Drawing Spirits in to Parlay
Each Open Ritual is different and can provoke some unexpected results. At the end of May Star Club members performed a Conjuration of the Archangel Camael, ruler of Geburah and Mars, using Trithemius’s Drawing Spirits into Crystals - or DSIC - (we use Francis Barrett’s The Magus as a handy copy* but highly recommend this account by Frater Ashen Chassan*). This manual uses Planetary Hours and Days to create an accessible method of contacting Archangels of the Planets and I recommend it as a starting angelic practice along with the Armadel.
While we publish our Open Ritual scripts and resources such as discussion of tools and example questions in our Members Area, today I’d like to discuss some previous Conjuration experiences which I was reminded of during David Rankine’s Q&A after the launch of the Grimoire Encyclopeidia. I have previously written back in The Visible College days about the interrelationship of Energy and Information when talking to Spirits:
Now we are here to speak to spirits and to be given information by them. Spirits such as these Angels are different from those of us walking around in a body [made primarily of energy, or matter]; they comprise mostly of information as their connection to the source is pure and uncluttered by having to walk around in a meat bag. They have as much energy as can be mustered, depending on various factors, but this is much much less than the energy used to create these human avatars for us. As a result, the paraphernalia of ritual is used to evoke the spirits in order for them to appear and converse with us, a costly exercise which uses up energy in order to establish and maintain a connection. We drag their consciousness down (or up) here to us in the hopes that we can keep it up long enough to receive something useful.
What about going the other way? If we were able to access the same mechanism by which they appear to us, but this time leave behind our physical shells and project our consciousness to the divine or infernal realms, then their energy could be spent on transferring to us the information in a more direct manner, and on their own terms. We can move away from cajoling and pleading and threatening spirits, to an exchange of information, and at the same time removing the distractions of attempting to run an avatar while suspending disbelief in the magick we are performing.
So let's take a trip to somewhere else, and engage with multi-dimensional celestial waveforms, to see about cutting the noise and boosting the signal.
—From the introduction to The Path of the Rose, 2015
This is in relation to the act of pathworking through magical seals, but can also apply to scrying. Instead of purely focusing on the scrying materia (be it crystal, smoke, mirror, bowl of water or ink…) and waiting to receive a message whilst in your body, I have benefited from using the object as a portal, a way of transferring consciousness through to wherever the Spirits in question reside.
In 2016 I undertook a series of workings using the DSIC method and had some truly intriguing results, leading me into collaboration with several other magicians to use experimental techniques, and culminating with the creation of the Star Club Framework. I remember distinctly a Conjuration of Anael, with my colleague acting as Exorcist, and we had been eager to start the proceedings after several successful evocations previously. I was Seer for the operation so my colleague lustrated the circle, consecrated the space, gave the prayers and invocations, and then the conjuration. I allowed my consciousness to move through my black obsidian mirror and immediately found myself in an onyx throne room with gold and jade pillars and venusian scenes depicted on tapestries hanging behind the black throne, and felt comfortable that we were in the right place - but where was the Archangel?
I stated to my colleague that there was no Spirit visible in the space, and to repeat the Conjuration, which he did in short order. Nothing changed in my vision, so he repeated once more and then I saw it - a small door opened in the side of the throne room, to a room I couldn’t make out filled with golden light, and a figure shuffled into the doorway briefly. The figure was on first glance a standard angelic contact, dressed in a white Tau robe as my colleague and I were; however as the shape materialised, I realised that the hands and feet extending out of the robe were gray and scaly, with only two long digits and a shorter thumb for hands and similar feet, and the head… The head was also covered in gray scaly skin, but the shape was like looking into a parabolic cone, with razor sharp teeth all the way around a black void in the centre. I managed to maintain my concentration and the entity spoke to me directly, saying “YOU’RE EARLY”. I was then punted back into my body as if the door to the throne-room had slammed in my face, and I reported this message - on checking the Planetary Hour we hadn’t accounted for the short longitudinal distance between Greenwich and Glastonbury, and had managed to catch the spirit just in the gap before Venus hour.
CAUTION: Objects in shewstone may be full of terror
Needless to say, we took five minutes before another attempt, and this time I was straight back in the room with two spirits in pleasant form of human features and skin, one whom I am sure was the entity I spoke to before who identified themself as Hagiel and was standing beside the throne near the “vestry” door, and Anael on the throne itself. Our questioning was fruitful and at the end we added, “Why do you look so different now?” The answer came, for want of a better turn of phrase, that they only appear for humans looking human during “office hours” - their Planetary Hour.
Now I’ve spoken to both of these entities on other occasions through other means, not necessarily using DSIC, but never with such a strong and clear connection and visual result as that day. I don’t think it’s necessarily obfuscation that has meant I’ve not seen them out of their human disguises before or since, but the strength of connection that day being able to draw them to visible appearance even before they were ready really showed a different side. As angels say in the Bible, “BE NOT AFRAID” indeed.
So, what results came from our discussions with Camael? While I was preparing for our Initiations with other Star Club Officers, our Members led the attendees through the method of creating questions for a Conjuration session, bringing together individual questions to group queries, and then appending very specific questions for the end of the session. Always better to cast a wide net then drill down into discrete issues. You can learn more about our methods of Conjuration by becoming a member, or joining the next Star Club Cycle from September.
Approaching the scrying crystal via the elements
Making sure that we were in the hour of Mars (!) Frater L acted as our Exorcist, with Sr B.B. as Seer and Fr S.N. as Scribe, our resident Thoth avatar. The rest of our attendees held space as we opened the Star Club Framework and helped to attune the ritual to Camael. Camael’s presence came through strongly to Sr B.B., giving clear martial imagery with each response, and guidance for the way forward in our current challenges, to play to our strengths, and overcome obstacles. I’m pleased to report that results since the ritual include a new job for one attendee, and several highly important networking contacts.
To that end I’ll be meeting some people at the Bristol Open Circle Moot tonight with other Star Club Members, and heading to the fascinating 21st Century Magic and Spirituality in Media and Culture event in London. Perhaps I’ll see you there?
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