The Star Ruby

The Star Ruby, formally published as Liber XXV in Aleister Crowley’s Collected Works, is a banishing ritual designed for practitioners working within the Thelemic philosophical and magical system. It parallels the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) in its overall structure, using traced pentagrams at the four cardinal directions to cleanse and protect the ritual space, but it replaces the Hebrew divine names and Kabbalistic archangels of the LBRP with Greek divine names, Thelemic deities, and gestures drawn from the Thelemic tradition. The Star Ruby represents Crowley’s deliberate construction of a complete Thelemic ritual alternative to the Golden Dawn system from which he drew much of his early training.

The ritual’s name places it in relation to the Star Sapphire, Crowley’s Thelemic reformulation of the Greater Ritual of the Hexagram, and together the two rituals form the banishing and invoking pair that corresponds in the Thelemic system to the LBRP and its hexagram partner in the Golden Dawn tradition.

History and origins

Crowley first published the Star Ruby in the Collected Works volume of 1907, with a later and somewhat different version appearing in The Book of Lies (1913). The existence of two versions has given practitioners a choice, and both remain in use, with the Book of Lies version generally considered more refined. Crowley composed the ritual partly as a response to his conviction that the Hebrew framework of the Golden Dawn system was not the only valid, or necessarily the optimal, symbolic framework for Western magic, and that a Greek-derived system aligned with the Thelemic theology of the Book of the Law offered genuine advantages for practitioners committed to that current.

The Greek divine names Crowley employed drew on the tradition of Greek magical papyri and the Gnostic tradition, particularly the name IAO, a widespread divine name in late antique magical practice combining elements of Jewish, Greek, and Egyptian divine names.

In practice

The Star Ruby begins with the practitioner facing East. The opening gesture is a salute described in the original text: the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand pressed together and brought to the lips in a kiss, then extended outward. This gesture, the Hailing Sign of a Magister Templi in Thelemic grade language, replaces the Qabalistic Cross that opens the LBRP.

A method you can use

The following outline describes the structure of the Star Ruby. Practitioners working with the ritual should obtain the original text from Crowley’s published works and study it in full before practicing.

Step one: Face East and perform the opening salute as described. Vibrate “APO PANTOS KAKODAIMONOS” (Away, all evil spirits), turning as you trace a banishing pentagram with the extended thumb, index, and middle fingers, or with a dagger if you use one. Vibrate the appropriate divine name at the center of each pentagram as you charge it with your point.

Step two: Trace the pentagrams at all four quarters, East, South, West, and North, vibrating the names Chaos (East), Babalon (South), Eros (West), and Psyche (North) at each. The pentagrams are Earth banishing in structure, traced from the lower left.

Step three: In the center of the space, perform the middle section invoking the divine names and drawing the sacred names in the space above and below. Vibrate IO PAN with the arms extended in the Sign of Typhon and Apophis.

Step four: The quarters are guarded by invoking Therion at the East, Nuit at the South, Hadit at the West, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit at the North, with the appropriate Thelemic signs.

Step five: Repeat the opening salute to close.

Regular practice of the Star Ruby, like regular practice of the LBRP, develops the practitioner’s ability to establish a clear, protected ritual space and strengthens the capacity for the kind of sustained vibration of divine names that underlies much ceremonial magical work. Daily practice before meditation or magical working is the traditional recommendation, and the ritual typically takes between five and fifteen minutes once it is memorized.

The Star Ruby in context

The Star Ruby occupies a specific theological position within the Thelemic system. By replacing the archangels of the LBRP with Thelemic deities and the Hebrew divine names with Greek ones, it enacts the Thelemic claim that the current magical aeon, the Aeon of Horus in Crowley’s framework, calls for a different symbolic and theological framework than the Osirian aeon that preceded it. Practitioners who find themselves working naturally in the Thelemic current, who resonate more with the Greek mythological framework than the Kabbalistic Hebrew one, or who have made a serious commitment to the Law of Thelema, will generally find the Star Ruby a more congruent banishing practice than the LBRP.

In myth and popular culture

The Star Ruby is a specialized ritual text with a relatively narrow audience, but its broader cultural context, the Thelemic current and Aleister Crowley’s influence, has achieved considerable popular recognition. Crowley’s influence on twentieth-century popular culture is extensive: his image appears on the cover of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967), Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page was a devoted collector of Crowley’s manuscripts and owned Crowley’s former home at Boleskine House on Loch Ness, and Crowley’s self-designation as the Great Beast has been referenced in popular music from the Rolling Stones through numerous metal and post-punk artists.

The rituals Crowley composed, including the Star Ruby, belong to the tradition of high ceremonial magic that has attracted literary interest through figures such as William Butler Yeats, who was a Golden Dawn initiate and engaged seriously with ritual magic, and Dion Fortune, whose novels “The Winged Bull” and “Moon Magic” fictionally depict ceremonial practices of the period. The ritual’s Greek divine names, including the invocation of Chaos, Babalon, Eros, and Psyche, draw on the late antique magical papyrus tradition that has been extensively studied by classical scholars, giving the Star Ruby a genuine connection to documented ancient practice rather than purely modern invention.

In occult fiction, the banishing ritual as a genre appears prominently in works ranging from Dennis Wheatley’s thrillers, which depict ceremonial magic in lurid terms, to more sympathetic treatments in the work of Kenneth Grant, whose novels and non-fiction alike explore the Thelemic and Typhonian currents that encompass the Star Ruby’s tradition.

Myths and facts

Several misunderstandings about the Star Ruby arise from unfamiliarity with Thelemic practice and from the confusion that sometimes surrounds Crowley’s work generally.

• The Star Ruby is sometimes assumed to be simply a copy of the LBRP with different words. While the structural parallel is real and intentional, the theological and symbolic content is substantially different: the Star Ruby is not a translation of the LBRP into Thelemic vocabulary but a distinct ritual grounded in Greek magical tradition and Thelemic cosmology.
• Crowley’s association with the term “wickedest man in the world,” applied by the tabloid press, leads some practitioners to assume his rituals carry inherently dark or dangerous energy. The Star Ruby is a banishing ritual whose function is protective and cleansing; its ethical character is shaped by the intention and practice of its user, not by Crowley’s tabloid reputation.
• It is sometimes assumed that the Star Ruby exists in a single authoritative version. There are two published versions, one from the 1907 Collected Works and one from “The Book of Lies” (1913), and practitioners have noted differences between them. Consulting both and working from the more refined 1913 version is the common recommendation, but neither is the sole correct text.
• The Greek divine names used in the Star Ruby, particularly IAO, are sometimes assumed to be Crowley’s inventions. IAO is a widely attested divine name in the Greek magical papyri, Jewish-Greek religious texts, and Gnostic tradition, with documented use long predating Crowley.
• The Star Ruby is sometimes presented as a direct replacement for the LBRP suitable for any practitioner. It is specifically designed for those working within the Thelemic current; practitioners working in a Kabbalistic or Golden Dawn framework have no need to substitute it for the LBRP, which serves its own system more coherently.