So there's two schools of thought on this, both held by experienced, knowledgeable people who are worth listening to, but completely disagree. So there's probably no one right answer.
I won't give my own opinion because I'm not an adept, but I can give you competing arguments between adepts, so you can see the logic of both and decide which makes the most sense with your paradigm
Nick Farrell: GD, pro Saturn-banishing
When you perform a magical act, you are creating a change in the status quo and challenging the natural Saturnian force. Some of these limitations will exist in the magician, others from society and on a broader scale the natural flow of the universe. By rendering the space antagonistic to Saturnian inertia you are giving your magic a chance.
But it is important to realise that with the lesser banishing ritual of the hexagram you are creating chaos which allows the universe to be reassembled in the image that the magician wishes. For some types of magic a lesser banishing ritual of the hexagram beforehand would not be a good idea. If you are trying to use magic to take control of an already chaotic situation, it would be unwise to banish Saturn because you are making matters worse.
There is an additional point which applies more when you have made magic your life. That is that continual attempts to change the universe, or the move to do something significant creates a backlash from those Saturn forces which seek to keep things the same.
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Performing a daily lesser banishing ritual of the hexagram would help prevent this backlash before it becomes too crippling, you will always face this particular issue (it is part of the natural way the universe works), but at least it will not harm you too much.
- it's also in Helios Unbound
Scott Stenwick: Thelemite, advocates for LBRP+LIRH to create "operant field" -
"As far as I can tell from my entire history of working magick, the "Saturn backlash" discussed in Nick's article is not a real thing. I've never experienced it myself, so I don't see a need to banish it. I do magick all the time, and I use it to get an edge in as many situations as I possibly can. You would think if it was real I would have run into it by now.
I am equally convinced that the LRH is not "really" related to Saturn. The LRH is elemental, not planetary.
It's a general ritual for banishing and invoking macrocosmic elemental forces, complementing the microcosmic elemental forces called on the form of the archangels in the LRP.
Saturn rules limitations and the like, so you could maybe loosely associate it that way, but that's not where I think the power of the LBRH comes from. It comes from banishing all four elements in a macrocosmic arrangement. The elements, planets, and zodiac are three separate systems that operate at different "levels" or "scales" of reality and are complete in and of themselves. So all four elements includes everything. You're banishing everything, not a particular planet. Banishing Saturn would technically only banish forces and/or qualities specific to Saturn, and anyway you would use the GRH-Saturn for that in the Thelemic system, not the LRH.
And then
"From a Hermetic perspective the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram represents the psychological realm or microcosm and the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram represents the physical realm or macrocosm. Together the rituals set up a space in which the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm is defined that I call a field.
Banishing Field (LBRP/LBRH): This is how most magicians begin their rituals when working with the Golden Dawn forms. It is, in effect, the "full shutdown" - it clears mental and spiritual forms from both the interior and exterior worlds. In can be used to completely cleanse a temple, banish spirits permanently, or neutralize a magical effect that is targeting the magician. What it also does, though, is shut down any ongoing spells that the magician has running unless they are bound to talismans or some anchor other than the magician's consciousness. If you are casting a spell that you want to work over the next week, don't end the ritual with this combination under any set of circumstances unless you're convinced you made a mistake and want to stop the spell. The effect that you just set in motion will be negated when the field goes up.
The operant field (LBRP/LIRH) clears the interior world and then merges it the with the exterior world, setting up a space in which thought can more easily become material reality. All of the energy of a spell cast within this field is targeted on the macrocosm so magick done this way influences the outside world better.
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Again I'm not giving an opinion - I use my own weirdo triangular prism rite for invoking macrocosmic energy - I just put Nick Farrell's first because Scott responds directly to it
