Tag Archives: Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers

Sent from the Second Order

Andrew Finley reviews Sent From the Second Order: The Collected Letters of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn [Abebooks] ed. Darcy Küntz at Sent from the Second Order in the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition archive.

Mr. Darcy Küntz, with his eye for detail and his keen interest in the historical roots of the Golden Dawn, has allowed the public access for the first time to a number of letters from the “vaults of the Golden Dawn” which have only been available to a small number of scholars.

In this book I discovered a number of unpublished letters that revealed the hidden and unexplored idiosyncratic side of the founders and members of the Golden Dawn. These letters have provided me an insight into some of the unexplained behavior and interactions between the members William Wynn Westcott, S.L. Mathers, Dr. Berridge, Aleister Crowley, Annie Horniman, et al.

Of the new material in the book there is a document from 1900 which discusses a “preliminary contract of peace” between Dr. Westcott and S.L. Mathers. Mr. Küntz also produces evidence which reveals the name of the member who wanted revenge upon Westcott and who wanted him kicked out of the Golden Dawn. There are two letters written by Aleister Crowley in 1908 which brought me much pleasure in reading. These letters show Crowley’s wit and charm prior to publishing the Golden Dawn Secrets in The Equinox (Vol. I, Nos. 2 & 3). Of particular interest is the letter dated February 1901 and written by the Majority of the Second Order Council. It could be argued that this document shows that Crowley was initiated in the 5^○=6^□ grade of Adeptus Minor and a member of the Second Order, while some people might argue that the evidence is only circumstantial.

The quality and nature of the 103 letters and documents in this book has made it a valuable addition to my Golden Dawn library. The high standard of scholarship from Mr. Küntz has made this a highly sought after book. I was surprised to hear that Sent From the Second Order was published in a very limited edition of 27 copies and 10 “Hors Commerce” copies and that it would not be reprinted. Although it makes it very collectable the problem is that researchers may have trouble tracking down a copy. I only hope that Mr. Küntz will consider reprinting a larger or “popular” edition.

The paper and binding of the book are high quality for a small press production. Mr. Küntz has created the design for the cover which is an interesting example of a symbol reminiscent of the chaosphere sigil superimposed on a grid of occult symbols. Also the frontispiece is an unpublished colored version of Aleister Crowley’s Tarot card the Magician.

I would like to see an expanded version with more original letters with the same attention to detail that Mr. Küntz has applied to editing this valuable source material. I also look forward to his book titled The Golden Dawn Temple Manual. I have been told by Mr. Küntz that the book contains all the source material that one would need to start and manage a Golden Dawn Temple including the Consecration Ceremony of a Golden Dawn Temple.

The Grimoire of Armadel

Maxomenos reviews The Grimoire of Armadel by S L MacGregor Mathers in the Occult Book Reviews archive.

This is a seriously boring book, and I am at a loss to see why Mathers thought that this was important to translate. It’s not a bad magickal system at all, but it doesn’t add any information. On the other hand this book is excellent for the squeamish or the beginner, precisely because it is a self-contained magickal system with useful workings, none of which could result in serious harm to the user if done improperly.

All the evokations are of beneficent angels and archangels. Each chapter contains the sigil of a particular angel and a description of the services that they perform; there are also lists of prayers appropriate to the evokation of these angels. It is not magickally interesting in this regard, because there are about a hundred or so other magickal works that do the same thing. However, it is interesting from an historical point of view. The chapter names refer to events and characters in Christian mythology, almost none of which have anything to do with the evokation at hand. It makes a very solid effort at looking like and being a thouroughly pious work, which fits the period of this book. Ultimately, I think that “The Book of the Sacred Magick of Abramelin the Mage” is a better book, in addition to being cheaper.

The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage

Maxomenos reviews The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, translated by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, from the Bkwyrm archive.

If you only use one book of magick in your entire study, this is the one to use. If you are Wiccan, and you only buy one book on the magick of “old dead white men” in your entire life, this is the book to get. If you are a Thelemite, this book should be required reading, since this is where Crowley got his most important ritual, the Great Work.

Abramelin, like Gaul, is divided into three parts. The first part is the story of how Abraham, the ostensible author, came upon a man named Abramelin and this, his system of magick. Abraham spends plenty of time describing all of his endeavors, including having done magickal favors for a number of Emperors. He admonishes his son Lamech not to use this system for vain purposes. In the third part, he gives a number of talismans, in the form of magic squares, which are used for various purposes, from scrying to changing the weather. The real meat of this book, however, is in the second part. Here, Abraham gives details of a ritual for invoking and communing with one’s Holy Guardian Angel. (This parallels the Shamanic practise of the totem quest. In Wicca, this is practised in lesser version by means of the Sabbats and Esbats.) This is the Great Work which Crowley mentions, and which he used as the basis for his Liber Seketh.

This ritual has many significant restrictions, the least of which is the age requirement: one should be no younger than 25 and no older than 50 years of age. According to my sources, these numbers originate from an astrological mistake: the actual age range should be between the first and second Saturn returns, that is, between 30 and 60. I have my doubts about this since the Operation is supposed to be independent of Astrological influences; more likely it is a matter having a magician who is old enough to have acquired some wisdom and young enough to have the physical stamina to perform the operation. If this is true, then I doubt that 25 enough of a lower bound for most people.

A brief note on the magic squares in the third part: the squares all consist of arrangements of letters in grids, such as the example below:

M I L O N
I R A G O
L A M A L
O G A R I
N O L I M

The form of these tables carries many advantages which most talismans, such as those found in The Key of Solomon, in that they are simple to produce, easy to display as ASCII (note to persons wishing to research magick via computer), and for the most part innocuous. A layman would probably recognize a Goetic talisman immediately but not an Abramelin one. However, I believe that many of the talismans are incomplete. I am not precisely sure how one should complete them.

You can find this book at Amazon, Abebooks, and Powell’s.

The Goetia

Randall Bowyer reviews The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King: Lemegeton – Clavicula Salomonis Regis, Book 1, translated by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, edited by Aleister Crowley and Hymenaeus Beta, from the Bkwyrm archive.

Reviewed: the illustrated second edition with new annotations by Aleister Crowley, edited by Hymenaeus Beta.

First of all, I must reassure you that the illustrations are not those D&D-style drawings that mar the New Falcon edition of the Goetia, but rather the adorable little engravings by Louis Breton that you’ve seen in all those coffee-table books; they are supplemented by a few of Crowley’s crude sketches, which have the advantage of having been drawn from life. The new edition irons out some errors which were present in the first edition, greatly increases the usefulness of the Enochian conjurations, and generally makes the book more convenient for reference; it even fixes the pile of mistakes in the Greek text of 365 from the 1994 edition of Magick. It is not, however, without its flaws. First, the book is printed on cheap, see-through paper. Second, the new edition introduces more than fifty new errors. Most of these occur in the Editor’s Foreword, and most are very minor problems like the incorrect accenting of several Greek words; others, though, are more substantive errors of fact. For all these blunders we can thank the Tepaphone’s own “R. B.,” who had a hand in the translating and proofreading work for this new edition. Despite his arrogance and the occasional shallowness of his research, I really expected more of this intelligent amateur. R. B. tells me that a corrected reprint on real paper is already in the works, and will appear under the imprint of 93 Publishing: perhaps serious students should wait for this improved version. Meanwhile, the new edition is still better than the first edition.

You can find this book at Amazon, Abebooks, and Powell’s.

The Complete Golden Dawn Cipher Manuscript

The Complete Golden Dawn Cipher Manuscript [also, also], Golden Dawn Studies Series Number 1, deciphered, translated and edited by Darcy Küntz, introduction by R A Gilbert, the 1996 first edition paperback from the Holmes Publishing Group, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“This book contains the first complete facsimile and translation of the Cipher Manuscript, which became the foundation of the Golden Dawn’s initiation ceremonies and knowledge lectures. The complete Cipher Manuscript has been safeguarded in private collections and inaccessible to occultists and historians for over a century—until now. The publication of the Cipher Manuscript is the most important Golden Dawn manuscript to be printed in many years.

Some Highlights of the Volume:

An early history of the Golden Dawn as presented by the author.
‘A Tentative Solution to the Riddle of the Cipher Manuscript’ by R.A. Gilbert and printed in North America for the first time.
The first complete facsimile and translation of all 60 Cipher Folios, including two unknown Cipher Folios recently discovered.
The ‘Zelator Opening’ Ceremony and now issued for the first time from an obscure source of the Cipher Manuscript.
The ‘Knowledge [Lecture] of the Theoricus’ Grade — newly discovered and now appearing for the first time.
S.L. MacGregor Mathers’ ‘Notice to the Philosophi’ herein available as the Philosophus Knowledge Lecture.
The ‘Adeptus Minor Opening Ceremony’ newly translated into English from French, Latin, Hebrew and Greek.
S.L. MacGregor Mathers’ version of the Practicus ‘Tarot Lecture.’ based on the Cipher Manuscript and presented as an appendix.
The Bibliography contains a list of the Golden Dawn Source Works relating to the Cipher Manuscript.”

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The Sacred Magician

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Sacred Magician: A Ceremonial Diary by William Bloom (originally published under the pseudonym William Chevalier):

This volume is a 1992 reissue of a book originally published under a pseudonum in 1976. The subtitle “A Ceremonial Diary” is misleading, since, although very much a diary, it provides little detail on the ceremonial dimension of the author’s efforts in prosecuting the operations in The Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage, which are the activities covered by the span of the diary. The edition includes a partial fascimile of Abra-Melin in the Mathers translation, which accounts for nearly all of the actual information on the mechanics of the work, so it is difficult to know how rigorous Bloom was in applying its specifics. The Abra-Melin work is mixed with Theosophical aspirations strongly influenced by the works of Alice Bailey, and it is actually these latter that seem to predominate for long stretches of the introspective diary. [via]

Black Magic is Not a Myth in Articles by Aleister Crowley.

“My most memorable personal experience of the effects of black magic occurred when I was living in Scotland. The machinations of a degraded and outcast member of the Order caused my hounds to die, my servants to become insane. The struggle lasted until the recoil of the current of hated caused the luckless sorcerer to collapse.” [via, also]

“I began my pilgrimage to far-distant countries. Mexico was the first. I was sent there by the head of the Order to consecrate a priest to serve the Lamp of the Invisible Light.”

I Make Myself Invisible in Articles by Aleister Crowley.

“I began my pilgrimage to far-distant countries. Mexico was the first. I was sent there by the head of the Order to consecrate a priest to serve the Lamp of the Invisible Light.” [via, also, see]

The Hermetic Library Blog

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