A practice I have been introduced to by magicians is the creation of astral temples. In her book Maat Magick: A Guide to Self-Initiation, Nema writes of the building of a personal astral temple as both a doorway into other realms as well as a technique that allows you to train your own skills in visualisation and perception. I also found that the same principles and processes that relate to building an astral temple is not unlike evoking entities and consequently, it is a good endeavour to pursue if evocation is, or you intend it to be, a large part of your own practice. In addition to building them, some magicians I know have also had interesting experiences exploring for abandoned or existing ones. There are no limitations.

I have also found this technique present in a variety of forms in Wicca and Paganism books such as Witch Crafting by Phyllis Currot, where the exercise involves finding yourself in a natural setting, leaning against a tree and feeling it giving you strength, dipping into a cool stream that refreshes and cleanses you, feeling the sun beat upon your back, energising you, and so forth, tying this ‘astral temple’ to the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. However, I like the techniques outlined by Nema because they allow for an exciting degree of creativity and open up countless possibilities for magical workings uniquely appropriate for your astral temple that extends beyond utilising it as a meditation setting.

In my own experience, I have experimented with an underground temple made up of sprawling caverns.  There is one area where the rock forms a reflection pool at the centre of the ‘room’ and I have used that to scry as well as perform necromantic rites on the astral level. The latter was not effective, which may or may not signal that necromantic rites are grounded instead, on our earthly, material plane.

In a related experience, I have ‘met’ with three other magicians from other parts of the world on an agreed time at a collective astral temple. The results were startling and surprisingly effective in the way many of us were able to regularly describe same or similar aspects in the temple later.

Further Reading

Nema (1995), Maat Magick: A Guide to Self-Initiation, Red Wheel/Weiser: Newburyport, MA, p. 17-22.

Miller (2009), ‘The Astral Temple’, Strategic Sorcery. Retrieved 18 December 2009 from: http://strategicsorcery.blogspot.com/2009/03/astral-temple.html.