Before we get started here, we need to get a base level understanding of ceremonial magic. I know, I know, we all know this, but I can’t say who will be reading this in the future or what their knowledge will be, so here we are, just plotting along, writing the words out on the page so we can all be on the same page. Do you see what I did there? A play on the idea of a page! Anyway.
(1) The visible universe is just one half of what we know. It’s mirrored by an invisible counterpart (mirrored as in, there is something similar on the other side, not mirrored as in, there are other darker, spookier, evil versions of all of us on the other side).
(2) Through our processes we are able to access this invisible stage with the help of invisible creatures on the other side. We call these creatures “spectators.” Sometimes these spectators are real pains to deal with.
(3) We access this plane through portals. Our rituals can open these portals, but we do not know where they’ll open, nor when they’ll lead to. Some portals stay open for minutes, others for decades.
(4) By asking for the aid of a spectator, the conjurer (magician) entwines their life to that of the spectator, and if that link is severed prematurely, both lives are lost (as well as any portals the two opened together).
I do love a parenthetical!
So, I can hear you asking, deep in the future, “How are these portals opened, then?” And the the answer is with magical rituals, of course. Did you not read step three? In the future, do you just scan things and not read them closely? Do you live your lives so fast you do not have the time to contemplatively read a four part instruction?
Anyway.
The rituals are generally straightforward. Earth is a sphere, right? So picture the sphere, covered in a gigantic blanket of squares. The squares alternate black and white as they wrap around the globe, like a huge chess board. Black symbolizes darker human tendencies, like greed or fear, while light symbolizes lighter tendencies, like joy or love. We’ll get into that part later on. Each square is about 10 square miles. That makes a lot of squares to cover the entire earth. But a ritual board itself is identical to a chess board, meaning that any 64 squares, in any configuration, can be used in a ritual. A ritual places wizards in a set configuration on this 64 square plane. Once in the correct location, markings are made, words are chanted, and boom, we get a portal (usually, sometimes we just get a dud!).
I know what you’re thinking: but Athanasius, how can we possibly know the grid pattern of these millions of squares? The answer’s rather complicated, but the short version is: the Earth’s natural formations tend to give us major lines and we can extrapolate the grids from those. It’s obvious stuff, like the Grand Canyon, the Andes, formations like that. Sometimes, we can even pinpoint exact corners with unusual structures. K2, for example. Our estranged friend, Aleister Crowley was the one of the first to discover K2’s importance, oddly, though we’re still not entirely sure what he was expecting to do up there. Probably get naked, knowing him! It’s not always tall and obvious peaks, though, sometimes these corners are in very boring places, like the middle-of-nowhere Arizona, where we found one of the strongest places of power outlined by a long panel of stones. All of this really only matters because it gives us starting point to lay out the 64-square grid.
So, what happens in these grids? Well, it depends on what we’re trying to accomplish, of course. I’m not going to get into every aspect of every ritual here, but let’s just say we want to open a portal. First, we pick a spectator. Let’s say, Zazel, because Zazel is generally down to get into it. We take Zazel’s sigil, and a sort of crescent moon, and mark the four corners of the 64 square plane with that sigil (this can take some coordination!). From there, each square signals an emotional weight tied to its color like sorrow, gloomy, felicity, umbrage, and so on. Each portal must be emotionally balanced by choosing the squares that best reflect what the conjurer’s want to see. When everything is in place, an invocation is performed, and a portal is open. We have these invocations and emotional patterns available in the library, so I won’t detail them here.
Anyway. You get the point! I’m sure all you readers are very smart and I’ve been generally going on and on about these boring specifics that nobody really cares about. Leave the details for the masters, I say! The rest of us can just revel in the absurdity of attempting to understand the portals themselves.
At some point, when we first started all this, and when we really hadn’t a clue of what we were doing, we thought of these portals and the alternate—ohh, alternate is a great word I should have used that above instead of mirrored, but now I’m worried if I mark that out then someone will think I was trying to hide something. Well, from here on out let’s use alternate and if you can go back and sort of, mentally change the word mirrored, that’d be great, because mirrored really does evoke a very wrong image—world we can view through them as a key to understanding the universe and ourselves. That’s not really the case, as best as I can tell. These portals have not given us a route to a god, nor power, nor knowledge. They are just, more reality. Different portals lead to different time periods in different areas of the world, but always lead to the same plane.
And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to explore a little more. Ever since Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole in 1911, we’ve been running low on new places to get to. Sure, the Amazon still holds some secrets, but generally, we’ve been everywhere we need to here on this plane. It’s time to see where else we can get to.
Which is why I’m going to file a motion to change our directive. Our ceremonies, rituals, and rites, have long been about a better understanding of ourselves and the gods, but I no longer think that’s the point. I think that, if anything, we’ve learned that none of that was ever the point. I will be met with skepticism. I will be ignored. I will likely be exiled, but I imagine there are those who agree and who will follow. When I started writing today, I wasn’t expecting to get here, to this point of feeling so decisive, but yet, here I am. Just in the simple act of explaining how these portals work I was able to persuade myself that it’s time for change. Which suggests it’s truly the time to do so. Wish me luck, future reader.
