The Meaning Of Magic

Magic is not an easy thing to define and the word has many different meanings. Some people still associate it with the production of white rabbits from top hats, other with the dark superstitions of an ignorant peasantry yet others with the' Black Mass' and 'unspeakable orgies' - whatever they may be. When, however, the present-day occultist talks about magic he means something similar to, but by no means identical with, what an anthropologist is referring to when he writes of 'the magic of primitive people'.

For the purposes of this page , then, the word magic is primarily used in the same sense that is defined by the over-whelming majority of contemporary magical practitioners -'the art and science of using little known natural forces in order to achieve changes in consciousness and the physical environment'. We also use the word magic in a secondary sense as meaning the entire body of doctrines and techniques and consecration of wands, swords, and other instruments used by magicians in the performance of their art; ritual divination by such methods as geomancy; the manufacture and consecration of talismans; and the exploration of universes other then that with which we are familiar.

There are many schools of magic in existence today, but many of them ultimately derive from the same source (The Hermet order of the Golden Dawn was the most important single source of the modern magical traditions. For details of this Order see Dr Israel Regardie's 'Golden Dawn'. (4 vols) Aries Press, 1937-1940, reprinted (2 vols) Llewellyn Publications, USA, 1969; Francis King, 'Ritual Magic in England'. Neville Spearman, London, 1970; Francis King, 'Astral Projection, Magic and Alchemy'. Neville Spearman, London, 1972; and R.G.Torrens 'The Secret Rituals of the Golden Dawn'. Aquarian, UK, 1972.)and almost all of them share the same four fundamental theoretical assumptions:

1. That the universe of the physical scientists is only a part, and by no means the most important part, of total reality.

2. That Human will-power is a real force, capable of being trained and concentrated, and the the disciplined will is capable of changing its environment and producing supernormal effects.

3. That this will-power must be directed by the imagination.

4. That the universe is not a mixture of chance factors and influences but an ordered system of correspondences, and that the understanding of the pattern of correspondences enables the occultist to use them for his own purposes, good or ill(/evil).

The first of these basic axioms, that which affirms the physical world to be only one component part of total reality, must not be understood as a denial of the existence of matter. Most magicians believe as firmly in the existence of matter as any Marxist, but they regard it as only the 'densest' of a number of different types of existence, usually referred to as 'Worlds' or 'Planes'. The last-mentioned term is an unfortunate one, for it often leads those unfamiliar with occult terminology to conceive of the planes as being one above the other. rather like geological strata. The Magician does not loop upon them in this way; instead he regards them as interpenetrating and co-existing with one another the so-called 'astral plane', for example, having the same spatial co-ordinates as the physical plane but, nevertheless remaining quite separate from it and obeying its own natural laws. In other words, 'the planes are discreet and not continuous'.

Just how many of these worlds and planed are supposed to exist depends upon which particular mode of classification the magician chooses to use. Today most of them prefer the fourfold classification of the Golden Dawn version of the Hebrew Qabalah and therefore refer to:

1. Atziluth, the Devine World, Archetypal existence

2. Briah, the Creative World, sphere of Archangels and other types of spiritual entity.

3. Yetzirah, the Astral World, lying immediately 'above' the plance of dense physical matter.

4. Assiah, the Material World, the plane of ordinary physical existence.

For the purposes of practical magic the Astral World(Yetzirah), is of greatest importance, for by the manipulation of its basic material, called by many occultists the Astral Light and bearing some resemblance to the orgone energy of Wilhelm Reich, occultists believe that they are enabled to exert control over dense matter and to produce changes in consciousness in themselves and others.

The magicians' belief in more that one plane of being implies the existence of more than one type of 'body' operating on those planes. Once again the vehicle of physical existence is thought of as being comparatively unimportant; it is what are usually referred to as 'the subtle bodies' that are of greatest interest to the practitioners of magic and, once more, their supposed number depends upon the preferred system of classification. Thus those magicians who use the Golden Dawn's Qabalistic system habitually talk about 'the etheric body', thought of as almost physical in nature, a quasi-magnetic network of lines of force laying down the pattern to be followed by the physical body; of 'the astral body', which it is believed can be dissociated from the physical body and used by the magician to journey through the astral world; of 'the mental body'; of 'the spiritual body'; and of the Yechidah, or Devine Spark, the highest aspect of consciousness, the fraction ofGodhead which is held to the central core of each human personality.

For the practical purposes it is, of course the astral body in which the magician is most interested; he learns to project dissociate it, to transfer his consciousness to it, to use it for astral travel, ad even to use it to communicate with astral entities. As you will discover for yourself if you read this, there is nothing either impossible or even particularly difficult in these curious procedures. Whether or not the astral plane and the astral body enjoy any objective existence there is no doubt that the performance of certain traditional psycho-spiritual exercises produce a state of consciousness in which, at the very least, one appears to have transferred one's consciousness to a non-physical vehicle, one seems to enter a new universe with laws of its own, and one undergoes an intensely lucid'dream' while still retaining one's freedom of action and normal powers of reasoning.

The second basic magical axiom, that which affirms the human will to be a force as real and effective as electricity or oilis well summarized in the following quotations: 'And the will there in lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the Will with its vigour? For God is but a great Will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels nor to death uttely, save only though the weakness of his feeble will.' '... in the Adept death can be only supervene when the Higher will consenteth thereto, and herein is implied the whole Mystery of the Elixer of Life.'

The second of these quotations is from one of the instructional documents of the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn and was originally written by S.L. MacGregor Mathers. The first preceded one of Poe's most effective short stories and was attributed to Joseph Glanvill, the 17th century Platonist, demonologist and theologian. I have been unable, however, to trace it in any of Glanvill's published writings and I suspect that Poe invented it. In any case it splendidly sums up the magical doctrine of will-power. For the magician it is imagination that directs the will-power, and fantasy that channels it into the flow of particular energy-path desired. This belief was admirably expressed by a certain Dr Berridge - Frater Resurgam of the Golden Dawn -in a document entitled 'Flying Roll No. V'; 'To practise magic both the Imagination and the Will must be called into action, they are co-equal in the work. Nay, more, the Imagination must precede the Will in order to produce the greatest possible effect.'

'The Will unaided can send forth a current, and that current cannot be wholly inoperative; yet its effect is vague and indefinite, because the Will unaided sends forth nothing but the current of force. 'The Imagination unaided can create an image and this image must have an existence of varying duration; yet it can do nothing of importance unless vitalized and directed by the Will. 'When however, the two are conjoined - when the Imagination creates an image - and the Will directs and uses that image, marvellous magical effects may be obtained.

' The Doctrine of correspondences is perhaps the most difficult of the magical axioms to fully understand. it ultimately derives from the Neo-Platonic conception of each man or woman as a microcosm (a 'little universe') that is to say a reflection of the macrocosm - the cosmos as a whole. It is believed that every factor present in the universe is also present in the soul of man, that - to use a phrase beloved by some magicians - 'the aura of a man is a magical mirror of the universe'. Since magicians believe that the soul is the universe inminiature they also believe that it is possible to link any factoring the individual psycho-spiritual make-up with the correponding factor in the universe at large. in other words, to call down a natural force to strengthen that same force in the individual soul; technically this process is called invocation.

The actual techniques of invocation involve the magician in the use of one or the other of the traditional systems of classification. Today the system used by most Western occultists is based on a 32-fold classification and printed tables of the major correspondences are available, notably in Aleister Crowley's 'Liber 777' and Dr Israel Regardie's 'Golden Dawn'. The advanced magician, however, uses such tables only as a basis for his own mental activity; he transforms a portion of his mind into an invisible card-index and sorts every fact known to him onto one or other of the thirty-two available 'cards', each on which correlates with a natural force.

Thus the colour orange, the number eight, fish, snakes, white wine, the planet Mercury, books, science, wisdom, knavery, and many other things are held to relate in one way or another to the natural force which the ancient Greeks personified as Hermes and the ancient Egyptians as Thoth, Lord of magic, writing and wisdom. Using this technique the magician who desires access to some rare books, or knowledge of some arcane science, endeavours to reinforce the 'Hermes factor' in the universe in relation to his specific objective. To this end he devises a ceremony to invoke Hermes, standing in and eight-pointed star drawn in orange chalk, sacramental eating fish and drinking white wine, calling on Hermes by chanting the barbarous Names of Power traditionally associated with that deity, etc.

Having focused the 'Hermes factor' he allows it to dissipate its energy through the channel he has created, and in doing so it sets in motion the causes which result in the book falling into the hands of the magician. The four basic doctrines of magic and their interrelationship were summed up by Paracelsus in the following words:

'The astral currents created by the imagination of the Macrocosm act upon the Microcosm and produce certain states in the latter, and likewise the astral currents produced by the imagination and will of man produce certain states in external Nature; and these currents may reach far, because the power of the imagination reaches as far as thought can go. The physiological processes taking place in the bodies of living beings are caused by their astral currents and the ...changes taking place in the great organism of Nature as caused by the astral currents of Nature as a whole. The astral currents of either act upon the other, either consciously or unconsciously; and if this fact is properly understood it will cease to appear incredible that the mind of man may produce changes in the universal mind ... or that evil may be changed into good by the power of Faith. heaven is a field into which the imagination of man throws the seeds.'

Such then, are the four theoretical premises on which contemporary occultists base their magical activities. Many occultists would regard them as 'true' in the ordinary sense of that word, but some would look upon them as none more than reasonable working hypotheses. J.W. Brodie-innes, an adept active in the early part of the present century, took the latter point of view and write:

'Whether the Gods, The Qliphotic forces' (ie the evil demons of hebrew Qabalah) 'or even the Secret Chiefs' (ie the supposed invisible super humans who are believed to direct the activates of authentic magical fraternities) 'really exist is comparatively unimportant; the point is that the universe behaves as thought they do. In a sense the whole philosophy of the practice of magic is identical with the Pragmaticist (sic)position of Pierce the American philosopher.' Few readers of these txt's, however, are likely to which to busy themselves with such intellectual subtleties. Rather will they wish to experiment themselves with the practical techniques of the magical art.

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