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Magic Monday
It's almost midnight, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. With certain exceptions, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. (I've been getting an increasing number of people trying to post after these are closed, so will have to draw a harder line than before.) If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here. Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. The picture? I'm working my way through photos of my lineage, focusing on the teachers whose work has influenced me and the teachers who influenced them in turn. Like Allan Bennett and George Cecil Jones, who were introduced over the last two weeks, this week's honoree was a teacher of Aleister Crowley. Theodor Reuss was a German occultist and Freemason who, like our past honoree Sylvester Gould, was a member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, the successor order of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor (HB of L). He founded and headed the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), a magical lodge originally envisioned by Austrian occultist Carl Kellner, which passed on the occult traditions of the HB of L and certain specific teachings that originated in another of our earlier honorees, African-American occultist Paschal Beverly Randolph. Reuss passed on the teachings of the OTO to Crowley and eventually made him the head of the OTO in the English-speaking world, setting off a cascade of events that would make a first-rate melodrama or a really good tell-all book. Since I'm not a member of the OTO, my only connection with any of that story is that one of my teachers was taught by a student of a student of Reuss...
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***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***
The Conjuration of the Four versus the Calling of the Elements
As always, thank you for this Q&A.
By chance I opened Levi's Doctrine and Ritual to the ritual section and started reading Chapter 4, The Conjuration of the Four. In this chapter Levi mentions domination of the spirits and uses phrases such as "one must impose the Verb of one's will upon the elements". One exorcises the elements in this practice. Levi also stresses how the elementary spirits "most often torment those who deal with them".
This is in comparison with the Golden Section's calling of the elements for the Sphere of Protection and what is basically a request for their help: "May the powers of XXXX bless and protect me.....".
Is there a difference between the Golden Section and Levi's view of how to interact with and the nature of, the elements?
After thinking over this and additional reading I believe Levi's view on the nature of the elements is similar with the Golden Section incorporating much of Levi's thought (e.g. "They indifferently reproduce good and evil, because they have no free will..." and "The mage who employs their cooperation takes upon himself a terrible responsibility..."). I think the differences I've noted are the two different methods of interaction with them but posting this as a question to be sure and ask if there are, in fact, fundamental differences in the view on the nature of elements?
Re: The Conjuration of the Four versus the Calling of the Elements
Re: The Conjuration of the Four versus the Calling of the Elements
Interesting that the late medieval grimoire magic with it's view of the elements as hostile and to be dominated, was a good three hundred years into the new Faustian civilization (if counting 1300 as the beginning of the late medieval period).
Re: The Conjuration of the Four versus the Calling of the Elements
1) That's the besetting sin of Faustian civilization. The Faustian group soul always strives to extend itself to infinity -- thus linear perspective, the Age of Exploration, the obsession with conquering nature, etc. That almost always turns into power tripping in one form or another: for example, insisting that all humanity must have the same religion, economic system, or what have you. Demanding that spiritual beings must be subservient to the mage is another example of the same mindset.