A Few Newbie Questions
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93!
Hi all! I just had a few questions and figured this would be the proper place to ask them. I am very new to practicing Thelema (so new I just attempted my first asana today) but have been amassing a library on the subject for a good while. I am reading Abrahadabra by Rodney Orpheus and in it he gives a new form of the LBRP called the Nu-Sphere. I am curious as to how practicing magicians felt about it. Is it a good place for me to start or should I stick to the tried and true LBRP? Or in the spirit of science try one for a month then the other and see which one I like more? Also I know that the Great Work is best done with someone guiding me through it. I have applications in with my local OTO body and an AA lineage but haven't heard back yet. So I was wondering should I hold off and just practice my asana or damn the torpedoes full speed ahead when it comes to the Nu-Sphere/LBRP? Thank you for reading!
93 93/93
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93,
" I am reading Abrahadabra by Rodney Orpheus and in it he gives a new form of the LBRP called the Nu-Sphere. I am curious as to how practicing magicians felt about it. Is it a good place for me to start or should I stick to the tried and true LBRP? "
Personally I had already learnt the LBRP before reading this book and preferred it to the Nu-Sphere ritual. I tried the Nu-Sphere for a few weeks but preferred the LBRP. I don't understand why he tried to put students off the LBRP by stating it was hard to learn etc. it took me about a week to get the framework embedded and then you just add little bits of visualization here and there.
"Or in the spirit of science try one for a month then the other and see which one I like more?"
I'd do this. For me the LBRP was better, it may be different for you.
"So I was wondering should I hold off and just practice my asana or damn the torpedoes full speed ahead when it comes to the Nu-Sphere/LBRP? Thank you for reading!"
Ultimately it's up to you, but my adice is if you feel confident in practicing and you are only doing more simple (dare I call the LBRP simple!) practices you should be fine. I think that when it comes to the A.'.A.'. you need a fair ground of knowledge to begin with anyway, and the recommended reading list provides this (as does a lot of other books), for me theory was all well and good, but I really only learn through experience. I always make sure I have an understanding of the theory first, but I think practice is what really teaches me.
My advice is go for it, when you hear back from A.'.A.'. and potentially become a probationer you are free to practice pretty much what you like....there are, perhaps, preferred routines, but I would hope ultimately it is up to the individual. The only difference is you have someone to turn to for guidance, which is always helpful. Read a lot, practice what you read, learn from your experience and apply what you learn.
I did love Orpheus' book there were some unique practices and it also got me reading more of Crowley's own texts. However if I may recommend the book which has helped me quite a lot (and from what I've heard a lot of others also)- "Modern Magick" by Donald Michael Kraig. The book is filled with knowledge and is just brilliant, it has the right dosage of theory and gets you practicing. His recommended reading list is also brilliant and should be checked out.
93, 93/93.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The answer to your question depends on your personal goals. If you're eventually going to teach the LBRP to others, you'll* eventually *be expected to be experienced enough with it to give appropriate instruction.
Other than that, it's your life, your Will, your practice, your experiment, your risk, your consequences, your rewards...
Love is the law, love under will.
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@DJDenar said
"I am reading Abrahadabra by Rodney Orpheus and in it he gives a new form of the LBRP called the Nu-Sphere. I am curious as to how practicing magicians felt about it."
Never heard of it.
"Is it a good place for me to start or should I stick to the tried and true LBRP?"
If your intention is working with the established paradigm (and it seems to be so, especially as you refer to the original ritual as "tried and true"), stick to the original. (Also, as I don't even know what the other ritual is all about, I can't possibly recommend it.)
"Or in the spirit of science try one for a month then the other and see which one I like more?"
In the spirit of science, sure, go ahead. But there's no reason a priori to attribute validity to the variation you mentioned. It's not an even competition in the first place.
"I have applications in with my local OTO body and an AA lineage but haven't heard back yet. So I was wondering should I hold off and just practice my asana or damn the torpedoes full speed ahead when it comes to the Nu-Sphere/LBRP?"
No harm in getting as much foundation as you can on your own.
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@DJDenar said
"I am reading Abrahadabra by Rodney Orpheus and in it he gives a new form of the LBRP called the Nu-Sphere. I am curious as to how practicing magicians felt about it. Is it a good place for me to start or should I stick to the tried and true LBRP?"
Every ritual is nothing more than a bunch of words and actions that somebody, somewhere along the line, just plain made up and attributed meaning to. So, in the big picture, it makes absolutely no difference which rituals you do or even whether you do any formal rituals at all.
However, since you appear to be interested in Western ceremonial magick, it would do you a lot of good to become thoroughly familiar with the LBRP, which lays the framework that many other rituals employ.
Personally, I would do the LBRP every day for at least six months (honestly, you can do it every single day of the rest of your life). This will acquaint you with the ritual and will give you a baseline from which to appreciate the differences that other rituals offer.
After about three months or so, you can throw in a BRH, and after six months, you can slowly branch out into other rituals. I guess you can try the "Nu-Sphere" or whatever the heck that is (lame name), and certainly nothing's stopping you from writing your own rituals, but I would recommend checking out Crowley's Star Ruby and studying how he altered the structure of the LBRP for his purposes: it's impossible to really grasp this unless you have a firm understanding of the LBRP.
"Or in the spirit of science try one for a month then the other and see which one I like more?"
It's certainly not going to hurt you to play around with different rituals, but you're likely to get more out of picking a course of practice and sticking to it -- rather than just idly jumping around between different practices without committing to any of them.
And, obviously, it's going to be a great help to actually study what these rituals symbolize. Just going through the motions isn't going to do a whole lot for you. It's going to help for you to thoroughly understand (to name one example) why you trace the Tree of Life on your body in the Qabalistic Cross and what this represents in terms of attainment.
"Also I know that the Great Work is best done with someone guiding me through it."
Not so sure I agree with this. Certainly, another person can guide you in the "proper" way to perform certain rituals and practices, but nobody else can directly help you do the fundamental task of attainment: observing your Self in the midst of everyday life and discovering who you are.
All true initiation is self-initiation. As Crowley put it (talking in his usual, overblown fancy metaphors):
@Aleister Crowley said
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It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each one of us; a secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother's God, or the Rite that invokes Him."Someone can indeed "guide" you in the sense of helping you to understand what the task is, what you have to practically do, and how you know you've succeeded. More trivially, someone can "guide" you by giving you some useful advice or pointing you in the right direction.
But nobody else can actually initiate you, not in the truest sense of "initiation."
"should I hold off and just practice my asana or damn the torpedoes full speed ahead when it comes to the Nu-Sphere/LBRP?"
You definitely should be doing both. You might enjoy performing the LBRP as a precursor to asana.