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In a previous post, I talked about how important it is to draw the seals of the spirits, and about how as I carved the seals of the different spirits, I would feel their presence in the room or within my sphere of influence.

I’ve been reading Enochian Vision Magick by Lon Milo DuQuette. I hadn’t read it before writing that post, and he couldn’t have read my post and written about the same idea, but nevertheless, he talks about the same thing in the book regarding the Enochian Angels. He talks about how as you write out the Sigilum Dei Aemyth, you are building it into your sphere. He doesn’t put it that way, but the same idea is reflected throughout the book. He talks about how making the tools of Enochian magic programs the magician, and prepares them to perform the magic. It’s like an initiation into the system.(1)

But today I’d like to talk about the Magic Circle, specifically the names found in the one from the Lemegeton’s Goetia.(2) It’s possibly the most thorough protective circle I’ve ever seen. Understanding that circle is key to being able to work with the spirits of the Goetia. It builds around the magician a miniature representation of all the forces of all the spheres between here and the throne of God. It places the magician right smack dab in the center of the manifest and unmanifest universe. It represents the path of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. It is key, in my opinion, to all the other forms of grimoire magic that are available.

The circle shown to the right is from Crowley-Mathers’ The Goetia. I’ve made it as large as possible, but it’s still hard to make out the details. Plus it’s in Hebrew.

The names and planetary symbols in the outermost circle are taken from Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten. Joe Peterson points this out in his notes on the Magic Circle. Prior to actually making a life-sized circle, I never bothered trying to read this information. I figured I had either read it before in Kraig’s Modern Magic, or it wasn’t that important. I assumed an LBRP would be fine for years. I had no idea what I was doing.

When I finally made the circle, I began to understand why this thing is so important. As I painstakingly painted each name or office, I went further into a sort of trance-like state. Lon talks about how he gets into a trance state by tapping the letters of the Table of Practice in the Enochian book while chanting the names of the letters aloud. I understand; this is a powerful technique. I wasn’t even chanting the names or offices, I would simply say them aloud to myself while I was painting them so I wouldn’t forget them and have to go back to my notes. (They were all the way across the floor on the other side of the garage, after all.)

By the time I was finished, I was in a zone unlike any other I had been in before. I ended up screwing up some of the names, and had to re-prime the circle and start over again, and I haven’t finished it yet, but that’s beside the point. The point is, it’s a form of kinetic meditation.

So let’s go over the names in the circle. As noted by Joe, the names and offices of the circle are taken from Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten. The names included are:

• The Ten Names of God
• The Ten Names of the Sephiroth
• The Ten Orders of the Blessed According to the Traditions of Men
• The Ten Angels Ruling
• The Ten Spheres of the World

Only nine of each are listed; the Lemegeton specifies that they begin at Eheyeh and end at Lavanah.

I don’t use the Tree of Life as my primary working model. I prefer the Ptolemaic geocentric model of concentric spheres centered on the earth. It doesn’t really matter though, because I still have ten spheres to work with that match up to the ten Sephiroth pretty well. When I wrote out my circle, I kept the ten names of God, but eliminated the names of the sephiroth. I wrote the Names of God in Celestial Script, my favorite version of the Hebrew Alephbet.

The names of the Ten Orders of the Blessed (this refers to the Ranks of the angels in each sphere) that are used in the Crowley-Mathers Goetia are the Hebrew names. I used the names from Dionysius. (These names appear in the same row of the table on Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten.) Dionysius helped me understand a lot about the celestial spheres, and how to work with them as a Christian. I believe they are translations of the Hebrew names of angelic ranks or orders, but I don’t know for sure. If you look through the descriptions of the spirits of the Goetia though, you’ll find they are sometimes referred to as being of the order of Powers, or Thrones, for example. These are Dionysius’ terms, not the Hebrew terms. It sort of seems to be more appropriate to stick with the Dionysian terminology, at least to me.

For the Ten Angels Ruling, I left Metatron and Iophiel as the angelic rulers of the spheres of the Primum Mobile and Fixed Stars, respectively. I haven’t worked with either before, and have mostly kept to thespheres of the planets in my Work. The rest of the angel names were fine, except for Michael and Raphael. I still use the Trithemian attributions, with Michael in the Sun, and Raphael in Mercury.

Between each sphere, you place a cross, represented here with a + sign. When I was finished, I should have had:

+ AHYH Seraphim Metatron Sphere of the Primum Mobile + YHVH Cherubim Jophiel Sphere of the Fixed Stars + YHVH ALHYM Thrones Tzaphqiel [Planetary Symbol of Saturn] + AL Dominations Tzadqiel [Planetary Symbol of Jupiter] + ALHYM GYBR Powers Kammael [Planetary Symbol of Mars] + ALVH Virtues Michael [Planetary Symbol of the Sun] + YHVH TzBAVTh  Principalities Haniel [Planetary Symbol of Venus] + ALHYM TzBAVTh Archangels Raphael [Planetary Symbol of Mercury] + ShDY Angels Gabriel [Planetary Symbol of the Moon +

I don’t remember exactly what I had messed up now. I think I had put the Principalities on twice and skipped the Virtues, or something like that. I had also run out of room, and my font size was rapidly shrinking. While it would have remained usable, I wanted it to look better than that, so I let it dry and then had the kids paint it white again.

Now, based on this exercise and the resulting state of mind (even typing it now, I’ve entered into a different perspective than I normally operate from), I’ve come up with the following exercise. It’s fairly simple, and it results in a harmonizing effect within your sphere of influence.

You’ll need a compass and a blank piece of paper to do this all yourself. I’ll throw together an image you can print too.

You want to draw 11 concentric circles, each a half-inch wider than the previous.

You’ll be writing out the names of God, the Orders of Angelic hosts, the Rulers of the Angelic hosts, and the symbol of the sphere in each circle, once from the center moving outward, and again moving downward.

In addition, as you write out the names of the Angelic Rulers, for a little added umph, you can include the sigils of each angel of the Planetary Spheres.

In the next image, I’ve got the names of God, the Orders of Angels, the sigils of the Planetary Angels where available from the Magical Calendar (reproduced in PowerPoint to avoid copyright issues), the Angels’ names, and the Planetary symbols for each sphere.

In the center sphere, write out your name or Magical Motto. As you write it out, vibrate the name in a low chanting voice. In the circle above, write out the God Name for the Sphere of the Moon, vibrating the name as you write it and picturing the letters in your mind’s eye at the same time. Write out the Order of Angelic host next, and again, vibrate the name. It feels a little silly vibrating “Angels,” or at least it does to me. If you prefer the Hebrew names of the orders, they’re in Agrippa’s Second Book of Occult Philosophy, Chapter 13. Next draw the seal of the Angel of the Sphere and his (her, its) name, again vibrating the name as you do. Finally draw in the symbol of the planet, or Sphere of the Zodiac/Prime Mover while vibrating “The sphere of [insert appropriate planet/sphere here].”

Do this going up from your name through each Sphere. When you get to the top, go back down, this time drawing a cross at the front of each list of the sphere’s attributes as you vibrate all the names again. When you get back to the center, you should be feeling something pretty groovy.

There are a host of other ways to do this. This particular exercise harmonizes your sphere, and prepares you to work with the grimoires of the Lemegeton in general, and specifically the Goetia. I’m interested in how others experience this, if anyone tries it. Feel free to leave comments about your experiences below, or email them to me directly if you want them kept private.

(1) I think we’re working within the same current on this kind of thing, he and I. I’m sure he’s much further along than I am, as well he should be after practicing as long as he has. While it’s neat to find the ideas I’m having and the foundation of my own magical practices reflected in his work, you know, like a confirmation that I’m doing something right, it’s also frustrating. Eventually I’d like to be a published occult author, but the way things are going, it’ll look like I’m parroting his work. I’m totally not. I swear I didn’t read about this before, it’s based on my experiences. So is his stuff. I guess that magicians that do similar work have similar results, reach similar conclusions about how the seals and circles work within the magician. Shocking, I know.

(2) I’d like to take a minute to thank Joe Peterson for putting all these old manuscripts on his site. They have helped me incredibly over the past two years, and whatever blessing I have to give I give to him in thanks.

In a previous post, I talked about how important it is to draw the seals of the spirits, and about how as I carved the seals of the different spirits, I would feel their presence in the room or within my sphere of influence.

I’ve been reading Enochian Vision Magick by Lon Milo DuQuette. I hadn’t read it before writing that post, and he couldn’t have read my post and written about the same idea, but nevertheless, he talks about the same thing in the book regarding the Enochian Angels. He talks about how as you write out the Sigilum Dei Aemyth, you are building it into your sphere. He doesn’t put it that way, but the same idea is reflected throughout the book. He talks about how making the tools of Enochian magic programs the magician, and prepares them to perform the magic. It’s like an initiation into the system.(1)

But today I’d like to talk about the Magic Circle, specifically the names found in the one from the Lemegeton’s Goetia.(2) It’s possibly the most thorough protective circle I’ve ever seen. Understanding that circle is key to being able to work with the spirits of the Goetia. It builds around the magician a miniature representation of all the forces of all the spheres between here and the throne of God. It places the magician right smack dab in the center of the manifest and unmanifest universe. It represents the path of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. It is key, in my opinion, to all the other forms of grimoire magic that are available.

The circle shown to the right is from Crowley-Mathers’ The Goetia. I’ve made it as large as possible, but it’s still hard to make out the details. Plus it’s in Hebrew.

The names and planetary symbols in the outermost circle are taken from Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten. Joe Peterson points this out in his notes on the Magic Circle. Prior to actually making a life-sized circle, I never bothered trying to read this information. I figured I had either read it before in Kraig’s Modern Magic, or it wasn’t that important. I assumed an LBRP would be fine for years. I had no idea what I was doing.

When I finally made the circle, I began to understand why this thing is so important. As I painstakingly painted each name or office, I went further into a sort of trance-like state. Lon talks about how he gets into a trance state by tapping the letters of the Table of Practice in the Enochian book while chanting the names of the letters aloud. I understand; this is a powerful technique. I wasn’t even chanting the names or offices, I would simply say them aloud to myself while I was painting them so I wouldn’t forget them and have to go back to my notes. (They were all the way across the floor on the other side of the garage, after all.)

By the time I was finished, I was in a zone unlike any other I had been in before. I ended up screwing up some of the names, and had to re-prime the circle and start over again, and I haven’t finished it yet, but that’s beside the point. The point is, it’s a form of kinetic meditation.

So let’s go over the names in the circle. As noted by Joe, the names and offices of the circle are taken from Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten. The names included are:

• The Ten Names of God
• The Ten Names of the Sephiroth
• The Ten Orders of the Blessed According to the Traditions of Men
• The Ten Angels Ruling
• The Ten Spheres of the World

Only nine of each are listed; the Lemegeton specifies that they begin at Eheyeh and end at Lavanah.

I don’t use the Tree of Life as my primary working model. I prefer the Ptolemaic geocentric model of concentric spheres centered on the earth. It doesn’t really matter though, because I still have ten spheres to work with that match up to the ten Sephiroth pretty well. When I wrote out my circle, I kept the ten names of God, but eliminated the names of the sephiroth. I wrote the Names of God in Celestial Script, my favorite version of the Hebrew Alephbet.

The names of the Ten Orders of the Blessed (this refers to the Ranks of the angels in each sphere) that are used in the Crowley-Mathers Goetia are the Hebrew names. I used the names from Dionysius. (These names appear in the same row of the table on Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten.) Dionysius helped me understand a lot about the celestial spheres, and how to work with them as a Christian. I believe they are translations of the Hebrew names of angelic ranks or orders, but I don’t know for sure. If you look through the descriptions of the spirits of the Goetia though, you’ll find they are sometimes referred to as being of the order of Powers, or Thrones, for example. These are Dionysius’ terms, not the Hebrew terms. It sort of seems to be more appropriate to stick with the Dionysian terminology, at least to me.

For the Ten Angels Ruling, I left Metatron and Iophiel as the angelic rulers of the spheres of the Primum Mobile and Fixed Stars, respectively. I haven’t worked with either before, and have mostly kept to thespheres of the planets in my Work. The rest of the angel names were fine, except for Michael and Raphael. I still use the Trithemian attributions, with Michael in the Sun, and Raphael in Mercury.

Between each sphere, you place a cross, represented here with a + sign. When I was finished, I should have had:

+ AHYH Seraphim Metatron Sphere of the Primum Mobile + YHVH Cherubim Jophiel Sphere of the Fixed Stars + YHVH ALHYM Thrones Tzaphqiel [Planetary Symbol of Saturn] + AL Dominations Tzadqiel [Planetary Symbol of Jupiter] + ALHYM GYBR Powers Kammael [Planetary Symbol of Mars] + ALVH Virtues Michael [Planetary Symbol of the Sun] + YHVH TzBAVTh  Principalities Haniel [Planetary Symbol of Venus] + ALHYM TzBAVTh Archangels Raphael [Planetary Symbol of Mercury] + ShDY Angels Gabriel [Planetary Symbol of the Moon +

I don’t remember exactly what I had messed up now. I think I had put the Principalities on twice and skipped the Virtues, or something like that. I had also run out of room, and my font size was rapidly shrinking. While it would have remained usable, I wanted it to look better than that, so I let it dry and then had the kids paint it white again.

Now, based on this exercise and the resulting state of mind (even typing it now, I’ve entered into a different perspective than I normally operate from), I’ve come up with the following exercise. It’s fairly simple, and it results in a harmonizing effect within your sphere of influence.

You’ll need a compass and a blank piece of paper to do this all yourself. I’ll throw together an image you can print too.

You want to draw 11 concentric circles, each a half-inch wider than the previous.

You’ll be writing out the names of God, the Orders of Angelic hosts, the Rulers of the Angelic hosts, and the symbol of the sphere in each circle, once from the center moving outward, and again moving downward.

In addition, as you write out the names of the Angelic Rulers, for a little added umph, you can include the sigils of each angel of the Planetary Spheres.

In the next image, I’ve got the names of God, the Orders of Angels, the sigils of the Planetary Angels where available from the Magical Calendar (reproduced in PowerPoint to avoid copyright issues), the Angels’ names, and the Planetary symbols for each sphere.

In the center sphere, write out your name or Magical Motto. As you write it out, vibrate the name in a low chanting voice. In the circle above, write out the God Name for the Sphere of the Moon, vibrating the name as you write it and picturing the letters in your mind’s eye at the same time. Write out the Order of Angelic host next, and again, vibrate the name. It feels a little silly vibrating “Angels,” or at least it does to me. If you prefer the Hebrew names of the orders, they’re in Agrippa’s Second Book of Occult Philosophy, Chapter 13. Next draw the seal of the Angel of the Sphere and his (her, its) name, again vibrating the name as you do. Finally draw in the symbol of the planet, or Sphere of the Zodiac/Prime Mover while vibrating “The sphere of [insert appropriate planet/sphere here].”

Do this going up from your name through each Sphere. When you get to the top, go back down, this time drawing a cross at the front of each list of the sphere’s attributes as you vibrate all the names again. When you get back to the center, you should be feeling something pretty groovy.

There are a host of other ways to do this. This particular exercise harmonizes your sphere, and prepares you to work with the grimoires of the Lemegeton in general, and specifically the Goetia. I’m interested in how others experience this, if anyone tries it. Feel free to leave comments about your experiences below, or email them to me directly if you want them kept private.

(1) I think we’re working within the same current on this kind of thing, he and I. I’m sure he’s much further along than I am, as well he should be after practicing as long as he has. While it’s neat to find the ideas I’m having and the foundation of my own magical practices reflected in his work, you know, like a confirmation that I’m doing something right, it’s also frustrating. Eventually I’d like to be a published occult author, but the way things are going, it’ll look like I’m parroting his work. I’m totally not. I swear I didn’t read about this before, it’s based on my experiences. So is his stuff. I guess that magicians that do similar work have similar results, reach similar conclusions about how the seals and circles work within the magician. Shocking, I know.

(2) I’d like to take a minute to thank Joe Peterson for putting all these old manuscripts on his site. They have helped me incredibly over the past two years, and whatever blessing I have to give I give to him in thanks.

Couple people have asked, so I’ll tell you.

Joe doesn’t tell you what you have to believe. He just helps. Like Mother Theresa.

Joe’s been treated badly by Christians, personally. So have most Pagans. That’s bullshit. Jesus wasn’t like that. I want to remind Pagans of the message of Christ, that God loves you no matter what. No matter what.The Bible says God revealed himself to Pagans through their poetry and their philosophy (Acts 17:22-28). The Bible says Melchizedek was the forerunner of Jesus Christ, and guess what folks, Melchizedek wasn’t Hebrew, didn’t worship JHVH, and never heard of Jesus. He just worshipped “The Most High God” (Hebrews 7). It also says Christianity is for Christians and that only God (the holy spirit) can convert anyone. Our job is to love our neighbors as ourselves. That’s it.

So in part, I’m trying to make up for my ignorant brothers. (Paul calls a lot of people “ignorant brothers” in the Bible. They’ve been around as long as Christ.)

Also, Jesus said that when you visit people in prison, you’re visiting him. I don’t do that. I don’t have time, or even the inclination. But I have money, thanks to God’s revelations about working with Goetic spirits throughout my life. That’s something I can send out.

Another thing is compassion. I am an asshole, as many of my readers know. I don’t like people in general. As individuals, most people are alright, and have some redeeming qualities. As a whole, we’re an evil lot. I think prisoners are mostly there for good reason, and probably deserve worse. But I’ve been in jail a couple times. It sucks. I deserved it, and probably worse. I had a mommy and daddy to bail me out. They knew me better than the judge or cops did. They knew more about me than just the crimes I had committed. They saw past the criminal to the human underneath.

The key to the Great Work is found in “Knowing yourself.” As a result, we tend to spend a lot of time being pretty self-centered. But the thing about the Great Work is that what we learn about ourselves is applicable to other humans too. It’s a Solar understanding, or was for me. Some folks get it at Venus.

Regardless of where we learn it, we learn to see past the crime to the man who committed it, just as we learn to see past the our focus on Growth and Diminishment, the Devices of Evil, the Guiles of Desires, Domineering Arrogance, Daring and Rashness of Audacity, Striving for Wealth by evil means, and the Ensnaring Falsehoods of the realms of form as we ascend through the Spheres and Work with the Celestial Intelligences. I’ll go into detail about those in the future,they’re from the Divine Pymander, sections 24-26 if you’re curious.

But the point is, as we perform the Great Work, ascending and descending in power as outlined in the Emerald Tablet, it’s supposed to change us. It changes me. I don’t just see criminals who deserve their punishment, I see myself and all the times I fucked up. I see in Joe all the people, my mommy and daddy, my kids, my online friends and father-in-law, all the folks who are there for me in spite of my bullshit, who give and help and guide and teach and show the way when I’m lost and miserable.

Does it matter that he’s a pagan? No, it doesn’t. He’s someone I was lucky to meet through Fr. Bonehead’s friendship. Since I know him, and I know he’s doing something worthwhile, I’ll spend some money on that. It’s no big deal, really. I give to other charities too. Cops who get shot, Firemen who get burned, Vets missing limbs, Breast Cancer (the boobies you save may be the ones you love!),  and my Mom’s fundy Christian ministry that focuses on getting abused women from Islamic countries to America where they can’t have their noses cut off for burning dinner. Sure, they preach the love of Christ a lot as they’re helping these women, but honestly, that’s not so bad. A loving God is what they need to know about most, imho; Mom’s got her issues, but she knows how to teach about the Love of God.

I hope it’s coming across clearly. It’s a mixture of love, respect, thanksgiving, compassion, and a degree or two of guilt. Joe doesn’t guilt anyone. He was born and raised pagan, and he doesn’t use the kind of Christian guilt tactics that I used in my previous post. That’s great for him, but I’m not above motivating people to give out of guilt for being an asshole. Even a shitty thing like guilt can be turned around and used for good. That’s the main lesson of the Great Work anyway. Turn the shit into something useful.

You may remember the Geomantic Tumblers I recently purchased from Witchdoctor Joe (lord don’t let the check bounce [Edit: too late. Sending cash.]). I’ve been using them as single-roll indicators. Ask a question, roll, check the meaning, and go with that as an answer. It has worked well enough (100% accuracy on things I can prove), but it’s not that different from flipping a coin.

The other day, talking to Fr. S.L., a brilliant man, prone to long monologues on political topics, but otherwise a decent fellow (for a liberal), the subject of the geomantic tumblers came up. He said I needed to make four rolls, get the Mothers, then get from them the neices and nephews and uncles and step-cousines twice removed… I didn’t know what he was talking about, if you can’t tell.

It seems there’s an actual divination method associated with Geomancy that I had no idea about! Checking Joe’s instructions, I found that I was supposed to be looking for more details on geomancy from certain sources. Ignoring my arcane Googlemancy techniques, I decided to simply go to the web sites Joe suggested.

From one of them, I think it was Greer’s site, I found a link that generates all the family members you need to do a reading (like Agrippa details in his On Geomancy book) based on the values of the four mothers you put into the program. You throw the tumblers four times while thinking of the question, recording the results of each throw. Put the values of each row into the sixteen blanks, and click “Generate Points” and wha bam! Instant results, witnesses and Judge included!

So, having learned this technique for getting more detailed readings, I have already employed it to my advantage. Asking questions about various topics covered lately, I found the Arbatel spirits are Celestial and Terrestrial combined, a bit of both; I found that today’s job searches can generate new work in the price range I’m looking for, but it depends on meeting with the right people. (I did some Mercury Work with the Box to ensure I met the right people.)

Anyway, it’s a nifty addition to this magician’s tool kit, and I can’t thank Joe enough. Buy lots from him.

You may remember the Geomantic Tumblers I recently purchased from Witchdoctor Joe (lord don’t let the check bounce [Edit: too late. Sending cash.]). I’ve been using them as single-roll indicators. Ask a question, roll, check the meaning, and go with that as an answer. It has worked well enough (100% accuracy on things I can prove), but it’s not that different from flipping a coin.

The other day, talking to Fr. S.L., a brilliant man, prone to long monologues on political topics, but otherwise a decent fellow (for a liberal), the subject of the geomantic tumblers came up. He said I needed to make four rolls, get the Mothers, then get from them the neices and nephews and uncles and step-cousines twice removed… I didn’t know what he was talking about, if you can’t tell.

It seems there’s an actual divination method associated with Geomancy that I had no idea about! Checking Joe’s instructions, I found that I was supposed to be looking for more details on geomancy from certain sources. Ignoring my arcane Googlemancy techniques, I decided to simply go to the web sites Joe suggested.

From one of them, I think it was Greer’s site, I found a link that generates all the family members you need to do a reading (like Agrippa details in his On Geomancy book) based on the values of the four mothers you put into the program. You throw the tumblers four times while thinking of the question, recording the results of each throw. Put the values of each row into the sixteen blanks, and click “Generate Points” and wha bam! Instant results, witnesses and Judge included!

So, having learned this technique for getting more detailed readings, I have already employed it to my advantage. Asking questions about various topics covered lately, I found the Arbatel spirits are Celestial and Terrestrial combined, a bit of both; I found that today’s job searches can generate new work in the price range I’m looking for, but it depends on meeting with the right people. (I did some Mercury Work with the Box to ensure I met the right people.)

Anyway, it’s a nifty addition to this magician’s tool kit, and I can’t thank Joe enough. Buy lots from him.

There are over 10,000 Hells, it seems. The Mantises (Manti?) are restless. And the Hyenas are stalking. Fortunately, they’re scavengers, so most of what they stalk is safe as long as it isn’t dead.

You aren’t dead, are you?