Post No. 934 - A Few Quick Thoughts on Casting Circles

These days, most people I know use the four quarters when casting circles, which comes to us through the Hermetic tradition (via Rosicrucianism). It wasn't always that number - the Druids are thought to have used earth (Calas), Sea (Gwyar) and Air /Sky (Nwyvre), which I first came across - I think - via the Druid Journal website/blog. This raises the possibility that we can work with a different number of directions - for instance, although I often don't give them a particular attribution, I include above and below when casting circles, to help make sure the protection is three dimensional (and I also do this on multiple levels of reality, but that's a complication for another post, perhaps :) ... although your could read Katharine Kerr's Deverry series for some [fictional] illustrations of that).

There is a balance to be considered here:

• personalising the casting makes it connect more strongly to oneself, but 
• using systems that others have established enables one to draw upon the strength and energy of others' work.

Probably it is better to use established systems whilst learning and developing one's strength, and personalise it when one has the strength, communication with one's BPM  Guides, and meditation ability to gain useful and accurate knowledge to be able to make a decision about how many directions to use. (How long is that? Depends on the person, how quickly they learn, how much they work at it, etc. For most people I've seen, I'd think about personalising their circle casting after two or three years of regular and well-motivated work.)

One thing most people can do fairly early on is to focus on drawing in the attributes, rather than the characteristics. As an example, East is often Air, and possibly the archangel Raphael if you use that sort of attribution. You can focus on visualising the columns of light or the archangel - and, in fact, have to when learning, as part of developing one's psychic muscles - but one can, once competent at the basic visualisation, extend that to seeing the attribute(s) as an energy (with the appropriate colour) flowing in and either hardening the circular shell, if doing a protective ritual, against nonBPM incursions of thought (distraction, etc), or flooding the area with BPM thought abilities (concentration/focus, inspiration, etc) if doing an invocation casting of circle.

Just a thought to ponder :) 

 

WLNGRHDMT

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