Purity Not Virtue: A Secret To Conjuring

Secrets to Conjuring include fasting and sacrifice, purity, virtue, sometimes even vice. Opening yourself to the spirit world through ritual magic can be dangerous, but far less so when the magician knows how to take even basic, proper protections. Since the most famous spirit workers in our popular culture, the Warrens (Conjuring film series) have been thoroughly debunked (& even exposed as doing bad things to a child who lived with them for Mr Warren's pleasure); best to look to historical texts and actual practitioners rather than horror cinema based on diabolical frauds.

Fasting & Sacrifice

Fasting is a common prescription for evocation and other magical practices, including initiations into the Mysteries. This is not the extreme fasting and "cleanses" promoted today for Wellness, as helpful as such can be. To prepare for spirit work fasting can be simply skipping a meal everyday (and avoiding unhealthy food, junk food & other vices or pleasures such as sex and masturbation). This creates a spiritual opening; and usually therefore a ten hour period in the day in which you are constantly directed upwards to the divine, reminded by the desire or habit for that which you have sacrificed.

The wise Frater Acher recently wrote about social media fasts as a part of preparation. "Fish on Fridays" comes from Catholics giving up meat every Friday as a devotional sacrifice to God. But how does this a help our mystical dialogue with spiritual creatures?

Purity Not Virtue

While virtue plays a prominent role in the mystery traditions as well as religion, it is surprisingly absent from the historical grimoires of magick. While some grimoires such as the Calvinist inspired Arbatel (which influenced Father John Dee's enochian system) promote virtue, most grimoires instruct purity but not virtue.

The common belief amongst practitioners is that fasting and sacrifice purifies the operators rendering them more germane to the nature of spiritual creatures.

Spiritual Opening

However, the openness created by the space in our days created by such sacrifices also directs our mind to the reason for this sacrificial fast. We contemplate the operation, which begins as soon as intent is transformed into will, and this of course directs our minds, hearts and bodies toward the highest and most holy reality we can imagine, God, Nature, En Soph, etc. We might rise up to that highest Light at any time, but through our sacrifice and fast we create the opening and space (chora) for our highest self or Godhead to be enthroned more fully in us. As the Rosicrucian maxim states, nequaquam vacuum, "nowhere a void" (Fama Fraternitatis). We make space in our life for God and God-With-Us, and this Holy Spirit (Christian terms) is as fully God as anything else, is experienced in the divine feminine presence of the Shekhinah, the glory of God in Nature.

So there are many reasons to focus on purity before rituals. And I think purity is greatly aided by virtue (I recommend looking into pagan "virtue ethics", personally, as most are generally familiar with Judeo-Christian morality), but it is purity that is the most often discarded secret to conjuration.

Whether you fast for two weeks, seven days, three days or sometimes just one day, ensure you note this critical information in your personal grimoire. It is often the case that success hinges on this, although all of magical preparation should be taken seriously. In the GD every major arcana has a Tool, and preparation is the tool of the Hierophant, the secret to initiation. So if you are on a solo path especially, mind your preparations, as you must be the one to hold yourself to account and push yourself beyond what is comfortable to face the fires of test and trial which all alchemical transformation requires.

Personal Practice

I have always experimented with different approaches. From early psychical training as a child when I was directed for a long time to only eat fruit and avoid carbonated anything, through vegetarianism and then constant fasting during my G.D. years in High School. I wish I'd kept better records but as with many things we are trained in the discipline of during childhood we cannot see the forest for the trees. So much of what I thought was common turned out to be exception as I saw while becoming an adult. Scarred and wisened by the arduous discovery of multiple autoimmune disease, I slowly realized health is one of the things we must take responsibility for, especially in the face of failing medical systems. Words of caution and self-care said, the benefits of sacrificial purification practices are stark in my experience.

The difference between if I fast all day or not is night and day when it comes to mystical dialogue with spirits. Whether through glass, or bowl or triangle or mirror, clarity and connection are distinct rewards of purity.

Recently my enochian operations have required longer two-week periods of complete abstitence, which has many health benefits of course, but usually 3-7 days are ideal I have found. Whatever you do, note it in thy grimoire, invoke often and enflame thyself with prayer,

LVX,

Frater RC

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