Nick Farrell's Blog

Thursday, 27 October 2011

Revised edition of Mathers Last Secret is out

The new edition of Mathers' Last Secret is now out. The new edition started out as an attempt to correct some of the typos which found their way into the first edition. However it started to grow making the book a lot bigger. This version is more of a scholars edition with improved footnotes and some of the more obscure material made clearer. Some of my commentary has been clarified.

Mathers' Last Secret is important to those who are not members of the AO because it contains the only complete version of the Golden Dawn rituals available. So far most of what has been printed have either been the cut down Stella Matutina rites which were printed by Israel Regardie or the later Whare Ra rituals. This book is the only one to contain the real Golden Dawn Portal ritual. So far the only Portal ritual to be published has been that of the Stella Matutina. Indeed seems that for many years the AO continued to use the Golden Dawn rituals, with some tweaks to the 0=0 rite.

As such it contains instructions, diagrams and even Tarot cards which will be vital for those who are trying to use the Golden Dawn System of Magic.

The first book was controversial because it lifted the lid on the AO as run by Mathers. For many years people, usually claiming to be the incarnation of Mathers have used the name of the AO to sell their system as different from other members of the Golden Dawn community. They have been able to do this because few had access to original AO material. Little of it survived and much of that was in the United States. That was until a cache of documents appeared in an unlikely place and permission was given for publication.

Mathers' Last Secret proved that not only was the AO exactly like the Golden Dawn of 1894 it had reverted back to its Masonic roots and played down the magical techniques which made the order famous.

The revised edition of Mathers' Last Secret is a tribute to the Golden Dawn community. There are those who would have you believe that the Golden Dawn community is at each others' throats, this book is a tribute to the way the real Golden Dawn community works together. Many Golden Dawn leaders and members from different Orders and temples helped me out on this project, some asking to remain anonymous. As a result I had access to information which I did not have and was able to make this edition more useful for those who want to study the Golden Dawn tradition.

There are still a few copies of the old edition in the market. If you want to buy the new edition you should use this link and make sure that the cover has “revised” written on it.

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

Alchemy and the Chemical Change

We arrived in Hong Kong in search of the secret of turning lead into gold. We purchased an old scroll from an Old Sage in Fai Hai and were making our way to the dock when were way laid by the evil Fu Man Chu and his associates.
“Give me the scroll of the Golden Flower of the Dogs' Bollocks* for long have I sought the secrets of Alchemy and the ancient sages have not given them unto me,” said Fu Man Chu.
“And if we don't?” I replied, clutching the scroll to my chest.
“Then you will suffer the curse of 1000 deaths without medical insurance,” he said.
My associate Little Tim yelled “Run” and we fled to the docks, closely pursued by Fu Man Chu and his men.
We arrived in the Hong Kong docks and found thousands of junks waiting for the morning tide.
“Quick,” I shouted. “Board that Junk.”
“But which one,” asked Little Tim.
“It does not matter," I replied. "When it comes to Alchemy you can get away with any old Junk.”

* The phrase loses a bit in the translation.

Over the weekend we had a number of initiations and I was playing with the chemicals in the chemical change to make sure the proportions were right and we didnt end up with mud instead of something red.
Our temple uses Mohrs' salt which is a double salt of ammonium sulphate and ferrous sulphate. It's blue green colour turns red when it is exposed to Sodium salicylate. Both in solution are clear. In the old golden dawn the mix was a little different but the idea was the same. Iron indicator and Iron which turns red. Strangely Mathers' AO attributed the Iron mixture to Venus and the indicator to Mars. In the coming revision to Mathers' Last Word, I suggest it should be the other way around.
Anyway, during the ritual the candidate is told that the experiment conducted in front of the is to show what happens if they break their oath. This has lead some to think that it is where the oath is hardwired into the candidate's sphere of sensation. But there are couple of things wrong with this idea. The most obvious is that the chemical change happens after the candidate's elements are bought back together by the Kerux (since this was probably not a mini-ritual carried out by the early GD or the AO it might have been less important).

However as I was playing with the elements I noticed that he Mohr's Salt gave a greenish tinge to the water. Worried that there might be something else in the water that it might be reacting to I looked it up. Achemists would have called Mohr's Salt Green Vitriol. Which is represented by the symbol of the Green Lion. It often means the vegetable life force.
Then it occurred to me that by adding the Sodium Salicylate I was turning the Green Lion Red. Thus, under the cover of the threat of an oath violation, you were taking the lower aspects of the candidate and causing them to develop.
Now the reason I preface this with the silly story is that the Golden Dawn did not use Mohr's salt or Sodium Salicylate. Mohr's salt had only recently been discovered and certainly it would not have been available to alchemists. In short although the discovering is interesting and can be explained using Alchemical terms, it does not mean that the GD wanted this chemical change to evolve the candidate's vegetative self. Yet, it would be equally possible for someone to cloud this part of the ritual with alchemical symbolism to have it make sense. As I say above... you can get away with any old junk when it comes to Alchemy. It might be leading to new insights, but it equally it might not.

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Announcing Kerubim Press

DUBLIN, IRELAND – Kerubim Press, independent publisher of occult books, officially announces its existence today, giving the esoteric community a valuable array of texts on topics ranging from ceremonial magic to paganism.

Kerubim Press authors deliver thoroughly researched topics presented in an accessible, yet scholarly format and/or easy to follow guidelines for practical magical work.

Books are published in both a limited hardcover edition of 100 signed and numbered copies, standard paperbacks for a more affordable budget, and multiple ebook formats for the revolutionary digital book age, which Kerubim Press plans to be major mover in.

The first two books in Kerubim Press' lineup are Nick Farrell's King Over The Water and Dean F. Wilson's Enochian Magic In Theory, both scheduled for release in February 2012. Pre-orders for the special limited edition of each will be available before release. Pricing has yet to be decided.

(Temporary artwork)

Over the years many myths have built up about one of the founders of the Golden Dawn, Samuel L. MacGregor Mathers. Many of these have been created by those who wish to damn the Golden Dawn and its system of magic or by those who want to naively believe a bogus magical story about the Order and its founders.

In King Over The Water, Golden Dawn magician Nick Farrell paints a picture of the founders of the Golden Dawn becoming out of their depth as the Order began to create magicians. Rather than painting Mathers as an eccentric genius, Farrell sees him as an autocratic fantasist. He sees Mathers struggling to keep up as his students rapidly became better than him at the system he created, and shows how he was unable to raise his game to help the Order develop further.

In what will be a portrait of the problems that could befall any esoteric leader, Farrell (author of Gathering The Magic, a textbook on magical group dynamics) reveals how Mathers' later rituals were an attempt to remove the magic from the system he created so that he could milk it for money.

Included will be previously unpublished papers from Mathers' own version of the Golden Dawn, the Alpha et Omega, including the unexpurgated version of the Tarot manuscript, the full version of the Book of the Tomb (a key document for creating a Vault of the Adepts), the original method for the consecration of the sword, and much more.

King Over The Water is the prequel to Farrell's groundbreaking exposé on the Alpha et Omega, Mathers' Last Secret (2011, Rosicrucian Order of the Golden Dawn), and provides another look into the mind of a magician that helped develop the magic we use today.

(Temporary artwork)

The first of Dean F. Wilson’s eagerly awaited Enochian Magic series, detailing John Dee and Edward Kelley’s magical system in extraordinary detail, from the Heptarchic system to Enochian proper.

Wilson provides a unique mix of thorough research with his own experience and understanding from using the system for many years, resulting in a book that is both scholarly and insightful.

He explores the history behind the famous magician and seer, shows how the system was delivered, explains why it is such a powerful magical tool, and answers many of the questions that people have asked about the nature of the angelic beings.

Gain an indepth knowledge of Enochian magic. Learn how to derive the names of angels from the various tablets. Discover the purpose of the tools. Ponder the mysteries of the more obscure parts of the system, with Wilson’s suggestions for what they might mean.

This tome provides a comprehensive overview of the Enochian system for both scholars and magicians, with excerpts from Dee's diaries and insights from a number of Enochian magicians over the last century.

Enochian Magic In Theory is the first of a two part series on Dee's angelic system, with Enochian Magic In Practice providing the practical instructions for how to put the magic into use. The latter is scheduled for a late 2012 release.

Like the Kerubim of Ezekiel, Kerubim Press aims to look in all directions to provide one of the most comprehensive selections of occult books on the market, while remaining committed to quality in everything it publishes.