Direction of the Elements in Thelemic Pentagram rituals

Aeon418

ravenest said:
Why did Crowley utalise the principle of moving widdershins in this ritual? It would seem to go with the concept of banishing.

There are at least five different ways in which widdershins movemet can be used and understood in ritual. And again, much of it seems to boil down to intent.

Widdershins motion can be:

1. A banishing current. (Move deosil to invoke, widdershins to banish.)

2. A cancelling current. (See the the GD Neophyte ceremony.)

3. An invocation of an annihilatory current. (See Liber V vel Reguli.)

4. A symbolic shift in consciousness. (Deosil - terrestrial. Widdershins - celestial.)

5 . An invocation of Lunar or Cthonic energies.

Aeon418

ravenest said:
Many years ago (before H.B.), if you did a degree in OTO (in Australia anyway ) you would recive a little document outlining certain practices and rituals pertaining to or relevant to each degree, I think it was put out by Thelema Lodge or Bill Heidrik. Anyway, it got withdrawn, and gradually so did a lot of similar stuff.

You mean this?
http://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib1151.html

The author was Jim Graeb, but I think Bill Heidrik made a few contributions.

ravenest

Naughty

Aeon418 said:
You mean this?
http://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib1151.html

The author was Jim Graeb, but I think Bill Heidrik made a few contributions.

Thats the critter.
Maybe some people still distribute it, it was stopped being issued here several years ago. Jim Greab eh? Hmmmm ..... nah, I'll PM ya.

Aeon418

Here's Bill's comment on MCLI in the old Thelema Lodge Calendar.
http://www.billheidrick.com/tlc1987/tlc1087.htm#fob

Grigori

Aeon418 said:
Just to throw a spanner in the works, I'll mention that my ritual space is orriented practically due North. That's where I set up the stele, and that becomes my magical East. Whatever is behind me is my West. To my right is South. And my left counts as North.

Just a random thought today, but I wonder Aeon, how do you/would you orient yourself for Resh? Sunrise at Magical East, Solar East, Magnetic East, or a variation depending on your location at the time?

Aeon418

Grigori said:
Just a random thought today, but I wonder Aeon, how do you/would you orient yourself for Resh? Sunrise at Magical East, Solar East, Magnetic East, or a variation depending on your location at the time?

For Resh I orient myself towards the sun, where ever it happens to be at those particular times of the day.

ravenest

I am glad you asked that S. A guy I knew in Oz INSISTED that Resh should be done to qabbalistic directions ????

Personally - I think its NUTS - doing (eg) noon Resh and not facing north (or south for you upsidedowners

) .

A perfect example of taking things tooooo far on the text book level and not relating ones practice to nature or environment.

Did it work for him? ... He probably thinks so.

Aeon418

ravenest said:
Personally - I think its NUTS - doing (eg) noon Resh and not facing north (or south for you upsidedowners ) .

But there are times when it's not convenient, like when you are at work or travelling.

Here's Grady McMurty's account of a bus ride he took with the Beast.

"We had taken one of those big red double-decker buses and were sitting on the bottom level on the left about half way. We were sitting there talking, when suddenly Crowley glanced up to the left, said, 'Pardon me a moment', closed his eyes, made some mystic passes with the fingers of his right hand, and mumbled something unintelligible. Unintelligible to me, anyway. It wasn't until later that I figured out that he had been doing the noon Liber Resh. The thing that is so striking is that he was so quiet about it. To hear some people talk you would think that he would have rushed up to the top deck and shouted it 'from the housetops' to all of greater London. There may have been times when he did, but he didn't do it that day."

Aeon418

ravenest said:
A perfect example of taking things tooooo far on the text book level and not relating ones practice to nature or environment.

Did you ask him in which sense he interpreted the word "sun"?

ravenest

Yeah, I do that myself when on the go ... I'm not talking about that. [I also used to do a pentagram ritual whilst on my way to work via motorcycle and I never turned around on the seat or let go of the handlebars to make a pentagram in the air :laugh:

]

Maybe he was talking about some other 'Sun', if he wasnt so obstinate about everything maybe I could have got a better answer?

Sometimes at work I would go off to a private space for Resh ... sometimes I'd do it on the go, I doubt anyone would know I was doing it.