Okay, if you already know what the LBRP (Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram) is, the title of this post might seem...odd. (And if you don't know, don't sweat it, I'll give a quick overview below.) Maybe the idea of adapting an essentially Judeo-Christian/Ceremonial Magick ritual to a Norse practice seems to left of centre to you, so let me start with a little background:
If you're not familiar with my blog, hi! I'm a Gardnerian Initiate, a Lokean, and a Shamanic Practitioner. Amongst other things.
Like a lot of Wiccans, I started out in the eclectic or Pagan community, in mainly eclectic covens. I was in just such a coven at the time I was going through a nasty divorce. My high priestess told me to start doing the LBRP every day. She never quite said why, but I got the impression it was for protection (my ex was also a practitioner and...well, there are all sorts of reasons I divorced his ass, not the least of which was last of scruples).
I had a problem, though. The LBRP comes to us from the Golden Dawn, a Ceremonial Magick lodge that is steeped in Jewish and Gnostic mysticism. That, in itself, isn't an issue. The issue (for me) was all the invocations to a God I didn't worship (or even speak to) anymore. It would be like calling up your high school boyfriend (who you split up with 10 years ago because he was jealous and angry all the time, and kind of a douche) to ask for a favor. Thanks, but no thanks. (I really don't mean to be harsh towards Christianity and I actually know some amazingly wonderful Christians--but I'm really not sure they're worshipping the same God I was taught about in Sunday school, down yonder at the Church of Fire-and-Brimstone!) Having a bad taste in my mouth about Christianity meant I didn't deal too well with the whole angel-thing, either. (I've gotten a little better at dealing with angels and demons--those are just words--but as a polytheist, I may believe in all Gods, but I certainly don't worship Them all; the Judeo-Christian God is not my Guy.)
So that was a very long way of saying that I didn't get anything out of doing the LBRP and didn't keep up with it for more than a week or two.
If you're not familiar wit the LBRP, this is a good time to show you what it looks like. This is a very brief outline, but it's pretty much identical to the way it was given to me, to practice, all those years ago:
Pt. I
Qabalistic/Kabbalistic/Cabalistic Cross (there are a LOT of spellings for Qabala--Qabala happens to be my preferred spelling.
The Qabalistic Cross goes like this:
Touch your forehead and say "Ateh" (translation: "Thou art")
Touch heart (or there abouts) and say "Malkuth" (translation: "the Kingdom")
Touch the right shoulder and say: "ve Geburah" (translation: "and the Power")
Touch the left shoulder and say: "ve Gedulah" (translation: "and the Glory") and if you were raised Christian, this is probably starting to sound familiar....
Clasp your hands in front of you and say: "Le-olam, amen" (translation: "forever, amen")
Like I said. Not my bag. Even if I try to go through some mental gymnastics on who "Thou" might be, the whole thing is lifted out of somebody else's religion and He's just not my Guy.
The Qabalistic Cross is sometimes done all on it's own. But let's get on with the LBRP proper. I'll talk more about invoking and banishing pentacles in my next blog post; for right now, I just want to walk through the mechanics of the LBRP.
Pt. 2
At each of the Four Quarters, you draw a pentacle (usually the Invoking or Banishing Earth Pentacle) and intone a name of (that Judeo-Christian) God. Those names are (in order, starting with the East):
yod - he - vav - he (the four letters of (that Judeo-Christian) God's name)
Adonai ("Lord")
Eheieh ("I am")
A.G.L.A
(A.G.L.A. is an acronym for words that translate to "Thou art mighty forever, O Lord")
Return to the starting point and say -- and this next bit is lifted directly from a Jewish prayer:
"In the name of YHVH, the God of Israel: at my right hand Michael, at my left Gabriel; before me Oriel, behind me Raphael, above my head the shackinah [i.e. Holy Spirit] of God! About me flame the Pentagrams, within me [or sometimes "behind me", depends on your source] the six-rayed star!"
Thanks to the Golden Dawn, each of those four Archangels is associated with one of the cardinal points and its corresponding Element (in the Golden Dawn system).
Pt. 3
Repeat the Qabalistic Cross
Now, strictly speaking, one isn't bound by the constraints of Judeo-Christian mythos. Even Israel Regardie (an early and highly influential Golden Dawn member) laid out some possible substitutions in his writing.
And....this is where I'm going to stop for today. The Arcane Archive has a short entry on the history of the LBRP that might be of interest to my fellow Heathens/Lokeans/Norse-inclined folk (even if I'm not inclined to think there's merit to the connection).
Next week, I'll talk about Elements/(optional) Elemental arrangements for a Norse ritual, and the shape the LBRP has taken in my personal practice.
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