Journal Helios Unbound: A pagan Abramelin operation (+ Frater Acher's Holy Daimon)

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I've found myself wanting to write some thoughts that don't really belong in the more fact-based and helpful-to-others Book Club thread:

Book Club - Helios Unbound: some helpful notes and Qs

First the helpful notes! I thought I might as well post my process overview notes. This is just the material from the front of each chapter, expanded a bit after reading the chapter in full Note that it took going through the text quite thoroughly to fill in all the extra info that wasn't...

wizardforums.com

So I figured I'd start this.

I'm not sure how interesting it'll be given I'm likely to keep the majority of my experiences private, but we'll see!

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2024

My Approach and thoughts on the 3x2 month structure

So one thing I noticed when reading The Sacred Book of Abramelin the Mage, Frater Acher's Holy Daimon (and his free essay, The Everyday Path to the HGA) (and also 21st Century Mage by Jason Newcomb) is the way they're structured

Abramelin has three sections of two months each, ramping up in intensity. In the first, you're just finding your feet, and not expected to really know what you're doing or have it all nailed, but you should be feeling it by the second stage.

Holy Daimon / Everyday Path also has 3 stages, called:
TRUST
JOY
DARKNESS
(followed by the final 1-week stage, ENCOUNTER, the actual invocation)

In Helios Unbound, there are 7 months, with the first two being "finding your feet with the rituals" and a month of elemental balancing rites

HD's TRUST is partly about trusting your Holy Daimon, releasing yourself into their hands, but it's primarily about trusting yourself - do I keep my commitments? Can I trust myself to generally handle my shit? Do I know how to act like an adult? Can I handle power responsibly? Do I own the choices I make when i exercise power? (one exercise in TRUST involves holding two eggs and making the choice to destroy one of them and protect and coddle the other one for the rest of the day - with resonance to the Orphic egg)

It seems to me that TRUST has the same goal as HU's elemental balancing: getting your shit together in Malkuth. The minimum age requirement in Abramelin is (optimistically) assuming you'll have your shit together too.

JOY, the second stage of HD, consists mainly of a kind of singing magic, first psalms, then to the planets, then just the sun, culminating with reaching out directly to the sun. Acher says that when you use meditation etc to empty yourself, it's not safe to remain an empty vessel, and you have to "seal the vessel with joy". The singing is meant to be a joyful practice. The purpose to me seems very much to be "inflaming thyself with prayer".

Month 3 in HU includes a month of vowel singing based on the PGM, activating your own energy centre's, then your Holy Daimon's,* then marrying them together. The power of the human voice is important in both HU and HD.
I won't get into the DARKNESS stage yet.

But these parallels are why I'm comfortable combining the Holy Daimon process with Helious Unbound: they're complimentary.

The requirements of Holy Daimon are not onerous - daily meditation, the singing, and occasional extra exercises like the day spent protecting the unbroken egg. So I'm currently doing both, and aligning them to the appropriate phase. Helios Unbound is the core rite, and the only one I've sworn an oath to complete - if life gets busy I'll drop the Holy Daimon exercises but not the HU ones.

* [note: Nick Farrell uses 'Higher Genius' and insists it's different from your HGA or Holy Daimon. But I think he's clearly interpreting them to the HGA to be the nativity angel, which they're not. I'm not sticking to his terminology because it doesn't inspire me]

Gallery of Magick's Mystical Words of Power and Magickal Destiny
I had already started Mystical Words of Power before I decided to begin HU so I'm seeing it through. It's not results magic - it's classic GOM "stare at a sigil" magic but to awaken qualities in you. There are 7 rites. By chance, they align very well with elemental balancing, which is why I decided to keep going
eg the GoM Healing Rite and Water balancing, 'Transformation' and Fire. They take like 60 seconds so there's no reason not to follow through

Having read Magickal Destiny, GoM's HGA book, I'm inclined to follow some of their protocols too (I could have titled this Journal "Spamming the HGA"). Again it seems like way too much but the protocols are actually super lightweight

Protocol 1 = "opening yourself and welcoming the presence of your HGA" which you really should be doing anyway.
Protocol 2 = asking your HGA for help with any of your "true needs" (things that will help your spiritual attainment). Again this is really just a reminder to stay attuned to the HGA even when you're outside of the temple and your thrice-daily invocations. Protocol 4 is "offering your pain to the HGA". It just means that throughout your day, your mind is continually turning to your HGA - when you're in pain, when you need help. I would say that rather than adding to the burden of Helios Unbound, Magickal Destiny protocols are actually a structure that makes it easier to keep your HGA in mind as you should be doing anyway

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2024

(the main reason for this is the fact that I'm currently unemployed. That's unlikely to last through the whole seven months, so I'm taking advantage of the time I have available now. While there's an argument to be made for "if you start out too intense, you'll have nowhere to go but down", I think it's also the case that work put into meditation and ritual when you have free time pays dividends when you're busy and already have your skills developed)

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2024

Emotions in Solar Invocation

Yesterday I was running a full-day workshop on newsletters (feel free to ask me for advice if you're starting a newsletter) which meant my noon solar invocation was done silently in a bathroom stall. I was just pleased with myself for getting it done at all.

But it occurred to me, what attitude did I bring to getting my solar invocation done? Really it was "I am determined to keep the obligations I promised I would keep". That's not a bad motivation. You could do worse.

But, I thought, what if instead i had brought the attitude of "I don't want to be apart from my Holy Daimon and I'll be sad to miss any opportunity to become closer to it, so I'm going to sneak away at noon and do my invocation" - an attitude of love and desire for the HGA, not one of obligation and duty. That would be better, I think.

So, thinking about keeping that attitude in focus: inflaming oneself with desire to complete the work, not just keeping your promises, as important as TRUST is.

 

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Elemental Balancing

Fire: Radical ownership of personal power and agency

Rather than “I was too tired, so I couldn’t do that” we can say something like “I chose not to do that because I was tired.”

Earth: Don't resent work for 'getting in the way' of your magical practice. Work supports your magical practice. Work is how you can afford to rent a flat with room for a temple space.

(I'm overbalanced in Air and healthy in Water, so they're not a focus)

 

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My Reading List for the next 6 months

"Scriptures"

Book of Psalms

Living Dialogue: Martin Buber's I and Thou (comparing two translations and explaining in plain English)

Embrace Yes: 5 Faces of God (Martin Lowenthal)​

Tao Te Ching (Ursula LeGuin translation)

Aurelius: Meditations

Spiritual Theory:

Eros and Psyche Myth As a Guide to Transformation (this myth features on Month 7 of Helios Unbound so i figure it's worth learning about)​

The Cosmic Shekinah

The Sacred Rose: The Soul's Path to Beauty and Wisdom

Dawning of Clear Light: A Western Approach to Tibetan Dark Retreat Meditation​

Black Sun: Alchemy & the Art of Darkness​

Angels & Mortals: Their Co-Creative Power (collection of Essays inc. one by Israel Regardie)​

Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination​

Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi (Islamic conception of the HGA and imagination as a spiritual faculty)​

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2024

Personal Development

Feeding Your Demons: ancient wisdom for resolving inner conflict - Tsultrim Allione

The Radical Art of Accepting Everything - Ann Weiser Cornell (refers to inner states and emotions, not external circumstances)​

On Becoming an Alchemist: A Guide for the Modern Magician

Elemental Equilibrium - Virgil

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Abramelin Diaries

Alex Sumner Abramelin Diary

Abramelin the Mage

After the Angel

Holy Daimon: MEMORY - Frater Acher Ramsey Dukes

(already read most of these but have listed them for my own reference)

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2024

(already read most of these but have listed them for my own reference)

already read most of the Abramelin Diaries, not most of the whole book list! Have read parts of most of these, enough to know it's relevant to mu current processes. Some I'm reading in stages, eg 3 Psalms per day.

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2024

I shorthanded one of those titles - it should be:

Alchemy of the Soul: The Eros and Psyche Myth As a Guide to Transformation​

 

[HoldAll]

Gallery of Magick's Mystical Words of Power and Magickal Destiny
I had already started Mystical Words of Power before I decided to begin HU so I'm seeing it through. It's not results magic - it's classic GOM "stare at a sigil" magic but to awaken qualities in you. There are 7 rites. By chance, they align very well with elemental balancing, which is why I decided to keep going
eg the GoM Healing Rite and Water balancing, 'Transformation' and Fire. They take like 60 seconds so there's no reason not to follow through

Having read Magickal Destiny, GoM's HGA book, I'm inclined to follow some of their protocols too (I could have titled this Journal "Spamming the HGA"). Again it seems like way too much but the protocols are actually super lightweight

Protocol 1 = "opening yourself and welcoming the presence of your HGA" which you really should be doing anyway.
Protocol 2 = asking your HGA for help with any of your "true needs" (things that will help your spiritual attainment). Again this is really just a reminder to stay attuned to the HGA even when you're outside of the temple and your thrice-daily invocations. Protocol 4 is "offering your pain to the HGA". It just means that throughout your day, your mind is continually turning to your HGA - when you're in pain, when you need help. I would say that rather than adding to the burden of Helios Unbound, Magickal Destiny protocols are actually a structure that makes it easier to keep your HGA in mind as you should be doing anyway

People have no idea how demanding and effective Protocol One can be. Really opening up to a supernatural being, to the closest ally you'll ever have? I bet many would prefer elaborate rituals and slaving away for months to baring their innermost soul on a daily basis.

Might I also recommend Protocol Five ("Perspective")? Makes it easier to imagine an actual interchange after you have imagine yourself to be the HGA for some time. That way, the HGA is not some distant entity you have to pray for/to for months but someone close by, someone you can almost touch. Damon Brand's book is about befriending the HGA, I'd say, instead of laboriously struggling for K&C Abramelin-style. Like it says in the PGM's Headless Rite (DigitalAmbler version): "Send to me my neverborn friend and guardian...". And good friends will always support you (Protocol Two).

People really shouldn't underestimate that Damon Brand book because it doesn't promise loads of suffering and hardship for months crowned by an unreal climactic apparition in the end. "No pain, no gain" has always seemed suspect to me... "Trust" and "Joy" makes a lot of sense when it comes to the HGA (now I wonder what Frater Acher means by "Darkness", have to read up about that now).

 

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People have no idea how demanding and effective Protocol One can be

I shouldn't have said "lightweight", more that I'm not adding on more elaborate rituals. This is also more or less the entirety of Alan Chapman's* "Core Protocol" method for K&C - the only thing he adds is coming up with a symbol that represents it for you. (In Helios Unbound, they give you one: Aion, the lion-faced deity holding a key with a snake wrapped around his body. But I don't think it has to be a whole creature for the Core Protocol, could just be eg the key on its own or a lion's face or literally anything that works for you)

*chaos guy, wrote Advanced Magic for Beginners

now I wonder what Frater Acher means by "Darkness", have to read up about that now)

Some facing your fears, some engaging with Saturn, and some literal darkness. He is where I got the recommendation for the book Dawning of Clear Light and doing a Darkness Retreat, and also the Feeding Your Demons practice. There's a more intense "find a place outdoors" version that may not be accessible to me due to gender and location (there's "facing your fears" and there's "putting yourself at actual risk") but we'll see - sometimes the opportunity unfolds when the moment for it arrives

Might I also recommend Protocol Five ("Perspective")?

I tried this, thank you! I looked... very small and overly-earnest and could see with enormous compassion how much I was trying so hard. I have been imagining my HGA as male-ish presenting (because of the Aion figure, and because I've heard it's generally the gender you're romantically inclined towards) but the sense was of distinctly female-feeling concern. However I'm not sure if that's just because I'm a woman, and I was not really invoking the HGA, just putting myself in its shoes. Regardless, it was definitely an intense perspective shift

 

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The third month requires significantly more discipline because it's primarily meditation (65 minutes for the main ritual)

The discipline isn't in the ritual itself, but in structuring your day

I can do an "active" ritual when exhausted, but if I meditate exhausted, I fall asleep, or at least drift so off course that I'm not focusing on the images I need to for long stretches. So, I can't afford to leave the main ritual till the end of the day and then get home at 11pm.

It's not a major thing, but it's a step up in dedication, planning your day from the beginning around ritual work, instead of putting it wherever it fits, and procrastination is a less viable option. (all of which you'd expect in the third month, according to the original Abramelin)

Post automatically merged: Mar 11, 2024

That said, the third month is feeling like the most powerful practice so far, by a lot. I don't want to get ahead of myself before it's complete, but wow

(First week, opening each of your middle pillar/ chakra centres, placing godform of HGA in it and enlivening the image.
Second week, the same, but for your "solar body", the HGA's body, which is a mirror image from the crown centre. Using vowel chanting from the PGM.

In the third week, you draw the solar body down into your lunar body, one day at a time. So on the first day, its crown overlaps your third eye. On the second, its crown is at your throat centre and it's third eye is at yours. Until by the end, its crown is at your Malkuth, heart overlaps heart, etc etc. That will be the stage where I'll really know what the effects are.

 

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I have a few times left the main ritual so late that I've been incredibly sleepy and unable to do it. To avoid breaking the vow, I've gone to sleep and woken up before dawn to complete it.* (With my longstanding belief that a "day" is marked from sunrise to following sunrise**, not midnight to midnight)

Weirdly, these rituals have always gone very well, which feels unearned.

Given that, I've tried doing rituals at dawn since apparently I like that - but don't get the same effect.

Maybe it's something about the level of necessity ("this is absolutely your last chance to complete this without breaking your vow") that adds intensity

(On occasions when I have done the ritual late at night despite sleepiness, they go badly - I tend to rush so I can sleep)

* Obviously I'm aware this is not ideal but it's unhelpful to pretend I'm doing everything perfectly

** In Sumerian/Babylon, a day was sunset to sunset. I've tried operating on this in the past but I found it difficult because of the lack of alignment to work calendar etc. it's easier if the day turnover happens when you're asleep than during dinner.

 

[stratamaster78]

I’m having a similar experience with my much less involved Daily Invocation of my HGA.

It’s more an early stages Freestyle Adoration.

But most days I’m scrambling to get done before going to bed and so I’m frantic and rushing to get started.

Once I get past my Ritual Opening the Breathwork has calmed me and my mind has focused but I’m also deeply in trance probably due to tiredness and fatigue.

Yesterday’s Invocation was freaking amazing though.

I just spontaneously visualized a few new things that I haven’t before and it just enhanced everything.

I also just randomly added some new dialogue to the Invocation that seeped out of my subconscious from Liber Samekh.

But anyways yes I do agree that the sort of desperation to keep to an oath of sorts on an agreed timeframe + fatigue somehow intensifies everything.

 

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I've finished Month 3 (technically only 3 weeks). This was an amazing operation ,- it's hard to talk about without sounding idk self-aggrandizing but any doubts I have about the process are gone.

(Actually I did write more but decided it was too personal and deleted it)

When I say doubts are gone: today, first day of Month 4 and the planetary invocations, felt very empty and blah. That's normal for the first time I do any new ritual, but I still feel sad and anticlimactic today as a result. It's not all golden glory from here on out. But sadness/emptiness is different from "is this whole thing a farce and I'm being ridiculous and wasting 6 months of my life" etc etc

I think this could work for people doing HGA work outside of Helios Unbound. (Nick Farrell would no doubt disagree). You'd need to have done:

• some variant on the Middle Pillar for 2+ months
• some form of HGA Invocation for 2+ months
• read the appropriate chapter and adapt for the energy centres you've been working with
• patience in parsing Farrell's explanation, especially since you'll be coming at it without the previous context

Post automatically merged: Mar 28, 2024

It’s more a [...] Freestyle Adoration

This what I think is missing from Helios Unbound. (I know I just said I didn't have any doubts in the process haha. But the "process" has included me making changes when I felt it was necessary for personal emotional resonance, and clearly that's paid off)

It doesn't come naturally to me, and it's easy to avoid doing since it's not part of the official operation. But I think it's important. My intention is to begin including this - extemporaneous prayer - in whichever of the sunrise/sunset sessions the main ritual isn't in. The Jewish term is "Hitbodedut" so I've been watching YouTube videos of how people do that (I know I know, this is like "planning to be spontaneous").

The term was popularized by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810) to refer to an unstructured, spontaneous, and individualized form of prayer and meditation through which one would establish a close, personal relationship with God and ultimately see the Divinity inherent in all being.

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Post automatically merged: Mar 29, 2024

Thinking idly about what I would add or change if I were going to swap out an entire month of the operation (not with a serious intent to - add a month maybe, but not remove one)

And that analysis made the structure click for me and realise why you probably couldn't

You're rising through the spheres:
M2: Elements
M4: Sublunar forces - they're planetary Invocations but it's not the spirit of the planet itself, it's the earthly Kings who mediate how that power plays out down here
M5: Lunar Mansions
M6: Decans - so here it's the planets and their place among the fixed stars
M7: Angelic forces

So, you could only add something in if it was spaced between those hierarchies.
Or if it was a temporary lateral move (M3, the creation of a solar body for your HGA and uniting with it, doesn't really fit in the hierarchy, but it doesn't interrupt it either)

This realisation has made me feel a lot better about the astrology focus (it's mainly the Decans I'm not looking forward to). It's less about learning your chart - which I already know well - and more about introducing yourself to relevant powers at each level and asking for their support in finding and accomplishing your true will. The value is clearer to me now

(As an intellectual exercise I am still going to think about what new month-long operation I would add in and where, but "take a month longer for no good reason" doesn't hold much appeal)

 

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Not learning a tonne from the planetary invocations to be honest!

It's mostly stuff I already know. Only two notably new things. My problem is not a lack of insight into my own unhelpful behaviours, it's just that knowing is not the same as acting.

I guess it's just that this is a set program. Self-awareness is a strength of mine, so this is not uncovering much. For someone who doesn't introspect often, it would be vital.

Whereas I found last month incredible and game-changing - no doubt some other Helios Unbound dedicant was saying "isn't this basically covering old ground?" Individual dedicants will find different operations to be more or less valuable to them personally.

Each planetary king is invoked four times (it's a 28-day operation). I think next week I'm going to take a more mystical/magical approach to the evocations, rather than an information-seeking approach.

 

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What is a symbol?
If we say a symbol means “this” or “that,” we are essentially relegating it to the status of a sign. A sign merely conveys information. For example, treated as a sign, “red” means Geburah which means strength.

A true symbol is more than this: it is imbued with a visceral vitality, from which many meanings may arise but which none in particular may fully exhaust.

One might say that, magically, a true symbol is“charged,” it has a potency which can cause Change.

A symbol is not simply an image but a felt experience in itself.

-- Fresh Fever from the Skies: The Collected Writings of IAO131 (CH. 25)

 

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So I began this when I learned that one of the TV shows I write for got the axe, suddenly freeing up a lot of time.

But it was a gamble because I didn't know when my second show was going to start production. You'd think it'd be the same every year but it's all over the place. And it's long hours, I honestly had no idea what I was going to do if the season restarted and I still had a month of Abramelin/Helios to go.

I just learned when they need me for the next season. It's the day after the final Helios ritual.

I'm hesitant to say this happened "for" me - a lot of people work on those shows who are equally affected by the cancellation/start dates - but, well, I can't help but think it's a sign that the first show got cancelled a couple of weeks after I started seriously considering doing the operation "one day".

Catherine McCoun (Becoming an Alchemist) would probably say that when the timing of the shows opened up a 7-month window, future me went back in time to drop that book in my path. (Except it's not really "back"in time because linear time is an illusion)

 

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The thing about summoning a spirit every night (daimons of the Mansions of the Moon) is that the advice comes in a lot faster than you can act on it.

Last night was Bethnael, daimon of Al Balda, The City. Bethnael is two-faced like Janus, looking backwards and forwards, endings and beginnings. During ritual, the idea came into my head suddenly that I should circumnambulate my neighbourhood countersunwise, to undo tired thought loops and moved on. This is a very Janus thing to do (Roman festival of walking around the city walls, I think part of Terminalia, festival to a different god of boundaries?)

As is so often the case, it's very plausible this idea was naturally occurring from my own brain - I know about those Roman festivals, and I'm pretty sure there's a fairytale that involves breaking a curse by flying around a castle (or maybe I'm just thinking of Pratchett's Weird Sisters?)

But it came into my head sharply enough that I decided I had to treat it as a communication and do it. So that was my morning. I recited a prayer / Orphic hymn to Janus, Hekate or Hermes at each of the corners - that wasn't part of the original thought injection, but it made me feel a bit more like I was doing 'something'.

Did it work? Who knows. It would take a while to learn whether you've actually broken out of an old habit loop or not. At the very least I'm showing a spirit of willingness that might encourage future guidance. (No one likes being asked advice by someone who didn't follow the first three pieces of advice you gave.)

 

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The quality [flavour, not skill level] of the barbaric words in my solar adorations has changed. They feel less like a projecting out of energy, and more like an opening up, becoming receptive to energy.

 

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Oh wow. Eight weeks left, including the retreat (3 days full isolation, with extended pathworking and invocations). That went really fast, but simultaneously feels like it's been going on forever. Starting to get a little nervous. Not OF anything exactly - just because this big process and my daily life for so long is coming to a point.

In the trad Abramelin, the final two months is when things really begin to intensify.

I've been thinking about confession and what it meant for early Abramelin practitioners. It was about mental purity, removing guilt.

Well, what causes me guilt and mental burden is not "sin", it's long-standing tasks that i haven't got around to, emails i haven't replied to that i really should. Those are the things that weigh on me the way that sinful thoughts might have weighed on an old Catholic.

(The "brain dump" technique - throwing every single task into an unsorted list to just it out of your head - is very like the confession described by Abramelin practitioners, and is probably with doing before any ritual)

It's my belief that the final invocation will not be successful unless i can clear those tasks - that's the purification of the vessel. But that doesn't mean actually doing them all (most people have more tasks they feel guilty about than a person is physically capable of doing in a finite lifespan).

I think it means each one should be faced and decided on: either completed, or a plan/schedule made for its completion, or a decision made that it will never be completed (if i haven't replied to an email that's 3 months old, they're probably only expecting a reply at this point anyway). An honest accounting.

Mundane, but that's the Prima Materia: your life is your raw material. I believe that the HGA process is about becoming whole, not ascending to the point of disregarding Malkuth.

Two months left. Okay.

 

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I haven't updated much because increasingly the important things that have happened would require giving my life backstory or whole cosmology theories to explain why they're a big deal.

Due to illness, I missed a few of the Decan evocations (the ritual is based on lengthy chanting and I had tonsillitis) so i made up a threshold rite to ensure it would be okay to move on from Month 6 to Month 7

Month 6, the decans, is the zodiac level, so i did a kind of full-stack invocation to Raziel (archangel of Chokmah, Sphere of the Fixed Stars), the four royal stars and the 12 angels of the zodiac, including reading the Orphic hymn to the Stars and the Aurum Solis "Houses of the Sun" litany.

I saw all the various entities as points of light against a blue-black sky, and when I asked if they could change my sphere of sensation so that I could pass on to the next sphere, the points of light starting zipping through me, leaving holes, and stitching me to the Firmament with threads of light.

So i took that as confirmation that I can move on, and I'm now in the final month, and at long last performing the Headless Rite daily.

The Headless Rite is followed by an adaptation of the Sword of Dardanos, a love spell from the PGM, except you and your Holy Daimon are the targets

(PS i don't think I've been "initiated into Chokmah" which would entail crossing the Abyss - I'm not quite sure what it means to rise up through Lunar, Planetary, Zodiac levels in Helios Unbound. Maybe it's like a spiritual hall pass)

 

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So I can report back after the final retreat and invocation

It wasn't a success, but not a complete failure either, in that I got instruction on what I need to do for the next 3 or 4 months (mainly an intensified and deepened focus on one of the earlier months)

("Instruction" in the form of ideas popping into my head fully formed, rather than stepped through logically. Not someone speaking to me from a ball of light or anything)

As much as I told myself I didn't have any expectations, and that the learning and discipline along the way made it worthwhile regardless of the outcome (true), I am still pretty bummed about it

A couple of days before the final invocation, I had a vision of my HGA (mind's eye) and they appeared as a minor recurring character from a TV show, but with wings I'm not sure what to do with that. I'm naturally fairly resistant to the idea, just out of embarrassment ("my HGA is Admiral Ackbar") [it wasn't Ackbar, but I'm not telling you who it actually was] and also because the character is kind of one-note so it doesn't seem like a great WWJD reference point

But I'm aware that a) I never really imagine new faces, my brain can't come up with them, so anything wanting a face in my imagination would be forced to borrow one from somewhere
and b) I had a reading from Tommie Kelly (40 Servants) beforehand that was clear on not letting preconceptions interfere with the real experience

I can see also that a one-note character could be what I need right now - and it may change later. But I'm also wary of getting distracted by a self-created thoughtform.

So I don't know if I should lean into deliberately visualising that character or not. It's hard to just "let whatever happen" because i'm so aware of the possibility of that image that i'm kind of either creating it or rejecting it, there's no neutral

I posted this update to the Helios Unbound private facebook group, and Nick Farrell said if there was communication, then it was a success, even if there was no intense altered state or visions or anything. Idk, i see the logic. But then, it's his book, he'd want to frame it as a success.

I'm not feeling particularly motivated to keep doing my daily practice - especially because I had looked forward to shifting gear and having time for practical magic, which I won't have much time for if I want to keep up the theurgy (and like, keep my job etc). It's not a massive problem (daily practice relies on discipline, not motivation) -but yeah, feeling a bit blah.

Anyway that's my update! I wanted to post even though it's not super-exciting because there's a survivorship bias problem in Abramelin reports.

 

[WonderFire]

I've found your journal really interesting as I'm working towards K&C with HGA (kind of, sort of, very non traditional in every possible sense). Thank you for writing frankly about it, as there are only a few accounts that get into the gritty difficulties of the whole process.

For what it's worth maybe try checking out Aaron Leitch's account of his experience in that Cecchetelli's compendium "Holy Guardian Angel". He also got what sounds like a pretty weak contact at the end of his Abramelin process and later on it got a lot stronger. He considers this pretty normal and has some thoughts on how to deal with it. He also notes how he was told by his Santero mentor not to expect too many fireworks and impressive visions at the culmination.

Did you get better contact in the meantime? Tried getting a reading from neutral 3rd party to check if the contact was legit?