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Author Topic: Circle Casting  (Read 2753 times)

Sarah

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Circle Casting
« on: August 05, 2014, 07:17:54 pm »
I'm not exactly a beginner, though I kind of am if you take the long view, and this is something I really don't understand and that other people just seem to so I thought I'd put it here. For context I consider myself an Eclectic Religious Witch

I do sometimes cast circles, (well more spheres than circles, ) both when I'm shielding and occasionally when I'm doing magic work. But I just draw a circle around me or the space I'm working in and imagine a permeable protective barrier and ask one of my deity's  to leave her mark on so nothing that would hurt me can enter.  But I'm not sure if this connects together properly in ways that make sense or work?


I really don't understand about circle casting? I understand that it is/can be for both protection and creating sacred space right? And I understand that it can be useful for  when doing trance work/otherworld work?  I don't understand how you can stay in the circle while traveling elsewhere?  Unless it is just to protect your physical self, but if so how do you protect your non corporeal self?

Also when casting a circle how do you make it so it can be powerful enough to protect you from things getting in while having it able to let things out (like when doing magic that  is targeted somewhere else?)


It might be that i have entirely misunderstood the concept so feel free to tell me if I'm totally off  base
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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2014, 08:01:17 pm »
Ok. First thing I want to say is that this is a complex series of interlocking questions depending on approach (and certainly is for how I do things). So I'm going to gesture at a bunch of pieces.

I hope you (and anyone else curious) will ask about various bits as seems useful or interesting, but I want to be up front about two things. First, this is an area where I may have to go "Yeah, that's not something I can get into in detail in this context" (because in my trad, some of the detailed stuff is not precisely oathbound, but does take a lot of shared context that just plain takes time to build (and that is both near impossible solely online, and, well, time consuming even when it's not: in my trad, learning a bunch of the stuff I'm gesturing at takes a couple of months minimum and also exposure to actually being in circle and feeling the effect of different things.)

And second that I'm about to be travelling for two job interviews at the end of the week, and am getting progressively more scattered about focus as I get toward Friday.

Quote from: Jake_;154867

I really don't understand about circle casting? I understand that it is/can be for both protection and creating sacred space right?


This depends on what you think a circle is, and what your practice uses it for, and the methods that you use to do it. (Think of 'casting a circle' sort of like 'cooking'. Are you cooking just to keep yourself fed? Are you cooking to show love for someone you care about? Are you cooking because it's something you just really enjoy? Are you cooking for a celebration?)

Many of the techniques can be used for all of those, but 'I'm making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because I'm starving' does usually look (and work) a bit different than 'I'm making a five course meal to celebrate my beloved's birthday'. (More on my website about different kinds of purposes for circles)

In my tradition, a circle is used for several different things, all at the same time:

1. To create a space outside the usual flow of space and time where some actions or activities become easier to do (that can include trance, that can also include magic) or where you become more flexible to change.

2. To create a space that is welcoming and pleasant for the humans, deities, and other entities you're inviting (much like if you were throwing a party for friends, you'd probably clean up your place and make it look a little nicer than usual.)

3. To create a space that makes the specific work you're doing easier. For some practices, this is making there be a space where there's no distracting energies. For some practices, this might be setting up energetic patterns that support the work you want to do. For some practices this might be something else.

4. To create a space that has some protections (My own take is that most of the stuff that's out there that might come look is harmless but curious, but even that can be a distraction, and also reasons you might not want to leave your *own* energy traces all over something when you're done. I do think there are also occasionally things that might go "Oooh, snack!" but they're rare.)

5. To contain and encourage the building of energy if you're doing that kind of magical work. It's *much* easier to build up a consistent movement of energy if you have things to bounce it off. Try swirling water around in a mixing bowl as opposed to a bathtub or a swimming pool: making the boundaries of the space smaller and more contained means you get way more movement with less effort.

6. Because in traditions that use a consistent casting method, the casting itself becomes a tool that will drop you reliably into a suitable trance state that makes it much easier to do later parts of the working.

7. When doing certain kinds of intense work - in my tradition, that's initiations, Samhain, anything that involves Drawing Down, and a couple of specific training meditations, usually - it gives some rapid recovery methods if you need to fix or adjust something very quickly to avoid larger problems. It also gives much more control of the environment to the people running the ritual, so that there's less stress and exhaustion for them.

Not all of these apply every circle. For my personal practice, I mostly care about 1-3, 5, and 6, though how much I care about each one varies (with the working, my mood, my overall health, etc.)

There's also one last one: ideally, your circle acts as the underlying cosmology for your ritual life. It's a statement, before you do other ritual things, of how you think the world fits together, and how what you're doing there is going to affect other things.

There are lots of different answers to this question. Some of them I want nothing to do with. Some of them are "That's interesting, but yeah, not my thing." Some of them are very comfortable to me.

(When I hived off the circle I trained in, I got permission to redo the casting poem we use, because the one I trained on has *lousy* poetry and it drives me up a wall. I got permission, so long as it used the same format, and so long as it did the same *things* energetically speaking and uses the same cosmology. This took a while to work out. The resulting circle feels different - the energy sounds different in my head - but they're still circles in the same musical genre, as it were, doing very similar things with pattern and effect.)

Anyway, my point here is that one of the reasons people get very confused when they're comparing different techniques is that the different techniques are actually trying to do different things, or they're working with different models of the cosmos. (Basically, you're comparing apples and oranges, but it's often not obvious they're not all apples.)

Quote

I don't understand how you can stay in the circle while traveling elsewhere?  Unless it is just to protect your physical self, but if so how do you protect your non corporeal self?


This depends on cosmology. Some traditions have a circle that anchors to the physical world. Some traditions have a circle that gives you entry to other planes/spaces/whatever but the circle is a secure and anchored space to come back to. Some traditions, the circle is more like a portable transport bubble, and you take it with you. (Also many other options.)

Personally, I generally trust that my physical self will be protected by being in a physically safe space, and then I'm careful where else I go. (My trancework tends to be known spaces, or with some other set-up where there's some protections, like the use of a guide, anchor method, etc.)

Which, really, is pretty consistent with my cosmology when I'm *not* in circle. (I don't go randomly wandering around cities I don't know without having a clue what I'm doing either. Or the countryside, for that matter.)

Quote
Also when casting a circle how do you make it so it can be powerful enough to protect you from things getting in while having it able to let things out (like when doing magic that  is targeted somewhere else?)


There are different techniques for doing this. This is, in fact, one of the reasons for calling the guardians of the quarters: you basically create the sphere of the circle, you make your protected space. And then you make four tunnels through which you can interact with the larger cosmos, but instead of letting just anything through, you ask four beings who are intimately familiar with where those doors open to keep things out that you don't want in.

Obviously, this is not entirely a trivial action - how do you know they're going to do that for you?

If you are trained in a specific tradition, part of the training is often introducing you to specific guardians, so you build your own relationships with them, and they'll do this for you when you start doing circles on your own, and while you're doing that, you're sort of riding on the tradition's coat-tails and they're being nice to you while you're learning as a favour to the people training you.

If you're working on your own, then you generally either start by doing ritual stuff that doesn't involve those tunnels and guarding, or you use a method that doesn't require it anyway (which may or may not limit what you do in circle.)

Really, though, 'protection' is mostly not the reason I cast circle, so I'm more interested in the other applications, like 'does laying down the energy in X way make the work I want to do here easier?" which is an entirely different sort of question in design.

Ok. This is plenty long, and I'm betting you have questions I didn't really touch on, so I'm stopping here for the moment.
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random417

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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2014, 08:40:41 pm »
Wow Jenett, nicely explained! As someone who does rely on the circle for protection, the only thing I'll add is: in my experience anyway, the guardians of the quarters that you choose should not only know you, but also be familiar with each other. If you're using the circle as protection anyway. This is especially important when evoking, or otherwise calling a spirit to your location physically.
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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2014, 08:49:52 pm »
Quote from: random417;154886
Wow Jenett, nicely explained! As someone who does rely on the circle for protection, the only thing I'll add is: in my experience anyway, the guardians of the quarters that you choose should not only know you, but also be familiar with each other. If you're using the circle as protection anyway. This is especially important when evoking, or otherwise calling a spirit to your location physically.

 
My comments on evocation and invocation and related work would be many more words, and not directly relevant to this thread :)

I generally believe that you ought to be familiar with *anyone* you invite into circle for any kind of involved work, and that you ought to be reasonably aware of whether they're going to get along with whoever else is invited. Whether human or not.
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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2014, 10:38:34 pm »
Quote from: Jenett;154875
Ok. First thing I want to say is that this is a complex series of interlocking questions depending on approach (and certainly is for how I do things). So I'm going to gesture at a bunch of pieces.....

 
I don't really have anything to add other than wow that was thorough and makes me want to incorporate circle casting into my practice again. :) It's been something I haven't felt connected with for a while but maybe because I didn't see how it could fit into my other ritual work at the time.

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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2014, 12:04:10 am »
Quote from: Jenett;154875
There are different techniques for doing this. This is, in fact, one of the reasons for calling the guardians of the quarters: you basically create the sphere of the circle, you make your protected space. And then you make four tunnels through which you can interact with the larger cosmos, but instead of letting just anything through, you ask four beings who are intimately familiar with where those doors open to keep things out that you don't want in.


Thank you.
For years I have heard about calling in guardians during casting circles, and have even participated in doing so (way back when I was a pre-teen/teenager and it was what the 101 witchcraft books said To Do, and later, when I dropped it in my own practice but did things with groups who did the guardian thing), and till I read your post I had no idea what the purpose was.

The 101 books never explained why one would call in guardians. (Or, if they did explain, it was not done well, or they did not touch on this pretty important part of it.) So I ended up not doing it because I didn't see the reason for it. (Also the 101 books didn't tell me to build up any kind of relationship with any entities, but that's a rant for another time.)

But your explanation finally helped it make sense to me, so thank you.
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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2014, 02:34:52 am »
Quote from: random417;154886


 
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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2014, 04:04:30 am »
Quote from: Jenett;154889
My comments on evocation and invocation and related work would be many more words, and not directly relevant to this thread :)

I generally believe that you ought to be familiar with *anyone* you invite into circle for any kind of involved work, and that you ought to be reasonably aware of whether they're going to get along with whoever else is invited. Whether human or not.

 
In my OBOD grove we don't call deities into the circle. We simply honour them (although I guess that involves inviting them to 'hang around' if they want to). We probably aren't standard in OBOD on this, but we take the position that deities and ancestors will come with whomever they choose to. We tend to have a time where we verbally honour any deities and ancestors that we wish to. We're definitely not evoking/invoking them, though. So it doesn't matter too much if I offer a verse of praise to Cailleach Bhearra and my grove-mate opposite offers something similar to a Vedic deity - there's no major clash, since neither of these gods can be contained by the circle. They simply are, and we honour them from our ritual space.

OBOD circles, by the way, don't really make sense outside of group work. So I don't cast circles when I'm working alone. But in an OBOD grove, the circle is basically just used as a ritual framework, a space in which we do our work as a group. Other OBOD groups than mine may see this differently, of course.
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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2014, 08:20:02 am »
Quote from: Naomi J;154927
So it doesn't matter too much if I offer a verse of praise to Cailleach Bhearra and my grove-mate opposite offers something similar to a Vedic deity - there's no major clash, since neither of these gods can be contained by the circle. They simply are, and we honour them from our ritual space.


The way I might put this is that in Wiccan or derived circles, the deities you invite are guests of honour - the beings around which the rest of what you're doing is constructed. And if you're throwing a party, and you're honouring people, you're probably not going to invite people you know they hate, and you're probably going to double check that you're not inviting people they don't get along with, either.

But that's different than an open invite party where people can generally bring whoever they want as a guest (which is more what your OBOD version is like) or where there isn't a single honoured guest, and people just talk to the deities they're most connected with or that're most relevant at that moment.
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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2014, 08:24:24 am »
Quote from: Morag;154914

The 101 books never explained why one would call in guardians. (Or, if they did explain, it was not done well, or they did not touch on this pretty important part of it.) So I ended up not doing it because I didn't see the reason for it. (Also the 101 books didn't tell me to build up any kind of relationship with any entities, but that's a rant for another time.)

 
Welcome! It's hard to explain well, I think, because there's a lot of moving pieces involved.

And I should note, here, that for some traditions, those guardians are the guardians of the quarters, more or less human-like, but very focused on specific things. In some traditions, it's the elementals. In some traditions, it's the elemental rulers. In some traditions, it's something else. (I've seen methods that have a deity at every quarter, though that's a variant that very rarely makes much sense to me.)
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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #10 on: August 07, 2014, 03:51:42 am »
Quote from: Jenett;154940
Welcome! It's hard to explain well, I think, because there's a lot of moving pieces involved.

And I should note, here, that for some traditions, those guardians are the guardians of the quarters, more or less human-like, but very focused on specific things. In some traditions, it's the elementals. In some traditions, it's the elemental rulers. In some traditions, it's something else. (I've seen methods that have a deity at every quarter, though that's a variant that very rarely makes much sense to me.)

 
The only times I ever felt anything was when I called general elementals not Watchtowers or specific names.

In my personal understanding I think of the circle casting as an energy dust devil, with more energy and focus it can become a spiritual wormhole. I've never done this in a group and the books I've read have been vague as to the reason why this phenomena is important. I found a book: Casting Sacred Space by Ivo Dominguez. It is on my list, but I used up my book allowance for the next four months.

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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #11 on: August 07, 2014, 02:26:47 pm »
Quote from: Jenett;154875
Ok. First thing I want to say is that this is a complex series of interlocking questions depending on approach (and certainly is for how I do things). So I'm going to gesture at a bunch of pieces.


Thank you so much for taking the time to write such an in depth post, I really appreciate it


Quote
This depends on what you think a circle is, and what your practice uses it for, and the methods that you use to do it. (Think of 'casting a circle' sort of like 'cooking'. Are you cooking just to keep yourself fed? Are you cooking to show love for someone you care about? Are you cooking because it's something you just really enjoy? Are you cooking for a celebration?)



Right, this makes sense so the more complex the work the more complex the circle needs to be?

Quote
In my tradition, a circle is used for several different things, all at the same time: ...



Laying it out like that is incredible helpful, it helps me work out in my head the reasons that might I want/need a circle. As I'm pretty much solitary currently i guess the best way is starting with a rough idea of what I want/need and then going trial and error with it and see what works and what is useful?

Quote
There's also one last one: ideally, your circle acts as the underlying cosmology for your ritual life. It's a statement, before you do other ritual things, of how you think the world fits together, and how what you're doing there is going to affect other things.


Right,  I have pieces of ritual at the beginning and end of my workings/magic/ rituals that are pretty much this so it would make sense to incorporate the circle building into it when I feel a circle is necessary?



Quote
This depends on cosmology. Some traditions have a circle that anchors to the physical world. Some traditions have a circle that gives you entry to other planes/spaces/whatever but the circle is a secure and anchored space to come back to. Some traditions, the circle is more like a portable transport bubble, and you take it with you. (Also many other options.)

 


Ah, this suggests that I need to work out I need to work out the more in depth/complicated parts of the cosmology i'm working with/pulling together before I decide what sort of protection i need?


Quote
This is, in fact, one of the reasons for calling the guardians of the quarters: you basically create the sphere of the circle, you make your protected space. And then you make four tunnels through which you can interact with the larger cosmos, but instead of letting just anything through, you ask four beings who are intimately familiar with where those doors open to keep things out that you don't want in.


If you're working on your own, then you generally either start by doing ritual stuff that doesn't involve those tunnels and guarding, or you use a method that doesn't require it anyway (which may or may not limit what you do in circle.)


Like Morag says I have heard about this but never knew what it was for, never saw it explained anywhere and this is so helpful because although its not a system i would use it gives me an explanation to build a system I can use.
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Re: Circle Casting
« Reply #12 on: August 10, 2014, 10:30:11 am »
(Logistical note; still with the travelling, so further reply may or may not happen promptly. Specifically, around Sunday, US time, and maybe Monday morning, and after that, not again for complicated discussion until Tuesday, likely.)

Quote from: Jake_;155075
Right, this makes sense so the more complex the work the more complex the circle needs to be?

Yes and no? Wrong axis of analysis, really.

It's more like - the more complicated the work you're doing is, the more you want to set up as much of that in the circle casting as you can. (Because it saves you energy, and because it tends to help be a more reliable solution than just doing stuff on the fly.)

Again, like cooking, you need to do less prep work if you're making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich than if you're making a 5 course meal with lots of fancy bits, where some things have to be ready at exactly the same time.

It's also, for me, about being deliberate with each and every part of the ritual: why am I doing this thing? Why am I doing it this particular way? If I don't have answers for those questions, that's a sign to go do something different or learn more about what's missing.

(For example: people have been casting circles using the same basic format for half a century or so now, and the basic techniques come from way before that. Before leaving something out, if you're working more or less in a system where a circle is appropriate in the first place, I'd look to see why.)

It's also good to remember that 'thorough' and 'complex' are not necessarily the same thing; I can cast a circle in 5 minutes and a couple of paragraphs worth of text total (quite possibly just said in my head) and very little in the way of physical gear, and it will still have all the parts of a more complicated and theatrical circle casting for high ritual. But I will still want to be making deliberate choices about how and why I'm casting that circle, and making sure all the pieces fit with my goal.

Quote
As I'm pretty much solitary currently i guess the best way is starting with a rough idea of what I want/need and then going trial and error with it and see what works and what is useful?

Yep. That's one way to go about it.

The caution I'd give is that it's very tempting for a lot of people to ignore things they think they don't need, and then later, they end up in a situation where it's important. A lot of my own circle technique isn't stuff I need all the time, but it's *amazingly* helpful (to the degree of 'allows me to do formal ritual even when my health is an issue') that wouldn't be true if I hadn't spent time setting and reinforcing some deliberate habits nad patterns.

Habits are sort of boring to set up, but there are reasons they're really useful, in other words. So is the habit of regularly evaluating what you're doing, or of training yourself to take a step back when you're doing something new and making sure the methods you're using will still work.

Quote
Right,  I have pieces of ritual at the beginning and end of my workings/magic/ rituals that are pretty much this so it would make sense to incorporate the circle building into it when I feel a circle is?

Well, it's hard to tell without seeing what you're doing in specific, but I, personally, am fond of reinforcment of ideas, rather than having it in only one place in ritual.

For example, my trad's circle method involves a blessing of the elements (which is always the same text) followed by some other things, followed by quarter calls, which do several things, but among them both reinforce the initial 'we are working in a cosmology about four primal elements that allow us to do everything else' and then also are about the specific focus for that ritual (something that changes every time) and also about connection with the guardians, and also about some kinds of protection.

There's also a part for me, where part of the initial circle work - the first five minutes, maybe ten - is also a way to let your brain switch gears from regular tasks to ritual space. You probably don't need this for a daily devotional, but for a ritual where you want to do trance work, or you want to do focused magical work, or something like that, the more things you can do to make that transition easier and focused, generally the better the outcome is (things go smoother, they work better, it's easier to get everything working, etc.)

Quote
Ah, this suggests that I need to work out I need to work out the more in depth/complicated parts of the cosmology i'm working with/pulling together before I decide what sort of protection i need?

Well, it's more than just that. Cosmology is things like "Do you have a system that's based on four elements, or five, or Land/Sea/Sky, or something else entirely?" (That's going to change a lot of other pieces of how you do things.) Or the nature of deity, or at least a range (a circle designed to invite and welcome other beings is going to be different in some ways than one designed to deal with archetypal beings.

Other questions: do you believe that your circle is a part of the world (and if so, why do you cast it?) Or do you believe it's a space outside of space and a time outside of time (and what do you think about the magical implications if you do?) Do you believe that you need to cleanse the space to make it useful for ritual and to give yourself a clean slate for what you're doing? Or do you think it's more about being polite? Do you think the circle is about protection, or about being a container for your work until you're ready to release it, or about creating a community space (even if that community is you and whatever deity or other entity you invite, not more people.)

There are lots of possible answers to these questions, but your ritual design should reflect them, and your basic circle casting (if you do that) should also reflect it.

This is, by the way, one of the reasons I think a lot of public rituals are unsatisfying for a lot of people: you want things that hold together as an entire piece of work. Think of it maybe like a piece of music, or a book in a genre: people look for cues (both consciously and unconsciously) about whether they're reading a mystery or a romance or a science fiction novel or whatever.

It's possible to cross genres, but if you do it without thinking through the implications, you tend to get something that is either really confusing (and a confusing ritual means people will keep up walls about it and be defensive, and not fully open to what the ritual could do if it worked) or that just flops.
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