I recently sunk my teeth into John Dee's Five Books of Mystery (Joseph H. Peterson, Editor). For those who don't know, John Dee was a pretty influential figure in a few fields. One of those fields was Western magic.
So I decided to read this stuff because it was theoretically the source material for the Golden Dawn's Enochian practices and their derivatives. The basic story is that Dee had someone (he got the best results with Edward Kelley, supposedly) as a medium for his occult experiments and recorded some remarkable results; including extensive conversations with "Angels" who gave various kinds of advice, answered questions, and provided at least one new language.
The downside? Well, the "Angels" seem to have really had a tendency to tell Dee what he wanted to hear when asked about external-world issues, and Dee seemed to have taken some of their answers as as a sign that the people of the New World needed Christianity shoved down their throats. I suppose it would be unfair to judge him by modern standards here, but it nevertheless sticks out in my mind as some kind of dismal failure.
Anyway, apparently there's some debate about whether Edward Kelley was an outright con artist, and comparing the claims of the "Angels" to real-world happenings doesn't look very favorable. That is, at the very least, the idea that they were all-seeing beings there to give honest answers doesn't seem supported by fact.
Despite these things, his material remains influential, so whatever his own apparent failings and however questionable the origins of the practices he lays out, it must yield worthwhile results for a lot of people. For now, I mostly take it as a lesson about what results from wanting something to be true a little too much.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Banishing Rituals -- The Lab
In "Undoing Yourself (With Enegized Meditation)", Christopher Hyatt presents the idea of the Lab:
He goes on to suggest the LBRP as one way of achieving this. The point I want to make here is that a Banishing Ritual like the LBRP will, if successful, create (at least psychologically) a space which is completely protected and safe (the Lab). Even if you don't go on to perform experiments in your Lab, into the safety and cleanliness of its psychological environment will tend to calm down one's "fears, anxieties, uncertainties, doubts, and prejudices".
Also, practice makes perfect. With practice, it can become one way of really calming these kinds of tensions down, both in the mind and body. Furthermore, as a practical matter, in terms of concentration, the less one part of you is fighting against another, the more single-pointed your mind can become.
In the LBRP, I think that this is partly achieved by flipping the universe inside-out, as described in my previous post. Within your circle (your Lab), you have asserted that your internal universe is projected outward. You are now the sovereign of this space. If the implications are properly understood, you have nothing to fear from anyone or anything while in this mindset.
Once that is grasped, you can tell it to your entire body and mind. You can be like an old-time town crier, knocking at all your internal doors and saying, "Hey! Buddy! You heard the news? There are no enemies anywhere. Yeah, it's totally safe now. You can come out and put down that knife!"
The Banishing Ritual, having banished the entire external universe for a time (or at least placed it inside oneself, again asserting personal sovereignty, not to mention giving an instance of infinite recursion to think about), suddenly becomes a calming and even healing and integrative process.
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A BANISHING RITUAL
I don't particularly think the LBRP is for everyone. The internet is around these days with a lot of resources for research, I don't know how worthwhile it is for me to give specific recommendations, but I'll try to at least provide a few leads or key-words.
Interested readers may look for further inspiration from chaos magic (sometimes spelled "kaos majik", amongst other variants), if only because it attempts to build itself up without an elaborate underlying system of symbols, though the annoying terminology factor may be a put-off for some. Aleister Crowley gives some commentary on the LBRP and purports to offer an alternative in The Book of Lies. Israel Regardie gives clear-headed advice like nobody's business, and often provides a psychological interpretation to consider.
If you're interested in developing a Banishing Ritual with the characteristics described in my recent posts but don't care to read much more on the LBRP or chaos magic (or find some other existing practice that suits you better), I'll give a small recommendation list for what it's worth:
THE LAB
A lab is a place where scientists gather to test out their favorite theories. The reason they have a lab is they realize they have more theories than facts.
[...]
Unlike most of us who know everything, (If you don't think so just ask anyone about anything and see what happens!—) the real scientist knows that You are the Lab, the Subject, and the Experimenter.
[...]
As your own scientist it is important to leave all your preconceived ideas, thoughts and beliefs at the portal of your LAB. This includes your fears, anxieties, uncertainties, doubts and prejudices which have prevented you from experiencing the joy and freedom of your highest aspirations.
He goes on to suggest the LBRP as one way of achieving this. The point I want to make here is that a Banishing Ritual like the LBRP will, if successful, create (at least psychologically) a space which is completely protected and safe (the Lab). Even if you don't go on to perform experiments in your Lab, into the safety and cleanliness of its psychological environment will tend to calm down one's "fears, anxieties, uncertainties, doubts, and prejudices".
Also, practice makes perfect. With practice, it can become one way of really calming these kinds of tensions down, both in the mind and body. Furthermore, as a practical matter, in terms of concentration, the less one part of you is fighting against another, the more single-pointed your mind can become.
In the LBRP, I think that this is partly achieved by flipping the universe inside-out, as described in my previous post. Within your circle (your Lab), you have asserted that your internal universe is projected outward. You are now the sovereign of this space. If the implications are properly understood, you have nothing to fear from anyone or anything while in this mindset.
Once that is grasped, you can tell it to your entire body and mind. You can be like an old-time town crier, knocking at all your internal doors and saying, "Hey! Buddy! You heard the news? There are no enemies anywhere. Yeah, it's totally safe now. You can come out and put down that knife!"
The Banishing Ritual, having banished the entire external universe for a time (or at least placed it inside oneself, again asserting personal sovereignty, not to mention giving an instance of infinite recursion to think about), suddenly becomes a calming and even healing and integrative process.
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A BANISHING RITUAL
I don't particularly think the LBRP is for everyone. The internet is around these days with a lot of resources for research, I don't know how worthwhile it is for me to give specific recommendations, but I'll try to at least provide a few leads or key-words.
Interested readers may look for further inspiration from chaos magic (sometimes spelled "kaos majik", amongst other variants), if only because it attempts to build itself up without an elaborate underlying system of symbols, though the annoying terminology factor may be a put-off for some. Aleister Crowley gives some commentary on the LBRP and purports to offer an alternative in The Book of Lies. Israel Regardie gives clear-headed advice like nobody's business, and often provides a psychological interpretation to consider.
If you're interested in developing a Banishing Ritual with the characteristics described in my recent posts but don't care to read much more on the LBRP or chaos magic (or find some other existing practice that suits you better), I'll give a small recommendation list for what it's worth:
- Invoke "higher functioning". Make your idea of higher functioning and its symbols as clear in your head as possible.
- Formulate clear visualizations. Whatever you do, take the time to ensure that it engages the visual imagination, and that you form the relevant imagery in your mind as clearly as possible. This comes down to practice.
- Auditory components are excellent too. Saying something, singing something, imagining sounds, these things have their own effects that may be worth investigating.
- Experimentation is good, getting lost and failing to pin anything down is not.
- Barriers serve to let you deeply know that you are safe. "Fear is failure, and the forerunner of failure..."
- I've tried to describe one formula that reinforces control, concentration, and understanding: The internal universe is projected, the external universe is condensed inside.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Banishing Rituals -- LBRP
In the previous post, I mentioned the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. It seems that use of this ritual was recommended quite a lot in the GD as a general solution for opening and closing rituals. Also, apart from Crowley's hyperbole, it was highly regarded by Israel Regardie, who recommended it as an entry point of sorts into the Golden Dawn system.
Before addressing the ritual itself, I'd like to quote Peter Carroll again (Liber Kaos this time):
I am not going to attempt to describe every Qabalistic correspondence implied in the above ritual, in no small part because I don't feel fully qualified. Suffice to say that the ritual assumes a complex system of symbols, associations, and correspondences which serve as a sort of basis for its construction. For now, we'll gloss over this and just tackle some basics.
Steps (i) to (v) above constitute the Qabalistic Cross. You may remember hearing very similar things in church, depending on your background. You'll notice, though, that step (i) sort of designates the subject of a sentence and the rest is a statement about what is being designated to that subject. This is an entry point for a basic understanding of what's happening symbolically.
Just taking it as a general statement, "Unto thee" is very vague, isn't it? Making a cross on the body and saying Hebrew words that parallel Christian church phrases at first will probably lead the reader to suppose that the entity being addressed is "God", that old white guy in the sky. Not necessarily. Israel Regardie states that the entity being addressed is the practitioner's higher genius of sorts. Also, "Unto thee" is said while touching the forehead, which could be related to the brain or the third eye chakra depending on taste. Actually, the forehead is at the front of the brain, so one could even say the frontal lobe. The point here is that it begins and ends with a way of dedicating certain things to "higher functioning", whatever the practitioner may conceive that to be. If one's idea of "higher functioning" is clear, this can be a quick aid to concentration and keeping thoughts from going to less important things.
The practitioner then draws a circle of fire around him/herself in his/her imagination, with a pentagram of fire located at each of the four cardinal directions. The directions, the archangels, the god-names... these things I'll set aside for now. I think this part of the process is in many ways more along the lines of what one might naturally think of when thinking of "banishing". Notably, the circle is intended to be a line which external influences cannot cross.
I want to talk next about steps (xv) and (xvi). This is actually the heart of what I want to point out about this ritual. What the hell are those pentagrams about anyway? The upright pentagram is a symbol with a number of associations, and I won't go over all of them. The main thing I want to point out is that one name given to the pentagram is the "Star of the Microcosm". Having drawn the pentagrams, the practitioner makes a statement about the "Six-rayed star": the hexagram. The hexagram is also known as the "Star of the Macrocosm", and it is being placed (in one's imagination) in "the column", which is essentially an imaginary line going through the center of the body.
I'd like to suggest a plausible interpretation of this moment in the ritual: The microcosm (we might say the internal universe) is identified as occupying a space outside of oneself and the macrocosm (we'll say the external universe) is identified as being condensed into a space inside of oneself. Viewed this way, the entire universe has been turned inside-out!
So in the above, I've given a couple more ideas that seem to have been integrated into a very popular Banishing Ritual. Next post I'll try to talk about why this kind of ritual seems to be considered useful even on its own, regardless of whether it begins/ends another activity or not, and also regardless of whether there is some specific influence being banished or not. Stay tuned!
Before addressing the ritual itself, I'd like to quote Peter Carroll again (Liber Kaos this time):
The traditional lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram devised by Golden Dawn adepts is becoming progressively less useful as time advances. Nowadays, fewI mention this because personally I don't know how wise the "just do it" attitude is with this kind of material. If the symbols aren't understood well enough for the practitioner to have some degree of clarity, this kind of ritual might be a waste of time or have undesirable side-effects. Nevertheless, the ritual is a useful (and influential) example of a banishing procedure. This is it (quoted from an online version of Crowley's Liber O):
people are sufficiently committed to Hebraic mysticism or kabbalistic studies to derive much power from the god names and angelic images. The persistency of the increasingly inappropriate lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram and imItative
variants of it in other traditions is evidence of a continuing requirement for a ritual of this type.
(i) Touching the forehead say Ateh (Unto Thee).
(ii) Touching the breast say Malkuth (The Kingdom).
(iii) Touching the right shoulder, say ve-Geburah (and the Power).
(iv) Touching the left shoulder, say ve-Gedulah (and the Glory).
(v) Clasping the hands upon the breast, say le-Olahm, Amen (To the Ages, Amen).
(vi) Turning to the East make a pentagram (that of Earth) with the proper weapon (usually the Wand). Say ("i.e." vibrate) I H V H.
(vii) Turning to the South, the same, but say A D N I.
(viii) Turning to the West, the same, but say A H I H.
(ix) Turning to the North, the same, but say A G L A.
Pronounce: Ye-ho-wau, Adonai, Eheieh, Agla.
(x) Extending the arms in the form of a Cross say:
(xi) Before me Raphael;
(xii) Behind me Gabriel;
(xiii) On my right hand Michael.
(xiv) On my left hand Auriel;
(xv) For about me flames the Pentagram,
(xvi) And in the Column stands the six-rayed Star.
(xvii-xxi) Repeat (i) to (v), the Qabalistic Cross.
I am not going to attempt to describe every Qabalistic correspondence implied in the above ritual, in no small part because I don't feel fully qualified. Suffice to say that the ritual assumes a complex system of symbols, associations, and correspondences which serve as a sort of basis for its construction. For now, we'll gloss over this and just tackle some basics.
Steps (i) to (v) above constitute the Qabalistic Cross. You may remember hearing very similar things in church, depending on your background. You'll notice, though, that step (i) sort of designates the subject of a sentence and the rest is a statement about what is being designated to that subject. This is an entry point for a basic understanding of what's happening symbolically.
Just taking it as a general statement, "Unto thee" is very vague, isn't it? Making a cross on the body and saying Hebrew words that parallel Christian church phrases at first will probably lead the reader to suppose that the entity being addressed is "God", that old white guy in the sky. Not necessarily. Israel Regardie states that the entity being addressed is the practitioner's higher genius of sorts. Also, "Unto thee" is said while touching the forehead, which could be related to the brain or the third eye chakra depending on taste. Actually, the forehead is at the front of the brain, so one could even say the frontal lobe. The point here is that it begins and ends with a way of dedicating certain things to "higher functioning", whatever the practitioner may conceive that to be. If one's idea of "higher functioning" is clear, this can be a quick aid to concentration and keeping thoughts from going to less important things.
The practitioner then draws a circle of fire around him/herself in his/her imagination, with a pentagram of fire located at each of the four cardinal directions. The directions, the archangels, the god-names... these things I'll set aside for now. I think this part of the process is in many ways more along the lines of what one might naturally think of when thinking of "banishing". Notably, the circle is intended to be a line which external influences cannot cross.
I want to talk next about steps (xv) and (xvi). This is actually the heart of what I want to point out about this ritual. What the hell are those pentagrams about anyway? The upright pentagram is a symbol with a number of associations, and I won't go over all of them. The main thing I want to point out is that one name given to the pentagram is the "Star of the Microcosm". Having drawn the pentagrams, the practitioner makes a statement about the "Six-rayed star": the hexagram. The hexagram is also known as the "Star of the Macrocosm", and it is being placed (in one's imagination) in "the column", which is essentially an imaginary line going through the center of the body.
I'd like to suggest a plausible interpretation of this moment in the ritual: The microcosm (we might say the internal universe) is identified as occupying a space outside of oneself and the macrocosm (we'll say the external universe) is identified as being condensed into a space inside of oneself. Viewed this way, the entire universe has been turned inside-out!
So in the above, I've given a couple more ideas that seem to have been integrated into a very popular Banishing Ritual. Next post I'll try to talk about why this kind of ritual seems to be considered useful even on its own, regardless of whether it begins/ends another activity or not, and also regardless of whether there is some specific influence being banished or not. Stay tuned!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Banishing Rituals -- Basic Overview
As far as I can tell, the reliance on Banishing Rituals goes back to The Golden Dawn. No doubt there were rituals with similar functions before then, but in terms of widespread use, the GD seems to have really popularized the idea that a Banishing Ritual should begin and end larger rituals and even any kind of personal practice. Going to meditate? Why not banish first? Astral travel? Banish first. Invocation? Banish first. And so on.
At first glance, this seems like this must indicate a severe case of paranoia. If the purpose Banishing Ritual is to get rid of undesired entities or other external influences, then the practitioner who follows this advice must be constantly afraid that such influences are waiting in the wings, hell-bent on sending him/her astray. As it turns out, however, that's a big 'if'.
What other ideas are out there about the purpose of the Banishing Ritual? Well, one is the psychological interpretation, that we are banishing thoughts which are unsuitable to our practice. In other words, we aren't banishing anything external at all, but rather we are banishing undesired internal influences from our conscious awareness.
Some other ideas are more general. For example, Chaos Magick co-founder Peter Carroll in Liber Null made the claim that:
That Banishing Rituals are not necessarily only about Banishing has been expressed by other esteemed practitioners as well, notably Aleister Crowley, who, in his "Notes on the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram" made the somewhat famous pronouncement:
At first glance, this seems like this must indicate a severe case of paranoia. If the purpose Banishing Ritual is to get rid of undesired entities or other external influences, then the practitioner who follows this advice must be constantly afraid that such influences are waiting in the wings, hell-bent on sending him/her astray. As it turns out, however, that's a big 'if'.
What other ideas are out there about the purpose of the Banishing Ritual? Well, one is the psychological interpretation, that we are banishing thoughts which are unsuitable to our practice. In other words, we aren't banishing anything external at all, but rather we are banishing undesired internal influences from our conscious awareness.
Some other ideas are more general. For example, Chaos Magick co-founder Peter Carroll in Liber Null made the claim that:
A well-constructed banishingThis at least partly gives a more functional approach. The Banishing Ritual will rapidly prepare the magician to concentrate. It helps the magician to resist obsession. Omitting that last sentence, this seems to provide a somewhat more general idea of what the practitioner is trying to accomplish: Whether obsession originates from within or without, a good banishing ritual will help the practitioner to resist its influence. But something else should be clear: This view also says quite directly that the Banishing Ritual does not just banish. In the view above, a successful Banishing Ritual assists quick concentration, and not as a side effect, but as a fundamental condition of success.
ritual has the following effects. It prepares the magician more
rapidly for magical concentration than any of the trance
exercises alone. It enables the magician to resist obsession if
problems are encountered with dream experiences or with sigils
becoming conscious. It also protects the magician from any
hostile occult influences which may assail him.
That Banishing Rituals are not necessarily only about Banishing has been expressed by other esteemed practitioners as well, notably Aleister Crowley, who, in his "Notes on the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram" made the somewhat famous pronouncement:
Those who regard this ritual as a mere device to invoke or banish spirits, are unworthy to possess it. Properly understood, it is the Medicine of Metals and the Stone of the Wise.What the hell's this all about, then? Well, I don't claim to have all the answers, but in my next installment I'll at least address the famous Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and give a few thoughts of its other (non-banishing) functions.
Monday, December 7, 2009
First Post -- State of the New Age
I've just spent some time today reading through a few new age print magazines, trying to get a feel for the market if I were to write commentary for existing publications. The magazines I read today were one issue each of: Nova (Australia's Holistic Journal), Spheres (The Spirit Guide), New Dawn, and Nexus.
Reading through all this has left me with a somewhat conflicted feeling. On the one hand, the New Age movement offers an interesting alternative mindset. On some level, I enjoy the the stories of the New Age movement: UFO technology is at our fingertips! Real perpetual motion machines! A special kind of corn that will transform you into a spiritual dynamo! The alien saviors of mankind will save us all in 2012, using the Hall of Records located underneath the pyramids of Giza to teach us ancient arcane knowledge handed down from Lemuria...
It disturbs me that there's a large population out there that seems to regard all of this as "true" in the same sense that it's "true" that they are holding a magazine; but on the other hand, it's "fun" and if you feel like it, you can probably find a way to entertain the possibilities at least enough to stretch your mind just a little bit.
Another trend that really disturbs me is the dismaying amount of advertisement for "healing" and "psychic reading". One thing that bothers me is that it's clear that people drawn to this would like to get help on some level, but it seems to me that a lot of these people get caught bouncing from one miracle cure to the next, like people always switching up their fad diets. In other words, I have not been left with a very high opinion of how often these things live up to their claims. My opinion of psychiatry is similar.
Ok, don't get me wrong: I think it's good that people are seeking out help and understand at least on some level that the rational-materialist worldview is not the only one worthy of consideration. That's excellent. I also think it's a good sign that people have some kind of intuitive understanding that it is possible for them to awaken something inside of themselves that is, shall we say, more "self-actualized". To my mind, this amounts to a real desire to improve oneself -- surely a laudable goal.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that the thought process involved is so muddled and tangled up with wishful thinking that progress becomes a matter of sheer luck, if it takes place at all. Another aspect of the problem seems to be the addiction to "feeling good". Not that there's an inherent problem with doing new-agey activities that leave you feeling good, but bouncing from one "miracle" fad to the next would seem to indicate a low level of long-term change. And maybe I disagree with the attitude that the ability to feel really good for a couple of hours or days is equivalent to working through deep issues.
Reading through all this has left me with a somewhat conflicted feeling. On the one hand, the New Age movement offers an interesting alternative mindset. On some level, I enjoy the the stories of the New Age movement: UFO technology is at our fingertips! Real perpetual motion machines! A special kind of corn that will transform you into a spiritual dynamo! The alien saviors of mankind will save us all in 2012, using the Hall of Records located underneath the pyramids of Giza to teach us ancient arcane knowledge handed down from Lemuria...
It disturbs me that there's a large population out there that seems to regard all of this as "true" in the same sense that it's "true" that they are holding a magazine; but on the other hand, it's "fun" and if you feel like it, you can probably find a way to entertain the possibilities at least enough to stretch your mind just a little bit.
Another trend that really disturbs me is the dismaying amount of advertisement for "healing" and "psychic reading". One thing that bothers me is that it's clear that people drawn to this would like to get help on some level, but it seems to me that a lot of these people get caught bouncing from one miracle cure to the next, like people always switching up their fad diets. In other words, I have not been left with a very high opinion of how often these things live up to their claims. My opinion of psychiatry is similar.
Ok, don't get me wrong: I think it's good that people are seeking out help and understand at least on some level that the rational-materialist worldview is not the only one worthy of consideration. That's excellent. I also think it's a good sign that people have some kind of intuitive understanding that it is possible for them to awaken something inside of themselves that is, shall we say, more "self-actualized". To my mind, this amounts to a real desire to improve oneself -- surely a laudable goal.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that the thought process involved is so muddled and tangled up with wishful thinking that progress becomes a matter of sheer luck, if it takes place at all. Another aspect of the problem seems to be the addiction to "feeling good". Not that there's an inherent problem with doing new-agey activities that leave you feeling good, but bouncing from one "miracle" fad to the next would seem to indicate a low level of long-term change. And maybe I disagree with the attitude that the ability to feel really good for a couple of hours or days is equivalent to working through deep issues.
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