Week One

Opening Oration

Heavenly Father, Creator and sustainer of all that is, was, and will be. We pray to you to bless us and our work of this day, that it may make us ever more clearly aware of your imminent presence, power, and wisdom. Send the Holy Spirit to awaken the divine fires within us, that your holy bride Sophia, the perennial Wisdom will flower within us, and we too shall shine, like the rosy dawn of the new morning. Amen.

91^st Psalm

Psalm 91King James Version (KJV)

 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

² I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

³ Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

⁴ He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

⁵ Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

⁶ Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

⁷ A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

⁸ Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

⁹ Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

¹⁰ There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

¹¹ For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

¹² They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

¹³ Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

¹⁴ Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

¹⁵ He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

¹⁶ With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

This is the prayer par excellence of the healer and exorcist. As you train to heal, you are also training to be an exorcist in traditional schools. Keep this in mind.

Write this down. Make a sign, and put it in your oratory where you can see it:

“Patience & Courage”

Put it on a single page near the front, or the inside front cover of your notebook. “Patience” on the front inside cover and “Courage” on the back inside cover or something like that. Daring is the word given, but I prefer ‘courage’ as it is linked to the root for ‘heart’.

What is Brauche/Braucherei?

Brauche or braucherei comes from the German word brauche, or, ‘to use, need, or employ’. Some say it means ‘to try’ as a braucherei will ‘try to help’ without making promises as ‘Man proposes, but God disposes.’

What is Hexerei?

Hexerei is an archaic word for witchcraft, and is synonymous with hexenwerk and zauberei. It is often associated with evil, but not always, and this is where terms have idiosyncratic meanings from one community and tradition to another.

From Hex we get witchcraft, or to curse, or wish bad luck on someone.

Zauber is magic or enchantment, so zauber is often seen in words such as:

Bezauberrungen or enchantment.

Zauberspruch is a spell or magical speaking.

Zauberkraft or magical power.

Zaubermacht also magical power.

Zauberstab or magic wand.

Winterzauber or winter magic.

Tradition is composed of: the Teacher, Teachings, and Community of Practitioners across multiple generations.

Right now, many of you know more than many who practiced folk magic. Rural culture, illiteracy, and cost of books and travel limited what the average person could learn. As most would concentrate in one area, and a few in a several, but where we are about to go now is into a rare domain. Most people who heard of The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses or any of the other grimoires that are now popular never used but a small fraction if any of it. The section on the Shemhamaphoresch appended to the Sixth and Seventh, is all most would use. You also see this area, along with several treasure seeking prayers that mention St. Cyprian, slide into some hoodoo practices. People also specialized in astrology, geomancy, card reading, types of healing, herbal medicine, palm reading, and dowsing. Many people hung out shingles for a particular skill such as healing burns, warts, animals, fevers, whooping cough, or de-hexing, but the professional scholarly magician type was very rare. It is this latter type that this introductory course is to prepare you for: scholar-practitioner.

• The Magical World View
• The World is Alive with Magic

A world view is summarized in how we interpret ourselves in relation to the universe, seen and unseen, and all that it contains and expresses. It is a philosophy, a deeply held belief that forms the basis for all our activities and understanding of them. The magical worldview of Western magic in particular sums this up in three sets of ideas:

1. Macrocosm and Microcosm
2. Correspondences and Signatures
3. Thought, Word, and Deed

• Macrocosm and Microcosm
• “As Above, So Below; as Below, So Above. To accomplish the work of the one thing.”
• “Visible forms are expressions of invisible principals.” - Paracelsus
• Every cell is a gateway to the infinite by way of its similitude to something else.
• Sympathy and Contagion: Like is known by like.

• Doctrines of Correspondences and Signatures
• Doctrine of Correspondences is the theory that natural objects correspond to or participate in transcendent archetypes.
• Doctrine of Signatures
• According to John Michael Greer’s The New Encyclopedia of the Occult, the Doctrine of Signatures is “…the belief that the medical and magical virtues of an herb may be found symbolized in some way in the herb’s color, shape, or other qualities.”
• Thought, Word, and Deed
• The notion of integration or congruity, wherein, our ideas, emotions and expressions (or energies), and actions are all integrated to realize the same goal. Notice I said goal and not ‘thing’. I was very specific because magic is goal oriented. That goal can be a physical phenomenon, a psychic experience, or a profound insight or gnosis, but in the end it is very specific and all of the aspects of our being are integrated and committed to its realization.

Paracelsus directs us to observe the form as being molded to express the inner essence of a thing, be it a plant, stone, or person.

“Behold the Satyrion root, is it not formed like the male privy parts?….Accordingly magic discovered it and revealed that it can restore a man’s virility and passion. And then we have the thistle; do not its leaves prickle like needles? ….there is no better herb against internal prickling. The Siegwurz root is wrapped in an envelope like armour…it gives protection against weapons. And the Syderica bears the image of a snake on each of its leaves, and thus…it gives protection against any kind of poisoning. The chicory stands under a special influence of the sun; this is seen in its leaves while the sun is shining…as the sun sets, he power of the chicory dwindles.”ⁱ

“Each plant has a specific resonance that corresponds to one of the seven levels of Duality. For instance, the caraway elixir, whose archetype is based on Level 8 of Nature, could induce experiences of daydreams and develop inner powers that give authority on the elements, in magic like in alchemy. Therefore, through the choice of the appropriate plant, it will be possible to act on the chosen level.” - Jean Dubuis

These two Doctrines, that of Correspondences and its practical application in the Doctrine of Signatures, gives rise to two principal forms of magic: natural magic and ceremonial or ritual magic.

In natural magic the forces are tended to directly, and in some instance unconsciously, whereas in ritual magic, a specific effort and context is used in their manipulation. Regardless, both adhere to the Paracelsian doctrine, also found in the classical literature, of treating “limb to limb” or like to like. In magic this also involves the identification of our ‘limbs’ with the ‘limbs’ of divine beings or even God. Thus, we see a sort of ‘assumption of the godform’ taking place.

Cosmology as Beginning and End, Alpha and Omega

• Four or Five Elements
• Spirit: The space in which everything exists. Qabala, Tzim-Tzum, or “Contraction” found in Lurianic Qabala, wherein God or the Ain Soph Aur (Limitless Light of Nothingness) contracts its energies so that a ‘space’ could be created wherein creation could take place. We recreate this when we form a magic circle.
• Air: the finest of Elements, some place it first, the vital energy of being and consciousness.
• Fire: the most dynamic of Elements, some place it first, the power of transformation.
• Water: the means or medium of transferring energy, purification and reflection.
• Earth: the coldest of the Elements, the most solid, the foundation and result of occult practice.

These form the Pentagram as seen widely from the classical period to the present, and most prominently in the Medieval and Renaissance magical books. Those of you familiar with the pentagram and the Elemental ordering as given in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its various offshoots including Wicca, should note that there are several ways to label the pentagram and place the Elements. The Classical Greek version was labeled with the word for health, but this meant vigor, wholeness, a divine completeness, instead of the sense of ‘defensive’ nature too often assigned in modern practices. This must be kept in mind when we work with this important symbol. Think Vitruvian Man of DaVinci, it is wholeness, completeness.

• Seven Ancient Planets – Secondary Causes
• Dual in nature, positive and negative; active and passive; strong and weak. Every experience has its origins in the divine energies with then are reflected or modified in some fashion by the planets thereby creating duality as we know it. It is like a spectrum or organs of the ‘heavenly man’. Again, why we speak of ‘limb to limb’.

The planets are well known to the ancient through to the early modern worlds.

• Saturn: beginning, end, limit, slow moving
• Jupiter: expansion, health, wealth
• Mars: energy, violence, war, physical strength
• Sun: status, fame, authority, prestige
• Venus: love, romance, desire, domestic tranquility, art, beauty
• Mercury: intellect, speed, games of chance
• Moon: reflection, reproduction, dreams, travel by water

The planets can be used singularly or in preferred combinations of day and hour. For the most part, complex astrological considerations were not used. Focus was on lunar cycles, and then, if applicable, planetary days (from that we can extrapolate planetary hours as well).

• Twelve Signs
• Signs for Natal Charts
• Horoscopes were widely had at different times in Colonial and later American history.

• Lunar Signs for Daily Activities
• These we will go into in detail later, for now it is sufficient to know that they play an important part in some work as well as daily life in an earlier time.

• Tree of Life: Sometimes, Maybe, often Not
• The Lurianic Tree of Life occasionally appears in Brauche but VERY rarely and then it appears to be limited to The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses. When we move from folk magic into hermeticism by way of some of the German adepts of the Wissahickon and Ephrata then we find ourselves with greater cosmological diagrams such as The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, The Greater Key of Solomon, and various alchemical works. Generally speaking, these kinds of diagrams are not found in folk magic with the exception of the Heavenly Man used in astrology.

• Astrology and Cycles

In a rural community cycles are everything. It is all about timing, and magic can be seen as a form of astral seed planting. The use of astrology was widespread until the mid-19^th century but never really went out of fashion in some quarters.

Old Farmer’s Almanac (1792) Astrological Almanacs or Ephemeris were published annually since at least the mid 16^th century, and evidence suggests tables of computation were done since about 1,500 BC.

From the Paracelcian view, as well as others before and after him, astrology is the study and understanding of the interrelationship of the archetypal world and the physical world. It is the transmission, the intermediary between the concrete experience, or result, and the subtle and even abstract cause from which it originated.

• Solar and Lunar Meditations are very important so we will start with them now so you can begin practicing them as time allows.
• Solar – energy of the day
• Lunar – energy of the night
• Great-Grandfather was a moon worshiper, similar to the moon in Taoist practices as outlined in Lighting the Eyes of the Dragon by Baulin Wu
• Dreams and Initiation
• The Red Witch and the Hag
• Colors: Red, White, Black

Thought, Word, and Deed – The World of Action

• Ritual Purification

“Nature has a single purpose: the evolution of the Essence of Life, the world soul or the Materia Prima of the Ancients. This is done through a unique process which is that of life - death - rebirth accompanied by purification steps or rearrangement of elements of things and beings. The operative part will be devoted to this aspect.

Since the alchemical process is primarily to change the levels of the energies of life, it is obvious that chemical technique alone is insufficient. Acting on life belongs to the field of Art, the Royal Art, which requires an inner quality that the alchemist student must acquire gradually if he wants to go through the stages of the Hermetic Path. Paracelsus said: "No one transmutes matter if he has not transmuted himself." – Jean Dubuis

We could say the same about magic. Magic seeks to change the qualities of life, or energy, and the magus or adept must be able to temporarily at least change his or her level awareness and this is done through ritual purification, and with that an understanding of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

FASTING

PRAYER + CONFESSION

ALMS

This four-fold process is particularly important prior to significant rituals, both for the operator and the one who it is being done for, such as Holy Week Communion.

• Meditation from Kabbalah for Health and Wellness
• Solar/Lunar purification meditation.
• How we see ourselves is how the invisible sees us.
• Energies move in and through us.

As a microcosm, or small universe that reflects the energies of the macrocosm, or larger universe this cannot be overstated enough. Let us think about this term, reflects. Like a mirror you reflect the light and its attendant wisdom and matter like a mirror reflects the light shone upon it. We can direct the light of this reflection like a light house, or we can allow it to bounce off us randomly. In magic we choose the former and this is why various astrological timings are considered important. However, even when astrology is not a consideration, the energies still move in and through us as conduits from the invisible to the visible, from Unity into Duality.

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