Zhongyongdaoist

If you mean by “Theurgia” the Theurgia-Goetia in the Lemegetaon, no, but then the Dee material was my only attempt to procure manuscript material anyway. My purpose with the Dee material was to answer certain questions which could not be answered without it. I did however remain interested in Trithemius' Steganographia, in part because of the fact that of the arguments I proposed in this 1980 piece, the one relating Trithemius with with the Theurgia-Goetia was the weakest and also because there were aspects of the text and the technique which have relevance to to higher levels of what I call magical systemics then I am about to discuss here. Some may wonder, "what is magical systemics?" Well, it is the study, analysis and comparison of magical systems with the view to understanding their form and structure. This is no idle curiosity, the aim is to learn how to create magical systems. Now creating magical systems is not to be confused with “making them up”, the creation of a magical system involves the creation of a well formed, that is coherent symbol system that so accurately reflects the structure of the cosmos that it effectively mediates the power of the cosmos. The keys to it are all in Agrippa, but I am not saying anything more on the subject. Now to get back to my 1980 piece. In the post that began this exposition, I cited counter examples to the author's thesis about the Middle Ages and Renaissance. I wanted to strengthen my position with another argument. I realized that if it could be shown that a group of Renaissance magicians valued that "demonic travesty" the Goetia so much that they would use it as part of their own system, then my point would be even more strongly reinforced. The irony is that the Lemegeton from which the author to whom I was replying had taken the Pauline Art as an example of "enlightened" Renaissance Magic, appeared to be just such a text Enochian Magic entered the picture because it can be argued that formally, that is in terms of its form and structure, it is a nearly perfect system, representing as it does every important aspect of the Cosmos as conceived of in the Renaissance. On the surface the Lemegeton seems to be a rather haphazard affair, but if I could show that there really was a reason why these texts were assembled, that each contributed to a larger whole then, I could argue that the person or persons who brought it together had a reason for including each book. So, I had to examine and if possible prove several things, at least the follwoing and maybe more: That the Lemegeton was assembled in the Renaissance That it met the criteria of a magical system, though not a well formed one such as Enochian, because the individual texts are not as coherent as Enochian or as well interrelated. Finally as I looked at what was available to me I realized that it was possible to fix a likely source for the Lemegeton, existing in its present form as centered around Cornelius Agrippa, either as a direct group of students around him or as a group inspired by his writings. I will examine these in upcoming posts, but one of them the relative lateness of the Lemegeton, is generally agreed upon with few surviving manuscripts before the late 1500s. Arguing from earliest surviving manuscripts is not proof, but this was the case when I wrote and as far as I can tell, this remains the case. More next time.

I have felt rushed on these replies because there is a lot to summarize and I know that my schedule can suddenly become so busy that I may not be able to reply for weeks to months. This has already lead me to one mistake. In the previous post I had referenced the True and Faithful Revelation for the information that Dee's spiritual informants referred him to a work in his own library which may have been the Sworn Book of Honorius. The real reference would be to the Sloane Manuscript that had Dee's first five books of Mysteries in them. In these days when everything is just a google query away, you can look it up yourself. In the late 70s when I was trying to learn everything I could about this system, it was not easy. Then it required contact with the British Library and microfilms, which are a good deal more cumbersome that today's CD-rom compilations. I had gone as far as I could go at the time, having two copies of the True and Faithful Relation and even a very difficult to obtain copy of the Golden Dawn's Liber H, which was the basis of their Adeptus Minor instructions. Whatever the value of the obviously anachronistic aspects of the Golden Dawn's adaptation of original material, such as the use of Egyptian gods, I had already noticed some differences between what was recorded in the True and Faithful Relation and the Golden Dawn material and that these discrepancies originated in the Liber H. When a friend who could present the necessary academic credentials said that he was visiting London and would be happy to procure for me the necessary microfilms of the material I did not have, I jumped at the chance. Between Charlotte Fell Smith's 1906 biography of John Dee and Peter French's book, at that time at least, a more contemporary study, I had a fair idea of the shopping list to give him. He came back with a wonderful tale of how amazing it was to actually look at the original diaries of John Dee and the information that a microfilm would soon be arriving from the British Library with everything that I had wanted except for one work which was being rebound at the time. Few people reading this will ever have experienced the frustrations involved in dealing with microfilm, not the least of which is having to go to a library to use a microfilm reader. Some of these readers could print out hard copy of what you were looking at, but it was poor quality, not large enough and expensive by the standard of the time. These difficulties and the fact that, while interesting in themselves, the references that I got from Charlotte Fell Smith's Dee biography that did not duplicate those from Peter French's book, were not useful, being a few pages from the Dee material here, something from the Goetia there, interspersed between material that was largely medical in nature, implying that the text was that of a doctor. All this taken together was frustrating because one still had to go through it, like an old fashioned tape player where you had to listen to a song you didn't want in order to get to one you did. So I decided to bite the bullet and have the most useful material printed up, which cost about $200.00, at least a thousand in modern dollars, probably much more, but it was worthwhile, I could now flip through a stack of tabloid size sheets about 3 inches thick and have things more or less at my finger tips. I won't bore you with all the details, like learning the “Secretary hand”, an obsolete script in which Dee wrote and studying Josten's six volume biography of Elias Ashmole, etc., but I definitely delved deep into detail, form and structure, which is why in 1980, I was in an excellent position to compare the structure of the Lemegeton with the structure of Enochian magic in its true and complete form, but an account of that, will have to be next time.

Grimoire is the old French for grammar. Thus a "magical grimoire" is a book of magical grammar, or rules for doing magic. The grimoires are accounts of magical practices, but they were incomplete and require either lots of study to make up for their omissions, or instruction from someone who is already advanced.

OK, let me go back to what I wrote in the post to which you are referring, an admittedly terse and not well written passage, and then I will expand on the account, but please be forewarned that that I have posted more in the past few days then in months and am starting to run into the type of time conflicts which I have often mentioned. To begin, the piece itself was almost thirty pages long and all that can follow is the barest outline, also while I have copies of it, I am not going to search for them and review them, I will rely on my memory which is of course pretty reliable. First some context, the piece was in reply to an article giving an account of what is usually the third book in the Lemegeton, the Pauline Art. The Pauline Art is a work in two parts dealing with astrological magic. The first part gave a method of calling up the planetary spirits ruling the days of the week and the planetary spirits ruling the hours, the second part was an account of 360 spirits for the 360 degrees of the Zodiac and how if you knew the time of your birth you could call up your guardian spirit, kind of an astrological Holy Guardian Angel. This was all well and good, but the woman author of the piece proceeded to espouse opinions about Medieval and Renaissance magic that just were not correct, characterizing the Middle ages as a period in which superstitious, greedy and lascivious practitioners sought to call up goetic spirits for carnal and material ends and the Renaissance as a period of light, where clear minded Renaissance Magoi sought wisdom from from the Planetary spirits and eschewed all things worldly. Nothing of course could be further from the truth and I proceeded to demonstrate that through suitable arguments and citations. I may have to cut this up into multiple sections, but to begin one thing I cited was the Sworn Book of Honorius a work of the High Middle Ages and whose first operation is the Vision of God. Sounds carnal and greedy doesn't it? One of the things that I point out, and I believe that this was one of the first times that this appeared in print was the similarity to John Dee's Sigillum Dei Aemuth. Even more importantly I point out the passages in the beginning of, If I recall correctly, the Second Book of Mysteries (See Meric Casaubon's True and Faithful Relation of etc., London 1659, and several times reprinted, twice in the 70s alone) where Dee's spiritual informants give the the instructions for this seal and tell him that its geometrical form is to be found in a book in his library, this book may well have been the Sworn Book. This may be one of the earliest times that this connection appeared in print, because the editor of the Heptangle Press printing which I had made no mention of the resemblance and surely would have had he been aware of it. I go on to contrast the Faust legend in the Renaissance and the many Faust books that appeared, forgeries created to meet a demand, basically the Necronomicons of their day. The chief operation of these books was to raise Spanish treasure ships or elevate buried treasure, which meant to locate buried treasure and then conjure the local spirits to bring it to the surface. The point that pious motives existed in the Middles Ages and worldly ones in the Renaissance, I proceeded to an interesting more detailed argument about the Lemegeton and its structure and how it could be be compared to Dee's Enochian Magic, and used as an aid to practicing Agrippan style magic using the principles of Agrippa's Three Books. That however, will have to wait until my next post

Had gall stones: This is the key phrase, gallstones can be excruciatingly painful, I can't blame someone for getting impatient. The Chinese do have medicines that will dissolve gallstones, "Chinese herbal formulas can successfully reduce or dissolve gallstones and prevent gallbladder surgery" (Jake Paul Fratkin, p. 682, Chinese Herbal Patent Medicines; the Clinical Desk Reference, Shya Publications, 2001), but they run into problems with FDA and other regulations. As a piece of operating room humor, if not gallows humor, I have wryly noted that, "by the time people seek out alternative medicine, there is no alternative." the gall bladder removed: So much for him ever practicing Thunder Magic. It will be interesting to see any personality changes: You shouldn't expect any. The Gallbladder is considered to be the Liver's release valve, with this gone there is no natural way for the Liver Damp heat which is the root of his problem to escape. Sadly in the long run his symptoms will just shift to another organ, possibilities include high blood pressure, which he may have had already, turning into a stroke. There are other possibilities too...let's not go there. Don't show him any of this, he may get very very angry. Ah, the joys of folk magic! When you mentioned in your first post, your student buying graveyard dust, I thought this might be the case, though Chinese sorcerer's use spirits of the dead, so I wasn't sure. Circa 1980 I spent a lot of time studying and practicing "folk magic" within the context of Agrippa's Three Books on Occult Philosophy, because book one is on Natural Magic, where it forms an important part of practice. I have much more respect for the magical abilities of a good folk magician, if they come from a real tradition, rather than modern revivals, than I do for the vast majority of modern "magicians". Lacking any understanding of Western thought before 1600 they ignore some of the most valuable, fun and powerful aspects of the magical tradition. Oh well, their loss not mine!

-K-, I am glad that you found my post useful and interesting. I hope that other people do also. As I mentioned Western thinking about mind/body was significantly messed up in the 17th Century by Rene Descartes. The phrase "mind over matter" and a related one, "ghost in the machine", arise because of Descartes and are symptoms of a condition that I call "closet Cartesianism" which is pandemic in Western Culture and subverts any society strongly influenced by modern Western thought, which is almost everyone these days. I started to write more about it, but decided I didn't want to take this thread too far into a long digression. Maybe some other time and place. In Chinese medicine the influence goes both ways, shen/consciousness to zhangfu/Organs by way of the luo/meridians through which the qi circulates, so "mental" states can over time create organ imbalances of greater or less seriousness, but organ states can influence mind/emotion states right away. People are always making judgements based on unconscious opinions, they tend at the very least when thinking about these things to import the mind/body dichotomy into "nervous system"/organs and think that because the organs are not a part of the nervous system they cannot influence emotions, but this is really old fashioned thinking, even among the people who have brought up neuro-plasticity. I think of the body as a "section" of an entity that consists of at least four dimensions, like a conic section is a slice out of a cone, the body can be thought of as a "slice" out of a hyper-sphere, and more importantly it obeys the holographic principle, traditionally the Microcosm/Macrocosm relation, in that everything is reflected in everything else and information is exchanged in many ways throughout the system, chemical, electrical, and other ways, some of which science doesn't even know about yet. The liver is thus reflected in the brain whether one wants to believe it or not. This is much more inline with traditional Chinese views, such as were given expression by Mencius who said "all the 10,000 things are there within me". In traditional Chinese cosmology everything is a modification of qi, as guided by li. principle (理). This is called liqi (理氣) and is in some ways very similar to Aristotle's hylomorphic theory. Shen is the most refined qi, and jing, which is the source of the organs the most dense, and that is part of the key to thinking about the relation between organs and consciousness. Anything less dense has trouble influencing something more dense, that doesn't mean that it can't, only that special techniques are needed, but it may be easier to simple influence the dense with the dense, thus the use of herbs in mental states that are rooted in the zhangfu or "organ" level. Your example, "undetected diabetes", is a good one because diabetes is an extreme manifestation of zhangfu imbalance which may be headed off by appropriate traditional Chinese treatments. The zhangfu imbalance will be obvious long before the person goes into insulin shock, but Western medicine cannot spot it before it has reached a very advanced stage. One final note, I used zhangfu instead of organ level in my earlier post because I wished to avoid misunderstandings which can arise from using "organ" with its immediately reductive implications. I have seen posts on Tao Bms criticizing Chinese medicine to "reducing" emotions to the organs. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that doesn't stop people from projecting their own reductive tendencies on to it. I regret any confusion that may have arisen from using zhangfu. Attempting to avoid one type of confusion I may have unwittingly created another. All of the above is a very quick outline and may not be as clear or comprehensive as anyone reading it might wish, but I hope that it is helpful and suggestive.

Google comes up with a question, "Did you mean: Zhang Fu" which I didn't, but a couple of links down comes up with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zang-fu So the simple, but very misleading answer is that zhangfu are the "organs" as conceived of in Chinese medicine. Why I didn't mean "Zhang Fu" is because Chinese like German runs words together to make new words, contrast the German Plattenspieler with the English record player, thus Zhangfu is the yin and yang organs, taken as a totality, not individually. Notice that the Wikipedia article then proceeds to hyphenate the Zhang and Fu, the Chinese characters, taken from the article are: simplified Chinese: 脏腑; traditional Chinese: 臟腑, notice any hyphens? So when I say that anything that comes from the qi/zhangfu level I am saying that when qi, which is the medium of emotion, is generated by the pathological action of one or more of the zhangfu, it has taken on a life of its own, you might say, and looking for some "issue", or other type of psychological cause is a waste of time. That is why my analogy of treating gallstones with psychotherapy. In the case of anger that originates from liver qi stagnation, it is really what psychologists call free floating anger, it will build up like an electrical charge and then like lightning discharge in a suitable situation. Most people have learned to use these anger outbursts for social manipulation, which is why counseling can help to redirect them, but it will not directly undo the underlying cause. Rather what will happen is what is typical of counseling, people will keep on finding reasons for why they feel angry, counseling will go on for years, nothing will be accomplished, because the anger is not at something, it is like pus or gallstones generated by a pathological condition rooted in the zhangfu level. Emotions generated by pathological organ patterns can be addressed by acupuncture, they can be addressed by meditation, but they are far more easily, effectively and most importantly quickly addressed through the relevant herbs, and in the case of people who are suicidal this quickness can mean the difference between life and death. Emotions can be manifestations of shen/qi, for want of a better rendering, consciousness/energy, these lend themselves to counseling and meditation and can often be resolved in a satisfactory fashion through these means. All of this is complex in practice and even the theory of zhangfu runs aground when most Westerners think about it because they usually start from a cultural meme created by Descartes a few centuries back which makes even pre-1600 Western thought hard to understand, much less Chinese medical theory. Obviously I don't have time to clarify all of these issues, but to give one example, even my use of shen/qi and qi/zhangfu is misleading because the cultural meme is mind/body, conceived of as radically different things, but in Chinese medical thought they are two poles of one whole which is functionally conceived of as shen/qi/zhangfu. I hope that this is helpful. There were some aspects of your first post which I also may comment on if I have time, but you asked for suggestions not a detailed critique. All the best.

For mental/emotional symptoms manifesting on a shen/qi level you can learn Neuro-Linquistic Programming, usually referred to as NLP. As a suggestion of how this might help, you could covertly do some personality integration work as part of a "special protection trance" experience. In a lot of ways it would be a special protection trance because personality integration is an important part of psychic self-defense. Then learn how to diagnose in Chinese medicine for mental/emotional symptoms that are rooted in the qi/zhanfu level, herbs are the easiest way to deal with it and are much better for the long term then anything a therapist can give you because they can address the fundamental imbalance, while Western medicines are likely to perpetuate and even make things worse. Both of these approaches can be combined and would be beneficial in the qi/zhangfu case, but you can't neglect the herbs, it would be like using psycho-therapy to treat gallstones. And yes I have a lot of experience, I just don't talk about it.

Any well formed symbol system is useful for both passive uses, like divination, in which it reflects a train of events and for active purposes like magic, where it can be used to influence a train of events. The Tarot is excellent as a magical system, the average "magician" can hardly dream of all that is concealed in Western Geomancy as a form of magic, the same goes for Yi Jing, Mah Jong, and many other systems like that. I have experience with several of them,some for decades. They are worth the time and effort investigating.

My own case of Liver Qi stagnation was severe and of long standing. It goes back to Western medical mistreatment of what, from Chinese medical perspective, would be a simple kidney/spleen or stomach deficiency. A matter which could have been easily and effectively treated by something like Liu Zun Zi Tang. Western medicine decided it was a hypoactive throid and anemia. The result was that from 5 or so years of age, I received daily doses of iron, iodine and thyroxine, for longer or shorter periods. The Iron I remember went on for years. Since I have vivid memories of childhood going back to three or so years of age, I remember both the iron and iodine, they were given at meals with my milk and they made the milk taste strange. I learned of the thyroxine years later from my Mother when she filled in the details. The result was a very bad case of Liver Fire Blazing and probably insulting my Lungs, naturally I had gusher nosebleeds which made me even more anemic. Which got me more iron. Ironic one might say as a witty turn of phrase. My body reacted to this by craving everything cold in reach, which by the time that I was 11 resulted in the curious fact that, while I was born and raised in a warm sunny climate, I wore heavy jackets and coats year round because I felt so cold. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say that none of this was very helpful to my long term well being and it has taken a lot of will power and determination, all in the service of a powerful sense of duty, to live as long as I have. Looking at all that I have seen of advice posted here, I certainly would feel angry and frustrated, even with a mild case of LIver Qi stagnation. As it is, back in June of 2011, I finally found a relatively easy to obtain, easy to use treatment in the form of Xue Fu Zhu Yu Wan and while it may not work in all cases, it certainly worked amazingly well in my own. It works well, it works quickly and it works without changes in diet, or exotic Qi exercises. After 50 years of the toll that that my seriously out of whack liver and its complications had, I can assure you that I would not have had to emotional resources to do any of the exotic practices recommended here, so its a good thing that it worked well and easily. Just to make it clear, since I discovered that I had Liver stagnation about 23 years ago, I have tried a wide range of Chinese treatments including all of the standard prescriptions for expelling Liver Heat, Gallbladder Heat, Qi and blood stagnation etc. and this is the only one that has worked effectively on the emotional aspects of Liver Qi stagnation. Things like Qi Gong, meditation, acupuncture and massage might produce some temporary result, but were not effective for anything but days or hours. Nothing worked like this stuff: http://www.maxnature.com/xuefuzhuyuwan1.html This is the brand I use and the supplier I use. People being different this may not work for everyone and in my case I also have to take a medicine that expels Lung Cold to get the best results, but since I have been taking them the difference is like night and day. More importantly since the emotional symptoms are significantly diminished, it even looks like I will be able to stop taking them at some point and be completely free of symptoms. I'm just posting my own experiences here and if someone wants to ignore them, I wish them well, but if didn't know what I do now, and was still stuck where I was before, if I read this thread and its recommendations and saw what I have written above I would certainly give it a try. If I have time, I will try to answer questions related to what I have posted, with a case as difficult as mine was, there were certainly other things that may have contributed to the ultimate success of the Xue Fu Zhu Yu Wan, but I have no intent to waste time with long winded discussions from people who don't believe that a successful treatment can be so simple.

I don't know about the specific quotes, but the general approach is "Fourth Way", i.e. Gurdjieff/Ouspensky and their intellectual/spiritual offspring. I remember it from when I was teenager in the 60s.

Frater is Latin for brother, used in the Western tradition to assert or imply membership in some secret brotherhood, but also the root for fraternity, like at colleges. Soror is sister and the root of Sorority, but was of course used in the Goldern Dawn for women members of whom there were several who were very interesting and remarkable women.

I was in a hurry, so I was only thinking of one at the time. As Soothsayer has shown there are a lot of interesting ideas suggested by the quote. If I have time I may come back to this. Excellent, though you missed the one that I had in mind. As I was writing, I was struck by how the dynamics depicted in the passage suggested this: Though more on the level of the soul than the card itself might indicate which is usually more on the level depicted here: Which if you don't know Latin can create confusion like this: To avoid which, you should pay particular attention to this: For those interested in astrology, this is the origin of the much misunderstood "part of fortune", which was the part of the Moon and did not indicate money or wealth in itself, but rather good or bad fortune depending on whether it was in good aspect or afflicted in a chart. Edit changed "time a may come back" to "time I may come back" in the first sentence. In a hurry again.

In my post above (http://thetaobums.com/topic/27141-theurgia-goetia-on-gods-and-demons/?p=405624) I referenced Plato's dialogue The Phaedrus and its discussion of great trains of spirits, here is the quote in detail. The fundamental image will be familiar to anyone with a cursory knowledge of the Tarot. When, back circa 1980, I first started talking to my "Western Occultist" friends about Plato, uniformly they all said, "but Plato was not a mystic" to which I always replied "have you ever actually read any Plato?". Those who were honest immediately replied, "well, no, but everybody knows Plato was no mystic." I challenged them to read certain of the dialogues and see what they thought after actually reading Plato. Everyone who accepted my challenge came back saying "Wow, Plato was a mystic". The above is only a small part of what Plato writes about that influenced "Western Occultism", but is completely unacknowledged. Plato's writings are fundamental to Western Occult Philosophy and it is passages like this that is the reason why Agrippa is constantly referring to Plato, but like Rodney Dangerfield, a comedian popular circa 1980, among "Western Occultists" he still gets no respect. There is another Tarot Trump at least implied in the above quote, perhaps some people might care to speculate about which one it is. Edit: First paragraph was split, corrected that.

SereneBlue- just a quick note, If by read, you mean cover to cover, no. I had already read others. By the time Tyson's version of J. F.'s translation appeared I had 20 or so years of study of Agrippa behind me and had no need to read it. Refer to it for convenience sake, yes. Despise it for its pretension, yes. Mourn it as a travesty, yes. I have looked into the new translation which you mention here, because you have mentioned it elsewhere and it sounds promising, but I always have misgivings when occultists undertake such tasks. To borrow an issue in Enochian Magical scholarship, do they really understand the differences between "aethers" and "aires" which would have existed in the Renaissance? I am not holding up any hope that they do. I have been familiar with Christopher Warnock's interesting site for many years. I have not paid enough attention to it to know if he has gotten outside the Neo-magical paradigm and into a real understanding of the Occult Philosophy. Still, he seems to be much better than Tyson.

I can only assume that by "standard" you mean the "standard" of Western Occultism. I had read pretty much all the "standard" works of Western Occultism by my early twenties and that was forty years ago. The "standard" to which I now hold myself and have held myself for over thirty years, is the standard of Western Occult Philosophy which is not by any means the same thing as Western Occultism. Western Occultism is a creation of the 19th Century, further developed in the 20th. Western Occult Philosophy has its roots in the whole spiritual tradition of the Mediterranean basin and integrated with the Greek Philosophical tradition. Everything that I wrote in my post and the posts that are referred to there is in line with the "standards" of that tradition, which include a respect for scholarship and history which is generally speaking, lacking in Western Occultism. Some "authority" in Western Occultism notices a similarity in a name and maybe even appearance of spirit that appears in a medieval grimoire and an ancient Egyptian God and jumps to the conclusion that they are the same entity. After that it is repeated and repeated until it becomes, well, "standard". That's how Western Occultism works. I am afraid that like Hebrew National, I am answerable to a higher authority, though not the same one. In the first post referred to, I cited Plotinus, Ennead III.4, 'Our Tutelary Spirit', I said see "Philip Merlan's discussion 'Theology and Demonology: Plato and Xenocrates' p.32-36, in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy." Perhaps you are one of the people to whom I was referring in my third post for whom it is "a surprise ...I was referring to Plato at all." I don't know why it should be a surprise, Agrippa does it all the time. In the fifth post I refer the reader to "For Hermes Trismegisus and the ancient Theologians; see Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, especially the first part. For the assimilation of the Pagan Gods; see Jean Seznec The Survival of the Pagan Gods and John Block Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages." for more information/confirmation about what I am saying about the early Church and its attitudes about Paganism. I read these books in my mid to late twenties more than 30 years ago, when did you read them? Everything that I wrote in the posts cited is within reasonable lines of interpretation of these and many other books. If you have a specific criticism based on a specific "standard" please post it. Regarding your recommendation of Joseph Peterson's edition of the complete Lemegaton, I can only say that I think highly of Peterson and his work in general and for convenience sake often link citations in my post to his site rather than page references of obscure and/or expensive books. Back in 1980 I wrote a detailed analysis of the formal structure of the Lemegaton and compared it to the structure of Enochian Magic. Among other things in it I cited the relationship to Trithemius Steganographia and the inclusion of seals that derive from Paracelsus Archidoxes of Magic and used that, combined with Agrippa's mention of the Pauline Art and the Almadel in his Vanity and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences to argue for the late composition of the whole text and its possible origin in a group centered on or strongly influenced by Agrippa. What were you doing with magic in 1980? As for the importance of Lion skin belts, I have argued at length for the "occult" virtues of natural things in another series of posts on The Tao Bums all based on Agrippan and Platonic principles. Just off the top of your head, can your explain occult virtues? I don't think anyone should just take a Grimoire and follow it. These books were part of a secret tradition delivered master to disciple and were meant to be accompanied by oral instruction. They are notes and prompts and parts of the tradition and lacking that oral tradition the best that one can do is to study, study, study and then study some more and to practice, starting with the highest levels and only working with the lower ones as one can because it is the higher ones that control the lower ones. Jumping into the Goetia is like someone who finds part of a tattered manual of chemistry and fascinated by the section on explosives proceeds to try to make TNT, not realizing that the third nitration of the toulene occurs above it's boiling point, where the instability causes an instant and naturally devastating explosion. In such a case the best thing that can happen is nothing, but maybe I am just being overly cautious.

I have opened a new thread which can be found here: http://thetaobums.com/topic/27141-theurgia-goetia-on-gods-and-demons/?p=405616

The Gods as the Gods cannot be summoned by Goetia, they can only be invoked by the art of Theurgy which through refining our awareness reveals our fundamental kinship with the Gods and allows us to enter into communion with them. What is evoked by Goetia is a dim and distant reflection, powerful perhaps to achieve certain effects, but dangerous as a ravenous tiger. It is only profound achievement in the art of Theurgy which can allow one to successfully and and safely perform Goetic rites, anything else is “playing with fire”, hellfire. Shortly after I joined Tao Bums I started a series of posts on “Demons” which if reviewed should help to clarify this. I have been experimenting with a way to rescue posts like this so that the most useful material will be available. Here is my guide to these posts. The first post introduces a distinction between Gods and daimones, the conceptual ancestor of demon. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=98480 The core of the above discussion is this: The next section introduces a cross cultural discussion comparing shen and gui with agagthodaimones and cacodaimones. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=98573 This post expands the distinction between good and evil and even provides a working definition for the notion of “black magic” and by implication of “white”. The next section examines how this conceptual framework is developed during the Hellenistic period culminating in the full classification that Iamblichuse provides in his work on Theurgy, On the Mysteries, and also introduces the mythology of the “fallen” angels, more properly fallen daimones, because angels cannot fall. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=98799 The most important part of the above post is here: The part that I have emphasized being the whole rationale of Theurgy. The next post is something of an introduction to the post that follows it, the really important discussion being there, but it makes more sense if one reads this one first: http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=98949 The next section is extremely important for understanding the demonization of the the daimones. Among other things it points out the importance of the Gnostic sects in the process of demonization. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=99106 The next section is very important. It is a cross cultural comparison of Plato's Hades as portrayed in the Gorgias, its descendant in the Roman Catholic conception of Purgatory and the Chinese concept of hell. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=101119 Unfortunately at this time the posts move off in other directions, interesting in themselves perhaps, but not the type of exposition that characterizes the above. Also, I became too busy to finish the exposition as I intended to finish it, but the following does introduce a comparison between “Hell” and Tartarus which is useful, since according to the conjurations of Goetia, it is from Tartarus that the Goetic spirits are summoned. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=112448 The discussion about light is interesting in itself and is part of the reason that “the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not.” (John 1:5) I hope that the above material is both interesting and helpful. Finally, thank you Apech for introducing and maintaining such an interesting and stimulating topic. I respect your opinions and find your discussions very suggestive.

Thank you Apech. It is certainly not my wish to see your interesting thread cluttered with extraneous material and I had thought while preparing the post that I would suggest that a specific thread be started for replies, if there were any. That said, I do like the idea of leaving the above where it is with a reference to its continuation elsewhere. That way someone going through your material may "stumble" onto something interesting to them, which is part of the fun of forums like this. Edit: you to your

The Gods as the Gods cannot be summoned by Goetia, they can only be invoked by the art of Theurgy which through refining our awareness reveals our fundamental kinship with the Gods and allows us to enter into communion with them. What is evoked by Goetia is a dim and distant reflection, powerful perhaps to achieve certain effects, but dangerous as a ravenous tiger. It is only profound achievement in the art of Theurgy which can allow one to successfully and and safely perform Goetic rites, anything else is “playing with fire”, hellfire. Shortly after I joined Tao Bums I started a series of posts on “Demons” which if reviewed should help to clarify this. I have been experimenting with a way to rescue posts like this so that the most useful material will be available. Here is my guide to these posts. The first post introduces a distinction between Gods and daimones, the conceptual ancestor of demon. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=98480 The core of the above discussion is this: The next section introduces a cross cultural discussion comparing shen and gui with agagthodaimones and cacodaimones. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=98573 This post expands the distinction between good and evil and even provides a working definition for the notion of “black magic” and by implication of “white”. The next section examines how this conceptual framework is developed during the Hellenistic period culminating in the full classification that Iamblichuse provides in his work on Theurgy, On the Mysteries, and also introduces the mythology of the “fallen” angels, more properly fallen daimones, because angels cannot fall. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=98799 The most important part of the above post is here: The part that I have emphasized being the whole rationale of Theurgy. The next post is something of an introduction to the post that follows it, the really important discussion being there, but it makes more sense if one reads this one first: http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=98949 The next section is extremely important for understanding the demonization of the the daimones. Among other things it points out the importance of the Gnostic sects in the process of demonization. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=99106 The next section is very important. It is a cross cultural comparison of Plato's Hades as portrayed in the Gorgias, its descendant in the Roman Catholic conception of Purgatory and the Chinese concept of hell. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=101119 Unfortunately at this time the posts move off in other directions, interesting in themselves perhaps, but not the type of exposition that characterizes the above. Also, I became too busy to finish the exposition as I intended to finish it, but the following does introduce a comparison between “Hell” and Tartarus which is useful, since according to the conjurations of Goetia, it is from Tartarus that the Goetic spirits are summoned. http://thetaobums.com/topic/8438-demons/?p=112448 The discussion about light is interesting in itself and is part of the reason that “the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not.” (John 1:5) I hope that the above material is both interesting and helpful. Finally, thank you Apech for introducing and maintaining such an interesting and stimulating topic. I respect your opinions and find your discussions very suggestive.

There have been interesting discussions of this topic elsewhere on The Tao Bums, but to rescue this thread and keep it in line with Western traditions, a little cross cultural comparison may be in order. The following is from Chapter XVI of Agrippa's Second Book of Occult Philosophy: There is a tendency to think of hand gestures as being something unique to Eastern esoteric practices, this text should make clear that there is warrant for such practices within the Western Tradition. At the beginning Agrippa first mentions one explanation for the use of gestures: "as they seemed to me ridiculous gesturings, and I did think they were certain occult agreements of the divels" This would have been a devastating criticism of them at the time, since this would mean an explicit or implicit pact had been entered into with these "divels" and would have made them something which could not be advocated publicly. In modern times we are not subject to this limitation and may more freely examine the possibility of a connection with spiritual beings of one sort or another. Agrippa then starts his defense of the practice: "after I did more seriously examine the matter, then I did presently understand that they were not the compacts of divels" Agrippa rejects this explanation, but then he puts forward a very interesting explanation for them which ties them in with Qabalah and spell magic by maintaining that they really represent numbers, for in Qabalah letters and thus words have numbers: "there lay in them the reason of numbers, by which the ancients did by the various bending forward, and backward, their hands, and fingers represent numbers, by whose gesturings the Magiciand did silently signifie words unknown by sound, various with numbers, yet of great vertue" This is an interesting perspective in itself, but when you combine it with the idea of numbering and then spelling through these hand gestures the names of spirits and the Gods: "and did with sacred silence worship the Gods that rule over the world" The hand positions become a representation of the numbers and by reason of that correspondence to letters and names can resonate with divine powers. Thus one can unify the two perspectives and free that practice of the diabolical taint ascribed to it by its critics. I hope people find these ideas interesting and suggestive.

I have been acquainted with the writings of Israel Regardie for about 45 years. Nothing in them gives me the impression that he “came up via the Theosophists”. In point of fact early on he was strongly interested in Aleister Crowley and even left the U. S. about the age of twenty to join Crowley in England and worked for many years as his private secretary. He became dissatisfied with Crowley and joined the Stella Matutina, which was the primary offshoot of the Golden Dawn after the “Great Schism” of 1900. It was in the Stella Matutina that Regardie became familiar with the original Golden Dawn Material, rather than Crowley's version of it. It was this material that he published in his The Golden Dawn. In the 40s he learned Chiropractic and that became his profession. He later combined this with the teachings of Wilhelm Reich and considered these to be a good combination. In the mid 60s he studied laboratory alchemy with Frater Albertus who founded the Paracelsus Research Society and was the author of several books. Through his worldwide teaching activity Frater Albertus was largely the driving force behind the late Twentieth Century revival of laboratory alchemy. Regardie was not particularly active publicly in Occultism until the Occult Revival of the late 60s and early 70s brought him and his works back into a spotlight of sorts. Around 1980 he became acquainted with the New Zealanders Pat Zaleski and his wife, who claimed to be representatives of the last remaining Stella Matutina lodge which had been founded by Dr. Felkin, an early Golden Dawn member and one of the principles of the Stella Matutina when Felkin emigrated to New Zealand. It was with the Zaleskis that Regardie restarted the Golden Dawn. After Regardie's death there was a series of schisms with the result that there are now several organizations claiming status as a “legitimate” Golden Dawn. my understanding is that Chic Cicero and his wife Tabitha were longtime associates of Dr. Thomas Head of Atlanta, GA USA, a gentleman of Regardie's generation whom I believe is deceased. Regardie knew and respected Dr. Head and the Ciceros. They are generally considered to be the most representative of the tradition. I don't know them personally and am not involved in anyway with any present or past revivals of the Golden Dawn, though one person who was working with Regardie at the time of the revival did invite me to participate. I declined at the time and have no regrets for having done so. Regarding the Ciceros, all I can say about them aside from positive hearsay, is based on their books and those which I have read I consider to be good introductions to Golden Dawn material and its practice. If anyone is interested in such matters they can benefit from reading them. I consider Israel Regardie to be of great importance in the Twentieth Century revival of magic. He emerged from his experiences with Crowley both unscathed and enriched. His works take the best that Crowley has to offer and leave the dross. They are are both valuable and interesting. In having the courage to publish the Golden Dawn material he did all who follow him an inestimable service. Changed Golden Material to Golden Dawn material

sinansencer, Thank you for your interest. My interest and the basic ideas actually go back to the early 70s when I was intrigued by the idea of astrological magic and meditation inspired by the accounts of astrological images which I had read about in certain books. I was working with an artist and she recommended Nikcolaides The Natural Way to Draw. I found this interesting, but could never make the transition to really drawing, based on Nicolaides alone. One of his basic techniques, contour drawing such as demonstrated here: was useful as a meditation, but that was not enough. Watch this video and bear in mind the the comment by Scott32169 on the on the YouTube page: and review the instructions at the end of OldGreen's post on "Foundations of Magical Training" in the Hermetic and Occult sub-forum on visualization. Now think about how you could combine contour drawing with those instructions and you will get an idea of what I am talking about. I actually thought about posting something about this there, but while I have more spare time right now than usual, I am still not completely at leisure, so I put off posting. However, I wanted more, I wanted to be able to draw, so the project was put on the back burner until 1980 when I returned to the subject, either because of a drawing seminar which I attended or I attended the drawing seminar because I was interested again for some reason or other. In either case, the woman was good and I learned a lot. She said that soon a book would be published which would be very good and gave me the information on it. It turned out to be Betty Edwards' book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. This turned out to be pretty much what I wanted and I had no trouble working out a system based on her book which not only helps with the necessary skills, but also turns you into a good artist, a double benefit and what I wanted. So if you are interested on a practical level you should get yourself a copy of Betty Edwards' book and then adapt it to purposes like the above referenced exercises. Be forewarned that, while the neurology was accurate at the time she was developing her material it is out of date and largely misleading at this time. In particular it is influenced by a strong cultural bias that has developed since around 1800 in the West which I call the Romanticism/Reductionism dichotomy which among other things distorts the relation between between "reason" and "intuition". This dichotomy is imported wholesale into her discussions of right and left brain functions and and their other correlations and is misleading. I became aware of this when I bought the new edition, my old one having long ago fallen apart, because I am preparing to teach again, though not magic per se, and needed to review her approach. When I first read the book, based on my knowledge of brain function their was no need to critique her approach, but now there is. The exercises themselves, however, are of great value and will pay off for anyone who undertakes them with meditative or magical discipline in mind. I hope this information is useful to you and anyone else who is interested.

I have used art in training for magic for over 30 years. It can improve memory, visualization and concentration. It also induces a slightly altered mental state which can lead to what I call "Contemplation", one of the essentials of Classical Magical training.

"Extract the souls of all things" is a reference to what the alchemist referred to as sulphur, in Aristotle's terminology the form. The reason for using sulphur as a name is because when liquid it is red, but when solid it is yellow and the liquid extracts of gold were red as one can witness in the old fashioned red glass which received its color from gold used in its manufacture. The soul was the active agent and the alchemists extraction of the "active part" of a natural substance, whether animal, vegetable or mineral, is the distant ancestor to the modern pharmaceutical companies search for the "active ingredient" in traditional herbal remedies of which aspirin, from willow, and digitalis, from froxglove, are the models. "The miracles of the Sun" is probably a reference to the Emerald Tablet. "The Emperor" and "Kelly" is undoubtably a reference to the fate which Edward Kelly, skryer to John Dee, suffered at the hands of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf the Second, who first knighted Kelly for the transmutation which he "demonstrated" at court and then imprisoned him for not following through with his promises of more. Kelly died from injuries suffered when he jumped at least two stories in a botched escape attempt. "Noble humour" is perhaps what GrandmasterP believes he is indulging by quoting at length from a play that, following the lead set by Chaucer in the Canon's Yeoman's tale, sets out to reveal the falsity of Hermetic Arts and the cons which accompany them. I only say this because in light of GrandmasterP's numerous negative comments about these subjects, his quoting of Johnson has the ring of the ironical. To continue themes from Johnson's work, in memory of a certain "Dapper" gentleman, I will append the following account from the autobiography of William Lilly, the famous 17th Century astrologer and by his own account magician: More of which may be found here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15835 I have often wondered whether one reason why magic "doesn't work" is because most people who claim an interest in these matters, as much as they may seem to long for it and affirm otherwise, don't really believe in it and are so astonished when it actually does work that they recoil in terror leaving success to heartier souls. To Know, to Will, to Dare and to Keep Silent.