Money Magic: Mastering Prosperity in its True Element - Frater U.D. 2011

Preface

Thanks for reading the preface to Money Magic—arguably one of the most fascinating (and, regrettably, vilified!) areas of applied magic. For readers who are not familiar with my other books, permit me to introduce myself.

I became involved in what was then still generally termed "occultism” at the fairly early age of nine. Maybe having been born abroad and growing up in foreign cultures helped sharpen my sense for whatever seemed "different"—in any case, at the time it was yoga (which was still considered to be very mysterious to mainstream Westerners) and self-hypnosis that set me going: a life's journey I have never stopped pursuing to this very day.

Mter immersing myself in Eastern philosophy and spirituality (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Tantra, yoga in al its favors, meditation, etc.) for more than a decade, I began to discover the Western metaphysical traditions only as a young adult—and was immediately hooked!

Alchemy, the Kabbalah, astrology (which I studied in depth for many years, guided and instructed by one of Germany’s Grand Old Men of the discipline), Rosicru-cianism, Gnosticism, Freemasonry, the tarot, dowsing, divination, mysticism, and, finally, magic proper were all to rank at the top of my curriculum for many years to come.

It was during this phase of my life that I established my personal magical motto which, in its abbreviated form, was to become my formal magical name as well: Ubiqze Daemon :. Ubique Deus :. (“The demo^ devil is in everything—the god is in everything”) i.e., “Frater U/.D/.”.

Obviously, this is indicative of a fairly contrarian approach to things: not only is it a commitment to always “see both sides of the coin”; just as importantly, it is an expression of my ongoing efforts to explore matters from all angles, including those not generally deemed acceptable (let alone expedient) by mainstream thought. In other words, not taking things for granted and not placing unwarranted trust in any established “authorities” or conventions and their more often than not outrageous claims have always been the mainstays of my approach toward ah things metaphysical and life in general.

Money magic is no exception. Technically, it is part and parcel of what is commonly labeled “success magic”: a specific form of magical operation entirely focused on tangible, real world results. This requires

mentioning because—contrary to what most people believe—the vast majority of magical operations actually conducted in real life are about subjective matters: altered states of consciousness, mystical experiences, revelations (both divinatory and spiritual), emotional states of mind, self-improvement, and so on.

By contrast, money magic is utterly objectified: either you achieve what you're conducting a spell for— even if it should only come about via strange ways, unexpected conduits and fairly bizarre, spooky happenings—or you don’t. Thus, there is little room left for fond delusions and facile cop-outs.

This is not to say that alternative approaches to magic, such as the quest for personal spiritual evolution, aren’t legitimate or are something to be scoffed at. But in my personal quest for discovering and developing, if not inventing, a truly efficient and viable approach to magic in general, it seemed only logical to try my hand at money magic to test my mettle.

A venture of this scope obviously required some thorough research into the way money had been viewed by traditional magic in the past. Surprisingly, there was precious little available in terms of literature on the subject. True, anecdotal material abounds, especially from magicians operating in the early twentieth century, most notably by Aleister Crowley. But just about all of it was a) far from conclusive and b) decidedly underwhelming regarding tangible achievements. Surely there ought to be more effective and efficient

ways of letting money and abundance flow into your life by means of magic?

Being the stubborn tinkerer I turn into when confronted with confounding obstacles of this caliber, I dug even deeper into the matter, reading, experimenting, and discussing the topic at great length with my peers and allies, all the while making an awful lot of mistakes (yes, those too) until, finally, I sussed out a few things that have withstood the test of time. The result is the book you're presently reading.

While I did adopt much traditional technology pertaining to Western Ceremonial and Hermetic magic at a later stage of my research, this was done mostly to integrate my results into a frame of reference most practicing magicians recognize. However, it became quite obvious very early on that the first and foremost issue to tackle in money magic were all those culturally conditioned psychological blockages that have evolved over the centuries to actually prevent us from making it work. While it seems perfectly obvious (to myself, at least) that most of this unfortunate paradigm has sprung from a Judeo-Christian mindset that disdains "matter" in favor of "spirit" to promote an essentially ascetic outlook on life that unwholesomely focuses on earthly suffering and the dire prospect of eternal damnation, we can agree that indulging in blame games isn't particularly helpfol when attempting to cope with our sorry state of affairs on a practical, verifiable level.

Thus, the approach to money magic presented here owes a lot to philosophical and psychological disciplines not typically associated with Western magic such as Coueism, positive thinking, new thought, and others . (The question to what extent these schools of thought may themselves actually be based on uncredited and formally disavowed magical traditions is, of course, a fascinating topic in its own right, but beyond the scope of this book.) Unfortunately, these psychological systems generally stop short of real sustainability if only because they are far more demanding and time consuming than they initially seem.

These schools of thought are also extremely vague in their overall methodology and the theoretical frameworks governing them. Accordingly, results generally remain fuzzy to iffy at best and, more often than not, it is well nigh impossible to improve on them. Figuring out what exactly went wrong in any given operation is a highly elusive undertaking, and when al is said and done, is anybody's guess.

However, once aligned with the more informal approaches to magical praxis such as the freestyle shamanism shared by Austin Osman Spare in his sigil magic, it eventually transpired that this combination was indeed the "royal road" to truly successful money magic. And this is, of course, what this book is about.

So, enjoy the trip, and may affluence—monetary and otherwise—be yours for keeps!

—FraterU:.D:.

INTRODUCTION

Part 1: Money in its True Element

Earth... or Maybe Air?

Magic and money—one would think that the two are inseparable, at least if you listen to what the adversaries of the magical arts have to say. Mter all, doesn't conventional religion love to depict magicians as materialistic villains? Aren't they seen as people with a nasty reputation who are willing to exchange eternal salvation for materialistic gratification (how despicable!) by chumming around with elemental spirits, demons, and al sorts of good-for-nothings from the Underworld— or even with the Devil himself? Don't they vandalize graves and desecrate other holy sites, stopping at nothing short of lies, deception, and ritual murder to gain material advantages here on earth that some wellmeaning cosmic order has denied them for a good reason in the first place? And maybe there's something even worse out there than money, something tangible

and cruel and as equally demonized as Mammon since the days of the Old Testament ...

One would expect available literature on magic to be just bulging with instructions and formulas for making a capital profit with magical means and deviously sneaky ways of avoiding the earthly trials of poverty and hardship. Amazingly enough, just the opposite is true! The grimoires of the late Middle Ages often contained specific instructions on how to compel the cooperation of demonic creatures, or "how to find a treasure," "how to make gold appear," "how to gain the favor of a prince," and the like. There's also no denying that the ancient practice of making and using talismans has passed down through the ages a great number of good luck charms and consecration techniques for activating them.

Nevertheless, it would be a gross exaggeration to claim that this subject has taken up even the most remotely significant position within the overall complex of the magical cultures of the Occident and Orient. Instead the majority of magical publications are dedicated to more metaphysical endeavors, such as understanding the laws of the universe, predicting the future, establishing contact with the various deities and elemental powers, the higher development of mental faculties, and the like.

This phenomenon applies in particular to magical literature published since the renaissance of occultism in the nineteenth century, including publications by

infuential magical organizations such as the Golden Dawn, the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), the various Rosicrucian orders and countless other brotherhoods of the twentieth century, e.g., the Adonist alliance, the Argenteum Astrum (A:.A:.), the Servants of the Light (SoL), the various Bardon alliances—and of course the Fraternitas Saturni (FS). Let them all be mentioned here on behalf of the countless others which are not. Looking at things this way, it may seem as though practical money magic has been virtually nonexistent throughout history. Where the theoretical analysis of this magical domain is concerned, that certainly holds true.   ’

By the way, the magic of the East is in a similar predicament regarding its own literature: it too reveals a gaping abyss in its documentation of money magic, especially if you disregard the "good luck" spells borrowed from folk magic that comprise just a tiny portion of its multifaceted practice.

Supposing that magic is not what its adversaries make it out to be ("ineffective, compensatory acts performed by naive megalomaniacs and/or immature children who are lagging in their development"), and is instead viewed as a verifiable art that has been practiced in every culture throughout the ages and is still practiced today, it would be plausible to conclude that such a long-lasting practice would not have been possible in the first place had it been nothing but an unrealistic delusion.

In simple terms, one could say that if magic didn't work at al it would have died out long ago. The adverse objection that a collective delusion doesn't prove the existence of factual reality holds no ground. After all, it is my opinion that, unlike blind faith, obtaining verifiable results is exactly what magic sets out to do, regardless of the fact that fault may be found with its customary methods of supplying such evidence.

So if you comb through the vast amounts of magical literature out there looking for information on practical money magic, you'll rarely have any luck. Any kind of systematic treatment of the subject is utterly impossible to find, and although a few tidbits of information might be scattered here and there, these will often be tainted by moral preaching and threats of the consequences of misuse, unfortunately quite commonplace in older documents on magic. The reasons why such information is so sparse cannot be discussed here in depth without greatly diverging from the focus of this book; nonetheless, a few of explanations will be mentioned here at times where they relate directly to our magical practice. As you'll see, the explanations often involve the obstacles and other hurdles preventing magical success that we as money magicians must overcome if we ever want to achieve any kind of tangible results.

To begin, let's have a look at how money has been universally categorized throughout the history of Western magic. Since the time of the pre-Socratic

Empedocles, the doctrine of the elements has been maintained as the fundamental matrix of all magical-mystical concepts in Western civilization. Even if the doctrine of elements cannot be substantiated in mundane history sufficiently enough to call it an unbroken tradition, it has nevertheless played a significant role that is still acknowledged today.

The elements are described in brief below to serve as both a short introduction for beginners and to refresh the memories of the more experienced magicians. This in turn will lead us to the most difficult problem in practical money magic, as we will see shortly.

(The term "element" is not used here to describe a specific substance as it is in modern chemistry. Instead, it's more a metaphysical concept; "element" refers to a mixture of effectiveness, power, sequential events, and basic structure.)

The Element of Fire

The element of Fire describes the principles of driving force, dynamic force, and life force. Just like its physical counterpart, it's highly active; it creates the new while destroying the old, it consumes to generate heat, and it drives forward that which would otherwise stagnate. In a spiritual context, it stands for motivation, activity, and aggression.

The Element ofWater

Water describes the flowing of motion; it is adaptable and flexible without having a fixed form, but it assumes the form of every container that holds it. It nourishes the life ignited by Fire, cleanses and rinses away the old and the decaying, yet can yield a significant amount of its own destructive power when unleashed in vast quantities. In a spiritual context, it stands for feelings, sensitivity, and visionary reflection. It separates more than it unites and corresponds to intuition and clairvoyance.

The Element of Air

The element of Air is volatile and cannot be captured in a solid form; its flexibility allows it to change locations at will. At the same time, it sustains life, feeds the flame of Fire, and forms the link between the old and the new or unknown. In a spiritual context, it stands for thought and logic, which operate analytically instead of synthetically, as Water does. Thus, it makes clear distinctions between things and gives them names, which is why language and speech are attributed to this element.

The Element ofEarth

The element of Earth represents firmness and stability, the constant form, the basic structure of every shape, and the qualities of endurance, steadfastness, and dependability. In a spiritual context, it stands for

the ftxed form, tenacity (in its extreme form, even stubbornness), perseverance, and everything that can be described as solid and tangible, which includes the material and factual worlds.

The Element of Ether (Spirit)

The element of Ether is often called "Spirit" as well, and it historically joined the group of elements at a fairly late date. It stands for everything beyond the material world, for spiritually subtle energies, and for higher principles of all kinds, including transpersonal ones. In a spiritual context, it corresponds to the soul in a metaphysical or religious/mystical sense, a higher calling, and access to the transcendental realm in the form of inner divinity or spiritual transcendence.

Elemental Aspects

Using the fundamental structure the elements create, magical tradition is able to describe and categorize the world in all its detailed aspects. In doing so, the proportion of the elements to one another and their changeability in each instance are of great significance.

For example, a dominance of the Fire element is applied to certain situations, persons, or circumstances where the factors of dynamic force, fast and [often] painful change, and ruthless self-assertion prevail.

The Water element, on the other hand, is applied to certain situations, persons, or circumstances where emotions, intuition, and subtle or subliminal energies

that are rarely perceptible on the surface are characteristic. An excess of the Water element might be expressed as sentimentality or emotional turmoil that may in turn lead to irrational behavior; rationalism (which itselfwould be attributed to the Earth element) would be impossible with excess Water qualities.

A characteristically "airy" person would typically be an intellectualist or thinker who relies more on rational intelligence than on emotions, and might therefore seem a bit theoretical at times.

Earthy people, on the other hand, value everything that is concrete and physical; they would be characterized as practical as opposed to theoreticians, or as craftspeople instead of philosophers. Earthy people waste no time in getting things done, and have little sense for subliminal or delicate matters.

This short introduction to the elements should suffice for now, and later on it will be covered more thoroughly when money's classification is discussed. Although the elements represent or describe fundamental principles, it's important to remember that within a magical tradition, they always interact with one another in close conjunction. In other words, no single- phenomenon in the entire universe is the embodiment of one single element. Instead, everything is composed of a combination of all elements together in varying amounts.

In the magical doctrine of correspondences or signatures, the various classifications are compiled into

systematic tables. In doing so, other basic schemes are often applied as well, such as the planetary principles, the signs of the zodiac, the paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and so on. In this way, entire encyclopedias of symbols have been created, the most popular of which is probably Liber 777 by British magician Aleister Crowley, which he developed on the basis of an older draft version written by his mentor and friend, Alan Bennett, that was finally published after countless revisions.

Similar to the way astrology uses the symbolism of the planetary principals, signs of the zodiac, planetary aspects, and other related symbols to describe the world, the Hermetic magician in particular likes to use the correspondences to shape ritual practice. This fact plays a significant role in our context when it comes to the "correct" classification of money in relation to the elements, since this in turn generally determines the magical procedure to be used.

Before we can investigate the classification in more detail, we need to examine another system of symbols that illustrates this process quite well: the tarot cards, whereby we're more interested in the Minor Arcana rather than the twenty-two trump cards (Atu) of the Major Arcana. The fifty-six cards of the Minor Arcana are divided into four suits, just like an ordinary deck of cards (which actually originally developed from the tarot)—Swords, Wands, Cups, and Coins. (The latter was also often referred to as Discs or Pentacles in the

twentieth century.) There’s no need at this point to go into the complicated history of tarot cards, since there are plenty of usefol books available on this subject. The only thing that should interest us here is that these four suits are assigned to the elements as follows: Swords = Air; Wands = Fire; Cups = Water; Coins = Earth.

This allocation of the suits to the elements is documented back to the nineteenth century and is still used in this form today, for example by the Order of the Golden Dawn. Even Aleister Crowley’s Tarot deck (the so-called Book of Thoth) that was developed in the 1940s together with the painter Lady Frieda Harris assigns the suit of Coins to the element of Earth. This probably applies to 99 percent of all modern versions of the tarot today.

One noteworthy exception is Papus, a French occultist and magician, who has virtually fallen into oblivion outside the Francophone world. Papus was the pupil and magical successor of Eliphas Levi, experienced his heyday during the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century when he assumed a crucial position in France and in the Russian czar’s court. In his book Tarot of the Bohemians, he surprisingly assigns the Coins to the element of Air.

As we all know, when using any type of symbolic system, the allocation of the images and glyphs used is in no way absolute or objective. So too do all Western disciplines that fall under the category of"occultism" or "esotericism” deal with symbolic systems. Whether you

look at medieval alchemy or the symbolic languages of astrology, Rosicrucianism, or Freemasonry, they all express fundamental facts of metaphysical nature in images and symbols—a tradition that reaches even further back in time, of course, if we consider the examples of Hellenistic gnosis or ancient Egyptian magic.

Though characteristics and features of the elements may not be randomly interchangeable, there is nonetheless considerable leeway when determining their weighting and corresponding ratio of dominance. Much of this malleability is in the eye of the beholder and depends on a person's level of development and likes and dislikes, as well as strengths and weaknesses. After all, such is what determines which element an individual sees as being dominant in a certain event, situation, or person.

Here is where magical thought radically diverges from rational science: while science is concerned with establishing conceptual clarity and eliminating any occurring contradictions whatsoever, magical thought goes in an entirely different direction. Although objective factors are taken into consideration here as well, the symbolism must also integrate- an observer's subjectivity, because only in this way can a resilient connection be made between the two.

Indeed this marriage is not as unusual as it may initially seem in our modern-day world, dominated by science and technology. After all, beyond the clearly defned borders of science and technology, we humans

generally still behave the same as we always have for the last tens of thousands of years. We perceive the outside world in relation to ourselves, for example by taking a clear position on issues, by being drawn toward certain things or away from others, through emotional reactions, and the judgment of values. Here's a short example to illustrate this point.

The Beach

Imagine an ocean scene with a sunny beach. There are people swimming and splashing around in the water, some are basking in the sun or sitting under the shade of colorfol parasols; others might be sitting at the bar or taking a stroll, and some might be building a sand castle or tossing a colorfol beach ball.

Let's examine four individuals from this specific scene. Our frst object of observation is a slim, darkly tanned man in his mid-thirties, dressed in short swimming trunks, playing beach soccer with a group of kids. He's performing al of the functions of a coach: he gives instructions, kicks the ball to various players, cheers them on with great enthusiasm, shouts a few encouraging words to the goalkeeper, and exudes a sense of energy, activity, and love of action.

It's obvious that he sincerely loves what he's doing. He likes fast action, he masters the ball with fancy footwork, and seems to have an abundance of energy— at least for the moment.

Expressed in the symbolism of the elements, one would expect this scene to be strongly dominated by

Fire: the ■ heat of the blazing sun, the intense physical activity, the desire to achieve and perform, the sense of competition, and the use of physical reserves. These are all characteristics that correspond to the above-mentioned definition of this element.

Now let's look at a woman in her early forties, slender and tan, wearing a bikini, her sunglasses pushed on top of her head, standing at the bar conversing with a small fock of male admirers. She's obviously quite bubbly, her gestures and facial expressions are eloquent, she laughs frequently and fashes a toothy smile, talks much more than her companions, jokes around, yet shows an interest in what others have to say, asks questions, makes comments, and overall seems to be engrossed in this lively communication.

Subjectively speaking, the element of Air seems to dominate this scene. The exchange of ideas through speech, the receptiveness to foreign ideas and their integration into one's personal reflections, the lighthearted joking around, the use of gestures and facial expressions, and the domination of communication all indicate Air's presence.

Next we'll take a look at another woman, probably in her late fifties, sitting alone, apart from everyone else on her beach towel with her forehead resting on her knees hugged tightly to her chest. If we look more closely, we'll see her body quivering at times—she's crying. As a group of people whom she obviously knows tries to approach her, she waves them off, signaling

that she doesn’t want to be disturbed. The situation is perfectly clear: the woman is troubled, not doing well, and she apparently cannot control her fits of crying, or maybe she doesn't really want to.

Here we can see the element of Water at work: the strong display of emotions that makes any type of communication impossible (as opposed to the other woman we observed), the self-centeredness, the apparent dwelling on personal pain, and lack of willingness to open up to contact with others all characterize this element.

Finally, let's observe an older man estimated to be in his late fifties who is also sitting alone away from the hustle and bustle under the awning of the bar. A laptop is on the table in front of him and he's holding a cell phone to one ear with his left hand. While talking, he keeps looking at the computer screen showing a spreadsheet with rows and columns of numbers; he occasionally types something with his right hand. An open notebook and a pen are lying on the table next to the computer, and leaning against the table leg is a half-opened briefcase with business papers sticking out of it. The scene says it all: the man is working and not enjoying himself like most other people at this vacation spot. Instead he's looking at calculations, seemingly unaware of the beach, ocean, sun, and the other people there. His full attention is tuned to the conversation with his business partner.

If someone were to ask him, he would admit that this scene appears quite "earthy." The high degree of focus on his work, the self-discipline required to concentrate on his job in a recreational spot without being in the least distracted—all of these are characteristic of the element of Earth as described earlier.

Let's not forget that this scene, as with all others described above, is merely a snapshot that captures a single moment in time. In reality, everything is constantly moving and changing. An hour later, we might see our athletic soccer player dozing in the sun, corresponding to the peace and calm of the element of Earth. The talkative lady at the bar might meanwhile be swimming out in the ocean, energetically (Fire) trying to get in her daily round of exercise. The mood of the woman who was depressed and crying may later perk up, at least enough to start an engrossing conversation with a girlfriend, all the while gesticulating emotionally (Water) yet quite cheerfolly. (Here, the element expressed is still Water, but in another quality.) And our businessman may put aside his work to play a merry game of cards with three other vacationers, cracking one joke after another (Air).

Money in Society

Let's leave the scene behind us now to draw a few conclusions from what we've observed. Science has been compelled to broaden its horizons ever since the development of quantum physics—for example, to accept that the nature of many things is not as clearly outlined

and static as Newtonian physics and mechanics have led us to believe for centuries. Nonetheless, science's key objective has always been to unlock the secrets of nature and categorize them according to closely defined, inherent laws that apply without exception. Contradictions and vagueness are undesired, as are any indications of ambivalence, and in cases of doubt, small elements are torn out of context and observed in isolation.

As our example clearly shows, the concept of the elements is a system of categorization that not only takes the dynamics of everything into consideration, but also attempts to grasp the protagonist's subjective state of mind while in the midst of permanent change.

Keeping all this in mind, I would like to delve into the historical categorization of money and the prevailing cultural attitudes toward it.

Money as we know it today has had quite a turbulent past. Throughout the history of civilization, man has given money various forms and functions, a few of which I would like to examine here.

For a long time, researchers have assumed that the so-called convention theory was sufficient to describe the origin and evolution of money. According to this theory, money is merely an intermediary object of exchange whose function is to enable the exchange of other objects that are less mobile. This prevents heavy or bulky traded goods from having to be transported each time over long distances while giving the trading partner an adequate item of equivalent value. For

example, instead of bringing a cart loaded with heavy bricks to a farmer in order to trade them there for grain and eggs, and then later to another place in exchange for wood and tools to build a shed, such transactions can be greatly simplified with the transfer of money. Services, which do not require that an object changes ownership, can also be gauged and offset more easily with money.

Money itself can take on the most varied forms, from the gold nuggets of miners and coins minted from precious metals, to handwritten and hand-signed promissory notes (lOUs), or the colorful, washingmachine safe and supposedly forgery-proof plastic banknotes used today in Australia.

Of course, the convention theory is basically correct, as everyday life shows, but it doesn’t really do justice to the history of money. Anthropology had early evidence of"advertising and dignity money"—objects of value that were openly displayed to attract mates or to underline an individual's social status. Scientific records ofYap, a Micronesian island in the south Pacific’ officially refer to this as "show-off money": huge round discs of stone measuring several feet in diameter that, in the indigenous culture, fulfilled the sole purpose of publicly displaying an owner's wealth, social standing, and worldly influence. The mere existence of these humongous show-off coins was enough; after all, they were way too large and immobile to be traded on a regular basis.

Such forms of money were only temporary in history, and soon the type of money we're familiar with today came into being. Mter all, money has to be mobile, and above all it has to be made of a material that's not so easy to procure, whether it's cowrie shells, silver, or gold. Only materials that are fairly rare or difficult to procure can ensure that money maintains a certain value, which has nothing to do with the physical size or weight of the actual materials used. On the other hand, materials that are widespread and generally available such as leaves, sand, or pebbles would not function well in an economical sense, as the economy we are familiar with requires a constant shortage of resources to function well.

Accordingly, parallel to developing a settled way of life, humans established the value system that still exists today. Precious metals and jewels and owning property form the basis of a universal economic system. Trades and swaps still take place today, although the modern methods of doing so have become faster and more efficient due to advances in business and technology. While early humans may have found it difficult to grasp the abstract concept that money represented, we of the modern age are quite comfortable with settling a great deal of monetary transactions—particularly international ones—by merely transferring data; actual physical, material money no longer plays a significant role.

But that's a fairly modern development that wasn’t possible until late into the twentieth century. Even as late as the 1930s, all major currencies of economically significant countries were reinforced by reserves of precious metals. Gold and silver reserves especially were stored for this purpose. Storage of these metals directly affected nation states having prerogative of coinage.

Private citizens, on the other hand, usually defined and asserted their wealth in a more sophisticated manner. Although the ownership of precious metals, jewels, and similar rare goods still played a significant role, the accumulation of real estate took over the leading position. Property, leasehold rights, and money earned through the cultivation of farmland, pastures, and woodland was understood as true wealth up into the twentieth century, while the possession of money, company shares in the form of stocks, trademarks, patents, and the like was generally granted a mere secondary status.

In our study of money magic, however, we need to focus our attention on the concept of shortage (occurring both naturally and artificially) as mentioned above, since this is the key factor that causes the obstacles and difficulties that we encounter in practical money magic, as we wifi soon see.

Modern Attitudes

With the spread of Christianity, a new philosophy of life entered the picture—one that is fundamentally hostile to everything material and worldly. This outlook

has prevailed for a very long time, and its repercussions can still be felt today. Of course, the upper echelons of society in every era have always mastered the art of sugar-coating the conditions of poverty and deprivation that prevailed among those they ruled, while at the same time they used their status and influence to snatch up every last tidbit for themselves that they could squeeze out of the community. After all, there was good reason for the dissident voices in the Christianity of the Middle Ages, which was still in its infancy. Indeed a large part of both the lower clergy and laymen alike were quick to point out the fundamental contradiction between the poverty, modesty, and the virtue of owning no possessions that was preached, and the actual living standards of the higher clergy and nobility. Countless reforms and heretical movements resulted from this wide gap between the ideal and actual situation for many centuries.

Even Protestantism had its puritan and ascetic movements, some (but not all) of which declared material possessions and the despicable pursuit of money to be a devilish faux pas of humanity that needed to be controlled at all costs in the interest of salvation.

Thus, Western civilization has been plagued by a fundamental contradiction since the domination of Christianity. On the one hand, religion focuses exclusively on the fate of the soul after the death of the physical body. The accumulation of material goods is

therefore viewed as a dangerous game that binds man to earth at the risk of eternal damnation.

On the other hand, business, society, and politics in both Christian and non-Christian cultures pursue their usual worldly ways. Striving for material possessions with the goal of becoming wealthy and affluent, usually at the expense of the less fortunate classes of society; the unfolding of an ideology that results because of this—one that preaches mercantilism and capitalism with a focus on profit and incessant expansion that is known today as "economic growth" (a term that still dominates every economic conversation); all of this runs quite contrary to the spiritual condemnation of life on earth and its materialistic temptations.

This results in a conflict for the collective psychological makeup of Western man—a conflict still clearly present today, despite religion's (at least in Western countries) supposed movement further into the background. Money and profit are still condemned with persistent regularity (or are at least viewed with great suspicion), but our consumer-oriented society ranks money among man’s most important needs—it's viewed as a guarantee for safeguarding one's physical life. This results in the development of a situation where everything becomes centered around money.

Of course, the biography of each individual always gives a unique touch to this collective conflict, which is in essence quite maddening. Just as with statistics, however, it's not our intention to analyze individual

cases here. Instead we're concerned with trends that affect society as a whole, ones that the individual could at best only avoid or escape here and there, but never entirely.

Modern Magic

Such trends naturally affect the magician as well. And although consideration of this fact is often purposely avoided in the magic scene, each and every magician is frst and foremost a product of the society in which he lives. Whether we like it or not, we've all internalized our share of collective consciousness. Psychologically speaking, we could also say that prevailing values and taboos influence the magician just as they influence non-magical individuals. Although the degree of this influence varies naturally from case to case, it nonetheless forms the overall backdrop for every magical act.

Mitigating factors such as our mores and taboos can always be clearly seen wherever society or human relations are concerned. In particular, three core areas of the magical tradition are affected by such influences: healing, sex magic, and—as already mentioned— money magic. In all three areas of concern, no practitioner works in a vacuum; the magician has to relate with other people and is therefore affected by their social reflexes as well as the magician's own. Accordingly, the magician should be aware of this and not try to avoid critical analysis by escaping into vague, insignificant, metaphysical explanations. The old, ironical saying "when wishing still helped" often proves to be a

fatal obstacle that prevents success in the three magical disciplines mentioned.

Unfortunately, traditional magical literature tends to ignore this problem entirely. Instead it's content with the simple assertion of various "higher laws of nature” while resorting to adopting ancient recipes and formulas—or even developing new ones—with which it thinks the world can be controlled, usually without even making an effort to comprehend and understand some of the more basic structures.

I'd like to tread a different path here and not follow one based more or less on unquestioned and ill-considered theorems and techniques that have been passed down through tradition. Instead we will travel along a road that's been proven through year-long practice and experience under the most diverse circumstances. Obviously, some of what will be said in this book will seem to have little to do with what some readers might imagine traditional magic to be. After closer examination, however, one will soon see that this apparent contradiction is actually nothing but a simple misunderstanding. Mter all, magic takes pride in being a discipline that's in touch with reality and oriented toward experience and success, characterized above all by technical flexibility and the willingness to integrate unconventional methods. In the end (and this is proven without exception by all leading authors of magic literature today and in the past), al equipment, formulas, rituals, meditation exercises, conjurations, talismans,

amulets, instruments, and the like are nothing but tools to aid the magician only until he is able to master a less extravagant yet equally effective approach.

Tradition as a Hindrance

The traditionalism that often prevails in magic tends to push this fact into the background, a fact that applies to all human activities, not just magic. The human brain works in this manner, since it is continually occupied with developing routines or fixed procedures in order to free up some of its limited processing capacity. Whether we're learning to walk, swim, ride a bicycle, or drive a car, with more and more practice, a considerable part of these activities eventually becomes unconscious automatisms. The techniques of traditional magic are unfortunately no exception.

Maybe I should explain what I mean when I say "unfortunately." At first glance, there seems to be nothing wrong with being able to perform activities that are often repeated with less and less extravagance. If a person driving a car were to concentrate on every single motion of the hand like a student driver during the first driving lesson, thinking about whether the motion is correct or incorrect, the person probably wouldn't make it too far. Others along the way might be endangered in the process, not to mention the driver personally. But we shouldn't forget that magic is a simple, everyday activity that can be smoothly integrated into our usual routines. Mter all, magic is about accomplishing things and triggering or preventing events that, according to

prevailing scientific and social opinions, could never be accomplished in a usual way.

As magicians are out to accomplish the impossible, they rebel by definition against the sum of everything possible that we describe with the generic term "the world." It should therefore come as no surprise that when the critics of magic (regardless of what walk of life they might come from) snidely label such an undertaking as "Operation Megalomania"—indeed, the conventional, non-magical point of view regards this label as a completely rational evaluation. As I've mentioned in another work, magic can be defined as "doing the impossible."i Magic is not simply a shady kind of physics or a science that hasn't been recognized yet; it is a true act of doing the unheard-of, the never-done-before—yes, even the sacrilegious!

It should be no wonder that traditional magic generally doesn't take much interest in this outlook. Instead it takes a more enlightened approach by believing that nature and the entire world itself hold many secrets that man has yet to uncover—which science certainly doesn't dispute. But as opposed to science, it claims to be able to discover some of these hidden (or undiscovered) natural laws, though with generally unconventional methods (e.g., visionary clairvoyance, ritual, etc.), and to make practical use of the information obtained. A first glance might give the impression that ratio-

• 1. Frater U.h D.’., Ice Magic:FirstInsights (Bad Miinstereifel, Germany: Edition Magus, 1996).

nal science and metaphysical magic may seem to have irreconcilable differences in this regard. But if you take a closer look, they share the same world view. Mter all, conventional magic works within the principle of what is possible too, regardless of the fact that the definition of what is possible is a bit more flexible and liberal than rational scientists might see it. However, both agree on the fact that there's only one world out there, and that it can be explored in a wide variety of ways.

I don't want to start a debate about ideologies here, so let's just remember one pragmatic remark from everything said above: If you can view magic as being the act of doing the impossible, it just may result in higher success rates when applied to the field of money magic than with more conventional approaches. In the end, each person should make a personal judgment about that.

The True Element ofMoney

If we view money in consideration of the above, it would seem quite logical to allocate it to the element of Earth. When money is associated with concepts such as value, security, making a living, and protection from need, it is imperative to view it as the embodiment of earthly qualities. This is especially true when money only—or even just primarily—is understood as a means for purchasing land, property, or mineral resources (gemstones, precious metals, ore).

But this coin has a flip side as well: Papus never really explained why he diverged from the conventional norm in categorizing the Coins in the tarot to the element of Air. His ommitance was reason enough for me to look into the matter after reading his works for the first time.

Let's begin by establishing some of the characteristics and features of modern-day money that wifi enable us to understand the French master's categorization of it to the element of Air. First of all, money is generally quite mobile, a term that doesn't only mean that it consolidates the high exchange value of other goods that are much more voluminous, bulky, and less transportable. Money’s nature is more in the way of exchange, since only through exchange can money reveal its true value. This holds true for even the rarest coins made of precious metals.

In other words, money can only fulfill its designated purpose when it changes hands. The new owner, for his or her part, must have a guarantee that the money’s transferred value can be exchanged further— thus the acquisition of the monetary value cannot stop at a dead end. This is the flow of money as we know it today—the never-ending circulation and exchange of an item of value which has no relation to the goods and services it has been exchanged for, which cannot be used until the transaction is made.

One could view this lack of reference as an extreme form of abstraction. Thus the concept of cashless payment

becoming increasingly widespread today merely represents the logical development from this first abstraction. Humans are the only living creature known to have developed this specific form of social interaction.

However, it could also be said that people often expect way too much from this logical process. Even in the age of the Internet and global networking, of computerized workstations and communication that relies increasingly on the exchange of digital data, most people still have trouble making the connection from this abstraction back to everyday, tangible (Earth element) life. For example, the charging of outrageous interest rates was considered to be abominable even in biblical times, and the entire Islamic world was always tied up in various intellectual and financial acrobatics trying to avoid the ban on charging interest as defined by the Koran in an attempt to devoutly follow the commandments of their religion. In the same sense, a considerable part ofWestern society has always had little understanding of the fact that financial speculations— a relatively unproductive activity—are generally much more lucrative than the production of tangible goods. The more capacity for abstract thinking an activity requires, the better that activity is generally paid. And since our networked, global economy increasingly encourages the further abstraction of value and purchasing power, more and more people will become eco

nomically insignificant in the process, especially those who cannot keep up with this virtualization of value.

When viewed from this perspective, one can clearly notice the fundamental paradigm shift that has been taking place for quite some time now from a predominately earthy concept of value to one that is more closely tied to the element of Air. After all, "money is a metaphor," as Canadian media researcher Marshall McLuhan once said. ^Al of this, however, fulfills the criteria of the principle of Air: the lightness and extreme agility of money; its brief stay with each owner; its tireless journey around the world; the abstraction of the exchange . process that it embodies; and its fundamental nature, free from emotion and subjectivity, that allows it to penetrate nearly every aspect of human life without any type of actual participation.

Let me emphasize once again: In our classification of the elements, there is no objective true or objective false in a materialistic sense. Because as our earlier beach example shows, the main advantage of elemental symbolism and the language it speaks is that it allows us to incorporate its diversity and flexibility without automatically dooming us to failure from any contradictions that inevitably result.

To illustrate this point using a practical example, the following exercise is recommended:

Exercise

Review the beach scene described earlier. Let the statements about each element and its various manifestations really sink in before proceeding to the next step.

Categorize the scene as a whole to one single element and give reasons for your decision. Write down the element you chose and make note of the reasonsfor your choice.

Now select another basic element (excluding Ether for now) and develop convincing arguments for why the whole scene could belong to the symbolism of that element. Why can the scene described be primarily categorized as belonging to the element ofWater, ar Earth, for example?

Please note: The goal here is not to determine which element is correct or more correct than the others! Don’t let yourself get distracted by such notions; instead, try to envision the scene and describe it as comprehensively and in as much detail as possible.

Once you’ve categorized the scene with one element, repeat the procedure with the remaining ones.

Conditioned refexes come automatically, so watch out! We're not concerned with determining the best or most accurate element to describe the beach scene. Nonetheless, the choice is not arbitrary: Water cannot randomly be replaced by Fire, for example, and Air describes such a complexity of factors that could never cover the element of Earth, and so on. Later on we'll pick up this exercise again and wrap it up.

The contradiction mentioned above can be described in simple terms as the tension that arises when we're torn between chasing after money for all it's worth and constantly hearing that "money cant buy happiness" which in turn makes money into an object of contempt.

But as the previous exercise has shown, we just might be able to rob this "contradiction' of its effective power; after all, as money magicians we can describe and deal with our personal relationship to money like in the beach scene exercise. But here's a little advance warning: It's common practice in every culture to dismiss anything too complex or ambivalent by saying things like "it's all relative," as though this realization could truly be of any help. By putting things into various perspectives (here in the sense of"devalu-ation''), there's generally nothing left in the end but to acknowledge that everything is interchangeable, thus freeing us from all obligation whatsoever. Since "nothing is really true anyway," this arbitrary attitude invades our thought process as well, encouraging us to always choose the path of least resistance.

Well, it certainly would be advantageous in money magic to not get hung up on obstacles or other types of resistance. Ultimately, this should not occur in the form of a mere temporary work-around, but rather in the magician not allowing such resistance to build in the frst place.

Another approach to the beach observation exercise, regarding its elemental categorization, would be

to not search at all for the equal values of these opinions or interpretations. Naturally one element or the other will seem more plausible and convincing to you than the rest, which you picked only because the exercise required you to do so. That's perfectly OK: Our goal here is not to convince you of the triviality and invalidity of your viewpoint, but rather to solidify your position and make it binding by means of examining as many alternatives as possible.

But if we are serious in our attempt of the monstrous crime of doing the impossible, we cannot avoid such binding commitment. In a world where the possible does its utmost to obstruct this undertaking, such noncommittal fluctuation and every willingness to compromise would be equal to capitulation.

Money's True Element

The oldest form of magic passed down from ancient times is theurgy. The word itself can be loosely translated as "divine coercion," although this does not refer to the coercion that the gods or immortals put on man, but rather just the opposite. A theurgist is a human magician who dares to coerce the gods. Even without any knowledge of the ancient authors, it is not difficult to imagine that this didn’t sit particularly well with the representatives of conventional religions. Theurgists were considered to be socially inferior, and people often accused them of provoking the gods with their wicked deeds, causing the gods to lash out at the entire community. Anyone caught in the process of performing

such wanton acts was subject to punishment by death, as was the case in ancient Rome, for example. Thus, the witch-hunts of the late Middle Ages and early modern times were not rooted in Christianity alone. Instead we can deduce that such things were based ona general human inclination to eliminate everyone and everything that threatens the structure of superstition, prejudices, envy, jealousy, petty bourgeois conformism, and narrow-mindedness that one likes to call culture.

Well, methods and interests have changed and shifted throughout the millenniums. Modern magicians (at least in the Western world) have no reason to be afraid that they might end up being burned at the stake, other forms of chastisement notwithstanding. Our spirit of insubordination has remained throughout history, continuing our tendency to reject conventional explanations used for describing and creating our reality. I'd like to apply a small portion of this insubordination here myself for the duration of our examination of money magic. In all biasness—and against every time-honored school of thought—I’m going to categorize money only to the element of Air without wasting another thought on the possibility that it might fit other elements as well.

Introduction

Part II: The Wings ofMerc^y

The Fleeting God of Merchants and Thieves

In conjunction with the magical process of categorization, not only is close study of the elements necessary but also a closer look at the symbolism of the planetary principles. The tradition of the planetary principles is a bit more unanimous than that of the elements when it comes to classifying money. Generally, money is ascribed to planet Mercury, although the Venus principle may also be applied at times, especially in connection with its relationship to trading and swapping— albeit in an ancillary function. The Jupiter principle finds use here as well: it relates to prosperity, wealth, abundance, and generosity on a general level.

In order to better understand the planetary principles, a look at mythology might help—after al, we're talking about the symbolic representatives of deities, and tradition provides us with plenty of information

on this. As a side note: Allocating money to Mercury is another argument in favor of identifying it with the element of Air, since Mercury is also the god of quicksilver and the messenger god with winged feet, who in turn is also the god of merchants and thieves.

As differentiating and discriminating as the polytheistic pantheon always is, it is nonetheless comprised of personalized human elements and represents a sort of map of universal powers and relationship networks. As opposed to the monotheistic god who embodies only the good (evil is left to subordinate charges), the deities of polytheism make no distinction between good and evil. The two concepts often mix, the borders are fluid and indefinable, and contradictions are allowed to exist without the compulsion to resolve them.

Thus the figure of Mercury can be found in the most diverse contexts, whereby it should make no difference as to whether we are dealing with the Roman god Mercurius or his direct forerunner, the Greek god Hermes. It is not uncommon that the gods are sometimes difficult to distinguish from one another when it comes to their motives and actions. Although various features and characteristics have been accentuated throughout history, the essence is always one and the same. For example, it makes perfect sense to ascribe Mercury/Hermes to the ancient Egyptian god Thoth (Tahuti), although he was originally a moon deity. This correspondence can be explained by the fact that

Thoth is considered to be the inventor of writing and language, and because he is known to accompany the spirits of the dead on their journey to the underworld as a sort of counselor. Hermes, the Greek psychopomp (meaning someone who guides spirits to the other world), has similar duties.

This brings us back to the tarot.cards again, which (in its magical-esoteric interpretation) is often called "the Book ofThoth."

Traditional magic, with its classical and ancient Egyptian roots, is generally unfamiliar with the fine distinctions between terms such as knowledge, wisdom, information, education, intellect, and mind. The Mercury principle can stand for the thought process itself as well as every other cognitive process, in the same way it can also symbolize wisdom, life experience, and its resulting practical application in the form of magical action.

In any case, I recommend that you don't overdo it when examining mythological information available. With even just a small amount of effort put into browsing through such literature, sooner or later you'll find something to substantiate any viewpoint you might hold. And during your research, also remember that myths are not meant to be treated as objective documents of historical events. Instead they should be viewed as general, abstract principles as expressed within certain contexts. In this sense, a deity such as Mercury (and his astrological correspondence, the

planet of the same name) represents a sort of general outlook of the world that should never be too distinct or restricting—its sphere of influence should remain as great as possible.

Religious and Political Conflicts

The subject of gods and deities in classical magic deserves a bit more attention here. In magical practice, there are often a lot of basic misunderstandings which derive from the society in which we live. Understandably, a person born and raised in a monotheistic culture will generally have difficulties with the .basic concept of polytheism, regardless of the fact that our culture has been undergoing a steady expansion of atheist and agnostic ideas for a good two hundred years or so. The roots of this lack of comprehension may possibly lie much further back in history. In particular, the development of Mosaism (Judaism) and Islam offers sufficient proof of the incredible force that monotheistic religions felt they needed to apply to assert themselves against the then-predominantly polytheistic environ-ment.The Islamic creed "there is no god but ^Alah and Mohammed is his prophet" is still pronounced millions of times around the world every day. Even in the days of the Old Testament, religious leaders had their hands full keeping their tribes away from the metaphysical temptations of their polytheistic environments, as the story of the dance around the golden calf illustrates.

Even the heretic pharaoh Akhenaton, who according to the present state of research can be considered

the inventor of monotheism, had to use extreme brutality to enforce his religious revolution in ancient Egypt, albeit only for the relatively short term of his reign. Shortly after the pharaoh died, the monotheistic sun cult he introduced disappeared.

The development of monotheism is always accompanied by strong political and economical upheaval. Akhenaton's was mainly concerned with dissolving the power of the priests ofThebes and introducing a cultbased, political centralism that would give the pharaoh more political power again.

The Jewish faith, formed originally from the various tribes who followed Moses and Abraham in their worship of Yahweh, had to endure countless military conflicts throughout the years in order to establish its political recognition, and such conflicts still continue today, as any authority on Israel and Palestine knows.

Even Pauline Christianity was preoccupied with becoming the Roman state religion, which finally occurred shortly before Constantine's death, following centuries of bloody persecution. There were setbacks, however: Constantine's successor Julian the Apostate ("the Defector") returned supremacy to ancient polytheistic paganism. If his reign would have lasted just a few more years, the history of Western civilization might have turned out very differently.

These political references are mentioned here because they might help bridge the gap of misunderstanding that exists between monotheistic and pagan-polytheistic

cultures. This ongoing conflict is intensified by the wave of religiously critical skepticism that sprouted early in modern history—a trend that peaked with the French encyclopedic scholars of the Age of Enlightenment and again later during the nineteenth century, which was marked by the Industrial Revolution, the advancement of science, and Darwinism. When this wave of skepticism began to fix its eye on religion, it was confronted almost exclusively with monotheistic Christianity (at least in Europe). It is significant to note that rationalism argues a similar position today as Christianity did thousands of years ago in regards to pagan polytheism: belief is something that needs to be overcome and is degraded to a mere expression of hopeless ignorance or superstition, which is argumentatively backed up against a wall with all kinds of pedantry and alleged proof of its fundamental, untenable nature.

Germania's conversion to Christianity occurred in a similar fashion. When St. Boniface felled Irmin-sul, the holy tree of the Germanic tribes, he did this as proof of his god's omnipotence. This act was staged as a huge event in which representatives of the subdued tribes were forced to look on as this sacrilege was committed against their faith, and to endure terrible mockery in the process because their god didn't send down a lightning bolt to prevent such an act of humiliation. At least that's what the legends say. The fact that St. Boniface only dared to carry out his operation under

massive military protection is rarely mentioned. Thus it was more of a demonstration of political power that took several generations before it could finally consolidate Christian/Franconian monotheism on Germanic soil. The fact that St. Boniface himself was killed among the Frisian tribes during his repeated missionary activities supports this as well.

Therefore it should come as no surprise that we as human beings living in modern times are unable to find a deeper understanding for the logic and mechanics of polytheism. Our only information comes from hearsay in a watered-down form (e.g., in the Catholic church's worship of saints) or in reference to the exotic practices of some foreign cultures, particularly in Asia. In this sense, it poses a bit of a problem for Western magic to entreat gods from an ancient era. There is no inner cultural relationship to such gods, the transmission lines have been destroyed for the most part, and the entire socio-cultural environment has no fundamental basis for existence since its origins derive from the suppression (or conquest) of polytheism. Thus in modern magic, the past stirs a feeling of nostalgia and gives rise to the concept of a utopian world that often replaces the dimension of real experience.

The Fifth Element

Before examining the planetary deities, which will ultimately lead us to' the ritual practice of money magic in the next chapter, we should be fully aware of the forces that are in action here.

Let's now finish the exercise that was introduced in the last chapter.

EXERCISE

After completing the earlier exercise concerning the allocation if allfour basic elements to the beach scene, observe the entire process from an overriding point if view: recall how you read the beach scenefor thefirst time. Observe what you did next as you followed the instructions to perform the exercise.

Recall the specific procedure youfollowed, what thoughts came to mind if you felt any resistance or maybe even a certain perplexity or confusion, your emotional reaction, and the mechanical process if writing itself. Try to be as thorough as possible, jotting down everything that comes to mind

Obviously, it's impossible to exhaust this recall process entirely. You've probably remembered innumerable details already—the intensity if light in the room, how comfortable your seat was, the clothing you were wearing, the noises in the background, scents and smells, room temperature, tiny motor functions, the angle if the book while reading, and so on. While keeping all if this in mind, observe the entire process yet again to note even more such details. In doing so, do not make a distinction between significant and insignificant, important and unimportant; rather, try to remain as neutral as possible in your observations with a foocus on being as thorough as possible.

Now take a short break before continuing the exercise.

Observe the process once again to complete your reconstruction if the experience piece by piece. Continue doing this until no new details come to mind

At the same time, however, be careful not to randomly make things up! At first glance, this may seem easier than it really is because that's how the human brain works. It's constructive in the truest sense of the word, meaning that it will reconstruct memories again and again according to the current situation.

If you’re thinking that the above exercise is meant to train your memory, think again. Assuming you performed it carefully, the exercise is actually an approach to what magicians call the element of Ether or Spirit (or Akasha). The principle of Ether is all-encompassing. In ancient cosmology, before the development of Einstein’s physics, Ether was considered both the primeval matter of all existence as well as the medium within which this takes place. Magic within the element of Ether is based more on transpersonal, spiritual, cosmic (or karmic, according to the concept of reincarnation) factors that far exceed the reach of normal human capacity—magicians included—so that practical magic rarely plays a significant role there. Indeed, classical ritual magic of the elements generally ignores Ether altogether.

I've only mentioned it here for the sake of completeness too, and purposely did not mention it and its attributes right at the beginning along with the other elements. Unfortunately, experience has shown repeatedly that people are all too eager to degrade this element to compensate for their own limited nature.

If you performed this Ether exercise conscientiously, then without a doubt you've technically "failed." Regardless of how comprehensive your memory lists may be, there is no doubt that they are patchwork at best. Nonetheless, by doing this exercise you have probably gained a much more accurate and lasting idea of the meaning of the principle of Ether than would have been possible by merely reading an abstract, theoretical list of attributes.

If you've gotten this far without having done the last part of the exercise, there is no point in doing it now. Why? The opportunity to complete it from an unbiased point of view without the anticipation of achieving some kind of results (which does nothing but distort the actual purpose anyway) has been missed.

If these statements sound strange to you, and if you maybe even find them a bit irritating (which would certainly be understandable), take a moment to think about what the term "uniqueness" means to you. This is not a silly psycho trick to give you the run-around; it is meant to hint at what was said at the start—magic is about doing the impossible. In other words, once something has been done just one single time, it can no longer be considered impossible. Consider also that magic "can only be performed once." We will encounter this fundamental principle frequently throughout our study of practical money magic.

Ether's Properties

As opposed to the four other elements, Ether embodies a divine dimension of the world as a whole. The illustration below depicts this in a greatly simplified form.

Illustration 1:

The radius of action of the elements, the planets/planetary deities, and the medium of Ether according to Hermetic doctrine

The inner circle (1) represents the radius of action of the four basic elements—Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. The seven planets or planetary deities (2) encircle the elements, according to Hermetic teachings. The outer circle (3) represents the "element" of Ether, which is actually a powerful medium through and within which everything generally referred to as existence takes place.

As mentioned previously, Ether is generally assumed to exist in principle, but is not dealt with further or examined more specifically in the Hermetic/ magical tradition. However, the only thing of significance to traditionally oriented money magic is that the deities (and here we are only concerned with the planetary deities) and the element of Ether hold an overriding power or larger radius of action than do the four basic elements alone. This can be translated as powers and relationship structures that in a sense are on the receiving end of the gods' actions, thus manifesting and sustaining them simultaneously.

This relationship has a significant impact on the Hermetic tradition's fundamental image of humanity. From a Hermetic point of view, all the elements exist within us, which is why we are generally considered to be superior to elemental spirits. Today we might • describe these elemental spirits as high-caliber specialists in each of their respective areas of expertise (but nowhere else). For all other activities, they require the support and assistance of the other elements involved.

While the elemental spirits are each responsible for their individual fields, humans are considered generalists who are able to recognize the overall scheme of things and direct the whole picture. To accomplish this undertaking, the help of the elemental specialists is necessary. However, humanity shouldn’t be considered superior in any way. In fact, our dependence on specialists is one aspect that frequently arises when the so-called dangers of magic are discussed. When magicians turn to the help of specialists, it means that these specialists are indeed superior to them within their individual areas of expertise, a fact that can unintentionally render magicians dependent on their help.

Invocation

Thus, according to Hermetic tradition, humans can acquire the knowledge and power to conjure elemental spirits, but in doing so run the risk of being unable to completely control the unleashed powers. The danger that they may run off course—especially if some kind of unforeseen, undesirable development should occur— is considerable. For this reason, the importance of first gaining access to the elemental powers was always stressed in the training of aspiring new magicians.

The next step is for the magician to engage the assistance of the deities and their corresponding radii of action. This occurs initially through the practice of worship and the provision of offerings, similar to conventional religions. After this, it is entirely up to the benevolence, good will, or mercy of the deity summoned

whether or not to support the magician's endeavors. I already mentioned in the previous chapter that theurgy, or coercion of the gods, was a widespread discipline in the practice of ancient magic. The most popular technique for this is invocation, still commonly used today. This word is derived from Latin and literally means "to summon inside," referring to the summoning of the deity—or more specifically, its radius of action—inside the theurgist.

Gods are by definition more powerful than humans, thus, the theurgic magician turns to the help of a deity due to a need of a greater radius of action to perform the magical operations that would normally not be possible alone. Thus, a hierarchy of cause and effect is created, within which humans make use of the power borrowed from the gods by directing it and applying it to the fulfillment of personal objectives. While these objectives are generally located within the realm of the four basic elements, at least in everyday practical magic, the magician becomes a choreographer of the planetary powers so that they can shape and arrange the elements accordingly.

Invocation can be defined as a sort of temporary possession. In ceremonial magic, this almost exclusively takes place within a more or less tightly structured and time-restricted ritual. Only during this ritual does the magician summon the deity inside himself, ideally to embody this deity completely for the duration of the operation. In the process, the magician’s ego takes a

back seat, allowing the deity to unfold in the vehicle of his physical body. From this point on, the goal is no longer to act as a magician or mortal, but rather to let the deity borrow the magician’s physical body in order to perform the desired tasks. Thus, the person is not performing the operation—the deity is.

For our objectives here, the exact procedure followed doesn’t matter at all. The older tradition based on the spirit model believes in a real entity that exists apart from the magician, while the psychological model developed in the twentieth century views it as the external projection of inner, psychological powers. Thus, there is no need to assume that non-incarnate entities or spirits actually exist. More specifically, the act of invocation is not dependent on the specifics of the procedure used.

The energy model of magic, which is a bit older as well, views this as the manifestation of an amorphous, impersonal yet absolutely real subtle power that, with the use of magical techniques, is given a symbolic form for the purpose of this manifestation.

Finally, I would like to mention the information model, most commonly seen today in cyber magic and chaos magic. According to this model, an informationbased paradigm shift takes place during the invocation in which the magician "installs" an alternate "operating system" that offers a different and generally more powerful functionality than that of normal human existence. Information is rearranged and integrated into a

certain structure to cause a specific effect the magician has predetermined.

Trance

When contemplating the structure and procedure of such a paradigm, schooled anthropologists and specialized theologians will notice that this practice shares a distinct similarity with the methods used by numerous world cultures throughout time regarding spirit possession. One well-known example to the Western world is Haitian voodoo. The same holds true, by the way, for the majority of Mro-Caribbean cultures, and finds parallels in many forms of shamanism that exist throughout the world. In those traditions, too, practitioners summon certain gods, spirits, power animals, and similar entities that are determined before or during the ritual itself to enter into their bodies; technically speaking, the spirits possess the practitioners, or to use voodoo terminology, "ride" them. This can be done purely for the experience of the situation, but more often than not, clearly defined goals are pursued in the process—such as in love and protection spells, curses, fertility rites, and the like.

Such direct experience of a god is induced by various methods depending on the preferred model of magic applied: the projection of internal contents, the awakening and manifestation of magical power, or the possession-like change from a human to a divine information paradigm. Since the publication of the revolutionary book by Mircea Eliade, this technique has been

described as the "shamanic ecstasy technique," also called trance work or merely trance within the magic community.2 Various methods are used to achieve this trance, putting body and spirit into an extreme state of mind that completely shuts out everyday consciousness. These methods include rhythmic dancing and singing, as well as the more traditional practices of fasting or sleep deprivation. Over-stimulation of the senses or removal of al stimuli are commonplace as well. For the sake of completeness, I should also mention the use of musical instruments (predominately rattles or drums), drugs (in some cultures), and sexuality (e.g., Crowley's "Energized Enthusiasm,"Western sex magic in general, Indian-Tibetan tantra, the inner alchemy of Chinese Taoism, and the like).

Trances can be categorized into two types: those which subdue and those which agitate the . consciousness. Both pursue the same goal, yet in entirely contradictory ways. This dichotomy can best be illustrated with a contrasting example: flooding the senses—such as by drumming or dancing for hours on end—and sensory deprivation, or the withdrawal of stimuli, such as fasting, seclusion, and retreat, or meditation. Often both basic techniques are used, such as when the whirling of a Dervish is preceded by long phases of dietetic or sexual deprivation, or the ecstatic tantric union of

• 2. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism:Archaic Techniques ofEcstasy, (Princeton University Press, 2004).

two sexual partners is followed by deep, solemn meditation.

Two features characterize the work with invocations: the symbolism used and the time restriction of the operation. Invocational symbolism ideally uses an inner logic, with the importance being placed on strict adherence to it as opposed to the mechanical use of the actual appropriate symbols. Thus, according to the modern Hermetic tradition, the number eight and color orange are allocated to the principle of Mercury; the same applies to the Mercury day (Wednesday), the metals mercury and brass, and so on. But Mercury also embodies the fast and fleeting, the nimble and flexible, and the sharp analytical intellect, as well as finely polished speech, communication skills, the written language, and wittiness.

Accordingly, there would be little point in designing a Mercury ritual with use of the proper metals, colors, and number symbolism (e.g., by burning eight orange candles) while silently standing there, perhaps even sullenly and grumpily, in a serious and ponderous mood. That sort of mood with those materials would fulfill the formal requirements and make use of the external attributes (metals, colors, number) for the invocation but would violate the inner symbol logic, as described in the listing of Mercury's features.

Such is also the case with the other cultures and traditions that work with possession. For example, when Baron Samedi, master of the crossroads and

cemeteries, is summoned during a voodoo ritual, the participant would wear clothing appropriate to Baron Samedi, such as a tuxedo, top hat, and cane, but a practitioner must also mentally focus on this god in order to represent him appropriately.

In Aleister Crowley's Liber 777, the book of magical correspondences mentioned earlier, the author even assigns plants and scents to the corresponding principles in tabular form. In these tables, one cannot help but notice that despite such purely mechanical referencing, the magician is given plenty of subjective freedom—for example, with the following entry under Jupiter: "all glorious odours."What at first glance may look like taking the easy way out with vagueness is indeed an expression of the versatility and flexibility of magical symbol logic—a concept which is actually quite foreign to Aristotelian-analytical thought. Thus, the goal is to internalize symbol logic as comprehensively as possible, comprehend its inner compelling nature, corroborate this process through application and practical experience, and to push on with it through personal contributions such as reflection and experimentation.

What may seem purely theoretical at this point will find plenty of practical application in the following pages. Because as opposed to dogmatic traditions with their innumerable rules, regulations, and supposedly irrefutable laws, I prefer to choose an approach that agrees with the Mercury principle—and thus the foundation ofWestern money magic itself—something

modern people can better relate to, as practice continues to prove. Though I will also provide some ideas for Hermetic ceremonial magic, the main focus here will nonetheless be on free form; in other words, freestyle instead of fixed rules.

The time restriction of the invocation serves two main purposes. First of all, it serves to protect the magician. When the magician uses various magical techniques to attain a divine state of trance, there is no advantage to this if he is unable to leave this altered state of reality when the operation is finished. As Michael Harner, an American expert on shamanism, once said to me personally, "In cultures that believe in the existence of spirits, there is nothing unusual about a person encountering a spirit and telling someone about it. But a person who constantly sees spirits without having a grip on everyday reality would be considered 'crazy' anywhere, even in such spirit-believing cultures." For this reason, ceremonial magic recognizes the practices of dismissal and banishing, which play significant roles in ritual magic.

The second purpose of the time restriction of invo-cational work has to do with the "pressure cooker principle." The magical act—which is what an invocation is—is always viewed and treated as a unique situation in traditional magic. It has a clearly defined beginning and end. This is based on the assumption that even non-everyday events such as the release of magical powers and causalities require their own maturing pro

cess. Or to describe the pressure cooker: enough pressure needs to be built up so that success can manifest like an explosion of fate.

Continuing the metaphor, the image of condensation could fit here as well. The magical powers first need to be condensed in order to bring about the desired effect, thus ensuring the restricted yet highly concentrated nature of the operation. Similar ideas can also be found in the sigil magic of Austin Osman Spare, which I will discuss a bit later. In Osman's system, a sigil designed to fulfill a magician's desires needs to be forgotten entirely before its power can unfold.

The main thing to remember now that I've come to the end of the introduction is that money is predominantly associated with the element of Air and the planetary principle of Mercury, and these should be applied to your practical money magic, which we will begin discussing in the next chapter. It is fleeting, extremely mobile, communicative, and fulfills its essential functions alone by safeguarding these qualities and putting them into action. Although this may seem quite obvious in theory, the way we deal with money on a daily basis is often quite a different story.

If our money magic is to be truly efficient and, well, magical, we need to develop a way of dealing with money suitable to its nature.

One

Mercurial money magic

Invocations, Rituals, Exercises, and Everything Else 7hat's Important (or Not)

Let's put everything we've learned so far into practice. Before turning to the less conventional methods of performing money magic a person might search for in vain in classical literature, I would first like to mention the traditional procedure as can be found in modern Hermetic ceremonial magic.

Surely it would be a misunderstanding to view these as irreconcilable differences since exactly the opposite is true. The different approaches can be combined quite well with one another, and can complement and reinforce one another as long as the dynamic force behind it al is observed. In most cases, it would not be advisable to practice money magic strictly within the confines of a ceremonial ritual, as this would confine the mercurial principle in its freedom and flexibility,

thus greatly restricting its scope of development. On the other hand, a non-ritualistic approach may lack direction due to insufficient consolidation and structuring. Combining a freestyle approach with ritual practice can be a highly effective measure. In the end, it is entirely up to the individual magician which procedure is preferred in general or by way of exception.

I would like to point out that only a brief outline of the ritual magic procedure can be offered here in this context. If the reader would like to learn more about the developmental history of ritual magic or its symbol-logical basis, please refer to the recommended literature? The experienced ritual magician, on the other hand, will probably just want to skim over the following introductory statements.

The Construction of a Magical Ritual Generally all magical 'rituals in the Western tradition are symbolic acts or even downright dramas. They serve the purpose of bringing about the tangible manifestation of psychological and cosmic powers and relationships through the active application of appropriate symbols and symbolic structures. In simpler words, symbolic objects, gestures, formulas, and sequences of procedures are used to achieve a desired effect on another level (usually that of everyday life). Therefore as a rule, rituals are goal-oriented and serve a specific,

• 3. Frater U :. D :. -High Magic: Theory & Practice; High Magic II: Expanded Theory & Practice

definable purpose. In connection with money magic, this goal could be the successful outcome of a certain financial transaction, a general increase in wealth and prosperity, a release from burdens of debt, and the like.

Before a ritual takes place, the objective has to be defined. So always formulate your goals as precisely as possible! Be clear in your mind about what you actually want to achieve. Objectives such as "I want to be successful at everything" or "I want all the riches in the world" are in all probability beyond your reach and therefore a waste of time. On the other hand, it is not necessary to determine an exact sum of money right down to the last penny either. Since we are dealing with symbols, we need to find a method of operation that leaves enough flexibility for the symbolism to work effectively because symbols themselves are versatile, adaptable, and have no confining borders.

Stating a clear but flexible objective poses a discrepancy that negatively influences our relationship to money in general. Since the triumphant progress of science and technology, industrial production, and the standardization and widespread calibration of products and procedures, our culture has been geared toward what man could describe as "fulfillment of the counter." The oldest written documents of mankind currently known are, interestingly enough, stock fists, invoices, and IOUs or bookkeeping records. The biblical God who created the world "in measure and number" set the trend; the process of counting and deducing through the introduction of

a numerical system, arithmetic equations, and world systems that are based entirely on these represent a form of"tearing apart" in more than just an etymological way. This applies to the word "time" as well, which can be viewed as a form of being "torn apart." From a historical point of view, this may have its origins in the tearing apart and dividing up of the bag after hunting, since hunting was usually a group activity from the earliest of times. Accordingly, hunters had to divide up the prey among themselves and their families, which was probably a primeval form of counting.

Interestingly enough, Chinese mythology often refers to "the time before knots were tied." Knots here refer to computing tools. Similar to quipu, the knotwriting of pre-Columbian cultures, strings with knots were used in ancient China to represent numbers and perform calculations. In the time of myth and legend before man discovered arithmetic in the hope of using it to master the world, Chinese mythology followed the true and most powerful form of magic.

Metaphorically speaking, this means to us as magicians that it would be better to do without arithmetic for the most part, and to make use of images and symbols instead; after all, arithmetic is merely a means of compensating for these.

Of course, this is blatantly inconsistent with the way we continually encounter money, a relationship that will be later discussed in more detail. For now, it will suffice to mention that ritual practice in general

should avoid the use of specific numbers and figures when defining the objective, even if the operation is aimed at obtaining concrete, specific monetary sums that are ordinarily quantifiable.

There is another aspect that should be briefly mentioned here although it will be discussed in more detail at a later time: money's representative nature, which automatically results from its mediating role in the process of exchange and barter. This nature can be especially problematic for beginners to money magic.

Here is an example to illustrate. Let's assume you need a specific amount of money, sum x. You want to create a ritual to obtain this amount, so logically you will formulate your objective correspondingly.

However, it is highly unlikely that you are actually concerned with sum x in itself. Maybe you want to use it to buy a new car, finance a vacation, or pay off debt. Of course, conventional, material logic would indeed want this specific sum x since every acquisition within our society of goods and services can only be realized by means of a concrete, quantifiable amount of money. This is a form of alienation that often impairs our access to magical symbolism. Once again—the only reason you are interested in sum x is because it seems to ensure the acquisition of the car, the vacation, or other things. You don't want the money for the sake of the money itself; instead the money serves as a placeholder.

What at first may seem completely natural and logical here is indeed on closer examination a highly

restrictive mechanism. Would you honestly have a problem with someone giving you the desired car, winning the vacation in a prize drawing, or your creditor simply releasing you from your debts? Such conceivable and by no means impossible manifestations of a successful money magic operation would be out of the question if you were to be set on aiming for the specific sum x down to the last decimal point. That precision may do justice to the counter mentioned earlier that dominates our culture, but not to the magical symbolism we are dealing with here.

In other words: don't mix up the levels!The cultural paradigm that gets you to believe that having quantifiable sums is the only plausible ("realistic") possibility for obtaining certain goods, services, and the like also only allows clearly defined routes of access. These include hard work, lucrative business, clever exploitation of market gaps, and the like. Surely factors such as lucky gambling or rich inheritance can occasionally come into play in this paradigm, but only as coincidences that cannot really be induced or influenced—at least not by legal means. That reminds me, by the way, of Henry Ford's "tip" on how to become rich: "work hard, strike oil."

It is exactly this capitalistic logic based on performance and production that reinforces the counter in connection with money. So whoever insists on viewing money as a mere placeholder and on only • seeing and handling quantifiable amounts should logically also

be prepared to fulfil the other conditions of this paradigm. Of course, none of this has anything to do with effective money magic. First of al, money magic is simply not a part of such a manner of operation. Secondly, it is—like all types of traditional magic—based on the use of a symbolic language that successfully resists claims of validity of the capitalistic exploitation’s logic and its mathematization of the world.

In relation to defining the objective of your ritual, this could mean that instead of aiming for sum x, you should focus directly on the car, the vacation, or debt reduction—whatever it is you're interested in. Doing so would leave everything up to the powers/entities/prin-ciples activated during the ritual to bring about manifestation of the desired goal.

A few rules of thumb should be followed when defining your objective:

• • Formulate your magical objective clearly, precisely, and concretely.

• • In doing so, avoid any type of placeholder goals . Thus, if you want to obtain a specific object, then make this object the target of your magical operation, not the money you would need to purchase it.

• • Do ' not subject yourself to our number-dominated culture. Do not use specific numbers, figures, or arithmetic formulas if at all possible.

• • Re-examine your formulated objective. Maybe

the desired objects, services, etc., are in turn merely placeholders themselves. Are you sincerely interested in that high-performance, red sports car or are you more interested in the social status that the car promises to bring you? Do you really want to travel to the Seychelles or do you just want to compensate your fundamental lack of friends by meeting new people in a relaxed vacation atmosphere? Are you honestly interested in paying back your uncle's loan down to the last cent or are you trying to avoid having close(r) contact with him?

The ritual structure can follow a very simple scheme: the introductory banishing of undesired distractions and disturbances; the main part (e.g., invocation, charging of a talisman, etc.); the closing banishing and dismissal of the entities or powers summoned or activated (depending on the magical model applied). You can perform the ritual according to all the rules of the art of Hermetic ceremonial magic, if you want. Of course you need to be familiar with it first. Should you need guidance, there is plenty of material on the subject.

You could also work free-style instead, which is especially recommended for beginners since it would avoid over-complicating the process. Dogmatists will insist that only traditional rituals performed scrupulously down to the last detail can be effective. (In fact, closer examination usually reveals that there is

not much actual truth to the alleged old age of such rituals.) Practical experience shows that just the opposite is true: as long as you adhere to a few basic rules, there is no need for you to "sweep the temple for thirty years" before you can begin with ritual practice. After all, every finite tradition has its beginnings somewhere, and the age-old question of "Who initiated the first master?" was never answered sufficiently by dogmatism.

Now let's take a look at the individual components of a ritual.

The Ritual Location

Usually called the temple, the ritual location is generally a room where the magician can work undisturbed. Since most modern magicians do not have access to a room that is dedicated exclusively to the practice of ritual magic, the temple is generally improvised. Therefore, feel free to work in the living room, basement, attic, or bedroom as long as you have enough room to maneuver around.

More important than the type of room used is the fact that you can work in peace and quiet. Always make sure that you remain undisturbed for the duration of the ritual. This includes turning off the telephone, disconnecting the doorbell, and canceling appointments and anything else that may be a potential distraction. In psychological magic, that state of consciousness called trance is necessary for magical operations to be successful. Of course, the trance state needs to be established first before it can be used for the intended magical

purpose. That's why everyday consciousness cannot be given the opportunity to impair this sensitive process.

The required room to maneuver depends on how the ritual itself is designed. If you want to enter a state of trance, you will generally need more room than if you just sit in the lotus position for deep meditation. Whoever works with the entire arsenal of modern Hermetic ceremonial magic will need a spacious altar to accommodate utensils such as the dagger, sword, chalice, pentacle, wand and so on—in addition to the candles, censor, magic diary, and more. Even when-using a minimum of ritual equipment, a small table can often be of good use.

Many magicians prefer working outdoors. This is not always easy, especially in heavily populated areas, since it is important to avoid all disturbances. Plus there are often ordinances and bans from the local authorities regarding things such as having an open fire in the woods, disturbing the peace, and the like. Magicians who .have spacious yards will still have to make sure no nosey neighbors can accidentally watch the operation in order to prevent false conclusions from being drawn, which is almost certain to happen. (Accusations of being a Satanist, possibly even ritually abusing children, holding orgies and blood baths, making candles out of children’s fat—such rumors are easily set loose yet extremely difficult to eliminate.)

The time of day a ritual is performed usually depends on the individual’s life circumstances. Magi-

dans working within the classical Hermetic tradition ^wil want to regard the planetary hours, astrologers may calculate events, and moon magicians may wait for a waxing moon to perform their money magic. All of these things can be helpful aids, but they are certainly not necessary. In psychological-magical words: everything that supports the establishment of the required magical state of consciousness (magical trance) can be used, but only in the necessary amount. If only one or two elements of this type are sufficient, there is no advantage to overloading the operation by applying more such factors and aids. On the other hand, if it becomes clear during performance of the ritual that the magical trance cannot be achieved to a sufficient extent, a more elaborate ritual design may help.

The Introductory Banishing

In the spirit model of classical magic, banishing serves to keep away undesired entities (spirits, demons, ele-mentals, and the like) from both the ritual in general and the magician. Principally the magician opens up to external entities during a ritual, namely through invocation, and is thus receptive or even vulnerable, which is all the more reason to ensure no undesired entities are able to possess him or her. Possession would not only influence the magical operation’s overall success, but it might also personally harm the magician. Thus the introductory banishing functions as a filter in a way, only allowing access to the entities actually summoned. In the psychological model of magic, the introductory

banishing serves as a concentration aid as well as a trigger for the desired state of consciousness (trance). Here it has more of a cleansing function that stimulates the change in state of consciousness instead of a filtering function.

On the other hand, in the energy model of magic, the introductory banishing serves to concentrate the magical energies so that the magician can absorb these and effectively use them as desired. Here too disruptive energies are kept away in order not to endanger the success of the operation.

In the information model of magic, the banishing corresponds to a consolidation of data to form information clusters; these are filtered, so to speak, according to relevance and irrelevance.

Though the experienced magician will develop the details of his own unique methods within the various models, the basic structure remains the same.

The circle is probably the oldest protection symbol known. Its closed form with no beginning or end is the ideal image of protection and security. In Western ceremonial magic, the magic circle is either laid out on the floor or marked off in some other way, such as with chalk. Modern magicians, however, generally prefer drawing the magic circle in the air at roughly waist level with the help of a magic weapon (particularly a sword or dagger), merely imagining its borders. In reality, the "circle" is actually viewed as a protective sphere that protects the entire ritual location and all persons

involved for the duration of the operation (more specifically, until the closing banishing and dismissal).

There are various ways to effectively make and charge the magic circle. Here I would like to mention the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, the common denominator for magicians of the classical Hermetic tradition. In addition, this ritual has the advantage of uniting a number of common magical symbols and inducing the desired magical trance, in particular among experienced magicians who have practiced it countless times already.

Although it contains the word "ritual," the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram is actually only a ritual component that generally precedes and concludes most larger ritual operations. If practiced regularly in this form, this ritual becomes an integral, inseparable component in ceremonial magic that has a tremendously positive effect.

Let's take a look at the procedure in detail.

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram The pentagram (five-pointed star) is an ancient symbol known to virtually all peoples and cultures of the earth; it has even been found on rock carvings dating back to the Stone Age. In the Western tradition of magic, it represents the five elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Spirit or Ether. At the same time, it symbolizes a person with legs and arms outstretched to the sides. Each of the elements is allocated to a certain point of the star, as the illustration shows.

Illustration 2: The pentagram and the elements. In order to make it easier for future reference, I wiD frst present the entire technical description of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram itself, with comments to follow.

The ritual is performed while standing facing east. The gestures can be made with either the right or left hand; the direction the lines are drawn remains the same in either case. You can either use your magical dagger (more on that later) or your extended index and middle fingers, with your thumb resting lightly under them.

The Kabbalistic Cross

Using your fingers or dagger, draw down energy from above and touch your forehead, vibrating powerfully:

ATEH ( = Thine is)

Touch your breast and vibrate powerfully:

MALKUTH ( = the kingdom)

Touch your right shoulder and vibrate powerfully:

VE-GEBURAH (=and the. power)

Touch your left shoulder and vibrate powerfully:

VE-GEDULAH (=and theglory)

Fold your arms across your chest with the palms of your hands touching your shoulders and vibrate:

LE-OLAM (=forever and ever)

Finally, hold your hands in front of your forehead, slowly pull them down to your chest and vibrate powerfully:

AMEN (=so be it)

Drawing the Pentagrams and the Circle

Continue facing the east and draw the first pentagram. Refer to the illustration below for the direction in which the lines should be drawn.

Illustration 3: How to draw the lines in the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram

Inhale, pull your hand back to your chest and sharply stab your fingers or dagger into the middle of the pentagram while powerfully vibrating the Hebrew god-name:

]HVHCYeh-ho-vah or Yod-He-Vau-He)

Keep your arm outstretched and turn ninety degrees to the south; draw another pentagram, and stab it in the center, vibrating powerfully:

ADNI CAh-doh-nai)

Keep your arm outstretched and turn ninety degrees to the west; draw another pentagram, and stab it in the center, vibrating powerfully:

EHIH CEh-he-yeh)

Keep your arm outstretched and turn ninety degrees to the north; draw another pentagram, and stab it in the center, vibrating powerfully:

AGLA (Ah-geh-lah)

Keep your arm outstretched and turn ninety degrees back to the east, completing the circle that connects the centers of each pentagram.

Invocation of the Archangels

Still facing the east, stretch out your arms to the side and visualize yourself as an oversized black cross with a large red rose blooming at the front intersecting point. When you're satisfied with this visualization, vibrate the god-names while visualizing the archangels in

gigantic human form. The location of the archangels is given in the text that you will speak.

Vibrate the god-names powerfully as you do so:

Before me RAPHAEL, Behind me GABRIEL, On my right hand MICIHAEL, On my left handAURIEL, For about me flames thepentagram, And above me shines the six-rayed star.

Ilustration 4-The hexagram (Star of David, six-pointed star)

The shining six-rayed star is also known as the hexagram and is visualized in the color gold (see above).

The Kabbalistic Cross

Repeat the step for the Kabbalistic Cross (page 70).

License to Depart (at the end ofthe entire ritual)

There is no prescribed wording to the license to depart. It may be adapted individually according to the nature of the overall operation. Therefore the following is only

a suggestion—one that is common in the practice of ritual magic:

I now dismiss all spirits and energies that have been attracted to this ritual

Go infreedom—may peace be with you and me!

Notes and Comments on the

Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram Performing the Kabbalistic Cross

The hand you use draws down a beam of white light from above, through the crown of your head, into your body, through your solar plexus, down to your feet, then from your right to left shoulders until your body is illuminated by a cross of light.

In the Christian tradition, the spoken formula (even if not spoken in Hebrew) is known as an addition to the Our Father. Despite the Judeo-Christian symbolism used, no identification with an Abrahamic religion is necessary. In fact, the formula is freely used by modern-day pagans, atheists, and members of other religions who follow the classical Hermetic tradition of magic.

Drawing the Pentagrams and the Circle

The pentagrams are drawn in front of your body in the direction of the arrows (see Illustration 3) and should be about three feet tall. I would recommend synchronizing your breathing to drawing the lines of the pentagram: ascending lines—inhale; descending lines— exhale; horizontal line—hold breath.

While drawing the pentagrams and the circle, visualize or imagine that the hand you are using is emitting colored energy (bluish white, silver, or red), like a laser, causing the pentagrams and circle to continuously radiate inside the room. It may take many months or years of practice before you are actually able to see them with the naked eye, but the symbols are still effective even if you cannot see them. Tradition refers to this as "magical perception," which most people (apart from a few naturally talented ones) need to practice for quite some time before it is sufficiently developed .

The god-names should be vibrated as powerfully as possible until "the walls of your temple tremble," as stated in older texts. This isn't a question of loudness. The temple is your body and the god-names should "echo to the end of the universe" in each direction, penetrating everything in its path.

Depending on the external circumstances, the magician may have to vibrate the words of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram very softly or almost inaudibly. The decisive factor here, as already mentioned, is not the actual volume, but rather the intensity of the intonation.

The goal of using the Hebrew formulas is to achieve a state of magical trance; experience shows that the tonal quality of the Hebrew words causes the trance state to occur much faster and more intensely than when using the English translation.

The Invocation oftheArchangels

As with the god-names, the names of the archangels should also be vibrated long and slow, making "the walls of the temple tremble."

The figures of the individual archangels, who also act as rulers of the four basic elements, are based on the following iconography:

Raphael in the east rules the element of Air. He wears a yellow gown and carries a staff, and sometimes an anointing pot. During the invocation, imagine a light breeze from the east brushing your face.

Gabriel in the west rules the element of Water. He wears a blue gown and carries a chalice while standing under a clear, flowing waterfall. You can hear the water splashing behind you in the west and can feel the moisture.

Michael in the south rules the element of Fire. He wears a bright red gown and carries a sword of fire. You can feel the heat to your right in the south.

Auriel (or Uriel) in the north rules the element of Earth. He wears an earth-colored gown that's brown and olive green, and carries an ear of corn while standing in the middle of a wheat field, perhaps on top of a pentacle. You can feel the firmness of the Earth to your left in the north.

As already mentioned, the hexagram floating above your head is imagined in gold. The size is irrelevant, though during a group ritual, it might be a good idea to agree on its general dimensions for the sake of simplicity.

It is important that all of these components of tEe Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram occur simultaneously You visualize the pentagrams and the circle, hear the vibrated god-names, imagine yourself as a big black cross with a red rose, and see/feel the archangels and elemental powers—all at the same time! As we can see, this seemingly inconspicuous part-ritual is actually a true encyclopedia of magical Hermetic symbolism; at the same time, it demands a lot from the magician’s imagination and visualization skills. As children of an industrial and achievement-oriented society, we may find it difficult to believe that it's not about striving to reach a state of impeccability from which point on all of the components of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram are performed in absolute perfection. Indeed, the word "perfection" merely means that no further improvement is possible—which is equivalent to being dead, or in a state of soullessness. Nonetheless, perfection is often pursued like an impossible dream, or an unattainable or exhaustible state of idealism that remains desirable in spite of that. Symbolically, this means it's never-ending, the process is continual. This can also be seen as a formula for immortality.

A word of advice, especially for beginners: don't get discouraged by your mistakes! As previously mentioned, symbols and images are flexible with no clearcut borders, and that's their strength. Here, too, the magician should avoid the temptation of numbers and avoid succumbing to a finiteness that can only be achieved by destroying everything in its path!

The Kabbalistic Cross

The statements made above on the Kabbalistic Cross apply here as well.

The License to Depart and Words ofThanks

The closing license to depart and words of thanks fulfil two purposes at the same time. First, they represent a sort of subtle act of hygiene by dismissing all entities (spirit model), powers and energies (energy model), disruptive thoughts, associations, and feelings (psychological model), or undesired white noise in the data flow (information model) that were attracted by the ritual.

Second, they serve to signal the return to everyday reality, or to trigger this return if necessary. This is necessary to prevent the magician from being burdened by factors outside of the magical ceremony that are only valid within the magical world of symbolism. In simple terms, one could also say that it effectively prevents possession and insanity.

For those of you who would like to learn more about the symbolism used here and its cultural his-

tory and magical context, please refer to the suggested literature. For our money magic purposes, the abovementioned information is sufficient.

Now that we've discussed the basic practice of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, let's have a look at how to design a money-magic Mercury ritual.

Two

Money-Magic mercury Ritual

The preparations for a money-magic Mercury ritual in the form suggested here include much more than just setting up the temple—it all takes place well before the actual ritual is performed. Prior to effectively working with the Mercury principle, you should familiarize yourself with it first. This is the rational, cognitive part of the work. At the intuitive, symbol-logical level, this means much more than just grasping the Mercury principle intellectually; it's about thoroughly internalizing it and, above all, firmly anchoring its connection to money.

The nice thing about this procedure is that it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with hard work or diligence, nor does it require intense studying of al kinds of dull theories. Mer^cury, who is responsible for the intellect, is also naturally suited to represent curiosity and open-mindedness for the unknown, as well as wittiness and a

sense of humor, in addition to everything else ascribed to him as the ruler of the Air element A good portion of superficiality is important too; meticulousness and thoroughness are not among his traits—those would be more in the nature of Saturn and Earth. Instead, Mercury engenders nimbleness of mind, briefy touching on various fields of knowledge, having the ability to recognize the common elements in seemingly unrelated things. So whoever seeks depth, or possibly even insight into eternal truths, is not only at the wrong address with Mercury, such a person would never truly be able to comprehend the actual strengths of the Mercury principle.

Apart from that, we shouldn't forget that the Mercury principle is only an excerpt from the whole. So anyone studying this principle in more detail will not be able to avoid looking at the whole picture. That being said, consider the following: a person who is usually set on establishing and complying with rigid, ftxed rules has a whole lot to gain in working with the Mercury principle, such as increased mental agility, and an ease in intellectual processes. This alone can help overcome seemingly insurmountable difficulties. On the other hand, every type of mercurial excess can be compensated by the earthy, Saturnian potential inherent in every person, thus providing a more stable structure to our money magic, thus ensuring the whole operation doesn't literally turn into hot air.

In order for traditional symbol-logic to develop to its potential (after all, this is still well before the actual Mercury ritual), you should make an effort during the preparatory stage to integrate the number eight (ascribed to Mercury, as mentioned earlier) into what you do. This can be quite concrete, as the following examples wwil illustrate.

You could read an anthology of amusing stories or a book of jokes, and in doing so, always read eight episodes, eight pages, or maybe even just eight paragraphs at a time. If you feel like reading more, no problem— just take a short break for contemplation and start all over again with the next sequence of eight.

You might want to study up on the origins of the word "eight" by paging through an etymological dictionary or finding relevant websites on the Internet.

Generally, an invocation ritual will include an appropriate text of invocation, often called a hymn. It's always better to write such a hymn yourself to make it more personal. That way, you can emphasize the individual aspects that are important to you, and you won't have to struggle with the linguistic catastrophes or dubious phrasings someone else has written. It's entirely up to you whether or not to use rhyme. Surely it has some advantages, one being that rhymed words are easier to remember. Here, too, you should avoid any attempt at grim perfectionism. Mter all, you're not out to win a literary prize with your hymn. In fact, it's advisable to keep the text to yourself so that it doesn't

lose its value through the lack of appreciation or devastating criticism of outsiders. Maybe you think your rhyme is too clumsy? Don’t worry—it’s more important that the symbolism is right, even if this only means composing eight verses, eight lines, or whatever else you might come up with.

Mercury corresponds to the color orange. You might want to burn an orange-colored candle on each of the eight consecutive days before the ritual. Or you could carry an orange-colored object on your body; this can be done quite inconspicuously without drawing attention.

Of course, for money magic, the way you deal with money itself is of great significance. Later on I’ll suggest a number of ideas on how to integrate this into your everyday life, regardless of whether you like to work ritually or prefer the free-form, or more empty-hand techniques. To jump ahead for a second, I'd only like to mention that a heightened perception of money prior to the ritual can be both useful and beneficial. Take it literally—don't view money as merely a means for obtaining something else, but instead try perceiving it as a sensory phenomenon. This could include closely examining the details on paper bills, comparing money from different countries, listening to the sound of clinking coins dropped on a table, noting how coins and bills feel in your hand, or listening to the crinkling of paper money in your fingers.

You may ask why all the effort when all this seems to resemble more a psychological exercise than a money magic ritual? The answer is both simple and complex. A considerable portion of every ritual consists of magically getting in the mood, and the more thoroughly this is done, the greater your chances of success. The moodsuccess relationship has much to do with concentration or, more specifically, the ability to focus on a specific thing, which is what practical magic is all about.

This observation method gets a bit more complex when we remind ourselves that we are basically dealing with a double-layered form of abstraction. For one, we have decided on a magical ritual, or the specific use of symbols and structures that seem to have no clear relationship to the actual objective of our work. Mter all, a person first needs to learn quite a bit about the element of Air and the Mercury principle, in addition to making further observations on the nature of money before even imagining that the two could be at all related. The crucial factor is also that the process of making money is an abstraction in itself. After all, the desired increase in money is not meant to occur by performing work or services, by business activities or through exchange, but rather primarily by means of a symbolic drama that we happen to call ritual. Of course, the concrete manifestation of an increase in money can take place by conventional means, such as business transactions, job orders, and the like, but this has only secondary priority. The

main priority is the symbolic act. We are therefore working indirectly, a form of abstraction.

Another form of abstraction is the way in which we deal with the subject of money outside the ritual context. Mter all, it's not exactly common practice for people to perceive money in a purely sensory way, such as stroking it or using it as decoration without constantly thinking about its purchase or exchange value. Here, the socially prevalent abstract nature of money is challenged and rejected in our treating it like any other object. We refuse to view money as merely a means to the end. In doing so, we release it from a number of associations and emotions such as hope, fear, problemsolving promises, or materialistic dejection. Expressed in the language of magic, this means that money is released from its own "demons" and all other kinds of "astral garbage," and in the process it's able to gain more freedom of action, or flexibility. Herein it doesn't matter whether demons such as our fear of money are actually problems that money itself has or problems that we happen to have with money.

After all, money in itself is not in a position to have any kind of power over our well-being. The old adage "money can’t buy happiness" is quite appropriate. Unfortunately, we often forget that money (or a lack of it) doesn't really make a person unhappy either! In traditional magic, no distinction is made whatsoever between subjective and objective powers of action. Instead, the overall relationship is important and only

in this context can it be of any practical use. A logical consequence of this is something that I've repeatedly touched on before: "we can't let ourselves be troubled by money that isn’t even there!"

The above statements may be of help when you begin to comprehend the overall procedure of the following money-magic Mercury ritual and integrate it into your own personal world view. However, it's certainly not necessary to overdo things; it all depends on your individual likes and dislikes, as well as your personal interest in theory and practice.

Now let's talk about the performance of the Mercury ritual. In the following, you will find a number of suggestions, recommended accessories, incense, and the like. It's entirely up to you how elaborate your ritual should be. According to the basic principle of pragmatic magic, "all that matters is that it works!" The only important thing is ' that it brings about the desired effect.

Of course, it's difficult for a beginner to judge this in advance. Therefore I recommend the following for beginners: if you're not sure, it's always better to be too elaborate than not elaborate enough. The experienced ritual magician, on the other hand, will develop a personal style, maybe adding and exploring new ideas here and there. And like an expert in any other field, the adept magician will have developed a feeling for applying just the right amount of effort.

Place the altar in the middle of the temple if possible. This ritual utilizes a circular form with the altar being the focus of action. At the same time, the magi-dan acts as a sort of "control panel." The ritual tools are ready at hand, the atmosphere of the room is controlled with the help of lighting and incense, and magical acts are performed—such as the charging of a talisman, consultation of an oracle, or the presentation of offerings.

If you are able to work in a separate room, pull the shades or curtains, or darken the windows somehow. Daylight—regardless of how much it might be appreciated otherwise—destroys the lighting effect of the burning candles and incense, undesirable for our purposes here.

If you prefer to work outdoors, make sure you can work somewhere where you won't be disturbed. Unless you have a suitable spot on your own personal property (or somewhere else where solitude is guaranteed), I do not recommend working in a place with possible public access. If you work with fire in a forest where it's explicitly forbidden, you shouldn't be surprised if a hunter, forest or park ranger, or police officer puts an unwelcomed end to your doings, which in the worst case scenario could end quite un-mercurially by spending a night in a prison cell. (Using incense might trigger a police officer's suspicion of drug possession, which has unpleasant consequences ...) The Arabian proverb "trust in Allah, but tie up your camel" applies

quite well here. When working outdoors, a beginner should endeavor to work when it is dark; a more experienced magician will trust a personal preference.

Depending on the nature of the work area used, and on factors of cost and time, the temple can be decorated in orange, the color of Mercury. I know of a few extreme examples where magicians couldn't resist spending months working on tiny, symbolic details such as painting the walls the appropriate color, making sure the carpet or floor is the right color as well, and hanging up pictures of pertinent mythological figures and symbols. Not all of this is absolutely necessary, but such dedication to the Great Work certainly deserves a bit of admiration and respect. Whether or not such extravagance actually leads to increased effectiveness remains unknown. Only a persons individual, practical experience can be the judge of this.

Again, the number eight should predominate. For example, you could use eight orange-colored candles. An eight-sided plate made of brass, the metal associated with Mercury, could be placed on the altar as well. Maybe you just happen to have an eight-volume encyclopedia handy—use it! Dictionaries, rhetoric books, books of famous quotations, or just about any book from your home library will work perfectly for a Mercury operation. (If you have the opportunity to work in a real library or reading room, this would certainly be ideal.) Should you wish to place gemstones on your altar, the gemstone traditionally associated with Mercury is the

opal. As for incense, gum mastic and sage are good choices.

Anything faked, forged, or imitated in any way would also correspond to Mercury, the god of merchants and thieves. So if you found something "guaranteed authentic" and dirt cheap on your last trip to another country, feel free to use it as decoration as long as your sense of taste isn't insulted! Though merchants and thieves have already been mentioned, Mercury is also the master of charlatans, quacks, confidence artists, tricksters, swindlers, and counterfeiters. While this certainly doesn’t mean you need to develop a career as a hoodlum in order to work with the Mercury principle, anything that reminds you of such can be used as a ritual tool to help you achieve the desired Mercury trance.

The ritual offering is usually something to eat or drink. The offering itself is not meant to be something of sacrifice or denial; instead it can be thought of as a consecrated gift. During the course of the ritual and throughout the invocation, the offering is charged according to Ceremonial magical tradition and then consumed, quite similar to the sacrament in a Christian church service. As with everything else, correspondences should be used here too. For Mercury, you could offer fish or white wine. In any case, you should choose food that is light and airy—heavy alcoholic drinks are not recommended. Symbolic amounts could be used here, but the manner in which you wish to perform things is entirely up to you.

If music is to be played during the ritual, songs that are fast and light are recommended, or a type of recitative music such as rap or hip-hop.

Magical Weapons and Tools

The objects referred to in ceremonial magic as "weapons" are really magical instruments; the making and charging of these is an entire discipline in itself. Generally they symbolize principles such as those of the elements—will, insight, and the like. They are never used aggressively or even defensively as conventional weapons. The Hermetic tradition prefers the wand, cup, sword, and pentacle—those familiar tarot card symbols—wherein pentacles are sometimes also called coins. The beginner will rarely have a whole set of magical weapons at hand to work with anyway, which is fine—they're not absolutely necessary, at least at the start.

As it was left up to you whether to use a dagger or your extended index and middle fingers in the pentagram ritual, the same applies to this Mercury ritual. The experienced ritual magician, on the other hand, will probably want to make full use of accessories.

As Mercury also stands for sudden surprises, it is recommended especially for group rituals that you integrate such elements of surprise into the procedure. Of course, only the ritual leader himself should apply such elements of surprise. One highly effective possibility is to use gun cotton, which can be found in stores that sell joke articles. When lit at exactly the right moment,

without any announcement of course, it can have quite a strong effect. If you're not familiar with its use, I recommend you read up on it frst. Here, less can be more, and in any case, this dramaturgical element is certainly not necessary.

But now let's get to the actual ritual procedure. Obviously, rituals with one or more partners require a bit more coordination than solitary ones. After all, when you work alone, you can take care of everything yourself, but even with only one extra person, I recommend designating a ritual leader, otherwise everything can easily fall apart, especially during a state of trance. A controlled and structured procedure is necessary for every ritual.

Our ritual here is divided up into eight phases, which should hardly come as a surprise. Let's go through each of these individually.

Preparation

Regardless of whether you work alone or in a group, there should be a preparatory phase wherein you get into the right state of mind immediately before the ritual is held. The preparation can take the form of a short meditation on intellect and speech, the solving of mathematical problems or brainteasers, or a philosophical debate or discussion on any controversial topic. The duration of this phase should be fixed in advance; roughly fifteen to thirty minutes is recommended.

Lesser Banishing Ritual ofthe Pentagram

The introductory Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram serves to ground the magician as well as to focus his resources on the fulfillment of the ritual objective. As far as the rest goes, please refer to the earlier information about this banishing ritual.

Invocation ofMercuury

The invocation itself can take many forms as well, although it is generally spoken or sung. One of the simplest yet most effective methods is dancing. No complicated dance steps are necessary. For example, you could move with quick steps around the altar eight times clockwise (this is the direction for invoking, for dismissal you would move counterclockwise), or you can do it more often than that if you wish. The rest can be adapted according to the nature of the temple, the disposition of the participant(s), possible time restrictions, and other factors.

Ideally, you should write the invocation text (the hymn) yourself In doing so, there's no need to have any literary or poetic ambitions if you're not good at it. Simple phrasings reduced to the most essential aspects will work fine. But if you prefer to use a standard invocation that has proven successful in practice, here is one I've penned myself:

HYMNTOMERCURY High spirit of the intellect, playfolfool ofthieves: You give us the knowledge of knowledge itself, in a nimble game of words and thought. You’ve been invoked for ages by the ancestors of our kind: philosophers, magicians, and tricksters constantly demanding yourfavor.

You give us your gifts with a mocking chuckle, easy come, easy go: Silvery, shiny Mercurius, in just the blink of an eye you break all patterns ofstatic thought. 0 share with me your clever ideas, make me rich with your knowledge, teach me to search and to strive— and to slip through the cracks!

Frater U:.D:.

If you don't plan on memorizing or improvising the hymn text, make sure the lighting is sufficient to be able to read it aloud during the ritual. This little piece of advice might seem trite, but experience has shown this aspect is often overlooked!

One thing that always seems to amaze beginners when doing trance work is the fact that the state of trance rarely begins with a bang. Often a person is in a trance without even realizing it, but experienced trance workers should be able to recognize this state immedi-

ately, even in others. If you begin to notice during the ritual that your frame of mind has changed considerably, this is generally an indication that trance is imminent. This is often accompanied by a change in perception, by psycho-kinetic phenomena such as trembling, or in rare cases possibly even external phenomena such as tapping noises . or flashes of light.

Now, don't make the typical beginner's mistake by wasting too much time on the question of whether you're already or still in a state of trance! As I've already said, many types of trance go unnoticed, and regardless of how important reaching this state of mind seems in a ritual situation, it's only one possible tool of many. It would be a mistake to overrate it.

Concentration of the Mercury Powers

Mter the invocation is completed, the magician concentrates the summoned powers. This generally occurs during a short but intense meditation; magicians familiar with Eastern traditions may want to use an appropriate mantra. Regardless of origin, this is done in preparation for the next phase.

Working with Mercury Energy

This is the true central part of the entire ritual. However, if a state of trance is indeed reached, this phase may be the most unpredictable, because now, the magician has actually become Mercury himself. The magician's human ego has stepped into the background where it remains inactive. The deity has taken possession of

the magician’s body where it can act as it chooses and as is appropriate to its nature.

That certainly doesn't mean that everything from this point on will happen in a disorderly way. In order to prevent exactly that from happening, I've stressed the importance of structuring the ritual and adhering to the pre-defined procedure. If, for example, you planned on charging a talisman during this phase, then you should most certainly do it. Of course, not everything will happen exactly as the magician had imagined or planned. Such ritual climaxes are often accompanied by the strangest phenomena. It's certainly not unusual, for example, for the mourning bells of the village church to ring outside the window in the middle of a Saturn ritual, or for the sound of gunfre to be heard outside during a Mars ritual, or thunder to rumble despite clear skies during a Jupiter ceremony. Such phenomena may frighten the average person, but for the experienced magician, it's an indication of being on the right track because the symbolism is obviously accurate enough to manifest physically. So there's no reason to get upset by such occurrences, even though they may seem a bit strange or spooky to the beginner. That being said, you shouldn't expectantly wait for these things to happen either!

Since we're dealing with symbolic acts, the predetermined ritual objective should physically manifest symbolically during this stage. This could occur, for example, quite simply in the magician (acting as Mer-

cury) placing a hand over an object lying ready on the altar, and transferring Mercury energy into it. This is an easy way to make a simple talisman. Consultation of an oracle (e.g., tarot cards) could also take place during this phase, for example to enquire about the outcome of a planned undertaking; this is also a favorable time for the "inner voice" to make itself heard, which may give the magician useful advice. Often a trance will trigger intuition so that lots of good ideas seem to just bubble up!

Another part of this main ritual phase is the consumption of offerings. In group rituals, now would be the time for informal conversations, which is quite typical of Mercury. By all means, these can even be funny or silly. Impressions can be jotted down on paper, and you'll have room for unplanned, spontaneous elaboration of this ritual phase.

Mter a while, this ritual climax will taper off. The length of this phase cannot be calculated in advance, and there's no use in even attempting to set an approximate time. But the point where you should move on to the next phase of the ritual is generally crystal clear.

Expression ofThanks and Dismissal

This phase shouldn't be confused with the license to depart, which is still yet to come! Here a few words of thanks and appreciation should be said, as well as an expression of loyalty and friendship where appropriate. This is a very personal matter that does not require any formalized guidelines. It's entirely up to you whether

you prefer to speak a few short words, refect in inner contemplation, or maybe even just wave goodbye and laugh; it generally arises from the situation itself. As long as your action remains within the symbol-logic used, you may do as you like.

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram

The animistic or spirit model of magic operates on the assumption that every magical action performed by a person magnetically attracts immature, non-incarnate spirit beings like a candle flame attracts a moth. For this reason, the ritual is now closed by performing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram since such entities are not always harmless. They need to be banished.

In the psychological model, the banishing can be viewed as the closing of the circle, which signals to the psyche that the operation is now over. In the energy model, attracted powers are released again—they are no longer needed for the magical operation and are therefore useless. (The same applies to the aversion of undesired or potentially damaging energies.)

In the information model, this procedure is a sort of final processing of the parameters and variables that were set at the start of the ritual, whereby the information structure that was created through the ritual work experiences its completion. Undesired data loss is prevented by closing any possible gaps.

The License to Depart

Magical tradition doesn't stipulate any specific wording for the license to depart. The magician is free to do as he or she pleases. The wording given earlier is only a suggestion that derives from my personal practice. Feel free to change or adapt it to your own personal needs, or ignore it entirely.

Three

Sigil magic

Probably the greatest contribution to the history of magic in the twentieth century was the development of sigil magic by Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956), a British painter, writer, and occultist. Spare, who came from a working-class family, proved his artistic abilities at an early age and received al types of sponsorship along the way, so that by the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, he was regarded as one of the most aspiring English painters. His role in the first World War was as one of two official wartime painters; his works from this period are still on display today at the Imperial War Museum in London. Later, he claimed to be the founder of surrealism, but official art history ignores him entirely. In the end, this was surely due to his eccentric lifestyle and the fact that he was an outsider, a fact which became evident shortly after the first World War. At that time, he turned his back on

the conventional art business and spent the rest of his life as a loner, basically disappearing into oblivion.

Spare got involved with magic at an early age, as he himself claims. He made friends with a local witch and clairvoyant named Margaret Patterson, who introduced him to her art. He was also a member of Crowley's Argenteum Astrum (A:.A:.) for a short time, though he never pursued it further. (Later Crowley himself referred to Spare unfavorably as a "black brother?") Sigmund Freud's theories had a great impact on Spare's magic, and with good reason: Spare can be considered a progenitor of the psychological magic of the twentieth century. I'd like to examine Freud's influence on Spare's work a bit further here since it clearly reflects the early developmental stages of modern money magic.

Freud's discovery back then is common knowledge today—the fact that many human behavioral patterns are not based on conscious decisions or biological refexes, as was believed up to that point. In his theories about the unconscious mind, he designated the lion's share of psychological dynamics to be located in an area of the brain that remains stubbornly hidden from waking consciousness, yet nonetheless has a tremendous effect on our conscious behavior. Spare took Freud's theory one step further by stating his conviction that the unconscious mind has magical powers at its disposal which man can tap into using magical techniques.

Another influential aspect of Freud's was his theory of repression. This basically says that repressed traumatic events remain active and effective in the unconscious mind, which can lead to otherwise unexplainable, irrational, compulsive behavior and neurosis. Thus the main concern of Freudian psychoanalysis is to bring this repressed material (complexes) to the surface of the conscious mind, which neutralizes it.

Spare took this idea one step further. "If repressed material that is created unintentionally can lead to compulsive behavior," he theorized, "it must also be possible to utilize this mechanism for tapping into the magical powers of the unconscious mind by means of intentionally repressing things to bring about a desired effect." While Freud views this repressed material as something undesirable that needs to be neutralized at all costs, Spare wanted to make magical use of it for achieving specific goals. And while only a small fragment of Spare's magic has been preserved for future generations (mainly because he kept it to himself and often expressed it in vague insinuations), he at least documented his concept of sigil magic in a fairly detailed manner. It doesn't come as a surprise that modern magic has recognized his small contribution as nothing short of sheer brilliance.

As a passionate painter who experimented with automatic writing long before the surrealists did, Spare considered it a given that Freud's postulated censor— which filters and prevents any kind of communication

between the conscious and unconscious minds—can be bypassed via pictorial symbols. Sigil magic is based on process of making such symbols.

In contrast to the traditional magic prior to his time, Spare didn't employ a fixed system of magical signs and symbols containing specific powers. In this aspect, Spare is quite the modern man, obliged to individualism and accepting of the fact that in the end, it's always the individual in and through whom the inherent laws of magic have to manifest.

Spare radically breaks with tradition in another respect: despite the fact that his sigils are designed individually, they are not of a lasting nature. They are unique pieces of art that are created for one-time use only; thus their power does not derive from their systematic, repeated use or a collective lineage of tradition. With Spare's system, there is no such thing as fixed formulas or ritual structures—in . fact, ritual doesn't play any role whatsoever. In the same sense, his magic doesn't make use of magical weapons or make reference to classical authors or texts; in fact, there is no mention at all of any formal groups or societies.

At a time during which the great change of direction toward political and social collectivism was beginning to take place {later manifested in the totalitarian systems communism and fascism/Nazism), such a radical, individualist approach was considered quite strange. Spare's magical contemporaries were certainly not exempt from negative stereotyping either. In fact, it

took until the 1970s before Spare's work was rediscovered and acknowledged on a larger scale; many different aspects of his work ultimately found expression in chaos magic, itself developing in Great Britain at that time.

What Is a Si^gil?

Sigil is a word previously unknown to my native German language. Its more familiar form is in words such as seal or signet; I introduced the English word sigil to the German language exclusively to describe Spare's magical sigils. This should help prevent any confusion, especially in contexts of Agrippa or general Hermetic magic texts when they refer to "seals." A sigil is the symbolic representation of a magical statement of intent depicted in pictorial or graphic form; after its design, the sigil is then charged, or more specifically, activated so it can unfold its power.

There are various methods for making such sigils. In the following pages, I'd like to focus on Spare's word method. With this method, designing a sigil always begins with the formulating of a magical statement of intent. Spare himself only gives brief instructions. With the knowledge of the environment during his time, which was influenced predominantly by Coueism (the predecessor to positive thinking), we can safely draw a few conclusions. In practice, these assumptions generally prove to be quite correct.

Therefore, your statement of intent should always be worded positively, otherwise you risk overtaxing

your unconscious mind with negative formulations, which may lead to misunderstandings that could possibly lead to the exact opposite of what was intended. So when wording your statement of intent, avoid the use of words such as "not," "no," or "never." In cases not designed to bring about something specific, but rather to prevent something undesirable, this should be worded positively as well.

Although the unconscious mind is the source of all magical power, according to Spare's point of view, this doesn't mean that the mind can be considered omnipotent. Herein lies one of the hidden dangers of any magical activity: it goes without saying that the magician rejects all concepts of powerlessness, otherwise he wouldn't be pursuing magic in the first place. But although that rejection of powerlessness is a vital prerequisite for treading the magical path, this alone still does not abolish the limitations of the magical radius of action! In other words, don't overdo it! If you make and activate a sigil for world peace, or if you hope to prevent climate change with a sigil magical operation, don’t be surprised if you fall short.

Of course, people can often accomplish much more than they think. But even this doesn’t mean a person can be automatically omnipotent. Thus, when determining one’s own magical radius of action, it often involves a balancing act that requires a solid sense of where this radius of action ends and where the point of excessive arrogance begins. It would be wrong to

try and specify such limits for the individual, and the magic of Austin Osman Spare avoids doing so as well; in fact, sigil magic doesn't expect the practitioner to follow any types of moral scruples, ethical grounds, or religious norms in their magic. Spare himself seems to have been completely amoral in his actions, which may explain the reason why Aleister Crowley later disliked him. After all, although Crowley certainly reveled in delight when the British tabloid press called him "the wickedest man alive," his magic was nonetheless uninterested in the practical achievement of goals. Instead, it was rooted deeply in religion and mysticism, and backed a set of moral standards that was quite rigid, despite being unconventional and libertine.

In the same way that only experience can show you what you are actually able to achieve through the use of sigil magic, experience is also the only teacher that can give you advice concerning the moral and ethical limits of your actions. So let's treat sigil magic here as a simple technique and leave it entirely up to the reader as to its desired use.

Write down your statement of intent on a piece of paper in block letters. Next, cross out al the letters that occur repeatedly, so that each letter remains only once. This will leave you with just a bunch of letters that, when viewed alone, are no longer comprehensible. In fact, it's important that the letters are no longer understandable, as we'll see later on. On the following page, you will find a few examples to illustrate this procedure.

The remaining letters form the building blocks for the graphic sigil. The sigil can easily be designed by graphically combining the various letters with one another. However, I recommend simplifying the resulting sigil even further to make it more abstract. After al, the goal is to "smuggle" the graphic embodiment of your statement of intent past the psychological censor to the unconscious mind, which is why it should be as abstract as possible.

This can accurately be compared with the function of the political censor in dictatorships. As Karl Kraus once said, "Satires which the censor can understand are justly forbidden." In the same way, nothing of the finished sigil should remind the magician of the original statement of intent that it was based on. Thus the Hermetic procedure is concerned with taking all measures to avoid any similarity, symbolic association, or otherwise conscious interpretation.

Let's show how this works using an example. Our statement of intent is:

I want to make lots of money this year

Now let's cross out the letters that occur more than once as described above.

I want to make lots ofmoney this •yrnr

The letters that remain are:

IWANTOMKELSFYHR

Illustration 5 shows how the letters are frst connected to form a basic sigil and then made more abstract. Please note that there is no such thing as a correct or incorrect form of the finished sigil. This is left entirely up to your personal taste. Once again, experience is the best teacher here. Each and every sigil you design throughout the course of your career as a sigil magician will be unique. Let's show a second example to illustrate this further. This time our statement of intent is:

I will win the lottery this year

Again, the repeating letters are removed:

I will win the lottery this year

The letters that remain are:

IWLNTHEORYSA

Illustration 6

Illustration 6 shows how the first step already resembles the finished sigil.

Draw the finished sigil onto a separate piece of paper. It should be large enough so that you can still easily see it when held at arm's length.

Now it's time to charge the sigil.

Activating the Sigil

The sigil can be activated or charged in various ways. Spare's writings don't provide any detailed information on this process, so it was left up to later generations of magicians to develop various forms of activation through trial and error.

Let's first have a look at the basic principles of activation. This will enable you to conduct your own experiments and research. Mter all, in cases of doubt, it's always advisable to be as individual as possible in your sigil work since this corresponds best to your personal circumstances.

As already mentioned, the main objective is to successfully avoid Freud's postulated censor in order

to "inoculate" the unconscious mind with previously encoded instructions. The actual process of making the sigil is already an act of bypassing the censor, but this alone is not enough.

As a rule of thumb, the sigil should be activated during a state of mind in which the barrier between the conscious and unconscious minds is either weakened or even lifted entirely. This can be compared to the magical trance. Preferably, though, an excitatory trance should be used since the sigil—and the entire operation itself—has to be completely forgotten when it's over, a matter that will be discussed further.

Excitatory trance can be achieved through various methods, as I've said before. A few worth mentioning are: strong, rhythmical movements (by all means to appropriate music but if maintained for too long, the excitement can turn into an inhibitory trance), hyperventilation (fast panting through the nose—only recommended for experienced magicians), holding one's breath to the point of being unbearable (but be careful if you have a heart condition or respiratory illness), and sexual arousal to the point of orgasm.

Essentially, activation takes place at the climax of the excitatory trance by holding the sigil where it can easily be seen, and then abruptly closing the eyes and pushing aside the sigil when climax is reached (e.g., by crumpling up the paper) so that it is no longer visible. This last aspect is extremely important!

In any case, the correct, effective activation of a sigil must always be completed by forgetting it!

Since sigil magic is an act of controlled psychological repression, it is of critical importance that the conscious mind and the censor that keeps it under surveillance are put into a position so they cannot question the operation or obstruct it in any way. For this reason, the experienced sigil magician will usually make efforts to forget not only the sigil, but the entire magical operation itself. In this case, although it may be documented in the magical diary, it is generally encoded or covered up, especially for long-term sigil operations so that it is not accidentally remembered, which could negatively affect the unfinished process. Once the sigil operation has fulfilled its purpose, this restriction no longer applies.

This is probably the most difficult part of the sigil magical operation for the beginner: a person who hasn't had sufficient practice in memory training or in the ability to specifically forget things on command will understandably have difficulties at first. But this problem can be relieved with the help of a few tricks.

One way is through specific and abrupt distraction, which should take place immediately after the sigil is activated or charged. This can be done a number of ways: through a change of subject or jump in thoughts, through quick movement (sudden jumping up, running away, or falling to the floor), or by using the method preferred in chaos magic, namely banishing laughter.

Banishing laughter may seem a bit unnatural to the beginner, since a person is generally not accustomed to bursting into laughter on command. But that doesn’t make it any less effective, and even if it seems a bit fake at first, it still activates the same motor functions in a person as if the laughter were more real, thus fulfilling its purpose.

But why laughter? Its use is based on the observation that a person is generally unable to follow any conscious train of thought while laughing sincerely from the bottom of the heart. Such pointless, hearty laughter not only switches off the conscious mind temporarily, it also forms a protective barrier to the unconscious mind by preventing undesired thoughts from penetrating it. With this, it fulfills all the qualifications of a magical banishing. In fact, over the past thirty years in the history ofWestern magic, laughter has indeed proven to be a superb modern form of banishing.

Ultimately, it’s up to you which form of activation you choose, or if you prefer to try an entirely new method. Here are a few notes on the charging (activation) of sigils through sex magic. As with laughter, it’s generally not common practice to specifically control and fonctionalize sexual ecstasy. But in fact, the magical use of sexual powers and states of consciousness is one of the oldest magical practices. It is known in many cultures where it can be seen throughout the ages. Whether we observe the teachings of the so-cahed lefthand Tantrism of India and Tibet, the inner alchemy

of China, the sex-magical healing methods of Siberian shamanism, or the less known but well-documented offshoots of Jewish and Christian mysticism—erotic and sexual frames of mind and powers have always been considered particularly effective, although knowledge of such practices often remains restricted to small insider circles within those cultures.

Nonetheless, there are numerous contemporary sigil magicians who generally prefer to activate or charge their sigils through sex magic since they've learned through experience that this is the fastest, most efficient and effective method. Of course, this isn’t necessarily the case for everyone, which is why it is not advisable to turn it into a new dogma. But for the sake of completeness, I felt it should be mentioned here.

Concerning the specific forgetting of the sigil operation, simple distraction immediately after activation is generally not enough. If you've set a time limit of one week for your operation, for example, but you constantly keep wondering if it will really work or if the sigil was charged enough, or if you've already spent the money in your head, this is a far cry from truly forgetting the operation. The only thing that can help here is strong self-discipline, or better yet, the nimble evasion of any refections about the operation, whereby all tension should be avoided. When in doubt, feel free to try various methods to see what works for you and develop your own magical style. With increased practice, it should become easier and easier to forget your

sigil magical operation, until it eventually becomes a routine of which you can make use at wwil.

The actual drawing of the sigil can be thrown away immediately after successful activation. It's no longer of any use since recharging or re-activating it is out of the question. If you notice later on that the operation didn't bring about the desired effect, then perform another one to fulfill your objective, but don't just repeat the previous one. Reword your statement of intent and feel free to improve it or give it a slightly different focus than the last time. Maybe your objective was formulated in too much detail? Or maybe it was too vague? Too general? In any case, take the time to design an entirely new sigil and maybe use a different method to activate it. It might take a while before you master this field, but that's true of most human activities.

An experienced sigil magician will generally only need a few minutes for an entire operation, from the wording of the statement of intent to the making of the sigil and its activation. As already mentioned, the only tools necessary are a pen and paper. This is one reason sigil magic is enjoying growing popularity in our fast-paced, modern society. My first effective experiences with goal-oriented, practical magic . were made with the use of sigils as well, which gave me the final impulse to dedicate my life to the magical path and to research this fascinating art in all its facets.

Now that we've finished this chapter in which we've learned both the classical, ceremonial magic

approach to money magic as well as the non-ritual approach (which may seem to be a bit more archaic due to its simplicity), we will now turn to more conventional methods that also derive from the magical tradition, though today they are often disguised with terms such as psychology or other non-magical concepts. We will take a look at these techniques and apply them from a magician's point of view in order to give them more effectiveness.

Four

LUCKY DEVIL

Money Symbols, Talismans, and 7heir Use in Goal-Oriented Magic

The term "money magic" itself is fairly new, yet the symbols that have acted as good luck charms in most cultures throughout the centuries are ancient. In naive folk magic, such symbols are considered to have inherent magical power such that everyone who believes in them generally assumes that no further (or very little) effort is necessary to enjoy their positive effects. The modern magician views this as a sign of decadence, however, or the result of an alienation process occurring over several centuries or even millennia, which causes the original association between the magical act and the effectiveness of such objects to be forgotten.

In the history of ancient shamanic cultures, some of which have survived until today, such a process cannot be found easily. Here, al fetishes—objects of power

and the like—require specific treatment and charging, similar to the process of making talismans in the Hermetic tradition. Though the individual techniques, ritual acts, and procedures may differ, they are all based on the magical act regardless of how it is defined in each case.

The Enlightenment and folklore have contributed on their part by exposing the origin of many traditional good luck symbols as a form of superstition. Even if we generally don't believe that the good luck symbols still used in our culture today, such as the four-leaf clover or the horseshoe, have any sort of secret, innate magical power, that's no reason not to make use of such symbols for money-magical purposes. We should keep in mind, that as long as we use them in such a way that doesn't rely on fatalistic hope and faith alone, the desired effect will be able to unfold.

Of course, from a modern-day perspective, these symbols have merely a psychological effect that shouldn't be underestimated. If the user truly believes that such symbols can help him achieve the desired objective, this will create a principally positive, expectant mood that makes the magician receptive to factors beneficial to fulfilling desires. Psychology refers to this process as a self-fulfilling prophecy, while medicine calls it the placebo effect. Pragmatically speaking, there's no problem with employing this sort of method as long as the objective is achieved.

The placebo has a few disadvantages, though. For one thing, the success rate is generally quite low. With very few exceptions, things are more or less left up to coincidence. A more difficult aspect is the fact that within this reference system, there are just as many bad luck symbols as there are good luck ones. Black cats, the number 13, the "evil" Friday the 13^th, the phase of the new moon, the death-bringing hoot of an owl at midnight—the list of bad luck symbols, events, and objects is long. Whoever naively believes in their effectiveness automatically subjects himself to states of anxiety, which in turn may manifest negatively as a self-fulfilling prophecy or negative placebo effect. In addition, the arsenal of these supposed good luck and bad luck charms is of a purely arbitrary nature. Put another way, it's possible for one to believe in the bad luck of black cats, but not believe in the hexing powers of the number 13, for example. Generally, both bad and good symbols are assumed and internalized without being questioned, and people who subject themselves to them can remain under their influence for the rest of their lives.

Such is the conventional criticism of this symbol structure and its use, though no serious magician in our day would actually call it magic. However, one aspect is usually overlooked, which may just help explain the widespread use of such superstitious practices. And regardless of how insulting they may seem to the more complex minds among us, such practices hold a substantial

advantage that is quite valuable in a money magic context. I'm referring to the matter-of-factness of the possibility that people can actually help along their luck, at least a little bit.

This viewpoint may seem naive, and it probably is; it may be lacking in theoretical basis, which is most likely the case; and it may even stultify the mind and prevent tangible access to the truly effective techniques and procedures. Nonetheless, every serious magician of money magic can learn a few things from such uncomplicated matter-of-factness. After all, if we were to name just one great obstacle that the money magician continually has to wrestle with, it would be the exact opposite of these practices—namely the non-matter-rf-factness of his actions\ We'll be devoting an entire chapter to this subject, so let it suffice for now to say that the most effective money magic procedure is one that goes as smoothly as possible, with no contradictions.

If we take a look at the good luck magic of superstitious folklore from this point of view, it will reveal some incredibly effective mechanisms. The cynically enlightened skeptic who says "you just have to believe it works" ironically refects something that accompanies many of these good luck charms as earnest advice. This can also be seen in numerous folk tales: in order for the desired stroke of luck to actually manifest, it requires firm, unquestionable conviction that doesn't allow any room whatsoever for the possibility of failure. Not infrequently, the use of good luck symbols is accompa

nied by ritual practices of the predominant religion in that geographical area, such as saying the rosary, reciting a surah from the Koran, or invoking a Vishnu avatar. The help of saints, spirit guides, or angels is also often called in this context.

The inclusion of elements of more conventional religion is often an understandable attempt to keep such practices in conformity with the corresponding faith so there's no danger of being accused ofheresy or breaking with one's belief Besides, it was always common for religions to assume and integrate the entire arsenal of symbols, demonology, ritual sites, etc., of the early cults they ousted.

Perhaps there's an additional factor that has been ignored for the most part—what if such practices (that had previously been considered quite heathen) are blended with the ritual practices of the predominant religion in order to make it easier for us to transfer such intense faith in one thing to another? Of course, such a concept is extremely ahistorical. But it shouldn't be ignored, which is why we'll examine it further here in order to extend our range of possibilities when performing money magic.

The Activarotion/R^evival of Personal Good Luck Symbols

If you already have an arsenal of personal good luck symbols that have worked for you in the past, the following exercise will probably be easier for you than if you're starting from scratch. In the end, it doesn't matter

much; with a bit of perseverance, you'll soon find "just the trick''!

Good Luck Charm 1: Step 1

Choose a good luck symbol. It could be a familiar lucky object that has accompanied you for a while, or it could be a more conventional good luck charm. You could even purchase an object of your choice in a gift shop.

For this exercise, you will need a total of four good luck symbols. If you decide to purchase several, please don’t buy them all at once—it's extremely important that you concentrate on just one good luck charm at a time until the process of activating it is complete! It would be better to visit your local good luck charm dealer four separate times, selecting a special and unique item on each visit.

In any case, you should choose a tangible, threedimensional manifestation of your good luck symbol. For example, if you choose the lucky number seven, you could write or engrave the number seven on a gold coin and wear it on your body as decoration or jewelry. Twodimensional drawings or prints are not suitable. The object should not be too large and should fit comfortably in your closed hand.

We'd like to use a traditional German symbol of good luck here as an example—the pig.⁴ Concerning what was mentioned earlier, however, it should be clear

4. The pig developed into a symbol of good luck during old times in Germany when having pork to eat was a sign of good fortune.

that you can use any other symbol of this type. This applies to the following examples as well. Just adapt them to your current situation as appropriate.

In the first step, you should examine your sensory perception of the good luck charm selected. Take a break from the everyday hustle and bustle and find a spot where you won't be disturbed in order to concentrate. Make your surroundings as comfortable as possible. Ensure that the lighting is good enough to see everything clearly, and place a few helpful objects within reach: a flashlight or candle, a scent that you find pleasant (perfume, incense, fruit, or the like), a few morsels of your favorite food (chocolate, pralines, or other sweets), and finally your favorite music (record, CD, DVD, or MP3 player). Don’t worry about how to use these objects at the moment—that won't happen until later.

After you've made yourself comfortable, take the object (we'll use the pig as an example here) in your hand, close your eyes, and feel it thoroughly and in detail. Make mental note of its texture’ weight’ form ’ temperature, firmness, and of any other sensory stimuli that can be determined merely by touching and feeling it.

Important: In doing so, do NOT think about any monetary goals, or things like "lucky at cards," "lots of money, " "wealth, " "success", or anything else at all except for your immediate sensory perceptions. Should such undesired thoughts occur anyway, don’t anxiously drive them away; just re-focus your attention on your

sense of touch and the intruding thoughts should disappear on their own.

Note: Our goal with this exercise, as with money in general, is to replace its symbolic concept as a means to an end with a more direct means of access that was unavailable beforehand. This basic principle is also applied to the use of good luck symbols, so it's not about investing them with certain desires, magical powers, or any type of special significance. Later, we will see that this is a highly effective and much less complicated means of access to goal-oriented practical magic than is generally the case in our culture, which is preoccupied with notions of usability and usefulness. Keep this in mind while performing the later steps.

Allow yourself enough time to complete step 1. There's no specific amount, but plan on about ten to twenty minutes. You can extend the exercise as long as you like, provided you don’t become distracted or start daydreaming. You should perform this step for at least ten minutes, even if it may seem unusual at first or possibly even a bit boring! As a matter of practicality, it will be highly unlikely that you can gain the necessary sensory understanding of your good luck charm in less than ten minutes without a sufficient amount of training and practice.

Take a short break before continuing to the next step.

Good Luck Charm 1: Step 2

Next we will be working with the sense of smell. Here you can do as you please: you could rub some perfume onto your good luck pig, light some incense, or dab some scented oils onto yourself—whatever you like.

Once you've done this, sit in a comfortable position, hold your good luck pig in your hands, and take a few whiffs of it, even if you didn’t actually douse it with a scent. Then sit back comfortably and observe your sense of smell while still holding on to the pig; repeat the process (sniff and observe) several times. Here, too, we recommend that you close your eyes, as the sense of smell is keener that way.

If any distracting thoughts should arise, proceed as described above. Just let them come and go without paying any attention to them, and keep refocusing your attention on your sense of smell.

This phase should be roughly as long as the previous step. As a guide, ten to twenty minutes should be about right.

Again, take a short break before proceeding to the next step.

Good Luck Charm 1: Step 3

Now it's time to focus on the sense of hearing. Put on your favorite music, or at least some that you enjoy; it doesn't matter what style this music might be.

Lean back in your chair, close your eyes, and hold your good luck pig comfortably yet firmly in your hand. Although you should be focusing entirely on your sense

of hearing, it can't hurt to consciously remember the good luck pig in your hand every once in a while.

That's all you need to do here. Proceed as in steps 1 and 2 if any distracting thoughts occur.

The duration of this step will mainly be determined by the length of the music piece that you have chosen; in any case, once the music is over, remain quiet for a few minutes with your eyes closed to savor the lasting effects. If you want, feel free to play a second song and repeat the process.

Then take another short break before continuing on to the next step.

Good Luck Charm 1: Step 4

Now we'll be working with the sense of taste. If your favorite food is really only enjoyable warm, then use the short break to prepare it.

Hold your good luck pig in your hand while savoring your favorite food, even if it may be a bit awkward, e.g., when using silverware. While eating, play close attention to your sense of taste. Keep your eyes closed here too, though it might seem a bit strange since this is generally not a common practice while eating. Taste the food as intensely as possible before swallowing it; at the same time, keep clutching your lucky object in your hand, even if you only think about it occasionally. If any distracting thoughts should occur, proceed as already described above.

Once you've finished eating, rest passively for a while in a comfortable position with closed eyes to savor the experience.

Then take another short break before continuing with the next step.

Good Luck Charm 1: Step 5

Next we will be working with the sense of sight. Place your good luck pig in a spot where you have a good view of it while sitting in a comfortable position. This time you don't need to hold it in your hand, although you'll need to touch it repeatedly so you can observe it from all angles.

For now, regular indoor lighting is fine. Feel free to bend closer to your object to get a better look, or turn it around a bit and flip it over to take in every last detail.

Important: This exercise is not about committing the appearance of it to memory or imprinting it into your mind! It's necessary to mention that here because an impulse to memorize things is a common one. There's certainly nothing wrong with you memorizing the appearance of the object; just keep in mind that this is not the actual purpose of the procedure, nor will it bring any later advantages. If any distracting thoughts should arise, proceed as described above.

Perform this step first with regular indoor lighting, then use the light that you set aside and repeat the process. No matter whether you choose to light a candle or turn on a flashlight, this part of the step is about

scrutinizing your good luck pig in all detail under more intense light. Repeat the observation process as described.

Again, you should allow ample time for this phase; as a general guide, ten to twenty minutes should suffice.

Complete this step by extinguishing the additional light and talking a short break.

Good Luck Charm 1: Step 6

Now you will address the object—you're going to talk to it. Psychologically speaking, this is a way of personalizing the good luck object. In doing so, you should address the object as you would a living creature.

This will probably seem really strange, although we certainly did such things as children, like talking to our teddy bears, dolls, or other stuffed animals. But since our culture generally discourages such behavior in adults, talking to an inanimate object will seem a bit silly at first. If we saw someone else doing something similar, we'd probably think they were nuts. For exactly this reason, make sure you won't be disturbed by anyone while performing this step. Not because you're doing something secret, but because it would be counterproductive to subject yourself to the odd reaction of others—or simply said, to make a fool out of yourself.

As indicated above, this is basically a culturally defined, heteronomous inhibition, which is by no means prevalent in all cultures. It would go too far to discuss that here in all detail. Let it suffice to say that it's not

in the least uncommon in shamanic cultures and those of an animistic nature to speak to ritual and religious objects. After all, it's what basically happens during a Christian church service, although this is culturally judged in an entirely different manner. In fact, speaking to objects of power is an ancient, archaic procedure that people have evidently been making use of since the development of speech. Therefore there is no rational reason to feel inhibited or self-conscious when you do it. But if you feel that way anyway, just do the same as with distracting thoughts.

There are no set rules on what to say to your good luck object; follow your intuition and say whatever you are inclined to. The only stipulation here is that you should speak in a friendly, positive tone; after all, you want your good luck charm to become a friend, not an enemy. Speak loudly and clearly (as you would in a normal conversation with friends) to your good luck pig. Introduce yourself, say hello, ask how it is feeling (even if you don't expect to get an answer, the important thing here is the linguistic, acoustic attention that it receives), tell it a story. In brief, make sure your good luck pig feels comfortable by what you say and how you say it. That will probably include flattery and compliments like “Aw, you're so cute!" "You're such a pretty color!" or "You're the sweetest pig on earth!" Don't be too proud for such childish things, after all, it's about money-magical success!

Pet it, cuddle it, carry it around the room, press it to your heart, kiss it, joke around and laugh with it. In short, the tone of your interaction should be cheerful and fun.

Don't be surprised if you should happen to notice how easy it is to do and how much fun you have in the process! It might not automatically be the case, but if you're having a good time, it's a sure sign that you're on the right track.

And once again, if any distracting thoughts or associations should arise, just let them pass without paying any attention to them, without any kind of inner resistance or tension, and do not let them avert you from your actual task. As with the previous steps, a general duration of roughly ten to twenty minutes should be sufficient here as well.

Now take a short break before proceeding to the next (and for the time being, last) step.

Good Luck Charm 1: Step 7

Now it's time to create a suitable home for your good luck pig. Designing and decorating this home is entirely up to your imagination; it could be extremely simple, or you could apply a bit more effort. There is no real right or wrong.

For example, you could keep your pig in a little box with some scraps of wool or other fabric to make it more comfortable. Depending on whether or not you have nosy roommates or other curious people who

might ask questions, you might want to make it more or less discreet. Just don't lock up your good luck charm in a closed box, closet, or wardrobe. It should be out in the open where it can see daylight. If you really need to hide it from prying eyes, try putting it way on top of a high shelf, such as a kitchen cupboard or a tall bookcase.

In any case, your new lucky companion should reside somewhere within your own living space. Don’t keep it locked up in the basement, or banish it to the garden shed or to the unused attic! Mter all, psychologically speaking, it's all about the integration of your good luck charm into your everyday life.

However, it's not necessary to treat the object as special in any way. The more normally it is integrated into your life, the better—so don't make a big fuss about it.

Accordingly, there's no need to pay any special attention to it from now on. A simple "good morning" upon awakening and a "good night" when going to bed will do.

There's still one more step to perform, step 8, but we'll get to that after you've prepared your other good luck charms in the same manner. After that, we'll describe the last step in detail.

Good Luck Charm 2

General Overview

Proceed with the second good luck symbol (or object) similar to the first one.

However, we recommend doing this on a different day since the entire process takes quite some time. In any case, it's better to focus on one object in a single day to allow it to sink in and leave a lasting impression.

Let's say, for example, that this time you've chosen a tiny chimney sweep figurine for your good luck charm. Proceed with this object in the same way as with your good luck pig.

When making a home for it (step 7), be creative yet treat this object individually. Do not carelessly place your chimney sweep next to your pig; instead, make efforts to find a unique place for it where it will feel comfortable. It can’t hurt to try and find a fitting home for each good luck charm, one that would be appropriate for its real-life counterpart. For example, you could make a little house with a roof for your chimney sweep out of cardboard.

Let me mention once again—don’t let logic or reason get in the way by thinking this is all childish, silly, or won’t work. Mter all, the rational mind is not always perfect. The only way to find out whether or not the procedure will actually be useful to you is by trying it out!

Good Luck Charm 3

Proceed in roughly the same way as with the previous good luck charms.

Good Luck Charm 4

Proceed in roughly the same way as with the previous good luck charms.

All Good Luck Charms: Step 8

The eighth and last step in the preparation of your good luck charms is basically the same for each charm, but you should do each individual good luck charm on a separate day.

Start by choosing a day for working with your first good luck charm (in our example, the pig) and proceed as described here.

Your task now is to release your good luck charm out into the world. There are various possible ways of doing this. For example, you could give it to a dear friend, or even to a stranger, such as a child at a playground or in the grocery store, but without saying much about it. This doesn't mean that you shouldn’t say anything at all. On the other hand, you shouldn't feel obligated to mention the context or give a lengthy explanation or even justify your gift in any way.

You could also inconspicuously deposit your good luck pig somewhere: such as at the edge of a fountain in your town, at the base of a statue, on a viewing platform, somewhere on a playground, or even perch it on top of a public mailbox.

Important: Make sure you understand that this is not a "separation’' in the true sense of the word! In a certain symbolic sense, your good luck charm has already become a part of you through the preparation

process—what you're doing now is putting it into circulation! I cannot stress this aspect enough. Mter all, we're usually accustomed to having to give something up in order to receive something in return. Of course we're familiar with the process of giving, but only as an exception that one generally has no claims to. This is not about sacrificing or offering a valuable or dear object in order topay the universe to get something in return!

In this context, remember what was said about the subject of money and the element of Air. We determined that money is something that is volatile and needs to stay in motion, and can only unfold its full value or potential when it is spent—or "put into circulation." Wanting to keep it and declaring it to be a static object of possession would not only be absurd, but also counterproductive. That's why we usually don’t write our name or address on the banknotes that pass through our wallets as we might do with other static possessions.

The same applies to our good luck charm. By cheerfully putting it into circulation, we are symbolically opening the channels for luck that nonetheless is to be understood in a predominantly material, physical sense. More specifically, we are symbolically opening our arms to receive luck, expanding beyond the realm of our everyday lives, and in a sense sending our scouts out into the world, or weaving the web of our own destiny. Just choose which of these metaphors you like best.

That's why you should part with your good luck charm in a cheerful, merry way. This could be a friendly gesture, a wave of the hand or wink of the eye, or a mumbling of"so long"—the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

As opposed to sigil magic, you don't need to make an effort to forget the whole procedure, but on the other hand, you shouldn't dwell on it excessively either.

Wait a few days before proceeding with your second good luck charm in the same way. It would be advisable to let your good luck charm on the loose spontaneously rather than with too much planning. So grasp a favorable opportunity instead of preoccupying yourself with detailed planning. That will give the whole thing a lot more casualness and cheer.

Do the same with your other good luck charms with a few days' space in between.

As you know, we prepared four good luck charms with eight preparation steps for each. Hermetically and kabbalistically speaking, we've utilized the planetary powers of]upiter (4) and Mercury (8) without making it the clear focus in the foreground. It's not absolutely necessary to utilize the planetary powers in this way, but it helps to understand a further technique of money magic that we're just starting to deal with now, namely the indirect approach. We'll be discussing this in more detail.

Of course it's entirely up to you if you want to prepare a further series of four good luck charms in the

way described above. In fact, this would actually be a good idea. After completing a few cycles in this way, you'll probably know intuitively what Mercurial money magic is all about in relation to the principle of Air.

Here, as opposed to ritual work or sigil magic, we're not working with any specific goals, desires, or statements of intent. In this regard, we're performing actions that hold no specific meaning and serve the purpose of creating a certain atmosphere or mood as opposed to obtaining specific, tangible results. This is exactly what we'll be describing with the technique of the indirect approach. There's no focus on a linear "this-for-that," no desperate grasping at intangible success, and 'no purely result-oriented action. Instead, we have the combined use of our five senses without specific meaning, the capacity for social contact, and the linking to the outside world in releasing our good luck symbols into it. We're not going to get into any complicated theoretical explanations and reasoning here, but I wish to point out that with the help of these seemingly inconspicuous operations, we have united all vital (and defining) factors of perception and action into one overall relationship that, in turn, corresponds to a fundamentally chaotic and unpredictable world instead of compelling it into a linear system of structure and order, as is common with dogmatic traditions. It's not that the linear approach will never work, it's just that it requires much more severity, self-discipline, restraint, and exclusions. Where people attempt to recognize

order, structures, and framework—rules that in the end merely reflect and reproduce their own thought patterns and brain structures—one is automatically forced to reject a nearly limitless number of other possibilities and options only chaos can offer. Let's not forget that the chaos that was later so bad-mouthed was considered to be an actual place in Greek mythology (one could even call it a state or condition) derived from the gods themselves!

Admittedly, it's quite difficult for people to avoid establishing order and structure, which is then usually confused with discovery in an act of colossal selfdenial. Ascribing validity to purely random structures becomes problematic when people cover up or even exclude alternatives and possibilities. In the end, all that remains is narrowness and limitation.

Thus the experience of ecstatic states of consciousness which, for example, were called visions of God by mystics, were gradually replaced by all-regulating book religions whose chief goal it was to discipline the social fabric of humanity with laws, punishments, promises of the hereafter, and threats of going to hell. So it comes as no surprise that the mystics of each of these high religions are still treated with suspicion and mistrust even today, if not labeled outright as defectors and heretics.

In a less metaphysical sense, the process described here enables us to greatly expand our range of moneymagic possibilities as opposed to limiting them with the linear outlines that are created as a material gripping

reflex, and in turn bringing about the oppositions and imbalances that always occur in this relation.

As vague as this may all seem, it all boils down to performing a successful act of magic. As we've already seen, many roads lead to Rome, so we're going to refrain from stipulating any specific methods here, or even recommending one over others, to avoid downplaying others or overloading them with unnecessary dogmas. Freedom of choice, however, is not only due to one's personal outlook on life, in which non-patron-ization holds high value in the struggle for man's liberation from heteronomy. Another basis for this can be found in the viewing of the world as chaotic in essence, which is everything but a strictly regulated state.

Good Luck Churns in Action

It would be a contradiction to everything previously said if we were to name or systematically list all the effects and results of our good luck charm operations here. In reality, if we can talk about such things at all, these would be just as subtle as the way we released our good luck charm out into the world in the first place— that is, indirect, barely structured, and fleet-footed. Since we did not attach any specific goals to our operations, there's no need to make an effort to insinuate any chains of cause and effect. The important thing to understand is that this is not just a cheap excuse for an answer to the question of proof as to whether or not magic actually works and, if so, how. Other mecha

nisms are responsible for such issues of proof, as we've mentioned before, but these are not the focus of our attention here. To some readers, this may seem to be a gross break with our common culture—after al, we are usually overly concerned with wanting to explain and prove everything and, worse yet, being required to do so.

After all, when observed with a critical eye, the irrefutable proof of one specific era of mankind often turns out to be nothing but silly superstition in later eras with very few exceptions, which itself hasn't prevented our culture from continuing to insist on provability. There's no hope in sight that this attitude will change in the near future, but just like any weapon that a person takes in hand in order to have more power and control—weapons which simultaneously restrict flexibility and even prevent it entirely at times—the fanatic need for proof demands a price as well, namely by restricting us to the parameters, laws of nature, and other rules that govern it. If it were al left up to science alone, for example, a book such as this wouldn't even be allowed. This alone doesn’t make it any more true or correct, but at least it shows that there are still people who believe that the scientific explanation of things is not enough. Such people view such a philosophy as greatly limited and, in many ways, even counterproductive.

So if peculiar or even strange "strokes ofluck” occur after successfully preparing and releasing your good luck charms, let the dams burst—enjoy the gain instead of plugging them back up again by focusing on chains

of cause and effect and how well these operations actually worked. As far as how to actually do that, the next two chapters will focus on how to reap the fruits of money-magic operations without restricting ourselves with various magical binds and constraints.

Five

The Soul Is Deserving, Too

The Psychological Basis of Money Magic

The exercises with good luck symbols in the previous chapter ended with you releasing the prepared charms out into the world without attaching any specific goals, intentions, or desires to them. But why the indirect approach, something atypical for Western magic? Mter all, traditional magic has generally stressed the importance of training the magician to specify his desire in a magical operation as clearly and precisely as possible without leaving any room for deviation.

The reason for this can be found in the overall psychological situation that defines our relationship with money from a cultural and social point of view. In order to understand this more clearly with all of its countless ramifications and consequences that affect our present, everyday lives, a short excursion is necessary into the history of culture and, above all, the history of ideas.

All world religions have one thing in common: a greatly disassociated relationship to mortal life on earth. At times, the world is seen as nothing but a vale of tears that needs to be overcome as quickly as possible, or as a place of tests and trials where people must prove themselves so that our souls can receive the appropriate reward or punishment after physical death. This applies in varying degrees to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity alike, and can even be found in Hinduism and various forms of Buddhism, though the latter doesn't even necessarily believe in the existence of a soul. In any case, the "true essence" of what life is all about doesn't take place on earth. As a result, it's . considered questionable or even punishable when people commit themselves too much to this earthly life, thereby losing sight of or endangering their true calling (heaven, release from the cycle of reincarnation, enlightenment, nirvana, etc.). In this way, earthly life always remains inferior, always playing a secondary role, at best an insignificant little episode in the current of eternity.

Generally speaking, the aversion to life on earth is particularly strong in Christianity. While the other two monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam, hold no explicit contempt for the carnal desires (apart from a few extreme sects), this view gained acceptance quite early on in Christianity—despite all of the reforms and developments—and is still present today. Admittedly, there are usually enormous discrepancies between the

pure teachings of a religion and its practice in everyday reality. Whatever high priests, religious authorities, gurus, saints, and instructors may preach, they are usually quite useless in the face of the needs and compulsions of biology and metabolism. Since most people of any culture are not willing or able to lead a life exclusively dictated by their religious dogmas, rules forbidding the flesh or other worldly desires are often ignored, given a new interpretation, or simply avoided with hypocrisy or indifference. Of course, that doesn't mean that these stipulations and outline rules remain without having a deep effect. Just the opposite is true— it's exactly such strategies of evasion and avoidance that characterize everyday life on earth.

Mter al, avoidance strategies are merely an expression of the dominance and the role-model nature of that from which we attempt to extricate ourselves. Indeed, the same holds true for all social morals and ethics, regardless of whether or not they make any reference to religious truths or laws. Interesting, for the efficiency of these norms is not the extent to which they are actually followed and adhered to. As long as they embody the fundamental reference system or the social consensus that "should" be conformed to, they provide the general direction all social and ideological developments move toward.

As so often in human life, it's the subtle, barely noticeable factors of effectiveness that can be much more lasting, tougher, and determining than all uncouthly

formulated disciplinary actions enforced through legitimate and physical violence. For instance, even if you're not formally raised and socialized as a Christian, if you live in a society dominated by a Christian sexual ethos, you still may develop a distorted image of sex or adopt conceptions of charity and solidarity, which are in essence Christian values. The fact that these factors determined the social consensus over a long period of time on a widespread basis is enough to become significantly marked by them in the extreme, or strongly influenced by them in the minimum.

It's a similar situation with the Biblical contempt of Mammon. What started as the mere rejection of a non-Israelite tribal god later developed throughout the millenniums to be a rejection of material possessions in general, and as a logical consequence, of money. Although most people today are not aware of the god named Mammon and its historical background, the rejection of it remains nonetheless. Wherever "mammon” is used synonymously with "money," it's never in a positive context.

With this isolated example, we see not only how long such cultural values and prejudices can prevail, but also how comprehensive and powerful these can be even after the original problems that caused such reactions have long disappeared into historical oblivion. As magicians, we cannot avoid in-depth examination of the animosity toward mortal life on earth and its religious roots. It significantly defines our relation

ship with money as both individuals and as members of society.

Another plausible definition of magic could be "the art and ability to assert one's own reality against that of the world."There are a lot of things one could criticize about this portrayal of magic, but let's just take it as a working hypothesis for this chapter and look into the question of how it can help us achieve maximum efficiency with our money-magic operations. After al, this defnition clearly illuminates the extent of the inevitable dispute: for true success, a money magician needs to tackle absolutely everything that gets in the way, even if it's the entire world itself

Put another way, if you cling to the prevailing idea of making money without doing something of equal value to it in return as something wicked, evil, sinful, or at least antisocial, you shouldn't be surprised if your money magical ambitions keep rebounding off the bulwark of an environment that is, in essence, moneyhating in a moral and ethical sense. There's no use in pointing out the inconsistencies that manifest in our observation of the age of turbo-capitalism and how money making seems to be taking on wilder forms while Western societies are still clinging (at least in theory and in public, political, and moral discourse) to "non-productive" values such as human rights, anti-racism, the fght against discrimination, and the like.

Workers in low-wage countries continue to be mercilessly exploited by industrial nations and their

business enterprises, while at the same time man is preoccupied with abolishing child labor, discrimination against women, the death penalty, torture, or the oppression of political dissenters. But it's not principally about social criticism here; instead it's about developing effective money magic within this field of conflct despite the horrible conditions that seem to be working against us.

One possible method that can help us get this problem under control was already introduced with the exercise in the last chapter. It concerns the detachment of money magic operations from any specific goals. By releasing your money magic symbols into the world without focusing on concrete advantages and benefits, you've already disrupted the chain of cause and effect that normally exists between the performing of services and the receiving of appropriate compensation. That may not seem like a lot to some of you, but in such a case we are forced to deal with the misconception that a money magician should never do such a thing. To sum it all up into a brief guideline for action, it could be formulated as follows:

De-functionalize money and no longer treat it as a mere means to an end!

If you still cling to the misconception that money always has to be earned in some way (as the vast majority of us do in this day and age), now is the time to release that belief. Of course, that's easier said than done; after all, it may mean turning your back on life

long habits and most certainly on the prevailing social consensus.

The consensus that money is something to be earned is more than just a relatively harmless "general mood" because it manifests in many more ways than in just the morals preached by the media and critics of contemporary civilization. It can also be found specifically in our judicial system in both theory and practice. It determines social policies as well as the procedures used by investigating authorities, such as in the case of a criminal offense. It dominates the economy and all decisions made therein. Accordingly, it is difficult to avoid this consensus altogether, as every generation of social dropouts and social utopians has had to experience firsthand. There are cases known in which people were legally incapacitated because they just wanted to give their inheritances of millions to the poor without proceeding in the institutional way through a foundation or charity organization. A person who stands in the market square just passing out money without asking for anything in return will quickly be suspected of pursuing some sort of fraudulent intention (despite there being nothing fraudulent about it), like circulating counterfeit money, or the person may quite simply be accused of being mentally deranged.

One could theorize endlessly about culturally related restrictions without it having any actual practical repercussions. But if we as money magicians intend to commit the hideous crime of wanting to manifest

money without providing something in return such as hard work, business sense, or productivity, by applying a discipline such as magic that is considered to be nothing but delusion or superstition, we will automatically encounter a considerable deluge of adversities and barricades, hostility and stumbling blocks.

In one aspect, we would have to agree with the representatives of Christian ethics, namely when they criticize the fact that the world is succumbing ever more to the enticement of materialism, and people are becoming a commodity whose value is determined alone by quantifiable productivity and monetary value. (Similar criticism—though from an areligious source—was already expressed in the Marxism of the nineteenth century.) Wherever materialism grows to such proportions, along with the importance of achievement that accompanies it, a neurotic sense of disorientation thrives. We will refer to it here as "poverty consciousness" for the sake of simplicity. On closer inspection, this poverty consciousness proves to be a fairly complex structure; we'll only be discussing the components that are relevant in our context. A person who estimates his own personal value only or predominantly according to monetary possessions or a bank account balance is just as infected by this poverty awareness as any other person who comforts himself after an economical or financial failure with the same old tune that money can't buy happiness. It should come as no surprise when opinion polls continually reflect the fact that most employees

would not be willing to change positions with their superiors, even if it would mean substantial material advantages. It is likely that some people are prevented from becoming millionaires, even if they have all of the conventional means available, merely because it would exceed the fundamental understanding of their self-worth. In simple terms, a person who doesn’t feel worthy of earning millions certainly won’t see money falling from the sky!

In a later chapter, we will have a look at how we can take advantage of such inner deterrents and inhibitions to achieve money-magical success. For now the important thing is to ascertain the particular situation and work on improving it. This initially includes converting abstract theory into concrete practice and experience, which the following exercise is designed to help with.

EXERCISE: SENDING MONEY ON ITS WAY

Gather together a large amount of small banknotes. Since you’ll be sending this money on its way, you should choose an amount that you can easily do without and wont push you to the brink of financial ruin. The exact amount depends on your financial situation, of course, but it should at least be enough to give the operation some significance. Expressed in the bad ofparadigm ofsuffering, it should hurt a bit.

Of course, it's our ambition to escape from this pattern of thought that, after all, can be attributed to such poverty awareness, but in order to do so it wouldfirst be essential

to take full advantage of the inhibitions and uneasiness that accompany it in a controlled and thorough manner.

The same applies, by the way, to the selection of banknotes. You should use lots of small banknotes so that you can gain as much experience with it as possible. On the other hand, it would be useless ifthe value ofthe individual notes were so small that the recipient (more on that later) would blow it off as insignificant. In the end, the selection is based on the environment in which you choose to perform this exercise. We will discuss that later in more detail. Go to a public place with your banknotes where there are a lot of people walking around. Avoid places where you might run into friends or acquaintances since the exercise is designed for the interaction with complete strangers. Also choose a spot where you can speak to people passing by without the risk of impeding road traffic or getting in the way of a construction crane. Observe the people passing byfor a while until someone catches your eye who looks like he or she would most likely/ not have financial problems. Of course, external appearances can often be deceiving, but the logic of our exercise requires the idea that the next step not be done out of pity or compassion. Accordingly’, you should absolutely not consider vagrants, beggars, or homeless people!

Approach and address the person you choose with a smile, while keeping the banknote ready. Say something like “Here, I'd like to give you something or "Please allow me to give you this money" or maybe something a bitfunnier: "This money would be much happier in your pocket—here you go!"

The exact wording is irrelevant; the important thing is that you dont use any excuses or explanations tojustify your

actions! So don't concoct any flimsy white lies such as having to conduct a survey, and dont ramble on about winning big in the lottery or an advertising campaign. In the same way you dealt with the good luck symbols themselves, this action should also befree of significance and objectives.

Feel free to think in advance about how the lucky recipients might react. The reality of things will probably exceed all of your expectations considerably. In any case, dont be surprised if you encounter rejection and suspicion, and receive such responses ranging from "Why on earth would you want to do something like that?" to "You must be crazy!” and 'Just leave me alone!"

It would be best to approach the entire exercise with an open mind and have no expectations whatsoever. The following tip should help you get out of an uncomfortable situation with no harm done: if one of the passersby you approach {or maybe one of the observers) happens to call the police, the officers will obviously want to ask you a few questions and take down your personal data. Be prepared to have (valid!) identification on you, and also make sure your appearance is halfway decent and your clothes are tidy, so that you are not suspected of having stolen the money somewhere. It might even be a good idea to carry a bank receipt documenting the withdrawal that you can show (only) if requested to do so. You are not doing anything illegal! There is no law that prohibits you from giving strangers money on a public street as long as you are not endangering traffic or asking the recipients to commit some kind of crime. Please also note that this is only a precautionary measure in case the police actually do want to investigate your actions. This

certainly doesnt mean that it will happen that way;you should just be prepared if it does.

Your task is to successfully distribute the entire amount that you have designated for this exercise to as many strangers as possible. This should occur through direct and personal contact, so dont take the easy way out and just toss your money into the air in the middle of a shopping mall! In the same way, you cant just put it somewhere out in the open and sneak away. This exercise is all about the social confrontation as a result of behavior that deviates from the predominant norm of money = work.

As with the last step in the exercise with your good luck symbols, it's not about loss, self-denial, or sacrifice! To put it visually, in orderfor the current of money to be able to flow freely in the future, you first need to unclog the pipes—and that can best be done with money itself

After you’ve finished this part of the exercise, return home and take stock of the day. How did youfeel during each stage of the exercise, from its preparation to talking to the passersby and actually handing over the money? Did youfeel ridiculous? Silly? Did you curseyourselfforgoing along with "every stupid little thing"just because someone (or this book) recommended it? Or did you master the situation with ease? Were you comfortable? Did you maybe even feel superior?

Make thorough notes, preferably by documenting the minutes in detail. Don’tforget to include the place and date so that you can check your money-magical progress at a later time. This "mirror of the psyche" is a basic tool of traditional Western magic, and this money magic exercise makes good use ofit.

Next, note the reactions of the people you approached, both those who accepted the money and those who rejected it or ignored you. What was the predominant response? Negative? Positive? Surprised? Angry? Suspicious? Uneasy? Add as many details as possible to your written documentation.

Now it's time to draw some conclusions. What did this exercise help you learn about yourself? How do you feel about the equation of money = work? If it took a great deal of willpower on your part to approach total strangers and give them something, what do you think is the cause of this uncomfortablefeeling? If this exercise was easyfor you, what do you think is the reason? Did you notice anyfears you may have had crop up? Maybe even feelings ofpanic or anxiety? Was there possibly a relationship between your state of mind and the reactions of the people you approached? How was this different from other times when you've had to talk to strangers?

This exercise is about your relationship to money. How did it feel to give up your money without receiving somethingfor it in return? Was it difficult for you or was it superimposed by the unusual situation and your attempts to deal with it? Did you enjoy this meaningless gift-giving? How do you feel about it now that it's over? Did you have any doubts, or do you still? If so, what are they? If not, why not? (This is not a trick question. There can be completely valid reasons for your doubts and for the certainty that you did the right thing!) Do you feel that you've gained something valuablefrom the experience or maybe that you've been cheated or deceived? If the latter applies, why exactly?

It might also be interesting to think about thefollowing questions: Now that you’ve finished the exercise, who would you recommend it to—maybe even in a non-magical context? Who would you advise against doing it? What would be your reasons for recommending it or advising against it? How do you assess our relationship to money in general? Are there exceptions? Go through a mental list of your friends and acquaintances and ask yourself how each of them would probably react if they were to perform this exercise. Make sure to justify your assumptions. It's not enough to simply guess or speculate. It's also not about having to be absolutely correct in your assumptions. The psyche is a complex thing, and that's what were trying to learn more about here.

Of course, no one can actually force you to perform the exercises suggested here. There’s certainly a reason for doing them, though, and they have been time-tested through practice and experience; they were not just drafted in theory on the drawing board. In the end, the decision is entirely up to you as to whether or not you actually perform them. We would, however, like to advise against doing the next exercise if you didn’t perform the last one about sending money on its way. Although no harm will be done, you certainly won’t be able to reap its full benefits. You also shouldn’t change the order of the exercises since they follow an inner logic that is beneficial for the development of your

money magic, which would not be the case if you were to switch them around.

Even if we didn’t mention this specifically before, the above exercise taught you to express an act of selflessness. If you performed the exercise properly according to the instructions, you gave away the money without expecting something of equivalent value or some kind of reward in return. In our predominately Christian society, the concept of selflessness is overloaded with al kinds of moral associations that cause the technical aspect of this procedure to disappear into oblivion. You've read correctly: "procedure" and not "state of mind"! If we study the writings of both Western and Eastern mystics from this point of view when they repeatedly emphasize the necessity of the self having a task or purpose, we will see that this refers to an active process, an effort, or even a struggle to disregard something—namely the aforementioned self that is clearly considered to be nothing but troublesome’ undesired ’ or even abominable by these great minds. It's no secret that mysticism holds contempt for this mortal life on earth, as we mentioned earlier in connection with religions. But the difference between the two (mysticism and religion) is that mysticism strives to obtain salvation (whether it be called unio mystica, nirvana, moksha, satori, or simply "rapture of the gods") in the here-and-now and not in the afterlife that man can access only after his physical death. In a world that's viewed as godless and where all liberty is disqualified through

suffering and poverty, the goal is to overcome it during ones lifetime through specific acts of selflessness (freedom from the "shackles and chains of the self").

Though all classical, traditional magical systems are fundamentally deistic—gods, demons, archangels and angels, devils—they are always controlled by ethereal entities who are usually immortal for the most part, even where these entities are abstracted to basic cosmic principles, such as in ancient Chinese and Buddhist magic. Not until Spare's sigil magic did the black arts deviate from this fundamentally god-fearing path, even if there's no way to know for sure due to a lack of reliable sources whether this applies to Spare's magic in general. But one trait that these transcendental entities all possess is the fact that they don’t feel restricted by the self and are therefore not subject to the suffering that man must endure.

Despite all the ambitions of enlightenment or awareness or even crystallization of the self that magic may have ideologically developed since the beginnings of Gnosticism, a simple and traditional magical operation such as an invocation questions this self once again. In fact, an invocation can only work when the magician’s self is replaced by another, generally divine entity for a short time.

The thought behind all this says that all of existence is merely an accumulation of restrictions that need to be overcome—and that's exactly what the magician aims to do.

Superficially, the next exercise seems to be merely a reverse philosophy of the previous one. But indeed it touches on a much more complex subject, as we will see shortly.

EXERCISE: AN INVITATION TO MONEY

This time, no farther preparation is necessary, and there's no need to obtain a certain sum of money before proceeding as with thefirst exercise.

Once again, go to a public place where you expect to see only strangers. Before beginning, just observe the scene for a while. Now choose a specific person, approach him or her and greet them in afriendly manner atfirst. What happens next is entirely up to you, there are no limits to your imagination. Your task is to motivate the complete stranger into giving you money.

Don’t concoct a sentimental story, or have any kind of excuse ready, even it's highly probable that youll be askedfoor a reason. The goal of this exercise is to obtain money without being given it due to an imaginary or real need, or out of sympathy orfor the promise ofdoing somethingfor the other person! Ourjob here is to invite money to come to you for no specific reason at all, whereby the other person acts as merely a vehicle.

This stipulation may seem absurd or even crazy to you—which would be a normal reaction. But it is exactly this convention that we as magicians are out to break, unless we want to remain locked up forever in the cage of logic surrounding the concept ofgive and take.

By tackling thisfundamental problem by means of social contact, and by expressing and projecting it, as psychoanalysts might say, it becomes tangible and manageable.

In line with the previous exercise, the amount of money demanded should not be too small or insignificant, but also not too large or exorbitant either. Due to socialization, most people will tend to avoid such confrontations at all costsfor example by only asking for petty sums because that apparently doesnt make them look so bad socially.

Now of course it's entirely up to you whether or not you follow these instructions or ignore them. In case of the latter, you might seriously want to consider whether you shouldjust continue to conform with the rules and regulations of our performance-oriented society. After all, not everyone is born to be an outsider, and not everyone is willing to give it their all in every single aspect of life.

If you performed the exercise as instructed, please proceed as with the previous one. Make a detailed account of the minutes, note your observations, draw conclusions, and develop further questions based on your results.

At seminars on the subject of money, I often confront the participants unexpectedly with the following question, giving them no time to seriously think about the answer: "how much are you as a person worth when expressed in monetary terms?" Of course, such a question often triggers shock and resentment: how can you express the value of a human being in money? What

the participants found even more shocking, though, was the fact that ninety percent of the amounts stated were far less than the amount of money they aspired to obtain in concrete, tangible terms.

Once again, the poverty consciousness mentioned before rears its ugly head. It's actually a demon that should be fought with the cruelest of methods. Of course it hurts when a seminar participant shyly mumbles "ten thousand dollars" and the teacher looks him hard in the eyes and says coldly, "then you'll never have more than that." It's not all that uncommon for a participant to break out in tears; the situation is naturally uncomfortable. At the same time, it also shows how tight and nearly unbreakable the shackles of poverty awareness are already loosed.

Because if you’re not worth anything to yourself, then you’re certainly not worth anything to others—especially in terms of money!

It would take many thick books to explain the reasons why things work this way. It has to do with our innate nature of following the herd and our fundamental plight of making a living that act as a motive. Unfortunately, it would go way too far here to pursue this subject to a sufficient extent. One fact of experience remains, however, namely that despite all ideologies of performance and achievement that have existed throughout the centuries, it's rarely the most productive people themselves who make the lion's share of the money. It's not the worker who slaves away day after

day at the factory or construction site who has the largest share of the profits in his bank account at the end of the month. It's the factory owner or building contractor. It's not the nurse who cares for patients day and night (with plenty of overtime at that) who has the pleasure of receiving a top salary, it's the head physician.

Once again, I'm not interested here in social criticism or political science. As important as this may be in another context, it's not what concerns us here; instead, we are interested in our internal and external inhibitions and blockages that may prevent us from successfully attaining our money magic objectives—and what we can do to change that.

Take the time to treat money as a real person for an extended period of time. This is not a formal exercise you need to complete according to instructions within a specified time limit. On the contrary, you should integrate such concepts and mind games into your everyday life. For example, you could think about such things while waiting for the bus, or standing in line at the movie theater, or while washing your hands in the bathroom of a restaurant, or during a bicycle tour in the woods, or even while sitting on the toilet! Maybe imagine that you are a person named Money. Whom would you rather go to—someone who only sees you as a means to an end and treats you that way too, or someone who plays with you like a child, talks to you, and pets you, makes sure you're comfortable and above

all, doesn't prevent you from leaving when you feel it's time? Money is a social creature if you look at it that way. Obviously it would rather go where it will find kindred spirits instead of ending up at the bottom of a boring, lifeless piggy bank of some old miser where it can never smell the fresh air. Put another way, money wants to go where money already is.

Assume that you are the money. How would you feel if you were only wanted when you appeared in sufficiently strong or powerful amounts? Would you feel like you're being taken seriously if you were only valued for your outer appearance, or for the friends that you might later bring along with you?

Of course, this method of thinking is a psychological trick. Through this personification and a reversal of the perspective, a door is opened to a whole new world that seems to have absolutely nothing in common with the world with which you're so comfortable and familiar. But isn’t it always like that with magic? Draw a few practical and effective conclusions from these observations. We're not going to specify exactly what you should do, but here are a few tips.

If you feel uncomfortable with always being "functionalized," whether as a human being or as money, change your behavior toward money accordingly. What would you do with someone who only pays attention to you when you're needed, but ignoring you the rest of the time? Most people wouldn’t like that. Treat your money with a bit more love and care from now on.

Here are a few recommendations you can use to design your own training plan to fit your individual taste. Money-magically speaking, none of these exercises would be in vain. If you prefer, view the whole process as a single yet long-term and large-scale money magical ritual.

• • Draw up a comprehensive list of things you absolutely love to do. Once you're done with that, take each item on the list and come up with at least four different ways you could make money that involves them. It's not important whether you actually decide to pursue these options at a later date, but they should all be fairly realistic and feasible.

• • Now make a thorough list of the things you can do best. (This does not have to correspond to the list above!) When you've finished, come up with at least three seemingly realistic ways to make money with each item. (As far as the rest goes, the same applies as with the first list.)

• • Now take inventory: make a meticulous list of everything you own, regardless of whether it is tangible objects or money owed to you by others, real estate, art objects. Don't forget supposedly worthless stuff like old rubber bands, shirt buttons, souvenirs, strands of hair, and the like! (I'm serious!) While you're making the list, don't think about the value or worthlessness of the individual items. After you've completed

the list, make a note next to each item of its monetary value in figures. Of course, some things may seem to have no value at all, such as the dried rose petals in a photo album or rocks from the beach of a vacation spot. But if these items were really so “worthless,” then you wouldn’t have taken or kept them in the first place, right? In these cases, determine a sum of money that you would actually be willing to part with them for. ^ter you’ve taken complete inventory without leaving out anything, add up the individual values. The result is an inventory of your present material wealth. It doesn’t mean that you could go straight to the bank and raise a mortgage on that fell amount, but that’s not what this is all about. Instead it’s about demonstrating!

• Proceed as with the above exercise, but this time make a list of ah of your liabilities (bank loans, money owed to friends or relatives, mortgages, the next month’s rent, living expenses, etc.). A few specific amounts ^^ probably come straight to mind. This could trigger an interesting train of thought: why is it that we can often state offhand the exact amount of our debts (which are usually yet erroneously considered to be a factor of impoverishment), but not the amount of our possessions or wealth? Add up the amounts . of your debts. The sum that you come out with is not the balance of your

poverty, as you might think. Instead, it consists of figures and sums that others have invested in by either loaning you money or refraining from demanding immediate payment for goods or services!

In other words, if you have a million dollars in debts, this can only mean that you have to be worth at least a million dollars to someone or other (even if it's only banks, creditors, claimants, or beneficiaries)! I cannot stress this aspect enough. By viewing such "negative balances" as positive, we're one big step closer to being able to deal with them in a better way!

• Make a list of three ways to make money that would be quite unusual for you under normal circumstances, but ones that you are nonetheless actually willing to try. Be as detailed as possible. Draft exact plans of procedure, calculate possible yields and profits, expenses, prerequisites (e.g., materials or necessary training qualifications) until you've drawn up a compact little business plan for each option.

Before you go on to the next step, review all three options one more time and make sure that you would really be willing to implement these in practice—however without neglecting or giving up your current means of making a living.

Take an ordinary die with six numbers and allocate one of the six numbers to each of the

money-making operations. Now throw the die until the number of one of your operations shows up twice. Carry out the plan attached to that number.

Why the process of shaking the dice? Not only does it give the whole money-making process a playful touch, the preliminary work of planning several money-making operations and the integration of the random element of the die symbolically and psychologically emphasize the fact that there are many more possibilities than your current material or social situation may allow you to believe.

After all, a person who is able to act this way in life will no longer be subject to the whims and fancies of the gods of destiny!

* Think of four unusual ways to put money into circulation over the next four weeks without an ulterior motive. Again, this exercise is not designed to ruin you financially, but it shouldn’t just be petty sums either. The reason for this exercise should be clear.

Six

The Perpetual Saturn Restraint

and How to Outsmart It Prqfitably

In astrological magic, it's Saturn who is responsible for materialization as well as for creating obstacles, as we've briefly outlined. Psychology refers to such things as complexes, inhibitions, fears, and other inner conflicts that prevent man from implementing the goals and desires in life on one's own initiative. Since Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo, the Polynesian term "taboo" has been used to describe subject matter that is burdened with restrictions and disapproval when viewed from a point of view of society as a whole or on an individual psychological basis. As it were, Saturn embodies such taboos that generally hav::! quite rational and logical reasons for their installation, or at least they did at one time or another—a fact that we should never entirely forget considering the contempt for restrictions and regulations predominant in our society today.

Probably the most common example is of a sexual-biological nature, namely the incest taboo widespread among all peoples and cultures; this taboo supposedly exists to prevent a gradual deterioration of the genetic material of a sizable population.

But as with most things that are forbidden, once they are established they tend to be preserved and passed down well beyond the point in time where they were actually useful—and in some cases they may even turn counterproductive in the process. After all, the implementation of bans and restrictions requires a great deal of effort on the part of society, which will often resort to drastic measures to achieve its goal. Those affected by this generally won't take it lightly and may even openly rebel, which in turn poses a whole set of new problems. In the end, this tenacity is an expression of the extreme force applied to enforce such bans and regulations that gave rise to a huge capacity for collective fear—and something like that cannot be eradicated with a simple, rationalistic act of clarification or enlightenment.

In addition, this is frequently accompanied by the fatal tendency of man to apply such fears to everything. For example, if individual or collective fears are not dealt with, they are often attached to situations, people, and circumstances that they really have nothing in common with from a rational and causal point of view. Thus, for example, a jealous wife may get upset about the alleged wastefulness of her husband, attack

and insult his potency, or wage other domestic battles with him in which her true motivation remains unspoken (she may even be completely unaware of it). Uninvolved third parties can usually see right through this mechanism, though, and when the affected person is confronted with it, the person will probably deny it vehemently. Another common example is when the boss accuses his subordinates of being late or saying things behind his back without actually having a valid reason, while the real driving force of such accusations—for example, a fear of rivals or the competition—remains unmentioned and repressed.

There are a multitude of areas in life where fears are transferred to entirely unrelated people, situations, or circumstances. In addition, religion often becomes the venue for disputes that, when observed more carefully, actually have nothing to do with it. (As a minimum, this connection to religion can trigger a radical and often fanatical interpretation of it rarely represented by the majority of its followers.) The celibate priest rants and raves about the decay of ethics and morals, gives the impression of being compassionate and concerned about the well-being of the poor, stands up for the appreciation of the woman in her role as a mother—while all along, his only true motivation may be the repression of his sexual frustration.

But if psychology has taught us one thing, it would be that it is generally wrong to dismiss such behavior and development as pure hypocrisy. Mter all, those who

are criticized are usually acting sincerely and are completely unaware of any discrepancy between their preoccupation and reality. In other words, people sincerely believe in what they are doing, are deeply convinced by their own sincerity and integrity, and disregard any questioning of their actions with honest shock and indignation. This process of repression was first examined more closely by Sigmund Freud, and regardless of the fact that some of his hypotheses, theories, and dogmas have been justly criticized and rejected, many of his fundamental concepts are widely acknowledged today.

A person who hasn’t yet dealt with the subject may be surprised to hear that money is a somewhat taboo topic burdened with all kinds of fears, inhibitions, repressions, and inner tension. After all, money is not just a newfangled concept that radically questions the world with which we are familiar. One would think that such a cultural asset known and used widely for thousands of years would have sufficiently established itself in our collective minds without being burdened by irrational demonization. Nearly every public activity—whether in business or politics, education or culture—concerns monetary issues in one way or another, though it's not always clear and up-front. This is especially true in capitalist economic systems where the principle of cash value stands above everything else, not only in social and economical theory, but where it also represents the fundamental storehouse from which most other social and cultural values are derived. Who

ever pretends to hate (or sincerely does hate) money, or is at least not willing to overemphasize its significance, and whoever places humanitarian and idealistic values over those of mercantilism and industrial productivity, is naturally making reference to the omnipresent money principle.

The example frequently cited by critics of capitalism and religion that refers to the expulsion of a moneychanger from a temple is based in its logic on a religiously based, flawed relationship to money. In fact, it is unlikely that profane money was ever used in a Jerusalem temple in the first place, for example, by putting money into a collection or paying a priest for his services. The money-changers were thus responsible for exchanging everyday money for temple coins—surely a lucrative business, which is what actually attracted the fury of Christ in the example cited above. At the same time, these biblical tales also point out that profane material possessions as expressed in the form of money should not be directly linked to the divine, as this would actually desecrate it. Once again, what we're witnessing here is an aversion to this life on earth that is predominant especially in monotheistic religions, as we've already mentioned.

We may find another example in a more recent time. Since the triumphant sweep of Darwinism, it has become a constant element of explanation to intertwine sexuality with biological and evolutional-technical reasoning, resulting in the development of

countless taboos regarding sex which attempt to comply with exactly these terms in one way or another. Though there may be varying opinions about the individual attempts at interpreting this, there is no arguing that there has been no comparable research work in the field of money to date. It's true the Western mind couldn’t resist psychologically corroborating fields such as consumer behavior, advertising methods, and marketing strategies, but there's yet to be a university offering courses in "money psychology." In this sense, anyone who dedicates more thought to this subject may have to be content with plausible, anecdotal source material since there has been a significant lack of hard statistical figures and survey results so far.

Luckily we can fall back on more than fifteen years of practical experience supported by the reports and records of numerous diligent magicians. In money magic, just as in astrology, the Saturnian components are diversely distributed and occasionally embedded in an entirely different overall context. Accordingly, not every magician has to overcome the same money-related psychological obstacles, which is why the following text is more of a general recommendation that may be more or less appropriate depending on the individual. Feel free to adapt it to your own situation.

The Money Magic Approach to Fundamental ^alstential Fears

It's part of our cultural paradigm to view a lack of money as a life-threatening situation (key words: star

vation and impoverishment, which in turn can lead to a shorter life expectancy due to a lack of medical care). Experience has shown that it is useless to use rational objections as a defense; for example, there are billions of people who remain entirely unaffected by money in their day-to-day lives because they've never or rarely ever had it. They live a life in poverty according to our Western standards, devoid of the care and provisions we generally consider to be the bare essentials—nonetheless, they are able to survive, regardless of how others may turn up their noses at their living standards. Existential fears deeply rooted in our emotions cannot be eliminated by such logic in the long term. Even the objection that a person cannot starve from a lack of money since money isn't edible—a comment that is neither meant to be naive nor cynical—will hardly reduce or expel the existential panic that can occur suddenly and unexpectedly and overshadow everything else. Instead, I recommend trying the following exercise to help reduce the power of such existential fears.

Exercise

Make sure you wont be disturbedfor a few hours. Sit or lie in a comfortable position in which you can dwell on a specific daydream for an extended period of time.

Now close your eyes and imagine the absolute worst possible thing that could happen if you were financially ruined and destitute. of several scenes of this type arise in your imagination at the same time, make a list of the

individual items (with your eyes open, of course!) and we’ll talk about them later.

Now take thefirst of your horror scenarios and amplify it as far as possible. In psychoanalysis, amplification is understood to be the specific increase or overemphasis and embellishment of a psychological symbol or a dream experience. In other words, imagine this horrible situation in as much detail as possible, leaving out nothing that may come to mind. In doing so, do not hesitate to dramatize the matter if necessary, even to the point of being vulgar or crazy. As in ritual work, symbols are most effective when overemphasized, thus creating a strong emotional impact.

Continue to imagine the situation in the worst possible detail. For example, maybe you’ve imagined the repo men and your creditors taking away your precious belongings, and how you are driven out of your home andforced to sleep on the streets, armed with nothing but a plastic bag containing the last ofyour possessions as you stand on a street corner and slink away, dejected and down in the dumps. Don’t allow the slightest glimmer of hope to shine in your story! The task here is to live and experience this psychological trauma with as much intensity as possible, even if it’s merely a simulation. This will help you dissolve the worst cramps and knots in the shortest possible time, but this can only happen if you use this exercise to really delve deep into the sheer horror of the situation.

Continue with the exercise until you cannot think of anything more. If necessary, even imagine all the gruesome details ofyour physical death in isolated misery.

End the exercise with the heartiest, most roaring

laughter Even if youfind it difficult, it's important to do it! It's not about trying to secretly sneak in a happy ending, instead you’re acting out psychological contrasts in order to bring about a constructive effect.

If your list contains several different worst case scenarios as mentioned above, work through each of these separately with the exercise, but try to do it all in one sitting, in one day, in one exercise.

In the Tibetan tradition of Bon is the Chod ritual in which the shaman dies a mystical death in a most horrible way, namely through self-sacrifice at a burial site by inviting wild animals and demons to feed off his various body parts. Although the aim of Chod is entirely different than that of the above exercise, the idea is the same: the overcoming of fears and trauma through deliberate enactment. It may seem a lot easier said than done, because it is truly essential that you do not maintain any hint of hope or reassurance throughout the exercise, like thinking "I'll manage somehow" or "it's not actually real." Any such thoughts can be dealt with by overlaying them with even more morbid details about your negative situation.

You may even start crying during the exercise, or want to crawl into a fetal position or stammer and babble for your mother. If you feel that happening, you should certainly give in and allow it! Under certain circumstances it may be wise to perform the exercise in the presence of a person you trust, or even a trained

psychologist. The latter would be advisable, for example, if you are mentally unstable in any way or suffer from psychosis. In any case, in view of the intense emotional power here, you should never go so far that it becomes impossible for you to end it properly with the required roaring laughter, which—as you've probably recognized—is the same as a ritual banishment. If you don't think you'll be able to burst into laughter on command, feel free to practice a bit in private until you're sure that it will work. Please note that the instructions were not to think of something funny first in order to provoke laughter. That would result in too great of a delay, which would have limited effect under the conditions created here. As chaos magic has proven repeatedly, laughter for no reason and • with no intention at al is one of the most powerful mechanisms of psychological control.

Don't expect too much from this exercise; each experience is different. But hopefully it will show you that even severe existential fears and trauma can be effectively brought under control with this method, and at times even eliminated altogether. You may have to repeat the exercise a few times to finally achieve the desired effect.

Keep detailed records on the exercises you perform. These notes may prove to be quite valuable later on, especially if you want to fine-tune the whole process (after all, that's what it is) in order to finally master your fears or—if we apply the spirit model—your inner

demons. After all, a magician should never allow himself to be ruled and crippled by such things! Then you'll begin noticing that your overall relationship to money will not only become less strained, but that you can also succeed at even the most improbable money magic operations—ones that you would have never dreamed of being successful before.

Of course, it would be wrong to blame all the financial problems in the world on the psychological demons of certain individuals—as some skeptics of magic wrongly accuse magicians of doing again and again. It would be just as silly to maintain an illusion of objectivity because (if there really is such a thing) it would never be accessible to humans in its pure form anyway. As so often in life, the important thing here is balance and good judgment.

How to Turn Psychological Lead to Gold Among occult laymen, alchemy is often dismissed as a mere "gold-making art" (which, by the way, is how it was usually described during its peak of popularity). Most alchemists of the various eras were concerned primarily with creating gold in a material or tangible form. Greed ensured there were enough sponsors— equipping and maintaining a professional alchemistic laboratory and dedicating one's time to the practice of alchemy day and night without having any other source of income was a very expensive undertaking. Most alchemists could only finance such endeavors through a sponsor's help (though today we might call a sponsor a

liability¹). Financers of this speculative work were usually princes or rulers of some kind who were looking for a way of filling their ever-ailing coffers. On the other hand, alchemy also attracted quite a few charlatans who were set on systematically taking advantage of their usually quite gullible financial backers and, in the end, making a quick getaway like thieves in the night to move on and find other victims. Of course, the contemporaries were aware of this and as a result, the literature from that period is full of negative examples that do little to contribute to the Great Work's esteem.

Alchemy has adapted diverse forms throughout the course of its rich history, so it would be presumptuous to want to reduce it to a single fundamental procedure or formula. We can establish, however, that the gold of the alchemists was quite often just a metaphor for the process of refinement that had nothing at al to do with actual gold, but rather with the higher development of matter and the alchemist himself. The transformation of something basic into something precious is a matter every magician should be familiar with. And that's exactly what we aim to do here in this context with money magic, namely to perform a Great Work of our own.

Exercise

Make a list of your worst fears, inhibitions, and all the things you truly dislike doing. This includes things that give you the creeps or that you may have phobias about. This is a

sort of black mirror of the soul and you should be nothing but brutally honest with yourself.

Review the list one more time. Did you forget anything or gloss something over? Add to and amend the list as necessary. This exercise should only be performed once in a lifetime, so make an effort to make the list as thorough and complete as possible.

When you’re done with the list and have made any necessary changes, take some time to think about each individual item from a specific point of view, namely how could you make money with it? As in the exercise where you worked with your strengths and interests, this too should be about options and concepts that seem fairly realistic and tangible.

This procedure requires a bit of explanation concerning its practical execution before we can deal with its theoretical basis.

Here is an example from one of my seminars. Let’s say that a participant lists,for example, the item “fear of riding roller coasters," and consequently lists one possible way of making money with this as “playing an extra in a movie scene about a roller coaster ride." This way of thinking is fundamentally wrong! It's not about intentionally facing yourfear of a roller coaster ride and being paid a measlyfee in the end for such torture. Instead the instructions are: how can you make money ofriding a roller coaster?

The importance of this aspect cannot be emphasized enough. The money magician does not aim to acquire wealth through suffering, self-denial, and deprivation, but rather in a carefree,frictionless manner.

Thus, our roller coaster hater could consider founding a support group for people injured in roller coaster accidents, or for other opponents of the joyride, which generates widespread media coverage through its attempts at having roller coasters banned, acquires sponsors, issues and publishes health reports on the medical risks of roller coaster rides, and so on. At the peak of such a movement, not only could, a lot of money be generated, but also a lot of contacts could be made that might result in even more lucrative opportunities.

Please remember once again that it's not about actually turning all ofyour ideas into reality. The actual objective is to expand your range of options and to learn that there are an endless number of opportunities out there in everyday, seemingly non-magical areas, or that you can create such opportunities in order to open the floodgates so money can flow and you can profit from it.

It's also very important to understand that this exercise is not intended to be a sort of therapy! In examining sigil magic, we've seen how Austin Osman Spare adopted the Freudian concept of repression, but with no intentions of wanting to eliminate or reverse repressed material or the mechanism that creates it. On the contrary, Spare's sigil magic is based on the creative, specific use of the psychological mechanism of repression; it doesn't question it, but rather, intentionally forces it to go beyond its own limitations. In fact, this consequently contrary procedure represents a

fundamental principle of magic that has been widely neglected.

Whereas religions and their high priests Qust like their followers) are constantly concerned with keeping lower or evil spirits under control or their expulsion or destruction, the successful magician takes advantage of these energies and doesn't waste resources by trying to improve the world or change its actual state in the name of some alleged higher power. (The so-called white magician that is often referred to in literature, who supposedly is dedicated to something like completing the great structure of creation, is—when observed more carefully—merely a variation of the religious priest.) Concerning higher powers, one may see in this with some legitimacy the attempt to unite the religious obsequiousness (which in turn ensures social acceptance) with a "magic" that in the end can be nothing but a caricature of itself The successful magician would write off such self-righteous assumptions as daydream management, and possibly even use worse terminology to repudiate such things.

So don't be afraid to keep your demons alive. And don't waste your time concerning yourself with therapeutic fantasies of doubtful benefit and simple efficiency—exploit it for all it's worth! The saying goes that a magician has to be more demonic himself than any demon ever could be in order to truly compel it. It is here you have the opportunity to not only develop

your money-magical interests, but also to realize them at the same time.

Of course, there's no guarantee that one of your fears just might not disappear for good after treating it this way, but don't worry about that—you benefit either way. When you rid yourself of fears and traumas, you become freer and less weighted down. And you can still make a profit off of it. But if fears, phobias, and other unpleasant companions just don’t want to be shaken off so easily, you'll at least be able to take advantage of the lucrative side of things. You've created a win-win situation where you absolutely cannot lose; one that completely fulfills the criteria of symbolic alchemy, namely the transformation of something basic into something precious—from lead into gold.

One of the true secrets to successful money magic is not to first painstakingly search for resources, but rather to turn absolutely everything into a resource! Yolan Chang once said that China's Taoist cuisine follows the principle that basically everything is edible as long as it's cut up small enough. You may not always be able to take that literally, but it forms a fundamental principle that can inflate the success rate of your money magic to inconceivable proportions.

Seven

Venus andJupiter Want to Play Along, Too

A Difrent Sort ofMoney-Magical Pathworking

As part of your basic money-magic training, let's take a look at two planetary principles we haven’t previously mentioned. Mter all, such a complex subject as money cannot be reduced to a single principle, though that may have been the impression you got when we talked about its relationship to the elements. If the symbolism that is used is kept simple, it's much easier to work with, but the results will be more vague. To fine-tune your work effectively, you always need to differentiate a bit, as appropriate.

Venus Pathworking

For the astrological layman, the Venus principle may conjure thoughts of"love, harmony, and beauty" or even "conflict-avoiding" and "fickleness." The experienced

astrologer, however, knows a number of other areas for which Venus is responsible. This is especially evident when examining the zodiac sign Libra, ruled by Venus (along with Taurus).

The yearning for balance (or need for peace and harmony), typical of Libra, is about compensating imbalances by distributing them more effectively or by eliminating them altogether. This is also the typical job of a merchant—to move goods from one region in the world where they are abundant to other regions where they are both lacking and in demand. This balancing act can be compensated by increasing the prices to create a profit, which the merchant uses to make a living.

It should come as no surprise that Venus can have quite a distinct mercantile nature, which often influences, colors, or even overshadows al other traits. Thus, Venus may rule over the principle of love, but this also includes love that can be purchased, such as prostitution. Typical Libras like to mediate between disputing parties and offer compromises but in doing so, ensure they've secured some advantage for themselves.

The Venus principle is also responsible for the arts, as can be seen in the examples of Taurus and Libra. Although the typical Taurus greatly appreciates the arts and everything beautiful in general, the bull is usually interested in a thing's value as well (true to the element of Earth, to which Taurus belongs). Thus, the concept of art as a financial investment is not at al foreign.

It's a bit different with a typical Libra: the scales also appreciate beauty and the arts, but is not all that interested in directly investing in it, but rather in the opportunity to build business contacts through the arts as a hobby and through collecting—thus in improving social status, for example by means of entering the field of fund-raising management.

The interests of the two are basically identical but expressed in different ways—and this too can be applied to our overall relationship to money and everything that is related. If you keep this in mind in your practical money magic, you'll surely have many more possibilities available to you than if you were to merely work with the simple equation: Money = Earth = Mercury, even if there's absolutely nothing wrong with this principle.

Here are a few more introductory words on the subject of pathworking that also apply to the Jupiter exercise described later. Originally, the term “pathworking" was used to describe a technique of meditation or contemplation—also in the form of a controlled mental journey—used by the magician to travel the paths of the kabbalistic Tree of Life that connect the individual sephiroth or centers. There's no need to concern ourselves here with the Tree of Life's structure, as the pathworking we are interested in is a method of researching symbolic relationships in order to be able to apply them in a practical sense to our money magical objectives. Of course, the outlines of the structures

we use here are much less distinct which—as we've already seen—is much more appropriate to the basic ambivalent nature of money.

Accordingly, you could and should design your own individual Venus pathwork in a way that is most beneficial to you and your abilities, interests, and goals. Our main objective here is to provide you with tips and suggestions on how to do this, but it’s important to add your own ideas and craft your own experiences as well.

Following is a practical example to illustrate. So don't just work through the exercise as though it were formally structured; instead view it as a general blueprint you can use to elaborate upon according to your own individual taste. At first, this may seem quite difficult to you, but experience has shown that the effect will be much more intense and longer-lasting this way, and your efforts will be rewarded through the gaining of increased flexibility and self-confidence.

EXAMPLE: VENUS PATHWORKING IN MONEY MAGIC

Instead ofperforming a formal Venus ritual, the magician can meditate on the attributes of Venus relevant to money magic: dexterity in balancing the drops and increases in supply and demand; accurate determining of the necessary expenditure and profit-making means when mediating between both supplying and demanding parties; friendly and pleasant approaches of both parties and the convincing conveyance of the possible advantages of a business relationship; organizational skills in realizing and

handling business deals; the high degree of sensibility for the needs and interests of the involved parties that can be used to further business transactions; exceptional talent at advertising/marketing; general social competence; the ability to leave a lasting impression of pleasantness and agreeable communication with the parties involved, even if a business deal is not made; elegant manner; open-mindedness, and so on.

Next, the magician should think of various scenarios where he or she would have the opportunity to study the practical application and effectiveness of these Venus attributes under real conditions, however without actually having to participate or intervene in any way. In consideration of the magician's life circumstances and the available localities, the magician may decide on the examples as follows: to attend the stock exchange in a nearby major city; to visit a local market where stallholders cry out their goods; or to closely observe the Internet auction platform eBay over a period of several days (roughly 45 minutes per day). It would be a good idea for the magician to conduct these three miniobservations individually (not parallel or on the same days) in order to dedicate full attention to the current project.

The magician decides to visit the stock exchange first since there is a guided tourfor visitors offered the next day; afterwards the visitors will have the opportunity to watch tradingfor a whilefrom an observance platform.

Beforehand, the magician meditates a bit on the Venus attributes already mentioned in order to get in the right frame of mind for the exercise. Instead of making notes, the magician decides to focus on observing everything and

mentally comparing it to the Venus attributes meditated on earlier.

After doing that, the magician withdraws to a quiet place to make a written evaluation ofthe exercise by writing a thorough record of the minutes. In addition to observing many Venus-like correspondences, the magician may even see some blatant contrasts, such as an ugly scene where two brokers argue with one another in a loud battle ofwords.

The magician proceeds in a similar manner at the local market. In doing so, he or she might pay particular attention to the various ways the stallholders try to capture the attention of the shoppers. Ait the same time, the magician also pays close attention to the professional way in which a business transaction is made, as well as to the customers' reactions.

In documenting the minutes later on, the magician may record some specific examples of the language used by the stallholders to sell their goods—a language that is colloquial and easily understood by the people, perhaps using jokes and a sense ofhumor as a tool—and examine the strategy behind this choice oflanguage.

In the eBay operation, the magician may pay attention to the overall aesthetic appearance of the offers, the linguistic wording of the product descriptions, the sellers’ price policy, and the success orfailure of individual auctions.

The magician may also observe buyers' and sellers’ ratings and estimate the earnings of specific sellers based on the information found in his or her research.

Once all three parts of the exercise have been completed, the magician holds a debriefing by critically examining all observations and documentation of the three situations.

This will help the magician in drawing up a plan for farther action that should help strengthen his or her affinity to Venus and compensate any existing shortcomings.

For example, the magician could decide to study the history of advertising and political propaganda, learn basic skills in advertising psychology, or analyze the aesthetic design of advertisements.

If you use the above example to design your own Venus pathworking according to your own personal situation and interests, you'll certainly see dramatic results in all Venus-related aspects concerning money magic in just a short time.

On the side, many new ideas and projects wwil present themselves that will help you perform your money magic operations successfully and take full advantage of the practical opportunities that you've thus created. Feel free to integrate such pathworking regularly into your daily schedule, or at least for an extended period of time until you've truly mastered this aspect of the money-magical process.

Jupiter Pathworking

In ancient astrology, the planet Jupiter was often called Fortuna Major, the Greater Fortune. As father of the

gods of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter embodies abundance, magnanimity, and generosity—which, of course, does not exclude the possibility of its anger being just as generous, or disastrous! Here's a modern analogy to illustrate why Jupiter is indispensible for the big picture in effective practical magic, but should not be used for developing the tiny details.

If you talk to the boss of a large company about a project you would like to realize with ■ the help of the firm and you actually reach an agreement, then you've taken the first significant step toward realizing the project. As soon as you're dealing with the technical details, however, such as measurements, materials, expert opinions, production methods, or marketing strategies, the company boss will no longer be your contact. Instead, these aspects of the project will be delegated to other departments or employees as appropriate. It would therefore be pointless to ask the company boss for some kind of technical information that would require a knowledge and interest of the details that, in an overseer role of the whole process, he or she normally wouldn’t have. The boss's task in your specific project would be to create "favorable weather conditions" within the company for your project. After all, without the boss' consent, for which he or she alone carries the responsibility, the project never would have gotten off the ground in the first place. For its technical implementation, though, other more specialized authorities are responsible.

The situation is similar with the planetary gods in conventional magic. The discipline of money magic as discussed here is no exception. In our example, Jupiter corresponds to the company boss while other planetary gods such as Mercury, Venus, and Saturn take on the function of the project managers and division supervisors who are assigned to implement the specific technical details of the project. Nonetheless, it remains indispensible that the company boss grants goodwill to the whole thing—otherwise the various departments would be greatly restricted in their maneuverability. For the same reason, we recommend that your Jupiter pathworking be conducted in a meticulous fashion, in order to create a favorable basis for your practical money magic.

Analogous to the Venus example, we would like to introduce a blueprint of sorts here for your Jupiter pathworking. You should only use the following as an inspiration for creating your own exercise according to your personal situation.

EXAMPLE: JUPITER PATHWORKING IN MONEY MAGIC

In order to support a number of money-magical operations, the magician in this example decides to perform extensive Jupiter pathworking exercises beforehand to createfavorable overall conditions for obtaining his magical objective.

First, he makes a list ofJupiter attributes related to his money-magical ambitions: complete overview of the general economic relationships {macroeconomics), creation of the

framework conditions for economical processes, shaping of decisions related to financial policy, shaping fiscal policy (both national and international), development of ethical principles for business and economics, a feeel for the right handling of business processes, and projects that benefit all parties involved.

As appropriate for its function as the sum of all gods of the ancient Roman pantheon, the magician has no need to search for human embodiments of the Jupiter principle. Instead, he decides to focus his attention on the concrete manifestation of the abstractly understoodJupiter principles. These abstract features should be studied in relation to individual human examples as well, but not until later.

The magician develops a plan of action that covers a period of44 days, as Jupiter corresponds to the number 4 in the Hermetic tradition. In order to strengthen this symbollogic, at least 44 minutes of each of these days should be dedicated to Jupiter path working; in individual cases, you could even extend that by multiples, e.g., 88 minutes, 132 minutes, and so on.

During the time the magician has dedicated solely to his or her path working, the following themes may be contemplated. economics, economic history, business principles and the effects of globalization, financial policy, tax-saving models, business and ecology, and business ethics.

The actual study of these topics should take various forms. The spectrum can range from reading pertinent introductory literaturefollowing certain themes in the press, conducting Internet research, or attending relevant lectures or seminars.

However, the magician is not interested in trying to obtain a thorough education in these subjects within the specified time period. Instead, the focus should be on gaining an understanding of the processes attributed to the Jupiter principle in an overall mundane context, as well as to determine the conditions under which they could appear more or less effectively.

In a second phase of another 44 days, the magician may study the insight gained as applied to specific human objects in order to make a connection from the abstract to the concrete.

This second part of the jupiter pathworking should be supplemented with the following activities: the study of the biographies of a few prominent personalities from the fields of economics and business, the study of the development and activities of prominent personalitiesfrom business politics in the past and present, the examination of undesirable trends using the examples of well-known personalities who have Jailed in the fields of economics and finance, and perhaps even histories of white-collar criminals.

The magician should not only study success stories, but also pay specific attention toJailed economic processes, theories, and ideologies since it is often such violations of the radius of action of the Jupiter principle that illustrate the concept most clearly.

To wrap up the jupiter pathworking, the magician should record his or her actions in detail along with any insight gained by holding a "postmortem" to review the overall procedure itself as well as the specific operation, which can then be used as a basis for developing a plan of

action to strengthen his or her own affinity to the Jupiter principle and eliminate any flaws or weaknesses.

For example, the magician could decide to strengthen his or her knowledge in a field offundamental financial mathematics, such as in the calculation of interest and profit. In addition, the magician could explore fundamentally contradictory economical ideologies such as capitalism and communism and strengthen his or her powers ofdiscernment regarding these by investigating facts and figures and studying substantiated analyses in this regard.

It certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea to view the pathworking examples introduced here concerning the Venus and Jupiter principles as a sort of "competence offensive," which would surely be legitimate in a conventional, non-magical context as well.

As opposed to this, it is embedded in the over-al framework of our money-magical "basic training," which not only gives it a different perspective, but in turn also gives it the advantage of increasing the success rate. Mter al, magic always takes place embedded within the context of life’s reality. Even where it takes on the unusual, non-everyday form of rituals and conjurations, these are always performed with the intention of improving everyday life.

Eight

Lucky at Gobbling, or G^nblingwith Luck?

With a Few Examplesfrom Practical Money Magic

Our relationship to being "lucky at gambling" or "gambling with luck'' has influenced our culture(s) for thousands of years. Even our religions are determined by this to a considerable degree, as the French philosophet and mathematician Blaise Pascal took to the argumentative top in his often-quoted "Pascal's Wager," about a type of bet on the afterlife in which humanity understandably wants to be on the winning side.

Be it natural disasters; tragedy through sickness, old age, or death; or accidents and the chaos of war over which the individual has no control, humanity has always been confronted with its own essential powerlessness. Certainly it would be an inadmissible simplification to explain the emergence of religion as merely an attempt to compensate for this helplessness

by postulating a heavenly or divine order and its legitimacy The impulse leading to the creation of religion is certainly much more complex and determined by a multitude of other factors. Nonetheless, it can hardly be rationally denied that the concepts of the afterlife and law and order that decisively form the basic structure of all religions owe much to this matter. In this aspect, magic is no exception either—its objective is to "cure" humanity of its helplessness in view of circumstances and situation, and enable us access to foreign, previously inaccessible powers to use in becoming selfdetermined, independent figures in our own lives.

Even rationalism and science, regardless of how severely they have (and still do) push established religions out of the way ever since the Enlightenment, can only achieve this because they've also promised humanity control over individual destiny.

This may not be the right place to thoroughly discuss this subject in all of its culturally historical, philosophical, and ontological aspects, yet it nonetheless has a very direct connection to goal-oriented practical magic in general and money magic in particular. Concerning the latter, this can be derived alone from the nature of money itself, as we've given a detailed account of in the previous pages. Because despite all rationally ascertainable factors of effectiveness, preconditions for emergence and inherent laws of both business and society which money was subject to right from the start and still is today, it nevertheless possesses an indisput

able component of randomness that lends it a nature of unpredictability.

This applies to macroeconomic systems and economical relationships as well as to the everyday life of the individual, even if a considerable portion of the culturally forming effort consists of collectively fading out this fact in order to able to pretend that this aspect of life can be completely controlled and mastered. This becomes clear, however, at least where the business risk is involved—the admission (which is often not given a lot of thought) that we can only operate with probabilities, not with absolute certainties. If these certainties did exist, only bestsellers would be published, businesses would all produce exceptional products that generate huge profits, and marketing and company bankruptcies would be a thing of the past, as would financial crises and stock exchange crashes. Indeed part of the basic mechanism of the capitalistic-mercantilist system is using money's unpredictability, called risk, as the moral and ethical justification of profit-making. Though this justification shouldn't be criticized here any further, it should be pointed out that it would be a good idea for the money magician to remain open to the fact that, in the end, it is exactly such systems and technologies that lay claim to a high degree of rational control, which they can only do at the expense of a respect for money's Mercurial nature—it's rational, simple, and rejects collective displacement.

All of this should be obvious after reading the previous page, however. Practice shows repeatedly that even the most experienced money magicians tend to reflexively (unconsciously and unquestioningly) apply to their money magic the manic desire for control— through economics and financial mathematics, probability calculations and the mathematization of politico-economic processes, in addition to the systematic phasing out of the fundamental unpredictability of all actions, regardless of whether they are of a magical or secular nature.

We've already put considerable effort into countering such socialization reflexes, for example, when we point out that excessive specification of the monetary amounts to be obtained through magical operations is usually detrimental to the money magic process. The mathematical counter which modern science and technology are solely based on is merely a compensation for the fundamental powerlessness of humanity that we gloss over through the fetishization of mathematical models (that are certainly compelling and logical within themselves) without ever seriously tackling the core problem—namely that of our essential helplessness in the face of powers that are simply more powerful than we. But initiating such an attack on the core problem effectively, against all logic and probability, all statistics and irrefutable laws of nature—that is magic in the true sense of the word!

The decision to dedicate the final chapter of this book to games of chance, or gambling, is based on what I've just mentioned here. There is hardly another area of modern life where money reveals its erratic or even moody nature in such a direct, tangible, and immediately verifiable way as in the field of organized gambling, which we would like to examine here in connection with the place where it mainly takes place, namely the casino. Apart from the stock exchange, where the participants rarely have any kind of direct influence (except for the few electronic exchanges that exist), this is an ideal place for the money magician to find an extremely condensed manifestation of money's Mercurial nature in its fastest moving form.

There is also the mythological and symbolical aspect of the casino I would like to begin with here. Because despite modernity, the fact that the casinos of our times are characterized by a high level of mechanization, and that the advertising done for them is profane through and through (avoiding anything metaphysical at all costs), they still cannot disguise their original nature as Temples of Fortune in the eyes of history.

The modern-day casino is historically derived from the casini of the Venetian aristocracy—the country houses or cottages where small circles of exclusive persons were able to gamble, something strictly forbidden in Venice itself Gambling, of course, is much older than the Italian Renaissance and the various mythological

systems of the world are rich with examples of this in both profane and religious natures. Betting, lotteries, or the ancient game of dice—such things are mentioned again and again throughout human history. At times, gambling was viewed as profane enrichment, but also as an expression of divine arbitrariness (remember the countless legends of the Christian God who gambles with the Devil for a human soul, which found literary expression, for example, in the Faust dramas of Marlowe and Goethe), or even defamation, as seen in the New Testament, where the Roman soldiers tossed dice to see who would receive the loincloth of the person crucified.

In ancient mythology, luck is embodied by the Roman goddess Fortuna—an extremely capricious character who is rarely moderate in granting or denying her favor. It therefore seems quite legitimate to pick up on this myth and put it into practice by using the casino as a location for observing money-magical activities. Appropriately, the restrictions and needs of the subordinate human race do not apply to immortals, and therefore the latter obey only their own laws that they do not need to justify to man.

Before we turn to the practical side of things, we should first mention a few aspects that will make the comparison of a casino and a temple of the goddess of luck seem more plausible.

First we should mention that a casino is generally a place (ideally an entire building) that serves no other

purpose than to directly and immediately experience the act of gambling—up to and including both winning and losing. The fact that classical casinos often maintained entire opera houses and still do partially today doesn't change a thing. After all, these institutions have been primarily concerned with attracting wealthy and cultivated gamblers all along, offering them a place where they can throw off the chains of their worldly and financial obligations and responsibilities and be carefree and lighthearted in an amusing atmosphere unburdened by utilitarian thought. By the way, the oldest known predecessor of Venetian casini were the therapeutic bath-houses of the Romans, whose wealthy visitors were interested in more than just bathing—they wanted distraction (or in more modern terms, leisure activities), which were provided by numerous showmen and professional gamblers who were more than happy to ^fulfill this need.

Similar to the ancient temples, the modern-day casino is an entirely different world that is by no means accessible to just anyone—at the door, a person is only admitted upon being qualified and suitable for entry. While the mystic of ancient times had to qualify' by having the appropriate level of initiation to be granted admission to the temple sanctuary of the gods, attending a casino today is regulated by statutory requirements. Only legal adults may be admitted, as long as they are not banned for some other reason from entry.

An offering (obolus) was also required (modern analogy: entrance fee) and the visitor generally has to assure his or her sound financial position and must observe the rules of the casino. In a similar way, a visitor to the ancient temple had to declare dedication to the appropriate deity and adhere to temple regulations.

The mystic of ancient times was only able to face a deity in a state of absolute purity. This was usually ensured by undergoing various procedures, such as several days of fasting but also by absolving prescribed cleansing rituals (ablution) and dressing in appropriate ritual robes or vestments. Even today, respectable casinos still require the wearing of appropriate attire: Men have to wear a jacket and tie, for example, and women need to be equally elegant in their dress. People who show up at the door looking scruffy and untidy shouldn't be surprised if they're deemed "unworthy" and refused entry.

Though the customs of prayer or meditation are no longer maintained in the casinos of our modern times, a person should nonetheless behave in a relatively civilized, well-mannered way if he doesn't want to be expelled from the building. Loud shouting and vulgar behavior would certainly not be tolerated, nor would obvious drunkenness or otherwise inappropriate conduct. Though no casino will specifically require ablution, having an untidy appearance is surely the best way to ensure that you will never join the ranks of the high rollers.

As we've already seen in the example of the temple of Jerusalem, ordinary money is generally not used in the modern-day casino either. Instead, money is exchanged upon entry for a special kind of "temple money"—chips. As most of us know, chips are colorful discs that represent a specific monetary amount; often the logo of the corresponding casino is printed on them as well. The last bridge to the ordinary outside world is torn down with this symbolic act. Modern-day worshippers of the goddess of fortune have finally arrived in another world where they are able to take advantage of her rich potential for quick luck (or the opposite). The transformation is complete, the everyday world is forgotten, and the only thing that matters is the fickle nature of the goddess of luck as she is supervised and governed by her "priests"—the croupiers, dealers, and other casino employees.

Even the profane social differences cease to exist here. An interesting historic parallel can be found in the Venetian casinos when they were finally approved of within the city walls in the face of public pressure. One of the official regulations was that the guests were required to wear masks to prevent others from recognizing them. This was intended to keep the peace within the community and avoid any risks of blackmail. The clergy were officially prohibited from gambling of any type, but the masks enabled even the higher-ranking members to happily participate without risk of exposure.

Certainly those who have greater financial means are able to bet higher amounts or play for longer periods of time, but this neither increases their chances of winning nor has any effect on the roulette ball itself. In other words, no one cares whether a multi-millionaire is made richer in a matter of seconds or if a less well-off pensioner is made poorer; everyone is equal in the face of luck, just like in real life. Accordingly, the same applies to money itself—although it is attracted to its own kind ("money wants to go where money already is"), it has no respect for the individual, and thus no regard whatsoever for a person’s moral or ethical position in society.

The person who is open to this type of observation will gain entirely new dimensions with every visit to the casino, as opposed to the naive, inexperienced guest who pays a visit to the sanctum of the goddess of luck merely out of curiosity, or even desperation or greed. This applies all the more to the money magician who views the casino as a place to experience money as intensively as possible, where its aura is of purest form. In the process, the money magician is not (primarily) concerned with exploiting gambling as a source of income or wealth. In the end there's only one winner in the midst of the bustling activity, despite all hopes and prayers of the gambler, and that's the casino itself. Instead, the magician's goal in this temple is to train his or her sensing the elemental effect of luck's powers. As we've learned, money is only one among many forms

of expression. Magicians won’t spurn Fortuna's marks of favor, but they should take caution to not surrender themselves to them, especially since they are not at all concerned with doing the gods any favors here.

The predominant intuitive knowledge gained from these casino visits will prove to be invaluable in a money magician's operations. It may even be that the magician only enters the temple to bring a certain amount of money into circulation without any intentions of winning whatsoever. Why? Hopefully, the magician has realized that letting go of the need to win is the fastest and most effective way of dissolving psychological blockages that may otherwise obstruct the realization that any money magic objectives are more important than all the chips in the world. Simultaneously, the magician is establishing a profitable relationship with the goddess Fortuna. In other words, the magician knows of no loss in this aspect since everything done here is an investment in his or her money-magical practice!

Obviously we're not talking here about turning need into virtue. If the magician actually does entertain the desire (be it ever so slight or subliminal) to visit the temple of Fortuna to make his or her luck and leave the gambling table with a comfortable profit, there would be no point at all in trying to explain away possible failure by claiming it to be an investment. There's nothing wrong with wanting to visit a casino specifically for this reason, except that this would be an entirely

different money-magical operation that should be defined and treated as such from the start. In any case, such an approach has nothing to do with the method discussed here, and we accordingly recommend not confusing the two.

Even if the rational skeptic may understandably view things differently, al magic (not just money magic) is not about basking in self-delusion where nothing can be won yet everything can be lost.

We will purposely not give any more specific instructions on what to do in the casino in a money-magical sense, since you should already have found enough information, techniques, and ■ methods to develop and refine your own practice. An ounce of experience is more valuable than a pound of theory, and even if the latter seems practice-oriented (as may be the case with this book), it can never really replace actual personal experience—be it good or bad.

Instead we would like to present some true accounts here of incidents that have occurred in money-magical operations. Though not all involve casinos, they nonetheless illustrate the playful element appropriate to every successful money-magical operation. In addition, reading these examples should help you better understand the money-magical mechanisms involved. Using the concrete experience of other magicians as examples, you may find the obscure cleared up or the unanswered questions answered. All names have

been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

Reports from Money-Magical Practice 1: Wind Knot Magic

The following incident is taken from my own practice. During a stay in Finland, I decided to try my hand at an old Finnish (Sami, to be more specific) shamanic technique. There have been reports of "Finnish sorcerers" (who were probably actually shamans from the Sami/Lapp tribes, who are still considered to be quite knowledgeable in magic in Finland today) who sold self-made "wind knots" to sailors during the past centuries at a time where sailing vessels were still common. When these knots were loosened during calm weather out at sea, they were said to cause life-saving wind that filled the sails.

I spent a summer on a Finnish island, in a small wooden cottage right on the seashore. One day when a powerfol storm gathered, I armed myself with a long piece of cord and went outside, entered a state of trance and "captured" the wind by tying several knots into the cord at the height of the storm. Afterwards, I went back into the cottage and stored the cord among the rest of my magic utensils.

Some time later, after returning to Germany, I bumped into Frater P., a younger magician friend who always had clever and imaginative ideas. I cut off one of my wind knots and gave it to him, and explained what it was al about.

Frater P. was quite touched by the gift, and said that no one had ever given him a wind knot before; I laughed and said the same applied to me as well.

Of course, I had no idea that he would use the knot for a money-magic operation in gambling, which he told me at a later date.

"I went to a nearby casino with the intention of using the knot while gambling, thinking it would be appropriate, since money corresponds to the element of Air—I thought it might literally blow the chips off the table, so to speak.

"While playing roulette, I discreetly untied the knot and expected to win. I was way off! Instead, I lost every single cent of my stake with no sign of winning in sight.

"Of course I was really disappointed at first, but you cant imagine what a shock I got when I finally left the casino and saw a raging storm outside with tremendous gusts of wind. I barely made it to the car!

"When I arrived at the casino, the weather was completely calm and there were no signs of bad weather approaching—especially not for a storm like that! In any case, the wind knot held what it promised, but unfortunately, not in the way I had imagined"!

This example shows that just simply using the magical correspondences (here, money = Air) without any deeper reflection can be quite counterproductive. This correspondence doesn’t mean that all correspon

dences are generally useless—it merely indicates that they need to be differentiated a bit more.

The correspondence equation "money = Air" is correct, as is the formula "wind = Air." This isn’t algebra, however—it would be very wrong to automatically derive from the above equation that "wind = money."

In this sense, the personal metaphor of Frater P. that "the chips be blown off the table" has no direct relationship to either the wind knot used or to his actual money-magical objective; such a relationship would frst have to be established.

Reports from Money-Magical Practice II: Releasing Financial Blockages

Frater M. reports on how he deals with occasional financial restrictions and how to eliminate them through money magic: "like most people, non-magicians included, I often run into financial difficulties where nothing seems to work in my favor. Expected payments are not received, orders are cancelled, the bank denies me a loan, and so on.

"It took me quite a while before I became comfortable with the paradigm that money should be viewed as an energy current that needs to have free channels in order to be able fow freely. Whenever such a situation arises in my life now, the frst thing I do is unclog the channels that need to be free in order for money to flow in my direction. The specific method used for unclogging is insignificant.

"So especially in times where money is tight, I make sure to give generous tips in restaurants, although I admit this was difficult to do at first. Mter all, the common reaction in such situations is to save and not 'waste' my resources. But I just tell myself, 'I have to save on other things, so I need to counterbalance that with generosity where I can.' Sometimes I look for an online casino where I can gamble away a fixed sum of money. In doing so, I purposely intend not to win; instead, my objective is to signal to money that I won’t cling to it out of desperation when it finally comes my way again.

"It may sound paradoxical, but it's helped me every ' single time so far. Usually the money flow blockage is dissolved in just a few days. Even more often, I notice the first signs of financial improvement in just a few hours. When money finally comes my way, I make sure to symbolically maintain its flow by putting fresh money into circulation instead of desperately clinging to my newly made earnings.

"Of course, paying bills is one form of putting money back into the flow, but I always make sure to feed the general current with a certain amount—sometimes more, sometimes less—without pursuing any specific intention.

"I highly recommend everyone to do the same; after all, if I've learned one thing during my practice of money magic, it's that money doesn’t like to go where it's only viewed as a solution to materialistic problems.

"An additional benefit of this method is that I learned never to worry too much about a lack of money."

Here we can see not only an excellent method for effectively eliminating inner and outer money blockages, but on the side such an approach also reduces the stress that an acute financial problem tends to trigger that generally leads to tension in all money matters, which in turn leads to further blockages—it's a vicious circle that needs to be broken as soon as possible!

Reports from Money-Magical Practice III: Consequences of the Classical Equation

"Money = Earth"

The magician Soror K. recently started her own business in interior design. Here's her report on the financial problems she was faced with in this context and how she solved them with money magic—though her method was quite effective in the end, she certainly never wants to have to repeat the experience.

"My decision to start my own business was based on the promise of several firms to place large, lucrative orders in the foreseeable future that would cover my living expenses for a while. The firms were already familiar with my work from my previous employment there, and since there were respectable firms, there was no reason to doubt the sincerity of their intentions.

"Unfortunately nothing went according to plan. I had to make considerable financial commitments to furnish my offices and purchase technical equipment necessary, including software, materials, and everything

else. These financial obligations were paid conservatively and realistically, with consideration for future earnings I was expecting to make with the upcoming projects. When my first potential client unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy, I dismissed it as an unlucky break, something that can happen in business from time to time. But when all the promised orders fell through for one reason or another, I started doing a bit of probing into the reasons to try and save these projects.

"I don't consider myself a paranoid person, and I usually don’t think much of conspiracy theories; in fact, I usually consider them to be nothing but silly and counterproductive. But when my clients started giving me nothing but straightforward 'no's or vague, empty promises of 'later,' with the next loan installment and monthly rent waiting to be paid, I started to panic. What started out so promising at first seemed suddenly about to go up in smoke.

"Back then I assumed that money could simply be equated with the element of Earth, as most classical working magicians did at the time: concrete, tangible, material possessions, etc. After trying everything else at my disposal, I finally turned to magic to improve my financial situation.

"Instead of performing a ritual, I decided to do some pathworking with the Earth tattwa. (A tattwa is an Indian symbol used in mandalas.) I’d had very good results with tattwa travel previously in a therapeutic context, and had no desire whatsoever to take even the

slightest chance with some new experiment or technique.

"First I prepared myself by meditating on the element of Earth, and entered the Earth realm using the tattwa symbol of the yellow square. I succeeded in entering immediately—there was no doubt I was actually in the Earth realm, since all of the colors and symbols that I encountered corresponded to the common classifications and correspondences.

"I soon met an Earth spirit with whom I was able to make contact and converse. I explained my predicament and asked for its advice, which I received. The details are not important; the advice consisted of a series of simple, short rituals I was to perform in everyday situations throughout the course of the next three days. I thanked the spirit and left the Earth realm.

"Of course I performed the recommended rituals conscientiously over the next three days. Already on the fourth day, I received a phone call from one of my previous clients. It turned out that she recently got a new boss who insisted on using only internal interior designers for the upcoming large project instead of giving me the job as his predecessor had promised. That explained the cancellation of the project.

"However, there were deadline conflicts such that the interior designers planned for the job were no longer available. So now the race was on, she said, and asked ifl could still take on the job—but it would have to be done extremely fast. Of course I was happy to do it!

"But what followed was virtually incredible, and if I hadn’t been familiar with such strange 'coincidences' already through my years of experience with practical magic, I probably would have had to struggle to keep my composure.

"The very next day I received no less than four further orders, three of which were from entirely new clients with whom I had previously nothing to do. It was good news of course, but every single project was extremely urgent, unfortunately.

"What was I to do? Just a short time ago, I was facing financial ruin and suddenly there were a whole bunch of new clients I couldn’t possibly turn down. It was important for me as a new entrepreneur to build a large client base because I knew there was plenty of competition out there. I was close to panic of a whole different kind: I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to ensure the survival of my business in the long term. So I took on all the orders, even though I had no idea how to manage them all.

"The result was that for the next three months, I was putting in sixteen-hour days, including weekends. Regular meals were a thing of the past, and it was not unusual for me to fall asleep at my desk! Needless to say, I didn’t have much of a personal life either, and my relationship at the time nearly fell to pieces because of it.

"In any case, I worked like a farm horse and was able to ^fulfill all of the orders to my clients' satisfaction.

Word of my success soon traveled and the number of orders improved dramatically. In the meantime I was able to turn down clients with less interesting offers and pass them on to competitors.

''As soon as I had some spare time again, I closely examined my money magical operation. 'Money = Earth'—that was both the answer and the problem! After all, the thing my operation brought about was not money itself, but rather a lot of hard work. That's what corresponds to the element of Earth, as I now know, but not necessarily to money.

"Since I starting working with the equation 'money = Air,' my life has become a lot less stressful and the money is fowing more freely too!"

This practical example shows what a difference it can make in how we understand and apply the symbolic language of magic. It's not that the classification of money to the Earth element is wrong and Air is right. In fact, the result is dependant on the procedure used, just as in other applications such as physics.

Basically things work the same as light. As physicists know, light can consist of waves or particles, depending on the nature of the experiment at hand. Whoever wants to encounter money from an Earth point of view should feel free to do so, but be prepared for the consequences. That being said, if you want to develop a lighter, more carefree approach to money, working with the element of Air would be more appropriate.

Reports from Money-Magical Practice IV: Money Magic as an Integral Component of a Magician's Life

The following example was contributed by Frater R., a predominant classical Hermetic magician with several decades of experience.

"I grew up with the classical Hermetic tradition of magic and am a member of various magical orders; it was therefore logical for me to take the classical, Hermetic approach to the subject of money magic. I know there are less elaborate methods which some of my colleagues- use quite successfully, but I prefer to integrate money magic into my overall magical practice like any other magical discipline. I'm quite happy with the approach I've chosen.

"My plan was ambitious. With the help of money magic, I wanted to reach an income level within five years that would enable me to quit my job (at the time as a civil servant) in order to pursue a means of making money that was not only more lucrative, but one that I could enjoy much more that made better use of my talents and interests.

"I started off by thoroughly studying money magic. Since there's not a lot of literature available on the subject, regardless of the fact that I speak five languages and therefore have a broader selection of available material than most other magicians. It soon became clear that I would have to do my own research and experimenting.

“As I am well-versed in astrology, I decided to base the entire operation on the planetary powers of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury. I started out by making a moneymagic talisman for each of these planets. With the help of predictive astrology, I calculated the most favorable time for rituals and drafted the corresponding ritual texts.

"The entire process was for only my benefit and because it was of a highly experimental nature, I worked entirely on my own and didn't involve other magicians. All in all, I performed four Jupiter rituals, followed by seven Venus rites, and finally eight Mercury rituals during which I charged the corresponding talismans. A technically interesting fact is that during the rituals, all the talismans were lying on the altar at the same time, even those that were not currently being charged—since they were all components of the same overall major operation.

“After having created the general foundation for the overall operation, I started working on the details. This consisted mainly of work with the Mercury principle, the spearhead of the overall operation, so to speak.

"I started each day with a short, informal invocation of Mercury and planned Mercurial activities to fill my leisure time. For example, I attended a class on public speaking, started learning another foreign language, read detective stories (after all, Mercury is the god of thieves), and spent entire weekends solving brainteasers.

"After spending several months on these activities, the next step was to develop one new business idea each day with which I could earn at least fve hundred dollars. It's important to point out that I purposely did not think about the amount of effort I would have to put into fulfilling these ideas. Instead, my goal was to get a feel for the development of commercial products and services without having to think about economical aspects such as profit and such. Of course this was all quite easy for me since my main job was well-paid and I wasn't dependent on making a certain amount of money per hour, which would have otherwise been the case.

"Honestly, I was quite surprised how well it worked. I originally decided against becoming a public-sector employee since I felt I had some entrepreneurial talent. I come from a family of civil servants where business life was not cultivated, and I would go so far as to say that anything of the type was neglected entirely or even looked upon with scorn.

"It made me all the more happy to see myself bubbling with ideas right from the start. Of course, after closer observation, some of these ideas were unfeasible or impractical, but instead of getting down on myself about it, I considered them to be expressions of my newly blossomed creativity, a thing that doesn't always follow the laws of materialistic realism.

''After just eight days I had developed a number of possibilities to improve my income with a comparably

minimal amount of effort, though the sums involved were modest at first.

“Although my whole money magic operation took place quite some time ago, I still hold fast today to the principle of coming up with one idea per day for a new business option, even though in the meantime I've raised my targeted earnings from five hundred to eight thousand dollars. Yes, I increased my targets slowly as time went by and my experience with money magic grew. As an aside, I quickly realized that the amount of time involved to develop an idea was not at all tied to the amount of the earnings desired.

“A pleasant side effect of the whole thing was the development of another business idea in which I compiled reports of a few pages each which I subsequently sold to interested parties for a good profit. I also quickly realized the potential of Internet sales. Once a certain method was set up and established, the entire sales process right up to the point of delivery to the purchaser could be automated, regardless of the time of day, which is almost as good as owning a machine that prints money! The maintenance expenditure came to merely a few hours a month, yet brought in a considerable net profit annually. That's just one example of what I was able to develop and achieve through money magic.

"The advantage of working on such a long-term operation is that one thing quickly leads to another and nothing can get lost along the way. In order to market my reports, I studied up on sales and advertising

psychology, occasionally attended seminars, and in the process I became a true expert on the subject. Another one of the aspects of online marketing included the creation and maintenance of websites. The websites themselves promoted the sales of the reports, but the skills I learned along the way proved to be invaluable in other areas as well.

''At one point, I discovered sigil magic and began integrating it into my money magic. The success was phenomenal! For example, I quickly came into contact with several foreign manufacturers of lucrative products who were looking for a sales partner in the German market. Instead of taking the sales work on myself, which surely would have amounted to a full-time job, I acted as a mediator between the manufacturer and marketing companies on commission, which even after taxes eventually enabled me to finance a new house and pay in cash!

"Meanwhile, I've reached my original goal, quit my old job, and now enjoy being able to live a life free of financial worries, which is much more interesting than I had ever imagined possible—all with the help of Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and a little money magic."

With this final example, we see that the old principle "do it right, or don't do it at all" does not automatically have to mean hard, self-destructive work. Instead, the story is much more about taking the leaden heaviness out of the process of earning money in order to reach maximum money-magic efficiency. The interest-

ing thing here is the approach taken—the method of tackling a long-term project with considerable meticulousness—because nearly every effort invested can be used profitably in a number of ways.

So now at the end of this book, the only thing left for me to do is to wish you all the courage and lightheartedness necessary for you to integrate money magic into your everyday magical life in a playful yet serious way. You will most certainly be rewarded with the fruits of success!

Body, Mind & Spirit / Magick Studies