The Autobiography of Franz Bardon  –  The Life Of Frabato The Magician

Franz Bardon used the stage name Frabato during his career as a performing magician. He did not waste his time with slight of hand tricks while he did. His performances had  to do with psychic and spiritual phenomenon that he would demonstrate and wow his audiences with. Frabato the Magician is an autobiographical novel of the life of Franz Bardon, a real life Hermetic adept.

Adepts like Franz Bardon are not common. According to Franz Bardon and legend, adepts come into the world but remain deliberately obscure. Their purpose is to help in the progression of mankind without drawing attention to themselves. Franz Bardon came into the world at a time of crisis in human history. A time when people were getting lost in materiality. The need to display the latent potential within all human beings in the guise of Frabato the magician on stage brought back to the world the concept of magic as a real human attribute that lay hidden in everyone.

Providence may have given other missions to others besides Franz Bardon but, for the most part, as adepts tend to be unassuming, they generally do not write about themselves, as they go about helping humanity anonymously. Full Adepts unlike Frabato the Magician in general do not display their abilities openly except with the express permission of Divine Providence. This is not a matter of weakness or inability, it is simply the manifestation of their desire to be in accord with the Will of Divine Providence which they are consciously an active part of, out of love for Divine Providence and humanity. In order to perform as Frabato the Magician, Franz Bardon did indeed ask for permission of Divine Providence.

Unlike Harry Houdini who relied on tricks, slight of hand, clever deception and misdirection, Franz Bardon as Frabato the Magician performed live without props, often asking volunteers from the audience to participate to show the genuineness of his abilities that were also attainable by anyone with the desire to earn them. The participants according to what is written in Frabato the Magician the book had the close-up opportunity to actually experience relevant and personal spiritual and astral events right in front of them, that neither they nor the audience could have anticipated or denied.

Set in Dresden, Germany, in the early 1930s, the novel reads more like a high powered adventure Steven Spielberg drama movie script than the life of someone who had been a stage magician and later naturopathic healer. The life Franz Bardon lived as Frabato the Magician was at times extremely intense. It included magical astral battles with members of a powerful and dangerous black lodge, real encounters with none other than Adolf Hitler, escaping from Germany during the final desperate days of World War Two, being instructed to undertake the spiritual mission of bringing the proper practice of Hermetic studies to humanity and finally with his great knowledge of all things Divine and human, practicing as a naturopathic physician, to finally end up in communist police custody in the final years of his life for preparing natural spagyric and homeopathic remedies using the simple and very standard practice of tincturing herbs. It makes complete sense that a highly evolved human being who actually could heal any ailment should be imprisoned for doing so in a world that resists being healed.

Frabato the Magician by Franz Bardon is an occult novel. And, as Franz Bardon clearly relates the effects and practices of Hermetic magical practices in his own life, as well as the sorcery of his enemies, Frabato the Magician is not just an ordinary novel; it is also a book of indirect instruction on the mystical arts. There aren’t many novels that provide an accurate and revealing look into the actual dark occult forces and practices which lay behind the rise of the Third Reich, how the effects of nature take place, how they can be commanded or that explain how this is actually done magically. Frabato the Magician also shows the consequences from the abuses of such power as they happened to real people who were power hungry. Whether such dark forces are play at present is for anyone to guess but, certainly, many would have reason to think it.

Franz Bardon, as Frabato the Magician also showed that the Biblical miracles performed by the enlightened prophets and even Jesus Christ and His Apostles are indeed possible for human beings to perform. Not that achieving that level of power is easy but, the fact that it is a very specialized part of being human reserved only for those with a good measure of discipline and love is made clear. It is not something that can be learned, let alone acquired in a weekend seminar.

Franz Bardon as Frabato the Magician did not need to rely on slight-of-hand, illusion or other visual trickery to create his on stage effects. His performances were real. They illustrated actual magic; the kind of magic that is talked about in myth; that we read about in so many old stories from around the world and that we often see in some movies. This is only the kind that is possible only from the complete, disciplined command of one’s own faculties.

Franz Bardon lived between 1909-1958 but, who he was at birth changed in a way that seldom happens to normal human beings. At 14 years of age, with permission from Divine Providence, the spirit of a highly developed Hermetic adept with an already long history of aiding and instructing humanity, entered the body of the young Franz Bardon. As dictated by the laws of Destiny, the life destined for the person of Franz Bardon was to be completely fulfilled in parallel with the mission that was now expected of him. In time, the highly mature spirit that was now Franz Bardon became the most remarkable true magician of the 20th century.

As part of the duty of that spirit, he had to fulfill the complete normal life that was destined for Franz Bardon. He apprenticed as an industrial mechanic, courted, married, had a family and lived in the Czech town of Opava. This normal existence hid his other occult life as Frabato the Magician, that was full of attainment, power and tragedy.

Although he could have prevented it, during the last years of WWII, Franz Bardon spent three and a half years in a concentration camp, suffered being tortured and was eventually freed when the Russians finally invaded Germany.

After the war, he practiced as a Naturopath and Graphologist and devoted himself to the teaching of Hermetics and the writing of his spiritual works, Initiation into Hermetics, The Practice of Magical Evocation, and The Key to the True Kabbalah – These works represent the completely expanded meaning of the First, Second and Third Tarot Cards.

Franz Bardon tells us in his autobiography – Frabato the Magician that his previous incarnations include Nostradamus, Robert Fludd, Roger Bacon, Hermes Trismagistus, Lao-tse, Mahum Tah-Ta and Shambalah. The latter four are depicted in this volume first painted by a mediumistic artist from the magic mirror of Franz Bardon. Other than comparing the lives and writings of these separate personages, there is no real way of proving this claim made by Franz Bardon. But, when his entire body of work is read, the mechanics of how such a thing is possible makes the claim extremely plausible. Interestingly, the works left to posterity by these very different personages when compared do not contradict themselves while being completely suited to the cultures they had been given to by Divine Providence.

In closing, as I write this article I have to say that I have met someone who could be considered an adept. He was small in stature but extremely powerful of will. He had been trained in the Hermetic arts by a Catholic priest in Northern Italy. Apparently, some in the Catholic Church used to practice the Hermetic arts. In Europe there were priests who actually could perform what could be called miracles. When I asked my old friend why more did not do it. He stated, in keeping with the teachings of Franz Bardon that, anyone could do it but, they were too lazy to make the necessary discipline related sacrifices needed to master their will. This tiny man was not at the level of Franz Bardon nor did he openly perform as a Frabato the magician, he just quietly helped people according to his ability and level of spiritual maturity.

I witnessed his very real and deliberate affects on weather, on animals and people, first hand. He spent a lot of time in the service of others, healing their many ailments. During his life, one particular head of state had called for his services and visited with him often even though for the most part, he was poor and very unassuming. One would never guess that he had developed the powers that he had by simply observing his simple and modest demeanor. He was certainly not at the level of Franz Bardon and he did state at one time that anyone who was more learned than he was could do a lot more. If it weren’t for having witnessed him help others with seemingly miraculous abilities I’m not sure I would have ever pursued Hermetics or helping the ailing.

This is being mentioned not to sensationalize but to bear witness to the concepts presented by Franz Bardon in his life as Frabato the Magician that have been actualized by other unassuming, humble and intensely spiritually dedicated human beings.

There are indeed real people working for good in our world. They are not the ones you see on the news, drawing attention to themselves in dubious medical reports or in political life. We never hear about them and it is their purpose to remain quiet about their many good works. It is part of spiritual law that that work be performed in silence in service to and in humble obedience to Divine Providence as the only witness. It is between them and God out of love. This is so because to present great power openly would interfere with the free will of all people, in that, spiritual pursuits are to be pursued for their own sake, not for the purpose of garnering power to then only profane it for material purposes. It would become a from proselytizing and the proselyte becoming tainted more by the spectacle than the substance. This subtle yet profound concept is lost on many, which is why things truly magical are kept silent. Frabato the Magician is an extraordinary but very brief exception to that sacred rule.

Unfortunately, many of the things that were part of Western mysticism never quite made it across the Atlantic to North America to become part of the culture. In place of that, there is a very thin pretense of mysticism in art, artifacts and books but it is not part of North American life – yet!

More on Franz Bardon as Frabato The Magician

If you would like to see some of the work produced by Franz Bardon as Robert Fludd click here.