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 ...

The Crucible & The Wand of Power

by David Griffin

The Wand of Power

When it came to the construction of my Magical Wand, I was a perfectionist in every way.

Every letter of every Magical Name of Power for this Wand was hand cut by a Master goldsmith.

I insisted on using only gold actually provided by me, produced through alchemical transmutation by virtue of the Philosopher's Stone, then rectified and multiplied into a state of absolute purity.

Nonetheless, I still insisted on testing every single ounce of gold immediately prior to its use in my goldsmith's workshop.

For an alchemist or even for a goldsmith, it is quite simple to check the purity of gold. Here is how:

Place a piece gold in a crucible and heat it until it melts. 100% pure gold, in its molten state shines with a brilliant, yellow white light much like the Sun. This is why Gold in alchemy has always corresponded to the Sun. This is also why Gold is considered by alchemists as the noblest of all metals.

On the other hand, with molten gold, even the slightest impurity becomes immediately visible as dark spots, much like dark sunspots across the face of of the Sun. By this method, even normal 24k gold is revealed as highly impure for alchemical and magical purposes!

My poor goldsmith! Spotting such impurities is a simple matter. Removing them is another matter altogether sometimes requiring laborious rectification...

...And for gold for my magical implements, I would accept nothing less than ABSOLUTE purity. Even the slightest impurity revealed by the above test was enough for me to require additional purification of the gold.

Patrick, my goldsmith, was a Chinese immigrant, sent in advance to get his family and their fortune out of Hong Kong, prior to its return to the Communists. Patrick had never experienced such an odd client like me.

On the one hand, I gave Patrick plenty of work - work that stretched his skills to the limit and sometimes even beyond - and, of course, I paid him top dollar for his services.

On the other hand - Patrick had never experienced such a demanding client as me either. I insisted on testing, over and over, the purity every single ounce of gold prior to its use. As I was traveling as a Tour Director, I did not have easy access to my own alchemical laboratory. I therefore taught Patrick how to rectify gold by alchemical means, and required him to perform any necessary operations to reach a state of ABSOLUTE purity in any gold for use on my Wand or any other Objects of Magical Power.

Moreover, every operation involving any piece of my Wand needed to be performed at extremely precise times - according to precise Lunar or Solar cycles. Patrick humored me and always followed my instructions precisely - no matter how strange they may have seemed to him.

These Solar and Lunar cycles culminated in the completion of my Magic Wand, when I quickly mounted the Gold and Silver tips on the Wand under the light of Total Solar Eclipse in Baja California in 1991.

And so it was that under the light of this perfect Conjunctio of Sun and Moon that The Wand of Power was born...

... But this is a story for another day! Keep coming back and tell your friends about this blog.

Don't miss the next exciting chapter of the Misadventures of a Golden Dawn Magus, all about my mishaps with:

"The Black Sun & The Wand of Power"

The Magus & The Sheikh

by David Griffin

The construction of my magic wand, depicted in the film above was a labor of love and an ordeal of Hercules.

Little did I know - when I started to make my wand - that it would one day become the Wand of the Magus of Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega - and one of the crown jewels of the AO, founded by S.L. MacGregor Mathers in 1906.

Last Winter, following my publication of photographs of my magical implements in the above film, a magical grimoire and art collector from Dubai offered to buy my wand for USD $1.2 Million.

As astounding as this is - and as tempted as I was - I politely refused.

To my utter astonishment, the Sheikh would not take no for an answer. Instead, he followed up with a renewed and even better offer - this time for my entire collection of golden magical implements from the film above (wand, rings, tablets, etc.).

The Sheikh offered USD $3 Million.

At the time, my finances were stretched nearly to the point of breaking - by a vast array of magical projects I still have underway. Needless to say, the offer was extremely attractive.

Nonetheless, after careful consideration - and following a period of extreme inner conflict - I turned this offer down as well.

These offers had put me in a very serious inner dilemma. Here I was, in one of the most economically challenged periods of my life, when suddenly destiny put two offers like this on my plate.

Think about it.

I could have quit my mundane job and have devoted the rest of my life exclusively to the practice of Ritual Magic and Internal Alchemy!

But then again, something just didn't feel right.

So here I am, six months later, cruising down Highway 15 towards Zion Canyon on a Tour Bus, telling the same stories in four languages I have been telling for decades.

What could have motivated a man to turn down such an offer and to resign himself to such a fate instead?

Magical ethics?

No way!

My decision was based on something far more personal - The history of how I created my magic wand - How I consecrated it - and my Wand's history in so many of my magical adventures!

At least the Sheikh had taught me me one important thing. The time is long overdue for me to share these stories of my magical adventures - and MISadventures - with YOU.

This is my story.

It is the story of how an ordinary man - filled with faith - possessed by a dream of spiritual adventure - and ready to do WHATEVER it takes to make this dream REAL ...

... became a GOLDEN DAWN MAGUS.

In the Cave of the Green Dragon

Around the turn of the Millennium, Jean-Pascal Ruggiu (GH Frater Lux Aurora, Imperator of Ahathoor Temple No. 7 in Paris) and I visited the HOGD/AO temple in Mallorca, Spain. While in Mallorca, we stayed with our friend Tony, who practices a rather interesting form of Shamanism.

All week long, Tony showed Jean-Pascal and I places of unusual spiritual interest around the island. I was rather surprised, having previously considered Mallorca little more than a tourist island. All week long, Tony stirred the cauldron of a prank he was secretly planning to play on us. There was one place he was saving for last, for Saturday, the night of the Full Moon, following the Golden Dawn initiations that day.

And so it was that on Saturday night, tired though we were from a full day of initiations, Jean-Pascal and I were herded into the back seat of Tony's Surburban. Together, we drove off into the humid darkness in search of "The Cave of The Green Dragon."

We drove through an impenetrable darkness for what seemed like hours, shaken up like martinis on a road more bumpy than smooth. On the way, Tony filled our ears with stories told over Centuries by villagers living near the cave. According to legend, the cave was used not only for ritual by the Knight's Templar, but also as a place to hide treasure. The island itself served as a useful stop for the Templars along the route to the Holy Land.

Among the myriad magical lineages Jean-Pascal and I have collected over the years, we each also have been initiated into lineages of the Knights Templar. We therefore listened to these stories with particular interest and fascination.

When we finally arrived, the only entrance to the area was barred by a large and forbidding lock on a massive iron gate. Tony assured us that this forbidding lock was only there to scare away nosy tourists, which he proved by easily opening the apparently locked gate with a gentle nudge.

We entered ...

... And the hair stood straight up on the back of my neck!

Having cultivated my energetic bodies through decades of magical and alchemical practice, I have become quite sensitive to the energies of places of power. After only a few dark steps down the winding staircase, I knew in my body that this was indeed a place of extraordinary power. Specifically, this place was loaded with a powerful magical current of telluric energy.

At the bottom of the stairs, we found ourselves at the entrance to what once had been The Cave of the Green Dragon. Over the Centuries, there had clearly been a collapse, and where once solid rick had been above, the Moon and the Stars now shined down with particular brilliance.

Near the center of the cave was an ancient altar, embossed with the paten cross of the Knight's Templar. Above the altar on the wall was an ancient fresco, carved in relief into the wall, depicting two knights riding on a solitary horse, together holding a single spear, piercing the heart of a rather ominous looking dragon.

Jean-Pascal and I were both elated, each of us having fully understood everything independently of one another. We indeed found ourselves in a place of extraordinary power, a place of enormous telluric current, that had been used by magicians of the Order of the Knight's Templar for their own magical ends Centuries ago.

The name of the cave, and all of the stories about this place, even the Green Dragon - all of this - were ways for the profane to describe the enormous telluric current present in this place. Tony interjected that stories among local shamans describe an enormous non-organic entity inhabiting the cave.

Jean-Pascal explained to Tony that this "entity" is actually the cave itself. I interjected that the fresco with the Knights and the Dragon was showing how Knight Templar magicians had correctly understood how to harness the energy of this place for their own purposes.

I dispatched two Neophytes from the local Temple to fetch my sword together with Jean-Pascal's from the suburban. Luckily, we had them along as we had been in Temple all day. There was no way that I would let such an enormous magical opportunity slip through my fingers. Telluric energy like this, such a powerful material force, could be used to materialize just about anything.

There we were - in Tony's trap - set up for the prank he had been planning to play on us all week, but that had taken an unexpected twist since Jean-Pascal and I so intimately understood the magical implications of this place.

With a straight face and a sly grin, Tony led us deeper into the cave, indicating to us a place to sit and meditate, where a tiny opening led to the bowels of the cave. Here Tony's hidden agenda became apparent ...

There were BATS!!!!!!!

Hundreds of bats - bats flying in and out of the mouth of that deeper cave - bats whizzing past our heads - at exactly the place Tony had indicated us to sit.

Tony's deeper game was now out in the open. All along, Tony had intended to frighten us with stories about The Cave of the Green Dragon leading up to the bats at the mouth of the cave.

But this plan had backfired. Jean-Pascal and I simply ignored Tony's hidden agenda as well as the bats. Bats were irrelevant, except to show us where was the most powerful focal point of the telluric energies of the cave. I spent nearly an hour on that spot, in deep, magical meditation, soaking up the potent telluric energies.

Once we finished our meditation, Jean-Pascal and I decided to perform a ritual, placing our Templar swords on the altar in magical pact with The Green Dragon, to use the telluric energies to materialize a whole variety of magical intentions.

We invited Tony to pact with the dragon together with us, and to add his Shaman's staff together with our swords, Tony grew visibly afraid, terrified of ANY sort of magical pact, and warned us that The Green Dragon could be extremely dangerous.

"Hogwash," Jean-Pascal replied, "we Templars have safely pacted with this dragon for Centuries. That is the whole meaning of this place".

Jean-Pascal and I, with great satisfaction, finished our ritual at the altar, whereas Tony found an excuse to take the Neophytes back to the car, leaving us alone with The Green Dragon.

We left the cave energized, refreshed, and deeply grateful to The Green Dragon, who had not only granted the materialization of all our desires...

...but even turned the tables on Tony, the cunning Shaman that - like so many others - had underestimated the Magistri Templi of the Golden Dawn!

- David Griffin