An accessible and concise guide exploring the power and beauty of the Golden Dawn magical system.  Take the Next Step... Clear away the outdated clutter that has obscured the power and beauty of the Golden Dawn magical system and feel for yourself the difference these techniques can make in your life. Explore dozens of new rituals developed from the fragments and core documents of the greatest Magical Order in the Western world. Step out of the darkness and into the light of understanding. John Michael Greer writes in a lucid and entertaining manner, revealing previously unknown aspects of the magical rites of the Golden Dawn. Warm and engaging, Circles of Power revitalizes Western magic by removing the unnecessary rhetoric and obscure jargon. Everything is plainly and simply explained and all the information you need to begin working within this magical system is presented in a clear and concise manner. Filled with the fruits of personal experience and insights derived from in-depth research, Circles of Power is the next best thing to actually joining a Hermetic lodge. 'Circles of Power is another work I can readily recommend to any beginning student of Golden Dawn magic.'"-David Allen Hulse 'Circles of Power is another work I can readily recommend to any beginning student of Golden Dawn magic.'"-David Allen Hulse John Michael Greer  is the award-winning author of more than fifty books, including T he New Encyclopedia of the Occult, The Druidry Handbook, The Celtic Golden Dawn  and C ircles of Power: An Introduction to Hermetic Magic.  An initiate in Freemasonry, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Martinist Order, and three Druid traditions, Greer served as the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA) for twelve years. He is also the author of seventeen fantasy and science fiction novels and ten nonfiction books on peak oil and the future of industrial society. He lives in Rhode Island and blogs weekly on politics, magic, and the future at www.ecosophia.net. Circles of Power An Introduction to Hermetic Magic By JOHN MICHAEL GREER Aeon Books Ltd Copyright © 2017 John Michael Greer All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-904658-85-6 Contents FOREWORD TO THE NEW EDITION, FOREWORD TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION Ritual Magic in the Hermetic Tradition, Part I: Principles of Ritual Magic, Chapter One: The Nature of Ritual Magic, Chapter Two: The Magical Macrocosm, Chapter Three: The Magical Microcosm, Chapter Four: The Tools of Ritual Magic, Chapter Five: The Practice of Ritual Magic, Part II: Practice of Ritual Magic, Chapter Six: Foundations of Ritual: Invoking And Banishing, Chapter Seven: Foundations of Ritual: The Middle Pillar Exercises, Chapter Eight: Foundations of Ritual: Opening and Closing, Chapter Nine: Applications of Ritual: Working Tools, Chapter Ten: Applications of Ritual: Talismans, Chapter Eleven: Applications of Ritual: Evocation, Chapter Twelve: Applications of Ritual: Invisibility and Transformation, Chapter Thirteen: Applications of Ritual: Spiritual Development, Chapter Fourteen: The Formula of the Equinox, APPENDIX Cabalistic Symbolism, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX, CHAPTER 1 THE NATURE OF RITUAL MAGIC The magical traditions of the world contain a dizzying array of different methods, practices and procedures. At first glance, there may seem to be very little in common between the pounding drums and bright colors of a Voudon ceremony under way in Haiti and the perfect meditative silence of an esoteric Buddhist magician at work in a temple in Japan, or, for that matter between either of these and the ornate working tools and flowing robes, stylized gestures and chanted words of power of a magician working in the Golden Dawn tradition. Still, despite the visible differences, a deeper thread of connection joins each of these practitioners and their work. That thread is the thread of ritual. Even to those with no magical background at all, the idea of ritual is central to any notion of what magic is or what magicians do. To many modern Americans, whose closest approach to magical thought comes from caricatures in Saturday morning cartoons or the even sillier caricatures condemned from church pulpits on Sunday mornings, magic is still a matter of gestures and words, special objects and strange actions. This habit of thought is grounded in the realities of magic, for although there is more to magic than ritual; the art of ritual makes up the heart of magical technique in nearly all of the world's traditions. We can define ritual as symbolic action. A symbol — this word opens up half the major issues of philosophy, but those will have to wait — is a thing that means something else; it defines a relationship, the relationship of meaning, between the symbol itself and the thing symbolized. A finger that points to the moon is not the same as the moon itself, but equally it is not the same as a finger which points to nothing at all.