Here are some diary notes and back and forth emails to an adept I know, from the Abramelin operation that I pieced together.
I am on month 4, week 2 now. Still vigilently doing my prayers etc. twice a day. I have upped the intesity a bit. I slacked during the days over xmas and am trying extra hard now. I went shopping during the xmas holidays for a couple of xmas gifts at the mall. Wow, I have never been so psychically bombarded with crappy energy in my life! You would not beleive how much people worry about money and are depressed this time of year. On a good note, my kids came to visit, and I am in contact with my dad once again. They are my only living familly members so that was nice. During xmas day, I invited all my pagan friends over. To help me keep focuesed on my HGA goel, I am putting little reminders everywhere. For example, I hang my abramelin oil on a rope around my neck so that it dangles against me and reminds me of my focus. I am putting hexagrams around the computer for when I am working to remind me etc. etc. I find that I quite often forget my goal and want to make it more part of my life and more focus for my magickal energy. I have found that sometimes spontaneiously I have a great deal of extra energy, and want to direct it towards my purpose. For the first couple of months I was releasing some pent up anger (only exploded once hehe), but now I am feeling a lot more calm and peace. I have centered my practice around inner work all these years, and am amazed on how I managed to miss so many important things hehe I have discovered that I don't seem to know where I am going or which end it up! It is more of a realization this time instead of a sense of helplessness or whatever when this is usually felt. My meditation skills are finally starting to come back. And I feel like I am finally getting somewhere. The prayers and listing of 'sins' feels like the most boring activety in the entire universe, but I keep putting as much effort into it as I can knowing the outcome will probably be good. I have made some abramelin goo (otherwise known as oil) and some abramelin inscence from the recipes in the book. They both have quite a nice feel and smell about them :) Much better then the storebought . The operation seems endless and pointless at times, however I have made an oath and will stick it out to the end no matter what. Being a control freak (over my own life especially) I am having a difficult time letting go :P Intensly working on that one. I had a good meditation upon saturn at midnight on new years eve. I have never been that interested in new years or fireworks (helloween is more my style), so I took time to meditate by a tree. It was pretty awesome :) I keep hearing discouraging things from others such as "most people who start the operation never finish", "meet your HGA, yeah right, good luck" etc. etc. Oh well as long as I keep putting my best effort forth something has to come out of it :) I have discovered that I have enough self importance to sink the titanic. Trying my best to see the universe from a different perspective. I am getting this funny feeling that when it is all done and overwith I will realize hey I knew that all along, and, hey my HGA has been hanging around all this time, I'm just sort of dense :> My work computer crashed and my roomates are more stressed about money than is humanly possible. Funny things happen when you try to stay focused. Also, I have had a couple of amazing (magickal) opportunities presented to me since I have started the operation, but have told everyone that I am not going to make any major decisions until the end of march. It's amazing how time can wait when you need it to :) I will be slowely catching up with my group emails, I have been feeling very introspective and antisocial lately, as well as trying my best to avoid social situations and distractions.
Long time no see. How has it been? What have you been up to? I hear you have been sick :( Well I sent over some healing energy last night, hope it helped. I seem to have a whole heapload of extra energy. Abramelin is getting extremely difficult. Also, I have lost the ability to describe it anymore. It seems to be a series of profound 'jaw dropping' experiences. I am seeing the magickal universe, and how magick is worked, well actually not just seeing it, but experiencing it. All of the profound realizations that I have had in the past, are just re-surfacing, but in a more intense and even more profound way. I can definatly guarantee that I will never be the same after some of these experiences. R. 1 correlates it as me being on a perpetual acid trip, and I haven't even been able to share most of the experiences lol! I am amazed at how my whole universe is comprised of my thoughts and actions. It has been one thing to know this over the years, and another thing to live it. The other wierd thing is that during abramelin I have had to continually ground myself and bring myself back down so that all of this extra power and energy does not go to my head. It's like people doing abramelin need large extra doses of humility or something. You would not beleive how much energy, power, white light etc. is generated by this cleansing and knowing yourself stuff. Talking about a lot of added responsibility. So much for just going through life doing doing whatever. If I have a negative thought while I am doing something else, something always goes wrong, it's kind of wierd. It seems like the only good time for negative thoughts is when I am purging them, or concentrating on them to see what is behind them. The most amazing bit is how I have been practicing magick and doing inner work for 14 years and have missed so much. I was completely blind to many of my own inner workings, as well as to the processes of magick and the universe. Unfortunatly at this point I have no idea how to describe how the magickal energies work, or how they can be used. I would like to make note of it in case I go back to 'normal' after the operation. I can also fully see why my HGA couldn't get access to me before, and how I wouldn't have known what to do with the energy if it did, and also how I wouldn't have recognized it if it hit me over the head lol :) I heard you guys did a suped up watchtower opening last night :) R. 2 says we are ready for practical work now. At this point I have no concept of ritual, practical magick or magickal systems. It's all down to the source of it all, archetypes and symbols at this point. What is the point of practical magick if we don't know what we want? What is the point of ritual if it just strengthens our delusions? It's like we are all working backwards. I think that there are many 'hidden' uses and symbolism behind the basic rituals, that work for us 'behind the scenes'. I think a lot of what we are told magick is for, and how the rituals are written is to impress the ego :P
The ideal job! It's almost like Karma Yoga, which is the 'yoga of work'. You partially described it- occupy your body by having it do something that doesn't require any thought. But the goal of Karma Yoga is to not have ANY thoughts, and to merge with whatever task you are doing. It's supposed to prepare you for the merging with your Angel. I. liked to sweep. She would sweep all the leaves from the patio, put them in a barrel, then dump them all out again.
The leaf thing would drive me nuts! I naturally do that while bike riding though, when on a nice smooth trail that is
I wonder if that's what Bardon meant by 'pore-breathing'?
I have practiced pore breathing, it is even more intense, whell my version is anyways, not sure if I am doing the right bardon one..
Could it be the Aurum Solis pentagrams!?
You never know, when I experimented with them on my own, I noticed that I was completely out of balance with all four elements. Hmmm, something to check into on the astral while it is so apparent to me. I can see the energy patterns in plants now!
In terms of balance, though, I never do magickal practices without doing mystical practices also. Ritual tends to raise your energy level, but meditation and breathing allow you the control you need to handle the increased flow. I'm not sure we are all doing enough magickal work to warrant concern however; I mean, we are only meeting once a week for an hour!
Everyone seems normal when you see them because we are all faking it! lol Well we aren't doing much magick, but we do open forces into ourselves that R.1 (and perhaps R.2 I don't know his experience) aren't used to. Perhaps adding some meditation times during ritual would help to integrate the energies. Pranayama is difficult, eventually I will get up to an hour :P
Cool. I wish I knew someone who had a clue what the Tarot was all about. I've never met anyone who had synthesized the whole deck into the 'Book' of Thoth that it is supposed to represent. Everyone treats it piecemeal, memorizing the meanings of the individual cards, but there's much more to it than that. Maybe you'll be able to get some fresh insights.
Well the major arcana are an alchemical pathway to the whole union with the divine thing, the great work. I don't know what the minor arcana are for though. What do you mean by synthesized the deck into the book of thoth? I haven't read that book by Crowley, I probably should though. As you work through the major arcana, you are basically bringing yourself through an alchemical purification, consecration and transformation of all aspects of yourself. Symbology works on us by way of the latent powers behind the symbols as well as the egregore that each of them contains. Each of the major arcana are full of alchemical symbology. So basically instead of having a lodge (for example) initiate you and place these symbols into your aura, working with the major arcana does this for you. These symbols set our subconscious to work to create the change and spiritual processes that we need. Every single thing in each picture in the major arcana has an alchemical meaning. Well I beleive such decks as the rider/waite were done this way purposefully. I'm sure taht Crowley also uses this method. I don't think this comes about by doing tarot readings, I think this comes about more by contemplation or journeying within the cards. Having the tarot card next to me all day really helps me to connect with it. I am then pathworking them at the end of the day. Well these are my insights anyways. I will have to look into what the minor arcana are for after this. It wouldn't make sense for the major arcana to be such a powerful tool and not have the minor arcana mean something as well. Perhaps the minor arcana are more for refining after the major process has taken place? Btw I have ordered some storax. I will be making up some proper abramelin incense :) Btw, want to go for a walk through the woods friday? I can't go out with you to eat though as I am avoiding society and am fasting that night .
Well it has been 5 months since I completed the operation now. And, it has taken this long to feel like I have actually sort of assimulated the experience! It was a pretty intense 6 months, and it took a bit afterwards to sort things out. I was hoping to come out of it sans issues, but didn't, just sans 90% of them lol. I still had trouble afterwards with a friend of mine who is also a magickian who continually scoffs at every magickal thing I do. It actually started to bother me, and I actually had some doubts. Go figure :P Well I finally overcame it. It is truly amazing that every aspect of my path are the aspecs of magick that he scoffs at and finds to be made up, not work, useless etc. Of course he is also the person who is running a discussion group on DMK's Modern Magick and has found about 500 "errors" in the book. I would say about 10 are legit lol. I told Don about this, and he offered to help my friend get published :) As a side note I have missed Don lately, I haven't talked with him much, and my trip to LA seems to have been put off :( Of course I keep trying to coerse him to come up here ;) The friend who scoffs at all of my magick started a magickal group that meets once per week. It started out with all of us contributing, then moved to him telling us why our ideas wouldn't work. Now he is creating a magickal order. During abremelin I decided that I did not want to continue, I might have strangled him, and more importanly it is VERY G.D. based, not my path.
I have been drawn more towards the older grimoires and writings as of late. I have found the GD path too limiting and wish to expand even further from it. It is amazing how long I was brainwashed that an lbrp is essential for every working :P My years of experimentation have proved otherwise. One of my goals is to do a goetic evocation exactly by the book, the greater and lesser keys that is. The plan is to do the temple setup and opening greater key style, and the evocation of the spirit lesser key style. Don't worry I already know that all this isn't necessary, but I do want to try it, I am imagining that it would be very effective and intense if done this way, and I just have to try it. I have been doing evocations for years, but never with the complete setup. I have 4 magickians in mind who would love to help with this endevour. This is truly amazing, finding 4 magickians who will follow directions for a whole few hours! :> I tried an evocation once before with magickians and half of them wouldn't even take the oath in the greater key! :P Y'know the one that says they are prepared and will not leave the circle. I am convinced many magickians are afraid of magick!!! Go figure I was talking with someone online yesterday and they asked me about my abramelin results, well this got me thinking, too much of course, but at least it lead to some deeper understandings. Well I have been told that awesome mystical experiences don't count as results, but I will include them anyway. The biggest result overall from the operation was the feeling of complete and total freedom. It is an amazing feeling. It is as if I was walking around all these years with 10 big puffy snowsuits on. During abramelin it is as if I took of these snowsuits one by one, then one day I finally threw the last one off! It was a truly amazing experience :) Of course this came only after months of inner work (on top of the years previous), where I discovered where my own personal walls and prisons lay, and why they lay there. I guess those were my snowsuits. It was a complete releif to finally feel the sense of freedom. I have since then noticed that anytime I become attached to anything (physical objects, people, ideas, ways of being, thoughts etc.) that I become a little less free, and have to let go of the attachment to regain it. Wanting to write a book about the abremelin operation, but am still very much slacking on the enochian one, and have to complete that one first. Gawd I really hate editing. It is written, but I am going through it and editing it so I can live with someone else reading it. Now I see why authors put out so many books, to include all the stuff that they left out or didn't think of in the first book. It would be easy for writing to be neverending as we learn new things and have new experiences.
Well, I am finally finished the Abramelin operation! It was about the most difficult thing I have ever done, luckly the most rewarding as well. Everyone keeps asking me to describe this experience, the most indescribable experience It was easy to give updates during the 6 months, however aftwards, I have just been in awe of the whole thing, and at a loss for words! When I get around to it, I will upload my "abramelin updates". The outcome of the operation? Well I met my HGA, I feel completely connected, well most of the time, I feel way less attachment to things and outcomes, and I feel more at peace. There is a lot of stress in the household right now, and I would probably have lost it if I hadn't done abramelin recently lol! My friends claim a "subtle" change in me that is comprised of bieng more peaceful, more balanced and less "wild". Personally I feel like I have undergone some great intense catoclysmic change and am completely different! But that is just my persepective. I did come out on the other end of it still bosy and far too outspoken though . Less bossy perhaps hehe. I am focused on Enochian and Solomonic magick now. I have been sick of the GD thing for awhile now and am quite happy about the change in direction. Writing my own rituals has proven to be more difficult than I thought, since I don't want to just make an enochian carbon copy of GD rituals :P
The actual meeting with my HGA made experiences such as LSD seem completely mundane! It also made my sense of seperation seem so wrong :P I doubt I will ever feel seperate again! :) The last 7 days were extremely enlightening as to how magick works, as well as how I work. Each of the stages that were supposed to occur during those 7 days all seemed to come exactly 12 hours early, it was strange. The first time that my angel connected with me, it lasted one minute. The next time about 1/2 hour, and during the 7 days, about 3 hours! During the 4th day of the operation, when I was to talk to my HGA, it wasn't quite as intense as I actually had to concentrate enough to write things down. It was nice to finally have the HGA experience since there had been about 4 or 5 ego created fake ones throughout the time. All I have to do to reconnect now is completely let down my walls and connect fully with everything. Gawd the english language sucks. Maybe I will post my diary entries during the final 7 days, that might help describe things. Unfortunatly my ego is still here, I was hoping ego death might have meant complete irradication, but I gues I need it Now at least I can see what it is up to, and laugh at it more instead of falling into my old behavior patterns. Since I am more in tune now, I can sort of sense or feel when I am not on the right track, or too distracted. It is definatly a narrowing down of focus. It is amazing how much energy one can whaste day to day, so I seem to have a lot more free time now. At least 5 hours a day for ritual/meditation/reading/writing. Unfortunatly I have been slacking on the writing book. It is so hard to write on Enochian, I keep learning something new, and I am on the editing phase of my book! I had a deadline of March 2004 for myself, so I am trying to move it along. I have at least a month of editing, but that is a month of ACTUALLY doing it hehe.
Working magick is about 100 times easier, and just seems so much more natural now. Feels like I have been whasting the last 15 yrs just scratching the surface! Oh well, it was good practice I figure. I have to be sure to remember to do my daily rituals lately, it is far too easy to slack after doing non stop ritual and prayer for 6 months straight. However, if I do slack now, the stress around me starts to effect me, and I am ready to pack up and head back to Vancouver. Recently I have been writing out phrases for my rituals in Enochian, using the encohian dictionary by Laycock. This in itself has had interesting effects, I am having enochian dreams where I am translating and learning Encohian! I am also memorizing the call of the 30 aethyres. Memory has been my weekest point my whole life, luckly I have had perseverance to make up for it. Well I did a working to improve my memory, and have suddenly discovered that I partially have a photographic memory! So now I just look at the enochian words, and picture then when reciting the call back. Enochian only has about 250 words according to Laycock, so one day I will have it down. I am having this great desire to start highlighting in my copy of "A true and faithful relation...", the only problem bieng that it is a hardcover and worth $150! I have highlighted many of my other books, but can't bring myself to mark up this one. Crowley's book IV even has highlighting through it! I am sick of knowledge with holes in it, so I am studying the enochian MS more, and some of the older works that inspired the GD etc. I feel so underlearned :) My roomates, who have been married for 25 or so years are splitting up :P I would personally like to lock them both TOGETHER in the bathroom with a deadbolt for a month or so :> Make that a soundproof bathroom . Lets just say polyamoury sucks, and so does marriage, I think I should become a nun, or whatever the occult equivelant is... Oh btw, cured my stomache pains and half my back pain.
Went to the reading of the book of the law and mass in seattle recently. It was awesome! There is noting in the world like attending a mass right after one completes the abramelin operation! The symbology blew me away. The ceremony was so touching that I actually cried at a couple of points, the ones about uniting. Also found out there are some serious enochianites in seattle, very cool :) Nice to talk with someone else that has actually done enochian, in person. The event afterthe mass was great, good food, bellydancers, and drumming. Also a cool musical rendition of a couple of crowely's poems that was amazing. THe only thing missing was actually loading the hooka It is always nice to go to seattle and get out of bellingham. I haven't travelled anywhere decent in a couple of years, and I miss it, so seattle will have to do for now. I have had to learn to just manifest what I want/need in bellingham. It is amazing what one can do with limited resources :)
March 20th, the night before my 7 days. Felt as though my angel came to me last night. (yes, it was actually my angel judging my later experiences) It felt extremely sexual and pleasant. More intense than anything I have ever experienced. Lasted about 1/2 hour, then I ruined it by asking questions. Don't know if it was my angel or just my ego? Felt very innocent after this. Felt very young, as a child as well. Saw blue energy with gold in the center while reading the book of the law. Keep seeing small sun spots, and saw a HUGE one last night after this happened. They are far more intense, and much brighter than the enochian ones. It was right in front of me. Scared me as I didn't expect it. Dreamed I was using the squares I had drawn.
Jan 18th Well wish me luck, this is my last update until the end of march. I will be shunning all social activety and disstractions until then. I have even gone so far as to let my magickal working group and all of my friends know that I will be 'away' for 2 months. When working on-line I am going to focus more on reading occult texts, as uposed to posting on lists etc. The working has gotten especially difficult, and especially rewarding as of late. I have had amazing visions and experiences, as well as dreaded the very thought of my prayers on many occasion. I have also discovered things about myself, what I do subconsciosly to myself and others, that I would rather not know. I have always worked to be aware of myself, but was apparently missing quite a few deep seeded things. I have questioned my sanity, magick, reality, and myself. I wonder how I have survived this long the way I am lol! I have discovered self defeating behaviors, as well as how I tend to create negative chaos in my life. I have seen the walls that I place around myself so that I can avoid change and intimacy. I have also discovered my negative or ego driven motivations for many things.
I have also found that I can (much of the time) easily see the astral ripples that all of my thoughts and actions cause. I have sat in the middle of the universe watching how every thought that I have manifests in a small way into my life. I have felt at peace, and connected in a natural state of being. I have seen the possibilities of magick. I have released societal concepts of 'me' and my personality and discovered deeper who I am and what drives me. I have also discovered what makes me truly happy. I have glimpsed past the illusions that I keep, and the ruts that I am in. I have released many of my fears, and feel much more comforatable with myself. I have been able to see the subtle workings of the magickal forces at play, and felt the energy stream that is guiding me through this experience. I can't wait until March 28th!! This has been more difficult then most other experiences, as well as more rewarding then any other experience.
Dec 4th 2003 I am on month 3 of my abramelin working... This is definatly an intense operation. I have concentrated on inner work all throughout my magickal path, however it is amazing what has surfaced so far! I am thinking that I have enough issues for all of us lol. I have been doing the working 2X per day. At first there was a lot of anger and some depression. This moved to a humbling, antisocial and quietning feeling for month 2. I seem to be having vast surges of energy for month 3. I am finding myself after my working each day to be super charged with energy. It seems like it could nearly be overwealming, so I make sure to put it to good use :) The whole letting go and surrendering bit that my intuition tells me to do during my workings has been difficult, but I finally gave in recently and stoped fighting it. 2 days later a few very positive and very surprising events happened that will definatly help me along my magickal path.
One of the main ideas of the Abramelin operation is to confess your sins. Well I have never quite gotten the concept of 'sin' and don't feel that most things that are thought of as sin are wrong. So instead I am working with those things that I feel guilty about, regret or feel that I need to work on. For example I have listed procrastination. I don't feel that bad about it (I am only human) but I know it is something I need to work on so I have added it. I doubt this was the original intention, but it seems to be helping. I have also never understood the concept of prayer. I sort of view entities and myself as equals, so I'm wierd I don't think of 'god' or even the concept of all/one etc. as seperate or different from me really, so prayer sort of illudes me. Over the years I have done a lot of older kabbalistic reading and found some of the exercises and prayer concepts found there useful.
My basic prayer method is to pray with my heart and what comes to me or moves me. It seems to work, and that's the whole point I beleive. The reality turning inside out and become a confusing conept bit has happened. This has happened in the past, so I am sort of used to it. The feeling of the gravity of this operation has also hit, and motivated me to take it more seriously even. Embarrasingly enough, this is my second attempt at the operation. I made another attempt about 6 years ago and only made it three months. I had started from day one on prayers etc. 3X a day, and spent all day every day reading kabbalistic books or meditating. Apparently I started too much too soon, and started to slack on the daily operations early on. This should have been a bad sign, but I didn't notice somehow. To help matters, I did an obligation this time, and have paced myself. I have been amazingly diligent with my daily workings, no matter how hard they are or how tired I am. During that 3 months, I advanced more and learned more about magick than I had in years of study!
This time feels quite different for some reason. In some ways it feels like the inner work has picked up where I left off, however the spritual state didn't. I was at a dissadvantage this time since I hadn't spent as much time meditating as I used to. Spiritual happenings or growth over the years seems to have been slow but gradual, during this operation however it seems to come in spurts. Sort of like when you drink 6 drinks really fast then stand up (I don't drink much hehe). It sort of comes as a surprise and whaps me over the head, then I do my best to mature/advance or whatever to catch up. Oh btw, yes I know I didn't start in spring . Hope this all made some sense :) I am wondering if others on the list have completed this operation, attempted this operation, or have any experience with it. I would love to hear others' experiences. Also any advice would be great! What is month 4 like? If all this has happened so far, I can just imagine month 5 and 6!!!
More to come... I emailed a friend of mine daily while working for a bit, and there was some quite interesting material there, a lot of my realizations, well or insane rantings. Not sure which, I haven't read it since I finished :)