Magic Cabal

A Magic Cabal is a term used to describe independent magical organizations.

Principles
Magic cabals seem to follow their own unique beliefs, magic rituals and practices. For example, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (the same organization which Aleister Crowley was previously in) performs a ritual where they would force the formless telesma into a container which has human form.

Index disclosed that most magic cabals are careful when when it comes to admitting members, as being part of a cabal means being part of their secrets. Even though by nature the magicians are able to betray any organization if it conflicts with their morals or goals; we have that there are cases when leaving a cabal for one reason or another would force the organization to assassinate the defector, as with the case with Aleister Crowley and Etzali being hunted down after their defection.

Magic cabals are also regulated by the existence of the Job Counter, an unspoken agreement that, should a cabal be created to provide a given service, another one will appear to counteract it and stop it from growing too powerful.

Cabal Reserve Army
A Cabal Reserve Army (結社予備軍) is an organization similar to a magic cabal. Cabal Reserve Armies are not polished organizations like a regular magic cabal. Instead, they are more like clubs created from a gathering of who are merely interested magic. They are often composed of around 3 to 5 people, though there is apparently at least one organization with a hundred of members.

Since Cabal Reserve Armies do only "club level activities" such as love fortunes or meditation and mental exercises, it ends up that they disappear naturally without having any effect on others or society as a whole. Sometimes however, that there is a tendency for truly refined groups mixed with other Cabal Reserve Armies. Groups such as New Light, use the structure of a normal Cabal Reserve Army in order to disguise their powers and capabilities and evading any extra attention. The main magical organizational structure in Scotland are Cabal Reserve Armies.

Recent History
When Richard Brave was a member of the Anglican Church, his achievements lay in setting up a defensive line along the Atlantic Ocean in order to prevent American magic cabals from invading the United Kingdom.

At some point, the Christian cabal Divination Operation Brigade ended up being pursued by the Russian Orthodox Church but managed to escape Russia thanks to the intervention of William Orwell. At another point, he destroyed the Knights of Orléans, then France's largest magic cabal, saving a boy and girl who had been taken for the cabal's experiments towards creating an Oracle of Arc.

Five years prior to the present, a union of the five largest Norse cabals attacked and destroyed Brunhild Eiktobel's small cabal, with only Brunhild herself surviving. They pursued her afterwards, threatening smaller cabals to discourage them from supporting her and performing numerous atrocities towards her, eventually capturing her during her power loss period half a year prior to the present, and torturing her in an attempt to extract information on Gungnir and the Final Rune, before she managed to escape.

On August 2nd, three years before the current year of the story timeline, Dusk Waiting to Awaken carried out an experiment in the Pacific involving summoning R'lyeh in order to acquire inspiration and information to overcome a dead end in their research. The ceremony failed, but caused 103 people aboard the resource extraction ship Condor to go insane and cost the cabal a considerable amount of resources, forcing its leader to go into finance so they could recover. Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens used Agni's Festival Fire to attack a large sports gym in New Delhi two years prior to the main storyline of Toaru Majutsu no Index.

Three Stories Arc
A month prior to August 31st, the Aztec cabal Return of the Winged One sent Etzali initially to observe and later infiltrate and sabotage the nascent Kamijou Faction, out of concern over the threat such a group would pose to the balance between Magic and Science Sides. Disguising himself as Unabara Mitsuki, Etzali attempted to get close to Misaka Mikoto, falling for her in the process, before clashing with Kamijou Touma himself on August 31st.

Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Necessarius Special Admission Test
The magic cabal Dusk Waiting to Awaken hijacked the Amakusas' admission test for Necessarius, in order to steal the Necronomicon from the British Library. Having relayed the content, members of the cabal subsequently attempted a ceremony to summon R'lyeh on an ocean salvage terminal in the Strait of Dover, followed by an attempt to create the spell Blank Paper at Stonehenge, with the Amakusas fighting to stop them.

Toaru Majutsu no Index: Road to Endymion
Shortly before the space elevator Endymion was revealed to the public, the Indian cabal Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens attempted an attack on Academy City using Agni's Festival Fire. While on the surface this was due to opposing ideologies, the fact that School District 23 was the ultimate target indicated that cabal's leaders were aware of the space elevator and sought to destroy it. However, while they were carrying out their plan, Ureapaddy Exica took out the cabal's operating unit and decision makers, before proceeding with her own plan involving the Brahma Astra.

Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Stiyl
Stiyl Magnus killed 19 members of a magic cabal in Siberia, shortly before being involved in the incident surrounding the Alaskan Rune Epitaph, which the Dawn-Colored Sunlight were also involved in.

Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Mark Space
Dusk Exit planned to get funds from the Blue Research's activities in order to purchase children from a Portuguese trafficking market. Their involvement prompted the Anglican Church and Academy City to take action. Due to Patricia Birdway's presence on the ship, Mark Space was dispatched to ensure her safety and after a battle with Wyss Winered, ended up thwarting the attempt to sink the ship (resulting in the Dawn-Colored Sunlight being seen as having interfered). The Portuguese market was also destroyed around the time of the incident (possibly by Leivinia Birdway).

Toaru Majutsu no Index: Mars SS
Fleiss, a magician of the Dawn that Wipes Away Darkness, was involved in the events surrounding the Attached Microbes, seeking to prove her declining cabal's worth.

Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Kanzaki
Following her initial encounter with Ellasone, Kanzaki Kaori attacked the headquarters of a magic cabal that he had been in contact with shortly before his disappearance, located in a disused stadium outside London, but did not obtain any useful information from them. A little while later, she crossed paths with Leivinia Birdway of the Dawn-Colored Sunlight while they were both going after Orlentz Trice and ended up coming to blows.

Not long afterwards, Brunhild Eiktobel crushed the five Norse cabals which had destroyed her cabal five years previously and tormented her since then, but was stopped by Kanzaki before she could complete Gungnir and fully accomplish her goals.

Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Agnese's Magic Side Work Experience
As part of Agnese Sanctis, Lucia and Angelene's Necessarius training, Stiyl Magnus and Isabella Theism fought a mock battle in Barcelona, Spain, which the nuns were to forensically cleanup afterwards. In the scenario, Isabella played a member of the magic cabal Armada, who supposedly sought to restore Spain's lost naval superiority and place in the world. After the battle, Agnese mentioned that given Stiyl had told them that this scenario was based on a likely situation and Necessarius's research on existing threats, it was quite likely that an actual cabal with that name existed in Spain.

Pierre Gosetti, a member of the cabal B∴A∴, was one of the five magicians who unwittingly summoned as a ghost ship, having used the shared ceremonial ground in a shipping container in Calais's harbor rented out by Jack Prometeria, the culprit behind the incident.

Battle Royale Arc
During the events surrounding BLOCK's rebellion on October 9th, Xochitl, who had been waiting as part of MEMBER, attempted to carry out the mission assigned to her by the Return of the Winged One and kill Etzali, now a member of GROUP, at the Reformatory for his apparent betrayal. She failed and nearly lost her life, but Etzali was able to save her by claiming the grimoire that had been forced on her.

British Royal Family Arc
Crossing paths with Acqua of the Back again after his defeat in Academy City, a member of the Divination Operation Brigade provided him with Ascalon prior to his return to the United Kingdom. The cabal reserve army New Light was deeply involved in the events leading to the British Halloween, having excavated and delivered the Curtana Original which Carissa used to carry out the coup d'état. During the later stages of the British Halloween, as Elizard was distributed power for the Curtana to the people with the Union Jack, Leivinia Birdway was having the Dawn-Colored Sunlight stay out of the battle and under the radar.

DRAGON Arc
Having infiltrated Shiokishi's bodyguard faction, Tecpatl (who had taken control of the Return of the Winged One) and Tochtli revealed themselves to Etzali when GROUP attacked Shiokishi's base after the board member attempted to kill them for seeking information on DRAGON. Tecpatl brought out his Moon Rabbit grimoire and on seeing how Tochtli was being used as raw materials for it and robbed of her mind, an enraged Etzali unleashed the grimoire he had taken from Xochitl. The two fought in a battle, which Tecpatl described as a fight for the position of the Aztec's helmsman, revealing what had happened on the cabal's end once Etzali was knocked down. When Tecpatl tried to finish Etzali off, the latter used the fact that the former was shielding himself from contact with the grimoire's knowledge and the tendency for grimoires to side with those who would pass on their knowledge by transcribing part of the text, causing the grimoire to turn its attack back on Tecpatl, killing him.

World War III Arc
During the Battle of Dover Strait, Carissa mentioned the possibility that remnants of the Knights of Orléans were among the French forces.

When golden arms of Telesma were appearing across the world during the final stages of Project Bethlehem, the Dawn-Colored Sunlight acted against arms which rose in the Strait of Dover. Around the same time, in Russia, members of the Divination Operation Brigade came to Acqua's aid.

Hawaii Invasion Arc
Members of the Dawn-Colored Sunlight were involved in the battle against Gremlin during the events in Hawaii.

World Rejecter Arc
During the incident surrounding Patricia Birdway's infestation by Sample Shoggoth, Leivinia Birdway was unable to find a cure with the Dawn-Colored Sunlight's methods and stored knowledge, and due to the circumstances, she decided to act on her own, particularly when she came across a method which could cure her sister at the cost of her own life, something which the cabal would never allow if they knew.

Coronzon Arc
During the Crowley's Hazard invasion of the United Kingdom, after seeing Canterbury Cathedral's interception system firing, Aleister Crowley mentioned that it was likely shooting down a familiar sent out by a magic cabal to gather information, referring to the Daybreak, the Noon, the Blazing Sun, the Sunset, the Dusk, the Pole Star, the Eclipse, the Sunspot, and the Dawn-Colored, among the many Golden-style cabals resulting from the splintering of the original Golden Dawn.

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS: Liberal Arts City
During Misaka Mikoto's field trip abroad, the Return of the Winged One launched their main attack on the Liberal Arts City.

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS2: Shopping Mall Demonstration
Caliche I. Niknosh's cabal was involved in the events surrounding the Russian Shopping Center run by one of Academy City's cooperative institutions.

Trivia

 * The symbol of three dots arranged in an upright triangle (∴), also known as the due to its use in mathematics and shorthand, is used in  tradition and real-life magical organizations influenced by it (including groups derived from the Rosicrucian Order and the Golden Dawn) to indicate.