Adept Aspects

As the figure who represents Spirits of Magic, and people who do magic, the Aspects of the Adept suggest different styles or philosophies in magic.

It can also form a sacred storyline for Adept figures, moving from youth to age.

It is to be considered similar to the Fool's Journey in tarot: highly relevant to YOU as a magic-wielding sort

BY TIME

Solar-Lunar

The young Adept: rash, brilliant, daring. Morning.

Lunar

The Adept at the height of her power, that neither waxes nor wanes. Full moons.

Lunar-Stellar

The Adept as elder: wise, war-bitten, cautious. Evening & night.

BY SPECIALTY

Solar

Religious magic. The Adept comfortably within society – a priest, a librarian, a cleric - doing lawful interventions and intercessions. Magic for stability, protection, family.

Solar-Lunar

Magic through fire or craft; magic which is golden-and-white, smiting, holy, in an Abrahamic framework; generally ceremonial magic in the Western Esoteric Tradition. The Court Wizard, someone who is both inside-and-outside society, both like-yet-unlike the norms of that society. The Wanderer, who is attached to a society yet is defined by questioning it. Magic associated with the Fire. Or a youthful face of an Adept spirit.

Lunar

Magic through astronomy or writing; magic which is “pure neutral”, universal, applicable to everything; magic concerning manipulation of energies or universal magical technologies; chaos magic. Magic associated with the Air.

Lunar-Stellar

The Sorceror. Magic relating to life and death, gateways and other realms, the weather and the sea, space; but for the Adept, often denoting “a magic-user who has become so consumed by lust for power, they are making extremely forbidden experiments, and will hopefully pay the price for that before they rip open the sky and harm bystanders”. Think Lovecraftian dabbler. Or, a cthonic face of an Adept spirit. Magic associated with the Water or Weather.

Solar-Stellar

Magic done in covens, or focusing on excitatory techniques and self-loss instead of inhibitory techniques and self-control. Religious magic, but NOT done under an establishment figure; magic that draws from, or celebrates, seasonal/nature. Magic associated with the Earth. Think “traditional witchcraft”.

In Detail

SOLAR

When influenced by the Solar, the Adept is part of the establishment and the community – a church priest, court wizard, village librarian and so forth.

There’s a set of rules and conventions he is willing to be bound by – appropriate magics at appropriate times. You might imagine an exorcist of the Catholic Church as one example, someone who is both “strictly speaking, a wizard” and “never under any circumstances a wizard”.

In any case, it’s magic that has been voluntarily de-fanged to fit comfortably into society; or, magic that has been optimised around helping one another. Any time there is a conception of “a good witch”, we are Solar. It can also denote an Adept who uses the hearth, handicrafts and the garden as a lens through which they focus their power.

I'm not a fan of people snobbily denigrating 'love and light' witchcraft: we could all do with more of both in our lives. In many ways, the phrase 'love and light' is archetypally Solar: love for one another in the warm and safe.

It can denote religious magic – think the Cleric class from D&D – where power is derived from the divine in return for rites and service. A Solar influence on the Adept can denote a coven – magic done as part of a community.

SOLAR-LUNAR

Solar-Lunar can denote the Solar Adept we have already met taking “one step outside”, and becoming focused purely on her magic; or, a specific mood and style of magic – a degree of “sharp, scary” where the Solar is “cosy, placid”.

Even though Solar represents “establishment religion”, the Solar-Lunar tends to hold the extra concepts required to catalogue Christianity – like smiting a non-believer, or fear of Hell. The Solar-Lunar is where we slot Western Esoteric high ceremonial magic, or perhaps also the Bible magic of a Catholic exorcism. There’s a confidence in man’s primacy in the universe, and man personal deveopment is central to what magic and ritual is for; even his identification with godhood. It’s a very Solar worldview. A brilliance of light, judging and smiting, the presence of angels. This is the magic of the horror movie, in which a cross, holy water or wafer will without fail drive back the forces of the night; the magic of the Qabbalistic Cross and the Sphere of Pure White Light, where man can take on “purity” and “divinity” that is embodied within light (a concept found no-where else on our map). Occult schools which are ultimately monotheist, or which appropriates Jewish mysticism as a sort of close-enough-not-to-be-blasphemous/far-enough-away-to-feel-exotic sort of a way. The Solar-Lunar does not merely address good/bad, but carries serious overtones of holy/unholy. A close proximity to Establishment iconography – angels, demons, Latin – because it is interested in the Establishment, but used in some quite unorthodox ways – the blending of Solar with Lunar – Bible-focused theistic Satanism also fits the bill. If your parish priest is reading Agrippa, you know he’s hiding it from the bishop. I suppose exorcists may properly be filed here, as they have a somewhat dubious status within the Church.

But, of course, the fact that Christianity claims a monopoly on such skills, does not mean we should defang ourselves from using them. Accessing this path is a perfect choice for when you need to blast someone, harrow a house, get things done comprehensively and fast, or assert supreme authority. One can do it in the name of any god who’s frightening enough – or if you don’t have one of those around, in the name of ones’ own godhood.

The Solar-Lunar is also where we consider Adepts who retain an interest, responsibility or connection to society – Gandalf case in point, as well as “court magicians”, anyone who puts their magic at the service of a community and has a semi-establishment role within it. When we think about Christianity – or any establishment faith, but Christianity is generally most relevant to British history – this Solar-Lunar face could be envisaged as a priest, learned and with certain powers, but still connected to a Solar establishment and with a Solar responsibility for a community.

There’s a natural overlap between the silver and gold, how the Lunar likes it neat and all just so, while the Solar need things to be just right and as they always have been – a mood that those harmed by organised religion will recognise. The Solar is tradition and the Lunar is purity – and combined, that’s going nowhere good. It’s horrifying face is, of course, in the burning of witches and religious martyrs and rebels, that Solar-Lunar certainty and brilliance turned against the innocent in its full force, the rejection of that which questions and doubts, and its purification in fire.

Finally, the elemental attribution of this path can suggest a Adept who works primarily through fire, or the enchantment of craft objects (or creation of marvellous objects which seem magic).

The Solar-Lunar has two “image sets”. One is the Gold + the Silver of the Domains, which combine to form Light; whereas the Green Land + Blue Sky of the Landscapes combine to form Horizon or Wind.

The latter, embodied by the Wanderer, suggests a note of doubt, experimentation, unfixedness, often spiritual yearning. It can refer to a devotional relationship between a mortal and a spirit – the bridge between the physical and celestial – but one where there is a clear power imbalance, say a priest who is devoted to Mary – or a mentor/mentee relationship, the magician’s apprentice. Ged by sea, Odin and Gandalf by land, wandering is a magical keynote, suggesting the in-between places that ordinary mortals do not tread. Travelling broadens the mind; and for the Wanderer, these travels can be in physical space, through books or through asking questions.

In the Seeker’s journey, the Solar-Lunar Adept is one who is unsatisfied with what can be found at home, and must travel further to find the answers and powers she seeks. It can also be associated with the Young Adept, with keynotes of rashness, ambition, might and catastrophe. Ged and John Constantine are two mythical mages whose youthful mistake dogs them into adulthood, shaping them into far more sober figures.

This position also governs the Keeper, who is typically close to the Adept.

Lunar

The Lunar is the root for the Adept, so we’ll brush over this one fairly quickly. The Lunar Adept is in her full power, might, confidence and adulthood. It is the Adulthood of the Mage, either literally or conceptually – neither rising nor fading.

The emphasis, repetition, or doubled aspect of the Lunar on a Lunar core – points to the use of systems that are very insistent on being neutral or universal (though, of course, our own cultural biases and blindspots being what they are, such claims are usually incorrect). It can imply an otherworldly grace or favour that the Adept has – no longer merely a magic-worker, but a saint, elf, fae, or other humanlike figure imbued with grace or the divine. Finally, it implies one who is temporarily or permanently on retreat. In the Seeker’s journey, she either undertakes a period of devoted study – becomes a hermit – or enters a special school or community – outside of the world, to come into the fullness of power.

Lunar-Stellar

This aspect has a very specific implication – that of the Sorceror. It denotes Wrongness – a Wizard who has gone too far: Dr Jekyll, Denethor, Dr Frankenstein or Charles Dexter Ward. She is tampering with the Forbidden, and she’s going to go mad and get eaten. Oppenheimer time. This Adept is typically depicted with more sinister visual imagery, with a focus on black-and-white.

The Lunar-Stellar, as we have already discussed, connotes certain kinds of magic: liminal and gate-passing, birth and death, other worlds, time, necromancy and prophecy, all sorts of supremely unwise acts which verge on the taboo.

To be a person whose core is here requires certain pacts, acts, and commitments – a community shaman, for example, whose entire life is sacrifice to this. When the figure of the Adept trespasses here, there is generally the implication of doing something not-permitted-to-her – that her mastery of all energies and all things does not, in fact, have universal reach. Hence the association of this Adept aspect with a figure who has become evil, mad for power, under the influence of dark things, no longer fully in control; or a figure who is absolutely pushing the edge of their limits, ambitious and in single-minded persuit, setting themselves against the gods and damning them to answer. The Adept archetype of which we speak tends to be arrogant and be brought down by hubris, once they step out of the fullness of the moon. The Lunar is their completion, their power, and strength; to be unsatisfied with that sphere alone suggests there’s something in their nature which is fundamentally, fatally unwise.

A more neutral end-point is merely an older Adept, who is reflective and wise, and rarely does the active magic of her youth – maybe living permanently outside human society, studying ever more esoteric themes. In wuxia stories, it is common for the most transcendently powerful masters to hide their power behind simplicity, only fighting when it is absolutely necessary, whose wisdom has taught them that showing off and seeking glory is no longer necessary.

Another possible aspect is a kind of crone aspect – a variant of the Adept who is cthonic, Saturnian and familiar or at home with these kinds of magics. Or merely old – waning in power, contemplating mortality. If you wanted to do Triple Goddess magic, for example. (My personal preference is to see Hekate as a Lunar-Stellar figure, rather than a Lunar-Stellar aspect of a Lunar Adept, but it ultimately amounts to all the same kind of thing. In Landcraft, one tends to have aspects either side of your core. Hekate as Stellar/Lunar-Stellar/Lunar makes more sense than finding her Solar-Lunar face) I suppose, in terms of the Adept’s “journey”, my understanding of Lunar-Stellar magic is that one has to be born to it and focused on it throughout; there are specific initiations, specific trials. One doesn’t get to the age 35 in a magical career and decide it’s time to start on necromancy – for that magic to be “legitimate” and “safe(ish)”, it can’t be the act of a dilettante.

The Lunar-Stellar – to me at least – also implies a “source” of magic that is essentially different to the tidy clarity of the Lunar energy one can direct about, like so many beams of coloured light. One that is partially understood and beyond human control; therefore, the “style” of Lunar magic can only go so far to wield it; it can never be mastered. The Adept cannot understand this; and that is why Adepts trespassing here tend to be devoured.

As the ruler of Things We Are Scared Of, the Lunar-Stellar can also hold the concept of “wicked witches” – people we both fear and need – and this can extend to the figures the Adept overlaps with, such as surgeons, dentists, specialists in infectious disease, sexual health clinicians.

STELLAR

n/a, or possibly this is Randolph Carter lost in another dimension, or Dave Bowman evaporating into a vortex of coloured light – in any case, no human person remains. The Adept can be in the Stellar, but never of it; and she tends not to return.

SOLAR-STELLAR

This path evokes the Valiente line from the Charge of the Goddess: “all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals”, and covers a “traditional witchcraft” aesthetic and magical style. This includes sacred sexuality, and indeed sensuality – music, drink, dance; working in covens (more appropriate to a Solar than a Lunar context), interrelationships with fae-folk or witch spirits like the Black Goat (ditto); and a stronger focus on the natural world. A sensory overload, overwhelming, where the opposite is austere.

Phil Hine writes about “inhibitory” and “exhibitory” techniques. The former map onto our concept of the Lunar/Skyishpath: “meditation, yoga, scrying, contemplation and sensory deprivation” and the latter, fit the Solar-Stellar/Landishpath – “chanting, drumming, dance, emotional and sexual arousal”

I’ve yet to quite slot the parts together on this. Is traditional witchcraft a Lunar aspect of the Solar Stellar – or vice versa? Is it their intertwining? And does it matter? But, in any case, this kind of thing is under the rulership of this Path, however you figure these things as coming together. The map is not the territory: use any correspondence decision which makes sense to you