In the book The adept Magician
by Marten Crawford, we meet through his own words a true adept. A man who followed Bardon’s teachings for 30 odd years and in passing tells us that he can shoot flames from his stomach and water to put out the flames as well change the weather, stop time, split himself in two and many more bizarre things. When you read the words of the man, you believe him. His words are the words of someone who seems to know and who sees little importance in such abilities anyway.
Mr. Crawford writes a very straightforward and well thought through introduction to his interactions with the man he called the Adept Magician. For those who have read any Franz Bardon, some of it will be familiar but you can also tell that Marten knows what he is talking about too. While Bardon’s exercises include blessing food and giving the food properties to be consumed along with the food itself, about how to use the magnetic properties of water and why control over the elements is essential to this form of magic, Crawford adds his own layers to this of hermetic christianity drawing comparisons to the role of transubstantiated bread and wine in the mass on the one hand and to the concept of macrocosm and microcosm on the other.
If one were to follow Bardon’s exercises day in day out for 30-years, I am pretty sure changes will result in that person. To become an Adept however is a different matter altogether. Bardon was an Adept and it appears that this student of Bardon was also such a man. Most of us, and I speak for myself really here, are far too flawed as individuals perhaps to reach those levels in a single lifetime.
Our adept talks of three great transformations and he describes the first. It is perhaps familiar to those who have read about magic and esotericism. The experience was ‘so trying that I lay for three days, part of me in this world and part of me in another place. During those three-days I dreamed the same dream over and over. To this day, I’m not at all sure if it was a dream.’
The Adept talks gently and with understanding about a number of aspects of the work and training of the initiate before announcing in simple but certain terms tells us that he has made the third transformation and is going to transition accordingly along with his wife and wishes everyone a simple but heartfelt goodbye.
To me this is a must read book. It will leave you deeply touched and it may just give you hope…..