So call me a beginner. But, I’d like to ask what exactly is Ceremonial Magick. As far as I’ve been able to know, Ceremonial magick seems to be an umbrella for schools of magick that are either of Judio-Christian or Greek Influence. So some examples would be planetary magick, astrology, or kabbalah. All in all, Ceremonial magick mostly seems to deal with divine or celestial powers, powers of light. I’m asking, what is Ceremonial Magick and what schools of magick make it up?
Ceremonial magick is simply any structured system of magick that uses tools such as circles, triangles, wands, and daggers in the performance of ritual. Examples are Hermetics, Enochian, Wicca, Golden Dawn, and the grimoire tradition of the Lesser Key of Solomon.
Ceremonial is contrasted with more free form systems such as shamanism, Chaos Magick. Hoodoo, and Voodun, which have less structure and adherence to method.
Think of it like this. Ceremonial magick systems are all about controlling the experience. Free form systems are all about letting the experience unfold as it will.
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@Johnny_Samhain Cermonial magic is not just used in light magic. Its also highly used in dark magic. It depends on wich enteties used, how they are used, how the ritual is structured and the worldwiew of the magican.
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I’ve noticed a theme in ceremonial magick that focuses on the belief of some omni-potent divine “source” in all creation, and the magician attempting to become closer with it. Under this belief, the entities we call gods or angels are either faces of this source being or entities that serve it as go-betweens for mortals. The source entity is often invoked through divine names like Yahweh, Adonai, or Elohim. AkA, names given to the Judio-Christian god.
This belief system is essentially right hand path. Does someone need to subscribe to it to practice it?
To me is golden dawn. Enochian. Etc not strictly goetia
@Johnny_Samhain Im working with cermonial magic that is satanic. No calling in YHVH to protect in those cases.
But it dont have to be satanic. Even draconian orders like Dragon rouge are using cermonial magic and in those ritual YHVH is not called upon.
This is a good account of the sequence involved in Western ceremonial magick (which is the active part of Kabbalism); The Kabbalists ultimately see God the Highest as splitting into lesser forces who are His employees. They run the world (first on the inner planes of course) and we call them Gods but they too have employees e.g. The Angels.
The Kabbalist sees both of these as forces employed by God to do His work. In ceremonial magick the Kabbalist will go through stages of protection before he induces possession by a God so he/she can “charge/power” a talisman with the God’s force or evoke and control a lesser (but nevertheless still powerful) Spirit to do his/her bidding. Similar to Voodoo in principle.
A Ceremony for the Evocation of Bartzabel, the Spirit of Mars (rahoorkhuit.net)
Ceremonial Magick is relying o a supposed God to help make things occur, or being self reliant by having things occur as expected; through heightened altered states of mind, through ritual props, costumes, imagination and meditation on a goal.
Yes the Kabbalist will usually employ traditional European Pagan Pantheons as a means of inducing God-possession (invocation) but any Pantheon from any culture can be used so long as it works