Roman Catholic Worried... Options

As you can tell from the topic title, all this stuff interests me and I'd like to be able to perform some of it, but everything about the Golden Dawn, Hermeticism, and Ceremonial Magick in general tends to freak me out. I'm a Roman Catholic and I'm obscenely worried about my spiritual self getting into some trouble by doing this stuff. Are there any 'Judeo-Christian' roots to these rituals? I mean it doesn't take a lot to notice the archangels and God's names in the rituals, but seeing videos of people using sinister voices and generally acting like they want to be Lucifer's best friend during said rituals is a little worrisome.

If anyone has any advice for me I'd really appreciate it. I want to be closer with my HGA and thereby God by doing a little magick everyday, I desperately want Him to work through me, but what if unwittingly I allow myself to be worked by an entity with less than amiable goals? Etc., etc.

Thanks in advance..

I think maybe just go with what you truly, deeply feel comfortable with.

All of the modern day church stuff sits upon a history that runs right from cavemen, through, Mayans, Aztecs, Ancient Greek gods etc etc etc. It is a system that developed according to political and spiritual need of the day. It has good points, it has hindrances.

It is not so much whether you should take up Magick, but do some deep searching and see if it calls you and why. Its like most things, many will pick it up and it will either be the love of their life or it will lead them onto something else as they are exploring.

Churches can sometimes make us dependent on their rules and ideals; we have expectations that they have it right but if it is not right for you, you can make yourself miserable for years trying to make it all fit, but in the end, you will have to find your own path.

Besides that, you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, there are Catholic priests and laity who practice CM and find no conflict.

I think it depends on why you want to do the magick and what kind of magick.

And of course, don't forget that the mass is virtually a magickal ritual, but what is important is what they are trying to achieve with that.

I think maybe just go with what you truly, deeply feel comfortable with.

All of the modern day church stuff sits upon a history that runs right from cavemen, through, Mayans, Aztecs, Ancient Greek gods etc etc etc. It is a system that developed according to political and spiritual need of the day. It has good points, it has hindrances.

It is not so much whether you should take up Magick, but do some deep searching and see if it calls you and why. Its like most things, many will pick it up and it will either be the love of their life or it will lead them onto something else as they are exploring.

Churches can sometimes make us dependent on their rules and ideals; we have expectations that they have it right but if it is not right for you, you can make yourself miserable for years trying to make it all fit, but in the end, you will have to find your own path.

Besides that, you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, there are Catholic priests and laity who practice CM and find no conflict.

I think it depends on why you want to do the magick and what kind of magick.

And of course, don't forget that the mass is virtually a magickal ritual, but what is important is what they are trying to achieve with that.

I just keep coming back to it in my life. I go through cycles of depression and at the end of each cycle I always end up coming back to this stuff and it seems to snap me out of it. It comes from an honest want to be part of something bigger, but not through any selfish purposes. Wanting to make a difference by God's will if you catch my meaning.

IT's not that I'd have to throw the baby out of the bathwater or anything, but it's perturbing that people of the opposite mind than myself, using magick for decidedly evil and selfish gains, could be using these same rituals I would be attempting. Why are they able to get results? And if I get results, why am I not in the same boat as them? I don't know if I'm explaining it correctly..