The Magister 2 Read online

  THE MAGISTER

  MAGICK IN HISTORY,

  THEORY & P RACTICE

  Volume 0: The Order of Revelation

  The Worker Enters the Workshop

  Part 2 of 3 parts on Kindle

  O.E.D. Neophyte Grade Material

  Publication in Class B

  FORGE PRESS

  Keswick, Cumbria, 2016

  www.westernesotericism.com

  Copyright © Frater V. (Marcus Katz) 2014, 2016.

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the author.

  Tarosophy® and Western Esoteric Initiatory System® are registered trademarks.

  First paperback edition published 2015 by Salamander and Sons.

  This Kindle edition and all further print editions published by Forge Press, authorized by the author to whom all rights belong to this work.

  This Kindle section includes several links to other recommended reading however a complete list of these books and links will be found in the Reading Lists in part 3.

  Edited by Paul Hardacre & Marcus Katz.

  ALSO BY FRATER V. (MARCUS KATZ)

  The Path of the Seasons (Forge Press, forthcoming 2016)

  The Magician’s Kabbalah (Forge Press, 2015)

  NLP Magick (Forge Press, forthcoming 2016)

  Tarosophy: Tarot to Engage Life, Not Escape It (Forge Press, 2016)

  After the Angel (Forge Press, 2011)

  The Alchemy Workbook (Forge Press, 2008)

  The Zodiacal Rituals (Forge Press, 2008)

  Secrets of the Thoth Tarot (Forthcoming, 2016)

  Secrets of the Celtic Cross (Forthcoming, 2016)

  With Tali Goodwin

  Tarot Edge: Tarot for Teens and Young Adults (Forge Press, forthcoming 2016)

  Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2015)

  The English Lenormand (Forge Press, 2013)

  Tarot Life (in 12 books, Forge Press, 2013)

  Abiding in the Sanctuary: A. E. Waite’s Second Tarot (Forge Press, 2013)

  Learning Lenormand (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2013).

  Tarot Turn (in three volumes, Forge Press, 2012)

  Tarot Inspire (Forge Press, 2012)

  Tarot Face to Face (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2012)

  Around the Tarot in 78 Days (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2012)

  Tarot Twist (Forge Press, 2010)

  Tarot Flip (Forge Press, 2010)

  Easy Lenormand (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2015)

  I-Ching Counters (Forge Press/TGC, 2015)

  The Original Lenormand Deck (Forge Press/TGC, 2012)

  With Tali Goodwin, Sasha Graham (ed.), Giordano Berti, Mark McElroy, Riccardo Minetti & Barbara Moore.

  Tarot Fundamentals (Lo Scarabeo, 2015)

  Tarot Experience (Lo Scarabeo, forthcoming 2016)

  With Derek Bain & Tali Goodwin

  A New Dawn for Tarot: The Original Tarot of the Golden Dawn (Forge Press, 2015)

  As Andrea Green (with Tali Goodwin)

  True Tarot Card Meanings (Kindle, 2014)

  Tarot for True Romance (Kindle, 2014)

  Kabbalah & Tarot: A Step-up Guide (Kindle, 2015)

  Visit Author Sites for Complete Bibliography & Details

  www.marcuskatz.com

  www.taligoodwin.com

  For all Applications to the Crucible Club and Order of Everlasting Day

  www.westernesotericism.com

  Dedications

  This second section of Magister Vol. 0 on Kindle is dedicated to Mozart in the Jungle.

  And as ever, and above all, this book is spiritually dedicated to

  Antistita Astri Argentei

  The Priestess of the Silver Star

  She whose light leads the way to the Arcanum Arcanorum, the Secret of Secrets

  Vos Vos Vos Vos Vos

  V.V.V.V.V.

  In Memorium

  Professor Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1953-2012), for opening the door another degree.

  We will teach on the avenues and in gardens more perfect than we can imagine when the walls of the world have long fallen.

  - The Magister

  Therefore in honour of the feast,

  Which we shall hold today,

  That her grace may be multiplied

  A good work will she do:

  The rope will now be lowered

  Whoever may hang on to it

  He shall be freed.

  Christian Rosencreutz, The Hermetic Romance:

  or, The Chymical Wedding (1616)[1]

  “The World is on fire,” Sigismundo Celine said quietly.

  R. A. Wilson, Illuminatus Volume I: The Earth Will Shake[2]

  Table of Contents

  On Those Things Which Call Us to Awakening

  Jerusalem’s Furnace

  The Stages of the Journey

  The Court Before the Tabernacle: Zelator (Malkuth)

  The Sanctuary or Forward Area of the Tabernacle: Theoricus (Yesod)

  Practicus (Hod)

  Philosophus (Netzach)

  The Holy of Holies: Adeptus Minor (Tiphareth)

  The Mercy Seat and Solomon’s Throne: Adeptus Major (Geburah) and Adeptus Minor (Chesed)

  After the Passing Over: Magister Templi (Binah), Magus (Chockmah) and Ipssisimus (Kether)

  The Alchemical Amphitheatre

  On Dreams and States of Consciousness

  The Guardian on the Threshold and the Inner Guide

  The Invisible College

  On Initiation and Calcination

  Vignette: The Mystical Explosion

  Exercise: Examining the Zelator

  The Secret Ladder

  The Sound of the Trumpet

  Historical Context

  Authorship

  The Fama

  The Confessio

  The Chymical Wedding

  The Mirror of Wisdom

  Symbology and Metaphor

  Academic Study of the WEIS

  The Nature of the Debate

  Western Esotericism, Rituals and Knowledge

  The Problem of Magic and the Occult

  Treatments of the Magical Orders

  The Teachings of Individual Esoteric Teachers and Followers

  Conclusion

  The Academic and Esoteric Encounter

  The Birth of Academic Studies of Western Esotericism

  The Dangers of Monolithic and Historic Analysis

  The Insider/Outsider Problem

  The Issue of Secret Knowledge

  Definitions of Western Esotericism

  The Contemporary Milieu

  Conclusion

  The Ascent Narrative

  The Ascent Narrative in Christian Mysticism

  The Ascent Narrative in Kabbalah

  Curriculum Studies Applied to Western Esotericism

  Introduction: Curriculum as Model

  Methodology: Analysis of Curriculum

  Analysis of Content

  The Self in Education

  Curricula as Content

  Purposes

  Content

  Procedures

  Evaluation

  Differences Between Secular and Esoteric Curricula

  Builders of the Adytum (BOTA): The Creation of a Curriculum

  The Teachers: A Case Study of Florence Farr

  The Aim and Structure of the Golden Dawn

  Light Before the Dawn: The Sat B’Hai and the Gold and Rosy Cross

  The Sat B’Hai and the August Order of Light

  The Influence of the Gold and Rosy Cross

  Westcott’s Western Mystery Doctrine

  Mathe
rs and the Book of Concealed Mystery

  History

  Foundations at 17 Fitzroy Street

  A Society of Hermetic Students

  The Devastating but Priceless Secret

  The Construction of the Curriculum

  The Knowledge Lectures and Flying Rolls

  The Flying Rolls

  List of Rolls and Authors

  The Rituals

  The Ladder and the Golden and Rosy Cross

  Students of the Golden Dawn

  Problems of Delivery of Material

  Qualification of Knowledge

  This is Reserved for a Higher Grade

  The Failure of the Golden Dawn

  Alumni of the Golden Dawn

  The Strange Reward

  Conclusion Part Two

  On Those Things Which Call Us to Awakening

  Exhaustion of the world and the limits of its offerings;

  The duplicity of the dreams of others;

  Circuited horizons of the logician’s love;

  The feelings of the imagined heart.

  The stark sunlight and its revelations;

  The broken chains of all that was important;

  The boundless creation exceeding all things;

  (Knowledge of God, given and taken).

  The tides of the sea and the calling of the deep;

  The word half-heard in the signature of all.

  But most of all, the One Who sees us sleeping

  And dreaming of an everlasting day.

  Jerusalem’s Furnace

  In this second section of the Magister on Kindle we will open by considering The Soul’s Journey Into God, by St. Bonaventure, attributed to the Tree of Life, as a demonstration of the initiatory journey mapped within Christian mysticism. It is through the use of kabbalah as a system of correspondence that we can perceive the structure of the initiatory journey, and penetrate to the core experiences and challenges encountered by a practitioner, no matter their cultural context.

  St. Bonaventure was a Franciscan monk born in central Italy in 1217. He joined the Order in 1243, and wrote a number of masterpieces including a biography of St. Francis. The most widely known of his works is that dealt with here, The Soul’s Journey into God, a dense summa of medieval Christian spirituality. It is based upon a vision of the Seraph, the six-winged angelic creature which had provided St. Francis his critical mystical experience, and it was whilst meditating on this vision that St. Bonaventure realised that “... this vision represented our father’s rapture in contemplation and the road by which that rapture is reached.”[3]

  The Latin title of this work is Itinerarium mentis in Deum, and it is of interest to this present work that Itinerarium can be translated as ‘plan for a journey’ (itinerary), which is part of the function served by any initiatory system, such as the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the kabbalah, or the Bardo Thodol.[4]

  The Stages of the Journey

  According to Bonaventure, the journey of the soul is divided into three general stages: Purgation, Illumination and Perfection. Each of these responds to first, the human nature, second, the effort of the individual, and third, the action of God as Grace. The actions of the three stages are usually given as:

  Purgation

  Announcing, Leading & Declaring

  Illumination

  Ordering, Strengthening & Commanding

  Perfection

  Receiving, Revealing & Anointing

  These nine actions may be laid onto the Tree from Yesod up to Kether as a very general schemata of the processes undergone by the initiate, and follow a similar development of pattern to that found in alchemy.

  The three stages represent the grades between Malkuth and Netzach (Purgation), Tiphareth to Chesed (Illumination) and Binah to Kether (Perfection).

  The Furnace of Jerusalem (per Bonaventure)

  Bonaventure further divides the journey into six stages, taking the Seraph (with six wings) as the symbolic matrix of the description, and these stages take us from the condition of the mortal man to that of the contemplative residing in the mystical experience of the ‘Superluminous Darkness’ of God.

  I have ascribed these stages to the kabbalah and the initiatory system from Malkuth to the Abyss, as Bonaventure, like many mystics of the time, ceases his description at this level, although hinting at further states beyond. As Brady notes in his preface, the journey takes us “... into the cloud of unknowing, which is itself perhaps the most perfect knowing here below of the One in Three.” I take this “One in Three” to refer to the upper sephiroth of the Tree above the Abyss. It is the contention of the initiate that states can be opened above this Abyss, where identity merges with God as no-thing, and the Self is entirely annihilated. This assertion may have been unspeakable for such as Bonaventure due to its potential for interpretation as heresy.

  The condition of the mortal man is pictured as that of a ‘poor man in the desert’. However, this situation is deemed redeemable, as the Franciscans followed the doctrine of exemplarism; that all creation is a set of moments in the inner dynamism of God. That is to say, by observing the events of Nature, one could come to know the dealings and nature of God. As Bonaventure words it: “This is our whole metaphysics; emanation, exemplarity, consummation; to be illumined by spiritual rays and to be led back to the highest reality.” The journey is also related to the description of Solomon’s Temple and I have accordingly divided the following synopsis in terms of the temple.

  The Temple of Ascent (per Bonaventure)

  The Court Before the Tabernacle: Zelator (Malkuth)

  The first stage is that of imposing technique to exercise the natural powers which sow the seeds of initiatory progress, and avoid ‘sin’ (i.e. automatic attachment to the apparent). These natural powers are grace, which is awoken by prayer; justice, which is awoken by leading a good life; knowledge, which is activated by meditation; and wisdom, which is brought into being through contemplation. The quickening of these latent faculties by the practices given brings the Initiate to the ‘Valley of Tears’ and the commencement of the second stage. The Valley of Tears can be seen as symbolic of path 32 of the Tree leading from Malkuth to Yesod, and is also indicated on The Moon atu of the tarot.

  The Sanctuary or Forward Area of the Tabernacle: Theoricus (Yesod)

  The second stage of contemplation is the observation of the ‘vestiges’ of God, which is performed through the “mirror of things perceived through sensation.” The Latin root for ‘vestige’ primarily means ‘footprint’, and it can be seen in a similar way to the chief Mayan God, who was only known by his ‘footprint’ – that is, by his passing, rather than his presence. Bonaventure observes, according to his reading of Aristotle’s physics, and Augustine’s, that the world is “generated” and that “everything that moves, is moved by something else.” During the main work of the Theoricus, which is observation, one may come to recognise a unity running behind the apparent world.

  The third stage of the journey is the successful conclusion of the work of the Theoricus, who has come to see that one “will be able to see God through yourself as through an image, which is to see through a mirror in an obscure manner.”

  Practicus (Hod)

  The third stage continues with the study of natural, rational and moral philosophy, which illuminates the mind, and thus, “illumined and flooded by such brilliance, unless it is blind, can be led through itself to contemplate that Eternal Light,” which is a key experience of the initiatory journey. That is to say, the reason, as it becomes refined and tested, eventually concedes its own place and limitations, and loses the power to confuse or enslave the identity. It is, like each of our false separations, “led through itself.”

  Philosophus (Netzach)

  Citing the Canticle of Canticles as a key text for stage four reveals much of Bonaventure’s belief about the work and events characterising the stage. Indeed, the emotional world is much in evidence in his descriptions of “the fullness of devotion, by which the
soul becomes like a column of smoke from aromatic spices of myrrh and frankincense,” “intense admiration, by which the soul becomes like the dawn, the moon and the sun,” and “the superabundance of exultation, by which the soul, overflowing with delights of the sweetest pleasure, leans wholly upon her beloved.” It is to this stage that Crowley recommended the work of Liber Astarte, which was a devotional rite seeking to unite the Philosophus with a particular deity through devotion.

  The practical aspect of this stage is in the ‘hierarchical operations’ of perfecting or arranging our soul as in the ‘heavenly Jerusalem’. That is to say, we must configure ourselves in accordance with our own personal revelations, as attained previously.

  The Holy of Holies: Adeptus Minor (Tiphareth)

  The fifth stage is the attempt to gain the apex mentis seu synderesis scintilla, the highest part of the soul, from which mystical union proceeds. Whereas the prior stages have been concerned with enquiry and resultant revelations, the middle stages are concerned with ‘being’ and ‘direct knowing’ of the “eternal and most present; utterly simple and the greatest; most actual and unchangeable.” Here words begin to lose relevance to actual direct experience of that which is “greatest precisely because it is utterly simple.”

  In kabbalah this is denoted partly by the symbolism of the Veil of Paroketh which separates the lower four sephiroth from Tiphareth.

  The Mercy Seat and Solomon’s Throne: Adeptus Major (Geburah) and Adeptus Minor (Chesed)

  The sixth and seventh stages of the Work are described with analogy to the two Cherubs facing the Mercy Seat. The discernment of Geburah and the joy of Chesed are pointed to as connected to the contemplation of the trinity (i.e. the upper sephiroth of Binah, Chockmah and Kether). A “perfection of illumination” is attained at the end of the sixth stage, and the seventh stage is given to the “passing over of the Red Sea” into the “Superluminous darkness” and “unknowing,” which I would suggest describes the stages of the Abyss and Binah in the initiatory system. From that point, Bonaventure hints “to the friend to whom these words were written, let us say with Dionysius;