May 25, 2021 · 10:46 am

‘Revival of the occult’: French youth turn to tarot, astrology during Covid-19

Young people in France are increasingly turning to tarot, astrology and other forms of esoterism, a trend that accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a recent poll.

Source: ‘Revival of the occult’: French youth turn to tarot, astrology during Covid-19

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April 18, 2021 · 4:41 pm

Alex Sumner’s answer to How and where could I start to practice Magick? (14 years old) – Quora

I am now an experienced Ceremonial Magician. However, when I was fourteen years old myself, I got turned on to the occult not through reading occult books per se, but through Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, and the fiction of H P Lovecraft.

This is not so crazy as it may sound, since because Call of Cthulhu is based in a fictionalised version of the real world, the creators actually included a lot of historical data of real-life occult organisations and personalities such as Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, the Golden Dawn, etc. Because this piqued my interest, I remembered them when I came to researching the occult seriously when I was older.

Indeed, several serious occultists I know claimed that they were first inspired to take up the dark arts after reading Dennis Wheatley novels. Dennis Wheatley actually met Aleister Crowley, although he was a bit of a hypocrite in that he told his readers not to get into the occult real-life, as it was a sure path to be enmeshed by the powers of darkness, etc.

So yeah, if you do your research, you will probably find that a lot of fiction is inspired by genuine occultism. A lot however is not. The one thing I would advise against doing is watching The Irregulars. This is probably one of the worst programmes out there when it comes to historical accuracy about occultism. Or about the Sherlock Holmes universe. Or indeed about life in Victorian England generally.

(NB: if you are on Netflix and you want to watch something decent about the occult, try The Midnight Gospel instead).

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The Irregulars. Not as authentic as The Midnight Gospel

Source: Alex Sumner’s answer to How and where could I start to practice Magick? (14 years old) – Quora

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April 9, 2021 · 9:56 pm

Heretic of the Week: Dion Fortune

Dion Fortune

I don’t normally read Catholic Herald, which is why I’ve only just shared a year old story. Apparently, last month, Dion Fortune was the newspaper’s featured Heretic of the Week. I rather think they meant “hermetic” of the week, but that’s beside the point. Among Dion’s crimes are veering between Catholicism and paganism, and lowering the tone of Glastonbury, although I personally think that Kanye West is more to blame for the latter. 😉

Anywho, here is the link to the article:

Heretic of the Week: Dion Fortune. Catholic Herald, March 3rd 2020.

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March 8, 2021 · 3:35 pm

Ode to a Young Aspirant, On Beginning the Abramelin Operation

(Tune: Che Sera Sera).

When I started Abramelin,
I asked my genius, “What will I be?
Will I be powerful, mighty and rich?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.
K-C-H-G-A!
The future’s not yours to see,
Except with chapter one, square three –
K-C-H-G-A!”

Square 3, of Book IV, chapter 1.
NB I know that technically square 2 might also work, but that didn’t rhyme!

Just a reminder that this year’s Abramelin season begins on Monday 5th April 2021, which is only four weeks away! I am currently editing the journal I wrote when I did it in 2020, which I hope will be ready later this year . It’s 103 thousand words so far, so it’s going to be pretty chunky when it is done. Meanwhile, I heartily recommend reading my blog posts which I have tagged Abramelin – if for no other reason than to be warned in advance of the issues I myself identified.

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February 15, 2021 · 6:41 pm

Bring It Home: Bringing a Hawke’s Bay occult legend back to life

The interior of a house built by Robert Felkin as an annexe to Whare Ra. Apparently Felkin himself chose the bright blue hue for practising Colour Therapy.

Rosie Dawson-Hewes’ charming Arts and Crafts home in sunny Havelock North has a mysterious history.

Source: Bring It Home: Bringing a Hawke’s Bay occult legend back to life

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February 11, 2021 · 6:29 pm

What spell do I use to summon demons that show up whenever they want? – Quora

You do not want this demon turning up uninvited.

(a2a) Summoning demons to show up whenever they want is an incredibly bad idea.

Instead, a real magician aspires to summon demons whenever the magician wants.

Really it’s just a case of Setting Boundaries in a relationship. If you’re the boss of a company, you want your employees to turn up when they’re supposed to, and do they job that they’re paid to do. You don’t want them to be bad timekeepers, or make unreasonable demands of your time or your good nature, or stalk you at your home.

Same with demons: you are meant to be their boss and they are your employees. A lot of people with superiority complexes feel bad about commanding demons, but if a Manager can give an instruction to his / her team-member and still be respectful to them, it’s really not that different.

Source: Alex Sumner’s answer to What spell do I use to summon demons that show up whenever they want? – Quora

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January 29, 2021 · 6:01 pm

Can I still do witchcraft without herbs or crystals? – Quora

pentacle

© Alex Sumner 2021

Ask yourself: why is there this herb or this crystal in the spell in the first place?

The person who originally came up with the spell didn’t put it there at random, they did so because they had a specific plan in mind – a specific reason. You work out what that reason was, and you may realise – there are other methods of achieving the same goal not necessarily using the original herbs or crystals, or indeed any at all.

So yes, if you can breakdown how and why spells are constructed you could do witchcraft without either herbs or crystals, even to the extent of learning to create your own spells. You might even realise that you know more than the person who originally wrote the spell!

Incidentally, I can offer my opinion about herbs and crystals which may help you. The main reason they are used in magic is because they have Astrological properties which coincide with the purpose of the spell. There is more than one way of invoking Astrological energies, this is the sort of thing which can be researched.

Or of course, you may get to the point where although you technically can work without herbs or crystals, you can make an executive decision that working with a herb or crystal is most convenient for you in a particular instance.

Source: Alex Sumner’s answer to Can I still do witchcraft without herbs or crystals? – Quora

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January 22, 2021 · 9:53 am

How can somebody summon a succubus? – Quora

A Succubus. Note that in real-life, Succubi tend to appear without horns, wings, tails, and indeed clothes!

In a novel I wrote, The Magus, one of the characters has an authentic experience with a “Succubus.” Whilst trying to evoke a demon and get it to do its bidding, the demon tries to get out of the pact by distracting him with sex in the form of a beautiful woman. Whilst the experience is highly erotic, the man realises that if he is to succeed with his magic he needs to refuse sex with the Succubus and instead force it to agree to do his Will.

In other words, despite the fact that a Succubus might seem attractive to a lonely but horny teenager who is not getting enough in real life, such a demon only manifests when an evocation goes wrong. One cannot deliberately summon a Succubus, as that would entail deliberately failing at an Evocation – but if you set out with the intent to fail, it wouldn’t work to begin with.

The Magus, by Alex Sumner

Source: Alex Sumner’s answer to How can somebody summon a succubus? – Quora

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January 21, 2021 · 3:04 pm

Why are people so ready and willing to accept magical thinking? – Quora

“Magical thinking” may be out of place in the hard sciences, but Scientists tend to forget – not everything in this world is Scientific. The most obvious example of which is Art – by which I include literature, music, film & theatre, and just about everything we do for cultural and aesthetic reasons.

In order to appreciate a work of Science Fiction, one has to has to have a Magical Thinking mindset, not a Scientific one, because the plot necessarily requires a suspension of disbelief. The same could also be said for horror fiction, fantasy fiction, etc


It is also necessary to accept Magical Thinking in order to appreciate history itself, since as late as the middle of the twentieth century, the Arts were given greater emphasis in education than the Sciences. There was indeed a time when it was thought that you could get farther in life with a knowledge of the works of (e.g.) Shakespeare than of Isaac Newton. This is not necessarily the view of modern education, but if you didn’t actually realise this then you would fail to understand the decision making processes of the world’s most influential people of the comparatively recent past.

Finally of course, Magical Thinking is a requisite for understanding actual magic. 😉

Source: Alex Sumner’s answer to Why are people so ready and willing to accept magical thinking? – Quora

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January 13, 2021 · 2:36 pm

Stop: Hammer Time!

Perhaps this is the ceremonial regalia of an order of which I’m not a member?

This is a follow-up to posts I made last year regarding original Abramelin sources online, to wit: the Dresden Manuscript, the Leipzig Manuscript, and that of the Biblioteque D’Arsenal (which Mathers translated to create the first English edition). All of these posts were basically for my own benefit, so that I at least would know where to go on the internet to find them.

Copy of the Hammer edition of Abramelin held at the Humboldt University of Berlin


I can now add another one: the “1725” Peter Hammer edition. If the date of 1725 is to be believed, this would be the earliest known printing of Abramelin, although I was under the impression that the only available versions of the Hammer edition date from facsimiles made in 1850.

EDIT: No sooner had I published this post but on further searching I actually found a better quality scan – held at the Humboldt University of Berlin. A previous version of this blog post referred to a low quality scan on Internet Archive, which is barely readable. I have now updated the links accordingly.

The magic squares being on page 243.

Incidentally, the attribution of Peter Hammer of Köln (i.e. Cologne) is spurious. There was no such person as “Peter Hammer,” and the imprint wasn’t based out of Cologne, but rather Amsterdam. The fact is that because of the repressive nature of continental Europe the late 17th and early 18th centuries, if you wanted to publish an anonymous book that was in anyway criticial of the monarchies of France or Germany (as was) or was otherwise controversial (e.g. it was a Grimoire which would probably upset the religious authorities), one would take it to “Pierre Martel” (NB Un martel is a kind of hammer) or “Peter Hammer” if in German, who would print it in Amsterdam but say it was done in Germany to throw off the scent.

Interestingly, Mathers himself said that he had heard of an Amsterdam manuscript, so perhaps he actually meant the Hammer edition?

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