Welcome to Magic of the Ordinary, devoted to reflections on the Mystery and Esoteric Traditions. The aim of this site is to encourage comments and interaction of a range of topics and traditions. My own background is mostly magical (albeit from a different angle to most magical folk) – largely Golden Dawn based but with influences from Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight, Neil Douglas Klotz and others. The title here is borrowed from Gershon Winkler’s book on ‘Jewish Shamanism’.
The header art is courtesy of Mike from Mike’s Prattle and is called ‘The Immeasurable Region’. It was created by Mike especially for MOTO, drawing on the wonderful speech of the Hierophant from the Zelator Grade of the Golden Dawn, commencing, “The Zelator Grade is a preparation for other Grades, a threshold before our discipline…” Mike is a wonderful, spiritual artist and Golden Dawn magician. His work, inspired by the Golden Dawn can be found on Deviant Art here. Do not forget to check out his informative and interesting blog also, Mike’s Prattle.
I hope you will feel free to leave comments as you read on.
May All Beings Be Well; May All Beings Be Happy,
May there be Peace, and Peace and Peace Profound.
Peregrin Wildoak
"We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured." ~
“A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism” ~
How does my spiritual practice and daily life serve the earth?
How does my spiritual practice and daily life affect the poorest third of humanity?
How will my spiritual practice and daily life affect the generations to come in the future?
"It is through your body that you realize you are a spark of divinity."
“For most of us, however, we only think seriously of food or sex or money when it becomes a problem, which is to say when we feel we are not getting our share. When we find ourselves in that situation then I regret to say that meditational visualisations are really not the best way to remedy the lack. … We are here in a physical condition in a physical world and while in that state we have to abide by the laws appropriate to it.”
"The biblical texts have been strained out through a Greek/Latin mindset, which is very surface and static. I sometimes think it would have actually have been better if Western culture had based so called "Western religion" on Greek philosophy, rather than middle-eastern, because then at least you'd have all one thing. It would be eternally consistent. But what we have now is sort of half of each. And you're left with a basically schizophrenic tradition." 
"Can a horse tell you what it means to be human? How can a horse get beyond the boundaries of being a horse and say what it means to be human? Why do we think a human being can say what it means to be God? And yet we’ve done that; we’ve done that and we said that we’ve got it so right that if you don’t believe it we’ll burn you at the stake. That’s a very strange idea." ~
Hey I like your new banner!
Ok ;Qeendom. I know little about how this word or concept came about . Is it an old word ?
I am a feminist so if I am told of a created place/concept is from the feminine but I dont relate to it as a women I feel perplexit.
Balance is not just about lanuage , though it is extremly important to the development of the feminist process. Never the less just adding a prefix to a version of the male kingdom seems perhaps simplistic.
I do not speak for all women, obviuosly, but I have never heard of a Queendom. What is it ?what are its unique attributes? how does it differ to a Kingdom?
Goddesses are located in spaces of power and dominion but I do not think taking a male word and putting a female prefix labels a female attribute to a concept/space. The feminine is complicated terrain.
I appreciate the spirit of the creation of the name but patriarchy is insidious in the West and most language is on some level is political.
Perhaps I just need it fleshed out a bit more, and in the big scheme of things I am not too concerned, many spaces are beyond words and the balance is more finally tuned, but power interests me .
Though I would add to this , even though the whole feminist discourse sounds harsh, and critical in relation to spiritual systems but nothing should be taken for granted .I really respect the Golden Dawn , what I know of and can find no fault. Never the less it has a history that precluded women, and perhaps my rave reminds them why we were.
oh man I am soooooooooooo sorry.
Hi there,
Thanks for the comments here re Malkuth (Kingdom/Queendom) and the Golden Dawn. A quick reply to both
Malkuth – Queendom and Kingdom of the One
Malkuth is the tenth and final (basal) sphere on the Qabalistic Tree of Life and can really only be fully understood through the practice and study of Qabalah. That said, it is the sphere of our daily physical lives and universe, where we live move and have our being – so we all know it intimately already J In some sense.
Queendom – this term is used to make clearer the general translation of the Hebrew Malkuth as ‘Kingdom’. This is because the Hebrew root MLK is both feminine and masculine in nature. So yes, in one sense it has the same meaning and qualities as the ‘Kingdom’, though the two are used together to show a space beyond gender. Also, the term ‘kingdom’ in English really lacks a lot.
However, I want to stress that we are not engaging in word play here. We are correcting it. To translate MLKTh as Kingdom in the first place was inaccurate. The use of Queendom tries to address that inaccuracy, as there is no single English word we can use. The sphere is inclusive and therefore beyond divisions of female, male, feminism, patriarchy etc since it is the physical world we live within – warts and all.
One of the key philosophical principles in Qabalah is balance (through synthesis) leading to transcendence, or a higher state of being. We have not simply changed the labels here by using ‘Queendom. We have pointed out a contradiction and assumption within our regular language. How we choose to consciously respond to this being pointed out is up to us. We can use it as a pause of reflection; we can meditate on the limited nature of words and the transcendence of divisions divine names like MLK point to. Or we can react to it with our own preconceptions and familiar ideological stances
The scholar Neil Douglas Klotz refers to Malkuth as the ‘embodied I can’ of the universe – the place of action and potential manifest in real terms.
To understand MLKTH, the final sphere on the Tree of Life, I suggest you work with and meditate on the word itself. Both in English meanings and in Hebrew, following good meditative practices, as of course taught in the Fire of Azrael
Intellectual information is only the starting point in this learning. Look at the meaning of the word, the Sephira itself, the number (10) etc – there are many good Qabalsitic guides on the internet.
The Golden Dawn and Feminism
Thanks for the comments on feminism and the Golden Dawn. This area has been sadly neglected in Golden Dawn scholarship, the exception of course being Mary K Greer’s excellent, ‘Women of the Golden Dawn”. If you have not read it, you are in for a treat when you do!
I think we need to keep some perspective on this matter. In contrast with today’s feminism the Golden Dawn has indeed not been a path of much use to, or inclusive of women and Goddess. However, we all sit upon the shoulders and achievements of others – in politics particularly.
In its day the Golden Dawn was daringly radical when it came to women – actually allowing them into the Order to practice magic. This was the very first time in the history of Western magic that this had happened. I’ve detailed other examples along similar lines in my various writings also.
And when we look at the influence the Golden Dawn had on its women initiate’s we find it is astounding. From Dion Fortune and her reclamation of the role of the Priestess to Maud Gonne using GD based techniques for political ends in the struggle for the Irish Free State. So I think we need to be careful in judging from our modern day ideas here.
The Golden Dawn is a bit of a strange beastie in that it can bring out the worst example of western esotericism and the best. These days I agree we are still lacking in our engagement with the Goddess within the broader GD tradition. However, nearly all mother GD Orders the world over are dedicated to Isis and some Orders, like ours in Perth, are actively working with Her in many ways.
Dear Penegrin,
I discovered your website and notice that you have some information on Simon Goodman (Ian Watts) there – very interesting. I also note you have made a hyperlink to my websites listing of Simon’s obituary etc. If you could kindly contact me by email I would be interested in hearing from you.
I am unsure about putting up material from Simon that was part of the corpus of materials of this line, but in any case I would be interested in chatting about him and material. I certainly think the ‘Cockroach papers’ should not go online or for public view…for the sake of all people mentioned and concerned in its pages.
You said “there is also some Guardians material, letters from Michael Freedman and (the New Zealand) Magic Pentacle I am sure you are familiar with”… do you mean in Simon’s collection or in your possession? Michael Freedman was my first magical teacher also
Blessed Be and LVX
Cian MacFhiarais
(Frater A.V.O)
Hi Peregrin,
This is not meant to be sycophantic in any way – but I must compliment you on your blog. I have enjoyed plundering it from time to time, and congratulation on your publishing your book. It is not an easy thing to get done. My wife has just self-published, and I have been submitting my own manuscript to publishers, albeit to no avail.
Just a comment about the ‘Queen’ dom. I have no problem with the term (but am not a feminist, nor a woman), and actually find it more revealing of the nature of form. In Kaballah, the Shecinah is said to be wandering this wasteland looking for her mate, seperated from him since the fall. Even Sandlephon (the feminine aspect of Metatron) is associated with this realm, and so, as you have pointed out, translation of MLK to the feminine can be substituted quite easily. The original male oriented KBL’s simply chose things from their cultural perspective, and displaying more of any attribute can only help us to gain understanding in this strange, polarized reality.
Now to address my original comment. I see you have placed a blogroll on you pages, and would like to swap links with you. My address is attached to this note, and I have alredy placed you on my site.
Keep up the Great Work,
LVX,
Madstone
Hey, I have just stumbled upon this site while looking to read about esoteric interpretations of the new movie Avatar. I must say, it took about 2 more clicks around ‘magicoftheordinary’ before I had found a new fav! I am still very new to ancient religion etc. but have a strong interest in the topic. I am not trying to advertise or spam by any means; but I am pretty convinced that everyone who enjoys the subjects of discussion presented on this site would also enjoy the movies: ‘Esoteric Agenda’, and ‘Kymatica’ very much. I did not make them! they are both free on google video. Esoteric Agenda is part1 and very interesting at the very least, Kymatica delves deeper into the inherent connection between everything in the universe and true spirituality. Again, I hope I’m not misunderstood as some sort of paid robot spamming unsuspecting people with gibberish, I stumbled across that information as I stumbled across this website, and think the two of you could get along. (~~,)
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(that aren’t already on this site
About 7 more clicks and I was compelled to post again..
Charter for Compassion = Win
I love your site!
.az
Hi – thanks for the comments Aaron. I am sure you are not a spam robot; well as sure as i can be
Thanks for the suggestions. I will have a look at them soon.
“we can meditate on the limited nature of words”
To many times I have been told to meditate on the nature of some concept because there was no word to describe it the concept at hand. Of course that is what I love so much about language, it changes and grows
If I had a glass I would toast to the evolution of language, and enlightenment for all.
Thank you for visiting my tarot blog…. The blog is in Dutch…, but I hope you liked the pictures.
Hello, Annick, thanks. Only on a tablet at present; will return to your blog later with Google translate
What an interesting site, thank you for your writings. Very informative
You have a well put together and well researched blog. I’m not sure if you’re into these award things, but I have nominated you for the Liebster Award via my Ravemore’s Notes blog… http://ravemore.wordpress.com/
Above there was somebody said the Egyptian Gods are masks. Peregrin answered (I believe correctly) that saying they are beings in their own right. The “masks” as you call it are godforms – the godforms are NOT the gods and the GD system does not present them as being so. The Godforms are outer energy patterns that we borrow from the Gods and that we don and carry (etherically and astrally, via visulaization, etc.) in ritual for the purpose of allowing some of the Gods’ energies to flow through the ritual and empower the working.This does not mean that the Gods behind the godforms are not real. LVX
As clear as clear can be – thanks, Sr SD