In Defence of the Lesser Invoking Pentagram
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Nick Farrell - MAGICIAN - Articles
In Defence of the Lesser Invoking Pentagram
Published in the Hermetic Virtues Magazine
Volume 2, Issue 3.
The lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram is considered the most important ritual of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, in that it has been borrowed by almost every magical order in the last 120 years. Along with its chum, the cabbalistic cross, it is performed before every ritual. But have we made a mistake? What if it is NOT the lesser banishing ritual that is the most important, but the INVOKING one?
When we look at the Golden Dawn, we look through eyes tuned to Tiphareth in the
King Scale. We assume that the original adepts got it all right and that the things we
know and love about the Golden Dawn were there in the first place. Yet study of
Golden Dawn history and texts has revealed the original Golden Dawn was nowhere
near as clever as later developments. Things that are happening in modern Golden
Dawn orders are a lot more magical and interesting than anything Westcott and
Mathers dreamed up but since the lines between the past Golden Dawn orders are cut,
we often miss something important from the past that is staring directly in our face.
In my previous papers on the Lesser Banishing Ritual, I was looking at its use in terms of
the Sphere of Sensation and the 0=0 ritual. I had come to the conclusion that the LBRP
was a microcosmic re-enactment of the 0=0, which, if performed daily, would instil that
important initiation's symbols into the Sphere of Sensation. However, there was a flaw
in this idea and that was the concept of banishing. Why would you need to banish all
the time? True, the 0=0 ritual is about a four-fold purification and consecration but there
is also the connection with the divine forces that is the opposite of a banishing.
The breakthrough came when I was talking with a very experienced magician who is
not connected with the Golden Dawn tradition. She flippantly said that one of the
problems she had with the GD tradition was that it was "banishing, banishing, banishing
all the time. If you keep doing that you will have nothing left!" She believed that the
Golden Dawn was told to do an LBRP before every ritual (which the modern Golden
Dawn does). But was this true?
For years I had known that the Golden Dawn had an invoking ritual of the pentagram,
but had never actually used it. So I wanted to find out what the original GD used – an
invoking pentagram? – and I went back to the original instructions and knowledge papers
to find out.
Surprisingly, the rituals of the pentagram papers for the outer order were consistent
since the beginning to the closure of Whare Ra but what I saw when I read them was
something I didn’t expect. For years, like many people, I had assumed that I knew the
banishing ritual of the pentagram, so didn't actually read the paper other than to check
that I was saying the same words as everyone else in the order. Looking at it with fresh
eyes, it revealed some things I didn’t know. Firstly, the ritual described is called the
Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram – not the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.
Secondly, the knowledge paper does not describe the banishing ritual at all.
"Make in the air towards the East the invoking(1) PENTAGRAM as
shown, bringing the point of the dagger to the centre of the
pentagram…."
(1) Emphasis is mine.
The banishing ritual gets an aside in the last paragraph of the paper; "For Banishing use the same Ritual, but reversing the direction of the
lines of the Pentagram."
The first thing that crossed my mind was that the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the
Pentagram was considered much less important than its invoking cousin and is simply
a footnote. This is the complete opposite of received wisdom.
The next thing that was clear is that the invoking pentagram was different from the
method that the modern GD teaches to do the banishing pentagram. In the modern
GD, the divine name is projected into the pentagram using the sign of the enterer at
the point that the name is vibrated. This is not described in the knowledge paper,
where the divine names are placed in the invoking pentagram with a dagger. The
implication is that a banishing ritual of the pentagram would be carried out the same
way. So where did the idea of a projection sign with the pentagram come about?
In a second paper for neophytes, The Uses of the Pentagram Ritual, the projection
sign is mentioned. The neophyte is instructed to imagine an image of an obsession
and project it "out of your aura (sic) with the saluting sign of a neophyte and when it
is about three feet away, prevent its return with the sign of silence." The lesser banishing
ritual of the pentagram is then performed to dissolve it.
This a minor point, but it certainly indicates that modern GD groups do their Lesser
Pentagrams a slightly different way from the original order. This is fine, as the reasons
used, i.e. the outwards projection of energy using the divine names, are valid and are
an enhancement of the original idea.
Another GD paper suggests that a neophtye should use the banishing ritual at night
and the invoking one in the morning. I assume that was because the banishing ritual
would enable you to sleep better!
However, it is also clear that, other than the reference to getting rid of obsessions, the
banishing ritual is not any more important than the invoking one. Indeed, when the
paper talks about using the lesser ritual of the pentagram to enhance visualisation
skills, it is talking about the invoking and not the banishing.
Let us look at the other witness. Now, while I still think Aleister
Crowley is the most over-rated magician since Paul Daniels, he is
a valid historical resource about what he was taught about the
'LBP'. His take on the ritual, which says that the little ritual is the
key to everything magical, appears in Magic without Tears but
fails insofar as it is not clear whether it is to the banishing or to
the invoking that he refers. The fact that he refers to the rite by
its traditional name of the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram probably
means that he is referring to the invoking pentagram rather
than the banishing.
The only other reference we have to the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram is in inner
order documents, where it points out that they work because they are have
similarities to the Earth pentagrams of the inner order (They are not Earth pentagrams because they are not opened by spirit or have the sign
of an Ox in them.)
"This lesser ritual of the pentagram is only of use in general and
unimportant invocations. Its use is permitted to the outer order that
neophytes may have protection against opposing forces and might have
some idea how to attract and come into communication with spiritual and
invisible things."
So now we have some idea of how the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram is supposed to be
used by those in the outer order and how it is just as important to use the invoking
pentagram as it is the banishing one.
The banishing is designed to protect by repelling the sphere of sensation from lower
astral nasties and connecting the person to their higher self. It can be used to remove
those parts of your personality, such as habits, that you do not want.
However, the invoking ritual is just as important to this process. The invoking allows
you to bring things into your life that you want and brings about your connection with
spiritual forces. In other words, the banishing ritual of the pentagram is the purification
and consecration aspects of the 0=0 ceremony, while the invoking ritual mirrors those
aspects of the 0=0 which draw your higher self to you.
In the 0=0 ceremony, the candidate starts with their sphere of sensation so black that it
is impossible to see the four pillars of their sphere of sensation. During the four-fold
purification process the aura is cleared. However, the candidate is also exposed to spiritual
forces represented by the visible and invisible godforms. The danger, then, of just
doing lesser banishing pentagrams is that you would not be drawing these forces to
you.
Recently a person who came into contact with a temple I know said that he had been
performing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of Pentagram every day for 15 years and had felt
it had not got him anywhere. It was suggested by the head of a temple that he try the
invoking pentagram instead and suddenly everything changed for him. He started
making the spiritual and material progress he craved.
So it is clear that the obsession with the banishing pentagram needs to be tempered by
the same amount of use as the invoking one. In fact, as a spiritual practice, they should
be used at least on a 50/50 ratio with the emphasis being on the invoking.
The question, then, becomes how this can be done when we are trained to perform a
banishing ritual as a form of protection before all our workings, including meditation.
Well, the answer lies in what the LRP actually does. The GD material implies that both
the invoking and the banishing provide protection, by virtue of the divine names, the
angels and the pentagrams and the fact that the six rayed star is placed in your aura.
When you are drawing your spiritually-empowered
pentagrams and calling up your angelic guardians, you
are saying that you are human and manifest the elements
of Spirit, Fire, Air, Water and Earth. You are asserting the
dominance of spirit over the elemental nature. You are
binding this statement into a magic circle, powered by the
divine energy of your higher self. This is most of the
protection you need. This divine force spiritualises the
room so that anything that does not operate on that
frequency cannot get in. All you need to do is to tune your sphere to either throwing things away or drawing
things towards you.
The banishing protects you from internal and external harm when you need it. If you are
being attacked by the denizens of hell, you would use the banishing ritual to get rid of
them. If you aren’t, you don’t need it. The likelihood of the forces of darkness being
interested in the first magics of a 0=0 is incredibly low, although it is possible that your
own shadow might cause them a few headaches, so you might end up using a banishing
more often than you think.
If you want to attract an angel, you would use the invoking one before your working. So
if you were doing your general daily meditation, you would perform the invoking
pentagram ritual because you would want to gain information. However, if you were
meditating on your own shortcomings, you would do a banishing, because you would
want to get rid of something inside you. If you were doing a middle pillar exercise, it
would be an invoking pentagram because you would want to draw the powers of those
divine names to you.
Besides drawing other forces to you, the Invoking Pentagram has a direct effect on the
person performing it. Rather than becoming 'guardians' and 'protectors', the Angels and
divine names work differently when you perform an invoking pentagram. What you are
doing is drawing their energies into your sphere of sensation. Over a period of time this
would have a tremendous positive effect on the person's spiritual life.
While there is something to be said for the GD's morning and afternoon alternating
invoking and banishing rituals, it my opinion it would be better to do one ritual in the
morning independent of any other rituals or meditations you might perform. This ritual
would be guided by the phase of the moon. So you would do a banishing on a waning
moon and an invoking on a waxing moon. You could then divide your magical
programme into things you want to get rid of, in the waning moon, and things you want
in your life in the waxing moon.
It also begs another question. Before each working, the temples of the modern orders of
the Golden Dawn perform a Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram to protect the
working. Since we have seen that the working would be protected by either the invoking
or the banishing, it might be time to re-think this idea. It might be that the invoking is
more appropriate.
Our modern orders have in many ways moved forward but perhaps it is time that the Invoking
Ritual of the Pentagram was restored to its former glory and becomes the subject
for more experimentation.
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