Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Chic Cicero and Sandra Tabatha Cicero, Chief Adepts of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as re-established by Israel Regardie and authors of a vast number of books, including The Essential Golden Dawn, Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition, and Tarot Talismans.   The phrase “common sense magic” probably seems like an oxymoron to non-esoteric folk. But anyone who is sincere in their ritual practice eventually comes to the realization that magic requires a sensible approach and discrimination. Although magic is meant to stimulate one’s psychic abilities and cause change in one’s environment, it can also stimulate

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Donald Tyson, author of a vast number of books, including The Serpent of Wisdom, The Demonology of King James I, and Necronomicon.   Synchronicity is a concept put forward by the late psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 – 1961) in an attempt to describe a curious aspect of human experience. It is a purely magical concept. It may be described as meaningful coincidence. Two or more things happen that appear to be unconnected in any physical way, but are none the less linked in meaning. This meaning may be slight, or it may be of profound and life-changing significance. All of magic depends on synchronicity. For example, let’s say a

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Lon Milo DuQuette, author of Low Magick: It's All In Your Head ... You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is and the forthcoming Homemade Magick: The Musings & Mischief of a Do-It-Yourself Magus (August 2014).   I’ve been writing books and articles about magical and mystical things for nearly 30 years. I’m especially passionate about the western hermetic arts (i.e., Qabalah, Tarot, Enochian, Magick, Goetia) and the initiatory programs of magical societies such as the Golden Dawn, A∴A∴, Ordo Templi Orientis, and Freemasonry. As a writer, I’ve been lucky insomuch as I’ve had little difficulty finding quality publishers

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Donald Tyson, author of a vast number of books, including The Serpent of Wisdom, The Demonology of King James I, and Necronomicon.   In magic we have four elements, called earth, water, air, and fire, and a fifth higher quality, sometimes called the quintessence, that pervades the four and transcends them. Even though they are called “elements,” they are not the same concept as the 118 physical elements of science. The magic elements are much older and have been with us from the days of ancient Greece. Philosophers believed that the four elements made up all earthly things. They thought that all four elements are present in all