Fascinated by "magic"... But only a small bit of it

I have been reading magical fiction and fantasy since discovering Tolkien in 1972, and continued with a (partly academic) study of animism and shamanism in the early 2000s; but I began reading about 20th century magic at the start of 2020. 

In this I was, belatedly, following-up a recommendation by William Wildblood to read The Magical Battle of Britain by Dion Fortune edited by Gareth Knight. 

Since then I have read, and often re-read, scores of such books - nearly-all by Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight, and their close associates.

This; despite that I have near-zero interest in practicing ritual magic of any kind, and even less in participating in the kind of formal, initiating magical group that DF then GK were trained-in and led - this sustained interest in magic is strange, even to me.

Indeed, I soon concluded that this kind of ritual magical society has become nigh impossible nowadays - or, at least, it is now very weak in the pursuit of positive spiritual development, whether of individuals or (even more) of society. 

Clearly, I have got, am getting, significant satisfaction from at least some of this reading. 

But what? I would characterize it as a kind of enchantment that (sometimes) comes over me while I am reading - of a similar nature to that when reading a good fantasy novel, when encountering elves or entering faerie.

However, it is significant that DF and GK were both explicitly self-identified Christian - albeit of a very different kind than me (but then that applies to almost everybody, anyway). 

Even during the active lives of DF, and even more so GK, there were relatively few ritual magicians who considered themselves Christian. 

Nowadays; it seems that those who practice magic are almost all "neo-pagans" of one sort or another; and those that I have encountered express "anything but Christianity" at best, but are mostly (and often vehemently) anti-Christian.

(This opposition usually boils-down-to an opposition to the constraints that Christian churches have placed on sex and sexuality - i.e. they hate what they regard as Christianity "because" they support some aspect of the sexual revolution of which they desire to avail themselves.) 

While several neo-pagan magical writers seem like decent people in themselves, and surely no worse overall than many/most devout Christian church-members; I cannot shake off a solid awareness of a kind of shadow that lies behind, motivates, and tends to corrupt neo-paganism - whether magical or any other kind.

Consequently I have little interest in the present day practitioners of ritual magic - and very seldom find myself "enchanted" by their work -- indeed more often I experience the opposite: a repulsion.

So my conclusion is rather like Sturgeon's Law: probably 99% of Ritual Magic is crap - but then 99% of all actual Christian Churches (including the best) is crap. In this actual world, here-and-now, 100% of most institutions is crap. If we find something that contains even one percent that is good; then we should cleave to that tiny proportion, and set-aside the rest. 

But experiencing such repulsion when sensing the deep motivations of modern people is actually the norm for me. 

And, on the other side, I find the underlying personal character of both Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight to be very appealing and indeed inspiring; even when I regard them as mistaken or on the wrong track in many specifics.

I find that I am less and less impressed by superficial agreements or disagreements with those who I read; more and more my discernments of good and not-good people, seem to be rooted-in (what I infer to be) some much deeper level of character and attitude. 

This is yet another way in which I find myself at odds with traditional, group-based, external-authority-rooted ways of understanding the purpose and meaning of life; and of the Christian Life specifically. 

It seems to me that anybody - including those corrupted, or even of of deeply evil nature - can make public affirmations or rejections of whatever checklist of doctrines or dogmas will get them accepted by some kind of institution or social group. 

This kind of stuff (which is 99% of "religions") is nowadays (it was not always so) just about gatekeeping, boundaries, gang-membership - in short: attempts to increase this-worldly power. 

And therefore it already-is, or soon-becomes, assimilated to the aims and methods of the ruling totalitarian System; which is why in 2026 all institutions (including all churches) are converged or converging with the evil-strategies of atheistic-materialism.  

On the other side; I am both interested and grateful when I encounter a person (alive or dead) whose motivates are genuinely good; and who is working, in his inner life, for positive and spiritual goals.

I believe these to be the truest followers of Jesus; in the sense that such people are much the most likely to desire, accept, and embrace Christ's offer of post-mortal, resurrected eternal life in Heaven.  

And with such rare people, I will take them where I find them and enjoy the experience, and try to learn from it - whether such individuals are located in or out-of the institutions of ritual magic, or elsewhere.    

ETs - the question of contact with Extra-Terrestrial humanoid life forms

Much as with UFOs; I have read a fair bit about ET contacts (and viewed documentaries or videos); and various of my penfriends have described their own ET contacts - so my attitude has been somewhat open to the reality of such things. 

But this openness-in-principle has been modified by an underlying lack of interest in the subject; which is itself a reaction against the enormous (sometimes cosmically vast and spiritual) claims of significance made by ET proponents; whether positive or negative. 

Furthermore, there is the problem that I don't believe most of the claims - or at least, I am not confident of their validity. 

Some reports seem to be lies, while other experiences seem to be self-deceptions due to illness or stupidity - while other people seem to reporting genuine spiritual or paranormal experiences, but may be misinterpreting other kinds of experiences as ET contacts. 

In particular, to believe ET reports requires for me a confidence in the discernment - including spiritual discernment - of the witness, and up-until-now I had not come across any ET reports that ticked all the necessary boxes. 

Anthony Duncan

This has changed since I read To Think Without Fear: the challenge of the extra-terrestrial (2015), by Anthony Duncan (1930-2003) - which has convinced me of the validity of his report of ET contacts happening to himself and family, in the middle 1990s in Northumberland, where he was an Anglican priest. 

Although, as a Church of England Vicar of several parishes; at times AD lived near to me and I walked past his churches frequently; I never met him and did know know about him (indeed, I did not become a Christian until after he had died). 

I came across Duncan rather vaguely at first through an interest in "Celtic Christianity" (a subject about which he wrote several books); but mainly through my reading of Gareth Knight. And esepcially Kiight's superb autobiography: I called it magic (2011).  

Duncan and Knight met when AD was curate at Tewksbury Abbey while GK lived in the town; and AD prepared Knight for confirmation into the CofE. They rapidly became friends and then complementary collaborators; ultimately leading AD to an interest in the Qabalah that eventually bore fruit in Duncan's The Christ, Psychotherapy and Magic (1969); which fed-into Knight's restoration of Christian ceremonial magic in Experience of the Inner Worlds (1975). 

Duncan was a natural, spontaneous, psychic and mystic - who had paranormal as well as supernatural experiences throughout his adult life' He was an officially-recognized exorcist in the Church of England - and became a Canon of Newcastle Cathedral. 

I read GK's memoir of AD (Christ and Qabalah - 2013) and then several of AD's books and a recorded lecture; before tackling To think without fear TTWF. So I already liked and respected Duncan, before reading the ET book. 

However, it needed two attempts to get-through TTWF; because of the rather unfortunate way it is structured. The key parts that actually convinced me of the validity of his interpretations of his experiences - the descriptions of his ET experiences; come at the very end of the volume, in the Appendices. 

...Before which I needed to wade through a great deal of complex, abstract, and (from my POV) theologically-unconvincing explanations and justifications of the reality of ETs from the context of mainstream-orthodox Anglican philosophy and doctrine (with various eclectic additions). 

There are, however, many important insights scattered throughout these rather turgid early parts - and the effort of penetrating these chapters surely prepared my receptivity for the simple and clear expositions that came at the end.   

Despite all its defects, what made this the only account to convince me of the reality of an ET experience was that background of already knowing and respecting Duncan; plus my confidence that he was able - from considerable experienced reflected-upon - to discern the provenance of strange experiences.  

In other words, Duncan, had throughout his adult Christian life, experienced many contacts and "communication" involving angels, demons, ghosts and the like - and therefore he was exceptionally well-placed and able to discern that these ETs were... what they "said" they were.

AD was also well-motivated, i.e. not trying to gain personal advantage from reporting ET contacts. Indeed he did not share the experiences described in this book outside the circles of his friends: and this book was not published until a decade after his death. 

In brief; the nature of the ET contacts (confirmed by two other people) was a non-visual but definite sense of presences (various numbers, and of various types of personage); and a direct, usually non-verbal, mind-to-mind telepathic (back-and-forth, Q&A type) understanding.

So, having been convinced - what then?

For me, nothing much more than an expansion of metaphysical possibility: I remain largely uninterested by such contacts - and have no significant desire to share them. 

The claims variously made in other books etc of a strategic importance of ETs for Mankind, material and or spiritual, seem to me to have been refuted by the passage of decades. Such discussion is contaminated by "geopolitical" forms of thinking about civilizational purposes, clashes, alliances and the like. 

I think the real significance (and this seems to be the opinion of AD) is interpersonal. The significant depends on the actual parties involved - the specific human and the specific ET (who seem to vary in kind and motivation) - and the quality of what happens between them. 

Contact with ETs is therefore as important, or as trivial, as contact with other kinds of living Beings - whether living or dead, material or spiritual. 

That is to say - genuinely loving contact between Beings (if this develops) is eternally-significant and of positive value to divine creation...

Whereas contacts that have an instrumental purpose (in which one or both parties are attempting to use the other for some benefit, or from mere curiosity, or operating under orders) are net-harmful interactions; but usually just insignificant, in the wider scheme.  

The re-enchantment of the world - a matter of direct spiritual contacts

Since the emergence of Romanticism in the late 1700s, the "disenchantment" of our modern world has been a constant cultural theme; and there have been may analyses of its cause; and suggestions concerning the possibilities for re-enchantment. 

I have, over the past half century, read many books and essays on this theme; and I observe that more continue to be published. 

In recent years I have expanded my explorations to include the tradition of Christian ceremonial magic, in particular the works of Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight. Knight, in particular, confronts this issue head-on, especially in his autobiography "I called it magic" (2011) - which describes the (almost) life-long quest for re-enchantment of his life. 

What follows derives from such considerations; and takes the form of notes-to-myself, as a kind of aide memoire concerning a partial crystallization of ideas. 

++

In our world, here and now, the proper aim of magical activity is to establish the greatest possible range of loving contacts. 

By which I mean, in particular, direct inter-Being contacts of a spiritual kind. 

By "direct" contacts I mean mind-to-mind - therefore unmediated; not-perceptual, not symbolic nor linguistic.  

By "Beings" I mean any of the primary units of reality - because I regard reality as consisting of eternally existing and developing, Beings: that are alive, purposive, and (to some extent) conscious.

Therefore; re-enchantment is not about abstractions or atmospheres; nor particular qualities of consciousness or thinking. 

Re-enchantment is concrete and specific - like the interpersonal relationships with those we love.  

Re-enchantment is about an expanded awareness-of and interaction-with many Beings of many kinds; and especially awareness of those entities that are (by mainstream modern ideas and ideologies) considered to be imaginary, not to exist, to be unalive/ dead, or not-to-be-Beings/ never-alive.  

Re-enchantment is piecemeal and quantitative; because expanded awareness could include so many contacts with so many Beings of so many kinds. 

Here is an incomplete list of the kind of contacts that constitute re-enchantment.:

Telepathy with living human beings.

So-called dead people - resurrected Men

Pre-mortal spirit humans

Animals, plants, and mineral-beings

Nature spirits

Fairies

Divine beings (including the Holy Ghost)

Planets and stars

The scope of "magical" contacts, is as wide as the nature of Beings. 

To simplify somewhat; these contacts are what is missing from the alienated, materialistic and mundane life of Modern men; and a person who lived in continuous contact with all these kinds of Beings (and other Beings) would be living the "enchanted" life.  

But more needs to be said, and that includes that the contacts be of the right quality; which is to say loving. 

The point is Not (as so often has been sought) to make contact with Beings in order to "use" them to seek power/ wealth/ sex/ status; nor to get information from them; nor to be healed by them; nor to get guidance from them...

If other Beings are regarded as means to an end, any relationship will be dis-enchanted. 

An enchanted relationship cannot be instrumental. 

The "point" of these contacts is the value of loving relationships in and of themselves.

The point of these contacts is expanded awareness.  

However, contacts are not static nor merely contemplative; because contacts are two-way, they are dynamic, developmental. 

Beings in a loving relationship therefore aspire to a active relationship. 

The interaction of Beings - their mutual influencing - is the context of creativity. 

Creation (for an individual) is actively participating in the "web" of his relationships - by this activity he "makes a difference" to divine creation. 

In sum: Contemplation is a passive participation in relationships on one side; however, Creativity is active participation on both sides. 

Re-enchanting the world is thus about restoring and gaining the fullest range of contacts. 

And, for the seeking of loving-contacts to be a meaningful activity in our actual lives (not to be regarded as trivial, nor explained-away in materialistic terms); we need to be able to explain to ourselves how this really happens, and why it is really significant in terms of eternal creation. 

Experiencing Winter Solstice in magical imagination

I regard the Winter Solstice as a phase of the year lasting about a week, rather than today specifically.

Because day length barely changes for several days - even up here in an extreme latitude (55 degrees north), on either side of an astronomical solstice. 

The solstices have the slowest rate of day-to-day change in day-length of any time of year, just as the equinoxes have the fastest. 

Such an insight means that one can (more often) legitimately mark and celebrate the solstice at a time when the skies are clear, and in places where ravening hordes of noisy and crusty neo-pagans are absent!

Or, even better - at least for me, and people like me - is to create the event in active imagination, from memories and previous imaginings.  

Such was what the great Christian occultist Gareth Knight recommended: that when we visit enchanted or sacred sites, we are only seldom in an exalted mood (we may be ill, frazzled, distracted), and the situation may not be conducive to a here-and-now spiritual experience (adverse weather, intrusive crowds). 

But we should be attentive, observant, give the place a chance to soak-into us...

And then use these memories - and other memories of a personal, literary, artistic, imagined etc. nature - to re-create and synthesize an ideal experience; at some time later - in meditation. 

In other words, we can follow the advice of William Wordsworth in that classic statement of Romanticism: the preface to Lyrical Ballads: 

I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.

We need, therefore, to put aside notions that meditative re-creative imagination is a second-hand or second-rate experience...

And realize that this is the definitive mode of enchantment, or participation, for people like us, here and now.   

"The hand follows the eye" - To navigate life, we need to look where we are going

The only way to talk with the subconscious mind is through the pictorial imagination, because it has a very archaic mode of mentation that developed before speech had been thought of. It is unresponsive to logic, or argument, or appeals to its better nature. But show it a picture, and it understands and is only too ready to cooperate - now that it knows what is required of it. 

This is an exemplification of the well known maxim that the hand follows the eye.

If you look over the hedge when driving a car, you will end up in the ditch because, all unconsciously, you will steer in the direction in which you are looking. 

The novice keeps his eye on the kerb in order to avoid running into it, and follows St Paul's example in doing the thing he would not. 

The expert looks where he wants to go, and gets there. 

Edited from page 21 An Introduction to Ritual Magic by Dion Fortune - 

edited by Gareth Knight, 1997/2006 

**

This is a metaphor for the role in our mortal life; "where we want to go" means our desire for, and confident belief-in, salvation. 

The hand follows the eye... "The hand" is what we do in life - all that complex and potentially bewildering combination of attitudes, and knowledge, and actions. 

"The eye" is what is the subject of our attention. 

If we "look over the hedge", looking around instead of looking ahead; we shall be distracted by the temporary contingencies of mortal life, and will end up in a ditch... 

If our attention is focused on the close-up and specifics of life - such as the avoidance of sins, or doing particular good works - then we will drive into the kerb... 

We need instead to focus on where we want to go. 

And for a Christian: where-we-want-to-go comes after death: and is Resurrected Eternal Heavenly life.  

When we know where we want to go, are confident that we can get there; when we look at it and keep this vision before us - then we will get there. 

"Contacts" seem to be the potential basis of experiential understanding; as well as participation in the world of spirit

For the past couple of years I have been reading considerably about what Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight (and other ritual magicians of their kind) call "contacts" - or sometimes "Masters". The experience is of individual communication, or sharing of consciousness, with a spiritual being. 

The phenomenon seems various in its details, and may occur in a full trance (i.e. when the human becomes unconscious, and speaks or writes without awareness of what is being communicated). Or it may happen in more alert trance states, with awareness of what is going-on. This is apparently broadly the same as "channelling" (i.e. what is channelled, is "a contact"). 

And contacts seem to underlie, and blend-with by degrees, much commoner and more normal phenomena such as an intense fascination, empathy, communion with some not-present personage; who might be alive or dead, real-life or fictional. 

Contact may be sensory (in the form of spoken words or conversation (clairaudience), of visual (clairvoyance - perhaps of visions, symbols, written words); or non-sensory - as what I call "direct knowing". 

What seems to be the essential common factor is experienced person-to-person (or person-to-being) contact. 

Having read quite widely on this subject, it has become clear that (contrary to common claims, and despite that contacts are often sought purposively as a path to knowledge and guidance) such contacts are not necessarily, indeed only seldom, the basis for accurate or valid information. 

This is obvious from the apparent wrongness of much specific (and indeed abstract and generalized) information of this kind; but it must be true from the wide range of contradictory information cited between different (but apparently honest and competent) people; and the same person at different times. 

So I have concluded that contacts ought Not to be regarded as a pathway to factual or conceptual knowledge or true guidance. 

On the other hand; I have concluded that experience of contacts are not only of potentially primary personal significance; but are probably necessary to the development of true knowledge. 

In other words, unless we experience a phenomenon that could be characterized as a contact, we shall never really understand anything. 

I concluded this from examining my own work in science and literature, as well as theology, philosophy, and mystical religious experience. Even from when I was an atheist - from more than a decade before I was a theist, or a Christian; I never really understood the meanings of things until I had had this kind of contact experience. 

For instance, if I was working on theoretical science; it was all just a matter of "comparing models" - an activity that had no end, and brought no sense of validity - until I had reached an empathic contact with those scientists (living or dead) whose work I was critiquing or using; and the same applied when I had developed a theory that I regarded as valid. 

Truth needed to be "checked" by a very inner process, much as I later called heart-thinking; and until a proposition had passed this "test" I was never confident of it. 

True knowing needs to be known in the heart, and no amount of head-knowing (logic and "facts") can replace this requirement.  

Something closely analogous seems to be at work when I am trying to understand a writer. Unless and until I can attain an inward sense of contact and communion with that person; then I never really feel I know what they are saying. 

For instance; it took me about a decade before I "got" Owen Barfield, and felt that I really understood what he was thinking and asserting - and this understanding came as a consequence of getting onto his wavelength by a kind of sympathetic resonance, by thinking "with" him as I read his words or contemplated his writings. 

Much the same applied with William Arkle; I had to immerse into his writings for some years before, quite suddenly, I "contacted" his spirit and had the basis for understanding. 

But with other authors - such as ST Coleridge - I have never attained this sense of contact, therefore I have never (so far) been confident of understanding him: it is all second-hand, hearsay, "models" of what he was doing. 

It is certainly Not the case that contact leads to correct understanding. Contact with Barfield and Arkle was just the basis for understanding them. I needed to study, read, re-read, and think hard. 

So having experienced "contact" should Not be used as a "proof" that one's understanding is correct. 

But without that contact, there never would have been genuine understanding.

Furthermore, once one has attained contact, and followed it with serious study; one can recognize when others have not attained contact; and are merely parroting and playing-with second-hand summaries and models.  

Contact therefore seems to be necessary but not sufficient to knowing. 

Contact is also perhaps one of the commonest and most readily available modes of direct spiritual experience: a kind-of evidence of the reality of the spirit world.  

And this is just how things would be expected, in an animated, living reality - in this created universe ultimately composed of Beings in relationships. 

In sum; I conclude that he ways that contacts are usually regarded, seem to be mistaken. It is usually an error to seek contacts as a source of factual information. 

However, contacts - properly regarded - can be an experience of the living world of spirits, an active participation a world of conscious Beings: recognition of a relational world, in which we are never alone. 

And a way of inhabiting a world where we can truly understand purposes and meanings - at least to the extent of our individual cognitive capacities, biases, defects and particular perspectives.

All this depends on our regarding it as metaphysically possible - that is, our fundamental assumptions need to allow for such potential: we need to realize that this fits how reality is structured and operates. 

A comment for GunnerQ on "esotericism"

I cannot induce GunnerQ's Substack blog to accept an extended comment on his recent posting; so I shall reproduce it here:

@GQ - 

You seem to be working something out at present, using over-inclusive and scattergun principles and arguments that (I predict!) you will discover fail to discriminate between what you value/ want to preserve and what you (IMO rightly) abhor and wish to exclude. 

Thus, I think you are painting yourself into a corner; as you will realize sooner or later! 

And I am confident you Will realize this, since you are clearly honest and well-motivated. Nonetheless, speaking from experience, this "painting oneself into a corner" is sometimes the best way to learn - learn deeply, that is. 

I painted myself into a very terrible corner in the early 2000s (eg in my book The Modernization Imperative) but it was, apparently, necessary for me to plumb materialism to the very dregs before I could recognize its innate nihilism - and could choose to become a Christian. 

More generally, that has been the usual way for me to learn - throw everything in, trying to make something work, and only when it has collapsed (collapsed, that is, from my POV) will I abandon it. 

Anyway; I certainly agree that there is a kind of black magic cult near the top level of totalitarian control in the world - mostly western world. This is very important to recognize. I've written about this variously: https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/search?q=steiner+brotherhoods. 

But you notice that these insights came from Rudolf Steiner, who himself had an esoteric (albeit not secret) society - and, IMO, one with not a few undesirable aspects. 

(Plus, ninety-something percent of what Steiner wrote is, so far as I can tell from the large but minority sample of his writings I have read, completely - and sometimes perversely - wrong!) 

My point is that there is (I have found, and continue to find) a good deal to be gained from reading Steiner and other occultists who are on the Christian side, the side of Good (Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight) - while avoiding, completely - or almost so, those on the dark side, the Left Hand path. Indeed, these are some of only a handful of authors I would regard as personal mentors, to a greater (Steiner) or lesser (DF and GK) extent. 

Reading, as always, must be with discernment - because (speaking personally) there is nobody, not one single individual*, in the whole world, past or present, whose core views I accept in toto - and typically I reject (later, if not sooner) most of what anybody writes. 

In conclusion, occultism and esoteric organization is a method, not a goal; a means not an end; and well-motivated and real Christians may (or may not) choose to engage with esoteric/ occult material and methods according to preference. 

As always, motivation is primary, and discernment is necessary - because discernment is just another name for taking the fullest possible personal responsibility for our spiritual life. 

Esoteric/ occult activity is neither more, nor less, dangerous than the far more pervasive and equally-deadly literalism/ Pharisee-ism and institution-worship/ obedience; to which too many Traditionalist Christians are not just prone but explicitly dedicated.  

*(Not even the Fourth Gospel, that greatest of all Christian texts... greatest of All texts, do I accept in its entirety - because I'm sure there are errors and later alien additions - even in the divinely-inspired "King James" translation.)

Somerset Spirituality in the late 20th century

Although born in Devon; I spent all my school years living in a village in north Somerset. But, because I was (mostly) a rationalistic atheist, I was almost unaware that during this time, as well as for some time afterwards, Somerset was a centre for some of the best exponents of spiritual (including Christian) thinking - several of whom lay within a bicycle ride of my own house. 

Somerset was indeed the residence of several people who since become some of my most important spiritual mentors.  

Mostly, this Christian spirituality was a subset of the fact that (outside of London) the main place for New Age thinking was (as described by historian of paganism Ronald Hutton - who has himself been at Bristol University since 1981) an isosceles triangle with its base cornered by Bristol and Bath, and its point at Glastonbury. 

My lack of interest in this kind of thing - at the time - is evidenced by the fact that I did not visit Glastonbury until after I had left school, and the family was was just about to move to Scotland!

Nonetheless; I believe that spiritual influences of place do have an effect; sometimes all the more powerful for being latent and unacknowledged; and in later life these influences began to pile-in upon me. 

Terry Pratchett (among other things) wrote superbly on aspects of Southern English folklore; and he was living not far away in in tiny Mendip village of Rowberrow, practicing "self-sufficiency", beginning his publishing career, and absorbing the same Electric Folk influences (especially Steeleye Span with their interest in supernatural ballads) that so much dominated my teenage years. 

John Michell - Christian Platonist and Geomancer - was another inhabitant of this region; living in Bath; which city also housed (for a while) our-very-own William Wildblood. 

Then there was Geoffrey Ashe. He was the only one of these people of whom I was aware at the time; because he was well known as an advocate of South Cadbury Hill Fort as the location of King Arthur's "Camelot". I even visited this impressive earthwork one gloomy Sunday afternoon with my Dad, and felt some of the site's presence. 

William Arkle actually lived in Backwell, the same village as myself ; albeit up on top of Backwell Hill. I knew nothing about him until a few months before I left school, when there was a local BBC TV documentary programme about him. I was intrigued, and tried (without success) to find out more; but was put off making contact by my reflective anti-Christianity (in the programme he talked about God in a manner that I found off-putting). I could very easily have visited and met him - especially since my sister knew the family to talk to, via an interest in ponies - but I didn't...

Another Glastonbury resident in his later life (and a frequent visiter to nearby Winscombe as a child) was Stanley Messenger, an unusually thoughtful and independent-minded Anthroposophist. 

[See note added]

All of the above people have, in different ways and to various degrees, been important to me in my spiritual life and development. All have significant Somerset connections, and all (except Stanley M, I think) overlapped with my residence of the county, and were indeed situated nearby. 

This now strikes me as quite remarkable - because the above names constitute a large proportion of the authors, thinkers, lecturers - learning from whom has led me to where I am now. 

Clearly, Somerset set its mark upon me; and that influence has continued to grow in the 45-plus years since I moved away.  

Note added 5th December 2023: I have just discovered that the folk musician Bob Stewart (expert Psaltery player) and scholar of folk mythology (Where is St George? - recommended!) was living in Bristol and Bath from the late 1960s and into the 1980s. He later went on - renamed RJ Stewart - to become associated with Gareth Knight, a prolific and influential author of books on ritual magic, and workshop leader. 

What makes a successful pilgrimage, and why?

View of Glastonbury Tor from Wearyall Hill (where boats would arrive when Avalon was an island) 

In relation to my post from earlier today, which emphasized the role of individual, autonomous thinking in the world; a recent visit to Glastonbury seems relevant. Glastonbury has unsurpassed importance in the deep (and mythical, as well as historical) nature of Christianity in the British Isles. 

Yet since the 1970s, it has become a magnet for a New Age neo-paganism that is "anything-but-Christianity" in its basic stance. 

This -- even when New Age neo-paganism weaves-in versions of Christian legends about Jesus visiting Somerset as a child; the site of the first Christian church in Britain (and perhaps the first outside Palestine); a foundational role of Joseph of Arimathea; and the influences of the Holy Grail (also, perhaps, the Spear of Destiny). 

Thus, many of the people encountered in and around Glastonbury are on the anti-Christian side in the spiritual war of this world. 

On the other hand, Glastonbury was the chosen residence (and spiritual focus) of the recently deceased writer Geoffrey Ashe - which counts for something positive in my book. 

So, the situation is that the surface and social aspects of Glastonbury are mostly hostile and aversive to my kind of Christian spirituality; while the depths and resonances are tremendous. 

A visit therefore depends (even more than visits usually do) on the attitude we bring to the place. I think this is the case now days, with our autonomous consciousness, than it was in the past. For example, in ancient times and into the middle ages, it seems that a place of Holy pilgrimage would have an objective and essentially-irresistible beneficial effect on the pilgrim. 

But, even if so, that is certainly not the case anymore: to physically move oneself to what was called the Holyest Erthe in England is no longer beneficial unless one brings the right frame of mind. So much is clear from observing modern 'pilgrims', or hearing them talking about their experiences. 

This recent visit was with my brother; and focused on the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, seeking books by Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight in the esoteric bookshops, the Chalice Well, and the Holy Thorn on Wearyall Hill. 

For, no doubt, a combination of reasons; our visit to Glastonbury was successful in terms of pilgrimage. We were able to see through whatever was aversive about the surface and many of the people; and experience what lay deeper. 

The question that comes to me now, is whether this benefit was wholly explicable in terms of perceiving the past shining through the present. And I think not. 

I think that the past as such has not this power; and what we are actually experiencing in such situations is the effect of living thinking of the alive (and the so-called dead) people for whom Glastonbury is a living spiritual resource. 

In other words; perhaps we are dealing with something much like what ritual magicians term 'thought-forms', or something like Jung implied by Archetypes. The positive, holy, creative thoughts of Christians have made a living, always-present spiritual resource that may be tapped-into by those who share such motivations. 

To tap-into such thought-forms does not require geographical proximity; yet the complex of attitudes and actions required to place oneself in Glastonbury, and to move around it in an attitude of expectation, can shape the mind to become especially receptive.

And, not only receptive. Having linked to a thought-form, our own thinking will (to some extent) modify, add-to, enhance that thought-form; and it is our experience of this participation that is exactly what makes a pilgrimage special and beneficial. 

Ritual-Ceremonial Magic is nowadays (yet) another externally-imposed and institutional belief-set - hence probably net-evil

I continue to be intrigued by 'ritual' or 'ceremonial' magic, which in the UK was,  I believe, often (in the practice of such as Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight) a valid means of Christian living - up into the middle 20th century. 

But (I think) is nowadays insufficiently-effective (that is; insufficient to resist the strategic evils of our society and civilization) - or net-malign an influence (i.e. when it has 'converged' with the values of globalist-media-totalitarianism). 

This is because ritual magic was (it seems) rooted in the learning and repeated practice of directed imagination. Initiates were trained by being told what to do, and what to think about or imagine: what to visualize and to feel - while doing prescribed rituals or exercises. 

And the rituals or exercises were repeated multiple times; so that performing them either in real life, or in imagination, would lead to these inner sensory and emotional outcomes. At the end of such training, initiates were able to control their own responses to rituals, symbols, narratives ("path-workings") so as to experience them intensely. 

Beyond this, magic works by making 'contacts' with spiritual beings; and these beings were traditionally specifically named and sought - although in later years there was also the possibility of seeking a contact, making contact, and then (perhaps) finding out who that was (to a greater or lesser degree). (By this stage, Magic had begun to overlap substantially with New Age "channeling", in its various manifestations.) 

The purpose of these spirit contacts was perhaps instructional - intended to get information from the contacts; and partly the actual process of interaction with a contact may itself provide intense experiences of consciousness.  

So, for its adherents, magic could provide information about the nature and functioning of the world; and enable the initiate to have experiences of more intense consciousness - imaginations that are visual, auditory or via any other perceptual sense; and accompanied by strong emotions. 

Consequently, the motivational power of a magical kind of Christianity could be enhanced - in directions that depended upon the content of material that was being inculcated, top-down; by the magical society or individual leader.  

This type of Magical practice recognizes that Modern Man can and does (unavoidably) 'make his experienced-reality'; which is the 'reality' he knows and lives-by. Magic responds to this, by attempting to train people to make a more-or-less standard particular and desired reality for the members of a particular magical group. 

In other words; reality is given to magical adherents in a top-down fashion, analogous to the situation ins a traditional church. 

And this is exactly why I believe that ritual/ ceremonial magic has become essentially obsolete. 

Almost all institutions and formal groups have nowadays become converged with the secular-leftist materialism and its Litmus Test issues via which this agenda-of-evil is being pursued throughout Western civilization, and the places and people influenced by it. 

Since organizations are compulsorily politicized by bureaucratic means and through relentless mass-social media pressure (and usually politicized willingly, enthusiastically; since this evil corruption is so widespread among the masses); then this will affect more and more of the activities of ritual magic - the content of which is more and more leftist hence evil. 

In other words; ritual-ceremonial magic is susceptible to exactly the form of corruption that are the "Christian" churches; and for the same reasons. 

Men make their own experienced-reality - but the only true reality corresponds with that of God's creation. All others oppose created-reality, and lead away from resurrection to eternal Heavenly life. They lead, indeed; to self-chosen, self-made, self-imprisoning hells - of various kinds. 

I believe that already and increasingly; all forms of top-down influence are net-evil (that is, they contain some Good, because all that is created contains some Good - but overall and by motivation they are evil); that is. they are encouraging and enforcing one or many of the false realities in opposition to divine creation. 

As of 2023, these top-down experienced-realities are not just destructive of truth and Goodness; but often invert real values: therefore the methods of ritual magic, insofar as they retain effect, will tend to be dishonest and enforcing of lies; will tend to support and promote sin; will call ugliness beauty and reject the truly-beautiful as being ugly and oppressive.  

My conclusion is that here-and-now we cannot trust the content or motivations of any external sources - including magical traditions or societies; because they will very probably, implicitly if not explicitly, be training us in ways-of-being that net-oppose divine creation and serve the powers of evil.  

Group-ish and top-down (e.g. initiatory) practices that were possible, effective and overall Good just a century ago, or eve more recently; now almost always are the opposite; and are either merely ineffective or feeble, or else their power is harnessed against the divine and transcendental values. 

Like it or not; we are forced back upon our own powers of discernment; and the taking of active personal responsibility for our beliefs and practices.

And - as part of this - a recognition that our defense against corruption and possibility of pursuing Good is almost always by becoming aware-of, and actively-choosing-of, much that used to be unconscious, passive, taken for granted, taken on trust. 

Gareth Knight - Romantic Christian

In 2011, Gareth Knight (1939-2022) published an autobiography titled I call it Magic which is easy and enjoyable to read on the surface; yet contains several deeper layers of implied content that have only revealed themselves on re-reading.

Of particular interest was his account of the transformation in his own 'magical life' throughout his adult life; especially the changes in what he 'called' magic, the means by which he reached the state of enchantment or poetry, and the actual content of these magical-states. 

Knight began as a formal ritual magician, ascending through the prolonged training and initiatory steps of the Society of the Inner Light (founded a generation earlier, as a Christian organization, by Dion Fortune); he went on to found his own ritual magic group - on similar, though looser, lines; then to 'staging' much larger annual weekend events (almost 'happenings') at an anthroposophical centre called Hawkwood. 

By Knight's own account, in the 1970s to the early 1980s, these weekends attained a very powerful level of magical activity among the participants (who had been trained in the requisite methods of concentration and visualization). He then stopped doing this, and moved on to less formal and more improvisatory styles of magic either alone, with his wife and daughter, or in small and private groups. 

After the turn of the millennium his magic practice had changed further. In December of 2004 he was invited back to the Hawkwood weekend; which had changed considerably over the previous couple of decades (the following quotations are from Chapter 31 of I called it Magic) :

The occasion was a jolly romp, with the place filled to capacity, and a rich variety of activity. [But] Power was not ramped up to the degree that it had been in the early Hawkwood days...   

In other words, the experience was less-strongly magical, less enchanted than it had been. In other words; this corresponds to my observations on the declining power of symbolism and ritual through the late 20th century.  

Knight does not draw attention to the meaning of these changes for his inner life; but describes how in fact his practices changed - in the direction of becoming more individual, personally based, and exploratory (rather than relying-on an established and quasi-objective system of symbols, rituals, and group activity). 

Rooted in his study of French language and literature (in which subject he did a degree in later life); Knight embarked on an engagement with the medieval French Arthurian poet Chretien de Troyes:

I took upon myself the task of going through each of Chretien's romances as if both he and I were present, travelling through the whole scenario from start to finish as a kind of directed visualization, and writing it all down...

It then filtered into my head the realization that much that I had witnessed in this was was not chivalrous knights going to the aid of damsels in distress but accounts of their initiation into fairyland - for there was a strong case for seeing the principal female characters as faery rather than human. 

This led on to what Knight termed faery 'contacts' - which then led to writing several books deriving from these contacts. What this meant he explains further: 

It dealt in imagery but with a philosophical intent, yet a wisdom expressed more through the medium of a story than by intellectual definitions. To make the contact it was necessary to build a scenario [i.e. in imagination] something like a questing knight discovering a castle in a particular symbolic shape, and then entering into it... with a ... direct feeling of relationship with the fabric of the building itself. 

After further description of his imagined but real-seeming experiences; Knight elaborates the resulting new and deeper engagement with nature:

This kind of thing was at a different level from local countryside experiences where contact was virtually devoid of intellect but impacted more on the emotional and etheric levels... Along with contacts... came a greater sense of presence and communion with the world of nature, and particularly trees...

It may well be that experience and wisdom of this nature comes with age, which is [an] aspect of the Merlin and Nimue story... But there is no real need to await one's dotage for a realization of these things.

  

What Gareth Knight seems to me to be describing here, is a kind of recapitulation of Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield's scheme of the development of consciousness. The ritual magic was the Intellectual Soul era, characteristic of classical and medieval culture. 

Contact bears some relationship to 'channeling' of spiritual Beings - which he also did for example in a channeled series of direct communication (much like taking dictation) of 1993, published as The Abbey Papers. 

But 'contact' comes across to me as much more of a two-way interaction between himself and a spiritual Being - and not necessarily in words, nor in images - i.e. more direct than language- or symbol-mediated. 

Knight then moved towards what sound very much like Final Participation - which is something like a recapitulation in conscious thinking of what was a much more passive and unconscious in the spontaneous animistic Original Participation of early childhood and tribal Man. 

Animistic, because it recognizes the world as consisting of living, conscious Beings with which one may have relationships and communication. Knight also seems to be moving towards a communication less based on perceptions and visions, and more a matter of what I have called Direct Knowing: that is direct, wordless and imageless communication in thinking. 

In other words, a direct communion between Beings, such that the thinking of one is participated-in by the thinking of another. 

Once Gareth Knight had reached this kind of 'magic' I think he has largely left-behind the formal and institutional roots of his practice, and indeed its 'objective' aspects, where experiences were shared via a common language and symbolism that could be relied-upon to evoke the same inner states in its participants.

It seems he has - in practice, if not in terms of theorization - fully Romantic Christian; in that he takes an inner, intuitive and personal responsibility for whatever 'methods' he uses to attain magical states of mind (within the over-arching and primary Christian metaphysical framework).   

Knight puts this change down to his own personal development, experiences, expediency, and ageing - but such is the generality of such a development that I interpret it as driven by inner and divinely-destined changes in the human consciousness of Western Man. 

What all this seems to mean is that (here and now) we cannot rely upon external and institutional forms of spirituality to attain 'participation' in the world; and the language of 'objective' communication of spiritual experiences has weakening and withered. 

Yet, on the positive side, we can develop distinctive (perhaps unique) personal 'aids' and methods (i.e. 'contacts' occurring inside thinking, rather than as external 'events), that will achieve the participation which is natural, good, and divinely-intended. 

Also, that strong forms of achieved participation are likely to be more animistic and personal - engagement with particular Beings - than the abstract forms of earlier symbolism. 

     

Whether Gareth Knight would have agreed with my interpretation of his life and development is perhaps doubtful... 

It does rather involve a cutting-off of the branch upon which his life's work rested: that is, the general validity of some particular kinds of ritual, symbols, group-activity; and the communication of these in abstract and written forms, and by speech. 

But his desire to use more narrative story-like communications; his primary mode of magic in later life being a personal, inter-Being and two-way 'contact'; and the continually-evolving nature of the subject matter and formal techniques of his magic - all suggest that there was exactly such an evolution; and that Gareth Knight's life ended with him being implicitly a genuine and fully-realized Romantic Christian. 

An example of specific divine guidance in my life

I do not like blogging about my own spiritual experiences; partly from reticence and partly because spiritual guidance is designed for the benefit of the recipient not as general teaching. 

Furthermore, each experience of personal miracles, or of the guidance of the Holy Ghost, has been so different in its specifics; that the major lesson for me has been that there is no method for such matters. 

(Indeed, to teach or assume generic methods for the Christian life, or to convert personal mystical experiences into advice, seem likely to do more harm than good.) 

On the other hand; it may somewhat encouraging for other people to know that a long-term and deep personal question for which I sought a response for some years did, in the end, receive an answer - albeit slowly and by a very indirect and not-replicable route.

I am not going to discuss the answer I was given; but I will describe something of the strange and unexpected way that an answer was communicated to me - in such a way that the process got past my fundamental misunderstandings and false pre-conceptions, and convinced me intuitively of its validity. 

I have often observed that when a question does not get an answer from divine sources; this is almost always because the question is ill-formed, and contains fundamentally wrong assumptions. These are why God cannot answer us - despite His vast resources. 

Furthermore; we are (nearly always) looking for the wrong kind of answer - and often something which is self-gratifying, or perhaps fits with false ideas of our own nature and destiny. 

This may explain why I was not able to get an answer of value or validity to the question oft what I ought to be doing in my life. I had too many fantasies and day-dreams that blocked my understanding. 

So, God's problem, in trying to help me, was to work past a great mass of such preconceptions, false understandings, wrong notions of the kind of thing I sought; and the tendency to ignore the true answer if given me straightforwardly, because the simple truth 'wasn't what I wanted to hear'... 

The only positive thing I was able to do to assist the process was to maintain my intent to find an answer over a period of years. I didn't give up. 

Admittedly I wasted considerable time, money and effort on dozens of false leads; but I kept plugging away - and followed hunches. 

What proved essential in the end; I let myself pursue lines of enquiry that had some kind of here-and-now interest to me; even when these appeared 'rationally' to be dead-ends, or trivial. 

Thus I have recently been re-reading around the subject of Christian 'ceremonial magic' - in particular the books of Gareth Knight and Dion Fortune, who I regard as admirable people. But I had already read these authors in the past couple of years, and had become clear in my mind that such a ritual and symbol, organized, approach to Christian living was now obsolete: it simply does not work anymore. 

I have also been re-reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and focused on the episode when Childermass uses his 'Cards of Marseilles' (i.e. Tarot cards) to tell the fortune of Vinculus, and later to discern dishonesty and theft by Lascelles. 

Such reading led me to re-watch some DVDs of a nostalgic children's TV series from the early 1970s called Ace of Wands; which featured the hero 'Tarot' - a professional stage magician who also had some psychic powers such as telepathy, remote visualization and telekinesis. 

Having enjoyed this; I then got-out my Rider-Waite Tarot Card pack, which had featured in the TV programme; and looked-through some of its pictures.

Having replaced the cards, I absent-mindedly attempted to place it on a table; when the pack accidentally fell to the ground, and two cards jumped-out - and lay face down on the floor.  

It then came to my mind that these two cards would answer my question about what to do in my life.

I immediately thought that this was stupid, because (no matter how valid the process) I would always read-into the cards whatever answer I wanted: in other words, I would fool myself, and therefore the exercise would be useless. 

I don't believe in fortune telling; I don't believe that divination works (nowadays - although it did work in ancient times - up to the early years of the Roman Empire); and I certainly was not seeking 'guidance from the cards'.  

Nonetheless, I picked-up the cards one by one; and immediately recognized that the first card depicted myself and my condition: not as I fondly imagined myself, but as I actually was. 

This came as a shock, and I turned over the second card with some curiosity. 

The second card was one of the Greater Trumps, and I did not know its (supposed) meaning; so I looked it up in the leaflet provided - all the while thinking that it would be futile, because the descriptions are (like newspaper horoscopes) always so vague and ambiguous that they cannot possibly be sufficiently specific to serve as clear guidance for life...  

I read the sentence describing what the card meant, then - after a couple of seconds of dawning recognition - I realized that this was exactly the answer I needed and it was true. 

The generic phrases each and all had specific relevance to my condition.

The answer was obvious, banal, simple - and it was clearly the truth; yet I had missed it and missed it, for a very long time. 

I had to be set-up for this knowledge, in the right frame of mind and expectation; and I had to be surprised by the answer. 

What I think can be learned from the above is that if we persist in seeking an answer to an important question; then God can and will find a way to get that answer to us; and will prepare us to receive that answer. 

And God can do this even when we are (as I was) asking almost exactly the opposite question to the one we needed to ask; and when the mind is clouded and confused by innumerable wrong notions and hopes. 

Therefore; don't give up, and be prepared to follow where inner promptings indicate - even when these are pointing in apparently trivial or useless directions. 

And I think it is worthwhile to recall that the answer will be personal, very exactly tailored to you as an individual and your circumstances.

Also; the method by which God works to deliver the answer will be... Whatever does the job - and that method, too, will be one-off, unique - hence completely unpredictable.  

Which is exactly what is necessary. 

A History of White Magic by Gareth Knight (1978)

The prolific author Gareth Knight (a pen name of Basil Wilby) died recently at the age of 91; and this was one of his earlier books. I found it very enjoyable, and spiritually stimulating. 

Knight was himself a Christian ritual magician (initiated in The Society of Inner Light - which was founded by Dion Fortune; and his Christianity is foundational to the argument of this book. It takes a very broad view of 'magic' to include imagination generally, the development of human consciousness; and is indeed a history of these matters from a Romantic perspective. 

Structurally, the book is woven around summaries of a very large number of authors and religious/ spiritual movements across a span of history from the ancient Hebrews and Greeks; through the transformative coming of Christianity, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the 18th and 19th centuries; right up to some significant books of the middle 1970s such as Robert M Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

Throughout, and particularly in the closing chapters, Knight makes thoughtful analyses and commentaries, in pursuit of a thesis concerning the proper and desirable nature of Good/ White/ Christian magic - and the pitfalls of other kinds. 

In this respect, AHOWM reminded me of Colin Wilson's Outsider series, and his books on the Occult/ Mysteries theme. Anyone who likes Wilson's style of writing philosophy, will probably enjoy this in a similar fashion.  

As I have said elsewhere, reflecting on Knight's and other accounts, I think that ritual magic had been a valid mode of Christian life from the late 19th century and up to the middle of the 20th - but that from around the 1980s it began to cease to 'work'; in a fashion that parallels (and ultimately has the same causes as) the decline in all forms of positive and desirable groups and institutions (including the churches). 

I mean that the rituals of White Magic seemed to lose objective efficacy, and became instead essentially psychological (therapeutic, or creative-stimulating) in nature - and often explicitly so. The ability of magicians to work formally, and reliably, in institutional groups, and by organizational rules, began to dwindle considerably. 

In his later life, it seems that Knight's 'magical' practice became something ever-more individual, improvisatory, and like meditation - when compared with the formal rituals of his early training. 

As such, this history of magic is a fascinating instance of the 'evolution of consciousness', the innate development of Man's thinking and relationship with the divine - as described by Owen Barfield - who gets a single mention here for Saving the Appearances. 

Indeed, Gareth Knight's The History of White Magic could be regarded as one man's account of the genealogy of Romantic Christianity. 

Note: Later Knight came to know Barfield personally, and wrote insightfully about his ideas in The Magical World of the Inklings (1990, 2010.) 

The problem with magical 'contacts' (and, by contrast, how simple intuitions can be valid)

Two twentieth century Christian ritual magicians I like as people and whose work is valuable are Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight. Having said this; I regard them both as of-their-time, and their methods as no longer effective or valid.  

Both worked (partly) via what they termed 'contacts' - that is, spiritual beings with whom they made contact and who provided instruction, advice and conversation - using language. Such contacts were achieved by persons of suitable ability and motives, and also as the culmination of a long period of mental training that encompassed concentration and visualization. 

(I regard such magical contacts as a more active and conscious form of the varieties channeling and automatic  writing that have been a part of New Age spirituality, generally.) 

While I acknowledge that such contacts had some valuable effects and consequences up to the later parts of the twentieth century; I believe they are intrinsically prone to error - and these errors are amplified when the results are transmitted to a wider audience. 

Even assuming that the magician is well-motivated, that the spiritual contact is genuine, and that the spirit contacted is of a good and competent nature; then there are nonetheless two layers of problems about the use of language in these communications. 

Contacts work by a double-translation. In the first place; the spirit must translate from his thinking into words - in the second place the magician must understand the words, and translate into his own understanding. Thus thinking into words, then words back to thinking - before the recipient can know what is being communicated.

And the training of magicians is double-edged; because the capacity to concentrate and visualize entail a mental discipline that tends to perpetuate any distortions or errors in the magician. In particular; when the magician has not fully formulated his questions, or asks an unanswerable question (because the question contains false assumptions) - then there will nonetheless an answer will be generated - because that is how the training has made things. 

So the recurrent problem with magical contacts seems to be that of generating too-precise answers to too many and poorly formulated questions.   

 **

By contrast, what I mean by intuitions operate in a wordless sense, without language. As I have written before; almost everything hinges on the 'question' which needs to be fully, clearly and validly understood. 

It may take someone a long time to become clear about what exactly it is that he needs to know. The question needs to be clarified to the point of being wordlessly grasped as a whole and held in mind. And motivations need to be clarified - because only genuinely Christian motivations will lead to Christianly-valid intuitions. 

In practice such questions seek equally simple - binary-type - answers such as Yes-No, True-False, Good-Evil.  

And in practice - as soon as the question has been clearly and simply known - the 'intuitive' answer is immediately forthcoming. 

No media, language, technologies or symbols are involved; therefore no training in concentration, visualization, meditation etc is needed - indeed such training will do more harm than good insofar as it has become an unconscious habit. 

And any attempt to explain the reasons for the intuitive understanding will therefore necessarily misrepresent the situation - and tend to reduce the solid assurance of the intuition. Because as soon as the intuition has been reduced to words, it will be distorted and incompletely represented; and these wrong reasons may then become a target for rationalistic-public critique such that the knowledge is no longer intuitive. 

Therefore true intuitions are private, clear and simple; and cannot be captured in language, nor can their intuitive nature be communicated. In a sense, each is a personal miracle that sustains faith, and potentially guides thought and conduct.  

So - who is the Greatest Living Englishman Now?

Since the deaths of Geoffrey Ashe and then Gareth Knight earlier this year - I am scratching my head over who I should now regard as the Greatest Living Englishman? 

To qualify, a person (man or woman) would need to be broadly-within the Romantic Christian ideal - and his work should be 'about' England - or, more accurately, the mythic land of Albion. 

That is, he should contribute - through his work, mainly - to a romantic, spiritual and Christian awakening, revival, renewal of Albion. 

If I first exclude (because of my positive biases) the (English) members of the circle of bloggers of which I am a part - so I cannot propose William Wildblood, John Fitzgerald, Ama Bodenstein (or myself!) - likewise I exclude members of my family... Then, who is left? 

Jeremy Naydler is a strong candidate - but he does not focus much upon 'the matter of Britain'. Susanna Clarke is a possibility, since I regard Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell as a work of genius, and it is exactly about Romantic Christian England; but I feel that more than a single work is required. 

So that leaves Terry Boardman as the outstanding possibility.

Does anyone agree? Or can readers think of someone else more worthy of the GLE mantle?  

Gareth Knight (reigning Greatest Living Englishman) has died

I have just heard that Gareth Knight - real name Basil Wilby - died on 1 March of this year at the ripe old age of ninety-one. 

Knight was a continuation of the 'pantheon' of Romantic Christian writers - and was for me, after the death of Geoffrey Ashe, a strong candidate for Greatest Living Englishman; albeit holding that title only for a few weeks... 

And now that GK has left this mortal life, there are no obvious candidates to take over the role. 

I have written about his work several times on this blog; and William Wildblood wrote about his books on Albion Awakening. GK was a ritual magic practitioner, scholar and author - probably the most known and respected 'magician' in the British Isles. 

(Despite or because of which; his passing seems to have gone unremarked in the mainstream mass media.) 

William and I agree that Experience of the Inner Worlds is probably the best of his many worthwhile and enjoyable books. Others I especially liked included his autobiography I called it magic, and The magical world of the Inklings; also his books about Dion Fortune (to whom he was probably the spiritual successor); these served to introduce me to the life and work of this brilliant and appealing woman-genius. 

Knight convinced me of two things. 

First; by his life, writings and example; that magic could be a valid path of Romantic Christianity; albeit that the roots in Christianity seem substantially to have disappeared from contemporary magical practitioners - and indeed a hostility is more evident. 

(Like all institutions over the past century, the world of ritual magic practitioners has by-now 'converged', and substantially assimilated to (subordinated to) leftist politics.) 

Secondly; that the power of ritual magic dwindled through the twentieth century. 

Magic began as practiced by highly organized and hierarchical societies, practicing formal rituals that reliably producing highly objective-seeming results; and being almost a vocation (like a priesthood). But later, incrementally, magic became more improvisatory, more subjective; and more dependent on charisma, surprise, shock, even trangressions; in effect more like a dramatic pageant, a 'happening' or avant garde performance... and the effects more psychological and interpersonal.  

Therefore my conclusion, overall, is that magic was, but is no longer, a possible and effectual spiritual path for Christians. 

This because of the waning objective power of ritual, symbol, allegory, disciplined mental-training etc; but also because of the corruption of institutions and the consequent necessity (and waxing power) of individual human consciousness - of 'primary thinking' - which is free, generative, creative and more fundamental than externally, or socially, defined structures.  

Fear of 'making a fool of myself' blocks creative thought and true insight: "The cursed conceit o' bein' richt that damns the vast majority o' men"

The fool card from Gareth Knight's Tarot

The great Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid wrote a profound phrase in his A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle when he vowed to avoid "The cursed conceit o' bein' richt that damns the vast majority o' men". 

The dialect bein' richt = being right and you see this 'cursed conceit' everywhere; in real life and on the internet. It is what fuels the evil of cynicism (and cynics make the best bureaucrats, all senior managers are recruited from ex-cynics).

It is also the habit that blocks so many Christian conversions. An atheist feels that people would regard him as stupid, naive, gullible if he was to accept an 'obvious' fairy tale ('flying spaghetti monster') like Christianity. 

Supposing, he thinks, I anm wrong about this? What will happen?

Then everybody will think I am a fool, and nobody will ever 'respect' me again! 

For intellectuals, especially, not being thought a fool seems to be the prime motivator. 

Yet, being prepared to be thought a fool is the basis of genius! 

A genius essentially does not care if 'people' think he is a fool - because his motivations and convictions are inner (and divine). 

Being prepared to be thought a fool is also the basis of sainthood. 

Most real saints were widely regarded as fools (or else frauds) - some even courted the status - but they did not allow that fact to stop them doing what they regarded as most important. 

For anyone publicly to affirm the side of God, Good and creation; of truth, beauty and virtue; of spirit, soul and the supernatural - is (nowadays) to be generally regarded as a fool (as well as evil). 

We should not be deterred by the fear of making a fool of ourselves in the eyes of Men - otherwise we have already joined the other-side. 

Nearly everybody I respect as being on the right side in the spiritual war is, or would be, regarded as a fool by most. 

All truth-seekers and truth-speakers must (here, now, 2021) be prepared to make fools of themselves: this is not an option. 

Conversely those who regulate their behaviour so as Not to be regarded as fools (and who advise others to regulate their behaviour likewise) are - by that fact - self-destined for damnation.

Gareth Knight binge

Regular readers will know that when I re/discover an author to my liking, I tend serially to binge on their work; including any biographical material, and critical evaluations, where available.

A few months ago this happened with Philip K Dick, and currently I am reading Gareth Knight. I began by re-reading his book on the Inklings (which I already owned) then went on to another half dozen or so; including his autobiography and selected letters.

Gareth Knight is the pen-name of Basil Wilby; and he is probably the leading expert on the broad subject of 'magic' - including ritual and symbolic magic, such as the work of Dion Fortune, the Qabalah, Alchemy, the Tarot and the like. He is (or was - he is ninety now) a practising magician; and has been a member of and led several groups; run courses, and published magazines - along with a several dozen books.

Knight is a Christian (Church of England), and comes across as a thoroughly likeable and decent person; so I would add him into my 'lineage' of Romantic Christianity.  

Of his many books; the ones I would recommend to readers of this blog interested in giving him a try, would be: The Magical World of the Inklings (for a gentle introduction) and Experience of the Inner Worlds to get a stronger and deeper impression of Knights special contribution to Romantic Christianity.

Ceremonial (ritual) magic - its nature and decline

I have been reading Gareth Knight recently, including his 2011 autobiography I called it magic.

From this, and several other, readings (over the years) it seems to me that ceremonial magic is a form of drama (akin to a pageant) that revived in the late 1800s and early 20th century; with magical intent, and based upon systems of symbolism and ritual (new syntheses, but based on what was known or believed of tradition) that were taught to the participants through prolonged and hierarchical initiations.


Through Gareth Knight's life, his own practice of ceremonial magic changed in ways that embodied changes in culture (and, I would argue, Western consciousness); in that the ceremonies became more innovative and improvisatory - less like the catholic mass and more like an experimental theatre company. I think this also reflected a reduction in the scale of ambition.

The early magical societies were aiming, and expecting, to change the destiny of the world and fate of nations (a late example being the 'Magical Battle of Britain', which I discussed recently. But in the post-war era my impression is that the aim was more like a lasting transformation of the consciousness of the participants in the ceremonies.

I relate this to what I perceive to be a progressive loss of effectiveness of general systems of symbolism; so that at first symbols must be made more personal (and novel), then later even this is diminished - and there is no effective vocabulary of general symbols that may be 'relied upon' to produce predictable effects in a wide range of people.


In the end we are each brought to our own condition and situation - each must actively seek his own meaning and cannot satisfyingly 'use' the meanings and systems of earlier generations. Activities of a spiritual nature that used to be best pursued as part of a group, find that the scale and power of group benefits are dwindling.

This can be seen in that the activities of ceremonial magicians as a whole seem to have become less Good, more evil.  The early practitioners - and Gareth Knight himself - were often serious Christians and well-motivated individuals.

Modern people who are interested by magic are - very obviously! - mostly anti-Christian, attracted by 'dark' and demonic themes; focused on personal issues of sex, power and thrills - their activities are bound-up with extreme self-mutilation and shocking 'the squares'; the politics this-worldly, materialist, anti-Christian/ pseudo-pagan, hedonic, pro-sexual revolution - thus Leftist, nihilistic - sinfully despairing.


The choices for a Christian seem to be either to accept a diminished thing (a materialistic, 'theoretical' kind of Christianity), or work on the same spiritual projects by ourselves and with less recourse to symbolism; or else to give-up and not to do anything seriously spiritual at all (which is, of course, the usual response, even among Christians).

My response is to develop the personal, experiential aspect of Christianity as an individual; but to seek inspiration and encouragement where I can find it. In one sense this is a version of the (notorious) New Age mantra 'what works for me'; but with the the absolutely crucial and transforming difference that 'what works' must be rooted-in and emergent-from the reality and truth of Christianity.

And Gareth Knight's work is something that does inspire and encourage me - even though I am not-at-all interested in participating in (even his kind of, which seems to be one of the the best kinds of) ceremonial magic.

The spiritual Battle of Britain - then and now

I am reading a book that was recommended by my Albion Awakening co-authors: The Magical Battle of Britain, a selection of letters from the Second World War by Dion Fortune, edited by Gareth Knight (1993). 

Dion Fortune was the pseudonym of Violet Mary Firth, who was perhaps the most respected and influential magical practitioner of modern times to come from Britain; and importantly, from my point of view, she was a sincere and devout Christian - of an Esoteric kind.

Her idea was that - after war was declared, and as Britain prepared for the possibility of invasion, it was important to encourage people by spiritual means: to build-up the folk and racial soul of the British; by means of directed meditations of many people.


Reading the book, it seems distinctly possible to me that what she did was of genuine benefit - especially when regarded as one specific manifestation of a spiritual 'mobilisation' that had multiple facets - most obviously seen with Winston Churchill becoming the national leader.

It is noteworthy that DF herself displayed an extremely unusual, and admirable, combination of strength of character, creative inspiration, ethical solidity - and yet a disinterested and altruistic absence of ego.

What she 'asked for' in these magical-group-meditations was always, it seems, very carefully restricted to the spiritual level (not seeking specific physical results, not personal advantage); and was therefore benign. She was, in her small scale fashion, one of the rare examples of an effective and natural woman leader - a mini Elizabeth the First!


However, as I read I also developed the conviction that this Magical Battle of Britain was probably the last time that such a thing was possible. Indeed, even before the end of the 39-45 war, the British national consciousness had changed qualitatively - and in the direction of being both less spiritual, and less group-ish.

The way that Dion Fortune used symbolism (sword, sceptre, grail), the concept of a national soul which was also a racial soul, the use of visualisation (eg of guarding angels)... these are essentially the spiritual categories of an earlier, pre-modern phase of human consciousness. By 1939 they were merely residual in the spirit of Albion; and became possible and effective only briefly and for one more time, under the exceptional demands of that era.

Very rapidly afterwards there was a dwindling and disappearance of both symbolic power, and the capacity of an individual to immerse in the group-soul. Before the war was done, Britain had begun to become pretty much what it is now; materialistic and anti-Christian; hedonically aiming at 'comfort and convenience'; and its national ideology established as Leftist-bureaucratic and totalitarian (as Orwell made clear, based on his wartime experiences).


My understanding is that these changes were underlain by that developmental change in British consciousness which was only briefly interrupted by the Swan Song described in the Magical Battle of Britain.

As symbolism and immersive group spirituality dwindled and then became impossible; so the churches dwindled, leftist-hedonic-materialism waxed.

And (as I see it, anyway!) the necessity for a Romantic Christianity became incrementally more and more obvious and urgent.