Works Of Ceremonial Magick

Spiritual Health And Hermetic Tradition

As has been previously emphasized many times in this Lucky Six Farms blog, there are probably as many authentic dimensions to spiritual health as there are seekers. Some of the most intriguing and thoroughly documented avenues to metaphysical wholeness can be found in practices of European ceremonial magick and its associated Hermetic doctrines. Founded upon the notion that deficient astral forces of whatever kind may be significantly augmented via appropriate ritual, the conceptual basis of ceremonial magick is rooted in the value of transcendent balance. Thus, the practitioner sought to be fully comfortable and function productively both in his/her skin and external environment. Spiritual health was viewed in much the same fashion as physical wellness: a state of perfect integration with the universe at large, of microcosm with macrocosm.

Spiritual Health - Invocation

One aspect of achieving this ultimate balance was effected via ceremonial invocation of highly benevolent cosmic intelligences. Because these were usually classified as intrinsically angelic and therefore wholly benevolent in character, they were encouraged to merge into the body/mind complex of the magician, who conducted the rite within a focusing boundary Circle. Needless to say, such entities were much more inclined to integrate into pure human abodes than polluted ones, so profound prayer combined with classic banishing rituals like those of the Pentagram and Hexagram were employed prior to any direct appeal to a prospective indwelling spirit. Nor could purely external aids be neglected, so the burning of traditionally purifying herbal agents like White Sage became an absolutely integral component of all such rites.

Spiritual Health - Evocation

Since it has long been recognized in esoteric circles that humans may approach perfection but, like terms in an infinite series, never actually attain it, ceremonialists sought to come to grips with curiously potent yet intrinsically unbalanced aspects of reality. In conventional perspectives and marked contrast to the entities noted above, such intelligences were generally classed as demonic. In order to better emphasize the psychic separation ideally existing between the Hermetic magician and such spirits, these entities were asked - or even ordered! - to manifest strictly as external agents who would only be welcomed outside a clearly delimiting Circle of Art. (We should not be surprised to learn that this insulating procedure was often frustrated.) Nevertheless, as all grimoires note, even the most radically deviant intelligence is invariably repelled by pollutions and ritual impurities. So the judicious use of purifying aromatics like White Sage was also mandated in these contexts. Lucky Six Farms is proud to note that all their certified organic White Sage products are as efficacious in today’s Hermetic rituals, whatever the orientation or Path, as they have been in prior eras.

By Alan Beck

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