- Joined
- Apr 12, 2021
- Messages
- 2,244
- Reaction score
- 22,395
- Awards
- 20
Copyright 2020 © Josephine McCarthy
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise) without prior permission of the copyright owner and the
publisher of this book.
Originally published in three volumes by Mandrake of Oxford: Magical Knowledge
Book II: The Initiate (2011) Magical Knowledge Book I: Foundations/ The Lone
Practitioner (2012) Magical Knowledge Book III: Contacts of the Adepts (2012)
Second editions originally published in three volumes by TaDehent Books: Magical
Knowledge Book One: Foundations: The Lone Practitioner (2020) Magical
Knowledge Book Two: The Initiate (2020) Magical Knowledge Book Three:
Contacts of the Adepts (2020)
Published as a single volume by TaDehent Books 2020, Exeter UK
ISBN 978-1-911134-55-8
ISBN 978-1-911134-59-6 (e-book)
Introduction
The work of the lone practitioner is very hard but extremely
rewarding, and it really and truly puts you on the path of powerful
magic. Nothing is done for you, you are not babysat through your
training, and your path of work is something that comes from your
choice alone, not the dictates of a group. It also allows a magician to
forge his or her own path in a direction that is perfect for them.
In truth, the life of a magician tends to be a mixture of group and
lone practice. Sometimes groups are put in our path for a length of
time for us to learn something, and other times groups and teachers
evade us so we are thrown back on our own resources and initiative.
Magic, like life, does not start and end in a group: we are born alone,
and we die alone. We walk the path through life and magic with
people around us, sometimes very close to us, but ultimately our
development and practice is within ourselves.
The first and last rule of magical development, for both beginner
and experienced practitioner, is discernment. That word should be
tattooed on everyone’s forehead so that it is the first thing you read
each morning when you look in the mirror. As we grow into
adulthood and maturity, we learn how to spot the con artist, the
possible dangers in life, the good things, the bad things, and the just
plain stupid things. We learn as children not to talk to strangers, not
to stick our fingers in electrical sockets or touch live wires; we learn
to be careful near cliffs, near bears, and not to poke rattlesnakes. So
why the hell don’t we carry that lesson of maturity into magic?
Some people approach magic with all the wisdom and foresight
of a curious three year old. And as a result of that quaint naivety,
they end up drained, depressed, and parasited. On the other hand, if
you approach magic with extreme cynicism and over caution, you
will never get anywhere. There needs to be a balance between
caution, curiosity, an open and exploratory mind, and a good inner
alarm system. A good bullshit meter will also shave years off your
search for learning. There is a tremendous amount of bullshit out
there, and keeping an awareness of that fact will be very helpful.
There are also wonderful things out there, excellent books, great
teachers, and amazing experiences waiting to be had.
At the end of the day, your magical path is what you make it.
What path you forge through magic is based upon your decisions
and actions, not what system it is that you follow. I hope that in some
small way you find this book helpful. I am sure you will find things in
it that you do not agree with, which I think is healthy. I just hope that
you also find things in this book that are helpful to you, or which at
least will challenge your thinking or make you look at your own
practice through different eyes.
Magic is the most beautiful path to tread. It can be rewarding,
terrifying, challenging, and fascinating. Magic has been a part of my
life since I was very young, and I can say that it has enriched my life
to a level that is almost indescribable. I cannot imagine a life without
magic. The path was, and still is, tough. It has mainly been walked
alone, with the odd eccentric teacher thrown in my path when I
needed them, and it has challenged my courage, strength, and
values to levels that almost broke me at times. I think it has made
me a better person, and it most certainly made me feel whole: it has
been like coming home. Magic is my life.
All I have to say is wow, what an amazing, and just utterly comprehensive book. Truly.Contents
I Foundations
Introduction
1 The world of magic and magical training
1.1 Things to consider
1.2 Magical systems old and new
1.3 Duality and ethics in magic
1.4 Approach to training: selfish versus non
selfish
1.5 So why do we do magic?
1.6 Personal development
2 The pitfalls and traps of magic
2.1 Oath taking
2.2 The tying-in of energy
2.3 Blockage of knowledge
2.4 Past lives and genetic threads
2.5 Candy shop magic
2.6 Glamour, control, and ego
3 Power and magic
3.1 Boundaries
3.2 Working with power
3.3 Loss of ego
3.4 Power drunkenness
3.5 The power dynamics of ritual and vision
3.6 Using inner power
3.7 Outer power: ritual
3.8 High ritual
3.9 Visionary action
3.10 Inner worlds and actions: cause and
effect
3.11 Justice, balance, and karma
4 Inner contacts and inner beings
4.1 Human inner contact: dead or alive?
4.2 Living contacts
4.3 The roles of destroying deities and
demonic powers
4.4 What we can do
4.5 Thought forms and passive enlivening
4.6 Golems
4.7 Passive enlivening
5 Visionary magic
5.1 The first step of visionary work.
5.2 Tips and things to think about
5.3 The Void
5.4 Vision of the Void
5.5 The next step: discovery of the world
5.6 What are boundaries?
5.7 Practical methods for foundation
training
5.8 Practical visions and background
information
5.9 The Vision of the Inner Land
5.10 The Goddess in the Underworld
6 Ritual Magic
6.1 Group rituals
6.2 The lone ritual
6.3 Altars
6.4 Implements
6.5 Ways of working with the implements
6.6 The sword
6.7 The wand
6.8 The cup
6.9 The shield
6.10 The basic tuning of ritual tools
6.11 Basic consecration method
6.12 Developing your relationships with your
ritual tools
6.13 Basic ritual patterns and exercises
6.14 Opening and closing directions and
working spaces
6.15 Creating a directional space
6.16 Establishing the gates and tools
6.17 The Pentagram as the magical human
pattern
6.18 The ritual of building the Hexagram
6.19 Hexagram ritual
6.20 Bringing in inner contacts to the
directions
6.21 Triggering the gates and the contact of
the east
6.22 Contacts in the south
6.23 Contacts in the west
6.24 Contacts in the north
6.25 Inner contacts and their issues
6.26 Establishing power flows across the
directions
6.27 Moving energy from one inner direction
to another
6.28 Moving energy from an inner direction
to an outer object
6.29 The web of power
6.30 Designing a ritual
6.31 Designing a lone ritual
6.32 Constructing a lone ritual using inner
contacts
7 Developing Tarot skills
7.1 A reading
7.2 Shuffling
7.3 Layouts
7.4 The Tree of Life layout
7.5 The Landscape Layout
7.6 Tarot Taboos
7.7 Keeping yourself and the deck clean
7.8 A method for cleaning a Tarot deck
7.9 Cleaning yourself
7.10 Tasks for getting good at Tarot
7.11 Magical dynamics of Tarot, both good
and bad
7.12 Cards as doorways
7.13 Narrowing fate
7.14 Responsibility
8 Summary
8.1 Prejudice
8.2 Discernment
8.3 Glamour
8.4 Self-responsibility
II The Initiate
Introduction
9 Accessing the Inner Worlds
9.1 Accessing beings: making a contact
9.2 Human inner contacts
10 Practical methods for working with angelic beings
10.1 So how and why do we work with them?
11 Working with deities: pitfalls and approaches
11.1 Forms of deity
11.2 Working with the deity
12 Working with ancestors
12.1 Time jumping
12.2 Family ancestors
12.3 The ancestral vision
12.4 The family
12.5 Guarding the children
12.6 Tribal ancestors
12.7 Cultural ancestors
12.8 The vision of Tin Hinan
12.9 Practical use of ancestral work
12.10 Time and intention
12.11 Interactions with ancestors
12.12 Vision of meeting the ancestors
12.13 Dynamics
13 Accessing and working within the Faery Realm
13.1 Short vision for accessing the Faery
Realm
13.2 Longer vision of the Faery Realm
13.3 Work
13.4 My own discovery of faeries
13.5 Magic, faeries and sex
14 Polarization: magical dynamics and partnerships
14.1 Polarity within magical partnerships
15 The physical implications of practising magic
15.1 Treating impacts
15.2 Working with balance
15.3 Food
15.4 Practicalities while working
15.5 The effects of inner contact on the
endocrine system
15.6 The future
16 Inner landscapes of the people and the land
16.1 Energetic load-sharing: a short look
17 Magical protection: working methods
17.1 So when do you use banishing and
talismans?
17.2 House protection
18 Sigils and seals
18.1 Angelic and demonic sigils
18.2 Deity sigils
18.3 Magical seals
18.4 Platonic solids and geometric shapes
18.5 Mandalas
19 Inner world parasites
19.1 Dealing with and removing parasites
19.2 Emotional parasites
19.3 Sexual parasites
19.4 Magical parasites
19.5 Parasites of the dying
19.6 Minor parasites
19.7 Removing parasites: practical
application
19.8 Summary
20 Removing ghosts and other unwelcome guests
20.1 Types of hauntings
20.2 Land-based entities
20.3 Possession of a house by demonic
forces
20.4 Possession from an object
21 How to deal with simple magical/psychic attacks
22 Dismantling Hermetic or Kabbalistic curses
22.1 What is a Hermetic/Kabbalistic curse?
22.2 How do curses affect the victim?
22.3 So what about protection?
22.4 Dismantling the curse: working methods
22.5 What do they look like on the inner?
22.6 How are curses taken off?
22.7 What is the cleanup procedure?
23 Short tour of the Tree of Life without Kabbalah
23.1 So what actually is the Tree of Life?
24 The Structure of the Abyss without Kabbalah
25 The eighteenth-century pattern of initiation in Britain
25.1 The Walk of Initiation at Stourhead,
Wiltshire
25.2 The Stourhead initiation
26 Working with Sleepers
26.1 So what are sleepers?
26.2 Are the sleepers still active?
26.3 Communing with sleepers
26.4 Vision for contacting a sleeper
26.5 The future
26.6 Bridging
27 Death and Birth
27.1 Death
27.2 So what happens when a person dies?
27.3 The death vision in detail
27.4 The Bridge
27.5 The Plains
27.6 The Mountain
27.7 The awakening into rebirth
27.8 Practical working methods
27.9 Physical practicalities
27.10 Birth
28 Using tarot as a working tool
28.1 Layouts
28.2 The use of tarot in healing
28.3 The health layout
28.4 Making a contacted deck for magical
seership
28.5 Minor layouts
28.6 Creating your major cards
29 Working methods for leading group visions/workings
29.1 Contacts
29.2 Energy dynamics
29.3 Reality or imagination?
29.4 Snatched energy
29.5 Different strains for different places
29.6 Picking up maps from written visions
29.7 Clearing up
29.8 Creating a vision from a personal
experience
29.9 The vision of the goddess Tefnut in
Ethiopia
29.10 The vision of Metatron and the Abyss
29.11 Vision of the elders
30 The inner aspects of consecration
30.1 Born or touched
30.2 Pros and cons
30.3 Physical and magical effects
30.4 Training versus nature
30.5 Lines
30.6 What is the future for such
consecrations?
31 Afterword
III The Adept
Introduction
32 Methods of working with temples and deities
32.1 Deities: working practice and power
dynamics
32.2 Working with Deities in the Temple
Environment
32.3 Finding the Doorway
32.4 Creating a window for the deity
32.5 Work on site or move the site? How to
move a Temple
32.6 Deity versus Divinity in a magical
temple space
32.7 Visionary ritual action
32.8 Visionary movement
32.9 Summary
33 The magic of the fire/volcanic temple
33.1 The use of volcanic magic
33.2 The path to working with volcanic/fire
power
33.3 Visions of the volcanic temples
33.4 Going into the city beneath the waves
33.5 The cave in the centre of the world that
links all volcanoes
33.6 The vision of the cave
33.7 The contact of the sword maker
33.8 The work with swords
33.9 The vision of the sword maker
34 The power and magic of utterance, sound and sigil
34.1 Vision: the mediation of sound at the
edge of the Abyss
34.2 Utterance in the temple
34.3 The vision of utterance in the temple
34.4 The vision for the creation of magical
sigils
34.5 Working with the sacred sigils and
alphabet
34.6 Sacred alphabet
35 The magical dynamics of fate
35.1 Vision of the conception of a soul out in
the stars
35.2 Chess and the Inner Temple
35.3 The board game
35.4 Summary
36 How to work with angels
36.1 Bound angels
36.2 Religious angels
36.3 The consecration of the cathedral
36.4 Religious angels of recitation
36.5 The vision of recitation
36.6 Human angels
36.7 Sandalphon/Synadalphos (“colleague”)
36.8 Vision of the Companion
36.9 Metatron
36.10 The vision of Metatron and the Abyss
36.11 Natural angels
36.12 The vision of the Metatron Cube
36.13 The Archon and the Aeon
36.14 Working advice
36.15 Vision of the pattern of death
37 Practical methods for creating ritual tools
37.1 Consecration of tools in the deepest
part of the temple
37.2 Consecration ritual/vision for a
consecrated Sword of Justice
37.3 Ritually enlivening the scabbard
37.4 Placing a being within the sword
37.5 Bridging a being into a tool
37.6 Awakening Divinity in substance
37.7 Summary
38 The magic of the Underworld
38.1 Vision of the Goddess in the Cave and
in the Abyss
38.2 The Sisters at the back of the North
Wind
38.3 Vision of the Sisters at the back of the
North Wind
38.4 Origins of humanity in the Abyss
38.5 Methods of descent
39 Functioning as an adept
39.1 Service
39.2 Practicalities of living as an adept
39.3 Working within a tradition
39.4 The future: passing on the teaching
IV Appendices
A The consecration of salt and water
B A recitation for a basic exorcism
C Making a Specific Talisman
D What does magic do?
D.1 The complex web of fate and time
D.2 Magic and fate in action
D.3 Magical consequences: an example of
magic in action
D.4 A checklist of advice for beginners
D.5 Some things to think about
E The magical understanding of good and evil
F The directions in Western magic
F.1 Background
F.2 The magical directions
F.3 The current magical use of the
directions
F.4 Nineteenth-century Europe
F.5 The sixteenth century
F.6 The modern structural approach
F.7 Dynastic Egypt
F.8 Right hand path, left hand path
G The Book of Death
H Advanced Decoys
H.1 Personal decoys
H.2 False doors
H.3 Time decoys
H.4 Oppositions
H.5 Copper as deflection
I The prehistory of magical development
I.1 Magic and its forms
I.2 The series of unfortunate events
I.3 People and responses
I.4 Early ritual solar circles
I.5 Chambered tombs in Northern Europe
This book is from 2020, so it's new, and I'd been drooling over it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good quality direct PDF download.
So I bought it myself. And painstakingly converted it to PDF myself. It was very difficult.
A Plea
This is really a great book. The author, Josephine McCarthy has put a lot of hard work into this. So as fellow occultists, let's please support her. If you are able to, please buy her book, it is extremely affordable.Find it:
Download
Last edited:
she could be the female Jake Stratton-Kent lol! I want her new Tarot book.
