Headless Rite: an Invitation to the Members of Studio Arcanis

[Silenciumetaurum]

Re: the Headless Rite, first some perspective.

The last time I performed it was on 23 October 2017 in Paris. I adapted Gordon White's version given in his Chaos Protocols, rewriting his invocation of the four demonic kings to correspond with information on them in Poke Runyon's Book of Solomon's Magick, including their sigils. The immediate outcome was interesting but not altogether pleasant.

Now over 9 months have passed. In that time, I've performed 121 magical workings for myself and for others. Of these, there was one direct failure and four outcomes that could not be verified. My results timeline, in most cases, runs to 3 months at the longest, which is admittedly an arbitrary limit, but imposing a timeline for your workings is a great way to stay sane and avoid lust of result. I mention these numbers not to toot my own horn but to point out that, because I keep track, I can say that the success rate of my operative work increased noticeably after performing the Headless Rite.

So I'm thinking about another performance of this. This time, I'm going to use the version given in Dr. Stephen Flowers' Hermetic Magic on page 182, "The Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist or the Rite of the Headless One" (PGM V.96-172, 350 C.E.). It's simpler and I will not be invoking the four demon kings. However, I will be using the "General Magical Invocation" (PGM V.459-189, 350 C.E.), given on page 196 as a frame ritual.

The Invitation

The members of Studio Arcanis are also invited to perform a version of The Headless Rite, whether they prefer Liber Samekh, Gordon's version, Dr. Flowers' version, or some other. The performance does not have to be synchronous. I will include a sigil in this thread at some point, maybe this evening, that will bind all workings of this together to accomplish three things: (1) amplified power in the outcomes for all participating magi; (2) benefits accruing to Studio Arcanis itself as a magical entity (if you know what I'm talking about here, you need not ask / if you don't know, don't ask); and (3) a greater sense of community here. I firmly believe (along with a few of the old timers from EM), that this forum has potential not only as a knowledge resource, but also a powerful magical engine. So I'd like to see a bit more collaboration. Instead of complaining about it, I've decided to step up.

There are only three working rules I ask the participants to observe:

1. No whining. If "shit jumps off" in your life as a result of performing this ritual, don't blame me or SA. Blame your unresolved baggage, daddy, or karma. Suburban housewitch phobias about "threefold return" and "blowback" have no place in an advanced forum. If stupidity were painful, mentioning this would be largely unnecessary. Unfortunately, it needs to be said.

2. Report your results. Look at how I have written this post. First, I give background on what I did, where, and why I performed the rite. Then I talk about the praxis I intend to use. Then I speculate about the outcomes / theories. If you use that model, you will be offering at least something to others here from your hard work.

3. Try to keep the UPG to a minimum. Obviously, you're going to have to report your subjective impressions as well as the objective steps you took to do this work. But if Ronald Reagan shows up in a gold Cadillac to take you to Aleister Crowley's Enochian rumpus room in the fifth level of Baator or whatever, maybe ask whether that is going to be of any use to your colleagues here. Similarly, if you scare yourself silly in the process of doing this, try not to foam at the mouth too much on these forums. The bottom line is providing value to the community.

I want this to be a useful experience, but any kind of "initiatory magic" takes an investment of time, focus, and consideration. If you want to be part of this, please feel welcome.

S+A

I discuss my earlier experience of the Headless Rite in these threads:
http://www.studioarcanis.com/viewtopic.php?p=193176#p193176
http://www.studioarcanis.com/viewtopic.php?p=181220#p181220
↑ I'm pretty hard on the ritual in these comments, but I do believe the benefits outweigh (and, at least for me, have outweighed) the costs.

Download an excellent template from the original rite in the PGM from The Scribbler here:
https://seethingamongthesuits.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/a-headless-ritual-template/

[Silenciumetaurum]

Sigil to Bind* Performances of the Headless Rite:

► Show Spoiler

How to use this to augment your performance of this ritual:

1. It is recommended that you copy the sigil by hand. You can always print it out or just use it on the computer screen. But by copying it out (with or without a straight edge) on a clean piece of paper, you are taking the image into yourself in a strong way. As with everything, use your intuition to decide which way is right.

2. When it feels right sometime before you do the Headless Rite—whether that means days ahead of time or immediately before—"cast" this sigil. Given that the Headless Rite is a relatively advanced working, I will not go into the basics of sigil casting. if you don't know how to do that, please do not attempt the Headless Rite yet. Focus on learning sigil casting and other simpler workings instead.

3. Optional: you can integrate the casting along with the performance of the Rite within a frame ritual. I mention above that I'm using one from the PGM provided in Dr. Flowers' text. I will be doing it this way.

* Note: I use the term "bind" as in "combine" or "bind together" not in the witchcraft sense of "binding" as negation of power.

[nipha333]

I will have to decline on this one. To my experience and understanding, which i have explained in other threads on this topic, this is a personal initiatory rite that is repeated over time to fuel the development of ones own synthesis, or "law"

in that context i see a group working as inappropriate unless it is in a setting where all participants are following a set doctrine, and even in that case, a successful working of the ritual would be the seed of subjective law that would break whoever succeeded away from the group to drop doctrine and pursue their subjective law.

Also i just totally fail to see how a community that is what it is based on divergent laws of many magicians coming together to talk would be aided by a ritual that is essentially geared towards spiritual individuation.

No offense but I see major contradiction here. Why use a rite that has nothing to do with the goal, when there are rites, likely, far more geared towards this, as well as the fact that a group of advanced practitioners should be plenty capable, and inclined, to write a specific ritual for the purpose suggested.

just my 25 cents.

[nipha333]

I just finished a cycle of performing the Headless Rite as given in the Chaos Protocols. I won't go into it at length, but I will note the following:

- Caused massive subjective realizations about major recurring themes in my life.
- Made me aware of two specific areas that need improvement if I want to progress.
- Certain unforeseen financial issues just exploded and absolutely need to be dealt with, but taught me a good lesson about various other recurring aspects of my life. (Highly unpleasant)
- Resulted in some horrific dreams and a bad cold. This is minor but is definitely related to the working.

Takeaway: for me this work was not easy, did not feel good, gave me valuable subjective insights, but also instigated a lot of highly nasty upheaval in order to do this. This is the second time I performed the rite. The first time was also like this. I will not be performing it again for some time.

S+A

I would argue that this post by you is evidence of what I am saying, especially the first statement. "caused massive subjective realizations about major recurring themes in my life"

this is a setian ritual of initiation and the coalescence of a subjective spiritual law.... no matter what the context is or how it is seen, the ritual is going to do what it was meant to do, which is a subjective development.

crowley is a great example. He was obsessed with jewish mysticism, couldnt let go of all kinds of judeo christian insanity he was raised with, had already decided magic might not even be real, and he finally made this ritual work in cairo... which led to an entire explication of not only his subjective law, but an aeonic law (i.e. paradigm) that literally forced him away from the paths he was obsessed with. It is also clear in his history that every time he came back to his obsession with judeo-christian mysticism, his thoroughly egyptian law entrenched him in the most horrible life experiences trying to force him to revert back to his true thelema, which was setian philosophy as laid out in the book of the law.
no matter how hard he fought this ritual and its results. it kept screaming in his face that he wanted his subjective law, here it is, now stop fucking ignoring it. personally i think this was crowleys biggest blind spot because he KNEW that oncce developed, one MUST follow ones own law or be at odds with life, yet he fought the law he had more than most people. even for that much praised super magus or whatever crowleyites call him these days he could not make this ritual something it is not.

[Frater137]

I’m in

[Simha]

This looks like fun! I have done GW's (or a mashup of JSK's stuff really) version a couple of times and had some interesting dreams. I would be willing to try this out with the sigil. Do you want to try this at the same time (just for fun)? I live in the eastern part of the United States.

[Silenciumetaurum]

No offense but I see major contradiction here. Why use a rite that has nothing to do with the goal, when there are rites, likely, far more geared towards this, as well as the fact that a group of advanced practitioners should be plenty capable, and inclined, to write a specific ritual for the purpose suggested.

Good observation / question. You're absolutely right in that the people here, if they were inclined, could write something original. But I'm interested in experimenting with what this rite can do when people perform it together and whether a rite geared toward individuation can work transpersonally—seeing an effect not just for the individual participants and for the egregore of the group (as if it, too, were a participant), but also cumulatively (a community effect). This is the idea behind the "sigil of binding."

So I'm adding to / slightly altering the context of how this is traditionally done. There seem to be effects that flow from the performance of this rite over time, almost like ripples in the surface of water when a stone is thrown in. The ripples seem to go outward in time and space and bounce off other things, causing indirect results as well. Maybe all workings are like this, but with the Headless Rite, it's very overt. So I'm asking (yes, experimentally, but that's what makes it interesting) whether a group like SA could individuate itself through this working; whether an aggregate effect would be observed by binding those "ripples" from individual workings together; and whether that aggregate effect will be very strong, given the abilities of the people who might participate.

Also, could the development of the "law" you're talking about (which is an idea I definitely think comes into play with the Headless Rite) function on a higher level of abstraction? (Thinking about SA as an entity.) I'll admit that some of these questions are "out there" but if my ideas about treating the group as a singularity in this working are ill-conceived, the worst that can happen is that each practitioner performs the rite for him- or herself and that's it. But if I'm right, we will eventually see interesting things taking place here in these forums, right before our eyes. And that is something compelling enough to make me want to run the experiment.

[Silenciumetaurum]

This looks like fun! I have done GW's (or a mashup of JSK's stuff really) version a couple of times and had some interesting dreams. I would be willing to try this out with the sigil. Do you want to try this at the same time (just for fun)? I live in the eastern part of the United States.

We could do that. Part of the reason the sigil is there is to get around the need for us to sync up, but if we all did it close to he same time, that might be interesting and might make effects easier to perceive.

[Moonlit Hermit]

I think I'll put some energy into this. It has been a few years since I did anything with this rite. I have drawn out the sigil. I will report back to the group.

[NomenInspirata]

Why not, I’m in.


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