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..

This existence is vast. There is so much to all of this. Where we are. When you consider just our existence. Just our ability to communicate and to have a moment of shared joy, of true communion and understanding with one another. We can already begin to see true magick. We can truly begin to see god. God and all that it is which includes us and this physical universe and atoms and suns and children and stars and motorbikes and lovers and ideas and beliefs and imaginations and the thoughts they produce; all of this "god" is an immensely complex organism of which we are a part. And we ourselves when we observe are intensely complex physically. and even more so mentally and emotionally and spiritually.

To want desperately for god to work through you is a dangerously inhibiting desire. Especially since it is based on the delusion that god does not already. God is constantly at work through you. Magick, it could be said, is firstly about increasing your level of consciousness of what ways god works through you; and secondly, about taking an increasing amount of responsibility, and becoming an increasingly active participant in directing the outcomes and effects of gods work through you.

For you magick to truly be "gods" work, you must start from a solid foundation. The type of person who can not control them self in a normal social situation, who is short tempered, who cannot keep every promise they ever make, no matter how small or large, who is the sort of person who makes consciously poor decisions out of laziness or greed or desire, or who thinks i wont think about it now, it will all sort itself out; how can this person say that they can handle the responsibility of sharing gods burden (which is in effect what practicing magick is - sharing some of gods work), how can he say that he will do just as well as god would have?

Maybe one of the effects of practicing magick will be that you develop control in these areas that you previously lacked. Many who do find that this is the case. May do not, and only serve to injure themselves and others. The bivle as has been mentioned, whether you choose to take it literally or not is a well spring of guidance on all matters spiritual. Even in regards to magick. The fundamental lessons apply in all areas of life, even magick. Judge not lest though shalt be judged is a great one. Magick may give you the power to strike. But it in turn will give you the power to heal. How do you think jesus will judge you when you say to him "yes i practiced magick, but when he injured me jesus, i did not strike him down with curses and spells, but i healed him with the help of my fathers power". It is not for me to answer this question for you. But for you. I know people who when faced with similar questions, who have contemplated them deeply have discovered that for themselves, there was some inner voice which told them that there was no way they should practice magick bo matter how much good they could do with it, and for others deep down inside it really was alright for them. The strange thing is that at times it really does appear as if god has made different sets of rules for different people - you might call this karma.

There are roman catholic priests who have used the power of their positions to abuse children in horrendous ways. There are others who have done so much good. Some should not have been priests. Some should have been popes!!! Deep down we know when we are doing what is wrong for us. Dont do wrong for you. Sometimes unfortunately we have to try something first to discover that it is wrong for us. But isnt this just our life. A series of trying and tasting, and rejecting the things that are wrong, and repeating the things that are right, until they become wrong too and something else right comes to replace them.

God is already at work in you. Very powerfully. You cannot ever increase the power by which god is at work through you. You can only become more aware of it, and occasionally god may allow you to take the reigns for a time!!!!!