Magick

Pathworking is a technique that uses imagination for magickal purposes; to gain insight, to change your physical reality, to heal yourself and deal with trauma, to meet spirits, etc. We don’t have proof if the technique of pathworking was practiced in ancient Hellas, but we can assume that Socrates when he describes the earth from the universe before he died, shouldn’t have been there with a rocket to the Moon. Platonic myths that we read in the books could be a product of Plato’s imagination to present his occult teachings to the public, but he could also give them pathworkings to work for and gain insight. Under that prizm, some of the Platonic myths and the Hellenic myths can be used for pathworking. How we do that? Firstly we need to know the myths and secondly the basics of pathworking.

I have written about the Lunar Light and the Lunar Mansions in the previous articles. I will present an example by examining the next Full Moon. We will see if it is appropriate for charging a pentagram with the energy of Hekate, to empower and guide us on daily interactions, taking decisions, making the right choice so that we can become better people and come close to Her. So, we will check if the next Full Moon is appropriate for that.

The mansions of the Moon appear around the 10th-century a.C. in the Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology, written by Abu’l-Rayhan Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Al-Biruni. At that time we also see them on Picatrix, the main source of Medieval and Renaissance Astrological Magic. This book was translated in Latin at the 13th-century a.C. In Picatrix, we see the use of the Mansions in the first book, which is based in Zodiologion of the Hindus and we also find them in the fourth book based in Pliny’s book Zodiologion. Pliny the Elder was a natural philosopher, who lived in the 1st-century A.C.We don’t have the text of Pliny, but we have Picatrix, which is a manual that combines teachings from different astrological magickal texts of antiquity. Picatrix’s lunar mansions were also used by Henry Cornelius Agrippa.

This is the first article on a series of Lunar Magick or Magick of the Moon. In Witchcraft, the energy of the moon is basically restricted in the lunar light aspect, but in the series, we are going to expand this very basic knowledge to other aspects too. As Hekate is the Goddess of the Moon and the Goddess of Magick, I think that all of Her devotees should know -if not practice, this type of magick, which is considered ancient and Hermetic.

Every magickal tradition has its own rituals and methods of raising, manipulating, grounding energy. The following is a basic structure of writing a ritual and it is inspired by the tradition of the Golden Dawn. A full set of instructions can be found in the book The Essential Golden Dawn, written by the Ciceros, published by Llewellyn in 2004

Cleansing bath

Take a bath before ritual and dress in the ritual robe or clothes. Fasting for 1-3 days before is also useful. No meat, no weird drinks, no tobacco, no coffee. If you can't fast, avoid milk and alcohol, eat less, and perform a banishing ritual to cleanse your aura.

Hermetic tradition is an oversimplified form of Platonism that was spread from Egypt during the Hellenistic Period. It was a mystery tradition for selected initiates, with books and papers circulating among the chosen-ones, but those days have passed since Hermetism evolves and changes, adopting the currents of its time. This characteristic will always keep this tradition alive.