Nicole Explains It All

Not OG as in Original Gangsters but OG as in…I guess just original.

If you’ve ever prayed avant-garde-ly by casting a circle, calling on angels, or even just obsessed over tarot cards, you’re part of a tradition that is way older and more structured than you might think. Witchcraft. Ceremonial magic. Divination! Still hard for me as a Christian Witch/Occultist to wrap my mind around. I’m endlessly fascinated by the why behind our practice. Where did the “rules” come from? Why do we use a wand? Why do we care what time it is?

Frankly, it’s because a handful of historical grimoires and texts—especially arguably my first esoteric text, Francis Barrett’s The Magus—literally wrote the operating system for modern magic. This seminal work laid the groundwork for many contemporary practices and beliefs, weaving together ancient wisdom and innovative thoughts on the nature of the universe and our interaction with it.

Additionally, The Secret Doctrine by Helena Blavatsky further enriched my exploration, challenging me to dive deeper into metaphysical concepts and the synthesis of science and spirituality. Both texts represent milestones that not only shaped the foundations of global magical thought, but also inspired countless practitioners and seekers to embark on their own journeys of discovery and understanding. They serve as guiding lights, illuminating the path toward reclaiming the lost art of magic in our modern age.

These old books aren’t spooky coffee table decor. They are the foundational blueprints that did three essential things:

1. They built the cosmological framework (the “universe”).
2. They codified the ritual technology (the “how-to”).
3. They acted as the critical bridge to our modern practice.

Let’s get into it.

Part 1: They Built Our Universe (The Cosmology)

Before you can do magic, you need a theory of why it works. The classical grimoires gave us that theory, a sophisticated worldview that defines our relationship with the divine.

• The “As Above, So Below” Blueprint: The core idea they established is the Macrocosm and Microcosm. The universe is a top-down hierarchy, a “Great Chain of Being” flowing from God. Everything is linked. The planets, the angels, the herbs, the minerals… they all correspond. This principle of correspondence is the engine of all magic. It’s the “how” behind “As above, so below.”
• Why Planetary Hours Aren’t Just an App: This is where celestial timing comes in. The grimoires made astrological timing a core discipline. You don’t just do a ritual whenever; you do it at the auspicious time, under the correct planetary influence. The Magus was very specific about this, calling it “Constellatory Practice.”
• The Magician as Priest, Not Rebel: Here’s the big difference from today: In these old systems, all power came directly from Divine Authority (i.e., God). The magician wasn’t a rebel; they were a pious philosopher-priest. When you see evocations in texts like the Goetia, the magician compels spirits not with their own power, but by invoking the higher authority and names of God. They are “armed with power from the SUPREME MAJESTY.” It was a theological framework, first and foremost.

Part 2: They Wrote the “How-To” Manuals (The Tech)

This is my favorite part: the “tech.” If the cosmology is the “why,” the grimoires (especially the Solomonic ones like The Key of Solomon) are the literal step-by-step instruction manuals. They turned magic into a rigorous, learned practice.

They codified the foundational components we still use today:

• Ritual Purity: You couldn’t just roll out of bed and summon a spirit. These texts demand intense personal preparation—fasting (sometimes for nine days!), confession, and prayer.
• The Magic Circle: This is the OG spiritual fortress. The grimoires provided exact instructions on how to draw it, consecrate it with holy water, and use it for protection.
• Consecrating Your Tools: Ever wondered why we consecrate our wands, swords, or pentacles? This comes directly from texts like The Key of Solomon. It requires a “firm, undoubted faith” and holiness from the operator.
• The Spirit “Phonebook”: These books gave us the lists. The Lemegeton, for example, outlines the entire hierarchy of demons, complete with their names, seals, and offices (like who can teach you science or find lost things). This is the foundational database for evocation.

Part 3: The Magus – The Book That Saved It All

So, we have these complex Renaissance-era texts. How did they survive the hyper-rational “Age of Enlightenment” to get to us?

Enter Francis Barrett’s The Magus (1801).

This book is the indispensable bridge. Publishing it was a massive counter-cultural statement. When the world was obsessed with scientific materialism, Barrett compiled this “greatest hits” album of magic. He wasn’t an originator; he was a brilliant synthesist. He pulled the philosophy from Agrippa and the practical instructions from texts like the Heptameron and packaged it all together.

Without The Magus, this entire tradition might have been lost. It preserved the knowledge and made it accessible, directly causing the 19th-century occult revival.

Part 4: The Great Pivot – How “God’s Will” Became “My Will”

This is where it gets really interesting. The revivalists who picked up The Magus loved the system, but they were about to radically change the philosophy.

This is the great paradigm shift of modern magic.

1. The Psychological Shift (Éliphas Lévi): Lévi took Barrett’s work and filtered it through Kabbalah. He introduced the “Astral Light” and, most importantly, psychologized the spirits. He suggested that angels and demons weren’t necessarily external beings, but forms created in the Astral Light by the magician’s trained will and imagination. This is a massive pivot. The power source starts to move from a distant God to the immanent human mind.
2. The Systematization (The Golden Dawn): The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded in 1888) took everything—the grimoire tech, Agrippa’s philosophy, Lévi’s reinterpretations—and wove it into a single, workable curriculum. They turned it into a replicable “technology of spiritual development.” Rituals like the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP)? That’s them. They are the direct origin of most of today’s ceremonial magic.
3. The Individual Revolution (Aleister Crowley): Crowley, a product of the Golden Dawn, took this to its ultimate conclusion with Thelema. His philosophy, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” completely reframed the goal of magic.
   • It was no longer about aligning with God’s will.
   • It was about discovering and enacting your own True Will.

Crowley even gave a rationalist spin to the old grimoires, famously suggesting the spirits of the Goetia are just “portions of the human brain” and that the rituals are “physiological experiments” to stimulate your own faculties.

My Takeaway

This is the journey. The old grimoires gave us the language, the tools, and the cosmic structure. The Magus made sure that technical data survived.

But modern magic, our magic, is defined by the great pivot: We adopted the operational mechanisms (the “how”) but fundamentally changed the philosophy (the “why”). We shifted the entire pursuit from aligning with an external God to an individual quest for self-realization, mastery, and the deification of our own internal Will.

And that is the framework most of us are still working in today.