It is appropriate at this time to discuss more specifically the creating of sacred space for the work of the Culdee.

Cassian's ancient admonishment to, “stay in your cell, “ has a twofold meaning. First, it simply means that the Culdee should be constantly watchful of his thoughts, being ever wary of distractions and attachments to temporal and material things. Otherwise it suggests that we should be doing all our work in our cell, or cille.

Though it is both acceptable and proper to have a consecrated material cille set aside somewhere in which to perform our training and practice, in reality we as Culdees should be able to create for ourselves a cille anywhere we happen to be.

The true method of construction of a cille, as alluded to by Cassian in the 24^th book of The Conferences, is done spiritually though ritual and imagination, and not with stone, wood or brick.

Here follows the method of making the cille:

Be properly clothed in a white linen robe, with a girdle or apron of leather about your loins, and a crown of gold upon your head. Be armed with the weapons of a soldier of the Logos, having a staff of wood from an ash tree, a bell, sword, and stone.

Have the staff be in your right hand, the sword in its scabbard on your left hip, his stone in a pouch on his right hip, your bell in your left hand.

Stand facing the east at the center point of the space you wish to use for work.

Ring your bell three times and intone, “Judge thou, O Lord, them that injure me, fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler and arise for my help.” ¹

Place your staff in your left hand together with the bell, and draw your sword while intoning, “Draw a sword...”

Point the sword at a point in space directly above your head while imagining a ray of light extending from the point of the sword to a distance appropriate to the space necessary for your work. (The distance can be just enough to encompass a room, or large enough to encompass an entire house.) Intone, “...and stop the way of them that persecute me.”

While saying this trace with the sword, as though constructing a barrel-vaulted ceiling, a circle of light around the center point under your feet by bringing the sword down directly south-east and continuing all the way around beneath, and up again passing the north-west until the sword again reaches the apex above where the circle began.

Using the same method, draw a circle of light again around the center point by bringing the sword down directly north-east of his center point and continue all the way around beneath, and up again passing the south-east until reaching the apex above again. While making this circle intone, “say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.”

Then point the sword directly toward the east imagining a ray of light extending a distance equal to the distance of the apex of the north-east and north-west circles. Trace a circle of light around your center point in a sun-wise direction passing the south, west, north, arriving again in the east. While tracing this circle, intone, “Let them that seek my soul be ashamed, and confounded.”

Again point the sword directly toward the east imagining a ray of light extending a distance of one foot less than the first circle, and make a concentric circle at that distance by tracing a circle of light around your center point in a sun-wise direction passing the south, west, north and returning again to the east.

While making this circle intone, “Let them that devise evils against me be turned back and put to shame.”

Facing the east again, trace a pentagram of light at the edge of the outer circle. Begin and end the pentagram at the bottom point on the side to the north. While tracing the pentagram intone, “Let them be as dust before the wind, and an angel of the Lord afflicting them.” Then call forth the angel of the east wind to be watchman over the cille by intoning the name, “Raphael.”

Turn to face the south and trace a pentagram of light beginning and ending the pentagram at the bottom point on the side to the east. While tracing the pentagram intone, “Let them be as dust before the wind, and an angel of the Lord afflicting them.” Then call forth the angel of the south wind by intoning, “Michael.”

Then turn to face the west and trace a pentagram of light beginning and ending the pentagram at the bottom point on the side to the south. While tracing the pentagram, intone, “Let their way be dark and slippery, and an Angel of the Lord persecuting them.”

Then call forth the angel of the west by intoning, “Gabriel.”

Turn to face the north, and trace a final pentagram of light beginning and ending the pentagram at the bottom point on the side to the west. While tracing the pentagram, intone, “Let their way be dark and slippery, and an angel of the Lord Persecuting them.” Then call forth the angel of the north by intoning, “Phanael.”

Again face the east and return your sword to it's scabbard. Take your staff again in your right hand, leaving the bell in the left.

Visualize above your head the four lettered name of God in the form of a Tetraktys of brilliant light.

The Tetraktys should have the Hebrew letter Yod at it's apex, the Hebrew letters Yod and He on the second tier, the Hebrew letters Yod, He, Vau, on the third tier, and the entire name, Yod, He Vau, He on the fourth tier.

The order of these letters on each tier of the Tetraktys should be as in Hebrew, from right to left.

While visualizing the Name intone, “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Then intone, “Thy Kingdom come.” As you say the word, “come,” strike the ground with is staff

and simultaneously visualize light coming down from the Tetraktys and passing through the crown of your head and filling your entire body. Visualize seven nodes within your body of especially bright light. The nodes should be at the crown of the head, in the center of the head just above the level of his eyes, at his vocal chords, the heart, the diaphragm, just below the navel, and at the groin.

Then intone, “thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” While saying this visualize light streaking from the Tetraktys through your body and into the Earth. Then say, “give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” While saying these phrases touch his staff to the node of your diaphragm while saying, “bread.” touch the staff to the node of the heart when saying, “forgive,” and finally touch the staff to the leather girdle while saying, “temptation.”

Next use your staff and make a wheeled cross in front of your body by pointing the end of your staff out in front at the level of the top of your head, and saying, “For Thine is.” Then draw the end of his staff down in front of your body to the level of the girdle and say, “the Kingdom,” then point the staff out in front of you at a point level with and even with your right shoulder and say, “the Power. Next continue by draw a line with the end of your staff across your front of to a point at the level of, and even with, your left shoulder and say, “The Glory.” Next beginning at a point in front of of your body, level with your eyes, and draw a circle that passes through the four branches of the cross returning to the point level with your eyes, and saying, “Forever,” then bring your staff accross your chest to your left shoulder, and bring his bell across your chest to his right shoulder, as though to draw the cross into yourself while saying, “Amen.”

Keep in mind that the wheeled cross, like the pentagram itself, should be inherently symbolic of the pentad. ² It's creation should have a five count, 1. Thine is, 2. the Kingdom, 3. the Power, 4. the Glory, 5. Forever.

In the opening sequence of the ritual when you created the protective sphere, you also created four quadrants tending east, south, west and north. If you were to look at the sphere from above, seeing it as two dimentional, you would see two concentric circles with two straight lines crossing from northeast to southwest, and from southeast to northwest. The concentric circles would be surrounded by four pentagrams placed just outside of the outermost circle at the east, south, west and north compass positions.

Next face the north-east, staying within the eastern quadrant, and trace a wheeled cross while saying, Thine is, the Kingdom, the power, the glory, forever. Then face southeast while staying within the eastern quadrant, and again trace a wheeled cross while saying, “Thine is, the Kingdom, the Power, the Glory, Forever.” Then face back toward the east and intone the four letters of the Divine Tetragrammaton, “Yod, He, Vau, He.”

Next face south, and repeat the previous proceedure tracing the wheeled crosses in the southeast, and the southwest of the southern quadrant, and instead of the Tetragrammaton use the divine name, “Adoni,” pronounced “Adonii.”

Next face west, and again repeat the proceedure tracing the wheeled crosses in the southwest and northwest of the western quadrant, and face again to the west and intone the name, “Elohim.”

Face north and repeat the proceedure tracing the wheeled crosses in the northwest, and the northeast of the western quadrant, then intone the divine name, “AGLA.”

Face again to the east, and assume again the posture refered to as the posture of the good shepherd, wherein we crossed our right hand holding the staff to our left shoulder, and our left hand holding the bell across to our right shoulder as though we were carrying the lost 100^th sheep in our arms.

Now we should intone the phrase, “Ego imi to Alpha kai to Omega legis Kurios ho Theos, ho On, kai ho En, kai ho Erkhomenos, ho Pantokrator, Amen.” This means, “I am the Alpha and the Omega sayeth the Lord God, the Is, the Was, the Will Be, the Omnipotent, Amen.”

When we say the final Amen we should imagine blazing light streaking down from the Tetraktys, passing through our body and into the circles, the names, the pentagrams, and the wheeled crosses making them shine with lightening like white light.

That completes the ritual of making the cille.

1 Psalm 34:1, LXX (Septuagint).  This very ancient use of Psalm 34 (35 in non-Septuagint translations) is alluded to in the Conference Seven: On The Soul and Evil Spirits, of Cassian's Conferences written in the 4th Century.  The ritual itself is alluded to in Conference 24: On Mortification.

2 H.C. Agrippa also refers the number five to the sign of the cross, and as a protection against evil spirits in Chapter VIII of The Second Book of Occult Philosophy.