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Diaryland
Re: Random magick questions August 15, 2008 @ 1:00 a.m.
Hey Johnny - good to hear from you. You're the first response that hasn't been a spam message. Did you know they custom-tailor them for the sections on Craig's list? I've had two supposed inquiries from african immigrants with really bad grammer seeking my services as a "lessons teacher" for their 12 year olds and asking me to send them more information. They didn't mention magic once in their emails, but apparently their kids are just "interested in anything" :-P
Glad to hear you're doing your reading. I went to Sonoma State myself. I was a history major, and did a shitload of magical reading all through college. Sigh... I miss those days :)
I haven't read either of Farber's books yet but I've heard good things about them and I'm familiar with the essentials of what he's putting out. The bookstores are just starting to catch up with the Chaos, Postmodernist and NLP guys, and as they do I think we're gonna see a big wave of redundant literature. Not redundant in the sense that they're necessarily bad books, but there's gonna be a bunch of them saying the same things. Think of the "witchcrap" books that have dominated the shelves at borders and barnes and noble for some time and are only now just starting to see some headway from more complex school. Everybody seems to think that they're the first one to have discovered these principles, but the fact is that the knowledge has been around for aeons - just in different forms and wordings. Nonetheless, its powerful stuff.
The Golden Dawn was revolutionary in its time but I think most of us in the modern magical community have outgrown the need for the victorian stuffiness and rigid thinking. The best thing the golden dawn had to offer as a specific tradition was eclecticism and the first known serious attempt since the Roman era to syncronize and synthesize multiple magical traditions using the Tree of Life and monotheistic kabbalah as the framework. In large part, they created the "Western Mystery Tradition" as we understand it today. They also attracted some of the best minds of their day. But they were plagued with egotistic power struggles and insecurities about what they were embarking on that just got bigger and bigger with time until it tore the lodges apart. Also, its worth mentioning that the golden dawn was not really an order that did much operative magic. It only covered an initiate's education through the formative plane up to the grade of Philospher (4-7, Venus/Victory). The Victorians were so in the dark about so much of this stuff that for most of them, that's all they could handle. But most of the GD material today only goes that far anyways. Strictly speaking, it was a different order - the Red Rose and Golden Cross - that took initiates through the mental plane and adept ranks, and that was where they finally got some exposure to actually practicing magical operations.
Servants of the Light is Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki's school, and they're a spin-off from Dion Fortune, who herself outgrew the golden dawn much like Crowley did. I've heard mixed things about the school itself, but the literature she puts out is top-notch. Her book on the powers of the hebrew alephbet, "Illuminations" is particularly useful, and "magical use of thoughtforms" has wonderful teaching stories in it.
If you want to study Enochiana, for God's sake and your own sanity, get a hold of the Five Books of Mystery and just follow along with Dee and Kelley as they learn it themselves. Get it from the horse's mouth before anybody corrupts you with 3rd or 4th generation GD interpolations and interpretations from incomplete manuscripts. Athena over at nightshade magic also has a good knowledge of the system and offers a lot of good articles and products on her site www.enochian.org . And Ben Rowe's stuff was kick-ass too.
Let me know if I can help you out with anything else :)
David
"Details in the Fabric" - May 31, 2009
Not So Quick Questions - April 6, 2009
The Morning Stars - Lords of the 15 - April 9, 2009
Sincerity and Faith in Magic - April 10, 2009
Not So Quick Questions (2) - April 14, 2009
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