Ceremonial Magic and the Golden Dawn
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Mirrors and Scrying
The practice of gazing into a polished surface to receive visions, using tools ranging from crystal balls to volcanic glass mirrors.
SignificanceFor its practitioners the scrying glass or stone is a threshold between worlds, a door through which spirits may show themselves and speak. John Dee believed angels appeared in his shew-stone to reveal the original language of creation and the hidden order of nature.
The FindingA famous Elizabethan magician's obsidian scrying mirror was analysed geochemically in 2021 and shown to be Mexican obsidian, tying it to Aztec trade and a deity associated with smoking mirrors. The study proves where the stone came from; not that it was ever used in an Aztec ceremony before reaching England as looted material.
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Sigils
Abstract symbols created to represent and activate a specific desire or intention, now the single most widely practised technique in contemporary occultism.
SignificancePractitioners treat a sigil as a desire slipped past the conscious mind: once charged in a moment of stilled or ecstatic awareness and let go, it is held to work from the deep mind, fulfilling the wish free of the craving that would otherwise block it.
The FindingThe modern method of compressing a written desire into an abstract glyph and forgetting it was set out by one English artist in 1913, later systematised into a full magical system by another in 1978. Both drew on an older tradition of drawn ritual signs, including demon-summoning seals and Hindu tantric diagrams.
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The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
A highly influential British ceremonial magic order founded in 1888, the direct ancestor of most Western magical practice today.
What it meansFor initiates the order is a ladder up the Tree of Life: each outer grade balances an element within, until a symbolic death and rebirth in the vault of Christian Rosenkreutz sets the adept on the Great Work, union with the Higher and Divine Genius.
The FindingIt claimed authority through a charter from a German Rosicrucian adept, correspondence that was later definitively shown to have been fabricated by one of the order's own founders. The order itself admitted women as full equal members from the very start, and later split into several rival successor organisations within its first fifteen years.
- Aleister CrowleyThelema
- Alex SandersAlexandrian Wicca
- Austin Osman SpareModern Western Magic
- CagliostroFrench Occult Revival
- Court de Gébelin and the Egyptian TarotFrench Occult Revival
- Doreen ValienteWicca
- Fulcanelli and Le Mystère des cathédralesFrench Alchemy
- Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Temple ov Psychick YouthChaos Magic
- Gerald GardnerWicca
- Hiram Abiff and the Third DegreeFreemasonry
- Illuminatus! and Principia DiscordiaDiscordianism
- Israel RegardieHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
- Le Tarot des BohémiensFrench Occult Revival
- Levi's Hebrew Letters and the TarotChristian Cabala
- Mathers's The Kabbalah UnveiledChristian Cabala
- Mirrors and ScryingCross-Tradition
- Newton's AlchemyLatin Alchemy
- Ordo Templi OrientisThelema
- Pamela Colman SmithGolden Dawn
- Psychology and AlchemyLatin Alchemy
- SigilsCross-Tradition
- Stanislas de Guaita and the Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-CroixFrench Occult Revival
- The Abbey of ThelemaThelema
- The Art of MemoryRenaissance Magic
- The Baphomet of MendesFrench Occult Revival
- The Book of SoygaRenaissance Magic
- The Charge of the GoddessWicca
- The Elixir of ImmortalityCross-Tradition
- The Gardnerian Book of ShadowsWicca
- The Hermetic Order of the Golden DawnGolden Dawn
- The Key of SolomonGrimoire Tradition
- The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the PentagramGolden Dawn
- The Lesser Key of SolomonRenaissance Magic
- The NecronomiconGrimoire Tradition
- The Pictorial Key to the TarotRider-Waite-Smith Tarot
- The Planetary KameasRenaissance Magic
- The Rosicrucian ManifestosRosicrucianism
- The Secret ChiefsTheosophy / Golden Dawn
- The Simon NecronomiconModern Grimoire
- The Tarot's Egyptian Origin StoryComparative Religion
- The Testament of SolomonJudeo-Christian Magic
- The Theban Magical LibraryGreco-Egyptian
- The Thoth TarotThelema
- The Voynich ManuscriptLatin Alchemy
- V.I.T.R.I.O.L.Latin Alchemy
- Witchcraft TodayWicca