Rituals of Banishment

Although in antiquity the idea of Ritual purity and the means to achieve it was one of the cornerstones of practice, over time it received steadily less attention until we reached the modern condition of Magic, where one often hears arguments about the “superfluity” of banishing spells. It is hardly surprising that this attitude correlates with the widespread influence of predatory forces over ‘Magi’ and ‘Masters’.

However, for a disciplined magus, Cleansing and Banishment are not secondary parts of Rituals; on the contrary, most of the practitioner’s effort is devoted.

Incantatory practices aimed at expelling extraneous or hostile forces from the ritual space aim to “shutting off” those forces’ influence on the mind or on the target by “overriding” that influence with a stronger, oppositely directed force that accords with the Ritual’s intent.

Note that we are never speaking of a complete “removal” of extraneous influences; rather, we mean only a temporary withdrawal from the zone of their “jurisdiction.”

This can be achieved in two ways.

The first method, developed by the priests of Mesopotamia, is more effective but also more dangerous. It consists in bringing the forces to be banished into the most manifest state, then abruptly overriding them with superior forces. To do this, at the beginning of the spell the names and properties of the entities to be banished are carefully enumerated, thereby drawing them into conscious awareness, and then, after disclosure, a power is invoked capable of removing their influence from the ritual space.

This action can be compared to the surgical removal of a tumor: the growth is first carefully exposed, and then excised.

A classic example of such a spell is the famous Sumerian Spell of the Seven, in which the properties of “Those whose offspring are strange” are enumerated first, and then they are banished “by the power of Heaven, by the power of Earth.”

This approach is indeed very effective, but it requires enormous power on the part of the caster and no less authority. Moreover, it is clear that in such a Ritual there is always the danger that a spirit of darkness brought into the illuminated space will resist and, at the slightest mistake by the caster, become a captor.

For this reason a different method, developed in ancient Egypt and introduced into European magic via Semitic channels, is much more commonly used today.

This method consists in “posting guardians,” placing a source of neutralizing power such as the Name of the Most High, an angel, or an angelic choir at every point where an alien force might enter. In this arrangement the caster does not come into direct contact with the force being banished and therefore incurs much less risk.

An example of this approach is Solomon’s Spell of the Seven, in which each of the banished demons is commanded in the name of God and by an archangel, for example: “In the Name of Yahweh the Tetragrammaton, may Michael command you, Havaiot…”.

Despite the greater safety of this approach, it is less effective, since there is always the danger that some “point of invasion” will be overlooked, no guardian is posted there, and therefore the banishment will be incomplete or fail. In addition, the absence of direct contact with the banished force gives the practitioner a false sense of security, which can prove dangerous in the event of a failed banishment and lead to possession or other harm to the practitioner.