#cabbala

[thesorceresstemple]

The Sephiroth

[occult-research-bibliography]

Great Resource: the City University of New York’s Occult Library online.

Alchemy – Digital Occult Library

All images sourced from CUNY Digital Occult Library

Top Left: Dragon eating its own tail; Top Right: Alchemists at work; Bottom: Kabbalah Tree of Life’s 10 Sephiroth

[skepticaloccultist]

Of Magic and Faith

I have been considering in what regard the role of religion takes in the practice of magic. Particularly when one converts from one faith to another late in life. How does one's previous religious beliefs shape our perception of the new faith we have acquired, with all its attendant ceremony?

As an example, what the story of St Cyprian lacks is a pagan context. His worldview in the context of the narrative of St Cyprian and St Justine is one in which he is already in league with the devil and his minions before he converts to the Christian faith. But it is established that he is a pagan, someone who believes in a different faith. Cyprian's worldview was shaped by his faith prior to his religious conversion. The "demons" and "devils" he traffics in before his conversion are entities only being viewed as such in hindsight through the Christian lens. They are not being given the context of their faith/cosmology, and such there is the root of the problem of the magic of pre Christian Cyprian the Sorcerer.

As I have outlined in the past, a religion acts as a cosmological framework for the believed reality of the faithful. Cook up a universal creation story, a narrative of the purpose of life, some societal rules and an awe inspiring wizard acting on behalf of the "gods" and you have yourself a religion. Access to drugs helps.

When we talk about deities we talk about complex belief systems that evolved over centuries, rooted within the framework of a common language system. These two, language and religion, act as parallel guides, informing and shaping a cultural understanding of each other. It is through a given language that we can understand the deities of the world's religions.

Increasingly the world is full of young people who identify as atheist. That have no gods nor goddesses, and yet still find themselves drawn to magic. They feel the pull of the path yet do not understand how to approach gods they do not believe exist.

To give a thorough understanding how cosmology shapes identity and how language shapes our perception of reality is beyond the purvey of this short article. But suffice to say that we are rooted in language, it is inescapable and in history each language gave birth to a set of gods and goddesses that best fit the people of that language.

Like language religions evolve, the temperament of modern Judaism and Islam as practiced in the west is nothing like that of practices common just a few centuries ago. As needed ideas are birthed and factions are created religions split and diverge, peoples move away from one another geographically and the once common language takes different turns and they become two distinct languages over time.

How does someone who believes in no gods use a magical system rooted in a very specific religion/belief system? One group will tell you that it can't be done. If you don't speak the language, and weren't raised in the belief system, you won't be able to approach those gods. Simple and often disappointing.

Some will argue that religious conversion can be and often is sincere. If St Cyprian can be shown the light of the Christian god, and be saved from Christian hell despite his previous deeds, can not anyone then convert and understand the faith they chose? It depends on who you ask.

On the other hand there is chaos magic, and the idea that these systems of organized religion are all merely fictions we project onto structures we can not otherwise understand. The true architecture of reality is beyond our grasp, and this fiction or that fiction are both invalidated and given new validity. I can do anything, use a butter knife as a ritual dagger or a super complex custom made out of rare materials dagger. Religions are up for total appropriation as fictions created by long dead authors, and thus in the public domain.

But neither of these extreme viewpoints offers much consolation to the wayward would be wizard looking to find a path without the mumbo jumbo of their ancestors bad beliefs. And here is the key, it's those ancestors that really matter. The coded bullshit they passed down your dna, the mumbo jumbo they themselves experienced. You've got to deal with that before you can make any advance on the path. It may not be your religion, but it was to your kin and you need to come to terms with that and approach them with the grace they are due.

Magic is not a religion anymore than electricity is a religion. It's a system of dealing with concepts and realities that exist on the edge of cultural (and human) perception. A way of approaching those things that although commonly discussed in human society, are rarely taken seriously. The shimmering edge of reality beyond the veil of perception. That vast other that is the beyond.

One need not have a dogmatic system of cosmological belief to guide one in this netherworld of the beyond, but almost all of the maps made of that place are written in the language and ideoforms of the world's mythologies. You may not believe in something someone else does, or did, but that doesn't negate the potential of its existence any more than if it believes in you.

[publicdomainreview]

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[scuffed-tarot]

THE GENTILES ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED TO USE JEWISH CULTURE AND MYSTIC TRADITIONS AND HEBREW FOR THEIR OWN PRACTICES

[thelightofthecenter]

Johfra Bosschart - Zodiac Series (1974-1975) - PART II

As he made clear later in his own commentary (Astrology: Signs of the Zodiac), the paintings are more than illustrations of the traditional Zodiac. They combine signs and images from Cabbala, Magick, Alchemy and the Tarot to become a complex and graduated series of meditations. An acquaintance with the doctrines of Neo-Platonism, Hermeticism, and the Cabbala underlies their composition, and invites the viewer to contemplate these works as doorways to self-transcendence.

Source

From top to bottom- Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces  

[svenson777]

ANONYMOUS

“Cabbalistische Tabellen welche vermittelst der Arithmetic künfftige Begebe[n]heiten entdecken und auf die gemachte[n] Fragen jedesmal eine schickliche und adaequate Antwort ertheilen. Mit Exempeln bewiesen.”

First Edition Amsterdam 1744

>> German description:

5 Bll. (Titel in Kupfer gestochen) u. 6 (davon 5 gefaltet) Tabellen, Kl.-8°, Interimseinband aus zeitgenössischem Buntpapier.

Ein ähnliches Werk erschien 1750: “Oraculum Cabalisticum oder gantz neu erläuterte Cabalistische Tabellen” und eine Neuauflage 1760. Enthält vor den Tabellen als Anleitung eine beispielhafte Berechnung.

Der anonyme Verfasser: “So wenig ein erfahrner Staats-Mann, welcher aus verschiedenen sich ergebenden Umständen den erfolgenden Umsturz dieses oder jenes Reichs schon zum voraus siehet, für einen Wahrsager oder Zauberer zu halten, eben so wenig wirst du gegenwärtige ans Licht kommende Blätter für Zaubereyen anzusehen haben […] daß man die auf seine gethane Frage durch Arithmetische Ausrechnung überkommende Antwort meistentheils […] nach Verlauff einiger Zeit par hazard richtig eintreffend finden werde.”

[triste-le-roy]

Pages from Herrad of Landsberg’s Hortus deliciarum (Garden of Delights) (Herrad of Landsberg, 12th century).

(via Wikipedia & Carl Jung: Depth Psychology)