Damien Echols

Damien Echols spent almost eighteen years on Arkansas's death row as one of the West Memphis Three before his release in 2011, and he has said that a daily practice of ceremonial magick is what kept him alive and sane through those years, much of it in solitary confinement. His path draws on the Western Hermetic tradition: the Qabalah, ritual work such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, energy work, meditation and inner alchemy. Since leaving prison he has also trained in the Korean martial art Tang Soo Do, which now shapes his teaching on discipline and presence.

He writes and teaches in plain, questioning language, presenting magick as a practice to test for yourself rather than a creed. His books include the memoir Life After Death, High Magick, Angels and Archangels, Ritual (written with his wife, Lorri Davis) and The Alchemy of the Broken Blade, which joins Hermetic alchemy with the step-by-step spirit of kaizen. He posts teaching videos on YouTube and to members on Patreon, and leads retreats in New York's Hudson Valley that combine sitting meditation, talks on the Great Work and a sword form practised as moving meditation.