Sunday, July 25, 2010

Geographical Magick



THE WAND OF POWER: CHAPTER III
by David Griffin

Once Patrick, my goldsmith, had finished cutting the golden letters for the Wand of Power according to my rigid rules, it was technically a simple matter to add the Names of Power to the staff of the wand.

The shaft of the wand was made of simple wood that was a gift from a dear friend in a city sacred to both of us. In terms of construction, epoxy actually makes a nice bond between wood and 24k gold. In the nearly 20 years that have passed since I constructed the Wand of Power, not even one letter has come off or needed to be reglued.

Affixing the letters to the staff was no real chore. What did complicate matters was my determination that this was to be no ordinary wand. The rituals would be carefully timed according to Solar and Lunar cycles of alchemical magick.

I created a unique ritual for each of the twenty Names of Power and chose a special city for each ritual. I carefully chose these cities each for various reasons, mostly for their spiritual history.

London and Paris were clearly on the list due to their historical importance for the Golden Dawn and the Alpha et Omega. Several cities, including Chartres, Einsiedeln, and Montserrat were chosen for rituals as places of pilgrimage of the Black Madonna, a vestige of the mysteries of Isis and the Great Goddess that had survived Christianity from within the new religion itself.

The Black Madonna
I ritually payed my respects to the Alchemist Queen, Christina of Sweden, in the Riario Palace in Rome where she lived and practiced alchemy following her abdication.

Christina of Sweden, The Alchemist Queen
I chose Tubigen, The Hague, and Berlin due to their key roles in Rosicrucian history. In Tubingen, I invoked the Spirit of the Rosicrucian movement and payed my respects to my primogenitors, in the city where a circle of alchemists, together with Johann Valentin Andreae, released of the first Rosicrucian manifestos.

Johann Valentin Andrae
In The Hague lies of the Palace once occupied by Princess Elizabeth Stuart and Frederick V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Following Frederick's failed attempt to take the throne of Bohemia and the couple's flight from Prague, Frederick and Elizabeth's Court in The Hague became a veritable Mecca for Rosicrucians and Alchemists.

Palace of Frederick V & Elizabeth Stuart in The Hague
Center of the Rosicrucian Enlightenment
This palace today houses part of the Dutch government, the Raad van Staat, so the building has heavy government security. I explained to the guards the spiritual importance of the chapel of this Palace to Rosicrucian history. To my great pleasure, the guard granted me not only entry, but even special permission to hold ritual in the Chapel. Alone in what was once the private chapel of Frederick V and Elizabeth Stuart, I invoked the Rosicrucian spirit of this place.

With the magnificent stained glass rose shining down upon me where once the altar had stood, my heart opened and I wept tears of joy. I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty and sanctity of this most sacred Rosicrucian chapel.

It is entirely possible that this was the first time in Centuries that any Rosicrucian ritual had been performed in this chapel. I was deeply moved and highly honored as I paid my respects to my Rosicrucian forbearers.

To my progenitors in the Golden and Rosy Cross Order (Gold und Rosenkreutz), I payed my respects at the tomb of former Rosicrucian Grand Master, Ormesus Magnus, Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia, in the Hohenzollern family crypt beneath the Dom church in Berlin.

Ormesus Magnus, Frederick Wilhelm II
In all, I performed the 20 invocations,  in 20 specially chosen cities, welding the magical Forces of 20 Qabalistic names to the Wand of Power. Each of these 20 invocations additionally corresponded to one of the 22 Hebrew characters. Thus following the invocations of the 20 Names of Power, 2 additional invocations would be necessary to complete the entire cycle of 22.

I therefore returned to Paris, where I rented a room in a hotel directly next door to where S.L. and Moina MacGregor Mathers had once lived in Paris.

Moina and S.L. MacGregor Mathers
Here I performed a ritual with the intention of restoring the Alpha et Omega to its rightful place as an powerful school of light and guidance for those seeking spiritual development. At the crescendo of this ritual, I welded the power of the Greek characters "Alpha" and "Omega" to the Wand of Power.

For the 22d and final ritual, completing the geographical magick cycle of The Wand of Power, only one city seemed to me to correct one - once the center of occult power of the Knight's Templar, the city that still today remains confluence of the three dominant Western religions:

Jerusalem
Seal of the Knights Templar
In Jerusalem, I welded the symbols of the 7 ancient and 3 modern planets to the Wand, thus completing its Qabalistic and Astrological Magic symbolism with the culmination of the 22 invocations.

Thus, no further obstacles remained to the consecration of the Wand of Power. Having gone to such extremes in its construction, in my mind there was only one place worthy left on Earth of such a consecration:

The King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Egypt
With this Wand so sacredly assembled, its consecration should have proven easy. Little did I know what an ordeal still lay ahead of me, however, and just how wrong things would go in Egypt.

But this too is a story for another day!

Would you like to know immediately each time when a new chapter of the story of my misadventures is ready?

Click on the "Follow" button on the column to the right and I will make sure you are always the first to know. You will especially enjoy hearing about my mishaps with:

"THE WAND OF POWER IN THE KING'S CHAMBER"

TO BE CONTINUED ...