Abramelin and other Holy Guardian Angels II

 

Ordo Templi Orientis Phenomenon

Smoke gets in your Aiwass 2



The skeleton of this essay is the foreword to the book Abramelin and Co, itself mainly a facsimile reproduction of a Abramelin text with a few manuscripts of Golden Dawn and Fraternitas Saturni. For this essay new material has been added; the facsimilies however, have been omitted.

Peter-Robert Koenig

This is Part Two — Part Three to follow soon
Back to Part One

"The chajoth, the ‘living creations’ or “flying things” and other beings inhabiting Ezekiels visions are conceived of as Angels, that form an angelic hierarchy within the heavenly courts“."[1] At the heavenly gates one requires „A pass-key”: a magical seal consisting of secrets names that causes Demons and Archonts, the hateful Angels, to flee at the sight thereof."[2] The further the Observer delves into the world of Markaba, so the dangers become ever greater. The Angels and Archonts storm towards him.

The Angel in Gen 48;16 is interpreted as the lower Shekina: "And that is the ‚Angel’ who is sometimes Male and sometimes Female. For when the Angel bestows unto the World the power of Blessing, that has been received from above, then He is male and has a male name. Just as the Male bestows upon the Female the Generative Benediction, so He bestows it upon the lower world. When however, the Angel stands before the World in the Power of Judgement, so She is female.  Just as the Woman goes forth pregnant with the Embryo, so the Angel is filled with the Judging Force and has then the female name."[3]

"Satan" is created from the strictness  of God. Depending on the tradition, Satan is either without relation to the nature of God itself, or is an Angel, or even the manifestation of the potency of His work in the Creation:  that is to say a Sephira. Evil is a product of the Exclusion. The slags of this process fly outwards and are now the Shells, the outer Rinds, in which the Holy is no longer indwelling, or is only a faint glimmer.[4] The demons dwell in these Shells or „Qliphots“.  This is the other side of the Tree of Life.[5]  Depending on the tradition, Evil is either self-perpetuating and independent, or may only have potential existence through human deeds.[6]

 

The Heavenly Doppelgänger[7]

Similarly to Manicheism, in which tradition man possesses a heavenly „alter ego“ – we find in Judaism – the concept that humans have an Angelic „self“, a sort of astral body:  a personal Angel and Star, a Self-Daemon entirely in harmony with the nature of their individual being.  This guardian Angel is the angelic and essential form of the person himself. This heavenly  vestment grows by means of good deeds and clothes the person for his homecoming to the Upper World.[8]

The experience of the encounter with self is experienced as the highester initiation. However, a conjuration of the Holy Guardian Angel exposes and delivers the magician to the forces of Evil.

The conjuration of the Holy Guardian Angel or Archon imparts a similar knowledge and insight as the Merkaba vision. 

"That which is taught in the one case by a voice, emanating from the Fire of the Throne, in the other case is taught by the „Lord of the Tora“: namely, the secret of heaven and earth, of the mass and dimensions of the Demiurge, and of the secret names[9] that give power over all things."[10]

 

While orthodox Christianity rejects magic and Qabalah[11] and for example sees magical seals as  arbitrary and inherently impotent manipulations and images, which in any case represent a unspoken or explicit pact with demons (the deceivers are not able to be mastered by any such symbol and merely pretend/simulate such mastership) we do find a practical application of magic in the complex Judiac mysticism of the Qabalah.  A connection between magic and Qabalah however is only to be found in the tributaries of Jewish mysticism.[12]

Ever since Gershom Scholem saw the Magic-Qabalah connection of Abramelin in conjunction with Pico della Mirandola (born. 1463, Theses from 1486 – Abramelin however - 1387), reviewers have continually attempted to investigate more deeply into Mirandola. Howeer, the interested reader is recommended only to Scholem himself and to Will-Erich Peuckerts "Pansophie". eg.: "The Divine and the Material are contradictory, even antithetical. The power of the Angels can not bind them together, since the spirit of the Angel has no part in the lower regions of the  world." "He however,  who is a Seraph, that is to say a Lover, who dwells in God and in whom God is indwelling, in him God and self are One." "The highest expression of the activity of Man in nature, is that of Magic."[13] Since however, as mentioned above the Abramelin text was generated before Mirandolas birth, further comment on Mirandola are  superfluous.[14]

 

Gnostic Angels everywhere

It being bearly possible to postulate a Qabalistic Angelogy, so it becomes completely impossible to distill „The Angel“ from the myriad gnostic concepts.

 

Magical Hausväterliteratur

The apocryphal „Testament of Salmon“ describes a magical ring.[15]  The rituals of the „Key of Solomon"[16], whether in translation by Eliphas Lévi, McGregor Mathers[17] or Aleister Crowley, lead to dissolution into a universal Intelligence, to an „original“ Unity.[18] Into this tradition we can also place the Magic of Agrippa of Nettenheim (who expressly contradicts himself),[19] as well as a host of similar works such as the „6th and 7th Books of Moses“ or even the „8th and 9th Books of Moses“[20], the various Pacts of Faust,[21] "The Grimoire of Armadel"[22] and a variety of folkish magical recipes, that were published in the 1970s as a facsimile by the erstwhile Publisher Aurum in Freiburg in Breisgau.

 In France we encounter the text "L'Anacrise du docte Pélagius, ermite de l'Île de Majorque, envoyée à Libanius, philosophe français, pour avoir la communication avec son bon ange gardien." This script constitutes a parallel to the Abramelin Text: between 1480 and 1495 small group made up of a Libanius Gallus, a certain Jean Trithème (Pélagius?) and a Jean Dupèbe, underwent certain magico-spiritual practices, that lead to conversations with the Guardian Angel. The resulting work, like the Abramelin text, is one of the countless theurgic manuals that are in circulation.

Between 1821-26 the evangelical Pastor of Lindheim and secret spiritual council Georg Conrad Horst had created a „magical library“ in which very many magical recepies as well as Inquisition reports and related folkloric texts are collected (The Abramelin-Text however, is not mentioned by Horst). –  J. Scheible, the Stuttgart Antiquarian, also collected many „magical texts“ in this period (including the Abramelin text)[23] and published them in new editions from 1849 onwards.[24]

 

A Matter of Effectiveness

In occultism there is no consensus on Cosmonogy and the heavenly personnel. Often the basic experience is of dualism in the manicheic sense of Good and Evil ex nihilo. Sometimes Evil is deemed to have been created by Man himself.[25] Angels are mostly designated as heavenly „doctors“, the Demons are responsible for the acquisition of Gold. Here and there, Angels appear who have an important message to transmit.[26]

Many phenomena challenge the materialistic-dualistic view of the World: "Near-death"-experiences, meditation practices, psychedelic drugs, out of the body experiences, shamanism, ecstatic dances, religious rituals, UFO encounter, can all create an „altered state“.[27] In these realms we can also place cases of so called Blind-seeing, during which the truly blind react to visual stimuli. "Brian D. Josephson of the University of Cambridge (England), who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973 for the discovery of Quantum effects that came to be named after him, put forward a unified field theory that can explain psychic and even mythic experiences. Andrew T. Weil, a doctor at the University of Arizona and an expert on psychedelic drugs, declared that a complete theory of consciousness must also explain the alleged ability of certain South American indians to share drug induced hallucinations with each other.."[28] Ultimately the question remains open why and how these experiences occur.[29] Certain is that „something“ is being experienced/perceived on a very specific but unknown level of consciousness. This is not the place for discussions of the in/dependence of observations of reality (whether collectively postulated or not) on consciousness itself or on the presence of a brain.[30] Not „why visions are“, but „in which way they exist as visions“ is to be explained.[31] The question is: What does this type of Occultism claim to actually do?

Linguistic vagueness and structured categorical thinking cause restricted access to the following reports,  that appear to describe images from outside the Newtonian-Cartesian Universe.

 



You need magical circles in order to manifest Angels or Demons. The magician stands in one circle and the Angel has to appear in the other. Occult Magic Gnostic Circle

The Devil Rides Out - Hammer Film Productions 1967. Aleister Crowley was technical advisor to Dennis Wheatley's "The Devil Rides Out" in 1934. Christopher Lee suggested to Hammer executives that his friend Wheatley's book would be the ideal material for them. Richard Matheson provided the script and Terence Fisher's film was a vast improvement on the book.

Hammer Horror

the Occult  and the Gnostic and the Magic Magick - The Devil Rides Out - Hammer Film Productions 1967    Magic Gnostic Circle - The Devil Rides Out - Hammer Film Productions 1967


Crowley's Abramelin

"They worshipped the Dragon that empowered the Beast and they worshipped the Beast." (Rev. 13;4). "Satan" will tranfer his power into a person, who as Antichrist will engage Deputy-Assistants: the  "false prophets," the  "other Beasts" (Rev. 13;11-13). His number is 666.

Thomas of Aquinas now raises the concept that even the Antichrist will have a Holy Guardian Angel.[32] Why then not also Aleister Crowley, who, raised as a fundamentalist christian, yearns for a prophetic if not messianic mission in the role of the self-declared „To Mega Therion", and seeks to justify this on metaphysical grounds? The Antichrist will deploy his power particularly to achieve Self-Deification (2. Thess, 2;4) enabling himself to be worshipped: exactly the medicine Crowley is seeking. To come straight to the point: Ultimately even Crowley cannot bring about the miracles (Rev. 13;3-4), nor does he become "monarcha totius mundi" (Rev. 13;7). For what reason does he strive, when it is revealed that false prophet will lose in the final battle when he and the Beast are seized, to be tortured day and night into Eternity. (Rev. 20;9-11)?

In December 1896, 10 years after the death of his father[33] Aleister Crowley (born. 1875) reveals: "I was in the death struggle with self: God and Satan fought for my soul those three long hours. God conquered - now I have only one doubt left - which of the twain was God?"[34] He starts to become interested in Mysticism, Magic and Alchemy, and registers to read Humanities at Malvern/Tonbridge and soon also at Trinity College in Cambridge.

On 18. November 1898, Crowley alias "Perdurabo" is accepted into the Golden Dawn (GD), founded 10 years earlier.  In the Golden Dawn the synonym "Higher Genius" is used to describe the HGA. Magic is deemed to be the method for attaining contact with non-human powers. The Golden Dawn’s complicated system of study and initiation might suggest reason and necessity, in a realm otherwise ruled by coincidence and irregularity, pure contigency (hence the synchronicity of the various occurrences). The Powers are expressions of the „expected Unexpected“: traditional images rhetorically adjusted and set into a subjective context .

In 1898 Crowley’s attention was drawn  by the leader of the  GD, McGregor Mathers to a book: "The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, the Mage.[35] The essence of this book is the invocation of a being defined as the Holy Guardian Angel.[36] Whilst engaged in the long preparations for this Operation which he undertook in August 1899 from the base of his House  in Boleskine/Scotland[37] which was especially acquired and fitted out for this purpose, he was urgently called to Paris and was forced to interrupt the Work.[38] During this visit to Paris the struggle with McGregor Mathers for control of the Golden Dawn was played out.  We turn our attention however to Crowley's visions.

 

The „classic“ vision is able to be traced back to the prophet Ezekiel: The Vision of the Glory of God. Dreams are sometimes the equivalents of Visions, (Gen 28, 1. Kings 3;5, Zach 1;7) and so the 25year old Crowley prepares himself before sleeping in order to be in the correct state to encounter his HGA in the half-sleep dream trance. As far back as Abramelin’s time the text "L'Anacrise du docte Pélagius, ermite de l'Île de Majorque, envoyée à Libanius, philosophe français, pour avoir la communication avec son bon ange gardien" concentrated on the question: "Pourquoi les vision des anges paraissent plutôt en songe à ceux qui dorment qu'à ceux qui veillent?" "Acause [sic] de notre mauvaise conduite" the Angels feel inhibited to contact us during our waking hours, "mais quand nous dormons, leurs inspirations sont plus proches ... l'ame [sic] se trouverait, par le sommeil delivrée" from the impressions of the World and so becomes "plus capable de reçevoir les inspirations divines par notre bon ange."[39] Without recourse to God however, any communication with the Angel becomes impossible and allows the demons to gain influence. According to Sigmund Freud the dream is a landscape of hieroglyphs relating to speech as well as world view. For the Egyptians hieroglyphs indicate the cosmic visbility of their Gods. „The Vision and the Voice“ themselves however are primarily only understood by the dreamer himself, and a unification of speech needs to be distilled from the surfeit of (dream)images - this unification is then purported to be a mirror of mysterious Nature. Occultists strive for a picturesque unveiling of the deepest secrets of the World. Categorisation of knowledge and experience is just a preliminary activity, for actual fulfillment is a promise inherent in the „hieroglyphic“ words of God himself.

 

The Book version of this chapters (Abramelin & Co., München 1995) contains an extensive example of Crowley’s HGA „invocation“, an extract of his 1900 diary.  It is worth noting that Crowley prepared all his diaries to be suitable for possible publication, and certainly for study and reading by his students. Therefore we can presume that his personal archives are not entirely free from euphemisms, stylistic editing, certain „decorative“ attitudes and self deceptions. The unconventional language in Crowley’s diarys remains in stark contrast to his ambitious literary and poetic experiments, which can be said to measure up to Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909). Crowley refers to himself in the first and third persons singular, and mixes past and present into a mystical ectoplasm that flows from him onto the paper.  The dissolution of Space and Time is a commonly observed component in experiences of altered states. The holistic organisation of senses and experience is complex, and in the state of speechlessness, of failure of language, it may be possible that aspects of reality or consciousness are lost in translation. Hand in hand with Crowley's various claims to power, the Visions are the ideal „ineffable substance“, that cannot be logically examined, tested or indeed argued against. In literary terms Crowley's diaries (in contrast to his other literary and poetic efforts!) could be classified alongside the works of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Edgar Allan Poe, the Assemblages of Kurt Schwitters, the novels of Alfred Döblin, Walter Serner or Pitigrilli – this for the quality of desire for those types of experience, for which no mature descriptive technique had yet been developed. The diary style is experimental: vividly detailed,  allowing for meetings of different points of view, jumping about, often consisting of wild combinations of sentence fragments. Crowley appears no longer to be in possession of a well formed- and certainly not an unshakable identity, nor of the traditional concept of a personality. In this he resembles the characters in Louis Aragon’s novel, in Huysmans. Small wonder -  during this time he is also translating Charles Baudelaire's Lyric of placelessness, "Les Fleurs du Mal." The ever elusive moment of vision soon defines a new function for the eye, that expands the function of seeing everything ordinary so greatly, that there is no longer a view on what is simple.  Crowley will restlessly use up his funds for travels in new countries and new cultures, and vital, exotic cultures soon flow into Crowley's thoughts and works as a deep sub-culture. Nevertheless he avoids living in the major cities, remaining eternally entangled in the provincial.

 

"The Operation itself was however never begun."[40]

Crowley can call certain demons, but he cannot bring them under control. Oriens, Paimon, Ariton, Amaaion and hundreds more, as well as eleven servents escaped from the hut, got into the house and unleashed a chaos: his coachman, strictly abstinent until that very moment, fell victim to delerium tremens; a seeress he had brought with him from London, returned to the capital and became a prostitute; his housekeeper „who could not bear the unwholesome atmosphere of the house“ disappeared without trace; a worker engaged on the estate attempted to murder Crowley in a fit of madness. Even the village butcher was influences by the names of two demons Elerion and Mabakiel, ("Laughter" and "Wailing") that Crowley had absentmindly scribbles on an invoice. When read together these two words mean „unwanted suffering, that suddenly darkens joy“.  Only too true,  as  the butcher was cutting a roast for a customer, he accidentally severed his femoral artery and bled to death.[41] Nevertheless the House in Boleskine was declared to be „Holy“ and to this day,  in all Crowley’s Gnostic Masses, the Altar with the Stélé upon it, must be oriented towards Boleskine.

In August 1900, after the conflict for the Golden Dawn[42] Crowley travelled to Mexico, where he visited the first two of a total of 30 Aethyrs, that is to say extra-terrestrial dimensions, using a crystal ball. At the base of this magical concept we find „The „Enochian Calls“ of ca. 1659 by John Dee and his assistant Edward Kelly,[43] texts Crowley studied first in the Golden Dawn and later in the manuscript departments of the British Museum and  Ashmoler Museum in Oxford.

 

Translated by Susanne Williams, Copyright 1996/2004

[to be continued soon]



[1] Gershom Scholem: "Die jüdische Mystik," Reprint Stuttgart 1980, 45

[2] ibid., 54

[3] Scholem: "Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit," Reprint Stuttgart 1977, 180

[4] Scholem, Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit, 75

[5] Which Kenneth Grant writes of so prolifically

[6] The „Members“ of the Maat-group in Ohio, upon whom we will come to bear, have this concept.

[7] This concept can be found in Manicheism, and also in Julius Evolas "Magic of the I"

[8] Scholem remarks that there are nearly no methodologies for the observation of this Self, 'Mystische Gestalt', 256

[9] For instance the Archons bear the name JHWH as well as their Angelic names

[10] Scholem, Jüdische Mystik, 83

[11] Adam neither gave the creations Hebrew names, nor would the names still be valid after the linguistic chaos of the Tower of Babel and thus these names have no inherent magical power. Bible i.e.: Mt 12;27, Lc 11;19, Apg. 19;13-19

[12] Certain Renaissance-Philosophers have attempted to connect Magic and Qabalah in the name of Jesus. (Tetragrammaton plus Shin = Son of God = Messiah)

[13] Peuckert: Pansophie, 26, 27, 28

[14] Karl R.H. Frick attributes Abramelin to the spanish qabalist Abraham ben Sa-muel Abulafia (1240-1291) and cites Scholem; Frick: "Das Reich Satans" I, Graz 1982, 100

[15] Riessler: "Altjüdisches Schrifttum," 1928, no. 60, 1251-1262 and 1338-1339

[16] Evidenced since the early middle ages.

[17] Who created a compilation from seven different versions, leaving out a large part as black magic, sexual magic or devil worship.

[18] McGregor Mathers: "Der Schlüssel Solomon" published by Markus Jungkurth (a current protagonist of the  'Caliphate'), 1985 Berlin

[19] "Die Eitelkeit und Unsicherheit der Wissenschaften" published by Mauthner, 1913, I, 28, 73, 178-179

[20] (8.+9.) Braunschweig 1952 (Planet-Verlag, processed by F.H. Masuch); (6.+7.) Berlin 1984 (Karin Kramer), Philadelphia (without date, but from the same publisher as the adonistic works of Musallam, also publishing Abramelin’s book of the True Practice.)  (contains the „True Firey Dragon“ by Rabbi Anton Moses el Arradsch) – see the Facsimiles in the Book-version "Abramelin & Co."

The Adonists

For just a few weeks in 1928, the Fraternitas Saturni [F.S.] was allied with the 'Adonistic Society', a sex-magical group founded on May 1st 1925 by Franz Sättler "Musallam" (1884-1942?) the guru of Franz Bardon, whose works on magic would later have an unaccountable success in both German and badly-translated English. The alliance was negotiated by Wilhelm Quintscher "Rah-Omir, Ophias, Chakum Kabbalit". On March 13th 1928, the alliance with the "Order of Mental Builders" (this was another name for the Adonists) split up; many members of it entered the F.S., and after January 3rd 1929 "purely businesslike" relations alone existed between the FS and the remaining Adonists.

In 1950, from the Adonists (who were, it seems, often closely concerned with "erotic questions") the Swiss Hermann Joseph Metzger (who went under the alias of 'Servius' among them) was able "to learn something, especially as far as organisation was concerned." From a certain unnamed Adonist professor, Metzger "learnt one day a week for two years, in an intensive way, about humanistic education and scientific theories, to degree level."


Franz Sättler Dr Musallam Der Wahrhaftige Feurige Drache Adonistischer Verlag Franz Sättler Dr Musallam Der Wahrhaftige Feurige Drache Beschwörung Lucifer Beelzebub Astaroth Adonistischer Verlag Der Signatstern
Franz Sättler / Dr Musallam: "Der wahrhaftige feurige Drache". Lucifer, Beelzebub, Astaroth. Adonistischer Verlag. Advertisement: "Der Signatstern". No place and no date.


[21] Found in the Moonchild-Edition of the publishing house ARW

[22] Again discovered by McGregor Mathers and translated into German by Markus Jungkurth 1985. Certain of the  Abramelin-Demons appear in ARMADEL

[23] J. Scheible: Das Kloster, 1846/Scheible: Handschriftliche Schätze aus Kloster-Bibliotheken, Köln 1734-1819

[24] After their publication of the Abramelin text (1725) "Peter Hammers Erben" also published the "Nigromantische Kunst-Buch" (1743)

[25] Josef Dürr, Experimental-Dämonologie, 35

[26] In Islam Gabriel functions as the messenger of Divine Revelation; in rabbinical literature He is one of the four Archangels, Lords of the Angels.

[27] A key difference between UFO encounters and Occult visions is the unwillingness on the part of the „recipient„  that characterises the former, and which often triggers a variety of traumas.

[28] John Horgan: "Ist das Bewusstsein erklärbar?" in: "Spektrum der Wissenschaft," Heidelberg September 9/1994, 76

[29] In the case of UFO experiences there are often reports of manipulations of the abdominal and genital regions, noteworthy also in Staudenaier: "Magie als experimentelle Naturwissenschaft" (Leipzig 1912). Breathing problems are also remarkably common amongst both Occultists and UFO abductees

[30] For example occult-religious stigmata and the physical effects of UFO encounters (wounds in the body, that are allegedly a result of medical experimentation carried out by the aliens)

[31] For this reason it is magically/gnostically irrelevant to enquire, in a psychological context, which drugs could have provoked any particular experience

[32] S. Thomas, I, qu. 113, a (1266-1268)

[33] Although this is not the place to expand on Crowley’s psychological make up, we posit the suspicion that the efforts of his whole life were brought to bear for the purpose of taking the place of his fundamentalist father.

[34] "Aceldama," in: "Collected Works," I, 1905, 1. also cited in John Symonds (German): "Aleister Crowley, Das Tier 666," Basel 1983, 29

[35] Jules Bois (Member of the Parisian Golden Dawn), Bulwer-Lytton, Eliphas Lévi and others are alleged to have known of this manuscript, Mathers: "The Book of ... Abra-Melin," xvi

[36] As early as 1898 Crowley writes the poem "The Honourable Adulterers" (Collected Works, I,98), in which he described the Robe and Crown of the Abramelin Magician. A photograph of such a crown appears in: Francis X. King: "Hexen und Dämonen," Hamburg 1988, 138. It shows how the English witch, Alec Sanders celebrates a wedding ritual, whereby the crowns of the pair in question have been fashioned according to Abramenlin’s instructions. In Crowley's "Ritual of Passing through the Tuat" the crown and robe of Abramelin also are mentioned

[37] The house recently belonged to the rock singer and Crowley collecter Jimmy Page, who rented it out. It is regularly besieged by Crowley-ites, which forces the 'Caliphate' especially to impress the need for discretion upon its members.

[38] Unknown author in H.J. Metzgers EOL 9, Swiss O.T.O. Zürich March 1955, 2

[39] Facsimile, Paris 1989 (pbl. Amadou), 22

[40] Crowley: "Equinox of the Gods," London 1936, 56. Elsewhere Crowley points to the beginning of his Abramelin Operation as coinciding with the acquisition of his house in Boleskine.; Crowley in: "Equinox of the Gods," London 1936, 112

[41]  Symonds: "King of the Shadow Realm," London 1989, 30

[42] Crowley even considers that Mathers is possessed by Abramelin demons

[43] Meric Casaubon: "A true and Faithful Relation of what passed for many years between Dr. John Dee and some spirits," 1659. A work that has also been translated into german by Heinrich Tränker, and is found in excerpted form in "Das Beste von Heinrich Tränker"









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More about all this in: Andreas Huettl and Peter-R. Koenig: Satan - Jünger, Jäger und Justiz

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