Talisman
A talisman is any item that
in embued with magical properties, such as a lamen, amulet,
tarot deck, charm, or sigil. It can be a book—such as
The Book of the Law—or the result of a magical operation,
such as a eucharist. It can also be a sympathetic object,
such as a stone designed to attract the influence of a planet,
or it can provide protection or bring about change. Aleister
Crowley defined a talisman as "something upon which an
act of will (that is, of Magick) has been performed in order
to fit it for a purpose" (Magick, Ch.16). Etymology is
Greek telesma, consecration ceremony; from telein, to consecrate,
fulfill; from telos, result.
Crowley describes a talisman
in Magick Without Tears (Ch. 20):
A talisman is a storehouse
of some particular kind of energy, the kind that is needed
to accomplish the task for which you have constructed it...The
decisive advantage of this system is not that its variety
makes it so adaptable to our needs, but that we already posses
the Invocations necessary to call forth the Energies required...You
must lay most closely to your heart the theory of the Magical
Link and see well to it that it rings true; for without this
your talisman is worse than useless. It is dangerous; for
all that Energy is bound to expend itself somehow; it will
make its own links with anything handy that takes its fancy;
and you can get into any sort of the most serious kind of
trouble...Most of my Talismans, like my Invocations, have
been poems.
He further explains in Magick, Book 4:
Our talisman must, therefore,
be an object suitable to the nature of our Operation, and
we must have some such means of applying its force to such
a way as will naturally compel the obedience of the portion
of Nature which we are trying to change. (Ch.14)
The charge to the spirit is usually embodied, except in works
of pure evocation, which after all are comparatively rare,
in some kind of talisman. In a certain sense, the talisman
is the Charge expressed in hieroglyphics...Repeated acts of
will in respect of any object consecrate it without further
ado. One knows what miracles can be done with one's favourite
mashie! One has used the mashie again and again, one's love
for it growing in proportion to one's success with it, and
that success again made more certain and complete by the effect
of this "love under will", which one bestows upon
it by using it.
It is, of course, very important to keep such an abject away
from the contact of the profane. It is instinctive not to
let another person use one's fishing rod or one's gun. It
is not that they could do any harm in a material sense. It
is the feeling that one's use of these things has consecrated
them to one's self.
Now, there are a great many talismans in this world which
are being left lying about in a most reprehensibly careless
manner. Such are the objects of popular adoration, as ikons,
and idols. But, it is actually true that a great deal of real
magical Force is locked up in such things; consequently, by
destroying these sacred symbols, you can overcome magically
the people who adore them.
It is not at all irrational to fight for one's flag, provided
that the flag is an object which really means something to
somebody. Similarly, with the most widely spread and most
devotedly worshipped talisman of all, money...in this case,
above all, people have recognised its talismanic virtue, that
is to say, its power as an instrument of the will. (Ch.16)
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