Philip Carr-Gomm > Quotes

“The songs of our ancestors are also the songs of our children”
― Philip Carr-Gomm

“Ultimately, the purpose of magic is to free our potential, not bind us to ideas.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“The risks involved in the pursuit of magic are--put simply--either getting frightened by unpleasant perceptions or becoming deluded. Unfortunately it is possible to suffer from both symptoms at the same time.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“But what exactly is magic and what inspired our ancestors to begin its practice? Magic begins in darkness – the darkness of the earth, the sky and the body – and an awareness of it is born with light. Seeing green shoots appearing out of the dark soil, the sun, moon and stars rising and setting in the sky, babies emerging from the womb, fire leaping up in the midst of a cold night, were all primal experiences that awakened that sense of awe and wonder that lies at the heart of the magical experience.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“The magics that were born here may have originated in the English landscape but they were informed from the very beginning by different cultures. The Druids were influenced by the Classical world, as was that world by India. Alchemy was influenced by Arabia, Medieval magic by Jewish cabbalism. The Golden Dawn was inspired by German Rosicrucianism, the French Occult Revival, and the religion of Ancient Egypt. Thelema was a result of Crowley’s explorations in Far and Near Eastern religion and magic, which informed Gardner’s Wicca too. For Dion Fortune, Christ, the Egyptian gods and the gods of the British Isles were equally inspiring, and as for Chaos magicians: they would claim the Universe and the world of physics as their inspiration.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one’s conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“Alan Richardson has written the definitive biography of Dion Fortune: Priestess: The Life and Magic of Dion Fortune (Aquarian, 1987).”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“Although the thirty-six volumes of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, published by Transworld Publishers, present an elaborate fantasy world that removes Pratchett from the genre of ‘occult fiction’, contemporary magicians enjoy reading his humorous portrayal of many of the ideas and figures that people the world of twenty-first-century magic.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“Whenever ye have need of anything, once in the month,
and better it be when the moon is full,
then ye shall assemble
in some secret place
and adore the spirit of Me
who am Queen of all Witcheries . . .
And as the sign that ye are truly free,
Ye shall be naked in your rites, both men
And women and ye shall dance, sing, feast,
make music, and love, all in my praise.
—The Charge of the Goddess”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, A Brief History of Nakedness

“The story of Rosicrucianism highlights an issue that in the end must be confronted by every student of magic and its history. The magical quest is – in one of its deepest senses – a philosophical quest for the truth, and yet the story of magic is one of endless fantasies, fibs and fictions. Much of the recounted history, certainly before the end of the twentieth century, of Druids, witches, Freemasons, alchemists and Rosicrucians is simply not true. Sometimes this is the result of deliberate deception, sometimes of poor scholarship combined with wishful thinking.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“The folklorist Katharine Briggs believes we can divide traditional British fairies into two groups: ‘trooping’ and ‘solitary’.10 Trooping fairies congregate far apart from human society, while solitary fairies are either of the domestic or non-domestic variety. Solitary domestic fairies live alongside humans in their houses, outbuildings or gardens. The non-domestic fairies, rather like hermits, live far from human and other contact.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“As the institution of Masonry grew, its original founding impulses of mutual support, the protection of trade secrets and the use of secret rites were so appealing that these ideas were imitated and adopted almost wholesale by many trade institutions. Millers, coopers, printers and dozens of other similar groups developed rites that involved Masonic-style initiations. In 1830, the Shoemaker’s Union in Cheshire, for example, bought ‘a full set of secret order regalia, surplices, trimmed aprons, etc., and a crown and robes for King Crispin’, the legendary patron of their craft.1 Magic had crept into the professional life of England through the back door.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“Pullman’s books, set in a ‘multiverse’ of parallel worlds that include magical creatures, witches and angels, have been criticised as being atheistic, with the Catholic Herald even suggesting they should be burnt. Pullman, however, does not deny the value of the religious impulse, which he believes ‘includes the sense of awe and mystery we feel when we look at the universe, the urge to find a meaning and a purpose in our lives, our sense of moral kinship with other human beings – [it] is part of being human, and I value it. I’d be a damn fool not to. But organised religion is quite another thing.’7”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“And as Anglo-Saxon scholar Stephen Pollington says: ‘All our hardiest words – mother, father, land, earth, tree, field, sky, love, hate, live, die, eat, drink, sleep, wake – are Anglo-Saxon words.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“The Cheltenham magician W.G. Gray was more specific, and held quite a different opinion to Raleigh, when he wrote in 1969 that magic is: ‘Man’s most determined effort to establish an actual working relationship through himself between his Inner and Outer states of being. By magic, Man shows that he is not content to be simply a pawn in the Great Game, but wants to play on his own account. Man the meddler becomes Man the Magician, and so learns the rules the hard way, for magic is concerned with Doing, while mysticism is concerned with Being’.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“He injected a passion for Celtic mythology and seasonal celebrations into modern Druidism. He was aided in this work by fellow Druid Vera Chapman, founder of the Tolkien Society and one of the first women to matriculate from Oxford University.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“Stukeley was fascinated by Pythagoreanism, Neoplatonism, and the Egyptian Mysteries, as well as Druidism. His friends called him ‘The Druid’, and after he had met Augusta, Princess of Wales, the mother of the future George III, he wrote to her as ‘Veleda, Archdruidess of Kew’.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“The Princess/Page of Swords inquisitive, objective, aloof You are probably very bright – good at communicating clearly and diplomatically, and you enjoy intellectual challenges. You love a really good conversation and find it easy to be analytical, but because of the ease with which you can be objective and detach yourself from your feelings, some people experience you as distant or even aloof. It is easy for you to become overly critical of other people and even to be tempted into prying into their lives. You sometimes think that you need to get more in touch with your feelings but this makes you feel uncomfortably childlike, and your usual sense of certainty deserts you.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“BOOKS The Alchemist’s Handbook: Manual for Practical Laboratory Alchemy, Frater Albertus (Red Wheel/Weiser, 1987) Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, Titus Burckhardt (Fons Vitae, 2000) Alchemy: The Secret Art, Stanislas Klossowski De Rola (Thames & Hudson, 1973) Ars Spagyrica – being a rendition of the Alchemical Arte of Spagyrics, G St M Nottingham, (Verdelet Publishing, 2005) Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer, Michael White (Fourth Estate, 1998) Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman: Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician, Lauren Kassell (Oxford University Press, 2007) On Becoming an Alchemist: A Guide for the Modern Magician, Catherine MacCoun (Trumpeter Books, 2009) Path of Alchemy: Energetic Healing and the World of Natural Alchemy, Mark Stavish (Llewellyn Publications, 2006)”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“While he was at Oxford University his fascination for the Anglo-Saxon period intensified. It was a couplet from Cynewulf’s poem ‘Crist’, which ran: ‘Hail, Earendel, brightest of angels, over Middle Earth sent to men’, that inspired his creation of the imaginary world that would form the setting for most of his writing.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“read Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, The DruidCraft Tarot (Connections, 2004) or one of the books by Rachel Pollack or Mary Greer, such as Rachel Pollack’s Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot (Element, 2001) or Mary Greer’s Tarot for Your Self : A Workbook for Personal Transformation (New Page, 2002).”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“To explore the Tarot court cards more fully, read Mary K. Greer and Tom Little, Understanding the Tarot Court (Llewellyn, 2004), and Kate Warwick-Smith, The Tarot Court Cards (Destiny, 2003).”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“She kept for her Laborator in the house Adrian Gilbert (vulgarly called Dr Gilbert) half-brother to Sir Walter Raleigh, who was a great Chymist in those dayes and a Man of excellent naturall Parts; but very Sarcastick, and the greatest Buffoon in the Nation; cared not what he said to man or woman of what quality soever.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“With the invention of electric light, none of us in the twenty-first century is aware of how it must feel to experience darkness consistently and have no control over it. Wilby suggests that ‘the early modern poor would have lived much of their lives under the powerful thrall of darkness, and their perception of the world and its inhabitants would have been sculpted by its mystery”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“Treadwell’s stocks plenty of second-hand books, which Virginia Woolf called ‘Wild Books, Homeless Books’, because, explains Christina, ‘they have already had a journey, so they have extra energy in them from where they have been before, and they’re looking for a home’.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“As part of the scientific revolution, we are trapped in a vision that there has to be either a material or a spiritual world. You must have one or the other. The Platonists believed rather that there is a metaxy, an in-between world, which combines both forms.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley (Michael Joseph, 1983) The Arthurian myth is told here from the women’s perspective, first through the story of Igraine, and later concentrating on Morgaine, Arthur’s sister, and her training as a priestess on the Isle of Avalon, presided over by the Lady of the Lake. War in Heaven, Charles Williams (Faber, 1930) The Holy Grail is discovered in a country church, occasioning a struggle for its possession between the forces of darkness and of light, in the persons of a group of occultists and their black magic rituals, and a parish priest.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“The modern world tends to think of the Holy Grail as a priceless chalice, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper, sought after through constant danger by the likes of Indiana Jones. The truth, however, is much more ancient and much more interesting. The Grail and its companion icon, the sword or spear, have served as magical images since pagan times, and today, over two thousand years later, they are still used in the rituals of ceremonial magicians, witches and Druids.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“In the seventeenth century Sir Walter Raleigh wrote that ‘The art of magic is the art of worshipping God’.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic

“As I extended my studies, I soon realised that this spiritual association with arts and crafts had been common knowledge since the third century. Plotinus, one of the most famous Neoplatonist magicians, wrote in his Enneads that ‘the arts are not an imitation of nature, but human-mediated expressions of the spiritual source of which nature is only the outward form.”
― Philip Carr-Gomm, The Book of English Magic