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Here is the video of last night's Ritual Night Talk, on ritual design and construction.
Every magical operation begins with a problem - that is, some sort of change that you want to see within your own consciousness or in the world at large. Rituals that are not intended to produce some specific change may be rituals, but they aren't magick. This is the real reason intent is important - not because it necessarily has a huge effect on how the technology works, but rather because it determines whether you use the technology at all and how you go about applying it. I cover how to work out the kind of change you want to manifest in terms of the magical powers outlined in Liber 777. I also cover circles and containment structures, and why you should generally use the latter.
Enjoy!
Every magical operation begins with a problem - that is, some sort of change that you want to see within your own consciousness or in the world at large. Rituals that are not intended to produce some specific change may be rituals, but they aren't magick. This is the real reason intent is important - not because it necessarily has a huge effect on how the technology works, but rather because it determines whether you use the technology at all and how you go about applying it. I cover how to work out the kind of change you want to manifest in terms of the magical powers outlined in Liber 777. I also cover circles and containment structures, and why you should generally use the latter.
Enjoy!
24 comments:
I've been using some version of the basic Planetary/Zodiacal ritual template you use for awhile now and generally I've had good results. Lately, though, I've been thinking about whether there's a giant, gaping hole in that template, namely, an invocation of the Four Directional Kings. Do you have any thoughts about this? In your opinion, would it be inappropriately introducing elements of a different system of magick into a GD framework (syncretic though that is)?
Stephen Skinner, for example, describes a Solomonic (obviously) escalation of threats going up the hierarchy, binding lesser spirits until eventually reaching the Kings (I take this to be a process, so you would work on that until you can call the Four Kings and then from that point I guess incorporate the invocation of the Four Kings into the standard ritual template.
Or is it the case that the Planetary/Zodiacal spirits do not fall under the Four Kings in any way, and therefore the purpose of invoking the Four Kings is not relevant to Planetary/Zodiacal magick? My impression is that the Four Kings govern over the movement of spirits between the Four Worlds generally and if that is the case it seems like this would be an important element to incorporate into any operation summoning spirits.
As I see it, the four directional kings would fall under the elemental template. You can conjure them just like you would the elemental kings from Levi. The elements, planets, and signs each represent complete domains on their own, and you don't need to use one to control the other.
Once you identify with the divine, you then just tune the space to the energy you want. You can work down the hierarchy and call more spirits, like I do with the angels, intelligences, and spirits - but I address the charge to all three once you conjure them by the successive names.
That doesn't mean you can't experiment, of course. If you are calling on the four kings in a general way, that invocation would either go directly before or directly after the Middle Pillar or Elevenfold Seal. You would want to use it before the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram or Hexagram.
And I'm having a thought, just now. The point of the Lesser rituals is basically to create your working space/field, which is the function of the consecrated circle in Solomonic magick. What if a simple invocation of the four kings was added to the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram?
With Trithemius as a reference, we see the four archangels around the crystal (interior) of the Table of Art. Outside the working space we have the names of the four kings. You're already calling the archangels in the LRP (interior, microcosmic), why not add the four kings to the LRH (exterior, macrocosmic)?
I thought of that just now in response to your comments, so I have no idea how well it would work. But the basic idea seems sound, at least at first glance.
Pardon my intrusion, but aren't the four kings sublinar? And the spirits Skinner mentioned as being threatened and bound sublinar as well? I'm just asking because the way I see it, Qabalistic rituals are performed from the top down, so to speak.
Like Scott said, one identifies with the divine and then conjures down hierarchies. From what I know Solomonic methods also imply call on divine authority. I guess the methods Skinner speaks of apply when said authority is not received by the magician. By that I mean he or she does not perceive it due to little preparatory work.
There's reasons why one is recommended to perform daily practice in Qabalistic magick. Tunning one's consciousness to the divine is one of them. In Solomonic magick one is usually instructed to feast and pray for a number of days prior to the ritual.
I am not familiar enough with Skinner and his various works to get into all the nuances of his methods. But generally speaking, you identify with the divine - which is the "top" of everything - and then work through the hierarchies. I won't say "down" there, even though the rituals I generally do work that way in practice because technically, you have three realms of magick and therefore three distinct hierarchies - celestial, terrestrial, and chthonic.
Work with Qabalistic angels is celestial, so this is the conventional "down the tree" structure following the lightning flash through the four Qabalistic worlds and so forth. Work with grimoire demons is generally chthonic, and follows its own hierarchy based on the grimoire structure. But it's important to note that the demons still are attributed to the planets and signs so I wouldn't personally call them "sublunar."
The terrestrial realm is sublunar pretty much by definition, since we're talking about Malkuth on the Qabalistic top-down framework and the earth (as opposed to hell or the underworld) in the various chthonic hierarchies.
So... I've been giving this idea of messing with the Lesser Hexagram some more thought, and it seems to me that the elemental rulers you would want to add should vary depending on the realm you are working with. For chthonic work with "demons" the four kings would be appropriate. For terrestrial work, you could go with Levi's elemental kings instead, and probably some set of angel names for celestial work.
Or maybe just treat the standard version as the celestial version. I mean, I already have my own modified LRH that I use in my rituals, and I know that works with pretty much everything.
Kind of stream of consciousness there, but I'm thinking about it. It's an intriguing idea whether I decide to go with it or not.
Any ardent solomoniac would now say that demons being attributed to planets and signs comes from Dr. Rudd and that's not *the Solomonic way*! :) Even though it makes sense for even chthonic spirirs to have celestial attributions, since they're not cut out from the source.
Anyway, it makes sense to me what you're proposing. There's 4 classes of spirits associated with each element, not counting the supreme elemental kings - archangel, angel, ruler, king. Adding to them the 4 demon kings of the grimoires.
The archangels are being called by default. And it makes sense to call on the elemental kings for terrestrial spirits and the demon kings for chthonic ones. What remains are the 4 angels and rulers of the elements for celestial spirits: Aral Taliahad Chassan Phorlakh / Seraph Tharsis Ariel Cherub. The question would be which would work better.
An ardent solomoniac would not even consider using the LRH, so they would never bother messing around with the ritual structure. That ritual is New Age!
Yeah, sure, let me go grab my Law of Attraction grimoire.
Now I'm back to thinking it makes more sense to have a separate invocation of the kings, which would follow the Middle Pillar/Elevenfold Seal in the template and precede the GRH/GRP. You could have several of these depending on the "realm" in which you are working (celestial, chthonic, terrestrial).
Those are all possibilities requiring some experimentation, simply because there are a lot of elemental kings/rulers/etc. out there. I already excluded the "supreme elemental kings" because those names are generated from the Sigillum Dei Aemeth and as I see it are more specific to Golden Dawn Enochian. I don't want to use the four Watchtower kings either, because I'm trying to come up with something more general than Enochian - which I try not to mix in with other systems too much.
I would probably say rulers over angels there, since it seems like the rulers should be "above" the angels. But testing them out would be the real proof.
Thanks to both of you, these are interesting ideas. The Cthonic-Four Kings, Terrestrial-Elemental, Celestial-Archangel idea makes a lot of sense to me.
There are 2 things I'm trying to address with this.
One is that these Celestial spirits seem to be much more difficult when it comes to direct interaction. I sometimes get pressure, a change in the environment, something like that, sometimes pretty pronounced, but I'm not having conversations with these guys. I can't lay my hand on it right now but at least one of the medieval or Renaissance sources even states that these spirits cannot be evoked to visible appearance. True or not, I can say that I'm certainly having trouble with it (I'm not especially concerned with 'visible' but I am after some communication). So it occurred to me that involving the Kings might assist in getting a stronger manifestation.
The other is that I'm looking for a way to effectively cram goetic work into this ritual structure. One reason for this is these spirits are apparently easier for us to interact with and another is that they seem to accomplish things in a different way that may be more effective or more immediate in some circumstances. Cramming Goetia into this structure has its challenges, of course. Because I'm competent with this approach already I don't especially want to have to learn a whole new system (Solomonic magick). One of the challenges is the hierarchies. In my limited research, what I see is So-and-So rules over 50 legions of unnamed spirits or whatever, this one's a King, this one's a Duke, but I don't see the overall hierarchical structure to see exactly who answers to who so I can order them like Godname\Archangel\Spirit\Intelligence. Maybe I figure out the planetary/zodiacal correspondences and go from there. A handful appear in 777, I guess I could reference that as a starting point. But I should probably face the fact that if I want to work with those spirits there's a pretty good chance that what I'll end up doing is learning some Solomonic magick, since, you know, that's the system for the spirits in that system.
But as I think through this, especially in light of your comments, it makes sense that the guys that are focused on the Four Kings are focused on working with cthonic spirits, which takes me back to one of my initial thoughts, which is that I don't really need to worry about it for the model I work with.
And don't worry Scott, I won't tell JSK you said the demons aren't sublunar.
Scott, you had a great comment one time on a fB thread (probably in CMS) talking about the lion skin belt, how that's an example of a more literal sympathetic magick which is now dealt with more abstractly with rituals like LRP/LRH. It's an important point that is not always grasped. But you get it, Alex, I've seen your Dantalion operation.
Heresy!!! :D
From the point of view of calling in spirits after godforms it makes sense to perform an invocation of said spirit a of the elements after the MP / ES. However, I'm thinking of performing this invocation prior to the LRH.
Something just doesn't click with me about this at this time, though. But I can't quite put my finger on it. I can't explain it right now, but it seems more logical to me to invoke those spirits prior to the LRH. This can easily be my imagination and my highly distracted attention at the moment.
As for which of the four to call between the angels and the rulers, I have worked with the former, but not with the latter so I couldn't say. I have searched for detailed information on the rulers, but so far I've found nothing. Yes, they're mentioned in 777. Yes, their names are written on the cross pattern on the sixth pentacle of Jupiter... Maybe I should ask a solomoniac.
Another thing that I had trouble figuring out was the attribution on the Tree for the rulers. The logical thing would be to attribute them to Yetzirah, but again, lack of details about their natures makes it hard to attribute them.
Regardless of any of that, in theory, calling in the right four spirits should reinforce the operand field and improve results, right?
I would not put it between the LRP and LRH. Those two are used to set the scope (macrocosmic or microcosmic) of your operation. So unless you want to invoke the microscopic aspects of the four kings and not the macrocosmic aspects, as I see it you need the LRH to be complete at a minimum. Because the steps are:
(1) Create field, including scope.
(2) General invocation of the divine.
(3) More specific invocations/evocations related to your operation.
It seems to me after thinking this over for a bit that you would put it after Middle Pillar / Elevenfold Seal because the kings are more specific.
It also occurs to me that you could do something in the conjuration like call the king corresponding to your operation by the godname (because godnames cover all three realms) and then conjure the spirit you want to work with by the name of the corresponding king. Then I would deliver the charge to both the king and spirit, allowing them to do the work together as they see fit.
I'm not sure what the exact effect on the operant field would be if I tried implementing this. It struck me as really interesting the other day when I first posted about it, but now I'm not so sure it would necessarily help. Probably time for some experimentation!
I am slowly working through the idea of integrating the goetic demons into the template as well, since I am trying to eventually put together something that is as close as I can get to a full 777-based grimoire ritual work that includes all of the various spirits contained therein. I'm really solid on the angelic side, but I haven't done nearly as much goetic and/or demonic work. I mean, you can throw all the curses you want calling on Zamael and Cassiel, right?
I actually find that the spirit vision method works fine with the celestials. Conjure them into your table of art and then project your consciousness into that space just like you would in a pathworking or in astral work. You should see a landscape of some sort. If you don't see the entity, call it again by name in your body of light and it should just appear and be able to interact with you and have a conversation. That's how I do it.
Having tested this method by asking for numbers, names, and pieces of information not known to me that I could later verify, I don't see any reason to think this is any less effective in terms of getting information than "eyes-open scrying" or whatever the "visible appearance" fetishists are on about. Yeah, it's GD/Thelemic and therefore "modern," but so what? It works.
In GeoSophia, JSK is working from the assumption that the term "goetia" goes back to the Greek goens (which it likely does) and therefore the grimoire spirits are sublunar like the spirits of the dead that the goens worked with. That second bit is a stretch, though, because reading (for example) Pico Della Mirandola's comments on goetia it's pretty clear that he had no idea about the goens or anything related to them. He gets the etymology completely wrong and shoehorns it into a Christian context.
So I actually don't think the practices of the goes and today's grimoire magick necessarily have anything to do with each other. There are a few parallels, but I think it's just as likely that Christian grimoire magicians read about Greek "goetia" and their understanding was something like goetia --> underworld --> evil demons.
And feel free to tell anybody anything. I certainly don't spend my time worrying about magicians arguing online. I'm of the opinion that they should sit down and do some practical experiments like I do and then publish their results to the community. We're never going to catch up to the physical sciences with a bunch of posturing and name-calling, you know?
@V.e.L.V.X.
I've had an account from a very reliable source of an angelic evocation into physical appearance. There were eye witnesses in the room who saw the manifestation. The person in question is not one of the people who constantly advocates in favor of physical manifestation wherever they have a chance, but someone who is keeping the occult more occult :)
I have yet to evoke any spirit into physical appearance, but truth be told I did not focus my energy into that so far. The best I got was a shadowy figure appearing into a cup of water :D When it comes to your abilities to communicate with spirits - hearing their voice, seeing them, etc - I think this has to do with both your innate talents, as well as the amount of personal work you've put into yourself so far. By this I mean the amount of work you've done on your personal sphere of consciousness in order to strengthen it, clear energetic clutters, balance out whatever needs to be balanced, etc. Daily practice, theurgical work, along with various exercises and meditations can help out with that. And then you can always perform various exercises in order to improve your ability to see, hear, sense spirits. Since you've mentioned CMS, you can look up the file On Scrying (if fb hasn't deleted it like it did others...) and check out the articles in there.
In my case, being able to hear spirits came somewhat natural as I kept conjuring them over and over. At some point my consciousness managed to establish a more solid bridge between itself and that of the spirits which allowed my mind to receive thoughts from them. I did not follow the usual methods of meditating too much, instead I forced myself to quiet my mind every now and then and observe where thoughts arose from and where they faded off, so to speak. I think Scott discusses this more in detail at least in one of his articles because that's where it got it from, as well as in various comments throughout the blog. I don't recommend this to anyone just because that's how I did it.
@V.e.L.V.X.
I would recommend something else though, which is somewhat similar to what you've said, to a degree. Observe which spirit or spirits you are most drawn to and you're most comfortable when interacting with. Their class and rank is of little importance, just your affinity to them. Call them more often and sit in meditation (as best as you can), having asked them to help you attune your consciousness to theirs better. Meditate for as long as you want/can, then license the spirit to depart and close the ritual. Repeat this for as long as you can. I think this will help you eventually get to communicate with them via thoughts. You can do the same thing when it comes to scrying, or as Scott said, seeing them in your mind - this is how I do it following Scott's recommendations. Once you achieve that, your mind has established a better link to the spirit world, so then you can try the same method with other spirits whom you cannot see or hear.
As for my Dantalion ritual, it was an adaptation of Miller's Bune ritual using Scott's operant field. I dropped it along the way in favor of Scott's standard planetary template because: the 72 demons have different attributions in the zodiac based on source and I hated having to look up the corresponding decan attributions for every ritual involving a different spirit. The way I do it is by following the attributions used by Dr. Rudd: kings-Sol, princes-Jupiter, etc. In the case of Dantalion, he is a duke so he's attributed to Venus.
So I treat Dantalion like I would Kedemel. But in these rituals I do not call in Anael, then Hagiel, and then Kedemel. Instead I formulate the invocation to contain their names. Something the likes of: I conjure you, great duke Dantalion, in the name of the mighty god AHA, and by the angels Anael and Hagiel, manifest bla bla... (Hagiel is also an angel, intelligence being a title)
And I tune the space to the path of the planet and not to the sephira because the way I see these spirits, they're practical in nature. It would make no sense to me to tune the space to the sephira. I could also do the same by tuning the space to the zodiac sign Dantalion is attributed to while sticking to one source and formulate the invocation to include the godname of the sign, and that of the angel (assistant angel, decan angel, Shem angel even :D )
@Scott
Yes, what you're saying is very logical. However, it seems to me that the LRP works from Atzhiluth down, containing godnames and the archangels. So there's Atziluth and Briah. The LRH does not have any godname or spirit name inside of it, only symbolic godforms. As I understand it, it does not only open the macrocosmos, but also raises one's consciousness to Tiphareth. This would the the Yetziratic realm (without going into the 4/5 Trees discussion).
So it seemed better to me yesterday to call on the four elemental angels prior to the LRH in order to have a continuity of spiritual presence down the Tree, following the archangels at the end of the LRP. In lack of better words, The LRP starts with the godnames and ends with the archangels, so to speak. So it seemed better to me to call in the 4 angels prior to the LRH and only then to open the macrocosmos and raise one's consciousness, followed by assuming a godform.
@Both
From what I remeber from one of Skinner's interviews posted on YouTube, he mentioned undertaking a Chinese magical system in which he conjured a various spirit and bound it, before the master allowed him to move up the hierarchy. I think I remember him saying thatwas a very similar way to how things were done in the old days - meaning prior to medieval grimoire magick, to my mind.
But that was how it was done based on a cosmology that differed from the Christian one in which anything other than the Trinity, Mary, angels, and saints was evil. And I think I also remember the fact that the early Christian church tried to downgrade the angels, so to speak, by associating them with saints as a means of putting an end to cults of idolatry of angels. Anyway, based on Christian cosmology, God commands everything, so the magician is to call on God's authority in order for him or her in turn to command everything.
It seems to me that some people are trying to conflate the Christian methodology (based on hard dogma for that matter) with earlier methods that were based on different philosophical and religious views. I will not give names because it's Scott's blog, and I don't want to turn it into a fb group, but Solominic methods have nothing to do with shamanic ones based on significant differences in cosmology alone. The Solomonic mage commands spirits, while the shaman often has to bargain and plead with them. The shaman can make use of his or her spirit allies whenever battling certain troubling spirits, but they're battling those spirits in order to subdue them with the help of other spirit, not commanding them directly by making use of divine authority.
I hope this wasn't too much :)
@Scott
And if the ritual is meant to call on a terrestrial or chthonic spirit, then the LRH would be followed by the invocation of the 4 kings from Levi or the 4 demon kings.
I had to copy the entire length of the text into a document and paste it back here into several comments due to letter count restrictions. It seems I missed a couple of paragraphs when I copied the text.
@V.e.L.V.X.
From my knowledge there's no definitive list of attributions to demonic hierarchies, regardless of what some people might have stated over time. The hierarchies have been compiled from several earlier sources and there's differences between them, not to mention gaps. I remember Skinner himself saying in an interview that spirits had been awarded different ranks over the years, resulting in only 1 knight - because Saturn :D But then again, I've been mostly away from fb for some time now, so who knows what phenomenal breakthroughs have been made in the mean time in the Solomonic group.
Regardless of that, I have it from *the greatest authority* in Solomonic magick that the 72 spirits have been referred to as kings and princes in general. Whenever the title King and Prince appears in their description next to another title, then said spirits are of the latter title - i.e. Prince and President = President - Mercury; King and Duke = Duke - Venus, etc.
The only puzzling thing that remained for me to decipher was with cases in which the description of the spirit named it as having two titles, both of which differed from that of King and Prince. For example, Glasya Labolas is a President and Earl - Mercury and Mars. In such cases I observe the powers of the spirit and see which ones I want to use in the ritual and how they correspond best to the nature of the planets to which the spirit's titles attribute it.
So for Glasya Labolas the bloodshed slaughter part are clearly Martian, while the parts about giving true answers or teaching such and such things, even reconciliation if I remember correctly I consider to be Mercurial. So if I'm in need to curse someone I conjure Glasya Labolas by tuning the ritual to the path of Mars, while for the other stuff to the path of Mercury. In the former case I address the spirit as Earl and in the latter case I address it as President.
Hope that made sense.
I was joking about Jake cause he’s always hammering away with his assertions that everything’s sub-lunar and non-transcendental, and that Qabalah completely misses the mark there. I don’t agree with any of that personally as my approach is pretty much based on all of that, but I do find that he’s one of the more reasonable magicians to have discussions with where you just plain disagree. I haven’t ever seen him get emotional or personal. I mean, he certainly likes to kick it off with an inflammatory post, but that’s just him kind of winding people up.
My interest in Goetia doesn’t have anything to do with cursing, which I’m not real big on anyway. For me it’s for when there’s an imbalance of power and no recourse - I did go to Samael in a situation like that once and charged that any time this high-up target mischaracterized me it would just reflect poorly on them in the minds of the people they were trying to influence. So basically if they tried to hit me, they’d hit themselves instead. I’m not sure that’s really even a curse (though I suppose you might have a hard time convincing them of that after the way things turned out for them). But with Goetia, I’m more intrigued with the idea that these spirits are more closely connected with, and have a more direct, immediate influence on, the material realm, with dominion over some pretty specific things. So they might be great for some strictly practical things. And for the same reasons, they might be easier to manifest, or easier to interact with. Although my attempts at interaction with celestials has been kind of the opposite of what you describe, more come-to-me than go-to-them. What you describe makes sense, so I’m hopeful that experimenting with that will yield better results.
Here’s another ritual structure modification I’m curious to hear your opinions about: The MP has always bothered me (I might be ever so slightly OCD) because it brings the Godname for Binah over to the middle. So I’m now experimenting with raising energy using the Invocation of the Forty Names instead (Godname/Archangel/Order of Angels/Mundane Name for each of the sephiroth starting with Kether in the order of the Lightning Flash). It takes quite a bit longer, obviously, but so far it seems like a winner. Can either of you think of any reasons conceptually why the MP is a more logical option, or why the Invocation of the Forty Names is just not the appropriate thing here?
See, I have seen "visible appearances" in goetic rituals, but as far as I can tell they have no bearing whatsoever on how powerful the ritual will be in terms of results. The ritual with the best physical appearance I've ever seen was a complete failure and we didn't even get accurate information from the spirit. So I really don't buy the notion that there's much of a connection between them.
I also don't know that the goetic demons are more effective for practical operations. I find them hit or miss at best. Enochian works way better for me, with the caveat that I'm more experienced with the system than I am with goetia. Still, I don't get much for physical effects when I call the Enochian entities besides temperature shifts, light breezes, and the like. That holds for both the angels and demons of the system.
As for that ritual modification, I would basically say the same thing I always do - try it out and see. There's no reason why it would not necessarily work. We use this piece in our pathworking rituals, for example, which is from Bill Heidrick. "Da'at" here is used according to its literal meaning, knowledge/knowing, rather than any reference to the abyss and so forth.
***
10. "I invoke Da'at in Malkut that my senses fail me not. May the Aishim, the flames, foundations, the angels of existence, bring me to ride in the Chariot of Shabbatai, Saturn in this world.
9. I invoke Da'at in Yesod that my imagination deceive me not. May the Kerubim, the angelic Cherubs of four ways, winds and forms, bring me to ride in the Chariot of Lebanah, the Moon in this world of Yesod.
8. I invoke Da'at in Hod that my intellect guide me well. May the Beni Elohim, the angelic sons of the gods and goddesses who followed after the children of Adam, bring me to ride in the Chariot of Kokab, Mercury in this world of Hod."
7. I invoke Da'at in Netzach that my emotions bear me up. May the Elohim, the angelic gods and goddesses who formed the world, bring me to ride in the Chariot of Nogah, Venus in this world of Netzach.
6. I invoke Da'at in Tipheret that my life be fulfilled. May the Melakim, the royal angels of the middle place, bring me to ride in the Chariot of Schemesh, the Sun in this world of Tipheret.
5. I invoke Da'at in Geburah that my life be ordered. May the Seraphim, the burning ones, the exalted angels of wrath, permit me to ride in the Chariot of Madim, Mars in this world of Geburah.
4. I invoke Da'at in Chesed that my life be blessed. May the Chashmalim, the shining angels of divine love, carry me to ride in the Chariot of Tzedeq (Tzaddi-Dalet-Qof), Jupiter in this world of Chesed.
Through the aid of the great angels of the lesser chariots who are my friends and companions:
Tzaphkiel above my reach (Saturn).
Tzadqiel the tabernacle (Jupiter).
Kamael the spice (Mars).
Raphael the healing (Sun).
Hanael the ship (Venus).
Michael the likeness (Mercury).
Gabriel the mighty (Moon).
Sandalphon the throne as it appears below.
I shall become worthy of the great Vision of the Merkabah in Binah beyond Proket Zohar, the veil of Splendour, when Da'at (Abdah) becomes Abgadah.
From the Vision I shall pass to the Throne's Voice, the voice of the one who wears the pure linen garment in Chokmah, by the gift of dew."
In hearing the Voice, may it be granted that I dwell with the Crown in Keter and yet know the Kingdom in Malkut."
***
It seems to me that it's functionally at least close to what you're asking about, and we do use it preceding the GRH/GRP, so in the same position as the Middle Pillar in the daily practice sequence.
But which is better? When you have two pieces of ritual technology that basically work and have basically sound attributions, it's hard to compare the two without experimentation. You're going to be better off trying both versions and see which one resonates with you the best.
As always, if it works it works.
@Scott
I must've missed your last answer here. You said "we didn't even get accurate information from the spirit". From what I understand of grimoire methods the binding also has the role of making the spirit tell the truth regarding whatever it is asked. Given it falls under its power to do so, that is.
But then again spirits do talk in riddles, so maybe its words were meant to mean something else. Either that, or the scryer picked up something else. Funny thing, back when I encountered my angel I remember asking it a few days later about your general location in Minneapolis. An image of a park was shown to me, but I disregarded it at the time and also did not ask you about it - I was trying to test if it's the real thing or my imagination. Later on I remeber you saying you live in an area close to a park or something like that.
Anyway, I'm only speculating about why the spirit gave wrong answers. The fact that it failed to produce any change in the physical should be proof enough the operation was a failure. To some! ;)
Sure, in theory. But nothing in magick is ever that cut and dried.
In this case we were trying to obtain information about the future which turned out to be wrong. Spirits have a hard time reading the future in general - the spirit may not have been lying, but the possible future it saw at that time was not what came to pass. I've run into that issue in other rituals too. Also, no practical result. If there had been a practical result, or the information had been accurate, I would have considered it a partial success. But neither of those things happen.
I do live near a park. What did the image of the park look like? I ask because the park I'm near has a couple of pretty distinctive features.
Yep, sure seems that way.
As I remember it was nothing special about that image. It was simply an image of a park with playground like features: swings and slides, benches, that sort of thing. It was based on how a typical park looks like over here. Now I'm aware that parks over here are kinda different from parks over there, or at least they were last time I've been there some 15 years ago. The image had features similar to the photo in this article, along with traditional benches and stuff like that: https://turdanews.net/articole/administratie-locala/65874-parc-de-joaca-pentru-copii-si-in-sancrai.html
Thanks for the detailed replies, guys, there's a lot of helpful information here. I didn't see your responses until just now, Alex, sorry for the delay.
Your approach to the goetic sprits through their Planetary correspondences is something I'll try. The advantage is that I'll have nearly nothing new to learn. But it does preserve the primary disadvantage of the Planetary approach though, the restrictions imposed by astrological conditions. That's another thing I'm thinking about and would like to develop an alternative for. The more I learn about astrology, the more cognizant I become of unfavorable conditions, which narrows the opportunities to perform certain operations. Or at least makes them less than optimal. Moonphase/Day/Hour in itself can sometimes be inconvenient, but when you start looking at the planet's relationship with other planets, etc. and you have to put something off for a a couple weeks to get a good window, that's not ideal, or even feasible sometimes. But I suppose astrological conditions are always going to be a concern. Maybe it's less of a concern with Elemental magick, I'll have to think about that.
Astrological conditions are always a factor in magick, whether you are working with the planetary attributions or not. Signs are basically planet + element, and the elements have planetary rulers, so I don't think there's an easy way to get away from it.
What I will say, though - for all that I've put a lot of time into learning astrological magick and integrating astrology into my practice, I still am able to get decent results most of the time unless the astrological conditions are especially unfavorable.
It's just that when those conditions are favorable, magick works better all around.
@V.e.L.V.X.
The only downside to Scott's blog is that it only allows so many recent comments to appear in the specific box to the left. I've missed many comments because of this over time :(
What Scott said.
Aside from that, simply look up the 5 essential dignities at first and try to work according to them. This is very helpful when it comes to signs of detriment and debility which one would preferably avoid in planetary rituals. However, there's ways to work around that too. Something is currently in the works that will help occultists deal with such things ;)
In general, I found that the so called demons work faster, but the results last for so long. I'm pretty sure this has to do with the fact they're close to the physical realm and produce quick change. But when the energies of the higher, celestial realms start manifesting in the physical they usually override whatever actions are being performed by those demons that were sent to do XYZ.
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