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I think "banishing" is a vastly confusing area of magical practice. Personally, I never banish after working magic, because you don't go about banishing the Lwa. Also, a lot of the sorcery I do will tend to be hoodoo based and involve burning candles over a series of evenings. If I banished at the end of one of these sessions I'd be interupting an ongoing operation. I do tend to begin any operation with the LBRP though, as its a great way of formally shifting out of everyday consciousness and demarkating a space where magic will occur. I also think of the LBRP as a devotional thing, for instance in Haitian Vodou its common practice to say the Lord's prayer before calling on the Lwa. I'll perform the Quabalistic Cross and LBRP, as a kind of hoodoo quabala version of the Catholic syncretism.
There are ways and means of winding down a ritual without drawing loud pentacles everywhere, and you might want to look into some of them. For instance, if you have an altar setup and use candles, a good way of winding an evening up is to just nod out the candles, and have a little devotional phrase to give thanks to whatever it is you work with.
Unfortunately, Ive noticed certain addictive characteristics popping up, like I feel ill or drained when I dont drum. Obviously, Im going to start banishing my drum rituals immediately.
Hmmm. That sounds a bit ridiculous, having to formally banish after a drumming session. Why don't you just work out a specific drum beat that you use to close down. Internalise it to the same degree as you have the LBRP, so that you can move seamlessly between ecstatic
drumming and the close down rhythm. There's no reason why your banishing routine couldn't be done entirely on the drum, with a bit of practice.
Ive been doing some sloppy magick recently....I havent been banishing. But Ive had incredible results, like sensory communication with invisibles and feelings of possession (riding), which is pretty new to me.
From where I'm sitting, there's nothing sloppy about that. There's nothing wrong with magic being wild and scary and messy and dangerous. If you want big results, I think you have to go to those places. I don't think you can get up close to things in quite the same way if you put all of the filters and paranoid "occult hygiene" routines of ceremonial magic between you and it. If you're getting incredible results and communicating directly with the Powers then you are doing something right. You just have to learn how to manage it properly, which only comes with time and practice.
I think its good to have a range of banishing routines, rather than a one size fits all ritual. Sometimes you need to pull the LBRP out of the bag, other times you don't, sometimes you need to step things up even further and bring out the white sage, purple candles and "Run Devil Run" oil, other times a cup of tea and a biscuit will sort you out. Part of becoming a good operator is learning how to guage what the situation calls for, and being able to move between worlds with grace and finesse.
I noticed the same thing a while ago when I was doing some chakra meditation, and previous to that when I was using Qi Gong. I feel great when I do these exercises, but I feel worse than ever when I skip them.
Chi Kung is profoundly effective but its a cumulative process. If you set that in motion, get yourself into a regular rhythm of it, and open your body to increased levels of Chi – and then stop – you are going to feel more than a little off kilter. It's powerful internal stuff. I'd say your experiences here have got more to do with it actually working, than any kind of psychological addiction.
Since Ive noticed some of you talking about banishing a few times a day just to keep yourselves in line, Im worried about becoming addicted to banishing itself. But right now I feel incredibly neurotic, since I need to do all these magick spells just so I can get up in the morning.
I'd say this is a different phenomena though. I really rate Donald Michael Kraig's book, and if I had something that explained the western ceremonial trad as clearly as that when I was 14 I think I might have made much faster progress. But in certain ways, I think that whole system is so horrifically fucked up. Sometimes the lines between the western ceremonial tradition, and obsessive compulsive disorder, are painfully thin.
as you become more proficient in Magick, your aura become more attractive and visible to what he calls Astral nasties.... He even admits that the only way to get rid of them is to keep doing the rituals/ exercises (such as the Middle Pillar Exercise) until your aura becomes too pure for them to cling to
Case in point.
I think the LBRP and Middle Pillar are great skills to develop. Very handy to have them in the bag of tricks. But to actually encourage a perspective where invisible vampiric nasties are constantly assailing you, and must be rigorously staved off with daily psychic absolutions, is questionable to say the least.
Some authorities say you should banish morning and night until you are sufficiently versed in magick... Then they claim that you can invoke the 5 powers (earth, air, water, fire and spirit) of a morning and do a banishing of a night to allow you to go to sleep
Again, I think you really have to question whether its necessary to spend vast amounts of time dicking about with all of this. I mean, I could go to sleep perfectly well before, y'know... Having said that, I'd definitely recommend this sort of regime to someone starting out in magic as it's the best/only way to fully internalise these skills, but that's just cos you're doing it every day. Same as if you were learning a musical instrument. I think the whole thing of invoking the elements on a morning and banishing at night can be more than a bit problematic, and lead very easily to obsessive compulsive disorder.
Does the end really justify the means. To be honest, I've never really met a ceremonial magician who has seemed really balanced and sorted because of doing this sort of work. In many cases, quite the opposite. There's a need for managing and regulating the "energies" (by which I mean, states of consciousness, body sensations, released emotional blockages, etc..) you are exposed to in magic, and in life in general, but I prefer to go for something more physical and organic such as martial arts practice, Tai Chi in particular. If you become addicted to martial arts, then at least you're getting a bit of exercise and learning how to kick someones head in as a side product of the work. Another thing with the western trad banishing and invoking routines is that there's practically no end to it. They'd have you banishing and then invoking all the elements with seperate pentagram rituals, then banishing and invoking all the planets with the hexagrams. Every day. If I'm going to spend 3 hours a day standing around drawing geometric shapes in the air, then there'd better be a tangible and bloody good result at the end of it. Who made all of this up anyway? What's the actual source of this material? Is there any precedent for it before the Golden Dawn, or did Mathers develop it? Anyone got a good defence of this aspect of the ceremonial trad?
Id also like to hear about banishing rituals (or equivalent) derived from voudou tradition
Well...you can't exactly dip into Vodou and take what you want, as it doesn't really work like that. It will tend to take over. However, all operations in Vodou and Santeria generally start by making offerings to the Crossroads to open The Gate, and then asking for it to be closed again when you're done. If you have a good relationship with the Crossroads, you don't have to worry so much about a lot of these issues. It's taken care of.
You have already proved that you are a great Chaos advocate as you have not allowed yourself to be stuck in one system....
Grrrr! I'll leave that one, as I don't have time for another big row with anybody this week. |
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