Theos-Talk Archives (November 2001 Message tt00462)

<<<Gerald:
I finally found your interesting book on the Internet
by following Brigitte's link. Congratulations on
something you obviously put a lot of thought and work
into. Very nicely done. I am amazed the Quest people
would not at least read your manuscript, considering
some of the stuff they print.>>>

Thanks. My book includes pathworking, which is too suggestive of magic,
which Theosophists are afraid of.


<<<I noticed you are into the Enochian system of magic,
and wondered if you would care to give your take on
it. >>>

I have written six books on the subject, all with Llewellyn. As I have
mentioned before, most of my critics claim that I am too theosophical.


<<< I do not doubt its validity, and managed to ger
Causabon's book for my collection (a reprint, of
course - the original is not available at any price.)>>>

I have the Magickal Childe's hardcopy edition, which is a great publishing
effort (unfortuneately the company went out of business).


<<< Yet I no sooner got Causabon's book when I started
getting terrifying dreams and waking visions warning
me against it. I had not even opened it at that
point. >>>

Yeah, this is a familiar story. One of my editors at Llewellyn had similar
stories, and I believe she had them published in a past Fate Magazine
article, but I can't recall when. You wouldn't believe some of the things
that have happened to me and my wife, for that matter.

One quick story was with my Enochian Tarot card deck. The first printing was
OK, but after the second printing I was notified by an irrate buyer that two
of the pictures had been mixed on the cards. I did not have the second
printing (Llewellyn only gives us copies of the first printing), but relayed
the info on to the Publisher. He explained to me that he would look into it.
He did, and told me the next day that the printer assured him such a thing
was impossible. The second printing was, after all, a duplicate printing of
the first -which had no problems. So, I scratched my head, but meanwhile
receive another complaint, and sent that on to Llewellyn as well. Some days
later, the publisher told me that the printer had found the mistaken, but
had no idea how such a thing could possibly happen. This problem was fixed
with the third printing. but to date no one can explain how those two
pictures were transposed during the second printing. This example is pretty
typical.



<<< Later I learned Edward Kelly seemed to be
afraid of the information he was channeling, and
scrambled some of the angelic names in the belief they
were dangerous if properly construed. He is also said
to have died in a madhouse a raving lunatic.>>>

Kelly and Dee reversed the letters as they wrote them down (transcribed from
the angels, according to Kelly) so that none of the angelic names would be
accidently pronounced correctly. I heard that Kelly died in a prison because
he claimed he could turn base metals to gold, and when requested to do so,
couldn't. I guess you know that Crowley claimed to have been Kelly in a past
life!


<<<Do you know of anyone who has worked with this system
practically and not merely theoretically, and if so,
have any of them had any difficulties which they
related to its study? >>>

Yes. I have practiced with it myself, but others have done much more than
me.


<<< Some of these occult systems,
especially some systems of kundalini yoga, have a
reputation for being risky if not used with extreme
care. That does not mean they should not be used, of
course, but it is responsible to tell people if they
are sailing in dangerous waters. In ancient times
this was said to be true of the Merkabah meditation
system as well, although it is not clear whether
anyone has ever used this system since the ninth
century. The Merkabah has a similar intent to the
Enochian system, although in detail they are
different.
Steve>>>>

Yes, they are dangerous. Any true Path is. Why? Because it is the intention
to change the personality, hopefully to make one a better person, but
changing personality is itself very dangerous. The maps of the "magical
universe" provided within the Enochian system is ideally suited to me,
whereas I have not had any good results with the Qabala, for example.

Jerry S.