The Citadel of the Caduceus, a local body of the Hermetic Order Astrum Sophiæ, is now open in London, UK. The Ogdoadic tradition has a long history in Albion, and we are delighted to be celebrating and transmitting its mysteries here. The original Aurum Solis operated in Britain, and Melita Denning & Osborne Phillips first published that Order’s teaching while living here. The tradition is strongly influenced by the deep magic of this island, and inherits the great synthesis of magical knowledge developed here in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

The Citadel practices and teaches a traditional programme of magical development, structured through three initiatory ‘Halls’ – corresponding to the three lower Sephiroth of the Middle Pillar. The curriculum consists of rich group and individual work, and represents a thorough training in western ritual magic. Find out more about the Citadel, the tradition, and the programme on our ‘About’ page.

We know there are other branches and filiations of the tradition in Britain, including some former initiates working in different paths today. We sincerely welcome fraternal correspondence – or even just a cheery greeting. (And of course, we welcome correspondence from those in other traditions too!) We are also on social media (Instagram, Twitter), although our accounts are not yet posting.

To celebrate its public opening, the Director of the Citadel has written some personal thoughts on his deep love for the tradition, and its spiritual importance to him:

I love, and am thankful for, the gifts that the tradition has given me: a thorough grounding in magic, practical and spiritual; skill in meditation, and the wholeness of mind which arrives with it; powerful psychic, evocatory and magical experiences which filled-out, and altered, my view of the world; a healing rediscovery of inner joy, and joy in the natural world; ecstatic and mystical experience of divine powers; the experience of the world as a great theophany. The deepest, and most profound, gift the tradition has given me is a kind of metanoia – an inward turning of the soul towards the light. That sounds simple, and yet it is so far-reaching there is no area of my life it has not affected. I relish that there are more and deeper mysteries to discover.

You can read more of that essay at Eightfold.