When I set myself to the study of the Western Ceremonial tradition it was largely an intellectual exercise.\u00a0 Yes, I expected to be a more competent and powerful witch\/magician by the end of it, but I\u2019d already learned the rudiments of sigils from Chaos magic (which I had largely understood as a subset of the ceremonial tradition, though I now know better) and I didn\u2019t imagine that there would be much that would actually stick with me after the experiments were done.\u00a0 After five months of study, I have come to understand just how little of what I thought I knew about the ceremonial tradition has any basis in reality.\u00a0 Conversely, I have found that my chief concern was fairly well founded: I am fundamentally incompatible with some of the powers it deals with, though not in the ways I had imagined.\u00a0 I have also come to recognize what the ceremonial tradition has to offer me personally: access to planetary Powers.<\/p>\n
Various manuals of witchcraft that I have read in the course of my life have come with huge tables of plants, rocks, scents, colors, and their planetary correspondences.\u00a0 But the rationale of those correspondences has never really been explained, nor why the attributions and uses of those correspondences varies so radically from the mythologies and portfolios of the divinities for which the planets have been named.\u00a0 My explorations of ceremonial magic have helped me to understand (for example) why it is that Mars, the planet, has so little to do with Mars, the Roman god of war and the citizen-soldier.<\/p>\n
More interestingly, particularly from my perspective as a visionary\/shamanic witch looking to delve into that most forbidden of arts<\/a> known as the evocation of spirits, I have learned of the multitudinous hosts and legions of spirits who make up those planetary Powers.\u00a0 Even if, having acquired some skill at conjuration, I decide that it\u2019s not for me, the names and sigils\u2014phone numbers, as Frater Acher describes<\/a> them (and I need that book)\u2014will still be useful in seeking out contacts by other means.<\/p>\n Despite my best intentions, I am still having difficulty translating my theoretical studies into actual praxis.\u00a0 This is partly a matter of trying to convert certain patterns into ones I understand, partly a matter of struggling to overcome inertia after having fallen off the horse (so to speak) of daily practice.<\/p>\n I want to begin seeking that thing known as \u201cKnowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel\u201d (or, you know, something along those lines, since I don\u2019t quite buy the \u201cguardian angel\u201d part), but I have not yet settled on a particular ritual to that end.\u00a0 The Stele of Jeu?\u00a0 The Bornless Rite?\u00a0 Liber Samekh?\u00a0 (Sure, they\u2019re all variations<\/a> on the same tune<\/a>, but I still need to choose one.)\u00a0 Or some other ritual I haven\u2019t found yet, aimed at the same goal?\u00a0 Right now I\u2019m leaning heavily toward the Stele of Jeu.\u00a0 Very heavily.<\/p>\n When I resume pursing the planetary forces themselves, do I continue with the quasi-Golden Dawn route of Penczak\u2019s High Temple?\u00a0 Do I buy RO\u2019s Gate Rites<\/a> (I\u2019ve been tempted for a while)?\u00a0 Do I go whole-hog and dig into Abremelin?\u00a0 Frustratingly, a lot of these questions would be a lot easier if I were Christian, or at very least if I weren\u2019t energetically incompatible with the Archangels.\u00a0 I really need to get my hands on a copy of the PGM<\/a>\u2014both translated and not.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll say this much, though: by the time I\u2019m done, there will be a neo-Pagan grimoire for sale somewhere.\u00a0 I can\u2019t be the only one struggling with some of these issues.\u00a0 And maybe, as I continue, I\u2019ll find that someone else has already done this.\u00a0 Maybe I can use their work, maybe I can build on it, and maybe I\u2019ll blow them out of the water.\u00a0 There\u2019s only one way to find out.<\/p>\n A research paper is no stronger than its thesis.\u00a0 Until now, I had been doing no more and no less than preliminary exploration.\u00a0 Now I have more specific aims\u2014my theses, to continue the metaphor:\u00a0 to get in touch with the Planetary forces, Powers, \u201celementals\u201d (for lack of a better word) and spirits; to craft rites which fit within a neo-Pagan conceptual framework; and to make those experiments available to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I set myself to the study of the Western Ceremonial tradition it was largely an intellectual exercise.\u00a0 Yes, I expected to be a more competent and powerful witch\/magician by the end of it, but I\u2019d already learned the rudiments of sigils from Chaos magic (which I had largely understood as a subset of the … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[43,97,193,203,292],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-witchcraft","tag-ceremonial-magic","tag-greek-magical-papyri","tag-penczaks-high-temple","tag-planetary-magic","tag-weblinks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-s","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}