What is a Godform?
A “Godform” is an idea that comes supposedly from ancient Egypt, although it was first described by the NeoPlatonist Iamblichus slightly less that 2000 years ago. The basic idea was that when a priest attempted to speak and act and imagine themselves as a god of the Egyptian pantheon, this served to invoke that god. Iamblichus’ idea was that the repeated “Assuming of a Godform” gradually transmuted the priest so that when he did so he became more and more godlike in real-life.
The Golden Dawn took this idea and made it the rationale as to why its grade ceremonies work on a magical level, i.e. because all the officers are assuming godforms whilst they perform their roles. The GD goes further by turning the assumption of godforms into an actual magical technique which adepts learn both to better work the grade ceremonies, and to do their own meditation and compose and perform their own rituals.
The actual GD technique is an unpublished teaching, but a simplified version of it can be found in the Ciceros’ Self Initiation book.
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Abramelin thoughts
From Reddit:
What are your thoughts on doing the Abramelin operation just to the point of contact and conversation with your HGA and stopping there. I’m not sure I particularly want to do the rest from there on. Would it just be unfinished as completing it is the goal, or could that be the operation in itself?
I wouldn’t know – I completed the whole thing, KCHGA, demons, and all.
Besides which, I rather think that the Bravery required to stand up to all the demons of Hell and command their obedience is the final test. KCHGA gives you that bravery, but you still have to go through with it otherwise you can’t actually use the Abramelin system thereafter.
In any event, just about every system of spiritual development I know – Abramelin, the Golden Dawn itself, Elus Cohens, and even the Individuation process in Jung’s analytical psychology – involving facing up to the “dark forces” and not banishing them but integrating them to play nicely with “higher authority” – whether that be the HGA, the Higher Self, the Repairer, or “the Self.” You can’t get away from it.
Current Work 2024
Happy new year everyone! I am currently in the middle of writing a new novel, which I expect to be finished this year. It will be a thriller, part supernatural, but also part conspiracy. I would have got it finished sooner, but in the middle of writing it, I came down with a bad case of Literature which meant I had to do a major revision. For more news, watch this space!
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Your Questions Answered
You now have the opportunity to have answered all your questions about Magick and the Occult in general, and my own work in particular. I am starting a new project in which I will be creating a new series of posts for this website and my social media outlets on Magick, and I therefore welcome questions on
- Abramelin
- The Golden Dawn
- Enochian Magick
- Goetia
- Astral Projection
- Ceremonial Magick in general
- etc etc etc
To have your question featured it should be asked in a format in which I can answer it in FIFTY WORDS OR LESS.
Post your question as a comment to this web post now! Thanks.
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Magick and the principle of Stewardship
His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
Matthew 25:23
OFFERINGS TO SPIRITS ARE BUNK. Maybe I’ve been spending too much time on the internet, or more accurately, too much time in the wrong places on the internet, but I have come to the conclusion that the way people try to “pay” for the good offices of a spirit, as if such a magical operation could ever be commodified, by making some token gesture not only grossly undervalues the Spirit in question, but stunts the Magician’s own further development.
Instead, I wish to propose a new paradigm, based on the following principles:
Magick is a gift;
The Magician is a Steward of the Gift of Magick.
The principle of Stewardship may be stated as “leaving a thing in a better state than when you found it,” or in a more Theological sense, if one is given something one should both use it and leave it in an improved condition. Cf the parable of the three Stewards from Matthew 25. In contemporary religion this principle in invoked to justify environmental activism within a spiritual context. However, I say that it applies to living one’s life generally, i.e. humanity is not just the Steward of Nature, but individual humans are the Stewards of all the good things they have received in their particular lives, i.e. they have an ethical obligation to leave them in a better state than when they received them. Hence, for the Magician, this means that he or she is a Steward of the Magical gifts which they have received.
Hence further, for example, if a spirit does one a good turn by granting one’s spell-request, the proper way to thank the spirit is take the boon granted and make full use of it even to the extent of exceeding the scope of one’s original intention. Or if God / one’s Higher Self / one’s unconscious mind happens to grant you Magical Power or Powers, then one ought to leave that Magical Power in a better state for all succeeding generations. E.g. a Clairvoyant would, following the principle of Stewardship, be under an ethical obligation to advance the science of Clairvoyance during their lifetime so that future students of the art will find their own experience of it improved because of the Clairvoyant’s own practice.
Not by simply posting a thank you message on social media and hoping for the best!
Call it UPG if you like but I do not believe that such platitudes a valuable offering do make, but instead lead a diminishing of returns. Expanding and constantly improving on the other hand keep the Spirit-Relationship alive.
One final point: there will come a time when we will be called to Give Account of our Stewardship, i.e. by when we ought to have improved on our gifts. But the wisest of us know not when that will occur, so by default one should assume that it is NOW.
Are spells created or have they always existed but are being discovered?
Say I take someone’s ritual to ask a spirit for one thing, and modify it to ask the same spirit for something similar but not identical, is it the same spell, or a new spell in its own right?
A lot of advanced magical practices call upon the magician to be able to create his/her own rituals: although mostly this will be a case of building upon established principles in which he/she has been trained – e.g. the magical systems of the Golden Dawn or Thelema. Hence in that sense, although original magical rituals are continuously being created, very few rituals are “totally original.”
In the Abramelin system, it is theoretically possible to ask one’s HGA to reveal a new “spell” (i.e. a magick square or spirit, or both) if one doesn’t already exist to suit one’s purpose. Which is just as well, because if this were not so, Abramelin would not be suited to the 21st century but would be stuck in the 15th century. HOWEVER, I believe that the secrets the HGA reveals come from a place outside Time, so the question “is it new or does it already exist” cannot properly be answered.
Alex’ answer to Are spells created or have they always existed but are being discovered? on Reddit.
Filed under Supernatural
For those that have actually done the Abramelin Operation, what did you experience? What did you gain from performing it? (Reddit)
Alex’ answer:
Hi, I actually did the Abramelin Operation during the lockdown in 2020, and subsequently wrote a book about it.
I know that all experiences are subjective to the practitioner, but I still think hearing about others experiences will still be very informative.
How did you prepare to do the ritual?
The superficial answer was that I didn’t. The lockdown began in March 2020, and Abramelin Season began a couple of weeks later on Easter Monday, 10th April. As I found myself obliged to work from home on full pay for the then foreseeable future, I decided pretty quickly “Fuck it, it’s now or never.”
However, the more fuller answer is that when I did start Abramelin, I found that having practiced ceremonial magick and meditation in general for over twenty-five years before starting the operation proper proved invaluable to me. In that sense, I had been preparing for it for over a quarter of a century.
What did you experience when you summoned the demonic powers?
It felt nerve-wracking at the time. However, the Demons are conjured on the last three days of the Ritual: the HGA is invoked on the three days prior to that. It helped enormously that on the evening of the Third Day of Convocation of the Good Spirits I believe I actually experienced my Holy Guardian Angel manifesting, which meant I went into the subsequent demonic conjurations with confidence.
Ultimately, the biggest demon which I conquered was my own fear of completing the ritual.
What was it like to summon the holy guardian angel?
Satisfying – not unlike deep, intense, meditation. Incidentally, I found that KCHGA doesn’t just happen suddenly at the very end of the operation, but starts to manifest during the course of the operation itself. The final Convocations of the Good Spirits is just the culmination of the thing.
Do you have any advice for those that are looking to perform the ritual themselves?
Yes, it’s actually a lot easier than you probably think. For the most part it consists of performing a simple ritual twice or three times a day every day for six months. What’s more, nowadays we live in an age when it is easier than ever to perform Abramelin: delicious vegetarian food is available from every supermarket, and technology, especially the internet, means that an Operand has more support for his/her efforts than at any time in the past.
The only really difficult part is in the final third, when you have to do the ritual three times a day – morning, noon, and night – the noon-day ritual really gets in the way of holding down a proper job, so ideally one ought to find a way to go on sabbatical for that time. The final seven days I booked off completely.
Alex Sumner
Author, Conjuring Demons for Pleasure and Profit: an Abramelin Memoir.
Alex’ answer to For those that have actually done the Abramelin Operation, what did you experience? What did you gain from performing it? on Reddit
The Archangel Tzaphqiel
This is based on some magical work I have recently done. The Archangel of Binah is Tzaphqiel (sometimes spelled “Tzaphkiel”) whose name means (according to Davidson (1967) p366) “Knowledge of God.” Consequently, Tzaphqiel is thought of as the Recording Angel, and hence, the Qabalistic equivalent of the Keeper of the Akashic Records.
When one considers just how big the Akashic Records are, this implies that Tzaphqiel is a considerably bigger deal than one might be supposed. For example, she is the key to the sum total of all knowledge in general and one’s own past lives in particular. Therefore her influence is not just limited to “Binah-type things” but to a surprisingly large fund of expertise.
Filed under Supernatural
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Death
A black hole, due to its inescapable gravity, is “death” to all matter which passes beyond its event horizon. Coincidentally, the black hole at the centre of this galaxy, otherwise known as Sagittarius A*, just so happens to be in the part of the sky to which the Golden Dawn attributes the Tarot Key “Death” (i.e. in terms of the “Tree of Life Projected in a Sphere” teaching of which I have spoken in the past). However, given that Black Holes leak “Hawking Radiation,” it would appear that Death is Not The End after all…
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January 24, 2024 · 2:16 pm