In other words, this whole site and all of its pages, in some very real manner of speaking, are all about magnetic magick; magickal feats whose underlying explanations involve magnetism, and whose accomplishment can be facilitated not only through mystical views and processes, but through scientific views and processes.
In light of the kind of descriptions that are given of the occult process of contacting acquaintances from previous incarnations, such as by the Theosophists, even past life functions may be considered an expression of magnetics.
In truth, there may be little escaping the relevancy of magnetic assessments of the manipulation of a reality that is electromagnetic in nature.
Likewise, the recounting of a full set of excerpts of relevant works seems to lie far beyond the scope of the present work.
So, too, are the artworks of those ancient people most closely associated with such astounding feats, liberally saturated with the likely icons, quite often zoological ones.
In addition to this, perhaps it is wise to note how many of the indications of the relevance of even vortex science to to magick have also implicated magnetism, such as illustrations of which those that appear on the “Vortex Magick” page of this web site are but few examples of many.
Even while promising new theories of physics that are gaining poignancy and popularity are building steam, wherein magnetic feilds are only an outward expression of other, perhaps more subtly present forces, their footprints in the material world in the form of magnetism may be seen as adequate indicators of the means of their mastery.
While the term “magnetism” has had rather figurative applications in many feilds, including classical occultism, so that in looking for the term in Lewis Spence’s “Encyclopedia of Occultism”, we find it referring us to the subject of hypnosis. Nonetheless, further down the very same page under the heading of “Magical Instruments and Accessories” (pg. 262) we find written of magick wands:
“The rod must be specially fashioned of certain woods and then consectrated to its magical uses. A perfectly straight branch of almond or hazel was to be chosen. This was cut before the tree blossomed, and cut with a golden sickle in the early dawn. (Italics mine:) Throughout its length must be run a long needle of magnetized iron; at the one end there should be affixed a triangular prism, to the other, one of black resin, and rings (Italics again mine:) of copper and zinc bound about it. (Italics again mine:) At the new moon it must be consecrated by a magician who already possesses a consecrated wand.
So what we have, besides the fact that “Thoughout its length must be run a long of needle of magnetized iron” couldn’t get any clearer or more obvious, is additionally a requirement of hazel wood, notorious for its use in the electromagnetic function of dowsing, as the page of this site devoted to Witches’ brooms asserts, copper and zinc, which are electrical conductors and can be used to consitute a battery, and finally the suggestion that one consecrated wand is required to consecrate another is peculiarly reminiscent of the way in which, outside of some techniques of creating magnets, one magnet is required to magnetize another.
Other classical occult references call candidly for magickal wands to be fitted with tips of magnetized iron.
David Conway’s “Magick: An Occult Primer” provides for, even though tips may also be made of lead therein, wand tips of iron, and while magnetism is not required here, it can be remembered both the potential of iron to act magnetically and the broader context here, which can allow that reference to lead tips may be merely to throw the reader off the track of the actual principle, as so many occult references seem to do. More candid references can be found, even though such variations could indeed, easily enough, be made to work.
Theosophist Helena Blavatsky, whose “Isis Unvieled” is an endless fountain of scholarly support for such premises as the contents of the pages of this site, and is often quoted herein in regard to establishing both the authenticity of scientific concerns in magick and their antiquity, not only makes ample mention of magnetism therein, but even a glance at the index of the book provides substantial insight into the elusive connection between the “magnetism” of the mesmerists and the magnetism of scientists; she in fact does not necessarily endeavor to distinguish them but maintains those anecdotes which support their unification as well as those who disseminate them even in such a context as to encourage their unification.
(“Isis Unveiled”, v. I, pg. 130-131) “The ancients called it Chaos; Plato and the Pythagoreans named it the Soul of the World. According to Hindus, the Deity in the shape of the aether pervades all things. It is the invisible, but, as we have said before, too tangible fluid. Among other names this unviersal Proteus-or “the nebulous Almighty,” as de Mirville calls it in derision- was termed by the theurgists “the living fire, the “Spirit of Light”, and Magnes. The last appelation indicates its magnetic properties and shows its magical nature...
Magnetism is a word for the derivation of which we have to look to an incredibly early epoch. The stone called magnet is believed by many to owe its name to magnesia, a city or district in Thessaly, where these stones were found in quantity. We belive, however, the opinion of the Hermeticists to be the correct one. The word Magh, magus, is derived form the Sanskrit Mahaji,the great or wise (the annointed by divine wisdom)...
As the Magi derived their name from it, so the Magnesian stone or Magnet was called in their honor, for theywere the frist to discoverits wonderful properties. Their temples dotted the country in all directions, and amng these were some temples of Herbules, -- hence, the stone, when it once became known that the priests used it for their curative and magical purposes, recieved the name of the Magnesian or Heraclean stone which were called after the Magi, not the Magie after one or the other. Pliny informs us that the wedding-ring among the Romans was magnetized by the preists before the ceremony...”
Regarding the history of man’s familiarity with the magnet, George Frederick Kunz (pg 93-) adds, “We are told by Pliny that Ptolemy Philadelphius (309-247 B.C.), planning to erect a temple... engaged to place therein an iron statue of Arsinoe which should appear to hang in mid-aair without support... This story of an image held in suspension by means of powerful magnets set in the floor and roof, and sometimes also in the walls of a temple, is repeated in a variety of forms by early writers.”
(Kunz pauses to doubt that this is possible or practical, although examples of this very thing can today be purchased as toys or desk adornments, then continues:)
“The Roman poet Claudian (fifth century A.D.) relates that the priests of a certain temple, in order to offer a dramatic spectacle... caused two statues to be executed,-- one of Mars in iron, and another of Venus, in lodestone. At a special festival these statues were placed near to each other, and the lodestone drew the iron to itself. Claudian vividly describes this.”
What is interesting about this anecdote, besides the fact that such icons may be commisioned in accord with a vast attention to appropros of symbolism, and thus may speak volumes and offer many valuable keys to symbolism, is that if the magnetic statue was cast instead of carved, the ability to create magnets rather than mindlessly rely on natural magnets, may be evidenced by this.
In relaying that “Chin T’sang Khi, a Chinese author of the eight century, wrote that, ‘the lodestone attracts iron just as does a tender mother when she calles her children to her’ ”, Kunz’s coverage touches on aspects that may help underscore the symbols and Signatures of the Mother goddess to whom the Compass plant is so indispensibly sacred. Such a goddess inevitably transcends, however, the mundane concerns of survival, and proceeds to the realm of magick.
Kunz also recounts: “A rich growth of Mohammedian legends grew up about the exploits of Alexander the Great, a striking example being given on another page, and in one of them it is related that the Greek world-conquerer provided his soldiers with lodestones as a defence against the wiles of the jinns, or evil spirits; the lodestone, as well as magnetic iron, being regarded as a sure defence against enchantments and all the machinations of malignant spirits.... Large quantities of loadstones are found at Magnet Cove, Arkansas, and it is estimated that from one to three tons are sold annually to the negroes to be used in the Voodoo ceremonies as conjuring stones”.
As detailed on the “Just Supersitions?!?!?” page of this site, there is a great association between magnetic magick and so-called superstitions; the hoarde of notions about iron found in “A Dictionary of Superstitions”, edited by Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, may all have the potential to be in some way validated, or in some way embodying a grain of truth. Of particular intrigue are those related to the churning of butter, for we would be seeing magick act demonstrably and consistently on a suitable test medium, the accounts of which seem often to have uncanny consistency, both amongst themselves and with the physics we might suspect for them, and still more of them can be found therein and in other similar sources.
Likewise, other sources call for magnetism to be involved with magic mirrors not only in the sense of applying magnetic feilds or magnetic materials to the devices themselves, but in electromagnetic concerns of the operator’s role in using them.
On the heels of his discussion of Karl von Reichenbach, a famous and gifted seer whose involvement with “odic” force was propelled by his ability to see unseen aspects of magnets, William Fernie, M.D., in “The Occult and Curative Properties of Precious Stones, writes (pgs 205-20):
“They hold it essential that there shall be a concentration of unalloyed magnetism occupying the body of the operator, by reason of purity of the amatory functions. Because of this indespensible condition the ancients enjoined as supremely important the engagement of ingeneous boys, and of chaste innocent young virgings, for Crystal-gazing, Clairvoyance, and other such oocult efforts. Equally of moment for possession of such a power is purity of the blood. Therefore, food, digestion, sleep and what drinks are taken, all must receive a proper degree of attention.
Seeing then that the conditions of the blood at the time of experimenting with the Crystal is of such importance, certain leading facts bearing directly upon this point may well be considered here. On an average there is contained one part by wieight of iron in two hundred and thirty human blood corpuscles ; and the total quantity of iron in the blood of a man who weights one hundred and forty pounds, is about thirty-eight grains ; while about one grain per day is on the average taken into the body with food. This iron forms the coloring matter of the “red” corpuscles.
The “white, or colorless” blood corpuscles, which are much fewer in number than the red in a healthy body, are diminshed by fasting, and increased by eating; which fact is of serious interest in connection with the advisability of any prolonged abstinence from food prior to those magnetic experiments with the Crystal globe, such as were conducted by the seers of the past. Two principal forms of iron are apparent in the blood; the “protoxide”,” or green ferrous salt ; which is principally found in in the venous, or dark blook ; and the “peroxide,” or red ferric oxide ; found mostly in the arterial or beright scarlet blood. Now a compound of these tow oxides consitutes what was formerly known as the “loadstone” or black magnetic oxide of iron ; and it is a remarkable fact that persons of dark, or very dark eyes, or very dark hair, eyes and skin, are the most magnetic ; which darkness of hue, is, it would seem, connected with a preoponderance of the Protoxide of iron in the blood, over the peroxide, in the proportion of two to one ; which happens to be a similar proportion to that existing in the Loadstone. Such persons are usuaolly representative of a dominantly “bilious” tendency, or temperament ; and we know that the amount of iron in the bile is important, this being present as a phosphate of iron. All which several facts poin to the conclusion that that a certain chemical balance between the ferric, and the oxygenic, (i.e. magnetic,) conditions of the blood, and the bile, is necessary toward developing the most perfect powers of concentration for Crystal-gazing, or Clairvoyance. John Melville in his Manual of Crystal Gazing, 1897 (Nichols and Co.) has suggested that an infusion of the familiar English herb “Mugwort” (Artemisia vulgaris), the properties of which are antibilious ; or of the herb succory (Cichorium intybus), could, if taken occasionally during the moon’s increase, consitute for the crystal gazer an aid towards the attainment by the experimenter of the best physical consditions. It is a relevant fact that both of these plants are especially responsive to magnetic influence ; their leaves, like the needle of the compass, invariably turning of themselves toward the north. Furthermore, besides being antibilious, these herbs act specifically upon the generative system, thus influencing beneficially the functions most closely allied to magnetic force. Furthermore, injunctions are given by the professed exponents of “Crystal-Gazing” that the moon must be in her increase, i.e., going towards the full ; (this should never be neglected ; it is of the highest importance toward success.”
Some explanation for this may also lie in the peroxide contents of many Artemsias.
This quote from Fernie is particularly important, because, even though it may not have the highest degree of accuracy, it is able to justify the nearly outlandish sorts of catopromancy that require the virginity of an assistant, a component of the operation that is rendered superfluous by more careful mastery which those of the time were easily and demonstrably capable of. The standing joke that one would need the divinatory utility of a virgin to find a virgin in the first place might have prevailed. In delving into the biochemical rationale, hoever, we are provided with yet another clue why the horse, the chemistry of whose liver is notable, is often used as a symbol in these concerns, as well as the rationale that are discussed in this site’s page on Tutankamen’s broom.
It is also important because it helps establish that the magnetic rationale can be effectively taken seriously regardless of one’s specific interpretation of various feats or phemomena.
What is left to be desired in the unified view of classical types of magnetism and “magnetism” associated with the occult may perhaps be found in the area of hyperspatial theory as it is rapidly gaining credibility and momentum.
Such an internalization of the concerns of magnetism in the art of divination may readily evidence the kinds of thought contributing to a science of oracular heads and skulls, a notorious part of magick, that easily promises to be a world-wide system of devices equal to or greater than our present computers, which presumably use the kind of magnetic memory that is anything but unheard of in our modern efforts to store and process information.
The only thing that might stand in our way of recreating them might be a small lack of prowess in applying principles of associative memory, and posssibly principles of magnetic holography. Such devices, as they should probably be rightfully called, were characteristic of probably every culture on earth, including the consectrated skulls whereby the Amerindians communed with “ancestors”; the simulation of ancestoral intelligence is not only more likely, but appears far more acceptable to conventional morality at present. Much of this in theory is no more alien or unfathomable than modern magnetic recording tape, such as music cassettes.
It is no great leap from here to the text of Black Elk’s texts, where sacred arrows of Amerindians are consecrated in the cardinal directions just as magnets can be made by agitating them while they are aligned to the north and south directions, nor from here to where blood is called for in ancient magicks only to euphemistically suggest magnetization, for magnetization may be a property of certain animal bloods...
Macrophages, the scavenger cells of the immune system which we might assume responsible for the ability of goats to digest metals such as tin cans, for the alledged method of choice for researchers to isolate these bodies is to feed them iron filings and then pick them out of the blood using magnets, are also equiped with powerful ionic discharges, called superoxide bursts, which under the proper conditions might be capable of magnetizion of the appropriate materials as well.
Such ancient reference to the sacrificial goat obviously assumes some knowledge on the part of the reader, and assumes such knowledge to be the standard of its day, much as “eye of newt” and “wing of bat” were likely unmistakably familiar to persons of Shakespeare’s time as folk names for parts of plants.
Spence’s same entry calls for the fork of a necromancer to be made also of hazel. A potentially magnetic fork may strike us as an interferometer, or like a beam splitter, or in some other manner exemplary of a device which we would expect to be found in the appropriate concept of magnetic holography.
Such a notion is stirring, as well, for it implies there is weight to the outlandish remarks that are made on this site about Passionflowers as “Living ‘UFO’ Designs”, for this is a basic premise arrived at through interpreting the icons of these flowers, namely, that holography can form a means of vehicular propulsion. The stock of Tetankhamen’s nebris is forked as well, as are many witches’ brooms depicted as little more than forked sticks, and so too are the yokes of the suspected “magickal chariots” of bygone ages also in their own way forked, though at the right angles which are so significant in electromagnetic science. This does not need to alter their potential as interferometers in the least.
My first book of magick was Scott Cunningham’s “Magickal Herbalism”. I’ll never forget the day I was able to connect magnetic science, such as the kind that seems to drive time cameras and magick mirrors, with giving incredible powers to such a simple yet magickal contrivance as the tripod of sticks on it’s cover. It took a long time, and all of the science and history information I could get my hands on, but it happened.
It will no doubt be the subject of either inadequate or endless debate, even on the part of true believers in magick, that the ancient penchant amonst all cultures for creating three-legged pottery lies in magick’s magnetic technologies- the argument that three legs is simply the most stable format is too tempting as a be-all end-all for many.
Such magnetic magick borders not only recalls much of Howard Wachpress’ magnetic levitator designs, or the hyperspatial theories that are quickly gaining prominence due to the open-minded and outspoken scientist, Richard Hoagland.
Even now, I am working on developing revisions of probable ancient methods of materialization, involving hyperspatial physics and singularities, and others. For any of us, all of the elements are on the verge of meshing into a single, congrous, and above all, effective whole.
Such a gesture is highly appropriate, for the as the classical occult authors strive, even as figurative and literal magnetism seem to be synonymous, to say to us what may be identical to what Hoagland and others will tell us, that magnetism is only the footprint of some subtle and more fundamental force.
Several critical concerns that may match here, are Hoagland’s attention to Theodr Kaluza’s proposition that a fourth dimension collapses down to a size below the atomic, to the Planck length. Such a phenomena may be related to magnetic magick not only by way of the projection of magnetic feilds from tapered magnetized objects that may taper all the way down to this “nothingness” of the Planck length- the countermagnetic amplifier being a poignant example, and possibly the magickal knife or athame, for another- it may be relevant to a similar decrease in scale caused by the tapering or other phenomena that may be associable with vortices or feild rotation or other consequences of unpaired pole systems, such as centripetal force.
Likewise, these rotating magnetic feilds may possess some property of angular momentum that Hoagland seems to be finding to be so significant to the actual radiated energy of rotating celestial bodies.
So, too, do non-linear effects seem to be possible, or perhaps equivalent to these unusual scalings and concerns. Non-linear effects may also be inevitable consequences of such devices as unpaired-pole technology may provide for.
There are likely to be still more suprises in store, but the theory of the role of magnetism in all concievable magick can find endless elements to be made of. After all, as we may read in Blavasky’s “Isis Unveiled” (v. I, pg. 208-):
“In 1643, there appeared among the mystics a monk, Father Kricher, who taught a complet philosophy of universal magnetism. His numerous works embrace many of the subjects merely hinted at by paracelsus. His definition of magnetism is very original, for he contradicted Gilbert’s theory that the earth was a great magnet. He asserted that although every particle of matter, and even the intangible, invisible “powers” were magnetic, they did not themselves constitute a magnet. There is but one MAGNET in the universe, and from it porceeds the magnetization of everything existing. This magnet is of course what the kabalists term the central Spiritual Sun, or God. The sun, moon, planets, and stars he affirmed are highluy magnetic, but they have become so by induction from living in the universal magnetic fluid- the Spiritual Light.”
Let us hope so. The eventual success of not only magnetic magick, but of the related magnetic spacecraft designs to one day fufill Crowley’s promise that “the force that moves a dowsing rod will someday take us to the stars” depends on more than a planetary magnetic feild for an unpaired polar system to interact with, it may depend on a magnetic feild that permeates the heavens.
We may find great reassurance here in both the consistency between the thoughts of the respected sages of the past, and the scientists of the present moment, and that so much of what calls for corroboration and proof here, in aligning our definitions of terms, has already been corroborated and proven time and time and time again, for centuries at the very least!
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