Magical Instruction

If you are a beginning student wondering where to start learning magick, or a more advanced practitioner looking to make your magick more effective, Augoeides is the place for you. Over the years I have published all sorts of material that at one time could only be found within the confines of lodges and secret magical orders. If you have questions, post them in the comments. I always try and do my best to answer them, and I always will.

Personal Instruction

The magick class that I currently run is the Ritual Workshop event at Leaping Laughter OTO, the Minneapolis local body of Ordo Templi Orientis. We meet every Tuesday evening at 7:30 PM at our dedicated temple space. It is located at:

3107 California Street NE
 Minneapolis, MN 55418


This is a public event and all who can attend are welcome. You do not need to be an OTO initiate to attend. The classes are free, but we suggest a $5 donation to help cover temple expenses. Also, keep in mind that we follow a loose version of the Fight Club rule - if you show up, you have to do a ritual. But it can be any ritual from any tradition, as simple as you like, and if you don't know any rituals yet we'll talk you through performing something basic like the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram.

One Tuesday per month we hold our Via Solis Zodiacal Elixir Rites, which are announced here on Augoeides along with the ritual scripts on the preceding Mondays. These are also open to all who can attend, and the same suggested donation applies. But taking part in one of these group rituals counts as doing a ritual, so you won't have to do anything else.

In April of 2018 I participated in a series of online Enochian classes organized by Jason Augustus Newcomb. That series of Enochian Master Classes is now available and you can sign up here. Click here for a coupon code that will give you half off the registration price.

I also am considering doing more online classes at some point in the future, and will announce those here far enough in advance that everyone will have a chance to sign up. In the meantime, the following links organize the material I have posted here into what I hope is a coherent overall framework for study.

Social Media

I am pretty active on the Ceremonial Magick School Facebook group. You can send a request to join and as long as you give reasonable answers to a couple of questions, and you should be approved. Please make sure that you answer the questions - those are there to make sure that we're adding actual human beings and not bots or something in disguise.

Also, feel free to send me a friend request on Facebook. My profile is here, and once we are friends you should get updates from this blog and my author blog in your news feed. I rarely post anything that personal on Facebook, since I use it to promote my books and these websites, so you shouldn't run into anything more controversial than what I post here on Augoeides.

Professional Spellcasting

As I mention in the FAQ, I'm not in the professional spellcasting business and don't do magical operations for clients. Working with clients requires a completely different temple setup and so forth than what I use for my personal work. That may change at some point in the future, but for now if you have questions about how to perform one of the operations I describe here, feel free to email me at scottm@iphouse.com or send me a message on Facebook (once we're friends). I always try to do my best to answer questions of that nature, and I think once you overcome the initial resistance to casting a spell you might very well get better results casting for yourself than you would from any professional for whom said operation is basically just a job.

What Is Magick?

This is one of the most fundamental questions students ask. What is magick, and how does it work? While magick is a highly individual practice, there are some commonalities between schools, methods, and practitioners. My background is in the Thelemic school of modern ceremonial magick and the Hermetic tradition of the European Renaissance, particularly the works of Henry Cornelius Agrippa and John Dee. It was my interest in Dee's work that first prompted me to write the books that would eventually be published as my Mastering Enochian Magick Series.

Building a working model of magick is crucial for working out how to best accomplish various goals, set accurate expectations for the work, and "debug" your procedures when you run into problems. While this does constitute theory, it should be pointed out that an effective magical model should make testable predictions and conform to the scientific method as closely as possible. I say "as possible" because one of the key components of magick is consciousness, which we have yet figured out a way to measure accurately. This prevents "The method of Science" from being employed in its strictest sense, but at the same time it is an ideal for which I believe all magicians should strive.

This first series of articles covers various thoughts related to my model of magick an how it compares to others out there that are currently in use. While reading through it is not strictly necessary, I highly recommend it. What I do not recommend is waiting until you feel like you understand it all completely before you start doing any work. You should start learning to do the rituals I present here and practice them as soon as you can manage. You're not likely to hurt yourself if you do something wrong and there's no substitute for experience.

Regarding Magical Models
I generally think that the "quantum information model" that I propose in this series is currently the best model of magick that we have. Note that I specific "quantum" not because I see it as a synonym for "awesome" like some New Agers, but rather because it is vitally important to draw a distinction between quantum information, data, and language. The last two have nothing to do with quantum information. The number of facts we amass or web pages we create have no relation to the structure of the universe. And the fundamental weakness of the original "information model" of magick was that it confused semiotics and physics.

Basic Practices

This article from 2006, this one from 2008, and this one from 2016 give an overview of what I recommend as an effective daily magical practice. Every magician should develop a sequence of basic rituals that he or she performs at least once per day, generally in the morning after waking up or at night before going to sleep. Which you prefer depends a lot on your personal circadian clock - I'm a total night owl and can't get anything done in the morning, so I do my practices at night before I go to sleep. Either should prove effective.

The Basic Rituals
  • The Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. This simple rite is generally considered the most basic modern ceremonial ritual, and one of the first bits of magick that modern magicians learn. It is a microcosmic banishing and invoking ritual. That is, it works on your personal consciousness. The banishing form clears, stabilizes, and cuts away connections that may be influencing you. The invoking form energizes and empowers your sphere of consciousness. Note that this ritual does not "clear a space" beyond your body's natural aura, though some magicians incorrectly use it that way.
  • The Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram. This ritual is the macrocosmic counterpart to the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. That is, it works on space in the external world beyond your personal consciousness. The banishing form of this ritual is commonly taught as a daily practice, but I strongly recommend against it. You don't want to shut down or send the forces of nature away. To do effective practical magick, you want to connect with and manipulate them - which is what the invoking form of this ritual does. The banishing form can be used to clear a space, but when using in conjunction with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram it shuts down everything. That can include your own currently running operations.
  • The Middle Pillar Ritual. I don't teach most of Israel Regardie's methods, but the Middle Pillar Ritual is an exception. It brings energy work and identification with the divine into daily practice.
  • Meditation should also be taken up by aspiring students of magick. There are a lot of variations on meditation practice out there, but most of them produce similar effects. The method here is based on the simple non-sectarian "Mindfulness Meditation" method. You should try to meditate for about twenty minutes a day, which is entirely sufficient for magical work.
  • The Greater Ritual of the Pentagram. This is mostly an overview of how I do the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram, with some light commentary. I wrote it up because there is a lot of conflicting information online about how to do the Greater Pentagram along with other rituals like the "Supreme Pentagram" (which I don't use or teach) and so forth. This ritual can be used as part of a daily practice, especially as a preliminary to more involved HGA work. It also is used for practical elemental work.
  • The Greater Ritual of the Hexagram. This is my overview of the Greater Ritual of the Hexagram, which is used to tune your magical space for working with planets and zodiac signs just like the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram tunes your space for working with elements.
As a beginning student of magick, think of learning these rituals and techniques as your "one job" until you have them committed to memory and are doing them every day. They form the foundation of everything that is to come, including all of my practical magick methods. The whole sequence including a twenty minute meditation session can be done in less that a half hour, and that is really a small time commitment to make in order to pursue the path of magick and mysticism.

Commentaries on the Basic Rituals

The following articles go over the basic rituals that I have written up commentaries on so far, including extended commentaries and experimental speculation related to them. As I do more of these, I will add them to this list.
  • Lesser Versus Greater Pentagrams. This article was written to dispel a particularly pernicious myth about the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. Even though the pentagrams you are tracing are drawn in the same direction as Earth pentagrams, they are not exclusive to the element of Earth.
  • Hacking the Elemental Hexagrams. This article digs into a speculative method for using the elemental hexagrams from the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram to work with the four Qabalistic worlds. It was written in part as a response to what I consider the dubious practice of doing "Lesser Hexagrams of the Planets." "Lesser" rituals are general and "Greater" rituals are specific. Neither is a "better" or "worse" version of the other - they serve entirely different functions.
  • The Operant Field. This is one of the ideas that started it all, and my own small contribution to modern magick theory. Understanding the microcosmic and macrocosmic natures of the Lesser Pentagram and Lesser Hexagram points to more effective ways to work with these rituals, both in terms of daily practice and larger ceremonial operations. Try it out - you'll be surprised how much better this small change makes everything work.
  • Microcosmic Versus Macrocosmic Rituals. This is a longer and more detailed article discussing the operant field as defined in the preceding article, how Lesser rituals are general and Greater rituals are specific, and how to get at the microcosmic and macrocosmic aspects of the various magical forces.
  • Goetic Circles and Operant Fields. This article looks at some overlap between the operant field model and the magick circle found in a late grimoire, the Lemegeton or Lesser Key of Solomon.
  • Wrapping Up The "Hexagram Controversy". This article discusses the reaction of the online magical community towards the operant field model, and ends with a simple challenge: try it. If you try out the operant field method and it doesn't improve your results, by all means don't keep using it. At the same time, many magicians who have tried it report that their results are better overall, happen faster, and are stronger and more stable when they use it.
  • Thoughts on the Star Ruby. This article is my explanation of Aleister Crowley's "new and more elaborate version of the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram." This ritual can be used to open an operant field in conjunction with the Star Sapphire, just as the Lesser Banishing Ritual can do the same in conjunction with the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram.
  • An Analysis of the Star Sapphire. This article is a comprehensive overview of my thoughts on the Star Sapphire, Aleister Crowley's "improved ritual of the hexagram." The Star Sapphire behaves a lot like a souped-up version of the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram, and should be used in conjunction with the Star Ruby, Crowley's "improved ritual of the pentagram."
  • Regarding Devotional Work. This article summarizes some devotional methods for use by magicians, particularly those found in Aleister Crowley's Liber Astarte vel Berylli. Devotional rituals that you find inspirational and resonant with your will can be an important addition to your practice.
  • Thoughts on the Rose Cross Ritual. I do not personally use the Golden Dawn Rose Cross Ritual, but I did some experiments with it back in the day and some readers have asked about my take on it. In theory, the ritual works to smooth out and balance magical forces and fields, but so far I have not been able to figure out anything practical to do with it that I would be able to formally test. The idea that it "confers invisibility" does not seem to stand up to strict scrutiny, even though a lot of people apparently believe it.
And I'm sure that there are more to come. The idea is to post all of the relevant articles here so they are all in one place, and you don't have to manually search Augoeides for each one. If you do come across an article I've overlooked that you think belongs here, let me know.

Original Basic Rituals

These are some alternatives that I have written to the standard basic ritual forms discussed above. They can make for interesting experimentation, but I recommend you learn the standard versions first before moving on to any of these.
  • Revising the Keyword Analysis. This article covers a revised version of the Keyword Analysis from the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram that my magical working group developed.
  • Comselh Ananael Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram. This is the version of the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram used by my magical working group, including the changes explained in the article on Hacking the Keyword Analysis.
  • The Field Ritual. This is an experimental ritual developed at the Leaping Laughter Ritual Workshop that combines the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram and Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram along operant field lines.

Practical Magick

Once my students have a daily practice in place, I start them off with practical magick. That's one of the big differences between me and most other teachers. My main goal is to get you doing the work as quickly as possible, and getting good results as quickly as possible.

Most of the magical orders of the past have initiatory systems that you must go through before you are given any practical material at all. Further down this page I have my Path of Initiation too, but as I see it you can be doing practical work right away. While you want to cultivate illumination and realization as you work, odds at that there are a lot of issues in your life that can get in the way. So start off by eliminating or at least mediating those.

The Magical Powers listed after the various attributes are Descriptive, Not Prescriptive. The powers listed here are from Aleister Crowley's Liber 777, but they should not be treated as all you can do with any of these magical forces. For example, in many cases elemental magick can be used to accomplish similar goals to planetary magick. Earth can correspond to wealth and material prosperity, Water can correspond to love and relationships, Air can correspond to healing, and Fire can correspond to cursing and protection from curses. These are all in addition to their listed powers.

The Elemental Work
  • Earth. Alchemy, Geomancy, Making of Pantacles; Travels on the Astral Plane.
  • Water. The Great Work, Talismans, Crystal-gazing, etc.
  • Air. Divination.
  • Fire. Evocation, Pyromancy.
The Planetary Work
  • Saturn. Works of Malediction and Death.
  • Jupiter. Power of Acquiring Political and other Ascendency.
  • Mars. Works of Wrath and Vengeance.
  • Sun. The Red Tincture, Power of Acquiring Wealth.
  • Venus. Love-philtres.
  • Mercury. Miracles of Healing, Gift of Tongues, Knowledge of Sciences.
  • Moon. The White Tincture, Clairvoyance, Divination by Dreams.
  • The Epilogue covers both the Planetary and Elemental Work series of articles, and addresses some of the questions that came up while I was posting the series.
The Zodiacal Work
  • Aries. Power of Consecrating Things.
  • Taurus. The Secret of Physical Strength.
  • Gemini. Power of being in two or more places at one time, and of Prophecy.
  • Cancer. Power of Casting Enchantments.
  • Leo. Power of Training Wild Beasts.
  • Virgo. Invisibility, Parthenogenesis, Initiation.
  • Libra. Works of Justice and Equilibrium.
  • Scorpio. Necromancy.
  • Sagittarius. Transmutations; Vision of Universal Peacock.
  • Capricorn. The Witches’ Sabbath so-called, the Evil Eye.
  • Aquarius. Astrology.
  • Pisces. Bewitchments, Casting Illusions.
These basic magical powers are sufficient for practically any practical operation. They were all developed based on my Comselh Ananael Ritual Template which works or everything. If you would like to dig deeper into how the symbolism works, you can take a look at my article on Qabalistic Ritual Construction and this addendum to it regarding The Circle and Sigils.

The Path of Initiation

This series of articles is based on the published initiatory structure of Aleister Crowley's A.'.A.'. as found in One Star in Sight.

To be clear, I am an OTO initiate but not a member of any of the current A.'.A.'. organizations, and the rituals here were developed by Comselh Ananael, my magical working group. I offer none of my own opinions here regarding any of the A.'.A.'. teachers who have publicly identified themselves as such, and I expect that what they teach their students differs substantially from what is presented here. Nonetheless, we found this approach to be quite effective, and I think you will too.

If you don't have a daily magical practice, you will want to have that established before starting any of these rites. Refer back to my articles in the Basic Practices section for what that should look like. You should keep this practice up basically forever, or at least for the rest of your life.
This article on Improving Solve et Coagula explains why I work the elemental initiations in the order that I do, based on research done by my magical working group. Going in "density order" rather than "reverse YHVH" order seems to lead to a more balanced and stable manifestation of the elements within the student's sphere of consciousness.
The Initiation of Spirit binds the four classical elements and sephiroth from Malkuth through Netzach together. Then, the Holy Guardian Angel Invocation establishes the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel (K&C for short). The ritual here is based on Aleister Crowley's Liber Samekh, with some additions and modifications of my own. Once K&C is established, the student can move on to the next sephira.

Note that it generally takes at least six months or so of practicing the Holy Guardian Angel Invocation ritual daily in order to obtain and stabilize K&C, so it is a substantial undertaking. More traditional grimoire magicians can go back to the source and work the full Abramelin operation on which Liber Samekh is based, but bear in mind that may take even longer. One version of the Abramelin runs for six months, but the other runs for a full eighteen.
Crossing the Abyss is Crowley's terminology for the magical initiation that raises the consciousness of the magician into the supernal realm represented by the first three sephiroth. Once the Abyss has been successfully crossed, the magician can move on to the next sephira.
According to Crowley, once the magician has obtained initiation into Chockmah, he or she speaks a Word, or Logos. This utterance permeates the universe and gives rise to a new spiritual current, or a new manifestation of an existing one. This concept is tied into the zodiacal model of the Aeons, in which the procession of the Earth's axis results in a new sign of the zodiac coming to prominence about every 2000-some years, and the nature of that sign is said to guide human spirituality during the period that it rules over.
The Conclusion consists of my final thoughts on this series, and some of the questions that came up while I was posting these articles.

640 comments:

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j said...

Mr. Scott Michael Stenwick,

I just wanted to say, "THANK YOU VERY VERY VERY VERY MUCH FOR EXPLAINING THE EFFECT THAT THE "LESSER BANISHING RITUAL OF THE HEXAGRAM" DOES AND BY "NOT RECOMMENDING IT BE PERFORMED ON A DAILY BASIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

WHEN THINGS STARTED GOING AWRY IN MY DAILY LIFE I THOUGHT WHAT WAS I DOING WRONG AND THEN I REMEMBERED THAT WHEN I PERFORMED THIS RITUAL IN THE PAST IT CAUSED ALMOST NIGHTMARISH PROBLEMS IN THE PASSED!

Sorry for the capitol letters. I only want to emphasize how utterly devastating this ritual can be! Which is not something DONALD MICHAEL KRAIG cared to share with his readers in his book Modern Magick! (Incidentally have you written or do you sale a book that covers all or any of the Magick Rituals that you use and talk about! I would very much like to buy a Magick book that you have written!)

Also why would he teach The Lesser ritual of the Hexagram as a daily ritual? Was it a practical joke? I felt like I got sucker punched or kicked between the legs!

I put forth the effort to learn The Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram flawlessly only to get a negative result!

I want say thank you again for the information in the Magical Instructions Topic post!

Hope to see your MAGICK BOOK soon!

All the best,

J

Jbyers2@tx.rr.com

https://mail.google.com/mail/#inbox

Scott Stenwick said...

So far I have published two books on Enochian magick, Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy and Mastering the Great Table. While they are primarily focused on the Enochian system, they do cover my take on the pentagram and hexagram rituals as well.

With regards to the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram, I am not convinced that Donald Michael Kraig really knew what he was doing with it. In Modern Magick he said it was "like the LBRP, but more" or something like that, which I suppose is literally correct - except that he didn't really elaborate on what the "more" meant.

We had a bit of go-round with respect to my operant field idea shortly before he passed away, which you can read here:

https://www.llewellyn.com/blog/2011/04/the-map-is-not-the-territory/

Along with my summary of the discussion here:

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2011/04/wrapping-up-hexagram-controversy.html

One of the things that at least seemed clear to me is that this is a matter of technology, not "maps" - magick works the way it works regardless of what you think about it, because it's not just a psychological projection that shifts around depending on your perspective.

There are workarounds for the shutdown effect, such as linking all of your rituals to talismans rather than to your own sphere of consciousness. There are also some cases where you might explicitly want to use it, such as clearing out a space or cutting yourself off from macrocosmic influence. But I do find, that in general, using it sparingly seems to work best.

J said...

Mr. Scott Stenwick, thank you for your response it is very helpful!

I would like to say that although I stand by every statement I made earlier I like Donald Michael Kraig because of his willingness to make Magick more accessible through his book Modern Magick. He brought the topic of Magick to a wider audience. He explained some things very well, not so with The Banishing Ritual Of The Hexagram. I believe that you made a statement on your blog that the problem with Modern Magick is that it tends to pass along the things that Kraig did not really understand to his readers! (Like me for instance I kept up with the rituals because he said it was accumulative and necessary!)
It is ironic but I would like to say though that if anything good did come out of this experience it is that Magick is real! Our understanding of Magick might be theory but Magick itself is a fact just like gravity and the theory of gravity!
I will buy your two books! I'm very interested in Enochian Magick! I want to learn to speak it correctly so that i can perform rituals that use Enochian words!
One last thing, you have stated that you don't use The Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram and you don't teach it. Could you please explain why?

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

It would appear that the IRH works much better for me than the BRH.

I have theories but I’m not really sure why yet!

Maybe it’s because unlike Kraig I don’t tire of Positive (Spiritual Energy) Influences! Or do not feel a need to banish them (on a daily basis),but do “Strongly” feel the need to “INVOKE” Positive Influences(on a daily basis)!

By Invoking these Positive Influences it would seems that it is how positive Magic could be performed successfully! Not by banishing them! It would also seem that by Invoking these Positive Influences you could automatically avoid a negative outcome. In other words accidental or unintentional or even intentional black Magick would simply not occur or work!

I’m not sure of any of this but my instincts tell me that I “NEED” these Positive Influences to be happy and successful. They Empower and Guide me! They cleanse my aura, my soul, my mind, my body and my spirit!

Both you and Kraig encourage students to experiment and find what works for them! I did not know this when I started doing the BRH! It may have worked just fine for Kraig and other people but for me it had unpleasant results! Maybe this is why you do not recommend the BRH for daily practice but to use the BRH sparingly! (Yes I did read your response that said BHR does have some uses).

That having been said I still like Modern Magick and everything else about the book, but just not BRH! I plan to continue using it along with your books, Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy and Mastering the Great Table and by doing so forge my own middle of the road path. (I will only use the BRH only when absolutely necessary.)

Magick it would seem is not a cookie cutter system where everything is prefabricated but it is more like an expensive suit or a high end sports car where it’s costumed made and tailored to the individual or individuals needs! This also something I did not know when I started doing the BRH!

Thank you,
J
jbyers2at tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

The reason that I do not use the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram is that I do not use the Golden Dawn Enochian system. The attributions that I use for the Kings of the directions are different, for example. And it is not clear to me what the point of the SIRP is for non-Enochian operations.

Also, the nomenclature seems to reinforce the idea that the Greater Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram are "better" versions of the Lesser Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram, which is not the case - the "Greater" rituals are specific and the "Lesser" rituals are general, so they do entirely different things. But then, the "Supreme" pentagram is apparently general again. So that means a Greater Ritual of the Pentagram does an entirely different thing that a Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, but them a Supreme Ritual of the Pentagram IS a "better" version of the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. It's confusing and not very helpful, in my opinion.

The point of my comments with respect to Kraig is not to put him down, and hopefully it doesn't come across that way. The only reason I bring him up at all is that so many people learned magick from his book and as far as I can tell his understanding of the LBRH was limited at best. It's the main thing I find myself correcting about peoples' practices. And then when he tried to argue that I shouldn't be doing that during our online back-and-forth, he couldn't really explain why in a way that made much sense to me.

Alex Scaraoschi said...

Hey! Hope you're doing well. Is there a possibility you can post at least an article on divination? I don't remember ever coming across one on your blog, and I'm kinda challenged when it comes to that :) and I don't want to start casting on myself in order to improve the situation just yet. I guess there's others out there who can benefit from your kind of explanations in that field too (tarot, geomancy, astrology, or whatever method you want to address).

Thank you!

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

Your insights are helpful and I never thought you put Kraig down.
I was simply following the his (Kraig's) instructions on the LBRH and had a rude awakening!

Your explanations were helpful in explaining what I was experiencing!
The LBRH (He called it the BRH for some reason) made more sense we you responded in your
blog that it shuts down everything!
Your technology explanation also is useful in that it does what it does regardless of what
we think of it. In other words your saying the LBRH is just a machine or mechanism that
does what it was designed to do!
So by that definition it always clears out both positive and negative influences regardless
of the users background(maps)?
So not only did Kraig instruct his readers to shoot themselves in the foot he also shot
himself in the foot?
So in other words he wanted to have negative and unpleasant experiences?
I did this ritual a lot thanks to Kraig and it always ended up causing
problems without exception!
So his Maps idea has no bearing on how performing the LBRH (on a daily basis) would
actually play out?
Weird very weird!
I had honestly felt like it was as if Gandalf the White was playing a magickal practical joke on Frodo Baggins?
Thanks,

Jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

For what it is worth, I do not think that the explanation in Modern Magick is some kind of practical joke or whatnot. All of the material in the book came from the Cicero Golden Dawn group, and my understanding is that they still teach it the same way. So either they haven't noticed problems or something else is going on with their students.

It's possible that there are some practitioners who can use the ritual as taught without running into problems. I don't have enough data to say that my findings are universal or anything like that. But for me and a lot of my students (and apparently for you) it does work the way that I explain here. The issue does seem to be technological rather than some psychological mapping thing.

Scott Stenwick said...

@Alex: I will see what I can come up with for an article on divination. I agree that it is an important practice, and you're right that I haven't posted much on the subject.

Alex Scaraoschi said...

Yes! Thank you!!!

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

I wanted to start off by saying thank you for all of your previous input on the LBRH. It’s all been very helpful and I feel confident that I can put the matter to rest.

I do have a new question though about Enochian Magick. I am purchasing your two books but haven’t received them yet so I don’t know if my question has already been covered.

Is Enochian Magick and are the Enochian Keys or Calls dangerous (if dabbled with or used incorrectly) like Israel Regardie claimed! I read that Aleister Crowley had used the Calls incorrectly and it caused him problems.

Would you know what the long term or short term effects would be? Does it affect a persons Karma?

Would mispronouncing the words cause problems and do your books cover the proper pronunciation?

Thanks,

Jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

All that stuff about the dangers of Enochian magick is greatly exaggerated. The original source for that is Paul Foster Case, the founder of BOTA, who was convinced that the Golden Dawn Enochian system was dangerous and basically ripped it all out of his version of the system. Regardie was likely influenced by that, or just passing it along.

Case thought it was dangerous because a close friend of his who was working with the system had some sort of mental breakdown. He claimed to have tracked down "36 individuals," presumably 35 plus the friend, but nobody knows who any of those people were because he never named them. We have only his word on the existence of anybody who had problems besides the one friend, and he was clearly biased.

By that time hundreds of people had worked with the Golden Dawn Enochian system. The original order had something like three or four hundred members, and the later incarnations of it likely had hundreds more. 25% of the population has some form of mental illness, so even if we take Case at his word and only count the members of the original order, you're talking about 10% or so. That's way less than 25%, so there's no telling whether or not said individuals had some pre-existing condition that had nothing to do with Enochian.

There's absolutely no evidence from Crowley's magical journals that he had problems arising from his Vision and the Voice Enochian operation. All sorts of nonsense have been proposed related to that, like Donald Tyson claiming he "cracked open the gates of the apocalypse" or some similar twaddle. Crowley's use of the Aethyr Key in that operation is so simple it's hard to mess up. Recite the Key, scry what you experience. That's precisely what he did.

If you are talking about the New Age idea of Karma, then no, because New Age Karma is basically bullshit. If you mean Karma in its proper sense, the law of cause and effect, every experience you have affects your Karma. Enochian magick or any other kind of magick is no different. But if what you are asking is if bad things will happen to you as a result of working Enochian, the answer is no unless you mess up an injunction or a limitation and get an unintended result. It's exactly like every other kind of spirit magick in that regard.

As I see it, the main way in which Enochian is "dangerous" is that it is powerful. You shouldn't play around with it not really expecting it to work or anything like that. You will very likely get effects of some sort if you work with it. The main caveat is that you should structure your limitations to avoid "Monkey's Paw" type scenarios, where you get what you want but it happens by some means with other undesirable effects.

Like say you cast a spell for ten thousand dollars and don't put a limitation on your injunction specifying that no damage come to your property. A week later your car is totaled in an accident and you get a check from the insurance company for the amount requested. It's what you specified and you have the money, but now you're stuck buying a new car. Stuff like that.

There is a lot of disagreement over pronunciation of the language. There are a number of different pronunciation systems out there and I have known magicians who reported successful operations with all of them. I include the version I use in my books, and I consider it the best, but it doesn't seem like it's super-important in terms of getting the magick itself to work. And I've never seen anything bad happen to somebody over "mispronouncing" a word.

Johannes Farr said...

So great to have all this in one place Scott.

Your operant field forms a solid working system. Jake Stratten-Kent has tried to use Liber Pyramidos as another "universal" rite.

Being a Thelemite initiate how to do you feel about Pyramidos as a universal template?

Scott Stenwick said...

Personally I think Pyramidos works better as designed, a rite of self-initiation, than as a formula for practical magick. I have this same opinion of a number of different methods I have encountered, such as the Opening by Watchtower and the creation of talismans using Golden Dawn initiatory formulas.

Practical testing of the Opening by Watchtower, which is derived from the Golden Dawn Portal initiation, revealed that it added nothing in terms of increased probability shift to a ritual that was already opened with an operant field (LBRP/LIRH). It feels like more is happening when you do it, but none of that translates to practical results.

I can't say that I have done similar testing with Pyramidos adapted into a standard practical opening or with the practice of "initiating" talismans. But reading through them I'm skeptical. Initiating talismans is an enormous amount of extra work when you can just conjure a spirit and charge "Empower this talisman with power XYZ," with XYZ being one of the powers of the spirit conjured.

Likewise with Pyramidos, a rite of initiation is to my way of thinking a singular rite or at most a ritual that you perform until you "get" the initiatory current and then move on. It wouldn't be a daily practice except under very specific circumstances, and it wouldn't be the sort of thing you would want to use to open every practical operation.

Still, if you like Jake's version and it works for you, by all means keep using it. As I keep reiterating, my first rule of magick is that if it works it works. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to formally testing it myself, and it's always possible that the results will surprise me.

j said...

Mr. Stenwick,
Could you give some examples of how new age ideas on karma are “Bullshit” and are these ideas passed a long in “Modern Magick” or some other popular books like “Enochian Magic” by Gerald Schueler, or “Enochian Magick for Beginners” by Donald Tyson?
I would like to know what to watch out for!

Incidentally what is your opinion on Enochian Magic by Gerald Schueler.
Do you think Laycock's Enochian Dictionary is useful?
What do you think of Aaron Leitch’s books “ The Angelic Language Volumes 1 and 2 and his other The Essential Enochian Grimoire”? Do you think they are useful?
In regards to Aleister Crowley I have read that he was working with Victor Neuburg and bit off his ear after Neuburg summoned Choronzon and in turn Choronzon possessed Crowley in the desert of Bou Saada! What is your take on this?
I just got your books, “Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy and Mastering the Great Table”.

Thanks Again for all of your input.


J

jbyers2at tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

What I call the New Age idea of karma is this - there is the idea that someplace up in the heavens is a list of "good actions" and "bad actions." If in some situation you have the option to choose a "good action" over a "bad action" and you make the "good" choice, you will shortly after be rewarded with a "good" or "bad" consequence that is entirely unrelated to the action that you took.

But if you talk to a Hindu or a Buddhist about what karma means in their tradition, what they will tell you is that it simply means the law of cause and effect - the law of DIRECT cause and effect. So you might see something sort of like what New Agers refer to as the law of karma in social situations - if you treat the people around you badly, eventually word will get around and people will start treating you badly as well. But that's still a direct consequence.

The idea of New Age karma comes right out of Theosophy, which tried to create a hybrid of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity in the late 1800's. New Age karma is basically a glomming together of the Buddhist and Hindu ideas of karma and the Christian idea of sin. What you wind up with is, in some ways, a synthesis that is worse than either of its predecessors.

New Age karma is essentially the ultimate form of victim-blaming. It assumes that if bad things happen to you, it's because of your own personal immorality. It leads to ridiculous ideas, like the idea that you should never help anyone who is in trouble because they are "working out their karma." Basically it's a sick worldview that appears almost custom-designed to short-circuit compassion, which in both Buddhism and Christianity are supposed to be important virtues.

You see a similar problem with "New Thought" like "The Secret" and everything that led up to it, again from the late 1800's. If you experiences are entirely determined by your thoughts, you only have bad experiences when you are thinking bad thoughts. As a magician, I will say that concentrated thought can influence physical reality, but not in the deterministic way that "Secret" devotees believe.

The Schuelers are Theosophists, so you will find the "New Age karma" idea in their books. The Schuelers also work with the Golden Dawn version of the Enochian system, which is much more complex and very different from a lot of what you will find in the Dee diaries themselves. It's also different from what you will find in my books. If you are interested in that version of the system, I would instead recommend Lon Milo Duquette's Enochian Vision Magick. In my opinion, it's a much better treatment than what you will get from the Schuelers.

Scott Stenwick said...

Laycock is really the only good Enochian dictionary out there. It does contain both Golden Dawn and "Dee Purist" words and definitions, so if you are going to use it, you need to be able to keep track of which is which. Leitch's Angelical Language books focus more on the "Dee Purist" version of the language.

Here's my review of Leitch's Angelical Language Volume I:

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2010/11/review-angelical-language-volume-i-by.html

One of the bits that is in Mastering the Thirty Aires is that I found support for the idea I mention that most G's are hard G's and most C's are hard C's. In the fair copy of the manuscript, Dee uses specific superscripts for soft-G ("dg") and soft-C ("S"). The implication are that the other G's and C's are hard, though Leitch defaults to soft sounds throughout his book.

I haven't read the Essential Enochian Grimoire, so all I will say about is that the complaint I've heard from several people with respect to it is "Where's the grimoire?" Apparently it's a good collection of the basic source material, kind of like a better version of Tyson's Enochian Magick for Beginnners. But like Tyson's book, it apparently (according to the people I've talked to) doesn't include much in the way of procedures to actually work with it.

I don't know anything about ear-biting. That sounds like sensationalized drivel. It is true that according to the account in The Vision and the Voice, Crowley likely did experience a real episode of spirit possession when scrying the 10th Aethyr and dealing with an entity that he called Choronzon in his account. Neuberg drove the possessed-Crowley back out of the circle by threatening him with curses. Crowley notes in his account that magically inexperienced Neuberg did not even know the words of the curse, but his threats worked nonetheless. That's basically the whole story.

My take on that incident is that spirit possession wasn't taught in the Golden Dawn where Crowley first learned magick, so he was unprepared for it and it took him by surprise. It is taught in many other tradition, so it clearly is a real thing that magicians can encounter.

J said...

Gerald Schueler pissed me off royally in his book Enochian Magic when he passed along his belief that Enochian Magic was so tied to karma that using it for self gain self benefit would lead to destroying not just your life but your eternity as well.
Gerald Schueler again made this assertion in his book Advanced Enochian Magic (Which I sent back in disgust! Along with the Enochian Workbook) by saying if you want psychic powers or have mundane interests seek it elsewhere. Enochian Magic is not designed to benefit you in anyway! Except maybe to benefit your karma?!
So I asked myself whats the point then, and did some digging. I did find out that he was a Theosophist and that they tend do a lot of the benefit humanity and be completely selfless thinking! This came across as imbalanced and unrealistic! True balance means helping others and helping yourself!
The next bit of insight came from this website https://hermetic.com/enochia/enoch-ref where Gerald Schueler and Donald Tyson were listed under the heading, “Hall O Shame”!
The article pretty much summed up my suspicion of how Gerald Schueler was unqualified to make claims about Enochian Magic! The article called his books “hasty and unscholarly”, “lamentable”, and “products of his own imagination!”
I was relieved when I read this, because it meant that the powerful Enochian Magick system could be beneficial for more than one narrow point of view like Gerald Schueler's!
I have started reading your books, “Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy and Mastering the Great Table!” and I am enjoying them! You are a good writer and your books seem very practical! You also seem to avoiding the totally unnecessary spiritual karma’ “BULLSHIT” in your books that Gerald Schueler insisted in adding to his books! For this I wanted to say thank you in advance for writing books to help students to learn practical and useful Enochian Magick! I fully intend to use your Enochian Magick system!
Also thank you for you insights on the other authors! It saves time and money knowing what to avoid!
I read (tied to read) Donald Tyson’s “Enochian Magick For Beginners'.” and took it back to the place of purchase!
I have tried to like Tyson’s books (even before I read the
"Hall O Shame” article) but they seem to read like a pulp fiction novel! Like a writer determined to publish something (anything) so that he can get a small royalty check to afford his next meal! Saltines do get old after eating a thousand of them!
If I really wanted to learn Enochian (like a second language to read, speak and write Enochian) what book or books would you recommend?
One last thing, can you please tell me what being a “Thelemite” actually means to you or anybody else following Crowley’s Thelema System! What books did you read and what do people like about Thelema! Do you or does every Thelemite invoke “Aiwass” at their heart when performing the LBRP as in the book Modern Magick?

Thanks again,
Your insights are always helpful!

J

jbyers2at tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

Just as a point, comments on here are moderated. They will not show up right away until I log in and approve them. So you do not need to submit multiple copies of comments. I didn't used to do that, but I need to because there are so many spammers out there these days.

I worked out of the Schueler books when I was just getting started with Enochian and ignored that bit. I was able to use it for plenty of practical stuff. But then I got ahold of better books and realized just how sloppy they were.

Enochian Magic for Beginners was described to me once as a decent book as long as you apply the "red pen" method. Read the source material in the book, but whenever Tyson says "I think" or anything similar, cross out that sentence with a red pen and ignore it.

Learning Enochian as a complete spoken language is probably impossible without more words. The vocabulary is very limited because the only words that we have for the most part just come from the Angelic Keys. Even though I have my disagreements with Leitch, his Angelical Language books are really the only ones out there that deal with the language as a language.

The two things you need to watch out there is to use mostly hard C's and hard G's, unlike the soft sounds Leitch recommends, and don't pick up his idea of saying the names of the English letters as syllables. There's no evidence in the diaries that this is what you are supposed to do, and besides, it just sounds dumb.

I can't tell you what being a Thelemite means to anyone else. That's kind of the point. What it means to me, though, is that I do my spiritual practices in order to develop and refine my will and work the magick that I do to set my will in motion. Also, the order of practices that I outline in my path of initiation articles and that I have used myself is based on Crowley's A.'.A.'. system. I'm a longtime OTO initiate, but you don't have to be an OTO member to be a Thelemite.

Some Thelemites use Aiwass like that in the LBRP. I personally don't - I use the name of my own Holy Guardian Angel, not Crowley's. But that is a matter of some debate among people working with Crowley's system and there's no consensus on whether or not it's a good idea.

As far as books on Thelema, to get the best insights you really need to read Crowley - sorry to say, because his writing is dense and often difficult to understand the first time through. Lon Milo Duquette's books are also good - more beginner-level than Crowley, but also a lot clearer (and funnier - Lon has a good sense of humor and doesn't take himself to seriously).

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

If you perform daily rituals like the LBRP at the same time every day, and then do a spirit summing for a specific goal, how long should you wait before you do another LBRP?

Is it advisable to continue with your daily scheduled LBRP routine the following day or should you wait for the goal to manifest itself first?

Could you perform the same spirit summing again on a daily basis after you do your daily LBRP and other rituals? That is if correspondences are favorable of course.

Could you start on another spirit summing ritual for a different goal or should you wait for the first goal to manifest itself first?

Also I started reading your book, “MASTERING THE MYSTICAL HEPTARCHY”, and I got to the part about making the ring.

I have found several videos on YouTube about using broken jewelry gold to make a ring.

How do you in grave your ring? Did you make a mold? If so what did you make it of?

Or did you heat up the top of the ring and engrave it? What tool did you use to in grave it with?

Thanks again,

J,

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

What Magickal Rituals Enochian or other wise are good for improving ones mental health when dealing with stress at work, school, awkward social situations, home life or any other variety of stressful situations?

Thanks again,

J,

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

Your practical work should never interfere with your daily practice. Also, once you have a spirit acting in the macrocosm on your behalf, no amount of LBRPs will interfere with it. The LBRP is a microcosmic ritual. It doesn't affect external spirits or ongoing operations.

Don't recast your spells unless you design them that way from the beginning. An example of design from beginning - "I will cast this spell every day for a week in the appropriate hour." Just recasting because you feel like recasting, or whatever, never helps. I can't say for sure why this is, but my working hypothesis is it's like probability. If you set out to flip four coins and they all come up heads, that's very statistically unlikely. But if you've flipped four and three have come up heads, the next flip is no more likely to land as heads or tails.

You can set things up so you have multiple operations going, but there are some considerations. Your personal magical power will be divided between the operations, though the power of the spirit you are calling will not be unless you are trying to have the same spirit do both tasks. The expected probability shift looks something like this (with arbitrary numbers to make the math simpler).

You are a magician with a "magical strength" of 10. You summon two spirits with the same level of strength to perform two unrelated tasks. By a strength of 10, I mean under ideal circumstances capable of causing a probability shift of 10 to 1.

Base shift (one operation) = Your strength + Spirit's strength = 10 + 10 = 20. So one of the operations, by itself, should be able to cause a shift of 20 to 1.

Base shift(operation 1) = Your strength / number of operations + Spirit's strength = (10 / 2) + 10 = 15.
Base shift(operation 2) = Your strength / number of operations + Spirit's strength = (10 / 2) + 10 = 15.

This pattern continues as you add more operations. One way around it is to anchor everything on talismans rather than on yourself. A talisman will hit about 80% of the shift of an operation bound to you, but it has its own source of spiritual power and can operate entirely independently from any other talismans or operations. You can have hundreds if you want with no decrease in shift per talisman.

If that all makes sense. It's complicated, but that's just how it works.

I've bought most of my rings. I have made a couple of brass ones in the past and used an engraving pen to trace the symbols. They don't need to be deep, and I find rotary tools like dremels jump all over the place and have trouble making small straight lines.


Scott Stenwick said...

Anything attributed to Mercury is good for health and healing, mental and otherwise. As I cover in Mastering the Great Table, there are also angels of medicine in the Enochian system that can be quite effective along those lines.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,
As a teacher and practitioner of Enochian Magick, how do you deal with, cope with, debate with or simply shut down the new wave of what I call the Atheist Debunkers (who do not seem content to do there own thing such as https://usminc.org/enochian.html )? These BUSY BODIES seem determined to attack everything that does not fit into their closed and narrow-minded world view, all esoteric subjects and like Magick in general and Enochian Magick in specific! I would usually just ignore them, but they do have a tendency to affect the general public’s mental climate/atmosphere and attitudes! Ignoring a fire when it first ignites (as we all know) can cause catastrophic results! Snuff it out early and you can avoid its destructive results! The so called Atheist Debunkers can not even come up with SCIENTIFICALLY proven method to disprove the Existence of GOD, GODS or GODDESSES much less Spirits, Angels, Demons, Magick or Enochian Magick! We may not have the scientific Hard Evidence that they demand, BUT NEITHER DO THEY!
Also what is your view on the Temple of Set and Church of Satan’s use of the Enochian Keys? Are they just hurting themselves by using the Enochian Keys (out of context from John Dee’s and Edward Kelley’s original Enochian system) or are they capable of using it to harm others like in the Jane Mansfield and Sam Brody story?
Lastly were Aleister Crowley and Victor Neuberg ever able to rid themselves of Choronzon completely? You mentioned that
Aleister Crowley (at that time) did not know how to deal with spirit possession! If so what rituals did they use?
What are the best methods (Daily Rituals) to use to prevent possession, banish possessing spirits or oppressing spirits (for a person, a house, a building or a region), in Enochian, OTO, Golden Dawn, Kabalistic, or any other magickal system your familiar with? IS Smudging (burning sage) effective?
Thanks again,

J,

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

1) The simplest, most basic, and at the same time most accurate answer I can give you is that I don't. I just don't care. I cast Enochian spells and they work pretty reliably. It really makes no difference to me what the debunkers think, and I also am not about question my own direct experiences based on the supposition of anyone who doesn't share them. I have my ideas about how magick can work within the context of the scientific paradigm, and while we don't currently have the tools to measure consciousness, I'm convinced that one day we will. Then either my ideas will be demonstrated or contradicted experimentally. I'm totally okay with that.

(2) I doubt anybody is hurting themselves or anyone else just by using the Enochian Keys. Generally when you do something magical the "wrong way" nothing happens. Horror movies that contend otherwise are nothing more than fiction. It's a lot more dangerous to do magick correctly but to structure your charge wrong - an injunction with no limitation given to a simple-minded spirit, for example. That's the "Monkey's Paw" scenario - you get what you ask for, but it happens in a way that is harmful to you or your loved ones.

(3) There's no evidence that Crowley's possession (if that's indeed what it was) extended beyond the duration of the ritual operation. This is generally the case with rituals employing spirit possession across many traditions. The idea that once you're possessed you're always possessed/the demon can come back whenever/you can't tell if you might be possessed at some future period or whatever is another creation of horror literature and film to make fictional situations scarier - it very rarely happens. Crowley never describes anything similar in his journals, which are generally speaking quite detailed with respect to his ongoing magical operations. And Neuberg never was possessed at all during that operation, just Crowley himself.

Most likely the problem was that at the time it seems that Crowley was on the fence about the objective validity of external spirits. If the material Regardie published is to be believed, their model was more psychological in nature - to be fair, Regardie was himself a psychotherapist, but you see some of it in the introduction to Crowley's Liber O as well:

"This book is very easy to misunderstand; readers are asked to use the most minute critical care in the study of it, even as we have done in its preparation.

In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist.

It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them."

Scott Stenwick said...

(3 cont.) Crowley also wrote about the demons of the Goetia as "portions of the human brain" in the introduction to his edition of the text. But he apparently changed his mind later in life and became convinced that the spirits were in fact objective, or close enough to it that they might as well be treated as such. His experience of possession might have helped bring him around to that perspective.

In a way, this loops back to your first question. Crowley was one of the first magicians to try and fit ceremonial magick into anything resembling a scientific paradigm. As a result, he tried to write in such a way that his experiences with magick could fit into the science of the day. His ideas on the Goetia stem from his confusion over how spirits could be objective if multiple people could summon the same spirit at the same time and seemingly make contact with entirely distinct entities. The idea that consciousness could be non-local was lost on him at the time.

(4) You need to use macrocosmic rituals to affect anything outside your own sphere of consciousness/awareness. You can banish, banish, banish - which is the Golden Dawn approach - but it's far more effective in my experience to evoke the spirit that rules over what you're trying to prevent and charge it with protecting you. Pisces is a good aspect there - it rules "bewitchments" which can be any sort of mind control, which I would think possession would fall under. In all cases keep the sphere of influence idea in mind - Saturn, for example, rules "Works of malediction and death" so you can call on a spirit of Saturn to curse. But at the same time, a spirit of Saturn also can protect you from curses because Saturn rules cursing.

Smudging with sage can chase hostile spirits away, but they may come back once it dissipates. They don't like being around it, but it doesn't really harm them either. The advantage of, say, a Piscese talisman charged to protect you from possession is that it just sticks around and keeps working for an extended period of time.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,
Since my wonderful experiences with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram, I have started trusting Modern Magick teachings less and less and began to wonder what other surprises might be waiting for me down the road using Kraig’s (Cicero Golden Dawn group) system.
I don’t want anymore unpleasant surprises, just positive results from Practical Magick.
So I’ve decided to start relearning the Basic Rituals from your Basic Rituals Section to make sure I’m doing them correctly.
I do know that the Ritual Lesser Invoking of the Hexagram is really different in terms of results, is really quite different than the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram results at least for me. But the thought of ever doing Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram version just makes my skin crawl! The reason I brought all this up is at the Basic Ritual Section you said we should be doing them every day?!
I thought we should be doing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram sparingly? Is your version a lot safer?
Even though it’s the opposite ritual, could I just substitute Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram with the Lesser Invoking of the Hexagram in my Basic Ritual Daily Practice?
If the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram gave me so much grief, could the Greater Ritual of the Hexagram do the same thing of a Greater scale?
Also why do you not use the “YUD HEH VAV HE” in the Lesser Banishing of the Pentagram?
Lastly once we master the Basic Rituals what ritual do we use to start the Practical Magick to work with Element Planetary and Zodiacal work? What I mean is how does it all fit together.
Thanks again,
J,

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com




J said...

Mr. Stenwick,
I found you’re “My Latest Ritual Template” page. So I at least know the name of the ritual. I can honestly say that I feel a little overwhelmed with the amount of information on your blog, not to mention the tons of books on my desk that I took the time and expense to collect. It’s like no two authors can agree on anything! I don’t know if it is your own insight or your OTO background but it’s almost as if you rewritten every ritual I am familiar with which is just fine, impressive, and unnerving! I just don’t know where to begin. I wish I had found your blog first before I learned the rituals Kraig’s way. Have you ever worked on something so hard and feverishly and then had to re due the entire thing? If it happens enough times you can’t help but to feel a little frustrated. It’s like you need to refocus and get your second wind! Step back from it for a few moments and tackle the project with a fresh perspective! But I think at this point I’m obsessed with getting a win! I just need something to work the way it’s supposed to! Like you said, “Getting good results as quickly as possible”, “odds at that there are a lot of issues in your life that can get in the way. So start off by eliminating or at least mediating those.”!
The OTO system must be superior to any other!

Thanks again,
J,

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

(1) I hope that none of my articles suggests doing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram daily! In my experience, using it sparingly is the correct approach. If one of my articles says otherwise, let me know - I'll correct it. I might have inadvertently typed it up wrong.

(2) I don't recommend daily Lesser Banishing Hexagrams except under certain circumstances. Those circumstances are dictated by what you are trying to do. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram banishes all macrocosmic influences, positive and negative. If that's what you're trying to do during your daily practice, the LBRP/LBRH (what I call the banishing field) is how you do it. It is important, though to keep in mind that all banishing is going to do is to stabilize your life where it's at. That can be good if your life is full of unwanted chaos, but less desirable otherwise.

(3) The Greater Ritual of the Hexagram and the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram have very little to do with each other. The nomenclature is terrible - "lesser" in this context means "general" and "greater" in this context means "specific." They do entirely different things - one is not a "souped-up" version of the other. The Lesser Hexagram works with all four macrocosmic elements in a balanced configuration and the Greater Hexagram works with individual planets and signs of the zodiac, at whatever "scale" (micro or macro) you set using your foundational ("Lesser") rituals.

(4) Spelling YHVH versus vibrating it as a name just works better for most of the students I have worked with. My hypothesis is that if you spell out the word at one quarter and vibrate the other three, the resulting field is unstable because it is weak at the "spelled" point. But I don't know for sure.

(5) Let me address that last one, and your next message, in my next comment. Once you get it, it should be clear how the template really shines when going from daily practice to practical magick.

Scott Stenwick said...

(1) As far as rewriting the rituals, let me point something out. The versions of the pentagram and hexagram, rituals that I teach were published by Aleister Crowley in Equinox I:II, Autumn 1909, as part of Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae.

https://hermetic.com/crowley/equinox/i/ii/eqi02003

It is widely believed that Liber O consists mostly of the Adeptus Minor material that Crowley received from Mathers following his initiation into the 5=6 grade of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. I have made a few small tweaks here and there, but nothing of much consequence.

Crowley even shows the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram as the default in that document, which is what originally gave me the idea for the operant field (and all the experimentation that followed to validate it).

It's not entirely clear that Crowley got the distinction, though. His rituals that use LRP and LRH use the banishing forms of both to open, but at the same his versions of those rituals (Star Ruby and Star Sapphire) are clearly constructed as a banishing followed by an invocation. Also, he wrote Liber Reguli for his students' daily practice, which is clearly an invoking ritual rather than a banishing.

Anyway, the Golden Dawn rituals that Israel Regardie published from 1938-1940 were Stella Matutina rituals, circa 1934. The Stella Matutina was a successor organization to Mathers and Wescott's Golden Dawn, and they introduced a number of differences into the practice. Spelling out YHVH instead of vibrating it was a change made specifically by the Ciceros (as you can see in the footnotes to their edition of Regardie's The Middle Pillar). Crowley was taught Ye-Ho-Wau and Regardie recommended Ye-Ho-Voh, but later in life switched to the Cicero "spelling" version when they worked together to standardize the "modern" form of the GD rituals.

My point - the folks "rewriting" these rituals really aren't me except in a few cases (like with the operant field method). The Liber O rituals are the ones Crowley got straight from the guy who is believed to have originally written them.

(2) Now... as for the template. Your daily practice should look something like this:

LBRP
LIRH
Middle Pillar
Qabalistic Cross

Every practical operation looks like this:

LBRP
LIRH
Middle Pillar
* GIRP or GIRH for the element, planet, or sign you want to do practical magick with.
* Conjuration - Charge - License to Depart for associated spirit being conjured.
* LBRP (or)
Qabalistic Cross

See? The whole thing is modular. Once you've memorized your daily practice work you already have the full practical opening and closing down! This structure does represent a bit of innovation on my part - I think - but mostly because nobody seems to want to publish the overall sequence of operations for these rituals.

I worked for years with the modern GD approach before I worked out the operant field. So I know what you're talking about with that. The operant field made a huge difference in my practice, which is why I advocate for it so strongly.

J said...

LBRP

Mr. Stenwick,

In the LBRP how did SL Macgregor Mathers (The Man Who Wrote the Ritual) pronounce YHVH. Would any pronunciation of the four letters work? That is, just add any vowels you want between the consonants just as long as you pronounce it as a word and don’t spell it out the Hebrew consonants?

Also Kraig recommended visualizing a white aura sphere after forming all of the pentagrams connecting and surrounding the magician. What’s your recommendation?

What is your take on the Crowley’s Four Adorations? Kraig recommended them.

Lastly, do you know anything about the Tabor Formula listed in Dennings And Phillips book Practical Guide to Psychic Powers?

Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

In regards to S.L. Macgregor Mathers (The Man Who Wrote the Rituals) did he get his basis for the Golden Dawn Rituals from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's “Three Books of Occult Philosophy”? You mentioned in your book “Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy” that John Dee would also have had access to it as well and may have been a reference guide in helping to develop the Enochian Magick System.

Also since you are a member of the O.T.O (Ordo Templi Orientis) from where are the O.T.O.’s rituals derived?

Does the O.T.O share it ritual information with the general public? That is as a member are you encouraged or discouraged to give information on how the O.T.O members perform their daily rituals like the LBRP on your Blog? If so how do they or how do you as a member of the O.T.O pronounce YHVH in the LBRP?

Also I just noticed that no author ever talks about the “Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram” !

Why is this? The reason I am asking is that when I was reading your article on the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram you had an illustration on how to cast the Invoking Pentagram.

Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com







J said...

Secret Chiefs:

Mr. Stenwick,

What about the “Secret Chiefs” I read that they were given credit for some of the rituals development?

It seems that every spiritual organization has some equivalent story to promote their teachings! Is this just a some sort of promotional device meant give the founders of an spiritual organization some credibility (building upon what was already there in the human psyche) or is there some truth to the idea of some kind of Ascended Spiritual Beings Teachers or Masters? Ancient Egyptians had the Gods, Ancient Hebrews, Christian, Muslims, had their Angels, Mormons have the Angel Moroni! Buddhists, Hindus, Spiritualist or Spiritists, Scientology (L Ron Hubbard was influenced By Crowley much to his irritation). The list is endless.
The idea first came to me I saw the movie “The Mothman Prophecies” which was based on John A. Keel book by the same name which was supposed to be compilation of hundreds of different experiences with some kind of Spiritual being or beings. Since there are so man different accounts of such experience it must at least be possible that the “Secret Chiefs” do exist in some way and may have influenced S.L. Macgregor Mathers when writing the Original Rituals!
Did Mathers ever write a version of the “Four Adorations” ?

Did Crowley ever refer to these “Secret Chiefs”?

Also why did S.L. Macgregor Mathers (and Charles Henry Allan Bennett) take a liking to

Crowley (teaching him the rituals) when no one else in the his organization did?

Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com


J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

Crowley Claimed that he saw in his Charles Henry Allan Bennett

Levitating!? What is your take on this?

Also do you use divination like the Tarot?

Kraig promoted it as a prerequisite before doing practical work to predict if its outcome would be successful!

Is this really necessary? Or just another paranoid misconception he passed along in his book (just another something he just didn’t quite get)?

Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com


J said...

Mr. Stenwick,


Oops! Must have missed it before. You said Crowley was taught Ye-Ho-Wau I guess by Mathers and Bennett!

Ye-Ho-Wau (that’s a short a and short u sound)?

Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

The One thing I’m learning about you site is that if I have a question that I think has never been asked or answered before it is probably somewhere on your Blog!

After I read your explanation about The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram I just wondered what would happen if I started using it as The Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram. This idea originally came from your Invoking Hexagram Illustration! Other than that I had not read anything about it on your site yet! I didn’t know that you had already covered it! I just started doing it based on your illustration! It works beautifully and having just read your “ Operant Field” confirms what I have already been doing!
Now I’ve found information on the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram! Again I just started thinking about it based on your illustration!
Can you just add Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram to your Operant Field combination!
If so what would be the correct order to perform it in combination with the other rituals?
Also if they combination of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and the The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram (Banishing Field) caused problems if they are used together daily, would The Star Ruby and the Star Sapphire cause the same problems if performed together daily? Is it the same or greater “Banishing Field”!

Sorry to read your book didn’t get published because I would have totally be willing to purchase it! It’s Ironic that those idiots called it too advanced! They obviously did not know what they were talking about! Those rituals are just combinations of the two most basic rituals!
Once I read, “ The Operant Field” article I have begun to feel less overwhelmed by all the information on your Blog! It makes everything clearer!

Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

Regarding pronunciation - for the three names other than YHVH you go with what the vowel markers indicate in the Hebrew. YHVH is a special case because in the Torah, it always is written with the vowel markers for Adonai to remind readers that they are supposed to substitute Adonai for YHVH. That's where you get Yeh-hoh-wau or Jehovah - inserting the Adonai vowels into YHVH.

And yes, it sounds super dodgy in the sense that it means Yeh-ho-wau isn't even proper Hebrew. That probably is why the Ciceros decided to have folks spell it out, which is completely logical - and when you test it experimentally it just doesn't work as well. Yahweh or Yeh-ho-wau or Yeh-hoh-voh all work better than Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. And there doesn't seem to be much difference in effectiveness between those different pronunciations as long as you pronounce it as a word.

I would say to try Kraig's visualizations and keep them if you like them, or do something else if you don't. Many of them are of his own invention or later additions by the Ciceros. None of them are require for performing the ritual - though to be fair to Kraig, he always would tell students the same thing that I do. Try it and see how it works.

The four adorations are a good practice if you can keep them up. A lot of us are spotty about them. The only real caveat I would suggest is that on a given day, if you are going to do them, make sure you do all of them. Also - midnight and noon should be adjusted for the abomination known as Daylight Savings Time if you want the Sun to really be overhead or on the other side of the Earth.

I don't even know what the Tabor formula is. Sorry! I have read some Dennings and Phillips, but not that particular book.

The original concept behind the LRP actually comes from Eliphas Levi, not Agrippa. In Transcendental Magic Levi describes "the ritual of the pentagram" which includes several of the key elements (pentagrams to the quarters and archangels). The godnames are from the list of "Tetragrammatic Names of God" from Rosenroth's Qabalah Unveiled, which was Mathers' main source for Golden Dawn Qabalah.

Otherwise, large chunks of Golden Dawn lore came from Barrett, Agrippa, Rudd, and others. And, of course, the Dee diaries, which Mathers studied extensively at the British Museum.

The "OTO Rituals" basically consist of the Gnostic Mass and the initiation rituals. Other rituals like the Star Ruby, Star Sapphire, Mass of the Phoenix, Reguli, and so forth are all A.'.A.'. rituals. In practice there's some overlap because a lot of OTO initiates use the A.'.A.'. rituals for various things whether they are A.'.A.'. members or not (like me - I'm not a member of any of the formal A.'.A.'. groups).

The Gnostic Mass is published and there are even a couple YouTube videos of it. The initiation rituals are kept secret because OTO is a mystery tradition and they work best if you have no idea what is going to happen for each degree. Versions of those rituals can be found in various places online, but I highly recommend that you only seek them out if you know that you will never want to go through them yourself with an open mind.

Ritual tech like how to do pentagram rituals and stuff like that is never kept secret. I find it ridiculous that any tradition would structure itself along those lines. Tech is tech - secrecy does it no favors.

The main use of the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram is as an invocation ritual when the only ritual you know is the LRP. When all you do it that ritual, an effective way to practice is to do the LIRP when you wake up in the morning and the LBRP before you go to sleep. That's because in your daily practice you should always be invoking something, rather than just banishing. Banishing smooths out various elements of your life, but you aren't going to make a lot of spiritual progress if it's all you do.

Scott Stenwick said...

A lot of the Secret Chiefs stuff had to do with the trend in late 19th century occultism to claim "inner plane contacts" or some other sort of divine communication that validated the teachings of whatever group. You have stuff like Blavatsky claiming that all of her stuff was inspired by Tibetan masters she was in psychic communication with, and big surprise, when Tibetan Buddhism finally came to the west it turned out to look nothing like Theosophy.

As far as I know, there are no Golden Dawn adorations comparable to Liber Resh. Denning and Phillips wrote one and Donald Michael Kraig simplified Crowley's version, but those are the only other ones I know of.

Crowley's basic idea is that you turn yourself into a "secret chief" when you cross the abyss. When Crowley talked about "the masters" and so forth, he was talking about a group to which he believed he belonged himself. I haven't done it yet myself, so it's hard to comment from any personal experience.

I couldn't say why Mathers and Bennett liked Crowley when some of the other members of the Golden Dawn (like Yeats) absolutely hated him. Probably something like he was a good magician, but not conventionally "respectable" in whatever way some of the other members were looking for.

I know that "yogic flying," where meditators basically hop around, is a real Eastern practice that Transcendental Meditation teaches. Crowley actually never claimed to have seen Bennett levitate, but he did claim at one point he found Bennett still in his meditation posture toppled over on his side, as though he had started to levitate and then fallen over. That's very possible with the "hopping" that gets called "yogic flying."

Crowley did write that some of his students had reported seeing him levitate while deep in meditation, but Crowley claimed that he must have been so deep in meditation that he never noticed. I wonder if those students were pulling his leg - he certainly messed with and tricked his students, so I wouldn't necessarily blame them if that was the case. I never rule anything out, but the skeptic in me thinks that full levitation (rather than hopping) is unlikely.

As for Tarot divination, sure, I use it sometimes - generally when I'm thinking about doing some sort of a ritual that I'm not sure how it will go. I don't always use it like Kraig recommends, though. A lot of the time I have a pretty good idea of how what I want to happen is going to unfold.

When I do that way, I say WAU a lot like WOW. But I generally vibrate Yah-weh, which is pronounced just like it looks.

Scott Stenwick said...

Cool. You already worked out the operant field. I have met a number of people who worked that piece out, tried it, and got good results. I think I'm the first person to publish it, though.

As in the article, the "fields" line up like this:

LBRP/LBRH - Banishing field. The full banishing, micro and macro. Shuts down ongoing magical operations.
LBRP/LIRH - Operant field. Banish micro, invoke macro. For most magical operations.
LIRP/LIRH - Invoking field. Invoke micro and macro. Boosts ongoing practical operations.
LIRP/LBRH - Centering field. Invoke micro, banish macro. For psychological operations where you want to isolate your aura from macrocosmic forces.

You can experiment with adding other forms to the sequence because there's nothing wrong with experimenting, but I have found that those four above are pretty much all you need.

The default Star Ruby is a banishing and the default Star Sapphire is an invocation, so it's more like an operant field as written. But if you did a banishing Star Ruby and a banishing Star Sapphire together it would work pretty much the same as the LBRP/LBRH. So make sure you use invoking hexagrams with your Star Sapphire and you should be fine.

And these rituals are basic, true, but they're foundational as well. In many ways they are far more important in your practice than the so-called "Greater" rituals.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

I agree that these four rituals are foundational, I just meant that the editors at Weiser Books didn't know it and called it too advanced! I don’t know if its still an option but you could send it to Llewellyn the seem to have published books in the passed that go from Beginner to Advanced.

After I read and reread all of your answers and articles on LBRP, LIRP, LIRH and The Operant Field and performed them I began having a strange combination of exuberance, euphoria and energy! Like I could tackle anything! Its like I have the energy to comprehend and understand things better magickal or otherwise! It feel kind of like a controlled explosion! Only its creative not destructive!

That’s not something I ever got from Kraig’s Modern Magick.

Sorry if I got a little enthusiastic when posting questions yesterday. That’s not something I normally do. I just had some much energy I just needed a way to release it and at the same time craved more! After having done The Operant field rituals and LIRP I feel like a live wire or part of an electrical circuit! Its feels kind of strange but awesome!
Everything in life seems to coordinate or resonate better! Weird but fun!

Yes I believe you are defiantly the only one to have ever written about The Operant Field!

So I just wanted to say thank you very much for all of your complete patient and thorough answers!



Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

J said...

Perfectly Clear:

Mr. Stenwick,

Before this goes any further I just want to make it perfectly clear that I give YOU full credit for my new understanding of the Lesser Invoking Ritual of The Hexagram and my even newer understanding of the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram and the Operant Field! I was just saying that I saw the Banishing and Invoking Hexagram and Banishing and Invoking Pentagrams illustration FIRST before I read the Operant Field article! I honestly never thought that these rituals could be performed this way until I saw YOUR illustrations! Then when I Saw The Invoking Hexagrams and Pentagrams, I thought to myself, “There’s something I didn’t know!” Kraig never mentioned it in his book Modern Magick! Some people would call this “DABBLING” or “ GOING OFF ON A TANGENT!” But I thought to myself “How could things get any worse! Let’s just go with it and see what happens! We’ve tried Kraig’s way only to have it go south! Let’s just try some good old fashioned DABBLING!”
As you well know things started getting better and better! I just wanted and found something simple! A simple fix!
It was YOUR Lesser Invoking Ritual of The Hexagram article that I read first which had these Invoking Hexagram illustrations! I just didn’t know about the Operant Field yet!

I hope it did not come across as me giving myself credit for your insights and the information on your Blog!

ALL THE BEST!

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

No, you did not come off that way at all. Anyway, I really do not care too much about credit or whatever. I just want the technology to be out there so people can use it.

As far as the book - part of what I went into was a proto-version of my quantum information model of magick, but based on circa 2000 scientific understanding of brain states and so forth. All of that needs to be completely rewritten in light of the latest findings in neuroscience and so forth. Also, new discoveries about how quantum entanglement works affects some other pieces of the model.

So I can't just re-submit it someplace else. I want it to be ground-breaking as of today, not say 2002-2003 when I was putting the original ideas together. I still think the model I have works fine - if anything, the latest discoveries get us closer to a comprehensive model of magick that fits a scientific framework - but it does require some significant tweaks and clarifications.

J said...

Mr. Mr. Stenwick,

Have you or anyone you know of, had a persistent feeling like there is some kind of unseen force working against them. Despite all of their best efforts they keep having undesirable experiences, and because of the stress it causes they keep making absent minded mistakes! They may try to be a good person, get along with others or work hard, etc, but always end up in some kind of chaotic mess! Not just with people but with every day situations in daily life too. Its not that they are bad, its just that they are misunderstood or unaware of what their doing to cause problems. It’s like being out sink with the rest of the universe, with no harmony, with no good luck, just chaos! Could this be a curse? Is their some other explanation?
Which element, planet, zodiac sign or ritual would you recommend to set things right with the universe or unseen unknown forces? Saturn?
Thanks,
J
jbyers2@tx.rr.com
jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

I think that most people feel that way at one time or another. Whether or not it stems from a paranormal force of some kind is a whole other thing. There are many different kinds of paranormal forces that *can* do these sorts of things, but all of them are relatively rare.

The basics - sometimes this sort of thing can be caused by a "crossed condition," which isn't really a curse per se. It's a condition where in some spiritual sense you are "out of sync" with the rest of universe and it is more difficult than it should be to get things to go your way. That actually sounds kind of similar to what you're describing.

The classic remedy for this is an "uncrossing ritual." There are many different methods that you will find in various traditions to do this. In the ceremonial system, the Sun is a good planetary aspect to work with and Fire is a good elemental aspect to work with. Here's an example of an uncrossing ritual by Andrieh Vitimus that calls on Michael, who is both the angel of Fire and the angel of the Sun.

http://magicblog.andriehvitimus.com/2012/09/st-michael-uncrossing-wall-of-protection.html

You can adapt my ritual forms here to accomplish this, with a charge like "eliminate all crossed conditions afflicting me." Those would be The Planetary Work - Sun and The Elemental Work - Fire. For bonus points, call on the angel to empower a talisman that will eliminate all crossed conditions on an ongoing basis.

If that doesn't work, it's possible that you could be dealing with some kind of curse. Curses don't need to be sent by other magicians - they can be sent by spirits, too, and sometimes for what seem totally inexplicable reasons to us humans. Spirits are basically alien manifestations of consciousness, and they don't experience the universe anything like the way we do.

Scott Stenwick said...

In the elemental realm, Fire is most effective against curses. You can conjure a spirit of fire to curse someone, but you can also summon them to protect you from curses. That's because "cursing" is one of the things that Fire rules within that realm.

In the planetary realm, cursing is ruled by Mars and Saturn. Mars rules "works of wrath and vengeance" and Saturn rules "works of malediction and death." As with Fire, both can be conjured to protect you from curses of the associated type, and you can conjure both to protect you from the vast majority of curses.

In the zodiacal realm, Capricorn rules "the evil eye" which is a form of curse that was believed to be cast by sight in ancient times. Saturn rules Capricorn and Mars is exalted in the sign, so it no surprise that it would have some association with cursing - and like the other aspects, rules over and therefore can protect you from curses of this type.

For dealing with this sort of curse, use The Planetary Work - Capricorn.

All of these can be done as talismans. Conjure the spirit and charge them with empowering a talisman to ward off any curses affecting you that the spirit rules over. Once those are up and running, you shouldn't be affected any further by curses.

One other aspect to consider is Libra - works of justice and equilibrium. If someone has cursed you, you can call up the angel of Libra to do the "mirror spell" that will bounce the curse back at them. This isn't always a good idea, but some people like to do it. Before you try this, though, be confident that you are in the right. The main way this can fail is if the angel thinks you are using it in a manner that it considers "unjust." If, on reflection, you're not 100% sure you are using it in a just manner, there's a good chance the angel won't be sure either.

The other big point here - even though we're talking about curses, never *ever* jump to the conclusion that some other particular person has cursed you without hard evidence. I have seen more "witch war" bullshit over this than you probably would believe. This is why I make the point above that spirits can throw curses sometimes too, and not necessarily for obvious reasons. If you mitigate something that is acting like a curse and things get better, and you have only one "enemy" you can think of who might have cursed you, it does *not* mean that they did it. It could have come from some other source. Also not that a "crossed condition" is not a curse and is not necessarily "sent" by anyone or anything. If an uncrossing remedies your condition, it is very likely that the condition had nothing to do with a curse or spell.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

Is there any type of “ Spirit Etiquette” that a magician should observe to avoid offending them in the first place?
Also is it possible to appease or apologize to a spirit who is casting a curse on someone or would the spirit request be something unreasonable in the way of an apology?
You mentioned that spirits do not experience the universe the way we do!
It would also seem that spirits are capable of reading someone’s thoughts and there inner most secrets!
How is this possible? How does it work? How do you stop it from occurring?
It has its pros and cons! How would you turn this into just pro or a positive situation?
There is so much about spirits that still seem to be such a mystery to me!
Basically weird things “effects” happened to me all the time!
Some good some bad!
One of the weirdest situations I have ever experienced was when I had just purchased a new car.
While outside on a forklift unloading a truck, I had a random thought about hail storms! I hoped to myself that we would not get any! I had not watched any forecasts and though hails storms do occasionally happen they are rare where I live! The weather was some what moderate with just a slight chance of rain not cold!
No sooner than I thought about not wanting any hail storms, we had a hail storm! I mean we had not had one in years!
Pea size hail while I was on the fork lift! Of course I started cussing up a storm myself, like I always do fearing the worst about my brand new car! I don’t really know why, but I kept shouting, “Stop, Stop!” As if I was talking to a person! This does not make any since! It was a hail storm! But as soon as I did the freak hail storm stopped! As I was sitting there the driver who had been in the cab the entire time came up to me and said “What the hell was that! I didn’t hear anything about hail storms in the weather!” Obviously as surprised as I was!
Turns out that there was no damaged to my car after all! It was just a light hail!
I understand that coincidences do happen sometimes, but the weird part is that it happened right after I thought about it!
To be completely honest I not a hundred percent sure what happened but this not the first time something like this has occurred!
I am interested in your opinion since you deal with spirits all the time!

Thanks,
J
jbyers2@tx.rr.com
jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

The most basic advice for dealing with spirits is pretty basic - treat them like you would treat a person. If you are polite, respectful, and so forth any spirit you treat that way is likely to return that treatment. It isn't that mysterious if you just use some common sense. If you run into a spirit that is still hostile even when you treat it respectfully, you may want to find another spirit to work with. Some of them just don't have good temperaments.

In my experience spirits don't care much about apologies. They like offerings, though. If you are worried that you might have offended a spirit, make an offering as your "apology." That often works.

Spirits can read your active thoughts. That's what I mean by "mind reading." They can't, for example, dig through your memories without you having any idea what's going on. Remember that if you're not thinking about something, it's not being thought about. You don't have a "subconscious mind" that does a whole bunch of thinking and processing without your awareness - that's psychanalytic nonsense that doesn't stand up to scientific testing.

As far as turning cons into pros - spirits rule their various spheres of influence, and if you have a positive relationship with a spirit one of the things you can charge them with is to mitigate negative effects related to their corresponding attributions and increase positive ones. So let's say, for example, nobody pays much attention to you at work. You could call on a spirit of Jupiter to (1) mitigate anything that will lower your status and make people overlook you and (2) amplify anything that will get you noticed for bonuses, promotion, or whatever.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

Could you please place the " Greater Ritual of the Pentagram" and " Greater Ritual of The Hexagram" in outline form so that I know that I get every component correct when performing them. I want to make sure I get it right! I know your not Kraig, but it would really help!
Also, what do you know about facing the direction that the planet is rising instead of using the "the magician not work in the four quarters" you mention in the "Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram" as listed in from the "Thelemapedia"?
Also back in the day before I discovered your blog, I used the the "18th Key" a lot and had lots of random effects, non of which I could really control! That's Why I stopped using it!
I just want to point out that I was not disrespectful to any entity, I was just shocked by the effect! When I realized what was actually going on I simply asked the "Entity" to stop! Which of course the Entity did cease with the effect! It was in retrospect totally amazing and by someone who was not actually there impossible! It was totally unexpected on my part, especially sense I expected just a general blessing from the "18th key"! I'm sorry for not being more clear earlier, and I have nothing but love and affection for the unnamed "Entity" who manifested the effect! To be Honest I still from time to time have these "Random Effects"! I can't really control them! That's why I stopped using "Key 18" but hopefully with what I learn from your blog I will one day be able to communicate with this "Beautiful Magnificent Entity"! I think that there is some kind of language barrier and If I learned the Enochian Language more accurately the "Effects" would be more controllable! I mean I would actually be able to ask the "Entity's" name and I would be better able to communicate and make requests! As Crowley said and I'm paraphrasing, " Don't believe me, Try it for yourself!"
Please let me know of or post any experiments you have or will conduct using "Key 18"!

Thanks so very much for all of tour insights! There "Extremely Valuable" in this new world I stumbled upon!

Thanks,
J
jbyers2@tx.rr.com
jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

The Greater Ritual of the Hexagram is basically just done like this:

1. Trace the proper hexagram in the proper color while vibrating ARARITA.
2. Trace the proper symbol in the color complementary to that of the hexagram while vibrating the appropriate godname.

You start in the east and perform that sequence to each quarter going clockwise. Then you return to face the east and do the rest of your ritual/conjuration/whatever.

That's it. Some people insist that you do the Keyword Analysis, but when I do magick this ritual always follows the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram which includes it. As I see it, if you've done it for the LRH you don't need to do it again for your the GRH. That would be redundant.

Some magicians have claimed that you can just do the sequence above once as long as you do it in the direction of where the planet is in the sky. I personally always do the four quarters so I don't have to pay attention to that, but feel free to experiment with it. It sounds like at least some of the folks who do it report good results.

I never use Enochian keys for non-Enochian rituals. It just seems incoherent to me, as Enochian is its own system of magick, and I don't recommend it. At least one other person has reported something like that to me with respect to using Enochian keys in Wiccan rituals - weird effects that don't line up with the object of the operation and which are hard to control.

If you want to use the Enochian keys, do Enochian rituals as designed. That is, use the keys as part of your procedure to contact specific Enochian entities. It's not clear to me who or what you are trying to call using the Keys. That might be why the effects are hard to control right there - you're just opening a doorway and letting whatever wants to come through show up. All the names of the Enochian entities and their controlling names and so forth can be found in Dee's work, or in my Mastering Enochian Magick books.

Once you are in touch with a particular Enochian entity or entities the language is actually irrelevant. Dee was never told to learn it, just to recite the Keys from a book of spirits. Once the spirits show up they can just communicate via thought. You don't need to be fluent in any language, including theirs.

Scott Stenwick said...

To add a couple more comments on the GRH - the colors and hexagrams depend on what you are trying to do, because the GRH is a specific rather than a general ritual.

* Sephiroth on the Tree of Life corresponds to states of consciousness or mystical visions.
* Paths on the Tree of Life correspond to practical magical effects.

See column XLV in Liber 777 - Magical Powers (Western Mysticism) - for what all of these are.

For sephiroth, you use the Queen Scale of Color.
For paths, you use the King Scale of Color.

This color is always for the hexagram itself. The complementary color is used for the symbol in the center, which is the standard astrological symbol for the planet or sign.

Does that make sense?


J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

Yes thank you!

Your a good writer and explain it well!

I just wanted to make sure I got it right!

Also Is there a specific Enochian banishing?

The LBRP in Enochian?

Thanks,
J
jbyers2@tx.rr.com
jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

Thanks!

There is not a specific, official Enochian version of the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, but a number of authors have written their own. Here's mine:

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2008/01/aoiveae-enochian-pentagram-ritual-v3.html

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,
Since I seem to be having continual effects after having used the Enochian Keys ( I got some bad advice before I found your blog) incorrectly, would working with Saturn or the Sun or Capricorn or The element of Fire or the Uncrossing Ritual still be effective in getting the effects to stop or perhaps encouraging a spirit to leave? Would I have to use an Enochian ritual to banish the effects of a Enochian Spirit.
You wrote two statements that got my attention the first one was"Curses don't need to be sent by other magicians - they can be sent by spirits, too, and sometimes for what seem totally inexplicable reasons to us humans. Spirits are basically alien manifestations of consciousness, and they don't experience the universe anything like the way we do.”
The second was , “If you want to use the Enochian keys, do Enochian rituals as designed.” “you're just opening a doorway and letting whatever wants to come through show up”
I feel convinced that I may have some kind of Enochian spirit causing these effects and I wish it to stop. Which banishing would be the most effective? You said something about controlling names but I do not know the entity’s name. I wasn’t trying to summon a specific entity. I just wanted to learn Enochian and used the keys to do this. Not wise but there are some books that encourage this type of experimentation. The keys seemed to cause effects that effect human behavior, like marionette’s it weird but it happens. But I wanted the full package Magick offers and not just a novelty. That’s when things started going south. I always felt like had a monkey on my back or a bug in my ear when using the keys. So I started using the LBRP and the Middle Pillar ritual to make that feeling go away. It worked but the effects would come right back if I didn’t do the rituals regularly. I also started using lots of affirmation to subside the effects. When I started using the Banish Ritual of The Hexagram the effects got worse! But thanks to you and your blog when I started using the Invoking Ritual of The Hexagram in conjunction with LBRP (Operant Field) things got better but the effects are still occurring. I think that using a different system of magick “other than just reciting the keys” may have somehow angered whatever I’m dealing with. I was never rude to the entity causing the effects. We have never actually spoken face to face, but I’m growing tired of constantly having to deal with the effects. I just want to move on and study other forms Magick with out all the drama.
Thanks,
J
jbyers2@tx.rr.com
jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

The regular banishing and uncrossing rituals should work the same regardless of the spirit. You shouldn't have to do anything special based on the type.

In addition to those two comments I quoted, keep in mind that I also said real curses are rare. It's very possible that this is something else.

What I would say is work the procedure just like I laid it out. The angels of the LRP all show up in Dee's diaries and the planetary angels all show up on the Sigillum Dei Aemeth. Enochian has a lot in common with general angel magick, which is what the rituals I have posted here are based on.

The advantage there is that if it has nothing to do with Enochian spirits everything will still work. And if it happens to (which I wouldn't expect, by the way - I never have had any trouble with hostile Enochian spirits, and I think the people who report that try to conjure them with threats and curses of their own), the regular angel magick procedures will work just fine.

And the uncrossing will work on stuff other than curses. So there's that, too.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

Thank you for your new post on your version of the “Solar Uncrossing and Protection Ritual. I just found it and intend to utilize it as soon as possible.

Also you have a blog page discussing how some people feel that the LBRP might cause financial problems?!

In the article, you suggested that visualizing the Pentagrams as Hod Orange to remedy this? Why Hod/Glory?

I can’t seem to find that article. Could you please give me the link?

Also how would the LBRP banish or not banish wealth? Do you have any new thoughts to add?

Lastly what color do you use for the pentagrams in the LBRP? Kraig always recommended blue because it’s associated with protection. Wouldn’t blue also be associated with Chesed/Mercy, which does have a correspondence with Wealth?

What color would you use for LIRP pentagrams? If it’s an Earth Pentagram wouldn’t it be black?

Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

I remain pretty skeptical about the idea that the LBRP can cause financial problems. There is really no reason why it should. The ritual is microcosmic, meaning that it won't affect external circumstances directly.

To actually banish the Earth element, you would use the Greater Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram for Earth, and if you want it to be macrocosmic it would follow the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram. So LBRP/LIRH/GIRP - Earth. There aren't a lot of cases where you would ever use that sequence.

The LBRP on its own doesn't do all that. Maybe as a microcosmic ritual it could contribute to a bad attitude towards money, or bad financial decisions? I really can't say - I never have run into any problems like that with the ritual.

Crowley recommends that the LRP be performed with pentagrams drawn "in flames." He doesn't give a color. You could visualize them as blue flames if you want, but I usually visualize them in orange flames, more like a candle or fireplace. I think this is probably the article you are talking about with regard to that.

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2016/08/lesser-versus-greater-pentagrams.html

My main point - the pentagram traced in the LRP is not an "Earth pentagram." It's traced the same way as an Earth pentagram, but the color is different. Black or green (the colors for Earth) and "flames" are not even remotely similar.

For comparison, invoking Water and banishing Air (and vice-versa) are traced the same way, but Water is in blue and Air is in yellow. Different colors mean different aspects. What orange has to recommend it is that it is the one primary/secondary color missing from the elemental arrangement:

Fire - Red
Water - Blue
Air - Yellow
Earth - Green/Black
Active Spirit - Bright Purple
Passive Spirit - Dark Purple

Which leaves: Lesser Pentagram - Orange

And is that the reason that Kraig recommends blue? That it corresponds to protection? Because neither Jupiter, Chesed, or Water are actually particularly protective. They are related to good fortune, but that's not the same thing. Good luck can be protective, but it often is not.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

What Kraig actually said on page 25 of Modern Magick was that you will feel more safe the more you do the LBRP and that the LBRP will banish any unwanted influences both physical and non physical ones.
But in a book Kraig refers to “ Psychic Self Defense and Well Being” by Dennings and Phillips page 53 says in The Tower of Light Ritual that for defense purposes you should visualize in your aura in blue with the light of your Higher Self visualized as white. Kraig did something similar with his version of the LBRP. He says visualize blue pentagrams with a white aura. So I guess that I just made an association here with blue pentagrams and blue auras with protection.
Then I also made the association blue pentagrams and blue auras with the blue Sephira Chesed/ Mercy and the God Name El.
So Kraig actually never said blue was protective per say but I just made the association based on all of the similarities between his version LBRP, The Tower of Light, and Chesed.
Thanks,
J
jbyers2@tx.rr.com
jbyers193@gmail.com

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

Also What color is recommended for protection in the LBRP? Orange? White a combination of

both?

Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

There is no such recommendation for colors in the LRP in any source that I have ever seen. The first published version of it is in Crowley's Liber O from 1909, and he says this:

"These rituals should be practised until the figures drawn appear in flame, in flame so near to physical flame that it would perhaps be visible to the eyes of a bystander, were one present."

There is no reference to any specific color related to any specific application. Kraig liked blue flames, I like orange ones. But I doubt that either has much effect on how the ritual works. The main reason I push back on "blue" is that thanks to Kraig, I run into people all the time telling me you have to use blue and any other color is wrong - and it's frankly kind of annoying when that happens.

Blue flames are just fine if you like them. But flames of other colors are fine too.

Likewise, as far as I know there's no such recommendation in Regardie's Stella Matutina material from 1938-39. The Stella Matutina messed with the forms to varying degrees, but even they didn't go so far as to suggest different colors for different applications in the LRP.

And there's a reason for that. The LRP is a general ritual, not a specific one. You don't "tune it" to specific applications with colors or anything else. You do that with the Greater rituals, which are explicitly specific to applications and aspects. The LRP is going to protective to the degree that it is no matter what colors you use.

The only thing I might suggest is to avoid green/black, so that you aren't inadvertently drifting into a GRP for Earth. But otherwise, visualize as you will.

Also - if you are looking for protection, you will do far better to cast an actual spell than rely on banishing rituals, even specific ones. I have read some accounts of "magick wars" between groups out in California decades ago, where the main "defense" that people used was doing banishing rituals for basically everything over and over again, every day. That's wasteful, exhausting, and silly.

If we're working with elemental magick, this works better: LBRP/LIRH/MP/GIRP - Fire. Conjure Michael by the godname Elohim. Charge Michael with protecting you from all negative and/or harmful influences. Or, charge him to empower a talisman to do the same. Deliver license to depart and close with the Qabalistic Cross if you used a simple charge, or LBRP if you charged a talisman.

That sequence automates the protection effect, so you don't have to spend all your time banishing. It just works.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

On your elemental Fire page I'm curious to know why there is no mention of a equibrating passive pentagram!

Thanks,

J

jbyers2@tx.rr.com

jbyers193@gmail.com

Scott Stenwick said...

You use the Active Spirit pentagram with Fire and Air, and the Passive Spirit pentagram with Water and Earth. So you wouldn't use the Passive Spirit pentagram with a Fire GRP.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

I apologize if some of my questions or comments have come across as trivial or stupid!

It was unintentional! I struggle with keeping myself cleared headed and my mind clear and focused and organized!

I tend to be slightly A.D.D. or hyperactive. High highs and low lows.

Thanks,

Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

I would be hard pressed to think of any comments of yours that I would describe as trivial or stupid. They have all seemed pretty straightforward to me.

Lots of people come to my classes unclear on the distinction between Greater and Lesser pentagrams. Lots of people come in thinking that because Donald Michael Kraig said this or that, that's the way it has to be - and not simply a case of how Kraig modified or elaborated a ritual. That's the problem with one author being so influential - their personal flourishes and so forth get turned into canon. When really, they never were.

I'll accept your apology, but I also don't think you have anything to apologize for. I expect that these discussions will likely prove helpful to others who find their way here with similar questions.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

When I asked about Spirit Etiquette you mentioned common sense or just find another spirit, but I was under the impression that Spirits of a “Certain Type” Angelic or other wise were a collective of some kind or like a hive mind. If one did not like you for whatever reason then all of them did not like you.
My experiences with spirits have not always been pleasant and have always given me a weird kind of creepy feeling. Spirits that are kind and helpful I honestly did not know that was even a thing! The thought was that when dealing with spirits they are always out to get you for either your ignorance or some small trivial infraction. It’s good to know that’s not always the case.
I also did not know anything about “The Charge” “ The Injunction” and “The Limitation” ,
to stop Monkey Paw scenarios.
I have started “Practicing” your version of “The Solar Uncrossing Ritual!”
The Greater Ritual of the Invoking Hexagram Working With Saturn and Mars
And Greater Invoking Pentagram Ritual The Fire Element.
I have also try to limit how long I spend on these rituals so that I don’t burn out as you advised in one of your articles. Obviously I’m still learning the rituals but I try to work with one of the Planets (The Ruling Planet of that Day) or Elements every day along with my other daily practices.
Also one last thing, I don’t know if you will believe me or not but a spirit tried to communicate with me while I was a sleep the other night.
It tried to shake me “awake”. I was having what felt like some kind of out of body experience. I ignored the situation or played possum because something about it didn’t feel right. This is not he first time this has happened. As a matter of fact it has happen several times. I don’t know what to make of it. I always just ignore it and try with great difficulty to wake myself. When I finally do wake up the experience is always very vivid not like a dream. The weirdness of these experiences or there memory never seems to wear off. I just never seem in control of the situation. What are your thoughts?

Thanks,

Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

My approach to paranormal phenomena such as spirit communication is pretty much the perspective that anything that can be experienced exists. So of course I believe you. I've known a number of other people who have similar experiences on a fairly regular basis, though personally it's only happened to me a couple of times in my life.

Out of body experiences aren't actually that unusual and a lot of people have them. If you find it disturbing, I would suggest upping your banishings and the like before you go to sleep. You could make a talisman of the Moon (clairvoyance and divination by dreams) or of Earth (travels on the astral plane) to mitigate those effects.

On the other hand, if you're interested in exploring out of body experiences more fully, you could try to go with the experience and see where it takes you. Either of the aforementioned talismans could also be charged to protect you during your travels or something like that.

Out of body travel isn't actually particularly dangerous. The worst that will happen is you might get a good scare at some point and snap back to wakefulness.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

When I am awake and I remember the Spirit presence (or what I think might be a spirit) and the out of body experience, I always tell myself next time just confront what ever is happening, but I never seem to remember that during the experience. Is there a reason for this?
I would like to go with the experience next time to see what happens, and making protective talismans and doing the LBRP before I go to sleep seems like a good idea.
But I wonder if there is a spirit there waiting what’s the worst thing the spirit could do?
Would I simple just go back to my body if that happened!
Could I just perform the LBRP or LIRP or LHIR during the experience?
What would happen?
Would I get the desired result during the out of body experience?
Is this what you meant by , "traveling in the spirit vision.”? I read about it in your “The Moon” article.
Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

Right when you wake up you are usually in an altered state of consciousness for at least a few minutes. Because of a psychological phenomenon called state-dependent learning it can be hard to recall things you told yourself to remember or remember to do when you were awake. You can work on getting your dream and waking consciousness to align better through practices like keeping a dream journal that write in as soon as you wake up - but I will say, I've never been enough of a morning person to get myself to do that. The mechanism there is also how you teach yourself lucid dreaming, by lining up your dreaming and waking consciousness better.

Generally speaking, the worst thing a spirit can do is scare you and if they do that you usually will wake up. The mechanics of this are that you don't actually "leave your body" when you have an OBE - it just feels that way. Your consciousness can feel like it's elsewhere, and even pick up information from elsewhere, because it has a fundamentally non-local nature and can connect with other quantum information fields. Practically, though, yes, if feels like you just go back to your body.

You can do "astral" ceremonial forms while in an out-of-body state. They will work on the sorts of spirits and entities that you encounter, just like they do in the physical world. And yes, this is one of the things I mean when I talk about "travel in the spirit vision." The reason I phrase it that way is that different people experience the "spirit vision" state differently. For some it feels like full out-of-body travel and for others it feels more like active imagination - and you can get accurate, worthwhile information out of this kind of work no matter how you experience it.

Alex Scaraoschi said...

If I may, I recommend you look through parts V and VI of Liber O and observe what Crowley has to say for when the person is to encounter something "out there". You can do this too if your dreams happen to be more lucid and you have the ability to be more in control of both yourself and your surroundings:

https://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib6

Scott is right about the talismans and I also recommend an Earth talisman because it keeps you grounded. This is extremely helpful when performing astral work because your astral body is able to return to your physical body way easier, and you will also remember your experiences more clearly and in more detail. This also applies to dreams because it's your astral body that "wanders off" at those times.

Hope this made sense.

Cheers!

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,
When I read your response it made me think of the Tree of Life.
Is working with each Sephira or Path just an Altered State of Consciousness or is it more than that?
Out of Body experience is just an Altered State of Consciousness?
Do you mean like a change in “Awareness”?
Like a mind altering drug or alcohol or even mental illness?
Is this why some people are clairvoyant because the have achieved an altered state of consciousness?
I mean the list is endless to how people feel when they are experiencing a strong emotion Right?
Is this Altered State of Consciousness the same as a trance?
And lastly since we are not leaving our bodies are we even spirits ourselves?
The way I always pictured it is that we are spirits living in a material world using an animal organism in a symbiotic relationship as a vehicle to manipulate the material world?
Is death just a lack of consciousness then with nothing that survives the body?
I’m not disagreeing with you but this view is like a Pandora’s Box to me.
Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

Thanks for the recommendations, Alex. Those are good ones.

As for the rest - I think you are maybe parsing this as Cartesian dualism, which is not my intent or perspective at all. I'm a panpsychist, so my perspective is that consciousness pervades the entire universe and is present to a greater or lesser degree in everything.

My model of magick and how magick works is that quantum information is a property of matter and consciousness is a property of quantum information. Consciousness past a certain level of complexity is self-aware and self-organizing. So will begins as the activity of consciousness, propagates to the quantum information "layer," and from there propagates to a degree into matter, acting as an influence on probability.

All altered states of consciousness are not the same, or have the same utility for magick. This is one of the deficiencies of Peter Carroll's chaos magick model - it treats "gnosis" as any shift in consciousness rather than a specific kind of shift. So that's where you get chaos magicians who believe silly things like hyperventilating until you feel dizzy is the same as "gnosis."

Working with a sephira or path is a specific kind of altered consciousness.
Taking a mind-altering drug produces a kind of altered consciousness specific to the drug.
A mental illness produces kinds of altered consciousness specific to the particular illness.
Clairvoyance involves a specific kind of altered consciousness.
Trance is a specific kind of altered consciousness.
Out of body experiences are a specific kind of altered consciousness.

But none of these are the same. Taking a drug isn't the same as doing magick, for example. And when working with the Sephira and Paths, each gives you a different kind of altered consciousness. The Path of Saturn and the Path of Fire, for example, will give you entirely different experiences and they correspond to different states of consciousness.

As I see it we are single organisms with both physical and spiritual (consciousness) components. Remember, I see consciousness as part of everything physical in the universe. Even spirits are a little physical, just less solid than we are. They can flip EMF detectors, for example, which I've regularly tested in ritual.

So we're consciousness embedded in both matter and energy. Spirits are more like consciousness embedded in mostly energy.

Since consciousness is a property of quantum information, it exhibits non-locality. This is a hard concept to wrap your mind around, whether you are talking about Schroedinger wavefunctions or paranormal awareness. Basically, consciousness as a quantum information field can (A) connect with other quantum information fields, regardless of time and space, (B) receive information from those fields - "psychic awareness," and (C) transmit information to those fields - "magick."

My magical models series of posts goes into a lot more detail. If it's confusing, well, it kind of is. The quantum realm doesn't line up with our day-to-day understanding of the world because quantum information is really weird. Consciousness is weirder still - in my model it behaves a lot like the "spooky action at a distance" of quantum entanglement but with exponentially higher complexity.

As far as death goes, I operate under the assumption that some aspects of consciousness are capable of surviving death. There's evidence in the paranormal record of reincarnation, ghosts, and so forth. The mechanism for this is most likely some sort of Sheldrake-like morphic resonance across time and space, in which your point of awareness can jump across quantum fields at the moment of death.

Merging entanglement and morphic resonance is one of the big open questions left in my quantum information model. There are a couple of different approaches and I'm still trying to work out the best one.

J said...

Thank you Alex Scaraoschi for your input!


Mr. Stenwick,

When in the process of “Learning” the different Greater Hexagram Ritual (Planetary, The Zodiac, Sephira) and Greater Pentagram Ritual (Elemental) do you need to give Offerings?

Do you need to have all of your equipment?

Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

No to both. The GRP and GRH just tune your magical working space to a particular frequency, so to speak. It's nice to have a wand or something similar, but it isn't required - especially when learning the rituals. You can just gesture with a finger when tracing the pentagrams and hexagrams, or whatever works.

You never have to give offerings. They seem to help in terms of getting spirits to do things more effectively, which is why I often use them, but they aren't necessary. You can still get good results without them. And with the GRP or GRH, you aren't conjuring spirits at that point - you are just setting up your space so the environment will be favorable when you do conjure them.

So the basic sequence looks like this:

LBRP
LIRH
MP
GRH or GRP
Conjuration
Charge
(Offerings go here)
License to Depart
LBRP or QC

Alex Scaraoschi said...

No sweat ;)

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

I was wondering if it were possible, or if you, or anyone you have ever known of, has ever included or substituted “Electronic Voice Phenomena” into their rituals instead of using Scrying or Spirit Vision to get a responses from The Angelic Beings or spirits in Greater Hexagram Ritual (Planetary, The Zodiac, Sephira) and Greater Pentagram Ritual (Elemental)?
And even if it did work would you still need to have a Psychic or Magical ability such as “Clairaudience" to hear their messages even if it were electronically recorded?

Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

We did do an experiment once at the ritual workshop where we used one of those "spirit boxes" that hops between radio frequencies looking for EVPs and the like during a conjuration. The results were inconclusive - we had a couple of good responses that sounded like "hits" in response to our questions and several others that seemed random. The technique seems like it has some promise, but we haven't done more extensive work with it.

Now part of the way you have phrased your question doesn't make any sense to me. The Greater Ritual of the Pentagram and Greater Ritual of the Hexagram, by themselves, don't conjure any spirits at all. They tune the ritual space for a conjuration. So if you did this:

LBRP
LIRH
GIRH - Moon

Even though the Moon corresponds to "Clairaudience," you still wouldn't make anything "happen" or have a spirit present to converse with. You need to add:

Conjuration of a Lunar Spirit or Spirits

Following your GIRH. Then you will have spirits present, and it's at that point where we experimented with the method. The Moon is just an example here because you mentioned clairaudience. I believe the ritual we did was with one of the other planetary angels.

As to your last question - if something registers on a recording, you don't need any special psychic ability or additional operation to hear it. A lot of what we "hear" from spirits is psychic, and therefore not recordable by normal means. But if something makes it onto a tape or into a digital file, that means it's a physical sound anyone can hear by normal means when listening to the recording.

J said...

Sorry if this is a resend I think it signed me out when I tried to send It the first time.

Mr. Stenwick,
Sorry for not being more clear. I’m not used to separating the Greater Pentagram Ritual or The Greater Hexagram Ritual from the summoning, Charge (Injunction and a Limitation) because that’s how I’m learning them, as a complete ritual but I do see what you mean.
Your articles on The Planets, Zodiac, and the Sephira do show Hexagrams with the appropriate sign in traced in the center so I was referring to a complete ritual which includes the summoning. I also meant the same thing when I mentioned the Greater Pentagram Ritual with The Elements I was again referring to the summoning as well. The Active and Passive Invoking Pentagrams are already shown with the appropriate Elemental Pentagram traced in front of it.
I also followed your instructions and always add a “Charge (Injunction and a Limitation)!
Along with the “License to Depart”!
At this point I’m just going through the motions because I learn best by doing not just by reading. That’s why I asked about Offerings and Equipment earlier. I do this once a day with my LBRP, IRH, and MPRs.
If this is not the intended way to learn the GPR and the GHR please let me know. It just seems easier to learn and understand to me if I do a complete ritual with the GPR or the GHR along with the summoning and The Charge as listed in those articles.
I can honestly say that I have never had so much “FUN” or “Progress” with Magick as I have with your Website/Blog!
I think that the comment in one of your articles stated that once you start really learning and using Magick you’ll start “Jamming like a Rock Star” got through to me about how Magick has a Special Rhythm of its own and once you get that rhythm you’ll start to be successful with it. Also, your other comment on how your always supposed to be doing invokings along with you banishings to help you grow Magically (spiritually) was really helpful and has been proven to me time and time again. These aren’t exact quotes but both concepts got through to me!
Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Merlyn78 said...

Mr Stenwick,

I've noticed (and remain eternally grateful) that you've published detailed breakdowns/explanations of the Pentagram and Hexagram Rituals. I've found those extremely helpful. If possible, can you publish a similar explanation of the Circulation of the Body of Light Ritual, please? -- I currently use the most commonly taught version with very good results, but there is an older version that I think Regardie taught in one of his earlier books:

After the to Circulations that begin and end with Kether, the instructions tell the practitioner to focus on Malkuth...then send the light shooting straight up the body on an Inhalation and Exploding out at Kether on an Exhalation. This continues for the same amount of cycles as the previous two Circulation Types. (I think he called this one "The Fountain"

After that, the practitioner is instructed to again focus on Malkuth, and spiral the Light counterclockwise up the body during each Inhalation, exploding it out from Kether on each Exhalation. Don Kraig called this one, "The Mummy".

Anyway, while I've had phenomenal results with Kraig's Version, I seem to run into issues when using the older one that incorporates the "Fountain". If I just do it once in awhile, something feels "off" to me. If I use the "Fountain" as part of the ritual regularly, that feeling of "something is off" grows considerably and my practical magick suffers.

What is going on here? Thanks.

Scott Stenwick said...

@J: Okay, I just wanted to make sure that my explanation of those rituals was not confusing. I try to keep everything clear around here. I learn by doing myself, and I think that what you are doing going through the full rituals is a good way to go. In addition to learning the various pieces, it also helps you learn the overall flow and sequence - which I think is the real "secret" that doesn't get published in very many books. And I'm glad to hear that you're having fun with it!

@Merlyn: There are a number of ways to do the circulation of light. Kraig's instructions are either his own idiosyncratic interpretation of it or something he got from the Ciceros, and I don't personally use it. I think it's overly complex and not really necessary in my experience. But if it works for you, that's great - by all means I'm not suggesting that you discard something that you find effective just because I never have found the same.

My energy work background is in Chinese Qigong. So what I do following my Middle Pillar is two sets of circulations. First I do "the fountain," bringing energy up from the ground, out the top of my head, and then back to the ground with a full sweep of my extended arms. After that, I do the standard Qigong microcosmic orbit, bringing energy up my back from the root to crown chackras and then down the front from crown to root.

And that's it. It's not really even complex enough to call it a "ritual" on its own. The idea is that the fountain circulates energy throughout the aura/body of light and the orbit then centers it on the spiritual channel. If you have issues with the fountain on its own, my best suggestion would be to add the orbit. Otherwise, though, I haven't used the more complex version enough to give you much in the way of detailed advice on it.

I cover the circulation of light as described above in my Middle Pillar article, which you can find here: https://ananael.blogspot.com/2016/07/hacking-middle-pillar.html

Merlyn78 said...

@Scott Stenwick: Thank you! I found the information you provided extremely helpful. I also, a short time after I wrote you, found information on Dennis William Hauck's website about Distillation and a version of the Circulation of the Body of Light.

I am wondering if Distilling one's spiritual essence too much (is that possible?) can impede practical magick? As I mentioned in my initial inquiry, limiting my practice to the version taught by Kraig (it's also in Regardie's books) seems to work very well for me, but when I add the "Fountain", like the one you mentioned (One of Regardie's books also teaches it...for a total of Four different ways of "Circulating the Light"), I feel great inwardly, but find my practical magick seems to suffer/become greatly reduced in its results.

When I eliminate the "Fountain" (as later versions of this ritual have done) from my daily work, my practical magick works much better, but I don't feel as much inwardly.

I'm wondering if I'm somehow "releasing" most of my connection to the Macrocosm when I use the "Fountain"?

Scott Stenwick said...

I would have to know a little more about your practice sequence to say for sure. I always do it this way:

LBRP
LIRH (operant field - engages macrocosm)
Middle Pillar, including orbit and fountain

This is then followed by any practical magical operation or a Qabalistic Cross to seal the practice.

I could maybe see where doing the fountain circulation by itself could result in "fortifying" your body of light/aura in such a way that connection to the macrocosm might be more difficult. I will say, too, that I always do fountain before orbit - outward, then inward. If you do it before Kraig's various circulations versus after, do you experience a difference in your results?

Since I never do the MP/circulation by itself it's hard for me to speculate. I teach my students that it should always be preceded by the operant field and I haven't heard of anyone having the problem you are describing here.

Merlyn78 said...

Thanks Mr. Stenwick,

My daily practices normally (I only recently stopped doing the LBRH as a daily practice as an experiment...) consist of:
RR
LBRP
Normally LBRH...but taking an experimental break from that right now.
LIRH
LIRP
RMP
CBL Normally just down the left and up the right, down the front and up the back...then the "Mummy" or "Spiral" which is also counter-clockwise. When I last experimented with the "Fountain", I was doing it right before the "Spiral". It was when working with this arrangement that I noted delayed manifestations...and eventually no manifestation at all...from my practical, elemental magick (things like dissolving clouds or starting/stopping wind...all things I can usually do in about 30 seconds on the short end of things. On the long...about 2 minutes or so. -- But with the "Fountain" incorporated as I described...things started taking longer to manifest...and eventually stopped manifesting altogether.

I am, after reading your response (thanks again), revising the CBL as follows:
CBL is currently: "Fountain", Down Left-Up Right, Down Front-Up Back, Spiral. I'll let you know how it goes.

I don't to the MP/Circulation by themselves either. From both my experience and what I've read in David Griffin's eBook, the RMP "Activates and Balances the Invoked Forces within the Sphere of Sensation/Aura". Back when I was only doing the Banishings and Middle Pillar, the practice was slowly draining my aura until I eventually stopped seeing any results with my practical magick and even became VERY Vampiric during that time-period. Things have greatly improved since adding the Invoking Rituals prior to the RMP.

J said...

Merlyn78

Cold you please tell me what you meant by RMP?

MP is Middle Piller right?

What does the “R” stand for?

Also is there a specific reason your taking a ritual break from the LBRH?

I’m not asking for specifics just general information.

Thanks,

Jbyers2@tx.rr.com

J said...

Scott,

Could you please elaborate on the “Mirror Spell” that you mentioned in your Mars article?

Can it be used as an effective deterrent against negative energy sent from other people or entities?

Giving them a “Dose of there own medicine” without getting too involved with them?

Thanks,

Jbyers@tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

I read RMP as Ritual of the Middle Pillar - so the standard Middle Pillar exercise.

The mirror spell idea is that you conjure up a spirit of Mars or Saturn, or Libra if you are working zodiacally. In the charge, you tell the spirit to reflect all harmful energies that come your way back to the sender. If you bind the effect into a talisman, it can keep running automatically.

There's a way that some folks teach it that involves visualizing mirrors surrounding you and reflecting stuff back, but if you do it using just your own magical power it's not as strong and can be circumvented by a strong and intelligent enough spirit.

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,

Thank you

Happy New Year!

Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,
Could you please tell me what method or procedure you use to test Magickal spells and rituals to find out if they really work?
You’ve mentioned that you and your students test before and I wondered if you have already written an article about it.
Is it anything like the Magical Diary that Kraig recommended?
Thank you,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

J said...

Mr. Stenwick,
I noticed that you never seem to mention using the Moon cycles like that incorporate the Waxing/ Waning Moon is there a specific reason for this?
Is this completely unnecessary?
Thank you,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

There are a lot of ways you can test spells. Keeping a magical journal and noting your successes and failures with various operations is absolutely one way to do it. That can help you see patterns and shared characteristics between successes and failures. A more empirical way to do it is to identify something you want to influence with an easily measurable probability shift and cast against it to see how strong your operations are. A good way to do this is to cast against lottery numbers. The probability shifts to win big prizes are high enough that you are pretty unlikely to win a big jackpot, but if you compare the numbers you got with your spell and what you should have gotten due to chance that can provide some useful information about the probability shifts you are conjuring. This is especially true if you do it often enough to build up a large sample.

Working with Moon cycles, like many things, is not strictly necessary, but that doesn't mean it's useless. It can help depending on the kind of operation you want to do, and I personally use it in the context of the Chart Victor calculation. During the waxing Moon the prenatal lunation for your operation is in the same sign as the Sun was at that time (New Moon is Moon conjunct Sun) and during the waning Moon the prenatal lunation is in the sign opposite (Full Moon is Moon opposing Sun). So if the Sun is in Scorpio and you want to do a Taurus operation, you will get better results during the waning Moon. But if you are doing a Scorpio operation, you will get better results during the waxing Moon.

So I mention it, but it's "included" when I talk about calculating Chart Victors. The Simple Electional Timing method also makes use of lunar aspects, but not the specific Moon phase.

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-chart-victor-calculation.html

http://ananael.blogspot.com/2016/06/simple-electional-timing.html

L.H.O.N said...

Hi, Mr. Stenwick!

I have a question about planetary hours. I always do my rituals as soon as the desired hour starts, and always finish before the end of that hour.

So the question is: if the operation is "in the planetary hour", should I end it before that time is over? or it is possible to extend the operation until the next hour without ruining it (mixing planetary hours in the transition, for example).

Scott Stenwick said...

The planetary hour for the ritual is the hour in which it starts. So even if you only have five minutes left, as long as you start your ritual before the end of the hour you still "catch the bus," so to speak. So there's no problem with your ritual running into the next hour as long as you start within the one that you want.

J said...

Hi Mr. Stenwick,

If your doing a ritual in private and someone else who is not involved in the ritual over hears you even though you try to avoid it does it affect the out come or the effectiveness of the ritual?
Does it affect or prevent spirit communication such as scrying?
Also have you written anything about “Spirit Vision” as a substitute for scrying which is mentioned in every ritual? In other words how does it fit into the Planetary or Elemental rituals when scrying is listed as the next step?
If so you could please post the link?
Lastly do you know anything about “KNOUPHIS or AGATHODAIMON” or any rituals associated with them?
Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

1. People overhearing you probably will not affect your ritual, especially if they don't have any idea what it is (and most people don't). The only way it might affect spirit communication is if it makes you self-conscious about scrying or something like that.

2. Actually, all of my rituals pretty much use spirit vision as the default rather than traditional scrying. I'm not personally very good at eyes-open scrying, but I've found that the information I get using spirit vision methods is just as accurate when tested.

It works like this. Do you conjuration, then sit down in a chair facing your table of art. Close your eyes and visualize a column of light centered on the table of art. Then visualize yourself projecting into the column, and make note of everything you experience. You can do this like a pathworking too, using an image like a Tarot card that corresponds to the spirit's sphere of influence as per a reference like Liber 777.

Always test your spirits (this is true of eyes-open scrying too, though a lot of people don't do it). Ask for something like a number or a word that corresponds to anything the spirit tells you. Make a note of it. Then, after your ritual, check it against a reference like Sepher Sephiroth or Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia. Words or phrases with a gematria value matching the number, or matching the gematria value of a word if that's what you received, should "line up" or at least be similar to the information the spirit told you. If not, the spirit might not have been telling the truth or you might be perceiving your own thoughts as coming from the spirit.

One other trick - often when working in the spirit vision you can banish illusions or phantasms by visualizing yourself vibrating the godname Eheieh at them. The other trick with names is if you are looking to contact a particular spirit is that when the spirit appears to you, visualize yourself vibrating its name at it. Your perception of the spirit should intensify when you do this, not diminish. If it diminishes it may be a different spirit pretending to be the one you want.

And ALL OF THAT should be entirely necessary when doing eyes-open scrying, too. Eyes-open scrying feels more objective when you do it, but it's not. As far as I can tell spirit vision works exactly the same and it's far less dependent on natural scrying talent.

I haven't personally worked with Knouphis. It sounds like the proper name of a deity, but not one I'm familiar with.

Agathodaimon just means "good spirit" in Greek and is not a proper name. In Greek, "daimon" means spirit (generic), "caco-daimon" means evil spirit, and "agatho-daimon" means good spirit. The Christians turned "daimon" into "demon" and assigned the word a negative connotation - so "demon" in English really has the same meaning as "cacodaimon" in Greek.

TheDruid said...

Hello Mr Stenwick,
I am a very new aspirant to Chaos Magic. I have never been blind to it, it's all I wanted to know about when I was younger, but in my teens found science which offered all the answers... until it didn't. I have now found my way back to it.
But I digress, my question is that what kind of magic can I start practicing right now to start having the chance of seeing effects? I am in Finland for the next month living quite apart from most of civilisation and cannot get supplies for any ceremonies or creating a magic working space. I have been practicing the Kabalist Cross, LRP, LRH and Meditating but I don't know how to direct these appropriately towards a desired intent without the use of tools and more specific resources than I have at my disposal at the moment. Could you offer any suggestions on what I could do until I get back to the UK? To be in touch with and feel more connected to what is around me out here would be wonderful, though I think I understand from your writing that I should have an intension for the spirit rather than just engage with one for a friendly chat. Like I say I really am very new to this so my apologies if anything here is rather idiotic and thank you very much for you time.
Kindest regards

Russ.

Scott Stenwick said...

I would suggest any of my elemental, planetary, or zodiacal work posts here on the blog as possible practical exercises. The basic sequence works like this:

Banishing LRP
Invoking LRH
Middle Pillar
Invoking GRP/GRH for the particular element/planet/sign
Conjuration of the Spirit
Charge to the Spirit
License to Depart
Banishing LRP

You don't need tools or supplies for any of this. Also, it is completely reasonable to conjure a spirit and ask for information and the like. You just don't want to do it with no intent at all. Charging a spirit to inform you about its nature and powers or something like that is completely fine.

TheDruid said...

Thank you so much for the help and suggestions, and for replying so quickly. Your site is such a fantastic resource and being able to ask you questions and get swift helpful assistance is so valuable.
I'm sure I'll have other questions as I travel further on this journey.

Thank you very much and all the best.


Russ

j said...

Hi Mr. Stenwick,

What is the best alcoholic or even nonalcoholic beverage offering for Saturn?
Or what is simply the best offering for Saturn? Is there a reason why there is no beverage listed in the Saturn ritual?
Also what is the "PROPER" method of disposing of drink offerings once it has been used?
Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

j said...

Hi Mr. Stenwick,

Do you use any drink offerings for The Saturn Ritual?

I did’t see any listed.

Also what is the proper way of disposing of an offering once it has been used?


Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

For Saturn, absinthe works great. Wormwood seems to be very appropriate.

Alcohol can be allowed to evaporate, or it can be poured out anywhere outdoors. In Hoodoo, offerings are often disposed of at a crossroads - so poured out at any intersection.

Fuzzy Skinner said...

Hello! I figured this might be the most appropriate post to ask a question about ritual tools that aren't otherwise detailed. In Part II of Liber 4, Crowley gives some instructions for the Scourge, Dagger, and Chain, associating them with Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. Unfortunately, the only published ritual I can find that uses all of these is Liber Pyramidos, although if we take literally his statement about fastening the Bell to the end of the Chain, then both the Chain and the Dagger (used in place of the Burin) show up in the Mass of the Phoenix.

Do you have any suggestions for incorporating these tools as part of a ritual that could be performed daily? I've thought of combining Mark Stavish's elemental associations of the principles with Crowley's attribution of different ritual acts to different elements (in Magick in Theory and Practice), though the particular way they overlap would make it hard to use all three.

Thanks for any help you can give, and apologies for my wordiness!

Regards,
Fuzzy

Scott Stenwick said...

You could also think about it like this - sulphur represents the soul or self-aware point of consciousness, salt the physical body, and mercury that which mediates and connects them together. There are a lot of things that could be done with those attributions that aren't strictly elemental. Likewise, sulphur could be thought of as will, salt as the container into which will is formed, and mercury as the process by which that happens.

So a very basic example - take the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. Use the scourge (sulphur) to trace the Qabalistic Cross. Your alignment on the Tree of Life is your will. Set up your temple with a chain forming the circle itself and containing the structure of the rite (salt). Trace the pentagrams using the dagger (mercury) and hold it throughout calling the archangels. Then repeat the Qabalistic Cross with the scourge.

Now that isn't necessarily what I would recommend doing - it's more of an example of how the tools can be used in the context of modifying an existing ritual.

Here's a very good article that I found on the alchemical principles in the context of initiaton - which is one of the primary functions of daily work.

http://osogd2013.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Quest4Quintessence.pdf

From the standpoint of ritual design there's a whole lot in there that can be unpacked. I imagine that some sort of ritual enactment of the full alchemical process would be highly effective, and there's plenty of source material there.

J said...

Hi Mr. Stenwick,

Is "Spirit Vision" related to "Lucid Dreaming" in any way
and can Lucid Dreaming be another way of communicating with Spirits as a response from them after performing a Conjuring?

Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

The short answer there is yes, or at least it can be. In both cases it has to do with whether you engage with your psychic senses during the process.

Dreaming without your psychic senses engaged is nothing special. It's how your brain consolidates and recombines memories. The psychoanalytic framework for dream analysis is massively overblown and usually not very useful. However, if you can engage your psychic senses and connect with them while you are dreaming, lucid dreaming practices can work well for communicating with spirits and the like.

In a similar vein, spirit vision requires you to do that same thing with your psychic senses. Without them it's just active imagination - and again, there's nothing that special about it. It's just psychological at that point.

I would expect that cultivating your psychic senses should improve your ability to work both ways, since that sort of practice should put you in touch with how you process psychic information in general.



j said...

Hi Mr. Stenwick,

Is there any Elemental, Planetary, or Zodiacal correspondence that deals directly with increasing one's own "Privacy". Anything Magickal that can even contend with today's technology?

Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

In the modern world privacy is about information, technology, and the public so I probably would look at something like Mercury which rules communication, commerce, and modern stuff like computer technology. In the elemental realm that would fall under Air.

Zodiacally, maybe something like Leo which rules the interface between you and the public, conjured to reduce the flow of information between you and the public instead of increasing it (as Leo is often used - but spirits can increase or decrease anything within their sphere of influence). Gemini is mutable Air and ruled by Mercury, so you might be able to do something similar there with respect to controlling the flow or movement of information.

I probably would try Mercury first if I had to pick one.

Alex Scaraoschi said...

I hope you won't mind, Scott. I'd like to add Giel, the angel of the third zodiacal house which covers communication and interaction with people. Also Ansuel, the angel of the eleventh zodiacal house which covers society at large, groups of people, friends.

The angels of the houses are conjured like the angels of the signs those houses are traditionally attributed to, so Giel can be conjured as the angel of Gemini and Ansuel as the angel of Aquarius - see Scott's zodiacal ritual series. As for their sigils, you'd have to generate them using the kameas of Mercury (Giel: Gimel-Yod-Aleph-Lamed) and Saturn (Ansuel: Aleph-Nun-Samekh-Vau-Aleph-Lamed).

You can instruct the angels to drive away people from you if you want to go to the extreme :)

Scott Stenwick said...

I never mind more data. You know that.

I haven't personally worked much with those angels, so thanks for sharing your experience!

Alex Scaraoschi said...

My pleasure!

@J see Liber 777, Table V, Column CXLII (I think) for the list of the house angels including their names spelled in Hebrew. (Oh and the eleventh house also covers social media)

@Scott I've been working with these spirits for more than a couple of years now and I'm very pleased with the results so far. Of course, one should not expect miracles to occur if the probability is low, but all in all they do the job really well.

They do cover everything each house they're individually attributed to covers, so that's like A LOT of uses right there. Alas, I have yet to experiment with ALL the areas covered by each individual house in part, but the angel of the sixth house can help in matters of healing AND getting a job (besides everything related to health issues and work environment), as well as with things like diet and routine. And I think we both know a lady who's benefited from this angel's help a while back in regards to a missing cat (small animals).

Likewise, the angel of the fifth house can offer great help and assistance when it comes to dealing with children, as well as in improving one's creativity. I haven't called on it for things like gambling and romance yet, but I'm sure it can do a great job with that too.

Scott Stenwick said...

Since the houses cover so many areas, that definitely sounds useful. And yeah, if the probabilities you are aiming for are too low you likely will have trouble no matter what spirit or spirits you work with.

I'll have to check those out in more depth one of these days. Thanks again!

Alex Scaraoschi said...

Indeed.

Please post some articles about it later on once you get more data.

Oh, and another good thing about these angels is that you don't have to worry about planetary retrogrades and all that to work with them. Yes, a chart victor would be a good thing to use before such a ritual and trying to find a time when the house ruler is strong. Otherwise it's all go, except maybe for times when malefics are located in the house you're willing to work with and the ritual is not a curse.

j said...

Hi Mr. Stenwick,

Thank you for your previous response.

Which Elemental, Planetary, or Zodiacal correspondence that deals directly with increasing one's own motivation or drives.
Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com



Blogger Alex Scaraoschi said...
My pleasure!

j said...

Thank you Alex Scaraoschi,

for references and comments they are very much appreciated!

Thanks,

Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

j said...

Hi Mr. Stenwick,

Could you please explain who a person's Holy Guardian Angel actually is!

Dennings and Phillips seemed to equate The Holy Guardian Angel with the Higher Self and the

Crown Chakra and also with Kether?

So when performing the Greater Ritual of the Hexagram is the Holy Guardian Angel, Higher

Self or rather the energy flowing from the Crown Chakra Or Kether that charges the ritual?

Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Scott Stenwick said...

For increasing drive and motivation:

Elemental - Fire.
Planetary - Mars or Sun.
Zodiacal - Aries (official power is "consecrating things," but it's a Fire sign ruled by Mars with Sun exalted), Leo (increasing drive to overcome conditioning), Capricorn (for increasing chi or bodily energies), Taurus ("the secret of physical strength," for overall vitality).

As your symbol set increases (elemental -> planetary -> zodiacal) you get more options within the set.

Scott Stenwick said...

The deal with the Holy Guardian Angel is this: from the perspective of ultimate reality, where all consciousness is unified, your Holy Guardian Angel is your "higher self" in a meaningful sense. But from our limited human perception, the HGA is experienced more like a separate being. Knowledge and Conversation stabilizes when the angel's sphere of consciousness descends from source and the human's sphere of consciousness ascends from the earthly realm relative to the Tree of Life. They meet in Tiphareth, which harmonizes and stabilizes the connection.

But that doesn't really have much to do with the Greater Ritual of the Hexagram. The GRH is used to tune your magical working space to a specific planetary or zodiacal energy. It is "powered" by the godname and shaped by the tracing and color of the hexagram. In a general sense, energy work figures into all magical operations, but when talking about chi we really should be discussing the entire energy circuit running through all seven chackras along the conception and governing vessel meridians - basically like Chia's microcosmic orbit, if you're familiar with that. You get that circuit running and then draw magical power from it as it runs. You don't pull from just one chackra because it's both unbalanced and less powerful.

Some of this can be thought of as microcosm/macrocosm as well. From the perspective of macrocosmic universal consciousness observing the totality of our consciousness, the angel could be thought of as related to Kether - that's its "native habitat" so to speak. But from a microcosmic perspective, our Kether-point/crown chackra is still separate from the angel because the cosmic macrocosm and our personal microcosm don't fully merge until we reach a level of realization analogous to Master of the Temple (Binah) in the A.'.A.'. system.

New Agers get the "higher self" idea wrong because they don't understand this distinction (and hopefully I'm explaining it in a way that makes sense). They conflate things like "your best self" with "your higher self" and basically mistake your microcosmic Kether-point for the overall macrocosmic Kether-point. A lot of that comes out of misconceptions that originated in the New Thought movement, which is heavily represented in modern New Age cosmology. In New Thought "it's all thought" and there is no real distinction between planes or levels.

Crowley dismissed New Thought as a system that replaced the term "God" with the term "Mind," and then went ahead and attributed to "Mind" all the characteristics normally associated with "God." That is, your thoughts are seen as an all-powerful force that completely and deterministically define everything you experience. It should be obvious to anyone who lives in the real world that this is not the case.

Your thoughts can influence your reality. They can influence your reality more if you approach them in a formal, disciplined way like magicians do. But even the best magicians don't have deterministic control over macrocosmic events in the way that the New Thought folks mean it.

j said...

Mr. Stenwick,
Thank you
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com

Bishop said...

Mr Stenwick,

I m currently and sometimes do
Prayanama and Dharana so can practical magick be considered a form od Dharana ?
So could i advance and can my consiusness(i m not native english)climb up Three of Life
while doing practical magick or help iz ?






Scott Stenwick said...

Practical magick incorporates both Dharana (concentration) and energy work such as Pranayama. You can think of it this way - if you had a radio station transmitting a signal, the Dharana portion would consist of making the information you are sending out as precise and cohesive as possible, and the energy work would correspond to the power of your transmitter.

So yes, as you do the kind of practical magick that I teach, you will by necessity expand your consciousness further up the Tree as you work. That is the basic point of the preliminary step in which you identify with the divine. The methods I have here are thus both magical (in a practical sense) and mystical (in a consciousness expansion sense).

Note that I can't speak for other forms of practical magick in different traditions. They may or may not be similar to the modern Western ceremonial system, depending on how they work.

Bishop said...

How do i made offerings to a God?
Can i just recite a Homer Hymn to a God ,make a offering ,ask for something and pray and close with LBRP?I mean it s no invocaton and it will be no magical energy hanging around.
What i do with offering ,can i just leave it?
I also have some old coins and could throw away some on Crossroads for Hermes ?
Can it be done outside on nature or outdoors ,i mean offering?

Also after someone do Middle Pillar he could use raised energy to influence external world.
After MP he pick up a Sephirot and vibrate Godname and imagine its colour while at the same time he imagine a result already manifested?
Like if someone wants a car or materijal he use Malkhut,if he wants a nice girl he used Netzatch .
Maybe it could go like this:
LBRP/LIRH
Maybe Bornless
MP and imagining result.
LBRP and QC.
Note it should ne something that s not too much unrealistic goal like milionare and always imagining posutive circumstances and states.

Scott Stenwick said...

Gods are intelligent spiritual entities and can usually figure it out when you make offerings, however you go about it. Basically the answer is yes to all of those questions with regard to offerings.

As for your second question, the answer is also a yes there. There are other ways to work besides the sephirothic technique you lay out, but in my experience you will do better if you work with the paths and call on a spirit or spirits to help manifest your intent.

For relationships I would work with Venus (which corresponds to Netzach) as shown here:

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-planetary-work-venus.html

For material possessions I would work with Earth (which corresponds to Malkuth, along with the other elements) as shown here:

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-elemental-work-earth.html

But you can still get good results working with the sephiroth.

Bishop said...

I m sorry for so much posts from me but my head is full od curiosity.

What you think of using tarot in
practical magick ?
Could i see tarot s corespondenced and use IT for better manifestation ?
Like The Magician is connected to Mercury(Hod)and could be used to improve concentration,Yesod could be used like High Priestes and could be used for Yesod problems(biology,motherhood)?

Scott Stenwick said...

Questions are fine. Other folks may have similar ones, so no worries.

Yes, the Tarot trumps can be used in that way. The practical magical powers in Liber 777 are closely linked to Tarot symbolism.

Note, though, there is a difference between sephiroth and paths. The Magician is attributed to Mercury, for example, and Mercury is attributed to Hod. Likewise, the High Priestess is attributed to the Moon and the Moon is attributed to Yesod. But that doesn't necessarily mean The Magician is directly attributed to Hod and The High Priestess is directly attributed to Yesod.

More properly, in the Tarot the Eights (of all four elemental suits) are attributed to Hod and the Nines (of all four elemental suits) are attributed to Yesod. So if you were looking to work directly with Hod, you might be better off focusing on the Eights. You can refine that further by using the element that best matches the aspect of the sephira that you want to work with, if it's appropriate to do so.

Bishop said...

Mr Stenwick,

How do you work with Gods?
I guess you recite Orphyc or Homer Hymn,make a offering ,state what you want and say thank you?

Where are Enchonian angels on Three of Life?I heard they are very powerfull and can bring
material stuff.

Could you just do LBRP/LIRH ,MP
and ask a Angel of specific planet or Sephirot for something?
Like i just put a sigil s Angel im front od me and look at it and ask?

What are differnces beetwen Archangel and Angel while working?
Do Archangels have more serious business?

I guess while calling a Angel i need circle around me.



Scott Stenwick said...

I rarely do devotional work like that, and when I use the Orphic Hymns I use them mostly to tune the space along with the GRH. You can work that way if you want, but I find that it lacks precision. One of the main advantages of spells over prayers is that the technical ceremonial bits make everything work better.

Enochian angels are all over the Tree of Life. It depends on their attributions. Elemental Kings, for example, are elemental so they would be stationed in Malkuth, but they also have a solar aspect that can be classified in Tiphareth. Heptarchial Kings and Princes are planetary, and could be classified in Yesod through Binah accordingly. And so forth. The higher Enochian spirits like Kings and Princes are quite powerful and can get a lot done.

Yes, you can. It's better than an undirected prayer, and you can get practical results that way. In my experience, though, the additional ceremonial components will make your operation more effective. Again, because it's a more precise method.

Angel and Archangel is mostly a theological distinction. For example, Michael is the archangel of Fire but also the angel of Hod and the angel of the path of the Sun. All of those are the same entity in different contexts. The church decides which angels are archangels based on whether or not they are named in scripture, not according to their actual spiritual power. Note also that the Western and Eastern churches have different lists, something I wasn't aware of until recently.

A circle is helpful if you are in the process of learning visualization. Keep in mind, though, that one of the functions of the Lesser rituals is effectively to set up an "imaginary circle" that I usually call a "magical field" in my writings here. Imaginary circles do date back to antiquity as per Jake Stratton-Kent's "GeoSophia" and were widely regarded as effective. Personally, I rarely use physical circles when calling angels and rely mostly on visualization.

Bishop said...

What you think you if someone wants a job in army what domains should he call?

What s the differnce beetwen Greek bornless rite(Stele of Jeu)
and Liber Samekh ?
Liber Samekh i guess it s Tipharet state .

Scott Stenwick said...

I probably would treat a spell for a job in the army like any other job spell and just specify the position you want in the charge. Personally I've had the best results working with Jupiter for job spells.

Liber Samekh is Aleister Crowley's reworking of the Stele of Jeu into a modern context. So he breaks the words of power out into directions and adds figures and visualizations. Basically the difference is old version new, original versus revised.

Also, the application is different. Liber Samekh is reworked as a Holy Guardian Angel invocation whereas the Stele of Jeu is an exorcism.

Bishop said...

If i want to follow a system of initiation do i do first Earth,Water,Fire,Air and then i do Initiation into Malkhut ,then Yesod until Kether?

For practical stuff or"manifestation"is it better to do Major Arcana because they are connected to 22 paths?

Have you ever felt Ain Soph Aur state?If you did how was the feeling ,was it merging ,bliss ?

j said...

Hi Mr. Stenwick,
If your using one color for Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (Orange),
you would need to use a different color for the Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram right?
It would cause a conflict correct?
If both rituals could compliment one another what color would best compliment Orange (Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram) as its polar opposite for the Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram?
Also, for the “for within me shines the six rayed star” (Hexagram) portion of both rituals would it cause a conflict if you used the same colors (Red and Blue) as the Pentagrams?
Thanks,
Jbyers2 @tx.rr.com


Scott Stenwick said...

No, that is not how it works. Banishing and invoking Earth are both green, banishing and invoking Water are both blue, banishing and invoking Air are both yellow, and banishing and invoking Fire are both red in the GRP. Banishing and invoking versions of the same pentagram always use the same color. In the LRP, the hexagram visualization is the same whether you are doing banishing or invoking.

Is somebody out there teaching it with complimentary colors for banishing versus invoking? If so that's very weird - not even remotely similar to how it's done in the GD or Thelemic systems. As a point, in the Lesser rituals color is not really specified. Crowley says flames, the original version says white brilliance, and Kraig decided it should be blue instead.

Really, my idea of tracing in orange is idiosyncratic too. In the original version of the ritual you use colors for the GRP and "white brilliance" for the LRP. I just never have heard of anyone altering the colors when they switch from invoking to banishing.

Scott Stenwick said...

My path of initiation sequence goes like that - Earth, Water, Air, Fire, the Malkuth and on up the Tree. Other systems of initiation that adhere more closely to the Golden Dawn structure map the elements onto the lower sephira (which I don't like) and follow the order Earth -> Air -> Water -> Fire (which I also don't like). Experimenting with elemental initiations in both orders demonstrated pretty clearly that the one I use just worked better, at least for me and my magical working group.

Using the paths for manifestation does work better but not necessarily because of their connection to the Major Arcana. If you look at the powers in Liber 777, practical powers are associated with the paths and mystical visions are associated with the sephiroth. A sephira represents a state or condition of energy, and a path represents the movement of energy between states. So you want a state for a vision, and movement to create change.

I have had many blissful mystical experiences in the course of my work, but I'm not sure which of them one would classify as "Ain Soph Aur." Kether corresponds to unity and above that the three veils correspond to "negative existence" or "no difference." How would you characterize either of those, and why?

Bishop said...

I meant by Ain Soph Aur the highest spiritual state or non state that could be achieved.I guess it s comparable to Nirvana or Samandhi.
I mean the veils or "no differnce"it s highest state.

When i make a goal to cross the Abyys do i need first to cross it in Assiyah ,from Daath to Kether im Assiyah and then move to Yetzirah until i cross the Abyys im Briah and move to Aziluth.

Scott Stenwick said...

In the context of personal experience, it can be tricky to guess where each spiritual realization and/or experience falls on the Tree. After all, the highest (by whatever criteria) spiritual state you have experienced is by definition the highest spiritual state you are aware of, you know? I've experienced some pretty exalted states - make of that what you will. Where I stand in relation to what other practitioners levels of realization might be isn't really the point anyway. The point is to keep working towards better and more comprehensive realizations all the time to the best of your ability. Mysticism is not a ladder or a race.

I never have heard of anybody teaching about crossing the abyss in the four worlds independently like that. That doesn't mean it wouldn't work for you, but it's not how the Thelemic tradition teaches it. In Thelema you work towards Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once you've accomplished that, you should have the angel's guidance in all other operations including crossing the abyss, which you should only attempt once you've done K&C.

Bishop said...

So i do Bornless rite and Initiation system and other daily practices i should eventually have HGA contact(guess it s Tipharet state)?

In Initiation system i work first with Earth.So when i do Earth before i move to other elements can i conjure Earth for practical stuff or i need just to do Earth without asking for anything material to advance mysticly before Initiation into Sephirots?

Thanks by the way for answering.

Bishop said...

O i m sorry ,i confused The Elemental Work od Earth with Initiation into Earth system .

Scott Stenwick said...

The idea in the Thelemic system is that you work up to the point where you would start Liber Samekh (which is Crowley's version of the Bornless adapted as an HGA invocation) and you do it until you stabilize contact. This should be unmistakable when it happens, but it's also hard to describe.

According to the ritual, you perform Samekh daily for six months and it should work. But there is some variation. Some people report getting it sooner, and one manuscript of the Abramelin requires eighteen months - which is relevant because Crowley believed Samekh worked the same as the Abramelin.

The question of practical work is important because different teachers have widely divergent opinions about it. I say you do practical work as needed and refrain from worrying about it. As I see it, the distinction between material and spiritual is a false dichotomy. So doing practical work won't detract in any way from working towards mystical realizations.

Alex Scaraoschi said...

I encountered my angel via Samekh while doing tons of practical rituals besides the usual mystical work so I would say go for it! However, if you can't do more than one working per day, I would recommend you do Samekh and perform whatever practical stuff you need in another day when you can do both. I'm sure you could also do Samekh at night before going to bed, kinda like a prayer session thing. Or early in the morning.

Scott Stenwick said...

Agreed. Once you are doing Samekh for HGA contact, you are supposed to do it every day - and more than once a day as you get further into the practice. So your practical work shouldn't be a replacement for Samekh, which for at least the six month period of the practice has to take precedence over other rituals.

Alex Scaraoschi said...

Yep.

@Scott btw, for some time now I'm also referring to my angel as my Crowley-HGA just to be more... ahem... politically correct ;) ;)

Scott Stenwick said...

For those not in on the joke, the serious point there is that practically everything popular that's written about the HGA, Knowledge and Conversation, and all that comes from Crowley's Thelemic system. If Crowley was wrong about Samekh contacting the same entity as the Abramelin - and really, he didn't complete both, so he wouldn't know for sure - it would be an error to ascribe any of the Crowley material to the HGA contacted through Abramelin.

So if you come across an Abramelin class where the instructor is tell you all this stuff about the HGA that comes from Crowley, and then says that "Samekh doesn't contact the HGA," well, they really don't know what they're talking about. If they want to assert that Samekh doesn't work, they need to find sources besides Crowley describing the HGA - because we know that Crowley contacted his HGA via Samekh after failing to complete the Abramelin years earlier.

On the other hand, if Crowley was right about Samekh and Abramelin contacting the same entity, then the Crowley material is applicable to Abramelin - but you can't apply it and at the same time contend that Samekh doesn't work.

And yes, this is only an issue because contradictory teachings like those are out there on the Internet if you look hard enough.

Bishop said...

I know i m boring with questions so for now i will just ask this

When i prepare for ritual and when i draw a sigil a sigil and invocations will not have influences on enviroment or my psyche if i just draw sigils and instructions how to do it?

Can i draw sigils without numbers and on paper without worrying about dimensions ?

Alex Scaraoschi said...

Yea this whole HGA/not-HGA thing is stupid to me. I mean, even if someone claims to have contacted whatever entity they report to have contacted through either one of these operations, the and result should be in their development in the years to come.

I'm not referring to whether they're a better person from a social perspective, but whether their magical practice is considerably improving over time compared to before encoutering the entity. Truth be told, I'm much more of a jerk by social standards than before. But can I write some Nick-Farrell-like redundant 1h+ ritual that works? I think so :D But I could normally do 3 rituals during that time :))

Alex Scaraoschi said...

(Not saying Nick's rituals don't work, just in case people would start saying I'm criticizing him :)) for from me. His style is different, that's all. The redundant part is me being vengeful!!!)

Scott Stenwick said...

Bishop, I am not sure I understand what you are asking.

Drawing a sigil of a spirit is like writing down the spirit's "phone number," so to speak. It's when you do the ritual that you are actually dialing it - if that metaphor makes sense. Just drawing the sigil doesn't conjure the spirit without a conjuration ritual.

You don't need to draw the numbers of the magic square as long as the shape of the sigil is right. You can also make the sigil as large or small as you like, again as long as the shape is right.

I'm not sure those are the answers you are looking for. If not, feel free to rephrase your question and ask again. The point of this forum is just that.

Bishop said...

I heard stories across the web that even staring at sigil can activate it.
I also Heard you need much practice before doing sigils,conjuration .etc

Scott Stenwick said...

Generally speaking, magick is not something that just happens randomly through casual contact. Now, it is true that a magician could create some sort of talisman with a sigil on it and, as part of the charge, instruct it to activate in some way when a person observes it. Not sure what I would use that for, but there's probably an application for it somewhere.

But that's a talisman that has a sigil on it, not the sigil itself, and "stories across the web" are super-unreliable. You are unlikely to conjure anything just by looking at one or drawing one. As for your comment on practice, I agree that it requires some practice to get good at sigils and conjurations - so I always tell people to start practicing as soon as they can so they can get good as soon as they can.

Bishop said...

What s the difference beetwen LBRP and SBRP?
Does the SBRP banish and clear influences like LBRP just on a higher levels?
What s its application in work?

Scott Stenwick said...

You might want to ask someone from the Golden Dawn tradition about the SRP. In the Thelemic tradition that I work in, we don't use it.

My understanding, though, is that it's similar to our Greater Ritual of the Pentagram, which performs an entirely different function than the LRP. Crowley's terminology of "Greater" and "Lesser" is actually kind of confusing, because one is not a "bigger" or "better" version of the other.

In the Thelemic tradition, Lesser rituals are general and Greater rituals are specific. You use the LRP and LRH to set up your magical working space, while you use the Greater rituals to banish and invoke elements, planets, and zodiacal signs. The GRP is used for elements.

So if you wanted to do a ritual invoking Fire, for example, the ritual for that would be the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram for Fire.

Bishop said...

What s the easiest meditation or prayer someone can do in Enchonian magick?

I m trying Asana and Prayanama and also i have beem doing rituals during years so i would ask what simple prayer could someone do im Enchonian magick?

What are effective magician rituals besides LBRP,MP,LRH, by yours experience if i may ask?

Scott Stenwick said...

I wrote up these Enochian rituals years ago and published them in my Enochian books. They are Enochian equivalents to the LRP, LRH, and Middle Pillar.

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2008/01/aoiveae-enochian-pentagram-ritual-v3.html

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2008/10/madriax-enochian-hexagram-ritual.html

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2009/01/naz-olpirt-pillars-of-light-enochian.html

As far as the simplest meditation you can do? You could take a single Enochian word and use it as a mantra in meditation. EHNB (pronounced eh-nub) is the Enochian word for the element of spirit, which is pretty generic and simple.

Bishop said...

Are here articles you wrote about Goetia magick Scott?
I like Enchonian Orbit ritual just could i use Sephirot colour instead of Chakra System.
I m just confused where to do it all.
Madriox is i guess Ain Soph.
Kether Spirit because White light.
Malkhut Nanta,Yesod is where indigo colour is etc.
I wanna use Sephirot but Enchonian formula on it.

Scott Stenwick said...

There is not a lot of material here on Goetia because I personally haven't done a lot of work with it and don't consider myself an expert. I keep running into people who think I must know a lot about Goetia because I'm into Enochian. In fact, the two systems have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

As far as colors go, feel free to experiment. The chackra colors are a viable system and so are the sephiroth. I haven't tried any of those variations so I can't say for sure that they work well, but I can't think of any good reason off the top of my head that they won't.

Bishop said...

I found here on site a article about Liber Samekh .I think it has GIRH for Sun before Samekh.I try to find it but could not.
Could you post s link?

Scott Stenwick said...

It is listed up above on this page under The Path of Initiation - Holy Guardian Angel Invocation. But here is the link for anyone having trouble finding it:

http://ananael.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-path-of-initiation-holy-guardian.html

Bishop said...

Could a spirit refuse a request made by a person?
Do Spirits,Inteligences and Angels have morality and ethics like people?
What you think of consiusness Scott?(Read somewhere about conditioning loops)Pavlov and Miligram i think have wrote about it.

Scott Stenwick said...

The short answer to your first question is yes. To elaborate, I have called up spirits and delivered a charge, but was then told by the spirit that they weren't the best spirit for the job. That can happen when you are trying to do something that you think falls within the spirit's sphere of influence but which really doesn't - at least as far as the spirit is concerned. When that's happened, I always have been able to get a recommendation for the proper spirit to conjure.

It's a short answer because some of the conjurers out there who work with more coercive methods than I do will tell you that the answer is no and you just need to threaten your spirits enough to get them to behave and in the end they have no choice. That might be true, but in my experience it's way easier to find a friendlier, more helpful spirit that does the same thing rather than spend a lot of time and effort trying to coerce a resistant one.

Again, the short answer to your question is yes, after a fashion. But that's also a short answer because spirits don't view the world very much like humans do. They in effect have their own moral standards and it depends entirely on the individual spirit. So you might or might not personally find their moral standards moral or ethical.

As I see it, consciousness is a fundamental property of quantum information and quantum information is a fundamental property of matter. So consciousness is everything. Given that, your last question is the sort of thing I wrote a 300-page manuscript on at one point but would have a great deal of trouble summarizing in a few sentences.

Bishop said...

If someone would place over the planetary sigil a sigil od Archangel and Planetary spirit and Planetary Inteligence all in same what would happen?
Would it ne more effective or powerfull?
I know in your operations you call all entities of the sphere but what would happen when you place iz all?

Bishop said...

https://luxsaturni.com/planetary-magic/luna/
I found this site with sigils od the sphere here.
So for example if someone would place over the planetary sigil all sigils od sphere what could happen?

Scott Stenwick said...

There is a difference between working with Yesod and working with the Moon. Many practitioners don't make that distinction, but they should.

In the Thelemic system the Moon corresponds to both the sephira Yesod and the path of Gimel. The magical power associated with Yesod is the vision of the machinery of the universe, and the magical powers associated with the path of Gimel include clairvoyance and divination by dreams.

Roughly speaking, sephiroth are for mystical visions and paths are for magical effects. You can often get some effects even if you don't follow that because angels like Gabriel are smart enough to get the gist of what you want, but it works better if you are more precise.

With the planetary work posts that correspond to the paths, I used to add the intelligence and spirit sigils to the character in addition to the angel and it worked fine. But the reason I just show the angel sigils in the latest versions is that it works just as well with just the angel sigil as long as you work through the hierarchy.

You definitely want to call on the Intelligence and Spirit by name, though, if you want the best effect for practical work. For a mystical operation like a Yesod ritual, though, it doesn't seem to make as much difference. You wouldn't need the spirit for a vision, so at most you would want to call on the angel and the intelligence in that context.

Bishop said...

Let s say that a person works hard but people don t notice it.When they do they think it s average work at best.
Is there a entity to call to manipulate their perceptions.

Scott Stenwick said...

Jupiter for sure. The sphere of influence there is political and other ascendancy - that is, it gets you noticed and increases your status.

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-planetary-work-jupiter.html

Bishop said...

Can Angels give me advices or guide?
Could i ask for example Jupiter angel to give me advice what work would fit me best and what would get me optimal amount of money based on my circumstances,levels od education,country i live on etc?
Do they have that kind od power ?

Scott Stenwick said...

Sure. They can provide you with information relevant to their sphere of influence. So Jupiter would be good in that context for career advice and the like.

Bishop said...

Do i need to do keyword analysis in Hexagram rituals after tracing appropiate hexagrams in a ritual both Greater and General?
Can negative toughts and complexes breed negative acts in material world?(I mean beside just psychological changes)
I like you site and aprreciate what you wrote.
Could you write anything about Goetia Demons and about dangers with it?I know you said you don t consider yourself a expert on it but i would like to hear you opinion if possible.

Scott Stenwick said...

The way I do it, I usually do the Keyword Analysis for the LRH but not for the GRH.

Since the psychoanalytic model has been disproved by modern neuroscience, it's safe to say that "complexes" are not a thing. As far as negative thoughts, people with high levels of natural psychic talent can sometimes cause negative things to happen in the world by obsessing over or worrying about them. For most people, though, that's not an issue because they basically aren't psychic enough to affect the physical world without practice and training. The good news there is that the solution for even the high-talent folks is to start doing magical practice. It will help regulate effects like natural psychic influence, so it works when you want it to and doesn't work when you don't.

My opinion is that in general magick is not that dangerous. It certainly is less dangerous than, say, driving a car. That's true of Enochian, which is supposed to be scary for whatever reason, and I imagine it probably is also true of Goetic demons.

Bishop said...

Could i see Liber Samekh as a invocaton of Tipharet wich on turn stabilazes Sephirot below?
Is Liber Israfael something like Invocaton od Hod?And are there smiliar effective rituals.
If i get your Enchonian book how much time i need to spent working on myself before going work with its Angels?

Scott Stenwick said...

I would think you could interpret it that way.

Liber Israfel is an invocation of Tahuti, not Hod. In the Egyptian pantheon Tahuti is related to Hod and Mercury, but they are not quite the same thing.

If you get my Enochian book you can start working with the angels right away. The more diligent you are in your daily practice the better that process will work, but I don't believe in putting up a bunch of preliminaries that you have to fulfill before doing the work. Your work should get better as you get the foundational stuff down better, but as I see it you learn by doing. So do!

Bishop said...

What Invoking ritual od Pentagram does compared to its banishing part ?
What s its practical use?

Bishop said...

I don t know did a post this question here or on other article because maybe it s answered.
What it s the use of Invoking ritual od Pentagram for Earth?

Also i would add what you think about Karma Scott?
Are there any consequences for bad and unjust deeds for a person doing it? Will somehow some energies make the bad guy pay?

Scott Stenwick said...

The invoking ritual of the pentagram for Earth is used to tune your space for invoking spirits of elemental Earth. So like Auriel, the angel of Earth, or Ghob, the elemental king of Earth.

I don't believe in the paranormal interpretation of karma at all - and for the most part neither do Buddhists, by the way. The "New Age" idea that "the universe" somehow dishes out justice comes out of Theosophy, which arrived at that conclusion because Blavatsky didn't really understand Buddhism.

I mean, obviously the universe doesn't dish out justice or fairness. The world is for the most part profoundly unjust and unfair, so clearly there's no "automatic" mechanism at play. Basically I feel like we have to act as agents of karma. Bad guys get away with stuff that people like us don't hold them accountable for.

Bishop said...

Have you ever heard about making a body in all 4 worlds ?
It goes like first you get in North,put a Enchonian table of Earth before you,LIRP,MP,then vibrate Sephirot of Assiyah im Malkhut, imagine its colour,LBRP?
And you move on then all sephirot
of Assiyah until you reach Kether od Assiyah,then putting Enchonian table of Water and work with Yetzirah on West etc.

So if someone wrong us and we are powerless in material world we can get justice only if we do something like conjure Kamael ?

Scott Stenwick said...

Your body of light already spans all four worlds, though I could maybe see this as a way to strengthen it. The mixing of Enochian tablets and the sephiroth is Golden Dawn Enochian, which I don't personally work with. My Enochian system is based more heavily on the Dee diaries themselves, though I will use constructions like pentagram and hexagram rituals with it.

As to your second question, I'm convinced that we only get justice if we actively do something. It can be filing a lawsuit or a criminal complaint, or retaliating by physical or magical means. We're not powerless - there's a lot we can do. It's just that the universe itself doesn't really care if others treat us well or badly.

Unknown said...

Hi Scott, very informative and helpful site you have! I have a question regarding chapter 14 of MTP, "Of the consecrations, etc." In footnote #2 Crowley writes of the words of  purifications that verse 44 of chapter 1, (Nuit), of the BOL can be used to banish, and verse 62 of chapter 2, (Hadit), can be used to consecrate. Do you know if he ever used these verses as say banishing by fiat or invoking by fiat? I mean apart from the purification and consecration of say a talisman? Also what is the significance of his use of Nu instead of Nuit, or Had instead of Hadit, or Rahoorkhu instead of Rahoorkhuit? Is it just a shorthand or does it have other significance as to what he is trying to achieve when he uses the shortened forms? Sorry if you have already addressed these questions elsewhere, I did look, but couldn't find them

Scott Stenwick said...

Purification and consecration are not quite the same thing as banishing and invoking, though I can see how they might be related. As far as I know, Crowley didn't use those verses for banishing or invoking.

I actually only recently found out the significance of the -t or -it ending on the godnames in The Book of the Law. The -t or -it denotes an active form. So when the BOTL starts off with "Had! The manifestation of Nuit" it means that Nuit is active or in motion and Hadit (without the -it) is stationary in the context of Chapter I. When we then see "Nu! the hiding of Hadit" in Chapter II, this relationship is reversed.

So it says "prophet of Ra-Hoor-Khu" because that's state or descriptive title, but "Ra-Hoor-Khuit hath taken his seat in the East at the Equinox of the Gods" because that's an action. In Chapter III, you do see "Ra-Hoor-Khuit" and "Ra-Hoor-Khut" used generally when describing what sound like states in a couple of cases, but that's complicated by the relationship between Ra-Hoor-Khuit (always manifest) and Hoor-pa-kraat (or Harpocrates, unmanifest potential). In that sense Ra-Hoor-Khuit is in a sense always active - he is the god of force and fire, after all.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the prompt reply, the terminology Crowley used in that 2nd footnote made me think about it; he specifically mentions banishing instead of purification,although doesn't mention invoking instead of consecration; maybe time for some experimentation! That is very interesting regarding the "it" denoting the active form of the godname,almost like there are 2 forms available for use with each name; active or passive, depending on intent; example; maybe Nuit for clearly magickal work, and Nu for more mystical endeavors, thanks!

Bishop said...

What you think about magical powers?What s the application in material real-world ?
Could advanced magician make changes more efficient ?

Scott Stenwick said...

If you are asking me if magick can affect the physical world and real-life circumstances, I would hope that you would be able to tell from what I have posted here for years that my answer is yes. I talk about it all the time. It's in most of my videos too.

As for your second question, as you get better at magick you get better at causing bigger probability shifts more efficiently - or at least you should if you are being diligent about your practice.

Bishop said...

I was interested in material-spiritual realathionship.
How many "stuff"we need to do in material so rituals can be effective?

Scott Stenwick said...

You do not actually need much of anything as far as tools and materials go to do magick in general. Sigil magick, for example, can be done with a pen and piece of paper.

Some systems do call for specific tools, but as I have found with the Enochian system - which is a pretty tool-heavy system - there is a lot of flexibility. Your rituals will tend to work better the closer you adhere to the proscribed tools, but you can start getting good results long before you have anything close to a complete setup.

Bishop said...

I don t know are you familiar with Castaneda s work but i will ask in case you know.
What is "Tonal"and "Naugal"?

Scott Stenwick said...

Honestly, I think they are just things that he made up. I am pretty skeptical about Castaneda's work in general. Here's why:

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2007/04/carlos-castaneda-dark-sorcerer.html

Check out the linked article and not just my comments.

Bishop said...

Glad you told me i was planing to read it s books but now.I was hoping i could teach something.
I wanted to ask something else.I m s male and sometimes i get distracted by toughts about girls.
I don t mind but sometimes i don t like it. Is here a Sephira to control that energy.I guess it s Yesod.

Scott Stenwick said...

Yesod could work for that. Personally I am just not bothered by that when it happens. In meditation, I find it's better to just bring your thoughts back to your focus (breath, mantra, etc.) when you notice your mind wandering. If you stick to the practice, over time your mind will wander less during your sessions.

One of the biggest misconceptions that a lot of people have about meditation is that they aren't successfully meditating if their mind wanders. That isn't true. You're successfully meditating as long as you diligently return to your focus every time you notice your mind has wandered. That's the discipline of it, and the misconception is that it's something you "accomplish" by pushing unwanted thoughts away as hard as you can.

I've meditated for a long time and my mind still wanders sometimes. Not anywhere near as much as it used to when I was starting out, but it does happen and probably will do so from time to time no matter how long I do it. And that's okay.

Bishop said...

I wanted to ask you one more thing.
When you consiusness ascend higher on a Three Of Life do you become "indiferent"?
I remember reading one s site and he says you become indiferent but you have at the same time unerstanding?
Is there a article on your site where i can read about misconceptions about meditation,etc?

Scott Stenwick said...

I am not exactly sure what you mean. I am not familiar with the quote or the site, so it's hard to figure out without more context.

In the context of meditation, doing the practice diligently over a sustained period of time will generally make you calmer and more capable of dealing with anxiety and the like. So you are less likely to panic when confronted with a difficult or dangerous situation. Maybe that's what the quote is referring to, but it's kind of a poor choice of words.

Keeping a level head when things are going badly isn't really being "indifferent" to what's going on - it actually enables you to respond to the situation more rationally and generally more effectively. But it might look that way to bystanders.

This article covers some of my general thoughts on meditation.

https://ananael.blogspot.com/2016/08/thoughts-on-meditation.html

I don't think that I have a post specifically dedicated to misconceptions about it.

Alex Scaraoschi said...

I think by indifrent the source meant less polarized and much more aware. By going further up the Tree you'd start noticing the causes behind events and the reasons for why those causes are happening. As a result you don't freak out and cry like a lil girl whenever something of a certain degree of unpleasantness happens, whereas an average Joe might do that. You also don't get angry and all that. You're aware of it and start dealing with it. Kinda hard to explain and by all means I'm not an expert on the matter.

Bishop said...

When doing Spere sigil magick would you think it s a good Idea to add sigils to it ?
Like let s say i want a material thing,i turn the sentence into a symbol and add Malkut planetary sigil and glyph.I do MP and charge it with Malkhut s formula and burn it?
Would it ne more effective,also when doing MP i could visualize planetary sigils while vibrating its God name
I was reading one your article about how magick influence luck and wonder how much you need to do stuff in Assiyah to get what i want?To be precise if i do spell for a job i need to look for a job it and put effort.Q is how much i need to put it .

Scott Stenwick said...

I really am not sure on that one. I have not experimented with mixing them like that. You can do things like take a phrase, reduce it to series of unique letters, convert those to Hebrew, and then trace your sigil on the kamea square associated with the planet that most closely matches your operation. But I think you would get the biggest boost by calling in a planetary spirit and adding their sigil as well.

Calculating the exact mundane effort needed for anything is pretty much impossible. Every situation is different. You should take whatever steps you can in the mundane world and then do magick on top of that to align the "luck factor" with what you want.

Bishop said...

Would i trace planetary kamea and spirit like you do?

Scott Stenwick said...

If you are going to conjure a planetary angel, intelligence, or spirit along with your sigil you would include the name on the planetary kamea.

If you are not doing a conjuration ritual, though, you would not use it. The sigil is specifically used to conjure the spirit, it does not add anything to a ritual on its own just by drawing it.

Bishop said...

If i do a sentence,convert into a letters ,convert letters into Hebrew ,make a planetary sigil with planetary Inteligence like you do do i trace the Hebrew letters from left to right or vice versa ON planetary sigil or somewhere near on paper?
Could i do planetary sigil with planetary Inteligence or Angels somewhere near sigil and when finished make a black circle around all?


Scott Stenwick said...

You go from the start of the word to end of the word. Left to right versus right to left doesn't make any sense when you are tracing on a kamea. You can trace in any direction depending on what the next letter is.

You can draw the sigils so they are touching, or draw them close together and draw a circle around them. Both methods will work.

Bishop said...

Has anyone here performed a effective banishment with Saturn operations like banish people from one s Life and situation and is it dangerous to work with Saturn?

Scott Stenwick said...

Yes, I have done that, and no, it is not especially dangerous. The banishing version, though, is not the best way to do it. It can work immediately in the short term, but a better way to do it is to conjure the angel of Saturn and charge them to remove the person. So evoke, don't banish. I have found that Cassiel, the angel of Saturn, is surprisingly mellow to work with. I suppose that's because Saturn rules stability and the like.

Bishop said...

Thanks.
What you think about reincarnation ?Do you think that people reincarnate or you need to work to reincarnate ?

Alex Scaraoschi said...

Yea call on Saturn spirits and direct them to keep the target away from you.

Bishop said...

Since i mention Cassiel i would like also to ask how is it to work with Kamael Angel od Geburah?
I think in articles is mentioned that Angels and Inteligences od Geburah make someone suffer since Geburah is associated with deconstruction !

Scott Stenwick said...

I think that reincarnation happens sometimes, because we have some evidence of it across various traditions. But I also don't think it happens all the time, because if it did we would have more evidence of it than we do.

It's hard to speculate, though, on why some people might and others might not. Various religions have different ideas about it, but not many of them are in agreement.

Scott Stenwick said...

Yes, calling on Saturn spirits to keep people away from you works well and is quite safe. Think about it - if the person you are casting it on has a magical defense that sends spells back at the caster, what happens? Your spell would be cast back at you, and it would keep you away from them. The same exact effect! That's one of the reasons it's such a good trick.

Scott Stenwick said...

Khamael is a sephirothic angel, and as such is more about the "vision of power" associated with Geburah rather than practical Mars operations. Zamael is the angel of the path of Mars, and Zamael is much more energetic and practically hyper to work with, like a cluster of flames that are hard to contain. Almost the exact opposite of what I've experienced with Cassiel.

Bishop said...

Do you know maybe what s that plesent electrical feeling on throat or on body during or after meditation or rituals?

Scott Stenwick said...

That sounds to me like the movement of energy (qi/prana/whatever you want to call it). I am a Qigong practitioner, and those are the sensations I get when I'm moving subtle energies successfully.

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