What is High Magick/Ceremonial Magick?

I practice magick, and I talk about it alot because it’s by far one of the most powerful practices I know of for completing the Great Work, or obtaining enlightenment within this current lifetime. It’s transformed my life drastically both inner and outer over the 2 years I have practiced it. I’ve learned everything I know about magick from Damien Echols and his two books, High Magick and Angels and Archangels (primarily the latter).

Normally, because of the word magick, I find people get all kinds of funny ideas, thinking of the magicians we know about that do tricks, or they think it is a practice to gain powers, or manifest things. There are many different forms of magick, both low magick, which is primarily focused on manifesting, spells, etc, and high magick which does two things. The first of which is that through it you can do anything from manifesting abundance, protection, joy, new relationships, jobs, adventure, break curses, heal yourself and others and much more. However the second and that which I am writing about in this article is how you can use this practice to cross the ocean of suffering.

What we call High Magick, can and has also been called alchemy and astrothergy. It is a very ancient practice that goes back through the times of Atlantis, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Sumer. When you see all of the Egyptian symbols like the Ankhs, and you hear the stories about Atlantis, or see the Sumerian artifacts of The Llamsu (the statue of the man, bull, lion and eagle), that is all magick. When we talk about the prophets of the old testament like Enoch, Elijah, Daniel, Moses, Ezekiel, King Solomon, these are the practices they were doing. Some of these beings such as Enoch and Noah lived at the time of what would now be called the age of Atlantis or ancient Egypt, about 12 thousand years ago around 10,00 B.C. They were by no means “Christians” or followers of a particular God as many think today.

So What are these practices? Over the ages of course languages change, names change and practices change. The magick many of us practice today uses Hebrew mantras and Hebrew names. Magick is also called astrothergy because it is a science of the stars. When you’re practicing magick, you are using mantra, visualization and breathwork to pull in light and master the many levels of reality. Ultimately building what is called the light body, the diamond body, the Merkabah, or the body of immortality. Jesus talks about this in the book of revelations. The outward meaning of this book seems to be about death and destruction, but for those who have the eyes to see he is talking about giving us the tree of life, the body of immortality. He talks of the 7 angels (chakras and planets) and the 72 (72 angels of the zodiac) and the 144 ( the 72 angels of the zodiac and the 72 goetic spirits). The bible often refers to us becoming light, and being dressed in garments of white, or white and purple. The bible talks about Joseph’s “coat of many colors.” These are all analogies for the aura or light body that is created through magick. In the book of revelations, Jesus says “you will not taste the second death.” What is the second death? The second death is when your physical body has already died and then your astral body dies and you get reincarnated and forget your last life. When you complete the great work this doesn’t happen, and you are free for all eternity to move in and out of the various levels of existence.

From ancient times all cultures around the world have based their existence, from the keeping of time, astrology and spiritual practice to the movements and energies of the stars, sun, moon and planets. And for good reason! These are the most powerful entities in the universe. Think of how powerful a human can be, or a lion, or a tree, or a tornado. Now consider our sun, or a whole zodiacal constellation. So rather than learning about how the zodiac affects our personality, the magician harnesses this energy to find ultimate freedom.

So what do the practices look like? You are often invoking angels and using them to either banish (purify) or invoke light into you. You start by working with the 4 angels of the elements – Raphael of the air element, Micheal of the Fire Element, Gabriel of the Water Element and Uriel of the Earth Element. Most invoking is done through the tracing in the air of banishing or invoking pentagrams. You also work with the 7 planets (in magick considered Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). These correlate with your 7 chakras, there are various angels and mantras representing them all and you do practices to invoke light into and purify these energy centers. You also work with the 12 signs of the zodiac and their associated angels and these can be further broken down into 72. We also work with the 10 spheres of the tree of life from Malkuth – The Earth, to Kether – Pure undivided white light – and the 3 Formless realms above Kether.