Working with the Throne

One of the things I like to do is learn from and experiment with others’ experiences & techniques. One I recently found was Dean Hildebrandt’s description of the throne in the New Jerusalem in Revelations 21. Recall that “Jerusalem” was the location of the part of the Earth known as HUTMOCS.

I decided to explore this; and received guidance from the angels as to how. First, I was told to use my accounting for the eight letters of the name of the zodiacal king Lavavoth. The first letter, L, is omitted (referring to L/El, which in Enochian means “The First” and the unity of the Divinity); it winds up being used later. This shifts the first of the letters such that the throne is then named: VRVINVNEOCARNOGHCG, which I was later told was then to be followed by L as the name of the Divine, and they were to be used as the substitution for the Aethyr name in the call.

Preceding the call to the throne-as-Aethyr, I was to make the call to LIL, and before each call I was to make a short prayer, O remiges varpax, which may have the meaning of “Lord have mercy,” followed by Kyrie eleison (the Latin translation of same), three times. Finally, I was told to request a question and its answer, and then an empowerment.

I went ahead and did as told, and saw a throne, and the first thing I saw was a figure with a very tall crown, almost as if it were a pope’s hat, but instead was a crown made of intricate gold. “Resplendent” was the word that came to mind, and I became emotional. I was led partway to the throne by the 12 zodiacal king angels, and after a certain point I was to walk, so I did so, but prostrated fully every three steps (seven times/21 steps) along the way. I remained prostrated at the end.

The Divine appeared in feminine form, and reminded me that I was to request both a question and its answer from Her. “Yes,” I replied, and humbly asked Her for these. She smiled, bidding me to be still at first, then allowing me to approach. As I do, I see her seven angels around the throne, briefly appearing armed and as a warning at first with what looked like pikes with vajras at the end. Yet this was merely to show “This is what we can do,” and with the Divine having given Her leave, they now appear to be very soft and no longer appear as guards.

The Divine Herself appeared perhaps to ten to twelve feet tall, and I sat in Her lap, and She held me to her bosom. She thanked me for coming, telling me that it’s been a long journey and that there will continue to be journeys. What’s needed most for me, She continues, is health.

The question she has for me is “close to my heart”: “How does one continue to move with their heart aligned with the Cosmic [i.e., Divine] Heart?” The answer, she says, is in two parts. First, the heart is always aligned with the Cosmic heart: it’s a matter of maintaining awareness of that. Maintaining awareness of that is simply all that one needs to do, but in order to do that, one must be healed.

Next She reminds me that I was to ask for an empowerment, which I humbly do. I feel an energy about my heart, like a golden snake or coil, illuminating brightly a bright golden-white light. My solar plexus is feeling lit up by this, but the Divine instructs me to maintain awareness of my heart. She shows me an intricate, infinite metal tower, like a fleur-de-lis going out/up to infinity, and it is lit up by a brightly lit background, almost blindingly so. It is my heart, and She reminds me to maintain awareness on it, and how vast and how eternal that is, and to allow myself to merge with that. There are many red jewels, (rubies correspond to Mars but Star Rubies to Chokmah in 777) occasionally green also, but mainly red—I am to own the dominance of red jewels on the gold metalwork. She shows me some blue jewels as well (sapphires correspond to Jupiter but Star Sapphires to Binah), and finally to black diamonds (corresponding to the World of Adam Qadmon and Ain/Ain Sof/Ain Sof Aur).

“Now let the healing be complete,” She says. She’s working Her Will that my background awareness always be on my heart being aligned to the Divine Heart. She shows it overcoming areas of tension (such as in my body), and that this will improve in time. She concludes with a kiss, and we end in Union.

Practical Chokmah ritual work

One of the great efforts put forth in recent years is Scott Stenwick’s initiation system into all sephiroth and veils of the Tree of Life. It represents an excellent structure for initiation, and nicely complements his planetary work series on astrological magick. One of the things that a fellow magick.me student’s question (about Lon DuQuette’s Chicken Qabalah) inspired in me is whether or not a practical ritual could be done at the sephirothic level.

The answer is yes. Sephiroth are ruled by planets, after all, but this is not to say that they are ruled in the astrological sense of planetary domicile (wherein the planet is stronger due to zodiacal sign placement), but rather of the sephiroth brought to completeness. Hence, the pleasure or joy of Victory is symbolized by Venus ruling Netzach, and the Understanding of the nature of reality is brought to completeness by acceding to its limitations (i.e., its nature), symbolized by Saturn ruling Binah.

What exactly is accomplished by this? I believe that on some level, the magician is attempting to “correct” the current sephiroth-energetic balance of the universe. Attempts to bring sephiric energy have been done before; Jason Louv, in John Dee and the Empire of Angels, goes into detail about Jack Parsons’ attempt to instill this supernal feminine energy into the world via his Babalon Working. My guess is that for most hermetic magicians who would be interested in a sephiric working, the goal of such working would be to bring Tiphareth energy into the world, in accord with Crowley’s law of Thelema. Crowley himself also elaborated a ritual to bring about the energy of the Aeon of Horus, Liber V vel Reguli (which may have been an attempt to bring in the energy of Geburah, but this seems too broad of an oversimplification). I haven’t worked this ritual because I haven’t fully committed to Thelema, though I recognize it as a viable and important Law: I just prefer my own.

I think one could construct rituals for all of the sephiroth below Kether (I’m not yet sure how one would go about this sephira, but I’m open to suggestions!); Stenwick lays out the components of both planetary and sephirothic invocations; I would simply combine his sephirothic hexagrams, god names, and archangel names with the planetary intelligence and spirit of the planet that rules this sephiroth.

What inspired this post, however, was the question of what the planetary intelligence and spirit would be for Chokmah, and the answer seems to me to be to use the sephirothic invocation that Stenwick lays out, then to simply call on Archangel Ratziel, and rather than the next step of calling a planetary spirit and an intelligence, to instead call on all twelve of the zodiacal angels (see Col. CXLII in Liber 777 or Col. 412 in 776 1/2 (they differ in that Aries & Aquarius are reversed in 777, which Eshelman corrects). One could call each angel twice (to obtain the twoness of Chokmah), or the angel and its assistant (776 1/2, Cols. 412 & 413), or call on the Day & Night triplicity lords (776 1/2, Cols. 414). Further reading on Stenwick’s essay on evoking zodiacal angels is here.

I haven’t tried this but I may do so for my own law later this week and determine whether I see more effects of this law afterward: I will keep you posted.

Update: I did a ritual based on this and rather than try to evangelize, I simply made an Enochian prayer that those who are to hear my law would in fact do so in God’s time and measure. In other words, a prayer that God’s will be done, or put another way, a conscious moving with Universe rather than against It.