Book Club Helios Unbound: some helpful notes and Qs

[pixel_fortune]

First the helpful notes! I thought I might as well post my process overview notes. This is just the material from the front of each chapter, expanded a bit after reading the chapter in full

Note that it took going through the text quite thoroughly to fill in all the extra info that wasn't clearly listed, and so it's possible this is a partial blind. You may be MEANT to go through the text carefully.

(For example, the text refers to a "solar Invocation", but the actual text of the invocation is under the heading "Prayers to the Sun". This is easy to figure out but adds friction. No materia is listed for Month 6 in the appendix, but some materia is required)

So I'll put everything after the first month as a spoiler, because I do think it was valuable for me to read it so closely

Helios Unbound Process Outline
Always: Prima Materia and Solar Adorations
Reading/studying relevant chapter

Month 1
Prerequisites:
Write out confession
Create/print triad for oath
Plan Inner Temple if not using Farrell's
Acquire Abramelin Incense or Frankincense
Acquire/print image of Mithras Aion

Week 1

1. LRP
2. Sun Breath (5 Minutes)
3. Journey to Inner Temple
4. Solar Invocation
5. Confession
6. Oath & Descent into Chaos
7. Spell to Become Magician
8. Write in Diary

Week 2-4

1. LRP
2. Sun Breath (5 Minutes)
3. Journey to Inner Temple
4. Solar Invocation
5. Confession
6. W2: Nephthys Purification - W3: Isis Consecration - W4: Both
7. Spell to Become Magician
8. Diary

Month 2 - Element Balancing
Materia: Candles: 7x white, 14x black, red, blue, yellow
incense (none listed, but it's needed for consecration)

1. Prepare candle
2. Solar Invocation
3. Sun Breath
4. Confession
5. Purify & Consecrate
6. Elemental Pentagram (1 week each element)
7. Elemental Invocation
8. Light candle and meditate

Month 3 - Rosicrucian Middle Pillary Technique
28 tealights (not listed as an offering so can probably reuse)

1. (It doesn't say LRP but surely yes? Probably not sun breath though as it's basically middle pillar)
2. One hour of complicated Middle Pillar visualisation and vowel chanting (W1: self - W2: your higher genius - W3: merging the two. No week 4, could repeat W3)

Month 4 - Planetary
Beforehand: 4x 7 colours of planetary candles, 7 different planetary incenses
Red wine + saucer
Tarot Deck
Print seals and astro chart
Make paper crown
Figure out some basic astrology

1. Inscribe candle and set up temple
2. LRP
3. Sun Breath
4. brief statement
5. Solar invocation
6. Fancy Middle Pillar
7. Elemental Pentagram
8. Assume godform
9. Invoke Planet
10. Meditate

Month 5 - Lunar
Beforehand: Rewrite confession as it's been months, stuff will have changed
Myrrh for 30 days
Tarot deck
astro chart
picture/statue of Hekate
28 white candles
Wine for offerings
Key

1. Think about effects of the day's lunar mansion
2. Prepare/inscribe candle
3. Solar Invocation (Sunset)
4. LRP
5. (Sun breath not mentioned, maybe because it's a moon-focus month? Or maybe it's now assumed to be part of LRP)
6. Confession
7. Purify & Consecrate
8. Invoke Hekate
9. Offerings
10. 10 minutes chanting, different lunar mansion each day

Month 6 - Stellar
Planetary incenses (will depend on your astro chart)
Tarot deck
28 tealights offering
28 days' additional non-offering tealights (can reuse)

1. Think about astrological effect of day's decan
2. LRP
3. (Sun Breath not mentioned but surely?)
4. Solar invocation
5. Invoke zodiac daimon (10 min chanting)
6. Invoke decan Daimon (10 min chanting). [First 12 days: Centrepins. Week 3: Hermetics Lots decans. Week 4: Planetary Decans. Week 5: Arrows of Apollo]

Month 7 - Angelic
Make Headband for Headless Rite
Incense (none listed, but it's needed for consecration)

1. LRP
2. (Sun Breath not mentioned but surely?)
3. Solar Invocation
4. Headless Rite
5. Elemental Pentagram
6. Purify and consecrate
7. Activation of Divine Love

3 days prep
As above plus additional rite at end

3-Day Retreat
[haven't made notes, it's a lot]
Abramelin Oil is mentioned in instructions but not listed in Appendix

You'll notice that eg the solar invocation is before the LRP in month 5, instead of after. That could be:

• so the practitioner can experience it both ways around, to feel the difference and decide for yourself what you prefer
• keeping the solar invocation out of the ritual space, because Month 5 is lunar work
• The book needs another editorial pass for consistency
• a blind, to make you slow down and think about what you're reading

¯⁠\ ⁠⁠(⁠ツ⁠) ⁠⁠/⁠¯

It doesn't affect the ability to do the work, so I think it would be a mistake to get hung up on it. It's genuinely a monumental task to structure and edit this much material - i wish it had another editorial pass, but publishers usually won't pay for it, so it's out of the author's own pocket if they want it done

And like I said, I do think I've benefited strongly from looking at the text so closely

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2024

And in some cases, I think it's assumed that you'll adopt a practice automatically. Like "journey to Inner temple" isn't actively listed after the first month, but it's presumably expected that you will continue to do you main workings in your astral temple overlaid over physical one

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2024

Now the stuff I haven't been able to figure out!

I know it's literally just been uploaded, but hopefully someone will be able to figure these out at some point and remember I was asking

1.
Farrell says the total commitment is 2.5 hours a day: one 1.5 hour "main" session, and two half-hour "supporting" sessions. The time estimate for the main session seems about right, but the supporting sessions are literally just the solar invocations. They take 3 minutes, max.
Prima Materia is meant to be done whenever you get a chance, but maybe time from that has been added to the supporting sessions. Just don't want to be missing a chunk of work I'm meant to be doing.

2.
For month 1, you can see the order of operations I've written above. But in fact Week 1 in the book says this:

• LRP
• Sun Breath (5 Minutes)
• Journey to Inner Temple
• Solar Invocation
• Confession
• Oath & Descent into Chaos
• Binding Ritual
• Spell to Become Magician
• Write in Diary

No "binding ritual" is anywhere in the book. I'm thinking this is just an error - that it's referring to the Oath, which is after all literally a binding ritual. Maybe they called it "binding ritual" in an earlier draft, and it didn't get deleted when they changed it to Path. I'm least worried about this, even though I'm just guessing at the solution

3.
This is the only one I'm truly concerned about, although it's at the Retreat stage, and I realise I may well have learnt enough by then through practice, that the answer will be clear when it comes up. On the second and third day of the 3-day retreat, the order of operations includes the "Genius Abiding" ritual, or if that ritual has been removed.
And it's completely unclear to me which ritual this is referencing. It is presumably one of the rituals performed on day 1 of the retreat. Or the extra rite added onto the end of the three days of preparation. I honestly don't know.

I'm going to see if I can get in contact with Nick Farrell for this one, because it's the only one that really matters, and if I a ask NOW, that gives me a nice safe 6 months window to get a response in

But if anyone else reads the book and knows the answer, please tell!

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2024

Hate how you can't edit posts that are merged with the original! There's a sentence fragment "or if that Ritual has just been removed" should be moved one paragraph down.
All the other autocorrect errors you can probably figure out from context

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2024

Update re: "binding ritual" errata

I came across someone journalling the process who thinks that's supposed to be the LVX formula. They don't say why (doesn't seem bind-y to me) but it wouldn't be a bad fit, to transition out of the Descent into Chaos

(They're on the BALG forum so I won't link, and in general they were pretty fast and loose with the process, skipping anything they didn't like. But the LVX thing was their sincere interpretation of Farrell's intended meaning, so thought I'd throw it out there)

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2024

Oh hey, @HoldAll has just conveniently uploaded the book that's recommended in Helios Unbound as a reference for the astrology parts:

Book – PDF - Chris Brennan - Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune

Hellenistic astrology is a tradition of horoscopic astrology that was practiced in the Mediterranean region from approximately the first century BCE until the seventh century CE. It is the source of many of the modern traditions of astrology that still flourish around the world today, although...

wizardforums.com

 

[stratamaster78]

Nice!!!

This looks like a really well constructed Hybrid Pagan/Ceremonial Magick course to go from Neophyte to Portal and then obtain K&C with the HGA.

I also like seeing it has a section for making the Headband for the Headless Rite from the PGM. This step/detail gets skipped over by a lot of authors.

I really would like to check this book out at some point as well as the Pagan Invocations.

Thanks for this report!!

 

[Rowena]

That looks like a fairly exhausting Hermetic/Abramelin based ritual cycle to me - not really my thing but I'm going to have a look at it to see how many of the frameworks/underlying principles could be re-used elsewhere.

The multiple references you made to unclear instructions, missing/renamed rituals, and items missing from ingredients/equipment lists seem to suggest a lack of good proofreading &/or editorial oversight - perhaps even a lack of any proofreading or oversight, I would hope that these would be fixed in a later edition.

 

[Diluculo_DelFuego]

Very nice analysis and write up!

 

[pixel_fortune]

That looks like a fairly exhausting Hermetic/Abramelin based ritual cycle to me -

It absolutely is, he's very clear that it's not "Abramelin made easy" - it's "Abramelin made pagan". An abridged version of his rationale is laid out here at the end of the month-by-month: Book Report - Excerpt from Helios Unbound: outline of the process & a partial review

The multiple references you made to unclear instructions, missing/renamed rituals, and items missing from ingredients/equipment lists seem to suggest a lack of good proofreading &/or editorial oversight - perhaps even a lack of any proofreading or oversight, I would hope that these would be fixed in a later edition.

I hope so too. Unfortunately I've seen this in a lot of books. Rod and Ring had some of the same issues (but not as many) and that's a fancy Anathema Publishing hardback. You often don't notice on a casual read, it's only when you seriously intend to practice it systematically that you notice where info is incomplete

I work as a professional editor, and what I've seen is that publishers basically are not willing to pay for the same editorial support as before. They usually get a single copyedit and two proofreads (with the second proofreading being immediately before publication and only for errors introduced by the typesetter - they would be annoyed if you tried to change whole sentence in the final proofread). (Sorry if I'm saying things you already know)

They don't get a structural edit anymore. So structural editing issues are really common now, with how the material is organised. With Helios, the copyeditor has dropped the ball a bit - they should have picked up the inconsistent terminology. But it's hard to know what want wrong: maybe they're bad at their job, or maybe the manuscript got to them late, or they were underpaid

(I have very honestly told clients: this is a 15-hour job. If you can only pay me for 10 hours, I'm going to do a rush job" and it's not uncommon for them to say "well just do what you can in 10 hours".)

It's important to understand that it's mostly not any one person being lazy or stingy, it's a result of tightening profit margins, in large part caused by Amazon's stranglehold and not helped by piracy (so kind of one person's fault, but it's Jeff Bezos not the publisher). I don't have any experience in occult publishing, but I can only imagine it's even worse as it's a niche field.

(This isn't trying to disagree with you if it sounds like it, I completely agree, I appreciated that you saw it was an editing issue rather than the writer's fault! I've been thinking about this a lot because it's been a problem in several newer books I've read lately)

Anyway tl;dr I try to be patient with it because it's just the reality of publishing under the current stage of capitalism - our standards developed during a better era for writers and publishers but that world is mostly gone

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2024

Adding some PGM words to the Sun Breath

I reduced the number of breaths per energy centre from 10 to 6, and I wanted something to chant. IAO is already used at the end so it can't be that. This is based on Greco-Roman magic so the middle pillar words aren't appropriate

The PGM has a section that lists 7 creative forces and their words of power.

The creative force of Light/Radiance has the words BESSUN BERITHEN BERIO. So chant those twice and you have 6 breaths for each centre

---

Another option would be the four directional solar guardians from the PGM, which are aspects of Helios, laid out by Polyphanes

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This is a good resource too:

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Spoiler: Context for the solar breath exercise if you're not working through Helios, below the cut to save space

The sun breath exercise is similar to the middle pillar, but with 7 centres (the book has a lot of 7s - 7 planets, 7 vowel sounds etc, so it's probably more about that than chakras)

Breathing in solar light to the 7 centres, from feet to crown. 10 breaths at each centre. Followed by chanting "IAO" 6 times while drawing the light up through the centre and showering the sphere of sensation

The sun breath is supposed to be a 5-minute exercise, but 10x7 long breaths takes me longer than that, plus I like chanting, and it's easier to keep track of how many I've done. 6 is the number of Tiphareth which is probably why the IAO is said 6 times.

And the PGM words fit well into the framework

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2024

(sorry if this seems spammy, I had intended the thread for people working through the book if/when do, feel free to unwatch!)

Struggling with the elemental deity attributions

So this is mainly in Month 2, but it comes up from the get-go if you use Farrell's suggested astral temple, and you probably don't want to be switching symbols midway through. There are four elemental rooms with a deity statue in each

• Earth: Hera
• Water: Persephone
• Air: Zeus
• Fire: Hades

Now these are obviously bizarre, especially the women.
But they're not Farrell's invention, they come from Empedocles, and Helios uses his system of the elements, including the two meta-elements of Love and Strife for order and chaos.

so it's not a light decision to change them

The origins
"Now hear the fourfold roots of everything: enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus. And Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears" (Nestis means "Fasting One" and is a euphemism for Persephone).

So he doesn't actually give elemental attributions, although he's certainly heavily implying that Persephone=Water

So it wouldn't be TOO disruptive to make it:

• Earth: Persephone
• Water: Hera
• Air: Zeus
• Fire: Hades

which is slightly better (Hera has nothing to do with water or earth, so they were both bad, but Earth is definitely preferable for Persephone). And these would only require minor rewrites of the invocations in Month 2.

Someone else pointed out that this makes for odd couples - that you would probably want the married couples to be elements that create well together, not ones that destroy each other, so you might want

• Earth: Hades
• Water: Persephone
• Air: Zeus
• Fire: Hera

(Again, Hera attribution makes no sense, the rest have some logic)

Why even consider change it, why not stick to the system?
Because the system has an additional principle. Nick Farrell says it will not work if you don't respond to the system's spiritual images (and that this is why the Abramelin process didn't work for him).

If you find the system's spiritual images annoying and jarring, you'll be wasting your time. You need to find a way to reconcile yourself with them (for example, by understanding they are based on Empedocles' ancient framework, and probably not intended to be quite the same as the deities from myth). If you can't do that, you need to choose different spiritual images, which in this case will also mean rewriting the invocations for Month 2 (although you could hack them from Orphic hymns and use the framing parts Farrell has). Changing them IS a way of sticking to the system as laid out by Farrell.

I'm not quite sure which way I will go yet.

 

[Rowena]

As I understand it, a lot of occult publishing has always been essentially vanity press, where the 'publishing company' is often a one-man operation who just print what authors send them, often with little-to-no editing & very little proofreading, and while spellcheckers (& the ability to use them) are now ubiquitous enough that you don't often see spelling errors, other checks often don't get done, or are up to the author to arrange - kind of like academic thesis writing/publishing.
I know a few people who've published things like this - and for them their 'copy-editing' was simply to get a detail-oriented (i.e. autistic) friend or two to check it for errors before they sent it to be printed, and they all very quickly learned that you just can't proof-read your own work.

 

[pixel_fortune]

a lot of occult publishing has always been essentially vanity press, where the 'publishing company' is often a one-man operation who just print what authors send them

Ahh right.

So looking at it, that's very unlikely to be the situation with Rod and Ring (they don't publish many books and it's generally an "event" when they announce something, plus the extremely high quality of the physical books) but could definitely be with Helios Unbound (it's an ordinary paperback and the other books the publisher has released have real "

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" vibes. The cover of Helios is not inspired or anything but it looks like it was done by a professional, whereas many of the others are like, Papyrus font and bad 3d-modelled images)

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they all very quickly learned that you just can't proof-read your own work.

Yes!! People are sometimes shocked that my newsletter has errors in it, and I'm like, yes! Because it doesn't have an editor! Everyone needs an editor, it's not something only for people with poor grammar/spelling!

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Elemental-Deity Attribution Update

I came across a reference to an Orphic Gold Leaf that has the following attributions

Air: Zeus
Fire: Dionysus
Water: Nestis (Persephone)
Earth: Demeter

That's a bit better and still very rooted in the system

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Responses from Nick Farrell
- The binding ritual just refers to the oath

• The "Genius Abiding" ritual in the Retreat section refers to the vowel chanting exercise (alchemical marriage) from Month 3
• The bit in the explanation of Prima Materia exercise that says "There is another stage of this process which we will look at in other months" just refers to the totality of the exercises in the following months, there's not a specific "Prima Materia: Next Stage" exercise or anything.

He responded in less than a day which is cool. I've gone ahead and asked for guidance on the elemental part (specifically, is it more important to work with the system as given, or to use symbolism you resonate with) although I think this question might be pretty annoying for him as the writer

Post automatically merged: Jan 14, 2024

Final Elemental Attributions Update!

I think the approach I'm going to take with the elements is:

• Perform the rituals as written
• Separately, invoke deities that make more sense to me for help with elemental balancing

But for anyone else struggling, I'll add the following from Practical Elemental Magic by David Rankine & Sorita D'Estes

Returning to the Greek views of the elements, in the third century BCE the Ptolemaic Egyptian high priest and historian Manetho recorded deity attributions which seem to almost sit as a bridge between the ideas of Empedocles and those of later traditions.
“The Egyptians say that Isis and Osiris are the Moon and the Sun; that Zeus is the name which they give to the all-pervading Spirit, Hephaestus to Fire, and Demeter to Earth. Among the Egyptians the moist element is named Oceanus and their own river Nile; and to him they ascribed the origin of the Gods. To Air, again, they give, it is said, the name of Athena.

Athena, Hephaestus, Okeanus and Demeter feel way better and it's still PRETTY ancient.


Practical Elemental Magic is in Book Shares if you want to read their justification for Empedocles elements, it might help you reconcile yourself to it

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2024

The Seventh and final month has a rite called "Activation of Divine Love" that requires an image of Pysche and Eros, and my understanding is it relates to your unification with your Higher Genius.

I came across this book - Alchemy of the Soul: The Eros and Psyche Myth As a Guide to Transformation" by Martin Lowenthal (he also wrote "Dawning of Clear Light: A Western Approach to Tibetan Dark Retreat Meditation")


It seems to me like that's worth putting on your reading list before you get to the seventh month, to deepen your understanding of the rite.

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I am 95% sure the "Prima Materia" exercise is the same as Israel Regardie's "Body Awareness" meditation from The One Year Manual. But Regardie gives a more clear explanation of it. So you might find this useful:

Book – PDF - Israel Regardie - The One Year Manual: Twelve Steps to Spiritual Enlightenment

This twelve-month manual brings the serious student of consciousness to an ongoing awareness of unity. Dr. Regardie revised this edition (originally published as Twelve Steps to Spiritual Enlightenment) to progress from the physical disciplines of body awareness, relaxation, and rhythmic...

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