“Meditations for Every Week,” by Paul Sédir, translated by Sergio Prezioso.
At first reading, this appears to be a book of fifty-two meditations which follow a fairly conventional path of Christian devotion. On closer inspection, one notes some curious departures from orthodox Christianity. Why, for example, does the author talk about having past incarnations (Chapter LI, “Insubordination”)? Why does he attach so much importance to St John the Baptist (Chapter V, “The Precursor”)? Why, even do we get this curious comment:
“Esotericism studies, among other problems, the means of producing natural miracles. … We will only have the legitimate right to command Nature when she sees that we are masters of ourselves, when we have followed the school of the Gospel to the end… Before any action, ask the Father for His consent.”
Chapter XXIX, “The Miracles of Jesus.”
Thankfully, one can readily discern the answer in the biographical note, helpfully provided by the translator, Signor Prezioso. Paul Sédir (born Yvon Leloup, 1871) as a young man in his late teens / early twenties became an enthusiastic member of just about every occult society going in Paris in the fin-de-siècle period, falling in with the likes of Papus, Jules Doinel, etc. As such he would have been familiar with Martinism, Gnosticism, the Order Kabbalistique de la Rose Croix and various shades of Rosicrucianism, Egyptian Rite Masonry, etc, etc etc. However in 1897 he met Maitre Phillipe of Lyon, who appears to have had a sobering effect on young Sédir, as he resigned from every order of which he was a member, and devoted the rest of his life to Christian mysticism.
As an aside: Sédir would have been coming up to his first Saturn return when he took the decision to step back from the esoteric societies of which he had been a member, and as such he would naturally felt a desire to re-evaluate his life as he said goodbye to the follies of youth and entered adulthood-proper. Coincidentally, Maitre Phillipe seems to have had a similar effect on Papus himself when the latter first met him: Papus had taken umbrage at Phillipe for some reason, and was about to work some supposedly fearsome black magic on him, when the Maitre “pulled a Plotinus” on him, causing him to drop his magic sword – both literally and metaphorically. Assuming that Maitre Phillipe’s effect on him was similar to that on Sédir, it says a lot about Papus that Martinism was to his former sorcery what Christian Mysticism was to Sédir’s Martinism!
Anywho, the present book – “Meditations for Every Week” – may be summed up as mostly Christian in character, but displaying the vestiges of memories of esotericism – which sums up Sédir’s life-path. From the rather obvious pentacle on the front cover, it appears that the translator intends the book to be most useful to students of Martinism, even though Sédir had resigned from office in Papus’ order. Or in other words: “You can take the man out of Martinism, but you can’t take Martinism out of the man.”
“Meditations for Every Week,” by Paul Sédir, translated by Sergio Prezioso. ISBN-13 9798643208631. Available from Amazon.
(First published on 
Review: Mystical Words of Power by Damon Brand
Mystical Words of Power, by Damon Brand
This is the first of two books from the Gallery of Magick which I have read recently which I am going to review. Previous releases from the Gallery of Magick have been concerned with “low magick” – which despite appearances is not intended in a snobby way, but in the sense of mundane, everyday, material needs. I was therefore intrigued by the title of this book: Mystical Words of Power. Could high spiritual theurgy be seriously packaged in a book meant for mass consumption?
The blurb for “Mystical Words of Power” says:
This had me confused, as I first thought that magick without aim would not have a point to it. This turned out to be slightly misleading: it does have an aim – the aim is to improve one’s personal qualities – mental, intuitive, psychic or spiritual even – with the idea that good fortune will occur as a side-effect, or as an indirect result. The primary method by which it aims to achieve this is a series of recondite (from my point of view) techniques drawn from the Kabbalah.
Researching the derivation of these particular Kabbalistic techniques is a fascinating subject in itself, and has led me to adopt a new working hypothesis of the Kabbalah which could change the history of the Western Mystery Tradition. The previous or current paradigm is that the adoption of the Hermetic Qabalah is a legitimate and logical development from older versions of the Qabalah, which seems to be taken for granted by the pioneers of the late Victorian occult revival and traditions which derive therefrom. However, the new paradigm I propose is this:
From the time that the Kabbalah first became known amongst Gentiles – e.g. from the time of Pico Della Mirandola or earlier – it occurred to a number of Christians to attempt to Christianize it and hence weaponise it as a tool for the forcible conversion of Jews. Jewish Kabbalists, however, soon cottoned on to what was happening, and became deeply offended: they therefore decided – either by tacit agreement or just coincidence – to cease co-operation with Gentiles attempting to learn about the Kabbalah, and claim that everything about the Kabbalah had already been published – carefully denying the existence of any other Kabbalistic teachings. However, as time went on, Gentile occultists that gaps appeared when trying to use the Kabbalah as a workable system of ceremonial magick. Receiving no help from Jewish Kabbalists, they took the liberty of interpolating Hermetic teachings to fill the lacunae. Thus was born the Hermetic Qabalah. This state of affairs continued through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with people like MacGregor Mathers, Aleister Crowley, Paul Foster Case, Dion Fortune, etc all being none the wiser. In fact, many proponents of Hermetic Qabalah, instead of realising that the Hermetic elements were only late additions to the science, persisted in believing that they derived from ancient times, e.g. to Egypt or even to Atlantis.
The evidence which is now coming to light is that the knowledge required to fill the “gaps” had been in the unpublished and untranslated Kabbalah all along! However, because luminaries of the Western Mystery Tradition hadn’t heard of it, they had no idea it even existed! By “evidence” I am referring to books which have not been translated from Hebrew into English and published until comparatively recently, such as Shorshei Ha Shemot and Brit Menucha. (NB: although published these books are still very expensive to get hold of, so their full secrets may not be revealed for a few years yet).
Anyway, I digress. Back to “Mystical Words of Power.” I had a go at the rituals contained in this book, and I can confirm that when combined with meditation, they can indeed one into a deep spiritual state of consciousness. They gave me some insights which I personally found useful, although because they are subjective they wander into the territory of Unverifed Personal Gnosis, so I shall not say too much about them.
Mystical Words of Power: The Magick of The Heart, The Soul, and The Empowered Mind by Damon Brand. ISBN 1795382848 / 978-1795382847. Available in Paperback or on Kindle.
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