FAQ MAGIC
Magic is art (intuition) and science (rationality) which involves the aid of altered states of consciousness in accordance with the will, to bring alterations on the physical (bodily), astral (spiritual) and mental (intellectual) levels, always performed with the objective of the acquisition of knowledge (Gnosis, in contrast to the pure, “submissive” faith of religions). This is usually achieved by contacting subtle beings within the appropriate framework of ritual paradigms, taking into account correspondences and sympathies. Magic is, therefore, a spiritual science, because it primarily works through the magician’s mind and will of thoughts (as a consequence of invocations) or the spirit of another being (as a consequence of evocations).
The decisive triggering power works through the subconsciousness of the magical actor. If it is directed towards a specific target, the achievement will also be directly assured. An example: If you like to do something very much, then you want it also with a strong will and vice versa. In this case, you are also very likely to succeed at it. However, if you do something that you are reluctant to, you are unfocused, easily distracted, and make mistakes – in short, things will happen that prevent you from succeeding. Unfortunately, the subconscious is not infallible. Not only the entire life energy is “at rest,” but also all “dormant” blockades, neuroses, phobias, and psychoses. The latter is the “true devils” and “atrocious demons,” which, especially in magic, have to be awakened and, if necessary, also expelled. This is not an easy task, which also requires a part of courage and a lot of “grounding” (i.e., mastery of everyday reality). In Witchcraft, for example, where magic is also practiced, these things are called “Shadow Works” and are meticulously noted in the so-called “Book of Shadows.”
Another power works through speech – given only to man – thus through words. Therefore, in practical magic, affirmations and so-called mantras are widely used, accompanied by theatrical incantations, ceremonial settings, the wearing of robes, etc. Whether you use concepts, symbols, sigils, gestures, letters, words, numbers, colors, fragrances, body secretions (Mumia) or whatever in magic, all resources can be pulled out, so to speak, to influence your subconscious mind through your primary five senses as well as through your subconscious and mind to shape and reprogram it. To do this, you use a “trick,” helping your subconscious to take a leap, so to speak, by “feeding” it with so-called archetypical signals which, after a particular deepening, trigger of their own accord. Thus the Paraphernalia Magic Cup is associated with the receiving element water. Whenever you see this cup in your ritual or take it into your hands, you already have this archetypal element in mind without consciously thinking about it.
Yes, there are. First, there should be a willingness to examine, question, and if necessary modify, or even put aside paradigms (patterns of thought that shape our world view) and conventions (social behavior) that have been adopted through education or authorities, regardless of the supposed problems associated with them and the “points of friction” that inevitably arise as a result, preferably from a social point of view (keyword: religions). On the other hand, the individual has to preserve the willingness to persevere (mentally, psychologically and physically) even when the “vehicle seems to be stuck in the mud,” which will very often be the case because even on magical paths it sometimes rains for a few days without ceasing. Things do not fall into one’s lap. On the contrary: The courage and ability to relativize reality or realities to transform them into “meta-layers” to adopt a different point of view for the first time is not achieved by abandoning by the smallest obstacle, the slightest “pain” that arises.
Spiritually: Attention! – Mental: Serenity! – Physically: Relaxation!
Through the attention of the mind, you sharpen your senses and get to know yourself and your impulses much better. Through calmness, you learn to assess and constructively use all phenomena, that you may encounter on the magical paths without emotional and biased evaluation. Through physical relaxation, you will learn to control your body better and to release blockades that would otherwise only hinder you. All three factors interact with each other and are, therefore, mutually dependent. They belong to the three basics of the “magic of paradigms.”
Contrary to other statements, magic has nothing in common with forbidden or blasphemous practices against a monotheistic God, with secret conspiracies or theories, psychotic sects, or so-called Satanism, which allegedly indulges in the Christian devil, although the so-called “sect commissioner” of traditional, dogmatic religions or the blatant outpourings of the journalistic tabloids want us to believe all over again. Although we don’t want to exclude that, all of the above exists, just that it has nothing to do with real magic.
Nevertheless, secrecy is one of four essential maxims in magic – albeit for a completely different reason: Knowledge = intellect/wisdom, charisma = courage (to change, against dogmas), “will” = strength, silence = pressure, the compressor, and catalyst. You should, at least, keep silent about your exercises and rituals to avoid that “your magic” is wrongly criticized or causes mental irritations on third parties, which can adversely affect an original objective in magic, because thoughts are subtle energy.
Yes, but first, we have to do a little work: Since man is intrinsically a spiritual being and originates from a “universal spirit,” in principle, every man can perform magic, whereby there are of course differences in talent, disposal, professionalism and efficiency (planning). All this, in turn, can be expressed in one term: endurance, the duration of the occupation. Unconsciously, by the way, all people already do this, namely by their way of thinking. Magic has a lot to do with thoughts, thinking, and your imperturbable will. So there is a clear connection between our thinking and the way we experience process and create our realities (yes, there are many of them). These created realities, in turn, enter into an interaction with our mental idea of “what is feasible,” the construction of experiential realities.
Here are some serious examples from astronomy: “The earth is a disk,” “man cannot rise into the air,” “the earth is at the center of the planetary system,” “the moon rises, the sun sets” and the like. The axiom of the “magic of paradigms” is: “Truth is always relative and not infrequently dependent on what is perceived by our natural senses. It determines the thinking, actions, and lives of a person and the so-called “common sense.” That is why there are always as much as thinking beings are capable of creating, preserving, and destroying (cf. system theory, constructivism, epistemology, and ontology.)
But in the majority of cases, man is not master of his thinking, feelings, or senses, and he is always torn back and forth by events in his surroundings and environment. This “confusion” must first be brought into consciousness. You can learn all this again. Still, for some, it is a long, difficult, and painful journey, depending on how far these processes have already progressed and how much you already bring with you from previous reincarnations (if you believe in it). Some wish for an experienced teacher to guide them (by the way: it can never be more than that!), others master this path autodidactically. In the end, it is necessary to bring once self again to the surface of consciousness.
No, it’s not a typo, and it’s intended, although we don’t use this word because we’re not “Thelemites,” which is preferred by them (please google it, if you want to know more about it). The word magick was allegedly introduced and established by the Anglo-Saxon magician Aleister Crowley. It is a corruption of the original word magic, which means nothing else than “real” magic, so it is supposed to differ from stage magic and “pseudo images” by its unique spelling. In this respect, superficially, there is only a marginal difference between the terms “magic” and “magick.” Nevertheless, a clear distinction has emerged in the definition of these terms in magical usage, because nowadays magic is classified as conjuring tricks on a stage in front of a paying audience. But this has nothing to do with the magic we are practicing or is presented here – the magick. Therefore, magick should refer to a distinctive way to influence or change reality by magic, to receive information, and to call or banish forces! Also, magicians often call themselves magicians and not what they are: Illusionists (but “magic” sounds better more spectacular).
Like every path, the magical path begins with a first step. So, of course, you start with the theory to put the chariot before the horse. The theoretical basics are the entry into the magical and mystical construction of thought. You can – and should – do this alone. So first of all, look for an esoteric bookstore near you and examine the offer on that subject. Yes, there will be some books that will catch your eye. This is no coincidence, and if you can afford it, you should try to buy these books. It is an occult law that when one deals with a topic in a particularly intensive way, things (coincidence) that touch this topic directly fall to one. This applies in this case both to the corresponding literature and especially to a teacher or an association.
Many interested people nowadays learn this science in an autodidactic way. Others need a teacher, feel better protected there. Let your feelings guide yourself! If it is right for you to have a teacher, you will meet one on your way. The situation is similar to occult organizations, of which there are many. Thanks to the Internet. For many – that is to say most of them – this path is however already over after a few months of theory and practice, because – as previously mentioned above – it is not an easy path, and it is not for nothing that the rule applies: “Many are called, but not all are chosen.” And even if you should wait for years: at the so-called “guardian of the threshold,” the chaff finally separates from the wheat.
This term is an archetypal principle with which everyone who is seriously involved in magic is confronted sooner or later (and not just once). Astrologically, the planets Mercury and Saturn are assigned to this principle, which should already say something to the astrologically versed. Saturn, for example, stands for fate, karma, fatality, illness, infirmity, and death, but also for knowledge connected with overcoming these things! Saturn is the principle that sets limits for a man! Not for failure, but to overcome it!
The one who fails nevertheless is not yet ready for the further steps, the world behind it. And that is precisely what the guardian represents. He confronts you – the seeker – with your limits and difficulties. But before the threshold behind the veil can be crossed, the seeker must find the appropriate key for the gate. This happens through a continuous confrontation with the most inherent fears and shortcomings during the practical occupation with magic, which manifests themselves through personal repressions. These can be unresolved conflicts that suddenly reappear (e.g., parent-child conflicts), repressed fears like “fear of darkness,” neuroses, and various other underrated problems, deeply manifested. Sometimes, not always, the Keeper of the Threshold also appears in personified form, e.g., in dreams. The Keeper of the Threshold is a porter, a guardian at the gate to a “purely magical,” non-dualistic world – whoever wants to overcome him must first overcome himself!
They are forces that are effective in the collective psyche of humanity and can manifest themselves in individual mental states, e.g., in dreams or trance and can convey specific contents (cf. morphogenetic, morphology). Thus, for example, the pictures on the first 22 main cards of the Tarot (the so-called “Trumps” or “Arcana”) represent such archetypal forces in divination practices. But “angels” and “demons” are also archetypes in a certain way, for they embody something fundamentally good or bad, but of course, only within the framework of a manifested, lived dualistic monotheistic paradigm. There are also such paradigms, especially in magic, that is merely functional as long as one can contact their archetypes. The so-called High Magic, on the other hand, uses the potential of these forces to a large extent.
Well, given this important and unfortunately always misinterpreted term we want to be a little more detailed here:
You all surely know sayings of the so-called “black-and-white thinking,” like, for example, “Who is not for me, is against me” or “Good and evil magic.” The so-called black magic, as well as also the white magic, exists for the most part (more detailed below) only in the minds of those who strive to base their ideals and dislikes, based on selfish dogmas. It may frighten you, but there is no white or black magic, just magic. The operating magician instrumentalized it into something “good” or “bad” ’cause of his established paradigm, depending on his ethics and morals that have been acquired and lived on. Likewise, there is neither a “good,” “loving,” nor “evil” God, or whatever one may call “it.” Compare this with the antique Greek concept, meaning, and significance of the words “demon,” “agathodaimon,” or “cacodemon.”
Magic is always one with itself, a reality beyond space, time, and causality. Dualistic divisions are fictions of our mind, “things” for us, but never in themselves and a compelling necessity of multiplicity to act and interact in the physical world.
Responsible for this “black-and-white thinking,” by the way, in the long-ago Persian “Zoroastrianism,” named after its former founder Zoroaster or Zarathustra. Also, the many gods “known” to us are – in Old Testamentary spelling – only Elohim (Hebrew), literally translated: “sons and sisters of the gods” – thus to be considered neutral in value and as emanations of the cosmic One, of the primordial cosmic ground, of the incomprehensible.
Many of our students, therefore, see themselves in this context as agnostics, but not as atheists or nihilists, and can only gain little from religions concerning fundamental ideological questions and the associated dogmatic commitment – replacing religious belief with knowledge, for Christians a blasphemy.
It should also be noted that – as the name itself already says – black magic involves the use of the black and not the dark grey hue. What does that mean? Well, “true,” i.e., an earnest and philosophically, intellectually founded black magic means a complete absence of the cosmic solar principle and thus also a constantly growing and passing rhythmical law of life. It is, therefore, the opposite of light, rebels against the cosmic act of creation as well, the creative, the unfolding of sight, the sustaining of life – which by the way does not yet imply a general theology, although it is assumed!
Everyone should, therefore, learn to distinguish between the black magic and those magical states which are supposed to be black, i.e., only seem to be black, but are not, because in them (as a result of their soul) there still is a spark, a glow that is ready to become a fire and light.
What is meant by this? In more straightforward and more contemporary terms: Black magic is not practiced by externals, like dressing in black or dark colors, by hanging an inverse pentagram around one’s neck to pay homage to a so-called “Lucifer” or “Satan,” outside at night in cemeteries: By the way, black magic is just as rare as white magic. Unfortunately, these two names of the supposedly “evil” and “good” are so firmly attached to the inner and outer life of society that, until today, it hardly makes sense to want to change this.
Or, to put it another way: the qualities and intentions of a so-called “black magician” are far more dangerous and life-threatening than those of an invented devil and his demonic army, who, out of weakness, are dependent on a monotheistic pathological group soul.
A ritually active black magician is always out to consciously advocate the spread of so-called “anti-cosmic structures” on the material plan of a human world, usually trying to promote his survival, also at the expense of other beings and that at any price (e.g., pacts with demonic entities). He works to bind other mortals to a structure, which leads them to their final destruction while he is convinced that he does not have to share this fate, since he, for example, has placed himself in the service of a “prince of hell,” works for or through him. Simply put, a deal, a sale.
The experienced magician, on the other hand, takes less notice of theatrically staged versions of black magic, such as the “Satan’s Mass,” the “Black Mass” or a “Witches’ Sabbath,” unless he is more interested in finding suitable beginners and victims, by confusing, bewitching and enchanting: the classical vampirism. The black magician active in the 21st century prefers to use mass-production methods that appeal to the mass spirit; his “white opponent,” by the way, proceeds in the same way.
Question: But how can a magically, practically inexperienced person keep the activities of both camps apart? Our answer: only the procedural structures and symbols used to provide information about this, as do the rituals practiced. The following applies: no party can adopt the basic ritual structure of the other party since this would thwart its own goals, and yet a structure can be reversed or twisted by changing its order since this is a very double-edged matter because both possibilities always remain open.
Here is another example: The inverted upside-down cross on a “Satan’s altar” can turn back at any time and restore the cosmos it embodies in this position, as long as it is a passion cross and not an isosceles sun cross. It is the duality of most symbols that prevent them from being used exclusively cosmically or chaotically; to refer to the old proverb: “daemonus est Deus inversus” (the devil is an inverted god). The legend of the devil who fears the sign of the cross is true when the sign of the cross is understood to be the cosmic cross and not the passion cross, which is known to be reversible.
For expert Cabbalists: explore the analog illustration of black magic at the mirrored Etz Chjim (the cabbalistic Tree Of Life), the map of the so-called “Qliphoth” or “Kelipoth.”
But also more complex and corresponding symbols, such as Etz Chjim, the “ten-step” cabbalistic Tree of Life, can be turned by 180 degrees. Intelligent black magicians, however, would probably not do this for symbolic-logical reasons, since through only a “fleeting shift,” this qliphotically structured antithesis would suddenly transform their chaos into cosmic order. For this, only the tenth sphere, the sefira Malkuth = the realm), the material appearance of the world, would have to be moved to its rightful place which it occupied before the “fall,” namely to the “empty space” occupied by the pseudo-sefira Da’ath (knowledge), and the Tree of Life would be generated into an irreversible cosmic structure.
But one will also notice that with every attempt to reverse Etz Chjim, the material sphere would become “top-heavy,” and, if it finally and subsequently “fell” for the second time, would return to its original place and form a kind of “critical mass” of the cosmos, thus vice versa concerning chaos. It would “unite” the cosmos in such a way that asymmetry would arise between the inner and outer modes of existence that would be directly interchangeable. In this state, man would be naturally aware of the inner world in the external world, and the “kingdom of heaven” would be – in the truest sense of the word – “on earth.” Moreover, meditations on the perfected Tree of Life, its paths and structures have strong positive effects on the spirit and soul of man. Even its numbering can be changed; it can be turned and turned as one likes, it will always appear cosmic or holistic.
In our opinion, this supposedly difficult question is easy to answer:
The so-called “True” or” High” Magic is the so-called “magia naturalis” of past days, the upcoming renaissance of the 16th and 17th century while respecting, preserving and advocating the later formulated categorical imperative of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant; On the other hand, the realization of a balance called “head – heart – hand,” i.e., “thinking (theory) – feeling (emotions/subjectivity) and action (practice). No more, no less.
Yes and No, because there are so many fields to be studied in magic, that we’d have to choose hundreds of terms for it. But the magic we teach can be paraphrased as “holistic magic,” derived from the Greek hólos, meaning “whole,” “complete,” and “extensive”).
By this we mean the inclusion of all magic disciplines of the Occident and not seldom Orient, above all with a Faustian, strong focus, not to be confused with the diabolical Faustian pact-like in Goethe’s “Faust”!) on magic and philosophy of antiquity, for example, the Gnosis, the neo-Platonism, neo-Pythagoreanism, the Jewish Mysticism, means the secret teachings, called Kabbalah, the Greek mystery cults, Hermeticism, Alchemy, as it’s affiliate Spagyric.
We have also chosen this name primarily to differentiate ourselves from:
- the abundant eclectically magical currents of the present, often called “chaos magick,”
- Luciferian or Satanic hedonism, like Anton Szandor La Vey’s CoS (“Church of Satan”);
- propagated charismatic, magical person cults of the modern times, who put their focus only on charismatic Magicians like Crowley, Bardon, Gregorius, etc. and their teachings.
The latter should not be rejected in general, but should not be overused rather regarded and treated as what they are: magical paradigms or syncretism.
Furthermore, in this context, we would like to point out once again the triple structure “head – heart – hand” in an appropriate balance, which we taught.
- Liberation and deconditioning of the human being or student from physical, mental, and spiritual constraints; educated or imposed by parental home, society, imposed and accordingly accepted and never questioned.
- Becoming aware of one’s being and the associated possibilities to develop and establish higher powers, not only on the physical level, through appropriate exercises, practices, and rituals. The Liberation of Western magic from its ourobourosly bad image, mainly caused by itself or its so-called “esoteric” and “new age” representatives and maniacs.