Ritual · “Repetition Rewires”
The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
Open and ‘banish’ (clear) one’s working space and centre the practitioner with the Qabalistic Cross + four pentagrams + archangel invocation — the foundational rite Mathers composed as the first practical key of the Golden Dawn’s graded system.
Mathers’s LBRP: Face East.
(1) Qabalistic Cross — forehead/breast/right shoulder/left shoulder/clasp, vibrating Ateh, Malkuth, Ve-Geburah, Ve-Gedulah, Le-Olahm Amen; see a cross of light.
(2) Banishing pentagrams at the four quarters — YHVH (E), Adonai (S), Eheieh (W), AGLA (N), joined by a circle of flame.
(3) Archangels — Raphael before, Gabriel behind, Michael right, Uriel left; “about me flames the pentagram, within me shines the six-rayed star.”
(4) Close with the Cross and ground. The foundation rite of the whole graded path — clear and centre before you build.
What it is
This entry documents the LBRP as the rite Mathers composed and positioned — the first practical “key” handed to a Golden Dawn initiate, the gesture-and-vibration sequence he built out of the order’s Cipher Manuscripts and his own synthesis of Qabalah, Hebrew divine names, and a traditional Jewish protective prayer.
The mechanics of the rite belong to the order as a corporate body, and its later daily-hygiene framing belongs to Regardie. What is distinctive here is Mathers’s architectural contribution: he made the Lesser Pentagram rite the threshold practice of a graded curriculum, the foundation on which every higher ritual (godform assumption, the higher pentagram and hexagram rituals, pathworking) was stacked.
In his hands “banishing” is the disciplined clearing and orienting that must precede any inner work — the magician first establishes a balanced, bounded centre, then ascends from it.
The Method
Stand facing East. Move deliberately; vibrate (intone) each Name sonorously; see the light vividly. Mathers’s order taught it as four movements bracketing the pentagrams:
- The Qabalistic Cross. Touch the forehead — “Ateh” (Thou art); the breast — “Malkuth” (the Kingdom); the right shoulder — “Ve-Geburah” (and the Power); the left shoulder — “Ve-Gedulah” (and the Glory); clasp the hands at the breast — “Le-Olahm, Amen” (forever, Amen). Visualise a shaft and cross of light through the body; feel yourself become a steady axis between heaven and earth (The Inner Creates the Outer, as above so below).
- The four pentagrams. Facing East, South, West, North in turn, trace a banishing earth pentagram, “stab” its centre, and vibrate the divine Name of that quarter: YHVH (E), Adonai (S), Eheieh (W), AGLA (N). See each pentagram blaze in blue flame, joined by a circle of light traced between the quarters.
- The archangels. Return to face East, arms outstretched as a cross: “Before me, Raphael; behind me, Gabriel; on my right hand, Michael; on my left hand, Uriel.” Then: “For about me flames the pentagram, and within me shines the six-rayed star.” Hold the four as living presences at the quarters.
- Close with the Qabalistic Cross to seal the working, then ground. (Sourcing note: a faithful description of the standard Golden Dawn Lesser Pentagram rite as assembled under Mathers; the Hebrew Names and gestures are the order’s traditional attributions, published later by Regardie.)
Source & Lineage
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918) was the principal author and organiser of the Golden Dawn’s ritual corpus. Drawing on the Cipher Manuscripts (supplied via Westcott), Eliphas Levi’s pentagram and “astral light” teaching, Kabbalah (his The Kabbalah Unveiled, 1887), and the bedtime prayer naming the four archangels, he fixed the Lesser Pentagram rite as the entry gate of a graded path of inner development.
The rite itself is documented under the order’s node; Regardie’s daily-psychodrama treatment is separate. It descended through his pupils — Crowley, Regardie, Fortune, Farr — to become the single most-performed ritual in modern Western magic.
Common refinements
Mechanical recitation. Mumbling the Names and skipping the imagery guts the rite; the vibration and vivid seeing are the engine.
- Treating it as the whole work. In Mathers’s design it is the foundation, not the building — clearing that precedes the higher invoking and ascent practices.
- Sloppy pentagram geometry. Keep the banishing earth pentagram’s starting stroke and direction consistent; the precision supports the felt sense of order.
- Skipping the closing Cross / grounding. Leaving the rite “open” undercuts the seal.
- Reading it as literal anti-spirit armour. Held as superstition it breeds magical thinking; held as deliberate self-clearing it does real psychological work.