I'm going to undertake a six-month occult ritual - ask me anything

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I’ve made oblique references to this in a few posts over the last few months, but since we’re now less than three weeks away from Easter, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell everyone that I’m more or less taking a six-month hiatus from this board, and from society in general outside of work, so that I can undertake an esoteric rite known as the Abramelin Operation. Seeing as I’ve been an outspoken atheist for most of my life, and apparently one of the most prolific posters on the board these days, I want to offer an explanation. I’m going to link at the bottom of this post to a Youtube video I made last night in which I offer an explanation, but if you don’t want to listen to me talk for 25 minutes, here’s the short version.

The Abramelin Operation is a Kabbalah-based ritual described in a 15th century grimoire called The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. It is attributed to a German Jew named Abraham Von Worms (like all grimoires, its authorship is the subject of much debate) who tells of how he went on a pilgrimage across Europe and the Middle East around the beginning of the 15th century and met an Egyptian hermit, the titular Abramelin, who taught him a ritual apparently derived from early post-Temple-era Jewish mysticism, the purpose of which is to establish one’s knowledge of, and communication with, a semi-divine entity called the Holy Guardian Angel which is sort of your personal interlocutor between yourself and the divine, and thereafter, with its aid, to summon the Devil and his minions, engage in spiritual warfare with them, and force them to submit to you and carry out your will.

According to the book, this is accomplished by shutting oneself off from society to the greatest extent possible, living an ascetic lifestyle focused on multiple daily prayers, ritual cleansing, chastity, abstinence, and religious study, and once completed one gains the ability to work magic by commanding spirits. I don’t expect to literally be able to fly or raise the dead or perform most of the other spells described in the book, though - I’m doing this because I want to attain a better understanding of myself and my place in the universe, and I feel that the process will help me to better center myself and gain the personal and moral fortitude to be a better person who does good in the world.

The rite starts the day after Easter and concludes in mid-October during the time of Sukkot. Although it is a Jewish ritual, the author insists that it can be performed by a person of any religion (even pagans can do it, he asserts) as long as they acknowledge some sort of Supreme Force. It’s supposedly very bad luck to abandon the process partway through, so I fully intend on sticking to it through its conclusion. I’m going to make a series of Youtube videos to document my operation as I hope they will serve as a resource to anyone else out there who might be thinking of undertaking this process. Some might think I’m insane or that I’m having a mid-life crisis. I won’t say you’re wrong, but if that’s what this is, at least I’m trying to do something constructive with my existential ennui.

Video below. Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have. Once the ritual starts, I probably won’t be posting anywhere on the SDMB except in this thread.

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So you are an atheist but you believe in spirits?

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I am also confused.

First, why would a ritual based in Kabbalah have a start date based on Easter? Is it just coincidence?

Say what now? AIUI the whole point of Kabbalah is true knowledge and experience of the mind of G-d. Why use an “interlocutor”?

Huh? Why not do any of the vast number of secular methods?

Ah, this alone tells me somebody is full of crap. The qualifications to practice Kabbalah are debatable. But -must be an adult Jew, fluent in Hebrew and learned in the Talmud, must already have personal and moral fortitude.

So you’re undertaking a ritual that requires cutting yourself off from the world, but you’ll still be surfing the web?

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Is that part of the ritual in general, or just when you specifically happen to be doing it? If it’s a Jewish ritual, why is Easter relevant?

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So you’re going on a spiritual retreat, except you’re doing it at home? Like an ascetic staycation?

What can I say… you should live and be well.

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I hope that it works out well for you

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At least you’re not trying ayahuasca, I guess…

It’s pretty strange to do a religious ritual as an atheist. Who are you going to be praying to? What sort of religious study will you be doing? Does some part of you think it might actually work and produce supernatural results?

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Are you paying money for this?

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I don’t necessarily consider myself an atheist these days. More of a pantheist along the lines of Meher Baba’s cosmology, but I don’t adhere to any specific religion.

It says Easter in one of the English translations and Passover in the other. This year, Easter and the last day of Passover fall on the same day.

The Holy Guardian Angel, as I understand it, is basically the same sort of tutelary deity as the daimon in late Greek myth. According to Dr. Justin Sledge, a Youtuber who covers the esoteric, the Abramelin likely originated from a ritual meant to contact an angel called the Sar Torah for the purpose of acquiring eidetic Torah knowledge.

Something about this way of doing it spoke to me when I learned about it. I can’t quite explain, but the accounts I’ve read from people who have undertaken it say that it’s had a positive effect on their lives.

As the author puts it in the text, he taught the pure Kabbalah to his oldest son and this method to his second, since he could only pass the former on to one child a la Isaac giving his blessing to Jacob rather than Esau. As with most writings of this nature there were probably emendations made by a Christian at some point to make it more accessible to a wider audience.

Only for purposes direcrly related to the ritual. The rest of my free time will be spent engaged in my devotions, in studying the Old Testament and other religious texts (I have Jewish Literacy by Telushkin, The Religions of Man by Huston Smith, and God Speaks by Meher Baba to start with, and I intend on reading the entire Bible front to back at least once, which I’ve never done before), and writing about my experience.

Basically, yes. I see this as a kind of self-guided therapy.

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To the universe, essentially. I’m open to the possibility of having a legitimate supernatural experience but I’m not going to be disappointed if I don’t have one. The book doesn’t really specify a specific form for the prayers aside from recitation of certain psalms, but I’ll be incorporating a number of things that have significance to me, including the Serenity prayer, the Litany Against Fear from Dune, and some religious songs I find inspiring.

I’ve spent a few hundred dollars on supplies for the ritual as described in the book - robes, an altar, anointing oil, incense, etc., but I’m not paying a person in order to be able to do this. Part of the process is giving alms to the poor and to that end I will be giving at a bare minimum $10 each to 72 poor people (there is numerical significance behind those numbers) and looking for ways to perform acts of charity when I do have to go out into the world.

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I did this once on the advice of a strange man named Sloof Lirpa. Highly recommended.

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So we will have a new improved Smapti by October.

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If anyone wants to look over the Book of Abramelin itself, the 1896 translation by Samuel McGregor Mathers can be read here;

This version is considered to have some interpolations and is missing a collection of Jewish folk magic included in older manuscripts, but it’s the one most modern occultists, including Aleister Crowley who is known to have completed it twice after his first attempt was aborted due to a schism in the Golden Dawn, were familiar with.

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D’oh!

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Questions:
How will you work?
What does your family think?
Do you have lots of money to spread $10 bills out to 72 folks, and is that monthly or weekly?
Wouldn’t your donation be better in a $720 check to one entity?
Can you drive your car?
Will you dress in the robe out in public?
Will you use online shopping or restaurants?
Do you have pets?
What about health concerns?

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I did that. Back in the 1980s when I was young. No, I’m not gonna talk about it. You’re on your own, pal. Good luck.

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  • While the author says it would be best if you can quit outside obligations entirely, you are allowed to work if you need to as long as your work is honest and not morally objectionable. I’m just going to have to avoid unnecessary conversation and things that would provoke anger. The only time when you’re allowed absolutely no contact with another human being is during the final week.

  • My mother is surprised that I’ve suddenly discovered my spiritual side, but as a Wiccan she’s already familiar with some of these concepts and is supportive. I’m not married and I don’t have kids so there’s nothing standing in my way there.

  • I can afford to spread out the alms over the course of the six months. Technically, the book says the alms should be an equivalent value to ten gold florins, but since we don’t really know what the purchasing power of a florin was back then, most modern practitioners pick an amount which is small but significant and is divisible by the key numbers of 10 (the number of branches on the sephiroth) and 72 (the number of names of God).

  • I will probably also be giving to charities based on what I can afford. The $720 is just a minimum. Giving it by hand to 72 people is one of the specific requirements.

  • I don’t own a car these days and commute by bus.

  • No. The robes are exclusively for use in your “oratory”, a private room set aside for your devotions.

  • Online shopping, yes. Restaurants, not unless I have to - you are obligated to keep a vegetarian diet and prepare your own food whenever possible, and in later stages to fast from sunrise to sundown once a week.

  • Cats. Their company will keep me sane.

  • No immediate health concerns. If you suffer a major illness that prevents you from continuing you are permitted to quit the operation and start over at a later date, though you are warned that doing so for lesser reasons might constitute mocking God and inviting divine wrath. The house where Crowley’s first aborted attempt took place was supposedly haunted afterward, though I don’t know if I believe that since there are so many myths and stories about him that it’s hard to know what really happened and what he and others made up.

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So you are saying Kirsti Noem couldn’t engage on this?

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Definitely not. The author is skeptical that a woman could do it all (he says they talk too much and that a woman doing it would have to be a virgin), but the translators chalk this up to medieval sexism and in my studies I’ve learned of women who have done it successfully. There’s sort of a taboo against talking about specifically what form your interaction with the Holy Guardian Angel takes, but I don’t doubt anyone who says they’ve done it and it had a positive impact on them.

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That sure does sound like something the God of the Jews would be perfectly happy with.