CHAPTER THREE

1.From the point of view of Astrology all life is seen as ritual, in that all things can be predicted by astrology. The Astrological Magician sees life as ritual, and seeks to enhance the positive side and minimise the negative aspect. This he does by the practice of Astrologically based magical rituals performed at the astrologically correct time, that is when the planets are in good aspect to each other, and in good signs. He uses particular planets for different purposes. Thus Venus for love, Mars for energy, Jupiter for good fortune and good fellowship and so on.

2.It is up to each individual Stellar magician to make the contact with the Gods, it is not as difficult as you think. The dead-letter approach to the science of the Stars is at an end. The Stellar Art is a way of life when one awakens, when the third eye, the Eye of Shiva opens. Where once it was difficult to open this eye, calling for years of Yoga discipline, now it is easy. One has merely to practise the rituals, invoke the Gods to aid one in one’s daily life. Practise the magic of the Stars.

2.The bigot would say ‘‘This is the work of the devil’’ - but then he would, wouldn’t he. The same man burnt Christians at the end of the last Stellar Age, ignorance is also eternal.

3.With continued practice comes awareness, and with that awareness comes knowledge, with

knowledge comes integrity and with integrity comes the vision of the One that exists in the All. There is no suffering in our philosophy, no pain that has not been engendered by past incarnations by our foolish acts, acts which have been committed in our blindness. The practise of Stellar Magic removes the blindness.

4.As people become more fascinated by astrology they are unconsciously worshipping the Stellar deities. Simply giving Astrology and its symbols a little thought is an act of unconscious worship that is resulting in the awakening of the Gods. We who worship them directly are enabled to ‘see’ them more clearly because of the upsurge in the interest in the Stars. We are the outsiders of Eternity, what we see today others will see tomorrow. The powers they are invoking are eternal and we through our magic can communicate with these powers.

5.We began with the desire to change events in our personal lives and in the lives of our friends and clients. We practised Stellar Magic to aid us in our daily lives. The Stellar deities have done this, they do aid us. If our spells are just they are granted. If our talismans are prepared with the love of the Gods, they work.

6.To illustrate this, the results generally agreed upon, noted after the performance of a Jupiter ritual are: An increase in awareness including a telepathic consciousness of ‘‘where the different members of the group are. A personal feeling of oneness with the Will of God. People become more friendly towards one. A sense from other people that one is not like them. They begin by reacting in the normal way, look puzzled for a second or two and then suddenly, almost with surprise and a sense of relief ‘‘open up’’ and reveal their real selves, their anxieties and worries; as if unconsciously they are aware that we can somehow, by their talking to us, relieve them of their worries. We feel that by simply listening to them we can help by absorbing their problems into the greatness of Jupiter there is no effort. All one has to do is ‘be’ in the ambience of the God, and all will be resolved for ourselves and the people we meet’’.

7.By the continual practice of the worship of the Star deities one is brought closer and closer to the Will of God. What once were ideas and symbols become living realities. One looks at the images of the Gods and Goddesses of the Stars expecting them to be dead symbols and suddenly with surprise we see them alive as entities so close to us that we couldn’t see them before. Jupiter, that grand benign magnificent God has always been there and now we can see him, in all his living glory.

8.It comes as quite a shock at first, as the change from dead symbol to living entity is sudden and uncalled for. The power and image of the God is with us in daily life. It is there to be communicated with directly. There is a constant awareness of the Stellar deities as living entities. Each one is filled with love, a different kind of love for each entity.

9.The love that Jupiter radiates is benign and at the same time positive. He appears as a middle-aged King sometimes as a wise man. When as a King he is all purple and gold, as a wise man his colours become a little subdued and his robes, more conservative but all the while there is the knowledge, the awareness that he is alive.

10.In all systems of magic or mysticism comes a ‘Dark night of the Soul’. This is a period when the ‘God’ is removed from one: the illumination that went before is withdrawn and one is alone. This state produces a feeling of aloneness, of desperation and emptiness. This is not so with the Stellar Gods. They are always with us, influencing our lives at every turn; they are living entities with whom we will once again share our lives.

11.How can one see the Gods? It is not quite with the mind’s eye and it is definitely not imagination, because the vision intrudes on one uncalled for, and in brilliant colours. One has the awareness that one can contact them directly at all times. The mind itself has ‘changed gear’ as it were. One is not what one was. ‘‘One moment I am alone in the Universe, without aid of any kind and the next moment I am surrounded by a knowledge, a gnosis. A knowing for myself how vastly alive is the Universe and how real these entities are.

12.’’At first I am a little perplexed, how can it be, that by simply invoking these powers in an act of worship, they should come to me? It doesn’t work with any other system. In Christianity one has to have faith, endless faith, in a god that may or may not exist. There is no proof of him, but the proof of the Astrological deities is immediate in their power to influence one through the practice of the art; but the step beyond, from accepting them as dead-letter symbols that have an effect upon our lives and nothing more, to realising them as living changing entities, bent on assisting mankind in general and oneself in particular is an amazing experience.

13.’’One has actually contacted something beyond oneself that lives on a plane beyond oneself and yet it lives in a greatness that is not remote from one but is so intimate that one is a part of them and they are a part of oneself all at the same time.

14.’’As one continues to invoke these powers when their planets are favourably placed, so one increases in intimacy with them and their purpose. There begins to form a bond of love between oneself and these powers, Gods, or whatever one likes to call them; and with the continued worship of the Stellar deities comes another awareness, an awareness of something beyond them, dimly perceived at first but growing stronger with the intercourse with them.

15.’’It is an awareness of what the Stellar deities aren’t, a kind of power that does not depend on their existence, but transcends them. I was puzzled by this at first, but the more I worshipped the Stellar Gods, the more I became aware of this power that transcended them. I became more and more aware of its nature.

16.’’It was the informing power of all the Gods it was their source and inspiration. It was superior to the Gods and yet informed them and permeated them, it was one with them and yet apart. I began to concentrate upon this power, its influence seemed so strong.

17.’’I became aware that it was the Will of God, the Will that informed all the Gods and Goddesses of the Stars. I became aware, with an intimacy that astounded me, that the Stellar deities were the Will of God in action. Each in its different way was expressing the Will of God, each was and is influencing mankind from moment to moment throughout eternity.

18.’’It was as if I was the Sleeping Beauty, who had suddenly awakened from a long sleep, because my previous consciousness seemed like a dream-state. I had only been half alive, I had been aware of nothing beyond the mechanistic pointless world of the twentieth century, I was now plunged into a reality far more real than the dream I had been dreaming.

19.’’I was a Sleeping Beauty, but who or what was the ‘Prince’ that had awakened me? Was it the Gods themselves that had drawn me to this mystery; I felt that I had been gently guided to this mystery but it didn’t matter, the fact was that I had awakened to a new world populated by the powers that governed the Earth and had always governed the Earth and would always do so.

20.’’I am awake at last, through the Stellar deities I can see the meaning purpose and magnificence of life. Those great lumps of rock and gas out there in space are sleeping Gods and Goddesses that will awake when humanity wakes from its long sleep and they are awakening now.’’

21.It is evident to anyone who has studied astrology that its use as a divinatory technique is a

perversion of its original and pristine purpose, albeit a justifiable perversion. Astrology was developed purely and simply as a means of indicating when certain actions should be performed. The emphasis recently placed on Sirius, the Dog-Star, demonstrates a raw misunderstanding of this principle. The Egyptian Dog-Festivals were a celebration of the fecundity of the Nile Valley as presaged by the rising of Sirius, not a propitiation of the God of the Gods as has been suggested. That the Nile deluge was signalled by the appearance of Sirius was all that was important since it was the basis of the Egyptian agricultural calendar. The priests who had this knowledge had power over the people. As initiates they knew two mysteries undreamed of by the non-initiate. They knew that the supreme deity is female and they knew that the critical factor in the performance of any practical magick is WHEN.

22.It would be absurd to sunbathe during an English winter, equally so to reap the harvest in February. Everything has its time and season and magic is no exception to this. As the Sun and Moon affect changes in the Earth’s climate, so do the Stars affect the affairs of men.

23.It is not our purpose here to teach astrology but to show it to be a complete system of practical magic and esoteric philosophy.

24.The time for commencing the initiatory process of Stellar magic is symbolised by the five pointed star. Anyone who has pondered over the sign of the pentagram in order to fathom its significance will have been totally dissatisfied by references to the Star of Bethlehem, the elements, microprosopus and so on, and rightly so. The pentagram, in its essential form, is not a manufactured symbol, a convenient unicursal glyph. It occurs naturally - in the heavens.

25.In their conjunctions the Sun and Venus form a perfect pentagram every eight years, one point being made in approximately one year. It is as though these bodies are constantly inscribing the sign of the pentagram over the Earth - and the Sun and Venus are of supreme importance regarding the Key to Magic. This great secret has lain concealed over the centuries, from time to time it has almost percolated to the surface either through magical activity or, more recently, through publication.

26.It is difficult to say with certainty that the Templars rediscovered it although this seems more than likely. Paracelsus knew the half of it for certain as did Eliphas Levi and both men came within a stroke of declaring its nature.

27.For some reason the glory of the Key faded with the death of Levi; the leaders of the great magical revival were left groping in the dark. Blavatsky, Mathers, Westcott and all the magicians and witches and warlocks and wizards who followed them were quite ignorant of the single fact which would have delivered them from their own confusion.

28.Aleister Crowley, who came so close to it, skirted its periphery for forty-three years and died with the words ‘‘I am perplexed’’ on his lips. And yet it was he who was responsible for the disclosure of the Key and it was he alone who experimented in the area concerned. With no knowledge of the real importance of the Book of the Law he discovered half the Key and then, incredibly, ignored the possibility of completing it.

29.To return for a moment to Eliphas Levi: in his ‘Transcendental Magic’ he makes the following statements about a particular sign:-

‘‘The Quintessence itself is represented by (it)’’

‘‘(it) is the sign of the word made flesh.’’

‘‘This sign, ancient as history, and more ancient.’’

He goes on to say by what perfumes this sign should be consecrated. All are perfumes of an essentially female nature. Yet the sign to which he was referring was that of the pentagram.

30.It is evident that Levi was not concerned with any common symbol scratched on stone or metal or the fetishes which festoon the gathered multitudes at occult tea-parties since he goes on to mention the Morning Star and the Star of Lucifer, both being alternative names for the planet Venus; Venus, whose number, seven, occurs seven times on the Great Seal of the A.’.A.’. In reference to the Heavenly or Blazing pentagram Eliphas Levi declaimed that its representation should be constructed of the seven metals on virgin white marble. Again we have an allusion to Venus, white marble being sacred to her and again we have the number seven in reference to the pentagram. This last point would seem to be an absurdity not only in the disparity of the numbers but also in the impossibility of alloying the seven metals. So what did he mean? There has long been a tradition that Venus contains within herself a synthesis of the other planets. The Golden Dawn expressed this concept in its fifth knowledge lecture which contains a diagram of the ten Sephiroth within the symbol of Venus.

31.Only the diagram was given; its significance was not explained and another part of the Key was both revealed and concealed. By the word ‘metal’ Levi actually meant ‘planet’. The synthesis of all the planets is expressed in Venus, and when the Sun forms a conjunction with her the Grand Elixir may be prepared.

32.This is the time of The Great Initiation and if a ritual synchronised with this stellar configuration is performed by the candidate then all his experiences from that time until he is found worthy, will be initiatory.

33.Even this initiatory process has been kept secret down the centuries, and has been veiled under many allegories, the most well known of which is the Twelve labours of Hercules. It causes the candidates to undergo an astrologically based process of change that continues with the Sun’s passage through the Zodiac. It causes the candidates to be stripped of all they think about themselves and they are left with two ideas - who they are and who they are not - duality. This period can be from twelve months to a lifetime to never, depending upon the character of the candidate taking part in the initiation. How will he or she now when the initiation is complete ? He will know ! In this initiatory process the would-be Magician very soon realises that it is the Gods who are dealing with his soul and the changes he is going through are definitely ‘‘Magical’’ The candidate continues through his life as normal after the Rite but his experiences that have been provoked by his initiation will be anything but ordinary, he will literally experience the Twelve Labours of Hercules, and he will have to be truly Herculean if he is to win through these ordeals. The result of which will be in the first instance to unite the duality in his nature, the rest of the process cannot be the subject of this work and would require a separate treatise all of its own.

34.It is not possible to illustrate what the ordeal will be for a given individual, as each will experience it in his or her own very personal way. The magic of the Stars is not to be undertaken lightly for once the initiatory process is undertaken it cannot be stopped, any more than the stars in their courses. Suffice to say a Stellar Magician is an individual to be respected, not simply for his power, but for his courage and humanity.

35.In the event of an individual requiring the assistance of a Stellar magician for whatever reason, the magician erects a Horary chart to find out what the prevailing influences are at the time of asking. A horary chart is the Astrological chart of the moment at which the Question is received by the magician and he understands it. This is the birth of an idea and the chart will reflect it and show the magician the forces that are at work in the situation at hand. If the auguries are good he will go no further, but if they are not then he will use his magic to change future events in line with the requirements of his client.

36.As an example, when a man comes along and asks whether it is possible that he will obtain a particular job, a chart is erected for the moment: if it shows by good relationships between the First House (the client) and the Tenth House (the prospective employer) then the matter can end there; there is nothing more to be done. Conversely if the chart shows failure, the magician chooses a time when the Stars are helpful and constructs and performs a ritual consistent with his client’s requirements. He then constructs another chart and sees if the powers have been influenced by his efforts.

37.This is done by searching the Zodiac for configurations that are consistent with the requirements of the client. This process is a very technical one, and some years experience of the subject would be required of anyone wishing to take up this branch of Astrology. The reasons for this are twofold, he must have the astro-magical knowledge, but at the same time he must have the initiation necessary to complete the work, that is he must be ‘‘accepted’’ by the Gods as a true worshipper of the Stellar Goddess. Assuming he fits all the requirements, then the Magician goes to work and finds the stellar requirements of his client and proceeds to construct a ritual to ‘‘capture’’ the coming influences. The ritual is performed at the correct astrological time and the results awaited.

38.Should the Stars prove beneficial he instructs his client that nothing more need be done and explains how the matter will come to pass by interpreting the chart. Should it be that for some reason his invocations have failed he must continue until such time that the Stars comply with his requirements.

39.If the magician has any skill at all he should be able to deal with the problem relatively quickly. The only exception to the rule is when there are definite Karmic indications shown by the birth chart that the individual should suffer some kind of privation that precludes him from achieving his desire; but even in this case the magician should be able to fulfil his client’s will, but he should warn him that he has caused a stress in the Astral and it may ‘‘bounce back’’ and cause him to lose what he has gained when the powers invoked by the magician begin to mutate.

40.There is a factor that we have not mentioned hitherto, and that factor is synchronicity. The client comes to the Stellar magician synchronistically, and the magician acts simply as a catalyst that causes the change to occur. The writer was involved in a case some years ago involving a wife who had gone off with ‘‘The love of her life’’ and the magician had great difficulty in getting her back for his client. It took three separate rituals to bring back the erring lady, but back she came, and bang on time too, according to the predictions of the chart.

41.By taking advantage of an astrological aspect such as Moon conjunct Venus where the Moon governs everyday events and Venus is the Goddess of love, one can make any woman subject to one’s will, by contacting the force and mediating it by magical ritual. In actual practice the Stellar magician simply invokes the Star Gods and Goddesses at the most astrologically propitious moment by an act of worship. By doing this he ensures that they will aid him in all circumstances. He only really concerns himself with specific cases when he is acting on behalf of another person who is not privy to the secrets of his art.

42. The ‘‘vitalising’’ of an astrological chart is one of the great secrets of magick, but it is perfectly simple, the magician must be ‘‘Initiated’’ that means he must have gone through an astrologically based process that has taught him the special integrity that is an absolute must; before he can attempt such work, he must be found worthy by the Gods. Many and varied are the

ways in which the Stellar magician can influence the prevailing powers, it all depends upon his skill and experience, but most of all his success depends upon his degree of initiation, that is, how well he can mediate the planetary powers within himself, and this in turn depends upon whether he has been favoured by the planetary deities with the power to mediate their influences.