Ceremonial magic without divine names

[insomni4c]

Does anyone have any ideas for performing ceremonial magic, like the LBRP, without using any divine names?

I don't see "God" as an entity or being of any sort, but more of a transcendental force that everything is composed of or ultimate reality (not sure how to put it into words), sort of like the hindu concept of Brahman I guess. Gods are only bits and pieces of that created by humanity to try to understand or communicate with this ultimate reality.

With my ritual work I'd like to avoid using references to the abrahamic god or any other being, and focus on spiritual growth and transcendance, and I'd like to avoid using divine names because of their associations with a specific deity. I feel it's limiting in a way to use divine names and archangels and all that for this reason, I'd like to focus on the "ultimate reality" as a whole, and would like to emphasize the fact that it's beyond names and personification. The problem is that I'm not really sure how to go about doing that, can't really wrap my brain around it and haven't really seen any writing on this kind of thing from a western perspective. I guess I could go more towards eastern forms of achieving these kinds of things, but I do like the ritual of western mysticism and feel that at least at this point in my spiritual growth that it would be a valuable tool.

[Eremita]

Does anyone have any ideas for performing ceremonial magic, like the LBRP, without using any divine names?

Good evening!

If you don't want to use divine names in the pentagram ritual, then by all means leave them out! They certainly aren't necessary.

Phil Hine wrote a version of the LBRP for Chaos Condensed, in which the names YHVH, Adonai, AGLA and Eheieh were all substituted for the much simpler IAO. IAO has any number of meanings attributed to it; it still conjures the idea of divinity/universal consciousness, but without dragging up mental pictures of the generally barbarous god of the ancient Hebrews. Makes a nice deep, mantric sound when spoken aloud, too.

As far conjuring the Archangels - I personally really like this aspect of the ritual, because Angels are just such cool conceptual creatures. I love 'em. Always have! But again, if you find it tacky, wanky or unnecessary, substitute them for something else - I would suggest simply visualising the four classical elements minus the relevant Archangels. Four points of light, stars or great flaming pillars would also be workable.

I've had some trouble getting my head around why ceremonial magicians are keen on using the divine names as well; but ultimately I've come to look at it in the following way:

YHVH/Jehovah, whatever you want to call it, is simply a word. The unspeakable, the holy of holies - it's a concept that seems to have been desired to drag our mind upward to the highest imaginable level; the Source of all Creation. When we use the name Jehovah, it can be difficult to separate this beautiful concept with that unspeakably cruel, violent and malevolent deity who gave absurd commandments and led the nation of Israel through the wilderness crushing every culture it could lay its hands on. But the thing is - Jehovah didn't write the Bible.

Jehovah did not write the Bible.

People did. Importantly, religious leaders did. And when you read for example the particularly horrendous book of Leviticus, it is very easy to come to grips with the fact that all of the shit describing Jehovah as a "jealous God... exacting exclusive devotion" , was written by a very small number of humans who wielded absolute power among the primitive Hebrews, and who depended on a fictitious mandate from God in order to hold onto that power and take what they wanted from everyone else (food/livestock, money, it's all detailed in Leviticus). The cruelty of the Bible is human cruelty. They just slapped the name Jehovah on their fictitious deity and used the name as a political weapon. It's tragic - even more so that it's still happening today, but what can you do.

The point is that YHVH is a thought-form. A name that can be used to invoke consciousness of the Ultimate; the Alpha and Omega. For that reason, I have no problem in using it. Fuck the ancient Hebrews. They're the ones who sullied the names of God in the first place by attributing such stupidity and barbarity to them.

There's a line from a Marilyn Manson song that is pertinent:

I never really hated the one true God, but the God of the people I hated.

Yep, turned into a rant. Damnit.


Eremita

[Ramscha]

A magickal operation consists in most cases always of certain moduls, it does not matter if you look at a shamanic operation, a christian liturgy or a LBPR.
You can take out those moduls, analyse them and sort them to new operations as you see fit, even change them. That is the keypoint now.
I will quote an example of a ritual I have read before to be more precise about the instructions above:

I use a rather unconventional spread that it a lot of fun and seems to work quite well in its own way; I call it the chaotic spread. The process is based on a Discordian opening ritual.

Some preliminary thoughts on divination and chaos:

Eris, as the Goddess of Chaos represent undifferentiated possibilities. This parallels the Dao De Jing and Quantum physics. In the DDJ, Lao Tzu explains how the determinate arises from the indeterminate (chaos). Quantum mechanics tells us that before a determinate event arises it is exists in an undefined or quantum state (google Schrodinger's cat for a useful thought experiment).

Thus, the universe is undefined or chaotic. In a ridiculous way, it may be possible to peek into chaos or even shape chaos through communion with Eris. If anything, it's fun and can add some meaning to the otherwise random string of events we call "life."

The following is my Discordian Ritual for communion with chaos:

1. Lose your self to erratic movement and nonsense. (Clap your hands, sing gibberish, and dance with pure spontaneity.)

2. Sign the Erisian Cross: “Light in my head, fire in my genitals, strength at my right side, laughter at my left side, love in my Heart.”

3. Call the quarters
- Face East: “Blessed Apostle Hung Mung, great Sage of Cathay, Balance the Hodge and Podge and grant us equilibrium.”
- Face South: “Blessed Apostle Van Van Mojo, Doctor of Hoodoo and Vexes, Give us the Voodoo Power and confuse our enemies.”
- Face West: “Blessed Apostle Sri Syadasti, patron of psychedelia, Teach us the relative truth and blow our minds.”
- Face North: “Blessed Apostle Zarathud, hard-nosed hermit, Grant us the Erisian doubt, and the constancy of Chaos.”
- Look up: “Blessed Apostle Malaclypse, Elder Saint of Discordia, Grant us illumination and protect us from stupidity.”

4. Say: “Great Goddess Discordia, Holy Mother Eris, Joy of the Universe, Laughter of Space, Grant us Life, Light, Love and Liberty and make the bloody
magick work!” and through your tarot deck into the air allow the cards to scatter across the room.

5. Interpret the chaotic spread of cards however you see fit.

6. Say: "Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!"

In fact now simply discard all the names, you could substitute them for example with "divine force", when that fits better to you.
Also, since most deities are simply a named attribute/s, you could name the attribute the god/spirit/Isis-knows-what stands for instead of the god itself.

Example: Odin - Father of storms, you could take instead "Force of windy stormes, hear my voice, hear my howl!"

Hope this helps

Ramscha

[insomni4c]

Thanks for the feedback I've been going back and forth about whether I want to omit the names, replace them, or just keep them the same for like a week now lol.

When we use the name Jehovah, it can be difficult to separate this beautiful concept with that unspeakably cruel, violent and malevolent deity who gave absurd commandments and led the nation of Israel through the wilderness crushing every culture it could lay its hands on

This is one of the problems I had with it, I wasn't sure if I would be able to call upon these names of God without mentally connecting them with the Jehovah of the Judeo-Christian faith. Plus I'm not sure how to pronounce a couple of them haha.

Phil Hine wrote a version of the LBRP for Chaos Condensed, in which the names YHVH, Adonai, AGLA and Eheieh were all substituted for the much simpler IAO

I'm gonna have to check that out, that sounds interesting, I do pull some ideas and theory from chaos magic.

Since i posted this I've been also thinking about using names of satan and demons instead of archangels since I have been rather interested in satanism and lucifureanism recently and I have run across versions of the LBRP and middle pillar ritual tailored towards that paradigm. I guess just about anything that feels right would probably work.

[Eremita]

This is one of the problems I had with it, I wasn't sure if I would be able to call upon these names of God without mentally connecting them with the Jehovah of the Judeo-Christian faith. Plus I'm not sure how to pronounce a couple of them haha.

Funnily enough - nobody does. XD

Just fill in the consonants with whatever vowels you reckon sound good and you're as correct as anyone else!

[RoseRed]

Jehovah did not write the Bible.

People did. Importantly, religious leaders did. And when you read for example the particularly horrendous book of Leviticus, it is very easy to come to grips with the fact that all of the shit describing Jehovah as a "jealous God... exacting exclusive devotion" , was written by a very small number of humans who wielded absolute power among the primitive Hebrews, and who depended on a fictitious mandate from God in order to hold onto that power and take what they wanted from everyone else (food/livestock, money, it's all detailed in Leviticus).

I can't say that I agree with this part. It's been my experience that they were pretty damn accurate in conveying character traits.

[insomni4c]

The more reading and thinking I've been doing on this the more value I've started to see in using the god names and invoking the archangels, especially since they do have a very long history of belief and use. I think I just need to think of it outside the context of the god portrayed in the bible and more as names used to describe the ultimate reality and I'll feel more comfortable invoking these names.

I think I'm going to use the format presented on this page http://hermetic.com/osiris/nbrp.htm. I especially like the change in the kabbalistic cross, using Eheieh (I am) rather than Ateh (thou art), which is actually something I had considered modifying myself, and the changes to which names are associated with which direction/element. Thinking of the archangels as the ultimate purified form of the four elements is also something I think would add more to the ritual.

[Asurendra]

Hello Insomni4c,

I can understand the problem you have with using the names of the Judeo-Christian tradition. I share that feeling. Because I left that long ago and had already adopted another spiritual path I was able to adapt this ritual and it works well. I use it everyday.

It's my opinion that there are higher, transcendental entities with whom we can connect and this connection is important in magick. I do not think everything is a thought-form (I'm not a subjective idealist). They may wear different masks but it is the nature of your personal connection and the Elemental structure of the ritual that are really important. From your past post it seems you're going in the right direction. Keep us posted!

[insomni4c]

I definitely feel like I'm going in the right direction. Tonight I'm going to work on memorizing the ritual so that I can perform it without a script, right now I have to refer to my notes a couple of times before getting through it.

I left the Judeo-Christian faith as well several years ago and have been searching for truth ever since, my path has taken a lot of twists and turns (especially in the last couple of weeks) and I usually wind up back at ceremonial magic, kabbalah, hermeticism, and all that but then shy away because of the connections to the Judeo-Christian god. I think I've matured spiritually a lot since the beginning though and now that I've taken the time to see it for what it is I really see the value in all of it, and I have a bit clearer of an idea of where I'm going and how to get there.

[Eremita]

I can't say that I agree with this part. It's been my experience that they were pretty damn accurate in conveying character traits.

Can you elaborate on this point? Do you mean they were accurate in portraying the character of Jehovah? Or portraying characters in general?

[RoseRed]

I think they were accurate in portraying Jehovah's character traits when he is displeased.