Magick By the Book
By Phaedron
A frequent misconception that identifies an amateur from a genuine Master-taught aspirant is the belief that Magick and its teachings belong to a group or person. A true Master teaches their aspirants the phenomenon of Nature in lieu of the politico-magickal factions of who's who. Even sincere inquirers into the occult who believe there is more to life than they can see, remain conditioned in this categorization of the universe.
At The International Academy of Hermetic Knowledge, I receive several communications daily from members and inquirers with valuable questions. Once common question is if the teachings of The Academy go well with the teachings of Aleister Crowley. These are not the teachings of The Academy any more than Crowley or any group or person owns or originated their own teachings!
No true Master or Magickal organization owns the rights of, nor can claim exclusivity to true knowledge. Contrary to some uneducated publishers and some deprived spiritual groupies; no one has a spiritual monopoly!
Modern egotistical dabblers often desire a club membership. When people (even if sincerely) claim alliance with certain narrow-minded brand of religion, and pigeonhole other unfamiliar realms of spirituality, they fool themselves. Unfortunately, such labels (Thelemite, Gardnerian, Naturalist, Orthodox, Reform, Belfastian, Coptic, etc., etc., ad nauseam) are not real. They are only semantic figments of their imaginations, while innocent and sincere inquirers are mislead into believing in such differences!
There is a seed of truth in every tradition! The Hebrews, Wiccans, Muslims, Brahmins, Gnostics, Ritual Magicians, etc. are all really so alike that the minor differences are merely in language, times, personages and place! Every path comes from the same, one origin!
Many practitioners only see their own approach to a universal phenomenon (called Magick). The very same people who dogmatically think they're practicing a unique/exclusive path and who claim they do not accept major organized religion, are falling into the same trap as the mega-religions! How Crowley would turn over in his grave if he (as only one example) were watching what his life's work has turned into. Exactly opposed to what he dedicated his life to! Many Crowleyites unknowingly blaspheme the man they follow! The days of following a man or dogma ended with the last aeon. This aeon is man's aeon of being the master of his/her own life, not the devotee of another man's or system's Will.
To understand the very deep writings of Crowley, The Zohar, Revelations, Thoth, Levi, etc., requires a higher degree of attainment than has anybody who nit-picks (as far as those I've met, anyway).
Recently, I was saddened to read a promo in the New Times in which a self-appointed authority of spirituality pushed a newly published Golden Dawn book too hard, even saying the Golden Dawn is at the root of today's Magick, and that all Magickal and Wiccan groups borrow from the Golden Dawn! Can you believe that? (I hope the book's authors do not give credence to these claims.) And here's where Mathers, Waite, Wescott and others must be turning over in their graves. Even that 100 year old organization declared that Magick is older than themselves!
History has shown that as soon as people separate paths by splitting hairs, they breed animosity, prejudice, ignorance and failure, on grand levels or very small group-levels. It leads to the judgment of the personal direction of people's wills, as if anyone is fit to judge another's way!
All these people and organizations share the same origins. To qualify a person's spiritual path would be to qualify the path one's own. Magickal universal events are not similar to other paths, but the source of all paths! It is not the true spiritual teacher that demeans their path with labels; it is the outsider who is responsible.
Such one-path-fits-all foolishness is not victimless. I receive many calls from innocent pursuers who have read perverted pulp-magazine information and believe that to grow spiritually, they must follow certain authorities and read their required books. The propagation of such myths often robs the unknowing seeker of true enlightenment. The most impressionable are the youths (as young as 13 years old) who ask me about some flagrantly false knowledge they got from an irresponsible and unknowledgeable source.
Falsehood and illusion are the very things that the aspirant tries to liberate himself from; they cloud the deeper mystical realms. Reasoning and logic may be enticing but it has no place in the training of a Magician. In our Great White Brotherhood, there are many paths to spirituality, but all approaches to enlightenment share the same goal: to unite the soul with God.
1992 The Winged Disk
Phaedron is the G. H. Hierophant of the Holy Order of the Winged Disk, and Director of its International Academy of Hermetic Knowledge. For more information call (800) 827-6843, or write: PO Box 4384, Charlottesville, VA 22905. | 
