Jake Stratton-Kent the legendary goetic magician and writer, has died of a stroke after a long illness. Statton-Kent will go down in esoteric history for being a huge influence on ceremonial magicians and standing up against the institutionalisation of magic. For this reason, he did not fit in with many who wanted their magic precisely the way the Golden Dawn or Aleister Crowley performed it, although he had considerable sympathy with the latter’s approach. The Thelemites saw him as one of their own -- even if he appeared obsessed with Old Aeon stuff and didn't fit in with them. Unlike many magicians who wanted to “attain unity with a transcendent being”, Stratton-Kent followed a much older sub-lunar approach to daemons and demons. Geosophia for example, linked medieval demons found in the Grimoires to their ancient sources. His later work on the True Grimoire demythologised these texts and found their roots, but the notes explained how they worked based on actual experience. ...

Gareth Knight (Basil Wilby) has died at his Essex home on 1 March. He was 91. It is hard to find a place in the British Western Mystery Tradition where Gareth Knight did not influence. He trained in Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner Light and his follow-up to her Mystical Qabalah with Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism. Knight became Fortune’s post-war interpreter, providing many footnotes and making her unpublished works accessible. He was her biographer. In the 1980s, Knights books were among the few which captured an authentic flavour of magic and esotericism. There was a certain “hands-on” about his approach to British mythology. He wrote more than forty books covering topics as diverse as Qabalah, the history of magic, Arthurian legend, Rosicrucianism, Tarot, the Inklings and the Feminine Mysteries, and several practical books on ritual magic. While no modern esoteric group will admit it, most of them followed Knight’s approach. His system can be seen in the work ...

Jorge Hevia III, a 7=4 and the Praemonstrator Ordinis  one of the three Chiefs in David Griffin’s Golden Dawn Order in happier daze. Sorry days. The Golden Dawn Community is reeling after the news that the bloke whose job it was to provide the Rosicrucian Order of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the Outer with its teaching, Jorge Hevia III died LAST YEAR. We say reeling because the news is a complete surprise.  According to the Miami Herald  Hevia died on December 10, 2013, and yet no one in Griffin’s order acknowledged the death of one of its most publicly identifiable leaders.  One would think that all those years of loyal service would amount to a few words on David Griffin’s blog, but apparently not. In fact, we are still not sure how he died. To put this lack of information into perspective, Jorge Hevia III was extremely important to Griffin and his Order. Hevia was a 7=4 and the  Praemonstrator Ordinis, which means he was expected to provide teach...