By the nineteenth century, European intellectuals no longer saw the practice of magic through the framework of
sin and instead regarded magical practices and beliefs as "an aberrational mode of thought antithetical to the dominant cultural logic – a sign of psychological impairment and marker of racial or cultural inferiority". As educated elites in Western societies increasingly rejected the efficacy of magical practices, legal systems ceased to threaten practitioners of magical activities with punishment for the crimes of diabolism and witchcraft, and instead threatened them with the accusation that they were defrauding people through promising to provide things which they could not. This spread of European colonial power across the world influenced how academics would come to frame the concept of magic. In the nineteenth century, several scholars adopted the traditional, negative concept of magic. That they chose to do so was not inevitable, for they could have followed the example adopted by prominent esotericists active at the time like
Helena Blavatsky who had chosen to use the term and concept of magic in a positive sense. Various writers also used the concept of magic to criticise religion by arguing that the latter still displayed many of the negative traits of the former. An example of this was the American journalist
H. L. Mencken in his polemical 1930 work
Treatise on the Gods; he sought to critique religion by comparing it to magic, arguing that the division between the two was misplaced. The concept of magic was also adopted by theorists in the new field of
psychology, where it was often used synonymously with superstition, although the latter term proved more common in early psychological texts. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
folklorists examined rural communities across Europe in search of magical practices, which at the time they typically understood as survivals of ancient belief systems. It was only in the 1960s that anthropologists like
Jeanne Favret-Saada also began looking in depth at magic in European contexts, having previously focused on examining magic in non-Western contexts. In the twentieth century, magic also proved a topic of interest to the
Surrealists, an artistic movement based largely in Europe; the Surrealism
André Breton for instance published ''L'Art magique'' in 1957, discussing what he regarded as the links between magic and art. The scholarly application of magic as a
sui generis category that can be applied to any socio-cultural context was linked with the promotion of
modernity to both Western and non-Western audiences. The term magic has become pervasive in the popular imagination and idiom. In contemporary contexts, the word magic is sometimes used to "describe a type of excitement, of wonder, or sudden delight", and in such a context can be "a term of high praise". Despite its historical contrast against science, scientists have also adopted the term in application to various concepts, such as
magic acid,
magic bullets, and
magic angles. . Modern Western magic has challenged widely-held preconceptions about contemporary religion and spirituality. The polemical discourses about magic influenced the self-understanding of modern magicians, several whom—such as
Aleister Crowley and
Julius Evola—were well versed in academic literature on the subject. According to scholar of religion Henrik Bogdan, "arguably the best known emic definition" of the term magic was provided by Crowley. Crowley—who favoured the spelling '
magick' over magic to distinguish it from stage illusionism—was of the view that "Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will". Crowley's definition influenced that of subsequent magicians.
Dion Fortune of the
Fraternity of the Inner Light for instance stated that "Magic is the art of changing consciousness according to Will".
Gerald Gardner, the founder of
Gardnerian Wicca, stated that magic was "attempting to cause the physically unusual", while
Anton LaVey, the founder of
LaVeyan Satanism, described magic as "the change in situations or events in accordance with one's will, which would, using normally acceptable methods, be unchangeable." The
chaos magic movement emerged during the late 20th century, as an attempt to strip away the
symbolic,
ritualistic,
theological or otherwise ornamental aspects of other occult traditions and distill magic down to a set of basic techniques. These modern Western concepts of magic rely on a belief in correspondences connected to an unknown occult force that permeates the universe. As noted by Hanegraaff, this operated according to "a
new meaning of magic, which could not possibly have existed in earlier periods, precisely because it is elaborated in reaction to the "disenchantment of the world"." For many, and perhaps most, modern Western magicians, the goal of magic is deemed to be personal spiritual development. The perception of magic as a form of self-development is central to the way that magical practices have been adopted into forms of
modern Paganism and the
New Age phenomenon. One significant development within modern Western magical practices has been
sex magic. This was a practice promoted in the writings of
Paschal Beverly Randolph and subsequently exerted a strong interest on occultist magicians like Crowley and
Theodor Reuss. The adoption of the term magic by modern occultists can in some instances be a deliberate attempt to champion those areas of Western society which have traditionally been marginalised as a means of subverting dominant systems of power. The influential American
Wiccan and author
Starhawk for instance stated that "Magic is another word that makes people uneasy, so I use it deliberately, because the words we are comfortable with, the words that sound acceptable, rational, scientific, and intellectually correct, are comfortable precisely because they are the language of estrangement." In the present day, "among some countercultural subgroups the label is considered 'cool'" Sorcery is a legal concept in
Papua New Guinea law, which differentiates between legal good magic, such as healing and fertility, and illegal black magic, held responsible for unexplained deaths.
Conceptual development According to anthropologist
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, magic formed a rational framework of beliefs and knowledge in some cultures, like the
Azande people of Africa. The historian
Owen Davies stated that the word magic was "beyond simple definition", and had "a range of meanings". Similarly, the historian Michael D. Bailey characterised magic as "a deeply contested category and a very fraught label"; as a category, he noted, it was "profoundly unstable" given that definitions of the term have "varied dramatically across time and between cultures". Scholars have engaged in extensive debates as to how to define magic, with such debates resulting in intense dispute. Throughout such debates, the scholarly community has failed to agree on a definition of magic, in a similar manner to how they have failed to agree on a definition of religion. According with scholar of religion
Michael Stausberg the phenomenon of people applying the concept of magic to refer to themselves and their own practices and beliefs goes as far back as late antiquity. However, even among those throughout history who have described themselves as magicians, there has been no common ground of what magic is.
In Africa, the word magic might simply be understood as denoting management of forces, which, as an activity, is not weighted morally and is accordingly a neutral activity from the start of a magical practice, but by the will of the magician, is thought to become and to have an outcome which represents either
good or bad (evil). Ancient African culture was in the habit customarily of always discerning difference between magic, and a group of other things, which are not magic, these things were
medicine,
divination,
witchcraft and sorcery. Opinion differs on how religion and magic are related to each other with respect development or to which developed from which, some think they developed together from a shared origin, some think religion developed from magic, and some, magic from religion. Anthropological and sociological theories of magic generally serve to sharply demarcate certain practices from other, otherwise similar practices in a given society. According to Bailey: "In many cultures and across various historical periods, categories of magic often define and maintain the limits of socially and culturally acceptable actions in respect to numinous or occult entities or forces. Even more, basically, they serve to delineate arenas of appropriate belief." In this, he noted that "drawing these distinctions is an exercise in power". This tendency has had repercussions for the study of magic, with academics self-censoring their research because of the effects on their careers. Randall Styers noted that attempting to define magic represents "an act of demarcation" by which it is juxtaposed against "other social practices and modes of knowledge" such as religion and science. The historian Karen Louise Jolly described magic as "a category of exclusion, used to define an unacceptable way of thinking as either the opposite of religion or of science". Modern scholarship has produced various definitions and theories of magic. According to Bailey, "these have typically framed magic in relation to, or more frequently in distinction from, religion and science." Since the emergence of the
study of religion and the
social sciences, magic has been a "central theme in the theoretical literature" produced by scholars operating in these academic disciplines. Magic is one of the most heavily theorized concepts in the study of religion, and also played a key role in early theorising within anthropology. Styers believed that it held such a strong appeal for social theorists because it provides "such a rich site for articulating and contesting the nature and boundaries of modernity". Scholars have commonly used it as a foil for the concept of religion, regarding magic as the "illegitimate (and effeminized) sibling" of religion. Alternately, others have used it as a middle-ground category located between religion and science. The context in which scholars framed their discussions of magic was informed by the spread of European colonial power across the world in the modern period. These repeated attempts to define magic resonated with broader social concerns, and the pliability of the concept has allowed it to be "readily adaptable as a polemical and ideological tool". The links that intellectuals made between magic and those they characterized as primitives helped to legitimise European and Euro-American imperialism and colonialism, as these Western colonialists expressed the view that those who believed in and practiced magic were unfit to govern themselves and should be governed by those who, rather than believing in magic, believed in science and/or (Christian) religion. In Bailey's words, "the association of certain peoples [whether non-Europeans or poor, rural Europeans] with magic served to distance and differentiate them from those who ruled over them, and in large part to justify that rule." Many different definitions of magic have been offered by scholars, although—according to Hanegraaff—these can be understood as variations of a small number of heavily influential theories.
Intellectualist approach The intellectualist approach to defining magic is associated with two prominent British
anthropologists,
Edward Tylor and
James G. Frazer. This approach viewed magic as the theoretical opposite of
science, and came to preoccupy much anthropological thought on the subject. This approach was situated within the evolutionary models which underpinned thinking in the social sciences during the early 19th century. The first social scientist to present magic as something that predated religion in an evolutionary development was
Herbert Spencer; in his
A System of Synthetic Philosophy, he used the term magic in reference to
sympathetic magic. Spencer regarded both magic and religion as being rooted in false speculation about the nature of objects and their relationship to other things. Tylor's understanding of magic was linked to his concept of
animism. In his 1871 book
Primitive Culture, Tylor characterized magic as beliefs based on "the error of mistaking ideal analogy for real analogy". In Tylor's view, "primitive man, having come to associate in thought those things which he found by experience to be connected in fact, proceeded erroneously to invert this action, and to conclude that association in thought must involve similar connection in reality. He thus attempted to discover, to foretell, and to cause events by means of processes which we can now see to have only an ideal significance". Tylor was dismissive of magic, describing it as "one of the most pernicious delusions that ever vexed mankind". Tylor's views proved highly influential, and helped to establish magic as a major topic of anthropological research. Tylor's ideas were adopted and simplified by James Frazer. He used the term magic to mean sympathetic magic, describing it as a practice relying on the magician's belief "that things act on each other at a distance through a secret sympathy", something which he described as "an invisible ether". He further divided this magic into two forms, the "homeopathic (imitative, mimetic)" and the "contagious". The former was the idea that "like produces like", or that the similarity between two objects could result in one influencing the other. The latter was based on the idea that contact between two objects allowed the two to continue to influence one another at a distance. Like Tylor, Frazer viewed magic negatively, describing it as "the bastard sister of science", arising from "one great disastrous fallacy". Where Frazer differed from Tylor was in characterizing a belief in magic as a major stage in humanity's cultural development, describing it as part of a tripartite division in which magic came first, religion came second, and eventually science came third. For Frazer, all early societies started as believers in magic, with some of them moving away from this and into religion. He believed that both magic and religion involved a belief in spirits but that they differed in the way that they responded to these spirits. For Frazer, magic "constrains or coerces" these spirits while religion focuses on "conciliating or propitiating them". He acknowledged that their common ground resulted in a cross-over of magical and religious elements in various instances; for instance he claimed that the
sacred marriage was a fertility ritual which combined elements from both world-views. Some scholars retained the evolutionary framework used by Frazer but changed the order of its stages; the German ethnologist
Wilhelm Schmidt argued that religion—by which he meant
monotheism—was the first stage of human belief, which later degenerated into both magic and
polytheism. Others rejected the evolutionary framework entirely. Frazer's notion that magic had given way to religion as part of an evolutionary framework was later deconstructed by the folklorist and anthropologist
Andrew Lang in his essay "Magic and Religion"; Lang did so by highlighting how Frazer's framework relied upon misrepresenting ethnographic accounts of beliefs and practices among indigenous Australians to fit his concept of magic.
Functionalist approach The functionalist approach to defining magic is associated with the French
sociologists Marcel Mauss and
Emile Durkheim. In this approach, magic is understood as being the theoretical opposite of religion. Mauss set forth his conception of magic in a 1902 essay, "A General Theory of Magic". Mauss used the term magic in reference to "any rite that is not part of an organized cult: a rite that is private, secret, mysterious, and ultimately tending towards one that is forbidden". Conversely, he associated religion with organised cult. By saying that magic was inherently non-social, Mauss had been influenced by the traditional Christian understandings of the concept. Mauss deliberately rejected the intellectualist approach promoted by Frazer, believing that it was inappropriate to restrict the term magic to sympathetic magic, as Frazer had done. He expressed the view that "there are not only magical rites which are not sympathetic, but neither is sympathy a prerogative of magic, since there are sympathetic practices in religion". Mauss' ideas were adopted by Durkheim in his 1912 book
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Durkheim was of the view that both magic and religion pertained to "sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden". Where he saw them as being different was in their social organisation. Durkheim used the term magic to describe things that were inherently anti-social, existing in contrast to what he referred to as a Church, the religious beliefs shared by a social group; in his words, "There is no Church of magic." Durkheim expressed the view that "there is something inherently anti-religious about the maneuvers of the magician", and that a belief in magic "does not result in binding together those who adhere to it, nor in uniting them into a group leading a common life." Durkheim's definition encounters problems in situations—such as the rites performed by Wiccans—in which acts carried out communally have been regarded, either by practitioners or observers, as being magical. Scholars have criticized the idea that magic and religion can be differentiated into two distinct, separate categories. The social anthropologist
Alfred Radcliffe-Brown suggested that "a simple dichotomy between magic and religion" was unhelpful and thus both should be subsumed under the broader category of
ritual. Many later anthropologists followed his example. Nevertheless, this distinction is still often made by scholars discussing this topic.
Emotionalist approach The emotionalist approach to magic is associated with the English anthropologist
Robert Ranulph Marett, the Austrian
Sigmund Freud, and the Polish anthropologist
Bronisław Malinowski. Marett viewed magic as a response to stress. In a 1904 article, he argued that magic was a cathartic or stimulating practice designed to relieve feelings of tension. As his thought developed, he increasingly rejected the idea of a division between magic and religion and began to use the term "
magico-religious" to describe the early development of both. Malinowski similarly understood magic to Marett, tackling the issue in a 1925 article. He rejected Frazer's evolutionary hypothesis that magic was followed by religion and then science as a series of distinct stages in societal development, arguing that all three were present in each society. In his view, both magic and religion "arise and function in situations of emotional stress" although whereas religion is primarily expressive, magical is primarily practical. He therefore defined magic as "a practical art consisting of acts which are only means to a definite end expected to follow later on". For Malinowski, magical acts were to be carried out for a specific end, whereas religious ones were ends in themselves. He for instance believed that fertility rituals were magical because they were carried out with the intention of meeting a specific need. As part of his
functionalist approach, Malinowski saw magic not as irrational but as something that served a useful function, being sensible within the given social and environmental context. The term magic was used liberally by Freud. He also saw magic as emerging from human emotion but interpreted it very differently to Marett. Freud explains that "the associated theory of magic merely explains the paths along which magic proceeds; it does not explain its true essence, namely the misunderstanding which leads it to replace the laws of nature by psychological ones". Freud emphasizes that what led primitive men to come up with magic is the power of wishes: "His wishes are accompanied by a motor impulse, the will, which is later destined to alter the whole face of the earth to satisfy his wishes. This motor impulse is at first employed to give a representation of the satisfying situation in such a way that it becomes possible to experience the satisfaction by means of what might be described as motor
hallucinations. This kind of representation of a satisfied wish is quite comparable to children's play, which succeeds their earlier purely sensory technique of satisfaction. [...] As time goes on, the psychological accent shifts from the
motives for the magical act on to the
measures by which it is carried out—that is, on to the act itself. [...] It thus comes to appear as though it is the magical act itself which, owing to its similarity with the desired result, alone determines the occurrence of that result." In the early 1960s, the anthropologists Murray and
Rosalie Wax put forward the argument that scholars should look at the magical worldview of a given society on its own terms rather than trying to rationalize it in terms of Western ideas about scientific knowledge. Their ideas were heavily criticised by other anthropologists, who argued that they had set up a false dichotomy between non-magical Western worldview and magical non-Western worldviews. The concept of the magical worldview nevertheless gained widespread use in history, folkloristics, philosophy, cultural theory, and psychology. The notion of
magical thinking has also been utilised by various psychologists. In the 1920s, the psychologist
Jean Piaget used the concept as part of their argument that children were unable to clearly differentiate between the mental and the physical. According to this perspective, children begin to abandon their magical thinking between the ages of six and nine. According to
Stanley Tambiah, magic, science, and religion all have their own "quality of rationality", and have been influenced by politics and ideology. As opposed to religion, Tambiah suggests that mankind has a much more personal control over events. Science, according to Tambiah, is "a system of behavior by which man acquires mastery of the environment."
Ethnocentrism The magic-religion-science triangle developed in European society based on evolutionary ideas i.e. that magic evolved into religion, which in turn evolved into science. However using a Western analytical tool when discussing non-Western cultures, or pre-modern forms of Western society, raises problems as it may impose alien Western categories on them. While magic remains an
emic (insider) term in the history of Western societies, it remains an
etic (outsider) term when applied to non-Western societies and even within specific Western societies. For this reason, academics like Michael D. Bailey suggest abandon the term altogether as an academic category. During the twentieth century, many scholars focusing on Asian and African societies rejected the term magic, as well as related concepts like witchcraft, in favour of the more precise terms and concepts that existed within these specific societies like
Juju. A similar approach has been taken by many scholars studying pre-modern societies in Europe, such as
Classical antiquity, who find the modern concept of magic inappropriate and favour more specific terms originating within the framework of the ancient cultures which they are studying. Alternately, this term implies that all categories of magic are ethnocentric and that such Western preconceptions are an unavoidable component of scholarly research. This century has seen a trend towards emic ethnographic studies by scholar practitioners that explicitly explore the emic/etic divide. Many scholars have argued that the use of the term as an analytical tool within academic scholarship should be rejected altogether. The scholar of religion
Jonathan Z. Smith for example argued that it had no utility as an
etic term that scholars should use. The historian of religion
Wouter Hanegraaff agreed, on the grounds that its use is founded in conceptions of Western superiority and has "...served as a 'scientific' justification for converting non-European peoples from benighted superstitions..." stating that "the term magic is an important object
of historical research, but not intended
for doing research." Bailey noted that, as of the early 21st century, few scholars sought grand definitions of magic but instead focused with "careful attention to particular contexts", examining what a term like magic meant to a given society; this approach, he noted, "call[ed] into question the legitimacy of magic as a universal category". The scholars of religion Berndt-Christian Otto and
Michael Stausberg suggested that it would be perfectly possible for scholars to talk about amulets,
curses, healing procedures, and other cultural practices often regarded as magical in Western culture without any recourse to the concept of magic itself. The idea that magic should be rejected as an analytic term developed in anthropology, before moving into
Classical studies and
Biblical studies in the 1980s. Since the 1990s, the term's usage among scholars of religion has declined.
Modern practitioners Francis Barrett Among the various sources for ceremonial magic,
Francis Barrett, a late 18th-century Englishman, called himself a student of
chemistry,
metaphysics, and natural occult
philosophy. Barrett was enthusiastic about reviving interest in the occult arts, and published a magical textbook called
The Magus.
The Magus dealt with the natural magic of
herbs and
stones,
magnetism,
talismanic magic, alchemy,
numerology, the
elements, and biographies of famous
adepts from history. It was a compilation, almost entirely consisting of selections from Cornelius Agrippa's
Three Books of Occult Philosophy, the
Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy attributed to Agrippa, and
Robert Turner's 1655 translation of the
Heptameron of Peter of Abano. Barrett made modifications and modernized spelling and syntax. Possibly influencing the novelist
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the book gained little other notice until it influenced
Eliphas Levi.
Éliphas Lévi Éliphas Lévi (1810–1875) conceived the notion of writing a treatise on magic with his friend
Bulwer-Lytton. This appeared in 1855 under the title
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, and was translated into English by
Arthur Edward Waite as
Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual. In 1861, he published a sequel,
La Clef des Grands Mystères (
The Key to the Great Mysteries). Further magical works by Lévi include
Fables et Symboles (
Stories and Images), 1862, and
La Science des Esprits (
The Science of Spirits), 1865. In 1868, he wrote ''Le Grand Arcane, ou l'Occultisme Dévoilé
(The Great Secret, or Occultism Unveiled''); this, however, was only published posthumously in 1898. Lévi's version of magic became a great success, especially after his death. That
Spiritualism was popular on both sides of the Atlantic from the 1850s contributed to his success. His magical teachings were free from obvious fanaticisms, even if they remained rather murky; he had nothing to sell, and did not pretend to be the initiate of some ancient or fictitious
secret society. He incorporated the
Tarot cards into his magical system, and as a result the Tarot has been an important part of the paraphernalia of Western
magicians. He had a deep impact on the magic of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and later Aleister Crowley, and it was largely through this impact that Lévi is remembered as one of the key founders of the twentieth century revival of magic.
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the rites of the
Golden Dawn The
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded 1888) was a
secret society devoted to the study and practice of the occult,
metaphysics, and
paranormal activities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Known as a
magical order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was active in
Great Britain and focused its practices on theurgy and spiritual development. Many present-day concepts of ritual and magic that are at the centre of contemporary traditions, such as
Wicca and
Thelema, were inspired by the Golden Dawn, which became one of the largest single influences on 20th century Western
occultism. The three founders,
William Robert Woodman,
William Wynn Westcott, and
Samuel Liddell Mathers, were
Freemasons. Westcott appears to have been the initial driving force behind the establishment of the Golden Dawn. The "Golden Dawn" was the first of three Orders, although all three are often collectively referred to as the "Golden Dawn". The First Order taught esoteric philosophy based on the
Hermetic Qabalah and personal development through study and awareness of the four
classical elements, as well as the basics of astrology,
tarot divination, and
geomancy. The Second or Inner Order, the , taught magic, including
scrying,
astral travel, and alchemy.
Aleister Crowley English author and occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) wrote about magical practices and theory, including those of
theurgy ("high magic") and
goetia ("low magic"). In
The Book of the Law and
The Vision and the Voice, the Aramaic magical formula
Abracadabra was changed to
Abrahadabra, which he called the new formula of the
Aeon of Horus. He also famously spelled magic in the archaic manner, as 'magick', to differentiate "the true science of the Magi from all its counterfeits." He also stated that "The spirits of the Goetia are portions of the human brain." His book
Magick, Liber ABA, Book 4, is a lengthy treatise on magic in which he presents his own system of Western occult practice, synthesised from many sources, including
Yoga, Hermeticism, medieval
grimoires, contemporary magical theories from writers like
Eliphas Levi and
Helena Blavatsky, and his own original contributions. It consists of four parts: Mysticism, Magick (Elementary Theory), Magick in Theory and Practice, and ΘΕΛΗΜΑ—the Law (The Equinox of The Gods). It also includes numerous appendices presenting many rituals and explicatory papers.
Dion Fortune Dion Fortune (1890–1946) was a Welsh
occultist, ceremonial magician, novelist and author. She was a co-founder of the
Fraternity of the Inner Light, an occult organisation that promoted philosophies which she claimed had been taught to her by spiritual entities known as the
Ascended Masters. A prolific writer, she produced a large number of articles and books on her occult ideas and also authored seven novels, several of which expound occult themes. Fortune was a ceremonial magician. The magical principles on which her Fraternity was based were adopted from the late nineteenth century Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, with other influences coming from Theosophy and Christian Science. The magical ceremonies performed by Fortune's Fraternity were placed into two categories: initiations, in which the candidate was introduced to magical forces, and evocation, in which these forces were manipulated for a given purpose. The Fraternity's rituals at their Bayswater temple were carried out under a dim light, as Fortune believed that bright light disperses etheric forces. An altar was placed in the centre of a room, with the colours of the altar-cloth and the symbols on the altar varying according to the ceremony being performed. A light was placed on the altar while incense, usually
frankincense, was burned. The senior officers sat in a row along the eastern end of the room, while officers—who were believed to be channels for cosmic forces—were positioned at various positions on the floor. The lodge was opened by walking around the room in a circle chanting, with the intent of building a psychic force up as a wall. Next, the cosmic entities would be invoked, with the members believing that these entities would manifest in
astral form and interact with the chosen officers. Fortune was particularly concerned with the issue of sex. She believed that this erotic attraction between men and women could be harnessed for use in magic. She urged her followers to be naked under their robes when carrying out magical rituals, for this would increase the creative sexual tension between the men and women present. Although sex features in her novels, it is never described in graphic detail. The scholar Andrew Radford noted that Fortune's "reactionary and highly heteronormative" view of "sacralised sexuality" should be seen as part of a wider tradition among esoteric currents, going back to the ideas of
Emanuel Swedenborg and
Andrew Jackson Davis and also being found in the work of occultists like
Paschal Beverly Randolph and
Ida Craddock. The religious studies scholar
Hugh Urban noted that Fortune was "one of the key links" between early twentieth-century ceremonial magic and the developing Pagan religion of Wicca. Similarly, the Wiccan high priestess
Vivianne Crowley characterised Fortune as a "proto-Pagan". The scholar and esotericist
Nevill Drury stated that Fortune "in many ways anticipated feminist ideas in contemporary Wicca", particularly through her belief that all goddesses were a manifestation of a single Great Goddess. Graf agreed, adding that Fortune's works found "resonance" in the work of the later feminist Wiccan
Starhawk, and in particular in the latter's 1979 book,
The Spiral Dance. In researching ceremonial magic orders and other esoteric groups active in the London area during the 1980s, Luhrmann found that within them, Fortune's novels were treated as "fictionalized ideals" and that they were recommended to newcomers as the best way to understand magic. The
Pagan studies scholar Joanne Pearson added that Fortune's books, and in particular the novels
The Sea Priestess and
Moon Magic, were owned by many Wiccans and other Pagans. The religious studies scholar Graham Harvey compared
The Sea Priestess to the Wiccan
Gerald Gardner's 1949 novel ''High Magic's Aid'', stating that while neither were "great literature", they "evoke Paganism better than later more didactic works". Fortune's priestesses were an influence on the characters of
Marion Zimmer Bradley's
The Mists of Avalon, and her ideas were adopted as the basis for the
Aquarian Order of the Restoration, a ceremonial magic group led by Bradley. Her works also influenced Bradley's collaborator and fellow Order member
Diana Paxson. As of 2007, Fortune's latter three novels remained in print and had a wide readership.
Jack Parsons John Whiteside Parsons (1914–1952) was an American
rocket engineer,
chemist, and
Thelemite occultist. Parsons converted to Thelema, the
new religious movement founded by the English occultist Aleister Crowley. Together with his first wife, Helen Northrup, Parsons joined the
Agape Lodge, the Californian branch of
Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) in 1941. At Crowley's bidding, Parsons replaced
Wilfred Talbot Smith as its leader in 1942 and ran the Lodge from his mansion on Orange Grove Boulevard. Parsons identified four obstacles that prevented humans from achieving and performing their
true will, all of which he connected with fear: the fear of incompetence, the fear of the opinion of others, the fear of hurting others, and the fear of insecurity. He insisted that these must be overcome, writing that "The Will must be freed of its fetters. The ruthless examination and destruction of taboos, complexes, frustrations, dislikes, fears and disgusts hostile to the Will is essential to progress." In 1945, Parsons separated from Helen, after having an affair with her sister
Sara; when Sara left him for
L. Ron Hubbard, Parsons conducted the
Babalon Working, a series of rituals intended to invoke the Thelemic goddess
Babalon on Earth. The Babalon Working was a series of magic
ceremonies or rituals performed from January to March 1946 by Parsons and
Scientology founder
L. Ron Hubbard. This ritual was essentially designed to manifest an individual
incarnation of the archetypal divine feminine called
Babalon. The project was based on the ideas of Crowley, and his description of a similar project in his 1917 novel
Moonchild. When Parsons declared that the first of the series of rituals was complete and successful, he almost immediately met
Marjorie Cameron in his own home, and regarded her as the
elemental that he and Hubbard had called through the ritual. Soon Parsons began the next stage of the series, an attempt to conceive a child through
sex magic workings. Although no child was conceived, this did not affect the result of the ritual to that point. Parsons and Cameron, who Parsons now regarded as the Scarlet Woman,
Babalon, called forth by the ritual, soon married. The rituals performed drew largely upon rituals and sex magic described by Crowley. Crowley was in correspondence with Parsons during the course of the Babalon Working, and warned Parsons of his potential overreactions to the magic he was performing, while simultaneously deriding Parsons' work to others. A brief text entitled
Liber 49, self-referenced within the text as
The Book of Babalon, was written by
Jack Parsons as a transmission from the goddess or force called 'Babalon' received by him during the Babalon Working. Parsons wrote that
Liber 49 constituted a fourth chapter of Crowley's
Liber AL Vel Legis (The Book of the Law), the holy text of Thelema.
Phyllis Seckler Phyllis Seckler (1917–2004), also known as 'Soror Meral', was a ninth degree (IX°) member of the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Gnosis of
Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), and a lineage holder in the
A∴A∴ tradition. She was a student of
Jane Wolfe, herself a student of Aleister Crowley. Sekler was a member of O.T.O. Agape Lodge, the only working Lodge of the O.T.O. at the time of Aleister Crowley's death. Seckler was also instrumental in preserving important parts of Crowley's literary heritage, typing parts of his
Confessions, and the complete texts of
The Vision and the Voice and
Magick Without Tears during the 1950s. Seckler was also instrumental in re-activing the O.T.O. with
Grady Louis McMurtry, during the early-mid 1970s, following the death of Crowley's appointed successor,
Karl Germer. Seckler continued her lifelong work with the
A∴A∴, founding the
College of Thelema and co-founding (with James A. Eshelman) the
Temple of Thelema, and later warranting the formation of the
Temple of the Silver Star. Seeking to guide her students to an understanding of the Law of Thelema, especially deeper understanding of oneself and of one's magical will, Sekler published the bi-annual Thelemic journal
In the Continuum which featured her essays on Thelema and initiation as well as instructional articles for the students of the A.:.A.:., illustrations and essays which help to clarify some of Crowley's thoughts and aid in the understanding of Thelemic principles expressed in
Liber AL. Printed for 20 years from 1976 through 1996,
In the Continuum also published rare works by Aleister Crowley which at the time were out of print or hard to find. Seckler served as a master of 418 Lodge of O.T.O. in California from its inception in 1979 until her death.
Kenneth Grant Kenneth Grant (1924–2011) was an English ceremonial magician and advocate of the Thelemic religion. A poet, novelist, and writer, he founded his own Thelemic organisation, the
Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis—later renamed the Typhonian Order—with his wife Steffi Grant. Grant was fascinated by the work of the occultist Aleister Crowley, having read a number of his books. Eager to meet Crowley, Grant wrote letters to Crowley's publishers, asking that they pass his letters on to Crowley himself. These eventually resulted in the first meeting between the two, in autumn 1944, at the Bell Inn in
Buckinghamshire. After several further meetings and an exchange of letters, Grant agreed to work for Crowley as his secretary and personal assistant. Now living in relative poverty, Crowley was unable to pay Grant for his services in money, instead paying him in magical instruction. In March 1945, Grant moved into a lodge cottage in the grounds of Netherwood, a
Sussex boarding house where Crowley was living. He continued living there with Crowley for several months, dealing with the old man's correspondences and needs. In turn, he was allowed to read from Crowley's extensive library on occult subjects, and performed ceremonial magic workings with him, becoming a high initiate of Crowley's magical group, Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). Crowley saw Grant as a potential leader of O.T.O. in the UK, writing in his diary, "value of Grant. If I die or go to the USA, there must be a trained man to take care of the English O.T.O." Grant drew eclectically on a range of sources in devising his teachings. Although based in Thelema, Grant's Typhonian tradition has been described as "a
bricolage of occultism, Neo-Vedanta, Hindu tantra, Western sexual magic, Surrealism, ufology and Lovecraftian gnosis". According to Djurdjevic, Grant's writing style is notorious for being opaque with "verbal and conceptual labyrinths". The historian of religion Manon Hedenborg White noted that "Grant's writings to not lend themselves easily to systematization". She added that he "deliberately employs cryptic or circuitous modes of argumentation", and lacks clear boundaries between fact and fiction. Grant promoted what he termed the Typhonian or Draconian tradition of magic, and wrote that Thelema was only a recent manifestation of this wider tradition. In his books, he portrayed the Typhonian tradition as the world's oldest spiritual tradition, writing that it had ancient roots in Africa. The religious studies scholar Gordan Djurdjevic noted that Grant's historical claims regarding Typhonian history were "at best highly speculative" and lacked any supporting evidence, however he suggested that Grant may never have intended these claims to be taken literally. Grant adopted a
perennialist interpretation of the history of religion. Grant's wrote that Indian spiritual traditions like Tantra and Yoga correlate to Western esoteric traditions, and that both stem from a core, ancient source, has parallels in the perennial philosophy promoted by the
Traditionalist School of esotericists. He believed that by mastering magic, one masters this illusory universe, gaining personal liberation and recognising that only the Self really exists. Doing so, according to Grant, leads to the discovery of one's true will, the central focus of Thelema. Grant further wrote that the realm of the Self was known as "the Mauve Zone", and that it could be reached while in a state of deep sleep, where it has the symbolic appearance of a swamp. He also believed that the reality of consciousness, which he deemed the only true reality, was formless and thus presented as a void, although he also taught that it was symbolised by the Hindu goddess
Kali and the Thelemic goddess
Nuit. Grant's views on sex magic drew heavily on the importance of
sexual dimorphism among humans and the subsequent differentiation of gender roles. Grant taught that the true secret of sex magic were bodily secretions, the most important of which was a woman's menstrual blood. In this he differed from Crowley, who viewed
semen as the most important genital secretion. Grant referred to female sexual secretions as
kalas, a term adopted from
Sanskrit. He thought that because women have kalas, they have oracular and visionary powers. The magical uses of female genital secretions are a recurring theme in Grant's writings.
James Lees ."
James Lees (August 22, 1939 – 2015) was an English magician known for discovering the system he called
English Qaballa. Lees was born in
Bolton, Lancashire. He established a career as an
analytic chemist. In his search for truth, he also studied psychology. Not finding the answers he wanted from science, he turned to the study of astrology, even making a living for a time as a
horary astrologer. Still resolved to discover further answers, Lees decided to study Kabbalah and the
Tree of Life. From here he proceeded to experiment with invocations from the
Key of Solomon. Satisfied with the results, he proceeded to perform the 18-month working described in
The Book of Abramelin by means of the
Bornless Ritual. Having successfully invoked his
Holy Guardian Angel, he turned his attention to ascending the '
Middle Pillar' of the Tree of Life, culminating with an experience known as
crossing the abyss. Then, in November 1976, Lees discovered the "order & value of the English Alphabet." Following this discovery, Lees founded the
O∴A∴A∴ in order to assist others in the pursuit of their own spiritual paths. The first public report of the system known as
English Qaballa (EQ) was published in 1979 by Ray Sherwin in an editorial in the final issue of his journal,
The New Equinox. Lees subsequently assumed the role of publisher of
The New Equinox and, starting in 1981, published additional material about the EQ system over the course of five issues of the journal, extending into 1982. In 1904, Aleister Crowley wrote out the text of the foundational document of his world-view, known as
Liber AL vel Legis,
The Book of the Law. In this text was the injunction found at verse 2:55; "Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet, thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto" which was understood by Crowley as referring to an English Qabalah yet to be developed or revealed. The "order & value" discovered by James Lees lays the letters out on the grid superimposed on the page of manuscript of
Liber AL on which this verse (Ch. III, v. 47) appears (sheet 16 of Chapter III). Also appearing on this page are a diagonal line and a circled cross.
The Book of the Law states that the book should only be printed with Crowley's hand-written version included, suggesting that there are mysteries in the "chance shape of the letters and their position to one another" of Crowley's handwriting. Whichever top-left to bottom-right diagonal is read the magickal order of the letters is obtained. Little further material on English Qaballa was published until the appearance of Jake Stratton-Kent's book,
The Serpent Tongue: Liber 187, in 2011. This was followed in 2016 by
The Magickal Language of the Book of the Law: An English Qaballa Primer by Cath Thompson. The discovery, exploration, and continuing research and development of the system up to 2010, by James Lees and members of his group in England, are detailed in her 2018 book,
All This and a Book.
Nema Andahadna Nema Andahadna (1939-2018) practiced and wrote about magic (magical working, as defined by Aleister Crowley) for over thirty years. In 1974, she
channelled a short book called
Liber Pennae Praenumbra. From her experience with Thelemic magic, she developed her own system of magic called "Maat Magick" which has the aim of transforming the human race. In 1979, she co-founded the Horus-Maat Lodge. The Lodge and her ideas have been featured in the writings of
Kenneth Grant. Her writings have appeared in many publications, including the
Cincinnati Journal of Ceremonial Magick,
Aeon, and
Starfire. According to
Donald Michael Kraig: == References ==