Howdy!
I recently completed the Lake of Fire ritual and I’d like to share my experience (and ask for any thoughts. Especially from those who have performed this ritual).
Fundamentally, this is an alchemical ritual, so I chose the night of the recent full moon (Sunday 27th January, 2013) which also happens to be the day of the Sun (i.e, gold). Technically I performed the ritual at 0133 Monday morning but it’s still Sunday in astrological time. The hour was of Saturn which fits well with Azazel as he is the Intelligence thereof. Also, Saturn in Sol = lead in gold, adding to the alchemical significance.
Although I do not usually use a physical circle (preferring instead an astral circle/triangle), I opted to go all-out for this one as an evocation from all quarters would have required a great deal of concentration just to maintain the circle/triangle alone. The circle was 6-foot diameter (as space was limited) and the triangles were about 2-foot along each edge. I bought a bunch of cheap tea light candles and placed one at each point of the triangles and around the inner perimeter of the circle. I don’t recall how many I used, but they were spaced about 6-inches apart. I used almost half a box or so of an 80-pack of candles, so I’d say 50 would be more than enough. The circle/triangles were made of salt I poured out. I used over a pound of salt all up.
For incense, I used my favourite type of Japanese-style stick incense by a company called Five Elements. I wasn’t counting on physical manifestation anyhow, so it was more of an offering, and to trigger altered states. Other ritual tools included an ebony wand, two glasses of water (for exorcism before and after), the first Enochian key, the Latin exorcism of the water EA used in the BoA itself, the binding and charge used by EA for this ritual (and, although I would normally write these things myself, I found what EA has written to be extremely concise and respectful enough for my taste, so I went with it). Also the four daemonic and four angelic sigils.
I have Azazel’s sigil and Belial’s, of course, but I couldn’t find one for Abaddon, and I didn’t like the one for Amaymon. Thus, I went to the Rosy Cross Sigil Creator (google for it) and used the template there to make the sigils as I saw fit. They felt a little “new” in that nobody else has used or even seen them before, but they still felt right, so it was all good (and they worked fine).
All sigils were drawn with Dragon’s Blood ink infused with a few drops of my own blood (extracted intravenously in a sterile manner using a new 1mL insulin syringe. I have training in venepuncture and access to appropriate tools, so I wouldn’t recommend others do this. It did, however, provide me with a relatively large volume of blood to use for various things. Pricking one’s finger requires a good deal of squeezing I just wasn’t in the mood for).
The day of the ritual, I intended to get up early in order to encourage sleep-deprived hallucination during the performance (as it helps with scrying etc), but I had been very tired that week and I slept in until 1300. After I got up, I had a breakfast of waffles with butter and honey, along with my usual cup of tea. Morning medications included my usual antidepressant and a bunch of vitamins (multi, zinc, B, omega-3, calcium, D). I eliminated alcohol intake for 24 hours prior, but as I like to smoke, I did not limit my tobacco consumption. I skipped lunch and later ate a dinner of potato+broccoli soup, steamed broccoli and a garden salad of tomatoes and iceberg lettuce. Somewhere in there I think I had a banana split, too. Sprinkles, chocolate topping, ice cream and bananas. Fluids were restricted to Coke (and thus caffeine should be noted), although I further restricted myself to water about 2 hours before the event itself.
At midnight, I bathed and recited devotionals to my divine self, my patron deity and anyone else who would listen. I cleaned extra well, shampooed and conditioned, brushed my teeth and my retainer, scrubbed my nails etc, then repeated it all again out of respect for the task at hand. I dressed in a pair of black jeans but wore no shirt, nor any footwear (and as the ritual was in my garage, i really needed another shower when I was done). I finished bathing around 0030, set up a few other things and sat down to meditate before 0100.
Oh, and I made the sigils several days before to allow my subconscious to really absorb them. The circle and triangles were prepared about three hours before, and the ritual tools brought down after my shower.
I lit the candles, sat in the circle and started to meditate. Immediately, I started scrying accidentally (which never happens to me), so I just went along with it. Scrying, I have found, is very much like staying up for a couple of days, then just sitting somewhere comfy and letting your mind go free. You’re too tired to fall asleep (because of the noradrenaline keeping you functioning), but your mind’s so exhausted, it almost starts dreaming before you’ve passed out. Although I’d slept in, I was still pretty tired, and this happened to me while I was meditating.
I extracted some blood from my arm using a scalpel blade which I passed into the first glass of salt water. I used EA’s Latin exorcism and charged the water before using it to dispel all remaining energy, and to consecrate the temple for use in daemonic evocation.
As 0133 approached, I lit the incense, performed a LBRP (without invoking the angelic names), charged the circle on the ground with my wand (as detailed in Evoking Eternity), charged the triangles and opened the angelic seal of the East. All sigils, by the way, began to flash within ten seconds, and they flashed so well that I could refocus my eyes completely, and it looked like I was staring at a completely blank piece of paper. That is, the entire sigil disappeared all at once. It would then “snap” back into reality, but it would be glowing with a white aura. That’s how I knew it was open, aside from the astral storm it produces LOL. Anyway, as the first sigil flashed and I could feel the divine light of elemental Air flowing in, I raised the sigil above my head, pronounced “the light of the divine is not welcome in this place”, or something to that effect, and with great intent, slowly tore the paper sigil in half.
Interestingly, as soon as you hear the paper start to tear, the divine light flashes off like a switch. Just pop and it’s gone, all at once. Well, it kinda gets sucked back into the sigil, but it’s truly amazing how quick it is. Then, you notice how incredibly dark the atmosphere is. I mean, really dark, like the candles were putting out 50% of their original light. It was simply unbelievable. Moving clockwise (in the Southern Hemisphere, Widdershins is clockwise), I repeated the same for the other three angelic sigils. I cast the torn pieces of paper out of the circle.
I recited the first enochian key to set the mood for evocation, then proceeded.
Moving to the East again, I turned Amaymon’s sigil face-up (all sigils are face-down in their respective corners until I decide to charge them). If you want some advice, then seriously, don’t mess with Amaymon. If you evoke him, you’ll understand his immense power, and it’s really quite unsettling. Also, he appeared to me very much like a wraith with a ghostly face and pure white eyes, but a sunken-in mouth, clothed in a black robe. Very ethereal and not human at all. About 8-foot tall.
When opening the daemonic sigils, I employed EA’s call to come, along with the spirit’s daemonic enn. They can be found online but care must be taken to ensure that the right enn is used for the correct direction. Only Amaymon’s enn was correct out of the box as EA’s system in the BoA places the other three daemons at non-traditional directions, so the traditional enns must be modified. It’s not too difficult.
Normal evocation procedure from here on out. The other daemons appeared quite different from their usual descriptions, aside from Azazel who appeared as the satyr (but far more “demonic” in appearance than a regular satyr). Not threatening, just more sinister. Also, Azazel didn’t say or do much, and his presence seemed to be more as an observer, although there was the possibility that he was directing the other daemons. That’s not to say that he’s superior or anything, but it’s a possible explanation. In any case, although he appeared readily and clearly enough, he did and said very little. The other three were very vocal (especially Belial. Anyone who has worked with him knows what I mean. I won’t go into it here).
After they were all evoked, I turned from East clockwise, thanking them individually for coming and welcoming them to my temple. I stated that I called them forth to open the portal to the Lake of Fire so as I may burn the dross of Man and be reborn a god. They replied that I “already walk the path” and that my “soul is already aflame with hellfire”. I still don’t know what they meant by this, but I said that I would like to see the Lake, anyway. They replied with: “then you shall see”.
I sensed a circle of energy about 3-foot above chest-high (i.e, 3-foot above the astral circle I cast during the LBRP) form around me, the colour of mauve or a kind of muddy purple with flecks of sparkling gold light here and there. Think lapis lazuli, but purple rather than blue, and a little darker. At each of the cross-quarters (that is, between each daemon at the NE, SE, SW, NW positions) there was a white-blue shining ball of light about six inches across. I guess these were nodes or amplifiers of some kind. I don’t know what they did, but they connected the purple light from one daemon to the next.
A minute or two later, I felt kind of weak and suddenly fatigued. I figured I had better sit down in case it was a hypoglycaemic episode due to my restricted diet. Once I was sitting, it turned from a weakness to a heaviness and I couldn’t keep myself upright any more. I lay down on the ground (within the circle, still) but the feeling just got more intense. It wasn’t unpleasant or anything, but I was quite happy to not have been standing when it came on hard. This all happened in the space of two or three minutes, but once I was laying down, I realised I couldn’t get back up. It felt like gravity had increased ten-fold, and I was basically pinned to the floor. Seriously, no amount of effort could even get my arm off the deck (and believe me, I was struggling against it). Right after I gave up trying to right myself, the floor started flashing like a sigil and the sense of the Lake of Fire overcame me. It was like walking on a giant TV screen playing a close-up of molten lava. In fact it kind of appeared digital and unreal (I mean, who has a frame of reference for this sort of thing?) but even though the visual impression (on my mind’s eye) seemed ludicrous, the astral sense of what it represented was very real indeed.
Now, I could say at this point that I felt my “soul” or whatever you want to call it “fall” through the Lake of Fire, but that’s not quite how it felt. To be more accurate, I would say that although my physical body was virtually paralysed, my astral self was suspended in a weightless state. While I was lying on the deck just “above” the Lake, my astral self was just “below” the deck within the Lake itself, but completely weightless. I say weightless because although it felt like I was in free-fall, it didn’t feel like my astral self was getting any “further away” from my physical self, so weightlessness is the only way to really describe what it felt like. I hope this makes sense.
The experience of being in the fire (when I changed my point of focus away from my physical and towards my astral) was less one of being burned alive than it was one of being charged with hellfire. As though I had become the sigil and the Lake was a great, daemonic third eye charging my astral body with its intent. Hard to describe, but very cool to behold. Eventually, my astral self felt “full” of hellfire and as though all weakness had been left behind, or transmuted. The hellfire acted as a catalyst, but destroyed outright as much as it transmuted, which was fine by me. At this point, I found I could move again (at least, a little bit), so I struggled to my feet, walked across the Lake for a few minutes just because it was totally awesome, then said “the portal must be closed. Close the portal, for it is done”.
The connection to the Lake faded, and the astral image of it flickered and disappeared. The atmosphere was palpable. I felt as though I were a being made entirely of hellfire (as my astral body had decided to reintegrate itself by this point). When I perform the qabbalistic cross, now, I see that fire descending instead of a beam of light. It’s everywhere and can’t be seen, but it’s also just under the surface and I’m slowly trying to process a whole lot of what happened that night.
After the Lake was closed, I thanked each of the daemons personally for their assistance and gave them license to depart. I immediately exorcised the area with charged salt water and performed another LBRP to centre myself and ground my energy. I cleaned up the other stuff in the morning.
Overall, an amazing experience. Contrary to intuition, it actually becomes easier to evoke the second, third, fourth etc daemon after the first has been successfully called. I guess it’s an altered-state thing, but it doesn’t require a great deal more energy. They seem to come quicker when called subsequent to other daemons.
If I remember anything else about this ritual, I’ll post it as a supplemental, but that’s everything I remember right now. Again, thanks for reading, and any comments would be greatly appreciated (particularly from those who have performed this ritual themselves).
Kind regards, James.
