A primer on magickal history

A primer on magickal history

 

This will not be comprehensive or exhaustive. This is meant to be a quick primer on the history of magick and metaphysics. Due to the intent of keeping it as short as I comfortably can there will be “mistakes” and “errors” due to generalizing. Please take this for what it is, a spring board for your own exploration of the history of magick.

 

To start with, magick cannot be separated from the religious paradigm of the time.
Please excuse the fact that this is focused on Western magickal and metaphysical traditions, especially in Europe and North America. Similar processes happened (or would in the process of happening if not for Europeans invading) elsewhere. Any broader focus and this would quickly turn into a small book.

 

Animism/Shamanism

 

Animism is the oldest known “religion”. There is no organization. It developed in every part of the world. It is based on the belief that all things have a spirit. Each tree, rock, river, animal, and so on. Shamanism is a borrowed word which refers to anyone who practices any of the traditions of contacting the spirit world directly through whatever means. Shamanism is the practice that all magick and spiritual traditions grew from. For those who lived in animisitc/shamanic cultures, the culture was the religion and both were interwoven with a strong thread of magick. The sacred and the mundane were one in the same.

Animism allows for one to understand and potentially work with the local spirits. Some of these spirits, such as those for rain or thunderstorms, or the sun, or an area were noted to be more powerful or at least more influential on human survival. These were often elevated to positions of importance.

Polytheism

 

Polytheism is born from ancestor worship. If objects and animals have a spirit, then so must people. It is believed this spirit lives on after death, and that the spirit of these people, like their natural counterparts, could have influence on human affairs. Over time these individuals were associated with certain powers and attributes, often combining with or replacing the local spirits from animism. 

 

More people in a group would then come to work with, worship, and rely on these spirits. They were gradually elevated from spirits to deities. Mystery traditions and elaborate religious practices were developed around them. The shaman was replaced with a priest who could communicate with these developed spirits or gods. Eventually belief in these would either die out or spread. 

Monotheism

 

Humanity has had several attempts at deciding on a singular god to be the God of all things. These Gods were chosen from the pantheons of a people. Typically one person would decide that one god was actually God and that all the other gods and spirits were either aspects of that God or lesser divine beings. The Abrahamic religions are probably the most familiar to most readers. With the various names of God having actually been different gods from Hebrew polytheism.

 

Post religious

 

Atheism has always been a thing. The lack of belief in any god. From this point one has the ability to either believe in no gods at all or, if willing, to move between gods as desired.

 

If one moves beyond Atheism, and takes a more anamistic approach, one can see how all gods are just emanations of light from the One source of all things. Just as the sunlight shines through a stained glass window, so too does the light (or power) of the One shine through the various gods and other divine or spiritual beings. From here one can work with any gods as desired, or no gods at all. However, just as staring directly at the sun is painful for your eyes, perceiving and working directly with the One can be difficult. Having other beings to filter and direct that power makes sense from a practical standpoint. Post religious magick doesn't require one to become too attached to a specific deity or pantheon! 

Types of magick

 

There are many books written on this topic. Again, this is just a primer. 

 

I like to break it down into two broad categories first. Sleight of mind and Probability engineering.

 

Sleight of mind is a phrase borrowed from stage magic (sleight of hand) by Chaos magicians. It denotes using certain methods to trick your mind into manifesting your desire. 

 

Probability engineering is working to manipulate the chance of something happening.

 

There is overlap between the two naturally.

 

In addition to these people often like to add working with spirits and working with energy. I see working with spirits as an extension of Sleight of Mind. To me, a spirit of any kind is just an extension of yourself. Where energy work is just an extension of probability engineering that uses visualization to perform Sleight of Mind. Here is where we get muddled. Sleight of Mind allows your conscious mind to work more directly with your subconscious mind. Which then selects for your desired outcome by influencing you, your behavior, and other factors. Essentially becoming Probability Engineering, in a less direct way.

 

Placing magick in categories is hard!

Beyond this there are other ways of categorizing magick. It could be spells and divination. Sorcery, astral, or ritual magick. High vs low magick. The list goes on.

Finally into the history

 

Now that you have a little background, let’s get into it.

 

Magickal practices have been part of the human experience since before recorded history. Many superstitions are based on older magickal practices. Such as those around salt or mirrors. Both traditionally used in magickal rituals. Many of these practices have found their way into religious beliefs and practices. Many magickal practices are based on religious beliefs and practices.

 

Tribal

This is where humanity started. Cooperation of small related groups for survival. The world was (and still is) dangerous. Early humans didn’t have science to explain why it rained or to know that an infected wound needs antibiotics. By some accounts we projected awareness onto natural phenomena, objects, plants, and animals. By my belief, and those who follow animism humans discovered that everything has a spirit of some sort. Though not all spirits are the same. We felt the lifeforce in the river. The power in a mountain. The aggression of the thunderstorm. The rage of the forest fire. We asked for help from local spirits in hunting and eventually agriculture.

Most importantly to this discussion, this is where the shaman first appeared. Shaman is a borrowed word which is generally used on the global stage to denote a person who interacts with the unseen or spiritual world which exists both superimposed on ours and separate to it. In reality this “spirit world” is intertwined with our own. Your ethereal body is part of this. Auras and such are related to this. A shaman, medicine wo/man, or whatever other name you want to call them, worked with the natural forces. They understood and built relationships with local spirits. They developed relationships with their own helper spirits. They provided guidance to the tribe. They provided medical care with herbs and treatments. Some based on addressing physical ailments directly. Others taking a placebo or energetic approach.

One important thing to understand about animism/shamanism is that religion, culture, and magick were all intertwined and inseparable. As I said above, the sacred and mundane were one in the same. The culture was the religion. And the religion and culture were imbued with magickal practices.

Most importantly to this discussion, shamans functioned as both priest and magician to the tribe. Eventually tribes started banning together and some of the information the shaman had collected was compiled, forming religions.

 

Religious

At various points in history, different local and regional practices began to become shared and somewhat standardized. These would eventually form into local religions. Local religions grew into regional and eventually world wide religions such as we see today.

 

Local spirits and ancestors that were worshiped through generations began to take on more and more attributes. More and more psychic/belief power was dumped into them, creating more potent egregore (non-corporeal entities composed of the thoughts and beliefs of a group of people). These were elevated to become the first gods. Various cults and religious orders were formed around these cults (as in a small group of devoted worshipers, not a small group of people with unhealthy devotion to a single person). However, they remained heavily location based for a long time. A group would build and dedicate a space to the worship of these gods. Typically a space would only be used for a single god or at most a handful. Eventually temples were built. As time progressed and the religions and cults around these gods grew, they began to spread.

Religions started to compete to some degree. Older religions were replaced with the religions of the conquering people. Originally, what would often happen is the religion of the conquering people would be slapped on top of the established one. My favorite example of this happening is with the Norse traditions. The myths reflect this well. Originally there were Jotunn (giants). These were primordial beings present at the creation of the universe. The Jotunn were  replaced in worship by the Vanir, agricultural and fertility deities. The Jotunn stage represents when the people were hunters and gatherers. Their shaman protecting them from and working with the primal forces of nature.

 

The introduction of agriculture and settled communities brought about or came with the introduction of new gods. The Vanir. The Vanir were still nature deities to be sure, but a more tame, more controlled nature. Their powers were those needed to farm crops and animals.

The Aesir came later. The primary power of the Aesir was war. They came in to dominate the Vanir and kill the unruly Jotunn. Naturally, this was not 100% and aspects of the Jotunn were brought forward into the myths of the Aesir. Some of the Vanir even held positions side by side with the new Aesir. Thor, the most popular of the Aesir had traits from and the usefulness of all three categories. When Christianity first infiltrated the Norse cultures, it too was added on top. Myths were painted with a Christian veneer or even mixed with Christian ones. The recorded legends were, after all, written down by Christians.

Anyway, to keep this brief, eventually monotheism developed. Around 4,000-5,000 years ago. This was a natural progression as polythestic groups focused more on individual deities and eventually individual deities won out over their contemporaries. Monotheism sprung up at various times throughout Egypt, the Middle East, and other places around the world. Eventually a few branches of monotheism would rise to dominate the religious scene. The Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), Buddhism (though techincally there is no deity in Buddhism, many practice it with Buddha as a god), and Hinduism. Now I know what you are thinking “Rabble Rabble! Hinduism is polytheistic. Well yes, but actually no. If you discuss this with anyone who knows Hinduism well you will find that the various deities are just manifestations of their one God. Such as how the Abrahamic faiths have angles and such. Or Buddhism and bodhisattvas.

As you can see, there is a theme. One singular all encompassing God requires “lesser” manifestations or projections for us to relate to and interact with. Polytheism is alive and well under a thin veil of monotheism. In the Abrahamic faiths, the traditional names of God were based on the names given to various Hebrew gods when the Hebrew people were polytheistic. 

 

This brings me to the magick. In the tribal stage of our development, the shaman was the primary user of magick, though anyone could and typically did learn some. There were often cultural and familial practices. Monotheism brought the creation of the priestly class. They were often the bridge to God (in whatever form). The common person could petition God, or one of God’s emissaries (the above emmanations and manifestations), for help. But the priestly class would much prefer it if you would come to them. People’s desire for being able to act independently of the priests led to the preservation and development of folk magick as well as what would become the modern magician (magick user, not stage illusionist).

Magickal practices were based on either folk beliefs, religious beliefs, or a combination of the two. Entire complex systems were built over time on the framework of the religion it was built under. Though many of the older practices from the previous polytheisitic and shamanic/anamimistic ages were retained. Common people retained folk magick. People with the resources to pursue more complex studies and practices (priests and the wealthy or nobility in many cases) developed and studied more organized systems. For most of human history, literacy was a skill reserved for the elite. 

 

Fraternal Orders

It was from the more organized and developed systems that fraternal orders of magick were formed. The Golden Dawn being the most well known and documented. The process was similar regardless of the specifics of the order, so I’ll focus mostly on the GD (Golden Dawn). 

 

The GD was formed when a few people pooled their resources and knowledge to organize material for study and practice as well as establish a hierarchy for progress. I’d say the most important of these early figures was Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. In my opinion he was a genius. Responsible for much of what would go on to influence practitioners and orders after the GD. He was a member of the two most important pre-GD organizations, the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians. He took what he learned from these much older orders and built upon it to form the GD.

Through the GD a fairly comprehensive and to some extent, integrated, catalog of magickal documents and practices was amassed. With the exception of perhaps the Enochian material, which always seemed to me a seperate subsystem in the GD. There were other orders at the time trying to do the same thing. There have been many offshoots of the GD. But in my opinion, marked a major change from the religious based practices of the previous orders to a fully independent magickal practice. As such I see it as the pinnacle of that era. Yes, much of their work is drawn from Jewish and Christian influences. They also drew from Hindu and Egyptian. So regardless of your religion, you could practice their material.

Freemasonry, which was instrumental as a foundation of the GD goes back over a thousand years. While having pagan roots, being based on the pagan stone masons who built early Christian churches and cathedrals (look up pagan themes in European church carvings). In this spirit, freemasonry was primarily Christian but drawing on older themes and practices.

Getting to the point, the GD course work would become the foundation and gold standard for magical training for many years to come. Their framework would be the basis of more modern organizations, such as the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT). 

 

The modern era

The Golden Dawn was founded in 1887 and marked the culmination of the fraternal order era. Then came the first World War (1914-18). Spiritualism was on the rise. With the death toll of WWI people became very interested in the ability to talk to the loved ones they lost in the war. So there was an explosion of Spiritualism in the West. This led to a handful of talented people working to help others and a much, much larger group of frauds looking to take advantage of people’s emotional vulnerability. In response, Harry Houdini worked through the 1920’s to debunk fraudulent psychics and spiritualists. While there has always been an element of fraud in this area, this time brought about the development of the modern professional psychic scam artists. Not to digress too much, but professional psychics make their living performing. As such cold readings are vital to their income. It’s impossible to be on psychically all the time. Genuine psychic experiences come to us. We can’t force them to happen on demand. We can only ask for them when needed. The mark of a true psychic is that on occasion they will not be able to perform, they will not lead their client to answer their own questions and pretend to provide the answer. Some professional psychics went as far as to take advantage of people’s grief for profit. They give all of us true seekers a bad name.

 

Anyway, the first half of the 1900’s brought about many social, political, technological, religious, and spiritual changes. As people of this time got older they began to push back against these changes becoming more conservative. It is from the tension between this conservative culture and those looking for transformation that the modern era of magick is born. 

 

Personally I would draw the fuzzy line of the modern era in the 1950’s with the birth of modern Wicca and Gerald Gardner.  This was the culmination of Gardner’s life’s study. He had learned directly from multiple cultures and eventually found the Rosecrusians. There he met the people who would influence him to recreate Witchcraft, or Wicca, and spark off the Neopaganism movement. In all honesty, Doreen Valiente gave birth to what we would call Wicca today. Gardner caught the stream of change that was starting in the ‘50’s though. 

 

Wicca would help guide this change that manifested as increased interest in spiritual development away from the order and authoritarianism of organized religion. Christianity and conservatism were piggybacking on each other. In response, more open minded and progressive people began to look to the Eastern and Western wisdom traditions to find their own way outside of the stuffy and repressive mainstream religions of the 1950’s and ‘60’s. The Hippy movement was born and Wicca and other non-mainstream spiritualities were guiding this growth in consciousness. This sparked push back from the conservatives in the form of, among other things, book burnings. Though this seems to be largely scrubbed from history in the last couple of decades, there were several large and many, many smaller book burning through the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. This resulted in a loss of many of the older occult books that were available in the US. 

 

As we move into the 1970’s we see some major changes to the magick and spiritual scene. People were becoming more serious about their practices and more information began to become more available. This led to the creation of Chaos Magick and eventually the formation of the Illuminates of Thanateros by Peter J. Carroll. In part spurred on by controversial visionaries like Aliester Crowley and his extensive work, Carroll developed and authored books on Chaos Magick which would go on to break down magick into its nuts and bolts. Bringing many concepts which had their roots in ancient times to fruition.

During the ‘70’s and ‘80’s there was an explosion in books on the occult and alternative religions. This was driven by a hunger for a more personal, individualized spiritual development without the need of authoritarian hierarchy. Ironically, many of these organizations grew into smaller versions of the thing they were meant to be counterculture to.

I don’t know exactly when the Temple Circle of Light (the order these teachings are based on) was formed. I believe it was during this time. Though some accounts I’ve heard or found place it back either in the 40’s or 50’s, I don’t have much confidence in them. In any event, I believe the organization I learned from became active in the ‘80’s. Or at least the foundation of it was. By the 1990’s they were advertising in occult and metaphysical magazines as well as supply company catalogs. This is how I discovered them and ordered the full course in the late ‘90’s. Unfortunately the last contact I had with them was in the early 2000’s. The course’s materials and teachings drew upon much of the above (with the exception of Chaos Magick) compiling and synthesizing one of the largest and most complete collections of occult and metaphysical knowledge I’ve found to date.

 

Conclusion

The history of magick is as old as humanity itself. It is easily something you can spend your lifetime studying. Having a basic knowledge of it is important as you move forward with your training. It places things in context and gives you sources for what you are doing. I often find it helpful to look at older resources as the explanations were often different from more modern ones. To be honest, I quit reading books on the occult, magick, and such around 2005 because so much of the new material was just watered down and recycled versions of books I had already read. Today a new era of magick is forming. One where the quick bites of info and ritual can be shared in short videos. One where so much information, both good and bad quality, can be found in a matter of seconds. We all have apps on our phones to help with meditation (I use a customizable timer on mine). Gone are the days of having to have the wealth to afford and connections to obtain a hand copied grimoire. Gone are the days of having to search to find a group that, after a screening process, is willing to train you. Magick is very much alive and vast amounts of information is available at your fingertips. It’s my hope that resources like this website will serve to provide a solid foundation so that you can cull the good from the bad information and make use of whatever you find elsewhere that is useful to you.

Bright blessings and thank for reading,

Mystic Tekaa

June 2022.