interpreted as a message from the Angel.
This might seem a bit pussy-footed, but it reflects my views on magical vow-making. For several years I was an initiator for a formal magical order, and that required preparing the candidates for a secret ritual—i.e. one where they were not supposed to know what would happen to them during the ceremony. All these initiation rituals included a number of vows—for example a vow never to become addicted to drugs. According to tradition, the candidates do not know that they will be asked to make that vow, and it is sprung upon them. Unless they agree, they cannot be initiated further.
This seemed wrong to me, because I could not see how anyone could make a serious vow without carefully considering it in advance. If one were already a drug addict, the vow would require one to stop there and then—would that be possible without a rehabilitation programme? Does a fondness for wine or tobacco amount to addiction? Where does one draw the line?
I used to prepare my candidates by telling them that they would be required to take some vows, and then asking if they liked to know in advance what those vows would entail? Some were very grateful of my offer but, to my surprise, quite a few said they would rather not know in advance.
Initiation really is most potent when it puts you on the spot with something challenging and quite dangerous. The more apparently life-threatening, the more powerful the initiation. We all know instinctively the truth of this: witness all those movies where the hero does not change or become whole until a major crisis has been faced. But again: how can the initiator make this happen in today's safety conscious and litigious culture? I recall a media story about sadomasochistic pact in the UK where the police sought to convict the sadist for harm done, despite the consent of the masochist.
The idea that one should have vows sprung upon one without warning and be forced to make a commitment on the spot is quite sound magic. But is it realistic in view of the fringe nature of occult culture in our society? It is one thing to trust one's future to a long-established religious order but, when you are constantly being warned about “all those charlatans and perverts in occult circles”, is it wise to place yourself totally in the hands of any initiatory order? In any case, most of the “secret initiatory rituals” have already been published by ardent transparentists, so it is quite possible for any candidate to read them up first if they really wanted to.
For me this is an open question. I have Sun in Aries, so my heart tells me that a true initiate should throw caution to the winds and plunge ahead—“a faint heart never won a fair lady”, as my House Master used to insist when setting us a challenging geometry problem. But I also have Capricorn rising, so my head tells me that I should always look before I leap.
What, therefore, do I advise? Simply to bear in mind that one of the worst mistakes one can make with Abramelin is to break the vow and not complete the operation in the specified place and time. So consider carefully before you make the vow, and make sure it is a genuine promise about something that you really can keep to.
Location. Location. Location.
The book says: “Although the best counsel that I can give is that a man should go into retirement in some desert or solitude…as the Ancients used to do; nevertheless now this is hardly possible; and we must accommodate ourselves unto the era in which we live”. What he says is even more true now.
Abraham the Jew performed his operation in a remote desert location, against the backdrop of a culture where it was understood that some people chose to be hermits on religious grounds and just wanted to be left alone. These conditions are even harder to replicate since the twentieth century. Remote deserts are now far-better mapped, and most land is “owned” by someone or some institution; surveillance is widespread; and choosing to be a hermit would now be considered “weird”, and sufficient reason to be identified, filmed, and posted on social media.
There is also society's suspicion that anyone “lying low” might be doing so because they are up to no good, or on the run from authority. This suspicion has probably always existed, but in Abraham's time would be more likely to be sorted out directly by personal contact with the hermit, whereas now one would be more likely to be reported to the police, or the press, or security. The consequences could be highly invasive and demand a lot of explanation.
As a rural person born and bred, my instinct was to retire to deep country, find a lonely cottage and work in isolation—but I chose instead the relatively suburban setting of a cottage on a home counties village green. This was partly because I did not have time or money to find a perfect location, but also because I realised that in Britain nowadays it is easier to be anonymous in an urban setting. Redbourn in Hertfordshire was where I had been living for a few years, so people had seen me around and I would not stand out as a newcomer. Only a few close friends needed to know that I was doing something peculiar, otherwise I could get on with my vegetable garden and high street shopping apparently as normal.
The Book of Abramelin does give instructions for performing the operation in a country location, but it also advises on how to perform it in a city apartment. When I thought more about the social impact, I could see the sense of doing it in a city, but I still feel the magic would be more powerful when the aspirant is isolated. The downside of doing the operation in a familiar setting is that this has a definite normalising effect.
If I ever had the opportunity to perform the operation a second time, then I would choose somewhere isolated, because I believe that would lead to more dramatic—even scary—results. I discuss this matter more fully in my final chapter of commentary: the way that everyday normality tends to tame the paranormal.
This is actually a very profound question that the aspirant must ask when planning the operation. “Am I doing Abramelin in order to make weird things happen and so prove to myself that magic exists? Or do I already accept that magic can exist, and so am performing this operation to invoke such magic into my life?” Myself, I only saw the true significance of this dilemma many years later.
The fourth dimension of location
There is another aspect of location that has not changed over all these centuries. It is the time of sunrise and sunset at a chosen place. Bearing in mind the instruction that the practitioner should not sleep during the day, it becomes necessary to ensure enough sleep during the night.
The location I chose meant that for a month at the heart of the operation the official time of sunrise was about 4:40 am and sunset was about 9:20 pm. If, as instructed, I was to enter the oratory at a quarter of an hour before sunrise, then I would need to get up around 4:15 am or earlier to allow time for the necessary washing, dressing and going from the chamber to the oratory. Even if I limited my oration to one hour in length, I would be lucky to get to sleep before 11 pm—leaving me no more than five and a quarter hours sleep. In my case that was not enough—as a consequence, my diary reads like a long record of failure.
It was a failure because I was being too strict in intention—using the astronomical definition of sunrise as the time when the sun appears over a level horizon. In Abraham's time that figure would not generally be available, and sunrise would more likely be judged by the actual appearance of the sun. I never recorded when that actually happened, because I was usually deep in my oration at that time.
So, this is a further consideration: are you someone who really needs seven or eight hours sleep, or are you one of those who can survive on much less? Bear in mind that most people who do sleep shorter hours can only do this because they are able to compensate with brief catnaps during the day. That is not permitted by Abramelin.
If you cannot find a location close enough to the equator to give you a reasonable schedule, then make a conscious decision to mark the rising and setting of
