21 Jul Ayesha Adamo
Ayesha Adamo
LECTURE
Opening the Blinds on the Practice of the Pentagram
The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) has quite possibly become the most ubiquitous ritual in modern traditions of Western magic. Although the LBRP made its debut as a secret and obligated first order practice within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, it owes its initial public printing to Aleister Crowley’s oath-breaking poetic publications during the first decade of the 20th century.
Nowadays, instructions for the LBRP can be found in countless occult books and blog posts, and yet it continues to be published with the same apparent blinds—bits of incorrect information, intentional or otherwise—that appeared in Crowley’s first print publication of the work. The less widespread counterpart of the LBRP, the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram (LBRH), has suffered a similar fate.
An academic version of this lecture was originally presented at University of Copenhagen, and is forthcoming as a book chapter for an academic press. While not entirely abandoning scholarly formality, this version of the talk will discuss the blinds in the LBRP and LBRH with an eye to going deeper into practical techniques and training for practitioners of magick.
Bio
Ayesha Adamo is an academic, performing artist, filmmaker, and occultist from New York City who is now living in Amsterdam. Her films have screened at various notable film festivals including Dances With Films, Breckenridge, Oxford Film Festival, and Pentedattilo, and she recently won Best Female Director at Independent Days Film Festival in Germany. She is Grand Praemonstrator and an ordained Hierophant in Temple of Thelema, and has several occult books in the works. Ayesha is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University, where she majored in Music, and rumor has it that she was once in an Asian pop band on EMI Records. She is currently a graduate student studying Western Esotericism at University of Amsterdam’s Centre for the History of Hermetic Philosophy & Related Currents, and has several forthcoming articles for peer-reviewed publications.
