Frater Barrabbas Tiresius

y magical and pen name is Frater Barrabbas Tiresius. I am a Witch, a Ritual Magician, an Occultist and an Author. While there might be a lot of individuals out there who are a lot like me at least superficially, I believe that I am one of the few who has successfully merged Witchcraft magic with Ceremonial magic to produce a unique system of ritual magic. I am not too concerned about my religious praxis as much as I am focused on the art and practice of ritual magic. What I am proposing is a methodology and a system of magic that harkens back to the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. It is also a very modern representation of magic in the Post-Modern Age. I straddle two worlds, yet what I do is really something that is unique and distinct to both periods of time.

I started my path many years ago in the early 1970's when Western culture was gripped by a kind of rediscovery of western occultism and eastern religious philosophy. As fitting the media dominated world of that time, with books, magazines, radio and television programs, the occult, studies of the paranormal, witchcraft, magic, yoga, and many other facets of an older traditional culture became something of a popularized fad. These newly touted areas of interest went hand in hand with the explosion of rock music, the use of psychedelic drugs, and a tribal youth mind-set that saw taboo subjects and discarded ideas as the source for modern thought and individual pursuits. I was, of course, very much a part of that youth movement, and my ultimate contribution was a new way to practice what I thought was the age-old provenance of Witchcraft magic. As time would tell, it is neither an antique Witchcraft magic nor is it entirely new.

What I found when I became an initiated Witch back in 1976 was a poverty of magical knowledge and practices within my tradition. What Alexandrian Witches were doing back in the 1970's was basically incorporating the practices of many traditions, including both western, such as the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, Hermetic Qabalah, Astrology, Spiritism and the old magical grimoires, and eastern, such as Hatha Yoga, prana-yama, and forms of Kundalini Yoga. We left no stone unturned, and we even raided the traditions of herbalism and folk magic to fill the vacuum of knowledge that was the state of Witchcraft magic back in those days.

Using these various sources of magical and occult lore, I was able to, over time, build up a system of magic that spanned the whole spectrum of useful magical practices. I freely picked over the lore of the Golden Dawn, the teachings and practices of Franz Bardon, the various writings of Aleister Crowley, and some select Renaissance period grimoires to develop my own magical system. What I was able to develop covered the areas of magical workings that included Elemental Energy Magic, Celestial (Planetary and Zodiacal) Magic, Spirit Invocation and Evocation, and a number of strategic methodologies for performing a modern Theurgy. This included a system of Pagan Qabalah, Tarot and practical Astrology, not to mention formulations of practical divination and meditation.

Over the decades I started and ran covens of Witches, initiating folks into the Alexandrian tradition of Witchcraft. Yet my crowning achievement occurred when I helped to put together a magical order that made full use of my system of magic. It was not so much a religious organization as it was a magical order dedicated to those who sought to work progressive forms of magic within a group. As a magical organization, each group was fully autonomous and was governed by an annually rotating leadership and by a majority consensus. That magical order has been taken up by individuals in various parts of the country and even the world, but all of them function as an autonomous group that is not subject to the orthodoxy and whims of a governing elite. You can find out more about this magical order, called the Order of the Gnostic Star, by clicking on this link.

After nearly 50 years of study, development, experimentation and authoring several books and hundreds of articles, I can say that my methodology has achieved a certain level of maturity. There is little that my system of magic cannot accomplish, and that is because it is a flexible and creative endeavor. It is forever changing and adding new lore. There is no fixed tradition nor orthodoxy in this system of magic. It is all about creativity and the trials of experimentation. What I keep is also what works, and what fails to work is either amended or discarded. It is a never-ending cycle of discovery, creation, trials and adaptation. I believe that this is the way of the true magician in our postmodern age.

I don’t consider myself to be a master or an authority on any subject, just well-read and researched in a number of subjects. In my books I take the position of someone who wants to share his knowledge and the results of years of creative endeavors with others who might take upon themselves the role of ritual magician and ritual creator, thereby advancing this overall methodology to the next level of magical expertise. I am sharing this knowledge so that it will be developed, refined and perfected over time. My hope is that this system of magic, which is the mixing of Witchcraft magic and modern ceremonial magic, will become the delight and avocation of many people well into the future, perhaps outliving me by decades or even centuries. This is my legacy, and I leave it up to you to find some value and utility in its various practices and techniques.

You can access my blog, read my books, examine the website for the Order of the Gnostic Star, or contact me via email. There is a lot of reading material on the web right now, and in time, there will be even more. You are cordially invited to investigate my method of magic. Perhaps, together, we will bring the practice of magic into another new age Renaissance.

 

Frater Barrabbas Tiresius