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The heart of the Golden Dawn system of magic is often referred to as theurgy, or “God-working.” It is summed up in the Obligation of the Adeptus Minor: “I further promise and swear that with the Divine Permission I will, from this day forward, apply myself to the Great Work—which is, to purify and exalt my spiritual nature so that with the Divine Aid I may at length attain to be more than human, and thus gradually raise and unite myself to my higher and Divine Genius …” This is the light that guides the path of the Golden Dawn magician.
The true form of an archangel would be similar to a great pillar of energy or a geometric shape. Ritual work involving Gods, archangels, and angels will be presented in later chapters of this book.
He taught that each individual human soul was immersed within the body of matter, and that the soul required divine aid to free itself and return to the One Source of All.
strict adherence to some dogmatic vision of obedience and insubordination, or reward and punishment, but rather to the inclination of Deity toward the natural cosmic order of involution and evolution, or the experiential inhaling and exhaling of Spirit into the material world and back again. As we all contain sparks of that Divine Light and exist within the Great Chain of Being, our magic should inevitably reflect this; when it doesn’t, we risk failure or worse. Therefore, a good deal of the part of the magician’s continuing practice is to create the conditions that help us orient ourselves to the Higher Will. We do this by purifying the auric sphere through meditation, exercises such as the Middle Pillar, and cleansing rituals such as the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram.
Your magical intention should be in alignment with the Will of the Divine, or at the very least, not conflict with it in any way. Fighting against the universal stream is like swimming against a riptide: the only way to safety is to go with the flow of the current. Instead of viewing it as a kind of wish-fulfillment cure-all, a clear and aligned intention is a good starting point in magic; the combined forces of willpower and imagination need a goal to focus on.
Pitfalls to Watch For The practice of magic paves the way to encounters with higher levels of reality. Therefore, it is important that the would-be magician be free from neuroses and other forms of mental illness that tend to cloud one’s perceptions and can in fact worsen when magic is undertaken.
we cannot stress strongly enough that the main goal of the Golden Dawn system is identical with that of any genuine spiritual path: the renewal of the human Spirit, the healing of our world and soul, and the return of Sacredness to human life and living.
Immanence and Transcendence Ultimate Divinity is both immanent (within everything) and transcendent (beyond everything). The Universe is completely divine, living, and animated.
The Way of Return Humanity has become separated from the Divine through involution, the process by which the Spirit manifested into matter. We seek “the Way of Return” back to unity with the Divine, through evolution, the process by which Spirit reconnects with Divinity. Involution and evolution are both natural and necessary processes of creation. They function as the exhalation and inhalation of Spirit.
The Universal Order The nature of the Universe is ultimately good, constructive, and leans toward balance. Evil is created from a state of imbalance.
AI Summary
Golden Dawn Magic by Chic Cicero, Sandra Tabatha Cicero presents key insights from the Taoism tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
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Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
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