on Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and it's Hellenistic alternatives
The LBRP is notorious in occult circles as one of the most taught rituals for preparing ritual space and cleansing unwanted influences, to the point where a more seasoned scholar of the shrouded arts may groan at it's mentioning. Despite it's prevalence, a lot of occultists who aren't that keen on including Abrahamic names and prayers into their practice search for more "pagan" alternatives. Some advocate for using Star Ruby as a replacement for LBRP, but this ritual is, while certainly pagan, vehemently Thelemic, employing names such as Therion and BABALON, which are not related to any other pracitce and do not hold any occult value beyond that which was given them by the Beast himself, so if you aren't a Thelemic practitioner you might want to look for other alternatives. Other path employed by many is the transplantation of Greek names onto the ritual: this includes Israel Regardie's Greek Banishing Pentagram, John Opsopaus' Lesser Olympic Banishing Pentagram, Ariadne Rainbird's Orphic Cirlcle, and a Simple Hellenic Banishing Ritual from Nyx Shadohawk. I have also tried to create my own iteration starting with an Orphic Hymn to Zeus and employing names of Apollo(East, Sun), Hecate(West, Moon), Hermes(South, Mercury) and Aphrodite(North, Venus) after which the Barbarous names of these gods are uttered, finishing with another hymn to Zeus. As you can surmise, my version is much less refined and doesn't take many things into account, so I don't recommend using it at all. The last thing I want to say on this topic is an opinion shared with me by some acquaintances of mine, that is: "the point of the ritual is Qabalistic, the more important part is the appeal to the highest divinity, be it YHWH, Jove or Osiris. It's like with the two-winged androgynous god of the Orphics, it doesn't matter whether it is Eros, Dionysus or Phanes, what matters is that this god is present". To add to this opinion I would like to mention the use of Abrahamic names in some pagan rituals in the Greek Magical Papyri. So, even when using the Original LBRP, one can interpret the Lords Prayer as one addressed to the Cronid and the names of archangels as those of intermediate spirits akin to Daimons. This is the view I gravitate towards as of the moment of writing, but I understand if this is not a satisfactory answer to others.
Criticism and your own variations of basic banishing rituals are all welcome in the comments and messages.
