This is based on some magical work I have recently done. The Archangel of Binah is Tzaphqiel (sometimes spelled “Tzaphkiel”) whose name means (according to Davidson (1967) p366) “Knowledge of God.” Consequently, Tzaphqiel is thought of as the Recording Angel, and hence, the Qabalistic equivalent of the Keeper of the Akashic Records.
When one considers just how big the Akashic Records are, this implies that Tzaphqiel is a considerably bigger deal than one might be supposed. For example, she is the key to the sum total of all knowledge in general and one’s own past lives in particular. Therefore her influence is not just limited to “Binah-type things” but to a surprisingly large fund of expertise.
What does your HGA even do? What’s the point of connecting with it? Why would anybody even bother? If it’s for protection, why not just use protection magick? Anyways, super confused.
I remember when I first believed I made contact with my HGA.
Before then, I had been taking magick on faith. When the Angel appeared, it made me feel “ecstatic” in the literal sense. I realized now this was the first time where I had definitively experienced the presence of an angel.
This permanently and irrevocably altered the paradigm upon which I had framed my whole beliefs. In one moment I abandoned the psychological theory of magic, and instead believed that angels in particular and magic in general was in fact real. Before then I had been taking other people’s word for it, but now I knew.
As regards what you do with the HGA when you find it, the benefits are several. Communing with the HGA has by itself a benevolent healing effect. If this were not enough, I find that my HGA often gives me insights as to how to improve my spiritual practice. I do not share these with other people because I believe these are only meant for me and are only relevant to me, unless my HGA actually says they meant for other people, which is a rare event.
Then of course there is the Abramelin system which teaches that the HGA is necessary to summon and bind all the spirits by whom the practical effects of ceremonial magic are accomplished. moreover, the HGA enables one to innovate new forms of practical magic so that one is not bound to the magic of the past.
This is one of the things I always say: “There are no bad tarot cards, just bad tarot readers.” Really, it is the responsibility of the tarot reader to manage the expectations of the Querent. The tarot spread one uses is a choice: if the Tarot reader starts off by choosing to use a spread where there is supposedly only one possible outcome, then it is the Reader’s own stupid fault for when the reading ends in disappointment.
If however the Reader makes clear that the cards dealt represent alternatives or possibilities, and choses a tarot spread which reflects this, then the Querent will leave the session feeling that it was a worthwhile experience and they have gained valuable insights.
As to the Tarot cards which less-than-scrupulous readers leave in the box, the way I rationalise them is this:
The so-called “bad” tarot cards are Hazard Warning Signs.
If you were going about your daily business and saw a Hazard Warning Sign saying something like “Danger: Death!” You would obviously dislike the consequences of ignoring the sign, but you would regard the sign itself not as evil, but as Good – because it has helped save your life.
So it is with Tarot cards. If you ask “is it a good idea to do such and such?” and you turn over the 10 of Swords, I would answer: “No – unless you actually want to bring ruin and destruction upon yourself.”
Amongst positive sides to the cards to which the picture refers, I can think of the following:
Death. Refers to a metaphorical death such as the end of one thing and beginning of another. Also it refers to Scorpio and/or the eight house of one’s horoscope. Given that everyone dies, of old age if nothing else, it could just be talking about not the fact that you will die, but what happens when you do, such as inheritances.
10 of Swords. Because there is nothing worse than the 10 of Swords, everything that happens after it must by definition be better. If the 10 of Swords occurs in a position representing the past, it means the the worst is behind you.
The Tower. This means Destruction. But if the thing being destroyed is itself evil (e.g. what imprisons you or holds you back in life), then it’s actually good. It also could just mean the influence of the planet Mars, and all that that implies.
5 of Cups. Although this means loss or disappointment in love, in the RW version three cups are overturned, but two remain upright, showing that there is at least something that can be learned or salvaged from the experience. Also, like the 10 of Swords, if the 5 of Cups refers to something in the past…
I try to stick as close to the grimoire as possible: in any case I am a traditionalist when it comes to ceremonial magick. Typically, when working with the Goetia I would go about it as follows.
Ritual Bath (“Asperges me…” etc);
The ritual putting on of the vestments;
Banishing rituals (LBRP / LBRH) to clear the space);
The Preliminary invocation of the Goetia AKA the Bornless Ritual;
Vibrating all the Hebrew names inscribed around and within the magic circle: my rationale being that they’re not there for decoration, they’re actually telling you what to invoke.
Pentagram and Hexagram rituals directed at the Triangle of Art. The Pentagram ritual for the Zodiacal forces of the decan over which the Spirit rules; and the Hexagram for the Planet corresponding to its rank (e.g. King = Sun, etc).
The First Conjuration only. The first conjuration sounds like a dignified request from Magician to Spirit. However, the subsequent conjurations make the Magician sound whiny and insecure, so I avoid them on principle, and quite honestly I’ve never felt tempted to try to use them.
The Welcome Unto The Spirit.
The talky-bit where I specify what I want the spirit to do, and get it to agree to do so.
Licence to Depart.
Banishing rituals again, to close down the space after the Spirit has gone.
From Reddit: “How is a pagan supposes (sic) to do the abramelin?”
By the power of Metaphor.
You go into it assuming that “YHVH,” “Tzebaoth” and “Adonai” are all metaphors for whichever god(dess) that you do worship, so that when you invoke them you are really invoking your patron deity by another name.
Dion Fortune
Remember, Dion Fortune once said that all gods are but one God, and all goddesses are one Goddess. Indeed, the Hermetic Qabalah was formulated so that people of different religions could all share in one magical tradition: participants were actively expected to translate the, for example, Egyptian symbolism they encountered in a Golden Dawn ceremony into concepts that made sense to them in the context of their own religion, via the Qabalah.
The modern fancy that you have to stay within the ghetto of your own religion, no matter what, goes against the history of why the western magical tradition was created in the first place.
From Reddit: Are ceremonial magic rituals such as the Abramelin acceptable in Gnosticism?
One of the most popular rites used to invoke the Holy Guardian Angel as part of the Abramelin process – viz., The Bornless Ritual – is an actual Gnostic Ritual. Certain key words and phrases in the ritual only make sense if understood from a Gnostic context, the most obvious one I can think of being the line, “I am He, the grace of the world.”
The original Greek is η χάρις του αιώνος – “He Charis Ton Aionos” i.e. the Grace of the Aeon. Quite aside from the point being that the “world” referred to in the ritual is the Pleroma or spiritual world, not the material one, “Charis” is a title in Valentinian Gnosticism for the consort of the first aeon (the same word crops up throughout other systems of Gnosticism).
One Abramelin practitioner told me he believed the Holy Guardian Angel was a messenger from the Pleroma to the individual – like a “personal Logos,” if you will – but I digress.
Psalm 91 is a traditional prayer for divine protection: indeed, in folk magic traditions it is recommended as a way of seeing off evil influences such as (alleged) black magic. So I would suggest praying this Psalm whilst feeling gratitude to God that He will send His Angels to ward you from all evil influences.
Otherwise there are other protective rituals in existence, such as the good old Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (google it if you’re not sure what this is).
You have the ability to create – using online tools – Sigils which are visually far more interesting and varied than ever before. The above set of designs, for example, was four images created from the phrase: THIS MY WILL TO END GLOBAL WARMING.
Everyone who has at least a passing knowledge of Chaos magick will know about the technique derived from Austen O Spare, that of creating a sigil from a statement of intent by eliminating repeated letters and then manipulating the remaining letters into something which looks appropriate. Now, what I have been experimenting with is give the latter part of the process, the “manipulating the remaining letters” to an AI-art generator, to see what it would come up with.
The resulting images come from me eliminating repeating letters from the original phrase, which left me with THISMYWLOENDGBAR, which I made into a graphic thus:
You could probably use MS Paint, or just take a screenshot of having typed the letters out. I then uploaded this to NightCafe, and set it to work its wonders.
For those interested in the fine details, I first used the “Artistic” engine, selected “advanced options” and uploaded my starting graphic, and entered the following text prompt:
A Chaos Magick Sigil to end global warming, by Austen O Spare and Steffi Grant, a masterpiece, 8k resolution, 35mm, hyper realistic, hyper maximalist, hyper detailed, green
I then “evolved” the result using the “Stable” engine, which resulted in the four images you see at the top of this page.
In short, it is now not only possible but comparatively easy to create decent sigils very quickly using free resources on the internet. It certainly saves faffing around with a pen and a scrap of paper, which is what I had been doing up to now. When AI affords us with the means of not only creating sigils but raising the gnosis to empower, who knows what might be achieved!
Happy Equinox. The moment the Sun enters Aries is also, in Mundane Astrology, an indicator of what is going to happen in one’s country for the coming months or year. Hence I have drawn up a chart for the UK (see image). The precise location I have redacted from the image, save to say it is somewhere in the South-east of England.
Chart drawn up for the moment Sun entered 0º Aries (i.e. the Equinox).
Unfortunately it does not look good. The ascendant is in Scorpio, a Fixed Sign, implying that the chart applies throughout the next twelve months. More tellingly however, the Lord of the Ascendant is Mars, the planet of wars and conflicts, which is in the 8th House, the House of death! Tellingly, the Ascendant is in close conjunction with Cauda Draconis, implying that the country’s general condition of prosperity and health will be closely tied up with issues arising from its past (e.g. colonial legacy).
In fact, the difficultly placed Mars puts a dampener on much of the year, given that it is Square to the Sun (which represents the Government), and the Moon (which represents the People). I would therefore predict as follows:
The Sun
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in league with some dodgy criminals.
Represents the UK government, is in the fifth house. Government policy will be mainly concerned with legislation affecting children and young people, including gender-identity issues and sexuality. The industrial disputes that have been affecting public services will continue and not see resolution.
(Sun square Mars) There will be at least one major terrorism incident involving the assassination of a senior British leader, and this will colour the Government’s attitude to home security throughout the year.
The Government will generally enjoy good relations with the Press, and also with literary figures, and those in the entertainment industry.
However, the Government will also be involved in shady relations with criminals, and will quite hypocritically entertain people in private who are supposedly not aligned with the Government.
The Moon
Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, will succeed in groping for public support.
Represents the people. Pisces / 4th House.
The general populace will mainly be concerned with itself: politically, there will be an upturn in support for the Labour party (currently in Opposition) as indicated by the its placement in the 4th house and its conjunction with Neptune, the planet of socialism and collectivist politics.
The people will greatly resent the Government’s handling of the major terrorist incident mentioned above: one can infer will impact public consciousness greatly.
Conclusion
I apologise if this is rather bleak, but hey, I call ’em like I see them. However, there are ways for the people of Britain to leverage the stellar influences currently manifest to its favour. For example, the stars only really look bad for the current Conservative government. Get rid of the Tories, and people will be a lot happier. Moreover, the flip-side of Cauda Draconis being conjunct the Ascendant, is that Caput Draconis is conjunct the Descendant – implying that Britain’s future lies in having benevolent relations with foreign countries – dare I say it, the European Union?
I have recently discovered an interesting titbit of information regarding Amoun Temple – the London based temple of the Stella Matutina, which was extant during the early part of the twentieth century. Specifically, what it used as its Vault of the Adepti.
Amongst the papers emanating from Amoun Temple was one written by Finem Respice (Robert Felkin) concerning the use of the Vault of the Adepti. The main body of the paper is identical with the version reproduced in Regardie’s Black Brick: however, it has a short but intriguing preface.
(It also has an after-word, describing the Third Order. I will not discuss this at this time, except to say that I consider Felkin’s take on it rather fanciful, and a perfect example of Floccinaucinihilipilification. I leave it here in case my readers get more from it than I did.)
Unfortunately we are unable for the present to have a permanent Vault, a permanent home for the Inner Order. It is the point at which I aim, and some day I hope we shall be able to afford an Inner Shrine.
Meanwhile, there is no reason why, when we are able for a few weeks to keep the Vault up, it should not be used by all who are eligible, and it has occurred to me that some remarks on its proper use may be appropriate at this time, as we do not intend to dismantle it till after Corpus Christi on June 15th. [1911]
G H Frater F. R. (Robert Felkin)
What this shows is that Amoun Temple did not have a permanently installed Vault of the Adepti. Instead, it appears that they only had one for a month or less each year, whilst the rest of the time it was either in storage or being used somewhere else (nb: this document is dated May 18th 1911, less than a month before Corpus Christi). During the short space of time that it was available, they worked all the Adept grades that were due that year, as well as the Corpus Christi Ceremony, in addition to affording time to Adepti to perform skrying in the Vault.
Quite apart from this document, which is in the archives of the Library & Museum of Freemasonry at Freemasons Hall in London, I have in my possession material from another source entirely which indicates that Amoun Temple worked all the Adept grades: Adeptus Minor 5=6; Adeptus Major 6=5; Adeptus Exemptus 7=4; as well as the Transmission of the Etheric Link. I presume that they must have done so using this arrangement: working them in a temporarily-installed Vault whilst they had it available. (I have seen no evidence that they worked the 8=3 and 9=2 grades, but that might be just be a shortcoming of the source of my data.)
This suggests a possible solution to modern Golden Dawn temples. Ideally of course one ought to have a permanently-installed Vault of the Adepti, but this implies that one is fortunate enough to have the venue suitable enough to house it. However, Amoun Temple itself only used a temporary Vault – and this was the temple of which no lesser person than W B Yeats was an alumni!
Unfortunately, Amoun Temple also listed Christine Marie Stoddard amongst its members, so one could argue that Amoun’s temporary Vault didn’t work 100% of the time. 😏
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