Techniques of HIGH MAGIC

                      a guide to self-empowerment


   PART 1 - THE MEANING OF MAGIC

           'Beloved Pan, and all ye other Gods who haunt this
            place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may
            the outward and inward man be at one.'
                                             - Plato, Phaedrus, 279 BC


Magic is not an easy thing to define and the word has many
different meanings. Some people still associate it with the
production of white rabbits from top hats, other with the dark
superstitions of an ignorant peasantry yet others with the
'Black Mass' and 'unspeakable orgies' - whatever they may be.
  When, however, the present-day occultist talks about magic
he means something similar to, but by no means identical with,
what an anthropologist is referring to when he writes of 'the
magic of primitive peoples'.
  For the purposes of these filez, then, the word magic is
primarily used in the same sense that is defined by the over-
whelming majority of contemporary magical practitioners -
'the art and science of using little known natural forces in order
to achieve changes in consciousness and the physical environ-
ment'. We also use the word magic in a secondary sense as
meaning the entire body of doctrines and techniques and consecra-
tion of wands, swords, and other instruments used by magicians
in the performance of their art; ritual divination by such
methods as geomancy; the manufacture and consecration of
talismans; and the exploration of universes other then that with
which we are familiar.
  There are many schools of magic in existence today, but
many of them  ultimately derive from the same source
  [Footnote: The Hermet order of the Golden Dawn was the most important
             single source of the modern magical traditions. For details of
             this Order see Dr Israel Regardie's 'Golden Dawn'.
             (4 vols) Aries Press, 1937-1940, reprinted (2 vols) Llewellyn
             Publications, USA, 1969; Francis King, 'Ritual Magic in England'.
             Neville Spearman, London, 1970; Francis King, 'Astral Projection,
             Magic and Alchemy'. Neville Spearman, London, 1972; and R.G.Torrens
             'The Secret Rituals of the Golden Dawn'. Aquarian, UK, 1972.]
and almost all of them share the same four fundamental theoretical
assumptions:
   1. That the universe of the physical scientists is only a part, and
      by nomeans the most important part, of total reality.
   2. That Human will-power is a real force, capable of being trained
      and concentrated, and the the disciplined will is capable of
      changing its enviroment and producing supernormal effects.
   3. That this will-power must be directed by the imagination.
   4. That the universe is not a mixture of chance factors and influences
      but an ordered system of correspondences, and that the understanding
      of the pattern of correspondences enables the occultist to use them
      for his own purposes, good or ill(/evil).

  The first of these basic axioms, that which affirms the physical
world to be only one component part of total reality, must not
be understood as a denial of the existence of matter. Most
magicians believe as firmly in the existence of matter as any
Marxist, but they regard it as only the 'densest' of a number of
different types of existence, usually referred to as 'Worlds' or
'Planes'. The last-mentioned term is an unfortunate one, for it
often leads those unfamiliar with occult terminology to con-
ceive of the planes as being one above the other. rather like
geological strata. The Magician does not loop upon them in
this way; instead he regards them as interpenetrating and co-
existing with one another - the so-called 'astral plance', for
example, having the same spatial co-ordinates as the physical
plane but, nevertheless remaining quite separate from it and
obeying its own natural laws. In other words, 'the planes are
discreetand not continuous'.
  Just how many of these worlds and planed are supposed
to exist depends upon which particular mode of classification
the magician chooses to use. Today most of them prefer the
fourfold classification of the Golden Dawn version of the
Hebrew Qabalah and therefore refer to:
1. Atziluth, the Devine World, Archetypal existence
2. Briah, the Creative World, sphere of Archangels and other
           types of spiritual entity.
3. Yetzirah, the Astral World, lying immediately 'above' the
    plance of dense physical matter.
4. Assiah, the Material World, the plane of ordinary physical existence.

  For the purposes of practical magic the Astral World
(Yetzirah), is of greatest importance, for by the manipulation
of its basic material, called by many occultists the Astral Light
and bearing some resemblance to the orgone energy of Wilhelm
Reich, occultists believe that they are enabled to exert control
over dense matter and to produce changes in consciousness in
themselves and others.
  The magicians' belief in more that one plane of being implies
the existence of more than one type of 'body' operating on
those planes. Once again the vehicle of physical existence is
thought of as being comparatively unimportant; it is what are
usually referred to as 'the subtle bodies' that are of greatest
interest to the practitioners of magic and, once more, their
supposed number depends upon the preferred system of
classification. Thus those magicians who use the Golden
Dawn's Qabalistic system habitually talk about 'the etheric
body', thought of as almost physical in nature, a quasi-magnetic
network of lines of force laying down the pattern to be followed
by the physical body; of 'the astral body', which it is believed
can be dissociated from the physical body and used by the
magician to journey through the astral world; of 'the mental
body'; of 'the spiritual body'; and of the Yechidah, or Devine
Spark, the highest aspect of consciousness, the fraction of
Godhead which is held to the central core of each human personality.
   [Footnote: see part 10 for more details]

  For the pratical purposes it is, of course the astral body in
which the magician is most intrested; he learns to project
(dissociate) it, to transfer his consciousness to it, to use it for
astral travel, ad even to use it to communicate with astral
entities. As you will discover for yourself if you read thiz,
there is nothing either impossible or even particulary difficult
in these curious procedures. Whether or not the astral plane and
the astral body enjoy any objective existence there is no doubt
that the performance of certain traditional psycho-spiritual
exercises produce a state of consciousness in which - at the
very least - one appears to have transferred one's consciousness
to a non-physical vehicle, one seems to enter a new universe
with laws of its own, and one undergoes an intensely lucid
'dream' while still retaining one's freedom of action and normal
powers of reasoning.
  The second basic magical axiom, that which affirms the
human will to be a force as real and effective as electricity or oil
is well summarized in the following quotations:
  'And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth
   the mysteries of the Will with its vigour? For God is but a
   great Will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man
   doth not yield himself to the angels nor to death uttely, save
   only though the weakness of his feeble will.'
   '... in the Adept death can be only supervene when the Higher
   will consenteth thereto, and herein is implied the whole Mystery
   of the Elixer of Life.'
   The second of these quotations is from one of the instruc-
tional documents of the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn
and was originally written by S.L. MacGregor Mathers. The
first preceded one of Poe's most effective short stories and was
attributed to Joseph Glanvill, the 17th century Platonist,
demonologist and theologian. We have been unable, however,
to trace it in any of Glanvill's published writings and we suspect
that Poe invented it. In any case it splendidly sums up the
magical doctrine of will-power.
  For the magician it is imagination that directs the will-
power, and fantasy that channels it into the flow of particular
energy-path desired. This belief was admirably expressed by a
certain Dr Berridge - Frater Resurgam of the Golden Dawn -
in a document entitled 'Flying Roll No. V';
  'To practise magic both the Imagination and the Will must
be called into action, they are co-equal in the work. Nay, more,
the Imagination myst precede the Will in order to produce the
greatest possible effect.'
  'The Will unaided can send forth a current, and that current
cannot be wholly inoperative; yet its effect is vague and inde-
finite, because the Will unaided sends forth nothing but the
current of force.
  'The Imagination unaided can create an image and this
image must have an existence of varying duration; yet it can
do nothing of importance unless vitalized and directed by the
Will.
  'When however, the two are conjoined - when the Imagin-
ation creates an image - and the Will directs and uses that
image, marvellous magical effects may be obtained.'
    [Footnote: The full text of the document quoted above may be found in
    Francis King, 'Astral Projection/ Magic and Alchemy'. Samual Weiser,
    New York, and Neville Spearman, London, 1972.]
  The Doctrine of correspondences is perhaps the most difficult
of the magical axioms to fully understand. it ultimately derives
from the Neo-Platonic conception of each man or woman as a
microcosm (a 'little universe') that is to say a reflection of the
macrocosm - the cosmos as a whole. It is believed that every
factor present in the universe is also present in the soul of man,
that - to use a phrase beloved by some magicians - 'the aura of
a man is a magical mirror of the universe'.
  Since magicians believe that the soul is the universe in
miniature they also believe that it is possible to link any factor
in the individual psycho-spiritual make-up with the correpond-
ing factor in the universe at large. in other words, to call down
a natural force to strengthen that same force in the individual
soul; technically this process is called invocation.
  The actual techniques of invocation involve the magician in
the use of one or the other of the traditional systems of classifi-
cation. Today the system used by most Western occultists is
based on a 32-fold classification
       [Footnote: Based on the ten Sephiroth and Twenty-two Paths of the
       Tree of Life of the Hebrew Qabalah.]
and printed tabels of the major correspondences are available, notably in
Aleister Crowley's 'Liber 777' and Dr Israel Regardie's 'Golden Dawn'.
The advanced magician, however, uses such tables only as a basis
for his own mental activity; he transforms a portion of his
mind into an invisible card-index and sorts every fact known to
him onto one or other of the thirty-two available 'cards', each
on which correlates with a natural force. Thus the colour
orange, the number eight, fish, snakes, white wine, the planet
Mercury, books, science, wisdom, knavery, and many other
things are held to relate in one way or another to the natural
force which the ancient Greeks personified as Hermes and the
ancient Egyptians as Thoth, Lord of magic, writing and
wisdom. Using this technique the magician who desires access
to some rare books, or knowledge of some arcane science,
endeavours to reinforce the 'Hermes factor' in the universe in
relation to his specific objective. To this end he devises a
ceremony to invoke Hermes, standing in and eight-pointed star
drawn in orange chalk, savramentally eating fish and drinking
white wine, calling on Hermes by chanting the barbarous
Names of Power traditionally associated with that deity, etc.
    [Footnote: Full practical instructions for invoctation are given in
               part thirtien of these files...]
Having focused the 'Hermes factor' he allows it to dissipate its
energy through the channel he has created, and in doing so it
sets in motion the causes which result in the book falling into
the hands of the magician.
  The four basic doctrines of magic and their inter-realtionship
where summed up by Paracelsus in the following words:
  'The astral currents created by the imagination of the
Macrocosm act upson the Microcosm and produce certain
states in the latter, and likewise the astral currents produced by
the imagination and will of man produce certain states in
external Nature; and these currents may reach far, because the
power of the imagination reaches as far as thought can go. The
physiological processes taking place in the bodies of living
beings are caused by their astral currents and the ...changes
taking place in the great organism of Nature as caused by the
astral currents of Nature as a whole. The astral currents of
either act upon the other, either consciously or unconsciously;
and if this fact is properly understood it will cease to appear
incredible that the mind of man may produce changes in the
universal mind ... or that evil may be changed into good by the
power of Faith. heaven is a field into which the imagination of
man throws the seeds.'
    [Footnote: Fuller details of Paracelsus' magical theories and
    techiques are to be found in his Archidoxes of Magic. Askin Publishers,
    London, 1975.]
  Such then, are the four theoretical premises on which
contemporary occultists base their magical activities. Many
occultists would regard them as 'true' in the ordinary sense of
that word, but some would look upon them as noe more than
reasonable woking hypotheses. J.W. Brodie-innes, an adept
active in the early part of the present century, took the latter
point of view and write:
  'Whether the Gods, The Qliphotic forces' (ie the evil demos
of hebrew Qabalah) 'or even the Secret Chiefs' (ie the
supposed invisible superhumans who are believed to direct the
activites of authentic magical fraternities) 'really exist is
comparatively unimportant; the point is that the universe
behaves as thought they do. In a sense the whole philosophy of
the pratice of magic is identical with the Pragmaticist (sic)
position of Pierce the American philosopher.'
  Few readers of these txt's, however, are likely to which to busy
themselves with such intellectual subtleties. Rather will they
wish to experiment themselves with the practical techniques of
the magical art.