Sound has been on my mind a lot lately. I’m teaching my students about the power of recitation, vibration, intonation, and resonation in magick through the use of the Qabalistic Cross, the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, and the Middle Pillar exercise. These ceremonial magick operations are part of our tradition’s spiritual heritage, and while we don’t use them very often at all, we still teach them as a matter of magickal literacy and as “training wheels” for more advanced magickal practices. Particularly, I like to teach it as an introduction to the power of words and sounds in magick.
I first learned the Qabalistic Cross – without even knowing that’s what it was – as a child reciting the Lord’s Prayer in church every Sunday. In the Episcopal denomination, the prayer concludes, “For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, forever and ever, Amen.” The words were accompanied by crossing yourself: forehead, bottom of sternum, right shoulder, left shoulder, heart. I can’t tell you how many times I recited that passage and performed the movements unknowing of its esoteric symbolism – which was there, of course, because of the heavy Christian (and, before that, Jewish) symbolism inherent in ceremonial magick and the grimoire tradition.
In the Qabalistic Cross that Israel Regardie describes, the words to the passage are slightly different. “For Thou art the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, forever and ever, Amen.” In this statement, rather than the Deity having dominion over the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, the Deity is identified as being those things. Small change of words, but a big difference in the way the Deity is perceived.
A key part of the Qabalistic Cross – along with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and the Middle Pillar that follow – is the vibration of certain words and god-names. Vibration is different from recitation. It is literally taking a deep breath, letting the diaphragm drop fully into the belly, and making the sound of the word or god-name vibrate through your larynx and chest cavity as you exhale the word at a high volume. It’s more effective than recitation, which is the speaking of memorized words with little to no visualization, relying solely on the power of sound and of the words themselves (through denotation, connotation, rhyme, and poetic rhythm) to evoke the desired results. The reason vibration is more powerful is because the physical energy of the sounds you’re making is magnified by your loud voice and vibrating body. In short, you become a human amplifier, and because you’re physically vibrating at a certain frequency as you vibrate the words, you are inviting other nearby energies to vibrate at that frequency as well. And once you’ve experienced the sensation of an energy pattern outside of yourself drawing near because you’re vibrating sound at a frequency that is attractive to them, you no longer need words and god-names in order to touch that frequency.
This is a key point to note. You are a spiritual tuning fork. You can vibrate words or pitches in order to build power and evoke elements and elementals, deities, ancestors, and more. Indeed, when we call the quarters in our tradition, the quarter-caller tunes their energy to match that of the element and reaches out to them as they recite the invitation to join the circle, gently guiding them to join those present like one would hug a friend and lead them inside your home.
But sound isn’t all woo. It’s about the physical sound waves that move through the air in every direction. That sound has power. And in the magick circle, that power is amplified. That’s why vibration and intonation are so important in circle. Vibration builds connection through the use of a single pitch. Intonation builds power through the use of multiple pitches. In vibration, what’s important is the resonance of the body and the volume of the spoken word. In intonation, what’s important is the musicality of speech – not quite singing but definitely more than speaking. For example, the goddess-name Aradia could be intoned “Ah-RAH-dee-ah” with the stressed syllable (RAH) at a slightly higher pitch than the rest of the name. Say it out loud, slowly, and you will hear your voice naturally moving up in pitch on the second syllable. The name can also be vibrated – all four syllables at a single pitch – but the intoned name, at least to me, feels more powerful because it is harnessing the power of multiple different pitches, all of which coalesce in the magick circle.
This brings me to another not-entirely-woo concept: resonation. Resonation, by definition, is the intensification and enriching of a tone by supplementary vibration at the same or a harmonious tone. It’s also used to describe something that evokes certain emotions or memories, specifically because what is described is the same or similar to your own experience. In magick, we use resonation as a power amplifier, whether the medium of that power is sound or memory or emotion. The trick with resonation, and what makes it different from magickal vibration or intonation, is that resonation happens with multiple people – multiple spiritual tuning forks – vibrating multiple sounds or emotions that coalesce into a multifaceted and harmonious whole.
Now, does it matter if you use different terms to describe different sound magicks, or different techniques to get to the same experiential goal? Not at all. The Craft is an experiential religion. You gain experience and skill by getting out there and trying out different things and seeing what works for you. I don’t know who else has written about sound magick in this sort of detail, but I do know that it plays an important part in the Conclave tradition. But whether you are a member of my tradition or not, go out there and make some noise and see how your magick blossoms!