"students on the art of 'Practical' or 'Low Magic'. This is magic designed to create changes in our personal lives, to bring us better jobs, new lovers and so forth."
All magic is designed to create positive change in our personal lives. The most important benefit of course lies in our own spirituality and connection with Divinity. However, our mental, emotional, and physical states are also important. Magic IMHO is a positive tool for both individual betterment and social/community betterment. There need not be duality in all this.
The reference to High vs Low is more modern. You will rarely find it in ancient texts. All magic of the ancients was practical magic regardless of its focus. The key was whether it was focused on God's working or demon working. The other distinction was whether or not it was in alignment with religious/spiritual principles or merely without ethics aka sorcery (personal power above all).
"There are very few indications in the GD texts that suggest this wonderful tradition may be utilised to for practical magic or sorcery."
Check out the Jupiter Talisman in the GD manual. The Requiem ritual counts as form of necromancy. You also have of course indirectly translations by Mathers of the Lesser Key and Abramelin. One focuses on demonic evocation and the other on HGA workings AND both provide a huge amount of material magic (I prefer that term over the word practical - if you don't mind )
"I am not saying that practical magic cannot work. I think it can, under certain circumstances. It is however, far, far more difficult than most people think."
It is actually, far, far easier than most people think. However, there is a caveat. You can't easily call on spiritual beings to assist you in material magic if a) your need is more lust than need, and b) you can easily attain your need without magic. The reason most spells don't work is because a) they are not as well designed as they should be (Llewellyn fluff books come to mind) and b) most people really don't need what they are asking for but are seeking it out of greed or lust.
"While many practical magic techniques are not in themselves more dangerous than those of spiritual magic, their practice lacks a crucial element always present in spiritual magic - altruism. As soon as we engage in magic for ourselves we are no longer activating the transpersonal, higher aspects of our beings."
I believe the idea of altruism can be highly debated even in spiritual magic. Let's face it, we want a better connection with the Divine because it is GOOD for US. That is 'ok' - magic doesn't need to be purely altruistic to be spiritual. I am not advocating of course pure selfishness. The key to me lies in balance.
Let me also remind you that it was the Divine that made it NECESSARY for me to eat, to sleep, and gave me the urges to procreate. I can decide that the Divine design is faulty and that those aspects of me are bad naughty etc and try to fight against them nonstop or I can embrace them and seek balance and harmony in all things. In other words, I don't believe that flesh is evil and sinful and spirit is good and nice like certain religions teach. To me, All things ARE Spirit at different levels of manifestations.
To quote Hillel the Elder: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?"
"As an example, Nick Farrell, who is very sensible and adept in the GD, recounts on a recent post how basically there are no listed angels in the western tradition that can 'assist' in money magic. One has to resort to the assistance of a demon."
Indeed, that was an eyebrow raiser! There are many Enochian angels related to finance and growth. There are also many other angels in Jewish lore that relate to that. Look up for example, the angel Anauel. The only reason to summon demons for money or for any other facet of material magic is because a) you want to, b) you really want to, and c) you are itching to.
I think the heart of the issue for me lies here:
"Also the positive 'energy' is never lost, the altruism, which is a form of love continues on long after the ritual finishes. Examples of these forms of rituals are sadly lacking in the Golden Dawn and western magical circles, though I have posted one of them here."
There is no reason in hell they are lacking.
You might also like:
Alfred Thompson - Magic And Mystery A Popular HistoryMarcus Cordey - Magical Theory And Tradition
Aleister Crowley - Magick In Theory And Practice
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