LBRP Evocation and communication with the angels

Heru

@Jim Eshelman said

"It's not that hard to have a conversation with them after considerable exposure - perhaps six months to a year of regular performance of the ritual on average, I'd estimate."

It's comments like this that make me want to hang my head in shame. I began practicing the LBRP (along with MP and Resh) exactly 12 months ago today. My visualisation skills were nonexistent when I started. 12 months later nothing has changed. Despite my best efforts, blood, sweat and tears, I still "see" absolutely nothing. No pentagrams, no archangels, nothing. Oddly enough I can "feel" things very easily and this sense has become stronger and stronger as I've continued practicing. (This might be due to the vast amount of Earth in my horoscope. ) I can quite clearly feel different energies as I perform the LBRP. The elemental feeling of the archangels is very clear and strong, and the formulation of the hexagram in the column is a physical experience for me.
But so much of western ceremonial is visual. You are required to see forms and colours as part of even the most elementary practices.

Am I flogging a dead horse here? Or is there some way I can improve my visualisation skills. I was hoping that after 12 months daily practice I would at least be able to see some tiny little improvement. But I've ended up with zip.

It's pretty discouraging hearing other peoples stories of success with the LBRP after only a few months. I've been performing it 3 times a day for 12 months and my lack of success with visualisation has been a never ending source of iritation and doubt.

kuniggety

From my experience (albeit how small it is), various people naturally have their strengths and weaknesses and some attune to magick forces differently. Some have a visual aspect and others don't, nor do they ever seem to develop it. Some have an auditory aspect and others don't. Sometimes they smell or even feel things. You say you've had a development of feeling things, which I would take for a very strong success with the LBRP. I am not meaning to discourage, saying you might never develop visual reception, but rather the experience comes at us all differently and that might not even necessarily be the best way to experience it.

@Eshelman said

"You are correct that even the Banishing Ritual has invocatory qualities - this ritual is a combination of elements since you are invoking the Archangels. "

While I full agree in the invocatory qualities of the Banishing ritual, I think it is key to keep in mind and remind what the true intention of the ritual is. The LBRP invokes these forces to assist you in connecting with the divine, which is a spiritually cleansing or invigorating, depending on banishing or invocation, and not for communication with the archangels themselves.

Heru

@kuniggety said

"You say you've had a development of feeling things, which I would take for a very strong success with the LBRP."

I agree, but like I said before western ceremonial is predominantly visual. Hence it's focus on forms, shapes and colours. No matter how well developed your sense of "feeling" you can't feel a colour.

Until someone out there writes a book called "Ceremonial Magick for the Astrally Blind", I get the feeling I'm on the wrong train.

Jim Eshelman

@Her said

"
@Jim Eshelman said
"It's not that hard to have a conversation with them after considerable exposure - perhaps six months to a year of regular performance of the ritual on average, I'd estimate."

It's comments like this that make me want to hang my head in shame. I began practicing the LBRP (along with MP and Resh) exactly 12 months ago today. My visualisation skills were nonexistent when I started. 12 months later nothing has changed. Despite my best efforts, blood, sweat and tears, I still "see" absolutely nothing. No pentagrams, no archangels, nothing. Oddly enough I can "feel" things very easily and this sense has become stronger and stronger as I've continued practicing."

First of all, the fact that things are present to one of your senses should be recognized as a success. I agree with the other responder that some people are less visual than others, etc. There certainly is no basis I can see for shame.

At the same time, these things can be learned. Particularly the ability to see the Pentagrams themselves. You're making them - of course you can see them! But if you're having this difficulty this far along, you're not likely to get it from anything that can be said on a forum or, for that matter, that you can read in a book. You probably need direct, one-on-one, in-person instruction. (And inititiation! Do not underestimate the value of the impact of actual initiation upon your psyche.)

Often, when somebody has the complaint you're voicing, there is a misunderstanding of what "seeing" means. These pentagrams etc. are actually constructed by your creative imagination, so of course you are capable of seeing them. They don't exist in Assiah - the world of the physical senses. The do actually exist, though - in the world of Yetzirah, which is the next most subtle. In Yetzirah, your creative imagination has the ability to create forms. The ability to thus create and maintain forms at this level, and to make some of them persist, is the basic skill of magick. But you won't see such things with the physical eye. In fact, you don't really see anything with the physical eye - the eye just transfers light impressions to the brain, and the brain then busily formulates an image. When you apply creative visualization, you use exactly the same brain function to formulate an image, but independent of any light hitting the eye.

The skills of meditation - learning to control the mind, to concentrate, to create and dismiss images more or less at will - can enhance this.

Does it help if you close your eyes? Possibly the things in your physical environment are interfering with your seeing what you are doing. Practice drawing each pentagram with your eyes closed.

Etc. It's devilishly difficult to do this sort of thing in writing. On the other hand, we could probably get it all done in an hour or so of time working face-to-face.

"I can quite clearly feel different energies as I perform the LBRP. The elemental feeling of the archangels is very clear and strong, and the formulation of the hexagram in the column is a physical experience for me. "

I repeat what I said above: There is absolutely no basis for shame. You obviously are perceiving something.

You might want to modify language and thinking just a bit, though. It isn't true that the formulation of the hexagram is a physical experience for you. Somebody dissecting you wouldn't find it. It doesn't exist on the physical plane. However, I fully accept that it feels like a physical experience to you. It's the same principle I mentioned above regarding vision. All physical sensation is registered in the brain, and your perception of something being kinesthetically real is produced there, too.

It can get even wierder than that, BTW. When dealing with things that don't exist in the physical universe, but trying to use physical senses to register it, sometimes it can seem the wires are crossed. It isn't at all unusual at that level to hear physical sensations or smell sounds, etc. The brian pulls on whatever habits and available channels it can in order to communicate the information.

"But so much of western ceremonial is visual. You are required to see forms and colours as part of even the most elementary practices."

And you can do that. I promise you. You just need the right training, and in the right sequence. (How much training and experience in meditation techniques do you have? Which techniques?)

"Am I flogging a dead horse here?"

You're probably flogging yourself unnecessarily, but you don't sound to me like a dead horse.

"Or is there some way I can improve my visualisation skills. I was hoping that after 12 months daily practice I would at least be able to see some tiny little improvement. But I've ended up with zip. "

Not with zip. You have other impressions.

But... on the visual... of course there is. First, see if what I've written above makes any new sense of things. Second, in particular, please answer questions above concerning meditation training and experience. Also, if you haven't done this before, do this work with your eyes closed and report on any differences.

This is really tought to do other than in person, but we can give it a go and see where it takes.

"It's pretty discouraging hearing other peoples stories of success with the LBRP after only a few months. I've been performing it 3 times a day for 12 months and my lack of success with visualisation has been a never ending source of iritation and doubt. "

Different things come easily to different people. This isn't a reflection on your inherent value or your odds of eventually succeeding. There is some flaw in your practice here.

Heru

@Jim Eshelman said

"But if you're having this difficulty this far along, you're not likely to get it from anything that can be said on a forum or, for that matter, that you can read in a book. You probably need direct, one-on-one, in-person instruction. (And inititiation! Do not underestimate the value of the impact of actual initiation upon your psyche.)"

I thought you were going to say something like that. Take my word for it Jim, it's not going to happen. Where I live is some sort of spiritual no mans land. There's one pagan interest group made up of middle aged women talking about crystals, and that is it.
The groups outside of my area that I have investigated have been a big disappointment. I'm looking for magical instruction, not an expensive social club.

@Jim Eshelman said

"Does it help if you close your eyes? Possibly the things in your physical environment are interfering with your seeing what you are doing. Practice drawing each pentagram with your eyes closed."

It does help if I close my eyes, but only very slightly. My current method for drawing the pentagrams is to physically trace them while trying hard to visualise the lines. Then I close my eyes and repeatedly try to visualise the pentagram. To say that the image is vague would be being generous.

@Jim Eshelman said

"How much training and experience in meditation techniques do you have? Which techniques?"

In conjunction with controlled breathing I've experimented with trying to imagine simple objects like a triangle or a cross, but I have always ended up just staring into blackness. I try like hell to bring an image before my minds eye but nothing happens. It is absolutely exasperating. I'm almost convinced that I have a defective brain.
The best success I have had is through the use of Tatwa cards by physically burning an image on my retina. (I guess that is cheating ) The capacity to spontaneously generate an image seems to be beyond me.

Edward Mason

Heru, 93,

" It is absolutely exasperating. I'm almost convinced that I have a defective brain."

Just a couple of comments form somenone who has to deal with the same problem, and the same conviction about a 'defective' brain. I've been doing the LBRP and other similar rituals for over a decade. Part of me usually wants to force the issue, and that demand factor can pose a major block. Demand, in essence, is an insistence that things as they are wrong - that is, it is a direct defiance of True Will. It's a spiritual killer.

Initiation was certainly a factor in opening the doors. But my visual results still vary, so that sometimes I inwardly (never outwardly) see a robed Archangel with shining wings, and other times (most times!) it's a kind of "yeah, that's more or less it" vagueness that has little in the way of discernible form or features. I have talked this through with people many times, and have essentially resigned myself to following my own personal, non-standard approach. It's disappointing, but not a <i>fundamental</i> block.

A key factor is relaxation. Realizing I'm not the one going to make it all happen helps. I call up the energies and intone the Names, trying to see as much as I can, but not sweating it if the pipes are clogged on a particular day. The 'lust of result' that the Book of the Law warns us against is important to bear in mind. The pure will referred to in the same verse (Cap I, v.44) is about a letting go, not a forcing out. Again, the demand (= The Universe is Wrong) issue is critical.

Magick isn't a pissing match with the Cosmos - or with other people. By calling on the God-Names and the Archangels, I'm implictly passing over the work to them, or if you prefer to those parts of myself they represent. If the shaping of the pentagrams and the verbalizations are done with care, then 'something' has been accomplished - there's more than just 'me' operating, and the desired release and uplift still comes.

93 93/93,

Edward

Kingsolomon

Ok, I understand the purpose now of the LBRP.

I hear Jim say I have to be on the divine level to see and communicate with the angels.

how do I go to do that work?

the triangle, the magic circle?

to learn, I wanted some of my members in black sun 93 oasis to teach me, but i dont know, i'll ask them next time.

so what are some suggestions

Edward Mason

Kingsolomon, 93,

What you're asking about is very advanced magick. There is no technique, no ritual, that can put us 'on the divine level' and enable us to speak with Archangels or other spiritual beings, until the psyche is very well trained. That's one reason we use the LBRP - to consistently equilibrate the forces and thoughts within us so that we can move on to more advanced work.

You might want to persist with the LBRP for a while, and pay more attention to the shivers you said you get performing it. They could be the first sign that you are stirring something inside. Over the years, if you are persistent, you will find deeper results will come.

93 93/93,

Edward

Heru

Edward 93,

Thank you for your words of encouragement and advice. In a way it is nice to know that I'm not the only one this has happened too.

I've heard so many people talk about their experiences with the lbrp and how within 6 months they were experiencing the visual fireworks that you are supposed to get through proper performance of the ritual. I'm thinking, "OMG, I've been working away at this for a full year and have practically nothing to show for it".

I do take on board your comments about "lust of result". It's been one of the things that has kept me going over the past 12 months. Even though external influences tried to derail me and internal doubt about the worth of the work and confidence in my own abilities kept cropping up on an almost daily basis, but I still carried on with the work day after day.

Right from the start I knew that visualisation was my weak point. But I had an (naive) inner certainty that provided I put in enough effort and did the work for a sufficient period of time I would get some results and see some little progress in this area. I don't think that's too much to ask. But those 12 months have been and gone in the twinkling of an eye. Now I have to ask myself if I have made any progress. Being brutally honest I have to say no. I did the work but I didn't get the results, so I have to chalk it up as a failure. There's no getting away from that.

I'm certainly not giving up, it's not in my nature, but I do feel as if the wind has been knocked out of my sails by this experience. I just find it so ironic that I have been driven in this direction for so long (Thelema , Crowley, Magick etc.) that I then stumble at the first hurdle. You've got to laugh I guess.

93 93/93

Jim Eshelman

@Her said

"
@Jim Eshelman said
"But if you're having this difficulty this far along, you're not likely to get it from anything that can be said on a forum or, for that matter, that you can read in a book. You probably need direct, one-on-one, in-person instruction. (And inititiation! Do not underestimate the value of the impact of actual initiation upon your psyche.)"

I thought you were going to say something like that. Take my word for it Jim, it's not going to happen. Where I live is some sort of spiritual no mans land. There's one pagan interest group made up of middle aged women talking about crystals, and that is it.
The groups outside of my area that I have investigated have been a big disappointment. I'm looking for magical instruction, not an expensive social club."

I really do hear you there. Well, we'll of course do what we can in this medium, and may find some practical solutions or at least act as a cheering section for you.

BTW, and I hate making too many predictions of things too far ahead, but in the last year there have been some very solid nibbles that would have us jumping the pod - but not into your area directly. There is a very good liklihood that Aspirants to Light will be opening a lodge in Scandinavia over the next year, and I've been assured that there is a very large block of hard-working people in one Eastern European area very interested in Temple of Thelema. If these leads develop, it would be over the next few years and, once there is a toe-hold on the continent, it makes it easier to make other things happen. But at the moment this is in the little-more-than-daydream stage, and there never has been a significant uprising of interest in us expressed from England. So don't hold your breath and turn blue

"
@Jim Eshelman said
"Does it help if you close your eyes? Possibly the things in your physical environment are interfering with your seeing what you are doing. Practice drawing each pentagram with your eyes closed."

It does help if I close my eyes, but only very slightly. My current method for drawing the pentagrams is to physically trace them while trying hard to visualise the lines. Then I close my eyes and repeatedly try to visualise the pentagram. To say that the image is vague would be being generous.

@Jim Eshelman said

"How much training and experience in meditation techniques do you have? Which techniques?"

In conjunction with controlled breathing I've experimented with trying to imagine simple objects like a triangle or a cross, but I have always ended up just staring into blackness. I try like hell to bring an image before my minds eye but nothing happens. It is absolutely exasperating. I'm almost convinced that I have a defective brain.
The best success I have had is through the use of Tatwa cards by physically burning an image on my retina. (I guess that is cheating ) The capacity to spontaneously generate an image seems to be beyond me. "

Keep working with all that. I think the focus should be on a combination of seeing things visualized with your eyes closed, and meditative practices that, starting with a quieted physical and psychological state, focus on drawing and then maintaining simple shapes. BTW, some people deal with dynamic motion more than still motion. If difficulties arise from "things keep changing when I try to keep them the same," then practice with something that naturally moves, or allow something a particular motion, such as dips and turns and spins or whatever works, but at least partly under your control and partly running on its own leash. Or, if the problem is that something just fades and doesn't stay, see if your other senses detect it and play a game with it of "I feel / hear / smell you over there! You can't hide from me!"

Also, work with a different way of relating to physical site. I think you need to get very solidly - from experience - that all true "seeing" is in the visual part of the brain, not in the eye, and that it doesn't necessarily relate to physical light or physical objects. In very good surrounding light, take a bright red object and put it on a bright green object (for example - this is the easiest optical "flash"). Stare at it through whatever phenomena occur but with the real purpose of really understanding (from experience rather than theory) that you aren't seeing the object - you are only seeing the light reflected off of it. You might even have the realization that the light bouncing off the surface is entirely masking the actual object from you! (That's a good breakthrough.) Focus on actually seeing the light (pun definitely intended!) and understanding how it makes it completely impossible to actually see the object from which the light is reflected! Let this soak in through, say, a week of practice after you start to get the idea.

Once you get the point of this, start looking at things in a new way as you take take walks or move through your life. Leisurely strolls might be a good situation for this. Start really looking with your physical eyes, but seeing that you are only seeing the light reflecting off of things and that truly the things underneath are completely invisible to you - if you have any direct sense that they are there, it is coming either from inference or from some sense completely different from sight.

See where this takes you for a month. Don't be anxious about results. Just deepen and change your relationship to your sense of sight.

Jim Eshelman

@Kingsolomon said

"Ok, I understand the purpose now of the LBRP.

I hear Jim say I have to be on the divine level to see and communicate with the angels.

how do I go to do that work?"

LOL - Initiation! Take a number of years to systemmatically train your physical and psychological vehicles to strengthen and stabilize on their level, then open to the Briatic level (the natural level of archangels), then to awakening the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, and so on.

But, in any well-ordered and effective training system, you'd have successfully communed with archangels years before that. It's not the kind of thing I can summarize quickly in an answer, but it's the sort of thing that is taught in any well-formed training order.

For example, in Temple of Thelema members start encountering at least the beginning touch of archangelic presences in group work pretty much from the beginning, and begin working with them directly about six to twelve months after initiation. During the entire First Order experience, there is progressive exposure, and sometimes direct and focussed work, with archangelic consciousness, mostly as a preparatory work. The practices which set out to give one access to the levels of consciousness where non-material beings exist is in the second year of the Second Order work.

In the A.'.A.'., some people develop a knack right from the beginning and some don't. But, in any case, the 1=10 level (which overlaps heavily with the Second Order training of Golden Dawn style groups) focusses especially on opening the levels of consciousness where non-material beings exist. Though varying with the inclinations and capacities of individuals, there likely would be more than a little of this objective communication before one completes the 1=10 stage, stabilizing as one moved on into the 2=9 Grade (which is the Second Order opening in A.'.A.'.).

"the triangle, the magic circle?"

You can find instruction for this in books and video tapes, but I don't really recommend this until someone has some pretty substantial magical experience under their belts. For example, in A.'.A.'. there is some instruction in this (but no requirements for practice or testing) in 1=10. The testing requirement for evocation is in 4=7 (roughly equal to the G.D. 7=4 grade).

"to learn, I wanted some of my members in black sun 93 oasis to teach me, but i dont know, i'll ask them next time."

If you have someone inforced and gifted, then that would be an avenue of learning. FWIW I would be sure I knew their level of experience, how they had learned, and would assess their psychological and life-circumstance stability over the years they had been practicing this - Evocation work can play hell with psychological and life-circumstance stability if someone doesn't really know what you're doing. (The risk isn't that you won't get results. That's the easy part. The risk is that your results will get you! )

"so what are some suggestions"

Actually start at the beginning, not in the middle.

Jim Eshelman

@Her said

"I've heard so many people talk about their experiences with the lbrp and how within 6 months they were experiencing the visual fireworks that you are supposed to get through proper performance of the ritual."

BTW, visual fireworks get boring after a while. (Seriously!)

"I'm certainly not giving up, it's not in my nature, but I do feel as if the wind has been knocked out of my sails by this experience. I just find it so ironic that I have been driven in this direction for so long (Thelema , Crowley, Magick etc.) that I then stumble at the first hurdle. You've got to laugh I guess. "

The ability to chuckle at oneself is one of the best marks of psychological good health!

Kingsolomon

Ok 93, everyone

I've done the LBRP the way i've shown on the very top of the message board.

But how does everyone else do the LBRP, ive done it the normal way in Donald Michael Kraig's Modern Magick.

But

someone show me again there way of doing LBRP

mind you, i have nothing but my index finger, no robe, no magickal tools, no altar.

Just me, myself, and I. and my index finger.

I have such a strong desire to Evoke

magicians keep telling me wait for a while.. But The urge is too strong, I want to open up the watchtower, and evoke something,
I need some things done in my life in which to evoke some entities that can help me.. Theres been some screwed up things going on, that, the LBRP does help me, and bannishes all negative forces, I've noticed that, in my life, but everytime I do it, I get the strong urge that tells me to communicate with an entity, it may help you get to the goal of your holy guardian angel.

Interesting.. dont you think?

Please answer my questions everyone.
The offical way to do the LBRP, which works?
and How to evoke and do this at the level i'm at

Love is the law, love under will
KingSolomon

Jim Eshelman

@Kingsolomon said

"I have such a strong desire to Evoke

magicians keep telling me wait for a while.. But The urge is too strong, I want to open up the watchtower, and evoke something, "

That's the clear mark of a beginner. (Sorry if that was too blunt for you, but that, too, is a test of readiness.)

I used to say that you could always tell the beginner by their irrepressible interest in at least one of the following: Crossing the abyss, Enochian, evocation, or sex magick. I have come to understand that this is old time thinking, that I'm way behind the times, because, these days, beginners are usually irrepressibly interested in all of the above: Enochian evocation sex magick for crossing the abyss! (And take several strong mind-altering drugs with it to boot!)

Joking!

Seriously, this is a life-long undertaking. It is a spiritual path, for which evocation is simply one tool along the way. I know that I say this as an old guy who probably doesn't seem to understand anymore because 25 years ago he was doing the things you can't wait to do. Nonetheless, you asked for opinions so I'm giving one: Be patient!

It's a well-proven teaching that, if you want a specific magical power, you likely can get it, but your actual growth will hang or stumble at that exact point. In contrast, if the goal is personal development as part of a life-long spiritual quest, these powers arise spontaneously at the right point of ripeness, or are appointed at a specific time.

You're wanting to do something that needs a lot of preliminary practice, acquisition of skills, etc.

Let me give you one example of what I mean: Can you keep your mind from wandering? If you fix it on a given thought, can you keep it there? Are you subject to distraction and being "thrown." Are you gullible? Ifyour answer is No to either of the first two questions, or Yes to either of the second two, then you just aren't ready for this - the spirits will have their way with you! They play off every subtle shift in your thoughts and, unless you know and control your mind better than they do, you're leaving yourself open to some unfortunate experiences.

So, if you wish, take that as your first instruction in evocation - SERIOUSLY! (1) Learn to keep your mind from wandering. (2) Practice until you can fix your mind on a given thought and can you keep it there for long periods of time, e.g., on the same exact thought without interruption for 15 seconds and on the general subject matter for 5 minutes. (3) Examine yourself on gullibility and on what distracts you or knocks you off track. Get some serious life-experience, partricularly in the business world or in any area that involves crisis management so that you have no serious illusions about the difference between your fantasies and what is in front of your face requiring non-hesitant attention in the moment.

"I need some things done in my life in which to evoke some entities that can help me."

Ah, that's the goal. OK, I'm starting to understand.

Don't go that route! For one, with no more training and experience than you have, if you start using this method to produce practical life results, you are much more likely to produce the opposite effect - whatever would screw you up most at the moment.

The first approach in any such goal would be to take practical (non-magical) steps to resolve it.

If you then find that you still need magical assistance, you should use the methods of creative visualization. There is one superb instruction for this that surpasses all others - it is the "7 Steps" course from B.O.T.A. You get it during the first two months that you enroll in their correspondence courses. Sign up, read it, practice it every single day per the instructions. Give it 3-6 months before you come to any final conclusions. If you practice it, this will transform your life! PS - Don't worry if the concept seems basic - this course has the exact teaching that is left out of most advanced magical instruction, leading to failures in the advanced work. If you understand and practice this "7 Steps" technique, you usually won't need any other magick to produce results and, if you do feel you need other magick, you at least will have the key to make that other magick work correctly for you.

"Theres been some screwed up things going on, that, the LBRP does help me, and bannishes all negative forces, I've noticed that, in my life, but everytime I do it, I get the strong urge that tells me to communicate with an entity, it may help you get to the goal of your holy guardian angel. "

Yes, one definitely needs to develop discrimination in where the voice is coming from! The very first entity ever to break through my mind and tell me his name and that he was my Holy Guardian Angel was Abaddon, the demon of the pit! (True story.) Fortunately I didn't take it completely seriously - the first and most important instruction in Liber O - and also I had a teacher who immediately recognized the name and set me right. All sorts of entities will try to communicate once you light yourself up on the inner planes. You need discrimination.

Jim Eshelman

@Kingsolomon said

"But how does everyone else do the LBRP, ive done it the normal way in Donald Michael Kraig's Modern Magick.

But someone show me again there way of doing LBRP [...]

Please answer my questions everyone.
The offical way to do the LBRP, which works?"

(In everything that follow, if you haven't an implement, use your index finger.)

THE QABALISTIC CROSS

Touching your forehead with your right forefinger, in-tone: ATTAH
(As you vibrate this word, see a blazing sphere of white brilliance a few inches above your head. This is the Kether center.)
Touching your breast, intone: AIWASS
(As you lower your hand, see a shaft of white light descend from the Kether center to your heart.)
Touching your genitals, intone: MALKUTH
(See the shaft of light descend from the heart to your feet.)
Touching your right shoulder, intone: VE-GEVURAH
Touching your left shoulder, intone: VE-GEDULAH
(As your hand moves from your right shoulder to the left, visualize a shaft of white light following the motion of the hand, forming the horizontal shaft of a Cross of Light.)
Clasp your hands upon your breast, keeping the fingers open so that the fingers and thumb make five crosses; and hold your magical implement * by the hilt between the palms, point upward; then intone: LE-OLAHM
(Direct your attention to the center point of the Cross of Light, near your heart. From this point, feel yourself ex-panding to vast proportions.)
INTONE: AMEN

THE PENTAGRAMS & DIVINE NAMES

[For the part that follows, only the Earth Pentagram is used. However, it isn't drawn in Earth-related colors and isn't intended to invoke or banish the Element Earth. Instead, it is being used as a generic pentagram , not specialized in any particular way.]

Facing east, trace a banishing pentagram in the air before you, with the point of your magical implement, in electric blue flame. Point your implement toward the center of the pentagram. Intone: YOD HEH VAV HEH
Turn south, holding your arm extended so as to trace a line from the center of the first pentagram to the point which will be the center of a pentagram in the south. Mentally see a line of electric blue fire traced by your implement. Facing south, trace another pentagram, point your implement toward its center, and intone: ADONAI
Turn to the west, holding the implement extended as before, repeating the visualization of the line of blue flame. At the west, trace the pentagram, etc. Intone: EHEIEH

11 Move to the north and repeat with a fourth pentagram. Intone the sentence: ATTAH GIBBOR LE-OLAHM ADONAI

Return to the east, tracing the line as before until it reaches the central point of the first pentagram and thus completes the circle.

INVOKING THE ARCHANGELS

Face east. Extend your arms at full length on either side, so that your body and arms form a cross, holding your implement point upward in your right hand. Intone the following:

Before me, RAPHÆL.
Behind me, GABRIEL.
On my right hand, MIKHÆL.
On my left hand, URIEL.
For about me flames the Pentagram,
And in the Column shines the six-rayed star.

Visualize these four archangels as huge, robed, winged figures, adorned with the colors and emblems of their functions.

THE QABALISTIC CROSS

Repeat the formula of the Qabalistic Cross.

This completes the Lesser Pentagram Ritual.

Heru

@Jim Eshelman said

" there never has been a significant uprising of interest in us expressed from England. So don't hold your breath and turn blue."

I won't. I'm sort of resigned to the fact that I've got to work on my own or not at all.

Although there's a very big pagan community in England the serious magical community is quite small. What I have been able to find is either Kaos/Kenneth Grant based or Christian leaning Golden Dawn. Jesus or Cthulhu isn't much of a choice. In a moment of madness/desperation I actually contacted The Society of the Inner Light. I came back to my senses when they sent me a questionnaire that practically required me to write an essay on my drug use history, sex life, and morals. WTF?

@Jim Eshelman said

"Keep working with all that. I think the focus should be on a combination of seeing things visualised with your eyes closed, and meditative practices that, starting with a quieted physical and psychological state, focus on drawing and then maintaining simple shapes."

OK, thanks for the advice Jim. I will devote this month to your suggestions and see how I get on.

I tried to invoke the four archangels with my eyes closed during the LBRP this evening, something I've never tried before, but found it even more difficult than with my eyes open! More frustration.
With my eyes open I have a spatial reference. I might not be able to see the angels, but I know where they are standing. But for some reason I find Raphael the most difficult and Gabriel the easiest. Crazy!
At least the pentagrams are easier with my eyes closed.

Jim Eshelman

@Her said

"I tried to invoke the four archangels with my eyes closed during the LBRP this evening, something I've never tried before, but found it even more difficult than with my eyes open! More frustration. With my eyes open I have a spatial reference."

When I was first learning the Pentagram Ritual, I took several weeks and began each practice session sitting facing each quarter in turn, and visualizing the archangels facing them, one at a time. Sit facing east, take as long as I need to visualize Raphael. Turn south, ditto with Mikhael, etc. Once I had them that way, then "popping them in" when I did the ritual was much easier.

"I might not be able to see the angels, but I know where they are standing."

That's good. You can also try something simpler at first, such as seeing them only as columns of brilliant light or flame in the corresponding colors, and not get anything anthropomorphic about them.

Edward Mason

Heru, 93,

"I tried to invoke the four archangels with my eyes closed during the LBRP this evening, something I've never tried before, but found it even more difficult than with my eyes open! More frustration. Rolling Eyes
With my eyes open I have a spatial reference. I might not be able to see the angels, but I know where they are standing. But for some reason I find Raphael the most difficult and Gabriel the easiest. Crazy!"

Years ago, I was also finding Gabriel easy to see (it's still so) and Raphael tougher. But my real problem was Mikhael - couldn't see anything, nor feel it. I thought I'd try to break through the presumed barrier by chanting Mikhael's name and attempting to visualise him while sitting facing into the South.

After about five minutes of chanting while feeling nothing, I decided abruptly to quit what I thought was a futile effort. Instantly, the glass lamp on my altar cracked, and very loudly so. I yelled "Jesus!" in shock, though I don't think that would qualify me for the Society of the Inner Light.

The Mikhael contact was there all the time, of course, but I wasn't consciously attuned to it. When I cut the circuit, the energy, like electricity, naturally grounded itself through the appropriate (Fire) object on the altar

I finally realised that I was refusing to acknowledge the qualitative difference with Mikhael. But the main thing I learned that night was not to take conscious impressions at face value in magick. If certain procedures are followed properly, certain things happen in consequence, whatever the outer mind, with its various anxieties and prejudices, thinks is happening.

93 93/93,

Edward

kuniggety

@Jim Eshelman said

"[For the part that follows, only the Earth Pentagram is used. However, it isn't drawn in Earth-related colors and isn't intended to invoke or banish the Element Earth. Instead, it is being used as a generic pentagram , not specialized in any particular way.]"

I've seen it written the reason why we use the Earth pentagram is because of the grounding nature of the ritual and with us living on Earth/Malkuth, it keeps out feet grounded while we do the ritual instead of invoking any unnecessary forces into the ritual. I think it was somewhere in Jerry Cornelius's writings that I saw this, so don't quote me on it, but it makes sense to me.

Heru

@Jim Eshelman said

"When I was first learning the Pentagram Ritual, I took several weeks and began each practice session sitting facing each quarter in turn, and visualizing the archangels facing them, one at a time."

Thank you for sharing this Jim. I'm sure it will be very helpful. It seems so simple and obvious, but solutions are always that way.

@Jim Eshelman said

"You can also try something simpler at first, such as seeing them only as columns of brilliant light or flame in the corresponding colors, and not get anything anthropomorphic about them."

I am pretty sure this will be useful to me too. I came across this technique in a Donald Tyson book quite a few years ago but never really thought about it until now. When I first saw it I thought it was too simplistic. But that was the point of view of an arm chair magician.