PGM IV 154-285: Initiation with Typhon for Bowl Divination

[Loagaeth]

Ahh the gods always put obstacles in our way! Only the most persistent get results.

As soon as I started working on pitch to get the right tones for planetary work, I got a bad ear infection and couldn't hear the pitch pipe I was using! Even Crowley says somewhere that as soon as you start doing real magic work it suddenly becomes almost impossible to obtain basic items which the day before were abundant. Maybe these are delaying tactics by nefarious spirits who know that most people will lose interest, if put off for long enough. The only solution is to maintain one-pointed focus on the intention until it is achieved. And if your car's broken down, maybe get the bus.

So this is normal then? Noted. Because I've been experiencing a lot of turbulence lately, but it seems like purposeful turbulence. It's very odd.

Anything unusual involving horses?

Not that I can think of. Why do you ask?

[Loagaeth]

Alright everyone, so I had a pretty long interruption from this working because of some extreme life changes, but this ritual has always been on my mind, and now I’m finally preparing to do it in earnest. A few months ago I received what I felt was a sign that it’s right to begin working on this again. I believe I have everything I need to do it (the bronze bowl, Black Band of Isis, etc), so now I’m just doing some preparation. I’ve done the Headless One rite recently and it had a dramatic effect on me, so I’m going to be incorporating that into my routine more often. There are a couple other sorts of preparatory rites from The Book of Abrasax that I’ve had good experiences with too, so I’m feeling it out and using some of these rites as sort of cleansing and empowering rituals. Most of the preparation, however, is memorizing the invocation for 154-285, which is fairly long and contains a huge long string of barbarous words. I know myself well enough to know I can, and have, memorized more difficult things, it’s just a matter of going over it with myself day after day for awhile to really ingrain it in my mind. Really the best way to memorize things for me is to actually practice them, but this isn’t the sort of thing you perform as an excercise over and over. Perhaps I can find some sort of way to do “rehearsals” without attracting too much attention.

Anyway, I’ve started the process of committing it to memory, and I’m hoping to start performing some other preparatory rites more regularly, so I’ll post my results here as I go.

[nipha333]

Anyway, I’ve started the process of committing it to memory, and I’m hoping to start performing some other preparatory rites more regularly, so I’ll post my results here as I go.

Cause Im a reckless cavalier, i kind of played this out differently, i read the invocation 3 times, then laid on a bench style seat with incense coals and frankincense underneath the bench, and the phylactery was like a funeral plaque laid on my chest. Worked VERY well. I will be writing up my experience tomorrow (did it yesterday). Mine is slightly different than laid out in the PGM or by leonardo drakon. Im very curious to see how your experience turns out. I remember when i found his articles i was extremely happy to see someone else was giving it attention, as i had already dug through it for its typhonic content in my own set/hekate/typhonic/papyric focused work. Threads like this and blogs like his are what inspired me to add in the initiation from this and integrate it into the wider system.

[Loagaeth]

Anyway, I’ve started the process of committing it to memory, and I’m hoping to start performing some other preparatory rites more regularly, so I’ll post my results here as I go.

Cause Im a reckless cavalier, i kind of played this out differently, i read the invocation 3 times, then laid on a bench style seat with incense coals and frankincense underneath the bench, and the phylactery was like a funeral plaque laid on my chest. Worked VERY well. I will be writing up my experience tomorrow (did it yesterday). Mine is slightly different than laid out in the PGM or by leonardo drakon. Im very curious to see how your experience turns out. I remember when i found his articles i was extremely happy to see someone else was giving it attention, as i had already dug through it for its typhonic content in my own set/hekate/typhonic/papyric focused work. Threads like this and blogs like his are what inspired me to add in the initiation from this and integrate it into the wider system.

See, this is why I don’t want to read it aloud before I’m prepared: I’m afraid it will just accidentally start happening! And I guess if it’s time then that fine, but I suppose I have that whole “I want Typhon and I’s first time to be special” thing going on too. This ritual has been calling to me for awhile, and as of late I’ve been getting these signs sort of like it’s “calling” me, so it doesn’t seem strange that it could just start happening if I initiate it even just in practice. I suppose really that may not be such a bad thing.

Your experience is interesting though, and reminds me that it’s probably going to be highly individual for each person. I’m glad you brought up the phylactery too, because I do realize now that I still need to make that.

I can’t wait to read your write up of your experience! You and Leonardo are the only two people I’ve spoken to, besides myself, who have done this.

[Nashimiron]

I think it might be a modern, Golden Dawn / Abramelin inspired misunderstanding to think of these things as a one off that you only do once. I've seen people with a different perspective (Academics) come to the conclusion that these rites are actually more like empowerments which would be done occasionally, or repeated before a major working.

I've done rites where I've built it up by practicing and getting it better over repetitions. You could also try whispering it into the ear of an inanimate object or a sleeping cat to practice. That's not a joke by the way.

[nipha333]

I think it might be a modern, Golden Dawn / Abramelin inspired misunderstanding to think of these things as a one off that you only do once. I've seen people with a different perspective (Academics) come to the conclusion that these rites are actually more like empowerments which would be done occasionally, or repeated before a major working.

I've done rites where I've built it up by practicing and getting it better over repetitions. You could also try whispering it into the ear of an inanimate object or a sleeping cat to practice. That's not a joke by the way.

have you ever read the thread where i detail my six year long intensive with so called liber samekh? i 100% agree with the assertion that repetition brings results.

[Nashimiron]

have you ever read the thread where i detail my six year long intensive with so called liber samekh? i 100% agree with the assertion that repetition brings results.

Damn! 6 years is a long time. I've done it for a few months continuously in the past. It certainly builds up the more you do it.

[nipha333]

have you ever read the thread where i detail my six year long intensive with so called liber samekh? i 100% agree with the assertion that repetition brings results.

Damn! 6 years is a long time. I've done it for a few months continuously in the past. It certainly builds up the more you do it.

yes. i talk about it one of the liber "samekh" style threads that have recently been moved into this PGM forum. dont remember which one

[Loagaeth]

Oh, hey everyone. Guess who finally has an update for this thread?

I did the ritual today. That’s right, after basically a year and a half (maybe even more) of planning and dreaming and pushing it back, it happened at last. Pretty much because I forced myself to get the things ready for it, and I’m all the better for it.

A lot of what was holding me back was the making of the phylactery. Obviously I felt the need to be way over the top and try to make it stunning and amazing, but I was really struggling with what I wanted to do with it. I had an idea for it forever but wanted to do something more, however I ended up going with my initial design. The text asks the magician to engrave the words for this lamen on “silver leaf”. Now, if you’ve ever handled actual silver leaf you will know it is very thin and fragile. So I decided to go a pretty literal route and just made an actual leaf out of silver and engraved that on the back, using the ivy I was already using for the ritual crown as a model. I basically just used a leaf as a model and recreated that, and the result was actually much more striking than I could have guessed. I’ll attach a picture of it to the end of this post.

I was so thrilled with the phylactery that I really wanted to post it here yesterday when I finished it. But I didn’t want to post any of it until I actually did the ritual today because the anticipation was killing me, and when that starts to happen I find it best to work in secret and just don’t mention anything until the task is complete.

Because I sort of forced myself to finally go through with this, some things probably could have been better, but I do feel like it was successful. I had originally intended to memorize the incantation, but ended up having to recite it off of my iPad. Otherwise I think everything else was spot on to how I wanted it, and some of the events leading up to it and the time span involved with the culmination really added something special to it. I think I mentioned in a previous post that the ivy for the crown was of very significant importance to me since I had an abundance of it growing in the forest of my childhood home, to which I have been ridiculously attached for so long. Initially I had planned to go back there and sneak into the woods, now on someone else’s property, to obtain some of it. But then a lot of things happened and my entire life changed, and I ended up moving into the first place that has had the same sort of significance to me since I was young and lived in my childhood home. I remember months ago when I first moved here I dreamed that the ivy from my old home was seeking me out, that it was coming to me. And so when I saw it growing along a side of the house one day later on, it just served to strengthen the bond I had with this ritual. In many ways, I’m glad I waited so long. It’s as though the rite and I have grown older together and have a shared history of trials to get to this point.

I should also point out, and I don’t know if I’ve really brought this up before but, I used to have dreams when I was much younger that my true name was Seth. I was only about 13 when this stuff started happening and at the time I obviously had no idea about any of this and didn’t know what it was supposed to mean. But the feeling I felt when others called me Seth in those dreams struck me enough to stay with me all these years, so this rite, in which the practitioner participates from the viewpoint of Set/Seth interacting with Typhon who he is so often fused with, was very on the nose for me.

There are other things that add to the deepening mystery of this ritual and the visions I had during it, like prior dreams of being in the ocean, giant sea serpents, interactions with mermen, and more, but do we really want this post to turn into a novel? Probably not.

There were times, especially when making the phylactery, smelling the freshly cut ivy, that I thought some sort of veil might lift without the ritual at all and I just might be swept away. Strange things definitely started happening right at the onset of the planning of this. From the moment I remembered that I said I would do this ritual this summer and realized the summer is coming to an end, things began to just seemingly bend to the will of the rite. I randomly got three days completely off in a row even though I was originally supposed to work and have tattoo apprenticeship things to do. They both got cancelled, for all three days. Looking at the ritual specifications and lunar charts, today was the perfect day for it. After making the phylactery yesterday I began to feel like I was in this heightened state of mind, like I was partially in a dream. Last night I actually dreamed that I did the ritual, but forgot to wait for the sign of success outlined after the incantation in the text, something I made sure not to ignore when it came time to do the actual ritual.

So, let’s talk about the ritual. I pretty much did everything according to the text itself, and also Leonardo Drakon’s blog, which anyone who has read this thread will know I used as my other primary source of information for all this. Because of this, some of the visions I had after reading the incantations definitely do have elements of things I read in his blog relating to his experience with the ritual, but also many things about it were unique to my experience as well. Just figured I’d mention that first so that people didn’t read this and think I copied some of his homework. I purposely didn’t read his actual experience for awhile before doing the ritual myself in hopes the imagery wouldn’t affect my experience, but it did a bit anyway.

After the third round of reciting the incantation to Typhon is when the real juicy shit starts happening according to the text, and while nothing too hair-raisingly insane happened I did have some very interesting visions as well as some physical sensations. I finished the incantations and laid in silence wrapped up in the “burial shroud”, and before long I started getting a feeling like I was adrift in the ocean and began seeing visions of waves. For some reason I dismissed this at first, but then as I laid there longer the sensation returned, so I just went with it. I have a sort of intense fear/fascination with the ocean and with drowning, so this was all a bit uncomfortable for me, but oh well. As the vision began to intensify, I realized I wasn’t just in the ocean, I was out in the middle of some massive body of water and a wild storm was going on with lightning everywhere and huge waves. After experiencing the feeling of being whipped around and carried by the giant waves, I began to feel instead like I was riding the waves, and then I realized I was on the back of a big fish. I was holding onto a fin coming from its back, and it was carrying me through the waves, way up and way back down, like a rollercoaster. It was thrilling. I realized then that it was carrying me speedily towards something: Typhon. He was...basically a giant monster, and larger than life. He rose from the sea with the torso of a man, wings, and below the water I could see a gargantuan snake tail, a tail which coiled all around the nearby mountains and under the ocean. This, by the way, is the exact sort of shit I am absolutely terrified of regarding the ocean by the way: colossal sea creatures. The storm and massive waves swirled around him, and he was clearly at the center of it all. And I was headed right towards him. Once I got within a certain distance from him, I felt myself fall off the back of the fish. After floating a bit under the dark water, a giant hand lifted me out and up into the air: Typhon’s hand. Everything was dark, the sky, the water, he himself, and I felt so tiny and pale in comparison, like some fragile little pearl that he held in hand. He lifted me higher and I saw then that his face appeared to be a skull. And then, he took his fingers and he crushed me. He crushed my body until it was like dust. And it seemed then like I was starting to blow away, until I realized that I was light as air, and had control over myself still. I could float, and also fly. Upon my realization of this, Typhon let out a booming laugh that echoed in every direction.

And then suddenly I felt as though I was sucked back into my body here on Earth, and I was back all at once, and the vision stopped. And then this strange feeling I’m having trouble really describing came over me, like I was glowing or radiating something, and I knew this was “the sign” of success. I unwrapped myself from the sheet and just laid there for awhile. Obviously the symbolism behind the sheet as a burial shroud is to help the practitioner experience death and then rebirth into something else, and I feel like a real cornball admitting that this was exactly how I felt laying there, and I felt it strongly.

I got dressed in my white gown as specified in the text and went outside to burn some frankincense as an offering to the sun. After I put some incense on the burner I just sat there on the porch for quite some time and experienced a range of feelings and emotions. I was instructed to take my ivy crown off and bury it, that I won’t need it anymore. Looking around at the still and peaceful world around me made me feel like it’s a small refuge in the midst of that same swirling chaos from my vision, and that I am (and have been) a conduit and doorway for that chaos.

I feel as though I’ve accomplished something wonderful with this, and also at the same time like the work with it has really just begun. I’m excited for what is to come in the future from this, particularly the entire reason most would do this in the first place, and that’s the actual bowl divination with whatever god or spirit I choose to speak with.

[Frater137]

Super props for making this happen!