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To: alt.magick
From: Gnomedplume@aol.com (Gnome d Plume)
Subject: Re: Ceremonial Magick besides GD & offspring
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 22:05:12 GMT

On 25 Mar 2002 03:36:29 -0800, bloodofenoch@goddamnfruit.com
(Andralphus) wrote:

>> ******I think you should look at the O.T.A. system. Although we do use
>> G.D. correspondences and we do appreciate Bardon,  we are primarily a
>> shamanic, visionary and very much Canaanite Pagan version of Solomonic
>> magick--in fact we are the only ceremonial magick lodge that regularly
>> conjures spirits to visible appearance in the Dark Mirror on Solomon's
>> Triangle of Art. Visit our web site at:
>> http://members.aol.com/CHSOTA/welcome.html and read our free download
>> instructive articles. *******
>
>Hi Gnome,
>
>Yes, I am aware of OTA.  And I do think your effort to revivify
>Solomonic magick is one of the most interesting things going on in
>occultism today.
>
>I guess you might be the closest thing to what I'm looking for.  But I
>had hoped to find some group practicing that had their own independent
>system started before the widespread availability of the Regardie
>material and not indebted to the GD for things like tables of
>correspondences or banishing rituals.
>
>It appears that I'm not going to find that.  Which casts an
>interesting light on the history of magick.
>
>> Good Magick!
>
>You too!
>
>- Andralphus

******Thanks for the kind words. Actually we look at the G.D.
correspondences as a fine tuning of Trithimius/Agrippa--which is the
basic Western Tradition for G.D., O.T.O., Martinists, H.B.L., AMORC
and so-on. They can also be applied to Bardon (if you don't use his
"Qabballah") and certainly the Thelemites use them. There is an
advantage to a universal acceptance of the G.D. alphabetic
QBL/astrological/planetary/elemental assignments and color scales. It
gives us all a common symbolic magical language without restricting
our creativity. In our case we have gone forward to develop a full
straight line QBL chakra system, an eleven sphere/25 path Tree of Life
and a linking of the Goetia and Almadel systems (both revised) --and
all of this within the basic framework of the G.D. attributions. Just
think of *777* as "The magical symbol language" and then use whatever
mythology and ritual structure you like. In our case we base our
initiations on the Crata Repoa, which is a hundred years older than
the G.D., and we use Canaanite mythology for our god and goddess
forms. I know what you are saying, however---if we all have to use a
symbol system no older than 1860 (approximately when Mackenzie wrote
the *Cypher Manuscript* see note below) then we aren't very ancient. .
. . well, you can look at it that way, but when you consider all of
the really ancient material that was sifted, rectified, polished-up
and fine-tunned by our British Rosecrucian brothers in the Victorian
era, it seems counter-productive to re-invent the wheel, so-to-speak.
Sure, there were Western magical systems in operation before the 1870s
(Martinists, German Rosicrucians, P.B. Randolph, etc.) but their
correspondences have not stood the test of time nor were they that
well developed. I have no problem with using 1870s G.D. symbols in a
1770s Crata Repoa structure. Magick is as ancient as Alexandria, the
Sabians of Harran, the theurgy of Bruno and Dee--and as modern as
Crowley, Bardon, and Case. We are very eclectic and always have been.
The Sabians reeled off gods and angels from every religion on earth in
their conjurations! 
      If you find, as we did, a forgotten magical system from the
years before the G.D., you will still probably end up using G.D.
correspondences with it for the same reason we did: they are the most
complete, the best worked-out, and the most effective. ******

Good Magick!

Gnome d Plume
(*Secrets of the Golden Dawn Cypher Manuscript* is available from us 
and also from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.)
http://members.aol.com/CHSOTA/productions.html