Hermetic Audio Glossary

Whenever I hear people pronounce jargon words from the occult lexicon, half the time they use some sort of idiosyncratic pronunciation or another. Given the relatively solitary nature of most practitioners, our encounters with these words are often almost exclusively through writing rather than speech. Combine this problem with the fact that many of the names and jargon words are drawn from Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and a number of other languages, those who haven't had formal exposure to these languages are often impaired in their ability to wrap their heads around how the words should sound and are left to muddle their way through as best they can.

In the early 2000s, I had a website with a section called the Hermetic Audio Glossary. My goal with this project was to present audio pronunciations of various names and jargon terms, in order to give others an idea of how the words should sound. Language has always been a living thing, and there is no "One True Pronunciation" for any given word throughout history, but I can say that I offer one true pronunciation for a given word, in that my pronunciation corresponds to those of academic researchers within the language's field.

As grimoiric magic has become more popular, and Latin passages are used more frequently in people's magic (e.g. the invocations from the Heptameron) and magicians are making greater use of the Orphic Hymns and other ancient resources, I have felt that the community may be well-served by resurrecting the project.

I am currently in the process of migrating my blog to a WordPress platform, in order to better host a combination of blog posts and static content.  Once this migration is done, you can continue to access my blog at http://hermeticulture.org -- and I'll be able to pursue a resurrection of the Hermetic Audio Glossary in earnest.

I have always loved the sounds of other languages, and especially of ancient languages.  Apart from English (or at least Anglicized) jargon terms, you can expect a mix of content in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, and Middle Egyptian.  In addition to specific vocabulary terms, I will also be recording recitations of the Orphic Hymns in Greek, the Latin prayers from the Heptameron, and some foundational rituals such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and the Star Sapphire.  I look forward to serving the occult community with this resource again!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Muggle Jobs" and the Prosperity Theology of Occultism

Image
Occult blogger (and fellow Minneapolitan)  Scott Stenwick  recently posted an  article  weighing in on the curious disdain that some people in the esoteric community seem to have toward magicians holding down day jobs.  For those who haven't encountered this phenomenon, the argument goes that if a person were really a good magician, they would be able to magic themselves into enough riches that they don't need to work for a living. As Scott points out, the idea that an author can make a full-time living from publishing in a niche market such as esotericism is a relatively naive one.  Since he skillfully debunks the idea from a feasibility standpoint, I'd like to focus instead on where the idea comes from in the first place and why it's wrong-headed in its foundational assumptions. The core feature of this viewpoint appears to be that a good magician should be able to focus on his or her magic, make a living at it, and not have to work a boring "mug...
Read more

All That's Wrong with the Golden Dawn

After two full years of deliberation, I recently resigned from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.  I had been a member for more than a decade, almost half of it as an Adept.  I had been struggling with this decision for two years, after I had a falling out with my mother temple in early 2019.  At the time, I exercised my right as an Adept to unaffiliate with that temple and continue on my Path as a solitary practitioner.  But in doing so, I felt adrift.  I had effectively lost not only my chosen family of 10 years, but all of the people in my life I held dear who spoke my own native spiritual language.  I had already experienced the Golden Dawn tradition elsewhere, first initiating into a different Order back in 2005, and anyone can walk that Path alone if they so choose--so my resignation didn't mean that I couldn't pursue my own spiritual journey anymore.  But my chosen family was irreplaceable, as was the experience of doing lodge-style magic wi...
Read more

On Ritual Purity

Image
Whenever I hear magicians talking about spirit evocation, particularly from a grimoiric standpoint, there is inevitably a discussion of ritual purity.  I always find myself a bit surprised by the degree of ritual purity a number of other magicians observe, because I have had positive and effective results while doing very little in that regard:  my purity routine for ritual generally involves little more than bathing/showering while saying the  Asperges Me .  I have my own take on ritual purity as a result, which seems to differ from that of a number of other practitioners. I've often heard magicians express the viewpoint that ritual bathing is necessary because our natural smell is offensive to the spirits.  I find that this notion ignores a key bit of history.  While bathing was much more common in medieval Europe than popular culture leads us to believe (bathhouses were plentiful and often frequented), the general hygiene of the populace was still less ...
Read more