Journey to the Moon, Part 1

The Moon swung into its waxing phase on Wednesday, and which was my cue to begin preparations for a Lunar rite to be performed when it’s full. The aim is to receive initiation into the sphere of the Moon. I’ve tried this before and failed, which I attribute mainly to lack of preparation and follow-up. I’ve been in a protracted period of magical idleness since then, and now I’m trying to climb back into the saddle. Once again the plan is to call on Gabriel in his role as Archangel of the Moon and ask for a lunar initiation.

The goal here is somewhat open-ended, but as I understand it this initiation should:

- enhance psychic perception and intuition

- facilitate astral travel

- improve my ability to see past deception and delusions

- bring about significant dreams and visions relating to the Lunar mysteries

- induce circumstances that will force me to confront personal issues in areas of my life that fall under the Moon’s rulership (sleep, dreams, sex, intoxication, illusions, and secrets)

In hopes of avoiding a repeat of my previous failure, I’m going to include a lot of preparation and follow-up. I want to get this ritual right and make the results stick. The basic plan I’m following will track the Moon through one full cycle:

In the waxing period I will be preparing myself for the rite by gathering the necessary materials and attuning myself to the Lunar vibrations through prayer and meditation.

After the ritual, while the Moon wanes, I should hopefully have boatloads of Lunar energy pouring into my sphere. To direct and channel this force as it manifests in my life, I’ll perform the appropriate call from Jason Miller’s Advanced Planetary Magic at the Hour of the Moon every day. To receive further lessons and continue the ongoing process of initiation, I will call on the Intelligence and Spirit of the Moon repeatedly during this period.  The last piece of the puzzle is regular attempts to achieve astral projection, hopefully aided by the spirits.

Preparation

I’ve made myself a rosary of 81 semi-precious amethyst beads (amethyst is supposed to be good for clairvoyance and has lunar/water associations), and I intend to perform at least one full rotation of it daily while reciting the following prayer:

O Almighty and Eternal God,

In the name of Christ your son I pray

Send your servant Gabriel to me

O Gabriel, Archangel of the Moon

Holy keeper of the Lunar sphere

In Christ’s name, hear thou and answer me

Bless me that I may see true and clear 

Part the veil that hides your realm from me

And shine forth your light upon my path

I’ve also written a devotional poem to the Moon herself, which I will be reciting every day during her Hour. After each recitation, I’ll take some time to meditate and reflect on the mystic meaning of the Moon as I understand it.

The poem goes like this:

Light and shadow play across your face

As you dance your endless round about the world

Eternity in blinks, hinting winkingly at Grace

Showing glimpses forth of God through misty curls

In your glow all things grow beautiful and strange

The Mysteries sing softly on the breeze

What once seemed certain starts to breathe and change

And in my veins I hear the murmur of the seas

All living creatures feel your tidal pull

As the spheres of Heaven swell you full

Of luminous elixir, silver-bright

The healing poison of the shining night

O pristine priestess, drape me in your light!

Awake my inner sight, set free my dreaming mind

That I may dance where others stumble blind

Unwind the shroud that clouds the mystic eye

And raise my soul beyond the sky

To cry aloud my praise for you on high! 

I’ll also be taking some time to breathe in Lunar energy and circulate it within my etheric body in order to get a better feel for it and further attune myself.

The last aspect of my preparation involves gathering the necessary materials. This includes preparing a lamen and Table of Practice as well as putting together a talisman/mojo bag for enhanced psychic perception and dreams. I’ll ask Gabriel to empower this construct during the rite and bind the Moon's blessings into it.

Reports

So far it's been going well, I've managed to fit all the prayers and poems in as intended, although not always within the hour of the Moon. To offset any potential effects of poor timing, I begin my recitations by tracing Jason Miller's Lunar seal in the air and vibrating the appropriate Greek vowel (the seals are designed to make best aspects of the planetary powers available at any time, regardless of astrological conditions). I picture the seal hanging in the air, then swirling into a vortex which opens a portal directly to the Lunar plane, and I speak the poem into this gate. As the month progresses and the Moon becomes more visible in the sky, I may start skipping this step and chanting directly to her.

I haven't noticed any major effects yet (not that I was expecting to), although I have noticed that when I work with my subtle body I have an easier time feeling the energies moving within me.

One other note: in addition to the specific prayers listed above, I have been offering general prayers and supplications to God, Christ, and the Spirit as it seems appropriate. This has not been a habit of mine for the majority of my adult life, and I have to say I'm a bit startled by how good it feels. There's an immediate, positive response from my body and mind, and I get the sense that something is really listening--much more than I generally do when I call on lesser spirits, at least at this stage of my development.

The first time I was about to start on the Gabriel rosary, it occurred to me that if I was going to be calling on God and his Angels in the name of Christ, it might be a good idea to start by seeking Christ’s blessing on the whole endeavor. So I offered up a short, spontaneous prayer to Him, calling on him as Savior, Liberator, and Redeemer.  Within a few moments of beginning to speak, my whole body felt warm and light and alive. It was like my soul was smiling. I’ve had a tough time relating to Christ in the past, what with the whole “his most powerful and vocal followers being complete and utter shitheads for centuries” thing, but it’s becoming clear to me that the Son of Man himself transcends all that. There’s a reason the Angels respond to His name. Jesus is good juju, plain and simple. 

That's all I have to report so far. I'm still figuring out what ingredients I'm going to put in the bag, I'll post a list once I figure it out. Any suggestions are welcome. I know it's going to include a dandelion root that I dug up the other night and am now drying in my room. It felt pleasantly witchy to dig in the dirt under the cover of darkness.

Daily Practice

My attempts to contact Gabriel have been a failure, both in terms of achieving noticeable results and  of perceiving the spirit's presence. I have not experienced any increase in my psychic abilities, nor have I achieved a lucid dream. I blame this mostly on myself. After a few days in a row without establishing contact, I allowed mundane life to distract me again. Plus for the past week I have been traveling with my family, who are not aware of my sorcerous aspirations, so I haven't really had an opportunity to do a lot of external Work.

The long and short of it is that I have allowed my regular practice to lapse. Again. I am fighting an uphill battle with myself to really make magic part of my lifestyle rather than something I do on the side. I don't expect to see much real transformation until I get serious about building up my ethereal muscles and opening my inner eye.

Inominandum, whose writings are serving as my primary textbook, recommends a daily practice that includes meditation, invocation, and offerings to the spirits. Ideally, I would also be trying to work some kind of practical enchantment at least once a week, both to serve as a benchmark for my progress and to make my life generally better.

Here's what I'd like my daily magical practice to look like:

Morning:
- Wake up
- 20-minute meditation focusing on the breath
- Give thanks to God/Universal Consciousness, Christ, Buddha(s), Ancestors, local spirits, any other invisibles who've helped me out in the past
- Litany of Wellness*; at the end, when I'm emanating offerings, direct them to the specific beings I mentioned in the thanksgiving, as well as any spirits I might have offended


Day:
- Job
- Litany of Prosperity*
- Brief meditations and energy/subtle body exercises when I have time

Afternoon/Evening:
- Pillar and Spheres (subtle body exercise from The Sorcerer's Secrets by Jason Miller)
- Invocation of the Divine; either the Bornless rite from TSS or a personalized call to the Highest that I am currently tinkering with
- Litany of Enchantment*

Night:
- Prayer/communion with Divine
- Litany of Wrath*
- 20-minute meditation on breath
- Sleep
- Occasional lucid dreaming in which I can do additional practice

It looks a bit daunting seeing it all laid out like that, especially knowing that all my practical enchantments, writing, socializing, and basic life necessities like eating and sleeping need to be squeezed in there as well. And as I may have mentioned, procrastination is a major vice of mine. What can I say, I like my books and podcasts and webcomics and assorted other distractions. But I guess overcoming those kinds of personal faults is part of what the Great Work is all about, right? Becoming a more effective person. A clearer lens for the Living Light.

And the truth is that most of the practices listed above are fairly short, or can be condensed into a more rapid and streamlined form. Often they have to be; my day job, for example, doesn't really have a private space where I can shut myself away to verbally chant the Litany of Prosperity. Plus the Invocation of the Divine and the Pillar exercise (and maybe the Spheres too) can be incorporated into manifestation-oriented Workings or spirit conjurations. There are ways to fit this stuff into my life.

After all, the ultimate goal is total integration. Spirit and matter are one, so ultimately it's folly to treat the magical and the mundane as separate and distinct. Every aspect of one's existence should be treated as the spontaneous and beautiful unfolding of Divinity that it truly is. Day-to-day life is the sorcerer's playground, and his task is to bring Heaven to Earth.

But of course, that takes Work.

*The four Litanies are rites given out in Jason's Strategic Sorcery course. You start by aligning yourself with the flow of Universal Consciousness along several different axes, then you channel that flow into a particular intention: healing and offerings in the morning, wealth and opportunity in the middle of the day, enchantment and persuasion in the evening, and the destruction of inner and outer obstacles at night.

Current Work: Gabriel

I've recently decided to begin working intensively with Gabriel, the Archangel of the Sphere of the Moon. My psychic senses are woefully underdeveloped, and Gabriel is supposed to be a good spirit for building one's ability to sense spirits and receive visions. I think part of my problem is overthinking things, so I second-guess myself and get in my own way. The receptive, flowing, intuitive qualities of the Lunar sphere should help to correct that tendency. Also, in the Hermetic system the Moon is the first step on the ladder of lights leading up to God, so it seems like as good a place to start as any.

Actually, my recent thoughts on the matter have helped me understand that it's no coincidence that the Moon comes first. You begin by developing the psychic abilities which allow you to commune with the spirits, and you experience the mingled rays of the spheres as they're gathered in Luna before pouring forth on the Earth. This equips you with the basic tools to get started in the Work, and gives you a glimpse of the harmony of the whole system from a relatively "low" point on the chain of manifestation.

It should be noted at this point that I have not really experienced any of this yet; this is mainly just my ruminations on the system as described by Frater Rufus Opus, who has done a really beautiful job of communicating his understanding of the Hermetic cosmology. I cannot stress enough how much a beginner I currently am. I'm hoping that it will be interesting and edifying for people to observe my progress from this early stage. Most of the magic blogs I currently read were not begun until the authors were pretty advanced, and I've wished many times that I could read some stuff from the perspective of people closer to my level.

So yesterday being the day of the Moon, I attempted an initial conjuration of Gabriel to begin my Lunar work. Due to deeply ingrained habits of procrastination, I didn't begin the operation until the very tail end of the hour of the Moon; I ended up spending most of the hour drawing up a Lamen at the last minute.

Initially I had intended to hew as closely as possible to the operation as described in R. O.'s Modern Angelic Grimoire (a fantastic text available in e-book form from his website www.headforred.blogspot.com), but I realized at the last minute that none of the scrying vessels I had intended to use would fit inside the triangle on the Table of Practice I had drawn up. So I decided to improvise! Necessity is the mother of invention, right? 

It occurred to me that I could produce a decent approximation of the Table within my working space, in the form of some 3-D magical constructs that are taught in Jason Miller's Strategic Sorcery course. Without revealing too much of the proprietary course material, one of the early lessons deals with creating magical spaces. One of these spaces is called the Heptasphere, and it incorporates the powers of the seven classical planets in order to balance them and modulate astrological influences. There's another one called the Adamantine Temple which surrounds the practitioner with a tetrahedron that can serve the same function as a three-dimensional version of the summoning triangles used in evocation rites. 

Compare that to the Trithemian Table of Practice as described by R. O. There's an outer circle containing the seals of the planets and the names of their ruling Archangels. Then there's an inner circle with the four Archangels at the corners of the world. Then in the middle there's the triangle in which you mount the scrying crystal in which the spirits you're summoning appear.

So: planets, elements/corners of the world, triangle of manifestation. I figured I could put up the Heptasphere, then call the four Archangels within that space (in a fashion similar to the LBRP), then finally put up an Adamantine Temple within the space marked off by the Archangels. Then instead of calling Gabriel into a crystal, I figured I'd call him right into the space around me and try to commune with him via speech, thought, and pendulum divination.

So that's what I did. After generating the consecrated spaces, I performed the conjuration ritual more or less word-for-word from the Modern Angelic Grimoire, except without the consecration of the scrying medium and replacing all references to "spirits appearing in the crystal" with "spirits appearing in this temple".

The results were not exactly mind-blowing. I actually felt more "juice" during the preliminary prayers to God than during the part where Gabriel was supposed to show up. As I mentioned, my scrying/spirit sensing abilities are pretty pathetic at this point, so I wasn't necessarily expecting to get a fantastic vision of the Angel descending, but I was kinda hoping to feel at least a tingle.

Still, I proceeded with the work, thanked Gabriel for showing up, and made some requests. I asked for initiation into the Lunar Mysteries and enhancement of my clairvoyant and psychic abilities, and I also asked him to send me a dream of my girlfriend (who is away for the time being) which I would remember in the morning. Plus I had a bad headache during the rite, and I asked him to clear it up. Pendulum divination appeared to confirm that he was present and was willing to grant all my petitions.

I did not have the dream I asked for. Or I didn't remember it, at any rate. And while the headache went away after I asked for relief, it started to creep back as soon as I ended the ritual and pretty soon it was at full strength again. Overall, I would have to consider this a failure in terms of tangible results.

But a magician presses on! Perdurabo and all that. This initial conjuration was only meant as the beginning of a long-term attempt to get aligned with the powers of the Moon. So I performed another calling tonight, using the same framework but starting the whole thing with a recitation of the Bornless Ritual as given in Jason Miller's The Sorcerer's Secrets. This one seemed to go better, I had a clearer sense of the Angel's presence. I even thought I perceived him kissing me on the forehead when I  asked for his blessing. Again, we're talking a very faint, fleeting mental impression, nothing super-clear, but it did somehow seem like something coming from outside rather than my own thoughts.

I don't know if the improvement is down to better preparation (I actually managed to frame the whole rite within the Moon hour this time), or the Bornless Rite kicking the whole thing off, or to the fact that I was ruminating on Lunar symbolism a bunch at work earlier, or some combination of all three. I'm not even totally sure it was a genuine improvement; I may just have felt better about it due to increased confidence. I asked Gabriel to appear to me in my dreams tonight and trigger lucidity, so we'll see if that happens.

If not, I'll try again. And again and again and again if necessary. Baby steps along the path. 

What This Blog is About

Hi there. Welcome to whatever this turns out to be.

What I'm intending it to be is a record of my studies in the art and science of magic. I've spent a good few years reading a whole bunch of different stuff on the subject, and here and there performing a few basic exercises and simple spells. Now I am feeling like the time has come to make a serious go of it. I want to adopt a regular regimen of practice, begin to build up my illumination and empowerment, and start affecting change in accordance with my will. 

I have never been much good at keeping diaries, either mundane or magical. I'm hoping that having readers (hopefully I will eventually have some readers) and working in the online format will make it less of a chore to record my progress. I would also love to begin communicating with other magicians and people of Spirit; right now I don't have a whole lot of contacts in the field.

At the moment I have two primary influences on my approach to magic. One is Jason Miller, aka Inominandum (www.inominandum.com). I've read his book The Sorcerer's Secrets and I am currently working through some of the (very early-stage) material in his Strategic Sorcery course. Jason has worked with too many different systems and traditions for me to name here without it getting tiresome, and he's done a fantastic job of distilling out the practical methods that give success in the art. I dig his very down-to-earth perspective on magic, ethics, personal responsibility, and Getting Your Shit Together. Plus he's really funny. 

In this blogger's humble opinion, the dude is pretty fuckin' cool.

My other big influence is Rufus Opus (www.headforred.blogspot.com), who works magic within a Hermetic Christian system that he's hashed together from various neo-platonic texts (especially Agrippa, Trithemius, and Hermes Trismegistus). He presents a system that is elegant in its internal coherence, and refreshingly straightforward. It involves direct initiation and empowerment from the spirits, with no human guru necessary. This is a big selling point for me, since I don't personally know anyone with more than dabbler status who I could learn from (where my Vermont magi at? Give me a shout!).  R. O. also manages to be a devout Christian without being a humorless prick, which shouldn't be such a big deal but kind of is. He's actually more or less single-handedly inspired me to reconnect with the Christian faith I was raised in, and helped me to see it as a viable framework for magical practice.

Like Jason, he is also very, very funny. I like funny people. It's been my experience that stupid people are rarely funny, except unintentionally. And as a rule, the magicians whose works I like to read are not too fearful or pompous to laugh at themselves and the Universe. It was a great relief to me to learn that you can do magic and still be funny. I don't want to be a part of anything that doesn't make me laugh at least occasionally.

So after a few years of simmering on the back burner in a stew of various metaphysical books and blogs, I am ready to turn the heat up and get Working. Feel free to read along.