The limits of silence

I read a particularly interesting Kindle book over the weekend called the Seal of the Secrets of the World by Soror ZSD23.  The book covers the author’s personal work with the Arbatel and the Seals of the Olympic Spirits.

It is turn cheap and can be found on Amazon here.    In the way of a review, the book tells you a bit about the Arbatel and how she used it practically and the effects it had.

What makes this book important is that it tells you what you need to know from someone who has been there.  It is the sort of thing that a teacher might pass on to their students, but keep secret from the rest of the world.

The reason for this secrecy was that it is an inside look into someone else’s magical practice and is extremely revealing. A teacher often does not allow themselves to be exposed in this way, preferring to keep barriers between themselves and their students.

In the process of reading Seal of the Secrets of the World  you learn about what was happening in the author’s life and how this magical stuff created an effect.  The book itself pours poison on any possible theory that is popular in the occult scene which says that magic is great for you and will do you no harm. Soror ZSD23 experiences quite a few unpleasant experiences in the process of her experiments, and it is clear that you can’t write these off as her “not knowing what she was doing.”

Commercially this book is not going to do well.  That is because most people want to read about magic from the comfort of their armchairs. Those that actually experiment with this sort of stuff will find it invaluable. It gives you clues to how the Seal is supposed to be used, and also the sorts of problems you are likely to suffer as a result.  It also reveals a lot more of the nature of the Olympic Spirits, which are forces I personally think are not looked at enough.

This sort of book is the occult equivalent of a science journal where the experiment is available for peers to look at and work with themselves.

This sort of sharing is common in the scientific world but it is not in the occult world.  I have picked up diaries from famous occultists before, Dion Fortune’s, Paul Foster Case’s and John Dee’s diaries are valuable insights about how magic is supposed to be practiced and what results you might see.  However this unvarnished approach was not meant for public consumption.  Dion Fortune’s channelling sessions were more uneven than her followers gave her credit for and in one case Master R slagged off Anne Davies for her lack of cabbalistic knowledge. 

Dee’s diaries highlighted the wife swapping incident which has forever blighted Enochian magic’s squeaky clean reputation. But at the same time, using Dee’s diaries has reconstructed whole chunks of the system which were missing and enabled people like Aaron Leitch have a crack and reconstructing what real Enochian sounds like.

When I wrote my own books I put in lots of stories with some of them being about me which are not that flattering.  What I did not do was write an effective diary of each of my experiments as Seal of the Secrets of the World does.

While I would argue my books sugar the pill a bit, Soror ZSD23 has made her subject more directly useful for serious magical workers.   

As information has become available online in blogs and ebooks I think we can see a lot of this sort of thing happening.   If people are up for it, information can be shared that will aid the development of magic generally.

While these works will not see any commercial success they will slowly build into a common body of magical experience.

This sort of material goes above and beyond each tradition.  For example Seal of the Secrets of the World by Soror ZSD23 uses a lot of psychological and Eastern terms because of her background and training.  Although I don’t personally get on with that approach,  I can see what she means it remains useful.

What this approach would also mean is that those systems which are hidden behind a cloud of secrecy cannot really function and remain credible in the esoteric community at large.  There will be those who feel that their experiments are too personal to put in the public arena, which is fair enough.  But there are equally those who have stuff to share.

I remember when I was in David Goddard’s group, a member of the temple died.  We trooped to Glastonbury to scatter his ashes and say nice things about him.  Then the teacher also flung the ashes of his burnt diary to the winds.  

I thought, the man had gone, even his words have been destroyed and now I have forgotten his name.  What were in those words which I might have found useful?   He was a nice bloke, I am sure he would have wanted me to know them. 

Then I thought of other bonfires – such as those in Whare Ra, where words and teachings were removed from the magical community to protect “memories” of people.  Letters from Mathers, Westcott, teachings etc all up in smoke, all because of secrecy.

Evola and the myth of Being Special

Mussolini’s favourite occultist, Julius Evola, is enjoying rehabilitation at the moment.  I say “enjoy” – he is actually dead and is not capable of enjoying much.

Julius Evola

Since the war Evola has been ignored in the wider occult community.  There might be some collective embarrassment about him, as he proved quite conclusively that you could be a clever occultist but at the same time be a dog poo of a human being. 

 Evola references and books have been preserved by right wing occultists who have had likewise to keep a low profile.  Now, with the rise of the “other” Now with the rise of the “other” Golden Dawn and Ring Wing groups in France (who are calling for the expulsion of Muslims), Germany, Russia and the UK Evola stuff is being repackaged and it looks rather good.

Intelligent, reasoned, well thought out and practical.  Hell, he had a technique or two that I use.  If you pick up his books you can’t help be impressed by what Evola knows and how he expresses it.  Any experienced occultist find much to agree with and indeed work with. 

This for example explains some of the practical part of magic really well:

Fix your eyes on the goal and never lose sight of it.

Close your eyes. Create an image and look at it. In the dark, learn to discern a light that cannot be seen with physical eyes. This ethereal light carries the first secret of the Work.

Become insensitive to good and evil, upright, absolute, naked.

Learn to will without yearning, without fear or regrets.

Create a power to act without tiring. Let this power be cold, hard, and at the same time labile and flexible. The Secret of the Force consists in willing well, willing long, willing without ceasing—and in never yearning.

Cut yourself free from the bonds of sensuality, intoxication, and passion: reduce yourself to a simplicity that wills.

Violate every need. Use everything and abstain from everything as you please. Become the absolute ruler of your soul.

Create a resistance. What is mobile obeys what is immobile, and the powers of nature become subjected to him who can resist them. Having reached a point when you desire nothing and fear nothing, there will be few things over which you will not rule. However, enjoy nothing until you

have first vanquished it within yourself.

The Force does not give itself up. Take it. Dare.

Being free, well balanced, strong, calm, and pure, and having slain desire, say: "I WANT."

 

However, he has one problem which undermines the whole of his work and turned him into something that even the Nazis and Italian Fascists thought was too extreme.  

 He thought he was special.

It is a common thing amongst occultists and probably something that we get accused of the most.  There is a belief that knowing the secrets of the universe, or talking to gods and angels and realising the reality of occult knowledge makes us different from other humans.

Quoting Evola:

This shore is the one plagued by misery, darkness, and pollution.  Before you is the mighty current. There lies the other shore. 

On this side are ignorant people, lacking knowledge, pale, passive, intoxicated, whose lives are still outside and on this side of the Waters.  On the other shore you will find virile men, heroic souls, awakened to disgust, to revolt, to the Great Awakening; having left one shore behind, they dare face the current and the undertow, being led by their ever more firm, unshakable will.  Once there, they are known as "Survivors of the Waters," "Walkers on the Waters," the "Holy Race of the Free," "The Conquerors," "The Lords of Life and Salvation," "The Radiant Ones."  They are the "Dragon Slayers," the "Dominators of the Bull," "Consecrated to the Sun," those who have been transformed through Ammon's power and Wisdom.”

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  There you are, battling against everything to get to the other shore.  Others are just “ignorant people, lacking knowledge, pale, passive, and intoxicated” while you are going to be something much better.

What is scary is that what Evola is saying is sort of true.  An occultist does feel an outsider from their society, and what he is doing is saying “it is just as well they are all scum and you are going to be a hero.”

The thing is that it does feel like that at times.  Magic is a lonely path because it is hard to find those who can share your universe.  However it is a mistake to feel that you are any better than the rest of humanity.  In fact, you are supposed to know better.

All things spring from the mind of the One Thing as expressions of itself.  Since the One Thing is infinite, everything is made from it.  It is an illusion that we are separate from other humans, or even different aspects of creation.

Once you start saying something is better than something else you create a concept of separateness between “us and them.”  If you have the sort of intellect that Evola had it is possible to place more hierarchies of superiority between you and others, reasons why you need to be special.

Evola was a major influence on Mussolini

For example, using Evola logic, if you are special it is logical to assume that others are special too.  Like Plato you can suggest that it would be a better place if instead of being ruled by the great unwashed that you were ruled by enlightened priest-kings (although Plato saw the problems with that sort of society in his description of Atlantis).  These would be small autocratic units that have no monetary interest in ruling.  If the closest political system to this is fascism, well why not, it can be reformed in time to the point where the Hitlers and Mussolinis are replaced by you and your special friends.  

If you and your friends are special, what do you do about those who are different?  Well that just does not make sense does it?  They are different, but they are not occultists, they are black, Chinese or Jewish.  Well there must be a form of spiritual natural selection with each race having to bring about a different expression of spirituality.  We must keep these races apart or we will contaminate our spirituality.  We need to keep races pure, or we will stop being spiritually special.  If they do not go back to where they came from, they need to be exterminated to keep our spirituality pure.

All this is a logical expression of considering yourself special.  However it is not quite, but completely and utterly, wrong.

The wrong Golden Dawn

Take Evola to the top of a mountain and tell him to look at the infinite universe.  Explain the size of it, and the length of time that it has been there, and will remain there.  This universe is the closest expression of the One Thing in matter.  How does the universe see this galaxy, let alone this solar system, planet or country and you?  How will it see a difference between Evola and a beggar? 

Sure Evola has a divine spark within him which gives him the power to observe creation but so does the beggar.  In fact the beggar will do more observing of his immediate surroundings than Evola.

You might think you are pretty neat because you can talk to spirits, but if you can’t mend a fuse, does it make you better than the Polish electrician who does it for you?  Does the fact that you understand 13 ancient languages make you any better than the bloke who knows Java? 

What Evola did not get, is that occultists were not special but were just another specialisation of the powers of the One Thing.

Specialisation does not make something better; it just makes someone able to do something else.  Specialisation is one of humanity’s greatest tools and is what hangs the species together more than anything else.  It has created a species which is actually inter-dependent on each other.

Humanity’s weaknesses are caused by the hierarchies of superiority that Evola and his kind wanted to create.  A more powerful person is one with money, education rather than one who is most themselves.  By favouring an elite, Evola was never going to fix this problem. 

So when the person comes into your news group, occult group, or life waving the writings of Evola as if he were a god, remember that whatever Evola said, wrote or could do, he missed the most important lesson of all.  We are all One Thing expressing itself and therefore missed the whole point of magic.  Accepting Evola’s way is to accept that others are superior to you and you have to be a slave to them.  But on the plus side, other are inferior to you and must be your slaves.

Not in my universe.

Meeting the Secret Chief

He was exactly what you would expect from a secret chief.  Well, dressed, calm, urbane, and clearly well off.  He managed to look younger than he was. He told me he was a Corsican of aristocratic pedigree.

We met in a coffee shop close to St Peter’s so that my wife, Paola, who works in the area,  could act as a translator so that he would be more comfortable talking.

He was extremely interesting having been connected with lots of magical orders and alchemical groups that I had never heard of.  In one breath he was in something called the Osiris Order, the next it was Grand Orient and Scottish Rite freemasonry and the Italian strain of Misraim and Myriam.  There were lots of great French alchemists named, his greatest love appeared to be Alchemy and he threw a lot of alchemical words into the conversation which I totally failed to understand.

There were so many orders and systems of magic involved with his life it was a wonder he had time to do any of them.  I asked him why he was involved in so many and he said it was “for the cause.”

The “cause” apparently was to fix Europe by uniting it under a Priest-King and a synarchic system of government similar to that which was discussed in Plato’s republic.

“We have placed contacts in many occult orders and in high places in government,” he said.

It was interesting because this was exactly the sorts of offer that Samuel Mathers was getting from his associates in Paris in the 1900s.  He even hoped that this occult revolution would mean he would get a small kingdom in Scotland.

This person did want to do something with the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea.  In return he would give us access to information which we could place in our higher orders.  There would be some costs for this training and we would be required to support the cause.

“The alchemical methods which we teach will ultimately make you very wealthy, which is why we do not give them away without a cost,” he said.

I was also left with a typically Star Trek problem out of all this.  In largely awful Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Kirk encounters a being which claims to be God.  Not just any god but God itself.  The God wants to get off a planet on a starship and return to ruling people.  But as James Kirk himself says “what does God need with a Star ship?”

Secret Chiefs are supposed to be spiritual supermen.  They are supposed to have transcended occult orders. Yet this focus on politics, esoteric orders, money etc was entirely mundane and therefore suspect.

If you have reached a certain state you do not join lots of Orders you focus on just one and you make it better.  Order collecting is something which indicates a need to belong and empire build, also something I do not expect from a secret chief.

The other issue was money.  His way was going to prove expensive and even if I had that sort of cash right now, parting would not make sense.

One of the things he told me he could do was transmute metals into gold, so why was he asking me for money?   Surely if he needed money he could just whip up a few kilograms of gold.

He had no idea what any of the passwords or grade signs for the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea were, and indeed was very shaky on his knowledge of the Golden Dawn system.  My point is that why would a Secret Chief who knows so little about my magical system be of any use to me – unless I really did want to play his international political games.
He also did not seem to want to test my ability or knowledge either?   It was as if he had selected me for his grand plan, but it did not really matter what I could do.   In fact I could have been a complete loon and I would have been in, provided that MOAA provided his groups with cash and members.

It was fairly unlikely that any of the groups that he was involved with would be much interest to me, as I lost interest in joining lots of groups when I found the Golden Dawn could cover all my needs.  While I would work with other groups and experiment with other systems it would always be in the context of the Golden Dawn.

He suggested that some of these different order materials could be worked in to the higher grades of the order.  However those grades are more mystical.  There is no room for anything that comes from the head after the 6=5 indeed the 7=4 is about making your own direct contacts with the One Thing and expressing it in matter.

There was little about God in his conversations.  He talked about a pagan purity which would restore Europe, but this was not his main focus.  He talked about teachings coming from Egypt but never once mentioned Egyptian Gods.  Indeed his personal paganism was not Italian at all but Norse which he said encapsulated the value of purity and a hatred of weakness.

“We are finished with every weakness and compromise that turning the check which is derived from its Semitic-Christian root, has infected our blood and our intelligence,” he said.

He said that without returning to such a pagan tradition there was no liberation, no true restoration, or a conversion to the true values of spirit, power, hierarchy, and Empire.

While the idea of a return to a more pagan approach to religion was appealing to me, his approach seemed simplistic and just another way of obtaining control and training the masses rather than having true spiritual meaning.  Magic to me is about a personal experience of the divine and not anything like this.

The conversation was open, and interesting, but after a while he realised that I was not going to follow his views.  Nor was I going to buy that he was a Secret Chief in anyway.  An interesting man, an adept of something, but not anything like the  physical secret chief’s which we had been writing about, if they ever existed.

Anyway we agreed to stay in touch…. But I learnt a lot about Secret Chiefs in that meeting in a coffee shop around the corner from St Peters.