Toward Ecosophy

The first dimension of lunar timing follows the waxing and waning phases. If you're new to this, "waxing" means growing and "waning" means shrinking; the Moon is waxing from the new moon to the full moon, when night after night it turns from a thin crescent to a full circle, and waning from the full moon to the new moon, when night after night it turns from a full circle into a thin crescent. The rule here is simple. If your working is intended to make something grow and flourish, you do it during the waxing moon, and if your working is intended to make something fade away and vanish, you do it during the waning moon. All else being equal, the best time to do a working to make something grow and flourish is during the first three days after the new moon, and the best time to do a working to make something fade away and vanish is during the first three days after the full moon. The last three days before the new moon, the period called the Eld of the Moon, are suitable only for curses and other noxious spells; the same is true of the day of an eclipse. Since all my readers are smart enough to avoid doing something that stupid, we'll leave the matter at that. 

II. Advanced Lunar Timing

If you want to kick it up the next step, pay attention to where the Moon is in the signs of the zodiac, and choose a day when the Moon is in a sign that corresponds to the element or planet best suited to your working. Let's say you're doing some protective magic -- making and consecrating an amulet of protection, for example, using herbs such as St. John's wort, which correspond to the Sun. Protective magic is a waxing-moon thing -- you want your strength and health and luck to grow and flourish -- so you do it during the waxing moon, and on a day when the Moon is in Aries (where the Sun is exalted) or in Leo (when the Sun is in his rulership). 

What if the Moon is waning when it's in Aries and Leo? You get to wait a few months until one of those signs is in the waxing half of the lunar cycle. That's the thing about magical timing: the more powerful it is, the more picky you have to be in choosing a time to do it. This means you have to wait for the right time. 

III. The Planetary Hours

A different approach uses the planetary hours and days. Every day of the week is assigned to one of the seven traditional planets. (A few thousand years from now, when we as a species have finished integrating the influences of Uranus and Neptune into our collective consciousness, we'll probably have nine-day weeks and a ninefold pattern of planetary hours, but until that happens, we'll still be using a seven-day week and seven planet in magic.) Each day is divided into twelve hours, and each night likewise; each hour is assigned to one of the planets. 

This is where it gets complex, because the hours are equal to an ordinary 60-minute hour on two and only two days of the year, the days of the spring and autumn equinoxes. The magical day extends from sunrise to sunset, and however long that interval is, it's divided into twelve equal planetary hours. The magical night, likewise, extends from sunset to sunrise, and however long that interval is, it's divided into twelve equal hours. Today at the latitude of Rhode Island, for example, a daytime planetary hour is 75 minutes long and a nighttime planetary hour is 45 minutes long. You used to be able to get books with tables of planetary hours -- I have one, Llewellyn's Improved Perpetual Planetary Hour Book -- though most people these days use computer programs and apps instead. 

The rule here is very simple. Figure out what planet governs your working, and do it in the day and hour of that planet. The results will be good. If you pay attention to the waxing and waning of the Moon as well, this will improve your results. 

IV. Astrological Timing

This approach is much more advanced, much more powerful, and much more difficult, and you have to have a good working knowledge of traditional astrology to use it. Modern astrology definitely will not cut it! Your common or garden variety modern astrologer has forgotten that some astrological factors are unlucky and unfortunate, and that your intentions don't actually amount to much in the vast wheeling fires and circling suns of the universe. 

To choose a good time for a working using astrological timing, you need to start by determining what planet rules that working. Then you need to find a time when that planet is well dignified -- that is, in its rulership or exaltation if possible, and if not, at least in its triplicity, face, or term; when the planet receives no negative aspects from any planet, and is not applying to a conjunction with the Sun or the malefics; when, if possible, the planet receives favorable aspects from at least one planet, or a conjunction with the Moon or one of the benefics; and when it is conjunct the ascendant or applying to the midheaven. 

If you don't know what these terms mean, you don't know enough astrology yet to use this approach to timing, so don't worry about it. If you do know what all these terms mean, and you know how to calculate when the relevant factors apply, you're good to go. This is far and away the most powerful approach to magical timing -- potent enough, in fact, that all you have to do is make the talisman and then bless it during the right astrological time, and it's fully consecrated by the energies streaming down from heaven. That's how the Picatrix teaches you to make talismans, for example. 

V. Other Modes of Timing

Are there other approaches to magical timing?  Of course. The cosmos of the practicing mage is full of complicated cycles of power, rising and falling according to intricate rhythms, and there are various ways of seeing to it that you do your working at a time when those cycles will help you rather than hinder you.  If you're working in a specific tradition of magical practice, follow its directions for timing -- they're not there for decorative purposes! Otherwise, use one of the approaches given here and you'll be fine. 
 

Later, in the 1970s, Ashley’s student John Gilbert developed the SoP further as part of his preparation for ordination at Universal Seminary, the distance-learning school operated by the Universal Gnostic Church for its clergy. His version became standard in the orders just named. John was my teacher and initiator in these traditions, and it was from him I learned the ritual. It’s a very solid protective ritual, a little subtler in its effects than the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram but equally effective in practice, and deserves more attention than it’s received. With any luck, this post will help take care of that.

Learning the Sphere of Protection

One of the distinctive features of the SoP is that you don’t start doing it all at once. You begin with the opening and closing sections, and add in the elemental invocations in the middle one at a time. The process of learning the SoP thus functions as a basic initiation into the work of the seven elements. Seven elements? Yep—in the SoP you work with Air, Water, Fire, Earth, Spirit Above, Spirit Below, and Spirit Within. We’ll get to those one at a time as we proceed.

The opening and closing sections have evolved substantially over the years. The version included in my book The Druid Magic Handbook and the forthcoming The Dolmen Arch is essentially the one I learned from John Gilbert; it’s effective, but the opening section shows, a little too clearly for my taste, its descent from the Christian Sign of the Cross (which was used as the opening section in Juliet Ashley’s time); the closing section also has proven to be very difficult for some students to learn. The versions presented here have been tested over several years, and work well. If you want to try the older version instead, why, you know where to find it.

About Divine Names

One of the peculiarities of the Sphere of Protection is that it doesn’t specify which divine names, if any, are to be vibrated in doing the ritual. (We’ll get to vibration later on; you don’t do it in the opening or closing.) That’s a reflection of a core theme in the work of all the orders that use the SoP, which is that the name or names by which you know the divine are your own business. When I was ordained a priest of the Universal Gnosis, John Gilbert asked me in the name of what deity I was prepared to take the ordination, and the name I gave was the one he used. That was not merely standard but required.

For the SoP, you’re going to need to fill certain slots. For the Opening, you need three deities—the standard approach for polytheists is to call on a father god or sky god, a mother goddess or earth goddess, and a deity with whom you have a specific connection. Not a polytheist? Not a problem; Christians using this rite call on the three persons of the Trinity, while animists and others who prefer to work with impersonal forms of divinity can apply those as needed (an example is included below). For the Closing, you don’t need any divine names at all. For the elemental invocations—well, we’ll get to that as we reach those.

The Opening

1. Stand in the center of the space where you will be working, facing whichever direction is sacred in the tradition in which you’re working. (For example, in the Universal Gnostic Church and the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn, this was east, while in AODA it’s south, where the sun stands at midday.) Take a few moments and a few breaths to focus your attention and let your body and energy become stable. Then sweep your arms up to your sides until your hands meet above your head. Draw your joined hands down to your forehead, and touch with them the point between your eyebrows, at the location of your third eye center; as you do this, imagine a beam of pure white light descending from infinite space to a point in the center of your head, forming a small sphere of light there. Say the name of the sky god or father god.

2. Now draw your joined hands down the front of your body to touch a point on your belly just below your navel, at the location of the womb center. As you do this, imagine the same beam of pure white light descending through your body to the heart of the Earth. Say the name of the earth goddess or mother goddess.

3. Now raise your elbows and draw your hands back up, separating them in a sweeping, blossoming motion. End with your arms out to your sides, palms up. As you do this, imagine the light rising up again from the heart of the Earth, filling your body. Say the name of the third deity you’ve chosen.

4. Now cross your arms, right over left, the fingertips of each hand resting against the opposite shoulder. As you do this, imagine the light shining out through your body and filling the space around you, cleansing and blessing all things. Say something appropriate to finish. That concludes the Opening.

Here are some sample words that can be used with the Opening:

(1) “Hu the Mighty, great Druid god;” (2) “Ced the Earth-mother, source of all life;” (3) “Hesus of the Oaks, chief of tree-spirits;” (4) “May all the holy powers bless and protect me now and always.”

(1) “Osiris!” (2) “Isis!” (3) “Horus!” (4) “Powers of the Ennead, mighty in magic!”

(1) “In the name of the Father,” (2) “and of the Son,” (3) “and of the Holy Spirit,” (4) “Amen.”

(1) “By the sky above me,” (2) “by the earth beneath me,” (3) “by the life force within me,” (4) “may I be blessed and renewed now and always.”

Or come up with your own. Back in the day, it was rare to find any two initiates who did the SoP with the same words.

The Closing

The earlier version of the closing, the actual establishment of the Sphere of Protection, involved some fairly complicated visualizations. Those work, but a lot of people have had trouble with them. The following visualization will be found less challenging. Fair warning, though: it needs regular practice to become really effective.

At the conclusion of the Opening—or, later on, at the conclusion of the elemental invocations—turn your attention to your solar plexus, the area just below where the two sides of your ribcage part company. Imagine the equivalent point in the middle of your body, where the beam of pure white light passes through you. Imagine the beam of light forming a small sphere of light there. Feel this as the meeting place of the current of light descending from the sky and the current rising back up from the heart of the Earth.

Now imagine the sphere of light expanding, fed by the two currents flowing into it. It grows until it surrounds your entire body, and as much further as you need to make it to encompass the area you wish to place within its protection. Concentrate, as it expands, on the sense that the space inside it is lighter, cleaner, and brighter than the space outside it. (The more effort you put into this sense, the more effective the ritual will become.)

Pause, once you have expanded the sphere to the size you need it, and feel the space around you as cleansed, lightened, and illuminated. Then cross your arms as you did at the end of the Opening, and say something appropriate, e.g., “May the holy powers bless and protect me now and always,” or a suitable prayer—for example, the Lord’s Prayer if you are a Christian. That concludes the closing, and the Sphere of Protection.