I. Introduction
“The
occult”, and its corresponding study, “occultism” or “the
occult sciences”, are designations whose meaning is typically far
from clear. More or less equivalently, one often hears talk of “the
esoteric” and “esotericism”. While there are clear historical
lines of development, traced for example by Antoine Faivre (see his
Access
to Western Esotericism),
it is often the case that these more scholarly presentations
privelege a certain external understanding of the disciplines and
their subject matter, or, also quite commonly, a certain tradition or
certain time period’s definition at the exclusion of any others.
Regardless, we shall try to explore some general features, whatever
the academically problematic nature may be.
“Occult”
means “hidden”, but the nature of what is hidden, as well as that
of the hiding itself, are rather opaque. The usual way to interpret
this is that occult knowledge is for the elite, that it is somehow
unfit for the eyes of the unworthy. The secrets of magickal orders
are frequently guarded for this purpose. However, it seems more
likely that the secrets will remain secret to those not ready for
them, even if those unworthy people confront them head-on in a text
or try to implement them in practice. This is because the secrets are
layers of interpretation; occult “secrets” need not be hidden to
keep them from the unwashed masses. But this is not to be interpreted
as a kind of egalitarian statement of itself; it is still true that
there must be some sort of levels of initiation (or initiations in
different things), though even this is likely up for debate. In any
case, it is not always a matter of hierarchy.
Occult
knowledge is knowledge that is hidden,
a state that is sometimes called “subtle”, in contrast to the
“coarse” knowledge of the natural sciences. Occult knowledge is
subtle because it does not correspond to directly tangible,
universally-organized scientific reality. To apprehend occult forces
is itself a subtle feat, one that cannot necessarily be replicated in
scientific conditions, which work to reduce or even entirely
eliminate the influence of teleologies, “subjective” influences,
and particularities, all hallmarks of the occult. The relationship of
the hard or natural sciences to the occult is one that is fraught
with technical difficulties, but I hope to return to it in a later
presentation. This presentation, then, will deal primarily with the
occult in general – what it is, its history and various traditions,
and a brief thought about why it works (because it really does
work!).
A
preliminary note: To understand the occult, we must take what I will
call an “internal” view of the matter. This means we must look at
it from the perspective of a believer, one involved in it as a way of
life. If we look at occult phenomena and practices merely from the
perspective of a skeptical observer, I can tell you right now that it
will not work. What you put in is typically what you get out, though
magnified to some degree. It might be said that occultism is the
science of belief, using belief to do psychological work; this in
turn requires symbols, gestures, and all the trappings of ceremonial
magick. But this is just a psychologistic interpretation of the
occult, though by no means is it illegitimate. As is frequently said,
the neophyte typically begins with a psychologistic, skeptical
position on the occult, but as they amass more and more successes and
experience more and more unexplainable phenomena, they typically
become more direct believers.
In
any case, it will not do to look at an occult text “from the
outside”. In that case, one completely misses the point, since
occultism is, as I have said, about belief,
about willpower. If you do not will, you cannot understand what is
meant by the various occult theses you will come upon. Occultism is
unabashedly perspectival, it is not universal as is science or most
other forms of discourse. It is not based primarily upon rhetorical
commonalities, emotional connections, or logical deductions, and
hence is not generically intelligible. Another example: having a
vision can be explained scientifically by looking at certain neural
firings in the brain, and so on, but this in no way even touches on
the significance of the experience “from the inside”. The inside
perspective is that of the occult practitioner, and it is futile to
refute this from without.
II.
A Brief History of Occultism
In
this part of the presentation, I will not go over the entirety of the
occult’s history, which is undoubtedly as long as that of
humankind, stretching from prehistoric shamanism (insofar as that
word can account for a long-lasting and wide variety of phenomena) to
contemporary expressions of postmodern chaos magic. Instead, I will
focus on a few broad traditions: Hermeticism, Enochian Magic, The
Golden Dawn, Thelema, Temple of Set, Chaos Magick, and Witchcraft.
II.A.
Hermeticism
Hermeticism
is one of the oldest extant forms of magick of which we have a rather
good record (the Greek
and Demotic Magical Papyri
are a good source, as well as the so-called Curse
Tablets).
This kind of magick started in Greece and Egypt, and was a product of
several “streams” or influences: Gnosticism, Hebrew theology,
Egyptian magick, and Greek magick, combined into a novel form.
Hermetic magick is the single greatest influence on all magick that
came after it, and there are many sorts of magick that are called
“hermetic” which deviate significantly from the sort of sorcery
found in the Magical Papyri.
Hermetic
magick is named after Hermes (the Roman Mercury), who was equated by
the magicians with the Egyptian neter
(God-principle) Thoth, the god of magic and science. Typical hermetic
spells were things like love spells, spells to vanquish enemies, and
spells for protection from baleful spirits or forces. Casting these
spells typically involved elaborate ingredients (such as “the blood
of a black ass” and various rare compounded plant materials), words
of power (voces
magicae),
and various ceremonial gestures. There were also so-called “high
magick” practices (magick used for initiation or for achieving some
kind of divinity), as opposed to these practical “low magick”
(aka “sorcery”) operations. High magick, though, would in general
not become the primary form of magick until perhaps the Renaissance.
Magick
was at this point a kind of outsider art, but was practiced by the
learned. Hermetic magick did not discriminate based upon culture or
pantheon, itself being born from a novel mixture. Greek gods were
invoked side-by-side with their Egyptian counterparts, and often gods
were identified with one another more or less wholesale.
Hermeticism’s
primary tenets can be found in the Corpus
Hermeticum;
in particular I recommend everyone read The
Poimander.
Later, hermeticism’s principles, which include polarity, the
various spiritual worlds, and the doctrine of the elements, would
develop into ceremonial magick as we know it today, including into
the eclectic and in spirit thoroughly hermetic works of Franz Bardon,
even exerting and enormous influence on the grimoire tradition of the
middle ages and the Renaissance. A great contemporary introduction to
hermeticism, in its more modern and theoretical or “high magick”
form, is The
Kybalion
by The Three Initiates. If you are still unsure as to what
hermeticism is after this meeting, I would recommend you read The
Kybalion.
Another good reading, more thoroughly historical, and containing
translations of the magical papyri, is Stephen Flowers’s Hermetic
Magic.
II.B.
Enochian Magic
Enochian
magic was transmitted to Dr. John Dee and his seer, Sir Edward
Kelley, during the reign of Elizabeth I. Kelley would gaze into a
crystal ball while Dee performed ceremonial gestures, chants,
prayers, and so on. In the crystal, Kelley perceived angels who gave
him a language, Enochian, the “language of the angels”, as well
as various invocations or “keys”, containing according to one
theory the power to, if successfully performed, open the watchtowers
at the edge of the universe and let in the forces of chaos (the demon
Choronzon), effectively ushering in the apocalypse.
The
angels told Dee and Kelley all kinds of very disturbing things,
urging them to share their wives in common, to endanger themselves by
denouncing Emperor Rudolf and admonishing him to follow the angels’
teachings, and to cast aside morality. Kelley asked an angel why they
were telling them to commit so many sins, and the angel replied,
“What is sin?”, after which the two men attempted an explanation,
to no avail.
Enochian
magick is extremely powerful (I have very little experience with it).
The works of Aaron Leitch are supposed to be very good for anyone who
is interested. Aside from being so powerful, the story of Dee and
Kelley is worth looking into in much greater detail than I can
provide here.
II.C.
The Golden Dawn
Undoubtedly
the most prominent magickal order of modern times is the Golden Dawn,
active primarily from the end of the 19th
century through the first few years of the 20th.
The Golden Dawn was headed primarily by S.L. Macgregor Mathers, who
found a secret “cipher” manuscript written by a German adept and
containing the authority to set up a new magickal order in England.
Mathers decoded the cipher and wrote to the adept, who, by her
authority derived from the “Secret Chiefs”, gave the go-ahead to
Mathers.
Why
did Mathers need such authority? At the time, it was a common occult
assumption that there was a secret society of world-historical
proportions that had been guarding ancient secrets for millenia; the
society is sometimes termed the “Great White Brotherhood” or the
“White Lodge”, the members thereof being termed the “Secret
Chiefs”, transcendent masters who were working behind the scenes to
guide humanity to spiritual evolution. This is, then, a rather
concretized version of the so-called perennial philosophy.
In
any casy, the Golden Dawn quickly became a potent force in the occult
world. Two of its most famous members are Aleister Crowley (greatest
magician of the age) and W.B. Yeats (the poet). The Golden Dawn
combined qabalah (the Hebrew “Tree of Life”, a kind of
meta-mythological emanationist philosophy/theology, dealt with more
below), tarot, Enochian magic (as noted above), hermetic magick
(including especially elemental magick), and so on. The Golden Dawn
had an elaborate grade structure based upon the spheres of the Tree
of Life. The Golden Dawn system of magick is very white-light, very
pious and holy, its primary instruments of practice being based
strongly on Judeo-christian mythology interspersed with Greek and
Egyptian paganism. In any case, a crisis precipitated the demise of
the Golden Dawn, though several spiritual successors and supposedly
legitimate offshoots now exist.
The
classic work on the Golden Dawn is simply titled The
Golden Dawn,
collected or “revealed” by Israel Regardie, Crowley’s one-time
secretary. A better introductory work is undoubtedly Peregrin
Wildoaks’ By
Names and Images: Bringing the Golden Dawn to Life.
II.D.
Thelema
After
Crowley left (or was kicked out of) the Golden Dawn, he eventually
formed his own occult philosophy called “Thelema”. While in Cairo
on a honeymoon with his wife Rose Kelly, Crowley received a text
called The
Book of the Law.
It happened something like this.
Rose
became despondent and began going into trance states, though she knew
nothing of magick nor mysticism. She started saying strange occult
things to Crowley, who thought she was just trying to trick him. She
said she was the messenger of Horus, so Crowley took her to the
museum in Cairo and asked her to point out Horus to him, thinking to
expose her game. She walked straight to the Stele
of Revealing,
numbered in the museum as exhibit 666, and pointed to Ra-hoor-khuit,
a composite god made from Ra and Horus. Crowley was astounded. She
then began to give him ritual instructions for the invocation of
Horus. Crowley, now believing her to be the messenger of that god,
took her back to their living quarters and did as she said. On three
successive days, March 20-22, from noon until 1pm, a figure appeared
in their temple (a room in their apartment) and dictated to Crowley
three chapters that would become The
Book of the Law.
The
first chapter is the perspective of Nuit, the Egyptian star-goddess,
goddess of the night sky, a circle of infinite circumference. Nuit is
a goddess of love, representing, among other things, the macrocosm,
the universe, and non-duality. The second chapter is the perspective
of Hadit, whose name is a mistranslation/mistake, but who is
represented as a kind of winged disk on the Stele
of Revealing.
Hadit is the infinitesimal point within, the highest contraction of
the soul, the serpent who raises his head to unite with Nuit in
bliss. Finally, the third chapter is the perspective of
Ra-hoor-khuit, in other words Horus. This chapter is incredibly
brutal, prophesying and even advocating violence and brutality. In
this chapter, Horus is the crowned and conquering child ushering in
the New Aeon.
The
Book of the Law indicated
that Crowley was the prophet of the New Aeon, the Aeon of Horus. This
aeon succeeded the previous Aeon of Osiris, which in turn succeeded
the Aeon of Isis (the characteristics of those gods supposedly having
some bearing on the general constitution of the age). The Aeon of
Horus was supposed to be one of force and fire, brutality, war, but
also freedom. In the Aeon of Osiris, the cult of the dying god ruled;
it was an aeon of restriction and suffering, represented by solar
gods such as Osiris (and also Jesus Christ). In the Aeon of Osiris,
the sun going down at night represented death, and the dawn the
rebirth to new life. The Aeon of Horus, by contrast, is supposed to
be stellar rather than solar, and to represent the insight that the
sun does not die, but is constantly burning. It is a very Nietzschean
sort of aeon, one of freedom, of will, and of love.
Crowley’s
system can be summed up in two doctrines: “Do what thou wilt shall
be the Whole of the Law” and “Love is the Law, Love under Will”.
The goal of Thelemic magick is to achieve “Knowledge and
Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel”, in other words to find
your True Will, and then to do
it.
Crowley, it would seem, mixed the “high magick” and eclectic
approach of the Golden Dawn with genuinely blasphemous heterodoxy and
a kind of emancipatory focus on will and freedom.
One
can read many of Crowley’s own texts for more information. In
particular, I recommend Gems
From the Equinox
and Magick:
Liber ABA, Book IV. Everyone
should read Liber
AL vel Legis: The Book of the Law!
II.E.
The Temple of Set
The
Temple of Set was born from the ashes of the Church of Satan. The
Temple of Set, however, is also a kind of successor to Crowley. The
focus of the Temple is “Left-Hand path” occultism, in other words
instead of seeking union with God, it seeks the deification of the
individual, a kind of full realization rather than an annihilation of
the ego. It too seeks a kind of “True Will”, but it tempers the
libertinism advocated by Crowley with its deep concern for autonomy
and the integrity of the self and the will.
The
Temple of Set advocates for a split between the “Subjective
Universe” and the “Objective Universe”, in other words
something rather similar to my own thoughts about the “interior”
and “exterior” perspectives, this time applied to individual
human beings. One should work to strengthen and control completely
one’s Subjective Universe, though magick can also influence the
Objective Universe from time to time. The Temple, therefore, has an
eclectic and non-dogmatic approach to magickal systems, though always
with the above focus.
The
best readings on the Temple are probably as follows: Uncle
Setnakt’s Essential Guide to the Left Hand Path
by Don Webb, and The
Seven Faces of Darkness
also by Don Webb (for a more immediate and Hermetic approach).
Michael Aquino’s The
Temple of Set
is a good account of the doctrines and history of the Temple.
II.F.
Chaos Magick
Chaos
magick is basically postmodern magick that eschews any kind of
systematization. It is radically individualist, believing that one
should use what works and discard the rest, with “what works”
being irreducibly individual. Beyond that, there is not too much to
say about “chaotes”, as they are often called. Chaos magick is
usually non-symbolic or personally symbolic, breaking rituals down to
their simplest psychological components.
Good
introductions to chaos magick include: Peter Carroll’s Liber
Null and Psychonaut,
Stephen Mace’s Stealing
the Fire From Heaven,
and most stuff by Robert Anton Wilson.
II.G.
Witchcraft
Generally
speaking, there are two primary forms of witchcraft around today:
“wicca” and “traditional witchcraft”.
Wicca
was consolidated (or invented, depending on who you ask) by Gerald
Gardner in the 20th
century. Wicca is primarily a form of New Age moon goddess-worship.
It does utilize magic, but is not really part of the usual “occult”
trajectory, being more a religion than an occult system. Therefore I
will not really deal with it here.
“Traditional
witchcraft” is the name given to non-wiccan pagan witchcraft. It is
typically still based on the myths and folklore of the British Isles,
though it is far “darker” in tone than wicca. Some forms of
traditional witchcraft are almost full-on Luciferianism, worshiping
entities described in apocryphal biblical texts (like Azazel and the
“Watchers” from the Book of Enoch) right alongside the Horned God
and Earth Goddess types. The most esoteric and by far the most
interesting form of traditional witchcraft is the Cultus Sabbati,
formed and developed by Andrew Chumbley (who, if he had not died
young, would certainly have been the next Aleister Crowley!). He
wrote Azoetia
and
The
Dragon Book of Essex,
mixing Sufism, traditional pagan witchcraft, Crowley-type stuff, and
an emormous dose of Alpha Draconis-based dark spirituality.
A
good introduction to traditional witchcraft is lacking, but I would
probably recommend starting with Robin Artisson’s The
Witching Way of Hollow Hill.
III.
Occult Techniques & Theory
Now
that we have a basic grasp on the history and contemporary traditions
of occultism, we can take a brief look at the actual workings of
occultism, though in this area things get a lot more subtle, and a
lot more tentative.
III.A.
Myths & Symbols
Myths
and symbols are a huge part of occultism. Occult practice functions
primarily through symbol. Occult knowledge, it is sometimes said, can
only be transmitted in the form of symbol. Why is this? It is because
the imagination, particularly the symbolic imagination, has a
privileged position with regard to the Soul or Spirit (depending on
what vocabulary one uses, these words switch meanings). The Spirit as
the higher (or even highest) faculty of the human being cannot be
interacted with on the discursive level. In order to interact with
it, we must use symbol. The direct apprehension of the subtler
aspects of reality, therefore, must be transmitted via symbol. If we
“translate” the occult symbol into words, it loses this ability
and typically becomes a rather ridiculous sort of thesis. Often, when
trying to explain to people occult truths, both me and the listener
end up saying “what? That’s it??”
Myths,
furthermore, are just moving symbols, strings of symbols put together
to create (or rather express) more in-depth occult truths.
III.B.
Qabalah
The
qabalah is more or less the universal master key of the practice of
magick. Crowley explained that the Tree of Life was a “filing
cabinet” in which to place whatever element of reality. The Tree of
Life is more or less an enormous set of correspondences, a
meta-mythology. Osiris, for example, can be placed into sphere 6 of
the Tree of Life, Tiphareth. Odin can be placed, in his aspect as
King of the Gods, in the fourth sphere, Chesed; in his role as
initiator and god of magick, he can be placed in sphere 8, Hod. So
you see the flexibility of the qabalah as a meta-mythological
filing cabinet.
Aside
from this aspect, the qabalah has a definite philosophy associated
with it, derived from Jewish mysticism (the spelling often
differentiates the Jewish Kabbalah, Christian Cabbalah, and hermetic
Qabalah). It is a philosophy of emanation wherein God manifested
himself in 10 different aspects or “Sephiroth”, and in a definite
order. At the top are the three “veils of negative existence”,
the AIN SOPH AUR (the limitless light), AIN SOPH (the limitless), and
AIN (nothingness). After this, God manifested as a pure point,
Kether, the Crown. From here, God emanated into Chokmah, or Wisdom.
Chokmah is pure force, also associated with the Father. Wisdom then
gave birth to Binah, Understanding, the Mother, pure form. Next comes
the Abyss, which separates the top three, the “Supernal Triad”,
from the other seven spheres. The Abyss has great significance for
initiation, as it separates divine consciousness from the ego.
After
the Abyss comes a strange thing: a non-sephirah, a sphere that is not
one: Daath, Knowledge. In the Fall from the Garden of Eden, when Adam
and Eve ate from the “Tree of Knowledge”, they ate of Daath. As
the 11th
Sephirah, Daath is hidden, and is often described by Jewish
kabbalists as “the false sephirah”. Its mysteries are deep, and
we cannot plumb them here, but suffice it to say that the Fall of Man
resulted in the death of Daath and the creation of the Abyss between
the Supernal Triad and the lower sephiroth. There is a reason the
Tree of Life is not perfectly symmetrical now, though it once was.
The
first sephirah below the Abyss is Chesed, Mercy. It is after Chesed
that the right-hand pillar on the Tree of Life is named “The Pillar
of Mercy”. After Chesed comes Geburah, “Severity”, naming in
like manner the “Pillar of Severity”. After Geburah comes what is
basically the center of the Tree, in the Pillar of Mildness,
Tiphareth, or Beauty. Tiphareth is the Sun, the higher consciousness,
harmony, and so on. Attaining Tiphareth is attaining Knowledge and
Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. After Tiphareth comes
Netzach, Splendor, corresponding to Venus, inspiration, art, and so
on. After Netzach is Hod, the analytical intellect, Mercury,
intelligence, and magick. Then comes Yesod, the “Foundation” (of
the manifest world), corresponding to the Moon (on the middle pillar
below Tiphareth, the Sun), dreams, and so on. Finally, there is
Malkuth, the Kingdom, representing the Earth and the manifest
universe as we know it. It is in Malkuth where we begin our quest.
Finally,
there are said to be 4 “worlds” in qabalistic philosophy: Assiah
(the material), Yetzirah (the astral), Briah (the mental or
creative), and Atziluth (the archetypal or causal). Assiah is
self-explanatory, corresponding to Malkuth. Yetzirah corresponds to
Yesod up through Chesed, and is roughly equivalent to the imaginal
world of image; almost all magick works through the astral world.
Briah’s associations vary, but usually it corresponds to Binah and
Chokmah. It is kind of like Plato’s world of Ideas, but more
mystical. Finally, Atziluth corresponds to Kether and is almost
completely beyond human understanding.
There
is an enormous amount of information out there on the qabalah. The
Golden Dawns’ grades are based on the spheres on the Tree of Life.
III.C.
Ceremonial Magick
The
practice of ceremonial magick is usually based on the qabalah. But
even if it is not, it usually functions by two primary magickal
means: names and images.
Holy
names or words, voces
magicae,
are in a ritual setting inseparable from the concept which they are
supposed to “signify”. Words thus have a very different function
in a ritual, being not mere significations, but active doings.
They activate Mental
(Briatic) powers. These words are to be vibrated
rather than just spoken – that means they should be projected
loudly and slowly, using muscles in the chest and throat to increase
resonance. They should sound almost like Tibetan throat singing if
done correctly (this is hard, I admit).
Images,
in the context of ceremonial magick, invoke aspects or forces in the
astral world. Images are particularly signaled by color; color
imagination is very important in Golden Dawn style magick in
particular. An image of a spirit or angel, for example, is supposed
to actually take on the powers and significance of that angel itself,
and should really be inseparable from that of which it is the image.
One way to think about it might be this: we create an image of a
spirit we wish to interact with, making it as lifelike as possible,
including the correct colors. Then with a magick word we breathe it
into life (the Briatic world is also called the “creative”
world). This is how we invoke or interact with, for example, the
archangels in the typical Golden Dawn rituals for banishing or
invoking.
Speaking
of which, there are two general forms of Golden Dawn magick:
banishing and invoking. Banishing works just like it sounds, getting
rid of unwanted influences in the spiritual or even material realm.
Banishing is best done before moving on to other more delicate
procedures. Invoking rituals, on the other hand, summon a specific
power to inhabit the body of the magician or the temple in general.
Dramatic invocation is a particularly potent form of invocation,
where a particular god is called to inhabit the magician’s body and
mind; this is different from spirit possession (also called
“mediumistic possession”) because the magician does not lose
control over their body or mind, but are rather filled with divine
consciousness and presence of the specified type.
A
typical ceremonial magickal working might include the following:
first a banishing ritual to clear the air and create an aura of
sanctity; then a preliminary invoking ritual or rituals of some kind;
then the steps of a dramatic invocation, such as reading hymns to the
chosen god or so on; then, if necessary, another banishing ritual to
once more clear the air. Of course, not all workings are
straightforward invocations of a single god.
Much
ceremonial magick works through associations, and invocation
particularly so. For example, the east is associated with the
archangel Raphael, the season of Spring, dawn, the element air, the
color yellow, the divine name YHVH, and so on. Stringing together
associations can produce a rapid accumulation of surplus meaning or
sense, which can then be put to use in magickal activity, which
activity can then itself be thought of as a kind of interpretation
(one that transcends mundane reality, of course).
Or
again: in an invocation of the god Aries, I might proceed as follows.
I adorn my altar with the color red, placing an iron rod in a central
location. A picture of Aries hangs from the wall. It is warm in the
room, and there is as much fire as I can safely produce. Atu XVI, The
Tower, is displayed prominently. A martial song is playing in the
background. And so on. The goal is to make the mind oversaturated
with the imagery of the desired deity. The fact of association is
more important than the “objectivity” of the association. That
is, even if we think that no association is in itself necessary, we
might consider (in a structuralist way) the chain of these signifiers
as differing from other chains to be what is important. Tables of
associations are easily obtainable online, but one must really
actively associate the elements strongly in one’s mind for such an
invocation to work.
III.D.
Divination
Divination
is not merely the predicting of the future, as if the divination
itself were external to the matter. Through divination, we can
influence the outcome, or come to understand it better, and not
merely register it as an inevitability. Tarot is probably the most
fleshed-out and flexible system of divination, though runic
divination and the I
Ching
are also effective.
Divination
cannot be explained by scientific principles, because science deals
with universalities,
in this case specifically probabilities. But when we draw a card in a
tarot reading, we are not drawing a probability, we are drawing this
card,
and even if explained “you had a 1/78 chance of drawing that card”,
the irreducible specificity of this
card
does not even enter into the equation (and indeed, it cannot on
principle).
The
best divination is done for oneself, where you draw the cards and,
through long association and connection with outcomes of real events,
you immediately know
what the cards mean. In other words, you use your subconscious
immediate reaction to understand your own hidden associations with
the relevant cards. This is at least a good psychologistic
interpretation of the powers of tarot divination.
III.E.
Numerology
Much
of occultism is based on number. The qabalah is the most obvious
example, each sephirah corresponding to a number and the qualities
associated with that number. Pythagorean number mysticism is another
example.
Numerology,
in particular qabalistic “gematria”, is an easy way to build
associations. Each letter (in Hebrew, Greek, or English) is given a
value. Each word is the sum of the values of the individual letters.
Large resulting sums can furthermore be broken down into single-digit
numbers by taking the “cross sum”, that is, adding together each
digit. This can be repeated as necessary. For example: the sephira
“Geburah” is, in Hebrew, “GBRVH”, that is, 3 + 2 + 6 + 200 +
5 = 216. Furthermore, the cross sum of 216 is 2 + 1 + 6 = 9. We can
look up the associations of the number 216: wine, a man, fear,
cleanness, profound. Or, less significantly, for 9: to be strong,
powerful one, brother, to despise, to heat. This will supposedly give
us some insight in to the nature of Geburah. It is easy to get
carried away with gematria; take it with a grain of salt.
Another
interesting thing to consider is the numerical nature of conceptual
relations. We can, for instance, think of the four elements as the
conceptual apparatus corresponding to the number 4. Lacan said
somewhere that the number of concepts already tells us a lot about
what the possible meanings and relations of those concepts could be.
Two concepts is obviously a duality of some kind, while if there is a
third it offsets or transcends that duality. Four concepts is a
stable set of axes, while five offsets the two axes in some manner.
Hence we find the number 4 to signify stability, while the number 5
signifies strife or discord. I think this would be an interesting
path to pursue.
III.F.
Astrology
Astrology
has a poor reputation because it often bleeds into semi- or
pseudo-scientific claims (depending on who you ask). Astrology is in
general the study of the influence of the heavenly bodies, i.e. the
seven classical planets and the zodiac, on the life and activity of
humanity and the cosmos as a whole.
The
most important astrological facts for each of us, based on the day
and hour of our birth, are: sun sign, moon sign, and “ascendant”
sign. The sun sign will be the most prominent and important sign,
with the moon sign second, and the ascendant third. One can consult
the internet for specifics, but again, take it with a grain of salt,
especially because a complete
birth chart will give a very different picture than a mere sun sign.
For example, it is not only the individual signs itself (and there is
a sign for each
of your planets, as well as other designations like “ascendant”),
but also important is the relationships,
that is, the angles
between any two planets, which can form trines,
semitrines,
and so on, which each have different meanings for your life.
It
should also be noted that each sign is either cardinal, fixed, or
mutable; each sign also has an element and a planetary ruler. The
signs’ designations are as follows:
-
Aries – Cardinal – Fire – Mars
-
Leo – Fixed – Fire – Sun
-
Sagittarius – Mutable – Fire – Jupiter
-
Cancer – Cardinal – Water – Moon
-
Scorpio – Fixed – Water – Mars
-
Pisces – Mutable – Water – Jupiter
-
Libra – Cardinal – Air – Venus
-
Aquarius – Fixed – Air – Saturn
-
Gemini – Mutable – Air – Mercury
-
Capricorn – Cardinal – Earth – Saturn
-
Taurus – Fixed – Earth – Venus
-
Virgo – Mutable – Earth – Mercury
The
planets have a powerful influence on us because they are so big and
close. The stars, and consequently the constellations, are typically
viewed as more subtle and supernal powers. The difference between
lunar, solar, and stellar occult traditions is one about which much
could be fruitfully said.
III.G.
Microcosm, Macrocosm
As
you read in the reading for this week, the human being is a
microcosm, a holographic reflection of the universe as a whole, at
least in its spiritual respects. To change yourself is to change the
cosmos – to go within yourself is to go outside yourself. This is
the traditional view of how magick works, according to hermeticism
and its derivative traditions.
But
this does not automatically work. If the human vessel is corrupt or
spiritually damaged, the correspondence to the macrocosm will not
work, and hence the magick itself will be much weakened. We must make
ourselves microcosms. That is the first goal of magick, and is
represented by the balancing of the elements within oneself. It
clarifies or cleans the mirror of our soul, so to speak, and allows
passage to be made from the spirit to the material body and vice
versa.
III.H.
The Great Work
So
what is the point of the occult? Why would one practice occultism?
There are generally two primary answers: to develop spiritually, or
to get shit done.
Spiritual
development is itself split into two traditions: the Left-Hand Path
and the Right-Hand Path. The LHP seeks self-deification, while the
RHP seeks to dissolve in union with God. Both traditions, however,
typically have a two-step process: first, Knowledge and Conversation
with the Holy Guardian Angel, in other words contact with the True
Will; and second, transcending the mundane ego. In the LHP this
transcendence results in a kind of identity with the True Will and a
transcendent individuality separate or isolated from others (not in a
bad or lonely way; it merely describes the singularity or autonomy of
the self). In the RHP this second step is merging with God,
annihilating the self and becoming everything (or nothing!).
The
other answer is to get stuff done. Sometimes the occult is used for
its “low magick” or “sorcery” potential, to improve one’s
life by influencing external factors; for example, one could cast a
spell to pass a test, or to get a lot of money, or to overcome
anxiety, and so on. The earliest kinds of magick of which we have a
record are usually of this type, but since the days of the Golden
Dawn this kind of magick has taken a backseat to “high magick” or
“theurgy”.
We
should talk about precisely what we want to accomplish in this group,
although we are nowhere close at present to our True Wills, or to
making a decision between the LHP and RHP. And in the early stages of
(elemental) work, high magick and low magick are relatively close
together, since the magician must balance the self (which is
inherently beneficial in life as such) before moving on to theurgy.
In any case, magick is not merely a thing you do,
it is a thing you are,
more a way of life than a hobby, at least if it is done as intended.
III.I.
Yoga & Meditation
No
magickal practice could be complete with meditation and possibly
other yogic practices (pranayama, breath control, prime among them).
Meditation is the means for trance states, by which spiritual and
subconscious messages can be communicated.
Meditation
is generally of two types: concentration and insight. Concentration
is focusing upon one single thing for an extended period of time,
usually the feeling of the breath as it moves in and out of the
nostrils. Important stages of concentration meditation are as
follows: pratyahara, or “withdrawal from the senses”, when one
sort of subtracts
one’s mind from the body and from external reality; dharana, or
“thought control”, where one can willfully hold the object of
concentration steadily for a period of time; dhyana, when, according
to Swami Vivekananda, “...the
mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or
external location, there comes to it the power of flowing in an
unbroken current, as it were, towards that point”; and finally, the
ultimate stage of yogic meditation, samadhi,
or god-consciousness. Crowley first achieved dhyana after reducing
his breathing to one breath per minute for a full eight
hours.
To
do concentration meditation, sit or lie as still as possible. Do not
move at all
while you are meditating. Do not think of anything but the feeling of
the breath in the nostrils. If your mind wanders from the breath,
firmly but gently return it to the breath with your will (here will
be a profound early encounter with the magickal will…). It may help
to count down from 10 with deep breaths (i.e. breathe in and say or
see the number “10”, then breathe out “10”, then in “9”,
and so on). Concentration meditation is almost certainly the most
difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and even though I’ve
been doing it for quite a while now I am still not very good at it.
The key is to practice strictly and regularly, to breathe deeply, and
to stay as utterly still as possible. This is the backbone of any
mystical or magickal practice, and you will probably get more
immediate results from meditation than from magick. Try to do this at
least 15 minutes a day, if possible. There really is no upper limit
when concentration meditation stops being beneficial, but even most
yogi masters stick to about 4 hours per session.
Insight
meditation is in some sense the opposite of concentration; where
concentration closes off the mind and turns consciousness inward,
insight meditation seeks to experience everything at once as a single
whole. To do insight meditation, try to focus on everything you are
feeling at once; do not divide up the experience into the feeling of
your head, of your feet, etc. Then add to that sensation everything
you are hearing; try not to differentiate between hearing and
feeling. Finally, add everything you are seeing. While doing this,
breathe deeply and try not to let any words enter your mind. Try to
see the oneness in all that you are experiencing. If you gain some
proficiency in this, normal waking consciousness will feel profoundly
unconscious,
for you will have experienced an expansion of consciousness that you
could not even conceive before. This meditation is good because you
can do it anywhere at almost any time, and is not as fragile or
time-consuming as concentration.
III.J.
Occultism and Language
Occultism
has a strange relationship to language. The realm of discourse has a
decidedly negative
or
damaging
effect on experience, according to the occult traditions. This is
because language takes us outside
of
ourselves. Put another way, language takes things externally, refuses
to inhabit their inner processes, and thereby stops us from coming to
true knowledge. We fail to experience a movement or concept as it is
in itself when our experience becomes lost or othered in language.
Consequently,
the language used in occultism is either of an evocative kind (to
produce a certain mental state), an intentional kind (to announce
one’s will and thereby objectify it), or a magickal kind. This last
kind makes words transcend language and interpretation, instead
manifesting directly as force, as a magickal action and as the
presencing of the entity whose name is vibrated.
According
to Kenneth Grant, the “barbarous names of evocation” work in this
magickal way precisely because they are so barbarous. These names –
“GOLACHAB”, “ABLANATHANALBA”, “IO ERBETH, IO PAKERBETH, IO
BOLCHOSETH, IO APOMX”,
and so on – activate a certain part of the back of the brain (the
reptilian brain) via their barbarity and function as terrible and
divine. Whether any barbarous name would do or whether there really
are particular names or sounds corresponding to particular forces I
leave to you all to discover for yourselves.
III.K.
Occultism as Philosophy
The
word “philosophy” actually means “love of wisdom”. Wisdom is
not knowledge, nor is love possession. Philosophy, then, is an
activity: the science and art of striving for wisdom. What is wisdom?
Wisdom is not a thing,
not something that can be known on a correspondence model of
knowledge or truth, and not something that can be apprehended
externally. Wisdom is much more a way of life, something almost
completely lost in contemporary academic philosophy. To strive for
wisdom is to seek truth, certainly, but it is to seek truth as a
process of living. This implies the greatest taboo in all of
contemporary philosophy: Know Thyself! Note that this knowledge is
not at all like the external knowledge of correspondence, of
argumental superiority, and so on.
I
say this is a taboo because the academy is not about you or me – it
is about knowledge,
something if not objective, at least objectively studied and
presented.
Personal issues have no place – the closest we get to that is
Nietzsche, but even then our pious commentary ruins the effect. We
are not philosophers, and the academy is no
place for a philosopher.
Rather, the academy is for scholars, for those who comment upon other
works, who deal always externally with everything. Scholarship is an
inherently external
activity, and for that reason it always clashes with philosophy, and
treats philosophy with mistrust.
But
it was not always this way. Experience of oneself, mastery of
oneself, used to come first – see Plato, or Pythagoras. Without
knowing yourself, how can you possibly know what truth is? How can
you possibly know reality? How can you know wisdom?
What
must once again be reconstituted is an occult
philosophy,
a striving for wisdom that externalizes itself and aids in other
strivings, that opens pathways to the divine and blazes trails of
thinking and being. This is the most vital task of philosophy today,
and we cannot accomplish it if we do not take into account the
insights of millenia of occult speculation on the nature of the self,
the will, truth, reality, and of course the divine.
IV.
Conclusion
This
has been a relatively broad and general introduction to occult
traditions and several of the practices associated with occultism. If
there are any particular areas of interest, I can write something up
on those, or merely discuss them with you. This has been intended to
showcase the breadth of the occult tradition. Questions?
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