Baby and Vibration

 “Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.” –The Kybalion.

The singing, intoning, or in some cases, overtone singing of names and words of power is one of the most important practical teachings in Hermeticism. It is seen elsewhere of course. The chanting of mantras, and especially the prolonged “Om” is another application of the same idea, as are repetitive chants in English sometimes seen in Pagan circles…

Alexis is 6 weeks old tomorrow. Their stamina for interesting smells and changes in location and lighting is pretty limited. For example, the other day, I wore Alexis out into our backyard and plucked a fresh tangerine and some rosemary blossoms from the garden for them to smell. Alexis was intrigued by these new smells, especially by the rosemary. They’re a big fan of chamomile, too. All told, though, it was quite a lot for them.

But vibration seems to be something they never tire of. It soothes them when they are fussy and delights them when they are calm. The reaction to me vibrating is often a contented sigh and a snuggle.

This, then, presents an opportunity to do with magical energies what parents naturally and instinctively do with language, and present the child with energies to consider, small chunk by small chunk. I want to use this technique to introduce baby to elemental energies.

One has to be careful, however.

In most C.M. traditions, what we vibrate to invoke forces are divine names. That is to say, the names of divinities. It’s important to consider carefully whose names one is calling.

Some deities get the idea that, since you called them, they’re entitled to your attention, and may engage in some arm-twisting to back practitioners into oaths. There is no way that I am going to expose my child to any such kind of nonsense.

While I trust the Greek pantheon, you won’t get the elements that way. You’ll just get the deities. And some of them think that vibration is quite silly.

Whatever else you might say about the Hebrew divinity, no one has ever actually gotten ill from chanting these names in a synagogue, the names being chanted has been done extensively around children with no ill effects, and the deity isn’t generally seen in the modern-day backing people into contracts. Indeed, even the most enthusiastic heretic isn’t granted less power from those names than the devout. And they are traditional for Hermetic and Thelemic magic. To boot, baby and I are Jewish, so they’re our cultural heritage.

Equally safe, from my understanding of the origins, arguably safer, are the elemental words of power in the Satanic Bible. Not only are those words of power divorced from anything similar to worship, but also, they are not the names of any deity. If they were, the stated philosophy of the religion is that children and animals are to be protected. I have never used any rituals from the Satanic Bible, but they are, from a metaphysical standpoint, probably the most child-safe, and the best-suited to solitary (or parent-baby) work.

As I think it over, I am mainly singing elemental chants for baby.