Ten Years Gone

An account of a Self-Initiatory ceremony to invoke the Holy Guardian Angel

The following is an account of a Self-Initiation Ceremony performed in Leirfjorden, Norway in the year 2012. "Self-Initiation" is an interesting term in connection with the architecture of the ceremony, as we will see, because it was not done alone. Part of the great Mystery surrounding Initiation is, in fact, the extent to which Initiation is ever done alone? We do not exist in vacuums, and every part of our lives eventually becomes fuel for our Initiations, after all. However, at the time I performed the ritual, that portion of the occult community that breached the surface of the sea like the proverbial tip of the iceberg were still rather hotly debating the question themselves, particularly among the Golden Dawn: To what extent is it possible or feasible for a magician, working in relative solitude, to Self-Initiate? This ritual sought out to test some theories surrounding this. Before I launch into the transcript (which will be edited to remove certain sensitive details), a few words about the "background chemistry" and some of the esoteric theory that informed the ritual are in order.

Set and Setting

As I detailed in the post Right On Time, I was first "Initiated" into magic(k) at the age of 13 by a school friend. By the time this ritual was performed, I had been through quite a lot. I will tell some of these stories here eventually. However, most important is that around 2006, I joined The Theosophical Society in America, began volunteering there, soon got a job there, and eventually started giving talks for them. Around that time, I also rekindled the flame, online, with my "high school sweetheart" from Norway, whom I knew mostly from chat rooms and MSN Messenger. Eventually, she would come to the U.S. and marry me.

There was some cognitive dissonance for me, living, working, and speaking for the T.S. while many of the Initiatic teachings I was getting wrapped up in forbade the practices of ritual magic(k) which called to my heart. I did not handle it well, though that is not entirely the fault of anyone at the T.S.; there were psychological dynamics involved in all of this that had nothing to do with them.

At any rate, I did wind up moving to Norway after some choppy waters in my marriage saw my wife return to her homeland. Once there, I decided to throw myself headfirst into the magic(k)al studies from which I had been so strongly discouraged before. That study and practice consisted mostly of working with Chic and Sandra Tabatha Cicero's Self-Initiation Into the Golden Dawn Tradition: A Complete Curriculum of Study for Both the Solitary Magician and the Working Magical Group and Builders of the Adytum's teachings (I was a correspondence member). Also key to synthesis of this ritual are two anthologies for whom we have the distinguished Jason Louv to thank: Ultraculture Journal: Essays on Magick, Tantra and the Deconditioning of Consciousness and Generation Hex.

Although I am obscuring names, I am leaving a first initial intact because it's an interesting detail.

I will save further reflection and elucidation on the theory and results of the ritual for later writings. For now, I present the written record:

The Account

Intent: To symbolically lay to rest the mystically-inclined, "Theosophical" persona /shell that I had built up, reaping all that is useful from it and using its basic material to inform my new “tabernacle” (yes, that is the word I chose at the time, although with some ignorance of its original meaning. Looking back, I find that interesting, if not a bit pretentious; but being pretentious is part of the fun of occultism, is it not?). To then give birth to my new magic(k)al identity in earnest and enter a new phase of magic(k)al work and empowerment, now very consciously developing my magic(k)al art. To declare myself formally as a magician, which I had never actually done before. Jason Louv wrote that doing so can provoke a real powerful response from the universe and is tantamount to inviting it to play. I am hoping that happens.

The Preparation:

A new magic(k)al alphabet was devised, with some input from K (my wife at the time). It will evolve over time, its meaning being developed and brought out by future magic(k)al work.

Two sigils were created. The first was composed of English letters. It was built from my first and last names, and two lists of qualities that have hindered my magic(k)al progress over time. This shedding is the culmination of the years of work I've done in the TS environment and in my marriage. The words of the first list, including my first name, all started with the same letter as my first name, D. It was made up of 12 words. The second list was made up of 6 words, all beginning with N, the first letter of my last name. The total number of words was 18, which can connect with Tarot Key 18, The Moon, or with Tarot Key 9, The Hermit. As 9, it represents completion, in this case of the cycle that has led up to this point.

The second sigil was composed of 9 words, all beginning with the letter V, each of them being some aspect or quality that I deem to be important in forming the structure of a sigil that will from now on represent my magic(k)al identity. Included in these words were vespa and vulpes, relating to the Wasp and Fox totems, respectively. This second sigil was to be designed using letters from my new alphabet.

The basic intention here is that the first sigil, representing qualities I was ritually casting off, was representative of my previously, earthly identity, and as such, drew its material from my first and last initials by birth. The second sigil, representing qualities to activate or “seed” within myself, was representative of my new, self-chosen, magic(k)al identity; I chose the letter “V” because at the time, I had adopted the magic(k)al motto of “Frater Vajra;” prior to that, I had used “Frater Viator.” Since both of those names began with V, I decided that the person I want to become must hold the vibration of that letter as important, so I made it a prominent “ingredient” in this second sigil by using only worlds that began with that letter.

Classic sigil reduction was carried out: All repeating letters crossed out from all lists, and the two respective sigils being composed of the remaining letters. Vowels were added to these letters so as to make mantras/verbal sigils accompanying the pictorial sigils.

Once again, K helped me in the design process. It became increasingly apparent to me that she should be a part of this ritual, especially since my relationship with her is so connected with the work Ilyas and I are doing. She also became part of the ritual itself. The ritual ended up being carried out in two parts.

A hole was dug outside to be used in the second ritual. K was of aid, helping me pick a spot and even helping me do the work of clearing weeds. This was actually very symbolic and was synchronous with the meaning of the ritual; the hole we were digging was to be the place where the sigil representing my new identity was to be planted. Much of the work we've done in our marriage, the removal of "weeds" of personality that get in the way of our relationship, was also crucial in making this rebirth process possible. K helping me to clear the weeds out was thus very meaningful. Synchronistically, as I began digging roots out, a spider crawled out from under the roots. I never knew spiders actually live underground among roots. I used to have severe arachnophobia as a kid, so the spider was a symbol of the fear that dwells among the roots of the personal weeds we all need to remove. Once again, quite meaningful.

I also picked 5 raspberries, and gathered a chalice of sea water for later.

Before beginning the ritual, I drank some wine with my wife so we could unwind a bit. We actually had a pretty good conversation and connected pretty deeply. I wanted the wine because it helped me loosen up enough to actually do this ritual, with its chanting and other things that made me feel very exposed and bashful.

Shortly before the ritual, my wife and I saw porpoises outside. We went outside to watch them. I noticed that they left the water, which had been turbulent all day, quite placid in their wake. This seemed like a good omen, and I decided that they had actually helped in the defining of the circle around the ritual by their presence, as they seemed to swim up and down the fjord right outside the cottage, forming a semicircle around the rock shoreline where they could actually swim. I also decided the number three was an omen of generation/multiplication in connection with the Empress--that the porpoises were a mother, father and child. K shared this feeling too, of the porpoises being a family unit. I speculated that perhaps this was also an omen that we will soon be having a child, quite possibly as a result of this ritual. Incidentally, the next day, K quipped on her own that if she's going to get pregnant soon, it will likely be from this ritual.

The Rituals:

Opening:

LBRP (Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram)

LBRH (Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram)

MP (Middle Pillar Ritual)

Ritual begun at the stroke of midnight, thus beginning on Saturday and ending on Sunday.

Sitting before a wood-burning stove in the kitchen, I began by focusing intently on the sigil Y_______, representative of the old identity to be laid to rest. Once I was able to hold the image in my mind, I put on a blindfold and began chanting "Y_______" repeatedly while visualizing the sigil, so as to enter a trance and firmly plant the meaning in my subconscious mind. My wife was instructed to let me do this for some indeterminate, but decent period of time (something like 15- 20 minutes, but nothing definite--for a good reason).

After some time of chanting the mantra, which grew more feverish over time, my wife began her role: She snuck into the room and scared the daylights out of me. The purpose here was to utilize the sudden shock of being startled in a way very similar to the way orgasm is often used to fire a sigil. It seemed to work quite well. K then gave the following speech, taken directly from the Golden Dawn Neophyte Ritual:

Inheritor of a dying world, we call thee to the living beauty. Wanderer in the wild darkness, we call thee to the gentle light.

Child of Earth, long hast thou dwelt in darkness. Quit the night and seek the day!

K then led me around in a random, winding course, still blindfolded, and sat me back down in front of the stove.

This element from the Neophyte ritual was very specifically chosen as a way of building up an association between this ritual and the Neophyte ritual in the Golden Dawn, which I expect to undergo sometime in the not-too-distant future. This connection is important.

After scaring me, giving the speech, and taking my blindfold off, K left me to the next part of the ritual: Continuing to chant the mantra Y_______, I opened the wood-burning stove. Crumpling up the many sheets of scribbles and notes I had used to design the sigils for the rituals, I threw them each into the stove. A slat of wood with all of the words of unwanted negative qualities composing the sigil Y_______ was taken up, and the sigil itself, written on a strip of paper, was wrapped around the wooden slat. I then tied the sigil to the slat using fishing line, thus binding the sigil and the qualities it represented. A fire was started using the sigil notes, this slat, and the sigil Y_______ itself. This was to symbolize the old identity being consumed by the flames, broken down and reduced to ash, its energy liberated from its dead shell. I watched intently as the sigil burned.

I then lay down on the floor, "dead" as the fire burned.

My wife came and resurrected me with a kiss, taking my hand and leading me upstairs to the bedroom, where we had sex. The second sigil, V__________, was drawn on her back in addition to being drawn on a little slip of paper that I had with me. This sigil was charged via sex magic.

After firing the sigil via orgasm, the slip of paper containing the pictorial version of the sigil was anointed with our combined fluids.

At this point, I was supposed to go outside and do the rest of the ritual, but unforeseen circumstances intervened.

The fire in the stove had died out, before fully-consuming the wooden slat with the words making up the sigil Y_______. I spent some time trying to get it to burn up, but this didn't work out well. Eventually K came to help me.

I did not let this interrupt the feel of the ritual, and it actually worked out well in terms of symbolism. Once again, just as we had done with the weeds (and in real life with what the weeds symbolized,) we were working together to ensure that the negative qualities were fully consumed. K commented later that this was symbolic of the fact that such work is never fully done but is ongoing. Quite true. It also seemed to serve as a response, from the universe, to the gesture made by the ritual up to this point--a challenge of sorts: As the qualities I purported to be shedding included ones such as negligence and delay, symbolic of procrastination and working shoddily, it is as if I was now undergoing a test of principle. "Will you see this through, little mage?" And see it through, I did. How fitting that in addition to the qualities I had used to compose the sigil for Frater V, a quality beginning with the letter V was here being called for: Vigilance.

As the fire kept dying out, I kept bringing it back by blowing on it. At one point, I felt Ilyas descend into me--I became him, the red dragon, breathing purifying, purgative fire on the dross to be burned away. This served as an affirmation that Ilyas is indeed my Angel. We are One.

Having ensured together that Y_______ burned but good, my wife and I retired to

bed after I closed with the LBRP.

The next morning, I opened for ritual one more time with LBRP, LBRH and MP. I gathered up the ashes from the previous night's fire, along with the sigil V__________, the raspberries and the water chalice. I walked out to the hole that my wife and I had dug. With some ceremonious words having to do with the dawn of a new day, the beginning of a new phase, and the formation of a wonderful new vessel from the debris of the old, I rolled the sigil V__________, which is my new secret name (to be abbreviated and occulted by Frater V), into a ball, or "seed," and planted it in the hole, adding some of the ash from the fire on top. I then added some dirt, then dropped the five raspberries into the hole as well. As the sigil formed a symbolic seed, I planted the raspberries in hope that the real seeds contained within will give birth to a physical raspberry bush that will grow from that spot, further anchoring this symbolic act to the earth and living processes of growth of an enduring, tenacious, but sweet and succulent perennial plant. Some day, perhaps I will eat raspberries from that bush, and take them to go and plant the seeds of its offspring elsewhere. Finally, the water was added-- though I had knocked the chalice over and spilled most of it, a few drops were left, which was plenty. Probably not a good idea to choke out the potential growth of the seeds with too much saltwater, anyhow.

As a finishing touch, I performed the Rose Cross ritual, hoping to render the site more invisible. It is already kind of out of the way, but my wife and I would prefer not having to come up with some awkward explanation for why we dug a hole on her parents' land. I then closed with LBRP.

Conclusions, Notes and Results:

As part of my future work as Frater V, I hope to connect and work more with my animal allies, which as I mentioned, I took the trouble to include in the composition of my name and sigil. I mused to myself that if I were to see a fox soon, it would mean the ritual worked and the universe/Ilyas was telling me, "Game on." I had a feeling it would happen.

I saw a fox by the side of the road on the way home from the cottage today. We'll see if I get any activity from Raven or Wasp.

9/4/2012 8:52 PM

Later in the week, one of the managers at work was sitting outside at break with a plastic bag containing a Wasp's nest. This was taken as a "kinda-sorta" appearance of the Wasp.

On Saturday, my wife and I noticed a raven flying outside the window at the cottage. Ravens are rare around here. This one was going back and forth, flying very fast, doing all sorts of aerobatics, corkscrews, etc. as if it were trying hard to get our attention.

With all of this, I consider the ritual a definite success--all three signs came. Then, later on in the day on Saturday, a wasp was hanging out by my wife and I while we ate at a restaurant.

At work on Monday, my wife spotted an ad for advanced Norwegian classes

beginning that very evening. At first I refused to go, but then I thought about Wasp, and how this should be seen as one of the expected tests connected with the ritual--Wasp was challenging me to get busy on my goals and stop procrastinating. So I changed my mind and decided to sign up for the classes. My wife made the call for me, then came and told me things had been arranged. After she walked away, I said out loud, "THERE, universe. I stood my ground!" Just then, a wasp flew by and grazed my arm.

Yes. I am on a roll.