The Four Watchtowers: HCOMA
Unlike my work with the previous two tablets, HCOMA has been very standardized in terms of ritual. This post contains a review of the type of work that has been demanded in my engagement with the previous two Watchtowers by comparison to my present work, a description of the invocations preliminary to reciting the keys and invoking the cherub, and some notes on the Great Devil associated with this tablet.
My work with EXARP lead me through a series of meditations which could take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks to figure out. I found that the results of my work with these entities did not manifest so much during the rituals themselves, but in the hours and days that followed. The information was almost always vaguely alluded to by the cherub before, and would be followed by some event, conversation, or experience that suddenly and dramatically elucidated the spirit’s words.
BITOM was largely comprised of astral work, meaning that although the rituals themselves were easy enough to do, and I could more or less pick the time to do them, once I was “in” I could be there for anywhere from ten minutes to three hours depending on what happened and how fast I figured out what I was being asked to do. I got all the information that I needed during these visions, but careful revision of my notes was necessary to keep the details fresh in my mind so that I could keep the experiences I was having in perspective and maintain some kind of continuity. This was very difficult for many reasons, not the least among them being the fact that I find astral work incredibly draining in general. When it was over I pretty much slept for a week.
HCOMA, on the other hand, seems to be a great deal more structured in the ritual setting, with the experience of the angel being very similar to a formal evocation. I have not been getting the sense of a buzzing series of impressions in the back of my mind like EXARP, or an astral journey like BITOM, but rather what I have experienced has been the very lucid sense of being in conversation with an entity that was physically occupying the space of the tablet on the table of practice. The demands being placed on me this time are more in the nature of a “to do” list than visions or riddles. It’s been something different every time, ranging from odd spiritual chores that seem more like what Goetic spirits tend to ask for, to particular rituals or skrying of particular objects, to more apparently mundane tasks in research or writing. In this sense, although the ritual apparatus of my engagement with the tablet has been almost totally uniform, the demands made by the cherubs have been all over the place.
The only thing not uniform has been the time. It has been made clear to me that each quadrant will have its own specifications in this regard, but to give an example, the first quadrant was to be worked at midnight on Monday, dawn on Tuesday, noon on Wednesday, dusk on Thursday and midnight on Friday. This is oddly more comfortable for my very bizarre internal clock than a regularly scheduled ritual, so it has rather increased my productivity. I suspect that this was not the angels' intention. Rather, it would seem to indicate a natural sympathy between the forces of this particular tablet and myself.
This was very different from BITOM, which was necessary for me to go through, but wore me down to a nub. Another person might find it a great deal easier to be able to plan the ritual at their convenience, but I live and die by a regular schedule. Because it required astral work, which is not predictable in terms of how long it will take to complete, I found it very difficult to work my engagement with this tablet into any kind of plan for the day. EXARP, on the other hand, had a way of imposing itself on my other work that was sometimes distracting, but neither drained nor invigorated me by doing so. The timing for that tablet was related to the planetary day and hour, as well as what was in the sky at what time, so although it was not regular in the way that I like, I could at least plan out my rituals in advance, which was a great help.
Now, the method…
It strikes me that I may not have mentioned this before, but in the case of all of these workings, I keep the temple lit by lights tinted in the appropriate colors, red for EXARP, bright white for BITOM and pale green for HCOMA. The use of colored lights to tint ALL objects in the temple space (rather than employing painted objects or colored cloth) is standard procedure in every ritual that I do, and as such I frequently omit to mention it.
If you didn’t see it before, have a look at this: http://starchamber007.livejournal.com/285371.html. The following portion is quoted from that link. If you are unfamiliar with the set up of my table, have a look there. The magical tools employed in this were the rope-circle, the phylactery, the Assiah blindfold (over Ajna, to see the spirit) and the wand.
“I began by reciting the oath of my grade and my oaths to the Gods, taking the serpent emblem from the door to the temple and knocking 3-5-3, Abrahadabra, 3-1-1 for the keyword to the temple, and another knock for the name of my angel. Then I entered the temple and recited the first ten stanzas of Surah 91 of the Qur’an. This was the prayer I used to prepare. (follow the link above for more on this).
I would invoke the ten Assiatic Archangels while visualizing the appropriate color filling the heavens and coming down in a bolt of lightning to strike the appropriate place on my body when vibrating the angel’s name. I gave the energy time to flow back up to Kether, visualizing the colors of each sephirot flaring out as it climbed toward the crown.”
Next, I performed Reguli, followed by the invocation of Kundalini from the first Chapter of Liber LXV (“I am the heart, the snake is entwined…”) and a recitation of a section of Chapter II of Liber AL. This section begins with “I am the snake who giveth knowledge and delight,” and concludes with “but ye, o my people, rise up and awake!” At those words, I would immediately launch into the invocation of the Bornless One. This is tremendously significant, as this ritual comes to a climax with the words, “I am he who bringeth grace to this world, heart girt with serpent is my name.” Obviously, the first two sections are a natural preliminary to the Bornless Invocation, as they complete the identification with “a Star in Space, unique and self-existent, an individual essence incorruptible” implied by the Reguli ritual (see Crowley’s notes on Liber V).
The section from Liber LXV was spoken in a low, rumbling voice, vibrating in the chest cavity. The section from AL:II was spoken in a flat, nasal voice, with particular accent placed on the sibilant “s,” and the words of the Bornless invocation came directly from the back of the throat, striking an equilibration between Anahata and Ajna.
After the Bornless Invocation was complete, I struck the same battery of knocks with the wand against the solar symbol at the center of my altar (which had been ceremonially connected with the wand by the method described here: http://starchamber007.livejournal.com/162705.html) that I employed when originally entering the temple. (3-5-3, 3-1-1, x-x-x)
Any physical remains were left encased in the wax of the four candles that light the four sides of the trapezoidal pyramid represented on my table of practice.
I know part of what this is building toward. Although each tablet has had it’s own climax, unique and individual, the thing that has stayed the same has been the confrontation with the Great Devil of that quarter. I was warned at the outset to begin preparing for my confrontation with the Many right away. This entity cannot be tricked, like the Lightbringer, nor negotiated with, like the Enemy. I would not be able to use my ingenuity to figure out what to do in the final few days. What ever I was intending to use would have to be prepared will in advance.
The difficulty with this particular entity comes from the fact that it has absolutely no cohesion. The closest approximation I have been given so far is “a thousand voices saying a thousand words in a thousand nonsense tongues to a thousand different times and a thousand discordant notes.” It’s not a force that can be redirected or an intelligence that can be confounded or a presence that can be entrapped.
I have only been given one clue so far, but I think it will take me down the right path. Of course, I’d be an idiot to put it in writing on the internet at this point…
My work with EXARP lead me through a series of meditations which could take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks to figure out. I found that the results of my work with these entities did not manifest so much during the rituals themselves, but in the hours and days that followed. The information was almost always vaguely alluded to by the cherub before, and would be followed by some event, conversation, or experience that suddenly and dramatically elucidated the spirit’s words.
BITOM was largely comprised of astral work, meaning that although the rituals themselves were easy enough to do, and I could more or less pick the time to do them, once I was “in” I could be there for anywhere from ten minutes to three hours depending on what happened and how fast I figured out what I was being asked to do. I got all the information that I needed during these visions, but careful revision of my notes was necessary to keep the details fresh in my mind so that I could keep the experiences I was having in perspective and maintain some kind of continuity. This was very difficult for many reasons, not the least among them being the fact that I find astral work incredibly draining in general. When it was over I pretty much slept for a week.
HCOMA, on the other hand, seems to be a great deal more structured in the ritual setting, with the experience of the angel being very similar to a formal evocation. I have not been getting the sense of a buzzing series of impressions in the back of my mind like EXARP, or an astral journey like BITOM, but rather what I have experienced has been the very lucid sense of being in conversation with an entity that was physically occupying the space of the tablet on the table of practice. The demands being placed on me this time are more in the nature of a “to do” list than visions or riddles. It’s been something different every time, ranging from odd spiritual chores that seem more like what Goetic spirits tend to ask for, to particular rituals or skrying of particular objects, to more apparently mundane tasks in research or writing. In this sense, although the ritual apparatus of my engagement with the tablet has been almost totally uniform, the demands made by the cherubs have been all over the place.
The only thing not uniform has been the time. It has been made clear to me that each quadrant will have its own specifications in this regard, but to give an example, the first quadrant was to be worked at midnight on Monday, dawn on Tuesday, noon on Wednesday, dusk on Thursday and midnight on Friday. This is oddly more comfortable for my very bizarre internal clock than a regularly scheduled ritual, so it has rather increased my productivity. I suspect that this was not the angels' intention. Rather, it would seem to indicate a natural sympathy between the forces of this particular tablet and myself.
This was very different from BITOM, which was necessary for me to go through, but wore me down to a nub. Another person might find it a great deal easier to be able to plan the ritual at their convenience, but I live and die by a regular schedule. Because it required astral work, which is not predictable in terms of how long it will take to complete, I found it very difficult to work my engagement with this tablet into any kind of plan for the day. EXARP, on the other hand, had a way of imposing itself on my other work that was sometimes distracting, but neither drained nor invigorated me by doing so. The timing for that tablet was related to the planetary day and hour, as well as what was in the sky at what time, so although it was not regular in the way that I like, I could at least plan out my rituals in advance, which was a great help.
Now, the method…
It strikes me that I may not have mentioned this before, but in the case of all of these workings, I keep the temple lit by lights tinted in the appropriate colors, red for EXARP, bright white for BITOM and pale green for HCOMA. The use of colored lights to tint ALL objects in the temple space (rather than employing painted objects or colored cloth) is standard procedure in every ritual that I do, and as such I frequently omit to mention it.
If you didn’t see it before, have a look at this: http://starchamber007.livejournal.com/285371.html. The following portion is quoted from that link. If you are unfamiliar with the set up of my table, have a look there. The magical tools employed in this were the rope-circle, the phylactery, the Assiah blindfold (over Ajna, to see the spirit) and the wand.
“I began by reciting the oath of my grade and my oaths to the Gods, taking the serpent emblem from the door to the temple and knocking 3-5-3, Abrahadabra, 3-1-1 for the keyword to the temple, and another knock for the name of my angel. Then I entered the temple and recited the first ten stanzas of Surah 91 of the Qur’an. This was the prayer I used to prepare. (follow the link above for more on this).
I would invoke the ten Assiatic Archangels while visualizing the appropriate color filling the heavens and coming down in a bolt of lightning to strike the appropriate place on my body when vibrating the angel’s name. I gave the energy time to flow back up to Kether, visualizing the colors of each sephirot flaring out as it climbed toward the crown.”
Next, I performed Reguli, followed by the invocation of Kundalini from the first Chapter of Liber LXV (“I am the heart, the snake is entwined…”) and a recitation of a section of Chapter II of Liber AL. This section begins with “I am the snake who giveth knowledge and delight,” and concludes with “but ye, o my people, rise up and awake!” At those words, I would immediately launch into the invocation of the Bornless One. This is tremendously significant, as this ritual comes to a climax with the words, “I am he who bringeth grace to this world, heart girt with serpent is my name.” Obviously, the first two sections are a natural preliminary to the Bornless Invocation, as they complete the identification with “a Star in Space, unique and self-existent, an individual essence incorruptible” implied by the Reguli ritual (see Crowley’s notes on Liber V).
The section from Liber LXV was spoken in a low, rumbling voice, vibrating in the chest cavity. The section from AL:II was spoken in a flat, nasal voice, with particular accent placed on the sibilant “s,” and the words of the Bornless invocation came directly from the back of the throat, striking an equilibration between Anahata and Ajna.
After the Bornless Invocation was complete, I struck the same battery of knocks with the wand against the solar symbol at the center of my altar (which had been ceremonially connected with the wand by the method described here: http://starchamber007.livejournal.com/162705.html) that I employed when originally entering the temple. (3-5-3, 3-1-1, x-x-x)
Any physical remains were left encased in the wax of the four candles that light the four sides of the trapezoidal pyramid represented on my table of practice.
I know part of what this is building toward. Although each tablet has had it’s own climax, unique and individual, the thing that has stayed the same has been the confrontation with the Great Devil of that quarter. I was warned at the outset to begin preparing for my confrontation with the Many right away. This entity cannot be tricked, like the Lightbringer, nor negotiated with, like the Enemy. I would not be able to use my ingenuity to figure out what to do in the final few days. What ever I was intending to use would have to be prepared will in advance.
The difficulty with this particular entity comes from the fact that it has absolutely no cohesion. The closest approximation I have been given so far is “a thousand voices saying a thousand words in a thousand nonsense tongues to a thousand different times and a thousand discordant notes.” It’s not a force that can be redirected or an intelligence that can be confounded or a presence that can be entrapped.
I have only been given one clue so far, but I think it will take me down the right path. Of course, I’d be an idiot to put it in writing on the internet at this point…