Rituals and Ceremonies for the new solitary practicioner
-
LBRP and Resh are great rituals for solitary practitioners.
-
Thanks, both of you. I don't want to totally derail the topic of the thread, but can anyone point me in the direction of a good online shop that sells the magickal tools I need? I need a bell, a dagger (i'm using a silver butter knife lol), a wand, a pentacle (altar cloth i suppose), a scourge, the proper oil, chain.. I think that's everything.
Also, I made my circle by taping together sheets of printing paper on the floor. I accidently drew it with a black marker, and later read it must be green. And my last question: How important is it to follow the details of the circle to the 't'? I'm confused about the whole squares of Tau thing. Are there serious harmful risks to working with a half-assed or inaccurate circle? Last night, I performed sort of my own ritual to sanctify love between me and my fiance. Not to force it, just to re-state it. And I then read a short passage from Legis, followed by my own personal prayer to Nuit and Hadit.
-
Honestly, fair seeker into the secret knowledge of self, I would begin where our Aleister Crowley planned for most of his students to begin, introduced personally or not, but for this reason usually not introduced personally to him or even his order...
the man had a way of knowing every outcome of what he did so he planned things a certain way...
The Equinox is where he would have you begin, I believe, by far. It was the most worked-on, most widely distributed collection of proper libers to inform the initiate and adept.
For instance, in the first Equinox, it starts by laying down exactly what to expect from the process. How to get to know yourself and the things you may encounter.
The very next liber starts your practices.. first with psychic ability with tarot or playing cards, (get some tarot cards, Thoth deck would be my suggestion.) Then right after that he starts you with body posture (asana) and breathing (prana) while meditating, then visualizing various moving or unmoving phenomena in the mind while meditating.
In the 2nd installment to the Equinox, it gives you the beginning of true ritual, with Liber O and its various parts regarding before, start, different types, and what to do after rituals. (ie after purifying space to merge your consciousness with your spirit body and learn to come back again.) It is all very, very important, from the exact way the man laid it out in our Equinox.
If you wish for Any work of Crowley in .pdf format, don't hesitate to shoot me a PM.
I can't believe no one else suggested this to this seeker of Truth.
-
Listen to lugum. You sound like you really want to begin serious practice, but your first efforts into actual ritual should be of aligning yourself further (continuing from your meditation,) in balance of Creation, and purifying yourself and your surroundings with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, in Liber O from Equinox I volume 2 mentioned above.
Do not go past this until you know every part of the ritual and why you do it, why you meditate and know your mind's workings before you begin ritual, and the correspondences to different parts of the ritual. (Upper Right point of pentagram is Water, North is Elemental Earth but you use the divine name of Spirit Passive as if closing a ritual...etc..)
You learn the quarters with the archangels and attributes and whatnot. Magick is sooooo not just for invoking and evoking angels and demons. It's for finding those angels and demons within yourself and taking command of the thoughts and impulses that make them what they are.
That's why you start with psychic ability and meditation, and further suggestions in the first Equinox. You will read a lot about Hashish and Cannabis in the Equinox. It is by far not "required", and remember to follow all the rules in your locality. But you will read a lot about it if you go the way of the Equinox. Crowley left hints everywhere of divine knowledge through plants, Magick and the Elements themselves.
Just PM me if you wish for the Equinox, Magick in Theory and Practice, or pretty much anything you wish to sample by Crowley. Remember to buy the book if you can use it in your work.
I'm sure our Master Therion, our dear Crowley will not see another penny from the sales of these books, but there are people in the publishing world trying to keep this stuff alive and available to people. -
I ended up returning my Gems from the Equinox (for now, I'm sure I'll pick it up in the near future again), to get this book. www.amazon.com/Modern-Magick-Twelve-Lessons-Magickal/dp/0738715786 . It's really quite good. Like you all recommended to me, it says to learn the Lesser Banishing ritual well and practice that for about six weeks. I've developed a good feel for it, so far. I've got all the words memorized, but of course that's not enough. I need to get down-pat the visualizations of the arch angels. Especially the colors that they're wearing. One last thing: Is it proper to worship or keep in consideration at least the existence of the deities whom Crowley wrote about? Ever since I read The Book of the Law, I've had a gut feeling that Hadit and Nuit are very real. I have a greater sense of belief in them than I ever had in the Christian God I was brought up to believe in... But part of me wonders if maybe I have my own Holy Guardian Angel with a different name than Crowley's, too. Note: I know Had and Nu are not HGA's.
-
@FraterAnimiLiberare said
"You traded "Gems From The Equinox" for that Kraig book?! That is blasphemy! (I would have seriously sent you my copy of "Modern Magic" for free if you would have mentioned that you were going to get rid of "Gems" in order to get it.)
I suppose it's an OK book for beginners, but keep in mind when reading it that he is pretty much teaching you the Golden Dawn system. There is nothing in that book that is specific to Thelemites. I think it was DuQuette who released a very beginner oriented book on Crowley's system. edit Yes, it was DuQuette. The book is aptly titled "The Magick of Aleister Crowley".
"Like you all recommended to me, it says to learn the Lesser Banishing ritual well and practice that for about six weeks."
"Kraig says to practice the LBRP for only six weeks? I would suggest doing it daily (or bi-daily, just make sure whatever your schedule is you stick to it) until you find your own method of banishing which may come years down the road.
Well, I'll check out "The Magick of Aleister Crowley" as well. actually Kraig just said to get the LBRP down pat as best you can before reading on into the next chapter. Not to totally abandon it or anything.
-
93 Tenc,
I'd also recommend LBRP. Aiming for at least once everyday, followed by a meditation/mental exercise that focuses on further developing the mental skills needed, or a nice general meditation focused on awareness and silencing the mind. I started with object concentration and visualization exercises (viz being an especially poor skill for me).
I think you may find enough interesting things just trying to accomplish this and make progress. But that is speaking from my personal experience.
Also if you want to use asanas or an asana start now. LBRP Followed by twenty minutes asana at least six times a week is damn fine work to start with.
After a time (say, two weeks of remaining on track and accomplishing your goals) You can bring in Middle Pillar.
As an example of a day:
Morning - LBRP, Middle Pillar, meditation/Mental exercise.
Night - LBRP, Meditation/Mental exercise.Maintaining this whilst remaining balanced is in my opinion quite a feat. I highly recommend you take some time to ponder and analyze your motivations regularly, and be completely honest with yourself about what you may find.
Along side this a great deal of study in occult Qabalism and Magick in general will do wonders. Also seek other authors to supplement crowley such as Israel Regardie, or, as in your case M Kraig. Crowley is excellent, but very presumptuous in the readers understanding at times. But do be carefull in regard to seeking other sources of information, specifically of egotic charlatanism or outright namby pamby nonsense.
Also getting started on the tarot (Crowleys book of thoth and Paul foster case rocks for this) is ideal, and if your viz and concentration skills are good get stuck into tarot meditations.By the way I wouldn't worry too much or even at all about weapons at this stage. Wait till you have a good clear notion of what you want and why, in relation to the work you are doing.
Hope my input however repetitious some points are is usefull. Good luck, and may the force be with you
-
I haven't seen doing Will mentioned. The recognition of simply acknowledging that your single purpose in sustaining yourself to the end of accomplishing the Great Work is pretty powerful.
-
93
Yeah, doing will or something akin is very important, but I found at the beggining the enthusiasm is so grossly overzealous, due to the general excitement of entering into something new, that it was unnecessary. In fact developing an understanding of the four powers of the sphinx and putting such into practice is something that has been more helpfull to me so far in the beginning stages.
The spirit of aspiration softly spoken in your heart, placing a hand upon the symbol of theurgic aspiration (conveniently hung around the neck and hidden from view in my case), reading a chapter of the BOTL or the bible or some such every morning. These have proved immensely helpfull, but only after some significant understanding was developed, and getting over the initial buzz.
I agree with AnimiLiberare that perhaps everybody differs with this, depending on their dispositions. I can become overzealous and unbalanced quite easily, and so the powers of the sphinx have been more helpfull to me in maintaining balance and steady progress. Also in keeping energy and enthusiasm from fuelling unfavourable traits.Another good practice, that can serve many purposes is the control of speech and other exercises in Liber 3 vel Jugorum (not sure if this has been mentioned already). Definetly indispensable practices for beginning solitary practitioners IMHO. I think the Kraig book may even recommend some such exercises??
93/93
-
93, all
I notice in The Equinox Vol I Section II where it has the LBPR, it says to use the wand to draw the pentagrams. I've been using a separate dagger from the "air knife" kept on my altar. One used in WWII actually that belonged to my grandfather. Is this okay, or should I be using the air dagger? Also: Should I get a separate long sword besides the ritual daggers I have? Or does Crowley mean the dagger when he says sword?
-
@Frater Tenc said
"93, all
I notice in The Equinox Vol I Section II where it has the LBPR, it says to use the wand to draw the pentagrams. I've been using a separate dagger from the "air knife" kept on my altar. One used in WWII actually that belonged to my grandfather. Is this okay, or should I be using the air dagger? Also: Should I get a separate long sword besides the ritual daggers I have? Or does Crowley mean the dagger when he says sword?"
Personally I'd not use a military knife in ritual, too many associations for my liking; something Virgin, i.e. not used before for anyone else would be best.
The whole air knife thing is very wiccan, I just have the one dagger as per liber ABA.
Also, I think when he says knife he means knife.