Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (Golden Dawn)

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, usually abbreviated LBRP, is the best-known exercise of modern Western ceremonial magic. It was taught to new members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the 1890s as a way of clearing the mind and the space around the practitioner of distracting or unwanted influences, and it is framed at beginning and end by a short devotional gesture called the Qabalistic Cross. Practitioners today use it as a daily discipline of concentration and protection and as the opening of almost any other working.

How to do it§

The words below are the traditional Hebrew formulas of the Golden Dawn papers, which are in the public domain; the English glosses are given for understanding.

1. Prepare. Stand in the centre of your room facing east. Light incense if you wish, in a heat-proof holder. Breathe slowly for a minute until you feel settled and attentive.
2. The Qabalistic Cross. Imagine a sphere of brilliant white light above your head. Touch your forehead and vibrate (intone in a low, resonant voice) Ateh ("Thou art"). Draw the light down through the body to the feet, touch the breast and vibrate Malkuth ("the Kingdom"). Touch the right shoulder: ve-Geburah ("and the Power"). Touch the left shoulder: ve-Gedulah ("and the Glory"). Clasp the hands at the breast: le-Olahm, Amen ("for ever, Amen"). Picture a cross of light within you.
3. The eastern pentagram. With the arm outstretched, trace a large pentagram in the air before you, beginning at the lower left point and moving up to the top point (the "banishing pentagram of Earth"). Imagine it drawn in flaming or blue-white light. Stab its centre and vibrate the name YHVH (pronounced by many as "Yod He Vau He").
4. The southern pentagram. Keeping the arm extended, turn clockwise to the south, drawing a line of light as you go. Trace the same pentagram and vibrate Adonai ("Lord").
5. The western pentagram. Turn to the west, trace the pentagram and vibrate Eheieh ("I am", from Exodus 3:14).
6. The northern pentagram. Turn to the north, trace the pentagram and vibrate AGLA, a notarikon of the Hebrew for "Thou art mighty for ever, O Lord".
7. Close the circle. Return to the east, completing the ring of light that joins the four pentagrams.
8. The archangels. Stand with arms outstretched in the form of a cross and say: "Before me Raphael; behind me Gabriel; on my right hand Michael; on my left hand Uriel." Picture each as a tall presence at the quarter (Raphael in yellow and violet, Gabriel in blue and orange, Michael in red and green, Uriel in the colours of earth). Then say: "For about me flames the pentagram, and in the column stands the six-rayed star."
9. Close. Repeat the Qabalistic Cross. Sit quietly for a moment, note in a journal anything you observed, then extinguish the incense.

Origins and history§

The ritual first appears in the "Knowledge Lecture" given to Neophytes of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the London society founded in 1888 by William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and William Robert Woodman. Its composition is usually attributed to Mathers, though the order's early papers are unsigned and the attribution rests on later testimony. Members were told to use the banishing form to clear away distraction and the corresponding invoking form (tracing the pentagram from the top point down to the left) for the opposite purpose.

The rite draws on several older strands. The Qabalistic Cross turns the closing doxology of the Lord's Prayer ("For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever"), itself echoing 1 Chronicles 29:11, into Hebrew and maps it onto the body along the sefirot of the Tree of Life: Kether above, Malkuth at the feet, Geburah and Gedulah (Chesed) at the shoulders. The calling of four archangels at the four sides closely resembles the Jewish bedtime prayer (Kriat Shema al ha-mitah), which places Michael on the right, Gabriel on the left, Uriel before and Raphael behind, with the Shekhinah overhead; the Golden Dawn rearranged them to fit its elemental attributions. The pentagram as a sign of command over the elements had been made famous by Éliphas Lévi in the 1850s, and divine names such as AGLA were standard in Renaissance grimoires.

The ritual reached the public in stages. Aleister Crowley printed a version in Liber O in The Equinox (1909), and Israel Regardie published the full Golden Dawn papers between 1937 and 1940. Since then it has been reproduced in countless handbooks and adapted by Thelemites (who developed the "Star Ruby"), Wiccans and chaos magicians. Anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann's study of English magicians in the 1980s found it to be the exercise newcomers learned first.

Variations§

The Lesser Invoking Ritual reverses the direction of the pentagrams. Some teachers use the four elemental pentagrams of the Supreme Ritual instead of the single earth form. Christian Qabalists sometimes substitute "in the Name of the Father…" for the Hebrew formula, and some contemporary practitioners replace the archangels with other guardians of the quarters.

Safety and good sense§

The ritual needs no fire at all; if you use incense, keep it in a heat-proof dish, ventilate the room and never leave it burning unattended. Vibrating names should be resonant, not strained. Visualisation exercises can feel intense: if you are prone to anxiety, dissociation or intrusive imagery, keep sessions short and grounded, and stop if they make you feel worse. A banishing ritual is a practice of attention and devotion; it is not a substitute for medical, psychological, legal or financial help.

Sources and further reading§

• The Golden Dawn — Israel Regardie, 1937
• Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition — Chic Cicero & Sandra Tabatha Cicero, 1995
• The Magicians of the Golden Dawn — Ellic Howe, 1972
• Magick: Liber ABA, Book Four — Aleister Crowley, 1997
• Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England — T. M. Luhrmann, 1989
• Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual — Eliphas Lévi, 1856