The Fifth Month
The Vigil and the Consecration

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There is no longer any need to split the month into temple work and self work. From now on each month will take you into areas of knowledge that will be important to you in future work. Rituals for the seasons and the other important feasts of the year must be worked, written, and set down in a special book. You will also be starting to work with the Magical Mirror in the next few months, so start looking for something suitable. Contrary to some beliefs it does not have to be black. Look for one about 18-20 inches (45-50cm) long, oval or round for preference, and with a thin frame all around, do not choose one with just a bevelled edge. Best if you can buy a new one, if not find an old one but stand it 'face to face' with another mirror right through a lunar tide if possible before you use it. One mirror will draw out the 'stale' reflections from the other. Identify the cleaning mirror with a piece of ribbon, that is all the intention you need to start the process.

Setting up the Third Seals
Start the beginning of the month by 
setting up the third and final Seals on the temple. Place your four candlesticks in front of each quarter as shown in Figure 21. On the altar place four new unlit candles of the best quality 

(Figure 21 goes here)
you can afford. Around each one tie a ribbon in the quarter colors. Dress the altar with the center light and the incense bowl; the incense should be associated with Daath, or the higher mental level. Light the altar light and stand on the eastern side of the altar facing the altar. Take the candle for the East and holding it in both hands, light it from the center light and move to the Eastern Gate. Think of a cord of light attached to you and trailing behind as you move around. Now turn and walk slowly from the East to the South, on to the West and North and back to the East, always thinking of the trail of light behind you. Lift the candle and invoke:
Oh thou mighty serpents of flame, holy seraphim of the Eastern Gate, set thy guard about this sacred enclosure at its highest level, I call upon thee, I summon thee by the sacred word that was lost, set the last Seal upon this temple.
(Place the candle in the holder and go to the altar. Take the candle for the South, light it and walk to the South, again trailing light behind you. Now walk from South to West, to North and to East and back to South. Stand before the Southern Gate and lift the candle and invoke:)
Oh thou mighty shining ones who defend the gates of paradise with upraised swords of flame, set thy guard about this sacred enclosure at its highest level. I call upon thee. I summon thee. By the first sword made by Tubalcain, set the last Seal upon this temple.
(Place the candle in its holder and go to the altar. Take the candle for the West, light it from the center light and walk to the West with the cord of light following you. Walk from West to North, to East, to South and 
back to the West. Stand before the Western Gate lift the candle and invoke:)
Oh thou mighty cherubim, builders of the Western Gate, set thy guard about this sacred enclosure at its highest level. I call upon thee, I summon thee. By the running of the seventh wave on the seventh shore, set the last Seal upon this temple.
(Place the candle in its holder and return to the altar. Take the North candle, light it and walk to the North letting the cord of light follow behind. Walk from the North to the East, to the South and West and finally back to the North. Stand before the Northern Gate, raise the candle and invoke:)
Oh thou mighty Malachim, kings of the elements, set thy guard about this sacred enclosure at its highest level, I call upon thee. I summon thee. By the highest point of the highest mountain and the lowest valley beneath the sea, set the last Seal upon this temple.
(Place the candle in the holder and return to your original seat. Leave the candles to burn for several hours then snuff them out and leave only the central one to burn out. Note: this sealing, as with the others, can be easily adapted for four people rather than one.)
Your temple is now triple sealed and will give you all the protection you need from now on. One point; a sealing like this is not invalidated by any opening you might do during a ritual. The Seals are activated only when and if something attempts to enter that has no right to be there. Then the shields snap into place on all levels and everything is waterproof, fireproof, demonproof, and if necessary hellproof.

The Opening of the Gates
As you open each Gate at the beginning of a ritual, you will find a series of images building in your imagination. You will start out with the images you have been taught to build. However when the temple has been established a while you may find a new set impinging on your consciousness. No two people have the same picture, but they augment each other and in the usual paradoxical way of the occult, they work perfectly together.
The usual opening of the Gates is done by building either wrought iron gates or immense wooden doors with massive hinges and locks. But you can have anything you like as long as you feel safe behind such gates. As they swing open, the quarter's God-form or Archangel comes forward first, the landscape behind should conform to the symbology of the quarter, i.e. desert or volcanic for the South, lush fields or deep caves for the North, etc. After this figure comes the Elemental King seen in the colors appropriate to his nature. Then add the elementals themselves, and even animals associated with that quarter. It is a good way to remember things by association.
When you come to write your own rituals you may on occasion decide to invoke just the Elemental Kings, or just the God-forms, Archangels or whatever. For this you will need a proper invocation for each one. Sooner or later you are going to have to learn how to write an invocation. The best way is to read poetry because that is in essence what an invocation is. By reading it out loud you will train your ear to the most essential part of poetry, and that is rhythm. It must scan... in layman's terms it must have an 'umpty sound' like a nursery rhyme. Read Longfellow's poem Hiawatha, or Coleridges The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, both have a natural beat to the words. This is the kind of beat a good invocation must have.
At the end of this chapter you will find examples that you can use until you can come up with your own. Get yourself a copy of The Poet's Rhyming Dictionary, it will save a lot of time trying to find words that sound the same.
When working with God-forms in the quarters you must have the pantheons at your fingertips. It is no use remembering halfway through a ritual that Vulcan goes in the South and you have him in the East. But there is a way to plan ahead. Buy a large sheet of cartridge paper and mark it off into 1 inch squares. In the left-hand column write the types of the traditions: Greek, Roman, Celtic, Qabalah, Egyptian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Norse, Chinese, Hindu, Aztec, American Indian, and any more you can find. Along the top write the areas of rulership: Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, Sea, Sky, Smith, Corn, Magic, Wisdom, Time, Love, War, Sleep, Dreams, etc. Now with the aid of an encyclopaedia of mythology from your local library, fill in the names of the gods and goddesses according to tradition and rulership. (See Figure 22)
With this table you will never put the wrong god in the wrong place. It will also act as a memory aid and you will soon be able to remember the right order without referring to the graph. You may find that some gods overlap into various rulerships, this is usual and means you can place the God-form in any of those areas where it is marked. You can do this with colors and symbols as well, if your wall is big enough to carry all the charts!

The Dog of Defense
By now you should have chosen your Temple guardian and named it. There is an invocation known as 'Raising the Dog of Defense'. It was taught to me by W.E. Butler, and he got it from Dion Fortune who learned of it when she was a member of the Golden Dawn. It appears to have been an adaptation of an Egyptian spell to set a guardian before the door of a tomb. It is still powerful after many centuries and can be used to place your guardian if you adapt the words. Here is the original:
Arise Dog of Defence that I may instruct thee in thy duties. Be thou ever watchful to the North and the South, the East and the West, behind thee and above thee, and below thee and around thee. Take thy watch from the setting of the Sun to the coming of the dawn, and stand guard as I have instructed thee.
The adaptation for the temple might go like this:

	Arise.....of defence that I may instruct thee in the guarding of this sacred place. Look to the East and the South, to the West and the North, above thee and below thee and from whatever quarter evil may strike. Thy standing is for a year and a day from the setting of the Sun to the rising of the Sun. When thy time is done depart to thine own place and may you be blessed with the amount due to thee.

A guardian is normally an elemental whose shape has been changed by your intention into whatever shape you decide upon. No elemental should ever be forced into perpetual work of any kind, hence the time limit of a year and a day. After that you erect a new guardian. You can use the Dog of Defence if you are away from home and feel the need for protection of some kind. It is highly effective, and if you happen to be even a latent materializing medium, you can end up with
something very tangible.

The Vigil of the Five Points
If you have a copy of The Shining Paths, set yourself to do the twenty-fifth, twenty-fourth, and twenty-third paths during this month. All have a bearing on the training you have had so far and what you can expect in the future. Do one each week, and leave the last week for the Vigil of the Five Points and the Consecration Ritual itself. Perhaps now is the time to tell you that it is not just the temple that will be consecrated... during the ritual you will leave the title of neophyte behind you, and your priesthood will commence.
The ceremony is best performed on a Friday or Saturday night, so that you can sleep in a little next day and take things easy. As you may have found out, rituals can have some strange effects at times. The work you have been doing on the Quarters and God-forms is really part of the consecration, but because of the shortened time of your training I have, in effect, been easing you into the ritual bit by bit, so that a little of the 'steam' is taken out of its culmination. The last bit of pre-ritual work is to be done a few days before your 'finals'. This is the Vigil of the Five Points. Be warned, it is deceptively quiet and simple!
The intention of the Vigil is to let you and the temple meld into each other. We have spoken at some length about the beings who will be working with you, but the temple itself is, or will become, an entity in its own right. You will learn more about this when we come to the lesson on Group Souls and Group Minds.
It is a good idea to miss a meal before doing the Vigil, but do have a hot drink in a flask and some plain biscuits ready to eat afterwards. Record the main details and then go straight to bed. The length of the Vigil depends on you, it can be as long or as short as you like. For what it is worth my advice is not to decide on an hour or two hours, but to take each station as it comes and let your inner feeling tell you when it is time to move to the next station.

(insert figure 23: The Towers in the Temple)

A few chapters back I spoke of the temple as having Four Quarter Gates, with towers set between them. If you look at Figure 23 you will see how the four of them are placed, with the fifth point being the Gate of the East from where the activating influence enters the temple. You also see that the lines of that influence make a five pointed star. This is not just for use in this particular instant, this pattern can be used as part of an opening ritual as well. Like the better known Ritual of the Rose Cross, it is extremely potent and can activate the power points in a temple very rapidly.
Take a bath and put on your robe, girdle, slippers, and ring. Place the candlesticks with new, unlit candles at the points marked A, B, C, and D in Figure 23. The East does not need a light, for you, the Magus will be representing the light in that Quarter. Dress the altar with the center light and a single red rose. Have a long wax taper by the altar light. Light the incense (Frankincense) and put a glass of water on the table in the East (you may need it to moisten your mouth during the Vigil). If you like, put on some music, turn it down so that it is just audible.
When you feel you are ready enter the temple and take your seat in the East. Sink into meditation and think upon the temple that you have built over the past months, think about the Eastern Gate and its power as the place of 'First Light'. You are now seated in the position of The Light Bringer'. It is you who must bring that Light over the threshold of the East and carry it to the Towers so they can act as beacons for those that come after you. Know this also, that in lighting such beacons you become responsible for them being kept alight. Feel the burden that it puts upon your shoulders, examine it thoroughly, know what it is, what it means to be an Officer of the East, more than that, what it means to be a Priest of the Western Mysteries.
When you have thought about these things and sorted them out in your mind, rise and go to the altar. Place your hands flat on either side of the light and look into it deeply. Think about its meaning, who and what it represents, imagine being in that position. Now take up the taper, light it and return to the East standing with your back to the Gate. Now following the path shown in Figure 23, pace slowly to the candlestick in the north-
west, light the candle there, turn and pace to the candlestick in the southeast. Light the candle then turn and cross to the candlestick in the northeast. Light it then turn and go diagonally to the last candlestick in the south-west, light it and return to the East. Put out the taper and stand for a moment, then with the same slow pace move to the north-west again and stand before the candle there. Look deeply into it and build in your mind the image of a great Tower rising into a sunset sky. At its summit a fire has been lit as if to guide the lonely traveller to a safe haven. Think of this Tower as part of yourself, the part that stands ready to help when needed. Cup your hands about the flame and bless it and the service it represents.
Now turn and go to the candle in the south-east. Look into it and build another Tower like the first, standing against the amber clouds of dawn. The fire from its topmost turret leaps upward illuminating all around. Think of this fire as incoming knowledge, and the Tower as that part of yourself that may one day pass on what you have learnt. Cup your hands about the flame and bless that which it symbolizes. Now turn and make your way across to the candle in the north-east. Look into its fiery heart and see the great Tower build up; it stands tall and dark against a night sky lit by a Full Moon. The fire that surmounts it gleams palely in the moonlight. It stands for the Mysteries ancient and awesome, the Tower itself is that part of you that strives to know what is hidden. Cup your hands about the flame and bless it^and all that it stands for.
Once more you pace the temple towards the south-west and the candle that glows there. The Tower stands in the full light of the noonday Sun, its crown of flame rivalling Apollo's chariot. This fire is the fire of love given and accepted freely and without barriers. The Tower is the symbol of the spirit that stands true and loyal to its principles. Cup your hands about the flame and bless it and the Tower it conceals. Now return to the East and sit. Sink down into meditation and think on wnat has just passed, think of the inner meanings and symbols and store up the knowledge that comes to you.
Now for the third time pace out the five pointed star, but this time as you stand before each candle, let the Tower appear and enter that Tower and see what lies behind its door. Follow the same pattern and come at last back to the East and sit in meditation on what you have learned.
Now for the last time make your journey of woven paces. As you come to each candle snuff it out, return to the East to make the pattern perfect, then go to the altar and take the rose and lift it up.
The Vigil of the Five Points has been made, the Towers have been built, the fires have been lit, now I place this rose at the center of the pattern for it symbolizes perfection, silence, and beauty, let these things come to full flower in me.
Place the rose in the center of the altar, put out the altar light, make sure the incense is safe, then leave the temple. You may think from reading this ritual that it is simple and easy. In point of fact it can be more powerful in its effect than the actual consecration. You may feel those effects the next day or not until several days have passed, but sooner or later it will hit you for six. Record as much as you remember before you go to bed, the rest will float to the surface later.
The Consecration
Now all you have to face is the consecration, which will not be as tiring as a lot of the work normally done during such a ceremony has been taken care of already. You may be asking just what a consecration does? It takes and sets apart from the mundane whatever is the object of such a ritual, in this case a temple. It is like a hallmark on a piece of gold, it stamps it 'for sacred use only'. It gives it over to the deity who will preside over it. A deed of gift from Man to God.

The Consecration Rule
Dress the altar with the center light, incense, water, salt, wax taper, and chalice of wine. Your magical weapons can be placed in the appropriate Quarters. Put the Quarter candlesticks in place complete with candles (unlit). Have music ready if you are going to use it. Make sure the room is pleasantly warm.
Into your pre-ritual bath sprinkle some sea salt and, if you like, some essential oil of your own choosing. Wash your hair as well and make sure your fingernails are clean! As with the Vigil make up a flask of tea or chocolate, not coffee, the ritual will be stimulating enough without adding caffeine, some plain biscuits or sandwiches will help to close down the centers.
Dress slowly and carefully, then sit for a few minutes to collect your thoughts, after all you have been working towards this moment for five months. When you are ready make your way to the temple. As you stand before the door visualize the Guardian on the other side, mentally give the password, then go in and lock the door behind you.
Make your preparations without haste, light the altar light, and the charcoal, and when it is ready sprinkle on the incense. (A recipe specially created for this rite by 'Incenses of Arcady' will be found at the end of the book). At this time the only light will be that from the altar. Light the taper from the altar light and turn to the East and bow. Now light the candle there and say:

In the East there is Light. 
(Move to the South and bow.) 
In the South there is Light. 
(Move to the West and bow.) 
In the West there is Light. 
(Move to the North and bow.) 
In the North there is Light. 
(Move back to the East.)

(Put out taper, take incense and go to the East, waft the incense towards the Gate three times and say:)

In the East there is Strength.
(Move to the South.)
In the South there is Strength.
(Move to the West.)
In the West there is Strength.
(Move to the North.)
In the North there is Strength.
(Move back to the East and replace
the incense.)
(Bless the salt and water and pour one into the other, take it to the East and sprinkle it there and say:)
In the East there is Life.
(Move to the South.)
In the South there is Life.
(Move to the West.
In the West there is Life.
(Move to the North.)
In the North there is Life.
(Move back to the East and replace
the salt and water.)
(Turn to East, spread arms wide.)
In the name of the one creative source both male and female this Gate of the East is opened to the forces of Light. Come forth ye Holy Ones who have guided man in his search for the truth. Come forth and accept the dedication of this temple to your service. Consecrate this place to your use that we may work in peace and harmony together. Let your powers flow through this Gate of the East and make them available to those working within this sacred enclosure. Let them flow also through those gathered here that these powers may not be abused but contained and used for the good of the Earth and her children. Accept this place and make it your own. Accept those gathered here and help them to grow in grace and truth.
(Imagine a great wave of light and scented air flowing through the East and enclosing you within itself, let it saturate you and enter into your very veins, flowing through every part of your body. Feel it fill the temple not only on the physical level but filling up all the levels that you have so carefully built. Let the force of all this build up inside you until it reaches such an intensity that it forces itself out of you in a shout of:)
Fiat, Fiat, Fiat
(Let the feeling die down a little for a few moments, then pace to the South, spread your arms wide:)
In the name of the one creative source both male and female this Gate of the South is opened to the forces of Love and Courage and Strength. Come forth ye sons and daughters of god worshipped by mankind since the dawn of time, come forth and accept the dedication of this temple to your service. Consecrate this place to your use that we may work in peace and harmony together. Let your powers flow through this Gate of the South and make them available to those working within this sacred place. Let
them flow also through those gathered here that these powers may not be abused but used for the good of all mankind and all that lives with him on this Earth and in the fullness of time for those that he may meet beyond this Earth. Accept this place and make it your own. Accept those gathered here and fill them with your ancient strength and love of life.
(Imagine a great flame erupting though the Gate of the South. Let it enfold you and caress you. Open your mouth and draw it down into your lungs and feel the fire spread throughout your body, up through the spine and into the head filling all with its power. Let this feeling of strength and controlled power of love build up within you until it becomes a shout of joy and ecstasy.)
Selah, Selah, Selah
(Rest for a few minutes and gather your strength then move to the West, spread your arms wide:)
In the name of the one creative source both male and female this Gate of the West is opened to the forces of Form, Faith and Silent Understanding. Come forth ye archangels of the crystal spheres. Messengers from beyond time and space, harbingers of knowledge and new thought come forth and accept the dedication of this temple to your service. Consecrate this place to your use that we may work together in peace and harmony. Let your powers flow through this Gate of the West and make them available to those working within this sacred place. Let them also flow through those gathered here that they may not be abused but controlled and used that man may no longer destroy what has been given to him but may learn to live in harmony with all things. Accept this place and make it your own. Accept those gathered here and fill them with faith and understanding.
(Imagine a mighty wave that roars through the Gate of the West and saturates you with its deeps. Let it into your soul, let it become a tide within you that will forever ebb and flow with those other cosmic tides that rule the lives of galaxies. Let it cause a wave of patience, faith, and tolerance to rise within you building up until it becomes a torrent of feeling that turns into a great cry of:)
Amen, Amen, Amen.
(Rest for a few minutes, then go to the North, hold out your arms:)
In the name of the one creative source both male and female this Gate of the North is opened to the forces of Growth and Fruitfulness, of Endurance and Time. Come forth ye mighty kings of the elements. Stand forth and in your hearts forgive the harm that man has caused your kingdoms. Come forth and accept the dedication of this temple to your use that we may from now on work in peace and harmony together. Let your powers flow through this Gate of the North and make them available to those working within this sacred place. Let them also flow though those gathered here that they may be made your emissaries upon Earth. Accept this place and make it your own. Accept those gathered here and fill them with your patience and endurance and your ability to forgive.
(Imagine there comes through the Gate of the North a feeling of great sorrow mixed with hope. All the pain of the Earth and its creatures flows through and fills the temple as if seeking refuge. Take all the pain into yourself, take it and know it fully, know what mankind has done and all for gain. Feel the pain of the torn earth, the agony of the trap, the terror of the abattoir, the sadness as the last of a species dies forever.

Now let the hope come in, the caring and the offer of help. Open yourself to all that the Four Gates have offered and let it lift you up in the arms of hope and trust. Let it come in and let out the cry of:)
Peace, Peace, Peace.
(Make your way to the East and rest there. When you feel ready, go to the altar and take up the wine. In your own words bless the wine and offer it to the East placing a drop on the candle there, then drink yourself. Do the same at the other Quarters. Back at the altar lift the Cup up and again in your own words offer yourself as you have offered the temple, then place a drop on the altar light and drink the rest yourself.)

I summon  Raphael from  the  East, Michael from the South, Gabriel from the West and Uriel from the North. Take this temple dedication and the offer of myself to the highest point of Light and let it be written in the great book of records  what  has  been  offered  and accepted this night. I invoke the master of this temple _________ and ask that ________ will make this place one of deep peace of mind, body and soul and that _____________ will indwell it for as long as it will stand.

(Go the the East and hold out your arms as if to embrace the Beings who stand there and say:)

My brethren accept my love and thanks for what has been offered and freely given this night. Stay with me until the dawn, guarding my sleep and teaching me in my dreams. Farewell, with the coming of dawn, depart to thine own place with my blessing.

(Go to the South and hold out your arms:)

My brethren accept my love and thanks for what has been offered and freely given this night. Stay with me until dawn, fill me with strength to face the future. Farewell, with the coming of dawn, depart to thine own place with my blessing.

(Go to the West and hold out your arms:)

My brethren accept my love and thanks for what has been offered and freely given this night. Stay with me until the dawn and teach me the true meaning of understanding. With the coming of dawn depart to thine own place with my blessing.

(Go to the North and hold out your arms:)

My brethren accept my love and thanks for what has been offered and freely given this night. Stay with me until the dawn and show me how I may right the wrongs of the past. With the coming of dawn depart to thine own place with my blessing.

(Go to the East bow and go to altar. Lift the light high and pronounce the blessing:)

In the name of Adonai the Lord of the Earth I bless all those who have been with me this night. Let all accept their just dues. This temple has been consecrated with Light, Fire, Water, and the fruit of the Earth. Now its work begins.

(Go to the East and put out the light, to the South and put out the light, to the West and put out the light, to the North and put out the light. Pace round the temple from East to South to West to North and East again three times. Leave the altar light burning. You may leave now, or you may like to stay in meditation for a while. If you really want to make full use of the powers that have been summoned into the temple, you can sleep the night there, using a sleeping bag.)

The Temple Sleep is a ritual in its own right, and there are many different ways of doing it. You can end an important ritual such as the consecration by sleeping by the altar. Or you can spend three consecutive nights sleeping there once or twice a year. You can sleep there after doing a request ritual for the answer to a specific question or problem. Or it can be done as a ritual itself, this requires a man and woman and I will be giving more details in the next chapter.
This concludes the consecration ceremony; record the main details so they are not lost during sleep, have something to eat and drink and then go to sleep.

Reading List
Regardie, Israel, Foundations of Practial Magic (Aquarian Press, 1979)
Stillman, Francis, The Poet's Rhyming Dictionary (Thames and Hudson, 1966)

The Sixth Month
Re-evaluation and the Start of Ritual Magic

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Now that your temple is completed, and consecrated, there will be a great temptation to heave a sigh of relief and put your astral feet up. Think again. The time for the greatest effort is the moment when you feel you have earned a rest. That is a maxim you can apply to your daily life as well. All good business men and women set themselves a yearly goal, as do large consortiums and governments. You should follow their example if you want to make a success of your occult work. Establish good habits now, and they will be with you forever. Remember in the beginning I told you that what your learned in your inner work would seep through into your everyday life. This is where it starts to take effect. All that you have been building on the Inner Levels, will soon begin to filter through to the physical world.
Check on your daily work, are you still doing it? If you are, then you are definitely the stuff which magicians are made of. More than likely you will find you have slipped, if only a little. Tighten it up again. Make sure you are doing at least ten minutes a day in relaxing and breathing, breaking it up if need be into three or four lots of three minutes. Keep to your observation practice, learn to observe people and places closely and to remember them. Are you still playing Kirn's Game? How good are you? Very good, good, bad, don't do it anymore? Tut, tut!

The Locus Memory Device
In his book Getting What You Want, J.H. Brennan offers a centuries old memory device used by Roman orators to remember their key phrases. This is the principle of the locus. As Mr Brennan explains, locus means place, and it is so simple to use, one wonders why it it not more widely known. As a bonus it also helps to train your inner visualization. The method is quite simple, if you have a list of items, numbers, facts, data, names, or key sentences for a lecture, you place them in a precise pattern in and around a specific location, as Mr Brennan says, 'the bigger the better'. You should use a large building with which you are already very familiar, I use my local public library for smallish lists, and the British Museum for the really big ones.
	
Mr Brennan advises several days of simply visualizing your locus and getting every nook and cranny fixed firmly in your mind, he also stresses the importance of using the same route every time. When you can visualize all this instantly you are ready to use your locus.
With a list of the items you need to remember take your usual walk through the chosen building starting with the front door, steps or whatever as usual. Simply follow the route visualizing each item, number, or symbol to your key sentence in the many rooms, places and stairways. Make them stand out against their surroundings, in exotic colors if you like. Fix them firmly all along your usual walk through the locus. Take your time, you may even have to go through it several times at first, but you will soon be astonished at the ease with which you can remember the most complex data. This can be used in your job with great effect as a bonus from your inner world to your outer one. For a more detailed explanation and a lot of sound common sense teaching about using your inner powers to help your daily life read, Getting What You Want, by J.H. Brennan.

Re-evaluate Your Records
Go through your records to date and evaluate them, be your own harshest critic. When you have done this, imagine that you are a tutor marking a student for their six-monthly exam and mark those papers out of 100. Allow 20 for consistency of work, 20 for understanding of material, 20 for content and quality of records, 20 for result of ritual work, and a final 20 for growth of integration between your inner and outer selves. As only you will know the results you will have to
be painfully honest. You will find an interesting self quiz in the J.H. Brennan book which may help you.
If you want to go deeper into the study of magic, you must establish this habit of recapping and evaluating your work and your progress every six months. Only by doing this can you avoid the bug bear of self taught occultism, which is: not recognizing a mistake in time to correct it. There are always going to be times when you make a mistake, an error in judgment, an idea that is off beam with your chosen tradition even though it looks alright, a viewpoint that will lead you on to very dicey ground ritually unless you adjust your thinking, or simply the old 'favorite' the I'm the greatest syndrome. By going over your work results on a regular basis you can correct the mistakes, or spot them on the horizon before they actually hit. Always be tough on yourself before the Inner Levels get tough on you, it is much easier to cope with.

Setting Tougher Goals
Set yourself progressively harder goals in meditation subjects, more results in ritual work, and in your personal studies. Think back to your first month's training and, 'make them hard enough to strive for, but not so hard that there is a little hope of achieving them'. Set yourself to learn enough Greek to invoke the Quarters in an Orphic ritual, you will be surprised how much of a difference it will make. Design and make a robe, headdress and cloak. Research the Golden Dawn records and make a set of Wands or staffs. Research the British Museum for old herbals and incenses and try them out. Boredom will become a thing of the past, and the nicest part about all this is that you do not have to be young or disgustingly fit to do it all. Magicians, like Stilton and a good claret improve vastly as they age.
Your disciplines must be kept under a firm hand, although if you have kept up the work for this length of time it should have become a habit by now. If this is so, you can allow yourself the luxury of one day off a week. From now on you can lie in on Sunday, if you really want to do so.
It is important to remember when you are setting goals, researching, and increasing your knowledge, that each aspect of your work must be integrated one part with the other. For the very basis of mystery work maintains that there is a level at which all things are ONE. To give you an example, let us suppose that you have decided to learn Egyptian hieroglyphic writing as this year's goal. Ally this course of study with some research into early Egyptian religion and the emergence, growth, and many variations on the Osiris legend. Along with this make a study of Egyptian dress, then design and make a set of vestments suitable for a High Priest or Priestess of that period. Write a ritual based on one of the ancient legends or perhaps on part of the Book of the Dead, and create an incense to use with it. Make a particular study of one god or goddess and make a notebook on their legends, attributes, symbols, etc.
That lot may well take you into a second year, if so, carry on until you feel you have achieved the goal, i.e. expert knowledge of a particular era in a particular tradition, with emphasis upon one or two God-forms. This, combined with the experience gained in the research and design of the robes and incense, will give you a very solid basis with which to work in the future, and, perhaps to teach to others. Before you can speak or teach with authority,
you must know your subject. Don't be content with passing on what you were taught, add to it what you have found to be true from your own experience.

How Much Ritual is Enough?
One of the most difficult questions to answer is; how much ritual work should I do in say, a month? There is no hard and fast rule. For one person, one ritual a month can be too much simply in terms of time, preparation, learning, and most of all pressure on the psyche. Make no mistake, High Magic can have an upsetting effect on some people, not everyone can take ritual. The physical pressures as well as the psychic ones must be taken into consideration. You can, in this instance only learn by making mistakes! Most people can take one a month, but the levels should be varied. Alternate a really intense ritual with a much lighter one. This is the advantage of not tying oneself down to a single tradition.
A high level Egyptian or Qabalistic ritual can be balanced by a more light hearted Greek rite. On the other hand don't think that all Greek rituals are light or that all Egyptian ones are heavy... you must learn to judge by their content, or, you must learn by writing them yourself to conform to certain levels of pressure.
If you feel lethargic and wan for days after a ritual, either you did something wrong, (it usually means a quarter was not closed firmly enough) or it means you should make it one every two months, at least for a year or until you can build up your psyche to take the pressure. Don't feel you, have failed because you can't make it through two or three rituals a week! The plain fact is that only a fool would try to do so many. Nevertheless I have in my time received many letters from would-be magicians complaining that they perform a ritual almost every day and cannot get any results, please can I tell them why. Yes I can, they have broken the link with excessive use and they are just not getting through to the Inner Levels.
So what is the answer? For those who wish to do it right and not run into trouble in the future, I advise, at the most, two rituals a month, one of a light nature and one a little deeper and stronger in its effect. This is all part of integrating your study, ritual, research, and work process, and will include seasonal rituals for Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, such rituals will be the 'heavys' for that particular month. Add to your ritual work your daily meditation of up to fifteen minutes a day. Not much you may think, but if done on a regular basis this will be far more effective in results than an hour once or twice a week. Your relaxation and breathing can be slipped in whenever you have five minutes to spare, but don't neglect them. Magic works best when the mind and body are in an unstressed state, this can be achieved at will when you practice it daily.
For study purposes calculate how many hours a week you can spare, again a small amount of regular time is better than a long spell every now and then. You find this when learning a language, spend fifteen minutes a day learning one verb and ten new words, and in six weeks you have a working vocabulary. On top of this add time for research. This kind of work can be done in a lump, say one afternoon every two weeks, or a weekend of work once a month. A lot will depend on how much time you owe to other people. If you have a family they have a right to some of your time, the Path of the Hearth Fire must not be neglected. All
magical work has anchor points that are firmly fixed on the physical level. It is through such points that the results from such work are manifested so do not cut yourself off from the point of manifestation.
Because of the enormous scope of magical work a great deal of your success must rely on your willingness to read and acquire data, and then to put that data to use. One book cannot teach you all that you should know, which is why you have been directed to carefully selected books that will provide knowledge in a digestable form. As much basic information as possible has been passed on to you, and there is more to come, but you will have to fill in the inevitable gaps with practical experience and your own determination.
And talking of practical experience it is time to look at Seasonal Rituals. You should eventually write your own but for now you will find a complete set in several traditions provided in this book. They will serve the purpose for at least a year and then perhaps provide a basis on which you can build your own ideas.

Seasonal Rituals
We have already spoken about the use of rituals purely as a form of worship, working through mythological God-forms, Archangels, and the Elemental Kings but always aimed at the Primal Creator/Creatrix from which they, and mankind, emanate. Such rituals link us with that Primal Force through its ambassadors, stepping down the Power that otherwise might be too much for mere mortals. The tale of Zeus and Semele is more than a pretty tale, it is a warning to those who would aim too high, too fast. Although they can have some heavy effects, seasonal rituals are comparatively easy to build and use. This is because a lot of the Inner Level work has already been done for you. The higher astral, like every other plane, has its Tides, and each Tide brings to the shores of the physical world the Great Images of that Tide. Images that we can use in ritual. The Spring Tide brings images of new life, Easter, Eggs, the Death and Rebirth of the Son of the Sun, the goddess Flora, the return of Persephone from the Underworld and a host of other ready-made images all primed and ready to use without any extra effort on your part. The same goes for the other Tides each with their own symbols, festivals, images etc. In fact you can, with the aid of a list of traditional events, (see Marian Green's A Harvest of Festivals) use any and all of the images that have been built up, used, and ensouled by the emotions of centuries. Candlemas, the first Light of the Year, in Scandinavia and the Baltic States celebrated by a Maiden wearing a crown of candles. Mother's Day, which can be made the focus of a beautiful and highly effective Ritual of the Earth Mother. Lady Day, Beltane, Midsummer's Eve, Lammas, Harvest Festival, Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, Hallow'een, etc. There are more than enough to last for a lifetime of rituals.
By using such ready-made images you do not need to expend so much energy, which for someone at the beginning of their ritual work is a great help. Such festivals, both Christian and Pagan can be a rich source of material for future rituals of your own. While you are about it, explore the festivals of Europe as well, don't confine yourself to your own backyard so to speak. The folklore of your county can yield some very interesting ideas. You might contact the British
Folklore Society, and subscribe to their magazine. The Ley Hunter magazine is another that can open up possibilities, if not for ritual, then as path workings. You can take the 'Green Roads of England' and travel them in different times, as you will see in a later chapter.
So look for ritual source material in local, racial and continental folklore and festivals, in mythology, the sacred books of the world, in specialized sources such as the separate vignettes of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and even in books on anthropology. They all have something to offer when you start writing your own rituals. Later, you will find ideas emerging from your Inner Levels and they will be the most satisfying of all. When this happens you will be faced with a new problem, understanding what the ritual is about and the effects it will bring in its wake.
Until then you will have chosen your ritual material knowing in advance what effect you are looking for. When your own inner, higher, self comes up with the theme for a ritual you have to sit down and figure out: 
1. Why it has been given to you? 
2. What effect it is designed to have? and 
3. The probable results of those effects. 

First look at the theme itself, meditate on it for a week or so. Look at the symbolism and check it out with other symbols of similar character, again meditate on what you find out. Finally when you have written it, go through it in the form of a pathworking first, wait and check the results. Then go through all your notes to date and you should have a good understanding of the principle of the ritual. Indeed before using any ritual, it is best to read it thoroughly, look up the symbology and generally make yourself familiar with its content. In this work take nothing for granted.
Since Spring is the first quarterly ritual of the year we will start with that although you may be reading this earlier or later. In that case start with whichever ritual is appropriate for the season. Since this quarter is concerned with new growth after the winter frost and snow you will be making use of all the soft greens, daffodil yellows, pale rose and earth browns as colors in the temple for all three types of ritual. All these rituals have been written specially for this book and have only been performed in order to test their efficacy. Therefore they belong to no Order and are under no restriction of practice. We will take the Celtic first.

The Celtic Ritual of Spring

This is a ritual for four people or it can be done with three and the Spring Maiden in the North can be simply visualized. You will need:
Incense: A mixture of rosemary, damiana, aniseed, and coriander, mixed with a little oil of sassafras, and gopal gum. This can be a little 'heady', so use it sparingly.
Altar: Instead of one center light use a small ring of greenery and wild flowers into which tall slim green candles have been firmly fixed. Salt and water, a sprig of rosemary and a small bowl of mixed leaves and flower petals. A glass or chalice of mead. Some twigs made into a broom by binding the tops together. A hammer and a piece of iron. A wreath of wild flowers and leaves.
In the North place your Spring Maiden in a green robe and girdle, bare feet, and covered wth a long black or grey veil.
Start your ritual with a few minutes meditation on the coming of Spring. The Magus starts by blessing the salt and water.
Magus:
Salt, creature of Earth, be blessed in this hour and give up all that is evil within thee. In this place be as pure as thy time of creation. Water, child of the Cosmic Sea, be blessed in this hour and give up all that is evil within thee. In this place be as pure as thy moment of creation. (Return to seat.)

South:
(Sprinkles incense on already prepared charcoal.)
Creature of Fire, burn brightly in this
hour and cleanse this sacred enclosure
with thy perfume.
(Returns to seat.)

West:
(Tips salt into water and lifts Chalice.)
Sacred Cup filled with honeyed ale, be thou the link between the gods and mortals. (Returns to seat.)
Magus:
(Stands and faces East, with the forefinger of the right hand he draws a spiral moving from the outer circle to the center point thus:) Protector of the East, I name thee Gwydion son of Don. Master of Magic. Shape Shifter I name thee and bid thee haste to this sacred enclosure. (With finger outstretched, moves to South and draws spiral as before.)
Protector of the South. I name thee Govannon son of Don and brother to Gwydion. Master of the Forge Fire, Slayer of Dylan of the Wave, I bid thee haste to this sacred enclosure. (Moves as before to West and makes the spiral.)
Protectress of the West. I name thee Arianrhod of the Silver Wheel. Goddess of the Wave, I name thee and bid thee haste to this sacred enclosure. (Moves to North and repeats.)
Protectress of the North. I name thee Ceridwen of the Cauldron, Mistress of all that grows. I bid thee haste to this sacred enclosure. (Returns to Altar and faces East.)
Gwydion, guardian of the Blessed Isles, welcome in this place and hear our plea. Return to us the Maid of Spring that Winter may release its hold upon the Earth and let it blossom. (Faces altar.)
South:
(Faces South.)
Govannon Maker of Spears, turn thy hand to the making of ploughshares that this land we love may yield corn. Return to us the Maid of Spring that her tears of joy may soften the hard Earth and give life to the seed beneath. (Faces altar.)
West:
(Faces West.)
Arianrhod of the Silver Bow. Goddess of the Great Tides. Lift the seed in the dark Earth and bring it up into the light of the growing Moon. Return to us the Maid of Spring that her laughter may waken all to love and joy and fruitfulness. (All face North.)
All:
Return to us the Maid of Spring lest mankind grows cold and hungry. Let not the children cry for bread, nor the bird desert her nest.
North:
Who calls the Maid of Spring from her sleep in the kingdom of Annwn ? What
do you want of me? Let me sleep and dream.
East:
Waken Maid of Spring, the Isles of the Blessed have need of thee, awake and bring us joy.
North:
What will you do that I will wake and join you upon the Earth.
East:
I will sweep the snows of Winter from thy path and every stone from beneath your foot.
(Takes up the broom and goes to stand before the Maid.)
North:
Perhaps I will come if the snow and the stones are swept away. (She rises, the Magus walks backwards sweeping the path before her moving right around the circle until they reach the North again.) No / will return to my dreams. (East returns to seat.)

South: 
Waken Maid of Spring. The fires of the Earth have need of thy sweet breath. Aye and the fires within man also.

North:
What will you do that I will waken these fires?

South:
I will beat the swords into 'ploughshares and make thee an iron cauldron from my spear.
(Takes up hammer and iron and goes to stand before the Maid.)

North:
Perhaps I will come if there is a plough for the Earth and a man for the Maid. (The  South  preceeds  the  Maid around the temple striking the iron with the hammer until they reach the North again.) No 7 will not waken the fires. (South returns to seat.)
West:
Waken Maid of Spring. The waters of the rivers are iced and need the warmth of thy glance to free them. Let the rivers flow and free the life blood of man.
North:
What will you do that I will free the river of ice?
West:
I will cast salt before thee to savor and sweet water to drink. (Takes bowl of salt and water and a sprig of rosemary from altar and goes to stand before North.)
North:
Perhaps I will come if there is salt to savor and water to drink.
(The West preceeds the Maid around the temple sprinkling the salt and
water with the sprig of rosemary before her until they return to the
North.)
No, I will not free the river of ice.
West:
Maid of Spring I will sprinkle petals before they feet if thou wilt return to us. ifthou wilt bring us joy, waken the fires, and free the river.
(Goes to altar and takes bowl of petals then returns to the North.)
North:
I will come to thee, and bring thee joy, I will waken the fires and I will free the icy rivers. Cast the petals before me and I will come.
(West throws the petals before her and they come to the East, the Maid throws back her veil and gives the East a kiss. They move on to the South where another kiss is exchanged, then to the West where the wreath of flowers is placed on the Maid's head, the West escorts her back to the North then returns to her seat via the full circle.)
North:
The Spring Maid has awoken. Let the Earth rejoice and be fruitful. (All come to the center, join hands and circle three times round.)

All:
Come Maid, come Spring, come joy and life,
Come all and one to hear,
The song of sweet Rhiannon's birds,
That call both loud and clear.
The life awakes in man and beast, 
The beltane fires are laid, 
The flame that calls the buck to doe, 
Does quicken man to maid.
Sun and Moon and Star and Earth, 
All have their part to play, 
But oh the Maid of Spring is here, 
And with us she will stay.

(Everyone should be back at their own quarters, and the Mead is now shared around with a little saved to pour onto the garden or on some area of growth. Now the circle can be closed.)

East:
Let us give thanks for the return of spring, for the new warmth of the Sun, the growth of life and the beauty around us.
(Faces East)
Protector in the East, Gwydion, son of Don, hail and farewell to thee. We give thanks for thy presence, depart to the Halls of Math.
South:
(Faces South)
Protector in the South, Govannon, son of Don. Master of smiths. Hail and farewell to thee. We give thanks for thy presence, depart to the Halls of Math.
West:
(Faces West)
Protectress in the West, Arianrhod of the silver wheel, hail and farewell to thee. We give thanks for thy presence, depart to the Castle of the Moon.
North:
(Faces North)
Protectress in the North, Ceridwen of the Cauldron of Life, Hail and farewell to thee. We give thanks for thy presence, depart now to thy place.
East:
(Turns to face his own quarter, makes the spiral sign but starting from the center and moving outwards he moves from the East to the South, to West, to North and back to East.)
The sacred circle is closed, peace be between us all, let the guardians depart. All is complete.
Put out the candles, and leave quietly. After an hour or so the temple can be tidied up and the petals etc, removed.

As you can see, a very simple ritual that enacts the enticement of the Spring Maid back to Earth. It requires very little in the way of preparation and is basically just an acknowledgement of a special Tide. There are other far more elaborate Spring rituals but this is adequate for your purposes especially when you are adjusting to the new pressures of ritual work. Simplicity is no bad thing in magical work, there is a tendency among people to over elaborate things and what should be a quiet dignified rite, or just a simple joyous ritual, becomes instead a 'Hollywood Spectacular'. I have said before and will say again, the real magician needs nothing not even a temple, to practice his art.

The Greek Ritual of Spring
The Greek Spring ritual I have made quite different from the Celtic. In the first place, since the former was for four people, I have written this for just one person. Secondly, it will be a good experience in using movement as a means of drawing power into a temple, as you did in the Vigil of the Five Points. You will need:
Incense: For this ritual mix an incense of sanderac, pine resin, benzoin, with leaves of eucalyptus, pine needles, rosemary, mixed with oil of jasmine. You can add a few bits of rosemary as well.
Altar: Move your central altar to just before the Pillars, and place the small Quarter tables in the center of each quarter but with enough room for you to move around them. Dress each altar with a white cloth, and a small center light, (a nightlight in a white saucer or bowl is ideal). In between the quarters place your tall candlesticks with greenery around the stems, and alternate green and gold candles. On the Eastern altar put a plate with some pieces of homemade bread, and a teaspoon of honey. In the South put the incense with the charcoal well alight and ready for the incense. There is a jug of red wine and a Cup for the West. Finally put a bowl of fruit in the North (Use only those fruits found in Greece, apples, grapes, figs, pomegranates, with ready shelled almonds, some raisins and a bowl of mixed flower seeds.)
Robe: A white robe made in the style of a Greek tunic is ideal if you can make one. If not, a simple white towel wrapped like a Greek kilt and secured with a leather belt. For a lady a white nightdress with a pale green stole (see Figure 24) can be effective. A wreath of flowers and greenery for the head if you so wish, tie the ends together with green ribbons.
Light a taper and stand facing the East, light the altar candle then with the taper make an infinity sign thus, oo build up the figure of Hermes between the Pillars and invoke:
East:
Son of Zeus and Maia, swifted footed messenger of Olympus draw near and fill this quarter with the divine pneuma of the Gods.
(Wait until the image is clear then move clockwise round the altar, in front of the south-east candlestick, then round the back of the Southern altar and face the South oo (see Figure 25, route A.) Light the altar light, make the infinity sign, build up the God-form of Apollo and invoke.)
Insert: 
Figure 24  Robe for the Greek Rite of Spring
figure 25  Pattern of Movements for the Greek Rite of Spring


South:
Son of Zeus and Leto, god of Delphi and of Delos, driver of the sun's chariot, draw near and fill this place with light. (Let the image build, then move around the altar and on to the West passing in front of the southwest candlestick, around the back of the Western altar and face West. Light the altar light, make the infinity sign. Build up the God-form of Artemis and invoke.)
West:
Daughter of Zeus and Leto, night's slender huntress, virgin of the Moon, draw near and fill this place with Tidal power.
(When the image is strong move around the altar and on to the North passing in front of the north-west candlestick, on around the Northern altar and face North. Light the altar light and make the sign. Build up the God form of Demeter and invoke.)

North:
Daughter of Chronus and Rhea, Earth Mother and giver of bread, draw near and fill this place with strength and growth.
(When the image is steady move around the altar and return to the East passing in front of the northeast candlestick and going round the back of the Eastern altar to the front and face it. Light a new taper and go to the south-east candlestick, light it, build up the God-form of Iris the Rainbow Goddess and invoke.)

S/East:
Many colored Iris, servant of Hera, draw near and be ready to take our plea to the halls of Olympus, to the feet of Zeus.
(Circle the candlestick once, then move to the one in the south-west, light it and build up the God-form of Aphrodite the Goddess of Love and invoke.

S/West:
Golden Goddess of Love, Aphrodite of Paphos, draw near and give your aid that we may persuade Hades to return Kore to the Earth.
(Circle the candlestick once then move to the one at the north-west light it and build up the God-form of Hades and invoke.)

N/West:
Dark browed Hades, Lord of the Underworld, give to us your queen, the beauteous Persephone for six short months that the Earth may be fruitful and mankind may grow in strength. (Circle the candlestick once then move to the one in the north-east, light it and invoke Kore the Spring Maiden.)

N/East:
Sweet faced Kore, Persephone of the white arms, leave your halls of the Underworld and join us here on Earth bringing new life to the Earth and joy to us all.
(Circle the candlestick once then cross to the one in the south-east, bow once and return to the East. Put out the taper. See Figure 25, route B. Take up the piece of bread, dip it in the honey and eat it, offer the plate to the East.)

East:
Great Hermes, take what we offer to great Zeus and ask that Kore may be
returned to Earth.
(Move to the South, lift the incense, smell it, then offer it to the South.)
Golden Apollo halt thy chariot and listen to  our  plea,  take  this  incense  to Olympian Zeus and ask that the Earth Maiden be given back to us.
(Move to the West, pour the wine into the Chalice and drink, then offer it to the West.)
Chaste Artemis, Virgin Goddess of the Moon, take this offering to thy immortal father Zeus and plead with him to set free the giver of life.
(Move to the North, take and eat a piece of fruit, then offer the bowl to the North.)
Demeter, Corn Goddess, Earth Mother, like  you  we  mourn  the  loss  of Persephone, ask thy brothers Zeus and Hades to free her that the fields may be blessed.

(Move to the center of the temple and lift arms.)
Hear me oh ye gods, give to mankind the blessing of the Spring.

(Kneel and place your head in your hands. In your mind build up the
sound of running feet, hear them take the twisting labyrinthine path
that you have woven in the temple. It is the sacred way of the ancient
times and Kore now treads it on her way to earth. Feel the Earth beneath you tremble and the whole of nature holds its breath. Let the feeling of imminent Spring and growth build up inside you until the intensity bursts through in a cry of...)

Kore, Kore, Kore, Kore.

(Stand up and face the quarters in turn giving silent thanks to the gods. Then take the bowl of seeds around to each and hold it up for a blessing. Place your wreath in the center of the temple and put the bowl inside it. Now go to the East and re-trace the patterns either by pacing, or better still by dancing. Dance until you feel tired, then take up the wreath and the seeds and go to each quarter in turn saying:) Go in peace and harmony and with thee go our blessings for the work this night. (Put out the lights in the order in which they were lit. Put out bread for the birds, pour the wine on to the Earth, scatter or plant the seeds and share the fruit with family and friends.)
This is a more complex ritual with less to say and more to actually do. But movement is a great power builder and you must learn to be uninhibited about things like dancing in a temple. A man will often say 'I'm not going to dance around like a fool', but with a little wine inside you, with the lights, incense, and the energy building up, you may well change your mind. Mankind has danced before his gods for thousands of years, and even David the King of Israel danced before the Ark of the Lord in praise and worship. In Egypt the seasons were different, they relied on the Nile floods to bring down the rich silt in which they could then plant their crops. So for them the flooding of the Nile valley was a yearly miracle without which they might starve. The first two examples have given you an idea of reasonably complex rituals. The last one is more of a ritual path-working. The Egyptian mysteries ranged from the incredibly difficult to the astonishingly simple type of ritual, and because I want you to have as wide a choice and experience as possible this last one will be for two people only and involve hardly any movement, but a lot of inner vision work.

The Egyptian Ritual of Spring
This ritual involves the two participants assuming the roles of the High Priest and the Goddess Isis in the East and West respectively, while the South and North are filled by the passive and silent figures of Anubis and Nephthys. The East/West axis is deemed to be the length of the Nile river with the High Priest invoking Isis to send down the life giving flood waters. It will require some extra items to be made so give yourself enough time to get everything ready.
If possible a white robe for the Priest, and a pale green one for the Pries-tess/Isis. If you look at Figure 26 you will see the kind of thing required. The Collars and the Priest's Apron, see Figure 27, are easily made and will be useful for future rituals of this kind. If it is possible, try to have a wooden dais on which the seat of 'Isis' can be raised. This is important as it gives the whole ritual a more formal and Egyptian atmosphere. It should be strong enough to take the weight of the chair and the Priestess, a small footstool will help her ascend.
The Priestess will need an ankh and sistrum, and the High Priest a shoulder-high ceremonial staff. All these things will be used for other rituals so making them is not a waste of time. The ankh and sistrum can be bought ready made from most occult suppliers, the staff is best made by its user, and if possible topped by a hawk or a dog's head. If you are no good at modelling I suggest for the dog's head, buying a cheap china model of an Alsatian dog, break off the head and fix it to the staff. Paint it black and gold and it will look very good. If you cannot do this, make a small Ankh out of modelling wax and top the staff with that.

Incense: Use kyphi, which can be bought (see occult suppliers) or you can mix your own from a recipe by Gary Farmer. For this you need willow charcoal, mastic resin, myrrh resin, scammony resin, rue, vervain mixed with oil of myrrh or juniper. This makes a very pleasant incense which can be used for all Egyptian rituals.
Altar: Place the central altar in the East between the Pillars so you have a clear run of power between Priest and Priestess down the length of the temple. Place two small tables in the North and South, and one in front of the Priestess. On these and on the Eastern altar place a center light. Put your tall candlesticks two and two between 'Isis' and the East, see Figure 28. The Priest is the supplicant asking for the 'Miracle of the Inundation' so that crops may be planted. In case it has crossed your mind, no, it will not cause a local flood, the gods are not daft, they know the difference between West Acton, down town San Francisco, and ancient Egypt! This is a Spring Ritual and 'They' know that means crop planting.
There are records and tapes of Egyptian Harp music to be found if you search around. The music department of a good library will be able to help with names, and numbers. On the Eastern altar put a bowl of petals, a bowl of incense, and a Cup of wine. Now you are ready for the ritual.
The Priestess should enter the temple and take her place ten minutes before the Priest. She must then think on the Isis God-form strongly visualizing Her as standing behind the chair. Establish a link with this form through thoughts and emotions, then gradually draw the figure down and into the body. Feel the Goddess becoming one with you. Feel Her dignity and grace fill you totally. Let Her loving concern for mankind be your concern also. Let the calmness often seen on the ancient statues reflect on your face, gaze ahead and do not look at the Priest until the ritual requires you to do so. Maintain a mental distance between you.
Now the High Priest enters carrying a lighted taper in one hand, and using the staff to mark his paced steps. He makes a complete circle of the temple then pauses before the East and lays down the Staff. He turns to Isis and bows, then back again to light the altar light. He then lights the altars in the South, West, and North, bowing before each one. Lastly he lights the tall candlesticks, puts out the taper and takes his place facing the East:
High Priest:
Hail to thee great gods. I come before thee as a priest and a man to ask for thy help and succour lest mankind goes hungry and the children cry at empty breasts. Hail to thee Ra of the Hawk's Head, rise in the East of this sacred place and shine upon us. (Raises hands palms out to shoulder level.) Let our voices reach thee in the boat of millions of years and hasten to our aid. (Raises hands to level of head.) Hail to thee Lord of Heaven. (Bows and moves to the South.)
Hail to thee Anubis of the desert lands. I come before thee as a younger brother asking for help lest the com fail and the sands cover the bones of men. (Raises hands as before.) Hail to thee jackal headed one, guide the waters of the Nile to us. (Raises hands to head level.) Let our voices reach thee beyond the two worlds of life and death. (Bows and moves to the West, kneels on one knee and holds arms up to Isis.) Hail to thee great mother, beloved of Osiris, grant to us your children the boon of thy waters. Hear the voice of thy people when they cry to thee, open the gates of thy mercy and let the waters of the Moon bring life to the land ofKhem. Hear us, hear us, hear us. (Bows and moves on to the North.) Hail to thee gentle dark eyed Nephthys, intercede for us with thy sister goddess, hold the soft darkness of thy wings above us and shelter us from all evil. (Raises hands to shoulder level.) Be with us oh thou sweet cup of wine. (Raises hands to head level.) Be with us and save us. (Moves back to East and takes up incense. With this he paces the length of the temple to the goddess and offers the incense smoke to Her three times.) Great Isis, Moon of Egypt, accept this sweet perfume as a token of our love for thee and thy divine son Horus. Give to us a sign that this gift is acceptable to thee.
('Isis' leans forward and shakes the sistrum three times over the incense. Priest bows and takes incense round the temple. Back in the West he places the burner on the altar. He then goes to the East, brings the bowl of petals and offers them to Isis.)
Flower faced one, look upon these fragile gifts and see reflected within thine own beauty. Accept them as a token of our faith in thee and give to us a sign that our prayers are heard by thee. ('Isis leans over and shakes the sistrum six times. The Priest bows and, walking backwards, sprinkles the petals on either side making a path back to the East. He then takes up the wine and approaches the West, bows and offers up the wine.) Honey scented one, let thy silver feet be heard in the temples of the two lands. Taste the wine here offered as a covenant between Priest and Goddess. Let the waters flow as the wine flows. Accept and drink with us, give to us a sign that the covenant is made. (Takes wine up to the Goddess, holds it to Her lips and she drinks, Priest returns to the altar and drinks also. 'Isis' leans down and shakes the sistrum nine times. Priest takes wine round the temple, offers and drinks a sip at each altar. Returns to the West and kneels.)

Isis:
Hear my voice in the temple, hear the voice of Isis, Lady of the Moon. Because thou hast offered to me sweet perfume I have come from the Halls of On, to this place. Because thou hast strewn before me symbols of the Earth's beauty I have heard thy prayers, because thou hast
offered up wine as a covenant between us I will open the waters of the Moon and the land shall be made fertile. But most of all, it is because of my love for thee my children that I will hear thee. Be diligent in thy sowing and in thy work among the crops and I will smile upon thee. Forget not the Earth that feeds thee and return to her a small part of the fruits of your labour. I will enter thy temple and fill it with my presence. 
(Isis' rises and comes down from her throne and followed by the Priest she circles the temple pausing at each altar and shaking the sistrum three times. Back at the West she remounts the throne and makes her farewell.)

Isis:
Farewell Priest and friend, I will come again if I am called, see that my children forget not the great mother, come to me that I may bless thee. (Priest kneels on Her footstool and Isis touches him with the ankh, then she shakes the sistrum over him three times. He rises, bows and returns to Western altar, bows again and returns to East. He makes a cirlce of the Temple putting out the lights except the Western altar. Then he comes to the West last of all and makes a silent farewell to the Goddess, then puts out the light and leaves. The Priestess allows the Goddess to leave her consciousness fully, then makes her own thanks, rises and leaves the temple. This completes the ritual.)

Reading List	
Brennan, J.H., Getting What You Want (Thorsons, 1985) 
Fortune,  Dion,  The Mystical Qabalah (Benn, 1935)
Green, Marian, A Harvest of Festivals (Aquarian Press, 1984)
(Longman, 1980)	
Hope, Murry, Practical Greek Magic 
Hope, Murry, Practical Egyptian Magic (Aquarian Press, 1985)

The Seventh Month
Building the Group Soul
Date started				Date ended

Openings and Closings
The way you open and close a ritual is very important, such things are the Alpha and Omega of the Rite and as such deserve your full attention at all times. If you do not open the temple in the right way you will not get the full influx of power needed to carry the ritual right through. If you do not close firmly, you will get a sloppy ritual and more often than not, some form of phenomena such as noises, smells, balls of light flitting around, etc. It is nothing to be frightened about, it's just unused force trying to find a way 'home'. So make these points of your rituals very definite and firm in voice, and in action. In fact all the way through a ritual you must be authoritative without being bossy, particular without being a nit picker. Don't creep apologetically around the temple, stride or pace around it with an upright stance and dignity. Don't whisper your invocations into the quarters, speak up and out, and with confidence. You don't have to shout either, but like an actor, judge the acoustics of the room and pitch your voice accordingly.
More trouble is caused during the opening and closing of a ritual than at any other time, so learn them well. By now you should have the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram at your magical fingertips. When performed efficiently there is a great deal to be said for it. However over a period of time, as with all things, a certain sloppiness can creep in. Make a point of overhauling your 'performance' from time to time and tightening up the loose ends. The trouble arises if exactly the same words, gestures and movements are used at both ends of a ritual. A banishing rite banishes, ergo it cannot be used at the beginning and at the end. Few magicians bear this in mind and bumble into ritualistic chaos.
The increasing popularity of the occult can be blamed for the hit and miss methods of ceremonial magic, people with little or no training apply their own ideas and most of them miss. All rituals are divided into three parts, an opening, a closing, and the bit in the middle which is the crux of the whole thing. An opening invites certain powers into the quarters as allies or friends, you request their support or at least try to arouse their interest in what you are about to do. The circling of a temple or sacred enclosure is done to define the area, to mark it out as the territory of the Gods, and is usually combined with a cleansing rite such as the sprinkling of salt and water, the carrying round of incense, etc. If you use the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram as an opening, make certain you do it before you invoke the presence of the God-forms, and not after, otherwise you will have a nice clean temple, but no one in it! Also make certain you know which Pentagram opens and which one dismisses, an important point!
There are different Pentagrams for the different Elements, and they are used when you are working with one element through the Rite. They are useful to know and you will find them pictured in Figure 29. They take a little time to master but the results are worth it. There are many different openings and closings and each tradition has a particular slant which stamps its mark on the work, but all are at the same time an integral part and a separate part of any ritual. Integral because the work cannot take place without it, separate because it has a distinct purpose within the ceremony itself. A good magician will research, adapt and learn as many openings and closings as he can, and this can be integrated with your study program.

The Ritual in Detail
Let's now take each stage of the ritual and look at it in detail The opening itself can be broken down into separate parts, the marking out of the enclosure, the cleansing and the bringing in of the powers, God-forms, Archangels, whatever or whoever, your ritual needs. In the qabalistic rituals, marking out the boundaries or the  circumnambulations are always three in number. Three because the ritual is taking place on the level of form,  Malkuth,  and  three  is  the number of form in its highest sense, Binah. This makes sure your ritual manifests in the highest sense of form. In the higher levels of qabalistic ritual you adapt the circles to the level of whichever one of the Four Worlds you wish to contact. It is not often realized that the same ritual can be performed at different levels and with different results, simply by changing colors, symbols and numbers to line up with the higher planes.
Once the enclosure is marked out, the next step is the cleansing. This is usually done first with salt and water, then with incense. The Magus can carry out both duties or the cleansing can be carried out by another officer. Sometimes in the Celtic tradition the cleansing and the marking of the boundaries are combined duties carried out by the Priestess who uses a sprig of herbs with which to sprinkle the salt and water. On rare occasions in the Greek mysteries the temple is marked out by the use of Pan Pipes, a different trill being used at each quarter. A Scottish piper pacing the hall at dinner while the laird entertains, and the piping on the battlements at sunset hold a common origin, as does the sounding of 'taps', and the 'Last Post'. Music can lay down a complicated cone of sound that makes for a very tight magical seal, but it does require a good knowledge of music.
The third stage of opening requires the bringing in of the power. This is done by invoking the God-forms, or, by using the inner powers of a Priestess. I said at the beginning of this book that the ideal number in a temple was three, two men and one woman, or two women and one man. It links up with three being the highest number of form. A woman can fill a temple with her inner power and supply the 'ignition' for the ritual invoking of the archetypes. Even when working alone, a Magus uses, consciously, or unconsciously, his anima power to provide this spark. When there is-a polarity of sexes in a temple, the Priestess brings in the power and the Priest directs it. Unless this is fully understood you stand a good chance of blowing your ritual to bits.
A Priestess can fill a temple with power simply by entering a few minutes before the others, sitting quietly and visualizing the whole place filling up with a soft violet light. This is a simple and very safe way, there are other ways but they require more training than can be given here. The next phase is the actual opening of the quarters and invoking of the 'helpers'. The symbols, sigils or pentagrams used are many and varied and are drawn with the forefinger, or the Rod/Wand. They can also be drawn by the Athame or the Sword. All the quarters must be linked by a continuous line of light, there must be no break. Once the symbol is drawn the God-form can be invoked by name, and installed in place. Keep all symbols/sigils, etc. simple so they can be held clearly in the mind as you draw them. The shape should be easy enough to draw in one continuous movement. You can always test a good shape with the help of a friend, a camera, and a torch or better yet, a child's sparkler. Use a slow exposure in a dark room, go through the movements smoothly with the lighted sparkler. The resulting picture should show a picture of the symbol traced in light.
What shape to use? Apart from the ubiquitous pentagram, you can use a spiral, choose which way you want it to turn for an opening, then just reverse it for the closing. A fleur de lys is useful for rituals to do with a feminine archetype, A fourfold petal cross, the infinity sign of an eight on its side, the ankh, the Icthys, the Girdle of Venus, and so on may all be used. Once your archetypes are placed, you can move on to the main point of the ritual which is the intention.

The Ritual Intention
The intention, unless it is obvious, e.g. seasonal rituals, should be stated clearly at the altar, otherwise your God-forms are left in the position of being invited to a party but not knowing who it is for, or even what kind of occasion is being celebrated. The quarters and their occupants are now asked for their help in dealing with the intention, and reminded that their particular attributes are suited to the granting of the intention. All the time the Magus and officers are concentrating on the end result, seeing it as already being in manifestation, pushed onto this plane by the forces you have called to your aid. You will find that a ritual will build naturally to a peak of intensity. Hold this moment for as long as you can, which will be about thirty seconds, rarely longer. Then there is a small pause when everyone, including the star guests can catch their breath. Then the whole thing winds down towards the closing.

The Closing
The closing consists firstly of thanking the Inner Level beings who have attended. Always offer a blessing to them before giving permission to depart. Take them in reverse order and give them time to withdraw, don't gallop around the temple because you feel tired and want your tea. Closing in a hurry can be done, but I do not advise it. Take your time. When your God-forms have departed you can make the reverse circles and sigils. Put out the lights, and declare the temple closed.

Outdoor Rituals
In warm weather there is no reason why you should not perform an outdoor ritual, however there are difficulties. First, you must have a place where you will not be disturbed or overlooked, this is important for your own peace of mind and well being. A secluded garden away from neighbors, the deepest part of a wood, a moorland not likely to be infested by fell walkers, troops of scouts, or marines on manoeuvres, or even the top of a small mountain. You can mark out your sacred enclosure with a length of consecrated cord or rope, and use large stones to mark the quarters. Use your common sense, a Qabalistic or Egyptian ritual is best done indoors, but Greek, Norse, or Celtic rituals can all be done in the open air with great success. It gives a whole new dimension to the work, and should be tried at least once by anyone who aspires to magical work.
A few words of warning, if you light a fire make absolutely certain it is safe to do so and you are not breaking the law. Just because you are outside don't make it an excuse for finishing a whole bottle of wine. Being breathalysed on the way home is no way to end a ritual. Finally, remember there is always a risk of someone coming upon you unawares. Do place a lookout so you have enough warning to deal with things. How do you deal with it? It calls for good inner vision, clothe your quarters with a golden veil, unless you have brought the entire contents of the temple with you there will be little to give you away; douse the incense and hold the quarters firmly in your mind, frozen in time. Smile sweetly at the intruders and if possible answer any questions in French! With luck they will soon depart and you can carry on from there. In a dire emergency only, I offer my own solution. Simply fix your quarters with a stern gaze and say firmly; You're all dosed. I have only done this on one occasion and I don't recommend it as a regular thing, but it can be done if you don't mind a splitting headache for the rest of the day!

Invocation and Evocation
Invocation and evocation are almost, but not quite, the same thing, but both are used in the practice of magic. Invoke to call 'in' or 'down', evoke to call 'forth'. When you are filling the quarters in a ritual you invoke because you are calling beings higher and greater than yourself to come into the temple prepared for them. But when you are working on a ritual to bring something out of yourself, i.e. you are trying to improve yourself in some way, you evoke your own higher self to 'come forth'. Paradoxically when you invoke a God-form, its presence evokes a reciprocal giving out from your inner self. Make sure you fully understand the difference between these two ways of calling.

Using the Magic Mirror
By now you have had plenty of time to purchase a mirror for magical work. Not too large, about 18 inches (45cm) long at the most. An oval shape is best, with a plain frame. Mirrors can be used for scrying, for searching back into your own past, and for divining.
Some people cannot use a crystal ball successfully, I am one of them, but I can and do use a mirror or a bowl of water. There is a body of opinion that says all magical mirrors should be black. Not true. A plain mirror can be used in magical work with no trouble and just a little preparation. First buy or make two.squares of black material, one should Be large enough to cover the background when you are looking into the mirror. In fact a large sheet of black cartridge paper does just as well as long as it can be fixed firmly to the wall behind you. The second piece should be a square yard with a hole cut out in the middle just large enough for you to put your face, but not the whole head, through and fit snugly. The mirror should be hung or propped up about 3 or 4 feet (1m) away from you, with a small nightlight or candle placed below the face throwing light up into it. The black surround, plus the black background now gives the impression that your face is floating in a black void.
Now concentrate on your face, keep your eyes on the eyes of your reflection. Try not to blink, soon your eyes will slide out of focus the face before you will start to change. Face after face will peel away and you will see it change from man to woman, from one color to another from race to race, and time to time. Do not extend the first few times beyond five minutes, and never go beyond fifteen minutes however tempted you may be. At first it will be rather scary, even upsetting, in which case stop at once and leave it for a few days. By concentrating on a person it is possible to call them up in the mirror, though it needs a lot of practice, and you must understand that this can distract the person thus called with sometimes dangerous consequences. With practice it is as accurate as a crystal ball, but do not use it to excess, it can become an addictive habit.

Group Souls and Group Minds
As yet we have not touched upon the teachings concerning Group Minds and Group Souls, but it is an area in which you, as a working magician, must have at least some basic knowledge. Along with the knowledge of Group Minds goes the sometimes dangerous knowledge of 'artificial elementals'. They are not the kind of thing to mess with, but it is in your own interest to understand what they are and what they can do.
Group Minds and Group Souls are often confused by the novice, but they are very different in structure and usage. A Group Mind is the result of organized thought by a group of highly motivated people, with its origin in a subject about which they feel very emotional and which arouses deep feelings within them. Never forget that emotion is the very foundation of a Group Mind, therein lies its power for good and evil.
As an example of a Group Mind, take the crew of a ship. These men can, and do, create a Group Mind from the moment they take her out to sea on her maiden voyage, and for some ships their 'elemental' birth can take place in the shipyard. Any ship builder will tell you that a ship is 'born' like a person, with a mind of its own. When the Ark Royal sailed into harbor for the last time, every man aboard had tears in his eyes. To them it was a friend, not just a pile of metal that was going to the scrap yard. All sailors talk lovingly of their ships referring to them as a woman. The helmsman will tell a newcomer, 'she' pulls to left, don't be too heavy handed, 'she' doesn't like that. The ship is a person to them, she looks after them, carries them in her 'womb', they respond by loving her, she responds by building a Group Mind, something that encompasses every man aboard from the captain to the newest recruit.
The modern term for this kind of thing is 'team spirit'. It denotes a group of people with a single, emotive aim in mind. Normally a Group Mind will disperse as soon as the group that formed it disperses, but if they get together again, it will rapidly reform. Sometimes they do not disperse, but are kept alive by the group either intentionally, or because so much emotion has been poured into the Group Mind that it becomes ensouled, and we get an artificial elemental that takes on a life of its own. If its basis was good, it persists as a memory in the racial memory, if it was bad it may go on the rampage.
When this happens with an occult group, mystery school, or religious gathering, it can sometimes happen that the ensoulment comes only partly from the group itself, the greater part comes from a higher level. In short the Group Mind becomes ensouled by the essence of a Master, or an Angelic Being. When this happens we say that the group or school is now 'contacted'. As time goes on, and if the channel for the ensouled Group Mind is kept clear and true to its first principles, the school becomes a channel for new teachings being fed into the world as a whole. It depends upon the potential within the school. The idea of ensouling a group by filling it with a Divine Essence is inherent in the saying of Jesus, 'Where two or three are gathered together in My Name...'. He would have known that even such a small group, given deep faith combined with love for their Master and Teacher, would be enough to cause a Group Mind to emerge from within them, and that He could then ensoul that Group Mind with His own Divine essence. Once this was done, contact on the Inner Levels with His flock would be much easier.
Any deep faith that is lifted to the higher levels of the spirit by the emotional energy of a devoted group will create a Group Mind and this, by its very nature, will have access to the higher inner planes.
As they work for good, so too can a Group Mind work for evil in a very frightening way. It is to our discredit as a Lifewave that mankind can create a Group Mind for evil far more quickly than for good. Think of a lynch mob and you have a good example, think of the mindless violence of a disappointed football crowd and you have another. The worst thing about it is that you do not have to be violent yourself to get caught up in such a mob. The power of a Group Mind hellbent on destruction is well nigh impossible to resist. You must have heard people say many times, I can't understand it, our son wouldn't hurt anyone... but he did. They are halfway right, the boy may well be a decent person, but once drawn into the mob mind he would have been helpless.
The real experts in this field are the Ku Klux Klan, who stir up hatred with words of seeming patriotic fervour, music, parades, and strange costumes. Riding at night with blazing crosses held on high they can whip up a Group Mind in a matter of minutes. But they are not the only ones, such things can and do happen in any country, within any race and most are stirred up by experts paid to apply the use of mob psychology for their own ends. They just have to start it, the Group Mind will do the rest. Once aroused, it is in command. It literally feeds on the violence which it then augments and passes back to the Mob, a vicious circle with destruction and even death at its command.
Once the mob goes, the Group Mind quickly disappears, for it feeds on human energy, then reason returns, and with it horror and self-loathing. The tragedy is tKat once such a Group Mind has been built, it requires little effort to do it again, and with the very same people, Hitler, was devoted to the Lords of the Dark Face, and knew the power of Group Minds and used them well. His public speeches were designed to arouse fear, anger, and finally a venomous hatred that he was then able to direct against those he wanted to destroy.
Always, whatever the reason behind it, the same ingredients are used in the forming of a Group Mind — emotion and energy. This is a good lesson in the basic principle that there is no such thing as black or white magic, just pure power and energy, it is people who color the power. When a group genuinely seeks a higher purpose for its energies, the results can be as spectacular as those seeking destruction. Fear and a desperate need for hope and comfort produced the phenomena known as the Angels of Mons in the First World War. Pride in themselves, their country and their King gave overwhelming victory to the English at Agincourt. The coronation of a new monarch will produce a Group Mind of superb majesty that far exceeds anything that can be seen on a physical level.
Any kind of group can produce a Group Mind, from the local council to the W.I., from the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games to those that form over long established religious houses and cathedrals such as
Winchester. Man has always known of their existence and they have come down to us in legends of winged horses and guardian angels, etc. The Four Holy Creatures epitomize the highest such things can reach, they then become the property not just of a group, but of the whole of mankind. They have become synonomous with the Four Evangelists, a 'group' of more than usual ability to create a Group Mind.
Most Group Minds live only a short while and belong to the category of the office party, a first night at the theatre, a reunion of old comrades, etc. But when they are the focus of continuous thought and emotion from an entire race, they can become a permanent fixture. Among such Group Minds are the racial archetypes, John Bull, Uncle Sam, Marianne of France and so on. Sometimes they have a double form, the second taking a totemic form such as an American Eagle, a British Lion, or a Russian Bear. They are built from pride of race and country and have been invoked for many centuries, now they are part of the race itself and will never die.
Sometimes, when used in connection with a mystery school you will hear a Group Mind referred to as an Egregore. This is a highly evolved form of Group Mind built up over many years quite deliberately by the brethren of an Order or School. It combines love, principle and dedication and is the Guardian of that school, and also of each and even/ member belonging to it.
If you are ever caught up in a mob Group Mind what can you do? Do not try to fight it, one person cannot do it alone, you need a whole group of highly trained people to do that and even then they may not win. Find yourself a spot out of the worst trouble and surround yourself with an aura of blue light. Get out as quickly as you can. Make for a church, chapel, or a Salvation Army room, anywhere where the atmosphere is clear and made sacred by people aiming for the highest in themselves. Build up an archetype such as St George, or St Michael, or Athene/Horus, any of the protective deities. As soon as possible get home and take a bath with a good handful of sea salt in it. This will cleanse your body and your aura of anything that might taint it. Do not go into your temple until this is done. If you find yourself unable to get out of the area, find some kind of protected space and keep your mind occupied with the most trivial nonsense you can think of. Nursery rhymes are the best. Keep repeating them so that your mind is not pulled into the maelstrom of emotion going on around you.
There are very few books about the occult side of Group Minds, but quite a few on mob psychology and behavioural psychology. They will give you some ideas. W.McDougal's The Group Mind, W. Trotter's Psychology and the Herd in Peace and War, and Jung's Man and his Symbols are the best. C. Leadbetter's book Science and the Sacraments is out of print but if you see it get it. Now let's have a look at Group Souls, you will see that this is an entirely different thing.

The Structure of a Group Soul
A Group Soul is composed of astral matter out of which an individual beingness evolves by way of experience and the demands made upon it by the organism it represents. That sounds complicated, but it can be made simpler. Man at the beginning of his evolution had not yet individualized, he existed as a 'whole' i.e. as a Tribe. He could think of himself as 'us', but not as 'I am'. With no separate identity, he was little more than a wild animal. Life was short and reincarnation quick. But each and every bit of experience went back into the soul pool, for man shared his soul in those far off pre-historic times, there was one Tribal Soul. Into this communal soul all experience was placed and shared. Each time a man made a step forward inventing something new, doing something in a new and better way, his knowledge and experience went into the Tribal Soul at death and the experience was shared. As time went on mankind became individualized spirits with individual souls, but deep down at a level now buried forever, there is a part of mankind and of all life, that shares a united Group Soul. 

Figure 30  Diagrammatic Representation of the Group Soul

This primitive Life Soul can be tapped under certain circumstances.
In the early days of life on earth, one great soul covered the whole of life's many forms, but later, different species began to impress the astral matter with a definite pattern. Obeying the divine Plan, each life form very slowly evolved its own Group Soul. Mankind's Group Soul went on from there and evolved a soul for each person, but the younger life forms continued to share a soul. We can use the symbol of a tree to show that although each species has its own Group Soul it also shares a Oneness of Life with everything on the planet (see Figure 30).
As each Group Soul grew it evolved an archetypal form on the higher astral and mental levels. This led to the making of a Great Pattern for each species. As man has the archetype of Adam Kadmon, the Divine Man, so there is a Great Dog, a Great Cat, a Great Horse, etc. Each and every life form has its 'pattern', its Group Soul, to which the majority return at death. Each return enriches the Great Pattern or Archetype with the experience the individual animal, bird, fish, etc, has undergone. Thus, if the life has been one of deprivation, starvation and ill treatment, the Group Soul will assimilate this and new animals will be born with a built in wariness towards man and other predators. This explains the way in which young birds taking their first flight south 'know' the way though the older birds fly later. The pattern of their flight is born as part of an inherited memory.
If, however, the life has been spent with those who have understood their role as the designated initiator of the animal kingdom. If they have been given love, understanding, and the freedom to be themselves and not makeshift children, then the essence of that animal at death takes back an enormous contribution to the Group Soul of its species. Thus did the dog become the friend of man, though man does not often deserve the name of friend to any animal.
Sometimes an animal is given so much understanding that it will tend to return to the same environment. People often remark how like a former dog or cat their present one behaves. Sometimes an animal essence will have a succession of such lives, then something happens to that essence. It individualizes out of its Group Soul and becomes a separate pattern. At death it returns to its Group Soul only to pass on its experience, then it returns to its new pattern and to another life on a higher scale, or it will await the coming of the person(s) who helped it achieve its new individuali-zation and seek to accompany the soul in order to learn more from their mutual companionship. Sometimes they will incarnate in circumstances that will bring them together again. Such an animal's essence will eventually, after many lives, incarnate as a human being on a low scale of life, or one destined for a very short life, in order to gain the new experience of a personal soul.
Orthodox religions teach that only man has a soul and can hope for an 'after life'. It seems to make a mockery of 'God's Love', that an animal can be tortured to death for the sake of science, then denied a just reward. The Bible tells us that 'He knows when a sparrow falls', in which case 'He' seems to care for them more than man with his personal soul can do.
This does not mean that the animal does not have to earn its personal soul, it does. But unlike man, an animal has not deviated from the path laid down for its species in the beginning. Savage in the wild they may be, but they obey an ordained way of life. Too often mankind forgets that his life and the other forms of life on this planet are interwoven, destroy one and inevitably you will be destroyed in your turn. As the overlord of the planet, man will have to account for his stewardship one day. The 'younger brethren' are fellow travellers on the road of evolution. Remember that each Group Soul has a nucleus, a divine spark of life, God given, that makes it a holy creature and as much a part of the Great Divine Plan as man himself, more so since it has not left its place in the Plan.

The Celtic Ritual of Summer
We come now to the Seasonal Rituals for Summer. By now you should be able to write your own so I will give only two examples from now on. The first is Celtic in its choice of God-forms, though it owes more than a little to the much maligned but richly symbolic Craft tradition. And although it can be performed in the temple, I have written it primarily as an outdoor ritual for a change! This means that you will need few of the usual 'props'.
Summer is a time of well-being, of rejoicing in the promise of the growing crops, relaxing in the warmth of a summer sun. All these things should reflect in your ritual since ritual is a mirror to life in many ways. So this ceremony is purely one of enjoyment. It carries none of the urgency for the return of spring, or the gratefulness of the autumn and the harvest, nor the need for protection against the dark of winter. Summer is for life, love and laughter.
As you will be outdoors, wear something summery and freshly washed. Choose a place where, if possible, you can go with bare feet. You will need a long coil of rope or thick string. A bottle of mead, or some real ale, homemade bread, cakes, cheese, and fruit. A large old-fashioned basket, made from traditional materials, not plastic. This will take the place of the Craft cauldron. You will need something to drink the wine from, pottery goblets are nice for this kind of ritual. Flower wreaths for the women, ivy for the men. This is a rite to share with friends. You will also need a small bag of corn and some honey.
Wherever your chosen place is, make sure the last half mile at least is on foot. The ritual is the first thing on the agenda. It is likely to be very dry and too risky to build a fire, instead look around for something to use as an altar, a stone or a tree stump. If not, then use a white cloth and spread it in the middle of the working place, on this put all your needs for the ritual. Take your rope and tie the two ends loosely together, then the four who will be the officers take hold of it and make it into a square which is then laid down on the ground. The Magus steps into the enclosure, picks up some corn and takes it to the East. He throws a small amount onto the ground outside the circle.
Magus:
Cernnunos, Cernnunos, Cemnunos, sacred stag of the Blessed Isles, hear my call. Come from thy deep forest, leave the doe and the fawn and come to us who call thee. Watch over our Rite of Summer and rejoice with us. We will remember the old ways and the old gods. Take up the guarding of the East, and accept the offering.
(Throw a few more grains of corn on the  ground,  then  turn  and  face
inwards.)
The East is protected.
The Officer of the South takes the honey and goes to his quarter, there he pours the honey onto the ground outside th*e circle.
South:
Artor, Artor, Artor, bear guardian of the Isles of the West, of old hast thou been worshipped and given offerings, we have come to make the Old Ones live again. Leave the lair, leave the stream, come to us who call thee. Watch over our Rite of Summer and rejoice with us. Take up the guarding of the South and accept the offering.
(Pour a little more honey, then turn and face in.) The South is protected.

The Officer of the West takes some corn goes to West and throws it on the ground.
West:
Epona, Epona, Epona, white mare of the western hills, leave the sweet grass of the cwm* and come to us who call you. Too long have you been absent from our lives, join us in our Rite of Summer. Take up the guarding of the West, and accept the offering.
(Throw a few more grains on the ground then face in.) The West is protected.
The Officer of the North takes up some corn and goes to North and throws it on the ground.
(* Pronounced 'coom'.)

North:
Mona, Mona, Mona, sacred cow of the dark isle, most ancient of our gods hear us when we call to thee. Come down from the shadowy tor and join us in this Rite of Summer. Come and hear the old words of worship, take up the guarding of the North and accept the offering. (Throws a little more corn then faces in.) The North is protected.
(East goes to the place where the rope is knotted and unties it. If there are others with you, they may now enter the circle at this point and no other. As each one enters, a dab of honey is placed on their tongue. All come together in the center holding hands and start to circle, step three times to the right then twice to the left, three times to the right and two to the left again. Repeat this as many times as you wish. It is nice to have some music, English madrigals and round songs are best. Shakespeare's songs set to music are very appropriate especially the lovely, 'Summer is a-coming in'. When you feel you have danced enough, all sit down in the center with the basket in the middle. Take off your wreaths of flowers and ivy and put them in front of you, the food you take from the basket is placed within this circle of plant life. The Magus, or as he should be called in this type of ritual, the 'Lord', and his 'Lady' stand with the basket held between them.
All:
Bless the food within the cauldron, bless the wine within the cask, bless the ones who surround us with love and protection, bless the Lord and the Lady who serve us.

Lord and Lady:
Bless the great ones here with us, bless those who are with us, bless the life around us, bless the life within us. (The Lord now serves the food and the Lady serves the wine to all. It is an added touch to take along some extra wine and corn and when it is blessed to scatter the corn, and pour the wine around edge of the circle.)
When the summer feast is done, gather up all the bits and pieces so that no litter is left to mar the countryside. Leave the wreaths on the earth and use the circle of rope and flowers as a dancing circle. As far as possible everyone should take part, either singing, dancing or playing. Let the feeling of summer seep into your bones. When you feel the time is right call everyone together inside the circle, and stand silently for a while blessing the life around you and sharing your inner joy, happiness and contentment with that life.
Lord:
Let us make our farewells to our ancient gods.
(Goes to the East.)
Bless thee great Cemnunos, proud stag of this fair isle of Grammerye. Go to thine own place in peace, but know this, we hold you dear in our hearts and while we live you will know honor and be recognized as Lord of the Forest.
(Lady goes to the West.)
Lady:
Swiftfooted Epona, mare of the western hills, go now to the thine own place in peace, take with you our love and our blessing, thou art precious to our race and we honour thee while our life shall last.
(Lord goes to the South.)
Lord:
Artor, lord of the Britons, blessed be thy name, return to thine own place in peace, we offer you our love always, guard us, be with us in all our troubles. Share your strength with us and be honoured for all time in this land.
(Lady goes to the North.)
Lady:
Mona, thou of the dark isle, hear me as I bless thee, of all thou art the most ancient of our gods, fill the land with fruitfulness as thou hast done through the centuries. Bless all here and receive in place our worship of the greatness thy shape conceals. Mother of the race be blessed.
All join hands and remain silent. Then hang up the wreaths on the trees and prepare to leave. Walk in single file singing softly as you go home through the twilight thinking of the ancient Gods you leave behind.
This may seem too simple to be a ritual, but you will find more effect from this than many a full temple ritual with lights, incense and robes, etc. Simplicity is the keynote where effectiveness is concerned. You will share a moment of complete oneness with the lost Gods of Britian, and that is worth a lifetime of the more glamourous rituals.

The Greek Ritual of the Summer
Now we come to the Greek Summer ritual which is a little more formal. This is for two people, who represent Hermes and Flora the Goddess of Flowers. The white robes made for the Egyptian ritual without the collars will do nicely. Add a flower crown and a silver girdle for Flora. A pair of wings cut out of card and covered with silver foil and stapled to a ribbon worn round the neck for Hermes. If you wish you could make a Caduceus as well (see Figure 31). Use a wooden rod as a base, and make a pair of wings as above. Top with a pine-cone. Use modelling wax for the snakes, or you can buy plastic ones from a novelty shop. Fix them in position with a good adhesive and spray the whole thing silver.

Figure 31  The Caduceus for the Greek Rite of Spring

Colors for summer are rose, green, gold and blue. Place the altar before the pillars, and the small tables before the other quarters. On each put a small cup of wine and a piece of bread or a honey cake. In addition, the South should have a burner with lighted charcoal but no incense, the West should have a growing plant, the North an empty vase of water, and finally the East a small mirror. Flora has a small basket with some incense, a bottle of water, and some mixed flowers. All the altars should have center lights. Flora waits by the door, while Hermes opens the temple. He faces East and with the Caduceus makes the infinity sign oo.
Hermes:
In the name of the All Father, Zeus, lord of Olympus, I open this temple. Grant to me thy son, messenger of the Gods, the power to open the doors of summer and flood the Earth with warmth.
(He goes to the South and makes the sign.)
In the name of Apollo my brother, I open this temple. Grant to me thy brother the power of the sun that I may ripen the corn.
(Goes to the West and makes the sign.)
In the name of Poseidon, my father's brother I open this temple. Grant to me thy nephew the power of the oceans that I may feed mankind with its fruit.
(Goes to North and makes the sign.)
In the name of Hades my father's brother I open this temple. Grant to me thy nephew the power of the inner earth that I may bestow its riches upon mankind.
(Goes to Flora and takes her by the hand  and  leads  her  round  the temple in a circle and then to the East.)
Flora:
Hermes of the swift foot, you have summoned me and I am here, what do you wish of my powers?
Hermes:
Goddess of summer, share with me and with the Earth thy gift of warmth and sweet perfume. Come with me to the Gate of the South and bless it with thy presence.
(Takes her to the South, here she sprinkles incense on the charcoal.)
Flora:
I bless this gateway with sweet perfume and warmth. Bright Apollo share with me and with thy brother the wine and bread of the Sun.
(Hermes breaks the bread and shares it with her, also the wine. He then leads her to the West.)
Hermes:
Sweet Flora pour out thy love upon the life of Earth, bless the Gate of the West with the moisture of thy breath. (She pours the water on the plant.)
Flora:
I bless this gateway with moisture, great Poseidon share with me and with thy nephew the wine and bread of the west. (Hermes shares the bread and wine with her as before. Then he leads her to the North.)
Hermes:
Blessed Flora grant the Earth the colors of thy beauty, deck her with loveliness and brighten the hearts of mankind. (She places flowers in vase.)
Flora:
7 give my colors to the Earth. Let summer reign as queen. Dark browed Hades open up the richness of the Earth and share it with all men. Share with us also the bread and wine of the North. (The bread and wine is shared as before, and Hermes leads Flora to the East.)
Hermes:
Light footed  Flora,  Golden  skinned goddess of summer, let us praise the sky father together and ask his blessing upon the Earth. (They join hands and lift arms up.)
Both:
Great Zeus we praise thee, and that which was before thee, we ask for the blessing of summer upon the face of Earth.
(Stand silent for a few minutes.)
Hermes:
Daughter of Zeus, sweet sister, have you no gift for the Gate of the East?
Flora:
To the East I give myself, that I may be one with the Earth and all that lives upon her. Sweet brother take my kiss as a gift for the East.
(They kiss, and share the bread and wine. Her crown of flowers is placed upon the altar as an offering. Now they circle the temple, Hermes going clockwise and Flora anticlockwise, they cross at the West and continue round and back to the East. Flora goes to stand in the center and Hermes closes the temple.)
Hermes:
With the power of my father Zeus, I close the temple. To thee great one our thanks and blessing.
(Goes to the South.)
With the power of the sun and my brother Apollo I close the temple. To thee our thanks and blessing.
(Goes to the West.)
With the power of the oceans and my uncle Poseidon, I close the temple. To thee our thanks and blessing.
(Goes to the North.)
With the power of inner earth and my uncle Hades, I close the temple. To thee our thanks and blessing. 
(Back to the East and to the center, Hermes and Flora kiss, and together put out the lights.)

Reading List
Brennan, J.H., Astral Doorways (Aquarian Press, 1980)
Stewart, R.J., The UnderWorld Litiation (Aquarian Press, 1985)


The Eighth Month
Into the Deeper Levels

Date started				Date ended

Astral Doorways
The book Astral Doorways by J.H. Brennan created quite a furore among occultists when it was published, mostly because for the first time genuine practical work was put before the reader. It remains one of the best down to earth books on the subject, and despite what popular novelists and off-beam journalists would have you think, the way of magic is a very down to earth subject.
If you have read the book as requested in the last chapter, you should have a reasonable grasp of what is meant by the term Astral. That first chapter is worth ten of the more 'spiritual' books on the subject. Many people assume that the Astral is a place, an exotic location like New York, Khartoum, or Basingstoke. It is and it isn't. It is to the beings who have their existence on that level. It isn't to beings like ourselves who live on another level of perception. To them we are the ghosts, to us they are the nebulous figures of dreams.
Unless you can use your imagination, the Astral Plane is barred to you, because that is the one and only doorway into the land beyond the
Rainbow Bridge. Sadly we are beginning to lose our imaginative gifts as we have lost so many other talents. The killer is the printed word, the symbols of script have taken over and we are gradually accepting them in place of the pictures within the mind. Imagination, emotion, and energy are the basic talents a magician needs to succeed on the Path of High Magic. Without them you are better off using the secondhand dreams of television.
Some of the techniques in Astral Doorways are dangerous, which is why you are just now using the book after several months of hard work. They are not to be taken lightly nor are they to be treated in the manner of a video game in your head. This is why you were asked to read the book thoroughly before starting to use the magical techniques contained within. I recommend to you the author's own statement, '...if you run into something nasty on the Astral, it is because something nasty already exists in your mind'. This is true, not the whole truth, because nasty things already exist in some parts of the Astral levels, but it is the truth as far as a novice is concerned.

This book contains the most sensible and down to earth explanations of just what the Astral is and how it can be used that has yet been printed. I urge you to read it, use it and try out the exercises described within for they are well tried and tested. In addition to your basic meditation routine try the exercise of concentrating on a simple geometric shape for as long as you can without letting other thoughts stray into your mind. Do this three or four times aiming for at least ten seconds each time. Then go on with your usual meditation. It helps if you cut the shape out of brightly colored paper and look at it for a few minutes before closing your eyes. This brings me to the use of the 'flashing colors'.

The Flashing colors
Most people are familiar with the phenomenon of a television image persisting on the eye after it has disappeared from the screen. Few people know that this is used as an occult training technique to relax the eye muscles and enable any latent clairvoyant sight to develop. The image on the screen is repeated in its complimentary colors by the human eye. This will soon begin to 'flash' from the first color to its complimentary shade and it can persist for several minutes getting gradually fainter. You can test this by placing one of your bright geometric shapes on a plain white background allowing at least a 4 inch (10cm) border all round. Stare at the shape for a few minutes without blinking, then shift your focus to a plain white piece of card. The image in its secondary color will seemingly imprint itself on the plain card. It is this secondary image that can be used as an Astral Doorway through which you may enter the unseen world within.
The Doorway is an Astral one, real on its own level, but not on this level. Such simple techniques can quickly improve your ability to create internal images.
It is very often the case that a true clairvoyant image is seen not as it were, face on but from the corner of the eye. When this happens it is important to observe the phenomena quietly and as if you were looking 'through' it rather than at it. Practice with flashing colors and images will sharpen this ability. To help you in this exercise you will find several examples of imagery in Figure 32. You may like to re-draw and color them with felt pens, then they can also be used to practice the color changes as well.

The Dangers of Glamour
Returning now to Astral Doorways, try the exercise of using a short story to sharpen both your visual imagery and your audile memory. Try to find the time to do this at least once a day. If need be, use the time spent in travelling to do this rather than your relaxing and breathing exercises, which should be now be an almost automatic reflex that snaps into action when needed. Vary this by trying to 'hear' your favourite record without putting it on the record player.
Next, test your ability to recall tastes and scents. Use strong herbs and condiments at first then progress to lighter more delicate tastes, then do the same with odours. All this may seem a waste of time, but it is gradually training you for much deeper levels of pathworking where much of your future training will take place.
Within each one of us there is a kingdom of the mind that combines the Laws of both Chaos and Order. In most people that kingdom is without its rightful ruler, a 'Logres' without its Arthur, an 'Avalon' without its Morgan or Nimue, a 'Camelot' without Queen Guenevere. Only when the crown is reclaimed will that inner kingdom be restored to its true state of perfection. For most of us, even if we are fairly advanced magicians there will always be corners of our kingdom marked, 'Here Be Monsters'. If you intend to devote yourself fully to High Magic then the ruling of this inner kingdom will be one of your greatest concerns, and a constant battle against the monsters must be waged.
This does not mean that you must be preoccupied with the inner world all the time. That would be falling into the glamour of High Magic, and your work would degenerate into a dream of dungeons and dragons and become a mockery of itself. That inner kingdom is where you form your ideals and hopes, and the dreams that can come true. It is where the higher self is trained, as Arthur was trained by Merlin at the castle of Sir Ector before he claimed the throne. The only way this inner kingdom can be found and claimed is through the deeper levels of pathworking.

The Deeper Levels of Pathworking
You have already done some of the lighter types of working, but now you must learn to go deeper into this strange realm that is never the same two visits running. Instead of pathworking in your favourite armchair, you will be using the temple as a departure point. For the moment it will be enough just to formulate the entry points and make yourself known to the Guardians. Later you will be given specific pathworkings that will take you to the most important locations, but for now you will be learning to go deeper within yourself than you have ever gone before.
At the beginning of this book you learned that it was possible to meditate whilst upright and moving, now you will learn that there are positions other than simply sitting down in which to do your pathworkings. Many of these are depicted in the statutary of Ancient Egypt and were used in the training of the temple novices. The Egyptians never did anything without a purpose behind it, so learn to look and probe behind the placing of a statue's hands and feet.
Put the altar in the East, then in the center of the floor put a firm but comfortable cushion. Sit down in the position depicted in Figure 33 with your arms folded across your knees. In museum catalogues, such figures are referred to as 'block statues', it is supposed that it was much easier for the craftsman to carve hard granite with the body in this shape. True, but there are other reasons for it to be so formed. In this position your breathing is slightly restricted resulting in a more shallow breath at each intake, now bend your head and lay your forehead on your folded arms, closing the eyes. You are now exerting pressure on the so called 'third eye' point. In actual fact the third eye, or pineal gland, to give it its medical term, is much further inside the head and is part of the limbic system, sometimes called the mid-brain. However, the center of your forehead is extremely sensitive and any pressure there causes a reaction in the pineal. With your head down you tend to breathe less oxygenated air and this combined with shallow breathing, plus the pressure on the third eye, produces a mildly soporific effect that will deepen the experience.

Figure 33 The Seated Pathworking Position

Try out this position for a few minutes several times before actually using it for a path working. Make sure that it is not too restrictive for you, not everyone finds it comfortable. If this is so, then use the position in Figure 34, bending the head down towards the chest. This is slightly less effective, but will still produce a deeper experience than sitting in the God-form position which is the better known.

Building the Body of Light
When you are satisfied that you can cope with this position you are ready to do the working. Set up the temple guardian to its 'protect' station, i.e. to guard you while you are in trance. Take up your position and relax into it letting your breathing find its own level. You may find that you slide from a light trance into sleep at the end of the session, this is normal and indicates that your body has adjusted well and is relaxing in its own way. Project the image of the Eastern Pillars into your mind and 'summon up' the entrance to your inner kingdom.
After a few moments your subconscious mind will provide a picture of the Gateway. Allow it to form at its own pace, make no attempt to enter yet. Watch it grow and take shape.

When it has fully formed, memorize the details and then look through it, to the landscape beyond. In the far distance you can see a shape coming towards you, it draws nearer and nearer until you can see it quite clearly. It may be an animal, real or imaginary, or it may be human, whichever it is, it will be the guardian of this Gate and loyal to you. Salute it, and have it return the salute. Now look at the top of this Gate, and by an act of your will engrave upon the lintel the symbol you chose to put on the reverse side of your Pantacle. By this act you have claimed this Gateway as your own. Name this entrance the Royal Gate. Now you may return to the temple and full consciousness.
As soon as you have had something to drink, and have closed down fully, draw a picture of your Royal Gate and place it in your magical diary. In a few days repeat this exercise with the altar in the South, and you facing in that direction. Follow the instructions as before and let the second Gate build up. It will be quite a different type to the first, but once it is formed, and you and the guardian have exchanged salutes, again carve your symbol over the lintel, name it the Temple Gate, then return to the temple, draw the Gateway and put it away.
Repeat this at the West and North, naming them the Star Gate and the Gate of the Quest repectively. Make sure each guardian recognizes you and that the Gate bears your symbol. Do not try to deal with all four Gates in too short a time. One Gate every three or four days is enough. When this is done you are ready to enter your kingdom. Sit facing the East and build up the Gate and its guardian. When it is ready, walk through the Royal Gate. You will be given a cloak and a staff. With these you may set out to explore.
Remember, as yet you do not rule this land, you will have to prove yourself first. Resist all the temptations to glamourize this part of your training. This is not a video game or a fantasy movie... you are looking at a landscape that reflects the state of your inner self. If there are monsters, evil creatures, volcanos and wastelands, it is because that is how your inner self is at the moment. You will have to learn how to change it.
How do you change it? That is something you will have to learn. I can bring you to the Gates of Yourself, but I cannot change you, only you can do that. Work on all of the Gates, going slowly and with caution. Do this for a month then leave it for a while and allow any changes you have managed to make seep through into this level. When they appear on the physical level make a note of it and put it with the others.
When working in this way you are using the astral body, and you know already about your Magical Personality which has been quietly growing in strength with each month's work. But there is another form used by some magicians, the Body of Light. Some think it is the same as the astral body, but it is in fact quite different. The astral is an etheric form common to everyone, a Magical Personality is acquired through practice and concentration. The Body of Light is deliberately built for a purpose, another term used for it is 'cowan'. It is not easily formed, some people never manage it, or at least not fully, and once it is formed it can be troublesome, and requires firm handling.
Sit in the God-form position as if in meditation. The building is best done within the temple as this prevents the cowan from roaming around. Close your eyes and build in front of you, with as much power and concentration as you can, the shape of a robed and hooded figure. Build it facing away from you, but with the intention that it is a simulacrum of yourself within the robe. Build it slowly and carefully, do not hurry the process, keep at it for a few minutes each and every day without exception until you feel you have birilt it as clearly as you find possible. This may take several months, or longer, but the most important thing is to do it slowly and carefully. Once the figure is clear, start the second phase. Focus your attention on the back of the head. Now imagine a thin beam of light emerging from your forehead and extending slowly towards the focal point on the figure. When it touches, see and feel it flare like a match head. Now draw it back again. Do this no more than three or four times a day. Once this has become easy to do you may proceed further.
Join yourself to the cowan as usual, but this time let a tiny seed of consciousness travel down the beam of light and into the head of the cowan. Feel as if you were inside the figure but still with the eyes closed. Now withdraw it again. Do this two or three times a day, but no more. Finally, when you feel able to send and withdraw the seed of consciousness at will you are ready for the final phase. When the seed has entered the Body of Light, allow it to act as an extended sense of self, try to open the eyes of the figure and look at what is in front of you from the viewpoint of the cowan. You may feel dizzy, if so close your eyes and try again in a few moments. Gradually build up the sense of being in two places at once, but I repeat, go slowly.
The use of a Body of Light when fully operational is that it can be sent over long distances as a look-a-like courier
to those who see it. It is a technique widely used in Tibet by high level lamas and there are many records of these cowans being used by them as a communication device. It may sound fanciful but it can be done. However few western magicians have been able to master the technique fully. Which is no reason for you not to try it out at least. A word of caution. With the constant implanting of consciousness, even the tiny amount used here, the cowan will eventually gain a half conscious mind of its own. You will in fact have partially ensouled it. At this point it will almost certainly make a bid for freedom. Something you cannot allow for it has no protection against the darker forces who will take it over and use it against you and even against those with whom you are involved. They will think it is you and trust the appearance. Therefore the moment it feels as if the cowan is getting above itself, give it a good psychic shake, and in no uncertain terms remind it who is boss. Withdraw all contact and do not attempt to build it up for at least a lunar month. This will metaphorically bring it to heel. Do not start feeling sorry for it and allowing it to do as it likes, you will be playing into the hands of forces darker than you can possibly know.

Using Mythology
By now you will be fairly well acquainted with mythology on one level or another. The school in which I was trained insisted upon a working knowledge of two, and if possible, three different pantheons and their mythos. It is a pity that more modern mystery schools do not follow suit for the myths contain much in the way of training and snippets of ritual that give us deeper insight into the mind of ancient man. It also gives training in the science of correspondences and symbolism. With a basic knowledge of mythology you will always have a 'map' with which you can orientate yourself on the astral levels.
When working in altered states of consciousness you are bound to come across the forms and symbols of the ancient world and they can be of value if assigned to their correct place in the Scheme. Frazer's monumental work The Golden Bough is the best source of material but it runs to several volumes in its original state. However there are several abridged versions which will give you all you need. Just a glance will show you how alike all religions really are. There is a basic truth that runs through all of them, it appears to be a central point of Absolute Truth from which all faiths emanate. To each race came the prophet, or saviour, or sacrificed god best suited to their needs at the time.
As you read you will begin to see echoes of the Mystery Religions in the world faiths of today. Thus the old myths are not fairy stories told when the world was young, but tiny fragments of truth that have been much distorted over aeons of time, but the particle that remains at the center, is as true as it always was. Many 'continuing' tales like the Labours of Hercules, the story of the Argonauts, the Voyages of Odysseus, and the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur, are always initiation cycles. They depict the many levels through which a priest or priestess had to go before emerging at the highest level of their calling. Wherever the suffix of 'eus' is found you can be sure the bearer of that name is in reality a man or woman undergoing tests of a prolonged and severe nature. This 'eus' is the name of the King of the Gods, Zeus, and it was to his wisdom and Divine qualities that the priests aspired.

Theseus and the Minotaur
One of the most intriguing myths to unravel is that of Theseus and the Minotaur. Briefly, the storyline is as follows: Theseus was one of the 'legendary' heroes, although he seems to have been based upon a real person of the same name. The 'eus' identifies him as one who seeks a higher form of consciousness. He had many adventures before the best known story of his battle with the Minotaur, but he eventually offered himself as part of the yearly sacrifice sent as tribute to King Minos. The victims were driven into a labyrinth and there devoured by the Minotaur, half bull and half man. Theseus, however, won the heart of the King's daughter Ariadne, and she gave him a ball of thread with which to find his way out of the labyrinth and a sword to kill the Minotaur.
Once the monster had been killed the two lovers escaped to the island of Naxos. Here Dionysus appeared to the young prince in a dream telling him to leave Ariadne and sail away. The God then took Ariadne to Olympus where he made her his wife. That is the bare bones of the story, but now look at it in detail.
Because of his name (ThesEUS) we know we are dealing with someone undergoing an initiation involving an altered state of consciousness. We can think of Minos as being the more earthly side of Theseus, and the Minotaur as his basest self. The wise men of the past used many ways to push home a point of teaching, including parables using the names of real people and past events, so although Theseus and Minos were real, in this story they are being used as symbols for a deeper and more complex teaching. The Minotaur who bears part of the name of Minos is the lower bestial part of man whose desires are uncontrolled to the point of the degradation of the sexual act (the Minotaur was said to be the child of Pasiphae, wife of Minos and the local Bull God).
The symbolism of the half man, half beast is as follows. If the body is that of a man, and the head, an animal, it means the baser part of man is taking precedence. If the other way round it shows the higher aspect of the reasoning mind lifting itself above the bestial. When it also has wings, as in the Winged Bull, then the mind has lifted itself towards the Gods.
So far in the story we have an initiate aspiring to a higher grade, in which the earthly desires are to be purified, not thrown away, but purified through all levels. Those levels include,the lower
— the Bull man, the ordinary man — Minos, the initiate — Theseus, and we also have the Higher Anima Self — Ariadne. It is this Anima who with the Feminine Wisdom supplies the initiate with a ball of thread — the conscious link between all the levels, and a sword — the trained will. Armed with these the initiate enters the labyrinth — the ritual experience of higher initiation, and faces his deepest and darkest self. This part of himself he 'kills' — transmutes through his sword of will, and now, completely whole, he finds his way out of the darkness and into the light. But the initiation is not yet over. First he must give up part of this new found wholeness, Ariadne must be offered up to Dionysus — the Divine Spark. This final act of sacrifice of self (Dionysus was himself one of the sacrificed God-forms) brings about the ultimate initiation, the complete at-one-ness with the Godhead. Who said mythology was dull?

Using Art and Poetry
Not all myths are remnants of rituals, some are merely tales that have been embellished over the years but which still have a bright grain of truth at their core. Search it out and study it, you will always learn something useful.
Myth is not the only way to search the past for clues to past occult training. Art and poetry can also be of use to you. Painters have long used occult symbolism in their work to speak across the centuries to those who know how to interpret the signs. Many of the Old Masters were men of great learning, some of it occult in the extreme, and left many clues in their work showing where their sympathies lay. The same goes for the builders of the great churches of Europe, stories in stone in their own right. I recommend to you the book by Fred Gittings, The Hidden Art.
Poets also have, by tradition, always had entree to the world of the spirit. If you read Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, you can trace the Major Arcana right the way through. It is in fact as much a story of initiation as that of Theseus. Walt Whitman, Longfellow, Thoreau, Byron, Tennyson, Shelley, Keats, Yeats and A.E., all can open the doors of your inner world with the silver key of the written word. All you have to do is turn it.
All this may lead you to think of the occult as something wonderful, exciting and mysterious, it is all of those things, but not always in the way you might think. The cost is high in time, concentration, study, and above all in the dedication of self. In the past some of the famous magicians have been depicted as recluses, living in small dark rooms, hardly stopping to eat, or overbearing and egotistical. All are true, but you are aiming for the middle way. The greatest danger you will have to face is that of being 'fairy addled', falling into the trap of occult glamour. The Path of High Magic is not glamourous, it is long and hard and few make it all the way. It is said that magicians are born, not made ...partly true, the greatest are indeed born, but you can be shaped into a competent magician. But only if you can avoid the many temptations that will come your way, including that of discussing what you are doing with all and sundry. Remember your book mark, the first exercise you did in this book? Take it out and look at it, read the words, think about them, Are you still heeding them? While you have it in mind... make a new one!

Temples Need to Rest
You are now two thirds of the way through your year. Time to give the temple a rest. Clean it thoroughly, wash the curtains, then lock the door and leave it for two weeks. It has worked hard, a lot harder than you have in fact. It may be inanimate but it has taken a lot of battering while you practised your art. Make it a rule to give yourself and your temple a month off every year. Break it into two lots of two weeks if you like, but do it. You and the temple will be much better for it.

The Qabalistic Ritual of Autumn
Time now to look at the rituals for Autumn. A time of harvest, of reaping what you have sown throughout the year. It is also a time of storing up against the cleansing Tide of Winter, when everything that is no longer of use is swept away. The first rite is mainly Qabalistic, and is for one person.
Put four small tables in the Quarters, and the candlesticks between then as shown in Figure 35. In the East put a loaf of home-baked bread, in the South some apples, in the West some wine, and in the North a bundle of wheat, corn, or barley. On the main altar put some small cakes, and the Chalice, plus the incense burner. During the days before the ritual meditate on your year and on your work. What have you achieved, and what still needs to be done? What is your aim for the rest of the year? Write it down, then read it over and condense it as far as possible onto a piece of paper, fold this up into as small a piece as you can and put it on the altar. Have a bath, wash your hair, and cut a piece of your hair and put it with the paper.
Robe up as usual and enter the temple. Light the altar light, and from this, light the other candles working from the East and going round clockwise. Now, standing facing the East, make the Qabalistic Cross.
Ateh,  Malkuth,  Ve  Geburah,  Ve Gedulah, Le Olahm, Amen. (Make the sign of the pentagram and open in the name of....)
Adonai
(Do this all the way around the Quarters. Face the altar.
In the East, Raphael. In the South, Michael. In the West, Gabriel. In the North, Uriel. Welcome to this place in the name of Melchisedek, the High Priest of the Godhead. (Move to the East, lift up the bread.)
Raphael, Lord of the Winds of Heaven, bless this bounty born oŁ Sun and Air and Earth. Let it feed the hungry and bless the hand that gives it. (Break the bread in two. Go to the South and offer up the apples.)

Figure 35  The Temple Layout for the Qabalistic Rite of Autumn

Michael, protector of the weak and the oppressed, bless this sun-ripened fruit and let it be not the fruit of temptation but the fruit of knowledge of good and evil that we may know the difference and avoid temptation.
(Replace the apples and go to the West, lift up the wine.)
Gabriel bringer of the word of God, bless this wine to our bodies that we may take into ourselves the wine of life shed by every saviour since the world began. (Take a sip and put the wine down. Go to the North and offer up the wheat.)
Uriel, Lord of the Earth and all its bounty, bless this crop that it may be plentiful all over the Earth, that this may be a year when all mankind will know the comfort of a full belly.
(Lay it down and go to the altar.) (Light the charcoal and put on the incense. While this is burning bring a small piece of bread from the East and the wine cup from the West. Pour the wine into the main Chalice and dip the bread into it.)
Melchisedek, priest of the most high God, in the desert after the battle with the kings of Edom thou didst bring bread and wine to Abraham. In this communion shared between man and the priest of the most high God, a covenant was made. I beseech thee in thy wisdom and care for mankind, let this coming harvest make bread for the world. In token of the ancient custom I take this bread and wine into my body. (Eats.)
Now in this sacred place, guide and teach me, show me how to use my knowledge for the power of good. Help me to grow in wisdom. Bless me, bless those who share my life, bless those who work with me, and bless those unseen beings who stand with me in this place. Bless the Guardian of this temple and the elementals who work with me, bless the house and the earth on which it is built, let it be a doorway to love. (Take up the Chalice, go to the East, dip a piece of bread in the wine and place it on the table, do the same all round the temple. Move back to the altar and pick up the hair.)
This is a symbol of what I have become in this year and what I hope to achieve in the next. This is my offering of self.
(Cast it into the burner and move to the East.)
Blessed be Raphael who has been my friend and my companion. (Move to the South.)
Blessed be Michael who has been my protector and my shield.
(Move to the West.)
Blessed be Gabriel who has been my advisor and my teacher. (Move to the North.)
Blessed be Uriel who has been my provider and my strength.
Blessed be all creatures who share this earth with me.
Blessed be the growing things and the rocks beneath my feet.
(Now close the temple in the reverse order, verbally declare the temple
closed, put out the lights, all except the altar light, leave that for an hour or so. In the morning put out the corn, apples and bread for the birds, and pour the wine on to the garden. In this way the blessing is offered to all life.)

The Celtic Ritual of Autumn
This Celtic ritual is for four people: The Elder,  he carries an incense burner already lit.
The Hunter, he carries a silver arrow.
The Maiden, she carries a small cauldron filled with small cakes. 
The Wise Woman, she carries a silver sickle.
The arrow can be made from wood and painted, a cauldron can sometimes be found made of brass, designed to carry pot plants. The sickle can be made of card and covered with foil.
(Enter one by one, each taking their seat before the next enters. The Elder to the East, the Hunter to the South. The Maiden to the West, and the Wise Woman to the North. The altar is set with salt, water, a cup of wine and a small sheaf of corn. Each one places their symbol on the table by them, then the Elder rises and lights the candles placed by each Quarter, using a taper, the flame being taken from the altar light. When this is done he returns to the East. All sit quietly meditating on the Harvest Sheaf on the altar. After a few minutes the Elder speaks.)
Elder:
The time of gathering is here, the corn stands high and we must give thanks to Ceridwen the Earth Mother for her care of us. How may we do this?
Hunter:
I will hunt a white deer for her and place it on her altar.
Maiden:
I will gather honey and grind barley and make cakes for her.
Elder:
I will gather the sacred mistletoe and fragrant herbs to burn for her delight. What else can we offer to Ceridwen the Earth Mother?
Hunter:
I will hunt the wild boar for her and decorate her altar with its horns.
Maiden:
I will cut my hair and wind it about her sacred tree.
Elder:
I will make a sweet song for her and play it on the harp. How else may we honor Ceridwen the Earth Mother?
Hunter:
I can offer myself on her altar.
Maiden:
I can offer my virginity to her service.
Elder:
I can offer my bard's crown to another and go down to Anwwn for her.
Wise Woman:
(Comes to altar.)
I am she on whom you call, I am she to whom you offer all these things. But you do not offer that which I most desire. (Goes to the East.)
The Burning of sweet incense is a delight but better by far to see the sweet herbs growing or healing the sick. A bard's crown is a great thing to offer, but who will sing as sweetly tf you take the road to dark Anwwn. Better by far that you lift your voice to delight young lovers and stir the hunter's heart. (Goes to the South.)
The white deer is the shape in which I roam the forest, would you slay me and offer me to myself? Better to keep the arrow for the old and sick that suffering may be short and death merciful. The wild boar is the form in which my homed lord takes his run, would you leave me grieving and with only his horn for memory. Better to wear the horns yourself and learn their power. Your life is sweet, I do not desire that it cease, rather to increase. (Goes to the West.)
Sweet maid eat the feast cakes yourself, for my fare in Tir Nan Og is better still. Keep your hair to bind the heart of a man, and give to him your secret self. All that I ask is that you love my children and my growing things. All that I need are your hearts, all that is needful to offer is your joy in my presence. (Returns to the North.)
Elder:
Sweet lady wise and good, we are but mortals  who forget how dear these things are to your heart. We did but seek to show you of our respect. (He takes the incense and circles the temple from East to North, places the burner on her table and returns to his place. The Hunter brings the arrow from the South to the North, places it at the Wise Woman's feet and returns to the South via the East. The Maiden brings the cauldron and places it before the feet of the Wise Woman and returns via the East and South to the West. The Wise Woman accepts each gift with an inclination of the head.)
Wise Woman:
Blessed be those who give these gifts, and blessed be this sacred place. (Touches each gift with the sickle.) Let the smoke arising take the prayers and the feelings upwards to the Cosmic One. Let the arrow's flight be one that lifts the mind to inspiration. Let the cauldron give food for body and mind. This is the blessing of Ceridwen.
Elder:
(Goes to the altar and collects the wine. The Maiden fetches the cakes from the cauldron and puts them on the altar.) Food offered here.
(All come to the altar and the Wise Woman offers the wine around, and then the cakes. The Wise Woman remains at the altar while the others retrieve their symbols from the North and return to their places. The Wise Woman circles the temple blessing each Quarter in her own words, coming back to her own seat.)
Elder:
We have made our offering and it has been accepted with love. A blessing has been laid upon this place and those who are here. Now let us meditate upon the bounty of this Earth and offer ourselves as her protectors. (All meditate for a few minutes.)
Wise Woman:
Let the blessing of Ceridwen be upon the Earth.
All:
We receive the blessing with joy.
Elder:
Let us now depart taking with us the harvest that has been granted to us.
Hunter:
My arrows will be used with discretion and mercy.
Maiden:
My cauldron will be offered to the hungry.
Elder:
My learning will be taught to those who seek.
Wise Woman:
I am well pleased with my children.
(All lights but the altar light are doused and all depart leaving only the Wise Woman who stays for a while letting her altar persona of Ceridwen depart slowly.)

Reading List
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor,JThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Chatto, 1978)
Frazer,  Sir J.G., The Golden Bough (Macmillan, 1936)
Richardson Alan, Dancers to the Gods (Aquarian Press, 1985)

The Ninth Month
Mantra, Mudra and Movement

Date started			Date ended

Racial Archetypes and the Faerie Folk
Until now you have worked in the ritual sense with both God-forms and Archangelic forces, but there are other forces and forms that the trained magician can call upon in the temple. The Faerie Folk are to be found throughout the world and can be both good, bad, and neutral in their interaction with humankind. But first we will look at the great forms that appear within the Racial Group Souls and see how they may be used within the sacred circle.
We can think of an archetype as being the original model of an ideal. So if we meditate on them and study their symbols and the ideals they represent we can get appreciably nearer to the source of their power. You will find such symbols in every country, some are human in form, others are animal or inanimate shapes, some are simply abstract ideals, but all are containers of power for their particular race and are used for propaganda in times of war or whenever national pride needs to be stirred up. It has become fashionable of late to decry national pride, but without it a nation has no shield on the Inner Levels and can suffer defeat on those levels if an attack was made. Some of these symbols for the races within England, Scotland and Wales are listed below.

Britain: Lion, John Bull, Tommy Atkins, St George, the Rose, Beefeater, Guardsman, Three Lions Rampant, Prince of Wales Feathers, Bulldog, Ex-calibur, Tower of London, Houses of Parliament.
Scotland: Unicorn, Claymore, the Pipes, the Tartan Plaid, Lion, the Standards of the Scottish Clans, the Bonnet, Heather.
Wales: Dragon, Welsh Harp, Welsh Hat, Cader Idris, Snowdon, Song, Male Choir, Coal.

As an exercise you can search out and list the many symbols that pertain to other countries. Such symbols can be usefully placed in the Quarters of the temple as guardians or as sources of certain types of National Power. They can also be linked with certain days such as St George's Day, Armistice Day, Trooping the color, St Andrew's and St David's Days, Burns' Night, etc. Such times are useful because you can use the 'form' already built up by national feelings for your magical work, with little effort on your part.
A little study and meditation will help you to put them in the right station and in certain types of ritual they can be of more use to you than the usual God-forms. Remember, a good magician will use anything and everything to hand to strengthen, improve and widen his magical ability. He believes that every single thing in the Universe is part of everything else and that it all exists within the ONE. That being so, he is as much a part of such a symbol, idea, God-form, archetype or Archangel as he is of his race, the animal and plant kingdoms or the general life energy of his planet. This includes the other forms of being more nebulous than our own, for instance the Faerie kingdoms.
For the most part the people of Faerie have little to do with mortals, but sometimes their paths do cross. This mostly happens if you are peculiarly sensitive to their vibrations. In Scotland this ability is stronger than it is in England and The Sight' is often passed down in a family through the bloodline. It can be both a blessing and a curse. It is common to hear people wish that they had second sight, but the reality is not always either convenient or pleasant. As one so 'gifted', though not as deeply as some, I can say in all truthfulness that there are things I would rather not be able to see especially among the less friendly of the Faerie Folk, (A word of advice, if you have been born with the Sight, do not spread it around, people can more or less live with the idea that you can see 'ghosts etc.' but tell them you can see fairies and you are in a lot of trouble.)
You are most likely to see, or perhaps to invite the Faerie to join your rituals if you are working out of doors. It is rare indeed that they can be persuaded to work inside a house, though there is a type of being that actually delights in living with humankind. Also do not confuse the Fairies of the Wild Places with the Faerie, or Elfin kind, such as Aengus Og and Midir the great Kings of Tir nan Og. If you can believe in parallel worlds then you can believe in Tir nan Og. For the most part leave the Faerie to their own devices, they can be difficult to deal with and have a nasty habit of forgetting their promises!
Having said that, they and their world are still part of that all encompassing Universal Oneness of which I have already written. The magician believes implicitly that he is an important part of this Oneness, can touch it, be one with it, can communicate and influence it, and be influenced by it, which is where astrology comes in.

Natal Astrology in the Temple
So many books on astrology have been written that it suffices to say here that a competent magician should at least know the rudiments of erecting a chart and the basics of interpretation. At the same time you should never allow the 'stars' to rule your life. They indicate trends or the possible outcome of a certain situation, but are not irreversible events. Have your chart drawn up by a competent astrologer, if you can afford it have it progressed for a three year period as this will give you a broad base on which to make plans. I have given a few names in the summary. This does not rrlean I think they are the only good astrologers around, merely that I have personal experience of their work and regard it as excellent.
Ask for the declination of the planets in your chart, this will tell you which are above or below the horizon. This information can be used for a type of meditation or ritual different from any you have done so far.
Know Thyself, this is the maxim by which all occultists, be they magicians or mystics, strive to live. It is the aim of the great Qabalistic Ritual whose intention is 'The Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel', it has other names in other traditions, but this is the best known. That ritual requires a lot more experience and training than you will accrue in one year, but you can make a start on that same intention by use certain type of meditation.  It require  all  your skill in  creative imagination, and every ounce of concentration you possess.
We will take it in stages. Prepare yourself with the usual breathing relaxation  exercises, and then begin to visualize. Imagine that you stand in deep space, at first you can see only a few faint stars, then gradually there comes into being around you a shining ring, and then another outside it. When this double ring is quite it should surround you at about height, but it will seem to be at some distance from you, giving the impression of great size. When all this is clear you will begin to see lines of force emanating from your body (see Figure 36a).

(Fig 36a)

These lines of force flow out towards the double circle dividing it into twelve sections. For the moment this is as far as you should go in the meditation. Stand for a while in contemplation of the sectioned ring, then return to full awareness. Practice this combined meditation and pathworking until you have received your natal chart, or, if you already know how your chart looks and the position of the planets, you may go ahead to the next stage.
Build up the scene as before, allow the ring to come into being first as a single circle, then the outer ring forming around it. Now build the divisions, count them as they appear with each line of force as it emanates from your body. There is no 'direction' in space, but the way you are facing we will call the horizon. Recall to mind the sign of the zodiac that is in your first house, if you do not know your true birth time, then place your sun sign in that house.

(Fig 36b)
Now turn slowly, facing each section in turn and visualizing the appropriate sign in that house according to your chart. Take your time and build it as clearly as you possibly can, you may have an intercepted sign in your chart, if so, just place it exactly as it is placed in your chart. If your creative eye is good enough you can attempt to align the lines of force to the exact degree of the houses -but do not worry if you cannot manage it, just allow the 'chart' to form, giving 30 degrees to each section. Hold this picture steady and meditate on it. This was how the zodiac looked when you were born. Look at each house, turning as you do so, think about what you know of each sign, and each house. That is enough for now, return to full awareness and write down what you have realized about your zodiac.
Now for a few days make a study of your natal plan and of the meaning of the houses and signs, when you have done that commit to memory the placing of each planet as it is placed in your chart. When you can remember it all, do the meditation again, starting as always with the build up of the rings and the lines of force, and progressing to the full zodiac. This time face the sign and the house in which your natal Sun has its place, think about the influence this has upon you, now look for the planet Mercury and see how close or how far it is from the Sun. Now look for Venus and Mars where you know they should be according to your chart. Each time think about what influence they will have upon you, working from that area. Gradually move around until you have placed each planet in its correct house and sign (see Figure 36b). That is enough, return now to full awareness and write down what you have learned.
Leaving a day in between each meditation, do this for the rest of the month. Each time try to learn a little more about how each planet acts and reacts upon you from its natal house and sign. In the days between study your chart and a good book on astrology in order to gain more insight. Halfway through the month, look at the declinations of the planets, and next time, visualize them not all on a level with each other, but as they really are, some low on the horizon, others high up (see Figure 36c). Now you will start to feel their influence in earnest, now you will begin to 'Know Yourself.

(Fig 36c)

When you are really good at this, you can build another zodiac above the first one which will 'progress' the planets so that you can observe how they are now, compared to how they were when you were born. This is an ongoing meditation that can be used to observe astrally the state of your chart at any given time. It can be taken further and performed as a ritual in the temple with the aid of a few homemade props, as follows.

(Fig 37, 38, 39)

Take a piece of black cartridge paper and draw on it the outline of the sun with rays emerging from it, now do the same on another piece of card but with the shape of a crescent moon. Cut out the shapes very carefully with a sharp blade. Do not use scissors or you will spoil the outline, see Figure 37.
Now make stencils of the other planetary sigils, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. They should be no more than 6 inches (15cm) high. Now bend back the sides of the card so the stencils can stand up, see Figure 38. With more card, white this time, make 12 squares approximately 12x12 inches, (30 x 30cm) and mark them in black marking pen with the signs of the zodiac, see Figure 39. With your natal chart to help you, arrange your temple as follows. Move your altar into the East, you will not need it for this working, now place the signs around the temple in a circle as laid out in your birth chart starting with the sign on your ascendent in the East, (not your sun sign, unless you have no exact birth time in which case you will have to use your sun sign.) The South should hold your midheaven sign, the West your descending sign, and the North your nadir. The other signs go in between as placed in your chart.
Equip yourself with nine candles in steady holders, you do not want them tipping over. Place them just behind the sign which your chart indicates was the correct position at your birth, and place the appropriate planet card in front of them so that the light shines through and you can see both planet and sign comfortably, see Figure 40.
Seat yourself on a cushion in the middle of this circle, facing your sun sign and meditate on the influences the sun, sign, and house will have upon your life. Then turn to your second house, and even if there are no planets there, the sign and the house will still influence you to some degree, for remember, every person receives the impact of every sign, not just those which hold a planet. Continue to turn

Figure 40  Temple Layout for the Natal Astrology Ritual

Dancing to Raise Power
and to meditate on each sign until you have made the complete journey. Do this several times during the month and at the end write up the sum total of your meditational findings. Later on you can increase the value of this exercise by using extra stencils and candles to indicate progressed planets, and how this affects the basic chart.
Dancing to raise power in a sacred place has been the custom for thousands of years. The figure of the dancing shaman dressed in a deer skin was drawn on the cave walls of Les Trois Freres in the Ariege district of the Dordogne in the dawn of man's history. The power of that dancing figure still draws people from all over the world, in the old days it was drawn to bring animals within the reach of a tribe's spears. Untold centuries later it still draws animals, human animals to be sure, but still animal in a sense, and that after all the intervening time is a potent example of shamanistic magic.
The power given out by a body moving with ritual intent is immense. The people of the Craft still use dance and movement as a means of raising power, and do it very successfully. But the main obstacle is in being able to lose your self-consciousness about gyrating round the temple. It can take a long time for even the most dedicated would-be magician to shed enough inhibitions (along with clothes in certain circumstances) and tread the ancient measures of ritual dance. But if you want or need to raise a considerable amount of power quickly and safely, then dancing is the way to do it.
The Greeks, Egyptians, and the Hebrews all used dance as a form of worship. It is said in the Bible that David danced before the Ark of the Lord... so you will be in distinguished company. Early man was a being of action, therefore he worshipped his Gods with equal activity, i.e. dance. This has been so all over the world and in every tradition at one time or another. Up until the late middle ages, on certain Feast Days the local priest would lead his parishoners in a dance round the church and out into the village, then back again. It is a fact that dancing under ritual conditions has a strange effect not only upon those dancing, but also upon those watching.
It could be said that the experience is purely emotional, but as Colonel Seymour says in his essay 'Ritual and Religious Experience', 'the fact that an experience is emotional does not make it any the less real'. He goes on to say that in the early days of Christianity, Bishops led their flocks in sacred dances before the altars. This practice was forbidden by the Council of AD 692, but it did not stamp it out. Certainly as late as the 1930s dancing before the High Altar was permitted in the cathedral in Seville on Corpus Christi Day, and at the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and again at Shrovetide. One cannot but think that the present day church would be better off for a little dancing before the altar!
If you obtain a copy of the Apochry-pha and turn to the Acts of John you will find there a complete ritual that is danced and which may be used in your temple with excellent results. It was originally intended for an initiation, but equally it can be used simply as a ritual of worship.
What is it that makes dancing so magical? There are many reasons, but the primary one is that, like wine, dancing intoxicates the spirit and the constant twirling and leaping causes a dizzying sensation that lets loose the imprisoned psyche. The rhythm of the dance has a lot to do with it, it becomes almost hypnotic and affects both dancers and onlookers drawing them in until all are one in the ecstacy of the dance. This phenomenon is well understood by the Dancing or Whirling Dervishes of North Africa. They dance themselves into a state of trance and believe that the Divine then speaks through them.
The American Indian still dances many of his rituals, and in Eastern Europe it is not uncommon to see a peasant farmer leaping high among his growing corn in the belief that the plants will grow as high as he can leap. The old ways do not die, they simply lie dormant until someone discovers them again. The old Greek word for a ritual was 'Dromenon' meaning 'a thing done'. They understood that in order to get something done i.e. the intention of a rite, you also had to do something. Hence dance. But can you utilize this in a modern temple? Yes you can, but you have to learn to let go and allow your inner self to surface before you can use it to full advantage.
You have already used movement in the temple to raise power, dancing is the next logical step. Take your recorder into the temple and put on a cassette of disco music, no need to worry about the effect on a consecrated temple... disco music is fairly equivalent to the frenzied drumming and piping and cymbal clashing of the ancient Greeks during a Dionysian ritual. Do not have it too loud, you want to be able to hear it, but not to deafen your temple guardian!
Now dance... simply dance, as you please, as you feel, and as you will. Even if you are into your middle years, let yourself go, remember you never lose your younger years, they still exist under the later ones, so let them out. You don't have to be athletic, just as graceful as you can. Dance before your Gods, and let your body worship as well as your mind and heart. If you like keep your Gods in mind, or the One if you are monotheistic, think of them and let your dance be your hymn of praise. Dance until you are nicely tired, but not exhausted, then stop and have something to eat and drink, and probably a shower.
For the time being do this once or twice a week, just get used to the idea of dancing in your sacred enclosure, so that you feel relaxed in doing so. Then change your music to something light and classical so that your mood and your steps must change, then dance with an intention in mind so that you are actually dancing a ritual. First use it
simply as a form of praise and worship, then try it as a form of request, just dancing out what you desire. Go on from there and work out your own basic steps to use with different types of ritual. A frenzied stamping and leaping to build power for courage and enterprise, a softer lilting step for more gentle pursuits. You can use the stately measures of formal Egyptian gesture and movement for knowledge rituals, and leaping steps for the growing Tides of spring and summer.
If you get the chance on either stage or television to watch dance in any form, do so, it will give you more ideas to use. If your child goes to dancing class, do not be afraid to ask the teacher to show you a few basic steps of Greek dancing. You will be pleasantly surprised to find how easy it can be. When this has become second nature to you, you can take the next step. Take off your clothes and dance naked. The human body is not a thing of which to be ashamed, it is the most beautiful piece of engineering known to man. It may not look too much like John Travolta's body, or have the sleek lines of Bo Derek, but it is still beautiful at any age and in any condition. So take 'em off and dance. You can cover your magical mirror if you feel that bad about it. But dammit, strip and dance and let yourself feel the music coming through from your toes to your fingertips. Let the God/Goddess come through you and be one with you. Until you have tried it, you will never know how good it can feel when you have left all those stupid ideas behind you and danced before your Gods in the full knowledge of your own Godhood.
When you can do this without feeling embarrassed or ashamed you will be capable of raising a Cone of Power by dance. Every time you open a temple by invoking certain God-forms or Archangels into the Quarters you are in fact raising a Cone of Power. But if you can open your temple for say, a Greek ritual by using a dance pattern in each quarter and around the temple itself then you will have a doubly powerful Cone of Power with which to work. Raising power out of doors in this way is much safer and more positive than invoking in the Quarters. Incidentally you don't have to dance outside in the altogether, at least you can if you want to do so, if the place is secluded enough and if the weather permits, the latter condition in the British Isles is the most unlikely.
If you are in a group then try a round dance holding hands and going first one way and then the other, or men facing in and women facing out, or try a maze dance in which the leader dances into a tight circle and then out again, all are acceptable ways of raising power. See my book First Steps in Ritual for a full outdoor ritual involving a group.
From this you can devise your own ritual movements when you make up your own rites. Never be afraid to try out something new, if no one ever tried we would never have grown this far. By dancing you are imitating the Great Dance of the Zodiac, of Creation, and of Evolution.

Mantra and Mudra
Working along the same lines we come to the use of mantra and mudra, both have a strong link with the dance. Mantra is a mandala of sound, a group of syllables or words that is chanted over and over again and, which in the end produce the same kind of effect as dancing, spinning round and round, or, in the case of a Dionysian ritual as a glass or two of strong home brewed wine. That is to say it separates the etheric from the physical and heightens the finer sense. The best known mantra is possibly Aum Mani Padme Aum, followed by, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, although we do have mantras in the West used mostly in the Catholic Church.
Mantra has a basic part to play in magic since it is part of the concept of the Creative Word that caused all things to be. The Word, and the God or Goddess who spoke it are for all magical purposes the same thing. It can be regarded as that part of the Primal Creator or Creatrix in which we, and all life everywhere, have our being. Therefore the repeating of a mantra induces within us a sound link with the beginning of the Universe.
In freeing the mind from the physical, the mantra can be made part of the preparation for a ritual, especially if the words link up with either the tradition or the ritual itself. It is not only a group of words that constitute a mantra, a single word, or the name of a God-form can be repeated until a form of trance is achieved. Your own first name can be used. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the Victorian poet, used to do this and found it a very effective way of achieving an altered state of consciousness.
All this links in with what you have already learnt about sound and its use in the temple, and about the finding and using of a body note. You should also learn something about the Pythagorean system of numbers and how they relate to sound and particularly to music. You have been told about the importance of voice, and again this links in with the use of mantra, so do the daily breathing exercises that you have been doing regularly.....you have been doing them regularly haven't you?
There is another aspect to the power of mantra that may have escaped your notice but which affects every part of your life. Political slogans rely as much upon the power of the mantra as do the chants of a Tibetan lama. The advertizing slogan that you can't get out of your head is another aspect. Back in the sixties a toothpaste advert with a totally asinine jingle swept across our television screens, but twenty years later most people will remember it as, 'You'll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent'. Such is the power of a catchy repetitive phrase, such is the power of mantra.

Mudra
Mudra is the use of gesture, hands and mime, the use of the hands in Hindu dances that describe so graphically the lives and loves of their Gods. The speaking hands of the Hula dancers of Hawaii use mudra. The Praying Hands so beautifully portrayed by Durer are another example. The ritualized gestures used in High Mass have come down to us from the early Christian ceremonies, and in the paintings of the old Masters great emphasis is placed on the hands and the gestures made by them or the objects held by them.
Many pictures of saints show them with a finger placed against their lips and one foot slightly advanced. This is a mudra stance and gesture intimating that the person so depicted was of a certain degree of advancement. The finger on the lips was a sign widely used in ancient Egypt. Another well known mudra is the pose of the Dancing Shiva, and that of Mercury, poised lightly on one foot as if ready for flight.
The moment you lift your magical wand or sword you are using mudra, this means you are moving with intent, using gesture to say something forcefully. Returning to the Catholic High Mass, if you watch carefully you will be able to distinguish a whole series of beautiful, graceful, and extremely powerful mudras. Get a book on mime from your local library and study it, try out the gestures as exercises. See if you can make up some mime exercises for yourself. Practice using your magical weapons without actually holding them. Then sit down and try forming your hands and fingers into symbols and meditate briefly on each one. A book on Ninja philosophy will give you a whole series of mudra with which to work, so will a book of photographs from great ballets. You must never forget that observation is a magical tool as important to you as your chalice or sword.
There are also mudra for psychic defence, such as the folding of the thumb over the two middle fingers, with the forefinger and the little finger extended like horns. Insulting mudra like the finger placed to the nose, the accusing pointed finger, and the enticing beckoning finger are all mudras that we use every day. So observe the way that people use their hands and bodies, they say a great deal, if you are interested in learning more read the book Manwatching by Desmond Morris. It will give you a lot to think about, though it may make you keep your hands in your pockets for a while!

Divination in the Temple
Now we come to the use of divination and talismanic magic in the temple. I am not going into the ordinary use of the crystal, I Ching, the tarot or geomancy in the usual sense. I want to look at them as temple implements and their use within the sacred enclosure.
Every magician should be fairly expert in at least one form of divination and preferably two. It is up to you which you choose. The crystal is one that most people try at one time or another, but not every one can use them. I cannot use a crystal at all, but I can use a bowl of water, a pool of ink, or even the palm of my hand with a light shining on it. So if the crystal chooses not to work with you do not be discouraged, try some variations on the theme and you may be lucky. The symbolism of the tarot cards is fairly easy and quick to learn, but the deeper levels take time and effort. W.E. Butler's book, How to Develop Clairvoyance, is good for beginners in crystal scrying, and a companion book to this one, The Tarot Workbook by Emily Peach, is the best to use for either beginners or old hands when it comes to the tarot. As an added bonus the latter book goes into the Qabalah as well.
The I Ching is an ancient and valuable form of divination as is geomancy, but both are very hard to master fully. You might try the runes. Tony Willis', The Runic Workbook, is an excellent introduction to them and their history. Whatever you choose remember that they are as much a tool for temple use as any other. By all means use them in everyday life, but learn to develop their power within the lodge as well.
Because they are the best known we will just take the crystal and the tarot as our examples, if you are using other methods, try adapting them to the suggestions that follow.

Crystal Scrying
You already have the black furnishings that you made for the magic mirror work, these can be used in temple scrying with the crystal. Set up your temple as follows. Hang your mirror on the Eastern wall, and cover the Western wall with the black cover in such a way that when looking into the mirror you can see only the blackness behind you. Set a small table in front of the mirror with a black cloth over it, and on this place your crystal with a small candle between it and the mirror. Put on your black headdress and take your seat facing the crystal and the mirror.
Now relax and start your breathing exercises, keep them going until you feel ready to start. Look deeply into the crystal and make a contact with it. Now look into the mirror and assume the God-form of Thoth if a male, or Isis if female. Draw the form down on yourself with all the power you possess and feel it settle into your seat. Make an invocation to the God or Goddess that you may 'see' clearly and with truth. Now you can proceed in one of two ways, you may ask your question of the crystal and look into the mirror for the answer, using your own face as a scrying mirror, or you can reverse this and ask the question of the reflection and seek the answer in the crystal. I prefer the latter myself for this means you are asking the question of the assumed God-form and seeking the answer from within your own psyche in the reflective surface of the crystal.
Wait quietly and patiently for the image to form, it may not appear objectively in the crystal, it may appear in your own inner eye, or it may appear in highly symbolic form. Have a small pad and pencil near and quickly jot down the essence of what you have 'seen'. If you have the courage, and it takes a great deal of courage, you can dispense with the crystal and ask the God-form to show you the answer to your question reflected in the mirror before you. There are some provisos for this variation on the crystal theme, 
1. You must never look behind you, and 
2. Once you start the process you must finish it no matter what. 

This is not something to attempt out of sheer bravado. You may be lucky and get away with a pounding heart and a splitting headache. If you have even a modicum of the materializing medium in you, you could possibly get an actual appearance, not something to look forward to I assure you.
If you wish to get the best out of your crystal leave it uncovered in the temple whenever possible, it will absorb the influence of the temple oversoul and be refined in the process. You can also invoke a favourite God-form in the appropriate quarter, ask the question and leave the uncovered crystal on the table or chair in that Quarter. In the morning or the next evening, sit and look quietly into the crystal for your answer. You can if you so wish dedicate your crystal to such a God form and ask that an atom of their 'essence' be spared to fill the crystal so that you may link in with that God or Goddess and scry under their protection so to speak. In the same way you might like to place your magic mirror under the protection of Hathor whose symbol it is, or Aphrodite if you prefer the Greek pantheon.

Tarot
Using the tarot in the temple is a little different and can be approached in two ways, that of using the Major Arcana simply as a ladder to lift your consciousness to a higher level, or as a divinatory aid. In either case the Major Arcana is all you will need. To use the trumps as a means of achieving an altered state you will need to set out the cards on the floor in a circle round the temple. You will also need a tape recorder and a copy of the tape 'The Journey of the Fool' which is available from Sulis Music Tapes, BCM Box 3721, London WC1N 3XX. The tape is a spoken journey through the Arcana, recorded by bone fide occultists as it was performed at the SOL Conference in 1983. As each trump speaks move to stand in front of it and listen intently, the temple should be lit only by the altar light, and a proper opening should have been performed prior to the start of the tape. Preface the journey by a brief meditation in which you assume the role of the Fool about to start on the great journey into manifestation. The combination of the temple atmosphere, the solitary light and the sense of 'taking a journey' will react upon you quite considerably. You can also lay the cards out in the pattern of the Tree of Life and walk the paths of the Tree as each trump speaks, drawing its influence up into the Chakras of the Middle Pillar of your Body.

(Fig 41)

For divination by tarot under the temple influence, arrange your temple as shown in Figure 41 using an extra small table between the altar and the West to act as the station of Yesod. Sit in the East and meditate on your question with the cards held between your hands. Now shuffle them thoroughly. Stand and lay the first card face down on the chair, say:
This it the beginning of my journey to the truth.
(Move to the station of Chockmah and place another card, "face down,
say:)"
This is the line of thought that leads me on.
(Move to the station of Binah and East place the card face down and say:)
This card shows the root of my problem.
(Move to the station of Chesed, lay the card down, say:)
This card shows the plan I must follow.
(Move to the station of Geburah, lay down the card, say:)
This card shows that which must be changed or eliminated.
(Move to the station of Tiphereth and place the card, say:)
Here is my stability, my strength in the matter.
(Move to the station of Netzach, put down the card say:)
Here is the way to understanding and success.
(Move to the station of Hod place the card, say:)
Here is the way to communicate my wishes.
(Move to the station of Yesod and place the card, say:)
This is the direction most likely to succeed.
(Move to the final station of Malkuth and lay the card down, say:)
This shows the probable outcome of the situation.
(Now move back to the first card and turn it over, interpret the meaning and move to the next card, turn it over and consider it along with what has gone before, in this way work through all the cards to the final outcome. It is a good idea to have a small notebook with you and to note down the cards and their position so that you can enter the spread in your diary and meditate on it later. You can of course vary this lay out with any other you may prefer to use.)

Talismanic Magic
There is a lot of confusion between talismans and amulets. There need not be, they are quite different in the work for which they are designed. A talisman as defined by Golden Dawn magician, MacGregor Mathers, is 'a magical object charged with the actual force it is meant to represent'. It is an active object filled with an equally active force designed to bring a certain set of magical laws into being around the person for whom it was made. It is like a sign post over one's head saying, 'Here, this is the one'. In modern terms it is similar to having a post code which directs mail to your house.
If made properly it will go on working for as long a period as was designated without needing anything more being done, self-perpetuating in fact. An amulet is more like a safety helmet, it is mostly protective and deflects bad influences from its wearer. Something worn continuously like a St Christopher as a shield against accident during travel, or a cross/crucifix
against evil of any kind, an ankh, a pentacle, or any kind of symbol hung around the neck is basically an amulet against something or other, even though the wearer denies it, it is there subconsciously. Often it is given as a gift and therefore carries the wishes and prayers of that person for your safety and continued well being.
A talisman is most often a series of sigils, names, and/or numbers or Hebrew letters contained within a circle. Traditionally they are drawn on virgin parchment or vellum in ink that has been ground and made by hand. However because of the Law of Intent, which is paramount in magic, they can be drawn on ordinary paper with felt pens and will be just as effective. If you want to use real parchment I should warn you that it is expensive, so practice drawing your talisman on ordinary paper first, then when you have it off pat, make a final drawing on a piece of parchement about 4x4 inches (10 x 10cm) for a large talisman or 2x2 inches (5x5cm) for one that you want to carry around with you.
The first rule in making a talisman is to sit down and decide what you want it to do. This is actually the hardest part, you will find six or seven ideas coming into your head and all of them as important or so you think, as each other. By sifting them all through you will eventually come up with one that will either encompass most of the others, or which will seem to be the most important. The next task is deciding under which set of influences this project will be best placed. This is where your knowledge of symbology will be of use. I hope you are taking note of the fact that air the 'boring' hours of study in the early part of your year of instruction are beginning to bear fruit!
Talismans  come  under  planetary
177
influences so you will need to know the list of correspondences assocated with each one. For example:
The Sun and Jupiter work along similar lines and control things like; honour, riches, clothing, position, fortune, gold, rulership and things like nuclear energy when not used for warlike purposes. Law. Justice.
The Moon rules dreams, sea, change, birth, delusion, growth, magic, women and women's mysteries.
Mercury: all forms of communication, books, learning, gambling, travel mathematics, theft, science, computers and calculators, television.
Mars: war, weapons, imprisonment, fire, forge work (smithy), men's mysteries.
Venus: love, music, pleasure, luxuries, beauty.
Saturn: earth, agriculture, legacies, death, inheritance, consolidation, banking. Just dues, either money, or repayment in other forms.
In their book The Techniques of High Magic the authors advise the making of an earth talisman for use with others, in order to 'earth' them. This is a good idea and one that you might profitably follow.
There are a number of good books that will tell you how to go about the making of a talisman, they will also give you long lists of the symbols that correspond to other symbols, plus things like the sigils of the Planetary Intelligences and the Kameas or magical squares for them, but when it comes down to the crunch a talisman is meant to act for you and on your behalf. So it is you who will have to search out a symbol that means something on a personal level. For example, you are an engineer, you are sitting for an advanced exam and you want to pass well, what symbols would you choose to put on your talisman?
First and foremost you want a basic Mercury talisman because Mercury rules all and any form of communication, books, sciences, and learning, all of which blend in with what you want. But what type of engineering are you interested in, constructional, mechanical, marine, or even genetic? What tools do you use in your type of engineering? Choose one that it typical and incorporate it into the design. Failing that see if there is a God-form specifically for your type. For marine, try Poseidon and include a trident in the design, for bridges, what about a rainbow? the first bridge of all, or a god like Heimdall who guards the bridge of Bifrost, for constructional, use the god/architect Imhotep. The more work and effort you put into the research and preparation of your talisman the better the result. It is the symbol that embodies the desire behind the talisman to you that matters far more than using the correct Kamea or angelic sigil. It is good to start off using other people's ideas, but when you can start to substitute your own, things will work faster and better. So get into the habit of thinking for yourself, checking back to see if it is workable, trying it out, modifying where needed and trying again.
One of the most important things to decide is just what it is that you do want, but once you have decided stick to it. Practice drawing your talisman on an ordinary piece of paper a few times, then, when you think you are ready, make the real thing. Most talismans are drawn within a circle, and use symbols pertaining to the requirement for which they are being made. Using the table of correspondences you already have, choose the planet who rules the area. Place the planet's sign within the circle plus the symbol you think best describes what you are asking for, then write around the edge of the circle the name or names of the God or Archangel connected with that planet. Then take the initials of your first name and surnames and make a sigil from them. To do this you first draw out the two letters then gradually reduce the number of stokes needed to make them, see Figure 42. Get it down as far as you can, this then becomes your personal sigil, it means you on the Inner Levels. Now place this sigil within the circle with the other symbols. Use a different color for each one, or if you prefer a color associated with the planet concerned.

(Fig 42)

Now turn the talisman over and draw a circle around the edge, you now have to seal your magical circle. There are a number of traditional seals, and you will find them along with their magical squares and sigils in Figure 43, you can use any one of these to seal your work, or, you can devise your own seal. Again it is question of what you think of as being a symbolic picture of a seal. A key, a closed door, two crossed swords, the 'No Go' sign from the Highway Code, a closed eye, if want to add a touch of fantasy, draw an animal type seal! The main thing to remember is this, what you think of as a seal, will be a seal..
When making your talisman there are certain rules which should be obeyed. The making should be done on the day of the week ruled by the talisman's planet, i.e. Sunday for Sun, Monday for the Moon, Tuesday for Mars, Wednesday for Mercury, Thursday for Jupiter, Friday for Venus and Saturday for Saturn. You can also go so far as to make it during the appropriate hour for that planet, but you can make a satisfactory talisman without the extra work.
When you have made your talisman the next thing to do is to energize it, and fill it with the appropriate force. This should be done at the same time and on the same day only seven days later. The consecration can be done in several ways, the most popular being the Four Elements, or using the Middle Pillar exercise of the Tree of Life, or by the Ray of Light method.
By referring to your index chart of Gods and their attributes, or to your copy of the Introduction to the Mystical Qabalah, you will be able to find out which sphere of the Tree to use. Once you have done this you can go ahead.
For the Middle Pillar method proceed as follows:
Dress your altar with a cloth of the sphere colors, and place the talisman on this. You will also need the altar light, and some appropriate incense, (please refer to the chapter on incenses for the correct kind to use.) Open your temple with the Lesser Pentagram Ritual, then take your seat in the East. Visualize a ball of light just below the ceiling of the temple, make it the same color as the sphere upon which you are calling. Visualize the same kind and color of sphere above your own head, this is easier if done with the eyes closed. Now draw in a breath, hold it for two seconds then as you let it out intone the name Eh-heh-ee-yeh. As you do this feel the sphere above you slide down and rest on the top of your head, now 'see' the sphere about a foot above the altar. Take another breath, hold it, then let it out to the name Je-ho-vah El-o-him. Feel the sphere slide down over your head to your throat. The sphere over the altar also comes lower.
Now a third breath, hold it, let it out to Al-lo-ah-va-daart. This time the sphere comes down to your solar plexus, and the sphere over the altar follows suit. The fourth breath is used to intone Shadd-i-el-hi, and the sphere now rests in the genitals, the sphere over the altar is almost but not quite touching the talisman. The last breath intones the name of Ad-o-ni-har-ar-ret-z, and the sphere settles over your feet, while the altar sphere now covers the talisman.
At this point rest for a few minutes, then intone the last name again and imagine the sphere rising from your feet to the genitals, intone the Tiphereth name and feel it rise to your solar plexus, now send a line of energy out from this center towards the talisman and feel it connect with it. Now repeat the intention of the talisman like a chant, making it as short and intense as possible See this 'chant' pulsing along the beam of light that joins you to the talisman. Keep this up until the repetition induces a light trance, then draw on the energy from the Kether and Malkuth spheres directing it to the solar center and throw it into the talisman. 'See' the talisman glow with it, then the glow dying down to a steady pulse beat of light. It is now activated.
Allow what is left of the energy to flood your physical body with healing energy. Sit quietly for a few minutes, then get up, close the temple, and leave the talisman on the altar for twenty-four hours, then put it into a silk bag or cloth and keep it in a place where it will not be disturbed. If it is small it can be carried on your person. Now just forget it and let it do its work. Don't go poking at it or unwrapping it every few days.
An Elemental consecration can be done by a simple ritual. You will need your altar light, salt, water and some planetary incense. Place a seal of your own choice on the temple, then lay the talisman on a piece of silk and proceed. Consecrate the salt and water as you were shown at the beginning of this book, sprinkle the talisman with a little water and say:
I ___________ do hereby consecrate this talisman with the element of water and ask that Nixsa the king of that element empower it for the purpose of _____________.

(Sprinkle the talisman now with the salt and say:)

I ___________ do hereby consecrate this talisman with the element of earth and ask that Ghob the king of that element empower it for the purpose of ___________. 

(Pass the talisman over the smoke of the incense and say:)

I ___________ do consecrate this talisman with the element of fire and ask that Djinn the king of that element empower it for the purpose of ___________. 

(Lift the talisman and breathe on it and say:)

I ___________ do hereby consecrate this talisman with the element of air and ask that Paralda the king of that element empower it for the purpose of ___________.

(Now prick your finger with a sharp, new needle and place a tiny drop of blood on the talisman, don't let this part put you off, you haven't made a pact with the devil, you have just made the talisman part of you, providing a link in the same way that the ray of light coming from your body made a link. Now wrap the talisman in silk and put it away safely.)
The Middle Pillar method is just as simple. You use the same method of intoning the names of the spheres as you did in the first talismanic ritual, but the talisman is placed on your chair so that the genital area is directly above it. It is time you realized that all magical power is generated in the sphere of Yesod, the genitals. That is, in Qabalistic terms, where the Machinery of the Universe operates, that is the center of the creative power of mankind. In ancient times all oaths of special significance were sworn on or by the male testicles, hence the term 'testimony'. So you are working real
magic, and not indulging in some form of perversion. If you have serious sexual hang ups then magic is not the kind of thing you should be studying anyway.
Now visualize the sphere of Kether as a brilliant white light just resting on your head, as you intone the God-name. 'Pull' a thread of light down from it through the center of your head, passing through the mid-brain (which incidentally controls most of your sexual powers and therefore can be said to be the magical control panel) down to the throat area of the thyroid. Intone the Godname for Daath, and again draw the thread of light down along the spine to the area behind the solar plexus and intone the next Godname. Pull the thread down along the spine and into the genitals and intone the Godname of Yesod. If you have done it correctly you will feel the whole spine tingling and this sensation will center on the talisman. At this point start the chant of intent as you did before and keep the 'light' focussed on the talisman all the time. Do this until the object of this consecration starts to throb against your body. Then you will know it has been activated. You now withdraw the thread of light in the same way, finally dismissing the Kether sphere.
For the inherently lazy magician who wants his talismans to work quickly, try inscribing the symbols on rice paper and eating it... it does work, but only for the amount of time it 'stays' with you!

The Qabalistic Ritual of Winter
We now come to the last of the seasonal rituals, those for winter. The winter Tide is sometimes called the 'Cleansing Tide' all occultists expect this Tide to 'take away' those things in their life which are no longer serviceable or useful. This is one reason for the tradition of the New Year's resolution. So we would expect any ritual for this Tide to be an opportunity to get rid of anything we feel we no longer need, a bad habit like biting your nails, or smoking, or laziness; or you might have been trying to sell your car for ages, or your house. Use the Cleansing Tide to 'carry it' away. A word of warning, don't use it on living creatures, you can incur much karma that way, and more trouble than you can handle.
The first ritual is Qabalistic in type and for a solo magician. You will need for the altar, the usual light, a bowl of consecrated water and a few sprigs of the herb hyssop, failing that some thyme. Have your incense burner already lit and a Saturn incense ready to hand. A piece of folded paper containing the time you wish to see taken away by the Winter Tide. In the four candlesticks at the four Quarters place candles, blue, red, green and gold.
Take a bath using either salt or a ready-made ritual bath sachet, and put on your robe, leave your feet bare, and go without your girdle which encompasses you when it is worn, for this ritual you need to be outside of time and space. When all is ready enter the temple and take up the repose position before the altar. Meditate upon the thing you wish to cast away from you, is it right to do so, are you sure it not longer has a use or a value? Learn to question yourself always as to your motives.
Look deeply into your deepest self, how has the year been for you? Has it given you something new in your life, or do you feel you have missed something? Think of your year as a set of accounts and draw up the debits and credits. How have you been to other people, could you have helped more, have you helped too much and in doing so taken away someone's right to find things out for themselves? Take your time and weigh up the last twelve months. When you have done this, think about the item that is to go with the Tide. Look at it, be sure it is the right one. Then rise and take your place at the altar.
(Put the incense on the burner, then with a taper, light the four Quarter candles. Now open the temple with the usual Qabalistic opening in the name of Adonai. Take your piece of folded paper and go to the East holding the paper between your hands, and say:)
Adonai, lord of heaven, behold your son/'daughter who comes before you seeking enlightenment. I have chosen to allow this Winter Tide to take out of my life this item I hold in my hands. Let it go from me without restraint, bitterness, or hurt to any other creature. Let it go to the four winds of heaven, may it be so, Amen.
(Take the candle from the holder and seal the paper with a drop of its wax, then replace it, and move to the South.)
Adonai, lord of the inner fires of earth and of man, behold your son/daughter who comes before you seeking courage for the year ahead. Let this winter tide bum away that which I hold in my hands. Let it go from me without any burning of the heart. Let it find its place in the fires of earth, may it be so, Amen.,
(Take the candle from the holder and seal the paper with a drop of wax from it, then replace candle and move to the West:)

Adonai, Lord of the great tides of life that surge across the starry seas, behold your son/daughter who comes before you looking for the understanding of the life that surges within with all its complexities. Let this Winter Tide carry away that which I hold in my hands. Let it be borne upon the starry waves far out to the shore of an unknown place, may it be so, Amen.
(Take the candle from the holder and use it to seal the paper a third time, then replace the candle and move to the North:)
Adonai, Lord of the fruitful, patient earth, behold your son/daughter who comes before you looking for the fulfilment of life and the harvest that comes when the work is completed. Let the sweet earth take that which I hold in my hands and transmute it into her own substance, may it be so, Amen.
(Take the candle and make the fourth seal with its wax on the paper, then replace candle and return to altar. Take up the water and the hyssop and circle the temple sprinkling the four quarters:)
Thus do I cleanse the holy Quarters of that which they have sealed, thus do I cleanse the East, thus do I cleanse the South, thus do I cleanse the West, thus do I cleanse the North.
(Return to altar and replenish the incense, then take the paper and cast it onto the burning charcoal.)
Thus all is to ashes, and is gone from me, the fires of earth, the smoke of heaven, cleansed by the sweet water, and received into the earth, all is fulfilled.
(Sprinkle a little water on your head and hands, then close the temple extinguishing each Quarter candle as you do so. Leave the altar light for about an hour before putting it out. Let the incense burn right down through the night and in the morning take the ashes and scatter them in some place that you like.)

The Celtic Ritual of Winter
The next ritual is Celtic and a little lighter in style. It is for five people, taking the parts of the High King, the Warrior, the Lady, Arawn King of Annwn, and the Crone. The King should have a Wand or Sceptre, the Warrior a Sword, the Lady the Chalice, Arawn a necklace. The Crone must have a black cloak with a hood and a white robe beneath. The altar should have its usual light augmented by an extra candle on either side. Put an unlit candle in each quarter, and each person should have a box of matches ready. The Chalice should have red wine, or if possible mead.
This ritual works best if learnt by heart, but it can be read if this is not possible. The four Quarters go in first and the Crone last, placing herself between the North and the East. The High King speaks:
The winter's tide flows swift and cold, once long ago the year was young and full of promise, now the leaves forsake the tree that bore them and the world grows dark.
The Warrior:
Once I fought on sunlit turf and vowed my strength in mighty deeds, but now the earth has turned and winter's chill descends upon the land.
The Lady:
Once the young men came to me vying with each other to go a Maying, now there are no flowers to gather, the meadows are bare and the young men come no more.
Arawn:
Long ago I sent a young maid to wander the sweet fields of earth, she took with her my heart, but mankind needed her and I let her go from me. Now my heart calls her back to be with me and leave the earth to winter's chill. (The Crone comes forward, pauses to right of King.)
Long ago I lived in a land where time stood still and everyone was young and beautiful. But I sought to know the world of men and begged my lord to let me go. He loved me dear and begged me stay, but my eyes were dazzled by the flowers and singing birds. Now my youth has gone and I must return to my own land or die forever. (High King lights his candle, the Crone makes as if to pass him and he stops her:)
You were the young maid who brought the spring with her, I remember you although your beauty now knows winter's touch. Your laughter gave me pleasure, your singing made my heavy duties light, for this I owe you much. Stay here with me and I will see you treated gently and with care. (Crone shakes her head:)
I may not stay though gentle are your words and loving is the thought that carries them, let me pass and I will come again.
High King:
Nay pass me not and I will give you furs and soft silks, and maids to do your bidding. Stay and I will give you a castle and power over its people.
Crone:
Power is fleeting and a castle will one day be vanquished by the hand of time, furs and silks are for the young, and 1 must go my way, but 1 will bless you for your thoughts and in return will take from you your love of power, then will you rule in perfect justice. (She passes to the South. The Warrior lights his candle and stops the Crone as she passes.)
Warrior:
You were the maid whose favour I displayed upon my arm, it was to you I gave the Tourney's coronet. You made me knight of knights and for this I owe you much good dame. Stay with me and I will treat you like my lady mother. Soft beds and gentle voices be your lot, my sword will guard you with as much courtesy as when you were young and fair.
Crone:
I may not stay, though well I will remember your fair words and hold them dear. Let me pass and I will come again.
Warrior:
Nay pass me not and I will give you a knight to do battle for you and bring you wealth and land by right of conquest.
Crone:
Conquests breed fear and hatred, and my knight would bring a blood price upon his head just for my pleasure and my wealth. These things are for the down-cheeked youth who knows not the rules of chivalry. Let me pass and I will grant you peace of mind and take from you the nightmares that haunt your dreams. (She passes on to the West. The Lady light her candle and stops the Crone as she passes:)

Lady:
You were the gentle lady who did aid me when my child was bom, but for your skill I would have lost my son. Then you were rosy cheeked and comely, I grieve to see how quickly time has seared your face. Stay with me beldame, and I will give you shelter in your ending, as you did give me hope in a beginning.
Crone:
I may not stay, though I remember that birthing day and rejoice that you and the babe did live. But I may not stay, let me pass and I will come again.
Lady
Pass me not and I will give you care of my child that he may grow in wisdom and understanding, mayhap his hands will also heal as once yours did for me. Stay and I will give you high station in my house and jewels to hang about your neck.
Crone:
Your child will need no wisdom, I gave him that when first I held him, and understanding he will learn by trial. High station is naught to me who once ruled a kingdom far from here, and jewels are best about a throat that's young and fair. Let me pass and I will give you joy in your children and take from you the fear of age when time sets its finger on your cheek. (She passes to the North. Arawn lights his candle and takes her hands and kisses them:)
Arawn:
My lady and my love, long have I waited for you in this land of the ever young. Has your heart now had its fill of earth and have you come to be my love again?
Crone:
Alas I am no beauty now and Earth's time has touched me with his finger yet many were kind to me along the way and I have come home to be at rest, the only aged dame among the Sidhe. Yet I would have you take from me the things I took as a grace from the world. They would have held me in honour, but I wished to see you just once more.
Arawn:
My lady know you not my powers even now? I did but let you go that you might learn, and in that learning teach the world of men some good. Now draw near and let me kiss your lips, so, (Kisses her and she drops her cloak and is once more young and fair.) In this fair land we called you Eithne and now you have returned to me once more as you were. Stay now and let me be your love and lord, the earth shall no more hear your name.
Eithne:
Nay my lord, I promised I would come again, give me leave to spend half my year with you and half with mankind that I may ease their lot with my poor arts.
Arawn:
As you will my love, it shall be so, when spring is near you shall go once more and I will wait heartsore but loving still. (All  douse  their  candles  and progress from temple.)

Summary
This is a good time to go over your day and make sure you are still keeping to the disciplines of relaxing, breathing, and meditation. Do not let up on these things, they are the basis of a magician's continued ability. Draw up a list of the national days, feast days, old festivals etc, you should be able to find one for almost every day of the year. You will find Marian Green's book A Harvest of Festivals of great use and very informative. Any S.P.C.K. shop will have a saints' day calendar, between that and any local history book you should have a good idea of what to celebrate on which day, and what 'forms' to use.
Write off for your astrological chart. I recommend the following professionals:
Mr Peter Clarke, 17, Abbey Gardens, St Johns Wood, London NWS 9AS. Mr Tony Willis,  61a Brownhill Rd, Catford, London S.E. Mrs M. Anderson, 11, Park wood Rd, Wimbledon, SW19 7AQ.
These are people whose advice I have sought myself and whose work I have found to be accurate and extremely helpful. Work on the chart
meditation/path working at spaced intervals during the month, making sure you have the information to go on before you start the actual chart visualization. If this work spills over into another month don't worry, it can be carried over.

Reading List
Ashcroft-Nowicki, Dolores, First Steps in Ritual (Aquarian Press, 1982)
Baker, Dr D., The Seven Rays (Aquarian Press, 1977)
Butler, W.E., How to Develop Clairvoyance (Aquarian Press, 1979)
Butler, W.E., How to Read the Aura (Aquarian Press, 1979)
Harrison, Jane, Ritual Art and Magic (Butterworth, 1913)
Morris, Desmond, Manwatching (Cape, 1977)
Peach,  Emily, The Tarot Workbook (Aquarian Press, 1984)
Willis,  Tony, The Runic Workbook (Aquarian Press, 1986)

The Tenth Month
Extending the Magical Range
Date started				Date ended			

I would like to bet that you are agreeably surprised to find you have made it this far.... so am I! So let's go a bit further and push our luck.

Mediumship and Mediation
Mediumship is a word you will hear a great deal in occult terminology. Mediatorship is comparatively new. Both operate in the same area, but in very different ways. The former is a term used most often in spiritualism where it describes a man or a woman with the ability to contact a level of existence associated with the dead. This ability has been recognized and recorded for thousands of years and is not, as some seem to think, of fairly recent origin. According to Homer, Odysseus communed with the dead on his way back from Troy. He dug a deep trench in the Grove of Persephone and filled it with fresh blood. This drew the souls of the newly dead, among them the seer Teiresias, from whom Odysseus wanted information. Shakespeare uses the idea of communication with the dead in many of his plays, among them Macbeth and Hamlet. Dr Dee the Elizabethan magician used the 
mediumistic power of Edward Kelly as a means of obtaining information. Closer to our own era there have been many famous, and infamous, mediums. Some have used their undoubted powers for the comfort of others, others with more limited powers have had to 'stretch' them by artificial means, and in doing so have lost the little they did have.
In the area of High Magic, medium-ship has been used in the past, and is still used, to contact the Inner Plane Adepti, the term by which higher level beings are known. This involves trance mediumship of a very high quality and a long hard training. Dion Fortune used this method very effectively, to contact her 'Teachers'. It usually entails at least one other person to take down the teachings as they come through, and sometimes a 'watcher' whose job it is to guard the empty shell of the medium's body.
This method has been very successful for centuries, but it does have drawbacks. The medium is totally unaware of anything going on around her/him, also, if disturbed the backlash can cause varying degrees of shock.
Then there is the inconvenience of having to have a sitter and/or a watcher with them. Because the conscious mind is out of action there is the added danger that whatever comes through may be garbled by the intrusion of material floating free in the subconscious.
This method of contact is now beginning to die out and a new form of contact has been making itself felt since the beginning of this century, though the older method will continue for some time yet. The new method is called mediatorship, and its real value lies in two main areas. The first and most obvious is that the communicator never completely loses consciousness, though there are varying degrees ranging from fully conscious, even startlingly so, to a very light trance more like a daydream effect. This means that whatever comes through from the higher levels has considerably less chance of being flawed by interference from the subconscious mind. There is also very little danger of shock if the mediator is disturbed, very often it is possible if one is well trained, to pick up the threads of the communication again once the disturbance has been dealt with. There is no need for a sitter, the conscious mind retains the message(s) and with a fully trained memory, can hold large tracts of material for fairly long periods.
The other new factor is that once a firm contact is made between an Inner Level teacher and a mediator, it often becomes a permanent link-up. This is like having an intercom in your center of consciousness, or an ex-directory phone number that only one person knows. It can lead to an even deeper link, one that is rare at this time, but which will become increasingly the norm as we enter the next century. This is the establishing of a symbiotic
mental link between a high level entity, one of the teachers who serve the Lords of Light, and a human channel who has been able to contain such a link without damage to themselves either mentally or physically. Such a person is known as a Cosmic Mediator.
This kind of link means that the channel often becomes capable of communicating with more than one being, thus the term Cosmic Mediator. When this happens the human channel no longer needs to sit quietly in meditation or be by themselves for certain periods of time. They need no special place or atmosphere in which to establish contact, it is already there on a permanent basis.
The seeds of this kind of contact were sown by the great mystics of the past like St John of the Cross, and Teresa of Avila, and Ignatius Loyala, and not only Christian mystics, but those of other faiths and traditions. They were, in the terminology of time 'possessed' not by demons or suchlike, but by an essence that had once been a human being and who had risen beyond the need for a human body. Sometimes the essence was even higher in level and had never had a body, but then the human channel quickly burnt out because of the strain. There is nothing demonical about this kind of possession, it is the highest part of a human being reaching out to something even higher and finer and truer than itself and offering its service. If anyone condemns it they also condemn the visions and communications of St John the Divine, for he was above all a Cosmic Mediator, maybe the first one of all.
Such a being will not contact just one channel, there may be many with whom that particular master will work at this level, or, on varying levels according to the channel's ability. This may seem improbable when the link is a deeply personal one, and the essence of that master seems embedded within the channel. W.E. Butler saw the explanation in this way. The amount of particles in a human body runs into untold numbers. When the physical body passes beyond time and space and becomes a master, it still retains the same number of particles, though of an infinitely refined kind. Each of these particles, like a holograph, holds the entire being within itself. Thus, once such a particle attaches itself to a human channel, it is as if the whole master was with that channel. But it does not impose upon its host. The human being lives a normal life, most of the time unconscious of that which has taken root in its psyche. Only when the time is deemed right does the internal essence shift into conscious mode and relay its material. At such times it feels to the mediator as if a burst of creative energy has hit them and they can work long hours without feeling tired, that is until they stop!
At other times, especially when the channel may be speaking either to a small group or to a large company, there is a sudden feeling of 'listening to oneself, the talk or lecture keeps to the original intention, but the quality of the words and meaning deepens beyond the normal ability of the speaker. There is a need to listen in to what one is saying, and often a feeling of 'I wish I had thought of that', or, 'I wonder how he is going to tie this lot in with the rest of the talk'! Then as suddenly as it came the contact has gone and the speaker is left to carry on, often with a little hesitation as they try to reestablish their own full identity in front of a crowd of people who have no idea of the little internal drama.
Unless you are a rare exception, or you are training with a personal
teacher, there is little possibility of such a contact happening, which does not mean that you cannot make a contact of a less intense kind, and one that will be helpful to you or to the group with which you may be working. But the higher contacts need a long, arduous, and very demanding apprenticeship, of a kind few are willing, or able to give because of other commitments.
However it is essential that you know about and are able to fully understand how such communications work, occasionally, that rare individual turns up and with little or no training gives clear indications of mediator ability. They should be encouraged to join a school, or to find a suitable teacher with whom they can train their ability to full power.
Any group, no matter how small, if dedicated and hard working will be able to make a contact. It may not be one of the masters, but it will certainly be a teacher working under the aegis of such a master. When Jesus said, 'where two or three are gathered together there also am I'. He was explaining that no matter how few a group consists of, if that group has complete involvement and dedication it will call to itself a higher essence.
How do you get a contact? There is no set way, no rules or pattern or ritual. I can only tell you that come they do, and when they do, you will most certainly know. The difference in your work, in the results of that work, and the effect it has upon the group and their immediate environment will be hard to ignore.
Your main concern if and when it does happen will be to ask yourself if it is a genuine contact, an intermittent contact, or just a burst of psychic power that has built up over several months and like a lightning flash, discharged itself through the group.
This brings a short sharp bout of high voltage psychic activity that can feel like a contact. In actual fact it is because the Inner Level awareness of the group has been boosted for a while.
The best thing to do is wait, watch, and record everything for several weeks. Very probably one of your number will be the focal point if it is a genuine contact. Always ask for checks on anything that may be 'given' to you. This is your right, and the Inner Levels will expect it. If it does not check out, wait and see if anything else comes through and ask again.
If it doesn't happen don't become disheartened, it could be a simple psychic block. In any case the achievement of a permanent contact is not given to every group, this does not mean their work is no good, or that nothing worthwhile will come out of that group. Everyone and everything has a limit within this physical world, when you come up against that limit, accept it, it is easier. Not every group can be a Golden Dawn, nor would it be a good thing if that were possible. But every group can add its weight to the Divine Plan.

Temple Healing
We come now to the subject of psychic healing, or rather temple healing since it will be done for the most part within the sacred place.
Most of you will be interested in psychic healing, most of you will want to know if you have any healing power, some will want to know how far it can go. In answer to the first, as a trainee magician you will have to at least understand how it works. Nearly everyone has some power to heal, it is instinctive, as witness the impulse to put your hand over a pain, to suck a finger that has been cut, to rub away a
headache. We do it without thinking about it.
How far can it go? Well this is where I stick my neck out and say, with the exception of rare, unpredictable and seemingly random cases, psychic healing has its limits. I am afraid I have little patience with someone suffering with acute appendicitis who thinks that a psychic healer can cure it without resorting to an operation. By the time they have found out it cannot be done, it is too late. Yes, it is possible, but highly improbable. It is no good putting marigold petals on gangrene. You have to put psychic healing into perspective.
Where it is of enormous help is in actual healing, i.e. helping people over serious operations, getting the wound to heal quickly and without complications. It can help in things like depressions, breakdowns, assisting the body to help itself so that it will respond to the medical treatment being prescribed. I know that some of the drugs given are harmful, but if the body is encouraged by psychic healing to respond quickly, then the drugs need not be used for very long.
The time to take homoeopathic treatment is for the minor illness in life. Times when there is no need to take the drugs handed out by overworked doctors. Then, when the time comes and you do need these drugs, a smaller amount will suffice because you have little or no build up in your system.
I agree that certain natural medicines are as good, if not better than some of the things you are offered in a doctor's surgery, however try telling that to someone struck down with the excruciating pain caused-by kidney stones. Without warning you are rigid with pain and you need something to alleviate it, plus something to dissolve the stones, and you need it right now. I speak as one who knows believe me. But, once the bout was over and the stones dispatched, I was happy to take natural remedies to prevent another occurrence of the same kind.
Psychic healing works on a different waveband to natural medicines. It is a gift that in some people reaches almost unbelievable proportions, they can certainly cause ultra quick healing, they can help with back pain and things like arthritis and inflammations. Some people can work over quite astounding distances and achieve the same results. Again I can speak from experience, when an SOL supervisor in the U.K. was able to help a student undergoing a long and highly complex dental operation in New York. By rights the patient should have come out of the theatre black and blue and unable to open her mouth.... in point of fact the only bruise she ever had was where the drip feed had gone into her arm.
On rare occasions miraculous cures have happened, and I am quite prepared to accept them, but I think it is unwise to think that a psychic healer can always help, especially when the problem is already full blown, perhaps even terminal. In these cases where the power of the psychic healer can help is in assisting the body's own healing powers to assert themselves, to wake them up, get them going and in directing them, plus the healer's own power to cause full healing where this is possible, and if not to help the natural pain killers present in the brain to take over.
I would not want the reader to think I am against healers, far from it, two of my best friends, people I hold dear, are very powerful healers, but I think it lays too much of a burden upon such people to expect them to perform miracles to order. All healers are
empathic and extra sensitive, when they fail to do as much as they would wish, the backlash is tremendous. Ask them to do as much as is possible, but do not ask them for the impossible.
Do you have healing powers? Well one simple test is this; if you place your hand(s) on someone when they are in pain, do your hands get very hot, or very cold, or do they stay the same? Most, though not all healers have great heat in their hands and this is felt by the people they are healing. A few, feel their hands go cold as the healing power leaves them for the patient.
My advice is this, if you feel you have some healing power, go along to a reputable spiritual healing group and let their clairvoyant have a look at you on the Inner Levels. If you do have some power of this kind work with them to develop it. Some healers, those who are born to it, need little or no training, they 'recall' what they were taught when they were trained by the ancient Therapeutoi, but they are very much the exception.
If one of your group, or a member of your family requires healing you may certainly try invoking the appropriate God-form. Aesculapius, Apollo, Cheiron, and Hippocrates will all work within the Greek tradition. Isis or Thoth in the Egyptian, Jesus of Nazareth, or Raphael within the Qabalistic.
If it is a member of the group, or yourself, you can try sleeping in the temple on the Pastos, a narrow couch used for such purposes. Invoke the God-form you have decided upon, cover yourself with a blue sheet or blanket, and sleep immediately after the invocation. Sometimes a dream will clarify the root cause of your problem, and this will enable you to deal with it at ground level.
If you have been asked to do something for a person you do not know, or who is far away, you must have something of theirs on which to focus the healing power. Lay the item on the altar, or the Pastos, open the temple in the tradition you intend to use and invoke the healing God-form. It is a good idea to use the powers of the South, West and North to reinforce those of the East. For instance, you might place Aesculapius in the East, invoke Apollo in the South and ask him, as the father of Aesculapius to increase his power to heal. You could place Athene in the West and ask that her wisdom be granted to enhance the power of the East. In the North you could place Hades the Lord of the Hidden Aspects, and ask his help in finding out just where the problem has its root.
Before I get a mail bag full of letters telling me that no one heals by their own power, that it is the power of God that heals, let me make one thing clear. Men and women are the children of that unknowable Prime Cause that has a thousand names, only one of which is God. As a child of this Great Entity, he or she is entitled to use any and all the powers or talents they have been given. Those powers and talents have been given freely, as gifts, to use for the good of others, the healer is well aware who bestowed those gifts, and aware that they were given to use as was thought fit. Free Will was the last, and the most precious of all gifts given to man, he should not be afraid to use it. Many healers heal in the name of God, but as I said he has many names, all of which are valid, so if a healer chooses to heal in a different name, that does not make it any the less holy, or effective. Healing powers are not only the perogative of those of the Christian faith.

Recalling the Past
Those of you who have read the novels of Joan Grant will no doubt at some time or other think about the recalling of past lives. The psychic talent of Far Memory is not as common as some would have you believe. It is a fairly rare gift in its pure form and can be used together with mediation to recover lost knowledge. It is rarely used for the deliberate recalling of past lives. It is my personal opinion that unless there is a real need to recover a past life, they should be left alone. At this moment you are the sum total of the experiences encountered and dealt with, good and bad, in all your previous lives, odd memories will surface as and when they are needed, you do not need to search for them. There must be several thousand Nerfertitis around, and you can multiply that amount by several tens of thousands in the case of Tutankha-mun, though why anyone would be anxious to prove they had lived a bare eighteen years under enormous personal stress and probably died painfully from poisoning defeats me.
You will have spontaneous memories returning as you increase your ability to understand their place in this life, or if you arrive in a location that holds strong links for you. There will be times when you will need to recover certain memories, and you will need to learn how to do this and practice the technique. But to spend large chunks of your time 'researching' your past lives simply to try and prove you were someone famous is ridiculous. It can also be traumatic. Remember this, true far memory means total recall with full sensory perception. You cannot control which area of that life you will tune into. Do you fancy finding yourself on the rack at a particularly painful moment, or watching someone set light to the wood stacked around you, come to that how would you feel if you were the one doing the lighting? When you work on recall as a group you often find that you touch on lives when at least some of you will have incarnated together. Can you imagine what it could do to your present day friendships to find your best friend, wife or son was the one who had betrayed you to the Inquisition, or had gone over to the Roundheads while you were still a Royalist? Such memories can stir old quarrels as well as loves... which is another thing for you to consider. And it is no good telling yourself that you can overcome such things... maybe you can, and maybe not.
If you are returning to mystery school training having experienced it before, you will probably turn up several incarnations as a cleric in holy orders as well as those earlier lives which are concerned with the ancient religions. It is said that it takes three lives of actual training within a mystery school to make an initiate, but there will have been lives spent simply as 'a drawer of water and hewer of wood' as Dion Fortune said.
What is it like to remember a life lived before? I can only offer my own experiences as an example, for each one it feels different. There are two ways in which it can happen. You may have intermittent flashes of memories, no more than a vague feeling of recognition of a place or a person, but as more time is spent either with that person, or in that location the memories become more pronounced, but rarely go beyond that stage. This can happen in many places or with many people during your lifetime. It can account for the immediate friendship with one person, and an irrational dislike of another for no real reason. This is as far as most people go in the process of far memory.
The second way is a slow awakening to a different reality that seems to overlay the present world. At times it produces a dreamlike state through which one moves, observing and feeling at the same time, while your own time is still present. As you can imagine this can be a bit of a problem, however, as I have said, not everyone experiences things in the same way, and when I am 'observing' for a specific purpose and under ritual conditions it is much sharper and less crowded by the present.
One of the clearest personal far memory sequences I have ever had came to me at Winchester. It is a place I have always loved even before my first visit, in this life. On a cold spring day in the mid-seventies I met with Ernest Butler in Winchester. I had just finished a series of lectures in London and had decided to stay overnight in Winchester and phoned ahead to ask Ernest if he would like to spend the day with me and have lunch. He was delighted and we spent a happy day in each other's company, one of those quiet days that you remember for years after. We walked round the cathedral and spoke of many things, past and present, something that probably started the train of events that came later.
At about five o'clock Ernest took the bus back to Southampton and I, with the evening on my hands, returned to the cathedral to wait for Evensong. It was the beginning of Lent and the Bishop of Winchester was to give the first of a series of Lenten lectures. I sat quietly until the service. As there were so few people attending we were invited to move from the nave of the cathedral into the beautiful carved stalls. I began to feel a shift of consciousness and closed it off for it was neither the time nor the place. After the service I spoke with the Bishop for a few minutes requesting a copy of the lecture which was to be published, then left by a side door and made my way round to the West Front. It was almost dark, a clock began to chime the hour, and I stood looking up at the West window and thinking how much I loved this old place. It then happened so smoothly I did not realize at first what had taken place.
Nearly all the familar houses were gone, those that were there were very different. I was no longer a woman, but a man, middle aged and none too bright, in fact this other me was very confused. I knew everything about him, his name was Walter, and he had been in the monastery since he was quite young, left there by parents too poor to keep him. He was a simple soul and had never amounted to much and spent most of his monastic life in the kitchen helping to prepare the meals. I remembered quite clearly his opinion of Brother Cook and his overwhelming awe of the Bishop. The cathedral was his only home and he loved it with a passion that in his heart he was afraid might border on the forbidden. His confusion arose from a discourse he had just heard in the refectory. Something to do with the possibility of a man living not just one but several lives.
This had frightened him, he could not imagine living anywhere else and was too simple to understand the mechanics of the argument. All he knew was the fact that this was home and he wanted to always be here. He stood before the great window looking up, shivering with cold and as I 'slipped in' he was muttering somewhat desperately, 'If I come back
again I will stand here and I will remember,  I will remember, I will remember.' Then I was back, standing and shivering with the cold looking up at the great West window, telling myself desperately, 'I will remember'. The clock was still chiming, and I was left with fast fading memories a few of which have remained. I know, with a certainty beyond words, thoughts, or reason that somewhere under the stones of Winchester lie the bones of a none too bright little monk who wanted nothing more of life than to be where he was, in Winchester, We are the  same  person, we still love Winchester, and each time I pass through on my way up to London I look to catch the short glimpse of the cathedral.
Among the other 'memories' that have been most clear is that of watching my mother and father walking away and leaving me with a strange woman, kindly, but strict, who was to be my guide and teacher from now on. Ahead of me were long years of hard work and study, I felt resentful and afraid and the thought uppermost in my mind was '.. .if only I didn't have those dreams I would still be at home with my brother'. There was a lot more but its telling is for another time.
If such experiences should come to you try always to check as far as you can, it will seldom be very far, but at least check on the costume, tools, houses, etc. With that part of you that is still in this time, try to note as much as you can, especially the time of year and if at all possible the date.
There are techniques for the recovering of past lives, but I urge you not to use them indiscriminately. If you hit a bad experience shut down psychically for at least two weeks and let it clear from your subconscious. Don't use the techniques more than once or twice a month, keep detailed records of everything you do, see, hear, or remember. Also remember this, most of the 'best' incarnations seem to have been taken already... so you and I will have to make do with what is left!!!
J.H. Brennan's book, Five Keys to Past Lives is one of the 'Paths to Inner Power' series published by Aquarian Press. In it you will find all that you need to enable you to acquire the basic techniques of recalling past lives. The only one with which I disagree is the use of a Ouija board. I dislike these things intensely and will always speak out against them. In the hands of trained psychics they may have some merit, but 99% of those who use them are not trained, nor anywhere near being trained and that makes it dangerous. When people get unpleasant results, or even experience mental shock through such unwise experimentation, it is always the occult that is blamed, never their own stupidity. That makes me angry because many mystery schools are conscientious, open and run their courses according to the ethics of the Occult. To be blamed because of the carelessness of others who ignored repeated warnings is galling.
Having said that the other techniques in this book are ideal and written with Mr Brennan's impish sense of humour. His chapter on hypnosis is simple and direct and can be followed safely even by a newcomer.
You can of course follow his instructions sitting in your living room, but the atmosphere of the temple may well boost the experiments. I would advise that you always have at least one other person with you, or at least a tape recorder. Certainly if you plan to use hypnosis another person is vital.
Some years ago a book came out called The Christos Experiment giving techniques for the recovery of past lives. That it worked was undeniable, that it caused quite serious problems in some people is also true. It is not a completely safe technique in my view, and I would advise against its use. Stick with the straightforward advice of Mr Brennan and you will not go far wrong.
One last word on this subject. The Akashic Records is a term you will no doubt hear when researching past lives. Let me make it quite clear, while it is possible to use them, it is not permissable to go rooting about in them searching for other people's past records. I have lost count of the number of people who fall for the old 'I am a high initiate and I can read your Akashic Records' line. A true initiate will rarely admit to being one at all, and as for reading other people's records.....! Occult ethics would prevent that for a start, and you should do your own searching anyway. Such offers can end up with you 'owing' a karmic debt, according to their interpretation, usually to them. Past life research can be made a serious study, but it can have a few drawbacks as well. Try it by all means, but tread warily and don't fall for the undoubted glamour of it all.

The Aura and the Seven Rays
The human Aura and the Seven Rays have been the subject of countless books over the years. When you have a plethora of choice like this my advice is to stick to two or three recommended books and read them thoroughly, get to know your subject. If possible attend some lectures on the subject.
The aura is held by occultists to be an area of light, usually banded in different colors and surrounding the body of all living creatures to a greater or lesser degree. It seems to be most prominent in man and can give an indication of many things. Health, both mental and physical, state of spiritual awareness, type of Ray, and in the case of certain degrees, it will bear the sigil of the Inner Plane master under whose authority that person is working.
It has been depicted by artists through the ages as a nimbus of light around the head of saviours and saints. We know for a fact that all living creatures have a field of electrical force around them, it seems logical therefore that this field could be seen to have color, and be capable of indicating certain areas where disease is present by reason of fluctuations in strength and color.
It is a vast subject, too much for more than a cursory glance at the main aspects, but it is important that you understand what it is, what it does, and how it can be seen and interpreted. Not everyone can see an aura, and when you do, you have to be careful not to mistake what W.E. Butler described as 'a false aura'. This can happen when you have been looking at someone for a long time, as in a lecture, the eye muscles relax and the focus shifts giving a momentary flash of color, or it causes a band of light to surround the speaker. It is easy to check since this band of light will always be in the complementary color to the person. It can be quite impressive especially as the light is usually white or pale gold in color. But it is not an aura.
But on occasion you may see a sudden flash of brilliant color leap out from the head or body of a person, this is genuine, a sudden burst of electrical activity in the aura makes it fleetingly visible. I have seen this phenomena several times and it is quite breath taking.
Normally the aura extends to some 4-6 inches (10-15cm) around the body. When in bad health this can shrink to more than half that amount. The more spiritually aware a person is the wider the aura and the greater its impact upon those near. At this level the person themself is physically aware of the force field surrounding the body and can tell if someone enters its circle, especially if that person is sick, or in need of help. Hence the reaction of Jesus when the hem of His garment was touched in the crowd.
We all have a personal space and when someone encroaches into this space we feel upset and resentful. Races differ in the amount of space needed. The English need a lot more space on average than say an Italian or a Spaniard. The latter races tend towards a closeness that allows another person to stand very close without them feeling uncomfortable. This is not so with the English. You only have to watch them in a packed train or bus to see that such close proximity makes them extremely uncomfortable. They will avoid each others eyes, and draw themselves into a corner to avoid the contact. The same kind of thing would not bother an Italian in the least. But this is built into the racial Group Soul and it affects the individual in this way.
It could be argued that we all live within the Cosmic Aura of the Creator. The first lesson in the SOL course gives as a meditation subject the phrase, The Cosmic Sea in which we live, move and have our being'. Being within this force field of God, makes the Creator aware of everything that moves within it and causes a reaction to the movement.
It is possible to contact the other forms of life upon this planet by touching their auric field, this is so with anything from a falcon to a piece of ancient granite. This is the basis of psychometry, the ability to read the experiences imprinted upon the auric field of an object.
It is impossible to go into this vast subject with so little space. Again I have to resort to saying read a book. Like the recalling of past lives, the aura also has a small but vital booklet in the same Paths to Inner Power series, How to Read the Aura by W.E. Butler is simple, direct, and full of information. It goes into detail concerning the use of auric vision, etheric healing, recharging the etheric, the vital flow, and techniques for developing the auric sight, everything you need in fact. Butler had perfect auric sight and knew exactly what to tell students and how to train them; you can do no better than to follow his instructions as I did for many happy years.
As you go further into your occult studies, you will read about the Seven Rays. Like the aura there have been many books written about them, many of which are incomprehensible. I will try to give you a basic outline and give you the titles of two or three books that I think will give you the widest scope of information.
It is said that the Seven Rays emanate from the seven stars of Ursa Major. Each Ray is an expression of a Quality, a type of teaching if you like, and each one is overlooked by a master. These Rays are channelled through the Solar Logos and then passed on to the Seven Planetary Lords, they in their turn pass it on to those who are working along the lines of their particular Ray.
Most people will have a mixture of Ray types in their make up, a few people are only of one Ray and when they come into work of an occult nature their Ray type determines the type of work they will choose. Although there are seven, we hear much more about just three, the Blue or Hermetic Ray, the Green or Creative Ray, and the Violet or Love Ray. Their other titles are Wisdom, Power, and Love. Most mystery schools will try to pass their highest office from man to woman, and from Ray to Ray so that all is balanced as far as possible. The predominant Ray in this solar system is the Violet Ray of Love, the others are sub-rays to this one.
Each of the seven is associated with a musical note, a color, and a jewel, there are other correspondences but these are enough for now. It must be said that not everyone sees the three main Rays either as the same color or with the same attributes, and you will have to learn to choose that which you feel you can follow. Remember your bookmark with the words Discretion and Discrimination? Well now is the time to start using the former. You must begin to listen, read, study, and then choose the way you think is best. In doing so you are activating your own ray color. When you are a student you learn from your teacher, you question, listen some more and file it all away. But the time comes when the student becomes the priest, and then you must choose your own path. You must never accept without question, never be afraid to ask why, or to ask for a check.
So as you read the books I will recommend remember that the colors and the attributes may be stated differently. This does not detract from what they say, nor does it mean that I don't know what I'm taking about, we have been taught differently that is all. Nothing is ever straightforward in the occult.

Below you will find some more information about the Rays and their attributes, it is a subject that requires much study and a lot of hard thinking. But like all occult studies it bears fruit, and it is a part of the vast expanse of knowledge that you must have at your command.

First Ray — Will
Virtues: Strength, Courage. Steadfastness. Truthful. Ability to handle People.
Vices: Pride. Ambition. Hardness. Arrogance. Anger.
Second Ray — Love
Virtues: Calm strength. Patience. Endurance. Faithful. Intelligence. Serene Temper.
Vices: Coldness. Indifference. Contempt of Mental Limitation.
Third Ray — Higher Mind
Virtues: Wide view for the Abstract. Sincerity,  Intellect.  Cncentration. Patience.
Vices:  Pride  of  intellect.  Coldness. Isolation. Obstinate. Selfish. Criticism of others.
Fourth Ray — Harmony through Conflict
Virtues: Affection. Sympathy. Devotion to Duty. Courage. Quick Intelligence.
Vices: Selfish. Worrying. Strong Passions. Indolence.
Fifth Ray — Lower Mind
Virtues: Accurate. Justice but without mercy.  Tenacity.  Independence.
Common Sense.
Vices: Narrowness of mind. Arrogance. Unforgiving. Lack of Sympathy and Reverance.
Sixth Ray — Devotion
Virtues: Devotion to Duty. Love. Tenderness. Loyal Intuition. Single-mindedness.
Vices: Jealousy. Partiality. Self Deception. Anger. Prejudice.

Seventh Ray — Ceremonial Magic
Virtues: Strength. Perseverance. Care for Detail.  Courage.  Courtesy.  Self-reliance.
Vices:  Too  Formal.  Bigotry.  Pride. Narrowness.  Opinionated.  Over-Indulgent. Superficial.
Remember few people are all of one ray, usually two or three, and few people can accurately judge their own Ray. The two books I have found most helpful, though giving different information in some ways, are The Seven Rays by Dr D. Baker (Aquarian Press) and The Seven Rays by E. Wood (Theosophical Publishing House). It needs detailed study if you are going to go deeper, and can lead you into a much wider area of thought.

Invocations
Chants and invocations are an integral part of ritual work and you should learn to write your own but there are some very old invocations that every magician should have for special occasions. You will find a collection of these in the Ritual Series of the SOL Knowledge Papers, entitled simply 'Chants and Invocations', obtainable from the SOL Jersey address. But here is one that was taught to me by my teacher W.E. Butler. He told me that it was recorded by a group with whom he worked in Glastonbury in 1926. A very strong contact was made with those he termed, 'The Masters of Britain' and with the Elemental Kingdom. It is more than a chant, it is in effect a powerful ritual/pathworking in its own right.

The Chant of the Elements
An Elemental Power manifested and said to us. 'Greeting, in the name of the Power of the Tor, greeting and welcome', and then another Power manifested and said 'Greeting and welcome within the Gates, the Gates are open, pass ye through, and ye shall see the vision of the opening of the mountain. The house is guarded, the ring of fire is about the house. The vision of the Hill is yours. By day and by night the house is guarded with a force that shall keep off your enemies, the force of the fire of the Tor. For this is the Hill of Fire and the Forces of Fire are about you, the protection of Fire is upon you.' He then went on to give us what he called the Chant of the Elements:

The Wind and the Fire work on the Hill, 
The Wind and the Fire work on the Hill, 
The Wind and the Fire work on the Hill,
Invoke ye the Wind and the Fire. 

The Wind and the Fire work on the Hill, 
The Wind and the Fire work on the Hill, 
The Wind and the Fire work on the Hill,
Trust ye the Wind and the Fire. 

The Wind and the Fire work on the Hill,
Hail to the Wind and the Fire. 
Draw  down  the  Power  into yourselves,
Work with the Wind and the Fire, 
Sun and Air, 
Sun and Air, 
Sun and Air.

Then another Elemental Power manifested and said:
Earth and Water are Friendly and Kind, 
Earth and Water are Friendly and Kind,
Earth and Water are Friendly and Kind, 
The Sun and the Fire work on the Hill, 
Hail to the Sun and the Fire.

Do not think about the Nature Forces, work with them, feel with them, they have not mind, you cannot touch them with the mind, feel with them, move with them, sing with them, do not be afraid of them, you need them, you have left them too far behind. For they are on the power side of things. Without the Elemental Forces you have no power, no power to give expression to your desires, unless it be the will of the Lord to the elements. For they hold the Gates that open to the inner world. You may enter only by the grace of the Lords of the Elements. They are your friends if you can but rule your own elemental nature. They will share with you the holiness of elemental nature. Form and force must be balanced. 'We love not weakness', they say, 'we scorn it, you must make us respect you, just as you must respect us, love us and we will love you. Those whom the Lords of the Elements love and trust, shall be loved and trusted by them, and shall be entrusted with the 

Force of the Elements.
'The Power of the Elements shall then be as a flame among men, as a rushing Tide, as a mighty Wind and as still as the Rocks. Ye shall sweep things aside as a Fire if the Lords of the Elements ride with you, the Kings of the Power of Air shall ride with you. The stability of the depths of the Earth shall guard you. Where my friends are there is purity and power where the waters sweep out to endless horizon, spaceless and timeless forever. Where my people are there is wealth, and strength and wisdom.'

Then another Elemental came and said,
'Greetings my children,
Wind and Water, Wind and Water,
Wind and Water,
Water and Earth that make fruitful, 
Water and Earth that make fruitful, 
Water and Earth that make fruitful, 
You shall never lack the water
springs, You shall be able to call up the water
springs and call upon the rain, 
The Water springs in the name of Earth and Water and the rains in the name of Water and Wind. 

Water and Wind, 
Water and Wind,
Water and Wind, 
Wind and Water. 

Fire and Earth, 
Fire and Earth, 
Fire and Earth. 

The Fire of the earth shall bring power to the Master 
The Fire shall cleanse, the Fire shall enlighten and tenderly shall the
Water bear you.

Love ye the elemental things, they are very old, they are ever young ageless and deathless, eternal, immortal, from of old and forever rule we our Kingdoms, and we are in the depths of your being. Awake and come, awake and come, awake and corne. Come from the depths of Elemental being and lighten our darkness. Come in the name of the White Christ and the Hosts of the Elements, come at our bidding and serve with us the one Name above all Names, the lover of men and of the 
Elemental peoples. Then there shall be no night where my people are, and the night shall be as day in the light of eternal fire. There shall be peace where my people are, the peace of the heights above the wind. There shall be purity where my people are.
Fire and Air, Fire and Air, Fire and Air, and power to serve the Masters.
You have been given the Freedom of the Elements, use them.'
Then the Master spoke again,' Well my children so you have met the messenger of the Elements, in the Elements is power if you dare to use it, and this is something we have tried to teach you, that you must have elemental power if you are to do anything. Many people have the best of intentions, but have not the elemental power, and therefore their intentions are fruitless. You must not be afraid of power, or of pain, it is useless to be afraid of things, you only have to meet them again, why should you be afraid of things, knowing by experience your own immortality , it has been said the last enemy to overcome is death. When you remember how often you have died you cease to be afraid of death. There is no need to fear death, for it has no power over you. If you are not afraid of death, or shame, or pain, or poverty, or loneliness, then what is there to fear? And all these things you have to learn to conquer on the path. Learn to live boldly my children, learn to live greatly. Learn to pay the price of big things and not to grudge it, learn to put all in the scales in order to weigh down the pure gold of the spirit. You must have your Green Ray contacts, you need them, you have your Blue of Wisdom, you have the Purple Ray of Devotion, you must have the Green Ray of Power as well, for the time will arrive when you can handle it, it is not for nothing that you have come here to the Tor and built upon it, here you have the Air and the Fire contacts. Learn to do the Chant of the Elements as you have heard it done this evening. Learn to be on terms of friendship with the Lords of the Elements, tonight you received the Greeting of the Lords of the Elements, remember you must conduct all dealing with the elemental world through them. They are beings of lofty intelligence, mighty in power and dedicated like you to the Masters. They will not serve you, never make the mistake of trying to command their obedience, but request their assistance as brothers, as servers of the One/
W.E. Butler went on to say that the medium through whom this Chant of the Elements was received was Dion Fortune, and that, at the time when she established her school, the Elemental contacts were very close to her and her group. Sometimes in the lodge they actually showed themselves. The full text of the Chant, the teaching, and Mr Butler's comments on that particular meeting can be found in the Lecture Series of the SOL Knowledge Papers.
The Chant can be used either as a ritual, or as a pathworking, in either case it is exactly what it claims to be, a Gateway to the Lords of the Elements and the freedom of their Realms, if, you can handle it.
Becoming an Initiate
In the last chapter of this book we will be talking about the setting up of a working group. Because you have such a group it does not follow that you are a magical Order, far from it. Nor do you have the right to call yourself an initiate, or to initiate others. There are two kinds of initiation, the physical and the non-physical. Sometimes you undergo the physical one first and sometimes the other, but one will always carry the potential of the non-physical. You become an initiate physically by being 'taken in' by someone who is of sufficient degree, at least a full degree and preferably two, above your own.
There have been many books published in the last decade that have chapters on self-initiation, you will find none in this book. I admit that it can happen, but rarely, and I do not consider I have the right to give you a ritual and to say, after this you can call yourself an initiate. That is in the sense of the word as I understand it, which is that a prepared novice comes to the door of a temple in a contacted Order, after certain passwords and assurances the novice is admitted and goes through a ritual designed to first cleanse him and then to implant in the heart center a seed of light drawn from the essence of the master of the Order. Certain instructions, passwords, promises, and pieces of information are then passed to the new initiate who is then granted right of entrance to the temple and the Order.
Unless you have spent time and taken instruction within the novitiate of that Order a true and contacted initiation is not possible. That does not mean you cannot put together a good solid working group with a lot of potential in store. Or that you cannot devise a Rite of Entry to your group that will act as a dividing line between the life lived outside and that which is kept for the world within.
Such a ritual will strenghten the Group Mind and give a sense of belonging to those that enter. As no doubt many of you will be working towards having a small group this seems the time to give you an example of such a Rite of Entry. This particular one is to establish a group, next month I will give you a ritual for the entry of a newcomer. I will assume that you already have some companions with whom you have been working for some time, and that now you want to establish yourselves as a real group. You already have a temple, a guardian,
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and a temple deity or overall master to whom your temple is dedicated, so you will not have to go over that again. You may change the tradition if you wish and use other names. I have used the Archangelic names for the Quarters since they are universal.
The Rite of Entry
Very probably you will have been working together in the temple for some time and so you will be familiar with the layout and the opening of the temple. Prepare the temple with extra care, a bowl of flowers on the altar and/or on each Quarter table. The magical tools laid out on the altar. Here I must point out that you should have a set of temple tools as well as your own personal set for solo work. There should be wine and small pieces of bread on the altar as well. If you already have robes add a new item such as tabards in the Quarter colors, you already have a pattern for these in Chapter 1. Place one of the tall candlesticks by each officer. Let each person make some small thing for use in the temple no matter how small. An altar cloth, a set of candles, some incense, a bottle of wine, anything at all.
Assemble at the altar, stand in meditation, think about the task you are setting yourself, the hard work ahead, the hard work that is behind you. After a few minutes the Officer of the East speaks:
East:
Brethren we have come together tonight to formally erect a Lodge to be named the Lodge of ........... Are we all agreed
upon this name?
All:
We are agreed.
East:
Then let this be written down in the Book of the Lodge with the date and the worldly names and the mystery name initials only of those who are present. Officer of the West, this will be your task, to keep the records of this Lodge until such time as our numbers permit this to be a separate office. Are you agreed to this?
West: I agree.
East:
Officer of the South, do you agree to keep the Gate of Noon in this Lodge, to guard it, to represent it, and to mediate its qualities?
South: I agree.
East:
Officer of the West, do you agree to keep the Gate of Sunset in this Lodge, to guard it, to represent it, to mediate its qualities?
West: I agree.
East:
Officer of the North, do you agree to keep the Gate of the Silence in this Lodge, to guard it, to represent it, and to mediate its qualities?
North: I agree.
West:
Officer of the East, do you agree to keep
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the Gate of the Dawn in this Lodge, to guard it, to represent it, and to mediate its qualities?
East:
I agree.
(All turn to face their Quarters right
hands up and out.)
East:
Mighty Raphael, Angel of Healing and Light, to you, the Regent of Air I swear my allegiance to this Lodge and to this group.
All:
So mote it be.
South:
Mighty Michael, Angel Warrior of Courage, to you, the Regent of Fire I swear my allegiance to this Lodge and to this group.
All:
So mote it be.
West:
Might Gabriel, Angel Messenger and Annunciator of the Word, to you, Regent of Water I swear my allegiance to this Lodge and to this group.
All:
So mote it be.
North:
Might Uriel, Angel of Mercy and Tranquillity, to you, Regent of Earth I swear my allegiance to this Lodge and to this group.
All:
So mote it be.
East:
Brethren, let us take our places. (All take seat in Quarters.)
East:
Officer of the South, what is the virtue you mediate in this Lodge?
South:
The Virtue of Love.
East:
Officer of the West, what is the virtue you meditate in this Lodge?
West:
The Virtue of Intuition.
East:
Officer of the North, what is the virtue you meditate in this Lodge?
North:
The Virtue of Oneness with Nature.
West:
Officer of the East, what is the Virtue you mediate in this Lodge?
East:
The Virtue of Wisdom.
All:
So mote it be.
East:
Brethren, is it agreed that we keep the rites practiced within this Lodge and the names we use and those we serve apart from the world and held in honour and silence?
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All:
It is so agreed.
East:
Let us seal this, by partaking of wine and bread together.
(All come to altar, East blesses bread and wine, eats and drinks then offers it to each in turn.)
East:
It is done. Let us now take from the altar those symbols of our offices and return to our places and meditate upon them. (All return to places and meditate for five or ten minutes.)
East:
Brethren let each one of us bring our gift to the altar and speak to the others and to the guardians of this place from their heart.
(In turn each one lays upon the altar the gift they have brought and speaks a few words, starting with the South and ending with the East, After this the lodge may be closed.)
Summary
As you come to the end of your year, the work has become less regimented and more precise in detail and of course harder and more abstract. Start to read the lives of some of the great mystics, you will find much to think on and to study in them. Not all of them are suitable but St Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross, St Ignatius De Loyola, and Julian of Norwich will be useful. Start looking round your area for lectures by visiting experts on anything you feel might be worth looking into. Dion Fortune's books such as Esoteric Orders and their Work. Aspects of Occultism and The Training
and Work of an Initiate are all good pointers to future ways of working.
Keep up your disciplines of meditation, but combine it with your studies using it as a tool more than a means of training the mind, which by now should be obedient to your will. Look for a group that does psychic Healing and go along to watch them work, talk to them and let them know you wish to understand their work. Some may be wary, but if you approach them in the right way you will get a good response.
Start working on the far memory exercises given in J.H. Brennan's book, and remember to keep detailed records. You have a lot of reading and studying to do this month what with the Aura and the Seven Rays, but take it slowly, it does not have to be done all at once. What I give you in the way of book titles can be stretched over several extra months, after all what will you have to read next year if you read it all now? You will find a whole series of lectures, rituals, and pathworkings available in the SOL Knowledge Papers, this will extend your collection of rites and workings and give you more advanced knowledge to work with. Do try out the Chant of the Elements, preferably out of doors, and promise yourself to do it once a year, so as to verify your contacts with the Lord of the Elements.
When you feel ready prepare your Rite of Entry and then your temple will at last come into its own. It will have taken almost a year, but it will be a real temple, erected with care and attention to ancient detail. It will serve you well, but remember you must also serve what it houses.
Reading List
Brennan, J.H., Five Keys to Past Lives (Aquarian Press, 1981)
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Butler, W.E., Practical Magic and the    Fortune, Dion, Esoteric Orders and their Western Mystical Tradition (Aquarian	Work (Aquarian Press, 1982) Press, 1986)                         Fortune, Dion, The Training and Work of
Fortune,  Dion,  Aspects of Occultism	an Initiate (Aquarian Press, 1978) (Aquarian Press, 1978)
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The Eleventh Month
The Tides of Life and Love
Date started
Date ended
The Tattwas
The modern occultist owes much to the men and women who belonged to the Order of the Golden Dawn. The Order contained many fine and sensitive minds, highly intellectual yet not rigidly so. Among the many riches they have left to us is a set of symbols known as the Tattwas. For many hundreds of years these powerful symbols were used in the East. According to J.H. Brennan in his book Astral Doorways, they were introduced to Western occultism by the Golden Dawn.
They are easy to use, but powerful enough to warrant taking care as they can produce results with startling suddenness. They represent the four elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air, plus Spirit. They can be used in many ways, as Astral doorways into pathworkings both active and passive, as Gates for the four magical Quarters of your temple, as meditation symbols, or used in combination with meditation and the Chant of the Elements ritual given in the previous chapter.
You will find illustrations of the five
symbols in Figure 44 together with the color to be used for that symbol. I have found that a very stiff, very shiny
figure 44  The Tattwa Symbols
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Hie jxuucu
card is best to use, the light seems more intense. I would also get a large sheet of white card to use for the exercises you will find below. If you cannot find the right color card for the symbols, then draw them by hand and color them in with acrylic or poster paints.
When you have practised with the symbols fo'r a while and you feel adventurous you could get hold of a roll of white wallpaper and cut them to door size. Then attach a hanger of the type used to display large posters and a weight of some kind to prevent the bottom end from curling up. They can now be used to hang in the temple Quarters during rituals involving the Elements. You could if you wished also make extra large copies of the symbols themselves to place on the white posters.
But to return to the exercise mentioned, this is a technique you already know, the Flashing colors. Using the smaller size of symbol, select one and stare fixedly at it for about half a minute, then transfer your gaze to the white card you have to hand. The image of the symbol will appear on the white card but in the complementary color to the original. Do this with all the symbols once a day for about a week, until you are used to the 'alternative' symbol and its color and can hold it in your mind with your eyes closed.
When you have got this far try enlarging the alternative symbol in your mind's eye to door sized proportions. Do this extension of the exercise once day for a week, or until you are satisfied that you can build the door to your best efforts. Now you transfer the whole exercise to the temple, with the large white posters in place, you can use the symbols for Air and for Spirit on the Eastern wall. Now
choose a symbol, place your chair facing its Quarter with the symbols itself held in your hand. Try to have a lamp on a small table beside you so that you can see the colored symbol, but can also turn the light off as soon as you feel ready to flash it onto the screen.
Stare at the symbol until you feel the eye muscles start to relax then switch your gaze to the plain white poster on the temple wall, at the same time switching off the light. The image should now be clearly seen on the temple wall. Think of this as a doorway to a different level of existence, and imagine yourself going through and into that level. It is a good idea to have someone with you to record what you are seeing or experiencing, if this is not possible have a tape recorder running. This technique can be used in conjunction with the Chant of the Elements given in the previous chapter.
Use all the symbols in turn and keep a record of what you see. If you have a group, you could make this a training exercise for them, it is an excellent way to sharpen the inner sight and to gain experience of the inner side of the Elements. Don't go mad and make long involved journeys right away, work up things slowly and just wander about in sight of the doorway for a few times before you set out to really explore. Always have a look behind you and fix the image of the door in your mind as a guide back to your own world.
The Tattwic Tides
Once you have achieved a certain competence with the single symbols you can begin to combine them, superimposing the red triangle of Fire on the silver crescent of Water, and so
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un. ixiuw you can gu runner ana use the visions during the actual time of the Tattwic Tides. For these shapes you are using are symbols of Tides that flow around the earth, one following upon the other in orderly fashion. It starts as sunrise with Akasha or Spirit, then flows on to Vayu or Air, then follows Tejas or Fire, and this merges into Apas or Water, finally Prithivi or Earth. I have given you the original Eastern names as well as the Western.
By arranging your most important rituals according to these Tides you can increase their effect considerably. Rituals are not just for the evening or middle of the night, there are also the larger Tides of the seasons. According to Dion Fortune in her book Aspects of Occultism this starts with the Fire Tide in spring, changing to the Water Tide with summer, then an Air Tide with autumn and ending with the Earth Tide in Winter. The Spiritual Tide flows through them all as a linking agent.
These Tides are represented by the four magical weapons in your temple, and on the table of the Magician in the tarot. Unless you can control your personal inner set of elements, you will have little success with controlling the larger variety. You can make a start on this area of your magical life by learning about and using the Tattwa symbols. The only real way to learn any type of magic is to do it. W.E. Butler once remarked a little ruefully '...you learn so much more by making mistakes....'
Much more teaching concerning the Tattwas can be learned from the two volumes of The Golden Dawn, edited by Israel Regardie.
Hypnogogic Imagery
After almost a year given over to a
smuy or me magical arts your psychism may have started to open up. If this is so you will no doubt have experienced the phenomena of hypno-gogic images. There is a point between waking and sleeping when the mind seems to relax its vigilance and we are able to see and even hear things not normally visible to us. They can be very real and detailed, but there is no need to be upset by them if they appear suddenly.
Again, just as we begin to wake the same thing applies. These images are rising from your own subconscious and the fact that they are rising means they are there for a purpose. They are very often mistaken for 'apparitions' and this can cause concern, but since they usually disappear with the onset of full wakefulness they can be distinguished from the true apparition which, if it is a real one, will persist.
Looking directly at such an image will cause it to waver or melt away. Try looking at it out of the corner of your eye for a while and getting to know as much as you can about its appearance. When fully awake use the image as a meditation point to try and get to the root cause of its occurrence. Sometimes it is a subconscious problem surfacing as an image, sometimes it can be a pointer to some aspect of your inner self seeking expression, in that case bring it to the surface and look into it, it may be important to your work, or to your studies, or it may be a pointer towards a future occurrence that your subconscious mind is preparing you to face, good or bad.
Sometimes these images are just that, images. I have a recurring one that starts with my hearing someone calling me by name just as I fall asleep, I get up feeling for my slippers and reach for the light switch but try as I may it will not work, this is enough
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usually to make me realize that I am 'out' and the first part, the name being called, was hypnogogic. On several occasions. I have reached that point, woken up, and gone back to bed, only to wake up for real as I lay down.
If such things start to happen, you are not suffering from delusions, it is normal and you will come to no harm from them-. On rare occasions they can be startling, rather than fearful, but once you get used to them you can dismiss them at will. I remember 'waking' up one night to find myself staring into the eyes of a very large grey Irish wolfhound. I lay very still for a moment trying to decide if I was really seeing this. I reasoned out that if it was standing where it seemed to be standing then its back legs must be projecting through the wall and into the temple behind it. The dog showed no sign of going and I was tired, so I turned over and went back to sleep. It arrived back the next night and the one after that and we went through the same procedure each time. Then it went, and several weeks later in another country I met up with my wolfhound, for real. He went mad, leaping around me as if we had been friends for years, had he been in my waking vision, or had I been in his?
Women's Mysteries and Moon Magic
You only have to read some of the history of the mysteries to realize there were certain rituals and types of rituals that belonged exclusively to one sex. Men had mysteries specifically for them, and so did women. This is something that is often overlooked in modern occultism with our world's emphasis on equality between the sexes. But there are times when each sex needs to have certain spiritual/
religious experiences that are exclusive to them.
Being a woman there is little I can do about explaining the male mysteries! But I can explain a little about those belonging to my own sex. First I must explain that this subject is as vast as the image of the Cosmic Mother herself; this being so I have no option but to give the merest glance to the subject, but because I know many women will be interested in this aspect of the occult I have given a list (by no means all the titles I could have given) of books I think will be best to start with.
Throughout history it is obvious that woman has been involved at the very heart of religious faith. She has been the honoured priestess, the inspired prophetess, the enigmatic pythoness, the revered temple heterae or prostitute, and even in Byzantium a Bishop, saint, and visionary, and recluse. She has also been the butt of Christianity, reviled as the bringer of sin into the world, blamed for the lusts of men, including in some cases those of the priests who blamed her. The greatest buck passing in history occurs in the Bible when Adam said to God, 'the woman gave me to eat and I did eat'..... quite ignoring the fact that he had a choice and was therefore in it up to his Adams apple, so to speak.
Because she was and is tied to a monthly cycle, woman has always looked to the Moon as her particular deity, and to the sea as her symbol. Since life itself came out of the sea, just as it emerges from the pregnant woman this is as it should be. You will perhaps have noticed that elsewhere in this book I have sometimes given the Deity a double title of Creator/Creatrix, this was deliberate, to my mind God is far beyond the whole concept of being one sex or another, but, the dual potential is there and should be acknowledged.
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The age old role of woman as priestess was eroded by the onset of Christianity and mostly by Paul, who, coming as he did from a mystery school background should have known better. Woman is now striking back and making an effort to regain her lost position both as man's equal and in the Church. But somehow, and this is a personal view only, I always see her greatest potential in the role of the Great Mother, both fertile and sterile, the ancient Goddess, virgin, wife, and mother. Capable of running, as did Hypatia, the great Library of Alexandria; of inspiring some of the world's great men, as did Cleopatra; capable of ruling a great kingdom as did Elizabeth I. It is a woman's strength that she can do most things a man can do (with a few exceptions...) and bear children, look after a home, run a business and still be a channel for the Goddess of Love.
Most of the women's mysteries are concerned with Virgin Moon Magic, or Maternal Earth Magic. Let's get misconceptions of the word virgin out of the way first. You can be 45, married, with three children, and still be a virgin! In the earliest usage the word simply meant 'a woman who belonged to no man'. Unless you happen to belong to a religion where a woman actually belongs either to her husband or her father, this applies to all womankind.
Let's try another word that has become a term of abuse, prostitute. In the ancient world the temple prostitutes were held in high regard, and were looked upon as the restorers of fertility to the land. When new faiths appeared they were cast out and left to find a living in the only way they knew how. Since then the once proud title has degenerated into something cheap and nasty. But once, long ago it was different.
The Moon mysteries centerd around the Virgin Goddesses, although they sometimes overlapped as in the case of Isis, with the Earth Goddess type. Some Moon Goddesses were chaste, others seemed to have done the chasing! Even Diana, or Artemis, so legend says, stole away the young shepherd Endymion, and cast a permanent sleep spell over him as he lay in a cave sacred to the Moon. There every night she would visit him.
Lunar magic is the magic of the Night, of things growing in darkness, which is why we plant by a growing Moon. It is the hidden side of female power linked to her sexuality and therefore to her magical power, since, as has been mentioned elsewhere, all magical power starts as the natural creative power centerd in the genital area.
Because the Moon affects all life one way or another woman has a head start over man when it comes to magic. For all women it is a natural gift, they are more at home on the Inner Levels, can work there for longer periods, and have access to its power sources through her lunar and earth links. When you come to think of it all magic is at base a growing thing, no matter what type of ritual you perform, for whatever purpose, the purpose has to 'grow' from an idea through all the stages of becoming, until it manifests. Thought is creative and women 'think' very well on the Inner Levels.
The best rituals of all are those performed by a trio of one man and two women, as you will find out when you come to the ritual that ends this chapter. In a temple, a woman reaches inwards to her female power sources and brings pure power into the temple, the man, because his natural power works best on the manifested level, can then direct the female power into the
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area, direction, or intent required and spark the whole process off. It is a natural equality, each is supreme in their own place.
The other side of female magic is that of the Earth, the ancient Corn Goddesss, basis of the mysteries of Eleusis. Again it is concerned with growing. The Moon oversees the planting and is the force that draws it out of the warm darkness of gestation to the light, where the Earth mysteries take over and lift it right up so that it ripens. This is the natural sequence of all magical acts.
Because she seemed to hold the threads of life and death, the two great mysteries of all, woman as a priestess, has always been somewhat feared by man. Her capacity for both love and hate is remarkable, so is her magical potential. But first she must learn to know her inner Moon self as well as her outer Earth self. She must get to know her cyclic swings of mood and use them in her magical work. It is right and proper that she should work at times on her own or with other women but the real place for her is by the side of man, not in front, not behind, but at the side, sharing the power and the responsibility. Of all the ancient religions the Craft understands this best of all.
Even now in modern times a woman seems 'set aside' during her menstrual cycle, men still shy away from any mention of 'those times', yet it is precisely the time when a woman is at her most powerful magically speaking. The Moon Power is Upon Her, as the old saying goes. An old woman who had spent all her life in the practice of the Craft once told me 'when blood flows, power flows, and woman reigns'. As a practising magician myself I know this is true and I have sometimes delayed a ritual so that it
would coincide with my cycle, and the extra power flow could be used. Sometimes if a ritual has gone very well, it has caused a period to come before its time, power can draw on extra power if the time is right.
One of the things wrong with modern life is that there are no Rites of Passage. A girl begins to menstruate and if she is lucky she understands what is happening and is prepared for it, if not she is scared, and the event becomes a hated occurrence that blights her life. In the mysteries she was eligible for initiation into the female mysteries at that time. It was eagerly looked forward to as a great event. Today it is regarded as 'the Curse', an ugly name and untrue. It is a blessing, the hormonal changes help the skin to keep its suppleness, it keeps hair shiny, and the whole body tuned up. A girl should be taught that at these times her body is working exactly as it should do to keep her healthy. It is strange but true that magical work, expecially ritual, does two things for a woman, it keeps her cycle going far longer than in women who are not involved with magic. It also has an effect on hair, giving it thickness and quicker growth. It is not at all unusual for menstruation to function normally well into the middle fifties, keeping the skin clear and unwrinkled, and the natural drives of the body well to the fore.
I would like to see girls taught to look forward to the beginning of their Moon cycles as an event in their lives, an entry into womanhood with all its attendant joys, tears, and expectations. My own daughter was prepared in this way, and if I am blessed with a granddaughter I hope to see her taught the same things.
In the last few years many books have taken up the cause of women's
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mysteries, some are of great value, others less so. I could quite happily use the rest of this book for the subject, but an ounce of practice is worth a pound of theory, so instead I will give some practical work purely for the lady magician.
If you are working alone, there is no problem, if you are working within a group arrange for one or two nights a month to be devoted to female mysteries. To balance it out, the men can have their special nights as well. In this way the temple will grow in a balanced way and become a truly sacred enclosure.
It is nice if there are two or three of you, but even on your own you can do a great deal towards implanting the seed of Lunar and Earth magic in the temple. First time your own cycle and mark your mood swings, then select those times when you feel at your best, and at your lowest. Those are your poles of mood. Read through some of the books recommended or select one of the ancient Goddess forms and meditate upon it. See the Goddess as an extension of yourself into the higher levels, and yourself as an extension of the Goddess into the Earth level. Examine the symbols and attributes of that Goddess. Try to open your inner self to that particular power and manifest it, first within your aura, then within the temple, and then outside the temple. This means that after a while you will be able to act as a channel for the power of that Goddess in your everyday life, and not just within the sacred enclosure. Do this when you are feeling at the top of your cycle.
When you hit the low time, reverse the process, instead of looking outwards and bringing power into the world, use the following ritual to take your mind inward to the heart of your
femininity. It is based on an ancient legend, that holds the racial memory of an actual ritual. It is called the descent of Ishtar. It will need the temple setting up as in Figure 45. You will need a robe, a headdress of some kind, earrings, necklace, a brooch fastened over the heart center, bracelets, a ring, and a pair of sandals. You should be nude beneath the robe but for a cord or girdle. There are parts for three women in this ritual,but if you are working alone, or with just two, then the extra parts may be recorded on tape and used that way. Each woman should take her turn at being Ishtar. Thereafter it can be performed simply as a path working two or three times a year. Light the candles on either side of the Eastern throne where Ishtar sits, robed in her splendour as a goddess. Ereshkigal, the goddess of Death, sits in the North. Her Gatekeeper stands at Gate 1.
Ishtar:
I am Ishtar, Queen of Heaven. All things bow to me, and I am beloved by men and Gods alike. Yet my heart weeps and I love not the world, for Tammuz, my son and my husband has been taken from me into the depths of Hell where rules my sister Goddess Ereshkigal. Three times have I offered her gold, jewels, and power, yet still she will not release my love. Now will I go before her myself and ask, yea, I Ishtar Queen of Heaven will humble myself before her. (Rises and goes to the first gate.)
Gatekeeper:
Why comes the Great Ishtar to the first gate of Hell?
Ishtar:
I come seeking one who is lost to me.
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ivuuai magic VVOIKDOOK
East
to
Pastes
West
Figure 45  Temple Layout for the Descent of Ishtar
Gatekeeper:
Lay aside the Crown of Heaven, it carries no authority in Hell. (Ishtar lays her headdress on the table, she and the Gatekeeper move to the second Gate.)
Gatekeeper:
Crownless Ishtar, no longer Queen, why come you to the second Gate of Hell?
Ishtar:
I come seeking the return of my love.
Gatekeeper:
Lay aside the jewels in your ears, light from them has no place in Hell (Ishtar lays the earrings on the tab then both move to the third Gate
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i tie hleventh Month
Gatekeeper:
Foolish Goddess, what seek you at the third Gate of Hell?
Ishtar:
I come seeking one more precious than jewels.
Gatekeeper:
Lay aside your necklace of stars, there are no skies in Hell for them to shine from. (Ishtar lays her necklace on table, then both move to the fourth Gate.)
Gatekeeper:
Ishtar the lovelorn, what seek you at the forth Gate of Hell?
Ishtar:
/ come seeking my heart which has gone from me.
Gatekeeper:
Lay aside the great jewel on your breast, it hides the empty space where once the heart of Ishtar beat.
(Ishtar lays aside the brooch and they both move to the fifth Gate.)
Gatekeeper:
Ishtar the heartless, what do you seek at the fifth Gate of Hell?
Ishtar:
I seek my lord and my love taken from me by cruel Death.
Gatekeeper:
Lay aside your bracelets and your ring, such tokens hold no value here in Hell. (Ishtar lays her bracelets and ring on the table, both go to the sixth Gate.)
Gatekeeper:
What has great Ishtar to give now, that she may pass the sixth Gate of Hell. Give me your royal robe and you may pass
Ishtar:
For my purpose I will give up my royal robe that I may pass. (Ishtar takes off her robe and both move to the seventh Gate.)
Gatekeeper:
you stand at the last Gate of Hell, will you go further? If so what have you left to give?
Ishtar:
7 will pass further and stand before Ereshkigal herself. I will give up the Girdle of Love, it holds the greatest of all my powers, but what is love if there is none to love.
(Ishtar unties her girdle and places it on the table, then passes on to stand before the Goddess of Death.)
Ereshkigal:
What is this, proud Ishtar, Goddess of Love, Queen of Heaven, here stands naked and shamed before me, What would you sister mine?
Ishtar:
I would have the life of my husband son, and lord, give him to me and I will bless your name.
Ereshkigal:
You must pay me for his life, will you give up your own and abide here in hell for ever.
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me ivuucti iViagiL  VVUrKDOOK ——————————
Ishtar:
This I will do.
(Goes to Pastes and lies down with
arms crossed.)
Ereshkigal:
Now will I Ereshkigal reign instead of my hated sister. I will wear the crown and the 'earrings of Ishtar. The jewel and the robe and the Girdle of love are mine, and I have the Goddess herself to be my slave.
Gatekeeper:
Not so Ereshkigal, the Gods have sent a message to Hell, the earth dies because there is no life force. Send back Ishtar the beautiful and they will send another in her stead.
Ereshkigal:
This summons I must obey, but this I will have, Tammuz shall be with me for the half of each year, only six months shall he dwell with his goddess. (Goes to Pastos.)
Ereshkigal:
Arise Ishtar, it seems I cannot keep you here, arise and take your love, but, he must dwell with me for six months of each year, and you will know that during that time he will be my love.
Ishtar:
/ hear Ereshkigal, and I will abide by the
promise. Let my love be waiting when I
return to the earth.
(Rises and goes to the seventh Gate.)
Gatekeeper, give me the Girdle I put off
at this gate.
(Gatekeeper passes it to her and she
puts it on, they go to the sixth Gate.)
Gatekeeper, give to me my royal robe
that you took from me.
(Gatekeeper gives it to her and they
go to the fifth Gate.)
Gatekeeper, return my bracelets and ring
that you took from me here.
(Gatekeeper returns both of them,
they pass to the fourth Gate.)
Gatekeeper, bring to me the breast jewel
paid to you at this Gate.
(Gatekeeper gives up the brooch,
they go to the third gate.)
Gatekeeper, put on my necklace of stars,
that I paid at this Gate.
(Gatekeeper puts on her necklace,
they go to the second Gate.)
Gatekeeper, return to me the earrings
this gate did cost me.
(Gatekeeper  returns  the  earrings
and they pass to the first Gate.)
Gatekeeper, give to me the Crown of
Heaven.
(Gatekeeper places the Crown on
her head, and she takes her place in
the East.)
/ Ishtar, Queen of Heaven, have gone into the depths, I have given up my life for love. I know what mankind does suffer in Hell, I will be man's help, and his succour here in Heaven, for I have shared with him his greatest fear. Let it be so written.
Here ends the ritual.
This ritual is more than it seems, you are giving up more than jewels and a robe. The Crown is the power of the mind, the thought energy, the Earrings the power to hear the creative word sounded in Heaven, the Necklace is the power of your communication center, and the Brooch the jewel that is the heart center, the bracelets and ring symbolize the powers of the endocrinal system, and the Robe your outer covering of humanity. The Girdle is your ability to recreate yourself out of Love. Finally you give up your very life
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energy. You go down into the depths of your own self, for that is where every Hell that ever was, is to be found. Ereshkigal is your own darker side, the Gatekeeper your inner wisdom that helps you to keep internal balance and brings the message of your summons to rebirth.
Performed with intent this ritual can bring about remarkable effects. It should be done at the dark of the moon, using an incense of Hecate, with dark blue or black candles.
The Craft of the Wise
No book on ritual magic would be complete without mentioning the Craft of the Wise. So much publicity, and most of it bad, has been the lot of the Old Religion that it is time to put the record straight. Despite what is put out by the more sensation seeking Sunday newspapers, 99 per cent of the Craft are gentle, quiet people who want only to be allowed to worship in their own ancient and very beautiful way. However the name 'witch' still carries the stigma of Satanism and Black Magic. I have said before and will repeat, there is no such thing as Black or White Magic... there is only Power, power that is colored by the people using it. They prefer to worship their female deity in the woods and forests, that deity, like all the ancient Goddesses, has a consort, a male God who wears a crown of Horn, a symbol of fertility, and not the devil. After all Moses wore horns as well..!
The companionship and the love shared between the majority of the Craft people is an example that could be followed by other religions. The continued war waged against them by press and Church is not helped by the fact that whenever they try to put the records right, their words are twisted
and their rituals misrepresented. The fact that the Church was responsible for the cruel death of untold numbers of innocent women and children is rarely mentioned. They cannot all have been dissidents and so called devil worshippers. We hold memorial services for the martyrs and those massacred by terrorists, but who will hold a memorial for those burnt and tortured to death during the middle ages. 'It is best forgotten', we are told, 'it was all a long time ago and does not happen now'. No, the rack and the stake have gone, now we have more subtle methods against anyone whose religion does not match our own way of thinking.
The Craft is, in fact, primarily a religion of Nature Worship and sees the hand of the Creator/Creatrix in everything around them. Their rites are simple rather than elaborate with an emphasis on the love of the Goddess for Her children be they human, animal, or plant. They celebrate with music and dance and song, and with the age old Cakes and Wine ceremony that was celebrated long before it was used in Christian communion. There are several kinds of Craft ranging from the Gardnerian through to the Family Craft, and the Traditional Craft. The Family Craft is rarely heard of, their knowledge is passed from one generation to the next, there are a few locations where several families live close and work together, but it is rare that an outsider is given access to their work. When this happens, it is for a reason. Such a one is known as the Walker, or the Proud Walker.
Unless you have links with the Craft you will not easily come across them or their work, if you do get an invitation to meet with Traditional Craft, you will be very lucky and they can teach you a
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great deal. I have not given any Craft rituals in this book, such rituals are not mine to give out, and I am bound by promises, but I can say that for the most part they are beautiful, meaningful, and close to the heart of Nature.
The Osiris Ritual
The Osiris Ritual is based on another and much older ritual. The fragments of an original ritual were given to me many years ago and upon those fragments I have based the Rite that follows. It is for a Priest and two Priestesses, that is an Osiris, with Isis and Nephthys in attendance. All the rituals given to you so far have been fairly easy, and can be worked without undue stress. However there comes a time when you have to step over the line that separates the complete novice from the more experienced. That time has arrived with this ritual.
I have two versions of it, the one you have been given is the 'lighter' of the two, even so I suggest you prepare for it with serious intent and a certain amount of study. You should make yourself quite familar with the story of Osiris, and especially his relationship to both Isis, and Nephthys. You might say that in them he sees his bright anima, and his dark anima, his life and his death. Do not make the mistake of equating Nephthys with evil or anything harmful. She is a gentle Goddess and in legend is totally devoted to her brother and his wife. Take particular note of the fact that she is the mother of Anubis by her brother, the child being given over to his aunt Isis to bring up and to train as her successor in magic.
This makes Anubis the sacred Nephew, the inheritor of the Kingdom, the earthly successor to his father. He is also the half brother, teacher, and
protector to Horus the Sun Hawk. Two pathworkings that will help you prepare for this ritual can be found in the Pathworking Series of the SOL Knowledge Papers, entitled, 'The Sorrows of Isis', and 'The Birth of Horus'.
Dress the temple as shown in Figure 46, moving the pillars to either side of the Pastos which occupies the central position facing East to West. If possible this should be draped with a black cover. Over this lay a plain white sheet. The candles are placed behind the two thrones of the Goddesses and care should be taken that they are far enough away to avoid them being pushed over if a chair is moved. They are put here because you need light coming from behind the two women and from nowhere else.
This is part ritual and part path-working, and it can have a slightly unnerving effect on the Osiris, so I would suggest that it is worked on a weekend when at least twenty-four hours can be used to 'come down' slowly. The women should have plain black robes, sleeveless and with a silver Egyptian style collar and girdle. Silver sandals or bare feet. A silver ribbon bound across the forehead will do if you do not have an Egyptian headdress. Isis should carry an Ankh and Nephthys a Sistrum. Osiris wears a simple Egyptian kilt with an Egyptian collar and if you can make one, a copy of the White Crown of Egypt. You will find pictures of this in the pictures of robes and headdresses at the end of the book. He should carry the Crook and the Flail, his arms crossed on his breast.
Osiris takes his stand up against the Eastern wall, the only light is from the two candles. The two women enter, and Isis seals the temple by walking around it and using the Ankh as a seal
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East
•g I
t
o
o
\
T
I
I
West Figure 46  Temple Layout for the Osiris Ritual
in each Quarter. Then she takes her stand before the Silver Pillar and Nephthys before the Black. Isis begins the invocation to Ra.
Isis:
Hail to thee Ra, thou art great in the
Heavens. Hail to thee of the three forms, Ra,
Kephra, Atum.
Hail to thee Light of the Earth, mighty
in power.
Hear the voice of Isis, Hear the voice of she who knows thy
name.
Hear the voice of Egypt. Come forth and look upon the work of
evil.  Osiris  lies  without  breath
beneath thy Light. Without the breath
of Life before thee. Comfort me oh Ra, Comfort me and
comfort my sister.
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Give to us the body of Osiris that we may mourn him that we may cover him and lay him in sweet herbs.
Come forth from the Boat of Millions of "Years and hear the voice of sorrow.
Nephthys:
Hail to thee Lord of Heaven, mighty is
thy wrath. Hail to thee Of the Falcons head, bright is
thine eye.
Hail to thee Arm of Justice, Ruler of all. Hear the voice of 'Nephthys. Hear the voice of she who weeps. Hear the voice of the Nile. Come forth and look upon the work of
Set. He who loved me is no more.
Without my Lord and Brother I am
bereft. Comfort me oh Ra, comfort me and
comfort my sister. Give to us the body of Osiris that we
may weep, that we may watch over
him through the night. Come forth from the Cave of the Sun in
the East and hear our call.
Osiris
Ms, sister wife, Ra has granted me this small time to speak with thee. Soon I must cross the wide sea to Amenti, there to dwell until my time shall come again. Take my body and lay it in coverings and sweet herbs. Walk with me in the dreams of night and speak with me through the reeds in the river. I will come again, and none shall stand against me, for I have been down into the darkness and have risen.
Nephthys, sweet singer of songs, thou of the gentle hands to thee I give greetings. Ease thy hearts pain for I shall welcome thee to my arms in sleep. Thy kisses shall be as sweet in Amenti. From Set did I take thee and make thee the mother of my Son, So also shall thy sister bear a son to me, though I be
without the breath of life, this has Ra promised. Take my body and weep over me and watch through the bitter night. But I shall come again. (Now Isis and Nephthys come forward and Osiris comes to stand between them in single file. Isis leading they move slowly to the Southern station and pause.)
Isis:
Weep, weep, oh ye lands of the South, for Osiris goes down into the darkness of death. Weep, for his like shall not be seen again for a thousand years. Until the Land ofKhem has fallen and risen again. Strange feet shall walk on this sacred soil, and the temples shall crumble, but Osiris will sleep on.
Nephthys:
Other Gods and other faiths shall Egypt know, the tides of peace and war shall cross her sands, voiceless shall be the Gods of Egypt, but Osiris shall sleep on. (They move on to the West, and pause)
Isis:
Mourn, mourn oh ye lands of the West, take Osiris into thy bosom and guard him well. The setting sun shall be his pillow and the waters of the Western sea shall be his dream. But sweet will be the sleep of Osiris.
Nephthys:
Strange forms, and strange events shall
be the lot of Egypt, yet in the West a
light shall be seen. Each night a star
shall fall into the sea, a tear from the eye
of Nephthys will fall upon the breast of
Osiris.
(They move to North, and pause.)
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Isis:
Cry aloud oh ye lands of the North, send your coldness forth and freeze the heart of Isis that I may feel no more pain. Take me and make me like the ice upon the mountains of the Moon, and Isis too shall sleep with Osiris.
Nephthys:
No sleep for thee my sister, thy time is not yet, Mankind needs you and needs me also. Not yet may we take our rest, but one day we two shall be with our Lord and love.
(They move to the East, then turn and go to the center. Osiris lies down on the Pastos and the women wrap him in the white sheet, leaving his face and head free. Then they take their seats, Isis in the East, Nephthys in the West.)
Isis:
Let us weave a dream for our Lord that he may sleep sweetly in Amenti. I shall use the dawn clouds of amethyst and gold and with these I shall weave a garment for him to wear in the land beyond the Setting Sun. The Sun's first ray of light I will catch and fashion into a diadem for his brow. The first birds's notes of day will make a jewel for his breast.
Nephthys:
I shall take the light of the stars at midnight and weave a cloak of indigo, a single star shall be its clasp. The scent of the night flowers I will make into a pectoral for this throat and the Moon's light on the clouds will become his sandals. The sound of the sea will be his pillow, and the scales of rare fish will cover him.
Osiris:
Sweet are my dreams, and deep is my sleep, I ride the boat to Amenti in the West. Around me I see many who travel with me, yet they know me not. I hear your voices around me, I see you in the swift winged herons that fly overhead. But soon the boat of the Dead will outwing you both and we must part. Sweet sisters wait for me and I will come again.
(Osiris must now feel himself as being on the boat drawing away from land. Two herons fly beside the boat. The setting sun is low on the horizon. The two women should sit quietly meditating upon the death and the rebirth of all Saviour Gods. After a few minutes, no more than five, Osiris should rise from the boat in his own form, leaving the body of Osiris in the boat. Taking the same form as the herons' he returns towards land with them. As you all draw near, the land becomes the temple and you see below you the figure on Pastos, and the two watching women. Go down and enter into your own body, knowing it to be you and not Osiris. Open your eyes and this will be the signal for the two women to rise and help you unwrap yourself from the Osiran winding sheet. Now all three go to the East, facing it in a line.)
Isis:
I was Isis, I now understand the burden laid upon her as the Great Mother. I will try to become a channel for her love and wisdom, and mediate it in my own life.
Nephthys:
I was Nephthys, I now understand the joy of being able to comfort and offer solace. I will try to become a channel for
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her gentleness and comfort and mediate it in my own life.
Osiris:
I was Osiris, I now understand what it means to be Osiris risen. I was dead and now I live. I have sat in the Boat of Amenti and have seen the Land beyond the Sunset. I will remember these things and will learn from them. (Isis closes the Temple, the Rite is ended.)
Reading List
Begg, Ban, The Cult of the Black Virgin (Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1985)
Harding,  Ester, Women's Mysteries (Rider, 1971)
Harrison, Michael, The Roots of Witchcraft (Muller, 1973)
Regardie,  Israel, The Golden Dawn (Llewellyn, 1978)
Whitmont, E.,The Return of the Goddess (Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1983)
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The Twelfth Month
The Journey Begins
Psychic Defence
When people come into the practice of magic for the first time their heads are usually full of fears and worries about being psychically attacked. To be quite honest real, one hundred per cent psychic attack is very rare. First of all you have to present a real threat to someone, this you are unlikely to do unless you become an exceptional magician and start treading on other magical toes.
It takes a great deal of time, effort, and physical and mental strength to mount such an attack. It also takes a very competent magician to put it all together. There are very few of the required calibre around, and the most you are likely to experience are the thought-form variety, and they are irritating rather than dangerous. Human nature being what it is, there is bound to be a time when a magician gets mad and throws a 'whammy'. Everyone does it at one time or another, at least they do it once... the backlash that comes from it is usually enough to deter one from doing it again.
If  you  have  worked  your  way
through this book with serious intent you will have learnt that thought is creative. It causes effects, events and manifestations. It is powered by emotion, it doesn't need a genius IQ to predict that if you are feeling extremely upset by someone, you will start thinking along the lines of 'I wish such and such would happen to old so and so...he/she needs a lesson'. A novice magician is as capable of causing distress in this manner as one more experienced. You have the knowledge of the power of thought.
Happily few novices have the ability to concentrate with any real force for the length of time needed to bring about real harm... but novices get better, so now is the time to start training your emotions so that they are under your control at all times. If you catch yourself thinking harmful thoughts, stop it at once, take the thought in the form of a black ball and send it up through the center of your body and out into the unmanifest where it will be dispersed. "
The first lesson of psychic defence is this, train yourself not to attack other people thought-wise!
Dealing with other people's thought
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V V U1K.UUUK.
forms is another matter, and comes in three stages, 1. Ignore them, and let the sender get tired before you do.
2. Surround the thoughts with a clear scarlet flame and request one of the Archangelic presences to deal with it.
3. The most effective, have a good laugh, watch a comedy on TV, go and see a film, or simply have a night out with good"friends...but let whoever is doing the sending know you are having a laugh about it. Nothing deflates an oppressive thoughtform, or its sender, like being dismissed as a mere nuisance, which is what most of them are.
Being a magician does not mean other magicians are out to get you, don't let yourself become paranoid about things. Real Black Magicians are rarer than hens teeth, consider this for a start. A magician working on the Path of Light knows that even if he does something wrong, if a ritual or a pathworking goes haywire he will not fall foul of the Inner Plane Adepti. He is not going to be punished for making a mistake, that is unless it was deliberate and then he will have to atone for it. On the other hand a magician who has pledged himself to the Lords of the Dark Face has a serious problem, just one little mistake and he will be pounced upon. He dare not make a single mistake, his Lords are not so forgiving. That is why, when a magician goes over to that side, he becomes a very good magician simply because he has to be good in order to survive. Those kind of magicians do not bother with anyone except those of their own calibre, which you are not likely to be for a long time yet.
The biggest threat to you is first and foremost, yourself. Your inexperience and your over-enthusiasm. Later on as you grow in confidence and ability your Inner Level Aura will get brighter,
and if progress continues it will become something similar to a large beacon on the inner planes. When that happens you tend to get noticed by those beings on the other side to your own. Then, you can start and take psychic defence seriously. However, if you are part of a well trained, balanced group, or part of a school, you will have certain in-built protections.
Every mystery school or contacted group has an egregore. That egregore is a very powerful protection against anything nasty. Every student who enters such a school bears in their aura its sigil, they can be identified on the Inner Levels by it, and it can act as a deterent to a minor opponent. Anything bigger and the egregore will automatically call in angelic reinforcements. Of course if you deserve what you are getting you will have to answer for it, but you will be helped.
Most schools will give a student a name by which the outer court can call upon the master of the Order, or sometimes the badge or symbol of the school will act in the same way. If you think you are being attacked do nothing for a few days, watch and wait and observe, note down anything you think might be relevant. If it persists then think about doing something, if that does not finish it, then, yell for help. But do not panic and assume someone or something is gunning for you. It could be something quite simple such as a bit of Karma coming your way... you can hardly blame someone else for that!
There are certain places where I do advise students to take simple precautions. One of these is any sort of hotel room. When you think of the number of people that can pass through just one hotel room in a year you will not be surprised to find that such places can be psychic sinks. All sorts of things
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go on in hotel rooms, some harmless, some sad, some frightening. A fair number of people commit suicide in them for a start. Walls are very absorbent to emotions and the thought of sleeping in a room in which someone had gone through a pre-suicide trauma, is not pleasant. So clear the room before you sleep. You do it like this. Always carry a small container of salt with you. Bless the water and salt and mix the two together. Sprinkle it around the room and lightly over the bed.If you know where East is, fine, if not simply choose one direction and declare the intent that this will be East.
7............... do invoke the peace and
healing powers of Raphael upon this
place. May it radiate those qualities upon
all who may sleep here, now and in the
days to come.
(Move to the South.)
I...............  do  invoke  Love  and
courage, the powers of Michael upon this
place. May it radiate those qualities upon
all who may sleep here, now and in the
days to come.
(Move to the West.)
7............... do invoke understanding
and  mental  strength  the  powers  of Gabriel upon this place. May it radiate those qualities upon all who may sleep here, now and in the days to come. (Move to the North.) I............... do invoke gentle sleep and
healing dreams that are the gift of Uriel upon this place. May it radiate those gifts upon all who may sleep here, now and in the days to come. May all who have passed through this door, be blessed wherever  they  may  be.  Bless  me, ............... who will sleep here this
night.
If you are in a situation that is giving you cause for anxiety call upon
Michael, or upon any God-form suitable for the Southern quarter. Think of the Archangel in the form of a large, hefty and well-armed Roman soldier. That is more likely to give you confidence than 'seeing' him in the traditional white robe and bare feet! One of the most vital pieces of knowledge to remember in psychic work, whatever tradition you may follow, is that the Archangelic powers are 100 per cent real forces. For many centuries they have been imagined, built, painted, talked about, and sculpted as loving helpful powers. The intense emotions of millions of people have been poured into them, they cannot help but be what they have been programmed to be... protective and helpful. So, use those forces.
I have no fear at all of flying, which is just as well for I fly thousands of miles every year. However I do have one set of rules from which I never vary. As the plane revs up and starts careering down the runway I send out a request for four large, well-built angels, one from each Quarter. In my imagination I shove one under each wing, one under the nose and the other under the tail. I picture them happily scampering down the runway and lifting the whole thing skywards. I thank them, and bless them, then dismiss them and settle back to enjoy the flight. A bit unorthodox I admit, but it suits me.
The greatest thing you have to fear is fear itself. If you come up against something you cannot handle, don't try. The best, and fastest acting prayer is simply 'HELP'. You have been given the Dog of Defence Ritual, that can be used in any situation and it is highly effective. Don't get yourself into situations you know you will not be able to handle. Leave things like exorcism to experts. It takes a highly trained person to exorcize even the
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smallest nasty. Such things feed on fear, and you will be a danger not only to yourself but to anyone with you at the time. It is foolish to think that because you have an occult group, or work with one, or even because you are a student in an occult school, that this qualifies you to deal with anything that might turn out to be either psychically powerful and nasty, or a genuine disturbance caused by psychic entities. It takes years of study and training, and is usually, though not always, the province of an ordained minister.
Don't go on ghost hunts, sleep in haunted houses for a laugh, or go looking for things that go bump in the night. You may think nothing has happened and go home the next day laughing. When things start to happen in your own home the laughter stops. Things, entities, and other flotsam from the astral levels can attach themselves to you all unknowingly, and ride home with you. Like fleas, they can hop around looking for fresh pastures.
On the other hand there is no need to bedeck yourself with crosses and crucifixes unless they are something you wear every day. Some things you can come up against are a lot older than Christianity and a cross is not always the best symbol to use.
Possession is as rare as a true psychic attack, what would have been called possession a hundred years ago is now looked upon as a form of dementia and treated with therapy and drugs. But there is such a thing as possession. You believe in the God-forms you invoke, you know them to be good, therefore you must believe with equal faith in the possiblity of there being evil God-forms. The best way to avoid any possibility of possession is not to get into situations where it might possibly
occur. Don't work strange rituals you may find without knowing more about where they come from. Don't sleep inside dolmens, stone circles, or prehistoric sites unless you have a sound knowledge of what they were used for and the God-forms worshipped in them. This does not mean that such places are evil, or exceptionally dangerous, just that while you are still 'green in power' you should take sensible precautions. Don't nod off or attempt any form of ritual in a location where violence may have occurred. Such places attract astral denizens of levels that are not friendly to human beings, or indeed any life form, even animals in such places can become infected and extremely hostile.
If a place feels unpleasantly cold, if it smells unpleasant, don't hang about. Listen to what your intuition is telling you, and take note of its advice. There are people who can deal with these things, whose whole training is aimed at dispersing and clearing them. It is your job to keep away from them. If you are destined to follow the path of the exorcist you will find yourself in contact with one who will train you. If not you can do more good working along your own lines.
There are few books on the subject, but Murry Hope's Practical Techniques of Psychic Self Defence, Dion Fortune's Psychic Self Defence, and F. Strachan's book Casting out the Devils, are among the most recent. I do urge newcomers to the occult to read carefully what has been written and take note of it.
Sacred centers
Britain, the Blessed Isle, Grammarye, Albion, her names are many, her fame as a sacred isle well deserved. From this island, so small in comparison to other lands, has emerged a wealth of
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great men and women, literature, art, poetry, and magic. The shadowy figures of Arthur, Merlin, Wayland, Herne the Hunter, Epona, Brigantia, Cernnunos, Abaris, and the silver tongued Taliesin, stand beside Columa, Brigid, Aidan and Dunstan. In the hills of Wales the shades of Gwydion, Govannan, Llyr, Arianrhod and Rhiannon can still be felt and heard if you have ears to listen. The Kelpie and the Silkie still inhabit the quiet lochs of Scotland, and the four Royal Clans of the Tuatha de Daanan still hold court in the Hollow Hills.
We are rich in sacred sites which, though overgrown, tumbled, and half forgotten are still alive and need only a little effort and caring to awaken them from their long sleep. This is a land of mystery, and it faces more destruction in the next decade than in all the centuries before. The God-form of the car and the petrol pump rules now, and the hidden ways and sites are ripped away to make more room for wheels rather than feet.
While we still have our ancient places, let us use them, care for them, fight for them, protect them. Once a land of wood and forest, we have hacked away three quarters of it. Organizations such as the Sacred Trees Trust is now battling to save what is left and even to plant and maintain new sites that will be consecrated in the ancient way.
Whether you work alone or in a group it is important that you seek out any sites near you, or within a reasonable travelling distance and check them out. Many of them are centers of power that can be contacted. But try to find out as much as possible about the sites before you go. Visit them first just to look around and feel out the atmosphere. At the second visit look for the 'Heart' of the site where
the power will be stored. Only when you are satisfied that it is safe to do so should you attempt to contact the guardian of the place.
Read over what I have said about psychic defence, don't sleep within the circle of radius of the site either overnight, or simply because it is a hot summer day. But there is a lot of Elemental, Celtic, Roman and British contacts to be made at these sacred sites. Try to leave a little something when you go, bury a piece of bread, pour out a little wine, ale or just water on the stones, it makes for a friendlier feeling on the next visit. If however the place has a sinister reputation, this does not apply.
You will find old healing wells, wayside stones, old trees and stone crosses, pilgrim ways that have nothing to do with Christian sites, and some that are all to do with it. Some sites are right out in the wilds, like Callanish, but well worth visiting if you are on holiday anywhere near.
Britain abounds in holy wells, most of them connected with the name of a saint. But in ancient times this saint may well have been one of the Celtic Gods or Goddesses. The early saints of the Culdee Church were less bothered about the 'threat' of pagan deities and obligingly gathered them into the fold, allowing the common man to worship the same God he had always worshipped with the simple addition of saint in front of the slightly changed name.
Such holy wells make good contact points if the water is still running free, since water holds its contacts well, as do stones. The standing stones, and the menhirs seem to follow certain magnetic flows and the use of a pendulum or dowsing rod will pin point them quite accurately. One of the most fascinating books on the subject is, Patterns of the Past by Guy
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J.XI.IU14.I.
Underwood. The acknowledged expert however is Nigel Pennick. Mr Pennick is the founder of the Institute of Geomantic Research. Among his many books you will find The Mysteries of Kings College Chapel, Leys and Zodiacs, The Geomancy of Glastonbury, The Ancient Hill Figures of England, and The Ancient Science of Geomancy. I highly recommend'them all if you wish to find out more about the sacred sites of Britain. A small handy book which is a must if you intend visiting places outside your local area is, Mysterious Britain by J. and C. Bord, published by Paladin.
All such pre-historic sites are part of our heritage, a direct link with our past, a past that includes the ancient Gods of Albion. If you wish to contact those Gods, to get to know their centers of power, and feel that power, then you must take the pilgrimage. Try always to walk just a little of the way, the last mile or so, it will make a lot of difference if you approach the sacred centers of Britain as the ancients did centuries ago. If you plan to use the old powers of your race, then you must look to your old Gods to act as channels.
You will find that many of the places will align well with the four elements. The holy wells with water, the hill top churches built on much earlier sacred places and nearly always dedicated to St Michael, will be Fire sites. Hill forts, camps, and mountain tops are sacred to Air, while the menhirs, dolmens, and sacred groves are of the Earth. Work done at these sites must be planned with local by-laws in mind. Do not light fires unless you have permission, instead use a well protected lantern. Keep the site clean and tidy, the litter sometimes left at these places makes a mockery of their sanctity. New and Full Moons are best
for such work, and remember to include the elementals and their Lords in your work.
There are many stone circles that are almost unknown and seldom visited on the moors of Devon, Cornwall, and Yorkshire, look for them on a surveyor's map and visit them, see if they are suitable for the kind of work you are planning. Don't work in places that have known battles or violence of any kind. Glencoe is a beautiful place, but it is not the right place for a ritual. There are still old resentments, fear, pain, and a sense of betrayal there.
The sea-shore, if you live near it, is a beautiful place to work a ritual especially at Full Moon. I have wonderful memories of such work on a lonely beach in Greece with members of the SOL Greece organization. But even during the day, if it is deserted, one can try a short ritual. The same is true of a wood, or a hill top. Many of them have a certain atmosphere that speaks of ritual work having been performed there over a long period of time.
As you become more experienced you will be able to sit quietly and enact a full ritual in your mind in the form of a pathworking in any location, even with people around. You can feel the place come alive as old memories waken and the Gods bestir themselves. If we do not use them, they will eventually die completely. They rely upon people like you and I to keep them breathing.
There is little left of the sacred mazes that used to be so plentiful in Albion, but they can be found if you look, if you have a garden big enough you can even plant a small maze of flowers or shrubs. The effect of walking a maze is truly magical, once done the feeling is never quite forgotten. If you have the chance to visit France, try to visit the cathedral of Chartres, not only for the
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glory of its stained glass but also to see, and perhaps tread, the maze set into the floor of the nave. Chartres is built on a very ancient mound that at one time had an underground tunnel or maze twisting into the center of the hill. It is still a center of great power and that power is a superb amalgam of Pagan and Christian interwoven in a manner almost unknown elsewhere. Places such as we have discussed are, in a sense, a Grail for which we must seek, uncover, use, and bring back to life.
The Atlantean Heritage
Who has not heard of Atlantis, or wondered if that magical land had ever really existed? I suspect that almost everyone has a tiny hope within them that it was once so. A few believe in it with all their hearts. Some seers have brought back memories and glimpses of the Golden Land and revealed that it was not as halcyon an existence as legend would have us believe. Do I believe? Yes. I do, for a variety of reasons — because of the evidence of a Greek philosopher named Solon who was an ancestor of Plato, and not a man given to wild fancies. Because of the similarity of legend, hieroglyphs, pictures, architecture, laws, language, symbols and even physical structure. Because of the persistence of the name and the legend for thousands of years, and I mind the way in which the story of Troy was deemed a myth only to have that myth take form and substance and become fact. Because I am a seer and I remember it, not well, not clearly, but in flashes so vivid and so down to earth that I cannot ignore them, nor would I want to do so.
I have spoken of the hidden and the not so hidden power in the Isles of Britain, why should such a small place
be blessed with so much in the way of power, mystique, and such a wealth of gifted sons and daughters, unless it was an influx of a highly advanced bloodline? One that was from a more highly advanced civilization and had knowledge of and practised controlled breeding programmes. Distasteful as this kind of thing seems to modern minds, to the Atlanteans it was simply a way of refining their race, its talents, and psychic gifts. Unfortunately they forgot to include things like ethics, morality, understanding, etc. in this genetic programme and the race degenerated instead of achieving the perfection it sought.
For those who would like to read what Plato had to say about Atlantis refer to the two Dialogues, Timaeus' and 'Critias'. You will find much food for thought. You are at the point in your studies where serious research is coming to the fore, you will have to make up your own mind about certain theories and explanations held by others. Never take the first one you read as the best, read them all, study them, ask yourself what you think about it, then decide.
Racial memory is a tenacious thing, it retains the kernel of truth even after thousands of years. This is why I have urged you to look at myth with a serious eye, and why I personally hold to the view the Atlantis was real. Some years ago an island rose up out of the sea off Iceland. It was the wonder of the decade, we had never seen anything like it before. Theories both wild and serious were offered, the island kept on growing. Eventually it was claimed and named Surtsey, today it is covered with grass, has some wildlife and people live on it. What comes up can go down, as with Krakatoa, what went down may one day rise again.....like Atlantis! Edgar
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Cayce seemed to think it would.
Probably the definitive book on Atlantis was written in 1882 by an Ignatius Donnelly. It is a mine of information containing all the known facts concerning Atlantis up to the time of its publication. Since then the evidence has increased a thousandfold, and the time is right for someone to add to Dorinelly's information and bring the whole thing up to date.
For many occultists there is no doubt that such an island and such an advanced race existed. Their colonization of South America, Egypt, the Isles of Britain, Brittany, and Lyonesse would explain a great deal about the sudden emergence of organized life in those areas. The land bridge between Britain and Europe would still be in existence at that time, the Channel Islands still part of the Brittany/ Cornwall land mass. Hurds Deep was simply a large lake off what would one day be Alderney.
We surmise that the Atlanteans had made great progress in science, alchemy, and those arts now named as magic. The legends tell of lights that burned without being consumed, of machines that took people from one area to another through the sky, of advanced medical techniques that enabled them to employ the technique of trepanning the skull. All these things were lost to us in the centuries that followed the disaster, though bits and pieces of knowledge survived for a while. In the National Museum in Athens you can see a set of surgeons implements that include retractors, speculums, calipers, and many other items whose design remains largely unchanged to this day.
Traditions hold that the Priests of the Temple of the Sun, and the Priestesses of the Moon Temple of Naradek knew that such a disaster was imminent. For
some fifty years before, they secretly sent out three successive waves of highly trained men and women drawn not only from the temples, but from all walks of life, artists, doctors, men of letters and science, women of culture and knowledge teachers, who would be responsible for passing on not only knowledge, but their genetic gifts as well. Many special bloodlines were established, and most have survived into modern times, diluted maybe, but such people have both a physical and psychic link right back to Atlantis. They are the people who listen to their inner voices no matter what area of work they take up. They are the inventors, the true priests who still think of their priesthood as a 'calling' instead of the gateway to a Bishopric. They are the thinkers, the artists, the great actors, the humbly born who seize the moment of high tide in their lives and rise like stars. They are, like their ancestors both good and bad...
Some bloodlines established royal houses that lasted many centuries, and some are still with us. Always there was the silver link of psychic power that bound them together and to their common ancestry. The links are thin now, but they exist, sometimes by chance, two people with stronger than usual links marry and produce a child or children that are more than fifty per cent Atlantean in gifts. They often become aware of their heritage and seek to hide it from the world.
Those far off survivors established other lines too. The lines of the Guardians of Britain of which Arthur was one, and Merlin was the first Archmage of Britain, giving his name as a generic title down the ages. The Guardians have played their parts throughout the history of these islands, sometimes their names have been famous, Owen Glyndawr,
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Alfred, Bruce, Drake, Howard, at other times they have been men and on occasion women who have been burdened with the task. And behind the Guardians there have always been the Merlins, the Archmagi of Grammerye.
They exist today and will always exist, the task goes from one to another without break, as does each Merlin in turn who takes up the staff of office. For those of you who feel a link to the Drowned Lands there are available in the SOL Knowledge Papers two pathworkings, The Hall of Mirrors', and The Temple of Naradek', and also a lecture 'Atlantis and Lemuria'.
I recommend Anthony Robert's book Atlantean Traditions in Ancient Britain and Occult Sciences in Atlantis by L. Spence. There is no doubt in my own mind that at least some of the stone circles of Britain, and in Europe also, are the work of third or fourth generation Atlanteans striving to recapture some of the arts of their forbears. It may be that when you study the sacred sites around the country you will be able to pick up psychically some threads to their Atlantean past.
For your meditations during your last month with me, build up the following image and use it as base from which to feel out any Atlantean links you may have.
The Atlantean Pathworking
You stand before an ancient stone surmounted by a circled cross. The stone is engraved with carvings and interlaced shapes, like thin entwined ribbons. The circle begins to glow and the cross within it also. The light grows brighter until the cross disappears and you can see right through the circle into a different landscape. Now it
grows bigger until you can step through the circle into the unknown country. Look behind you and see the stone and the circle glowing brightly like a beacon. This is your way back. Now go, go and explore the land before you. No one will be able to see you, you are from their future, no one will be able to hear you, you must just watch and take note. When you hear the stone cross chime like a ring of bells, it will be time to return. See that the circle closes behind you securely.
Use this simple working once or twice a week. Do not use it within a stone circle. Not all of them lead into the same place! If you go as a group, compare notes as to what you saw, after closing down.
Sex Magic
We come now to one of the most controversial aspects of the occult — sex magic. Before anyone throws up their hands in horror let me state here and now that sex is magical anyway, those who do not find it so are missing something in their lives. You will know from what has been said in the book already that the power center for all magic lies in the genital area.... probably this is why some people make such a fuss about magic! That center or chakra in your body is one of the miracles of the Universe. It can bring about the creation of another human being, that is magic for a start, but it can also create other things, pure power for instance. It has been held by some that sex is purely for the purpose of creating children...rubbish. If that is all sex was for, the end results could have been arranged by Nature and evolution in a far more convenient way. Nor would we have been given pleasure centers in our brains that were
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j. x i^.  J.^LI u.u.1.  J.TXI* e-iv-   » T V^A j^vi-'v-'v^i-v  ———•—
stimulated by the sex act. Sex can be many things, even an act of worship, the one thing it is not is dirty. Sex in magic has its uses, and its proper place. In that place it can be one of the most powerful rituals of all. Outside of that place it can be used unwisely and to the detriment of both people and sex.
So when fs it permissible? Spring rituals, Beltane, as an act of thanksgiving to one of the Mother Goddesses for a child, or for a request answered, as an enactment of one of the great myths, the Conception of Horus, Osiris with Isis, and the conception of Anubis, Osiris with Nephthys, the Marriage of Flora the Summer Queen with the Oak King, the Rite of Esther, the Rite of Tanith, the ritual that lies behind the Song of Songs. It can be part of the assumption of a God-form by the priest, and the acceptance of the power of that God-form into her body by the priestess.
Sex within a sacred enclosure is not an act of desecration, but one of enhancement of its powers, providing the intention is made clear and it is in keeping with the rest of the ritual. It is not meant to be an excuse for sex with anyone around, nor is it meant for public viewing. Such rituals are almost always just for the two people concerned. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are rare. The whole ritual should be seen as a sacred performance of a genuine ritual. The moment of actual power, the 'Pegasus' that lifts the intention to its highest level is the sexual climax. The pleasure resulting from that moment of power is shared with the Gods.
There are other rituals where the priest and priestess assume God-forms that are actually paired. Zeus and Hera, Aphrodite and either Ares or Hephasteus, Eros and Psyche, Isis or
Nephthys and Osiris, Thor and Sif, Gwydion and Arianrhod, Hades and Persephone, etc. Ritually speaking this becomes an amalgamation of the powers and the attributes of the two deities. This is most often seen in the Hindu tradition.
This tradition has a long history of ritual sexuality and the symbols of the Lingham, or male penis, and the Yoni, or female vulva, are regarded as holy in the extreme. The conjunction of these two symbols is held to be a ritual mystery of the highest level. The Hindu Tantrist sees nothing obscene in this and the inner Tantra rituals are held in the presence of the high priests with no shame, but rather a sense of awe and devotion. The followers of Shiva hold the Lingham in greatest reverence, while the Yoni is the most sacred symbol of the followers of Vishnu. The Shakti and Shakta aspects of man and woman are seen as the higher selves, the two who are one, the creative aspect of all Nature.
Are there dangers in the use of sex magic? Yes, there are, the danger that it will degenerate into something resembling an orgy. The danger that the required detached approach may not be achieved and the group would become tainted, split, and finally break up. The danger that the rituals would be done simply for the sex, and not for the Gods.
Sex magic is not for the inexperienced, it is not for the dabbler, or the armchair occultist, it is not for the voyeur or sex starved, in short it is not for every occultist by any means.
Are there sex rituals written down? Yes, there are, and no, there are none in this, book. Those that are written down are not the best in the world, nor have they been used in the best ways, anyone setting their heart on trying this type of ritual should write their
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own. You have spent a year learning how to become a ritual magician and working pre-written rituals, sometime you have to start writing your own.
The most important thing to remember when preparing for a ritual that involves sexual magic, is that at least ten minutes should be spent in meditating upon the God-form to be assumed, longer if possible. Next, the 'story' of the coupling should be well known to both the priest and priestess. The symbols, dress, headdresses, incenses, colors, etc. are very important and should be reproduced as accurately as possible. Finally that the act itself is almost static for nine tenths of the time, during which both the participants should concentrate on holding their respective God-forms in the mind. This is the most important of all. Each should concentrate on seeing the partner as the God or Goddess throughout the ritual.
The best book I have come across for information about sexual magic is by N. Douglas, and P. Slinger, Sexual Secrets. It goes into tantra, yoga positions, Japanese, and Chinese sex magic, as well as that of the Mediterranean areas.
What Lies Ahead?
You are almost at the end of your journey, so what lies ahead of you now? You have some thinking to do, and some decisions to make. First of all, when you come to the end of your year of study, you will need to set aside a further two months in which to assess what you have done, what you have learnt, and what you wish to do next.
Collect together your papers, records of meditations, rituals, etc. and start to read them through. In the light of what you know now, your earlier records
will seem very simple and naive. But you will also find that in many cases you anticipated ideas, lesson material and images, that you were given in later lessons. This is a good sign and means that even at that stage you had a good psychic link with your subconscious. You have more understanding now and more knowledge, see how this links in with what is written, and if further ideas come out of this. Mark down where you did well, and where you think you could have tried harder, or done better.
Take a long hard look at the ritual records and see what the results were from each one. Think of yourself as a teacher marking end of year exam papers, divorce yourself from the 'you' that has done this year's work. Now write an assessment of that person as honestly as you can.
If you have been working with others, get everyone to do the same thing, then hold a meeting and compare notes. You are going to have to be very honest with yourselves. The question you must ask yourself is, 'have I done my best, has it been good enough, have I achieved as much as I could have done?'
When you have sorted this out you come to your next problem. After a year's hard work, are you still determined to become a magician or do you think you should give up, that this work is not for you, at least as far as devoting yourself to it wholeheartedly? Would you prefer, having had a taste of the work involved, to be an armchair occultist, to read, talk and discuss occultism, but to leave the practical side to others? Has it made you more determined than ever to tread the Path of High Magic?
If this is so, how do you propose to do it, alone, or with a group? Can you handle a group or would you prefer to
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take a back seat? Are you prepared to give up at least two evenings a week, one for study, and one for practical work? How does your family feel about this? If you have been working alone do you know anyone else interested in the occult? Would you have the courage to say to someone unsuitable for your group, 'I'm sorry but you do not fit in, you* will have to resign'? Has your viewpoint of the occult and ritual magic in particular changed during this year, if so how has it changed?
All these things must be looked at and answered to the best of your ability, for if you go ahead, you are taking on a big commitment.
Alright, so you have decided to go on, what next? If you are going to work solo, then move on to the Patterns of Study part of this chapter. If you want to start a group, then read on.
Setting Up a Group
Groups are volatile things, mainly because there are people in them, and people are human beings with likes, dislikes, good natures, and bad tempers! This being so when you get the nucleus for your group together spend one or two evenings a week for a month or however long it takes to thrash out a set of rules. It is no use saying to yourselves, '.....we are all friends we won't have any upset', because you will. Ritual work will bring out the best and the worst in you so be prepared.
Work out a set of rules first of all that govern the day to day running of the group. You will need someone to hold the purse strings. Why? Because no group runs without funds, and you will need money for candles, incenses, trips to sacred sites, new books as they come out, etc., etc. Set a monthly sum that is realistic, make it payable within
seven days of that date and make someone responsible for collecting it and accounting for it. Someone else should be made responsible for the robes, seeing that they are clean and kept in repair. Whoever has the temple should be the one to keep it clean and tidy, though the quarterly big clean and the yearly spruce up should be shared by everyone.
Are you going to have a library? With books so expensive to buy it makes sense to buy one rather than three or four, unless people want to have their own copies. Then a shelf should be set aside and the books catalogued so that you know where books are at a given moment. Make out a roster so that all Officers and temple roles are rotated. This means that everyone will get used to working in all the Quarters, or acting as a Messenger, or an Altar Server, or whatever. Unless there is someone in the group who is trusted implicitly and respected by everyone, make all decisions a group one. If you have someone like that, elect him or her as Elder, and abide by that person's decision.
Now turn to your curriculum. Work out the main rituals of the year. Are you going to stick to the big quarterly, or will you include the smaller ones? Are you going to do one ritual every two months, or one a month? (No more than that for at least a year is advisable.) Agree to have an annual meeting at which this can be decided each time, and any other day to day business can be dealt with.
Remember if all this seems far removed from Magic, that everything must stand on a firm foundation if you want it to last. Sort out your group into who does what best. If you are very lucky you will have people with different talents, a tarot reader, a clairvoyant, a healer, an astrologer. Try
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to encourage them to study in different disciplines so that your group talents are wide spread. Establish a system of study, perhaps to have a special meeting once a month to listen to one of your number lecture on their special subject or to give a talk on some related occult area that they have prepared. If you live near a large town go to lectures as a group and discuss them after. The SOL, Quest Magazine, the Atlanteans, the Green Circle, Pagan Pathfinders, and many others, hold one and two day seminars in London, Bath, Cheltenham, and Malvern. Very often if requested they will provide a lecturer for a small group if expenses are paid.
Once a group is put together, don't be too anxious to enlarge it. The best groups run anywhere from three to seven. After that unless you are very well organized or experienced in group work, it can get difficult. If anyone has another person in mind to bring in, the others must meet them socially before any idea of joining is broached to that person. The harmony of the temple is paramount. If the decision is no, and it's your friend or protege, don't take umbrage, it was a group decision and you must abide by it, they will have talked it over with everyone present and they will have to give reasons. If the answer is yes, you must have plans ready for training that person. They must attend the non-ritual meetings for at least six months, and go through the kind of training you have undergone before they can be 'taken in'.
This 'taking in' is not an initiation, it is simply a ceremony that entitles a person to enter the temple, and to be introduced to the guardian, the temple Master, the Quarter Lords of the Elements, etc. You must also make contingency plans for someone wanting 'out'. The name of the temple
guardian must be changed, any passwords or recognition gestures should also be changed. I know all this seems a lot just for a small group, but start as you mean to go on. That way you will survive the first year, and that is a feat of magic in itself. Go slowly as you have gone slowly through this year of training and you will succeed.
Patterns of Study
If you are going to work solo, then you must establish your own set of disciplines and stick to them come hell or high water. Unless you do this you will gradually phase out and drift away from your studies and become simply a 'dabbler'. It is no use saying to yourself '...skipping a study period once will not hurt', once will become twice and then it's downhill all the way.
As with a group, sit down and work out a realistic study and practice programme for the whole year, allow yourself one month off, either in one lot or in one and two week periods. Choose an area of study in which you already have some skill, or some knowledge and set yourself a six month study course in which to make yourself proficient. For the second half of the year choose a subject of which you have little knowledge and give yourself six months in which to get a grounding in it, or at least a reasonable grasp of its basics. Or if you prefer, choose a tradition to study, read up the cosmology of the pantheon, then the legends and finally a book on the religion itself from a scholar's point of view.
These patterns of study will stand you in good stead when the going gets irksome, and it will. You must try to remember that everything worth having demands a price. Use your library to the utmost, look for lectures
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and seminars given by schools and occult organizations. Did you know there are some areas where you can learn Egyptian Hieroglyphic writing at evening classes? You could learn enough Greek in one winter of night school to be able to intone your Orphic invocations. Until you have done this you cannot possibly know the thrill that hearing the ancient tongue used in the service of the mysteries can give to you.
The Blessing Ritual
We came now to the last two rituals in the book. Both are short but effective. The first is the Blessing Ritual and this can be used with other rituals or just by itself. As the name implies it is a blessing that can be extended to a person or an animal or a God-form, Archangel, Elemental, or talismanic object. It is Qabalistic in design.
Light the candles at the four Quarters, have wine, water and salt on the altar, the altar light already lit, and some incense burning. This is set out to bless a person who is absent, perhaps to invoke protection upon them, or for good fortune, you can adjust it to suit whatever you have in mind.
Having gone through your main ritual for whatever intent, the blessing ritual is given just before closing the temple. Stand in the East facing to the pillars.
/............... invoke the powers of the
East for the blessing of............... In
the name of the powers I command by virtue of my priesthood, I ask for the blessing of the Powers of the East, of the Air, of the Sun at Dawn. By the name of Raphael, and Paralda, and the God upon the Tree of Life I ask this. About the person of.......... place thy protection
and thy healing. Let .......... grow in
health, and prosperity, and let him/her walk always in the path of the Sun. (Move to the South and face it.)
7............... invoke the powers of the
South for the blessing of............... In
the name of the powers I command by virtue of my priesthood, I ask for the blessing of the Powers of the South, of Fire, of the Sun at Noon. By the name of Michael, and Djinn, and the Giver of Justice upon the Tree of life, I ask this. About the person of.............. place thy
protection and thy courage. Let...........
grow in strength of mind and body and
let him/her walk always in the path of
right.
(Move to West and face.)
I............... invoke the powers of the
West for the blessing of.......... In the
name of the powers I command by virtue of my priesthood, I ask for the blessing of the Powers of the West, of Water, of the Setting Sun. By the name of Gabriel. Nixsa, and the Goddess of Form and Sorrow upon the Tree of Life I ask this. About the person of........... place thy
protection  and  thy  understanding. Let........... grow in wisdom and vision
and let him/her walk in faith. (Move to North and face.)
/............... invoke the powers of the
North for the blessing of........... In the
name of the powers I command by virtue of my priesthood, I ask for the blessing of the Powers of the North, or Earth, of the Sun at midnight. By the name of Uriel, and Ghob, and the Giver of Plenty upon the Tree of Life I ask this. About the person  of...............  place  thy
protection  and  thy  endurance. Let.......... grow in steadfastness and
patience,  and  let  him/her  walk  in
tranquillity.
(Return to the East, and the altar.
Bless the salt and water, mix, and
sprinkle around the altar. Face the
altar and raise your arms.)
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............  7 bless you in  the name
of......... (Master of the temple). May
the light of Kether be as a Crown upon your head. May the wisdom of Chocmah be as a cloak about your shoulders. May the Understanding of Binah be as sandals upon your feet. So mote it be.
The Rite of Withdrawal
The last ritual is the Rite of Withdrawal. Every magician should prepare for his death. He sees it not as an end but a beginning to a new phase of his existence. But in order to free himself as quickly as possible he prepares a ritual pathworking which is then time-locked by intent, set to work at the moment of his death. If that death is a sudden event, it will snap into operation just before consciousness goes, if there is time to reflect, the working can be done in full consciousness, which is the way all initiates should 'go out'.
Take your time in preparing your withdrawal rite. Think over your life and choose a location, a time, that epitomizes your idea of happiness. If there is someone who has gone before you use your trained mental abilities to weave a pattern of events with that person in it. Make a working in your mind of yourself arriving at that place, you are younger, in the prime of life, and there waiting for you is someone you love. Perhaps they have with them a much loved dog or cat. You greet them and start the short journey to the place you have always thought of as the ideal. It may be a house overlooking a valley, or facing the sea. It may be a house you lived in when young, or that you always admired and wished you could have. There are others waiting for you there, a welcoming party is in full swing, or you may want just you and one other to be together.
Fashion a walk or short journey to this place in the company of your friend, relative or love, know that when you reach your journey's end that you can rest and have all the time you need to do whatever you want. Everything you dreamed, everyone you wanted to meet again, all are there. When you arrive you will go to your room and lie down to sleep, knowing that when you wake it will all be here waiting for you.
Build this pathworking with great care and attention to detail, take your time and polish it until one day you know you have it just as you want it to be. Then you may either go into the temple and work it under ritual conditions, or out into some beautiful spot that means a great deal to you, it may even be the earthly original of the place you have built. There do the pathworking with every ounce of power you can muster. Start with the initial meeting at a railway station, or bus stop, or anywhere, then make the short journey to your special place, think of the things you will want to talk about, and the news you will have to tell. Then comes the arrival, and the room in which you will sleep. Take off your clothes and lie down and .....at that point halt the working and 'freeze frame' it. Go back to the beginning and hold that first 'frame' as well, now you have the Alpha and Omega of the working. At this point you must form the clear ritual intent that this working will begin at the moment of your death and not before. Around the two points form an infinity circle, like an eight on its side each ring encloses one end of the journey.
It is right and proper that you prepare in this way, for it will help you over the initial shock, and provide a breathing space in which you can rest among friends or loved ones. When you wake again the trauma will have
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The Kitual Magic Workbook ——————
faded and you can begin to adjust to your new level of existence.
All initiates prepare in this way, or in similar ways, and then forget about it. The only difficulty is in deciding what kind of place, journey or ideal you really want. For once locked, it is extremely difficult to undo it again, so you must be sure. You can also make such an intent for another person if they are not able to do it for themselves, or if they know nothing of such techniques.
You have made a long journey, a whole year of effort, and now it is over, or rather, it is just beginning.........
Reading List
Bord,  Colin  and  Janet,  Mysterious
Britain (Paladin, 1974) Campbell,}., The Hero with a WOO Faces
(Princeton University Press) Campbell, }., The Masks of God (4 vols.)
(Princeton University Press) Douglas, N., and Slinger, P., Sexual
Secrets (Arrow Books, 1982) Fortune,  Dion,  Psychic  Self Defence
Aquarian Press, 1977) Hope, Murry, Practical Techniques of
Psychic Self Defence (Aquarian Press,
1983) Roberts, Anthony, Atlantean Traditions
in Ancient Britain (Rider, 1977) Spence, L., Occult Science in Atlantis
(Aquarian Press, 1978) Strachan,  F.,  Casting Out the Devils
(Aquarian Press, 1972) Underwood, Guy, Patterns of the Past
(Pitman, 1970)
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Epilogue
It seems a long time since we started learning together, and we have shared a great deal. We have been companions on a year long journey that has taken us from one beginning to a beginning of another kind. The thing that makes the Art of High Magic so rewarding is that there is always another river to ford, another mountain to cross. Soon you will begin to understand the need to find someone to whom you can pass on the knowledge you have acquired during your search for truth. Then perhaps you will understand those who taught you a little better.
I know there will be some who will say that this book is 'bitty', that it does not go into enough detail... that may be true, but to pack enough teaching into one year, to give you all the basic knowledge you need was a difficult task, I have done the best that I could do. I looked first and foremost to write the kind of book I would have found useful when I came into magic many years ago, a book that would explain the kind of things I needed to know when I was a newcomer. If I have achieved even a small part of that, I am satisfied.
You will find in the following pages a list of books suitable for the studies in each chapter, and another list of suppliers, bookshops and publishers, and odd addresses I feel will be useful to you. There are also some extra ideas for robes, headdresses, and temple Pillars. Just after I had written the chapter concerning the pillars I was visiting a garden center and bought some plastic urns to hold some plants. I was struck by the fact that the tops of some of the urns were just the right shape to form the traditional 'lotus' top to an Egyptian pillar. They usually come into two pieces and it is a matter of moments to fix the top part of the urn to one of the carpet rolls. Painted as in the illustration they make very authentic pillars. To further enhance this effect use a length of corrugated paper, fix it around the pillar and spray with black or silver paint. The urns are inexpensive and being plain white can be easily painted with the delicate pastel colors needed to make them into an Egyptian lotus pillar.
Ingenuity counts for far more than money to spend. The sense of satisfaction when you achieve something out of virtually nothing is worth all the hard work.
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I wish you well in your search for    illusion of being enchained. Laughter knowledge. I wish you patience and    lifts the heart, and the eyes, endurance, and the ability to laugh
when things look dark. Laughter is an	Thank you for your company, I hope essential thing in magic, without it you    we meet again, will not find what you seek. Laughter
is connected with the  devil in the	Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki Tarot, it is the spell that breaks the                                Jersey
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Appendix A: Moving House the Magical Way
Very often it comes as quite a wrench to leave a particular house, perhaps one where a greater part of your life has been spent, or where you have felt happy and content. Most of this feeling for the house comes about because you and your family have 'filled' the very stones of it with your own essences. This has been re-fed back to you by the house itself, remember the teaching about group minds, a happy family house, or even one where tragedy has taken place can build up very substantial Group Minds from the lives lived in them. The reason why an amulet works is because of the emotion held within the stone. Stone holds emotion longer than any other substance therefore a house, especially where it is of natural stone material or built on solid rock, will build a very strong Group Mind, one that will tend to bind you to that place. The feeling of leaving it is that of leaving a well-loved animal friend to the vagaries of its new owners.
But there is no need to fret, you simply take your House Elemental/ Group Mind with you. It is very simple and requires nothing more than a candle. First you have to explain to the
House Mind that you are thinking of moving and would like to take it along to the new location. Give it time... let it think things over, if possible leave a picture or two of the new place around the house. This sounds quite daft but I can assure you it works. Europeans have countless folktales about such things notably in Poland where the Domovoi or House Spirit is considered to be part of the family.
After the House Mind has thought it over for a few days and accustomed itself to the idea of moving, go out and buy a large candle, large enough to burn for at least thirty hours. Choose a nice clear color, blue, light green, clear yellow or perhaps a rose pink. Start at the top of the house the day before you actually move. Place the candle in the first room and light it, tell the House Mind that you want it to fill the flame with all its good feelings and memories from that room, and to feed those feelings from the flame down into the candle itself. Leave it to burn for about an hour, then move it to another room, still alight, and repeat the intention. Gradually move the lighted candle through the house making sure you leave no room
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unvisited, even a disused attic, the toilet and the garage. Finally leave it in the room you use most, where the heart of the family unit beats and leave it there until you actually move. Make sure that at no point does the candle go out. Stand it in a corner out of draughts.
Make sure that in all the upheaval you don't either knock it over, or forget it! Make it the last thing that moves out, and, if it is possible, try to keep it alight until you get to your new home. This is sometimes possible if you have an old fashioned candle lantern. If not, at the front door simply tell the House Mind to sink down into what is left of the candle (it should have at least half left) and pinch it out with your fingers.
When you reach your new home you can start to fill it with your former house friend. Now the more astute of you will be saying, yes, but what if the new house already has a House Mind? True, if the house is new there is no problem, you simply light the candle as soon as you get in, starting with the lowest floor and moving up, giving each room at least an hour of the candle's time (you see the importance of buying a large enough candle) letting it burn right out in the last room.
If you are taking the house over from another family, you have to allow for another House Mind. Five will get you ten that its former owners neither knew or cared about their House Mind, so you must do it for them. If possible try to visit the new house and providing the others have moved out and you have some privacy, explain to the probably bewildered House Mind that you are taking over and bringing your own House Mind with you, but there is no need for it to feel
abandoned, it will soon have a companion. Give it a present of its own candle and light it with an invocation for health, happiness prosperity and a loving atmosphere. Gather the House Mind into the flame, you can do this quite quickly, a few minutes in each room because unlike your own House Mind you are not moving it any distance away. Now bring your own House Mind candle in and place them together lighting one from the other. Move them through the house until they burn out. Bring some flowers into the house as soon as possible, better still a growing pot plant. If you have an animal the House Mind will feel more at home as it can communicate with the animal more easily than with humans.
If it is not possible to visit the house beforehand, then do all this within 24 hours of going in, and do not light your own candle until you have gathered in the House Mind, then you can release them together, as one new and reinforced entity. Try and remember to include your house friend in celebrations and events. Give it a present at Christmas, a new doormat, a piece of china in the shape of a house, a lamp, or even just a pretty candle. Include it in your plans, if you are going away ask it to look after things for you. It may not always deter burglars, but they will surely 'miss' the things most precious to you! All things are part of that phenomena we call the Universe, animate and inanimate we all share the substance of our beingness. The House Mind may not be aware as we understand the word, but on its own level it can make the difference between a happy home and an unhappy one.
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Appendix B: The Deconsecration of
a Temple
There is a long way and a short way to go about deconsecration, the long way needs time, effort, and more know how in the magical sense than you can acquire in twelve short months. The short way is just as effective, and if the truth must be known, I would choose this way myself. It is a fallacy that a ritual to be totally effective has to be long, complicated and elaborate. All rituals contain one short moment of truth, the nub of the work, effort, colors, robes, incense, candles and words is one tiny moment hardly more than a breath of time, when the whole thing comes together in a tightly compacted instant, this is followed by the magical equivalent of the big bang and the intention of the ritual is sent on its way. The whole art of the magician is contained within that short moment of time. So length of time is not the criterion, intention is the only yardstick of success.
Again you will need a candle, a tall pure beeswax candle and a smaller one for each quarter. There is no specific tradition to follow, simply open your temple in the normal way. Invoke the Guardians of the Four Quarters, and the Guardian of the Temple as a
whole, plus the Angel or Spirit of the Light. Lastly invoke the presence of your overall Deity/Spirit/Archangel.
The thing to remember is that the inner plane Temple, the true Temple is 'not built with hands, and eternal in the heavens'. Nothing can destroy it on that level. You just have to worry about shifting the earthly part of things. As with moving the house spirit the intention is to contain the consecrated essence within the flame and substance of the main candle, so light the altar light first, then the Quarter candles leaving the main ritual candle unlit for the moment, and make sure all your magical tools are laid out either in their Quarter or on the altar.
Take your place in the East and bless all the temple implements and furniture down to the last item. Take up the Quarter candle and move it in a wave pattern above or before each item. As you work see in your mind's eye a stream of essence coming from it into the flame and down into the base of the candle. Take your time and make sure you miss nothing. When you feel that the last bit has been taken into the flame bow to the East and say;
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All is accomplished, the Eastern Quarter is clear.
Go to the altar and place the Eastern candle before the main, and still unlit, ritual candle. Go to the South and repeat the drawing out process with the Southern candle, and when that is done bow to the South and repeat the words above, take the candle to the altar and place it to the South. Move around the temple in this way until all four Quarters have been cleared, and their candle placed at the four Quarters of the altar.
Take the altar light and with it draw the essence from all implements laid out in their order and place. After each item say:
It is accomplished, the .......... is clear.
Finally do the same for each officer, and have one of them do the same for you. Replace the light on the altar and all gather round. Each one take a candle and with all the flames close together and united light the main candle. Now bind the Quarter candles to the main one with new white cord or even new string and let them burn together for a while, until the running wax melds them together. You will feel the growing emptiness of the room as the power goes into the burning candles. Finally touch each candle with a few drops of charged water and salt and then douse them with the same mixture saying,
Thus do I seal in the power of the Temple, it is done.
There is no need to close the temple, there is nothing left to close.
The next day you can start dismantling the temple and packing away the implements. All this should take place before you encandle the House Mind so you can clear this room with the others.
When you get to the new house wait until the house spirit settles before releasing the temple egregore. If you know enough astrology wait for a day when the planets are in good positions, or if they are near, choose one of the Quarter days, or something like Candlemas (appropriate!) or Lady Day, St John's Eve or St George's day. Clean the new temple room thoroughly and do any painting or repairs that need doing. Then and then only can you start putting up curtains and laying down carpets and moving the Lodge furniture into their right places. Again take your time and follow your instincts, they will tell you when it is right to release the temple from its temporary resting place.
Lay out the implements once more and dress the temple as usual. Place the ritual candle on a small tray so the melting wax does not spill on to the altar top, place the altar light in front of it and an unlit candle in each Quarter. Light the ritual candle and some incense and allow the candle to burn almost all the way down. If you do this in the afternoon the temple will be ready for work by the evening. Make sure the candle is safe from draughts, but open the window a little to let the air circulate. Keep checking to see that all is well.
When all is ready robe up and enter the temple. Light the altar light and the Quarter candles from the remains of the ritual candle. Stand in the East and welcome the four Quarters, the temple Guardian and the altar spirit. Invoke your temple deities and invite them to enter their new place of worship, invite the newly combined House Mind to enter and become part of the temple. Go to each Quarter in turn and bless it with charged water and salt, then do the same for the altar.
Now set up a sphere of sanctuary to
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encompass the house, garden, and an feet above and below. Leave this extra six feet in each direction. Do this sphere in place and it will act as a by visualizing an opaque globe of light barrier while the temple is settling in. settling down over the whole area, Try to work a ritual within a few days penetrating the ground beneath and of setting up. covering it to a height of about twenty
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Appendix C: The Middle Pillar
Exercise
Stand facing the East and visualize a sphere of brilliant white light floating just above your head.
Visualize a beam of white light descending from the sphere into the top of your head. At the same time vibrate AHIH (Eh-he-yay).
The beam of light now descends as far as your throat where it forms a sphere of brilliant purple. Now vibrate YHVH Elohim (Ye-ho-yay El-o-heem).
The beam continues its descent as far as the solar plexus. Here it produces a
sphere of brilliant gold. Vibrate YHVH Aloah va-Daat (Ye-ho-wha El-o-ah va-Da-art).
Now the light descends to the area of the genitals, producing a sphere of brilliant purple. Vibrate Shaddai el Chai (Shah-day El Chai).
The light now reaches the soles of the feet and forms a large black sphere. Imagine you are standing on this sphere. Vibrate the name ADNI ha-Aretz (Ah-don-ai ha Ah-retz).
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Appendix D: The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
1. Stand facing the East. Use the index finger of the right hand to trace the shape of the pentagram.
2. Touch the forehead and vibrate Atoh (ah-toh) (Unto Thee, or Thou art.)
3. Imagine the light descending from the forehead, down the body to the feet.
4. Touch the breast and vibrate Malkuth (Mal-kooth) (the Kingdom).
5. Touch the right shoulder with ve-Gedulah (and the Glory).
6. Touch the left shoulder with ve-Geburah (and the Power).
7. Clasp the hands on the breast, fingers interlaced, saying le-Olahm Amen (forever, Amen).
8. Turn to the East, extend your right
hand with index finger, and trace a large pentagram. Stab it in the center,
and then say: YHVH. (Yod-hay-vahv-hay).
9. Turn to the South, repeat, but vibrate ADNI (ah-doh-nye).
10. Turn to the West, repeat, but vibrate AHIH (eh-huh-yeh).
11. Turn to the North, repeat, but vibrate AGLA (ah-galah). (Each Pentagram is to be stabbed in the center, while vibrating the appropriate Name.)
12. Return to the East, touching the center of the pentagram.
13. Extend your arms in the form of a cross, and vibrate.
14. Before me RAPHAEL (rah-phah-ale).
15. Behind me GABRIEL (gah-bree-ale).
16. On my right hand, MICHAEL (mee-chah-ale).
17. On my left hand, AURIEL (awe-ree-ale).
18. For about me flame the Pentagrams.
19. And in the column stands the six-rayed star.
20. Repeat Qabalistic Cross, steps 1-7.
Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, a third-generation psychic sensitive, was born into an occult family—her paternal great grand father was a full blooded Spanish Gypsy, who ran away from home and married a German Jew. On her mother's side, she is Celt with most of her ancestors coming from Angelsey in North Wales. She has worked with all aspects of magic since childhood. Both her parents are 3 degree initiates, as is she. 
In her youth Dolores was trained as an actress at one of London's leading schools of dramatic art. She holds an Associate Degree in Drama, and has been a professional actress and singer, receiving bronze, silver, and gold medals. She later trained at Trinity College of Music in London for opera, but gave up a career in theater for the Inner Path.
Her first training was with The Fraternity of the Inner Light, founded by Dion Fortune. She was initiated into the Fraternity in 1968. She then joined W. E. Butler in the Helios Course, which became the Servants of the Light in 1972. Studying under Butler, she was trained as a Cosmic Mediator and made initial contact with his inner plane teacher who named her as successor to Butler. The Contact later deepened to become an Indweller and remains with Dolores to this day. In 1976 she succeeded Butler as Director of Studies for the Servants of the Light. She has since traveled all over the world, visiting and lecturing in over 20 countries.
During World War II Dolores was a refugee from the Island of Jersey, which was occupied by the Germans. She lived in an area frequented by Gypsies and learned much of their ancient lore, most of it taught to her by an old matriarch called Vashti. In her late 40s she made
contact with the Craft, dicovering that some of her North Country ancestors had been involved with traditional Craft. This resulted in her becoming the last of the "Walkers." For almost all of her life Dolores has been involved with "The Sacred Science." She has studied and worked in most traditions, and has learned from some of the finest teachers: Israel Regardie, William G. Gray, W. E. Butler, and Gareth Knight.
She is married to Michael, himself an Initiate and co-worker with her. They have two children—a daughter, Tamara, a son, Carl, and a grandson, Thomas. She used to fence, still swims, has a wicked sense of humor, loves animals, and hates yogurt, spiders, and vegetarian food, all with equal passion. She has hip-length silver hair and has given up dieting. Apart from all this, she is...normal!