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Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875)

Autor von Magia Sexualis: Sexual Practices for Magical Power

27 Werke 221 Mitglieder 4 Rezensionen Lieblingsautor von 1 Lesern

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Werke von Paschal Beverly Randolph

After Death (1870) 11 Exemplare
Eulis Affectional Alchemy (1930) 2 Exemplare

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Paschal Beverly Randolph was an esoteric organizer: the head of the Brotherhood of Eulis and first founder of modern American Rosicrucianism. Clearly presented in the style and format of a fictional novel, his Ravalette is nevertheless full of autobiographical detail. Randolph writes in the voice of an anonymous Editor, telling tales of himself in the third person as a mysterious Rosicrucian personage named Beverly, whose adventures are full of characters with multiple identities. He represents Spiritualists as deluded by elemental spirits posing falsely as spirits of the dead—a doctrine later endorsed by the Theosophical society and other nineteenth-century occultists.

The novel climaxes with a long-anticipated episode in which Beverly is made to undergo the "sacred slumber of Sialam Boaghiee," a trance in which he utters assorted prophecies. This “sleep of Sialam” recurs in Randolph’s occult instructions, and seems to have been taken up from there by the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, along with mentions in Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled. It is evidently the same “infinite sleep and lucid, the sleep of Shi-lo-am” in Aleister Crowley's Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente.

Ravalette explicitly allows for the sort of Rosicrucian immortality described in Bulwer-Lytton's Zanoni, but the novel is premised on an epic tale of reincarnation, where Beverly is redeeming and accomplishing the work of ages through a series of embodiments on the material plane. It is thus in the vanguard of a micro-genre of reincarnation romance that became popular In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Ravalette is also a seminal instance of fictionalized occult autobiography. Later examples that appear to be indebted to it include Maria Naglowska’s Sacred Rite of Magical Love and Franz Bardon’s Frabato the Magician.
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paradoxosalpha | Jun 19, 2021 |
Magia Sexualis is the often name-dropped book by P.B. Randolph that just lays out the secrets of sex magick for all to see. Or so the authors who draw inspiration from this work would tell you.

The only surviving manuscript from this American occultist was in the hands of Maria de Naglowska, and in French. This translation back to English acknowledges her possible contributions and several notes in the text serve to point towards other works of Randolph or curious phrases common to Naglowska. This helpfully draws distinctions between the two, although for the average reader these notes will be pedantic.

From the title, one expects a manual of sex magick, or a work similar to the Kamasutra and other Asian "pillow books". Indeed there are sex positions and techniques spoken of plainly in one chapter. The chapters before this prepare the magician with techniques from Randolph's teachings including Volantia, Decretism, Posism, and Triauclarism. Each of these will be familiar to similar techniques throughout the esoteric world, but help make this book a work that can take the practitioner with no knowledge and get them working.

After that we work with developing personal perfumes, incense, colors, music, and fluid condensers based on one's natal chart or other astrological information. Now you have personal information to use with the methods you learned.

This is where I imagine the casual reader will be lost, as a sex magic chapter is slapped in the middle. These extremely specific recipes, often weighing each ingredient by the gram, and ordered in ratio according to your astrological chart, require the reader to do some math, procure ingredients, macerate pork grease, and other hands-on techniques that aren't very sexy. Today we are bombarded by neo-tantra books that talk a lot about sex paired with visualization, but not much else. Randolph wouldn't have it, there's sex, there's magick, and there's combining the two. He just gives you everything in plain and specific language, so learn to make some potions while you're at it.

The final section talks about magic mirrors with similar specificity, including a recipe for instigating sand that contains a few curiously poisonous ingredients.

This book is a practical manual, recipes aren't hinted at with a wink or drummed up with fantastical warnings (although that sand should probably have one). It's laid bare for the world to see and get working with, if you desire.

The sexual component is most likely not what people expect, with a schedule of separation from your partner and celibacy preceding the grand event. It is referenced a few times after but the rest of the work contains what you need during the ritual, you know, that magick part.

Donald Traxler does a great job as editor and his notes are few but effective. Likewise with the bibliography. He strives to illuminate difficult parts of the text but otherwise gets out of the way and lets the work speak for itself. This is a great work of practical occultism and deserves recognition as such, if maybe in a different way than it is usually painted. The formative exercises are effective and the personal nature of creating your own artifacts brings magick into an immediate presence, so long as you have a fine-tuned kitchen scale.
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Ophiphos | Apr 21, 2021 |
PRE-ADAMITE MAN:
DEMONSTRATING THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN
RACE UPON THIS EARTH 1000,000 YEARS AGO!

PEEFACE

Adam was not the frst man! The writer and com
piler of this book believes this afrmation. The reader
of this book will also believe it after its perusal. The
work is written, not for fame or emolument, for the
writer has no need of either, but because there was and
is a need for just such a book as this. Of course much
more can be said to the purpose on the subject of
Human Antiquity than this volume contains. It will be
said in fature editions.

Those who adherd to Adam, as
the ancient lady did to her Total Depravity, will be
troubled by this book, and will denounce all A damicides
in general. This cannot be helped. The truth must
coine up sooner or later, and the quicker the better for
the world. Here it is1 at least a portion of it. At
first my search for oaterials was uorewarded ; but
patient iulustry, long contioued research, an indomitable
resolution not to be foiled, a lively consciousness that
I was doing mankind and the world a service. and one
that woald be acknowleded by unbiased minds, at
length resulted in placing so much material at ny
command, that it became dificult to decide what to
admit and what to rejeet.

So much for deroutly believing in
the magie word-Tar! The exigencies of the war at
the magie word-TRTI No salject with which the
human hiad can grapple-save only one-that of
imn: ortality-the triut phant Factof our continued
existence after life's Stfal fever shall have been
euded-is...
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FundacionRosacruz | Dec 11, 2018 |

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