The Magister 1 Read online

  THE MAGISTER

  MAGICK IN HISTORY,

  THEORY & P RACTICE

  Volume 0: The Order of Revelation

  The Worker Enters the Workshop

  Part 1 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.

  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 Alchemical Amphitheatre (Forge Press, 2008)

  The Zodiacal Rituals (Forge Press, 2008)

  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 (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)

  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

  Dedications

  To the students in the Crucible, those of the Order of Everlasting Day.

  To Frater C.V. for assisting with the first version of the Work.

  To Ashley Karstunen, because the world is instant.

  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.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Stacy LaRosa, Freddie LaRosa and Sandra Mandaglio for translation from the Italian of the Joachim of Fiore material on the Ages/Aeons. Stacy LaRosa is the translator of the platinum-selling book in Slovakia, The Jewess, currently being published in English for American, Canadian and United Kingdom audiences. In arranging and translating into English for the first time the German of the Hauptpläne, a primary source of the initiation system corresponding to the kabbalah, we have the incomparable Steph Myriel Es-Tragon to thank. I would also like to thank Renko Geffarth for his patient assistance in guiding me beyond his research.

  The unique tarot images that grace this volume are provided by Janine Hall, whose production of the Tarot of Everlasting Day – a three-deck initiatory tarot – has been a miracle of realisation and vision.

  The Lodge of the Golden Apple provided invaluable primary source material and I acknowledge their kindness, assisted by the Staat-Archive of Berlin. Members of various Orders both public and private have been kind enough to discuss their work in comparison with my own, leading to refinements over the years.

  The staff members of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry of the United Grand Lodge of England, and of the Warburg Institute, have been unfailingly courteous and helpful over the many years of my research. I also wish to acknowledge the staff of the Prints and Drawings Department of the British Museum, and of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (Amsterdam). In pursuit of primary material, my quest took me to national museums and libraries from Scotland to Australia, where staff again assisted me patiently and precisely.

  My teachers over the past three decades, who guided me in my enthusiastic zeal and led me eventually to the mountain, I acknowledge; Daleth, who opened the Work of the Sun (which is now complete); Jasinth, who taught me the Mysteries of the Moon, Yeshe, for walking me to the Gate of Earth; and all those other stars whose orbits have swayed my gravity.

  In the academic approach to Western Esotericism, many have inspired and gently nudged me towards revelation and reception. My supervisors and mentors at the University of Exeter, including Professor Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (dearly missed), Dr. Christopher McIntosh and Dr. Peter Forshaw, all attempted to keep me on the rails of Academia. Individual and brief conversations with luminaries such as Moshe Idel, Wouter Hanegraaff, Angela Voss, Antoine Faivre, Robert Gilbert, Henrik Bogdan, Joscelyn Goodwin, Marco Pasi, and other leading scholars in the field have inspired me in offering new eyes on the subject.

  Our thanks to language professional David Vine for the assistance with the translation of ‘Priestess of the Silver Star’ into Latin and elaborating on the fascinating results, particularly the three embedded T-crosses.

  My wife Brina, family, friends and students have patiently waited 30 years for this project to commence, and I acknowledge their faith; the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Let us begin, then, as only we can, now and today.

  This day, today

  Is the Royal Wedding day.

  For this thou wast born

  And chosen of God for joy

  Thou mayest go to the mountain

  Whereon three temples stand,

  And see there this affair.

  Keep watch Inspect thyself

  And shouldst thou not bathe thoroughly

  The Wedding may work thy bane.

  Bane comes to him who faileth here

  Let him beware who is too light.

  Christian Rosencreutz, The Hermetic Romance:

  or, The Chymical Wedding (1616)[1]

  Victor Kemmings said, “The poster is torn.”

  “What?” she said.

  “We should have framed it,” he said. “We didn’t have sense enough to take care of it. Now it’s torn. And the artist is dead.”

  Philip K. Dick, I
Hope I Shall Arrive Soon[2]

  Table of Contents

  PREFACE

  A STATEMENT OF TRADITION, LINEAGE AND AFFILIATION.

  Introduction

  THE WESTERN ESOTERIC INITIATORY SYSTEM

  Chapter 1: STATE OF THE ART

  THE ORDER OF REVELATION

  The Order of Revelation (0)

  The Light of the Labyrinth (1)

  The Rainbow at Midnight (2)

  The Prism of Light (3)

  The Portal and the Veil (4)

  The Angel in the Workshop (5)

  The Sanctuary of Fire (6)

  The Chapel of Devotion (7)

  The Temple of Night (8)

  The Quarry of Souls (9)

  The Point of the Light (10)

  THE HERALD OF EVERLASTING DAY

  The Pyramid

  The Salamander Vessel

  The Millrinds

  The Angels of Night and D ay

  The Four Rivers

  The Two Trees

  The Tree of Knowledge (Eternal Night)

  The Tree of Life (Everlasting Day)

  THE AEONS

  Manifestations of Maat

  Chapter 2: Maat in Ancient Egyptian Cosmology

  Chapter 3: Maat in the context of the Golden Dawn Magical Society

  Chapter 4: Maat and the Aeons

  Chapter 5: Soror Nema and Maat Magic

  Chapter 6: Maat Magic Today

  Chapter 7: Exercise: Barack Obama’s Inaugural Speech

  The Tree of Life and Kabbalah

  THE INITIATORY JOURNEY

  The Aim of the Initiatory Journey

  Chapter 8: The Scale of the Journey

  Chapter 9: The Method of the System

  Chapter 10: Practices of the Curriculum

  Chapter 11: Syllabus of Study

  Apprenticeship and Teaching

  Chapter 12: The Structure of the Tree, Sephiroth and Paths

  Chapter 13: Signposts Along the Way

  THE CLOUDS ASTONISHED: A HERMETIC AND GNOSTIC UNIVERSE

  Chapter 14: Parable: The Discovery of Darkness

  Chapter 15: Metanoia: The Recovery of the Soul through Initiation

  Chapter 16: Traditions and Paths

  Chapter 17: Gnosticism

  Chapter 18: Neo-Platonism

  Chapter 19: Hermeticism

  Chapter 20: The Emerald Tablet

  THE INITIATORY MAP OF THE MAJORS ON THE TWO TREES

  The Tree of the Dawn

  The Tree of the Sanctuary

  A Map of the Spiritual Mountain in the Minors

  Chapter 21: Meanwhile Back at the Beginning of the End

  Chapter 22: The Spiritual Journey in the Wands

  THE NATURE OF THE GRADES AND INITIATION

  The S.R.I.A.

  The Golden Dawn

  The O.T.O. and the A∴ A∴

  THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

  A Student Case Study: Frater Maximus

  Dion Fortune and Aleister Crowley

  THE TITLES OF THE GRADES

  THE WORK OF THE GRADES

  THE VISIONS OF THE GRADES

  Conclusion Part One

  ‘The old beauty is no longer beautiful; the new truth is no longer true,’ is the eternal cry of a developing and really vitalised life. Our civilisation has passed through the First Empire of pagan sensualism; and the Second Empire of mistaken sacrifice, of giving up our own consciousness, our own power of judging, our own independence, our own courage. And the Third Empire is awaiting those of us who can see – that not only in Olympus, not only nailed to the Cross, – but in ourselves is God. For such of us, the bridge between flesh and spirit is built; for such among us hold the Keys of life and death.

  — Frater S.S.D.D., Flying Roll No. XIII, ‘Secrecy and Hermetic Love’[3]

  PREFACE

  One by one, we take them out of this world.

  This zero volume (in three parts on Kindle) is the introductory work to a series of volumes on what is hereafter termed the Western Esoteric Initiatory System (WEIS). This authentic and relevant spiritual system, comprising of models of elevated consciousness and graduated practices, is presented here in overview and in subsequent volumes in detail.

  The Magister proposes a comprehensive, consistent and congruent approach to Western spiritual practice derived from a synthetic tradition at least 300 years in development. Whilst cheerfully admitting that there is no monolithic, singular tradition – no one true path, no one right way – for the sake of brevity and expression, we here refer to ‘the’ tradition as we have found it over the course of 30 years or more of daily practice, research, discussion, and study.

  This series of volumes is to be considered the working manual of the Order of Everlasting Day (OED). It provides an overview of the initiatory schema, its history and practices, and avenues of discovery for initiates. It is not a manual of self-initiation, nor is it an academic treatise; readers are invited to enter the Order to unlock the work of this text, or use it as they may within their own work to comprehend their relationship to the universe.

  Students of the OED are expected to have a comprehensive knowledge of the roots of our tradition and this first volume provides this essential background as a framework for their work. The remaining volumes provide much in the way of practical work for readers and initiates alike. We will cover the map first and only then start our journey proper into magical work – there are no short-cuts to wisdom.

  The esoteric and occult nature of this approach to spiritual work is to be found in its inexpressible and ultimately personal revelation, and should not be confused with most cultural and popular references to ‘the occult’ and conceptions of ‘esoteric’ or the practice of ‘magick’. The Magister represents a fundamental ‘ctrl+alt+del’ reset of Western occultism in its synthesis of academic assessment and contemporary practice.

  The path here given is one of an exhaustive nature that cannot be merely studied; it must be worked and lived. In that living – for all that lives, lives – the Sun can indeed be discovered at midnight, the stone of living water will grant you balm, and that which is dead will arise in the dawn of a new and truly everlasting day.

  In this and subsequent volumes we will cover the theory and practice of Western magick and mysticism in a contemporary manner, from both academic and practitioner perspectives. Our work will range across practices as varied as divination and invocation, astral travel and lucid dreaming, ritual and ceremonial magick; we will learn the language of Enochian and kabbalah, alchemy and astrology, Rosicrucian- ism and Gnosticism, Hermeticism and theosophy; we will encounter the secret masters and the dweller on the threshold, Thelema and Maat magick, paganism and shamanism, ancient Egypt and science fiction, mythology and symbolism, the New Age and the Golden Age, and walk the mystic stations of the cross, the rose and the key.

  In aiming for a comprehensive coverage of the tradition, much will be missed. If nothing else, this first volume will introduce the reader to the depth of material and its vast scope. We will also open more questions than provide answers as we commence our journey. Once you have gained the scope of the tradition, each further volume will provide rituals, exercises, contemplations and other workings for your experience.

  However, we do hope also to provide original materials and first publishing of primary source material, from the archives of private and academic collections worldwide. The Magister may prove an unusual publication in bridging both practitioner experience and academic research, and this volume, whilst stand-alone, is a ‘zero’ volume which provides the context for the remainder of the series. If you read nothing onwards, this volume will provide all the bridge-heads you might seek for a lifetime of study and experience in the WEIS.

  It has been my personal privilege to be taught by so many diverse voices over the past three decades and I am honoured to be given the opportunity to present this work. I have often stated that I would exchange one moment of the magical life for a lifetime of a life without magick, and I tr
ust that grace will be given for you to discover this singular secret – it is all true.

  In many ways this book (and those following) is a re-visioning rather than a re-making of Western esotericism. It attempts to put the spiritual ambition (if such could be the case) back into the traditional materials – in a contemporary manner. This sequence of books also provides the first publication of some of the working material of the private network of initiates known as the Order of Everlasting Day, who have developed this work over their own lifetimes.

  We offer apprenticeship and levels of engagement with this Work to candidates who may apply to join us in the Crucible Club at: http://www.westernesotericism.com.

  [ILLUS . The Herald of Everlasting Day – Nothing is Perfect]

  A STATEMENT OF TRADITION, LINEAGE AND AFFILIATION.

  A tradition is only as old as when it was first invented, and innovation is only as new as what we have forgotten.

  I am not a member of any magical order or organisation, other than the Order of Everlasting Day (OED), a network of initiates who make their enquiries in the workshop of life. Whilst over the past three decades I have worked and corresponded with many practitioners, authors, teachers, and academics, the work here presented is a personal amalgam of a multitude of influences. It is apparent from experience that an initiate will pass through phases of fraternity and solitude, and each is to be acknowledged and honoured.

  I was initiated in 1983 into Gardnerian Witchcraft in the direct lineage of Gerald Gardner and Patricia Crowther, and worked with a High Priestess in that Craft for over a decade. I also practised and developed Golden Dawn ceremony in a fully constructed temple for many years. I was briefly a member of the Typhonian Order and corresponded with the late Kenneth Grant, who kindly gave me his patience and insight. I was also educated in correspondence and meeting with Chaos magicians such as Pete Carroll, and Maat magicians led by Soror Nema, and a host of other authors and teachers for many years whilst experimenting in intense practice. As the various versions of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) and the Golden Dawn consolidated over the last 20 years in particular, I was often involved in bystander incidents whilst never belonging to any group in a formal manner.