This article is Part Four in a series. Part One can found here, Part Two can be found here and Part Three can be found here.
Today I will be moving on to working with the Sun, the next planet in sequence according to the Chaldean Order. Liber 777 associates the Sun with "The Red Tincture" and "Power of Acquiring Wealth." So the Sun, like Jupiter, rules over spells related to financial gain. The difference is that Jupiter is more appropriate when status is involved, such as when seeking a promotion or better employment. The Sun is more appropriate when you are working for yourself in some capacity, such as running a business.
There is also a distinction to be made between "acquiring wealth" and getting money. Aaron Leitch put up a blog post over at Llewellyn discussing this very topic a week ago, pointing out that just bringing sums of money in the door doesn't necessarily translate into wealth - at least when you're working with Jupiter as he does. In my experience, the magical solution for transitioning money into wealth is to work with the Sun.
So the Sun is also more appropriate than Jupiter for investments, finance, and so forth. For a complete "financial success" spell, the best way to go is to perform operations for both Jupiter and the Sun. The Jupiter operation bring in money and status, while the Sun operation transitions that money and status into lasting wealth. This gets around the problem These should be performed as two entirely separate operations, as multiple planets rarely combine well in a single rite without very careful design and calibration.
The Red Tincture is related to alchemical operations, which are somewhat beyond the scope of this series. Allegedly, the Red Tincture is a substance capable of transmuting base metals into gold. From the standpoint of the path of initiation, it may also be thought of as representing the transference of consciousness from Lunar (passive frame) to Solar (active frame) consciousness, or from personal to transpersonal realization. So even though we are dealing with the path of the Sun rather than the sephira, there are potential applications here related to the mystical path.
To review, in Qabalah the planets correspond to the double letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The letters are so named because they correspond to two specific sounds each, and this is reflected in the dual nature of the planets. On the Tree of Life, each planet corresponds to both a sephira or a path. Many magicians refer to the sephiroth as "spheres," and you may catch me doing that sometimes as well. It is, however, not a direct translation. The word actually means "emanations" - as in, emanations of divinity. But they are drawn as circles on most diagrams of the Tree of Life, and in addition, "sephira" and "sphere" sound very similar in English.
The important thing to understand about this for practical magick is that the sephira represent states of emanation, while the paths represent movement between them. Invoking the emanations themselves produces particular visions and states of consciousness, and invoking the paths produces particular practical effects. In Liber 777, the paths and sephira have separate sets of colors, separate angels, and even separate godnames. It is relatively common for people working practical magick to ignore these factors, and, say, conjure the angel of a sephira rather than a path. Often said angel is smart enough to figure out what you really want, but it works better if you go for the right aspect from the start.
Like all the planets, the Sun can be employed in both positive and negative capacities. The Sun rules over acquiring wealth, so it can be used to deplete someone's wealth in addition to increasing it, or ruin someone's business. It works less well with employment situations - you probably want a Jupiter curse if you are looking to get someone fired from their job. But let me point out here that this strikes me as kind of a dumb use of magick. I am a much bigger believer in using your magical powers to benefit yourself rather than expending energy to harm someone else, and it seems to me that spending energy on making yourself rich is a lot more useful than expending it to make someone else poor.
At any rate, for the Path of the Sun, the four scales of color are Orange, Gold Yellow, Rich Amber, and Amber Rayed Red. For ceremonial forms, you use the King scale, which is Orange. Its complement is blue. Note that the Sun and Mercury switch ceremonial form colors when working with the paths as opposed to the sephiroth. All four scales should be used to construct the sigil of the angel. The first piece of sigil is the character of the Sun, which looks like this:
The angel of the path of the Sun is Michael, spelled Mem-Yod-Kaph-Aleph-Lamed. Note that as with the color switch, the Sun and Mercury switch angels when working with the paths versus the sephiroth. The Sun kamea is 6 x 6, so the valuation for Mem needs to be reduced to single digits. This yields 4 (40), 10, 20, 1, 30, to produce a sigil on the kamea that looks like this:
The final sigil is created by combining the two figures. The grid is not necessary, but I have still included it here to show the geometry. There is no formal method for determining which color goes where on the sigil, but it should include all four scales so that it will span all four Qabalistic worlds and thus constitute a complete symbol. This is largely left to your own ingenuity.
From Liber 777, incenses appropriate to the Sun are Olibanum (Frankincense), Cinnamon, and "all glorious odors." Associated plants are Sunflower, Laurel, Heliotrope, Nut, and Galangal. The associated metal is gold, and the associated precious stone is Crysolith (olivine/peridot). Note that for the purposes of creating a talisman, brass is an acceptable substitute for gold.
The plants may be dried and ground into a powder using a mortar and pestle and can be sprinkled onto the paper talisman as an offering to the angel. Cinnamon spice may also be employed in this capacity. Likewise, a piece of brass or peridot may be placed on top of the paper talisman for the conjuration. You then use the paper to wrap up the whole thing when the ritual is complete and somehow bind or tape it together. Cinnamon liquor is a good option for an alcohol offering.
The god-name in Assiah for the path of the Sun is Allah (Aleph-Lamed-Heh). It is far more common for Sun operations to be taught using YHVH Eloah ve Da'ath as the god-name for the Sun, but this is actually the god-name appropriate to Tiphareth, the sephira of the Sun. This is a key distinction that few teachers make, and is a method that we have explored at the local Leaping Laughter Lodge Ritual Workshop. It appears to be quite effective, and allows you to make a meaningful distinction between sephiroth and paths in the context of the ceremonial forms.
The full ritual is performed as follows:
0. The Temple
The best time to perform a Sun operation is on a Sunday, during the hour of the Sun. To calculate the hours, divide the time between sunrise and sunset into twelve equal parts to get the hours of the day, and the time between sunset and sunrise into twelve equal parts to get the hours of the night. Days begin at sunrise. The first hour of the day is attributed to the planet ruling the day, and the subsequent hours are assigned according to the Chaldean Order.
Saturn --> Jupiter --> Mars --> Sun --> Venus --> Mercury --> Moon
Following the hour of the Moon, the order starts over again with Saturn. While it seems complicated as first, once you do it a bunch, you'll find that it actually is pretty easy. At this point I can almost do it in my head. There are also a number of software programs that you can download to do the calculation for you, and even some websites that will tell you the hours.
There are a number of different ways to arrange the temple for an operation such as this. What we do is place an altar in the center with the banishing dagger and invoking wand. Also on the altar is a containment structure such as the Sigillum Dei Aemeth or the Trithemian Table of Art. The diagram depicting the character and sigil should be placed within this structure. A small container of some sort for offerings may be placed on the Table of Art, or you can sprinkle the offering directly upon the diagram itself.
Today I will be moving on to working with the Sun, the next planet in sequence according to the Chaldean Order. Liber 777 associates the Sun with "The Red Tincture" and "Power of Acquiring Wealth." So the Sun, like Jupiter, rules over spells related to financial gain. The difference is that Jupiter is more appropriate when status is involved, such as when seeking a promotion or better employment. The Sun is more appropriate when you are working for yourself in some capacity, such as running a business.
There is also a distinction to be made between "acquiring wealth" and getting money. Aaron Leitch put up a blog post over at Llewellyn discussing this very topic a week ago, pointing out that just bringing sums of money in the door doesn't necessarily translate into wealth - at least when you're working with Jupiter as he does. In my experience, the magical solution for transitioning money into wealth is to work with the Sun.
So the Sun is also more appropriate than Jupiter for investments, finance, and so forth. For a complete "financial success" spell, the best way to go is to perform operations for both Jupiter and the Sun. The Jupiter operation bring in money and status, while the Sun operation transitions that money and status into lasting wealth. This gets around the problem These should be performed as two entirely separate operations, as multiple planets rarely combine well in a single rite without very careful design and calibration.
The Red Tincture is related to alchemical operations, which are somewhat beyond the scope of this series. Allegedly, the Red Tincture is a substance capable of transmuting base metals into gold. From the standpoint of the path of initiation, it may also be thought of as representing the transference of consciousness from Lunar (passive frame) to Solar (active frame) consciousness, or from personal to transpersonal realization. So even though we are dealing with the path of the Sun rather than the sephira, there are potential applications here related to the mystical path.
To review, in Qabalah the planets correspond to the double letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The letters are so named because they correspond to two specific sounds each, and this is reflected in the dual nature of the planets. On the Tree of Life, each planet corresponds to both a sephira or a path. Many magicians refer to the sephiroth as "spheres," and you may catch me doing that sometimes as well. It is, however, not a direct translation. The word actually means "emanations" - as in, emanations of divinity. But they are drawn as circles on most diagrams of the Tree of Life, and in addition, "sephira" and "sphere" sound very similar in English.
The important thing to understand about this for practical magick is that the sephira represent states of emanation, while the paths represent movement between them. Invoking the emanations themselves produces particular visions and states of consciousness, and invoking the paths produces particular practical effects. In Liber 777, the paths and sephira have separate sets of colors, separate angels, and even separate godnames. It is relatively common for people working practical magick to ignore these factors, and, say, conjure the angel of a sephira rather than a path. Often said angel is smart enough to figure out what you really want, but it works better if you go for the right aspect from the start.
Like all the planets, the Sun can be employed in both positive and negative capacities. The Sun rules over acquiring wealth, so it can be used to deplete someone's wealth in addition to increasing it, or ruin someone's business. It works less well with employment situations - you probably want a Jupiter curse if you are looking to get someone fired from their job. But let me point out here that this strikes me as kind of a dumb use of magick. I am a much bigger believer in using your magical powers to benefit yourself rather than expending energy to harm someone else, and it seems to me that spending energy on making yourself rich is a lot more useful than expending it to make someone else poor.
At any rate, for the Path of the Sun, the four scales of color are Orange, Gold Yellow, Rich Amber, and Amber Rayed Red. For ceremonial forms, you use the King scale, which is Orange. Its complement is blue. Note that the Sun and Mercury switch ceremonial form colors when working with the paths as opposed to the sephiroth. All four scales should be used to construct the sigil of the angel. The first piece of sigil is the character of the Sun, which looks like this:
The angel of the path of the Sun is Michael, spelled Mem-Yod-Kaph-Aleph-Lamed. Note that as with the color switch, the Sun and Mercury switch angels when working with the paths versus the sephiroth. The Sun kamea is 6 x 6, so the valuation for Mem needs to be reduced to single digits. This yields 4 (40), 10, 20, 1, 30, to produce a sigil on the kamea that looks like this:
The final sigil is created by combining the two figures. The grid is not necessary, but I have still included it here to show the geometry. There is no formal method for determining which color goes where on the sigil, but it should include all four scales so that it will span all four Qabalistic worlds and thus constitute a complete symbol. This is largely left to your own ingenuity.
From Liber 777, incenses appropriate to the Sun are Olibanum (Frankincense), Cinnamon, and "all glorious odors." Associated plants are Sunflower, Laurel, Heliotrope, Nut, and Galangal. The associated metal is gold, and the associated precious stone is Crysolith (olivine/peridot). Note that for the purposes of creating a talisman, brass is an acceptable substitute for gold.
The plants may be dried and ground into a powder using a mortar and pestle and can be sprinkled onto the paper talisman as an offering to the angel. Cinnamon spice may also be employed in this capacity. Likewise, a piece of brass or peridot may be placed on top of the paper talisman for the conjuration. You then use the paper to wrap up the whole thing when the ritual is complete and somehow bind or tape it together. Cinnamon liquor is a good option for an alcohol offering.
The god-name in Assiah for the path of the Sun is Allah (Aleph-Lamed-Heh). It is far more common for Sun operations to be taught using YHVH Eloah ve Da'ath as the god-name for the Sun, but this is actually the god-name appropriate to Tiphareth, the sephira of the Sun. This is a key distinction that few teachers make, and is a method that we have explored at the local Leaping Laughter Lodge Ritual Workshop. It appears to be quite effective, and allows you to make a meaningful distinction between sephiroth and paths in the context of the ceremonial forms.
The full ritual is performed as follows:
0. The Temple
The best time to perform a Sun operation is on a Sunday, during the hour of the Sun. To calculate the hours, divide the time between sunrise and sunset into twelve equal parts to get the hours of the day, and the time between sunset and sunrise into twelve equal parts to get the hours of the night. Days begin at sunrise. The first hour of the day is attributed to the planet ruling the day, and the subsequent hours are assigned according to the Chaldean Order.
Saturn --> Jupiter --> Mars --> Sun --> Venus --> Mercury --> Moon
Following the hour of the Moon, the order starts over again with Saturn. While it seems complicated as first, once you do it a bunch, you'll find that it actually is pretty easy. At this point I can almost do it in my head. There are also a number of software programs that you can download to do the calculation for you, and even some websites that will tell you the hours.
There are a number of different ways to arrange the temple for an operation such as this. What we do is place an altar in the center with the banishing dagger and invoking wand. Also on the altar is a containment structure such as the Sigillum Dei Aemeth or the Trithemian Table of Art. The diagram depicting the character and sigil should be placed within this structure. A small container of some sort for offerings may be placed on the Table of Art, or you can sprinkle the offering directly upon the diagram itself.
The Table of Art shown above is from The Digital Ambler. You can read about the design and how it was put together here. You can click on the image to enlarge.
If you employ scrying in your work, an appropriate device such as a crystal or mirror should also be placed in the containment structure. If you are using incense for such an operation, the traditional method is to place the incense burner between the scryer and the mirror or crystal. Otherwise, it may be placed anywhere in the space. Some scryers like to place a taper candle on either side of the device, and while I can't say that method does anything at all for me, a number of others report good results with it.
1. Opening
Light incense, if used. Open the magical field using the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram and Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram, Star Ruby and Star Sapphire, or the Field Ritual. The usual field for practical work is the operant field, with banishing pentagrams and invoking hexagrams.
2. Preliminary Invocation
Raise energy using the Middle Pillar, Elevenfold Seal (the "First Gesture" from Liber V vel Reguli), or some other appropriate ritual method as you may know how to do.
Make the Sign of Apophis and Typhon, raising both arms and holding them straight with an angle between them of 60 degrees, and proclaim, very strongly:
Thee I invoke, who art Universe!
Thee I invoke, who art in Nature formed!
Thee I invoke, the vast and the mighty!
Source of Darkness, Source of Light.
Then make the Sign of Silence, by standing straight with one arm at your side and placing your thumb or forefinger to your lips.
3. Tuning the Space
Perform the Greater Ritual of the Hexagram for the Sun. The solar hexagram is the longest and most complex of the hexagrams, as it is composed of the other six made beginning with Saturn and following the Chaldean Order all the way down to the Moon. I generally vibrate ARARITA for each hexagram traced, but there is no set method for doing this. Beginning in the east, go to each quarter in turn and perform the following actions.
- 1. Trace the Hexagram of the Sun in Orange while vibrating ARARITA (ah-rah-ree-tah). The hexagram of the Sun is traced by:
- First, starting at the upper point and tracing the first triangle clockwise, and then moving on to the bottom point and tracing the second triangle clockwise from there.
- Then, starting at the upper right point and tracing the first triangle clockwise, and then moving on to the lower left point and tracing the second triangle from there.
- Then, starting at the upper left point and tracing the first triangle clockwise, and then moving on to the lower right point and tracing the second triangle clockwise from there.
- Then, starting at the lower right point and tracing the first triangle clockwise, and then moving on to the upper left point and tracing the second triangle clockwise from there.
- Then, starting at the lower left point and tracing the first triangle clockwise, and then moving on to the upper right point and tracing the second triangle clockwise from there.
- Finally, starting at the bottom point and tracing the first triangle clockwise, and then moving on to the upper point and tracing the second triangle clockwise from there.
- Trace the symbol of the Sun in the center of the hexagram in blue while vibrating ALH (ah-LAH).
Once the four figures are traced, return to face the east completing the circle.
Then, recite the Orphic Hymn to the Sun.
Then, recite the Orphic Hymn to the Sun.
Hear, golden Titan, whose eternal eye
With broad survey, illumines all the sky.
Self-born, unwearied in diffusing light,
And to all eyes the mirrour of delight:
Lord of the seasons, with thy fiery car
And leaping coursers, beaming light from far:
With thy right hand the source of morning light,
And with thy left the father of the night.
Agile and vig'rous, venerable Sun,
Fiery and bright around the heav'ns you run.
Foe to the wicked, but the good man's guide,
O'er all his steps propitious you preside:
With various founding, golden lyre, 'tis mine
To fill the world with harmony divine.
Father of ages, guide of prosp'rous deeds,
The world's commander, borne by lucid steeds,
Immortal Jove, all-searching, bearing light,
Source of existence, pure and fiery bright
Bearer of fruit, almighty lord of years,
Agil and warm, whom ev'ry pow'r reveres.
Great eye of Nature and the starry skies,
Doom'd with immortal flames to set and rise
Dispensing justice, lover of the stream,
The world's great despot, and o'er all supreme.
Faithful defender, and the eye of right,
Of steeds the ruler, and of life the light:
With founding whip four fiery steeds you guide,
When in the car of day you glorious ride.
Propitious on these mystic labours shine,
And bless thy suppliants with a life divine.
The space should now be tuned for the conjuration.
4. The Conjuration
Note: It has come to my attention that the manner in which I do the conjuration is less clear than I originally intended. The conjuration has been clarified to reflect this point, but it is significant enough to discuss and draw attention to it here. First of all, I am NOT working my way down through the hierarchy to get to "the guy at the bottom" (the spirit) who actually does the work. In fact, I address my charge to ALL THREE entities called below.
If the Godname is included, the four names represent the four Qabalistic worlds - Godname = Atziluth, Angel = Briah, Intelligence = Yetzirah, Spirit = Assiah). By addressing the charge in this way, the operation can "fire on all cylinders" and affect the manifest universe at all level. The Godname represents the power itself, the Angel ushers that power across the Abyss from potential to actual, the Intelligence shapes that power through the realm of formation, and the Spirit interfaces that power directly with the material world from moment to moment.
MICHAEL, MICHAEL, MICHAEL, MICHAEL, MICHAEL, MICHAEL (mee-kai-EL). Come unto me, great and mighty angel of SHEMESH (sheh-MESH), by the name of the great god ALH (ah-LAH). Send unto me NAKHIEL (nah-kee-EL), that great intelligence of thine, and thereafter attend to my behest.
Pause until the presence of Michael is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait a minute or so before continuing.
NAKHIEL, NAKHIEL, NAKHIEL, NAKHIEL, NAKHIEL, NAKHIEL (nah-kee-EL). Come unto me, thou glorious intelligence of SHEMESH (sheh-MESH), in the name of MICHAEL (mee-kai-EL) thy lord. Compel the spirit SORATH (so-rath) who is under thy dominion to manifest within this Table of Art, and thereafter attend to my behest.
Pause until the presence of Nakhiel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait a minute or so before continuing.
SORATH, SORATH, SORATH, SORATH, SORATH, SORATH (so-rath). Come unto me, mighty spirit of SHEMESH (sheh-MESH), in the name of NAKHIEL (nah-kee-EL) thy lord. Come forth within this Table of Art and thereafter attend to my behest, that I may wield the powers of RESH (just like it looks), the path of the Sun.
At this point, vibrate the names MICHAEL, NAKHIEL, and SORATH repeatedly until the presence of the angel and spirits of the Sun is perceived within the Table of Art. Various methods may be used to accomplish this, from simply waiting until a presence makes itself known to scrying for an image in a crystal or dark mirror. If this is being performed as a group ritual, with everyone chanting the name together, it is helpful for the officiant or scryer to have a bell chime that can be rung once he or she perceives a presence in whatever manner. At the bell chime, the chant stops.
5. The Charge
My instructions for the charge are simple and straightforward, just as you can find in my published books. Address it to all three entities named above. Make use of an Injunction, which is what you want the angel and associated spirits to do, and a Limitation, which is what you do not want them to do. The Limitation helps you avoid "Monkey's Paw" situations in which your Injunction may manifest, but in an undesirable way.
As I mentioned above, Liber 777 catalogs the powers attributed to the Sun as "The Red Tincture" and "Power of Acquiring Wealth." For best results, your charge should fall within that area. Otherwise, you may be asking for something outside the Sun's sphere of influence. To create a physical red tincture, you will need a material basis separate from the offering, preferably prepared according to proper alchemical methods, placed within the Table of Art.
At this point you may also make offerings to the angel by placing them in the small container. After the angel has had a chance to partake of the offerings, be sure to dispose of them. Alcohol such as cinnamon liquor may be allowed to evaporate on its own, and natural substances may be scattered outdoors. Do not attempt to reuse an offering - generally speaking, spirits do not take kindly to that.
Your other option is to place the offerings directly upon the sigil itself, if this is practical, as it is with ground-up plant material or spices. If you decide to go this route, you will be wrapping the offering up in the paper sigil and need give it no further thought. Obviously, though, this becomes less practical with liquid offerings, such as alcohol.
Also, You should get some sort of assent from the angel before you proceed to the License to Depart, or an explanation of his objection. When the charge lies outside the angel's sphere of influence, often he will be willing to direct you to another spirit that would be more suitable to conjure in order to better accomplish your intent.
6. The License to Depart
Mighty MICHAEL and the spirits of Thy domain, because thou hast-diligently answered unto my demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do hereby license thee to depart unto thy proper place, without causing harm or danger unto man or beast. I charge thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly with the blessings of the great god ALH, and that peace be ever continued between us. So mote it be!
7. Closing
The ritual may be closed with either a final banishing pentagram ritual or with the Qabalistic Cross performed on its own. These should match the rituals used in the opening, so for example if you opened with a Star Ruby you should repeat it or perform the corresponding version of the Qabalistic Cross.
Generally speaking, if you want to release your intent out into the world to accomplish some task external to yourself, you should close with a banishing pentagram ritual. This is similar to the chaos magick idea of releasing a sigil once it has been created and empowered.
On the other hand, if you also want the effect of the ritual to linger within your sphere of awareness, whether or not the intent is also external, you should close with the Qabalistic Cross. This stabilizes the operation, but does not detach it from your sphere of awareness.
How do you decide whether to call on Michael or Raphael when working with the sun?
ReplyDeleteIs it based on whether you're using the sephirah or the path?
Correct. When going from sphere to path, the two angels switch places.
ReplyDeleteSo Michael is the angel of Hod, the sephira of Mercury, and Shemesh (Resh), the path of the Sun. Raphael is the angel of Tiphareth, the sephira of the Sun, and Kokab (Beth), the path of Mercury.
I tried a slightly different way of using the hexagram of Sol. I remembered reading in various sources that the magician should trace only one hexagram of the planet they're working with, in the direction that planet is at the time of the ritual. Instead of that, I faced the East as usual, but i looked upwards and traced the six hexagrams in that direction. After ARARITA and ALLAH I guided the divine light down to the table of art. This was to save time from drawing all those hexagrams :)
ReplyDeleteWhen you trace all six hexagrams one on top of the other in order to obtain the hexagram of Sol, do you say Ararita 6 times? Or only when you start/finish all of them?
ReplyDeleteI say it six times, once for each hexagram. I have known some other magicians who don't, though, and draw the vibration out. It doesn't seem to me that there's much difference either way from a practical perspective.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteI've added another comment in the article on the initiation into Binah, but it seems it didn't post. It seems the arrows for tracing the hexagram are missing.
As a point, because of the spamming situation we previously had I have to manually approve every post. If you don't see something post right away, just wait a little while instead of posting again. I've been very busy with work and the like and when that happens I sometimes get behind on the moderation.
ReplyDeleteI thought as much. No worries though. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm using 776 1/2 and I don't see the godname Allah for the path of the sun. If you're familiar with 776 1/2, do you know if he left that section out? In what column is it found in 777?
ReplyDeleteI have heard of 776 1/2, but I do not have a copy and I have not read it. The column that you are looking for is V. God-Names in Assiah, Key Scale 30.
ReplyDeleteSee here - it's column on the far right. The Hebrew spelling is Aleph-Lamed-Heh which sums to 36, the square of 6.
https://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib777/table-i
Okay, it looks like he did leave that out, unfortunately. He's got a short section for The World of Assiah (much more abbreviated than the section for Yetzirah), but no God-Names there. Thank you, that's helpful. I need to get a paper copy of 777. PDF has a lot of advantages, but flipping back and forth ain't one of them.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as you need those godnames for the Greater Ritual of the Hexagram for the planets, that's a pretty serious omission if what 776 1/2 was supposed to do is make 777 more usable (which is what I was told about it).
ReplyDeleteDoes it at least include the sephirothic godnames? I find that in practice there is a lot of overlap between the effects of the path and sephirah names. In other words, you could do a practical solar ritual with YHVH Eloah ve-Daath instead of Alah and it will still work if everything else is right.
Still, the path godnames do seem to provide greater precision so I recommend using them if you can.
Yeah, I'm pretty surprised. It does list the sephirothic Godnnames, and that's the way I've done it until now, but I'm all about maximizing effectiveness so I've been working to create all the planetary and talismanic sigils so I can use the paths, as you suggest (that's how I came to notice some of those kamea numbers, none of which impacted the sigils, so no harm).
ReplyDelete776 1/2 has helped me understand how to read the format it shares with 777, which is great, but not necessarily worth the price of admission. It's also much shorter than I expected, so apart from Col. V, I don't know what else is missing. I'm mostly after the names, incense, and attributions for food and drink offerings. But now you've pointed me to the Godnames in Assiah I can copy that in by hand (and add it to the Excel spreadsheet I use).
I know you'd kind of gone back and forth on this, but if I recall, you'd found it a bit more effective to include calling on the Spirit and Intelligence as well. If so, are you using their sigils (on top of the kamea sigil, I guess, though I don't know that it matters)?
ReplyDeleteThe main trick with the format is to start on the Magical Powers column instead of at the beginning. I don't know why Crowley didn't move that column to the beginning when he tells you flat out in Liber O that's where you're supposed to look first. The way 777 is laid out is kind of confusing starting with the Hebrew alphabet, though I suppose that was considered foundational in the Golden Dawn.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, let me know if you see a difference with the path godnames. I and a couple of other magicians I know have found that they seem to work better, but that's still a very small sample size. More data is always better.
As far as the sigils on the kamea for the spirit and intelligence go, that is next on the list for experimentation. I got good results with just the angel sigil and calling on them by name - and "entry point" if you will for the aspect (I'm a programmer, after all). But I need to do more work to see if it helps to have those other two sigils as well.
ReplyDeleteThat crazy Crowley layout is exactly what Eshelman was trying to compensate for with 776 1/2, and it seems as if he's done a good job in terms of making it easy to use, but with an unfortunate omission. When I have time I'll go through and see what else might be missing. So far everything else I've been after has been there, but as I say, my demands aren't extravagent.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of contributing more data, I'd love to, but I'm not sure how much I could produce. In the last few days you mentioned something about exactly what you do to try to create a statistically significant dataset (either on your blog or in Cermeonial Magick School on fB, but I just had a look and I can't find it). I didn't have time to dig into it at the time I saw it, but I doubt I have the ability (time) to perform enough operations to help. If you could point me to what I'm thinking of or redescribe your process, that would let me know. I assume you need to perform the same thing under the same conditions many times with one variable changing, something like that.
I did have one other question - what's your experience with multiple charges under a single operation? Powers under the Sun aren't the greatest example, but under Mercury, say, asking for knowledge of A, B, and C, and also healing of X, Y, Z. Is it best to focus on just a single thing (either knowledge of A, B, and C or should you even just stick to knowledge of A), or is it kind of like, as long as I've got you on the line, I also wanted to ask for X, Y, Z since they're in your domain...you know, kind of like somebody throwing in an unrelated question at the end of his response in the comments of a blog post.
I find that using a single charge works better. If I try to conjure a spirit and ask for, say, three different things, I would say that the majority of the time I get the first thing and not the other two.
ReplyDeleteIt sort of feels like what the spirit does is expend its power on the first thing you give it and there isn't enough left over for the other two. But I don't know if that's what's really going on, or if some entirely different process is at work.
**ENORMOUS & EMBARRASSING RETRACTION**
ReplyDeleteEshelman has indeed included the Godnames in Assiah in 776 1/2. They're in his Chapter 3, Atziluthic and Briatic Names and Images. I was looking for them in chapter 5, The World of Assiah. I didn't notice what I was looking for in Chapter 3 because -
1) he includes both the sephirothic and path names together
(e.g., 30 - יהוה אלוה ודעת; אלה); and
2) he gives the transliteration of אלה as Eloah, which includes a syllable that's not present in the Hebrew, in my unweighty opinion.
So, just a matter of knowing how to read it. My apologies!
Okay. Still, if they are that hard to find it kind of defeats the purpose of the book, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteTrue enough. Though it's having the unintended consequence of having me learn more by doing all this digging and cross-checking, so I guess I'll take that for what it's worth.
ReplyDeleteAgain noob doubts,
ReplyDeleteIs ot bad just look at the symbols and recite it just to get some energy from it? Like reciting it without the tablet of art?
I done it and feel some energy, its sun not bad i guess.
Regards
No, not bad at all. I think that is what most of us do when learning the rituals. If you just do the forms and so forth without a specific charge you should feel some solar energies, and that is completely fine.
ReplyDeleteI don't want this to seem like I'm trying to correct you. Far from me. But isn't Aleph-Lamed-Heh ELOH?
ReplyDeleteThat probably will work too. Hebrew pronunciation can vary a lot. The godnames are from the Bible/Torah and were originally written down before vowel markers we part of the language. So you can have YHVH pronounced as Yah-weh or Yeh-hoh-wah or Yeh-hoh-voh.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have found playing around with the LRP is that it doesn't matter much how you pronounce YHVH as long as you stick with the basic consonants and as long as you pronounce it as a word rather than spelling it out. I suspect ALH is similar.
Oh, right! True. That's why people nowadays debate AL vs EL when it comes to the godname of Water. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Mr. Scott Stenwick
ReplyDeleteI’m confused as to why in “The Planetary Work - the Sun” your only using
“6. The License to Depart” by itself not and not using the “VI. The License”.
IV. The License to Depart first to give the spirit an opportunity to accomplish the task first before using “6. The License to Depart” they go back to their domain.
Thanks,
Jbyers2@tx.rr.com
I am a little unclear as to what you mean here, so maybe I am not answering the right questions, but I will do my best.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I'm not sure what you're talking about with respect to "VI. The License" versus "6. The License to Depart." Then I don't know what you mean by "IV. The License to Depart" with respect to the previous two.
The way this ritual works is not that you send the spirit out to do something and then give it license to depart only after it completes the task, if that's what you're asking. That sometimes is the case, like with a talisman, but not with a direct conjuration. With a conjuration, you license the spirit to depart so it can get to work.
If you're referring to licensing the spirit to depart if for some reason it refuses to perform a task or refers you to a different spirit, you can go ahead and modify the wording to take out the reference to "thou hast-diligently answered unto my demands" if that doesn't make sense under the circumstances. But keep in mind the spirit likely has a good reason for refusing or referring you to somebody else. It did answer to your call because it showed up.
Or are you comparing this post to one of my other rituals? If so, which one? It would really help me work out what you are finding confusing.
I will say that none of these rituals are so set in stone that you should need to do anything that doesn't make sense to you. They are examples of how to do this work. Also, I have a number of versions of them that I have created at different times over the years and I haven't posted anything I didn't get good results with at the time.
It's very likely that making changes to how you do the license to depart won't have a big effect on the ritual. As long as the spirit understands that you're licensing it to depart, however you do it, you should be fine. I often use much simpler verbiage when casting for myself.
Hi Mr. Stenwick,
ReplyDeleteI noticed the wording difference when I was preparing the rituals for use. I thought that the Roman Numeral “VI. The License to Depart” meant that your sending the spirits to do something.
Where as, “6. The License to Depart” with regular number “6”, meant that you were completing the ritual after you had obtained your goal sending the spirits back to their proper place.
Basically, I thought I missed a step. I did not know you meant them to be used interchangeable, the wording is different.
Don’t Grimoires tell us to send a spirit and then thank the spirit and send the home?
Two different steps.
Sorry for the “"IV” it was a type o.
To clarify here is what I was referring to:
VI. The License to Depart
This is the opposite of the conjuration. It sends the spirit on its way to accomplish whatever task you have set it to getting done. It is worded similarly to the conjuration:
[Spirit], I hereby license you to depart unto your proper place by the name of true and almighty [Name of Power]
“that you may accomplish your appointed task.”
I charge you to depart peacefully and quietly, and may peace be ever continued between us. So mote it be!
Give the spirit a few moments to depart. You probably won’t feel much when it leaves aside from a slight shift in the atmosphere of the room.
If you want to fully detach from magical force that you just set in motion, perform The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram or Star Ruby. Otherwise, just perform the version of The Qabalistic Cross corresponding to whichever pentagram ritual you used to open your ritual.
http://ananael.blogspot.com/2017/10/my-latest-ritual-template.html
Verses:
6. The License to Depart
Mighty MICHAEL and the spirits of Thy domain, because thou hast-diligently
“answered unto my demands”,
and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do hereby license thee to depart unto thy proper place, without causing harm or danger unto man or beast. I charge thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly with the blessings of the great god ALH, and that peace be ever continued between us. So mote it be!
http://ananael.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-planetary-work-sun.html
Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com
The difference there just has to do with the wording. It is not that much of a functional difference.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, when you license the spirit to depart it has "answered unto your demands" if it agrees to complete the task, and you can still license it to "attend to its appointed tasks" after it "answers unto your demands." The language is not intended to be that picky, and all the variations you will find published here have produced good results for me. You aren't missing any steps, I just have varied my license to depart over the years and between rituals.
But no, it is not my intent that the "having answered unto my demands" always refers to something that is complete within the span of a 30-minute ritual. Most significant intents take at least a week or two to manifest, and you want the spirit out in the world doing stuff for that whole period.
As far as the grimoires go, it depends a lot on the grimoire. The Heptarchia Mystica, for example, doesn't even include a license to depart - but I use my own anyway when working with it.
Hi Mr. Stenwick,
ReplyDeleteYes, I was aware that some rituals take up to two weeks or maybe a month to come to fruition, not just for the thirty minute ritual.
I just thought after the goal had been achieved, a follow up ritual might be necessary to acknowledge the spirit or angel out of respect for the helping us and send them back to their proper place. But you have said the two, “The License to Depart” were interchangeable.
Also, when it come to constructing either,
“The Sigillum Dei Aemeth or the Trithemian Table of Art” does it matter at all what color you make the background or what color you make the lettering? Are we able to make it to our own personal preferences or is it better to make it just as illustrated with black lettering and white background?
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com
The original Sigillum Dei Aemeth was made of engraved beeswax, so no additional color was specified. When I made my traveling Sigillum for presenting at NOTOCON, I printed it out in black and white and glued my printout to a wooden disk. It worked fine for the ritual.
ReplyDeleteI have seen various interpretations of the Trithemian Table of Art. Black and white will work fine, and it's probably the easiest way to do it - much like with my traveling Sigillum, you can pick up a wooden disk of whatever size you want, print the image from online, and glue the image onto the disk.
If you're more crafty than that or want something that looks nicer, I have seen a number of folks use a wooden disk and engrave the figures using a wood burner. That looks really good, but it's a lot more work than gluing on a printout.
This will sound very funny, but someone drew the Trithemian Table of Art on the back of a pizza box and it still worked :D
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned in more than one of my ritual night talks, it really is mostly about the design. When you set up your ritual working space you are modeling the three-dimensional universe in two dimensions and the figure interacts with that. In some cases better materials will give you clearer results, but the back of a pizza box can still work.
ReplyDeleteYep! I have yet to thank you for the wonderful work you're doing in educating people in the technicalities behind the magical art, as they're many out there who preach various apparently strict dogmas when it comes to how a magical act should be performed. Yet in many cases people report nothing happened, because they're expecting the spirits to smack them over the head as a sign they're there, otherwise the whole rite is a bust. They then start blaming potentially faulty tools and whatnot and in some cases people go out buying all sorts of expensive paraphernalia thinking it'll make them better magicianists.
ReplyDeleteSo, thank you! For everything you're doing! For free!
ReplyDeleteHi Mr. Stenwick,
Which Versions of “The Sigillum Dei Aemeth” or the “Trithemian Table of Art”
Work best?
The Website you gave the link to have different variations.
Could you simply use the original and if so, what is the best website to see the original designs?
Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com
There is only one version of the Sigillum Dei Aemeth, from the work of John Dee and Edward Kelley.
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of different versions of the Trithemian table because in The Art of Drawing Spirits Into Crystals, the table is described via text rather than drawn as an image. So different people can read it different ways.
Personally, I've never had an issue with the Sigillum or with any of the variations I've work with. Usually I use my wax Sigillum along with my Enochian Holy Table setup for most operations, which works great. To be fair, though, it's the whole Table apparatus that I'm using, not just the Sigillum by itself.
So it's hard to say which one is better. They all work, and I can't say that I've done enough experiments comparing the effectiveness of rituals performed with all of them to give you an accurate answer.
Why is Hexagram Sun in orange and blue planetary sing?
ReplyDeleteI tought is Yellow and indigo inside.
For the Path of Resh, attributed to the Sun, the King Scale color is orange. So that is the base color you use when working with the path attributed to the Sun, which is generally for practical planetary work. Yellow is the Queen Scale color attributed to Tiphareth. So that is the base color you use when working with the sephira attributed to the Sun, which is generally for mystical work.
ReplyDeleteI was asking because i didn t know what colour to use for Liber Samekh.I guess i could use both.
ReplyDeleteOh, Samekh would be Tiphareth, so Yellow hexagram, Purple symbol. The HGA operation is primarily mystical. Orange/Blue is for practical work.
ReplyDeleteIt has just become clear to me, rereading your website, that I need to change some of the Divine Names (specifically the God Names) associated with the Planets on my website. For example, The God Name Associated with the Sun should be Allah (A.L.H.), as you pointed out. Thank you. This helps me a lot.
ReplyDeleteHey Scott,
ReplyDeleteI hope this isn't too much of a stupid question but when drawing the planetary seal and the sigil of the intelligence and spirits, would one have to do it under a specific election? Like if I drew the seal of the Sun along with its sigils while the Sun was in Aries, would it act as a planetary talisman and always summon the spirits and characteristics of the Sun under that election? or does it just act more like a radio receiver and picks up the state in which the planet is currently in?
The seal and sigil are completely separate from any talisman you might make. Some people draw them on talismans, but you don't have to. The seal and sigil drawn on paper behave pretty much like a "telephone number" for the spirit and are used only for the conjuration. If you want to create a talisman, that would be a separate item and you would need to give the spirit a charge to "empower this talisman to do xxx," referring to the object you will be using for a talisman.
ReplyDeleteI do find that the seal and sigil work better if you ink them during the proper day and hour. How I do this is I print out the image whenever, but then in the proper day and hour ink over the design with a marker of the proper color. I think this has the effect of "drawing" them during the proper time, since just using uninked printouts doesn't seem to work as well. The color you use is the "natural color" for what you are trying to do - King Scale for paths and Queen Scale for sephiroth.
When you create a talisman it will encode the current astrological conditions along with the talisman charge. So the most powerful talismans are those made during proper and specific astrological elections. But this is separate from the seal and sigil.
I see that makes a lot of sense, thank you.
ReplyDeleteCould one possibly use a talisman that embodies a specific astrological election to call upon the spirits of the planet instead of using the seal and sigils? I know in more devotional practices, one uses a talisman that was made and consecrated at a specific time to maintain contact with the spirits of that planet on a regular basis. This takes out the need for a good election as the talisman already embodies it. I'd imagine one could do the same in using this ceremonial approach right?
You can do that if you want. All talismans do incorporate the astrological elections under which they are made. You will generally get a more powerful talisman, though, by calling on a corresponding spirit to help create it. That's what you use the seal and sigil for.
ReplyDeleteHave you considered mixing the Planetary system and prayer from Heptameron?
ReplyDeleteLike for i would call it your way and then i would use the Prayer from Heptameron:
In east i call
Samael. Baciel. Atel. Gabriel. Vionairaba.
at the west.
Anael. Pabel. Ustael. Burchat. Suceratos. Capabili.
at the north.
Aiel. Aniel, vel Aquiel. Masgabriel. Sapiel. Matuyel.
at the south.
Haludiel. Machasiel. Charsiel. Uriel. Naromiel.
And his ministers:Tus, Andas, Cynabal
In Liber Samek if i would incorporate Greater Ritual of Hexagram i guess i would
In East make the Invoking Sun Hexagram,In South Venus Hexagram,In West i would Moon,In North Mercury Hexagram and of course it would be made in Sephirotic Colours?Would it make sense.
No, I have not. I could see it working, but can't say from personal experience.
ReplyDeleteThere is no version of the GRH that uses different planets at the quarters. If you were going to do anything with the GRH for Samekh, you would do Sun - Sephirothic because the goal of the operation is to stabilize your consciousness in Tiphareth for Knowledge and Conversation. There's no need for any other hexagrams - those would just muddle the energies.
Hi Scott, in another blog post, you talked about the unicursal sun hexagram and said you would experiment. Did you find that the unicursal sun hexagram works ?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to, but not quite the way some folks have promulgated it. The most effective unicursal sun hexagram is traced from the top point, not the middle. This matches the original Golden Dawn attributions - Sun at the top, Moon at the bottom, four elements at the smaller side points, and spirit in the center.
ReplyDeleteSome people use the version traced from the center for the Sun, but that technically is spirit in the original arrangement. It's not an inharmonious association to relate Sun and Spirit, but for Sun explicitly tracing from the top point seems to work best, at least according to the testing that I have done.
I found our while Invoking planetary entitetes that i can say what i want to entity and give him free hands how to do it!
ReplyDeleteLike if i want a girlfriend ,i can ask for guidance and advices from Venus Angel to guide me how to meet and mantain the realationship with a nice person!
Otherwise i can do Invoking rites add infinitum until that energies reaches breaking point and forces reality to change!
I think it s smarter first to ask guidance and to ask for teaching you "how to do A or get close to A" and how to recognize A instead of bring me A ,since A can be short term because lack of insight or being psychologicly blind to opportunities!
I would not say that one approach is better than the other in general, since I have used both approaches to good effect in a lot of different situations. It really depends on what the situation is and how you want to work with it.
ReplyDeleteWhen somebody affirms all Sephirots from Kether to Malkhut he can imagine all colours from Spheres while vibrating coresponding God -name !
ReplyDeleteMy q is will the rite be stronger and more effective,since we then influence all 4 worlds?
You might think so logically, but it does not necessarily work out that way in practice. Making the rituals more elaborate to include all four worlds can help in some cases, but in others the effect winds up being negligible.
ReplyDeleteA counterpoint argument can be made that suggests focusing on the world most appropriate to your operation might yield a better result because it places all the force of the operation at the most appropriate point. So for example, you might want to go with Assiah only for a material effect or for Yetzirah only when doing an operation like you describe above, to get information on how to accomplish something.
My guess is that neither that argument nor the argument that all the worlds should be included are true in all cases. It probably depends on the goal of the operation, how you want to go about it, and how you want the results to manifest.
I tought that it s more effective to influence all 4 worlds!"Fire the operation on all 4 cylinders"
ReplyDeleteIt can be in many situations. But my point is that it is not an absolute rule, since the effect generated by influencing multiple worlds depends on the details of your particular operation.
ReplyDeleteI could maybe imagine a Tarot card coresponding to certain Path coloured in all 4 colours!For example The Path Tau-The World in Blue,Black Blue ,Indigo and Blue Black !
ReplyDeleteIt seems easier to visualize coloured Tarot then just colours!
It s just a energy exercise i try to make my own!
I want to start off by saying if spells worked out as they show us in the movies I'd be at least a millionaire by now. I imagine Scott would be in the top 5 rich people in the world by that logic.
ReplyDeleteThing is, we don't have a precise measure for magical success. Scott has been working for who knows how long to come up with a model that incorporates consciousness and science and all that. Even before I started going down the magical path I began studying how innate predispositions can make someone more aligned with a certain material area of life, be it love/sex, money, job/career, etc.
But thing is it's just two people doing their own thing and that takes a hell of a lot of time. It requires observation and hypothesizing and then experimenting based on whatever hypothesis we'd come up with. If the hypothesis is wrong, we get results that are off with respect to our enquiry. That applies all around, in every research field. That's why, for example, I used to dislike the show "Myth busters" because they often came up with the wrong hypothesis (either by lack of imagination or on purpose).
I've found the problem lies within the occult itself. There's too many occultists posing as eggheads who solely preach their narrow knowledge while condemning pretty much everything else (because it often happens it stands against their income from occult matters). Those people and their followers will never seek to understand the phenomenon in depth, but merely enjoy the fruits of their so called higher knowledge spreading (such as how to make offerings). They will never step outside their comfort zone to experiment, probably because they know very little outside what they came to understand and they're afraid to come across as morons if they started speaking about different things they know little about.
Now to answer your question, I found that the best way to make things work better FOR YOURSELF is to perform pathworkings and the mystical kind of rituals Scott talks about on this blog. They will allow you, in time, to sharpen your magical skills by coming up with all sorts of tricks that will work very well FOR YOU. If that can be replicated on a larger scale, even better as you would've become a vector of progress.
I do rituals for quite long (,2 years since i found Scott s site and 4 before ).
ReplyDeleteI m just adding things i think they could work for myself.For example incorporating various pices of other rituals and adding it to your own.
Like i now add Pentagrams above and below me in Liber Samekh,colours from 4 worlds or Tarot cards while working on Paths or Sephirots in energy work,doing it in Sun Hour etc ..
I m not saying it will work,maybe it work just for me!I m still experimenting and finding my own way.
Some sources say it s best to be disciplined and do rituals (energy work,mindfulness,HGA work etc)every day until a person reaches the state where they understand and modificate parts of rite that s effective to themselves since my natal is unique to me and i need to navigate and study it...
What you think of Book od Archer by Benjamin Rowe?
I
I would say that practicing the rituals to the point that you can modify them to get the best results for you personally is a good way to go. I wish more people would do that and share their results so we can build up a general overall base of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteAs far Benjamin Rowe goes, his work is creative and interesting but I don't find it very relevant to the work that I personally do. Rowe was trained in a system of Qabalah that almost nobody uses and is substantially different from the Golden Dawn / Crowley arrangement and that makes some of his ideas hard to adapt into what I do.
I found out if a natal placement like emphasized Fire planets (strong Pluto and Mars )can be "calmed"by doing LBRP in blue flames or blue water visualization ?
ReplyDeleteFor example when i do LBRP while visualizing blue flames i get a really calm,peacfull effect..if i do in orange or red flames i get ..not calm as water LBRP.
Note:I have emphasized Fire planet so this is the deficitom i made.
Generally speaking, I do not recommend doing this. The LBRP is a general ritual, and as such it is not intended to tune for specific elements. Maybe you can kind of get this to work, but it is conflating the function of this ritual with the proper one for tuning elements, the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram. Doing the forms properly will yield better results.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to banish or reduce the effect of a specific element, use the GBRP for the element to do that. But better still, if what you are looking for is a permanent effect, go ahead and make a talisman of the element that is charged with calming that element down on an ongoing basis. Remember that this works like sphere of influence with planets, so a fire talisman can either increase or decrease the activity of fire.
The LRP and GRP are entirely different rituals that do entirely different things. The GRP is in no way a "souped-up" LRP.
Hi Scott!
ReplyDeleteSo I was wondering...can someone "screw up" a successful spell? Like...let's say they ask for "A"...within a particular time period. Let's say "A" represents an opportunity of some kind. Maybe a job or a meeting, what-have-you. "A" comes along, nicely within the time-frame. Once that happens, can the person then ruin the spell by either missing the job/meeting, or out-right refusing it, or is the success of the spell dependent on the person GETTING to that job/meeting?
I hope this isn't sounding confusing...(or dumb lol). If you asked the spirits for something to be settup...to occur a number of times...let's say in THIS example, it's a weekly meetup of the social gathering-type. Surprisingly, "out of the blue", you float out the idea and it's a smash hit and voila...everyone is down to do it...could things still "flop" at some point? And thus, the whole thing comes crashing down?
I guess my REAL question is...in both examples, once the opportunity has been "delivered", has the spirit done it's job and "washed it's hands" or is the SUCCESS of the what you asked for STILL within it's job task? Or...that part is up to the magician to succeed or screw up however they choose?
(Man, typing this out makes it sound so dumb but I swear in my head it sounds much more existentially tangled lol...)
Thanks Scott!
If you ask the spirit to bring you an opportunity, it is absolutely possible that you could miss it by not taking advantage of it. In that case, it works exactly as you describe - the spirits would align the situation so that the opportunity came to you, and once it did, the spell would be complete and would be a success.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I never ask the spirits for opportunities. I ask them for exactly what I want.
For example, I don't want an opportunity to get a better job. I want a better job. The spell won't complete until I have the better job or the time limit runs out.
If you are asking whether a spell where you ask for what you want will complete when an opportunity is presented to you, the answer to that is no. The success condition is the success condition defined in the charge. It should always be phrased as the true success condition.
Now, it also is true that even when doing this, there are actions you can take that will make your spell less likely to succeed. If you cast a spell to get that better job and then do no job hunting activities, send out no resumes, and so forth it's a lot less likely to work than if you do a lot of those mundane activities. The magick doesn't create something out of nothing, it makes unlikely things more likely.
The idea is that the magick can produce a probability shift of a particular amount. Your mundane actions should be sufficient to bring the likelihood of success within that range. When they overlap, you get a success. The point of doing the magick is that you are going to do substantially better than someone who takes the same mundane steps but does no magick to complement it.
Ahhh I see a little better now. The charge is pretty tricky if you don't know what to look for exactly as the WORDING can be taken quite literally...and in same cases...seems to be.
ReplyDeleteSo let's say, in the example you gave above about having the spirit bring you a better job...arguably it could be that the spirit brings you a job that is--for all intents and purposes--"better" in that the pay is a dollar more and you shave off 10 minutes in your drive there, but you don't necessarily LIKE the job itself, although, technically, it IS a "better job".
That can occur too I'm guessing...if probability shifting is at play...maybe that's "the best you can do" in your situation. So while, in your mind, you're dreaming of a job that you have zero compunctions about getting up for in the morning, the reality is that's just not available and in your present circumstance, a buck more and few extra minutes off your drive is all you can hope for then.
Would LAYERING the request make a difference or would you be piling on TOO many conditions that reality couldn't sustain for you and you are ultimately setting yourself (and the spirit) up for failure?
Some of the lore suggests that the spirits are tricksters or whatever, but the actual deal is that magick is like water flowing downhill - it takes the path of least resistance that fulfills the wording of the charge.
ReplyDeleteSo for a better job, I use this one: "Bring me employment that is in harmony with my will, and which will remain in harmony with my will." Harmony with will is a less nebulous standard than "better," which can mean a lot of things. By referencing my will I am defining myself and my own perspective as the determining factor of "how good" the job I wind up is.
As far as layering additional conditions, it can be a balancing act. Going with the "will" definition means that I can wind up with something that I might not expect to work ahead of time, but which actually works out fine. Or something where there are ton of positives that outweigh a handful of negatives. Stuff like that.
Where it becomes a balancing act is when you want something pretty specific and set about defining it. You don't want to make it so specific that the odds of success are basically zero, but at the same time you want to be as specific as you can within reason. There is a bit of an art to that, a "feel" that you get about how far you should define what you are going for.
That statement alone, "being in harmony with my will", is a game-changer lol. That seems to align greatly with the whole idea of magick itself, especially Crowley's idea.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Scott this is great information like always!
Can longer practice of magick after some time have positive side-effects like making you less anxious about ...some life things?
ReplyDeleteAlso when working with Planetary Entities ,do they after some time can help you without you starting something,like being less influenced by retrogades?
When someone achieves and stabilizes higher Sephirotic states like Geburah s Vision od Power ,does that mean that they are not influenced by Life s suffering,anxiety,depression , negative vibrations and energeticall vampirism of other people ?I mean they understand negative aspects of this Life ,but the vibrations can t destabilaze them !
The answer there is a qualified yes. Usually as you do more magical work, you get better at dealing with things in your life related to the areas in which you are working. It's basically like your aura gets more attuned to those energies, if that makes sense. Over time this also helps to mitigate the effects of astrological conditions of whatever sort.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is qualified because as far as I know, nobody is ever completely free from negativity or bad astrological influences. I've been at this for more than thirty years and I'm still not completely immune to such things. But I'm way better at handling them than I was when I was starting out, and the magick has helped with that a lot.
I will also add that "vampirism" from other people is kind of an exception to the qualifier, because vampiric practices are easy to block and most magicians I know don't have much trouble with them after a few years.
What s the best entity for information reveal and re-location of a job ?
ReplyDeleteIn the planetary arrangement, information and movement would probably be attributed to Mercury.
ReplyDeleteCan a number be used to charge a Planetary Hexagram rite?
ReplyDeleteLike 55555 for Mars Hexagram!
Can research of mythology help understand a tarot card?
Like researching Aphrodite,Venus Will help understanding ATU - Daleth!
Does the ATU Devil by your opinion shows direction of one type of energy ,and on one side the release?
I think it shows a type of stable conductor of energy!
1. Can you explain what you mean a little better here? 5 is the number of Mars and so in a Mars ritual vibrating names 5 times is significant and so forth, just like 5 knocks and/or chimes. But I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "charging a planetary hexagram rite."
ReplyDelete2. Generally it helps to understand Tarot if you learn more about the mythology related to each card.
3. The Devil is Capricorn, and as such it I would definitely relate it to working with energy in general. Not sure what you mean by "side" or "direction," though.
How many times does one need to repeat the ritual in order to get some results?
ReplyDeleteYou generally do not need to repeat rituals to get some result.
ReplyDeleteRepeating rituals on the fly because they don't seem to be working is often a mistake. You should always give a time limit like within the next week, month, etc. Whenever you need to get your results. Longer time frames usually will allow for bigger and better results, but sometimes you need stuff right away. So cast appropriately.
Once your time limit runs out the ritual is complete. You can recast at that point if you did not get a result within the time frame.
You can decide ahead of time that you are going to do a series of rituals for an objective, but it should be decided on ahead of time and part of your design for the operation. You could do something like casting each day for a week, to perform the ritual in the context of all seven ancient planets. Or you could do it a number of times that is significant to the force you are working with, like 6 for the Sun, 9 for the Moon, and so forth based on the planetary number scale.