A REAL MAGICAL BOOK

For years, I have wanted to create a magical book; something that you can use as a magical tool. The idea has been around since the middle ages. The Ars Notoria would provide you with a diagram, or a magical seal on the left hand side which you would meditate on while saying a prayer on the left hand side. Now a Canadian occultist Fra Alim has managed to create a Golden Dawn version of what I always wanted. It has taken him ten years hard work and meditation and getting a copy is a real honour.

It arrives in a purple bag with its own seal of protection.

It is a beautiful half leather with gold seals on the front

Front Cover 

Back cover 

  

Inside, Alim has taken several different aspects of the Golden Dawn tradition and built specific diagrams which unlock those particular ideas. On the right hand side are the parts of the ritual, or prayers which unlock the seal and are used as part of the diagram meditation. To a muggle these are simply beautiful diagrams, but to a magician the seals manage to take you places both intellectually and astrally. 

In combination with the prayers or meditations you are taken to places which depict different aspects of reality as seen through the lens of Tiphareth. This is only possible if the artist, in this case Fra Alim, has an experience of those particular states. If someone who had not experienced these states had created such a book, the doors would lead to lower astral or simply intellectual ideas. These seals take you to spiritual visions.

Particularly useful are his seals for the Spheres on the Tree of life. These would be very effective if used ritually by placing the book in the east and opening it on an appropriate page to bring in the sepherotic power for the ritual or to prepare the magician before they start a ritual. It would be useful for a Heirophant to meditate on the Malkuth seal and meditations before attempting to initiate someone into the 1=10.

The book itself appears to have a life of its own. Paola became very attached to it and it seems to like her a lot. It lets you discover something new about the Golden Dawn when you open a page at random. It is a strange and beautiful experience. I have favourite pages one includes a much better version of the Qesheth for the portal grade than the GD or the SM came up with.

Fra Alim’s work is still personal to him, so he is understandably reluctant to give it out, and certainly not to anyone below a certain grade within the tradition. However, if you are real spiritual seeker within the Golden Dawn and under the rose you can seek him out on Facebook for a chat. If you are lucky, he might let you buy one of these.

Inner and outer

I wrote this essay years ago for the Horus Hathor Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn  but I think it still stands - at least on a basic level.  People often forget that there is an inner aspect to ritual. 

Many people think if you do the GD ritual as if it were a perfectly performed play it is enough to archive spectacular magical effects.  Such people advocate turning the GD into a sort of Masonic order.  But with respect to those who do attempt to do Masonic rituals in an esoteric way, the GD is a MAGICAL order were the mere performance of a rite will simply produce a minor effect where there is an overt dependence on the superficial symbols of the rite.  If it were all about play acting we would be better off taking part in the Importance of Being Earnest with the local am-dram club.

You will have heard me talking about the ritual taking place in the Judgement Hall of Maat, none of this is mentioned in ‘the script’ it is  part of the astral or inner workings of the ritual.  Too many details about this I cant go into, but these involve the manipulation of different Egyptian godforms in a sort of twilight between the material and the spiritual realms.  The Hierophant builds up these godforms and causing them to vibrate at a particularly frequency by using calling their names in an ancient language.  This work I find makes it easier for me to see them clairvoyantly during the main working.  These godforms are ‘Golden Dawnised’ images of the Ancient Egyptian God in particular colours that are designed to enhance their power in the working.

Esoteric teaching says that there are three basic levels to the universe.  The first is the material, the next is the astral level which is at right angles to this one and is the realm of imagination and dreams.  Finally there is the divine level which is where the realm of the gods and goddesses or just God depending on your tradition.

Magical power comes from the divine level and therefore to call power into your rites you need to build an astral bridge between the group on the material and the divine.

What the hierophant does along with anyone else who is sitting on the top table in the East is visualising a halfway house on the astral in their imagination.  This temple is populated with Egyptian gods and goddesses and these act as channels for divine power. This halfway house is then placed over the top of the physical temple.

Some of the Gods are placed over the officers, other are just left passive conduits of power.

In the GD this godform work was considered top secret and would only be know to the highest grades in the group. The layout of the Inner Temple and the various depictions of the Gods and Goddesses used were kept in a single coloured scroll or book in some temples and which only those who did the visualising saw.  

Usually when a temple closed this scroll or book was the first to be destroyed to prevent anyone getting access to the group’s egregore.  For this reason anyone can perform rites that have been published, no one can claim to link to the original group. They build new godforms but they will never have access to the original egregore because these will never be the same or visualised in the same way.

The godforms provide the halfway force between the Earth and the spiritual forces you wish to attract, but the godforms we have formed does not yet actually draw much force to it.   The Heirophant has built a circuit and are is yet to power it up.  To do so the Heirophant ascends spiritually to the highest level they can and draws down spiritual energy into the thought-forms created.

At the point in the ritual where the Heirophant says: “By names and images are all things awakened and reawakened” you will notice that he does the sign of the enterer but does not do the sign of silence until a few seconds afterwards.  It is during this point that he or she is powering up the circuit.

Star Trek Ritual

The Golden Dawn cipher manuscripts were used to create the Golden Dawn rituals.  They provided the skeleton for all the rituals from 0=0 to 4=7.  However Mathers was looking at the ritual through a late Victorian Masons eyes, he could have easily have created a different ritual.  What would have happened if the Cipher manuscript had been found in the Star Trek universe?    Newly created from the cipher manuscripts is the Star Trek opening (and it really is created from the ciphers with a little tweaking). 

Officers of the Golden Dawn robed up for the ritual.

All assemble put on uniforms, communicators, etc.

Captain: Officers of the Bridge, assist me to accelerate this ship to warp speed.

Communications officer: Hailing all hostiles to leave the sector:

Captain: Security see that the ship is properly shielded and protected.

Security Officer: I have scanned the sector and have found no enemy vessels. The ship's shields are fully functional, captain.

Captain: Who are the bridge officers.

Head of Security: They are the Captain, the First Officer and the Head of Security.

Captain: What do they have in common?

Head of Security:  They all are members of Star Fleet and obtained top grades. They also have American accents and are men.

Captain: What are the other officers?

Head of Security: The Communications officer, the Science officer and the Medical officer.l  The Cheif Engineer is at his station off the bridge.

Medical Officer: I am in the South the point of over emotion and arm waving.  I carry the tricorder which makes a sound like wibbly woo and I scan the candidate to see he does not have klingons.

Science Officer: I am in the North the point of coldness and logic and I wear the pointy ears and the symbol of raised eyebrow.  I look into the little box and I scan the potential candidate with cold facts.

Communciations Officer: I am inside the door, and I talk to strange beings with my clunky earings. I announce that beings are ignoring our hails, and that the universal communicator is broken.

First Officer: I wander freely about the bridge and reconcile the science officer and the medical officer.  It is my task to lead the away teams, but also to rescue the captian when he insists on going on an away team.   I shoot first and ask questions later.

Security Officer:  My place is in the west and I wear the red teeshirt of office, which means that I am usually the first person to die.  I carry a phaser which is usually set to kill.

Captain:  My place is in the super comfy chair with the buttons and I rule the bridge. I am power, light, mercy and wisdom and I rule the ship in the name of Star Fleet.

Science officer purifies with cold Logic and Science.  Raises tricorder and says: 
"The needs of the many out way the needs of the few it is logical."

Medical Officer consecrates with emotions.  Raises tricorder and says:
"Damn it, man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!"

Captain:  Warp speed
Everyone lines up in the North East and circumabulates three times.

Captain: We are at warp factor three let us give reference to our creator. Face screen and say:

Holy art thou Gene Roddenberry
Holy art thou who created the Star Trek Multiverse
Holy art thou who created the mighty  “The City on the Edge of Forever” episode
And also the terrible Wesley Crusher (shake head slowly)

|Captain: Communications officer I ask that you declare that the ship is at warp speed.
Communications officer: In the name of the Captain I declare that the ship is at warp speed and the Kingons flee away.

Captain  Phasors

Securty  On

First Officer Stun

Security Boldly

First officer GO

Captain: Where

Security: no one

Captain: Has gone

First Officer: Before

Make signs at captain's chair and make a vibrate a shhhhhhh noise.