The practice of Solomonic magic opens the operator to interconnection at the chthonic level that is not customary in this era. This involves the immortals of one’s soul’s past lives; ancestors and their old immortals; lovers and theirs; fellow practitioners and theirs; and the people around one.
Often these old immortals have associated with them the animal, plant, land, and subatomic spirits who were part of their magic and who are capable of destructive or parasitic work in an energy bandwidth that is not worked effectively in this era. They also often have fearsome magical chops and energy skills that can kill, consume, mislead, and otherwise mess with you.
It is partly that the chthonic work has become less and less prevalent in human culture, especially in European and Protestant culture. We do not have hundreds of years of chthonically skilled and well-disposed old ones and ancestors to be there for us when we embark on this work. Thus we have to do a great deal of making to heal our own Deep Self and our ancestors and family.
It is a race against the clock to fix our own problems before they destroy us.
This knowledge was not transmitted into the published sources of the Golden Dawn, which is how we work today, and if it is available to the higher reaches of the O.T.O., B.O.T.A. or other Rosicrucian organizations, they are not humanitarian enough to tell us why at the outset of occult training we should clear our karma or how to do it. Often we assume that it will happen automatically as part of their course work, when that method is of extreme inefficiency.
We should not wait twenty years into an otherwise promising occult career to clear our karma, which means to heal and optimize our energy interconnection with the Deep Self, ancestors, family, and loved ones/nearby ones. I have friends in the occult work who are dead/dying because of this. Whether it is incompetence, empire building, or hoarding power, I don’t know because I am not in the inner circle of such organizations. Probably a mix of all of the above.
I can say that when you are given knowledge of how to do this stuff, there is an enormous temptation to hoard power, and since this magic is principally performed by men, past and present, and the proportion of people who ride you when you do it is overwhelmingly male, it is perhaps impossible for men to resist the temptation, so I don’t blame them.
My old ones and ancestors have thoughtfully pointed out that what happened to me was that I gave away power too readily at the start of ceremonial magic, being overwhelmed by excess femininity instead of excess masculinity. This cost ten years during which I was dabbling at the margins of Solomonic magic without ever actually going all the way with it.
So means of obstruction will be contrived.
It may also be impossible for men to read the chthonic energy levels in this era, because their souls were not well-built by ancestors who were not well-built themselves. Women read the energy better by virtue of giving birth.
So, being female and backed up with witchcraft and regular religion, which females are better at, I am going to read the chthonic work and not hoard power but just throw away all kinds of knowledge about how it should be approached.
This is because the Solomonic spirits have cautioned me many times against hoarding power and because they confer blessings when I am striving to teach people how to deal with them.
To clear the karma early on would be preferable to waiting until you are dealing with serious illness that results from the old immortals sending a bunch of owls to transfer your biological energy to themselves.
I’m told I’m one of the few in English-style Hermetics who have not done Enochian magic thereby binding the gods in those forms preferentially instead of the older ones. The old European prelates point out that when we have worked with the Catholic demons in past lives, we have a responsibility to work with them again, as well as a great love and connection to them. They rise for us again and again in lifetime after lifetime–and it is the same demons, in many cases. They come to us from the old country when we ring the same old bell. It is my observation that the Hermetists who cannot fathom anything but Enochian magic are Amerindian souls in European ancestry. Enochian is their ceremonial magic, and it should be done by them in new, modern ways with the world of it we have now, but those of us who have done the old demon work should be of it again. Our souls come ready formed for it.
Building the Underworld 