describes the original Headless One from Hellenistic Egypt under the Romans very accurately. It features the Greek original, a transliteration of the original as well as an English translation. However, I personally like to use Crowley's archaisms ("Thee", "didst") as given in the Liber Samekh or in the version of Jason Miller's "Real Sorcery" because it was this book which inspired me to include the rite in my daily practice in the first place, since originally I thought it was too advanced for me. Miller recommends it for beginners, and I think he's right, it teaches you how to negotiate with denizens of the Otherworld in general, that’s probably his rationale. Both the Betz PGM translation and the Digital Ambler one have modern English while Crowley's rendition probably follows the first translation made by a mid-19th century philologist (who was appalled that his beloved noble Hellenes should babble incomprehensible gibberish, so he completely left out all the barbarous names
).
The original Headless Rite is an exorcism but was used as the "Preliminary Invocation of the Goetia" by Aleister Crowley and Samuel L. MacGregor Mathers in their Lemegeton translation for the same reason: you first evoke a creator god but in the second part you
become that god in order to have the authority and power to deal with any evil spirits or negotiate with demons; what some would call an 'assumption of a godform'. Crudely put, it pumps you up and makes you ready for anything. There a various theories as to who exactly that headless god is but my favourite one is that many (not all) Egyptian gods have animal heads so you kindasorta replace one of these animal heads with your own one (after all, in the assumption part, you say “I am the one whose mouth is utterly aflame”, so it must be your own head, right?), and just to make things easier that god hasn't got a head to start with.
Even in this ritual you can’t escape Jahwe in the form of “Sabbaoth”, it’s got “Isaak” as a word of power, too, there’s also the Gnostic Abrasax, and in general the PGM borrow from Greek, Egyptian, Jewish and other sources. A very chaos magic approach, in a way – whatever works, works.
I admit I still have my problems with that YHVH, I’m completely unable to drum up the requisite awe and reverence (it’s probably my own chaos magic background) when I’m performing the LBRP, so I take the Gnostic bypass, so to speak, and imagine the “YHVH”, the “Adonai”, etc. to be the Gnostic demiurge - not stupid, clumsy or evil as some Gnostic sects believed but rather as corresponding to our own blinkered, limited understanding of God and
absolutely not The Ineffable Source, Ain Soph or whatever. Which dovetails nicely with the Headless Rite where you say: “I am Moses, Thy prophet, to whom Thou hast transmitted Thy mysteries celebrated by Israel.” Transmissions are not always perfect, there may have been misunderstandings and mistakes, or maybe Moses was not such a bright guy after all… and later the Chinese whispers would continue until somebody finally put stencil to papyrus. Probably no one knows how YHVH is pronounced as a full word anyway but it’s all we have… so I try to think that the ancient Israelites didn’t know any better and projected their land-grabbing ambitions into that egregore demiurge they created instead.
So at the start of the QC I try to connect with the Source, not Jewish/Christian Jehova. I really should arrive at a better interpretation than that Gnostic bypass, the main ritual feels like a bit like I’m performing some piece of traditional Jewish folklore. Oh well… I might replace the LBRP with the „Circle of Power“ and the „Advanced Calling“ in Damon Brands „Archangels of Magick“ (which I also did for a time). Then again, the LBRP has such a formidable reputation that I think I'll give it a few more months (or years?) as a daily practice after all just to see if I’m able to conjure up a more appropriate and respectful attitude.
if that makes sense?
I take it just as serious even when I used like an egregore/pop culture icon and it was rare just till I decided which pantheon to go with. (not the same feeling but I was able to keep practicing without going against my beliefs, definitely felt as silly as it sounds) ) now I typically use Egyptian deities where as before it was Greek. But I’ve been thinking a lot about using a more planetary based approach and seeing how that feels. It’s really what I’m drawn to at any given time till I find what really, really “clicks”. I think that is the point of barbarous names, it’s what typically tends to click.
