Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Temple >

Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram Problem

15:31 / 26.02.04

So I've been working with the LRP for about 3 months. Did a fair amount of research into its forms, pronunciations, etc. and had been using it to center and purify myself twice daily ("invoking" in the AM, "banishing" in the PM). I experimented, got comfortable with it, and personalized it. It's effects were readily apparent to me. I felt centered and had a strong sense of well-being no matter what the day brought. Then I stopped doing it, feeling that in some way I was becoming "addicted" to it. I also thought it might be a good attempt at belief shifting. Well, something shifted anyway.

I have not utilized the LRP since Saturday, and this week has been constant shit hitting the razor-bladed fan. I've become more prone to feelings of anger and depression, and today has been filled with both. A fight with my wife this morning left me emotionally drained and her later apology via email almost brought on tears of desolation right in the middle of the office.

So I'm at something of a crossroads here: Do I resume my practice and abandon the unsuccessful belief-shift or will that only weaken everything I'm trying to strengthen? Will continued non-practice bring even worse consequences or is there a light at the end of this black tunnel?

Hope that's enough information. I'm seriously at a loss as to how to proceed here. Any help is greatly appreciated.

17:36 / 26.02.04

Sheesh, that sounds hectic. Don't worry, you probably just got a little attached to it. I learned how to use it a couple of weeks ago, and honestly i've worked with shields and things in the past and i've always started using them when there wasn't really any need and i thought : this is gonna be just the same. I've only used it a couple of times since then and haven't had any problems.

I was reading another Grant Morrison interview yesterday morning and he said he never uses them! He joked that he often ended up getting possesed for a couple of weeks but also advised to be careful so maybe he had some pretty crazy things happen.

To be honest though, for myself i've always thought that most of the time it's just fragments of the self i've been fighting and even when i've physically felt something trying to 'get in', i've often just surrendered to it, let it in and then it's just gone. Kind of like accepting the other but i don't know if i can get away with doing that everytime.

I figure it works for some though and have seen parrallels (can't spell that word i don't think) with something that Crowley wrote in moonchild aswell about a Taoist character absorbing negative influences. Some people will see this as virtual suicide, others just common sense, but a lot of it depends on how you percieve it. I try and focus on oneness when i do this, but if i start panicking i can get into serious trouble. Each to their own i guess but try and ask yourself whether or not it could be fragmented parts of yourself that your banishing or not.

Give it a good blast of whitefire or do a guidance/advice spell, or maybe try mantras instead of the banishing ritual, you'll find a lot of things that can replace it if it carries on causing so many problems, i'm sure.

18:02 / 26.02.04

I have been using a few mantras lately (YHVH-ADNI or ve-Geburah - ve-Gedulah), but not very often and only when I'm at a breaking point. Perhaps I need to use them more often.

JF - "ask yourself whether or not it could be fragmented parts of yourself that your banishing"

My intent hasn't been to rid myself of fragments, but to integrate those fragments into the whole. In that light, your advice to "let it in" sounds solid. I need to do some thinking on that.

19:15 / 26.02.04

Sorry to read of your current despair, but I don't understand why you stopped doing it? You say because you thought you were becoming addicted to it ( which I'm not sure I understand at all) and you also say you were using the ritual to balance and purify yourself each day. These two latter intentions are perfectly laudable both in their own right and for developing essential nous for any future invokatory type work you might undertake. It doesn't sound entirely surprising to me that suddenly stopping an exercise that is centering and purifying would then leave you more susceptible to upset in the immediate aftermath. This might be especially the case when stopping it for what to me sounds to be a negative reason. Becoming addicted to centering and purifying sounds like a bit of an oxymoron to me. Why can't you allow yourself to be centred and purified each day by LBR or any other exercise. I admire your discipline! You might find resuming it or another type of centering activity eases the current distress you're experiencing. The LBR is quite a ritual as I recall and although I know it is suggested in many texts and places to use it for these purposes, I think it's taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut (IMHO), although the ritual is well worth learning, other exercises have centering effects, in fact they're pretty easy to design for yourself.

BTW it is entirely appropriate that arguments with the wife cause significant upset.

Go on, treat yourself to another meditation, we all need a bit of peace!

19:43 / 26.02.04

EM, a couple of thoughts.

It is advised that the aspirant do LRP everyday in the way you've been doing it. The real results come over time gradually bringing the aspirant more in line and in tune with the magickal universe. This daily practice, along with Liber Resh, are prescribed by those in the know (i.e. the real Thelemites). Personally, I have a hard time with Resh - 6am??? No thanks!

If you're feeling wild energies swirling about, you may try banishing in the morning and evening for a little while, instead of invoking then banishing. I'm usually more concerned with banishing at the end of the day to cleanse out the material interference. I usually only invoke in rituals, which are immediately followed by banishing. Otherwise you can end up walking around with various energies flitting about your skull. I try to keep those things contained.

I've been told that you should use the same elemental form in the morning and at night. I.E. if you invoke fire in the morning, banish fire at night. BTW, what element have you been using? It seems best to work with one element over a period of time, as opposed to changing it up daily.

Whenever I do LRP (or work with Thoth divs) I always light a candle before starting. Then blow it out at the end.

Also, it's important that when you banish, you really banish. Feel yourself ground the space you're working in. You want to come out of it feeling rooted in matter, not spun out on some magick vibe. It can be helpful to engage in some mundane activity just afterwards.

20:26 / 26.02.04

I used the word addiction to indicate my sense of "needing" this ritual to be a balanced person. What started as a learning exercise turned into daily necessity. My feeling (at the time) was that I should be able to balance and center myself without the foofarah of ritual, and that the learning phase may be over. Sounds pretty naive now that I see it written out like that, as does the decision to slam on the metaphorical brakes. Since my last post, I've been using some mantras and, if I'm not 100%, I'm hovering around the 60-75% range. A vast improvement over this morning. Fourth's mention of the negative reasoning on my part really hit me where I live. Thanks Fourth!

To LVX's points, I probably didn't give the ritual enough time to reap full benefits. I can be an impatient sort, and to expect to be centered without centering is, again, pretty naive. I'm not so worried about energies swirling round me. Heck, the energy I was getting with my dailies felt overwhelmingly positive and the world "read" as a truly magical place. This week? Emptiness.

BTW, I haven't been using any elemental pentagrams. I kinda formulated my own all-purpose pentagrams and have been using them without any apparent difficulty. That said, I've already started poking around for more info on the elemental pentagrams and will most likely pick up DuQuette's "Magic of Aleister Crowley" as soon as I can. I've looked thru it and it seems to have pretty good information. I assume there are different "feels" and purposes for each element?

Soooooo...I think I'll be resuming the LRP tomorrow morning. After hearing from everyone and thinking it thru, there's really no good reason to continue hindering myself in this way. Thanks all, for your concern, comments and reassurance. It has truly been helpful.

Fourth - "Go on, treat yourself to another meditation, we all need a bit of peace!" Hear hear! And it will surely be a treat to resume. Hope you folks have your bit of peace.

21:11 / 26.02.04

DuQuette's book is an excellent concise summary of the fundamental Thelemic rituals. Recommended.

You're correct in assuming that there are different "feels" to the elements. Basically it's just Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Each is representative of a specific fundamental frequency of Malkuth. How you draw the pentagram reflects the type of element and whether you're invoking or banishing.

03:07 / 27.02.04

Hmmm...will that DuQuette be of any use if I only know a little about Thelemic beliefs/principles?

trouser the trouserian

04:23 / 27.02.04

EMonk
you might find this article useful for thoughts on banishing in general.

05:52 / 27.02.04

yeah, it gives a good overview of the basic tenets and reprints the Book of the Law. Of course, you don't have to follow the traditional rituals. Like gravitas said, banishing is open to personal modification.

21:46 / 29.02.04

LVX - you don't have to do it (resh) at 6 am. Do it when you wake up. It is there to form a pattern in your day, balancin. Going up at that hour is just plain madness.

And all, important thing to remember about the LBRP, you are standing on the tree of life facing tiphareth. The banishing part is just ... a part. You are aspiring to your HGA. And also, put focus on the hexagrams that form above and below, making them strong can make the ritual much more balanced.

23:04 / 29.02.04

Has anyone noticed the changes in the overall feeling of the ritual when you change the "in the column stands the six-rayed star" to the Golden Dawn's "behind me burns the six-rayed star"? When I do it "the Crowley-way", so to speak, I get a more balanced effect compared to the GD-way. To have the star burning behind me like that, Tiphareth-style, I feel more...energized?

The first time I did it this way I got all sorts of weird effects, including a MDMA-flashback. Very strange.

04:46 / 01.03.04

smoke, I think there are lots of ways these rituals can be modified and personalized but, strictly speaking, Resh is designed to attune one to the course of the sun - dawn, noon, sunset, midnight. This is reflected in the 4 points of the LRP.

There are also essentially 2 trees in the ritual. The tree before you, where you face tipareth, is the macrocosmic tree of Adam Kadmon. But when you perform the kabbalistic cross on yourself it is acknowledging the personal tree, the microcosm. This is why you sign ve-geburah on your right shoulder and ve-gedulah on your left - the tree is in you. The goal is to balance the spheres of your microcosmic tree around tipareth, the heart, lifting it up to the macrocosmic tree and opening up to the influence of the HGA. It is useful to imagine the HGA as channeling from the sun to the heart of the aspirant. The vision of the hexagram(s) represents the union of the macrocosm & microcosm.

Again, this is all strict Crowleyan Thelema. These rituals can be performed in a myriad of variations.

09:44 / 01.03.04

Absence of gravitas, thank you. That article you linked to was really useful for me. It's good to read (there and here from LVX23) that modifying rituals is OK and that taking bits from one place and bits from others is also acceptable.

I don't want to veer this thread too off topic, but I just wondered what people thought about mixing magickal...(what's the word?)...doctrines?

My problem tends to be that I get all caught up in what one set of theory says I 'should' be doing, and I spend ages trying to categorise myself; Am I a this? Do I follow that? What should I be? and so on.

trouser the trouserian

10:43 / 01.03.04

olulabelle

My problem tends to be that I get all caught up in what one set of theory says I 'should' be doing, and I spend ages trying to categorise myself; Am I a this? Do I follow that? What should I be? and so on.

Why is categorising yourself important? Do you really need a label in order to work magic?
As for theories - try thinking of 'em as opinions or models, rather than unquestionable facts. If you find yourself getting caught up with the should be doing inner voice, then maybe you need to avoid theory for a while and just concentrate on practice.

10:53 / 01.03.04

And as to mixing models or doctrines and so on, I think this is what we all do anyway - pull together our own weird hodge podge of stuff that fits and feels right. For me, this means having a lot of respect for traditons funnily enough, and trying to understand them in their own contexts, though without being too rigid about it. Might sound like a contradiction in terms but it makes sense I think (in my head anyway).

00:58 / 02.03.04

Okay I have a question. What's the difference between invoking and banishing pentagrams? Is there a real difference? I have tried them and haven't felt any difference whatsoever. Maybe I haven't practiced them long enough?

And what abput the middle pillar? I never feel any results, or experience any change, regardless what Regardie says.

The only time I was able to experience any change with the LBRP was when I had to clean my whole house, since I think I was under psychic attack but other than that...

Anyway, it could be related to the fact that I don't care about the spiritual side of magick, the "religious" side of it. To me magick is a tool to change something. Is a technique to achieve goals.

Just my two cents and two questions.

04:59 / 02.03.04

Mohrandir wrote:
Is there a real difference? I have tried them and haven't felt any difference whatsoever.

Well, you won't feel any difference unless you put the appropriate intent there. If you really understand that you're drawning a fire invoking pentagram then, by gods, you'll feel it.

Anyway, it could be related to the fact that I don't care about the spiritual side of magick, the "religious" side of it. To me magick is a tool to change something. Is a technique to achieve goals.

A socket wrench is a tool to change something. But the socket wrench is debased and ineffective without the mechanic. It sounds to me like you've read too much Anton LaVey. To my mind there is no magick without the spiritual side.

00:40 / 19.03.04

Whatever. I will eat my words then.

After one month working with the LBRP I didnt notice anything, but after I stopped something happened.

I dicovered That I was angrier, felt tired constantly and such.

I restarted the LBRP and lo! suddendly I became more atractive to members of the opposite sex, more tolerant to frustration and other effects.

Now Im starting the BRH. So far so good.

Again I´m eating my words with a glass of milk.

04:16 / 19.03.04

Cool. Best of luck.

The LBRP is elemental magick, while Hexagrams are used for planetary magick. A good resource for the latter is Denning & Phillips aptly titled "Planetary Magick".

05:03 / 19.03.04

I didn't even know you could invoke with the LBRP!

I understand the mechanics but by it's very name, it never occurred to me and all the texts I have read to date have only mentioned the banishing aspect of the LBRP

So basically to invoke, you do counterclockwise pentagrams?

Presumably this invokes the elemental powers....am I right?

So invoking Fire might give you strength and energy etc?

I am learning all the time on this board.....thanks

Joe

18:06 / 19.03.04

Yeah, if you think of it simply as the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, then it can be either banishing or invoking depending on how the pentagram is drawn.

If you imagine each tip of the pentagram representing an element - earth, air, fire, water, spirit - then drawing away from the element banishes, drawing towards it invokes.

See Crowley's Book 4 or DuQuette's Magick of Thelema for mroe info.

19:11 / 19.03.04

For your consideration:

I've thrown together a virtual ritual space based on the LRP. I used Adobe Atmosphere to make the world - landing on the page will automatically induce a small download (2.6MB) and then display the world. The world itself will probably take a few moments (<30sec) to load all its elements.

NOTE: if you don't have broadband, the whole process will probably take longer than you want to wait. The world will also be accelerated by GeForce2 or newer video hardware, those with lower will experience a somewhat lower framerate.

http://www.icogitate.com/~luxnatura2/lbrp/WEB/lbrp.html

01:07 / 20.03.04

If you don't mind my asking, what exactly is the Viewpoint Media Player? Is there anything I need to be concerned about downloading?

05:31 / 20.03.04

No, absolutely not. The Viewpoint player is used to render certain object type sin the scene. It's actually a sub-component of the Atmo player. Totally harmless. Trust me - I'm the QE Lead for the team.

I know a few other threads 'round here were looking at the overlap between magick and VR-type tools. Thanks to Adobe for paying me to look into it a bit more!

12:48 / 20.03.04

Interesting! It gives some sense of the semi-virtual space in which one performs the LBRP. And the pillars with the god names, angels, and compass directions could serve as a helpful instructional tool.

22:45 / 22.03.04

Interestingly, since I made that world my own LRP's have become more focused and the visualizations are more in line with that space. I can see the watchtowers around me and the hexagram above & below. I'm starting to sense this interplay where the design of the Atmo space informs my own visualizations which, in turn, inspire me to make additions to the space. For instance, I'd like to include glowing beams for vertical and horizontal axes of the Kabbalistic cross, possibly queing them to appear at some event.

Recently I've grown interested in the concept of an astral temple and I'm thinking about doing a mock up similar to the LRP. Once I've established the virtual model then it should give me a stronger visual framework to approach it in the astral.

I think there's a point where the distinction between "virtual" and "astral" really becomes quite grey.

22:50 / 22.03.04

BTW, I feel I need to acknowledge my biases here and keep things clear. I work for Adobe on the Atmosphere team. I really like the app, but I'm absolutely not trying to sell it to anyone here. I'm just trying to make it a useful tool in my magickal life which happens to be intimately intertwined with this forum. So forgive me in advance if anybody starts talking about VR & magick and I start going on about Atmosphere. And if I post anymore links to worlds I've created, please know that it's only to show off what I've done and how it relates to magick, not to advertise for Adobe.

Shanghai Quasar

00:00 / 23.03.04

This is a brilliant little thing, LVX23. Especially when you get the Avatars showing, gives you a nice view of things. Imagine putting on your VR glasses and being sucked into this. Lovely, lovely.

Quite looking forward to seeing what else you do with Atmosphere.

01:10 / 23.03.04

Cool, thanks! I could also make it so multiple people could gather. Group workings!

02:27 / 24.03.04

Hey! s'Me. Glad to see this thread had some legs on it, and that LVX23 got to share some digital skillz with the group. I hesitate to take a peek myself. I'm working with ancient PC tech here.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm fine, and enjoying twice dailies of the LRP. I've even started journaling on it a bit, and plan to keep extensive notes for the time that I make LRP a habit.

Up next? The Middle Pillar, bay-bee.