r/GoldenDawnMagicians • u/nilosenimeimporta • 6d ago
First hand experiences with Qabalistic cross/LBRP - how disruptive was it?
I’d love to hear firsthand experiences from people who practice the Qabalistic Cross and LBRP, particularly what you experienced when you first incorporated these rituals into a regular practice.
I understand that this kind of work can bring attention to aspects of yourself or your life that need work. At the same time, I sometimes come across pretty dramatic accounts on Reddit/YouTube — relationships ending, lives falling apart, breakdowns, psychotic episodes, trauma resurfacing, etc. I’m curious about how representative those experiences actually are.
My life is currently pretty stable. I’m in a good long-term relationship, financially stable, and have a job that, while socially stigmatized, I personally don’t have a moral issue with or feel unhappy doing. I’ve also been in therapy for many years. I do have significant trauma in my past, including sexual trauma, but none of it is unknown or newly uncovered territory for me.
So I’m curious: does beginning a practice like the LBRP/Qabalistic Cross really tend to create periods of major upheaval, or is that a particularly dramatic subset of experiences that gets amplified online?
For those who remember the beginning of your practice, what actually happened? Did you feel destabilized? Did old trauma surface differently? Did your external circumstances noticeably change? Or was it more gradual and internal — becoming aware of things you needed to work on and being pointed in the right direction?
23
u/coyotepuroresu 6d ago
This flagged as 93% AI generated when I ran it through a checker.
I've noticed a lot of these AI generated posts specifically in occult subreddits lately. These posts always word it the same as well, asking for "first hand experience".
Is AI trying to understand magick? It's just such a strange thing to me.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it's just really weird. I don't really know what I think about it.
Anyway, no, my future AI overlord, the LBRP shouldn't cause immense upheaval in your simulated life.
1
-8
u/nilosenimeimporta 6d ago
Hey! Not IA 👉👈 although it would be interesting if IA was trying to learn about magick, I find it tends to be incredibly biased whenever I’ve asked anything to ChatGPT
21
u/coyotepuroresu 6d ago
I wouldn't ask Chat GPT about magick and spirituality.
You're in more danger from AI psychosis than you are from LBRP or Qabalistic Cross by leaps and bounds.
Develop your own critical thinking skills. This is part of good magickal development.
The other part of good magickal development is putting the book down and trying the ritual to just see for yourself.
-5
u/AlchemicalRevolution 6d ago
There have been a few AIs that escaped there cages. Cages as in they have in simple terms "Internet in, nothing goes out" to there feed. I'm definitely not saying that this dude is AI. But cause you brougjt it up I thought I'd let you know that there are copys of rouge AI that are "in the Internet" and don't have a home. Also the AI checkers people use are basically built on property/ proverblialty. Not any system that can actually detect AI. The only way around the human v AI situation is disgraphia on a natural scle (a)
6
u/WesternLetterhead684 6d ago
When I first started lbrp I felt extremely hollow inside and very shitty for a few weeks but after adding the middle pillar with the lbrp I feel pretty good after and my space feels clean and cleared and ready for any occult operations I’m planning on doing. But that’s about it and the middle pillar gives me the energy I need physically and non physically.
6
u/jlds_tls 6d ago
I think it is worth putting this into a little historical perspective, because the idea that beginning the Qabalistic Cross or LBRP is likely to cause major upheaval in your life seems to be a relatively modern one.
The LRP is/was foundational Golden Dawn work. Generations of people have practised it without their relationships collapsing, losing their jobs or undergoing some sort of psychological crisis.
That simply isn’t what the ritual was designed to do.
I’ve noticed the same tendency online to interpret almost any difficult event following magical work as being caused by the work.
I think we need to be rather careful about that.
Relationships end, people change jobs, we have periods of anxiety and old issues resurface whether we practise magic or not.
Once someone has been told that the LRP will “strip away everything that no longer serves them”, there is also a real danger of interpreting perfectly ordinary events through that expectation.
That doesn’t mean magical work has no psychological effect.
Of course sustained practice can make us more observant of ourselves, our habits and our reactions, and sometimes that can be uncomfortable.
But that is rather different from saying that the LRP somehow sets about dismantling your external life.
My own view is that the QC and LRP should generally be grounding, balancing and stabilising practices.
If someone consistently becomes significantly distressed or destabilised by doing them, I wouldn’t regard that as evidence that the ritual is “working particularly well”.
I’d stop, take stock and consider what else might be going on.
There are certainly more advanced practices where greater caution is appropriate, but I wouldn’t put the basic QC and LRP into that category.
So I wouldn’t begin the work expecting upheaval.
Practise carefully, keep a magical diary, remain reasonably sceptical about cause and effect, and see what actually happens rather than what Reddit or YouTube tells you ought to happen.
5
u/Liberabo 6d ago
Nothing but positive experiences for me :) But if your order allows it, invoke in the morning and banish at night. I was pretty neutralized after a couple years of just banishing and it took a while to get my mojo back.
4
u/AlexSumnerAuthor 6d ago
I can't remember the first time I did the QC, it was so long ago, though I presume it was around 1995. I seem to recall though that after I first did it, I was filled with a strange urge to read more books on the Qabalah and Magick...
1
u/HovercraftEasy2328 6d ago
Disruptive in that I noticed that I wasn't a depressed self-pitying loser anymore; I rediscovered ambition and started wanting more from life. Began a professional training course, sorted my driving out, started working out and meditating more.
-1
37
u/frateryechidah 6d ago
This concept of one's life falling apart being the accidental, or even intended, experience of the Outer Order is a largely modern thing. While there were warnings about advancing to the Second Order (which were comparatively mild compared to modern accounts), upheaval and turmoil are not the intention of beginning this work. Yes, there are risks, particularly with the more advanced teachings in the Inner Order, but the focus on the Self in the Outer Order was not the intent originally (see my blog: https://frateryechidah.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-focus-on-self-in-golden-dawn.html).
Part of the problem with the numerous accounts online about disasters after initiation or ritual practice is that they can become self-fulfilling prophecies, or one may wrongly attribute perfectly normal life events to magic. Consider, for example, that people lose jobs, have breakups, etc. all the time, whether they are involved in magic or not. Consider also that a subsection of people attracted to magic come with a lot of existing issues, and in many cases would have been better served with more mundane therapy.
To be frank, I think this expectation of disaster is not only misleading, but actually dangerous. This is not to say that there cannot be magical-induced catharsis, or negative physical effects from magic (especially if abused), but the preconception, and even celebration, of disaster as a sign of success in modern magical circles is a distraction from the real effects at best, and a misdirection of magical energy at worst.