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..

believe it or not, I was a Catholic as well. I went to schools run by nun's who like nothing more than telling us we would go to hell for just about anything, it was funny (looking back).

My advice is this, which is similar to others advice. Practice 'white' magick which is basically develoment of the spirit. Two books of interest for you may be Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig which does a good job of decsribing the one god (i.e. your god is my god is his god etc) and Secrets of the Magickal Grimoires by Aaron Leitch, which does a good job in describing how the Catholic Church wrote most of the grimoires etc. There is also a book called The knights Templar which is a factual history of the order and goes into describing how the Catholic Church came about.

After practicing magick for a while, the realisation dawned on me that God wants to know us and also that traditional religion is largely getting in the way of that by following their own objectives. Sitting in church for one hour per week thinking of other stuff isn't getting closer to god. Practising the Our Father (which is basically exactly the same as the QC ritual that preceeds the LBRP and BRH) daily with meaning is.

I believe that the only way to god is through me, not me BrotherM, me as in myself, yourself, personally. Use th magick as a referrence, along with your religious background and follow your intuition.

Now, aside, Plainsight, who told you that God and Lucifer don't play for the same team? Have you spoken to either? Do you think there is existance outside of G-ds will?

BrotherM