Planetary Spells & Rituals

by Raven Digitalis

  [Name]: this is you.

  [Name]: this is you.

  [Name]: this is you.

  Envision the symbol of Pluto in your mind. Mentally superimpose this image on the poppet, seeing it sink and absorb into the doll. Say:

  [Name]: by the powers of Pluto, I bind you, I bind you.

  You can no longer cause harm to yourself or others.

  You are restricted. You are restrained. You are bound. You are fixed.

  In the name of the ancient ones and the depths of Pluto,

  I bind you, [Name]! I bind you, [Name]!

  Immediately start binding the loose herbs (aside from the salt or sand) to the poppet by using the twine. Though you’re working with loose herbs, do your best to secure them to the doll. Try to get the herbs bound all around the figure so the energy touches every side. (You can also drip candle wax on the poppet and press the loose herbs onto the wet wax, adhering them to the doll.) While you are tying up the poppet, repeat the following a number of times. Chant it fast, chant it slow, and direct the energy right into the spell:

  [Name]: bound by Pluto, [Name]: bound by me!

  You can no longer inflict harm. So mote it be!

  When finished, tuck in the end of the cord or tie the two end pieces together. Make it tight. Take the black candle and drip it all over the poppet. Next, place the poppet on the black fabric (or in the black bag) and liberally sprinkle the black and white salt or sand all over the doll. Tie up the fabric and close the circle as you normally would. Store the spell in a dark, untouched area of the house and only unbind it (releasing the spell) if the person changes their harmful ways.

  One of the oldest views of the human soul is that of reincarnation. Being one of the most widely held views of the spiritual process, reincarnation holds that the essence of a person is reborn in a different “shell” after death. Some systems of belief see this as perpetual reincarnation in human forms, while others (notably Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Eastern religions) believe that the soul can be born in plant form, animal form, or as a being in another realm. Many early Christians also believed in reincarnation, which may be a theological view in reincarnation (called gilgul) carried over from traditional Jewish Kabbalah.

  Because past lives are not something that can be empirically proven by scientific study, there’s no way of knowing how the process works—or if it’s real to begin with. However, schools of science point out that energy and matter cannot be destroyed—only changed. Numerous religions and spiritual paths agree. One extension of this knowledge is the belief in past lives: consciousness must continue in a state of change. Nature tells us that everything works in cycles. Why would one’s consciousness be any different?

  Author, Pagan, and magician Donald Michael Kraig, in his lecture at 2009’s PantheaCon (America’s largest annual Pagan/occult convention—which everyone should attend!) reviewed some perceptions about how past lives operate. Indeed, the most obvious perception for those of us believers in the West is that “I” or “you” reincarnate over and over again into human bodies. This seems the most obvious way to view the issue. While this is a possibility, countless schools of thought teach that the “I” is ego (which has both positive and negative traits) and is therefore an illusion that is subject to change. In this way, the “I” that I am currently experiencing was not the same “I” that experienced “my” past lives. Confusing?

  One example to clarify this line of thinking is to look at the concept called the Pool of Souls. Within this idea, it’s believed that memory is mortal and thus separates from the soul after death—that is, memory (the mind) “goes“ somewhere different than the soul. So what happens to the memories? According to this theory, the memory enters a Pool of Souls (like an akashic record database) where all memories in human history are stored. When a person remembers their past lives, then, they are tapping into the Pool of Souls, or the akashic records. Do those memories belong to the person performing the regression, then? Yes and no. Vibrationally, the past lives one perceives are linked to the regressor’s soul in the moment. Like attracts like. At the same time, the “I“ that I perceive now did not necessarily experience those memories precisely “in the flesh.” Instead, the person who is “me” (which is actually a conglomeration of energy, flesh, and meta-forces) chose to recount those experiences as if they were my own.

  Because countless people claim that they were Cleopatra, Napoleon, or Isis (seriously) in “past lives,” could they really just be tapping into those former impersonal experiences and memories via this Pool of Souls? According to this theory, absolutely. But still, the idea of the Pool of Souls doesn’t discount the notion that some people have serious psychological imbalances and feel a need to have been someone famous in order to compensate for suffering experienced in the current lifetime.

  Other people believe that past lives are genetic. Because every cell in our body is constantly communicating, is it possible that memory is stored in the DNA? (I certainly believe so. Please see page 148 for more about the Mysteries of the Blood.) Could past-life memories actually be memories of our genetic ancestors? Possibly.

  Some people even believe that everyone has a parallel life or lives. This is to believe that a number of people are linked on acute levels of consciousness and are having virtually identical experiences with different settings. According to this line of thinking, if I “remember” something about a past life, I may really be remembering an energetically parallel person’s or peoples’ memories.

  Still other people believe that so-called “past-life memories” are actually more like dreams: a person is receiving arcane messages from the subconscious mind. At the same time, these symbolic transmissions are likely to have significance and relevance—just like nightly dreaming.

  Regardless of the “real” nature of past lives—and, again, this is something that Donald Michael Kraig heavily emphasizes in his past-life and hypnosis work—the most important thing is that the “memories,” whatever they are, carry immediate significance and relevance to this life’s experience and are things that can advance the seeker’s spiritual development. We must take the visions as they come and try not to overanalyze!

  Stepping Back & Further Application

  For this ritual, you will be entering a state of self-induced hypnosis. The method demonstrated here can be called rapid hypnosis or fractionation, and is greatly based on the work of hypnotherapist Dave Elman. It is believed that repeating hypnosis helps practitioners go deeper into a hypnotic or trancelike state, and that they are subsequently able to enter hypnosis more and more quickly. This is an invaluable skill to any meditator, mystic, Witch, magician, or spiritualist in general.

  There’s no telling what you’ll experience during past-life regressions. It’s good to keep an open mind about the experiences but not become attached to what you perceive.

  There are numerous scientifically documented studies about past lives, most particularly involving children who come into the world knowing intricate details about the lives they had just lived. In many cases, they know acute, vivid details surrounding their former life, including their former name, their family’s names, friends’ names, residence, dates, the location of hidden items, cultural information, and other absolutely mind-blowing facts that they would otherwise have no way of knowing. While it’s unlikely that you’ll recount such incredibly detailed information about your past lives (whatever “past lives” truly are), it’s good to know that there is documented and proven validity in regards to their reality.

  Supplies

  • a stick of sandalwood incense

  • a blue candle

  • 1 each of the stones bloodstone (or carnelian), a fossil of some type, petrified wood, and tiger’s eye

  • any elestial stone (see Notes)

  • a bowl (preferably black) of water

  • any combination of the herbs angelica, eucal
yptus, gingko, marshmallow root, mugwort, sandalwood, and shavegrass (horsetail)

  • a sterile lancet or pricking device to extract blood

  • a notebook and pen

  Notes

  • It’s a very good idea to make notes of your past-life regression experiences after you return from trance. These can be reviewed at a later time, and are likely to hold significant keys of information pertinent to your present lifetime.

  • Elestial stones, also called “record keepers” are any stones with a number of terminations or jagged points along one side. If using an elestial stone, smoky quartz is a great option, as very few stones are capable of forming this design. For the purposes of past-life regression, these stones are beneficial because they capture moments of time in a series of jagged steps, thus mirroring the moments of time the regressor wishes to access.

  Procedure

  Begin by casting a circle, calling the quarters, chanting, or raising energy as you normally would, performing protective exercises, and altering your consciousness. Clear your mind, bring focus to your breath, and meditate for at least a few minutes. When ready, begin the spell.

  To begin, turn off the lights, ignite the incense and candle, and put all the stones in the water. Place the herbs around the bowl and scatter some around your space. (An alternate option is to put them in an enchanted “past-life sachet ” and wear it only when performing regression.)

  Prick your finger with the lancet and allow a drop of blood to mix with the water. Stir it around and say:

  By the pricking of my finger, I enter lifetimes once lived.

  AKASHA! HOLY AKASHA! AKASHA!

  Open your doors to me through the corridors of time.

  Reveal my lives unseen. Show me what must be revealed.

  With truth and clarity, I open the door to my soul’s experience.

  Close your eyes and enter a hypnotic state. Begin by envisioning yourself in a tunnel. At a very slow rate, you see numbers passing by you: 100 … 99 … 98 … 97 … These numbers begin to speed up faster and faster. After a couple minutes, you are seeing numbers fly by quickly: 40 … 30 … 20 … When you approach 0, your consciousness sinks deep within itself. You are deeply inside your mind.

  Next, envision a ruler vertically suspended in front of you. Perceive the number 100 at the top. You slowly bring your vision down this ruler: 99 … 98 … 97 … When you reach 90, your consciousness sinks 10 times deeper within itself. Deeper. And deeper yet. As you slowly count down, reaching 80, you once again go 10 times deeper. This continues until you reach 0.

  Establish your vision. See the scenery around you. Don’t judge, just see what you see; don’t rationalize the experience. Instead, get the visions as they come. Observe what you’re wearing. Observe your age and gender. Observe your physical senses and how they interact with the environment. Where are you, what are you doing? Are you headed somewhere? Is there anyone else around you? Is it day or night?

  By the force of your free will, project yourself further into that same life. See yourself aged in that life. Again, absorb what you’re experiencing. Observe. Continue this for as long as you’d like. If you get any names, dates, locations, symbols, or scenarios, make a mental note. If you wish, allow yourself to slip into additional past-life experiences. Continue this for as long as you’d like without getting worn out.

  When you’ve received at least some amount of information, see yourself rocketing back up that ruler, going from 0 to 100. As you ascend, your mind returns to your current and present experience. Your mind is returning . . . returning . . . coming back to the moment. Finally, you rocket backward through the tunnel of numbers by which you entered. Once you reach 100, open your eyes and find yourself back in your physical frame.

  When you ground and center your energy, close the circle as you normally would. Then write notes of the experience in your notebook, and realize that you can come back to regress (either on those lives or others) any time you’d like.

  The idea of the Underworld is present in cultures around the world. Religions far and wide hold varying notions of the afterlife and the land beyond this one. The term Underworld doesn’t necessarily refer to Hell. Instead, it refers to the realms of the afterlife and the unseen. Allow me to give only a handful of perceptions.

  The ancient Greek view of the Underworld included the belief that all souls of the dead would travel to this one place. Greeks understood the existence of various layers and levels of the Underworld, including the land of the dead ruled by Hades, the great pit of Tartarus (a home of the damned), the Elysian fields (for blessed and initiated souls), and the related Isles of the Blessed (or Elysian Islands), reserved for departed heroes. Five rivers were also seen as separating this world from the Underworld, on which souls of the dead were to travel. It should be noted that the Greek view of the afterlife varied considerably over time.

  Annwyn (AH-noon) was the Welsh land of the dead. Ruled by Arawn (and later Gwynn ap Nudd), it can be seen as a type of heavenly realm. Wiccan views of the afterlife, or Summerland, are often somewhat similar to Celtic perceptions of Annwyn. The term Summerland is actually derived from the Spiritualist movement. The Spiritualist view of the Summerland is closer to a Christian view of Heaven than anything Pagan, which is why many Neopagans don’t like the term (or simply use it as a synonym for “afterlife”).

  Ancient Egyptian mythology saw Duat as the afterlife’s place of judgment. There, the deceased’s heart carried the soul and was weighed on a scale next to the feather of Ma’at, which represented ultimate justice and truth. If the heart didn’t weigh the same as the feather (and was thus polluted with sin), the soul was immediately sent to be devoured by Ammut, the chimeric crocodile-lion-hippo goddess. If the soul weighed the same as Ma’at’s holy feather, the soul was permitted to proceed to the heavenly realm of Aaru for all of eternity.

  Divisions of the afterlife are seen across the globe and through all human history. The Christian mythology of Heaven and Hell is based on older ideologies and is not necessarily unique from other cultural views of the Great Beyond.

  The Legend of the Descent of the Goddess is a metaphorical Pagan mythology known in a number of forms. The Descent, ideas of which we’ll be using here, represents the death and rebirth of the seasons. Similarly, the Descent can be seen as a representation of the individual death/rebirth process that an initiate receives. Because existence itself is a process of life, death, and rebirth, the Descent has wide-ranging spiritual significance.

  One of the myths surrounding the Sumerian fertility goddess Inanna is her descent to the Underworld (Irkalla). Ereshkigal, who was Inanna’s sister and the queen of the Underworld, felt extreme hate toward her sister—the reasons for which are debatable. On Inanna’s way to Ereshkigal’s realm, gatekeepers instruct her to remove her elaborate clothing. After these are offered up piece by piece, she stands naked before her sister, who then kills her. After a series of events, Inanna is saved and revived (by the Food and Waters of Life), marking her rebirth.

  Perhaps the other most well-known Descent of the Goddess legend is that of Persephone (Greek). When Persephone was picking flowers in a field, the Underworld god Hades burst through a crack in the Earth and abducted her. While Persephone was residing in the Underworld (which is also called Hades), her mother (Demeter) searched the land for her lost daughter. Demeter was later told of the incident by the all-seeing sun god Helios. As Persephone spent time in the terrain of Hades, the vegetation of the Earth died. Zeus forced Hades to release Persephone, but Hades managed to trick Persephone into eating pomegranate seeds. These seeds ensured that Persephone would return to the Underworld for a period of time every subsequent year.

  These myths and others are stories of the Earth’s vegetation cycle (origin myths for the seasons) and can additionally be seen as representing the psychological process of life/death/rebirth, such as that which is mirrored i
n the process of initiation.

  Stepping Back & Further Application

  The Underworld can be astrally accessed by the living for a number of purposes. In addition to various processes of initiation, a person can travel to other layers of reality to gain insight, heal others, detect curses, meet other aspects of self, and perform other “shamanic duties.”

  This working follows a sort of shamanic view of the Underworld and favors no mythological system over another. If you follow a particular pantheon and wish to incorporate specific gods or goddesses, go for it. Or you may prefer to journey to the Underworld in a fashion you’re already familiar with. I encourage readers to incorporate their own mythologies into the working.

  The goal of this working is to usher the ritualist into a psychological place where they are willing to offer up the unwanted in exchange for newness. Think about what you wish to give up in your life and what can take its place. This is not an exchange of power (in other words, you don’t have to give up a positive ability), but it is an exchange of energy.

  Think about opposites. The exchange should be of equal-opposites. Perhaps you wish to give up habits of self-destruction, either physical or psychological. Its opposite is self-healing, either physical or psychological. In this example, a door to extreme healing can open (perhaps the practitioner will discover physical or energetic healing arts) as the unwanted door to the past closes. Use this example to analyze your own situation and discover precisely the thing you wish to give up, simultaneously theorizing what its exchange may be. Be prepared for new and unknown doors to open while the thing you release begins its banishing cycle.

  Supplies

  • a fresh pomegranate

  • 2 large, heavy rocks

  • a black permanent marker

  Notes

  • Be sure to read the Stepping Back section and determine what it is you wish to exchange and what it is you seek in return.