You mentioned people rolling their eyes later in this post. Guess what I’m doing now.
What exactly do you mean by “worked”?
I’m also going to need definitions of “greater self-gnosis” and “feeling more confident in their metaphysical selves.”
Also
If state of mind is important but form of ritual is not, why follow the ritual at all?
About how many hours per day do you anticipate spending on Abramelin-related activities? I skimmed the book decades ago and vaguely remember that it calls for, among other things, three three-hour sessions of prayer/chanting/whatever per day.
Here is Day 169: Abramelin Update Day 169
And here is the completion: The Completion of the Abramelin Operation
And here is a post note: Post Abramalin Update, Is the Angel still in contact ?
For the first four months it’s two prayer sessions a day, of no fixed length, plus two hours of reading. The last two months you go up to three times a day, and the last week is from sunrise to sunset each day.
Is this part of the plan you will be following, or do you plan to change things up a bit?
That is the plan. I’ve got a collection of books about Judaism and other religious topics that interest me for my daily studies and I’ve developed a planned series of recitations and meditations for my daily devotions which includes psalms, several prayers, and music. Sort of a mini church service for one.
What other deprivations are in the thing?
I’m thinking about sleep deprivation.
Or light. Human touch.
Sunlight is allowed, and the book suggests outdoor exercise and nature walks for passing time. No sleep deprivation except that you aren’t allowed to sleep past noon.
Human touch is gonna be a no - you’re allowed to have sex with your spouse if you’re married, but I’m not.
Diet is lacto-ovo-vegetarian - based on my interpretation you might be allowed to eat fish but I’m not going to. You must abstain from drugs and alcohol, and I’m also going to abstain from caffeine. From the beginning of the third month on you fast from sunrise to sunset every Friday. From the start of the fifth month on the only drink you’re allowed is water and it’s advised (but not mandatory) that you only eat the foods Daniel ate during his fast (vegan, essentially). For the last week you’re on strict bread and water for three days, then vegetables and water for three fays.
You must have a very strong motivation for this.
Gaining the ability to summon the Devil and his minions and force them to submit to you and carry out your will is a pretty strong motivation.
Yeah, if I was a believer I’d be all over that.
Yeah, that “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” kinda makes it impossible for an actual atheist to do this since belief is not a choice.
Aren’t you prediabetic?
I think the vegan diet will be good for you.
Keep an eye on your glucose.
I very much enjoyed the (entirely fictional) movie A Dark Song 2016 about a couple performing this ritual. The idea was that the rigorous repetition of this ritual and the mental, physical, and emotional discipline it required, would, if performed adequately, eventially attract the attention of an angelic being which would appear and grant a wish.
I haven’t seen A Dark Song. I’ve heard that its depiction of the ritual is highly fictionalized but that it’s a very good movie nonetheless. I’ll probably watch it after I’m done.
I saw that movie! That’s what this ritual is? I didn’t realize it was the same thing as in that film. Seems like the whole point of it is to contact demons or whatever. I don’t know why anyone who doesn’t believe in that would do it. (Not that believing in it would make it any more real.)
You contact the evil spirits in order to exert your will over them, more or less. I see it more as conquering the negative aspects of your own mind.
Like I said I haven’t seen the movie, but I understand that its depiction of the operation is highly fictionalized.
I went ahead and watched A Dark Song tonight and I can confirm that the actual ritual is nothing like what’s depicted in the movie. (Spoilers ensue.)
There’s no magic circles (in fact the author specifically says that circles and talismans are false magic), no eating toxic mushrooms, no sleeping on the floor, no ritual shaving, no staring at a stone for two days, no drinking blood, no drawing runes all over the place, no speaking foreign languages (you’re specifically instructed to only speak in your native language), no whatever that was where she’s sitting in a pyramid and having cold water poured on her in her underwear, no drowning and revival, and it’s definitely not a two-person operation with a cynical alcoholic yelling at you. It’s mostly just praying and studying holy texts.
The magic squares aren’t part of the ritual, they’re tools you can use after you complete it. Even the robes Solomon is wearing are wrong. When he accidentally gets stabbed, that wound be grounds according to the book to abandon the process entirely and start over at a later date rather than carrying on and letting him die. His wish for invisibility is something that can supposedly be achieved with the magic squares, but I don’t interpret that part literally. There’s no spell in the book for death like Sophia wants to put on the people who killed her son, though there are spells for inflicting illness and one which the Mathers translation lists only as being evil and which should never be used. (Dehn’s translation says this is to inflict harm on a man’s genitals - Mathers was apparently suffering from Victorian prudissitude and decided to censor it.) You’re not summoning the angel to ask it for a favor, though - you’re summoning it because you want to establish permanent contact between yourself and it so it can serve as your mentor and constant advisor. Sophia doesn’t seem to even know what she’s getting into at the beginning - if I didn’t know that the movie was intentionally fictionalized, I’d think Solomon was just making stuff up to fuck with her and take her money (which he kinda is when he tricks her into providing jerkoff material for his fantasies).
They could’ve just made up a name for the ritual and it wouldn’t be necessary to change anything else - if anything, it looks more like something out of the Key of Solomon or one of the more goetic grimoires. (The Book of Abramelin is available as a mass-market paperback for twenty bucks, for chrissakes - you wouldn’t need a bunch of handwritten tomes in eldritch languages to carry it out.) With a few alterations and more gore and dark humor, it could even be an Evil Dead spinoff with the two of them performing a ritual from the Necronomicon. When the ritual goes off the rails in the third act and actual demons start manifesting it definitely gets feeling more like something Richard Matheson would have written. Shades of Hell House for sure.
The actual climax I thought was a little underwhelming after all that buildup. The costuming and makeup for the demons is interesting, but chopping off a finger with a bolt cutter isn’t that impressive for beings that ought to be able to psychologically destroy you. The angel does look something like what I imagine a Holy Guardian Angel would - a warrior of glowing light, large and intimidating, very “BE NOT AFRAID”, though I don’t expect it to look human in form.
That being said, it’s a pretty good movie. I love how the minimalist soundtrack keeps everything feeling tense and torturous. It’s really a story about coping with loss, exploitation, cabin fever, revenge, and forgiveness, using the ritual as a backdrop for a story about two people struggling with emotional demons more so than actual demons. I like the symbolism of our leads being named Sophia and Solomon - the former being the Gnostic incarnation of wisdom and the latter being the Biblical king apocryphally said to be a master sorcerer who commanded demons. It’s worth a watch.
If a quarter of the crazy stuff that happens in this movie actually happens to me I’d be deeply surprised. I start in 12 days.
I do appreciate your reporting on Acyn’s and Aron Rupar’s Tweets/Xs from Trump. I haven’t said that in any thread yet, so many thanks for those.
Not sure what else to say. Maybe “good luck”? I don’t know what else to say.
Thank you for your appreciation. I’m going to miss doing those updates while I’m away. That might actually be one of the hardest parts for me.
I think my signoff when I start is going to be from one of the songs I intend on using as a prayer - “You can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home.”