Rituals

The rituals a neophyte was taught first

Ritual is the practical side of ceremonial magic: a fixed sequence of words, movements, signs and visualisations used to mark the sacred space, steady one's attention, and then invoke or banish a chosen force. The short rites here became basic exercises because they teach the bodily and imaginative grammar that longer ceremonies assume.

The versions on these pages come chiefly from Golden Dawn teaching of the late nineteenth century and from Aleister Crowley's Liber O, printed in The Equinox in 1909. Their divine names, angels and directional symbolism draw directly from older Jewish and Christian material, but the exact sequences are modern order work instead of ancient rites preserved unchanged. Later schools kept adapting them, so this section leaves their differences visible.

It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.

The Equinox, Vol. I, No. 2 · 1909 · p. 13, I 2 ↗

The rituals

  1. ritual The Qabalistic Cross Five touches and five Hebrew words: a cross traced on the body, which opens and closes the pentagram ritual. 5 steps
  2. ritual · LBRP The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram The Qabalistic Cross; a pentagram of Earth traced at each of the four quarters, with a divine name vibrated into each; the four archangels called about the performer; and the Cross again. 13 steps
  3. ritual · LIRP The Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram The same ritual, with the invoking pentagram of Earth at each quarter — the form the Golden Dawn's own text writes out. 13 steps
  4. technique The Vibration of Divine Names How a divine name is spoken in these rituals: breathed in, drawn down through the body, sent out with the Sign of the Enterer, and closed with the Sign of Silence. 5 steps
  5. sign The Sign of the Enterer A step forward and a thrust of both hands: the gesture that sends a vibrated name out, and that projects force in the Golden Dawn's other work. 1 step
  6. sign The Sign of Silence The foot drawn back and a forefinger laid on the lips: the gesture that closes a vibration and, in the Golden Dawn's papers, keeps what was sent out from returning. 1 step
  7. reference Names and angels The divine names, angels and words spoken in the rituals, with their Hebrew forms and meanings. 14 names

Where these come from

The words follow the close of the Lord's Prayer, which follows 1 Chronicles 29:11

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever” is the doxology of the Lord's Prayer — a late addition to Matthew — and the ritual puts it into Hebrew. The verse it most resembles names more sefirot than the ritual uses.

We see by the occult versicle of the Lord's Prayer, which we have cited in our Doctrine, that it was originally made after two manners

Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual · 1896 · p. 222 ↗

It does not appear in the earliest surviving MSS of the Gospel of Matthew, nor in the parallel version of the Lord's Prayer in Luke. It appears only in later MSS of the Byzantine textual tradition. It is probably an interpolation

Correspondences 8, no. 2 (2020): 1–40 · 2020 · p. 9 ↗

It is quite likely that the doxology was inspired by a text from the Hebrew Bible, from the First Book of Chronicles

Correspondences 8, no. 2 (2020): 1–40 · 2020 · p. 9 ↗

Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and Thou art exalted as head above all.

The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation · 1917 · 1 Chronicles 29:11 ↗