Silent Light

Hello! It's been a while. I had been quite a bit more busy than I thought I would have been when I first made this blog, and naturally my work, both mundane and magical, had to come first. However, I do now have a bit of time on my hands. To update everyone, I have also done work with a Sylph and Gnome, which completes the little series I had started to become more familiar with the elements, those posts are coming soon. I do also still plan on continuing my work on the game Clavis Elementorum, I should have a true "dev log" of that a bit later on.

With that said, I have had a lot of time to think about my initial inspiration as to why I wanted to make this game to begin with: "Why make a game that so accurately (I hope) showcases the personalities of the elemental spirits, and the nature of the elements themselves?" And the answer is to help give others who were starting out the same kind of nudge from words on a page to effective practice. I'm not saying my understanding of these things is anything special, but rather that I simply recognize and have recognized in my conversations with other practitioners and aspiring practitioners that some really seem to understand what's 'really going on' versus not, and that I shudder to think how subtle and easily missable the point of it is, since no author I've seen has really given it the detail it deserves, though a lot of them do hint at it. So with all this pretense out of the way, I will showcase these hidden lessons that help to unlock imagery based magic, through the example of the LBRP, but of course what I say applies to any act of magical imagination.

First are the skills required before you can make use of the formula. A lot of times in writing, these skills are obfuscated behind flowery words or trying to force-fit the skills to correspond to the Powers of the Sphinx or whatever else, but this obscures the supreme simplicity of the skills.

The first skill required is focus. This is not simply paying attention to something, nor is it hyping yourself up. This is the focus of preparedness, letting the world fall from around you, to still the mind toward just the task at hand. Many writers describe the LBRP with the magician making their own "Magical Universe". This is a good description in regards to philosophy, but it obscures the practical action of the magician in the circle. The key is in single-edged focus, focus keeps your eye on the goal, it keeps all your mental and spiritual energy directed on the aims of the work you are doing, and without focus, a lot of what you put into any working will not be effective.

The second skill is imagination, or imagery. It is the syntax used to communicate. The purpose of this is to both give form to your focus, and also to set up a place of communication. This is not just communicating with the forces you are working with, but communicating with the parts of yourself who are doing the actual reaching out, to tell the unconscious what you wish to be done. I say that imagination is communication because while at first the main purpose is to give form to your desire and communicate that *to* your unconscious, Higher Self, and the forces you are reaching out to, the other half is to learn to receive these messages through the same canvas of imagination.

The third skill is reaching out, and must be done on every level of the operation. What I mean by reaching out is acknowledging and striving toward the forces you are working with. You should be actively willing yourself to come into contact with the forces you are contacting.

This is how all of this looks within the context of the LBRP

Before starting, you should be in a state of focused concentration. The first task is to stop thinking about what your day was like, or what you're going to do after this, or whatever is not focusing on the imagery you're about to form. This is clearly something easier said than done, and you should take some time before the ritual to put yourself in a more relaxed and focused state. I have found what is best is to first let your thoughts play themselves out, as you sit in the silence and let them naturally fall to a close, moving toward a state of stillness without fighting against the ideas.

Then, when ready, stand facing the East. The first action of the Qabalistic Cross is actually an act of reaching out. You are reaching out to the Source of All Sources, Hypsistos, God Most High, Ein Soph, The One, The Monad. In short, your first action physically is reaching out with your right hand above your head. Imaginably, you are growing, up out of your room, up above the planets, above the stars, breaching into a realm of pure white Light, Standing within the realm of the Empyrean. Before even the first word, your actions are truly embodying the ethos of the Magician, to aspire toward the Highest, and to stand, not grovel, not kneel, in the Presence of The King. (and yet, the path is open and, dare I say, ideal, for those who yet wish to remain in service, the Parable of the Prodigal Son comes to mind for the full proper mindset as far as my path is concerned. The Son returns, willing to be but a servant of the House, but none the less accepts the hug of his Father, and accepts the freely given Inheritance)

Let us take the next segment in whole, and then discuss it. "Atoh, Malkuth. VeGeburah, VeGedulah, LeOlam, Amen." "For Thine, is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, World Without End, So Mote It Be." These words alone are very potent, and of course so is the imagery, the simple thing is to simply construct the Cross in Light, and for some added symbolic attachment, you can of course add the colors of the Sephirotic correspondence, Kether, Malkuth, Geburah, and Chesed, in order.

Of course, the most interesting thing to note after the initial Kabbalistic correspondence is the fact that the placement of Geburah and Gedulah are inverted. This is by design, at least as far as the original makers of this ritual are concerned. If you look at the Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life, you would of course see Chesed on your right, and Geburah on your left, but that is exactly opposite of the truth if you imagine the glyph of the Tree of Life as a mirror image, as the founders of the LBRP would imagine. If you 'back into the tree', to see the Tree as a mirror image of the Self, then you see Gedulah (Chesed) as your left, and Geburah as your right. Certainly, this little part of the ritual can in of itself hold great depth, It is the crossing-point of Highest and Lowest, Kether and Malkuth, and of that other great binary, of Mercy and Severity (of course, this bit on "backing into the tree' is rather unique to the Golden Dawn, if you decide to read some more traditional Kabbalah, you won't see this idea at all. Whether you decide to leave the concept for just Golden Dawn work or not is your decision). This midpoint which is the essence of the Rose-Cross is of itself the Heart of another good ritual, the aptly named ritual of the Rose-Cross, which is the essence of the place of meditation and peace, but that is its own conversation piece.

By the end of the QC, you have touched the Highest and united it back with Materiality. You have touched Strength and Mercy, and have united it all within your Heart. Touch is certainly the key word, because to go beyond a simple tap on the shoulder of these Giants is in of itself the realm of an entire life's work. The QC is a stabilizing factor, its presence at the start and end of the LBRP is to make sure the practitioner is in a stable state before and directly after working with the Elements, it bookends the ritual, as if to make a separate space, to separate the mundane from the magical.

If the QC is about leaving the mundane and entering the magical, the initial setting up of the Circle with Divine Names is laying the foundation of this magical world. You are ridding your Sphere of Sensation from the mundane, imbalanced, impure elements, to then in the next part fill your Sphere with the pure element of each Archangel. Stepping forward, around the altar, to the East corner, with the right hand, whether it be with a tool in hand, or the oft cited "sword mudra", or the sign of the benediction, tracing in the air a Banishing Pentagram while also imagining light blue fire (though also cited is simply white fire) tracing along this pentagram, piercing the center (this time either the same color, or also red light as possible images) and vibrating the Divine Name "YHVH" while imagining the letters glowing brightly in golden light, then repeating after going to the South, keeping the arm held out, tracing the circle in fire, this time with the divine name "Adonai", the West with "Ehyieh" and the North with "AGLA" before returning first to the East station, then back to the Center, facing still East. The blue flame of the Pentagram is to correspond it to the "flame of spirit" that is seen as a representation of the Inner Flame, and it as a symbol is used as a symbol of Spirit within the Golden Dawn tradition. White light is an acceptable substitute, because of its correspondence with purity, Kether, etc. It is a useful substitute if you are using blue within your practice for another correspondence. The red piercing ray corresponds to Geburah, utilizing the restricting quality of the Sephira as a way of pushing away the impure elements.

The next segment is more a matter of invoking than banishing, now calling into yourself the form of the Archangels, who rule and represent the Elements in their most pure and balanced form. What I also find interesting is that with our more common imagery, of imagining each Archangel in robes of their color, with flashing colors, and holding a symbol of their element, we see the Wand and Sword flipped from their usual Golden Dawn correspondence(and usual Tarot suit correspondence), where usually we see Wands with Fire and Swords with Air, it is Raphael who holds an airy Caduceus wand/staff, and Michael holding a fiery Sword. We do see another current, examples being the "Practical Magick" series by David Rankine and Sorita d'Este, and the system of Franz Bardon, which does have this flipped correspondence, of Air with the Wand and Fire with the Sword. This I am not entirely sure what to make of in the grander scheme of things, but I would be remiss to not bring it up. With that wrinkle said, there is a lot of potential that lay within having these Archangels invoked, outside of their purpose in the ritual as heralds of their respective elements.

"Around me flame the pentagram, and within me (or 'in the center column') shines the six-ray-star." This line makes more explicit the whole purpose of the operation. The Pentagram is representative of the microcosm, and the Hexagram that of the macrocosm. In this line, they are inverse, the Microcosm displays itself about you, and the Macrocosm is the shining light within. This is the alchemical operation of the LBRP, You take High and bring the light to the low in the QC, you bring balance on all these levels. The version of the line that says the Central Column invokes the idea of the Middle Pillar in the Kabbalah, and the version that says within me invokes the idea that "The Kingdom of God is Within You" (Luke 17:21).

The method is the same as for the Salamander, but with names that correspond with Water and the West. The approach and demeanor of this spirit was very different. In my initial contact, I described the spirit as being "cold, but not distant" like a strict but caring professor, or perhaps as a physician that while keeping professional distance means you well.

Most of the lessons of this spirit were contained within dreams, but while in the circle, the imagery was filled with pictures of the Deep, of the Sea, and the creatures therein. This spirit spoke very few words to me, those namely being to "stop thinking and simply feel" and the two names given: The first contact the Undine gave me the name "Ima" (which I noted at the time being Hebrew for Mother) and later on, this spirit gave the name "Sleep".

It is difficult to talk about the nature of this spirit, as their personality is very subdued and wordless. In the times I have meditated on my workings since they concluded, I would describe Sleep as like unto a still lake, or like a bowl of water to be used for divination, which reflected my unconscious. Sleep showed me many lessons through dreams that I needed to take into consideration into my life, in addition to their very nature showing me the reflective, mutable, flowing nature of water, not through words but through the experience of them in the circle. It is unfortunate now, given that I am now trying to place these wordless feelings back into words. My journal is also little help since I have since realized they also seemed to depress me, though not in a necessarily negative way.

In regards to any interesting experiences I had, for the first contact, after meditating on the arising imagery of the Deep, I opened my eyes to find the Banner of Water's triangle was covered in little tentacles writhing, the same color as the triangle but in the background. Strange movements of the flame of the candle were also not uncommon.

I think the best takeaway, rather than describe what occurred in the moment, to give an abridged relation of the feeling of the spirit, to help give the feelings Sleep embedded into me proper words:

In order for me to be more genuine with the expression of each element in the game I am making, I wanted to deepen my understanding of each of the four elements. I decided to attempt to conjure an elemental to tutor me for a week on each element. The nature of the conjuration was very interesting in retrospect, as it certainly was formulated as an evocation, but the tutoring process felt more in the nature of an invocation. On a whim of expression, I decided to go with the Tetragrammaton formula for the order, which is to say in accordance to the correspondences of Yod, Heh, Vav, and Heh. Fire, Water, Air, Earth.

The general formula I used for each of the elements is as follows:

For the first conjuring, I made sure to do so on a day and the hour of a planet that corresponds to the element. For the Salamander, I did this on Sunday(Sol, Fire.) I started with a standard LBRP, followed by a slightly modified LIRH, by doing just the invoking hexagram of the element I am working with.

My altar is a rather basic set up, the offering to the Elemental in the middle, the incense burner on the left, a white candle on the right. A painted elemental banner sits on the altar near the back, forming a sort of backdrop and meditative focus. Once I finish the LIRH, I sit in a chair and call upon the appropriate name of God, Archangel, and elemental Angel to send me a fitting elemental to tutor me in the ways of the element. After that I say the shortened form of the Elemental Prayer as found in the 'revised' version of the MPR in the back of Regardie's Middle Pillar (in the section of material compiled and written by the Ciceros) Other than that, at later points I do start to add in the full Elemental Prayer by Eliphas Levi and started to use a black mirror toward the end of the Sylph conjurations. Before that, I sort of used the elemental banner as a scrying medium, and mostly relied on vision and meditation to receive insight from the spirits.

Enough technical details, here's what the results (at least that which I can share) of each week of each elemental were

First Evocation: After sitting down and beginning to meditate on the elemental banner, I felt a presence start to arise. Physically it was like pins in my hands and feet, and like there was a large pressure, especially when asking the elemental to show me something or reveal something to me. At this point the communication was wordless. At first all I got was the ghost image effect on the elemental banner, but then got an image of the symbol of sulfur that superimposed itself on top of both the ghost image and the actual banner. Upon asking for a name, I felt a sensation in my throat like either something being pulled, or moved, and I spoke aloud how it felt natural, and I said in a low, drawn out voice "Eglė" as I did so the letters appeared in my mind, complete with the accent mark, which I wrote in my journal before researching the name. Surprising to me, Eglė is in fact the name of a mythological figure in Lithuanian mythology, the main piece that stood out to me was that Eglė at the end of the myth becomes the Spruce, which while I cannot find any traditional sources, does seem to have a correspondence with the sun. I asked the salamander if there was anything in addition they wanted to show me, to do so through my dream that night, and concluded with a license to depart.

That night I did in fact have a dream, where I was just told straight up by one of the dream characters very candidly that if I wanted to communicate with Egle, I should meditate on the element of fire. So before the evocation later on in the day, I meditated on the element of fire, where suddenly I received both answers from what I asked last night and other new pieces of information, such as desiring a blend of Cinnamon and Sandalwood. I then received a lesson about the nature of fire as a sort of barrier between the uncreated world and the beginning of creation, which I thought was very insightful given how we usually see Fire as the out-thrusting force, but seeing how it relates to what came before, it takes the role of a barrier. I also received the image of the Cherub with the flaming sword guarding the Garden of Eden.

Second Evocation:

As I went from one thought to the next, I found myself wandering in thought, which was cut by a different voice suddenly chastising me, saying to listen to the Elemental, not my delusions. I saw the voice coming from the image of a black hole. I then saw flame sweep across my field of vision from left to right, and the remainder of the meditation was silence as I felt within the presence of a flame. Later that day, when I did the full evocation, she seemed to take very well to singing the Prayer of the Salamanders, as I did it over and over it felt like I was kindling a fire that grew and grew, to which the candle flame on the altar grew as well.

Third Evocation: After the evocation, I was finally able to perceive the Salamander, she took on a form similar to an icon of Mary, or a nun but with yellows and oranges and reds for the clothing. I saw a very palpable halo around the candle flame, and the tip of the flame had 3 very clear tips, like a crown or perhaps the comparison could even be made to the letter Shin. In the corners of the room, strange shadows bounced in a way that looked like a moving presence.

Fourth Evocation:

By this point, she consistently appeared in the form of a solar nun. Egle tutored me with the art of vibrating Divine Names. By the time the lesson was done, my whole being from my feet to the top of my head felt like I was ringing like a bell. I then felt a great love, it felt very fraternal, is all I can really put into words.

These were the major points of interest in my week of evocation. The chastising voice in the meditation before the second evocation was very interesting, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Egle was a very interesting salamander to have come across. She seemed to emphasize a very solar, loving hearth-fire. During and since this evocation, I found that I have become a bit more warm, spontaneous, and extroverted in my personality. The day and time of evoking for the first time seemed to draw a very Solar-leaning Salamander.

All and all this was a great success. While this was far from my first evocation, it was the first time I had to improvise the ritual and to call upon a spirit that was not laid out in a book. I felt like I was learning the whole time, and am very grateful to the spirits I contacted, and grateful to all the spirits along the way who ensured that the spirit I contacted was fitting of my circumstance and needs.

This dev log is going to quite a bit different. I am a ceremonial magician, and this game should be, when I am done with it, not just an entertaining story, but a introduction to the classical four elements, the elemental spirits, and the process of internal alchemy. This game will be my unique take on the explore-and-talk model of early-styled RPGs, and is currently in the conceptualization stage. As I begin to develop the game in earnest, these posts will become more specialized to a particular thing I'm working on, but this first one is kind of a high concept back-of-the-box type look at what I want to create. Everything from the ideas to the art used is to roughly conceptualize what I want to make, though unless I have a change of heart it will still be in a pixel art style.

Falling, falling, falling. Falling from a realm of light, you see it shrink away. What once took up your whole field of view is but a small orb above your head, as you fall into a world of inky blackness. Eventually, you meet the ground, and with a lightning's flash, find yourself in a world of Chaos.

In the center is a large clock. And one with matching time is found on your HUD. Every action, whether dialog, or picking up an item, or going into a building advances your time. As the player, or as I'll be calling him until I come up with a better name, Phil (bonus points if you get who I'm referring to) explores around, he finds himself in a world in disarray.

Each direction from the center leads to a different elemental area, where the various elemental characters that inhabit each place are in a state of disarray. Each elemental has issues, both within that elemental sphere, or between them. Helping each elemental with their difficulties by learning and knowing about the nature of each element and exploring the world to find solutions to their difficulties is the main thought process.

Each zone has a spot where they congregate, where you get your chance to use knowledge or items found in these places to help resolve the issues of each Elemental. A place where you can talk to these different characters either for information, or to resolve their issues.

As you explore the world, you also begin to find pieces of information about who you are, what this place is, and why it's in the state it's in.

Time goes by very quickly in this place, and you will likely find yourself only being able to help out a few spirits, or perhaps even put right an elemental force, but when time runs out, you will see what becomes of the place in the state you leave it, before you find yourself again Falling, falling, falling. But this time, with more knowledge about the world.