KABBALAH, MAGIC AHD THE GREAT WORK Of SELf-TRAHSfORMATIOH A COMPL€T€ COURS€ LYAM THOMAS CHRISTOPHER Llewellyn Publications Woodbury, Minnesota Contents Acknowledgments Vl1 one Though Only a Few Will Rise 1 two The First Steps 15 three The Secret Lineage 35 four Neophyte 57 five That Darkly Splendid World 89 SIX The Mind Born of Matter 129 seven The Liquid Intelligence 175 eight Fuel for the Fire 227 ntne The Portal 267 ten The Work of the Adept 315 Appendix A: The Consecration ofthe Adeptus Wand 331 Appendix B: Suggested Forms ofExercise 345 Endnotes 353 Works Cited 359 Index 363 Acknowledgments The first challenge to appear before the new student of magic is the overwhehning amount of published material from which he must prepare a road map of self-initiation. Without guidance, this is usually impossible. Therefore, lowe my biggest thanks to Peter and Laura Yorke of Ra Horakhty Temple, who provided my first exposure to self-initiation techniques in the Golden Dawn. Their years of expe­ rience with the Golden Dawn material yielded a structure of carefully selected ex­ ercises, which their students still use today to bring about a gradual transformation. WIthout such well-prescribed use of the Golden Dawn's techniques, it would have been difficult to make progress in its grade system. The basic structure of the course in this book is built on a foundation of the Golden Dawn's elemental grade system as my teachers passed it on. In particular, it develops further their choice to use the color correspondences of the Four Worlds, a piece of the original Golden Dawn system that very few occultists have recognized as an ini­ tiatory tool. I also build upon their idea to prescribe planetary invocations as part of the process. Not only is it important for the student to experience the four elements in sequence; a gradual, balanced introduction to the planets provides a valuable foun­ dation for future work as an adept as well. I would also like to thank Dr. Anodea Judith for writing such a Western-friendly introduction to the chakra system. Not only do I require my students to read her book Wheels afLift, but I specifically assign a couple of the grounding exercises from it. Also, there is my friend Janet Blake, to whom I am so indebted as a ritual partner. Janet is one of the few powerful magicians I have known. Her ability and willing­ ness to test my foggy ideas have been crucial to the evolution of the curriculum in this book. Janet and I both share in the idea that teachers should no longer initiate vii viii Acknowledgments students into "private clubs," but that they should instead help them individuate. It continues to be my good fortune to work side by side with such a model Humanist. Additional ideas have come about from the questions of my students, whom I would also like to thank. I have never learned more than I have in playing the role of their teacher. Jake Gordon and Rick Phillips have been particularly mature and inquisitive in their own development, demanding answers from me that have con­ tributed to this book. And where would this project be without editors? A special thank-you goes to my friend-my evening jewel-Professor Winifred Storms for providing a much­ needed outsider's perspective. It is all too easy to forget how impenetrable occult jargon is to those who are not immersed in it daily. Thank you for your valuable advice, Winnie! one Though Only a Few Will Rise Magic. It has been with us since the birth of civilization. But what is it, and how does one become a magician? This book is dedicated to the student of life who stands at a crossroads, at the place where two paths meet. One path is mun­ dane and well worn, and the other is the way of magic. Magic is the art of transformation, of altering consciousness and experiencing the life changes that result. It is a science of empowerment, of using word, image, and gesture to reach into the darkness and set free the imprisoned faculties of the soul. For this reason, its power is forbidden. A person may sit quietly sometimes and marvel at the irony of his life. He partic­ ipates in a booming materialistic culture that stifles his spiritual needs for the sake of its progress. Despite the grandeur of technology, the modern progressive world restrains the individual from exploring the depth and breadth of his own soul. His parents and teachers have cautioned him to stay safely in the norm-to be success­ ful, become rich, and start a family. It is disreputable for him to strive for anything outside of those lines. But it can't be helped that there is the occasional quiet moment-between phone calls, perhaps, or after a movie-when he feels a different possibility. Sometimes it takes the form of a soothing calm, sometimes a radical curiosity. And sometimes it becomes a nagging doubt. A silent voice asks, "Is this all I was made for? Why is the life I am expected to live not enough?" We have been deceived. The purpose that Western society has created for the indi­ vidual is a sham. Mesmerized by a mirage of "happiness" that hovers around material 1 2 Chapter One possessions, we reach for creature comforts that inevitably comfort us less and less. We are addicted to the pursuit of prosperity, craving more and trying harder, even though our lifestyle of ravenous consumption does damage to the earth and leads us away from the very contentedness that we pursue. By conventional thinking, the material circumstances of Western life have been getting better by leaps and bounds. Adjusting for inflation, the average American income in the year 2000 had doubled since 1960. 1 Leisure time had risen by five hours per week in the same period, and it continues to rise.2 In 1900, the average American life span was 41 years. Today it is 77. 3 A century ago, rich men were dis­ tinguished by the fact that they lived in heated houses, enjoyed unlimited food and wine, had access to a physician, earned a college degree, and attended the theater for entertainment. Sound familiar? Today, supermarkets overflow with an abundance of food so affordable that even the poor suffer an epidemic of obesity. Waitresses take holidays together on luxuri­ ous pleasure cruises. Children of dockworkers receive college educations. We live in conditions far superior to those of the aristocrats of the nineteenth century. But despite this golden age of conveniences, surveys measuring the average human's happiness have shown no improvement. In fact, depression is on the rise, and the number of those people who would describe themselves as "very happy" has been decreasing steadily since 1940.4 Prosperity in modern times is becoming easier and easier, and yet simultaneously this easy living sucks the challenge out of life, the vitality. But this is not a book about returning to the magic of the Middle Ages for adventure. Not exactly. Con­ sider instead the following assessment: even as human progress is taking away the difficulties of staying alive, we are thereby gaining more freedom to pursue the even greater challenges of a different landscape in a different realm of our existence-one that has always been there. Our lives as animals are presenting fewer and fewer ob­ stacles to overcome. A new kind of evolution is surfacing: the life of the individual stepping into the frontier of his own soul and exploring the confines of his interior psychological and spiritual vehicles. The discipline of magic has never been easier than it is today. And who could blame the average person for failing to see this possibility? When the incarnated human wakes up wounded and human on the beach of life, he finds that he has been given a gift for which he has misplaced the instructions. Getting Though Only a Few Will Rise 3 comfortable_ as quickly as possible, mimicking his fellow castaways, trustinglyassimi­ lating the instructions and traditions that his elders pass down, he learns to forget that he has lost anything at all. Survival is an urgent business, after all. What could possibly come before that? The culture into which the individual is born helpless and vulnerable rescues him from certain death by teaching him a patchwork, haphazard survival manual, fabricated from mankind's traumatic evolutionary past. And so the individual grows up infused with beliefs that keep him alive but that nonetheless have no basis in his true identity. He learns to fit into his culture and to dutifully ignore his desire to find himself. And why not, after all? Disregarding the lessons of his elders may endanger his very life. But what if the silence between commercials begins to whisper? What if he came to realize that his bosses, parents, and teachers, despite their prestige, know noth­ ing? What if he discovers that his culture's entrepreneurs, politicians, scientists, and leaders are actors (and not very good ones) who are just as lost? What if they are on the same beach, having assimilated their culture just as he did, beguiling themselves into the notion that it reflects their real purpose? We are each of us wounded by mortality, and our role models have come to our rescue by putting a bandage on a hurt that will never heal. The average human, underneath a veneer of confidence, is still a terrified castaway severed from his true nature, clinging to the first para­ digm that comes along to give him a modicum of security.