I learned the hard way to keep the first post short, so I didn’t have to scroll for five minutes to hit the Reply button…
There is a lot of good with this book. Somewhere between 1/3-1/2 is usable enough that I feel I can do something with it. On its own, the useful part is a collection of sigils, an opener ritual, and not much more.
the rest is...
full of conspiracy theories, lizard people, pretend Science, impending doom (that they had to walk back on), inch deep thought, and other nonsense.
I get that it’s tempting to bring these things in, but their attachments to this lore were barely there or not even relevant. This also fluffed the book size by 1/3-1/2, which is where the rest of the space went.
There are quite a few tools “required” for what is barely a half dozen rituals. Some I will be using.
What I will be using:
Crystal ball (black tourmaline one, 3" coming from Amazon as a test)
Black candles
A piece of Onyx as the Trapezohedron, whether it is or not.
Incense
(Maybe) Mirror of Azathoth (Don’t we already have the crystal ball?)
The Trinity of Triangles is particularly interesting to me and will be drawn out energetically. I plan on making a physical copy of it as a ritual cloth at some point.
The Wand of Nyarlathotep isn’t really used in the given rituals, not is the Goblet of Shub-Niggurath. If these become important, I will create and consecrate them.
What I won’t be using : The 2’ x 2’ glass altar that isn’t used in the book at all. Black ebony crystal ball stand. Four mirrors (one of these is for the crystal ball, so why the stand?). 3 fist sized pieces of obsidian (I will use smaller, raw pieces if I need to).
I won’t be using Sea Salt, either. The salt is used to draw out the three circles (outer is 9 feet). I want to do as many of these rituals outside as possible and don’t want to be spreading sea salt out nightly to kill off the plant life in the area. I also have an open space to the Dead, which is more important to me than following his instructions exactly. He does say you can use other things later on in the book, but this is a huge mess, when you have plans for this like I do.
Which leads me to how I will be conducting this. This is going to be a gauntlet. I’m setting myself up for some potential hurt here. Back in 2020, I did the Shadownomicon work through and it occurred to me that this would work out well in a similar fashion.
I will plan on working with each of the entities for a month each. I will reach out daily to see if I should go into ritual or not. If they say I should and respect my time in it, then I will continue in this manner.
They will be given only a few restrictions, that I expect from any spirit that comes into my space. They will not negatively impact my family or pets, nor any spirits in my space that do not provoke them. It’s implied that challenges should result in some sort of equal or greater gain, but this is unspoken.
Qayin starts with a pledge at the beginning of the book, but this doesn’t seem to be used. I will meet with some of them before I do. Because…
I’ve worked with them a bit before. Most of the rituals involved mental projections using a given sigil/symbol and interactions therein. Because of this, I don’t quite buy into Qayin’s “restrictions” on these entities, but will play his game during this work through.
While he insists everything be done on the initial day of the waxing moon, I don’t see how entities outside of this realm need be restricted to that. So, once I make my preparations and feel the call (I already feel some of their attention), I will go into ritual and begin this gauntlet. I will also maintain my daily rituals to the Maoshan, Leviathan, and the Dead.
Soon.