned to any real-world geography more closely than the Levant. Some acacia is more often used; the typical Acacias of the region are trees much like Cassia in habitus and ecology and thus it is impossible to identify the Sprig even to subfamily rank. One of the principal spices of the holy anointing oil and an article of commerce. Cassia is a form of cinnamon but is different than Cinnamon Leaf. Cassia could be best described as a "hot cinnamon". Use caution using this oil as it can burn the skin and mucous membranes.
Taking this into account, the five ingredients listed by Abraham of Worms in The Book of Abramelin are identical to those listed in the Bible. Only the proportions are slightly different (one-half versus one part of calamus). But note: Calamus oil should only be used as a perfume ingredient. Calamus oil is toxic. Ancient herbal remedies used only the dried root of the plant not the concentrated essential oil from the plant. The dried root is a stimulant in low doses and hallucinogenic in high doses. Maybe...In antiquity in the Orient and Egypt, the rhizome was thought to be a powerful aphrodisiac. In Europe Acorus calamus was often added to wine, and the root is also one of the possible ingredients of absinthe. Among the northern Native Americans, it is used both medicinally and as a stimulant. It is believed by some that calamus is an hallucinogen. This urban legend is based solely on two pages of a book written by Hoffer and Osmund entitled "The Hallucinogens." The information on these two pages came from anecdotal reports from two individuals (a husband and wife) who reported that they had ingested calamus on a few occasions.
In the first printed edition, Peter Hammer, 1725, the recipe reads:
Nimm Mhrrhen des besten 1 Theil, Zimmt 1/2 Theil, soviel des Calmus als Zimmet, Cassien soviel als der Myrrhen im Gewicht und gutes frisches Baumöl..." (Take 1 part of the best myrrh, 1/2 part cinnamon, as much calamus as cinnamon, of cassia as much as the myrrh in weight and good fresh tree oil...)[6] Note that the proportions in this edition have been changed to conform with the recipe for Holy anointing oil from the Bible:
Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred [shekels], and of sweet cinnamon half so much, [even] two hundred and fifty [shekels], and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty [shekels], And of cassia five hundred [shekels], after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive an hin: And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compounded after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil.[7] [edit] Samuel Mathers' Abramelin oil According to the S.L. MacGregor Mathers English translation, which derives from an incomplete French manuscript copy of the book, the recipe is:
You shall prepare the sacred oil in this manner: Take of myrrh in tears, one part; of fine cinnamon, two parts; of galangal half a part; and the half of the total weight of these drugs of the best oil olive. The which aromatics you shall mix together according unto the art of the apothecary, and shall make thereof a balsam, the which you shall keep in a glass vial which you shall put within the cupboard (formed by the interior) of the altar. [8] The four ingredients listed by Mathers in his translation of The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage are Myrrh, Cinnamon, Galangal, and Olive oil. The word that he translated from the French as "Galangal" is actually the word "Calamus." The other extant manuscripts also list "Calamus" as the ingredient. It is unknown if Mathers' use of Galangal instead of Calamus was intentional or a mistranslation, but it was to result in several notable changes, including symbolism and use.
Since Cinnamon and Cassia are two species of the same Cinnamomum genus, their doubling up into one name by the translator of the French manuscript is not unexpected. His reasons for doing so may have been prompted by a pious decision to avoid duplicating true Holy Oil, or by a tacit admission that in medieval Europe, it was difficult to obtain Cinnamon and Cassia as separate products.
Abramelin oil made with essential oils A recipe for Abramelin oil using essential oils is as follows:
half part Cinnamon essential oil
Crowley's Essential Oil Version
Early in the 20th century, the British occultistAleister Crowley created his own version of Abramelin Oil, which he called "Oil of Abramelin," and sometimes referred to as the "Holy Oil of Aspiration." It was based on Mathers' substitution of Galangal for Calamus. Crowley also abandoned the book's method of preparation—which specifies blending Myrrh "tears" (resin) and "fine" (finely ground) Cinnamon—instead opting for pouring together distilled essential oils with a small amount of olive oil. His recipe (from his Commentary to Liber Legis[1]) reads as follows:
8 parts Cinnamon essential oil Crowley weighed out his proportions of essential oils according to the recipe specified by Mathers' translation for weighing out raw materials. The result is to give the Cinnamon a strong presence, so that when it is placed upon the skin "it should burn and thrill through the body with an intensity as of fire." This formula is unlike the grimoire recipe and it cannot be used for practices that require the oil to be poured over the head. Rather, Crowley intended it to be applied in small amounts, usually to the top of the head or the forehead, and to be used for anointment of magical equipment as an act of consecration.
Myrrh in tears, one part
Fine Cinnamon, two parts
Galangal, 1/2 part
Half the total weight in olive oil.
30:22 God spoke to Moses, saying: 30:23 You must take the finest fragrances, 500 [shekels] of distilled myrrh, [two] half portions, each consisting of 250 [shekels] of fragrant cinnamon and 250 [shekels] of fragrant cane, 30:24 and 500 shekels of cassia, all measured by the sanctuary standard, along with a gallon of olive oil. 30:25 Make it into sacred anointing oil. It shall be a blended compound, as made by a skilled perfumer, [made especially for] the sacred anointing oil. 30:26 Then use it to anoint the Communion Tent, the Ark of Testimony, 30:27 the table and all its utensils, the menorah and its utensils, the incense altar, 30:28 the sacrificial altar and all its utensils, the washstand and its base. 30:29 You will thus sanctify them, making them holy of holies, so that anything touching them becomes sanctified. 30:30 You must also anoint Aaron and his sons, sanctifying them as priests to Me. 30:31 Speak to the Israelites and tell them, 'This shall be the sacred anointing oil to Me for all generations. 30:32 Do not pour it on the skin of any [unauthorized] person, and do not duplicate it with a similar formula. It is holy, and it must remain sacred to you. 30:33 If a person blends a similar formula, or places it on an unauthorized person, he shall be cut off [spiritually] from his people.
The Incense
30:34 God said to Moses: Take fragrances such as balsam, onycha, galbanum, and pure frankincense, all of the same weight, as well as [other specified] fragrances. 30:35 Make [the mixture] into incense, as compounded by a master perfumer, well-blended, pure and holy. 30:36 Grind it very finely, and place it before the [Ark of] Testimony in the Communion Tent where I commune with you. It shall be holy of holies to you. 30:37 Do not duplicate the formula of the incense that you are making for personal use, since it must remain sacred to God. 30:38 If a person makes it to enjoy its fragrance, he shall be cut off [spiritually] from his people.
It is not surprising that the redolent Oil of Abramelin has a prominent role in the magical operation. The recipe is adapted from the Jewish Holy anointing oil of the Tanakh, which is described in the Book of Exodus attributed to Moses. Oil was a mystic element for consecration, dedication and divination in antiquity. But the Talmud cautions against copying or using this oil for other reasons, so it begs the question how the magicians escaped the injunction. It makes a case for altering the formula, if for no other reason.
Anointing with sacred oil recurs many times in The Bible. Oil also played a role in magic. Jewish oil magic is a traditional practice that was highly influenced by the Egyptians and Babylonians.Babylonians practiced oil magic as long back as 2000 BCE. All the Jewish ' healing cures ' and magical prescriptions in old manuscripts are copies from much older originals.
Aromatic plant materials were highly valued. Oil has been connected with ceremonies and formulas at least since the time of the Talmud. Oil is used for divination purposes, for ' whispering a charm ', for magical healing. One whispers the charm over oil in the vessel and not over oil in the hand, one does anoint oneself with the oil from the hand, but one does not anoint oneself with the oil from the vessel, as oil used for magical purposes must not be used for any other purpose.
Babylonian texts shed light on later Jewish documents. It can be demonstrated Egyptian oil magic comes from Babylonia:
' Thou being praised, I will praise thee, O oil,
I will praise thee, thou being praised by the Agathodaemon ; thou
being applauded (?) by me myself, I will praise thee for ever,
O herb-oil otherwise true oil O sweat of the Agathodaemon...
We recognize the Greek AION, Agathos Daimon or Agathodaemon (Greek: ἀγαθός δαίμων, "noble spirit") as a daemon - a personal companion spirit, similar to the Roman genius, ensuring good luck, health and wisdom. Various forms of Sumero-Babylonian superstition spread to the whole of the ancient civilized world, and how many of these superstitions have survived up to the present day in East and West.
There are, especially among English-speaking occultists, numerous variant forms of Abramelin Oil.
Abramelin oil In the English translation by Steven Guth of Georg Dehn's edition, which was compiled from all the known German manuscript sources,the formula reads as follows:
Take one part of the best myrrh, half a part of cinnamon, one part of cassia, one part galanga root, and a quarter of the combined total weight of good, fresh olive oil. Make these into an ointment or oil as is done by the chemists. Keep it in a clean container until you need it. Put the container together with the other accessories in the cupboard under the altar. Guth's translation of the recipe may be incorrect. The German sources clearly list "Calmus" or "Kalmus". Guth has translated these as "galanga root". Galangal root is a ginger-like root. Although barely used in Europe today, both galangals were formerly imported in great quantity, as medicine and spice. Galangal was known to the ancient Indians, and has been in the West since the Middle Ages. Its stimulant and tonic properties are recognized by the Arabs who ginger up their horses with it, and by the Tartars, who take it in tea. In the East, it is taken powdered as a snuff, and is used in perfumery and in brewing.
It is likely that neither cinnamon or cassia were the plants called that today. They were likely Arabic plants known as Qirfah and Salikhah. In antiquity "cassia" - kasía (κασία), qəṣi`â (קסיה[ usually meant certain local or widely traded Cinnamomum species. Later, by 8th C. AD, the Far East imports replaced them. Cassia has also been confused with the flowers of sweet acacia, also called opopanax. The uncertainty about identities has created considerable confusion in ritual too. The Sprig of Acacia in Freemasonsymbology in occasionally proposed to be actually a "cassia". Said "cassia" led to the grave of "the Widow's Son" Hiram Abiff, an allegorical master craftsman that cannot be aligned to any real-world geography more closely than the Levant. Some acacia is more often used; the typical Acacias of the region are trees much like Cassia in habitus and ecology and thus it is impossible to identify the Sprig even to subfamily rank. One of the principal spices of the holy anointing oil and an article of commerce. Cassia is a form of cinnamon but is different than Cinnamon Leaf. Cassia could be best described as a "hot cinnamon". Use caution using this oil as it can burn the skin and mucous membranes.
Taking this into account, the five ingredients listed by Abraham of Worms in The Book of Abramelin are identical to those listed in the Bible. Only the proportions are slightly different (one-half versus one part of calamus). But note: Calamus oil should only be used as a perfume ingredient. Calamus oil is toxic. Ancient herbal remedies used only the dried root of the plant not the concentrated essential oil from the plant. The dried root is a stimulant in low doses and hallucinogenic in high doses. Maybe...In antiquity in the Orient and Egypt, the rhizome was thought to be a powerful aphrodisiac. In Europe Acorus calamus was often added to wine, and the root is also one of the possible ingredients of absinthe. Among the northern Native Americans, it is used both medicinally and as a stimulant. It is believed by some that calamus is an hallucinogen. This urban legend is based solely on two pages of a book written by Hoffer and Osmund entitled "The Hallucinogens." The information on these two pages came from anecdotal reports from two individuals (a husband and wife) who reported that they had ingested calamus on a few occasions.
In the first printed edition, Peter Hammer, 1725, the recipe reads:
Nimm Mhrrhen des besten 1 Theil, Zimmt 1/2 Theil, soviel des Calmus als Zimmet, Cassien soviel als der Myrrhen im Gewicht und gutes frisches Baumöl..." (Take 1 part of the best myrrh, 1/2 part cinnamon, as much calamus as cinnamon, of cassia as much as the myrrh in weight and good fresh tree oil...)[6] Note that the proportions in this edition have been changed to conform with the recipe for Holy anointing oil from the Bible:
Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred [shekels], and of sweet cinnamon half so much, [even] two hundred and fifty [shekels], and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty [shekels], And of cassia five hundred [shekels], after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive an hin: And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compounded after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil.[7] [edit] Samuel Mathers' Abramelin oil According to the S.L. MacGregor Mathers English translation, which derives from an incomplete French manuscript copy of the book, the recipe is:
You shall prepare the sacred oil in this manner: Take of myrrh in tears, one part; of fine cinnamon, two parts; of galangal half a part; and the half of the total weight of these drugs of the best oil olive. The which aromatics you shall mix together according unto the art of the apothecary, and shall make thereof a balsam, the which you shall keep in a glass vial which you shall put within the cupboard (formed by the interior) of the altar. [8] The four ingredients listed by Mathers in his translation of The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage are Myrrh, Cinnamon, Galangal, and Olive oil. The word that he translated from the French as "Galangal" is actually the word "Calamus." The other extant manuscripts also list "Calamus" as the ingredient. It is unknown if Mathers' use of Galangal instead of Calamus was intentional or a mistranslation, but it was to result in several notable changes, including symbolism and use.
Since Cinnamon and Cassia are two species of the same Cinnamomum genus, their doubling up into one name by the translator of the French manuscript is not unexpected. His reasons for doing so may have been prompted by a pious decision to avoid duplicating true Holy Oil, or by a tacit admission that in medieval Europe, it was difficult to obtain Cinnamon and Cassia as separate products.
Abramelin oil made with essential oils A recipe for Abramelin oil using essential oils is as follows:
half part Cinnamon essential oil
- 1 parts Myrrh essential oil
- 1 part Calamus essential oil
- 1 part Cassia essential oil
- one-quarter of the foregoing total weight Olive oil
Crowley's Essential Oil Version
Early in the 20th century, the British occultistAleister Crowley created his own version of Abramelin Oil, which he called "Oil of Abramelin," and sometimes referred to as the "Holy Oil of Aspiration." It was based on Mathers' substitution of Galangal for Calamus. Crowley also abandoned the book's method of preparation—which specifies blending Myrrh "tears" (resin) and "fine" (finely ground) Cinnamon—instead opting for pouring together distilled essential oils with a small amount of olive oil. His recipe (from his Commentary to Liber Legis[1]) reads as follows:
8 parts Cinnamon essential oil Crowley weighed out his proportions of essential oils according to the recipe specified by Mathers' translation for weighing out raw materials. The result is to give the Cinnamon a strong presence, so that when it is placed upon the skin "it should burn and thrill through the body with an intensity as of fire." This formula is unlike the grimoire recipe and it cannot be used for practices that require the oil to be poured over the head. Rather, Crowley intended it to be applied in small amounts, usually to the top of the head or the forehead, and to be used for anointment of magical equipment as an act of consecration.
Myrrh in tears, one part
Fine Cinnamon, two parts
Galangal, 1/2 part
Half the total weight in olive oil.
Sigismund, Dignitaries & Abraham of Worms
Dehn quotes a record of an “Abraham the Jew” in Emperor Sigismund’s 1426 register, which notes his assistance both to Sigismund and Duke Frederick IV of Saxony: both of whom Abraham actually claims to have helped; although Abraham was writing after the event. But in this register, Abraham is noted as being a resident of Leipzig, not Worms.
THE EIGHTH CHAPTER.: (That he practiced Magic with success from 1409 to 1458.--Of the divers persons he healed.--Of the Magical aid he gave to the Emperor Sigismund of Germany; how he lent him a Familiar Spirit; and how he facilitated his marriage.--Of the aid he gave to Count Frederic by making magically an army of 2000 horsemen appear.--How he helped the Bishop of his City.--How he delivered the Count of Varvich (Warwick) from an English prison.--How he aided the flight of Pope John XXIII. from the Council of Constance.--How he forced a person who had stolen from him, while with the Duke of Bavaria, to confess the theft and restore the money.--Of his warnings and prophecies to the Greek Emperor (Constantine Palæologos).How he performed the feat of raising a dead person to life, on two occasions, in Saxonia, and in the Marquisate of Magdeburgh.--How he obtained by Magic, both his marriage and a considerable treasure of money)
Not least in interest are the many notable Persons of that age for or against whom he performed marvels: The Emperor Sigismund of Germany: Count Frederic the Quarreller: the Bishop of his city (probably either John I., who began the foundation of the Würzburg University in 1403 with the authorisation of Pope Boniface IX., or else Echter von Mespelbrunn, who completed the same noble work): the Count of Warwick: Henry VI. of England: the rival Popes – John XXIII., Martin V., Gregory XII., and Benedict XIII.: the Council of Constance: the Duke of Bavaria: Duke Leopold of Saxony: the Greek Emperor, Constantine Palaeologos: and probably the Archbishop Albert of Magdeburg: and also some of the Hussite Leaders – a roll of names celebrated in the history of that stirring time.
THE EIGHTH CHAPTER.: (That he practiced Magic with success from 1409 to 1458.--Of the divers persons he healed.--Of the Magical aid he gave to the Emperor Sigismund of Germany; how he lent him a Familiar Spirit; and how he facilitated his marriage.--Of the aid he gave to Count Frederic by making magically an army of 2000 horsemen appear.--How he helped the Bishop of his City.--How he delivered the Count of Varvich (Warwick) from an English prison.--How he aided the flight of Pope John XXIII. from the Council of Constance.--How he forced a person who had stolen from him, while with the Duke of Bavaria, to confess the theft and restore the money.--Of his warnings and prophecies to the Greek Emperor (Constantine Palæologos).How he performed the feat of raising a dead person to life, on two occasions, in Saxonia, and in the Marquisate of Magdeburgh.--How he obtained by Magic, both his marriage and a considerable treasure of money)
Not least in interest are the many notable Persons of that age for or against whom he performed marvels: The Emperor Sigismund of Germany: Count Frederic the Quarreller: the Bishop of his city (probably either John I., who began the foundation of the Würzburg University in 1403 with the authorisation of Pope Boniface IX., or else Echter von Mespelbrunn, who completed the same noble work): the Count of Warwick: Henry VI. of England: the rival Popes – John XXIII., Martin V., Gregory XII., and Benedict XIII.: the Council of Constance: the Duke of Bavaria: Duke Leopold of Saxony: the Greek Emperor, Constantine Palaeologos: and probably the Archbishop Albert of Magdeburg: and also some of the Hussite Leaders – a roll of names celebrated in the history of that stirring time.
Locating the Hermitage
Abraham recounts how he found Abramelin the Mage living in the desert outside an Egyptian town, Arachi or Araki, which borders the Nile. This loop or meander of the Nile includes many important sites: Nag Hammadi, Dendera, Luxor and Karnak, and the Valley of the Kings [and Queens].
Welcome to the Al `Araki google satellite map! This place is situated in Qina, Upper Egypt, Egypt, its geographical coordinates are 26° 0' 21" North, 32° 9' 38" East and its original name (with diacritics) is Al `Arakī. See Al `Araki photos and images from satellite below, explore the aerial photographs of Al `Araki in Egypt.
Georg Dehn gives his account of searching out the location of Abramelin's hut. Its location, he pinpoints, is at a place called 'Araki' in Egypt. Araki also, it appears, to lie just due west of Nag Hammadi. Not only this, but monasteries, hermits, and Egyptian tombs are all within walking distance of this place. Even more intriguing to Dehn was that a place called the 'Monastery of the Angel' "Deir al-Malak", and is 8 kil from Araki. This monastery is curious in that it is not devoted to a singular angel, but to the all encompassing ideal of 'Angel' or 'Malak'.
Now, of course you should be putting all this together by now. The Yezidi come to mind, and 'Malak Taus'. Crowley made a curious remark in an un-published letter about Thelema being rooted in ideas that are much older than the more modern religions of today, and that specifically the Yezidi and 'Malak Taus' are connected. Abramelin living in such an area of condensed ideas, is it no wonder his system sought the 'Holy Guardian Angel'? Later, the Peacock Angel of the Yezidis turns up in alchemy. Preoccupation with purity is also another Yezidi belief.
Idries Shah, writing under the pen-name Arkon Daraul, in the 1961 book Secret Societies Yesterday and Today, describes discovering a Yazidi-influenced secret society in the London suburbs called the "Order of the Peacock Angel." Idries Shah claimed that Tawûsê Melek could be understood, from the Sufi viewpoint, as an allegory of the higher powers in humanity.
Welcome to the Al `Araki google satellite map! This place is situated in Qina, Upper Egypt, Egypt, its geographical coordinates are 26° 0' 21" North, 32° 9' 38" East and its original name (with diacritics) is Al `Arakī. See Al `Araki photos and images from satellite below, explore the aerial photographs of Al `Araki in Egypt.
Georg Dehn gives his account of searching out the location of Abramelin's hut. Its location, he pinpoints, is at a place called 'Araki' in Egypt. Araki also, it appears, to lie just due west of Nag Hammadi. Not only this, but monasteries, hermits, and Egyptian tombs are all within walking distance of this place. Even more intriguing to Dehn was that a place called the 'Monastery of the Angel' "Deir al-Malak", and is 8 kil from Araki. This monastery is curious in that it is not devoted to a singular angel, but to the all encompassing ideal of 'Angel' or 'Malak'.
Now, of course you should be putting all this together by now. The Yezidi come to mind, and 'Malak Taus'. Crowley made a curious remark in an un-published letter about Thelema being rooted in ideas that are much older than the more modern religions of today, and that specifically the Yezidi and 'Malak Taus' are connected. Abramelin living in such an area of condensed ideas, is it no wonder his system sought the 'Holy Guardian Angel'? Later, the Peacock Angel of the Yezidis turns up in alchemy. Preoccupation with purity is also another Yezidi belief.
Idries Shah, writing under the pen-name Arkon Daraul, in the 1961 book Secret Societies Yesterday and Today, describes discovering a Yazidi-influenced secret society in the London suburbs called the "Order of the Peacock Angel." Idries Shah claimed that Tawûsê Melek could be understood, from the Sufi viewpoint, as an allegory of the higher powers in humanity.
Monastery of the Angel - a Coptic Influence?
Monastery of the Archangel Gabriel The legendary background for the Monastery of the Archangel Gabriel, or Deir al-Malak Ghobriel, goes back to the 5th century, when the grandson of the king had a vision of Virgin Mary and the two archangels Gabriel and Michael at this place. For centuries the monastery was neglected to the advantage of other nearby monasteries. It lies on an elevated limestone rock on the slope of the Naqlun Mountain. Although some parts of the present structure may date back to the 5th century, it is believed that the main church was largely rebuilt and redecorated late in the 19th century. But during a 1997 restoration, 11th century paintings of saints like Gabriel, Virgin Mary and Jesus were discovered. In 1991 mutilated 12 skeletons were discovered near the monastery. The Coptic Church declared them martyrs, and relics of the find has been distributed to churches all over Egypt and even abroad. After more than 1000 years of activity, the monastery would be abandoned. But in modern times, it is being repopulated by Coptic monks. There is an annual moulid dedicated to Gabriel on December 18. This is one of few times through the year, when the place gets crowded.
The Book of Abramelin : A New translation Abraham Von Worms. compiled and edited by Georg Dehn . translated by Steve Guth. (Ibis Press 2006)
The place to start with this book is actually in the appendices. On page 191 one of the most interesting aspects of this new translation is the inclusion of Dehn's "journey" to gather the material for the new translation and his journey to the probable home of "Abramelin" in Araki in Egypt. Dehn goes into detail about all the synchronicities and "coincidences" while seeking out the history of Abramelin and his history. One beautiful moment in Dehn's account is when he gets a little known copy of the Book of Abramelin at an auction house for a bargain. A lot of the material presented and explained by Dehn is worth the price of the book alone. If i didnt know any better the account suggests "something" wanted Dehn to succeed in his work to get the new translation published.
One of the main points of this new translation is to correct the mistakes of MacGregor Mathers version and others. But what Dehn points out is that this is not Mathers fault. At the time Mathers translation and work was flawless. It was that he never had the full version to work with in the first place. Dehn actually gives Mathers his place in the history of the text and puts Mathers in a different light. One of the main issues is over the practice of the Abramelin operation. In most texts this is 18 months. But in new manuscript its acually 3 years. A secondary issue is over the magic squares/Qamea. What Dehn has done ,is to use an uncorrupted version of the manuscripts from Dresden Library, Dresden MS 1& MS 2.. (Dresden MS N 161 & MS N 111). Also they go to the trouble to include all 4 books . This is important since there is material in books 1 & 3 that have to be read from a "practioners eye" and not a general reader's . From Dehn's extensive search and integrity in his work the material & presentation will not be improved upon. In that context this new translation will be used has a reference for years and centuries to come. Its that comprehensive and authoritative. The detective work and research into the probability that Abramelin was the historical figure The MaHaRIL is difficult to dispute. Dehn puts over a very well researched argument showing historical accounts of the MAHaRIL and comparing them with Abramelin in Araki. Dehn even goes to the trouble to travel to the Worms Holy Sands cemetery to research the links. For the obsessives amongst you the appendix on p243 shows the difference in the spelling of the spirit names between the 4 main Abramelin manuscripts. From this readers will be able to make up theri own minds on the providence of Dehn and Guth's meticulous work.
"THE ABRAMELIN EFFECT"
Suggestions for script treatments from Steven Guth with Iona Miller
[email protected]
"The Nine Gates" meets "Angels & Demons"
Abramelin Movies:
Based on The Book of Abramelin
An authentic 14th-15th century Autobiography
by Abraham von Worms
Translated by Georg Dehn & Steven Guth
Foreword by Lon Milo DuQuette
Video Production by Iona Miller
See page following for full Treatment: http://ionamiller.weebly.com/abramelin-effect.html
From the Foreword of “The Book of Abramelin”
I confess. In 1976, when I first ran across the Abramelin book in a used bookstore in Hollywood, my hand actually shook as I pulled it from its place on the dusty shelf. Fearing demonic attack, I very cautiously drove home and tucked it away in a black borrowed slipcase and kept it apart from my other books. Not wishing to take responsibility for the unspeakable evils that might befall them, I refused to loan it or even show it to curious friends. - Lon DuQuette
ACT 1, SCENE 1: IGNORANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT
OPENING SCENE: A mighty storm to end all storms with billowing foggy mists and intermittant curtains of heavy rain is raging on mysterious Loch Ness, whose waves are roiling and boiling like a vast chaotic cauldron full of chthonic sea serpents. The loch heaves and hurls great rolling waves onto the shore. We think we see their spectre rising from the depths, and then maybe not as waves of pelting rain wash out visibility. The mists part and we catch a glimpse of Boleskine House on the edge of the Loch, owned by a notorious mage from 1899-1913.
Infamous magician Aleister Crowley, robes flailing in the breeze, shouts and gestures on the wide veranda, magical sword and wand in hand, pointed toward the turbulent electrified sky, challenging the as yet unknown dark and luminous powers that be to come forward and reveal themselves in all their awesome potential. His railing against Heaven is a compelling invitation they cannot resist for that is why they exist. They are the servants of mankind, but only the evolutionary vanguard.
Crowley's manic frenzy is fueled by an alchemical cocktail of hashish and cocaine. He would never admit to, or much less desire a pious bone in his body. Humility was a quality unknown to him. The difference between the occult traditional and kabbalah is that it relinquished its religious root for the experiential hinterlands. In decades to follow he would become the hero of the Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll culture -- the "Me" generation, where even the specifically forbidden is mandatory. Somewhere between his medical prescription for heroin and his desire to amplify his grandiose personality, he sank into a degeneracy that arguably could be attributed to the curse of Abramelin. That doesn't mean the transformative magic didn't work. It means it did -- inexorably.
See page following for full Treatment: http://ionamiller.weebly.com/abramelin-effect.html
Infamous magician Aleister Crowley, robes flailing in the breeze, shouts and gestures on the wide veranda, magical sword and wand in hand, pointed toward the turbulent electrified sky, challenging the as yet unknown dark and luminous powers that be to come forward and reveal themselves in all their awesome potential. His railing against Heaven is a compelling invitation they cannot resist for that is why they exist. They are the servants of mankind, but only the evolutionary vanguard.
Crowley's manic frenzy is fueled by an alchemical cocktail of hashish and cocaine. He would never admit to, or much less desire a pious bone in his body. Humility was a quality unknown to him. The difference between the occult traditional and kabbalah is that it relinquished its religious root for the experiential hinterlands. In decades to follow he would become the hero of the Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll culture -- the "Me" generation, where even the specifically forbidden is mandatory. Somewhere between his medical prescription for heroin and his desire to amplify his grandiose personality, he sank into a degeneracy that arguably could be attributed to the curse of Abramelin. That doesn't mean the transformative magic didn't work. It means it did -- inexorably.
See page following for full Treatment: http://ionamiller.weebly.com/abramelin-effect.html
Divine Names: A Cross Cultural Comparison (Papyri Graecae Magicae, Picatrix, Munich Handbook)
David Porreca
This paper offers a systematic examination of divine names in the Greek Magical Papyri, the Latin version of Picatrix, and the late 15th century magic compilation known as the Munich Handbook. Methodological concerns about conducting cross-cultural text-based studies are set out, with a focus on factors of manuscript transmission, transliteration, and the peculiarities of dealing with Semitic languages. The paper includes a table listing all divine names that show evidence of continuity between the three texts under consideration, as well as a diagram illustrating results. There is substantial continuity in the use of certain divine names, especially those of Hebraic origin. The seven archangels are consistently understood as divine beings. The names of four Egyptian deities survive into later periods.
God's Names and Their Uses in the Books of Magic Attributed to King Solomon
Julien Veronese
A number of medieval texts of learned magic deriving from different cultural contexts (Latin and Greek Christian, Jewish, Muslim) are attributed to King Solomon. This article examines frequency of use of a number of divine names in this corpus, with focus on what names are used, how they are employed, and how this usage is connected to the original cultural context of a text.
David Porreca
This paper offers a systematic examination of divine names in the Greek Magical Papyri, the Latin version of Picatrix, and the late 15th century magic compilation known as the Munich Handbook. Methodological concerns about conducting cross-cultural text-based studies are set out, with a focus on factors of manuscript transmission, transliteration, and the peculiarities of dealing with Semitic languages. The paper includes a table listing all divine names that show evidence of continuity between the three texts under consideration, as well as a diagram illustrating results. There is substantial continuity in the use of certain divine names, especially those of Hebraic origin. The seven archangels are consistently understood as divine beings. The names of four Egyptian deities survive into later periods.
God's Names and Their Uses in the Books of Magic Attributed to King Solomon
Julien Veronese
A number of medieval texts of learned magic deriving from different cultural contexts (Latin and Greek Christian, Jewish, Muslim) are attributed to King Solomon. This article examines frequency of use of a number of divine names in this corpus, with focus on what names are used, how they are employed, and how this usage is connected to the original cultural context of a text.
Qabalah: The Middle Way
Beauty -- art, is largely a matter of the unification of contrasts. Variety is essential to the concept of beauty. The supreme beauty, the height of finite art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness of the cosmic extremes of Creator and creature.
Tiphareth is the Sphere of Beauty, and Perfect Equilibrium. It is the gateway to the Causal Plane of Universal Mind, or the Self. The translation from the Astral to the Causal Plane is as dramatic as that between Physical and Astral. It requires the development of a more subtle aspect of the Body of Light, so the soul may experience that level of awareness. The Causal Body is called a Diamond Body, or the Ruach -- the moral soul. Tiphareth represents a comparatively high initiation for religious, or mystical man. Here the entire life is dedicated to spiritual devotion, in a 24 hour-a-day ritual. This initiation to a Way of Life is experienced as a death for the ego. It leads to spiritual rebirth and ascension to higher imaginal realms in mystic ecstasy. The Great Work becomes the priority of one's existence. The spiritual bud formed in Yesod, flowers in Tiphareth in Enlightenment. Many systems describe this grade through various images; Self, Holy Guardian Angel, Philosopher's Stone, Universal Mind, Brahm.
1. Physical Plane: Tiphareth represents the Vision of the Harmony of Things, and is the point on the Tree of Life of maximum equilibration. This same formula is represented in mathematics as the Vector Equilibrium Matrix. The Cube is a magickal symbol for Tiphareth. The VEM is an octahedron-within-a-cube, which is also the atomic structure of the diamond.
2. Astral Plane: A contemplative life in harmony with spiritual principles becomes the primary ritual. The magical images for Tiphareth include a magickal or divine child; a resplendent king, and a sacrificed God. These represent stages in the Mystery of Death and Rebirth. Tiphareth also corresponds with the Egyptian god, Osiris. Initiation on the path to God-Realization turns one's attitudes upside-down. Devotion to the Great Work; Pride.
3. Causal Plane: In the Causal, the Vision of Harmony indicates that all spiritual progress comes through the principle of Love. It implies the highest ethical standards in both behavior and thought. The Syntaxic Mode means one has a precise cognitive awareness concerning the relative value of mystical experiences, and has the verbal creativity for expression. Thus psychology can express in words what mystics experience through intuition. Syntaxic Mode includes Tantric sex, creativity, alpha states, etc. It verges of knowledge Ecstasy, but is mainly inspirational in quality.
4. Archetypal Plane: Tiphareth is the Royal Marriage of the Soul and the Lord. The projections of anima or animus have been returned to their proper level in the unconscious. The King and Queen are united: Spirit and Soul, distinct but conjoined. The aspirant enters a period of exploration of soul by spirit for psychic fecundation. This union with the Self, uniting all opposites is an illumined lunacy. Tiphareth represents the halfway point on the continuum of spiritual development. It indicates the ability to withdraw the attention from outside to inside and hold it there. One contemplates the "radiant form" internally. Self-Realization opens the beginning of the path to God-Realization through Grace, along Path 13. Approaching Tiphareth there is a quiet period of deep reflection and assimilation in which you incorporate or build in the knowledge and realization developed in the other spheres. Until this maturing of knowledge into automatic responses has taken place the work is not finished; there is a gestation period which precedes the birth of the higher consciousness upon the level of personal awareness.
That birth establishes the domain of Spirit over all the activities of personality. There is a gradual incorporation of superconscious energies into your vehicles of personality which prepares the way for the dominion of the Higher Self over the lower nature. Accomplishment is brought about by conscious transparency. . .conscious mediatorship for a higher power. It is the result of willingly and deliberately acting as a quiet channel through which superconscious energies can be transmitted to levels below.
We act as such a channel by learning how to give some form to our spiritual insights. The influence and multiplication of such forms in the collective human consciousness strengthens its higher impulses an eventually will set it free from slavery and delusion. We need to help one another. We need to use the personal level faculties -- reason, analysis and discrimination, compassion -- as far as they go. There must be a base of stabilized positive personality attributes to function as a channel for the Self. One example of this is in regard to sex. A highly developed love nature holds it in great reverence, since the capacity for deep compassion and selfless love has been cultivated. This purifies our responses.
What we learn about on the three paths leading to Tiphareth is crucial to stabilizing contact with the Self. The purification and transformation of personality must be reflected in the habitual behavior, that is, established in Yesod. Yesod is the plane of mobile forces and changing patterns. It is here that transformations -- changes in for -- are to be effected. Tiphareth, then, is the most advanced level of personality unfoldment. The three paths challenging the aspirant for Tiphareth are those of ARt, the Devil and Death. The personality finds itself confronted with the Angel of the Self, the Devil, and the ever-looming specter of mortality, Death.
The Devil has to do with liberation from the delusion of outer appearances. It connects Hod with Tiphareth. The Angel of Art is a symbol of the Self and this path links Yesod with Tiphareth. Its tests concern destroying the false sense of personal separateness and it consequent selfishness. It means exposing the vestiges of spiritual and personal pride and prejudice that keep us from union with the Self.
Death represents the utter destruction of the personal sense of will which distorts the Divine Will -- ego death. These personality hindrances must be transmuted and equilibrated. Basically these tests are concerned with intensifying your ability to discriminate in a higher, finer sense. By applying them to all aspects of your personality you should begin to detect where you are still acting in ignorance and self-delusion (psychological blind-spots).
You should further be able to acknowledge any such shortcomings without regret but with an eager willingness for change. Our eagerness enables the Higher Self to reveal those deep-rooted patterns of error that the personal level cannot detect in itself. When the underlying cause is perceived then w must act and continue to act. The method is given to rid ourselves of unwanted tendencies and habits -- whether they are mental, emotional or physical -- by repeatedly thought-stopping an introducing an opposite corrective pattern until the required balance is achieved. This is the work of the Self when it appears as the Angel, the Devil of enslavement and the skeleton of Death. These tests refine the personality to act as a receiver and transmitter of superconscious energy to the physical plane. Personal expression gets refined and separated from ignorance and delusion.
The emotional-desire nature of Netzach is purified; the intellectual reason and discriminating faculties, likewise. Correct habits are established in the astral body -- such as preparedness for meditation at a regular time -- and the physical body reaps the rewards of inner harmony.
Ayin, the Path of Renewal, is concerned with helping us develop a more penetrating vision so that we see behind surface appearances. Samekh is concerned with liberating ourselves from the many errors that keep us acting as if we were really separate beings. Even spiritual aspiration can be trained by separation. It will express as a desire to be appreciated and considered highly evolved by others. Advanced aspirants are particularly susceptible to this spiritual pride which stands as a major hindrance unless realized and cleared away. The Path of Nun is the test applied to Netzach to help you realize that control of desire means control of imagination.
In Hod, our goal was to begin using the faculties of reason, analysis and discrimination in ways that aid spiritual enlightenment instead of warring against it. The test of Ayin tells us to look for that proof-seeking skepticism that binds us to earth. Samekh is the higher use of discrimination that keeps intellect from obstructing the conscious realization of the Unity of Being (holistic perspective). The test of Nun applied to Hod should help alert you to ideas you express that betray a fear of death and a consequent disbelief in immortality. Repeatedly counteract unwanted habits of mind by an opposing idea. Recall to mind the abundant evidence that the Real Self cannot die. Unworthy responses, such as prejudice, criticisms, power trips, and impatience with others are certainly divisive in nature.
In truth, the higher Self does all the work of integration, but from the level of personality it takes seemingly persistent and continuous effort. Entrance to Tiphareth means, at first, sporadic contact with the Self. We become aware of the discrepancies between the Beauty we glimpse during union and the routine acts and attributes of our personalities. This may be painful, since we identify with those acts and our liberations is not yet complete. We have been preparing the personality for conscious union. Now further transmutation continues, intensified by regenerated power. You know what personal acts you need to change to reveal the influence of the higher Self, so personal expression shows its impress. Your capacity for love, service, and unselfishness will increase, even though the lower personal self would rather stay in its delusion of separateness.
Once we see personal error, we can free ourselves from perpetuating them by repeatedly refusing to respond in ways that keep them alive. These include anger, greed, vanity, envy and attachment as well as criticism of others. When we deny them expression we clear the karmic obstructions that keep us from enjoying conscious linkage with the higher Self.
That Self, which is One in all humanity, cannot get through until our treatment of others shows we understand. Our new image represents the unobstructed expression of the higher Self through our personalities. It is first established in the emotional-desire nature of Netzach. The goal is the complete dominion of the higher Self over the lower nature. In Netzach this goal or will-idea is formulated into our philosophy of life and becomes the main object of desire. This is the core nature of Bhakti. It appropriates the energy of the many conflicting subpersonalities of our lower nature. It purges the meanderings and idle wishes of the undirected imagination.
We may be faced with the truth that much of what you considered loving and brotherly in ourselves was quite tainted with a desire to be admired and looked up to by others. It is through such realizations that true humility becomes possible. When we can face the truth that some of our beneficent acts wee bound up with a secret satisfaction in appearing highly evolved, we realize how far we still have to go. Our ideal needs to be elaborated and given fuller shape through the practice of meditation, plus the actual ways and means for expressing the Self in daily life need to be stabilized, grounded. We must still the mind so the Voice of the Silence -- the higher Self, can be heard. Patience is most important; hastiness is a form of lust -- "lusting for results."
"Lesser Adept" means the 'I' consciousness centered in Tiphareth is the link through which superconscious forces are transmitted to subconscious levels. The transformation is hinted at in the word Tiphareth. It is from a root 'par' which means to gleam, to explain, to make clear -- purity free of distortions. It forms a sure foundation for the reception and right interpretation of intuitions. Otherwise superconscious light is experienced as bliss, ecstasy or joy.
Once union with the Self is experienced, the orderly unfoldment of the potentials attributed to the sphere above Tiphareth is essentially assured. A state of continuous contact and expanded awareness, of freedom and inner harmony may take a very long time to perfect, however. The ancient alchemists used to say they had to make the Philosopher's Stone, over and over. That is what daily practice is for -- to keep that flame alive. The higher mind which enables us to think, to will, to decide anything at all -- is not personal. Every seemingly self-originated thought or volition or decision is actually derived from this higher impersonal source. So we need to connect with it, in constant remembrance, drawing on the nourishment of the Audible Life Stream.
In the early stages the impact of this truth requires some rather difficult adjustments. There is a period when the enormity of the task facing yo appears impossible to complete -- in fact, it never is completed. To actually reverse our moment by moment thinking and feeling and stand up for the values of the Self seems at first an impossible job. Consistency is all-important -- it creates a new groove in the mind. It stabilizes a pattern of attention turned inward and eventually brings illumination through grace. Its radiance refers to a supernal realization, experienced in the whole psychophysical system. This is why it also healing in nature.
There is no short cut, besides meditation. It takes discipline, great endurance and daily, hourly effort to reverse the seeming reality of personal isolated will. If we are lukewarm or irregular in our efforts, then the time of our higher awakening is forestalled. Through the Saturnian influence of the Neshamah, the Divine Soul in Binah, discipline is applied to the entire area of the mind. Concentration and meditation gradually prepare us to receive true intuitional guidance from the Radiant Form. Actually it is this unfolding contact with Neshamah -- at first, so subtle -- that is responsible for every expansion of consciousness, every illumination on the Path of Return.
Remember, it is not individual awareness that is being renounced. That is the gift of long eons of existence in the manifest worlds. It is separative goals that are being renounced. "Not my will but Thy Will be done." What we want to do is dedicate individualized awareness to the purpose of the Unified Whole. Then we come to know ourselves individual cells in the body of humanity. As awakened fragments, we turn our every effort toward bringing our whole self to the perfection of its goal. We, as humans, are the fruit of the Tree of Life.
Tiphareth is the Sphere of Beauty, and Perfect Equilibrium. It is the gateway to the Causal Plane of Universal Mind, or the Self. The translation from the Astral to the Causal Plane is as dramatic as that between Physical and Astral. It requires the development of a more subtle aspect of the Body of Light, so the soul may experience that level of awareness. The Causal Body is called a Diamond Body, or the Ruach -- the moral soul. Tiphareth represents a comparatively high initiation for religious, or mystical man. Here the entire life is dedicated to spiritual devotion, in a 24 hour-a-day ritual. This initiation to a Way of Life is experienced as a death for the ego. It leads to spiritual rebirth and ascension to higher imaginal realms in mystic ecstasy. The Great Work becomes the priority of one's existence. The spiritual bud formed in Yesod, flowers in Tiphareth in Enlightenment. Many systems describe this grade through various images; Self, Holy Guardian Angel, Philosopher's Stone, Universal Mind, Brahm.
1. Physical Plane: Tiphareth represents the Vision of the Harmony of Things, and is the point on the Tree of Life of maximum equilibration. This same formula is represented in mathematics as the Vector Equilibrium Matrix. The Cube is a magickal symbol for Tiphareth. The VEM is an octahedron-within-a-cube, which is also the atomic structure of the diamond.
2. Astral Plane: A contemplative life in harmony with spiritual principles becomes the primary ritual. The magical images for Tiphareth include a magickal or divine child; a resplendent king, and a sacrificed God. These represent stages in the Mystery of Death and Rebirth. Tiphareth also corresponds with the Egyptian god, Osiris. Initiation on the path to God-Realization turns one's attitudes upside-down. Devotion to the Great Work; Pride.
3. Causal Plane: In the Causal, the Vision of Harmony indicates that all spiritual progress comes through the principle of Love. It implies the highest ethical standards in both behavior and thought. The Syntaxic Mode means one has a precise cognitive awareness concerning the relative value of mystical experiences, and has the verbal creativity for expression. Thus psychology can express in words what mystics experience through intuition. Syntaxic Mode includes Tantric sex, creativity, alpha states, etc. It verges of knowledge Ecstasy, but is mainly inspirational in quality.
4. Archetypal Plane: Tiphareth is the Royal Marriage of the Soul and the Lord. The projections of anima or animus have been returned to their proper level in the unconscious. The King and Queen are united: Spirit and Soul, distinct but conjoined. The aspirant enters a period of exploration of soul by spirit for psychic fecundation. This union with the Self, uniting all opposites is an illumined lunacy. Tiphareth represents the halfway point on the continuum of spiritual development. It indicates the ability to withdraw the attention from outside to inside and hold it there. One contemplates the "radiant form" internally. Self-Realization opens the beginning of the path to God-Realization through Grace, along Path 13. Approaching Tiphareth there is a quiet period of deep reflection and assimilation in which you incorporate or build in the knowledge and realization developed in the other spheres. Until this maturing of knowledge into automatic responses has taken place the work is not finished; there is a gestation period which precedes the birth of the higher consciousness upon the level of personal awareness.
That birth establishes the domain of Spirit over all the activities of personality. There is a gradual incorporation of superconscious energies into your vehicles of personality which prepares the way for the dominion of the Higher Self over the lower nature. Accomplishment is brought about by conscious transparency. . .conscious mediatorship for a higher power. It is the result of willingly and deliberately acting as a quiet channel through which superconscious energies can be transmitted to levels below.
We act as such a channel by learning how to give some form to our spiritual insights. The influence and multiplication of such forms in the collective human consciousness strengthens its higher impulses an eventually will set it free from slavery and delusion. We need to help one another. We need to use the personal level faculties -- reason, analysis and discrimination, compassion -- as far as they go. There must be a base of stabilized positive personality attributes to function as a channel for the Self. One example of this is in regard to sex. A highly developed love nature holds it in great reverence, since the capacity for deep compassion and selfless love has been cultivated. This purifies our responses.
What we learn about on the three paths leading to Tiphareth is crucial to stabilizing contact with the Self. The purification and transformation of personality must be reflected in the habitual behavior, that is, established in Yesod. Yesod is the plane of mobile forces and changing patterns. It is here that transformations -- changes in for -- are to be effected. Tiphareth, then, is the most advanced level of personality unfoldment. The three paths challenging the aspirant for Tiphareth are those of ARt, the Devil and Death. The personality finds itself confronted with the Angel of the Self, the Devil, and the ever-looming specter of mortality, Death.
The Devil has to do with liberation from the delusion of outer appearances. It connects Hod with Tiphareth. The Angel of Art is a symbol of the Self and this path links Yesod with Tiphareth. Its tests concern destroying the false sense of personal separateness and it consequent selfishness. It means exposing the vestiges of spiritual and personal pride and prejudice that keep us from union with the Self.
Death represents the utter destruction of the personal sense of will which distorts the Divine Will -- ego death. These personality hindrances must be transmuted and equilibrated. Basically these tests are concerned with intensifying your ability to discriminate in a higher, finer sense. By applying them to all aspects of your personality you should begin to detect where you are still acting in ignorance and self-delusion (psychological blind-spots).
You should further be able to acknowledge any such shortcomings without regret but with an eager willingness for change. Our eagerness enables the Higher Self to reveal those deep-rooted patterns of error that the personal level cannot detect in itself. When the underlying cause is perceived then w must act and continue to act. The method is given to rid ourselves of unwanted tendencies and habits -- whether they are mental, emotional or physical -- by repeatedly thought-stopping an introducing an opposite corrective pattern until the required balance is achieved. This is the work of the Self when it appears as the Angel, the Devil of enslavement and the skeleton of Death. These tests refine the personality to act as a receiver and transmitter of superconscious energy to the physical plane. Personal expression gets refined and separated from ignorance and delusion.
The emotional-desire nature of Netzach is purified; the intellectual reason and discriminating faculties, likewise. Correct habits are established in the astral body -- such as preparedness for meditation at a regular time -- and the physical body reaps the rewards of inner harmony.
Ayin, the Path of Renewal, is concerned with helping us develop a more penetrating vision so that we see behind surface appearances. Samekh is concerned with liberating ourselves from the many errors that keep us acting as if we were really separate beings. Even spiritual aspiration can be trained by separation. It will express as a desire to be appreciated and considered highly evolved by others. Advanced aspirants are particularly susceptible to this spiritual pride which stands as a major hindrance unless realized and cleared away. The Path of Nun is the test applied to Netzach to help you realize that control of desire means control of imagination.
In Hod, our goal was to begin using the faculties of reason, analysis and discrimination in ways that aid spiritual enlightenment instead of warring against it. The test of Ayin tells us to look for that proof-seeking skepticism that binds us to earth. Samekh is the higher use of discrimination that keeps intellect from obstructing the conscious realization of the Unity of Being (holistic perspective). The test of Nun applied to Hod should help alert you to ideas you express that betray a fear of death and a consequent disbelief in immortality. Repeatedly counteract unwanted habits of mind by an opposing idea. Recall to mind the abundant evidence that the Real Self cannot die. Unworthy responses, such as prejudice, criticisms, power trips, and impatience with others are certainly divisive in nature.
In truth, the higher Self does all the work of integration, but from the level of personality it takes seemingly persistent and continuous effort. Entrance to Tiphareth means, at first, sporadic contact with the Self. We become aware of the discrepancies between the Beauty we glimpse during union and the routine acts and attributes of our personalities. This may be painful, since we identify with those acts and our liberations is not yet complete. We have been preparing the personality for conscious union. Now further transmutation continues, intensified by regenerated power. You know what personal acts you need to change to reveal the influence of the higher Self, so personal expression shows its impress. Your capacity for love, service, and unselfishness will increase, even though the lower personal self would rather stay in its delusion of separateness.
Once we see personal error, we can free ourselves from perpetuating them by repeatedly refusing to respond in ways that keep them alive. These include anger, greed, vanity, envy and attachment as well as criticism of others. When we deny them expression we clear the karmic obstructions that keep us from enjoying conscious linkage with the higher Self.
That Self, which is One in all humanity, cannot get through until our treatment of others shows we understand. Our new image represents the unobstructed expression of the higher Self through our personalities. It is first established in the emotional-desire nature of Netzach. The goal is the complete dominion of the higher Self over the lower nature. In Netzach this goal or will-idea is formulated into our philosophy of life and becomes the main object of desire. This is the core nature of Bhakti. It appropriates the energy of the many conflicting subpersonalities of our lower nature. It purges the meanderings and idle wishes of the undirected imagination.
We may be faced with the truth that much of what you considered loving and brotherly in ourselves was quite tainted with a desire to be admired and looked up to by others. It is through such realizations that true humility becomes possible. When we can face the truth that some of our beneficent acts wee bound up with a secret satisfaction in appearing highly evolved, we realize how far we still have to go. Our ideal needs to be elaborated and given fuller shape through the practice of meditation, plus the actual ways and means for expressing the Self in daily life need to be stabilized, grounded. We must still the mind so the Voice of the Silence -- the higher Self, can be heard. Patience is most important; hastiness is a form of lust -- "lusting for results."
"Lesser Adept" means the 'I' consciousness centered in Tiphareth is the link through which superconscious forces are transmitted to subconscious levels. The transformation is hinted at in the word Tiphareth. It is from a root 'par' which means to gleam, to explain, to make clear -- purity free of distortions. It forms a sure foundation for the reception and right interpretation of intuitions. Otherwise superconscious light is experienced as bliss, ecstasy or joy.
Once union with the Self is experienced, the orderly unfoldment of the potentials attributed to the sphere above Tiphareth is essentially assured. A state of continuous contact and expanded awareness, of freedom and inner harmony may take a very long time to perfect, however. The ancient alchemists used to say they had to make the Philosopher's Stone, over and over. That is what daily practice is for -- to keep that flame alive. The higher mind which enables us to think, to will, to decide anything at all -- is not personal. Every seemingly self-originated thought or volition or decision is actually derived from this higher impersonal source. So we need to connect with it, in constant remembrance, drawing on the nourishment of the Audible Life Stream.
In the early stages the impact of this truth requires some rather difficult adjustments. There is a period when the enormity of the task facing yo appears impossible to complete -- in fact, it never is completed. To actually reverse our moment by moment thinking and feeling and stand up for the values of the Self seems at first an impossible job. Consistency is all-important -- it creates a new groove in the mind. It stabilizes a pattern of attention turned inward and eventually brings illumination through grace. Its radiance refers to a supernal realization, experienced in the whole psychophysical system. This is why it also healing in nature.
There is no short cut, besides meditation. It takes discipline, great endurance and daily, hourly effort to reverse the seeming reality of personal isolated will. If we are lukewarm or irregular in our efforts, then the time of our higher awakening is forestalled. Through the Saturnian influence of the Neshamah, the Divine Soul in Binah, discipline is applied to the entire area of the mind. Concentration and meditation gradually prepare us to receive true intuitional guidance from the Radiant Form. Actually it is this unfolding contact with Neshamah -- at first, so subtle -- that is responsible for every expansion of consciousness, every illumination on the Path of Return.
Remember, it is not individual awareness that is being renounced. That is the gift of long eons of existence in the manifest worlds. It is separative goals that are being renounced. "Not my will but Thy Will be done." What we want to do is dedicate individualized awareness to the purpose of the Unified Whole. Then we come to know ourselves individual cells in the body of humanity. As awakened fragments, we turn our every effort toward bringing our whole self to the perfection of its goal. We, as humans, are the fruit of the Tree of Life.
Thus, then, having overcome the World of the Elements, does the Adept stand equilibrated in Tiphareth. In that equilibrium he must set forth upon the greatest magical adventure which has yet befallen him, to win the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, otherwise called his holy Genius. Equilibrium is vitally necessary to him in this quest, for the fulfillment which he seeks will not come about unless in accordance with the aphorism, "As Above, so below." ...The Holy Guardian Angel is a beam transmitted from...that Supernal region which even in symbolic representation defies dimension...this Being of living light and love whom the Adept, and he alone, is to know as his Angel. ...the Reality which is named in occult doctrine as the Holy Guardian Angel is the same which underlies the pale abstraction, Grace. --Denning & Phillips/The Magical Philosophy, Vol. IV Apuleius describes Socrates' genius (daimonion) as follows: He is "a private patron and individual guide, an observer of what takes place in the inner person, guardian of one's welfare, he who knows one most intimately, one's most alert and constant observer, individual judge, irrefutable and inescapable witness, who frowns on evil and exalts what is good." If one 'watches him in the right way, seeks ardently to know him, honors him religiously," then he shows himself to be "the one who can see to the bottom of uncertain situations and can give warning in desperate situations, can protect us in dangerous situations, and can come out to rescue when we ar in need." He can intervene "now through a dream and now through a sign [synchronistic event], or he can even step in by appearing personally to fend off evil, to reinforce the good, to lift up the soul in defeat, to steady our inconstancy, to lighten our darkness, to direct what is favorable toward us and to compensate what is called evil. --Marie Louise vonFranz/Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology Before the transforming power of the higher Self is personified on the Causal Plane as one's Angel, Guide or Guru, it is known as a symbol-forming function. In Jungian Psychology, this symbol-forming power of the psyche is called the transcendent function. Its purpose is to mediate between that which is unknown and that which is manifest. It performs its function by creating unifying symbols from pairs of opposites.
Thus, the Spheres of the Middle Pillar on the Tree of Life all represent the transcendent function, since they synthesize the qualities of the right and left hand pillars. They express a higher perspective which unites both qualities. On the Path of Return, Tiphareth is the first sphere to reconcile the opposites in a higher synthesis.
By synthesizing pairs of opposites into a symbol, the transcendent mode creates a method of transition from one set of attitudes to the next. An individual ego may work more effectively with subconscious processes by consciously attaching value to these symbols presented by the transcendent function.
Symbols ultimately must be transcended. They are fingers pointing at the Moon...or the Sun, but not the experiences themselves. One must use great discrimination in regard to one's own experiences as well as reports of others. Even mystical experiences, much less powers, are not the goal. Spirituality is Way of life, a practice. Just because someone believes they have met an angel, or channeled a higher being, or engaged in astral travel doesn't mean it is so. Even confabulated or imagined experiences can seem very real, just as they do when drug-induced. There is no enlightenment within the realm of duality, however, and they may simply be expansions of the ego.
Our task is to discover their transpersonal meaning, whether they are presented to us through dreams, attitudes, or behavior patterns. If the meaning were consciously understood, it would not be presented as a symbol. Therefore, once its meaning is realized over a period of time, another symbol appears to take its place, reflecting the new situation.
The transcendent function, seen as one's inner guide, angel, or guru, embodies the transmuting power of the symbol. The personification of the higher Self allows us to take up a relationship with the inner Self, and encourages dialogue and the development of feelings of loving devotion.
All the symbols and archetypal figures in which the transformative process are embodied are vehicles of the transcendent function. It is the union of different pairs of psychic opposites in a synthesis which transcends them both. The uniting symbol only appears when the inner psychic life is experienced as just as valid, effective, and psychologically "real" as the world of daily life.
The transcendent function, seen as one's inner guide, angel, or guru embodies the transmuting power of the symbol. The personification of the higher Self allows us to take up a relationship with the inner Self, and encourages dialogue and the development of feelings of loving devotion.
All the symbols and archetypal figures in which the transformative process are embodied are vehicles of the transcendent function. It is the union of different pairs of psychic opposites in a synthesis which transcends them both. The uniting symbols only appears when the inner psychic life is experienced as just as valid, effective, and psychologically "real" as the world of daily life.
The transcendent function, or inner Guide, restores the balance between the ego and the unconscious. It belongs to neither, yet possesses access to each. It forms a bridge for the soul to ascend, by lying in-between and participating in both inner and outer life. By relating to each independently, it unites ego and the unconscious.
The first glimmerings of Knowledge and Conversations with One's Angel are very similar to the descriptions of "peak experience" developed by Abraham Maslow. A peak experience is the result of the drive of the spirit in search of itself. The experience is self-validation, self-justified, and has intrinsic value of a unique nature for each individual.
There is an intense experience of the nearness of God, or divinity. This is the first state of grace, or mind-expansion. It is a response experience where one feels a sense of Presence. The true mystic takes this experience as his point of departure and grows in grace from it. The poet or artist uses this recurrent experience as a basis for artistic production (or inspiration) and personal euphoria.
When the contact is stabilized, the Guide can take the soul up to the heights of mystic rapture. A by-product of this contact is that the adept may consult at will with his guide for directions in any matter. This contact is known in Eastern systems as "getting the radiant form of the Master." It occurs only after one penetrates the lower Astral Plane through meditation.
One is able to see the radiant form, one sees the archetype of the Self in its pure form, uncontaminated by the personal complexes which would contaminate and denigrate its refulgence. Carl Jung describes this process of unfolding relationship in terms of the alchemical form of meditation.
What I call coming to terms with the unconscious the alchemists called "meditation." Ruland says of this: "Meditation: The name of an Internal Talk of one person with another who is invisible as in the invocation of the Deity, or communion with one's self, or with one's good angel." This somewhat optimistic definition must immediately be qualified by reference to the adept's relations with his spiritus familiaris, who we can only hope was a good one. . .Confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a standstill that hampers moral decisions and makes convictions ineffective or even impossible. . .the nigredo...It is right that the magnum opus should begin at this point, for it is indeed a well-nigh unanswerable question how one is to confront reality in this torn and divided state. ...almost nobody hits on the idea of using the objective hints given by dreams as a theme for meditation. ...When meditation is concerned with the objective products of the unconscious that reach consciousness spontaneously, it unites the conscious with contents that proceed not from a conscious causal chain but from an essentially unconscious process. We cannot know what the unconscious psyche is, otherwise it would be conscious. We can only conjecture its existence, though there are good enough grounds for this. Part of the unconscious content is projected, but the projection as such is not recognized. Meditation or critical introspection of the object are needed in order to establish the existence of projections. If the individual is to take stock of himself it is essential that his projections should be recognized, because they falsify the nature of the object and besides this contain items which belong to his own personality and should be integrated with it. This is one of the most important phases in the wearisome process of self-knowledge. And since projections involve one in an inadmissible way in externalities, Dorn rightly recommends an almost ascetic attitude to the world, so that the soul may be freed from its involvement in the world of the body. Here only the "spirit" can help it, that is, the drive for knowledge of the self, on a place beyond all the illusion and bemusement caused by projection (Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. 497-499).
Knowledge of one's Self, which is identical with one's image of God, is the idea behind the east Indian idea of the purusha, Brahm or atman. This transcendental self constantly appears in cross-cultural appraisals of philosophical systems. Translations of ancient Egyptian texts reveals that these people also had the experience of the Self.
In contradistinction to the Ka, which represented the world-creating power of a god or king and the life force in every human being, the Ba stands for an aspect of the soul, connected to the uniqueness of the individual. . .the Ba is an immanent component of every man, comparable to the concept Atman also representing the innermost center of the individual and as Atman Purusha -- the all-embracing Deity. The Ba, or soul is a power to be reckoned with even during this life, a power that men cannot escape by any conscious act of will and cannot entirely grasp by conscious understanding. The Ba has something to do with the incarnation of a god -- his individual forms of appearance on earth -- or represents an immanent component of a human individual. The Ba is prepared to witness against consciousness; it voices a personal, individual truth. It is a real power with claims of its own, capable of opposing the conscious intentions of those who take for granted that one is united with it. Ba is not interested in what is conventionally considered good; it obviously wants something else. Ba chooses the symbol of unborn children to express still unrealized potentialities. Ba cautiously leads the world-weary man to the real goal: the sense of at-one-ment with the Ba, newly gained through self-knowledge -- restoration of the wholeness of personality, now consciously experienced as the result of transformation. (Jacobsohn, "Dialogue of a World-Weary Man with his Ba"). Neumann has commented on the various soul-parts in Egyptian religion in his classic, The Origins and History of Consciousness. He links Osiris with the heart-soul, or Ba, and notes that the hieroglyph for "hear" and 'thought" are identical. He further asserts that, The ka soul has a particularly important part to play in this process [of transformation and unification of soul parts]. It is extraordinarily difficult for us to understand what is meant by the ka...the Egyptians conceived it a man's double, as his genius or guardian angel, as his name and as that which nourished him. When the ka and the body are purified and united -- the king -- like Osiris before him and every individual after him -- is a complete being who achieves perfection. Through this union of soul parts the king becomes a ba, a heart-soul who dwells with the gods and possesses the breath of life; he is now akhu, a perfect spiritual being.
The Ba represents paradoxically, both the unconscious personality complexes of an individual, but also the indwelling of the Self. On the other hand, the ka describes the pranas, or vitality of the life force, genetic heritage, and environmental effects on personality. According to Plutarch, Isis and Osiris are very great "daimons" but they are not gods. Therefore they represent something which is trans-subjective but which is closer to the human than to the gods, something which can be experienced inwardly in certain states of strong emotion. (Von Franz, Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology) Images of the Self appear spontaneously throughout the entire transformative process. It appears in all symbols from the highest to the lowest. At the beginning of the great work it appears in animal forms, such as snakes, birds, fish, horses, or beetles. It shows through the plant forms of flowers and tree symbolism. It progresses through metaphors of sexual union into human and mandala forms. The symbols of the Self in human forms may be contaminated with other archetypes, since pure forms are rarely seen outside of mystical meditation. For example, if one's image of the Self were contaminated with the anima/animus, the vision would be of a vibrant, solar woman whose aura radiates like the sun. Contaminated by the shadow, one might experience a magical creature like Mephistopheles.
The inner daimon was an important component of early Greek Philosophy.
In the Timaeus (90B-90C), Plato sets forth his theory that every human being has a divine daimon that is the noblest component of the psyche. Whoever seeks wisdom and seriously concerns himself with divine and eternal things nourishes his daimon, whereas worldly trivialities abase and mortify him. Some of the Stoics taught the existence of such a daimon in double form: one is a divine component of the psyche (Nous), but the other is a spark of the fiery-world-soul that has migrated into human beings; this latter daimon -- or this part of the daimon -- guides a man from without through his whole life. In the opinion of Plutarch (died A.D. 125), only a pure man can hear the voice of this daimon, a completely bodiless being who is the mediator of the supernatural, "parapsychological" knowledge to the human being he watches over. Neoplatonists thought of this genius-daimon as immortal, as one who becomes an actual divinity after his mortal sojourn.
As a result of the Stoa's spiritual-ascetic orientation in late antiquity, and of Neoplatonism, the Italic genius lost his earlier component of physical vitality, the pleasure principle, which originally had been innate to him. In De genio Socratis, a work by Apuleis, there is mention of two genii who live in human beings; one is the immortal ethical guardian and inner friend of a specific person, and the other (who live sin the genua, "knees) embodies sensual desire and covetousness and is evaluated negatively.
The daimon knows the future and is at all times in touch with the world-spirit, with the Logos or spermatic pneuma of the universe. In him masculine and feminine are merged, so that he is thus an androgynous symbol of wholeness, ...an archetypal image that, like the lapis in alchemy, unites the opposites of masculine and feminine in one figure (Von Franz).
Denning and Phillips (The Magical Philosophy, Vol. IV) speak about the relationship between the Adept and the Holy Guardian Angel, as practiced in their Order, the Aurum Solis. Of such a meeting what can be written? -- but it takes place in the Sphere of Tiphareth, and little by little it unfolds the fulfillment of that sphere. Gradually does he come to understand that what he perceives is not the Universal Plan, but only that fragment of it which represents his own life-work: he could not perform it alone, but neither will this be expected of him. Regardless of what we have said of the origin of this Being, the Adept's experience here is of an Angel of Tiphareth: for he is bounded by the Sphere of his attainment. Here, characteristically of Tiphareth, is all brought to harmony: or rather, with his new perception the Adept sees the underlying harmony, which is a greater and more potent condition than mere equilibrium, ever subsisting between higher and lower, between the things of Mercy and also the things of Severity (p. 99-100).
The soul may indeed rise towards Spirit, but has no means of transferring itself into the mode of existence of Spirit, since the latter comes from the Divine and thus partakes of the nature of pure Deed or Act.
Man in his lower consciousness is unable to apprehend directly the Atziluthic noumena, the pure Archetypes, without the assistance of his Intuitive Mind. This, then, is a problem to which no merely exoteric solution either in religion or philosophy is possible.
The descent of the Intuitive Mind is into that level of the Ruach which is named the Briatic Intelligence. ...the Briatic Intelligence awakens, and the Adept sees his Angel. (The epiphany of the Angel will be unique to the Briatic level of each individual psyche.) In response to the stimulus of the Angel, the Ruach grows to its fullness and the Adept learns to control and direct his new faculty. Many things, now, he will perceive "through the unknown, remembered gate" of Briatic consciousness, but the Ruach even in its highest development remains incapable of intuiting truth directly.. This is but one aspect of the matter, however, when the Adept, in the company of his Angel, grows from his child-state to maturity, when "realization of selfhood" is induced by the Holy Guardian, the Not-Self. (Ibid. p. 102-3).
In other words, Denning and Phillips are saying that even the higher mind does not contain the capacity to transcend itself, within itself. It must rely on Grace, or the function of the Angel to attain the next change of plane onto the level of the Supernal Triad. When this transition, or penetration, is accomplished the soul unties its knot with the mind, and the liberated soul realizes itself in its pristine condition. This ability marks a spiritual maturity which is a form of Self-Realization which transcends the level of Tiphareth, but comes before the unitive stage of God-Realization (Kether). Here, the soul realizes that "I am that," but in a stage beyond merging with Universal Mind. The soul can realize itself, unfettered, as the mind has merged in its source on the Causal Plane.
Now, the mind of the Adept will not, as we have said, be universalized, but it will be vastly expanded and inspired. Again, this quality of inspiration is proper to the Sphere of Tiphareth, which is the reason why that Sphere must be attained before the fullness of inspiration can be sought: but the fullness of inspiration is not found even in Tiphareth until one's Angel is one's Dionysus. Under this inspiration the Adept develops, until at last he knows the Gate of Daath wellnigh as his Angel knows it (p. 103).
Here, they are intimating about mystic rapture, a very exalted aspect of the Lord of Intoxication, Dionysus (Greek equivalent of Osiris). Mystic poets often write of the intoxicating qualities of the Beloved and contact bliss. Daath is a very peculiar point on the initiatory path, in that it is analogous to a gateway to another dimension. It means "Knowledge" in the sense of merging together. But this Sphere has both an upward and downward tendency; therefore, it can be a spiritual waystation or rest stop, or it may be a devastating experience of the "subconscious" mind of God (in which case, it is like a spiritual "black hole" with no escape).
Because of the danger of crossing the Abyss alone, Knowledge and Conversation very frequently means that one's Angel suggests acquiring a living Master in order to proceed further in spiritual development. It prevents going off in idiosyncratic directions which are fruitless, keeps one humble in the face of greatness, and provides all the other benefits of mentorship. A true master connects us with the higher planes. A living teacher, who is connected with the highest region, guarantees spiritual safety in crossing the Abyss. Contacting your personal inner guide: One begins the training for contacting the inner guide in the first stages of magickal training on the Path of Return. Taking the first step of initiation on the return journey up the Tree of Life implies that the soul seeks knowledge of, and union with the inner guiding principle.
All of the lower Spheres, or phases of personality transformation are designed to foster the attainment of Knowledge and Conversation with one's higher Self, Angel, or Guide. In the lower stages, this guide may appear in many forms. In fact, all of the symbolism of these planes are contained within, and coordinated by the Self. It is simply that the level of consciousness of the aspirant requires that the Self only reveal certain of its aspects. Therefore, in Malkuth the guide appears as the "shadow," in Yesod as the "anima/animus," and in Tiphareth as the Guru or Angel. As consciousness develops, communication improves and the reliability of advice becomes better due to the lessened interference by interpretations and doubts of the ego. All of the preliminary mental training of the lower spheres is designed to train and discipline the mind as a preparation for meditation. When one becomes able to meditate consistently and has a program for doing so, rituals of transformation are no longer necessary. Then the entire life is devoted and consecrated to the Great Work in a 24 hours-a-day program.
Training in pathworking and active imagination is all preliminary to the magician's major purpose, invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel (see Book VI, Art, "The Retirement Ritual"). Information and practice experience concerning archetypes and their influence designed to give one practical experience on the Astral Plane, but also to burn out the fascination with the inner movies of this lower level of experience of inner life. When speaking of Tiphareth initiation, the student should be warned regarding the calling up of the Angel outside of a school of mystical practice. While it may seem a simple task to "get in touch with oneself," in practice it requires a great deal of direction. Consider the value of the psychologist in analysis to the client. In spiritual matters, the need for guidance and peer review is even more dramatic. In Zen Buddhism, the experiences of the meditator are always subject to critique.
Remember, a teacher can take you no further than he or she has gone. So, if an order teaches up to the level of Tiphareth only, they will be offering no further assistance. Nevertheless, "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." If one is truly at Tiphareth-level, help should be forthcoming spontaneously. The danger of proceeding on one's own comes from the fact that the mind and active imagination are very tricky, and other entities can appear disguised as one's guide or Angel. Only a mystical school of inner development can teach the manner of testing and banishing these tricks of imagination. Only the true guide can withstand the tests of discriminating among the spirits. And only a teacher who can penetrate past the realm of the mind, at will, can initiate on this level. Most magickal teachers, and Gurus have no training past the point of Tiphareth. Therefore, they consider the highest experience to be merging in the Universal Mind. Those who go further are known as Masters, Saints, or Param Sant Sat Gurus.
So-called "Ascended Masters" are of limited use at this stage, since they cannot initiate any souls from the higher levels. In order to gain spiritual benefit from a Master, both teacher and disciple need to be in a physical body at the same time, at least at the time of initiation. Again, these visions of Ascended Masters are most frequently figments of the imagination or mind, intriguing through they may be. They are neither to be sought out, nor relied upon, since they cannot help the soul to liberate itself from the Causal Plane. This may leave the reader somewhat bewildered regarding further progress. Therefore, it is recommended that one seek "professional" spiritual help, by contacting a living Master on a mystical path of God-Realization, if the highest union is desired. In this case the Master (or Sat Guru) takes upon himself complete responsibility for the soul of the initiate, assuring it will reach its goal through the most efficient means.
The Master becomes a composite symbol for the initiate. Ever-after his vision of the Self will be in the form of the master, and he will learn to contact his master's radiant form within. The Master is a living role model, and his directions and teachings, obeyed implicitly will provide the aspirant with the only shortcut available -- a bona fide program of mystical meditation. There are always such living Masters on the physical plane, and we needn't have recourse to ascended master who are of no further practical value. Ultimately, of course, all Masters are One, since they are equally Son of the Father, and come from the highest spiritual regions to do their work of collecting souls. However, if one has no luck in finding or acquiring initiation from a living Master, one must deal only with the resources at hand. Masters, after all, choose us, we do not choose them. They claim only certain souls are marked for their direction. It doesn't mean one is unworthy, just that they are not your designated teacher. This leaves some seekers dealing with the mind through active imagination, doing meditation for contacting one's inner guide. One should begin this exercise in a condition of psychological equilibrium, or stability, not in any times of crisis. Adopt both a relaxed attitude and position, but one in which you will not fall asleep. Close the eyes and drop into a reverie state.
Using the symbolism of Tiphareth as a take-off point let impressions begin to guide your attention. Take an active role in the unfolding drama, rather than just watching yourself go through the motions. Preserve the feeling of looking out from your own eyes, feeling the sensations of the astral body. If you are ready for this experience, you should have gained enough training to formulate your own "entrance" to the Causal Plane, using appropriate symbolism. None will be given here, since each aspirant should create his own unique method of access. Perhaps, in past meditations you have been given your Angel's "name", as revealed through intuition. If this is the case, keep the name firmly in mind, repeating it while maintaining a sense of expectancy. Properly done, the Angel's countenance will appear spontaneously from the darkness, preceded by faint glimmerings of light and possibly some sounds such as the roar of the sea, or distant thundering. If you hear any entity speaking to you, but can't see it, demand that it appear before you, then banish to make sure it is not a lower level apparition. If the entity withstands the banishing (pass a flaming pentagram through it), you may begin to ask questions.
True inner guides will appear in human-like form on the Causal, though they may seen to have wings or radiant auras. They project a life-giving healing, rejuvenating warmth, and give a feeling of absolute peace and serenity. The inner guide may not speak spontaneously. You must question it directly, and you will only obtain answers if the ego is willing to accept the information. Do not spend too much time on frivolous questions about your love life, desires, the future, etc. The guide will function as your bridge to higher levels of awareness providing you don't succumb to egoic desires. Since high magick or mystical meditation is the only course left open for further soul growth and connection with the Neschamah, one might ask the Angel how to contact a teacher who is qualified to initiate the soul on these levels.
Or in other words, ask the Angel, "How may I proceed further on my quest?" At this point the Angel may offer suggestions, or the image of the Angel may be replaced by the vision of one's future teacher. This face may not be recognized until a much later time, when the master is met on the physical plane. If one continues to enjoin the Angel concerning further progress, the answer will inevitably be forthcoming. It is not even a matter of time, but inevitable, since we are speaking of a timeless/spaceless realm of actualized potential. Remember, if you feel you have gotten a true contact with your Angel, you must apply its advice in your daily life. If you do not make the advice practical, you may lose the contact, and be unable to re-establish it. But be very careful that the advice you have gotten comes from the higher mind, or you may be led irretrievably astray into a low level of psychism and stuck in the Astral. We are not speaking about a vague psychic awareness of direction, but a face to face meeting on the inner planes, the nature of which is unimpeachable. The dynamics should be such that it is an irresistible impulse to fulfill one's True Will. Similarly, initiations should be forestalled until it is impossible to resist, and the mind is completely satisfied or it will thwart the spiritual current with lack of practice, hesitation and doubt. Your inner guide isn't about to volunteer any information at all, so always be prepared to ask your questions during the overwhelming inspiration which the angel brings.
It is a good idea to formulate the questions beforehand, though they are subject to revision during the illuminative period. Should you enter the inner planes at a lower level, getting say an animal form, be kind and gentle with it. Then ask who its superior is, and how to contact that being. Imagine you are rising on the planes of awareness and penetrating a higher level, and wait for that superior entity to contact you. Do not be lulled into an astral experience by becoming fascinated with the local color. For example, Hawaii can be an interesting place to visit, but is merely a way-station in the ocean if we are heading to India, China or Tibet to meet a great spiritual teacher. Warning Note: Never attempt any work on the inner planes with the use of intoxicants, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroine, etc. Psychedelics may seem to free up the imagination for a rise in consciousness, but in reality they cloud the mind, and inhibit the higher faculties of discrimination. They may produce a seeming mind-expansion, but even psychologists call them false-ego states -- a trick of the mind.
The experience is different for everyone and is never repeatable like true spiritual growth which is fully integrated into the personality. We should be able to use imagination and meditation to enter these regions and withdraw from them at will, rather than being carried away on a trip in a regressive dissolution of consciousness. Remember, Causal-Plane-awareness means the mental faculties are fully present, not diminished through intoxicants which return us to the most primitive mode (prototaxic). Ken Wilber has spoken of this distinction as the "pre-, trans- fallacy"; The regression to pre-conscious aspects, though it appears similar in some ways, is certainly not equivalent to the transcendental nature of conscious development let alone Grace (syntaxic) which comes through consistent meditative practice. High Magick is not a shamanistic pursuit. When one enters "holy ground" the mind should be cleansed and pure. When the attention is concentrated within in a focused manner, archetypal forces are awakened, or revealed to the aspirant. Awareness of daily life and sensory impulses is suspended during the meditation for contacting one's angel. Upon completion of your session, be sure to write any results in your magickal journal.
If the contact is poorly defined, watch your dreams for the next couple of days for further insight, or guidance. If these seem consistent with correct spiritual principles, work with these suggestions in your next meditation period. This creative Archetypal Imagination is a stage up from the practice of simple Active Imagination. It is designed for an experience of the higher mind, through which we can perceive the pure form of the archetypes as they appear in the mind, uncontaminated by our personal ego-complexes. They are more themselves, and less colored by our personal bias, or prejudice. This does not mean they will not appear in a culturally-programmed form. A good Christian is likely to have a vision of the higher Self, which he would call "Christ," his ascended master. The mind seeks out that vision of Realization which the ego can comprehend. It is automatic. For example, you don't find people having NDEs where Jesus appears in the tunnel of light, in India. By personifying the higher self, we can develop feelings of living devotion which open the heart. This "heart-chakra" activation is frequently felt in the camaraderie of a religious or spiritual group, and is quite supportive in that it forms a conducive atmosphere for further growth. That atmosphere fosters and supports consistency in meditation.
Opening of the heart-center, through whatever means, shifts emphasis from an analytical mode into that which is spontaneously uplifting.
The image of the heart -- "l'immagine del cuor" -- was an important idea in the work of Michaelangelo who was strongly influenced by the Platonist tradition. Imagining with the heart refers to a mode of perception that penetrates through names and physical appearances to a personified interior image, from the heart to the heart. ...By imagining through and beyond what the eyes see, the imagination envisions primordial images. And these represent themselves in personified forms. ...Loving is a way of knowing, and for loving to know, it must personify. Personifying is thus a way of knowing, especially knowing what is invisible, hidden in the heart. In this perspective personifying is not a lesser, primitive mode of apprehending but a finer one. It presents in psychological theory the attempt to integrate heart into method and to return abstract thoughts and dead matter to their human shapes. ...personifying is an epistemology of the heart, a thought mode of feeling. ...My soul is not the result of objective facts that require explanation; rather it reflects subjective experiences that require understanding. To understand anything at all, we must envision it as having an independent subjective interior existence, capable of experience, obliged to a history, motivated by purposes and intentions. We must always think anthropomorphically, even personally. ...we do not actually personify at all. Mythical consciousness is a mode of being in the world that brings with it imaginal persons...where imagination reigns, personifying happens...The persons present themselves as existing prior to any effort of ours to personify. To mythic consciousness, the persons of the imagination are real. - (James Hillman/Re-Visioning Psychology, p. 13-22).
The Angel is a personified soul-image in the tradition of the alchemical Anima Mundi, the Shekinah or the eastern Gurus and Sat Gurus. It is the magickal version of daimon or muse, in its most exalted aspect. Hillman speaks further on personifying in reference to the Anima or World Soul, which is his personified equivalent of magick's Holy Guardian Angel.
She teaches personifying, and the very first lesson of her teaching is the reality of her independent personality over and against the habitual modes of experiencing with which we are so identified that they are called ego, I. The second lesson is love; she comes to life through love and insists on it, just as Psyche in the old tale is paired forever with Eros. Perhaps the loving comes first. Perhaps only through love is it possible to recognize the person of the soul. And this connection between love and psyche means a love for everything psychological, every symptom or habit, finding place for it within the heart of imagination, finding a mythical person who is its supportive ground. ...Whether we conceive of this interior person as Anima or as an Angel, a Daemon, a Genius, or a paredros, or one of the personified souls in the traditions of ancient China and Egypt, this figure is indispensable to the notion of human personality. Some traditions, in fact have asserted that an individual without his soul figure is not a human being. Such a one has lost soul. (Ibid, p. 43-44).
Do not be overly concerned about the sex of your inner guide. It can appear in many forms. Most typically the inner Self of man is male, while the innermost aspect of a woman is female. The being most frequently appears as androgynous, or asexual. A woman who has a master who happens to be male will experience the higher self as this male form, without hampering her feminine progress. A female teacher for a male enhances his ability to perceive his soul in female form as Anima. Hillman's description of the Anima, for example, corresponds in many ways to the Tarot Trump II, the High Priestess. Therefore, for him she appears to be functioning as a bridge from the heart-center to Kether, but he has no access past the Briatic, or Causal level, of psychological awareness, (at least from this description).
Thus, the Spheres of the Middle Pillar on the Tree of Life all represent the transcendent function, since they synthesize the qualities of the right and left hand pillars. They express a higher perspective which unites both qualities. On the Path of Return, Tiphareth is the first sphere to reconcile the opposites in a higher synthesis.
By synthesizing pairs of opposites into a symbol, the transcendent mode creates a method of transition from one set of attitudes to the next. An individual ego may work more effectively with subconscious processes by consciously attaching value to these symbols presented by the transcendent function.
Symbols ultimately must be transcended. They are fingers pointing at the Moon...or the Sun, but not the experiences themselves. One must use great discrimination in regard to one's own experiences as well as reports of others. Even mystical experiences, much less powers, are not the goal. Spirituality is Way of life, a practice. Just because someone believes they have met an angel, or channeled a higher being, or engaged in astral travel doesn't mean it is so. Even confabulated or imagined experiences can seem very real, just as they do when drug-induced. There is no enlightenment within the realm of duality, however, and they may simply be expansions of the ego.
Our task is to discover their transpersonal meaning, whether they are presented to us through dreams, attitudes, or behavior patterns. If the meaning were consciously understood, it would not be presented as a symbol. Therefore, once its meaning is realized over a period of time, another symbol appears to take its place, reflecting the new situation.
The transcendent function, seen as one's inner guide, angel, or guru, embodies the transmuting power of the symbol. The personification of the higher Self allows us to take up a relationship with the inner Self, and encourages dialogue and the development of feelings of loving devotion.
All the symbols and archetypal figures in which the transformative process are embodied are vehicles of the transcendent function. It is the union of different pairs of psychic opposites in a synthesis which transcends them both. The uniting symbol only appears when the inner psychic life is experienced as just as valid, effective, and psychologically "real" as the world of daily life.
The transcendent function, seen as one's inner guide, angel, or guru embodies the transmuting power of the symbol. The personification of the higher Self allows us to take up a relationship with the inner Self, and encourages dialogue and the development of feelings of loving devotion.
All the symbols and archetypal figures in which the transformative process are embodied are vehicles of the transcendent function. It is the union of different pairs of psychic opposites in a synthesis which transcends them both. The uniting symbols only appears when the inner psychic life is experienced as just as valid, effective, and psychologically "real" as the world of daily life.
The transcendent function, or inner Guide, restores the balance between the ego and the unconscious. It belongs to neither, yet possesses access to each. It forms a bridge for the soul to ascend, by lying in-between and participating in both inner and outer life. By relating to each independently, it unites ego and the unconscious.
The first glimmerings of Knowledge and Conversations with One's Angel are very similar to the descriptions of "peak experience" developed by Abraham Maslow. A peak experience is the result of the drive of the spirit in search of itself. The experience is self-validation, self-justified, and has intrinsic value of a unique nature for each individual.
There is an intense experience of the nearness of God, or divinity. This is the first state of grace, or mind-expansion. It is a response experience where one feels a sense of Presence. The true mystic takes this experience as his point of departure and grows in grace from it. The poet or artist uses this recurrent experience as a basis for artistic production (or inspiration) and personal euphoria.
When the contact is stabilized, the Guide can take the soul up to the heights of mystic rapture. A by-product of this contact is that the adept may consult at will with his guide for directions in any matter. This contact is known in Eastern systems as "getting the radiant form of the Master." It occurs only after one penetrates the lower Astral Plane through meditation.
One is able to see the radiant form, one sees the archetype of the Self in its pure form, uncontaminated by the personal complexes which would contaminate and denigrate its refulgence. Carl Jung describes this process of unfolding relationship in terms of the alchemical form of meditation.
What I call coming to terms with the unconscious the alchemists called "meditation." Ruland says of this: "Meditation: The name of an Internal Talk of one person with another who is invisible as in the invocation of the Deity, or communion with one's self, or with one's good angel." This somewhat optimistic definition must immediately be qualified by reference to the adept's relations with his spiritus familiaris, who we can only hope was a good one. . .Confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a standstill that hampers moral decisions and makes convictions ineffective or even impossible. . .the nigredo...It is right that the magnum opus should begin at this point, for it is indeed a well-nigh unanswerable question how one is to confront reality in this torn and divided state. ...almost nobody hits on the idea of using the objective hints given by dreams as a theme for meditation. ...When meditation is concerned with the objective products of the unconscious that reach consciousness spontaneously, it unites the conscious with contents that proceed not from a conscious causal chain but from an essentially unconscious process. We cannot know what the unconscious psyche is, otherwise it would be conscious. We can only conjecture its existence, though there are good enough grounds for this. Part of the unconscious content is projected, but the projection as such is not recognized. Meditation or critical introspection of the object are needed in order to establish the existence of projections. If the individual is to take stock of himself it is essential that his projections should be recognized, because they falsify the nature of the object and besides this contain items which belong to his own personality and should be integrated with it. This is one of the most important phases in the wearisome process of self-knowledge. And since projections involve one in an inadmissible way in externalities, Dorn rightly recommends an almost ascetic attitude to the world, so that the soul may be freed from its involvement in the world of the body. Here only the "spirit" can help it, that is, the drive for knowledge of the self, on a place beyond all the illusion and bemusement caused by projection (Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. 497-499).
Knowledge of one's Self, which is identical with one's image of God, is the idea behind the east Indian idea of the purusha, Brahm or atman. This transcendental self constantly appears in cross-cultural appraisals of philosophical systems. Translations of ancient Egyptian texts reveals that these people also had the experience of the Self.
In contradistinction to the Ka, which represented the world-creating power of a god or king and the life force in every human being, the Ba stands for an aspect of the soul, connected to the uniqueness of the individual. . .the Ba is an immanent component of every man, comparable to the concept Atman also representing the innermost center of the individual and as Atman Purusha -- the all-embracing Deity. The Ba, or soul is a power to be reckoned with even during this life, a power that men cannot escape by any conscious act of will and cannot entirely grasp by conscious understanding. The Ba has something to do with the incarnation of a god -- his individual forms of appearance on earth -- or represents an immanent component of a human individual. The Ba is prepared to witness against consciousness; it voices a personal, individual truth. It is a real power with claims of its own, capable of opposing the conscious intentions of those who take for granted that one is united with it. Ba is not interested in what is conventionally considered good; it obviously wants something else. Ba chooses the symbol of unborn children to express still unrealized potentialities. Ba cautiously leads the world-weary man to the real goal: the sense of at-one-ment with the Ba, newly gained through self-knowledge -- restoration of the wholeness of personality, now consciously experienced as the result of transformation. (Jacobsohn, "Dialogue of a World-Weary Man with his Ba"). Neumann has commented on the various soul-parts in Egyptian religion in his classic, The Origins and History of Consciousness. He links Osiris with the heart-soul, or Ba, and notes that the hieroglyph for "hear" and 'thought" are identical. He further asserts that, The ka soul has a particularly important part to play in this process [of transformation and unification of soul parts]. It is extraordinarily difficult for us to understand what is meant by the ka...the Egyptians conceived it a man's double, as his genius or guardian angel, as his name and as that which nourished him. When the ka and the body are purified and united -- the king -- like Osiris before him and every individual after him -- is a complete being who achieves perfection. Through this union of soul parts the king becomes a ba, a heart-soul who dwells with the gods and possesses the breath of life; he is now akhu, a perfect spiritual being.
The Ba represents paradoxically, both the unconscious personality complexes of an individual, but also the indwelling of the Self. On the other hand, the ka describes the pranas, or vitality of the life force, genetic heritage, and environmental effects on personality. According to Plutarch, Isis and Osiris are very great "daimons" but they are not gods. Therefore they represent something which is trans-subjective but which is closer to the human than to the gods, something which can be experienced inwardly in certain states of strong emotion. (Von Franz, Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology) Images of the Self appear spontaneously throughout the entire transformative process. It appears in all symbols from the highest to the lowest. At the beginning of the great work it appears in animal forms, such as snakes, birds, fish, horses, or beetles. It shows through the plant forms of flowers and tree symbolism. It progresses through metaphors of sexual union into human and mandala forms. The symbols of the Self in human forms may be contaminated with other archetypes, since pure forms are rarely seen outside of mystical meditation. For example, if one's image of the Self were contaminated with the anima/animus, the vision would be of a vibrant, solar woman whose aura radiates like the sun. Contaminated by the shadow, one might experience a magical creature like Mephistopheles.
The inner daimon was an important component of early Greek Philosophy.
In the Timaeus (90B-90C), Plato sets forth his theory that every human being has a divine daimon that is the noblest component of the psyche. Whoever seeks wisdom and seriously concerns himself with divine and eternal things nourishes his daimon, whereas worldly trivialities abase and mortify him. Some of the Stoics taught the existence of such a daimon in double form: one is a divine component of the psyche (Nous), but the other is a spark of the fiery-world-soul that has migrated into human beings; this latter daimon -- or this part of the daimon -- guides a man from without through his whole life. In the opinion of Plutarch (died A.D. 125), only a pure man can hear the voice of this daimon, a completely bodiless being who is the mediator of the supernatural, "parapsychological" knowledge to the human being he watches over. Neoplatonists thought of this genius-daimon as immortal, as one who becomes an actual divinity after his mortal sojourn.
As a result of the Stoa's spiritual-ascetic orientation in late antiquity, and of Neoplatonism, the Italic genius lost his earlier component of physical vitality, the pleasure principle, which originally had been innate to him. In De genio Socratis, a work by Apuleis, there is mention of two genii who live in human beings; one is the immortal ethical guardian and inner friend of a specific person, and the other (who live sin the genua, "knees) embodies sensual desire and covetousness and is evaluated negatively.
The daimon knows the future and is at all times in touch with the world-spirit, with the Logos or spermatic pneuma of the universe. In him masculine and feminine are merged, so that he is thus an androgynous symbol of wholeness, ...an archetypal image that, like the lapis in alchemy, unites the opposites of masculine and feminine in one figure (Von Franz).
Denning and Phillips (The Magical Philosophy, Vol. IV) speak about the relationship between the Adept and the Holy Guardian Angel, as practiced in their Order, the Aurum Solis. Of such a meeting what can be written? -- but it takes place in the Sphere of Tiphareth, and little by little it unfolds the fulfillment of that sphere. Gradually does he come to understand that what he perceives is not the Universal Plan, but only that fragment of it which represents his own life-work: he could not perform it alone, but neither will this be expected of him. Regardless of what we have said of the origin of this Being, the Adept's experience here is of an Angel of Tiphareth: for he is bounded by the Sphere of his attainment. Here, characteristically of Tiphareth, is all brought to harmony: or rather, with his new perception the Adept sees the underlying harmony, which is a greater and more potent condition than mere equilibrium, ever subsisting between higher and lower, between the things of Mercy and also the things of Severity (p. 99-100).
The soul may indeed rise towards Spirit, but has no means of transferring itself into the mode of existence of Spirit, since the latter comes from the Divine and thus partakes of the nature of pure Deed or Act.
Man in his lower consciousness is unable to apprehend directly the Atziluthic noumena, the pure Archetypes, without the assistance of his Intuitive Mind. This, then, is a problem to which no merely exoteric solution either in religion or philosophy is possible.
The descent of the Intuitive Mind is into that level of the Ruach which is named the Briatic Intelligence. ...the Briatic Intelligence awakens, and the Adept sees his Angel. (The epiphany of the Angel will be unique to the Briatic level of each individual psyche.) In response to the stimulus of the Angel, the Ruach grows to its fullness and the Adept learns to control and direct his new faculty. Many things, now, he will perceive "through the unknown, remembered gate" of Briatic consciousness, but the Ruach even in its highest development remains incapable of intuiting truth directly.. This is but one aspect of the matter, however, when the Adept, in the company of his Angel, grows from his child-state to maturity, when "realization of selfhood" is induced by the Holy Guardian, the Not-Self. (Ibid. p. 102-3).
In other words, Denning and Phillips are saying that even the higher mind does not contain the capacity to transcend itself, within itself. It must rely on Grace, or the function of the Angel to attain the next change of plane onto the level of the Supernal Triad. When this transition, or penetration, is accomplished the soul unties its knot with the mind, and the liberated soul realizes itself in its pristine condition. This ability marks a spiritual maturity which is a form of Self-Realization which transcends the level of Tiphareth, but comes before the unitive stage of God-Realization (Kether). Here, the soul realizes that "I am that," but in a stage beyond merging with Universal Mind. The soul can realize itself, unfettered, as the mind has merged in its source on the Causal Plane.
Now, the mind of the Adept will not, as we have said, be universalized, but it will be vastly expanded and inspired. Again, this quality of inspiration is proper to the Sphere of Tiphareth, which is the reason why that Sphere must be attained before the fullness of inspiration can be sought: but the fullness of inspiration is not found even in Tiphareth until one's Angel is one's Dionysus. Under this inspiration the Adept develops, until at last he knows the Gate of Daath wellnigh as his Angel knows it (p. 103).
Here, they are intimating about mystic rapture, a very exalted aspect of the Lord of Intoxication, Dionysus (Greek equivalent of Osiris). Mystic poets often write of the intoxicating qualities of the Beloved and contact bliss. Daath is a very peculiar point on the initiatory path, in that it is analogous to a gateway to another dimension. It means "Knowledge" in the sense of merging together. But this Sphere has both an upward and downward tendency; therefore, it can be a spiritual waystation or rest stop, or it may be a devastating experience of the "subconscious" mind of God (in which case, it is like a spiritual "black hole" with no escape).
Because of the danger of crossing the Abyss alone, Knowledge and Conversation very frequently means that one's Angel suggests acquiring a living Master in order to proceed further in spiritual development. It prevents going off in idiosyncratic directions which are fruitless, keeps one humble in the face of greatness, and provides all the other benefits of mentorship. A true master connects us with the higher planes. A living teacher, who is connected with the highest region, guarantees spiritual safety in crossing the Abyss. Contacting your personal inner guide: One begins the training for contacting the inner guide in the first stages of magickal training on the Path of Return. Taking the first step of initiation on the return journey up the Tree of Life implies that the soul seeks knowledge of, and union with the inner guiding principle.
All of the lower Spheres, or phases of personality transformation are designed to foster the attainment of Knowledge and Conversation with one's higher Self, Angel, or Guide. In the lower stages, this guide may appear in many forms. In fact, all of the symbolism of these planes are contained within, and coordinated by the Self. It is simply that the level of consciousness of the aspirant requires that the Self only reveal certain of its aspects. Therefore, in Malkuth the guide appears as the "shadow," in Yesod as the "anima/animus," and in Tiphareth as the Guru or Angel. As consciousness develops, communication improves and the reliability of advice becomes better due to the lessened interference by interpretations and doubts of the ego. All of the preliminary mental training of the lower spheres is designed to train and discipline the mind as a preparation for meditation. When one becomes able to meditate consistently and has a program for doing so, rituals of transformation are no longer necessary. Then the entire life is devoted and consecrated to the Great Work in a 24 hours-a-day program.
Training in pathworking and active imagination is all preliminary to the magician's major purpose, invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel (see Book VI, Art, "The Retirement Ritual"). Information and practice experience concerning archetypes and their influence designed to give one practical experience on the Astral Plane, but also to burn out the fascination with the inner movies of this lower level of experience of inner life. When speaking of Tiphareth initiation, the student should be warned regarding the calling up of the Angel outside of a school of mystical practice. While it may seem a simple task to "get in touch with oneself," in practice it requires a great deal of direction. Consider the value of the psychologist in analysis to the client. In spiritual matters, the need for guidance and peer review is even more dramatic. In Zen Buddhism, the experiences of the meditator are always subject to critique.
Remember, a teacher can take you no further than he or she has gone. So, if an order teaches up to the level of Tiphareth only, they will be offering no further assistance. Nevertheless, "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." If one is truly at Tiphareth-level, help should be forthcoming spontaneously. The danger of proceeding on one's own comes from the fact that the mind and active imagination are very tricky, and other entities can appear disguised as one's guide or Angel. Only a mystical school of inner development can teach the manner of testing and banishing these tricks of imagination. Only the true guide can withstand the tests of discriminating among the spirits. And only a teacher who can penetrate past the realm of the mind, at will, can initiate on this level. Most magickal teachers, and Gurus have no training past the point of Tiphareth. Therefore, they consider the highest experience to be merging in the Universal Mind. Those who go further are known as Masters, Saints, or Param Sant Sat Gurus.
So-called "Ascended Masters" are of limited use at this stage, since they cannot initiate any souls from the higher levels. In order to gain spiritual benefit from a Master, both teacher and disciple need to be in a physical body at the same time, at least at the time of initiation. Again, these visions of Ascended Masters are most frequently figments of the imagination or mind, intriguing through they may be. They are neither to be sought out, nor relied upon, since they cannot help the soul to liberate itself from the Causal Plane. This may leave the reader somewhat bewildered regarding further progress. Therefore, it is recommended that one seek "professional" spiritual help, by contacting a living Master on a mystical path of God-Realization, if the highest union is desired. In this case the Master (or Sat Guru) takes upon himself complete responsibility for the soul of the initiate, assuring it will reach its goal through the most efficient means.
The Master becomes a composite symbol for the initiate. Ever-after his vision of the Self will be in the form of the master, and he will learn to contact his master's radiant form within. The Master is a living role model, and his directions and teachings, obeyed implicitly will provide the aspirant with the only shortcut available -- a bona fide program of mystical meditation. There are always such living Masters on the physical plane, and we needn't have recourse to ascended master who are of no further practical value. Ultimately, of course, all Masters are One, since they are equally Son of the Father, and come from the highest spiritual regions to do their work of collecting souls. However, if one has no luck in finding or acquiring initiation from a living Master, one must deal only with the resources at hand. Masters, after all, choose us, we do not choose them. They claim only certain souls are marked for their direction. It doesn't mean one is unworthy, just that they are not your designated teacher. This leaves some seekers dealing with the mind through active imagination, doing meditation for contacting one's inner guide. One should begin this exercise in a condition of psychological equilibrium, or stability, not in any times of crisis. Adopt both a relaxed attitude and position, but one in which you will not fall asleep. Close the eyes and drop into a reverie state.
Using the symbolism of Tiphareth as a take-off point let impressions begin to guide your attention. Take an active role in the unfolding drama, rather than just watching yourself go through the motions. Preserve the feeling of looking out from your own eyes, feeling the sensations of the astral body. If you are ready for this experience, you should have gained enough training to formulate your own "entrance" to the Causal Plane, using appropriate symbolism. None will be given here, since each aspirant should create his own unique method of access. Perhaps, in past meditations you have been given your Angel's "name", as revealed through intuition. If this is the case, keep the name firmly in mind, repeating it while maintaining a sense of expectancy. Properly done, the Angel's countenance will appear spontaneously from the darkness, preceded by faint glimmerings of light and possibly some sounds such as the roar of the sea, or distant thundering. If you hear any entity speaking to you, but can't see it, demand that it appear before you, then banish to make sure it is not a lower level apparition. If the entity withstands the banishing (pass a flaming pentagram through it), you may begin to ask questions.
True inner guides will appear in human-like form on the Causal, though they may seen to have wings or radiant auras. They project a life-giving healing, rejuvenating warmth, and give a feeling of absolute peace and serenity. The inner guide may not speak spontaneously. You must question it directly, and you will only obtain answers if the ego is willing to accept the information. Do not spend too much time on frivolous questions about your love life, desires, the future, etc. The guide will function as your bridge to higher levels of awareness providing you don't succumb to egoic desires. Since high magick or mystical meditation is the only course left open for further soul growth and connection with the Neschamah, one might ask the Angel how to contact a teacher who is qualified to initiate the soul on these levels.
Or in other words, ask the Angel, "How may I proceed further on my quest?" At this point the Angel may offer suggestions, or the image of the Angel may be replaced by the vision of one's future teacher. This face may not be recognized until a much later time, when the master is met on the physical plane. If one continues to enjoin the Angel concerning further progress, the answer will inevitably be forthcoming. It is not even a matter of time, but inevitable, since we are speaking of a timeless/spaceless realm of actualized potential. Remember, if you feel you have gotten a true contact with your Angel, you must apply its advice in your daily life. If you do not make the advice practical, you may lose the contact, and be unable to re-establish it. But be very careful that the advice you have gotten comes from the higher mind, or you may be led irretrievably astray into a low level of psychism and stuck in the Astral. We are not speaking about a vague psychic awareness of direction, but a face to face meeting on the inner planes, the nature of which is unimpeachable. The dynamics should be such that it is an irresistible impulse to fulfill one's True Will. Similarly, initiations should be forestalled until it is impossible to resist, and the mind is completely satisfied or it will thwart the spiritual current with lack of practice, hesitation and doubt. Your inner guide isn't about to volunteer any information at all, so always be prepared to ask your questions during the overwhelming inspiration which the angel brings.
It is a good idea to formulate the questions beforehand, though they are subject to revision during the illuminative period. Should you enter the inner planes at a lower level, getting say an animal form, be kind and gentle with it. Then ask who its superior is, and how to contact that being. Imagine you are rising on the planes of awareness and penetrating a higher level, and wait for that superior entity to contact you. Do not be lulled into an astral experience by becoming fascinated with the local color. For example, Hawaii can be an interesting place to visit, but is merely a way-station in the ocean if we are heading to India, China or Tibet to meet a great spiritual teacher. Warning Note: Never attempt any work on the inner planes with the use of intoxicants, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroine, etc. Psychedelics may seem to free up the imagination for a rise in consciousness, but in reality they cloud the mind, and inhibit the higher faculties of discrimination. They may produce a seeming mind-expansion, but even psychologists call them false-ego states -- a trick of the mind.
The experience is different for everyone and is never repeatable like true spiritual growth which is fully integrated into the personality. We should be able to use imagination and meditation to enter these regions and withdraw from them at will, rather than being carried away on a trip in a regressive dissolution of consciousness. Remember, Causal-Plane-awareness means the mental faculties are fully present, not diminished through intoxicants which return us to the most primitive mode (prototaxic). Ken Wilber has spoken of this distinction as the "pre-, trans- fallacy"; The regression to pre-conscious aspects, though it appears similar in some ways, is certainly not equivalent to the transcendental nature of conscious development let alone Grace (syntaxic) which comes through consistent meditative practice. High Magick is not a shamanistic pursuit. When one enters "holy ground" the mind should be cleansed and pure. When the attention is concentrated within in a focused manner, archetypal forces are awakened, or revealed to the aspirant. Awareness of daily life and sensory impulses is suspended during the meditation for contacting one's angel. Upon completion of your session, be sure to write any results in your magickal journal.
If the contact is poorly defined, watch your dreams for the next couple of days for further insight, or guidance. If these seem consistent with correct spiritual principles, work with these suggestions in your next meditation period. This creative Archetypal Imagination is a stage up from the practice of simple Active Imagination. It is designed for an experience of the higher mind, through which we can perceive the pure form of the archetypes as they appear in the mind, uncontaminated by our personal ego-complexes. They are more themselves, and less colored by our personal bias, or prejudice. This does not mean they will not appear in a culturally-programmed form. A good Christian is likely to have a vision of the higher Self, which he would call "Christ," his ascended master. The mind seeks out that vision of Realization which the ego can comprehend. It is automatic. For example, you don't find people having NDEs where Jesus appears in the tunnel of light, in India. By personifying the higher self, we can develop feelings of living devotion which open the heart. This "heart-chakra" activation is frequently felt in the camaraderie of a religious or spiritual group, and is quite supportive in that it forms a conducive atmosphere for further growth. That atmosphere fosters and supports consistency in meditation.
Opening of the heart-center, through whatever means, shifts emphasis from an analytical mode into that which is spontaneously uplifting.
The image of the heart -- "l'immagine del cuor" -- was an important idea in the work of Michaelangelo who was strongly influenced by the Platonist tradition. Imagining with the heart refers to a mode of perception that penetrates through names and physical appearances to a personified interior image, from the heart to the heart. ...By imagining through and beyond what the eyes see, the imagination envisions primordial images. And these represent themselves in personified forms. ...Loving is a way of knowing, and for loving to know, it must personify. Personifying is thus a way of knowing, especially knowing what is invisible, hidden in the heart. In this perspective personifying is not a lesser, primitive mode of apprehending but a finer one. It presents in psychological theory the attempt to integrate heart into method and to return abstract thoughts and dead matter to their human shapes. ...personifying is an epistemology of the heart, a thought mode of feeling. ...My soul is not the result of objective facts that require explanation; rather it reflects subjective experiences that require understanding. To understand anything at all, we must envision it as having an independent subjective interior existence, capable of experience, obliged to a history, motivated by purposes and intentions. We must always think anthropomorphically, even personally. ...we do not actually personify at all. Mythical consciousness is a mode of being in the world that brings with it imaginal persons...where imagination reigns, personifying happens...The persons present themselves as existing prior to any effort of ours to personify. To mythic consciousness, the persons of the imagination are real. - (James Hillman/Re-Visioning Psychology, p. 13-22).
The Angel is a personified soul-image in the tradition of the alchemical Anima Mundi, the Shekinah or the eastern Gurus and Sat Gurus. It is the magickal version of daimon or muse, in its most exalted aspect. Hillman speaks further on personifying in reference to the Anima or World Soul, which is his personified equivalent of magick's Holy Guardian Angel.
She teaches personifying, and the very first lesson of her teaching is the reality of her independent personality over and against the habitual modes of experiencing with which we are so identified that they are called ego, I. The second lesson is love; she comes to life through love and insists on it, just as Psyche in the old tale is paired forever with Eros. Perhaps the loving comes first. Perhaps only through love is it possible to recognize the person of the soul. And this connection between love and psyche means a love for everything psychological, every symptom or habit, finding place for it within the heart of imagination, finding a mythical person who is its supportive ground. ...Whether we conceive of this interior person as Anima or as an Angel, a Daemon, a Genius, or a paredros, or one of the personified souls in the traditions of ancient China and Egypt, this figure is indispensable to the notion of human personality. Some traditions, in fact have asserted that an individual without his soul figure is not a human being. Such a one has lost soul. (Ibid, p. 43-44).
Do not be overly concerned about the sex of your inner guide. It can appear in many forms. Most typically the inner Self of man is male, while the innermost aspect of a woman is female. The being most frequently appears as androgynous, or asexual. A woman who has a master who happens to be male will experience the higher self as this male form, without hampering her feminine progress. A female teacher for a male enhances his ability to perceive his soul in female form as Anima. Hillman's description of the Anima, for example, corresponds in many ways to the Tarot Trump II, the High Priestess. Therefore, for him she appears to be functioning as a bridge from the heart-center to Kether, but he has no access past the Briatic, or Causal level, of psychological awareness, (at least from this description).
Abraham Elim
>> *Rose Cross Over the Baltic*
>> by Susanna Akerman, page 97.
>> (Preview @GoogleBooks)
>> http://tinyurl.com/2dk8v7h
>
To be clear - 'Abramelin' is one of the garbled instances of the name Abraham Elim.
Quoting below from Akerman's *Rose Cross Over the Baltic*:
"Carlos Gilly's documentary project shows that there was a copy in Tubingen of the 1609 redaction of *Cabala Mystica - the Book of Sacred Magic* attributed to Abraham ben Simeon of Worms, prefaced by his memoir begun at the death of his father on the sixth in the month of Tebeth, 1379. Addressing his son Lamech, Abraham describes a journey that he undertook in 1397 through Bavaria, Tyrol, and Hungary to Constantinople, and from there to kabbalists and magicians in Palestine and Egypt.
Many years later, near the Nile in 1409, Abraham ben Simeon found a profound master, the Aramaic speaking *Rabbi Abraham Elim*, who taught him the Divine Mysteries."
And from here, Susanna goes on to discuss Abraham of Worm's companion, Christoph, as a model for Christian Rosencreutz in the *Fama Fraternitatis*.
>> *Tselem: The Representation of the Astral Body*
>> by Gershom Scholem
>> (Translated by Scott J. Thompson in 1987)
>> http://tinyurl.com/ajaj9h
>
> This one does in fact mention Gnosticism and the concept of the "personal daemon"
> - thus supporting my own findings. Though, it doesn't go so far as to relate it
> to Abramelin, so far as I could tell.
Quoting below from Scholem's *Tselem: The Representation of the Astral Body*:
"A problem has been created in this regard with a peculiar pseudepigraph. In the German version, it has been given the
title *Des Juden Abraham von Worms buch der wahren Praktik in der uralten göttlichen Magie un in erstaunlichen Dingen, wie sie durch die heilige Kabbala und durch Elohym mitgeteilt worden* (The Jew Abraham of Worms's Book of the True Praxis in the Ancient Divine Magic and Astounding Things, as They Have been Transmitted though the Holy Kabbalah and Elohim) allegedly from Cologne, 1725.
In the more widely distributed English version it carries the title, *The Book of the Secret Magic of Abramelin<sic> the Mage, as delivered by Abraham the Jew unto his Son Lamech*, and it was translated and edited from a French manuscript by S.L. MacGregor Mathers in London in 1898.
The conjuration of the personal guardian angel with its associated preparatory rituals is the central focus of this book. Whether it was actually written by a Jewish occultist of the Renaissance, as it purports (and in favor of which the author's especially thorough knowledge of Hebrew attests), or was actually written by a German author who sought a sympathetic understanding of Judaism, needs to be more thoroughly investigated."
Along the same lines, Scholem also discusses the operation in the *Picatrix* <aka *Ghayat al-Hakim*> for contacting one's personal angel, or daemon: the *Mystical Kabbalah* of Abraham Elim is not unique in that regard.
And, no, Scholem doesn't 'support your findings' - whatever those may be, since you have yet to produce anything remotely resembling a scholarly argument supported by any citations at all.
Both Scholem and Mottolese see this as being in the tradition of the astral <which is to say, "of the stars; celestial"> tselem or demuth, by-the-way: below is my original quote from Mottolese:
"According to numerous Pietist texts, the prophets achieve visions and teachings only by the mediation of ministering angels, who receive the 'secrets' on high and communicate them down below.
This angel represents their 'upper image', which precedes their birth and coincides with their celestial star."
~ Maurizio Mottolese, *Analogy in Midrash and Kabbalah: Interpretive Projections of Sanctuary and Ritual*, Cherub Press, 2007, page 185.
And snide? Compared to the critical reviews of your work elsewhere online, I could almost be mistaken for one of your fans!
I still haven't received my original email or any of the replies from Yahoo - responding by directly quoting the emails at the site - please pardon any formatting errors.
Cors in Manu Domine,
~ Khem Caigan
<[email protected]>
" Every Angel who is an Archon of the zodiacal sign (/sar mazzal/) of a person when it is sent below has the image of
the person who is under it....
And this is the meaning of 'And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him' (Gen. 1:27).
Why is [it written] twice, 'in His image' and 'in the image'?
One image refers to the image of man and the other to the image of the Angel of the zodiacal sign that is in the image
of the man. "
~ from:
*Hokhmah ha-Nefesh*,
by R. Eleazar of Worms
[ Note : /mazzal/ means constellation, planet, planetary influence, destiny, and guardian angel.
It is associated with the root *MZL*, meaning "to flow", which, in the *Zohar*, refers to the flow emanating from the divine phallus, comprised by the spheres from Binah through Yesod.
Yesod conveys this flow to the Shekinah, engendering the souls of the newborn. ]
The connection between Gnostic cosmology and Abramelin is something I've published about previously. You can read it here:
The Holy Guardian Angel
http://kheph777.tripod.com/art_HGA.html
Scroll down to "Gnostic Influence Upon the Holy Guardian Angel." Remember that Abramelin lived in Egypt, the home of the Coptic Gnostics- and the Rite of Abramelin shows a marked Gnostic influence. However, since I am the only scholar so far to analyse the Abramelin text in this fashion, I can only quote myself as a written source.
My understanding of the place of the Holy Guardian Angel in the celestial hierarchies has come from a combination of what is stated in the Book of Abramelin, my comparative studies of Abramelin and Gnosticism, what is said of the Holy Guardian Angel in Agrippa's work, various rituals in different cultures that are similar to Abramelin (such as Santeria's "Ocha" ceremony) and- yes- from direct revelation from my Guardian Angel herself.
LVX
Aaron
> On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 2:24 PM, AaronL <kheph777@...> wrote:
>
> > Contrary to what Crowley and the Golden Dawn insisted, the Bornless One is
> > neither the Holy Guardian Angel nor the Higher Genius. The Bornless One is
> > the Gnostic Logos. (Actually, since we're talking about the PGM, it is
> > actually proto-Gnostic.)
> >
> > The HGA concept has very close connections to the Logos, as well as to
> > Sophia. When the Logos and Sophia (Father and Mother) are joined, they
> > produce the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit (or Ruach Elohim) is a universal
> > concept - and the HGA is your personal emessary of that universal force.
> >
> > Or, to put it simply, the Bornless One is your HGA's boss.
>> by Susanna Akerman, page 97.
>> (Preview @GoogleBooks)
>> http://tinyurl.com/2dk8v7h
>
To be clear - 'Abramelin' is one of the garbled instances of the name Abraham Elim.
Quoting below from Akerman's *Rose Cross Over the Baltic*:
"Carlos Gilly's documentary project shows that there was a copy in Tubingen of the 1609 redaction of *Cabala Mystica - the Book of Sacred Magic* attributed to Abraham ben Simeon of Worms, prefaced by his memoir begun at the death of his father on the sixth in the month of Tebeth, 1379. Addressing his son Lamech, Abraham describes a journey that he undertook in 1397 through Bavaria, Tyrol, and Hungary to Constantinople, and from there to kabbalists and magicians in Palestine and Egypt.
Many years later, near the Nile in 1409, Abraham ben Simeon found a profound master, the Aramaic speaking *Rabbi Abraham Elim*, who taught him the Divine Mysteries."
And from here, Susanna goes on to discuss Abraham of Worm's companion, Christoph, as a model for Christian Rosencreutz in the *Fama Fraternitatis*.
>> *Tselem: The Representation of the Astral Body*
>> by Gershom Scholem
>> (Translated by Scott J. Thompson in 1987)
>> http://tinyurl.com/ajaj9h
>
> This one does in fact mention Gnosticism and the concept of the "personal daemon"
> - thus supporting my own findings. Though, it doesn't go so far as to relate it
> to Abramelin, so far as I could tell.
Quoting below from Scholem's *Tselem: The Representation of the Astral Body*:
"A problem has been created in this regard with a peculiar pseudepigraph. In the German version, it has been given the
title *Des Juden Abraham von Worms buch der wahren Praktik in der uralten göttlichen Magie un in erstaunlichen Dingen, wie sie durch die heilige Kabbala und durch Elohym mitgeteilt worden* (The Jew Abraham of Worms's Book of the True Praxis in the Ancient Divine Magic and Astounding Things, as They Have been Transmitted though the Holy Kabbalah and Elohim) allegedly from Cologne, 1725.
In the more widely distributed English version it carries the title, *The Book of the Secret Magic of Abramelin<sic> the Mage, as delivered by Abraham the Jew unto his Son Lamech*, and it was translated and edited from a French manuscript by S.L. MacGregor Mathers in London in 1898.
The conjuration of the personal guardian angel with its associated preparatory rituals is the central focus of this book. Whether it was actually written by a Jewish occultist of the Renaissance, as it purports (and in favor of which the author's especially thorough knowledge of Hebrew attests), or was actually written by a German author who sought a sympathetic understanding of Judaism, needs to be more thoroughly investigated."
Along the same lines, Scholem also discusses the operation in the *Picatrix* <aka *Ghayat al-Hakim*> for contacting one's personal angel, or daemon: the *Mystical Kabbalah* of Abraham Elim is not unique in that regard.
And, no, Scholem doesn't 'support your findings' - whatever those may be, since you have yet to produce anything remotely resembling a scholarly argument supported by any citations at all.
Both Scholem and Mottolese see this as being in the tradition of the astral <which is to say, "of the stars; celestial"> tselem or demuth, by-the-way: below is my original quote from Mottolese:
"According to numerous Pietist texts, the prophets achieve visions and teachings only by the mediation of ministering angels, who receive the 'secrets' on high and communicate them down below.
This angel represents their 'upper image', which precedes their birth and coincides with their celestial star."
~ Maurizio Mottolese, *Analogy in Midrash and Kabbalah: Interpretive Projections of Sanctuary and Ritual*, Cherub Press, 2007, page 185.
And snide? Compared to the critical reviews of your work elsewhere online, I could almost be mistaken for one of your fans!
I still haven't received my original email or any of the replies from Yahoo - responding by directly quoting the emails at the site - please pardon any formatting errors.
Cors in Manu Domine,
~ Khem Caigan
<[email protected]>
" Every Angel who is an Archon of the zodiacal sign (/sar mazzal/) of a person when it is sent below has the image of
the person who is under it....
And this is the meaning of 'And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him' (Gen. 1:27).
Why is [it written] twice, 'in His image' and 'in the image'?
One image refers to the image of man and the other to the image of the Angel of the zodiacal sign that is in the image
of the man. "
~ from:
*Hokhmah ha-Nefesh*,
by R. Eleazar of Worms
[ Note : /mazzal/ means constellation, planet, planetary influence, destiny, and guardian angel.
It is associated with the root *MZL*, meaning "to flow", which, in the *Zohar*, refers to the flow emanating from the divine phallus, comprised by the spheres from Binah through Yesod.
Yesod conveys this flow to the Shekinah, engendering the souls of the newborn. ]
The connection between Gnostic cosmology and Abramelin is something I've published about previously. You can read it here:
The Holy Guardian Angel
http://kheph777.tripod.com/art_HGA.html
Scroll down to "Gnostic Influence Upon the Holy Guardian Angel." Remember that Abramelin lived in Egypt, the home of the Coptic Gnostics- and the Rite of Abramelin shows a marked Gnostic influence. However, since I am the only scholar so far to analyse the Abramelin text in this fashion, I can only quote myself as a written source.
My understanding of the place of the Holy Guardian Angel in the celestial hierarchies has come from a combination of what is stated in the Book of Abramelin, my comparative studies of Abramelin and Gnosticism, what is said of the Holy Guardian Angel in Agrippa's work, various rituals in different cultures that are similar to Abramelin (such as Santeria's "Ocha" ceremony) and- yes- from direct revelation from my Guardian Angel herself.
LVX
Aaron
> On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 2:24 PM, AaronL <kheph777@...> wrote:
>
> > Contrary to what Crowley and the Golden Dawn insisted, the Bornless One is
> > neither the Holy Guardian Angel nor the Higher Genius. The Bornless One is
> > the Gnostic Logos. (Actually, since we're talking about the PGM, it is
> > actually proto-Gnostic.)
> >
> > The HGA concept has very close connections to the Logos, as well as to
> > Sophia. When the Logos and Sophia (Father and Mother) are joined, they
> > produce the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit (or Ruach Elohim) is a universal
> > concept - and the HGA is your personal emessary of that universal force.
> >
> > Or, to put it simply, the Bornless One is your HGA's boss.
21st C. Mage - http://books.google.com/books?id=u4ip1W11aGMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=21st+century+mage+newcomb&source=bl&ots=6_MyLsDLjZ&sig=phL0_izuGSS9vw5MP1pOokZJHhk&hl=en&ei=GifoTOqqI4eksQOvnMCxCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
