Tag Archives: rituals

Crowley

Featured

Posted on by

A Beginners Guide
John S. Moore & John Patrick Higgins

Front coverLR

Crowley a beginners guide UK / £15.00

Crowley a beginners guide USA / US $22.00

Crowley, A Beginners Guide
John S. Moore & John Patrick Higgins
Format: Softcover/b/w Illustrated/154pp
ISBN: 978-1-906958-69-5
£15.00 /US $22.00
Subjects: Aleister Crowley/Thelema/Magick/Occult/Biography.
—–
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”
Nearly seventy years after his death Aleister Crowley, the notorious Beast 666, is only just beginning to attract serious academic attention. Even so we would not expect to find him on any mainstream university courses; he is still too much associated with occultism. So, Crowley – A Beginners Guide is not your standard beginner’s guide.

“Let my servants be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the known.”
Readers may be surprised at the richness and complexity of his thought, as well as the extent of his influence. He needs background to be understood. Giving this opens fresh perspectives on much recent intellectual history.

Crowley – A Beginners Guide presents his main ideas in a straightforward and accessible format, with drawings and diagrams to place them in their historical context. It relates him to contemporary movements in art and scholarship. It describes his relationship to modernism and postmodernism, and his role in the counterculture of the sixties, as well as his continuing influence today. Interspersed are entertaining stories of his life and reputation.

Brilliantly illustrated by John Higgins, Crowley – A Beginners Guide, is a highly accessible guide to this fascinating, complex and controversial figure. It neither promotes nor condemns him, presenting hostile as well as favourable views of his character and achievement.

John S Moore is a freelance writer and independent scholar living in London. He is the author of Aleister Crowley: A Modern Master (Mandrake of Oxford, 2009) and Nietzsche – An Interpretation, (AuthorsOnline Ltd, 2011) and has written on Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein and Edward Bulwer-Lytton among others. More information at www.johnsmoore.co.uk

John Patrick Higgins is a writer and illustrator. He is the author of The Narwhal and Other Stories www.amazon.co.uk/Narwhal-other-stories-Patrick-Higgins ebook/dp/B007N6KJW8
He writes art criticism for various magazines and is Creative Director of Shot Glass Theatre Company www.culturenorthernireland.org/reviews/performing-arts/shot-glass. See also www.facebook.com
He lives in Belfast, which he continues to find extraordinary.

Read a review of Crowley A Beginners Guide from Magonia Review of Books pelicanist.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/crowley-for-beginners.html

Crowley – A Beginners Guide (Look Inside)

Angelic Magick

Featured

Posted on by

A Guide to Angelic Beings and how to walk with them
Judith Page
(Preface by Aaron Leitch)


Angelic Magick
A Guide to Angelic Beings and how to walk with them
Judith Page
preface by Aaron Leitch
Format: Softcover
ISBN: 978-1-906958-47-3
£15.00/US$22.00
Subjects: Angelic Magick

Click HERE for UK edition

Click HERE for USA & AUS editions
–
“The visualizations here draw their imagery from classical grimoires and Qabalistic philosophy. Plus, they have a specific and useful goal. Each visualization takes you on a journey into the symbolic realm of an archangel, where you are introduced to the entity’s sigils and symbols and other sacred imagery before encountering the archangel himself. Each visualization builds upon those before it, until the aspirant has been led through the seven circles of heaven and has established a personal link to the archangel that governs each one. At the end, the aspirant will have learned to recognize the images, seals and symbols they will encounter in the Solomonic and other advanced systems of angel summoning.

Such guided visualizations are certainly absent from the medieval texts about angels. So, why should I urge anyone who wishes to work with angels – even Solomonic practitioners – to follow the instructions in this book? Simply put, this book is based upon the same principle I described above: safely establishing first contact. It accomplishes this without resort to the full-fledged summoning ceremonies intended to call the angel down to the physical plane – an advanced practice the grimoires tend to jump into without preamble.

This book even includes simple rituals by which you can submit petitions to the archangels in times of need – and these rituals are not entirely removed from the methods of the grimoires. Therefore, working through the steps outlined in this book can serve as a wonderful bridge between “square one” and the fully adept practices of angelic summoning.”
: From Aaron Leitch’s Preface

Contents
Preface
Introduction
Authors Notes
Practical matters and preparation

Chapters

1 Legend of Luc’ifer
Path to Luc’ifer
2 Legend of Mikh’ael
Path to Mikh’ael
3 Legend of Gabri’el
Path to Gabri’el
4 Legend of Sama’el
Path to Sama’el
5 Legend of Rapha’el
Path to Rapha’el
6 Legend of Zadki’el
Path to Zadki’el
7 Legend of Ana’el
Path to Ana’el
8 Legend of Cassi’el
Path to Cassi’el
9 Legend of Uri’el
Path to Uri’el
10 Legend of Enoch
Path to Enoch & the Watchers
Magical Alphabets
Table of correspondences (Charts for angels and Hours)
Notes on the Seal of Truth
Bibliography

 

Nu Tantras of the UttaraKaulas

Posted on by

John Power

Nu Tantras of the UttaraKaulas
John Power
Publisher: Phoenix Publications Chelmsford 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9542286-6-8
£15.00+p&p / US$24+p&p

Click HERE for UK edition

Click HERE for USA & AUS

“The book by John Power is one of the first attempts I have seen to write a critical analysis of some of Mahendranath’s writings. John was entrusted with the Uttarakaula tantric aspect of our world and he has obviously nurtured and worked with his specialty for as he says 21 years (and more now.) At the end of his analytical work he includes original, very creative and fascinating rituals that are the summation of his experience. It is quirky and personal and that adds greatly to its value. I have often gotten swamped by Mahendranath’s large output of written words. To see a few of his major tantras re-worded, discussed, analysed and emotionally digested is so helpful. I recommend that those who are interested in the works of Mahendranath give this work more than a quick cursory glance.”
– Lalita Devi, Canadian Initiate and Tantrik Yogini.

“Power begins with an intro that traces his own relationship with Tantra, before clearly laying out the perspectives he is viewing the tradition from and giving a biographical note about Shri Dadaji Gurudev Mahendranath. He then proceeds to summarise Dadaji’s initiation and writing, then includes some of his own original rituals and images. This book is beautiful. So what validity does my opinion have especially in the light of my own rather self damning opening statement (to compound this outrage I neither understand Sanskrit nor am an initiated Tantrika)? However I have been a practicing magician for a long time, have lived in both the occidental and oriental environs, and have the insight into art, magick and humanity that comes from age and experience. I believe John Power has written a book that is of great value. It is about love and freedom; fun, liberation and compassion; and ways to work for and with this in a creative and progressive way. ‘The Nu Tantras of the Uttarakaulas’ is about magick from the heart and the inner self; the greatest and most transformative magick there is.” (Charlotte Rodgers, whose The Bloody Sacrifice is published by Mandrake)

A Contemporary Western Book Of The Dead

Featured

Posted on by

An Anthology
Edited by Charlotte Rodgers & Lydia Maskell

A Contemporary Western Book of The Dead
An Anthology
Edited by Charlotte Rodgers & Lydia Maskell
Format: Softcover
ISBN: 978-1-906958-04-6
£15.00 +P&P / US$22+P&P


Click HERE for UK edition

Click HERE for USA & Elsewhere

Click here for Kindle UK Edition

Click here for Kindle USA edition

‘I was musing on Singapore in all its affluent glory still having shrines for the dead on every street corner during ‘The Festival of the Hungry Ghosts’. Then I was musing on how the socially mobile of modern western society eschew death rites and grieving in the name of ‘holding it together’ and being progressive. I thought of which civilizations are falling and which are rising again, and wondered whether acknowledging death and the ancestors is a vital part of a maintaining personal identity and our place in society. I remember how my grieving father mourned for all the information he had relied on his deceased wife remembering; information which was now lost. I recalled Michael Crichton’s words ‘If you don’t know (your family’s) history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.’

Then I thought maybe someone should write about the cults of the ancestors and death, perhaps an anthology, perhaps cross relate experiences of loss to personal spirituality and magick and history. I know that years of working with the dead in the name of art and spirituality, didn’t prepare me for the death of my mother. What helped me was the advice of someone from a long tradition of working with the ancestors. I think that collecting the experiences of spiritual practitioners in their working with grief and death is part of a living and necessary tradition that will give respect to the dead and strength, identity and support to our own personal spirituality.’

Within this book are rituals, stories, traditions and experiences of magicians’ scholars and artists who work with death. Some of the contributors such as Nema, Mogg Morgan, Louis Martine and Nevill Drury (to name but a few) have helped define contemporary transformative spirituality. Others are less well known but just as learned. As there should be in such a collection there is comedy, anger confrontation and practicality. This anthology is about who we are, and where we come from. It is also about how we change. A Contemporary Western Book of the Dead contains voices and visions that acknowledge our past, feed our present and guide the direction of our future.

Introduction/Charlotte Rodgers
Loved One/Nema
All a Do about Death /Josephine McCarthy
Clans For The Memory / Sarah Grimstone
Learning About Death / Nevill Drury
A Thoughtful Wake / Louis Martinie
Break On Through To The Other Side /Louise Hodgson
Death the Final Frontier / Sue Fox
The Bardo Thodol – Bon Voyage / John Power
You Only Live Twice / Ode bi Tola
On Speaking with the Dead: The Cult of the Dead in Traditional Culture / Michael Clarke
Body / Mishlen Linden
The Great Western Hoax / Ode bi Tola
The Book of Gates: A prose arrangement / Mogg Morgan
Biographies of Contributors

Photographers:
Sue Fox, Ruth Kenyon, Ariadne Spyridonos Xenou (Cover: Gerald Hutton)