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One of my projects for this year is making and consecrating a set of elemental working tools. I will give a short outline of how that process is going.

The consecration is by far the lengthier part of that. As recommended, once a week or so I have been doing the elemental opening, and meditating on one of the elements. After some number of sessions, I reach a point where I feel I have understood the element and how I relate to it, and how the elemental spirits operate, etc.

At that point, I sit down at the computer and draft a script for the consecration ceremony. That involves plugging in the proper Names of God and elemental kings and such. It also requires putting together telesmatic images for the angel and the ruler, and practicing envisioning those a couple of times.

Other preparations for the consecration include practicing the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram, which I have been doing as part of a LBRP-GIRP-Greater Middle Pillar-LBRP sequence once per week. At some point, I went through Circles of Power and plotted out the sequence of dependencies for certain things I want to do. One goal is to be able to make planetary talismans. In order to do that, I need to practice all of the ritual components of the consecration ceremony, and I need to consecrate the working tools, etc. So I ended up with list of things to work on in order (and some of them in parallel).

I have actually only finished the Earth Pentacle, and am getting set to consecrate the Air Sword soon. I have gone ahead and made material preparations for the elemental working tools. I will do the other working tools (lamen, banishing sword, lotus wand, mirror) after I have consecrated the elemental tools.

For the Pentacle, I went to a hobby shop and found a disc of wood of appropriate size (it is magnolia wood, but that is just what the store had) and some paints. I ordered a pack of silver leaf online (not necessary, but I wanted to try it). My daughter had a set of wood-carving knives from her school art class, so I borrowed those.

I started out by drawing the design on paper. I made a six-pointed star with the points touching the edge of the disc. I colored the lines silver and then divided the background into quarters, using four different colors for those. Then I drew the pattern on the disc of wood, and got to carving. I sanded it all smooth, painted the background (just the top surface, not the back or sides), and glued silver leaf to the lines of the star. I was worried that the silver and the paint would rub off, so I applied a few coats of clear lacquer spray over the whole thing.

For the Sword, I used an old knife that I have had for at least fifteen years. I dug it out of the dirt under an old pole barn behind a house that I used to own in Kentucky. I cleaned it up and sharpened the blade really well. The double-edged blade is about four inches long, and it has a wooden handle with brass hilt and pommel. I don't know where I would have found anything like it if I hadn't happened to have it. I guess I had been carting it around all these years for a reason. I wanted to give it a little something extra, so I painted the wooden handle yellow.

The Cup is the one that I did the least work on (actually none at all). I bought a blue-glazed pottery goblet. I don't think I could add anything to it with my artistic skills, so I am planning to use it as-is.

For the Wand, I went back to the hobby shop and found a steel rod and a dowel rod. I also purchased a fine-tooth saw, because the saws that I had would have taken a lot of wood out of the dowel. I basically followed the instructions in the book: cut the dowel in half, carved out a channel in the middle, put the rod inside and glued it back together. Even with the fine-toothed saw, the missing material made it so the wand was not perfectly round any more, so I sanded it until it looked even. I could have let that be the end of it, but I decided to paint the wand red with white ends. It looks a bit like a big stick of candy, but I think it is more fiery with the color.

Meanwhile, I bought some silk wrappers to keep all of these things in. They are a bit expensive, but not outrageous, and easy to come by in a variety of colors where I live. I hope that by the end of the year or so, maybe early next year, I will have all of the elemental working tools consecrated, and will be ready to make an elemental talisman, and start working on the other working tools. I need to practice my hexagram ceremony first, though. Making these things has been fun and challenging, and I think that the personal touch will add something that they would not otherwise have.

flanerieoconnor

Firstly, the reading list, from a comment left by user "readoldthings" regarding Platonism, neo and otherwise, in a Magic Monday from about a month ago, which I'm reposting here for my own future reference, and in case, in a community dedicated to working with material from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, it's helpful in following up with one of the sources of hermeticism:

"So I recommend two things. First, make sure that the translations that you get include a glossary, which tells you what Greek word is being rendered by what English word, and what the Greek word actually means. The word sometimes translated as "reason," for example, is actually "nous." It means much more than reason-- and other others won't translate it as "reason" but, rather, as "Intellect," "Divine Mind," or even "Angelic Mind." If you know what nous means, you'll be able to identify it in any of its later English disguises and know what is actually being discussed.

Second, even with a glossary, it is very helpful to have a guide. Fortuntaely for you, one is now available. If you go to YouTube, you'll find a whole series of lectures done in the 90s by a philosopher named Pierre Grimes. Look for "Pierre Grimes Philosophical Research Society." Grimes has lectures on many of Plato's most important dialogues as well as his predecessors like Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales and so on and his successors including Plotinus and Proclus. (Not Iamblichus, who was still largely ignored in the 1990s.) I've found that it was helpful, when approaching any particular text, to start by listening to Grimes's talk on it.

As for reading order, it's worth noting that there was a traditional order for reading Plato's dialogues in Iamblichus's school. It went like so:

Alcibiades,
Gorgias,
Phaedo,
Cratylus,
Theaetetus,
Sophist,
Statesman,
Phaedrus,
Symposium,
Philebus,

which are then crowned with Timaeus and Parmenides.

You'll notice that the Republic is absent. I would recommend actually starting with the Republic, with Grimes's lectures as a guide. That will do a good job of immersing you in Platonic thought, and then you can tackle the remaining dialogues one at a time. like JMG, I'd suggest moving in order from Plotinus to Iamblichus to Proclus, with one exception-- I started with Proclus's Elements of Theology, and you might want to as well. It's much shorter than the Enneads or than anything else that Proclus ever wrote, and provides a very helpful summary of Platonic thinking in general."

Now for the synchronicity: in working my way through Paths of Wisdom, I've just finished the third-stage meditations on the Path of Hod. Of an evening last week, I found myself listening somewhat at random to the contents of a youtube channel devoted to various kinds of traditional music, and came across a couple of songs from a collection of reconstructed Ancient Greek music. This isn't a style I'm completely unfamiliar with, and it's not ordinarily particularly my cup of tea, but for some reason that evening something clicked in the listening- the music moved me in a way that nothing of it's style ever had before, and with this came what felt like a sudden intuitive grasp or "feel" for how the Greeks interacted with and experienced the world (in particular, how things we tend to think of as barren philosophical abstractions must have seemed vivid and real and almost embodied to them in a way we have a hard time understanding), and it left me with a strong desire to read some Platonic/Neoplatonic philosophy. The very next night, I came across the comment posted I reposted above. Went back again a little bit later to look up the source of the music that had moved me so, and what did it turn out to be? What else but a setting of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes! In general my devotional practice is fairly strictly and explicitly Christian, and haven't been particularly attentive to or even comfortable with the more quasi-polytheistic end of this kind of work, but it's hard to deny that, quite unexpectedly from my end, this felt a lot like pretty direct communication!

lucywaters

Hi! I just started Paths of Wisdom after finishing Learning Ritual Magic, which I began about a year ago. Just popping in to see if anyone is still active at this site.

flanerieoconnor

Largely posting this here for my own reference/benefit, but also in case it comes in handy for anyone else, a couple of recent questions and responses from Magic Monday about incorporating the Greater Middle Pillar Exercise into a regular practice:

Q: I'm slowly working my way through Circles of Power, and just finished the chapter on the Middle Pillar exercise- I'm curious how you'd recommend working with the Greater Middle Pillar exercise as part of a regular routine of practice? I gave it a go upon finishing the chapter, and while it felt a bit clumsy as the first few times of a ritual always do, I was pretty bowled over by the amount of energy it seemed to generate (I've read commenters here referring to performing ritual as feeling like a workout, but it's the first time I've ever had the experience). In CoP you mention that it shouldn't be practiced regularly until one has been practicing the Lesser Middle Pillar exercise daily for at least two years, but that it can be helpful to do occasionally. For background, I've been doing the regular Middle Pillar exercise daily for between one and two years now- not exactly sure how long, though I suppose I could check my journal. I'm planning on working with the curriculum you suggested here awhile back of starting with the R+C ritual done weekly, then moving on to learning to open and close a temple, and working through the greater rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram weekly, moving through the elements and planets and meditating on the results. So far I've spent about a month with the Rose Cross, but haven't yet started opening a temple. Do you have any thoughts for integrating the expanded Middle Pillar into this structure?

R: I'd recommend the Greater MP exercise once a week. Once you're used to the energy, you can step things up by doing it as a composite ritual:

1. Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
2. Greater Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram
3. Greater Middle Pillar exercise
4. Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram

This will boost the effect, and it will also help you get ready for major rituals.

Follow-up Q: 1. I'm assuming that the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram would ordinarily be in its full form, invoking each element in its proper direction, when used as part of a composite ritual like this rather than as an attempt to work with any specific element?

2. I tried the order of ritual you suggested above for the first time this weekend, perhaps jumping the gun a bit since I hadn't yet fully memorized the Greater Middle Pillar exercise, and it felt like juggling quite a number of balls at once. Would you see any issues with practicing a shorter version of this: 1. LBRP- 2. GIRP- 3. Lesser, rather than Greater, Middle Pillar Exercise- 4. LBRP- daily for a week or so to get some muscle memory of the Pentagram shapes for the Greater Pentagram ritual? Or conversely, do you think it would be better to practice the Greater Middle Pillar in place of the ordinary Lesser Middle Pillar once a week until I'm more fluent with it before integrating the Greater Pentagram Ritual?

3. Just to make sure I'm dotting "is" and crossing "ts" correctly- the Qabalistic Cross would be added as follows: QC- LBRP- QC- GIRP- QC- GMP- QC- LBRP- QC?

Follow-up R: 1) Yes. You always use the all-element version when doing workings for spiritual development.

2) Of course. Use as many intermediate stages as you need to, in order to work up to the complete form.

3) No, it's worse than that. Every pentagram ritual begins and ends with its own Cabalistic Cross, so it's QC- LBRP- QC- QC- GIRP- QC- GMP- QC- LBRP- QC. (You don't need to do one after the Middle Pillar if you're following it with a Pentagram ritual.)

I'm about one week in of practicing the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram daily in the form given by JMG above, followed by the regular (lesser) Middle Pillar Exercise- it's my first step dipping my toes into the waters of longer and more complex composite rituals than the basic practices from LRM, and thus far I've found that the additional Pentagram ritual adds a *lot* of extra force to even the lesser Middle Pillar- visualizations seem clearer and more "present" and there's more of a sense of swirling, buzzing energy with each stage of the ritual until the last LBRP.

flanerieoconnor

Firstly- an interview/playlist that I recently came across, and very much enjoyed:

https://shwep.net/2020/12/30/esoteric-island-discs-angela-voss/

(from the website of the Secret History of Western Esotericism podcast, which I discovered after following a link on, I believe, one of the Magic Monday comments awhile back. I'm only a couple of episodes in, and I'm not sure it would be to everyone's taste- it definitely seems to be on the scrupulously academic side of things, and to fairly strictly quarantine any actual consideration of whether or not "TSW"- but so far, it seems pretty good at giving an in-depth, rigorous, historical overview of the sources of "western esotericism")

Secondly, I'm curious about peoples' experiences with Pathworking- I've only just started, working with the 32nd path, and, given my poor visualization skills, it's unsurprisingly been a struggle. One of the difficulties I'm having conceptually is how repeat journeys down the same path are supposed to work. With each pathworking, I can remember the content of previous ones- where I get tripped up is in wondering whether I should expect something new and spontaneous every time, or whether each journey builds on previous ones, with the content remaining consistent from one trip to another but changing in focus and growing in detail by accretion? (typing this now, I feel like the second is more realistic, but I'm curious if others have run into this mental block, and and if so, how they've handled it? In general, I know that I have a probably unreasonable expectation that things should just magically and spontaneously unfold or appear before me, while instead, when something does come up in my imagination, it feels artificial or "made-up". I suspect this is normal, and that I should instead be focusing on the "mind as an interface", the experience that even the things I "make up" come from *somewhere*, and are thus, in a sense, valid imaginal experiences, but worrying about this sort of thing tends to take me out of the experience...)

Current Music: John Dowland- Lachrimae (stuck in my head)

imrithril

Is anyone in this group working through John Michael Greer's 'Learning Ritual Magic'? Or is everyone through that and into paths and circles?

I am on chapter 5 and struggling not to do my usual thing of getting distracted from a new interest by general day to day busy-ness.

flanerieoconnor

Missed last week, but, this hour and day of Venus, here's an open post to discuss what you Will.

Current Music: Coil- Musick to play in the dari

flanerieoconnor

Virtual salon is once again open and at home, and receiving visitors, both anonymous and otherwise, to discuss anything golden dawn/magic-related you fancy!

Current Music: The Clientele- Suburban Light

flanerieoconnor

I’m going to try to put an open post up here on a weekly basis as a space for people without dreamwidth accounts, or who’d prefer to remain anonymous (or anyone else, for that matter) to have discussions in the comments- I missed it this week, but I was thinking a post on fridays in the hour of Venus might be conducive to friendly discussion and conviviality? In any case, here’s the first example of its kind.

flanerieoconnor

Hello to everyone who's showed up, and welcome! I've been lurking on JMG's Magic Mondays for quite some time now, and recently saw a comment last week asking if there were any groups dedicated specifically to discussing the host's Golden Dawn books. I'm working through this material myself, and had also wondered about the same thing, I decided (inspired in part by Pascal Beverly Randolph's "Try" dictum) to make such a group myself- hope people find it useful! To start things off, here's a copy of a comment from a recent Magic Monday I wanted to keep track of, largely for personal reference since it applied neatly to my own situation (currently working through Paths of Wisdom, and haven't yet picked up a copy of Circles of Power, but time to do so soon):

Q: "I recently finished LRM and picked up Circles of Power to continue my study of Golden Dawn magic. However, I'm not sure how to supplement my daily practice of the LBRP, MP, divination, and meditation with the rituals from CoP. Which rituals should I learn first, and how can I integrate them into my existing practice most effectively?

A: "If you already know the material in LRM, start by learning the Rose+Cross ritual, and do that weekly. Then learn the Opening and Closing Rituals in Chapter 8. Do those weekly as well. Then, once or twice a week, do a working where you open a temple, invoke one of the elements using the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram, meditate on the element, banish the element and close. Do this with all four elements, say, four times each. Then do the same thing with the planetary energies, using the Hexagram rituals. Then move on to basic rituals of practical magic. All this time, maintain your basic practices from LRM. That sequence of practices will take you very far indeed."

Now, off to do my meditation on the Divine Name assignment of Path 32!

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