The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram1



The Qabalistic Cross

Stand in your temple or ritual space facing East.

Imagine a bright white point of light descending to your forehead. Touch your forehead with your forefinger and vibrate, "ATAH".2

Visualise the light descending to the point of your solar plexus. Move your finger to this point and vibrate, "MALKHUTH". Imagine the light continuing downward to the soles of your feet.

Place your finger on your right shoulder and imagine a point of light where your finger touches. When you have formulated this point of light vibrate, "U-GEVURAH".3

Moving your finger leftward, draw the light across your chest and to your left shoulder. Vibrate, "U-GEDULAH".

Extend your arms outward, parallel to the floor, making a cross with your body. Vibrate, "LE-OLAM, AMEN" and clasp your hands together in front of your chest.


The Pentagram Banishing

Using your finger or other suitable instrument (e.g. a steel dagger, a stick of incense, or the Outer Wand), trace a large pentagram in white or blue fiery light before you in the East. Thrust your finger or implement through the centre of the pentagram and vibrate, "YHVH".4

Trace the astral light clockwise to the South. Draw another pentagram, charging it by vibrating, "ADONAI".

Draw the light to the West, charging the pentagram by vibrating, "EHEYEH".

Continue tracing the light around to the North, this time charging the pentagram by vibrating, "AGLA".5

Return to the centre of your temple space and face East. Raise your arms as before in the Qabalistic Cross.

Say, "Before me, RAPHAEL." Visualise the archangel Raphael in yellow and purple, holding a caduceus wand.

Say, "Behind me, GAVRIEL." Visualise the archangel Gabriel in blue and orange, holding a chalice of water.

Say, "At my right hand, MICHAEL." Visualise the archangel Michael in red and green, holding a flaming sword.

Say, "At my left hand, URIEL." Visualise the archangel Uriel in olive, citrine, russet and black, holding a sheaf of wheat.

Say, "For about me flame the pentagrams, and in the column shines the six-rayed star!"

Repeat the Qabalistic Cross ritual to close.


Footnotes & Supplementary Material

Listen to the Qabalistic Cross
Listen to the Pentagram Banishing

1 N.B.: All pronunciations of Hebrew are given according to the modern Sephardic dialect.

2 The difference between "Atah" and the popular variant "Atoh" is due to the difference between the currently popular Sephardic pronunciation (as one finds in modern Israeli Hebrew) and the Ashkenazic pronunciation that Regardie learned and popularised through his works, respectively.

3 Though the "ve-" pronunciation (with a sheva) always works in speech, this is the preferred form in modern Ashkenazic Hebrew. When vav is used as a conjunction it is vocalised with a sheva except in certain cases. When it precedes a bet, a vav, a mem or a peh, it takes a shuruq accent (u-) instead. When it precedes a yud, it takes a chiriq instead (vee-) and the yud becomes silent. Additionally, if the vav precedes an initial letter that also has a sheva, the vav's vowel becomes a shuruq instead, as is the case here. Vide "Morsels of Hebrew Grammar" for further explanation.

4 Regardie recommended "yo-ho-voh" for the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. This seems like a somewhat odd choice to me. I suspect it's a varient of the Jehovah/Yahovah pronunciation; this pronunciation was a result of confusion over the vowel pointings for "Adonai" that accompanied the Tetragrammaton in the Tanakh when it was being translated into Latin. These vowel pointings were used to remind Jews not to utter the Divine Name. From a linguistic standpoint the most accurate pronunciation is most likely Yahweh, but I prefer to let the Hebrew letters stand on their own. Your mileage may vary.

5While this word is most commonly pronouncd "ah-g'-lah", I've heard the opinion that in acrostics of this sort each letter takes the vowel sound of the initial letter of the word from which it came, in which case AGLA would in fact be pronounced "ah-gee-lah".





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