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In the Magical World, the Tarot Deck functions as a calendar. Below is some information that will help you keep track of magical dates.
The Tarot and the Decans. The cards of the Minor Arcana are related to the 36 Decans of the Zodiac. Today's date falls in the second, or Succedant, Decan of Cancer. This Decan lasts from July 2 until July 11 and is assigned to the Three of Cups, a card entitled "The Lord of Abundance." Astrologically, this Decan/card combination indicates the effects of Mercury in Cancer. Qabalistically it may be interpreted as the influence of Binah in Beriah. The Angel assigned to this Decan is named Rahadea, who is described as "a beautiful woman with a crown of myrtle in her hair playing a lyre and singing in joy." Two other angels associated with this Decan/Card combination are Rahael and Yebomayah. The assigned Demon by Day is Gusion (who is visualized as "a Xenopilus"--probably a dog-faced baboon) and the Demon by Night is Uvall (imagined quite simply as "a dromedary.") Other Beings associated with the Sign of Cancer are the Archangel Muriel, & the Angels Pachel, and Kael. Court cards are also assigned to the current Zodiac Sign and Triplicity. For the dates 7/2 through 7/11, these cards are the Queen of Cups, the Princess of Wands, and the Ace of Wands.
For daily practice during these dates: Elemental Pentagram Rituals should banish/invoke Water (for Cancer). Elemental Hexagram Rituals should banish Gusion & Uvall with the Elemental Hexagram of Luna, and Greater Hexagram Rituals should invoke Rahadea, Rahael, Yebomayah, Muriel, Pachel & Kael with the Greater Hexagram of Luna (drawn for Cancer.)
Sigil of Rahadea, Angel of the Succedant Decan of Cancer (shown above) was generated by using a magic square consisting of letters from the Names of the 36 Decan Angels. Each letter was selected and positioned by using a formula revealed during a Pathworking.
The Decans and the Shem Ha'Mephorash. The Decans of the Zodiac may be further subdivided into six sections of 5 degrees each which are called Quinances or Quincunxes. Qabalistic tradition assigns each of these five degree segments to one of the 72 Holy Names of the Shem Ha'Mephorash--The Extended Name of God. Specific Angels, Angelic Orders, and Demons relating to these Names are also assigned to the appropriate Quinances. For the time period covered by the Succedant Decan of Cancer, the relevant data (with English transliterations of the Hebrew) is as follows:
July 2--July 6: Name 21: NLK (pronounced "Nelak.") Tetragrammaton Permutation: HVHY.
Tetragrammaton Letter: H (heh). Angel: Nelakiel. Angelic Order: the Beni Elohim. Goetic Demon: Marax.
July 7--July 11: Name 22: YYY (pronounced "Yeyaya.").Tetragrammaton Permutation: HVHY.
Tetragrammaton Letter: H (heh). Angel: Yeyayel. Angelic Order: the Beni Elohim. Goetic Demon: Ipos.
Below is a Hebrew table showing the Shem Ha'Mephorash with the Holy Name for the current time period indicated in white.
Click Here For Current Elective Astrological Chart for Your Location..
CURRENT MOON about the moon
Talismans and Seals of Cancer and Luna. The symbolic devices from the Clavicula Salomonis (Lansdowne MSS. 1203) and the Lemegeton (various sources) shown above are used in invocations of the spirit and intelligence of the moon (second row) and the Angels of its corresponding Zodiac sign, Cancer (top row.) The last three rows provide the seals of the Goetic demons associated with the three Decans of Cancer and the dates during which each set of demons is in power. The demons of the day are on the left, those of the night are on the right.
Pentagrams of Power. On the floating cube below appear the four elemental Pentagrams of Fire, Water, Air & Earth and the two Pentagrams representing the Active and Passive Spirit. Each pentagram is depicted in its traditional color and inscribed with the appropriate symbols & Divine Names in Hebraic script.
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I would like to meet all the people in the slideshow in my "Heros" section, plus many, many more: Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Moses Cordovero, Moses de Leon, Hieronymus Bosch, Cornelius Agrippa, Marcilio Ficino, Nicholas Flamel, Edward Kelly, Johann Valentine Andraea, Robert Fludd, Madame Blavatsky, Gurdieff & Colin Wilson.
The all-perceiving Divine Eye. Depicted here gazing out upon the cosmos, the Eye functions as a multi-leveled symbol in diverse cultures. It represents both the transcendent omniscience of God and the immanent awakening of spiritual vision within all human beings. In ancient Egypt, the sun and the moon were seen as the two eyes of the falcon god Horus. When Horus later became assimilated into the funerary cult as the son of Osiris, the moon was seen as the eye he wounded in his epic battle with Set, the slayer of his father. The name "Osiris" means "the place of the Eye," and alludes to an incedent in the Osirian myth cycle in which Horus presents his wounded lunar eye as a gift to Osiris in the Underworld, therby granting him the ability to wane (die) and wax again (be reborn) like the moon. Eye amulets, called wedjets, were popular in ancient Egypt throughout the Dynastic period.
In Eastern cultures, the Eye of Buddah is still used today as a powerful protective device, and oriental esoteric traditions employ similar symbols to represent the opened "Third Eye" of the ajna chakra, often identified as the pineal gland and seen as the center of spiritual perception. Our own culture is most familiar with the Divine Eye symbol of the Masonic tradition which crowns the pyramid that appears on the back of the one-dollar bill. And, in popular comic book culture, the Marvel super-hero Doctor Strange wears the Eye of Aggamotto, a powerful amulet that gives him great occult powers. The Divine Eye depicted above traces its ancestry to all these mythic sources.
John Dee (1527-1609) became one of the most illustrious personages in Elizabethan England. As Court Astrologer to Queen Elizabeth, he found himself in a position to influence matters of state, and was employed by Her Majesty as a spy during England's struggle with Spain. Dee's reputation as a brilliant philosopher, mathematician and cartographer was only surpassed in the eyes of the public by his notariety as a magician, and he was popularly believed to have sunk the invading Spanish Armada with powerful spells. With the assistance of his scryer, Edward Kelley, Dee formulated one of the most complete and complex systems of magic in the Western Esoteric Tradition. In spite of his towering accomplishments, Dee fell out of favour at Court after the death of Elizabeth. King James, her superstitious successor, harbored a positive dread of anything magical and abandoned the old magician, who languished in poverty at his estate at Mortlake until his death.
Solomon's Triangle, a well known Goetic symbol used in evocation, is here intentionally portrayed as an optical illusion in order to stress its ability to transcend the laws of the normal, common sense world. As a portal between dimensions, its uses go beyond mere evocation and include scrying and astral projection.
In all places and times, mystics and magicians have organized their spiritual experiences of the higher planes by formulating cosmologies. Below are some of the metaphysical maps used by various explorers to help them chart a course through the hidden worlds...
Journeys to the Underworld. The insight that the cosmos consists of different levels or dimensions first emerged in prehistoric Shamanic societies, along with the belief that humans could travel to these dimensions in dreams, at death, or with the aid of magic. In ancient Egypt, these beliefs were refined over the millenia into elaborate cosmologies, traces of which may be found in the numerous funerary texts written on papyrus scrolls or painted and carved onto the walls of tombs. The Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts, the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts, and the extensive funerary literature of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period provide detailed maps for travelers in these unearthly realms. The image above comes from the tomb of Thothmosis III in the Valley of the Kings, and depicts a section of a work called the Amduat ("That Which is in the Underworld.") This text describes the "Twelve Mansions of the Hours of the Night" through which the sun god (and the dead pharoah) must pass after setting in the west (dying.) It also supplies the spells and passwords that must be recited when confronted by the guardians of the Gates, who will halt the progress of anyone lacking proper magical preparation and credentials.
The Revolving Wheel of Reality. Tibetan cosmology developed an iconography that depicts levels of reality arranged in circular patterns. The complex sidpe-korlo (or "World Wheel"), such as the one shown above, is usually painted on a temple wall and used as a focal point during meditative exercises. It portrays a multitude of spiritual realms and metaphysical entities, including the Twelve Interdependent Causes and Their Effects, the Symbolic Six Worlds, the White Path, the Dark Path, the god Yama, the Buddha, and the Bodhisattava of Compassion. Carl Jung, during a 1938 visit to Darjeeling, was told by a Lamaic rimpoche that such symbols must be built up and held in the imagination in order to attain true potency. Certain texts, such as the Shri-Chakra-Sambhara Tantra supply detailed instructions for the formation of such complex thought forms.
Gnostic Ascent. The Gnostics located the material world at the center of concentric spheres of spiritual being arranged around the earth like the layers of an onion. Each higher sphere increased in spiritual purity as it grew closer to the Divine Source. In the Medieval illumination above, souls embark on the mystical ascent and climb up through the spheres, shedding layers of their encumbering material "garments" as they rise. This model synchronized well with Ptolemaic astronomical concepts and dominated western metaphysical speculation until the Copernican revolution replaced the geocentrism on which it rested with a sun-centered worldview. Now completely outmoded as an astronomical paradigm, the Gnostic system of concentric spheres still provides a valuable metaphor of humanity's spiritual condition and aspirations.
Traveling the Paths. Early Jewish mystics interpreted different levels of spiritual reality in terms of the hekalot or "Palaces of Heaven." Over the centuries, this system evolved into the more familiar Tree of Life model, with its ten Sephiroth and 22 connecting Paths. As in the earliest Shamanic cosmologies, various magical techniques may be employed to facilitate journeys to the higher Sephirothic Worlds. Since the Renaissance, this Qabalistic cosmology has exerted an ever growing influence on the Western Esoteric Tradition. Most contemporary students of magic in the West begin with a study of the Tree of Life enhanced by a technique called "Pathworking" in which they learn to astrally travel the Paths on the Tree. The above diagram comes from a Qabalistic manuscript found in Thessaloniki, Greece. The arrangement of the Paths shows the influence of the teachings of Isaac Luria, so the manuscript itself cannot be earlier than the 16'th century.
Demonic Attack. Martin Schongauer's The Temptations of Saint Anthony (1480-90) depicts the kind of terrifying attacks for which one must be prepared when traveling through the astral realms. In certain extreme states of consciousness, induced by ritually enhanced meditative practices, unfamiliar doorways in the depths of the mind can fly open onto vistas of fathomless blackness. Here, malignant sentient forces often lay in wait, clothed in the symbolic cerements of nightmare. "Corrupt fingers twine about swiftly beating hearts while lifeless lips seduce with ashen lies."--The Book of Dead Names. "Horridas nostrae mentis purga tenebras!" ("Purge the horrible darknesses of our mind.")--Aurora Consurgens I, ch. IV, parab. IV.
Mystic Visions. Jacob's Ladder, by Gustave Dore. The eventual attainment of clear astral vision through Qabalistic meditation and magical discipline requires hard work, but reveals higher worlds and angelic Beings of Light.
Gazing Into Other Worlds.The Crystal Ball, painted in 1902 by John William Waterhouse, expreses the eternal fascination of scrying--a technique that offers a less hazardous method of exploring the astral worlds for those who have not yet mastered the skill of projection.
Classical music, Gregorian Plainchant, Javanese Gamelan, Scottish bagpipes.
"A vision evoked by the use of the [Qabalistic] Tree is, in fact, an artificially produced waking dream, deliberately motivated and consciously related to some chosen subject whereby not only the subconscious content, but also the superconscious perceptions are evoked and rendered intelligible to consciousness."--Dione Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah, 1935.
"That which is Above is like unto that which is Below..." Eliphas Levi's famous anthropomorphic hexagram from his 1855 work, Dogma et Ritual de la Haute Magie) (Transcendental Magic) showing the reflection of the Macrocosm in the Microcosm.
Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), better known as Eliphas Levi. This portrait shows the famous magician surrounded by magical symbols, including his well-known Baphomet illustration, which appears in the upper left-hand corner. One of Levi's most influential contributions to Western esotericism was his development of the theory that the Tarot's 22 Major Arcana cards relate to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Originally conceived by Court de Gebelin in the 18'th century, this theory was greatly expanded by Levi into an elaborate system that remains one of the cornerstones of modern Western magic.
The Spear of Destiny. Every culture has its special relics, but few are as magical and mysterious as the so-called "Spear of Longinus" shown above in its display case in the Treasury of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. Like the One Ring of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, this object has an extensive mythical pedigree dating back to its alleged ownership by a Roman Centurion named Longinus who used it to pierce the side of Christ at the Crucifixion. A legend became attached to the spear claiming that whoever weilds it will be able to control the destiny of the world. The spear allegedly passed through the hands of many illustrious (and notorious) rulers, including Constantine the Great, Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa, and even Adolf Hitler. The tale of this relic's purported significance to the Nazi leader first came to public notice in 1960 when Irish journalist Max Caulfield wrote a series of newspaper articles about it based on information gathered from the papers of Dr. Walter Johannes Stein, a Grail scholar and professor who had allegedly spied on Nazi occult practices for Winston Churchill during the war. Since the appearance of Caulfield's articles, the spear has increasingly become the subject of occult speculations, most notably in Trevor Ravenscroft's quirky The Spear of Destiny which has remained in print ever since its publication in 1973. Legends of the Nazi's obsessive interest in the Spear and other occult relics inspired the Indiana Jones mega hits Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade although the spear itself does not appear in either film.
Bernini's Statue of Saint Longinus in Saint Peter's Basilica depicts the cannonized Roman Centurian with his legendary lance. A wooden shaft originally attached to another spear point allegedly used by Longinus was confiscated by the Turks in 1453. It was finally turned over to the Pope in 1492 in order to ransom the Sultan's brother (who was being held as a political hostage), and is now housed behind the statue shown above. The spear point once attached to this shaft had been kept in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople but was sold to King Louis IX, who housed this relic in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. During the French Revolution, the spear point was removed to the Bibliotheque Nationale from where it was stolen. Its whereabouts are presently unknown.
Archangels and Elements. The Archangels depicted in the kaleidoscopic slideshow below are the Archangels invoked in the Lesser Ritual of the Banishing Pentagram & in various other Pentagram rituals. They are associated with the Four Elements (Fire, Water, Air & Earth) and also with the Four Cardinal Directions. They are depicted here in their traditional colors according to the Golden Dawn scheme.
I prefer the movies that play in the Theatre of the Astral Light, which project themselves as vital images into my diaphanus Imagination. "What is called the imagination within us is only the soul's inherent faculty of assimilating the images and reflections contained in the living light..."-- Eliphas Levi Zahed, Dogma et Ritual de la Haute Magie, 1855.
Broadcasts emanating from the Higher Planes hold my interest most earnestly: "Such images are always present before us, and are effaced only by the more powerful impressions of reality during waking hours, or by preoccupation of the mind, which makes our imagination inattentive to the fluidic panorama of the Astral Light."--Eliphas Levi Zahed, Dogma et Ritual de la Haute Magie, 1855.
"A thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind. Accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscriptions remain forever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil; and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn." Thomas DeQuincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821.
"The Qabalah is as much a method of using the mind as [it is] a system of knowledge. If we have the knowledge without having acquired the Qabalistic technique of mentation, it is of little use to us."--Dione Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah, 1935.
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These are the books that I would reccommend to someone who wants to learn Hermetic Magic. For Qabalah study, start with easy-to-understand works like Ted Andrews’ “Simplified Qabalah Magic†or Will Parfitt’s “The Elements of The Qabalah†and “The Complete Guide to the Kabbalah.†Then move on to John Bonner’s “Qabalah: A Magical Primer†and Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi’s “Introduction to the Cabala†and “The Work of the Kabbalist.†Then you’ll be ready for Israel Regardie’s “A Garden of Pomegranates†(edited by Chic and Tabatha Cicero) and Dion Fortune’s classic work “The Mystical Qabalah.†For really in-depth scholarly analysis of the Qabalah, try any of the works of Gershom Scholem and Sanford Drob. If you’ve followed this reading list so far, Chic and Tabitha Cicero will have made you acquainted with Pathworking. Now you’re ready to learn a little more about ritual magic. Again, start easy with Chic and Tabatha Cicero’s “The Essential Golden Dawn; An Introduction to High Magic,†and Francis Melville’s “The Secrets of High Magic.†Then move on to Israel Regardie’s “The Tree of Life†and “The Middle Pillar.†By this point, you should be familiar enough with the concepts to begin working on Regardie’s famous “The Golden Dawn†and other classics of the genre such as Eliphas Levi’s “Transcendental Magic.†By now, you should be able to pick and choose your reading with confidence in your ability to winnow the large amount of chaff from the few grains of wheat that line the bookshelves at most modern bookstores.
Ritual Magic & Rocket Science. Few of the scientists working today at the prestigious Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Pasadena, California, realize that one of its cofounders and top research scientists was a practicing ritual magician. Jack Parsons, an important pioneer of solid fuel rocket technology, had been promoted to the head of the OTO’s California-based Agape Lodge in 1942 by Aleister Crowley himself, and lived a bohemian lifestyle that probably would have scandalized his ultra-conservative colleagues in the newly emerging aerospace industry. Parsons has become somewhat of a mythic figure in the history of American magic, and conducted rituals in the desert that were intended to summon an appropriate Scarlet Woman with whom Parsons hoped to create a moonchild. Parsons believed that this being would be an incarnation of Babylon herself (spelled “Babalon†by Parsons for gematriac reasons.) This divine incarnation would provide a necessary feminine counterweight to the predominantly masculine current of Horus invoked/evoked by Crowley and the Thelemites. Parsons accidentally blew himself up with mercury fulminate in 1952, thus ending a career that encompassed both rocket science and ritual magic.
Marjorie Cameron, Jack Parsons’ Scarlet Woman, mysteriously appeared in Parsons’ life during the period in which he was attempting to conjure a magical mate. Cameron, a talented artist with occult leanings, helped her rocket scientist partner perform rituals, and eventually the two were married. After her husband’s tragic death, Cameron continued painting. She also appeared in Kenneth Anger’s proto-psychedelic film The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) and played the Sea Witch in the weird cult classic Night Tide with Dennis Hopper (1961.) (The photo of Marjorie Cameron shown above is from Anger’s film.) Cameron died in 1995. Although she burned many of her paintings in the late 1950’s, some have happily survived as an artistic legacy left by a unique figure in the history of American occultism.
Marjorie Cameron's untitled drawing above appears to depict a Kerub, and clearly reveals her interest in esoteric subjects.
Recommended Online Reading
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Aaron Leitch's Homepage
Alex Sumner's Website
Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition
Esoterica Journal
The J. R. Ritman Library
Transcendental Magic, Vol. I by Eliphas Levi
Transcendental Magic, Vol. II by Eliphas Levi
Magick In Theory & Practice by Aleister Crowley
The Internet Sacred Texts Archives
Ritualmagick.org
The New Kabbalah (Sanford Drob's website)
Kabbalah Links
The Alchemy Website
The Hermetic Library
Hermes Trismegistus at Wisdom's Door
University of Amsterdam Hermetic Studies Department
Divine Names (English and Hebrew) for the Ten Sephiroth
Thelemapedia
Tarotpedia--The .. Encyclopedia of Tarot
The Llewellyn Encyclopedia
Occultpedia--The Occult & Unexplained Encyclopedia
The Open Directory Hermetic Links Page
The members of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, who led the way, plus all the people depicted below in the slideshow.
"The magical universe is like an ocean. The great tides move through it invisibly and men are swept about by them, but are sometimes strong enough and clever enough to master and use them. And in the cold black currents which come up from the deeps there are strange and sinister creatures lurking...."--Richard Cavendish, The Black Arts, 1967.
Morgana, by William Max Miller
Peering Behind the Veil. In the above well-known woodcut, a seeker after Truth attains clear inner vision and sees the spiritual realities that are normally veiled by the distracting limitations of everyday consciousness. Although our minds are like radios capable of receiving signals from a wide range of frequencies, from birth on we are all tuned to a default setting determined by our social environments. This setting narrows and focuses our perceptions on the limited realities and values of our immediate time and place, and most people live their entire lives never suspecting that other perspectives are available. Magic is the acquired ability to intentionally change this setting and make the mind receptive to other frequencies.
"The symbols [of magic and the Qabalah] will never yeild their significance to conscious meditation alone, however correctly and completely they are known they must be used as the initiates intended them to be used, to evoke images from the subconscious mind into conscious content."--Dione Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah, 1935.