Descriptions:
Video Description
Hermetic high magic has been sold as spell-flinging, but its real aim is total transformation. In this first video, Lyam Thomas Christopher (author of “Kabbalah, Magic & the Great Work of Self Transformation“) explains what genuine high magic looks like from the inside. True initiation, especially in the Golden Dawn tradition, is not about forcing results through ritual. It is about rebuilding the psyche — the imagination, the aura — into a living lens through which reality begins to manifest on its own.
Christopher walks through the sphere of sensation, the tree of life, and the four quarters as coordinates built into the psyche. He explains why psychology must be reclaimed as a study of the soul, why a “right view” of reality matters, and what real initiation means: a beginning that becomes its own reward.
Full Video Transcript
all right let’s see if we can get the first recording off the ground this could be the
start of a new youtube channel um a number of people i know have been asking me to
create this channel uh mainly because the content out there that concerns ceremonial magic
uh is being conducted by people who don’t really have initiation into the depths of the mysteries
so much um i find it odd that um so many initiates are so quiet uh and so let’s see if something’s
gonna you know stop me from coming forward maybe the computer’s gonna crash or something like that
to prevent the content from getting out there uh my name is liam thomas christopher
um and yes i am that author of the kabbalah magic and the great work of self-transformation book
quite a mouthful uh that is the ah there we go we have some graphics here uh so uh
yes that is the book i did write it uh apparently uh uh 2006 i think was the release date uh and in
this book um a lot of people have you know contacted me via twitter because that’s usually
you where I maintain some semblance of public appearance and have asked me, you know, various
questions about the book. So I thought I would create a YouTube channel clarifying some things
about magic. And, you know, one of the main things in this Kabbalah magic book is that,
I say it several times, and that is that, you know, magic is not what it appears to be.
and of course I’d never really explain that because it’s really up to the student to find out
what I mean by that but I’m going to explain it today what the heck right so yeah magic is not
what it seems and I think what I mean by that is it’s not like you develop a proficiency with magic
and then suddenly you’re able to do a ritual for this or that result to happen and then you know
you have the ability to cast spells and then things will materialize that kind of stuff um
yeah of course that’s possible but the ultimate aim of of you know high magic especially in the
golden dawn dawn tradition was to uh transform uh the the psyche into uh something that manifests
reality just spontaneously so in other words things begin to happen around you just naturally
without you having to force them to come into existence uh you start living a life that’s
you know filled with more synchronicities and things like that i guess um but the things that
you uh are interested in begin to materialize around you get handed to you uh now the way that
happens, is not the way that one might think. Essentially, what
you’re doing in this Golden Dawn curriculum is building a
framework around yourself, which restructures the psyche. So you
might want to think of your this, this, the framework or or
the the environment around you, as the store sort of mandala in
which you live. And in the Golden Dawn, they call that the
sphere of sensation. And that is the space that you appear to
occupy your imagination space. So what you’re doing with with
this work is you’re restructuring that imaginary
space around yourself. And you’re doing it by you know,
plugging in coordinates and you know, using a tree of life
diagram and um you are basically using words of power uh using colors using symbols uh and so
you’re surrounding yourself with like you know the astrological version of the universe
uh the magic circle uh the four quarters of the elements uh so these things get sort of built
into your psyche into your aura if you like that word they built they get built in and as
your mind is restructured this way it becomes a sort of lens through which um the divine will
begins to manifest through your reality around you you begin to live magically and it’s not that you
you know make up your mind one day i want a new car and then i’m going to do a car ritual or you
know something like that um these things are possible but of course this is not really the
aim of the golden dawn magic um so uh ultimately what you’re doing is you’re restructuring the
psyche uh remapping it so that it becomes you know more purified um it’s so it stops regurgitating
its karma vomiting its karma all over your reality sort of thing uh we can talk about this later
maybe in another video as far as how karma fits into that kind of stuff another thing to fuss about
is is progress possible without a teacher and I would have to say emphatically yes
progress is possible without a teacher but for the majority of people that I’ve seen and worked with
it tends not to be and the reason for that is and I say this many times to people I talk to
that what we think we want for ourselves is not necessarily what we truly want
for ourselves i know that’s a hard pill to swallow but apparently so as you get into your own
self-development in a course like kabbalah magic and the great work of self-transformation
if you’re doing the coursework um there’s a tendency for you to sabotage it yeah uh so
if you’re working with a teacher who has you know some legitimate credentials uh supposedly that
teacher can keep that from happening or help you keep that from happening okay now that’s the main
part of it and so I will tell students often that as they’re going along they will complain that why
do I have to do everything the way I’m told why can’t I do it the way I want to do it and I
basically say well we have to assume that you don’t really know what’s good for you right now
you might know you might have some knowledge but to assume that there’s something uh that that you
are as dysfunctional as the rest of the human race who’s also unenlightened and you we have to
uh so in other words you cannot proceed under your own guidance right now we have to assume that
okay unless you have a teacher and then the teacher can help you sculpt your own curriculum
okay all right one of the really cool and important things about a teacher hmm i meant to
throw in something there about um about right view okay so uh right view a teacher helps you
establish a right view of reality a correct view of reality okay but that doesn’t mean that any
particular view you have of reality is correct in fact any view you happen to have of reality
is not correct because the mind really cannot accurately perfectly convey what reality is
like reality is always shifting morphing and the absolute nature of reality it was always
hidden behind what the mind can see or the what the mind can conceive of okay
however there are ways of looking at reality which involve kabbalah and non-duality and things like
that um that are conducive to you discovering the true nature of reality and so there are various
philosophies and frameworks of mind and of course the system these coordinates that you built into
your you build into your aura like the the north south east west earth air fire water stuff that
you create the spheroth of the tree of life those kinds of things that you build into your aura
these things can help you establish a right establish a right view which will get you
sort of going in the right direction uh so that you can actually eventually touch down and really
come come to like face to face with what reality actually is which really cannot be conveyed
through words or or even images for that matter okay but there is a framework of the mind there
are various systems of thinking that can bring you in the right that can point you in the right
direction and a teacher can help you establish one of those right views there isn’t one there
isn’t one particular right view of reality but can you adopt a philosophical system
and a practice that are taking you in the wrong direction yes you can uh and so a teacher can help
you not do that okay um without a teacher it is possible to go through a book like kabbalah magic
and the great work of self-transformation
and to make progress.
It really is.
And hopefully if you can do it
without sabotaging your own progress
and starting to do it the way you think is good for you,
then you’ll make it through.
And then you can touch down
and see the true nature of reality
and then begin to proceed as an adept,
somebody who basically is capable of manifesting reality
just naturally without having to do a ritual
for this or that.
All right.
Now, psychology, uh, psychology, yes, is very important. I’ve read, you know, various books
about alchemy where they would try to insist that the psychological interpretation of alchemy, uh,
is incorrect and that there are actual physical things you can do in the laboratory that,
you know, produce the effects that are being described. Okay. Hmm. Um, uh, that’s all very
interesting. But the psychological basis of magic, I find that to be pretty foundational,
especially for students who are just beginning. But you have to remember, when I say the psyche
and psychology, when I say the psyche, really we’re talking about the imagination, okay? And
so the psyche is the only thing that you can ever truly see. You’re always sort of confronted with
this mirror reflection of reality you can’t see reality itself you’re always confronted with the
way that the psyche presents reality to you okay so if that’s the case then then um knowledge of
psychology is fundamental to magic okay and but i really would like to rescue psychology from the
brain scientists uh and and bring it back to a proper study of the psyche a study of the soul
which to put that more easily you know would be uh study of the imagination okay and how
the imagination functions uh some pretty interesting stuff there all right and finally
initiation uh what is initiation um the reason i’m bringing this up is because a lot of the
people who are putting content out there do not seem to be initiates uh and and i guess that
might seem a bit snobbish of somebody to like me to say that uh it’s like this oh that’s this
person’s not an initiate um if you if you have initiation into the higher levels of the tree
of life you can instantly well very quickly tell whether somebody who’s doing a presentation
also has that same level of initiation yeah i know it sounds like a an evil club and people
excluding each other. But there are certain realizations that permanently transform you.
There are things in life that once you see them, you cannot unsee them. And people who have been
through these initiations are never the same again. And there are ways that they begin to act
that way you can recognize them. No secret handshakes, nothing like that. You can pretty
much recognize whether these people have had these experiences or not. Okay. But let’s define
initiation very simply. Let’s take it at face value. Initiation is a beginning of something
new. And one of the easiest ways to look at it is if you have a teacher who is taking you through a
process and the process that the teacher brings in to you begins to become its own reward. And so
you are now developing a new set of behaviors and a new way of looking at things that is now
producing its own results to the point where you can’t stop because it’s like, I like what’s
happening here. I’m going to continue. In fact, you really don’t have a choice because once things
start to flow in a way where, you know, happiness becomes the norm, you can’t stop. Why would you
stop? So this is initiation. Okay. And you might see it as like an easiest, the easiest way to look
at it is when you run into somebody new, you can see them as a person. Fine. Of course, you want
to respect them as a person, uh, even though, you know, something like a person doesn’t actually
exist by the way, but, um, that’s fine. We respect them as a person, but we can also see them as a
collection of habits and habitual perceptions of ritual behaviors, things like that. And these,
uh, these habits that they have going on within them, you can see them as little wheels turning
around inside their bodies okay chakras if you want whatever um so uh you begin to view them
this way and um so you when when they are talking to you when they’re interacting with you when
they’re telling you stories about their supposed lives you you can notice when they’re uh which
habits they have that are churning out bad results for them okay and so you can see these the wheels
turning that are turning out these bad results okay an initiate can’t anyway okay so um then
you can point out to this person that’s like oh i see what you’re doing you have this thing going on
where you’re turning out this automatic results every time okay so then you get them to look at
this wheel that’s turning that’s turning out these results for them and they begin to notice it
so they get they objectify it and they they can look at it and tweak it and reinstall it
and then it churns out better results for them okay this is what initiation really is okay so
so there are many different fundamental habits that we adopt that are churning out bad results
for us undesirable results right and buddhism they would call these things unskillful
unskillful strategy for living uh yeah and then of course you can basically tweak these strategies
change them so that they produce the results you want okay or dissolve them entirely that might be
possible sometimes it is possible sometimes it’s not but we’ll have to talk about that at some
other time all right so i hope that’s a good little i don’t know introduction uh so there
will be more videos to come and we’ll start going into some of these difficult topics i don’t know
if i’m going to be looking at the comments in these videos uh one of the reason that initiates
kind of stay hidden is because they don’t want to be part of the drama of people claiming to be
you know part of the one true tradition and all this nonsense so uh maybe i’ll i’ll look at the
comments. And if it becomes not too drama laden, then I can respond to some of them
and maybe even produce some videos that are in response to them.
Source: Lyam Christopher