Hermetic and Rosicrucian Studies: Books on operational Magick, Ritual and Thelema. Including Astrology and Tarot Divination.
For books on advanced metaphysical studies and Raja Yoga, click here (opens a new page).
Hermetic Qabalah Foundation—Complete Course
Revised 2024
Your studies in Hermetic Qabalah should start here! Herein is the key to spiritual alchemy, magick and yoga: the Tree of Life is seeded in the astrosome of the magician so the rituals and practices are a gateway to true knowledge. Awakening the Serpent Power allows the development of possibilities required to transcend the perceptions of the mind and realise true knowledge. The Angel or supranatural power of divinity can assist in the conscious return to the Garden of Eden. The Qabalah is the basis for meditation, magick, astrology and tarot, including the art of gematria, talismans, invocation and evocation, the pentagram and hexagram and symbolic weapons. All this is seamlessly integrated with the one-year practical coursework through ritual meditation. Preliminary work includes the Wisdom of Breath, Ritual Sonics, Assumption of the Godform and a variant form of the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. The student then moves, step-by-step, towards creation of an astral double by which the individual possibilities are extended.
Format: trade paperback; perfect binding (6” x 9”)
Order the book here.
Studies: Hermetic Astrology
Revised and Extended (2024)
Your studies in astrology should start here! The hieroglyphs of the stars are the flaming runes of knowledge that were written in the sky aeons before any human hand cut a stroke with a stylus. The primary aim of this book is to explain astrology in a simple and concise way. The veriest beginner will quickly gain an understanding of their natal horoscope, while those already well-versed in the subject will find here magical applications for the art that do not appear in other books on astrology. This will be very welcome to those who wish to find a key to astrology and even occultism, without psychologisation or meaningless jargon. The intelligent enthusiast has no need for number-crunching arithmetic or reliance on computers for interpretation. Here in one small book is a complete ‘teach yourself’ course in astrology covering chart interpretation, the dignities of signs, houses and planets, aspects and astrological timing. Knowledge includes the Part of Fortune, the Dragon Stars or Nodes of the Moon and Sexual Magick, the Egyptian Ka or double, the Holy Guardian Angel, Evil Genius, Outer Gateways, use of Tarot cards and the natal chart as a Master Key of Life.
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 here.
Magical Theurgy—Rituals of the Tarot
Revised 2024
Magical Theurgy is a powerfully compelling grimoire of modern and traditional magick, and comprises a course in ritual magick and Tarot. The book gives the elemental mudras or Godforms and a meditation method, plus simple and advanced magical rituals. Hermetic Tantra-yoga serves as an excellent means of awakening power for those familiar with the Western Mystery Tradition, and who wish to take their knowledge further. The book includes a guide on how to make and charge talismans with illustrations of the Magic Squares (or Kameas) and sigils of planetary spirits. Everything needed by the magician is here placed under one cover including Solomonic magick and planetary hours. The tables of Qabalistic correspondences are inclusive of magical powers, potencies, colours, perfumes, magical weapons, plants, gems, legendary creatures and the vices and virtues. Tarot divination is the means of opening and extending lines of communication between the temporal and the supernatural worlds. A complete method is given here. The core of this book is the Grand Tarot Operation, a thirty-day theurgic operation.
The book’s cover art shown here is from the hardbound edition. The paperback edition has the same design but on a white background.
Standard perfect bound paperback (white cover): Order from the author’s website here.
Hardbound edition (black cover): Linen wrap, blue boards, with endpapers and gold folio stamp on the spine. Order from the author’s website here.
Studies: The Mystic Tarot
and the Trees of Eternity (Revised 2024)
Much of this book is from the diary record of the author—an adventurous magician that flits owl-like through the twilight realms of sorcery only to reappear as the soaring falcon of spiritual light. Each of the twenty-two chapters is divided into two sections, Light-path and Night-path, and is headed by a commentary on the relevant text from the Sepher Yetzirah. The methods include Theurgic, Goetic and Enochian magick. The narrative is anchored through earth location, in this case the ‘Island’ promontory on the West Penwith Peninsula. The book thus has a distinctly elemental nature, reflective of changing weather and seasons. Various themes are woven together, one of which reveals what it was like to work as an Initiate of Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Order. The culmination is a magical battle between sorcerers. The experiential account is nonetheless accurate to the last detail; the events in the so-called real world mirror the interior worlds of spiritual and magical working.
Standard perfect bound paperback (purple cover): Order from the author’s website here.
Hardbound edition (black cover): Linen wrap, blue boards, with endpapers and gold folio stamp on the spine. Order from the author’s website here.
Books: Ritual Magick—Initiation of the Star and Snake
Revised 2024
Studies in ceremonial and ritual magick. The rituals and methods given in this book are drawn from the legacy of the Hermetic Order of the Star and Snake. It is a complete magical system of initiatic grades or degrees, brought to the highest level. Our ritual mandala objectifies the Cosmic Serpent. The winding snakes of the Caduceus are the dual expression of the Occult Force. The lunar and solar forces are invoked simultaneously to raise consciousness in the central column. We orient to the stellar North, the place of greatest power. It marks the ‘imperishable’ or immortal constellations that circle the Polar Axis. In the ritual circle, the North is a gateway for manifestation of the invoked forces of the operation. The sounding of eleven knocks or knells for us signifies the perfect harmonisation of the macrocosm, the ‘six’, and the microcosm, the ‘five’.
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Subjects include the Eight Limbs of Yoga, the Circle of the Place, Mudras or signs of the grades, Ritual of the Gates of Babalon, formulation of the Magical Name, Opening and Closing the Temple, Star and Snake Tantra-yoga, (revised) Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram, Rising on the Planes, Skrying and Clairvoyance, Consecration of Talismans, the Egyptian Mass, Ritual for Psychic Self-defence, the Holy Guardian Angel, Ritual of the Rosy Cross, Consecration of the Magical Sword, Goetic Evocation, the Ceremony of the Watchtowers and Enochian Magick.
Format: trade paperback; perfect binding (6” x 9”); 284 pages in total.
Order the book here.
Babalon Unveiled! Thelemic Monographs
Second Revised Edition (2023)
Studies on Thelema. Second Edition Revised (8th April 2023): Here is the definitive work on Thelema, magick and the key role of the Shakti. ‘Lapis Philosophorum’ redefines Thelema, liberating it from the accretions of modern and postmodernist obfuscation.
‘Babalon Unveiled’ is the title piece of this collection and is one of seven related studies on the mystery of the Goddess in her various names and forms, including that of the Scarlet Woman. Each shows an aspect of her oracular voice as it has been heard and recorded down the ages. ‘Angels of Sacred Dance, Love and Whoredom’ examines how the divine feminine of pre-religious antiquity was demonised, resulting in the host of ‘fallen angels’ whose identity is yet preserved in traditional texts. The book is dedicated to the memory of Rose Edith Kelly, otherwise known as Rose Crowley or Ouarda the Seer. Rose was the medium for the transmission activated through the Stele of Revealing in the Cairo museum in 1904.
Format: 6 x 9 hardcover, dustjacket; blue linen boards; gold foil stamp lettering on spine; white end papers, 168 pages in all.
Order book from the author’s website here.
Read an article from the Second Edition here.
Dreaming Thelema and Magical Art
Studies on Surrealism in magick and the occult. Comprises two books under one cover. Both volumes presented here comprise a Qabalistic tour de force. Surrealism has always embraced magick. Surrealist automatism owes nothing to traditional sciences but a good deal to the methods of spiritism and occultism. We here present a republication of two of our earlier books, Magical Art and Dreaming Thelema (2016), printed on full colour pages as they both feature artwork. They have been completely re-written from a metaphysical point of view—for that is something entirely absent in both academic and neo-spiritualist works. In some respects, Magical Art is a vindication of the work of the English scholar and poet Thomas De Quincey and his Confessions of an English Opium Eater. It also features the work of English Surrealist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun. The second book concerns the doomladen cosmic vision of H.P. Lovecraft, for it is central to the ideas expressed in the topsy-turvy world of orientalist Kenneth Grant, which are here subjected to rigorous intellectual scrutiny—as is the work of Aleister Crowley. Thelema is explained from a metaphysical perspective. The book includes 17 original Surrealist paintings.
This luxurious book is hardcover, linen wrap, with endpapers and gold folio stamp on the spine. It comprises 140 pages in all on premium 80# white coated photographic paper and is fully illustrated throughout.
Order hardcover book from the author’s website at Lulu here.
Liber 373 Astrum Draconis (Revised 2024)
Studies in the art of magical invocation. The Way of the Dragon Star: True sight is the perception of that which is invisible to men. Thus do we Awaken from the Dream of Life to the Life in Spirit! This book comprises a unique course in magick that includes knowledge lectures, invocation, rituals, yoga and meditation. The book embraces a special form of devotional (bhakti) yoga, which combines our methods of kriya yoga and devotion to the Shakti with classical Hermetic or occult philosophy, including the invocation of celestial supra-human intelligences for the purpose of obtaining knowledge. Our work is to reach out to the stars. This does not in any way deny the importance of sending roots down into the earth upon which our physical shells have their being. Working with the shape, form and invisible spirit of the place where we live is a key principle in the Tantrik arts. So far as the ‘locality’ of deities is concerned, as we can reach out to any star in the cosmos so we must extend our reach to every corner of the globe.
Standard perfect bound paperback: Order from the author’s website at Lulu here.
The Phoenix and other Stellar Rites of Initiation
Revised 2024
Advanced studies in ceremonial and ritual magick. The Phoenix is the rite of admission to Neophyte, the first degree of the Golden Dawn as reconstituted by our Hermetic Order of the Star and Snake. The first degree is called the ‘Grade of Earth’ because it corresponds to Malkuth, the Kingdom. The Magick of Light is expressive of universal natural principles. It is the basis for the consecration of talismans, invocation and evocation. We also include here the admission to the grade of Zelator and Liber 717 or Zain, a carefully adapted version of the Bornless Ritual for the Adeptus Minor. The three rituals of initiation each come with a full commentary. The ‘flashing colours’ are particular to the Magick of Light and have a special rôle in theurgical rites. The book is therefore printed on photographic paper and includes 35 luxurious full colour diagrams and graphic illustrations.
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 here.
Egyptian Tarot and Guidebook (pre-orders taken)
The Egyptian Tarot deck and Guidebook is now on pre-order from Crossed Crow Books and will be released 1st October 2025. In every true act of divination, in every true act of magick, something of the soul is born into the world. The soul has a tenuous relation with the mind, and cannot do without that relation; the very existence of the soul depends on it. The soul is latent until she brings forth her ‘child’, by which she restores the world to the divine image—which is called a Great Work. It is through such subtle relations that the soul realises the principle by which it is possible to resurrect the whole (integral) individual.
This book focuses on the structure of the Tarot and the Qabalistic correspondences that transform it from a card game or fortune telling device into a vehicle of the highest order. The major arcana cards each have a chapter to describe them; a complete method of divination is provided. In creating the Egyptian Tarot, we have made full use of Ithell Colquhoun’s ingenious interpretation of the Golden Dawn colour correspondences.
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Colquhoun, when explaining her Tarot, or TARO, eschewed the notion of divination. Her abstract Surrealist Tarot was designed purely as a yantra for meditation. As ours is a figurative and symbolic Tarot, it lends itself to meditation, ritual or divination. From the book:
The well-known occult association between the Tarot cards and ancient Egypt is by now commonly dismissed. This is because we live in a time where materialism now dominates the minds of the majority to such an extent that they no longer even think of themselves as materialists. All such arguments, based on ‘evidence’ and ‘fact’, miss the mark. It is irrelevant as to whether or not the ancient Egyptians might have used anything like playing cards or Tarot, whether for amusement, fortune telling or divination. The key to the knowledge is in the symbolism, which, even in the first deck printed from woodcuts, the Tarot of Marseille (late 15th or 16th century), is astonishing. Once it is known that Egypt was the source of all learning and civilisation, there is no longer any need to speculate on the origins of the Tarot. We are not speaking here of artefacts, we are speaking of symbolism that points to a timeless wisdom. This owes to a source far older than that even of the 1st Dynasty of Egypt.
Our book insists upon the following: “A word must be heard before it can be uttered.” Technically, and especially from the yogic point of view, hearing and speech are closely related. Space is filled with akasha or ether, which is perceptible through vibration, forming the basis of both sound and light. The Intelligible Light is one expression used by the ancients to denote the divine light, which consciousness may make comprehensible. Symbolism, of which the Tarot is a notable example, is a needful support to spiritual realisation.
The twelve zodiacal Egyptian Tarot card designs have a page each on our website. The designs can be enlarged by clicking on the images:
Aries (Equinox) Hrumachis IV
Taurus Hathoor V
Gemini Shenut VI
Cancer (Solstice) Atet VII
Leo Sekhet XI
Virgo Isis IX
Libra (Equinox) Ma’at VIII
Scorpio Sokar XIII
Sagittarius Neith XIV
Capricorn (Solstice) Set XV
Aquarius Nuit XVII
Pisces Khonsu XVIII
Studies: Notes
For more books click here (opens a new page).
All books on this page apart from Egyptian Tarot 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.