holy heretics

HOLY HERETICS
Frater Acher

SCARLET IMPRINT · MMXXII

 

Holy Heretics © Frater Acher 2022. Published by Scarlet Imprint.

eISBN 978-1-912316-68-7 (digital)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in

any form, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

BM BOX 77777, London WC1N 3XX · SCARLETIMPRINT.COM

 Contents

Introduction

BOOK I · MYSTICISM

I   On Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and the Mystical Path of Unknowing

§ I Breaks down barriers between philosophy, magic & mysticism, and
introduces us to the tenets of the rainbow path. § II Explains the difference
between divine emanation and divine synchrony, and how the latter is
accessed through mystical prayer. § III Introduces us to the idea of the
luminescent rays of divine darkness and the practice of mystical agnosis or
the path of unknowing. § IV Lays the foundation stone of becoming a
coworker of divinity and teaches us how to disappear into the darkness of
mystical prayer.

II   A Most Daring Operation: e Heart Prayer

§ I Explains why you are doing well if you have made it this far, and what to
expect next. § II Introduces us to the difference of deification in magic and
mysticism, and the radical new logic of theosis applied by Origen and
Athanasius. § III Shines a light on the extreme, silent solo practice of hostile
mysticism adopted by the Desert Fathers. § IV Allows us to encounter the
Hesychast tradition as the ultimate Saturnian path within the Christian
mystical tradition and the essential technique of the heart prayer. § V Takes
a stark look at how the apocalyptic theology of the Desert Fathers became
the poison of Christianity. § VI Teaches us how to move from our chthonic
to our angelic form, and gives the essential exercise of praying from within
our heart flame.

III   Being in Both Worlds at Once

§ I Stands as a reminder to trust your own path and not to fall for the
poison of orthodoxy. § II Explores the heresy of Symeon the New
eologian’s Hymns and challenges us to consider how close to the abyss we
are prepared to stand. § III Grounds us in the dangerous legacy of Evagrius
Ponticus and the gnostic misperception of the mystic’s path as an eternal
state of war. § IV Leads us into the magical theatre of Hildegard of Bingen,
where vices and virtues rest upon each other’s strengths, and we learn to
choose neither. § V Initiates us into the holy of holies of our created selves,
the bridge that leads to our holy daimon, the non dualistic sphere of i am
behind our hearts.

INTERMEZZO   e Granum Sinapis

§ I Recapitulates the three nights of practice we have covered so far:
removing the skins of false identification, placing ourselves on the threshold
of divinity, and entering the sphere of i am. § II Introduces us to the place
where abyss calls to abyss, and how it is encapsulated in the medieval
allegory of the mustard seed, its tree and the angelic birds. § III Invites us on
a walk to offer the Granum Sinapis up to the world and the spirits around us
in a critical mystical act on the narrow path.

IV   eologia Germanica
§ I Highlights the proximity of ground and abyss within the mystic’s heart,
the path of radical this-worldliness paved by the fourteenth century
German mystics, and the ideal of turning the layman into the new monk. §
II Reveals the historic diorama of the High Middle Ages and the essential
cultural and mental shifts enabled by the interplay of natural disasters and
sociopolitical conflict within the Catholic Church. § III Introduces us to the
radical this-worldly mysticism of the eologia Germanica, the overcoming
of the human desire, and ‘I,’ ‘Me,’ and ‘Mine’ as the skins we wear to
separate ourselves from divinity. § IV Shines a critical light on the eologia
Germanica with regards to the gap between idealistic aspiration and
practical advice, the ancient chain it broke, and the sphere of Da’ath it
represents. § V Dares to us to live wayless and whyless for an entire week,
and teaches how to take on a skin of foliage and blossoms while allowing
our body to expand into the world.

BOOK II · MAGIC

V   e Call
§ I Opens at the moment when the seeker of understanding steps into the
circle of art, when they raise their gaze from the heart-flame to the spirits
surrounding them. § II Explains the nature of a magical call and the skill it
takes to direct it. § III Illustrates the history of the magical use of bells to
open the cosmos, giving two examples more than two millennia apart.

VI   e Olympic Spirit

§ IV Introduces us to and provides a full English translation of Paracelsus’s
little known Arcanum arcanorum, an advanced magical ritual to conjure the
Olympic spirits as well as one’s holy daimon through the use of magical
bells. § V Provides an extensive contextual ritual analysis, revealing the rite’s
textual tradition, its astro-alchemical instructions, and most importantly
Paracelsus’s unique understanding of the nature of the Olympic spirit(s) as
the principle key for unlocking the magical arts.

VII   e Rite of the Olympic Spirit

§ VI Gives context and instructions for successfully performing the Ritual of
the Olympic Spirit. § VII Details the ritual instructions that enable personal
communion with the Olympic spirits.

Bibliography
Index
 Illustrations

by Jose Gabriel Alegría Sabogal

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
Mountain of the ascetics (Desert Fathers)
Hildegard of Bingen
Chamber of the heart
Macrocosmos
Microcosmos
Macrocosmic spiral
Microcosmic spiral

Neo-Assyrian bronze ritual bell

Ritual bell created by Hans de Bull for Rudolf II
Planetary and angelic bell designs from the Neurupin Hexenbuch &
Kieserwetteriana, Alchymica vol. VI: Sextus Sapientiae
Ugo Dossi, Double Vortex (1975)

Tables

irty-five vices and virtues · Liber vitae meritorum

Cultural Polarities of the Early and High Middle Ages
Planetary Positions
Planetary Positions (corrected)
Alchemical translation
Ritual bells & divine names
Examples of the paradoxes of the Olympian spirits in the Arbatel
e human constitution according to Gnostic Hermeticism
e Four Astronomies according to Paracelsus’s Philosophia sagax
 

God is everywhere, visible to those who see by the light emanating

from his beautiful face. He is ahead, and all men follow, holding
his hand.
ose friends of God who are behind, as well as those who walk
ahead, have given news of arrival at their destinations.
When they become self-aware like Adam, they may reveal news of the
Knower and that which He knows.
One of them dove into the ocean of Oneness and said, ‘I am Truth.’
Another rode in a boat on the same ocean, and told of how far he was
from the shore.
One looks at the outside and talks of dry land while gathering shells,
and the other plunges into the ocean and gets the pearl.
One starts talking about the bits and parts of things, how they appear
and function,
Another begins telling of the Eternal One and then of the creatures
who live and die.
One speaks of long curls of hair, the beauty spot, the curves of her
eyebrows, the beloved man in dim candlelight, passing a goblet of
wine.
e other speaks only of himself and his opinions.
And the other loses himself in idylls of love, identifying himself with
the monk’s rope around his waist.
Each one speaks the language native to the level he has reached, and it
is hard to understand what he says.
You, the seeker of understanding, you must strive to learn the
meaning of what they say.

– Sheikh Mahmud Shabistari, Gulshan-i Raz, 1317 CE

 Introduction

was written for all of us, as seekers of understanding. Seven

T
HIS BOOK

hundred years ago one of the most famous Sufi mystics of the fourteenth
century made the above address in words that remain timeless and
essential to this day. Our experience of divinity is as individual as the
knowledge derived from it. As human beings we are all living inside the
pearl of a million rays, each of us reflecting back a certain nuance or shade of
the divine light, and yet none witnessing it in its full uncreated potential.
In this world where we each possess a unique shard of truth, hasty
judgement is the enemy of wisdom: one of us experiences divinity in the
ocean, one of us in gathering shells, another in a lock of hair, each according
to his or her sight. As human beings, however, we are not passive recipients
of such experiences; we are co-creators of our encounters with the divine.
Accordingly, and particularly as adepts of the magical art, we possess both
the privilege and the requirement to continuously change our perspective, to
enlarge the way we see this cruel and beautiful world and the manifold ways
divinity manifests within it. It is best for those genuinely committed to a
path of wisdom and personal evolution to harbour a healthy mistrust towards
what we think we know and who we think we are.
is is the spirit in which this book was conceived, as the third and final
volume of the Holy Daimon cycle. Its methodology offers a challenge and a
contrast to the accepted sources for learning about Western magic. us, in
the first part of this book we will be listening to some of the most
antagonistic voices a Western magician can imagine: from the Desert
Fathers to the Hesychasts and Symeon the New eologian, from the
Granum Sinapis to the eologia Germanica, from the first centuries CE to the
late Middle Ages, we will undertake a tour-de-force through the vast realm
of Christian mysticism.
We will quickly come to see not only a view of the inner realm as we
might not have expected it, but more importantly the heretical charge and
tension within each of these voices. Because, ultimately, the source of so
much hostility in our shared history does not reside in the difference of one
man’s experience of the divine as opposed to another’s, but in the ever
antagonistic forces between any unmediated experience of divinity and all
forms of organised spiritual orthodoxy. e true mystic – like the true
magician – irrespective of whether he or she emerges from an Egyptian,
Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or any other paradigm, will always be perceived
as a threat to organised spiritual institutions.
Western mystics and magicians, whatever the time and context in which
they live, and regardless of how contradictory their practices might seem, all
share one thing: the antisocial stench of the primal goēs. All of our ancestors
on this path have been lone workers, whether in the deserts, in their cells, or
amongst their communities, walking their own version of the narrow path.
And in doing so their very way of life posed a threat to any kind of codified,
mediated and sanitised form of spirituality as represented by the major
churches and institutional orders. Standing tall all by yourself and seeing
angels eye to eye sucks the oxygen out of any kind of secondhand encounter
with divinity. It is in this direct experience of the spirit that we stand united
as holy heretics.
As part of the first half of this book we will discover the essential
importance of what Christian mystics have come to call the heart space or
heart flame. Following the ancient Greek understanding of emotions being
located in one’s gut, for millennia the human heart was known not only as
the throne of wisdom within man, but more importantly as the actual crack
between the human and divine world, from which the light comes in. Each
chapter, therefore, ends with straightforward instructions on how to
approach your own heart space, how to navigate this complex inner realm,
and how to ultimately attune it to the specific spirit(s) you intend to work
with. Because the second half of the book builds upon these foundations, I
would advise against skipping ahead and delving into the section titled
MAGIC.

Contrary to common assumptions, the practice of advanced magic should

not precede but instead follow periods of intense mystical training. I hope to
illustrate many practical reasons for this in the first half of this book and
specifically in chapters V and VI. In the final section I offer a restored version
of an authentic ritual long considered lost. It relates to a magical act alluded
to in the famous Arbatel and is best considered a form of baptism into the
spirit and living presence of the cosmos. Paracelsus, the pseudonymous
author of the rite in its earlier form, called it the act of restoring the
Olympian spirit within man.
 erefore I tell you cabalists and naturalists, or all magicians […] to learn
the first three cabalistic principles: Ask, Seek, Knock on God the Lord, if
you want to have a holy Spiritum (which is delivered to everyone from
birth by God the Creator, to teach and guide people in all wisdom, art
and true blissful life) with you and [if you want to be able to] converse
with your Genius. Because no servant can be lent to you without your
heart’s permission and without keeping the Evangelical commandments;
according to which commandments, or Novo Olympo the faithful have
more justice and freedom than those in the Old Testament with whom
God did not speak directly but through the spirits: We, however, do not
want to hear from the spirits alone, but we want to hear from God
directly, for we have Him within us through our obedience to God.1

Before we attempt to ascend to the peak of this Novo Olympo, we have much
work to do. Just as Icarus fell in his flight to the sun, so we can easily fall in
our attempt to stand amongst the angels. For we face divinity neither as Jack
nor Jill, names that turn to stone at the gate of the Moon, nor as sorores nor
fratres, titles that melt away like wax on our ascent. Instead we face divinity
as divine sparks ourselves, fragments of light facing the sun, bound from our
origin to the absolute.
In this shape we are as one with all other human beings; one with those
who walked before us and one with those who will come after us. In the eyes
of divinity we are all one: one hand, one heart, one hive. And it is only in
this shape, nameless except for the name of our species, that we shall come
to stand among the angels.
But let us not be mistaken: we take the next breath, we take one step
backwards, and once again we are wolves and pigs and hares. Conversely, if
we hold our breath for too long or take one more step into the light, then we
are dead. For such is the human condition: to partake in everything, from
divinity to darkness, and never to be one thing alone. us it is meant to be;
for it is the same hand of nature that gives the first breath to our children
and that takes away their last; though one hopes with a lifetime of riches in
between. We partake in it all, yet nonetheless we may choose to walk the
narrow path and synthesise the Olympic Spirit from the open firmament
within us.
is narrow path, of which we shall learn more, guides us safely among
the traps and snares of hubris and self doubt, of egocentricity and guilt, of
rigidity and inertia. Discovering our own path which leads from the tombs
of our ancestors is the task of a lifetime. Whatever we create from it will be a
beautiful hybrid, half of our own making, half the heritage of those who
walked before us. e very nature of this path, however, has not changed
throughout the millennia that our species has attempted to walk it: to
breathe in both worlds at once, one foot in divinity, the other in the
mundane world, one eye seeing eternity, the other our neighbour’s face; and
so, in an act of Promethean courage and Clementian mildness, to stride out
and live an honourable life.
I am very aware that searching for such a path among the very people
who for centuries tried to usurp and control or deform and kill the Western
magical tradition is a big ask. On such an expedition to find the narrow path
we’ll soon be crawling through the bones, blood and ashes of our ancestors.
And yet, at the same time we’ll also encounter beauty and genuine practice,
true grace and deep spiritual power.
e attempt to see the world through the eyes of Christian mystics from
many different centuries is an attempt to fan the flame they carried. And yet,
I find my heart filled with dissonance and tension when walking in their
shoes. For it seems to me they carried both light and shadow: one hand
holding the flame, the other clinging to darkness.
Strangely, the further we walk back in time the more the tension seems to
increase. It is hardly bearable by the time we arrive in the early centuries of
Christianity. Perhaps this is because the actual, complex human beings have
vanished behind the veil of time supervening between us, and all we hear
now is the echo of the echo of their words. Or perhaps the difficulty lies in
the fanatical extremism that guided the Egyptian Desert Fathers, itself a
magical sword pulled from its scabbard. Just as easily as it cuts through the
veils of the world, so it cuts through what makes us human.
Either way, excavating the powerful techniques practiced by our ancestors
means immersing ourselves in their ways of thinking, living, and working,
which always carries the risk of forgetting where we stand ourselves.
Attempting to view, for example, Origen’s view of Jesus Christ not from the
vantage point of how we would judge it today, but how Origen perceived it
in his own time, requires the expertise of an anthropologist. How did Origen
think about the world? What constituted coherence in his perspective? How
did he forge the foundations of what would come to be one of the world’s
most powerful spiritual paradigms? In order to truly encounter the Other, we
must leave our own values and filters behind, with all the risk to one’s
integrity that entails.
is leads us to the question of who is the intended audience of this
book. To this, at least, I have a clear answer: it is for you. You and I, reader,
will be embarking upon this expedition together, traveling from grave to
grave, from country to country, century to century. Ours will be a lengthy
journey indeed, far into foreign lands, with the risk of not returning as the
people we once were. For seeing through the eyes of the Other, becoming a
seeker of understanding, changes us – and changes everything.
Now, my presumption on this expedition will be that we both have
certain essential traveling skills: to willingly manoeuvre our hearts into a
silent, non-judgmental space; to realise the Other for what it is, rather than
seeing our own projections in it (whether fears or desires); and in our pursuit
of discovery, to put things that are dear to us on the scales without knowing
where that will lead us. Most of all, however, I’ll trust your ability to embrace
negative capability within your own mind; that is, to hold conflicting truths
in your mind’s eye, and not to shut either of them out. To experience
cognitive and spiritual dissonance in the pursuit of developing your
capability to wrestle with a world that completely exceeds your ability to
fully comprehend it. In short, I’ll trust we both show up as adepts with a
desire to learn. Because becoming a seeker of understanding is a most
dangerous undertaking. All magical books from Solomon to Faust teach as
much.
1   Astronomia Olympi novi
 BOOK I

MYSTICISM
 On Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
and the mystical path of unknowing

§I

emerges from a dark cloud of black ink. e massive blotch

A
FINE LINE

of ink represents our vast and ancient pre-Christian history, shaped by

the triangular constellation of ancient Egyptian mysteries, Jewish
Merkabah mysticism and the much younger influence of theurgic
Neoplatonism. e emergence of the thin, fragile line of Western mysticism
began, most Christian scholars would argue, with the obscure author we
now know as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. at he remains an enigma
to this day has done nothing to diminish his writings’ influence on the
development of Western mysticism since the end of the fifth century CE.1
e following passage comes from the Areopagite’s Mystical eology:

Guide us to that topmost height of mystic lore which exceedeth light

and more than exceedeth knowledge, where the simple, absolute, and
unchangeable mysteries of heavenly Truth lie hidden in the dazzling
obscurity of the secret Silence, outshining all brilliance with the intensity
of their darkness, and surcharging our blinded intellects with the utterly
impalpable and invisible fairness of glories which exceed all beauty! Such
is my prayer.
As mentioned, the precise historic context from which the Areopagite’s
writings emerged remains obscure, clouded by the drastic changes to the
ancient world, the shift of the centre of worldly and spiritual power from
Rome to Byzantium, and the simultaneous and often violent co-existence of
late paganism and early Christianity. From this seething atmosphere
emerges the corpus of magical practices known today as the Greek magical
papyri as well as the works of the Areopagite, both of which would become
cornerstones in the foundation of Christian mysticism as it developed over
the following 1600 years up to the present day. In his influential treatises the
Areopagite applied a simple, yet highly effective artifice: he positioned
Christian mysticism as essentially applied Neoplatonism.2 Rather than
positioning the two spiritual traditions in contrast to each other, he
managed to integrate core aspects of Neoplatonism into the young Christian
cosmology, and this at a time when the Christian Truth was still hotly
debated and most people’s thinking rested on the original foundations of
classical philosophy, Plato and Aristotle in particular.
e three core aspects of Neoplatonism that the Areopagite infused into
early Christian thought were: (1) the cosmological theory of emanation, (2)
the mutual relatedness of the symbol (i.e. form or shape) and the symbolised
(i.e. force or being), and most essentially, (3) the importance of hymnal
prayers as a direct pathway to the divine. In contrast to the Platonic
tradition, the Areopagite challenged the notion that divine insight (gnosis)
was accessible to the rational-cognitive mind alone. Instead, he argued, it
was spiritual participation or firsthand experience that allows us to
encounter divinity. Deeply immersing oneself in a state of prayer allows man
to escape from the confines of the mortal body and the limits of the
cognitive mind and to participate – even if only for brief moments – in the
transcendent spiritual realm of unshaped divinity. is theurgic turn, which
allowed for large parts of Neoplatonic practice to flood into early
Christianity, was not seen as a problem, but rather as an enhancement to the
emerging faith.3
Such acquiescence and tolerance of a strong Neoplatonic influence is
perhaps explained by the Areopagite’s notion of the transpersonal nature of
mystical practice. In contrast to the Chaldean Oracles or Iamblichus’s De
mysteriis, for Pseudo-Dionysus prayer was no longer understood as a
category of conjuring practice or interspecies dialogue in a theurgic sense.
Rather, hymnal prayers created a bridge that transcended all intermediary
realms of spiritual beings and allowed for the practitioner to emerge directly
at the edge of the Abyss – face to face with the Unshaped One, the En Sof
of the Kabbalists, or the Monad of the Gnostics.
e defining feature that even today differentiates most forms of
Western magic from Western mysticism becomes apparent here: the
mindset, tools and operating principles of the former mainly aim at the
realm of the Gnostic demiurge, i.e. the world of the ‘artisan gods’ who
express themselves in endless streams of creation and destruction, as
ephemeral beings and spirit sparks woven into mortal forms. Gaining
influence over the currents of creation, harnessing the power to avert crisis
or to inflict evil as one desires – such aspirations form the motivational
backbone of the vast array of most traditional magical techniques. e
Greek magical papyri are a paragon of the premise of magical craft as a
discipline predominantly styled and informed by the operator’s will, leaning
heavily (and often opportunistically) into the realm of spiritual allies.
Mysticism on the other hand, while not necessarily rebutting the
operating field and practices of magic, at least since the days of the
Areopagite has followed a very different North Star. Rather than actively
engaging with the multitude of spiritual beings and their conflicting or
coalescing fields of interest, mysticism aims to build a bridge that transcends
the mortal battlefield. Mystics search for ways to experience the source
rather than working hands-on with aspects of creation.
e differences in aim and approach between magic and mysticism can
be seen reflected in the different paths of ascent each practice traditionally
takes on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life: the magical path leads from Malkuth
all the way up the tree, coiling around each sefirah, thus allowing for active
exposure to and experience of the Kabbalistic realms of creation. us magic
recognises value in immersing oneself deeply (even if only temporarily) into
the various currents and spheres as ruled by each of the ten (or eleven)
emanations of divine power. e goal, however, in such a magical ascent of
the Tree is not to stand still in any one of the sefiroth, but to continue
moving through them, until the final frontier is met with the crossing of the
Abyss. In the classic Faustian paradigm, the magician seeks exposure to the
very forces that bind the world together – without losing himself to the
dangers, beauty or power they contain. e magician thus not only takes on
the role of the classical hero, overcoming mythical tasks in the mastery of
creation and the self; the magician also fulfils the role of the light-footed
fool of the tarot who dances on the cliff ’s edge – he or she plays with fire,
often quite literally.
Such ‘playfulness’ in the spiritual realm earns the disdain of the
traditional mystic. What to the magician seems the fundamental inspiration
for all great discoveries of art and science, to the mystic is merely vain
attachment, a power complex perhaps, or a form of juvenile adrenaline
addiction. Rather than engaging in the created world, the mystic seeks to
transcend it. e mystic’s spiritual journey does not reside in shamanic
dialogue but in the silence that lies beyond all words that manifests when
one stands face to face with the unformed presence of divinity. is is what
we find in the less travelled route of ascension of the Tree of Life: the so
called rainbow path leads directly from Malkuth into Yesod and from here
through Tiphareth, via the experience of Da’ath, into Kether. is shortest
possible route, sometimes called the flight of the arrow, constitutes the
mystic’s journey upon the Tree of Life.
At this point it should be clear that the distinctions between classical
philosophy, magic and mysticism are artificial at best. In practice, the adept
would be inclined not to choose any one of these three disciplines, but
leverage each one where and whenever expedient on their journey –
understanding that mastering any one of them would be fruitless in the
absence of the others. e traditional separation of these three disciplines is
little more than a caricature, one that moreover gives rise to facile
stereotypes:
• e Classical Philosopher sees magic as a plebeian playground and
mysticism as a fantasy. He or she is obsessed with what cannot be argued
against, with what holds true.
• e Classical Magician sees philosophy as a fantasy and mysticism as
spiritual escapism. He or she is obsessed with what works, with what
creates impact now.
• e Classical Mystic sees philosophy as a secondhand version of the
mystic’s experience and magic as a fallacy. He or she is obsessed with
what transcends, with what sublimates.

At the heart of the Areopagite’s writings we find precisely the opposite: the
attempt to converge aspects of ancient philosophy, Neoplatonic theurgy and
Christian mysticism into a single, powerful spiritual current navigable by
future adepts – avoiding the pitfalls of the practitioner’s ego as well as the
turf wars of orthodoxy.

§ II

For we shall be equal to the angels, as the truth of the Oracles affirms,
and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But now, to the best of
our ability, we use symbols appropriate to the things Divine, and from
these again we elevate ourselves, according to our degree, to the simple
and unified truth of the spiritual visions, and after our every conception
of things godlike, laying aside our mental energies, we cast ourselves, to
the best of our ability, towards the superessential ray.
– On the Divine Names
 F THE FEW remaining treatises of the Areopagite, two often published

O together are On the Divine Names and Mystical eology. In the former,
Pseudo-Dionysius aims to deduce the most essential positive statements
about divinity. According to him, these are qualities such as existence,
goodness, life, wisdom or salvation. In the latter treatise on mystical
theology the Areopagite takes the opposite approach, the one for which he
has become best known: here he pursues the description of divinity through
its negative qualities, i.e. the very absence of any characteristics that could be
described or understood in human language. According to his
understanding, neither of the two treatises contradicts the other, despite the
fact that accepting both as true results in a paradoxical characterisation of
divinity. In fact, that is precisely what the Areopagite was aiming for: to lead
the reader onto a mystical path of direct experience rather than calm
meditation on divinity. To that end, the tool the Areopagite applied with
distinction was akin to the koan of the Buddhists, to induce increasing levels
of cognitive dissonance until the logical mind surrenders to pure experience
– rather than aiming to disengage itself from the present moment in search
of categories that rationally account for, and sanitise, the spiritual encounter.
Pseudo-Dionysius’s Platonic and Neoplatonic predecessors had expanded
upon the premise of divine emanation in great detail; the Areopagite was
not shy about borrowing from their erudition to add to the philosophical
current he considered himself a part of. Classic Neoplatonism resolved the
paradox of divinity being within all created beings and yet withdrawn into
itself in the most ascended place, by introducing the idea of a sequence of
emanation. Like water flowing from an underground spring, the source
itself could remain veiled in darkness while its water (i.e. creative force)
would stream out into the sunlight and and bring to life all forms of being.
One does not exclude the other nor does one precede the other. Pseudo-
Dionysius fully embraced the Janus-faced nature of divinity. e diversity of
divine or demiurgic expressions – and man’s ability to magically work with
them – is ever present in his writings. And although the Areopagite accepts
such (predominantly Late Egyptian) magical practices as fully valid, his
purpose remains fixed on leading the neophyte onto a deeply mystical path,
one which transcends the material work with the thousand formed faces of
divinity and leads directly back to the nameless fountain found in darkness
alone.

Further also, the eologians do not honour alone the Names of God
which are given from universal or particular Providences, or objects of
His forethought; but also from certain occasional Divine Visions, in the
sacred temples or elsewhere, which enlightened the initiated or the
Prophets, they name the surpassing bright Goodness which is above
Name, after one or other causes and powers, and clothe It in forms and
shapes of man, or fire, or electron, and celebrate Its eyes and ears, and
locks of hair, and countenance, and hands, and back, and wings, and
arms, and hinder parts and feet. Also they assign to It crowns and seats,
and drinking vessels and bowls, and certain other things mystical,
concerning which, in our Symbolic eology, we will speak as best we
can. But now, […] let us become initiated [to speak authoritatively] in
the godlike contemplations with a god-enlightened conception.4
e Areopagite establishes a kind of mystical bridge for the neophyte to
cross towards the fountain by replacing the notion of a sequence in the
process of divine emanation with the idea of an ever-present concurrency.
Rather than perceiving the process of creation through divine emanation as
rungs on a ladder or a chain of events – leading from the original unformed
source to the most integrated aspect of the material world – the Areopagite
assumed that the entire ladder or chain was contained in all created things.
e nameless darkness was not only a remote, otherworldly reality, but also
one that could be directly accessed through every grain of sand and in every
moment of time. To use Pseudo-Dionysius’s own terms, Divine Union and
Divine Distinction were coexistent everywhere in creation; what activated
the experience of one or the other was the position of the operator. With
the Areopagite, access to the Abyss was suddenly everywhere.

[…] just as lights of lamps (to use sensible illustrations familiar to our

capacity), when in one house, are both wholly distinct in each other
throughout, and keep the distinction from each other specifically and
perfectly maintained, being one in distinction and distinct in union; and
then, indeed, we may see in a house, in which are many lamps, the lights
of all united to form one certain light and lighting up one combined
radiance; and, as I suppose, no one would be able to distinguish in the air
containing all the lights the light of one or another lamp from the rest,
and to see one without the other, since whole in whole are mixed
together without being mingled. But, if any one were to take out from
the chamber one particular lamp, the whole light belonging to it will
 depart with it; no particle of the other lights being drawn along with it,
nor any of its own light left with the other. For there was, as I said, the
complete union of all with all, unmingled throughout, and in no part
confused, and this actually in a body, the air, the light even itself being
dependent on the material fire. Whence we affirm that the superessential
Union is fixed above not only the unions in bodies, but also above those
in souls themselves, and in minds themselves, which, in a manner
unmingled and supermundane, the Godlike and super-celestial
Illuminations, whole through whole, possess, as beseems a participation
analogous to those who participate in the Union elevated above all.5

e challenge to the mystic was that while Divine Union was present in
potential in all created things, it was entirely inaccessible in everyday
circumstances. While being the fountain of all, the fountain had no
‘commingled communion with the things participating.’6 Pseudo-Dionysius
illustrates this simultaneity of union and disseverance with a metaphor from
geometry: the centre of a circle is in ‘union’ to its circumference through all
straight lines leading from the outside to the centre, and yet the centre
cannot be touched from the outside. Similarly, any impression made by a
seal participates in the archetypal seal; in fact the original seal is ‘whole and
the same’ in each of its impressions and yet entirely distinct from all of
them.
e driving force that kept man’s experience attached to the outside of
the circle or to the impression of the seal – rather than allowing it to partake
in the experience of the circle’s centre or the original seal – was the
dominant agency of the cognitive mind. e very tool that was so powerful
in mastering the material world was equally the most effective lock upon the
mystical doorway preventing the experience of the supra-essential darkness
behind it. us the trick had to be to bypass the cognitive mind without
losing the capacity for calm, clear-headed sensual perception. And this is
where the technique of singing hymnal prayers came into play. According to
Pseudo-Dionysius, unformed super-essential divinity was all around us
already and did not need to be drawn down to us or attracted through any
kind of magical act or device. Locking particular divine forces into magical
paraphernalia for use in discrete operations was absolutely possible and part
of everyday magical life in the Areopagite’s time. However, such practices
were mostly useless on the road Pseudo-Dionysius was traveling. What
required movement was not the divine presence but the perspective of the
operator.
Pseudo-Dionysius illustrated in detail the powers of mystical prayers to
shift the state of being of the entire practitioner at the beginning of the
third chapter of his treatise On the Divine Names. We shall quote this
section in full here, as little else needs to be said:

For It is indeed present to all, but all are not present to It. But then,
when we have invoked It, through pure prayers and with an unpolluted
mind, and by our aptitude towards Divine Union, we also are present to
It. For, It is not in a place, so that It should be absent from a particular
place, or should pass from one to another. But even the statement that It
is in all existing beings, falls short of Its infinitude (which is) above all,
 and embracing all. Let us then elevate our very selves by our prayers to
the higher ascent of the Divine and good rays, as if a luminous chain was
suspended from the celestial heights, and reaching down hither, we, by
ever clutching this upwards, first with one hand, and then with the other,
seem indeed to draw it down, but in reality we do not draw it down, it
being both above and below, but we are carried upwards to the higher
splendours of the luminous rays. Or, as if, after we have embarked on a
ship, and are holding on to the cables reaching from some rock, such as
are given out, as it were, for us to seize, we do not draw the rock to us,
but ourselves, in fact, and the ship, to the rock. Or to give another
example, if any one standing on the ship pushes away the rock by the
seashore, he will do nothing to the stationary and unmoved rock, but he
separates himself from it, and in proportion as he pushes that away, he is
so far hurled from it. Wherefore, before everything, and especially
theology, we must begin with prayer, not as though we ourselves were
drawing the power, which is everywhere and nowhere present, but as, by
our godly reminiscences and invocations, conducting ourselves to, and
making ourselves one with, it.7

§ III

S MENTIONED ABOVE, the unique aspect of the Areopagite’s mystical

A practice rests upon the cognitive dissonance introduced by his

paradoxical definition of divine qualities. Divinity is the Good, Life,
Existence, as well as the simultaneous negation of all of these characteristics.
As the Areopagite explained, such a paradox cannot not be resolved by
laying out these seemingly opposite qualities on a timeline of emanation and
thus pushing the super-essential rays of darkness to the uttermost threshold
beyond movement. Rather, for the mystical experience to take shape, it is
the very simultaneity of being present and non-present that must be held in
the practitioner’s mind at the same time, just as both qualities are present in
every grain of sand at the same time. To leverage another of Pseudo-
Dionysius’s metaphors: we only find ourselves in contact with the outside of
the sphere, rather than falling through its surface to discover the vast space
and ever-present centre within.
Such mystical practice therefore has to rest on the exact opposite
foundation of the original Gnostic tradition; rather than aspiring to discover
ways of knowing the divine and thus ultimately assembling an ever
increasing ‘archive’ of divinely inspired cognitive insights on divinity, the
Areopagite proposed to leverage hymnal prayers to immerse oneself entirely
into a state of agnosis, i.e. not-knowing. is path leads us to the moment
where we are not only completely blinded by darkness, but also entirely
wrapped up in this very experience and therefore no longer abstracting or
cognitively reflecting on our state of being. Agnosis is a path towards
oneness with the superessential divinity; it is a path that never ends, a
journey that can never entirely succeed – for if it did, we would lose
everything of our own gestalt, that is to say, the defining features that make
us us.
What, then, might be the practical value of such a path? Unlike the
gnostic path, it won’t allow us to shine for ourselves or others by exhibiting
Promethean qualities, by drawing down divine secrets and revealing them to
fellow practitioners. Equally, a path of agnosis has no interest in debating
spiritual truth with any other confession; for philosophical debate would be
the precise opposite of its own practice. Most obviously, unlike the classical
magician we described above, a path of agnosis is utterly useless to increase
personal agency or to enlist practical help from other spiritual beings. So
why practice it at all?
Because, one might argue, more effectively than many others, the path of
unknowing can turn us into co-workers of divinity. By saying and unsaying
the divine names, we have a chance to move the very rock that blocks the
divine darkness-light from more freely affecting creation. And that rock is
ourselves.

To none, indeed, who are lovers of the Truth above all Truth, is it
permitted to celebrate the supremely Divine Essentiality […] neither as
word or power, neither as mind or life or essence, but as pre-eminently
separated from every condition, movement, life, imagination, surmise,
name, word, thought, conception, essence, position, stability, union,
boundary, infinitude, all things whatsoever […] e theologians, having
knowledge of this, celebrate It, both without Name and from every
Name.8

§ IV

A note on practice in this book

 N THE FOLLOWING we provide instructions on one way of practising the art

I of mystical prayer. Each chapter in this book concludes with its own set of
mystical practices, and each one will build upon the previously given
instructions, closing another link in the luminous chain we are attempting
to mend. ¶ Of course, many mystical traditions have survived from ancient
days until today. However, as we will see in later chapters, the purpose and
approach of our current path is quite distinct, and not to be confused with,
for example, that of Zen Buddhism. We firmly oppose the nineteenth
century occult notion that most spiritual traditions lead to the same ultimate
goal and thus techniques can be mixed freely from across cultural traditions.
Rather, experience teaches us, that while we all might start from the same
basecamp (the human condition), there is rich and wonderful diversity in
the direction of travel and the pathways of ascent and descent within the
respective spiritual traditions. Trying to navigate one’s journey with several
different maps is like trying to express a subtle thought in multiple
languages all at once: the result is gibberish. No one language is superior to
another, yet their beauty and radiance will only shine if we confine ourselves
to mastering and applying their distinct grammar and vocabulary. Equally,
respecting and maintaining the integrity of each spiritual tradition does not
mean we have to submit to its orthodox canon of practices alone. Just as
when learning a new language we move through essential phases – such as
exposure, absorption, replication, and finally free expression; in exactly the
same way, we recommend focusing one’s attention and practice on the
authentic tools and techniques of one spiritual tradition at a time, moving
through the same phases of (1) spiritual exposure and absorption (i.e.
reading), through (2) spiritual practice (following the described exercises
without altering them too much), all the way to ultimately (3) free
expression (making the found practices entirely one’s own through adoption
and attunement).

e First Spiral

e following prayers are derived from the Areopagite’s writings, as well as

from several core techniques detailed in my Holy Daimon. Many of the same
foundational techniques can also be found in the curriculum of the magical
school Quareia. No previous knowledge is required to conduct the following
exercises as stand-alone prayers. Obviously, everyone may approach this
work in their own fashion, as everyone carries full responsibly for its
outcome and impact within their own life.
Before we begin, it is important to emphasise that any word spoken
during the following exercises is a prayer, in the ancient sense of an active
invocation. Each word should be considered a part of the luminous chain, as
described by the Areopagite, with which we pull ourselves closer to divine
darkness. Pulling on this chain, uttering these hymnal prayers, is a
movement without any physical direction or trajectory. It is not aimed at
above or below, but at changing the nature of how we are present – and
therefore who we enable to be in contact with us. Consider these words a
cup you can empty and fill at your own will at any moment in time – and
you will be on the right track of practising the path of unknowing.
 Version I
• Find a place where you can sit undisturbed in darkness.
• Give yourself time to calm your breath. If you have learned it, utilise the
fourfold breath for a few minutes before proceeding.
• Now sing the following prayer. Do not force any manner of speaking or
singing. Let your voice flow freely, allow your tone and melody to
change and evolve until you settle into a stable rhythm.
• Stay with this rhythm and immerse yourself in your prayer.
• Do not exceed two hours of practice per day.
• Prayer (to be translated into your mother tongue):

For I Am who is Neither

Neither dark, neither light
Neither false, neither true
Neither dead, neither born
Neither here, neither there
Neither found, neither lost
For Neither is who I Am.

Version II
• Begin just like version I, yet after stilling your breath (or practising the
fourfold breath), continue as follows:
• See a flame burning in your heart space. e flame is neither hot nor
cold, but quietly shining in the area of your physical heart.
• Raise your hand to your heart and pull out a portion of that flame. As if
you were handing over a flower bud, move the flame away from your
body and set it into the darkness before you. Hold the image of the
flame, surrounded by darkness, in your vision.
• Continue as in version I, with the only difference being to keep your
mind’s eye focussed both on the rhythm of your prayer and on observing
the flame in the darkness before you.

Version III
• Begin as in version II, until you see the flame hang in the darkness
before you.
• Move forward in your vision and merge yourself entirely into the flame.
Do not leave anything of yourself behind; withdraw entirely inside of the
flame.
• In vision, observe the darkness that surrounds the flame (and thus
yourself ) to withdraw from the flame’s light. Wherever the darkness has
retreated, nothing but the void remains. Continue to push the light of
the flame into the space around you, further and further, until you are
surrounded by a vast sphere of nothingness.
• Continue as in version I, keeping your vision focussed both on the
rhythm of your prayer as well as upon the endless void around you.

And let no one fancy that we honour the Name of Love beyond the
Oracles, for it is, in my opinion, irrational and stupid not to cling to the
force of the meaning, but to the mere words; and this is not the
 characteristic of those who have wished to comprehend things Divine,
but of those who receive empty sounds …9

1   Here all mentions of the Areopagite, or Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, refer to the
fifth century Neoplatonist author, not to the first century judge at the Areopagus Court in
Athens, an early convert to Christianity with whom Pseudo-Dionysus identified himself,
but who did not leave any writings behind.
2   Leppin, 26.
3   Leppin, 30.
4   On the Divine Names, Caput I, Section VIII.
5   On the Divine Names, Caput II, Section IV.
6   On the Divine Names, Caput II, Section V.
7   On the Divine Names, Caput III, Section I.
8   On the Divine Names.
9   On the Divine Names, Caput III, Section XI.
 A most daring operation:
e Heart Prayer

§I

meaningful ways to begin to teach a new skill. e choice

T
HERE ARE TWO

is an important one, because it will decide what kind of students one

might attract or lose. Method A begins with a straightforward challenge,
and then gradually raises the bar over time. e presumption here is that
celebrating smaller successes early on will encourage the student to stick with
the training – and to gradually progress to increasingly challenging exercises,
knowing they have succeeded before. us, computer games guide players
through levels of increasing difficulty, gradually allowing them to earn more
experience badges. is is, however, not how training has always happened.
In method B we do the opposite: right from the first exercise we
challenge the student with a practice that is way out of their league, all but
guaranteeing various degrees of failure and frustration. e downsides of this
path are obvious; which is why no computer game has ever started with the
hardest enemy boss in its first level. e two particular upsides of method B,
also speak for themselves: (1) Anybody sticking around long enough will
have qualified as an excellent future student of this particular material. For
showing true grit and perseverance, especially when faced with slow
progress, is the true hallmark for an outstanding match of student and
subject matter. (2) After exercising one’s muscles long enough on a
seemingly impossible task, less challenging exercises will seem all the more
easy to master.
Starting out our exploration of holy heretics and their mystical practices
with an exercise of apophasy is clearly filed under method B. So
congratulations – if you have arrived here, not by skipping over the previous
pages, but by sharpening your mystical saw on the hard rock of Pseudo-
Dionysius the Areopagite – this book really is for you.

Unfortunately though, one could argue the following exercise might be filed
as an extension to a method B training approach. Its challenge resides less in
its specific technique than in the spiritual agency it calls upon for direct
assistance. Few twenty-first century magicians would naturally choose a
technique that requires them to call upon the presence and power of Lord
Jesus Christ, Son of God. Of course, the name might be mentioned in an
opening orison of a grimoire, but certainly not in the manner we will
encounter in the following pages. So we had better provide a thorough
introduction.

§ II

for the process by which a human being can be

M
ANY WORDS EXIST

deified. In a Western magical context most often we are likely to hear

the word ‘apotheosis,’ deriving from the Greek apotheoun, to make
(someone) a deity. In a Christian context, however, the shorter form ‘theosis’
is more common, which equally refers to the act of becoming deified. As we
shall see, it is also important to point out in this context that the original
meaning of the word ‘theology’ described nothing but the process of
achieving theosis, the process of attaining deification.
Despite the similarity of the words, the process of deification had a
significantly different meaning from a magical versus a mystical perspective:
the former generally perceived it as a process that would raise the magician
to an unprecedented level of spiritual power. Deification in the ancient
Greek sense often referred to mythical heroes having arrived at a stage
wherein they shared certain skills or qualities on a divine level – and the
respective god or goddess would come to their support every time they
needed to exercise the respective skill. In a mystical sense, deification
referred to the precise opposite: rather than distinguishing one’s individuality
through achieving divine-like skills in a particular field, it described the
process of casting off one’s individuality and becoming one with divinity.

ese two ways of understanding deification are not at odds with each other,
but simply refer to two very different magico-mystical processes: Apotheosis
– as we will use it here to signify the process of deifying the classic magician
– is aimed at creating bonds with a formed aspect of divinity, i.e. a threshold
of power whereby divinity is expressed in a conditioned manner and cast into
a particular vessel of power. Examples of this kind of process would include
all the deities of the Greek pantheon from the second generation of gods
and goddesses onwards. eosis – as we will use it here to signify the process
of deifying the classic mystic – is aimed at creating moments of
unconditional oneness with divinity itself. Examples of this kind of process
are the Kabbalistic En Sof, the Egyptian Nu, or the wall of clouds which
resides on the other side of the Abyss.
So why did theosis as a mystical path matter so much from the earliest
days of Christianity? To understand its relevance to the emerging new faith,
we have to understand it in the context of its time and theology.
During the first five hundred years of the common era the divided
Roman Empire slowly collapsed, Rome became a neglected city in decay,
and secular power shifted to a swiftly expanding, learned and multi-cultural
city in the East, the old Byzantium, renamed Constantinople. Intertwined
with these changes in secular power, the last iteration of the ancient pagan
cults fell apart and the spiritual vacuum which extended into all parts of
ancient life (political, military, social etc.) was aggressively absorbed by the
eager and power-hungry young Church. During this period of drastic
change, especially for the first few centuries, Egypt was still recognised as an
ancient source of spiritual learning and continued to be a destination for
many philosophers. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, many of them left
disappointed as the authentic mystery cults had largely disappeared, and
most of what was left had turned into a flashy and commercial industry
without much substance.1

For there were adulteries everywhere and thefts, and the whole earth was
full of murders and plunderings. And as to corruption and wrong, no
heed was paid to law, but all crimes were being practised everywhere,
both individually and jointly. Cities were at war with cities, and nations
were rising up against nations; and the whole earth was rent with civil
 commotions and battles; each man vying with his fellows in lawless
deeds.2

To Christians of that time – we refer here not to those motivated by

broadening their secular power base but by establishing an authentic
Christian mystical path – all of the above would have made perfect sense.
For the Christians, to see mankind descend into decadence, to see old
empires degenerate, to see tribes from the Far East and North overrun
ancient cultural centres, and to watch the few that were spared bereave
themselves of the last grains of spiritual integrity; finally, to see the old
centre of philosophy – the ancient library of Alexandria – completely vanish
from the map in 391 CE; to many, such catastrophes could only foreshadow
the Second Coming of Christ. e painful disintegration of the world they
and their ancestors had known seemed reason enough to withdraw rather
than become embroiled in the social chaos that surrounded them. What now
seemed important was not to fight for the emergence of a new and better
social world, as this was seen as both the domain of divinity and impossible
for mankind to address in its current state with so little time left. Instead,
what was needed was to seek isolation in which to purify oneself, to define
and set out on an ascetic path of seclusion and deep mystical devotion, in
order to advance one’s personal preparedness to be taken out of this world
and into a better one.

is world, however, which is itself called an ‘age,’ is said to be the end of
many ages.3
From this sociohistoric context emerged the crucial proposition that
underpins the Christian notion of theosis: Adam’s act against God that led
to original sin was considered to have made a deep eschatological impact on
all of the created world, not only the first man and woman. Since then Satan
has been believed to hold humankind ransom and his powers hold dominion
over each newborn human. Origen summarised this flawed state of creation
before the arrival of Christ, which became a foundational element of the
orthodox teachings of early Christianity:

e fact is therefore clear that, just as in regard to things that are good
the mere human will is by itself incapable of completing the good act, –
for this is in all cases brought to perfection by divine help – so also in
regard to things of the opposite kind we derive the beginnings and what
we may call the seeds of sin from those desires which are given to us
naturally for our use. But when we indulge these to excess and offer no
resistance to the first movements towards intemperance, then the hostile
power, seizing the opportunity of this first offence, incites and urges us on
in every way, striving to extend the sins over a larger field; so that while
we men supply the occasions and beginnings of our sins, the hostile
powers spread them far and wide and if possible endlessly. It is thus that
the fall into avarice at last takes place, men first longing for a little money
and then increasing in greed as the vice grows. Afterwards their passion is
succeeded by a mental blindness and, with the hostile powers stimulating
and urging them on, money is now not merely longed for but even seized
by force or acquired through the shedding of human blood.4
According to this worldview, becoming deified, or achieving theosis, had
been an impossibility from the days of Adam until the advent of the Son of
God. is was not necessarily for lack of trying on the part of humans, but
because the ‘seeds of sin,’ Satan’s influence over humanity, had taken root too
deeply in human nature since Adam’s fall from grace – and the divine help
needed to break through the gridlock of perdition had not yet arrived.
e incarnation of the divine Word in Jesus of Nazareth was believed to
be the pivotal turning point in this cosmological predicament. As the
Church Father, Athanasius of Alexandria (296–373), pointedly summarised
the impact of this critical event: ‘For He was made man, that we might be
made God.’5 e divine Word humanising itself in the flesh opened the
reverse passage for all spirits born into flesh to once again deify themselves.
e eschatological importance of this event cannot be overstated, which is
why the early Church Fathers explained it in minute detail. Following the
orthodox teachings established by Athanasius, the divine energies did not
immerse themselves into the already begotten yet unborn Jesus, nor did the
Son of God descend from heaven directly as a divine person into Mary’s
womb. Instead, the Word consubstantiated (homooúsion) itself with the
human spirit, and the mortal flesh within which the latter had to descend,
thus creating a new hybrid form of being, human as well as divine. It was
precisely this process of mending the divine and human realms again –
within the body of Christ – that opened a way to deify all human spirits
from then onwards.6
If one desires to be a seeker of understanding of the Christian mystical
path, even if its orthodox version is not one’s own, it is critical to fully
understand the divine event that, according to the teaching, obtained in the
mortal body of Jesus of Nazareth. ink of the human DNA, or alternatively
of the morphogenetic field containing our species’ entire collective
information archive; according to the early Church Fathers, through the
divine events that took place in the body of Christ, the very information in
this DNA or field was altered forever: from this moment forth, any member
of the human species would have access to an altered kind of reality.
Athanasius of Alexandria was well aware how vulnerable this hypothesis
was to all sorts of attacks. e daring premise was that the birth, existence
and fate of a single human being had essentially changed the very nature of
existence for all humans thereafter. is was not only an incredibly bold
claim, but truly a first in the Abrahamic tradition as well as the ancient
pagan cults. Traditional heroes and founding fathers had also shone in divine
light as gifted beyond measure compared to the average human. However,
neither the pharaohs, nor Moses, nor the Greek heroes had claimed to
ontologically change what it meant to be a human for all humans who
followed them. is was the bold claim of the early Christians – that
through the Saviour’s death on the cross, divinity had defeated death itself
and opened the doors to immortality for all humans to come. Christ had
closed the cycle of continually falling away from divinity that had begun
with Adam.
For comparison, we might consider an event of similar impact in terms of
the four elements: because of what had happened to one flame, one wave,
one breeze, or one grain of sand – everything from that moment onwards
that would ever happen to all of fire, water, air or earth, would be changed.
e premise of Jesus of Nazareth having become the living vessel of the
divine Word in the flesh meant that the entire macrocosm was contained in a
single species’ microcosm. In Athanasius’s own words:

For just as, while the whole body is quickened and illumined by man,
supposing one said it were absurd that man’s power should also be in the
toe, he would be thought foolish; because, while granting that he
pervades and works in the whole, he demurs to his being in the part also;
thus he who grants and believes that the Word of God is in the whole
Universe, and that the whole is illumined and moved by Him, should not
think it absurd that a single human body also should receive movement
and light from Him. […] us it is not at all unseemly that the Word
should be in man, while all things are deriving from Him their light and
movement and light, as also their authors say, ‘In him we live and move
and have our being.’ So, then, what is there to scoff at in what we say, if
the Word has used that, wherein He is, as an instrument to manifest
Himself? For were He not in it, neither could He have used it; but if we
have previously allowed that He is in the whole and in its parts, what is
incredible in His manifesting Himself in that wherein He is?7

As God made man by a word, why not restore him by a word?8

Daring as this theological challenge was, its most vulnerable aspect proved to
be the inability of followers of the new faith – and all the barbarians ready to
be converted in the centuries to come – to experience it as reality firsthand.
What the Christian Fathers required from everyone joining their Church
was a total leap of faith. Again, Athanasius of Alexandria recognises this
deeply problematic aspect in On the Incarnation of the Word and goes to great
lengths trying to establish the authority of Christianity over all previous
religions and cults. Unfortunately he has incredibly little factual ammunition
to make his case – and makes even more bold claims, for instance, of how
the spiritual power of the Cross already overcame and disproved all magic
forever. e inability to prove the foundational ontological claim of
Christianity – that divinity through Christ the Redeemer had ended the
rulership of death and (re-) opened the door to immortality for everyone –
turned into a terrible catch-22. us we see Athanasius insisting that the
recent waves of voluntary martyrdom of so many young Christians would
actually prove that the rulership of death had ended. e ultimate way of
experiencing the truth of the Christian faith, i.e. the powerlessness of death,
seemed to consist in voluntarily walking into death. Even an empathetic
seeker of understanding cannot help but consider this either a highly cynical
or blatantly fanatical way to legitimise if not outright advocate for the
suicidal tendencies of one’s own cult members.

is exceptional fact must be tested by experience. Let those who doubt
it become Christians. Is this, then, a slight proof of the weakness of
death? Or is it a slight demonstration of the victory won over him by the
Saviour, when the youths and young maidens that are in Christ despise
this life and practise to die? For man is by nature afraid of death and of
the dissolution of the body; but there is this most startling fact, that he
 who has put on the faith of the Cross despises even what is naturally
fearful, and for Christ’s sake is not afraid of death.9

§ III

the above doctrines quickly became orthodox Christian

W
HILE

teachings, not everybody got stuck in the dead end of its

inexperiencable reality. Quite the opposite. e trick to unlock this,
was not to focus on an intellectual chain of arguments that would prove the
superiority of Christianity and convert large numbers of heathens. In order
to open up an individual’s experiential reality to the new Christian faith, one
needed to take precisely the reverse path to what Origen or Athanasius had
set out to do. Rather than attempting to rewrite the philosophical discourse
on spiritual truth in order to establish a new dominant orthodoxy aimed at
the masses, one had to stop philosophising altogether and withdraw into
silent solitary practice.

If we are ready to search for such authentic human beings throughout

history, then we shall sometimes discover them in unexpected places and
in unconventional persons. One place, where men and women sought
aggressively to understand the deeper meaning and the fuller measure of
human existence, was the desert of early Christian Egypt. at dry
desert, from the third century until around the end of the fourth century,
became the laboratory for exploring hidden truths about Heaven and
earth and a forging ground for drawing connections between the two.10
Much has been written in recent years about the early Desert Fathers. To
further explore these foundational Christian figures, in particular for the
Orthodox Church of the East, we recommend the excellent works of
Kallistos Ware, John Chryssavgis or Gabriel Bunge. Here I only want to
place a small stepping stone in the river of the Western magical tradition,
balanced upon which we may see from a new perspective the currents that
surround us.
e path of the Desert Fathers emerged in the third century with a figure
called Antony. By the time Origen wrote his famous biography on the
(seemingly) first of the Christian hermits in the Egyptian waste-lands, the
desert had become a city.11 e lifestyle of these early hermits was incredibly
harsh. In fact, at the time when the Christian faith was no longer as
intensely prosecuted, many saw these desert hermits as natural successors to
the martyrs. e path towards heavenly ascent that led through an
amphitheatre full of hungry lions had vanished. Walking out into the open
desert, living in a cave or crevice, became the new strategy.

e voice of the desert’s heart replaced the voice of the martyr’s blood.12

e intent of the early Desert Fathers was essentially antisocial: they did not
go into the desert to attract followers; they initially refused to provide advice
to laymen seeking them out, refused gifts, and most importantly, they did
not partake in collective liturgy or communal service.13 Over time three
kinds of early Christian desert monasticism developed: the cenobite style
found in upper Egypt, represented by devotees living in a small community
of desert ascetics; the middle way, found in Nitria and Scetis, consisting of
small settlements under a common spiritual leader; and the original hermit
life, where individual monks lived in almost complete seclusion and isolation
under the most austere circumstances.14 For our purposes we will be
referring to this latter category. e early hermits were often simple men,
fighting to establish and maintain the hardest of all possible lifestyles. While
the usual path of social ascent is directed away from poverty and towards
some kind of middle class lifestyle, the desert fathers intentionally inverted
this direction. By scraping away anything that was superfluous to pure
survival, they aimed at complete apatheia or non-desire. In a world that
seemed to be falling apart, where there was no longer a moral line separating
the deeds of men from those of beasts, these hermits traded the wilderness
of the heart for the wilderness of the desert. To cultivate the purity of their
heart space, they believed, they had to abandon any places marked by the
signs of civilisation.
It was here, in the Egyptian desert, that the Christian idea of the seven
deadly sins first took shape. In a spiritual community of practitioners where
apatheia (numbness of passions) was the declared initial goal, acedia
(numbness of will) was the first and foremost enemy.15 All forms of desire
and passion were regarded as a spiritual sickness that required washing out
through constant prayers, tears and isolation. What is critical to note is that
prayer (as well as the process of shedding tears that it might trigger) was to
the Desert Fathers a spiritual and rational act. As such its nature deserves
clarification, as it is quite different from our common modern
understanding.
 From ancient Egyptian times up until the late Middle Ages the heart was
not considered the seat of human emotions. Instead, human desires, feelings
and intuition were located in the gut and bowels. e heart, on the other
hand, was considered the centre of true personality. e heart was not only
the core of personal and spiritual identity (compare the German kabbalistic
term Sondersein), but the acknowledged pathway towards divinity itself.

For biblical authors, the heart does not signify the feelings and emotions;
for these are located lower down, in the guts and the entrails. e heart
designates, on the contrary, the inwardness of our human personhood in
its full spiritual depth.16

When the Fathers of the Christian Church, both Greek and Latin,
understand salvation in terms of theosis or ‘deification,’ they are referring
to a process which certainly embraces the totality of our personhood, yet
which comes to its ultimate fulfilment only within the ‘virgin point’ of
the deep heart.17

erefore, continuous access to and connectedness with one’s deep heart

space – unconstrained by desires and demons – was the one thing that was
not superfluous to the Desert Fathers. In fact, it was the pinhead upon
which they balanced their entire strategy of theosis. To achieve access to
one’s heart space the technical repertoire of the Desert Fathers presents itself
to us as raw and essential as a cold night crammed in a desert crevice:
 […] the virtues of the desert: ascetic struggle, spiritual detachment,
prayer and tears.18

Live by the cross, in spiritual warfare, in spiritual poverty, in voluntary

spiritual asceticism, in fasting, penitence and tears, in discernment, in
purity of soul, taking hold of that which is good. Do your work in peace.
Persevere in keeping vigil, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness,
and in sufferings. Shut yourself in a tomb as though you were already
dead, so that at all times you will think that death is near.19

To speak of a set of spiritual techniques when considering the first Desert

Fathers is to already misspeak. As Abba John explained, the toolkit of these
hermits consisted of two things: the bare physical cell or cave they retreated
into and a ‘vigilant spirit.’20 It is easy to overlook the importance of the fact
that the Desert Fathers did not come to the desert with a program or plan
beyond the intention of being present to the experience. e desert to these
hermits was the ultimate locus magica of their gnostic revolution against all
aspects of mortal life. All they needed to do was to sit and to witness the
revolution happen in their cells.

Always have the fear of God before your eyes. Remember Him who gives
death and life. Hate the world and all that is in it. Hate all peace that
comes from the flesh. Renounce this life, so that you may be alive to
God.21

Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.22
 Go, sit in your cell, and engrave it on your heart.23

e monk ought to be as the cherubim and the seraphim: all eye!24

Abba Macarius the Great said to the brothers at Scetis: ‘Flee, my

brothers.’ One of the old men asked him: ‘Where else could we flee
beyond this desert?’ Macarius placed his finger on his lips and said: ‘Flee
that!’ And he went into his cell, shut the door, and sat down.25
Abba Poemen said: ‘When David was fighting with the lion, he seized
it by the throat and killed it immediately. If we take ourselves by the
throat and by the belly, with the help of God, we shall overcome the
invisible lion.’26

As we can see from these exemplary quotes, the early Desert Fathers did not
speak of mystical ascent. Instead, in the writings that have come down to us
they focus intensely on ‘taking ourselves by the throat.’ While far from
wishing to promote any kind of self harm, we would point to a profound
lesson embedded in the words of these harsh spiritual adepts. Especially
during the early stages of a spiritual path, many people bemoan how hard it
is to establish sufficient time, space and discipline for regular practice.
Grabbing this inner voice by the throat and killing it is indeed a prerequisite
if any substantial progress is to be made.
As we will see from the exercises later in this chapter, in order to make
progress in our mystical work, we do not need to anchor ourselves in the
excessive dwelling upon all kinds of mortal sins, such as the hermit Evagrius
the Solitary (345–399 CE) famously promoted. We can leave such
dysfunctional behaviour to fundamentalists who have less spirit worker
influence in their traditions than us – and who do not see the divine light in
every stone, seed and being. For our journey, it is perfectly possible to enjoy
life in the flesh to the fullest and to still curate a personal mystical path
towards divinity. However, what is not possible is to achieve such a goal
without ongoing practice in solitude and silence; i.e. without regularly
shutting ourselves into our cells.
To the Desert Fathers, theurgy in its literal sense, the operation of
theosis, consisted of a natural cyclical interweaving of doxology (upwards
praise of divinity) and compunction (downward feeling of
humility/remorse). As Bishop Kallistos Ware puts it in e Jesus Prayer, it is
a wave pattern between lifting one’s gaze to the heavens and feeling one’s
tears fall to the ground.27 Both, humility and greatness, sin and divinity, are
present with us in the same moment.

Here we return to Origen’s reflections on Jesus Christ: divinity had first

impressed itself into the substance of creation and given itself a face in
Adam. en, to save the human species from the hands of death, it repeated
the process, and immersed itself again in the form of Jesus Christ. According
to this notion – and the idea of man being created in the image of God –
each of us was also given a face. e act of turning our face towards someone
else and of facing them, thus holds deep spiritual meaning. It is divinity
looking itself in the eye, through the mirror of our mortal faces. Over an
abyss of darkness and time, the voices of the Desert Fathers might ask us:
Which encounter are we ready to face? What are we turning our faces
towards? Considered from this viewpoint, each gaze and glance has the
potential to become a prayer – and to pull us closer towards divinity. It can,
of course, become the opposite – a spell that binds us more fixedly into a
world of ubiquitous distraction and a life lacking in consequence.
So, when the moment comes, and when we look into the dark mirror of
our own souls – which face will look back at us? e golem face of our
natural self (our inner Adam) or the angelic face of our spiritual self (our
inner Christ)? It is the work of the mystic that mediates between these
options. We have to become the spine that holds itself up with no external
help. And it is this work that cannot happen unless we submit ourselves to
silence and prayer.

Jesus said: I am the light that is above them all. I am the all; the all came
forth from me, and the all attained to me. Cleave a piece of wood; I am
there. Raise up a stone, and you will find me there.28

§ IV

Hesychia: the Greek word for quiet or stillness. From this comes the word
‘hesychast,’ meaning one who pursues inner stillness through the Jesus
Prayer or in some other way. ‘Hesychasm’ denotes the tradition of
contemplative prayer developed in the Christian East from the 4th century
onwards.29
LMOST TWO MILLENNIA since the first hermits walked out into the Egyptian
desert, the spirit and style of their practice still survives in the Eastern

A Orthodox Christian tradition called Hesychasm. Today the most

famous example of the Hesychast tradition is found in the Greek
monasteries at Mount Athos. e remote location of these hard to
access ancient rock castles illustrates perfectly the inner attitude towards
complete reclusiveness that marks this tradition. Since the fourth century, in
striking simplicity and power, they have continued to follow the plain
instructions given in Matthew 6:6: ‘But when you pray, go into your room,
close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. en your Father,
who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.’
e Hesychast tradition took this instruction to the extreme and evolved
an entire lifestyle around the idea of withdrawal from the outer world, and
also from the outer human senses. Continuing the tradition of the early
Desert Fathers, a guided process emerged of sinking away from the world
and immersing oneself entirely into a place of inner focus, concentration and
divine dedication. roughout the centuries this tradition has undergone
surprisingly little change, remaining anchored in the ideals of simplicity,
seclusion and stillness. From a magical perspective, it is fair to say that the
Hesychast’s way forms the ultimate Saturnian path within the broader field
of Christian mysticism.
Now, the reason that, despite its continued prominence in the East, far
fewer people in the West have heard about Hesychasm than say, Zen
Buddhism, can be explained by two factors: the Hesychast’s path is a lonely
road, unpaved, and inaccessible to all but the lone practitioner, and
Hesychasm focuses on the spiritual person of Jesus Christ. e central
notion of Hesychasm is the individual’s active immersion into stillness and
the subsequent intimate mystical experience that might emerge from it.
From its earliest days the emerging Christian Church perceived
individualistic mysticism as a threat to its sovereign claim of enabling access
to salvation. At the heart of the young Church’s power structure was the
socially performed collective liturgy, reaching its pinnacle in the weekly
Communion. Breaking away from the requirement of attending this weekly
communal service – and to continually refresh the effect of one’s baptism
through the orthodox rite and blessing of a priest – was perceived as a direct
threat, if not an attack. Ultimately, this difference in perspective on the right
path towards divine mystical experience – whether it was paved by
individually or collectively mediated experiences – contributed not
insignificantly to the chasm between the Western Catholic and the Eastern
Orthodox Churches in the eleventh century. As a result, the Western
Church remained anchored in social community and the collective service,
whereas the Eastern Church continued to advocate outer and inner silence
and stillness as the locus where man encounters divinity, and divinity
encounters man.

For the East it mattered in particular to combine the reception of the

Neoplatonist theology of Dionysius [the Areopagite] with a theology of
spirituality and ascesis. To a certain degree this resulted in a de-
intellectualism of its mysticism, and a preference for practical ways of
 living and experiencing, and in particular an increasing focus on the way
of the monk.30

e other factor that prevented broad popularisation of Hesychasm in the

West is its emphasis on the spiritual person of Jesus Christ. For an age like
our own, obsessed with narcissistic self-optimisation, the Son of God has
explicitly ‘low brand value’: once we have drunk from the poison chalice of
the twenty-first century – mixed with a startling lack of education, the
absence of the experience of self-efficacy and ubiquitous social media
pressure – we easily bedevil ourselves and replace authenticity with likability.
Constantly reinforcing the public persona scaffold around our feeble selves
leaves little time for regular silent practice. Deep spiritual practice always
leads to the discovery of a significant other, the divine ou. It seems logical,
therefore, that in a world requiring us to be so full of ourselves, we simply no
longer have the desire or capacity to encounter any spiritual counterpart.
Most certainly, such circumstances do not encourage the messy business of
taking Christ, the Son of God, off the cross of the world and into our arms.

Once there was an old man who spent several hours each day in church.
‘What are you doing there?’ his friends enquired. ‘I’m praying,’ he
replied. ‘Praying!’ they exclaimed. ‘ere must be a great many things
that you want to ask from God.’ With some indignation the old man
responded, ‘I’m not asking God for anything.’ ‘What are you doing,
then?’ they said. And the old man replied, ‘I just sit and look at God, and
God sits and looks at me.’31
For very good reasons, the act of praying has escaped the modern current of
exploitation and reduction of ancient spiritual techniques into agnostic
personality patches. Perhaps this is because praying – at least in its
traditional form – requires someone to pray to; prayer is an unmediated
encounter between man and the divine, facilitated only by the faculty of
silent presence and quiet utterance. In its essence, prayer points away from
ourselves and towards the divine. Its spirit is wonderfully reflected in Martin
Buber’s saying: ‘Do not look at yourself, but look at the world around you.’
In prayer we close our eyes and direct our gaze deeply into the eyes of the
world.

While there are many authentic traditions that continue to hold open the
gateway to the spiritual Other, Hesychasts can certainly be counted among
the most experienced adepts of prayer. What follows is an outline of their
core practice.
It might be easiest for today’s community of practising magicians to
consider Hesychast prayer the reverse of the traditional technique of
‘pathworking’ or travelling in vision. In Christian terms, the latter is called
‘contemplative meditation,’ most famously deconstructed and codified in the
spiritual techniques compiled by Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556). Loyola
describes an approach in which the practitioner embarks on an experiential
inner journey, a vision quest, centred on specific spiritual themes, locations
and beings. Hesychasts, as the ‘quietness’ or ‘stillness’ of the name implies,
prefer the precise opposite – they centre themselves in continuous and
complete single-pointedness towards the divine.
 is is accomplished through a straightforward, yet highly challenging
approach. True to the spirit of the Desert Fathers, the practitioner is directed
to enter a cell, a quiet, dark space away from any kind of distraction and
disturbance. Here they stay for long periods of time, this cell taking the place
of the Egyptian desert. As such, the monk would consider any activity away
from one’s cell a short interruption – the monk’s inner life could only come
forth in the isolation of the cell. Initially, it seems, being present to the
experience of the desert/one’s cell was all that was required. Solitude, silence
and stillness were all it took to kick off the painful human drama of freeing
oneself from all desires and slowly pushing oneself into a state of apatheia.
e day was marked by formalised prayers at dawn and sunset, by
speaking the Lord Father five times a day and by short ejaculatory prayers,
that is, compressed sequences of divine words shot like arrows at the demons
tormenting the monks in their cells. It was only from the fifth century CE
onwards that the technique we know today as the Jesus Prayer emerged in
the writings of the early Hesychasts.32 is foundational technique can be
described thus: in the darkness of the monk’s cell, one assumes one of two
physical postures. Most commonly one crouches low, head buried between
the knees and arms wrapped around his or her legs. is is a classic ritual
position which we also find utilised among eleventh century Jewish
Merkavah mystics:

Perhaps you know that many of the sages believed that whoever is wort
[possessing] several [moral] attributes which are mentioned and specified,
when he wants to see the Merkavah and glimpse the Hekhalot of the
 angels on high, there are ways of doing so. He is to sit in fasting a certain
number of days, lay his head between his knees, and whisper many songs
and praises, which are specified, to the ground. And so you can glimpse
inside it and its chambers as one who sees with his eyes the seven
Hekhalot and sees as if he is entering from one Hekhal to another, and
sees what is in it.33

Alternatively, and more rarely, we find descriptions of the classical ancient

prayer posture: standing upright, the hands open and outstretched (manibus
extensis), or sometimes even with the arms lifted to the sky. Both postures, of
course, will become uncomfortable after a while, which is not an unintended
side effect of this quintessentially Saturnian path.
In this position the monk intones the Jesus Prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God, have mercy on me.’ Or its alternative form: ‘Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ e form of this short orison is
directly derived from Luke 18:38 and Mark 10:47. Now, uttering it over and
over, whether in silence or crying out loud, equates to the process of slowly
cutting a diamond in the rough. e monk is left in the darkness of his cell
uttering those ten words for as long as they can be sustained.

rough the Jesus Prayer we perform an ‘inner liturgy.’34

As mentioned above, leveraging an orison based entirely on the mercy of

Jesus Christ is likely to seem quite foreign to modern practitioners of
Western magic. It is important to remember, however, that we are
approaching the Son of God here in the original spiritual form, long before
the Catholic Church took possession of it. One might consider the
importance and power attributed to divine names in the practical operations
of Jewish Kabbalah and Merkavah mysticism. What we encounter in the
Jesus Prayer is the New Testament version of this same practice, a gateway to
throw oneself unconditionally through, toward the direct encounter with
divinity.

A common mistake of beginners is to wish to associate the invocation of

the Holy Name with inner intensity or emotion. ey try to say it with
great force. But the Name of Jesus is not to be shouted, or fashioned with
violence, even inwardly. When Elijah was commanded to stand before
the Lord, there was a great and strong wind, but the Lord was not in the
wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the
earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the
fire. And after the fire came a still small voice: ‘And it was so, when Elijah
heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and
stood …’ (1 Kings 19:13).35

Finally, once the supplicant is fully immersed in darkness and awash with the
utterance of the Jesus Prayer, they can choose to go one step further.
Advanced practitioners are guided to slowly lower the centre of their
utterance from their lips or minds, down through their throats, into their
chests, and to anchor their speech in their heart space. Uttering the Jesus
Prayer from one’s heart is close to the final stage of prayer to be mastered.
Further down the path awaits the final stage: a place where the heart remains
open and anchored in this prayer continuously. Now, even when the monk is
not attending to the prayer, the prayer is still attending to the monk.

It is customary in Orthodoxy, as in Western Christianity, to distinguish

three levels of prayer: of the lips, of the mind, and of the heart. […] As
well as being the centre of our created personhood, the heart is also the
point of encounter between each created person and the uncreated God.
It is the gateway to self-transcendence, the place of divine indwelling.36

Before we proceed to our own practice of the heart prayer, it seemed

important to provide a grounding as well as a minimum of historic
background to the Hesychast tradition. Our intent here, however, was not to
promote the active practice of the Jesus prayer amongst a modern magical
audience, quite the opposite. If someone indeed felt drawn towards such an
extreme ascetic Christian path, they should examine their motives, and
ultimately make an unconditional decision to immerse themselves in it fully,
or to walk away. We can only walk one path at a time; whichever way we
choose, it is the hallmark of the adept to fully immerse themselves in their
chosen practice. As a seekers of understanding, our aim is never to imitate
other traditions – but to see the traces of our own in their tracks.

§V

All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; but the dose makes
it that a thing is not a poison.
 – Paracelsus, Septem defensiones

the impulse to bow to the Desert Fathers and their

B
EFORE WE FOLLOW

radical pursuit of silence and mystical asceticism, let’s take a moment to

pause. So far this chapter has been a journey into the minds of the early
Church Fathers and their descendants in the Hesychast tradition. In order to
immerse ourselves in their way of making sense of the world, we had to
momentarily silence our own. us, we have followed the logic typical of
Athanasius of Alexandria or Origen without arguing against it, but rather in
the pursuit of a current that is an extreme counterpoint to the ancient pagan
worldview. By definition, for such an immersion to be truthful in the
perspective of the ‘tribe’ we are studying, it has to be fuelled by positive
intent towards them, and thus can initially prove to be rather naive and
uncritical. In other words, much of the above only shows us one side of the
coin. Unsurprisingly, it turns out to be the side that has been polished and
romanticised for centuries by Christians and historians alike. Whenever
propaganda works, it lures us into the mental trap of believing the world to
be a simple place with definitive solutions to obvious problems. As wiser,
independent practitioners though, we know that everything is a poison; it is
the dosage that defines its effect.
Let us change position and regard the Desert Fathers from a different
point of view. How would a classic philosopher or a pagan practitioner have
looked at them? And what were some of the objective consequences of their
actions which imprinted an emerging Christianity?
 In answering these questions, perhaps no other literary source can assist
us better than Karlheinz Deschner’s ten volume magnum opus
Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums (Criminal History of Christianity). While
still not translated into English and outlawed from the beginning by
mainstream media, Deschner’s detailed analysis has been widely recognised
for the richness of its historical sources, its unrelenting focus on proven facts
and its blunt exposition of human nature and Christian practitioners in
particular. We will draw extensively on its encyclopaedic depth in this
section, for Deschner’s work proves invaluable in ensuring our attempt to
become seekers of understanding does not come at the cost of compromising
objective facts.
Here is how an outside observer would have described the scene when
encountering the radical antisocial project of the Desert Fathers for the first
time: the main ideal of the allegedly 24,000 ascetics living in the Egyptian
desert towards the end of the fourth century CE was to avoid any kind of
civilisation, and instead to live like wild animals. Given the extreme
conditions of their chosen environment, they turned out to be highly
successful; most resembled animals in human form, they dwelled in grave-
like holes too small to stretch out their legs, they cowered in the smallest
cells, caves, crevices, scarp slopes, cages and animal dwellings. eir diet
consisted of occasional grains picked from camel dung. ey tormented their
weak bodies with heavy pendants made of thick metal or sharp-edged rocks
that they wore at all times. ey did not wash or clean themselves, and
avoided contact with other human beings at all costs.37
 Bishop eodoret reported, Saint Sisinnus lived in a grave for three years,
‘without sitting down, without laying down or without even taking a
single step.’ For eleven years Saint Maron vegetated in a hollow tree,
spiked on the inside with huge thorns. ese were meant to inhibit him
from any movement, just like the complicated stone hanging around his
forehead. Saint Marana and Saint Cyra had such chains that they could
only walk bent over. ‘So they have,’ assures eodor, ‘spent forty-two
years.’ Saint Azepsimus, famous throughout the Orient, was loaded with
so much iron that he left his hut to drink by crawling on all fours. Saint
Eusebius lived in a dry pond for three years, dragging his usual twenty
pounds of iron chains and still added another fifty from the divine
Agapitus and eighty, which the great Marcianus had worn.38

Even if only half of the above quote accounts for historical truth, we still get
the point. Choosing such a fanatical lifestyle for oneself is one thing;
instilling its premises into the very fabric of a theology meant for the masses,
is something entirely different. Yet that is precisely what happened. Hand in
hand with the Christian rejection of civilisation, and the relentless
apocalyptical focus, came a radical turning away from the core values of
antiquity. Philosophy, education, pedagogy, art, science – nothing of the
kind held any value for the cave-dwelling Desert Fathers. Even in the
twentieth century, the Catholic priest Ludwig von Hertling (1892–1980),
writing about Anthony, the first Desert Father, could assert, ‘What’s the use
of all the education, when one is a Christian? What one requires for life, one
hears in the Church. at’s enough.’39
 But even turning away from the rich achievements of antiquity and
walking out into the desert was not enough. e spirit of evangelism was
already strong amongst early Christians, and thus civilisation beyond the
circle of the desert had to be fought and demonised as well, in order to guide
all human souls towards Christ. us the radical attitude required for a
period of intense spiritual retreat was disseminated and propagandised as the
new God-given blueprint for all of human society.

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and
children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life — such a person
cannot be my disciple.40

Now, in magic when we prepare for an intense ritual cycle we might adopt a
broad range of the behaviours not unlike those of the Desert Fathers. ere
is no problem – in fact, there is a lot of benefit – in leaning into an extreme
lifestyle for a period of time. But when the rituals are done, we centre
ourselves again in a more balanced approach to the world. It is then, and by
fully participating in the outside world, that we come to see the effects of our
previous rites. us by definition, magicians need to learn to be nimble and
agile in constantly adjusting to life’s circumstances. Perhaps still more
importantly, they need to learn to be skilfully present in both realms – the
inner and the outer – and to ensure the one is enriching the other and
neither comes at the cost of the other. e reason why we propagate such an
agile approach to the world, is that we do not only see single moments, but
we see all moments as if along a thread, and that thread forms a loop
between the present, the future, and back into our ancient past again.
 e extreme eschatological view of the Desert Fathers did not allow for
such a holistic perspective of time. To them, the end was nigh. All that
mattered was the very next moment, this last short life, at the end of which
Christ would return and call for Judgement Day. With such an ‘inside
perspective,’ obviously neither the ideas of balance nor long-term impact
were of any interest. What mattered was being uncompromising in the here
and now, for as long as it would last, until Judgement Day. At least on the
surface, the early Desert Fathers did not walk out into the wilderness to
found a new religion. ey walked away from a world that they decidedly no
longer wanted to participate in. eir steps followed a conscious path into
death. In this radical ‘suicide mission,’ extreme one-sidedness was not
considered a bug but a key feature. e problems only began to arise when
out of this fanatical mindset emerged a fully fledged, spiritually vestured
movement, hungry for worldly power and control over the masses.
Suddenly the rigid rejection of philosophy, education, arts, science and
social life was no longer a temporary decision to achieve a particular personal
mission. Rather, it quickly became a new fanatical orthodoxy circumscribing
everyone’s everyday lives. is paradigmatic shift – which ultimately led to
the dark age of the Middle Ages – was significantly accelerated by the one-
sided demographic make up of the early Christian community: during the
first several centuries Christianity had almost exclusively recruited from the
lower social classes who lacked proper education and material wealth.41

It certainly is no coincidence that Clemens of Alexandria had to defend

himself against believers, who claim philosophy was of the devil, that the
 ancient Christians often heard the criticism they were the ‘stupid’ (stulti).
Even Tertullian wholeheartedly admits the idiotae have always been in
the majority in Christianity.42

So this is what the pagan philosopher might have noted from observing the
emerging Christian Church as it gained momentum: a group of un-
educated, poor fanatics went out into the desert to empty their cups and seek
death; filthy, unwashed and full of anger, they returned from it with a chalice
filled with poison they were willing to force upon the world. If you consider
such a verdict too harsh, think again, consider the actual words of an outside
observer from the second century CE, the famous opponent of the Christians
and philosopher, Celsus:

Every educated person shall remain far from us, no sage and no rational
man shall approach us, for they are bad recommendations in our eyes.
But if one is ignorant, foolish, illiterate and simple-minded, then join us
courageously! By declaring such people worthy of their God, they make it
clear that they can and want to persuade only the underprivileged, the
lowly and ignorant, as well as slaves, poor women, and children.43

e toxicity of the early Christian movement went further than replacing the
values of classical antiquity with a poisonous mixture of fanatical orientation
towards the end, castigation of self and others (especially children), hate of
public discourse, and the renunciation of all social, civic and educational
conventions. e additional strand woven into this tapestry was a marked
intolerance for minorities – both amongst their own groups, as well as for
the Jewish tradition.

e Jews collect the choirs of the voluptuaries, the rabble the lewd
women and drag the whole theatre and the actors into the synagogue.
Because there is no difference between synagogue and theatre. e
synagogue is not just a theatre, it is is a whorehouse, a robber’s den and
sanctuary of unclean animals, a dwelling place of the Devil. And not only
are the synagogues the homes of robbers, traders and devils, but so too
are the souls of the Jews themselves.44

Much has been written about early Christianity as the cradle of antisemitism
as we know it today. And indeed, reading the old sources, one wonders if
many of the Church Fathers were so uneducated in techniques of mystical
ascent that the only way to lift themselves up was to denigrate the Jews. e
depths of collective agitation and widespread slander against their closest
relatives is hard to fathom. It is especially hard to believe considering that
during the early centuries, Christian writers maintained a softer tone
towards the remaining pagan communities. e latter were at least met with
some efforts to convince and proselytise – as we saw in the writings of
Athanasius and Origen. e former, however, were made scapegoats and
under constant vicious attack. Unfortunately, even today the Catholic
Church fails to acknowledge this unseemly tension in the writings of the
early Church Fathers: the collocation of everything we have seen – on the
one hand, the genuine pursuit of a mystical and human-centred path
towards theosis – while on the other, the poison chalice of fanatical
stultification and deeply engrained antisemitism: ‘Ashamed shall be the Jew.’
(St Basil) ‘eir leaders are criminals, their judges are villains … they are 99
times as bad as the non-Jews.’ (Ephrem the Syrian) ‘Hail, dear Church, from
every mouth, as you are free … from the stench of stinking Jews.’ (Ephrem
the Syrian) ‘even worse than the Devil.’ (Athanasius of Alexandria) ‘Two
kinds of humans, Christians and Jews,’ ‘light and darkness,’ sinner,’
‘murderer,’ ‘stirred filth.’ (Augustine of Hippo)45
Let us be mindful where we place our own feet on this journey. What will
we use as the basis of our ascent? Are we ready to place ourselves in the
hands of divinity, rather than placing our feet on the face of another man or
tradition? Today, just as during the days of our forefathers two millennia ago,
it should go without saying that a genuine mystical path requires neither the
debasement and humiliation of others, nor the debasement of everything
that does not fit into the confines of our magical circle.
In the following section we will move from theory to practice, to the
oracle of our own human senses, and what they may tell us about the truth.

[…] the beliefs of primitive peoples do not make the claim to the

absolute truth of a ‘highest’ being, an attitude of tolerance was
predominant in Ancient Greece. Exclusivity contradicted the polytheistic
paradigm. Patriotic cults could be combined with foreign ones. One was
generous, friendly-collegial, allowed prayers to all possible gods, believed
to see one’s own in others, and the idea of ‘conversion’ was not to be
encountered at all. Intolerance, says Schopenhauer, is only essential to
 monotheism, to a sole God, who is ‘in his nature, a jealous God, one not
allowing others to live.’46

§ VI

e meditator becomes a mediator.

– John Main, 1926–1982

consists of two operations of significant

T
HE FOLLOWING EXERCISE

importance for our mystical work. e first one has a strong outer
orientation, we use our body as an expression of the inner work we are
processing in parallel. e second and main exercise takes the opposite
approach: here we withdraw from the outside entirely, until we connect with
our heart space, in order to operate from behind the veil of our material
bodies and mortal selves. Ideally, both exercises should be completed in
sequence. However, the first exercise can also be combined with other
spiritual operations.
e first exercise slows down the mystical process performed in any
spiritual prostration. For years the author has used it as the first figure in any
magical ritual. It is to be performed outside the circle, still in front of the veil
of the ‘holy of holies’ and in complete darkness. If done correctly and with
complete focus, it has the potential to elevate the subsequent work to an
entirely different level.
e second exercise is our version of the orthodox Jesus Prayer which
does not require a long preamble, but simply repetition.
 Exercise 1

• Wear something light that won’t restrict your movement.

• Enter a dark, quiet and private place. Ensure no one can disturb you
during the operation. If you need light, it should come from natural,
unscented candles. Do not burn any incense during this exercise.
• Sit and allow your breath to calm. Do not force its flow, but gently allow
it to find its own rhythm. For a moment, consider where you have just
come from. What was the last activity you did before you entered the
room? Recognise that you are here now. In this room. Quietly observe
the darkness around you. What do you hear, see, smell right now? Enjoy
the calm of your senses, and how little they have to process. Sit in silence
for a while.
• Slowly lie down and stretch out on the floor. Face the earth, raise your
arms above your head, and make your body as long as you can. As your
body is stretching out on the ground, slowly allow your mind to merge
with the ground: see yourself growing roots into the ground below you. If
you are in a tall building, see these roots push down into the steel
structure of the building, into the concrete, downwards floor by floor,
until your roots reach the foundations, deeper still, until they grow
straight into the ground. Feel the force that flows back and forth in these
roots – from you to the earth, and back from the earth to yourself. You
are becoming one with the earth, deep down underground, with the
rocks, the blackness, the silence of the ancient deep. Give yourself time
to become one with the chthonic form.
• When you are fully one with the earth, wait for an impulse to separate
from it again. Do not rush. But when the spark arrives, remain lying on
the ground, and twist your arms and hands and cross your legs and feet.
You are separating from the sphere of possibilities. ink of the first
serpent emerging from the depths. at is you now. In its own time, your
mind follows this movement, and it separates from the earth again, and
comes together as you stretch and straighten out.
• When you have fully entered into your serpent form, wait for the next
impulse to arrive. When it does, pull your legs in, until you come up to
kneeling, face down with your forehead on the earth, your arms folded
around your head, your fingertips touching your elbows. From the line
you have moved to the triad. In your crouched, compressed form, you are
life in its virgin essence. A life yet to unfold, the semen in the womb, the
point of origin of all individuality. Rest in the position of the womb,
until you feel divinity pulling you further on.
• When it does, follow the movement: lift up your torso slowly until you
come to sitting, hands on your knees, facing straight forward looking
into darkness. You have arrived in the position of (wo)man. is is how
most of us spend our lives. It is a powerful and stable, yet static, position.
We do not yet stand before divinity, both legs are still bound to the
chthonic depths. While looking straight ahead into the darkness,
meditate on this position, what it teaches you about human life.
• At some point the next impulse will arrive. Again, do not rush it. But
when it finds you, come up to one foot. You have arrived in the position
of knighthood: it holds the promise of being able to walk, to manoeuvre
 and actively explore – and yet, confronted with divinity, it decides to rest
and kneel in a position of reverence and humility. Meditate on the ideal
of unconditional service and how it is connected to this position: a
knight exposing their neck to the sword of the king. Autonomous power
voluntarily surrendering its free will, subservient to a higher force. Who
is your king?
• Finally, when it happens, follow the impulse to lift yourself up and stand.
Stand tall and straight. You have arrived in the angelic position. is is
the position the angels take in front of the throne of divinity. It is their
privilege to stand, and to constantly watch the threshold between
Creation and the Void. Consider the responsibility that comes with this
position. e accountability you take for every move of this body of
yours. Every move, every word uttered from this position is an expression
of the divine. Now that you are standing straight and tall, you have
become a living gate.
• Bow to the darkness. You have now left the desert and entered your cell.
You are ready to work in silence.

Exercise 2

• Following exercise 1, sit in your preferred meditation posture. Hold on

to the awareness that emanated from exercise 1: every movement of your
body or mind is an expression and act of co-creation with divinity. is
means you will want to move slowly and consciously, yet without any
 unnecessary drama. Consider moving like a good waiter does when they
carry a full plate – with attention to detail and functional grace.
• e room should still be dark or at least dimmed. You can use natural
incense during this part of the operation. However, it has to be a plant,
resin or combination thereof that is unique to this operation. Do not use
the same incense for anything else other than this exercise.
• Centre yourself in the present moment. If you are experienced in
pranayama, now is a good time to go through several waves of the
fourfold breath. If you have the experience to use pranayama to activate
your chakras, then now is a good time to do that. Alternatively, sit,
breath naturally and imagine the following: with every out breath you are
exhaling darkness, and with every in breath you are inhaling light. Let
the exercise flow naturally, do not force anything. Sometimes the light
will take the path through your nose and down into your lungs;
sometimes your entire body will begin to breath through the skin.
• When you are in your cell, at peace and in the present moment, begin to
perceive a spark in your heart area. (It does not matter whether you
choose to work with eyes open or closed. Either way, this is why the
physical room around you needed to be dark or dimmed. It is much
easier to perceive the light of this spark in vision in a darkened
environment.) Stay with the presence of the spark in your chest until you
can clearly locate it. en allow your mind to sink down from behind
your eyes into the sphere of your heart. Feel free to experiment with
what kind of descent works best for you: a rapid fall like a stone to the
ground, the slow gliding of a leaf through air, or a gradual going
 downward as if drowning in quicksand. ere are many ways of
‘changing the lights.’
• When your consciousness has arrived and is centred within the spark of
your heart flame, realise how the world behind it has fallen away. ere is
nothing but this light anymore. You are within this light, and the light is
within you.
• You will realise when you are ready to move on. In whatever tone or
voice that naturally comes, begin to whisper, utter, intone or sing the
prayer given below. Do not force any kind of artificial melody upon it,
but allow it to unfold just like the light from your heart area. Anchored
in your heart space, remember the living gate you are, and bring the
words of the prayer through this gate. en repeat. And again. Over and
over, until your heart flame is saturated with the heart prayer, and your
heart prayer is saturated with light. Should English not be your native
language, it is strongly recommended to translate this prayer into your
own mother tongue.

On behalf of the wondrous heights.

On behalf of the silent depths.
e tongue of purity.
To you Divinity.
is holy melody.47

• Consider exercise 2 the spine of your mystical ladder. If it is not solidly

built and regularly strengthened, it will not carry any weight. Also,
consider that exercise 2 is not independent of the environment in which
 you perform it – both on a physical as well as a visionary level. at
means you may practice and observe differences in effect when present
and centred in a different locus magicus.

1   For a tour de force through the difficult passage of Late Antiquity we recommend the
open access version of A. H. M. Jones’s classic e Later Roman Empire 284–602, Blackwell
1964.
2   Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word.
3   Origen, On First Principles.
4   Origen, On First Principles.
5   Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word, 354:3.
6   On the Incarnation of the Word, 8–9.
7   On the Incarnation of the Word, 42:1–5.
8   On the Incarnation of the Word, 44.
9   On the Incarnation of the Word, 28:1–2.
10   John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert.
11   Chryssavgis, 191.
12   Chryssavgis, 481.
13   Chryssavgis, 198/219.
14   Chryssavgis, 455–467.
15   Bunge, 1114.
16   Kallistos Ware, Paths to the Heart, 7.
17   Kallistos Ware, Paths to the Heart, 4.
18   Chryssavgis, 538.
19   Abba John, in Chryssavgis, 621.
20   Chryssavgis, 625.
21   Abba Antony, in Chryssavgis, 797.
22   Abba Moses, in Chryssavgis, 882.
23   Abba Ammonas, in Chryssavgis, 909.
24   Abba Bessarion, in Chryssavgis, 937.
25   Chryssavgis, 949.
26   Chryssavgis, 1097.
27   Kallistos Ware, e Jesus Prayer, 39.
28   Gospel of omas, logion 77.
29   Kallistos Ware, e Jesus Prayer, 49.
30   Leppin, 40.
31   Ware, Kallistos, e Jesus Prayer, 3–4.
32   Ware, Kallistos, e Jesus Prayer, 7.
33   B. M. Lewin (ed.) Osar ha-Ge’oninm, vol. 4, 14. Hebrew University, 1931.
34   Kallistos Ware, e Jesus Prayer, 41.
35   Lev Gillet, On the Invocation of the Name of Jesus, in Ware, e Jesus Prayer, 26.
36   Kallistos Ware, e Jesus Prayer.
37   Deschner, vol.3, 345f.
38   Deschner, vol.3, 346.
39   Hertling, Antonius der Einsiedler, 1929, cited in Deschner, vol.3, 346.
40   Luke 14:26.
41   Deschner, vol.3, 344.
42   Deschner, vol.3, 344.
43   Celsus, in Deschner, vol.3, 344.
44   John Chrysostom, in Deschner, vol.1, 134.
45   All citations from Deschner, vol.1, 117f.
46   Deschner, vol.1, 120.
47   From the English translation of Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice.
 Being in both worlds at once

§I

we should have learned on our journey so far:

O
NE THING ABOVE ALL

should we long for something immaculate, let us not search amongst

our ancestors. Becoming a seeker of understanding means we will
encounter truth everywhere, just as often as self betrayal. For such is the
human condition. No differently from our own, our ancestors’ hands were
stained, their gaze opaque in one moment and piercing in the next, their
hearts filled with humble virtues and blind fanaticism. e very impetus to
spend their mortal lives in pursuit of holiness and ascent originated
precisely in their own acute imperfections, flaws and limitations. And both
the moments when they were almost divine, and the moments when they
were animals come through in the records we have of them. e danger, as
we saw in the previous chapter, begins when we take what worked for one
person and that person’s unique conditions and turn it into a recipe for
everyone, the healing potion soon turns into poison. e problem starts
when we make ourselves smaller than we were meant to be. We will never
succeed in our attempt at deification if we begin our journeys looking for
the well trodden path. You want to deify yourself? en start – irrespective
of how fragile, vulnerable and incomplete you may feel today – by standing
tall, with eyes open and a calm heart and accepting that your path will be
walked once: by you. You do not need to worry about leaving a mark,
making it look good, or about turning small accomplishments into universal
prescriptions. We each find our own path up the mountain. And becoming
blind to that – to the uniqueness of our own journey of ascent – is the
poison of orthodoxy.
Start with yourself, and end with yourself. If you choose to leave a mark
on the path, do so with utmost integrity: share as much of your strengths as
of your flaws. Better to leave no mark at all, unless you are prepared to be
seen naked by the ones who will follow; for it is seeing you as a whole
person and in the conditions of your time that will allow them to polish the
mirror in which they’ll see themselves.

§ II

To be myself, I need you. If we do not look one another in the eye, we

are not truly human.
– Patriarch Bartholomew

such a mirror in the hymns of Symeon the New

W
E CAN FIND

eologian (949–1022 CE). Symeon was a Byzantine Christian monk

of the Hesychast tradition, who died shortly before the schism of the
Christian world into the Western (Roman Catholic) and the Eastern
(Orthodox) Churches in 1054 CE. Together with John the Apostle and
Gregory of Nazianus, Symeon was granted the title ‘eologian,’ which in
this context does not refer to an academic discipline, but as someone who
has achieved theosis.
In his writings Symeon stressed the importance of striving for direct
experience of the divine. In keeping with this, he provides us with
unparalleled detail describing his personal experiences of being touched and
transformed by the divine light. Symeon’s hymns can be read as a
continuation of the tradition of the Desert Fathers: pursuing a path of the
ascetic recluse while striving for personal deification and individual ascent.
And yet, in contrast to his spiritual ancestors, such as Evagrius Ponticus
(345–399 CE), Symeon does not stop at providing succinct aphorisms,
constant admonitions against demons and vices, and the ubiquitous
adjuration to stay within one’s cell. Symeon’s hymns instead dare to shine a
light on the mystery that takes place within the monk’s cell.
By radically emphasising the importance of direct experience of the
divine, Symeon challenged the clergy of Christian orthodoxy at a time
when it was already under pressure from the growing tension between East
and West, as well as the rise of the Islamic Golden Age (eighth to
fourteenth century CE). In line with Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the
Christian clergy held on to the notion of the unknowability of the divine.
ey looked upon the earlier times of the Apostles, who wrote from direct
experience of the divine, as an ancient past, worthy of preservation and
adoration but not personal replication. Opening the gate to an individual’s
unique and intimate experience of Christ, the Holy Spirit and possibly
divinity would pose an existential threat to the necessity of partaking in the
communal Eucharist. If salvation did not need to be mediated by a priest
and through the collective experience of church service, then the very
foundations of the Roman Catholic Church were at risk. us,
unsurprisingly, both sides accused each other of being heretics: the clergy
accused Symeon of profaning the sacred ideal of the apostles, and Symeon
accused the clergy of attempting to teach theology (i.e. deification) from
hearsay rather than direct experience.
In the writings of Symeon we encounter one of the essential patterns
that often led to the accusation of heresy: to propagate spiritual techniques
that were open and accessible to the lay practitioner was to implicitly
challenge the Church’s mechanisms of social control and institutional
spiritual power. us, unsurprisingly, the Holy Roman Empire considered
Symeon’s hymns the work of an apostate, and in the West today they have
fallen into oblivion. Whereas in the Orthodox Christian Church of the
East, Symeon’s name is still revered and his writings held in the highest
regard.
For us Symeon’s hymns present a bridge from the individualistic
mystical tradition that stretches from our ancient past all the way to the
present day. is tradition is not kept, confined or curated by any kind of
manmade orthodoxy, but by the account of a personal, deeply
transformative experience of divinity’s darkness as well as its piercing rays of
light. What follows are several exemplary translations from the hymns,
which in the tenth century were, ‘“personal experience” taken to a pitch, and
quite unlike anything that had yet appeared in Byzantine spiritual writing.’1
If you have not discerned that the eye of your mind has been opened,
and that it has seen the light; if you have not perceived the sweetness of
divinity; if you have not been personally enlightened by the holy
spirit […] If you have not sensed that your heart has been cleansed and
has shone with luminous reflections; if, contrary to all expectation, you
have not discovered the Christ within yourself; if you have not been
stupefied, at your vision of the divine beauty; and have not become
oblivious of human nature when you saw yourself so totally
transfigured […] en tell me: how is it that you dare to make any
statement at all about God?2

You are a flaming fire, refreshing water, you consume and yet you
overflow with delight and are free from vitiation. You turn people into
gods, the darkness into light, you lead out of the underworld, gift the
dead with immortality. [You] lead from darknesses towards the light.
[You] close the gate of the night with your hand. [You] surround the
heart with the shimmer of light. [You] transform me entirely. [You]
unite yourself with people, [you] turn them into gods; [you] inflame
them with your love, [with] your childhood, your grace, through your
spirit. In mysterious ways [you] unite as God what is separated from
you.3

Whenever you pay attention to my baseness, as I committed

unrepeatable sins, you become visible from afar just like the morning
star, and everywhere you begin to widen [for you are not changing
yourself, but you are widening your servant’s spirit, so he may behold].
Noticeably, you are getting bigger. Like a Sun you are seen. For as the
darknesses flee, retiring themselves, so I think that you are approaching,
even though you are present everywhere. Once you completely surround
me as before, as soon as you completely embrace me with your arms,
cover me, I am freed from evil, darknesses, trials and impulses against
reason, and from all evil pondering I am snatched away, with wellbeing I
am filled, with cheer, joy, spirit pleasance, as I behold the tremendous
mysteries and in a way witness new wonders.4

Again the light shines for me. Again, I behold the clear light. Again it
unlocks the heaven and chases the night away for me. Again, it reveals
everything to me and brings everything to daylight. Again I behold the
light alone. Again, it lifts me up beyond all visibility, and without
compare, it separates me from all sensual things. Again, the one who
dwells above all the heavens, whom no human ever witnessed, dwells
within me. He does not unlock heaven’s door, he does not break a path
through the night, he does not part the mirage and neither does he harm
the roof of the house, no, without even penetrating anything, he dwells
with me, the poor, in the middle of my cell and in the midst of my spirit,
and in the midst of my heart [oh, a venerable mystery!] the light falls
into me, and everything remains as it is, and this light lifts me up above
everything. And I, who am in the midst of all things, am now devoid of
all things, indeed, believe to be devoid of the body even. Here I am now
completely and truthfully myself, where only light surrounds me, yes,
only light. As I behold it, I become simple all by myself, without
wrinkles. ese are, O Christ, the amazing deeds of your wonders.5

And where only his hand touches me, where his finger just approaches
me, at once my bandage tears, those worms die, the edges of my wounds
shrink together, the dirt falls off, and the patches of my flesh sink down.
Everything suddenly contracts into a single scar, so that where it was, it
no longer appears, no, but it becomes illuminated like the Deity’s hand.
Wonderful and new has become my flesh. And the being of my soul, no,
also the being of my body, attains God’s splendour and pours out the
Deity’s glow.6

I realised that he was wholly in the house again, as he suddenly stood in

the middle of the vessel, and in an unutterable way combined myself
with him in one. Beheld, how he settled with me without commingling,
as the fire to the iron, as to the crystal the light. He made me alike to the
fire, alike to the crystal. us I became that which I beheld before and
still saw from afar. How that happened, and how I should describe this
wonderful beauty to you, I can find no words for it. Because it was not
possible for me to recognise those; even now I can not see how he came
to me and how he united with me. I am united with him. But how can I
explain to you, who he is to whom I am united and who is united to me
at times? Fear comes over me, fear, you would not believe me, if I said it,
and so out of ignorance you might fall into vilification, brother, and ruin
your soul. However, how should I, united with him, call my name? To a
 god he has made me, in two natures and in one person, to a double
being. And, as you can see, he gave me a double name. Behold the
difference: a human I am by nature and a god by mercy. And behold
what kind of mercy I refer to here: that according to mind and insight,
spirit and being, I am united to him.7

Without any origin I am alone of my father, and he too is without any

origin. None of the angels, none of the archangels and none of the other
choirs have ever seen my being, nor me, the Creator, beholding me
wholly as I am. No, just a ray of my glory, only a small shadow of my
light they witness and see. Because to them I am only a mirror on which
the sunbeams fall; like a crystal into which the light of the day falls: So
all of them only receive rays of my Divinity. However, beholding me
wholly as I am, has been refused to all of them. Neither angels saw me,
nor men, nor even the holy powers. Because beyond everything I am,
and not to behold with eyes.8

Symeon’s hymns represent a rare testament from a mystic working on the

very threshold of creation. Beyond this threshold no creation exists, no
separation of I and ou, and thus no thoughts or words to differentiate the
experience thereof. All angelic beings, past and present, all visionary
artefacts and landscapes lie on this side of this threshold, on the opposite
side divinity remains in its unchanging original state. What separates both
sides, the threshold itself, is what we speak of as the Abyss: a border of such
significance, protected and guarded so well that creation cannot breach it,
and yet the rays of divinity constantly flow over it and expand into new
forms and consciousness.
It may be possible for a human to cross over the Abyss in the reverse
direction, from creation back into divinity, but not without first giving up
their own form and character, their own shape and history, their own
separate being (Sondersein). Symeon stands on this threshold as he
experiences the divine light: half of his mind dissolved in divinity, the other
holding onto his human state, trying to make sense of what is happening to
him. Half of his face is swallowed by a fire that does not consume it, yet
turns his flesh into flames; the other half looks into a mirror, witnessing the
mystery that is happening to him in his cell. He says it is this light that has
turned him into a double being: a human by nature, a god by mercy. He also
acknowledges this light is filled to the brim with living consciousness and
yet his own dissolves in the experience.
Over the millennia that separate us from Symeon the New eologian,
we sense a question hiding in his written testament. is is a question
aimed not so much at our cognitive minds as directed to the depths of our
own hearts. It sits silently between the hymns he sings, in the space where
the Hesychast himself catches his breath. It asks us: How close to the
threshold do we dare to stand? How much of our separate-being will we
choose to hold on to, and how much of our humanity will we let go of? For
the goal of this exercise is not to fall over to either side – not to fall back
into being human alone – and neither is it to dissolve in the light of
divinity. e actual goal is to find balance on the threshold, to walk the
tightrope and to keep on walking for as long as we dare, half immersed in
fire, half anchored in flesh.

We are spirit bound to this flesh / We go round one foot nailed down /
But bound to reach out and beyond this flesh / Become Pneuma / We
are will and wonder / Bound to recall, remember / We are born of one
breath, one word / We are all one spark, sun becoming.9

§ III

the neophyte is about gaining access and communion,

I
F THE PATH OF

then the path of the adept is about finding balance and being in both
worlds at once. Communing with the spirits, experiencing the light, and
still having ‘one foot nailed down’ is not easy to do. rowing yourself over
the threshold and condemning the flesh that won’t follow is a reaction much
more commonly encountered among ancient gnostics than among medieval
mystics. Looking back at our Western history, we are undoubtedly rooted in
a male-dominated tradition which far too often valued vehemence and
rigidity over balance and grace. Unfortunately, a great many mystics
followed in the footsteps of Christian monk and ascetic Evagrius Ponticus
(345–399 CE). Early on in his career Evagrius walked among the mighty in
Constantinople where he held high offices as a Christian bishop and
deacon. His swift ascent to power, however, came to an abrupt end when he
became entangled with a married woman. In fear of persecution, and
warned by an angelic vision, he fled Constantinople and retreated to the
Egyptian desert. Here the transformation took place of Evagrius the
worldly intellectual into Evagrius the Solitary as he would later be known.
In classic overcompensation for his previous lifestyle, his abstemious
monastic conduct and famous writings became the blueprint of the rigid,
reclusive ascetic, demanding extreme renunciation of the sensual world, and
remaining on constant guard against demonic attacks. His own ascetic
practice was so austere it ended his life at the age of fifty-four. is is young
compared to his famous spiritual predecessor Anthony the Great (251–356
CE), the ‘father of all Christian monks,’10 who despite a life of solitary
privation in the desert and mountains of northern Egypt, lived to the age of
one hundred and five.
Evagrius’s writings had a strong if indirect influence on the Christian
tradition. However, what was remembered and incorporated differed
significantly in the Eastern and Western Christian churches. Equally strong
on both sides was Evagrius’s sectioning of the mystic’s path into the three
stages of (1) apatheia (absence of passions), (2) theoria (contemplation) and
(3) gnosis (knowledge of the divine).11 e approach and techniques
involved in each stage would become essential to the later Eastern
Hesychast tradition, which we have already explored. In the West, however,
the controversial last stage of direct, personal gnosis was extenuated,
sanitised and replaced with the general aim of achieving ‘purity of the
heart,’ in the tradition of John Cassian (360–435 CE).12
Conversely, as we will see below, Evagrius’s rigid and repetitive focus on
evil forces intent on leading the mystic astray was overshadowed in the
East, not least by the later writings of Symeon the New eologian. In the
Roman Catholic Church, however, it was precisely this aspect that found a
central place in Western medieval theology. Evagrius had introduced the
concept of eight logosmoi – demonic temptations – which in the form of
beguiling thoughts would constantly attack the Christian ascetic. In the
West, this seed continued to grow and flourished into the ubiquitous
concept of the seven deadly or mortal sins – a differentiation still unknown
to the Eastern Orthodox world. One could argue, not without grounds, that
Evagrius’s influence in the West evolved into the medieval practice of
purchasing indulgences; whereas in the East his heritage remained in laying
out a complete path for the aspiring gnostic.
It remains for us to take a closer look at which elements enabled the
Roman Catholic Church to exploit Evagrius’s legacy. What were the seeds
that allowed the Church to derive from this one man’s writings a collective
culture of judgement and blame, rather than one of co-experience and
understanding?
Evagrius differentiated three levels of perception. In his model, the first
level of perception is the human; here a thing is perceived for what it is
through the bodily senses, and the human realm is dominated by the quest
for endless experience. e second level is the angelic, a realm in which we
encounter patterns and connections. Here the spirit searches to unravel the
mystery of why and for what purpose any thing might exist. us the
angelic realm is dominated by the quest for omniscience. irdly, there is
the demonic realm, wherein lie the passions. Here a thing is broken away
from its organic environment and exploited through the consideration of
what it can do for us, and thus the demonic realm is dominated by the quest
for endless enjoyment. According to this tripartite schema, a continuous
struggle exists between the angelic and the demonic realms – the quest for
seeing a thing within its natural patterns versus engineering its potential to
serve our human desires in isolation. Whereas the angelic realm
understands and serves in accordance with each thing’s purpose, the
demonic realm disrupts the net of Creation in order to weave a pattern that
centres on the satisfaction of human passions.
us, according to Evagrius, it is the first and foremost calling of the
ascetic to remain constantly on guard against demonic attacks. Especially in
the early phase of the training, the stages of apatheia and theoria, the
ascetics would imagine the seeds of evil scattered in the world around them
and lodged deep in their own flesh.

It is necessary also to know the definitions of things, especially those of

the virtues and vices: for these are the source [and the beginning] of
knowledge and ignorance, of the kingdom of heaven and of torment.13

e demons prefer to fight worldly people by means of things, but

monks for the most part they attack by means of thoughts, because in
the desert they are deprived of things. And in as much as it is easier to
sin in intent than in deed, the inner war is proportionately harder than
that which arises because of things. e mind is something which is
easily moved, and hard to hold when it is faced with unlawful
imaginings.14
 e whole war between us and the unclean demons concerns nothing
other than spiritual prayer, because it is very hostile and burdensome to
them, while it is salvific and very soothing for us.15

Do not believe yourself to have acquired a virtue until you have been
ready to shed your blood in the fight for it. It is necessary to resist sin
aggressively and blamelessly, even to the point of losing your life,
according to the divine apostle.16

You must always expect grievous demonic attacks, and consider how to
avoid being enslaved by them.17

Ideals of spiritual warfare, of a sacred wrath – whether directed against

demons, one’s own body or the society one chose to leave behind – had
been at the heart of the Christian movement from its earliest days. As we
have seen, believers had searched out the desert to fully throw themselves
into this war, and they had hoped to emerge from it victoriously in silence
and grace. Yet such an aggressive plan of action took a tremendous toll;
people tended to pay for it with countless years of being stuck in the
trenches, engaged in warfare against their own bodily senses. And yet,
despite the fervent desire to fully immerse themselves in the fires of faith,
these Christians still did not manage to release the nail that bound them to
the flesh – at least not without losing their mortal lives altogether, a price
many were more than willing to pay. Nevertheless, what Evagrius and the
Western tradition that followed him perceived as a sequence, as stages on a
path, proved to be a fatal misstep: for one did not traverse the demonic
realm in order to gain access to the angelic sphere, one did not finish one’s
struggle with the devil to move beyond the old serpent and end in heaven’s
embrace. Instead, the snake’s coiling and the tree of life it wound around
proved to be inseparable. What the early Christians perceived as discrete
levels of spiritual ascent turned out to be the very fibres of life, interwoven
by design, or more accurately, by divine light. However deep the ascetics
pushed themselves into the crevices of rock, the laws of sensual flesh could
not be removed from the human experience, without giving up being
human as well. Ultimately it proved that standing on the edge of the Abyss
is an art of balance, not of dominion.
Contrasting the aspects of Evagrius’s writings that found more
prominence in the West with the hymns of Symeon allows us to see one of
the most significant divides between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox
tradition. Many centuries ago, the former got stuck in the Devil’s trap of
demanding extremes and perverting the balance of spirit and flesh. e
latter, even though equally at danger of ossifying in ancestral worship, has
always retained the antidote of individual firsthand mystical experience.
A final quote from Symeon’s 15th hymn exemplifies the essential
interdependency of divinity and human flesh in a way which is unique in
the Christian mystical tradition, and yet so much more at home in the
Orthodox than in the Roman Catholic world:

You are kin to us by flesh, we are kin to you by divinity. For you have
clothed yourself in body and sent us the Holy Spirit, and so we all have
become a House of David because we are your own and because we are
kin to you. erefore you are David’s lord in spirit, and we are sons of
David, all together [we are] your divine lineage. United, however, we
grow into a single house. at means: All of us are your brothers, all kin
to you. Is this not miraculous, is this not amazing, if you think about it,
if you consider it, that you are bound to us now and in eternity, [that
you] build your house in everyone, [that you] dwell in everyone, and that
you are a house yourself to everyone, that each one of us are dwelling
within you, whole with the whole, and you, however, [are] alone with
everyone in the Alone, and yet beyond us and undivided? And in this
manner you are working wondrous things in us. What kind of wonders
shall these be? Only little shall I reveal from the plenty. And even
though everything I have said about this already must fill us with much
wonder, be known still, that wonders exist which call forth even greater
marvel in us. Limbs of Christ are we and our limbs are Christ. And my
hand, the hand of the poor, and my foot, Christ they are. And me, the
least [of us], the hand of Christ I am, the foot of Christ. Is it me who
moves my hand? It is Christ also who moves it, for he is entirely my
hand. For you have to know that Divinity is indivisible. Is it me who
moves my foot? Behold, it radiates just like He does. Do not speak of
blasphemy! No, admit and worship Christ, who constitutes yourself. For
his limb you shall become, if only you want. And thus all limbs of all of
us will turn into Christ’s limbs, and our limb becomes Christ. And all
things hideous and deformed he will turn lovely and delicate. He will
adorn it with his beauty and the radiance of his divinity. And gods we
become, amicably conjoint in God, beholding no harm on our bodies no
 longer, no, entirely as we are resembling the entire body of Christ. Each
one of us will have all of Christ within their limbs. For the One became
many, and yet the One remained undivided. Each part, however, is all of
Christ. So when you are clothed in flesh’s dishonour, bereft of spirit and
soul, covered in darkness, and have not yet seen the light, what will I do
to you? How can I show you the things worthy of adoration? Alack, how
shall I lead you into the House of David? For cowards may not enter
it.18

§ IV

after the death of Symeon, Hildegard of Bingen

S
EVENTY-SIX YEARS

(1098–1179) was born in the small hamlet of Bermersheim in the far

west of today’s Germany. Over the course of the next eighty years she
would become one of the most powerful and self-assured women to rise to
prominence in the Middle Ages. Benedictine, abbess, doctor, poet, painter
and composer are just some of the distinguished titles she amassed over her
long life. However, Catholic saint, Church teacher and especially
prophetess are the monikers that make her of extraordinary significance for
our current study.
Hildegard’s writings differ significantly from the works of Evagrius
Ponticus, Symeon the New eologian or even Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite. ese men had shared their knowledge from the position of
believers who had achieved deification, i.e. they all had temporarily stepped
onto the threshold of divinity. And while they did not break the mortal coil
that still bound them to the flesh, for periods of time they immersed
themselves wholly into the experience of the divine. In alignment with
Austin Osman Spare’s borrowed saying, we could say they had been able to
‘make the word flesh’ – within their own mortal bodies.
In contrast, Hildegard does not write as a mystic, but as a prophetess.
She never claims to have entered into divinity. Quite the opposite, she
explicitly states that all her visions stemmed from sitting quietly, raising her
gaze, and allowing the divine light to shine upon her. Much less than a
participant of the divine experience, she considers herself an objective
observer to whom the secret meaning of Scripture is revealed.19
In the opening of her most famous work Liber Scivias (Know the Way,
1151 CE) Hildegard explains her visionary process in great detail:

And behold, in the 43rd year of my life, when I was dealing with a
heavenly vision in great fear and trembling attention, I saw a bright
splendour, in which a voice came to me from heaven, which spoke nto
me, ‘You frail man, ashes of ashes, rot of rot, say and write what you see
and hear. But because you are fearful for speaking and simple to
interpret and uneducated to write it down, do not say and write this
down according to the language of men, nor according to the insight of
human invention, nor according to the will of human beings, but
according to what you see and hear above in the heavenly realm in the
miracles of God. So explain it, when you proclaim it, as a listener also
records the words of his teacher, staying true to the teacher’s intent when
proclaiming it, as the former desired, expounded and ordered it. So you
too, O man, talk about what you see and hear. Write it down not
according to your own or another man’s discretion, but according to the
will of him who knows and sees all things and orders them in the
seclusion of his secrets.’ And again I heard a voice that spoke to me from
heaven, ‘So speak of these wonderful things, and write them down, teach
them, and recount them!’ It happened in the year 1141 of the
Incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, when I was 42 years and
seven months old; a fiery light with the strongest glow that came out of
the open sky, poured through my whole brain and my breast, and
inflamed it without burning it; yet it was hot like the things that are
warmed by sunlight. And suddenly I understood the meaning of the
interpretation of the Scripture, namely of the Psalter, the Gospel and the
other Catholic volumes of both the Old and the New Testament.
However, I had no knowledge of the interpretation of the words of the
text nor of hyphenation nor of declination or conjugation. But I had felt
the power and the secret of hidden, wonderful visions since my
childhood, that is, from the time when I was five years old, miraculously
in me, as I do now. Yet, I did not share this with any man except for a
few religious who lived with me under the same rule, but in the
meantime until the time when God wanted to make them [these
visions] public in His grace, I sank into deep silence. However, the
visions that I saw, I did not perceive them in dreams, nor in sleep, in
confusion of mind, nor with the bodily ears of the outer man, nor in
hidden places, but I received them awake and prudent with a clear mind
[and] through the eyes and ears of the inner human, in accessible places
according to the will of God. In which manner this happens is difficult
to understand for a person in the flesh.20
Accordingly, the theological works of Hildegard are of little interest from a
practical mystical perspective. She does not share any insights into how she
was able to behold the divine light and the incredibly detailed images and
exegeses she received from it. Instead her voice speaks to us in the form of
an oracle – directly deciphering, interpreting and externalising the meaning
of the holy scripture, without giving away anything of her own enigma. One
could argue that the reason her visionary work was so readily embraced by
the Roman Catholic Church resides specifically in the fact that Hildegard
does not encourage others to pursue the experience she was privileged to;
she merely passively receives the oracles she communicates to the world.
One of Hildegard’s lesser known visionary works offers a significant
contribution to our task of finding balance and being present in both worlds
at once. Her Liber vitae meritorum (Book of the Rewards of Life, 1163) is a
bloom from the seed sown seven centuries earlier by Evagrius Ponticus;
where Evagrius introduces the idea of eight logismoi (gluttony, lust, greed,
sorrow, wrath, pride, vainglory and sloth), Hildegard leads an entire 35
vices onto the stage. ese do not come alone though; they are met by 35
individually opposed virtues, which in turn provide eloquent answers to the
each vice’s temptation. e text is thus a hybrid of dual nature: not only is it
as much an infernal as a celestial manuscript, as a literary work it stands
somewhere between visionary prose and a theatrical production. In the
following translation we will read the opening as well as nine pairs of vices
and virtues selected from the total set of 35.
As we will see, the prophetess Hildegard proffers a potent antidote to
the poison chalice of the Desert Fathers. For in her vision the demonic vices
speak with as much empathy as the angelic virtues. Both species of spirits –
while eternally opposed in nature – are animated with voices that make
themselves understood from a deeply human standpoint. Hildegard was
sixty years old when she received this vision, and in the light of her words
decades of life experience shine through, portraying vices and virtues as
truthful and genuine even though deeply imbalanced personalities. After all,
Hildegard’s words do not echo from the dark entrance of a desert cave but
resound from a life lived amongst all species. ey reveal a woman who
knew how to hold onto the humble flesh while ceaselessly refining her own
spirit. And in this, as we will see, lies the trick – that both vices and virtues
have gnosis to share with us. Each of them holds one half of the truth.

And I beheld a man of such height that his body stretched from the
highest clouds in the sky all the way into the abyss: from his shoulders
upwards he was surrounded by the fairest ether, from his shoulders
downwards to his thighs, below these clouds, [he was surrounded] by a
blinding cloud, from his thighs to his knees he was in mortal air, from
his knees to his calves [he stood] in earth, from his calves downwards to
the soles of his feet in the waters of the abyss, and in such a manner he
stood above the abyss. He turned towards the East in such a way that he
was looking both towards the East and the South.
His face, however, was glowing with such brightness that I could not
behold it entirely. A blazing cloud reached towards his mouth which
looked similar to a trumpet and which was filled with all kinds of swiftly
ringing sounds. When the man blew it, it sent forward three winds, of
 which the first carried a fiery cloud, the second a stormy cloud and the
third a shimmering cloud above them; and the winds carried these
clouds. e wind that carried the fiery cloud above it, however, came to
halt in front of the face of the man; the two other winds together with
their clouds descended towards his chest and there expanded their
blowing. e wind which had remained in front of his face, though,
expanded with its cloud from East all the way to the South. […]
ereafter I saw a cloud approaching from the North, which
stretched out up to this darkness [of the West], and which was empty of
all joy and barren of all happiness, as neither did the sun touch it, nor
did it reveal itself to the sun. It was full of evil spirits, which were
sweeping back and forth within it and who were deceitful towards
mankind but shy of the man.

irty-five vices & virtues · Liber vitae meritorum (1163)

  VICE VIRTUE

1 Love of the World (amor saeculi) Love of the Heaven (amor caelestis)

2 Impudence (petulantia) Discipline (disciplina)

3 Fun-making (ioculatrix) Awe (veracundia)

4 Hardening (obduratio) Mercy (misericordia)

5 Cowardice (ignavia) Victory of God (divina victoria)

6 Anger (ira) Patience (patientia)

7 Foolish Joy (inepta laetitia) Sight before God (gemitus ad Deum)

8 Gluttony (ingluvies ventris) Abstinence (abstinentia)

9 Bitterness (acerbitas) True generosity (vera largitas)

10 Godlessness (impietas) Devotion (pietas)

11 Falsehood (fallacia) Truth (veritas)

12 Dispute (contentio) Peace (pax)

13 Unhappiness (infelicitas) Bliss (beatitudo)

14 Excessiveness (immoderatio) Differentiation (discretio)

15 Damnation of souls (perdito animarum) Salvation of souls (salvatio animarum)

16 Arrogance (superbia) Humility (humilitas)

17 Envy (invida) Love (caritas)

18 Vain thirst for God (inanis glloria) Fear of God (timoris Domini)

19 Disobedience (inobedientia) Obedience (obedientia)

20 Disbelief (infidelitas) Faith (fides)

21 Desperation (desperatio) Hope (spes)

22 Lewdness (luxuria) Chastity (castitas)

23 Injustice (inustitia) Justice (iustitia)

24 Bluntness (torpor) Bravery (fortitudo)

25 Forgetfulness of God (oblivio Dei) Holiness (sanctitas)

26 Inconstancy (inconstantia) Steadfastness (constantia)

27 Worry of the world (cura terrenorum) Desire for Heaven (caeleste desiderium)

28 Tenacity (obstinatio) Heart contriteness (compunctio cortis)

29 Desire (cupiditas) World contempt (contemptus mundi)

30 Discord (discordia) Concord (concordia)

31 Silliness (scurrilitas) Reverance (reverentia)

32 Discontinuity (vagatio) Consistency (stabilitas)

33 Witchcraft (maleficium) True divine service (verus cultus Dei)

34 Greed (avaritia) Fair satisfaction (pura sufficientia)

35 World mourning (tristitia saeculi) Joy of Heaven (caeleste gaudium)

And I heard the old serpent speak to itself, ‘I prepare the forces of my
strength into a bulwark and will fight against my foes for as long as I
can.’ And immediately it spit out of its mouth a foam full of impurity
with all the vices among the people and blared out ridicule, saying,
‘Pshaw! e ones who by means of their shining deeds call themselves
suns, I will turn them noxious, nocturnal and revolting.’ Hereon it blew
out a nasty fog, which touched the entire earth with a dark smoke and
from which a loud roaring was heard, ‘No man shall pray to another
god, despite the one that he sees and perceives. For what is this, that
man honours and does not yet know?’
In this fog I beheld various kinds of vices and their forms. Of these I
saw seven in the following way:

Love of the World (amor saeculi)

e first gestalt had the form of a man and the blackness of an
Ethiopian. It stood nakedly. It clung to a tree with hands and legs below
its branches, where all kinds of blossoms bloomed. e tree, she
gathered the flowers with her hands and spoke:

e words of the Love of the World

‘I grasp firmly all the realms of the world with their flowers and their
jewelry. Why should I dry up, if I possess all the verdant-force
(viriditas)? Why should I live as in old age, while I flourish in youth?
Why should I have my beautiful eyesight transformed into blindness? If
I did that, I would have to blush. For as long as I can have the beauty of
this world, I will gladly hold on to it. Another life is unknown to me, of
which I hear goodness knows fables.’

As it said this, the tree withered to the roots, plunged into the
mentioned darkness and also tore the figure with it.

e response of the Love of the Heavens (amor caelestis)

And from the stormy cloud mentioned before I heard a voice which
replied to this figure:

‘You are in great folly because you want to live in the ashes and not in
that Seeking of life that never withers in the beauty of youth and never
fades in old age. You are without any light and you are in the black haze.
Like a worm you get involved in the Will of man. Also, you only live for
a moment, then you dry up like hay and crash into the lake of ruin.
ere you will end up with all your hugs that you have in your well-
behaved flowers’ call. But I am the pillar of the heavenly harmony and
stretch myself all the joy of life. I do not reject life, rather I crush
everything Harmful, as I despise you too. For I am the mirror of all the
powers of God in which anyone faithful can clearly see. But you run on
nocturnal paths and cause your downfall.’

Impudence (petulantia)
e second gestalt, however, was like a dog that was going to hunt. It
stood on its hind paws, while leaning its forepaws on a wand that stood
vertically. As it wagged its tail playfully it said:

‘How could cheerfulness hurt man, when it is only making them laugh a
little. For this is the beautiful breath in the soul through which she
might become symphonic. Which man could stand being mortal all the
time? No one! So let us be merry for as long as one can rejoice.’

e response of Discipline (disciplina)

And again I heard a voice from the stormy cloud which gave a response
to this gestalt:

‘You wicked one, with the rakish manners of jocular people you resemble
the wind that turns and in your volatility you resemble the worms which
tear up the earth. When people see you they agree to you, because you
run towards them joyfully like a dog would do. is way you convince
them to desire whatever they will. Yet you produce futile and felonious
words with which you wound the hearts of man. You turn your manners
into the law and beguilest people with it. Yet me, I am the belt of
sacredness and the mantle of worthiness. I am invited to the royal
wedding in honour, where I appear in the delight of youthful discipline
and shine in jewelry of justice.’ […]

Hardening (obduratio)
e fourth gestalt, however, was turning into the form of a man as if it
was formed from thick smoke, even though it did not have any human
limbs, and only large and black eyes. It neither moved upwards nor
downwards, neither did it turn back or forth, yet it remained fixed in the
mentioned darkness. And it spoke:

e words of the Hardening

‘I have neither created nor determined anything. Why should I make an
effort or labour on anyone’s behalf? at I will not do. Further I do not
care for anybody, only for as much as they try for me. God who created
everything will decide over and take care of all matters. If I uttered a
sound asking, as a friend, for the concerns of others, what would I gain
from it? I am not getting in the way of anyone, neither god nor bad. If I
always had such mercy that I couldn’t even rest myself, who would I be
then? Or what kind of life were I to lead, if I answered every merry and
sad voice? I know of myself, and everybody should know of themselves.’

e answer of Mercifulness (misericordia)

And again I heard a voice from the mentioned stormy cloud which gave
a response to this gestalt:
‘O you stony one, what do you say? By use of their leaves the herbs are
offering up their scent to the other herbs, and a stone lends its humidity
to another stone, and every creature turns towards the familiar one in
embrace. All creatures also serve mankind, and in this service they
voluntarily offer all benevolent things to mankind. Yet you are not even
worthy to receive the gestalt of a human, for all that appears in you is a
brutal gaze devoid of all mercifulness. You are a bitter smoke in the
blacking of malice.
Yet me I am in the air and in the dew, and I am the delightful herb in
all the verdant-force (veriditas), my core is turned towards everyone in
cooperativeness. I was present in the ‘It shall be’ from which all creatures
emerged who stand in service of man. You, however, were excluded
there. With my eyes I behold all needs and am obliged to them. All
things broken I mend together in healing, for I am a chrism to all pain,
and my words are just while you are a bitter smoke.’ […]

Wrath (ira)
Yet the sixth gestalt had the shape of a man, except that its mouth was
the mouth of a scorpion, and the white in its eyes was more radiant than
its pupils. Also its arms resembled the arms of man, except that its hands
were bent into long claws. Its chest, belly and back resembled a crab, its
legs a locust and its feet a viper. It was stuck in a jammed mill wheel:
with its hands it held the upper spokes of the wheel, and with its feet it
stood on the lower spokes. It had no hair on its head and was naked on
its entire body and spit fire like torches from its mouth. And it spoke:
 e words of Wrath
‘I squelch everything and trample down all things which do me wrong.
Why should I endure injustice? What one does not want me to do to
them, they should not do to me. For I wound with the sword and lash
out with clubs, should anyone dare to do me an injustice.’

e answer of Patience (patientia)

And again I heard a voice from the same stormy cloud which gave a
response to this gestalt:

‘I resounded in the heights, touched the earth, and poured forward from
the ground like balsam. Yet you are deceitful, and drinkest blood and are
always the Northern storm.
I am the delightful air in all the verdant-force (veriditas), which
brings forth the flowers and fruits of all virtues, and which erects them
firmly in the mind of man. us I complete everything that I begin, and
persevere within it. I squelch no one, but take everything in calmness.
And no one judges me. Yet if you build a tower, I tear it down with a
single word and disperse all its loot. at is how you will vanish. Yet I
will remain forever.’ […]

Gluttony (ingluvies ventris)

I saw a curious gestalt which rested on its back like a snake in the
mentioned darkness. Its eyes burned like fire, its tongue hung from its
mouth, and the end of its tail was cut off. Its body was black, and streaks
of pale, poisonous colour stretched from its head downwards over the
length of its body. Yet, the belly of this gestalt was open, and in it
appeared the gestalt of a man appeared, resting on their back as if they
lay in a cradle. On its head it wore a felt hat like a helm slightly turned
upwards, and its hair was white and hung from underneath the hat on
its shoulders. It wore a dress of fine, white silk and even was cloaked in a
mantle, the colour thereof resembled the color of the snake. And this
gestalt spoke:

e words of Gluttony
‘God has created everything. Why should I languish? If God did not
know that all of this was necessary, He would not have created it. us I
would be foolish if I didn’t allow my own will to preside in all of this, for
it is God’s will that the human body shall lose none of its force.’

e answer of Abstinence (abstinentia)

And again I heard from the aforementioned, stormy cloud, which spread
out from South to the West, a voice that answered with the following
words:

‘Nobody plucks the harp intending for its strings to break. For when its
strings are broken, how can it sound? In no way! You, maw, you cram
your belly so full that all your veins are sick and fall into rage. And where
is the sweet sound of wisdom then, which God has granted to man? For
you are mute and blind, and you do not know what you are speaking of.
Just like the rain pouring down is uprooting the earth, so the excess of
meat and wine lets man descend into scorn and blasphemy. I, however,
saw in the clay the beautiful form which God has created as man. us I
am a moderate rainfall, for that the flesh may not proliferate in vices.
And I bring forth temperance in man, so their flesh may suffer no dearth
and does not gain more than necessary due to boundless devouring of
nutritious food. For I am a harp as I sound in the bright notes of praise,
and thus I pierce the hardness of the heart with good will. Because when
man feeds the body in moderation, then I resound in the harp of their
prayers all the way to the heavens, and if they keep the body purified
through moderated eating, I sing to the organ, which you, maw, do not
know or understand and don’t even try to perceive or understand. For
soon you are tearing yourself up in the excess of lent so that you can
hardly survive, and soon you are excessively filling your stomach in
gluttony so that you seethe in heat and vomit in froth. Me, I restrain my
eating, so that the fluids in man neither dry up nor rise in excess, and
then I sing hymns to the harp and the organ. O all you loyal ones,
restrain from gluttony! For the belly of the old snake has devoured the
feasting and thus regurgitated much filth.’

Bitterness (acerbitas)
Yet the second gestalt was like a leopard. And it spoke:

e words of Bitterness
‘All courage and all victory I consider vain, and I do not want that
anyone defies me. Also to that which is annoying and harmful to me in
the scriptures and in faith, I will not answer, but I will bite through it.’
 e answer of True Largess (vera largitas)
And again I heard a voice from the stormy cloud which gave a response
to this gestalt:

‘You are dangerous, damned and acid resentment. You neither want to
give answer to God nor to His commandments, but you are holding out
in your bitterness. Yet me, I am generous in rain and dew, in salve and
remedy, so that I act through the mercy in rain, through the joy in dew,
through the benevolence in salves and through the solace in remedies
against all pains. In this manner I remain within them and thus I will
reign in eternity. Your substance, however, is the hell, and that is from
where you have arisen’. […]

Haplessness (infelicitas)
Yet the sixth gestalt resembled a leprous man and had black hair. Its
gown was missing and it covered itself with large leaves of random
herbs, while it beat its chest with its hands. And it said:

e words of Haplessness:
‘What is my salvation except for tears? And what is my life except for
pain? And what kind of help is mine except for death? And what kind of
answer is granted me except for corruption? For nothing superior I will
ever have.’

e answer of Beatitude (beatitudo)

And again I heard a voice from the aforementioned stormy cloud which
gave a response to this gestalt:

‘You are the voracity of the punishments, and you do not hold desire for
anything else. God has to be called for, & His mercy to be searched out.
You cut yourself up, as you do not trust in God. You do not petition God
for anything, which is why you won’t find anything. Yet me, I call for
God and I receive his answer, I ask him, and in His grace He grants me
what I will. I search amongst Him and I find amongst Him. For I am a
reverent joy and pluck the harp in front of God by granting all my deeds
to Him. For the sake of the loyal hope with which I meet Him, I sit on
His bosom. But you do not trust in God and hold no desire for His
grace, which is why all malady finds you.’

Immoderateness (immoderatio)
e seventh gestalt looked like a wolf. It bend its shin and sat on its feet
while it was lurking around everywhere, ready to devour anything that it
could steal. And it said:

e words of Immoderateness
‘Whatever I long for, whatever I can search for, that I collect and in no
way restrain myself. Why should I hold myself back if there is no reward
for it? Why should I abandon what I am, when each species exists
according to its way? If I lived in such a way, I could hardly breathe.
What would my life be then? Whatever kind of play and laughter comes
my way, that I will do. If my heart delights, why should I bind it? And
when my veins are full of joy, why should I slice through them? And if I
know how to speak, why should I be silent? For all impulses of my body
are of benevolent nature to me, and just like I have been created so I will
do. Why should I change into something other than what I am? Each
creature grows according to its own nature, and as it is appropriate for it
so it does. And I do it just like this.’

e answer of Distinction (discretio)

And again I heard a voice from the aforementioned stormy cloud which
gave a response to this gestalt:

‘O you spy of treachery, in your ambush you are biting through all that is
honorable in reason, for you resemble the whelps of the beast that know
no moderation and you act like an impure animal. Because everything
that God has set into order is giving response to one another. e stars
shimmer by the light of the Moon, and the Moon shines by the light of
the Sun. Everything is subordinated to the superior, and nothing exceeds
its own measure. Yet you neither respect God nor His creatures, but you
dangle like an empty scabbard moved back and forth by the wind. Me,
however, I walk on the path of the Moon and on the path of the Sun. I
consider all of God’s purpose and thus grow in honourable ways, in love
I count everything to completion. For I am the first in the palace of the
King and explore all of its secrets. I do not leave anything in vain in
them, but embrace them all and love them, and with them I shine like a
sunbeam. You though are a frazzling disease and the carrion of the
maggots.’ […]

Witchcraft (maleficium)
Yet the third gestalt had the head of a wolf and the tail of a lion, the rest
of its body resembled a dog. While she was playing with the previous
gestalt [discontinuity, vagatio], she said, ‘We are one in everything.’
But a great uproar of winds sounded against its ears, which it sifted
through carefully. And it listened to what they are and where they come
from, and rejoiced with them, as if they were its gods. en it raised its
right forepaw and reached towards the great wind coming from the
North. With its left it pulled the gushing-forward of the winds from the
elements towards itself. And it said:

e words of Witchcraft
‘Of Mercury and other philosophers I will learn much, for in their
experiments they have subjugated the elements in such a way that they
can securely find whatever thing it may be they desire. Such [knowledge]
the exceptionally great and wise men have partially devised from God
and partially from the evil spirits. And what has hindered them? ey
have been calling themselves planets, for they received much wisdom
and knowledge from the Sun and the Moon and the Stars. Me, however,
I reign with these arts wherever I will, namely in the lights of the
heaven, in the trees and the herbs and in all plants of the earth, in the
animals and all beings of the earth, in the worms above and below the
earth. And who will defy me on my path? God has created everything,
which is why I am not doing Him any injustice in performing these arts.
He himself wants to be recognised as true in His scriptures and in all of
His creations. And what good would it do, if His creations were so blind
that one could not behold a cause within them? at would not be
advantageous.’

e answer of True Divine Service (verus cultus Dei)

And again I heard a voice from the stormy cloud which gave a response
to this gestalt:

‘What pleases God more, if one worships His creations or Himself? e

beings that emerge from Him cannot grant life to anything. What is the
life that God grants? Namely that man is a being endowed with reason
and that the rest of creation exists within the elements. In which way
though?
Man is alive with the wings of reason, whatever flies and crawls, all of
that lives and moves within the elements. Man holds a sound with
reason, yet the rest of creation is mute, it can neither help itself nor
others but is doing its own service. You, however, O magical art, you
have a circle without a centre. For when you conduct a lot of research
within the circle of creation, creation itself withdraws from you honour
and wealth and, just like a stone, will cast you into the underworld, for
you have taken away from it the name of its God. is is why all tribes
of the earth will lament over you, for you mock them in blasphemy as
 you lead them astray in the divine worship where they should serve God.
at is for you, why no other reward remains than the reward of the
devil.’

e secret of all temple ceilings lies in knowing how to balance the effect of
opposing forces. Any roof is in fact held in place by its own weight pushing
down as well as the strength of the walls holding it up. We can walk or run,
because of the weight of our bodies pushing us down as well as the strength
of our muscles pushing us up from the ground. Force and counterforce,
impact and recoil, achievement and expenditure, hassle and gain – one
cannot be understood without the other. Similarly, none of the nine virtues
we just explored could shine in the illuminated way Hildegard of Bingen
presents them, if not contrasted and counterbalanced by their sibling vices.
eir radiant beauty is a direct function of the proximity of their nocturnal
opposites.
Our life is a space located on multiple axes of time and being. Despite its
inherent complexity, it still follows the basic laws of any space: it requires
boundaries and upholding, and it requires a dynamic adjustment of forces
(homeostasis). Yet, most importantly and at the outset, it requires opposing
powers – forces that push against each other – for without the creative
tension, no structure could ever settle into balance. e enchanting beauty
and sacred safety of any temple is not achieved by excluding or avoiding the
fact of conflicting forces, but rather by embracing them wisely and
balancing the forces against one another. Just like lock and key, they click
into place once we find the right way to measure, centre, level and align
them. And once anchored into place – once one force is no longer pushing
against its counterforce, but each resting upon each other’s ground – they
open up a space that we can pray in.
As the personal union of architects, engineers, masons, carpenters, etc.
of our own temples, our role is not to choose one force over another, but to
understand all of them and then to work with them in never ending co-
creation of the space we call our lives. us, as seekers of understanding, we
should choose neither virtue nor vice.
If the honourable verbal duel, to which Hildegard of Bingen invites us,
made us want to chose one side over the other, then we are walking right
into the old serpent’s trap. It’s a fool’s mistake to underestimate your
opponent. e old serpent, spitting out the cloud of fog in which its
creatures appeared, did not expect these beings to conquer the world
immediately. But it expected the world to react to them immediately, to be
shocked by their gruesome sight and self-centred speech – to instinctively
choose sides – and to throw itself into unbalanced battle.
So let us not follow our intuition. Let us not be disgusted by the shapes
we behold in the fog nor lured towards the voices we hear in the storm. No
choice is required from us but to stand firm in their midst. From this a new
kind of art might emerge: a practice that this time will be neither black nor
white, neither vicious nor virtuous, neither chthonic nor celestial. A practice
that embraces opposites, without judgement or attachment, in order to
measure, align and centre the polar forces of creation so they come to stop
pushing against and instead begin to rest upon each other. What is required
by us humans, standing in the polarity of a hundred vicious vices and a
hundred virtues’ voices, is not the knee-jerk resolution of the apparent
tension, but the calm weaving of a pattern that will bind both of them into
one.
Let us exemplify such a process with the final pair of virtues and vices we
examined above. And, to be clear, by definition such an example will be of a
temporary and possibly misleading nature. For the principle of homeostasis
is that the adjustment process is never-ending but constantly responding to
the complex choir of forces it is surrounded by. us a static example of how
to weave the voices of Witchcraft and Divine Service into one is not meant to
provide a definitive approach but rather to serve as a signpost to developing
one’s own unique practice. It should be remembered, that the nature of
signposts is that they are to be left behind on one’s journey.
e voice of Witchcraft embodies an attitude of scientific utilitarianism,
of maximising the utility of nature for mankind. Here man acts as the
deliberate sovereign over God’s creation, not necessarily by nature but
through an act of Promethean self-empowerment. Adoration and worship is
not directed towards divinity, but towards the enquiring mind and the
discovery of the ‘arts’ that empower man to assume such a distinguished
position within the vast circle of creation. Here service to God is
understood as an act of human appropriation of the world, for successfully
working with His creation defines the process of dignifying divine truth.
True Divine Service does not abdicate such an approach to the world in
general, neither does it vilify the enquiring mind, nor deny the potency of
the magical arts as derived from stars and nature. Compared to the other
voices we heard emerging from Hildegard’s storm-cloud and their often
harsh scolding of the vices they correspond to, the voice of True Divine
Service actually comes across as moderate and mild mannered towards its
nocturnal sibling, Witchcraft. Nonetheless, it points out the essential flaw in
the magical arts, which turns all their fruits vain and only open to the wages
of the Devil: the fact that in its incessant enquiry into the natural and
spiritual world, it loses itself in the myriad forms it encounters. Magic
becomes a circle without a centre. e arts turn themselves from tools to be
applied in the service of divinity, into the gods themselves. Witchcraft
becomes science for the sake of science, a Faustian exploration of nature’s
secrets without respect for nature’s own cycles and needs, like a gardener
who envisions themselves as the sovereign king, rather than the humble
servant of a world upon which they are deeply dependent.

Interestingly, the accusation of holding ‘a circle without a centre’ seems

to echo the thesis of the Book of the 24 Philosophers (Liber XXIV
philosophorum), where a similar expression appears with the exact
opposite reading: as the ultimate definition of divinity. is mysterious
compilation, spuriously attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, first emerged
as a contemporary to Hildgard’s Liber vitae meritorum in the twelfth
century. Some researchers, however, have traced it back to the fourth
century CE, contending that it contains fragments of Aristotle’s lost
book On Philosophy. Today it is considered one of the most occult and
yet influential philosophical treatises of the Middle Ages which had a
significant impact on the likes of Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa and
Giordano Bruno.21
 Deus est spherea infinita cuius centrum est ubique, circunferencia
nusquam.22

is thesis makes an elegant claim for the ubiquity of the divine and its
eternal otherworldliness: for a circle without a centre is also a circle
whose boundary can never be transgressed. We are eternally encircled by
God’s presence, without ever being able to draw it into a single point,
word or shape. When the voice of True Divine Service calls Witchcraft a
circle without a centre, it thus raises the accusation of ultimate
blasphemy. It is in this sense that Witchcraft bears the risk of profaning
the divine mysteries, whereas True Divine Service bears the risk of
becoming static, never moving on or expanding its circumference, only
eternally repeating itself in an endless revolution around a fixed centre,
like the rim of a wheel spinning around its hub.
ree centuries after Hildegard of Bingen, the famous proponent of
Renaissance humanism Nicholas of Cusa epitomised the opposition of
science and faith in his saying: ‘Once you begin to count, you begin to
err.’23 Many years ago, as a young student, I attended an evening lecture
by a famous professor of mathematics. His appearance, raised on a high
desk in the large auditorium, resembled the stereotypical wise man:
fragile and bent over, in a grey suit, a half-moon of baldness lined by an
unkempt white beard. In a side note on his lecture, almost at the end, he
made a remark that has always stayed with me. He said how desperate
he was about the mental state in which students entered universities
these days, how hugely detrimental the influence of school and early
education was upon them. All they were looking for was good grades
and finding the swiftest way to move from success to success. Instead, he
said, in order to truly excel in mathematics, one needed the opposite
mindset: a meandering openness, a state of wonder towards the
mysteries of numbers – and most of all a sense of joy whenever one
encountered a mistake. Instead of marking down every error in an
equation made by students, he said, we should be celebrating these
mistakes. Look, he exclaimed, a variation! An aberrance from the norm.
is is the fuel of all life and evolution!
In this spirit we might want to reply to Nicholas of Cusa: ‘Once you
begin to count and then err, you’ll begin to see the path.’ For both
become possible at once: the enquiry into the world around us and the
marvelling over the mysteries it contains. Exploration of the natural
world can itself become a form of divine service when we no longer
attempt to hold the circle of creation in our hands, but accept that we
too float and change within it. Neither a hypothesised divine centre nor
we humans hold dominion over creation. Divinity has released its
creation into freedom, and it has woven the human species deep inside
of it. us, standing in the middle between Witchcraft and Divine
Service, between the wolf-headed shape and the storm cloud, might
come to mean precisely this: courageously drawing power from the
world around us, and yet knowing when not to use it, in respect of all
that we do not, and cannot, know. After all, the greatest challenge to the
adept warrior is leaving the sword inside the scabbard.
 §V

Exercise

• Wear something light that won’t restrict your breathing.

• Enter a dark, quiet and private place. Ensure no one can disturb you
during the following operation. Place a single candle before you on a
low table or the ground, so that you can easily see its flame while sitting
in your meditation position. If you want, you can burn natural incense
for this operation.
• Take your usual meditation position. Allow your breath to steady and
settle. Focus your gaze on the flame and centre your consciousness in
the light. Whatever you have done before, wherever you have just come
from, it no longer matters. Your past has returned to the womb of
darkness, your future is held in the womb of darkness. Right here, right
now, there is only the flame and your quiet experience of it.
• When you are fully encompassed in silence, sit for a little longer. ere
is no need to rush when surrounded by darkness. ere is no need to
move when anchored in the flame.
• en slowly turn your hands upwards. With your palms open, bring
them to rest comfortably on your knees or armrests, depending on your
sitting position.
• Now slowly close your eyes. e moment the flame disappears from
your view, your consciousness drifts away from it and comes to rest in
 your open hands. You feel your open palms, quietly resting in darkness,
ready to hold the weight of whatever will come.
• Hold your presence like this for a moment. Consider your current form
as an open vessel, ready to be filled.
• en two clouds begin to form above the hollow of your hands. e one
above your right hand is turbulent and stormy, the one above your left
hand is glowing with splendour. As they form, you can feel their
magnetic current pushing down onto your palms. ey are of equal
presence and power.
• As you sit in the darkness, with the clouds hovering above your palms,
you begin to connect with them. As they become more familiar you
realise that they are essentially connected to you. You understand these
clouds have always been there, invisibly extending the reach of your
palms.
• When fully attuned to both the stormy and glowing clouds, you follow
their force field back into your body. You can now feel their magnetic
current running through you. Your consciousness follows their presence
into your arms, up to your elbows, into your shoulders, and into your
open chest. Now you realise the source of both clouds rests in your heart
space. ey are both anchored in your heart. It is from here that they
draw their presence and power.
• You quietly sit and observe their current, flowing from your heart space
through your shoulders and arms, feeding the stormy and the glowing
cloud above your left and right palms. is is the human condition.
• Finally, you bring back your consciousness to your heart space. When
fully centred, you allow your awareness to drift backwards into a spot
approximately 11 inches (30 cm) behind and slightly above your actual
heart. You can find this spot easily by feeling your shoulder blades and
then in your mind moving backwards from these by roughly 11 inches.
Hold your consciousness in stillness in this place away from, and yet
deeply connected to, your physical body.
• Anchored in this place you begin to intone the words ‘I AM.’ You can
quietly utter, sing, pray or chant these words, or simply speak them in
silence in your mind. Test what gives the best effect for your vision. You
know your practice is working when the words I AM and the place
roughly 11 inches behind your shoulder blades are becoming one, a
powerful centre that grips your presence.
• As you practice the simple presence of I AM you realise something
curious. e current that feeds the clouds above your palms slows down,
and suddenly reverses. Now the force field of the stormy and glowing
clouds flows back into your body, through your arms, up your shoulders
and back into your heart. Like the moon acts on the earth, so the words
I AM seem to have a magnetic effect on your body. ey are changing
the tides of power, bringing the force back into your heart.
• You sit in experience of this reverse process, holding your awareness in
the I AM behind your heart, witnessing the clouds above your hands
slowly losing their power as it is absorbed back into your body.
• Without rushing or interfering with it, you hold on to this experience
until the clouds above your palms diminish and are completely gone. No
 more storm in your left hand, no more splendour in your right, but two
open, empty palms. e presence of the I AM field has grown even
stronger now. You can feel its power holding the space behind your
spine, pushing gently against your shoulders and bringing the current of
life into union in your heart. is is the spirit condition.
• As you finish the exercise, gently come back into the presence of the
room. Do not ‘banish’ or seal the experience in any way, but allow it to
stay with you.
• As you leave the room and return to your day, check occasionally on the
space behind your heart. You can still feel the I AM there, holding up
your spine, pulling the life force back into your heart, emptying your
hands to be open for any experience to come.
• Do this exercise repeatedly until I AM is always present within you.

1   John Anthony McGuckin, 189.

2   Hymn 21.
3   Hymn 7.
4   Hymn 36.
5   Hymn 27.
6   Hymn 20.
7   Hymn 21.
8   Hymn 22.
9   Maynard James Keenan, Pneuma.
10   Lamm, 154f.
11   Lamm, 268.
12   Lamm, 268.
13   Gnostikos, paragraph 17.
14   Praktikos, paragraph 48.
15   On Prayer, chapter 50.
16   On Prayer, chapter 136.
17   On Prayer, chapter 138.
18   Hymn 15, 71.
19   Leppin, 75f.
20   Scivias, 15–16.
21   Kurt Flasch, 8–9.
22   Flasch, 29. ‘God is the infinite sphere whose centre is nowhere and whose
circumference is everywhere.’
23   Nikolaus von Kues, Apologia doctae ignorantiae, Opera omnia II, R. Klibansky (ed.),
Leipzig 1932, 24.
 Intermezzo
e Granum Sinapis

§I

to this intermezzo, and congratulations on where you have

W
ELCOME

arrived. In your practical journey, from opening this book to reaching

this page, you have traversed a long distance across the inner desert.
It is time to rest, to look back for a moment and to connect with the place
you have come to. If you were an actual desert monk, this would be the
moment to open the door of your cell and to step out into the light, moving
from the inner realm to the outer. For you have stayed within your cell for
three long nights and through the journey of three important cycles.

Exercise 1

During the first night, i.e. in the first chapter, you took time to step into
your cell and you welcomed darkness. You sat down and sang from within
your heart flame, while the darkness gently began to undress you of the
many skins of false identity. If you followed all three versions of the exercise
given, then you finally came to rest in the Void, where nothing resounds but
the echo of your voice. In this exercise you learned to free yourself from
yourself.
 For I Am who is Neither
Neither dark, neither light
Neither false, neither true
Neither dead, neither born
Neither here, neither there
Neither found, neither lost
For Neither is who I Am.

Exercise 2

During the second night, i.e. in the second chapter, when you performed
your first prayer, you learned that the power of a prayer is not defined by
how masterfully its lyrics are crafted, but whether it is sung with one’s entire
body. During this night you opened your senses to the other side. You rose
all the way from chthonic form to the angelic position; from being one with
substance to standing with your face turned towards God. Singing from the
centre of your heart flame, you stepped onto the threshold of divinity, and
like Symeon the New eologian, you stood half immersed in nothingness,
and half bound to your mortal self. is is how you placed your first sacrifice
on the threshold of divinity. e exercise encouraged you to rise and to
encounter the divine ou.

On behalf of the wondrous heights. On behalf of the silent depths. e tongue

of purity. To you Divinity. is holy melody.

Exercise 3
During the third night, i.e. in the previous chapter, you pulled the sword of
duality from its scabbard and took a careful look at it. Standing on the
threshold of divinity, the sword in your hand, you carefully weighed its
blade and saw light and darkness glisten over its steel. You came to
understand how anything struck by this blade would fall away to both sides,
how wielding this sword would only make the world of duality stronger. So
you came to see that true power resides not in holding this sword
unsheathed, but in keeping it inside its scabbard. Looking more closely, you
realised that it is true power which created the leather weaving of this
scabbard, the one which knows how to bind this divine blade without ever
being touched by it. In this third night then, you learned how to create a
scabbard for the duality that resides within yourself. You learned how to pull
back the blades of your hands, your thoughts, your heart, and to bind them
into the secret space behind your shoulders. In this third exercise you
encountered the difference between the human and the spirit condition, and
as such you found the way towards the untouchable I AM. Look around,
and take stock of how far you have come.

§ II

you will go for a magical walk. It is time to leave

I
N THIS INTERMEZZO

your cell and to reconnect with the world around you. Yet, you will do so
with an intent as sharp and pointed as the tip of the sword you just
learned not to use. Here is your plan of attack: first of all, you will take
something with you on this walk that is more powerful than any blade you
can imagine. It is a poem. For its words, when wielded wisely, strengthen
not duality but unity. is anonymous poem has been used for mystical
incantations since the early fourteenth century. Its lines have gone through
many hands and hearts. Its words still carry the echo of the voices who have
sung it before you. us, this poem is best approached like a key, treasured
and carefully handed forward in time by people whose faces you cannot see,
but who have all been awaiting you. Here and now this line of people ends,
and you can become its next link. e chain is open for you to step inside of
it. It is for you to read this poem from your heart space, to breathe living
fire into it, and to make it your own.
It is speculated that the author of this mystical poem is none other than
Meister Eckhart himself. We will learn more about him in a later chapter.
Quite unusually for the fourteenth century, this gnostic poem was written
in the German vernacular, more specifically in a dialect from Eastern
Germany. What has sparked the curiosity of many researchers is that it
comes with a dedicated, lengthy commentary in Latin, most likely written
by a different author. It is this combination – a vernacular poem with a
Latin commentary – that has led to so much speculation about its origin.
After all, the author of the Latin commentary goes to great lengths to
express adoration for the original vernacular text and the many different
layers of meaning hidden within it. e usual path of paying homage, in
this case, is walked in reverse. e Latin author of the commentary –
seemingly of high spiritual rank and education – pays overt homage to a
text conceived in the vernacular of the common man. Of course, it cannot
be excluded that the commentary might have had a Machiavellian purpose:
it could well have been intended to reclaim dominion over this mystical
song for the masses by an orthodox elite, as only such as they would have
been able to read and understand the complex and lengthy Latin exegesis.
Whatever the intent of the author of the commentary, as so often with texts
of learned magic, the additional layers of academically constructed meaning
and exegesis can easily obfuscate and dim the text’s original splendour. So
trust your heart (not your gut!) as a place of wisdom. Meditating over the
lines of this song can entirely suffice to set your heart on fire.
With this in mind, we will only steal two things from the commentary.
Firstly, the biblical quote its author uses to open the long interpretation:
Abissus abissum invocat in voce cataractarum tuarum (e abyss is calling the
abyss in the voice of your waterfalls – Psalm 42:7). A short meditation on
this line alone will yield fruit: the abyss speaking to itself, in the voice of the
waterfalls of creation. Can you see the entire circle of creation, the serpent
biting its own tail? From abyss to abyss through a world of ephemeral being.
is is the divine path, the mystical journey our poem will shine a light on.
e quote above identifies the place marked with an ‘x’ on our journey to
become seekers of understanding; the poem itself provides us with the rest
of the map.
Secondly, we’ll also gratefully accept the hint encoded in the title given
to the poem in the lengthy commentary. Originally published without any
title, the commentary’s author referred to the song as e Mustard Seed, or
the song of the Granum Sinapis. is name is an overt reference to the
biblical parable found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke as well as
the non-canonical Gospel of omas.
 He set another parable before them, saying: ‘e Kingdom of Heaven is
like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field;
which indeed is smaller than all seeds. But when it is grown, it is greater
than the herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come along
and lodge in its branches.’1 is parable, the kingdom of Heaven co-created
by nature and man from the smallest of things, became a popular reference
point for medieval Christian mystics, as the following aphorisms illustrate:

If you came to close a circle, as tiny as a mustard seed,

still the heart of God would reside inside in its entirety.2

In a tiny mustard seed, as you might come to love,

Is the image contained of all of below and above.3

e circle is in the centre, the fruit in the seeds reside,

God in the world: Prudent is he who searched him inside.4

Given the strongly exegetical nature of the commentary to our anonymous

poem, it is worthwhile taking a closer look at the biblical parable. In its
original form the parable in the Gospel of Matthew contains three core
elements: a mustard seed sown by a man, a large tree grown from it and the
‘birds of the air’ nesting in its branches. In our poem, as we will see, the
anonymous author lays out a mystical path for the practitioner, all the way
from the emergence of the divine Trinity, through the desert of trials and
creation, back to the border of the Abyss. us we can presume the
commentary’s author saw a direct parallel between the biblical parable and
the kind of spiritual process outlined in the poem. According to this reading
then, our human mind is the mustard seed: through sowing the seed and
nurturing the seedling and plant, we become both the gardener and the
garden – and witness the bringing forth of our angelic mind from
hibernating latency (seed) to fully activated expression (tree).

Now, the key point of the parable is that any such journey of personal
deification emerges from the humblest of beginnings: the mustard seed is
among the smallest and plainest seeds known in the Mediterranean; and yet
it grows incredibly fast and as a tree can reach up to nine feet (2.7 metres)
or more. In the same vein, tending the garden that we are ourselves,
requires humility as well as daily care and attention to the smallest of
practices and habits. Paradoxically, it does not require a few significant
heroic acts to become truly significant as a human being, but rather a
million tiny acts of courage, of sowing our own mustard seeds and tending
their seedlings.
e parable’s allusions to the botanical features of the mustard tree
extend still further. Black mustard is one of the oldest cultigens of the
Mediterranean. us we can presume native readers of the passage would
have spotted another conspicuity in the short text: once the tree has fully
grown, as the parable explains, it is large enough to offer shade and shelter
to the ‘birds of the air.’ However, one of the well known characteristics of
black mustard trees and bushes (brassica nigra) is that the plant does not
attract wildlife and certainly no nesting birds. For when it is crushed it
releases a pungent taste, due to the sinigrin contained in it, which protects it
from feeding animals of all kinds. us, seeing a mustard tree sheltering
‘the birds of the air’ should be read as further proof of the singularity and
wonder that can be brought forth from the original seedling. Not only can
the kingdom of Heaven be extracted from the smallest of seeds, but the
original poison contained in the seed will also be transformed as part of this
process. Only then the tree (our fully stabilised angelic mind) is able to
attract the birds of the air and allow them to lodge in its branches.

But if man wants to achieve this, he must unite himself with the angelic
mind and become alike.5

In Black Abbot · White Magic, we examined the magical legacy of Johannes

Trithemius, observing the emphasis placed in his pseudepigraphic writings
on attuning the human mind to the angelic mind (Engelische Gemueth).
Only then could any magical operation truly succeed, for the beings we call
angels can only lodge and reside close to beings who have become alike to
them. us, the settling into the angelic mind is the core operation of
Trithemius’ magicomystical program. e biblical allusion to the birds
residing in the mustard tree might well be a much earlier appearance of the
same gnostic idea. If we read the parable’s ‘birds of the air’ as an allegory for
the spirits of the air, i.e. the angels, it becomes clear that these can only
come to lodge in the tree (the human mind) once it has transformed its
poisons. us the parable not only encourages us to show humility and
devotion on our path towards deification, it also holds the key to
understanding that it is not we ourselves who will become the kingdom of
Heaven, but at best the lodging place for spirits of much higher powers
than humans can ever achieve. e spiritual journey compressed in the short
lines of the parable thus leads from honouring the smallest of seeds, to
growing into a tree, and finally offering ourselves up in service to the spirits
who will come to dwell in the branches of our alike-to-angelic minds.
So now we see, within a tiny mustard seed sleeps the kingdom of
Heaven. From the smallest beginnings we can extract and refine one of the
most precious gifts granted to humans, the angelic mind. In quite the same
way, the author of the commentary believed, this mystical song compressed
into nine verses contained the entire spiritual program of the gnostic. Bury
this seed deep within you and tend to it, and you might be able to find the
narrow trail, the straight flight of the arrow, the mystic’s journey called the
rainbow path.

In dem begin In the beginning

hô uber sin High above the mind
ist ie daz wort. Forever is the word.
ô rîcher hort, Oh rich hoard,
dâ ie begin begin gebar! For beginning delivers beginning!
I
ô vader brust, Oh father’s breast,
ûz der mit lust From which with zest
daz wort ie vlôz! e word forever welled!
doch hat der schôz Still in the womb
daz wort behalden, daz ist wâr. e word remained, for that is true.

II Von zwên ein vlût, From two as one surge

 der minnen glût, Love’s fiery urge,
der zweier bant, Bound together
den zwein bekant, Known forever
vlûzet der vil sûze geist e dear spirit streams
vil ebinglîch, Alike entirely
unscheidelîch. Inseparably.
dî drî sîn ein. e three are one.
weiz du waz? nein. And you know none.
iz weiz sich selber aller meist. For it knows itself the best.

Der drîer strik e rope of three

hat tîfen schrik, Holds shock for thee
den selben reif is circle round
nî sin begreif: No sense has found
hîr ist ein tûfe sunder grunt. Here is a depth without ground.
III
schach unde mat Check and mate
zît, formen, stat! For time, form and space!
der wunder rink is wondrous ring
ist ein gesprink, Is a primal spring
gâr unbewegit stêt sîn punt. Still stands its point.

IV Des puntez berk is centre’s height

stîg âne werk, Climb with delight
vorstentlichkeit! Sensibly!
der wek dich treit For the path will guide
in eine wûste wunderlîch, You to a desert wide
dî breit, dî wît, Which odd, which far,
unmêzik lît. Lies immeasurably.
dî wûste hat is desert has
 noch zît noch stat, No time, no place
ir wîse dî ist sunderlîch. For its nature is peculiar.

Daz wüste gût is desert good

nî vûz durch wût, Has not been crossed by foot,
geschaffen sin For the fashioned mind
quam nî dâ hin: Never reached its kind:
us ist und weis doch nimant was. For it exists and no one knows what it is.
V
us hî, us dâ, Is yonder, is here,
us verre, us nâ, Is far, is near,
us tîf, us hô, Is deep, is tall,
us ist alsô, Is after all
daz us ist weder diz noch daz. at which is neither this nor that.

Us licht, us clâr, Is light, is pure,

us vinster gâr, Is dark for sure,
us unbenant, Is nameless,
us unbekant, Is unknown,
beginnes und ouch endes vrî, Without start and end,
VI
us stille stât, Still it stands,
blôs âne wât. Naked without blouse.
wer weiz sîn hûs? Who knows its house?
der gê her ûz He may come forth
und sage uns, welich sîn forme sî. And tell us which form it holds.

VII Wirt als ein kint Become like a child

wirt toup, wirt blint! become deaf and blind!
dîn selbes icht To your own life
mûz werden nicht, Do no longer strife,
al icht, al nicht trîb uber hôr! All selves, all naught cast out!
 lâ stat, lâ zît, Space and time be blight,
ouch bilde mît! And the images evite!
genk âne wek Walk without rail
den smalen stek, On the narrow trail
sô kums du an der wûste spôr. So you will be led to the desert’s track.

Ô sêle mîn Oh soul of mine,

genk ûz, got în! go out, God in!
sink al mîn icht Sink my entire self
in gotis nicht, Into God’s naught
sink in dî grundelôze vlût! Sink to the abyssal tide!
VIII
vlî ich von dir, If flee from thee
du kumst zu mir. You come to me.
vorlîs ich mich, I loose myself
sô vind ich dich, I find thyself,
ô uberweselîches gût! Oh you transcended Good!

§ III

Exercise

• Deeply familiarise yourself with the Granum Sinapis. Maybe you have
sung it into a candle flame, read it before going to bed and inquired
after it in dreams, or simply recited it silently to yourself.
• Now write down by hand all nine verses of the song on a fresh sheet of
parchment or paper.
• Go for a long walk or hike into nature and take the poem with you.
• Walk in silence and meditate on the meaning of the poem.
• Share the poem with the world. Like the actual mustard seed referenced
by the commentary’s author, bury the poem in the soil.
• ere is no right or wrong way of doing this, except for overthinking it.
If you live in an old village, find an uninhabited house and push the
poem into the cracks of a wall. Or throw it into a deep well. Or fold it
into a boat and put it into a river. Or simply bury it with your hands in
the ground. Wherever you leave the poem though, make sure you not
only put the paper down, but also recite the poem one more time to the
wall, the water, the well, or the soil that you are seeding it into. Your
spoken word counts just as much as the written. Maybe more.
• In vision, the poem becomes one with the earth, the wall, the waters.
• When the poem is fully dissolved, consider if what just happened could
have been a dream. What if right here and right now you are indeed not
your waking self, but your dream self? Perhaps the scenery around you
really is a dream wall, well or river, a dream poem – a living image that
exists nowhere but in the mind of the dreamer.
• When the boundaries between waking reality and dream reality have
sufficiently blurred, pull your consciousness back to the point behind
your shoulder blades. Silently recite I AM and feel the pure
consciousness of the waking state trickling through you. When you are
fully awake and present again, bow to the place where you buried the
poem, and walk away from it without turning around.
• When you come home, write down your reflections on the poem.
No creature is primarily from and by itself simple, neither does it satisfy
itself. Instead, it does not only need the elements of which it is made, but
plenty of other outer things. For example, the angel, who is made of reality
and potentiality, does not need these two alone, but also mercy and glory.
Man, however, who is made of body and soul, needs both of these to exist,
yet beyond these, countless other things. In contrast, God by means of the
pure simplicity of His self is His own being [...]. Admittedly, according to
Dionysius and Alanus He is not only one, but equally a wholeness, which is
a unity from which emerges all plurality of all other created beings. Such
wholeness, according to Alanus, is ‘alpha and omega, without alpha and
omega.’ For it is all things, beginning and end, without [having] a
beginning and an end, just as from singularity all other numbers emerge,
while singularity itself remains whole. [...] And again: Just like any random
number is increasingly manifold and compound the more it departs from
unity, so every creature is increasingly manifold and unlike to God the more
it departs from him.6

1   Matthew 13:31–32.
2   Jakob Boehme, Vom dreifachen Leben.
3   Angelus Silesius, Cherbuin Wandersmann.
4   Angelus Silesius.
5   Pelagius, Two Books, 3a.
6   e Latin Commentary to the Granum Sinapis, Bindschedler, 51/53.
 eologia Germanica

§I

from the place where the abyss is calling the abyss.

W
E ARE EMERGING

We are still hearing the echo of its call. And the echo of that call was
heard all the way through the most turbulent and radical decades of
the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Amongst the inspired German mystics
who followed Meister Eckhart two terms became central: ground and abyss.
e German etymology of the words shows them to be profoundly
intertwined: Grund (ground) and Abgrund (abyss). e former describes the
place where all foundations are anchored, and the latter the place where all
foundations abruptly fall away to nameless depth.
Following Eckhart, both terms were applied to the human heart as the
centre of the mystic’s work and attention. For the human heart was the
place where man could encounter both ground and abyss at once. Imagine a
circular room, divided in half by a wall with a central door. e section of
this room that the human mind can enter is the ground, hidden in utter
solitude and silence, the deepest and yet most sound and stable depth we
can reach in meditation. Here is where the heart flame of our being burns;
here is where we sink down to when we pass into the Void; here is where we
are as far apart from the world as possible without entirely losing our own
being (Sondersein). Next to the semicircle of the heart flame’s room stretches
the wall that divides this space. As we step closer to examine the door in its
centre, we realise its frame does not actually contain a door. Instead, it is
filled with pitch-black darkness. As hard as we try, our gaze cannot
penetrate it. at darkness could be as solid as stone or stretch out into
eternity. We do not know. Standing on the side of the heart flame, looking
into the other half of the heart, all we see is utter, unmoved darkness. is is
the abyss.
For the heretics walking on the narrow trail of the Granum Sinapis it was
within the human heart – or more precisely, within the centre of their heart
flames – that Grund and Abgrund became one. e place that was
synonymous with safety from all worldly dangers, desires and threats, was
also the place where all of the world fell away. Here the practitioner came to
a complete standstill – anchored in the most amaranthine awakening
possible, and yet only a single step away from the Void of the unformed
Godhead.
us, at the centre of late medieval mysticism in Germany stands a
paradox: experiencing ontological life to its fullest while at the same time
being confronted with the sphere of ‘uncreatedness’ from which divinity
breathes over the abyss. Leading a life fully in one’s soul’s ground
(Seelengrund) became the central premise of the writings. And yet, finding
this place, stepping into it, meant everything else had to be given up. Here
the necessary withdrawal from the world took the opposite form to what we
encountered with the Egyptian Desert Fathers. ese German mystics
advocated being present and active in their social communities; their
writings are often in the vernacular of the common man, and – in contrast
to Eckhart himself – their vocabulary was not embroidered with technical
philosophical terms, but rather was clothed in the plain garments of
everyday speech. While their work appealed to the common man, their
social-spiritual agenda was no less radical for it. e lives of their two most
prominent representatives, Henry Suso (Heinrich Seuse, 1295–1366) and
Johannes Tauler (1300–1366), embodied that purpose: to restore the
essence of Christianity within themselves and the communities to which
they ministered. At a time when monastic life was undergoing radical
changes and increasing degradation, the hope was to lead the reform of
Christianity not from the ramparts of its former citadels, but from every
street corner, however humble. For these radical mystics the layman was the
new monk. While their countrymen continued to be fathers, farmers and
pharmacists, the goal was to draw out, to cultivate and grow their inner
anchorite.
e desert was still there. It had just changed location; it had moved
from the outside to the inside. And narrow and long was the path – until
one was led into the inner desert of gnosis which only a few would ever
reach. Ultimately, at the heart of the endeavour of these late medieval
mystics was a call to unconditional service of the divine to be rendered by
every cobbler, butcher and farmer. If the Desert Fathers had attempted to
escape the world to completely immerse themselves within the divine, these
fourteenth century mystics chose the opposite direction: in a word, they
attempted to bring divinity into the middle of the lay community by way of
a radical this-worldliness (radikale Diesseitigkeit).
 Some people want to see God with their own eyes, just as they see a cow,
and they want to love God just as they love a cow. You love it because of
the milk and because of the cheese and because of the usefulness for you.
is is how all the people act who love God because of external riches or
because of internal consolation; and they do not love God rightly, but
they love their own use.1

§ II

understand this radical endeavour, we have to understand

I
N ORDER TO

the shape of the fourteenth century setting in which it took place. Over
the course of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries the crusades had
been the unifying project for large parts of Europe. As the old adage goes,
common enemies unite. In this particular case the common enemy – the
‘unbelievers’ in the Holy Land – not only united the different factions and
orders within the Catholic Church, but also their secular counterparts, the
kings and lords of Europe. For a relatively short period, spiritual and secular
potentates succeeded in diverting attention and bloodshed away from their
own houses. is volatile strategy had run its course by the late thirteenth
century.
From a political perspective, for most potentates the pressing needs
within Europe took the upper hand. In the East, the Byzantine Empire had
fallen and the Ottoman Empire was on the rise, the Holy Roman Empire
had been without an emperor for its longest interregnum, from 1245 to
1312, while in France Saint Louis was busy fighting local lords and vassals
in his pursuit of a centralised kingdom. By the time Philip IV brought
about the fall of the Knights Templar, Spain was fully immersed in its own
Reconquista, and England was attempting to rebuild its monarchy by
fighting unruly rebel lords in Wales and Scotland, whilst simultaneously
gearing up for what would become the Hundred Years War with France.
ese domestic tensions led to a redirection of efforts away from the Holy
Land and into European territories. Unsurprisingly, the same strategy that
had previously been applied to external enemies was now applied to internal
ones. Following the Albigensian Crusade (1209–29) against the heretical
Cathars in the south of France, we encounter the rise of the totalitarian
Inquisition, which quickly became a dedicated office within the Dominican
and Franciscan orders, and which would eventually lead to the era of the
witch trials during the early fourteenth century.
ese extremely oppressive measures from secular and spiritual
potentates alike have to be placed in the context of ongoing demographic
changes in Western Europe: the steady increase of population from the
eighth century onwards had led to a highly strained agricultural economy by
the end of the thirteenth century. Small variations in harvest could lead to
meaningful shortfalls and the margin for crop failures had diminished
almost entirely. us, when the weather patterns across the region changed
in the years from 1315 to 1317 the results had grave consequences across
the continent:

By the spring of 1317, all classes of society were suffering, although, as

might be expected, the lower classes suffered the most. Draft animals
 were slaughtered, seed grain was eaten, infants and the younger children
were abandoned. Many of the elderly voluntarily starved themselves to
death so that the younger members of the family might live to work the
fields again. ere were numerous reports of cannibalism, although one
can never tell if such talk was not simply a matter of
rumor-mongering. […] e weather had returned to its normal pattern
by the summer of 1317, but the people of Europe were incapable of
making a quick recovery. An important factor in this situation was the
scarcity of grain available to be used as seed. […] At the height of the
hunger in the late Spring of 1317, starving people had eaten much of the
grain normally set aside as seed, as well as many of their draft animals.
Even so, any of the surviving people and animals were simply too weak
to work effectively. But about ten to fifteen percent of the population
had died from pneumonia, bronchitis, tuberculosis, and other sicknesses
that the starving sufferers’ weakness had made fatal, and there were
consequently fewer mouths to feed. So Europe was able to recover,
although only slowly.2

Just when things seemed on the mend, a disaster even more significant than
the Great Famine of 1315 descended upon the region.

e Black Death seems to have arisen somewhere in Asia and was

brought to Europe from the Genoese trading station of Kaffa in the
Crimea (in the Black Sea). e story goes that the Mongols were
besieging Kaffa when a sickness broke out among their forces and
 compelled them to abandon the siege. As a parting shot, the Mongol
commander loaded a few of the plague victims onto his catapults and
hurled them into the town. Some of the merchants left Kaffa for
Constantinople as soon as the Mongols had departed, and they carried
the plague with them. It spread from Constantinople along the trade
routes, causing tremendous mortality along the way.3

Today it is estimated that by the middle of the fourteenth century, the

interplay of the Great Famine and the subsequent pandemics reduced
Western Europe’s population by at least half, and damage beyond repair had
been inflicted on many districts. In the end, it would take the continent
more than 150 years to return to the population of 1300 CE.

Neither worldly nor spiritual leadership at the time was able to buffer any of
these blows. Both in fact aggravated the situation badly. In 1378 the Papal
Schism split Christianity, and the rival claims of the two popes in Rome
and Avignon further damaged the already dubious reputation of the
Catholic Church. Secular rulers were increasingly able to exploit the
instability of the church for their own purposes, which in turn led to a
further reduction of spiritual orientation and discipline amongst the clergy
and lay-people. Instead it helped to renew the synonymous use of the terms
spiritual orthodoxy and institutional corruption, so well known from the
late medieval Catholic Church.

Now the Church was not poor, it had always known how to take from
Christians whatever was there to take […] in order to fulfill
 accomplishments of most noble duties, for the holy Church, for holy
wars, for the holy Inquisition, for crusades, whether in the end they took
place or not. A financial fortune, that once it was spent, had to be
brought in again in the most diverse ways, often requiring sharp
considerations and difficult calculations. us Clemens [Pope Clemens
V, 1264–1314], in relation to a crusade prepared by the Knights of St
John of Jerusalem, estimated in an indulgence bulla from 11th of August
1308 amongst other things: for 24 denarii on Good Friday 24 years of
indulgence, for 12 denarii on other holidays 12 years of indulgence, for 6
denarii on the other days 6 years of indulgence. However, if one was to
give everything at once, the indulgence would be equal to the gift. Yes,
the Church was not to be derided. If one was generous, she would be as
well. Also the Pope himself gave a lot, sacrificed a lot, especially to the
King. And he was even more dependent upon him, since he had resided
upon the latter’s insistence in Avignon since 1309, by which the Pope
inaugurated the seventy years of ‘Babylonian Captivity’ of the Popes
(1309–1377); an era of significant disreputability, characterised by
luxury, nepotism, corruption, by acquisition of conspicuous treasures and
their complete dissipation.4

is short historical excursion should allow us to see the conditions from
which the fourteenth century German mystics emerged. Of course, the
spiritual current they represent was not the only one during this time that
swung away from the polluted stream of medieval Catholicism. In fact, we
encounter at the beginning of the fourteenth century a broad delta of
countless rivulets that which ultimately gave rise to the social revolution
that would become Protestantism.
In the German Rhineland, particularly in the imperial city of
Strasbourg, the situation had been gravely aggravated by several other
factors entirely of the Catholic Church’s own making. With the strong
political affiliation of the Papacy to the French Crown and its move to
Avignon (1309–1377), the religious institution had turned itself into an
explicitly secular power.5 e emerging struggle for spiritual as well as
worldly authority between the Avignon pope and Louis IV, Emperor of the
Holy Roman Empire (1282–1347) revealed the increasingly superficial
unity of Christianity in the West. In 1324 Pope John XXII banned and
excommunicated Louis IV from the Catholic Church, an unprecedented
escalation meant to undermine his adversary by freeing the population from
their oath of allegiance to the king. However, the papal bull did not have
the expected impact, but provoked quite the opposite reaction: the majority
of the population and electors continued to show loyalty to the king, large
parts of the Dominicans, ordered to publicise the papal bull, delayed its
widespread reading for years, and eventually Louis IV initiated his own
coronation in Rome in 1328. In return the Pope extended his interdict and
in doing so, put the communities within the emperor’s realm to a crucial
test.
e events that unfolded in the city limits of Strasbourg, a major
commercial centre of the Holy Roman Empire, shine a particularly bright
light on the sociopolitical disruption of the time. While the emperor
reaffirmed the validity of the peace treaties signed with other cities as well
as the unique privileges it held, the papal bull brought the Dominicans’
clerical activities close to a standstill in the city. From 1329 to 1353
Strasbourg was under the papal interdict, and for more than three long
years the Dominicans had to close their doors to the public; under the
interdict it was forbidden to hold services and offer communion to the
subjects who had been technically excommunicated along with their unruly
emperor.6 e situation in the city, however, was further exacerbated for the
young Dominican order, which had only been founded in 1170 CE. Since
the middle of the thirteenth century their growing influence had been
contested by the traditional secular clergy, i.e. pastors ordained by bishops
and their subordinates (chaplains, deacons, vicars), who did not live in
social communities bound by the rules of an order. e secular clergy saw
the location independent mendicant order as an active threat to their
spiritual hegemony, especially as the order quickly acquired financial means
through donations, inheritances and confiscations from pogroms against the
Jews. us authorities of the secular clergy did as much as they could to
constrain the public scope of the Dominicans, especially within the
mercantile centres along the Rhine region such as Strasbourg, Mainz,
Worms, Speyer and Oppenheim. In 1318 the bishop of Strasbourg had
issued regulations that prohibited the Dominicans from sermonising in
public churches unless they had received specific permission from local
pastors. In their own churches they could only hold services during times
when no public service was being held, only specifically empowered
individuals were allowed to hear confessions and none of the order’s
members were allowed to administer the Eucharist.
 Let us step back and take a broader view of the historical diorama we are
presented with in fourteenth century Germany: the unifying force of the
crusades had lost its force, European potentates had slid back into domestic
infighting, while an unprecedented climate change, followed by an epic
multi-year famine, decimated large parts of Europe, and the Black Death
drew closer from the East. At the very same time, the pope in Avignon was
fighting the emperor in Munich as well as the new Pope in Rome, the
secular clergy was fighting the regular clergy everywhere, and while the
Dominicans fought amongst themselves over whether to pledge allegiance
to the Avignon pope or the emperor, a subgroup of their order set out to
become the Inquisition, fighting heretics both real and imagined.
Men saw in these frightful calamities the judgements of God, but
looked in vain for any to show them a way of deliverance and escape. Some
believed that Judgement Day was approaching; some, remembering an old
prophecy, looked with hope for the return of the Great Emperor Frederick
II to restore justice and peace in the world, to punish the wicked clergy, and
help the poor and oppressed. Others traverse the country in processions,
scourging themselves and praying with loud voices, in order to atone for
their sins and appease God’s anger, and inveighing against man’s lack of
belief, which had called down God’s wrath upon the earth; while some
thought to do God service by wreaking vengeance on the people who had
slain the Lord, and thousands of wretched Jews perished in the flames
kindled by frantic terror.7
Allow your mind’s eye to take in the full picture. What did it mean to be
a ‘seeker of understanding’ during these times? What did it mean to be
human? e old Latin adage homo homini lupus est (man is a wolf to man)
rises to the fore again. For when the world around us falls apart, when there
is little personal security or common social standards left to uphold the
scaffold of our civilised selves, then the old shadows seep out into our blood
and what is left of our communities: greed, egotism, selfishness and the
feverish short term exploitation of all available resources. ese are all very
human reactions, when there is nothing left to lose and no future to look
forward to.
By the early fourteenth century the squalor and corruption of the
medieval clergy had become proverbial; large parts of the mendicant orders
were no longer chaste nor poor.8 us, partly through their own fault, partly
through entanglement in the turmoil of politics, the iron bands the Western
Church had forged around ecclesiastical and lay communities began to
crack. e unquestioned collective identity, moulded by the sacred duty of
attending regular Catholic service, was under direct attack, not from the
outside but entirely from within.9
Peter Dinzelbacher, honorary professor at the University of Vienna, in
his extensive studies on the history of the European mentality, refers to the
High Middle Ages as an axial age (Achsenzeit), a time that brought about a
profound shift in how people made sense of the world and their place
within it. e seemingly sudden emergence of so many diverse heretical
sects is best understood in the context of the tectonic changes that affected
peoples’ view of the divine, the world and the position of the human race.
e breakdown of the mentality that dominated the early Middle Ages,
the feeling of being immutably integrated into a particular area, led to a
new self-consciousness (Ich-Bewusstheit), which distinguished itself from
the previously dominant ‘We-community’ (Wir-Gemeinschaft). is, of
course, initially only applied to a small elite, for the people (which was
practically identical to the peasantry) very little changed in regard to their
‘bound individuality,’ which had already had been a marked characteristic of
the early Middle Ages.10
e coming apart of the threads that had woven people into the social
fabric of their communities for centuries, was an event whose significance
may be hard for us to fathom today. e overview I have given illustrates
the volatile culmination of disruptive environmental as well as sociopolitical
forces that enabled these drastic cultural changes. But once it began to rise,
the tide became unstoppable. e following table consolidates some of the
cultural polarities that emerged during this time – all of which were
essential in enabling a new radical mysticism.

Cultural Polarities of the Early and High Middle Ages

Signicant shifts in how the divine, the world and human disposition were
explained

EARLY MIDDLE AGES

HIGH MIDDLE AGES
Dominant socio-cultural
Emerging alternatives
norms

How is the world Static Dynamic

 perceived?

Own experience or
How is trust earned? Authority
rational verifiability

How are decisions

External laws Inner ethics (conscience)
justified?

How do we relate to
Hierarchy Partnership
others?

How do we organise? Orthodoxy Consensus

How do we attempt to
Supernatural logic Natural logic
explain?

Socially codified values Emerging ‘Romantic’

How do we feel?
(such as honour) emotionality

How do we orient Unreflexive integration Conscious reconstruction

ourselves in time? into tradition of the past

Adapted from Peter Dinzelbacher, Die Achsenzeit des Hohen Mittelalters und die Ketzergeschichte, 106.

§ III

e eye in which I see God is the same eye in which God sees me; my
eye and God’s eye are one eye and one seeing, one knowing and one
loving.
– Meister Eckhart
 EFORE WE DELVE more deeply into the mysticism of the German

B
Rhineland, we should clarify some terms. It seems important to
understand that none of the fourteenth century people whose voices’
echoes we will hear would have self-identified as mystics. Such a term –
especially in its German form – is a historical construct which has only been
applied to certain subcultural streams since the seventeenth century.11
Neither of the ‘mystics’ whose work we will study would have referred to
themselves in a fashion that could have implied a spiritually privileged
position. eir intention was precisely the opposite: to cut through the
established current of ‘mercantile spirituality,’ which in effect applied
hierarchical monetary value to the human-divine relationship.12 Rather,
they sought to make the gnostic experience freely available to all. In magical
rituals we often come across the idea of drawing down stellar influences into
spiritual vessels – whether that is into an amulet or the living body of the
operator themselves. Here, among the heretics of fourteenth century
Germany, we experience an even more radical endeavour: the attempt to
draw down divinity into the heart of the common man.

[To be] empty, [to be] poor, to have nothing, to be pure, changes nature;
purity makes water climb uphill.13

e work that has most come to epitomise the radical approach of mystical
this-worldliness is an anonymous treatise, dated to the late fourteenth
century and originally published without a title. Today it is known as the
eologia Germanica, and less frequently as Der Franckforter. Surviving in
only eight known copies, it rose to fame when it came to the attention of
Martin Luther, who published it partially in 1516 and in a revised and more
complete edition in 1518.
is short treatise marks a critical crossroad. On the one hand, its spirit
is born from the unbearable corruption of the Catholic Church, from the
breakdown of the early medieval mindset, and the decay of orthodox power
structures. Without understanding this context, none of its radical claims
can be properly understood. On the other hand, it marks the beginning of a
new era of bold spiritual expression in the West, epitomised by Martin
Luther himself, who wrote in the preface to his 1518 edition that ‘next to
the Bible and St Augustine, no book has ever come into my hands from
which I have learned more of God and Christ, and man and all things that
are.’ As pointed out by Luther, the theoretical seed of the eologia
Germanica can be traced back to the heretical triumvirate of three famous
fourteenth century Dominicans from the German Rhineland: Meister
Eckhart (1260–1327/8), Henry Suso (1295–1366) and Johannes Tauler
(1300–1361).14
While the teachings of these three men differ in important ways, they
themselves stood in direct teacher-student relationships and shared several
foundational tenets. We have already highlighted the radical this-
worldliness of their teachings, which finds succinct expression in the ideal
of the applied ‘life master’ (Lebemeister) in contrast to the theoretical ‘book
master’ (Lesemeister). Almost five hundred years later, in the essential
nineteenth century German dictionary by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm
Grimm, we still find the two terms contrasted, albeit without mention of
their mystical origins:

A life master is a master in the conduct of life. Many book masters, few
life masters.

Book master – lector of a monastery, a teacher of theology and

philosophy, therein: lector claustri.

According to Eckhart, Suso and Tauler, a mystical life was not a life spent
in remote seclusion, but a life lived actively in service to a spiritual calling in
the world.15 According to them, the divine light was dependent on the
inner light, and thus man’s readiness to give birth to the latter in order to
experience the former. e birthing of the inner light, however, required
that one apply oneself unconditionally to the world, without a shadow of
one’s own ego or personal desires. at is why their sermons are wrought
with terms describing the experience of a descent, the sense of sinking
downward, the experience of a ground, as well as the surrendering to the
abyss (in German: Einkehr, Sinken, Grund, Abgrund). Perhaps their most
essential concept of the divine could be considered the experience of a state
of flow. Gnosis according to them is not a peak experience, but ongoing,
circulating and meandering. It is a natural and unforced way of being,
present to whatever presents itself, while standing naked before oneself. e
life master has found wisdom, not from arcane techniques, but from willing
exposure to the divine tides; not trying to escape or to manipulate them, but
moving through pain and suffering and out of them again, entirely devoid
of human interference or desire. It is the whyless (warumlos) and wayless
(weglos) path which they follow, the narrow trail of the Granum Sinapis.

He should surrender himself to God entirely down to his deepest cause

(Grund), so that God no longer encounters any resistance within him, so
that God may be able to cause agency within him.16

Detachment deposes the fabricated false self and the fabricated false
‘god’ (both equally illusionary), and it destabilizes a mercantile
spirituality’s carefully measured exchange of devotional activities and
spiritual rewards.17

With this context and underlying purpose in mind, let us immerse ourselves
in some of the teachings of the eologia Germanica, and listen to the advice
it gives to any layperson who would walk the narrow path. e following
quotes are taken from Susanna Winkworth’s 1874 English translation, with
(unmarked) corrections from the original German.

e Scripture and the Faith and the Truth say sin is nought else, but
that the creature turneth away from the unchangeable Good and
betaketh itself to the changeable; that is to say, that it turneth away from
the Perfect to that which is in part and imperfect, and most often to
itself. Now mark: when the creature claimeth for its own anything good,
such as Substance, Life, Knowledge, Power, and in short whatever we
should call good, as if it were that, or possessed that, or that were itself,
or that proceeded from it, – as often as this cometh to pass, the creature
 goeth astray. What did the devil do else, or what was his going astray
and his fall else, but that he claimed for himself to be also somewhat,
and would have it that somewhat was his, and somewhat was due to him
is setting up of a claim and his I and Me and Mine, these were his
going astray, and his fall. And thus it is to this day.18

Almost in Pelagian spirit, the treatise begins with a strong emphasis on the
importance of free will. Sin, as it says, is a matter of choice: of choosing to
face towards divinity or away from it, of focussing our attention on the
eternal or the ephemeral. From this a secondary principle is derived: how do
we as humans relate to what we encounter in the world? Do we begin to
identify with the things we behold and desire, or do we manage to witness
them with a calm heart, allowing each created thing its own spirit and its
own root reaching back into the divine? Can we look at the world without
weaving our own wishes and desires into it?

Behold! I have fallen a hundred times more often and deeply, and gone a
hundred times farther astray than Adam; and not all mankind could
amend his fall, or bring him back from going astray. But how shall my
fall be amended? It must be healed as Adam’s fall was healed, and on the
self-same wise. By whom, and on what wise was that healing brought to
pass? Mark this: man could not without God, and God should not
without man. Wherefore God took human nature or manhood upon
Himself and was made man, and man was made divine. us the healing
was brought to pass. So also must my fall be healed. I cannot do the
 work without God, and God may not or will not without me; for if it
shall be accomplished, in me, too, God must be made man in such sort
that God must take to Himself all that is in me, within and without, so
that there may be nothing in me which striveth against God or
hindereth His work. Now if God took to Himself all men that are in the
world, or ever were, and were made man in them, and they were made
divine in Him, and this work were not fulfilled in me, my fall and my
wandering would never be amended except it were fulfilled in me also.
And in this bringing back and healing, I can, or may, or shall do nothing
of myself, but just simply yield to God, so that He alone may do all
things in me and work, and I may suffer Him and all His work and His
divine will. And because I will not do so, but I count myself to be my
own, and say ‘I,’ ‘Mine,’ ‘Me’ and the like, God is hindered, so that He
cannot do His work in me alone and without hindrance; for this cause
my fall and my going astray remain unhealed. Behold! this all cometh of
my claiming somewhat for my own.

Much of the heretical elegance of this short treatise shines forth from this
paragraph in chapter III. e author(s) emphasises that no act of
redemption that we do not perform ourselves can ever do us any good.
Everyone is the agent of their own becoming. e text unwaveringly rejects
any kind of intermediary position in the human-divine relationship, such as
that claimed by the Catholic Church, that would contribute anything
meaningful to our path from the old Adam to the new Christ. Apotheosis,
according to the eologia Germanica, will always remain the act of an
individual, one that cannot be bargained over or bought at a cheaper price.
Furthermore, the text specifies that the path towards it – at least at an early
stage – consists not of pushing towards something, but of letting go of what
is holding divinity back within us. Our role is not that of the hero, the
active creator, but that of the impure substance which must be offered up
unconditionally to the divine agent which will work upon it. In this process
of apotheosis, we as humans are not the alchemist but the athanor. We are
the oven, the fire, the substance within – while divinity is the entire
laboratory around us, staffed with manifold ranks of spirits ready to work
upon us, if only we grant them permission to do so.

Certain men say that we ought to be without will, wisdom, love, desire,
knowledge, and the like. Hereby is not to be understood that there is to
be no knowledge in man, and that God is not to be loved by him, nor
desired and longed for, nor praised and honoured; for that were a great
loss, and man were like the beasts. But it meaneth that man’s knowledge
should be so clear and perfect that he should acknowledge of a truth that
all these are of the eternal God, from whom they all proceed. As Christ
Himself saith, ‘Without Me, ye can do nothing.’ St Paul saith also,
‘What hast thou that thou hast not received?’ As much as to say
nothing. Now if thou didst receive all things from God, why dost thou
glory as if thou hadst not taken it? He goes on to say, ‘Not that we are
sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our
sufficiency is of God.’ Now when a man duly perceiveth these things in
himself, he and the creature fall behind, and he doth not call anything
 his own, and the less he taketh this knowledge unto himself, the more
perfect doth it become. So also is it with the will, and love and desire,
and the like. For the less we call these things our own, the more perfect
and noble and Godlike do they become, and the more we think them
our own, the baser and less pure and perfect do they become. […] For
when the vain imagination and ignorance are turned into an
understanding and knowledge of the truth, the claiming anything for
our own will cease of itself. en the man says: ‘Behold! I, poor fool that
I was, imagined it was I, but behold! it is and was of God truly!’)19

We have said, in this process we are the athanor and divinity is the
alchemist working upon us, but chapter V positively reaffirms man’s active
role in the pursuit and experience of love, wisdom, will and even desire.
However, it should never go so far that we fully identify with what we are
experiencing. e trap is becoming one with one’s inner or outer senses.
According to the eologia Germanica, we as humans never ‘have’ wisdom,
love, will, etc., but are bound into the endless stream of encountering all
these aspects of creation. Some of them might be present with us in this
very moment. Yet, just as we might not choose to identify with the weather,
a mountain or a bird passing by, so we should not fall for the illusion of
merging into the experiences that arise within or around us. ‘I,’ ‘Me’ and
‘Mine’ are skins we choose to wear, the effect of which is to separate us
from divinity.
A master called Boetius saith, ‘It is of sin that we do not love that which
is Best.’ He hath spoken the truth. at which is best should be the
dearest of all things to us; and in our love of it, neither helpfulness nor
unhelpfulness, advantage nor injury, gain nor loss, honour nor
dishonour, praise nor blame, nor anything of the kind should be
regarded; but what is in truth the noblest and best of all things, should
be also the dearest of all things, and that for no other cause than that it
is the noblest and best. Hereby may a man order his life outwardly and
inwardly. His outward life: for among the creatures one is better than
another, according as the Eternal Good shineth forth and worketh more
in one than in another. Now that creature in which the Eternal Good
shineth the most itself, radiates forth, worketh, is most known and
loved, is the best, and that wherein the Eternal Good is least manifested
is the least good of all creatures. erefore when we have to do with the
creatures and hold converse with them, and take note of their diverse
qualities, the best creatures must always be the dearest to us, and we
must cleave to them, and unite ourselves to them, above all to those
which we attribute to God as belonging to Him or divine, such as
wisdom, truth, kindness, peace, love, justice, and the like. Hereby shall
we order our outward man, and all that is contrary to these virtues we
must eschew and flee from. But if our inward man were to make a leap
and spring into the Perfect, we should find and taste how that the
Perfect is without measure, number or end, better and nobler than all
which is imperfect and in part, and the Eternal above the temporal or
perishable, and the fountain and source above all that floweth or can ever
 flow from it. us that which is imperfect and in part would become
tasteless and be as nothing to us. Be assured of this: All that we have
said must come to pass if we are to love that which is noblest, highest
and best.20

is chapter specifically aims to break the mercantile patterns that began to
dominate spirituality in the Middle Ages: devotion and prayer (as well as
actual coin) was the currency to be paid to the gatekeepers of divinity, for
which in return the supplicant expected their pleas to be answered. e
human-divine relationship had turned into a marketplace where resources
were traded; a marketplace prominently and rigorously overseen, ruled and
proctored by the Catholic Church. Chapter VI, however, breaks this pattern
and encourages the practitioner to be entirely unconditional in pursuit of
divinity: the method of deciding what should be held in highest regard is
not any anticipated gain or payback, but how much divinity shines through
the given thing in question. Explicitly, the author contends that all
‘creatures’ should be evaluated in this way, i.e. all created things in the
human, animal, plant and mineral kingdoms. For every object in Creation
has the capacity to radiate forth divinity to a higher or lesser degree,
depending on its relation to the divine. Finally, this way of relating to the
world is to be adopted from the outside and the inside; it refers to the
visible realm around us as much as to the invisible realm that we access
through the gate of our inner senses.
Let us remember how it is written and said that the soul of Christ had
two eyes, a right and a left eye. In the beginning, when the soul of
Christ was created, she fixed her right eye upon eternity and the
Godhead, and remained in the full intuition and enjoyment of the
Divine Essence and Eternal Perfection ; and continued thus unmoved
and undisturbed by all the accidents and travail, suffering, torment and
pain that ever befell the outward man. But with the left eye she beheld
the creature and perceived all things therein, and took note of the
difference between the creatures, which were better or worse, nobler or
meaner; and thereafter was the outward man of Christ first ordered.
us the inner man of Christ, according to the right eye of His soul,
stood in the full exercise of His divine nature, in perfect blessedness, joy
and eternal peace. But the outward man and the left eye of Christ’s soul,
stood with in perfect suffering, in all tribulation, affliction and travail;
and this in such sort that the inward and right eye remained unmoved,
unhindered and untouched by all the travail, suffering, grief and anguish
that ever befell the outward man. It hath been said that when Christ was
bound to the pillar and scourged, and when He hung upon the cross,
according to the outward man, yet His inner man, or soul according to
the right eye, stood in as full possession of divine joy and blessedness as
it did after His ascension, or as it doth now. In like manner His outward
man, or soul with the left eye, was never hindered, disturbed or troubled
by the inward eye in its contemplation of the outward things that
belonged to it.
 Now the created soul of man hath also two eyes. e one is the power of
seeing into eternity, the other of seeing into time and the creatures, of
perceiving how they differ from each other as aforesaid, of giving life
and needful things to the body, and ordering and governing it for the
best. But these two eyes of the soul of man cannot both perform their
work at once; but if the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity,
then the left eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as
though it were dead. For if the left eye be fulfilling its office toward
outward things; that is, converse with time and the creatures then must
the right eye be hindered in its working; that is, in its contemplation.
erefore whosoever will have the one must let the other go; for no man
can serve two masters.21

e left eye looks out on the world, while the right looks inwardly to eternal
divinity. We are always present in both worlds, and yet it is our human
condition that means few of us will ever learn to open both eyes at once –
and not become confused, mad or lost in the experience.
Standing at the crossroad of this dual perspective, each of us forms a
threshold between divinity and creation. It is not only that we can choose to
‘look’ one way or the other, but in doing so we also choose what to mediate
from one realm into the other. We can choose to bring forth divinity in a
world of material creation or conversely, to deify matter. is notion is
further expanded upon in the following chapter.
It hath been asked whether it be possible for the soul, while it is yet in
the body, to reach so high as to cast a glance into eternity, and receive a
foretaste of eternal life and eternal blessedness. is is commonly
denied, and truly so in a sense. For it indeed cannot be so long as the
soul is taking heed to the body, and the things which minister and
appertain thereto, and to time and the creature, and is disturbed and
troubled and distracted thereby. For if the soul shall rise to such a state,
she must be quite pure, wholly stripped and bare of all images, and be
entirely separate from all creatures, and above all from herself. Now
many think this is not to be done and is impossible in this present time.
But St Dionysius maintains that it is possible, as we find from his words
in his Epistle to Timothy, where he saith: ‘For the beholding of the
hidden things of God, shalt thou forsake sense and the things of the
flesh, and all that the senses can apprehend, and that reason of her own
powers can bring forth, and all things created and uncreated that reason
is able to comprehend and know, and shalt take thy stand upon an utter
abandonment of thyself, and as knowing none of the aforesaid things,
and enter into union with Him who is, and who is above all existence
and all knowledge.’ Now if he did not hold this to be possible in this
present time, why should he teach it and enjoin it on us in this present
time? But it behoveth you to know that a master hath said on this
passage of St Dionysius, that it is possible, and may happen to a man
often, till he become so accustomed to it, as to be able to look into
eternity whenever he will. For when a thing is at first very hard to a man
and strange, and seemingly quite impossible, if he put all his strength
 and energy into it, and persevere therein, that will afterward grow quite
light and easy, which he at first thought quite out of reach, for no
beginning is good, unless it ends well. And a single one of these
excellent glances is better, worthier, higher and more pleasing to God,
than all that the creature can perform as a creature. And as soon as a
man turneth himself in spirit, and with his whole heart and mind
entereth into the mind of God which is above time, all that ever he hath
lost is restored in a moment. And if a man were to do thus a thousand
times in a day, each time a fresh and real union would take place, and in
this sweet and divine work standeth the truest and fullest union that may
be in this present time. For he who hath attained thereto, asketh nothing
further, for he hath found the Kingdom of Heaven and Eternal Life on
earth.22

As part of our exploration on Hesychasm, we came across one of the

essential differences between the Western Catholic and the Eastern
Orthodox Church: Where the former considers the time of the Apostles,
i.e., the time of direct divine revelation, as a closed chapter, concerning only
a privileged few, the latter tradition understands these written accounts as a
spur to aspiration for present-day practitioners. Where the Western Church
attempted to close off pathways towards an unmediated human-divine
relationship, the latter actively encouraged their exploration.
Unmistakably the treatise expounds that it is indeed possible for every
human to ‘enter into the mind of God and see eternity.’ No different than
any other advanced skill, it requires total dedication, hard training, and a
great deal of perseverance. us, the rarity of such direct experiences of
divinity among the living is explained as a lack of commitment to the path
rather than the inherent impossibility of achieving it. One’s soul has to be
‘purified and stripped bare of all images’ before it can ascend to such a
vision. However, the treatise goes further than accepting this heretical
reality in itself. It stresses that achieving such a state of mystical union is far
‘worthier and higher’ than anything else a human being can achieve within
the mortal realm. us, the text reveals itself as a manifesto for the gnostic
practitioner, undermining the authority of the Catholic Church and the
centrality of communal service, encouraging the reader to walk the narrow
path on their own.

We should mark and know of a very truth that all manner of virtue and
goodness, and even that Eternal Good which is God Himself, can never
make a man virtuous, good, or happy, so long as it is outside the soul;
that is, so long as the man is holding converse with outward things
through his senses and reason, and doth not withdraw into himself and
learn to understand his own life, who and what he is. e like is true of
sin and evil. For all manner of sin and wickedness can never make us
evil, so long as it is outside of us; that is, so long as we do not commit it,
or do not give consent to it. erefore although it be good and profitable
that we should ask, and learn and know, what good and holy men have
wrought and suffered, and how God hath dealt with them, and what He
hath wrought in and through them, yet it were a thousand times better
that we should in ourselves learn and perceive and understand, who we
are, how and what our own life is, what God is and is doing in us, what
He will have from us, and to what ends He will or will not make use of
us. For, of a truth, thoroughly to know oneself, is above all art, for it is
the highest art. If thou knowest thyself well, thou art better and more
praiseworthy before God, than if thou didst not know thyself, but didst
understand the course of the heavens and of all the planets and stars,
also the virtue of all herbs, and the structure and dispositions of all
mankind, also the nature of all beasts, and, in such matters, hadst all the
skill of all who are in heaven and on earth. For it is said, there came a
voice from heaven, saying, ‘Man, know thyself.’ us that proverb is still
true, ‘Going out were never so good, but remaining inside were much
better.’ Further, ye should learn that eternal blessedness lieth in one
thing alone, and in nought else. And if ever man or the soul is to be
made blessed, that one thing alone must be in the soul. Now some might
ask, ‘But what is that one thing?’ I answer, it is Goodness, or that which
hath been made good; and yet neither this good nor that, which we can
name, or perceive or show but it is all and above all good things.
Moreover, it needeth not to enter into the soul, for it is there already,
only it is unperceived. When we say we should come unto it, we mean
that we should seek it, feel it, and taste it. And now since it is One, unity
and singleness is better than manifoldness. For blessedness lieth not in
much and many, but in One and oneness. In one word, blessedness lieth
not in any creature, or work of the creatures, but it lieth alone in God
land in His works. erefore I must wait only on God and His work,
and leave on one side all creatures with their works, and first of all
 myself. In like manner all the great works and wonders that God has
ever wrought or shall ever work in or through the creatures, or even God
Himself with all His goodness, so far as these things exist or are done
outside of me, can never make me blessed, but only in so far as they exist
and are done and loved, known, tasted and felt within me.23

e Pelagian – or highly individualistic – worldview of the text is further

affirmed by acknowledging that co-existing with a community where sin is
present does not in itself make one a sinner. In this rejection of the
Catholic, strongly collective understanding of sin and redemption, the
emphasis shifts onto the individual’s free will, their decisions and actions –
for as long as we do not personally commit or consent to sin, we are not
touched by it. e best defence against turning away from the divine is
knowing oneself. Achieving a state of knowing how divinity ‘will or will not
make use of us’ is positioned as a skill which far outweighs all the learned
and arcane arts. e practical advice on how to gain such knowledge is
given in pursuing ‘the goodness that already resides within us’. e
practitioner is encouraged not to take this as an empty phrase, but to seek it,
feel it, taste it.
Let us consider for a moment the reward that this heretical treatise
promises to its reader: achieving direct human-divine communion, coming
to know divinity with all of our senses, coming to know what divinity does
and does not intend for us, and through this experience, gradually gain
access to the inborn goodness that resides within us. e contrast to other
heretical types of literature, e.g. the classical grimoires of the Western magic
tradition, could not be starker. For the eologia Germanica does not
promise any kind of personal gain, learned wisdom, arcane knowledge or
secular power. It explicitly focuses on reorienting the human experience
inwards – without wasting a glance at the idea of extending one’s personal
power. e author(s) promotes the direct ascent, the sharpening of one’s
senses and free will to walk directly from Malkuth, over the Abyss and into
Kether. According to it, the path of turning oneself into a ‘life master’ does
not lead through academia and the arcane arts, but into one’s heart flame,
and through it, onto the everyday roads of adversity, where endless training
awaits.

For a true lover of God, loveth Him or the Eternal Goodness alike, in
having and in not having, in sweetness and bitterness, in good or :evil
report, and the like, for he seeketh alone the honour of God, and not his
own, either in spiritual or natural things. And therefore he stan-deth
alike unshaken in all things, at all seasons.24

All that in Adam fell and died, was raised again and made alive in
Christ, and all that rose up and was made alive in Adam, fell and died in
Christ. But what was that? I answer, true obedience and disobedience.
But what is true obedience? I answer, that a man should so stand free,
being quit of himself, that is, of his I and Me, and Self, and Mine, and
the like, that in all things, he should no more seek or regard himself …25

erefore it hath been said: the more of Self and Me, the more of sin
and wickedness. So likewise it hath been said: the more the Self, the I,
the Me, the Mine, that is, self-seeking and selfishness, abate in a man,
the more doth God’s that is, God Himself, increase in him. […] Behold!
albeit no man may be so fair and perfect as Christ was, yet it is possible
to every man to approach so near thereunto as to be rightly called
Godlike and deified.26

But so long as a man clingeth unto the elements and fragments and
above all to himself, and holdeth converse with them, and maketh great
account of them, he is deceived and blinded, and perceiveth what is good
no further than as it is most convenient and pleasant to himself and
profitable to his own ends. ese he holdeth to be the highest good and
loveth above all. us he never cometh to the truth.27

is cometh to pass on this wise. Where the Truth always reigneth, so
that true perfect God and true perfect man are at one, and man so giveth
place to God, that God Himself is there and yet the man too, and this
same unity worketh continually, and doeth and leaveth undone without
any I, and Me, and Mine, and the like; behold, there is Christ, and
nowhere else.28

Now, when this union truly cometh to pass and becometh established,
the inward man standeth henceforward immoveable in this union and
God alloweth the outward man to be moved hither and thither, from
this to that, of such things as are necessary and right.29
 Some may ask: ‘What or how is it to be a deified or Godlike human?’
Answer: he who is imbued with or illuminated by the eternal or divine
Light, and inflamed or consumed with eternal or divine love, he is a
Godlike or deified human.30

§ IV

S WE HAVE SEEN, the eologia Germanica had a radical way of reducing

A the path of deification to a single process. To stand entirely free from

the inborn human desire of wanting to extract beauty, power and
wealth from the world so as to make them one’s own. e complexity of
this path resides in its seeming simplicity: to anchor ourselves in a place
where one can stand free from I, Me and Mine, which continuously
attempts to capture the human-divine spirit, to weave it back into creation
and thereby block the passage through which divinity can enter the world
unconditionally.
e explicitness of the eologia Germanica on the why – the purpose of
this journey – is not matched by a similar explicitness on how one can get
there. e reader is given little practical advice: To resign from the will to
improve one’s own condition, to keep one’s body immersed in the tides and
turmoil of a world filled with adversity, and yet to keep one’s inner gaze
calmly fixed upon the divine light within. e eologia Germanica’s
demands upon the layman practitioner are truly enormous. Without any
kind of practical induction or training, the reader is meant to perfect a
mystical act that requires the rarest of skills: To keep one’s body fully
engrossed in the turmoil of the world, while simultaneously keeping one’s
soul, withdrawn in the cell of one’s heart, wholly directed towards divinity.
Surely the author(s) of the treatise might have argued that such an
accomplishment is far from complicated and indeed the simplest of things.
For the divine light is eternally present in our hearts, and only blocked by
our outwardly directed sense of identification. Stop identifying, stand
silently in your heart space, they might have argued, and deification is a
process that will take care of itself. Unfortunately though, for most of us,
there is a lifetime between thought and expression and a mountain between
theory and practice. While everything seems straightforward from the
vantage point of the adept, from the position of the beginner often the
simplest first step can seem insurmountable. During the fifteenth century,
at the same time as Martin Luther was helping the eologia Germanica to
rise to fame, Ignatius of Loyola was designing and implementing his
meticulous training regime to grow an army of divine warriors. e
practicality of Loyola’s instructions and the rigidity of his curriculum stand
in stark contrast to the spirit that enlivens the eologia Germanica: where
the former takes an iron chisel and hammer and chips away at body and
spirit, the latter flows and plunges in mystical appeals to the divinity within.
Where Loyola’s training forges the human spirit with brute force, the
eologia Germanica is a prayer directed at the human heart. Where the
former attempts to control and create, the latter aspires to invoke and
liberate.
 e art of travelling the rainbow path lies in not tipping over to either
extreme; neither to the rigid proscription of Loyola (Geburah), nor to the
amorphous mystical ocean of the eologia Germanica (Chesed). True
empowerment is giving the student just enough to enable them to
undertake their own journey. And where Loyola didn’t grant the reader
enough independence to make the journey one’s own, the eologia
Germanica risked not giving enough to even see the practical path in the
first place. However, travelling in spirit is a subtle skill; and teaching it to
others – especially against the threat of a dying Church and in the shadows
of crumbling potentates – is almost impossible through writing alone.
We should pay tribute to the anonymous author(s) of our treatise; for it
is easy to underestimate the daring nature of their endeavour today: in the
spirit of Meister Eckhart, Henry Suso and Johannes Tauler they placed the
vortex of apotheosis at the very intersection of everyday life and the inner
experience of the desert. Deification had to happen amongst the people,
with the people, while keeping one eye firmly focussed on the world of
creation, and the other on the eternity within. In a world that had fallen
prey to a religion that misunderstood the community-divinity relationship
as one of host and parasite, these authors attempted to open the temple
gates again and to grant access to a personal, intimate human-divine
relationship. Most importantly, they anchored their path in everyday ethics.
What was lost in the process, what they did not hand over to the laymen
and laywomen of the late Middle Ages, was the actual fruit of the mystical
work. Instead, the stream of mystical practice indicated by the Granum
Sinapis dries up in mundane moral instruction: humility, silence, suffering,
serenity and separation from one’s human self. In order to be ready to walk
this narrow trail a fervent love for the divine is required, and yet the
eologia Germanica does not show us how to ignite such a spark. Its
theology, one could argue, is either a cruel mysticism or an empty one;
cruel, since it requires unconditional service to the seed of divinity from
every person, without preparing the soil, and empty, because possibly even
the authors themselves no longer knew how to prepare the soil. eir
silence is open to interpretation.
From this context emerges the real threat that the eologia Germanica –
as a predecessor of the Reformation – posed to Western mysticism post the
Middle Ages: caused by an absence of actual mystical technique, the quest
for divinity slowly gravitated away from the heart space and into the head.
Eckhart, Suso and Tauler are often differentiated from their predecessors
whose work encouraged a practical firsthand experience of the divine, as
theoretical or thought-mystics.31 For the practicing mystic, such a term is
paradoxical: it is the nature of an ethical code that it requires full intellectual
comprehension before it can attempt to stand the test of practice under
harsh conditions. is, however, is not true for the ethics which flow freely
from the direct experience of the divine. e latter gush outwards from the
heart, they merge with our blood, with a complete lack of intellectual
comprehension. And while the latter run the risk of merging with untamed
fanaticism, the former face the risk of not coming to life at all, unless
someone is watching. is of course comes as no surprise: intellectual
speculation always has a hard time forming human habits, unless it is
illuminated by the divine light of the heart.
 In addition to the apparent paradox of a thought-mystic, another danger
came with the teachings of the fourteenth century Rhineland mystics: the
loss of the Neoplatonic heritage in the Western mystery tradition. While
still relating back to the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, the German mystics
reinforced the artificial divide between the Light of Nature and the Light of
God. Here the light of nature is identified with the emerging sciences, with
research into both the spiritual as well as the natural world, pivoting less on
Christian piety than on objective reason and understanding. Here is how
the eologia Germanica demonises such attempts at working with and
through the realm of creation:

We have spoken of two Lights – a True and a False. […] Now, as we

have said, the False Light is natural, and is Nature herself. erefore
every property belongeth unto it which belongeth unto nature, such as
the Me, the Mine, the Self, and the like and therefore it must needs be
deceived in itself and be false; for no I, Me, or Mine, ever came to the
true Light or Knowledge undeceived, save once only to wit, in God
made Man. And if we are to come to the knowledge of the simple
Truth, all these must depart and perish. And in particular it belongeth to
the natural Light that it would fain know or learn much, if it were
possible, and hath great pleasure, delight and glorying in its discernment
and knowledge and therefore it is always longing to know more and
more, and never cometh to rest and satisfaction, and the more it learneth
and knoweth, the more doth it delight and glory therein. And when it
hath come so high, that it thinketh to know all things and to be above
 all things, it standeth at its highest pinnacle of delight and glory, and
then it holdeth Knowledge to be the best and noblest of all things, and
therefore it teacheth Love to love knowledge and discernment as the
best and most excellent of all things. […] Also this Light riseth and
climbeth so high that it vainly thinketh that it knoweth God and the
pure, simple Truth, and thus it loveth itself in Him. And it is true that
God can be known only by God. Wherefore as this Light vainly
thinketh to understand God, it imagineth itself to be God, and giveth
itself out to be God …32

Such an understanding of the Light of Nature stands in stark contrast not

only to authentic Neoplatonism, but also to the teachings of Paracelsus
(1493–1541) on the Book of Nature. Only a hundred years later and in a
much more genuine Neoplatonic approach, Paracelsus emphasised the
validity of objective research into nature and the world of creation – if it was
practised with the right spiritual principles in mind. Rather than placing
one above the other, Paracelsus understood how to unite the light of nature
with the light of divinity. If all of creation was a direct emanation of the
divine, how could inquiry into any aspect of it – irrespective of how tiny or
irrelevant it might seem at first – not reveal the same living principles?
e eologia Germanica highlights how the grave risk of the lust for
knowledge for its own sake can become its own god. On our rainbow path
from Malkuth to Kether it marks the the realm of Da’ath, and it also
embodies the essentially Faustian current of wanting to forcefully break
apart creation in order to extract the spirit from within it – irrespective of
the collateral damage this might cause. Such a path could be described as
the anti-alchemical journey and a demon, to which much of modern
research has unfortunately fallen prey. It is only in the hands of human
beings that knowledge can turn into a cruel and cunning imposter of the
divine. And while the sphere of Da’ath is dangerous, treacherous, and
should never be approached lightly, it still forms a passage which travellers
on the narrow trail must traverse if they would behold divinity.

§V

Exercise 1

For an entire week live your life wayless and whyless. Sit when it is time to
sit, walk when it is time to walk, work when it is time to work. Give each
thing and each activity as much as it deserves, no more, no less. During this
week, pause all planned activity and projects that do not require immediate
action. Also abstain from technology, social media, gaming and movie
streaming. As much as you can during each day, open a space for the
unexpected to approach you; stand still so that divinity can see you clearly.
As you become wayless and whyless, you open yourself up to countless
adventures – large and small – that normally go unrealised. Feel free to go
for longer walks and to reconnect with the land – as long as neither of these
activities turn into a new project or show any signs of competitiveness with
yourself or others. Living wayless even for a short period of time means
there is truly nothing that needs achieving, proving or even training in.
Everything already is.
Should you encounter boredom during this week, take it as a sign of
being on the right path. In this case just sit with boredom for a while and
see what happens. If you need to overcome it, sit or walk with a straight
spine and consciously take in all the sensory stimuli coming at you. You will
find, at any moment in time, that there is so much more going on within
and around you than you are generally aware of. Most importantly, find the
roots of your thoughts by listening to all the quiet voices you normally do
not hear.
When the day ends, find a quiet space, and tell your story to the flame of
a candle set before you. What experiences did you pass through today?
With whom, with what and where did you share them? What happened to
you while you were free not to inquire and not to ask further, but to simply
flow with the tide of the moment? Maybe the flame will respond to what
you have to say? Even during this closing exercise of the day, remain present
and open to each moment that awaits you.
en write down your experiences in a journal.

When you get up the next morning, pause while you look out of a window,
at your coffee cup or into a mirror and remind yourself to remain wayless
and whyless. Not for the sake of something, but for the sake of nothingness.
Everything already is.

Exercise 2
• Enter a dark, quiet and private place. Ensure no one can disturb you
during the following operation. Place a single candle before you on a
low table or the ground, so that you can easily see its flame while sitting
in your meditation position. If you like, you can burn natural incense for
this operation.
• Take your usual meditation posture. Allow your breath to steady and
your mind to settle. Focus your gaze on the flame and centre your
consciousness in the light. Whatever you have done before, wherever
you have just come from, it no longer matters. Your past has returned to
the womb of darkness, your future is held in the womb of darkness.
Right here, right now, there is only the flame and your experience of it.
• When you are fully encompassed in silence, sit for a little longer. ere
is no need to rush when surrounded by darkness. ere is no need to
move when anchored in the flame.
• Now enter into the Void, as we explained in version 3 of the exercise in
chapter 1. When your own spark is fully merged with the flame, and the
world has fallen apart into nothingness beyond it, prepare to step
forward and out of the Void.
• Open your eyes in vision.
• Experience yourself sitting on a cool rock in an open clearing at the foot
of a mountain. A fresh breeze pushes up the slope ahead of you, where
the forest descends into a wide valley. In the distance far away you see
the first signs of the morning. Beyond the valley, the sun will soon
ascend.
• As the sun disk begins to appear above the horizon, you feel the
warmth of its light on your face.
• Quickly you realise, that wherever the sunlight touches your skin, your
body changes. Your skin becomes a part of the forest, moss, grass and
flowers emerge from your body.
• As the sun climbs further above the horizon, its light descends from
your forehead all the way down to your legs and feet, transforming the
outside of your body with its touch. Finally, you sit silently, bathed in
full sunlight, in a skin that has transformed completely into green
foliage and blossoms. Breathe deeply and enjoy the sensation of your
verdant body.

Exercise 3

• Repeat the steps from exercise 2, and continue as follows:

• While the outside of your body has become part of the forest, you still
feel the flame of the Void in the centre of your chest. Silently and
undisturbed it burns in your heart space.
• As you concentrate on this flame, you realise how strong its light has
become. e silent flame has hollowed out your body from within, there
are no longer any organs, blood, or bones within you. All that exists
under the soft skin of moss and foliage is a cave filled with the light of
your heart flame.
• You sit calmly, and fully participating in the different ways of being
taking place within and without. Whilst they are essentially different,
 you realise their symbiotic nature: the cave of your body, upholding the
verdant tissue of your skin, the hide of moss covering the light from
within.
• Observe how your breath interacts with both the within and the
without. Stay with this experience for as long as you like.

Exercise 4

• Repeat all the steps up to exercise 3, then continue as follows:

• Use your breath to slowly expand the sphere of your heart flame; allow
it to gently push against your skin from the inside. Feel how your forest-
body organically expands.
• Continue this slow expansion, facilitated by your breath, until the
outside of your body has become a perfectly round sphere, illuminated
from within by the light of your heart flame.

1   Meister Eckhart, Sermon 16b, DW 1, 274, quoted in Lamm, 344.

2   Dr Lynn H. Nelson, http://www.vlib.us/medieval/lectures/black_death.html
3   Ibid.
4   Deschner, vol. 7, 464 (translated by Frater Acher).
5   Kreuzer, 148.
6   Gnaedinger, 32.
7   Susanna Winkworth, Historical Introduction to the eologia Germanica, 1893, xliii.
8   Dinzelbacher 2004, 109.
9   Dinzelbacher 2012, 191.
10   Dinzelbacher 2004, 96.
11   Weeks, 219.
12   Lamm, 344.
13   Meister Eckhart, BgT, DW 5, 29, quoted in Lamm, 344.
14   Wegener, loc.217 / Dinzelbacher 2012, 230.
15   Leppin, 105.
16   Johannes Tauler, Meisterbuch, Kapitel 1, in Gnaedinger, 279.
17   Lamm, 344.
18   Chapter II.
19   Chapter V.
20   Chapter VI.
21   Chapter VII.
22   Chapter VIII.
23   Chapter IX.
24   Chapter X.
25   Chapter XV.
26   Chapter XVI.
27   Chapter XIX.
28   Chapter XXIV.
29   Chapter XXVIII.
30   Chapter XLI.
31   Dinzelbacher 2012, 178.
32   Chapter XLII.
BOOK II

MAGIC
 e Call

§I

the second part of this book at the threshold of the sixteenth

W
E OPEN

century. Our path forward will be quite different from that which has
brought us here. e orthodox mystic might say this is the moment
where we fall off the luminous straight line that is the rainbow path. e
magician, however, would counter that this is the moment when we close
the circle of the art. ¶ As so often with magic, the practical exercises in this
section will require a little more preparation than the previous ones. And yet
we strive to keep the regalia to an absolute minimum; as ultimately, this is a
book on the magic of the empty hand. So do not worry. You will be able to
stride forward on this path without a dedicated temple room, paraphernalia,
or a degree in medieval Latin. Actually, all you really need is a bell. But
more of that in a moment.
In the first chapter we provocatively stated that the Classical Mystic is
obsessed with what transcends, whereas the Classical Magician only cares
about what works. In this chapter, which will lead us through texts from the
sixteenth all the way to the twentieth century, we will aim at a careful
balance between the two. So while you’ll see differences in some of the
approaches and source works of this chapter, you should think of it as a
direct continuation of the significant operations you completed in the
previous chapters: the last exercise in chapter IV led you out of the confines
of your cell and into the open. You ended it with an operation that required
slightly more advanced skills. When performed correctly and repeatedly it
has the potential to become the gateway practice towards permanently
changing the substance of your inner (and over time, outer) body. In
essence, the concluding work in chapter IV was the first major step on the
path of inner alchemy. In case you rushed it or did not take enough time to
master it, I encourage you to return to it now. Just as a dancer slowly
perfects the body’s movements until, over time, they seem unbidden and
almost innate, so you should perfect your way of shifting into the form you
encountered on the previous pages: your body, lit up from within, slowly
expanding into a breathing sphere of life.
e next step on this journey will be less about ourselves and more about
the spirits we call towards us. So far we have honed our capacity to be in
contact with the divine, to lower our consciousness into the heart flame, and
to gain a foothold in the presence of the uncreated forces that flow over the
threshold of divinity. As mentioned at the beginning of chapter II, we
indeed started with the hardest part. Here, we will focus on a rather literal
experience of what Martin Buber termed I and ou, and what goēs and
shamans of old thought of simply as spirit contact. Our purpose and intent,
however, will remain focussed entirely on staying on the rainbow path.
Instead of drawing down spirits to perform as agents of our will, we will
remain truthful to our sole agenda of becoming seekers of understanding.
For this, our mission is a mirror image of the traditional approach of the
grimoire magician. Rather than attempting to expand our personal
dominion into the spiritual sphere, we aim to create a space where no power
hierarchy exists whatsoever. We aim to level the playing field between
ourselves and the spirits, so that we can sit eye to eye with the angelic realm
and teach each other.
Let us consider this image, because it really matters: Imagine a therapy
room, two leather chairs facing each other, the air filled with the smell of
beeswax from the polished floorboards, the sound of the world muffled
behind curtains and bookshelves. Now see yourself sitting in one of the
chairs, relaxed and present in the current moment, ready to engage with
whatever comes next. Imagine this as one of the good moments in life, you
feel safe and open. Opposite you, in the other chair sits your holy daimon.
Do not worry if you cannot see her/him clearly, just allow her/him to be
there. Both of you, together in this room, are mutual givers and receivers.
You are equals in this experience, with the only difference being that over
time there will be many versions of you sitting in the one chair, and only
one version of your daimon in the other. Yet, both of you have specific
needs, and both of you have plenty to give: you know a lot about the mess
that we call this physical world, you have learned what it means to be in
pain, to suffer, to love, to break and to be mended again. In short, you know
what it means to have free will. Your daimon knows none of these
experiences. S/he is a spirit from high above, anchored between the stars,
born from celestial light, come into existence with the sole purpose of being
the living storehouse of your mortal experiences, as one by one they fill in
the puzzle of your divine fate. And so you tell your daimon about what it
means to be human, and your daimon tells you about what it means to be
angelic. It is a lengthy and wonderful conversation. It seems you have been
talking for many lifetimes. At some point you both reach out, your hands
come to rest on the small table between your chairs and your open palm
comes to rest in the palm of your daimon’s. Neither of you is talking now.
Experience flows through your touch. at’s how you sit, in silence, healer
and wounded as one, feeder and fed as one: you feed your daimon the gritty
reality of what it means to be bound into flesh; your daimon feeds you the
knowledge and experience of what it means to be almost eternal. As you sit
there, holding each others’ hands, you realise your heart has become light as
a feather. e pain you are breathing out is the air your daimon is inhaling.
And the air your daimon is exhaling is the joy you inhale. You have fulfilled
the promise you once made to yourself. You have become a seeker of
understanding.
For most of us the gate to such an experience, of human I and daimonic
ou, is sealed by a lock that requires two keys. You learned about the first
key in the first half of this book, how to lift it from the embers of life and
hammer it into shape: it is the key of attuning yourself to the threshold of
divinity, consciously and purposefully. e second key is the gift we cannot
grant to ourselves, but which we may humbly ask to be granted unto us by
the spirits. We bring forth the first key from the dark centre of our heart;
we receive the second from the dark of the sky. At one point in our journey,
a moment out in the future, we will turn back and see that both places are
one, the distant lights in the sky and the faint glow in our heart, the sky
that surrounds us and the sky that is held within us. Yet, the wisdom of our
future selves has to be acquired through struggle, lest it prove lifeless and
hollow. For all wisdom must be gained from firsthand experience, not from
intellectual inquiry.
Many ways of acquiring these keys have been enumerated between the
covers of books. I have laid out my own approach in Holy Daimon (2017).
Since then I have come across further rich source works that aspire to lead
the student on the same journey, out onto the narrow path. We have
examined several such approaches in Black Abbot · White Magic, where we
studied the angelic theurgy of Johannes Trithemius. In the following
chapters we will explore one more source in detail and conclude by
translating it into our own personal practice. As you will see, it leads to a
ritual that rests on ancient foundations, yet can be conducted with relatively
few outer preparations. We should not be fooled by its seeming simplicity;
it is the kind of ritual most people will conduct only once in their lifetime,
not because it doesn’t work, but precisely because it works so well. For that
is the nature of an initiation performed by the spirits upon us. Such a key,
when granted, needs to be turned only once.
We will start with an introduction to the nature of celestial initiations
and the importance of the magical call. We progress by delving into a
restored version of the ritual source text, followed by an analysis of its
content from the viewpoint of the magical practitioner. And just before we
close with careful instructions for personal practice, we will locate this
operation in its original historical context.

§ II
 Aber es wird dir keine gebratene Taube ins Maul fliegen.
And yet no roasted dove will ever fly into your mouth.
– Henricus Nollius

divide the heaven into seven orbits, the zodiac

T
HE CLASSICAL PLANETS

divides it into 12 realms, the lunar mansions into 28, the de-cans into
36. And every star, Behenian or not, is supposed to have an intelligence,
a demon and a ruler. So when you look up at the night sky – how many
spirits do you see? at vast dark canvas can gets a little crowded. Or maybe
it is just that the human mind naturally gets lost in the maze of celestial
complexity. Here is a problem worthwhile pausing over: if all of these spirits
indeed exist – 443 to sum up just the above – then they have to exist
simultaneously in every single moment. ey gaze and breath and
experience with us. Now. And now. And now again. ey are all present,
conscious, working and weaving, incessantly. So when you prepare for a
ritual that calls on a single planetary spirit or on a particular family of
beings – can you begin to see the perfection and craft it takes to ensure your
arrow hits its mark? You literally have a night sky full of beings listening –
and yet somehow you need to connect the cloud of dust that you are to that
one stellar being your call is aiming at. What a long daring shot, one might
say.
A wise woman once said to me, everything is always present. Whenever
we enter into an experience, we make a choice. For every experience creates
a division between ground and foreground, between the part that takes
shape and the part that remains in the dark. In singing one note, we silence
all others; in seeing one face, we become blind to all others. As humans, we
walk on a loom and have mastered the art of only seeing the thread right in
front of us – and often not even that. e consciousness of all the beings
that create, destroy, maintain and evolve the cosmos, constantly surrounds
us – and yet when we pour a coffee, when we cross the street or stare at a
mobile phone, our consciousness connects with none of them. Over
millennia humans have mastered the art of walking undisturbed, of
becoming focused on a single task, of absorbing the melody that is creation,
but to listen to only one instrument, one note at a time. We become surgical
in focus and effectiveness in order to complete a single task. And in that
process we become deaf to the orchestra of voices and experiences that lie
outside our attention. We have quieted oceans of possibilities to learn to
ride a single wave. Now, when we work magic at an adept level, we aim to
return from riding the wave to becoming part of the ocean again, that vast
space, deep beneath. As adept magicians we aim to be back in the water,
not on top of it. We aim to let go of our humanness, and bring to the
foreground the part of us that always knew how to breath underwater, how
to navigate through patterns and waves, how to sing with the whales. As
adept magicians we do not aim to perfect our humanness; we are no longer
in the business of leveraging magic as a crisis support for everyday life
problems. We aim to reconnect with the medium that is our spirit.
Nobody said this would be easy. Experience and consciousness are
directly correlated: the more complex our consciousness, the more complex
the experiences that are open to us. And the magic of adepts is among the
most complex experiences humans can create. Intentionally tuning into and
consciously co-creating the symphony that is an adept ritual is not only a
form of art, it is an interdependent art form that relies on the complex
interplay of contacted consciousness, our inner and outer senses, and the
entire living cosmos around us. For most of us it takes decades of training to
first experience this and the rest of our lifetime to refine it.
One could argue, that the thing which matters most in this work is our
ability to send a magical call. And what is a call in magic? What does it
essentially consist of? Essentially, a magical call is nothing but vibrations
traveling on the loom, a sound that awakens the attention of the beings in
resonance with it. A single call can awake legions or just a single being. It
depends on the key placed inside the call, which primarily consists of three
elements: intention, intonation and integrity. We will explore these in detail
soon, but for now, hold this thought: the problem of magic – and adept
magic in particular – is not that it might fail to work. e real problem is
that magic will always work. No call properly placed will ever go unheeded.
Whether it hits its intended mark or not, some ears will be pricked, and
something will respond. Finding that single thread between us and the
spirit(s) of our work, and then setting our call onto its string – that is at the
heart of the magical art.

I invoke you, gods of the night,

With you I invoke the Night, the veiled bride,
I invoke Dusk, Midnight, Dawn!1
e practical operation shared at the end of this chapter allows us to send a
magical call to all seven classical planetary spirits at once. Instead of
working with them one by one, we will call all of them to form a ring of
presence around us and divinity: the left eye looks into the mortal realm,
the right eye into eternity. Closing that celestial circuit is only the first
stage. In the second part of the rite we will call to these Princes of Presence
to grant us initiation into their realms – and through them to establish
direct communion with our personal spirit, our holy daimon. Whilst such
an approach might seem novel compared to well-worn pathways towards
our holy daimon, it is one of its most ancient forms. is method relates not
only to the procedure of asking planetary deities for assistance in gaining a
personal familiar, as for example in the Greek magical papyri. Rather, it
sends the call to the entire cosmos, the entire celestial realm.

§ III

we examined the ancient art of sending a magical

I
N PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

call, that is, praying. Yet so far the direction of our work was not aimed at
the outside, but the inside of our heart space. Now we are reversing the
direction, and to do so we will employ the magical bell. ¶ e use of bells in
ritual magic stretches back to Egyptian and Mesopotamian times, and yet
today it is mostly forgotten. e inconspicuous nature of these tools may
cause them to be overshadowed by menacing swords, sharpened daggers
and richly adorned chalices. And yet, that is not how it has always been: our
ancestors knew better than to judge magical paraphernalia by outer
appearance. For it is precisely what cannot be seen that determines the
quality and power of a magical bell: not its outer shape but the vibration of
its clear-pitched sound.
Bells are mentioned in Greek and Roman literature as early as the fifth
century BCE. For more than two and a half thousand years their function
was to call to attention, to announce arrivals and to signal significant
moments in the flowing rhythm of speeches, plays or symphonies. If
attuned to liturgical use, their sound was believed to possess magical and
protective powers and provide an audible form of orientation, easily
transcending the earthly.2 ere are wind-chiming bells (tintinnabula),
armoury, quadrangular, domed and conical bells, tulip bells, shouldered
bells, iron bells, openwork bells, animal bells, and many others. However,
magically adorned bells remain rare.3
One of the oldest surviving examples of such a ritual item is a bronze
bell from the Neo-Assyrian period, eigthth to seventh century BCE, housed
in the collection of the Vorderasiatische Museum Berlin (VA 2517).
Identified as an exorcist’s bell, it is adorned with a circular relief depicting
four ugallus (lion-headed guardian demons), two on each side, facing each
other and watching over invisible gateways between them. To the left and
right of the ugallu pairs we see a representation of the seven apkallus (sages),
and on the other side the anthropomorphic warrior god Lulal. On top of
the bell we can make out a crouching pair of lizards and turtles; the latter
representing the god of exorcism, Enki-Ea, the former possibly depicting
the monstrous giant Huwawa.
 Neo-Assyrian bronze ritual bell. BPK / Vorderasiatisches Museum, SMB / Olaf M. Teßmer

While we have some knowledge of these mythical creatures’ roles and

position in Mesopotamian magic, thus far we have no textual instructions
on the specific use of the magical bell itself. However, a foundational insight
can be gained purely from considering its design. Obviously the bell was
meant to be rung as part of a magical ritual; accordingly, we would
understand the figures represented in relief not as simple decorations but as
enlivened images, whose spirits would be called by the ringing of the bell.
e sounding of the bell would have set several magical acts in motion at
once. e sound would have opened the gates guarded by the ugallus, it
would have called upon the guardianship of the apkallus as well as Lulal,
and, considering the crouching mythical figures on its top (the place where
on the inside the striker would have been fixed to the copper dome), it
would do so under the governance and authority of the star god, Enki-Ea
and the chthonic forces represented by the giant Huwawa. A single tolling
of the bell – fifteen beings summoned, two spirit gates opened, and two
deities asked for their governance over the rite. Quite the magical bell.
Now, roughly two thousand two hundred years later, much closer to our
current time, we come across a very similar specimen. is bell used to be
one of a pair, handcrafted for the Emperor of Holy Roman Empire, Rudolf
II in Prague. However, the striking feature it shares with its distant
Mesopotamian ancestor is that its call was not meant for a single being, but,
just like its predecessor, it was rung to open the gate to an entire spirit
cosmos. Today this liturgic bell is kept in the cabinet of curiosities at the
History of Art Museum in Vienna. Beket Bukovinská and Ivo Purš in their
article from 2010 began to analyse its rich magical symbolism and provided
a preliminary reading:

e small bell is an intentionally created tool, which by its function

resembles both a musical instrument, as well as an astronomical symbol,
depicting the harmonic relationships that governed the traditional
worldview of the cosmos. Such a ‘skilful feat’ was the casting of the bell
itself, as it does not consist of ‘several metals,’ but as its creator says of
seven metals. is refers to the seven traditional metals, which according
to the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology were all connected to each
other through a complicated network of symbolic relationships guided
by the seven planets. e Sun was aligned to gold, the Moon to silver,
Mercury to quicksilver, Venus to copper, Mars to iron, Jupiter to tin, and
Saturn to lead. Each of these metals has different physical and chemical
characteristics, in particular varying melting points; even more,
quicksilver is fluid und thus cannot be forged. e creator of the bell still
found a solution to this problem, as he excluded the metal with the
highest melting point, iron, from the alloy and forged the bell clapper
from it instead. However, this question can only be answered in more
detail once a chemical analysis of the materials used has been completed.
 Ritual bell created by Hans de Bull for Rudolf II, c.1600 KHM-Museumsverband

On the bell coat the seven planets are depicted in their common form of
classical gods, and then supplemented with the twelve signs of the zodiac,
which were added as the ‘rulers’ of the indicated planets: Saturn is placed
above Capricorn and Aquarius, Jupiter above Pisces and Sagittarius, Mars
above Aries and Scorpio, the Sun above Leo, Venus above Taurus and
Libra, Mercury above Gemini and Virgo, and the Moon above Cancer.
Above each planetary deity their respective ‘characters’ have been
engraved in magical symbols aligned to the respective planet […]. Engraved
in the lower part of the handle are the symbols used in astrology and
astronomy as well as in magic and alchemy to designate both the planets
and their corresponding metals. According to Pierre Béhar, the bell handle
is decorated with symbols which remind us of the magical alphabet used by
John Dee to create a central square as well as the borders of a ‘sacred tablet’
that was placed underneath the crystal in which the conjured angels were
meant to appear; it would seem, however, presumptuous to derive the
filiation of the bell from these.

On the inside of the bell coat we find three rows of magical words,
created from letters of the Greek alphabet and other glyphs, whereas
upon the clapper a spiralling text in Hebrew had been engraved. Neither
of these have been deciphered satisfactorily to this date.4

e artist who created this unique set of bells was Hans de Bull, a famous
blackwork ornament engraver and goldsmith at the court of Rudolf II,
where for many years he worked in personal service to the emperor.5 Bull’s
undeniable craftsmanship seems contradicted by the rough cast of the
ornamental figures on the bell’s body. e explanation, however, seems to be
that the cast figures on the body could only be executed in that manner,
even by such a skilled hand as de Bull’s, because the special alloy of the
seven metals didn’t allow for the usual intricate design a cast of pure bell-
metal would have allowed. What was first and foremost for this unique pair
of liturgical bells was their peculiar sound, and secondly the hybrid nature
of their composite substance, i.e. the convergence of all seven planetary
metals corresponding to the classical planets of the night sky.6 e bell’s
ritual properties took prominence over its ornamentation.
 is bell, like its Neo-Assyrian ancestor, had a special purpose, it was
meant to call to the entire cosmos, represented by its substance as well as
the magical figures, seals and names ritually placed on its body, handle and
clapper. From the valley of Tigris and Euphrates to the Hradčany hill in
Prague, set apart by more than two thousand years, we encounter evidence
for a related style of ritual practice, of conjuring the presence of the entire
cosmos by the ringing of a magical bell. Now, obviously we do not claim a
direct relationship or a continual lineage between these two ritual objects.
e reason why we bring the Neo-Assyrian and late medieval specimens
together here is to highlight that in magic what works prevails. Neither the
Roman dominion, the onset of Christianity, nor the Inquisition were able to
defeat this simple rule of practice: across the vast oceans of time, magic that
works will reappear. It might go unseen for centuries, seem forgotten and
dead. Somewhen somewhere someone will cast another liturgical bell, and
they will call not one being, but the entire cosmos through its sound.
So let’s get practical and see how such a work can be achieved.

1   Schwemer, 42.
2   Eckart, 2–20.
3   Eckart, 17.
4   Bukovinská, Purš, 93/94.
5   Bukovinská, Purš, 91.
6   Bukovinská, Purš, 92.
 e Olympic Spirit

§ IV

has gone through many iterations. One of its oldest

T
HE FOLLOWING TEXT

versions is part of the manuscript collection Sammelhandschrift Cod.

11266 HAN MAG in the Austrian National Library. A later version appears
in a manuscript witch book and is today kept in the Museum Neuruppin (Nr.
V 6193-S). e famous German occultist Karl Kiesewetter (1854–1985) left
us another version in the massive archive found in his house after his death.
He had inherited the many volumes of eighteenth century magico-alchymical
manuscripts from his great grandfather, who in turn is said to have copied
them from the now lost archive of the original Rosicrucian order in the years
1764 to 1802.1 In 1845 Johann Scheible, in the infamous third volume of Das
Kloster, gave the text more stability and weight by producing the first printed
edition. Yet many details differed from previous manuscript versions. Franz
Spunda (1890–1963), the gifted occult artist and friend of Gustav Meyrink,
attempted a definitive edition in 1923, publishing a transcript of the Vienna
manuscript under the title Paracelsus’s Magical Instructions. is title was of his
own creation; for many centuries the text had travelled as part of the
compendium of Pseudo-Paracelsian texts and had been titled the Secret of
Secrets, which translates into Latin as Arcanum arcanorum or Secretum
secretorum – which nods to the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum.
 We are dealing with a text which describes magic that works, not least
because it continues to reappear in many forms and guises over time. While
the following list is by no means a complete list of all the manuscript versions
and print editions of this text, it serves to highlight that we are confronted by
an unbroken tradition of practice over at least the last four centuries. In the
following list I will only give versions of the text of which full copies are extant
today. In addition I will also review mentions of the Arcanum arcanorum in the
indices of magical books.

Seventeenth century versions

• Paracelsus, Ein Modus der Tinktur, fol. 70r–153r,
http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/ac13964696, in Sammelhandschrift Cod. 11266
HAN MAG, s.l., 1600– 1699, http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/ac13961632
• Philippi eophrasti Paracelsi Bombast Des Hocherfahrnen, Berühmtesten
Philosophie und Adepti Gröstes und höchstes Geheimnüsz aller seiner
Geheimnüsse, Welches noch niemahls wegen seiner unvergleichlichen
Fürtrefflichkeit ist gemein gemacht, sondern allezeit in geheim gehalten worden,
1686, 12 Blatt, Chem.1122.m, misc.1, http://digital.slub-
dresden.de/id278009182

Eighteenth century versions

• Philippi eophrasti Bombast von Hohenheim Paracelsi genannt, Geheimnüß
aller seiner Geheimnüsse: Welches noch niemahls wegen seiner unvergleichlichen
Fürtreflichkeit ist gemein gemacht, sondern allezeit in geheim gehalten worden;
Nebst einem Anhang noch mehr anderer fast unglaublich raren Curiositäten,
Welche noch niemahls offenbahr worden. Frankfurt: Verlag Johan Georg
 Fleischer, 1750 (1770)
– 1750 edition: https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/title/bV001172506
– 1770 edition: https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/title/bV009299645
• Karl Kiesewetter (inheritance), Alchymica VI: Sextus Sapientiae, 1777, 289–
301, https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/title/bV023186987
• Büchlein eophrasti Paracelsi von Olympischer Geister Citierung,
Schatzgraben und andern probaten Künsten, mehrteils aus des Königs
Salomonis und andern probaten Autoribus abgeschrieben und in der Wahrheit
also befunden worden (1786), once registered in the Bibliotheca
Philosophica Hermetica under the following signature BPH ms. M 126 I,
60–90.

Nineteenth century versions

• Hexenbuch (Nr. V 6193-S), 69–76, Museum Neuruppin,
https://brandenburg.museum-digital.de/object/3162
• Johann Scheible, Das Kloster, vol. III, 1846, 549–553.

Twentieth century versions

• Magische Unterweisungen des edlen und hochgelehrten Philosophi und Medici
Philippi eophrasti Bombasti von Hohenheim, Paracelsus genannt. Edited by
Franz Spunda, Wolkenwanderer Verlag, 1923.

At the end of this chapter the reader will find a modernised working version of
the operation. Before that, however, we shall familiarise ourselves with its
historical forms. As part of the research for this section I prepared several
transcriptions and English translations from the above manuscripts. I also
obtained a microfilm edition of the earliest manuscript in Vienna, dated to the
seventeenth century. As we see from the lavish signatures on the Vienna
manuscript, the collection of secret texts from which Franz Spunda derived his
later edition claim to originate from Paracelsus directly.
e main text shared here follows Spunda’s most recent publication, as his
work was taken from possibly our earliest source, the original seventeenth
century Vienna manuscript. I have included selected annotations where other
versions deviate from the present one.

Paracelsus’s Magical Instructions, or Arcanum arcanorum

Here follows a method for the tincture, as I myself eophrastus Bombastus

have worked it. And this I grant to you, my disciple: when you come to the
end of the tincture, in the new year, that you may investigate in my blessed
memory everything that is in the heaven, on the earth and in the four
elements, and that as soon as you have the tincture you may come to know
various secrets about what is held below and above the earth.
First, remember the day on which you were born, whatever day this might
have been in the week, and when:

• e Sun is in ascension in the sign of Leo, Taurus or Virgo, and precisely

in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th, 14th or 15th degree
• e Moon is in the sign of Aries, Gemini or Libra
• Saturn is in Virgo, Taurus, or Sagittarius, and precisely in-between the
first and the 13th or 14th degree
• Jupiter is in the sign of Cancer, Capricorn, or Sagittarius, and in the 7th,
9th, 10th or 15th degree
• Mars is in Aries or Leo
• Venus is in Taurus or Gemini, and in a position in-between the 1st and
the 15th degree
• Similarly, Mars and Mercury are in Virgo, Libra, Leo, Capricorn, or
Pisces in the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 14th to 15th degree
• And when the dragon’s tail [Cauda Draconis] and the dragon’s head
[Caput Draconis] are positioned in a good aspect on the same day

en take two ounces of gold, one ounce of silver, lead half an ounce, tin half
an ounce, iron [Mars] two ounces, bell metal six ounces. ese mix with each
other. en from the metal of the day you were born take one ounce more
than from the others. Once mixed, have a bell cast for you, and while it is
being cast, drop a grain of the tincture into it. (I prefer the kind that is
impure.) And now allow it to further smelt, and have a second bell cast for
you. Once this has been done, take it to a secure place and on the clapper write
the name ADONAY, and further downwards at the thick curve write
TETRAGRAMMATON, and on the shaft for holding it write JESUS. After the
preparation of such bells has taken place, keep them pure and in a clean place,
for they are a divine secret, and they do not require any other names or
characters, but only the two together with the third. Because their virtues are
unfathomable, especially since the two are the greatest and highest names,
such as T. and A. e Hebrews and Egyptians have founded and performed
many wonders with these. e third name, J. is the newborn child Jesus, who
is the lamb carrying the sins of the world (to come). For the affirmation of
these and for the preparation and perfection of his divine work he has been
commanded here. All secrets stand concealed in these three names, may they
be in the heavens or amongst the divine creatures. Even though their virtues
and wisdom may not have been uttered or studied entirely upon this day. For
this reason they shall be kept in honour and never be abused.
Now if you want to avail yourself of this secret bestowed upon you and of
this created bell, take care that for nine days prior you prepare yourself with
the purification of your body, and with moderation in drink and food. Also be
sure that your mind is chaste, and with divine suffumigations is turned towards
prayer. e day that these nine days conclude should be on a Tuesday. At night
go to a hidden place, where nobody knows you are and no one can hear you.
is could be in a clean room or in a house where no one is living, or may it
just be a room away from all other people until dawn. As soon as you have
such a hidden room, prepare a clean table and keep the room tidy. en place
a clean cloth on the table, place the chairs next to it, and place three wax
candles in a holder made from silver or brass on the table. Once you have
completed these preparations, you should prepare the following inks (the
instructions to which you will find in the following piece), and write with a
virgin peacock feather, which you have cut with a virgin knife, the names of
the spirits onto the ink-bottles, each one with their own colour, which you
should mix with the tincture. Once these names are written, speak: ‘O
TETRAGRAMMATON, ADONAY! I, N.N., your creature, beg you through Jesus for
your luck and mercy, to fulfill my matter with these spirits. May it happen
without evil and through the power of your force, Lord ZABAOTH, Lord of all
Lords. Amen.’
 Once this prayer is completed, begin to ring the bell and speak: ‘e spirit
or angel N.N. shall appear immediately through my desire and your Names.’
Speak this three times and ring three peals each, and they will appear. ey
will appear as a man of Nobility, a Prince, a Count, each in their particular
clothes. In this manner you can invite all seven spirits or metals of the planets
at once, as long as you know how to handle the colours. When they appear
according to their rank, for they appear swiftly, you should indicate for them
to sit in their chairs, call each one by their name and speak: ‘I, N.N. desire of
you spirit N.N. of this planet, for you to tell or show me this or that (here state
your desire), for as far as it is within your capability and for as long as you are
willing to do so. Such I desire through the sacred and divine names,
TETRAGRAMMATON, ADONAY and JESUS.’
Now take care that you prepare their inks in advance, into which you put
the tincture, and also prepare them paper and a feather each, so they will
reveal to you anything you desire. And if you do not exhaust them during the
first time, they will return to you even more favourably, and they come to
whichever place you want, in any night and on any day. However, each day
allow them to depart for two and a half hours, which is from 10 am until half
one, and the same time during the nighttime, just as they will tell you
themselves.
And once your desire has come to be fulfilled and is completed for the first
time, so wipe them off [i.e. the names of the spirit from the ink-bottles] with
clean milk and say: ‘Pass away, you kind hearted spirits, in the name of the
Creator! And just like I summoned you in His name for this operation, so you
may reveal yourself to me and obey me at any time, in the name of the Holy
Trinity. Amen.’
 at is how they depart. In this manner you may call any spirit, and they
will come to you, and you can perform wonders with them. For they will teach
you all things good and evil, so far as they can. Now, when you commune with
them for the first time you will require such ceremonies, however, you will not
in the future. ey are always ready to fulfill your will.

How the magical stone of Mercury and of his spirit shall be mixed with all
kinds of colours: Take a tincture of water and gum arabic.

• e colour of Mercury shall be coloured brick-brown together with gum

water, in which you have dissolved a little bit of earth.
• e colour of Saturn is made from black colour, and spread with oil, as
well as mixed with a tincture. Also, while working on the tincture, you
shall take half a mustard seed underneath your tongue, together with
several spices.
• e colour of Jupiter shall be ash coloured, tempered with oil and other
things, and mixed with tincture, and spread on top.
• e colour of the Sun shall be golden yellow, mixed with tincture and
spread out and separated with diligence.

It also would not be wrong if you drizzled a little of the metal belonging to
each colour into the tincture. en mix the tincture well, the more the better.
Further instructions are not needed, as long as you approach the above with
care and prepare everything with the highest attention to detail.
You should know this about these spirits, that all of them – Arathron,
Bethor, Phaleg, Och, Hagith, Ophiel, Phul – are aligned to the seven planets,
which you can apply in this operation of the seven planets and their characters.
Arathron is aligned to Saturn, Bethor to Jupiter, Phaleg to Mars, Och to the
Sun, Hagith to Venus, Ophiel to Mercury, Phul to the Moon. ese seven
spirits rule over the planets, which is why they are of a most useful nature and
why you will not need any other spirits. For all the things you may desire
reside within the realm of their capabilities. ey will reveal to you all secrets,
and they will make you alike to a spiritual and divine human. You do not
require any other, for they are the highest and they will provide sufficient help
to you, whatever matter you may desire. For they are almighty, and they rule
with power until the end of the world.
But if you desire an angel from the choir of angels, make the same
preparations as before, and with a golden or yellow tincture write their name
on the bell, and speak the prayer as before. As soon as he has appeared to you,
you may ask him just as described above to write [through you]. And should
you desire to have your own spirit so your wish shall be granted. However, you
should not occupy him for more than half an hour; and should you desire an
angel, be sure to prepare thoroughly in advance. He will grant you knowledge
of all divine things, and in this manner you can gain knowledge of all kind of
angels, and specifically of your own angel. But beware when you work with the
angels to not occupy them longer than half an hour. Otherwise none of them
will appear to you afterwards, for their business is to be mindful of God, their
Lord. And the best time to explore the angels is Tuesday or Saturday or
Wednesday, in the sign of the waxing moon, just as you have been advised for
the other spirits. Dear disciple, I have instructed you how to handle the seven
[planetary] spirits; and with these [angels] you approach them in the same
manner.
 at is how you learn from them [the spirits of the planets] the correct
conjuration of the other angels; equally the former can function as your angel
just as much, and in all things you will receive more precise answers from
them. For it is granted to them to serve humans like servants. Even though I
am also describing the others, who reside in the four quarters of the world, it
is still easier to deal with these and they respond swifter than the other angels.
For the angels do not like to bother with too much gossip, but they ascend to
their Lord, whom they serve. Yet if you still desire to come into
communication with the angels, you shall prepare yourself two bells. e first
to work with the seven spirits, the other for working with the angels. Use the
first one to learn from the seven spirits at which time and in which hour to call
the good angels and how to prepare their seals. How one conducts the full
operation from beginning to end, that you will be taught in detail by the seven
high spirits. In this manner you may unite yourself with the angels without
fear or sin, for these seven spirits will teach you how, when and where. If you
embark upon this experiment, you will come to know everything in time, all
the things of which I must remain silent here and which I do not say, for it
may happen to us like it did to Heliae and other magicians who have been
enraptured. Because it is not favourable to God [to reveal all things here], for
God wants it in another manner. And in this way mankind is infected with
angelic sight, and they will no longer desire of this world, but for the yonder
Always Living, in which all the faithful come together. Yet, in case you desire
to advance into the divine secrets too quickly, be warned to not walk into them
too deeply, but to work with the seven princes. ese will be just as helpful to
you, and do not offer the chance to ascend too high, but trust that through
these facts and acts you will come to know and experience everything that you
desire [at the right time].
But you shall not think that these spirits perform these things through
themselves, for they do all of this through God given power, virtue and agency.
is is why you shall honour God alone, and thank him every day and night.
And it will also happen that when you work with the angels you will be
unwell for many days, just as happened to a mage in Chaldea and Persia, who
was tempted for fourteen days by this secret and who could not eat a bite nor
drink, and yet turned out to be stronger than before after this time. is is
how it also happened to others for seven days, even though we do not possess
written records for them. But it is the inward born melancholia which rules in
divine beings, and it is an always continuing striving, until man is entirely
ecstatic and entranced, and no one any longer knows where it may lead him.
at is why God the Almighty has sent me his angel, for it may return me
into the contorted [the physical realm], so that I may accomplish my service
here which God has assigned to me, and which I am set to complete by the
hour and in His Name and in His honour and in the praise of the holy Trinity.
Amen.
Beloved disciple and God-fearing student, now you have received all my
teachings, the entire arcanum naturae [secret of nature], and the entire
philosophy, which refers to the holy Trinity from the beginning to its end, and
which has been revealed to us together with this final secret of the nature: For
may you always follow my teaching, so you will not err. Because the first seven
spirits will fulfil all your desires, and they will bring all operations from the
beginning, with God’s mercy, to the end, and without error, for you have
received everything from me that you may have: the conditions and the
practice of this science or divine secret. So all of this may be yours, my beloved
disciple and student, who will accomplish this, for you are + R + L V J for good
beginning, to whom I have granted eophrastus Paracelsus’ fortunate devices
and a blessed ending. None of my many books and none amongst my many
writings treat of this secret, for this is the highest and most blessed [book],
and at the same time written as a new one. May God grant you his praise and
good fortune for your perfection, in the name of most holy Trinity and
majesty of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

§V

Ritual Analysis

I. TEXTUAL TRADITION

other German magical treatises that emerged during the

L
IKE MANY

sixteenth century, the text is directly attributed to the famous Swiss doctor
Paracelsus (1493–1541), a leading figure in the German Renaissance who
does not require further introduction. Penned as a direct transmission from
Paracelsus to a student, the manuscript is explicitly identified as a secret
teaching, containing knowledge that had been deliberately left out of his other
books. Such claims were common for pseudo-authentic magical literature of
the time attempting to position itself as belonging to the core teachings of the
quickly spreading Paracel-sian tradition. However, the possibility that the text
actually conveys authentic teachings of Paracelsus cannot be entirely
dismissed. In his famous Archidoxis magica it is Paracelsus himself who shares
the story of a nigromancer in Spain who performed highly effective spirit
operations with the use of a magical bell.

But yet I cannot conceal the great miracle I saw done by a great
nigromancer in Spain; he had a bell, not more than two pounds heavy, with
this bell he could bring much and various spectre and visions of the spirits.
Because whenever he desired, he wrote several words and characters inside
the bell. As soon as he rang or chimed it, a spirit immediately appeared to
him, in whatever form he wanted it to appear. With the ringing of this
bell, he could bring to himself or ward from himself many other visions of
spirits, and even of humans and animals, as I’ve seen it many times being
done by him. But as often as he did something new, he also renewed the
words and characters. But he did not want to reveal to me the secrets of the
words and characters, thus I thought deeply about these things myself and
discovered them without any assistance; but I will leave these out here, or
give even a single example of them. Yet, I witnessed enough to understand
that it was more down to the bell than to the words. Because this bell was
certainly cast of our electro [electro-magicum].2

So, Paracelsus admits how fascinated he had been by the magical bell; and yet
as the Spaniard refused to share its secret, the former had to undertake his
own research, and ultimately managed to discover its secret. However, just like
the nigromancer before him, Paracelsus in the Archidoxis shies away from
sharing the details of the operation with his readers. If this tale was presumed
to be historical reality rather than myth, it would not seem impossible that
Paracelsus had kept a practical manual containing the secrets of the magical
bell operation. Such a conjecture is further supported by an annotation we find
in the rare occult book catalogue Nuncius Olympianus from 1626 by Anastasius
Philarethes Cosmopolita, aka Joachim Morsius (1593–1643). Here Morsius
relates an episode from the early seventeenth century in Salzurg, where
Paracelsus spent the last years of his life and was buried in 1541.

Your Excellency should know that, before being expelled and captured, old
Bishop Wolff Dieterich [i.e. Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, 1559–1617] had
torn down a house in Salzburg, which was called ‘Zum Riesen’ [To the
Giant], and had another palace built in its place, in which [the former]
eophrastus had dwelled much and daily, when he was alive, he had a
little chamber made by the horse stable in the back, and hid his books in it.
Now that this cellar has been torn down, two carts full of eophrastic
books have been found, which the old bishop Wolff Dieterich had brought
into the castle, when he was still in his dignity, and since it was found that
most of them were eological and against the whole papacy, the tyrant
had them all burned together in continenti.3

In the same book catalogue we also find what is possibly the first mention of
our text, (Pseudo-)Paracelsus’s Arcanum arcanorum, listed as item 210 and
attributed to Paracelsus: Ejusdem arcanum arcanorum manuscriptum.4 Of
course, we can’t conclusively identify the hand that wrote the first version of
the Arcanum arcanorum. Quite to the contrary, we want to emphasise that
whoever penned the initial version of this text was himself in a current or
tradition that Paracelsus witnessed flourishing in fifteenth century Spain –
Europe’s hotbed of magical transmission from Arabic into Latin at the time.
Rather than attempting to zone in on the single author who gave this ritual its
current form, we want to point out that the ritual itself should be considered
testament to a seemingly unbroken tradition of magic from the fifteenth
century onwards, a tradition that relies heavily on a liturgical bell to call spirits
of a celestial nature.
Next to the bell, the rest of the ritual stage in the Arcanum arcanorum
belongs to the seven Olympic spirits. ese are no strangers to us, as we know
them from the ‘first book of white magic in Germany.’5 Forty-eight years
before the first (known) appearance of our manuscript, the Arbatel (1575) had
introduced the Olympic spirits to occult readers and private libraries across the
West. We will take a closer look at these spirits and the implications for the
rite at hand in a later chapter. For now, as we look at the textual tradition, it is
important to understand the direct relationship of the Arcanum arcanorum to
the Arbatel. Not only do both texts make reference to the same celestial beings,
but the precise instructions of the Arcanum arcanorum on the invocation of the
Olympic spirits are exactly what was missing from the vague and ambiguous
forty-nine aphorisms of the Arbatel. Would it be reckless to consider the
Arcanum arcanorum a candidate for the missing third part of the Arbatel on
‘Olym-pick magick, in what manner a man may do and suffer by the spirits of
the Olympus’?6 What we have for historical evidence is the fact that from the
seventeenth century onwards these two texts liked to travel in close company.
e synchrony in the appearance of both texts across rare magical catalogues
allows us to see them as co-existing within the same milieu for hundreds of
years. Even though never united in a single book, they seem to be meant to be
read side by side. erefore, even if insufficient evidence exists to prove the
Arcanum arcanorum is the missing third book on Olympic magic from the
Arbatel, we are justified in considering it a later author’s attempt to fill this
critical gap. We shall leave the judgement to the reader as to whether our
anonymous author was successful in their daring attempt.
Now, looking more closely at the history of both texts we are in debt to the
invaluable research of Carlos Gilly, and the generous offering of his yet
unpublished index of Carl Widemann’s catalogues. We encounter what is
possibly the earliest trace of both texts as part of the same collection in
Widemann’s Index librorum quorundam manuscriptorum secretorum from 1628.
Here our shorter treatise is listed under number 123 as eophrasti Arcanum
arcanorum manu scriptum, whilst several pages later we encounter a German
version of the Arbatel listed as number 788. In the eighteenth century the
congeniality of both texts becomes even more apparent, as we often encounter
them listed in catalogues together. One of these is a rare book catalogue from
Vienna, Catalogus manuscriptorum chemico-alchemico-magico-cabalistico-medico-
physico-curiosorum. It was anonymously published in 1786 and is now
presumed to have been edited by Baron Maximilian Josef Linden (1736–
1801), a prominent Freemason also known as Ardaxanes Linniphoen
Mimichemen. is catalogue offered transcripts of various manuscripts, with a
price listed next to each title. Here, here under number 266 we find the
following manuscript offered for reproduction: eophrasti Paracelsi Arcanum
Arcanorum s. Magisterium Philosophorum de Sacra Campanula Angelorum. It is
said to consist of seven pages in German, available as a transcript for 1 fl.45 kr.
e number immediately above this title, number 265, lists Das Buch Arbatel
von der alten Magia (e Book Arbatel of the Ancient Magic). In an edition of the
catalogue printed two years later in 1788, and despite several other changes to
the titles listed, we still find these two texts in close proximity.
is trend continues into the nineteenth century, where we find the Arbatel
in the third volume of Scheible’s Das Kloster, followed directly by the famous
Magia divina, which in its appendix contains a developed version of our
Arcanum arcanorum.
e concurrency of these texts certainly speaks to the relatedness of their
practice, and possibly their origin. After all, both texts firmly stand in the
Paracelsian tradition, center their practice on the Olympic spirits, concentrate
on assimilating the operator’s mind to the angelic realm and generally
represent distinguished examples of late medieval ‘white magic’ – a spiritual
practice aligned with the magical program of ‘theologia magica’ as propagated
by Johannes Trithemius.

II. ASTRO-ALCHEMICAL INSTRUCTIONS

e auspicious time

e astronomer is acquainted with the figure, form, appearance, and

essence of the heaven. e magus operates on the old and new heaven. e
diviner speaks from the stars. e nigromancer controls the sidereal bodies.
e signator is versed in the microcosmic constellation. e adept in
uncertain arts rules the imagination. e physicist composes. Now, those
who give light on earth as torches in the Light of Nature shall shine,
through Christ, as stars for ever.7
ASED ON THIS categorisation by Paracelsus, our text proves to be a hybrid of
the arts mentioned above. Most importantly, it is a practical text that can

B lead us towards becoming a ‘light on earth’ in our own right. ¶ Looking

through the lenses of the astronomer and the physicist, we find that the
Arcanum arcanorum contains three sections of detailed astrological and
alchemical instructions, these relate to the timing of the operation, the casting
process of the magical bell(s) and the preparation of the inks. We will examine
each in turn.

Preceded by an introductory paragraph, the first section instructs us in

determining the right time to cast the liturgical bells. is matters, because as
a late medieval magician one would want to start any operation under an
auspicious constellation. However, similarly to medieval instructions on
extracting the name of our holy daimon from our birth radix, we are told to
consider the weekday on which we were born. us, the operation must be
performed under generally positive celestial influences and in relation to the
time of our birth; this personalises the operation. e metallurgic work will
give birth to a twin set of bells which are magically enlivened. eir essence is
an alloy of the six planetary metals and the magical tincture, and will contain
the celestial imprint of the operator’s time of birth. Just as we forge the echo of
the seven planets into the sound of the bell, so we forge the echo of the
manifestation of our own soul into it. Even on a physical level, the bell as a
magical tool is a material link between the planetary forces of creation and the
body of the operator.
As so often with manuscripts of this age, the astrological instructions are
highly ambiguous. Once we identify the weekday on which we were born, we
must consult a list of signs and specific degrees for each planet and incorporate
the general guidance to ensure that Caput and Cauda Draconis are positively
positioned as well.
It is likely that this element of the text was distorted over time, and
originally – possibly in a verbal transmission – it contained more precise
guidance. anks to the astrological advice of Ricardo Carmona, I have been
able to reconstruct the most probable version of the original practice. To
restore this section a few things should be considered:

• Firstly, it would be impossible to identify the astrological moment in time

when all nine celestial constellations were observed at once; neither does
the text indicate that this would be required. It simply states one ought to
identify the weekday of their birth, and it then provides the list of
positions in the signs and degrees.

Planetary Positions

Paracelsus’s Magical Instructions · A work on the tincture

Planet Zodiac sign Degrees

In the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th,

Sun Leo, Taurus, Virgo
14th or 15th degree

Moon Aries, Gemini, Libra [unspecified]

Virgo, Taurus, Between the 1st and the 13th or 14th

Saturn
Sagittarius degree
 Jupiter Cancer, Capricorn, In the 7th, 9th, 10th or 15th degree
Sagittarius

Mars Aries, Leo [unspecified]

Venus Taurus, Gemini Between the 1st and the 15th degree

Virgo, Libra, Leo, In the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 14th
Mercury & Mars
Capricorn, Pisces or 15th degree

Caput & Cauda

[unspecified] In a good aspect
Draconis

• Secondly, the actual signs and degrees given seem random. One realises
that both Scorpio and Aquarius are the two signs missing from the list,
and two different positions are given for Mars.
• irdly, according to the talismanic tradition of the Picatrix or Agrippa’s
De occulta philosophia,8 the position of the Moon is critical in any
operation. However, of all the signs and degrees given in our text, we find
the least precise instructions for the position of the Moon.
• Finally, upon comparing these instructions with those given by
(Pseudo-)Paracelsus for the creation of three magical mirrors from his
electrum, we see significant differences. Despite being made of the same
magical alloy, the astrological constellations to be observed for the magical
mirrors are more precise as they only indicate a single degree for one’s birth
planet, the Sun and Moon respectively. Furthermore, here it is not the day
of one’s birth, but the hour of one’s conception from which the ruling
planet shall be derived. e related details can be found in the fifth book of
the Archidoxis magica.
e opaqueness of this section of the text can be resolved if we familiarise
ourselves with a largely forgotten feature of medieval astrology. Classical
astrology knew several techniques of zodiacal subdivision, for instance; to
create clusters of degrees within each sign, which were believed to hold
particular qualities, and thus influence how any planet positioned in these
would express its forces. e techniques ranged from the broadly known
decans, which divided each sign into three groups of ten degrees, to the much
lesser known approach of assigning a particular spiritual being, and thus
quality to each individual degree (monomoira, or, as they are called in
astromagical works from the twentieth century, the 360 spirits of the earthbelt
zone). One particular technique of defining each planet’s dignity in the
degrees of the zodiac is known as the Egyptian terms or bounds. Rather than
dividing the entire zodiac into equal parts, it identified five bounds of unequal
degrees within each sign and assigned each of these to the rulership of one of
the five planets, excluding the celestial lights, the Sun and Moon. e origin
of this system is assigned to Dorotheus of Sidon (c.75 CE) and it became
widely used in Hellenistic and medieval astrology.9 If we overlay the Egyptian
bounds onto the signs and degrees given by our text, a clearer pattern
emerges.From the seemingly random instructions of our text, the Egyptian
bounds unlock a pattern that focusses predominantly on the second bound.
More specifically, the pattern seems to aim for astrological bounds governed
by the benefic planets Venus, Mercury and Jupiter, while avoiding the
adversarial Mars and Saturn. With this key to the astrological positions, we
can attempt to restore the original practice of the text: First, the operator
would have noted the ruling planet of the weekday of their birth (e.g. Jupiter
for a ursday). en they would have looked up the signs and degrees given
for this particular planet in the text. In the reconstructed version, we would
presume that they intended to identify the day when that particular planet was
in a beneficial Egyptian bound, ruled by either Venus, Mercury or Jupiter.
Lastly, they would have ensured that at the same moment the Moon in Aries,
Gemini or Libra, and the Head and Tail of the Dragon would be located in
advantageous positions as well. From these four factors they would have
identified the particular day and hour for their operation.

Planetary Positions (corrected)

Paracelsus’s Magical Instructions · A work on the tincture

 e tincture

e melting of the metals and the casting of the bells would have been a step
for which most practitioners enlisted the help of a professional bell founder. It
remains unclear whether it should have been the operator themselves or the
bell founder who adds the ominous tincture to the raw alloy, before the latter
was smelted again and the bells cast from it.
e short text references its titular tincture more than a dozen times; it is a
key ingredient both for the body of the bells as well as for the planetary inks.
However, at no point does the text give any detail on the nature or creation of
this tincture. is makes it clear that the Arcanum arcanorum was part of a
compendium of short Pseudo-Paracelsian magical treatises, bound together,
and referencing each other. us, we are advised to look for the actual recipe
of the tincture amongst the accompanying chapters of the earliest Vienna
manuscript. is seems particularly prudent, as the word tinctura itself is of
very broad scope and takes on many different alchemical, medicinal and
magical meanings in Paracelsus’s opus. In fact, in Sudhoff ’s 14 volume edition
of Paracelsus’s complete works, we find more than thirty different passages
referring to the preparation and application of different kinds of tinctures.
Furthermore, it was only in the seventeenth century that the word became
identified with a solution of medicine in alcohol. Its previous application
loosely referred to any kind of solvent agent, according to its Latin root of
(aqua) tīncta, i.e. coloured water.
In the Vienna manuscript version of the Arcanum arcanorum the operation
of the tincture and the bells is on pages 70 to 81. It is followed by a short
operation of dream magic (81–83), a prophetic treatise called the Secret
Inventory (83–92), a mago-cabalistic experiment for communion with a holy
angel or good spirit stretching over three months, nine days and nine weeks
(92–105), and the Beginning and Entrance to the white Rose Garden of
Alchemical Art (105–114). At the bottom of page 114a, we at last come to
what we have been looking for: a succinct description of the preparation of the
most secret tincture, unlocking the seven gates of the planets and offering
entrance to the alchemical rose garden (114–116). I provide a full English
translation here, including transcriptions of Latin terms and alchemical
symbols.

e Fourth Article
Of the Key of the Rose Garden
us you see, my dear friend, how many good things of the art I have
shown you in this, my rose garden. Yet you may not be able to achieve
anything on this path, in order to bring forth roses from this garden. For it
is reinforced with a deep ditch, strong walls, solid watchtowers, and secured
in this manner that no man may enter it, unless they walk through the
gates of the seven metals, for it is well secured with bars.

A fine prayer ‘O dear, gracious and merciful God, if I have sinned here in
anything, may you look upon me with your mild and benign eyes, for you
alone are the source and ground of all mercy. And I ask you devotedly, that
you may teach me wisdom and prudence, that my faithful gardener alone,
the Holy Spirit, may enlighten and fulfill me, that I may find the key to the
rose-garden, so that I may unlock and open it.’

Because my gardener has three herbs, which grew from the soil, from
which the rose-garden is made, and these are Chelidonia porticuli, martia,
and mercurialia. at is Celandine [Chelidonium majus], Mars-[Plantago
lanceolata] and Angel-herb [Angelica archangelica]. From these three plants
he has assembled the previously mentioned key.
 And I will explain to you how and in which manner it is prepared: [for
this] recipe [take] three pounds of green , that is of copper, two pounds
of , one pound of , [and] grind them carefully, afterwards put the three
parts together, and ensure that you have a very good flask. Place the six
[pounds] inside of it, the alembic on top, seal it so it does not have any
gaps, place it into a distilling-oven, and finally give it a mild fire, so you
will initially receive a white water. Keep that with the finest precaution.
Once the helmet has discoloured, slowly increase the fire. In a new vessel
catch the other water. Once the helmet wants to turn red, it is an
indication of the third water, which is of the strongest nature. Also keep
this with the finest care, as above. Store this for when you need it most, for
it is the most noble, precious, felicitous and virtuous water, which one calls
Corrosit, and it truly is the key through which one can unlock the gates of
all seven planets from here on in every hour, whether they be smoke or
calcinated. All spirits and minerals and the precious stones you can
coagulate as well, if you desire, for such power and wondrous effect has the
corrosive water, that it cannot be lauded enough. It resolves the pieces and
turns them solvent, it purifies the impure, examines [?] the superfluous,
fixes what is fluid.
Finally mix both of them together. e white and the red tinctures
permeate everything, soften everything that is hard, and harden what is
soft; and the discordant things, which cannot mix with each other, it will
unite them, so they may stay united. But why should I speak much of it, for
the praise and agency of this water is entirely unutterable.
e Latin term sub rosa refers to an act done under the seal of secrecy.
Translated as ‘under the rose’ it refers to the rose as a symbol of confidence as
sworn by participants at a meeting. In our text we find such symbolism
expanded into the allegory of the alchemical rose garden, i.e. the locus of the
great alchemical secrets. It is heavily guarded from the outside, and curated on
the inside by a nameless gardener who is identified as the Holy Spirit. e
author speaks of his gardener, i.e. a personalised version of the Holy Spirit
with whom he works in partnership to tend the garden. It is this gardener
from whom he receives the key that opens the gates to the rose garden.
is key is described in two ways: first in its spagyric and then in its
metallurgic terms. e spagyric key is a tincture made of three herbs. e first
plant is clear from its Latin name (despite the unusual addendum of porticuli),
the other two are given the vernacular names of Mars-and Angel-herb. e
latter can with high likelihood be identified as Angelica archangelica, as the
plant is often called, Angel-herb (Engelskraut) in medieval herbals. It is the
middle herb that is harder to identify as a single plant, because medieval
herbals associated the rulership of a particular planet with a wide range of
herbs that all tied into the nature of the planet according to their outer shape
and medicinal effect. However, the most prominent herb to feature as an
expression of martial force was ribwort or Plantago lanceolata. is
identification is further confirmed in our mago-alchemical context as none
other than Agrippa of Nettesheim in Book 1, chapter XXII of his De occulta
philosophia explicitly calls ribwort the herb of Mars.
e metallurgic key required the reader to decipher the alchemical symbols
into their chemical substances, as in the translation above, and is shown in the
following table. From this, with relatively little effort, the alchemical key could
be extracted, whose qualities, according to the author, were entirely unutterable.

Alchemical translation

Given as copper in the text but possibly referring to 3

Vitriol
iron or ‘iron water.’ lbs.

Nitrum Saltpetre (nitre, i.e. the mineral form of potassium 2

commune nitrate. lbs.

Verdigris (green pigment derived from the application 1

Aerugo
of acid on copper). lb.

Now, as I have mentioned, our treatise aims to avoid any guidance as to the
nature of the magical tincture required. However, at the beginning of the
section which explains the preparation of the planetary inks, we find a single
hint: a reference to the ‘magical stone of Mercury and his spirit.’ It is this term
that helps us identify the tincture with the above described metallurgic key to
the rose garden. For the ‘Corrosit’ derived from the distillation of copper-rose
and corrosive water is what is called in alchemy the ‘stone of mercury.’ anks
to Adam McLean’s pioneering alchemical research we know that Samuel
Norton’s manuscript e Key of Alchemy (1577) contains a very similar recipe to
the one given by our Pseudo-Paracelsus.

Rx (saith hee) Leonem viridem and eum dissolve, i.e: Take the Green Lion
meaning by copperose and in corrosive water or Aqua Fortis dissolve it
setting it in balnes by the space of 15 daies. After that out thy vessaile; and
 make distillation that the tincture of the vitrioll may be had; en with his
elements separated and rectified proceede upone his owne earth first
calcined; or upon the calcined earth of the ferments, or other waies, as the
minerall stone of Mercury is to be used (…).10

e Arcanum arcanorum stands at the crossroad of magic and alchemy. e

metallurgic key given in the chapter quoted above follows a classical
alchemical process. Yet, its application in the actual ritual or ‘Operation of the
Tincture’ is of a magical nature. ere is a critical point to emphasise before
we can proceed to examine the rest of the operation: the stone of Mercury is
not a stone at all, but like quicksilver, it is a solvent substance, a corrosive
water derived from iron, nitre and copper. Its quality, as given in the Rose
Garden appendix, to ‘permeate everything […] and to unite what cannot mix
with each other,’ initially has to be read as a chemical one. However, its
application in the process of creating the magical bells would be without any
chemical significance: adding a few drops of this corrosive tincture to the
smelted alloy of five metals, before smelting them again has negligible
chemical value. Seen through a magical lens, however, things look different.
Here we are adding the spirit of the stone of Mercury to the fiery matrix from
which the bells will be cast. Despite the fact that the actual tincture would
evaporate immediately on contact with the hot alloy, the latter has still been
touched by its waters. What matters in magic is the contact, and this is
precisely how the tincture is leveraged in this operation. e tincture is
understood as a spirit in its own right, carefully bound into a substance derived
from the distillation of three metals. is spirit needs to be brought into active
contact with the body of the unborn bell, in order to transfer its quality and
allow the opening of the gates of the seven planets.
Of course, rather than attempting to decipher the magical meaning of a
chemically meaningless process, we could simply regard it as such. Maybe the
ominous tincture has no real magical significance at all – and was simply
added because practitioners at the time could not conceive the inner process of
creating magical contact without the pains of going through its physical
equivalent. us, instead of reading the recipe for the stone of Mercury as a
long lost secret to the magical operation, we could read it as an expression of
the occult zeitgeist of the early seventeenth century. Astrology and alchemy
were perceived as essential cornerstones of magical practice, lending
foundational techniques and credibility to any operation.

Let us recall for a moment the many ways of facilitating magical contact we
encountered in the first part of this book: from singing to the spirits, to
finding the narrow way, to entering one’s heart space and illuminating one’s
spirit body – all of these techniques illustrated the path of the open hand.
ey were practices of the rainbow path on which the arrow flies, the one
that is shot directly from Malkuth to Kether. Where the mystical
operations of the first part appealed to the vice of hating the realm of
matter, this operation of the second part appeals to the vice of falling
blindly in love with it again. After the long time spent on the narrow path,
this operation knows how to dextrously appeal to our fascination with
matter, with substances, with physical as well as spiritual creation – and
thus ultimately with man-made domination. For what we encounter in this
recipe of the tincture is a promise of control. A promise of a precise and
 navigable map of a (spiritual) realm that is not easily bent to the laws of
physical matter. So, how will we consider this deciphered section of the
Arcanum arcanorum? Is it a long lost key to bring us through the seven
planetary gates, or an attempt to lure us off the narrow path?
As ‘seekers of understanding’ we are not here to judge, but to learn how
to allow all paradoxes to exist simultaneously. We are here to learn how to
live with the tension of not knowing entirely, despite all the effort we have
summoned to nail down precise meanings and procedures. In the world of
creation there is a mask behind every mask, until we find ourselves
standing again at the edge of the abyss. And the only path that leads on
from here, is the bridge of our own practice. A bridge that is torn down in
a heartbeat by speculation and philosophy, and yet reinforced in an instant
by the intimate trust that flows from the knowledge of our own senses.
is secret of secrets is a test of the qualities of the spirit vessel that we
have brought forth from ourselves. Have we managed to open a heart space
and know how to walk the middle path, one that can hold the tension
between abhorring the manifold masks of creation, and following their
siren call of man-made domination? Look at your heart flame now. Does it
flicker or hold still?

e Divine Names

e new born bells are then adorned with divine names, inscribed at ritually
significant points. Unsurprisingly, we find significant variation in both
placement and names across the various manuscripts of the Arcanum
arcanorum, which I will compare in the following table.
 As before, we shall follow the earliest known version of the text, the
Vienna manuscript. Here there is only one design applicable to both bells, and
it is the simplest version. We encounter three divine names: ADONAY on the
clapper, TETRAGRAMMATON on the lower, outer circle of the bell-body and
JHESUS on the handle.
Tetragrammaton, derived from the Greek (meaning
[consisting of ] four letters), is the most holy name of divinity in the Mosaic
religion: yod-he-vav-he or Yahweh. Despite the huge amount of study
undertaken on this term, still no definitive account of its origin or meaning
has been established. Most likely it was introduced to central Palestine and the
Israelites in the late fourteenth century BCE by the Kenites, a nomadic tribe of
coppersmiths and metalworkers in the ancient Levant. As one would expect,
the theonym’s exegesis underwent multiple waves of orthodox and apocryphal
reinterpretation. Amongst the most prominent interpretations we encounter
today are (1) a sophisticated linguistic play on the term ‘I am who I am’
(Exodus 3:14), (2) the abbreviation for an originally deified ancestor, (3) an
abbreviated liturgic formula for ‘He who creates the heavenly armies,’ (4) an
ancient storm god whose original name might have been ‘He who rides the
wind and blows,’ or (5) a historic evolution of the Ugaritic deity El.11
Whilst it is deeply ambiguous, the name Yahweh (and its paraphrase in the
technical term Tetragrammaton) points towards the connection of an ancient
celestial cult and the emerging craft of a metal-working nomadic tribe. Both
themes are strongly imbued and alive in the casting of a set of twin bells from
an alloy of the five planetary metals, and the engraving of the divine name on
its outer ring.
rough the academic lens of classical or medieval studies, any kind of
direct correlation between the Kenites’ legacy and a sixteenth century
Western liturgic bell is highly speculative at best. If all we have as evidence
is the ubiquitous divine name Tetragrammaton, an academic audience
might raise its eyebrows at the very least. And that is perfectly acceptable,
if one subscribes to the logic of their discipline. If, however, we see such a
possible correlation through a magical lens, things appear quite differently.
Here we see patterns of active spirit agency expressing and repeating
themselves over a vast span of time. rough this lens, the countless and
often nameless hands that put their quills to vellum were gates for the
materialisation of spiritual forces. us we begin to see patterns of ‘lineage
of thought and expression’ where no historic ties can be proven. rough
this lens no barriers of space and time exist – in this realm, time flows
backwards as much as forwards, and ripples travel in both directions.
When we examine the divine name Tetragrammaton on the curved body of
our bell, we collapse space and time between us and those who have used
the divine key before us. Graves, bones, dust, centuries of time – none of
these matter, when we walk the narrow path of inner experience. Because
what connects us is what touches us in spirit. rough such a lens, what is
truly alive in a magical text is not its letters, nor the traces of the hands
who set them down on paper. It is the spirit sealed inside the words.
Even as you read this now, you connect not only with the words I am
writing; you are connected with the spirits I invited to co-author this book
with me. eir call flows through me, into these words, onto the paper, and
into you. And because these spirits exist in a realm unaffected by time and
space as we understand it, for them there is no distance between you and I
in this moment. It doesn’t matter whether my hands have turned to dust
and yours are holding this book right now. In this very moment, the four of
us make one: you and me, this book and the spirits. rough such a
magical lens, the connection we encounter between the Kenites’ art and our
ritual bells is a call we are not meant to judge but to follow and explore in
practice.

Planetary bell (left) and angelic bell (right)

eurupin Hexenbuch, 19th century
 Planetary bell (left) and angelic bell (right)
Kieserwetteriana, Alchymica vol. VI: Sextus Sapientiae, 18th century
 Ritual bells & divine names
Variations over four mss. and three centuries of ritual practice

To remedy any residual academic angst, here is a historical interpretation of

our divine names on the liturgical bell. In the early sixteenth century Paul
Ricius, the professor of philosophy and medicine in Pavia, and later personal
physician of Emperor Maximilian I (c.1480–1541), was one of the most
important proponents of Christian Cabbala. Not only did he become a strong
defender of Johann Reuchlin, but due to his Jewish origins and mastery of the
Hebrew and Arab languages, he became a critical agent in translating and
publishing cabalistic source works into Latin. In 1516, his translation of
Joseph Gikatilla’s Sha’are Orah was published under the Latin title Portae Lucis
Haec est porta Tetragrammaton iusti intrabunt per eam.12 In this critical text
Gikatilla expands upon the malbush (Hebrew for robe or vesture) tradition of
Kabbalah. e central idea is that all of the Torah, and thus all of creation,
represents a single garment woven from combinations of the name YHVH.
Gikatilla had been introduced to this tradition by his early teacher Abraham
Abulafia, who had developed it further from the great Spanish cabalists, who
recognised YHVH as the essential formula of all life and as the underlying
pattern from which all of creation’s texture was woven. Following the spirit of
Abulafia’s letter-combinatorics, the inherent cabalistic structure of YHVH was
examined in great detail, mathematical values were extracted, compared and
used as the foundation for an exegesis of the secret patterns of creation. At the
end stood the revelation that the divine letter pairs (i.e. distinct patterns of
vibration) derived from the name YHVH formed the essential matrix of all of
creation, and yet revealed themselves differently within the four worlds they
brought to life. In the world closest to the En Sof, the world of Atziluth, they
were still present in their original form of letter pairs, or vibrations; in the next
emanatory world, in the world of Beri’ah or Creation, they reveal themselves
as divine names; in the third world of Yetzirah or Formation, they are
encountered as angelic beings (chayot hakodesh or holy beings), and finally in
the corporeal world of Assiah or Action, their patterns take the manifest form
of the Torah as revealed to Moses on Mount Sinaï.13

e entire Torah is woven from the name YHVH and thus the Torah of
God is called perfected.14

Understanding the depth of these cabalistic speculations is critical to ensure

we can appreciate the complexity contained in YHVH. When in the Arcanum
arcanorum (Pseudo-)Paracelsus instructs us to write the holy Tetragrammaton
upon the bell, we are implicitly encouraged to make a choice with regards to
the spirit and consciousness with which we perform this seemingly simple
operation. For one, we could choose to look at it as adorning a tool with the
most common divine name in the Western grimoire tradition, a
straightforward act of empowerment. is would be a no nonsense approach
to executing the simple instructions we received. It would, however, fail to
recognise the magical depth and resonance contained within this holy four-
letter word. Or we could instead perceive the act of writing the
Tetragrammaton upon the belly of the bell as an act of cabalistic creation. In
this case, our own mind needs to be deeply anchored in the understanding of
the malbush tradition. While carefully executing the calligraphy of each letter,
our mind would retrace the process of emanation contained in these letters.
e process of writing the name YHVH would turn into a process of exposing
the multilayered nature of creation: all the way from Assiah (the physical
letter), to Yetzirah (the spirit contained in it), to Beri’ah (the divine name
itself ), into Atziluth (the pure pattern of vibration). As always in the grimoire
tradition the text of the ritual only provides us with the raw ‘grammar’ of the
operation at hand. Unlocking its spirit, its inherent organic pattern and living
breath, is down to the skill of the operator. Stepping back from cabalistic
speculations, we find a second clue to the magical mechanics of our liturgical
bell in the structure of Gikatilla’s Gates of Light. e Tetragrammaton is the
divine name relating to the sixth sephirah, Tiphareth. us, on the mystical
rainbow path it forms the stepping stone between the beginning of our
journey in Malkuth and its aim in the highest triad, formed by Binah,
Chokmah and Kether. Beyond Tiphareth lies the realm of Da’ath and the
Abyss. us Tiphareth marks the spiritual threshold up to which the
practitioner’s journey can be assisted by magical means. From here onwards
one needs to travel alone and with empty hands. Our bells in their earliest
design feature a second divine name. Adonay (from Hebrew ādôn, lord) as the
divine name to be written on the clapper. In Gikatilla’s Gates of Light the name
Adonay is associated with the sephirah of Malkuth. us the sound created by
the touch of Adonay (clapper) on Tetragrammaton (belly of bell) is a
translation of the rainbow path into the vibration of the bell: Adonay, the
materialised aspect of divinity, touches the web of divine creation, the universe
contained within the mystical name Tetragrammaton. e sound that emerges
from this contact is a call to the entire universe, for its divine awareness to be
present within the operator in that moment. Furthermore, as the metallic
patterns of the Olympic spirits have been cast into the substance of the bell
itself, the call merges the mystical aspect of the two cabalistic divine names
with the magical purpose of drawing the attention of the seven planetary
rulers.
Upon closer examination we now realise how sophisticated and well
thought out the original design of the liturgical bells in the Arcanum
arcanorum is. We also begin to see how more detailed later versions lost the
succinct precision of their precursors. From a liturgical perspective most
operator’s magical skills would have been well utilised when tuned in to the
deep symbolism and the related divine patterns activated by the simple
features of the earliest version of the bell: giving presence and awareness to
what the touch of Adonay upon Tetragrammaton meant, to the vibration
released by their interaction, and the resonance of the body of the bell, shaped
by the metallurgic patterns of the Olympic spirits. e true mastery of a
magical act begins with the design and creation of the required tools. e test
of active divine agency and human-to-spirit contact does not lie in the
alchemical precision of the casting process. Rather, as we have seen, it resides
within the operator themselves – and their innate or trained ability to turn
themselves into the key of spiritual single-pointedness that unlocks these
patterns on an inner plane. is process of inner unlocking is not an
achievement of cognitive skill or mental prowess. Instead, its essence resides in
the foundational skills we examined in the first part of this book – the
operator’s ability to sit silently at the edge of the Abyss, with their back
towards Divinity, and to allow the forces of creation to enter into and flow
through the gate of their heart space. Adepthood lies in our ability to attune
ourselves to the forces we intend to work with, and to become alike to the
spirits we want to be in union with. For as we saw in the chapter on Pseudo-
Dionysius the Areopagite, such an act is not accomplished by moving the
spirit from whatever celestial height or chthonic depth at which they reside,
but by opening our own heart space and remaining utterly silent in the
presence of the divine light.

For It is indeed present to all, but all are not present to It. But then, when
we have invoked It, by pure prayers and an unpolluted mind, and by our
aptitude towards Divine Union, we also are present to It. For, It is not in a
place, so that It should be absent from a particular place, or should pass
from one to another. But even the statement that It is in all existing beings,
falls short of Its infinitude (which is) above all, and embracing all. Let us
then elevate our very selves by our prayers to the higher ascent of the divine
and good rays, – as if a luminous chain is suspended from the celestial
heights, and reaching down hither, we, by ever clutching this upwards, first
with one hand, and then with the other, seem indeed to draw it down, but
in reality we do not draw it down, it being both above and below, but
ourselves are carried upwards to the higher splendours of the luminous
 rays. Or, as if, after we have embarked on a ship, and are holding on to the
cables reaching from some rock, such as are given out, as it were, for us to
seize, we do not draw the rock to us, but ourselves, in fact, and the ship, to
the rock. Or to take another example, if anyone standing on the ship
pushes away the rock by the sea shore, he will do nothing to the stationary
and unmoved rock, but he separates himself from it, and in proportion as
he pushes that away, he is so far hurled from it. Wherefore, before
everything, and especially theology, we must begin with prayer, not as
though we ourselves were drawing the power, which is everywhere and
nowhere present, but as, by our godly reminiscences and invocations,
conducting ourselves to, and making ourselves one with it.15

e Olympic Spirits

e paradox of the Olympic spirits

Motse ha o na sehlare: sehlare ke pelo.

Power is not acquired by medicine: the heart is the medicine.
– Morena Mohlomi, 1720–1815

into the maze of the famed Olympic spirits, we shall take

B
EFORE WE HEAD

a lesson from a rather unlikely source. Mike Mignola in his 2002 Hellboy
story, ‘e ird Wish,’ offers a profound lesson on the use of sacred
paraphernalia in magic. As with all Mignola’s comics, his stories are an
expression of both his astonishing artistic genius as well as the extensive
research he has done before he even picks up a pen. In ‘e ird Wish’
Hellboy encounters the wise African medicine man Mohlomi. e latter
figure is a reference to Morena Mohlomi, an eighteenth century African chief
of the Bakoena, who is respected to this day beyond the boundaries of Lesotho
as a wise philosopher and medicine man. If you have the chance, we strongly
recommend reading the original stories. For those unfamiliar with the work
we offer the following summary by om Hardman:

Mohlomi offers to Hellboy a protective talisman in the form of a bell; he

claims it is his ‘medicine’ and that it will keep him safe. is bell, seemingly
imbued with magic, is crucial to saving Hellboy’s life on a number of
occasions, even miraculously reappearing after previously being eaten by a
shark. And it is on this subject that the words of the real world Mohlomi
take on a deep significance for Hellboy’s story.
e story goes that when a young, ambitious Moshoeshoe first met with
Mohlomi, he requested magical assistance or medicine from the wise man,
to help with his campaign to become a powerful chief. To this Mohlomi
responded with the aforementioned quote that ‘the heart is the medicine.’
As Hellboy lies dying on a forgotten and uncharted island; his bell lost, his
heart impaled and his own blood congealing into the demonic form which
he fears lies dormant inside him, Mohlomi returns to speak with him
again.
In this meeting between life and death, Mohlomi hands the missing
bell back to Hellboy, stating that ‘nothing’s lost,’ thus restoring Hellboy to
life and giving him the required power to defeat the nightmare version of
himself. It is not however the medicine bell that gives Hellboy this power,
 it is Hellboy’s conviction that Mohlomi returns to him. Hellboy reaffirms
that he will fight to the last against his supposed destiny. Rather than a
magical trinket, Mohlomi restored his heart.

e role Mohlomi takes on in Mignola’s story is the personification of the

spirit guide, an echo of the qualities of his real-life antetype. However,
Mignola’s Mohlomi appears to Hellboy two hundred years after the former’s
death, as an ancestral spirit, a being traversing the boundary between life of
death. As mentioned by Hardman, it is critical that after receiving Mohlomi’s
‘medicine’ in the form of a magical bell in ‘e ird Wish,’ Hellboy
encounters the wise spirit again in the 2005 story ‘e Island.’ Designed by
Mignola as a counterpoint to the easily digestible Hellboy movies of the time,
this episode was meant to chart the complex cosmological backstory of our
antihero from hell. Mohlomi’s spirit appears to Hellboy at the very moment
the latter lies defeated, with a pierced heart, bleeding out and on the threshold
of death. Upon retrieving the magical bell from Mohlomi, Hellboy’s personal
and deeply sinister destiny is fully revealed to him. It is then that Hellboy
realises that in order to avoid the fate hell destined for him, he will need to
lean against his own blood and into the heart space healed by the sound of the
magical bell. Finally, with the restorative force of Mohlomi’s medicine,
Hellboy overcomes his own shadow and the seed of destruction contained in
the ‘right hand of the devil.’
e heart is the medicine, the original Mohlomi wisely said. Two hundred
years after his death, through Mignola’s inspired vision, this medicine took on
the form of a small liturgical bell, passed on from beyond death by an ancestral
spirit to an antihero from hell. Even more than a tool of protection,
Mohlomi’s bell is a tool that restores the heart.

Clearly, none of us is Hellboy. Nobody’s blood in this world carries the

memories of hell. And none of us is adorned with the ‘right hand of the devil.’
Yet, our human curse has often been likened to a gift of the dark lord. Our
curse, and our blessing, is free will. e figure of Mohlomi in Mignola’s stories
is a wonderful symbol of the living promise that magic holds for each
practitioner. Whatever mess we have got ourselves into, whichever dead-end
street we have become stuck in, however dim our heart space has grown, there
is a medicine waiting for us. ere is a sound out there somewhere, the call of
a bell that will protect us and restore us to a better version of ourselves. It is
this bell’s call that turns our blood from a bond with hell into a river of
freedom.
As we consider the central operation of our seventeenth century text, it is
advisble to remember Hellboy’s experience with the wise Mohlomi. For we
encounter a similar promise in this grimoire of white magic, that it is a way
towards the sound that brings us closer to our holy daimon, to our protector
and guide, the being that will help us hold on to our noblest self, however dark
the night.

e Paracelsian tradition […] was an initiatory tradition.16

e introduction of the seven Olympic spirits in the 1575 edition of the

Arbatel was a novel entry into the field of Western magic. While the concept
of planetary deities or spirits is an essential tenet of most classical forms of
Western magic, the titular reference to their ‘Olympic’ provenance alludes to
Greek antiquity without explanation. e Olympians’ titles had never been
given in any grimoire (and since then have often been confused with their
actual names), and their geometrical magical seals had never been seen before.
What adds further to the confusion is that the presentation of the Olympic
spirits in the Arbatel seems deliberately paradoxical. What follows are a few of
the seeming discrepancies in the text. And yet, let us remember, these facts are
discrepancies only if one expects the Olympic spirits to fit into the known
canon of sixteenth century magic. eir appearance relates to and yet stands
out from all known approaches to planetary magic; the Arbatel of 1575
initiates the reader into an entirely different approach to conjuring the celestial
rulers.
Why would someone risk publishing a book on magic during the height of
the witch hunts, only to then confuse readers about the spirits in question as
well as the magical operation necessary to commune with them? We know
from both Carlos Gilly’s and Joseph H. Peterson’s analysis of the Arbatel that
its author(s) must have been a person or persons of high erudition, and is not
the conjuring of a smoke screen of nebulous hints, to disguise a lack of real
magical knowledge. e Arbatel stands in stark contrast to many of the later
eighteenth and nineteenth century grimoires, which were printed for the coin
they hoped to generate – allowing their readers to experience frivolous
goosebumps as they strolled in the borderlands of their newly gained religious
liberties. If we were to look for precursors to the Arbatel we have to look to the
magical writings of Johannes Trithemius, and specifically at his magnum opus
the Steganographia. Here too we encounter an author taking immense risks in
publishing a book on magic only to leave its readers in a maze of hints and
riddles. One could argue that such an approach contradicts the actual program
which unites Trithemius’s magical writings with the Arbatel – that of
promoting a theologia magica, a new form of devout white magic that would
find its sanctioned place amongst pious believers, whether Catholic as in
Trithemius’s example or Protestant as in the Arbatel.
e most logical hypothesis as to why the anonymous author(s) of the
Arbatel showed us a path only to conceal it again, is because they actually
believed in the spiritual significance and mystery of what they had to share.
us the paradoxical presentation of the Olympic spirits is not due to a lack of
expertise or coherence on the author’s part – but quite the opposite. e
author went to great lengths to give the initiated reader sufficient clues to
follow up with practical inquiry, yet held back from laying out the full road
towards ritual success. We believe the same principle applies for the Arcanum
arcanorum: while it presents itself as a concise and complete white grimoire, it
adopts a playful tone with insinuations and omissions. It educates its reader by
giving seemingly precise detail about the alchemical construction of the bell as
well as the correct ingredients of the planetary inks; and yet, it deliberately
remains silent on many critical aspects:

Examples of the paradoxes of the Olympic spirits in the Arbatel

Relating to the
traditional concept … yet providing entirely unknown titles for
NAMES
of seven planetary these entities.
rulers …
 NAMES Relating to the … yet only revealing the Olympic spirits’ titles,
(Aphorism concept of spirit and encouraging the magician to find out their
18) names and seals … ‘starry names’ themselves, which will only work
if passed on personally to the magician by the
spirits, and which will ‘expire’ after 140 years.

Relating to the … yet deviating from the rhythm of 490 years

concept of periodic each, as given in Trithemius’s De septem
RULERSHIP
rulership by secundeis, and introducing a new rhythm of 354
planetary spirits… years each.

… yet giving random and inconsistent

Relating to the
HIERARCHIES rulerships for each Olympic spirit (eg. PHUL,
traditional concept
(Aphorism OPHIEL and PHALEG have none, whilst others
of spirit
17) such as ARATRON rule over eight different
hierarchies …
hierarchies).

Relating to the
sequence of … yet breaking this pattern by giving a ‘wrong’
PROVINCES
multiples of seven in value for BETHOR in the 1575 edition (PHUL 7,
(Aphorism
regards to provinces OPHIEL 14, HAGITH 21, OCH 28, PHALEG 35,
16)
ruled by each BETHOR 32 – not 42 – ARATRON 49).
Olympian spirit …

PRACTICE Relating to the … yet emphasising that no-one will be able to

(Aphorism 17, classic grimoire call these spirits successfully unless they are
21, 42) techniques of born a magician. us, not providing any
evocation in the additional technical details for the successful
planetary hour and communication with these spirits (no
day, including paraphernalia, no temple setting, no
prayers for instructions on the use of their seals, &c).
 invocation and
departure …

After careful
exposition of the
… revealing a ‘way to all secrets’ that is
nature, titles, seals,
unrelated to magic, but is based upon seven
PRACTICE rulership,
guiding biblical principles, which, if adopted
(Aphorism hierarchies,
consistently in one's life, will attract the Holy
25) provinces and
Spirit and God’s angels as direct teachers of the
evocations by which
practitioner.
to conjure the
Olympic spirits …

• e text states that after the first successful ceremonial conjuration, the
ritual is no longer needed, as from then onwards the Olympic spirits ‘are
always ready to fulfil your will.’ Yet no explanation is given as to how this
bond is created between spirit and human, nor how the operator will
engage with the spirits after the first ritual.
• e text emphasises that no other spirits but the Olympic spirits are
needed, for they can reveal all secrets to the operator. What is not
explained further is that their ritual presence seems to have a
transformative effect on the operator, the text states that they will turn him
into a spiritual man.
• Right on the heels of the affirmation of the omniscience of the Olympic
spirits the text introduces the conjuration of one’s personal angel. And yet
it admits to omitting important details about this operation, which the
practitioner is meant to receive from the Olympic spirits directly. us the
Olympic spirits seem to serve an important gateway function for
 communion with our holy daimon, yet none of this is mentioned in the
text other than by allusion.
• e text points out that working with the Olympic Spirit will ‘infect us
with angelic vision,’ it is also likely to make the operator feel ill for many
days. e text immediately reaffirms that such suffering is part of the
rapture that follows spirit contact, and it provides two references from
magicians in Chaldea or Persia who remained in such a state for up to two
weeks, and yet managed to emerge from it stronger.
• e anonymous author concludes with an autobiographical account of a
dangerous state of boundless melancholia triggered by contact with the
Olympic spirits. If not carefully kept in balance, such rampant desire for
continuous spiritual ecstasy would seem to have negative consequences for
the practitioner. e author closes by thanking God for sending his own
angel to lead him back into the ‘inverted world’ (i.e. physical, everyday
reality) where he promises to fulfill his office as intended by God.

In medieval grimoires of learned magic such enigmatic allusions often conceal

valuable keys to actual practice. Even though we are likely to find such
adumbrations at a safe distance from the central part of the text – in
introductions, intermezzos and endings – they often present the echoes of the
authentic experience of the anonymous author with the ritual in question. It is
in the periphery of the text that the author finds the space to set down his or
her own way-markers.

In case you embark upon this experiment, so you will come to know
everything just in time, all the things of which I must remain silent here
 and which I do not say …17

So if the above presents us with a key to the successful practice hinted at in the
Arcanum arcanorum, where might we find the doors that they will open?
Whether it was Paracelsus himself, or a successor working in his tradition, the
author of the Arcanum arcanorum would likely have presumed the reader would
turn to the most obvious of all places – the Arbatel, as well as the vast opus of
the great Paracelsus himself.

Unlocking the secret of the Olympic spirits

unlock the secret of the Olympic spirits we must first remind

I
N ORDER TO

ourselves of the essential statements of the Arbatel regarding their successful

conjuration. We will then proceed to examine the most important sources in
Paracelsus’s work on the Olympic spirits. We will strengthen these
foundations by examining Paracelsus’s long lost Astronomia Olympi novi. ese
texts provide a critical perspective for any successful operation with the
Olympic spirits. Finally, we will conjoin these fragments, which four hundred
years ago were deliberately hidden by adepts in separate texts, and present a
complete and workable version of the Ritual of the Olympic Spirit. As we
shall see, the successful performance of this ritual leans heavily upon the
mystical skills outlined in the previous chapters. It will avoid the deliberate
pitfalls and traps that our ancestors set up to protect this secret of secrets, and
yet remain faithful and authentic to the spirit of its original sources.
 So before we set out to climb this steep hill, let’s ground ourselves in
several quotes from the Arbatel. is text holds a great deal of practical ritual
advice disguised in such a way that the uninitiated reader will mistake it
simply for Christian moralising. By comparing sections of the Arbatel with
Paracelsus’s thoughts on the Olympic spirits, we will be able to unlock the
practical operation ahead of us. We will be reading the respective sections out
of sequence, but according to their logic:

e passage from an ordinary life to a magical life, is no different than the

passage from sleep to being fully awake.18

As each person chooses to lead his life, so he will attract the kinds of spirits
which have a similar nature and quality.19

Whoever is constant and devoted to his vocation, will also have constant
devoted spirit companions, who will supply all the desired success. But if
you also have some understanding of magic, they will not hesitate to show
themselves, and engage in friendly conversation with you, and serve in
ways which are appropriate to their nature and offices, the good ones doing
good things and causing gain, the evil ones causing loss and ruin.20

e highest teaching of magic is to understand what should be accepted

from an attending spirit, and what should be rejected.21

Strive therefore for the greatest simplicity, and strive to obtain from God
knowledge of the simple things. e rest can only be acquired by
experimenting.22
 e human soul is the sole producer of wonder, to the extent that it is
joined with the chosen spirit; once joined it will reveal what you desire.23

e Conclusion of the secret of secrets is, that whoever incites passionate

prayer for what he desires, will not suffer rejection. […] is merciful and
good Father loves the children of desires, as he did Daniel [Dan 9:23], and
hears us more quickly and clearly, because we overcome the hardness of our
hearts in prayer.24

e Arcanum arcanorum mentions the titles of the Olympic spirits twice; both
occasions appear in the same paragraph, in which the Olympic spirits are
mapped to the seven classical planets. Otherwise it addresses them collectively
as the Seven Spirits (7 Spiritibus). e text also deems their individual seals as
irrelevant, and neither does it contain the Seal of Secrets given in aphorism 27
of the Arbatel. en again, the Arcanum arcanorum aligns perfectly to the
criteria given by the Arbatel, namely, the importance of integrity as the essence
of one’s conduct of life, the greatest simplicity when approaching the spirit,
the knowledge and practice of passionate prayer, and – perhaps most
importantly – the discernment as to which spirit’s presence and spiritual gifts
to accept and which ones to avoid.
In Western magic it is not unusual to encounter the juxtaposition of prayer
and spell. A spell is a ritual formula; ideally, a spell represents a key-and-lock-
system, a readymade piece of spirit technology, in its most concentrated form.
In most cases, however, it presents merely the ossified remains of what once
was a living prayer. In this peculiar sense, living prayer and dead spell contrast
with each other, like the actual experience of an event and its written account.
Dead spells can still be incredibly useful – if, that is, they are understood as
traces of a dead practitioner’s living relationship with an attendant spirit.
Spells turn into snares, when mistakenly seen as buttons ready to be pushed,
and capable in themselves of firing up the secret mechanisms of the spirit
universe. As I highlighted in Black Abbott · White Magic, human-to-spirit
intercourse is in many ways no different from human-to-human intercourse.
Formulaic behaviour might seem convenient at first, but it is the authentic,
sometimes artistic expression of the desire to encounter each other anew that
maintains the relationship.

Spells, formulaic types of conjurations, originally often directed towards

supernatural beings and often hard to discern from prayer; later on,
however, they mainly consist of bare orders to the natural environment, the
fulfilment of which was expected to happen automatically, without even
addressing deities, demons or spirits.25

e famous dadaist Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) perfectly captured the

challenge of turning dead spells into living prayers in the following dictum:
Art is form. To form means to unravel the formula (Kunst ist Form. Formen
heisst entformeln). We said in the introduction to this book that as magicians
we walk among tombstones to revive the spirits they pin down. On this
journey we become comfortable with the necessary tension between ritual
formula and personal expression; we learn to see them as dependent upon each
other, supporting and nourishing each other. e ‘arte’ in the craft of Western
magic emerges in the magician’s oscillation between tradition and innovation,
ritual and creation, adherence and deviation. is is the nature of the magical
dance, to take each step with the confidence of a movement trained a
thousand times, and yet to unleash the living spirit of unconditional presence,
every time we move in the circle of the art. e adept authors writing in the
magical tradition of Johannes Trithemius, Paracelsus and other medieval
grimoire magicians knew this very well from their own practice. And thus
their texts are equal parts encouragement to follow precise instruction and an
invitation to deviate from the written word and to follow the light of one’s
heart flame instead. e fulcrum that helps us balance this intense ritual
dynamic is made of two things: firstly, the muscle memory of decades-long,
relentlessly deep magical training and secondly, the scintillating alertness of
the enlivened spirit.
e stakes of this arte are quite different from most other performative
arts. Slips, errors and missteps in ritual of the kind we are about to encounter
do not culminate in disappointed audiences, jeers from the grandstands or
broken bones; they tend to culminate in broken spirits. We emphasised this
before and want to stress it again: of the few people who will successfully gain
the required skills to undertake rites such as the Ritual of the Olympic Spirits,
very few will perform such operations more than once in their lives. e
significance of the thresholds that we cross are measured not by repetition but
by the impact they have on our lives. Liminal rituals of this kind are notches
we carve into our spirit. Tattooists like to say their art trades ink for blood; the
magical art is not that different, save that it places the needle on our heart –
and then trades numberless possibilities for a single actuality.

Paracelsus’s sources on the Olympic Spirit / Paracelsian Magic

ese are the main sources for the Olympic spirits in Paracelsus’s vast opus in
order of their historic appearance:

• De causis morborum invisibilium, written 1531/1532, first printed 1564.

• Paracelsus’s magnum opus, the Philosophia sagax, written in 1537 and first
printed in 1571.
• e possibly spurious Astronomia Olympi novi – mentioned by Paracelsus
as the third book of the Philosophia sagax, yet missing in all of its editions.
Printed separately in 1618 by Lucas Jennis in Magdeburg as part of the
collection of mystical texts titled Philosophia mystica (Sud-hoff, vol.12,
603).

We encounter Paracelsus’s first work that mentions the idea of an Olympic

spirit twenty-three years after his death and eleven years before the publication
of the Arbatel. Here, in the third book De causis morborum invisibilium (Of the
Causes of the Invisible Illnesses) Paracelsus introduces the term Olympic
Spirit. He use the term both in its plural and singular form. According to
Paracelsus, it relates to a cluster of celestial spirits which under specific
circumstances can unite within a human being. On these rare occasions the
spirits no longer exist in their plural form, but turn into a hive being: the
Olympic Spirit. e following paragraph best expresses Paracelsus’s
understanding of these spirits, and reveals how critical they are in the
awakening of the inner senses.

For just as a sound can break one’s hearing, just as the Sun can take one’s
sight, and just as physical illness can come from it, so the imagination can
 do similar things. In the same way as one man can gaze through his eyes at
another man, who stands before him, so that the man standing before him
has to take flight, and just as one man can call upon another to do this or
that, it is just a word and yet it can force so much to happen. For the word
leaves the body, and yet [through it] the body forces another man who is
thirty miles away. Just like these things happen, according to the same
reason the body also forces the imagination, that it creates the lust of the
body. is should be understood no differently here than a word that leaves
the body, and yet it [the imagination] is of no body itself and still forces the
body, which produces the word, to also produce the corporeal lust. It is
these things that the Olympian Spirit performs who casts the shadow from
all corporeal things. For in the Olympic Spirit lies the Kabbalistic art with
all its appendices, which is the art that enables the imagination to perform
even much more in the man within whom the Olympian spirits unite.
Because just like visible bodies can come together, so can the Olympian
spirits of creation, who are the stars within man. ese things are written
down in the books of Gabalia.26

It is hard to overstate the importance of this short section in Paracelsus’s vast

opus – and all too often it has been overlooked in the practical examination of
the Arbatel. He reveals to us a spiritual ecology according to which man is
capable of attracting, absorbing and assimilating celestial spirits within the
human body. Echoes of the idea of turning the human soul into a spiritual
amalgam can be found in the Jewish concept of ibbur, or the Arabic idea of
manhal.27 e same notion also explains the often repeated assertion in the
Arbatel that one has to be born a magician, otherwise none of the rituals
described will come to life in one’s practice. e act of assembling and
revealing the ‘stars within man’ has too often been misunderstood as a
metaphor, which it is not. Rather, it hints at a magico-alchemical process that
rests upon the conscious purification of the magician’s spirit by celestial
intelligences – where the latter merge into one being, no longer separate from
the magician’s mind, but bound as one with it. e Olympic spirits turn into
the Olympic Spirit, which in turn unlocks access to the world of creation for
the adept. is process transcends the perceived boundary between spirit and
matter. We do not hesitate to stress that such a process can yield changes not
only in the magician’s mental and spiritual capabilities, but equally within his
or her corporeal cells. Such changes can be perceived as both positive and/or
negative, as the author of the Arcanum points out when stating that one should
expect to become sick when working with the Olympic spirits.
Emil Stejnar, in his seminal work Magie mit Astrologie (2008), has given us
the best lead to date for understanding the intricate interdependencies of this
process. His approach is an evolution of Paracelsus’s Hermetic Astronomy.28
Stejnar introduces more modern and accurate terminology, which collapses
concepts of the spiritual and the physical, overriding the Manichean reflex of
separating spirit from matter. His model of the human constitution according
to Gnostic Hermeticism opens a way in which both sides of the coin called life
could be melded into one. According to such a cosmology, the Paracelsian idea
of uniting the Olympic spirits into a singular being within the operator does
not aim at altering the human constitution, yet it succeeds in activating or
‘switching on’ that which is organically embedded in potentia in the human
species.
 [e Philosophia sagax is] the first and without a doubt the crucial book in
the magnum opus of his entire life.29

In 1537, five years after De causis morborum invisibilium, at the mature age of
forty-four and only a few years before his death in Salzburg, Paracelsus
finished a voluminous work which would become known as his masterpiece.
His Philosophia sagax has legitimately been called the pinnacle of the massive
undertaking of the philosophus adeptus. It spans approximately four hundred
printed pages in most modern editions. Finished in manuscript form on the
22nd of June 1537 during his stay in the Czech city of Moravský Krumlov,30
its full title gives a good description of its daring aims: Astronomia magna: or
the complete Philosophia sagax of the macro- and microcosm by the highly
enlightened, experienced and established German philosopher and medic Philipp
eophrasti Bombast, also called the great Paracelsus: within which he teaches the
capacity and incapacity of the entire natural light, as well as all philosophical and
astronomical secrets of the macro- and microcosm and their correct practice and
misuse, the mysteries of the Celestial Light, irdly the capability of Faith, and
Fourthly what the spirits affect through man.
Knowledge of this magnum opus would have been taken for granted by the
authors of the Arbatel and the Arcanum arcanorum, who wrote in the
Paracelsian tradition. In fact, their books could be regarded as practical
appendices to this unique and highly systematic edifice of occult teachings.
Our current study by no means intends to shortcut such essential reading for
the serous practitioner. Paracelsus has been frequently criticised for his diffuse
and often ambiguous style of speech as well as his many cryptic neologisms.
However, as so often, such criticism sheds more light on his critics than his
works. Similarly, one could argue Jakob Boehme (1575–1624) could have been
more succinct, or Trithemius’s Steganographia should have come with a general
key. Unlike Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s concise compilation, De occulta
philosophia, Paracelsus’s mago-mystical works are original creations and
deliberately written in a set of complex layers. Echoing the Jewish PaRDeS
style of exegesis, his works can be discretely read and understood on natural,
celestial and divine levels. e same text thus becomes a medieval natural
history or a mystical field manual, entirely depending on the capacity of its
reader. e Philosophia sagax represents the impressive summit of a master
adept, hundreds of pages of gnostic cosmology, skilfully interweaving natural,
astrological and mystical layers of meaning. And it is within this book that we
encounter the key to unlocking the Rite of the Olympic Spirit.
According to Paracelsus, man is a fabric woven from two ends.31 At one
end we encounter Nature, divided into its essential principles of Sulphur,
Mercury and Salt and embedded in the qualities of the four elements. At the
other end, we behold divinity, spinning its thread of perpetuity into the
garment of our being. Despite the opposing poles, this cosmological
foundation does not represent a dualistic worldview, as nature and divinity are
connected at the ‘back end’ of creation by the threshold of the Abyss. is
timeless divide separates the world of creation from the realm of divine
uncreatedness, as was conceived by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Just as
these two realms eternally meet and yet remain eternally separated by the two
edges of the Abyss, so they meet and yet do not mingle within the fabric that
forms man.

e human constitution according to Gnostic Hermeticism

 From the weaving-end of nature we travel through the realm of the four
elements into the mineral, the plant and the animal realms. By the time we
reach the flesh of man, all previous shapes and forms are embedded into the
limum terrae or the elemental body of humanity. Conversely, from the
weaving-end of divinity we see the prism of eternity breaking open into the
celestial spheres. e spirit that was immortal and one becomes mortal and
many as it reaches the realm of the stars. From here onwards the weave
continues downwards, through each planet’s sphere, until it reaches the
sublunar realm and finally embeds itself into the flesh of man, thus forming
the celestial body of man. Both bodies, the visible and invisible body of man,
remain mortal, disintegrate and return upon man’s death to the natural and
celestial realms respectively.32 e incorporation of celestial spirits and
elemental qualities into one being defines humanity’s mortal side. e stars
provide all faculties, all craft, art, wisdom and prudence, whilst the elements
provide the bestial desires and primal forces, which man, through the fire of
free will, can either refine into virtues or allow to degrade into hollow vices.

As we explained, the machina mundi is fabricated into two parts: in a

tangible and sentient one, and the other into an intangible and insensitive
one. e tangible one is the body, the intangible is the firmament. e
tangible is created from three parts, from sulphur, mercury and salt; the
intangible one is also placed into three: into the mind, the wisdom and the
art; and both together are placed into life.33

According to Paracelsus, the varying degrees of ‘bestial’ and ‘celestial’

influences create all manner of human characters and complexions. Just as the
planets express themselves in man’s various dominant faculties, so the elements
express themselves in an individual’s particular ‘bestial’ qualities; while none of
these are truly of man, they are of the father (the stars) and the mother (the
elements). Irrespective of whether we want to attribute positive (virtues) or
negative qualities (vices) to the expression of these forces, they remain nothing
but the manifold influences of stars and elements congealing in man’s
character, taking their unique, mortal shapes in each of us. We see the mystical
tenet of Paracelsus’s writings shine brightly through the introduction to the
Philosophia sagax, when he explains in wonderful detail how what most
astronomers would consider the beating heart of their art, actually comprises
all of the stars and the beasts, and is not of man. We shall quote here in full
the critical section of the introduction before we go on to explore what,
according to Paracelsus, truly is of man.
Such things now are bestial, and thus heaven is the only master of the
beasts and mighty thereof, and yet not of man. For heaven makes man
mild, merciful, patient, so that one says: he is like a sheep and like the dear
Sun, so he is wise and prudent in sheepishness, and the Sun rules him like
a sheep and not like man, for the beasts are ruled by the stars. As it comes
from the stars, so it is judged and associated with him, and it [the influence
of the stars] turns into a particular expression as soon as it touches the
realm of the beasts. Who is angry, is angry like a wild dog, not like a man,
who is murderous is murderous like a bear, who is thievish is thievish like a
crow, who is adulterous is adulterous like a dog, who is haughty is haughty
like a cock, who is unfaithful is unfaithful as a dog, who is a ‘good boy’ is a
good boy as a dog. Now all of this is bestial and of the realm of the beasts.
Now haughtiness has its star, murder has its star, adultery has its star,
unfaithfulness has its star, and on and on with all other things. And just
like the stars are in the beasts so you shall see they are also in man. And the
man who in his nature is bestial in this manner – that is attached with
bestial virtues ≠ he has the same star upon him as the beasts. And thus one
star rules the wolf in the woods and the wolf in man, one star the murderer
in the woods, that is the bear, and thus also the bear in man. And bestial is
the prudence which compares itself to the animals, for it is bestial and
corporeal, just as the beasts compare themselves to other beasts. In this
manner the heavens are the master of man, as long as man is a beast, and
lives and dwells in the manner of beasts. From this derives the praise that
one speaks: he is like a lion, he is like a wolf, he is like a fox. is is brutish
praise and it dies with the beasts, it is nothing unlike the beasts, worse than
the beasts in the woods; for man ought to be a man and no beast.34
So how does man return to his true nature, if the human cloak woven from
elemental matter and celestial influence only conceals it? Paracelsus’s answer
strangely aligns with the expression ‘the only way out is through,’ coined by
Fritz Perls, many centuries later when speaking about how to salvage true
humanity from the ashes of our suffering. Rather than resorting to a
Manichean invocation of radical dualism, Paracelsus sees a way that leads
through the influence of the stars and toward an essence of man that is unlike
his mortal body and is eternal in nature.

us the method is that as man bows towards the stars and unites with
them, he compels the stars into their true shape and nature. In this manner
we shall recognise the practice of divination, for she is a finder of great arts,
things and craft. For it is good that man on earth receives the light of
nature in this way, and is not recumbent in confused phantasies, while
deceiving in mad ways, while screwing someone over or while whoring, but
while retreating from all things and while pursuing the fair stars and while
following them, and all of this as a pleasure and firm base on this earth for
the physical body, without harm to the soul and its image.35

Not escaping the world, but while firmly grounded in it, reconnecting us with
the eternal light of divinity, such is the purpose of man according to
Paracelsus. Elsewhere in the Philosophia sagax he condenses this idea into a
single sentence:

Should I and everyone not be capable of retaining the eternal light within
us and revealing the natural light around us, and thus to walk in the eternal
 light of divinity towards the highest ascent so our light may shine for all
men to see, I would regret the ground would ever have to carry my
weight.36

As hinted at by the title, Astronomia magna, Paracelsus’s understanding of

astronomy underlies the process by which man ‘compels the stars into their
true shape’ and thus regains access to the divine light within them. Astronomy,
for Paracelsus, branches out into four interdependent kinds of celestial arts,
each with its own experiences and skills to be mastered. And here, in the
differentiation of the celestial arts, we encounter what Paracelsus called the
Olympian Art, or more precisely, the art of mastering the new firmament
within man.37
e remaining more than three-hundred pages of the Philosophia sagax
present us with a detailed exegesis of these four strands of astronomy, the
divisions and sub-parts that make up each, and the respective magical arts and
sciences the aspiring student must explore and ultimately master.
Unfortunately, the third book on the Olympi novi seu fidei was missing from
Paracelsus’s manuscripts, or never made it into the first collected works edition
(1589–1591) of Johann Huser. Whether the missing book presents a
deliberate omission on Paracelsus’s part, or whether it was owing to the
disorganised state of his voluminous manuscripts at the time of his death, we
do not know. Huser suspected it was deliberately hidden. Such a scenario
seems reasonable if we consider Paracelsus’s writings as an initiatory tradition.
He emphasised himself that the book of the ‘new firmament’ (Olympi novi)
originates from faith and is only given to the faithful.38 In a moment we will
examine the treatise that appeared later under the same name, for now we will
stay with the original text of the Philosophia sagax.
Although the third book is missing, the Philosophia sagax gives us leads on
the secrets contained in the Olympian art, one of the most valuable of these is
found in book one, chapter four. Here Paracelsus describes the philosophia
adepta or art of the adepts, which consists of distinguishing the celestial
qualities and influences in the elemental bodies of nature. is was important
with regards to alchemical operations; as the alchemical fire was only able to
operate on elemental matter. Whatever natural structure the alchemist broke
down and dismantled lost its celestial force. And thus ‘for any celestial force to
take effect there could be no breaking apart.’39 Conversely, just as in the
compound creations of the four elements in nature, a critical art of
composition had to be observed in the coming together of the influences of
the firmament. It was from the combination of these celestial secrets (sidereal
arcana) that the philosophus adeptus was able to construct invisible keys and
unlock the direct instruction of the spirits of the stars themselves. Whilst the
teaching of humans was limited to the passing on of tradition, it was in the
realm of the stars that entirely new concepts, ideas, crafts and skills could be
learned and brought down into matter. As part of this section, seemingly in
passing and without any further explanation, Paracelsus mentions a technical
term that is of considerable interest to our study.

Just as one combines in natural ways all kinds of corpora, so the sidereal
arcana can be combined. It is from here that we learn names such as tyriaca
coelestis, methridatum Olympi, suffuff, that is infusion, aethereum, etc. is
means just as they are made in their earthly way, so they are combined in
their celestial.40

e Four Astronomies according to Paracelsus’s Philosophia sagax

To explain the relevance of the term methridatum Olympi to the ritual
operation ahead, we first need to remind ourselves of some core concepts and
provide some additional insight from Paracelsus’s magnum opus.
Man, according to Paracelsus, has a threefold constitution: corporeal,
celestial and eternal. e corporeal aspect is made from and enlivened by the
elements, the celestial is infused and enlivened by the spirits of the stars, and
the eternal is a thread of light connecting us back to divinity. Only the first
two are compound in nature, mortal in their essence, shared with the animal
realm and subject to disintegration upon death. It is the third and final aspect
of man’s constitution, the eternal, that is unique to humanity and immortal in
nature. However, in our normal manner of being, which Paracelsus would
consider our ‘bestial way of being,’ i.e. woven into a world of elemental matter
and celestial influences, we are blind to the eternal light shining within us. e
way to regain our ability to see this divine light is not by fighting our way out
of the dominance of the stars, but by compelling the stars to assume their true
shape and nature. Accordingly, Paracelsus sees the stars and their manifold
influences both as the poison and the antidote in the process of reconnecting
with our angelic selves.
To illustrate the dynamics of turning a poison into an antidote, we shall
consider the example of homeopathy, a way of healing very much indebted to
the teachings of Paracelsus. At the foundation of homeopathic healing we
encounter a paradoxical principle of efficacy: the idea of illness caused by
numbness or blindness of the body to its overbearing pattern. What
constitutes the poison is not the pattern itself, but the fact that the body has
become blind to it, and thus has lost its ability to regulate and harmonise it
within the body’s greater ecology. In some branches of homeopathy, illnesses
are considered to be caused by the overbalance of a particular (celestial)
pattern. Once the pattern has been identified, the patient is recommended to
take in more of the same pattern. However, the form in which it is given to
them is as a concentrated echo of the respective principle. is is where the
practice of diluting comes into play: the more diluted the original extract of a
(celestial) pattern becomes, the stronger its presumed effect upon the body.
When such ‘memory water’ is swallowed, the body suddenly sees the
overbalanced principle within it, as if looking in a mirror and awakens to the
previously subdued and unseen overdose of the particular pattern. e body
begins to see again, and through this seeing it can begin to heal itself and
restore proper balance. e poison has become the antidote, by being
‘compelled’ into its true shape.
e adjunct ‘methridatum,’ used by Paracelsus to qualify ‘Olympi,’ refers to
a medieval antidote that produced a similar effect. Known as antidotum
Mithridaticum or simply Mithridate, it is one of the oldest general remedies. It
takes its name from king Mithridates the Great (120–63 BCE), one of the
most famous ancient rulers of northern Anatolia. Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE)
in his Natural History provides a colourful account of the learned king who is
lauded as ‘a more attentive investigator of life’s problems than any of those
born before him.’41 Following Pliny, countless sources down the centuries
credit Mithradates as an outstanding pharmacologist, a lifelong researcher who
discovered several unique antidotes. Most notably though, he is introduced as
the inventor of what today is referred to as anti-toxic therapy:42 the process of
making oneself immune to poisons by swallowing small quantities of them
daily. Legend has it that the king was so successful in this art, which he
practised throughout his life, that when he ultimately wanted to kill himself
and swallowed a large dose of a strong poison, the toxin had no effect. Instead
he had to call a good friend to cut his throat.43 Following his death, his name
was remembered as the mythical culmination of the medical Greco-Roman
love for polypharmacy, i.e. the creation of complex compound drugs. More
specifically, his name was remembered as the term for a particularly powerful
general remedy, created from up to fifty different herbal and poisonous
ingredients. e longevity of the famous antidotum Mithridaticum was so
enduring, that was still renowned and in practical use until the mid-eighteenth
century.

Mithridat, Mitridat, Mithridatium, is a famous remedy or electuary against

poison, which was made up of many ingredients. It takes its name from
King Mithridates, who first brought it into use, when through daily
application he was able to conserve nature in a way that the doses of poison
taken by himself had no effect or no negative consequence on him. Since
then one has held it in high esteem, however today it is much less in use,
and commonly the puffers make use of a mithridate. Yet in order for all
things to be fresh, good and fair with such people, in various duchies and
cities a sample of each of these kinds is collected, carefully examined by the
city’s physic and medic, to which end the combined ingredients are cleaned
in the most accurate manner, and in most splendid order are exhibited in a
room for some time. One knows many different Mithridate.44

e passage quoted above from the Philosophia sagax gives us a very specific
lead. With the neologism methridatum Olympi Paracelsus points us to the
particular approach with which we can work our way through the stars and
beyond. What is required is an anti-toxic therapy that we apply to ourselves,
just like Mithridates did. Bowing to the stars and compelling them into their
true shape means helping our celestial body to become aware of its own
constituents. It refers to the process of becoming able to see the planetary
influences we are made out of, and which – if not recognised for what they are
– form the very poison that binds us to our bestial nature. Paracelsus’s most
renowned saying ‘it is the dose that makes the poison’ gains new depth and
meaning in light of this. Perhaps, in the context of the methridatum Olympi, it
should read: ‘it is the ability to see that makes the antidote.’
Paracelsus was born eophrastus von Hohenheim, his famous epithet
Paracelsus first appears in his writings in 1529/30. Some biographers speculate
that he invented it as a reference to the Roman physician Aulus Cornelius
Celsus (25 BCE–50 CE), who also published a recipe for the Mithridate. e
neologism ‘para-Celsus’ combines the Latin word for ‘beyond’ and ‘Celsus.’
Yet, celsus is also the Latin word for heaven. An alternative interpretation of
the name would consider its literal meaning: a latinised version of ‘beyond-
the-stars.’ Such a reading not only seems more straightforward, but is in
harmony with the titles of his two main philosophical works besides the
Philosophia sagax: the Paragranum (beyond-the-grain) and the Paramirum
(beyond-the-wonder). e title ‘Paracelsus’ should probably be understood as
eophrastus’s own magical motto: to forge a path through and beyond the
realm of the stars to gain communion with the only immortal quality in man,
the eternal light.

Now listen and learn about the seat and chair of the soul, for it is seated in
the heart, in the centre of man, and it feeds from the [elemental and
sidereal] minds granted to him, which know good and evil things. And it
sits in man at the site where life resides, against which death is fighting,
that is the heart, for the soul is the heart in man. […] But this is a man as
they are ought to be, once the soul is without flaw, once it is pure in all its
power and spirit. en the soul stands by itself, the body is new within
God, like a king, when the heart stands inside God’s hand. But that is the
king, such a pure heart that makes a perfected man, and it is like our father
who is in heaven. Yet for what stained hearts are, they are not king, which
means they do not stand within the hand of God.45

Now with regards to man one point has to be made, and it is this: that he
has a mind beyond these [the elemental and sidereal minds]; and if only he
will ask, search and knock, he will discover it and it will be granted to him,
and it will open up to him. So he will learn from the angel, who has
worked towards God for eternal nourishment, just like the natural spirit
has worked with the elements. […] And that is the office of the soul, that
she is an angel, and that man ought to make use of that angel, for the angel
is man without the mortal things.46

at is why it is up to man: depending upon with which mind he chooses

to understand [the elemental, the sidereal or angelic], his soul will be
tinged accordingly. And of the same nature all of his fruits and works will
be: as he concluded within himself and as he tinged his soul, so it will
follow him through life. For man is invisible in his heart, yet it is the fruits
and the works that reveal his soul.47
e human soul, according to Paracelsus, should be understood as a gestalt
with an outer and an inner. e soul, when incarnated into flesh, is embedded
in the influence of the celestial realm. In the alchemical language of Paracelsus
it becomes tinged by the colours and tones of the stars. Like petals protecting
the inside of a blossom at night, so the influences of the stars act upon the soul
and protect its interior from exposure to our bestial nature. To gain access to
the interior of our soul, the deepest point in any human being, we must
compel the soul’s outer, protective layer, the ‘petals’ of the seven stars, into
their true shape. Turning towards the stars and realising their spirits for what
they are, in their pure, unadulterated essences, allows us to consciously
dissociate from the weave they create within ourselves. Recall if you will the
exercise in the third chapter, involving the point behind your shoulder blades,
where we centred ourselves and uttered ‘I AM.’ ere are many ways of
disconnecting from the weave of elements and stars, so that our sight
penetrates unobstructed into the void, where the divine light resides. e ritual
we will be exploring shortly is opposite in nature: it should only be done after
careful preparation, perhaps just once in a lifetime, and with all the purpose
and intent one would bring to a rite of initiation or baptism. And yet both
practices can be combined, as when we perform the Ritual of the Olympic
Spirit we can stay anchored in the silent resonance of I AM.

ere is one final key to turn, and that is the key inscribed with the word faith.
Faith, in the writings of Paracelsus, is a truly magical tool. We can see why its
ubiquitous nature appealed to his free spirit, as it is open to all. Often it is
mastered, unconsciously, habitually, by laypeople and countryfolk at levels
unimaginable to the academically educated. e adept of faith can come from
any walk of life. And yet, as with all natural forces we encounter in the oeuvre
of Paracelsus, it is the craft with which it is applied that turns faith into a
venom or an antidote, a celestial key or the dagger upon which we fall.
Paracelsus presents faith in the Philosophia sagax as a distinct form of
professional healing. Paracelsus states that a doctor can affect healing
according to four different orders:48 e first order is that of Nature; it relates
to the powers of roots, herbs, stones and all kinds of natural medicine. e
second order is that of Divinity; this works through the direct intervention of
Divinity and is only mediated through the medic, as in what Paracelsus calls
the ‘laying on of hands.’ e fourth and final order is that of healing through
the intervention of the Devil. Paracelsus straightforwardly acknowledges the
inherent powers of this way of working, yet stresses that its sole operating
mechanism is the practitioner’s unconditional surrender to the Devil, ‘for the
one who lies bound and captive can effect nothing by himself but only through
the help of the Lord who bound him.’49 Faith, the third order of healing, is a
winding road, snaking through the realm of hurting and healing, open to both
the Devil and Divinity, as operating through faith is entirely dependent upon
the magical allies and spirits the practitioner weaves into their workings. Faith,
in the Philosophia sagax, promises equal access to the pharmacies of the
celestial and infernal realms.

For the third [order]: If the medic does not use the [first] two [orders of
healing], but anchors themselves in faith, then the faith splits itself into
two: one faith in God, the other in Satan. If he believes truthfully,
according to the Gospel, a mountain will sink itself into the depth of the
ocean; much easier than that he will be able to heal a sick man. Such a
 remedy does not need any help but faith in Divinity. Yet when his faith
does not rest in God but in the infernal ones [inferos], it follows that such
faith takes effect through the infernal forces, which possess a pharmacy
that contains all the mysteries of nature that are administered by them.50

In Paracelsus’s unique language, the term faith is used in the opposite sense to
the modern connotation, blindly believing something of which one has no
personal experience. Four hundred years ago, before the onset of the twin
revolutions of Enlightenment and industrialisation, the word faith, and its
German equivalent Glaube, which Paracelsus would have used, were much
more closely associated with their etymological root than they are today. For
h h–
their root – the Proto-Indo-European *b eyd means to trust or to be
confident in someone or something.51 Faith was originally understood as a
force born from deep familiarity with a particular situation or person. One
held faith only in the things or people one had come to understand intimately.
And therefore the reasons for such faith often escaped logic. On a magical
level, faith was the perfect term to denominate the inner capabilities of the
experienced spirit-worker, without raising the suspicions of Catholic or
Protestant orthodoxy. In the specifically magical setting of the third order of
healing, Paracelsus uses it to indicate one’s trained capability to orientate,
navigate and concentrate in accordance with the topography of the inner
realm. It signifies the work the magician undertakes in vision, away from the
outer realm and invisible to the eye of the beholder.
Faith was a distinct term in Paracelsus’s unique language for working
intentional magic. Unlike the priest/ess who acts as a direct vessel for divinity,
a Paracelsian magician performs a type of magical working typified by free
will. With each act the practitioner chooses to leverage a particular set of
spirits, whether they are associated with celestial or chthonic realms.
Accordingly, the respective sphere of efficacy opens up to the work, and the
practitioner gains access to the pharmacy of the heavens or the underworld.
Faith, for Paracelsus, represents a magical modus operandi based upon a
magician’s ability to combine intentional firmness with deliberate spirit contact
to fulfill a personal agenda.
Faith as a term in Paracelsus’s oeuvre should be understood as a mental
faculty in the sense of an essential natural force, unlocked through training
and increasing familiarity with the inner realm. Depending on how the
practitioner chooses to align the force of their ‘natural faith,’52 they are able to
gain access to various classes of spirits.
Peering into the pharmacy of the heavens or the celestial depths was
certainly not considered equal, or simply up to the desire of the operator. Each
choice made by the magician had magical as well as real-life ramifications.
And yet all the doors of nature were open to one who knew how to leverage
their unique gift: free will. As we are starting to see, Paracelsus, by
establishing this third order of healing, follows the logic of one of his most
significant role models, Johannes Trithemius. For it was the black abbot who
emphasised free will as the ultimate magical faculty. Magic in its most
essential form rested on man’s ability to leverage free will to instigate
deliberate spirit communion. is was achieved by bringing oneself into close
association and familiarity with a peculiar spirit. Whether that was for the
duration of a lifetime or for the duration of a single act of healing, knowing
how to operate one’s faith was the key. e force of natural faith was the agent
that enabled conscious spirit communion, which in return tinctured the
magician’s soul in accordance with the nature of the beings they dealt with.
In the light of this we can apprehend the significance of the opening of the
first book of De causis morborum invisibilium. Here Paracelsus provides an
exegesis of Luke 17:6 in order to illustrate the importance and efficacy of faith
in certain acts of healing. It would be easy to misunderstand the passage as the
familiar medieval call to devotion and piety. However, Paracelsus was really
giving specific instructions to the initiated reader on communing with and
becoming ‘equal to’ the spirits.

You know how the Gospel gives a succinct understanding of the might and
power of faith, where it says the following sentence [Luke 17:6]: And if
you had as little faith as a grain of mustard seed, but from within this faith
and with the power of it you said to the mountain: you, mountain, send
yourself down into the ocean, then so it will be. erefore you should
know, that our power, which the body commands from its flesh and blood,
is but a small power, but that our mighty power lies in faith alone. And as
gently and easily as we might pick up a grain of mustard seed and throw it
into the ocean, as if no weight existed, just as gently and easily we would
throw giant mountains into the ocean through our faith. at is why we
have to understand faith and the wondrous powers that reside within it,
powers which the visible body may not conceive of with its senses
alone. […] all the power that we need and have will exist through faith.
And this is how the power of faith should be understood and seen, as we
have shown here.
 But you should understand further, the spirits are equally capable of
this, and they may throw the [mountain] Olympus into the Red Sea, or
they may throw all the oceans on Mount Aetna, and similar things, if God
imposed it. erefore know, the spirits have no body, neither blood nor
flesh, and thus they don’t hold the [respective] powers; they affect
everything through the faith that they have. So remember the sum of the
Gospel is this, as if Christ were to speak: What are you, humans, in your
powers? Nothing. But this I say unto you, from where shall you take your
power: take it from faith. Once you have faith, even if it was as small as a
grain of mustard seed, behold, you will be as powerful as the spirits. For
then, despite you being humans, your might and power will be equal to the
spirits […]. So remember, it is through faith that we turn ourselves into
spirits.53

Faith, according to Paracelsus, is so much more than applied free will, and yet
it is nothing without it. It is a force through which we can consciously
assimilate ourselves to the spirits, whether chthonic or celestial. It is also the
poison that holds the antidote to man’s mortality. If used wisely it can be the
key that opens the seven planetary gates and unites the Olympic spirits into
one.
It should now require little explanation as to why Paracelsus deliberately
left the Astronomia Olympi novi out of the Philosophia sagax. As he said
himself, this book is given not in writing or print, but by faith and to the
faithful alone. For the Astronomia Olympi novi is the experience the magician
gains from visionary work. It is the occult equivalent to the oft referenced
Book of Nature, only it contains the lessons of the magical adept on how to
master the ‘inner heaven.’ us it was not to be found amongst Paracelsus’s
own manuscripts, nor in any ancient library or forbidden codice. It was to be
found only in the inner realm, which ‘the visible body may not conceive of
with its own senses.’
Johann Huser in the tenth volume of his complete works of Paracelsus
(1591) acknowledged the absence of the Astronomia Olympi novi in a most
skilful manner. Similar to the language of the master himself, Huser’s short
note to the reader can be read as pragmatic information about the absent third
book. Yet, if we presume Huser himself had pieced together the puzzle of faith
in Paracelsus’s opus, we can read his annotation as the words of a magical
initiate for any likeminded spirit:

To the reader. e ird Book of the Philosophia sagax of the great

astronomer, concerns the powers Olympi Noui, seu fidei. As mentioned in
the first book in the first table, this astronomy has its origin in faith: & is
being exercised and used by the faithful. at is, by those who can bring
their natural faith and imagination to such a power and exaltation that they
can do with it everything that otherwise happens by the natural astronomy
of heaven (and even more than that). Even though eophrastus also has
described this astronomy, and how he personally thinks of it, this book has
not yet come to light. But it lies hidden in an unknown place, like so much
more. God may grant that one day it might come to light for common use,
so that every lover of truth may be exhorted in Christian love. Meanwhile,
dear reader, you may be satisfied with what we have at hand, until God and
fate may send what remains. But what the power and force of faith may be,
whether used for good or evil, can be found in many other locations in
 Paracelsus’s books, which may replace the absence of this astronomy for
now.54

Today we hold in our hands a book called Astronomia Olympi novi. First
published anonymously in 1618, it is believed to have been written by none
other than Adam Haslmayr (c.1560–1630), the first propagator of the
Rosicrucian manifestos.55 Despite being condemned to the galley for four and
a half years and being prohibited from publishing his many magical and
philosophical works, Haslmayr had a profound impact both on the early
Rosicrucian movement as well as on the later understanding of Paracelsus’s
writings.56 It was Haslmayr’s initiated reading of the Philosophia sagax and
related works that first highlighted the spiritual significance and revolutionary
theology of Paracelsus. In his enthusiasm for Paracelsus, Haslmayr coined the
term sancta eophrastia and even went so far to pen the ‘missing’ third book of
the Philosophia sagax himself. As Carlos Gilly remarks, such an act should not
be read as forgery but as an expression of the complete identification of
Haslmayr with the magico-mystical teachings described in his master’s
writings. While this clearly makes the Astronomia Olympi novi a
pseudepigraphic work, we still have to acknowledge it as an authentic
expression of an adept deeply steeped in the spirit of Paracelsus.
We will conclude our examination of Paracelsian magic by quoting the
most relevant sections of Haslmayr’s work, as they relate to the magical faculty
of faith. As indicated by Johann Huser, these quotes do not add anything that
would have been missing from the weave of his master’s work. Paracelsus
provided the complete key to understanding the Olympic Spirit within his
own work, yet this lay scattered through multiple manuscripts and books and
buried within layers of understanding. Haslmayr in his Astronomia Olympi novi
remained entirely faithful to Paracelsus’s manner of writing; even in
Haslmayr’s text, the uninitiated reader may mistake large sections of it as a
common appeal to Christian piety and devotion. It would have been worthless
unless the reader knew how to unlock the text, and how to work it as a
magical manual, one that would come to define the magico-mystical current of
the West for centuries to come. Haslmayr penned the Astronomia Olympi novi
as seven succinct aphorisms, giving a silent nod to the 49 (7 × 7) aphorisms of
the Arbatel.

erefore turn away manifold, and not towards rationality, O Jerusalem,

[but instead] turn your kings and regents to the splendour of your [own]
rising, lift your eyes and behold little around you: Your vision now shall be
towards the new heaven’s light. […] All prophets and patriarchs would
have wished to have seen this light, just as we faithful do in the new
heaven, in the new creature: But they did not have it, speaking to them
personally […]. But even His own do neither wish to see, nor accept Him,
that is why there is little force on earth to become children of God:
everyone lives according to their own pride and free will. Nobody knows
that nothing will be in hell other than the free will, who did not want to
see this light, and who did not want to recognize it in the necromantic
vision, that is in the lives of the deceased saints, let alone, in heaven’s life,
which is our heart Jesus Christ.57

Make the necromantic vision for yourself and see it. Just as the sun of the
ephemeral sky passes through all of the earth from its center, but does so
not do with its own body, but with its light: so it is with Christ, the new
heaven, too. […] For this you need no master nor doctors at all, just the
simple faith as the four Gospels teach and explain to you in the holy spirit:
in this way and in no other way have faith in it.58 Conclusion and thorough
Instruction. For it is many who desire an unworthy ‘talking spirit’ [Spiritum
loquentes], and who do not understand that often Satan mixes with such
desire, especially among whores, guzzlers, drunkards, the proud, high
spirits, usurers, and other sinners, among whom the Holy Angel or Spirit
of God may or cannot dwell, because these are possessed by the evil spirit,
and thus the good angel must give way.
us it seemed to us good and of utmost need to man to describe this
Astronomia novi Olympi. erefore I tell you cabalists and naturalists, or all
magicians who have the authority to command the spirits, to bring
together hidden books and mysteries of the godless world to increase your
repentance: I tell you once again to learn the first three cabalistic principles:
Ask, Seek, Knock on God the LORD, if you want to have a holy Spiritum
(which is delivered to everyone from birth by God the Creator, to teach
and guide people in all wisdom, art and true blissful life) with you and [if
you want to be able to] converse with your Genius. Because no servant can
be lent to you without your heart’s permission and without keeping the
Evangelical commandments; according to which commandments, or Novo
Olympo the faithful have more justice and freedom than those in the Old
Testament with whom God did not speak directly but through the spirits:
We, however, do not want to hear alone from the spirits, but we want to
hear from God directly, for we have Him within us through our obedience
to God.
 For Christ can only be found in his temple, in which he is the altar, and
whose temple is the human heart. at is why Paul says: Do you not
recognise yourself that Christ is in you, etc. Who therefore among men
might know about man’s office, but Christ who is within him?
But the beastly man is he who knows and can’t do anything but gorge,
booze, trade, amass treasures, rise up in court, [engage in] fornication,
usury and all other annoyances, [and who] cannot hear what the Spirit of
God wants from us. erefore, if we stay in God, he also stays in us, he
does not depart, if only we do not depart from him: then he is like a solid
tower or stead that always protects you, as long as man himself does not
turn away from it.

So whoever does not conduct themselves according to the teachings of the

new heaven and its stars, these the heaven will allow to continue to be a sow
and filthy: it does not force anyone as this cursed Anti-christian world
currently does and dares: Although nobody can come to this heaven, unless
the father draws them. But the father does not draw anyone, except for the
one who seeks heaven and desires and asks for it and knocks on the door.
Accordingly, all art, wisdom, and science is for naught, lost and in vain,
unless this heaven’s wisdom was within man: only the poor in spirit are already
taken care of by God. at is why only he is blessed who finds and practices
wisdom, and whom death finds in the hearts of the apostles, the prophets (and
all those who followed this our new heaven and its holy star in the eighth
virtues of this heaven, as they are described by the evangelist Matthew in
chapter 5), and takes him from this world. Everyone else is lost forever with
the foolish virgins.
 Vigilate et Orate Igitur.
erefore watch and pray: go into the four Gospels, within which are all
the mysteries that unlock this heaven for us, and which talk to us from two
books, that is, [the book of ] God and Nature, into which nature God has
placed His seat and tabernacle, that is the centre of His Kingdom, in which
the prophets sat and Christ hung on the cross.
So flee the world and the inventions of its foolishness as well as the cursed
wit of logic, all its religions and opinions that teach and show you differently
than this heaven and its star. See therefore in the body of mercy and more, etc.
So Christ truly speaks all wisdom to you from it, you see him hanging on the
cross, or appearing as a little Jesus, ex mente Dei [from the divine mind]: as
with Hermes, since he asked him to just listen and look into his word, so he
would teach him everything according to the true light.
Signate Mysteria, & credite verbo.
DIXI.

1   Kiesewetter 1886, 45.

2   Paracelsus, Archidoxis magica, Liber sextus: De compositione metallorum, 321.
3   Carlos Gilly, Adam Haslmayr, 284/285.
4   Gilly, Adam Haslmayr, 284.
5   Gilly, 2002, 209.
6   Arbatel, Turner translation, 3.
7   Paracelsus, in Uccello, 164.
8   Coppock, 19.
9   Brennan, 275–279.
10   Samuel Norton, e Key of Alchemy, from the Second Treatise: e Mineral Stone, in
McLean 2014.
11   Van der Toorn, 910–919.
12   Schmidt-Biggemann, 10, 1, 212.
13   Necker, 104–105.
14   Sha’are Orah, I, 15, quoted in Morolok, 161.
15   Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names, Caput III, Section I.
16   Zambelli, 207.
17   Arcanum arcanorum.
18   Arbatel, aphorism 44.
19   Arbatel, aphorism 46.
20   Arbatel, aphorism 47.
21   Arbatel, aphorism 45.
22   Arbatel, aphorism 36.
23   Arbatel, aphorism 35.
24   Arbatel, aphorism 28.
25   Biedermann, 472.
26   De causis morborum invisibilium, in Peuckert 1965, 233.
27   Wellhausen, 156.
28   Joseph Uccello, Occlith, 2013, 161–172.
29   Peuckert 1941, 365.
30   Peuckert 1941, 363.
31   Peuckert 1967, 42.
32   Paracelsus 2010, vol. III, 69.
33   Paracelsus 2010, vol. III, 53.
34   Paracelsus 2010, vol. III, 33/34.
35   Paracelsus, Sudhoff vol. 12, 493.
36   Peuckert 1967, 43.
37   Peuckert 1967, 108.
38   Peuckert 1967, 108.
39   Peuckert 1967, 124.
40   Peuckert 1967, 125.
41   Pliny, quoted in Totelin, 3.
42   Fossel, 39.
43   Galen, quoted in Totelin, 5.
44   Zedler, vol.21, column 546.
45   Paracelsus, Philosophia sagax, in Sudhoff vol.XII, 299.
46   Paracelsus, Philosophia sagax, in Peuckert, 325.
47   Paracelsus, Philosophia sagax, in Peuckert, 321.
48   Paracelsus, Philosophia sagax, in Peuckert, 294.
49   Paracelsus, Philosophia sagax, in Peuckert, 295.
50   Paracelsus, Philosophia sagax, in Peuckert, 294/295.
51   Ringe, loc.2089.
52   Front matter of Huser edition vol. 1, HE1,B6V.
53   Paracelsus, Sudhoff, vol.9, 260/261.
54   Huser edition, vol.X, 364.
55   Gilly 1994, 184 / Žemla, 530.
56   Hanegraaff, 459
57   Aphorism VI.
58   Aphorism VII.
 e Rite of the Olympic Spirit

§ VI

presents a radical realignment, in the spirit of

T
HE FOLLOWING RITUAL

Paracelsus; we could call it a rite of baptism. It alters the presence within

us of the seven celestial spirits, who colour the outer layers of our soul, in
order for these to become permeable again to our inner eternal spirit. us
the ritual works to open seven gates, one after the other, which lead to the
innermost place of man, to the place where we encounter our Olympic spirit,
the angel, who is us. If performed successfully, the rite will affect our life in
ways that enable this angel and our mortal selves to share one consciousness
again.
After all we have learned, it should come as no surprise that the following
ritual deviates quite significantly from the version given in the Arcanum
arcanorum. We advocate neither the use of an alchemically created bell, nor a
set of Rudolphian twin bells, nor any custom made planetary inks or virgin
feathers. All you need is a silent, undisturbed space, large enough for you to
walk in a circle around a central point marked by a burning candle. Ideally
that candle should be positioned so that you can easily look into it while
standing. If you work in the wilderness a large stump or rock will do. If you
work in an enclosed room a round side table would be perfect. e only
essential paraphernalia is a bell. You should choose it wisely of course, and
above all your decision should be guided by its sound. Whatever bell you use,
place it in a dry bath of unprocessed salt for several nights before you
perform the rite, then wash it carefully, wrap it in a clean cloth and keep it
hidden from sight. You should wear clothes that are plain, clean and loose,
or you may choose to perform the rite naked. If you intend to burn incense,
ensure it is a mix that you have never used before, one whose fragrance is
unique and distinct to you, and that you will never use again.

In essence the rite is an act of self-initiation. If performed successfully you

need only work it once in your lifetime. If, on the other hand, you need a few
passes at it before you are fully attuned to its flow, that is not a problem
either. What I like to do is to perform the rite in vision in its entirety
multiple times in the lead up to the day of the operation. is allows me to
attune to the pattern of the flow without the physical utterances and
movements. Alternatively, I sometimes perform the rite silently, like a dancer
quietly rehearsing without music. Whatever your personal approach, if you
have walked this far on the narrow trail, I know you will also succeed in this
final step.
is brings us to an often overrated question in magic: How do you know
if the rite has been successful? e same question could be asked of a painter:
How do you know this was the image you were meant to paint? e simple
answer is, you never know. You engage in the act of creation, you firmly hold
on to your intent, and then you dance with whatever reveals itself to you.
e pattern of this operation is a powerful, even life changing ritual, that
brings the microcosm of your heart flame into full resonance with the sphere
of the macrocosm. e rite forms the magical lynchpin that can help you to
fasten the seven Olympic spirits into one. Once united and placed back into
the position of your heart, this empowered sphere will become the gate
through which your holy daimon has continuous conscious access to you.
While the seven Olympic spirits are wandering stars in the night and inner
sky, it is your holy daimon that is fluid and moves amongst them. Your
daimon is the weaver, the Olympic spirits are the yarn, and together they
produce the garment you call ‘I AM.’ After you have performed this rite, it is
quite easy to tune into the presence of your holy daimon. Just sit silently,
relax, let your breath flow freely, then open your heart space as wide as you
can, anchor your thinking mind in the locus magicus behind your shoulder
blades and from this point hear your inner voice speak ‘I AM.’ A preparatory
step for this practice was the exercise shared in the third chapter.
Once you have initiated yourself into the the following rite, you might
find that over time you can conduct its entire operation within seconds, with
the single peal of a bell: standing under the night sky, bell in hand, directing
your call both to the firmament within the sphere of your heart, as well as
the arch of stars around you, you can create the same resonance with the
universe in a single breath. Magicians over millennia have spoken to the
cosmos in this way, with open hands, inside and outside of temples and
shrines, and yet always with silent hearts, paying homage to the myriad of
spirits, celestial and chthonic, that surround the flame of our being with their
own. It is the hallmark of the adept to be able to make these beings
consciously behold each other, to create alignment and resonance between
them, without extending any kind of forceful dominance. Consider it the
end of your narrow path if you can consciously work with cosmic spirits in
such a manner that, in closing your rite, you have neither left a mark on
them nor yourself.
Finally, a word about the visionary demands of this practice. As you will
see, the outer simplicity and purity of this work is complemented by the
complexity of its visionary work. Each of the exercises in the previous
chapters of this book formed building blocks for you to be ready to perform
this demanding rite. If you still feel blocked, or if your mind cannot follow
the operations that have to be performed in vision, go back to the previous
exercises and immerse yourself in them again. Alternatively, you can work
with the Quareia curriculum as it develops the same (and other) core skills.
At the centre of this rite sits a three dimensional form that I will try to
describe as simply as possible. I call it the sacred sphere. Jose Gabriel Alegría
Sabogal created the following images, depicting Microcosm and Macrocosm
and the position and function of the sacred sphere in both of them. It was
the famous German artist Ugo Dossi who in 1975 first developed this
sphere, and which ever since accompanied his oeuvre in multiple forms.
Comparing our sacred sphere to Dossi’s reveals only a slight modification. I
am deeply grateful for having encountered Dossi’s work as part of the
research for this book. His visionary genius helped me to unlock this rite in a
way that unfolds into true magical contact and presence. Once the
practitioner has mastered the following rite, they can immerse themselves
into Dossi’s oeuvre and will find a world of sacred forms that can be brought
to life in similar ways. Essentially his images are open atlases for the magical
practitioner if brought to life in vision and in silent coherence of the inner
and outer realm.

Ugo Dossi, Double Vortex (1975). Created in partnership with mathematician Dieter Antrack of the
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, this model of a field was developed based upon
automatic drawings, resembling magnetic or gravitational fields; through itself it turns in on itself and
reproduces itself out of itself. (Dossi, Automatic Drawings, 2007)

What this sacred sphere depicts, its inherent dynamic, is best explored
through mediative or visionary practice. Essentially it presents a sphere,
created from a fourfold vortex, which upends inside and outside, and which,
with an uninterrupted flow, allows travel from the circumference of the circle
to its centre and back again. Overlaid on the human condition, the
microcosm, the form pictures a sphere within ourselves, just as there is a
sphere we are encapsulated in together, the macrocosm. is geometric form
is an iconic key which unlocks the Paracelsian riddle of the Astronomia
Olympi novi, the firmament inside of us all.
Now best of luck with the final step.
May the serpent bite its tail.
 § VII

e Ritual

• Find a place where you can sit undisturbed in darkness.

• Give yourself time to calm your breath. If you have learned it, perform
the fourfold breath for five to ten minutes before proceeding.
• Now see a flame burning in your heart space. e flame is neither hot
nor cold, but quietly burning in the area of your physical heart.
• Raise your hand to your heart and pull out a piece of that flame. As if
you were handing over a flower bud, move the flame away from your
body and set it in the darkness before you. Hold the image of the flame
surrounded by darkness in your vision.
• en move forward in your vision and merge yourself entirely into this
flame. Do not leave anything of yourself behind, but withdraw entirely
inside the flame.
• In vision, observe the darkness that surrounds the flame (and thus
yourself ) and how it withdraws from the flame’s light. Wherever the
darkness has retreated, nothing but the Void remains. Continue to push
the light of the flame into the space around you, further and further,
until you are surrounded by a vast sphere of nothingness.
• en, from the centre of the flame, sing the following prayer. Do not
force the manner of speaking or singing. Let your voice flow freely, allow
your tone and melody to change and evolve until it settles into a stable
rhythm.
• Prayer (to be translated into your mother-tongue):

For I Am who is Neither

Neither dark, neither light
Neither false, neither true
Neither dead, neither born
Neither here, neither there
Neither found, neither lost
For Neither is who I Am.

Passing through the Gate

• When your consciousness has become one with the prayer, and the
prayer one with the flame and its light, sit again in silence. Withdraw
from the Void, and return to your bodily senses. Continue to keep your
eyes closed.
• Now leave your meditation position and lie face down on the ground,
raise your arms above your head, and make your body as long as you can.
As your body stretches, slowly allow your mind to merge with the earth
and see yourself growing roots down into it. If you are in a tall building,
see these roots push through its structure into the wood, steel or
concrete, downwards floor by floor, until your roots reach the
foundations, and ever deeper until they grow into the ground. Feel the
force that flows back and forth in these roots. From you to the earth, and
back from the earth to yourself. You are becoming one with the earth,
deep down underground, with the rocks, the blackness, the silence of the
 ancient depth, the uncreatedness of what is no longer and has not yet
become again. Give yourself time to become one with the chthonic form.
• When you are fully one with the earth, wait for the impulse to separate
from it again. Do not rush, but when the spark arrives, remain stretched
out on the ground, and entwine your arms and hands and cross your legs
and feet. You are separating from the sphere of possibilities. ink of the
first serpent emerging from the depths, that is you now. In its own time,
your mind follows this movement, and separates from the earth again, as
slowly your body straightens out.
• When you have fully entered into your serpent form, wait for the next
impulse to arrive. When it does, pull your legs inward, and come up to
kneeling, face down with your forehead on the earth, your arms folded
around your head, your fingertips touching your elbows. From the line
you have moved forward to the triad. In your crouched down,
compressed form, you are life in its virgin essence: a life yet to unfold,
the semen in the womb, the point of origin of all individuality. Rest in
this position, until you feel the pull of divinity.
• When it does, follow the movement. Lift up your torso slowly – as if you
were pulling a newborn into life – until you are kneeling, with your
hands on your knees, facing straight forwards, looking into the darkness.
You have arrived in the position of (wo)man. is is how most of us
spend our lives. It is a static yet powerful position. You do not yet stand
before divinity, your legs are still bound to the chthonic depths. While
looking straight ahead into the darkness, meditate on this position and
what it teaches you about human life.
• At some point the next impulse will arrive. Again, do not rush, but when
it finds you, keep one knee on the ground and come up onto one foot.
You have arrived in the posture of knighthood: it holds the promise of
being able to walk, to actively explore – and yet, chooses to remain in a
position of reverence and humility before divinity. Meditate on the ideal
of unconditional service and how it is connected to this position: a
knight exposing his or her neck to the sword of the king. Autonomous
power voluntarily surrendering its free will, subservient to a higher force.
Who is your king?
• Finally, when it happens, follow the impulse to lift yourself up and stand.
Stand tall and straight. You have arrived in the angelic position. is is
the position the angels assume before the throne of Divinity. It is their
privilege to stand, and to constantly watch the threshold of Creation and
the Void. Consider the responsibility that comes with this position, the
accountability you take for every movement of this body of yours. Every
move, every word uttered from this position is an expression of the
divine. Now that you are standing straight and tall, you have become a
living gate.

Communion with the Olympic Spirits

• Now stand up and walk towards the prepared ritual place for your
circumambulation. Enter it slowly and carefully, like a planet pulled into
the orbit of its sun. Respect the centre of this space as the external
expression of your heart space.
• Unless you work with eyes closed, keep your vision either focussed on
the ground or the central altar with the flame. (In this rite we will not
work with the four quadrants.)
• Come to stand with your back towards the North and light the candle in
the centre. As you have previously learned, merge the physical flame with
a spark of your heart flame. Conduct this merging carefully, for it is the
backbone of the entire rite.
• When the physical flame has fully merged with the spark of your heart
flame, quietly watch it burn; observe the sphere of light surrounding the
flame.
• Now begin to walk in a clockwise circle around the flame. Walk slowly,
immersed in your prayer and vision. Allow your physical environment to
recede into the background. You are to work mainly in vision, while
remaining anchored in the physical space through the movement of your
body.
• Recite the following prayer while walking, and as often as you wish:

O Divinity! I, N.N., call out for you through my heart flame. May this call to
the Olympic spirits travel well in the weave of your creation. And may I speak
not as a mortal, but as a gate of your eternal presence. May these prayers be
fulfilled without evil and harm, but through the power of your presence.
Divinity of all Being and Non-Being, heavenly fire and earthly spark, may
your creation shine in beauty. May it shine bright within me. Amen.

• As you walk and pray, you realise the presence of the sacred sphere (as
illustrated in the microcosm image): the inner vortex flows around the
 central flame, the outer vortex encircles the space within which you
circumambulate around the flame. Note how your mind is not creating
anything; there is no fantasising. You simply shift your attention to what
is already there. A curtain of consciousness is pulled back, and you see
yourself within the sacred form, its outer boundary encompassing you, its
inner upheld by the radiant sphere of the flame.
• Walk and pray for a while and attune yourself to the presence of this
flowing organism which you are now a part of.
• en slowly allow the outer circumference of the sacred sphere to
expand. As you will realise, this is an organic process. e outer sphere
grows larger and larger, while you walk, praying around its steady centre.
e outer sphere expands beyond the boundaries of the house or forest
you stand in, it grows further and expands beyond the limits of the town
or city in which you live, then beyond the land that carries you, it
expands in all directions at once, earth, sky, sea and air, growing like a
globe of light, continuously expanding.
• You continue to walk slowly in circles and pray. When the outer sphere
has extended beyond the earth, you allow it to open up further. It rises
through the atmosphere, in the North, the South, the East and West,
above and below. It grows and grows, until it reaches the invisible sphere
of the Moon. When the outer sphere stops expanding at the edge of the
Moon, you will feel it ‘click’ into place. Now you are ready to make your
call, holding your heart’s flame in the centre of your space, walking
slowly around it immersed in prayer, fully connected to the realm of the
stars.
• Make the first call. For this, stand with your back toward the North,
facing the central flame. Your eyes may be open or closed. Take the bell
in your hand and speak:

Olympic Spirit of the Moon, turn your face towards me. Hear my call! I,
N.N., through the power of Divinity and the light of my heart flame, call for
your aid. Send your light into my heart, and awaken my awareness. Bless me
with your sacred presence.

• Now ring the bell. Be aware how the light of the Moon travels in its
sound from the outer perimeter of the sacred sphere into the central
flame on your altar, all in a split second. For everything is present at all
times. See how the vibrations of the sound of the bell are affecting the
central light, like drops of an alchemical tincture dripped into a flask.
e sound of the bell is the medium through which the Olympic spirits
come to alter the flame.
• When the sound has fully faded, return to circumambulating the flame.
Become familiar with the paradox of the sacred sphere: uphold the
consciousness of its inner vortex flowing around the central flame, while
its outer body revolves at the edge of the sublunar world. See if, like
water flowing effortlessly, you can witness the constant exchange between
its interior and exterior. Realise how your magical presence is lifted up to
the edge of the sky and brought back into the tiny circumference of the
flame on your altar. While there are thousands of leagues between the
outside and the inside of the sphere, at the same time there is no distance
at all. You are free to travel, in fact you are present on both sides at once.
• Come to stand in front of the flame again, your back to the North, your
eyes focussed on the light in the centre. Make the second call, just as you
did the first:

Olympic Spirit of Mercury, turn your face towards me. Hear my call! I, N.N.,
through the power of Divinity and the light of my heart flame, call for your
aid. Send your light into my heart, and awaken my awareness. Bless me with
your sacred presence.

• Ring the bell again. Carefully observe how the interplay of the bell’s
sound and the rays of the Olympic Spirit change the light of the flame.
Do not force or hurry this process. If you observe little to no difference
either in vision or with your physical eyes, do not worry. A deep form of
magic is happening in this moment, the kind of magic that transcends
time. e sound and light of Mercury now sleeps as a twin seed within
your heart flame, a seed that can unfold in years, lifetimes from now, or
in this very moment. It is not upon you to demand anything. You are
only the voice that utters the call and the spirit that upholds the sphere.
Focus on the great presence of your mind in this sacred space, not on any
kind of outcome or success. When the process has concluded, return to
circumambulating the flame.
• Continue in this fashion until you have called all seven Olympic spirits.
Note that the outside of your sacred sphere never extends beyond the
realm of the Moon; it stays anchored there. Only your calls go out
further into space, one by one, until they meet in resonance with each
planet in its particular location.
• A note on the three different approaches you can follow with regards to
the position of the planets in the sky during your rite:
(1) In principle you can perform this ritual successfully without paying
much attention to the actual position of the planets during the specific
hour and time of the day of your operation. Yes, this could be in violation
of what an astrologer would advise. However, this kind of magic, if done
correctly, reaches out not to the physical planets but to the deep
consciousness of each Olympic spirit, one by one. us for a moment in
time as part of this rite you create a direct bridge between their presence
and yours. From my working experience, this direct connection
undercuts a lot of the considerations of traditional astrology, by linking
you and the planetary consciousness directly.
(2) Alternatively, you can follow the astrological advice we restored from
the Arcanum arcanorum and calculate the time of your ritual to be
advantageous according to the Egyptian terms. Many of you may prefer
that way of working, which is perfectly fine. Again, from my experience
trying to hit the precise astrological hour can sometimes lead to rushed
preparations, or less focus on the actual work at hand.
(3) Finally, the most advanced way of working, in my humble opinion, is
to consider the position of each planet at the moment of your birth. e
astronomical key created by their positions relative to each other – and to
you in their subjective centre – has deep magical impact. is requires
you either to mark their positions on the floor with chalk before you
perform the rite, or to remember each position by heart. When
connecting the vibration of the bell with the light of each Olympic spirit,
 your vision would consciously hold the bridge between the central flame
and the actual position of the planet in the night sky at your birth. is
requires a good amount of preparation and more importantly, proficiency
in astrology and visionary magic. Should you choose to work in either of
the latter two ways, then you should turn towards and face the precise
position of the planet when uttering its prayer, and turn around to face
the central flame again when ringing the bell.
• Now speak the final prayer. While you stand with your back to the
North and face the central flame, your mind holds the presence of the
entire orbit of the sacred sphere, centred in the lynchpin of your heart
flame. You are about to acknowledge the conscious Olympic forces that
shape the created cosmos, as well as their microcosmic presence in the
light of your heart flame. us in vision see your voice vibrate out in all
six directions at once (North, East, South, West, Above, Below) as you
intone:

Living lights of the seven Olympic Spirits, you have come together in my heart
flame. You have awakened awareness in the fire of my heart flame. Bright
shines the light that you have granted, bright shines the light that you have
adorned. rough it I behold the presence of my daimon, and my daimon
beholds me. I am ou, and ou art I, one in a pattern of fate, one in a spark
of divine fire, one in a seed in divine earth. Amen.

• Ring the bell one more time. See how the sound stabilises and
strengthens the flame in its new presence and form. From here onwards,
nothing will be able to change the magic that has touched your heart
 flame. is light is one Olympic Spirit now, one sevenfold spark of
divinity, one shining gate through which your daimon and you see eye to
eye.
• Finally, reach out to this flame with great presence of mind, pick it up in
vision, and return it to the heart space in your physical chest. Carefully
you blow out the candle in front of you, and realise how, in vision, you
can still see the light that emerges shining from within your heart. ere
are truly two heavens now: one, a celestial dome, opening up at the outer
perimeter of the sacred sphere, still anchored to the sphere of the Moon;
the other contained within your heart, safely rotating within the inner
vortex of the sacred sphere. Both are intimately connected, speaking,
listening to each other like lovers do. rough you, they are born again as
one.
• Bow in front of the dark candle and speak:

Amen. Amen. Amen.

• en leave the sacred space, wash your hands with water and salt, and go
to bed without speaking to anyone.
• Take note of your dreams that night. If you do not normally remember
your dreams, set your alarm clock to 2 a.m. and have a pencil and a book
next to your nightstand. When the alarm clock rings, switch it off, lay
back in your bed quietly, relax your body and mind, and allow the water
of your dream to stream back into your consciousness. Do not force this
process; just be silently present with it. Whatever dream images return to
you, write them down in your book, before you return to sleep.
 Bibliography

ANON. Hexenbuch, inventory no. V 6193-S, Museum Neuruppin:

https://brandenburg.museum-digital.de/object/3162
BARTHOLOMEW I. Encountering the Mystery: Understanding Orthodox
Christianity Today. New York: Doubleday Books, 2008.
BIEDERMANN, HANS. Lexikon der magischen Künste. Wiesbaden: VMA-
Verlag, 1998.
BINGEN, HILDEGARD VON. Komplette Werkausgabe, 10 vols. Beuroner
Kunstverlag, 2017.
BRENNAN, CHRIS. Hellenistic Astrology: e Study of Fate and Fortune. Amor
Fati Publications, 2017.
BUKOVINSKÁ, BEKET & IVO PURŠ. ‘Die Tischglocke Rudolfs II: Über Ihren
Ursprung und Ihre Bedeutung’ in Beket Bukovinská & Lubomir
Konecny, eds., Studia Rudolphina, vol.10. Prague 2010, 89–104.
COPPOCK, AUSTIN. ‘A Feast of Starlight: Reflections on Stellar Magic’ in e
Celestial Art, ree Hands Press, 2018, 11–26.
DESCHNER, KARLHEINZ. Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, 10 vols.
Reinbek: Rowohlt Verlag, 1986–2013.
DINZELBACHER, PETER. ‘Die Achsenzeit des Hohen Mittelalters,’ in Günter
Frank and Friedrich Niewöhner, eds., Reformer als Ketzer. Heterodoxe
 Bewegungen von Vorreformatoren, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-
Holzboog, 2004, 91–122.
——— Deutsche und niederländische Mystik des Mittelalters. De Gruyter,
2012.
FLASCH, KURT. Was ist Gott? Das Buch der 24 Philosophen. C.H. Beck, 2011.
FOSSEL, VIKTOR. ‘Von der Heilkraft der Kröte in den Schriften älterer
Ärzte,’ in Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 8 (1), June 1914, 39–44.
GILLY, CARLOS. Adam Haslmayr: Der erste Verkünder der Manifeste der
Rosenkreuzer. Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 1994.
——— ‘e First Book of White Magic in Germany,’ in idem. and Cis van
Heertum (eds.), Magia, alchimia, scienza dal ‘400 al ‘700: l’influsso di
Ermete Trismegisto, vol. I, Firenze: Centro Di, 2002.
GNÄDINGER, LOUISE. Deutsche Mystik. Zürich: Manesse Verlag, 1989
——— Johannes Tauler: Lebenswelt und Mystische Lehre. München: C.H.
Beck, 1993.
GRIMM, JACOB & WILHELM. Das Deutsche Wörterbuch. http://dwb.uni-
trier.de/de/
HANEGRAAFF, WOUTER (ed.). Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism.
Brill, 2006.
HEẞ, MARCELLUS. Gesuch des Marcellus Heß aus Regensburg an Herzog
Friedrich, einige in der hzl. Bibliothek befindliche Manuskripte des
Trithemius abschreiben zu dürfen und als Gegenleistung Angebot einer
langen Reihe von Schriften chemischen, medizinischen, magischen und
astrologischen Inhalts, with the Appendix: Catalogus contineus libros
chymicos, magicos, astrologicos et cabalisticos cum variis materiis et
 experimentis insertis. 12 leaves in 4°, Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg,
1–1211266, 1598.
HOCHHUTH, KARL. ‘Mittheilungen aus der protestantischen Secten-
Geschichte in der hessischen Kirche,’ in Christian Wilhelm Redner
(ed.), Zeitschrift für die Historische eologie 33 (2), 1863, 169–262.
KASZA, DR PÉTER. ‘Parergi philosofici speculum. Henricus Nollius
hermetisch-rosenkreuzerischer Roman,’ in Der neulateinische Roman als
Medium seiner Zeit/ e Neo-Latin Novel in its Time, edited by Stefan
Tilg & Isabella Walser. Tübingen: Narr Verlag, 2012.
KIESEWETTER, KARL. ‘Die Rosenkreuzer. Ein Blick in dunkle
Vergangenheit,’ in Huebbe-Schleiden (ed.), Sphinx 1. Griebens Verlag
1886, 42–54.
KLENK, HEINRICH. Ein sogenannter Inquisitionsprozess in Giessen anno 1623.
Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, 1965.
KREUZER, JOHANN. ‘Denken, das in seinen Grund geht: radikale
Diesseitigkeit bei Tauler,’ in Günter Frank (ed.), Reformer als Ketzer:
Heterodoxe Bewegungen von Vorreformatoren. Stuttgart and Bad
Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 2004, 145–164.
LAMM, JULIA A. (ed.). e Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism.
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
LEPPIN, VOLKER. Die christliche Mystik. Munich: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2007.
LISCO, FRIEDRICH GUSTAV. Die Heilslehre der eologie deutsch. Stuttgart:
Samuel Gottlieb Liesching, 1857.
MCGUCKIN, JOHN ANTHONY. ‘Symeon the New eologian’s Hymns of
Divine Eros: A Neglected Masterpiece of the Christian Mystical
 Tradition,’ in Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 5 (2), 182–202,
January 2005.
http://www.sgtt.org/Writings/Patristics/StSymeonHymns.html
MORSIUS, JOACHIM (pseudonym: Anastasius Philarethes Cosmopolita).
Nuncius Olympicus : Von etzlichen geheimen Bücheren und Schrifften, so ein
fürnehmer Gottesgelerter und hocherleuchteter berümbter eosophus und
Medicus, in eosophia, Cabala, Magia, Chemia, Medicina und Pilologia,
durch viel beschwerliche Reisen unnd grosse Unkostung, Ecclesiae und Reip.
literariae commodo zusammen gebracht, darin die gröste Himlische unnd
Irrdische Weißheit begriffen ist, 1626.
NECKER, GEROLD. Einführung in die lurianische Kabbala. Frankfurt am
Main: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2008.
NIGG, WALTER. Das Buch der Ketzer. Zürich: Diogenes 2017.
NOLLIUS, HENRICUS. Parergi philosophici speculum. Gissae, 1623.
NORTON, SAMUEL. e Key of Alchemy, 1577, in Wellcome Library
ms.1027/8.
PARACELSUS. Astronomia magna: oder Die gantze Philosophia sagax der grossen
und kleinen Welt des von Gott hocherleuchten erfahrnen und bewerten
teutschen Philosophi und Medici Philippi eophrasti Bombast, genannt
Paracelsi magni : Darinn er lehrt des gantzen natürli-chen Liechts
vermögen … Vor nie in Truck außgangen. Frankfurt: Feyerabend, Lechler,
1571. http://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10196224-9
——— Werke, edited by Will-Erich Peuckert, 5 vols. Basel: Schwabe
Verlag, 1965 (2010).
———, Huser, Johannes (ed.). … eil Der Bücher und Schrifften, des Edlen,
Hochgelehrten und Bewehrten Philosophi unnd Medici, Philippi eophrasti
Bombast von Hohenheim, Paracelsi genannt, Bd.: 1, In diesem eil werden
begriffen die Bücher, welche von Ursprung und herkommen, aller
Kranckheiten handeln in Genere. Basel: Waldkirch, 1589.
https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/title/BV009539410
PFEIFFER, FRANZ (ed.). eologia deutsch: die leret gar manchen lieblichen
underscheit gotlicher warheit und seit gar hohe und gar schone ding von einem
volkomen Leben. Stuttgart, 1851.
Picatrix: Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Magriti, aus dem Arabischen ins
Deutsche übersetzt von Hellmut Ritter und Martin Plessner. Studies of
the Warburg Institute 27. London: Warburg Institute, 1962.
PINGREE, DAVID. Picatrix: A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic. Translated
with an introduction by Dan Attrell & David Porreca. (Magic in
History.) University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019.
RINGE, DONALD. A Linguistic History of English: From Proto-Indo-European
to Proto-Ger-manic. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
RITTER, HELMUT. Das Meer der Seele. Mensch, Welt und Gott in den
Geschichten des Farīduddīn ‘Attār. Leiden: Brill, 1955.
RUH, KURT. Meister Eckhart, eologe, Prediger, Mystiker. Munich: C.H.
Beck 1989.
SCHEIBLE, JOHANN (ed.). Das Kloster: weltlich und geistlich; meist aus der
ältern deutschen Volks-, Wunder-, Curiositäten- und vorzugsweise komischen
Literatur; zur Kultur- und Sittengeschichte in Wort und Bild. Stuttgart,
1845–1850.
SCHMIDT-BIGGEMANN, WILHELM. Geschichte der christlichen Kabbala. Band
1: 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, (Clavis Pansophiae 10, 1). Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt: From-mann-Holzboog, 2012.
SCHWEMER, DANIEL. ‘e Ancient Near East,’ in David J. Collins (ed.),
Magic and Witchcraft in the West: From Antiquity to the Present.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, 17–51.
SPUNDA, FRANZ (ed.). Magische Unterweisungen des edlen und hochgelehrten
Philosophi und Medici Philippi eophrasti Bombasti von Hohenheim,
Paracelsus genannt. Leipzig: Wolken-wanderer Verlag, 1923
STANG, CHARLES M. ‘Dionysius, Paul and the Significance of the
Pseudonym,’ in Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, edited by Sarah
Coakley & Charles M. Stang, 11–25. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
STEJNAR, EMIL. Magie mit Astrologie: Der genetische Code von Geist und Seele.
Ibera Verlag, 2008.
SUDHOFF, KARL. Versuch einer Kritik der Echtheit der Paracelsischen Schriften,
II. Berlin: Georg Reimer 1899.
SYMEON DER THEOLOGE. Licht vom Licht: Hymnen. Translated by Kilian
Kirchhoff. Munich: 1951.
TILTON, HEREWARD. ‘Of Electrum and the Armour of Achilles: Myth and
Magic in a Manuscript of Heinrich Khunrath (1560–1605)
Zusammenfassung,’ in Aries 6 (2), Brill, June 2006.
TOTELIN, LAURENCE M. V. ‘Mithradates’ Antidote: A Pharmacological
Ghost,’ in Early Science and Medicine 9 (1), 2004, 1–19.
TÜNDE, KATONA. ‘Utopische Literatur: Warum nicht auf Deutsch?,’ in Vom
Zweck des Systems. Beiträge zur Geschichte der literarischen Utopien, edited
 by Árpád Bernáth, Endre Hárs, and Peter Plener. Tübingen: Francke
2006, 1–10.
UCCELLO, JOSEPH (ed.). Occlith: Labyrinthus Archidoxæ, Vol.0: Omniform.
Richmond Vista, CA: e Viatorium Press & ree Hands Press, 2013.
VAN DER TOORN, KAREL, BOB BECKING, PIETER W. VAN DER HORST (eds.). e
Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Leiden, Boston: Brill,
1999.
WEEKS, ANDREW. ‘Deutsche Mystik und mystisches Deutschtum,’ in
Mediaevistik 28, 2015, 217–231.
WEGENER, LYDIA. Der ‘Frankfurter’/‘eologia deutsch’: Spielräume und
Grenzen des Sagbaren. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016.
WELLHAUSEN, JULIUS. Reste arabischen Heidentums. Berlin: Georg Reimer
Verlag 1897.
WINKWORTH, SUSANNA (trans.). eologia germanica which setteth forth many
fair lineaments of divine truth, and saith very lofty and lovely things touching
a perfect life. Boston: J.P. Jewett & Co., 1860.
ZAMBELLI, PAOLA. White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance.
Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007.
ZECHERLE, ANDREAS. ‘Die “eologia Deutsch” Ein spätmittelalterlicher
mystischer Traktat,’ in Gottes Nähe unmittelbar erfahren: Mystik im
Mittelalter und bei Martin Luther, edited by Berndt Hamm, Volker
Leppin & Heidrun Munzert. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007, 1–96.
ZEDLER, JOHANN HEINRICH. Grosses Vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller
Wissenschaft und Künste. 64 vols., 1731–1754, https://www.zedler-
lexikon.de
ZELLER, WINFRIED. Deutsche Mystik. Aus den Schriften von Heinrich Seuse und
Johannes Tauler. Düsseldorf: Diederichs, 1967.
 Index

A
Abgrund ref1, ref2, ref3
Abulafia, Abraham ref1
Abyss ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11
Acedia ref1
Adam ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9
Adonay ref1, ref2
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius ref1, ref2, ref3
De occulta philosophia ref1, ref2, ref3
Alchemy ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Anthony the Great (St Anthony) ref1, ref2, ref3
Antidotum Mithridaticum ref1. See Methridatum
Apatheia ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Apotheosis ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Arbatel ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15
Aristotle ref1, ref2
On Philosophy ref1
Asceticism ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6
Assiah ref1
Astronomia Olympi novi ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7
Athanasius of Alexandria ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
On the Incarnation of the Word ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Atziluth ref1, ref2
 B
Bell ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15,
ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23, ref24, ref25, ref26, ref27,
ref28, ref29, ref30, ref31, ref32, ref33, ref34, ref35, ref36, ref37, ref38
Beri’ah ref1, ref2
Black Death ref1, ref2
Boehme, Jakob ref1, ref2
Book of the 24 Philosophers ref1
Buber, Martin ref1, ref2
Byzantium ref1, ref2, ref3

C
Cassian, John ref1
Catholic Church ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13,
ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23
Celsus ref1, ref2, ref3
Chaldean Oracles ref1
Christ ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14,
ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23, ref24, ref25, ref26,
ref27, ref28, ref29, ref30, ref31
Church Fathers ref1, ref2, ref3
Clemens of Alexandria ref1
Crusades ref1, ref2

D
Daimon ref1, ref2
Dee, John ref1
Deification ref1, ref2
Deschner, Karlheinz ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7
Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums ref1
Desert Fathers ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13,
ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18
Devil ref1
Dinzelbacher, Peter ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Divine Distinction ref1
Divine Union ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Dominican order ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Dorotheus of Sidon ref1
Dossi, Ugo ref1, ref2

E
Egyptian bounds ref1, ref2
En Sof ref1, ref2, ref3
Evagrius Ponticus ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
Gnostikos ref1
On Prayer ref1
Praktikos ref1

F
Franciscan order ref1

G
Gikatilla, Joseph ref1, ref2
Sha’are Orah (Gates of Light) ref1, ref2, ref3
Gilly, Carlos ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Giordano Bruno ref1
Goēs ref1, ref2
Gospel of Matthew ref1, ref2
Gospel of omas ref1, ref2
Granum Sinapis ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10
Great Famine ref1
Greek magical papyri ref1, ref2, ref3
Gregory of Nazianus ref1
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm ref1
Grund ref1, ref2, ref3

H
Haslmayr, Adam ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Hellboy ref1, ref2, ref3
Hermes Trismegistus ref1
Hesychasm ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10
Hildegard of Bingen ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7
Liber Scivias ref1, ref2
Liber vitae meritorum ref1, ref2, ref3
Holy Roman Empire ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Homooúsion ref1
Huser, Johann ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

I
Iamblichus ref1
De mysteriis ref1
Ignatius of Loyola ref1, ref2
Inquisition ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

J
Jesus Prayer ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8

K
Kabbalah ref1, ref2
Kenites ref1, ref2
Kiesewetter, Karl ref1, ref2

M
McLean, Adam ref1
Meister Eckhart ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10
Merkabah mysticism ref1, ref2, ref3
Mesopotamian magic ref1
Methridatum ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Mignola, Mike ref1, ref2, ref3
Mithridate ref1, ref2. See Antidotum Mithridaticum
Mohlomi, Morena ref1, ref2, ref3
Monad ref1
Morsius, Joachim ref1
Nuncius Olympianus ref1

N
Neoplatonism ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6
Nicholas of Cusa ref1, ref2
Norton, Samuel ref1
e Key of Alchemy ref1

O
Olympic spirits ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13,
ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18
Origen ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
On First Principles ref1, ref2
Orthodox Church ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

P
Papal Schism ref1
Paracelsus (Philippus Aureolus eophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim) ref1, ref2, ref3,
ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17,
ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23, ref24, ref25, ref26, ref27, ref28, ref29,
ref30, ref31, ref32, ref33, ref34, ref35, ref36, ref37, ref38, ref39, ref40, ref41,
ref42, ref43, ref44
Arcanum arcanorum ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12,
ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20
Archidoxis magica ref1, ref2, ref3
Astronomia magna ref1, ref2
De causis morborum invisibilium ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Hermetic Astronomy ref1
Philosophia sagax ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13,
ref14
Pelagius ref1
Perls, Fritz ref1
Peterson, Joseph H. ref1
Picatrix ref1
Pliny ref1
Protestantism ref1, ref2, ref3
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10,
ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20
Mystical eology ref1, ref2
On the Divine Names ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
Pseudo-Paracelsus ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

R
Reuchlin, Johann ref1
Ricius, Paul ref1
Rosicrucian ref1, ref2
Rudolf II ref1, ref2, ref3

S
Satan ref1, ref2, ref3
Scheible, Johann ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Das Kloster ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Schwitters, Kurt ref1
Seelengrund ref1
Sondersein ref1, ref2, ref3
Spare, Austin Osman ref1
Spunda, Franz ref1, ref2
Suso, Henry ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Symeon the New eologian ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
Hymns ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Hymn 7 ref1
Hymn 15 ref1, ref2
Hymn 20 ref1
Hymn 21 ref1, ref2
Hymn 22 ref1
Hymn 27 ref1
Hymn 36 ref1

T
Tauler, Johannes ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Tetragrammaton ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
eologia Germanica ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12,
ref13
eosis ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7
eurgy ref1, ref2, ref3
Tree of Life ref1, ref2
Trithemius, Johannes ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
De septem secundeis ref1
Steganographia ref1, ref2

Y
Yahweh ref1
Yetzirah ref1, ref2