Performing ritual in confined spaces

General Discussion
1

So due to lifes current circumstances I had to move in with my parents a few weeks ago.They have a spare room but it is very small and most of my stuff is in the room.Ever since starting my journey on the LHP I have always had a spacious too to use as a temple making it no problem to perform evocation with all the traditional tools i.e a circle,altar,triangle(or in my case a GoP).I have enough room to set up a couple small altars but that’s it.I’ve been using a small shelf about 3 ft across and about a foot and a half high to perform my evocations but for one the altar is now dedicated to Lucifer and for two it takes away from alot of the psychodrama of the ritual for me being kneeling in front of an altar with a black mirror propped up against the wall is not what I’m used to.

I know alot of you have went through this at one point and time so if you could please share how you performed your operations with limited space and had success.

Thanks in advance!

MK

2

Any thoughts?

3

Time to create an astral temple maybe?

4

Seconded.

Nowadays everyone likes to poke fun at the idea of an astral temple saying that it can lead to mental masturbation, but once you build one and get results from working with and in it, you can then politely (or not) smile and let the naysayers go about their business.

You can also make a black mirror and use it as a scrying aid to enter your astral temple.

5

I’m in much the same situation at this point. I do magic in the house to some extent, but something like evocation is just too complex, requires space I don’t have, relies on someone NOT beating down my door unexpectedly. I have an outdoor space, away from home, that I make it out to sometimes. That settled the matter of trying to work in the house. But winter is coming,and so far north it;s already getting too cold too practice outside. In a week or two my ritual space will probably be covered in snow, for the next six months… then it will be nothing but melt water and mud.

Perhaps it’s time for me to construct an astral temple of my own to use.

6

Never tried this myself, but psionic grimoire by charles cosimano has a chapter on using a radionic box (and how to build one) for evocation

7

i prefer astral magic, but that’s not to say that physical magic isn’t worthwhile.

my use of astral spaces is the result of limited physical room, as you mention. it’s easier to get over the whole “confined area” thing once you realise (and by that, i mean accept on an emotional level, as i’m sure you “realise” it intellectually already), that space/time is a conceptual phenomenon we rely upon for sanity, and has little effect or impact upon the magic we perform.

also, check out a book called Portable Magic by Donald Tyson. it’s a great little volume which presents the tarot as a complete system of ritual magic, which one can make use of with only a deck of tarot cards and a table top. more than that, however, it shows us how flexible ceremonial magic can be and how it may be “miniturised” for convenience, as well as all the other good things that go along with it.

if you subscribe to Austin Osman Spare’s system(s), the whole point of ritual or ceremony is to prime the aetheric body/ies for a single moment of gnosis, when the desire is released and transmuted through space/time into idealised manifestation. thus, the only limitation imposed by physical room to move is that of making the psychodrama kind of lame. if you don’t need psychodrama (and, you don’t, really… refer to Spare above), then you just need to find a way of reaching the desired energetic point where desire becomes transmuted. again, astral magic is great for this, and the tarot also represents everything in existence, so it’s a great model to use as a starting point for astral and other magical systems.

i have a neat little altar set up in my study (and it has goat legs!), but i perform virtually all of my magic astrally, as i prefer the freedom and perfection of astral work. for example, on the astral plane, my circle is perfectly round, my pentacles are perfectly drawn etc, whereas when i work on the physical, i need to accept that not everything is going to be perfect or ideal (and being a capricorn, i’m also a pedantic perfectionist). also, i’ve found that trance states can go deeper on the astral anyway, and when you reach a state where the physical body kind of fades into the background, you realise that such a state could only be reached on the astral.

by the same token, there’s nothing like the feeling of really drawing down whatever it is on the other side of the veil, and into the physical circle, when you start hearing and seeing things, and you’re sure you’ve just lost your mind. of course, that isn’t needed for effective magic, but that’s also something that astral ritual doesn’t provide for. in any case, working astrally will also help strengthen your psychic abilities, and they’re mandatory for any kind of magic, be it physical or astral.

kind regards, Tj.

8

Ok I know about astral majick but am far from being able to project myself from my body but would intense visualization be good for this as well?

If I can get into a strong enough trance and visualize myself in a temple with a circle,triangle,altar,ect,would I be able to get results from that?

Perhaps just have the sigil of the spirit I wish to evoke,open it,but perform the evocation in my mind’s eye?

And I’ve heard of that book (Portable Majick) and I’ve incorporated tarot cards into my spellcasting a few times now and each time has been a success.
What I like to do with the tarot is lets say I’m going to use it in conjunction with a candle spell.I’ll usually pick no less than 4 cards to represent the process of getting what I want.For a short example,if I wanted to make some side money I would pick the Ace of Disks to represent a new journey in the material realm,6 of Disks for Success of that endeavor,4 of Wands to represent the endeavor coming to a close,and finally the 10 of Disks to represent the money I made from whatever project I was involved in.

So that gives me a 4 day working where I would spend a night on each card in the order I wanted things to happen in,I would open the card like a sigil,and place it next to the candle and then ensue basic candle majick from there but when speaking my desire I would speak that stage in the process.
I’ve had alot of success doing this.
And I’ve just used one card to incorporate into spells as well as long as they represent the end goal.
But I’ve found that “playing it out” using more than one card is not only alot of fun but alot more powerful.

MK

9

Well, I am known to bitch like a whipped pig if I can’t have my Black Taj Mahal, all things just to my perfection. but I also know, in reality there is no greater more expansive and powerful space to be use than that between my ears. [ accusations of emptiness be damned ! ]
I remember listening to folks jailed in tiger cages, or even closets, saying the most powerful temples they ever entered and gained strength and ‘communion in’’ could never match them.
So that being said, make the best from the best you have at hand- time will come that your circumstances will grow- and you will look back and alas even miss your once small and seemingly insignificant place.
I had what I thought was a great Sanctum- during my pact with belial i commanded him to make sure my wifes efforts to move to another state were smashed, I wanted a year to do other things first. A month later- he (and she) had us moved. what I have for a Sanctum now is way beneath what I had, and when it will be ‘finished’ will be long from now- but- I have never been happier and more Blessed ever in the last 30 years.! Thanks Belial !!!


[quote="Musta_Krackish, post:2, topic:6534"]Any thoughts?[/quote]
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an excellent way to use tarot for magic, MK. that method isn’t generally written about in books etc, but it comes intuitively enough to the practicing magician. it’s also a method i use, and like yourself, have found it to be entirely reasonable.

another method which is actually presented in Portable Magic is to use 19 of the majors as a means of casting the circle, with the three mother letters (Aleph (Fool), Shin (World) and Mem (Judgement), by the RWS names of the cards), being Air, Water and Fire, respectively, forming the triangle of arte. the four aces create the altar (being simply Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles as the root or unmanifest versions of the elements, which Paul Hughes-Barlow interestingly ascribes to the Court cards, and not the Minors, as implied by the Book Of Thoth)…

also, as each of the minors is associated with at least two spirits of the Goetia, along with undefined elementals etc, it’s worth using this construct as a means of evoking sylphs, slamanders, gnomes and undines, if only for a chat (as the energy they bring to the temple is quite unique, and worth investigating). naturally, they can also get stuff done for you, if you ask nicely.

there’s a bunch of videos on youtube by mr. Hughes-Barlow that i would recommend for this purpose. also a series in which he details each of the minors by number (the twos, the threes etc of each suit), and which provides a great overview of numerology as it applies to the basic 2-9 integers, and how they map to the tree of life.

MK, how else have you used the tarot for ceremonial magic? i’m most interested in how you’ve managed to apply it to this purpose, as there’s so little published information available in this area.

yours, Tj.

11

Well as you stated tj,each card is usually associated with 1 or 2 of the Goetics.
So when planning on building an altar to an entity I research which card they’re associated with and place that card upon their altar.When I work the altar I’ll light the incense,place some fresh whiskey,rum,water,whatever the spirit prefers upon the altar then I’ll gaze into the tarot card and open it right before opening the sigil of the spirit.Then depending on what the spirit wants I usually either offer the energy of the card to the spirit or ask it to imbue its power into the card to make it not only more effective during the altar work but also to enhance the cards power during my divinations.I find that after having a spirit do this to their associated card that it becomes much easier to read that card during my divination.Like the card is able to speak to me more than the others that haven’t undergone that process.

Also I’ve even used tarot in hoodoo and as I mentioned before,candle majick.
I would like to start experimenting with casting spells using nothing but the cards and also,when I first learned each card symbolizes a path on the tree of life I want to try and use the cards to climb the tree(or at least assist the operation).

But when I incorporate them into any type of spell casting like I said I open them as a sigil and speak to it like I would a spirit and visualize the outcome.Pretty much the same method as sigil majick.

I would like to learn more about the tarots use in majick so I might just pick up that book.

How do you use tarot in your operations tiberiusjames?

MK

12

[quote=“Musta_Krackish, post:1, topic:6534”]I know alot of you have went through this at one point and time so if you could please share how you performed your operations with limited space and had success.
MK[/quote]

The space is unlimited. Just as you don’t require a circle, as the Earth is round, you can expand to the space you need. All is relative - including space.

13

@MK

i use the tarot in much the same way you do, although i haven’t tried possesing the card with the associated spirit. that would be a worthwhile exercise in order to really “charm” a deck for divination. much obliged for the suggestion.

i would otherwise use the tarot as a series of gateways (straying completely from Tyson’s system as presented in Portable Magic, for the moment). by utilising their correspondences to paths on the tree, i can push energy basically wherever i want, with respect to the sephiroth. usually it’s just tiphareth, from which the whole heptameron system comes about, but i’ll also use geburah and binah if needed. oh, any astral work would naturally involve yesod and Atu XX of the majors to open the path from malkuth to the sphere of the moon.

i’ve not noticed a qliphothic association with the tarot, just fyi, but it doesn’t mean that the nightside is altogether excluded.

also, i do use Tyson’s system as presented when the urge takes me, as it’s quite eloquent for a number of reasons. i appreciate the structure and symmetry of it, and it seems almost like a midpoint between physical and astral magic, which is really neat (i.e, shifting focus and spatial awareness).

sometimes i’ll open a Minor and project into it, using the scenery of the card as the staging ground for sephirothic exploration or actual ceremonial magic as indicated by the card itself (i.e, 9 or 10 of swords for baneful works etc). i’ve noticed that, through these experiences, the nature of each card becomes apparent (which may not coincide with the energy of a given Goetic). in this manner they seem like small engines of a sort, or a computer subroutine dedicated to only one facet of existence. the 10 of swords is a classic example, as when one explores it thoroughly, there’s little to be found but the overwhelming desire to inflict harm. there’s little duality to be found in the Minors, and their polarity offers a poignant understanding of the energy encapsulated by any particular card.

naturally, the RWS and Thoth decks are entirely different when it comes to this kind of work, and i would recommend an understanding of the Thoth system, while utilising the RWS system in practise, so as to avoid confusion (as it’s much simpler and easier to manipulate on the astral).

-Tj.