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The "Holy Trinity" of magical spells newbie magicians ask about online is now complete with the posting of a money spell. Perhaps it is a telling point of human nature that the problems people most want to use magick to solve are issues of money, love, and vengeance - these are all things that are severely circumscribed by our culture an that seem difficult to obtain by normal means.
Money spells are another popular use of magick, dating back as far as we can document. In Medieval times prosperity was based on the ownership of land and agricultural production, but the transition to a more mercantile society during the Renaissance brought with it new applications for this age-old art. The Renaissance saw the rise of alchemy and the pursuit of methods for transforming base metals into gold, and while this is a pursuit that the mystically inclined normally view in a philosophical light there were also a lot of early scientists trying to figure out how to accomplish physical transformations. In the modern age money is essentially information. Paper money issued by governments is backed by the entire economy of the issuing nation, a vast conglomeration of trade and related commercial arrangements, and bank account balances are simply numbers on a page - but numbers of vital importance to our survival.
A money spell cast today will work along these lines. I have yet to see a magician conjure money out of the sky, but I have seen something close. Years ago a local magical group did a big spell to make the group more prosperous. Shortly thereafter $1000.00 mysteriously appeared in the group's bank account, the result of a bank error that coded a $100.00 deposit with an additional zero. The bank did eventually find the error and notified the group that they were going to fix it - and never did. Years later when they transfered the money to another bank the $1000.00 was still there. Still, this is the only case of such a thing that I have ever come across. Normally money spells work in more mundane ways - a bigger bonus or raise at work, a successful business deal that is more profitable than expected, or even a higher than chance rate of success playing the lottery.
Liber 777 places "the power of acquiring wealth" under the domain of the Sun, and the power of "political and other ascendancy" under the domain of Jupiter. Both of these planetary energies can be useful for money spells. The difference is subtle - Jupiter is better when you are looking to make more money in a work situation, get a promotion, or find a better job. The Tarot card associated with Jupiter is Fortune, and as you might expect Jupiter can also be used to increase luck in financial affairs and gain short-term windfalls. The Sun is more suited to wealth, which is not the same thing as money. Wealth consists of resources that provide a longer-term source of funds, like an ongoing successful business or good investments.
Since I am a professional who makes most of my money working for an employer rather than my own business I am more familiar with the Jupiter form of the spell and that is what will be described here. The changes to the ritual form used in the previous spells are as follows:
0. Basic Rituals
You will be using the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Jupiter. The ritual should be performed on a the day of Jupiter (Thursday) during the hour of Jupiter if possible.
00. Preparing the Temple
As with a love spell, you do not need a containment structure so the circle alone will suffice. It should be blue, and you can also trace a square within it in purple. If you are casting the spell with some idea of what your source of funds will be, carry on your person a magical link that represents that source. For example, if the goal is a higher-paying job carry a copy of your resume and make sure that it matches any resumes you will sending to prospective employers. If you really have no idea, then just center the spell on yourself and don't use a link.
I. Opening and II. The Preliminary Invocation
These are the same as in the other two rituals.
III. The Conjuration
Perform the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Jupiter. As you conclude with "Let the divine light descend!", visualize a column of purple light descending into the circle and enveloping you. You then begin to conjure the Spirit of Jupiter. Vibrate the capitalized words. Four is the number of Jupiter, so the names are vibrated four times.
EL, EL, EL, EL (like it looks). Come unto me, God in CHESED (kheh-SED), the sphere of TZEDEQ (tzeh-DEK). Send unto me TZADKIEL (tzahd-kee-EL), that great Archangel of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of El is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
TZADKIEL, TZADKIEL, TZADKIEL, TZADKIEL (tzahd-kee-EL). Come unto me, great and mighty Archangel of CHESED (kheh-SED), the sphere of TZEDEQ (tzeh-DEK), by the name of the great god EL. Send unto me JOPHIEL (joh-fee-EL), that great intelligence of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of Tzadkiel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
JOPHIEL, JOPHIEL, JOPHIEL, JOPHIEL (joh-fee-EL). Come unto me, thou bright intelligence of TZEDEQ (tzeh-DEK), and answer my behest. In the name of TZADKIEL (tzahd-kee-EL) thy lord, compel the spirit HISMAEL (his-may-EL) who is under thy dominion to manifest within this Circle of Art.
Pause until the presence of Jophiel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
HISMAEL, HISMAEL, HISMAEL, HISMAEL (his-may-EL). Come unto me, mighty spirit of TZEDEQ (tzeh-DEK), and make manifest my behest. In the name of JOPHIEL (joh-fee-EL) thy lord, come forth within this Circle of Art that thou mayst wield the powers of the path of KAPH (KAHF), the path of the planet Jupiter.
Pause until the presence of Hismael is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
At this point you deliver the charge to the spirit. Address it to Hismael. This is what you want the spirit to do. You need to write this part yourself, because it’s very personal. You should state what you want simply so that the spirit can’t twist your words around. With a money spell it is good to keep in mind that a lot of people have family members with assets and things like life insurance so that a tragedy like a death in the family could result in riches. It is usually wise to craft the charge so that the spirit is bound to act without causing bodily harm to yourself or others. After all, it would also be a pretty bad outcome to be permanently disabled in a car accident but wind up with a million dollar lawsuit settlement - but you would have your money.
After the charge, pause for a moment before closing the temple.
IV. Closing
The License to Depart should be revised as follows.
O thou EL and thy ministers TZADKIEL (tzahd-kee-EL), JOPHIEL (joh-fee-EL), and HISMAEL (his-may-EL), because thou hast diligently answered unto my demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do here 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, and peace be ever continued between us. So mote it be!
Pause for a moment to give the spirits time to depart. Visualize the purple light being absorbed into yourself.
The rest of the Closing is the same. You're done.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
The Role of Initiation
The first version of this article was published on 6/19/2006 on the previous version of this blog.
A hundred years ago most men belonged to fraternal orders of one sort or another, many of which had initiatory rites largely copied from those of Freemasonry. These days many books on magick and witchcraft support the concept of "self-initiation" and the popularity of secret and semi-secret fraternal orders has waned. Does that mean that formal initiation has become a quaint anachronism, or is it still an effective spiritual technology?
What the concept of self-initiation gets right is that regardless of the rituals and ceremonies you go through and the degree titles you hold, you have to do the corresponding spiritual work yourself. There is no real way around this basic truth. Spiritual realization is experiential - it cannot be taught or even directly explained. Because of this a degree title does not guarantee spiritual wisdom or power. In many organizations, advancement to higher degrees is contingent upon service to the organization rather than actual spiritual attainment, and the fact that someone is a hard worker in the mundane realm says nothing about their capacity for magick or mysticism, or the quality of their realization.
Nonetheless, formal initiation is a powerful method for imprinting the mind with concepts and ideas that will facilitate the spiritual evolution of a dedicated spiritual practitioner who takes those lessons to heart. The secrecy that surrounds initiatory traditions is related to a powerful psychological techique - the mind becomes more sensitive and attuned to information when it is placed in a situation of uncertainty, so an initiatory ritual will create a much more powerful imprint if the candidate does not know what is going to happen. Enough has been published that it is possible with some diligence to locate the degree work of most initiatory orders, but if you ever plan on taking the degrees all you are doing is cheating yourself.
I am convinced that this is the sole practical reason for secrecy surrounding initiation rituals. For much of human history it was believed that secret knowledge was somehow more powerful, but I suspect this belief was due to a misunderstanding of the mechanics of mind. When a candidate knows what is going to happen it is not that current of magical energy is weaker but that the mind expects the form of the ritual and is less moved by it. As a result, the magical effect of the initiation is reduced and a reasonable person might conclude that the power of the rite somehow grows if few know its details. What really happened is that the mind anticipated the actions of the rite, conceptualized them, and processed them ahead of time so no effective imprint was formed.
So does this imprint hypothesis mean that initiations are merely psychological? In a sense the answer is yes, but there is no "merely" about it. All magical rituals raise energy if performed by skilled practitioners. The difference with an initiation is that the psychological imprint allows the psyche of the candidate to be more open to that energy than they might otherwise be, and gives that energy a framework in which to work toward creating change in the candidate's life.
One of the wonders that the Internet has brought us is the concept of "astral initiations" that is, a group of magical practitioners will ask candidates to send them photographs or some other sort of magical link and then perform the initiation rite on the magical link, presumably to transmit a current of energy to the candidate corresponding to the energy summoned by the initiation rite. While the people doing this work may be sincere, I have trouble believing that it is all that effective. Without the imprint, the initiation will not work nearly as well. A magical force may be set in motion, but the effect will be reduced if it has to travel over a magical link and there will be no imprint created since the candidate has not gone through the physical experience of the initiation.
A couple of people have reported to me that they took astral initiations and felt some sort of tangible energy effect, and I believe them - I just think that the effect is unlikely to be any greater than that of performing a self-initiation rite and perhaps that would have been a better route to take. For one thing, it's free. Second of all, I think that any magician will learn a lot more writing and conducting his or her own initiation ritual than he or she will possibly pick up going through any sort of "astral ritual" conducted by others, regardless of how talented those others might be. Better still, though, would be to find a friend who is also a talented magician who can write a ritual that will be completely unfamiliar to the candidate so that an imprint will be properly formed.
Because this can be a difficult situation to set up, existing fraternal bodies still have an important role in initiation. In general, the rituals they perform were originally developed by talented ritualists and improved over the years based on changes that were found to work better for initiating candidates. Such improvements are based on empirical observation that a single individual could never undertake on short notice, and as a result the rituals themselves are cleaner and generally work better. While groups like Ordo Templi Orientis are more explicitly magical, the Masonic fraternity also puts on good initiation rites that have been tested for centuries on millions of candidates, a very impressive track record. Also, Masonic initiations are not only available to men - American Co-Masonry (http://www.co-masonry.org/) offers initiation to both men and women and has lodges in many areas of the country.
If Masonry is any indication, today more and more people are becoming interested in initiation and fraternal orders and seeing the value in joining such organizations. After losing members for a long time, it seems like Masonic lodges are finally starting to find more qualified individuals seeking initiation. The Internet helps make these groups easier to find, and it is clear that this is where many of the inquiries are now originating. My Masonic lodge has a very nice website at http://braden.org/ that has a lot of information, and I am also an initiate of Ordo Templi Orientis (http://oto-usa.org/) and a member of the local OTO lodge (http://www.leapinglaughter.org/) here in Minneapolis. Feel free to check out the links for more information.
A hundred years ago most men belonged to fraternal orders of one sort or another, many of which had initiatory rites largely copied from those of Freemasonry. These days many books on magick and witchcraft support the concept of "self-initiation" and the popularity of secret and semi-secret fraternal orders has waned. Does that mean that formal initiation has become a quaint anachronism, or is it still an effective spiritual technology?
What the concept of self-initiation gets right is that regardless of the rituals and ceremonies you go through and the degree titles you hold, you have to do the corresponding spiritual work yourself. There is no real way around this basic truth. Spiritual realization is experiential - it cannot be taught or even directly explained. Because of this a degree title does not guarantee spiritual wisdom or power. In many organizations, advancement to higher degrees is contingent upon service to the organization rather than actual spiritual attainment, and the fact that someone is a hard worker in the mundane realm says nothing about their capacity for magick or mysticism, or the quality of their realization.
Nonetheless, formal initiation is a powerful method for imprinting the mind with concepts and ideas that will facilitate the spiritual evolution of a dedicated spiritual practitioner who takes those lessons to heart. The secrecy that surrounds initiatory traditions is related to a powerful psychological techique - the mind becomes more sensitive and attuned to information when it is placed in a situation of uncertainty, so an initiatory ritual will create a much more powerful imprint if the candidate does not know what is going to happen. Enough has been published that it is possible with some diligence to locate the degree work of most initiatory orders, but if you ever plan on taking the degrees all you are doing is cheating yourself.
I am convinced that this is the sole practical reason for secrecy surrounding initiation rituals. For much of human history it was believed that secret knowledge was somehow more powerful, but I suspect this belief was due to a misunderstanding of the mechanics of mind. When a candidate knows what is going to happen it is not that current of magical energy is weaker but that the mind expects the form of the ritual and is less moved by it. As a result, the magical effect of the initiation is reduced and a reasonable person might conclude that the power of the rite somehow grows if few know its details. What really happened is that the mind anticipated the actions of the rite, conceptualized them, and processed them ahead of time so no effective imprint was formed.
So does this imprint hypothesis mean that initiations are merely psychological? In a sense the answer is yes, but there is no "merely" about it. All magical rituals raise energy if performed by skilled practitioners. The difference with an initiation is that the psychological imprint allows the psyche of the candidate to be more open to that energy than they might otherwise be, and gives that energy a framework in which to work toward creating change in the candidate's life.
One of the wonders that the Internet has brought us is the concept of "astral initiations" that is, a group of magical practitioners will ask candidates to send them photographs or some other sort of magical link and then perform the initiation rite on the magical link, presumably to transmit a current of energy to the candidate corresponding to the energy summoned by the initiation rite. While the people doing this work may be sincere, I have trouble believing that it is all that effective. Without the imprint, the initiation will not work nearly as well. A magical force may be set in motion, but the effect will be reduced if it has to travel over a magical link and there will be no imprint created since the candidate has not gone through the physical experience of the initiation.
A couple of people have reported to me that they took astral initiations and felt some sort of tangible energy effect, and I believe them - I just think that the effect is unlikely to be any greater than that of performing a self-initiation rite and perhaps that would have been a better route to take. For one thing, it's free. Second of all, I think that any magician will learn a lot more writing and conducting his or her own initiation ritual than he or she will possibly pick up going through any sort of "astral ritual" conducted by others, regardless of how talented those others might be. Better still, though, would be to find a friend who is also a talented magician who can write a ritual that will be completely unfamiliar to the candidate so that an imprint will be properly formed.
Because this can be a difficult situation to set up, existing fraternal bodies still have an important role in initiation. In general, the rituals they perform were originally developed by talented ritualists and improved over the years based on changes that were found to work better for initiating candidates. Such improvements are based on empirical observation that a single individual could never undertake on short notice, and as a result the rituals themselves are cleaner and generally work better. While groups like Ordo Templi Orientis are more explicitly magical, the Masonic fraternity also puts on good initiation rites that have been tested for centuries on millions of candidates, a very impressive track record. Also, Masonic initiations are not only available to men - American Co-Masonry (http://www.co-masonry.org/) offers initiation to both men and women and has lodges in many areas of the country.
If Masonry is any indication, today more and more people are becoming interested in initiation and fraternal orders and seeing the value in joining such organizations. After losing members for a long time, it seems like Masonic lodges are finally starting to find more qualified individuals seeking initiation. The Internet helps make these groups easier to find, and it is clear that this is where many of the inquiries are now originating. My Masonic lodge has a very nice website at http://braden.org/ that has a lot of information, and I am also an initiate of Ordo Templi Orientis (http://oto-usa.org/) and a member of the local OTO lodge (http://www.leapinglaughter.org/) here in Minneapolis. Feel free to check out the links for more information.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Casting a Love Spell
This is the other sort of spell I get asked about all the time. Just about everyone who e-mails me looking for spell advice either wants to curse someone or make someone fall in love with them. I've covered the basic ritual forms in my article on Casting a Curse and the same forms are used for most ceremonial spells. Here are the changes that you need to make to the Saturn operation described in the cursing article to change it from a curse to a love spell, and some comments on how such spells work.
Love spells are among the oldest magical operations that can be documented. Of course, that makes a lot of sense since the desire for love is one of the most basic human impulses. In the Hermetic Qabalah love spells are logically placed under the rulership of Venus, the planet named after the Roman goddess of love. There are two basic ways to construct a love spell:
(1) A love spell cast on a specific target - "make person x fall in love with me."
(2) A love spell cast without a specific target - "bring me love with the most suitable partner."
I favor Method 2 in my own magical work. First of all, with Method 1 you are attempting to directly influence the will of a specific individual who presumably is not interested in you as a romantic partner (since if they were you wouldn't need a spell), and I see this as an unethical use of magick. Second of all, it is significantly less likely to work. Magick manipulates probabilities and as a result you are more likely to succeed if there are many ways in which a spell can achieve your objectives. Limiting your spell to a single person limits the possible success conditions, and if the person you are seeking really is the most suitable partner for you the spell will affect them anyway. On the other hand, if they are more unsuitable than they appear the spell will bring you someone else and you will be happier with the outcome.
Here are the changes to the ritual forms.
0. Basic Rituals
You will be replacing the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Saturn with the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Venus. The ritual should be performed on a the day of Venus (Friday) during the hour of Venus if possible.
00. Preparing the Temple
You do not need a containment structure for a love spell, since in this case you want to be affected by the same magical field as the target. Therefore, the circle alone will suffice. It should be green, and you can also trace a seven-pointed star within it, also in green. If you are using Method 1, you will want to have on your person some sort of link to the target, like a photograph. If you are using Method 2, you do not need a link to any specific person.
I. Opening and II. The Preliminary Invocation
These are the same as in the Saturn operation.
III. The Conjuration
Perform the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Venus. As you conclude with "Let the divine light descend!", visualize a column of emerald green light descending into the circle and enveloping you. You then begin to conjure the Spirit of Venus. Vibrate the capitalized words. Seven is the number of Venus, so the names are vibrated seven times. A helpful trick is to count on your fingers as you vibrate the names, because it is easy to lose your place when vibrating a name seven times in a row.
YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH (yah-WEH tzah-bah-OTH). Come unto me, God in NETZACH (net-ZAKH), the sphere of NOGAH (noh-GAH). Send unto me HANIEL (hah-nee-EL), that great Archangel of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of Yahweh Tzabaoth is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL (hah-nee-EL). Come unto me, great and mighty Archangel of NETZACH (net-ZAKH), the sphere of NOGAH (noh-GAH) by the name of the great god YAHWEH TZABAOTH (yah-WEH tzah-bah-OTH). Send unto me HAGIEL (hah-ghee-EL), that great intelligence of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of Haniel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL (hah-ghee-EL). Come unto me, thou bright intelligence of NOGAH (noh-GAH) , and answer my behest. In the name of HANIEL (hah-nee-EL) thy lord, compel the spirit KEDEMEL (keh-deh-MEL) who is under thy dominion to manifest within this Circle of Art.
Pause until the presence of Hagiel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL (keh-deh-MEL). Come unto me, mighty spirit of NOGAH (noh-GAH), and make manifest my behest. In the name of HAGIEL (hah-ghee-EL) thy lord, come forth within this Circle of Art that thou mayst wield the powers of the path of DALETH (dah-LETH), the path of the planet Venus.
Pause until the presence of Kedemel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
At this point, you deliver the charge to the spirit. Address it to Kedemel. This is what you want the spirit to do, either using Method 1 or Method 2 above. You need to write this part yourself, because it’s very personal. You should state what you want simply so that the spirit can’t twist your words around. After the charge, pause for a moment before closing the temple.
IV. Closing
The License to Depart should be revised as follows.
O thou YAHWEH TZABAOTH (yah-WEH tza-bah-OTH) and thy ministers HANIEL (hah-nee-EL), HAGIEL (hah-ghee-EL), and KEDEMEL (keh-deh-MEL), because thou hast-diligently answered unto my demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do here 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, and peace be ever continued between us. So mote it be!
Pause for a moment to give the spirits time to depart. If you are using Method 1, visualize the emerald green light in the circle sinking into the magical link and vanishing. For Method 2, visualize the light being absorbed into you.
The rest of the Closing is the same. You're done.
Love spells are among the oldest magical operations that can be documented. Of course, that makes a lot of sense since the desire for love is one of the most basic human impulses. In the Hermetic Qabalah love spells are logically placed under the rulership of Venus, the planet named after the Roman goddess of love. There are two basic ways to construct a love spell:
(1) A love spell cast on a specific target - "make person x fall in love with me."
(2) A love spell cast without a specific target - "bring me love with the most suitable partner."
I favor Method 2 in my own magical work. First of all, with Method 1 you are attempting to directly influence the will of a specific individual who presumably is not interested in you as a romantic partner (since if they were you wouldn't need a spell), and I see this as an unethical use of magick. Second of all, it is significantly less likely to work. Magick manipulates probabilities and as a result you are more likely to succeed if there are many ways in which a spell can achieve your objectives. Limiting your spell to a single person limits the possible success conditions, and if the person you are seeking really is the most suitable partner for you the spell will affect them anyway. On the other hand, if they are more unsuitable than they appear the spell will bring you someone else and you will be happier with the outcome.
Here are the changes to the ritual forms.
0. Basic Rituals
You will be replacing the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Saturn with the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Venus. The ritual should be performed on a the day of Venus (Friday) during the hour of Venus if possible.
00. Preparing the Temple
You do not need a containment structure for a love spell, since in this case you want to be affected by the same magical field as the target. Therefore, the circle alone will suffice. It should be green, and you can also trace a seven-pointed star within it, also in green. If you are using Method 1, you will want to have on your person some sort of link to the target, like a photograph. If you are using Method 2, you do not need a link to any specific person.
I. Opening and II. The Preliminary Invocation
These are the same as in the Saturn operation.
III. The Conjuration
Perform the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Venus. As you conclude with "Let the divine light descend!", visualize a column of emerald green light descending into the circle and enveloping you. You then begin to conjure the Spirit of Venus. Vibrate the capitalized words. Seven is the number of Venus, so the names are vibrated seven times. A helpful trick is to count on your fingers as you vibrate the names, because it is easy to lose your place when vibrating a name seven times in a row.
YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH, YAHWEH TZABAOTH (yah-WEH tzah-bah-OTH). Come unto me, God in NETZACH (net-ZAKH), the sphere of NOGAH (noh-GAH). Send unto me HANIEL (hah-nee-EL), that great Archangel of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of Yahweh Tzabaoth is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL, HANIEL (hah-nee-EL). Come unto me, great and mighty Archangel of NETZACH (net-ZAKH), the sphere of NOGAH (noh-GAH) by the name of the great god YAHWEH TZABAOTH (yah-WEH tzah-bah-OTH). Send unto me HAGIEL (hah-ghee-EL), that great intelligence of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of Haniel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL, HAGIEL (hah-ghee-EL). Come unto me, thou bright intelligence of NOGAH (noh-GAH) , and answer my behest. In the name of HANIEL (hah-nee-EL) thy lord, compel the spirit KEDEMEL (keh-deh-MEL) who is under thy dominion to manifest within this Circle of Art.
Pause until the presence of Hagiel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL, KEDEMEL (keh-deh-MEL). Come unto me, mighty spirit of NOGAH (noh-GAH), and make manifest my behest. In the name of HAGIEL (hah-ghee-EL) thy lord, come forth within this Circle of Art that thou mayst wield the powers of the path of DALETH (dah-LETH), the path of the planet Venus.
Pause until the presence of Kedemel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
At this point, you deliver the charge to the spirit. Address it to Kedemel. This is what you want the spirit to do, either using Method 1 or Method 2 above. You need to write this part yourself, because it’s very personal. You should state what you want simply so that the spirit can’t twist your words around. After the charge, pause for a moment before closing the temple.
IV. Closing
The License to Depart should be revised as follows.
O thou YAHWEH TZABAOTH (yah-WEH tza-bah-OTH) and thy ministers HANIEL (hah-nee-EL), HAGIEL (hah-ghee-EL), and KEDEMEL (keh-deh-MEL), because thou hast-diligently answered unto my demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do here 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, and peace be ever continued between us. So mote it be!
Pause for a moment to give the spirits time to depart. If you are using Method 1, visualize the emerald green light in the circle sinking into the magical link and vanishing. For Method 2, visualize the light being absorbed into you.
The rest of the Closing is the same. You're done.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Casting a Curse
This article was originally posted on 10/19/2006 on the original version of this blog. It also alludes to the Ananael site, my other ritual magick site that is also currently down. Putting it online again gives me a new link to send out to folks who want to know how to cast curses. Let me emphasize that I am in no way encouraging anyone to start going around cursing people just because I am publishing this method - often it's a very bad idea.
Every so often I get an e-mail from someone who wants to know how to cast a curse against an enemy or somebody who has wronged them in some way. I had a pretty good Collection of Curses compiled by the alt.magick community years ago on my Ananael site, but what was missing from that collection is a formal ceremonial cursing spell. A while back I decided to write one, so that I would have something to send people who asked how I would go about doing it. Most of the people I have sent this to have found it to be "too difficult." I have a couple of responses to that.
Use a simpler curse. If the ceremonial system doesn't appeal to you or seems too complex, try using a different spell. Some of the curses in the collection are pretty simple and it is not necessarily true that a more complex ritual will be more powerful. In fact, a simple curse that you completely understand will usually be more effective than a complex one read haltingly from a script.
Did you think real magick would work anything like it does in Harry Potter? In the Harry Potter books and movies, you become a magician by (1) finding the right wand and (2) learning how to make a simple hand motion as you say one or two magick words. I've practiced for more than 20 years and I will say that I can often make magical effects work like that - now. It took a lot of years of practice to get there, though, and I still find that rituals using the proper forms are significantly more effective than the "quickie" magick that I can do without them.
Did you think you could do this without any work at all on your part? One of the common misconceptions about magick is that it is an easy way to solve problems. It isn't. Magick is like a martial art for your mind. It requires concentration, discipline, and dedication. If a mundane solution to a problem exists, that solution is usually easier than doing any kind of magick. Magick is more properly used when a simple mundane solution does not present itself, or when mundane solutions have already failed to resolve the problem.
These people usually respond by asking if they can pay me to cast the spell. Anyone considering this should consult the Ananael FAQ. I'm not in the business of casting spells for other people - at present I make plenty of money as a software developer, and I'm not interesting in involving myself in drama or conflict that doesn't concern me. Anyone who is determined to hire someone could try contacting Moloch at http://www.molochsorcery.com/. He advertises spell services on his web site and from his essays appears to be pretty knowledgeable about practical magick.
That being said, there are two basic ways to cast a curse and both are planetary in nature - Mars and Saturn. The magical power for Mars is "works of wrath and vengeance" while that for Saturn is "works of malediction and death." Malediction simply refers to any sort of negative influence, so Saturn can be used for a death spell or just to make someone unlucky for a day or two. It all depends on the charge given to the spirit - though as with all other magical effects, less likely outcomes are more difficult. A bad luck spell is pretty easy, while a death spell is rather difficult
I prefer to use Saturn for curses, simply because Mars is more violent and more concerned with making the target suffer. I don't personally really care if the target of a curse suffers - I'm casting the curse to resolve a problem and I just want it to go away. If I cast a curse so that an evil boss will no longer work for my company, it makes little difference to me whether that individual is fired over some traumatic scandal or gets a better job offer elsewhere and takes it. Either way, I no longer have to deal with them and that's what I care about.
The following ritual evokes the energy of Saturn for the purpose of sending a curse to a specific external target. The magical power associated with Saturn is “Works of Malediction and Death.” Thus, depending on the charge given to the spirit, this ritual can be used to send anything ranging from general bad luck up to and including death.
0. Basic Rituals
This ritual is written using standard Golden Dawn forms. There are three basic rituals that should ideally be committed to memory prior to attempting the entire rite. Ritual magick works by aligning the microcosm (your mind) with the macrocosm (the universe). Once the two are aligned, changes in the mind of the magician will influence whatever aspect of the universe is targeted by the magical operation. The three basic rituals used here are the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (microcosmic), the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram (macrocosmic), and the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Saturn, which tunes the energy of the ritual to that of the planet. The Lesser rituals should be practiced daily for a week or so leading up to the actual rite. A curse of this nature should be performed on a Saturday, and if you possible during the hour of Saturn. I use ChronosXP to calculate planetary hours - it is a very nice program and even sits on your desktop, announcing each planetary hour as it arrives.
00. Temple Setup
When casting a curse it is important to pay attention to the setup of the temple. You will need a black circle on the floor large enough for you to stand in and extend your arms without crossing the edge. The traditional grimoires recommend nine feet in diameter, which is perfect if you have the space. If not, it can be smaller, but you want to make sure that every part of your body stays inside it for the duration of the ritual. You will also need a black equilateral triangle three feet or so on a side which is placed to the east of the circle with one of the points facing due east. It is vital that the circle and triangle are used in a ritual of this sort. A good way to make a temporary circle and triangle is to go to a party store and get a couple of rolls of black crepe paper. Then get some duck tape and tape the paper to the floor in the proper shape. This takes a little while but the effect is nice. When you’re done with the ritual, you can burn the paper, which is not strictly necessary (it can be thrown away too) but gives a stronger sense of closure to a rite.
There is only one way you can be hurt by a curse that you are summoning – if you try to cast it without the circle and triangle. Wiccans teach that magick follows something called the Threefold Law. They believe that if you cast something into the world it will “rebound” and affect you in the same manner as it affects the target. They also believe that it will affect you three times as severely. The “threefold” part of this is superstitious nonsense, but if you just use a circle without the triangle you can be affected in the same manner and to the same degree as the target.
Wiccans don’t generally use triangles in their rituals, so this effect is probably the origin of the Threefold Law doctrine. The problem is not that the spell rebounds or bounces, but that if you just use a circle you are putting yourself in the same “magical space” as the target and will be hit by the same current of energy. The triangle serves to put you and the target in separate magical spaces, so you can summon energy into the triangle without it affecting you in the circle. That’s a technical explanation, but the upshot of it is that you should make sure you use the circle and triangle, because otherwise bad things can happen to you.
When performing the ritual you will be standing in the circle. You will need to place a Magical Link in the triangle. This should be something that has a close connection to the target of the spell. A photograph works well, but make sure it’s a photograph of just the target and not anyone else. If necessary, cut the figure of the target out of a photograph of multiple people with a razor blade or x-acto knife and use that as your link. You can also use things like hair or fingernail clippings, but those are often hard to obtain. A photograph has the added advantage that you can draw the Characters for Saturn and the Intelligence and Spirit you will be summoning over the image of the target. You can also use a black candle placed in the triangle - it makes a nice focus for the conjuration.
I. Opening
Stand in the center of the circle, facing east.
Perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.
Perform the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram.
Combining these two rituals opens the Operant Field.
II. The Preliminary Invocation
Make the Sign of Apophis and Typhon (raise your arms above your head, forming a “V”). Say:
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. This sign is made by dropping your arms and placing your right index finger to your lips. Pause for a moment.
Then say:
Peh Resh Kaph Tau. The word is PAROKETH, which is the veil of the sanctuary. In and by that word (Make the Sign of Rending the Veil – put your arms in front of you with the backs of your hands touching, and then draw them apart as if opening a heavy curtain), I open the veil.
Pause for a moment, then vibrate:
ABRAHADABRA!
Make the Sign of Osiris Risen, crossing your arms over your chest like an Egyptian mummy. Visualize yourself and the entire circle permeated with glowing, golden light.
III. The Conjuration
Perform the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Saturn.
As you conclude with "Let the divine light descend!", visualize a column of dark purple light, almost black descending into the triangle and permeating the magical link. The circle remains bathed in golden light. You then begin to conjure the Spirit of Saturn. Vibrate the capitalized words.
ELOHIM, ELOHIM, ELOHIM. (el-oh-HEEM) Come unto me, God in BINAH (bee-NAH), the sphere of SHABBATAI (shah-bah-TYE). Send unto me TZAPHKIEL (tzaf-kee-EL), that great Archangel of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of Elohim is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
TZAPHKIEL, TZAPHKIEL, TZAPHKIEL. (tzaf-kee-EL) Come unto me, great and mighty Archangel of BINAH (bee-NAH), the sphere of SHABBATAI (shah-bah-TYE). by the name of the great god ELOHIM (el-oh-HEEM). Send unto me AGIEL (ah-ghee-EL), that great intelligence of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of Tzaphkiel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
AGIEL, AGIEL, AGIEL. (ah-ghee-EL) Come unto me, thou bright intelligence of SHABBATAI (shah-bah-TYE), and answer my behest. In the name of TZAPHKIEL (tzaf-kee-EL) thy lord, compel the spirit ZAZEL (zah-ZEL) who is under thy dominion to manifest within this Triangle of Art.
Pause until the presence of Agiel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
ZAZEL, ZAZEL, ZAZEL. (zah-ZEL) Come unto me, mighty spirit of SHABBATAI (shah-bah-TYE), and make manifest my behest. In the name of AGIEL (ah-ghee-EL) thy lord, come forth within this Triangle of Art that thou mayst wield the powers of the path of TAU (pronounced like it looks), the path of the planet Saturn.
Pause until the presence of Zazel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
At this point, you deliver the charge to the spirit. Address it to Zazel. This is what you want the spirit to do. You need to write this part yourself, because it’s very personal. You should state what you want simply so that the spirit can’t twist your words around.
After the charge, pause for a moment before closing the temple.
IV. Closing
You then give the license to depart.
O thou ELOHIM (el-oh-HEEM) and thy ministers TZAPHKIEL (tzaf-kee-EL), AGIEL (ah-ghee-EL), and ZAZEL (zah-ZEL), because thou hast-diligently answered unto my demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do here 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, and peace be ever continued between us. So mote it be!
Pause for a moment to give the spirits time to depart. Visualize the dark purple light in the triangle sinking into the magical link and vanishing.
Peh Resh Kaph Tau. The word is PAROKETH. In and by that word (Make the Sign of Closing the Veil – bring your hands together in front of you as though closing a curtain), I close the veil.
Give the Sign of Silence by putting your right index finger to your lip and visualize the golden light in the circle fading away.
Perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. You’re done.
Every so often I get an e-mail from someone who wants to know how to cast a curse against an enemy or somebody who has wronged them in some way. I had a pretty good Collection of Curses compiled by the alt.magick community years ago on my Ananael site, but what was missing from that collection is a formal ceremonial cursing spell. A while back I decided to write one, so that I would have something to send people who asked how I would go about doing it. Most of the people I have sent this to have found it to be "too difficult." I have a couple of responses to that.Use a simpler curse. If the ceremonial system doesn't appeal to you or seems too complex, try using a different spell. Some of the curses in the collection are pretty simple and it is not necessarily true that a more complex ritual will be more powerful. In fact, a simple curse that you completely understand will usually be more effective than a complex one read haltingly from a script.
Did you think real magick would work anything like it does in Harry Potter? In the Harry Potter books and movies, you become a magician by (1) finding the right wand and (2) learning how to make a simple hand motion as you say one or two magick words. I've practiced for more than 20 years and I will say that I can often make magical effects work like that - now. It took a lot of years of practice to get there, though, and I still find that rituals using the proper forms are significantly more effective than the "quickie" magick that I can do without them.
Did you think you could do this without any work at all on your part? One of the common misconceptions about magick is that it is an easy way to solve problems. It isn't. Magick is like a martial art for your mind. It requires concentration, discipline, and dedication. If a mundane solution to a problem exists, that solution is usually easier than doing any kind of magick. Magick is more properly used when a simple mundane solution does not present itself, or when mundane solutions have already failed to resolve the problem.
These people usually respond by asking if they can pay me to cast the spell. Anyone considering this should consult the Ananael FAQ. I'm not in the business of casting spells for other people - at present I make plenty of money as a software developer, and I'm not interesting in involving myself in drama or conflict that doesn't concern me. Anyone who is determined to hire someone could try contacting Moloch at http://www.molochsorcery.com/. He advertises spell services on his web site and from his essays appears to be pretty knowledgeable about practical magick.
That being said, there are two basic ways to cast a curse and both are planetary in nature - Mars and Saturn. The magical power for Mars is "works of wrath and vengeance" while that for Saturn is "works of malediction and death." Malediction simply refers to any sort of negative influence, so Saturn can be used for a death spell or just to make someone unlucky for a day or two. It all depends on the charge given to the spirit - though as with all other magical effects, less likely outcomes are more difficult. A bad luck spell is pretty easy, while a death spell is rather difficult
I prefer to use Saturn for curses, simply because Mars is more violent and more concerned with making the target suffer. I don't personally really care if the target of a curse suffers - I'm casting the curse to resolve a problem and I just want it to go away. If I cast a curse so that an evil boss will no longer work for my company, it makes little difference to me whether that individual is fired over some traumatic scandal or gets a better job offer elsewhere and takes it. Either way, I no longer have to deal with them and that's what I care about.
The following ritual evokes the energy of Saturn for the purpose of sending a curse to a specific external target. The magical power associated with Saturn is “Works of Malediction and Death.” Thus, depending on the charge given to the spirit, this ritual can be used to send anything ranging from general bad luck up to and including death.
0. Basic Rituals
This ritual is written using standard Golden Dawn forms. There are three basic rituals that should ideally be committed to memory prior to attempting the entire rite. Ritual magick works by aligning the microcosm (your mind) with the macrocosm (the universe). Once the two are aligned, changes in the mind of the magician will influence whatever aspect of the universe is targeted by the magical operation. The three basic rituals used here are the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (microcosmic), the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram (macrocosmic), and the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Saturn, which tunes the energy of the ritual to that of the planet. The Lesser rituals should be practiced daily for a week or so leading up to the actual rite. A curse of this nature should be performed on a Saturday, and if you possible during the hour of Saturn. I use ChronosXP to calculate planetary hours - it is a very nice program and even sits on your desktop, announcing each planetary hour as it arrives.
00. Temple Setup
When casting a curse it is important to pay attention to the setup of the temple. You will need a black circle on the floor large enough for you to stand in and extend your arms without crossing the edge. The traditional grimoires recommend nine feet in diameter, which is perfect if you have the space. If not, it can be smaller, but you want to make sure that every part of your body stays inside it for the duration of the ritual. You will also need a black equilateral triangle three feet or so on a side which is placed to the east of the circle with one of the points facing due east. It is vital that the circle and triangle are used in a ritual of this sort. A good way to make a temporary circle and triangle is to go to a party store and get a couple of rolls of black crepe paper. Then get some duck tape and tape the paper to the floor in the proper shape. This takes a little while but the effect is nice. When you’re done with the ritual, you can burn the paper, which is not strictly necessary (it can be thrown away too) but gives a stronger sense of closure to a rite.
There is only one way you can be hurt by a curse that you are summoning – if you try to cast it without the circle and triangle. Wiccans teach that magick follows something called the Threefold Law. They believe that if you cast something into the world it will “rebound” and affect you in the same manner as it affects the target. They also believe that it will affect you three times as severely. The “threefold” part of this is superstitious nonsense, but if you just use a circle without the triangle you can be affected in the same manner and to the same degree as the target.
Wiccans don’t generally use triangles in their rituals, so this effect is probably the origin of the Threefold Law doctrine. The problem is not that the spell rebounds or bounces, but that if you just use a circle you are putting yourself in the same “magical space” as the target and will be hit by the same current of energy. The triangle serves to put you and the target in separate magical spaces, so you can summon energy into the triangle without it affecting you in the circle. That’s a technical explanation, but the upshot of it is that you should make sure you use the circle and triangle, because otherwise bad things can happen to you.
When performing the ritual you will be standing in the circle. You will need to place a Magical Link in the triangle. This should be something that has a close connection to the target of the spell. A photograph works well, but make sure it’s a photograph of just the target and not anyone else. If necessary, cut the figure of the target out of a photograph of multiple people with a razor blade or x-acto knife and use that as your link. You can also use things like hair or fingernail clippings, but those are often hard to obtain. A photograph has the added advantage that you can draw the Characters for Saturn and the Intelligence and Spirit you will be summoning over the image of the target. You can also use a black candle placed in the triangle - it makes a nice focus for the conjuration.
I. Opening
Stand in the center of the circle, facing east.
Perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.
Perform the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram.
Combining these two rituals opens the Operant Field.
II. The Preliminary Invocation
Make the Sign of Apophis and Typhon (raise your arms above your head, forming a “V”). Say:
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. This sign is made by dropping your arms and placing your right index finger to your lips. Pause for a moment.
Then say:
Peh Resh Kaph Tau. The word is PAROKETH, which is the veil of the sanctuary. In and by that word (Make the Sign of Rending the Veil – put your arms in front of you with the backs of your hands touching, and then draw them apart as if opening a heavy curtain), I open the veil.
Pause for a moment, then vibrate:
ABRAHADABRA!
Make the Sign of Osiris Risen, crossing your arms over your chest like an Egyptian mummy. Visualize yourself and the entire circle permeated with glowing, golden light.
III. The Conjuration
Perform the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram for Saturn.
As you conclude with "Let the divine light descend!", visualize a column of dark purple light, almost black descending into the triangle and permeating the magical link. The circle remains bathed in golden light. You then begin to conjure the Spirit of Saturn. Vibrate the capitalized words.
ELOHIM, ELOHIM, ELOHIM. (el-oh-HEEM) Come unto me, God in BINAH (bee-NAH), the sphere of SHABBATAI (shah-bah-TYE). Send unto me TZAPHKIEL (tzaf-kee-EL), that great Archangel of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of Elohim is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
TZAPHKIEL, TZAPHKIEL, TZAPHKIEL. (tzaf-kee-EL) Come unto me, great and mighty Archangel of BINAH (bee-NAH), the sphere of SHABBATAI (shah-bah-TYE). by the name of the great god ELOHIM (el-oh-HEEM). Send unto me AGIEL (ah-ghee-EL), that great intelligence of thine, that he may answer my behest.
Pause until the presence of Tzaphkiel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
AGIEL, AGIEL, AGIEL. (ah-ghee-EL) Come unto me, thou bright intelligence of SHABBATAI (shah-bah-TYE), and answer my behest. In the name of TZAPHKIEL (tzaf-kee-EL) thy lord, compel the spirit ZAZEL (zah-ZEL) who is under thy dominion to manifest within this Triangle of Art.
Pause until the presence of Agiel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
ZAZEL, ZAZEL, ZAZEL. (zah-ZEL) Come unto me, mighty spirit of SHABBATAI (shah-bah-TYE), and make manifest my behest. In the name of AGIEL (ah-ghee-EL) thy lord, come forth within this Triangle of Art that thou mayst wield the powers of the path of TAU (pronounced like it looks), the path of the planet Saturn.
Pause until the presence of Zazel is perceived. If you don’t feel anything or see anything, wait three minutes or so before continuing.
At this point, you deliver the charge to the spirit. Address it to Zazel. This is what you want the spirit to do. You need to write this part yourself, because it’s very personal. You should state what you want simply so that the spirit can’t twist your words around.
After the charge, pause for a moment before closing the temple.
IV. Closing
You then give the license to depart.
O thou ELOHIM (el-oh-HEEM) and thy ministers TZAPHKIEL (tzaf-kee-EL), AGIEL (ah-ghee-EL), and ZAZEL (zah-ZEL), because thou hast-diligently answered unto my demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do here 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, and peace be ever continued between us. So mote it be!
Pause for a moment to give the spirits time to depart. Visualize the dark purple light in the triangle sinking into the magical link and vanishing.
Peh Resh Kaph Tau. The word is PAROKETH. In and by that word (Make the Sign of Closing the Veil – bring your hands together in front of you as though closing a curtain), I close the veil.
Give the Sign of Silence by putting your right index finger to your lip and visualize the golden light in the circle fading away.
Perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. You’re done.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Review: Enochian Initiation by Frater W.I.T.
Originally posted on 11/2/2006 on the previous version of this blog. It's good publicity for a fellow OTO brother who self-published this excellent piece of magical work.
I just finished Enochian Initiation by Frater W.I.T. and found it to be a fascinating piece of magical work. It is exactly the sort of magical research that I have contended for years that our community should be publishing. Except under certain specific circumstances (like initiation rituals that are designed to surprise the candidate in some way) secrecy is not terribly useful in magick, despite a great deal of prejudice in favor of keeping magical teachings hidden throughout the history of the Western Esoteric Tradition. If even a dozen or so magicians a year could publish a collection of magical diaries like this every year we would be well on our way to building a collection of techniques and practices that would be effective for many people.
The book is made up of two sections. The first is a collection of magical journal entries spanning five years, from 1999 to 2004. During that period the author invoked all of the Kings and Seniors who inhabit the Watchtowers of John Dee and Edward Kelly's Enochian system of magick twice. The first round of invocations was done quickly, more to get a feel for the nature of the energies involved, and the second was slower and more deliberate, done with the intention of fully assimilating and integrating the nature of each King and Senior. The second section of the book consists of the temple rituals used in the invocations along with commentary on them.
The author works from the perspective of the Golden Dawn elemental mappings for the four quadrants of the Watchtowers, and uses the Golden Dawn order for the Angelic Keys or Calls. I've explained some of my concerns about those attributions in other articles, but it is also true that a number of modern magicians have observed that the Enochian system adapts well to various symbolic mappings. Whatever intellectual criticism can be leveled against the Golden Dawn system, it is basically coherent and has been used for many years. From the journal entries in the book, it clearly works, at least for the author. Many of the visions described are quite profound and seem to follow the general order of unfolding realization described in many spiritual systems, not just Western Esotericism. Looking at the cover of the book I also realized that if you place the quadrants of the Reformed Tablet as they appear in Dee's 1587 diagram and use the Golden Dawn elemental attributions for the Kings, they follow the order of the points of the pentagram. I spent years studying the Reformed Tablet and never made that connection.
As an interesting observation, here is another magician who has figured out the Operant Field. The author uses Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram to open his rituals and moves on to the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram rather than the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram recommended by Donald Michael Kraig and many other modern magical writers. In my experience, following the LBRP with the LIRH is much more effective for any sort of practical magical work, and most of the skilled magicians that I know use the invoking form of the Lesser Hexagram as well. Also, the author went ahead and developed his own Thelemic keyword analysis, which is a step that our ritual group took as well. It's helpful to do that because the standard Golden Dawn version represents the aeonic formula of Osiris while Thelemites work with that of Horus.
The only real criticism of the book that I can put forth is that I would have liked to see more examples from the author's life that could clarify how well these rituals actually worked. Especially toward the beginning of the book the author keeps talking about how he invoked one angel or another "to excellent effect." In my experience, it is not that difficult to perform a magical ritual that "feels good." To be sure that a ritual is working, you need to look at your life and see if unlikely things that support the objective of the rite or are in some way related to it are really happening. Of course, since the author published the book under a pseudonym he probably wants to remain at least somewhat anonymous, and that would preclude the inclusion of detailed personal information beyond the workings themselves.
In short, the book is excellent and I recommend it to any serious ritual magician, especially anyone interested in the Enochian system. At some point in the future my magical working group may try working through the Kings and Seniors and see if we get similar results.
Want to buy your own copy of Enochian Initiation by Frater W.I.T.? Order from my Books and Media page and you can help support Augoeides.
I just finished Enochian Initiation by Frater W.I.T. and found it to be a fascinating piece of magical work. It is exactly the sort of magical research that I have contended for years that our community should be publishing. Except under certain specific circumstances (like initiation rituals that are designed to surprise the candidate in some way) secrecy is not terribly useful in magick, despite a great deal of prejudice in favor of keeping magical teachings hidden throughout the history of the Western Esoteric Tradition. If even a dozen or so magicians a year could publish a collection of magical diaries like this every year we would be well on our way to building a collection of techniques and practices that would be effective for many people.The book is made up of two sections. The first is a collection of magical journal entries spanning five years, from 1999 to 2004. During that period the author invoked all of the Kings and Seniors who inhabit the Watchtowers of John Dee and Edward Kelly's Enochian system of magick twice. The first round of invocations was done quickly, more to get a feel for the nature of the energies involved, and the second was slower and more deliberate, done with the intention of fully assimilating and integrating the nature of each King and Senior. The second section of the book consists of the temple rituals used in the invocations along with commentary on them.
The author works from the perspective of the Golden Dawn elemental mappings for the four quadrants of the Watchtowers, and uses the Golden Dawn order for the Angelic Keys or Calls. I've explained some of my concerns about those attributions in other articles, but it is also true that a number of modern magicians have observed that the Enochian system adapts well to various symbolic mappings. Whatever intellectual criticism can be leveled against the Golden Dawn system, it is basically coherent and has been used for many years. From the journal entries in the book, it clearly works, at least for the author. Many of the visions described are quite profound and seem to follow the general order of unfolding realization described in many spiritual systems, not just Western Esotericism. Looking at the cover of the book I also realized that if you place the quadrants of the Reformed Tablet as they appear in Dee's 1587 diagram and use the Golden Dawn elemental attributions for the Kings, they follow the order of the points of the pentagram. I spent years studying the Reformed Tablet and never made that connection.
As an interesting observation, here is another magician who has figured out the Operant Field. The author uses Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram to open his rituals and moves on to the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram rather than the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram recommended by Donald Michael Kraig and many other modern magical writers. In my experience, following the LBRP with the LIRH is much more effective for any sort of practical magical work, and most of the skilled magicians that I know use the invoking form of the Lesser Hexagram as well. Also, the author went ahead and developed his own Thelemic keyword analysis, which is a step that our ritual group took as well. It's helpful to do that because the standard Golden Dawn version represents the aeonic formula of Osiris while Thelemites work with that of Horus.
The only real criticism of the book that I can put forth is that I would have liked to see more examples from the author's life that could clarify how well these rituals actually worked. Especially toward the beginning of the book the author keeps talking about how he invoked one angel or another "to excellent effect." In my experience, it is not that difficult to perform a magical ritual that "feels good." To be sure that a ritual is working, you need to look at your life and see if unlikely things that support the objective of the rite or are in some way related to it are really happening. Of course, since the author published the book under a pseudonym he probably wants to remain at least somewhat anonymous, and that would preclude the inclusion of detailed personal information beyond the workings themselves.
In short, the book is excellent and I recommend it to any serious ritual magician, especially anyone interested in the Enochian system. At some point in the future my magical working group may try working through the Kings and Seniors and see if we get similar results.
Want to buy your own copy of Enochian Initiation by Frater W.I.T.? Order from my Books and Media page and you can help support Augoeides.
The Operant Field
I am currently in the process of trying to get my first book published. It is entitled Operant Magick and is essentially a textbook on ritual magick incorporating some of my own personal theories and research along with key concepts from the Western Esoteric Tradition. One of the key concepts that I introduce in the book is the operant field. I use this term all the time when discussing ritual work and it appears nowhere in any other published source on ritual magick, so here's a basic overview of the idea.
UPDATE: Operant Magick turned out to be a bust. First Weiser and then another publisher basically jerked me around for years. Weiser finally rejected it on the grounds that it was "too advanced" and they didn't think it would sell. I was upset about this at the time, not only because they had wasted so much of my time mulling the thing over but also because the focus on "beginner books" means that nothing "more advanced" ever gets published. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The thing is, statistically speaking, nobody is interested in magick. What I didn't understand then that I understand now is that if you can't get beginners to buy your book, it's very likely that almost nobody will.
Anyway, much of the material from the book has wound up on Augoeides since then. I've included some of this material in my published books on Enochian magick as well, since the method appears to be generally applicable to all forms of magick. In fact, I'm now convinced that one of the reasons the grimoire movement happened at all is that opening and closing Golden Dawn rituals with the LBRP/LBRH combination is ineffective because you basically kneecap your spirits the moment you shut down the ritual. Since working with your own power in addition to that of spirits is a more effective way to do ritual, the grimoire folks found that by eliminating the banish-banish they got better practical results. But the operant field method is the best of both worlds. It allows modern methods like those of the Golden Dawn and Thelemic schools to coexist with more traditional conjuring techniques.
The rest of the original article follows:
Most Western ritual magicians use variations of the pentagram and hexagram rituals. In the Golden Dawn tradition you have the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram and the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram, in the Thelemic tradition you have the Star Ruby and Star Sapphire, in the Aurum Solis tradition you have the rituals for raising the Wards of Power, and so forth. The normal way this is taught is as it appears in Donald Michael Kraig's Modern Magick, one of the most popular and widely available books on Golden Dawn magick. Kraig says that you start off just using the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and then move on to using the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram followed by the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram at the beginning of every ceremonial ritual. The Golden Dawn taught both banishing and invoking forms of these rituals, but Kraig sticks to the banishing versions and a lot of ritual magicians are taught to do the same.
I started researching these ritual forms years ago and was confused by how little material was available on the invoking versions and when they should be used. In Aleister Crowley's Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae it is kind of a curious fact that he covers the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram followed by an explanation of the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram. I went ahead and decided to try this combination out even though most writers will tell you that you shouldn't use the rituals that way. I was absolutely blown away by the result - all of a sudden my practical magical work got a whole lot better. I set up a number of objective tests and, sure enough, the LBRP/LIRH was amazing. I couldn't get anywhere near the same result with the LBRP/LBRH - even though the only difference between the banishing and invoking forms is the direction in which the hexagrams are traced. When I discovered this I asked around and, sure enough, most of the magicians who I knew who were able to get good results using the Golden Dawn forms had figured out the same thing. Other skilled magicians I know have tried the combination at my suggestion and also found that it just works better.
So what is going on here? I think that most modern writers don't understand how to use these rituals. From a Hermetic perspective the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram represents the psychological realm or microcosm and the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram represents the physical realm or macrocosm. Together the rituals set up a space in which the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm is defined that I call a field. The four combinations of the banishing and invoking forms of the two rituals set up four different fields that are useful for specific magical operations.
Banishing Field (LBRP/LBRH): This is how most magicians begin their rituals when working with the Golden Dawn forms. It is, in effect, the "full shutdown" - it clears mental and spiritual forms from both the interior and exterior worlds. In can be used to completely cleanse a temple, banish spirits permanently, or neutralize a magical effect that is targeting the magician. What it also does, though, is shut down any ongoing spells that the magician has running unless they are bound to talismans or some anchor other than the magician's consciousness. If you are casting a spell that you want to work over the next week, don't end the ritual with this combination under any set of circumstances unless you're convinced you made a mistake and want to stop the spell. The effect that you just set in motion will be negated when the field goes up.
Invoking Field (LIRP/LIRH): This combination energizes all ongoing magical effects, and can be used to begin a ritual that you want to operate in both the interior and exterior worlds. A good example of this is a spell to get a good job. You want the spell to affect your psyche in such a way that you seem more confident and capable, but you also want it to shift probabilities in the material world so that the right opportunity will come your way.
Centering Field (LIRP/LBRH): This combination sets up a field in which the interior world is engaged while influences from the exterior world are neutralized. This field is ideal for exclusively psychological magical work of all sorts.
Operant Field (LBRP/LIRH): This is the one that I use the most. The field clears the interior world and then merges it the with the exterior world, setting up a space in which thought can more easily become material reality. All of the energy of a spell cast within this field is targeted on the macrocosm and the resulting probability shifts show that magick done this way just influences the outside world better - significantly better.
If you would like, try it out and see, and let me know how it goes. I think you'll be impressed.
UPDATE: Operant Magick turned out to be a bust. First Weiser and then another publisher basically jerked me around for years. Weiser finally rejected it on the grounds that it was "too advanced" and they didn't think it would sell. I was upset about this at the time, not only because they had wasted so much of my time mulling the thing over but also because the focus on "beginner books" means that nothing "more advanced" ever gets published. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The thing is, statistically speaking, nobody is interested in magick. What I didn't understand then that I understand now is that if you can't get beginners to buy your book, it's very likely that almost nobody will.
Anyway, much of the material from the book has wound up on Augoeides since then. I've included some of this material in my published books on Enochian magick as well, since the method appears to be generally applicable to all forms of magick. In fact, I'm now convinced that one of the reasons the grimoire movement happened at all is that opening and closing Golden Dawn rituals with the LBRP/LBRH combination is ineffective because you basically kneecap your spirits the moment you shut down the ritual. Since working with your own power in addition to that of spirits is a more effective way to do ritual, the grimoire folks found that by eliminating the banish-banish they got better practical results. But the operant field method is the best of both worlds. It allows modern methods like those of the Golden Dawn and Thelemic schools to coexist with more traditional conjuring techniques.
The rest of the original article follows:
Most Western ritual magicians use variations of the pentagram and hexagram rituals. In the Golden Dawn tradition you have the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram and the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram, in the Thelemic tradition you have the Star Ruby and Star Sapphire, in the Aurum Solis tradition you have the rituals for raising the Wards of Power, and so forth. The normal way this is taught is as it appears in Donald Michael Kraig's Modern Magick, one of the most popular and widely available books on Golden Dawn magick. Kraig says that you start off just using the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and then move on to using the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram followed by the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram at the beginning of every ceremonial ritual. The Golden Dawn taught both banishing and invoking forms of these rituals, but Kraig sticks to the banishing versions and a lot of ritual magicians are taught to do the same.
I started researching these ritual forms years ago and was confused by how little material was available on the invoking versions and when they should be used. In Aleister Crowley's Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae it is kind of a curious fact that he covers the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram followed by an explanation of the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram. I went ahead and decided to try this combination out even though most writers will tell you that you shouldn't use the rituals that way. I was absolutely blown away by the result - all of a sudden my practical magical work got a whole lot better. I set up a number of objective tests and, sure enough, the LBRP/LIRH was amazing. I couldn't get anywhere near the same result with the LBRP/LBRH - even though the only difference between the banishing and invoking forms is the direction in which the hexagrams are traced. When I discovered this I asked around and, sure enough, most of the magicians who I knew who were able to get good results using the Golden Dawn forms had figured out the same thing. Other skilled magicians I know have tried the combination at my suggestion and also found that it just works better.
So what is going on here? I think that most modern writers don't understand how to use these rituals. From a Hermetic perspective the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram represents the psychological realm or microcosm and the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram represents the physical realm or macrocosm. Together the rituals set up a space in which the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm is defined that I call a field. The four combinations of the banishing and invoking forms of the two rituals set up four different fields that are useful for specific magical operations.
Banishing Field (LBRP/LBRH): This is how most magicians begin their rituals when working with the Golden Dawn forms. It is, in effect, the "full shutdown" - it clears mental and spiritual forms from both the interior and exterior worlds. In can be used to completely cleanse a temple, banish spirits permanently, or neutralize a magical effect that is targeting the magician. What it also does, though, is shut down any ongoing spells that the magician has running unless they are bound to talismans or some anchor other than the magician's consciousness. If you are casting a spell that you want to work over the next week, don't end the ritual with this combination under any set of circumstances unless you're convinced you made a mistake and want to stop the spell. The effect that you just set in motion will be negated when the field goes up.
Invoking Field (LIRP/LIRH): This combination energizes all ongoing magical effects, and can be used to begin a ritual that you want to operate in both the interior and exterior worlds. A good example of this is a spell to get a good job. You want the spell to affect your psyche in such a way that you seem more confident and capable, but you also want it to shift probabilities in the material world so that the right opportunity will come your way.
Centering Field (LIRP/LBRH): This combination sets up a field in which the interior world is engaged while influences from the exterior world are neutralized. This field is ideal for exclusively psychological magical work of all sorts.
Operant Field (LBRP/LIRH): This is the one that I use the most. The field clears the interior world and then merges it the with the exterior world, setting up a space in which thought can more easily become material reality. All of the energy of a spell cast within this field is targeted on the macrocosm and the resulting probability shifts show that magick done this way just influences the outside world better - significantly better.
If you would like, try it out and see, and let me know how it goes. I think you'll be impressed.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tweaking the Newsreel
One of the things that I like about the blogspot system is that you can integrate headlines from Google News into the page more easily than you could do something similar on Scoop. I used to go through Google News searching for articles on magick, witchcraft, and the occult to comment on and it's kind of cool to be able to bring them up automatically. That being said, you will notice that every so often something will show up there that really doesn't belong. The biggest offenders for "magick" are bands, some of whom like to use the Elizabethan spelling to make their album titles more interesting. I can't put "magic" in at all, because the top stories tend to be about the Orlando Magic and I have no interest in basketball. It would be nice to add a feature where you could exclude certain categories or subjects, but so far the Newsreel seems to be limited to simple keyword searching anywhere in the article.
Here's also a chance for me to point out that Aleister Crowley was way ahead of his time in suggesting that the spelling "magick" be used "to distinguish the science of the Magi from its counterfeits." Obviously, as the Ipsissimus he foresaw the rise of World Wide Web and the need for a specific term that would make keyword searching a whole lot easier. Do you buy that?
Here's also a chance for me to point out that Aleister Crowley was way ahead of his time in suggesting that the spelling "magick" be used "to distinguish the science of the Magi from its counterfeits." Obviously, as the Ipsissimus he foresaw the rise of World Wide Web and the need for a specific term that would make keyword searching a whole lot easier. Do you buy that?
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The New Augoeides?
The Scoop version of Augoeides has now been offline for several months, and I've decided to try blogging here. Eventually I hope to get either the Scoop system back up and running or find a suitable replacement, but for now this is relatively easy to get up and running and I'm hoping that it will work well. I found that http://augoeides.blogger.com was already in use, so I went ahead and used Ananael for the URL instead.
For those of you unfamiliar with my previous blog, Augoeides is dedicated to "Spiritual Technology for a New Aeon." I am a Thelemite and practicing ritual magician with a degree in experimental psychology and a career in software design and development. For most of my life I have been interested in consciousness, metaphysics, spirituality, and various phenomena normally classified as paranormal. Philosophically, I believe in the existence of paranormal phenomena but not "the supernatural." Instead, I consider the spiritual dimension of reality part of nature, just like the material dimension.
"Spiritual technology"is an allusion to the motto of Aleister Crowley's A.'.A.'., "The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion." Many of my posts address using ritual magick to achieve practical, measurable results, and I welcome comments from other practicing magicians regarding their own successful techniques. Magick is very much a fringe area of study at this point, but by publishing my own rituals and results I hope to contribute to the general knowledge of the subject and allow others to take advantage of my own experience, which spans more than twenty years of serious practice.
For those of you unfamiliar with my previous blog, Augoeides is dedicated to "Spiritual Technology for a New Aeon." I am a Thelemite and practicing ritual magician with a degree in experimental psychology and a career in software design and development. For most of my life I have been interested in consciousness, metaphysics, spirituality, and various phenomena normally classified as paranormal. Philosophically, I believe in the existence of paranormal phenomena but not "the supernatural." Instead, I consider the spiritual dimension of reality part of nature, just like the material dimension.
"Spiritual technology"is an allusion to the motto of Aleister Crowley's A.'.A.'., "The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion." Many of my posts address using ritual magick to achieve practical, measurable results, and I welcome comments from other practicing magicians regarding their own successful techniques. Magick is very much a fringe area of study at this point, but by publishing my own rituals and results I hope to contribute to the general knowledge of the subject and allow others to take advantage of my own experience, which spans more than twenty years of serious practice.
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