Before you can begin the Banishing Ritual, you must learn two grade signs, the Sign

of the Enterer and the Sign of Silence.

The Sign of the Enterer is used to project magickal energy. To perform

the Sign of the Enterer you must stand with your feet parallel, shoulder
width apart. Visualize a star shining just above your head. Inhale silently
and visualize a shaft of white Light coming down through your body from
the star above you to a second star beneath your feet. As you inhale
draw down the light and raise your elbows upward and outward, parallel
with your shoulders. Hold your hands flat beside your neck, palms
downward, and fingers extended, pointing forward. Suddenly and
forcefully step forward with your left foot, thrust your hands directly
forward, and lower your head between your arms, eyes forward. As you
do so exhale silently, visualize the Light raising back up through your
body, and project it out through your fingertips.

The Sign of Silence is used for protection against any attack

or to stop or seal the motion of Magical Energy. When projected with the
Sign of the Enterer, Magical Current tends to rebound upon the Operator
through a reflux wave. The Sign of Silence prevents this rebounding of
Energy on the Inner Planes. It should be used to confine a Force during
the Consecration of Talismans. It should also be used after the tracing of
Banishing Pentagrams in Ceremonial Magick. DO NOT use it following the
Sign of the Enterer during an Invocation because we WANT the invoked
forces to flood back through the invoking pentagrams and come into the
Magick Circle.

To perform the Sign of Silence, make a fist with your left hand and
extend your left forefinger. Bring your left hand up to your mouth and
touch the centre of your lips with your left forefinger. When performed
with the Sign of the Enterer, bring your left foot back parallel with your
shoulders and stamp once forcefully with your left foot. Visualize
simultaneously that a water vapour encircles and encloses you.

Additional Notes on The Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram

by Mark Stavish, M.A., FRC, SI
3 August 1998
Copyright Mark Stavish 1998
Introduction
While most students are familiar with the LBRP as it is written in the Golden Dawn texts, and related
sources, it is essential the ritual be understood in it multi-faceted format.
Applications
The LBRP is more than just a preparatory banishing, or cleansing ritual, done prior to meditation or
other ritual work, for the increase in psychic force. In this aspect the ritual is different because it
cleanses and area for working, as opposed to regular banishing which release or disperse energy
previously invoked during the ritual. The ritual also has an invoking mode, and can be used as is, to
allow an opening of the four Quarters of the ritual circle for an increased awareness of the individual
Elemental energies present.
While the banishing mode of working should be done for three to six months on a regular basis
(anywhere from three times a week to three times a day), after this period of probation and learning
the mechanics as well as some of the effects of the ritual, it should then begin to follow it up with
it invoking form.
“…More specifically, in the preparatory time, we recommend that you perform the ritual of the
Pentagram in its banishing or closing version. This term means closing the being to harmful
influences and not closing the ritual. The term opening, in reverse, means opening the being to the
invoked forces.”
Thus, in the present phase of our work, it is necessary to work in the following manner:
In your oratory, after you have lit the candle and burned some incense:

1. Perform the ritual of the Pentagram - the banishing version - in order to induce a thorough
cleansing and eliminate the psychic impurities which lately have penetrated the environment.
2. Collect your thoughts, and relax as deeply as possible.
3. Perform the opening ritual of the Pentagram in order to open yourself to the psychic and
divine influences.
4. Practice the exercise of your choice [i]: meditation on the point or invocation of the Names,
or both.
o A) Meditation on the Point: is the direct method. It is very difficult because you need
to attain an inner state in which you cannot even think that you no longer
think….complete mental emptiness permits us to resonate with Kether. With your
eyes closed, visualize a sphere of light. Do not get tense. Visualize this sphere as it
progressively shrinks until it becomes a very bright point. Sometimes, when the
experiment is successful, the point becomes so bright that it seems black. At that
moment, you know you have reached the energies of Kether.
o B) Invocations: the indirect method. …During the first sessions, pronounce the
Names in increasing order: in Assiah, in Yetzirah, in Briah, in Atziluth, as an attempt
to raise consciousness from the heavier to the more subtle. Then after 8 to 15 days
of practice, perform a second invocation immediately after the first one reversing the
order of the Names in an attempt to bring the energy down through resonance until
the level of consciousness is the lowest.
5. Leave the Oratory. Do not perform the banishing ritual of the pentagram. Basically, the
energies are in you and you should leave them there. [ii]

This understanding of the ritual is unique in several ways:

1. It shows that the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram has both active and passive phases.
2. It can be used as a preparation for a sepherothic meditation.
3. he Names of the spheres have two phases as well, and can be used in more than just the
usual ‘top down’ direction.
4. The energies are invoked and left in us, and not banished away after a period of absorption.

When the ritual is done as a banishing, and is immediately followed up with an invoking pentagram
for all four Quarters using the Divine Names specific to each Quarter, the feeling is an intense
heaviness, like one is being wrapped in a wet blanket. This energy needs to be absorbed as best as
possible, and then an additional and final banishing needs to take place to release any excess
energy present. In some instances, the energy will become more bearable, and need not be
banished, but instead can be carried with the person doing the invoking thereby increasing there
personal energy level. This heaviness is a result of the fact that the pentagram being used is an
Earth pentagram and brings with it a very real and solid sense of the energies being invoked. These
energies in short, exist just beyond our sensory realm and are seeking an avenue of materialization.
After experience has been acquired in the combined banishing and invoking uses of the ritual, it is
advisable to move on to using its form to open and close the individual Quarters of the ritual
circle. This should be anywhere from six to nine months into the ritual work depending on the
individual skill of each practitioner.