I do not think we need to worry about reinventing the wheel when it comes to the Royal Art. The Western esoteric tradition is still alive and kicking and there are real living traditions in
-Gnosticism. That can truly give you Gnosis and free you so you may return to the pleroma
-Evocation. Living traditions closely allied with arabic magick that have real effects and is designed to elevate the practitioner and the world.
-Theosophy/Rosicrucianism. How to be a living prophet and parttake of heaven.
-Theurgy/Alchemy. The creation of the stone and the attainment of that which hermetic and alchemical texts speak of.
-Mystical work. Self explanatory really.
-Folk Magick. Hidden in central europe and in the still highly Christianised parts, but it does exist as a living tradition.
But what are we missing? The Western Esoteric Tradition, as the umbrella term, is not that hot with what Agrippa refers to as natural magick. This little tidbit of the Western corpus is all but lost. A lot of it made its way into the USA during the great migrations. A lot mixed with what later became Hoodoo with its southern feel and 90% africna origins (Obeah anyone?).
We have lost most of the Roman work with the local spirits. Angels and Demons is one thing, but what about the actual missunderstood nature spirits? The Exu of Kiumbanda? the Lwa like beings of Haitian Voudu?
Chaosmagick tried and failed in kickstarting the practical aspects of the Western esoteric Tradition as it misstook Theurgy for Goety.
The church is of course to blame for this, the massive dualism created in the 11th century and perpetuated since then by western "science" (Science Deified and Science Defined is an excellent book to start at for those who do not know just how messed up western science is).
We can, however rekindle the flame and link the river of our tradition to some still fresh wells without cultural appropriation.
Examples include:
If you work in a tradition where you work with Godforms, get to know them in a more shamanic way. Get a frickin' statue and set up a shrine for the deity. Learn to write its name in Hieroglyps (veve anyone?) and then offer it some food. heck give it blood if you want what do I care. But read less books and go with what it says sometimes.
Look into hoodoo. Don't try and become a Rootdoctor whilst living in France. But read up on it, understand how and why they use herbs and objects the way they do, then look at the greek magical papyri, look into The Magickal Practices of Roman West. Go to some museums and look at the artefacts. Study Ficino and his books on medicine- See? and already the correspondences will make more sense.
I believe that it is possible to rejuvenate all aspects of the tradition without falling into the trap of cultural appropriation, the need to join all sorts of traditions we are culturally not prepared for or reinventing the wheel badly. (post 60s evocation gives me the creeps).
