Nabarz - Stellar Magic: A Practical Guide to Performing Rites and Ceremonies to the Moon, Planets, Stars and Constellations

STELLAR MAGIC

A Practical Guide to the Rites of the

Moon, Planets, Stars and Constellations

Payam Nabarz

Published by Avalonia 2009

www.avaloniabooks.co.uk

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Since everything is one and the One is everything, try to love and serve all, so that you will be able to love the One (the Truth).

- Sufi poet and Pir Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh

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Payam Nabarz

Persian born Payam Nabarz is a Sufi and a practicing Dervish. He is a Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids , and a co-founder of its Nemeton of the Stars Grove. Magi Nabarz is a revivalist of the Temple of Mithras, and is working toward becoming a Hierophant in the Fellowship of Isis . He has also worked with the Golden Dawn system, Thelema, Nath Tantra , Wicca, and the Craft .

He was the founder of Spirit of Peace , a charitable organisation dedicated to personal inner peace and world peace via interfaith dialogue between different spiritual paths.

Magi Nabarzs writings have also appeared in numerous esoteric magazines including Touchstone (the Journal of the Order of Bards, Ovates, Druids), Pagan Dawn (the Journal of the Pagan Federation), Stone Circle, The Little Red Book, Pentacle, White Dragon, Silver Star, Cauldron, Fezana (Zoroastrian Journal) and the Sufi .

His published works include:

The Mysteries of Mithras

( The Pagan Belief That Shaped the Christian World )

Divine Comedy of Neophyte Corax and Goddess Morrigan

Mithras Reader - Volume I & 2 (editor)

( An academic and religious journ al of Greek, Roman, and Persian Studies )

The Persian 'Mar Nameh' (with S.H. Taqizadeh)

( The Zoroastrian 'Book o f the Snake' Omens and Calendar
& The Old Persian Calendar )

If you wish to write to the author,

Payam Nabarz ; , c/o Avalonia , BM Avalonia , London , WC1N 3XX , England, UK

www.myspace.com/nabarz

www.stellarmagic.co.uk

BM Avalonia

London

WC1N 3XX

England, UK

www.avaloniabooks.co.uk

STELLAR MAGIC

A practical guide to the rites of the moon, planets, stars and constellations.

Copyright Payam Nabarz 2009

Print Edition ISBN-10: 1905297

Print Edition ISBN-13: 978-1905297

First Edition, 7 July 2009

Design by Satori

Cover design by Asha Pearse

Disclaimer: This book is intended as an informational guide only. Due caution should be taken by the reader should they decide to use any of the substances suggested in some of the chapters herein. The author and publisher cannot take responsibility for any allergic reaction or any other negative results.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or used in another book, without written permission from the authors.

I would like to thank the following individuals and organisations:

Asha Pearse (www.ashapearsedesign.com) for designing the cover of this book;

My father Bijan Jan for the Persian calligraphy of the Burj Nameh, in the Moon chapter. Pedar azizam khily mamnoon, lotf kardid;

Alison Jones for reading of this manuscript and her tremendously helpful comments and discussions over the two years it has taken to write this book;

Akashnath for reading this manuscript and his numerous helpful discussions especially on Sefer Yetzirah;

Mogg Morgan for useful discussions on the Ursa Major constellation and use of candles in the rite s ; Seething, as well as his helpful comment on the Dendera Zodiac;

Glyn from Arthurs Arch (www.theshamanictable.co.uk) for the gift of the altar table featuring in some of the chapters.

Tony M for taking the Egypt photos;

Julian Dourado (www.juliandourado.co.uk) for the Kore Kosmon print;

Avalonia for proofreading, their helpful editorial comments and publishing this work;

Sharron Kraus and the Full Moon group members for the cosmic monthly lunar gatherings;

The members of the Nemeton of the Stars Grove of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids for taking part in performing the Stellar opening rite included in this volume;

Domus Sophiae Terrae et Sanctae Gradalis Lyceum of the Fellowship of Isis, for discussion and taking part in performing some of the rites mentioned here.

Additionally for making their resources available, I would like to thank:

Sacred Texts (www.sacred-texts.com) and The Gutenberg Project (www.gutenberg.org) for their highly useful and accessible reference works;

The U.S. Naval Observatory Library for making available the illustrations from their rare books collection, including the image used on the cover of this book which is from Atlas cleste de Flamsted. (www.usno.navy.mil/library/rare/rare.html);

NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team for the image of Orion used on the inside title page.

From the One, All

(motto of Elias Ashmole)

The all who is one and the one who is all. For plenitude of all things is one and is in one, not because the one duplicates itself but because both are one.

- Hermetica , trans Brian P. Copenhaver

To the Stars.

W ith holy voice I call the stars on high,

Pure sacred lights and genii of the sky.

Celestial stars, the progeny of Night,

In whirling circles beaming far your light,

Refulgent rays around the heave ns ye throw,

Eternal fires, the source of all below.

With flames significant of Fate ye shine,

And aptly rule for men a path divine.

In sev en bright zones ye run with wande ring flames,

And heaven and earth compose your lucid frames:

With course unwearied, pure and fiery bright

Forever shining thro' the veil of Night.

Hail twinkling, joyful, ever wakeful fires!

Propitious shine on all my just desires;

These sacred rites regard with conscious rays,

And end our works devoted to your praise.

- Hymns of Orpheus

In Platos Timaeus the view of the Planets and heavenly bodies containing gods is discussed as the necessary force that moves the planets around the earth. The Greek cosmology viewed the movement of celestial bodies to be resembling as closely as possible the perfect intelligible Living Creature. The l aws of Newtonian physics have long ago replaced the need for god s as the necessary force for movement of stellar bodies, thus astronomy has taken over from astrology.

Yet, when walking on a clear night and staring at the stars , something does capture one s imagination. It may be the simple beauty of the stars and the planets, or perhaps a religious meme that compels one to head out night after night in the footsteps of the modern and ancient st ar gazers. It is not only the full moon that turn s people into lunatics and poets; there are other subtle force s there too that inspire us; the constellations. To use a metaphor, i f the sun is the ocean and the moon a sea, the planets the rivers, then the constellations are the streams. There has been much written about the magic of the sun , moon and the planets, yet the gentler streams of the constellations remain largely unspoken of. The constellations that are popular are the twelve signs of the Zodiac , which are seen as part of the celestial powers that influence us from birth. However, in modern astrology the interaction with the constellations is a reactiv e rather proactive relationship viewed as a unidirectional flow of energy from the heavens to us ; this is referred to as divinatory astrology by the Swiss mystical writer Titus Burckhardt in his book Mystical Astrology according to Ibn Arabi . The field of divinatory astrology is well covered by thousands of books on the subject and it is part of popular culture , with many news papers printing daily horoscopes. D ivinatory astrology is a practic e which goes back centuries, for example in the Persian Shah Nameh ( Epic of Kings) circa 1000 AD we read: