No. 2, Vernal Equinox 2002
Can "A. O. Spare"-Sigils be used in Golden
Dawn Magic?
An Investigation
by Alex Sumner
Introduction
Austen Osman Spare (c. 1888 - 1956) is not the first person one thinks about in the context of Golden Dawn magic. Indeed he is on record as having some choice things to say about ceremonial magicians:
These Magicians, whose insincerity is their safety, are but the unemployed dandies of the Brothels.[1]
And it continues in the same vein! However, while he harried ceremonial magicians, he is feted by Chaos Magicians for his originality, his independence of thought, and for demonstrating that the practice of magic can be practised free from the dogma imposed upon it by pompous ritualists.
One of the most well-known of Spare's techniques is his construction of Sigils, which he did in a manner eschewing teaching by ritual magic orders on the subject. The aim of the technique takes the effort out of creating the Sigil and places it on the psychic process whereby it is made effective.
For example, if one were to cast a spell to gain money, one might articulate the intent of the spell thus: "This my will, to become rich on the stock market." Now one writes this out in capital letters:
THIS MY WILL TO BECOME RICH ON THE STOCK MARKET
And eliminate all letters from the phrase which occur more than once:
---- -Y W--- -- B----- ---- --- S---- -A----
Then take the letters Y, W, B, S and A, and form them into the "sigil":
That was the easy part: the difficulty lies in activating the Sigil. For this, the Sigil must be implanted in the unconscious mind, whilst being entirely forgotten by the conscious. This requires a great deal of mind control - ("Sleight of Mind", as the chaos magician Pete Carroll calls it[2]) either by an intense effort of yogic concentration, or by deliberately leaving the sigil lying around with others for days or weeks, until the magician has forgotten what it meant. The latter method allows the magician to impregnate his unconscious with the Sigil without his conscious mind interfering by reminding him what it was supposed to mean.
This method, which Spare called "union by absent-mindedness", was not the only method which he practised by any means. One may mention his methods of Sex magic. For example the use of an "Earthenware Virgin", the magical use of sustained sexual ecstasy - and sexual exhaustion - , and his own interpretation of the Witches' sabbat[3].
However, despite Spare's obvious distaste for Ritual Magicians, it is a mistake to think that his method of Sigilization is completely divorced from Hermetic practice. For example, one of the many ways of constructing Sigils described by Agrippa is to simply construct a glyph from the letters which make up the name of the spirit in question - in either the Hebrew, Greek or Latin alphabets. For example, here is a sigil of the Archangel Michael in Latin letters[4]:
So Spare was really a closet-Hermeticist, by simply updating one of Agrippa's less well-known practices.
In the year 2001, your humble author, in the midst of his magical work, was presented with a number of situations which required the urgent application of his magical ingenium. There was however a problem: none of them could be easily categorisable in terms of the Qabalah. Had that not been the case, it would have been a simple thing for me to construct an appropriate Z2 ritual, referring to (e.g.) Crowley's 777[5] to inform me of the appropriate symbolism of the ceremony, which divine names to use, which angels to invoke, etc etc. These were:
A healing ritual for a young female of my acquaintance who had been involved in a road accident, and had suffered a fractured skull and possible brain damage;
A certain Enochian operation;
A Theurgic operation, to enable me to better discharge my obligations as an adept;
A spell to combat terrorism, following the fateful events of September 11th 2001.
At this point the reader may cavil and say that some of these operations are attributable to the Qabalah, and quite specifically. For example: healing rituals are connected to the path of Beth, which is associated with the planet Mercury. The Golden Dawn's system of Enochian magic is precise enough in its attributions so that if it is possible to determine exactly where on the Enochian tablets a given magical effect is to be expected, one can easily deduce the exact pentagram and hexagram rituals, the Calls to use, the divine and angelic names, etc.
To which I would reply that in all of those circumstances I was aware of the Qabalistic and/or Enochian attributions. However, I deliberately chose to go down the route of the quasi-Spare Sigils, either in order to see if they could be used even in those circumstances or because they seemed the most convenient technique at the time.
Alchemy
At about the same time as I had the idea to work with Sigilization in this way, I was also experimenting with spicing up the Z2 formulae by a method of power-raising. My inspiration was Alchemy. I was going to go about the ritual by imagining it to be an alchemical operation, classifying the various stages into the equivalent parts of the hermetic process: nigredo; albedo; rubato; the fixing of the Mercury, etc. I did this not to change the form of the Z2 formulae, but to gain a the new way of looking at the ritual and provide me with fresh ideas.
The Prima Materia of the operation was to be my Will itself - articulated, as it happened, in the form of a Sigil. The pulverisation of the materia, and placing it within the Philosophic Egg, was a conscious attempt to free my mind the "lust of result;" to achieve a zen-like entasis where I was conscious of the symbol of the operation, whilst quite free from any mental perturbations regarding its meaning, or indeed my own personal feelings in regard to that meaning. Furthermore, I saw the Nigredo as, a descent into a magical state of consciousness, conducive for completing the ceremony, through the use of appropriate symbolism. In other words the Pentagram and Hexagram Rituals, the invocations, etc. were to serve the same purpose for me as the initial decomposition of the prima materia in an Alchemic operation.
But what of the Albedo - a series of operations meant to cause "whitening" within the materia, or as the Golden Dawn's own schema of Alchemy[6] would have it, flashes of Divine Light - ? Here the Alchemic mindset I had created for myself directly sparked my intuition. Clearly the Circumambulation in the Path of Knowledge was the Albedo, with the challenges at the four quarters being four operations. I thus had the idea of adapting this Circumambulation, to give it the sense of injecting the materia with alchemical fire, i.e. magical energy. I perceived a similarity between my intention and the way that the Aurum Solis use the "Rousing of the Citadels" action in the middle of their rituals as a means of raising power. I thus decided to make use of the nearest equivalent that the Golden Dawn has: the Middle Pillar Ritual. My method was to perform it four complete times during the Circumambulation, in addition to the challenges.
It was only after putting this into practice the first couple of times that I realised that this was having an effect similar to another of Spare's techniques, "the Death Posture". This is a method of implanting the Sigil into the unconscious, via hyperventilation. I myself did not hyperventilate exactly, nor did I black out, as in the case of the actual Death Posture, but I was able to perceive that the use of the Vibratory Formula of the Middle Pillar, repeated an abnormal number of times, had an effect that was both exhausting and hypnotic, as if the "Albedo" for which I was looking was happening within my own consciousness.
The link between Alchemy and breathing is more obvious in the orient, where Qigong is incorporated into Taoist magical practices. At least one modern writer on Qigong has stated that certain ancient texts, whilst appearing to be Taoist Alchemical treatises, are actually instructions in Qigong[7]. In the west, Dion Fortune also appears to have made the link between Alchemy and Breathing[8]. It thus appeared natural to me, working in my alchemical model, to seek to incorporate breathing practices into my ritual work.
These were the significant innovations to which my alchemical idiom led me. I also perceived the uttering of the Mystic Words as the application of the Philosopher's Stone; and the projection of Will as the fixing of the Mercury. But apart from drawing similes between alchemy and the ritual, these did not amount to actual changes in my ritual way of working.
Healing
One day I heard that a young girl, with whom I was passingly acquainted, had been injured in a road accident whilst on holiday. There was confusion as to how it happened - she appeared to have cycled into a wall, but policemen investigating ventured that she might have been the victim of a hit-and-run. In any case, she was knocked unconscious and suffered a fractured skull, and (I later discovered) a broken leg.
Now to the victim of a road accident, not to mention the friends and relatives who are worrying for him or her, a fractured skull is really the most frightening injury that a person can receive. Simply because the phrase "fractured skull" can mean anything from a mere fracture which will heal soon enough with no lasting consequences, to serious permanent brain damage, or even cranial trauma which can prove fatal. There is thus an extra amount of suffering over and above the effects of the injury, caused by the waiting to find out how serious it is.
Therefore, whilst this girl was still lying unconscious in a foreign hospital bed, I decided to perform a magic ritual for her recovery. As I was aware of the need to work quickly, I decided to use the Sigil method. (I managed to perform the ceremony within 48 hours of the accident taking place),
"The Miracle of Healing" is attributed, according to 777[9], to the 12th Path of Beth, i.e. to the planet Mercury. During the Healing Ritual which I performed, I therefore used the symbolism of Mercury to empower the Sigil. The operation was in some respects like the consecration of a talisman.
However, in Spare's view the Sigil is specifically not a talisman, as the physical representation thereof is ultimately of no importance. Once the form of the Sigil is committed to the unconscious, the physical representation thereof is of no value. Indeed, as Spare himself would endeavour to forget the sigil after charging it, I attempted to do the same thing - by disposing of the paper on which I had drawn it after the ceremony.
Writing several months after the event, I know I have succeeded in that respect; I have absolutely no idea what shape the sigil took! Unfortunately, that also means that I cannot reproduce the Sigil I used in that ceremony for this article. However, I shall use the masterly device of replacing the lost sigil with a substitute.
The phrase from which I derived the sigil was:
"THIS MY WILL THAT * MAKE A FULL RECOVERY FROM HER INJURIES AND LEAD A HAPPY LIFE."
(*I omit the girl's name to spare her privacy. I don't think it would make much difference to the letters which comprise the sigil anyway.)
This phrase reduces to:
"---- -- W--- ---- --K- ---- --C-V--- ---- --- --J----- --- ---- - ----- ----"
Which can be arranged in a sigil thus:
Most of the ceremony was in a familiar format: I opened with the Watchtower Ceremony, and wrapping the paper whereon I had drawn the sigil with black cloth, and binding it three times, I carried out a Z2 type ceremony[10].
I composed the following Invocation of Mercury. It is more doggerel than Wordsworth, but as I have said I was working quickly. It was the best I could scribble just one or two hours before the ceremony itself. -It served its purpose to concentrate my mind on the forces in question.
I the Magus with infinity on my brow
Invoke Kokab right here and now
Elohim Tzebaoth - Thy name revealed
And Matzpatz[11] whereby thou art concealed
Send Thou Thy Power, and let
Great Raphael be o'er this ritual set
And may Tiriel and Taphtartarath be
Mindful in their service to me.
I made this invocation twice during the ceremony. The first time was at the point which corresponds to the Magical Oath. The second was immediately after the Circumambulation in the Path of Knowledge, as I was about to intone the Mystic Words: "Konx Om Pax - Khabs Am Pekt - Light in Extension". I must say that my idea of performing the Middle Pillar Ritual multiple times during that Circumambulation seemed inspired. As when I came to make the invocation the second time I could clairsentiently feel the Mercurial vibrations within me.
Then, placing the sigil between the pillars, I projected my will upon it with the Sign of the Enterer, until I felt that this had been accomplished. Following the purification and consecration, and the Circumambulation in the path of Light, I again invoked Mercury, articulating the intention of the ritual, and settled down to meditate a while on the sigil. I held the visualised image in my mind's eye, whilst otherwise completely stilling my thoughts. Finally, I commanded the forces invoked by the ceremony "to harm neither me nor anyone connected with me or with the place of the ceremony", and closed in the appropriate manner, with a License to depart, and the LBRP and BRH.
I then consigned the physical sigil to my waste-paper basket, and the conscious memory of it to oblivion.
The story ends in a way that was rather more uncanny than for which even I was prepared. Five days later, at work, confirmation that the object of the spell had manifested appeared in the form of the girl herself, accompanied by her grandmother. They did not know I worked there, they had come to visit someone else entirely, but they saw me and stopped for a short chat. The girl was on crutches with a leg in plaster, and had a neck brace as well as a black eye and a tiny cut on her forehead. However the grandmother told me that she had become conscious four days previously, and had a CAT scan which showed no brain damage. The prognosis was therefore that the girl would indeed make a full recovery from her injuries. When I saw her she seemed remarkably chirpy despite her injuries. I have seen her more recently, sans plaster, neck-brace or black-eye - she is recovering well.
Enochian Magic
To test the extent of what could and could not be done with the Sigilization method, I deliberately chose to apply it in a context which even I would think unusual. Therefore I decided to use it in a work of Enochian Magic.
Amongst the realms of Enochiana is a system for assigning the parts of the Earth to 91 Governors, who rule over a vast number of angels which live in thirty "Aethyrs" or Airs. I have mentioned this briefly in another article for this Journal[12]. For my particular operation, I desired to obtain a vision of one of these governors, "Paraoan".
"Paraoan" is the 65th governor, and the ministering angels over which he rules live in the 22nd Aethyr ("LIN"). "Paraoan" is an interesting governor, to say the least, as it is the subject for special comment between Dee (and Kelley), and the Angel AVE:
As far as that N." [i.e. the final letter of Paraoan] "stretcheth in the Character, so far shall that Countrey be consumed with fire, and swallowed into Hell, as Sodom was for wickednesse. The end of all things is even at hand: and the earth must be purified, and delivered to another.[13]
And:
.[14] I beseech you say somewhat of the N in Paraoan, of which you said, so far as that stretched, should sink to hell.
Ave. … Every letter in Paraoan, is a living fire: but all of one quality and of one Creation. But unto N is delivered a viol of Destruction, according to that part that he is of Paraoan the Governour.[15]
My method of working was as follows: I formulated the intention of the Spell thus -
"THIS MY WILL TO OBTAIN A VISION OF TWENTY TWO LIN SIXTY FIVE PARAOAN"
Then I reduced it to its non-repeating letters in the familiar fashion. When I came to compose the Sigil, I decided to make a break from the norm, and draw it as if it were in three-dimensions.
I do not know whether any other magician has attempted this before, but this appealed to me as a refreshing innovation. In examples of Sigils I had seen up until then I had only seen two-dimensional versions. However, I immediately realised that working in three-dimensions provided a great deal more possibilities from an artistic standpoint. Letters could be curved, Dali-esque or oriented in different planes to each other, thereby eliminating any problems with symmetry. In the very least, imagining the sigil as a 3-D structure appeared a far more interesting proposition to me than a 2-D device.
Having created the Sigil, I again performed a ceremony over it, in much the same way as I did with the Healing Ritual. However this time, I used all the Enochian (and other) rites appropriate to "Paraoan". These included the Call of the LIN, the 22nd Aethyr and, given that "Paraoan" is associated with the first of the Angels of the 12 tribes of Israel, the Pentagram and Hexagram rituals associated with Aries (the first of the 12 signs of the Zodiac).
I even borrowed the following from the greater Key of Solomon - a conjuration for extraordinary operations, for which no other conjuration is appropriate:
O God, Who hast created all things, and hast given unto us discernment to understand the good and the evil; through thy Holy Name, and through these Holy Names;-- IOD, IAH, VAU, DALETH, VAU, TZABAOTH, ZIO, AMATOR, CREATOR, do Thou, O Lord, grant that this experiment may become true and veritable in my hands through Thy Holy Seal, O ADONAI, Whose reign and empire remaineth eternally and unto the Ages of the Ages. Amen.[16]
As I sat down to meditate a while on the sigil (at the same point at which I had done in the Healing Ritual), I deliberately put myself into a state of self-hypnosis. I stared fixedly at the sigil, sinking into a deep state of consciousness. Then, closing my eyes, I sank into an even deeper state whilst visualising its image. By rights (so my line of reasoning went) anything that then appeared before my mind's eye should be there as a result of the Sigil, and the invocations and rituals I had just performed upon it. What I actually experienced on that occasion was as follows:
I found myself under water - in a sea not far from some coast. There was an underwater structure - a living complex. It seemed to be some point in the future. The place is now the site where that complex will be situated.
I made banishing hexagrams with the Hebrew double-letters[17]. The vision remained stable. Apparently this place was also the site of great destruction - where a coastal area had been destroyed and was now underwater. [I got the impression that] Dee identified this place as "Marmarica"[18], because that was a place he associated in his mind with destruction.
…
I try to meditate on the subtle forces behind the vision which I am beholding. I "feel" Aries - Cardinal Fire, ruled by Mars.
I leave, and banish thoroughly.
Theurgy
In my magical work, I follow the curriculum of an Adeptus Minor of the Golden Dawn. Crowley simply describes the task of the Adeptus Minor as achieving the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, and to enter into the Collegium Spiritum Sanctum, the metaphorical College of the Rosicrucians[19]. The Golden Dawn documents describes the same process in rather more prosaic terms. The knowledge given to a newly initiated 5=6 states that his or her task is threefold: firstly, to make contact with ones Higher Genius (Hebrew: Neshamah), which is attributed to the Supernal Sephiroth generally, and Binah specifically. Secondly, to unite the Higher Will, that which aspires to the Neshamah, with the Lower Will, that of the conscious mind or Ruach, to form the "True Will". The Higher Will, incidentally, is associated with Daath, and the Lower with Tiphereth. I interpret this as meaning consciously striving with my mundane Will towards my Higher Genius. Thirdly, one should separate the undesirable parts of the personality from the self, so that the "Evil Persona," Jung's idea of "the Shadow", is made subject to the Nephesh (the sense-body and automatic consciousness)[20].
However, it becomes more complicated than this. In a "Flying Roll" Mathers expands on this idea, saying that the Neshamah should bring the Ruach into contact with the Divine Will or Chiah (attributed to Chokmah), and thereafter with the Divine Genius or Yechidah (attributed to Kether). "This is the only real way to become the Greatest Adept, and is directly dependant on your life and your actions in life." [21]
How then to achieve all this? My instinct had been for some time to practice a kind of astral working, in which I perform the Middle Pillar Ritual, and then contemplate the various parts of my soul being identified with parts of my astral body, my microcosmic Tree of Life as it were, and then fervently willing that they move, act and react in the manner described above. For, I reasoned, if I could formulate the exact process happening to me astrally, and if I Willed fervently enough, this would create a "current" which would eventually bring the desired effect to me in actuality.
The main problem with this though is that it is quite a fairly complicated procedure - and one in which I would have to exercise a great degree of control over my astral body in order to see it through properly. My principal method of working in the astral is through Lucid Dreaming, although I sometimes perform other methods of astral projection as well.
One day I thought: could the Sigilisation method help me in this as well? I therefore wrote out a full description of the requirements of the Adeptus Minor, as I perceived them, taking into consideration both the official instructions in the "Golden Dawn", and in Mathers' Flying Roll. I then eliminated the repeating letters. (I made it easier for myself by using the "Find and Replace" feature in Word 97.)
This left me with two letters: x and b. I combined them like this:
However, this time, instead of conducting a full-blown ritual, I visualised the sigil and meditated upon it.
There is an unfortunate tendency in some quarters to regard meditation as allowing ones mind to wander around a given subject. The Golden Dawn itself says "Think now of the subject for meditation in a general way - then choose out one thought or image and follow that to its conclusion."[22]
However, the practice of Yoga takes an entirely different definition of meditation - that of taking one thought and holding it fixedly. The mind, far from wandering, becomes completely still, until eventually it remains still of its own accord. "Yoga is the cessation of movements in consciousness…then, the Seer dwells in his own true splendour."[23] Crowley, who studied Yoga, admonishes the students of the A.'.A.'. to practice this Eastern form of meditation[24].
Given that Spare himself counselled the conscious forgetting of the purpose of the sigil, it appeared to me that the yogic style of concentration was the correct method of meditating on the sigil. For, by deliberately causing my mind to be still, I was excluding all extraneous thoughts - including thoughts about what the sigil was meant to represent.
Therefore, visualising the Sigil at my "third-eye", I meditated by holding the image there for half an hour, whilst studiously ignoring all thoughts that attempted to intrude. Finally, I ceased meditating and went to bed.
It so happened that that very night I had a particularly lucid dream, in which I did indeed perform the Middle Pillar Ritual, and contemplate the various processes entailed by my interpretation of the Adeptus Minor's obligation. It was in effect an advanced and extended form of the process which I have described in The Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel[25]. My Holy Guardian Angel appeared as a part of my performance of the Middle Pillar Ritual. Then, assuming His form (in the manner of a God-Form), I "felt" the three Supernal sephiroth becoming as One - Neshamah and Chiah uniting and combining with Yechidah - as well as Daath (the Higher Will) becoming One with Tiphereth (the Lower Will), and the "Evil Persona" leaving my Nephesh (i.e. Malkuth and Yesod) to a region below my feet, the region of the Qlippoth.
The whole experience was incredibly powerful. I felt an overpowering sense of energy, not unlike the way Kundalini is described in yogic literature. I was transported to a realm where all form disappeared, and everything dissolved into light, including my own consciousness. It was in effect an infinitely peaceful oblivion, devoid of images and memories. Given that it was singularly lacking in features by which to describe it, I can not really say much more about it, save that I awoke the next morning still feeling exhilarated from the experiences of the night before.
I was satisfied by my use of the sigil. It convinced me that Sigils can indeed be used in Theurgic workings. It would also appear that they are also good for incubating Lucid Dreams on a given topic.
Terrorism
Tuesday, September the 11th 2001 at about 2pm British Summer Time I was at my desk in my place of work when a colleague told me that two planes had crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. I went upstairs to look at the only TV set in the building. I found that practically all the other members of staff, having had the same impulse, were gathering in the room with me and there tried to take in the full enormity of the worst act of terrorism to have occurred within living memory. It was impossible not to sense the impressions prevalent at the time: the pain of the victims in those planes, and in the World Trade Centre; the sense of injury of the American people generally, and of the people of New York specifically; the sense that whoever had done this was effectively declaring war on America, balanced with the certitude that those responsible had signed their own death warrants in the light of the inevitable American retribution.
What could I do? Here I was, some two thousand miles away from the events in question, yet I felt that I should at least do something. I also knew that if this was indeed a war on America, it was likely that "the Enemy" - whoever they were - would attack again sometime soon, probably within the next few hours. I was naïve in that I did not take into account that Al-Qaeda may well be Terrorists, but they are not Soldiers. From a purely tactical point of view they deserve to lose in the current conflict.
Therefore, driven by an overwhelming urge to do something for the American people, I got the idea to perform a ritual. I knew I had to work quickly: the incident of the Healing Ritual was still fresh in my mind. I therefore proceeded to execute a Sigil, as I had previously.
The Sigilized desire was to prevent all forms of terrorism from taking place in the future. I am afraid I cannot remember the exact wording of the desire now; nor the form of the Sigil which I composed. Although given that Spare recommended the Sigil be consciously forgotten, I suppose this is a good thing. I carried out the ceremony that very evening at midnight BST.
From a scientific point of view this is obviously the most controversial magical project I have undertaken, given that it is all too painfully obviously whether this Sigil will be a success or not. To argue in defence of the validity of the experiment, I would say that acts of terrorism by Al-Qaeda per se have not succeeded since I performed the ceremony. I choose my words carefully: there was the incident of the shoe-bomber, who was thwarted before he could do anything; and there was also the Florida teenager who crashed his plane into the side of a building, but without taking anyone's life but his own. The world is certainly not yet free from terrorism generally. Paramilitaries are still committing murders in Northern Ireland, and there have been a number of very violent acts against Israeli citizens in the West Bank. If my Sigil set in motion any kind of magical impulse, it seems to be taking a painfully long time to gather appreciable momentum.
On the other hand, I am well aware that there were many others who, on September 11th 2001, had the same feelings as me. It seemed that just about everyone in the occult community at the time was using their powers to help in the aftermath of the atrocities. Not only that, but all the Christian churches world-wide were united in prayer for the same reason. If, therefore, my Sigil is in anyway successful, I may have to content myself with the fact that it was not my doing alone: but that I had merely added my will to the Collective Will of millions.
Conclusion
From my experiments in the course of 2001, I would say that A O Spare Sigils can be used in Golden Dawn magic. The manner of use of these sigils was very unlike the manner described by Spare himself. I doubt he would have approved of his methods of magic being co-opted by a Ritual Magician of the type he described.
A Sigil formed according to the A O Spare method is a non-verbal form of communication. Whereas normally in a magic ritual there comes a Negotium, where the intent of the ceremony is articulated and communicated to the forces conjured, the Sigil replaces the need for spoken words at this juncture. Nowadays, thanks to the work of Roger Sperry we know that the left-hemisphere of the brain usually works in words, and the right-hemisphere usually works in images. It would appear that the Sigil method therefore replaces left-brain with right-brain activity at a key point in the magical operation.
Agrippa, Henry Cornelius: Three Books of Occult Philosophy.
Carroll, Peter J: Liber Kaos, The Psychonomicon, Weiser
Casaubon, Meric (editor): A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr John Dee and Some Spirits, facsimile of 1659 edition published by Kessinger Publishing.
Crowley, Aleister: Magick in Theory and Practice.
Crowley, Aleister: 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings, Weiser 1977.
Eshelman, James E.: Hebrew Hierarchical Names in Briah, from The Magical Pantheons (The Golden Dawn Journal Book IV), Llewellyn 1998.
Fortune, Dion: Moon Magic, 1995 SIL Trading Ltd (first published 1956).
Grant, Kenneth: Austen Osman Spare and the Zos Kia Cultus from The Magical Revival, 1972.
Iyengar, BKS: Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, The Aquarian Press 1993.
King, Francis (editor): Ritual Magic of the Golden Dawn, Destiny Books 1987.
Mathers, Samuel Liddell Macgregor: The Greater Key of Solomon,
Emperor Norton Books 1999
( http://w3.one.net/~browe/
)
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(http://www.geocities.com/alex_sumner/hga.htm)
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Wong Kiew Kit: The Art of Chi Kung, 1993
Notes
[1] Spare, The Book of Pleasure (Self-love), 1913
[2] Carroll, Sleight of Mindfrom Liber Kaos, The Psychonomicon, 1991
[3] These are described in Austen Osman Spare and the Zos Kia Cultus from The Magical Revival, Kenneth Grant, 1972
[4] Henry Cornelius Agrippa, The Third Book of Occult Philosophy, ch. 30.
[5] Aleister Crowley, 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings, Weiser, 1977.
[6] Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn, 6th ed. Llewellyn, 1989, p 395.
[7] Wong Kiew Kit, The Art of Chi Kung, 1993.
[10] Regardie, op. cit. Pp 376 et seq. lists the structure common to Z2 Ceremonies.
[11] An explanation of this word - quite unconnected with the subject of this article - I had been experimenting with using Hebrew Hierarchical Names in Briah. In this system, the name associated with Hod - which in this case I took the liberty of extending to planetary Mercury - is "Matzpatz", {pxm. See James A Eshelman, Hebrew Hierarchical Names in Briah, from The Magical Pantheons (The Golden Dawn Journal Book IV), Llewellyn 1998, for a fuller explanation.
[12] Sumner, Famous Figures of the Western Mystery Tradition, Part Two: John Dee, from the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition, Autumn 2001.
[13] Casaubon (ed.), A True and Faithfull Relation…, p 183.
[14] I.e. "Dee". Dee used the Greek letter Delta as his initial.
[15] Casaubon, op. cit., p 188.
[16] S Liddell Macgregor Mathers (transl.), The Greater Key of Solomon, ch. 17.
[17] A method of using the Hebrew double-letters in clairvoyancy is described in Regardie, op. cit., p474.
[18] Casaubon, op. cit., p 157.
[19] Crowley, One Star in Sight, Magick in Theory and Practice.
[20] Regardie, op. cit., p 106.
[21] G H Frater DDCF, Flying Roll No. X Concerning the Symbolism of Self Sacrifice, and Crucifixion contained in the 5º=6º Grade., p135 of Ritual Magic of the Golden Dawn, edited by Francis King, Destiny Books 1987.
[22] Regardie, op. cit., p 53.
[23] The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, I:2 -3.
[24] Crowley, Book 4 (Part one).
[25] Sumner, The Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel, http://www.geocities.com/alex_sumner/hga.htm