Anyone heard of Gareth Knight or read his books?

White Magick, Right Hand Path & Sephirothic Magick
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Hi everyone!

Recently I’ve read the book “Experience of the inner worlds” by Gareth Knight and I found it interesting.

In summary, the book is about practising magic within the framework of the Cristian faith, it talks about Kabbalah (I think the author worked with Dion Fortune, or is linked to her somehow), it gives a lot of interesting history facts about the history of the religion, talks about stuff like Arthurian legends, the Graal, etc.

I’m wondering if anyone else read it, and their opinion on it.

I’ve searched the forum but it doesn’t seem anyone ever talked about it, and I think it’s an interesting book for this crowd.
After reading it, I’m getting back to some Gallery of Magick books (the ones about Angels and Archangels which I now see in a different light), and also reading some Hermetics works.

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Yeah, I’ve read some of his stuff. I didn’t find it very useful though as he tends to make things more complicated than they need to be.

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I’ve got A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism Vols. I & II - hardback.
I don’t recommend it. I mean really, he does go on (and on) and it’s got this Xian approach. I bought his volume when I was young and green. Looks impressive but of little practical use.

Al.

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Thanks guys!

I’ve also found his book confusing in some parts, in fact I’m re-reading it (or at least parts of it) to make sure I understand his main points as best as I can.

What I got from it was mainly this feeling of trying this approach to magic within a Christian framework, which I’m curious to investigate and experiment with.

I’m also confused about the bible, up until reading this book I’ve considered more of a mixture of stories chosen by church councils (like the Nicea one) when coming up with the religion, so not that reliable.
Later during my studies, I’ve considered it as some kind of esoteric text written in metaphors, that was misunderstood by un-initiated and taken literally.

Reading this Gareth Knight book, it seems that he thinks it’s all true (at least up to certain extents), so that got my curiosity.

Other things I’m wondering is like, is there really a one true god (that some may consider just a creative force) and if so, what are the other gods?
Have those been created by the only god, so in some kind of cosmic hierarchy, they are “inferior”?
Or are all the gods of all religions all and the same, at the same level?

If there’s only one God, and all the others are subordinate to him, wouldn’t make sense to then practice magic deriving power from him like for example medieval mages (e.g. Agrippa)?

I’d like to find out more about these questions, and possibly other books about doing magic within a Christian context.
As mentioned in my previous post, I’m trying to get some info from the GoM books, but those are very practical but don’t give a lot of theory other than “the only theory you need to know is that these ritual works because we tried them for 30 years”.

Any pointers would be appreciated

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The theory is that, yes, the pagan gods are considered to be aspects of the One True God ™ in Judaic flavoured metaphysics. In the Golden Dawn system, for example, they are referred to as “godforms,” meaning they are essentially a specific embodied form of the First Cause/Prime Mover.

I remember an image in some a book i read a long time ago that illustrated how the hierarchy is set up. Basically, the power flows down from the Eternal Source, Ain Soph, the True God, etc, and the pagan deities are somewhere in the middle, placed below the archangels but above everything else, if I remember correctly.

In this hierarchy, no being is inferior because they are all considered aspects of the One.

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Thanks for mentioning that!
I’ve also heard the theory about the gods being different aspects of the one God, wasn’t sure how it would fit here but know that you mentioned it makes more sense.

Up until recently, I’ve used to think that if there’s one true God, there should be at least two (a male and female aspect so to say), as everything in our reality is made by opposites polarities.
And that all the other gods (like pagans) were just aspects of those main two gods/polarities.

So I guess that’s what always caused me problems with the idea that instead there’s only one true god.

The only exception to this was the teaching in LHP doctrines that you do your journey to became a god yourself and then you depart to go and create your own universe. I never heard of a “you follow your path and then you go and find another opposite polarity god to create your own universe”.

A couple of hours ago, while thinking about these questions, I was wondering if how some systems solved this duality problem of a “missing” female aspect, was with Chaos, the darkness (or emptiness) surrounding God. And that Chaos is also some kind of sentient being, a god on its own terms.

But yeah reading this book recently made me think that my idea that there must be 2 opposites polarities at the top is wrong.
Maybe there is only one God, and the two polarities were within him (like we can also see on the Tree of Life).

But makes me feel weird the idea of the gods being just aspects of God, because if I’m worshipping deities like Hecate, Kali or Lilith, am I ultimately still worshipping God?

From that perspective, if there’s a one true God that created other gods, why did he do it though? Maybe originally gods were helpers that were managing aspects of reality for him, like some angels do, and humans being more in touch with them they started to worship them?

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The First Cause is beyond all opposites for everything is contained within It. To paraphrase Lao Tzu: “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The Name that can be named is not the eternal Name.”

Yes, and no. The First Cause is said to be beyond all comprehension. It is so far above what our limited consciousness can conceive of that to approach it, we require an interface, a sort of…middle man, so to speak, in order to be able to grasp the complexities of the universe and our place in it.

The pagan gods are that interface. They are aspects of the unknowable Source, yes, but they are also divine in their own right, just as we are, and so they can be worshipped on their own without worrying about the First Cause. They are also closer to the physical than the First Cause, and easier to make contact with.

This is just my personal understanding of things though. I’m sure the theists among us will have a different view.

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I understand, thank you very much for sharing your personal understanding. It’s been very interesting and enlightening.

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I’ll say for @Samael777, in my personal experience with divination, I’ve seen that everything does not come from a single divine source and there was no single divine source at the beginning. So I gravitate away from that monotheistic perspective. I’m not sure if it is fully Qabalistic though, because even in the Veils of Negative Light, it seems that it is not a single point, just as the universe has never been empty. So my knowledge on Qabalah could be very lacking. Perhaps @DarkestKnight can give light to the idea of a single divine source in the Qabalah.

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Thanks @Dankquanicus for sharing your point of view! I found myself closer to the idea of One Main Source (like God) from which everything else was born, but I’m still investigating this topic myself