Madeline Montalban

Madeline Montalban (1910–1982)

Motto “Accept nothing. Question everything”

Madeline Montalban was an English woman who read stars and taught magic. She lived from 1910 to 1982. In magazines she wrote about tarot and astrology. In private she taught a Lucifer almost nobody on the newsstand ever saw.

In 1956 she started a postal school called the Order of the Morning Star. Students paid for lessons in the mail. If they stayed long enough, lesson twelve was a short booklet about Lucifer. She called him Lumiel. She said that name means the Light of God.

She had been trying to find him since 1944. The booklet came out in 1965. It is only about twenty pages. It was never a shop book. We know what is in it because later students wrote down what she taught.

She knew Crowley, Kenneth Grant, Gardner, and Sanders. She still built her own school.

Who Lumiel is, in plain talk

He is not the cartoon Devil.

In her story he is the first being God made. God, for her, is both male and female. Lumiel is the first light, the first mind.

God’s plan was slow. Humans would grow up over a long time. Lumiel was impatient. He thought: give them the gift now. Let spirit live in flesh sooner.

So the high ones mixed their life with people on earth. Humans got power before they knew how to hold it. Things went wrong. Lumiel was thrown down and became the lord of this world, the earth we actually stand on.

She also said he pays for that. He suffers with us, life after life, until we are wise enough for the light. When we wake up, he is freed too.

The morning star is his sign. The same star at dusk is still him. Light that goes down and comes back up.

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Key aspects of Madeline Montalban’s work and beliefs:

1. Astrology and Occultism: Montalban was primarily an astrologer, and her work often intertwined with occult practices. She wrote several books and was known for her detailed and esoteric interpretations of astrological charts.
2. Luciferian Influence: Montalban’s association with Luciferianism is a bit nuanced. Luciferianism, in this context, often refers to a belief system that venerates the figure of Lucifer not as a devilish entity, but as a symbol of enlightenment, personal empowerment, and the pursuit of knowledge. Montalban’s version of this belief system was more about personal spiritual development and enlightenment rather than traditional Satanism.
3. Teachings and Practices: Her teachings were influenced by a range of esoteric traditions, including elements of Theosophy, Gnosticism, and ceremonial magic. Montalban was known for her emphasis on personal empowerment and spiritual growth through her unique blend of astrology and occult practices.
4. Legacy: While she might not be as widely known as some other occult figures, Montalban’s work has had a lasting impact on those interested in astrology and the more mystical aspects of spiritual practice. Her approach to astrology was often deeply intertwined with her esoteric beliefs, and she left behind a body of work that continues to be studied by those interested in occult traditions.

A deeper dive

Madeline Montalban (also known as Dolores North) is the person who proofread, edited and typed the original manuscript of Gerald B. Gardner’s famous book High Magic’s Aid, 1949.

Madeline was an accomplished occultist and ceremonial magician, an astrologer, writer, journalist and teacher.  Although she was initially favourable to and worked with Gerald B. Gardner, later she became hostile towards him considering him to be a showman and a charlatan with deviant sexual motives.

In 1952 she met Nicholas Heron, with whom she entered into a relationship. An engraver, photographer and former journalist for the Brighton Argus, he shared her interest in the occult, and together they developed a magical system based upon Luciferianism, the veneration of the deity Lucifer, or Lumiel, whom they considered to be a benevolent angelic deity. In 1956, they founded the Order of the Morning Star, or Ordo Stella Matutina (OSM), propagating it through a correspondence course.

Describing herself as a “pagan”, Montalban’s personal faith was Luciferian in basis, revolving around the veneration of Lucifer, or Lumiel, whom she considered to be a benevolent angelic being who had aided humanity’s development. Within her Order, she emphasised that her followers discover their own personal relationship with the angelic beings, including Lumiel.

The Order of the Morning Star

In 1956 she and Nicholas Heron founded the Order of the Morning Star, also called Ordo Stella Matutina. It was mostly a paid correspondence course, then an inner order for those who finished the work. Lesson twelve held her short text The Book of Lumiel.

She did not run a Golden Dawn temple with grades and secret chiefs. Students worked alone, timed to the stars, and were expected to make their own relationship with the angels.

After she and Heron parted in 1964 she went back to London, later around St Giles, where papers called her the Witch of St Giles. She did not call herself a witch. She died in 1982. The Order continued.

Who Lucifer is in her work

She preferred the name Lumiel, which she read as Light of God. Lucifer was a benevolent angelic being who has helped humanity since ancient times. He was not Satan. She rejected Satanism as the frame.

She believed this religion began among the Chaldeans of Babylon. Members of the Order were sometimes told they had been priests of that old stellar cult in earlier lives. That is her myth of origin, not a document trail.

In her theology Lumiel is close to the first light under a God who has male and female aspects. The archangels, the Ben Elohim, govern the seven old planets and aid creation. Christ could even be read, in her teaching, as one of Lumiel’s forms. That will startle people who only know Lucifer as the Adversary. It is still Luciferianism: the morning star as teacher of consciousness.

A study of Madeline Montalban’s Luciferian teaching

If you want to study her Lucifer, do not start with modern Left Hand Path lists. Start with a small English school that kept him in a private lesson and called him an angel.

The public trail is short. Her magazine work is astrology and tarot. The Lucifer material lives in the Order of the Morning Star, especially The Book of Lumiel: The Incredible Archangel of Earth (lesson twelve, 1965, research from 1944). Julia Phillips read the papers and the people. Michael Howard sat in the current and later wrote The Book of Fallen Angels. That is the study shelf. There is no cheap complete gospel.

1. Lucifer is Lumiel, Light of God

She would not let the church Devil eat the name.

Lumiel means the Light of God. He is the morning star and the evening star, one light on two brows of the day. He is the archangel of earth, not a tourist from hell. She called herself pagan and still used biblical furniture. The root, she said, was Chaldean: priests who read planets as bodies of invisible powers.

If you take nothing else from her, take this: Lucifer and Satan are not automatically the same being.

2. He is first intellect, not first rebel for its own sake

In the booklet he is the first being made in this universe. God is dual, male and female in perfection. Creative power is shared with the Shekinah. Then come archangels, angels, lesser ranks, and the Ray People, the first wave toward humanity.

Lumiel’s title in her own voice is Creative Intellect. The fall, in her telling, is not “I will be God” as a tantrum. It is “the Plan is too slow.” He disagrees with a timetable.

That is a Luciferian idea with a different temperature from later Adversary-current writing. The crime is impatience with evolution, not a war on being.

3. The gift came early

God’s plan: raise flesh into spirit over a long climb. Lumiel’s plan: put spirit into flesh now.

Angels mingle their life with the daughters of earth. Humans receive power before they can hold it. The gift is misused. Disorder follows. Lumiel is banished and becomes Lord of This World.

She also has him split the first human pair into two sexes. The story is a teaching myth about knowledge arriving before wisdom, not a history textbook.

4. Exile is work, not only punishment

This is the part people skip.

He suffers in a body, as humans suffer. He is a scapegoat in the wilderness, life after life, until the error is worked out and humankind is wise enough, and therefore good enough, through experience. Michael says the light has set for a while and will rise again as the Morning Star.

Howard’s summary of her cosmology is the sharpest public line we have: the archangels are emanations of a Father-Mother God. Fallen Lumiel is how the clay-born reach the Absolute. You go through the Lord of Earth.

Study that until it is clear. In her house, waking the human soul and freeing Lumiel are the same labor.

5. The sky is the catechism

She did not teach Lucifer as a weekend specialty.

Students learned Moon, then Venus and the Almadel, then the rest of the seven, their days, hours, metals, plants, and the natal chart. Uriel and Asariel came later for the outer planets. Asariel thins the veil.

Ritual was how the doctrine became a relationship. No lodge theatre. A candle, a talisman, an hour, an angel’s name. Lumiel is the axis of that sky. He is not lesson one.

If you study only the Lumiel myth and skip the planets, you are studying a pamphlet, not her teaching.

6. What she did not teach

She did not teach Satanism and said so.

She did not teach that you replace Lucifer by becoming him.

She did not publish a Nightside tree as the road.

She did not put the whole theology in Prediction.

She did not leave a public grimoire of Lumiel invocations for the internet. Anyone selling “her exact words” as a free PDF is probably selling Howard, rumor, or wish.

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Madeline Montalban’s planetary rituals

Her ceremonies were small and timed. You did not raise a temple. You picked one planet, one angel, one hour, and you tried to meet that intelligence until it was no longer a theory.

That is the ritual. Everything else is furniture.

What she thought a rite was for

Not a show. Not a grade. A personal link with a planetary angel, so your mind could grow.

Astrology told you when and which. The rite was how you said hello on purpose. She told students they already had birth angels and teaching angels in the chart. The ritual was how you stopped ignoring them.

Lumiel, the earth-angel, sat over the whole sky. He was not the first name you called on a Tuesday night.

The weekly temple

Each weekday is already a chapel.

• Sunday, Michael, Sun. Standing, health, the core fire.
• Monday, Gabriel, Moon. Dream, tide, the secret life. Her early lesson The Occult Secrets of the Moon put this first for a reason. The Moon is close. Beginners can feel it.
• Tuesday, Samael, Mars. Heat, cut, courage. In her system Samael is a planetary angel, not a Qliphothic title.
• Wednesday, Raphael, Mercury. Speech, letters, skill.
• Thursday, Sachiel, Jupiter. Growth, luck with a spine, the bigger view.
• Friday, Anael, Venus. Bond, beauty, the glue between things. She taught this with the Almadel, an old wax-tablet method for calling angels.
• Saturday, Cassiel, Saturn. Limit, time, the long job.

Later, Uriel for Uranus and Asariel for Neptune, when the student could handle skies the old seven never named. Asariel’s job, she said, is to thin the veil.

How a working was built

You named the need in planetary language. Not “I want my life to be better.” Better how: Moon-change, Mercury-clear, Saturn-backbone.

You opened the chart. Is that planet your friend this week, or is it a mess? Is it strong in your birth picture? She did not like magic that argued with the sky.

You found the day, then the hour. Sunrise starts the day’s first planetary hour. That first hour belongs to the planet of the weekday. The rest walk the old order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, repeat. Night hours start at sunset and are a different length from day hours.

You made or held the talisman in that window: the sign of the planet, the name of the angel, the metal or color if you had it, a herb or stone of that current. Paper was enough if the hour and the mind were right.

You lit a candle. You used tarot only as a point to stare at, not as a full spread that replaces the angel. You spoke the angel’s name. You asked for development as much as for a result. You sat until something answered or until the hour was honest enough to stop. You wrote it down.

No robes required. No group lodge. No secret chief at the east.

The Anael rite, because she named the tool

The Mysteries of the Angel Anael and the Almadel is one of the surviving lesson titles. That means she did not only say “Venus is love.” She pointed students at a specific old method.

The Almadel, in the Solomon books, is a wax square, colored for the choir of angels you want, with four candles and a calling of those angels in their height of the sky. Friday, Venus hour, Anael’s names and colors. It is angel magic, not a love spell with lipstick.

If you ever try a Montalban-style Venus night, that is the shape: wax or a simple tablet, four lights, the hour, the angel of Friday, a clear ask, a closed sitting. Do not pretend you own her unpublished wording. Own the method she pointed to.

Where Lucifer enters the ritual

He does not kick the door in at lesson one.

You learn Moon, Venus, the rest. You learn that angels have ranks and jobs. Then Lumiel is given as the Light of God and the archangel of the ground you are standing on. A later rite to him would still look like her other rites: timing, a focus, a name, a conversation, a note. The difference is scale. He is the axis, not one weekday among seven.

If you want to try this without her full course

Pick one planet for a month. Work only its day. Learn its hour. Make one object. Call only that angel. Keep a page of what the week did.

That is closer to her school than collecting seven sigils in one night and calling it Luciferian because the morning star is famous.

The Order still holds the lesson papers. This page is the public skeleton: seven lights, seven angels, one hour, one sitting, Lumiel over the earth when the sky has already taught you how to listen.

Is she really Luciferian?

That is a fair question when the work looks like church angels, birth charts, and a wax tablet for Venus. Lucifer is the morning star: light, knowledge, the mind that will not stay asleep. A Luciferian treats that figure as teacher, patron, current, or god, and treats a human life as something that is supposed to wake. Obedience for its own sake is not the point.

By her own center, yes. She built an Order around Lucifer under the name Lumiel. She called that name the Light of God. She wrote him as the first created intellect, the archangel of earth, the one the clay-born go through.

Lesson twelve was not an extra credit paper. Phillips called that booklet the axis of the whole angelic system. Howard, who sat in her current, called her magic Luciferian. Scholars who write about the Order say the same.

She would not have accepted the other package that word often drags in now. She refused Satan as the frame. She called herself pagan. She taught Michael and Gabriel without irony. In her myth, Lumiel can even wear a Christ-form. There is no Black Flame ideology, no Nightside tree, no “you are the god now.” There is a morning star, a sky of seven old lights, and a private lesson where Lucifer speaks.

So the honest answer is: she is Luciferian in the old English, angelic sense. She is not Luciferian in every later sense. If Luciferian only means Adversary-current and self-deification, she will look like a misfit. If Luciferian means the Light-Bringer as a real teacher at the heart of the work, she is one of the people who got there early and kept him out of the magazine.

The question is useful. It stops you from forcing her into a modern brand, and it stops you from kicking her out because her Lucifer still looks like an angel.

Her Luciferian Contribution

She made the split that now sounds basic: Lucifer is not automatically Satan.

In her school he is Lumiel, Light of God, first intellect, angel of the earth. When someone today says they are Luciferian and not a Satanist, that door was already open.

The name traveled farther than the booklet. Lumiel and Lumial still turn up in craft and angel work. Lesson twelve stayed private. The title did not.

She also left a way of working that is still common: one person, a chart, a planetary hour, one angel, no lodge required. That is a complete path in her house, not a fallback.

Her myth is still in the water. The gift came too early. Exile is work. The human soul wakes as the Light-Bringer is freed. Lucifer as teacher who paid for the light is not a new invention. She wrote it in his voice.

She would not make him a shock mascot, and she would not let beginners skip the sky. The people who still treat the name as a relationship you earn are closer to her than they think.

She did not invent the morning star or the hours. She put them in a school whose center was Lumiel, and she proved Luciferianism could be angelic, stellar, and solitary at once. The Order of the Morning Star is still here. That is not only history. It is a living claim that the Light-Bringer does not need a devil’s costume to be first.

She deserves a place in our history, and we thank her for standing out in a way that she could in her time!