ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the first ethnographic case study of modern Western magic. Each ritual under ethnographic scrutiny is illustrative of the spectrum of modern Western magic but which nevertheless incorporate some central types of Western magical ideas and practices. The focus of these ethnographic case studies is directed towards how the practitioners self-legitimise and self-represent as ‘magicians’. The historico-cultural backgrounds and cosmological structures that define the nature and objectives of each ritual are discussed in depth, followed by extensive portrayals of their enactments by selected ethnographic informants. These portrayals also incorporate the informants’ own explanations for the selection and approach to their genre of Western ritual magic, along with their own personal testimonies regarding the experiential outcomes of their magical rituals. This chapter, in particular, focuses on a ritual deriving from the works of Aleister Crowley. It is referred to as ‘Liber V vel Reguli’ and encapsulates much of the Crowley’s esoteric worldview referred to as ‘Thelema’. The ethnographic study of the Liber V vel Reguli was conducted in a city of Scotland with a magical practitioner who self-identifies with the cosmology and practices of Thelema and who is referred to as the ‘Thelemite’.