The Western Gate

Techniques of High Magic
Francis King / Stephen Skinner
Golden Horde ( Reprint)

My first plunge into serious occult works would have been Dion Fortune’s Psychic Self Defence, swiftly followed by the works of Crowley. Prior to this my curiosity would have been born from Tv shows like The Tomorrow People, Children of the Stones, Catweazle and even earlier HR puffnstuff. I seemed to sympathise with the ‘wicked’ witch in Oz, whose sister had been murdered by some stranger from afar, the same runaway stranger then went so far as to nick her dead sisters shoes. Aye, as the old saying goes, in order to truly master/empathise with someone, walk in their shoes. And Dorothy, didn’t.
As far as books go, we are talking about the period of 1977/78, I remember listening to punk rock, feeling quite rebellious and thus also accumulating works on the occult, because it’s naughty. I remember Close Encounters of the Third Kind coming out in the same time period, I was far too young to join the British UFO Research Society however. None of my peers seemed to have the hunger for all things mystical and fantastical. I learned early on, it would be a lonely path.

Amongst the Fortune/Crowley works were other books I’d obtained, Techniques of High Magic, published in a Pan/Penguin type paperback, cheap paper you wouldn’t wipe your arse on (Pictured left). I preferred a similar book which had just been published (c.1978)~ the Complete Book of Spells Ceremonies and Magic by Migene Gonzalez-Wippler, it was hardback, had better paper and there were pictures of nude women inside… I was just about to hit puberty, what would you expect.
My original Techniques of High Magic was stolen, well actually borrowed with a couple of other books in exchange for me borrowing their huge Sanskrit dictionary by Monier Williams. That’s another story and as all the best occult writers frustratingly say, “we have no time to dwell on this subject here”, suffice to say, they never returned the books they borrowed, and I’ve kept the mammoth Sanskrit dictionary.
Recently I espied a new version of King/Skinners book and for old time sake, and to reacquaint myself with ‘where my mind was at’ in those halcyon days of Punk/Crowley and watching the stars for motherships I purchased.
It’s a new, revised edition. Which annoys me. They should print the new added revisions in a different colour or italics. I like to see how the viewpoint was. We can judge how we have changed surely?

The basic premise of this book, is a one size fits all. A first learned step on the practice of rites, divination and invocation/evocation of “the Gods“. Quick access. Fast food delivery. It felt better than the tacky output offered by the likes of Finbarr, Basil Crouch and Carl Nagal, though collectors love these little fanzines of dabbling-do.
I needed ritual tools however. The Sorcerers Apprentice, based in Leeds came to the rescue offering a full temple set of tools, but to me, it was a no-no, too expensive for a now spotty teenager with delusions of grandeur and Merlin mastery. Strangely a few days after this yearning the ‘head’ paper round boy quit, so I had his round and it paid better, £5.75 as I recall and I did the sums in my head and the Temple kit would be mine, in a few months….. But things happen, and suddenly I went all tribal, Football, West Ham, Aggro, The Cockney Rejects…. my wanderings on the occult would have to wait a few years, I had feuds to fights, glory to be had, the path of the warrior.
I did get the Temple kit from Sorcerers Apprentice eventually, but I was much older, left school, ditched the paper round and got the first job I applied for.
In the meantime, and all the while I was still referencing Techniques of High Magic, Gonzalez Wipplers book, 777 by Crowley, browsing through my now complete volumes of the Unexplained Magazine and various other pseudo occult works.
This is the thing with these one size fits all, these reference books, you don’t really read them and put them down~ finished, they’re a constant source of enduring examination. They are notes which we can build upon if we so wish to know more, however, King/Skinners book does give enough to embark upon the dread path for the idle itching and wayward soul, and also for longevity of its usefulness.
In terms of what I do now to what is shown in the book? well, I use dream, and I use the creative Orphic path, I use nature.
There is a path that can be taken which is familiar, and also the path that is peculiar, if the familiar path is one that feels like us to be home, the peculiar path is one that the curious of nature takes, but the ideas put forward by all these formative ritual books to me were neither familiar or peculiar. To me they were the path of ‘complacency’. Acceptance, blind. Can I cast a circle, call the watchtowers, perform the banishing ritual of the pentagram, draw down the moon, appeal for my will and want to be appeased, close it all up and wait? Yes. But like a stale marriage, the routine, the utter boredom has killed the initiative before I’ve started.
Do this, do that, use this, use that.
Now, I do not want, its not that I have everything I wanted, just I no longer want for want. The struggle to possess does not excite me, I do not wonder what sex with so and so would be like, nor do I care, I certainly don’t need that new (sic) electrickery gadget.
There is very little in the techniques book that is relevant to me or that I’d use. Simply because the urge, and want is not there.
I still reflect on and use the Tarot, but there are much better books than a few lines and footnotes, likewise the IChing, far better to indulge in the full tomes by the likes of the classic Wihelm or the fantastic new offering by Benbell Wen.
I rarely use any of the sigils or symbols in visualisation however wonderful they are alluded to, by whatever great and powerful wizard of Oz they proclaim to conjure, instead I construct or am guided to my own, allowing the barriers before me to reveal the symbol, and this achieved by Lucid dream or creative inspiration that comes from seemingly nowhere.
Ultimately what is it one aspires to, what is it to want. Answers to end existential misery? or to be, let’s face it, as Gods?
For me, the problem became this, I yearn for questions, to evolve and to learn because that is my nature, I never want to be at the point to say, “It is done”, and further, the last thing I would ever want to be, is “Godlike”, become a living God? An Ipsissimus then would tempt the zelators, surely? What if I said I would rather be untitled. Neither this nor that. No epaulet nor rank, no grade, just an idle watcher in the temple.
If I said I were content, perhaps some would say conceited. Then how can I be proud that I have so much more to learn? and do not care if I achieve it? It would be great to shred the guitar like a maestro twiddling a multitude of exotic scales at a blistering pace, with the guitar behind my head, upside down. Will this make me proud, fulfil my ego and deem me conceited when in truth if I just wrote a song with three basic chords that perfectly depicts what I’m trying to express, I’m happy, content!
But lets not dismiss all this reading, nor this work. Did all that formative study, delving into books like ‘Techniques’ forge the path to the point where I’m at today, blissfully content? I can’t really say. So I can’t actually say these books do not help.
Gnosis is the path by which, you develop the tools you need, the truth. It will never be found in one book, maybe a hundred, or maybe none.
And of that great archetype we are told to fear?
The worship of God is psychological transference. We project onto that idea all the needs we as a human being have acquired, the need for protection, comfort, forgiveness, acceptance and ultimately many choose to ignore surrender, that we will never attain perfection, to many that’s not feasible and yet that is the whole point of being. The paradox is that if we were perfect we would not be here, alive, incarnate. We are here because we need imperfection in order to experience and it is experience that is to delight in. The unknown. I don’t want the answers but forever want to question.
Techniques of High Magic, will give, wait for it… techniques of ‘high’ magic. You will find this material in nearly every book you will read henceforth on the subject, the standard template, maybe embellished a little, a bit of seasoning, a bit of sparkle, but essentially the same.
The same. Repetition… why did I tempt myself to wander back when my feet nimble, my thighs cross-country runner rigid, and my mind full of wonder~ well that part still works, move forward, and as Orpheus found out… don’t look back.
Pardon me if I yawn a little here….,

Header image;-Cornelis Bega, The Alchemist (c. 1663)