As someone who's exploring Thelema, starting out with the Qabalistic Cross and Resh, could you maybe help me overcome my aversion to the judeo-christian language in the exercises?

I feel uncomfortable with trying to change the wording, being a novice to ceremonial magick.

Thank you for any advice.

The first thing to acknowledge is the aversion isn't there because of the powers invoked but because of your own experience of their representatives in organised religion. Perhaps you've had bad experiences, haven't we all, you can think of these exercises as claiming back your own relationship to these powers.

Furthermore, think of the names invoked, even the language used as a formula that will bring about desired effects. For example, you are not invoking God per se in the Pentagram ritual you are harmonising your environment and invoking the influence of the Holy Guardian Angel in to your sphere. The Holy Guardian Angel is the spiritual interface between you and the God-head- however you define that concept.

The good news is once you have the training and can take off the training wheel you can ride the bike that is your spiritual practice however you want. You may find that the names and language no longer bothers you because the object of your worship has taken on the names willingly yet has no relation to what you assumed was meant by God. Your understanding of God may also change on your journey and your relationship to that force.

Also if you are following a practice drenched in hermetic qabalah understand that the forces are representations of powers that are shared across cultures and pantheons. There is nothing monotheistic about original Judaism, it's all earlier paganism under new clothing. The majority of problems we face from religion are entirely human made. The Hebrew names are favoured because of the gematria available as well, this is what I mean by forumlas. You are vibrating powerful names as well as numerical expressions which tie in other concepts into that name.

To quote Crowley:

"In the true religion there is no sect, therefore take heed that thou blaspheme not the name by which another knoweth his God; for if thou do this thing in Jupiter thou wilt blaspheme YHVH and in Osiris YHShVH . Ask and ye shall have! Seek, and ye shall find! Knock, and it shall be opened unto you!" - Liber Librae.

In truth, the only God or spiritual experience you should be concerned about is the HGA and that force will reveal itself to you in a variety of masks which you must strip away to come to the root of the force.

I've changed the LRP many times, I have written many versions utilising various traditions. My rituals were good, but the LRP is surely a masterpiece and all derivatives will never touch close to its perfection.

Quick update and a love letter to the LBRP

Hello! It's been a while. I had been quite a bit more busy than I thought I would have been when I first made this blog, and naturally my work, both mundane and magical, had to come first. However, I do now have a bit of time on my hands. To update everyone, I have also done work with a Sylph and Gnome, which completes the little series I had started to become more familiar with the elements, those posts are coming soon. I do also still plan on continuing my work on the game Clavis Elementorum, I should have a true "dev log" of that a bit later on.

With that said, I have had a lot of time to think about my initial inspiration as to why I wanted to make this game to begin with: "Why make a game that so accurately (I hope) showcases the personalities of the elemental spirits, and the nature of the elements themselves?" And the answer is to help give others who were starting out the same kind of nudge from words on a page to effective practice. I'm not saying my understanding of these things is anything special, but rather that I simply recognize and have recognized in my conversations with other practitioners and aspiring practitioners that some really seem to understand what's 'really going on' versus not, and that I shudder to think how subtle and easily missable the point of it is, since no author I've seen has really given it the detail it deserves, though a lot of them do hint at it. So with all this pretense out of the way, I will showcase these hidden lessons that help to unlock imagery based magic, through the example of the LBRP, but of course what I say applies to any act of magical imagination.

First are the skills required before you can make use of the formula. A lot of times in writing, these skills are obfuscated behind flowery words or trying to force-fit the skills to correspond to the Powers of the Sphinx or whatever else, but this obscures the supreme simplicity of the skills.

The first skill required is focus. This is not simply paying attention to something, nor is it hyping yourself up. This is the focus of preparedness, letting the world fall from around you, to still the mind toward just the task at hand. Many writers describe the LBRP with the magician making their own "Magical Universe". This is a good description in regards to philosophy, but it obscures the practical action of the magician in the circle. The key is in single-edged focus, focus keeps your eye on the goal, it keeps all your mental and spiritual energy directed on the aims of the work you are doing, and without focus, a lot of what you put into any working will not be effective.

The second skill is imagination, or imagery. It is the syntax used to communicate. The purpose of this is to both give form to your focus, and also to set up a place of communication. This is not just communicating with the forces you are working with, but communicating with the parts of yourself who are doing the actual reaching out, to tell the unconscious what you wish to be done. I say that imagination is communication because while at first the main purpose is to give form to your desire and communicate that *to* your unconscious, Higher Self, and the forces you are reaching out to, the other half is to learn to receive these messages through the same canvas of imagination.

The third skill is reaching out, and must be done on every level of the operation. What I mean by reaching out is acknowledging and striving toward the forces you are working with. You should be actively willing yourself to come into contact with the forces you are contacting.

This is how all of this looks within the context of the LBRP

Before starting, you should be in a state of focused concentration. The first task is to stop thinking about what your day was like, or what you're going to do after this, or whatever is not focusing on the imagery you're about to form. This is clearly something easier said than done, and you should take some time before the ritual to put yourself in a more relaxed and focused state. I have found what is best is to first let your thoughts play themselves out, as you sit in the silence and let them naturally fall to a close, moving toward a state of stillness without fighting against the ideas.

Then, when ready, stand facing the East. The first action of the Qabalistic Cross is actually an act of reaching out. You are reaching out to the Source of All Sources, Hypsistos, God Most High, Ein Soph, The One, The Monad. In short, your first action physically is reaching out with your right hand above your head. Imaginably, you are growing, up out of your room, up above the planets, above the stars, breaching into a realm of pure white Light, Standing within the realm of the Empyrean. Before even the first word, your actions are truly embodying the ethos of the Magician, to aspire toward the Highest, and to stand, not grovel, not kneel, in the Presence of The King. (and yet, the path is open and, dare I say, ideal, for those who yet wish to remain in service, the Parable of the Prodigal Son comes to mind for the full proper mindset as far as my path is concerned. The Son returns, willing to be but a servant of the House, but none the less accepts the hug of his Father, and accepts the freely given Inheritance)

Let us take the next segment in whole, and then discuss it. "Atoh, Malkuth. VeGeburah, VeGedulah, LeOlam, Amen." "For Thine, is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, World Without End, So Mote It Be." These words alone are very potent, and of course so is the imagery, the simple thing is to simply construct the Cross in Light, and for some added symbolic attachment, you can of course add the colors of the Sephirotic correspondence, Kether, Malkuth, Geburah, and Chesed, in order.

Of course, the most interesting thing to note after the initial Kabbalistic correspondence is the fact that the placement of Geburah and Gedulah are inverted. This is by design, at least as far as the original makers of this ritual are concerned. If you look at the Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life, you would of course see Chesed on your right, and Geburah on your left, but that is exactly opposite of the truth if you imagine the glyph of the Tree of Life as a mirror image, as the founders of the LBRP would imagine. If you 'back into the tree', to see the Tree as a mirror image of the Self, then you see Gedulah (Chesed) as your left, and Geburah as your right. Certainly, this little part of the ritual can in of itself hold great depth, It is the crossing-point of Highest and Lowest, Kether and Malkuth, and of that other great binary, of Mercy and Severity (of course, this bit on "backing into the tree' is rather unique to the Golden Dawn, if you decide to read some more traditional Kabbalah, you won't see this idea at all. Whether you decide to leave the concept for just Golden Dawn work or not is your decision). This midpoint which is the essence of the Rose-Cross is of itself the Heart of another good ritual, the aptly named ritual of the Rose-Cross, which is the essence of the place of meditation and peace, but that is its own conversation piece.

By the end of the QC, you have touched the Highest and united it back with Materiality. You have touched Strength and Mercy, and have united it all within your Heart. Touch is certainly the key word, because to go beyond a simple tap on the shoulder of these Giants is in of itself the realm of an entire life's work. The QC is a stabilizing factor, its presence at the start and end of the LBRP is to make sure the practitioner is in a stable state before and directly after working with the Elements, it bookends the ritual, as if to make a separate space, to separate the mundane from the magical.

If the QC is about leaving the mundane and entering the magical, the initial setting up of the Circle with Divine Names is laying the foundation of this magical world. You are ridding your Sphere of Sensation from the mundane, imbalanced, impure elements, to then in the next part fill your Sphere with the pure element of each Archangel. Stepping forward, around the altar, to the East corner, with the right hand, whether it be with a tool in hand, or the oft cited "sword mudra", or the sign of the benediction, tracing in the air a Banishing Pentagram while also imagining light blue fire (though also cited is simply white fire) tracing along this pentagram, piercing the center (this time either the same color, or also red light as possible images) and vibrating the Divine Name "YHVH" while imagining the letters glowing brightly in golden light, then repeating after going to the South, keeping the arm held out, tracing the circle in fire, this time with the divine name "Adonai", the West with "Ehyieh" and the North with "AGLA" before returning first to the East station, then back to the Center, facing still East. The blue flame of the Pentagram is to correspond it to the "flame of spirit" that is seen as a representation of the Inner Flame, and it as a symbol is used as a symbol of Spirit within the Golden Dawn tradition. White light is an acceptable substitute, because of its correspondence with purity, Kether, etc. It is a useful substitute if you are using blue within your practice for another correspondence. The red piercing ray corresponds to Geburah, utilizing the restricting quality of the Sephira as a way of pushing away the impure elements.

The next segment is more a matter of invoking than banishing, now calling into yourself the form of the Archangels, who rule and represent the Elements in their most pure and balanced form. What I also find interesting is that with our more common imagery, of imagining each Archangel in robes of their color, with flashing colors, and holding a symbol of their element, we see the Wand and Sword flipped from their usual Golden Dawn correspondence(and usual Tarot suit correspondence), where usually we see Wands with Fire and Swords with Air, it is Raphael who holds an airy Caduceus wand/staff, and Michael holding a fiery Sword. We do see another current, examples being the "Practical Magick" series by David Rankine and Sorita d'Este, and the system of Franz Bardon, which does have this flipped correspondence, of Air with the Wand and Fire with the Sword. This I am not entirely sure what to make of in the grander scheme of things, but I would be remiss to not bring it up. With that wrinkle said, there is a lot of potential that lay within having these Archangels invoked, outside of their purpose in the ritual as heralds of their respective elements.

"Around me flame the pentagram, and within me (or 'in the center column') shines the six-ray-star." This line makes more explicit the whole purpose of the operation. The Pentagram is representative of the microcosm, and the Hexagram that of the macrocosm. In this line, they are inverse, the Microcosm displays itself about you, and the Macrocosm is the shining light within. This is the alchemical operation of the LBRP, You take High and bring the light to the low in the QC, you bring balance on all these levels. The version of the line that says the Central Column invokes the idea of the Middle Pillar in the Kabbalah, and the version that says within me invokes the idea that "The Kingdom of God is Within You" (Luke 17:21).

At this point, this is in essence the birth of a new world, the imbalanced structure of how things were is gone, and now you have laid a new, firm foundation from which to start, whether it be a magical operation, or just the start of your day. This is, frankly, only a summary of my thought on the LBRP, there is of course much more that can be said on the topic, but I think this gives enough of a nudge in the right direction on all the different levels that the ritual may be understood, so that other students of the occult may bring their own thoughts to the discussion.

Just a reminder that circles are symbols of amplification, not protection. Squares are symbols of protection.

A Filianic LBRP (Lesser Banishing Ritual Of The Pentagram)

For anyone who may be interested, I found this Divine Feminine version of the LBRP some time ago. I haven’t actually learned how to do the LBRP yet but I think I’ll start with this version.

ElNafi's works distillation: Archangels calling ritual, diarrhea spirit attack, and gnosis.

Catchy title, right?

Story time and practical in one post! wowie.

These are my previous three posts on working with Elnafi: ( Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 ) I use Continental tarot attribution with hebrew letters, concepts...so when I say magician, think ALEPH not BETH.

In this post I will try to distill all the wisdom imparted on me by Elanfi hoping that you're motivated by it. I will definitely say that DON'T WORK WITH THEM IF YOU'RE NOT READY OR HAVE SUITABLE PROTECTION. I met someone who told me from a friend of his that she worked with Elnafi and ended up with stomach bleeding....I ended up with Diarrhea and loose bowl for 2-3 days, it's not fun happening to you at midnight from 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, and every hour of night. anyhow this is the summation of practice taken from this stomach attacking spirit lol. Elnafi appears a a whirling aleph, his presence is the duality of ternary. It's not the image of air boiling out of water that's hot and steaming under fire. Elnafi is like the whirling air produces when a planet full of coldest ocean and a planet full of the hottest lava appear, It's that whirling pneumatic pressurized air ready to cut down steel and iron. Primarily if anything....it is active wisdom in action. Awareness in action. What did I took from the dangers of working with them? I think it's better to give the practical work with El Nafi instead of going into the theoretical gnosis I gain. I want to say that the following ritual takes the same correspondence of directions of LBRP but I don't want to call it lbrp-killer or 10 TIMES BETTER THAN LBRP, I really want us to break away from this mentality. A wheel in a car is useful, a wheel outside of a car wouldn't really help you as much, ye? Same with the LBRP, within it's system it's wonderful...but outside of it? why are you doing it.

Cardinal Ritual of Archangels

Item recommended: Magician Card from Tarot or a drawing on a page of paper of it.

I encourage people to try the following ritual to grow a more...organic relationship with angels instead of just churning rituals in and out like a routine movement. This ritual only have one small condition for it to work well, I want you to go read about the four cardinal archangels Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel. The internet is filled with junk, I recommend A Dictionary Of Angels by Gustav Davidson and then you can jump from there, Hadean Press have booklets on them, jump from there. look into all resources, etc. Anyway I assume you at least have some ideas about them and you're using the same correspondence as me: Raphael - East Michael - South Gabriel - West Uriel - North Once you got that, you will put the the magician tarot card in the middle of your space, start by the eastern direction and call Raphael "Archangel Raphael, Lord of the eastern wind and of wisdom shine your light and blessings of wisdom into this chamber", you should make your own prayer from the heart. This is part where you need to think of what you need from the archangel and also to give the archangel space to manifest, before you move to Michael rest and wait. Create a space in your mind and let archangel Raphael response come forth, just wait, you don't need to force yourself to be silent but let the archangel come forth...in presence. then go in a circle once and call the rest of the archangels from your heart. Once that's done, you will start the second part Circumambulation around the space, it can even be a simple circling around yourself if you have no space. The important thing is that you embody the principle of the card here you're like the hands of the Aleph card being aware, reaching out, allowing the element to come, like this: you can see the hands of aleph and aleph itself is creating a cross reaching out to other elements, the concept of magical chains plays into it if you read Levi, you're forging this chain of elemental energy to flow through you.

ℵℵℵ ℵℵℵ ℵℵℵ

How many times you want to perform the Circumambulation? easy answer is 9, the long answer is that it's up to you! Why nine? I don't know I was inspired by that number and there's probably some hidden concept that I need to contemplate in regard to how it works. Once the performance is done you can just stand there and ask yourself if the performance was satisfactory or not. I hope that this ritual help create a more organic relation with the archangels. Respect, Sincerity, Simplicity in your prayer. That's all. Concluding I would have added my theoretical gnosis into this, but it seems that this post is already, big lol, until next time.

Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram

So just performed the LBRP for the first time ever (as bumbling and awkward as it was, but if I keep at it I suppose I’ll get better) and already I feel a slight sense of stillness within, like calmer waters in my subconscious.

Edited the classical LBRP to fit better with my personal practice! Check it out and let me know your thoughts!

🔥💨💧🪨

Begins with calling the Earth, Moon, Sun, and stars with specific hand motions on the body

Drawing of the pentagrams, using a specific Enochian phrase I substituted in to charge them

The calling force the direct elements rather than their associated angels

Same before me pentagrams and 6 rayed star within me after that

Then do reverse order of the stars, sun, moon, and earth calls

Ends with so mote it be

Can be edited or done backwards for specific banishing or invoking

✨☀️🌙🌎

Took a bit for me to finally be confident in making and using my own version, so I wanted to share!

Friday, 5-27-2022

Greetings. I have been researching the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn’s Ceremonial Magick Rituals lately. I have been doing the Lesser Banishing of the Pentagram Ritual quite frequently and after the Invocation of Thoth [ Mercury ] I figured that I would do some more planetary energy work.

In the LBPR, you call out to 4 Archangels, the Archangels of the Elements. You say “ In Front of me Stands Raphael” and this is the Element of Air. Then you say “Behind me Stands Gabriel”, the Element of Water. Then you say “ On My Right Hand, Michael” the Element of Fire. The “ On My Left Hand, Uriel” the Element of Earth.

I’ve been watching a lot of Damien Echols YouTube videos recently. He is an incredible man and even better magician. I was inclined to read his books, and in his book “ Angels and Archangels,” he explains so much of what is going on when you perform these Ancient Rituals. He likes to also invoke the Archangel of Kether above him, Metatron. And the Archangel of Malkuth below, Sandalphon. This adds a lot of energy to the LBRP and any other Pentagram Ritual. He included in his book, the Sigils for these 6 Archangels that I will include here:

Allen Greenfield Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram

The Lesser Banishment Ritual of the Pentagram

If there was only one thing I could know about Magick, I would choose the Lesser Banishment Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP). This is perhaps one of the most powerful, fundamental, and underrated tools in the magician’s arsenal.  The LBRP is essential, not only because it is used to cleanse a space energetically and free it from the undue influence of unwanted spirits and magical attacks, but…

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I recently read on a reddit thread that doing banishing or invocation rituals daily are bad for your practice because they essentially banish every spirit around you, including the ones you are working with. Also, it makes the room you are doing it unbearable to everyone else and your life might become a desert.

Is this true?

I can't tell you what is true. It seems people have mixed feelings about this. I will give you my opinion. I imagine you are speaking about the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram and Hexagram type rituals.

The people who believe 'banishing' banishes everything have usually learned this from a book such as "Modern Magick" by Donald Michael Kraig. Jason Miller has also echoed that banishing sets a wall up between the spirits and the sorcerer. He learned from Modern Magick also. It is one of the rare times I disagree with Jason Miller.

I learned from Modern Magick initially too, but since then I have learned from people involved with direct lineages to the original golden dawn (not simply the Regardie revival) as well as performed my own research and drawn my own conclusions.

The Lesser Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram do banish entities, however, it does not banish all entities. It doesn't create a sterile bubble, it creates a state of equilibrium and lvx within the body of light of a magician. It operates in assiah up to the beginning of yetzirah. This means it banishes the etheric and lower astral only. In my experience spirits that are actual, autonomous beings operate in higher yetzirah and are rooted in at least Briah. The ritual will not effect them, and this, in my opinion, includes demons.

However there are beings, husks. Empty vessels that are cast off from workings and from normal human interaction. They can be born out of intense emotion. They will feed off the energy of the magician and begin to take on form and autonomy. These are what the LBRP banishes.

The LBRP is like washing your hands, it is not like dipping them in bleach. It will clean an area, but will not banish all that is within it.

Then again, it is highly malleable to intent. And so I do believe the intent of the practitioner matters. A lot of people banish with th mindset of 'get rid of everything!' and I do not believe this is the right mindset. The mindset should be 'Balance' not 'banish'.

The banishing rituals should also not be the only form used. I believe the invoking ritual to be the most important. Obviously learn to banish first, but I perform more invocations than I do banishing. Some people like to invoke in the morning and banish at night, I am fine with that approach. In time you tend to know what you need- sometimes you need to banish, in particular if you require etheric cleansing and have had a bad day or been in a toxic environment. Before a tarot reading you would invoke if you feel calm already, or banish if you have traces from the previous reading still lingering.

I do think banishing three times a day every day would be extreme. Washing your hands too many times will destroy your natural skin barrier. But I do not believe a daily banishing will be detrimental unless it is all you do- do not let the LBRP and LBRH become the only things you practice, you will get nowhere.

It is about creating a space or circle that is strengthened and under the control of the magician and their guardians, in this case the Archangels. It is about banishing spirits that are not spirits or are detrimental to your own spiritual progress. The Archangels will not allow a harmful spirit to come through, however, they would have no issue with a being of light. The Lesser rituals are general banishing- they are not banishing all things, but the dross that other workings or emotions may have left behind with the agency of the archangels overseeing a balanced state.

In truth, as with much of the Golden Dawn rituals, what you are really influencing is your body of light. Your circle is your aura, and it is certainly true that you want a strong aura that is impregnable. You can still reach out and invite spirits in, they can still enter if it is for your benefit. But you don't want to be bothered by every spiritual energy around.

"It is usually sufficient to perform a general banishing, and to rely upon the aid of the guardians invoked. Let the banishing therefore be short, but in no wise slurred --- for it is useful as it tends to produce the proper attitude of mind for the invocations. "The Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram" (as now rewritten, Liber 333, Cap. XXV) is the best to use." - Alesiter Crowley.

Here you see the assertion is that the banishing rituals are brief, general, and rely on the guardians to be effective at warding the space. Therefore it isn't nuking an area, it is sweeping it and allowing beings of light to monitor what can enter and what cannot. You also see how banishing is useful as a preliminary only to get into the right mindset for invocation. Banishing in my opinion is more about balance within the Self than it is about clearing an area. You are establishing equilibrium within the aura.

My personal advice is 'Invoke often....banish when required'.

You do not need to banish at the beginning of EVERY magical act. You certainly can, if you are distracted I recommend it, but it is not necessary. Invoking would sometimes be more helpful and the invoking forms also invoke balance etc. Some people will use a statement of banishing 'Hekas, Hekas, este bebeloi' and ring a bell to clear a space then invoke. They then use the banishing at the end to return to material consciousness. This is how I usually work these days.

If you are seeking to explore an isolated force, feeling stressed or unbalanced, have excess energy from ritual- banishing is a good idea.

But if magicians who performed the pentagram ritual could not communicate with spirits there would be an issue. It is perhaps one of the main points of magick.

All my opinion of course. You just need to understand the point of these rituals, what they actually do. The majority of books are absolute rubbish and represent misunderstandings of the authors who have often not undergone proper magical training nor have decades of experience.

My experience and understanding of the LBRP and LBRH now is far different to what it was 15 years ago.

Throat lacerated, the poison drowns Shed your tears, my sweet Sweat wanton sadness, it drowns sorry lips Exorcism of sordid idiosyncrasies from the Grand Play Let’s make Summertime while it’s still our prime Allow traces of a debaucherous day to slip away

A funny story about how I had some awkward sexual experiences as a result of the LBRP

Kabbalistic Cross

I yield to the right to left, I have been playing with the concept of drawing from left to right/ right to left, left to right then right to left but honestly I have been thinking and mauling it over and over and over and now I accept the up to down and right to left, maybe I like playing with the concept before just doing it as instructed it lol.