Low Magick by Lon DuQuette (the reading strategies book TXT) 📕

99 You might think that this conversation sounds very New Agey and subjective, but let’s remember these two siblings grew up in an environment that allowed one to become a Roman Catholic nun and the other a New Age healing practitioner.

100 The Exorcist (see chap. 12, n. 4).

101 Highland Park Elementary School, Columbus, Nebraska. I remember Mr. Jacobs having long, curved fingernails as thick as an eagle’s talons.

102 Crowley, Book of the Goetia, 27–64.

103 Scrabble is made by the Hasbro company.

104 From Wikipedia: “Thelema is a philosophy or religion based on the dictum, ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law … Love is the law, love under will,’ as presented in Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law—Liber AL vel Legis. The word is the English transliteration of the Koine Greek noun : ‘will,’ from the verb : to will, wish, purpose.”

105 The Supernal Triad of the Tree of Life, Sephiroth 1, 2, and 3 (Kether, Chokmah, and Binah).

106 The seven Sephiroth below the Supernal Triad of the Tree of Life, Sephiroth 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 (Chesed, Geburah, Tiphareth, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Maluth).

107 In Hebrew, = 426 the same number as = “Savior” from Isaiah 45:15, “Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior.”

108 The magician consecrates each of his or her magical tools in separate ceremony that takes the object through a series of steps that largely mirror the landmarks of the ritual of initiation. The object is treated as the candidate. It is banished, purified, and charged with its specific duty; then anointed with the Holy Oil and dedicated exclusively for magical purposes. All the items I use to evoke spirits, no matter how simple or improvised they may be, have been so consecrated.

109 If by chance you have not read this chapter, please do so now.

110 Crowley, Book of the Goetia.

111 Tau Lamed (or T. LMD) is my ecclesiastical name and motto. The Hebrew letter , Lamed, is spelled , Lamed, Mem, Daleth (LMD), the initial letters of my name.

112 I did this in imitation of the lamb’s blood sprinkled on the doorposts to prevent the angel of death from visiting the Egyptian homes of the mythological Children of Israel.

113 I consider these the most powerful words of protection that can be uttered by a magician of my particular religion.

114 The Goetia—The Lesser Key of Solomon the King—Clavicula Salomonis Regis. Translated by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. Edited with an Introduction by Aleister Crowley. Illustrated second edition with foreword by Hymenaeus Beta (York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1996), 118.

EPILOGUE

It’s All In Your Head …

You Just Have No Idea

How Big Your Head Is

… come now, grant me an easy life for my song.

And still again may I pray to sing you a song.

Homer, Hymn to Demeter

It’s Christmas morning 2009—as good a time as any to finish a book. So far in this incarnation I’ve seen sixty-two Christmas mornings. I’m sure they are all worthy to be enshrined in my memory, but sadly, many are now unremembered or else lie buried deep beneath more recent and dramatic memories. Forgotten or not, Christmas has always been very magical for me. I guess it is for many people. Long after I rejected the Christian faith, I still held fast to the sacredness of Christmas. For me it is the celebration not of the stern and angry father-god, or the loving and nurturing mother-goddess, but of the child-god, crowned and conquering. I confess, even at my age, I feel like a child. That’s got to be a good thing in an Aeon when God is a Child.

And so, I’m always extra restless on Christmas morning—restless, like a child who doesn’t know which new toy to play with first. Restless to create something with my energy. One Christmas morning about thirty years ago, I got up early and melted a bagful of candle stubs into a round Christmas cookie tin. I munched cookies while I waited for the wax to cool in the refrigerator. Then I popped the thick wax disk out of the tin and set to work carving the intricate design of Dr. John Dee’s famous Sigillium Dei Aemeth. Constance made me do this messy, waxy work out on the cold back porch, but I didn’t care. It was my Christmas present to my child-self, and a very good present it has turned out to be. I immediately put it to work contacting angels and it has remained the centerpiece of my Enochian magical work these thirty-odd (very odd) years. Like a magick carpet, it has carried me around the world; it has been the inspiration for two books and countless classes, lectures, and workshops. Most importantly, it has helped me travel to other worlds, other dimensions—heavens.

Can I truthfully say (like the title of this chapter suggests) that all this magick, all these experiences have merely taken place “in my head”?

Yes. I am saying that. “It’s all in your head.” But please do not forget the second part of my outrageous statement, “ you just have no idea how big your head is!” As I observed earlier, mind and consciousness transcend the boundaries of the brain, transcend the boundaries of time and space. That’s how big my head is! Nothing can happen outside of it because there is no outside of it.

When I close my eyes, where are the sun and moon and planets and stars? Where are the Aethyrs and the Sephiroth, and the hierarchy of gods, archangels, angels, spirits and intelligences and demons? They are in my head—that’s where they live. That’s where they are real to me—and that’s where they live, that’s where they are real to me when I open my eyes also.

Am I suggesting that all of your magick—all of your experiences—all of