Liber DCLXXI vel Pyramidos
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I'm not sure why no one mentioned Pyramidos on my topic "Self-Initiation", but anyways, I found what I was looking for. I do have some questions, though:
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I need some validation on this... on this link for the ritual (arcaneadvisors.com/archives/Libers/Liber%20DCLXXI%20-%20vel%20Pyramidos.pdf), where the transcriber's notes are at the end, the Secret Word is shown to be [DELETED], which adds up to 93. Is this the correct word?
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How are the Invoking/Banishing Spiral Dances performed?
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What does it mean where it says (Rubric as before)?
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The part "He is slain by the Sword", how is this performed?
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Parts where it says "Bar in (direction)", what is meant by this?
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@Miles said
"I'm not sure why no one mentioned Pyramidos on my topic "Self-Initiation""
Probably because it's no guarantee of success (whatever that may be) and is not the same as Throa.
"the Secret Word is shown to be [DELETED], which adds up to 93. Is this the correct word?"
I think you got a pretty good answer there.
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I edited your post because, though you didn't have it quite right, you posted too much information for a matter that is held deeply secret. Tat word is never communicated except to a Neophyte of A.'.A.'.. People can, of course, research and investigate on their own, but this forum will not be party to its disclosure.
(No personal slap on you, Miles.)
I'll add that if you're not working within a particular Mystery System, there is probably no need for you to know that particular word - you can create your own formula that serves you in that step.
@Miles said
"2. How are the Invoking/Banishing Spiral Dances performed?"
There is room for interpretation on this. "Spiral," for example, can be interpreted either as the overall course of the triple circumambulation (from west, eventuating back at the west), or the particular "spin on axis / waltz step" style Crowley created which is a nice balance of structure and freeform. If you are looking at this particular form of the ritual, you should know that the John St. John diary is, in part, the record of his developing this particular ritual. There are also comments on similar dance styles in the essay "Energized Enthusiasm."
"3. What does it mean where it says (Rubric as before)?"
It means to repeat a section that was previously in the rubric (i.e., in this context, the manuscript in your hand). Essentially "repeat as before."
In this present case, it is the cycle of purification and consecration. (It really helps to know the G.D. Neophyte ritual inside and out to get the most of this one.) The specific thing here is the two lines below, with the purifying (cutting) and consecrating (oiling) actions that precede them.
The Lustral Water! Smite thy flood / Through melymph, marrow and blood!
The Fire Informing! Let the Oil / Balance, assain, assoil!"4. The part "He is slain by the Sword", how is this performed?"
I'd probably have to show you. My advice (if you're working outside of a particular Order or tradition) is to figure out exactly what the underlying (behind the scenes, whether symbolic or actual) thing is that is done at this point, and come up with a working interprtetation.
This means one thing if there is an initiating officer. If there isn't, then you have to interpolate a replacement. Sometimes this might be a physical action, sometimes a result. (Considerable practice of the first meditation in Liber HHH, to the point of success, makes it clearer; but this is backwards, since, in the system from which these emerge, one underwent the physical initation in one grade, and then practiced the deeper, inner meaning of it, from HHH, in a later grade. Nonetheless, it's a resource for you.)
Read Crowley's section on the Negative Confession in Magick in Theory & Practice. If you do this part of the ritual correctly, you very likely will discover (after one to a dozen repetitions) what is involved. "Correctly" mans that you have to deeply feel the impact and insult and diminishment of each accusation line (as a mortification, to the point of devasation), and then powerfully feel the total and complete healing and uplifting of the echoed response. You have 22 opportunuities to be hurled into the depths of despair, worthlessness, and emptiness, and then uplifted (even exalted) afterwards - each cycle of the 22 being stronger and more extreme than the prior one - until,on the last cycle, "He is slain by the Sword" at the accusation and "raised erect" by the response.
Perhaps that will help some?
"5. Parts where it says "Bar in (direction)", what is meant by this?"
This ritual is a personalized adaptation (for Crowley's 6=5 initiation) of the A.'.A.'. 1=10 initiation. The reference is to something that happens in that ritual, which is essentially what happens in the Golden Dawn Neophyte ritual where the circumambulating candidate is barred (blocked) at specific points by one of the officers. When working without officers, you have to make adaptations for this.
For the no-officers option, understand that Crowley used the Opening to establish astral forms of the three officers and held them active and alive through his imagination for the entire course of the operation. His experience, then, would have been that these forces stop him in his tracks. They each represent a particular weakness in himself that is blocking him - fear, grief, the noise of the intellect, and his prior (historic) vision of himself, for example. (In the Greek-themed original, where this ritual is the story of Persephone journeying through the underworld, they were, respectively, the fear from the initial confrontation by Hades, the grief of her mother Demeter at the loss and separation, the intellect symbolized by Hermes, and her own prior pre-pubertal image which, once surrendered, allows her to turn and walk, by choice, back into Hell to become its queen.)
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@Miles said
"Ughh...too complicated and too mysterious.
I think I'll just wait.
And...there's always the OTO initiations."
Haha - I did not mention the ritual as that is the normal reaction.
It is pretty hard core, and I think JIm made the best point : You are working backwards.
This "Self-Initiation" marks the end as opposed to the beginning
