From thelema93-l-owner@bitsy.hollyfeld.org Wed Aug 7 17:27:09 1996 Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA18832 for ; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 17:27:08 -0700 Received: from bitsy.hollyfeld.org (bitsy.hollyfeld.org [38.240.235.1]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA22951 for ; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 17:26:43 -0700 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by bitsy.hollyfeld.org (8.7.4/8.7.3) id RAA01869 for thelema93-l-outgoing; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 17:00:16 -0400 X-Authentication-Warning: bitsy.hollyfeld.org: majordom set sender to owner-thelema93-l using -f Received: from icicle.winternet.com (icicle.winternet.com [198.174.169.5]) by bitsy.hollyfeld.org (8.7.4/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA01865 for ; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 17:00:06 -0400 Received: from tundra.winternet.com (robin@tundra.winternet.com [198.174.169.11]) by icicle.winternet.com (8.7.5/8.7.5) with ESMTP id QAA00319 for ; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 16:41:25 -0500 (CDT) Received: (from robin@localhost) by tundra.winternet.com (8.7.4/8.6.12) id QAA20469; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 16:29:27 -0500 (CDT) Posted-Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 16:29:27 -0500 (CDT) Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 16:29:26 -0500 (CDT) From: one star in sight To: thelema93-l@bitsy.hollyfeld.org Subject: LBRP/LBRH anyone? In-Reply-To: <199608051657.JAA12452@jobe.shell.portal.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-thelema93-l@bitsy.hollyfeld.org Precedence: bulk reply-to: thelema93-l@bitsy.hollyfeld.org Status: RO Greetings and 93 all, I've been of the feeling for some time that students of ceremonial Magick should take it upon themselves to master the forms of the Hermetic tradition. To this end the system of the Golden Dawn seems the most developed expresion of ceremonial Magick and certainly was a major influence on Crowley's development and by extension Thelemic ceremonial Magick. Writers such as DuQuette seem to agree by presenting the Hexagram and Pentagram rituals along side the Thelemic versions of those rituals. I'd like to begin a dialog of a technical nature exploring the Ceremonial rituals of the Golden Dawn in two streams, the first to clarify the rituals in thier original sense, and the second to see what kind of 'scrubbing' might be done to spruce these rituals up into fresher forms. For now though I'm just trying to understand two very basic rituals, the Lesser Banishing Rituals of the Hexagram and Pentagram. Virtually every version of the LBRH that I can find has some minor differences. The golden dawn showing in the case of North/Water the Luna Triangle being drawn first even though the Saturn triangle is drawn first on the other thre directions. Lon Duquette in his book corrects this but switches the associations of the Air and Water hexagrams. Crowley's Liber ABA has what I would call the 'correct' versions. From what I can determine the 'correct' figures are below. I refer to the triangle of Saturn/Mars/Jupiter as the 'saturn triangle' which is always upright and always drawn first beginning with the Saturn point. The other triangle which has Luna/Mercury/Venus points is the flip-flopping 'luna triangle' and always drawn second beginning with the Luna point. These ascii versions are poorly formed but give the general idea. East/Fire /\ /1_\ /\ /2_\ South/Earth /\ (a star of david) \/1 \/ /\ 2/\ \/ West/Air /\ /1_\ \ 2/ \/ North/Water ____ \ 2/ \/ /\ /1_\ The elemental associations make sense when compared to the Cardnal signs placement on a circle of the zodiac with Aries in the East. My questions for the luminaries out there are : 1. What is being banished with this ritual? The Hexagram in general is used both for planetary and zodiacal rituals. Does this form address one or the other or both? My sense is that the answer is both but I can't explain why. 2. What is the rationale behind the irregularly shapped Hexagrams? I can't find a single reference the what kind of meaning is implied by them. The good old LBRP includes the visualisations of four Archangels, Raphael in the East for Air, Gabriel in the West for Water, Michael in the South for Fire and Auriel (or Uriel) in the North for Earth. Crowley's commentaries on the LBRP include helpful ideas concerning standing at the intersection of Samekh and Pe on the Tree of Life. Thus the Sphere Tipharet is before you, Yesod behind, Hod left and Netzach to the right. This concept makes sense on a certain level but introduces some weirdness by introducing the Sephirot. The Sephirotic Archangels for those Spheres just so happen to match up with the Archangels in the ritual with the exception that Haniel is the Archangel of Hod. My first impression was that perhaps Haniel should be substitued for Auriel (or Uriel) in the North. The fact that there is some discrepancy (Auriel vs Uriel) already in some versions of the ritual suggest that this is a possible area to consider for correction. However further research has found some rather enigmatic statements that the Sephirotic Archangels are actually different 'entities' than the Elemental Archangels in the LBRP. This makes sense one one level given that the Sephirot in question normally do not have those elemental associations given in the LBRP. However given the sense that in Hebrew the name itself contains an essense of the nature of the entity in question I have a hard time with the notion that there are two Raphaels out there with the same name and therefore appearance but with different aspects. Can anyone shed some light on these angelic and elemental associations in the LBRP? The other enigma in the LBRP are the four letter names that are vibrated in each quarter. The traditionally given names are IHVH in the East, ADNI South, IHIH West and AGLA (or Ateh Gibor LeOlam ADNI) in the North. Nowhere can I find any rationale for the assignment of these names other than refering to them collectively as 'names of god' etc. Does anyone have any clue as to why these names should be used where they are? Thanks for any light shed! Robin ,--------------------------------------------------------------------------, |http://www.winternet.com/~robin | The Mystical Internet / WWW Equinox | |ftp://ftp.winternet.com/users/robin | Magick WinHelp and Text archives | |snail: Robin | PO Box 2333 Minneapolis MN USA 55402| '--------------------------------------------------------------------------'