Season of the Spirits

So over the last two days I posted about Solstice and Equinox rituals using the grimoires as a basis.

You can find those here:

http://blog.ararita418.com/2016/07/grimoires-and-cycle-of-year-pt-1.html

http://blog.ararita418.com/2016/07/not-flashy-but-holy.html

I'm not going to post the ritual I used, but it was basically a series of conjurations of different types of spirits associated with the season based upon traditional correspondences. The information for these correspondences comes from Sefer Raziel HaMalakh, Cephar Razielis, the Heptameron, and Book Two of Agrippa.

You can easily put together a similar ritual yourself. Use the preliminary ritual components and purifications from your preferred grimoire.

Set up the tools, circle, temple space as you normally would with the appropriate conjurations of the incense, flame, circle, and whatever else you would use. Use the appropriate rites for robing up.

Then use the conjuration of the divine as you would do normally.

After this when you get to the point of conjuring the spirit, this is where it changes up a bit. You'll conjure several spirits, and instead of asking them for something you'll just ask for their help in achieving the blessings of the season.

The correspondences below will help you determine which spirits. The order in which you conjure them will kind of be up to you as well. Do you start elementally? Do you start with the zodiacal? Do you go right for the spirits of the season? The winds and direction? What comes first?

Well that depends on your way of doing things.

Personally I started with the zodiac, and conjured the element and planet of the zodiacal sign and then the angel of the sign itself.

Then the Sun, so that the sun is within the sign.

Then the element, the elemental king, the aerial spirits, and the spirits of the parts of the world and of the season itself.

So starting bigger and drawing smaller.

Some people like the opposite. Some people want to feel it unfold. So they start with the manifest components, the season itself, the parts of the world within the season, then elemental rulers, then planetary, then zodiacal.

It's up to you. The power, is unreservedly, held in your hands, to discover how you and your spirits want to work.

So...here is some guidance on the spirits.

Season	Direction	Element	Name of Season	Zodiac	Gregorian Months	Hebrew Months
Spring	West	Air	Talvi	The Sun enters Aries	March April May	Nisan – Full Moon in Aries Iyar – Full Moon in Taurus Sivan – Full Moon in Gemini
Summer	East	Fire	Casmaran	The Sun enters Cancer	June July August	Tammuz – Full Moon in Cancer Av – Full Moon in Leo Elul – Full Moon in Virgo
Autumn	South	Earth	Adarael	The Sun enters Libra	September October November	Tishrei – Full Moon in Libra Marchesvan – Full Moon in Scorpio Kislev – Full Moon in Sagittarius
Winter	North	Water	Farlae	The Sun enters Capricorn	December January February	Tevet – Full Moon in Capricorn Shevat – Full Moon in Aquarius Adar – Full Moon in Pisces

Season	Head of the Sign	Name of the Earth	Name of the Sea	Name of the Air	Name of the Underworld	Name of the Sun	Name of the Moon
Spring	Spugliguel	Amadai	Angustiz	Ystana	Hahan	Abraym	Augusia
Summer	Tubiel	Festatvi	Theon	Furayl	Cipaon	Atbemay	Armatas
Autumn	Tolquaret	Rabianira	Maddrylk	Oafion	Meresac	Abragini	Matasignais
Winter	Altarib	Gerenia	Sebillgradon	Gulynon	Aycyhambabo	Commutaf	Affaterim

Season	King	Angels of the Season	Angels of the Four Directions	Devils	Celestial Powers
Spring	Paymon	Caracasa Core Amatiel Commissoros	Raphael	Azazel	Jupiter and Venus
Summer	Oriens	Gargatel Tariel Gaviel	Michael	Samael	Mars and Sol
Autumn	Amaymon	Terquam Gualbarel	Gabriel	Mahazael	The Fixed Stars and the Moon
Winter	Egyn	Amabael Ctarari	Uriel	Azael	Saturn and Mercury

Season	Month	Zodiac Sign	Angel of the Zodiac	Planet	Hebrew Month	Angel of the Month
Spring	March	Aries	Malchidiel	Mars	Nisan	Oriel
	April	Taurus	Asmodel	Venus	Iyar	Safuel
	May	Gemini	Ambriel	Mercury	Sivan	Amariel
Summer	June	Cancer	Muriel	Moon	Tammuz	Moriel
	July	Leo	Verchiel	Sun	Av	Byny
	August	Virgo	Hamelial	Mercury	Elul	Magnyny
Autumn	September	Libra	Zuriel	Venus	Tishrei	Suriel
	October	Scorpio	Barbiel	Mars	Marchesvan	Karbiel
	November	Sagittarius	Adnachiel	Jupiter	Kislev	Adoniel
Winter	December	Capricorn	Hanael	Saturn	Tevat	Anael
	January	Aquarius	Gabiel	Saturn	Shevat	Gabriel
	February	Pisces	Barchiel	Jupiter	Adar	Romiel

Not Flashy but Holy

So, my previous post talked about Solstice and Equinox rituals, the important of a magical religious structure and how that might fit the grimoire tradition or other magical traditions. There are a ton of options for observing these occurrences, this idea is just one of many possibilities. You can view that here: http://blog.ararita418.com/2016/07/grimoires-and-cycle-of-year-pt-1.html

So...Grimoiric Solstice and Equinox rituals.

The basic idea is observing the movement of the Sun into the Sign that indicates the beginning of the new season. The frame work I used came from the Heptameron. So, the preliminary stuff happens, the angel who rules the hour is called upon, the angel ruling the day, the elemental powers of the season, the powers associated with the sign ruling the season, the angel of the sun, and the angels of the season. Along with the angels we call upon the powers of the earth, air, sea, inferno, and the season itself. An offering is made. Chill time with the spirits is had. Wine is blessed and consumed. All in all about eight angels, two kinds of elementals, and other spiritual forms of parts of nature are all conjured together.

It might seem like it would be busy. People talk about not calling a spirit and being like “ok you stand over there, while I call some others” but this doesn't run like that. There is a definite element of awareness of the Heavenly Majesty throughout and so the coalescence of the spirits really creates a feeling of divine harmony. The spirits are called in a way that is organized based on the state of nature we are reifying into a spiritual presence. So for them there is a natural fit into the harmony we experience.

The first thing which was evident was how smooth and harmonious the invocations felt. Maybe it was because of other work recently, or maybe it was because the spirits wanted to be called this way, whatever the cause, there was a striking feeling of true adoration that overtook me. A lot of times when I conjure it's much more a feeling of drawing power and pulling together authority. Before I started I thought about how the framework I had didn't have as much of that. I kind of wondered “how do I get to groove with God so the spirits will talk with me?” During the invocations I felt an abiding sense of love and engagement where there was no feeling of going through the motions, or rationalizing the Christian components. There was just desire and adoration. It was elevating. It made me realize that as much as I've answered in the past about the ability to adopt a worldview that allows you to accept Christian imagery while using it in conjuration, whereas this was simply the ability to love and embrace the reality of the imagery.

As I went it occurred to me that I was about to conjure a lot of spirits but wasn't going to stop and talk with any or commune with any. Individually. What ended up happening was that as I called upon natural forces, fire, the moon, water, the sign of cancer, the sun, I felt immersed in each. I could feel the joy, and adoration which inspired the Salamanders and Undines as they experienced their love for their creator. I felt bathed in moon light as I prepared to conjure Gavriel to empower the sign of Cancer, the overarching wheel of stars encasing an earth made of harmonized fire and water as I conjured the angels of Cancer, and the glowing light of the sun as Raphael harmonized it. Oriens when called took a particularly elevated place and when asked to bring the the beneficial forces into the world and he reached over and brought the beauty and harmony of the celestial imagery into the material world.

Sitting to commune with the spirits as they received their suffumigation felt like sitting in the heavenly throne room. The candles before me took on a regal beauty and there was a sense of powerful light everywhere. I put on my ring and felt a sense of completion, and a spiritual glow about it as the angels imbued it with the harmony.

The ritual concluded with requesting their blessings on myself and all those around me and drinking a cup which had been blessed by the spirits. It felt good being immersed in the light. It felt peaceful, and happy, bidding farewell to the spirits, feeling them move out into the world to carry that light and unity with them.

So yeah. Not flashy, but Holy. Nothing major, nothing new, but something good. Sometimes that's really all we need from those moments of religion within magic. When we do magic, it should make something happen in the world, theurgy and mysticism should make us better – closer to God or to what we were intended to be, religion should settle and balance us within those forces of the world which we engage in magic. It just needs to be a moment where we get closer to and connect more deeply with the powers that inspire us, and that move the world with us. We shouldn't lose sight on the practicality of magic, but that practicality shouldn't make us overlook those less flashy moments of connection.

That said...part of the idea...was harmonizing the forces of creation at work in the season. So practically speaking it should also help everything flow better.

Grimoires and the Cycle of the Year Pt 1

How does time play into our magic? What about space? Aside from conjuring spirits to teach us about magic or about themselves are there ways we should ground ourselves or explore the powers we invoke aside from practical magic? Yes. Yes, there are, or, there should be.

Magic should be part of a lifestyle and to some degree a culture, and a lifestyle and culture which is spiritual should generally involve something religious. Not necessarily belonging to a Church or adopting a religion, but a way to routinely connect with and seat oneself in the context of the LIVING COSMOS OF SPIRITUAL FORCES with which your magic is engaged. Religion is at its core a pattern of rituals. Those rituals mirror the ideas we have about creation, existence, and the end. So for a magician magical religious ritual would be the exploration of these cosmic forces in the light of our understanding of the world.

We see this somewhat in the modern magical religions. Feasts of the times are important for Thelema because they're a way of doing this, and accessing important knowledge and mysteries within that system on multiple levels. Similar magical holidays play into the Golden Dawn, Thelema, Wicca, Druidry, and various other groups from the 19^th and 20^th centuries. These holidays deal with natural and cosmic movements which reflect the changes in the forces and concepts central to these particular worldviews. For those of us that are magicians, we're dealing with the forces that shape and move the world, so rituals to acknowledge the very visible, physical, movements of those forces are a reasonable way of engaging this same religious benefit. But for those of us not working purely in a modern context do we have a way of doing this? If we simply engage religions like Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, which helped shape the grimoires, we won't address the powers and forces relevant to magic. Can we structure feasts of the times for traditional magic?

This idea sprang forth in full armor from my mind while working on another project. Rufus Opus had challenged me to reconstruct a complete and workable system of grimoiric magic from the mish mash of pieces and references held within the Heptameron. (As it is, you could pick up the book and work it, but it's really presenting several different magical ideas all swirled together). I had already been working a little bit with ideas regarding the angels of the planetary hours, and the very cursory approach to grimoiric timing found in modern magic versus the robust focus on the powers of time in the grimoires. So while working with the Heptameron, and the Raziel texts, and various Solomonic texts, I kept coming back to the INTENSE IMPORTANCE of TIME and SPACE in real magic. We talk in modern magic about “time outside of time, and place outside of space” which is a neat idea, but SPACE-TIME is fucking magical on it's own, and when we begin looking at directionality, the spiritualization of locality and the environment of the moment, the powers of time as they manifest in hours, days, months, and seasons, we begin to see that there is a whole magical way of addressing the reality in which we live, work, and manifest magic, and without connecting with and understanding the magical forces that build and move the context of our existence, we miss out on a huge way of connecting with creation and the power therein.

As I read through more and more of Raziel instructing Adam about the importance of understanding time, and it blended with the ideas of time in magic found in the Heptameron, and it ran up against my remedial explorations of astrology, I began to form a greater picture of what I was looking at. The idea of invoking the components of time and place more clearly than we tend to in modern magic had already begun creeping in for me based on the PGM, but in that context it seems to sometimes be a simple acknowledgment of time and place, what we see in the grimoires particularly those influenced by the Raziel tradition we see something much deeper than just mentioning them.

The grimoires understood every element of time and space in a way which allowed it to be approached as a spirit, or at least, a spiritually imbued part of our interaction with the Creator. Each element of time and direction has a name, it has a spirit, or spirits associated with it. We see pieces here and there in the grimoires referencing these spirits of time but not necessarily integrating them. While looking for this integration the circle in the Heptameron became an inspiration for more deeply engaging these forces directly, it became much more than simply as a map laid out on the floor of the space in which a ritual would be performed.

So while getting excited about all this, and about the magic of time and space, and while mapping out secret names given by the Heptameron and Raziel it occurred to me...ceremonial magicians not engaged in modern magic don't have rituals to observe major moments of time...but we could, and maybe long ago some system from which part of our system is drawn may have had such a thing. And the grimoires map out everything we need. In fact, with the importance of astrological timing in the older forms of magic, and the astrological treatment of the seasons in the grimoires, and the break down of correspondences mapping the seasons, the directions, and through them connecting the celestial, sublunary, and infernal realms made it apparent that marking the seasonal shifts was an easy way to incorporate all the various elements of time, space, and our overall cosmology into a ritual structure of observance.

So, over the last couple months the back of my mind has been playing out how to set up such a ritual, and I decided for the Solstice I would try it. It was pretty awesome. It was subdued, but it was pretty nifty. There were moments of being bathed within the various forces that make up the shift into the season of summer and define its nature. A lot of beautiful imagery conveyed by the spirits. Quiet moments to chill in their presence and to drink in their blessings and power.

The ritual was pretty nifty, and I definitely noticed beneficial currents in my life following its performance. Tomorrow we'll go into more about the ritual and the experience.

Like a Virgin, Evoking for the Very First Time - a Recollection of Conjuring in 2007

I was planning on doing a post about this sometime in the near future, but with some discussion tonight about the idea of methods of evocation, results, and visible appearance, I guess I'll do it now.

When I was a kid I really wanted to learn to conjure spirits. I'd gotten good at other forms of magic, but, mostly coming at it from a NeoPagan Witchcraft angle at first, no one talked about that. As I got more into traditional Paganism and traditional witchcraft, and began studying ceremonial magic and hermetic Kabbalah I still wasn't really finding anything on it. People would direct me to things like the LBRP, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted. Eventually I downloaded copies of the Keys of Solomon, and started exploring a few grimoires. Early on I saw enough of them to realize that there were several different methods.

I started exploring more deeply into ceremonial magic and the Kabbalah and began working with my teacher, and made friends with some people who while they weren't the super traditional and semi-academic grimoiric magicians of today, they were pretty hefty into demonology and a few basic grimoires along with some other modern magic. So I started to develop a view of the grimoiric system, and what I needed to do to develop myself towards safely and successfully using it. I frequently debated with friends who were also studying but hadn't tried the systems in the grimoires how strictly we needed to follow them. My view was that it was like a radio receiver. You could make a workable one with a few basic parts, but adding more pieces of better quality made a significantly more effective one.

So, as I continued my development and got to the point in my training where methods of conjuration started to be on the table I had a lot of options and a lot of view on what I should and should not be doing. I started out with some stuff based in GD influenced stuff, looked at some Levi and Crowley based ideas, and after a couple years of playing with those things decided to try something more directly grimoiric.

I worked with Mathers' edition of the Greater Key. This was 2007 and it was just before I began collecting all the Golden Horde stuff. I had a privately published edition of the Lemegeton as well as the Mathers, a few books on Grimoiric magic, and a couple other grimoires and grimoire based books. The Greater Key seemed like the most straight forward starting place. Oddly, Trithemius' material was my favorite, but there was stuff I wanted to do to prepare for it first, mostly in terms of tools which is ironic since it's one of the most low impact systems in regards to tools. But I also felt like doing more thorough evocations first would set up the relationship with the spirits to allow for me to work the Trithemian system. In any case, that was all nonsense, if you want to get started, draw some spirits into some crystals.

But I did not do that, I did the Greater Key. I had my white robe, worn by a priest celebrating Mass (not a GKOS thing), I had my magic sword, instead of a crown I had Abramelin oil, I had my censers of incense, and I had my seal and some candles. I also had the magic circle painted onto a sheet to lay out beneath me, and my bible opened up to psalms. I was ready to go.

I decided to work with Bariel, a spirit of Jupiter, and request bunches and bunches of money. I was used to working in a Mercurial milieu so I wanted to win money. That didn't happen, but I got really good results all the same.

I began with some ritual cleansing, did a bit from the GKOS, then the Headless Invocation, and then more GKOS material. The ritual over all was about 8 or 9 pages.

At the time I'd been out of college for about a year and a half, and so I was, as most millenials do, living at home. I had five burners of incense going. I'm conjurng like a madman when suddenly I hear a voice from above...

“BJ!”

I pause, I think, “Oh shit, Lisiewski made it sound like you'd basically die or at least never be able to do magic if your conjuration gets interrupted midstream, what horrors await!”

I respond: “Yes, Mom?”

Mom: “BJ, put out that incense, you know I don't like incense, what're you even doing?”

BJ: “Nothing mom, it's ok, don't worry about it, sure thing.”

She goes away, and I think “what do you do now? Finish like a beast I guess.”

So I finished my conjuration. I definitely felt the presence of the spirit, now, 8 years later, I still very vividly remember it, but the whole time I was thinking “No, I got interrupted, it very clearly feels like the spirit is here, the space even seems sort of ripply and charged with presence over in that direction over there where it feels like he is, but this is clearly BS, I got interrupted, Lisiewski said there would be no success, only horrors would await me now.”

I guess I didn't mention I'd also read that book the Power of Ceremonial Evocation as part of my final preparations.

So I told Bariel what I wanted, polished everything off and wiped up, and moved along certain I'd failed despite everything seeming successful.

I didn't win any money. Instead, I had much more Jupiterian results. Which was good, since in addition to asking to win money, I'd asked for financial stability and a promotion and raise and for things to just have a general financial fecundity.

So within a couple weeks I had been told at work that while they couldn't promote me right away, because our staffing compliment didn't include a second person in the position they wanted to move me to, that I would get a smaller promotion and a bonus. They'd also be giving me a raise to max me out for what was my current job grade...and they were working on adjusting the staffing compliment to promote me. At this point I'd been in my role for about a year, and had been trained for the job to which I wanted to be promoted for about 8 months, but there were no openings anywhere. Within a couple of weeks, I interviewed for the position at two other locations, was told that if I waited awhile longer they'd probably fire someone at a third location and give me his spot, and in the end I was given the job at a fourth location with no interview or anything, I just got a call offering it and all I had to do was say I wanted it. My managers gave me my year end performance increase, and then gave me the increase for the promotion afterwards so that I ended up with a higher salary than they told me I would.

All in all within the period of about a month, I achieved a 33% increase in my income in addition to an extra $500 bonus, and being told that I had been short listed for the next round of management school.

During this same time, I was expecting to have to give my mom some money for things, which she ended up telling me I didn't have to do because my parents discovered they were paid ahead on a bunch of stuff and the addition they were putting on their house was way cheaper than expected.

A couple months later I ended up conjuring Bariel again using the same method, and I told him I wanted a new job with a salary that was about an 18% increase above where I was with better duties. Within a couple weeks I got a call inviting me to apply for a job which would include training and licenses that I wanted but couldn't get at my then current company. I ended up taking the new job, and while the initial offer was only about 9% above where I was I ended up making about 26% more in the first year than I did at the previous job, getting training which has led to a job that was originally intended as an interim thing becoming a career and giving me a fair amount of stability.

So, I would say those first to evocations were unquestionable successes.

Neither one had what I envision when the bad asses of magic describe evocation to visible appearance. Neither one was a hundred percent a pure execution of the material described in the grimoire. It was a faithful execution of the system described in the grimoire definitely. It was a workable execution, and it was a successful execution.

In posting this, my point is two fold pretty much...maybe three or four fold, we'll see as I type.

1. Your execution can have mistakes and still work

2. You can create a ritual based in the grimoires which earnestly follows the system without slavishly following the book

3. You can get results without a lot of the crazy claims people get intense about, just stay chill and do what makes sense

4. You don't need perfect or beautiful tools or even everything that's there. Study a bunch of grimoires, look for what consistently seems important use that.

5. Get off your butt and do it, because magic is awesome, you're awesome, and results are real...especially when the spirits are not just imaginary friends.

I should also note that this was before I achieved K&C, so it was not an instance of the spirits being super anxious to help me because I was an adept. I was a Dominius Liminis, or more accurately within the A.'.A.'. system an Adeptus Minor Without (preparing for K&C but not having done it yet). So, while some methods of evocation are better suited to people who've done K&C, if you are properly prepared to do the work you can still do the work prior to that. But stick with angels and spirits under the sway of angels in that case, and with systems that involve invoking grace first.