Re: 'Lily' The Red Shoes-Question?

["Renee Rosen" <lilitu@cjnetworks.com>]

On  9 Sep 97 at 10:16, Andreas Pohlke wrote:
 "Gabriel before me
>  Raphael behind me
>  Michael to my right,
>  Uriel to my left side
>  In this circle of fire."
> 
> There are the archangels arranged around me in a circle of burning
> fire. Erm, one may detect the form of a protection spell here which
> is quite common. 4 directions (of the sky and/or the earth) bound
> with a circle, oneself inside the circle. There are really a lot
> spells of this kind in various forms (I once heard the form "Jesus
> to my head, Jesus to my feet, Jesus inside me"), which are not all
> "christianised".

Well, the version she's doing is from the Lower Banishing Ritual of 
the Pentagram (LBRP), as I pointed out in a previous post.

Useless triva time: the origin of the casting of the directions (not 
always the same 4 directions, BTW) with various deities/angels is 
quite ancient, most probably of Babylonian origins. It was adopted by 
the Hebrews (during the Babylonian exile) and can be found in some of 
the demon bowls from around the 1st C. CE (common era--"A.D."). The 
actual directions named and the deities/angels evoked differed and 
did not appear to be standardized until much later.

The set of directions/angels used in the LBRP most probably came from 
a Jewish prayer (the evening Shema), and that formula has been used 
since at least the Middle Ages and was originally supposed to be for 
protection against demons--kind of a Jewish equivalent to "As I lay 
me down to sleep..." It was borrowed by ceremonialist magicians 
around the turn of the century and put into the LBRP ritual, which is 
usually seen as a method of "clearing the space"--banishing not just 
"demons" but all outside influences. Some ceremonialists do it daily, 
others just do it before (and sometimes after) rituals. (The 
correspondence between the directions and the angels differs in the 
Jewish prayer and the LBRP, BTW--there's a Kabbalah FAQ which 
explains this that you can find on the Web.)

> One can easily replace christian figures with
> others.

Not too hard, since it wasn't originally Christian to begin with. A 
friend of mine has done a version of the LBRP that uses Babylonian 
deities; it can be found at 
<http://www.pacificnet.net/~valis/grimoire.html>, along with some 
links to a few articles discussing the ancient historical roots of 
the directions/angels incantation.

 To become more detailed, each direction has a meaning,
> variing on the cultural context. "Michael to my right" has surely
> something to do with the sword/weapon bearing hand &c. I tend to
> call these spells "mantras", as they have the same intention. 

I wouldn't call them "mantras," since they don't appear the same to 
me as a mantra. A mantra is a phrase that is repeated over and over 
again to achieve a trance state. They could be used as mantras, but 
they aren't the same thing.
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Renee Rosen                                  "Intelligence in the cat
lilitu@cjnetworks.com                               is underrated."
Goddess in Training                           
Astrud and Astrudel on irc                                --Louis Wain
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