A Kabbalistic Handbook for the Practicing Magician

Joseph C. Lisiewski New Falcon Publications, 2005

Reviewed by Tom Bland

Joseph Lisiewski has written an interesting and at times thoughtful study on the tree of life, and the way in which it can be applied to magical practice. Of course, Lisiewski is not proposing anything new, his mentor, Israel Regardie, wrote extensively on this. In fact, I found little new in this slim volume which I hadn’t already read in Regardie or the writings of Crowley or Fortune.

Lisiewski contends that something is wrong with the contemporary practice of magic. Like Lisiewski, I didn’t find the Golden Dawn material entirely workable or useful, but I always found it adaptable and changeable to circumstance. Regardie said something similar and spent a long time reworking the rituals of the GD, particularly as they might be employed by the solitary practitioner.

Lisiewski openly proclaims this and yet proposes a way of working with the material which he finds to be successful. Some of the advice is useful but at times obvious, for example, comparing different editions of the GD rituals as published in different sources. When I practiced the work of the GD, I would often do this, and found it very helpful. The best part of his advice is given in chapter 2 of his book, which is on the importance of research for performing rituals.

I liked Lisiewski’s emphasis on researching the symbolic structure of ritual in a twofold way: first through examining the symbolism in the teachings of the GD and in other resource books, such as Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Secondly by intuiting the symbolic meaning by relating to it on an inner level. In terms of occult literature, research is a subject which has rarely been touched upon in this way.

Personally I learnt research methodology from a study group on C.G.Jung’s writings at the Jung Club in London, which was led by a phenomenologist of religion, who specialised in esoteric currents in religion. I was taught the twofold method, first analysing a symbol through primary and secondary sources, and secondly through understanding symbols on an experiential level, where one relates the symbol to dreams and experiences. As such, this chapter really resonated and I found it to be the best part of the book.

The rest is not really needed, and chapter 2 could have been published in journal format. I found Lisiewski’s detailing of the symbolism for the tree of life was unnecessary in light of the number of books that already cover this subject. I strongly echo Lisiewski recommendion to go to the sources - Agrippa’s work, as well as Crowly’s 777 and Regardie’s The Tree of Pomegranates. The chapter on Agrippa’s planetary times for rituals could have been condensed to an appendix, and more or less summarised in a table.

Unfortunately what takes up a lot of space in the book, is the author’s recommendations of other books. These may be good books, but really that is what the bibliography is for? H a lso spends a lot of time being rather patronising to the reader, and trying to work out what the reader is thinking. It is a style which distracts from what is being said, and in my opinion does not necessary place the reader in a receptive state to learn.

All in all although this book is interesting and thoughtful there is not enough that is new. Most of it is a repetition of what we have read before. Lisiewski has a habit of falling into a prejudice on what he thinks magic is, dismissing magic as an art, and instead proposing it simply as a science.

I’m not going to argue with a physicist over what constitutes science, nor am I going to deny that magic has a scientific component to it, but then again, I’m not going to dismiss magic as art either. I certainly see many parallels to the way an artist and an occultist works. Both work with images, not because they stand for something, but because they have presence and substance. I see no reason to dismiss the reality of this, simply to advocate a narrow view of what magic might be.

Tom Bland is an independent researcher specialising in the esoteric arts. He has a special interest in the Kabbalah from a theoretical and practical viewpoint. He trained in humanistic and transpersonal facilitation. He currently leads a study group on the Kabbalah for the C. G. Jung Analytical Psychology Club in London. He can be contacted at inward@.... (http://members.lycos.co.uk/tombland/)

Treadwells and Secret Chief Talks

"The God Seth And The Personification Of Evil" Contemporary magicians have always been interested in 'the problem of evil' (see, for example, WB Yeats' magickal name Demon Est Deus Inversus). Many see the ancient Egyptian god Seth as the prototype for the modern Satan, Lucifer or the Devil. Mogg will look at the context of the famous image of Seth deriding Apophis (the demonic/chaotic serpent of 'non-being') as a leitmotif for the nature or 'personification' of evil in ancient thought.

Treadwells

Here's a selection of talks at Treadwells. Full descriptions of all events are to be found now on website, http:www.treadwells-london.com

Treadwells, 34 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London WC2
Places booked on 0207 240 8906
or by email info@...

R J Stewart

R.J.Stewart is visiting Bath from America in March and holding a weekend workshop at Openings Saw Close. The subject matter will be The rivers of Blood and tears in the underworld , Prophecy and sacred springs. The Workshops will be held on Sat/ Sun 25/26 march Cost will be £100.

R.J is a skilled musician, and if the workshop is too expensive you might still enjoy his gig at B.R.L.S.I. in Queens square Bath on Fri 24th March. Cost for this will be £5.00 - for more details or workshop spec mail me on marue333@...

Shaping Formless Fire
Distilling the Quintessence of Magick
By Stephen Mace

Published by New Falcon Publications

Review by Akashanath 8/1/06 e.v.

Based on a series of articles originally written for German Magazine Zillo, Shaping Formless Fire is a comprehensive introduction to the author's unique magick system. This is not to say that the sixteen short essays will be of no use to people working in other paradigms. Nor should the experienced occultist be put off by the fact that this book is aimed at 'beginners'. The fermentation of Mace's thirty plus years of practical experience, sharp analytical mind and lucid writing style has produced a rich and deeply textured brew that will appeal to a wide range of palates.

For those who are not familiar with the work of Stephen Mace, it may be useful to rewind twenty years, to the point where he stepped out of the shadows. After a decade of sterility amongst English-speaking occultists, a new magickal underground had started to gather momentum. Bored with the elitism and exclusivity of Golden Dawn style hierarchical Orders and unimpressed with the repetitive formalism of rituals based on combinations of freemasonry and the qabalah, this new breed looked to individualists like Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare for their inspiration. The new credo eventually coalesced around the twin pillars of non-dogmatism and mastery of technique, subsequently acquiring the glamour of 'Chaos Magick'. Publications such as Peter Carrol's Psychonaut and Liber Null made the ideas accessible to a wider audience. This stimulated enough interest to generate several working groups and a few periodicals, notably Chaos International. These in turn gave a public platform to a surprising number of like-minded occultists who, it turned out, had been beavering away in the wilderness all along. It is to this group that Stephen Mace belongs.

Though Mace's ideas definitely captured the Zeitgeist of the mid eighties, they have scarcely become less relevant over the intervening period. While many of his contemporaries departed from the early egalitarianism of the Chaos scene by attempting to build personality cults or by reinventing the Occult Order, Mace remained humble and unincorporated, with his nose firmly to the grindstone. I mention this because it bears closely on the work in question. The book is not interesting because it is written by 'The Great Stephen Mace', it is not interesting because the author is 'an XIo Adept in the Crowley Copyright Club'. It is interesting (and convincing) because Steve Mace has done exactly what he says he's done, usually repeatedly until he's understood it completely and assimilated any lessons to be learned.

The whole book exemplifies this, but to illustrate the point I'll use Chapter III (Astral Projection). It may help the reader to know that Mace's original Manum Opus (yes, they are plural) synthesised Sparian sigilisation with the Thelemic Liber Samekh (known to the old school as the Abramelin Operation). As many readers will know, those who claim to have achieved 'the knowledge and conversation' of their Holy Guardian Angels can often sound a little pompous. This contrasts sharply with Mace's matter-of-fact reportage. 'Of course, all this [astral magick] would be easier if you had an assistant on the [astral] planes to help you manage all the spirits you meet there' he mentions almost in passing. In case you were interested, he continues 'Traditionally the way to become acquainted with your Angel is through months of progressively greater austerities. An alternate method is to design an alphabetic sigil from letters of a sentence requesting knowledge of it. Then after about 6 weeks of putting energy into it you should be able to use it to meet your Angel on the Astral.' The only possible objection to this is that it sounds a little simplistic. As if he's read your mind, the author immediately meets you with the rejoinder 'I have told you a great deal about astral projection, but I haven't given you the explicit instruction you need to do it. This is because its proper practice is just too complex to fit into the space I have here …" This could equally apply to the book as a whole. It's full of fascinating detail about the author's down-to-earth approach to the whole gamut of magickal experience, from divination, through initiation, sacred spaces, and sex magick to magickal combat and black magick. But it's not a manual.

So, what are the highlights, apart from the aforementioned? The occasional personal anecdotes the author throws in to illustrate various themes are usually pretty entertaining. Take, for example, the story of his arrest and subsequent imprisonment in the 1970s, used to illustrate the process of initiation Chapter X. He also drops the occasional pearl about the modern world, such as the reference to '…the vast insurance pool that underlies modern society' . And Chapters XI and XII, which deal with black magick and magickal combat, should be compulsory reading for every hormone-high teenager who's just scared himself shitless by discovering that magick actually works. And the low points? Very few. Perhaps the book could've benefited by omitting the dark prognostications for the collapse of the Pax Amricana in the opening paragraphs, although it could equally be true that some readers will find inspiration here, as the author obviously intends. Some people might also take issue with the more idiosyncratic features of the author's approach, such as the location of the Guardian Angel at the centre of virtually every process, or his insistence on the necessity of 'magickal cleansing'. From my perspective, however, this one of the book's great strengths. The world is not short of occult writers who can read and digest books on magick, regurgitating in general terms any plausible sounding relationships and parallels, but rejecting anything that looks out of place. What we are desperately short of, on the other hand, is experienced magicians prepared to tell it how it is, and Shaping Formless Fire has this in spades.

To summarise, then, it's a modern classic by one of the less visible founders of Chaos Magick. Essential for anyone thinking about practicing Macian Sorcery, useful for the general beginner, and a good read for the experienced occultist.

www.spiritual-freedom.org

The Dragon Lover

The Dragon Lover: Tales of Hidden Bulgaria

presented by A Spell In Time

From your eyes strong sparks fly
From your mouth a fierce flame leaps
The horse you ride is like a mountain
The clothes you wear burn like a fire.

Ritual wedding song

He’s handsome, smiling, alluring, beguiling. His eyes are like fire upon water. He’s the man of your dreams. But is he all that he seems? Delve into the darkness and discover ... if he’s a man or a Dragon Lover.

Welcome to a world of dangerous delights where shapes shift, magic moves and dragons dwell. But some dragons wear their skins on the inside.

The Dragon Lover is a sizzling tale of seduction, a deliciously dark twist on falling in love where games of hide and seek are played out with deadly consequences. With a spellbinding mix of storytelling, ritual, evocative music and divine Bulgarian singing, A Spell In Time presents primal theatre from the heart of Bulgarian myth and folklore. Take your partners for the dragon’s dance......

For adults. Not suitable for children under 10

Website: www.spellintime.fsnet.co.uk

FORTHCOMING DATES SPRING 2006 Fri 10 March 7.30pm The Dragon Lover: Tales of Hidden Bulgaria Glasshouse Theatre, Glasshouse College, Wollaston Road, Stourbridge, W. Midlands DY8 4HF. Box office: 01384 399430. £7 / £5 concs.

Journal for the Academic Study of Magic (JSM)

Call For Papers for Issue 4, deadline 21-6-2006

Issue 4 of the JSM, due to appear late in 2006, is now seeking contributions. Scholarly articles in English about any aspect of magic/occultism are welcome up to 8000 words in length.

After a brief hiatus – JSM 3 should be appearing early 2006 (see contents below) – Drs Dave Green (University of the West of England, UK) and Susan Johnston Graf (Penn State, Mont Alto, USA) are taking over as co-editors of the journal.

We wish to thank Dave Evans, founding editor, for all his wonderful work in getting the journal up and running and establishing its reputation. The new editors are also pleased to announce that The Mandrake Press is continuing its involvement with the journal as publishers.

Submission to the journal is by Email attachment, in Rich Text Format documents using Harvard Citation Style. Full submission details, an outline style guide can be found here http://www.sasm.co.uk/styleguide.html

Could all submissions now be sent to Dave Green David2.Green@...

Please feel free to contact Dave or Susan - sjg9@... - about the suitability of any proposed article, but in principle we aim to be as inclusive as possible, welcoming submissions from any academic discipline concerning any aspect of magic/occultism from any geographic region in any historical period. Academic articles from magical practitioners are also encouraged.

Deadline for submissions is 21st June 2006, with early submissions welcome.

Issue 3 Contents

£19.99, isbn 1869928962, 300pp

Hannah Sanders - Buffy and Beyond: Language and Resistance in Contemporary Teenage Witchcraft / Amy Lee - A Language of Her Own: Witchery as a New Language of Female Identity/ Dave Green - Creative Revolution: Bergsonisms and Modern Magic / Mary Hayes - Discovering the Witch’s Teat: Magical Practices, Medical Superstitions in The Witch of Edmonton / Penny Lowery - The Re-enchantment of the Medical: An examination of magical elements in healing. / Jonathan Marshall - Apparitions, Ghosts, Fairies, Demons and Wild Events: Virtuality in Early Modern Britain / Kate Laity - Living the Mystery: Sacred Drama Today / Research Articles: David Geall - ‘A half-choked meep of cosmic fear’ Is there esoteric symbolism in H.P.Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath? / Susan Gorman - Becoming a Sorcerer: Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s Quartier Mozart and the Magic of Deleuzian and Guattarian Becoming / Book Reviews

Generation Hex (review)

Jason Louv (Editor) £9.99 Disinformation Company 2005

Generation Hex comes on strong. Like the hissing intensity of a DMT hit it reaches out and grabs you. Hang on to your crown chakras kids, it’s going to be one hell of a ride!

Though brash in it’s post post-modern reality hacking style Generation Hex is far from being all façade and no content (although the design quality of the volume, as we have come to expect from the Disinformation crew, is indeed excellent). This is a wonderful selection of essays by young magicians, mostly from the USA that I found a real inspiration to read.

The collection ranges across samples of diary extracts, detailed explorations of how magick might be understood through pure maths and physics, through to work on psychogeographical drifting and esoteric parables. The styles differ as well, from the post-Gibson swaggering psybermagickical, through cut-up discordianism and into more classic modern journalese. But uniting each essay are a number of common features. The first is that without exception each essay is wonderfully written. The second is that each essay gives the sense that it is a window into real experimental magick and that the authors are primarily practitioners first and writers second. The third is that in their different ways each essay is seeking to broaden the perception of what magic is.

I was particularly taken by the honest and direct position that drugs take within the magickal work of many of the essayists. I was inspired that such intelligent, honest and human magick is being produced by younger adepts. Though you’ll find techniques in this volume it’s so much more than a crummy how-to manual. Perhaps for me (aged about 10 years older than most of the guys and gals writing in this collection) one of the great insights was how the availability of esoteric technique and technology (especially via the internet) means that today’s new generation of occultists can spend their time experimenting and doing, and not waste so much energy in trying to obtain paraphernalia, find rare out of print books and hang-around at lame New Age festivals looking for real magicians (like I had to! Honestly these kids don’t know they’re born!).

This is a must read for anyone interested in the sociology of magick let alone those people who are themselves occultists. I have a feeling that the Generation Hexers are really going to be helping to set the new agenda for magick in the 21st century and if this book represents the way we’re headed then we can expect great things indeed.

If you’ve been wondering what was going to come after chaos magick then the approaches explored in this book may well be the answer. Buy it now.

‘THE POISON MAKER’ by John Symonds

John Symonds, who is ninety one, claims the play is based on a true story. He was the editor of the literary magazine Lilliput, knew George Orwell and was the lover of Peggy Ramsey, Joe Orton's literary agent. He has written over forty volumes of plays, essays and children's books and is best known for being Aleister Crowley's literary executor and author of the Great Beast. The biography was the first to draw attention to Crowley and has caused much controversy ever since. Those looking for occult subtexts in the play will not be entirely disappointed. Florence, for one, dreams of snakes, curtsies to the pear tree in the garden and frequently employs the tarot (the pack of Thoth, as it happens, though perhaps not too much should be read into this). Though antiquated in style, The Poison-Maker is highly unusual. Anyone wanting a glimpse of the eccentric upper-class milieu that both Crowley and Symonds moved in should check it out.

Legend of the Witches (Review)

• Written and Directed by Malcolm Leigh
• Produced by Negus-Fancey
• Edited by Judith Smith
• Lighting Cameraman: Robert Webb
• Border Film Production (London) Ltd
• Year: 1969
• Featuring: Alex and Maxine Sanders and their beautiful coven.
• Format: DVD

‘In the beginning was the Moon, Diana. Her lover was the Dawn, Lucifer - God of Light. They created man, and built the monuments, which tracked their paths across the skies. Now man could predict the movements of the Gods, he sought to control them, through priests and ritual…’

Originally X-rated, this newly released DVD, is a real period piece this, documenting the beliefs and practices of Alex Sanders and the circle of witches, which under his leadership, electrified the popular imagination and attracted many into the Wiccan path.

The film's leisurely pace requires the modern viewer to make some adjustment to their viewing habits. Nevertheless this is a minor masterpiece and really manages to tell one of witchcraft's many 'stories'. We've perhaps become a little too knowing to accept all of the certainties of 1960s Wicca - but nevertheless we can all agree, that this 'warts and all' view, really does capture the spirit of the time. It's a beautiful film, shot I think in 16mm black and white, which lends it a very artistic feel, reminding me most of the experimental films of Maya Deren or indeed UK classics of 'socialist realism' such as 'Night Mail', the 1936 movie by John Grierson, with music by Benjamin Britten.

The documentary begins with lovely sweeping shots of seascapes and ancient, elemental landscapes over which the film's narrator begins his tale of the ancient witch mythology, of the Goddess Diana and her consort Lucifer, the sun. Now whether or not one buys into this spirited mythology, we have strayed into controversy almost immediately. Who amongst the current glut of media witches even dares to mention that name - Lucifer?

Almost half the film explores these ideas, covering issues such the mysteries of earth energy, altered states, the pagan traces that survive in pre-reformation churches, the persecutions and the rebirth of the old religion. It's foundation myth, easy to sneer at, but strangely wonderful just the same.

Seamlessly, the film now deliverers us into the hands of a modern coven. We see them perform a variety of rites. First, an outdoor initiation. The candidate, referred to throughout as Michael, not because that's his real name but presumably because of the ancient folk myth of 'crazy man Michael', Britain's very own 'holy fool'. The priestess repeatedly calls 'Michael' to various encounters with elemental forces, the whole rite done at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, itself a place of power, just a stone's thrown from Lindow Moss, where in Iron Age times, other, darker rites were done by our pagan ancestors.

Now the action moves into the temple, after some exploration of the many cursing exhibits, still to be seen at the Boscastle's Witchcraft Museum, we are prepared for the notion that witches sometimes curse. The coven, prepare such a curse, using the traditional and extremely ancient technique, in which a poppet is given life through the agency of Alex and Maxine's act of sexual magick - fascinating stuff.

We even get to see something seldom alluded to these days - the so-called 'Black Mass.' completed with a very lifelike 'sign of Osiris slain' - . These witches, known these days as Alexandrians, do not see such as mass as any form of inversion of Christian principles. They knew something that we have all perhaps forgotten - there is no impervable barrier between primitive Christianity and classical paganism. It was around this time that Professor Morton Smith wrote his groundbreaking book Jesus the Magician. The 'Black Mass' is only 'black to the blind' - it is in fact a celebration of life in all is bounty.

The film concludes with a nod to the future, when the special powers of the witch will be understood more in terms of the newish science of ESP and indeed the 1960s first forays into the psychedelic, encounter groups and other techniques of obsession and transcendence. Of course some in the new millennial will find this all too embarrassing and bad for business - but what do they know? Who are then the true successors to Alex Sanders and the witches of the 1960s? If they were still here I'd say the Temple of Psychic Youth would be a likely contender. The film will outrage some but inspire others to take up where they left off after a generation or more of stoney sleep. Buy this and be refreshed. - Mogg Morgan