Meeting A Golden Dawn Alchemist

In honesty I had no reason to be there.

I was only a guest for the lecture and the dinner as informal as it was for members only.

An exception was made in no small part due to the gravity and standing of my friend in the group.

It was the first time I had met both a real alchemist and a continental adept. 

Questions on the lecture followed through dinner, but it was once the table was cleared that the conversations changed.

For my part I stayed quiet, even when there was a natural pause where I could have asked something. It was better to let the alchemist keep talking and sharing stories as his mind moved back to those times then for me to ask a question to sound clever.

Besides.

By what right did I have, even if I wasn’t a guest to ask anything oath bound?

I wasn’t his student. 

I wasn’t living in France.

I didn’t speak the language.

And I hadn’t done any apprenticeship with the return promise of nothing.

What I could learn beyond to intellectual presentation was how the man carried himself and his approach to this magic thing. 

The aspect I found the most fascinating and divergent was how a continental adept was different then an American adept. 

For them it appeared that magic was real and how it was presented on the box. It was not a psychological model, or one of elemental refinement and modern self-improvement.

It was magic and taken at a different level of seriousness. 

Golden Dawn Long Island New York

It was a perfect summer evening for a walk on the beach. 

Calm waves.

White sand.

A faint breeze to the air.

My best friend was back from the West Coast and just like that the years missing melted away.

Did I remember the adventures we used to have?

My friend had a way about him that had only sharpened him over the years where he could sell you on anything. 

A way to make the outrageous sound completely plausible. 

Was he about to pitch me something?

Could I believe in the possibility of magic?

I tried to keep my expression as neutral as possible, as I had not updated him on that part of my life.

When he was out on the West Coast his art pursuits put him across some interesting people, people that made introductions, introductions that pointed to a particular group.

Part of the group had moved back here to the Island with him, and now they were in the processes of setting up something here. 

Something I could be a part of.

Despite the mystery in his words, I was aware of more than I let on.

Think of it as a new adventure together, the both of us in the temple, and what we could become.

Everything was arranged, as he would be the one to sponsor me. 

All I had to do was step through the door. 

Getting Started With Ceremonial Magic

 I’m going to study magic.

Magic?

Magic.

This particular statement came as a feeling as I took a pause from studying to look out the window across campus.

The next question was where to even start.

I hadn’t planned to ask him, but at the end of our session when he left the door open for any other questions I asked him.

He was my academic advisor, a professor in the Philosophy department, and a Jesuit.

So I asked him.

What surprised me what that he didn’t miss a beat, and continued along as if I had asked him about something rather mundane.

Alchemy.

I was to start with alchemy, as it was the most recent expression of the art in the West, and from there work my way backwards across time until I arrived at Egypt.

Naturally, being a Jesuit, I was assigned a paper on alchemy to write.

First draft due in two weeks.

It wasn’t a question of being serious about the subject matter, but rather how to pursue it at an undergraduate level as no major was offered.

I’d have to adjust my course load and approach it as a dual major.

Classes in philosophy, mythology, theology, art history, and the ancient world.

Latin and Classic Greek also.

He could recommend the professors who would be understanding as to why I was taking the class.

That and additional papers for him to review over the coming semesters.

This foundation was also to stress a particular point.

I would not amount to anything getting lost in the maze of personal interpretation and self-cleverness. I had to be able to read certain texts and understand the world-view of the author and of magic at that point and time.

Otherwise it would only be an exercise in academics.

The Philosopher's Stone

There once was a magician, a Magister of the Light (MAGI) who was forced to flee a city in ruin as it collapsed all around him.  

Taking the Philosopher’s Stone with him, he planned to take it far away, somewhere out of the reach of society, to preserve it for those to come.  

In the chaos of that dark night, a fragment of it broke off and fell to the ground burying itself in the dirt of the ruins.  

Did the Magi notice?  

Regarding that we will never know.  

Sometime later a boy found the stone in the dirt, but did not know what to make of it. It was heavy like gold, yet ethereal at the same time. 

Bright red-orange in color, an immediate feeling of something special that could not be described in words.  

The boy put this curiosity on his bookshelf where it sat for many years. 

He knew the stone was special, but there was always other pressing matters that prevented its inquiry as life got in the way.  

When the boy was a young man he met an old man who was once full of life. He told the young man he was a magician, but was now bitter and disillusioned. 

The old man always thought there would be more time. 

For the first time in a long time the boy, now a young man, noticed the stone on his bookshelf.  

Time passed and the young man was now a man of a few years.  

“What am I to do with you?” he asked the stone.  

There was only one thing left to do.  

He swallowed the stone.

About Magic of the Temple Blog

Magic of the Temple is the blog of one located in Westchester New York who is exploring the Western Mystery Tradition as expressed through the Golden Dawn and its system of ceremonial magic.

This site exists as an artifact to meet new-old friends and those on a similar esoteric path and trajectory.

Questions, comments, feedback, flames, inquiries, and introductions may be made via email to:

magicofthetemple@gmail.com

Always Believe.