Posts Tagged ‘Enochian’

More Questions for the Enochian Angels

Monday, May 7th, 2012

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Today, I’ll call the Enochian angels again to ask a few questions suggested by commenters, plus a few others I thought of over the weekend. (Links to parts 1 and 2.)

Does 1 Spirit = 1 Angel?

There are two ways I could see Enochian working. The simplest is that each spirit gave themselves an angelic name and sigil, and when you ask for an angel, you get that spirit. That’s probably how most mages would assume it works.

But I don’t think it actually works that way. For one, the answers I got last time suggest that the particular spirits running the show changes over time. (Remember how they have some spirits learning the ropes?) Also, it doesn’t scale well — what if 1,000 people all call at the same time asking for the same angel?

What I’ve seen it done before, when I did a little work with the group doing voodoo, was that the named entities — the voodoo gods, the Enochian angels, etc — were like costumes for the actual spirits. The ethereal software would project the image and voice of the angel, but any of the actual spirits running the show could be behind that projection, selecting the actual words it said. Like the wizard of oz, but each spirit capable of controlling any projection they want.

So, that’s my first question for the angels. I ask the ethereal software for a historian-type angel, who explains: A little of both. Different spirits are skilled with different angels. So, you wouldn’t get a particular named spirit when you get the particular angel, but you would get one who’s been trained and is particularly qualified for that set of skills. This is similar to how other groups you work with would let you request an expert in communication, or shielding, or some other skill.

How Do You Impress People?

Me: Do you do things specifically to inspire awe or impress people? Tell me about those techniques.

Enochian spirit: Of course we do. Wouldn’t you?

Specifically, we use an energy for the communication that inspires awe in most humans. The visions are also designed to inspire awe. And the overall complexity of the sigils and everything else associated with the traditional way to do Enochian magick adds to the feeling that you’re doing something pretty freaking awesome and should be awed by it.

(He also shows me some about the signature for awe, and the parts of the mind that energy interacts with, but I can’t explain that very well in writing.)

How Did Enochian Get Started?

Me: What’s your history? How did the group of spirits form? How did you decide to use sigils, rather than the style of communication most spirits use?

Enochian spirit: We formed not long before making the sigils. We actually all formed around the idea of using the sigils to communicate with humans. The goal was to make a style that would be easy for humans to communicate on paper, so that we could wind up working with a lot of different humans in a lot of different areas. And honestly, it’s worked pretty darn well.

What Can You Help Me With?

Me: What sorts of things can you help me with more effectively the spirits I already know? Any thoughts on what to work on?

He hands me off to a different Enochian spirit who specializes in training: I wouldn’t imagine there’s anything we can help you with more effectively than the spirits you already train with. But thank you for asking. I would stick with them, unless there’s something in particular that we have experienced, like designing sigils or inspiring awe with visions. Those things, actually, we may know better than them. But in terms of your normal training, stick with them.

Me: Any thoughts on the book?

Another Enochian spirit, presumably an expert at manifesting*: You should go ahead with the plan you currently laid out. Do the training** with your readers, too — that’s an excellent way to make money and get the teaching experience you’ll need for later***. Basically, follow the path that your spirit teachers have laid out, and that you’ve thought through yourself, and this will go well. Trust yourself on this one. Sorry I couldn’t be any more help, but it seems like you’ve already got all the manifesting you need.

*Why do I think he’s an expert in manifesting? Well, it would make sense for the question I asked, and there’s a 30-second delay after I ask the question until he answers, which suggests he’s consulting some external source of information, which is almost always manifesting.

**I’ll tell you about this soon when I write up the business plan. Basically, 1-on-1 phone consultations where I connect to you remotely, plus possibly a group class if I get enough interest.

***It’s fairly common for spirits doing manifesting to allude to “You’ll need this to do something important later,” without telling you what the important thing you’ll do later actually is. I’ve gotten used to it by now.

Me: Should I post these conversations I just had with you guys?

Same guy as last question: Yes. It will be excellent for your readers to be able to see how your style is concretely different than theirs. Not just in accomplishing the same things differently, but in the very different way you interact with us, the questions that you ask that would never have occurred to them, and a few other things like that. Post it, including this answer.

How the Spirits Feel

A couple of closing thoughts. Yvonne had asked:

[Can you] say more about how different angelic signatures “feel” or “sense” in contrast with each other. After all, not knowing much about this system, does it seem different from any of the other styles that you are familiar with? Are these essentially different spirit “flavors”?

They feel like any other spirits I’ve worked with. Nice, friendly, knowledgeable and polite, but basically like the other folks I know. Calling them “angels” is excellent marketing, but not much more.

If you haven’t worked with many spirits, think of it this way: If I asked you how people in France look, you’d say that they look just like anyone else. So, each spirit has their own signature, like each person has their own face, but there’s nothing particularly peculiar about the Enochian spirits.

By the way, I call them “spirits” in this post because I’m working with the spirit behind the magick, rather than the angelic projection of the ethereal software. But I was talking with the spirits who act as angels, rather than the newer angels-in-training that are specifically called “spirits” in the instructions from part 1.

She also asked:

What does it “feel” like to get direct magick teachings from the numerous interested multidimensional entities?

I’m pretty used to it by now. I’ve trained with spirits at or above this level several times a month for the past 10 years, and almost daily for the past 2-3 years. My main tip is to ask specific questions, because there’s so much they could tell you, so you need to guide them to the right topics.

It doesn’t feel particularly different than a conversation with any other reasonably skilled spirit. Better spirits have more precise communication, more precise connections when they demonstrate things, and explain some topics differently, but it doesn’t make for an entirely new experience.

Is this something you’re interested in, that I should write more about?

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Posted in Advanced Conscious Magick | 6 Comments »

Contacting the Enochian Angels with Direct Magick

Friday, May 4th, 2012

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Yesterday, I showed you how I contact the ethereal software for the Enochian system of magick. Today, I’m going to take the natural next step: Talk to one of the angels.

Scott Stenwick (Ananael), author of Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy, was kind enough to email me with a recommendation:

Carmara, as “dispensor of the Heptarchial doctrine” is a good angel to contact if you have questions about the system as a whole.

Sounds good. Let’s do it.

Preparing for Enochian Visions

Yesterday, I had kept the ethereal software out of my mind, and communicated with it by packaging my thoughts, in the same way that most spirits communicate. Today, I allow the software to connect to my mind, because (1) I’ll need to send Carmara’s sigil, and I’m not good at sending images yet, and (2) I want the full Enochian experience, as other mages would experience it.

Normally, I wouldn’t bother telling you that. But something unusual happened when it connected. But before I can share that, I need to explain a little bit about the inner-workings of magickal communication.

When software (or a spirit, or an experienced mage) sends a message, they need to put that message in the right part of the receiver’s mind. If I want to send a conscious thought, I need to connect to the receiver’s conscious mind. To send a sound, I’d connect to the auditory parts of the receiver’s mind. And so on.

Normally, ethereal software only connects to my conscious mind. My mental muscles guide it there, making that the default for ethereal software. Software would only connect somewhere else if it were specifically, intentionally programmed to require a connection to that other part of my mind.

The Enochian ethereal software also connected to the visual part of my mind, meaning it is specifically designed to deliver visions. I see this very rarely, so I was initially surprised. But now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, it totally makes sense, and is exactly what you’d expect from my model of how visions of spirits work.

OK, back to talking to the angel.

Contacting Carmara

I sent the Enochian software the command, “Requesting an angel based on a sigil,” then focused on the sigil from Scott’s book (page 115). A few seconds later, a spirit* contacted me through the ethereal software, meaning that the spirit sends its messages to the software, which forwards them to me. (This is a common technique for communicating with many people at once, as it simplifies what the spirit has to do to communicate.)

*Spirit is the general term for non-bodied people. Angels are spirits.

I also got some images projected into my thoughts. (I saw them in my imagination, not projected on the wall in front of me.) The first was a tall white man with long, straight dark hair, wearing long, non-ornate, cream-colored robes. The second was a very brief image of a non-human, white-winged angel with a human-ish head and multiple arms, holding several swords. I don’t know enough about Enochian to interpret these images, but they were pronounced, seem significant, and I was able to request the images several times from Carmara as I wrote this paragraph.

Introductions

I explain what I do, that I’m looking to connect with people who do this style (Enochian), that I’m working to grow magick into a mature, respected discipline, and that I want to know more about this and possibly collaborate with them on that project.

Carmara makes a bunch of connections to my mind. My guess is, he’s reading my thoughts to see if I’m genuine.

Me, after 30 seconds: Did you have time to read my mind and see that I am genuine?

Carmara: We are discussing.

Another spirit contacts me, this time directly (rather than through the software.) He introduces himself with the image of an equilateral triangle (flat on the bottom, pointing up), with a circle inside it (not quite touching the sides of the triangle), with a dot in the middle of the circle. Again, means little to me, but I could certainly use it to contact him again.

We discuss my credentials briefly: Other groups of spirits I work with, what my goals are, etc. He gives his blessing, and asks how I’d like to begin.

Questions for the Angels

I’ll call the spirit with the triangle-circle-dot symbol “Tri.” You can all make fun of me after you tell me the official name.

Me: Tell me about your organization, the relationship between the angels, other spirits, and the guys who run the ethereal software, and what your goals are.

Tri: We run the software. Please, check for yourself.

I do. Indeed, it connects me to another spirit, and from there, I can connect to a bunch of angels, including the one I’m talking to now.

Tri: We have some other spirits we work with, too. Some are in training to become angels, others are simply not interested in an enlightenment / ascention type of path, and want to focus on technical skills. The first are referred to as “spirits,” the second as “demons.” (The concept isn’t dark or evil, just focused on tasks rather than spiritual growth.)

Tri: Our goal is to help people learn enlightenment. (We discuss the details some, but it’s more personal than I’d like to post publicly.)

Me: Tell me about the visions of the angels. How do you send them? How do you pick what image to send?

He hands me off to another angel who handles that part, who explains: The images are sent either as an image in the person’s thoughts (this is the default, if you are not set up for the other one, which most people aren’t), or as an image to the eyes.

Me: Can you show me the nerves it would go to, when you send it to the eyes?

He connects to a part of my brain, toward the back. I’m guessing this is the visual cortex. He picks up these thoughts as I write them.

Him: Yes, so it’s not the actual literal eyes. But we don’t have words for the brain regions the same way you do, and the way we get to the “eyes of the brain” is by starting at the eyes and tracing the nerve until it reaches the brain.

He shows me, I can feel the path.

Him: So it makes sense to us to use that term. Is that what you were asking?

Me: Yes. Thank you very much. How do you teach people, or prepare people, to receive images in the eyes of the brain? (That’s the visual cortex, remember.)

Him: As people work with us, we start making the connections [to the visual cortex]. Once they are up to the second level*, we will start setting them up for visions. They simply have to do the work regularly so that the setup doesn’t stall or go backward.

*I’m not sure what a level is, but the “second” part of that came through clearly.

Me: When you do the setup, how does that actually work? What’s the technique?

He sounds excited, like he enjoys explaining this: We make a large number of connections that are always on. These set up a network within the visual cortex*. Then, once the network is set up, we turn on energy in the signature for the general class of messages we’ll send. So, we’re not sending a particular image, but instead we’re sending energy from which any image could be made.

*He’s starting to use my concept, so it translates as “visual cortex” rather than “eyes of the brain.”

Me: How would that differ from bathing the area of the brain in energy matching the ethereal software’s signature?

Him: That would work to let the software send general messages. But if you’re trying to change how that part of the mind works, so that you can add images that wouldn’t normally be processed, you need to align it not just to the software in general, but to the particular messages you’ll be sending. We could do what you do, and then do this, and that would be effective as well, but only doing the software’s signature will not set you up for proper, dramatic visions.

Me: One of my upcoming projects is to bind some ethereal software to a sigil. You guys seem to know a lot about this. Any advice?

He passes me off to another angel, who says: Make the sigil intricate. Make it so the sigil is made of many sigils. That’s what we did with the [Enochian] alphabet. That way, there is redundancy in that one sigil, so even if the person can’t focus on the whole thing, or copies part of it down wrong, or otherwise something goes wrong, there’s so much redundancy that it’s probably going to work anyway.

Him, continuing: Beyond that, you’ll want to know whether looking at the sigil should default to making the software contact you, or if the mage needs to reach out and contact the software-lookup software, like we do it. If it’s the former, you’ll need to use this other piece of software.

He connects me to another OS-level software. It seems tied to events, which makes sense, since it would need to detect whenever someone looks at my sigil.

Him: But I’m sure the spirits you work with will know about that, also. For you, personally, you will probably be involved in making the sigil, and deciding how it ought to behave, so those are the two questions you should consider. I’m surprised they haven’t taught you this already.

Me: I haven’t asked. We’re not quite there, but you guys seem so up on this that I wanted to ask you about it.

Him: Ah, ok.

That’s all my questions, and I’m ready to rest a bit. (This was a full hour of communication and writing.) I thank them, they invite me to call him back anytime, and that ends the session.

Closing Thoughts

On the whole, these guys seem like skilled, friendly spirits, similar to ones I work with already. After this discussion, I’m quite confident that the visions are projections from the ethereal software, rather than an actual statement of how the spirit looks, and it was fascinating to learn about the different ways to prepare an area of the mind for visions.

Now, a few questions for you (experienced an novice Enochian practitioners alike):

  • Would you be interested in doing magick like this?
  • What would someone normally do next, after contacting a bunch of Enochian spirits and getting their blessing to collaborate?
  • Is there anything else you’d like to see me explore with this?

Thanks for reading.

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Connecting to the Enochian Ethereal Software

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

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We’ve been talking about how ethereal software connects to mages, and I want to give you a concrete example. So, today, I’m going to contact the Enochian ethereal software, read its instructions and talk to the spirits that run it, and write down each step.

In the past, I’ve glossed over the advanced parts of my magick, trying to make it into something novices could do. I’m realizing that doesn’t work, and only gets readers confused. So I’m going to tell you the whole procedure I use, even though you probably won’t be able to do some of it yourself yet. But by the time you’re done with my book (which is finally underway), you should be able to do most of this, too.

Step 1: Wikipedia

I go to the Wikipedia page on Enochian and pick a letter. For today’s session, I’ll use Un.

Step 2: Contact the Lookup Software

This is the step I’ve glossed over in the past. I do it almost without thinking, but as I think about teaching you to do this, it really is non-trivial.

First, the concept: There are some pieces of ethereal software that work behind the scenes, making everything else work. You can think of it as the operating system, which is itself software, but a different kind of software than what you’d use.

This particular ethereal OS software connects mages to other ethereal software based on the desired software’s signature, ritual, symbol, or other identifying features. I call it the “software-lookup software.”

I initially developed this model by asking, “How does ethereal software connect to me when I focus on a symbol?” The answer seemed rather suspicious to me: Really, you’re answering a problem with ethereal software by using more ethereal software? But I looked for it, and I found it, and that’s what counts. At this point, I routinely interact with the software-lookup software, so I’m quite confident in this part of the model.

When I first found the software-lookup software, I was watching how I connected to other ethereal software, and tracing those connections. Like most other things I talked about, that requires good sensory connections, so I can’t talk you through it yet. But soon, we’ll have a common language around sensing these things.

Anyway, for step 2, I connect to the software-lookup software. At this point, I simply know its signature, so this happens more or less unconsciously when I think about finding some software based on a symbol.

Step 3: Focus on the Enochian Letter

Now, I just focus on the letter (looking at Wikipedia), and send it to the software-lookup software in the same way you would send a question to any psychic ethereal software. The software-lookup software connects another piece of ethereal software to me, then disconnects itself. I’m calling that other piece of ethereal software the “Enochian ethereal software.”

I also verified that other letters connect me to the same ethereal software. Nice confirmation that I’m getting something associated with the overall style.

Step 4: Read the Instructions

Whadda you know, a man who reads the instructions…

Whenever I work with new ethereal software, I start by asking for the “full instructions.” This gives me:

Software for contacting angels. Most angels speak indirectly, using the software as an interface. A few will contact you directly. Also has lookups for a variety of other spirits, including demons.

To use it, request the spirit based on its sigil. Alternately, request it based on its name. Alternately, request a “list of available angels” or “list of available spirits,” then select one from the list based on its signature.

A few notes on that:

  • These instructions are generally written by the spirits who made the software. Most ethereal software responds to “Requesting full usage instructions.”
  • I chose the term “angel” because I know what Enochian is about. The software communicates concepts, not words. But the concept had a connotation of “skilled and benevolent,” which the general concept of “spirit” wouldn’t have.
  • Same deal with “demon.” I initially wrote it as “goetia,” because I associate the two styles somehow. (This is probably incorrect, but I learned about them at the same time, so they are linked in my mind.) Anyone with experience in Enochian can shed light on the demons and other spirits?

There are other instructions I could ask for, but I don’t plan to use this software all that much, so that’s enough for now. Next, I ask it to “Connect me to the spirits that made or run the software.” I explain to them that I know other people who use this software and want to explore what they do, ask permission to poke around, and ask their advice on which angels to contact. (I do this using a fairly advanced communication technique, which shows that I know what I’m doing and usually produces good responses from spirits.) Their reply:

Yes, please do. I would recommend you contact any angel you like, they will all respond well to you. Just use the list of available angels. Feel free to check in with us if you have any other questions.

I thank them for being so generous and welcoming, and say that I’ll call back tomorrow after talking with my friends about which angel to contact. Also, I want a break after writing all this. So, tomorrow, I’ll contact an Enochian angel with direct magick. Any recommendations on who to contact, or what to talk about?

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5 Things I Enjoyed About Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy

Friday, April 13th, 2012

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I first reviewed Scott Stenwick’s Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy (MtMH) earlier this year. At the time, I was a few chapters in. Today, I’ll review the rest of the book.

I came into this book knowing very little about Enochian. I knew it was a complex ritual style, that it was supposed to put you in contact with Angels, and a bit of the history. I could disguise my ignorance a conversation, but I couldn’t really participate in a conversation about Enochian intelligently. After reading MtMH, I feel like I know enough of the history and the details of Enochian to have an intelligent discussion on it, which was one of my main goals.

When I first started reading MtMH, I thought about trying Enochian as a way to connect with more traditional mages. At this point, I don’t think I will. MtMH has made me less interest in practicing Enochian, which sounds like a slight, but really the book was just doing its job: It gave me a much clearer picture of what Enochian magick entails, which let me decide that Enochian isn’t for me. But trying to explain that I really do like the book, even though it makes me less likely to practice its subject, is challenging for a writer, and it’s a lot of why I’ve put this article off.

5 Things I Liked About MtMH

Scott has a great, detailed description of setting up the temple (the ritual space). It includes sigils for you to photocopy. Personally, I would be much more likely to practice the style if I don’t have to draw or carve all of these complex shapes. He also suggests using brass rings instead of gold, and other ways to get a quick and dirty temple up and running.

Seeing the details of the temple laid out gave me a much better feel for what ritual magick is about. I mean, I knew about correspondences before, but seeing Scott work through them as he reasoned about which metals to use for the temple gave me the feel of working with them, which is really useful for understanding what other mages are talking about.

Most chapters open with a blog-post-like discussion. Scott covered secrecy in magick (he’s against it), the different banishing and invoking rituals (LBRP / LIRH = Operant field), and other topics. They’re like more-polished blog posts, and even though I encountered the ideas on his blog, reading them again in book form (maybe with more editing?) made the ideas clearer. It was fun to get some of the ideas that hadn’t quite connected before.

I skipped most of the actual rituals, but from what I did read, they are quite detailed, with good diagrams. I believe I could correctly perform the rituals from just the written instructions, which isn’t true of all books. So if you do want to practice Enochian, I think this book will do a good job of it.

Beyond that, MtMH teases apart the now-standard Golden Dawn version from the original Dee-Kelly version. I can’t say which is better, but I’d sure want to know which I was using. This seems like an important distinction, and one that I wasn’t even aware of before reading this book.

Summary

Here’s where I ended up on the book:

Enochian isn’t for me. But that has very little to do with MtMH, and everything to do with what Enochian is actually about.

If you want to practice Enochian, this seems like an excellent book. It’s slim (150 pages), includes sigils to photocopy, and has quite detailed instructions for actually performing the rituals.

For me, I just want to be able to have an intelligent discussion with traditional ritual mages, and this book helped get me there. It gave me a much better sense of what’s involved in setting up a temple and performing the rituals, enlightened me on some distinctions in the history of Enochian and the Golden Dawn, and explained the difference between a lot of the standard rituals (LBRP, LIRP, LBRH, LIRH). And it did all that in about 75 pages, which is awesome. (Remember, I skipped the rituals.)

I’d recommend Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy for anyone wanting to practice Enochian, along with anyone looking for a quick introduction to what Enochian magick is all about.

Here’s a link to buy the book on Amazon: Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy.

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Reading “Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy” – Part 1

Friday, February 17th, 2012

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I just got Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy (MtMH) by Scott Stenwick, better known as Ananael on Augoeides.

If you read Augoeides, you’re probably familiar with his “magick in pop culture” posts on witchdoctors, teens who think they’re vampires and the like. This book is totally different. It’s a technical guide to Enochian ritual magick, with a tone like his posts on changing the direction of the symbols in the LBRP / LIRH.

I’m not done with the book yet, but I’m going to blog as I read it, when sections catch my eye. So far, it’s been a great intro to Enochian, and an interesting window into how Scott thinks about magick, which is worth reading in itself. It’s not the sort of book I’d normally buy, and I was secretly worried I might not like it, but so far it’s been great, and I’m glad I got it.

Here’s the first idea that caught my eye:

Ceremonial vs Ritual Magick

Scott makes a distinction between ceremonial and ritual magick: Ceremonial magick is performing already-written rituals, and ritual magick is creating the rituals. So, to use a computer analogy, a ceremonial magician is like a user running an application, and a ritual magician is like a programmer, writing them. (Paraphrased. See the page in his book to the right, click for larger image).

This, I think, is the source of much of our disagreement when Scott and I talk in the comments. I hadn’t realized that ritual mages create rituals from scratch. (Well, I knew that, but didn’t think about it much). Or that they thought of themselves as programmers. Though now that I think of it, he has a fair point.

But he draws the user / programmer distinction a different way than I do. Neither is right or wrong, but we probably both thought we were drawing the same distinction, which would lead to confusion.

When I think about programming, I think about how the symbols got their meanings. Because, while the ritual mage assembles the symbols into useful instructions, someone had to program the force that responds to those symbols — tell it what each symbol means and how to implement the changes that the mage asks for.

It’s that assigning of results to symbols and pre-made rituals that I’ve always focused on as programming. Though now that I’m thinking it through, I’m thinking a better analogy would be assembly:

Ceremonial mages do already-written rituals, like end users who just run an application.

Ritual mages, who design their own rituals, are like programmers. If you string together pre-made rituals like the LBRP into a full ritual event, that’s like scripting (an easy form of programming), while combining symbols into meta-symbols and rituals is like programming in a full language like C++.

I call the thing that recognizes those symbols and executes the commands “ethereal software.” And at some point, someone has to program the meanings of those symbols into the ethereal software, which is like using assembly language to program C++. Very few people program assembly, compared with C++ programmers, but it’s necessary for some tasks.

Programming symbols into ethereal software is much easier than programming assembly, by the way.

Back to the Book

That strayed pretty far from the book. But that’s the mark of a good book: The author lays out his thinking clearly enough that they spark new ideas in the reader, and even if you disagree (which I expect to do a few more times), their book has brought you a new idea. Which is the whole point of reading.

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