Journal Random though of a novice.

[Philou]

Most of my practice comes either from Golden Dawn material, random stuff I read here and there, random low magic I know from local folklore and mostly revelations. I might use this thread as a magical journal later, at the moment I don't feel comfortable doing it, it feels too personal.

Here are my ideas and thoughts after 2 years of High Magic and 3 years of Alchemy.

BTW I'm not a native english speaker, even in my native language I sound austitic, enjoy.

Most of the vampiric stuff is bullshit, once I read something interesting with an inverted pentagram and AWAKE written, but I could never find it again, I might have dreamed it.

If it wasn't for the planetary hours, I still wouldn't be sure if magic is real or if it's all in your head.

Associating planets with sephiroth makes no sense. Binah is not Saturnian.

I have never read anything interesting about Wicca or Chaos Magick. I am not trying to be provocative here, it is probably a "me" issue.

I have no idea why people find Quaeria interesting. It is clearly not for me. She gives you a ritual at the beginning, but a symbolic explanation 600 pages later. It is so far removed from everything I know about how magick is supposed to work that she is either a hack or we are on 2 different and incompatible paradigms. I am trying to be provocative here, I hated it with all my guts, I can't explain why.

Astrology is misunderstood by almost everyone.

I know Jean Dubuis says "all occultists know that the trans-Saturnian planets are corpses" but I never understood what he meant, why has no one tried to include these planets in planetary magic?

I find the Nordic/Germanic runes to be utterly unusable, if you read 10 books about them, you end up with 30 definitions for each rune, 28 of which are related to fertility.

When practicing LHR, I never thought of it as elemental or planetary, to me it is about of the fall of man.

At first, I despised MPR. I thought it was a pale copy of a chakra meditation with a bad kabbalic attribution, but after a year of including it in my daily ritual nonetheless, it is probably the most powerful part now.

I am pretty sure that Abrahamelin is a fake document, and the author is not Jewish at all.

The Eucharist must be the most powerful ritual, although I have not yet reached it.

The ritual has no power, it is the means of accumulating and structuring energy. The state of mind we are in when we begin the ritual is more important than a supposed mispronunciation of Hebrew or a misattribution of angels.

Alchemy is a waste of time. 80% of alchemy books are fake, the rest are too cryptic to be understood without being initiated. I find Dubuis' Spagyrics to be the only interesting thing on the subject.

Since I started High Magic, I have started having these terrible panic attacks every time it is the hour of the moon. I do not know why.

Kabbalah is the only "religion" I understand and feel close to, and I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that.

I am able to gather ideas from someone/something else. I can't explain it but I can categorize it.
Either it comes in the form of a random memory that I suddenly unlock and can explore.
Either it's more of a broken dialogue with someone who would only speak using memes that I know of. As if they're only able to communicate with me using though I already have expressed. It's like talking to someone on Discord who only responds with custom emojis from the server and no words.
Maybe I found a way to purposely induce hallucinations on myself.

 

[Philou]

Random new though I want to share.

I never understood the hype with LBRP.
I mean, I do, I do the Lesser Pentagram Ritual everyday but I’m talking about earth banishing. Why are people so obsessed with banishing earth all the time?
Why would you want to banish an element for starters?
Banishing goetic spirit? Sure, I wouldn’t invoke them in the first place.
Banishing planetary entities or energy? Okay, if you invoke Mars or Saturn, you clearly don’t want to spend the rest of the day under their energy.
But elemental energy? I mean what’s the worst that can happen? You being dynamize in a certain way you don’t want? Okay, excess of a certain energy, okay, why not, but the thing : is you accumulate energy during the ritual, starting with the earth banishing means getting ride of chthonian energy before you even started accumulating anything.
People argue it’s about getting rid of bad entities present in the room with you, in order to start the ritual on an empty slate.
Sure, why not, but what’s the link between bad entities and the earth element ?
When banishing earth you banish dwarves and nothing more.
I guess the idea is that the element of earth is supposed to be where energies ends up being stored in the wild. I’ve never rode something about this, but I can feel it’s the idea.
The thing is, if its what you want, you don’t want to banish gnomes, you want to purify the place, and this is another process.
When practicing the LBRP you’re supposed to start with the qabbalistic cross. It makes perfect sense. My inner Eliphas Levi is really happy with this. But the QC Is essentially a prayer to the qabbalistic God, the ain sof.
Even if you skip it (which makes my inner Eliphas Levi really sad), You still vibrate YOD HE WOW HE, ADONAI, EHEIHE and ATAH GIBOR LEOLAM ADONAI. Which purpose is to make the presence of god -the shekinah- come down on you.
Even if you also skip it because of monotheism aversion – I feel you- you still invoke 4 archangel … there’s no reason for any evil, bad, undesirable entity to still be around at this point.

Another Argument I heard is because banishing earth is inoffensive, and while learning to execute the LPR, it’s better to practice with something useless.
I can get the general idea but, I cannot agree less.
What are you learning exactly if you’re trying poorly (since you’re supposed to be learning and making mistakes) to banish an energy you not present around you or elementals you didn’t invoked first ?

You’re not doing anything in fact. What are you learning then? To pronounce Hebrew? What’s the point of doing the whole LBRP, you can find a random Jewish guy on YouTube and repeat after him.

Banishing earth is useless.

While searching in books about this issue I found this citation.

There is an emphasis on Invoking Pentagrams rather than Banishing ones. Modern Golden Dawn orders have an obsession with banishing and hardly ever perform an invoking one. Yet all the early material suggests it was always the other way around and that both the Invoking and the Banishing provided protection - nick Farrell, Mathers' Last Secret revised, 299

Now, as far as I can trace it, it seems this banishing mania comes from Moryason.
I like its Tiphareth/solar unicursal pentagram, so I forgive him. (Invoking of course, why on earth would you want to banish Tiphareth, what does it mean to banish Tiphareth anyway? You’re trying to banish the sun? What are you? A fucking Skyrim vampire? wtf man)

 

[Philou]

I had multiples visions of demons.
I believe they’re demons because they were mean looking and those visions made me feel bad but who am I to change entities by their look.
They were not demon-coded in a stereotypical sense, so I don’t believe they’re from subconscious/cultural origin but are indeed entities.
Of course, they can also be random figment from my imagination and I’m paying attention now because of magick.

I’m not sure why I see demons, I only do GD magick with a kabalistic accent and random theurgy, never evil shit.
So I would have 3 hypothesis.
I do evil shit without realizing it and that’s why they’re coming.
I’m slowly gaining ability to see stuff so I’m beginning to see things that were already there.
I’m gaining magickal rizz and it’s the reason they’re coming.

I don’t know for sure.

 

[jkeller293]

The ritual has no power, it is the means of accumulating and structuring energy. The state of mind we are in when we begin the ritual is more important than a supposed mispronunciation of Hebrew or a misattribution of angels.

I agree with your stance here.

I am able to gather ideas from someone/something else. I can't explain it but I can categorize it.

Im the same way, might just be an autistic thing. I think it all depends on how you train yourself to be. If you spend alot of time trying to comprehend things which are very alien to you, you will end up becoming better at simply comprehension. What i believe to be the main focus before all which i preach alot about is your grounding philosophy which you can relate to the idea of initiation in the occult. I believe in trying to initiate yourself into a different way of thinking before trying to comprehend a occult concept or any concept you wish to comprehend. Whatever way of thinking you choose will limit what you can do in this world we live in. I always have a question in my mind like "if i could believe i could fly with no doubt in my mind at all, could i do that?" Now this may sound silly, but i am very serious. This is not something i can simply percieve to work or not work — and if it is possible, is it limited to what the other individual minds (so we or "I" think exist) at large think is possible? I thought about this based on the idea of the major religions like the abrahamic ones being focused on one central Godhead for worship — i wondered if this had an effect of making everything described in scripture a reality if it was not before the religions existed as we know them today. What i am questioning is the aspect of demons and angels only existing due the emergence of these religions — like one huge ongoing ritual which charges these things into becoming real entities by those unaware of that aspect (if true).

I’m not sure why I see demons, I only do GD magick with a kabalistic accent and random theurgy, never evil shit.
So I would have 3 hypothesis.
I do evil shit without realizing it and that’s why they’re coming.
I’m slowly gaining ability to see stuff so I’m beginning to see things that were already there.
I’m gaining magickal rizz and it’s the reason they’re coming.

For your first hypothesis i may suggest it may rather have to do with something which may be against what the demons want. Now i did hear people say they do not believe in the dicotomy of good and evil, but i find it very clear what evil can be. Like you would not go and kill a sibling just because you are jealous of him — that would be evil. But then again you could live in a tribe were they honor a battle to the death between siblings over a jealous dispute. Not to rant to much to you, but thats why i mentioned above that i believe how you see the world is how it limits you.

If i were to suggest another reason why the demons are showing up, i suggest it is your own obsession of studying magic which may make things much clearier which would relate to you saying "i'm gaining magical rizz." You may have just disconnected yourself with the main matrix of thought or mainstream thinking — which i can relate back to myself talking about my question of collective worship to a central Godhead making entities manifest. I was brought up catholic and i know most people that are brought up in the christain religion are not faithful with the practices like muslims are at large — so i know nothing about your background but whatever religion you were brought up on will have a strong effect on your subconscious, its not easy to just shed that off as its a major part of your life. So not many people that call themselves christain believe magick exists at all and well if you are brought up in that then turned to believing in magick, you would probably have the images which you seen in church art imprinted into your subconscious along with what those images represent. Just some food for thought for you.

I might use this thread as a magical journal later, at the moment I don't feel comfortable doing it, it feels too personal.

If you do i would enjoy hearing from you.

Post automatically merged: Apr 29, 2025

evil shit

And if you were brought up christain as i was, the common teaching was magick was a evil practice. So if that is the case, then that may one of the possible denominators.

 

[Diamond-otherkin]

Very interesting, I'm reading the books by Alan Chapman and Duncan (sorry forgot your/his name), I don't know if you read them The Baptist head, I think it's like The Blood of the Saints + The Urn + Desert of Roses.
I find the format highly readable and it allowed me to sort a lot of ideas that I had read elsewhere into a more 'real -yet magical- like' kind of way.
Nice read thanks.

 

[Lurker]

I never understood the hype with LBRP.
I mean, I do, I do the Lesser Pentagram Ritual everyday but I’m talking about earth banishing. Why are people so obsessed with banishing earth all the time?

Hello, I think I can help here. I'll start with the caveat - the style of high magick that I've practiced is Ogdoadic magick, not GD magick, which uses a different banishing ritual, but I have a good understanding of the LBRP so I think I can give you an informed answer anyway.

You are not banishing earth per se, you are banishing the sub-elements of earth, i.e. air of earth, fire of earth, water of earth, and earth of earth. Why the sub-elements of earth? Because Qabalistically, the element of earth is the densest, and therefore symbolic of Assiah. The idea is to form a protected and purified operating space for the operator to act in, right here in Malkuth of Assiah. The protected and purified space then exists in both the macrocosmic space used physically, and the microcosmic 'space' in your psyche.

If you were going to astral project to work magick, then you might banish the sub-elements of water or air instead of earth, depending on your tradition. However, most new magicians are not going to astral project to work magick, which is why they are given the LBRP in the form that banishes the sub-elements of earth.

Why would you want to banish an element for starters?

In their natural state they are chaotic, including in your psyche. So, the idea is to banish them in their natural, chaotic state and then reassemble them in their egregoric state as the Elemental Archangels, which you can then work with. Banishing them from your psyche should put you in a state of consciousness that is conducive for any magickal operations which might follow, or even just meditating.

Even if you also skip it because of monotheism aversion – I feel you- you still invoke 4 archangel … there’s no reason for any evil, bad, undesirable entity to still be around at this point.

The common wisdom is that pentagram rituals illuminate you on the Astral plane. That makes you visible to all manner of spiritual beings, including ones that may be parasitical or malevolent. Hence the need for protection when performing them.

Legit banishing rituals always leave me with a calm, "sorted out" feeling.

Post automatically merged: Apr 29, 2025

Just to be clear, each time you cast a pentagram during the earth-banishing version of the LBRP, it banishes the sub-element of earth assigned to that direction.

 

[Philou]

I agree with your stance here.

Im the same way, might just be an autistic thing. I think it all depends on how you train yourself to be. If you spend alot of time trying to comprehend things which are very alien to you, you will end up becoming better at simply comprehension. What i believe to be the main focus before all which i preach alot about is your grounding philosophy which you can relate to the idea of initiation in the occult. I believe in trying to initiate yourself into a different way of thinking before trying to comprehend a occult concept or any concept you wish to comprehend. Whatever way of thinking you choose will limit what you can do in this world we live in. I always have a question in my mind like "if i could believe i could fly with no doubt in my mind at all, could i do that?" Now this may sound silly, but i am very serious. This is not something i can simply percieve to work or not work — and if it is possible, is it limited to what the other individual minds (so we or "I" think exist) at large think is possible? I thought about this based on the idea of the major religions like the abrahamic ones being focused on one central Godhead for worship — i wondered if this had an effect of making everything described in scripture a reality if it was not before the religions existed as we know them today. What i am questioning is the aspect of demons and angels only existing due the emergence of these religions — like one huge ongoing ritual which charges these things into becoming real entities by those unaware of that aspect (if true).

For your first hypothesis i may suggest it may rather have to do with something which may be against what the demons want. Now i did hear people say they do not believe in the dicotomy of good and evil, but i find it very clear what evil can be. Like you would not go and kill a sibling just because you are jealous of him — that would be evil. But then again you could live in a tribe were they honor a battle to the death between siblings over a jealous dispute. Not to rant to much to you, but thats why i mentioned above that i believe how you see the world is how it limits you.

If i were to suggest another reason why the demons are showing up, i suggest it is your own obsession of studying magic which may make things much clearier which would relate to you saying "i'm gaining magical rizz." You may have just disconnected yourself with the main matrix of thought or mainstream thinking — which i can relate back to myself talking about my question of collective worship to a central Godhead making entities manifest. I was brought up catholic and i know most people that are brought up in the christain religion are not faithful with the practices like muslims are at large — so i know nothing about your background but whatever religion you were brought up on will have a strong effect on your subconscious, its not easy to just shed that off as its a major part of your life. So not many people that call themselves christain believe magick exists at all and well if you are brought up in that then turned to believing in magick, you would probably have the images which you seen in church art imprinted into your subconscious along with what those images represent. Just some food for thought for you.

If you do i would enjoy hearing from you.

Post automatically merged: Apr 29, 2025

And if you were brought up christain as i was, the common teaching was magick was a evil practice. So if that is the case, then that may one of the possible denominators.

Very interesting, I'm reading the books by Alan Chapman and Duncan (sorry forgot your/his name), I don't know if you read them The Baptist head, I think it's like The Blood of the Saints + The Urn + Desert of Roses.
I find the format highly readable and it allowed me to sort a lot of ideas that I had read elsewhere into a more 'real -yet magical- like' kind of way.
Nice read thanks.

Hello, I think I can help here. I'll start with the caveat - the style of high magick that I've practiced is Ogdoadic magick, not GD magick, which uses a different banishing ritual, but I have a good understanding of the LBRP so I think I can give you an informed answer anyway.

You are not banishing earth per se, you are banishing the sub-elements of earth, i.e. air of earth, fire of earth, water of earth, and earth of earth. Why the sub-elements of earth? Because Qabalistically, the element of earth is the densest, and therefore symbolic of Assiah. The idea is to form a protected and purified operating space for the operator to act in, right here in Malkuth of Assiah. The protected and purified space then exists in both the macrocosmic space used physically, and the microcosmic 'space' in your psyche.

If you were going to astral project to work magick, then you might banish the sub-elements of water or air instead of earth, depending on your tradition. However, most new magicians are not going to astral project to work magick, which is why they are given the LBRP in the form that banishes the sub-elements of earth.




In their natural state they are chaotic, including in your psyche. So, the idea is to banish them in their natural, chaotic state and then reassemble them in their egregoric state as the Elemental Archangels, which you can then work with. Banishing them from your psyche should put you in a state of consciousness that is conducive for any magickal operations which might follow, or even just meditating.



The common wisdom is that pentagram rituals illuminate you on the Astral plane. That makes you visible to all manner of spiritual beings, including ones that may be parasitical or malevolent. Hence the need for protection when performing them.

Legit banishing rituals always leave me with a calm, "sorted out" feeling.

Post automatically merged: Apr 29, 2025

Just to be clear, each time you cast a pentagram during the earth-banishing version of the LBRP, it banishes the sub-element of earth assigned to that direction.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 9:39 AM

Thank you, guys, for those super interesting answers.

If you do i would enjoy hearing from you.

Thanks, I'll try to write a few things.

The Blood of the Saints + The Urn + Desert of Roses.

Super great recommandation, thanks!

@Lurker
You gave a lot of valuable insight to think about. I don’t agree with the assiah thing but I will try to work with these interpretations for a few days just to see.

With GD magick, I always find it difficult to choose what to follow.
Old School GD texts lack lots of things, leaving room to interpretation.
Modern GD writers are clearly influenced by lots of non-GD sources.
And GD’s inspirations are sometimes in contradiction with GD’s system.

The most striking example to illustrate what I mean is the interpretation of Kabbalah in GD system.

Because Qabalistically, the element of earth is the densest, and therefore symbolic of Assiah.

(Euopean)Elements are not a part of traditional Hebrew Kabbalah. They are later additions and are always a bit off. Hebrews do not have the same understanding of elements for starters. (For example, air in Judaism holds a super special and interesting place and does not translate at all in european traditions.)
It’s just that our system are built differently and don’t really overlap … but sometimes can. There is no Kabbalistic world/Element attribution or correspondence but to be honest, earth-Assiah makes some sense especially when considering sub-elements.

egregoric state as the Elemental Archangels

Now, the same thing applies with Archangels and Elements. It’s quite a popular argument that people make to diss the GD system but I don’t really mind. From a Hebrew point of view, we do want to invoke them anyway.

Now, on to my random thought of the week end.

I’ve established 3 models on how magic works
The first one will be the “Causal” model
Some actions have a magickal consequence, even if you do not mean it. Actions, consequences. Simple. Except some action may have magickal power.
This is the idea behind folk witchcraft and superstitions.
You probably have heard “Don’t stand in a doorway, this is where spirits cross our world”, “Don’t put bread on its back, it has been earned with heads held right” …
For example, if you’re a student in higher ed, there’s a big exam coming up, you will recite psalm 87:8 under an apple to ensure success.
Why ? It doesn’t matter; it just works.

The second one will be “symbolic model”
Magick works but it needs symbols to generate, accumulate, structure and release energy. Those symbols don’t have power. A robot programed to perform a LBRP will accomplish nothing, even with a consecrated dagger, as it cannot have magickal intention, it is merely following a script so no magickal charge arises. (I’m not sure giving a dagger to a robot is a good idea)
For example, my student will have to create a custom ritual using an array of symbol of success in studies and intellect.
Air, Virgo, Mercury, something related to the planet in its 9th house if he had a planet in its 9th house … (It is way harder than studying for the said exam)

The third one will be “subjective” model
The mind does the magick using symbol and those symbols are purely subjective with no inner value. There’s no point in using sacred symbol from whatever pantheon.
This will probably suit way more chaos magick.
For example, my student will recreate a three headed Hekate ritual using Hermione Granger, Lisa Simpson and Velma from scoobidoo.