Regarding the use of Flashing Sounds with the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram

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A couple of months ago I answered a query regarding a method of using tonal sounds with the performance of the Lesser Pentagram Ritual. The system of correspondences between the Hebrew letters and the musical notes is question has been widely distributed thanks to the books of Paul Foster Case, who used sound and colour to elaborate a interesting formula of healing. According to Darcy Kuntz this correspondence system between the Hebrew letters, tonal sounds and colours actually came originally from some notebooks belonging to Allan Bennett, one of the early mentors of Aleister Crowley and a highly regarded Adept of the pre 1900 Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. To his merit Allan Bennett were one of the few London Adepti who sided with S.L. MacGregor Mathers when the Isis-Urania Temple No. 3 schismed with the latter.

Now I haven’t been able to verify myself these highly interesting findings of Mr. Kuntz, which he disclosed to us in his The Golden Dawn Court Cards as drawn by W.W. Westcott, published in 1996 as the fourth volume of The Golden Dawn Study Series. This particular pamphlet from Holmes Publishing Group is one of the most interesting in the series edited by Mr. Kuntz. Besides presenting Westcott’s hand drawn court cards and the intricate system of sub-elemental sigils attached to them, Mr. Kuntz reveals the notebook information from Allan Bennett in an appendix called “On Flashing Sounds”. However, I trust the scholarly integrity of Mr. Kuntz enough to take it for granted that Allan Bennett was the source of these correspondences, even though Paul Foster Case of course doesn’t name his source other than that of his own “Master R.” But as with the rest of Case’s reliance upon the Golden Dawn tradition, he doesn’t give it the credit it actually deserves.

But what complicates matters somewhat is that the official lectures on the correlation between sound and colour in the Golden Dawn Inner Order follows an entirely different correspondence system, which suggests that Allan Bennett developed his own personal system. Thus this “unofficial” system from one Adept became the basis upon which Paul Foster Case built his own teachings on sound and colour used in the Builders of the Adytum or B.O.T.A.

According to Paul Foster Case and Allan Bennett the correspondences between the Hebrew letters, the musical notes and the colours are thus:

So, at can be seen, the actual correlation lies between the sound and the colour. Thus the musical tones are attributed to the 22 Hebrew letters according to the traditional correspondence between the letters and the colours. Paul Foster Case recommended his initiates at the level of Zelator to use this correspondences between the letters and sounds when performing the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. Thus each letter were supposed to be fully vibrated and also according to its designated tonal frequency.

I have personally attended several B.O.T.A. sound and colour sessions in a group setting and both listen to and partaking in this both beautiful and peculiar way of vibrating the words of power contained in the names of the Archangels and Divine names of God. I have also watched an R.R. et A.C. Adept perform a full Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram using Paul Foster Case’s attributions. In my opinion, the ritual takes another life and the musical scale really adds beauty to it. It does resemble something of a Gregorian chant and really lifts the spirit of the listener. However as I haven’t used this system of sound and colour in my own Ceremonial Magic I can but imagine that it is highly effective although quite hard and requires a natural ear for the tones (no room for tone deaf Adepts here).

Now, the original query concerned the difficulty in using the tonal scale when vibrating certain hard consonant letters, for example the letter Peh in Raphael. I tried to help the querent after some ruminations on my own and came up with the following suggestions. I thought I would share this with my readers, so here it is.

First off, I recommend anyone interested in doing practical research into this peculiar system of sound and colour, according to Bennett and Case, to look up the local B.O.T.A. study group. B.O.T.A. regularily has Sound and Colour meditations open for the public. Thus my recommendation is to visit one of these and to partake in a full session, which uses many of the words of power from the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. While being there the opportunity presents iself to also ask the B.O.T.A. folk regarding the intricacies of this matter. However, you won’t see anyone performing a LBRP as Paul Foster Case only taught that to his Zelatores and in Chapter Work. In the particular Pentagram Ritual paper he suggests to use the correspondence between sound and colour, or else to use traditional vibration.

As I said before, I know that it is possible to perform the LBRP using the tonal system as I have seen and heard it myself. But I don’t know today how it was actually done as I heard it almost a decade ago, and I cannot simply access that memory. But I can imagine how it might be done. One of the letters is easy – “B” or Beth – such as in Gabriel. Actually it should be pronounced “Gavriel”. Most often when Beth is transcribed into english it is rendered as “b” when it often should be rendered as a “v”. This correct transcription alone solves the puzzle for most instances.

The good thing about me not remembering how the Adept in question vibrated the tones is that I cannot give away any secrets. Had I known how then my lips would have been sealed. But today I must rely on my own speculation, and being in a mood of sharing freely, I have decided to divulge my thoughts as being grateful to the querent originally stimulating my creativity.

Often Hebrew words are pronounced with vocals between consonants that are marked out with “dagesh” and “niqqud” points, which solves the rest of the puzzle, at least for the majority of cases. Therefore one should intone the vocal sound following or preceding the consonant. Thus to vibrate and spell out each Hebrew letter in each Word of Power in the LBRP I suggest the following:

IHVH or Yod He Vau He – each full word for each letter in the Tetragrammaton is spelled with the same tone, i.e. the letters “YOD” are vibrated with F Natural, “He” with C Natural, “Vau” with C Sharp, and “Heh” (final) with C Natural.

ADNI is pronounced as A-Do-Na-I – “A” is vibrated with E Natural, “Do” with F Sharp, “Na” with G Natural, and “I” with F Natural.

AHIH is pronounced as E-He-I-eH (the final “H” is silent) – “E” is vibrated with E Natural, “He” with C Natural, “I” with F Natural and “e(H)” with C Natural.

AGLA is pronounced as A-Ge-L-A – “A” is vibrated with E Natural, “Ge” with G Sharp, “L” with F Sharp, and “A” with E Natural.

RPhAL is pronounced as Re-Pha-E-L – “Re” is vibrated with D Natural, “Pha” with C Natural, “E” with E Natural, and “L” with F Sharp.

GBRIAL is pronounced as Ga-V-R-I-E-L – “Ga” is vibrated with G Sharp, “V” with E Natural, “R” with D Natural, “I” with F Natural, “E” with E Natural, and “L” with F Sharp.

MIKAL is pronounced as M-I-Cha-E-L – “M” is vibrated with G Sharp, “I” with F Natural, “K” with A Sharp, “E” with E Natural, and “L” with F Sharp.

AVRIAL is pronounced as A-U-R-I-E-L – “A” is vibrated with E Natural, “U” with C Sharp, “R” with D Natural, “I” with F Natural, “E” with E Natural, and “L” with F Sharp.

If one prefers to also vribrate the Qabalistic Cross may I suggest to follow the usual vibration in one pitch as there are a couple of short consonant letters there which is hard to solve, or one may leave out these letters but vibrate the vocal tones as far as one can, such as the following (letters within brackets are silent):

AThH MLKVTh VGBVRH VGDVLH LOVLM AMN is pronounced as A-Ta-(H) (E Natural & A Natural, as the final H is left out) Ma-L-K-U-T (G Sharp, F Sharp, A Sharp, C Sharp, & A Natural) Ve-Ge-V-U-R-a(H) (C Sharp, G Sharp, E Natural, C Sharp, D Natural, & C Natural) Ve-Ge-D-U-L-a(H) (C Sharp, G Sharp, here I cannot solve the “D” letter so it is left out, C Sharp, F Sharp, & C Natural), Le-O-U-La-M (F Sharp, A Natural, C Sharp, F Sharp, & G Sharp) A-M-eN (E Natural, G Sharp, & G Natural).

S∴R∴