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Abaddon
Abaddon, which means “the destroyer,” is the
Hebrew name for the Greek Apollyon, known as
the “angel of the bottomless pit” (Rev. 9:10) and
the angel who ties up the Devil for a millennium
(Rev. 20). Different sources speak of Abaddon,
such as The Thanksgiving Hymns (a Dead Sea
Scroll document), which mentions “the Sheol of
Abaddon,” and the “torrents of Belial that burst
into Abaddon,” as well as the first-century The
Biblical Antiquities of Philo, in which Abaddon is
used as a place name for hell rather than as the
name of a demon or an angel. Abaddon is also
referred to as a place—the pit—in Milton’s
Paradise Regained (IV, 624).
Alternately, Abaddon is identified with a
demon, or the Devil himself, in the third-century
Acts of Thomas, as well as in John Bunyan’s Puritan
classic, Pilgrim’s Progress. Within modern ceremonial
magic, it constitutes the name for God
invoked by Moses to bring down the rain over
Egypt, as reported by Samuel Liddell Mathers in
The Greater Key of Solomon. There is also a reference
to Abaddon as the sixth of the seven lodges of
hell in the work of the cabalist Joseph ben
Abraham Gikatilla. In various sources, Abaddon is
identified as the angel of death and destruction,
demon of the abyss, and chief of the demons of
the underworld.
See also Demons; Magic and Magical Groups
1
For Further Reading:
Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels Including
the Fallen Angels. New York: The Free Press,
1967.
Strayer, Joseph R. Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Vol.
1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.
The Abbey of Thelema
The Abbey of Thelema is an independent initiatory
magical group patterned after the Argenteum
Astrum (AA, Order of the Silver Star) and following
the magical practices developed by its founder,
Aleister Crowley. The leader of the abbey is
Gregory von Seewald (b. 1955), who serves as
Praemonstrator of the AA and Outer Head of the
Order for its inner circle, which is called the
Sovereign Penetralia of the Gnosis. He was initiated
into the magical work in 1975, and after nine
years established the abbey. Von Seewald established
links in 1991 to an AA group through a
lineage that ran from Crowley to Karl Germer to
M. Motta to R. Eales to himself. He states, “This
link has been mutually acknowledged, and is not
the result of regular nomenclature, but constitutes
the cooperation of my branch with another.”
The Abbey of Thelema is also a subdivision of
the Order of Thelema, and works closely and in
cooperation with the Holy Order of RaHoorKhuit
and in association with the Holy Gnostic Catholic
Church. It has also established the Headland Press