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).
To Hammersmith in London yesterday evening where, disguising myself as a human being, I attended the London premiere of Shen Yun. The venue – which rock fans of a certain age will remember as the old Hammersmith Odeon – was sold out. Hence anyone with tickets going there should arrive in good time, as the queue to get in snaked all the way round the building and back down Queen Caroline Street.
Anywho: Shen Yun is a world-renowned performing arts company that showcases traditional Chinese culture through music, dance, and storytelling. The company (which is actually based in New York) was founded in 2006 by a group of Chinese artists who wanted to revive the ancient traditions of their homeland and share them with the world.
Now I could talk about Shen Yun’s stunning visuals, intricate choreography, and powerful storytelling; and that the company’s dancers, musicians, and singers are all highly trained professionals who bring their passion and dedication to every performance. I could even talk about the colourful and elaborate costumes worn by the dancers, as well as how the The company’s orchestra combines traditional Chinese instruments with Western classical instruments to create a unique and captivating sound.
However, this being an esoteric blog, I am going to talk about the Magick of the thing. Despite the fact that this show transports the audience to another time and place, and gives them a glimpse into the rich cultural heritage of China, this show will never play in Beijing – or anywhere in (mainland) China itself, for that matter. What’s more, if Chinese intelligence thought to photograph everyone going into the venue last night (or just stolen the credit card details from the booking agency), that means that there are now 5,000 people added to their list of people not welcome in their country.
The reason being is that Shen Yun is quite blatantly aligned with the Falun Dafa movement which has been banned in China, and whose supporters have not only been arrested but have been executed and even (it is alleged) have had their organs harvested.
This can come as an unexpected shock to someone coming to watch the show. First is a dance sequence representing heavenly beings coming to Earth; then there is traditional “Water Sleeves” dancing; then there is a choreographed interpretation of one of the episodes of “Journey to the West” (better know to people my age as the classic BBC2 series Monkey); etc. Then, all of a sudden there is a dance interpretation of Falun Dafa practitioners being harassed, beaten, executed and reaped in modern China. Oh look! And here’s a song about God and the spiritual path of Falun Dafa overcoming the ways of Godlessness and materiality! Then more historical dancing and re-telling of folk tales and so forth.
Incidentally, you may be asking, what’s the big deal about Falun Dafa? I shall digress by stating I myself once attended a couple of Falun Dafa sessions. I didn’t continue it, as they were held on the other side of town and I found it difficult to attend on a regular basis. However, based on my limited experience I would say that Falun Dafa’s nearest analogues are Qigong and Yoga. I found each session to be typically ¾ Qigong-like exercises, and ¼ yoga meditation. Now if you’re thinking at this point, “But there’s nothing wrong with either Yoga or Qigong,” you would of course be absolutely right: but, bizarrely, the Chinese Government took against it, claiming it to be a subversive movement, and banned it. Woe betide you if you sit down in a park in China and try to adopt a sneaky lotus position!
This can get you arrested (and worse) in China.
Anyway, back to last night’s show: the point about the political content of the evening was not to dwell on the suffering, but to offer an optimistic vision of the eventual triumph of Good over Evil: that the influence of Heaven will be re-established in this world, Falun Dafa will be instrumental in healing this planet in general, and the people in it in particular, and that the souls of all those who have suffered so far will be apotheosised and take their rightful place in the celestial realms. As I sat staring at this spectacle, I thought: “This is quite blatant Ritual Magick.”
Let’s face it: there is music, dance, drama, impressive visuals – all with the express aim of manifesting Shen Yun’s spiritual vision. This is most evident in the finale of the evening, which imagines Falun Dafa ultimately succeeding: a traditional magical technique of imagining the end-result as already happening, reinforced by the power of strong aesthetics and emotions.
In conclusion, if you are going to see this, I wish you well and I hope you enjoy it. If you haven’t got tickets, although I was told the run is now sold-out, I did observe people trying to get tickets on the night, so there may be a chance for you.
Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance
Shen Yun is playing in London until April 22nd. For details of this and other shows in cities worldwide, please visit the official website.
LONDON. Occultists and art-lovers have been celebrating today at the discovery of a new set of Masonic Tracing Boards, which are alleged to have been painted by Lady Frieda Harris, better known as the illustrator of the Crowley Thoth Tarot Deck.
Harris was previously known to have created a set of tracing boards circa 1938 for the three degrees of Craft Masonry, which manage to combine Masonic symbolism with the same kind of projective synthetic geometry which she brought to the Great Beast’s tarot ideas. (Lady Frieda was herself a co-Mason). However it now transpires that she also created a further set of four prototype tracing boards, this time illustrating the degree known as “the Holy Royal Arch” (see above illustrations).
The discoverer of the Boards, a Miss Dolly Rapasif, said:
“The Holy Royal Arch of Jerusalem is said to be the completion of the third degree or Master Mason’s degree in Craft Masonry. It’s a colourful tale of how the Lost Word was found in a subterranean chamber below the site of the second Temple in Jerusalem, which is a clear metaphor for searching to find one’s own inner Divinity.
“Assuming that Lady Frieda Harris was raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason, it is highly likely that her attention would soon have been drawn to the Holy Royal Arch as well, and perhaps other additional degrees in Freemasonry, such as those of the Ancient & Accepted Rite.
“However the fact that no-one has ever heard of Frieda creating such tracing boards before means that it was a project which didn’t come to fruition.”
And how did Miss Rapasif actually find these previously unheard of tracing boards?
“Well, here’s the funny thing. We were out for a night out in the Plough in Museum Street, and I got lost trying to find the Ladies’ toilets, and there they were behind some plaster that was crumbling away! I’m surprised they weren’t found sooner, as that place is always full of drunken OTO members causing trouble.”
For quite a while I have thought about doing the Abramelin ritual, but been hesitating because of the dreadful things I’ve read about the consequences of the ritual going wrong. Crowley wasn’t the same after he tried the ritual, some of his disciples, so I’ve read, even killed themselves after trying the ritual and failing. And then there’s that really spooky description in Dion Fortune’s Psychic Self Defense… Obviously this ritual is really powerful, done right or done wrong even.
How dangerous is it really? Any firsthand experiences?
I did not experience any of the horror stories, but then again, that is probably because I researched everything Crowley did, saw where he went wrong, and made a deliberate effort not to make his mistakes myself. For example, by only dealing with the word-squares within sacred space, so that the demons didn’t turn before time and cause havoc, as they apparently did with Crowley’s local butcher.
On the whole, my experience of Abramelin was overwhelmingly positive. Not only was I pleased with the way it ended, but I found the discipline of doing what is essentially a simple ritual two (or later, three) times a day every day for two hundred days rewarding in itself.
The final seven days was nerve-wracking, but it made me realise that the real key to success was overcoming my own fear.
Because I enjoyed Abramelin so much, I would encourage more people to give it a go, by saying it is worthwhile and is probably easier that you think.
BTW – you better hurry up if you want to do it, as the start of Abramelin season is coming up in just ten days time – MONDAY 10TH APRIL 2023 (Easter Monday).
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. 😏
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 