"Tearing the Veil Between the Worlds"

In response to Rufus Opus' article about the folks who wanted to end the world because "they were bored" I came across the following comment from reader Patrick:

So, I found this group in Chicago which shall go nameless. So I figured, "hey, I'll meet them." Chaos mages and all, you know. So I go to Chicago with a friend, meet them up in a coffee shop. The first item on their agenda? "Tearing the veil between the worlds." Ahem. As if that's a *thing*.

While this particular group of magicians were probably completely ignorant of what they wanted to do aside from talking about something that sounded "edgy," the idea nonetheless has me thinking.

The "veil between worlds" is called the Veil of Paroketh in Qabalah and represents the boundary between the microcosm and macrocosm. According to my operant field model of magick, transcending this boundary is exactly what the operant field does, so in effect one could think of "tearing the veil" as the creation of a permanent operant field in a specific place or region. This requires some work, but it is by no means impossible or even that difficult if you know what you're doing.

Whether or not this is a good idea remains an open question in my mind. On the one hand, it would be convenient to just be able to do effective practical magick without having to open a field at all, but on the other hand anyone could use the field and in fact it might be hard for them to avoid doing so. Within an operant field thoughts have a natural tendency to influence physical reality, so dropping such a field over a bunch of chronic worriers might have nastier results for them than the biggest curse I can summon.

A related issue that I'm not clear on is whether thoughts within the field will affect reality to a degree that is proportionate to the magical aptitude of the individual thinking them or to a degree proportionate to the magical aptitude of the magician initially casting the field. The latter is more dangerous because in that case the field would in effect turn everyone within it into operant magicians without the benefit of the mind training that is developed by practice. I think the former is more likely, but you never really know until you have experimental data in front of you.

None of these issues represent a technical barrier to creating such a field. In fact, there are almost certainly more ways to open an operant field than just using the Golden Dawn ritual forms and I suspect many of the "power sites" around the world actually do possess localized operant fields that were created at some point in the past. Many ritual temple spaces will build up such a field as operant spells are cast within them over and over again, and it is likely that religious rituals of various sorts can have a similar effect. We're looking for a technique, though, that would be more immediate.

What I'm envisioning is a collection of four small talismans, each representing one of the four elements, and a "master" talisman representing spirit. You would want to make them from a single piece of metal, probably brass. Brass is easy to find at craft and home improvement stores and has a solar association due to its color. It is also an alloy (Mercury) of copper (Venus) and zinc. The upward triangle formed on the Tree of Life between Mercury, Venus, and the Sun (Hod, Netzach, and Tiphareth) crosses the Veil of Paroketh, which is exactly the symbolism that we want.

After engraving the appropriate elemental symbols on each talisman, they would then be charged with their respective elements, just as if you were making elemental tools. Following these five operations you then perform a sixth (5=6? I just thought of that as I was writing it) to empower the whole thing and bind all the talismans together. As part of this operation I would create a servitor that would be charged with gathering energy from the environment and using that energy to sustain both itself and the operant field. The servitor would be bound to the spirit talisman and from there would distribute energy to the other four.

Once you have your operant field array set up, all that remains is for you to place it where you want it to be operational. The four small talismans will constitute the corners of a square, much like the quarters in the LBRP and LIRH, and the master talisman should be kept within the square's boundaries. For example, if you wanted to set up this field over your neighborhood, you would plant each talisman in the ground a couple blocks from your house and keep the master in your temple. Place the small talismans to the four directions using the macrocosmic arrangement - Fire = East, Earth = South, Air = West, Water = North.

There you go - the veil is officially "torn," at least within the area defined by the talismans. An experimental question would be whether or not the field loses intensity as it gets larger. I've done some similar work with talismans defining an area in the past, but my results are inconclusive on that particular point. This would be easier to test with something more general like the operant field idea presented here. If any readers want to try it out and let me know how it works, that would be great.

So, will I try it myself? An important question for me would be whether or not this permanent operant field would be stronger than one that I could create myself using the LBRP/LIRH or Star Ruby/Star Sapphire combination. If not, such a field would be of little use to me. Generally speaking, the magical influence of a talisman winds up being only about 80% as effective as an individual spell directed toward the same goal. The permanence of the talisman seems to detract from its strength in any specific instance, with the tradeoff being that the influence persists longer than that of a spell. This suggests that if I did it myself the field would be weaker than the fields I normally conjure when starting any practical operation, so that would argue against it.

The only case in which I think it might be worthwhile would be to try it out with my magical working group. Several of us are pretty accomplished ritual magicians, and if we all worked together we could probably make a talisman that would be stronger than the fields we can cast individually. Building a permanent field under those conditions at least merits consideration.