Posted by This is a review of the Red Pentagram ritual, a piece of mystical tech extracted from Apotheosis mythology and the Mithras Liturgy.
You can find the ritual here.
Stated Goals
As Thyone can attest, being exposed to the unbridled energies of a deity’s sublime intelligence can be hazardous to your health.
Generally, the Divine provides divine influx through a buffer of story (or filter). The antagonist does so by setting up challenges which refine the personality, and the ally does this through building a positive relationship with the person.
Usually, the process is messy.
The ritual in question is meant to titrate the sublime energies of a deity, and by-passing filter and mythos, so that frank discussions can be had about how a practitioner wants their spiritual path to unfold.
Primary Usage: …Not Bad!
This ritual was astoundingly successful in helping me course correct my relationship with Dionysos. It clarified our conversations by taking us out of the narrative we were stuck in (and stagnating in!) and allowed us to work collaboratively on shifting to a new one. The result was a vastly improved and much more productive relationship with this deity, and me working through the issues he wanted me to work through with less struggle and confusion.
My initial test audience reported similar results, and a fair number of people who tried the technique at two subsequent conferences reported favorably on it as a tool for this.
Off Brand Uses: Trance Work?
If your goal is a manifestation of deity which is utterly without filter, cultural or otherwise, and to yet experience the deity as a sacred personality, this tech is excellent.
If your goal is to NOT feel like you’ve been psychologically trampled by a herd of angry buffaloes, however, this tech falls short.
That said, the few of us who tried it for these purposes survived it, and are not significantly worse for the wear.
It’s a tool which could be used to help a community course-correct their relationship with a deity or deities, and to work collaboratively with a deity to change group filter.
It really does go to show, however, how important filter is as a buffer between a deity and a medium. It exists as a sort of psychological/spiritual protection. Negotiating that filter — what will be hidden, and what will be revealed, could be an important application of this tech.
Magick From Scratch 
Many of us who aren’t mediums would like to be able to communicate with their deities and get unfiltered instructions as well – what do you think this ritual would do for them?
I think it’s fairly reasonable to set up this ritual and to just start talking aloud.
If, for example, I was not a medium, but it became clear to me that I was stuck in a dance with a deity that was unhelpful, I might set up this space, state my observations, my best guess at what they were trying to accomplish, and be very clear about how I was actually being impacted. Then, I would sit and meditate in that space, making note of any flights of fancy that my mind wandered off onto, and keep a journal on whatever topic I had brought up during the rite, making note of any changes.
The closest analog I can think of is the LIRP… it can be seen as an invocation of a particular facet of a deity’s presence.
“That said, the few of us who tried it for these purposes survived it, and are not significantly worse for the wear.”
…
LOL. 😉 Not entirely encouraging, but not discouraging, either.
LOL. Yeah… I mean, we used it again just last night for trance.
Person: (to me) “The hell did you do to (medium)?! I can’t leave you alone for a damned minute, can I?”
Me: “We used the Red Pentagram tech…”
Person: “Seriously. Why?”
Me: “Cuz it’s accurate as fuck.”
Person: “….”
Person: “….”
Person: “Can I try it next?”
Gods, I wish I lived near you. I want to do all the trippy things all the time with you!
😀 Well, you are just going to have to rope your new friends into your own trippy adventures! Seriously, you fell in with good folks over there in Boston.
Thanks to you! You’re the one who introduced me to Katie. 🙂