And meanwhile, at the Sabbath…

And meanwhile, at the Sabbath…

 

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

 “There are four gates to one palace; the floor of that palace is of silver and gold; lapis lazuli & jasper are there; and all rare scents; jasmine & rose, and the emblems of death. Let him enter in turn or at once the four gates; let him stand on the floor of the palace. Will he not sink? Amn. Ho! warrior, if thy servant sink? But there are means and means. Be goodly therefore: dress ye all in fine apparel; eat rich foods and drink sweet wines and wines that foam! Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto me.”

Liber AL vel Legis

Sunthemata is usually translated as sacrifices. Sunthemata are the things incorporated into a magick ritual that connect the participants of the ritual to the divine. These include sacred objects, sacred poetry or hymns and songs and music specifically meant to enliven the soul of each participant and when properly employed, sunthemata may lead them to divine union or ecstasy.

Within this context we have suthemata for each of the worlds being affected, we have material sunthemata that are associated to the elements and are supposed to guide the participants to attain complete union with the lowest world. The way these are employed in the ritual is really up to the person devising the ceremony and the nature of the ritual should be considered. It is during this initial stage of the ceremony that everyone formally declares the nature and aim of the operation.

Next there is the prayer, with this the aim is reaffirmed by the participants. This is not to be just a formal declaration of will, it should be an adoration of the God and should be in the form of an invocation. At this time cakes of light may be eaten as to symbolically connect the spirit with the physical body and some type of mind-altering substance in liquid form is consumed at this juncture of the ceremony, perhaps a stimulant as well as a mild hallucinogenic. After this stage has been completed, the participants should be raised to closer proximity with the Gods.

During the next stage, a new adoration is introduced, along with music. This is designed to cause a type of spiritual frenzy, as a result of the atmosphere thus far created along with the effects of the drugs that have taken hold on the participants and should, if correctly performed, result in a bacchic orgy.

The final part of the ritual, after the congregation has taken their “fill of love” they will each bow down in front of the priest and show due reverence, while he affirms the success of the ritual. Then they may all partake in a communal feast.

Now I will attempt to devise a ritual in accordance with the rules given above. Obviously, the nature of the ritual shall be Thelemic. First, I will choose the Holy Books and these will be, Liber AL vel Legis, Liber VII and Liber LXV. The music will have to be written and played in a way that is designed to enliven the participants. For material sunthemata, I suggest a lamb (perhaps even sacrificed as part of the ritual) for the feast, animals are associated with fire, a stone altar will be constructed representing earth, next to the altar will be placed water, a knife is placed on the altar for air, or perhaps a woman girt with a sword, the Hierophant will be holding a wand.

Upon the altar must be placed that sunthemata which is in closer proximity to the gods. Things such as incense and oil may be burned, a statue of the god invoked is fitting as well as three talismans corresponding to the three worlds. In our ritual the spheres these talismans are dedicated to Yesod, Tiphareth and the third talisman should be a pictorial representation of man’s constitution as it corresponds to the magickal universe. The elixir and cakes of light are also kept on the altar. The idea of the ritual is to attain ecstatic union with the divine, meaning the world beyond Tiphareth, the symbolism of the talismans should therefore reflect this idea.

The god we are trying to invoke is Dionysus who is in Tiphareth on the Tree of Life, however he is more than just a regular god, being the son of Zeus and therefore half human and half god, as well as the nature of his wine, makes him a perfect god for the purpose of our ritual, as he reflects the higher and inspires the lower. Talismans are traditionally associated with the celestial realm and the material or elemental sunthemata are of the temporal realm, the anagogic nature of inspired music and prose puts them as the highest sunthemata and associates them with the supernal realm. Through this, it is clear that the ritual is designed to systematically open us up to these higher worlds, each in turn, after complete union with the previous world has been achieve.

First the focus must be on the furnishings of the temple, note: this ritual is performed outside and not inside a temple. The altar shall be built at the front of the circle, directly opposite the altar on the opposite end of the space we will have the sacrificed lamb cooking on a fire, the water shall be placed in an aesthetically pleasing way, and the wand or staff is held by the priest who is leading the ritual, who at the end becomes the god. Fire should be lit around the circle to illuminate the ritual space, raised torches would be best. This then covers the layout of the ritual space and what is on the altar.

The ritual will start with an affirmation by the congregation that is led by the Hierophant, the affirmation at the beginning of the Gnostic Mass is fine, or a new one may be written. Next let the Hierophant do the greater ritual of the Pentagram and include the prayers of the elementals written by Eliphas Levi. Following the pentagram ritual let the water be presented by our Priestess girt with a sword to the participants in turn, wherewith they shall wash their hands (the hands are symbolic of the creative potential of the divine and the participants are thus formally cleansed and consecrated).

During the next stage, elements shall again be invoked but as they correspond to Tetragrammaton. This may be done by reading their corresponding chapters in Liber LXV in turn or by means of Liber Samekh, the latter or something similar being more practical, at the end, before reading the chapter associated with spirit in LXV, the participants consume the cakes of light and the elixir. The chapters in LXV take about fifteen minutes to read, so by the end of the reading the elixir will start taking effect. The second part of the ceremony will be invoking the associated God, this should be done by formal invocation.

After the invocation, the music will start at the same time as the Hierophant will start reading Liber VII (Liber VII may be read in its entirety) and the participants who should be feeling the elixir by now will get undressed, the Hierophant will read the whole book starting with Yesod and ending with Chesed and remain clothed throughout the ritual. The sexual nature of the ritual may be offensive to some, however in the context of magick, sex is a sacrament and not something ugly but something that is used as sunthemata, whereby we are brought into closer proximity with the gods. The aim of this is to concentrate the sexual energy and connect the space with the power being invoked by the Hierophant, indeed enlivening the egregore of the ritual, which is Dionysus. The participants then start dancing and as they become more absorbed in the prose and the music the aim is for them to get lost in the experience and to start ritually fornicating. We must remember that the elixir has by this time taken full effect of the participants, who as a result should have lost their inhibitions, dancing naked has also rid them of their shame, as well as the fact that the music’s tempo keeps getting more energetic as the ritual progresses and is designed to work the participants into a frenzied state and lead them to the outlined result.

The last part of the ritual will be the participants showing reverence to the Hierophant who has successfully invoked Dionysus and is now standing in front of them as the living embodiment of the god, how this is done is up to the person who has constructed the ritual but I suppose kneeling and kissing are things that may be included, the ceremony will end with an Adoration of Nuit and a banishing ritual, followed by the feast, when the lamb is consumed.

As always I hope you enjoyed reading and if you try this, I hope you will also find the right people, so that it works.

 “Love is the law, love under will.”