Tag: magic

noise-vs-signal:

Diagrams from the “Philosophus Lecture” of the Golden Dawn. The numbered green text in the second image refers to each diagram.

“Whatever the etymological origin of the word ‘magic’ may be, the mage is the finder and founder of images. Magic consists in fathoming the great Imagination”.

Images and text from “Mage and Image: An Essay on Hermetic Mutation with Coloured Reconstructions of G. … D. … Wands and Sceptres“ by Steffi Grant (1963). Reprinted in “Hidden Lore: Hermetic Glyphs” by Kenneth and Steffi Grant (2006).

Source: noise-vs-signal

Magician

westernmystery:

A magician is any practitioner of magic; therefore a magician may be a specialist or a common practitioner, even if he or she does not consider himself a magician. All that is required is the possession of esoteric knowledge, traits, or expertise that are culturally acknowledged to harbor magical powers.

Magus

Magical knowledge is usually passed down from one magician to another through family or apprenticeships, though in some cultures it may also be purchased. The information transferred usually consists of instructions on how to perform a variety of rituals, manipulate magical objects, or how to appeal to gods or to other supernatural forces. Magical knowledge is often well guarded, as it is a valuable commodity to which each magician believes that he has a proprietary right.

Yet the possession of magical knowledge alone may be insufficient to grant magical power; often a person must also possess certain magical objects, traits or life experiences in order to be a magician. Among the Azande, for example, in order to question an oracle a man must have both the physical oracle (poison, or a washboard, for example) and knowledge of the words and the rites needed to make the object function.

A variety of personal traits may be credited to magical power, though frequently they are associated with an unusual birth into the world. For example, in 16th century Friuli, babies born with the caul were believed to be good witches, benandanti, who would engage evil witches in nighttime battles over the bounty of the next year’s crops.

Certain post-birth experiences may also be believed to convey magical power. For example a person’s survival of a near-death illness may be taken as evidence of their power as a healer: in Bali a medium’s survival is proof of her association with a patron deity and therefore her ability to communicate with other gods and spirits. Initiations are perhaps the most commonly used ceremonies to establish and to differentiate magicians from common people. In these rites the magician’s relationship to the supernatural and his entry into a closed professional class is established, often through rituals that simulate death and rebirth into a new life.

Given the exclusivity of the criteria needed to become a magician, much magic is performed by specialists. Laypeople will likely have some simple magical rituals for everyday living, but in situations of particular importance, especially when health or major life events are concerned, a specialist magician will often be consulted. The powers of both specialist and common magicians are determined by culturally accepted standards of the sources and the breadth of magic. A magician may not simply invent or claim new magic; the magician is only as powerful as his peers believe him to be.

In different cultures, various types of magicians may be differentiated based on their abilities, their sources of power, and on moral considerations, including divisions into different categories like sorcerer, witch, healer and others.

Magic

westernmystery:

I personally feel this description / defenition of magic is too narrow and simplistic.-

As a matter of fact i question wether terms such as magic, religion and so on are even relevant in a cross cultural / historical anthropological analyzis.

Magician

Magic is the claimed art of altering things either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult natural laws unknown toscience. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical analysis, whereas practitioners of magic claim it is an inexplicable force beyond logic. Magic has been practised in all cultures, and utilizes ways of understanding, experiencing and influencing the world somewhat akin to those offered by religion, though it is sometimes regarded as more focused on achieving results than religious worship. Magic is often viewed with suspicion by the wider community, and is commonly practised in isolation and secrecy. Modern Western magicians generally state magic’s primary purpose to be personal spiritual growth, many seeing magic ritual purely in psychological terms as a powerful means of autosuggestion and of contacting the unconscious mind. Modern perspectives on the theory of magic broadly follow two views, which also correspond closely to ancient views. The first sees magic as a result of a universal sympathy within the universe, where if something is done here a result happens somewhere else. The other view sees magic as a collaboration with spirits who cause the effect.

westernmystery:

John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was a noted English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator,imperialist,[4] and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy.

Dee straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable. One of the most learned men of his age, he had been invited to lecture on advanced algebra at the University of Paris while still in his early twenties. Dee was an ardent promoter of mathematics and a respected astronomer, as well as a leading expert in navigation, having trained many of those who would conduct England‘s voyages of discovery.

Simultaneously with these efforts, Dee immersed himself in the worlds of magic, astrology, and Hermetic philosophy. He devoted much time and effort in the last thirty years or so of his life to attempting to commune with angels in order to learn the universal language of creation and bring about the pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind. A student of the Renaissance Neo-Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, Dee did not draw distinctions between his mathematical research and his investigations into Hermetic magic, angel summoning and divination. Instead he considered all of his activities to constitute different facets of the same quest: the search for a transcendent understanding of the divine forms which underlie the visible world, which Dee called “pure verities”.

Dee’s high status as a scholar also allowed him to play a role in Elizabethan politics. He served as an occasional adviser and tutor toElizabeth I and nurtured relationships with her ministers Francis Walsingham and William Cecil. Dee also tutored and enjoyed patronage relationships with Sir Philip Sidney, his uncle Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and Edward Dyer. He also enjoyed patronage from Sir Christopher Hatton.

In his lifetime Dee amassed the largest library in England and one of the largest in Europe

Source: westernmystery

omniasolart:

“The philosopher’s stone, the universal medicine, the transmutation of metals, the squaring of the circle, and the secret of perpetual movement are neither scientific hoaxes nor wild dreams; they are terms that must be understood in their true sense and express all the different uses of the same secret, the different characters of the same operation, that we define in a more general manner by simply calling it the Great Work. There also exists in nature a force much more powerful than steam. With its use, a single man who could seize it and direct it, could disrupt and change the face of the world. This force was known to the ancients: it consists of a universal agent whose supreme law is balance and whose control is directly related to the great arcanum of transcendental magic. Through the control of this agent, we can even change the order of the seasons, produce daytime phenomena at night, communicate instantly from one end of the world to another, see like Apollonius what is happening on the other side of the world, heal or strike at a distance, give speech a real impact and a universal effect. This agent, which just barely revealed itself with the fumbling of Mesmer’s disciples, is precisely what the adepts of the Middle Ages called the raw material of the Great Work. The Gnostics made of it the flaming body of the Holy Spirit, and it was that which they adored in the secret rites of the sabbath or of the temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of Baphomet or of the androgynous goat of Mendes.”

— Éliphas Lévi – The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic: A New Translation p.14-15

starrywisdomsect:

The Grimoire of Honorius was described by A.E. Waite as “perhaps the most frankly diabolical of the Rituals connected with Black Magic.” This magical handbook deals directly with the most feared demons found within Judeo-Christian traditions, such as Lucifer and Astaroth.

Honorius amalgamates elements from other grimoires, such as the Key of Solomon and the Grimorium Verum.