Ceremonial Magic Trivia Quiz

Answer: Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Published between 1531 and 1533, Agrippa's "Three Books" was one of the first works to try and present a coherent theory of magic. It also tried to reconcile the Church and the magician, arguing that licit, "natural magic" was a valid means of interacting with the whole of God's creation.

Answer: All of these are correct spellings.

The Hebrew word is QBLH (qoph beth lamed heh) meaning roughly "received," i.e. an oral tradition. It has been transliterated into English in all these forms over the centuries. While some moderns (Jewish and Gentile) have suggested specific connotations for each of these (kabbalah for contemporary Jewish studies, in the writings of scholars like Kaplan, Scholem, and Idel; qabalah for modern occultists like Crowley and Fortune; cabala for classical Christian scholars like Agrippa and della Mirandola), these have never really caught on, and authors in the various areas of qabalistic study tend to use whichever spelling they prefer.

Answer: Mathers, Westcott, Woodman

Samuel Liddel "MacGregor" Mathers, William Wynn Westcott, and William Robert Woodman founded the Order, prepared its initiation rituals in the "Elemental Grades," and in 1888, opened the first temple (Isis-Urania Temple) in London. According to the lore of the Order they received a charter to do so from an adept living in Germany, Anna Sprengel. Her existence, and thus the validity of that charter, were called into question in the nasty fight for leadership in the Order in 1900.

Aleister Crowley was later a member of the Golden Dawn before going his own way, but he was 12 years old when it was founded. He was a precocious student of magic, but not THAT precocious.

Dion Fortune, a member of the Order in its later years, by then under the leadership of Moina Mathers after the death of her husband, besides being too young to be a founder, was a woman, and so could not have been a Mason.

Arthur Edward Waite was a member of the Order, and went on to organize one of the splinter groups after the original Golden Dawn imploded in 1900, but was not one of its founding members, and indeed, rather disliked the emphasis on practical magic in the original Order curriculum.

Answer: John Dee

Doctor John Dee, quite the Renaissance Man in the English Renaissance, was the magician who, with his seer, Edward Kelley, obtained the Enochian material. The name derives from Dee's characterization of the language as the Angelical language spoken by the earliest patriarchs to angels who interacted with men, as described in the apocryphal Book of Enoch: hence, Enochian.

Dee was fluent in a number of languages. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geometer and geographer who worked with the navigators of Trinity House as English seamen like Drake challenged the supremacy of the Portuguese as explorers. He was an alchemist, as was his collaborator Kelley, and both travelled to Krakow at the invitation of the Emperor Rudolph, for whom it is alleged that they successfully demonstrated transmutation. Dee was an astrologer favored by Elizabeth I, both during her perilous years under the reign of her sister, Mary, and after her ascension to the throne. He amassed a library at his home, Mortlake, which was one of the largest in Europe.

Answer: Vibration

The term used by most ceremonial magicians is "vibration." There are many different approaches to vibration by different magicians and magical groups. As the names implies, most are after a vocal production that makes the body resonate strongly, but this is almost always coupled with techniques for visualizing the energy of the sound, and the energy represented by the Word.

Some systems use specific pitches. Some model the vocal production on styles of chant, whether western (like Gregorian) or eastern (like Tibetan Buddhist).

Answer: Wand, Cup, Dagger, Disk

Based on the system in the Golden Dawn, these are the Wand, Cup, Dagger, and Disk. Each is attributed to one of the Four Elements: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. These are also related to the four suits of a classical Tarot deck.

There is some disagreement among different styles of magic as to which weapon best fits which element. The Golden Dawn attribution was Wand for Fire, Cup for Water, Dagger for Air, and Disk for Earth.

Answer: All of these.

All of these and more. Particular scents have traditional meanings in ceremonial magic, e.g. frankincense is considered solar, referring to the powers of the Sun, sandalwood is similarly linked to Venus, dragon's blood resin (or tobacco) to Mars. Similar correspondences link different scents to the Four Elements, or to specific purposes.

Some magicians view the purpose of the whole panoply of ceremonial symbolism (incense among the other tools) as focusing the mind of the magician - both its conscious and unconscious faculties - on the specific intent of the ceremony at hand. So in a ceremony using the power of Mars, the predominant color would be red, tools would be iron or steel, the Words of Power used would be those referring to Martial Gods (or aspects of God, for monotheists), and Martial incense would be burnt.

Or if you take the symbols at "face value" - i.e. there really IS a connection between a specific aspect of the Universe and a magical tool - then by filling your working space with the right materials, you create an environment that is suitable for working that piece of reality.

In conjuring invisible forces or beings to manifest visibly, incense is often used to provide a physical medium that they can use to do so. Dittany, a member of the oregano family of herbs, is popular for this since it produces thick, pleasantly scented smoke when burned.

Answer: Solomon

King Solomon, son of King David, was reputed to command legions of spirits: angels, sent by God to do his bidding, demons, bound by his magic to prevent them from doing harm, and spirits of nature, whom he commanded by his inspired knowledge.

While the biblical Solomon did not in fact write any of the grimoires (books of spells, specifically invocations to summon and command spirits) bearing his name, the Greater Key of Solomon, The Lesser Key of Solomon (also called the Lemegeton), the Testament of Solomon, and a score of others are all out there, in various editions and translations. They are fodder for all manner of occult movies and novels, usually centering on keeping the villains from getting a hold of the veritable Key of Solomon, with which they will do very bad things.

Answer: The Tree of Life

The diagram called the Tree of Life is derived from qabala/kabbalah/cabala. Each of its 10 spheres, or sephiroth, represents a particular manifestation of the Divine in the Universe. Each of its 22 paths, the lines connecting the sephiroth, represents a way in which those spheres interact. All manner of things are classified as corresponding to a sephirah (the singular of sephiroth) or to a path: Divine Names, Angels, Demons, colors, elements planets and zodiacal signs, physical symbols like metals, minerals, incenses, you-name-it.

Answer: Pentagram

The first ritual was the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. It was sometimes called lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, but it actually has both banishing (make stuff go away) and invoking (make stuff come to you) forms. It was the only "hands on" magic that new members were taught.

As they worked through the "elemental" grades, everything else was theory, presented in the "knowledge lectures." Only when an initiate made it to the Adept grade was he or she - for unlike Masonry, the Golden Dawn admitted both men and women as members - given training in, and expected to perform, other magical rituals.