All books listed below are by Oliver St. John. Click on the images to view the cover art of the books at full size. We request that you order books direct by the links on this page. Thank you for supporting Ordo Astri.
For more books on operational Magick, Ritual and Thelema, including Rosicrucianism and Hermetic Studies, Astrology and Tarot Divination, click here (opens a new page).
Ordo Astri Books
Advaita Vedanta—Question of the Real
Inclusive of Kundalini Yoga
This book includes an illustrated outline of the lotuses, chakras and bija mantras of Kundalini Yoga. The Advaitan Way of Self-Realisation involves a prolonged and deep enquiry into the nature of the Self—by which is meant the true Self called Atma. While it would be absurd to claim that a small book like this is in any way ‘complete’ when the subject is vast and was developed fourteen centuries ago from a tradition already at least five thousand years old, it is comprehensive. By this we mean that it gives a reliable introduction to Advaitan Non-dual theory as well as practice that will endure the test of time. It will bring light to the subject for the veriest beginner and will prove at the same time a valuable resource for the practioner at an intermediate level. It will even assist the advanced yogin that teaches others, if we assume they are qualified to do that, in that it provides a sound basis for instruction. ‘Self-Realisation’ is a short way of saying ‘direct knowledge of the supreme principial reality, gained not by inference or belief’. To the religious person or the bhakti devotee, this is knowledge of God, in whatever name or form God is worshipped. Advaita actually goes one step even beyond that and claims it is possible to know the Supreme Identity, otherwise called Brahma Nirguna, ‘Brahma with no attributes’, that is to say, beyond name and form. This is no small claim; however, seers and sages for millennia have asserted its truth.
Format: trade paperback; perfect binding (6” x 9”); 120 printed pages.
Order book from the author’s website (Lulu) here.
Ordo Astri Books: Metamorphosis
Hermetic Science and Yoga Power
Paperback edition now available! This book completes the treatise on Raja Yoga that was begun with the previous work, Thunder Perfect Gnosis.
With this book we continue to look at subjects of Gnostic and Hermetic interest previously left unexplored from the metaphysical point of view. This includes arcane matters such as the Evil Genius, Psychic Residues, and Telesmata and Familiar Spirits. A lengthy chapter is devoted to Alexandrian Gnosticism. Part Two, ‘Yoga Power’, is a continuation of our very practical instruction on the Raja Yoga of Patanjali that took up a large part of Thunder Perfect Gnosis. We now go more deeply into intellective process, devotional practice (bhakti) and concentration of the mind. The advanced levels of Samyama Yoga are now disclosed, revealing an exact traditional science. The book concludes with the Supernormal Powers, of which almost nothing is known in the West, including Knowledge of the Past and Future, Knowledge of the Language of all Beings, Knowledge of Previous States of Existence, How to Read Minds, Invisibility and more.
Order standard perfect bound paperback edition here.
Hardbound edition: linen wrap, with blue linen boards, endpapers and gold folio stamp on the spine. It comprises 212 pages in all on white papers and is fully illustrated. View or order hardbound edition from the author’s website at Lulu here.
Thunder Perfect Gnosis—Intellectual Flower of Mind
Paperback edition now available! We here follow up points of special interest on Gnostic and other texts, including the remarkable Thunder Perfect Mind. Yoga and a science of the mind is implicit in all of them. Our interest is in metaphysical and universal symbolism; we are not overly concerned with factual references, names, dates and places. The surviving fragments of these ancient texts, as with the Yoga-Sutras, have their true origins in times that were already ancient when the Christian Gospels were being composed. The evidence for a yoga practice and science of the mind in those texts will become clear from studying this book. The second part of the book comprises a careful, practical study of the Yoga-Sutras attributed to Patanjali and Vyasa. There is no simplification or dilution of the yoga method; yet that method is clearly explained. The goal of yoga remains the same: union with God, immortality and even final liberation for those rare individuals that will renounce the world.
Perfect bound paperback edition: order here.
Hardbound edition: linen wrap, with endpapers and gold folio stamp on the spine. It comprises 216 pages in all on white papers and is illustrated throughout. Order hardbound edition from the author’s website here.
Read an article from this book here.
Thirty-two paths of Wisdom
Key to the Hermetic Qabalah: Commentary on the Shining Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah and the Paths of Evil.
Paperback edition now available! The first section of this book serves as an introduction to the Qabalah inclusive of the Hebraic tradition, from which the latter was developed, as well as the modern Hermetic tradition. There follows a new commentary on the Thirty-two paths of Wisdom from the most important Qabalistic source work, The Sepher Yetzirah or Book of Formation. ‘The Paths of Evil’ concerns the traditional Qliphoth of the first ten paths and those corresponding to the Zodiac. The last section, ‘The Tunnels of Set’, is a critical reappraisal of Kenneth Grant’s Nightside of Eden Part Two, revealing how Aleister Crowley and then Grant and others worked to invert symbolism, effectively removing all spiritual possibilities for those that would follow them. By placing this in the context of the neo-spiritualist and postmodern occult movement it is shown how the decline and intellectual collapse of an entire civilisation towards the final dissolution of our world is being supernaturally accelerated.
Perfect bound paperback edition: order here.
Hardbound edition: linen wrap, blue boards, with endpapers and gold folio stamp on the spine. It comprises 128 pages in all on white papers. Order hardbound book from the author’s website at Lulu here.
The Way of Knowledge in the Reign of Antichrist
Paperback edition now available! This book includes five chapters on the Holy Guardian Angel and five chapters on yoga, including Raja Yoga and Kundalini Yoga. Here we pass beyond the syncretism of occultism to the synthesis of the metaphysical gnosis. The sequel to Nu Hermetica continues the story where the latter left off, but there is greater focus on practicality, as indicated by the title. The metaphysical gnosis is necessarily the view from the ‘centre’, something that may be shown geometrically, for example the three-dimensional cross or Cube of Space. This is also symbolised in various traditions by the ‘holy city’, the summit of a mountain or its centre. In the Age of Kali Yuga there was effected a withdrawal or hiding of knowledge and initiatic rites were thus placed in caves or labyrinths, either symbolically or literally. All true initiatic paths lead to the same goal and only differ from the point of view of the outsider who only sees the appearance. The outward differences of paths owe merely to cultural or other modifications, as necessary, and none of that is of any consequence to initiation at all.
As was stated in bold terms in Nu Hermetica, we must deal with the conditions of the world that we now find ourselves in. While we will not avoid the subject, as is clear by the full title of the book, it is necessary to point out that the book is not a comment on social conditions or the more or less extraordinary phenomena that is all part of the ‘signs of the times’.
Perfect paperback edition: order from the author’s website at Lulu here.
Hardbound edition: linen wrap, with endpapers and gold folio stamp on the spine. It comprises 200 pages in all on white papers and is fully illustrated. Order hardbound book from the author’s website here.
Ordo Astri Books: Nu Hermetica—Initiation and Metaphysical Reality
Paperback edition now available! The voices of the Egyptian neteru are as loud and clear today as they were in ancient history for those who are still able to hear them amidst the noise and tumult of a civilisation that has lost all heart. Thelema and the (Egyptian) Book of the Law are here placed in the context of a metaphysical perspective. Some of the book is thus an advanced commentary on the Thelemic source work, which will be of interest to those not wholly beguiled by the obfuscations of Crowley and those who follow him. The book addresses the difficulty of initiation in the twenty-first century—for the Way has not changed but the conditions we work under certainly have. Laws, news, facts and even history are updated, deleted, replaced and rewritten on a daily basis. So-called alternative movements, some of which even claim to be ‘spiritual’, only serve to reinforce profane, anti-spiritual notions. There is a need to pass on the real knowledge to those few that are willing and able to receive it.
Comprises 236 pages in all on white papers and is fully illustrated.
View/order paperback version here.
View/order harddbound book from the author’s website here.
Details: hardbound, linen wrap, with blue linen boards, endpapers and gold folio stamp on the spine.
Read an artice from this book here.
The Law of Thelema—Hidden Alchemy
At the end of an entire Manvantara or ‘world’, mankind stands upon the threshold of total dissolution. Even those with a spiritual orientation, or what passes for that now, have not resisted the temptation of seeking a return to Eden through the adaptation of traditional sciences without comprehension, owing to the rejection of all real metaphysical knowledge. This folly has resulted in the awakening of dangerous atavisms, of the Qliphotic order, that are impossible to control by profane persons lacking highly specialised knowledge.
Read more...
The aim of this present work, our final word on Thelema, is to establish what is called the Law of Thelema in the context of the Hermetic and alchemical tradition from whence it has its origins. Hermeticism may be accurately construed as ‘that which came out of Egypt’, after the decline of its language and civilisation. The legend of the Christ or Saviour who passes through trial and ordeal to be born in spirit was well founded at the Egyptian cult centre Aunnu, known by the Greeks as Heliopolis and called On in the biblical Old Testament. Here was celebrated the birth, death and resurrection of the hawk-headed star-god, Horus. In the (Egyptian) Book of the Law, Liber AL vel Legis as it has come to be known, this god takes various forms. Among these are the Sphinx, the Dwarf Soul, and the Angel of Judgement. The Khabs, the Khu and the Ka are ancient Egyptian pictographic symbols, and the many gods mentioned in the book are specific to the transformative rôles played by Deity at cult centres of Egypt such as Thebes and Heliopolis.
It must be clearly understood that the present work owes nothing at all to the thinking of Aleister Crowley or of his followers. Our purpose is to reveal the secrets of alchemy and the transfiguration of the soul that are encrypted in the text of Liber AL. It is possible then to find a way out of the snares of modern and postmodern occultism, so freeing our minds from the mantras that orchestrate the ‘dance of the lemmings’ into the Abyss.
Standard perfect bound paperback: view/order from the author’s website here.
Hardbound edition: Linen wrap, blue boards, with endpapers and gold folio stamp on the spine. Order from the author’s website at Lulu here.
The Flaming Sword Sepher Sephiroth Vol One
Revised 2024
The Flaming Sword Sepher Sephiroth consists of more than 1000 pages, in two volumes. The book also serves as a veritable encyclopaedia of the occult, and was the first of its kind. In addition to the substantial Sepher Sephiroth there is an introductory guide to the use of the book, tables of Hebrew, Greek and Enochian values, prime numbers, and a complete set of Magical Kameas with corrected and redrawn planetary seals and sigils. The Flaming Sword is the result of many years of practical work and research by the author. Greek words from the New Testament and Hermetica are included, in addition to the usual Hebrew words; the entire Enochian vocabulary of John Dee is included, as well as some Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic and ancient Egyptian words. Where appropriate, Gematria with detailed Qabalistic notes has been provided. The Flaming Sword provides multiple solutions to all of the riddles of the (Egyptian) Book of the Law, Liber AL vel Legis, as well as some of the most cryptic passages.
Read more about the updated and revised books here.
Volume One: 588 pages
View / buy The Flaming Sword Volume One from author’s Lulu website here.
Volume Two (Revised) is expected in 2025.
Ordo Astri: The Enterer of the Threshold
Revised 2024
This book serves as an introduction to the Hermetic Order of the Star and Snake. It is in every way a concise theoretical and practical guide. The aim of our work is to prepare for spiritual realisation. The first real or effective initiation involves psychic regeneration, but that must not be confused with the goal itself; it is only subsidiary to the goal—a further preparation. Full realisation involves final and permanent transformation of all human possibilities to the spiritual order of possibilities, which is entirely outside of and beyond the human domain or sphere of the individuality.
This revised edition includes our Ritual of the Gates of Babalon (a Gnostic variation on the well-known pentagram ritual) and a complete explanation of our Egyptian Yoga method and praxis. The book also includes Key Scale correspondence tables, expanded and corrected. As well as the primary Qabalistic Sephiroth, Gods and Angels, the tables cover everything needed by the practical magician: colours, magical powers, symbolic weapons, perfumes, precious stones, plants, animals and legendary creatures.
Format: trade paperback; perfect binding (6” x 9”)
Order the book here.
Read more about this book here.
Books: Notes
More books on Hermetic and Magick Studies, Rosicrucianism, Tarot and Astrology: click here (opens a new page).
All books on this page can be ordered direct from the author’s website at Lulu by following the links given here. Proceeds of the sales of our books help to fund Ordo Astri.
Books in preparation: The Flaming Sword Sepher Sephiroth Volume Two. Magick Here and Now.
Oliver St. John YouTube Channel.