Ceremonial Practice

Ceremonial magic is worked in a prepared place, with a small number of consecrated instruments, according to a fixed order. This page describes the place, the instruments and the order as they are taught in the Guild.

The Hall

The working place is called the Hall, whether it is the consecrated room of a Chapterhouse or a cleared corner of a bedroom. What makes it a Hall is not its size but three things: it has been cleaned and set in order; its four quarters have been marked; and for the length of the working nothing else is done there.

At the center stands the bench, which is the Guild's word for the altar: a table of about waist height on which the lamp and the instruments are set. Around it the circle is traced, wide enough to walk. At the four quarters stand the Gates, each given to one of the elements.

The East is given to Air, to dawn and to thought. The South is given to Fire, to noon and to the will. The West is given to Water, to dusk and to feeling. The North is given to Earth, to midnight and to the body. In the southern hemisphere, where the midday sun stands in the north, many members exchange the last two, and the Chapterhouses in Melbourne and Wellington work in that way.

The instruments

An Apprentice begins with a lamp, a notebook and a pen. The remaining instruments are made or adapted by the member's own hands during the grade of Artisan, and are consecrated one at a time.

To these are added a plain dark robe, or simply clean clothes kept for the purpose; a cord, worn at the waist within the Hall; a little water and salt; and incense proper to the work. Nothing else is required, and members are discouraged from acquiring more.

The anatomy of a rite

Every working taught in the Guild, from a six-minute banishing to a Convocation of sixty people, has the same seven parts.

1. Preparation

   The Hall is cleaned and set. The practitioner washes, puts on the robe, and notes in the Record the date, the hour, the sky and the purpose. Nothing is improvised that could have been prepared.

2. The Opening

   The lamp is lit. The place is cleared by banishing, the circle is traced, and the Four Gates are opened in turn. The Hall is now closed to everything that does not belong to the work.

3. The Statement

   The purpose of the working is spoken aloud, once, in a single sentence. If it cannot be put into one sentence, the practitioner is not ready.

4. The Calling

   The power proper to the work is invoked by its names, colors, numbers and hour: the element, the planet, or the particular intelligence addressed. This is the longest part, and the one in which attention must rise and must not waver.

5. The Working

   The thing itself is done. The talisman is consecrated, the question is put, the petition is made, the change is declared. It is usually brief.

6. The Closing

   Thanks are given. Whatever was called is given leave to depart. The Gates are closed in reverse order, the place is banished once more, and the lamp is put out last.

7. The Record

   Before anything else is done, before even the robe is taken off, the working is written up: what was done, what was noticed, what went wrong. The result is added later, with its date.

The Rite of the Four Gates

The first ceremony every Apprentice learns is the Guild's own rite of opening and closing, the Rite of the Four Gates. In its short form it takes about six minutes and is performed every day.

Standing at the center and facing East, the practitioner lights the lamp. Turning to each quarter in the direction of the sun, the practitioner traces the sign of its element, speaks its name, and asks its gift: clear thought of the East, right will of the South, true feeling of the West, a steady body of the North. Returning to the East, the practitioner affirms the center, the height and the depth. The closing reverses the order.

The purpose of the rite is simply to make a place. It tells the mind, the body, and whatever else may be listening that the work has begun, and afterward that it has ended. The full text is given to petitioners at the beginning of their probation.

Working together

In a Chapterhouse the parts of a rite are divided among officers. The Master of the House presides from the East. The Keeper of the Gate holds the West and the door. The Bearer of the Lamp tends the bench, and four members stand at the Gates.

Group work adds two things that a solitary worker cannot supply: more attention gathered on one point, and witnesses. After every Chapterhouse rite the members sit, and each says in turn, without discussion, what he or she observed. Only then are notes compared.

Common faults

• Too much furniture. A rite with forty objects on the bench is a rite about objects.
• Reading instead of knowing. Attention given to a page is attention taken from the work. Rites are committed to memory.
• A vague purpose. "To improve my life" cannot be worked. "To find, within three months, paid work that uses my training" can.
• No closing. A working left open is the commonest cause of the unease that beginners blame on the rite itself.
• No Record. What was not written down did not, for the purposes of the Guild, happen.