Theurgy, or the Hermetic Practice: A Treatise on Spiritual Alchemy
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Theurgy means "the science or art of divine works." In alchemy, this process is called the "Great Work," which is the purification and exaltation of our "lower" nature by the proper application of esoteric principles, so that it may become united with its higher counterparts, whereby we may attain spiritual, and ultimately divine, consciousness.
Drawing on the teachings of the Egyptian, Greek, and Hebrew mystery schools and quoting extensively from important alchemical writers, Garstin details this process of purification. Students who are curious about alchemy but daunted by the body of its literature and its strange allegories will find this book to be an excellent introduction.
Garstin discusses source alchemical works and clearly explains what their esoteric symbolism means. With the information in this book, students of alchemy can then proceed to make a more informed exploration of the alchemical works and other writings of the Western Mystery Tradition.
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Theurgy, or the Hermetic Practice - E.J. Langford Garstin
Theurgy or Hermetic Practice
A Treatise on Spiritual Alchemy
E. J. Langford Garstin
Foreword by Edward Dunning
Ibis Press
An Imprint of Nicolas-Hays, Inc.
Berwick, Maine
First published in 2004 by
Ibis Press
An Imprint of Nicolas-Hays, Inc.
P. O. Box 1126
Berwick, ME 03901-1126
www.nicolashays.com
Distributed to the trade by
Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
P. O. Box 612
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Foreword copyright © 2004 Edward Dunning.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Nicolas-Hays, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages.
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Cover design by Kathryn Sky-Peck
Printed in the United States of America
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Cover design by Kathryn Sky-Peck.
Printed in the United States of America
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FOREWORD
IN his Apology, Pico della Mirandola distinguished two kinds of magic.
One, he wrote, "which the Greeks called , depends entirely on alliance with evil spirits, and deserves to be regarded with horror, and to be punished; the other is magic in the proper sense of the word.¹
This proper
magic is Theurgy, which should be set in absolute distinction from Goëtia, or black magic. The literal meaning of theurgy
is God working,
and the theurgist strives to produce spiritually desirable effects upon himself with the aid of beneficent spirits, as was noted by the Elizabethan demonologist Reginald Scot, who wrote that There is yet another art, which is called Theurgic; wherein they worke by good angels.
² This is quite different from the definition of Theurgy given by Edward Garstin, for whom it was the practical part of Spiritual Alchemy,
but it fits perfectly both Garstin’s approach to Theurgy and his practice of it.
As an active member of a temple derived from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Garstin certainly knew the distinction between good and evil magic. He was well read and well trained in the esoteric arts and sciences, and particularly knowledgeable in the fields of kabbalah and alchemy. From the works of Thomas Vaughan and Mrs. Atwood he gained a deep understanding of the spiritual aspect of alchemy and came to see it as a paradigm of the theurgic process. It is this remarkable vision that is set out in his books and in many of his published essays.
For Garstin, true magic is the wisdom and philosophy of nature and a perfect knowledge of the works of God and their effects,
and it follows that a Magus is therefore a contemplator of heavenly and divine things; a wise man and a priest.
³ But it must be recognized that attaining such a knowledge of the truth cannot be achieved by any process of human reasoning, but only by a conscious contact with something that is higher than man, and is at the same time a part of him.
⁴ How, then, does the magician acquire the power of direct apprehension of the truth
?⁵
The process is not easy, but it is accessible if we have the key to it. And this key is an understanding of the Great Work, the goal of alchemy. Not, however, the purely practical, laboratory aspect of alchemy, for, as Garstin reminds us, the processes of transmutation are not purely chemical; they involve a knowledge of Magic and an understanding of the more subtle forces of the spiritual world.
⁶ He is emphatic that the attainment of such knowledge and understanding demands a thorough grounding in both the theoretical and practical aspects, and requires considerable preparation: "The neophyte should not be allowed to embark upon this stage of the work until the mind and body [have] been as far as possible purified by prayer, meditation and so forth.⁷
The process itself involves the practitioner entering a state of trance: not the mediumistic or hypnotic trance states, but that form of trance which was by the Greeks called the mantic state,
and which is both preferable and superior
to the other forms, in view of the fact that during it full consciousness is retained, so that a maximum of what is perceived is presented to and remembered by the alert and waking mind.
⁸
It is essential also to realize that, …the most important point in the whole process is that it must be definitely directional. The aimless trance, embarked upon without any knowledge of what is being undertaken, is relatively valueless compared with that which is deliberately and purposively undertaken with a view to acquiring specific knowledge and strength.
⁹
On the surface, this seems to fly in the face of Garstin’s training in the Golden Dawn, members of which order were required not to be mesmerized, hypnotized, nor placed in such a passive state that [they] might be caused to lose control over [their] thoughts, words, or actions.
¹⁰ His trance state,
however, was akin to that attained in the ancient mysteries and eulogized in veiled terms in Mrs. Atwood’s Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850). It is also a clear and close parallel to the extraordinary, ecstatic state into which Arthur Machen entered in 1899, after engaging in a process—never defined but evidently an esoteric form of auto-hypnosis—that enabled him to escape from the dreadful horror that came upon him after the death of his wife. And as with Machen, so with Garstin—he never offers specific details of the practice of Theurgy. This is for the practitioner to discover for him or herself, after suitable study and training, and preferably in the context of an esoteric group or order.
Nor does Garstin give any indication of where such orders are to be found, or how they may be entered. In all that he wrote he gave no hint of his direct involvement in a magical order—he remained faithful to his obligation to the end of his life—and little is known of his life history. But through his relationship to the artist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun (they were distant cousins) we know the essential details of his esoteric career.
Edward John Langford Garstin was born in 1893—neither the exact date nor the place is known—and grew up in London. Details of his education remain unknown, but he acquired a sound and extensive working knowledge of chemistry that would serve him well in his later alchemical studies. He married young but the marriage failed, a casualty in part of WWI. Garstin served throughout the war as an infantry captain and was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry on the Western Front. But he returned with neither professional nor academic qualifications and his outer life was a constant struggle against poverty as one commercial venture after another ended in failure.
His introduction to occultism seems to have come by way of his mother, with whom he shared a flat in Kensington, in west London, during the 1920s. Within a few years of Garstin returning from the war both mother and son became members of a temple of the order Alpha et Omega; but as with many events in Garstin’s life, the exact date of his initiation is unknown.¹¹ The Alpha et Omega was the smallest of the three branches of the Golden Dawn that had budded after the demise of the old order in 1903. It acknowledged S. L. Mathers as its chief and maintained the magical tradition, with J. M. Brodie-Innes in charge of its working in Britain. After Mathers died in 1918, Moina Mathers and Brodie-Innes became effective co-chiefs, with Moina as Imperatrix of the London Temple that was established in 1919.
Garstin, as Frater Animo et Fide (with courage and with loyalty
), took to magic with enthusiasm and proved to be a dedicated student, gaining a profound knowledge of the Kabbalah, and of alchemy, astrology, Egyptian symbolism and the classical Mystery religions. Eventually he attained the exalted Grade of 7° = 4°, Adeptus Exemptus, and became one of the three chiefs, taking the office of Cancellarius, and acting as both recorder and secretary. He also lived up to his motto, for he was fiercely loyal to Mrs. Mathers and to the memory of her late husband.
His loyalty led him into a clash with A. E. Waite, and to a rare defeat. In a letter to The Occult Review (vol. 53, no. 4, April 1931, pp. 267–268), Garstin had criticized Waite’s review of Vulliaud’s translation of the Siphra Di-Tzeniutha. He accused Waite of unfairly denigrating Mathers for his translation of the Zohar and for his alleged comments on fellow occultists, rebuked him for ignorance of Zoharic texts, and concluded his letter by praising The Kabbalah Unveiled as a remarkable achievement, more especially when one remembers that it was produced when Mathers was between eighteen and twenty-one years of age.
Waite replied with glee, commenting that he had known Mathers personally since 1886 when both men were about 30 years old (in fact, Mathers was then 32 years of age). He next pointed out that the expressions Mathers used had been quoted verbatim, and then dissected Garstin’s comments to show their author’s own ignorance of kabbalistic history. It was, perhaps, a cruel letter, but Garstin had brought it upon himself by his eagerness to defend the indefensible. This was the more unfortunate in that Garstin possessed a real knowledge of kabbalistic texts and had a much deeper understanding of kabbalistic spirituality than Mathers ever did. He also put his knowledge and understanding to good use, making it available to all who wished to take it up in the many articles and papers that he wrote for esoteric periodicals.
Nor were Garstin’s interests confined to magic and the Kabbalah. He was equally at home with modern science and the ancient mysteries, and he could write intelligently and knowledgeably about theories of time, the problems of theology, astrology, alchemy, classical paganism or kundalini. His most important paper, on The Physio-Philosophy of Lorenz Oken: The Conversion of Spirit into Nature.
¹² is a model of careful analysis, and displays Garstin’s familiarity with modem chemistry. It also brought him recognition by the academic members of the Quest Society, and for the last two years of the society’s existence—1929 to 1930—Garstin acted as its secretary.
The Quest Society had been