Introduction

I am very excited to have Oliver St John on the blog. He has been very generous in answering all of my questions in great depth – over 17,000 words! We cover a lot of ground in this post from Hermeticism, Magick, Yoga and more. If you enjoy and find the information here of interest then I highly recommend visiting his site, we would also love to hear from you in the comments.

Several works referenced in this interview are by Oliver St. John; a full list of his titles is available here.

Oliver St. John YouTube Channel.

Featured Image Credit.

Hermeticism

1. Early Influences and Golden Dawn Lineage: You are described as a third-generation initiate of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (via Aleister Crowley’s student Kenneth Grant). How did this lineage and your early training shape your understanding of Hermeticism and magick? In founding Ordo Astri, what traditional teachings did you carry forward, and in what ways did you feel the need to innovate or diverge from those older traditions?

Thank you for this very welcome opportunity to speak about my work with the Hermetic Order of the Star and Snake. Strictly speaking, Ordo Astri is the name of the publishing imprint and website. We can use the abbreviation Ordo Astri as it means we can use two words instead of seven.

The Golden Dawn was a powerful influence very early on. For a while I was, for better or worse, exclusively interested in studying and practicing that and all related material. So naturally there was a great deal of determination in seeking out those who had associations, however distant, with an Order that was established 1888 and was effectively finished a few years later, though many factions, whether loyal or dissident, continued over generations. I made a deep and prolonged study and practice of all publications, some of them private papers, and went thoroughly into the background, establishing personal contact with various Neo-Rosicrucians along the way—these people do not have websites by the way, so you won’t find them there. In spite of that personal contact, I still aspired to the almost mythological Golden Dawn ‘lineage’ and worked at it for a long time, inwardly and outwardly. I became a member of what was described as a third generational lineage, and which was via the Stella Matutina Golden Dawn. That had nothing to do with Crowley or Kenneth Grant so you see the sutratma thread of these things is more intricate than can easily be set down in writing.

The Golden Dawn is all about magick (or magic, however we spell it), and a very modern form of what is in reality a collection of traditional sciences. The Golden Dawn and all related is so much about magick that it has no spiritual root to cleave to, and that goes for all of occultism that followed in the wake of Eliphas Lévi, who coined the term ‘occultist’. Occultists after Lévi—and against everything he said—confuse the psychic domain with the spiritual and that means once we accept that line of thought it can take a lot of work to find our way out of the pit we have fallen into, if we ever do find our way out of it.

None of that about so-called lineage, especially when we are talking about occult organisations, has anything to do with initiation in the real sense. Occult scholars have much respect for ‘history’, with dates and names, to which they can attribute what they call ‘authenticity’—which means literally an original thing and not a copy. Initiation in the real sense, as with the special kind of knowledge that is or should be associated with it, can never be proven, any more than can the truth of scriptures or scriptural authority. Some further disclaimers:

A real tradition is of such vast antiquity that it cannot have a date put on it and it is certainly not the invention of any individual person. It does not have an author other than the Lord of the Universe. The Vedas, for example, are clear that tradition derives from a non-human source; it would be more accurate to say supra-human source. Tradition is cognate with initiation—the two words have identical meanings, ‘transmitted’. Therefore, the Golden Dawn, let alone the dissidents that followed in the wake, is in no way a ‘tradition’ in the real meaning of that word any more than Neo-paganism or what is popularly called ‘Witchcraft’. The Golden Dawn cannot truly be called a tradition as it only goes back to the late nineteenth century. In fact, to take this further, members of the Golden Dawn, and even more especially those who came later like Crowley and Kenneth Grant, were extremely anti-traditional and as a consequence anti-spiritual, or pseudo-spiritual at best. All modernism is anti-traditional and therefore if not anti-initiatic it is pseudo-initiatic. Grant was postmodern in his approach, which is about as anti-traditional as it can get! Still, as I indicated earlier, this kind of thing can give us something to work against.

In all this, an individual has no relevance in terms of tradition or so-called lineage unless as a ‘link in the chain’. Real initiation is a completely internal matter and will not be described. The sense I use this word ‘initiation’ is the same way that René Guénon used it, where it must be attached to knowledge of a metaphysical order. Having a piece of paper with someone’s signature and wax seal placed on it means absolutely nothing in spiritual terms. Doing some ritual with a group of persons who have a societal entitlement counts for nothing also. Occultism is a purely modern invention and as I said, started with Eliphas Lévi. He was more intelligent and had deeper insight than those who came after him, and that were influenced by spiritism even when, as with the Golden Dawn and offshoots, they pretended they were not and signed fearsome oaths and pledges to that effect! None of them kept their oaths. Sri Ramakrishna once said ‘In this Age of Kali Yuga it is very important that a man should keep his word’ (from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna recorded by ‘M’).

Let’s get back to the question: We are going back to early training, as experienced by this individual St. John here. Actually the earliest influence was from the French occultists, via Oswald Wirth and also the Tarot of Marseille. Wirth put forward a geometric schema for understanding the internal relations of the Tarot cards, and this ‘set me off’ as I had only at that time come across Pythagorean geometry in school, and no meaning was given to that; you just had to learn it. When it comes to how did the Golden Dawn (etc.) shape my understanding, it would be better to say ‘distort’ my understanding and obfuscate the whole matter. Everything I learned there had to be unlearned thoroughly at a later date. All ‘systems’ of magick tend to be syncretic and place a kind of false knowledge as a superimposition over the real knowledge of symbolism—which is always absent with occultists.

Much of modern magick rests on more or less arbitrary correspondences. This is much liked because it means ‘magicians’ can find easy applications for this by which they can increase their level of self delusion and even fool other people sometimes. I am not saying that none of that has any value at all. It introduced me to the Sepher Yetzirah, the writings of the sage Hermes Trismegistus, and much more besides including the fact that Egyptian gods or neteru are not something that only inhabit books, museums and tourist locations. My mind had come awake after what seemed like a long sleep through childhood and teens. However, the Golden Dawn and others that came after them pulled in diverse material from different traditions and rendered it in a syncretic way, that is, put together ‘from the outside’. What I always aimed at was synthesis, which is ‘from the inside’. That takes a lot of working at. It takes more than reading a few books, doing a ‘banishing ritual’ and learning tables of correspondences.

Finally, I will emphasise the point for those hard of hearing that there are no ‘traditional teachings’ in Golden Dawn related material. For quite some time we used a grade system very similar, based on the Tree of Life. That provided a structure, which is useful, and it lines up the work with a true symbol, that being the Tree of Life, something that does exist in various forms in most if not all real traditions. It might be useful to add here that ‘magicians’ have completely torn Hermetic Qabalah from its traditional roots. Recently I tried to set this to rights in a book called Thirty-two paths of Wisdom—Key to the Hermetic Qabalah.

I gained more of what might be called traditional teaching or ‘passed on’ knowledge from early mentors, directly. I had various initiations, in so far as these can be ‘events’, at least four that can be counted as definite markers. However, none of that owed to the Golden Dawn, Grant or Crowley, unless in very indirect ways. It would not be proper to try and describe the real initiations or name any persons involved publicly. Some people don’t like secrecy, in which case they should study René Guénon, The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, on ‘The Hatred of Secrecy’ and they might stand a chance of understanding what is really lurking behind the political ideology that they have accepted without even giving it a thought.

2. The Great Work and Spiritual Realisation: Ordo Astri emphasises that the goal of the Hermetic path is genuine spiritual realisation—the Great Work—rather than psychic development for its own sake. In your literature it’s stated that initial psychic or magical attainments are “subsidiary to the goal” and not to be mistaken for full initiation. Could you unpack this for us? What does spiritual realisation mean in practical terms, and how do you guide students to focus on that ultimate transformation beyond the individual self?

Yes I can unpack that. So far as anything pertaining to the psychic domain goes, I would go further and say, “nothing to do with initiation at all, except as a kind of tangential side effect in some cases.” When I say ‘Hermetic path’ I am not thinking of that in terms of any kind of modern magick. Occultists always confused ‘psychism’ with the spiritual, and still do to this day. Why do I put ‘psychism’ in scare quotes? Because in reality everyone that has a functional mind is psychic already:

Humans and animals dream when they go to sleep—according to some studies even ants dream—so psychism does not distinguish us from animals and insects. Do stones dream, I wonder? Do rivers and seas dream? That might seem silly to many persons but it can be found in the Hindu doctrines and it is more intelligent than thinking the universe started out of nothing, or a singularity, with a ‘big bang’. Anyone who dreams at night is ‘psychic’. Otherwise, the use of the imagination can play a large part. Almost anyone can imagine perfectly ordinary things. If we have an appointment that worries us we can imagine the whole journey, the reception, the meeting and outcome, before it even takes place. How easy it is then to imagine ‘high initiation’ and ‘Holy Guardian Angels’, things that help us feel important, special and different from other people!

The psyche is also a limited domain. Thanks to psychological theories it means generally the mind when that is taken to mean the content of mind, thoughts and feelings. But that is only a fractional part of even the mind, with its functions of memory, imagination, feelings and other attachments. The mind has no reality from its own ground; it is awareness that forms objects with borrowed light from what to most people is a completely unknown source but we can call it consciousness, which is not the mind or its thoughts. There is nothing spiritual about the mind, which is an adjunct to the ego (ahankara) or the (false) sense of being an individual, separate from all else.

Spiritual realisation and practice are also two completely different things. Practice can support realisation but must not be mistaken for that. So to the question, ‘what does spiritual realisation mean in practical terms’, it depends what level we are talking about. At the high level, spiritual realisation has nothing to do with the world of action (karma), cause and effect, so where does ‘practical’ come into that? Total realisation means liberation (moksha) so we never return to yet more birth into other states of being. There is no karma attached to that so no more consequences. It is very tidy! A partial realisation might imply birth in higher states than that of the human, but we need to be careful because we are nearing the end of the Age of Kali Yuga, a great Cosmic Cycle, which puts more of an edge on things like that. If we are going to speak about transmigration then we need to qualify that we are not talking about Theosophist reincarnationism. Transmigration is not the same thing. We do not return to the same state of being more than once so any notion of human beings born and then reborn later in ‘history’ is a totally false modern contrivance that came about through ignorance of the Hindu and other doctrines.

Any kind of spiritual realisation, if it really is that, involves pure knowledge and so cannot be described in discursive terms. This is completely apart from applications or uses for knowledge, which places us back in the realm of magick. The notion of ‘magical initiation’, by the way, is an absurdity for the same reason. It can only mean ‘fantasy initiation’, or at best, there was a term that Guénon used, ‘virtual initiation’. He was not referring to modern day computing because he wrote that long before the first of the infernal devices, he meant it in the ordinary sense of the word, ‘almost or nearly as described but not completely or according to strict definition’.

In rare cases, virtual initiation, as here described, can lead to effective initiation though. As an aside, in checking this with a standard dictionary, I came across a fifth level definition of ‘virtual’ from physics that is very interesting: ‘denoting particles or interactions with extremely short lifetimes and (owing to the uncertainty principle) indefinitely great energies, postulated as intermediates in some processes.’ That is worth thinking about, even though it is a characteristic of scientism to be incredibly vague.

“How do you guide students to focus on that ultimate transformation beyond the individual self?” cannot be answered because there is no ‘formula’ for that. It is different for each individual. If we are speaking about anything ‘ultimate’ then that cannot be taught as such. A teacher can only point things out to the student. In broad terms, though, we can apply to Raja Yoga. There needs to be a caveat about use of the word ‘transformation’. We have to think, ‘transform what?’ And if so what are we transforming into?’ In reality, the Self returns to Itself, which is never born and never dies. We do not change into it, we are that ineffable in reality and have to realise it as fully as possible. Only the mind and body undergo changes. None of that is spiritual realisation; it happens to everyone all the time and is completely ordinary. There is a way that ‘transformation’ can have some use though, if we can understand it as ‘passing beyond form’ altogether, not changing from one form to another.

3. Ancient Egypt and Hermetic Wisdom: Your work places a strong emphasis on the Egyptian roots of Hermeticism. You’ve written that “the voices of the Egyptian neteru (gods) are as loud and clear today as they were in ancient history” for those attuned to them. How do these ancient Egyptian deities and myths inform the teachings and rituals of Ordo Astri? Do you find that modern practitioners can still connect with and benefit from these archaic symbols and metaphysical truths in a contemporary context?

It is worth quoting me exactly on that. It is from the book Nu Hermetica—Initiation and Metaphysical Reality (2021): “The voices of the Egyptian neteru are as loud and clear today as they were in ancient history for those who are still able to hear them amidst the noise and tumult of a civilisation that has lost all heart.” I did not use the word ‘attuned’. The difference between that and being able to hear something or not might seem slight but ‘attuned’ carries a whole package of New Age pseudo-spirituality. If we were to continue that analogy, then it would need to be said that an instrument can be tuned but the one tuning it needs to have an innate sense of pitch that is also trained and developed. Noise can make that impossible even for one with a well-trained ear. The statement from the Preface of the book happens to be true but sometimes when a thing is said plainly it can have a sort of shocking affect on the reader. I will endeavor to render this in more rational terms:

The word ‘myths’ is best not used here because that implies, by conventional use, something not real at all. So if we use the word ‘myth’ or ‘mythology’ we need to be aware that we are then declaring we do not think what is being described is true at all. Myths do not inform our teaching or practices, therefore.

Another insidious symptom of modernist thinking is ‘archaic symbols’, although I am sure the use of it was quite unintentional—but that is why many terms habitually used by everyone are insidious and why I need to keep pointing it out. Archaic is taken to mean ‘from long ago and no longer relevant’. On the contrary, true symbolism is always relevant and does not change in time. No true symbols were invented by any human personage. A true symbol points to something of a metaphysical nature. If a thing is true then it has always been true, is true now and always will be true.

—The dictionary definition of ‘metaphysics’ is coming from profane bias. It is not something ‘abstract’ and has nothing to do with philosophy or argument. It is that which is true, real and also very subtle. It means ‘beyond the physical’. It is also beyond the psychic, which is in any case far closer to the body than most will realise. 

If something can be of ‘benefit’ to an individual then I am only interested if that means they are helped towards spiritual realisation. We can look again at how our very language is anti-spiritual. The first dictionary meaning of ‘benefit’ is given as ‘an advantage or profit gained from something’, which rules out all possibility of the spiritual. How can anything be added to the supreme Reality, the absolute? We have everything already; we only have to realise the fact of who and what we truly are.

There is no need for any contemporary context other than the fact we lead very unnatural lives in this post-industrial age. Our practitioners do not live in monasteries or Ashrams or their equivalent in Egypt of thousands of years ago, obviously. It is a good question, though, as it is something very often used as a criticism from outsiders or sceptics—you have to be an outsider to be a sceptic in the first place. The modern mentality, it should be added, has accepted, without even thinking about it, the illusion of ‘progress’: that things must get better in the future and could only have been worse in the past. It helps commerce but stunts the mind terribly and brings down a veil of obfuscation on that thing called ‘history’, itself an illusionary product of historians.

“How do these ancient Egyptian deities … inform the teachings and rituals?” I understand what is meant by the question but I cannot resist viewing it as ‘in-form’, in other words, a spiritual influence that is transmitted. That is the sort of thing that interests the members of the Hermetic Order of the Star and Snake. That is the best sense of it. The exoteric example that most easily springs to mind, although there are many, is that of our rituals of Nuit and Ra, which we perform each month when the Sun enters a new sign. Each of these includes an invocation to one of twelve Egyptian deities, and an oracle where the deity ‘speaks back’.

Can modern practitioners ‘connect’ with this? It depends on how much their mentality has been deformed by that modernity. We are not speaking here of a sort of appliance, ready for use by anyone ‘out of the box’. We are talking about something extremely subtle—so subtle as to completely escape the minds of those who have suffered irreparable damage by modern education and the profane distortion of spiritual things—to the extent they cannot even separate the ‘spiritual’ from body, mind, feelings and emotions.

On the other side of that coin: for some happier persons, though these are sadly very rare now, a modern education and all the social, political and other things that go with that, along with very strange attitudes to ancient symbolism, is a thin surface that is easily washed clean. They will soon remember that most priceless and valuable of all things that has been forgotten for many centuries in the West.

4. Balancing Study with Practice: Ordo Astri training seems to demand both extensive knowledge and inner practice. For example, The Enterer of the Threshold introduces a “vast array of topics”—from traditional Hermetic sciences like astrology and numerology to ritual and yoga—yet it insists that above all, deep concentration (dharana) is paramount. How do you advise students to balance rigorous study of esoteric theory with the cultivation of meditation, focus, and personal insight? Is there a risk of getting lost in intellectualism, and how is that avoided in your tradition?

I like this sort of question, which takes us to the ‘hands on’ side of things. We do not teach or practice ‘numerology’, and never have done at any time as it is a meaningless modern contrivance—it has nothing at all to do with Hermeticism and is not traditional. We do encourage Gematria, which is a different thing. Even Gematria, a part of Qabalah, cannot really be taught as such, only the rules. Astrology also is ‘difficult’ but I won’t go far into that here. I do not mean that learning it is difficult; I mean that it tends to lead towards a personal enquiry not a spiritual one. Concentration comes before all else, or nothing of any value can be achieved. This is dharana in Sanskrit, which unlike our language has exact terms for these things.

Intellectualism, as it is conventionally meant, never comes into it with us. Also, the word ‘intellectual’ is misused. We live in a time that is effectively anti-intellectual in every way. The intellect, in the technical sense of meaning something beyond the common mentality and egoistic ahankara is vital and necessary in this work of ours. The intellect, even in the gifted person, must be capable of extension. We are not speaking here of intellect in the academic sense of that. Study of sacred scriptures or knowledge texts cannot be dispensed with—any more than a teacher can be dispensed with, and it is so in every genuine tradition. For example, in Hinduism the student must learn the texts, even memorise them, then the guru expounds on the meaning. Then they go away and think on this and take it to meditation. It can take a long time.

Concentration of the mind has to be developed alongside of this. So yes, as anyone can see from this, having a great deal of involvement with ‘ordinary life’, especially what that involves nowadays with hypnotic technologies plus compensatory sentimental attachments to people and things, forbids any possibility of initiation or gaining real knowledge. I know that might be a disappointment to those who want their cake and eat it too but it happens to be true. Truth is not, as so many think now, ‘relative’. Either it is true or not.

A word should be said about ‘personal insights’, as that is not the proper function of the practice or of the keeping of the record. Personal insights cannot be insights into metaphysical reality, which entirely transcends the individuality.

Magick

1. Personal Journey in Magick: You’ve dedicated your life to the theory and practice of magick. How did you first embark on that path? Was there a defining moment or mentor that set you firmly on the magician’s journey? Additionally, after decades of practice, how has your own definition of “magick” evolved—what does magick represent to you now compared to when you began?

‘Personal Journey’ and ‘Magick’ in one sentence is suggestive of double delusion. I would never write a book or even an article about my ‘personal journey’ any more than I would write about the history of London buses or subway trains. Also, that statement should be qualified: I did not dedicate my whole life to the theory and practice of magick. I dedicated my life to the seeking out of spiritual truth and knowledge, which is not the same thing. Such dedication already exists within the person; it is not a choice in that way. The dedication to the theory and practice of magick was where I began with it all. As a child, for example, I demonstrated the levitation of objects to impress my school friends. I learned a great deal from that, especially the importance of concentration of the mind.

This leads nicely on to the next part of the question, as to the definition of what magick really is. To start with, like everyone else I adopted Crowley’s definition and it took me a while to see how useless that is. Anyone can cause ‘changes to occur in conformity with will’, it happens all the time in ordinary life. In his book Magick, Crowley fell right into the trap he had made and, in a deeply hypocritical manner if you know anything about him, tried to justify it on socialistic grounds by saying it would appeal to the ‘ordinary person’ or ‘man in the street’. It is some of the worst writing he ever did.

The term ‘magick’, when it is properly understood, is an umbrella term for at least six traditional sciences. These comprise language, pronunciation, incantation, versification, ritual and astrology. Magick, in the way this is commonly understood now as being about willed cause and effect, is only a collection of applications or uses of real knowledge. In the present times, where materialism long ago reached and passed its apotheosis—we are now in the dissolution phase—people are not interested in anything unless they can find a ready, easy use for it. The profane attitude explains the success of black magic in the way of conventional science and all its ‘inventions’ and products. It explains the anti-intellectualism already mentioned and how that helps the ‘economy’ by selling products that pretend to do everything for you. No real knowledge is involved in such ‘magical’ applications. Those who have the real knowledge are increasingly unlikely to want to resort to magick especially as that is understood in modern books on the subject. 

The traditional sciences are declared in the monastic work Vedanta-sara to be an essential requirement for anyone that wants to seriously take up meditation and other practices towards spiritual realisation. I would say the real problem with magick today—when you look at those six traditional sciences—is that people have no idea what it really is and are ignorant of the principles that govern it. And that is for reasons already set forth, and owing to the dependence on the products of profane science and the exaggerated sentimentality already alluded to, which is part and parcel of materialism, as is pseudo-spirituality.

2. Ritual Innovations in Ordo Astri: Ordo Astri has developed its own distinctive rites and practices. For instance, the revised Enterer of the Threshold book includes your Ritual of the Gates of Babalon, described as a Gnostic variation of the traditional pentagram ritual, as well as an “Egyptian Yoga” practice method. What motivated you to create new forms like the Gates of Babalon ritual? In what ways do these innovations differ from the classic Golden Dawn or Thelemic rituals, and what do they offer to students seeking a deeper mystical connection?

All our rituals and practices include traditional forms. It is the principles involved that count, not the external appearance of a thing. The original motivation for a new form of pentagram ritual—this goes back quite a long way—was that the Golden Dawn one involves a totally ineffective mixing up of traditions, and without respect for any of them. For example, the Hebrew name of God IHVH is meant never to be uttered. The idea is that you can read it or think it but not say it. It is not so much that it is disrespectful to Jewish orthodoxy, though I cannot see why anyone would want to do that, but it is that the Old Testament is absolutely inimical to Egyptian and other ‘foreign gods’, as they are seen from that intensely dualistic point of view. So the Golden Dawn derived rituals are a mish-mash of conflicting elements. They do not work, or if they do, they tend to have a somewhat detrimental influence on the practitioner that is, shall we say, far from being anything spiritual.

We have pentagram and hexagram rituals that are workable and effective. The Golden Dawn rituals for these are cumbersome and at times self-contradictory: With the elemental pentagrams of the Golden Dawn if you ‘invoke air’ you ‘banish water’ because the operator moves towards the angle, whereas we start from the angle and this problem is eliminated. I will not enter into the absurdities of the Golden Dawn formularisation of INRI, for example, by applying Hebrew letters, astrological symbols and Egyptian gods—and all this based on a reductionist view of the gods being no more than symbols for natural phenomena, a notion begun by classical Greek scholars and others. Osiris does not symbolise the visible sun in nature, for example. Both the visible sun and Osiris symbolise spiritual principles entirely transcendent of natural cycles. I am not saying that cycles of time are irrelevant, for they play an important part in ancient cosmology. Trouble starts by taking elements from different traditions, not well understood, then mixing them together to try and make them ‘fit’, which is syncretism.

There is a word to say on ‘banishing’ rituals, especially as applied to the five elements —the element of spirit or akasha was imported from Hinduism. If we think about it, how can we banish an element? Everything in the universe is composed of these elemental principles as according to the doctrines of West and East. It gets worse if we imagine we are banishing an elemental ‘spirit’ or creature. Where do we think we are sending them? Hell? Or is that the place reserved for the magician—most likely it is! As for the usual excuse that this is somehow purifying the mind, it clearly does nothing of the sort. The way to do that is by long study of sacred scriptures and concentration of the mind so meditation is possible. Tracing geometric forms imaginatively does nothing in that way. You only have to look at how members of the Golden Dawn placed curses on each other, broke their oaths and in all other ways behaved abominably. The profane nonsense continues to this day.

As for the rituals of Crowley I don’t want to say too much about that because in nearly all cases he had an agenda rarely if ever suspected by those that use these things. In any case, his rituals are all stand-alone, working on totally different cosmological schemes, so you cannot put them together. I have seen ‘magicians’ do this all the same, and the resulting mess. At best, what happens is that one part of the ritual neutralises the previous part. All of our rituals work by one unified cosmological principle. They are capable of being used together in various ways. They cannot be mixed together though with rituals of Crowley or the Golden Dawn as these are inimical.

“What do these developed rituals and practices offer to students seeking a deeper mystical connection?” I have to qualify use of the term ‘mystical’, because that should only apply to religious devotion, usually with a strong emotional element. We do not practice mysticism as such although some of us are more that way inclined by nature than others. Mysticism cannot be learned, taught or practiced. What the rituals and practices offer to students is already latent (or not) within the student and depends on whether they are ready yet for real knowledge. No ritual or practice will do anything by itself. Rituals and practices are sometimes a support to spiritual realisation but the practices should not be confused with the goal. All the same, practice is indispensable and this needs to be kept up for a long time, even through one’s whole life. So we need good practices, yes!

3. Magick as a Sacred Science: In your writings, you caution against the “psychologisation” of occultism and describe true magick as a Sacred Science—qualitative and initiatory, very different from the materialistic, experimental approach of profane science. Could you elaborate on this viewpoint? How should a practitioner approach magick as a sacred art or science of the soul, rather than, say, a form of applied psychology or just a set of techniques? Does this perspective change how one practices and experiences ritual and results?

When magick is a sacred science then properly speaking it is theurgy. In some earlier writings I have used magick to include theurgy, which is the ‘practice of God’, or otherwise, about knowing the Real. It is the best use of magick and ritual. A person can do rituals and shout invocations until their ears drop off—invocations should never be shouted—and no initiation takes place and no real knowledge gained.

Psychology has no spiritual principle. In psychology, man replaces God or any higher or supra-human intelligence or principle. It rests on humanism not spirituality—the profane science does not reach to that in any way. Psychology leads us around and around in ever-decreasing circles of the mind. Psychology is another word for ‘prison’. Jung even went so far as to put his theories forward as counterfeit initiation and spiritual path, and many occultists fell for the deception totally. Psychological interpretations of magick mean that the person accepting that will never gain the knowledge from which the sacred science depends, and is a dangerous lunatic no matter what letters they string together after their name. Academic qualifications are totally the wrong qualifications for magick and yoga. It doesn’t mean that if you should happen to have obtained a PhD or something of that sort you cannot do a practice at all, but for many persons it makes it much more difficult because they have spent years training their minds to go in the opposite direction from the one that is needed for the sacred sciences. Some can break out of the prison but few actually achieve it. The Tarot neatly provides symbolism of how this is done or not done: We can look at the trumps 15, 16 and 17, the Devil, the Tower and the Star. The trump for seeing through the illusion is called the Tower in most decks and when it is accomplished it leads to the next arcanum, the Star—but most often than not we go running back to the Devil of ignorance. Or it may be, we simply cannot help it, since the conditioning of education and society is on a par with brainwashing. It takes a very special soul to break free.

This gets us on to “magick as an art or sacred science of the soul”. That is a nice way to put it but we have to bear in mind that our word ‘soul’ really means a mind attached to a body, so does not reach far. Any science of the soul such as exists in Raja Yoga only acts as a preparation for knowledge, it is not the knowledge itself. In translations, the Sanskrit Atma, ‘Self’, is often mistaken for our vague term ‘soul’, whereas Atma is not within or of the human mentality, or adjunct to it or dependent on it in any way. (So much then for psychology!) Where the sacred science of the soul comes into it is where there is a Journey of the Soul—not a ‘personal journey’, I should add. 

There are countless examples in the Egyptian scriptures and other traditions such as the Orphic, Mithraic and Zoroastrianism (or what is called that), and in books I have written concerning practices and rituals. Not least, the Tarot, which in its earliest printed form (Marseille) contains much Hermetic or alchemical symbolism.

Far too much importance is placed on ritual and ‘results’. Results depend on causality, which is only a seeming explanation for the universe. In reality, there is no causality and no effect. We experience it that way, yes, owing to our limited nature bound in time and space. Doing ritual to get ‘results’ is fatuous. Whenever we say I want (something) we are affirming a wanting, a lack, something incomplete. It is to think that a lack can be put right by adding ‘something’ to the lack that is already there. There is an analogy to be made with ordinary atomic theory, where there is valency or bonding—incomplete things getting tied up with other incomplete things, which is a form of vampirism. Results appeal to the mentality of those immersed in a consumer driven culture involving products, brands and the ‘personal story’.

4. Discipline and the Magical Diary: Training in Ordo Astri places a lot of emphasis on discipline—for example, new Apprentices choose a magical motto and begin a daily Record of their practices and insights. From your perspective, why is keeping a strict daily magical diary and routine so important for an aspirant? How do the act of journaling, and the monthly review of that work with a mentor aid in a magician’s development? Are there other foundational practices you consider crucial for someone building a strong basis in ceremonial magick?

It is a good question. A new Apprentice does not choose any magical motto. If they pass through the Apprenticeship phase, the equivalent of the old Probationership, then they are either given a fraternal name or they propose one and it is accepted (or not). We stick to the time-honoured method of keeping a diary record. We need the discipline of daily practice and record keeping in this day and age. Why is the keeping of the diary record so important? Truly, a lot of persons nowadays do not think it is important. It is important because spiritual realisation takes hard work and effort for a long time, even with unusually gifted individuals. The record is the best way for us of stabilising and assimilating knowledge, ‘fixing the volatile’.

Also we (Order members) never call practitioners ‘magicians’. Do you not agree that sounds rather silly? The first numbered Marseille Tarot trump is translated from the French as ‘The Magician’ but Le Bateleur, the original title, is more in the way of an illusionist who plays tricks with dice and cups. Then we have to think of all these book-learned occultists who spend their days slaving for the corporation then come home, change into their spooky robe with a hood and tell everyone on social media about the rituals they are going to do. They would not even understand why it is needed to switch off all electronic devices when doing ritual or yoga. As for the rule of Keeping Silence, forget that one! I have even heard of modern day supposed Golden Dawn outfits where people were ‘initiated’ by officers reading the script from their cell phones. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I am told such things, and I have seen pretty awful things at first hand too.

‘Routine’ is not a word that I ever use though; it sounds very dull, like ‘office routine’, or something that is part of ordinary life. There is a vulgar notion of ritual, which thinks it is a ‘routine’ consisting of doing the same thing each day. Anyone who does that is wasting their time and also placing themselves in danger of nidrā, which is the yoga term for total absence of mind or cognition, or general stupefaction. Stupefaction is another yoga term for when the mind is allowed to follow one object after another, and which is also descriptive of the state many people are in most of the time nowadays in ordinary life and when they are ‘surfing the web’. It is also a good part of many persons lives to spend hours a day performing mindlessly repetitive tasks with a computer keyboard and mouse, or phone, and this is in no way alleviated by technologies that pretend to do everything for you, including even thinking. If that attitude is taken to magick and yoga there is no hope at all for such an individual.

It may be the same ritual is done each day, outwardly—the same mudras, the same words and the same geometric or other forms, assuming these are used—but even the universe on the gross material level is not the same as it was the day before or even one fraction of a second ago. The mind of the practitioner also is not the same, as everything on the causal level is subject to change. When we go to sleep and dream at night we do not dream the same dreams, although there is something called déjà vu experienced in both sleeping and dreaming states. If a person complains that they have done the same ritual for two months and are bored of it, either they are not suitable for the art or have not yet grasped the inner working, most subtle. And it also requires concentration of the mind to a high degree to get to that.

‘Ceremony’ is a completely outward performance of something. Frequently it is confused with rite and ritual. But ritual, especially a rite, does not have to be for a ‘magical’ purpose, whatever that may be. The Golden Dawn did ceremonies, with officers in drawing rooms and hired halls, sometimes in full costume with special furniture. We don’t do anything like that. A simple ‘T’ robe (no spooky hoods please) is all that is required. A person can have an altar or shrine and so forth, fine. At home here we still regularly make use of a Golden Dawn altar cloth with the beautiful red cross and white triangle embroidered on it. It is good symbolism! We also have the banners of the East and West. We don’t need an engineering workshop though, with which to turn out furniture and regalia for theatrical shows. Having said that I know some of our members are very good at that sort of thing and have constructed beautiful equipment. It is not a requirement though. I still have all the swords and sceptres and regalia but I don’t have much use for it now.

To get to the real heart of the question: what does daily practice and the keeping of the record, plus the involvement of the guide or teacher, do for the development of the practitioner? Without daily practice there is no foundation, no nothing. The practice has to be the centre of life. It cannot be an adjunct to a ‘lifestyle’, which means living life externally.

Why do we keep records? In Ashrams in India, the serious ones, the monks still have to learn great tracts of the scriptures by heart, so they can recite them. In our culture (I am not sure that is really the right word for it) people have lost the ability, and are losing it even more thanks to dependence on cell phones and gadgets, to commit very detailed and subtle things to the memory. Before anything was written down in language, knowledge was passed on by oral transmission. The capacity of a person’s memory was vast compared to what it is now. Keeping the record, in the way we insist, trains the mind and the memory. It is even possible to take a fairly average intellect and see that increased tenfold.

Involvement of the guide, teacher? Guru is the better word so long as we strip away from it the degraded meanings it has taken on in the West—it means much more than a ‘teacher’ in Sanskrit. Initiatic transmission is in no way possible without this direct involvement; also how else could anything be taught or learned even in the ordinary way?

Self-initiation is an oxymoron, although it has become quite a popular one, no doubt due to the claims that people want to make when they bring out books on magick and the like, and are very anxious to sell as many copies as possible to please their publisher and get ratings and returns. We will come back on this later.

Yoga

1. Integrating Eastern Traditions: In the later phase of your work you’ve turned strongly toward Eastern spiritual science—you’ve said your main interest now is Advaita Vedanta (Non-dualism) and Raja Yoga. What led a Western occultist and Thelemite like you to embrace Advaitan philosophy? How do you integrate the insights of Vedanta and yoga with the Western Hermetic and Thelemic framework of Ordo Astri? Do you find the Eastern non-dual perspective complements the Western magickal path for attaining the true Self?

Once again I must qualify that this St. John here is in no way a ‘Thelemite’. The name was derived from one of the many sections in Crowley’s Book of the Law where he had drifted off into a stupefied trance or otherwise was not paying attention because he had other things on his mind, such as his political agenda. In any case, I do not accept the Book of the Law as being anything that the aforementioned charlatan and black magician claimed for it, and for himself. I would not any longer describe myself as an occultist. Advaita Vedanta is not, strictly speaking, a philosophy, even when some Swamis today call it that. When Swamis or other venerable gentlemen say that, they are fully aware that in India it is called a darshana, which means ‘point of view’. But it is not a point of view in the same way that is meant in Western philosophy, which is all about argument and theory. The Hindu darshanas rest on the authority of the Vedas, unless they are heterodox darshanas (Buddhism, Janism, etc.).

The Hermetic Order of the Star and Snake does not have any ‘Thelemic framework’ though; that would be impossible because there is no doctrinal basis in the Book of the Law as might be provided by real scripture. It was mediumistically produced after the way of spiritists and a great deal of it reflects the mind of Crowley and so is completely unacceptable. The rituals and unspeakable practices of Crowley have never been used in the Order; there are no rituals or practices, other than joke ones, in the Book of the Law. We have only ever made use of one ‘Thelemic’ ritual that is a simple hail to Ra four times a day but we rarely make use of it now. In the past we also made use of the Song of the Stele, the translated and versified wording from the stele of Ankh-af-na-khonsu, but no longer do so.

So how did this St. John here embrace Advaita Vedanta, especially coming as he was from such a dubious occult background? I like the use of the word ‘embrace’; it has a nice ring about it. Whatever people might think about Advaita, it is all about love when you get to know it for real, and that goes for any truly initiatic path. Also, we ought to put Raja Yoga first, because it is older so far as ‘history’ goes and it could be said that Advaita puts the cherry on the top of the yoga cake while not needing the cake absolutely.

I got to Raja Yoga first, once I had seen clearly where occultism has taken the world today—that is, towards an accelerated negative dissolution near the end of time. There is no space to go into that here because it is a vast subject but luckily for us René Guénon has done a very thorough and extensive piece of work: Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion. It is a big book and although factual, not metaphysical like his other works, it will require that the occultist—soon not to be one—switches off their cell phone and computer for a week or so and devotes all their time to the project. Also to understand more fully this point of view you have to read Guénon’s master work The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, and then possibly all of my metaphysical works since 2020.

I made an in-depth study and practice of Raja Yoga so as to use a truly traditional method of preparing for spiritual knowledge and realisation, not something stolen from tradition, robbed of its principle and ‘re-invented’ by occultists. Advaita Non-dualism is called the ‘top’ or summit but it is really the basis of everything. Once Non-dualism is realised it is the key to all other traditions. By this is meant real traditions, not something cooked up in the parlours of late nineteenth century renegade Masons or even something invented in the 1950s as with some neo-paganism. The last part of the question is complex and I will need to take out from it the terms I have rejected and then repeat the bones of it:

“How do you integrate the insights of Vedanta and yoga with the Western Hermetic … framework of Ordo Astri? Do you find the Eastern non-dual perspective complements the Western magickal [sic] path for attaining the true Self?”

It is worth mentioning, regards ‘framework’, that we have a three-degree framework or basis: first, second and third. These are based on real or actual progress in yoga: dharana, dhyana and samadhi (the goal). Advaita Vedanta is easily used to explain Hermeticism further but to do that ‘in a nutshell’ is more than can be done here. My two books, Thunder Perfect Gnosis—Intellectual Flower of Mind and Metamorphosis—Hermetic Science and Yoga Power, are each divided into two sections. The first is on Hermetic sources and the second on Raja Yoga. The first section of each demonstrates, across diverse topics, how Hermeticism can have the ‘cap put back on it’, because in general, Hermeticism has been limited, through the limited capacity of commentators, to theistic and so dualistic aims. Or, as something that is purely cosmological and reaches no further. I have set out to show that Non-dualism is the root of all ancient traditions and is implicit in many sacred texts, including Christianity, especially St. John’s Revelation, but was not written about discursively until Adi Shankaracharya came along, around the fourteenth century AD.

The noun magick can be spelled with a ‘k’ but it is superfluous to spell the adjective with a ‘k’. ‘Magical’ is good enough, though we should always think, to remind ourselves, what on earth does a ‘magical path’ really mean? Is it, whatever it is, particularly luminous or would ‘glamorous’ be the better term? ‘Path’ infers ‘spiritual’ but something based on use cannot be that. 

Magick in any case cannot possibly be a means for attaining the true Self, which is Atma or Brahma to use the exact Sanskrit terms. Also, this true Self, Atma, cannot be ‘attained’. This is easy to explain: If magick rests on cause and effect, then all we are doing is playing around with objects of the mind. That means we are going in the exact reverse direction needed to return to the true Self, Atma. Theurgy is a means to the knowledge (or gnosis) of God. Advaita goes one step further, or even two. So to put this neatly: Advaita does not complement magick it destroys it—and the magician!

2. “Egyptian Yoga”—East meets West: Ordo Astri’s advanced practices involve Raja Yoga combined with devotional magick—specifically, “devotion to an Egyptian deity” alongside the classic limbs of concentration, meditation and discrimination leading to jnana (knowledge). Could you describe what this fusion looks like in practice? How does one perform Raja Yoga in devotion to, say, an Egyptian neter (deity)? Is this what you refer to as Egyptian Yoga, and in what ways does it enhance or differ from the more commonly known forms of yoga?

Excellent question! I am surprised more people have not asked me some of these questions. What every seeker should know, and so forth. I am a bit lost though, I must admit, as to think on what such a fusion “looks like in practice”. I think this hesitation is because a fusion is like jazz-rock, where jazz becomes much louder and more about individual high velocity (and high profile) attack on an instrument (and audience) as opposed to the more traditional ‘playing music together’. Or that sort of neo-classical minimalist approach used by certain composers for films, where it becomes much more obviously repetitious as well as louder and with almost no dynamics. In both cases, something is lost in the mix, or fusion, and the first thing that goes out of the window is subtlety. All the same, it is a fair attempt at description especially when I find myself slightly perplexed as to know how to do that.

Here we go: I doubt if I ever said ‘devotional magick’, because that amounts to an oxymoron. But we include bhakti or devotion in practices. It is not treated as separate from the rest. Actually, devotion is already teamed up, so to speak, with the Eight Limbs of Yoga in the Yoga-Sutras, so no one had to invent or change anything there. In the Yoga-Sutras, bhakti is called Ishvara Pranidhana or ‘devotion (self surrender) to God’—and God can also be Shakti, the form of the feminine power behind the universe. We prefer the Shakti, though not exclusively, so you could have added to that there is a strongly tantrik element in the ways of the Hermetic Order, certainly at the core of it, in the engine room so to speak. This is quite orthodox although tantrik practices can be, if not heterodox, surprising—even to Indian natives sometimes let alone modern Westerners.

What about jnana (knowledge) yoga, which is usually thought of as separate from bhakti and yoga? Well, it should be made clear then that though these might sometimes be treated separately in some Ashrams and so forth, it is not unusual that they be treated as one, and combined into one practice—there are certain Hindu lineages in India, America and Europe where this is advocated and recommended.

Advaita in any case borrowed in elements from Ashtanga Yoga, and Adi Shankaracharya wrote beautiful hymns to the Goddess—from an Advaitan basis, so we are not in any way reinventing the wheel here.

The more detailed ‘under the microscope’ part of the question concerns what is called Egyptian Yoga and how can devotion to an Egyptian deity be part of an Ashtanga Yoga practice. I will start by confessing, even at risk of enraging some people, how we do this in the Order is not published in any book and is given to practitioners privately. What is presented in the book, Enterer of the Threshold, is indeed a fusion as it involves use of the sephiroth of the Tree of Life. It was no less than René Guénon himself who affirmed for us a method of combining the sephiroth of the Tree of Life with the Laya Yoga chakras that we had used for a long time. How surprised we were when we read Guénon’s Studies in Hinduism for the first time and saw that he had worked out exactly the same schema in his chapter on John Woodroffe’s Serpent Power. We had to ‘work it out’ in the first place because we came to see that the popular Middle Pillar Exercise is ineffective; it confuses the chakras. We do not mix the Hebrew names with this, as that is unnecessary.

For the entered members there exists a yoga that is purely Egyptian; there is no need to bring in any Hebraic terms or the Tree of Life model. Now, this still does not answer how can this ‘fit’ without any sense of fusion, with a Raja Yoga or even Advaitan approach? It did not have to be made to fit because there is a primordial tradition, from which all other traditions are different forms, different suits of clothing on the same truth.

That brings us to ‘how do we bring devotion into it’? For members of the Order we have something called the Ritual of Light. This involves Egyptian deities: Neith, Nebhet, Iset, Heru and Ra. This prepares the person, builds the circle, the four quarters, and the subtle body or Ka. We can then take up seated posture, pranayama (no holding nostrils or counting), concentration and meditation. The method of placing the chosen deity in the heart lotus is favoured, and it is given in the Yoga-Sutras. The same symbolism exists, of course, in ancient Egyptian texts and hieroglyphs. Tantrik yoga is among the oldest of darshanas in India and there is clear evidence that yoga, including the Kundalini Shakti variety, was in use in ancient Egypt thousands of years ago. There is an authentic Egyptian chakra model and our translation of Egyptian texts indicates that the Journey of the Soul, that is implicit in all yoga, is there. There are times, especially in the present Age of Obscurity, where the rediscovery of tradition previously unknown or forgotten is valid.

3. Meditation and Theurgy: Traditional Western orders often treated meditation as separate from ritual, but you insist that “meditation is integral to operative theurgy” rather than a mere adjunct. How is meditative practice incorporated into your magickal curriculum? For example, do you require aspirants to practice asana (posture) and dharana (one-pointed concentration) daily alongside their ceremonial work? And have you observed that developing skills like meditation and mindfulness significantly improves one’s effectiveness in ritual and self-transformation?

Any organisation with a ‘magical curriculum’ is not traditional. We do not have such a curriculum in use in the Order, and have not used such a thing for a long time. But what you said was that we insist, “meditation is integral to operative theurgy”. That is a major point. I have already said it but will say it again that our practitioners do ritual but not ceremonial magick.

—We have never practiced or encouraged Buddhistic ‘mindfulness’, which is a degradation of the real doctrine of vigilance that was put about by psychotherapists. Lately it seems to have been implanted in people’s minds by the power of hypnotic suggestion because it keeps cropping up in the context of meditation even though it has nothing to do with that. The mindfulness programme is lately approved of and even funded by governments and corporations—because of course anything that encourages people to become mindless, obedient slaves helps the flow of the economy.

I have already explained the error implicit in ‘self-transformation’. Then the only thing that needs pointing out is that thinking yoga can improve one’s effectiveness in ritual, as if that was the main point, is putting it the wrong way round. Ritual should act as a support to yoga meditation. At the same time, you are not wrong because one cannot do ritual properly unless the concentration of mind as developed in yoga is brought to a very high level! You see, and especially for the benefit of those who have learned magick from books alone, or from other people that have only got it from books—in which case it undergoes gross degradation across generations like ‘Chinese whispers’—it is easy to gain the impression that ritual is only about doing physical actions and saying or chanting the ‘correct’ words of power.

At best, you might gain the impression that a lot of imagination is used in tracing pentagrams and the like, as most books will add that you are supposed to ‘see’ these things. All that is a tiny fraction of what ritual should really involve. Its operation is as subtle as the alchemical Stone of the Wise. Over the years I have noticed that with the general shift from complex language to simple ‘messages’ and crude images, and the corresponding decline of real intelligence, many students place far too much emphasis on ‘visualisation’. They think the whole point of magick or ritual is to construct a sort of virtual reality in their imagining. Even if they can do that, it counts for zero to nothing and is a complete waste of their time. It might be worse than that, because it is leading them in the wrong direction altogether.  

It is not that important to be really exact when images are needed, unless we are using a symbol for the concentration of mind such as a tattva-bhuta. But those are traditional and owing to the use they were always intended for they are very simple. A tattva of tejas is a red triangle and that is it. The Golden Dawn in some cases, notably that of Felkin who developed the Whare Ra Temple in New Zealand (from 1912), took visualisation to an incredible extreme, and gave to it vastly exaggerated importance. Curiously, that kind of approach was more modern even than the time in which it was done, so that systems analysts have studied it since about the late 1980s or early 1990s in minute detail. It has made engineering scientists very happy in their engrossment no doubt but none of these have any real knowledge.

It is not at all and not in any way like putting an electrical circuit together, as I was told by a very early mentor (by which I spent five years working the Tree of Life through study and meditations day and night). There can be some analogies made but the purpose of analogy is to point to something other; the idea is not to extend the analogy, though it happens all the time.

We do expect practitioners to do Ashtanga Yoga on a daily basis, of which the last five steps but one are seated posture, breath, withdrawal of the mind from sense objects, concentration and meditation. Samadhi, the last step, is the goal itself. Ritual is to support all of that. The first two limbs, abstentions and observances, not very popular today, are the two legs we stand on.

4. Yoga and Supernormal Powers: In your book Metamorphosis—Hermetic Science and Yoga Power, you explore the higher limbs of Patanjali’s Raja Yoga and even discuss the siddhis—the “Supernormal Powers” like knowing the thoughts of others, knowledge of past lives, invisibility, etc. How do you view these legendary yogic powers in the context of the Great Work? Are they goals to pursue, signs of progress, or perhaps distractions on the path? Have you or your students witnessed examples of such phenomena in your practice, and how should aspirants handle them if they arise?

The book referred to has two sections. The first is devoted to traditional and modern Hermeticism, explained from an Advaitan basis, while the second completes the work on Patañjali or Ashtanga Yoga that began with the previous book, Thunder Perfect Gnosis—Intellectual Flower of Mind. Some of the writing on yoga in Metamorphosis is very advanced and takes an ‘extension of the intellect’, which is needed in any case. The siddhis or magical powers as known in the West, in an altered form, are embedded in the Yoga-Sutras, though with all the usual caveats. The siddhis are not the high level of yoga by a long chalk but in my book I explore the high level before going to the siddhis, so there is some chance of understanding the principles that are involved. They are never intended to be something to pursue for their own sake and in any case, very few persons nowadays would be capable of the level of concentration needed to do so. In regard to the Great Work or goal of yoga, it is important to know something about them—indeed as much as possible—because these powers tend to arise in some way whether they are wanted or not, along with certain stages of development. They come about spontaneously with yoga practices. So what can happen is that a person ignorant of them can nonetheless find they are becoming active in some way. They might be completely caught out by this and worse, might even not recognise what it is that is causing mayhem!

So yes indeed they do have a use as a sort of measurement of progress, in so far as they make it easy for the guru to recognise exactly what is happening with the sadhaka. And of course we have seen such powers. In my case, I have even made use of them sometimes—we have been doing this a long time.

The problem with ‘phenomena’ is that that was a major preoccupation with occultists and has been for more than a century. It goes alongside of Western materialism and scientism. Having an interest in phenomena of any kind proves spiritual immaturity and, in these times where isolationism and infantilism are the characteristics of the age (vices, technically), we have to put warning signs around that.

Finally, I have indicated above that few people today might even have the concentration needed to gain any kind of mastery. That does not mean that some of the siddhis might not intrude or show their presence if they take up a serious practice and keep at it for long enough. To illustrate clearly what I am meaning here, anyone that is qualified to teach the Raja Yoga meditation knows how difficult it is for the students to even get as far as realising the pure I-sense, which is above the mentality but nowhere near the Atma. It is still the ego as ahankara. Mostly, when we use the term ‘ego’ we do not mean the ahankara at all, we refer to thoughts and feelings. That has nothing to do with what is meant by pure I-sense. We must take it as read that realisation of the I-sense in the lesser degrees of samadhi is difficult for most people to get to and takes a huge effort. Then consider that most of the yoga powers described in the Yoga-Sutras require that the yogin has advanced beyond that level and it is easy for them to have direct contact with the boddhi, which is only one or two steps removed from paramatma. It is through the boddhi, which we can only translate as ‘higher intellect’, and have that misunderstood as a consequence of the failure of our language when it comes to spiritual science, that knowledge of other worlds, especially the supra-human ones, can be known.

Mantra

1. The Role of Mantra in Initiation: Mantra is clearly a key element of your teachings. You’ve written that mantra is “extremely important in all initiatic traditions” as the primary means of conveying diksha (initiation), and the Sanskrit term itself can mean “consecration,” “preparation,” or even “new vision.” In your experience, what makes the practice of mantra so foundational for spiritual work? How does receiving a sacred mantra in a lineage context differ from casually picking a mantra out of a book? And on a personal note, how has regular mantra practice influenced your own consciousness and progress on the path?

We first need to clear away the idea, which is prevalent generally, that a mantra is a word or phrase that is repeated very quickly, without a break. It is used like that sometimes but not by us. When it is used like that it is really a very junior use of mantra, because the only reason for that is to stop the thoughts by placing the mantra there continuously in the mind. In other words, it is for those who have no control over their own mind! Also, saying the mantra aloud is only useful for commencing yoga practice, but the best use of it is silently, internally. Repeating something like a parrot will not do anything. Also, you have to understand the meaning of it very well and this has to be brought to mind along with the vibration of the mantra.

The mantra is used traditionally for conveying initiation (diksha) but that is no guarantee that initiation takes hold. It is used for conveying a lineage, for example especially in the case of a guru giving it to a sannyasin. Even then, sometimes a veritable Swami can go wayward and deviate the teaching—it is not completely unheard of even in orthodoxy. The reason mantra is so foundational is that it involves transmission, which is what initiation is. So, a person might well pick a mantra from a book they are studying and put that to some effective use, depending on their innate ability, but it will not convey initiation for obvious reasons. Also, a mantra cannot be something that is ‘made up’.

How has mantra influenced my own consciousness? When I use the word ‘consciousness’ I mean Atma-Brahma, One without a second, and that is not influenced or changed by anything. What you mean is, has it influenced my mind or thoughts? Yes, because a true mantra is a gift from the guru, and we have to bear in mind, as with siddhis, all this belongs to the Shaktimaya, the supreme cosmic power, and she is also the great Guru of all gurus. She is the Intelligible Light, and through that it is possible to know something of the Great Mind, which is total knowledge. This is no small thing. I began with a mantra before I did anything else, before I had any real knowledge and hardly any ordinary knowledge of Hermetics or yoga. I was very young but it was the right mantram and while I cannot of course say what it is, I can say that the meaning of it is more or less cognate with the sutratma. I chanted it day and night for years. You have to be very determined in all this.

2. Readiness and Worthiness: You note that the question of diksha (mantra initiation) can be contentious. Often newcomers are eager to receive a mantra once they learn of its importance, but you warn that such impatience “is a clear indication of unworthiness” and that if a person isn’t truly prepared, the initiation may be given but “they would not have received it.” Why is the state of readiness so critical when it comes to mantras and initiation? Based on your observations, what qualities or preparations does a student need before a mantra can genuinely take root and begin to transmit spiritual influence?

Sometimes a ‘newcomer’ can be someone that worked for a year or two and seems to have studied the right material but there is something not right about it. It is fine to request diksha at any time. But if they start to pester for diksha because they have heard about it from somewhere that is a sure sign they are not qualified or are spiritually immature (or both). When something can be given but not ‘received’ there is a ready analogy with the ordinary reading and study of books. I have often—it does happen more frequently than it should—had someone that says they have read my book, or are studying it (which is better) and then ask me a question that has completely twisted the words to mean the opposite of what was intended! In that case, as with a class or seminar or something like that, the person was here but they did not hear. They read it but it was dead in their mind as soon it went there. This is an ancient thing. There is a parable in the Bible about casting seeds upon stony ground, in the sayings of Jesus. Even the greatest of masters can have a problem with this!

With these qualities and preparations, the qualities are not learned, they are latent within the person and were there at birth, even before that. The preparations really mean solid study and a good deal of thought put into all the material. The practice has to come first before all other things. Such persons as can do that are very rare but they do exist.

3. Transmission and the Guru’s Role: In the Ordo Astri teachings, you make a firm point that self-initiation is “an oxymoron arising from sheer ignorance”—true initiation must be transmitted from one who possesses real knowledge or authority in an initiatic lineage. At the highest level, diksha is described as guru darshana, where the guru’s state of samadhi is directly transferred to the student, at least briefly. In an age when many attempt to go it alone on solitary occult paths, could you elaborate on the importance of genuine guru–disciple relationships? Have you yourself experienced or facilitated this kind of direct transmission, and what does it feel like or result in for the aspirant?

When people talk about ‘self-initiation’ they do not know what they are talking about—that is, they do not know what it actually means and have probably confused the spiritual with the psychic. There are books that claim to be about self-initiation. I have met the co-authors of one of those books, a very popular one, and they are very nice people. Sincerity, unfortunately, counts for nothing here.

I have experienced and facilitated this kind of transmission frequently. I do it all the time; it is perfectly natural. I have to say that what it feels like would be irrelevant or even unknowable as feelings and emotions are an adjunct of the mind and are also very temporary, whereas the subject is not about any of that and is real and forever. It will not turn the Moon red unless there happens to be an eclipse. It does not make the Sun go from west to east instead of east to west. When you wake up next morning people will still be driving their cars to work and taking their kids to school. We can look at it symbolically:

The letter ‘H’ provides a good symbolism, and happens to to be the first letter of Hierophant, ‘way shower’. The two vertical axes can be more than one individuality depending from the supreme principle. That cannot be separate or plural but if we imagine this on a globe or sphere, then all the lines of latitude meet at the pole. The horizontal bar is then the tradition in time, which as humans we are bound to see as a linear sequence owing from some distant origin to some unknown point in the future. The initiator is the ‘H’, and so we can say they must be linked to tradition, the horizontal reaching across time and space, and to the supreme or metaphysical reality, the source of all without beginning or end. In that way the horizontal axis is marked by individuals that make up an initiatic ‘chain’. It is at the place where the two axes meet that is the ‘centre’, and we could call that an initiatic centre. This is why the symbolism of initiation tends to depict some kind of labyrinth leading to a centre, as according to various traditions.

4. Mantra as Living Power: You’ve explained that a real mantra is not simply an arbitrary word or phrase—often it might be a well-known verse or name of a deity—and that its efficacy lies in how it is given with power by the teacher. The mantra carries the “power of transmission” from the guru, along with instructions tailored to the individual, and often is connected to a particular deity (Ishta Devata) for that practitioner. Can you shed more light on what makes a mantra “come alive” for someone? How does the connection to a chosen deity figure into mantra practice in Ordo Astri, and what is the significance of that personal divine relationship in the journey toward enlightenment?

I have heard some persons saying a mantram could be any word at all, even something stupid and meaningless, in which case their understanding is at the level of infancy. We have a tutelary Shakti deity with the Order members and we actively encourage all to follow that. It is not like everyone can have their own little god in their pocket, or that silly notion of a Holy Guardian Angel like a fairy godmother that helps you to help yourself to more sweeties (candy or cookies) than is good for you. It is not an absolute written in stone rule of thumb because as you will know, Egyptian deities can have many aspects, names and forms. All names and forms are qualities of the supreme Ra (Brahma).

How does the mantra ‘come alive’ for someone is a very interesting question because it leads back to the ‘someone’—the real subject. If that someone is truly alive then the mantra is as alive as they are. It could be put like this: everyone has something called prana, or they would not be alive. Even ants and mosquitos have prana. But how many people know they have prana? They know that they breathe but that is not prana, only the most outward or gross level manifestation of it.

The ‘chosen deity’ and the mantra are one and the same, so this is how it figures. We have to be very, very careful when we get on to the significance of that ‘personal divine relationship in the journey towards enlightenment’. Confusion often arises because in the Sutras, Ishvara the Lord (or ‘God’ in our very imprecise terminology) is called the Personal God. That does not mean that God is personal; it means that inevitably we experience God ‘personally’. That taken, it stands to reason that as this experiencing goes through the changes in time that we are subject to as individualities, something of a ‘journey’ will come into it. Anyone who mistakes that for a ‘personal journey’ has entirely the wrong idea though. Such journeys are set down in the Tantras, the rites and practices, the Egyptian sacred texts wrongly called ‘Book of the Dead’ (the title was afforded it by some who fitted that description, not the text) and many others no doubt. Through life we might experience all of it, in a way, in one moment but over time it deepens and so there are recognisable stages and it is a wonder and a joy to behold even when years have passed. It deepens and goes on deepening.

There is also one further objection to the language used by everyone in this very technical context, because a ‘journey to enlightenment’ assumes that the person and enlightenment are two separate things, which is dualistic. In which case, that is fine so long as we know we are placing our self within a causal universe and are involved with multiplicity if we think of it like that.

Published Books and Teachings

 1. Expansive Body of Work: You’ve authored more than twenty books spanning Hermetic Qabalah, Thelema, Magick, Gnosticism, Yoga, and more. For readers at Perseus looking to dive into your writings, is there a particular book you often recommend starting with? Which of your works do you feel best captures the essence of your philosophy or the scope of Ordo Astri’s teachings? And on a personal level, which topics or projects are inspiring you the most right now as an author and teacher?

I don’t have a philosophy; in Hinduism if someone wants to put forward a new darshana school of thought they have to produce a commentary on the Brahma-Sutras, which is vast. That keeps them quiet for a few years at least. As philosophy, that word only applies to individuals like Kant, Leibniz and so forth who self-invent theories in competition with others like them. We could say I am a revisionist. In so far as a lot of our discussion has been around occultism and magick since the last century or more, I am a radical revisionist. I recommend all the metaphysical works I have published since 2020: Nu Hermetica; Way of Knowledge; Thunder Perfect Gnosis; Thirty-two paths of Wisdom and Metamorphosis—Hermetic Science and Yoga Power. In particular, to anyone coming to this for the first time then the last two on that list could be considered as two volumes of one work that I give my best recommendation to. If you study those you get a good idea of the direction of the Hermetic Order and some of the core material such as the Gnostic oracle Thunder Perfect Mind and our commentary on that. That will also expand the reach of vision a little bit when it comes to aspirants that have only read books on ‘modern magick’ previously.

There is also a series of podcasts on YouTube called Metaphysics of the Real. Here is a link to that: https://www.youtube.com/c/OliverStJohn

I am also planning a podcast series devoted to 22 lectures and meditations on the major trumps of Egyptian Tarot and Guidebook, to be released in the near future by Crossed Crow Books, Chicago. The podcast will be on the same channel with the title ‘Egyptian Tarot Revealed’ or something like that. The podcast will be quite different from the content of the Guidebook as these lectures will be edited from what were originally private seminars for the Order members; each includes a comment on the old Marseille Tarot trump equivalent as it is the most important of all Tarot decks and the first printed, from woodcuts.

Now then these readers at Perseus, we care a great deal about them! As an aside, the aspect of Perseus I really like the most is when he was saviour to poor Andromeda chained to the rock and waiting for the dread sea monster to come and gobble her up. He happened to be passing by on his flying horse and he fell in love with her instantly. The best bit is when at the subsequent wedding the evil uncle Phineas claims her as his bride. Perseus smartly solves the problem by fetching the Medusa’s fearsome head and turns him to stone. Fantastic! There is a really interesting detail in that Andromeda subsequently bore six sons and one daughter, which makes us think of the Seal of Solomon and the Tarot trumps among other things.

Which topics and projects inspire me most right now as author and teacher? A nice question. Well, I am writing the next book called Magick Here and Now, and that will include the 22 Tarot explorations in an edited form. Also I am right here and now meditating every day on one of the major arcana trumps from the same Tarot, as I have to do the meditation before I can know what it will be and write it up for other people. Sometimes this takes more than a day and sometimes it can go on all night too. 

2. Advaita Vedanta—Question of the Real: Use of Yantras:
You have one section on Yantra Yoga and though this is talked about in various circles it never usually goes further than trying to recreate the image in the darkness or on a white background, etc. You say:

The purpose of this is to meditate, using the bindu in the centre as the focal point. Such a yantra should preferably be hand drawn and painted by the sadhaka. While it can be meditated on externally, as with the mantra it is best when it is transferred to the subtle sense of vision in the first instance. After that, depending on the skill of the operator, the image itself is lost and the real knowledge of the symbol is known directly.

Another form of yantra is the image of the Ishta Devata. This is used in combination with the bija mantra. Traditionally, the idea is to build the image of the deity imaginatively in as much detail as possible. In practice, some are better at this than others, and in fact it is not really essential, especially as the idea is not to stay with the imagination; ideally, the created ‘picture’ is replaced by the vision of the deity, which is not at all the same thing as imagining it. Although it is not in any way a supreme realisation or something of that order, there are ‘degrees’ or levels of reality and the vision is of a higher order generally than mere visualisation. This practice is also part of what is called Ishvara Pranidhāna in the Yoga-Sutras.

Could you explain when you say, the image is transferred to the subtle sense of vision, would this mean there is an effortless appearance of the image so instead of trying to imaginatively create it, it simply appears?

Then you say there is a knowing after this and it is dependent on the skill of the operator. What variables in the operator impact this process and what is actually occurring? Is this some kind of transference?

The quotation is from ‘Mantra and Yantra’, Advaita Vedanta—Question of the Real. This is not about Non-dualism of course and is actually to do with Raja Yoga, but in the book I included some practical aspects of meditation. Advaita Vedanta in no way rejects the use of practices from the Yoga school to help prepare the mind for realisation. It also encourages the use of bhakti or devotional methods, for the same reason. We are getting right into the practical aspects of the use of yantras or sacred images here:

When images are frequently used in ritual that sets up an impression in the mind that is easily called forth. In that way, it seems as though an image appears effortlessly. In yoga meditation with yantras that might happen but it is of no consequence because the goal of yoga is to unite the subject (you) with any object of mind so there is no difference—which is how it really is because all things, creatures, objects whatsoever appear in the mind.

Although it is a slight digression it falls into the general field of questions here to mention something about the use of ‘astral shells’ in occultism: you will probably know that in the Golden Dawn and related offshoots there is a very large emphasis on so-called inner teaching—which is nothing of the sort because it rests on psychic imagining—regarding the deliberate creation of ‘thought forms’. Most particularly, in rituals the officers are supposed to use will and imagination to build up forms of (usually) Egyptian gods, using colour correspondences. The idea is that these subtle (‘astral’) world cartoon caricatures of gods are linked to the officers by a sort of ray of light, and can convey a spiritual influence. There are detailed techniques, borrowed to a certain extent from the Hindu doctrines but without comprehension, of projecting a ray from the Tiphereth (heart centre) using imagined white light and breath (prana) to facilitate this. Then, so as not to leave the place littered with astral shells that might become animated like zombies by some inferior force and go around creating havoc, afterwards these are supposed to be carefully withdrawn or reabsorbed into the astrosome (or subtle body) of the Hierophant. The only trouble is that no spiritual influence is generated from the psychic level! All the methods of projection and withdrawal are totally unnecessary in any case as we can do the same thing effortlessly every night when we dream. The one thing certain is that no spiritual influence is ever generated, as that would be impossible; practitioners remain unregenerate in every way. To continue with the traditional use of images for a spiritual purpose:

The mind has no light (consciousness) of its own. This is borrowed, as it were, from the source of all consciousness, which is Atma, the One without a second. In yoga this principle is usually called Purusha but it means the same thing. Now in this transference of a yantra, seen with the physical eyes, to the subtle sense of vision which is the inner sense of vision—no different than what we use in dreaming, for example or imagining anything—the eyes are kept closed, as in all yoga meditation. The eyes do not see; in fact, they are the instruments of seeing. As with a camera, the camera does not see and it does not have consciousness; it is an instrument. In yoga there are five physical senses and five subtle senses, by which the universe is perceptible or knowable by the mind. For any object to exist it must have knowability, it must be cognised. In that way, the object and the knowledge of an object are one, and within perception.

We need to make sure we know the difference between the mind and its contents, thoughts, cognitions, and the consciousness itself, which is Atma. In fact, the mind is really only a sort of container for objects or cognitions. The mind is like a mirror for the light of consciousness—consciousness is not produced by the mind, or even, as neuroscientists want us to believe, by the brain. Neither psychology nor neuroscience schools recognise consciousness as independent from mind or thought; they have no idea what consciousness is because it is non-physical, non-perceptible, and does not depend on any physical thing for its existence. While the mind is a mirror, in the ordinary case it is turned down upon its own projections; the ego tends, by its own nature, towards making personal identification with all that, which is called ‘attachment’ in yoga.

So going back to the question asked, we need to know what the purpose is of using yantras in yoga: The purpose of all yoga, or at least the first part of it, is to realise the true Self as quite apart from mind and body—mind and body are objects, cognised in the mind through the five senses. So there is no particular use in yoga for an object such as a yantra to appear spontaneously or not. Usually, it does take a great deal of effort, in any case, to hold an image steadily in the mind like an unwavering flame. The purpose of that is to develop concentration; there is nothing of any spiritual nature in such a practice. Concentration is needed for real meditation (dhyana).

The second part of the question was about knowledge of an object. This is very particular to Patañjali Yoga. We need to make sure of what I actually wrote in the book: “After that, depending on the skill of the operator, the image itself is lost and the real knowledge of the symbol is known directly.” This has nothing to do with transference of anything. This needs explaining: The image is only held in the minds eye for the purpose of developing the one-pointed concentration in yoga. All other thoughts and impressions are excluded. When this can be done for long enough and the mind is kept still and the thoughts silenced, apart from that one thought, it will be perceived that the breath (prana) and imagination (fire) bring forth effulgence, by which further concentration and meditation is helped. Then the symbol or object, whatever it might be, is dropped, cast aside—we don’t need it any more now. The idea is nonetheless retained in the background of the mind, as meditation is not about ‘going blank’, which is called nidrā and is one of the worst obstacles to yoga. Nidrā is non-cognition. When this further and deeper engrossment is maintained, called nirvichara, there is true knowledge of any thing whatsoever.

It should be mentioned though that this knowledge, by which is not meant any ordinary knowledge, let alone ‘information’ which is so often confused with knowledge these days, only comes about with long practice. This is not something anyone can just practice in their home a few times and acquire some special knowledge—if they think they get that they are only indulging in a sort of flattering self-hypnosis. I can provide a clue: the knowledge of an object is ultimately knowledge of the Self, reflected through the mirror of the mind—I use the word ‘mind’ here in the broadest sense of including more than thoughts or cognitions. We don’t have a word for it but it is boddhi in Sanskrit. To receive the ray from the boddhi we need to make the mirror of mind absolutely clear and clean. What remains is then called the I-sense, which does not involve thoughts. It can be called pure self-awareness.

‘Variables in the operator’ are confined to mind and cognitions and this is to be brought under control before meditation is even possible. We all have differing minds and cognitions, which is why we think we are different to one another and can see that difference clearly. Feeling and emotion is also part of what is adjunct to the mentality, which everyone has and uses all the time, though ignorance causes us to suppose this makes us different. What we are really interested in is Atma, though, the true Self, infinite, changeless and without birth or death and not subject to growth or decay:

There is no difference at all between ‘my’ Atma and ‘your’ Atma. Think of it as a lot of pots filled with water—these are individualities. The surface of water in each pot reflects the one sun (consciousness), and it can reflect it in different ways. But the sun does not change and it is not plural, it is one. The pots all have this little image of the sun on the surface of their water (mind). This leads us to believe the egoistic assertion that we are unique and distinctly different from all else. We differ, but only at the level of body and mind; body and mind have no absolute reality as their existence depends on other things. They have relative but not absolute reality. In that way, the life we think to be ‘real’ because we experience it in the waking state is not so very different from what we experience when dreaming. All of it changes and comes and goes, passing away in time. Anyone can verify this by applying it to their own ordinary experience. It is not special knowledge in itself.

3. The Flaming Sword Encyclopaedia: One of your remarkable contributions is The Flaming Sword Sepher Sephiroth, an exhaustive two-volume compendium of occult correspondences and gematria, spanning over 1,000 pages. This is a massive scholarly work—what inspired you to undertake this project? How do you suggest students of the occult make use of such a resource? Some might find gematria tables and Kameas daunting; in what ways can a modern magician or Qabalist work with The Flaming Sword to deepen their practice or insight into texts like Liber AL?

Thank you for those kind words. Over the years, since my earliest beginning, I began to compile a personal Sepher Sephiroth for my own use. It grew and grew and eventually, by the time I spent another three years preparing it for publication, it had become an encyclopaedia and occult compendium. More recently I have worked on a thorough revision on the first volume and I am still engaged in going through the second. This is not to say no research was involved even if a lot of it was initially committed to memory. Chiefly, it needed extensive Bible and scriptural research on the Hebrew words from the Old Testament and elsewhere, and the Greek words from the New Testament and elsewhere. When it came to something like Enochian or even ancient Egyptian, I took most of that from my notebooks. So the inspiration was already there from my interest in the subject, and practice of it, over a long time.

Occult students (or even those who wish to take it much further than that) who can make use of this book were far more numerous at the time I started it all in notebooks; that was before the Internet swallowed everything up, including people’s social lives and minds, and turned it into ‘information’, which is not at all the same as knowledge. The book is all about language of course, and even etymology, which is often far more revealing than the number side of it. All the same for those who can make use of this, tables for the most part only take up the front matter of the first volume. Tabulated knowledge is something of a problem in occultism, because it does not convey any real knowledge and tends to lead our minds in the wrong direction when it comes to subtle metaphysics. But tables are needed for something like this otherwise you could not make it work. Tables are the junior school approach to anything—so anyone that has a problem with tables and alphabets is not equipped to deal with this.

The Kameas are astonishing in the way they are worked out, but while it is recommended that we know how to do that it is not a requirement for making use of this book. In that way, the Kameas and their associated seals and sigils are ‘ready made’. It is getting on the inside of things like that though that makes it possible to do real magick. Without understanding, it is nothing at all. So much of talismanic magick depends on these names and figures drawn from the Kameas. Copying them blindly from a book without comprehension is no use at all. Even magick is not for lazy people that want everything on the click of a mouse and have not yet learned how to think—or, are not prepared to learn how to do that, because a book like this can help you learn to think in a different way. If a person is a Qabalist they will already know how to use this book otherwise they are not a Qabalist.

With Liber AL vel Legis, there is not nearly so much of that as there was in the first edition; I retained only what is essential. I removed the ravings of the orientalist Kenneth Grant and used that to demonstrate how he deceived people in another book, a serious book on Qabalah called Thirty-two paths of Wisdom. Also, it is worth mentioning here that while I did not want to say anything more about Crowley, having said more than enough, I have read everything he ever wrote, published and unpublished, including rituals that are still kept secret to this day. It is impossible to understand most of his writings and what he was driving at without good knowledge of Gematria and all the Golden Dawn correspondences—he was good at that sort of thing. Most of his followers do not have a single clue as to what he was really on about. When you are able to decode it you might change your mind as to whether you think he is so important and interesting as is made out. (In fact, the notion of Crowley’s importance is derived from his own writings!)

4. Preserving Esoteric Knowledge in Modern Times: Throughout your books (for example, Nu Hermetica and The Way of Knowledge in the Reign of Antichrist), you address the difficulty of true initiation in the current age of spiritual materialism and confusion. You write that many so-called “spiritual” movements today only serve to reinforce profane values, and that there remains a need to transmit “real knowledge” to the few who are prepared for it. From your perspective, what are the biggest challenges facing sincere esoteric students in today’s world? How can seekers discern genuine wisdom from the commercial or ego-driven pseudo-spiritual noise out there? And looking ahead, are you optimistic that the eternal flame of initiatic knowledge will endure and find those few who are ready to carry it forward?

It is a good question to close things on for the time being. In a way, sincerity is good but it is not enough when it comes to something like this, which we dare to call a Great Work in the language of the alchemists. I already said, for example, how a person could be very sincere and yet have no idea that they are cheating people by selling ‘self-initiation’, because they don’t know what it is. So what is needed is sincerity plus ‘something’, which amounts to much more than any individual. The biggest challenge is not in the anti-spiritual ‘normality’ of the world today but in the very person. In the end, it is they that are the subject, the true Self, if only they realise it.

You raise a very important point: “How can seekers discern genuine wisdom from the commercial or ego-driven pseudo-spiritual noise out there?” You see the very first qualification on the path as it is put in some Advaitan texts is viveka ‘discrimination’. Unless a person is able to discern what is true from what is false, they have no chance and cannot be helped. This has to be innate in the person. The discrimination can be honed down through practice but has to be there to start with. It may be that is has been drowned out through the ‘noise’ and through education and environmental factors but it can still awaken perhaps after many years.

When it comes to the eternal flame I am more than optimistic; there is no doubt at all that it will endure until the very end and even after that it will never be extinguished. Sometimes people confuse the ‘eternal’ with time, and this happened with the ancient Greeks before us, but the metaphysical sense of the eternal is absolute, without beginning or end, birth or death. Neither is it subject to time or change. It is indestructible, indivisible, infinite and absolute pure being, consciousness and bliss. It does not require defending and is impervious to attack, being far beyond the reach of dualistic conceptions. That is the eternal flame. The rest of it, the initiatic knowledge, depends on being human and so that does imply certain limits across time and space, especially if we talk about carrying anything forward, in which case we bring a future into it that has not yet come about, and may not ever come about.

So while with knowledge carried by human beings near the end of the Age of Kali Yuga I am nowhere near as certain as I am about the eternal flame, there is every indication that the knowledge will endure until the end of our civilisation and end of time as heralded by the sixth angel in the book of Revelation. As the darkness spreads and covers the whole world, the sparks of light glow brighter for those that can see. There will always be lighthouses to guide the souls of the light, the ones that still see, to the source of that light, until the withdrawal of all into the dissolution of mahapralaya. AUM.

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