Date: Sunday, January 21, 2017
Time: 10:50 – 12:02
Sun Phase: Zenith
Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent
Planetary Day: Day of the Sun
Planetary Hour: Hour of Saturn (during banishings) and Hour of Jupiter (for consecration)
Astrology for center of the ritual time, c. 11:30 a.m.:
Mood: Tired, but excited
Workings: Rite of Purification by Water, Neuro-linguistic programming state-shifting, four-fold breath pranayamic altered state induction, LIRP, LBRH, Ceremonial Consecration of a Banishing and Invoking Dagger, Prayers and Consecrations from the Lesser Key of Solomon, Elemental and Planetary Invocations integrating formulae from the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram, LBRH, LBRP
Altar Set-up: Altar in the center of the Temple. Black cloth. White cross and red triangle on the altar, as in the Neophyte Grade Initiation. Incense in the East, lit, Stolistes Cup in the West, Salt in the North, Candle in the South, lit. Place the dagger to be consecrated in the center of the Triangle on the Altar. Place the Tarot cards of the Magician on the left of the Triangle, the Fool on the right, and the High Priestess beneath the Triangle.
Description:
Soror C.R. and I performed an initial Qabalistic Cross and then a ritual bathing to purify ourselves for the working. After this ritual bathing, Soror C.R. reported that she already felt herself falling into an altered state of hypnotic relaxation. We then practiced NLP state-shifting combined with laughter yoga to evoke a positive, relaxed state, which we deepened through a four-fold breath pranayamic altered state induction.
I then began to lead the ceremony as Soror C.R. sat in a chair behind the altar, focusing all of her Will on the Operation and projecting energy into each invocation and consecration as well as following along with the vibrations of words to empower and synergize my work. When I passed near her, she would touch me and send a flood of joyful, loving energy into me to strengthen and fortify me in the working.
Prior to the ceremony, three daggers were painted at the same time for the use of three magicians, Soror C.R., Frater F.S.S.F, and myself. These daggers were all hand-crafted with handles of light-weight wood by another craftsperson. I painted each of them with a combination of Pentagramic, Hexagramic, Lesser Key of Solomon, and Enochian symbolism, as explained in “An Untraditional Golden Dawn Banishing Dagger.”
We decided to consecrate the three daggers at the same time, just as they had been painted at the same time, in a simultaneous ceremonial consecration so that they would endow them with an astrological connection intended to amplify the effects of group rituals performed by the three of us using the three daggers in tandem through a kind of astral harmonic resonance.
In order to not bias the sharing of our experiences after the ceremony, Soror C.R. and I decided to immediately write down our observations individually after the completion of the ritual and only discuss our experiences after our reflections were already locked into our written accounts. The following account is a collation of these two independently written accounts.
I began by performing the lesser invoking ritual of the pentagram followed by the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram to energize and clear the room for the working and felt the Temple space intensify and lighten. Both of us reported that we experienced the pentagrams, hexagrams, and Archangelic images swelling in intensity as each of the rituals unfolded. Soror C.R. felt humbled to be in the presence of the Angels. As I recited the prayers from the Lesser Key of Solomon, I felt a rising wave of awe and wonder.
When I gave the LVX Signs, Soror C.R. later reported that she saw the corresponding letters vividly shining in the astral in bright yellow light, just as I had visualized. After each Lesser Key of Solomon-based elemental consecration of the Altar elements, I purified and consecrated both Soror C.R. and myself with the symbol of each element. I then invoked each element and projected the elemental energy into the dagger, equilibrating it with Spirit Pentagrams and the Enochian formulae of the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram.
Each of the Elemental consecrations produced a distinct feeling and effect that both Soror C.R. and I independently documented in our written accounts after the ritual. I felt the flood of each element flowing through me and into the daggers and saw them glow in light in each elemental colour before being balanced in white light of Spirit and fading out in turn. Soror C.R. had powerful experiences during each elemental consecration following the Solomonic, G.D., and Enochian formulae.
During the invocation of fire, she felt warmth on her cheek and saw a burst of fire over the daggers. During the invocation of water, she felt moisture on the back of her neck and then a feeling of being submerged underwater. During the invocation of air, she felt a current of wind she described as “overwhelming.” During the invocation of earth, she felt a sensation of earth being rubbed on her cheek and smelling fresh earth as if pulled from a garden.
Soror C.R. also noted that during the fire invocation, the fire hexagrams, invoking fire pentagram, and Michael (Archangel in the Southern Fire) astral images lit up and resonated with the shift in the energy. She observed similar ‘sympathetic glowing and resonating’ for the hexagrams, pentagrams, and Archangels of the other elements during their invocations.
In a very insightful comment, Soror C.R. later wrote that the ceremony revealed to her that “it is best not to try to force the visualizations, but rather to open to them in a receptive state and let them come to you.” When they came, the images did not come as she had expected or predicted. While she had expected to see the water energy express as an external symbol like a waterfall, instead, it came as a sense of being submerged and floating in the ocean.
Throughout all of the stages of the ritual, Soror C.R. and I both reported feeling a sense of the Light of Kether radiating downwards and enlivening the astral images build up and overlayered by the stages of the ceremony from up above us in the center of the Temple space.
When I created the Vortex of Light through the Mystic Circumambulation formula from the Neophyte Grade Ritual, Soror C.R. later described seeing the golden vortext of light swirling around the Temple space as I rapidly circumambulated along the boundaries of the circle, projecting the Sign of the Enterer on each passing of the East, and projecting a white triangle, symbolizing the influence of the Supernal Sephirot, up and into the center of the Temple space above us. Soror C.R. and I would draw energy from this central Triangle and then project it into the working as needed.
As the consecrations and invocations of the elements came to a close with the Earth Invocation, Soror C.R. reported seeing a bright green and smelling pine, feeling like a branch of pine needles were rubbing up against her cheek.
The invocations of multiple spirits and Divine Names from the Lesser Key of Solomon produced a great feeling of exaltation that made me swoon slightly as if dizzy; Soror C.R. later reported feeling a tingling sensation and light-headedness coming over her during these sections, which very much mirrored my own experience. Reflecting on these phases of the ceremony, she later wrote that she distinctly felt that “we were not alone.” I saw what seemed like sparks of white and silver light just outside the circle and even tendril-like ‘energy snakes’ like those that Donald Michael Kraig had once described. Perhaps some Elementals were attracted by the invocations and consecrations…
The Planetary invocations were similarly powerful; each planetary energy had a distinct feel, distinct colour in clairvoyance, and a unique character, such as the loving, green Venusian energy and the abundant, confident, electric blue Jupiterian energy. I equilibrated the Planetary energy in the daggers after each invocation so that they didn’t nullify one another.
The ceremony was not without surprise. Towards the end of the ritual, when I had intended to recite sections from the four Elemental Prayers in the Elemental Grades of the Golden Dawn from a printed sheet–prayers themselves drawn from translations of Eliphas Levi, as Pat Zalewksi had pointed out to me–I realized that only the first prayer had printed! But, as every practical magician knows, when things like this happen, there is no way forward but to flow and adapt with how things unfold. This I did, improvising and ad-libbing prayers in the same spirit as the Elemental Prayers for Water, Fire, and Earth.
The result had a pleasant side-effect; although this represented a deviation from my planned script for the ritual, the result was a deeper tuning into the energies of the elemental forces, and to love and faith to speaking from the heart, which only added to the collective effect of the ritual. Overall, upon its completion, I felt the ritual was a great success. The last few Qabalistic Crosses in the final banishing rituals felt more powerful for Soror C.R. and made the visualizations more intense for her.
Towards the end of the ceremony, Soror C.R. later reported that she felt some sadness at the state of peace into which she had entered in the altered ritual state of consciousness might leave her. In this moment, she had a vision of the presence of her aunt, grandfather, and grandmother standing beside her. They carried reassurance with their presence; their message was “it will be okay, you can still tune into this peaceful presence…”
By the end of the ritual, when all the consecrations and invocations of the elements were complete, Soror C.R. reported feeling a synthesis of her earlier astral imagery; she felt as if she were submerged under water, holding the pine branch, warmed by fire, and blown by a gust of wind, with the white light of spirit tying all together in Tiferetic harmony.
At the end of the LBRP, Soror C.R. repeated feeling as if she were “totally protected, absolutely safe, like a child” safely ensconced in the protective embrace of loving parents. The feeling moved her because she said she had not felt like that in a long time. I felt much the same.
***
As we picked the daggers off of the Altar after the ceremony, the effect it had produced was unmistakable. The daggers positively seemed to hum with energy! The energy felt balanced and equilibrated, however, exactly as we had aimed to achieve. We wrapped the daggers in white and put them away so that from this moment, none but their intended owners would touch them.
This ceremony was very intense for me. I projected my deep love for Soror C.R. and my deep brotherly love for Frater F.S.S.F. into every movement of the ritual, Willing as intensely as I could that these daggers should help, protect, and energize them and me in our workings.
While the energy in the daggers was well-balanced; the balance of elemental energies in my own Sphere of Sensation seemed temporarily thrown off. When the ritual came to a close, I felt both drained and simultaneously lightheaded, like a pleasant feeling of overwhelm, both airy and fiery at once, with a backnote of deeply spiritual peace behind it. As this faded out in the two hours that followed, however, a deep sense of vulnerability, of very sensitive and tender emotional rawness crept in like a descending wall of fog.
An hour after that, I documented that all of my senses felt intensified. My emotions seemed heightened and unimpeded. Much to my surprise, the simple act of smelling sheets fresh out of the dryer was so intense that it was an almost overwhelming experience. Gazing at my aura around my hands, I saw sparks of white electric-like energy snapping around it.
It was very clear to me that my energy was imbalanced and I was having flare-ups of airy, firey, earthy, and watery sensations, emotions, thoughts, and experiences. Thus, by 6 hours after the ritual, I did some grounding and equilibration work with the Qabalistic Cross and some hearty laughter. As a result, the unstable elemental energy seemed like it began to subside and equilibrate into a gentler state of balanced calm.
Still, this ceremony was an intense one, so intense that neither Soror C.R. nor I were able to sleep through the night. By the following night, however, we were sleeping like babies once more. Ah magic… never a dull moment.
***
For more on the design of the Dagger, see this journal entry.
For a complete breakdown of the steps performed in this Ceremonial Consecration of Banishing and Invoking Dagger using G.D., Enochian, and Lesser Key of Solomon formulae, see this post.
Light in Extension: A Magical Journal 