8 A Brave New World The First Aeonics The Western magical tradition can be traced back to Ancient Greece, most notably the Pythagorean, Platonic and Neoplatonic movements that built upon the shamanistic and superstitious ‘inherited conglomerate’ of Greek religious belief. Greek religious practice included possession (something we know Socrates experienced), dream incubation (which involves sleeping in a specific Deity’s temple in order to receive a divinatory dream), various forms of augury, talismanic sorcery, Deity creation, meditation, channelling, psychedelic ritual, and the psychotherapeutic practice of ‘philosophical midwifery’, a method whose ultimate aim is the facilitation of direct personal experience of the traditionalists ‘gnosis’, or what is more popularly referred to today as enlightenment. We also have the Greeks to thank for the ubiquitous four elements and pentagram found in contemporary occultism. Alan Chapman
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