r/ThelemaWithoutTears

My father passed away awhile ago. We were estranged. I am gay and he was well, not a fan of that. I had not gone to his house at all for the last 10 years. He was a very angry man, like most boomers it seems. Its weird to write this, but I feel nothing at all, by him passing away. I feel...like a weight was lifted.

But anyways, he had a small collection of books (48 Laws of Power, Human Action by Von Mises, some classics like the Count of Monte Cristo, War and Peace, you get the gist). Very fond of hardcovers. A lot of beautiful hardcovers.

I found this book as well. He never spoke of such practice. There are no other books in his library regarding magic or anything similar. He was not a mason, as far as I know he was a Catholic and went to mass sparingly but oh boy he knew the correct bible verse to disparage me when I still talked to him.

I searched that this type of practice needs an altar and such and found none on his house. Maybe it was just a morbid interest to him, probably, akin to being a Libertarian.

Its a very beautiful book. It seems it is a kind of course of sorts and some prophetical teachings.

To a newcomer, how would you explain this book? Are there parts I can read to put into practice, like I would do with any interest? What is this? For whom it is for?

I am not particularly a spiritual person, but there is something here that is very interesting, and would like to know more, from the people that practice it, or at minimum have read and understood it.

So that is why I created this account and wrote to this sub. There are others like it, but let me know if this is the correct place!

https://preview.redd.it/etlo0yyg0zjh1.png?width=1031&format=png&auto=webp&s=36204378db6731d46c05a9f67b04392ac8803789

I’ve been trying to figure out instructions on the greater ritual of the pentagram and finding it a little infuriating and confusing haha (Book 4 instructions seem barely instructions at all).

Should we:

A) invoke all the elements in turn (active spirit, air, active spirt, fire etc) and then later banish them?

B) Are we meant to use it to invoke/banish just one specific element ie. just fire in the south (with the invoking active spirit) AND do we ignore the other elements and their quarters or do we banish those other elements in turn (do we also perform banishing versions of the spirit pentagrams)

At the moment I’m just learning/practicing, so I’m thinking I should invoke in the morning and banish in the evening

Is there any connection between the Cube of Space and the Pyramidos? I was analysing correspondences and some ideas have occurred to me which aren’t so far-fetched if we consider that the Pyramidos is an adaptation of the Golden Dawn’s initiation ritual. For example (I’ll write something more detailed later), we begin facing west (the Golden Dawn’s western initiation), where we find the Wheel of Fortune, the Devil, Death, Art and Adjustment – which all make perfect sense given the nature of the operation… Furthermore, we are at the base of the triangle formed by Aleph, Maim and Shin – the axes of the Cube – with the Universe at its centre… there are other correspondences that also fit, such as Nature, which refers to the East (where the Empress is situated)… Has anyone else reflected on this?