Updates and a Secret Order Revealed
Update 1: The winner of the free quartz crystal pendulum contest, Leo O, lives in Mexico. So it took a bit longer for him to receive his prize. However he informed me via email that he did receive it today. If you’d like to see his amazing entry, go to the page here and scroll down.
Update 2: The fallout from my interview on Coat-to-Coast AM with George Noory has been amazing. I’ve been deluged with email comments and questions, especially from people who also visited my website. I apologize for any tardy responses to you and thank you for your support and understanding.
Update 3: This is it! I have the final proofs to the new 3rd edition of Modern Magick. I’m working on them to make sure that the end result is the best it can possibly be. Next: off to the printer.
Update 4: This weekend I’ll be attending the Los Angeles Harvest Festival and giving two workshops, one on the different styles of magick that the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn actually practiced and the other on how to really charge and open your chakras.
A Secret Order Revealed!
An Amazing Classic Book Revised, Expanded, and Reissued
A revolution happened over 40 years ago. Wicca and Witchcraft was beginning to grow. Like wildfire. For high magicians, though, the story was quite different. A few people had very idiosyncratic groups. A few people were trying to get the Golden Dawn going again, but for most people Regardie’s book, the key to the Order, was difficult to follow. The O.T.O. was small, but beginning to grow. Magicians knew about that Order, but didn’t really know too much of how it worked. Instructions for the Order, appearing in The Blue Equinox, wouldn’t be reprinted for another half decade. Many ceremonial magicians were working rather blindly, wishing for something more concrete.
In 1969, a book with the audacious title, The Complete Magick Curriculum of the Secret Order G.’.B.’.G.’. by Louis T. Culling, first appeared. I say “audacious” because this “complete” book was a mere 130 pages. Crowley had written tens of thousands of pages, Regardie’s book on The Golden Dawn was almost 850 pages. How could such a small book about an unknown Order be complete?
Culling joined this Order by answering an advertisement that offered a “shortcut to initiation.” He quickly became the head of the local group in San Diego. The Order closed, by prearranged plan, in 1936, and Culling waited four decades to report on what they had done. The book was complete, but only if you had an expansive knowledge of occultism. Because of this, the book, filled with amazing information, eventually went out of print. As of this writing, copies of that rare volume now sell for up to $200.00.
Over a year ago, I talked with the President of Llewellyn, Carl Weschcke, about this book. It would be great to reprint, I suggested, IF everything in it was fully explained both in a historical context and so that people could use the techniques. I didn’t know at the time that Mr. Weschcke was planning to do exactly that.
I can think of nobody better to expand and explain this classic book of magick. He knew Culling and has an incredible knowledge of magick and occultism from a historical, theoretical, and most importantly, a practical basis. That original book was complete because the G.B.G. was founded upon the revolutionary premise that High Magick can be distilled to a few powerful and efficient steps.
So finally, a new edition of this book is back in print. The notes, additions, explanations and information from Mr. Weschcke, plus the new, more convenient size, have resulted in making this book almost three times its original length. The clarifications and new information are nothing short of amazing.
The truth is, I haven’t finished this book yet. However, I do have the original and I’m already impressed with what I’ve read. I’ll have more to say in a future blog post.
When Regardie originally published the teachings of the Golden Dawn in the late 1930s, most of the group was moribund and many gave up, essentially ending that manifestation of the G.D. The book, however, kept the knowledge alive and allowed for its rebirth and current flowering. This book started a revolution 40 years ago by reporting what Culling had experienced and done, but the Order had been closed for decades. With all of the additions by Weschcke, I would not be surprised to discover a rebirth of this important but briefly-lived magickal order. If you do not have the original book—and even if you do—I would encourage all people interested in ceremonial or high magick to study this book. You can discover more about it HERE.
