Gnostic Pentagram Ritual

By Peter Carroll

The Gnostic Pentagram Ritual begins with a visualization of radiance
in five areas of the body. Each visualization is assisted by a
vibration of one of the vowels sounds I, E, A, O, U. The sounds are
vibrated loudly and each is sustained for and entire slow exhalation.
Each should produce a physical sensation in the part of the body to
which it is attributed. In effect the body is being played like a
musical instrument with each part resonating in sympathy to a
particular tone.

Subsequently, pentagrams are drawn in the air at four points around
the operator. The pentagrams 'are drawn and an anti-clockwise quarter
turn f the whole body is executed after each pentagram thus returning
the body to its original position. The pentagrams should be strongly
visualized with the eyes opened or closed as desired. Each should be
accompanied by a loud intonation of all five vowel sounds I, E, A, O,
U, in a single exhalation, with one bar of the pentagram being drawn
for each sound. The IEAOU mantra is used here largely to block
discursive thought. Finally, the opening sequence in which the
visualization of radiance in various areas of the body, reinforced by
the individual I, E, A, O, U mantras, is repeated. The ritual may be
elaborated at will, for example, by adding colors to the visualized
radiances or by adding supplementary pentagrams above and below to
form a sphere around the operator.

This ritual can be used in a number of ways:

* To establish balance, concentration and control before and after
more complex rituals.

* As visualization practice at any time.

* As a preliminary exorcism of unwanted mental or psychic phenomena.

* As an aid to healing, particularly self-healing.

The techniques employed are: mantra vibrations, visualization
assisted by gesture, breathe control.

The ritual entails the visualization of images of radiance within
specific areas of the body. These areas correspond with the bodily
chakras of some oriental traditions but not others. There is actually
little congruence between the various oriental systems. What all these
systems are designed to do is to create psychic images of various
parts of the body to facilitate greater psychosomatic control. The
Gnostic Pentagram Ritual is named in commemoration of certain magickal
schools of antiquity, which designated the magical force of the
universe IAO:

Ritual Procedure

1. Stand facing any preferred direction.

2. Inhale fully. Exhale slowly sustaining the sound "I" (a
high-pitched ieeeee! sound) while visualizing a radiance of energy in
the head area.

3. Inhale fully. Exhale slowly sustaining the sound "E" (a
lower-pitched eeeeh! sound) while visualizing a radiance of energy in
the throat area.

4. Inhale fully. Exhale slowly sustaining the sound "A" (a deep
aaaah! sound) while visualizing a radiance of energy in the heart and
lungs, which spreads to the muscles of the limbs.

5. As in 2, but the sound "O" (ooooh!) in the belly area.

6. As in 2, but the sound "U" (a very deep uuuur!) in the
genital/anal area.

7. Repeat 6. Then 5, 4, 3, 2, working back toward the head.

8. Inhale fully. Exhale slowly, forming each of the IEAOU sounds in
turn while, with the left arm, drawing in the air a pentagram, which
is also visualized strongly.

9. Make a quarter turn to the left and repeat 8, then continue to
turn and draw the remaining pentagrams with mantra and visualization
until returning to the starting position.

10. Repeat steps 2-7 inclusive.

Healing

To assist in healing any part of the body, intone the sound and
visualize the radiance, which corresponds to the affected part
continuously for 5-10 minutes, or for as long as concentration can be
maintained.

Andrieh Vitimus's Additions

The gnostic pentagram ritual is a great ritual, but its not so great
in public place. Vibrating out the letters usually doesn’t work in a
public place, but with sufficiently developed imagination skills this
ritual can be done as an extensive meditation.

The techniques in Hands On Chaos Magic will help the budding magician
develop the needed skills to do this completely from a meditative or
astral stance.

First, when you vibrate out each letter, you may notice that each
letter has a feel as it vibrates out, a physical feel and sound across
your whole body. In fact, if you practice this ritual a few times in
private, as loud as you can, you can get a memory of how vibrating out
the syllables will feel and sound to yourself. If you meditate on a
regular basis, this is enough to recreate the "sound" in your mind's
eye without actually uttering the sound.

Second, exaggerate the gestures as you are physically practicing the
banishing. Again, this will help you get a very solid and powerful
memory of the banishing.

Once you have the memories well entrenched, you can do this banishing
with great impact using only your mind. 1st, you have to concentrate
on remembering what each component actually feels, sounds, and looks
like (again Hands On Chaos magic will help you with techniques that do
this). The more you concentrate on what the memory of each part should
feel, look and sound like, the better the banishing will be. Each step
of the banishing should be a singular point of focus and nothing but
the step should matter. For me, this always means taking a few deep
breaths and relaxing before starting the banishing.

Adding some Correspondences to help with the meditation

There are a host of different colors that could work, you will have
to decide for yourself, but while you are doing the vibrating sounds,
allow yourself to go into a trance state, close your eyes and see what
comes to you for each syllable.

I tend to use colors close to the chakra points for the areas. So for
I (or the top of the head) = White, E ( for the throat) = Blue, A (
for the heart) = green, 0 in the navel ( either yellow or orange
depending on what I think I need more), and at the U ( for the
genitals), I use red.

The exact colors do not matter, as long as they work for you so have
fun with this. For each syllable, imagine that part of the body
vibrating out that color and vibrating the color through the rest of
your body. When you draw out the edges of each triangle, make sure to
draw the part of the pentacle with the color you have chosen while
feeling that part of your body vibrating.

Down the Front up the Back

Using techniques from Qigong, I have found its great to do a focused
movement of the vibration. Essentially, this combines the Gnostic
Pentagram Ritual with a type of macrocosmic orbit. After you have
practiced the ritual for a bit, you can feel certain parts of your
body vibrate and clear out. Instead of stopping the vibration, on
inhale; you can continue the vibration while imagining the vibration
moving down to the next location corresponding to the syllables. If
you pay more attention to the front as you are going from Top to
bottom with the syllables, and then move the vibration around to the
back and the work up, this is very similar to the macrocosmic orbit
(it is not exactly the macrocosmic orbit, but you will get similar
effects with this meditation). At this point, if you are having a
particularly bad day, you can just go through the IEAOU a few times
cycling the energy down the front first, and then up the back with the
syllables. As a side note, on the I syllable, you should extend the
"I" vibration up past the top your head to the sky (heaven), and on
the U syllable imagine extend the vibration down into the earth.
Explaining why you might want to do this is a bit beyond the scope of
this newsletter but people who have practiced the Macrocosmic orbit
will understand the connection.