Holy Guardian Angel Resources - 10 Pieces of Free Content on the Sacred Magic

I recently released a class on the Abramelin. You can find that here:

The Why and What of Abramelin

I also did a blog post which explains the class and why it is so affordable and that can be found here:

Accessibility! Or Why Did I Publish Such an Inexpensive Abramelin Class?

 

But those aren't the only Abramelin/HGA/Sacred Magic resources I've released. I have a lot more free material on the subject available out there too.

 

I've decided to aggregate some of those things into a post so I can share that and not JUST share the class when people have HGA/Guardian Angel/Abramelin questions.

 

Here are some options.

 

Videos and Podcasts

 

HGA Panel with BJ Swain, Jason Miller, and Rufus Opus

In The Company of Stars Special #1: A Season with the HolyGuardian Angel featuring Sarah Clark

 

In The Company of Stars Episode #1: Exploring Abramelin and the HGA With Sarah Clark

 

Blog Posts

 

Thoughts on the Stele of Jeu - Not specifically Abramelin/Sacred Magic but many people use Stele of Jeu or Samekh in that process and this addresses that

 Touched By an Angel

The Raccolta and the Holy Guardian Angel

 

Lent, The Holy Guardian Angel, and the Calcination of Failure

 Sex, Your Angel, and Starting the Ritual

Ain't No Holla Back Mystic

A Ritual for the Holy Guardian Angel: The Lamp Upon the Throne

 Hopefully you find this material useful and enjoyable. Please feel free to share this collection. Hopefully if you've enjoyed this you'll also purchase the Abramelin class and direct others who would enjoy it to check it out! You can also check out my Support Page for other ways to show your support for my work. Thanks!

Hekate and the Holy Guardian Angel...How do the relate?

 

          Recently, my friends Rufus Opus and Jason Miller got together with me on Zoom and we talked about our experiences with the Holy Guardian Angel. Podcaster Aequus Nox had started a thread about the Holy Guardian Angel last year on her wall, the thread had a MASSIVE response, and I honestly dislike weighing in when threads are too big, so I commented off thread. My post led to another thread in which it was suggested that Jason and I do a sort of panel discussion on the HGA. Since Rufus went the non-Abramelin route I figured his perspective would be a good one to include...Facebook memories reminded me of the thread and that resulted in the discussion finally happening a few weeks ago. You can now see it here on YouTube.

          We collected together a ton of amazing questions from the Ceremonial Magick School and Living Spirits forums on Facebook. A lot of the questions could be clustered together so we distilled out six questions that covered the range and tried to answer them while considering the questions that inspired them.

          One question stood out as pretty different from the others. It was a question I had been asked before. It is one of those questions where it could have a pretty simple answer, "There's no real relationship, so there isn't much to say." Or it could have a significantly more complex answer when taken as a question about one's over all practice. We didn't address it in the panel, so I'm going to talk about it a little bit here.

          The question in question...What is the relationship between the Holy Guardian Angel and Hekate? That was how it was originally put to me, Jove was included when it was asked in this context.

          So yeah, most basic answer, they are from different spiritual models so there isn't much relationship. If we consider the Holy Guardian Angel in a NeoPlatonic context, the angel is a daimon, but not one which is an echo of or representative of some particular god. So, the angel doesn't specifically relate to any particular god, but may partake of influences from several gods in so far as they relate to the birth of the particular individual. The daimon could also be viewed as an aid in understanding the gods and interacting with them very much in the same vein as the Guardian Angel teaches and guides the individual on their path with God in Catholicism.

          The Guardian Angel is an angel, but it's a special angel, one connected uniquely to you. As an angel it functions in a different way and resides in a somewhat different space with different natures and capacities from a god. A simple way to consider it is it's smaller and specialized to you.

          None of that is especially useful. As magicians asking a question like this we want to know how these relationships work practically. The relationship between the spirits innately based on their nature can inform how we interact and work with them. Understanding how they relate in our individual practice will be more useful and more interesting. This can also vary from person to person.

          For me, Hekate kind of touches most everything. She is expansive and far reaching and rules in all areas of creation. You could approach Hekate as a teacher of magic. You could approach Hekate as a gatekeeper. You could approach her as a patron of witchcraft. There are so many different specific options. For me, I consider that she controls the paths by which things manifest and by which spirits come to us. She controls the locks which open and close doors for options to manifest and for spirits to enter and depart. She controls the crossroads at which possibilities intersect and which occur in the spaces where our experience and the experiences of the spirit world and magical awareness intersect.

          The Guardian Angel is kind of like a magical wingman with a bit of Jiminy Cricket thrown in. The angel can help retrieve spirits for you. The angel can help with commanding and controlling spirits when needed. The angel can introduce you to other spirits. It can give you guidance. It can make communication clearer and easier.

          When I wrote Living Spirits: A Guide to Magic in a World of Spirits, I talked about Hekate and the Holy Guardian Angel both in terms of intermediary spirits. Both of them can help you with engaging other spirits and working with other spirits. Each does it in different ways. For me, it isn't so much would you work with Hekate or would you work with the Holy Guardian Angel, so much as how does each fit into your practice.

          The Angel is someone who is generally with me when I'm doing work even if I'm not directly engaging my angel. My angel can chime in with advice or inspiration. The relationship is often interactive outside of a ritual context. In a ritual context it might be that my angel is referenced or called upon specifically, or asked to perform a particular function. I might ask my angel to help bring a spirit, or to help me see or communicate. Outside of ritual I might ask my angel for guidance or simply to help accomplish something I need.

          Hekate is someone who is more visibly present on a consistent basis in my ritual work. She is relatively consistently present in my awareness of magical and spiritual realities and in my feelings of respect and devotion. But, at least so far, my relationship with Hekate is not as directly interactive. I can feel her presence and influence when I work, and sometimes at other times. I don't tend to call upon her or ritually work with her as the direct object of the ritual or to directly communicate. Though some things might be changing in that regard for me. She is someone I call upon in most work I do to help me with access to spirits and the places in which spirits reside. She is present as the power that binds together magic and therefore to some degree binds together and underwrites the universe itself.

          Both are present in my work and impact my work. Both are present in my life and impact my life. They are present in different ways doing different things. Their presence is one which I don't perceive as directly interactive with one another but behind the scenes, maybe it is and I just don't see it.

          If I were answering this question about the Angel and some other god, my answer would be pretty different. Hekate for me is simultaneously the Bright-Shining Goddess who befriended the grieving Demeter, she is the goddess who taught Medea and Circe and all other witches whose blood carries in it the power of Helios, she is the Cosmic Force which organizes the universe in the Chaldean Oracles - and which seems to echo the Egyptian Heka even if there is no historical connection between them; she is the multifaceted splendedly dark and brilliantly shining goddess who has encompasses and syncretized to herself all other goddesses as she appears in the Greek Magical Papyri, and she is the divine feminine which we see in she herself, in the Blessed Virgin Mary, in Persephone, in Sophia and many other forms. So far reaching a being as to encompass all of these natures and functions in a single person is beyond the limited way in which we often look at individual spiritual beings.

          She is not the only god who is so ever present and far ranging for me. But she's the one most visibly active in magic. Other gods who feel and seem more specific and defined are no less in my view despite the cosmic magnificence that my description of her should imply. Each is vast in their own way. But Hekate's nature is itself vastness.

 

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A Spirit Among Spirits: King, Concierge, Roommate?

I was reading Facebook today and I saw a post about a spirit working someone intended to do. I don't really know this person, and as I understand it they are an experienced and competent magician, so the questions that sprang to my mind were not necessarily really about this person and their intentions so much as just those inspired by the idea of this particular working in a vacuum. At the end of the day, some of my questions were interesting for me to think about, but I'm not part of the tradition of that spirit so they're not really relevant for me to talk about. There was one though that stuck with me, one which works as a general question beyond any particular spirit or tradition.

The question that came in almost as if whispered to me was this, “what spirit is going to mediate her (the spirit) for you?”

Not only did the question stick out to me, but during the course of the day someone reached out to ask about a previous post that connects to this question.

We've talked before about intermediaries and spirits who give introduction. This is somewhat related to that idea, in fact very related to that idea, but it also goes further. An intermediary spirit might be a spirit that opens a particular pathway or kingdom and allows access to the spirits within that domain, and may also allow them access to work in the world. An introducing spirit is a spirit with whom you have a working relationship who facilitates work with spirits with whom you do not yet have a working relationship, they're your inside man, or your guy who knows the guy. The intermediary could also be your introducing spirit, or you might work with separate spirits in this role.

When we talked before about your “first spirit” or the initial spirit with whom you have contact, who may even be the spirit that brings you into magic, a large part of that spirit's role was as the introducing spirit. Depending on the work you're doing it might still be that first spirit, or it might be a spirit attached to you by initiation, or through some spiritual or magical process, or it might be a different spirit or group of spirits depending upon the work you're doing.

Depending upon the spirits you're working with, or the type of work you're doing, there may be two other jobs that these spirits may take on, or perhaps they won't take these jobs on, perhaps you'll need another spirit to do these jobs. The jobs in question aren't ones with fancy classic names, but we can think of one as a mediator or translator, and the other as a kind of organizer or project manager.

The mediator or translator functions to facilitate a comprehensible interaction with the spirits with whom you're working. Often this is your possessing spirit if you have one, the spirit who can sit with you and whisper directly to you guiding you and interpreting for you. In this context the idea is that you may not fully comprehend directly what a spirit is saying or communicate directly in a way comprehensible to the spirit, and so this mediating spirit allows for that communication.

This idea isn't really explored much in Western magic.

But it's a pretty good idea, and I think it's often there in Western Magic without us necessarily understanding it.

Generally in grimoire magic this would be described as Divine Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, The Holy Guardian Angel, or the Spiritual Assistant. In the Greek Magical Papyri there is a good example of this in which one essentially conjures “the light” as the means through which to make the conjuration of the spirit in question, and the light is clearly needed to interact comprehensibly with said spirit. The Sacred Magic hints at the idea in that it doesn't really tell you how to call on or command the demons, just that your angel will tell you how to do it and what to do and what to say and basically facilitate the process.

So when working with a spirit, whatever spirit mediates for you would sit with you and assist in communication between you and the spirit. Depending upon the relationship you could perceive this directly, or perhaps it would just work like a lens and you wouldn't see a process to it. Engaging this relationship though would be part of entering into the magical space for your work, just as would your ritual purification or putting on your robes, in fact, in early grimoires a series of angels are called upon as one dons the robe, or the garments of salvation, highlighting that an immersion within spirits is part of the process of entering into the work.

If you communicate through divination your spirit would be the spirit who sanctifies your divination space and tools and allows them to speak truly for you, creating the space in which the spirit being called can enter and speak and have their answers translated into your tool.

When the spirit is functioning to organize or be a project manager of sorts it is coordinating your efforts with the spirits, and perhaps other magical efforts as well. Fr. Rufus Opus wrote a piece on this for Zero = Two called “The HGA: Chef to the Gods”. In this he talks about how the Holy Guardian Angel, and other spiritual assistants, understand what is pleasing and what is not pleasing to other spirits you might choose to conjure. Like the role of an intermediary in facilitating communication the intermediary can facilitate the etiquette of the interaction. Beyond this, the intermediary can help in bringing spirits.

The spirit in this coordinating role can also help in identifying what spirits you should work with on a particular task. When working with my ancestors this happens somewhat regularly. I'll ask for help with a problem and they'll tell me to conjure a particular spirit with them so they can help with the interaction. In all such instances the idea of conjuring a spirit wasn't one that was on my mind, but it ended up being a good choice. Recently I was considering a conjuration and my ancestors advised me to work with them in going through the Book of the Offices of Spirits to select what demon to call. Allies in the spirit world who know the spirits and know your needs can guide you in what spirits to bring into your life.

In my story about car trouble, my ancestors, and the archangel Raphael were involved to help mediate the forces and guide the efforts of the other angels and aerial spirits I had called upon. So in addition to guiding you on what spirits to work with, those spirits with whom you have a close relationship can also help guide the interaction and coordinate the work of the other spirits you're working with.

Consider a situation in which you need a job. You go to your Holy Guardian Angel, or your ancestors, or Hekate or whatever intermediary or ally you have and ask what you should do. They direct you to a spirit under the rulership of Jupiter, another under the rulership of Mercury, one under the rulership of the Sun, and the gnomes. You conjure each spirit and describe your desire, each being conjured with your intermediary also having been invoked. Your intermediary guides the Jupiterian spirit to help establish fecundity and prosperity in your life, the Mercurial spirit works to improve the reception of your resume and your ability at interviews, and inspires call backs, the Solar spirit provides a sense of honor and dignity when interviewers look at you, and the gnomes build the actual manifestation of the job from the conditions the other spirits move in your favor.

You could do one conjuration of one spirit and it could work towards what you want, and it could be successful. Or you can coordinate an effort on multiple fronts and increase the options for the best result. Different forces each working on their own for a goal uncoordinated may have elements that you don't want because they're not focused, or it may have spirits working in ways that compete against each other, or which work in parallel but don't work together. Having a spirit who helps coordinate that interaction allows them to actually work together, focused on their particular domain, in a way which directs their efforts specifically in the way needed rather than on generally adding their influence to a particular area of your life.

When working in this manner your spirit can also help coordinate offerings you make in thanks. Again, in Rufus's example he makes the case that your Holy Guardian Angel can set a banquet for the spirits, but another way to look at this is when you set offerings for the spirits you've worked with, the spirit who you approach to guide that work can also help facilitate all the spirits receiving the offering together, so that you can make one rather than many. If you need to make separate offerings, your spirit working as your point of contact, can also instruct you in that.

So what spirits serve this role and how do you develop that relationship? Ultimately this is a spirit relationship which is on going and personal. It's not a spirit relationship that is always about getting something specific. Sometimes interaction with these spirits will be about the interaction and developing the relationship. There can be a benefit to this being a “head spirit” or “possessing spirit” one that sits with you and works with you even outside of ritual work, especially if the spirit is helping you speak with other spirits. Depending upon the type of spirit though it might be one with a more ritual based relationship and interaction. In any case it should be a spirit where your relationship with the spirit is such that it will have an awareness of your needs and will understand you.

An easy relationship to develop in that regard is with your ancestors. They already have an interest in you and are often open to making a connection. If you're working in a system drawn from the grimoires or systems of Western magic then the Holy Guardian angel can function in this capacity. The spiritual assistant of the Greek Magical Papyri, or some types of familiar spirits can also serve these purposes. We can look at crossroads spirits like Hekate for this, particularly ones like her since she has power in all areas of creation, in my experience the directional kings would not serve in these roles in the same way, unless you're coordinating work only in a singular kingdom. In traditions like Quimbanda the Exu and Pomba Gira to whom you are connected primarily would serve in these purposes, and as I understand it, these functions are built into that tradition with these spirits. I would imagine other African Diaspora traditions have similar systems in place in which your main spirits assist in interfacing with other spirits. Looking at those traditions, looking at the role of the familiar in traditional European witchcraft and in Greek sorcery can guide us in how to approach spirits as part of a living world rather than as a static system of tools, which has unfortunately been a fairly present perception in established modern ceremonial magic...but, it's one which is fortunately changing as more magicians engage with the spirit world. 

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Touched By an Angel

There seem to be more people working towards achieving Knowledge and Conversation of their Holy Guardian Angels these days, and that's great. There also seem to be more people who want to look like they've checked that box on the spiritual authority check list, and that's not so great.

A friend recently noted that we see a lot of people who describe their experience as if it was one super cool moment, and then it was done. Nothing changes after, there is no relationship after, they did it, they have it in their back pocket that they did it, and they don't have much of anything useful to add to the discourse that reflects their experience. They generalize the angel, or reduce its nature to something relatively meaningless, or treat attaining the angel like a badge they get for leveling up and then moving on. The experience is doing the thing, and saying they did the thing, and that's all it is; it's another experiment with another grimoire or another technique and they met the spirit and it was cool and that's it, right?

Nope.

It's a pretty immense fantastic experience when it happens. And to some degree that initial experience is momentary. That momentary experience exists to create a powerful on going relationship. Think of it sort of like a friend. You can call up a friend, hang out, have a good time, and then go your own way, getting together as needed. But say you and that friend have some sort of life changing experience which shapes the both of you, that creates a bond which ties you together and lets you share an intimacy you don't have with others, so there is a connection which is always there. The moment in the oratory where you complete the retreat is like that. It is a moment so full of force and fire that it forges a bond between you and the angel which is unlike that of other spirits with whom you interact.

Now, based on many approaches to understanding the angel, there is already a bond between you and your angel before the retreat. I would question whether or not all of these other descriptions of Guardian Angels and Holy Guardian Angels are necessarily talking about the same thing as what is described in The Sacred Magic, in fact, I would assert that in many cases they aren't. That said, in my experience, yes, your angel is there from the beginning, and you can and should make contact before doing the retreat. The retreat changes the nature of the bond and the contact, probably mostly on our end, but still, there is a perceptible change, which changes us and how the angel interacts with us.

I very rarely reference things Aaron Leitch says, and initially when I saw him compare Knowledge and Conversation to being Crowned by a spirit I mistook his meaning, and I avoided the comparison. But really, it is pretty apt. Knowledge and Conversation is a form of possession.

People tend to think of possession as it appears in The Exorcist, or The Exorcism of Emily Rose, or other cinematic depictions. Both of those examples are based on true stories, to some degree, but they both take cinematic license and make things visually shocking for horror movie audiences. Still, there is a reality to that kind of possession. Possession can refer to a point where a spirit takes over a person, and torments them. Possession can look like madness.

But that's not the only kind of possession, and even in the case of a spiritual assault there are stages to possession. In magic, where we find possession occurring as choice in which the magician has a relationship with the spirit these stages are more clearly understood. Unfortunately most European Magic (as Western is an inaccurate description) no longer contains spirit possession work, so for most people exploring Holy Guardian Angels, spirit possession means spinning heads and pea soup.

So first you should understand that possession occurs in different stages. In Catholicism there is Courting, Obsession, and Possession. When a spirit is courting someone it is exploring weaknesses which would open that person to possession and tempting them into situations to exploit and exacerbate those weaknesses. The spirit might directly influence and inspire the person and attempt to draw them in. When a spirit is obsessing someone the spirit has made contact and presents the person with things they desire and draws them towards desiring a relationship with the spirit or opening up to that spirit's influence. The obsessed person is oppressed by the spirit as the spirit begins to exert some control., often by impacting their well being and weakening the person's resistance to their influence. Possession occurs when the person succumbs to the obsessing spirit and control is relinquished. Finally an integration would occur if the person willingly gives themselves over to the possessing entity.

These stages all take a pretty negative view on the subject because in Catholicism possession is almost always an involuntary and negative act. Catholicism does however provide a lot of the framework for European spirit magic and so an awareness of it can be useful as a way for setting up our thinking.

Another way of looking at it based in Afro-Caribbean traditions would be that in stage one the spirit sits on you or next to you, you can feel the presence of the spirit, it touches you, you can communicate with it, but aside from a more intimate awareness of it, you're still in the driver's seat, and you can break off from the contact. A second stage involves the spirit more intimately connecting with you such that it can influence and take partial control. You're aware of what's happening, mostly, and you can exert some control, but you and the spirit are kind of sharing control of the steering wheel. The third phase is when the spirit is in full control, and you act as the spirit, you may or may not have awareness and it may or may not communicate with you so much as through you in this process. ( To be clear, I am not an initiate of any African Diaspora, or African Traditional Religions. My comments here are based on understandings of Kimbanda from classes, books and discussions with Kimbandieros. I will happily accept correction if I have mischaracterized this comparison.)

Knowledge and Conversation is somewhere between stage one and stage two, which would fit somewhere close to the obsession stage in a Catholic context. But in the case of Knowledge and Conversation it is voluntary on our parts, and so that gives it an integrated element, which makes it like he reception of a Head Spirit, or being Crowned, in which the spirit with whom you work, by whom you are possessed “resides” with you and so there is an on going relationship in which the “stage” or the clarity of contact, moves on a scale as per the context of the particular moment.

That said, unless you've experienced these types of spiritual interaction, this probably doesn't explain the experience too much.

To go back to Hollywood as a means of illustrating...Death Note is a good example. The relationship between Light and his God of Death is a good example. Ryuk is always there, even if he's just sort of in the back of Light's awareness. They communicate, Light gets answers and suggestions from Ryuk. Ryuk isn't in control but his presence impacts how Light is able to approach things and Ryuk is at times able to facilitate things for him. On some level it looks kind of like a relationship with a familiar spirit, except that Ryuk exerts influence just by virtue of his connection to Light as well as directly by what he communicates, rather than a familiar, who generally performs tasks and provides information but without that same influence. The recent Fox TV series version of The Exorcist has also depicted this phase of possession, albeit in a negative context, in season two of the series. Andy, the possessed individual, initially experiences the possessing spirit as a girl who he believes to be one of his foster children. She suggests things to him, influences what he does and how he makes decisions, she isn't always with him but she's always watching and can make suggestions to or influence Andy pretty much whenever she chooses, but still she's not ultimately in control of him.

Recently when talking with the same friend who pointed out that some people treat the Holy Guardian Angel like a One and Done kind of thing I described it like this:

“By possession I mean like first/second stage The spirit is touching you so it knows and understands you and is able to freely talk to you, but it's there like generally. Like not every waking moment but at any given moment it can interact. It's intimately in the space of your being; still identifiably separate though, but it doesn't feel dissociative. It is like a partner who sits in your sphere and kind of comes into your ear when he needs to speak.”

I could go into what talking to it is like, or how this relationship impacts magic and divination and other spirit work...but if I did all that in one blog post it's seriously limit what I'd have to talk about later.

In any case, finishing the Abramelin, or Liber 8, or Samekh, or whatever ritual you intend to use to achieve Knowledge and Conversation is great, and it's important, but it isn't really the goal or the prize. That all comes later, and is the unfolding relationship which completing the ritual catalyzes. It's not just that single moment, but rather the way in which it affects all the later moments.

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The Raccolta and the Holy Guardian Angel

In my post yesterday on Lent I spoke about the unique moments of the Pascal season which provide liturgically significant times for spiritual work involved in connecting to the Holy Guardian Angel, and to The Beloved. The Angel runs parallel to the Prince of the Presence, who in early Jewish mystical systems was the angel charged with functioning as the apparition of God, and also as a guide forward into the higher realms of creation and unto the Palaces of the Divine Throne room. Along this path the angel also taught seals, passwords and invocations which gave access to the heavens and the spirits who resides therein along with their magical secrets.

For Abraham the Jew the function of the Angel was to teach the Sacred Magic and guide the magician in his magical endeavors, as well as to function as both an intermediary and a thwarting angel who singularly brought all demons within the purview of the magician's control.

In modern magic the angel is our guide, our source of power and authority and our connection to divinity.

Often people think of Knowledge and Conversation, or the Abramelin working, or Liber Samekh as the magic the angel relates to, but the angel is a part of our daily life and experience as a magician. Even for those who have not made firm committed contact with their angels, it is advisable to seek routine communion with the angel even from the beginning of one's magical career. If you have this communion already it becomes easier for the angel to guide you in determining if and when and how you should seek to make firmer your connection.

There is a lot of material in both magical and religious tradition which can be used for working with the angel. We've talked about some of it in posts here before, and we'll continue to do so. Since we took a stop into Catholic territory to discuss Lent I figured we could also look at a short simple prayer to the Guardian Angel from the Raccolta.

TheRaccolta is a collection of traditional Roman Catholic prayers which have been granted various “indulgences” by Popes. Essentially these are prayers which have been given added institutional power, a sort of official magic, which is supposed to add to their spiritual effect. Personally I think this is pretty cool. There are a lot of prayers in it which won't be of particular interest or use for the magician, but there are a lot which can be used in work with the Saints, the Dead, and of course the Angel. So for a magician working with these spirits this is a pretty awesome collection to explore because these are prayers which carry weight within the spiritual traditions connected to some of these spirits.

In the future we may explore some additional Catholic angels prayers (haha “may”...we totally will...) but for now here is a simple one we can look at today:

“112. "ANGEL OF GOD," ETC.

While we give thanks to God for having granted to each of us a holy angel for our guardian, we ought ever to bear in mind the respect, devotion, and loving confidence we owe to this blessed spirit; and with these feelings we should often think of him, and implore his constant aid with the following well-known invocation:

Angele Dei, qui custos es mei, me tibi commissum pietate superna, illumina, custodi, rege, et guberna. Amen.

O angel of God, whom God hath appointed to be my guardian, enlighten and protect, direct and govern me.

Or else.

Angel of God, my guardian dear,
To whom His love commits me here,
Ever this day be at my side,
To light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

Pope Pius VI., in order to kindle the fervour of the faithful to have frequent recourse to their holy Angel Guardian, granted, motu proprio, by a Brief of October 2, 1795 -
i. An indulgence of 100 days every time the above-named short prayer is said devoutly and with a contrite heart.
ii. A plenary indulgence to those who have been accustomed to say it morning and evening throughout the year, on the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, October 2; provided that on that day, after Confession and Communion, they visit a church or public oratory and pray for the Sovereign Pontiff.
iii. A plenary indulgence, in articulo mortis, was added by the same Pope, in another Brief of September 2, 1796, to all who had been accustomed during life frequently to say the said prayer. In this Brief also, motu proprio, he confirmed the Indulgences already granted.
His successor, Pius VII., afterwards, by a decree of the S. Congr. of Indulgences, of May 15, 1821, besides confirming afresh the above-named Indulgences, granted -
iv. A plenary indulgence to all the faithful who say at least once a day, for a month together, the said prayer, Angele Dei, &c., on any one day when, after Confession and Communion, they visit a church and pray as above.”

-- The Raccolta

I have included in our quotation the indulgence info just as an example.

The prayer itself does not need much updating to fit a less Catholic worldview. It's pretty standard in its connection to the angel. “Rule” might seem out of step for many contemporary magicians but it needn't imply submission to an authority so much as acceptance of a standard of guidance. It could easily be replaced by “inspire” if one dislikes “rule.”

The prayer could easily be said at the outset of the day, or before leaving for some task. It could be incorporated into a sort of rosary or used as a chanted prayer for meditation to connect with the angel. It is short enough to be memorized and could be used as a quick recitation to center oneself on the connection to the angel when the events of the day set you off center.

Adding a lamp or candle consecrated to the angel as a point of focus can be useful when praying such prayers. Anointing with Abramelin oil, or with an ash like that described yesterday can be another good material way to connect with the angel during such a prayer. Novena candles for the Guardian Angel or for the Holy Spirit, possibly combined with prayers on petition papers could draw a more magical focus to either building the connection or connecting the prayer into a magical petition to the angel.

Lent, The Holy Guardian Angel and the Calcination of Failure

I've had a bit of an interruption in my "American Gods" series of posts because of some work deadlines, but will be back to those soon. In the mean time, Lent is a really big deal to me, so I wanted to make an Ash Wednesday post. I would have liked to have made it yesterday...but...time keeps on slipping, into the future. 

Some people might wonder why Lent and Ash Wednesday would be exciting to a magician, but since I've had OTO friends literally suggest that I'm a crypto-Catholic it probably isn't too surprising. I like grimoires, and I like the pre-Reformation grimoires, I like studying Catholic liturgics and Sacraments to deepen my understanding of the grimoire practice as well as my work as a Gnostic Catholic Priest.

But I find this time of year to be one of the most exciting for a deeper reason than the appeal of traditional Catholic aesthetics. It is a time steeped in the Mysteries, in the sacramental theology and a Gnostic soteriology, so deeply that as a mystic, a Priest, and a magician I can't help but be excited by it.

It isn't a time of penitent contrition but one of anticipating Triumph. Which in my thinking is very Thelemic on its own, but when we explore this Triumph it gets even better.

Lent anticipates not just Christ's Triumph over death but our Triumph by way of participation in his death and resurrection. We experience the Mystery of the resurrection and likewise become an initiate who has conquered death. The whole Lenten season is steeped in the act of embodying the Passion within the experience of the people. The connection to the Passion Death and Resurrection is subtly built in the people every time they take the Eucharist - just as ours builds within us the sacred marriage of Earth and Heaven and with it communion with the angel; but Lent steps up the experience by immersing the people in reflection through the Stations of the Cross.

Triumphing over Death. This is central in most contemporary Mystery Traditions. The Wica explore this in the Descent of the Goddess, the Masons in the story of Hiram Abiff, the OTO in...well...I'll just say it's public knowledge that our Master Magicians explore the mysteries of death. This is such an important element of the Mysteries that we see it all throughout Europe and the Near East going back at least 3000 years.

But, we're not just conquering Death, with Life, we're conquering Falsehood with Truth. Liber AL tells us death is a lie. The Mysteries expose for us that we are the same light as the source, and death is not the submission of that light to darkness but rather the revelation of that light as it rejoins eternity. This idea touches both on the sacramental ideal f Ash Wednesday and the Gnostic soteriology of Easter Saturday.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of a sort of alchemy. The ash in a traditional context is made from Palm leaves saved from Palm Sunday. This is often interpreted as wearing the ashes of penance while recalling the impending victory of Palm Sunday and the Triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

But Palm Sunday isn't Victory. It is a Pseudo-Thronosis, or false enthroning - a common act in initiatory passion plays. In these rituals the initiate is elevated and perceives success but the success isn't real. Being caught up in that falsehood we miss the reality of our situation and get caught in the snares and traps of life, but if we dig deep beyond the appearance of darkness and difficulty we can find that truth remains.

At Ash Wednesday we burn the Palms; we burn the falsehood. In alchemy one of the first phases is calcination or burning the material to ash. For the alchemist that which burns away is the dross, the false material that that hides the valued and true components of the material. That which is true survives fire, that which is false can not endure.

From a Gnostic and sacramental perspective this gives us an interesting liturgical moment from which to work. In the RCC Penance is one of the seven Sacraments. Tau Apiryon has said that the EGC equivalent of this is Will. I personally interpret this to mean that rather than seeking forgiveness we assess our shortcomings, our failures...the falsehoods which hold onto us and prevent us from succeeding at knowing truth and expressing that truth by doing our Wills. This flips the idea of penance on its head and instead of finding fault we find strength. We recognize that we aren't just our actions and instead of crapping on ourselves for not being perfect we can recognize our potential, we can seek divine inspiration, we can commit to being awesome.

Ritually I've applied this idea by writing a confession, not of sins but of ways I haven't committed to the Work and to my success. I've then burned the confession. Once the confession is burned I make prayers to my angel and reconstitute the "salt" or the ash of the confession with the "sulfur" or "soul" using Abramelin Oil. So my ash doesn't just have ash, but like Chrism it has fire. 

This confession first played out for me while doing the Abramelin Working, which contains a confession and wearing of ash. This idea of confessing to falling short of the Work seemed a fitting way to work on committing to it. From there, reflections on Ash Wednesday and Lent led to this association between the act and the season. It is of course something you can do at any time, and I personally keep my "angel ash" around as a means to connect with my angel through material imposition. It is a very refreshing meditative and spiritual practice. 

This connection to the angel brings me to my last part, the Gnostic soteriology. Soteriology is a theology or doctrine of salvation. In traditional Christianity Christ replaces the sacrifice and becomes the scapegoat. He takes on our sins and as a result, unlike the goat who is taken by the spirits of the wilderness, he descends to Hell weighed down by our sins, but he conquers Satan and Death and rises again so that our sin no longer has the power of death, since sin is what lead to death originally in Eden. He transforms the game by being awesome for us so that we can ride along and get into heaven based on his awesomeness. There are some interesting ideas at play here, but I don't want to get into most of them. 

From a Gnostic perspective it works a little differently. 

Jesus said these things:

"(13) Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like." 

Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel."
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"

Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.""

"(108) Jesus said, "He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.""

"(50) Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where did you come from?', say to them, 'We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?', say, 'We are its children, we are the elect of the living father.' If they ask you, 'What is the sign of your father in you?', say to them, 'It is movement and repose.'""

(The Gospel of Thomas)

Jesus compares his teachings to a bubbling stream of which his followers may drink and become drunk thereof if they truly understand, as does Thomas. He elaborates that there is no difference between himself and the one who carries his spirit by becoming drunk on his teachings. He further elaborates that the Father is the Light that established itself of its own volition, that man is a child of this light and as a child has the light in him and that this presence of the light is what makes man living. This presence of the light is likewise the basis of the teachings of the Word. 

Jesus stresses in many other instances understanding the living and the dead, and the relationship between the living and the dead and that one should not focus simply on the dead but appreciate the living Word which is before them, and which is the message they take in in order to become living themselves. A steady theme is the overlapping equation of Jesus, his message, life, and the Father. Each part in some way relates to another. But ultimately salvation for the Gnostic is not being saved by the act of another, salvation is recognizing death, seeking life through that recognition, and coming alive by embodying the Word and therefore becoming the same as the Word and therefore an expression of the Father. 

Salvation is the knowledge that we may uncover Truth and conquer death. 

In modern magic a key component of this is developing a relationship with the Holy Guardian Angel. In some ways Jesus's experience in the desert, like Moses's experience on Mt. Horeb, has a lot of similarity to encountering one's Holy Guardian Angel. Jesus continues this exploration further in the Pascal narrative with the Gethsemane. Jesus slowly uncovers and accepts his Will even if there are moments which are blinding flashes, not unlike the experience of a mystic or magician. Much of Lent suits itself to communing with the Holy Guardian Angel, which would reflect the Pentacostal imagery of initiation and the reception of the Holy Spirit, it is similarly hinted at in Christ's baptism, and of course his struggles in the desert and at Gethsemane to understand and accept who he is and what his calling is. But outside of the mythos, the ritual narrative plays this out for us as well. 

We burn away what we aren't as we seek to commit to what we are. This is the commitment we make when we seek the angel ardently for the purpose of making a firm commitment to on going communion. The angel speaks to us, and pours out the bubbling stream which changes and anoints us. The angel leads us through our Gethsemane moments, to Triumph through our own Golgatha and understand the light within ourselves. 

Ultimately this is the crowning moment of Lent. Not the joy of the resurrection, but the dark moment in which man can lose himself to distraction and terror or in which he can know that he is a child of the Light and that the light resides within him and is with him even in those moments in which we are most alone. As Jesus dies the veil of the Holy of Holies is torn asunder. The imagery calls to mind the leader of the Sanhedrin tearing his garments in protest as if God angrily shakes his temple and tears apart a symbol of His sacred presence in protest of his son's death. 

But this isn't what's happening at all. 

The veil kept people away from the adytum. The people couldn't directly experience God. But God became a man. In fact, God became man so hard that he died, an excruciating death, full of embarrassment, shame, fear, pain, and sin...so...much...sin, that you couldn't ever imagine having the weight of guilt, anxiety, self doubt, and confusion that God experienced. In that moment of death God is so infinitely human that the entirety of the experience of God is held within the experience of Man. God is ultimately alone in the darkness in a way which is the opposite of his infinite nature (which is likewise alone in the darkness), Which is what we are by virtue of being human. But here we see the divinity in that experience because here, for a moment, God is drawn into the lowest expression of our existence and therefore is closer to us than any other time. 

In a Liturgical sense the Roman Catholic Church recognizes this as the death of the Church. It is often explained that since Jesus is dead, and the Church exists as his Bride than she has no existence in that time that he is in Hell. But more than the Bride of Christ, the Church is an intermediary between Man and Christ, between Man and God. The intermediary dies because God is so deep in the muck with us that there is nothing to mediate anymore. We're there together alone in the darkness, and we just have to open up and realize the Light. 

We have to burn the Palms.

Beginning Conjuration and Spirit Magic pt 5: Intermediary and Crossroads Spirits

Presenting part 5 of 8 of our series on Conjuration and Spirit magic for beginners. Today we'll talk about establishing relationships with Intermediary and Crossroads spirits. Last week we posted a series of book recommendations and information on setting up a devotional practice to develop support in the spirit world. Monday we introduced scrying, and yesterday conjuring the elementals. Today we'll look at the elementals before moving on tomorrow to intermediary and crossroads spirits. So please like us on Facebook, and share the post with your friends so that can enjoy it as well. Bonus...in our scrying post we linked to a class on angel magic, but the link did not go through so we're including it today.

Beginning Conjuration and Spirit Magic pt 5: Intermediary and Crossroads Spirits

So maybe now you've gotten comfortable making offerings at your devotional altar, and you've become friends with some elementals, and you're ready to move on to some more...interesting...spirits. Angels? Demons? The stuff we tend to think of when we think of magical conjuration. So you strip down, spritz yourself with spring water, put on your nicest robe blessed by a priest, pull out your sword consecrated at Mass, put on your crown burn your incense, and sonorously intone in your most beautiful voice all the glorious invocations of God and all the most heinous and intense curses which command the spirits, and no body answers.

 There could be a few reasons why. One possible question we could ask to find one solution is “who are you that they feel they should answer?” Spirits aren't all just functional manifestations that run automatically like computer programs when the right buttons are pushed. They aren't anthropomorphized externalizations of internal mental and emotional concepts. They are spirits. They don't have the same sort of conscious will as humans, but they are still aware individual beings. Now there are some people that take the view that when Iamblichus describes spirits who aren't very bright and are easily tricked by magicians, that these spirits are the demons of the grimoires, and so a magician dressing like a child playing at being King Solomon is enough to trick them into thinking you're Solomon. Others might take the view that angels obey magicians because God says so, and demons do because man is above them in the hierarchy. There are lots of philosophical and cosmological explanations, and some of them can work well, but it remains that the interactions don't always run perfectly, so spirits clearly have some wiggle room, even if they don't have full freedom in the matter.

So, the spirit isn't answering so you ramp up your use of names of God. But do the names belong to you? Do you have the power to use them. Think of more modern vampire movies...the clumsy would be hero tries to stop the vampire with a cross or religious relic, and the vampire laughs it off because the hero, being your average modern person, has no real faith in the spiritual power behind the symbol. The spirits obey the names but you have to be in a position to actually use them. A large part of grimoiric magic comes from the sacramental rite of exorcism, in which the exorcist by virtue of names and signs calls upon divine power to command spirits. The exorcist however had to be spiritually fit and in a state of sacramental grace to make use of the names with any efficacy. So the exorcist had to attend confession, make prayers to prepare themselves, and preferably attend Mass prior to the exorcism. Liber Juratus has this same admonition to attend Mass. Most grimoires require a period of spiritual purification, the use of psalms to prepare and consecrate oneself, and various prayers found in the grimoires to that bring about that effect as well. So you need to be spiritually fit and able to connect to the power of the names. This doesn't necessarily mean being a good Christian. In the case of some of the PGM rituals it might mean being initiated into a mystery tradition, or having done a magical ritual to give you access to the powers behind the names. In the grimoires it might just mean having a certain spiritual steadiness and balance while accessing some authentic understanding of a spiritual power behind the divine names or the thwarting angels. As you explore these systems you can find what this readiness means to you, and the more in touch with it you become the better your results will be.

There is another element which might help in addition to this readiness, and we find it referenced in the PGM, as well as hinted at, or maybe expressly present, in some of the grimoires. The idea of an intermediary spirit, or a spirit who helps connect you with other spirits. Now, calling it an intermediary spirit kind of pigeonholes this function, when in reality several systems have several ways of filling this helping and idea, and they're not all precisely by using go-betweens. To illustrate the essential idea though. If you didn't like something Microsoft was doing, and you walked into a board meeting and told them to design some new software that fit your needs better, they would be confused as to who you were and why you were there, and they probably wouldn't listen. If you were friends with Ted Turner, and Ted called up Bill Gates, and Bill called the board and said “Hey, Johnny Magician is a cool guy, he needs this software, can you help him he'll call you tomorrow about it” then they'll be expecting you and know you're someone they should listen to.

The PGM presents this idea in various rituals having to do with acquiring a daimon or a spiritual assistant. In the NeoPlatonic worldview this was a spirit who wasn't quite a human spirit and wasn't quite a divine spirit, but it could go between human theurgists and the gods and carry prayers and offerings up and blessings an assistance down. In a more magical context it could go about and accomplish things for the magician and it could help the magician in calling upon gods and spirits in other spells to aid in his work.

In The Testament of Solomon St. Michael the Archangel comes to Solomon and delivers a ring which imparts divine grace and wisdom upon Solomon allowing him to command spirits. The demons are commanded by angels, but the ring and the spiritual presence which accompany the ring give Solomon the authority over the demons and probably also make the angels obedient to him, even though we don't ever see him needing to make use of the angels. In Solomonic grimoires this same presence, essentially the Holy Spirit, is sometimes called upon by magicians to grant the power and authority to command the spirits. In such an example we could look at either the angel, or the Holy Spirit as functioning somewhat as an intermediary spirit, however we could also look at the presence of the Holy Spirit as simply initiatory in nature if it were taken as a permanent presence.

The Abramelin presents this idea with the Holy Guardian Angel. The magician goes on vacation, and brings back an angel! Or...more honestly, the magician cloisters himself in an ever increasing devotional ceremony of prayers, culminating in an intense period of prayer and meditation at the end of which his Holy Guardian Angel appears. The angel teaches him magic and as part of teaching him magic aids him in conjuring the Demon Kings, and then all demons subordinate to them, and subordinate to their subordinates, and so on, and eventually including familiar spirits granted to him. He is then by the agency of his angel able to call upon these demons without the trappings of a ritual magician and make them do things they have sworn to do. He can start with his familiars and if they can't do something they will refer him to the proper demon to do it. So he has both the angel and his series of familiars to assist him in navigating the spirit world. The Golden Dawn and Crowley kind of took this idea and worked it into a variant of the Pentacostal initiation of the Holy Spirit we referenced above, but even in their approach the Holy Guardian Angel teaches you magic and helps you command spirits. In fact the Stele of Jeu from the PGM, which was an exorcism of spirits, was reworked by the Golden Dawn, and moreso by Crowley, to make it into an invocation of this angelic presence. One of the key adaptations is replacing the exorcism language with language directed at making spirits and magic subservient to the magician.

Liber Juratus takes an approach that is similar to the Abramelin, but taken in a direction again more like this baptism of the Holy Spirit kind of view. The magician engages in a spiritual retreat to achieve the beatific vision, or the vision of the face of God. By achieving this the magician then gains the authority to command the spirits and do the magic described in the grimoire. In this case it is not so much an example of use of an intermediary spirit but rather creating that spiritual rightness by which the power of divinity can be accessed. Juratus also seems to take an approach that the angels and the magician share in a love for the divine and this is why the angels are willing to work with the magician. Achieving the beatific vision is a reflection of this state of grace, or perhaps a cause of it.

Maybe we don't groove on all this Catholic type angel helper stuff. Maybe we want something more down to earth? In sorcery traditions part of the initiation is accessing a connection to the spiritual powers of the ancestors of the house into which you are initiated. In witchcraft you are born into the bloodline of your ancestors and therefore you are born with a connection to their spiritual presence. These spirits therefore are able to serve as your intermediaries. They help make introductions for you in the spirit world. They can help exert spiritual force when needed to help keep a spirit on board with doing whatever they agreed to do. They can help protect you from spirits who are taking advantage of the opportunity to work in the world that you are giving them in ways which might have otherwise been disadvantageous for you. So your dead, again, those guys you're feeding at your devotional altar, are a whole crew of spirits ready to vouch for you in the spirit world, and who other spirits know have your back if things go sideways.

Witches also often keep fairy or other kinds of spirit familiars who help teach them magic and accomplish magic for them. These spirits can also work as intermediaries to help call other spirits, and help leverage agreements with them. On the point of witches and sorcerers, we also have forest spirits and crossroads spirits who give power and grant access to familiars and to spirits. In European witchcraft this spirit is the Witches' Devil, who contrary to popular modern opinion, is not precisely Lucifer and has nothing to do with fallen angels. Rather this black spirit makes an agreement with the witch and teaches the witch magic. He can be met in the forest under a tree, at the cross roads, or at night at the steps of a church. He is sometimes described, and depicted in artwork, as cavorting with the witches and participating in magical rituals with them. Frisvold describes a similar spirit in the forests of Trinidad in his book Obeah: A Sorcerous Ossuary. The forest power of obiya is granted by these spirits who inhabit the forest, or the wild natural places, therefore a place with a power similar to that liminal power of graveyards and crossroads in that it is a place not fully held by society and it is a place containing some uncertainty. The spirits he describes remind me very much of the Witches' Devil.

Like the devils of witchcraft and Obeah, Vodou has Papa Legba. Legba is a crossroads spirit who either grants permission of denies permission of the person approaching him to speak with the Loa and other spirits. In Santeria Elegua also connects to the crossroads and grants access to spirits. Now I am not suggesting that you begin all your grimoire conjurations with an offering to Legba and Elegua, or by making a call to the Witches' Devil, but these traditions which present a more living view of conjure work all involve some intermediary to work with spirits. Even looking back to Europe we have Hecate, and Mercury at the crossroads and able to grant access to magic and spirits, and to move between this world and the underworld.

So maybe the grimoire work needs to work with gatekeeper spirits too. Fortunately the grimoire tradition has a few of these. Oriens, Egyn, Paymon, and Amaymon, are the Kings of the Four Directions and they grant access to this world by the spirits who reside within each of their directional kingdoms. They sometimes appear in lists of demons, but are also often listed elsewhere. They are terrestrial rather than infernal, and have infernal, aerial, and celestial spirits to whom they accord. They clearly stand in conjunction with this world, at the spokes of the cross roads, each one ruling the vertical crossroads between spiritual worlds. They are a little different than the basic idea of an intermediary spirit in that there are four of them, and they don't feature in the grimoires as being called upon before calling other spirits. Some magicians think you shouldn't ever conjure them directly, some think you can start at the bottom of a hierarchy and work up to them, some think you should start with them and work down. Maybe working with your intermediary spirit...you're spiritual assistant, your Holy Guardian Angel, you might under the presidency of the angel connected to the King and make yourself known to the king, maybe share some offering, and create an awareness of who you are so that when you call spirits from the direction he rules you can reference the king if need be in calling the spirit. In addition to name dropping the king also you have the gatekeeper willing to open the gate so your spirit can be drawn to manifestation.

Start slow though. Keep feeding your ancestors. Talk with them about what you're going to be working on. Get them to sign on with helping you out with your conjure work. Just lighting some candles and leaving some candy and whiskey on an altar doesn't mean they're going to jump in and help with specific things you want. Talk with them about your life, and talk specifically about the work you plan to do and the help you want from them. When your ancestors are on board, pick what kind of intermediary you want. Do you want the spiritual assistant from the PGM? Do you want to work with the agathodaimon? Do you want to do devotional work to the Holy Sophia and draw on the Holy Spirit, or turn to the cults of the Saints and honor a saint related to spirits and magic? Saints like Cyprian, or Nicholas, or Benedict, or perhaps Joan of Arc, even St. Peter as the Gatekeeper could be an option. Maybe you want something more naturalistic and you do want to find a way to incorporate the witches devil or a crossroads spirit into your work. Maybe look at religions local to your environment and find what spirit locally served that purpose and make propitiation to him or her before your rituals. Or maybe you want to go all in with the grimoire approach as seen in the Post-Golden Dawn world and do the Abramelin working, get in contact with your Holy Guardian Angel, and work with him or her as part of your conjure work. Once you have your friend at the center of the crossroads, then maybe incorporate the kings, and see if your calls get answered more clearly.

You have options. Quite literally a world of options since there are so many variants of this idea from so many places. Poke around, find yours, fit it to your work.