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The ritual above is an intentional merging, re-writing, and adaptation of several older forms, at all stages leaving out recourse to any external powers or godforms. I believe that the re-writing and improving of existing rituals is as important to empowerment as making one’s own magickal tools, and our culture, our very language, is the re-use and adaptation of the forms used by previous generations.
I do this most mornings, and I carry a printout of the main Invocation with me, and read it through silently whenever I want to tune-up and get clear about my real idenitity.
To begin, be in your Temple if you have one, or just find a space where you can turn in a circle with your arms outstretched, do a couple of stretches or three deep breaths or whatever, and make sure you’re not observed (this is crucial in my experience: if you think you can be seen or heard, it will make you aware of the possibility of other consciousnesses, and the possibility they may judge you or react to what you’re doing). Once I’d memorised the wording, I do the entire thing from “In the Temple of My Mind…” to “Hear Me, thou who are subject unto Me” with my eyes closed.
You COULD do this silently, if you can concentrate strongly enough on the tones during the Stoicheia exercise, or can convince your neighbours/family you’re warming up your voice for those, and then do the rest silently.
Stand facing east, and start by saying the following:
In the Temple of My Mind
In the Silence of My Soul
I am ready to do the workings of My desire.
(On saying that, I take a minute to identify with how I’d feel if reality was no more solid than a daydream, and also kind of visualise a Temple inside my own head, and the Self of my self sitting inside it.)
I cleanse this Place
Its boundaries made Perfect
(Take a moment to visualise whatever cleansing you use – mine is shards of electric white power coming forth from my body, scourging the space clean and then locking into an impenetrable barrier around my apartment, including the ceiling and floor.)
And come I now to the Place of the Mystery,
Where all Form and Power is Mine.
~
Then I do the “stoicheia” exercise from Stephen Flowers’ book Hermetic Magic – an invocation (NOT evocation – at least, not as I use it) of planetary powers that you begin by facing east, for the Moon, then turning counter-clockwise: at each cardinal point and then below, heart, and above, you intone a vowel sound, whilst visualising the Greek letter for it and also the number associated with it.
The image above is the cheatsheet I made for it.
For more background,if you google “flowers stoicheia” it should take you right to that chapter on googlebooks, p.120 is the chapter on theory, he has a diagram on p.156, and this blog page has a break-down of the whole system.
I visualise the numbers as dots, like on playing cards, which is easy up to 10, then the 70, 400 & 800 I just visualise as 7, 4 and 8 bars representing 10 & 100 each – I vis. both over the planet it’s associated with.
When I do this, I’m feeling the power of the sound almost projecting out from my centre into the sky, like a column of light, where they project the image, number and letter form. Kinda like the bat symbol!
It’s also easy to do when you wake up feeling like crap, and not in touch with anything, because it’s just intonation, and you’re not reaching outwards to entities or powers, but inwards to see letters and numbers – stuff you learned at kindergarten.
Then, eyes still closed and still facing south, I do the Invocation – it feels most powerful when I can summon up a feeling/image for each line, for example “Power of Time…” I recall how I felt as a child at school, compared to as an adult now, and so on.
That explains everything you need to know how I do it, the rest of this is optional background etc.
Concept Of The Invocation:
The more power you can invest in feeling your own capability and power, whilst still in the human body you’ve manifested, the closer you come to having any concept of Godhood right here in this living world.
If, on the other hand, you “draw down light from above” or “breathe it out from the heart chakra whilst intoning a sacred name” in my opinion at time of writing this, you’re placing the power ELSEWHERE, I’m not saying that doesn’t work, because it does, powerfully, but I’m working towards the paradigm that I’m one side of a mobius strip and on the other side is Source, raw unformed Manifold/Singular/Void all in one, indefinable, unlimitable, and certainly not JUST “light” or “power” or any other definable limited thing that has an opposite and also grades of quantity.
By making the power jump through hoops, e.g., it’s Source, then Light, then Heart-Chakra Energy, and maybe throw in a Hebrew syllable as well, you’re placing conditionality on your own access to the very essence of your Self. But if you hate that, draw down whatever you want, I’m just explaining how I do it.
So you raise the power by using words, and tying your own real feelings, memories and hope to those words, that relate right here to your current life and not some “other” “better” state where everything’s kittens and marshmallows.
Structure & Sources:
TL;DR version – all this stuff is ripped from old poems, spells and invocations, and modified for my own purposes.
“Power of … have I” is taken from the format of an old Celtic verbal spell called Exorcism Of The Eye, in which the healer identifies themselves as a spiritual being who has power over the material world by virtue of belonging in it, and therefore over the bodiless spiritual entity afflicting the patient – I liked it because it doesn’t denigrate embodied life.
Power of Planets, Time and Space are my own additions because they’re more relevant to Godhood than the traditional “Power of Thunder” etc from that spell, more tangible than “Power of the Heavens” and by doing the stoicheia exercise first, I start it by FEELING that planetary power, and therefore eliminating conscious doubt right from the start.
“By this, know My Holy….” Having stated I’m here, I’m calling attention to my claiming of power OVER (as opposed to simply power TO).
“For I am…” adaptation of the “Bornless One” identifying my Self directly with the One, Manifold, Void “Source” which lies behind all forms, from dogshit to golden effigies.
“I am the greatest of things, the least of things…” – the purpose of that is the old saying “To the pure, all things are pure” – if you only identify with a certain class of objects, eg, virgin parchment, uncut incense, cleansed sanctified temples, etc, IMO you’re missing a massive part of your power base and laying your Godself open to being sullied.
“Now do I choose…” having identified myself as Power coming forth from Power, drawing that right down to my body-mind and present self.
“I am Godless…” – because I’m not doing this as a follower. I’m doing it to claim my own Godhood. This is adapted from “Thunder, Perfect Mind” and I just like it.
“Hear Me…” again from the trad. Bornless One rit, drawing attention of all lesser entities of what I expect, and because I’ve done from “In the Temple of My Mind” with my eyes closed, I usually open them at this point, because I’m now pointing my will towards the outer world.
“Mine is the Power…” specifically included this because although I didn’t ever believe in it, the “lord’s” prayer was dinged into my head from childhood, where we said it after morning assembly, so I’m reclaiming words I was taught to speak when I was too young to know any better.
Close – I close with the long form name of my inner daemon, that I evoked following the method in Schertel’s book “Magic: History, Theory, Practice” but you could use AUM if that’s neutral to you (I dislike Hindu/Buddhist forms so don’t use it) or AMEN, if that works, or whatever. Make it personal and make it powerful and relevant.
Results:
Since I started doing this (May 2013 for the Invocation, which I’ve amended and improved a few times, I did the stoicheia part periodically before, starting around Sept 2012) I’ve found that my path towards removing all the dreck that was blocking me from my own power has changed from being a stumbling rocky path to almost like being on a waterslide.
I find I observe something I need spiritually (Schertel’s inner daemon exercise is one example) and BAM, there’s either a webpage that I find right away, or a book for pennies off Amazon, or I find I bought or downloaded something already that has it right there, I’m having a better quality of everyday life, and because I’m more focused, the magickal work I do on top of this rit is going much more fluidly. I’m not just waking up with everything in my life perfect, but usable, realistic and achievable methods of making things better are readily available now, in a different way than in the past.
I no longer skip a day of doing any magickal work, then it becomes two days, three, a week, etc, and because it’s so EASY to do, I can do it even when not remotely in the mood to scry or evoke or whatever. The few times I’ve missed days, it’s easy to just pick it up the next day, even if I don’t feel that powerful or have really pressing mundane stuff on my mind.
Anyway that’s what I do… apologies for the long post, but I thought there was a chance someone might find something useful from it.
on my way too it 