Banishing Rituals -- The Lab

In "Undoing Yourself (With Enegized Meditation)", Christopher Hyatt presents the idea of the Lab:

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.