I’m following Gordon Winterfield’s Demons of Magick instructions for ritual one which is just a petition for results.
I’ve been reading this book on and off without doing anything for about 6 months now. Just to really absorb the instructions in. Plus I didn’t have any real need for it before.
I’d say I’m quite meticulous with instructions. I’ve summarised the rituals in a spreadsheet for easy reading and self learning. Every steps covered. In the last three days I’ve prepared my encoded request and practiced the entire ritual opening, core ritual, ritual one for a specific entity, and then the licence to depart.
I’ve covered everything EXCEPT I forgot to face North when calling upon the angels in the ritual opening. I chose a nice simple wall in my hotel room without considering the direction.
Do I need to do it all again? I don’t want to call upon the same demon with the exact same request just because I forgot one detail in the ritual but at the same time I’m not sure how important it is.
It’s so annoying when you’ve practiced the whole routine except for that one thing.
I think I’m general for gallery of magick books forgetting one instruction isn’t the end of the world. Particularly since you didn’t do it out of any sort of laziness or bad faith. If you see no movement towards your request in 30 days you can retry, otherwise don’t worry about it.
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The long complex ritual steps are not as important as the energy and intention you are putting into the ritual itself. I have turned my bedroom into a proper place of practice without ever opening a book and following every single labeled instruction. Especially note that I practice only with what I make myself.
If it is in your head, it will be in reality. That is the trick with magick.
One or the first times I found a Lbrp online as a neophyte over 11 years ago now was actually an EA KOETTING you tube video )(speaks volumes). He said in terms of directions (I was worried too vs my golden dawn copy which emphasized the directions heavily) DONT CONFUSE THE SYMBOL WITH THE ESSENCE. (in terms of what direction is where in magick). That always stuck.
Meaning it really doesn’t matter if you don’t make it matter.
The general rule in modern magick is the window in any room symbolises magickal east, otherwise if you need to be pedantic id suggest going the compass route and marking the actual directions. I’ve never had the direction influence my ritual results. At all.
I don’t think it will hinder the results. It might help to face a certain direction if you are looking to use the element that corresponds with that direction (if the element is sympathetic to your intention for the spell/ritual). I don’t have much of a choice in my small apartment and it’s always facing south.
I live in a tiny room. It consists of my bed, my boxes of possessions and about one square metre of floor space (needed for the door to open).
I do my magick lying down. The reason being I have a long term chronic neck problem, the continous discomfort when not lying down is a distraction. Most of my life is spent not lying down of course, but when I try to settle into magickal practice the discomfort that I generally live with is too distracting.
Anyway, point, when do my practices I am not facing a targeted compass direction.
For workings that specifiy a certain direction, I will sometimes apply a mental intentional equivalency.
Ie, I will imagine a giant compass. I am at its centre. I rotate the imaginol compass so that its intended directional indicator aligns to the direction I am facing (so, Up, really) and then proceed.
Thats just me of course. There are many perspectives on the importance of directionality. Some see it as essential, some as maybe useful and others as of little relevance.
As we are talking GOM, I will add that this subject is addressed in one of their books. I think its Archangels of magick (but not 100% sure), they talk about a specific ritual traditionally having been performed facing a specific compass direction, but they have found it more effective facing some other compass direction.
Sorry for the long ramble, to summarise: Maybe direction is important, maybe it isn’t, but if it is (in my view) its not necessarily all that important.
I chose a nice simple wall in my hotel room without considering the direction.