Tag Archives: magic

The Psychology of Ritual

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Psychology of Ritual [Amazon, Abebooks, Local Library] by Murry Hope; there is also a newer edition [Amazon, Abebooks, Publisher].

Hope the Psychology of Ritual

This book was an impulse buy for me. It was a cheap secondhand copy in decent condition, and I wasn’t familiar with the author. It didn’t look exploitative or too primerish, so I was intrigued.

The author is not a psychologist, but an occultist. In this book she repeatedly insists that she is a member of no particular sect or school, but according to Wikipedia (consulted 2012.11.05), she cofounded the Atlanteans Society (1957) and later the Institute of Transpersonal Sensitivity (1988). Based on the contents of the book, one can infer a vague Neopagan identity for her, incorporating a discriminating eclecticism. Without explicitly acknowledging the Thesophical Society, she draws on New Age doctrines about “cycles of evolution” that have distinctly Theosophical provenance. Other doctrines of popular esotericism that she promotes include a variety of alternative archaeologies (Atlantis, Ancient Astronauts, etc.) as well as New Age mystical interpretations of quantum physics.

In my attempts to grasp Hope’s context, I thought back to a another book I had read by an English occultist from about the same date: Adrian Savage’s Introduction to Chaos Magick. As I recollect, Savage anatomized the English occult scene into three factions: simpering anti-intellectual Witches, authoritarian toadying Ceremonialists, and daring experimental Chaos Magicians. Hope defines her position relative to the first two, both of which she praises, while seeming to identify a little more strongly with the neopagan witch than the ceremonial magician. And then in a sole hilarious mention, she refers to “chaos magic … as an excuse for hedonistic license. Legitimate mystical sciences are perverted in the name of experiment, and discipline has become a dirty word” (209).

The Psychology of Ritual is divided into three main sections plus a fat set of appendices. The first section provides history (often quite speculative or even obviously fallacious) and some general theory about the importance of ritual in general, or “the Rite,” as she terms it. She deliberately mixes magical and esoteric ceremonies with the rites of exoteric religious traditions in order to assert shared principles across a wide spectrum of ritual. A taxonomy of five ritual “codes” offered in the first chapter appears to be original in this work. Rather than psychology, the emphasis in the first section is more anthropological.

The second section starts with a unique chapter in which Hope goes into a variety of conventional 20th-century psychological theories, with emphasis on neurochemistry and the physiology of emotional states. The exposition is, let’s say, not authoritative. For example, Hope confuses melatonin and melanin. The next five chapters give contemporary occult rituals as case studies for the sort of “psychological” approach Hope applies, which usually has more to do with Jungian theory. (She refers to Jung as “the master” on p. 48, but most of her Jung citations are to the somewhat fictionalized memoir Memories, Dreams and Reflections.) For each of these five chapters, there are one or two full ritual texts among the appendices. Hope herself contributes a neo-Egyptian ceremony and a Celtic healing ritual, while others are from Ashcroft-Nowicki, the Farrars, Thorsson (Flowers), Schueler, and an anonymous Jesuit. She then finishes the section with a “Ritual World Tour” or ethnographic survey, a chapter on traditions of initiation, and a chapter on women’s rites.

In the third section she opines on the contemporary conditions for and uses of magical ritual. The section is wide-ranging, and often consists of passionate but unsupported assertions. Still, as much as she might buy into many of the flaky doctrines current in late 20th-century popular esotericism, I consistently got the impression that Hope had a genuinely broad base of personal experience in occultism, and that she is a basically considerate and practical lady.

The book assumes a fairly informed reader, but the tone is very much that of a lecture. Hope has some idiosyncratic diction beyond “the Rite” mentioned above. In particular, she pretty consistently uses “ever” for “always,” which is a little grandiose for my taste. Although this is more of an “intermediate” book than an introduction for the unlettered aspirant, it really didn’t have any new ideas for me. It was a mostly-pleasant read chiefly distinguished by its author’s voice.

At 10.0 arrived at Brenner’s studio, and took the pose. At once, automatically, the interior trembling began again, and again the subtle brilliance flowed through me. The consciousness again died and was reborn as the divine, always without shock or stress. How easy is magic, once the way is found! How still is the soul! The turbid spate of emotion has ceased; the heavy particles of thought have sunk to the bottom; how limpid, how lucid is its glimmer Only from above, from the overshadowing Tree of Life, whose leaves glisten and quiver in the shining wind of the Spirit, drops ever and anon, self-luminous, the Dew of Immortality. Many and wonderful also were the Visions and powers offered unto me in this hour; but I refused them all; for being in my Lord and He in me, there is no need of these toys.

Aleister Crowley, writing about posing for the statue by Michael Brenner, in John St John, Liber DCCCLX

Hermetic quote Crowley John St John DCCCLX Brenner consciousness died reborn divine without shock stress how easy magic once way found still soul

Michael Brenner Portrait of Aleister Crowley Bronze 1908
“Michael Brenner: Portrait of Aleister Crowley, Bronze, 1908, 15″ x 9-1/2″ x 10-1/2”, Ed. Artist-II/II, Edition-7; The piece was only recently identified. Crowley posed for this in 1908 describing the artist and his session in his notes.”—J C L Fine Art

“A gun?” Edward asked with skepticism in his voice. “We have Vincent and Emma watching the camp.” “Eddy,” Michael’s tone turned serious, “we are out here because somebody we know shit about is trying to kill you, and you and the nice magic old lady that just disappeared into the dark woods made me promise not to bring the HPD into this. I think it’s time you took a little more interest in preventing your own fucking death. That sound about right, little buddy?”

J Kelley Anderson, Casting Shadows [Amazon, Local Library]

Hermetic quote Anderson Casting Shadows time you tool a little more interest in preventing your own fucking death

Escape from Yokai Land

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Escape from Yokai Land [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Charles Stross, related to the Laundry Files series. (For some reason there’s covers images for this floating around that say the title is “Escape from Puroland”.)

Stross Escape From Yokai Land

I only got around to reading this novella in 2023, despite my usual promptness in reading new installations in Stross’ Laundry Files series. It was published in 2021, and concerned events set in 2014, prior to The Delirium Brief. It was a sort of nostalgic reading experience for me to go back before the New Management and read one of Bob Howard’s adventures from those halcyon days when Case NIGHTMARE GREEN was merely terrifyingly imminent. This one hews far closer than most to the Ghostbusters paradigm of horror-comedy, even admitting as much in so many words (61).

In this tale, secret agent Bob is newly acceded to the responsibilities and powers of his recently-deceased mentor. He is dispatched to Japan to tie up some loose ends, and the results are typical: computational demonology meets eschatological kawaii-cum-kaiju, with a side order of scarily competent para-human local contact whom Bob is not attracted to because he is conscientiously married (though separated).

There was a little more general exposition on the Laundryverse than I needed, but considering that I basically read the whole book in two sittings, I can’t complain.

Kabbalah, Magic and the Great Work of Self-Transformation

J S Kupperman reviews Kabbalah, Magic and the Great Work of Self-Transformation: A Complete Course [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Lyam Thomas Christopher, in the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition archive at A Post-Modern Golden Dawn?.

Christopher Kabbalah Magic

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is perhaps the most famous, or maybe infamous, magical order of the last two centuries. Today’s occult book market is filled with “magical primers” based on the Golden Dawn’s particular form of astro-Qabalistic magic. Here is one more book for the list.

Kabbalah is a mixed bag of history, philosophy and practical esotericism. In the first chapter of this ten-chapter work Christopher provides the most important caveat of the piece; that there is nothing new in this book. This is not actually a mark against Kabbalah, quite the contrary in fact as it lets the would-be purchaser know what they are getting; not new information but another approach to the information that is being presented. As an educator I am aware that different students learn in different ways so another approach to the Golden Dawn system of magic may provide the student a way that works for them.

Christopher’s purpose in writing this book appears to have been to present the Golden Dawn material, as well as a method for initiation into the Golden Dawn current, in a way that fits the ideologies of post-Modernism. Thus, while there are elements in Kabbalah that will be familiar to any Golden Dawn magician his approach may be quite foreign. In some ways this is to be expected but the text does present some internal inconsistencies. For instance Christopher stresses the importance of focusing on the Outer Order material while in the Outer Order, and indeed this makes up the bulk of the book. However in his Outer Order material he includes practices such as the hexagram rituals and the LVX signs, which are taught in the grade of Adeptus Minor. He says that both of these can be useful to the Outer Order magician in their work, and while this may very well be true it is inconsistent with his previous message of focusing on Outer Order information.

Christopher’s methodology is not entirely original and appears to be a combination of Regardie, whose Golden Dawn you will also need to purchase to use Kabbalah, Dion Fortune, Aleister Crowley and a bit of Pat Zalewski, through Christopher’s own training by Peter and Laura Yorke. The focus of the work is on the practice of variation of the Middle Pillar exercise, pentagram and hexagram rituals and the study of the Z material, which is the underlying formula of the Golden Dawn’s initiation ceremonies. There is more to it than this, but these three rituals and the Golden Dawn’s Z formulae are what are primarily employed for the process of self-initiation and self-transformation. This methodology, which Christopher claims to be superior to the Golden Dawn’s initiation rituals, is to bring the magician into alignment with the elemental forces of the Golden Dawn’s outer order and Portal grade.

Unfortunately there is a great deal more to the Golden Dawn’s initiation ceremonies than elemental energies and Christopher does not sufficiently explain how these missing elements are incorporated into his magical praxis. This is not to say that Kabbalah presents a non-functioning esoteric and spiritual practice; its methodology will subject the magician to the elemental energies associated with the Golden Dawn. However it remains to be seen whether or not it will provide access to the other aspects of the Golden Dawn current.

The first three chapters of Kabbalah, rather then focusing on practice, present the author’s ideology and raison d’ être. Here the author discusses his understanding of history, religion, philosophy, magic and learning. These chapters are important for understanding the author yet they tended to leave me as though I should feel that by disagreeing with his conclusions, philosophy or history I was somehow just not enlightened enough to understand him. It is here that Christopher’s revisionist history and spiritual biases are the most obvious.

These chapters are not all bad however. Beyond tendencies towards revisionist history Christopher stresses the difficulty of the work and the importance of actually doing the work and not just reading about it. There is an important emphasis on the need for discipline and perseverance. The message that the work is in fact work is hammered home and this is something often missing from other magical primers. The philosophy and history, some of which is both interesting and useful, also continue throughout the whole of the book, breaking up the magical instructions.

All this being said, again, there is still nothing new in Kabbalah, Magic and the Great Work of Self-Transformation. For the beginning magician who is interested in the Golden Dawn or one who has tried other magical primers and found them to not work Kabbalah may be the book that works, and it will provide such a reader with an unique interpretation of the Golden Dawn material that should not necessarily be ignored. However if you are already accomplished in the Golden Dawn system, while you may find some of the variations on the Middle Pillar or Hexagram rituals interesting, you can still safely pass this one by.

Swords & Dark Magic

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery [Amazon, Abebooks, Local Library] eds Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders, with Joy Abercrombie, C J Cherryh, Glan Cook, James Enge, Steven Erikson, Greg Keyes, Caitlín R Kiernan, Tim Lebbon, Tanith Lee, Scott Lynch, Michael Moorcock, Garth Nix, K J Parker, Michael Shea, Robert Silverberg, Bill Willingham, and Gene Wolfe.

Strahan Anders Swords Dark Magic

I acquired this massive anthology of 21st-century sword and sorcery fiction primarily because it contained a new Elric story by Michael Moorcock, but also because I hoped to find some new authors whose work I would enjoy. With some disappointment, I realize that the Elric story was in fact the one I liked best in the book. The others that I found especially fine or memorable were almost all by authors with publication histories going well back into the 20th century, and often in settings that had already been composed and established back then. The editors’ introduction, while asserting the significance and innovation of newer authors, is more focused on the genealogy of the form and the work of its 20th-century creators.

I enjoyed the new Silverberg story of Majipoor (although it’s been so long since I read Lord Valentine’s Castle that it hardly had anything to do with my prior acquaintance with that world). Tanith Lee’s “Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe” was quite entertaining. The Gene Wolfe contribution was not one that I would class with his best work, but I liked it. Michael Shea’s “fully authorized” story in Jack Vance’s Dying Earth milieu had the audacity to change that world’s fundamental destiny. 

Among the newer authors, the only story that made a marked impression on me was “The Sea-Troll’s Daughter” by Caitlin R. Kiernan, for the ways in which it twitted reader expectations regarding gender, sex, and conflict in this genre. Some of the newer material seemed sadly influenced by the lowest-common-denominator fantasy of Dungeons and Dragons, or — worse, but happily less often — the gimmicky magic and school fetishism of Harry Potter. None of them were awful, but none of them were really stories I can imagine myself referencing in the future.

The Birthgrave

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Birthgrave [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Tanith Lee, introduction Marion Zimmer Bradley, book 1 of the Birthgrave trilogy, 80s cover by Ken Kelly.

Lee The Birthgrave 80s cover by Ken Kelly

The Birthgrave was Tanith Lee’s first published novel for adult readers, and the first novel of hers that I’ve read. The Publishers Weekly review excerpt in the jacket copy stresses its size, and compares the protagonist to Robert E. Howard’s Conan. But it’s not such a very big book by today’s fantasy standards. At just a little over 400 pages, it’s fairly modest among the doorstop novels the genre has come to produce. 

The acute storytelling might justify the comparison to Conan, but the central character actually couldn’t be more dissimilar. A much closer comparison would be Moorcock’s Elric, who is in many ways a schematic anti-Conan. Lee takes that reversal one step further with the change of gender. For style, pacing, and mood, I found myself more reminded of Gene Wolfe’s multi-volume fantasies — but it appears that Tanith Lee got there first, so I can wonder if she influenced Wolfe.

The protagonist is a nameless survivor of her own cruel, sorcery-wielding race, who adopts different identities in the course of her interactions with humanity. She is obscurely cursed, and brings misery and death to her casual and intimate contacts alike. There is an allegory here, for those who want to read on that level, made especially plain in the anagnorisis of the final twenty pages. (Feuerbachian philosophy, Freudianism, and feminism can each be useful to interpret the message of the story.)

There are a number of passages of hallucinatory vividness, and I found the entire novel quite engaging. The ending is almost too tidy, and I can see why some readers resented its deus ex machina qualities, along with what might seem like an abrupt shift in genre. But at the same time as it imposes that dislocation, the book returns to the business of its beginning in a way that makes it whole.