Mysticism or Mystification? When ‘Trads’ Seek to Save the Church via Occultism (Part One)

“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph 5:11)…

Mysticism or Mystification?
When ‘Trads’ Seek to Save the Church via Occultism

(PART ONE)

(left to right: Peter Kwasniewski, Valentin Tomberg, Sebastian Morello)

by Francis del Sarto

Footnotes will be found at the end of the article.

Do you believe in magic? Sebastian Morello does, and he’s written a book to initiate you into the Hermetic mysteries he holds dear! He’ll guide you into luminous vistas of esoteria long overlooked by modern Catholics, but so vitally needed to help bring an end to the hex of an evil warlock, who’s brought about the crisis in the Church. So come, step into Sebastian’s magical world of wonder and enchantment and learn the Gnosis!

No, that’s not a blurb found on the cover of his opus Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries [1], but it might as well be, because much of what he advocates is nothing short of a total subversion of the immutable doctrines and practices of the Holy Catholic Faith, a transvaluation of values in favor of the occult. Morello is a British lecturer and journalist, currently Senior Editor of The European Conservative and co-host of an online program with the telling title The Gnostalgia Podcast, which explores “sacred ecology and cosmic Christianity.”

The book was published in November 2024, receiving little attention for over a year, and even at the publication of this article in May 2026 has registered barely a blip at Amazon with only 44 global reviews, though with a respectable average rating of 4.2 out of 5. [2] By the following spring it became a flashpoint of fierce controversy, as defenders of the book said that it presented a little-traveled, but important stream of Catholic thought, while for detractors it was nothing of the sort, but, rather, espoused ideas inimical to the Faith.

In August of 2025, Catholic Culture published “Hermetic Tradition or Catholic Tradition? A Critique of Sebastian Morello” , its second essay on the subject in just over a month. The article responded to what its authors saw not merely as the danger of a single book, but as evidence of a broader intellectual and spiritual trend:

We decided to present such a critique not so much because the book was likely to be widely influential by itself, but because of the broader intellectual and spiritual trend it represents, as discussed by Thomas Mirus in his original article for Catholic Culture, “Occult subversion of traditional Catholicism”. However, as this essay was in progress, it was announced that Morello has been appointed Wolfgang Smith Chair of Philosophy at Saint Mary’s University Twickenham. The establishment of a new chair in memory of a perennialist thinker whose work involved some of the same motifs we found troubling in Morello’s book seems to make it even more urgent to mount a serious challenge to Morello’s thought-world and the ancient wisdom it claims to represent. [3]

The importance of this early critique is that it treats Morello’s book not as an isolated eccentricity, but as a symptom of a broader attempt to normalize esoteric and perennialist categories within Catholic discourse.

In December of 2025, the book drew further criticism from the Canadian philosopher and theologian Dr. John Lamont in an essay published on the Rorate Caeli blog, “Neoplatonism and the Antichrist: Against ‘Christian Hermeticism'”. There Lamont argues that Morello advances “views [that] are irrational and cannot be reconciled with Catholicism.” The essay traces the roots of Neoplatonism [4], focusing especially on Iamblichus, the development of theurgy, and St. Augustine’s repudiation of such practices. Its central contention is that these ideas are fundamentally incompatible with Catholic teaching, despite Morello’s protests to the contrary.

Lamont writes:

Theurgy, as E.R. Dodds stated, can be defined as ‘magic applied to a religious purpose and resting on a supposed revelation of a religious character. Whereas vulgar magic used names and formulae of religious origin to profane ends, theurgy used the procedures of vulgar magic primarily to a religious end’ (Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, p. 291). Plotinus had maintained that the rational soul never fully descends into the material world, which is what enables it to turn back to the intelligible world through contemplation; the soul is compared to a floating man whose head remains above the level of the water. Iamblichus denied that the head remained above the water, and asserted that the soul is completely submerged in the material world. As a result, it is incapable of rising to the higher levels on its own. It can only do so with the help of the gods who dwell in the intelligible world and can bring the human soul up to their level. Intellectual and moral purification are needed to make this ascent, but they are not sufficient. The gods must intervene to raise the soul, and the way to obtain their intervention is through the magical ceremonies of theurgy, which use the symbolic character that magic attributes to material things to attract and engage the gods. After Iamblichus, theurgy became central to Neoplatonist practice. The thought of Iamblichus was embraced by the Emperor Julian the Apostate (ca. 331-363 A.D., reigned 361-363 A.D.), who had been raised a Christian but rejected Christianity for paganism. Julian was considered by the Fathers and by John Henry Newman as a precursor or type of the Antichrist, a ‘type and earnest of the great enemy’ https://www.newmanreader.org/works/arguments/antichrist/lecture1.html https://www.newmanreader.org/works/arguments/antichrist/lecture2.html. Julian forged the theurgic Neoplatonism of Iamblichus into a state religion that he intended to eliminate and replace Christianity, a project that was aborted by his death in war.

St. Augustine attacks theurgy at length; his criticism of it takes up most of book X of the City of God. Theurgy was well known to Porphyry (another important figure in ancient Neoplatonism and teacher of Iamblichus – NOW), who raised a number of (well-founded) doubts about it in his “Letter to Anebo” – “Anebo” allegedly being an Egyptian priest who was an expert in these mysteries. Iamblichus wrote a rebuttal of Porphyry’s criticisms in his De mysteriis, a work that connects theurgy to the Corpus Hermeticum by citing Hermes as an authority. The Renaissance Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino translated the De mysteriis into Latin in 1497. The work became a basic authority for the Renaissance Hermeticists that Morello promotes. St. Augustine uses Porphyry’s account of theurgy as the basis for his criticism of it. He argues that we can either believe the angels who brought the Law of God that demands that we should pray to the one God alone, and give worship and sacrifice to Him alone, or else we can believe the beings that ask that prayers and sacrifice be made to them through the rites of theurgy. He cites Porphyry as admitting that ‘theurgy is a science capable of achieving good or evil, whether among men or among gods’ (City of God, book X ch. 9). He concludes that both the authority of the Divine Law and the worldly or morally dubious character of many theurgical rites means that we should accept the Law and reject theurgy as inspired by malignant demons. He contrasts theurgy with the miracles of Christianity…. [5]

Lamont’s point is not merely that Neoplatonism and theurgy are historically related, but that the very practices Morello seeks to render respectable were rejected by St. Augustine as demonic counterfeits of the true religion.

This critique prompted a response from Morello and a follow-up by Lamont entitled “The Catholic Problem with ‘Magic'”, in which he writes: “In addition to defending what he calls ‘Christian Neoplatonism’, Morello defends what he calls ‘practical Neoplatonism, namely theurgy’, as espoused in the writings of the Neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus” [6]. Lamont’s earlier essay had already gone far toward demonstrating the pernicious character of Iamblichus’s thought in the previous essay cited above, but Morello doubles down, appealing to an imaginary throughline connecting Neoplatonism with Church history to which he and other “Catholic hermeticists” tenaciously cling: “One of the major advantages of appealing to both the Hermetic and Neoplatonic traditions is that they are, in general, deeply anti-Gnostic, going back to Plotinus’s attack on the Gnostics in 2:9 of The Enneads and continuing all the way to Valentin Tomberg’s Meditations on the Tarot (see pages 5-6 of that book)” [7].

Lamont sweeps aside this contention thus:

In my essay, I argued that Neoplatonic metaphysics was not adopted by the Church as the metaphysical structure she needed to comprehend the view of creation given in the Scriptures, that Neoplatonic metaphysics is incompatible with Christianity, and that theurgy and Hermeticism are superstitious practices of demonic origin that are forbidden by the First Commandment. [8]

Morello’s tactic, similar to one of Charles Coulombe’s rhetorical gambits we will encounter in Part Two, is to ascribe ignorance to those who question his pro-occult stance, but Lamont will have none of it; he demolishes Morello’s credibility in a passage that deserves to be read in its entirety:

Morello frames his criticism of my ignorance of the subject matter in terms of what I seem to him to be doing; apparently unaware of this, seemingly unaware of that. Why do I seem to him to be doing these things? Well, it seems to me that it seems to him that I am ignorant because I disagree with his positions. Morello is no doubt sincere in explaining disagreement with his views by my ignorance of the subject. He finds such ignorance in all his critics, not just myself; an indication of a deeply held conviction on his part. But the inference from disagreement to ignorance is not a conclusive argument. …

Morello’s accusations of ignorance are fallacious in logic, but an effective debating technique. An honest reply that addressed my criticisms would make specific claims that are open to counterargument. Few people have much knowledge of the scholarship on St. Thomas and Neoplatonism, so his claims of superior expertise can only be disproved by a comprehensive scholarly analysis of the subject, which will be detailed and hard to follow for those new to the subject. To the uninitiated, the very fact of giving a long and detailed response is suspect; if I am in the right, why can this not be easily demonstrated? The blanket accusation of ignorance is thus hard to counter effectively.

This debating technique gives a clue to Morello as a thinker. His views have no intellectual weight in themselves. But although he is not a serious scholar, he is a serious man. He knows what he is doing and is good at it. If he restricted himself to clearly expressing his core positions, which flatly contradict the Catholic faith, then he would not get an audience among Catholics. He would simply be another enthusiast for esotericism. But his assertions about Neoplatonism, the Enlightenment, and the evils of modern society serve as a smokescreen for his esotericism, which can be advanced under its cover. His lack of scholarship is actually helpful here. If his account of Neoplatonism was clear and accurate, it would not be serviceable as a smokescreen. By ranging over a wide variety of topics that are little known to non-specialists, making vague important-sounding pronouncements about them, avoiding reference to specific details where he could be caught out, changing the subject when challenged, responding to criticisms that no-one has made rather than the actual objections raised to his views, and making ad hominem attacks on his critics (which go as far as threats of litigation — see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDqRqnLNag), Morello manages to make a good impression on the ill-informed, muddle the issue when his views are criticised, and gain acceptance as a legitimate Catholic voice holding positions that are at least permissible for Catholics if not always correct.

Getting a heterodox view accepted as permissible, as opposed to getting it accepted as actually true, is a very important tactic for subverting the faith – it is the stock in trade of modernists. Most people do not think they are doing anything important by accepting a view as a permissible one for a Catholic to hold. Since accepting something as permissible leaves the option of rejecting it as false, such acceptance is not seen as objectionable – rather the opposite: denying the permissibility of holding an opinion tends to be considered suspect, a crushing of freedom of speech, an exercise in left-wing cancellation and slamming the Overton window shut, etc. [9]

Lamont’s observation about the normalization of heterodox views applies not only to Morello but to those who have lent him a platform. In fact, the book’s publisher is quite significant in this context. The publisher of the volume is Os Justi Press, which was founded by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, a man who needs no introduction to our readers, as we have frequently exposed his quasi-Gallican errors and theological inconsistencies, such as:

• The claim that Ultramontanism is a heresy. This is as outrageous as it is ignorant, rendered all the more absurd by the fact that the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the subject, penned by none other than Mgr. Umberto Benigni, founder of the Sodalitium Pianum, the anti-modernist association established under Pope St. Pius X, affirms it as an entirely orthodox position. Indeed, the First Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus confirms that true Ultramontanism is nothing less than Catholic orthodoxy. As Cardinal Henry Edward Manning explains: “The pretence of distinguishing between Ultramontanism and Catholicism is too stale to deceive any Catholic. The Holy See is Ultramontane, the Vatican Council was Ultramontane, the whole Episcopate is Ultramontane, the whole Priesthood, the whole body of the Faithful throughout all nations, excepting only a handful here and there of rationalistic or liberal Catholics, all are Ultramontanes. Ultramontanism is Popery, and Popery is Catholicism” [10]. Although the Catholic Encyclopedia is a standard reference for Catholic scholars, Kwasniewski either oddly overlooked it or else chose to bypass it altogether, opting instead for the secular Encyclopedia Britannica. Had he consulted it, he would have discovered the mind of the Holy See on the matter [11]. Later, Kwasniewski issued a correction of sorts by arguing he wasn’t referring to that kind of Ultramontanism but would rebrand and use the term “Hyperpapalism” going forward.
• Audaciously equating the First Vatican Council with the apostate robber council of Vatican II, as part of his campaign to conflate true popes with the line of Modernist usurpers occupying the Vatican since 1958.
• His utter contempt for some great popes of recent centuries, with his wrath targeting Pope Pius IX for promulgating the dogma of papal infallibility, a teaching towards which Kwasniewski has shown considerable hostility (he approvingly cited a statement from Fr. John Henry Newman, who wished for the death of that pontiff so as to hasten the end of Vatican I) and Pope St. Pius X, the greatest opponent of Modernism ever, whom he had the temerity to accuse of being guilty of “liturgical Modernism” [12].

As Dr. Peter Kwasniewski’s relentless assault on the Papacy shows no sign of abating, we can safely assume that the need for refutation will continue. What we weren’t expecting, however, was him publishing a book like Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries (hereafter MM&M) with its highly favorable treatment of “Catholic” occultism, something that can only tarnish his reputation further.

Magic, whether performed for a benign or malign purpose, does not factor God into the equation in any meaningful way. It is a method whereby the practitioner seeks to manipulate the physical world through metaphysical means by employing a ritual action. It is neither a miracle nor a sacramental action. Miracles and sacraments may resemble magic insofar as words are spoken to effect a desired outcome, but they occur through divine intervention, whether through prayer, authoritative command (as when a priest casts out an evil spirit during an exorcism), or the form of the sacraments themselves. Magic, by contrast, bypasses God entirely.

Divination, magic’s foul companion, is the attempt to discover the future or gain secret knowledge through unlawful and superstitious means such as astrology, fortune-telling, numerology, tea-leaf reading, rune casting, necromancy (evoking dead spirits), cartomancy (Tarot cards), Ouija boards, and other methods [13]. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines “divination” as “[t]he seeking after knowledge of future or hidden things by inadequate means” and explains:

The means being inadequate they must, therefore, be supplemented by some power which is represented all through history as coming from gods or evil spirits. Hence the word divination has a sinister signification. As prophecy is the lawful knowledge of the future[, whereas] divination, its superstitious counterpart, is the unlawful [knowledge]. As magic aims to do, divination aims to know. [14]

The point is clear: If divination is the unlawful counterpart of prophecy, then appeals to “good” or “Christian” magic do not solve the problem, but merely restate it under the guise of pious vocabulary.

From the occultists of the Renaissance to the occultists of the nineteenth century, practitioners of magic have consistently claimed that their arts were mediated by God. John Dee, the court astrologer and self-styled “Christian Kabbalist” attached to Queen Elizabeth I, and his assistant Edward Kelley pursued communication with “angels” through conjuring rituals. Centuries later, the French apostate Éliphas Lévi in Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual and S.L. MacGregor Mathers, founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, in the grimoire The Key of Solomon Concerning Prayers and Conjurations [15], made essentially the same claim. The Church has always condemned these practices very strongly.

To understand why Morello’s position is untenable, it helps to recall the distinction Catholic theology has always maintained between the supernatural, the natural, and the preternatural:

Medieval theologians made a clear distinction between the natural, the preternatural and the supernatural. [St.] Thomas Aquinas argued that the supernatural consists in “God’s unmediated actions”; the natural is “what happens always or most of the time”; and the preternatural is “what happens rarely, but nonetheless by the agency of created beings…Marvels belong, properly speaking, to the realm of the preternatural.” Theologians, following Aquinas, argued that only God had the power to disregard the laws of nature that He has created, but that demons could manipulate the laws of nature by a form of trickery, to deceive the unwary into believing they had experienced real miracles.

…

By the 16th century, the term “preternatural” was increasingly used to refer to demonic activity comparable to the use of magic by human adepts: The Devil, “being a natural Magician … may perform many acts in ways above our knowledge, though not transcending our natural power.” According to the philosophy of the time, preternatural phenomena were not contrary to divine law, but used hidden, or occult powers that violated the normal pattern of natural phenomena.

Orestes Brownson, in his nineteenth-century autobiographical novel The Spirit-Rapper, has the Christian apologist Mr. Merton say “Man has a double nature, is composed of body and soul … A supernatural power assists him to rise; a preternatural power assists him, so to speak, to descend”. [16]

This distinction matters because Morello’s argumentation depends precisely on blurring the line between divine action and occult manipulation, treating what Christian theology classifies as preternatural as though it could be assimilated to sacred practice.

Morello’s adherence to the theological “Recognize and Resist” (“R&R”) school of thought compounds the problem. The R&R position relies on the erroneous notion that the Church can promulgate binding universal laws, rites, and disciplines that are poisonous or harmful to souls — a direct rejection of her infallibility in this regard and of her divine mission. While individual dioceses can and have defected, it is impossible for the Holy See to fail in such matters [17]. Like his publisher, Morello displays an unfortunate willingness to warp Catholic teaching to fit his own esoteric theories, and in his case those theories gravitate to the world of spells and conjuration.

Given these converging problems — an occultist framework dressed in Catholic language, published by a press with its own theological difficulties, and grounded in an ecclesiology that contradicts the Church’s teaching — why should our readers need to know about this book? It’s because a central theme involves a matter Novus Ordo Watch is all about: exposing the eclipse of the Church by the Modernist Vatican II Sect.

Morello covers this most in the third chapter, “Acknowledging the Crisis and Breaking the Spell.” (The “spell” referenced is the modernity that holds the Church under sway, but given his position concerning magic, it may also be taken semi-literally.) In another place he writes: “Late modernity is a kind of hex on the human mind, and it has produced a people who can no longer read – let alone speak – the divine communication” [18]. Precisely why he thinks that magic should be the solution to this problem or how it is to be preferred over the decidedly non-occultic divine communication of holy souls canonized by the Church in modern times is something Morello never satisfactorily explains.

Aside from his favoring of the occult, the author presents the standard R&R case, generally favoring John Paul II and Benedict XVI (seemingly blind as to how their more “conservative” strain of Modernism is Modernism nonetheless), while excoriating Francis and his more blatant version of what Pope St. Pius X rightly called “the synthesis of all heresies” [19]. Morello rightly laments how Bergoglio’s blighted counterfeit doctrines have had a deleterious effect on many souls, and lists a few of them:

If it turns out that certain sins cannot in fact be resisted, and therefore giving in to them cannot be blamed on you, as Pope Francis has implied; that there’s no real difference between being baptized and being unbaptized; that venerating saints and worshipping Amazonian fertility gods is really all the same; that the Church isn’t actually charged with making disciples of all nations because religious pluralism is willed by God; and that everyone is going to be saved anyway, [then] Catholics may reasonably feel that it’s preferable to throw in the towel altogether – and so they have. [20]

Regarding these critiques of the Vatican II Sect, we find ourselves in agreement with Morello; however, we must vehemently reject how he proposes to do battle against it.

Valentin Tomberg (1900-1973), pictured above, was an Estonian-Russian occult author best known for his attempt to integrate esoteric elements into the Church through works like Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism. His peculiar thought permeates MM&M so much that he can rightly be called Morello’s muse of sorts. (image: Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Fighting Black Magic with “Sacred Magic”?

Before delving into MM&M further, it’s important first to clear up any potential objections to the subtitle of this article, “When ‘Trads’ Seek to Save the Church via Occultism”. Some might say that this misrepresents the intent of the author, for in his book, Morello seems to be saying just the opposite:

So, can Hermetic magic rescue the Church? I must conclude with a qualified no. Obviously, Hermeticism cannot rescue the Church. The Church has a Saviour, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone can rescue the Church, and so He will, for the Church must continue until the conclusion of the world. Christ walks this earth today, however, in His members. The baptised are other christs, and they are called evermore to become such by sacramental – principally, Eucharistic – transformation. Whilst they remain under the spell of Enlightened man, that warlock who has conjured modernity, and before whom the Church’s hierarchy presently quakes, the Church’s members will continue to stagger and their mission will increasingly ebb. Tomberg claimed that the time had come for the Church to engage once more with the Hermetic way, to discern what could be embraced within the broad sphere of Christian spirituality and what could not be accommodated. Such an engagement may now be a pressing necessity.

Again, I declare that Christ alone can rescue His Church, but we have ousted Him in a diabolic effort to divorce Bride from Bridegroom. We have lost the primacy of the supernatural: however much the Lord may seek to rescue His Church from its current trajectory of self-destruction, He finds a Church whose members largely don’t believe they need rescuing. They are under a spell, and that spell must be broken. Perhaps the sacred magic of Hermes Trismegistus is what’s needed to banish the black magic of Enlightened man. And thereby, we may begin to retrieve meaning, and in turn start the Church’s process of humbling itself before the true King of the Universe.

…Perhaps having so humbled itself, the Church’s government may recover some of its lost authority. There is no chance of that, though, until the hierarchy is freed from the bewitchment of modernity, to take up its mission once more of sanctifying the faithful and making disciples of all nations, rather than yielding to the unbaptised world – which is the principality of Satan, and that mission’s incessant enemy.” [21]

Morello’s answer to the question “can Hermetic magic rescue the Church?” in the negative is misleading, to say the least. The key is seen in his equivocal phrase “with a qualified no,” which leaves the door open for it being answered with a qualified yes. And that is precisely what we shall find.

He states that only Christ is capable of rescuing the Church, but that position, which we believe he sincerely holds – albeit within his heterodox frame of reference – is surprisingly similar to his comment about Hermeticism vis-à-vis the crisis in the Church, one that also qualifies Our Lord’s capacity in a very real sense. When the above passage is read in its totality, it becomes clear that Morello is being rather disingenuous, in that he does in fact believe that magic could play a key role in rescuing the Church from the “spell” under which she languishes, this through a rediscovery of “the Hermetic way” to overcome “the principality of Satan.” (A valid question here is whether using Hermeticism as a weapon is inadvertently aiding the Devil, thus confounding the stated goal, but more on that as we go forward.)

His continual dual use of occult imagery in this passage – black magic, warlock, bewitchment, spell, conjured, diabolical – makes it fair to ask whether his mention of “the unbaptised world” is intended to mean not only that part of humanity lacking the laver of sacramental baptism, but those who have yet to have been “baptized” with Hermetic gnosis. (Yes, he alludes to “sacramental – principally, Eucharistic – transformation,” but with Morello the esoteric subtext must always be kept in mind, so that his dabbling in arcane mysticism can never be precluded as providing a subsidiary explication.)

His reflections here about the ecclesial crisis since the Second Vatican Council continue to demonstrate a lack of understanding about where its parameters were drawn, and he fails to explain why utilization of “the Hermetic way,” rather than a Catholic approach — such as prayer and fasting — to combating the evil bedeviling the Church, not only is to be preferred, but “may now be a pressing necessity.” It bears remembering what Hermeticism actually is: “Hermeticism is commonly taken to include Theosophism, Christian Scientism, Neo-Platonism, Philonic Judaism and Jewish and pagan Cabalism. It is in a large part a revival of the heresies of the Gnostics, Manichaeans, Albigenses, Waldenses, etc., and aims at providing the modern European race with some acceptable substitute for Christianity” [22]. He insists the Church’s hierarchy has been bewitched by modernity, through which it has lost some of its authority. But in the same place, he speaks of the need for it to humble itself, as if hubris were the issue.

This notion that the Novus Ordo hierarchy is essentially well-meaning but ensnared by external forces is a recurring theme of R&R apologetics. The late Richard Williamson, a bishop who originally was with the Society of St. Pius X, made similar excuses for Vatican II “popes.” Where MM&M‘s author shifted the blame to a male witch, the bishop mined evasions no less exotic, as we pointed out in an article outlining his confusing theological rhetoric from several years ago:

To cite just a couple of examples of his alibis du jour: John Paul II may have held heresies, but it wasn’t really his fault because he was in a “liberal dream” (Bp. Williamson’s phrase), while Benedict XVI hasn’t been culpable either, because he was seduced by modern German philosophers (fascinated with old German heretics like Luther is more like it!). [23]

These “alibis” simply downplay the evil of modernism and contradict the teaching of Pope St. Pius X. This Pontiff also explicitly rejects the notion that Modernist errors and those who teach them spring from an innocent confusion. On the contrary, he identifies the true cause of modernism as the following: “That the proximate and immediate cause consists in a perversion of the mind cannot be open to doubt. The remote causes seem to us to be reduced to two: curiosity and pride” [24].

In the August 20, 2011 issue of his publication Eleison Comments, Bp. Williamson wrote something very much in spirit with what Sebastian Morello has said about “a Church whose members largely don’t believe they need rescuing. They are under a spell, and that spell must be broken” and the need for the hierarchy to be “freed from the bewitchment of modernity.” Bp. Williamson, too, sees a bewitchment of sorts, where leaders of the Vatican II Sect don’t think they need to have a spell lifted, although the culprit here isn’t modernity’s warlock, but rather something akin to a hobgoblin of past religious revolts who continues to plague the present:

…one need not at all call in question these Romans’ sincerity and good will. There, in fact, is the problem! After nearly 500 years of Protestantism and Liberalism our age is so confused and perverse that the world is now full of people doing wrong even while being convinced that they are doing right. And the more convinced such people are that they are doing right, the more dangerous they can be, because with all the more force of subjective sincerity and good intentions they push towards doing objective wrong, and they pull others with them. The more sincerely today’s Romans are convinced of the rightness of their Newchurch, the more efficaciously they will destroy the true Church. [25]

A summary composite of the Morello-Williamson view of the crisis is one that looks upon the Novus Ordo hierarchy as being essentially of good will, and requiring only freedom from their bewitchment to change the “trajectory of self-destruction” they’ve been tracing back to the mission that true Catholics ought to be pursuing. Yet the men being spoken of have attended seminaries (and in the cases of Wojtyla and Ratzinger, even taught at them) and been privy from various sources to the Church’s Magisterium, which has condemned Modernism in the strongest possible terms.

Morello teaches what is, quite frankly, almost impossible to take in any sense but a heretical one in the following passage:

Over the last century, the Catholic Church has undergone the greatest apostasy in its history. And yet, amazingly, people are still sporadically converting to Catholicism. In the West, such people–especially young people–are coming to the Catholic Church through the traditional liturgy and the wider traditionalist movement.

Indeed, a strange characteristic of the post-authority epoch is that the parish and the diocese aren’t really where Catholicism happens. Catholicism has largely become an internet genre. And whilst the Church’s government is doing all it can, from the very top, to destroy the traditionalist movement, that movement certainly remains alive and well online. [26]

Here, writing on how, over the past hundred years, “the Catholic Church has undergone the greatest apostasy in its history,” he makes a claim that’s quite credible, yet follows that up with the completely untenable assertion that responsibility for this apostasy lies not with mere individuals, but with “the Church’s government” itself – that is, emanating from the very top, from true popes. That’s a proposition which, if true, would not merely describe a crisis in the Church but would falsify the promises of her divine Founder.

The fundamental problem is that Morello fails to distinguish between legitimate Catholic authority and those Modernists falsely claiming to possess it; for Morello they seem to be one and the same, as in the old “bad popes” argument, whereas non-popes is the correct term in this instance. Here the diagnosis of Pope St. Pius X is directly relevant. In Pascendi Dominici Gregis, he warns that the Church’s most dangerous enemies are found not merely among her open adversaries, but “in her very bosom” [27], working for her ruin from within her structures. The present crisis, then, is not evidence that the Catholic Church has defected, but rather that her enemies have labored under a Catholic guise.

As noted earlier, it is impossible for true Popes to promulgate universal laws that are harmful to souls, such as ones “seeking to destroy the traditionalist movement.” Solemnly taught in Session 4 of Vatican I, reiterating pronouncements from previous councils, is this doctrine regarding the unique status of the Chair of St. Peter:

…in the apostolic see the Catholic religion has always been preserved unblemished, and sacred doctrine been held in honour… for in it is the whole and true strength of the Christian religion. [28]

This is a magisterial teaching that Peter Kwasniewski has stubbornly resisted, and to which Sebastian Morello also seems averse. The importance of getting people to grasp the distinction cannot be overemphasized. Simply stated, if it were possible for the Holy See to fail in such a catastrophic way, then the gates of Hell would prevail, as Cardinal James Gibbons explains:

Our Blessed Lord, in constituting St. Peter Prince of His Apostles, says to him: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” [Mt 16:18]. Christ makes here a solemn prediction that no error shall ever invade His Church, and if she fell into error the gates of hell have certainly prevailed against her. [29]

Thus, it necessarily follows that the men who have been carrying out the “auto-demolition of the Church” cannot be true Popes. Those promoting the R&R position continue to engender confusion with their acceptance of “progressives” as representing lawful authority in the Church, and, as we shall see, this perplexity carries over into the views held by all of the proponents of Hermeticism-as-the-answer line of thought.

When Morello writes of how “He [Christ] finds a Church whose members largely don’t believe they need rescuing. They are under a spell, and that spell must be broken,” it is a description somewhat analogous to a central concept of Gnosticism [30], where the acquisition of esoteric spiritual knowledge liberates a person from the shackles of ignorance. This ignorance, according to the Gnostics, comes through a spell visited upon humanity by Yaldabaoth [31] a demiurge, identified with the God of the Old Testament, a counterpart to MM&M‘s warlock incantation. The term Gnosis (a Greek noun meaning “knowledge” or “awareness”) is found in both Hermetic and Gnostic writings, and, as such, Morello takes great pains in an effort to differentiate the two. Given the latter’s history as having been comprised of heretical, semi-pagan sects that were among the Church’s most ancient and fiercest enemies, he is right to do so:

…Gnosis for the Hermeticist, however, means something very different from the ‘gnosis’ of the Gnostics. Whereas the Gnostics believed in hidden knowledge that was undisclosed to those who weren’t spiritually pure or enlightened enough, the gnosis of the Hermeticist is not hidden knowledge but deeper knowledge of that which is known to all who are free from the spells – the “egregores,” to use a Hermetic phrase – of materialism, rationalism, and other such ancient superstitions that have reemerged to create modernity. That the Hermeticist pursues deeper knowledge of what’s known, rather than secret knowledge of what’s hidden, is explicitly declared and defended at the beginning of Tomberg’s Meditations. Moreover, Gnosticism has invariably led to a disdain for the material world and thus a contempt for the body, supported by an anthropological dualism which divided man into a spiritual substance in a fleshly cage. Hermeticism, however, seeks the opposite, namely the retrieval of the world as divine communication and the reintegration of the human person as a single substance of embodied spirit.

When St. Albert the Great, Doctor of the Church, translated a principal Hermetic text called the Emerald Tablet into Latin for his students at the University of Paris, he did so because he believed they had something to learn from it. [32]

While Morello is correct to identify a key difference in Gnosticism’s and Hermeticism’s respective philosophical approaches to the physical world, it’s a mistake to infer that the two belief systems are mutually exclusive. There is some definite overlapping, and at times a commingling that even Morello should find disconcerting. Likewise, it’s worth bearing in mind that just as there is no single sect that can lay exclusive claim to being Gnostic, the same holds true for those in the Hermetic camp; indeed, there are examples to be shown of infighting within each school of thought.

Hermes Trismegistus, depicted in the illustration above (center), was a legendary pre-Christian figure whose 18 tractates form the Corpus Hermeticum, the foundational teachings of a philosophical system known as Hermeticism, which is, in turn, the basis of modern occultism. The subject matter of these treatises range from religion, philosophy, pharmacology, and medicine to astrology, alchemy, and magic. He is revered by Hermeticists across the full spectrum, from “Christian” esoteric practitioners all the way to Satanic devotees.

The great importance that Morello places on St. Albert the Great translating the Emerald Tablet, a noted Hermetic text, into Latin for his students is misguided, to say the least. We should ask who were the students he translated the text for, and to what purpose did he do so, because otherwise there is the danger that some might draw the conclusion that the classes may have been in theology, philosophy, or some related field. Yet St. Albert was a polymath whose expansive knowledge included many of the natural sciences as well. The Dominican Rev. Hugh Serror explains that St. Albert was no advocate of Hermeticism:

He was a chemist of amazing proportions. He experimented with metals, but not according to the recipes of the alchemists, as is sometimes charged against him. Natural science, according to Albert, is not the reception of what one is told, but the investigation of causes in natural phenomena. He visited mines, and did not hesitate to seek out the workshops of the alchemists in order, as he tells us, to investigate the validity or falseness of the transmutation of metals. [33]

Attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the Emerald Tablet – a scant 14 lines long, but holding great historical significance – deals with two themes of great interest during St. Albert’s life: alchemy and astrology. His comments about it appeared in his treatise (c. 1250) On Minerals [34]. That the saint believed in these since-discredited disciplines is in no way a blotch on his genius; they simply were discarded later after centuries of scientific advances. Morello would no doubt protest that for the Hermeticist the work still holds value, because the esoteric truth is not physical, but metaphysical, and the turning of base metals into gold translates to spiritual transformation. [35]

The Emerald Tablet is also held to be a pivotal work at the Hermetic Library website, where occult adept Rawn Clark describes it as nothing less than “the foundation of western Alchemical thought and practice as we know it today. Alchemy is, essentially, the practical application of the Hermetic Philosophy…” [36]. As far as it goes, this would be in line with the thought of Morello, who writes: “Hermetically, that esoteric transformation is prerequired by exoteric transformation. But then the reverse is true as well, for these are correlated transformations. ‘As above, so below,’ as the maxim of the Emerald Tablet goes” [37].

The Hermetic Library, which hosts the Emerald Tablet material Morello cites, is not a neutral scholarly archive. It is a site dedicated entirely to the life and works of Aleister Crowley, the Satanist who styled himself “the Beast 666.” That the same texts Morello presents as instruments of Catholic renewal are simultaneously revered as foundational by practitioners of explicitly diabolic magic should make anyone pause. What Catholic would use such a resource?

As for MM&M, it must be stated that it has received some criticism that hasn’t been warranted, such as a review from Michael Warren Davis — subsequently scrubbed from the internet — claiming that Morello himself likely is a practitioner of the black arts whose purpose in writing was to entice its readers to follow him into occultism.

Davis went too far, but not without cause. His assertions were grounded in reasonable inferences from Morello’s own words. When his review was subsequently scrubbed from the internet, the WM Review preserved the most pertinent passages in a pair of articles. The first of these, “‘Conservative Case for Antichrist’—MWD reviews Morello’s magic book”, dated 3 June 2025, records Davis drawing a pointed parallel between Morello’s rhetorical ambiguity and the tactics of “Fr.” James Martin, the scandalous Novus Ordo Jesuit:

[I]f Morello was simply jazzing up mainstream Catholic theology with edgy Hermetic language, that would be bad enough.

For instance, we all understand that James Martin, S.J., undermines the Catholic Church’s witness on sexual morality by adopting the LGBT lexicon. He doesn’t need to come out and say, “I think homosexuality is great.” He doesn’t need to. He’s got the rainbow flag, celebrates Pride Month, blesses same-sex couples, etc. And in the process, he does measurable harm to the Catholic Church’s witness on sexual morality. Clearly, this is his goal. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 13:9).

Likewise, imagine if we showed Morello all the passages where Scripture and the Fathers condemn magic. I know exactly how he would respond. He’d give us a certain look–knowing, pitiful, a little bored–and say, “Of course, I’m not talking about that kind of magic.” But where does the Church ever differentiate between good and bad magic? The same place where it distinguishes between good and bad pederasty, good and bad abortions, etc. [38]

Whatever one thinks of Davis’s rhetoric, his underlying point is clear: Morello’s ambiguity is not incidental, but functional, allowing occult language to be introduced into Catholic discourse without being squarely defended.

Four days later, a much more substantial treatment appeared: S.D. Wright’s “Occult and esoteric ‘trad world’: Silence breaks at last?”, which preserved the following assessment from Davis:

Morello wrote a book praising magic. He used specific terms like theurgy, egregore, familiar, etc. He cites at great length authors who absolutely performed rituals that the Church would consider diabolical. Others in his circle, who endorse his book, are known to participate in such rituals as well. And when asked if he performs such rituals, Morello refuses to answer.

There can be no “benefit of the doubt” where there’s no doubt. [39]

Davis’s charges, however intemperate, did not arise from nothing. It was Morello himself who provided the fuel, as early as the very first page of his Preface. There he tells his readers that he was always “accompanied by my whippet Pico, named after the fifteenth-century Christian Hermeticist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), a man whom St. Thomas More described as ‘a perfect philosopher and a perfect theologian.’ The name which I affectionately bestowed upon my familiar was partly to signal to the initiated that I too was a lover of the Secret Fire” [40].

For anyone possessing a Catholic sensus fidei, this passage signals danger as clearly as the smoke of Satan entering the sanctuary. That he would name his dog after Pico della Mirandola, the Renaissance philosopher who for much of his brief life was seduced into arcane pursuits, resulting in him running afoul with the Vatican, does little to gain our confidence in Morello’s powers of discernment, as we read of Pico:

He was the founder of the tradition of Christian Kabbalah, a key tenet of early modern Western esotericism. The 900 Theses was the first printed book to be universally banned by the Church. Pico is sometimes seen as a proto-Protestant, because his 900 theses anticipated many Protestant views. [41]

In his 1487 bull Etsi Ex Iniuncto, Pope Innocent VIII condemned many of Pico’s propositions, which included “damnable assertions.” He broke down the reasons for the censure into five specific categories:

• Certain of the aforesaid conclusions were heretical or savoured of heresy;
• Some were scandalous and offensive to devout ears;
• Many revived the errors of pagan philosophers long since abolished and forgotten;
• Others fostered the perfidy of the Jews;
• And not a few propositions which, under a certain disguise of natural philosophy, strive to lend respectability to certain arts that are hostile to the Catholic Faith and injurious to the human race – arts most sharply condemned by their own canons and by the doctrines of the Catholic doctors. [42]

It must be said that Pico had submitted his theses to the Holy See for judgment, so he was not held blameworthy; nevertheless, Pope Innocent made it clear that were he to go back on his pledge no longer to defend them, he would be deemed guilty, along with anyone reading or disseminating the propositions, “according to the canonical sanctions and the decrees of the holy fathers established against heretics…” [43].

Morello suggests that Pico, despite going so far as to have burned some of his own books, in essence lied to Innocent, “never formally or explicitly renounced those views,” and that Hermeticism was not condemned. Yet, is that not precisely what is condemned where the decree censures ideas concealed by “[the] disguise of natural philosophy”, namely, “certain arts that are hostile to the Catholic Faith”? [44]

Then, there is his careless attempt to enlist St. Thomas More to the defense of Pico, attributing to him a book he never wrote and pro-occult sentiments he never held. In fact, St. Thomas expressed quite the opposite view of esotericism, when he wrote that “we should put no trust in magic and that we should eschew superstition, which obtrudes everywhere under the guise of religion” [45]. Yet this is precisely what MM&M does.

The passage’s most troubling language, however, comes at its close, where Morello provides additional details about Pico the whippet in the passage cited above: “The name which I affectionately bestowed upon my familiar was partly to signal to the initiated that I too was a lover of the Secret Fire.”

Here, as in other parts of MM&M, the author appears to delight in the employment of Aesopian language, that is, “a means of communication with the intent to convey a concealed meaning to informed members of a conspiracy or underground movement, whilst simultaneously maintaining the guise of an innocent meaning to outsiders” [46].

Morello uses familiar, a term that can simply mean a friend or close companion. However, he does so in a work that has “magic” in its very title; and considering that the confidant is named after a fifteenth-century occultist, it is permissible to infer that the sort of companion meant in this context is probably one that fits the general profile of this definition:

A Familiar Spirit, more often known as simply a Familiar, is a magical spirit entity that commonly manifests itself as an animal in order to protect a mage or a witch and assist that person in their magic. [47]

The concern, then, is not that every use of the word “familiar” proves occult practice, but that Morello repeatedly selects terms with an established esoteric meaning and then presents them as intelligible signals to “the initiated.”

Pierre A. Riffard, a specialist in the esoteric, has referred to the familiar as, among other things, a “personal demon” [48]. The real question is not whether Pico the whippet must literally be a demonic “familiar,” but why Morello deliberately adopts language that invites exactly that esoteric reading. Lamont has the same concern with the ambiguity, and uses it to expand on the problem inherent in Morello’s line of argumentation:

The important thing is not whether Morello personally engages in occultist activities, perhaps using his whippet Pico as a familiar. That is his concern, and I am quite willing to accept any assurances he may offer that he does not engage in such activities. What matters is that he tries to convince Catholics that false and evil practices and philosophies – the Neoplatonism and theurgy of Iamblichus, the Hermeticism of the Corpus Hermeticum, the religious syncretism of Wolfgang Smith and Jean Borella – are valuable and compatible with the Catholic faith. Even if the Catholics that he persuades do not go on to engage in occultist activity, the very fact of their accepting Morello’s “Christian Hermeticism” as true or as a position that can be reasonably entertained is objectively a mortal sin against the Catholic faith. [49]

Morello reveals that part of the reason why he chose the name Pico for his dog was “to signal to the initiated that I too was a lover of the Secret Fire.” What is meant by “the initiated” and the “Secret Fire”?

This appears to be more doublespeak from the author. In general, the initiated describes any of those who have undergone a ritual to become members of a select, often secret, organization and, thus, are privy to information not readily available to the average person. As for him being a lover of the Secret Fire, he doesn’t explain in what sense he means it, because while a concept with that name appears in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and obviously magic plays a huge part of that story arc, the term dates back before Tolkien fashioned his masterpiece. Moreover, there is no character named Pico in The Lord of the Rings, which makes a Tolkien-based reading of the passage implausible.

The alchemical tradition is the far more likely referent. In 1932, The Secret Fire: An Alchemical Study was published. Its author, Edward John Langford Garstin, was a prominent member of the so-called “Alpha et Omega”, which was a later iteration of the secret society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In the preface he wrote that “the Qabalah has been our chief guide” and also uses the synonym “Magical Fire.” As is standard with the ritual magic writers encountered in MM&M, Garstin has no qualms about mixing in pagan, Gnostic and Jewish sources (the usual hodgepodge so dear to the Hermeticists), and he quotes approvingly from the Echoes from the Gnosis series by the Theosophical Society’s “scholar” G. R. S. Mead. [50]

Even from this small sample size it’s apparent that if Davis was being too rough with Morello, it wasn’t by much, and he had some justification in doing so. Among the book’s endorsements, one is particularly revealing. Michael Martin, author of Sophia in Exile and Mythologies of the Wild of God — both of which are published by Angelico Press, whose catalogue section “Christian Esotericism” juxtaposes Catholic and heterodox Hermetic titles — praises MM&M as a “magical enterprise.” In Sophia in Exile, Martin identifies the concept of Sophia in a Gnostic, Kabbalistic sense [51] that is wholly incompatible with Catholic doctrine.

The same author has also contributed laudatory essays to an edition of The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, which is one of three manifestos from the 17th century surrounding the establishment of the Rosicrucian Order. The Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble, M.S.C., provides a brief overview of the order and its incompatibility with Catholicism:

The Rosicrucians describe themselves as “The Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross,” of which the initial letters A.M.O.R.C. are used as an abbreviation.

They claim to be a world-wide fraternal organization, devoted to the exposition of “a system of mystical and metaphysical philosophy, intended to guide the development of the inner consciousness.”

One who becomes a member is taught “the significance and application of the Cosmic and natural laws in the universe around him, and in himself. It unites into one livable philosophy, metaphysical idealism, and such practical sciences as physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, and psychology. It also seeks, by its educational campaign, to rid society of the enslaving influence of superstition.”

So we are told in the splendidly produced prospectus, “Who and What Are the Rosicrucians.” But the claims are preposterous, and calculated to appeal only to the credulous; whilst the professed aim to eliminate superstition is brazen insincerity in an organization which would collapse completely were it not for the superstition of those who adopt and support its teachings.

On a par with its repudiation of superstition is its claim to be non-religious, and to conflict in no way with the principles of the Christian religion. No one who has an elementary knowledge of either Rosicrucianism or of the Christian religion could possibly be so deceived. Rosicrucianism is essentially religious, as we shall see. And it is utterly opposed to the Christian religion. [52]

On MM&M‘s acknowledgements page, Morello lists several names along with Peter Kwasniewski, including two that will be showing up in subsequent parts of this study: Charles Coulombe and Roger Buck. Coulombe, who wrote the foreword and was singled out by Morello as providing “a helpful initiatory pathway into this book’s spirit” [53], merits closer examination. His longstanding involvement with the world of the occult will make plain not only his own mindset, but something of what Morello, Kwasniewski, Buck, and their associates hold dear.

________________

ENDNOTES

[1] Sebastian Morello, Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries: Recovering the Sacred Mystery at the Heart of Reality (Lincoln, NE: Os Justi Press, 2024). Hereafter abbreviated as MM&M.

[2] Contrast this with internet influencer Taylor Marshall’s poorly researched but highly successful book from 2019, Infiltration, which the author unfortunately boasted was the “greatest literary accomplishment of my life.” It was an Amazon bestseller, albeit with the help of Marshall’s use of a “launch team” campaign that greatly padded the total positive reviews via astroturfing (i.e., “the deceptive practice of presenting an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign in the guise of unsolicited comments from members of the public”). There are plenty of reasons he should be seriously ashamed and issue a mea culpa, yet to date none has been — and likely won’t be — forthcoming. The book presently in focus, though far better in terms of research and composition, nevertheless has content that is potentially much more dangerous to one’s spiritual health than Infiltration is, which did little to deepen the reader’s understanding of its subject. (For more, see “Assessing Taylor Marshall’s ‘Infiltration’: Bold Exposé or Controlled Opposition?”)

[3] Matthew Minerd, Thomas Mirus, and Matthew Scarince, “Hermetic Tradition or Catholic Tradition? A Critique of Sebastian Morello”, Catholic Culture, Aug. 14, 2025.

[4] “Neo-Platonism”, Catholic Encyclopedia.

[5] John Lamont, “Neoplatonism and the Antichrist: Against ‘Christian Hermeticism'”, Rorate Caeli.

[6] John Lamont, “The Catholic Problem with ‘Magic'”, Rorate Caeli.

[7] Sebastian Morello, “To Achieve Clarity, to Avoid Scandal: Some Statements on Christian Re-Enchantment”, One Peter Five. Cited in Lamont, “The Catholic Problem with ‘Magic'”, Rorate Caeli.

[8] Lamont, “The Catholic Problem with ‘Magic'”, Rorate Caeli.

[9] “The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse…” (“Overton window”, Wikipedia).

[10] Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects, vol. 3 (London: Burns Oates and Company, 1873), 51.

[11] Francis del Sarto, “Still Lost in Blunderland (PART ONE): Refuting Peter Kwasniewski’s Latest Attack on Ultramontanism”, Novus Ordo Watch.

[12] “Too Traditional for Tradition? Peter Kwasniewski vs. Pope Saint Pius X”, Novus Ordo Watch.

[13] See “Divination”, Wikipedia.

[14] “Divination”, Catholic Encyclopedia.

[15] A grimoire is a book of spells used as a textbook of magic.

[16] “Preternatural”, Wikipedia.

[17] See “The Infallibility of the Catholic Church in Her Universal Laws and Sacramental Rites”, Novus Ordo Watch.

[18] Morello, MM&M, 52.

[19] Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 39.

[20] Morello, MM&M, 86.

[21] Morello, MM&M, 79–80. Italics in original.

[22] Rev. E. Cahill, S.J., Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1930), 80.

[23] “The Trojan Horse of the SSPX-Vatican Negotiations”, Novus Ordo Watch. Italics in original.

[24] Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 40.

[25] Richard Williamson, Eleison Comments, Aug. 20, 2011; cited in “The Trojan Horse of the SSPX-Vatican Negotiations,” Novus Ordo Watch. Williamson’s term “Newchurch” refers to the post-Vatican II religion.

[26] Morello, MM&M, 52.

[27] Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, n. 2.

[28] Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 4.

[29] James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers: Being a Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, 110th ed., rev. and enl. (New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons), 55.

[30] “Gnosticism”, Catholic Encyclopedia. The article defines Gnosticism as a belief system that “places the salvation of the soul merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae indicative of that knowledge.”

[31] “Yaldabaoth”, Wikipedia.

[32] Morello, MM&M, 72–73. Italics in original.

[33] Rev. Hugh Serror, O.P., “Saint Albert the Great–Scientist”, Dominicana 18, no. 1 (March 1933): 29.

[34] “Emerald Tablet of Hermes”, Sacred Texts; “Emerald Tablet”, Wikipedia.

[35]  Whether St. Albert also understood the Emerald Tablet in a spiritual or metaphysical sense is not something Morello adequately demonstrates.

[36] “On the Emerald Tablet of Hermes”, Hermetic Library. See also “The Golden Treatise Concerning the Physical Secret of the Philosopher’s Stone,” attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, at the same site.

[37] Morello, MM&M, 112.

[38] “‘Conservative Case for Antichrist’–MWD reviews Morello’s magic book”, WM Review.

[39] “Occult and esoteric ‘trad world’: Silence breaks at last?”, WM Review. As regards those in Morello’s circle “known to participate in such rituals,” no names are given. One who he may have had in mind was Charles Coulombe, known to have taken part in Tarot readings, while maintaining they were not done seriously.

[40] Morello, MM&M, Preface.

[41] “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola”, Wikipedia.

[42] “Pope Innocent VIII’s Condemnation of Pico della Mirandola’s Book of 900 Propositions”, The WM Review.

[43] “Pope Innocent VIII’s Condemnation of Pico della Mirandola’s Book of 900 Propositions”, The WM Review.

[44] “Pope Innocent VIII’s Condemnation of Pico della Mirandola’s Book of 900 Propositions”, The WM Review.

[45] “Did St. Thomas More Call a ‘Christian Hermeticist’ a ‘Perfect Philosopher and Theologian’?”, The WM Review.

[46] “Aesopian Language”, Wikipedia.

[47] “Familiars (Species)”, The World of Shadowfell Wiki (Fandom). We should note that specifics may vary; e.g., what’s rendered “magical spirit entity” here is described elsewhere as anything from a fairy to a demon.

[48] Pierre A. Riffard, Dictionnaire de l’ésotérisme (Paris: Payot, 1983), p. 132. Cited in “Familiar”, Wikipedia.

[49] Lamont, “The Catholic Problem with ‘Magic'”, Rorate Caeli.

[50] E. J. Langford Garstin, The Secret Fire: An Alchemical Study; see “The Secret Fire, Part 1 of 2”, Hermetics.org.

[51] “Sophia (Gnosticism)”, Wikipedia. For example, the Neo-Gnostic sect Ecclesia Gnostica has perverted Catholic devotions to fit its own heretical teachings; hence, the Hail Mary becomes “Hail, Sophia, filled with light, the Christ is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among the Aeons, and blessed is the liberator of Thy light, Jesus. Holy Sophia, Mother of all gods, pray to the light for us, Thy children, now and in the hour of our death. Amen.”

[52] Rev. Dr. L. Rumble, M.S.C., The Rosicrucians (St. Paul, MN: Radio Replies Press, 1949), 8. Italics in original.

[53] Morello, MM&M, xxi.