Making Talismans: Living Entities of Power [Paperback]

Nick Farrell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 2001

Discover the secret keys and practical techniques to turn mundane objects into "living entities of power," bringing real change in your life. By pooling magical practices from shamanism, paganism, the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn, and Dion Fortune, Making Talismans offers training and techniques for performing advanced magical talismanic operations.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nick Farrell (United Kingdom) has been a ceremonial magician since he was 17. Born in England and raised in New Zealand, he was initiated into Builders of the Adytum (BOTA), and is currently an initiate of the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn and one of its branch orders, the Order of the Table Round. He now runs a temple in the tradition of Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn, lectures and runs workshops throughout the world. He has contributed to Quest, Liongate, and Round Merlin's Table magazines and Chic and Tabatha Cicero's Hermetic Journal.

He is currently working on books on magical psychology, earth magic and ritual magic. Nick has a career in news journalism and magazine writing. After more than 15 years working for daily and local newspapers, he is now a full time writer and editor, working for many UK computing and Internet magazines he also advises companies on media relations.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Talismans and How They Work A talisman, amulet, or charm is any physical object that stores and radiates a magical energy to create change. A metallic disk, stone, wand, sword, pen, paper, or television remote control can be a talisman provided that it is dedicated toward a "magical purpose. The definition of magic, however, has successfully eluded occultists for centuries.

Aleister Crowley, a Golden Dawn adept, devised the most widely accepted definition of magic. He argued that magic is "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will, but this is too wide a definition to be of much use. Crowley, himself, admitted that this definition implies that any willed act is magical. While turning on a light switch may be perceived as magical to someone who has not seen electricity, most would not define it as a magical act.

Another definition of magic, touted by more than one magical school of which I have been a member, is "the art of causing meaningful coincidences at will." This is equally unsatisfactory, though, since magical work does not always create coincidences that can be seen on the material plane.

While it is not entirely satisfactory either, my definition of magic is " the art and science of becoming a co-creator with a Supreme God. This is not to say that we can be co-equal with the Most High, but rather that we merge into Divinity and its purpose. Occultism teaches that everyone has unlimited potential. We stop becoming successful only when we forget that we are part of an infinite creator. This divine creator aspect of us is like a divine secret self; Jung called it the Higher Self. As this self is realized, we become more in tune with the Divine and have access to more of its powers.

Occult techniques bring us to a gradual realization of our immortal nature over a period of incarnations. In the early stages of occult training, we develop enough belief in its concepts to effect changes in our material surroundings. Using my definition, a talisman, amulet, or charm is a material object that stores and transmits a fusion of the magician's will and universal powers to create something new.

How Talismans Work To know how talismans, amulets, and charms work, it is important to know how things in the universe are created.

Like a physicist, an occultist defines the universe as being made up of energy vibrating at different frequencies. Occultists, however, say this energy is intelligent and is the material part of a single divine being. They go further to say that this energy extends to higher frequencies than have been identified by physicists.

Occultists define four frequencies or levels that exist within different dimensions of the same space (figure 1). These are sometimes called the four worlds of the Cabbalah. These worlds interact and affect each other. An event that happens on one level of creation will affect all the others. A form of Jewish mysticism called Cabbalah named these levels Atziluth, the world of deity; Briah, the world of creation; Yetzirah, the world of formation; and Assiah, the world of matter.

The highest frequency is the creative intelligence of the universe or a Supreme God. This is where all ideas in the universe are born.

These divine ideas filter down to the next level where they become an impulse toward a particular direction. At this level, the ancients noted that parts of God divided into specializations. For example, one specialization would bea creator and another a destroyer. The ancients named these divine specializations archangels. If God's idea were to create dogs, then the archangel would map out the details of what would make up a dog and its evolutionary destiny.

The work of the archangels filters down to the next level. Here the divine plan is drawn in greater detail. The ancients noted that different parts of the archangel would specialize again into what they called angels. There was one angel for each part of the creation. Using the last example, there would be an angel responsible for creating each dog's teeth, another for its hair, and another for working out each animal's time of death.

Once this work has been carried out, the image of the dog is strong enough to manifest on the material plane. Here the images are formed, under the angel's instructions, out of beings called elementals. These creatures are partly built of spirit, but resonate to different types of matter and effectively build the image on the material level.

There are four types of elementals, which are described in terms of the type of matter they resemble. The lowest level of elementals are the earth elementals, or gnomes, which represent solids. Higher up are the water elementals, or undines, which represent liquids. The next highest are the air elementals, or sylphs, which represent gases. The highest level of elementals are the fire elementals, or salamanders, which represent radiant energy.

A talisman is like the foot of a ladder through the four worlds. It contacts the divine idea and the correct archangel, angel, and elemental builders. It continuously pours power into all four levels until the desired result takes place.

Making its physical design resonate to the forces that it is trying to contact makes the loading of the talisman easier. The talisman should be a color and shape that corresponds to the force that you wish to attract. It should have occult signs and divine names of power that occultists agree are the earthly representations of the four worlds, and it should be made at a time when those powers are the strongest.

We will be looking at talisman designs in chapter 3. The technique...(Continues)

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications (July 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738700045
• ISBN-13: 978-0738700045
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, January 19, 2005

By 

Brother MOLOCH 969 "MolochSorcery.com" (Cleveland, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Making Talismans: Living Entities of Power (Paperback)

Gotta tell ya, if you enjoy crafting Magical items and talismans just happen to be one of them, then you'll want to get this book.

While I have been recently delving back into the pre-Rennaissance talisman making processes, I have to say I have great respect for the author of this work. Why? Well first off he's innovative. At least as for what he's penned in his book and where he obtained that knowledge, I can't say for certain. He's a member of the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn (EOGD), the Society of Light (SOL) and Builders of the Adytum (BOTA). Thus he could have picked up varying levels of techniques from many sources and teachers and then again he may have invented much that is new.

One thing I highly dislike about Llewellyn authors is their need to always have to go back to the beginning. Chapter two is about "A Brief History of Talismans" - brief my eye! That lasted from page 13 all the way to page 44! Ugh! Just what everyone wants to learn, history lessons from yet "another" Llewellyn book author. Then his chapter three is "Names of Power" and we get more of that until page 60! You see, if Llewellyn wasn't worried about page count, they could trim off 36 pages!

The next chapter delves into something a little more meaty and that's "Neo-Pagan Talismans". Talk about something you just don't see everyday listed in a table of contents! And this is a terrific chapter up until Mr. Farrell get's to page 73 where he starts in with his own version of how the Gods from various pantheons line up to each of the seven major planets. Sorry folks but if you're just using it as a basis for talisman making, then fine adopt it but do NOT think that the Egyptian deity Ra equates exactly with the Greek Apollo or Norwegian Frey. This is typical new age author shoddy information giving! Each God/dess must be studied in its entirety and weighed on its own merits.

There are aspects between these three Gods that more than likely would cause them to openly war with one another should you introduce them. So just because they share a single planetary rulership does not mean they're exactly alike. If you doubt me, then do some research on your own and learn about the Gods from other non-Occult sources.

Chapter Five is weak because it's on "Angels and Talismans" and frankly most of the offered information here can be found most anywhere else in Ritual Magic literature.

Chapter Six is called "Snaring the Power of the Planets" and it too is somewhat weak. He does show you how to plot the seals of the Spirits and Intelligences of the Planets on the Magic Squares that belong to each Planetary power. If you've never seen this before, you may want to read that chapter pretty heavily. The last thing in this chapter is *yawn* Planetary Hours - again found in hundreds of other books too.

Chapters Seven and Eight are well worth your time to read. Here he gets into color and coloring thoughtforms. The section of Flashing Tablets should be read but again this information can be found in any number of other texts on Ritual Magic. Eight gets into drawing the talisman and here he really shines! He discusses shapes as well as new ideas such as layering the talisman and using the lightning bolt from the Four Worlds. Plus he offers up some traditional symbology you can make use of for your own talisman.

Finally chapter Nine is about "Consecrating the Talisman" and it's standard Ritual Magic procedure though with a couple of fine twists to it. And Chapter ten is all about how to determine if your talisman is indeed working!

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clearest & most detailed book I found on the subject to date, June 10, 2002

By 

JB (New York United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Making Talismans: Living Entities of Power (Paperback)

This is not easy to do - not simple at all. There is no way a beginner is going to effectively make and charge one of these talismans. The back cover of the book says that you do not have to be an experienced magician or Wiccan to get positive results from the information in this book. I agree and disagree. I agree if this means that the reader or seeker comes away enlightened on the history, uses and process of making talismans. I disagree if its suggesting that one without experience can now go ahead and make talismans based on instructions in the book.

Clearly, making the talismans described here involves a disciplined and methodical process. To begin with, you must for example understand what divine names are, and what it means to vibrate them. What is vibrating a god name? As I went through the historical section of the book, I was right there with Mike Farrell up to page 52. At this point, I slowed down and was able to follow his instructions somewhat only because I have been using the Donald Michael Kraig book, "Modern Magic," and Israel Rigardie's "The Middle Pillar," for about 4-6 months. Otherwise, I would be lost. By the time I got to page 56, I could plod through for content, but in order to execute any of these instructions I would have to had practiced for some time, as well as relied on other sources with more detailed explanations of rituals. In this work, one sometimes gets the feeling of suddenly happening upon a ritual, instead of being gradually and methodically introduced to it.

Nevertheless, those with fairly decent exposure to Golden Dawn type rituals should, with practice, managed to master Farrell's instructions in a shorter time. And, the book is truly a gem as its the only one that I have found so far with as much detail and information. That makes it a five star book. I gave it four stars however, because I believe there are ways in which the author could make it more detailed and utilitarian for the less experienced among us who are trying hard to get there. More clarity and detail would help to make our journey a little easier.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nick Farrel Has Done All The Research For You., January 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Making Talismans: Living Entities of Power (Paperback)

This is a great book. While it is quite in depth, it is also great for beginners. I started out trying to gather bits and pieces of information about the actual making of Talisman and found that many of the writers simply wrote very short sections without indepth detail as to how and why Talisman are made the way they are. The author thoroughly explains in this book how to create a Talisman from start to finish and how to 'charge' them. Great book on 'Making Talismans.'

The author not only gives the reader a plethora of different ideas to create Talisman, but goes on to teach the reader exactly what is needed so that the user can use the knowledge gained from this book to use outside sources to create other Talisman.

Great Book, highly recommended.