Great! I like your approach, it is inspiring! I used to think about the circle being a compass with intermediary sections, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest and Southeast. And also the circle could be a cube with three more directions, above and bellow and center. 
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Just by the by, I’m on the southern hemisphere, near the anus of the world. In the dark ages before the internet all the books were from the northern hemisphere. The rhp order I joined had experimented with altering ritual dates to make sense in the southern hemisphere but by the time I joined I was told that they quickly reverted to traditional northern hemisphere dates. So I never had a choice. (The Order also ascribed Wands to Air, Swords to Fire. Sad isn’t it?)
I started on Crowley back in the late 1970s. Material was limited, difficult to acquire and so expensive it made your eyes water. Crowley’s biggest problem was his superior intelligence, (classical) education and being a genius - in the original meaning of that word. After I got into Chaos Magic(k) I understood Crowley a whole lot better.
I cannot force myself to believe that Crowley screwed up his masterwork Thoth deck. But if you can work effectively - against the Morphic Field - with Cups in the east representing Earth, then I say go for it and do so with my blessing. I’m lhp but classically trained. The reason I use what I do is because it works for me that way. Use whatever works.
Al.
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Someone or other published material about The 4 Laws of the Sphinx and other random notes. I seem to remember that The 4 Laws of the Sphinx was supposed to be understood on different levels depending upon initiation. Not that it’s true or matters.
Al.
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Blockquote Just by the by, I’m on the southern hemisphere, near the anus of the world. In the dark ages before the internet all the books were from the northern hemisphere. The rhp order I joined had experimented with altering ritual dates to make sense in the southern hemisphere but by the time I joined I was told that they quickly reverted to traditional northern hemisphere dates
Damn Northern hemisphere. Always acting like it’s the only hemisphere and making everyone else conform to their standards. Like Europe…or America.
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Crowley was a goddamn asshat! the way he bastardized the sciences and the way he undercut the validity of his own works with the ol “demons are all in your head” thing and the bullshit wiccan reed…ugh
but we as a community have to thank him. he is the reason the Catholics don’t hunt us anymore.
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4Riders,
Yeah I hated northern hemisphere types. They’ve got all the dates, all the bloody sacred woods (like oak, alder, proper ash, etc), a plethora of medicinal herbs and fungi and they don’t have to convert the fucking out-of-date, back of the book planetary tables I tortured myself with and long afternoons way back then. As a young Magician I was by the book and tortured myself Magickally because there was no way - being down here, where I am - I could do it. I fucking hated northern hemisphere types, but that hatred has mellowed.
These days I fucking loath all those gormless newbies who have no idea in the whole wide world just how impossibly hard it was before the internet and forums like these. As a young bloke I saved to purchase Grimoires now easily available on-line. And of course, the postage costs; if you could get it in less than a few months by ship; were exorbitant, as these treasures where all and only published far away in the northern hemisphere.
Now I’m pissed off again. Thanks for that!
Al.
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Crowley may well have had his reasons for positing that ‘demons are all in your head’ but he had more than enough experience to know that his thesis wasn’t true. Crowley is also responsible for the occult revival, which remains the reason for forums like these. He had his limitations but did extraordinary work.
Al.
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Well shit @Uncle-Al …
Do you know how many times I had to reread 'Interlude" out of Book4, or how many times I have to reread anything else he wrote?
Only after the study of Qabalah and tarot did I get Interlude.
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Sorry.
hides
Really?
i did a bit of divination on this, and as it turned out Crowley was a man who knew very well that the catholic church has had all the knowledge we are just now rediscovering for centuries. they’ve got it locked up in the Vatican library only for the eyes of a select few priests.
by calling it all bullshit, (and changing MANY MANY THINGS) Crowley discredited the church’s long standing war against magic and those who practice it.
he made pacts with demons, angels, and even forgotten gods to achieve this end.
it was a fucking masterstroke of magic. the first occult PR campaign. best part of all, it fucking worked.
I was of tender years and naive when Crowley’s Interlude fucked me over. Had me fucked up for some time. Miserable son of a bitch, but I learnt a lot, particularly about my stupid self, back in the early 1980s.
All I’m saying is credit where credit’s due. I’ve always felt that Crowley used lhp means to rhp ends.
Al.
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I agree, @Uncle-Al. Damm Amazon, Archive.org, Wikipedia and Scribd done made everything so fucking easy! Kids these days have no idea that people were once killed and burned at the stake for this knowledge! Now it’s just point, click and swipe on your damn iPad or Android tablet.
We truly live in amazing times.
With great power, comes great responsibility. Magick is fun, but it is not a game!
This is what Crowley was trying to teach us.
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Crowley was only 28 when he penned the introduction to his 1903 edition of the Goetia where he stated that “the spirits of the Goetia are portions of the human brain.” Like all flexible thinkers, though, he came to revise this view with time and experience. In 1904 he was contacted by Aiwass, a spirit he became convinced had objective existence apart from himself as his Holy Guardian Angel: “The Holy Guardian Angel is not the ‘Higher Self’ but an Objective individual. . . . He is not, let me say with emphasis, a mere abstraction from yourself” (Magick Without Tears, 1954).
In the end, though, good ol’ Uncle Al recognized that arguing over the objective or subjective nature of demons and spirits is besides the point: “In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them” (Magick in Theory and Practice, 1924).
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I’m in my 50s now and started my occult studies in the 80’s. At that time there were a few and expensive books only. Much hard work with what I had at hand. Most of the changes I did were based on my own experiments then when internet came I could see other people doing the same changes so I’m not the only one to question some things. Most of these things sound as dogma to me. Crowley was against dogma but he ended creating some.
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While I only know of Crowley by name and have not directly read any of his works, my understanding is he is a very much “Do as I say, not as I do” kind of learning example. Even then. Though if he said something was dangerous, you could more or less take that as an understatement.
I never heard of him admitting it but I figured it out. It makes so much sense.
Not sure how that’s effected. There are fixed and cardinal signs of every element.
Depends on the tradition you’re following… 
That’s why I’m not stressing about cardinals for evocations… If they want you to face a specific direction (kinda rare with me lol) they will tell you…
Ditto! Swords hurt & kill, so that’s fiery & passionate. Tree branches are in the air, so wands are air.