A Heathen Middle Pillar Exercise

[ecosophia]

 As promised, here's a version of the Middle Pillar exercise reworked for Heathen practice. Our working title for this is the Central Axis exercise, as it works with the central axis or Pillar of Mist in the Heathen Tree of Life, midway between the Pillar of Fire and the Pillar of Frost. Here's how it goes: 

1. Perform the complete Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, beginning and ending with the Hammer-Sign.

2. Imagine a ray of light descending from infinite space to form a sphere of light just above your head, around eight inches in diameter. This sphere is white and contains the rune Ansuz in gold. When you have formulated it clearly in your imagination, vibrate ODIN three times. (The practice of vibration is explained in the discussion of the Heathen Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram linked above.)

3. Bring the ray of light to your throat, and form another sphere. This one is violet and contains the rune Perthro in silver. When you have formulated it, vibrate FREYA three times.

4. Bring the ray of light to your heart, and form another sphere. This one is golden and contains the rune Sowulo in black.  BALDR is vibrated here three times.

5. Bring the ray of light to your genital center, and form a fourth sphere.  This one is blue and contans the rune Mannar in red. If you're male, vibrate HEIMDALL here three times. If you're female, the name to vibrate three times is SKADI.* 

6. Bring the ray of light to your feet, and form a fifth center. This one is black and contains the rune Bierkan in green.  The name vibrated here, three times, is IDUN.

7. Return the attention to the center at the top of the head. Bring a current of white light a few inches wide down the left side of the head and neck,  the left shoulder and arm, and the left hip and leg, down to the center at the feet, and then back up the right leg and hip, the right arm and shoulder, and the right side of the neck and head, back to the center at the head.  Repeat this a total of three times; if possible, synchronize with the breath, so that the energy flows down with the outbreath and up with the inbreath, but it is more important to visualize the whole course than to make it happen within a single breath.

8. In the same way, bring a current of white light from the center above the head, down the midline of the front of the body to the center at the feet, and then back up the midline of the back of the body to the center above the head. Repeat a total of three times.

9. Breathing out, send a ray of white light down the midline of your body from the sphere above your head to the one beneath your feet. (This is done just once.) Then breathe in, and draw a current of energy up the Middle Pillar of the body from that center to the center above the head; breathing out, allow it to spray like a fountain out and over the whole body, cleansing the entire aura, pooling at the feet and being drawn back up the Middle Pillar with the next inbreath. Do these latter two steps—the rising current on an inbreath and the fountain on an outbreath—a total of three times.

Tenth, perform the Hammer-Sign (as described in the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram). This completes the exercise. 

This is the fundamental practice of Golden Dawn magic and should be done daily if at all possible. It establishes and energizes five centers in the subtle body, cleanses the aura, and opens the way to further magical practices. 

*Students of mine have found repeatedly that it's important, if you're working a Middle Pillar-type exercise and invoking Pagan gods and goddesses, it's important that the name you vibrate at your genital center should be of a deity of your own physical gender, to avoid odd and unpleasant energy effects. If you happen to be intersexed or transgender, you may need to experiment to figure out which name to use.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you. Two questions. It is very difficult for me to visualize in color. Is intent for the color sufficient, or do I need to truly visualize the color for this to work? If the visualization is necessary, can you suggest any exercises to improve this? I've noticed that visualizing in color is slowly improving with daily practice of the HLBRP.

DJSpo

[ecosophia]

The intent is fine. One basic rule of magic is that there's not some arbitrary level of proficiency you have to already have in order for it to work; whatever you can do, if you do it, will have an effect, and with practice the effect (and concomitants such as the ability to visualize color) will increase steadily.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you. That's a big help.

DJSpo

[ashareem]

Something that may help you (or not): colors are determined by the vibration/wavelength. Same with musical notes. Possibly check out some of the frequency tables for both and see how they align.

Gonna get this one

[(Anonymous)]

My sister is showing a lively interest in this. If you don’t mind, I’d like to print for her what you’ve published here of these rituals thus far and show her how to perform them, with my own practice for a model (Hellenic GD based on your Celtic Golden Dawn rituals). She’s neurologically disabled, so she’ll need some help getting started. I’ll make diagrams for her of the spheres, with runes in color. She’s already eager to get the book when it comes out.

BTW, I don’t recall there being in The Celtic Golden Dawn an equivalent to the visualization of the light being drawn downward from crown to feet before its final triple circulation from feet to crown. Perhaps I should incorporate this into my Hellenic Golden Dawn practice...? It seems to make more sense that the voyage of the light has continuity.

Kevin

Re: Gonna get this one

[ecosophia]

Of course you can. I put these things out on the internet for free precisely so that people can take them and use them, and if your sister will be better off working from a printed copy with illustrations, then by all means make those.

Depending on the nature of her neurological disability, the regular practice of this kind of magical work may well do her a lot of good. Magic has been of immense help for me in dealing with my own messed-up neurology (Aspergers syndrome, mild ADD, physical dyspraxia, and so on).

The descending beam of light at the beginning of the third circulation is something I learned a little while back from another longtime practitioner, and it has certain definite benefits. By all means include it in your practice, and see how it goes.

Re: Gonna get this one

[(Anonymous)]

Funny-- I started visualizing the descending beam very early on in the Bardic grade. When I saw it here I thought it must have been in the CGD book all along and I'd just forgotten.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you again!

PS. Why is Odin Wod in the LBRP and Odin in the middle pillar?

[(Anonymous)]

Odin is not "Wod" in the HLRP. The word Wod translates to fury and divine inspiration, which is what is called down from above, and does not refer to any particular being. That said, Wod is the word at the root of the name of Odin, wich means literally "master of fury".

Sven

Pronunciation

[(Anonymous)]

Do you give it the German pronunciation VOT?

Re: Pronunciation

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, precisely.

Sven

Thank You!

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you, JMG and Sven!

I am so looking forward to learning and practicing this.

OtterGirl

[(Anonymous)]

What sort of odd and unpleasant effects happen if you vibrate a deity of the other gender?

[ecosophia]

Most people seem to get a sense of blockage and clogged energy -- not surprisingly, as the genital center is the primary etheric center, and governs the intake and outflow of etheric energy from the body; using a deity name of the other gender in this context is thus a little like putting in a battery the wrong way around. If it's done for a long time, it would likely cause impotence or frigidity.

[(Anonymous)]

The Druid Magic Handbook describes the solar plexus as the place of energy intake and outflow, and here you say that happens primarily at the genital centre.

Are these system specific, then? Would it be accurate to say that the centre which takes in and gives out etheric energy is whichever one you repeatedly visualise doing so?

If so, what different effect does using the genital centre vs the solar plexus create?

[ecosophia]

Okay, there are two misunderstandings here. First, I said that the genital center governs the intake and outflow of etheric energy, not that the intake and outflow happens primarily through there! (The trigger controls the outflow of lead through a gun, but the bullet doesn't leave the gun through the trigger...) The intake and outflow of etheric energy happens over the entire surface of the body, though it concentrates in some places more than others.

Second, it's not safe to assume that "energy" means "etheric energy." The solar plexus center is used in The Druid Magic Handbook to draw in and send out a range of energies, not all of them etheric.

Hammer Martial Arts

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings ADJMG!

I volunteer to create 10 basic (Ball Peen) Hammer martial arts techniques, for your project. We could put them on a you tube channel, or something.

Let's make Charles Martel great again!

DaShui

Re: Hammer Martial Arts

[ecosophia]

By all means. There's actually a nice medieval handbook on the use of the two-handed war hammer, in case you want to factor in some historical Western martial arts techniques... ;-)

Rune images

[(Anonymous)]

What’s a good source for the runes? There are some names that don’t turn up on search engines.

Thank you

Re: Rune images

[(Anonymous)]

This reminds me of the movie "Stargate", when the linguist played by James Spader initially couldn't understand the speech of those who's ancestors had seeded the Egyptian culture of Earth. Once he saw their (forbidden) written language, he immediately understood the drift in pronunciation that had occurred over the centuries.

A similar dynamic is going on here. Modern interpretation of the runes have settled on a fairly narrow range of pronunciation and spelling, whereas Sven (who is clearly a loremaster in this area) has offered us something that's probably closer to the source.

Apparently Google doesn't know what to do with that, but if you search "elder futhark" you won't have much trouble picking out the runes in question.

-Ynnothir Coll

Re: Rune images

[(Anonymous)]

Also of interest to me, and I'd like to ask those knowing specifically about Edred Thorsson's work, where to start with it if good, and opinions on Nine Doors of Midgard (also Original Magic, if any).

- S. T. Silva.