Working without an Altar

Greetings everyone,
This is my first post. Being a fan of E.A.'s since I found Evoking Eternity, I quickly signed up for his Mastering Evocation course.

One big thing I noticed right away was his lack of use of an altar.
I often times have felt drawn to work with no altar for workings outside, but was always advised against it.

Does anyone here not use an altar for evocations?
E.A - Why did you decide to go sans altar, and do you notice a difference between not using it?
I love your minimalist style, using only the base necessities of what is most needed and not using anything extraneous.

I don’t use O_o

You don’t need an altar, if you’d like to have one then use one. I just use one because its convienient to lay my other implements on it. I use two, one consecrated for benevolent workings and one for baneful.

[quote=“TransHumanist, post:1, topic:1446”]Greetings everyone,

One big thing I noticed right away was his lack of use of an altar.
I often times have felt drawn to work with no altar for workings outside, but was always advised against it.

Does anyone here not use an altar for evocations?
E.A - Why did you decide to go sans altar, and do you notice a difference between not using it?
I love your minimalist style, using only the base necessities of what is most needed and not using anything extraneous.[/quote]

You know, using an altar in evocation never really made sense to me. I’ll use an altar in vodoun, of course, and I’ll use one when I’m doing sympathetic magick… but more than anything, it acts like a small workbench, allowing me to place my items and combine physical elements together.

When I started learning evocation, I didn’t know that I was supposed to have an altar, a blasting rod, robes of the art, fire wands and air daggers, enochian tablets, etc. I actually didn’t learn about all of these until after I had actually successfully evoked dozens of spirits with the absolute minimum devices. Then, I started reading Regardie and Fortune and others, and thought, “Damn, I must have been doing it wrong all this time… it’s funny that the spirits still showed up, though.”

So, I added these implements, and I found that my evocations were actually weaker. It took longer for me to get into the rapture state. It was more strenuous to make a real substantial contact with the spirit, because I was worrying about whether my altar was indeed symmetrical, if my tablets were inscribed correctly, if the painted characters on the air dagger were “flashing” the way they were supposed to… not to mention that trying to move around in floor length robes was a disaster!

Now, as was pointed out in another thread here, some of these things can definitely act as a preparatory immersion. Sure, putting on the robes and setting up the altar gets you into a state where you’re excited about the ritual, and you find yourself being drawn into the theta state just doing that. But, when it came to the actual ritual itself, these things got in the way more than anything.

So, what I’ve learned to do, if I want to produce a full materialization of the spirit, is I’ll walk for a half an hour or so into the wilderness, and while I’m walking I’ll recite the name of the spirit over and over in my head. This pushes out of my mind the last song that was on the radio, the honey-do list that I have to get done, the parent-teacher conference that night, the deadlines, and all of the other things that distract me, and then by the time I light the incense, the spirit is right there.

The journey towards the ritual area is magickal in itself, and is symbolic of the spiritual and psychological journey. So, for me this has taken the place of setting up elaborate rituals, as I’m instead setting up a complex attitude preparation.

The same can be done by meditating before the ritual, or just shutting of the tv and radio and closing the computer for a half an hour or so before the ritual, and pushing yourself into it!

Dione is a nice reading and yes i quite felt the same…reading others makes me think that there might be some good in doing it, having an altar, but just like E.A. i lose focus with all that mambo jambo around me. lool
The wilderness is what initially started to bring me to states in which i would be more spiritually aware…specially after being in some special places like i have been.

As I’m reading some Forum posts, I’m listening to some psychological concepts (a recorded talk) and thinking about “non-magickal” optimization-mindset type stuff… and the same kind of idea comes up that EA touches on… I love how concise in his below comment (thx for this EA :slight_smile:

<<< I actually didn’t learn about all of these until after I had actually successfully evoked dozens of spirits with the absolute minimum devices. Then, I started reading Regardie and Fortune and others, and thought, “Damn, I must have been doing it wrong all this time… it’s funny that the spirits still showed up, though.” >>>

 In short others that have a skill (especially around 6,7,8,9 years old we have skills we develop- even natural talents/insights.).. and we can have Values given us.. naw don't do that, or as above- One becomes a success developed a skill... and then listened to those that are "Experts".. and we realize I guess I didn't know how to do it after all.   
       which not only blocks us, but also blds a part of our Psych-Code of I might see something and yet know it isn't so.. like I can do a skill, but I guess I can't...   and then, Change how I do it, and no result.. but I guess this is how it is supposed to work..  thus Work= no results?   (and Not Working= you may receive the results you Did want)... and thus Error in processing in other things, just having those Bugs in the programming..

or even more specific how many aspects of Magick besides “Tools” could the example by EA relate to ? (aspects assumed= everyone knows…)

anyway- the above just came to me in a thought chunk… by the time I try to chop it into words it seemed to take way too long to write than the idea was worth… or just stomped it flat… but that logic-refreshing of Perception I think is of Supreme Importance

How much is ReVealed with the Awakening of mind that just allows to SEE (the saying, “why didn’t I see that before, it seems so obvious now.”)

 [  re: William Blake talked of “cleaning the windows of perception.” ]