Pairs of opposites

A note I made a while back to the preamble to the "Stele of Jeu" (PGM V / P. Lond 46 96-172).

The Heavens and the Earth: Nût and Gêb.
The Night and the Day: Nephthys and Isis.
The Darkness and the Light: Set & Horus.
The Moist and the Dry: Shu and Tefnut.

Therefore the Headless One is Atum-Rê of the Heliopolitan Ennead, and not Osiris (or Bes) at all.

The above is not meant completely seriously; it will be observed that there are more than four "pairs of opposites" in that preamble. Actually, if we count "seeds and fruit" there are 8 in all (the just and the unjust, the female and the male, love and hate being the others) so we do have an ogdoad, each containing its own opposite in itself.

While we're on the subject, by and to whom is the final "come forth and follow" supposed to be spoken? The speech markouts in D.E. Aune's translation in Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, seem somewhat arbitrary; the preceding lines are (apparently) spoken by the exorcist identifying himself with the Headless Daimon; so is that "come forth and follow" the excorcist addressing the Headless Daimon, the Headless Daimon addressing the exorcist, the Headless Daimon addressing the daimon to be driven off, or . . . ?

Ritual Consequences

This approach to ritual design has, no doubt, been done before. My own involvement with it started as a sarcastic comment during a "beginner's magick" ritual design class.

For those not familiar; the game of "consequences" involves building a story of stereotyped form by multiple people; each writes down one story element on a piece of paper, then folds over what's just been written and passes the paper on to the next person, who writes the next element. These "elements" could be along the lines of: a male character; a female character; where they met; what he said to her; what she said back to him; end consequence. Alternatively it can be played with pictures of a figure of roughly humanoid outline, the first person drawing the head, the second the shoulders and upper torso, the third the lower torso and arms, the fourth the hips and hands, the fifth the legs, the sixth the feet (the result is likely to look like something created using Golden Dawn rules on Telesmatic Images).

Applied to ritual design, the first step is to agree on a general purpose and structure for the ritual, then to break it up into as many points as you have people (or if you have less than 5 or 6 people, a multiple of the number of people). For example:

1. Preliminary banishing (if appropriate)
   
2. General opening / circle casting.
3. Invocation of quarters / elements / directions of space.
4. Statement of working ("The Oath" of MTP)
   
5. Invocations / power raising.
   
6. Climax of the working.
7. Closing.
8. Concluding banishing (if appropriate).
   

Or the points forming the body of the work could be rather more vague, e.g. "Stuff," "More stuff" and "Yet more stuff"; an invocation of elements or quarters could be broken up into one point for each.

Using the traditional "Consequences" format, the heads would be written down the left marging of a piece of paper; each person in the group in turn would write something next to one of these points, fold over the paper and pass it on. The process could be speeded up by cutting the paper into strips and giving one to each person in the group, then re-assembling when all are done.

For best, or at least strangest, results, this is better done in eclectic groups where those present have between them backgrounds from a variety of different traditions; so for example we might end up with the Star Ruby in point 1, a Wiccan circle casting in point 2, neo-Druid calls to the quarters in point 3, and so on, concluding with old-skool Chaos Magick banishing with laughter, or possibly cheese.

This game has also been called "Ritual exquisite corpse" after the surrealist art technique, although the only time I've seen it done it seemed far too structured for that.