[Discussion] What would your "holy books" be if forced to do Abramelin operation at gunpoint?

[pixel_fortune]

(I just said the "forced at gunpoint" bit to head off people replying "I am already in contact with my HGA so I see no need to do the Abramelin operation" or "I get all my holy books from the akashic records" or w/e. I'm not asking for advice on what I should read, I'm interested in people's different conceptions of what books are at the heart of their spirituality)

So: in the standard Abramelin rite, you're meant to spend plenty of time reading holy books. Contemporary practitioners who may not have a clear religion have to decide honestly for themselves.

I was just watching a Qabbalist report on his Abramelin progress, and unsurprisingly, he's choosing the Torah, the Sefer Yetzirah, the Zohar, etc.

It got me curious about what people from different paths would choose.

I think it can't just be books you hold deeply close to your heart (certain Bob Dylan songs have strongly influenced my spirituality, but it would be disingenuous for me to put on a Dylan album and say it counts)

But it also can't be any old magic book that's next on your reading list. And I don't think it can be a completely academic/anthropoligical text; the writer has to be engaged or involved with the work for it to be a holy book. I reckon it COULD be a visual artwork, some painting that you could study if it had enough complexity and emotional resonance for you.


The Helios Unbound operation doesn't require you to study holy books, but I do have the Ursula LeGuin translation of the Tao Te Ching on my reading list. My list would also include a bunch of Bertrand Russell essays. A complete stranger gave me a book of his essays when I was 10 or 11, and his moral philosophy of "love guided by knowledge" had a big influence on me.

 

[Xenophon]

(I just said the "forced at gunpoint" bit to head off people replying "I am already in contact with my HGA so I see no need to do the Abramelin operation" or "I get all my holy books from the akashic records" or w/e. I'm not asking for advice on what I should read, I'm interested in people's different conceptions of what books are at the heart of their spirituality)

So: in the standard Abramelin rite, you're meant to spend plenty of time reading holy books. Contemporary practitioners who may not have a clear religion have to decide honestly for themselves.

I was just watching a Qabbalist report on his Abramelin progress, and unsurprisingly, he's choosing the Torah, the Sefer Yetzirah, the Zohar, etc.

It got me curious about what people from different paths would choose.

I think it can't just be books you hold deeply close to your heart (certain Bob Dylan songs have strongly influenced my spirituality, but it would be disingenuous for me to put on a Dylan album and say it counts)

But it also can't be any old magic book that's next on your reading list. And I don't think it can be a completely academic/anthropoligical text; the writer has to be engaged or involved with the work for it to be a holy book. I reckon it COULD be a visual artwork, some painting that you could study if it had enough complexity and emotional resonance for you.


The Helios Unbound operation doesn't require you to study holy books, but I do have the Ursula LeGuin translation of the Tao Te Ching on my reading list. My list would also include a bunch of Bertrand Russell essays. A complete stranger gave me a book of his essays when I was 10 or 11, and his moral philosophy of "love guided by knowledge" had a big influence on me.

My go-to book would be the one where I had previously cut out the pages to hold my own gun.

OK, OK. That's disingenuous. My holy book would be The Iliad.

 

[TheHummingbirdWizard]

This is an excellent question and similar to the situation that I faced when joining Freemasonry as I had to decide upon which sacred volume of law I was going to take my obligation on.

This was a conundrum for me because my spiritual tradition is an oral tradition. I do have a medicine book where I write about our traditions, my relationship with the entities they're in and those things which you're at or of the very heart of my practice. However, I did not feel that that was the right choice for the book in which I was going to take my obligation on in Masonry. The default is the King James Bible and I suppose that would have been fine but I was asked if it would be fine and well I reckoned that it would something was telling me to consider the question further. What I ultimately chose was a dual translation of the New Testament, in Cherokee and English both from the Greek.

This to me seemed the proper choice because it fit the needs of my Masonic journey while also reminding me of both sides of my heritage and in particularly that on both sides I came from a deeply religious people.

So I shall select that book as one for my Abramelin operation, which is to remind me of my roots and where many of my ancestors would go to seek guidance, from God.

I will also select my medicine book which has therein my personal system of attainment and relationship as a medicine person and which will be the cornerstone for my daily practices and pursuit of my angel.

Next I shall choose the Arbatel to represent the virtues which I must inculcate in the alignment to my angel.

Next I would select Rosicrucian Magic by Frater Acher because I think there's a lot of very on point material there that not only alliance with my own worldview and how I interact with spirits but will be in alignment with the HGA, and is also in alignment with the Arbatel.

This next one will be a difficult pick, but I should think that I should inculcate the moral lessons and disciplines that I have learned in Masonry in this journey. I've been meaning to read 365 level steps but I cannot select a book for this particular journey that I have not yet read. I suppose Morals and Dogma will do but it it's not quite what I am looking for here and I will have to give this one some further thought.

I hold very much to Stoic philosophy and in my eyes no journey of self-discipline and in Revelation of one's clearing call would be complete without Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

I have always been partial to the writings of St Hildegard. A Catholic writer may seem very out of sorts for me, however she was something special and many of her writings regarding verditas, strongly align with the sacred fire of my people and if that being inflamed with prayer which I shall have to have if I am to be successful in this endeavor.

Therefore we have:
I. Cherokee-English Bible
II. My Medicine Book.
IV. The Arbatel Vel Magi
V. Morals and Dogma
VI. Meditations
VII. The collected works of St. Hildegard

If more of the work of Heraclitus survived, we would have made the list.

I wonder if anyone will actually choose the magic of Abramelin von Worms.

 

[Vandheer]

21st Century Mage by Newcomb for the main operation for sure.

 

[pixel_fortune]

21st Century Mage by Newcomb for the main operation for sure.

Reading that book helped me contextualise so much other HGA-related stuff, for a while I wanted to reply to every other message with "okay seriously you need to read 21st Century Mage"

But it's not a holy book, it's an instruction manual - I meant, "if you had to choose a holy book to study [as you do for the traditional Abramelin] what would that be for you personally?" If you have a clearly defined religion, that's easy, but if you don't, it becomes an interesting question.

I don't want to definite it too narrowly, but something like "what book feels spiritually important to you and rewards deep study and makes you feel closer to whatever your definition of the divine or your higher self is" - it doesn't have to be "holy" in the normal sense, just the best equivalent for you (eg Xenophon choosing The Iliad)

 

[Vandheer]

But it's not a holy book, it's an instruction manual - I meant, "if you had to choose a holy book to study [as you do for the traditional Abramelin] what would that be for you personally?" If you have a clearly defined religion, that's easy, but if you don't, it becomes an interesting question.

Must have skipped the holy part when I just woke up .

Hermetica by Brian Copenhaver, Hermetica II by David Litwa.

I have seen you in Hermetic subreddit so you are familiar with Corpus Hermeticum at least if you haven't read, but Hermes reaches Gnosis thanks to Poimandres in the first chapter of CH.

So there is at the very least some resemblance even if the Hellenic-molded Hermetic concept of Nous won't match HGA per description. Means I get to study what I have already been studying anyways.

I may pick up Tao Te Ching and also Original Tao (don't know which translation suits me best), but they surely would come up after I am throughly done with the first two books.

 

[Xenophon]

This sounds like the pretext for a Dan Brown novel. A cabal of renegade Swiss Guards at the Vatican force mild-mannered genius professor (Tom Hanks) to perform the entire Abramelin operation while holding down the safety lever on the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. All this in order to...

 

[Alex_S]

I just used the Bible - but in both Hebrew and Latin. I figured that instead of just reading it, I could use the time to study those parts of the Bible most relevant to my studies as a Qabalist - going into the Gematria and proper pronunciation of the verses and everything. In my case this was the parts of the Book of Psalms which relate to the Shem Ha Mephoresh angels - so I was actually revising my knowledge of those Angels as well as doing the Abramelin operation.

 

[pixel_fortune]

I just used the Bible - but in both Hebrew and Latin. I figured that instead of just reading it, I could use the time to study those parts of the Bible most relevant to my studies as a Qabalist - going into the Gematria and proper pronunciation of the verses and everything. In my case this was the parts of the Book of Psalms which relate to the Shem Ha Mephoresh angels - so I was actually revising my knowledge of those Angels as well as doing the Abramelin operation.

Thank you! I actually bought your book a couple of days before this post (via Amazon Australia)

I'm not super far into it, but one thing it's really made a difference to is the level of detail in my magical record (in terms of introspection and exploring ideas rather than just noting details of the ritual). It also got me thinking more about confession and the nature of sin (as someone who had a secular upbringing). I'd been focusing on my big regrets, the times I really hurt someone, but not the kind of low-grade ways I don't act in accordance with my values (including, not to put too fine a point on it, book piracy. Whatever arguments people make in its defence, the fact is, when I saw your post, I was like "thank God I paid for his book, I would have felt terrible otherwise" so it's clearly not in accordance with my values. Good for me to have that starkly demonstrated to me).

I have a question if you have time for it - given you did Headless/Bornless Rite rather than trad Abramelin prayer, how "devotional" in tenor was it for you? In terms of sort of throwing yourself at the feet of God, or emotional intensity.

I'm asking because although Helios Unbound is religious, and invokes god (the PGM syncretic Helios/Ra/Aion), there's no sense of emotionality to it, and I'm beginning to suspect that's a flaw, and I need to be making an effort to build the devotional mood, rather than just the "ritual" mood

 

[Xenophon]

Maybe we should turn this thread around. "What Devotional Work Would You Only Use at Gunpoint While Performing the Abramelin Ritual"
Me? Probably, "Mutuant Messenger Down Under." Or anything from Matthew Fox beginning, "Meditations With _______"

 

[Flavius]

My book would be quite thick, the Mahabharata. That, or the Iliad.