When Aleister Crowley was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, he was initially impressed with the intensity and seriousness of the vows he took never to reveal any of the secrets of the Order. He quickly became disappointed, though, when those "secrets" were revealed to be relatively mundane—or at least well known—things like the Hebrew alphabet and the signs of astrology. Aleister Crowley Giving the "Sign of Pan" The title of the book next to him, Perdurabo Magister, means "Master Perdurabo" Perdurabo, "I shall endure to the end," is the magickal name Crowley took in 1898 when he was initiated into the Golden Dawn It's true that the Hebrew alphabet and basic

I recently read a blog which claimed that the author's magick was improving because he was witnessing increased synchronicities in his life. Is this a valid point? Well, I have to answer both yes and no. Yes, his magick is increasing but not in the way his blog implied. Blinded With Science? Today, the concept of "do a ritual and get a result" doesn't satisfy all practitioners of magick. We've become more scientific and simply getting a desired magickal result isn't good enough. We want to know how the magick actually worked: The ritual caused x, x caused y, y caused z and z caused the result. Without knowing xyz we end up doubting that magick took place. "Perhaps," we think, "it's just a

Are you familiar with Tantra? If you live in a Western culture, you probably know that Tantra is "that sex stuff." It's about "spiritualized sex," the Kama Sutra, weird sex positions, and sex that lasts for hours. Didn't Sting say so? (Okay, now he admits it was a joke.) Even in India, the birthplace of Tantra, most people think of Tantra as either "that sex stuff" or "black magick" or both. Here in the West, the Tantra most people are familiar with is really more accurately called "Neo-Tantra." It has a focus on extended periods of ecstatic sex and, supposedly, leads followers to a more spiritual state. Practitioners will talk about moving energy, breathwork, and visualization—all

First Step on the Moon I've rarely met any person who has found magick by suddenly leaping into effective evocations and rituals. Some have tried. Most have failed. The ones who succeed for the longest most often did not jump directly into magick. Rather they started looking for some way to enhance their spiritual development. I think the reason for the failure of most who want to leap into magick is an unrealistic goal resulting from taking myths, movies and other fictions literally. That goal it to have power over others. With lack of success, most move on to other methods they imagine will give them power over others. Some, however, discover that the real secret of magick is that