This piece continues my explorations in Rosicrucian magic, through a series of workings conducted with a small group around the globe utilising the text Conjuring the Planetary Intelligences that is heavily influenced by Agrippa’s work.
If you haven’t done so already, it’s worth reading the first two entries in the series (with Saturn and then Jupiter) as each piece builds upon one another as my understanding of the practice evolves.
The conjuration conducted on this occasion was with the intelligence Tiriel of Mercury, with some key changes to the ceremonial formula as outlined below along with a discussion on the results.
Ceremonial Circumstances
Throughout this series I am keeping a consistent structure so that we can start to explore how different elements might impact results. The key changes to the structure and content of the ceremony were three-fold this time: location, petitions, questions asked.
All three of these changes created some significant shifts in the flow of the ritual, so perhaps I should have only undertaken them one at a time, but collectively they represented an interesting evolution of the conjuration technique which I think was beneficial and certainly brought some meaningful results.
As discussed in regards to the previous conjuration (Jophiel of Jupiter) the location that I had chosen previously wasn’t as remote as it probably should be when conducting such a ceremony outdoors. I’ve found great success in the forested location, hiking up a steep mountain path behind the village I live in, but the experience of being met with an unexpected visitor (thankfully after closing the previous ritual) meant that I was keen to find somewhere a bit more private.
I didn’t have to search for long, as nearby are some overgrown factory ruins with a landing area that even had its own altar table ready to be used! The advice provided by the ritual group was that Mercury favoured locations that have a kind of commercial or manufacturing use; and although this might not be the kind of industrial settings of a more urban environment, it still seemed that the space for a long time had met that purpose.
With a suitable location chosen, one of the other elements that I wanted to tweak were the prayers and spiritual affirmations that surround the petition of Tiriel itself. I had previous been using the materials found in the well-known occult manual The Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals (DSIC) that is purported to be written by Trithemius, but most likely an invention of Francis Barrett a few hundred years later – himself an esteemed ceremonial magician. The prayers and religious affirmations had proven effective, but the questions asked felt obscure and difficult to connect with – even though they did bring interesting results.
On this occasion, I put aside the DSIC material and used a combination of prayers to one’s guardian angel found in The Cunning Man’s Grimoire along with a set of 11 questions of my own that developed some of the DSIC questions but were more focused on receiving guidance for spiritual practice and development.
For comparison to previous conjurations, the tools used were as follows:
- an obsidian scrying stone (5”);
- white Bible (NRSV) placed in the centre of the stone table;
- drawings of the Seal of Mercury (gold) and sigil for Tiriel (silver);
- wooden ceremonial staff (handmade);
- dark-handled iron dagger;
- frankincense-based incense cones lit at the beginning and halfway through (cross-configuration)
- fresh lemon and orange peels from home garden.
The working was conducted as follows:
- Fasted for 40hrs beforehand (only liquids);
- Items laid out on stone table, first set of incense lit;
- LBRP variation used for consecration of space and invocation of Archangels;
- Prayers and Affirmations from The Cunning Man’s Grimoire;
- Second set of incense lit;
- Invocation of Tiriel;
- Scrying with 11 questions as below;
- Repeat Questions/Scrying as required;
- Closing.
The 11 questions asked were as follows:
- What is your name? Are you Tiriel?
- What guidance do you have for me?
- Is there anything to share with the group?
- Where should I be focusing my practice?
- What is the Nature of Mercury?
- Are you an angel or force of nature?
- Who should I speak to next?
- How can I contact you again? What time?
- Is there any final message that you have for me?
Because of the nature of the location and the use of the in-situ stone table, the whole ceremony was conducted standing and (apart from the opening/closing) facing South. The prayers, affirmations and invocation of Tiriel were all conducted just once and more time was spent on this occasion with the questions as they were more numerous.
The whole ritual took about 45min from start to finish, similar length to the conjuration of Jophiel previously conducted and shorter than the one with Agiel as again there was only a need to state the petition once. The start of the ritual had been aligned with the appropriate election time on Thursday 13th May, with the help of the knowledgeable and generous astrologers I have been working with.
Interestingly and without my being aware of this timing (particularly as the election date was kindly provided by a fellow member of the study group), the date lined up with the Feast of the Ascension which marks the Ascension of Christ into Heaven. A sacred date in the Christian calendar, which takes places 40 days after Easter and thus also unconsciously aligned with my decision to fast for 40hrs before the working.
The Conjuration of Tiriel
Once again, this conjuration felt different to the previous ones. In my first conjuration with Agiel, I was surprised by how visual the experience was which proved to be a highly validating result. The second conjuration with Jophiel retained some of these visual elements, but combined them with a striking mental communication that immediately unlocked some areas of difficulty for me – that is, validated by its personal impact. The conjuration of Tiriel felt more evasive than the other two, along with by far the least visually apparent results, and yet it brought about another powerful outcome.
The change in location altered the ritual circumstances, in that it removed the cross-hatching of tree branches above from the reflective surface of the obsidian disc. As you can see from reading the previous ritual diaries, I had relied quite heavily on this to create a field of potentiality between the reflections and my mind that enabled the communication to take place. Without it, I felt a bit untethered and somewhat floundering for confirmation that something meaningful was occurring.
On this occasion, the start of the communication felt more difficult to ascertain. There were moments where I had to second-guess whether or not I was trying to force an answer – what would constitute a real communication as opposed to an entirely imagined one? Where does the boundary lie between the two?
Interestingly, it was not the reflections within the obsidian disc (which were showing the rocky texture of the nearby ruined building) that showed a marked change; but rather the oily-sheen on its surface that shined a range of violent hues and snapped into the shape of a notable figurehead with facial features that were present and attentive. It also at times took on a more snake-like or serpentine shape, which aligned with some of the other members of the study group when we were sharing our experiences a few days later.
I took these moments, along with a tangible shift in the atmosphere of the ritual, as an indication that communication had begun.
From the full list of questions as shown above, a few interesting answers stood out:
- What guidance do you have for me? The scent of the shallows guides you home.
- What is the Nature of Mercury? Presence [with three dots in triangular formation]
- Are you an angel or a force of Nature? I speak and I move
It felt more difficult this time to hold onto any visual representations in regards to the scrying – even at times almost losing concentration entirely – and so I relied more on using the disc as a focal point to induce a trance state and it was here that I received what is perhaps the most meaningful response and experience of the three conjurations conducted so far.
It started with an open-ended question that was seeking guidance, rather than anything too specific or demanding: where should I be focusing my practice?
I had no presumption of what the answer might be, but the flittering of my conscious mind went through various texts that I had been examining recently – as one might expect if the result of the ritual was merely psychological. However, as before, the answer that came through most strongly and with an entirely different tone to the fluctuations of my own mental processes was a powerful one:
“the stillness behind time”
I said the words aloud having received them mentally, and they were repeated again for me. My use of the obsidian disc as a meditative focal point then drew me in deeply. My peripheral sight faded and narrowed into a kind of whitened tunnel vision and then an odd experience occurred…
The incense that was burning and had been flowing freely across the table with the wind suddenly paused in mid-air. It stopped moving. My conscious experience became one of being frozen in time as if perceiving reality as a fixed photograph. My breathing became louder, as if in an enclosed space. The experience only lasted long enough for me to notice and then mentally acknowledge it as occurring – which pulled me back out as indicated by the movement of the incense smoke that started again.
I continued with the rest of the questions I had prepared, receiving interesting answers some of which I have shared above and others of a more private nature. The closing of the ceremony was moving and accompanied by the refreshing sensation of rain as it cleansed both the space and myself standing within it. As before, the walk back down the mountain proved beneficial as it allowed me to gradually acclimatise back into my normal sense of being. Yet the trance-like experience and the words accompanying it still resonated:
“the stillness behind time”
Such a powerful phrase, steeped in familiarity. Even now, weeks later, I only need to think those words to be quickly drawn into a meditative state more deeply than I have previously been able to achieve. You can feel exactly what the phrase is referring to. It is present and, even though it lies behind the veil of material existence, it is known.
I was curious as to where I had gotten the phrase from and that was when I was struck with the true communication that had taken place – because it is a phrase that, at least on the internet, has not been used before…
The tweets you see in the screenshots are either my own use of the phrase, or replies responding to it. When I originally searched on these two search engines the response was a striking ‘no results found’.
A large part of the purpose of this series is to help document the results of these conjurations so that we might consider both their use as a form of spiritual practice (specifically in reference to Rosicrucianism), but also an honest appraisal of the validity of the claims that we are communicating with something that is not just a figment of our own imagination. This recent conjuration, like the ones before it, added another interesting piece of evidence to consider. Something that was not only novel and unique, but powerfully resonant.
Notes for Next Time
The alterations made on this occasion (location, questions, prayers) were all beneficial and felt like they advanced the series of workings as a whole, so I will continue along such lines – keeping the same location and prayers for the next conjuration, while perhaps tweaking the questions asked.
A few key elements stood out:
- 11 questions was too many and meant that I didn’t repeat all of them for verification purposes. The nature of the questions and the results received were meaningful, though, so it was definitely a worthwhile evolution. I will streamline the questions down further next time, while keeping them consistent for comparative purposes.
- I’m becoming quite attached to the carved wooden staff that I am using and feel drawn to developing it more with various symbolism. Given the nature of the workings, the seven planets used in the grimoires seems an appropriate starting point; placed in tandem with alchemical and kabbalistic symbolism relevant to Rosicrucianism.
- The addition of the prayers from the Cunning Man’s Grimoire added a more prominent Christian framework surrounding the planetary magic text (which itself exists within a Judeo-Christian context), which I feel is appropriate for my explorations into practical Rosicrucianism. Further contemplation on the nature of the intelligences/angels being communicated with will help reconcile the purpose of these conjurations.
Closing Thoughts
Throughout these conjuration practices I’ve been expecting some kind of undeniable verification that communication with celestial forces has occurred. I’ve been presented with different results that have gone against my own expectations, while equally being consistent with the worldview that I currently hold.
Previous entries in this series have looked at the meeting point between human consciousness and divine reality, in part to show that there is no simple answer to be found on either side of the metaphysical/psychological divide. The two things are inherently overlapping and co-dependent.
What was discovered with this recent conjuration was not so much verification of external entities outside of our own minds, but rather a meaningful experience of engaging with a creative source that was able to provide something novel. The phrase received was not only mystically useful, but unique as well.
It is, of course, made up of relatively standard esoteric concepts and that must be seen as a primary reason why it feels so familiar. Stillness speaks to the core of the mystical experience; Behind has allusions of seeing beyond the veil of material perception; Time has an immediate relationship with the central metaphysical notion of eternity.
Each concept is widely used and familiar enough to draw from that well of knowledge. Yet together they form a powerful phrase that can be used practically to enable further depths of spiritual experience. Easily accessible and immediately resonant in a way that the individual concepts alluded to, but do not provide as directly. The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.
The fact that each of these three conjurations has had such meaningful results is validation of the efficacy of the techniques involved. How we understand their mechanisms becomes less relevant, for it is in the results that we can see a more fluid concept of reality emerge that brings about new truths in both personally transformative and collectively understood forms.
Entering into the depths of our own consciousness so that we might be able to expand our awareness of reality is a paradox that lies at the heart of mystical and magical experience. These practical explorations have shown that the esoteric path relies less on our ability to formulate elaborate rituals with complex tools (or large, ornate buildings) and more about using such tools to harness our ability to perceive the creative source that lies at the core of existence.
A creative source that speaks to us with many voices, internal and external, and is to be found ever-present in the stillness behind time.
