Hello and greetings to all. This is my first post although I have been lurking for some time.

In my work, I have come to this point that I am now ready to consecrate my elemental tools. I use standard GD style
tools.

When reading about these consecration rituals, I noticed a difference in the description of this ritual between Donald Michael Kraig's
"Eleven lessons...." and Konstantino's "Summoning spirits".

At the end of the ritual, a LBRP should be performed, but using the elemental tool instead of the LBRP dagger. Let's take the earth pentacle as
an example.

According to Konstantinos, in order to banish all the elemental forces invoked during the ritual, banishing pentagrams of earth should be traced
with the earth pentacle during the final LBRP (page 104). But according to Kraig, invoking pentagrams of earth should be traced (page 270). Kraig
doesn't provide an explanation to why it should be so, but I instinctively feel that Konstantinos has a valid point. The strong elemental forces invoked
previously in the ritual must be banished in order to maintain balance.

What are your opinions about this, and how should I proceed?

This post has been edited by Peking: Aug 14 2010, 04:55 PM

well its just my opinion but I would go with the banishing ritual here because you are outwardly getting rid of any disturbances or whatever that has been made during the ritual. Basically making the way it was, on the outside. Depends what you want out of it

For the pantacle, Kraig uses an invoking pentagram of earth. Compare this to his instructions for the wand, Kraig uses an invoking pentagram of fire. I take that this step isn't supposed to be a banishing (yet), but a way of "charging" the weapon.

To end the ceremony, he uses the closing of the watchtower ritual (last note of step 12). This as an alternate to finally banishing with earth at the end, though either could work.

Could you actually post these two said pentagrams?

I'm acquainted with the western paradigm, but i'm not as acquainted as I want to be.

Here's a link to some images of how one draws the different pentagrams:

http://realmagick.tripod.com/arrangement.html

Yes, Kraig uses the invoking pentagram for that element you are currently consecrating and Konstantion uses the banishing pentagram for that element. I just took earth as an example.

Booth Kraig and Konstantinos uses the closing of the watchtower to end the consecrating ritual though. No difference there. This LBRP (with the invoking or banishing pentagrams I am talking about) is a part of the closing of the watchtower.

From what I'm seeing, the literal ritual makes little to no difference, its just the connotation. If you're going to go with the elements, I'd go in an inverted order, which is what one of the authors seems to propose.

On the other hand, try to pull raw, completely androgynous energy to close and open, it might make it easier, its just not necessarily good for the body at the right frequencies.

Oh, I see. Weird. I don't have Konstantinos' book, so couldn't cross reference there, thanks for clarifying.

A pure invocation isn't inherently unbalanced, especially if you are invoking to restore a balance you've never had. It might even be ideal to leave certain elements invoked for this very reason. We're often taught in magick to always, always, always banish, but why would you want to get rid of a positive unleashed force?

In the G.D. system (at least ones I've heard of), aspirants will spend months invoking a single element (e.g., earth). This could be problematic if they weren't going to ever move on to invoking the other elements, but they do. I assume that the earth pantacle won't be your last magical tool. And to compound safety, Earth is also a bit more inherently balanced, being on the middle pillar, than (say) fire or water (on Netzech and Hod).

I think that either way could give you good results. You could probably do one, or the other, or both.

I'd go first with the invocation, since that's what you want for the earth pentacle. If that feels unbalanced, you can immediately follow with the banishing (since you're about to close the ceremony anyway). I'd be a bit worried if the energy in the circle felt too unbalanced, since that would be the tide in which you just consecrated your tool. But that's okay too, no reason why you can't re-consecrate.

In sum though, (IMHO) you have the right idea...if it feels too unbalanced at the end, banish.

This post has been edited by monkman418: Aug 15 2010, 01:48 PM

Thank you very much for all your advice!

Kraig has a new edition of his book out with a nice looking cover page... there were, from what I remember, mistakes in the other issue.

Have found that the G.Dawn text tend to be open yet discreet, open in the sense that all the information and rites are there, discreet in that its left upto you to peice together what should be done with it... they've basically laid out information en mass with suggestions as to how you can actually piece it all together to create an improved whole... at least thats what I'm ''finding'' (commas suggesting its something I've noticed but haven't really looked into) its possible, I think, to create an active holistic system from the G.Dawn manuscripts, when I say holistic I of course mean whole, a system that has you incorporate every aspect of your life into its practice so that its lived as a culture rather than practiced once a day and done away with... if you look all the relevant bits and bobs are there but scattered throughout the main text, a system is within the fragments of another system, is interesting.

Always good to banish after a ritual, its like washing the dishes after a good meal, granted you could have had a salad but it will still attract bugs and such, certain things don't know good from bad, happy rolling in dung just as well as they are anything else... can make for a difficult nights sleep .lol. Also shows respect for others who may not be so well inclined to the energy you've just invoked. Not that I'm speaking from experience.