Traveling on Lethe
Hello together, today I will present you one of the ceremonies out of my little collection with a more or less classic touch of ritual work. I gave this operation the name “Journey along Lethe”, have fun with reading, studying, discussing and eventually trying it.
The ceremony serves the purpose to make yourself free from your thoughts and memories, at least for a while and to face the oblivion and see a part of the hades, the greek underworld, you can also describe it as a kind of gnostic experience. You should only dare to travel here if you already experienced very deep and very long trance because Lethe will take you very deep down. Lethe is the river of oblivion and one of the streams which cross the realm of Hades/Pluton, god of the dead souls and king of the underworld so I would recommend that you are good prepared and work when it is dark.
Material:
- A big glass bowl of filled to approximately two third with water
- Black or dark blue food colouring
- 3 tea lights
- 3 tea light swimmer
- 3 same sized wood sticks
- Glue
- Dark and comfortable clothes (or naked if you like)
- Ritual dagger
- 1 Onion
- Sacred coal
Execution
Before you start with the game, you should create some free space in your temple. You also should take a carpet or pillow with you were you can sit on because you might sit around for a few hours and a hurting butt is not the goal of this operation.
If you have prepared your room, get your material which is described above and start with the preparations of your temporary altar:
Your filled water bowl will stand in front of you. Take your food colouring and colour the water until it has a pretty dark and dense colour. The candle swimmer are now connected by the 3 wooden sticks and glue so that you get an equilateral triangle where you can see through without any problem from around 3 foot distance. Now take your sacred coal and draw a circle around the bowl and another one around your own position including the bowl circle in front of you. Lay it down next to you were you can reach it afterwards. Next to you there should also lay your dagger and the onion, everything should be in your reach. When everything is fine the fun can begin.
- Light the swimming candles in the bowl and shut down all other light sources.
- Take the dagger and perform a kabbalistic cross.
- Perform a great banning pentagram ritual but call out the names of the 4 remaining rivers of hades instead of the 4 archangels.
- Let the silence take its effect on you, meditate about Lethe, the dark river of oblivion which takes away all memories, visualize how it flows through the underworld, a dark stream of forgotten memories.
- Take your dagger and scratch some of the coal into the water bowl. When doing that say some fitting words like “I am sacrificing essence of the body to the dark river of oblivion! “ You will find the right words or you can also prepare some.
- If that is done you can put the coal back and pause for a moment, then continue.
- Take your dagger and start cutting the onion until you start tearing. Let some of the tears fall into the water bowl. When doing that say some fitting words like “I am sacrificing essence of the soul to the dark river of oblivion! “ You will find the right words or you can also prepare some.
- If that is done you can put the onion back and pause for a moment, then continue.
- Take your dagger for the last time and take some of your own blood but do not kill yourself. Let a few drops fall into the bowl. When doing that say some fitting words like “I am sacrificing essence of live to the dark river of oblivion! “ You will find the right words or you can also prepare some.
- Put the dagger back and let everything sink in for a moment.
- Now lean back and look into the triangle of candles in the water before you. Let all your thoughts go, let silence settle and start the real work. Gaze through the triangle, see the dark waters becoming the floats of Lethe, transforming into the dark waters of oblivion. You are standing at the bank of Lethe on the planes of hades. Look around, maybe a boat is waiting for you, maybe with a ferryman. If the shore is empty, go a little bit into the water and call for the ferryman of the hades. When he comes your journey will begin. Before entering the boat consider that this is your last moment where you can return. Now go downstream on Lethe. Look how the stream is going downstream and how a cave is opening in front of you and how Lethe drives your little boat into it. Do not hesitate but hold on tight because it will be a rough ride into the deep of your oblivion, a system of caves and caverns smoothed through your whole lifetime. Have a good time on cruise on Lethe.
At this moment your pure individual part of this journey will begin because nobody can say in which parts of the cave system Lethe will take you in this endless labyrinth.
- When you endured your ride, go back with your boat to the shore. Turn around and show your respect to Lethe for a last time. If you dare it, you can also take a gulp of Lethes water as a little gift.
- Return now to your temple. Stretch yourself if some of your body parts turned numb. Kehre nun zurück in deinen Raum. When you are fully returned, blow out the first candle.
- Perform the cabbalistic cross.
- Blow out the second candle.
- Now perform a little banning pentagram ritual but do not perform your ending sign to disband. First bow down a last time, blow out the last candle and then disband, break the circle around the water bowl and finish the whole process.
- A banning laughter as the final act.
That was your journey through the underworld, take down your altar and restore the room and enjoy the feeling after the ride.
Ramscha
Traveling on Lethe
Re: Traveling on Lethe
I have a long-standing interest in Ceremonial Magic but I have not really proceeded. I am not a Christian and I don't think it would be effective for me to call upon Archangels and especially various Hebrew names of a deity I regard as rather dark.
But that touches on a whole set of issues ...
When I do the LBRP I have substituted names for Lord Shiva associated with the directions and ruling Devas for the Elements for Archangels. This works well and in 'magical theory' I could easily swap-out Yahweh for Lord Shiva in rituals. I suppose I'm just too lazy to sit down and rework them!
I've included a poem about one of my own Underworld Journeys but this was done a Shamanic technique. As a note, when I write this I always leave out details and I add some so that the structure of the event is recorded but something is held back. These changes are slight and only in details. I suppose it is a bit like that Navaho belief one should not tell just anyone one's dreams.
AN INNER EARTH JOURNEY
TOTEM: Fox
DATE: December 4, 2011
Descending down thick vines into a tunnel
My mind ran quickly on through winding circles
Of a long and iron-banded labyrinth
Which was a capillary in the earth.
Great gnarled tree roots twisted on the wall
Of the path. Then at the point where all
Was curling wooden patterns, unexpectedly,
It opened to a mammoth cavern glowing dimly.
The rock formations sparkled and stalactites
Flowed down in marble clouds of milky white.
I felt a strong vibration all around
Me as the air was tingling with the sound;
A constant hum with ringing and a bass
Tone wrapped around it echoed through that place.
I grabbed that sound as if it were a thread
To follow on the trail which I must tread.
I went for miles in subterranean twilight
Then stopped to stand before a majestic sight.
Titanic gateways made of gems in circles
Were shinning there before me. Seven portals,
Each a solid color of the rainbow,
Were draped with gems like icicles that flowed
All around their insides like baroque
And elegant daggers of a deadly work.
Beyond those gates great statues lined the walls
And up above were stories carved in all
Stalactites; myths that man forgot
When words were new and letters still were naught.
Inside the gateway were two sleeping monsters
With their long snouts near touching each the other
Upon the ground of which they seemed a part
(Such sights could freeze the stoutest human heart).
Like liquid granite there two sleeping dragons
Of earth breathed soft as I passed slowly on
Beyond them. Yet, beneath closed eyelids sapphire
Was focused on me with volcanic fire.
They did not stir, but all across their scales
The colors were awakened in detail
With stripes of heliodor and tourmaline
And alexandrite in long chaotic lines.
Dense diamond antlers bent from horsehair manes
Rich as the crops fed by the summer rains.
My mind flew on above the gemstone lanes.
Still deeper as this cavern realm grew wider
I saw the cliffs in layers rise up higher
And in the distance I could see a city
Was carved in stone much like the Anasazi.
Much closer were gargantuan pillars rising
Up out of sight and up around them carvings
Supported lanes on which white chamomile
Monks moved upwards in their slow single files.
Their voices blended with the hum which here
Swirled in the air invisible and clear.
A giant cluster of clear amethyst crystal
Was radiating phosphorescent purple;
The gems in branches burned with energy
And reminiscent of a Christmas tree
That blossomed to a rounded pyramid
With violet spheres above the narrow head.
I saw set in the crystal was a door,
Perhaps two feet, behind a polished mirror.
Was this the center of the mystery?
A core to places man should never see?
The cluster was the heartbeat of the hum
I followed. As I stood vibrations from
It seemed to turn me into liquid with
Waves rolling through me from the singing breath.
I stood there till the scene broke-up in darkness
And I returned to waking consciousness.
But that touches on a whole set of issues ...
When I do the LBRP I have substituted names for Lord Shiva associated with the directions and ruling Devas for the Elements for Archangels. This works well and in 'magical theory' I could easily swap-out Yahweh for Lord Shiva in rituals. I suppose I'm just too lazy to sit down and rework them!
I've included a poem about one of my own Underworld Journeys but this was done a Shamanic technique. As a note, when I write this I always leave out details and I add some so that the structure of the event is recorded but something is held back. These changes are slight and only in details. I suppose it is a bit like that Navaho belief one should not tell just anyone one's dreams.
AN INNER EARTH JOURNEY
TOTEM: Fox
DATE: December 4, 2011
Descending down thick vines into a tunnel
My mind ran quickly on through winding circles
Of a long and iron-banded labyrinth
Which was a capillary in the earth.
Great gnarled tree roots twisted on the wall
Of the path. Then at the point where all
Was curling wooden patterns, unexpectedly,
It opened to a mammoth cavern glowing dimly.
The rock formations sparkled and stalactites
Flowed down in marble clouds of milky white.
I felt a strong vibration all around
Me as the air was tingling with the sound;
A constant hum with ringing and a bass
Tone wrapped around it echoed through that place.
I grabbed that sound as if it were a thread
To follow on the trail which I must tread.
I went for miles in subterranean twilight
Then stopped to stand before a majestic sight.
Titanic gateways made of gems in circles
Were shinning there before me. Seven portals,
Each a solid color of the rainbow,
Were draped with gems like icicles that flowed
All around their insides like baroque
And elegant daggers of a deadly work.
Beyond those gates great statues lined the walls
And up above were stories carved in all
Stalactites; myths that man forgot
When words were new and letters still were naught.
Inside the gateway were two sleeping monsters
With their long snouts near touching each the other
Upon the ground of which they seemed a part
(Such sights could freeze the stoutest human heart).
Like liquid granite there two sleeping dragons
Of earth breathed soft as I passed slowly on
Beyond them. Yet, beneath closed eyelids sapphire
Was focused on me with volcanic fire.
They did not stir, but all across their scales
The colors were awakened in detail
With stripes of heliodor and tourmaline
And alexandrite in long chaotic lines.
Dense diamond antlers bent from horsehair manes
Rich as the crops fed by the summer rains.
My mind flew on above the gemstone lanes.
Still deeper as this cavern realm grew wider
I saw the cliffs in layers rise up higher
And in the distance I could see a city
Was carved in stone much like the Anasazi.
Much closer were gargantuan pillars rising
Up out of sight and up around them carvings
Supported lanes on which white chamomile
Monks moved upwards in their slow single files.
Their voices blended with the hum which here
Swirled in the air invisible and clear.
A giant cluster of clear amethyst crystal
Was radiating phosphorescent purple;
The gems in branches burned with energy
And reminiscent of a Christmas tree
That blossomed to a rounded pyramid
With violet spheres above the narrow head.
I saw set in the crystal was a door,
Perhaps two feet, behind a polished mirror.
Was this the center of the mystery?
A core to places man should never see?
The cluster was the heartbeat of the hum
I followed. As I stood vibrations from
It seemed to turn me into liquid with
Waves rolling through me from the singing breath.
I stood there till the scene broke-up in darkness
And I returned to waking consciousness.