Charlie Bremner is a ceremonial magickian, and when he tells people what he does, he wants to make sure they get the spelling right. “M-A-G-I-C-K-I-A-N,” he says. “Magic without a k is David Blaine.” Last weekend the baby-faced and blond-ponytailed 31-year-old led a workshop on one of his specialties at Alchemy Arts, an occult bookstore in Edgewater. “Banishing: What it is and how to do it!,” the flyers for the event read. “In a way so as to prove to the universe that you are one bad mother. Hosted by Charlie Bremner, occultist, ceremonial magickian, beloved by many.
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The workshop’s advertised main event was the demonstration of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and the Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram, two rites rooted in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a 19th-century British occult group that counted Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats as members. Half a dozen people had turned up, paying $15 for the privilege. They were seated in a circle on folding chairs, clutching instructional handouts that, like everything else in the shop, smelled of incense. One young woman in a low-cut black top wore a silver pentagram pendant and cat’s-eye glasses; an older Hispanic woman munched on peanuts. Bremner, dressed in jeans and an unbuttoned blue Hawaiian over a red T-shirt, sat in a thronelike wooden chair. A string of wooden Tibetan prayer beads hung from his neck. Beside him was a statue of Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the underworld, and a basket containing cigarettes and loose change–offerings from customers who wanted Anubis to look after friends and relatives who’d passed away.
Though Bremner has practiced magick for more than a decade, this was only his second workshop–his first, on hermetic kabbalism, was held at Alchemy Arts in the spring. He’s generally wary of teaching, but now and then he’ll demonstrate rituals or recommend readings in private lessons. “I’m very authoritative,” he says. “If there are people who are interested and want to learn from me, I’m happy to teach them, but they’re going to have to do the work. I had a student that wanted me to banish one of her girlfriends, and I was like, do it yourself.”
“I would agree with that. Every word, every letter that I speak, has a certain vibration,” Bremner replied. “Every letter in Hebrew, or Greek, or Arabic means something. Every word that I vibrate is like a key to a specific energy. Like when I say Adonai . . .” He paused. “What was your question?”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Marty Perez.
