Gnostic Pentagram Ritual By Peter Carroll
additions with Andrieh Vitimus

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 inthe 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.

I want to thank each person who has purchased the book and supported me. Thank you. Hope to see each of you soon at one of my live events
and and the forum for the book.