I get a lot of hits on my blog from across the realm of the Internet, many of which are from links on Facebook, Twitter, or RSS readers.  To you guys who follow me: thank you!  You give me many happies.  However, I also get a huge number of new visitors daily to my blog from people who search around the Internet for various search terms.  As part of a monthly project, here are some short replies to some of the search terms people have used to arrive here at the Digital Ambler.  This focuses on some search terms that caught my eye during the month of April 2014.

First, a bit of an announcement: I’m going to be taking the month of May off from blogging, since I’m moving from my apartment of four years into a house with my boyfriend and a friend of ours.  I just need some time to myself and away from writing the blog for a bit so I can get all my stuff packed up and moved, my new ritual schedules implemented, my new commute acclimated to, and my old place cleaned out and patched up.  I’ll still do my Daily Grammatomancy on Twitter and Facebook when I can, and if you have any questions, please feel free to email me or contact me through social media, and I’ll still reply to comments on my blog.  Also, I won’t be taking any craft commissions until the start of June, though you’re welcome to get a divination reading from me or get one of my ebooks off my Etsy page.  I still have those St. Cyprian of Antioch chaplets for sale, too, if you want to help out with moving expenses.  With that, onto the search results!

“computer generated geomancy” — If you’re looking for a place to get you geomancy figures automatically generated, you could do worse than go to random.org and use their random number generator to produce 16 binary results (0 or 1), or 4 results with a value of 0 through 15 (or 1 through 16).  If you’re looking for a program that draws up geomancy charts for you, there are a handful out there; I’ve coded one myself, geomancian, which is available for free on the Yahoo! and Facebook geomancy groups, but it’s command-line only (and old).  There’s Geomanticon available from Chris Warnock’s Renaissance Astrology, and I think there are a few mobile apps that do similar, but you’d have to pay for these.  If I ever learn mobile programming, I’d make a new one for Android, that’s for sure.  Still, no application can ever give you a proper interpretation of a full geomancy reading, though it can help you with interpreting the chart for yourself; if you want a full reading, I’m more than happy to offer them.

“do virgo males have big penises like greek god hermes” — I…really can’t speak to this.  (Disclaimer: my boyfriend is a Virgo, so there’s nothing I could say here that would end well for me.)  Also, save for the odd herm and a few ithyphallic representations of Hermes (more properly Mercury, especially in Roman art), Hermes isn’t portrayed with a particularly large cock.  It was actually seen as a good thing for a man to have a small dick in classical times, since they were easier to keep clean and reduced the risk of vaginal/anal/oral injury, trauma, or tearing, which would’ve very easily led to infection in pre-modern times.  That said, well, Hermes has shown me a few, shall we say, fulfilling things once in a while.  I’ll let you get on your knees and pray for that yourself, if you like.

“how to turn holy water into wax” — I don’t think you have a proper understanding of the physics that goes on here.  I mean, water and wax don’t mix, literally or metaphorically, and no ritual or physical process could achieve this short of a biblical miracle.  It’d be easier to turn water into wine, but that wouldn’t turn out so great, either.

“occult symbols of death” — Good question, and not one I really know an answer to.  You might use a seal for a spirit of Saturn, commonly associated with death, or of Azrael, the angel of death itself.  You might find symbols associated with Santissima Muerte, too, since she literally is death.  Other such symbols, such as the cap of Hades, associated with gods of death can work equally well.  When trying to find symbols for concepts like this when a spirit is not necessarily called for, I tend to look for sigils made from the letters of the word itself (so a sigil for the word “death” or “θανατος“), an Egyptian hieroglyph, or an ancient Chinese bone script or seal script character which you can easily find on Chinese Etymology.

“invocation of akasha or ether” — I suggest you don’t bother.  The only Western tradition that can even make good use of akasha is the Golden Dawn, since they’ve spent so much of their time augmenting classical and Renaissance Western mystery traditions with pilfered and appropriated Eastern, Vedic, Taoist, and Buddhist systems.  The use of a fifth element directly in magic doesn’t really have that much of a place, as I see it; Agrippa doesn’t reference it in his Scale of Five (book II, chapter 8) where he lists “a mixed body” instead, and its description in Plato’s Timaeus has it “arranging the constellations on the whole heaven”, so it’s probably more strongly based in stellar powers than perceived emptiness.  This makes sense, since we have no prayers, invocations, or workings of quintessence in the Western tradition before the Golden Dawn, but we have plenty for the gods, signs of the Zodiac, and stars.  To that end, you might use the Orphic Hymn to the Stars.  Alternatively, since the quintessence is the underlying substratum of the elements themselves, you might pursue your own Great Work, much as the alchemists did to find the Summum Bonum and Philosopher’s Stone, to understand and invoke ether on your own; I personally use the Hymns of Silence and invocations of pure Divinity.  And if you’re a neopagan who insists there are five elements because Cunningham says so, I hope you’re up for some actual magical lifting.

“how do i attach a crystal to a wooden dowel for wand” — In my experience, use two-part epoxy.  It forms one of the strongest adhesive bonds I can think of, far stronger than superglue, and it’s commonly and cheaply available at most craft or hardware stores.  If you have some sort of aversion to using artificial materials in crafting, the best I can suggest is carve out a niche in the wand just big enough for the crystal to fit and hold it in place with wire or cord.  Even then, it might fall out.  I strongly suggest the use of some kind of suitable adhesive for this, especially if you’re a heavy duty tool user.

“the use of crystals in conjuring” — Generally, I use crystals as the scrying medium within which I see spirits and by which I communicate with them, and this is often the case by many conjurers, especially those doing Enochiana with Dee’s works or the Trithemian system I use.  I also make use of a crystal on my ebony Wand of Art to help direct and focus power, if needed, but the crystal is not strictly necessary for the wand.  Beyond that, use crystals how you otherwise would in other rituals if you find a need for them; otherwise, don’t bring them into the ritual at all.  You don’t need a crystal for your wand, nor even for the scrying medium; a mirror, an obsidian plate, a blown-glass paperweight orb, a bowl of inky water, or a glass of clear water can all suffice as a perfectly good scrying medium, depending on your preferences; hell, depending on your second sight or conjuration skills, you may not need a scrying medium at all; with practice you’ll be able to perceive the spirit directly in the mind, or even evoke them to visible and material manifestation (which isn’t as important, I claim, as others may say it is, since it’s mostly a gimmick done for bragging rights at that point).

“when u draw a circle in a triangle,does it summon spirits? — On its own, no, otherwise every copy of Harry Potter with the Sign of the Deathly Hallows would actually be magical in more than the fantasy sense.  You’re just drawing shapes at this point, and the shapes are so basic and simple as to have no direct effect on their own.  However, you can summon spirits into the circle in the triangle afterward, which is the standard practice in Solomonic magic.

“is holy water used to bless the new fire?” — I mean, you could flick holy water into a fire to bless it, but the mixing of water and fire here bothers me.  The better way to make holy or blessed fire is to bless the fuel you use, such as the wood or oil, in conjunction with or just by saying prayers over the fire once lit.  This is common in Solomonic magic as it is in other religions, such as the fire blessing rituals of Zoroastrianism.  You might also consider making fire from holy woods or herbs, such as Palo Santo, sandalwood, or similar trees, depending on your tradition.  Generally speaking, fire is already one of the holiest substances we know of in the world and held in high esteem by many religions and traditions.  It can be made infernal, wicked, or evil, but the same can be said for anything material or physical, while it being naturally holy and closest to holiness is something that can be said for very few things, indeed.

“people who write in theban scripts” — Generally fluffy Wiccans, nowadays, who insist on making things blatantly-yet-”seekritly” magical.  The Theban script, as noted by Agrippa and Trithemius, has its origins in medieval alchemical ciphers common at the time, a simple 1-to-1 cipher for the Roman script (hence the use of a doubled U/V for a W).  Theban script used to be popular for enciphering alchemical and occult texts, but now it’s used once in a while for neopagan charms or quasigothic anime character design.

“how did saint isidore react when things went wrong” — Uh…”went wrong” is a pretty vague thing here.  For that matter, so is the saint; are you referring to Saint Isidore of Seville or Saint Isidore the Laborer?  The former didn’t really have much go wrong in his life, and the latter had his son fall into a well and needed to be rescued, so that’s hardly an epic to recount to kings.  I mean, the general Christian thing to do when things go wrong is prayer, which is probably what these guys did generally and how they also became, you know, saints.

“can we use orgonite ennrgy to cean air ?” — Short answer: no; long answer: fuck no.  Orgonite energy is properly orgone, which is a meta-energy that does not directly affect the physical world.  Orgonite is a lump of resin and metal shavings with other fanciful crap inside which is claimed to purify orgone from deadly orgone (DOR) to positive orgone (POR), which is crap and impossible even according to the (surprisingly versatile and workable) pseudoscience of Wilhelm Reich who developed orgone technology.  All orgonite could feasibly do is collect orgone energy inside to pull things out; even according to the rules of orgone theory, it cannot purify orgone from DOR to POR, since orgone tech cannot distinguish between the two (nor do I think a distinction is even possible, having never noticed any negative effects of DOR or overly positive effects of POR).  Physically speaking, there’s no mechanism for cleaning the air using a lump of congealed robot vomit, and you’d be better off putting a few fine sheets of cloth on your home HVAC air intake vent and washing it every month or so.  Orgone is orgone, energy is energy; there’s no real difference between “good energy” or “bad energy” when you’re talking about orgone.  You’d be better off learning energy manipulation and clearing space than using orgonite.

“greek alphabet as magical sigils” — Totally doable.  People have used various forms of the Hebrew alphabet magically for centuries now, and the Hebrew letters are well-known as symbols and referrants to the paths on the kabbalistic and Kircher Tree of Life, especially as stoicheic symbols for numbers, elements, planets, and signs of the Zodiac.  The Greek alphabet, sharing an ancestor with Hebrew and many of the same qualities, can be used similarly, right up to its own system of qabbalah.  Just as there exist magical cipher scripts for Roman script (Theban and the Trithemian cipher) and the Hebrew script (Celestial, Malachim, Passing the River, and the Alphabet of the Magi), I know of two cipher scripts for Greek: Apollonian and a medieval Frankish cipher (from Trithemius’ Polygraphia).  I’m sure others could be devised from similar principles or adapted from another magical script; alternatively, you could use archaic or variant styles of the Greek script, such as Coptic or even a variant of Phoenician.

“cockring orgone” — I…suppose this could be a thing.  Orgone does have its origins in the study of the life energy produced from sexual activity, so you’d just be going to the source for this.  I suppose you could make a cockring out of…hm.  Maybe something made of layers of synthetic latex and natural rubber?  Metal with a plastic core?  I’m unsure.  But more importantly, WHYYYYYYY.  If I wanted to give my partner a good zap, I’d just as soon use mentholated lubricant or, better yet, Tiger Balm (protip: for the love of God never do this).

“alan shapiro puts off the fire for the usps” — G…good for him?  I guess?  Seeing how I’ve never used that name on this blog nor known anyone by it, I…well, let’s just say that I’m so odd, because I can’t even.

“circle filled with triangles orgonite” — My first thought was the image of the Flower of Life, a circle filled with overlapping circles which can form triangle-like shapes within, and a potent magical and religious symbol for thousands of years.  And then I saw “orgonite”, and my next thought was “new age bullshit”, which is about what people use the Flower of Life nowadays for anyway.  On the one hand, you’re talking about sacred geometry, and on the other, you’re talking about lumps of crap, so I’m unsure what you’re getting at here.  Also, I’m starting to loathe the popularity of these orgone searches, but they’re just so ripe for making fun of.

“hermetism and homosexualit” — Hermetism isn’t a word often used, and chances are that you’re referring to “Hermeticism”, the Neoplatonic-Gnostic-ish philosophy that came about in the classical Mediterranean from a whole bunch of philosophies and religions rubbing shoulders with each other.  In that sense, Hermeticism and Neoplatonism generally helped form a new concept of what was then called “Platonic love”, a love of souls more than that of bodies.  Men and men, men and women, and women and women can all have Platonic love for each other, while before this movement (especially in the Renaissance) it may have been hard to communicate one’s feelings about another, especially if love was itself defined between two people of the opposite gender.  Another point to consider is that “homosexuality” as a concept and identification didn’t exist until the late 1800s; labeling ourselves in this manner simply wasn’t done before then.  You either never had gay sex, were having gay sex at that moment, or had gay sex at some point in the past; it was an action and not a state.  Actions like this have no significant ramifications I can think of in Hermeticism, since there’s no sin to deal with or laws that say you can’t do that; it’s a very abstract yet thorough philosophy that embraces pretty much whatever and whoever you throw at it.  As for the other meaning of Hermetism, which I take to be a henotheistic worship of Hermes, well, the god-dude himself likes the occasional dick, so he has no problem with it.

“the most homosexual magician on the planet” — I…honestly don’t think I’m the best candidate for this esteemed title.  I mean, yeah, I’ve sucked a lot of dick, but I don’t go around drinking skinny margs, watching Glee, or wearing turtlenecks, either.  I mean, I’m not particularly effeminate (though I do have my moments), nor am I stereotypically promiscuous (not like that’s a bad thing), so…yeah.   Besides, the notion itself is kind of absurd; unless you’re a 6 on the Kinsey scale, I don’t think “most homosexual” is really a thing, but since I do score a 6 on that scale, I suppose I get the title?  Maybe?  I still claim that you’d be better off finding candidates for this title on Twitter, all of whom are good, noble, professional, upright people and magi (also I love you guys~).

“energy circle when summoning spirits how do you draw it” — You don’t draw energy circles when summoning spirits; you draw conjuration or summoning circles to conjure or summon spirits.  In that case, you draw (shock of the ages!) a circle.  You can add other symbols, names, or whatever to it as you want, but these are highly varied, as Ouroboros Press’ Magic Circles in the Grimoire Tradition by William Kiesel points out, but really, a circle is all you need.  You can use chalk, a knife, paint, rope, or whatever to draw it out, but do draw it out, even if it’s just in the carpet with a finger.  Energy circles are used in various forms of energy work with varying degrees of significance, though I’ve never needed such a thing except for shielding or putting out feelers in my local surroundings.

“ikea-rituals” — I’m not aware of any Ikea-specific rituals, but their wide array of furniture and household goods is quite amazing, much of it able to be repurposed to ritual use.  I plan on getting a few more LACK side tables as a series of altars, to be sure, and some nice shelves for my temple and personal library in the near future.  I assume rituals for Ikea would take on a strongly Nordic and Scandinavian flavor, but that’s not my area of expertise.

“where do i put my incense when summoning a demon”  — I would put the incense somewhere between you and the conjuration space for the demon, that way you have the smoke rising up to offer a kind of veil or ethereal lens through which you can more easily perceive the demon.  Where you put the conjuration space (Triangle of Art, Table of Practice, etc.), however, is another question entirely.  Some grimoires offer directions you should face, or a particular direction associated with the demon or spirit, which would provide you with a good idea of directional and spatial layout.

Also, this wasn’t really a search term, but something did catch my eye.  I keep track of what other sites lead people to my blog; search engines like Google and sites like Facebook are at the very top of the list, of course, but also some blogs are also notable.  One crazy hilarious blog linked to my post on the divine names written on the Trithemius lamen,  From the crazy blog itself, it’s about:

We are living in Biblically significant Times. Ironically it was the most persecuted man in modern history that lead me to dig deeper into the Bible and taught me more about God than any other human being on the planet. And that man is Michael Jackson. I started a blog to defend him. I ended up researching him and learned just why they were after him. They did everything they could to shut him down. In the song “Cry” he said “take over for me”, so that is what I am doing. God bless that man and his faith and strength

…alright, then.  Specifically, the post referenced my blog in that those silly Jews never understood God in that God obviously only has one possible name (the one referred to as the Tetragrammaton, which even they say has two pronunciations…I think? it’s hard to read the post) and that all other names refer to demons, and that Michael is not the angel of the Sun but is a demon because it’s another Michael besides Michael Jackson.  They also attempted to bind the angel Michael and God in the name of God because reasons.  My good friend Michael Seb Lux, before discovering that the blog doesn’t allow comment except from certified crazy people it allows, was going to reply with this:

Actually, there are multiple names ascribed to G-d in the Hebrew Scriptures. While Yahweh is the more common one, in Exodus 3:14 G-d speaks His Name as, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh” or “I am that what I shall be”. Similarly, the use of Adonai is common as a theophoric and literally means, “Lord”. Other names used in Scripture are Yahweh Tzevaot (1 Samuel 17:45), ha’el elohe abika (Genesis 46:3), Elah Elahin (Daniel 2:47), Elohim (Exodus 32:1; Genesis 31:30, 32; and elsewhere), and so forth. The four-fold name may have originated as an epithet of the god El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon (“El who is present, who makes himself manifest”) or according to the Kenite hypothesis accepted by scholars, assumes that Moses was a historical Midianite who brought the cult of Yahweh north to Israel.

May all the angels pray for us and God (in every one of his names) bless the Internet that we may be worthy of the lulz of paradise.

Anyway, see you guys in June!

I get a lot of hits on my blog from across the realm of the Internet, many of which are from links on Facebook, Twitter, or RSS readers.  To you guys who follow me: thank you!  You give me many happies.  However, I also get a huge number of new visitors daily to my blog from people who search around the Internet for various search terms.  As part of a monthly project, here are some short replies to some of the search terms people have used to arrive here at the Digital Ambler.  This focuses on some search terms that caught my eye during the month of May 2014.

“why is yesod important in ring of solomon” — As far as I know, it’s not.  The Ring of Solomon, given in the Lemegeton, has the names “Tetragrammaton”, “Tzabaoth”, and “Michael” written on it; the one given to John Dee is known as the “PELE Ring”, having that word inscribed on it (perhaps a reversed romanized “Aleph”?) with a circle with a V and L sticking through it.  None of this is particularly associated with Yesod, the sephiroth associated with the sphere of the Moon, whose commonly-associated godname is Shaddai El Chai and whose angel presiding over it is Gabriel.

“big cock anal” — Yes, please.

“can orgonite be used for penis growth ?” — First, orgonite can’t really be used for anything that, say, a rock, a crystal, or a piece of wood can’t, and honestly anything else looks prettier than orgonite.  Second, the penis is pretty much a fixed size once you hit puberty; with the exception of prolonged penis pumping or jelqing (either of which can be dangerous if you don’t do it right, including literally exploding the penis), you really won’t be changing the size much.  Third, no.  No, you cannot use orgonite for penis growth.  You must be extraordinarily desperate to be thinking of that.

“black pepper in rituals” — It’s a pretty useful ingredient, actually.  Anything that has a sharp or stinging smell or taste to it tends to be Martial, while anything dark black tends to be Saturnine; black pepper, being both, is a good example of an herb that combines both of these forces, but pepper generally tends to be a Martial ingredient.  It’s good for banishing things, and a standby banishing incense of mine combines black pepper, red pepper, myrrh, clove, and star anise.  It’s also good for offensive magic, especially if you’re trying to get someone to get the fuck out of your life or cause them slow-burning harm.  Be careful when burning it, however, and don’t inhale it directly or get the smoke in your eyes.

“since greek god hermes had a big dick do virgo guy born on august 23 have big dicks as well” — …again?  Why is this a thing people are searching for?  (I may as well ask why there exists Rule #34 on the Internet.)  First, August 23 is really on the cusp between Leo and Virgo, and depending on the year and exact time of birth, someone could be clearly on one side or the other, or could be really right on the fence between the two.  In my experience, cusp people who have the physical attributes of one sign have the personality characteristics of the other.  Second, the bigger (…erm) thing is that one’s rising sign really influences one’s physical form, which I would assume continue down to the girth and length of one’s cock; it’s not just the Sun sign that matters.  Third, it’s really in very few depictions of Hermes that he’s presented with a huge dick; the hermai statues weren’t always Hermes but acted as generic intermediary messengers between humans and gods in ritual depictions, and it’s really only that huge ithyphallic Roman drawing of Mercury that we see a Pan-like figure with a caduceus.  I mean, sure, the gods can present themselves (heh) in any way they chose, including the size of particular attributions of theirs, but I genuinely don’t think a huge cock is something attributable to Hermes in the same way the caduceus or winged sandals are.  That said, he definitely has nothing to worry about, either.

“likeness between virgo males and greek god hermes” — If search term results are any indication, apparently a huge cock is one of them?  This question is kinda weird to me, since it’s like asking the likeness between a Jew and YHVH, or a citizen of the United States and George Washington.  Virgoan and Geminese people are both born under the Zodiac signs ruled by Mercury, but that’s hardly much to talk about.  Again, the rising sign, Moon sign, signs of the Parts of Fortune and Spirit, and the planet of the almuten are all hugely important factors that can change from Virgo to Virgo, Gemini to Gemini, and so forth.  In many regards, if a particular Virgo male has a huge cock, it’s probably coincidental and attributable to many other factors besides their Sun sign.

“can you pray to summon satan” — Totally, yes!  Just make sure whom you’re praying to and why you’re praying for it line up right.  Don’t pray to the Judeo-Christian God to summon Satan for world domination, and don’t pray to Satan himself to imprison himself for the rest of eternity.  You might make more enemies than friends that way.

“religious amulet sash that you wear across the shoulder and end at the hip in yoruba” — I’m not an expert on ATR practices, but Santería (or Lukumi, which has its origins in the Yoruba culture) doesn’t wear these.  They wear elekes or collares, beaded necklaces and bracelets, the colors and patterns of which reflect different orisha (Santerían deities).  The sashes are from a nearby culture from the Congo, whose religion is known as Palo (viz. Palo Mayombe, Palo Kimbisa, Palo Briyumba, etc.).  They don’t wear the beaded necklaces or bracelets (except maybe as a personal affectation), but instead wear the bandera, a sash that goes over the shoulder and down to the other hip, the beaded patterns of which represent the different nkisi (Palo deities), along with chains, cowrie shells, and other charms to reflect ancestry, ancestors, and the like.

“can i use orgonite in my crystal grid” — You can, but why?  Crystals tend to be cheaper and more easily accessible and tend to have a purer energy feel to them.  Besides, crystals are already present in orgonite, which tends to be a mishmash of metal shavings, glitter, sticks, and glue, so why bother?  Just use crystals and leave the orgonite crap alone.

“keys of solomon used in a ritual death” — Very little in the Key of Solomon has to do with ritual deaths or killing, much less those of humans.  However, animal sacrifice is a thing, and the use of blood as ingredients in ink or pigments is common in several of the rituals, as well as in making offerings to the demons in the Lemegeton Goetia.  If you do this, first make the white-handled knife (which itself requires the blood of a goose) to consecrate it, then use that as the sacrificial blade for further sacrifices.  Be careful, and also study how Jewish kosher slaughter works and try to use that method to ensure a quick and as-close-to-painless-as-possible death.  If you cut yourself, halt all working and make sure you don’t get any of your own blood mixed up in the offerings or ink, and GTFO the ritual area.  If you’re at all squeamish about using sacrifices of animals or blood, just look elsewhere or work on making plant-based substitutes for blood.

“hermetic wand pricing” — Depends on whom you ask.  I can make wands for you as a custom commission, depending on complexity and style, though for wands used in the Golden Dawn, you’d be better off looking elsewhere or studying the craft and making one for yourself.

“are there any of the penticles of the moon out of the greater key of solomon that have to do with arc angel azreal” — Sorta?  Azrael, sometimes known as Azriel, is commonly known as the Angel of Death, though his name literally means “One whom God Helps”.  He’s known in Islamic traditions, though never by this name in the Qur’an, instead being referred to as the angel of death.  The Zohar of Jewish Kabbalah has this angel receive the prayers of the faithful in Heaven and leads the heavenly hosts, and some esoteric forms of Christianity associate this angel with Sealtiel or Selaphiel, the angel of prayer.  All told, though, he’s most known in his function of giving death to mankind.  Though I didn’t think this angel appeared in the Key of Solomon, there is actually a pentacle of the Moon that references a very similar name to this: the Fifth Pentacle of the Moon, which “serveth to have answers in sleep”, and “serveth unto destruction and loss, as well as unto the destruction of enemies”,  as well as “against all phantoms of the night, and to summon the souls of the departed from Hades”.  This pentacle has the name “Azarel” written on it, which could just as easily be romanized from Hebrew as “Azrael”, so maybe this is the pentacle you’re looking for.

“i want to write my name in angelic script” — First learn to write your name in Hebrew, or find a Hebrew version of your name; then simply write the same letters in angelic script, which is basically a different font of Hebrew.

“letter v in isopsephy” — There isn’t one.  Isopsephy is Greek gematria, and there is no letter V in Greek.  The modern pronunciation of Beta or Upsilon can sometimes sound like the English V, but there is no such letter.  Likewise, in Hebrew gematria, there is no letter V either, though Bet or Waw can sometimes sound like it, too.  If you’re using isopsephy based on purely phonetic principles, you could pick either of those letters from those scripts, but the thing is that you’d be applying phonetic principles to a text-based system, and the disconnect is large enough to give me pause for concern.  And no, I haven’t found an English/Latin isopsephy/gematria worth discussing yet.

“how to write a curse tablet in latin”  — Much the same way as you’d write a curse tablet in any other language.  The language doesn’t really factor into the magic unless you’re working with specifically Latin-speaking spirits, and depending where you are, those might be few and far between.  Write in the language most comfortable to you; the spirits will understand.  That said, if you happen to know Classical Latin or Greek comfortably well, by all means write in those languages.

“are summoming triangles evil?” — As much as pens and paper are.  The summoning triangle is a tool used in rituals, which I suppose can only be declared “good” or “evil” based on their intent and result.

And, as you may have noticed, dear readers, I’m back!  I’m all situated in the new house, all the spirits and altars are set up, and a few days’ worth of housewarming parties are complete.  I’m getting settled back into a routine of commuting, ritual, and martial arts practice, so everything’s going well.  I’m now open for craft commissions again, though I now have a minor backlog of things to do from people who happened to order something over the past month.  How’ve you been this past May?

The idea of perfection comes from horary astrology, considered to be the primary and foremost divination system of the antique, classical, and premodern periods; you can find good descriptions of astrological perfection here and here, among elsewhere.  In horary astrology, where the planets move through the 360° of the Zodiac at different rates, the planets make certain aspects to each other at different times; noting how these aspects take place, where they take place, and what other planets make aspects at the same time can indicate different types of perfection or different ways that perfection cannot be obtained.  Geomancy, however, uses sixteen figures that can appear at 12 discrete places in the House Chart instead of smoothly moving through 360°

So, with all that in mind, let me get out the basics first starting from first principles.

What is perfection?  Perfection is a technique used in geomantic divination where a House Chart and not the Shield Chart is used.  This technique helps indicate different types of connection, or the lack thereof, between different actors, events, or goals in a situation.  While the figures themselves describe what a given actor, event, or goal may be like, perfection indicates how these things relate to and work with or against other things.  The things that play a role in a situation are represented by figures called significators, and these figures are found by inspecting a particular house of the House Chart that best represents the thing.  For instance, the querent (person asking the query, or question of divination) is represented by house I, so the figure that appears in house I represents the state, quality, and person of the querent.  If the querent is asking about something in specific, such as a marriage, job, health problem, or debt, we would look to other houses to see what those things are represented by in the chart, which are houses VII, X, VI, and XII, respectively; the thing being asked about is the quesited.

Because any given figure can appear in multiple places in the House Chart, it is possible that one of the significating figures can appear in multiple places, as well.  Different houses that share the same figure indicate a strong connection between the two areas of life, actors, events, or goals.  For instance, if the significator of the querent appears in houses I and VI, we might say that the querent is heavily involved with matters of health, service, or working for others in addition to those things having qualities similar to the querent since they share the same figure.  A figure can appear in more than two houses; in one rare case, the same figure can even appear in all 12 houses, but it’s more common that a figure appears in one to three houses at a time, depending on the chart.

All this puts geomancy in an unusual place in divination systems generally; unlike Tarot, runes, astrology, or other forms of divination, where any given symbol can appear at most once in a reading, a geomantic figure can appear multiple times in a reading.  This allows us to make use of this repetition of figures to indicate relationships between significators based on how they repeat, or pass, around in the chart in relationship to each other.  This is where geomantic perfection is superficially similar to astrological perfect, where the latter relies on aspects being made between planets to form contacts between significators, the former relies on repetition of figures to do the same.  Say the querent wishes to know about marriage, or marrying a particular person; in this case, the significator of the querent is in house I, and the significator of the quesited is in house VII.  If the querent’s significator passes from house I to house VI, then we note that house VI and house VII are neighboring each other; the querent’s significator comes into direct physical contact with that of the quesited.  This is a type of contact made that illustrates perfection.

There are four types of perfection used in geomancy, and I went over those in an earlier post, which you should read up at this point.  To review, there is occupation (the same figure appears in both the house of the querent and the house of the quesited), conjunction (either significator appears in one of the two houses neighboring the other), mutation (when both significators neighbor each other at some other location away from their own houses), and translation (when the same figure which is neither significator appears next to both).  If no method of perfection applies, then we say that the chart is in denial, or lacking perfection.  Where the figures pass to, such as before or after the significator, or whether a figure passes to both before and after, or a mutation-conjunction combination, can all offer variants of these four methods of perfection, but the same basic rules apply.  If a chart has perfection between the significators, then we say that the chart perfects for those signficators; otherwise, we say that the chart denies perfection.

What does perfection answer?  To speak floridly, perfection indicates the connection between different realities, the experienced reality of the querent (represented by the significator of the querent) and the hypothetical reality of the query (represented by the significator of the quesited).  If the chart perfects, then the hypothetical reality will come to pass; if the chart denies perfection, the hypothetical reality will not come to pass.  In more direct terms, perfection in a chart indicates a simple “yes” to the query, and denial of perfection indicates “no”.  So, if Jane Doe asks “will I get married to John Smith?” and the chart perfects between houses I and VII in any way, then the answer is yes, Jane will marry John; if the chart denies perfection, the answer is no, Jane will not marry John.  It’s important to be clear on phrasing the query, because perfection answers about the situation inquired; if Jane asks “will I not marry John?” and the chart perfects, then the answer is yes, she will not marry John.  In other words, perfection affirms or denies the query put to divination.  Learning how to phrase the query clearly and concretely is an important aspect of divination generally, but especially so when perfection is used.

Being able to phrase a query clearly and directly is important especially if one phrases a query in a negative light.  Perfection will affirm whatever is asked, and denial of perfection will deny whatever is asked.  So, if one asks a question negatively, like “will X not happen?” or “should I not do X?”, then the query will be answered as it is.  Thus, if one asks “will X not happen?” perfection says “yes, X will not happen”, and denial says “no, X will not not happen” (or, more directly, “X will happen”).  Thus, the more directly one can phrase the query, reducing all ambiguity and complexity to its barest, the more clear and easily accessible the answer will be.

Now that you understand (hopefully) what perfection is, let’s talk about the limits of this technique.  For one, perfection does not answer whether something is good or bad; it only indicates whether something will or won’t happen.  It indicates a connection between different realities, but it does not indicate whether it’ll be good or bad, pleasing or displeasing, or any other qualities besides whether there exists a connection and how that connection is forged.  For understanding the qualities of the situation, you’d need to look at the figures themselves and whether they’re good or bad, how those figures relate to the rest of the chart, the Court figures, and so forth.  You can envision a kind of 2×2 table that shows this:

There are lots of techniques in geomancy, and perfection is only one of them.  Perfection really comes in help when a query is phrased in a way that “yes” or “no” will answer it, i.e. if the query expects a binary answer.  Anything that is asked in a way like “Will X happen”, “Should I do X”, “Can I do X”, and the like are all things that can be answered directly and easily with perfection.  Other queries, such as “When will X happen”, “What will X be”, “Where is X”, and the like are not answered by perfection; in this case, the use of perfection simply doesn’t apply to these queries and will produce nonsense answers.  For instance, if Jane Doe lost something, she might ask “will I find my lost object?” and use perfection for that reading; if she wants to know the answer to “where can I find X?”, she should use another technique entirely, since this isn’t a yes or no question.  Perfection is only one tool in the toolkit of the geomancer; just as one wouldn’t use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail, perfection isn’t the best tool for the job when the query is best answered in a non-binary way.

Many binary queries put to divination are straightforward: whether I can get such-and-such a job, whether I’ll find my true love in the next five years, whether I’ll flunk out of college even if I study hard, and so forth.  In many instances, it suffices to use only two significators in the reading, one for the querent and one for the quesited.  However, some queries are more nuanced and complicated, and to fully answer it require a nuanced and complicated reply from the reading.  This is most easily done by considering multiple significators, where one figures out how different actors (plural) relate amongst themselves as well as with the querent in a situation.  Consider a situation where a querent wants to know how a new medical treatment prescribed by their doctor will help a health issue they’ve had for some time now.  We know of several factors here: the querent (house I), the doctor (house VII), the medical treatment (house X), and the health issue itself (house VI).  Any of these significators can perfect with any other, and since there are six different ways perfection can be forged between the significators (I and X, I and VII, I and VI, X and VII, X and VI, VII and VI), the answer could get quite complicated, indeed!  In this case:

• Perfection between I and X indicates that the querent will carry out the medical treatment prescribed to them.  Denial indicates that they won’t or it simply won’t be available to them.
• Perfection between I and VII indicates that the querent will be in contact with their doctor to work with them.  Denial indicates that their relationship may be blocked, broken off, or obstructed.
• Perfection between I and VI indicates that the health issue will be resolved or will be helpfully controlled.  Denial indicates that the health condition will continue unmitigated.
• Perfection between X and VII indicates that the doctor is the one prescribing the treatment and understands it.  Denial indicates that the doctor isn’t in control of the treatment or has no clue what he’s doing.
• Perfection between X and VI indicates that the health issue will respond to and be helped by the treatment prescribed.  Denial indicates that the issue will not be changed or helped by the treatment.
• Perfection between VII and VI indicates that the doctor understands the health issue and is actively working to help it.  Denial indicates that the doctor has no idea what’s going on and doesn’t really care.

These types of readings with multiple significators can be deeply involved, and there’s no simple yes or no to be had with these.  Instead, one has to develop a nuanced, qualified answer that might be yes in some ways and no in others, and build a complete message from that.  For instance, say that in this hypothetical health reading, say that perfection exists between I and VII (querent and doctor), I and X (querent and treatment), I and VI (treatment and health issue), and VII and X (doctor and treatment); the chart denies perfection between X and VI (treatment and health issue) and VII and VI (doctor and health issue).  In this case, the querent is getting along fine with the doctor and will take the steps prescribed by the doctor to change the situation.  However, the treatment prescribed by the doctor will not have any effect on the condition since the doctor doesn’t really understand it well enough to prescribe something useful; even then, however, the treatment will still be cleared up on its own or due to the personal actions of the querent.  So, in some ways, the query of “will the treatment prescribed by my doctor help this health issue?” is answered by “no”, and in some other ways “yes”, but it’s hard to answer that query fully in a single word if the whole story needs to be communicated.

Perfection is a useful tool, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also one of the most difficult to understand for many beginners due to its complexity.  I ascribe this to the mechanics of geomancy itself, since this isn’t your standard oracle deck-fare divination; there’s math and analysis involved that go far beyond intuitive readings of the figures themselves as you might normally do in other divination methods.  Many people don’t pick up geomancy as their first divination system, so they’re used to systems that are simpler, more rudimentary, and less mechanical in their own ways; this is not a bad thing, but it ill-prepares them to study geomancy in a proper way.  It’s important to know the limits of perfection here, as well as when to use it and when not to use it, to fully understand how the technique works and what it represents in a chart.

As part of my new grammatomantic lunar calendar rituals, I’m setting aside three days each lunar month for the veneration of the dead in my life.  The first day is given to my Ancestors of Kin, those to whom I am descended from by blood.  The final day is given to the Ancestors of the Great, culture heroes and other Mighty Dead who shaped the world we all live in.  The second day, however (associated with the letter Qoppa, and held this lunar month on June 16), I give to my Ancestors of Work, famous people to whom I look up to for the things I do in my life.  They’re like my family ancestors, but with ties of labor and field rather than blood and kin, a family linked together by the things we do rather than who we are.  As a magician, I put people like Pythagoras, Orpheus, Cornelius Agrippa, Crowley, and the like in there, but magic isn’t the only thing I do.  My day-job professional and academic career is based in computer science, and today, on the 60th anniversary of his death, I’d like to recognize Alan Turing, one of the greatest computer scientists the world has ever had.

Born on June 23, 1912, Alan Turing came from Irish, English, and Scottish family, and had a natural inclination towards mathematics from a young age.  This didn’t serve him too well in public schools at the time, when education focused more on classics than what we’d consider hard sciences today; still, even at 16 and not only reading but expanding on the work of none other than Albert Einstein, the dude was pretty cool at the things he was good at.  His work really shone through in the early development of computer science, working on one of the most famous problems of mathematics, the Entscheidungsproblem, or “Decision Problem”, the solution to which was that there was no solution at all.  Not only would this have surprised some of the most famous mathematicians of the time, but it’s become a central topic in computer science taught from the beginning ever since.

Not only was he a brilliant computer scientist and mathematician, but Turing also served the British Army, especially helping during World War II.  With his extensive knowledge of mathematics and science, Turing became one of the foremost codebreakers and leaders in deciphering enemy ciphers.  Not only did he produce general means to break German codes, while other methods used at the time were fragile and relied on too many assumptions, he also provided efficient means of breaking various types of code, helping to critically fight the German war machine (in several senses).  After WWII, he furthered the field of computer science as well as that of artificial intelligence, and pursued several advances in chemistry.

Despite having chatted with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, occasionally ran the 40 miles from his office to London, and inducted into the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by King George VI, and basically invented modern computer science in an accessible manner, the world at that time effectively condemned him: he was gay.  After having his house robbed by an acquaintance of a lover of his, and noted that fact to the police, he was charged with indecency, since homosexuality was still illegal at that time in Britain.  Charged with this non-crime, he pleaded guilty (despite having no guilt nor shame for being gay, as he damn well shouldn’t’ve), he was given the choice of imprisonment or probation with chemical castration; he chose the latter, which would allow him to continue working, but it rendered him impotent and caused gynaecomastia.  This, combined with reparative treatment to “cure” his homosexuality (which we know nowadays from the “ex-gay” movement never works and only causes further harm), did nothing good.

Adding insult to injury, he lost his security clearance and was barred from continuing with cryptographic research with the government (even though he pretty much won WWII for them), and was even barred from entering into the United States.  He died on June 7, 1954, only at 41 years old.  Two years after his conviction and beginning of hormone treatment, with an investigation reporting that he committed suicide by cyanide poisoning with a half-eaten apple near his body, which is thought to be (but never confirmed) to be how he killed himself.  Rumor has it that this is where the original rainbow-colored partially-bitten apple logo came from for the Apple computer company, but that’s not the official story.

Today, I honor Alan Turing especially as a hero in my life.  An incredible amount of the technology I use and work I produce is indebted to him, not only because he helped develop the computer, but also because he helped turn the tides of war that could’ve endlessly shaped the world some 70 years ago.  His brilliance shines as a light for me, as a computer scientist but also as a human being.  Being a gay man myself, my heart breaks every time I recall how the world back then treated him for being the same way, and I pray that neither I nor anyone else has to undergo that sort of blatant bigotry and persecution.  Like Turing himself, though, I bear no guilt nor shame for who I am, and I take only joy in the work I do.  I’ll likely never run 40 miles nor ever care to, but hey, more power to Turing for doing that, too.

Ave, Alan Turing.  May your memory never be forgotten, and may your name and spirit always live on.  Guide our minds to know what can be known, and guide our hearts to love whom we will love, both without fear and without scorn.  Help us and be with us in our work, and may we thank you every time information flows through the fruits of your labors to us.

As you might have guessed, dear reader, working with the Holy Guardian Angel is, in fact, a thing.  A pretty big thing, at that.  There’ve been rituals written for thousands of years now on how to come in contact with this spirit, along with plenty of kinda-similar-kinda-dissimilar descriptions on the nature of this spirit.  And, judging by the pan-blogosophere/occulture debates on the nature of the HGA, chances are this topic will continue on for quite a lot longer.  In fact, some magicians go so far as to say that coming in contact with the HGA, also known as Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel (KCHGA) is the sum and whole of the Great Work itself.  This isn’t a wrong view, but it’s a little misleading if you don’t inspect all the ramifications of such a statement.

No, I’m not going to talk about how to attain KCHGA, or how to find your HGA’s name, or which ritual is best to come in contact with your HGA.  Yes, I have contact with my own HGA, and I’ve been working with him and involving him at nearly every step of my occult path since I first met him.  What I want to talk about is something that I don’t see often discussed: the relationship and differences in view of the HGA between practitioners of magic and devotees of religion.  The two feed into each other, clearly, and the notion of the HGA itself can easily be attributed to either source or a mixture of both.  It’s the relationship and lack of correctness I’ve noted between what the HGA is claimed to do and how one is supposed to work with the HGA, at least in my own experience, and what the HGA actually does and how one should really work with the HGA.

The term “Holy Guardian Angel” itself can be attributed quite clearly to the Book of Abramelin, but the term was already in use by the Catholic Church, the culture of which helped form and develop the spiritual context for the Abramelin (along with other Solomonic, goetic, and qabbalistic traditions interwoven together).  It’s been canon in the Catholic Church for each human being to have a guardian angel for quite a long while now; there are scriptural hints that this has been a longstanding notion (Matthew 18:10, Acts 12:13-15) since before the development of the proper Church, but it was really codified when Saint Basil in the 4th century wrote that “beside each believer stands an angel protector and shepherd leading him to life” (Adversus Eunomium III, Catechism of the Catholic Church 1.2.1.1.5.1 #336).  Okay, cool; we know that it’s actually a belief that guardian angels exist in Catholicism and, moreover, that its believers are actively encouraged to work with and ask for help from one’s guardian angel.  This is further indicated by the prevalence of medallions, litanies, candles, novenas, and the like dedicated to this divine figure.

However, the perceived goal of the HGA is different between Abramelin and Saint Basil.  In the Abramelin, the text states that “[e]very learned and prudent man may fall if he be not defended and guided by the angel of the Lord, who aided me, and prevented me from falling into such a state of wretchedness, and who led me undeserving from the mire of darkness unto the light of the truth” and later that “[y]e shall also supplicate [God] that in the time to come he may be willing and pleased to regard you with pity and grant you his grace and goodness to send unto you his holy angel, who shall serve unto you as a guide, and lead you ever in his holy way and will; so that ye fall not into sin through inadvertence, through ignorance, or through human frailty”.  Magically, however, Abramelin states that “my holy angel, whom God the most merciful had destined from my creation for my guardian, spake unto me with the greatest goodness and affection; who not only manifested unto me the Veritable Magic, but even made easier for me the means of obtaining it”.  Mathers writes in his own introduction more succinctly that “thereby and thereafter [obtaining knowledge of and conversation with one's guardian angel] we may obtain the right of using the evil spirits for our servants in all material matters”.  Of course, even the Abramelin alludes to the difficulty in describing the nature of the HGA, perhaps foreshadowing decades of internet-based flame wars: “their angel being by its nature Amphiteron [inaccessible, double?], because the angelic nature differeth to so great an extent from that of men, that no understanding nor science could express or describe it, as regardeth that great purity wherewith [the angels] be invested”.

The thing is that the Abramelin is, above anything else, a work on magic.  The whole 6-month (or 18-month, if you’re reading Dehn’s translation) period of prayer and asceticism is meant to put you in contact with your HGA, after which you work with the HGA to accomplish any and every other type of magic.  In other words, the HGA becomes the only familiar or supernatural assistant one would ever need, able to bind or loosen any other spirit, achieve any task, or obtain any objective.  In this light, Abramelin shares strong similarities with several PGM texts (I.1, I.42, IV.154, VII.505, inter alia).  The general gist is that the magical view of the HGA is to assist you in getting what you want.

This is counter to the standard religious view that the HGA is to lead you to virtue.  After all, probably the two biggest drives for people studying magic are to (a) get paid and (b) get laid, and texts like the PGM, Grand Grimoire, and the like are pretty blatant in saying so, with books like Abramelin and the Keys of Solomon being a little more subtle about it.  What we want to accomplish is not always in line with virtue, if not directly opposed to it.  From this, it might be said that the magical HGA isn’t an angel at all, but a familiar spirit of a lower rank than an angel.  I disagree; after all, it’s a staple in Stoicism, Christianity, and Thelema that you shouldn’t judge what others do, and what might be terrible vice for you can just as easily be blessed virtue for another.  The Abramelin approach to this is to strike a balance between the two: the HGA is to help you achieve what you want, but also to lead you to virtue, so what you want will eventually coincide with what God wants.

From this, it’s easily understandable how Thelema linked True Will with the HGA.  If True Will is what we’re meant to accomplish according to the Divine, then our True Will is the will of God.  Thus, by aligning our will with our True Will, we align our will with God’s will.  It’s still free will and freely chosen, but it’s that alignment that produces true power and true Work.  However, the vessel for knowing and keeping on our path of True Will most easily lies with the HGA compared to other paths, since the HGA is most in tune with our lives specifically and knows our specific needs and wants, and since the HGA leads us to God, he can lead us in a way most effective for ourselves to God.  If I recall correctly, this is likewise why many Golden Dawn lodges have no formal initiations above Adeptus Minor (5=6, corresponding with Thiphareth/Sun), which is associated with KCHGA, since the KCHGA becomes one’s real teacher after that point and the Work they indicate to do becomes proof of one’s real grade.  The HGA will still accomplish nearly anything you ask for, but rather than the HGA changing their nature through your working, the HGA is the catalyst for you changing your own nature through your Work.

This is an element that appears to be lacking to me in religious-devotional methods of working with the HGA, like through novenas or simple prayer.  Without truly needing and aspiring to know and converse with the HGA, it’s extraordinarily rare for one to contact and accomplish anything with them, and the methods involve at a minimum powerful and wholly-concentrated prayer to the point of fanaticism and faith so extreme things become more magical than theological.  Sure, you can obtain the favor and a few helpful nudges after repeated novenas or litanies to the HGA, and they’ll probably throw a sign to you once in a while that you may or may not miss, but for concentrated work and learning, I haven’t found the Catholic prayer stuff nearly as useful to work with the HGA as I have magical methods and involved ritual.  (Then again, Catholic rituals as I would reckon a “ritual” to work with the HGA are few and far between, and I don’t know of anything that powerful besides Mass itself, and I’m not qualified to perform that.)

Despite that I’ve worked with plenty of other angels, the HGA seems to be an angel of a wholly different type than the planetary angels/intelligences/spirits/choirs, and is distinct still from the seven archangels themselves.  I can’t yet discern whether this is a function of him being so close and connected to me, lower than the rest, higher than the rest, an outgrowth of God itself into my life in a discrete form I’d recognize as an angel, or something else entirely; I sense my HGA smirking and snickering as I write this, which I take as a recognition of the futility of this sort of pondering.  What I do know is that the HGA is definitely worked with in a way distinct from any other spirit.  He doesn’t require or feel the need for formal conjurations, nor does he care for chaplets and novenas and candles burned in his honor.  He instructs me to pray, but with a special prayer he helped me write to align myself to the Almighty and not to his specific presence.  He directs and smooths out my work, but has no specific ritual for himself (beyond the Headless Rite, which is how I came to contact him in the first place, but which he’s somewhat distanced himself from since).  He’s distinctly Other, but in a way that makes him not-Other at all.

Personally, I take the HGA, as the Golden Dawn does, as one’s true teacher, but in a farther and in a more ecumenical way.  I claim that once one has true and certain contact with one’s HGA (which is a complicated and hard-to-accomplish thing to begin with), they need no more dogmas or religions or texts beyond that which their HGA directs them to study.  If the HGA is one’s connection to God and one’s true path, then that path becomes their true religion; no other path will do for them, since any other path would divert from their True Will.  In that sense, the HGA can act as one’s personal Christ, or personal God who talks to them, or another emanation of the Divine suited just for them that only they hear, that they need to hear, and that only they need to hear.  As one of my Golden Dawn friends has said in the past, the HGA is a kind of divine sockpuppet, throttling back the infinity of the Almighty into a finite and “easily” understandable form for our finite minds to process and comprehend.  It’s a kind of hilarious metaphor, but it definitely works, and probably works best and most succinctly of any blog post I’ve read or written on the subject.

In that light, I suppose I should reevaluate my earlier evaluation that strictly devotional methods are sub-par compared to magical methods to contact the HGA.  After all, not everyone is suited to magical practice (though I’d like to think they are), and some people should probably stick to the devotional methods and get the most out of them than they would of any set of spiritual practices.  After all, my own HGA would rather me work in more active ways than simple prayer, but that wouldn’t go for everybody’s HGA.  Regardless of whichever path one should be taking to contact their HGA, it’s definitely something everyone should work on, since knowing one’s HGA is equivalent to knowing one’s True Will, which is equivalent to knowing one’s place in the cosmos and in the plan of the Divine; KCHGA in any form is “know thyself”.

Lately, based on my grammatomantic research, I’ve been looking more into using Greek as my go-to magical language.  Despite the prevalence of Greek ideas, theology, mythology, and philosophy rife throughout a lot of occulture, there’s surprisingly little that I can access in English when it comes to the work I’m interested.  Either things go full Renaissance Hermetic, when Latin was the main working language of things, or full Hermetic Hebrew, due to the influence of the Golden Dawn and traditional qabbalah.  To that end, I know of the Greek gods and their myths, and I use the gods’ names for the planets, and I have a few Greek-origin terms and prayers here and there, but little else.  Seeing how more and more of my practice is turning towards the northeast Mediterranean rather than the Near East or western Mediterranean, I figured that I should get all my terms and words in order to allow for more fluent use of Hellenic and Greek terms.

For instance, take the planets.  In the past, I’ve referred to them by the names of the Greek gods they’re associated with, which isn’t wrong; after all, the planets were often considered to be the physical bodies of the gods themselves.  That said, it turns out there are another set of names used to refer to the planets themselves, which are properly the planetary titans.

1. The Sun, associated with the god Apollo, is given to the titan Hēlios
2. The Moon, associated with the goddess Artemis, is given to the titan Selēnē, also called Mēnē
3. Mercury, associated with the god Hermes, is given the name Stilbon
4. Venus, associated with the goddess Aphrodite, is given to the titans Eōsphoros (Morning Star) and Hesperos (Evening Star)
5. Mars, associated with the god Ares, is given the name Pyroeis or, lesser used, Mesonyx
6. Jupiter, associated with the god Zeus, is given the name Phaethōn
7. Saturn, associated with the titan Kronos, is given the name Phainōn

So, let’s start from the beginning.  Just as the Hebrew Tree of Life has ten sephiroth (sing. sephirah), the Greek Tree has ten sphairai (sing. sphaira, “sphere”) or arithmoi (sing. arithmos, “number”).  Each of these has a name of its own, modeled after the names of the Hebrew Tree.  While Michael Strojan has his own naming system, the one I’ve seen first was given in Stephen Flowers’ Hermetic Magic, and written about at length by the Confraternity of the Rose Cross (albeit in a long-winded and sometimes purposefully obtuse series of articles).  Those names are:

1. Arkhē, “First Principle”
2. Sophia, “Wisdom”
3. Noesis, “Understanding”
4. Doxa, “Glory”
5. Dynamis, “Power”
6. Agathōsynē, “Goodness”
7. Nikē, “Victory”
8. Megalōsynē, “Greatness”
9. Themelion, “Foundation”
10. Basileia, “Kingdom”

And, of course, just as the missing sephirah Da`ath means “Knowledge”, the equivalent missing sphaira is Gnōsis, meaning the same.

Similarly, just as each Hebrew sephirah has its own corresponding name of God, so too does each individual sphaira.  However, while a simple translation of each could be done, much as in the same way as the names of the sphairai were made, I thought it more appropriate to look through both the Old and New Testaments, as well as a bit of Gnostic literature here and there, to compile a list of names of God and ascribe them to the sphairai based on numerological connections as well as their semantic resonance with their corresponding Hebrew names.  As many of the names are technically imperfect Greek without an article or predicate noun applied, they’re given in parentheses.

1. (ho) Ōn, “He who Is”
2. (ho) Ēn, “He who Was”
3. (ho) Erkhomenos, “He who Is to Come”
4. (ho) Theos, “(the) God”
5. Iskhyros (ho Theos), “(God is) Strong”
6. Athanatos (ho Theos), “(God is) Immortal”
7. Pantarkhos (ho Theos), “(God is) All-Ruling”
8. Pantokrator (ho Theos), “(God is) All-Mighty”
9. Pantosōmatos (ho Theos), “(God is) In All Bodies”
10. (to) Alpha kai (to) Ōmega, “(the) First and (the) Last”

The names were developed by dividing the Tree of Life into four groups based on the familiar triads: the supernal (or first) triad consisting of the first three sphairai (1, 2, 3), the middle (or second) triad consisting of the next three (4, 5, 6), the lower (or third) triad consisting of the next three (7, 8, 9), and the final sphaira (10) left alone in its own group.  Based on these, I found names of divinity used in pagan, Hermetic, Hellenic Jewish, and Christian traditions, and associated them in particular groups that fit together well.

• The supernal triad got its names from the Revelation of John (Revelation 1:8), reflecting the eternality (existing outside of time) and sempiternality (existing within all of time) of God.  Technically, the first two godnames are variations on the Greek verb “to be” (present participle and imperfect, respectively, of eimi), while the third is a form of “to come” (present participle of erkhomai).  This draws a distinction between sheer Presence undifferentiated by time (Ōn) and Presence that stirs and changes over time (Ēn), while the third becomes that which brings about change (Erkhomenos).  This distinction is reflected in the astrological correspondences of these sphairai, with the first being pure Light (Infinity), the second being Light that has moved in space (stars), and the third being a planet that moves and introduces change below it (Saturn).
• The Trisagion Prayer formed the basis for the divine names for the middle triad, with the fourth sphaira (associated with Jupiter and Zeus, already recognized as “the” God) given to Theos, the fifth sphaira (associated with Mars and Ares, thus power and strength) given to Iskhyros, and the sixth sphaira (associated with Sol Invictus and, especially, Jesus Christ himself) associated with Athanatos.  Further, Theos and Iskhyros tie in with their corresponding Hebrew names, El and Elohim Gibor, respectively.  Also, the use of Theos can be appended to any sphaira godname after the fourth sphaira, since all the following names (with the exception of that of the tenth) are all technically adjectives, with “God” being the noun that they apply to in the sense of “God is Strong” or “God is Immortal”.  The fourth sphaira is conventionally held to be the beginnings of solid reality after the Fall from Divinity (cf. the Abyss), separating the eternal/sempiternal Presence of Divinity (Mind) from itself into a distinct Person of Divinity (God).
• The names in the lower triad share the same omnipresent qualities, as well as being the epithets for Isis, Hermes, and the Universe respectively in pagan and Hermetic traditions.  Further, the Hebrew names for the seventh and eighth sephiroth, YHVH Tzabaoth and Elohim Tzabaoth, are similar in the notion of God presiding over the entirety of heaven and the heavenly hosts.  The use of Pantosōmatos comes from the Corpus Hermeticum (V.10) in referring to God “beyond all name, unmanifest, most manifest, of no body, of many body, of every body”, and the notion of linking the Moon (sphaira 9, Themelion) with bodies, corporeality, and manifestation is not a new one, since all things that exist lower than the Moon must pass through the Moon and contain some of its essence in it, especially when the Hebrew name for the corresponding sephirah is Shaddai El Chai, or “Almighty God of Life”.
• The use of Alpha and Ōmega for the tenth sphaira comes from the description of Jesus/God from Revelation 1:8 and used throughout that book, which I found appropriate as the tenth sphaira is the World, containing every essence of every other plane of existence in itself as well as being the final sphaira reflecting the first, just as the English phrase “from A to Z” would be, and especially so as Alpha represents the Moon and Ōmega the planet Saturn in their esoteric meanings, encapsulating all the heavens between them.

That said, the names of God associated with the sphairai aren’t that important, except maybe in conjurations following Solomonic practice, since the sphairai themselves bear names of God.  After all, the sphairai are emanations of God and given titles of God, and it’s likely that the attribution of divine names to the sephiroth in Hermetic qabbalah developed from another tradition.  After all, most of the names of God given to the Hebrew sephiroth are, well, holy names not meant to be taken in vain or even spoken aloud, and it was more likely that magicians using them would prefer to use titles of God given to the sephiroth rather than names of God directly that they shouldn’t even write without several ablutions, much less speak aloud.  I’m starting to think that the correspondence of these set of divine names to the sephirah was an outside tradition tacked onto qabbalah, probably under the influence of Western Solomonic or goetic magic that used divine names like nobody else’s business.  When using one of these divine names in, say, a conjuration, the names for sphairai 5 through 10 would be reversed, so instead of “Iskhyros ho Theos” (God is Strong), it’d be “ho Iskhyros Theos” (the Strong God).  Greek is weird.

One thing I don’t feel comfortable with, at least just yet, is making a new set of Greek spirit names, especially those for the angels.  It can’t be escaped that much of Hermetic magic is based on Abrahamic lore, such as those of the angels, and so many of the names are going to remain Hebrew in origin; thus, Michael will remain Michael (though spelled in Greek as Mikhaēl) and so forth.  Likewise, the names of the planetary intelligences and spirits are based on Hebrew gematria principles, and so couldn’t be easily translated into Greek.  However, at least one set of angelic names can be translated: those of the choirs, or taxiarkhies.  Even then, though, those with explicitly Hebrew names (viz. Seraphim and Cherubim) would remain in Hebrew, but the rest wouldn’t, even though several of the names are really similar in English because much of Christian doctrine comes from, you guessed it, Greek.

1. Serapheim, Seraphim
2. Kheroubeim, Cherubim
3. Thronoi, Thrones
4. Kuriotētes, Dominions
5. Dynameis, Powers
6. Exousies, Virtues
7. Arkhes, Principalities
8. Arkhangeloi, Archangels
9. Angeloi, Angels

One of the keys to developing new spirit names, especially for those of the planets, would be to recreate the qameas, or magic squares, of the planets.  The sigils for the planetary spirits and intelligences are based off the magic squares for their respective planets, and since the letters of the Hebrew script double as numbers, it would be possible to redraw the magic squares using Greek letters instead of Hebrew.  Since these names are all based on numerological principles and founded on the numbers associated with the planets, new names can feasibly be drawn up for these entities based on numerology (one of the few useful instances I’ve found of the craft, but I digress).  However, while redrawing the magic squares in Greek letters is easy, finding acceptable names of planetary spirits and intelligences that adhere to the same numeric values as the Hebrew names is not, since there are far more permutations of letters that would add up to the same value than I can calculate off the top of my head.  A good amount of work would be needed to develop a set of names and see which would work for the spirit and intelligence of each sphaira, not to mention figure out whether an “intelligence of intelligences” or “spirit of spirits” would be needed for spheres like those of the Moon and Venus.

At this point, there’s really little else than to make a new set of tables of correspondences a la Cornelius Agrippa’s Scales, replacing Hebrew godnames and the like with native Greek ones where appropriate, and honestly there’s already a lot done for me that I don’t need to do again (thank you, Stephen Skinner).  That and, of course, a hellish amount of scrying, pathworking, and exploration to really see what needs doing, patching up, and evaluating to see what’s actually needed for theurgy and thaumaturgy.  I’m thinking I might have to go with what Kalagni of Blue Flame Magick did a while back, scrying up a new style of Tree of Life on my own Starry Path.  I was thinking I was going to go that route anyway, using my grammatomantic lunar calendar to set certain days to scry the paths of the Greek Tree of Life, but now that I’m realizing how big an effort this is going to be, it’s certainly not going to be a short-term project.

One final thing, though: what would this new system be called?  Kabbalah or qabbalah (I use the K to signify the Jewish practice and Q the Hermetic one) is still a Hebrew word itself, meaning “receiving” or “tradition”.  The Greek Wikipedia article uses the word “kampala”, with “kabbala” as an alternate spelling.  Going by the meaning of the word, I think “(to) Paradedomenon” (that which is handed down) isn’t too far off the mark; “kampala” would be the shorthand name for the system as a transliteration of the Hebrew.  But of course, since clearly nobody speaks Greek (including myself, which I should eventually get around to fixing), “Greek kabbalah” would be the most easily accessible name for the system.

Oh, and for those of you who keep tabs on my Facebook, you’ll notice I posted an interesting photo about Greek kabbalah.  We’ll get into that more later on; I’ve got plenty to write about it for those who’re interested in a Neoplatonic/Pythagorean kinda thing.

Alright, confound Michael Strojan for getting me to do this; this shows that you should never make a joke on the Internet, because someone is eventually going to make that joke a reality.  A while back, I expressed interest in making daily devotionals to the seven archangels, and Rev. Strojan not only encouraged me to do so but helped me along the way.  One of the easiest ways to work with the archangels, or any holy figure in some of the older forms of Christianity, is through the use of chaplets.  I’ve mentioned them before on the blog, especially with my St. Cyprian of Antioch chaplet, and chaplets exist for the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.  However, there are seven archangels, and only these three have chaplets ready to go, which strikes me as annoying, because the set is therefore grossly incomplete, and this ends up with me spending more time with these archangels than the other four.  Granted, these three archangels are ones actually mentioned in the Bible, but the other four are archangels just as much, and I like completion.  Rev. Strojan joked that I should go about making my own, and I conceded that I could, but uuuuugh.  After much Googling around and asking questions, mostly to no avail, I found out that there simply aren’t chaplets available for these archangels, and other people noticed that, too.  Their practice was to essentially use the same chaplet as Raphael, which is arguably the most generic and the shortest, and replace the specific invocations and prayers to Raphael with the other archangels.  I found this unsatisfying, and was left with only one option: writing my own chaplets.  Of course.

So, I’m in the process of thinking about the virtues of each angel, reading up on some Scripture and literature, and figuring out patterns and prayers for these chaplets.  The easiest for me to think about, and the one I did first, was for Saint Barachiel the Archangel.  Given that Barachiel’s name means “Blessing of God”, I thought a bit about references to blessing in the Bible.  What immediately struck me was the Eight Beatitudes given in Matthew 5, where Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount and describes eight groups of blessed men: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness’ sake.  This is especially enumerated in Cornelius Agrippa’s Table of Eight (book II, chapter II), which helped me corroborate it with some other information I had on hand.  I started with this and developed the rest of the chaplet from there.

The chaplet beads themselves are simple in construction.  I found two ways of designing the beads, a simple one and an expanded one.  Both have a lead chain of three beads connected to larger ring of beads.  The simple chaplet has a ring of eight beads; the expanded chaplet has eight groups of four beads.  I prefer the expanded chaplet since my hands are big and an eight-bead chaplet was pretty small for my use, but either way the prayers are the same.  Since I can’t find any Barachiel medallions, I’d substitute this with a decorative, perhaps floral-design, cross (not a crucifix) or a generic representation of angels (such as an enamel medallion of angels generally, or angel wing beads, etc.).

Initial prayers done on the medal/cross:

Saint Barachiel the Archangel, blessing of God, pray for us, now and forever, awake and asleep, in prosperity and in hardship, in joy and in sorrow, in solitude and in communion, when guided or when astray.  Amen.

On each of three lead beads, pray the Ave Maria in honor of Mary, Queen of Heaven and of Angels.

On the first eight beads on the simple ring, or the first bead of each group of eight beads on the expanded chaplet ring , pray:

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
2. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
3. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
4. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be fulfilled.
5. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
6. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
7. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
8. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

After each of the beatitudes, pray the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:24-26), with each blessing followed by a Gloria Patri.  These prayers use up the extra three beads in each group of eight on the expanded chaplet, but are left unbeaded on the simple chaplet.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.  Gloria Patri, etc.
May the Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you.  Gloria Patri, etc.
May the Lord lift his countenance upon you, and give you peace.  Gloria Patri, etc.

Concluding prayer:

O powerful Archangel, Saint Barachiel, filled with heaven’s glory and splendor, you are rightly called God’s benediction.  We are God’s children placed under your protection and care.  By the grace and power granted to you by God, please aid us in our lives and grant us blessings throughout our travels in this our exile.  Let us know the blessing of God in our physical existence as well in our spiritual growth that we may lack for nothing and have all we need to proceed upon and progress in our paths.  Grant that through your loving intercession, we may reach our heavenly home one day.  Sustain us and protect us from all harm that we may posses for all eternity the peace and happiness that Jesus has prepared for us in heaven.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

I get a lot of hits on my blog from across the realm of the Internet, many of which are from links on Facebook, Twitter, or RSS readers.  To you guys who follow me: thank you!  You give me many happies.  However, I also get a huge number of new visitors daily to my blog from people who search around the Internet for various search terms.  As part of a monthly project, here are some short replies to some of the search terms people have used to arrive here at the Digital Ambler.  This focuses on some search terms that caught my eye during the month of April 2014.

First, a bit of an announcement: I’m going to be taking the month of May off from blogging, since I’m moving from my apartment of four years into a house with my boyfriend and a friend of ours.  I just need some time to myself and away from writing the blog for a bit so I can get all my stuff packed up and moved, my new ritual schedules implemented, my new commute acclimated to, and my old place cleaned out and patched up.  I’ll still do my Daily Grammatomancy on Twitter and Facebook when I can, and if you have any questions, please feel free to email me or contact me through social media, and I’ll still reply to comments on my blog.  Also, I won’t be taking any craft commissions until the start of June, though you’re welcome to get a divination reading from me or get one of my ebooks off my Etsy page.  I still have those St. Cyprian of Antioch chaplets for sale, too, if you want to help out with moving expenses.  With that, onto the search results!

“computer generated geomancy” — If you’re looking for a place to get you geomancy figures automatically generated, you could do worse than go to random.org and use their random number generator to produce 16 binary results (0 or 1), or 4 results with a value of 0 through 15 (or 1 through 16).  If you’re looking for a program that draws up geomancy charts for you, there are a handful out there; I’ve coded one myself, geomancian, which is available for free on the Yahoo! and Facebook geomancy groups, but it’s command-line only (and old).  There’s Geomanticon available from Chris Warnock’s Renaissance Astrology, and I think there are a few mobile apps that do similar, but you’d have to pay for these.  If I ever learn mobile programming, I’d make a new one for Android, that’s for sure.  Still, no application can ever give you a proper interpretation of a full geomancy reading, though it can help you with interpreting the chart for yourself; if you want a full reading, I’m more than happy to offer them.

“do virgo males have big penises like greek god hermes” — I…really can’t speak to this.  (Disclaimer: my boyfriend is a Virgo, so there’s nothing I could say here that would end well for me.)  Also, save for the odd herm and a few ithyphallic representations of Hermes (more properly Mercury, especially in Roman art), Hermes isn’t portrayed with a particularly large cock.  It was actually seen as a good thing for a man to have a small dick in classical times, since they were easier to keep clean and reduced the risk of vaginal/anal/oral injury, trauma, or tearing, which would’ve very easily led to infection in pre-modern times.  That said, well, Hermes has shown me a few, shall we say, fulfilling things once in a while.  I’ll let you get on your knees and pray for that yourself, if you like.

“how to turn holy water into wax” — I don’t think you have a proper understanding of the physics that goes on here.  I mean, water and wax don’t mix, literally or metaphorically, and no ritual or physical process could achieve this short of a biblical miracle.  It’d be easier to turn water into wine, but that wouldn’t turn out so great, either.

“occult symbols of death” — Good question, and not one I really know an answer to.  You might use a seal for a spirit of Saturn, commonly associated with death, or of Azrael, the angel of death itself.  You might find symbols associated with Santissima Muerte, too, since she literally is death.  Other such symbols, such as the cap of Hades, associated with gods of death can work equally well.  When trying to find symbols for concepts like this when a spirit is not necessarily called for, I tend to look for sigils made from the letters of the word itself (so a sigil for the word “death” or “θανατος“), an Egyptian hieroglyph, or an ancient Chinese bone script or seal script character which you can easily find on Chinese Etymology.

“invocation of akasha or ether” — I suggest you don’t bother.  The only Western tradition that can even make good use of akasha is the Golden Dawn, since they’ve spent so much of their time augmenting classical and Renaissance Western mystery traditions with pilfered and appropriated Eastern, Vedic, Taoist, and Buddhist systems.  The use of a fifth element directly in magic doesn’t really have that much of a place, as I see it; Agrippa doesn’t reference it in his Scale of Five (book II, chapter 8) where he lists “a mixed body” instead, and its description in Plato’s Timaeus has it “arranging the constellations on the whole heaven”, so it’s probably more strongly based in stellar powers than perceived emptiness.  This makes sense, since we have no prayers, invocations, or workings of quintessence in the Western tradition before the Golden Dawn, but we have plenty for the gods, signs of the Zodiac, and stars.  To that end, you might use the Orphic Hymn to the Stars.  Alternatively, since the quintessence is the underlying substratum of the elements themselves, you might pursue your own Great Work, much as the alchemists did to find the Summum Bonum and Philosopher’s Stone, to understand and invoke ether on your own; I personally use the Hymns of Silence and invocations of pure Divinity.  And if you’re a neopagan who insists there are five elements because Cunningham says so, I hope you’re up for some actual magical lifting.

“how do i attach a crystal to a wooden dowel for wand” — In my experience, use two-part epoxy.  It forms one of the strongest adhesive bonds I can think of, far stronger than superglue, and it’s commonly and cheaply available at most craft or hardware stores.  If you have some sort of aversion to using artificial materials in crafting, the best I can suggest is carve out a niche in the wand just big enough for the crystal to fit and hold it in place with wire or cord.  Even then, it might fall out.  I strongly suggest the use of some kind of suitable adhesive for this, especially if you’re a heavy duty tool user.

“the use of crystals in conjuring” — Generally, I use crystals as the scrying medium within which I see spirits and by which I communicate with them, and this is often the case by many conjurers, especially those doing Enochiana with Dee’s works or the Trithemian system I use.  I also make use of a crystal on my ebony Wand of Art to help direct and focus power, if needed, but the crystal is not strictly necessary for the wand.  Beyond that, use crystals how you otherwise would in other rituals if you find a need for them; otherwise, don’t bring them into the ritual at all.  You don’t need a crystal for your wand, nor even for the scrying medium; a mirror, an obsidian plate, a blown-glass paperweight orb, a bowl of inky water, or a glass of clear water can all suffice as a perfectly good scrying medium, depending on your preferences; hell, depending on your second sight or conjuration skills, you may not need a scrying medium at all; with practice you’ll be able to perceive the spirit directly in the mind, or even evoke them to visible and material manifestation (which isn’t as important, I claim, as others may say it is, since it’s mostly a gimmick done for bragging rights at that point).

“when u draw a circle in a triangle,does it summon spirits? — On its own, no, otherwise every copy of Harry Potter with the Sign of the Deathly Hallows would actually be magical in more than the fantasy sense.  You’re just drawing shapes at this point, and the shapes are so basic and simple as to have no direct effect on their own.  However, you can summon spirits into the circle in the triangle afterward, which is the standard practice in Solomonic magic.

“is holy water used to bless the new fire?” — I mean, you could flick holy water into a fire to bless it, but the mixing of water and fire here bothers me.  The better way to make holy or blessed fire is to bless the fuel you use, such as the wood or oil, in conjunction with or just by saying prayers over the fire once lit.  This is common in Solomonic magic as it is in other religions, such as the fire blessing rituals of Zoroastrianism.  You might also consider making fire from holy woods or herbs, such as Palo Santo, sandalwood, or similar trees, depending on your tradition.  Generally speaking, fire is already one of the holiest substances we know of in the world and held in high esteem by many religions and traditions.  It can be made infernal, wicked, or evil, but the same can be said for anything material or physical, while it being naturally holy and closest to holiness is something that can be said for very few things, indeed.

“people who write in theban scripts” — Generally fluffy Wiccans, nowadays, who insist on making things blatantly-yet-”seekritly” magical.  The Theban script, as noted by Agrippa and Trithemius, has its origins in medieval alchemical ciphers common at the time, a simple 1-to-1 cipher for the Roman script (hence the use of a doubled U/V for a W).  Theban script used to be popular for enciphering alchemical and occult texts, but now it’s used once in a while for neopagan charms or quasigothic anime character design.

“how did saint isidore react when things went wrong” — Uh…”went wrong” is a pretty vague thing here.  For that matter, so is the saint; are you referring to Saint Isidore of Seville or Saint Isidore the Laborer?  The former didn’t really have much go wrong in his life, and the latter had his son fall into a well and needed to be rescued, so that’s hardly an epic to recount to kings.  I mean, the general Christian thing to do when things go wrong is prayer, which is probably what these guys did generally and how they also became, you know, saints.

“can we use orgonite ennrgy to cean air ?” — Short answer: no; long answer: fuck no.  Orgonite energy is properly orgone, which is a meta-energy that does not directly affect the physical world.  Orgonite is a lump of resin and metal shavings with other fanciful crap inside which is claimed to purify orgone from deadly orgone (DOR) to positive orgone (POR), which is crap and impossible even according to the (surprisingly versatile and workable) pseudoscience of Wilhelm Reich who developed orgone technology.  All orgonite could feasibly do is collect orgone energy inside to pull things out; even according to the rules of orgone theory, it cannot purify orgone from DOR to POR, since orgone tech cannot distinguish between the two (nor do I think a distinction is even possible, having never noticed any negative effects of DOR or overly positive effects of POR).  Physically speaking, there’s no mechanism for cleaning the air using a lump of congealed robot vomit, and you’d be better off putting a few fine sheets of cloth on your home HVAC air intake vent and washing it every month or so.  Orgone is orgone, energy is energy; there’s no real difference between “good energy” or “bad energy” when you’re talking about orgone.  You’d be better off learning energy manipulation and clearing space than using orgonite.

“greek alphabet as magical sigils” — Totally doable.  People have used various forms of the Hebrew alphabet magically for centuries now, and the Hebrew letters are well-known as symbols and referrants to the paths on the kabbalistic and Kircher Tree of Life, especially as stoicheic symbols for numbers, elements, planets, and signs of the Zodiac.  The Greek alphabet, sharing an ancestor with Hebrew and many of the same qualities, can be used similarly, right up to its own system of qabbalah.  Just as there exist magical cipher scripts for Roman script (Theban and the Trithemian cipher) and the Hebrew script (Celestial, Malachim, Passing the River, and the Alphabet of the Magi), I know of two cipher scripts for Greek: Apollonian and a medieval Frankish cipher (from Trithemius’ Polygraphia).  I’m sure others could be devised from similar principles or adapted from another magical script; alternatively, you could use archaic or variant styles of the Greek script, such as Coptic or even a variant of Phoenician.

“cockring orgone” — I…suppose this could be a thing.  Orgone does have its origins in the study of the life energy produced from sexual activity, so you’d just be going to the source for this.  I suppose you could make a cockring out of…hm.  Maybe something made of layers of synthetic latex and natural rubber?  Metal with a plastic core?  I’m unsure.  But more importantly, WHYYYYYYY.  If I wanted to give my partner a good zap, I’d just as soon use mentholated lubricant or, better yet, Tiger Balm (protip: for the love of God never do this).

“alan shapiro puts off the fire for the usps” — G…good for him?  I guess?  Seeing how I’ve never used that name on this blog nor known anyone by it, I…well, let’s just say that I’m so odd, because I can’t even.

“circle filled with triangles orgonite” — My first thought was the image of the Flower of Life, a circle filled with overlapping circles which can form triangle-like shapes within, and a potent magical and religious symbol for thousands of years.  And then I saw “orgonite”, and my next thought was “new age bullshit”, which is about what people use the Flower of Life nowadays for anyway.  On the one hand, you’re talking about sacred geometry, and on the other, you’re talking about lumps of crap, so I’m unsure what you’re getting at here.  Also, I’m starting to loathe the popularity of these orgone searches, but they’re just so ripe for making fun of.

“hermetism and homosexualit” — Hermetism isn’t a word often used, and chances are that you’re referring to “Hermeticism”, the Neoplatonic-Gnostic-ish philosophy that came about in the classical Mediterranean from a whole bunch of philosophies and religions rubbing shoulders with each other.  In that sense, Hermeticism and Neoplatonism generally helped form a new concept of what was then called “Platonic love”, a love of souls more than that of bodies.  Men and men, men and women, and women and women can all have Platonic love for each other, while before this movement (especially in the Renaissance) it may have been hard to communicate one’s feelings about another, especially if love was itself defined between two people of the opposite gender.  Another point to consider is that “homosexuality” as a concept and identification didn’t exist until the late 1800s; labeling ourselves in this manner simply wasn’t done before then.  You either never had gay sex, were having gay sex at that moment, or had gay sex at some point in the past; it was an action and not a state.  Actions like this have no significant ramifications I can think of in Hermeticism, since there’s no sin to deal with or laws that say you can’t do that; it’s a very abstract yet thorough philosophy that embraces pretty much whatever and whoever you throw at it.  As for the other meaning of Hermetism, which I take to be a henotheistic worship of Hermes, well, the god-dude himself likes the occasional dick, so he has no problem with it.

“the most homosexual magician on the planet” — I…honestly don’t think I’m the best candidate for this esteemed title.  I mean, yeah, I’ve sucked a lot of dick, but I don’t go around drinking skinny margs, watching Glee, or wearing turtlenecks, either.  I mean, I’m not particularly effeminate (though I do have my moments), nor am I stereotypically promiscuous (not like that’s a bad thing), so…yeah.   Besides, the notion itself is kind of absurd; unless you’re a 6 on the Kinsey scale, I don’t think “most homosexual” is really a thing, but since I do score a 6 on that scale, I suppose I get the title?  Maybe?  I still claim that you’d be better off finding candidates for this title on Twitter, all of whom are good, noble, professional, upright people and magi (also I love you guys~).

“energy circle when summoning spirits how do you draw it” — You don’t draw energy circles when summoning spirits; you draw conjuration or summoning circles to conjure or summon spirits.  In that case, you draw (shock of the ages!) a circle.  You can add other symbols, names, or whatever to it as you want, but these are highly varied, as Ouroboros Press’ Magic Circles in the Grimoire Tradition by William Kiesel points out, but really, a circle is all you need.  You can use chalk, a knife, paint, rope, or whatever to draw it out, but do draw it out, even if it’s just in the carpet with a finger.  Energy circles are used in various forms of energy work with varying degrees of significance, though I’ve never needed such a thing except for shielding or putting out feelers in my local surroundings.

“ikea-rituals” — I’m not aware of any Ikea-specific rituals, but their wide array of furniture and household goods is quite amazing, much of it able to be repurposed to ritual use.  I plan on getting a few more LACK side tables as a series of altars, to be sure, and some nice shelves for my temple and personal library in the near future.  I assume rituals for Ikea would take on a strongly Nordic and Scandinavian flavor, but that’s not my area of expertise.

“where do i put my incense when summoning a demon”  — I would put the incense somewhere between you and the conjuration space for the demon, that way you have the smoke rising up to offer a kind of veil or ethereal lens through which you can more easily perceive the demon.  Where you put the conjuration space (Triangle of Art, Table of Practice, etc.), however, is another question entirely.  Some grimoires offer directions you should face, or a particular direction associated with the demon or spirit, which would provide you with a good idea of directional and spatial layout.

Also, this wasn’t really a search term, but something did catch my eye.  I keep track of what other sites lead people to my blog; search engines like Google and sites like Facebook are at the very top of the list, of course, but also some blogs are also notable.  One crazy hilarious blog linked to my post on the divine names written on the Trithemius lamen,  From the crazy blog itself, it’s about:

We are living in Biblically significant Times. Ironically it was the most persecuted man in modern history that lead me to dig deeper into the Bible and taught me more about God than any other human being on the planet. And that man is Michael Jackson. I started a blog to defend him. I ended up researching him and learned just why they were after him. They did everything they could to shut him down. In the song “Cry” he said “take over for me”, so that is what I am doing. God bless that man and his faith and strength

…alright, then.  Specifically, the post referenced my blog in that those silly Jews never understood God in that God obviously only has one possible name (the one referred to as the Tetragrammaton, which even they say has two pronunciations…I think? it’s hard to read the post) and that all other names refer to demons, and that Michael is not the angel of the Sun but is a demon because it’s another Michael besides Michael Jackson.  They also attempted to bind the angel Michael and God in the name of God because reasons.  My good friend Michael Seb Lux, before discovering that the blog doesn’t allow comment except from certified crazy people it allows, was going to reply with this:

Actually, there are multiple names ascribed to G-d in the Hebrew Scriptures. While Yahweh is the more common one, in Exodus 3:14 G-d speaks His Name as, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh” or “I am that what I shall be”. Similarly, the use of Adonai is common as a theophoric and literally means, “Lord”. Other names used in Scripture are Yahweh Tzevaot (1 Samuel 17:45), ha’el elohe abika (Genesis 46:3), Elah Elahin (Daniel 2:47), Elohim (Exodus 32:1; Genesis 31:30, 32; and elsewhere), and so forth. The four-fold name may have originated as an epithet of the god El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon (“El who is present, who makes himself manifest”) or according to the Kenite hypothesis accepted by scholars, assumes that Moses was a historical Midianite who brought the cult of Yahweh north to Israel.

May all the angels pray for us and God (in every one of his names) bless the Internet that we may be worthy of the lulz of paradise.

Anyway, see you guys in June!

I get a lot of hits on my blog from across the realm of the Internet, many of which are from links on Facebook, Twitter, or RSS readers.  To you guys who follow me: thank you!  You give me many happies.  However, I also get a huge number of new visitors daily to my blog from people who search around the Internet for various search terms.  As part of a monthly project, here are some short replies to some of the search terms people have used to arrive here at the Digital Ambler.  This focuses on some search terms that caught my eye during the month of May 2014.

“why is yesod important in ring of solomon” — As far as I know, it’s not.  The Ring of Solomon, given in the Lemegeton, has the names “Tetragrammaton”, “Tzabaoth”, and “Michael” written on it; the one given to John Dee is known as the “PELE Ring”, having that word inscribed on it (perhaps a reversed romanized “Aleph”?) with a circle with a V and L sticking through it.  None of this is particularly associated with Yesod, the sephiroth associated with the sphere of the Moon, whose commonly-associated godname is Shaddai El Chai and whose angel presiding over it is Gabriel.

“big cock anal” — Yes, please.

“can orgonite be used for penis growth ?” — First, orgonite can’t really be used for anything that, say, a rock, a crystal, or a piece of wood can’t, and honestly anything else looks prettier than orgonite.  Second, the penis is pretty much a fixed size once you hit puberty; with the exception of prolonged penis pumping or jelqing (either of which can be dangerous if you don’t do it right, including literally exploding the penis), you really won’t be changing the size much.  Third, no.  No, you cannot use orgonite for penis growth.  You must be extraordinarily desperate to be thinking of that.

“black pepper in rituals” — It’s a pretty useful ingredient, actually.  Anything that has a sharp or stinging smell or taste to it tends to be Martial, while anything dark black tends to be Saturnine; black pepper, being both, is a good example of an herb that combines both of these forces, but pepper generally tends to be a Martial ingredient.  It’s good for banishing things, and a standby banishing incense of mine combines black pepper, red pepper, myrrh, clove, and star anise.  It’s also good for offensive magic, especially if you’re trying to get someone to get the fuck out of your life or cause them slow-burning harm.  Be careful when burning it, however, and don’t inhale it directly or get the smoke in your eyes.

“since greek god hermes had a big dick do virgo guy born on august 23 have big dicks as well” — …again?  Why is this a thing people are searching for?  (I may as well ask why there exists Rule #34 on the Internet.)  First, August 23 is really on the cusp between Leo and Virgo, and depending on the year and exact time of birth, someone could be clearly on one side or the other, or could be really right on the fence between the two.  In my experience, cusp people who have the physical attributes of one sign have the personality characteristics of the other.  Second, the bigger (…erm) thing is that one’s rising sign really influences one’s physical form, which I would assume continue down to the girth and length of one’s cock; it’s not just the Sun sign that matters.  Third, it’s really in very few depictions of Hermes that he’s presented with a huge dick; the hermai statues weren’t always Hermes but acted as generic intermediary messengers between humans and gods in ritual depictions, and it’s really only that huge ithyphallic Roman drawing of Mercury that we see a Pan-like figure with a caduceus.  I mean, sure, the gods can present themselves (heh) in any way they chose, including the size of particular attributions of theirs, but I genuinely don’t think a huge cock is something attributable to Hermes in the same way the caduceus or winged sandals are.  That said, he definitely has nothing to worry about, either.

“likeness between virgo males and greek god hermes” — If search term results are any indication, apparently a huge cock is one of them?  This question is kinda weird to me, since it’s like asking the likeness between a Jew and YHVH, or a citizen of the United States and George Washington.  Virgoan and Geminese people are both born under the Zodiac signs ruled by Mercury, but that’s hardly much to talk about.  Again, the rising sign, Moon sign, signs of the Parts of Fortune and Spirit, and the planet of the almuten are all hugely important factors that can change from Virgo to Virgo, Gemini to Gemini, and so forth.  In many regards, if a particular Virgo male has a huge cock, it’s probably coincidental and attributable to many other factors besides their Sun sign.

“can you pray to summon satan” — Totally, yes!  Just make sure whom you’re praying to and why you’re praying for it line up right.  Don’t pray to the Judeo-Christian God to summon Satan for world domination, and don’t pray to Satan himself to imprison himself for the rest of eternity.  You might make more enemies than friends that way.

“religious amulet sash that you wear across the shoulder and end at the hip in yoruba” — I’m not an expert on ATR practices, but Santería (or Lukumi, which has its origins in the Yoruba culture) doesn’t wear these.  They wear elekes or collares, beaded necklaces and bracelets, the colors and patterns of which reflect different orisha (Santerían deities).  The sashes are from a nearby culture from the Congo, whose religion is known as Palo (viz. Palo Mayombe, Palo Kimbisa, Palo Briyumba, etc.).  They don’t wear the beaded necklaces or bracelets (except maybe as a personal affectation), but instead wear the bandera, a sash that goes over the shoulder and down to the other hip, the beaded patterns of which represent the different nkisi (Palo deities), along with chains, cowrie shells, and other charms to reflect ancestry, ancestors, and the like.

“can i use orgonite in my crystal grid” — You can, but why?  Crystals tend to be cheaper and more easily accessible and tend to have a purer energy feel to them.  Besides, crystals are already present in orgonite, which tends to be a mishmash of metal shavings, glitter, sticks, and glue, so why bother?  Just use crystals and leave the orgonite crap alone.

“keys of solomon used in a ritual death” — Very little in the Key of Solomon has to do with ritual deaths or killing, much less those of humans.  However, animal sacrifice is a thing, and the use of blood as ingredients in ink or pigments is common in several of the rituals, as well as in making offerings to the demons in the Lemegeton Goetia.  If you do this, first make the white-handled knife (which itself requires the blood of a goose) to consecrate it, then use that as the sacrificial blade for further sacrifices.  Be careful, and also study how Jewish kosher slaughter works and try to use that method to ensure a quick and as-close-to-painless-as-possible death.  If you cut yourself, halt all working and make sure you don’t get any of your own blood mixed up in the offerings or ink, and GTFO the ritual area.  If you’re at all squeamish about using sacrifices of animals or blood, just look elsewhere or work on making plant-based substitutes for blood.

“hermetic wand pricing” — Depends on whom you ask.  I can make wands for you as a custom commission, depending on complexity and style, though for wands used in the Golden Dawn, you’d be better off looking elsewhere or studying the craft and making one for yourself.

“are there any of the penticles of the moon out of the greater key of solomon that have to do with arc angel azreal” — Sorta?  Azrael, sometimes known as Azriel, is commonly known as the Angel of Death, though his name literally means “One whom God Helps”.  He’s known in Islamic traditions, though never by this name in the Qur’an, instead being referred to as the angel of death.  The Zohar of Jewish Kabbalah has this angel receive the prayers of the faithful in Heaven and leads the heavenly hosts, and some esoteric forms of Christianity associate this angel with Sealtiel or Selaphiel, the angel of prayer.  All told, though, he’s most known in his function of giving death to mankind.  Though I didn’t think this angel appeared in the Key of Solomon, there is actually a pentacle of the Moon that references a very similar name to this: the Fifth Pentacle of the Moon, which “serveth to have answers in sleep”, and “serveth unto destruction and loss, as well as unto the destruction of enemies”,  as well as “against all phantoms of the night, and to summon the souls of the departed from Hades”.  This pentacle has the name “Azarel” written on it, which could just as easily be romanized from Hebrew as “Azrael”, so maybe this is the pentacle you’re looking for.

“i want to write my name in angelic script” — First learn to write your name in Hebrew, or find a Hebrew version of your name; then simply write the same letters in angelic script, which is basically a different font of Hebrew.

“letter v in isopsephy” — There isn’t one.  Isopsephy is Greek gematria, and there is no letter V in Greek.  The modern pronunciation of Beta or Upsilon can sometimes sound like the English V, but there is no such letter.  Likewise, in Hebrew gematria, there is no letter V either, though Bet or Waw can sometimes sound like it, too.  If you’re using isopsephy based on purely phonetic principles, you could pick either of those letters from those scripts, but the thing is that you’d be applying phonetic principles to a text-based system, and the disconnect is large enough to give me pause for concern.  And no, I haven’t found an English/Latin isopsephy/gematria worth discussing yet.

“how to write a curse tablet in latin”  — Much the same way as you’d write a curse tablet in any other language.  The language doesn’t really factor into the magic unless you’re working with specifically Latin-speaking spirits, and depending where you are, those might be few and far between.  Write in the language most comfortable to you; the spirits will understand.  That said, if you happen to know Classical Latin or Greek comfortably well, by all means write in those languages.

“are summoming triangles evil?” — As much as pens and paper are.  The summoning triangle is a tool used in rituals, which I suppose can only be declared “good” or “evil” based on their intent and result.

And, as you may have noticed, dear readers, I’m back!  I’m all situated in the new house, all the spirits and altars are set up, and a few days’ worth of housewarming parties are complete.  I’m getting settled back into a routine of commuting, ritual, and martial arts practice, so everything’s going well.  I’m now open for craft commissions again, though I now have a minor backlog of things to do from people who happened to order something over the past month.  How’ve you been this past May?

The idea of perfection comes from horary astrology, considered to be the primary and foremost divination system of the antique, classical, and premodern periods; you can find good descriptions of astrological perfection here and here, among elsewhere.  In horary astrology, where the planets move through the 360° of the Zodiac at different rates, the planets make certain aspects to each other at different times; noting how these aspects take place, where they take place, and what other planets make aspects at the same time can indicate different types of perfection or different ways that perfection cannot be obtained.  Geomancy, however, uses sixteen figures that can appear at 12 discrete places in the House Chart instead of smoothly moving through 360°

So, with all that in mind, let me get out the basics first starting from first principles.

What is perfection?  Perfection is a technique used in geomantic divination where a House Chart and not the Shield Chart is used.  This technique helps indicate different types of connection, or the lack thereof, between different actors, events, or goals in a situation.  While the figures themselves describe what a given actor, event, or goal may be like, perfection indicates how these things relate to and work with or against other things.  The things that play a role in a situation are represented by figures called significators, and these figures are found by inspecting a particular house of the House Chart that best represents the thing.  For instance, the querent (person asking the query, or question of divination) is represented by house I, so the figure that appears in house I represents the state, quality, and person of the querent.  If the querent is asking about something in specific, such as a marriage, job, health problem, or debt, we would look to other houses to see what those things are represented by in the chart, which are houses VII, X, VI, and XII, respectively; the thing being asked about is the quesited.

Because any given figure can appear in multiple places in the House Chart, it is possible that one of the significating figures can appear in multiple places, as well.  Different houses that share the same figure indicate a strong connection between the two areas of life, actors, events, or goals.  For instance, if the significator of the querent appears in houses I and VI, we might say that the querent is heavily involved with matters of health, service, or working for others in addition to those things having qualities similar to the querent since they share the same figure.  A figure can appear in more than two houses; in one rare case, the same figure can even appear in all 12 houses, but it’s more common that a figure appears in one to three houses at a time, depending on the chart.

All this puts geomancy in an unusual place in divination systems generally; unlike Tarot, runes, astrology, or other forms of divination, where any given symbol can appear at most once in a reading, a geomantic figure can appear multiple times in a reading.  This allows us to make use of this repetition of figures to indicate relationships between significators based on how they repeat, or pass, around in the chart in relationship to each other.  This is where geomantic perfection is superficially similar to astrological perfect, where the latter relies on aspects being made between planets to form contacts between significators, the former relies on repetition of figures to do the same.  Say the querent wishes to know about marriage, or marrying a particular person; in this case, the significator of the querent is in house I, and the significator of the quesited is in house VII.  If the querent’s significator passes from house I to house VI, then we note that house VI and house VII are neighboring each other; the querent’s significator comes into direct physical contact with that of the quesited.  This is a type of contact made that illustrates perfection.

There are four types of perfection used in geomancy, and I went over those in an earlier post, which you should read up at this point.  To review, there is occupation (the same figure appears in both the house of the querent and the house of the quesited), conjunction (either significator appears in one of the two houses neighboring the other), mutation (when both significators neighbor each other at some other location away from their own houses), and translation (when the same figure which is neither significator appears next to both).  If no method of perfection applies, then we say that the chart is in denial, or lacking perfection.  Where the figures pass to, such as before or after the significator, or whether a figure passes to both before and after, or a mutation-conjunction combination, can all offer variants of these four methods of perfection, but the same basic rules apply.  If a chart has perfection between the significators, then we say that the chart perfects for those signficators; otherwise, we say that the chart denies perfection.

What does perfection answer?  To speak floridly, perfection indicates the connection between different realities, the experienced reality of the querent (represented by the significator of the querent) and the hypothetical reality of the query (represented by the significator of the quesited).  If the chart perfects, then the hypothetical reality will come to pass; if the chart denies perfection, the hypothetical reality will not come to pass.  In more direct terms, perfection in a chart indicates a simple “yes” to the query, and denial of perfection indicates “no”.  So, if Jane Doe asks “will I get married to John Smith?” and the chart perfects between houses I and VII in any way, then the answer is yes, Jane will marry John; if the chart denies perfection, the answer is no, Jane will not marry John.  It’s important to be clear on phrasing the query, because perfection answers about the situation inquired; if Jane asks “will I not marry John?” and the chart perfects, then the answer is yes, she will not marry John.  In other words, perfection affirms or denies the query put to divination.  Learning how to phrase the query clearly and concretely is an important aspect of divination generally, but especially so when perfection is used.

Being able to phrase a query clearly and directly is important especially if one phrases a query in a negative light.  Perfection will affirm whatever is asked, and denial of perfection will deny whatever is asked.  So, if one asks a question negatively, like “will X not happen?” or “should I not do X?”, then the query will be answered as it is.  Thus, if one asks “will X not happen?” perfection says “yes, X will not happen”, and denial says “no, X will not not happen” (or, more directly, “X will happen”).  Thus, the more directly one can phrase the query, reducing all ambiguity and complexity to its barest, the more clear and easily accessible the answer will be.

Now that you understand (hopefully) what perfection is, let’s talk about the limits of this technique.  For one, perfection does not answer whether something is good or bad; it only indicates whether something will or won’t happen.  It indicates a connection between different realities, but it does not indicate whether it’ll be good or bad, pleasing or displeasing, or any other qualities besides whether there exists a connection and how that connection is forged.  For understanding the qualities of the situation, you’d need to look at the figures themselves and whether they’re good or bad, how those figures relate to the rest of the chart, the Court figures, and so forth.  You can envision a kind of 2×2 table that shows this:

There are lots of techniques in geomancy, and perfection is only one of them.  Perfection really comes in help when a query is phrased in a way that “yes” or “no” will answer it, i.e. if the query expects a binary answer.  Anything that is asked in a way like “Will X happen”, “Should I do X”, “Can I do X”, and the like are all things that can be answered directly and easily with perfection.  Other queries, such as “When will X happen”, “What will X be”, “Where is X”, and the like are not answered by perfection; in this case, the use of perfection simply doesn’t apply to these queries and will produce nonsense answers.  For instance, if Jane Doe lost something, she might ask “will I find my lost object?” and use perfection for that reading; if she wants to know the answer to “where can I find X?”, she should use another technique entirely, since this isn’t a yes or no question.  Perfection is only one tool in the toolkit of the geomancer; just as one wouldn’t use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail, perfection isn’t the best tool for the job when the query is best answered in a non-binary way.

Many binary queries put to divination are straightforward: whether I can get such-and-such a job, whether I’ll find my true love in the next five years, whether I’ll flunk out of college even if I study hard, and so forth.  In many instances, it suffices to use only two significators in the reading, one for the querent and one for the quesited.  However, some queries are more nuanced and complicated, and to fully answer it require a nuanced and complicated reply from the reading.  This is most easily done by considering multiple significators, where one figures out how different actors (plural) relate amongst themselves as well as with the querent in a situation.  Consider a situation where a querent wants to know how a new medical treatment prescribed by their doctor will help a health issue they’ve had for some time now.  We know of several factors here: the querent (house I), the doctor (house VII), the medical treatment (house X), and the health issue itself (house VI).  Any of these significators can perfect with any other, and since there are six different ways perfection can be forged between the significators (I and X, I and VII, I and VI, X and VII, X and VI, VII and VI), the answer could get quite complicated, indeed!  In this case:

• Perfection between I and X indicates that the querent will carry out the medical treatment prescribed to them.  Denial indicates that they won’t or it simply won’t be available to them.
• Perfection between I and VII indicates that the querent will be in contact with their doctor to work with them.  Denial indicates that their relationship may be blocked, broken off, or obstructed.
• Perfection between I and VI indicates that the health issue will be resolved or will be helpfully controlled.  Denial indicates that the health condition will continue unmitigated.
• Perfection between X and VII indicates that the doctor is the one prescribing the treatment and understands it.  Denial indicates that the doctor isn’t in control of the treatment or has no clue what he’s doing.
• Perfection between X and VI indicates that the health issue will respond to and be helped by the treatment prescribed.  Denial indicates that the issue will not be changed or helped by the treatment.
• Perfection between VII and VI indicates that the doctor understands the health issue and is actively working to help it.  Denial indicates that the doctor has no idea what’s going on and doesn’t really care.

These types of readings with multiple significators can be deeply involved, and there’s no simple yes or no to be had with these.  Instead, one has to develop a nuanced, qualified answer that might be yes in some ways and no in others, and build a complete message from that.  For instance, say that in this hypothetical health reading, say that perfection exists between I and VII (querent and doctor), I and X (querent and treatment), I and VI (treatment and health issue), and VII and X (doctor and treatment); the chart denies perfection between X and VI (treatment and health issue) and VII and VI (doctor and health issue).  In this case, the querent is getting along fine with the doctor and will take the steps prescribed by the doctor to change the situation.  However, the treatment prescribed by the doctor will not have any effect on the condition since the doctor doesn’t really understand it well enough to prescribe something useful; even then, however, the treatment will still be cleared up on its own or due to the personal actions of the querent.  So, in some ways, the query of “will the treatment prescribed by my doctor help this health issue?” is answered by “no”, and in some other ways “yes”, but it’s hard to answer that query fully in a single word if the whole story needs to be communicated.

Perfection is a useful tool, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also one of the most difficult to understand for many beginners due to its complexity.  I ascribe this to the mechanics of geomancy itself, since this isn’t your standard oracle deck-fare divination; there’s math and analysis involved that go far beyond intuitive readings of the figures themselves as you might normally do in other divination methods.  Many people don’t pick up geomancy as their first divination system, so they’re used to systems that are simpler, more rudimentary, and less mechanical in their own ways; this is not a bad thing, but it ill-prepares them to study geomancy in a proper way.  It’s important to know the limits of perfection here, as well as when to use it and when not to use it, to fully understand how the technique works and what it represents in a chart.

As part of my new grammatomantic lunar calendar rituals, I’m setting aside three days each lunar month for the veneration of the dead in my life.  The first day is given to my Ancestors of Kin, those to whom I am descended from by blood.  The final day is given to the Ancestors of the Great, culture heroes and other Mighty Dead who shaped the world we all live in.  The second day, however (associated with the letter Qoppa, and held this lunar month on June 16), I give to my Ancestors of Work, famous people to whom I look up to for the things I do in my life.  They’re like my family ancestors, but with ties of labor and field rather than blood and kin, a family linked together by the things we do rather than who we are.  As a magician, I put people like Pythagoras, Orpheus, Cornelius Agrippa, Crowley, and the like in there, but magic isn’t the only thing I do.  My day-job professional and academic career is based in computer science, and today, on the 60th anniversary of his death, I’d like to recognize Alan Turing, one of the greatest computer scientists the world has ever had.

Born on June 23, 1912, Alan Turing came from Irish, English, and Scottish family, and had a natural inclination towards mathematics from a young age.  This didn’t serve him too well in public schools at the time, when education focused more on classics than what we’d consider hard sciences today; still, even at 16 and not only reading but expanding on the work of none other than Albert Einstein, the dude was pretty cool at the things he was good at.  His work really shone through in the early development of computer science, working on one of the most famous problems of mathematics, the Entscheidungsproblem, or “Decision Problem”, the solution to which was that there was no solution at all.  Not only would this have surprised some of the most famous mathematicians of the time, but it’s become a central topic in computer science taught from the beginning ever since.

Not only was he a brilliant computer scientist and mathematician, but Turing also served the British Army, especially helping during World War II.  With his extensive knowledge of mathematics and science, Turing became one of the foremost codebreakers and leaders in deciphering enemy ciphers.  Not only did he produce general means to break German codes, while other methods used at the time were fragile and relied on too many assumptions, he also provided efficient means of breaking various types of code, helping to critically fight the German war machine (in several senses).  After WWII, he furthered the field of computer science as well as that of artificial intelligence, and pursued several advances in chemistry.

Despite having chatted with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, occasionally ran the 40 miles from his office to London, and inducted into the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by King George VI, and basically invented modern computer science in an accessible manner, the world at that time effectively condemned him: he was gay.  After having his house robbed by an acquaintance of a lover of his, and noted that fact to the police, he was charged with indecency, since homosexuality was still illegal at that time in Britain.  Charged with this non-crime, he pleaded guilty (despite having no guilt nor shame for being gay, as he damn well shouldn’t’ve), he was given the choice of imprisonment or probation with chemical castration; he chose the latter, which would allow him to continue working, but it rendered him impotent and caused gynaecomastia.  This, combined with reparative treatment to “cure” his homosexuality (which we know nowadays from the “ex-gay” movement never works and only causes further harm), did nothing good.

Adding insult to injury, he lost his security clearance and was barred from continuing with cryptographic research with the government (even though he pretty much won WWII for them), and was even barred from entering into the United States.  He died on June 7, 1954, only at 41 years old.  Two years after his conviction and beginning of hormone treatment, with an investigation reporting that he committed suicide by cyanide poisoning with a half-eaten apple near his body, which is thought to be (but never confirmed) to be how he killed himself.  Rumor has it that this is where the original rainbow-colored partially-bitten apple logo came from for the Apple computer company, but that’s not the official story.

Today, I honor Alan Turing especially as a hero in my life.  An incredible amount of the technology I use and work I produce is indebted to him, not only because he helped develop the computer, but also because he helped turn the tides of war that could’ve endlessly shaped the world some 70 years ago.  His brilliance shines as a light for me, as a computer scientist but also as a human being.  Being a gay man myself, my heart breaks every time I recall how the world back then treated him for being the same way, and I pray that neither I nor anyone else has to undergo that sort of blatant bigotry and persecution.  Like Turing himself, though, I bear no guilt nor shame for who I am, and I take only joy in the work I do.  I’ll likely never run 40 miles nor ever care to, but hey, more power to Turing for doing that, too.

Ave, Alan Turing.  May your memory never be forgotten, and may your name and spirit always live on.  Guide our minds to know what can be known, and guide our hearts to love whom we will love, both without fear and without scorn.  Help us and be with us in our work, and may we thank you every time information flows through the fruits of your labors to us.

As you might have guessed, dear reader, working with the Holy Guardian Angel is, in fact, a thing.  A pretty big thing, at that.  There’ve been rituals written for thousands of years now on how to come in contact with this spirit, along with plenty of kinda-similar-kinda-dissimilar descriptions on the nature of this spirit.  And, judging by the pan-blogosophere/occulture debates on the nature of the HGA, chances are this topic will continue on for quite a lot longer.  In fact, some magicians go so far as to say that coming in contact with the HGA, also known as Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel (KCHGA) is the sum and whole of the Great Work itself.  This isn’t a wrong view, but it’s a little misleading if you don’t inspect all the ramifications of such a statement.

No, I’m not going to talk about how to attain KCHGA, or how to find your HGA’s name, or which ritual is best to come in contact with your HGA.  Yes, I have contact with my own HGA, and I’ve been working with him and involving him at nearly every step of my occult path since I first met him.  What I want to talk about is something that I don’t see often discussed: the relationship and differences in view of the HGA between practitioners of magic and devotees of religion.  The two feed into each other, clearly, and the notion of the HGA itself can easily be attributed to either source or a mixture of both.  It’s the relationship and lack of correctness I’ve noted between what the HGA is claimed to do and how one is supposed to work with the HGA, at least in my own experience, and what the HGA actually does and how one should really work with the HGA.

The term “Holy Guardian Angel” itself can be attributed quite clearly to the Book of Abramelin, but the term was already in use by the Catholic Church, the culture of which helped form and develop the spiritual context for the Abramelin (along with other Solomonic, goetic, and qabbalistic traditions interwoven together).  It’s been canon in the Catholic Church for each human being to have a guardian angel for quite a long while now; there are scriptural hints that this has been a longstanding notion (Matthew 18:10, Acts 12:13-15) since before the development of the proper Church, but it was really codified when Saint Basil in the 4th century wrote that “beside each believer stands an angel protector and shepherd leading him to life” (Adversus Eunomium III, Catechism of the Catholic Church 1.2.1.1.5.1 #336).  Okay, cool; we know that it’s actually a belief that guardian angels exist in Catholicism and, moreover, that its believers are actively encouraged to work with and ask for help from one’s guardian angel.  This is further indicated by the prevalence of medallions, litanies, candles, novenas, and the like dedicated to this divine figure.

However, the perceived goal of the HGA is different between Abramelin and Saint Basil.  In the Abramelin, the text states that “[e]very learned and prudent man may fall if he be not defended and guided by the angel of the Lord, who aided me, and prevented me from falling into such a state of wretchedness, and who led me undeserving from the mire of darkness unto the light of the truth” and later that “[y]e shall also supplicate [God] that in the time to come he may be willing and pleased to regard you with pity and grant you his grace and goodness to send unto you his holy angel, who shall serve unto you as a guide, and lead you ever in his holy way and will; so that ye fall not into sin through inadvertence, through ignorance, or through human frailty”.  Magically, however, Abramelin states that “my holy angel, whom God the most merciful had destined from my creation for my guardian, spake unto me with the greatest goodness and affection; who not only manifested unto me the Veritable Magic, but even made easier for me the means of obtaining it”.  Mathers writes in his own introduction more succinctly that “thereby and thereafter [obtaining knowledge of and conversation with one's guardian angel] we may obtain the right of using the evil spirits for our servants in all material matters”.  Of course, even the Abramelin alludes to the difficulty in describing the nature of the HGA, perhaps foreshadowing decades of internet-based flame wars: “their angel being by its nature Amphiteron [inaccessible, double?], because the angelic nature differeth to so great an extent from that of men, that no understanding nor science could express or describe it, as regardeth that great purity wherewith [the angels] be invested”.

The thing is that the Abramelin is, above anything else, a work on magic.  The whole 6-month (or 18-month, if you’re reading Dehn’s translation) period of prayer and asceticism is meant to put you in contact with your HGA, after which you work with the HGA to accomplish any and every other type of magic.  In other words, the HGA becomes the only familiar or supernatural assistant one would ever need, able to bind or loosen any other spirit, achieve any task, or obtain any objective.  In this light, Abramelin shares strong similarities with several PGM texts (I.1, I.42, IV.154, VII.505, inter alia).  The general gist is that the magical view of the HGA is to assist you in getting what you want.

This is counter to the standard religious view that the HGA is to lead you to virtue.  After all, probably the two biggest drives for people studying magic are to (a) get paid and (b) get laid, and texts like the PGM, Grand Grimoire, and the like are pretty blatant in saying so, with books like Abramelin and the Keys of Solomon being a little more subtle about it.  What we want to accomplish is not always in line with virtue, if not directly opposed to it.  From this, it might be said that the magical HGA isn’t an angel at all, but a familiar spirit of a lower rank than an angel.  I disagree; after all, it’s a staple in Stoicism, Christianity, and Thelema that you shouldn’t judge what others do, and what might be terrible vice for you can just as easily be blessed virtue for another.  The Abramelin approach to this is to strike a balance between the two: the HGA is to help you achieve what you want, but also to lead you to virtue, so what you want will eventually coincide with what God wants.

From this, it’s easily understandable how Thelema linked True Will with the HGA.  If True Will is what we’re meant to accomplish according to the Divine, then our True Will is the will of God.  Thus, by aligning our will with our True Will, we align our will with God’s will.  It’s still free will and freely chosen, but it’s that alignment that produces true power and true Work.  However, the vessel for knowing and keeping on our path of True Will most easily lies with the HGA compared to other paths, since the HGA is most in tune with our lives specifically and knows our specific needs and wants, and since the HGA leads us to God, he can lead us in a way most effective for ourselves to God.  If I recall correctly, this is likewise why many Golden Dawn lodges have no formal initiations above Adeptus Minor (5=6, corresponding with Thiphareth/Sun), which is associated with KCHGA, since the KCHGA becomes one’s real teacher after that point and the Work they indicate to do becomes proof of one’s real grade.  The HGA will still accomplish nearly anything you ask for, but rather than the HGA changing their nature through your working, the HGA is the catalyst for you changing your own nature through your Work.

This is an element that appears to be lacking to me in religious-devotional methods of working with the HGA, like through novenas or simple prayer.  Without truly needing and aspiring to know and converse with the HGA, it’s extraordinarily rare for one to contact and accomplish anything with them, and the methods involve at a minimum powerful and wholly-concentrated prayer to the point of fanaticism and faith so extreme things become more magical than theological.  Sure, you can obtain the favor and a few helpful nudges after repeated novenas or litanies to the HGA, and they’ll probably throw a sign to you once in a while that you may or may not miss, but for concentrated work and learning, I haven’t found the Catholic prayer stuff nearly as useful to work with the HGA as I have magical methods and involved ritual.  (Then again, Catholic rituals as I would reckon a “ritual” to work with the HGA are few and far between, and I don’t know of anything that powerful besides Mass itself, and I’m not qualified to perform that.)

Despite that I’ve worked with plenty of other angels, the HGA seems to be an angel of a wholly different type than the planetary angels/intelligences/spirits/choirs, and is distinct still from the seven archangels themselves.  I can’t yet discern whether this is a function of him being so close and connected to me, lower than the rest, higher than the rest, an outgrowth of God itself into my life in a discrete form I’d recognize as an angel, or something else entirely; I sense my HGA smirking and snickering as I write this, which I take as a recognition of the futility of this sort of pondering.  What I do know is that the HGA is definitely worked with in a way distinct from any other spirit.  He doesn’t require or feel the need for formal conjurations, nor does he care for chaplets and novenas and candles burned in his honor.  He instructs me to pray, but with a special prayer he helped me write to align myself to the Almighty and not to his specific presence.  He directs and smooths out my work, but has no specific ritual for himself (beyond the Headless Rite, which is how I came to contact him in the first place, but which he’s somewhat distanced himself from since).  He’s distinctly Other, but in a way that makes him not-Other at all.

Personally, I take the HGA, as the Golden Dawn does, as one’s true teacher, but in a farther and in a more ecumenical way.  I claim that once one has true and certain contact with one’s HGA (which is a complicated and hard-to-accomplish thing to begin with), they need no more dogmas or religions or texts beyond that which their HGA directs them to study.  If the HGA is one’s connection to God and one’s true path, then that path becomes their true religion; no other path will do for them, since any other path would divert from their True Will.  In that sense, the HGA can act as one’s personal Christ, or personal God who talks to them, or another emanation of the Divine suited just for them that only they hear, that they need to hear, and that only they need to hear.  As one of my Golden Dawn friends has said in the past, the HGA is a kind of divine sockpuppet, throttling back the infinity of the Almighty into a finite and “easily” understandable form for our finite minds to process and comprehend.  It’s a kind of hilarious metaphor, but it definitely works, and probably works best and most succinctly of any blog post I’ve read or written on the subject.

In that light, I suppose I should reevaluate my earlier evaluation that strictly devotional methods are sub-par compared to magical methods to contact the HGA.  After all, not everyone is suited to magical practice (though I’d like to think they are), and some people should probably stick to the devotional methods and get the most out of them than they would of any set of spiritual practices.  After all, my own HGA would rather me work in more active ways than simple prayer, but that wouldn’t go for everybody’s HGA.  Regardless of whichever path one should be taking to contact their HGA, it’s definitely something everyone should work on, since knowing one’s HGA is equivalent to knowing one’s True Will, which is equivalent to knowing one’s place in the cosmos and in the plan of the Divine; KCHGA in any form is “know thyself”.

Lately, based on my grammatomantic research, I’ve been looking more into using Greek as my go-to magical language.  Despite the prevalence of Greek ideas, theology, mythology, and philosophy rife throughout a lot of occulture, there’s surprisingly little that I can access in English when it comes to the work I’m interested.  Either things go full Renaissance Hermetic, when Latin was the main working language of things, or full Hermetic Hebrew, due to the influence of the Golden Dawn and traditional qabbalah.  To that end, I know of the Greek gods and their myths, and I use the gods’ names for the planets, and I have a few Greek-origin terms and prayers here and there, but little else.  Seeing how more and more of my practice is turning towards the northeast Mediterranean rather than the Near East or western Mediterranean, I figured that I should get all my terms and words in order to allow for more fluent use of Hellenic and Greek terms.

For instance, take the planets.  In the past, I’ve referred to them by the names of the Greek gods they’re associated with, which isn’t wrong; after all, the planets were often considered to be the physical bodies of the gods themselves.  That said, it turns out there are another set of names used to refer to the planets themselves, which are properly the planetary titans.

1. The Sun, associated with the god Apollo, is given to the titan Hēlios
2. The Moon, associated with the goddess Artemis, is given to the titan Selēnē, also called Mēnē
3. Mercury, associated with the god Hermes, is given the name Stilbon
4. Venus, associated with the goddess Aphrodite, is given to the titans Eōsphoros (Morning Star) and Hesperos (Evening Star)
5. Mars, associated with the god Ares, is given the name Pyroeis or, lesser used, Mesonyx
6. Jupiter, associated with the god Zeus, is given the name Phaethōn
7. Saturn, associated with the titan Kronos, is given the name Phainōn

So, let’s start from the beginning.  Just as the Hebrew Tree of Life has ten sephiroth (sing. sephirah), the Greek Tree has ten sphairai (sing. sphaira, “sphere”) or arithmoi (sing. arithmos, “number”).  Each of these has a name of its own, modeled after the names of the Hebrew Tree.  While Michael Strojan has his own naming system, the one I’ve seen first was given in Stephen Flowers’ Hermetic Magic, and written about at length by the Confraternity of the Rose Cross (albeit in a long-winded and sometimes purposefully obtuse series of articles).  Those names are:

1. Arkhē, “First Principle”
2. Sophia, “Wisdom”
3. Noesis, “Understanding”
4. Doxa, “Glory”
5. Dynamis, “Power”
6. Agathōsynē, “Goodness”
7. Nikē, “Victory”
8. Megalōsynē, “Greatness”
9. Themelion, “Foundation”
10. Basileia, “Kingdom”

And, of course, just as the missing sephirah Da`ath means “Knowledge”, the equivalent missing sphaira is Gnōsis, meaning the same.

Similarly, just as each Hebrew sephirah has its own corresponding name of God, so too does each individual sphaira.  However, while a simple translation of each could be done, much as in the same way as the names of the sphairai were made, I thought it more appropriate to look through both the Old and New Testaments, as well as a bit of Gnostic literature here and there, to compile a list of names of God and ascribe them to the sphairai based on numerological connections as well as their semantic resonance with their corresponding Hebrew names.  As many of the names are technically imperfect Greek without an article or predicate noun applied, they’re given in parentheses.

1. (ho) Ōn, “He who Is”
2. (ho) Ēn, “He who Was”
3. (ho) Erkhomenos, “He who Is to Come”
4. (ho) Theos, “(the) God”
5. Iskhyros (ho Theos), “(God is) Strong”
6. Athanatos (ho Theos), “(God is) Immortal”
7. Pantarkhos (ho Theos), “(God is) All-Ruling”
8. Pantokrator (ho Theos), “(God is) All-Mighty”
9. Pantosōmatos (ho Theos), “(God is) In All Bodies”
10. (to) Alpha kai (to) Ōmega, “(the) First and (the) Last”

The names were developed by dividing the Tree of Life into four groups based on the familiar triads: the supernal (or first) triad consisting of the first three sphairai (1, 2, 3), the middle (or second) triad consisting of the next three (4, 5, 6), the lower (or third) triad consisting of the next three (7, 8, 9), and the final sphaira (10) left alone in its own group.  Based on these, I found names of divinity used in pagan, Hermetic, Hellenic Jewish, and Christian traditions, and associated them in particular groups that fit together well.

• The supernal triad got its names from the Revelation of John (Revelation 1:8), reflecting the eternality (existing outside of time) and sempiternality (existing within all of time) of God.  Technically, the first two godnames are variations on the Greek verb “to be” (present participle and imperfect, respectively, of eimi), while the third is a form of “to come” (present participle of erkhomai).  This draws a distinction between sheer Presence undifferentiated by time (Ōn) and Presence that stirs and changes over time (Ēn), while the third becomes that which brings about change (Erkhomenos).  This distinction is reflected in the astrological correspondences of these sphairai, with the first being pure Light (Infinity), the second being Light that has moved in space (stars), and the third being a planet that moves and introduces change below it (Saturn).
• The Trisagion Prayer formed the basis for the divine names for the middle triad, with the fourth sphaira (associated with Jupiter and Zeus, already recognized as “the” God) given to Theos, the fifth sphaira (associated with Mars and Ares, thus power and strength) given to Iskhyros, and the sixth sphaira (associated with Sol Invictus and, especially, Jesus Christ himself) associated with Athanatos.  Further, Theos and Iskhyros tie in with their corresponding Hebrew names, El and Elohim Gibor, respectively.  Also, the use of Theos can be appended to any sphaira godname after the fourth sphaira, since all the following names (with the exception of that of the tenth) are all technically adjectives, with “God” being the noun that they apply to in the sense of “God is Strong” or “God is Immortal”.  The fourth sphaira is conventionally held to be the beginnings of solid reality after the Fall from Divinity (cf. the Abyss), separating the eternal/sempiternal Presence of Divinity (Mind) from itself into a distinct Person of Divinity (God).
• The names in the lower triad share the same omnipresent qualities, as well as being the epithets for Isis, Hermes, and the Universe respectively in pagan and Hermetic traditions.  Further, the Hebrew names for the seventh and eighth sephiroth, YHVH Tzabaoth and Elohim Tzabaoth, are similar in the notion of God presiding over the entirety of heaven and the heavenly hosts.  The use of Pantosōmatos comes from the Corpus Hermeticum (V.10) in referring to God “beyond all name, unmanifest, most manifest, of no body, of many body, of every body”, and the notion of linking the Moon (sphaira 9, Themelion) with bodies, corporeality, and manifestation is not a new one, since all things that exist lower than the Moon must pass through the Moon and contain some of its essence in it, especially when the Hebrew name for the corresponding sephirah is Shaddai El Chai, or “Almighty God of Life”.
• The use of Alpha and Ōmega for the tenth sphaira comes from the description of Jesus/God from Revelation 1:8 and used throughout that book, which I found appropriate as the tenth sphaira is the World, containing every essence of every other plane of existence in itself as well as being the final sphaira reflecting the first, just as the English phrase “from A to Z” would be, and especially so as Alpha represents the Moon and Ōmega the planet Saturn in their esoteric meanings, encapsulating all the heavens between them.

That said, the names of God associated with the sphairai aren’t that important, except maybe in conjurations following Solomonic practice, since the sphairai themselves bear names of God.  After all, the sphairai are emanations of God and given titles of God, and it’s likely that the attribution of divine names to the sephiroth in Hermetic qabbalah developed from another tradition.  After all, most of the names of God given to the Hebrew sephiroth are, well, holy names not meant to be taken in vain or even spoken aloud, and it was more likely that magicians using them would prefer to use titles of God given to the sephiroth rather than names of God directly that they shouldn’t even write without several ablutions, much less speak aloud.  I’m starting to think that the correspondence of these set of divine names to the sephirah was an outside tradition tacked onto qabbalah, probably under the influence of Western Solomonic or goetic magic that used divine names like nobody else’s business.  When using one of these divine names in, say, a conjuration, the names for sphairai 5 through 10 would be reversed, so instead of “Iskhyros ho Theos” (God is Strong), it’d be “ho Iskhyros Theos” (the Strong God).  Greek is weird.

One thing I don’t feel comfortable with, at least just yet, is making a new set of Greek spirit names, especially those for the angels.  It can’t be escaped that much of Hermetic magic is based on Abrahamic lore, such as those of the angels, and so many of the names are going to remain Hebrew in origin; thus, Michael will remain Michael (though spelled in Greek as Mikhaēl) and so forth.  Likewise, the names of the planetary intelligences and spirits are based on Hebrew gematria principles, and so couldn’t be easily translated into Greek.  However, at least one set of angelic names can be translated: those of the choirs, or taxiarkhies.  Even then, though, those with explicitly Hebrew names (viz. Seraphim and Cherubim) would remain in Hebrew, but the rest wouldn’t, even though several of the names are really similar in English because much of Christian doctrine comes from, you guessed it, Greek.

1. Serapheim, Seraphim
2. Kheroubeim, Cherubim
3. Thronoi, Thrones
4. Kuriotētes, Dominions
5. Dynameis, Powers
6. Exousies, Virtues
7. Arkhes, Principalities
8. Arkhangeloi, Archangels
9. Angeloi, Angels

One of the keys to developing new spirit names, especially for those of the planets, would be to recreate the qameas, or magic squares, of the planets.  The sigils for the planetary spirits and intelligences are based off the magic squares for their respective planets, and since the letters of the Hebrew script double as numbers, it would be possible to redraw the magic squares using Greek letters instead of Hebrew.  Since these names are all based on numerological principles and founded on the numbers associated with the planets, new names can feasibly be drawn up for these entities based on numerology (one of the few useful instances I’ve found of the craft, but I digress).  However, while redrawing the magic squares in Greek letters is easy, finding acceptable names of planetary spirits and intelligences that adhere to the same numeric values as the Hebrew names is not, since there are far more permutations of letters that would add up to the same value than I can calculate off the top of my head.  A good amount of work would be needed to develop a set of names and see which would work for the spirit and intelligence of each sphaira, not to mention figure out whether an “intelligence of intelligences” or “spirit of spirits” would be needed for spheres like those of the Moon and Venus.

At this point, there’s really little else than to make a new set of tables of correspondences a la Cornelius Agrippa’s Scales, replacing Hebrew godnames and the like with native Greek ones where appropriate, and honestly there’s already a lot done for me that I don’t need to do again (thank you, Stephen Skinner).  That and, of course, a hellish amount of scrying, pathworking, and exploration to really see what needs doing, patching up, and evaluating to see what’s actually needed for theurgy and thaumaturgy.  I’m thinking I might have to go with what Kalagni of Blue Flame Magick did a while back, scrying up a new style of Tree of Life on my own Starry Path.  I was thinking I was going to go that route anyway, using my grammatomantic lunar calendar to set certain days to scry the paths of the Greek Tree of Life, but now that I’m realizing how big an effort this is going to be, it’s certainly not going to be a short-term project.

One final thing, though: what would this new system be called?  Kabbalah or qabbalah (I use the K to signify the Jewish practice and Q the Hermetic one) is still a Hebrew word itself, meaning “receiving” or “tradition”.  The Greek Wikipedia article uses the word “kampala”, with “kabbala” as an alternate spelling.  Going by the meaning of the word, I think “(to) Paradedomenon” (that which is handed down) isn’t too far off the mark; “kampala” would be the shorthand name for the system as a transliteration of the Hebrew.  But of course, since clearly nobody speaks Greek (including myself, which I should eventually get around to fixing), “Greek kabbalah” would be the most easily accessible name for the system.

Oh, and for those of you who keep tabs on my Facebook, you’ll notice I posted an interesting photo about Greek kabbalah.  We’ll get into that more later on; I’ve got plenty to write about it for those who’re interested in a Neoplatonic/Pythagorean kinda thing.

Alright, confound Michael Strojan for getting me to do this; this shows that you should never make a joke on the Internet, because someone is eventually going to make that joke a reality.  A while back, I expressed interest in making daily devotionals to the seven archangels, and Rev. Strojan not only encouraged me to do so but helped me along the way.  One of the easiest ways to work with the archangels, or any holy figure in some of the older forms of Christianity, is through the use of chaplets.  I’ve mentioned them before on the blog, especially with my St. Cyprian of Antioch chaplet, and chaplets exist for the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.  However, there are seven archangels, and only these three have chaplets ready to go, which strikes me as annoying, because the set is therefore grossly incomplete, and this ends up with me spending more time with these archangels than the other four.  Granted, these three archangels are ones actually mentioned in the Bible, but the other four are archangels just as much, and I like completion.  Rev. Strojan joked that I should go about making my own, and I conceded that I could, but uuuuugh.  After much Googling around and asking questions, mostly to no avail, I found out that there simply aren’t chaplets available for these archangels, and other people noticed that, too.  Their practice was to essentially use the same chaplet as Raphael, which is arguably the most generic and the shortest, and replace the specific invocations and prayers to Raphael with the other archangels.  I found this unsatisfying, and was left with only one option: writing my own chaplets.  Of course.

So, I’m in the process of thinking about the virtues of each angel, reading up on some Scripture and literature, and figuring out patterns and prayers for these chaplets.  The easiest for me to think about, and the one I did first, was for Saint Barachiel the Archangel.  Given that Barachiel’s name means “Blessing of God”, I thought a bit about references to blessing in the Bible.  What immediately struck me was the Eight Beatitudes given in Matthew 5, where Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount and describes eight groups of blessed men: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness’ sake.  This is especially enumerated in Cornelius Agrippa’s Table of Eight (book II, chapter II), which helped me corroborate it with some other information I had on hand.  I started with this and developed the rest of the chaplet from there.

The chaplet beads themselves are simple in construction.  I found two ways of designing the beads, a simple one and an expanded one.  Both have a lead chain of three beads connected to larger ring of beads.  The simple chaplet has a ring of eight beads; the expanded chaplet has eight groups of four beads.  I prefer the expanded chaplet since my hands are big and an eight-bead chaplet was pretty small for my use, but either way the prayers are the same.  Since I can’t find any Barachiel medallions, I’d substitute this with a decorative, perhaps floral-design, cross (not a crucifix) or a generic representation of angels (such as an enamel medallion of angels generally, or angel wing beads, etc.).

Initial prayers done on the medal/cross:

Saint Barachiel the Archangel, blessing of God, pray for us, now and forever, awake and asleep, in prosperity and in hardship, in joy and in sorrow, in solitude and in communion, when guided or when astray.  Amen.

On each of three lead beads, pray the Ave Maria in honor of Mary, Queen of Heaven and of Angels.

On the first eight beads on the simple ring, or the first bead of each group of eight beads on the expanded chaplet ring , pray:

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
2. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
3. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
4. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be fulfilled.
5. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
6. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
7. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
8. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

After each of the beatitudes, pray the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:24-26), with each blessing followed by a Gloria Patri.  These prayers use up the extra three beads in each group of eight on the expanded chaplet, but are left unbeaded on the simple chaplet.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.  Gloria Patri, etc.
May the Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you.  Gloria Patri, etc.
May the Lord lift his countenance upon you, and give you peace.  Gloria Patri, etc.

Concluding prayer:

O powerful Archangel, Saint Barachiel, filled with heaven’s glory and splendor, you are rightly called God’s benediction.  We are God’s children placed under your protection and care.  By the grace and power granted to you by God, please aid us in our lives and grant us blessings throughout our travels in this our exile.  Let us know the blessing of God in our physical existence as well in our spiritual growth that we may lack for nothing and have all we need to proceed upon and progress in our paths.  Grant that through your loving intercession, we may reach our heavenly home one day.  Sustain us and protect us from all harm that we may posses for all eternity the peace and happiness that Jesus has prepared for us in heaven.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

And another chaplet for another hardly-known archangel is made!  To go along with the already-known and commonly-used chaplets for Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, I wrote up a chaplet for Sealtiel, also known as Selaphiel, the archangel of prayer of God.  This archangel presides over just that; he impels to prayer, according to the Book of Enoch, and is constantly praying to God for the sake of humanity.  Invoking Sealtiel is fantastic for improving one’s prayer regimen and practice, especially if one suffers from distractions or dissuasion from prayer.  He helps in communicating one’s prayers to God as well as facilitating our use of prayer.  He’s commonly presented with his head bowed and his arms folded over his chest in a prayer-like posture.  This chaplet was based off Cornelius Agrippa’s Scale of Nine (book II, chapter 12), where Agrippa lists “nine senses inward, and outward together”.  These are all faculties of the human self: memory, cognition, imagination, reason, hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch.  I combined these with the always-reliable nine choirs of angels, much as in the chaplet for Michael, and focused each invocation on always living one’s life in constant prayer.  For kicks, I also threw in a few references to prayer and right action according to the New Testament as well as the seven virtues and vices to round the thing out.

Unlike the chaplet for Barachiel, the chaplet for Sealtiel can be done on any niner chaplet, much like those of Saint Raphael, whose own chaplet tends to be the go-to stand-in for any angel who has no chaplet of their own.  The chaplet beads are composed of three lead beads on a chain of nine beads.  As with Barachiel, since I don’t know of anyone making Sealtiel medallions, I’d add a decorative, perhaps floral-design, cross (not a crucifix) or a generic representation of angels (such as an enamel medallion of angels generally, or angel wing beads, etc.) to the end of the lead bead chain.

Initial prayers done on the medal/cross:

Saint Sealtiel the Archangel, angel of prayer to God, pray for us, pray with us, and guide us in prayer, that we may never be distracted, nor dissuaded, nor disabled from praying without ceasing.  Amen.

On each of three lead beads, pray the Ave Maria in honor of Mary, Queen of Heaven and of Angels.

On the nine ring beads, pray the following, each followed by a Pater Noster:

1. By the intercession of Saint Sealtiel and the heavenly choir of Angels, may we pray with our bodies that we may always live our lives bowed in prayer to the Almighty, chastely focused and reserved from lust, hands kept from sinful acts and kept close in service to God.  Pater Noster, etc.
2. By the intercession of Saint Sealtiel and the heavenly choir of Archangels, may we pray with our tongues that we may moderate ourselves in worldly sustenance to feast on the heavenly delights,  remaining humble in a world that encourages pride, letting our mouth fill with pure offerings of speech to God.  Pater Noster, etc.
3. By the intercession of Saint Sealtiel and the heavenly choir of Principalities, may we pray with our noses that we may always seek out holiness in the world as sweet and sacred incense and joining it with our own virtue, diligently following truth and purity instead of remaining in sloth and squalor, that we may flee filthas repugnant and vile to prevent our being defiled and impure in the presence of God.  Pater Noster, etc.
4. By the intercession of Saint Sealtiel and the heavenly choir of Virtues, may we pray with our eyes that we may bear witness in joy and gladness to all of creation, always in patience and never in wrath, always in kindness and never in envy, that we may see and know the works of the hand of God.  Pater Noster, etc.
5. By the intercession of Saint Sealtiel and the heavenly choir of Powers, may we pray with our ears that we may always hear the groaning and wailing of the world that we may respond to its needs and carry out Your mission, that we may pray for the salvation of humanity, granting to others distant and near the first fruits of the gifts of God.  Pater Noster, etc.
6. By the intercession of Saint Sealtiel and the heavenly choir of Dominions, may we pray with our logic that we may be guided by Your Word to guide us in our ways that our reason may never be mislead, nor our senses deluded, nor our thoughts biased in any way but to God.  Pater Noster, etc.
7. By the intercession of Saint Sealtiel and the heavenly choir of Thrones, may we pray with our imagination that we may always envision the way, the truth, and the life of righteousness and bear it constantly as our most cherished and holiest blessing from God.  Pater Noster, etc.
8. By the intercession of Saint Sealtiel and the heavenly choir of Cherubim, may we pray with our intellect that we may always keep our thoughts aloft and seek wisdom we lack in the Almighty, always in faith of God, always in hope of God, always in love of God.  Pater Noster, etc.
9. By the intercession of Saint Sealtiel and the heavenly choir of Seraphim, may we pray with our mind that we may never forget our first origin from God, nor our final destination to God, nor our temporal creation by God, nor our eternal presence within God.  Pater Noster, etc.

Concluding prayer:

O pure and holy Archangel Saint Sealtiel, you bow before the Almighty Lord offering angelic salutations of praise and thanksgiving. Guide us in our prayer.  Like you, we would like to unceasingly pray and worship God the right way.  May our lives be like incense pleasing to God.  While awaiting for the inevitable time of separation from this material world, may we praise the Holy Trinity in the spirit of true love and humility throughout the days of our life in eternity.  Grant that we may always pray constantly, continually, and unceasingly throughout our lives at all times and in all places to His Divine Majesty and with all the communion of blessed saints and angels in all the heavens that our entire lives may be a pleasing benediction in honor of His neverending grace and illuminated glory.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

And another one!  To go along with the already-known and commonly-used chaplets for Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, I wrote up a chaplet for Jehudiel, sometimes known as Raguel, the archangel of praise or glory of God.  While he presides over the praise, thanksgiving, and glorification of God, he also presides over the realm of labor, work, and toil.  As the angel watching over all those who work, Jehudiel helps us in our day-to-day lives in carrying out our tasks, jobs, and errands, no matter what they may be.  This is because there’s a strong tie between working and glorifying God: by doing our work down here, we do our Work Up There.  The two are essentially the same, since our lives are our own Great Work, and by doing what we need to do properly and timely, we live in line with our True Will, which is to carry out the will of God, which is the highest manner of glorifying God.  After all, to live in accordance with God is to respect, honor, and glorify the plan of God.  Thus, Jehudiel helps us figure out what it is we need to be doing as well as helping us to get things done.  This is especially true for those who are rulers, such as kings or presidents, since their work affects countless people; further, as Fr. Rufus Opus has waxed so much on since getting on his Jupiter kick several years ago, to be king of your own sphere is part and parcel of the Great Work itself.

As Jehudiel is the praise of God, I went through one of the densest collections of prayers and hymns to God in the Bible: the Psalms.  Although a number of these are lamentations or calls for retribution against Israel’s enemies, given the context in which they were written (and I can’t blame them for that, either), many of them are full of pure, honest praise in the glory and service of God.  Psalm 150, the last psalm of the canonical Judeo-Christian scripture, is a short and sweet hymn praising God, and one of the few instances in Scripture where “Hallelujah” (Praise the Lord) is used.  I used this six-verse hymn as a basis for the chaplet of Jehudiel, since I thought the connection in praise was fitting for the angel.  While many other prayers and hymns are used throughout Christianity to praise God (Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Magnificat, Alleluia, Prayer of Azariah, inter multa alia), I wanted to keep this short; after all, if Jehudiel is the angel presiding over work, he’s also the angel of timeliness and getting shit done effectively and timely.  Without sacrificing temporal quantity for spiritual quality, I wanted to keep this chaplet simple and short.

The chaplet beads consist of a lead chain of three beads attached to (you guessed it) a cross or general representation of angels, since I don’t know of any Jehudiel medallions easily obtainable, though you’re free to use one if you can find or make one.  The lead chain is attached to a ring of six sets of three beads each.

Initial prayers done on the medal/cross:

Saint Jehudiel the Archangel, angel of praise to God, pray for us, that in every act, in every job, in every work, and in every labor we may constantly carry out the will of the Lord gladly and in praise for all He has given us.  Amen.

On each of three lead beads, pray the Ave Maria in honor of Mary, Queen of Heaven and of Angels.

On the first bead of each set of three on the ring, pray:

1. Hallelujah!  Praise God in his sanctuary; praise Him in the firmament of His power.  Hallelujah!
2. Hallelujah!  Praise Him for His mighty acts; praise Him according to His abundant greatness.  Hallelujah!
3. Hallelujah!  Praise Him with the blast of the horn; praise Him with the psaltery and harp.  Hallelujah!
4. Hallelujah!  Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; praise Him with stringed instruments and the pipe.  Hallelujah!
5. Hallelujah!  Praise Him with loud-sounding cymbals; praise Him with clanging cymbals.  Hallelujah!
6. Hallelujah!  Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Hallelujah!

On the second bead of each set, pray the Pater Noster; on the third, pray the Gloria Patri.

Concluding prayer:

O merciful Archangel, Saint Jehudiel dispenser of God’s eternal and abundant mercy, because of our sinfulness, we do not deserve God’s forgiveness.  Yet, He continually grants us forbearance freely and lovingly.  Help us in our determination to overcome our sinful habits and be truly sorry for them.  Bring each one of us to true conversion of heart, that we may experience the joy of reconciliation which it brings, without which neither we as individuals, nor the whole world can know true peace.  You who continually intercedes for us, aid us in our work, labor, and toil, that we may continually praise God in this world as the angels praise God in Heaven, that all we do may be right in intent and right in method, that the will of the Lord be done and not our own lest it be in accordance with His.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

And here it is, the final and last chaplet of the archangels, that of Saint Uriel the Archangel, the angel of the Light of God.

Here you go.

I thought that the chaplet I had found before for Uriel was basically the same as that of Raphael, but it’s actually sufficiently different for it to be its own chaplet.  So much for my research, then.  But hey, since this is already written, it means less for me to write and more for me to use.

Oh, Uriel.  Honestly, his name means “light of God”, but he has so many jobs and associations that it’s hard to pin down what he does like the other archangels do.  He’s the leader of the angels in the Book of Enoch (which is odd, considering that’s supposed to be Michael’s job); he’s the guardian of the Garden of Paradise, both Eden and of Heaven; a messenger to the prophets; a cherub or a seraphim or an archangel; and so many other things, not to mention his roles in magic and elemental/planetary associations.  Given how many pots Uriel has his feathers in, a general chaplet is probably the way to go, which is what tripped me up originally.

My little side-business in selling my crafts and ebooks has gotten off to a modest start since opening up my Etsy shop earlier this year, which is awesome.  Still, what I really want to focus more on is divination, and people haven’t sprung for that nearly as much as I’d like.

Yes, if you didn’t know, I provide divination services and have for some time now.  Surprise!  I also offer other ritual services and planning, too, but divination is something I want to focus on today.  I’ve been offering two services up until this point:

• A full geomancy reading.  This reading focuses only on one question at a time, but fully explores all the relevant symbols in the chart, as well as offering advice on how to proceed in a particular matter and what actions one can take to induce a particular resolution.  Was US$30, but is now at a lower price of US$20!
• A horary-geomancy reading, combining horary astrology overlaid with a geomancy chart.  This is preferred for natal queries, long-term situations, or similar deep and complex matters.  This provides more detail than a geomancy reading, as it incorporates Renaissance astrological techniques woven into the standard geomantic interpretations offered.  US$60.

That said, I’m now offering several new selections outside geomancy:

• A minireading for US$10, combining a pared-down 2-figure geomancy reading and a single-letter grammatomancy reading to indicate a general progression of events as well as advice on what to expect and how to maintain yourself in your affairs.  This is best for general questions to get a good feel for a situation at a high level, and you can go more in-depth with a follow-up reading if desired after this.
• Skype sessions (voice or webcam) for US$50 for half an hour.  We’ll go over as many questions as you have and how to resolve them.  I’ll use a mixture of geomancy, shell divination, grammatomancy, and other methods as I see fit for the queries asked.

Some of you might be wondering, “o polyphanes, why don’t you just offer simple grammatomantic readings?”  Well, back in the day, grammatomancy (drawing a random Greek letter) was a free service that you could do in any forum that had a post with oracles inscribed on it and a bowl with pebbles marked with the Greek letters.  As far as I can ascertain, there was no fee nor charge for this, and it’s such a simple system that I don’t see the need to do what you can easily do for yourself.  There are free resources online to study the art, but I also suggest buying my own ebook on grammatomancy for US$10 which covers all the basics and a number of advanced interpretive techniques.

If you select a Skype reading, please be aware that my most available times tend to be:

• Wednesday afternoons
• Friday afternoons
• Saturday evenings
• Sunday afternoons and evenings

I go by US Eastern time (observing daylight saving as is custom).  Once I receive notification of payment, we’ll schedule a time slot and I’ll give you a call at the appointed time.  I’ll also record the session (once I can figure that out) and send it to you for your records.

Also, let’s get something fancy going here.  If you refer someone to my site for any divination service, have them let me know your email address.  You’ll be entitled to one free minireading for every person you refer!  Just make sure they tell me that so-and-so@blah.com referred them to me for a divination, and I’ll send you an email afterwards letting you know that you’re eligible for a free minireading.  Of course, you’re under no obligation to refer me to anyone if you don’t want to, but if you like what you read here and what I write or make, consider nudging some business my way or consider donating.  Any little bit helps, and after all, divination is why I’m a magician in the first place.

So what are you waiting for?  Want to get a reading?  Check out my Services page today, or send me an email!

I’m going to make a terrible, terrible admission to you all that may ruin my oh-so-high and noble standing in occulture: I don’t like H.P. Lovecraft or his universes, and it’s not for a lack of trying, either.  At least half of my friends online and offline love the dude and his works, and all the works and worlds that he’s inspired, many of which actually working with the gods and entities from the Lovecraftian universe in an occult setting or dedicating some of their art and crafts to his world.  I’ve even taken a Vacation Necronomicon School a few years ago, a structured introduction to Lovecraft and his universe and how to write Lovecraftian horror and fiction.  I see Chthulhu this and Nyarlathotep that and Azazoth that other thing frequently and often.  And despite all that, I cannot stand the dude and his works.  I’ve known this for years now, but as my own spiritual life and practices have developed, I have a more solid understanding why.

The basic gist of his cosmos, as I understand it, is that the world is full of things.  Especially people, and especially white people.  And we as the logical, rational, material human race is responsible enough to abandon all but the most scientific of approaches to understanding the cosmos, especially white people.  But there are also other things in the cosmos that are bigger, stronger, and older than people, and especially white people.  And these things operate in a way that people cannot understand, especially white people.  This is obviously grounds for going insane or causing mass chaos and hysteria, because people are supposed to be the best, especially white people.

Please tell me you see where I’m going with this.

Now, I credit the fact to Lovecraft that he grew up in a late Victorian/early modern society and was enamored of what we nowadays call “hard science”, disregarding anything superstitious or religious as BS.  His family had a history of mental and psychosomatic illnesses.  He was brought up sheltered and lived as a recluse.  He held views that we’d consider racist in modern times, holding highest the Anglo-Norman people (from which he was descended), wanting to keep races distinct for the purpose of preserving cultural identity.  He was a man of his times, and especially the nighttime, and I understand that.

But the whole premise of his universe and drama just clashes so directly and fundamentally that I derive no enjoyment nor satisfaction from his works.  The way I see it, Lovecraft starts with the premise of a material cosmos and throws in the supernatural (magic, deities, etc.) almost as an afterthought, as if the metaphysical came from the physical and not the other way around.  In this light, the “gods” of Lovecraft’s universe are no more than beings that have had longer and more resources to evolve than humanity has, with abilities and knowledge that they’ve had more time and practice to develop than we have.  This makes them terrible, frightful, and deserving of crude and vulgar cults set up by the superstitious and unrespectable outcasts of the world.  Just as the poor become sycophants to the rich to eke out an existence by using some of the rich’s power, these low and vulnerable people turn to entities of cosmic power and fright against the more civilized and structured world of civilization.  But, because these mega-entities are so powerful, they stand to destroy all that civilization has made through the progress fueled by scientific advancement and industrialism.  We can’t have that, now, can we?

Basically, Lovecraft started with the basic ideas of social Darwinism and human (especially white human) supremacy over the world and showed how vulnerable we are.  This I agree with: there are things older than us and bigger than us and stronger than us in the cosmos.  I call them theoi, angels, gods, ancestors, totems, whatever; he calls them the Old Ones and Outer Gods and Elder Gods.  Where we split ways is that he finds the existence of these mega-entities incompatible with human understanding and outside our capacity to understand, inducing insanity, madness, and destruction.  I basically read his works as saying “But we’re humans! We’re supposed to be the best! HOW CAN SOMETHING BE BETTER THAN US I CANNOT HANDLE THIS KNOWLEDGE AAAAAAH.”  Note that this is what happens to the more civilized people, often scientists, while the lower classes of people tend to devolve and debase themselves into crude worship of these entities because they just don’t know any better.  But then, they not only don’t know better, but if they knew any better they’d go crazy, so they’re surviving where the civilized scientists can’t and becoming more powerful than civilization, which makes them a constant threat to the existence of humanity’s progress and civilized future.

Lovecraft, in spite of the cultural, scientific, philosophical, and spiritual heritage of humanity that actually exists, disregards all that we’ve actually done and posits it all as worthless in the long run.  Every story we’ve told, every building we’ve built, every discovery we’ve made, everything we’ve done and everything we’ve become is pointless and worthless in the cosmos, imprisoned as we are to this tiny rock in space, bound by our own limitations both physical and intellectual.  This is especially in contrast to beings who transcend spacial limitations (physical or metaphysical), whose power and knowledge vastly exceeds our own, who have their own aims and ends that either don’t take humanity into account at all or uses us for their own ends without regard for our well-being or survival.  All this boils down to, when we really think about it, everything we know and do is basically meaningless and there’s no point to anything.  The man himself even admits that his works are all about the futility and nihilistic pseudo-existence of humanity in the grand scheme of things:

Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form—and the local human passions and conditions and standards—are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all. Only the human scenes and characters must have human qualities. These must be handled with unsparing realism, (not catch-penny romanticism) but when we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown—the shadow-haunted Outside—we must remember to leave our humanity and terrestrialism at the threshold.

If your worldview puts the material, physical world first and the spiritual, metaphysical world as second, or that the spiritual developed from the material, then you’re assuming that there’s nothing really distinct from the physical, since all things ultimately come from it, and all spiritual stuff is just a physical process we haven’t understood yet.  Everything that lives, going by Darwin’s theory of evolution, is merely accident and happenstance, and nothing is in control of anything except by sheer power alone.  One human may control thousands with enough power, but no power of humanity can ever dominate the world we find ourselves locked into and trapped upon, especially the existence of other and more powerful (though by no means “higher”) entities whom we can only cravenly worship in the hope of having other powers not being used over us.  The only thing that differentiates humanity from the Old/Outer/Elder Gods is the shitty and inexorable luck that we weren’t here first and weren’t strong enough to evolve fast enough.

But if your worldview puts the spiritual, metaphysical world first and the material, physical world second, or that the material developed from the spiritual, everything changes.  Instead of humanity happening at the same time or by the same processes of other mega-entities, we developed after them or by their involvement.  If the spiritual comes before the material, then no material process can begin to describe how the spiritual works, since it cannot apply; science is useless there, but only because science (as Lovecraft would have thought of it) operates only on the physical.  In that case, we need other tools of humanity: religion, superstition, spirituality, the occult.  These things, reserved for the poor and uncivilized in Lovecraft’s works, become the true tools of power and knowledge that can not only preserve our minds but expand them.  Yes, we can go crazy, too (too much knowledge does that to anyone in any field), but it’s not because we’re incapable of knowing these things, only because we get too used to operating on a spiritual level and not on a material one.  Insanity caused by knowledge isn’t a fundamental breaking down of comprehension, it’s expansion in a way that doesn’t mesh well with human custom and civilization.  Even if there are other and bigger entities in the cosmos, and even if humanity is stuck on this little blue speck in the infinite black, we still hold the keys to our own gates to infinity and aether and power that can put us on the level of any Old One, if not far higher.  Am I saying that spiritual entities always love and care for us?  Nope; demons, angry spirits, hell-beings, and the like from any number of cultures would love nothing more than to see us burn.  Am I saying that happenstance and accident didn’t create the cosmos, both spiritual and material?  It’s impossible to know without being God, and even then, when you’re God, there’s really nothing you can do that can be completely understood by a lower being because of God’s infinite nature.  And even if everything were an accident of creation, this doesn’t mean that a purely Epicurean, atomic-materialist cosmos is the only possible result where everything is random and nothing is ordered.  The possibility of order, however temporary, and to reflect on the nature of order and chaos is an indication that, if the universe isn’t strictly ordered, then order (and, therefore, meaning) is an essential component of it.

Humans, even in my worldview and spiritual learning, are not the top of the foodchain.  We may be powerful, but of course there are more powerful entities than us.  We may be smart, but of course there are smarter entities than us.  We don’t know everything, nor can we do everything.  The only course of action we have available to us is to learn and do as much as we can and then more, growing in our own power and wisdom.  We don’t need to get off this rock for that, nor do we need to understand the entirety of the physical cosmos, especially when power and origins lie in the metaphysical that physical laws cannot begin to describe.  Not all spiritual entities may care for us, but we must have come from some of them, and some of them are by no means indifferent to us.  Everything I describe is what Lovecraft refuted, and everything I believe is what Lovecraft denied.  While I won’t go so far as to say he’s wrong in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t matter to him either way if I did; his universe and worldview is less than helpful and more of an impediment to anything I do and study.

Nihilism and meaninglessness may make for an entertaining read, but it’s no more than the flip side of the “catch-penny romanticism” Lovecraft himself decries.

Back in May, I moved into a beautiful new house with my fiancé and another of our friends, which is why there were no posts all during that month; it was a busy, busy time.  The end of the month was celebrated with a housewarming party, which took up a good amount of energy and booze (yet oddly very little beer was drunk), and it was an awesome time all around.  Amidst the generic housewarming gifts of booze, booze, alcohol, booze, and liquor, one of my magic friends and colleagues gave me something interesting: a bar of soap.  Not that he was commenting on my standards of hygiene, but the soap was interesting in that it was a magical soap with Saint Cyprian’s image and name on the box.  I was thoroughly curious about the thing, so I opened it up and found a dark purple, fragrant, oval bar of soap inside (“with pheromones!”), along with a little slip of paper with a long prayer written on it.  Of course, the thing was in Spanish, so I had to put it off for a few days to translate it.  I know that botanicas of all kinds sell a variety of magical goods, and I’ve seen some sell special soaps for magical purposes.  After all, taking a spiritual bath is made much easier with a premade bar of soap rather than distilling all the oils and tinctures you need ahead of time, so it makes sense.

Turns out, the thing is a love spell, which isn’t surprising at all.  Saint Cyprian got his main story from being a sorcerer in the matchmaking business, though his final target of Justina didn’t turn out as planned.  Saint Cyprian is certainly called upon in many works of love-drawing and love-forcing, as a brief glance through the Book of Saint Cyprian will show, but I wasn’t aware that he was so commonly invoked that they were making bars of soap with his name.  The prayer itself is pretty par for the course with love magic in the Western tradition; you see similar language in all kinds of love-making and sex-making spells going back two thousand years, which made me smile at how the little methods are still kept around after so long.  The spell is written predictably for a woman to use on a male target, though of course the pronouns can be switched up to suit anybody’s needs:

Saint Cyprian, drive away from N. any woman, that he may look at me in every moment, today and now, wanting to be at my side; that he may know for certain that I am the perfect woman for him; that N. cannot live without me; and that N. may always have my image in his thoughts in every moment. Now, wherever he may be, with whomever he may be, he will look for me because of his thoughts are of me. And that at bedtime he may dream of me, and at rising he may think of me and desire me; that at eating he may think of me, that when walking he may think of me, that in every moment of his life he may think of me. That he may want to see me, sense my smell, touch me with love; that N. may want to hug me, kiss me, take care of me, protect me, love me 24 hours of every day, as well as loving me most of all and that he feel pleasure just to hear my voice.

Saint Cyprian, make N. feel for me a desire beyond what is normal, as he has never felt nor never feel for another person; that he may find pleasure only with me, that he may feel desire only for me, and that his body may belong only to me, that he may only have peace if he be with me.

I am thankful to you, Saint Cyprian, that you work in my favor, and I will divulge your name in payment of taming N. and bringing them in love, caring, devoted, faithful, and full of desire into my arms.

To use the spell with the soap, the instructions with the prayer are that one should use the soap for six consecutive days in a bath taken at nighttime.  On the seventh day, the rest of the soap is to be disposed of.  I’d tweak the spell and use of the soap a bit like this:  once a day in the evening before retiring, take a bath/shower using the soap and recite the prayer, bearing in mind the target and focusing on one’s desire, lust, love, etc.  After the seven days have finished, bury the soap on the land of the target’s home.  Alternatively, dissolve the rest of the soap in water and pour it on their doorstep.  As the spell itself mentions, the “payment” to Saint Cyprian would be to popularize him and thank him publicly, telling others about the powers of the good saint, setting up a public shrine for him, or otherwise bringing honor to Saint Cyprian.

The soap itself smells delicious (must be those pheromones it has, obvi).  However, there are no ingredients listed on the soap, and it’s hard to place the smell; it has a light smell, mostly floral with a hint of musk in it.  I’m no expert in soap-making, though I assume it’s not too difficult.  The herbs I’d use for a similar wash would be jasmine, sandalwood, rose, cinnamon, allspice, myrrh, and acacia, all of which are associated with love and lust or have other Cyprianic associations.  If one just had herbs on hand, you could make a bath with that and save the water to throw onto the target’s doorstep.  Likewise, one could make a tincture and use it as a perfume after the bath proper.

I’ve also found this same spell in at least one place on the internet where the prayer is done as a proper novena, too, so the spell can work as a prayer for request instead of a spell of command.  All depends on how you want to use it, of course.