Reading paths
Start with a question. Let one passage lead to the next.
Purpose · freedom · careful reading
Will and interpretation
Follow Crowley’s distinction between will and preference, compare a difficult ethical sequence, and return to the discipline of a record.
4 passagesTheurgy · questions · transmission
Symbols, rites and the heavens
Read Porphyry’s questions, Iamblichus’s reply and Mead’s Oracles beside a later table of correspondences.
5 passagesAttention · observation · memory
Keep a record
What makes a practice journal useful? Compare instructions, a published diary and the symbolism of the magical book.
4 passagesTables · images · interpretation
Follow a correspondence
Move from one row of 777 into a ritual argument, then see how a number works differently in a poem and its commentary.
4 passagesDialogue · translation · reception
Read Hermes across editions
Follow the speaker, the image and the argument in Everard’s Pymander, then compare the opening of Agrippa.
4 passagesDialogue · metaphor · inquiry
Questions of the self
Read a question put to Yama, follow the Katha Upanishad’s chariot image, then turn to Ramana’s account of inquiry.
4 passages