As for why I did it, as the small amount of people who read this blog know, I had been working with the Trithemius "Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystal," and I was driven to do this by Michael, archangel of the Sun (and unbeknownst to me at the time, my Angel herself).
Surviving the Grind
I've done long-term operations before, for example, working through Lyam Thomas Christopher's "Kabbalah, Magic and the Great Work of Self Transformation." I was therefore prepared for the inevitable burnout, or "dark night of the soul." But damn did it hit hard this time at about the end of the third month. Dragging myself out of bed to do the morning prayers definitely felt like a massive chore at times, and I started to feel that the whole thing was pointless. Sorta like, "what am I even going to get out of this?"Interestingly, I didn't get quite the amount of disastrous activity a lot of people get when doing this, or some other method of contacting the HGA. In fact, my work went surprisingly well. I won a big contract that I had proposed for earlier in the year, and I got a nice raise. My wife did get injured on the job about halfway through the rite, which led to a lot of uncertainty about her career, and was an unexpected source of stress for both of us during the operation. In the end, she ended up getting promoted, and is now in a better work position than she's been in for years, so perhaps the mess was beneficial in the end. Also - when I first started the rite, I was frequently woken up in the middle of the night by voices, as well as some intense nightmares, which is not something I normally experience. But that seemed to calm down as time went on.
A Second Wind
The final, third phase was the one I was most worried about, given my mild extroversion and the instructions to "shun all but your wife and servants." Interestingly though, I felt invigorated when starting it, I think somewhat because of the addition of new activities (e.g. ritualizing the prayers more, adding an extra prayer session at noon, hunting down the tools and regalia etc). This was especially the case in the first month of phase 3, but then the burnout started hitting again.One thing that was fun was accumulating the tools (almond wand, silver plate, crown, etc). I even learned engraving so that I could add the appropriate godnames to the crown (YHVH, Adonai, Tzabaoth). So that's a fun new skill, since I don't feel I'm half bad at it. Perhaps I can step up my talisman game now!
Whence Cometh the Angel?
(Image courtesy Valeksuthian on DeviantArt)
This was actually my THIRD attempt to contact my Holy Guardian Angel (HGA). The first time was about 4 years ago. I did the Bornless/Headless rite (not the Crowley version, I tried something closer to what was in the original Greek Magical Papyri) for about a month, and I got the vision of an androgynous warrior angel who basically told me something along the lines of failing to live up to "his" expectations, and that I needed to live a more virtuous life. It freaked me out so much I quit occult work for 3 years (hence my fairly lengthy hiatus from blogging about it). I then started up with occult work again last year, going through the Trithemius angels - first using Rufus Opus's "Seven Spheres" method, followed by summoning them using methods closer to the original grimoire. Around Christmas of 2017, I again attempted to contact my HGA again, using the same "Headless" method. Around a month in, I got a scrying vision of an angel, this time one that looked kind of like an idealized version of myself, in ornate gold armor. It gave me a name, and said that my performance of the Headless Rite was making a "racket" on the astral, and that I should knock it off and work on getting better at magic. So I again quit prematurely.
It was around this time that I stumbled across a comment by Aaron Leitch that people who were getting their "HGA" prematurely should read the warning about the "Man of Majestic Appearance" found in the book of Abramelin. Essentially, it's an entity that seduces you into quitting prematurely, "offering wondrous things." Whether this is a projection of your ego, or some negative or trickster entity feeding off your ego, who knows. But I really started wondering if that's what I was dealing with, since my two attempts seemed to make contact, but then I'd immediately stop the work. I then started more carefully studying the medieval rite, as well as consulting with Michael about whether to make a "good faith effort" on it's performance, which he eventually encouraged me to do.
So I go into the rite, expecting a male warrior angel type to be my HGA. So imagine my surprise a few months in when I start getting visions in my mind and in my dreams of what she actually looked like. I didn't go out of my way to obtain communication, as I wanted to make sure I finished the work rather than getting seduced into quitting prematurely again and being right back where I started. But when I did hear her voice (or more specifically, feel her thoughts), it was always gentle encouragement to keep going. And in the end, she was who appeared to me on day 4 of the final week.
EDIT: Note that I am not implying that the False Angel is specifically tied to the Bornless/Headless rite (I've seen some Abramelin purists argue this). Rather, I suspect it's a potential pitfall no matter what method you are using to contact your HGA, particularly if you aren't sincere about it. I personally love the Headless Rite, and it will remain a major part of my practice in the future.
The Final Week (Convocation of the Good Spirits)
I don't really want to talk much about the final week. There were a lot of experiences that were personal, but I figured I'd talk about what it FELT like. Particularly the first few days. While I had been slowly withdrawing during the 6 month period, it was fairly jarring switching to the final ceremony, especially with my wife and the dogs gone so I could have the place to myself. As well as completely cutting off all contact with the outside world and focusing my time outside of the oratory either praying or reading scriptures, without speaking to anyone. Between that and the bread+water fast, I definitely was in some sort of altered state the whole time. There were times when I would try to read, and it was like reading while high or drunk. Even now, not even a week out, the whole thing just feels like a blur in my mind. Sorta like, "did all that really just happen?" But at the time the emotions, visions, experiences and everything were fairly intense, even if they were book-ended by long periods of extreme boredom and frustration.One of the interesting things is that on day 4, you are supposed to be told by the angel what you did wrong in the operation, as well as how to rectify it. I also got this information, and interestingly, some of the stuff I missed she explained weren't that important, but there were other things that she said I'd have to adjust for over a longer period of time. I'm not going to go into details on these things, that's between my angel and I, and I did this for me, not for sticklers on the internet.
The Final Week (Convocation of the Un-redeemed Spirits)
So everyone who's familiar with the rite knows that on the last three days, you pretty much summon up everything evil under the sun and bind them. Day 1 being Lucifer, Leviathan, Satan and Belial. Day 2 being Astaroth, Magoth, Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Oriens, Paymon, Ariton and Amaymon. Day 3 is then the same from Day 2, but you have them bring forth their servants and give the same oath that you made their masters give you. This is followed by the selection of four "servant spirits" or elemental familiars from Oriens, Paymon, Ariton and Amaymon.
I was a bit nervous about this part, as I haven't done much demonic evocation. The two exceptions were Lilith a few years back (who I had a bad experience with) and Bune recently (who I had a good experience with). Interestingly, they weren't as difficult to deal with as I feared. They tried to argue or make some sort of a deal, with the feistiest being Satan and Asmodeus, but one by one they relented. Two interesting observations were (1) that Lucifer appeared as an idealized angelic version of myself (perhaps explaining the "Man of Majestic Appearance" stuff), and (2) that Belial was surprisingly charming, which suggests he's one to watch out for in the future. In the end, everything was successful.
