About the Rose Cross Ritual
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First of all thank you for your answers...
@Dara Allarah said
"I don't think you've understood the purpose of the ritual. It's not a ritual of invisibility and hiding - it's a ritual of alignment and equilibrium... but I'll let Jim elaborate on that.
...Anyway - protection is not the same as 'hiding'."
From the GD commentaries:
"This ritual does not light up the Astral plane, and thus, does not attract energies to you.It can be used as a form of meditation.
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It provides mild invisibility because the nature of the ritual itself contains the aura.
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In highlight, this is a good ritual if you want to go unnoticed. However, it is not pure invisibility in the sense that if a person is searching you out and has you in mind, they will probably find you, but have difficulty in doing so. The Rose Cross Ritual is a very good ritual when you want to be left alone."hmmm...I dont think it's a ritual of alignment and equilibrium. One could say that the Kabbalistic Cross is a ritual of alignment and equilibrium... However I agree that as a benefit you gain alignment and equilibrium. I think the RC ritual is about creating a "veiled" space around you.
I like to see and understand the "mechanics" in every ritual, the logic onto which it is created. From then I think I can understand what the results and benefits of doing it would be. Thats why I am asking these questions in my first post...
Do you think the Analysis of The Keyword at the end is mandatory in the RC ritual???
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@DevaRaja said
"From the GD commentaries:"
I have to ask: Whose commentaries exactly? The original, skimpy paper from the pre-1901 G.D.? The slightly longer Stella Matutina paper? Or some modern writer?
I don't wholly disagree with the remarks, though I'd nuance their meaning diffently than you have. I think (at least in the way that I read your original post) that you were taking this as "a ritual of invisibility." It's not that it hides things - it's that it doesn't attract loud, noisy attention on the astral. Astral beings go about their daily commute without suddenly seeing a light show go off and a big commotion that starts drawing them like moths to a bright light. So it's "don't attract attention" more than "hides something." And that's really what the passages you quoted are saying.
You get to go sit in a park and meditate without being a celebrity that attracts press and gawkers swarming aroud you while you're trying to sit in a part and meditate.
"I think the RC ritual is about creating a "veiled" space around you."
I would say it's about created a sealed or contained space about you. Not veiling. Not actually hiding. Just not drawing attention. (Read the actual quotes you posted.)
"Do you think the Analysis of The Keyword at the end is mandatory in the RC ritual???"
Mandatory? No. Highly desireable in most situations for completion? Yes, the Analysis of the Keyword followed by an impromptu invocation of the L.V.X. to stream in and saturate the created space (with sunlight, as it were) is highly desirable to get the intended results.
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That makes sense. The original expressed views didn't sound like Regardie. I say this based on the fact that this is one of only a few ritual things he actually taught me and discussed with me personally, so I have a bit of a feel for his exact thoughts (at least, soon before he moved to Sedona and starting writing the Doorstop Edition).
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FWIW I thought I might share my own experience with the ritual. Around the time I first started practicing magick (LRP daily, plus other experiments) the woman I was living with at the time, who is extremely psychically sensitive (and would later prove to be quite a natural at reading the Tarot) began having a lot of really bizarre and disturbing encounters with astral entities (some of her descriptions sounded like things that would have been at home in Hellraiser
). I had some as well, and we even had closely matching experiences several times, but she experienced them much more vividly and intensely. I would use the LBRP to get rid of these things, which would work, for a while. Observing me performing the ritual she would see me drawing down light and then giving it off in burts, and told me that she felt this was actually attracting and/or creating these things. At the time I understood the LBRP as a simple banishing ritual, so this didn't make a lot of sense to me. I was mostly working with G.D. material then and discovered the Rose Cross Ritual in the Doorstop. After performing it repeatedly over a few days she said it made her feel as if the apartment was protected and kind of sealed up (as if before it had been wide open for anything to just saunter in), and that the energy in the area was smoother and calmer. Her (and my) experiences with astral energies diminished greatly. It's easy to see how that could be misconstrued as having made the apartment, or its inhabitants somehow invisible to astral entities. But I'd definitely say that it was more than just "not attracting attention" since I could then perform all the things I normally did without many of the unpleasant side effects. -
Thank you all for your answers
I basically study Thelema along with Kabbalah and Eastern Philosophy.
However the rituals I practice belong mostly to the GD tradition.It has been very difficult to me to truly understand the logic and effects
of each ritual exactly, because everyone has a different opinion...
I think now I got a better grasp on the RC ritual.If you want to share more experiences with the RC please feel free to do so!
"But as it is a Solar ritual meant for use of the 5=6, it effects this at an exceedingly high vibrational rate - using the basic golden weft and warp of which the astral is built upon. Thus - most (but not all) astral entities cannot see it because they aren't working with such high vibrational energies and are not aware of the underlying fabric of the astral that the 5=6 is manipulating. For this ritual to work requires alignment and Equilibrium with Tiphareth - otherwise the result with be of a lower vibrational rate or there will be a spill over onto the lower astral levels other than what you should be working with, which will inevitably light you up like a beacon. Thus it is not to be used except by the 5=6.
"Well I don't belong to any order or esoteric school so...
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Yes, the whole ritual is solar. It was created in the Golden Dawn specifically to actualize energies and symbols of the 5=6 grade corresponding to Tifereth, to create an inner space filled with exactly those energies."
I was going to put up a surprised post about the RC being for 5=6, but then I read that again. It is not so much for those who have attained 5=6 as it is a preparatory thing for that, right? That would support it having a place in Regardie's One year Manual (from which the LBRP is perhaps curiously absent).
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@Deus Ex Machina said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Yes, the whole ritual is solar. It was created in the Golden Dawn specifically to actualize energies and symbols of the 5=6 grade corresponding to Tifereth, to create an inner space filled with exactly those energies."I was going to put up a surprised post about the RC being for 5=6, but then I read that again. It is not so much for those who have attained 5=6 as it is a preparatory thing for that, right?"
I would say no - primarily because, in the G.D., it was only issued in the 5=6 grade. Nobody else got to see it (in the context of the Order where it originated). (By 5=6 I here mean in the G.D. sense, not in the A.'.A.'. sense.)
BTW I should mention - Thelemites may have some trouble with the idea of vibrating Yeheshua throughout the ritual. Ignoring (for the moment) the separate discussion of the value of growing past one's knee-jerk avoidance reflexes
, and the instrinsic value of the formula Y.H.Sh.V.H. by itself, there are a couple of altrnatives. One is to vibrate it as Yod Heh Shin Vav Heh, paralleling the way that Y.H.V.H. is normally vibrated (and breaking up the Jesus-ness of it in comparison to a more immediate Qabbalistic understanding of the formula.) The other idea is to vibrate Abrahadabra, which functionally means "the union of the 5 and the 6," and (again, functionally) is virtually interchangeable with the Rose Cross idea itself. -
While purging and reorganizing my library I happened upon this Ritual. I was intrigued by its simplicity and elegance, and the description seemed innocuous enough regarding a protection rite. I suppose I should have read this thread before performing it, but it is indeed a potent rite, well beyond LBRP and possibly the Harpocrates form for protection.
There is much machinery at work and the Christian overtones can be dispensed with given the technical decomposition of the symbols and Names. The cross as the symbol of protection, with intersecting rays cancelling each other in the transcendent point, that while fixed in space disburses energy directed at it. Additionally it is the unfolding of the primal cube, and has the number 6 associated with it for 6 sides of the cube, and the elongated vertical ray as the solar male principle intersecting the great Sea, reinforces Tiphareth symbolism. The circle or rose is the microcosm, which seperates the infinite from the finite, and limits the limitless in the face of change and form, while the cross reconciles these in changeless and formless eternity. The numeric value of this symbol is 11.
There are 6 crosses, making the sum of the initial energy configuration 66, The Great Work, sum 1-11, etc.
YEHESHUAH is spelled with SH not Sh indicating that SH is not Shin, but Samekh Heh, whose sum is 65. 65 by applying the Mirror formula of 56, for the grade of this Ritual and Sephiroth. 65 as a Key for Adonai (swap the Shin for an Adonai), by Atu 14 Samekh and Heh Atu 17 is The Key, 31. By using this instead of Shin, the key becomes 102 (however, there is still a Pentagrammaton in there, however I looked for Keys with the Shin and did not find any). In my version of the Ritual I count only 7 vibrations in the main configuration, since the lower cross is linked but not vibrated twice, only to top is vibrated twice. 7 YEHESHUAH is 714. This may symbolize a final vibration to the highest. Of lesser note, 102-65 = 37, where 6 YEHEUAH=222.
The Names for the Great Cross in the southeast result in an important Key using this formula of exchanging Adonai for Shin: YEHESHUAH+YEHOVASHAH = 102+168 = 270, which is the number of INRI, and many other important names per 777.
The 7th Great Cross totals the number of crosses to 77, OZ, Eye of the Snake, and by reflection ZAA, Tutulu, and MAKAShANH, 77 as 7x11 symbolizing magical power in perfection. And by a small leap we have 777 the Flaming Sword at the center of the Ritual.
The Key of the ritual based on these tabulations is 1061. This can be interpreted as 10 Sephiroth returned to Ain, the Solar 6 bounded by 11, or removing the 0 leaves 161, the heavenly man, congregation of the eternal, and Coph Nia.
I'm not sure the Key is right, but there are enough Keys in other areas to indicate some degree of accuracy in the analysis of technical underpinnings of the Ritual.
Quite unassuming I conducted the ritual. Soon after, I detected clairvioently a large astral cloak hurredly drawn over me. When this occurred, there was an extremely violent reflex in the astral, whereby all manner of critters objected at what I had done, and even and emphatic detection of rage. From then it seems as if I were hunkered under a tent with a massive astral shitstorm whipping about above. I was not expecting anything quite like that.
This came to material manifestation in the following days with an unusual amount of chaos that amounted to near misses of incidents where I could have been injured or even killed by freak phenomenon occurring around me, all within the span of a few days. The first few I didn't think much of, but the continuation seemed to be a pattern and I associated the physical manifestation with whatever backlash I had triggered. This did not really bother me other than I had not anticipated it, and I always felt safe and had no fear, partly I suppose another effect of the rite.
The intuitive facilities have offered explanations of the astral reflux such as from my many years of daily LBRP, MP, and other activities, that an ecosystem of critters and lurkers has formed around me and gotten used to siphoning my juice without my awareness. I've seen the lurkers and beasts outside the circle but never paid much attention. Other theories get into spooky territory about psychic surveillance by assigned entities.
Anyway, these powerful effects caused me to conduct the analysis above, and indeed it is a very 'tight' and powerful ritual, as indicated by the presence of several Keys. This is a great Ritual for a number of reasons, for study of ritual design as well as its effects. Different than other protection rituals, the initial cloak drawn over me evolved into a full blown astral fortress over the few days, further indicating the underlying nature and potency.
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Do you think one could do the Rose Cross Ritual in the bedroom of a family member without them knowing, and that it could have any beneficial effect on the person just because they sleep in the room it was performed in? Or is there some kind of magickal code against this sort of thing that I was not aware of? . I am just wondering if this idea is a complete waste of time , or if it could be a benefical thing to do .
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Great questions.
For the first two:
- Yes.
- Some.
On the last question, there is a magical ethic I ascribe to (and which is traditional in the initiated mysteries) to give healing freely and never unbidden. At the very least, one should know that the person is open to it, would not resent or refuse it. One must tread lightly in taking people's problems away from them, since they work so hard for them in the first place.