Tag: Magick

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Jack Parsons in Kenneth Grant’s “Outside the Circles of Time”

The following are excerpts regarding Jack Parsons from Kenneth Grant’s book “Outside the Circles of Time” – the fifth book in his Typhonian Trilogies. 

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[Pages 49-51]

The work of Achad and of Parsons (14) exhibited profound awareness of a cosmic unfoldment that may not always be recognized even by those who are able ‘unconsciously’ to pick up and express aspects of the Current. How complex the pattern is may be appreciated by the fact that when Parsons received Liber 49 (The Book of Babalon), which he proclaimed to be the fourth chapter of AL, it was in magical concert with L.R. Hubbard (15) that extra-terrestrial contact was established. It remains to be seen what part of the puzzle Hubbard may manifest, but that he clutched at it through the door opened by Parsons is shown by the circumstances attendant upon the Babalon Working, for an account of which see The Magical Revival. The Working began in 1945-6, a few months before Crowley’s death in 1947, and just prior to the wave of unexpected arial phenomena now recalled as ‘The Great Flying Saucer Flap’. Parsons opened a door and something flew in; he supposed it was Babalon and the fourth chapter of AL; others have supposed other things but all are agreed that something unusual, something inexplicable by mundane laws, occurred around that time. Both Crowley’s and Achad’s prolonged initiations led up to this phenomenon which charged the ‘forties with the atmosphere of menace adumbrated in 1904 (in AL. III. 46) (16) and which fulminated in Hiroshima in preparing the way for the ‘eighties that cower before me and are abased’ (AL. III. 46).

Various writers have suggested that extra-mundane intelligences are apprehensive about nuclear disturbances originating on earth. The ‘UFO flap’ that commenced after Hiroshima was considered by some to be part of an investigation of what is, perhaps, after all, merely an experiment in human evolution. It will not be the first time that such an experiment has failed. (17) On the other hand man likes to feel, no doubt, that his puny activities could disturb remote galaxies; he may hazard extinction, even, for the sake of exalting his ego in such a manner. Man’s thinking is determined by the mass media to a larger extent than he is prepared to admit, he therefore tends to interpret ‘occult’ phenomena in terms of ‘extra-terrestrials’, space-craft constructed on principles he will one day himself understand and use, ‘planetary and inter-planetary wars,’ and so on. To the occultist, however, a quite different interpretation suggests itself. For example, the word ‘abased’ in the above quotation is, by gematria, equivalent to the word Alalia which Frater Achad ‘discovered’ in 1943. Both are forms of the number 73. Alalia conceals a magical formula of the 73 Current which works through the ‘feminine aspect of Chokmah (18) in his phallic function! (19) Chokmah is the Wise One who appears as GML (also 73), ‘the Priestess of the Silver Star’, who is the female hierophant in the form of the moon. Chokmah is therefor the logos whose word is AL AL IA.

The word ‘cower’ is equal to 237, which is that of Ur-He,Ka, the Great Magick Power of ShPhChH (Sefekh), the Goddess 393. 237 is also the number of Aossic, spelt in a certain manner, an extra-terrestrial entity whose name has had particular significance since the year 1945, the year in which Parsons ‘opened the door’.

(14) John Whiteside Parsons (1914-1952). One time head of a lodge of the O.T.O. in California. He was a scientis who worked on jet propulsion techniques. He finally blew himself to pieces in a laboratory accident and has since had the rare distinction of having named after him a mountain on the moon.
(15) It is here of interest to note another strange ramification of the web, for according to Frank B. Long, Hubbard met – years before his collaboration with Parsons – the man whose name will always be associated with extra-terrestrials and alien life-forms – H.P. Lovecraft. See Howard Phillip Lovecraft by Frank Belknap Long. Arkham House, 1975.
(16)  46 is the number of Mu, the City of the Vulture (of Maat), and the Key of the Mysteries
(17)  See the Book of Dzyan; the Berosian account of Creation, & c.
(18)  Chokmah (Wisdom) is the name of the Second Sephira. It is represented astronomically by the Sphere of the Fixed Stars and is the secret zone of the Temple of Starry Wisdom.
(19)  A type of magical vibration represented by the god Mercury.

 

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Jack Parsons in Kenneth Grant’s “Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God”

The following are excerpts regarding Jack Parsons from Kenneth Grant’s book “Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God” – the second book in his Typhonian Trilogies. 

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[Page 28, Footnote 18]

In a letter to J. W. Parsons, who was operating a Lodge of the O.T.O. in California in 1945, Crowley wrote: “it is all right to initiate one’s mistress, but to reverse the process is severely forbidden.”

[Page 42]

In the letter to John W. Parsons quoted in Chapter Two (footnote quoted above – Ed.), Crowley was presumably referring to an occult tradition which he does not specify and which I have been unable to discover. Dion Fortune, on the contrary, perhaps because she was herself a woman, advocated initiation by women; her novels are based almost entirely upon this theme, and Austin Spare, himself an Adept, was inducted into the Mysteries by a woman.

[Page 51, footnote 15]

Marjorie Cameron claimed to be an avatar of Babalon whom Parsons evoked by means of Enochian magick. Parsons was, at the time, the head of Agape Lodge, the Californian branch of the O.T.O. (For further details, see The Magical Revival, Chapter 9.)

[Page 73]

One of the earliest positive manifestations of the new O.T.O. occurred, appropriately enough, in the New World, in the latter half of the 1940s, at the Californian Lodge of the Order headed by John W. Parsons (Frater 210). Working with the formulae of Thelemic magick, Parsons established contact with extraterrestrial beings of the order of Aiwass. Unfortunately, he lost control of the entities he evoked and one of them, obsessing the woman with whom he worked, drove him to self-destruction. This magical partner claimed to be the incarnation of the Scarlet Woman, and she whose Word is Life, Love, Liberty and Light proved too much for Parsons, who found in her a devouring flame. During this period of sex-magical Operations Parsons was engaged in nuclear research and, in 1952, blew himself to pieces when he dropped a phial of fulminate of mercury. Enemies of the Order used the incident as proof of Crowley’s satanic influence, though Crowley himself had repeatedly warned Parsons not to engage in traffic with entities whose credentials were suspect.

For all his mistakes, Parsons made inroads on the unseen worlds; he was one of those who paved the way for the present-day passion for things strange and occult, for drugs, UFOs, black sex, mutations and the probability (as against the mere possibility) of man’s communicating with supra-mundane Intelligences capable of transforming life on this planet, a phenomenon which Crowley had spent a lifetime trying to demonstrate.

[Page 188]

The political programme of the New Aeon was stated succinctly by Crowley in Liber Oz41 Questioned about his political aims, he replied: “I have no time at all to write politics. Our programme is stated clearly in Liber Oz, and it should be always kept in mind that this is very much the same thing in principle as old style American Republican individualism. I use the word ‘Republic’ in its widest sense. The existence of a Monarch would not interfere with it.”

-From a letter to Frater 210 (John W. Parsons) of California, 12 May 1945.

Next: Jack Parsons in Kenneth Grant’s “Outside the Circles of Time”

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2 Nov 1952 – Jack Parson’s Last Letter, Post-dated after His Death

2 Nov 52 (Note: ? Death)

C. F. Saturnus.

93

No doubt you will be delighted to hear from an adept who has undertaken the operation of his H(oly) G(aurdian) A(ngel) in accord with our traditions.
The operation began auspiciously with a chromatic display of psychosomatic symptoms and progressed rapidly to acute psychosis. The operator has alternated satisfactorily between manic hysteria and depressing melancholy stupor on approximately 40 cycles, and satisfactory progress has been maintained in social ostracism, economic collapses and mental disassociation.
These statements are mentioned not in any vainglorious spirit of conceit, but rather that they may serve as a comfort and inspiration to other aspirants on the Path.

Now I’m off to the wilds of Mexico for a period, also in pursuit of the elusive H.G.A. before winding up in the guard (room) finally via the booby hatch, the graveyard or —-? If the finem (? Latin for end. T), you can tell all the little practicuses that I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

93 93/93 Noone. Once called 210.

(He dropped some explosive and blew himself up when waiting for Mexico. T)

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3 Oct 1951 – Fragment mentioning preparation of magickal ordeal

3 Oct 51

Your note was most timely and exactly to the point. It seems that this operation engenders tremendous mental and physical stresses – I should have been better prepared for something of the sort from the literature. It is the utter vulnerability of the child that comprises his power and naturally it is of that vulnerability that I (the partial ego) fear most. Well God knows what the end will be. I can only persevere in my way – the outcome is determined by something more than I am or know
(the rest is missing – Ed.)

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5 Sep 1949 – Magickal debts

5 Sept 49

Care Frater Saturnus

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I am minded of some magickal debts which I must meet before proceeding with certain matters. First I believe that there is a sum of 100 dollars due to you on two copies of the Book of Thoth. If you will verify this sum I expect to be able to pay in monthly installments of 20 dollars. Second there is a problem on which I am not clear. At one time I agreed to pay a sum of 250 dollars to a Dr. Marlowe (Louis Wilkinson. T) in England for prefacing revising and editing the Commentary on Liber Al vel Legis, sending 125 dollars in advance. I believe that Dr Marlowe is under the impression that I owe him another 125 dollars although I have never seen the revised MSS, or heard of any progress in the matter. It seems fishy to me, but if there is a magickal debt involved I must now pay it. Perhaps you know something further, and can give me your magickal advice.

Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally

210

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19 Jun 1949 – Explanation of current Magickal work, personal challenges

19 June 49

Care Frater Saturnus

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for your kind and brotherly wishes for my work. I am very please to hear of your own progress…

At present I have entered magickal regions where there is no possibility of outside help or assistance. The oaths are taken, the bridges burned, and there is no possibility of turning back. I am cognizant of the dangers of my position, but hope that my wide acquaintance with physical and moral dangers in the past and my total dedication to Nuit, will see me through.

In the past three years I have taken a degree and received a license in chemical engineering, acted as safety director for two major aircraft companies, and director of a large research program. During this period I kept up an intense magickal program, recorded in detail.

In September 1948 I was suspended from all my activities on charges which included activity in the O.T.O., and the circulation of Liber Oz. Later my wife left me, and the separation involved the entrapment of most of my friends. During this period I worked as a mechanic, a filling station attendant, and an assistant in a medical hospital, finally obtaining a position on the staff of the University of California. I also finished writing my magickal thesis at this time. Later, in a closed trial, I successfully defended the principles of Liber Oz, the judgement was reversed, and I was cleared of all charges. I am now engaged in building up my chemical practice.

My interest in magick is essentially practical, it is my sole aim to bring Thelema into the working and practical sphere of the world. It has seemed to me that if I had the genius to found the jet propulsion field in the U.S., and found a multimillion dollar corporation and a world renowned research laboratory, then I should also be able to apply this genius in the magical field. The problem then was to determine and overcome the weakness that had thwarted the final fruition of any of my plans.

Constantly invoking my angel, I final (sic) received the advice that would solve the problem. It was this – to put my magical work, and my entire life, on a rigorous scientific basis, with all the detailed planning, step by step progress, isolation of individual phenomena, and limited objectives that go with scientific programming.

I am now engaged in this process. In order for a person with as many wildly variant abilities and defects as myself to understand this matter, and bring it under control, it was necessary first to know my Angel, and second to take the oaths necessary to furnish the impetus for such an impossible task. That has been done. There is no turning back, but ahead there is a long voyage, and a very lonely one. However, essentially it does not matter if it is done in this incarnation or another. I have developed the magical memory sufficiently to know that it is no new thing with me – there have been many trials and errors over a long time, but the Will is known and the end is certain. But your hunch is right – I am strained to my limit, and have no assurance as to the outcome in this life.

That is about all I can say, or will be able to say for some time. If you hear of any of my future experiments, be assured that I am acting in accordance with my true will, dedicated to the practical establishment of Thelema in the world. I have no present alliances, nor do I contemplate any save in a purely ritual sense, for some time. For the time being my magical partners consist of those that can be purchased or otherwise easily picked up and disposed of. I have no further time for serious involvement with anyone who is not in accord with my Will.

A charge you as a brother to regard this entire communication as strictly confidential, and preferably to destroy this letter. I do not want anyone besides yourself to know the details of my present condition or recent history – my time is not yet. I have written you because I sensed your kindly interest as a brother, – because you first initiated me into the most holy and glorious sanctuary of True Magick – so that you might know the reasons for my present state and plans.

My best wishes for your success, and (what is the same thing) for the accomplishment of the holy Law of Thelema, to which we are both dedicated.

Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally

210

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9 Feb 1950 – On gods, and spiritual independence and growth

9 Feb 1950

Dear Candida

You will now have a part of Part 4 of Magick and I suggest your turning to the section on the Holy Graal which pertains to Babalon, and to the section called Astarte vel Berylli, which pertains to your method of work. Now hints on the nature of a god.

1. A god is a barrier. No unready person can pass (i.e. know) a god or his temple. Of course physical and mental contact is possible – but the spiritual – the essential part must remain outside until one has partaken somewhat of the nature of the god.

2. A god is a gateway. The conversation and knowledge of the god confers initiation – allows one to pass beyond all the opposites thereof that the god presents.

3. A god is a universe, i.e. the god includes, reconciles, and transcends all the classes of his class, and all the opposites thereof. He is therefore a complete cosmos, or the macrocosm expressed – as man. ‘A microcosm is a macrocosm implied.’

It is essential to grasp the dual nature of a god and its function. The good and evil, well and ill defined aspect, since it is the god’s position as reconciler that is most important. The terrible gods – Hitzilipoctly, Kali, Baal, Moloch and Jahve are intended to portray the diversity – the rightness – of the appearance of evil just as the good, mild gods portray and reconcile the other aspects. The reconciliation annihilates the split schizoid ego, which has divided the aspects of the parental image into a split, warring, and disastrous cosmos. The evil gods do not demand blood sacrifice – that is the grisly error of the partial soul.

They only demand the perception of eternity behind even the appearance of evil. The acceptance of trans- human and trans-logical values for the standards of impurity. The blood sacrifice in society is a national [cleavage?] of the split ego, but even Mars himself always offers the kindly alternative of a transcendent union wherein the god is otherwise – Mars Venemis (?), the God of the Wood.

When you visit a god on his appropriate plane (country) in the astral, you may find that the country is also the god. This is the experience of some rare types of nature mystics, who, adventuring in a familiar place come suddenly upon a landscape of Arcady, a brief intrusion of the upland meadows of forever in the plainer fields we know. The place is the God, the God is the place, the seen and the seer are one.

My dear, do not think you are alone. The legions are with you that tried and hoped, those now trying and typing – the unborn to come, dreaming of a world to be – all, all are with you. The gods themselves bend and whisper at your doorway, and your windows are portentous with the possible hour. I have heard Aldeberan speak to you of Rigel, and the Pleiades whisper your name that is to be. All that I have and all that I am am flared up in the birth fires that time and left me just three tasks: to guide in infancy, to counsel in adolescence, to renounce in maturity – to go onwards whence I came.

If I was the one you could love, yet it was needful for you to learn contempt and hatred, and to equilibrate those again with love. You have done it, and passed that fine passing. You have needed to know loneliness and terror and despair. You burn there, and it is passing. And now you come to the last unspeakable barrier, the ultimate thule, that you may labour long and painfully to kindle a small spark that will consume all you have – that will burn down the heavens as a torch until even the black stars burn with furious joy.

If you only knew the ache to dissolve, to pass away, to go, to be one – to drink utterly of the cup men call death or madness – to be away, at rest, at peace. But I will endure. I will do what must be done to the last [moment?] of putrefying flesh, to the last pulsation of the dying brain. Not for myself, not for you, but for the vision that I saw once – that is for ever.

One day my hands will fall away, and you will go alone into the regions that I cannot follow – take the sky in wings I have only known in dream.
God knows, it is not my body that now speaks to you, that is a tedious thing of days – of dim awareness in the half-shadow. It is my spirit – that spoke to you in the beginning, that speaks to you again now, that will always be with you, until we meet and fuse in the darkness of which light is a shadow.

Love, Jack

P.S. You can see that you must some time renounce all reliance upon me, that that is a critical point in the adventure. I do not mean that the time has come – but will you will know when it comes. In the great acts of creation and destruction, timing is of the essence. A teacher, like a god, must be surpassed. He is something to come up to, but who, for the adept in his critical moment steps aside, or is pushed aside, so that the initiate can go beyond – into the void. Once you are at that point, the problems are how to pass over into the deep world, how to dwell there, and how to return. Here the individual can only rely on his own supernatural [sic], it is a purely individual matter.

C.G. Jung has explained it all in great detail. As he himself says, he will not be understood for nearly 100 years. 40 years of the period has passed and the Bollingen Society has done much to hasten the day. Crowley’s hints on techniques and viewpoints are invaluable, and Joseph Campbell has done an excellent job of simplifying Jung’s concept of the nature and function of the hero- adept in the cosmic myths cycle.

However, it may be possible to know too much on these matters. The important thing is to get to work and find your own way. You will find the information you really need is usually available. Of course, there have been people – like Joan of Arc, Mary Baker Eddy, and even Aimee Semple Macpherson. But in these cases also the quality of the force and mentality was commensurate with the spiritual state. There is a balance that goes far deeper than appearances.

One trouble is understanding and explaining all this in the abstract quality of speech and thought. No speech or thought can describe or communicate the deep creative and destructive processes that go on within the organism, let alone the ultimate force that lies behind them both. Even objectively there is no description of the growth of a bean, much less a man. It is all by analogy – if we have felt the same we know what the other person means. But even the feeling is done with an unknown and indescribable organ or field of organs.
But some kinds of speed, actions, situations can touch the deep forces, and there you see the awesome spectacle of an individual or a group – or sometimes an entire race, moving in the supernal rhythms of a cosmic circle.

Civilization is an […], the animal is in the culture – he is the culture. Touch that and he moves. But all the intellectual – the reasonable approaches elicit no more response than would sucking on a rubber prick.

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8 Feb 1950 – The nature of Magick

8 Feb. 1950

Dear Candida,

Re your problem of getting the necessary information. You now have the Tarot correspondences, the diagrams of the Tree of Life, and the principle correspondences from 777. The intelligent use of these will show you the correspondences of a large number of ideas – in fact – if you use them right, of all ideas.

Take an idea (phenomena) which you want to examine. You can immediately place it in the class of Fire, Air, Earth, or Water and the sub class, Fire of Earth, Water of Air, etc. (Shortly I will send to you the Yi King – Chinese system of classification and Divination) again it can be classified as the Sephiroth. Further it can be classified in the Tarot which includes all these classes. Now you have all the essential open knowledge. A divination will give you secret knowledge, and you can develop this to any extent you wish on the astral. Once you develop the astral technique, you can get information on a subject that is completely unknown to you, then check it in reverse.

On the astral you can question persons living and dead, gods and spirits, read books and records; view scenes past and present, in accordance with your initiation. But regardless of your method, you will never go further than your grade allows at the time. That is why it is so necessary patiently to check and compare every source of information, eliminating all possible errors and being sure that you are not fooled or fooling yourself. It is in the application of ingenious scientific method to transcendental ends that success lies, but this is the way of any great artist. The science, or the art, or both may be unconscious, but are always there.

By now a picture of Magick must be shaping in you. The temple is your universe, the altar your body, the weapons (instruments) your powers, the Tarot your handbook and the astral the medium on which you operate. All phenomena, regardless of the arbitrary classification of objective and non-objective, propounds two questions, What does it mean to you and how you should use it.

Everything is magical, every act is a magical act, done under will: the small world of objective consciousness floats in the big world of Magick, separate only because of the will to separateness. We are surrounded by and immersed in miracles, the only availing miracle is to open the eyes to a miraculous world. The redemption or initiation of others consists simply in having been there yourself and being able, in some degree, to communicate your experiences. It cannot be done by any other means – all other Messianic activities are futile attempts to convert yourself (in others) to do something you don’t believe and don’t know. That is why your own attainment is always the first matter.
Attainment is simply a matter of consciously seeing what you have known unconsciously all along. Actually, the whole thing is almost silly. You bawl and weep to give up the ego, the greasy penny that you have been greedily clutching in your dirty little paw, and, behold, when you do it, it buys you a ticket to the greatest show on earth, with ice cream and cake free for ever. Naturally the temporal return is painful – you come back to tell the kids outside what damn fools they are, and what they are missing, and if you have forgotten their language you usually get kicked for your pains. It is just that – a circus – a carnival in the grand manner, as Finney [?] says and almost transmitted in Dr. Lao – as the inestimable St. Rabelais saw in his cups when he bawled out – Vive Joyeuse!

That is why in carnivals and masquerades you always seem to be on the verge of something so much bigger – you are! – you are on the verge of knowing that the whole thing is a carnival and a masquerade. You are seeing, however tawdrily, an image du monde. After that, Weltschmertz, but only because you cannot sustain the wisdom – because you must have your silly penny back. This is life as it should be lived, in acknowledgement, commensurably. The rituals – the dances – sacred and profane, solemn and wild, alternating with festivals. We live a symbol of what we know it is, and, finally transcending the symbols, become one with it. This is the wisdom of the cave men, that we have lost. It was their sanity – the lack of it is our madness. We no longer know how to act, and having lost the symbol, we have lost the reality.

Not by logic, not by intellect, nor by reason can we regain it – but by wild dances, solemn rites and chants in unknown tongues – only in the irrational and unknown direction can we come to it again. We must in fact affront and overthrow the reason, and relegate it again to the place of servant that it should occupy. It is by a great act of unreasonableness – in the courage and high-heartedness that Christ – the real Christ – called debonaire (cf. French bible and Greek source). Childish – certainly – but we are all children – only now we are children in a reform school – in an orphanage – in the dry, dull, foolish, frightened, restricted world that fools call grown up – in the evil enchantment of the F[uries?] – of Klingsor, where two and two must always make four, instead of twenty-two, or zero, as they just as well can. And since Zero itself may be a number indeterminate but finite, that is, any number – why the whole proof collapses at its most fundamental point (and 22 is the number of the trumps, clever, what?)

Yes we are like children, but we must be free children, free as the Greeks were free, and more than that – free as the Gods are free in the show that is forever.
Only seek yourself, my dear, and forget the rest. I know you have taken a terrible path through an evil wood, but after all, it is only a bogey, and the witch isn’t half bad once you get on good terms with her.

Love, Jack

P.S. I might mention my notion of the façade as I outlined it to David – not that you need it – but it might help some of your friends.

A façade (pose, attitude) can be useful as a superstructure under which the reconstruction of the ego can go on. Its terrible danger lies in its use as a retreat, a defense behind which a mutilated ego burrows deeper and deeper into darkness.

The real need is always for more contact – more understanding both with ourselves and others – the problem is always one of communication and the façade presents just that.

To explain ourselves ably and sincerely – to understand – to communicate – is the greatest art – the greatest pleasure. The true showman, again, needs no façade, he is sure of himself. His effect – his staging, is actually his greatest truths, the reality is in the nuance. But this is not a façade, it is art, and façade is never art – only prop.

P.P.S. The mailing of the MSS and my last letters was held up, so you will probably receive this a little ahead.

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1 Feb 1950 – Advice on Astral work

1 Feb 50 Huntsville, Ala.

Dear Candida,

Astral work is the most important part of practical magick, all magical effects and magical knowledge are gained, one way or another, by its media. What the Astral Plane is, is too abstruse a matter to take up here, you may have gotten some ideas from my past letters. How it works, in the beginning, is easy, any one with any psychic development whatever may learn it. However it can be extremely dangerous to the careless and unwary.

Some magicians use drugs, fasting, dance, mantra or yoga to get on the astral. This is almost unnecessary – all you need is a calm, steady will, quiet and plenty of determination. Then try this.

1. Banish
2. Open the temple
3. Get yourself in a comfortable ritual position (the Egyptian God – hands on knees with palms open – back straight, feet square – will do).
4. Calm you mind and body with deep regular breaths.
5. Close your eyes and imagine yourself standing outside your body, beside your altar. Keep up this practice until you get a clear image.
6. Transfer your consciousness to the astral body and open your (its) eyes. This is a trick. It will all be rather dim at first, but persevere.
7. Practice the pentagram and the hexagram (rituals) until you become used to working in the astral body. Turning is usually difficult, but it can be mastered. Keep at it. Make the pentagrams appear in fire – the names vibrate in the four corners. Visualize yourself standing on the earth, with the four archangels about you.
8. When this is easy, pick a plane and a purpose (i.e. to get information, to test someone, to determine the nature of a god, symbol, or spirit or dream). The plane is that appropriate – each idea has its own plane – i.e. the Egyptian, Arthurian, Artistic etc. When in doubt, use the general Magical plane. (At first avoid dead people and the plane of the dead. This belongs to the department of necromancy which is something else.)
9. In your astral. Rise straight up (always straight up) until you come to your plane. Then go about your business. Question and test the figures you meet. Get what you go after. Banish (with an earth pentagram) those that seem doubtful. Use your magical weapons as necessary. Use your head as necessary.
10. Return straight down. Return to your body. Banish. Record everything that has happened in detail.

Notes.

A. Return to your body after any sort of astral work. This is important, in fact, vital. It is a trick, you click into place. Absorb everything. Leave no residue.
B. Banish bodily before and after each working. If there is any doubt or residue, banish again, with sulfur if necessary. Two things are most dangerous – to lose contact with the astral body (Scin Lica) and to bring back unbanished residues.
C. Rising for information is all that should be done until you are an expert. It is least dangerous. It may lead at any time to illuminations, which should not be taken too seriously. Always test, check, record.
D. Talismans and signs can be carried and used, according to your knowledge.
E. Advanced experiments.

1. Healing. Summon the astral body, diagnose the trouble and cure astrally (by banishings and invoking the appropriate conditions).
2. Injury. Vice versa. (This is very poor policy.)
3. Questioning. (a) ask the appropriate god. (b) summon the astral body and ask it. It may lie, but an answer can be forced. Don’t try to push the real powers around.
4. Astral intercourse. An amusing experiment for the advanced student. You simply visit the sleeping person in the astral. Some of the whitest and blackest Magick is done by this means.
5. Lycanthropy. You kill the animal in the magic circle and appropriate its form. It becomes your permanent familiar, you are responsible for it, and can be injured through it. Sometimes an inconvenience. Very evil magicians use children in this manner. Advanced magicians simply make the required form out of a body of darkness, but this is rather complicated.
6. Also you can manipulate the gods, spirits, talismans etc. on the astral to get almost anything you want. It is a wonderful method for the study of the Tarot.
7. Skrying. The greatest and final form of astral work. The investigation of planes and states of being (such as Aires) for illumination and initiation.

All magical work is actually done on the astral. It is the true home of every magician and should become as familiar to you as your study. The astral body is as truly your body as your physical. While your higher self resides in it, it is deathless and independent of the life of the body.

You can, I have discovered, use it to explore past lives – a much simpler way than the Magical Memory method. The dangers are through ignorance, carelessness, or stupidity – or overweening lust of result. Its proper knowledge and use is a tremendous and valuable tool, which you should use only to develop your own initiation. If you get in trouble call on me or Babalon. I have developed a strong sensibility on this plane. But don’t visit me, or try to. You know that we are taboo to each other until this work is finished.

As you develop, memorize your rituals and do them astrally. You are then working directly, without the intervention of the physical plane. Always know what you want and reject what you don’t. And don’t forget the link, that prime and often forgotten aspect of practical Magick. For the sake of your own initiation, record.

That’s about all there really is to it, although volumes could be written. There is more twaddle about it, and more people are fouled up on or about it, than almost anything – yet it is the most important aspect of Magick.
Don’t initiate the unready – it can be fearfully dangerous to anyone without suitable background.

Work slowly and carefully, persistently and you will have the whole of Magick at your command. But don’t let success throw you. Be skeptical and test. The astrals can fool and flatter and have overthrown many a foolish magician.
Once you have mastered it, you can work the reverse, and materialize astrals here, or yourself at a distance.

But that’s usually more difficult and extremely exhausting, unless you are up to it. Blood is often used – but of course the sex method is supreme here. Sex is the gateway, and energy is never lost – only transformed. Each sex act creates on the astral plane: under will it creates what you want. But that is indeed a deep matter, and needless to say one to be cautious about. Acquire the techniques first, and save the power until you know how to use it.
Well, this is it.

Love, Jack

P.S. Be sure to work only undisturbed. An interruption in the middle can be very bad. And never, never go to sleep while working. You had better observe the ordinary taboos – nails, hair and personal matters – lock your room, consecrate your food, and banish twice daily while working. Also keep the Star of Babalon with you. Always remember that you are working with your own purified, consecrated force – a far more delicate and subtle matter than handling so much Plutonium.

J.