This week, I've put together a very basic primer on the model of the planes of being taught in the occult philosophy I currently study. This is as much to gather my thoughts and make them clearer to myself as anything, and I'm still pretty new at this, so even more so than usual, I welcome corrections and thoughts.

I've mentioned this in a comments in a couple of places, but I figured it was worth putting into its own post, but not a full post on the webstead.

Several months back, after reading John Michael Greer's The Secret of the Five Rites, I had an idea for a modification, and I started giving it a try. The modification seemed to work well, but various things about life got in the way and I fell out of the habit. Then I picked it up again about 1-2 months ago, and I figured I'd share what I'm trying here as groundwork for later sharing anything I have to report about results.

The Quick Version of the Workout
If you already know how to do all of the pieces separately, this gives you the idea of how to put them together, and is an easy way to remember as you learn the extended process. If you don't know the constituent parts, you'll want to read the detailed version below.

1. (Optional) Opening Prayer


2. Judson Exercise Opening - Spin counter clockwise for 3/5 of your Five Rites Reps, Draw in Energy from the Earth and the Sun.


3. Slightly Modified Five Rites - Do all Five Rites as described, except pay a bit more attention to your stretch for the Second Rite ("Camel Pose") and for the Fifth Rite, do a dand/"Hindu Pushup."


4. Judson Exercise Closing - Pass the palm of each hand over the other, wrist to fingers, three times, to "seal" your etheric body.


5. Closing and Settling - From Qi Gong practice, to settle down all the etheric energy you just drew in and stirred up, stand with feet hip/shoulder-width apart, place hands on belly, breath in through nose, and out slowly through pursed lips.


6. (Optional) Closing Prayer

Rundown of My Thinking
In The Secret of the Five Rites, JMG talks about the Judson Exercise, an etheric banishing/cleansing ritual that apparently came out of spiritualism, as one of the likely forerunners to the Five Rites, with a bit of talk about what's going on with it energetically. That got me thinking about "why not try to get the best of both worlds?" He also talked about the likely influences of the early stages of what we now know as Hatha Yoga, especially on the second and fifth rite, and I thought "what if you did those 'right'?" Lastly, I got the idea for "closing and settling" from a regular on Magic Monday, who was kind enough to explain in a private message.

Overall, the goal here is to have a daily exercise that is robust physically, but also cleanses and strengthens the etheric body. So far, results have been good for me. It doesn't seem to interact badly with a daily SOP+Awakening the Dragons, but I do usually try to let my body "calm down" after the Five Rites before trying to do any ritual or meditation.

The Long Version of the Workout
Below, I've spelled out my entire sequence as its own exercise, without the "subdivisions" shown in the short version above. If you are starting from scratch, follow this, but I'd recommend checking out The Eye of Revelation as well (which is also included in its entirety in The Secret of the Five Rites, so you could go there too) to get a more in-depth explanation of the separate movements. There are also plenty of videos online showing the "Five Rites" or "Five Tibetan Rites" if you prefer that approach.

1. (Optional) Opening Prayer - Not strictly necessary energetically, I still like to begin and end all of my spiritual work with an opening and closing prayer. For this, I also dedicate the work to Tiw (Tyr), as one of the ways He has shown Himself to me is as the God of being ready to do what is needed, and I see exercise as part of that.


2. Spin Counter Clockwise - In the original Judson Exercise, you do 3.5 CCW spins before the later 5.5 CW spins. Since the Five Rites scale up to far more than 5 repetitions, I've tried to keep roughly a 3/5 ratio (.6) of CCW spins to CW spins. Rounding up, which seems to work better to me, gets a sequence of 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 CCW spins for 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 21 repetitions of the Five Rites. This may take some experimentation to get properly dialed in, or a simpler algorithm might be worthwhile. However many you're doing, begin by facing north, and then do 1/2 extra turn to end up facing south.


3. Draw in Energy from Below - Stand with your heels together, toes angled outward, like the position of attention in the military, if you are familiar with that. Stand up on tip toes, keeping heels together, extend arms straight out, with fingers spread, palms down, head bowed somewhat, and feel etheric energy coming up from the heart of the earth into you. You can say a short prayer here if it feels appropriate. I call upon Erce, Mother Earth, Who is the same Goddess I call upon for "Spirit Below" in the Sphere of Protection. I usually take ~3 breaths to try to feel the energy coming into me.


4. Draw in Energy from Above - Straight up and raise your hands above your head in a "V" shape and look up. Slowly spin clockwise to face north again. As you spin, imagine energy streaming down to you from the sun/high in the heavens. Again, a prayer here is appropriate, and again, I use the God I call upon for Spirit Above in the SOP (in my case Tiw). Again, whether it takes longer than the spin or not, I usually take three breaths here to fill the energy flowing into me.


5. First Rite - Spin Clockwise - For the first of the Five Rites, begin facing north, put your arms straight out to your sides, palms down, forming a "T" with your body. Then spin clockwise for the number of repetitions you are currently on for all five rites. The way this works is to start at 3 and spend at least a week at each number of reps, then add 2 more every time that gets too easy, to a max of 21 reps. I try to spin at a rate that leaves me feeling slightly dizzy, but not like I'm about to fall over. You can mitigate the dizziness by keeping your head and eyes fixed on a far point in one direction for as much of the turn as you can manage, bringing your head around quickly to look at it as soon as possible after you're forced to look away. I also add 1/2 more of a spin so that I end this Rite looking south, and I do the rest of the Rites facing south (all of the North/South orientation stuff is based on the Judson Exercise).


6. Second Rite - Kind of a V-Up - I take 3 deep, slow breaths between each exercise. For this one, lay on your back, with your hands at your sides, palms on the ground, feet together. For each repetition, raise your feet as high as they will go, so your legs are vertical, and contract your abs to raise your chest, shoulders, and head to do a crunch, but keep your hands flat on the ground (unlike an actual "v-up"), and don't try to sit up all the way. Do the same number of repetitions of these as you did spins and will do for every other Rite. I try to breath out when lifting my legs, and in when lowering them.


7. Third Rite - "Camel Pose" - After three slow breaths, I get on my knees and put my feet out behind me, tops of feet on the ground, bottoms facing up. I raise up until my thighs are vertical, and for a straight line with my torso up from the ground. Begin by bending backwards, keeping your hips and everything below them as straight and unmoving/bending as possible. You can put your hands on your hips/butt to avoid hurting your back as you bend backwards. Bend until it feels like you can't go farther, then come back up to vertical and consciously relax your neck and shoulders. Basically we're going into and out of "Camel Pose" from modern Yoga, but that's a static stretch, and this is a movement with repetitions, so don't try to stretch as intensely as you would with the yoga pose - just move to a point where you feel a stretch, and come back without hurting yourself. I breath in while bending back, and out while coming back up. I found this video helpful for learning what cues to pay attention to as I was learning the right posture. For me, keeping my hips properly aligned and imagining going "up and THEN back," leading with my heart, rather than focusing on my back, has helped a lot.


8. Fourth Rite - Bridge - I haven't really made any changes to this one, other than making sure to take weight off my arms and relax my shoulders, neck, and spine when I finish a repetition. Begin by sitting up with your legs straight out in front of you, together, toes pointed up, and hands planted palms on the ground to either side of your hips. For each repetition, raise your hips up until everything from your knees to your shoulders is parallel to the ground, forming a table, with your arms and lower legs as the legs. I try to focus on tensing my butt and lower back to drie the movement, but I also try to do it gradually, without much "snap." After reaching the table position, lower yourself back to the starting position and relax arms, shoulders, spine, and neck (this seems to help prevent weird nerve stuff, at least for me). I breathe in on the way up, and out on the way down.


9. Fifth Rite - "Dand" - This might be the biggest change to the Rites as given, and it makes the exercise significantly more physically challenging, so if you are not already decently strong and flexible, you might want to start with the unmodified version of this Rite. If you are, in fact, a bad enough dude to do it, though (but seriously, don't hurt yourself - take the Five Rites as slowly as they recommend, they're a sneakily more challenging than they seem), after raising up on your hands and feet, push your hips back toward your heels, with as straight a line as you can manage from your hands up your arms, along your spine to your hips, going into "downward dog" from modern yoga. With only a brief pause to feel the stretch somewhere along your legs, bend your elbows, keeping them tight to your sides, which should bring your head/chest closer to the ground, then drive your chest forward as you lower your hips down to the ground, keeping your legs straight the whole time, and end by straightening your arms, bringing your chest up and out and your head up and back, into "upward dog." I found this video helpful for getting the motion right, along with some advice on what cues to pay attention to in the body to make sure you're engaging everything right.


10. Closing and Settling - After your last rep of the Fifth Rite, rise to a standing position with your feet about shoulder-width distant, your knees slightly bent, and your weight on the balls of your feet. I do this by walking my hands back to my feet, keeping my legs as straight as I can manage, and then rising up, just to get an additional stretch in there. Once standing, place your hands on your belly, an inch or two under your navel, over your womb/belly/hara energy center. I like to make a diamond with my forefingers and thumbs, putting my thumbs together on my navel, and all of my other fingers straight out, with index fingers touching (I have to loosen my waistband for this), forming a diamond shape over the energy center. Once in position, take deep, fairly slow breaths in through your nose, and then out slowly but with some resistance through pursed lips (like you are very slowly blowing on a spoonful of soup). While doing this, try to bring your attention to your torso, preferably your belly. I try to avoid any active visualization here, so I don't cross any wires with my regular visualization work, but sometimes I get a sense of what the energy is doing anyway. I do this until my heart is mostly calmed down and until I feel at least a little "settled" - some days I go for more, others I'm in a hurry. The rationale for this is that the Five Rites seems to "open up" a lot of energy centers in your etheric body, and leaving them that way can leave you open to unwanted influences or draining off energy you might rather hold onto and make use of. This exercise seems to settle things down and gently and naturally close them up.


11. Seal Etheric Body - Once I feel adequately settled, I hold out my left hand palm-up and then pass my right hand, palm-down, from wrist to finger tips, a few inches above it, three times. I repeat the procedure with the hands reversed. This is from the Judson Exercise and is meant to seal the etheric body.


12. (Optional) Closing Prayer - Here, I just say the Mark of the Wells with appropriate gestures to close out the ritual/sacred time and space I've created. Afterward, I follow the advice from Eye of Revelation to avoid cold drinks or exposing my body to chilling things (cold floors on bare feet, cold showers, standing right under a fan, and so forth). So, I keep a pair of socks and a seasonally-appropriate shirt to throw on over whatever I wore to work out. Often a cup of tea or half-caff is welcome here, and I'll read something or try to get some work done while I'm still coming down before going on with whatever else I'm doing for the day.

Closing
So, that may read like a lot, but I'm currently at 13 repetition of the Five Rites, and it takes me about 10-15 minutes to do all of that. I expect it will be 20-25 by the time I get to the full 21 repetitions. I find it a marvelous way to get a gentle, but noticeable boost of energy, along with a modicum of strength and flexibility training - enough to stave off the worse of a mostly sedentary job, anyway. As I said, I'll be sharing what I find as I go, but if anyone else is inspired to give this a try, I'd love to hear from you.