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Let me take this opportunity to welcome you on behalf of The Society of The Astral Star (aka The Order of The Star of Bethlehem) and it's members to the On Line version of The Liber Asteros - A Grimoire of Rites and Rituals for Christian Magickians. So many people have written and inquired concerning our standard rituals used my the Order's membership - both as individuals and in group settings - that we felt it was long past due to make this material available to the general public. A collection such as this has been needed for a very long time. By publishing our general grimoire, everyone will know what we do and how we do it - generally speaking of course. Additionally, it will serve as a place where most commonly used rites and rituals of High Ritual and Ceremonial magick (especially within a general Christian setting) are made available in one location. We would like to note that the Order has chosen to release our *general* rituals only. Initiatory Rituals will *not* be made public, and will have to be experienced one on one in real time with real people by candidates of the Order. In the meantime, we hope that interested individuals and groups outside of the Order who have an interest in Magickal Christianity will feel free to make use of this material and let us know what they (i.e. YOU) think.

As an overview, we would like to state for the record where most of this material is taken from. We recommend that the serious student purchase for themselves their own copies of the works cited. These works should be a part of any and all High Ritual/Ceremonial Magicians/Mystics library. They are essential! The entries on these web pages are in no way meant to *replace* these invaluable books in their printed form from the original authors/organizations!

Most of the *general* magickal rituals are taken from Donald Michael Kraig's Modern Magick: Eleven Lessons in the High Magical Arts. That work has been published under two editions by Llewellyn Publication, ISBN: . The Society of The Astral Star chose to make use of this work as it's primary primer for magickal methods for a number of reasons. The first reason is that we believe it is a solid work grounded within the greater Western Esoteric Tradition drawing firmly on the work of many other classic writers. Those writers include those affiliated with the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn, including Dr. Israel Regardie, S.L. Macgregor Mathers, Dion Fortune, and even Aleister Crowley. The work itself is *not* directly representing that organization and as such is general enough to be independent for our Order's own general purposes. Secondly, the work is readily available to Aspirants and remains actively *in print*. Thirdly, we appreciate Mr. Kraig's perspectives. He is very practical in his methods. And lastly but most importantly, the methods he instructs in Modern Magick works! The Membership makes use of Modern Magick from the 0ro Degree (Grade of Aspirant) through the 8th Degree (Grade of Adeptus Major). We supplement Modern Magick with many additional works by different authors to be sure, however Modern Magick is a central work used by all of us.

Additionally, we make use of The Book Of Common Prayer according to the use of the Anglican Church. The Order is an organization of individuals who are at least nominally *Christian* theologically and philosophically speaking. We have a number of different perspectives representative within the general membership of the Order itself including Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Protestant Christians of many different denominations including Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Disciples of Christ, Mormon, etc. Additionally we have other unorthodox members who hold Rosicrucian, Alchemical, and Gnostical Christian viewpoints. The Order's membership is a diverse lot! For sake of unity in our Order's rites and rituals we needed to adopt a general framework within the Christian liturgical calendar year. As a group, we chose to make use of the Western Christian Church as is represented by the Roman Catholic & Anglican/Episcopal Churches. From this work we follow the calendar year and make use of the appropriate *collection* of prayers (i.e. collects). We also make use of the standard listed readings of the verses from the gospels, old testament, new testament and psalms within our ritual liturgy.

As the Order is in line with *esoteric* and *magickal* Christianity, we further chose to make use of Mystical Mediations Upon The Collects by the Christian Mage and Mystic, Dion Fortune, aka Violet Mary Firth to further illuminate the collect of the day within the various liturgical seasons.

Many of our Orders rituals have material borrowed from other sources as well. Our ritual for casting of our circle has been heavily influenced by the various writings of well known fantasy and fiction writer, Katherine Kurtz. Ms. Kurtz is a well regarded and highly respected Christian Ceremonial Magickian and Mystic in her own right. She is the head of The Order of St. Michael. For further reading, we highly reccommend everything in the Deryni Series¹ as well as the Adept Series which she wrote with Katherine Turner Harris. Most of our Orders initiation rituals in the General, Elemental, and Adept grades have been influenced by The Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn and The Society of The Inner Light.