So, if you’re at all involved with the ceremonial magic blogosphere or Hermetic occulture online nowadays, you may have heard that there was a new book published this week: Seven Spheres by Frater Rufus Opus, from Nephilim Press.  This is Fr. Rufus Opus’ second time being in print (the first being a contribution to Holy Guardian Angel, ed. by Fr. Mike Cecchetelli), and his first time publishing a full book, which is a huge accomplishment for the man.

From the Nephilim Press page:

Seven Spheres is more than a simple book of traditional Hermetic Magic. It is designed to be a series of rituals that function on many levels to take an average ordinary magician and turn them into a self-actualized powerhouse of proactive reality engineering. It’s entirely about attaining initiation and empowerment in the highest levels of un-manifest reality. These experiences and rites result in the release of a floodgate of power that pour down through the layers of progressive manifestation, building up awareness, understanding, and ultimately raw potential as you move from sphere to sphere through the rites, ultimately culminating in the anointing of the magician as Priest-King directing the forces that climax in your personal daily experience of the Joy of your life. This book isn’t about physical or spiritual mastery, it is entirely about understanding that you, personally, are beloved, honored, blessed, and highly favored of every intelligence, spirit, angel, and god of every sphere. This is about understanding who you are and what you can accomplish as a human being manifest upon the surface of the Earth. Spiritual enlightenment and material mastery will be yours, if you do the work described.

If you’re familiar with Fr. Rufus Opus’ stuff, you’ll know that he had a thing going on a while back called the Planetary Gates series of ebooks and rituals.  They formed the crux of his system of Hermetic theurgy: a series of conjurations calling upon the angels presiding over the planetary spheres.  He understood that a conjuration of one of these angels is a lot more than merely charging them to do such-and-such for you; rather, he realized that working with the angels can be a series of initiations into elevating oneself higher through the heavens to reach, essentially, godhood.  It’s a modern method of Renaissance Hermetic ritual with foundations in ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern theurgy, and it’s awesome.

As some of my own readers are familiar, I’m a student of Fr. Rufus Opus himself and his Red Work series of classes.  It’s how I formally got started in being a ceremonial magician back in 2011, and I’ve been close to him since and have consulted with him on a number of topics.  The Planetary Gates texts he had online for quite some time was one of the pillars of his coursework, and I’ve used them extensively in my own work, culminating in my own conjuration of the angel of the fixed stars and an initiation into the Eighth Sphere.  I can’t suggest his approach enough to people who are new to the occult, since it affords so much and so fast to those who are willing to put the work in and do the rituals.

A while back, Fr. Rufus Opus took down the option to buy the Planetary Gates ebooks he had on his website, only recently acknowledging that he had done so to polish them up, add in more content and experiences, and refine it into a proper occult grimoire.  Now, after all that time, the fruits of his labors can be harvested!  The Planetary Gates texts were valuable for their content alone, sure, and how to go about performing Trithemian-style conjurations and how to plunge oneself into the heights and depths of the planets, getting everything one can over and over out of the heavens to benefit ourselves on Earth and in all other planes of existence.  Seven Spheres will have all that and more!  After all, as Fr. Rufus Opus says:

The point is to empower you to be the king and queen of your world. You are the center of your existence, and it is through your decisions and actions that you influence the experience of your manifest life. From money, to sex, to happiness, to fulfillment, all of your life experiences are the result of decisions you make based on your awareness of what’s going on at the time.

Even if you’re not into all that high and mighty theurgical henosis and apotheosis, chances are you’re into getting laid and getting paid.  From low and vulgar ends to the highest and most rarefied, Seven Spheres covers how you can do both at the same time.

So, the text was released this past Monday, November 17, and I noted almost immediately once the news hit Facebook that my blog hits started shooting up, with more than a few searches for “rufus opus” and “seven spheres”.  While it’s true that I do reference Fr. Rufus Opus’ work (I’m kinda indebted to him, after all, for essentially giving me a leg up in the occult world), I just want to make it clear: I am not the Hermeticist you are looking for.  I may be seen to approach his level of awesomeness and, on occasion, drunkenness, but let me tell you, the man you’re looking for is far more awesome and far more and far more often drunk than I could ever be.  To resolve this, I thought it might help if I mentioned that, no, I am not Fr. Rufus Opus, I’m just polyphanes, and I haven’t published anything except a few of my own ebooks yet (which, admittedly, I think you should also buy).  You want Fr. Rufus Opus’ new book, which you can buy from Nephilim Press for US$50.00, which is pretty much a steal for what is essentially a landmark work in modern Hermetic magic.

After all, I’ve already ordered my copy.  You really, really, really should, too.  Even if you have laminated copies of his Planetary Gates texts enshrined in a secure locked-down binder and kept in a safe place (because surely I can’t be the only one who does that), you should get a copy of Fr. Rufus Opus’ new book today while supplies last from Nephilim Press.  Add to it, Fr. Rufus Opus is planning on making this the primary textbook for his future style of Red Work courses, which means you should really get the book anyway especially if you’re considering learning from him.

Stop waiting.  Close this window, get out your PayPal login or credit card, and go to Nephilim Press right now to buy Fr. Rufus Opus’ Seven Spheres.  If you’re interested in doing some real Work, you can do much worse than opening the Gates and walking through them with this.

The way that astragalomancy works is pretty simple; Kostas Dervenis in his Oracle Bones Divination calls it the “Greek I Ching”, noting the similarity of the method.  Basically, what you do is you roll five knucklebones, or astragaloi, and you note the sides that come up.  The astragaloi act like four-sided dice, and each of the 56 different rolls you get (the order doesn’t matter) indicates a different outcome.  Each roll is associated with a particular godname and a matching oracular verse, not unlike grammatomancy (the methods are basically the same).  So, really, there’s little room for interpretation: roll the astragaloi, read the corresponding verse, and that’s your answer.  Expanding and meditating on the verse as it relates to the situation or the query is often necessary, but there’s little other inspiration to be had here, which is just as well.  I’m sure I can fit some more mystical aspects into it later, of course, but that’s later once I learn all the verses.

It’s learning the verses, however, that’s proving something of a struggle for me.  Each verse is four or five lines long, and there are 56 different verses.  Learning the one-line verses associated with the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet took a bit of time on its own, but that’s child’s play in comparison to this.  My memory may be good, but it’s not that good to just up and memorize a book’s worth of divination.  I want to be able, eventually, to pull out my astragaloi whenever needed and on the spot do a reading with them, which may mean that I won’t have a book of verses with me at any given moment, so I want to memorize them and know them by heart.  Getting there is hard, so I’m trying out different ways of learning them and comparing what I’ve done with other methods.

Geomancy, for instance, was easy because each set of meanings could be tied to a graphical form, the geomantic figure composed of four lines of one or two dots in each line.  Grammatomancy was easy because I had the 24 Greek letters as graphical forms to link their meanings and verses to, as well as the fact that the alphabet itself formed an index and acronym for the verses themselves (at least in Greek).  And, while I don’t know Tarot half as well as I probably should as a Hermetic magician, learning the symbolism could easily be done by association with the pretty pictures of the cards themselves (if I even bother to go that route, since the pictures lend themselves well to impromptu interpretation as they already are).    These all use some sort of graphical image as a symbol to which can be linked a referent, the verse or meaning; my mind plays well with these instead of just straight-up words or numbers.

Astragalomancy, however, is different; I’m just getting a set of numbers, a numeric ID, that gives me a particular verse and meaning.  It’s a different beast, and the lack of a distinct symbol bothers me.  The ID doesn’t register to my mind as a graphical image or a symbol in the same way a geomantic figure does, especially given the different forms it can take.  Consider the throw where you get two khion (1) throws, a hyption (3), a pranēs (4), and a kōon (6).  While I might write this down as 11346, there are 60 different permutations of this ID.  Add to it, the original sources don’t tend to list the numbers in a simple manner, so the actual ID of this is 43611 in the book!  While each verse begins with a description of the throw (in this case, “one four, one three, one six, and two ones: …”), that’s not helpful without me just up and memorizing all the verses by heart and running through them one by one until I get to the one I need, or until I get to the point where automatic recital of each verse is possible just from the start of each one (and, moreover, how each first line starts).  That takes time, and I’m trying to get up to speed as fast as possible with this.

Flashcards help, though, and I was able to link the sums of the throws to the Greek letters (one of the ways to do grammatomancy with astragaloi) in a day with this method.  For this, the online service Quizlet is amazing, and if you’re so interested, you can check out the sets of flashcards I’ve made for your own study.  Linking the throws to the letters involves summing up the sides of the astragaloi, however, and just observing the throws themselves isn’t a link I can make directly to the Greek letter just yet.  Over time, perhaps, as I regularly use the astragaloi it can happen, but I need that intermediate step first that detaches the throw to the Greek letter directly.  However, the way Quizlet works, you need to type in the answer to a given prompt more-or-less directly, and while it may be a useful activity for me to go through all the oracles themselves and make a one- or two-word summation of every verse, I haven’t gotten around to doing that just yet.  So, for me, the first step is to learn the throws of the astragaloi and how they associate with the different gods associated with each throw.

Still, that alone is difficult without some sort of pattern or method, and then I realized that I have a method for this.  Every software engineer is taught this method of “divide and conquer” (or, in Greek, διαίρει καὶ βασίλευε, diairei kai basileue), where you take a large problem and divide it up into smaller chunks that can more easily be solved, linking them all together in the end once they’re all good to go.  Looking at the astragalomantic throws, I realized that I can reorder the throws into a pattern that’s more numerically pleasing where there are 18 groups of 3 or 4 throws each, based partially on the Roman game of tali or knucklebones.  I group some of the smaller groups into larger ones based on the abstract number pattern linking them together:

• Dogs and Vultures (all throws the same number, four possible throws)  e.g. 11111, 33333
• Iacti Veneris + 1 (all four sides represented, four possible throws) e.g. 11346, 13446
• 4X 1Y (four throws one side and last throw another, 12 possible throws with four groups of three based on X) e.g. 11113, 46666
• 3X 2Y (three throws one side and two throws another, 12 possible throws with four groups of three based on X) e.g. 33444, 33666
• 3X 1Y 1Z (three throws one side and two throws different, 12 possible throws with four groups of three based on X) e.g. 11134, 34446
• 2X 2Y 1Z (two throws one side and two throws another and last throw another, 12 possible throws with four groups of three based on Z) e.g. 34466, 13344

Sure, it’s not exactly a traditional arrangement of the throws or a traditional way of enumerating them, but it works for me.  Every day I’ll study one or two more groups, learning what the pattern is and the throws of a similar pattern with different numbers, adding in the new rows to a Quizlet flashcard quiz and practicing it every hour or so until I build myself up enough to tackle the whole lot of 56 throws.  All in all, this isn’t a bad way to learn the basic associations of throws with the gods, and given my normal speed of memorization and learning, it’ll take about two or three weeks to learn all the associations of throws and gods comfortably enough that I can identify them at a glance.

Once I get the memorization of throws and gods down, and (if I deem it worthwhile) the memorization of the canonical order of the gods, then it’ll be time to link the association of throws and oracles down.  However, I plan on using the god-associations as a halfway point, so that I’ll actually be linking the oracle to the god and the god to the throw.  Thus, by recalling the god as a symbol, I can recall the oracle to which the symbol refers.  Learning each oracle will take more time than learning the god, since each verse also has to be memorized.  That said, I can speed up the process by learning the gist of each oracle first, then going back to learning the verses themselves, but we’ll see how I feel about that.  Given this, I expect it to take me two months or so of study and practice to memorize the verses, both by Quizlet and by constant use of the oracle to get me used to throwing the bones literally instead of just looking at flashcards.

How about you?  How do you learn a large block of information in a short period of time?  Are there any tips or tricks for memorization or recalling large amounts of information at once?

Alright, it’s late, I’m getting over a cold, and I’m bored.  This is going to depart from my normal subject matter on this blog. It is, after all, my blog, and some things just aren’t cut out for a long Facebook post. If you like neither puzzle adventure games nor drinking, then you may want to skip this. Otherwise, I love you because you’re an amazing person.

It’s not surprise to people that, if I have one primary fandom, it’s Myst. I am, have always been, and will always be a lifelong Myst fanboy. Alas, I’ve never yet made it to a Mysterium con, but I will one day before they die out. For those who don’t know, the Myst franchise, started by the always-trusty Cyan, Inc.,spans five single-player games, one MMO, and three novels, as well as a poorly-received (so I’ve heard) comic book series that didn’t last past the first issue. It’s a beautiful series, and it’s definitely had a significant effect on my beliefs and practice of the occult. In my opinion, Riven was the best game of the series, followed by Myst in quality; Exile (III) was good but felt too much like a game and not enough like an adventure, Revelation (IV) went far too much against the history and setting set up by Myst and Riven, and End of Ages (V) was just…sad for so many reasons. Then there’s Uru, the MMO, which is beautiful and amazing to play though, only parts of which require other people to help out; alas, it was far too detached from its time, and the caverns of D’ni feel way more desolated than the designers of the game intended it to be. Ah well, the games live on on their own.

Well, the problem is that these games don’t always have the best replay value. I mean, Myst has a shortcut that circumvents nearly the entire game, so long as you remember a specific time and a specific page number, for crying out loud; the other games actually require you to play through the game and unlock individual puzzles without any chance of a shortcut. Still, it’s good to play through the games once in a while, if only to relive those beautiful scenes and music and the familial drama of the house of Atrus. If you haven’t played the games or read the books, and I seriously question your existence as a human if you haven’t yet, I recommend the following sequence:

1. Myst
2. Myst: The Book of Atrus (novel #1)
3. Riven
4. Myst: The Book of Ti’ana (novel #2)
5. Myst: The Book of D’ni (novel #3)
6. (Optional) Myst III: Exile
7. (Optional) Myst IV: Revelation
8. Uru, specifically the free-to-play Myst Online: Uru Live (donate to keep the servers up!)
9. (Optional) Myst V: End of Ages

Anyway, let’s focus on Myst and Riven, because obviously. You can get either for like US$5 off of Steam or GOG, maybe both plus several of the other Myst games for as much if you happen to get in on a sale. Seriously, there’s a reason that Myst and Riven are among the best-selling games of all times, and it’s not just because Myst was the game that popularized CD-ROMs for gaming. I strongly recommend you play through them at some point this winter, especially if you haven’t yet.  If you dislike the original HyperCard format of Myst, I might also recommend playing realMYST, which is the 3D version that Cyan originally wanted to use but didn’t have the technology for in 1993.  A corresponding realRIVEN was supposedly in the works, but is now being handled by fans at the Starry Expanse Project; donate there if you want to see this come to life one day!

Now, even if you haven’t played these games, let’s make them a little more infuriating.  (Sure, they say that Myst and Riven don’t encourage violent gaming? I’d like to see you play through them and not want to chuck things at the wall.)  So, how do we go about making them more infuriating and fun?  By adding alcohol, of course! I’m pro-drinking game, as many of my friends know, and it’s always fun to open up a bottle (or twelve) of beer or wine, maybe make a stiff cocktail (or seven) and drink with a purpose. To that end, get your friends together with the lure of free booze and play the Myst and Riven Drinking Game.  Now, the easy way to go about this drinking game would be “drink every time you get stuck”, but I don’t want to have to go ahead and schedule your funeral a week from now, so let’s make things a little easier on your liver and a little more fun.  Honestly, I don’t know why such a drinking game hasn’t been written before now (if there was, I wasn’t able to find it), but hopefully this will close a crucial gap in the Myst fandom.

MYST DRINKING GAME

Drink every time:

• You have to unflip a switch, lever, or button because you flipped it earlier and had no idea what it was doing then but you do now.
• You have to redo any puzzle to get out of an age.
• You miss aligning the Tower Rotation on the right place.
• You have to reset the Gears puzzle in the Clocktower.
• You utter an expletive while trying to figure out the Gears puzzle in the clocktower.
• You mess up the Constellation Pillar puzzle to raise the Ship.
• You trip the breakers in powering up the Spaceship.
• You have to go back to the Spaceship panel to listen to the proper notes because you’re tone-deaf.  (I would die from alcohol poisoning from this, personally.)
• You miss the elevator of the Great Tree.
• You have to reset the water flow in Channelwood Age to keep going.
• You run out of light in the tunnels of Stoneship Age.
• You press the wrong directional button on the Compass Rose.
• You mess up the satellite dishes in the Selenitic Age.
• You make a wrong turn in the Selenitic Age’s Cave Maze.
• You enter in the wrong combination to the fireplace panel.
• You see evidence of Sirrus’ megalomania or substance use.
• You see evidence of Achenar’s megalomania or sadism.
• You add in a new page to a book.

Finish your drink and start a new one:

• Every time you have to resort to a walkthrough for advice on progressing through the game.
• When you exit any of the four ages (not Myst or D’ni) for the first time.
• If you figure out how to get the white page.  Immediately drink again if you go “Really?!”.
• If you get the good ending.
• If you get any bad ending.

RIVEN: THE SEQUEL TO MYST DRINKING GAME

Drink every time:

• You see an explicit reference to the number 5. (Yes, this will keep you drunk most of the time.)
• You have to unflip a switch, lever, or button because you flipped it earlier and had no idea what it was doing then but you do now.
• You have to redo the fire marble puzzle input.
• You miss the proper eye symbol on a fire dome.  (Good luck with Plateau Island!)
• You read/hear Gehn make a D’ni-centered racial supremacist comment.
• You open a door that was previously locked or barred.
• You see at least one Moiety dagger.
• You see an actual person in the age of Riven.
• You mess up the animal pillar puzzle to get to the age of Tay.
• You have to consult one of the journals in your inventory for a puzzle clue.
• You summon Gehn with the button.
• You feel persuaded at any point of what Gehn tells you.
• You see Catherine ruefully walk in front of you.
• The Rivenese village alarms go off.
• A whark eats someone in the Rivenese school number game.

Finish your drink and start a new one:

• Every time you have to resort to a walkthrough for advice on progressing through the game.
• If the sunners swim away because you’re an asshole.
• If the whark tries to kill you because you’re an asshole.
• If you get poisoned and knocked out.
• If you shit your pants when you get back to the Temple.
• If you giggle at the mechanics of Gehn’s sink.
• If you hear the giant steam-boom on top of the Great Dome.
• If you free Catherine.
• If you imprison Gehn.
• If you get the good ending.
• If you get any bad ending.

Everyone with you, including you, has to finish their drink:

• Every time anyone mocks Cho by repeating his trademark phrase.
• Every time you unlock an easter egg, because you actually are an asshole and know this game way too well. No, I won’t tell you how to do any of those.

Any other rules you’d like to suggest?  Share them in the comments!

I think it’s been too long since I mentioned everyone’s favorite ancient grimoire, the Greek Magical Papyri, isn’t it?  Yes, it has been too long, especially when there are some real gems in there (and in the related Demotic Magical Papyri) that can help us out to this day, especially since I was reminded not too long ago of one particular selection from the PGM that can help us out in our mathesis work.

Although the majority of the well-preserved PGM spells are at the beginning of the collection, some of the later ones are pretty awesome, even if they’re fragmented.  PGM CI.1-53 contains a full binding ritual, a καταδεσμος or defixio, using the spirits of the dead to bring a woman in love to the magician.  The magician in question threatened the gods of the world with upsetting the cosmic order and constrained the spirits to carry out his will, and in the process used a series of barbarous words of power to constrain the forces of the cosmos to do his bidding.  That series of magical words is rather special, since we see almost nothing like it elsewhere: a list of 24 magical words, each starting with a different letter of the Greek alphabet.

With the exception of the words for Alpha and Omega, each word starts and ends with the same letter of the alphabet, and based on the structure of the words, it’d appear as if some of them were originally meant to be palindromes, words running the same in both directions.  Regardless of whether the words are supposed to be palindromes, they pack some power, and can be seen in echoes across the PGM.  Consider the words ΑΚΡΑΜΜΑΧΑΜΑΡΕΙ, ΘΩΘΟΥΘΩΘ, and ΩΡΙΩΝ: the first is a well-known voces magicae meaning “cast off the nets” and can be used to dispel protections or wards; the second is a triple name of the Egyptian god Thoth, and the last is the hero from Greek mythology and one of the most well-known constellations in the sky.

Although these words can be used as magical names of the letters and, by extension, the world of correspondences to each letter (such that ΤΑΥΡΟΠΟΛΙΤ encompasses both the zodiacal world of Pisces as well as the divine realm of Poseidon, and more) and likely have many magical uses, the first one that came to my mind was in meditation and contemplation of these worlds.  After all, it’s part of my daily mathesis ritual that I do a meditation on the letter of the day of the lunar month, so when I have the time during the day, I’ll spend a bit longer after doing my letter chants and enter into a more contemplative state of mind.  In a way, this is basically scrying the letter, but it’s a little different from how I’ve done it in the past.

So, when I sit down to do my daily mathesis rituals, I start with some basic breathing exercises to calm down the mind and body; it helps that I usually do at least 15 minutes of awareness meditation before this, too, but you don’t strictly need that.  Then I recite the Invocation of the Tetractys, and I do my Tetractyean meditation and visualization.  Once I finish that, I’ll then begin what I call my letter chants, or (as I tentatively call it in Greek) γραμματωδαι (grammatōdai, sing. grammatōdē).  I’m still settling into the pattern I want to use for them, but I’ve broken it into several styles based on what type of letter it is.  Once I finish the grammatōdai, I’ll do some visualization to open up a doorway into the world of the letter using the mystical word associated with it, and see what comes out of that.

First, let’s split up the 24 Greek letters into four groups: vowels, stop consonants, continuing consonants, and complex consonants.

• The seven vowels (letters that produce a clear vocal sound) are pretty straightforward: Α, Ε, Η, Ι, Ο, Υ, Ω
• Stop consonants are those which are produced from one action in the mouth and stop the airflow completely: Β, Γ, Δ, Κ, Π, Τ
• Continuing consonants are those which are produced from one action in the mouth but can be vocally continued: Ζ, Λ, Μ, Ν, Ρ
• Complex consonants are those which are produced from two actions in the mouth: Θ, Ξ, Φ, Χ, Ψ

The first part of the meditation is to intone the name of the letter.  I’ll slowly and powerfully say the name of the letter (alpha, beta, etc.) at least once and no more than nine times, depending on the pythmenic value of the letter, but once usually suffices.  While doing this, I’ll picture the written form of the letter clearly in my mind.  I repeat this step until I get the “feel” and image of the letter solidly situated in my mind and body.

After this, I’ll start repeating the “simple” sound of the letter repeatedly at a quick pace.  For consonants, this just involves making the sound over and over again.  Thus, for Beta, I’ll go “buh buh buh buh buh buh buh”, for Kappa “kh kh kh kh kh kh kh kh”, for Theta “th th th th th th th”, and so forth.  Vowels are a little different, where instead of just intoning the vowel constantly I’ll separate out “repetitions” of the vowel with aspirations.  Thus, for Alpha, I’ll go “a ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha”, and so forth.  I’ll continue this for four or so full breaths, completely exhausting my lungs with each series of repetitions while maintaining my focus on the sound of the letter and the feeling it makes within me, making a note of any observation that arises from doing so.

This is followed by another set of repetitions, but much slower than the first.  Thus, for consonants, instead of going “buh buh buh buh buh” in a single breath, I’ll go “buhhhhhhh” and exhale completely, repeating again with a new breath.  For vowels, I’ll simply intone the vowel until my lungs are emptied, e.g. “ahhhhhhhhhh”.  I try to do at least four times as many slow repetition breaths as I do the fast repetition breaths, this time letting myself get completely absorbed in the simple sounds themselves.

The next step depends on whether I’m meditating on a consonant or a vowel, but the point here is to begin to vocalize the letter with vowels:

• For consonants, I’ll take the consonant and go through each of the seven vowels, mixing each with the letter in different ways.  Using the notation where C indicates the consonant and V indicates the vowel, I’ll intone the CV, VC, VCV, and CVC combinations with the consonant and every vowel, starting first with Alpha through Omega and then starting again with Omega and going through Alpha.  So, with Beta, I’ll intone: ΒΑ ΒΕ ΒΗ ΒΙ ΒΟ ΒΥ ΒΩ, ΒΩ ΒΥ ΒΟ ΒΙ ΒΗ ΒΕ ΒΑ; ΑΒ ΕΒ ΗΒ ΙΒ ΟΒ ΥΒ ΩΒ, ΩΒ ΥΒ ΟΒ ΙΒ ΗΒ ΕΒ ΑΒ; ΑΒΑ ΕΒΕ ΗΒΗ ΙΒΙ ΟΒΟ ΥΒΥ ΩΒΩ, ΩΒΩ ΥΒΥ ΟΒΟ ΙΒΙ ΗΒΗ ΕΒΕ ΑΒΑ; ΒΑΒ ΒΕΒ ΒΗΒ ΒΙΒ ΒΟΒ ΒΥΒ ΒΩΒ, ΒΩΒ ΒΥΒ ΒΟΒ ΒΙΒ ΒΗΒ ΒΕΒ ΒΑΒ.  Thus, for every consonant, there are 4 × 7 × 2 = 56 different words to intone.
• For vowels, I’ll intone different pairs of vowels, always focusing on the vowel of the day.  In this case, using X for the vowel of the day and Y for the other vowel, I’ll go through all different combinations of XY, YX, XYX, YXY.  Thus, for Alpha, I’ll intone: ΑΑ ΑΕ ΑΗ ΑΙ ΑΟ ΑΥ ΑΩ, ΑΩ ΑΥ ΑΟ ΑΙ ΑΗ ΑΕ ΑΑ; ΑΑ ΕΑ ΗΑ ΙΑ ΟΑ ΥΑ ΩΑ, ΩΑ ΥΑ ΟΑ ΙΑ ΗΑ ΕΑ ΑΑ; ΑΑΑ ΑΕΑ ΑΗΑ ΑΙΑ ΑΟΑ ΑΥΑ ΑΩΑ; ΑΩΑ ΑΥΑ ΑΟΑ ΑΙΑ ΑΗΑ ΑΕΑ ΑΑΑ; ΑΑΑ ΕΑΕ ΗΑΗ ΙΑΙ ΟΑΟ ΥΑΥ ΩΑΩ, ΩΑΩ ΥΑΥ ΟΑΟ ΙΑΙ ΗΑΗ ΕΑΕ ΑΑΑ.  Thus, for every vowel, there are another 56 words to intone.  I don’t have a glottal stop or an aspiration between vowels, so the sound changes smoothly between each vowel.

I’ll usually do the vocalizations once, but if they don’t seem to have kicked in yet and settled into my body and mind, I’ll start it over again another time.  After this, I’ll do another set of quick simple repetitions followed by long simple repetitions of the pure sound, followed by another set of repetitions of the name of the letter.  Note that, throughout this whole time, I’ll be holding the image of the letter itself in my mind, usually without color but occasionally fluctuating depending on the vowel being intoned.

Once I finish intoning the name of the letter for the last time, by this point I’m already in a good headspace for going into a trance session into scrying the letter.  To begin this, I continue visualizing the letter in my mind, but then I picture it being placed on top of a veil split down the middle, supported by a stone threshold.  Both the color of the cloth and the style of the threshold will differ based on the letter itself and the feelings it’s given me; some are simple linen supported by a few sticks, some are black velvet with gold threading supported in a temple entryway, and others are yet different. All the same, the veil hangs down flat, and I approach the veil in my mind.  I then intone, both mentally and physically, the full magical word for the letter, into the visualization of the letter on the cloth.  At this point, the veil tends to fly apart like it’s being blasted by a gust of wind from behind, and I enter into the veil.

This scrying method is a variation of a common technique to scry or contemplate symbols using a door with the symbol emblazoned on the door itself.  However, with other symbols, I’ve been able to explore full worlds of rich imagery and sensation and people.  The letters, on the other hand, are different: I see nothing.  It’s mostly visceral sensation and sounds, which, to be honest, make sense given what these symbols are: letters, graphical representations of human articulation made from the body.  If I try to conjure any sort of mental image, I usually get a close up of a particular sound and how it might be realized in my mind as an image, e.g. a sticky wet cool sensation as blood on grass.  Usually, however, there are no mental images, only sound and sensation.  I’ll perceive motion, weight, pressure, sound, acceleration, charge, and emotion; pretty much the whole gamut except for sight, and for that matter smell and taste, too.  I’m sure that, with deeper levels of meditation, I could eventually get those, but if I’m meditating on the letters qua letters, then my perceptions will be in the same ways letters make: through physical vibration and all the effects that entails.

At some point, once I’ve had my fill of the scrying session, I’ll “back out” of the world, though it’s hard to describe how do that without an image-based perception of the place to maneuver around.  At some point, I’ll exit out back through the gate of the veil, and I’ll intone the magical word of the letter once more to shut the veil and to calm the winds that blow it open.  Once the veil is closed, I’ll focus my attention on the letter itself until just that letter exists.  I close the meditation out by breathing in the letter into my body, dissolving it entirely within me, and intoning the name of the letter on the exhale.

If you’re interested, give the letter meditation and grammatodai a try.  How does the letter feel when you pronounce it?  How does it play with the vowels?  What kinds of emotions or sensations or objects does the sound of the letter call up?  What kind of veil and threshold do you see when you visualize it for the letter?  What kinds of sensations, feelings, and perceptions do you get while scrying the letter?  How does the magical word feel compared to the magical world its linked to?

So, between geomancy, grammatomancy, and astragalomancy, as well as a working knowledge of astrology both horary and otherwise, my divination needs are pretty much set.  I can determine what’s going on with a few throws of bones or letters or geomantic figures, and all these methods have served me well.  The problem is that, often, these oracles give me too much information when I don’t need anything more than a yes or no answer.  Geomancy is definitely geared for that with its inherent binary structure, but drawing up a full geomantic chart can sometimes be a little too much for something that needs a quick answer or confirmation from the spirits.  Although simpler than geomancy, grammatomancy and astragalomancy provide too much to interpret.  For instance, if I want to know whether a bottle of wine is sufficient payment for asking Hermes to help me out with something, getting “The one on the left bodes well for everything” is a little too vague and unclear for me.

Yes/no divination is one of the simplest forms of divination that can be done with tools.  You don’t need much more than a coin to flip, after all, but that seems a little too basic, and I do appreciate a bit of nuance.  I mean, imagine how body language, intonation, and subtle gestures can change a “yes” or “no” from your parents.  I suppose I could use whether the isopsephy of the letter or the sum of the astragaloi is odd or even for yes or no, but that seems like reaching a bit.  That said, I actually do have a divination system perfect for this, that of nkobos, a set of four cowrie shells I use in my ancestor and ATR work.  In it, you take four cowrie shells that have the “lump” shaved or cracked off so that it can fall on one of two sides; you ask your question to the spirits, throw the shells, inspect how many fall with the natural mouth up or down, and get your answer based on that.  This is identical to the use of chamalongos, or coconut shells, as used in Santeria and Palo and several other ATRs.  While I have a set of fed and prepared cowrie shells I use when working with my ancestors and spirits in those traditions, it always seemed weird to me to use them with other spirits, even though they provided a very useful tool in answering yes/no divination questions.  After all, cowries weren’t especially used in Greece or Europe generally, nor were coconut shells.  Add to it, I always kept getting hints that the methods of reading shells with ATR spirits was a little different from the theoi and other spirits I work with, like a different manner of interpretation was needed.

Thus, I decided to give up my cowrie shells and use them only with ATR spirits and ancestors, and make a new form of divination with the gods and spirits I normally work with generally and Hermes specifically.  I took the nkobo style of divination, modified it according to the hints I’ve been getting, and ended up with a four-coin divination method in honor of Hermes.  With no further ado, I present to you Οι Χρησμοι των Τεσσερων Νουμισματων, the Oracles of the Four Coins!  Though it is named after him, I’m making a deal with Hermes so that I can use this divination system not just with him but with any spirit with Hermes as ερμηνευτης and αγγελος, interpreter and messenger, between me and the other spirits I work with.

For this method of divination, you will need four coins, small enough so that they can all easily be held in the hand.  Four pennies are perfect for this, for those who live in the US.  Since I work near the Postal Museum in Washington, DC, the museum has one of those penny stretcher-impresser machines with four designs (Ben Franklin, Inverted Jenny, Inverted Train, and Pneumatic Tube stamp designs), so I went there during a recent monthly feast day for Hermes and got them, etched a Mercury symbol on the back, then consecrated them later that night.  You might also get four small gambling tokens, four Mercury dimes, four foreign coins, four ancient Greek coins, four flat stones with each side colored white or black, or other similar objects.  So long as you can establish which side is heads and which is tails, you’ll be set.

The process of divination is simple: ask your question, shake the coins up, cast them down onto a surface, and inspect how many are heads and how many are tails.  The order doesn’t matter; just count how many fall on which side.  In this manner, there are five possible results, and if we assume an ideal coin, they each have a 20% chance of falling (but, of course, the result is decided by the gods).  The meanings of each throw are generally as follows:

1. All heads (Αγαθα, Blessing): Absolute yes.  The blessing of the gods.  Ease, swiftness, and success.  The gods are pleased with you and you have their aid.  You are acting on the blessed path in line with the will of the gods.  A yes from the heart.  The most positive of results.
2. Three heads, one tails (Αναβασις, Ascent): Tentative yes.  Rephrase the question to be more specific.  The gods have already spoken.  Don’t ask what you already know.  Propitiating the gods may be helpful.  You may be missing something.  You may need further action to ensure success.
3. Two heads, two tails (Τετροδος, Four-Way Crossroads): Simple yes but becoming “meh”.  All ways open.  Anything is possible.  You can do it if you so choose, or not if you don’t want to.  It doesn’t matter.  Freedom in any and all directions.  Keep asking more questions.  The gods don’t particularly care whichever way you choose.
4. One heads, three tails (Καταβασις, Descent): No, perhaps reluctantly.  The situation is not going in that direction.  You’re barking up the wrong tree.  Nothing’s working against you, but it’s just not going to happen.  The gods have judged the matter against you.
5. All tails (Ατηρια, Evil): Absolute no, a spiteful or angry no.  Don’t ask and stop asking.  Major problems impeding you from your situation.  The gods are angry at you.  You may be cursed, crossed, or stuck in too much miasma.  You need purification, fasting, and propitiation.  You plan or ask about unlawful and amoral things.  Don’t get yourself involved.  The most negative of results.

In a way, this is a lot similar to how I had originally planned the use of my two ten-sided dice divination.  Instead of it being heads or tails on four coins, I rolled 2d10 using a standard tabletop gaming set of dice.  In that system, 99-80 would be associated with Agatha, 79 through 60 with Anabasis, 59 through 40 with Tetrodos, 39 through 20 with Katabasis, and 19 through 00 with Atēria.  That, too, was also based on shell divination, but it was mostly a means by which I could use all seven of my RPG dice in addition to the grammatomancy d12 and geomancy d4, d8, d20, and d6.  Ah well, live and learn.

In addition to getting quick yes/no answers from Hermes on a variety of topics, one of the reasons why I developed this system of divination is so that I can interact with all of the Greek gods and goddesses and heroes and demigods in order to ascertain their wishes and will.  Yes, the coin divination method belongs to Hermes proper, but remember that Hermes is the messenger god who goes between gods and men and is a friend to them both.  The coins can be thrown to ask any spirit and any god what their will is through the intercession and messages of Hermes, who communicates between us and them.  I find this a very valuable thing in my work, although I may resort to other forms of divination such as reading omens or, should I ever develop a proper hand at animal sacrifice, haruspicy.

Theoretically, this is similar to making a geomancy figure: all we need is a way to get a binary result four times, then compare how many of each binary result we get.  You could draw four lines of random dots each (odd or even), pluck up four potatoes and count how many eyes are on each (odd or even), roll a die four times (odd or even), pull four playing cards (red or black), or the like.  That said, I prefer using coins for Hermes since, after all, he is a god of commerce and coins are one of his symbols.  Plus, keeping four coins in your pocket is rather convenient and easily disguised.

Since this is a coin-based divination method, a variant of sortilege, I suppose the proper term for it would be numismatomancy, literally “divination by coins”.  And, since we’re able to make a well-formed word ending in “-mancy”, why not make some ritual numismatomancy?  Honestly, I could write up new rituals for all this, but after describing ritual astragalomancy and the consecration rituals and how to ask a query of the gods, you may as well just review that and adapt it accordingly for the coins from the knucklebones.  Similar rules for how the coins bounce and fall and their relative positions of how they fall can be devised, as well, to get even more nuance out of a single throw of the coins.

As I mentioned, the order the coins are thrown in don’t matter, just how many fall heads or tails.  However, if you draw a distinction between the coins or note the order in which they fall, you could also do geomancy using these.  If you have coins A, B, C, and D, then coin A would relate to the Fire line, coin B to the Air line, coin C to the Water line, and coin D to the Earth line; a throw of heads would mean that line is active, and a throw of tails means that line is passive.  However, the idea came to me that, well, if there are 16 possible combinations of these throws, and if the divination system is assigned to Hermes, then why not take a clue from astragalomancy and assign each combination to a different aspect of Hermes?  It’s not unreasonable to do this; astragalomancy has certain throws relate to Hermes Tetragonos (Hermes Four-Sided, i.e. Herm), Hermes Diaktoros (Hermes the Leader), Hermes Paignios (Hermes the Playful), and Hermes Kerdemporos (Hermes who Brings Gain in Trade).  Besides, I’ve seen Sannion do something similar with his Net of Orpheus, where he links different throws of coins to the different members of the pantheon of the Thiasos of the Starry Bull (though he also has his own Coins of Hermes divination method that I know nothing about, the jerk!).  I may approach Hermes and see how he feels about such a method, and if he likes the idea, which epithets he’d like to ascribe to which throw.  For instance, the throw of tails-heads-tails-heads, which in geomancy would be given to the figure Acquisitio, could be given to Hermes Kerdemporos based on the similarity between the geomantic figure and the epithet of Hermes.  It’s an idea for me to explore.

Speaking of Sannion’s divination system, he mentions the following when describing his Net of Orpheus, which he made as an Orphic variant of the Chain of Saint Michael, a Sicilian/Italian derivative form of geomancy using a series of four Saint Michael medallions in a chain, not unlike the opele chain of a babalawo (diviner priest) of Ifá.  Sannion says:

That said, I do feel a little culturally appropriative since it comes from a living and lineaged tradition (Italian folk Catholicism) which I am not a part of (despite my heredity: my mom was as thoroughly Americanized as they come) but on the other hand I’m not claiming any such thing or the cachet associated with doing so – I’m being perfectly upfront that I found this system and modified it for my own uses, so I kind of hope that cancels that out. (On the other hand Orpheus had a reputation for traveling around and stealing people’s religious tech, as does Melampos the other founder of Bacchic Orphism, so I guess that just means I’m keeping the tradition alive!) Plus, while I think it entirely within the realm of possibility that this technology developed independently in the Mezzogiorno and nevertheless respect the lineage of those who are working with it now – there are some striking similarities between it and Ifá and Mẹrindínlógún, to the point that I’m a little suspicious of its antiquity.

To be honest, I don’t think it’s that big a deal.  Yes, I am deriving a similar form of divination as he was from a similar-ish source.  That said, the Sicilian Chain of Saint Michael is a variant of geomancy, as I see it, just with the association of particular saints to the figures (which is a helpful correspondence for Catholic or conjure-minded geomancers to know).  Every form of geomancy as well as Ifá, Mẹrindínlógún, Nkobo, and Chamalongos all come from Africa and all share a binary system of attaining occult knowledge.  Then again, the system itself is so simple and direct that it’s not inconceivable that other cultures in other eras and areas could have devised similar systems on their own, like the Chinese system of jiaobei.  I see no harm in appropriating and modifying a system to “make” a new one of my own, especially if it can help ascertain the will of the gods better and more clearly.  If I can’t tell whether Hermes wants one bottle of wine or two, or whether he wants me to drop off a particular offering at a crossroads or just throw it in the trash, nobody is going to be particularly happy with the results.

Since getting four pennies is easy for me to obtain, as is getting those stretched pennies from the Postal Museum (which is as much a temple to Hermes Angelos as I’ll ever seen one), I’m considering getting a bunch of these together, consecrating them, and selling them on my Etsy, or just taking custom commissions for them.  What do you think?  Would you be interested in such a set?  Lemme know in the comments if you do, and if the response is strong enough, I might make a permanent listing on my Etsy page for consecrated coins for the purpose.

I feel like it’s been too long since I talked about something solidly within the framework and scope of Western Renaissance Hermetic magic.  Admittedly, that’s partially because I haven’t been doing much.  Beyond the occasional candle spell or planetary invocation, my work has been focusing as of late on the study of Greek letter magic, mathesis-centered meditation, Saint Cyprian work, and communion with the gods.  Life gets busy, after all, and I get swept up in a particular current every so often.

Still, that doesn’t mean I’ve forsaken everything I’ve learned with the angels, the planets, or even qabbalah (as much as I was using it, or as most modern Hermetic magicians use it, which isn’t saying much).  I still try to keep up with daily planetary angel invocations and call on them and the elemental princes in banishing rituals, although I don’t find that I have much time for conjuration anymore except on the rare occasion when I really need it.  Generally speaking, that’s okay; if you don’t have problems, you don’t have much to fix.  My life is generally in order due to the graces of the gods and goddesses and saints and angels I work with; they have my back and I have theirs.  I do admit that I miss the power and psychotripping in conjurations, however, and I have been considering getting back to that.  Saint Cyprian is trying to trick me into some goetic conjurations, not that I mind, but I’m letting that sit on the back burner for a while yet while I get other stuff in order.

Still, after my exploration and invention of mathesis, I’ve been considering a different route to conjurations, and for that I’m casting my eyes elsewhere than Trithemius’ conjuration ritual.  Trithemian conjuration technology and methodology is priceless and endlessly applicable, of course, but I’m starting to look elsewhere for ideas that can tie in easier into mathesis as I begin to explore the idea of mathetic ritual.  One such place for me to explore would be the magic and system presented in the Arbatel, an anonymous work of magic that’s pretty simple, short, and to the point.  Quoth Joseph H. Peterson of the Esoteric Archives (who also published a new translation of the text):

In many ways, Arbatel is unique among texts on magic. Unlike the vast majority of writings, it is clear, concise, and elegantly written. The practical instructions are straightforward and undemanding. When it first appeared in 1575, it attracted the attention of people with a surprisingly broad range of agendas, including some of the finest minds of the time. Often quoted and reprinted, both praised and condemned, its impact on western esoteric philosophy has been called “overwhelming.”

The Arbatel takes the format of 49 aphorisms, broken down into seven sets each called a septenary.  Each septenary of aphorisms focuses on a different aspect of the behavior, conduct, cosmology, and conjuration practices of the magician.  (No, I don’t think I’ll be doing a 49 Days of Definitions project for the Arbatel, so don’t worry, my beleaguered readers.)  The introduction to the text itself says that the 49 aphorisms that comprise the Arbatel are actually just the introduction to a nine volume set of works, each containing seven septenaries of aphorisms; however, Peterson notes that these were probably never written and have never been found extant, which is a damn shame since I’d love to read about the magical systems purported to be used by Hesiod, Homer, Apollonius, and the Sibyls of Rome.  Ah well, guess we just have to make them up in our own time instead of relying on someone making it up five centuries ago.

What we have that survives to us, or what we have that the author was able to write down, is sometimes called the Isagoge, literally an introduction or outline to the practice of the Arbatel.  The Arbatel is perhaps most famous for introducing to us the seven Olympic spirits, each one associated with one of the seven planets of traditional astrology.  Thus, Phul is associated with the Moon, Ophiel with Mercury, Hagith with Venus, and so forth; each have their own particular seal beautiful renditions of which you can find on Asterion’s art blog, and which occasionally pop up in gothic occult art and jewelry.  Each of the seven Olympic spirits is described according to the usual planetary powers, and the Arbatel also notes how many legions of spirits and how many rulers of spirits belong to them, as well as which spirit rules over the current era of 490 (7 × 7 × 100) years.  (For those who are curious, Ophiel rules the current era until 2390 CE).

The bulk of the Isogoge of the Arbatel is focused on living right and properly in the eyes of God; it’s no stretch at all to say that the Arbatel is solidly a Christian magician’s grimoire, and the author quotes or refers to the Bible throughout the text.  Honestly, this is all pretty straightforward morality stuff: hide what should be hidden, reveal what should be revealed, don’t procrastinate, have faith in and love for and fear of God, be humble, accept what God gives you, and the like.  Still, though this is simple and though we’ve undoubtedly heard it before in our plentifully Christian modern culture, for a magician, this all makes sense.  If we’re going to be given powers and secrets of the cosmos, we better be worthy of them and make sure we use them responsibly and without concern just for ourselves.  If we get deluded by greed and hate and infidelity, then everything collapses in a spectacular meltdown only magicians are known for.

When it comes to working with these spirits, the Arbatel’s system of magic is so minimalist and straightforward that it might be described as scantily written or even lacking.  At sunrise on the planetary day associated with the Olympic spirit, face one of the four cardinal directions based on what type of thing you want to learn or discuss, say a short prayer requesting the spirit’s presence, converse with the spirit for no longer than an hour (unless you and the spirit are really tight), and say another prayer to dismiss the spirit.  That’s it.  No tools needed, not even a description of how to use the seals of the Olympic spirits or whether they’re even needed at all.  In fact, the use of the names of the Olympic spirits isn’t even required, and the Arbatel suggests you use more general appellations of office rather than the name of a spirit since names tend to change over time.  To be fair, there was supposed to be another volume of the Arbatel that details how to work with the Olympic spirits, but that doesn’t exist, so we’re pretty much on our own with what we have.

Of course, leave it to ceremonial magicians to complicate things, especially when we’re so used to all the wands and circles, plumes of incense, and the like.  Indeed, some magicians have used all the stops and props of Golden Dawn-style ritual, while others simply take it straight to the astral and commune with the Olympic spirits there.  Other magicians have written about their experiences with the Arbatel, from the Scribbler’s posts to the detailed and heavy writings of Fr. Acher.  There’s no exact consensus, it’d seem, on what the nature of the Olympic spirits are; some people hold that they’re the gods themselves, others that they’re the angels, others that they’re planetary spirits under the angel of their planet, others that they’re some mix of the above.  What people do agree on, however, is that they work, and that they’re powerful.

Given the simplicity in calling upon the Olympic spirits and their power, I plan on starting up a new cycle of conjuration that focuses on these guys.  I’m not turning my back on the planetary angels, of course, and Lord knows I still have work to do with them, but there’s no sense either in declining to explore other parts of magic.  Besides, if it goes well, then I might be able to develop a mathetic conjuration ritual based on my experiences with the spirits of the Arbatel.  Could be useful, no?

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 November 2014.

“wicks for middle eastern oil lamp” — Honestly, for those little clay, metal, or terracotta lamps you find from the Middle East, the best type of wicks are those you make yourself from a cotton ball.  Every cotton ball is actually a tiny roll of cotton; simply unroll it into a flat-ish sheet, then roll it again tightly lengthwise like a dreadlock.  Stick it into the spout of the lamp, soak in oil for five minutes before lighting, and boom, you have yourself a perfectly good wick.  Follow the rest of the rules for oil lamps here.

“seven sphere rufus opus”, “‘seven spheres’ opus”, “seven spheres rufus opus”, “rufus opus seven spheres”, “seven spheres by rufus opus” — Yes, Fr. Rufus Opus (my instructor, who is not me) released a book this month, “Seven Spheres” by Nephilim Press.  It is an awesome book (that I did not write).  You should totally buy it from him (who is not me).  I have my copy that I’m working through, and it’s truly an awesome text.

“cinnamon powder spell benefits to sprinkle in four corners” — I don’t know of any, myself, but cinnamon is used to sweeten things up, as well as bring prosperity and joy into one’s life; given its connections to the Sun (cassia and Saigon cinnamon are a little spicier and given to Mars), it also has some mildly protective benefits in magic.  Some ideas for sprinkling cinnamon in this fashion would be to do so in an hour of Jupiter in the day of the Sun, praying for prosperity and happiness to fill up your home, hearth, and house, that all rooms in the house and all places on the property be blessed with the grace of the Lord.  Simple stuff like that, perhaps also setting a white candle dressed in cinnamon oil in each room.

“how to relate question to geomancy houses” — The twelve houses of geomancy are the same twelve houses in astrology.  You, as the querent, have a query to ask.  That query has a topic.  Find the house that best relates to that topic: e.g., if marriage then house VII, if children then house V, if job then house X, if curses then house XII, etc.  It really doesn’t get any simpler than that.  If your query doesn’t have a topic, then you don’t have a query.  If your query can be associated with several houses equally, then inspect each of those houses.  Take your time.  There is no rush to ask a question of geomancy.  Make sure your query is clear, concise, and concrete enough for you to handle instead of being vague, complicated, and abstract.

“tetractys divination” — This is an idea I’ve been experimenting with, using the Tetractys (especially in mathesis) for divination.  I haven’t yet found a suitable way to do so, but there are opportunities here I may not be looking at yet.  My idea would be to use two ten-sided dice (2d10) from a tabletop gaming set, with the 0-9 die given to “answer #1″ (where you’re coming from, where you’re based out of, past experiences) and the 00-90 die given to “answer #2″ (where you’re headed to, what you need to become, future experiences).  The number on each die could be associated with one of the ten sphairai on the Tetractys, such that if I rolled a 3 and a 50, that’d indicate the sphairai of Fire and of Salt, respectively, indicating that it’s time for me to reduce myself from pure action in the world to a base of nothing, to burn out completely, to focus on the substance that keeps me burning rather than focusing on the results of acting.  That kind of thing.  It’s a side project, but one that could be useful.

“penis growth curse” — …is this really a curse? I mean, usually you’d want to shrink or remove the penis as an effective curse, which is actually a cultural phenomenon in Africa known as koro.  People actually get killed for being accused as wizards or witches there who shrink or disappear away men’s penises, so this is a pretty big thing, but cursing a penis to get bigger?  Dude, that’s like a fetish of everyone who likes penises, especially their own, unless you’re talking about something so big that it’d crush cars.  Even then, there’s a fetish for that, too (hyper and/or macro).

“huge dick images.” — You won’t find any of those on this blog, sadly; I may be a little colorful with my vocabulary, but nothing here is generally NSFW.  I do make the “big anointed wand” joke occasionally, though.

“how to use elohim gibor in prayer” — Technically, you don’t.  From my point of view, you let him use you.  Elohim Gibor (lit. “Strong God”) is one of the names of God, associated in Western qabbalistic practice to the sephirah of Geburah and thus to the planet Mars.  I’ve used this name when working with a martial aspect of God or when working with martial spirits who respond to this name of God.  However, the process is the same otherwise as with any other name of God: you seek the aid of God for his blessing, grace, guidance, and protection that his will be done and not your own lest it be in accordance with his, that you work with the authority of God that God may work through you, etc. etc.  So, really, the answer to this turns out like that Soviet Russia joke, with Elohim Gibor using you.  Beyond that, gematrialize it, intone it, contemplate it, meditate on it, calligraphy it, and whatever else you want to use to figure the name out.

“rufus opus review” — Dude’s cute but in a relationship, also straight, so I typically don’t have my eye out for him like that.  He’s charismatic, for sure, especially once he’s got a few whiskeys in him.

“do males born on a leo/virgo cusp have big dicks” and also “do guys born on a leo/virgo cusp have big penises like greek god hermes” — I’m not surprised I got these searches (again), though I am surprised that they came apart several days away from each other.  Either this is one very concerned searcher, or two separate searchers who have similar tastes and problems.  Hermes, if you look at his Homeric Hymn, would actually be born sometime around the end of Pisces or the start of Aries (a few days after the third New Moon after the winter solstice), and he’s not generally the most sexualized of the gods (though he has his own thing going on), and isn’t exactly a god of giant endowments.  Then again, he might be totally the god to go to if you have a koro curse to enact on someone, which would be hilarious for everyone except those who’d get killed in Africa for it, so I dunno.

“geomancy blog” — While this blog covers many topics, I do occasionally write about geomancy.  A while ago, I wrote a 20-post series on geomancy that covers each of the 16 figures in depth and at length along with four aspects of geomantic technique. the I even wrote a translation of a medieval text on geomancy, which is available on my Etsy that you should check out!  Spread the word, check it out, and I hope it helps.

“congo men biggest cocks” — Since I’ve never slept with someone from the Congo region of Africa, I can’t say whether this is true or not. Also, seriously, I know the US had two federal holidays this past month, but if having two extra days off (for only a percentage of the population here, mind you) gets you that hot and bothered that I’m getting a higher than average hit count for people looking for giant pictures of dicks or for people with giant dicks, I seriously question why you’re using Google and WordPress and not Grindr or Scruff.  Tumblr’s where I go to get my porn, generally speaking, so you might also check that out.

“material used in summoning a spirit” — Technically speaking, you don’t need anything material to summon a spirit; intent, prayer, and a mental connection are all you strictly need.  Some people do a bit of centering prayer to contact a spirit, some people go to their astral temples, and other people just see them, flag them down, and have a conversation with them.  That said, many people (including myself) find it extraordinarily useful to have material tools, for which I suggest a scrying medium (e.g. crystal ball, glass of water, mirror), a summoning platform (e.g. Triangle of Art, Table of Practice), a tool of will (wand or knife or dominant index finger), a few candles, some appropriate incense, and the usual stuff.  Again, none of it is strictly needed, but it helps.

“books on loan from australian libraries about hinese and japanese astrology specifically nine star ki” — I know literally nothing about any of these these things.  I am definitely not an Australian library, nor have I ever been to one nor gotten a book out on loan from one. I’ve talked about these things exactly zero times on my blog or my Twitter.  Why did Google lead you here.  I apologize.

“adherent bandage and jelq” — For those who don’t know, jelqing is a method some men use to increase their penis size (both length and girth) by forcing more blood than normal into it with an extra-firm grip, using an almost udder-milking technique.  The jury’s out on whether this works, but I’ve heard good things with it, so long as you keep at it regularly like any workout; the idea is that you’ll slowly stretch the blood cavities in the soft tissue of the shaft, which allows it to hold more blood when you get an erection, which means getting a bigger hardon.  It’s not recommended for everyone, and there are definitely unsafe ways to do this.  Since you’re forcing more blood into the cock than normally goes in, if you have a cut or scrape or other wound on it that requires a bandage, you really really shouldn’t be handling it that roughly, if at all.  But then, who am I kidding, if you’re already into jelqing then you’re probably not looking to play by all the rules.

“do quadrivium.oils work” — Absolutely!  Some of my favorite oils comes from Quadrivium Supplies, and I’m a big fan of her work.  She charges a pretty reasonable amount for pretty powerful magical oils, and occasionally stocks some other useful and interesting supplies.  By all means, take a look; this time of the year, she has some good sales going on, so have at!

“san lazaro bead pattern” — San Lazaro, more commonly known in English as Saint Lazarus, can be a bit confusing for some people, since there are two Lazaruses in the Bible.  One is Saint Lazarus of Bethany, the brother of Mary and Martha and the one who was raised by Jesus Christ from the dead after being in his tomb for four days.  The other is…well, he has no formal appellation, just “Lazarus” from the parable of Jesus known as “The Rich Man and Lazarus”, from the Gospel of Luke.  San Lazaro kinda merges these two Lazari, mostly from the second, and is often depicted as a beggar covered in sores, walking on crutches, and licked upon by dogs.  He’s syncretized with the orisha Babaluaye, the orisha of illness, poverty, death, and the like.  However, there are many paths or aspects to San Lazaro, each possessing their own name, focus, and bead pattern for their elekes.  While you should always go to your local olorisha or Santero/a for real information, you can find some information online that may not be as trustworthy.

“hermes/mercury and legba” — They’re all pretty cool guys who don’t afraid of anything.  However, they are not the same entity, and you’d do well to take heed of that.  Hermes is Greek, Mercury is Roman; these two basically grew up together, with Mercury being solidly based on Hermes (the name “Mercurius” literally means “god of the merchants” and isn’t a native Roman god).  Legba is one of the variants of the name Eleggua, the childlike trickster and messenger of the crossroads who opens the ways.  Yes, they both preside over crossroads, messages, pranks, children, medicines, and many other things, but there are also important differences, too.  Legba, specifically, indicates more of a Haitian variant from Vodou, which has its own means of contacting Legba than Santería does Eleggua.  I highly suggest against conflating Legba with another crossroads gods, especially from a white or European culture.

In thanks to Saint Cyprian of Antioch, my patron and protector, my mentor and master, my teacher and tutor and tata! The good Saint has enabled me by his powerful intercession to survive the trials of my life, protecting me from the damaging winds of trial and tribulation, and assisting me in all the ways I seek of him through the grace of God almighty who lives and reigns, world without end, and to whom all glory and honor is ultimately due.

Holy Saint Cyprian of Antioch: mage, martyr, and mystic; theurge, thaumaturge, and theophoros; saint, sorcerer, and sage; pray for us, now and at the hour of our death.

So now that I’m getting seriously interested in the Arbatel, I suppose it’s time to start reviewing what I know and what, exactly, it is that I’ll be doing and conjuring.  Most of the Arbatel is focused on being, basically, a good magician, which for all intents and purposes is to be a good Christian.  The basic virtues of piety, faith, love and honor of God, helping out your fellow man, and the like are what’s really expounded in the text, with most of the aphorisms of the Arbatel written on these subjects and how to effect them in one’s life.  That said, the Arbatel contains an introduction on the conjuration of seven Olympic Spirits, each associated with one of the seven planets and each possessing a certain number of spiritual legions of their own, as well as particular secrets that they can reveal to a magician who lives properly and is worthy of those secrets.  So, yes, there will be conjuration involved in this project (yay!), but it’ll be of a different kind than I’m used to (ooh!).

As the text reads in the Third Septenary (III.16), the names of the seven Olympic Spirits are given in the Latin alphabet as Aratron, Bethor, Phaleg, Och, Hagith, and Phul.  While I’d normally be okay with using these names as they are, my penchant for using literally anything other than the Latin alphabet whenever possible has led me to attempt a Greek transliteration of these names.  After all, when using Greek, I can tweak my spelling of things and get a better understanding of the isopsephy and stoicheia behind the names, perhaps leading to something a little more appropriate than what might be naïvely spelled.  Add to it, by beginning to incorporate more Greek into my conjuration work, I can perhaps make inroads into developing a system of mathetic conjuration that would augment and build up the rest of mathesis.  Besides, with these Olympic Spirits being Olympic and with many references to the text suggesting a pseudo-Greek origin to the system, it might befit us to use Greek anyway instead of Roman or Hebrew.

Happily, such a Greek transliteration of the Arbatel names is already given by Stephen Skinner in his Complete Magician’s Tables (M.42 through M.50, particularly M.43).  There, he gives the names of the seven Olympic Spirits, as well as their isopsephic values, as Αραιθρον (341 = 11 × 31), Βεθορ (186 = 6 × 31), Φαλεκγ (558 = 18 × 31), Ευχ (465 = 15 × 31), Ηαγιθ (31 = 1 × 31), Οφιιλ (620 = 20 × 31), and Φυλ (930 = 30 × 31).  These spellings are a little odd for me, however, as is the isopsephy involved.  For this, Skinner explains:

Immediately a pattern becomes obvious, confirming the accuracy of the orthography.  All the names are based on 31 or αλ ‘AL’ in Greek, and are therefore a carefully constructed formula, not just random mediaeval names, as most people previously assumed.  Even the grand total of all the values comes to 3131.  The Greek names of the Olympic Spirits also form a key to Crowley’s Liber AL vel Legis, although one of which Crowley was perhaps not aware, a key that I do not believe has been published by anyone else to date.  I intend to postpone the explanation of that material to a later time.  Suffice it to say that they are a significant key to Liber AL vel Legis.

Furthermore, the multiples of 31 are in themselves significant.  Apart from the factors 15, 20, and 30, the remaining factors form a significant Middle Pillar formula:

1 + 6 + 11 = 18, can be interpreted as Kether + Tiphareth + Daath = ih (10 + 8) or Arrow (in Greek).  The path so traced out is indeed the Path of the Arrow.  The key numbers for these spirits are therefore:

• Hagith = 1
• Bethor = 6
• Araithron = 11
• Phaleg = 18
• Och = 15
• Ophiel = 20
• Phul = 30

In all honesty, mixing Golden Dawn and Thelemic works into a text 300 years their senior is a dicey proposition, and I don’t think that there’s much to link the two, even if it had been in the Golden Dawn’s scope to do so.  Add to it, I haven’t seen these spellings or this reasoning anywhere else, and the spelling and pronunciation in Latin or in German (since we can claim that the Arbatel is definitely a German work of occult literature) are quite different from the pronunciation given in Skinner’s transliterated Greek, and his use of “Araithron” instead of “Aratron” is unusual, since the Arbatel clearly only gives Aratron.  Add to it, Skinner’s claim about the sum of 1 + 6 + 11 = 18 associated with arrows makes no sense to me; “arrow” in Greek is τοξευμα (common antique word), οιστος, βελος (preferred modern word), ιος, ατρακτος, πτερον, or γλθφιδες, the isopsephy of any which is anything but 18.  Likewise, the Hebrew word for “arrow” is חץ, which still doesn’t add up to 18.

Given that Skinner’s transliterations weird me out and that his reasoning is sketchy, even though they do have that oddly nice consistency with the number 31, I think it might be better to take another look and develop a new set of Greek names for the Olympic Spirits.  Of course, transliterating what are essentially barbarous names between Greek and Roman isn’t always easy, so we often have multiple alternatives available to us.  For transliteration, I’ll only use the names given in the Arbatel itself; other books, such as the Secret Grimoire of Turiel and the Complete Book of Magic Science seem to be much later inventions, and the Arbatel would appear to be the first published text with the names and seals of the Olympic Spirits.

• Aratron: The “-on” ending here strikes me as being omicron-nu, since most second declension neuter nouns in Greek have this same ending.  Thus, a straightforward transliteration would be Αρατρον (622).  If we were to use a theta instead of tau in the name to get Arathron, courtesy of Skinner’s suggestion, we’d have Αραθρον (331), but this seems to be a stretch, since I find no reason why we should use a theta if it wasn’t indicated in the source text, although it is likely as a more German pronunciation of the name (a slightly harder “t” than tau in German would provide).  Thus, we’ll use Αρατρον.
• Bethor: The “-or” ending in this name strikes me as being omega-rho, since only a very few words in Greek end in omicron-rho.  The real question then becomes whether we use epsilon or eta, giving us either Βεθωρ (916) or Βηθωρ (919).  For me, Βεθωρ seems more likely; 9 + 1 + 6 = 16, and 1 + 6 = 7.
• Phaleg: The ending here should be a simple gamma, not kappa-gamma as Skinner suggests, since that was a comparatively modern innovation to represent a hard “g” sound.  Thus, we’d end up with either Φαλεγ (539) or Φαληγ (542), based on whether we use epsilon or eta, and of these, Φαλεγ seems the more likely spelling.
• Och: Depending on how we transliterate “o” as either omicron or omega, we could get Οχ (670) or Ωχ (1400), or even Ωοχ (1470) as Skinner proposes as an alternative to his Ευχ (465), although Skinner mistakenly gives the isopsephy of Ωοχ as 930 and not 1470.  Of these four names, Ωχ appears to be the cleanest and most likely.
• Hagith: Greek doesn’t represent aspiration, so we really should be transliterating “Agith”.  This is fairly straightforward to transliterate, Αγιθ (23), with no other options available to us unless we really change things up, like replacing iota with eta for Αγηθ (21).  Thus, Αγιθ it is.
• Ophiel: This is the most Judeo-Christian “angelic” appearing of the names, and Judeo-Christian angelic and otherwise theophoric names ending in “-el” in Roman are typically written as “-ηλ” in Greek.  However, the initial “o” could be either omicron or omega, giving us either Οφιηλ (618) or Ωφιηλ (1348).  Alternatively, if we use epsilon instead of eta, we could get Οφιελ (615) or Ωφιελ (1345).  Of these, I find Οφιηλ to be the most likely; .
• Phul: There are only two options here, depending on what kind of “u” we want, either the French “u” represented only by upsilon, or the long “u” represented by omicron-upsilon, giving us either Φυλ (930) or Φουλ (1000).  However, Φυλ appears to be the more straightforward and reasonable of these.

Thus, for our Greek names, we’ll use Αρατρον (622), Βεθωρ (916), Φαλεγ (539), Ωχ (1400), Αγιθ (23), Οφιηλ (618), and Φυλ (930).  Altogether, the sum of the names isopsephy yields 5048.  While these names don’t have the consistency of a repeated number as Skinner’s names do, I also find these far more likely spellings to use of the Olympic Spirits.

Now that we have our names settled, it remains to figure out the seals, and happily, there’s pretty much nothing to figure out.  The seals given in the Arbatel are clear and consistent, and there are excellent modern renditions given by Asterion on his art blog.  I plan on using his seals, which are essentially the same as those given in the grimoire itself, but a little more squared up and cleaned up.  Normally, in conjurations, I make a Trithemian-style lamen bearing the seal of the spirit in a central hexagram with six pentagrams around it, the name of the spirit around that, and thirteen names of God around that.  However, I didn’t want to use the Trithemian design for these conjurations, since I wouldn’t be using the Trithemian ritual and also because the lamen format is fairly overkill for the Arbatel-type of conjuration, which is essentially minimalistic.  I took into account other lamens that other magicians have made for the Arbatel, such as Fr. Acher’s lamens for his Arbatel operations, but decided against anything too fancy.  Instead of using a psalm, series of names of God, or parts of the prayer from the Arbatel, I decided upon the Greek phrase:

Την ημερα και την ωρα του XΧΧ καλω σε ω Δαιμων Ολυμπικε !
In the day and in the hour of XXX I call upon you, o Olympic Spirit!

Thus, if I were to call upon Aratron, I’d use Κρονου, “of Kronos (Saturn)” in the XXX spot; if Bethor, Διος; if Phaleg, Αρεως; and so forth.  Alternatively, I prefer to use the planetary titan names that I’ve mentioned before when first pondering a Greek kabbalah, so instead of Κρονου I’d use Φαινω, “of Phainon”, etc.  A note on this, however: the planet Venus was considered to be two stars, Eosphoros (Dawn-bringer, Venus when it rises before the Sun in the Morning) and Hesperos (Evening Star, Venus when it sets after the Sun in the evening); either of these names could be used, when the proper phase of Venus applies, or you could use the general name Phosphoros (Light-bringer, a general name of Venus).

And, yes, as someone pointed out on Facebook, the use of the word “δαιμων” may raise some eyebrows here.  The text itself, which is a German work originally written in Latin in the 1500s, used the Latin word “pneumatica” to refer to the spirits, and doesn’t use the word “daemon”.  However, lest people think I’m confusing the Olympic Spirits with the types of spirits found in the Lemegeton Goetia, the word δαιμων refers to any natural power, force, fate, or entity, not unlike what’s connoted by θεος.  It was only with the development of Christianity that the word δαιμων began to pick up distinctly negative connotations, leading to our modern word “demon”.  The Renaissance use of the word πνευμα plus the connotations of the Christian Πνευμα το Αγιον, then, picked up what δαιμων left behind, going from a meaning of breath-like life energy to a force of nature as a discrete nonphysical entity.  Now, when I developed this phrase, I found the word δαιμων to be a perfectly acceptable word to use here, especially considering what the Olympic Spirits are proposed to be, but if they themselves wish to use the word πνευμα, I have nothing against changing the phrasing here.

With all that in mind, I made the following set of lamens for my use in my upcoming Arbatel work.  Assuming the Olympic Spirits themselves don’t mind them, I don’t see why I shouldn’t use them, though it’s unclear how best I could use them, either as something to wear as I would in other rituals, or as something to place the scrying medium above, but that’s for another post.

Late in 2013, after my week-long ordeal of conjuring all the angels of the elements and planets, culminating in my conjuration of the angel of the fixed stars Iophiel, a good chunk of my Work took a distinctly Christian tone.  This wasn’t intentional on my end, but signs kept appearing more and more that, hey, I should probably start investigating this Christ dude more.  Not being raised Christian, but calling upon him much in my rituals and prayers, I suppose this was inevitable, especially as I got closer to the sphere of Heaven itself and working with my roots in a Christian Hermetic framework. This is just my experience; not everyone will have this happen to them, for what it’s worth.  Still, it’s not like I’m suddenly going to church every week and forsaking magic.  Quite the opposite!  It’s only spurred me on to work more and more closely with the forces of divinity in a way that’s most culturally accessible to me, including with the Greek theoi, a few African spirits here and there, and the like.  It’s all very Hermetic, in the classically-Hermetic confusingly eclectic way that I’m used to it being.

One of the big changes that’s happened since then is that I began a practice to the seven archangels of the Christian tradition, at the suggestion of my good colleague Michael Strojan.  These are not the same as the seven planetary angels, and indeed, the seven archangels go higher and are a different type of entity; if they are the same entities as the seven planetary angels, then they’re much rarer, much holier, and wear scarier hats than their planetary counterparts.  Working with the seven archangels has benefitted me in subtle ways, making my life better as a result, and it’s ended up with me having to dig deep and find out prayers for them, sometimes writing my own sets of prayers for their devotions.

Eventually, I got tired of having to use printouts of prayers I found online and compiled them into a single document for my own ends.  As these things usually turn out for me, this ended up with me elaborating on practices one can develop with the seven archangels, which then resulted in a new ebook for sale: De Archangels, “On the Archangels”, available from my Etsy for only US$10.00!

Coming in at almost 100 pages, this ebook contains pretty much all you need for starting a practice with the seven archangels of the Orthodox Christian tradition with regular devotions, prayers, and offerings, as well as how to seek their aid and presence in your life:

• Information about the history, divine presence, and powers of each archangel
• How to set up an angelic shrine for one archangel or all seven at once
• How to make offerings to and requests of the archangels
• Litanies, chaplets, and novenas for each archangel
• A conjuration ritual to get in more intimate contact with each archangel, including original seals for each of them

This is one of my longer ebooks, and even though it’s a compilation of many Catholic, Orthodox, and general Christian prayers, there’s a lot in there from my own research and development in my own angelic practice.  It’s a work I’m proud of, and given the importance of these spirits, I’m kinda surprised there’s not a lot of work being done with them by other occultists.  Sure, it’s more churchy than conjure-y, but that doesn’t mean the archangels don’t have anything to offer you.  Rather, they have plenty to offer, and are eager to help.

Still, this ebook is not for those who are solidly set against involving any kind of Christian activity in their own practice.  This book is pretty much dedicated to Christian magicians or those Christians who have occult inclinations, so don’t expect attempts to link the archangels to the amesha spentas of Zoroastrianism or connections to ancient Mediterranean gods.  If you’re set against calling on the name of Jesus Christ, then you may want to pass this book over.  Someone on my Facebook asked me if there was anything for “non-monotheist non-Christians” to use when working with angels, and I had to reply that there wasn’t, because there isn’t.  Angels exist because of God and for the sake of God; you can’t remove God from the angels.  It’s similar to working with Saint Cyprian of Antioch, really, upon which Jason Miller has touched before:

At this time, as my reputation and the reputation of other saints is growing, there are many who invoke us, yet revile and reject the name of Christ.  I understand this, as it comes from deep hurt and pain caused by those who act in the Lord’s name, but it is a mistake. Christ is not what you think.  He does not care what religion you belong to.  He does not care about your acceptance.  But if you call upon a saint, have no illusions, you are calling upon the power of Christ.  Invoking his name will empower your work.  The spirits will respond to it whether you believe or not.  The steeples of all the churches will resonate with your working.  Taking holy communion will solidify your results.  You should not call upon the saints and ignore Christ.

While I know there are people who work with the angels and deny Christ, I can’t say that that’s a smart move, because it denies the ultimate reason they exist in the first place.  The angels, especially the seven archangels, are entities from the tradition of Christianity and serve Christ, only carrying out the will of Christ (who is God).  If that’s distasteful to you, I don’t hold it against you, but I warn against working with the angels in that case.  Otherwise, if you don’t mind calling on Christ or the names of God, or if you actually are Christian and do so with regularity, then you won’t have a problem working with the seven archangels, and highly suggest you do so.

Likewise, this book is intended for Christian occultists or occult-minded Christians, not necessarily for uber-gnostic super-magical Christianity.  The prayers and the like in this book are pretty standard stuff you’d find in any Catholic manual of prayer, and doesn’t really have much in the way of making talismans, mojo bags, or candle rituals.  Still, such acts can be greatly empowered by calling on the angels and working with them in a devotional form, and this text offers some guides on how to do just that without things seeming overtly ritualized or occult.  It’d fit right in with a conjure-worker’s handbook as it would a liberal priest’s, as I plan for it to.  If you’re interested in the more explicitly magical stuff you can do with the archangels, I suggest investigating things along the lines of Catholic folk magic or conjurework, or the excellent books from Hadean Press on working with the Archangel Michael and Archangel Gabriel.

So, if you’re willing to work with the archangels, then check out my ebook today on Etsy for US$10!  This is especially good timing, given that we’re approaching the Christmas season and Advent Sunday was this past week in the Catholic calendar.  Angels are in the minds of a lot of people, so why not tap into that current with the holiday season?

Of all the ritual tools I possess, the most important one isn’t even really a tool at all, since it’s intangible.  I have a hard time calling it a technique, since it’s not really a skill and it’s something I have to work with in order to make use of, like a resource.  It’s the matter of timing, and it’s crucial to much of my magical and devotional works.  Whether it’s being as specific as timing something to a 30min window for a rare astrological election or just being lazy and doing something at some point during a week of the waxing moon, timing is something that can easily make or break a good ritual, so it’s important to understand the rules of occult timing properly for any magician.  Any ritual, heck, any activity whatsoever can be augmented and benefitted from looking at a clock and using a few mental rules or simple charts, from conjuring one of the cosmic leaders of creation to organizing your wardrobe; it pays, sometimes handsomely, to learn how to time things magically.

By far, the most common system I’ve seen of occult timing is the system of planetary days and hours, which is such common knowledge among Hermetic magicians and traditional astrologers that I don’t see a need to rehash it in full here.  Suffice it to say that each of the seven traditional planets (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) are each associated with one of the days of the week (Sunday with the Sun, Monday with the Moon…).  Each planetary day starts at sunrise, and there are 12 diurnal hours (1/12 of the total time between sunrise and sunset) and 12 nocturnal hours (1/12 of the total time between sunset and the next sunrise); each of these are assigned one of the planets, as well, in a repeating order.  Times when the planet of the hour matches the planet of the day are exceedingly good for working with that planet, such as conjuring the angel or daimon presiding over the planet, while combinations of different planetary hours with different planetary days can yield interesting and refined times for specific acts (a la Jason Miller’s Advanced Planetary Magic).  This system of hours and days may look complicated, and if you’re having to calculate it all out by hand then it can be a headache at times, but there are plenty of tools to help you calculate planetary hours, so you don’t really have an excuse to be ignorant of them.  This system has been used for over a thousand years, and comes up time and time again (sorry I’m not sorry) throughout Western occult literature, so it behooves you, dear reader, to become familiarized with the system if you’re not already.

Remember, however, that you can’t have the planetary hours without the planetary days, and the planetary days is a repeating cycle of seven.  Seven is quite a popular number in occulture, spirituality, religion, and mysticism, and the system of planetary hours/days is a complete system on its own that can augment anything and benefit anyone.  The problem I have, however, is that I’m starting to use a totally different cycle of timing, my lunisolar grammatomantic calendar for Hellenic and mathetic rituals.  This is a cycle of 29 days (in a hollow month) or 30 days (in a full month) following the passage of the Moon in its synodic month, where there are three decamerons of 10 days, with the final decameron having 9 days if it’s a hollow month.  In each decameron, eight of the days are associated with one of the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet, one of the days is given to one of the three obsolete Greek letters, and one of the days is unlettered (with this being the omitted day in hollow final decamerons).  I’ve been using this calendar for great effect lately in doing my mathetic letter meditations, scrying sessions, and rituals with the Greek gods above and below, and it’s a system I plan to continue using and refining as I continue developing it and my own mathetic practice.

The issue arises when I try to combine the two systems; it doesn’t really work.  Neither 29 nor 30 are multiples of 7, so they don’t really overlap except in complete cycles of each other (so thirtyish weeks or sevenish lunations, and the lack of specificity and exactitude here bothers me).  Add to it, the grammatomantic calendar doesn’t prescribe offerings and sacrifices on the days associated with the seven vowels, instead giving them to the seven planets themselves.  Thus, the first day of the lunar month, the Noumenia, is given to the letter Α, and thus to the planet of the Moon, regardless of what the day of the week might say it is; same case for the fifth day being given to Ε and thus to Mercury, and so forth.  Thus, the grammatomantic calendar affords another kind of planetary association to the days, though much more spread out than the system of planetary days.  It’s not something I’ve fully explored yet, being used to the system of planetary days and hours, but I plan to in the near future.

The problem, as you might have guessed, is that these systems don’t overlap very often.  For instance, if the Noumenia is the day associated with the Moon, and we’d like to find Noumeniai that are on Mondays to link the planetary day of the Moon with the grammatomantic day of the Moon, the next one is coming up on Monday, December 22, 2014; the next one after that is Monday, September 14, 2015, nine months apart!  Add to it, the system of planetary days and hours is pretty much a solar system, timed according to the rise and set of the Sun in patterns of seven.  The grammatomantic calendar (which I really need to find a shorter name for, perhaps γραμματημερολογιον, “grammatēmerologion”?) is lunar and follows its own patterns, which are frustratingly irregular by solar notions of the passage of time.  The two systems, simply, aren’t compatible to be mixed like that.

This only gets worse once we start reckoning letters for periods longer than a day.  For instance, the lunisolar grammatomantic calendar can give a letter to every lunar month, as well, but note that, because of the mismatch between the number of days in a synodic month and the number of days in a year, some years will have 12 months (hollow years) and some will have 13 (full years).  If we assume that every year has 12 months, then we assign every month in a two-year period one of the Greek letters in order, with the thirteenth month in a year receiving no letter.  How do we figure out which years need 13 months and which only need 12?  We look to the Metonic cycle of 19 years, 12 of the years being hollow (12 months) and seven of the years being full (13 months) in a particular order.  If we use a dual Metonic cycle of 38 years, then we have 24 hollow years interspersed with 14 full years.  We can assign all the hollow years in the dual Metonic cycle a Greek letter in order, leaving the full years unlettered.  However, with a month of 29 or 30 days, a year of 12 or 13 months, and a cycle of 38 years, none of this can be easily matched up with a system of seven days.  Thus, if one dual Metonic cycle starts on a Monday (year Α, month Α, day Α all falling on a Monday), the next time that will happen is in approximately (but maybe not exactly!) 266 years, which is 7 × 38.  A rare occurrence, indeed!

In that light, let me qualify my previous statement: the system of planetary days and hours, on its own without considerations of other systems of time, can be used by anyone to benefit everything, given a more-or-less Western or Hermetic understanding of the cosmos with seven planets.  The grammatēmerologion system uses the same seven planets, but is otherwise incompatible with the system of planetary days and hours.  Thus, they can’t really be used in tandem except by happenstance unless you have months (at a minimum) or centuries (if you want the whole shebang) to wait for a syzygy of letters and planets and days to occur.  I admit that I’m a little grieved by this, but I can’t say I’m completely surprised by the result.

So where does that leave us?  Honestly, my best solution is that it doesn’t matter.  So what if the systems don’t match up right?  They don’t need to!  They’re independent systems working on their own; there’s nothing wrong with that.  The system of planetary days and hours, of course, is definitely vetted and used across Western occulture, and it’s both simple and highly refined to achieve powerful results all on its own.  The grammatēmerologion system works, although it is experimental and used pretty much only by me and my household, yet calls upon the same forces.  So what if it calls for lunar rituals on a Tuesday?  According to the grammatēmerologion system, we don’t even have Tuesdays or any of the other days of the week; we have decamerons of ten days each based on the phase of the Moon, not (what might plausibly be argued) artificial cycles of seven days.  A debate between the theoretical efficacy of planetary days and hours versus that of grammatēmerologion is akin to arguing which set of elements is better to use, the Empedoclean/Western set of four or the Chinese system of five.  Arguing about it doesn’t make sense, since there’s no common ground to link the two together and compare or contrast against.

Now, this doesn’t mean I’ll break out my conjuration tools and call down Gabriel at sunrise on a Tuesday just because it happens to be the first day of the lunar month.  Planetary conjurations in the Trithemian-Solomonic-Hermetic system make use of the system of planetary days and hours, and I’m not one to force Gabriel to work with a system that he (nor the enclosing system he finds himself in) hasn’t vetted or agreed to.  Yes, I can just conjure Gabriel during a planetary hour of the Moon on a Tuesday, but that’s still relying on planetary hours and days.  Rather, in order to stick with the grammatēmerologion system in mathetic ritual and that system alone, a different approach to working with the planetary energies and forces is suggested here, one that can work with the seven planets as understood in Hermeticism as well as not being tied to the system of planetary days and hours as much of Solomonic work tends to be.  That’ll afford a deeper area of research, which can easily tie into my devotions as well as other offerings and sacrifices made throughout the rest of the grammatomantic lunar month.

Yes, it’s official.  I’m settling on the term γραμματημερολογιον grammatēmerologion as the official term for the lunisolar grammatomantic calendar, including its chronological ritual use to schedule magical rites and festivals.  Long story short, this is a lunisolar calendar that maintains the lunar synodic months of 29 or 30 days in a particular cycle of either 12 or 13 months for every year to keep track with the seasons and the solar year.  What makes this different is that the days of the lunar month, as well as the months and the years themselves, are attributed to the letters of the Greek alphabet, hence grammatomantic for their ritual and occult significations.  If for some reason, dear reader, you don’t know what I’m talking about yet, go read through those two posts I just linked and learn more.

At its core, the major use of the Grammatēmerologion system is to keep track of monthly ritual days.  Of the 29 or 30 days in a lunar month, 24 are attributed to the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet; three are attributed to the obsolete letters of the Greek alphabet that were phased out (Digamma, Qoppa, and Sampi); and the other two or three are simply unlettered days.  Each of the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet is associated with a particular elemental, planetary, or zodiacal force according to the rules of stoicheia, and by those associations to one or more of the old gods, daimones, and spirits of the ancient Greeks.  Thus, consider the second day of the lunar month; this day is given the letter Beta.  Beta is associated with the zodiacal sign Aries, and by it to the goddess Athena and her handmaiden Nike.  Thus, scheduling sacrifices and worship to Athena and her attendant spirits on this day is appropriate.  The rest goes for the other days that are associated to the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.  The three days given to the obsolete letters are given to the ancestral spirits of one’s family and kin (Digamma), one’s traditions and professions (Qoppa), and to culture heroes and the forgotten dead (Sampi).  The unlettered days have no ritual prescribed or suggested for them, and the best thing one can do is to clean up one’s house and shrines, carry out one’s chores, and generally rest.

Given a calendar or a heads-up of what day is what, that’s all most people will ever need to know about the Grammatēmerologion system.  Anything more is for the mathematicians and calendarists to figure out, although there are a few things that the others should be aware of.  For instance, there’s the problem of figuring out what months have 30 days (full months) and what months have 29 days (hollow months).  Add to it, in order to maintain a link between the lunar months and the solar year, we need to figure out which years need 13 months (full years) instead of the usual 12 (hollow years).  There’s a method to the madness here, and that method is called the Metonic cycle.  The cycle in question was developed by the Athenian astronomer Meton in the 5th century BCE, and he calculated that 19 solar years is nearly equal to within a few hours to 235 synodic months of the Moon.  Meton prescribes that for every 19 solar years, 12 of them should contain 12 synodic months and seven should contain 13; there should be a full year of 13 months after every two or three hollow years of 12 months.  Likewise, to keep the lunar month fixed to the actual phases of the Moon, a hollow month of 29 days should follow either one or two full months of 30 days.

Now, I won’t go into all the specifics here about exactly what month in what year of the Metonic cycle has 29 or 30 days or the gradual error that accumulates due to the Metonic cycle; that’ll be reserved for another text and another time.  Suffice it to say that Meton was very thorough in developing his system of 19 years and 235 days, figuring out when and where we should add or remove a day or a month here or there, and I’ve used his system in developing a program that calculates what the lunar date is of any given Gregorian calendar date.  (If you’re interested, email me and I’ll send you the Python code for private use only.)  If you want to read more about the specifics of the Metonic cycle developed and employed in ancient Greece, along with other calendrical schemes that the Metonic cycle was based on and influenced later on, I invite you to browse the six-volume work Origines Kalendariæ Hellenicæ by Edward Greswell from the 1860s (volumes one, two, three, four, five, and six).  Yes, this is a nasty endeavor, but hey, I did it, so you can too.

So, let’s take for granted that we have the Metonic cycle of hollow and full months and hollow and full years.  We have a cycle of 19 years that repeats; cool!  The problem is, where do we start the cycle?  Without having a start-point for our Metonic cycle, we don’t have a way of figuring out which year is which in the Metonic cycle.  In the post where I introduced the lunisolar grammatomantic calendar, I sidestepped this by using the same cycles as another lunisolar calendar that makes use of a system similar to (but isn’t exactly) the Metonic cycle, that of the Hebrew calendar.  However, after researching the differences between the two, I decided to go full-Meton, but that requires a start date.  This start date, formally called an epoch, would be the inaugural date from which we can count these 19-year cycles.  The question then becomes, what should that start date be?

Well, the structure of the lunisolar grammatomantic calendar is based on that of the Athenian calendar, which starts its years on the Noumenia (the first day after the New Moon) that immediately follows the summer solstice.  Looking back at history, I decided to go with June 29, 576 BCE.  No, the choice of this date wasn’t random, and it was chosen for three reasons:

• The New Moon, the day just before the Noumenia, occurred directly on the summer solstice.
• The summer solstice coincided with a total solar eclipse over Greece.
• This was the first year after the legislative reform of Solon of Athens in 594 BCE where the Noumenia coincided with the summer solstice so closely.

Thus, our first cycle of the Grammatēmerologion system begins on June 29, 576 BCE.  That date is considered the inaugural date of this calendrical system, and although we can track what the letters of the days, months, and years were before that, I’ve chosen that date to count all further dates from in the future.

Still, there’s a bit of a caveat here.  Recall that, in a 19-year cycle, there are 12 years with 12 months and seven years with 13.  12 is a nice number, but for the purposes of working with the Greek alphabet, we like the number 24 better.  Thus, instead of using a single Metonic cycle of 19 years, a grammatemerological cycle is defined as two Metonic cycles, i.e. 38 years.  Thus, in 38 years, there will be 24 hollow years and 14 full years.  At last, we can start assigning the Greek letters to periods longer than a day!  The 24 hollow years are the ones that have Greek letters, and these are given in order that they’re encountered in the grammatemerological cycle; the 14 full years, being anomalous, are left unlettered.

The only thing left now is to assign the letters to the months themselves.  In a year, we have either 12 or 13 synodic months, and that 13th month only occurs 14 times in a period of 38 years; we’ll make those our unlettered months.  Now, again, within a year, we only have 12 months, and we have 24 Greek letters to assign.  The method I choose to use here is to assign the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet to the 24 months in two successive years.  That means that, in the cycle of 38 years, the odd-numbered years will have month letters Α through Μ, and the even-numbered years will have month letters Ν through Ω.  This doesn’t mean that we’re redefining a year to be 24 (or 25) months, but that our cycle of associating the letters of the Greek alphabet makes use of two years instead of just one.  This is only cleanly possible with a dual Metonic cycle of 38 years, since a single Metonic cycle of 19 years would have both that final 19th year and the next initial first year both have month letters Α through Μ.

If you’re confused about the resulting system, I got your back.  Below are two charts I had already typed up (but really don’t wanna transcribe into HTML tables, although it feels awkward to take screenshots of LaTeX tables) that describe the complete system.  The first table shows what months are full and hollow within a single Metonic cycle of 19 years.  The second table shows what years and months within a dual Metonic cycle of 38 years get what letters.

Like I mentioned before, this is getting really in-depth into the mechanical details of a system that virtually nobody will care about, even if they find the actual monthly calendar useful in their own work.  Then again, I’m one of those people who get entranced by details and mathematical rigor, so of course I went through and puzzled this all together.  Ritually speaking, since we ascribe particular days to particular forces or divinities, we can now do the same for whole months and years, though with perhaps less significance or circumstance.

However, these details also yield an interesting side-effect to the Grammatēmerologion system that can be ritually and magically exploited: that of Μεγαλημεραι (Megalēmerai, “Great Days”) and Μεγιστημεραι (Megistēmerai, “Greatest Days”).  Because the day, month, and year of a given grammatemerological date each have a given letter, it’s possible for those letters to coincide so that the same letter appears more than once in the date.  So, for instance, on our epoch date of June 29, 576 BCE, this was the first day of the first month of the first year in a grammatemerological cycle; the letter of the day, month, and year are all Α.  In the second day of the second month of the first year, the letters of the day and month are both Β and the letter of the year is Α.  These are examples of a megistēmera and a megalēmera, respectively.

• A megalēmera or “Great Day” occurs when the letters of the day and the month are the same with a differing letter of the year.  A megalēmera occurs in every month that itself has a letter, so not in those 13th intercalary months in full years.  Because it takes two years to cycle through all 24 month letters, a particular megalēmera occurs once per letter every two years.
• A megistēmera or “Greatest Day” occurs when the letters of the day, month, and year are all the same.  A megistēmera can only occur in years and months that themselves have letters, so megistēmerai cannot occur in full years.  A particular megistēmera occurs once per letter every 38 years, but not all letters have megistēmerai.  Only the ten letters Α, Ε, Ζ, Κ, Λ, Ν, Ρ, Σ, Χ, and Ψ can receive megistēmerai due to the correspondence between the letters of the year and the letters of the month based on whether the year is odd or even.

In a sense, these are like those memes that celebrate such odd Gregorian calendrical notations such as 01/01/01 (January 1, 1901 or 2001) or 11/11/11 (November 11, 1911 or 2011).  However, we can use these particular dates as “superdays” on which any particular action, ritual, offering, or festival will have extra power, especially on the comparatively rare megistēmerai.  These days are powerful, with the force and god behind the letter of the day itself extra-potent and extra-important, and should be celebrated accordingly.  It’s similar to how the system of planetary days and hours work: yes, a planetary hour is powerful, and a planetary day is also powerful, and if you sync them up so that you time something to a day and hour ruled by the same planet, you get even more power out of that window of time than you would otherwise.  However, megalēmerai are comparatively common, with 12 happening every year, compared to megistēmerai, which might happen once every few years.

Consider the next megistēmera that we have, which falls on October 17, 2015.  In 2015, we find that June 17 marks the start of the new grammatemerological year; yes, I know that this falls before the summer solstice on June 21, but that’s what happens with lunar months that fall short of a clean twelfth of the year, and hence the need for intercalary months every so often.  The year that starts in 2015 is year 7 of the 69th cycle since the epoch date of June 29, 576 BCE.  According to our charts above, the seventh year of the grammatemerological cycle is given the letter Ε.  Since this is an odd-numbered year in the cycle, we know that our months will have letters Α through Μ, which includes Ε.  The letter Ε is given to the fifth month of the year, which begins on October 13.  We also know that the letter Ε is given to the fifth day of the month.  Thus, on October 17, 2015, the letter of the day will be Ε, the letter of the month will be Ε, and the letter of the year will be Ε.  Since all three letters are the same, this qualifies this day as a Megistēmera of Epsilon.  This letter, as we know from stoicheia, is associated with the planetary force of Mercury, making this an exceptionally awesome and potent day to perform works, acts, and rituals under Mercury according to the Grammatēmerologion system.  The following Megistēmera will be that of Zeta on November 25, 2017, making it an exceptionally powerful day for Hermes as a great generational day of celebration, sacrifice, and honor.

As noted before, only the ten letters Α, Ε, Ζ, Κ, Λ, Ν, Ρ, Σ, Χ, and Ψ can receive megistēmerai.  To see why Β cannot receive a megistēmerai, note that Β is assigned to the second year in the 38-year grammatemerological cycle.  Even-numbered years have months lettered Ν through Ω, and the letter Β is not among them.  This is a consequence of having the months be given letters in a 24-month cycle that spreads across two years.  We could sidestep this by having each month be given two letters, such as the first month having letters Α and Ν, the second month Β and Ξ, and so forth, but that complicates the system and makes it less clean.  Every letter receives two megalēmerai per grammatemerological cycle, but only these specified ten letters can receive megistēmerai; whether this has any occult significance, especially considering their number and what they mean by stoicheia, is something I’ve yet to fully explore.

So there you have it: a fuller explanation of the lunisolar grammatomantic calendar, known as the Grammatēmerologion system, to a depth you probably had no desire to investigate but by which you are now enriched all the same.  It’s always the simple concepts that create the most complicated models, innit?

Recently, I got back in touch with a good magical colleague of mine whom I hadn’t spoken to in a bit.  Not that anything was wrong, it was just that life got in the way of us having a good time.  Happily, our mutual absence from each other’s lives is now over, and we’re getting down to brainstorming some good ol’ fashioned powerworking, because we’re fancy like that.  My friend and I don’t exactly match much in what we do; I’m the fancy Hermetic quasi-Hellenic part-classical-part-Renaissance ritual magician, and my friend is basically a dirty, fabulous, conjuring, rootworking, Vodou-doing swamp witch.  We happily complement each other’s works, and although we’re kinda like night and day, there are a good number of places we overlap.

One night, we were discussing some traditional protection magic involving mirror boxes and representations made of ourselves to act as decoys in attracting maleficia. My friend brought up the idea of circling the representation in ash composed from burning copies of Psalm 23 and Psalm 91, both of which serve extremely well in spiritual protection and defense.  The notion of circling an image of oneself in ash struck me as peculiar, but also extraordinarily powerful.  The image of Tarot Trump XXII, the World, stuck in my head, and my mind made the leap to using Psalm 119 as the basis for such an ash as well.

After all, Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm in the Bible, and itself is longer than a good number of books from both the Old and New Testament.  It’s an example of an acrostic hymn, where each section begins with a different letter of the alphabet (in this case, the Hebrew script).  Thus, there are 22 sections of 8 verses each, each verse extolling a different virtue or blessing ascribed to the Law.  Because of it’s all-encompassing nature, it’s one of the most powerful psalms used in psalmic magic, like in conjurework and American folk magic.  Sometimes just a small section of the Psalm is used, and sometimes the entire psalm.

Add to it, the connection of the different sections of Psalm 119 with the Hebrew letters struck me as powerful.  I think my readers are already familiar with my affinity for alphabet magic, especially when it comes to Greek, but that’s not to say I discount the use of Hebrew.  After all, qabbalah is still a thing.  With each Hebrew letter represented in Psalm 119, the psalm truly does have a universal power that can affect, well, everything.  Every force in the Hebrew tradition (12 signs of the Zodiac, 7 planets, and 3 elements because Earth and Spirit aren’t a thing rabbinically speaking) is represented here, and is heavily involved in the modern understanding of the paths of the Tree of Life.  If we combine the powers of the building blocks of the cosmos with the already notable power of Psalm 119 as used in traditional magic, we can get a truly powerful result upon ourselves.

Thus, this ritual makes an ash with Psalm 119 and circles a representation of ourselves with it; we effectively encircle, fortify, and bless ourselves with all of creation and all of the blessings and promises of the Lord, while also orienting ourselves to the Law of God and our duties within it.  My swamp witch friend heard me out on this and we promptly queened out over the prospects of using this in a separate ritual.  After some discussion, we decided to draw out a recitation of the entire Psalm 119 over the course of a lunar month for a general, but profound, empowerment ritual to strengthen, bless, and help us in all our needs in life.  A tentative working name for this ritual might be “Anointing of the World’s Blessing”, given a structural similarity with the World card and what it actually does.

The ritual takes place over a full lunar month (30 consecutive days), broken down into several stages.  The way we’ve planned it, the ritual requires about 15 minutes per day, but it can be augmented as necessary according to your own preferences.

• Day 0 (New Moon, one day): preparation of supplies and altar
• Days 1 through 3 (three days): initial prayers
• Days 4 through 25 (22 days): Psalm prayers
• Days 26 through 28 (three days): final prayers
• Day 29 (Dark Moon, one day): thanksgiving and cleanup

The materia for this ritual are fairly simple and easily obtained:

• Four white candles (tealights work fine)
• Four seven-day candles (those 7-color glass-encased candles are perfect)
• A recent picture of yourself
• A printout of Psalm 119
• A Bible (any decent translation in your native language is good, but you can’t go wrong with the King James Version)
• A small glass jar or vial with airtight lid
• Olive oil

On the day of the New Moon, prepare your representation of yourself.  If you’re just using a picture of yourself, write out your full birth name, followed by “son/daughter/child of” the name of your mother, and your birthday and birthtime (if you have it), perhaps writing your name on it seven times to make a proper name paper out of it.  Once this is done, take the printout of Psalm 119 and burn it to ash.  On an altar or surface that you’ve already ritually cleaned off for the working, set the representation of yourself down and make a complete circle around it in the Psalm ash, and set the four 7-day candles around the circle aligned to the four cardinal directions.

Set one white candle on top of your representation (with at least some sort of protection between the candle base and your representation) and light it, letting it burn down completely, praying that the ritual to be used with them be purified and blessed with the grace and power of God.  Once the white candle has burned out later that day, dispose of it.

On the sunrise after the New Moon (the start of the Noumenia), begin the first three days of the ritual.  Light the candle aligned towards the East and face the East as well if you can (not required).  On sunrise of each of these three days, recite the Pater Noster once and the Gloria Patri three times.  Recite an adaption of the prayer from the Heptameron (normally to be used instead of invocations of the angels of the airs when working above the fifth heaven):

O God, mighty and merciful!
O God, great, excellent, and honored through endless ages!
O God, powerful, strong, and without beginning!
O God, wise, illustrious, just, and divinely loving!

I ask you, most holy Father, that I should complete and completely realize my work, labor, and petition, You who live and reign, world without end.  Bless me in all times, in all days, in all places, in all ways.  Let boundless bounty and blessing come to me from the four corners of the world.  Help me, o Lord, in my life that I may come to be girded by the strength and aid of the world, subject only to You.  Amen.

On the sunrise of the fourth day, go to the altar and face East if you can (not required).  Recite the following prayer over the altar:

O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
O God, make speed to save me.
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

On this day, pray the first section of verses (Psalm 119:1-8) corresponding to the Hebrew letter Aleph.  As is traditional, it’s important to actually read this from a hardcopy Bible, but that’s only if you care about being traditional.  After praying this section of Psalm 119, meditate briefly on the meaning and content of the section just recited, closing with a silent prayer for the blessing of the world to infuse your life, empower you, strengthen you, illumine you, and assist you in all undertakings.

Repeat this process for the next 21 days, reciting each of the sections of Psalm 119 in turn.  Thus, on the fifth day, recite the second section of Psalm 119 (Bet); on the sixth, the third section (Gimel); on the seventh, the fourth section (Dalet); and so on until the 25th day, reciting the 22nd section (Tav).  Eventually, the 7-day candle you lit earlier will burn out; on the next sunrise, light the next candle going in a clockwise direction (so East, South, West, then North).  The first three candles should have burned out by the 25th day, with more than half of the fourth and final candle having been consumed.  If they burn longer than expected, set alight the next candle on the expected day using the flame from the old candle; if they burn shorter than expected, set alight the next candle on the expected day rather than immediately.

On the 26th day, begin the process of closing the ritual for the final three days.  The process is the similar to the first three days: on sunrise of each of these three days, recite the Pater Noster once and the Gloria Patri three times. Finally, recite Matthew 7:7-8 from the Bible:

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Ideally, the candle-verse breakdown should go like this:

1. Three days of preliminary prayer, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet
2. Heh, Vav, Zayin, Chet, Tet, Yod, Kaph
3. Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samekh, Ayin, Peh, Tzaddi
4. Qoph, Resh, Shin, Tav, three days of final prayer

On the 29th day, the day before the New Moon (maybe two days depending on the specific month we’re in), all the candles should have burnt out entirely.  This is the final day of the ritual when all the other work has been done.  First, take your picture and burn it to an ash, then collect the rest of the ash from the Psalm 119 printout and mix it together.  If there’s any wax or soot residue from the four seven-day candles, take a small scraping from each candle and mix it with the ash.  Get a small vial of good olive oil and mix the ash in fully and well.  Dispose of the rest of the remains from the ritual, then set the vial of ash where your picture used to sit, and set three white candles close around the vial.  Light them and make an offering of praise in thanksgiving to God for his help and blessing in your life; I recommend the thanksgiving prayers I use, based on Draja Mickaharic’s prayer from the Old Testament.  Pray over the oil mixed with the ash that it may assist you henceforth in all your undertakings, both those you desire and those you ought to desire, in the things you do and the things you ought to do, that you may always receive the blessing and strength and courage of the Lord in all your life.  Let the candles burn down completely.  Once they’ve burned out, the ritual is complete and finished.

The oil mixed with the ash is to be kept safe as a special and private anointing oil for yourself.  It’s intrinsically tied to you and your life, and not to be used by others or on the tools of others, only on you and your tools in your workings.  Anoint yourself with this oil (perhaps using Psalm 23, perhaps using my own prayer of anointing that you might find useful) before any working or operation, even if it’s a mundane thing like going to an interview; heck, anoint yourself with it upon rising every day.  This oil is a blessing for you in addition to having received the blessings from praying Psalm 119 itself.

Some suggestions for alternatives or enhancements to the ritual:

• Instead of using the preface prayer (O Lord, open thou my lips…) to the sections of Psalm 119, you might use Psalm 23 instead, which is also appropriate here.
• A la my daily mathetic letter meditations, you may find it helpful to do a similar meditation ritual for the letter of the section of Psalm 119 being meditated upon, complete with a visualization of the Hebrew letter itself and projecting it and the sounds of the letter into the ash.
• If you’d like to focus the entire ritual to a particular end rather than a general empowerment, dress the candles and your representation with an appropriate oil, as well as the Psalm printout before you burn it.  You could also write out the intention of the ritual on the back of your photo as well, writing it in a circle around your name and birth information.
• Consider dedicating the four candles to the four archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel in their appropriate directions (using whatever associations you prefer for this), and invoke them on each day their specific candles are burning.  Going with the Tarot theme, you might place the Kings of the Tarot under each candle (King of Wands for Michael, King of Swords for Raphael, etc.) and place the World card under yourself.  In the picture of my working setup above, you can see that I did just this, with the World card hidden under the silver platter with my picture and the ashes.
  
• I only clean off a ritual surface with a light wash of Florida water and holy water (obtained from a church is always a good choice, but you can make it on your own, too), but you might enhance the ritual area by drawing an empowerment sigil under your representation, lining the surface with crossroads dirt, writing sacred verses from the Bible around your representation to be covered with the Psalm ash, or the like.
• The ritual above says only one section of Psalm 119 per day during the main part of the ritual month.  You might also consider saying the entire psalm each day, or building up to saying the entire psalm over the course of the month (saying the Aleph section on the first day of this part of the month, Aleph and Beta on the second, Aleph through Gimel on the third, until the final day when you say the entire Psalm 119).
• I know that there are angels for each of the letters of the Greek alphabet, and I’m sure that a similar set of angels exist for the letters of the Hebrew script, though I don’t know (yet) of one.  You might consider doing an invocation of the letter-angel on each day corresponding to the particular section of Psalm 119 being said.  Alternatively, you might consider invoking the angel associated with the force that is associated with each Hebrew letter (e.g. Heh is associated with Aries, so invoke the angel of Aries, Malkhidael; Aleph is associated with Air, so invoke the angel of Air, Raphael).  You can find these names courtesy of Agrippa (book II, chapter 7 for the elements, chapter 10 for the planets, chapter 14 for the signs).
• If you want to be more Jewish about this, instead of reciting the prayers at sunrise, try doing them at sunset when the Jews consider their days to start.
• To be honest, I hadn’t originally considered saving the ash from the Psalm and mixing it with the photo to turn it into an anointing oil, but hey, “waste not, want not”.  Instead of doing that, you could save the ash with the picture (not burning it) and turning it into a mojo bag or other similar charm to keep with you.
• You might consider using a lodestone or magnet lightly dusted with the Psalm 119 ash and placing it on top of your image so that it attracts all the blessings of the world to you.  This magnet would be placed into the vial of oil to continue drawing the blessings to it and to you over time.  I don’t prefer doing this, only because with the ritual, there’s no need to attract anything from the world that you’re already the center of; all of the cosmos revolves around you in this ritual layout.  There are arguments for and against this, and I can see benefits for doing both.  Experiment!
• If you want to speed up the process, you might be able to condense the whole working into seven days.  The first day would be for setup and opening prayers (days 0 through 3) and the last day for closing prayers and thanksgiving (days 26 through 29).  The intermediate five days would go more-or-less as usual, except that you’d recite four sections of Psalm 119 a day: open with section Aleph, two of the sections of the psalm (Beth and Gimel, Dalet and Heh, Vav and Zayin, Cheth and Teth, etc.), then close with section Tav.  This maintains a coherency along the entire week, but in a faster manner.  Still, why rush it?  Why use the microwave when you can have a slow-cooked, higher-quality meal instead?
• As with any prolonged ritual working, this may have some unintended side-effects.  Read through the entire psalm first before deciding whether you want to use this ritual.  I honestly didn’t expect this ritual to have as many effects as it did, not all of which were entirely pleasant to go through, but I’m glad it did.

I was doing a reading not too long ago with someone who was beset on all sides with spiritual problems.  We went through the usual gamut of potential causes for issues like poor health, decreased vitality, constant bad luck, and the like: spiritual obsession or possession by a spirit, being cursed, fucking up against spirits, and the like.  During my investigation, I kept getting the image that this dude is a little spiritually imbalanced in several ways, but also that he ended up crossed rather than cursed.  The distinction here is crucial: being cursed indicates that someone has been actively working magic against you, while being crossed indicates that you’ve messed up and you’re having to pay the penalty for it.  There are lots of ways you can get yourself crossed: taking a bath in a sacred spring, having sex in a graveyard, and generally bringing pollution into a place where pollution is verboten. Generally, if you’ve done something to insult or injure a spirit through negligence or desecration, chances are that they’re going to fight back and punish you for it.  That said, there are other ways you can insult a spirit, some of which can be downright sinister, even if you don’t mean for it to be so.

Well, it so happens that this dude mentioned that, at one point, he had made a vow.  Not just any vow: he had made a vow to Jesus Christ to stop smoking.  No conditions, no leeway, no ways out.  Simply, no more smoking, period.  Dude’s a smoker, and I can understand; the buzz of nicotine is kinda awesome, but it quite quickly becomes addictive, and there are the litanies of health problems associated with smoking.  He mentioned also, however, that he never stopped smoking, and that he’s also had energy problems, especially involving his chest area, like something is just being sucked out of him.  He figured that, even after he made his vow, one little cigarette once in a while wouldn’t hurt.  Sure, he noticed his life getting better once he quit, but after that first cigarette that couldn’t really hurt, his life took another downturn, but didn’t think much of it.

After doing a few more checks with divination, yeah, it turns out that this was a major cause of his spiritual issues.  Not the one single root cause, but definitely a contributing factor in what was going on with his life.  And, further, that yes, OF COURSE he needs to stop smoking.  I told him off in no uncertain terms that he’s done smoking now forever; he made a vow, he broke his vow, and his life has been getting shittier because of it.  There’s no excuse, no ifs-ands-or-buts here.  He needs to stop smoking pronto cold turkey and completely.  Quitting smoking is a GOOD THING on so many levels for this dude.

Vows and promises made to the gods are sacred, powerful things.  They are one of the last, ultimate, final tools I use in my work with the gods, because once a vow is made, you’re locked into it.  There is no getting out of it unless the one with whom you made a vow has released you from it.  A vow is a contract, and breaching that contract is no bueno.  Breaking a vow is a surefire way to get crossed, if not killed, and there is going to be a penalty exacted on your vow-breaking ass.  You have no excuse when you make a vow and then break it; spirits expect you to be true to your word, especially if you expect them to be true to theirs.  If you show yourself as trustworthy to a spirit, especially a god or God, and you go back and shatter that trust by doing exactly what you said you wouldn’t, or conversely by not doing what you said you would do, they’re going to (at a minimum) cease any blessing or aid they’ll give you.  More likely, they’ll make it a point to show you “yo, you done fucked up”.

Sometimes, vows are more like taboos.  Consider the readings that Santeros get, their ita, that indicates proscribed actions or foodstuffs.  Some people can’t eat red food, or food that has touched open flame; some can’t go into open-air markets; some can’t wear all black; some can’t be in the same room as a particular type of practitioner.  These aren’t necessarily vows, per se, but taboos, sacred prohibitions that will have a cost if they’re done, especially after the saints told you “yo, don’t do this”.  Do them if you want, but don’t be surprised when you eat that grilled steak and you’re the only person at the dinner party who got food poisoning.  If the spirits tell you to act a certain way and if you agree with that, don’t act contrary to what they said.  Sometimes they’re looking out for your own benefit; sometimes they want you to act in a certain way to serve them better.  Listen to them.  Don’t ignore them.  Don’t disrespect them.  Don’t reneg on them.

So, in that light, here’s some tips for you to make good vows:

• If there is literally any other way to get something accomplished, don’t make vows.
• Never make vows when on a spiritual, chemical, or emotional high.
• Only make vows after you have soberly and seriously thought them through and in all possible circumstances.
• Never get strong-armed or forced into making a vow you don’t want unless you literally have no other recourse open to you.
• Never make a vow that you can’t keep.
• Never make a vow that requires the actions or dependencies of other people.
• Only make vows that require your own actions.
• If possible, build conditions into the vow: time limits (“for the next lunar month”), conditions (“as long as I am dating so-and-so”), and the like are all totally legit.
• Never, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER break a vow once made.  What comes to you later for breaking it is well-deserved and I will have no pity for you.

For some reason, Fr. Rufus Opus (who, I might add, is still not me) claims that I’m his best student.  I don’t really agree with him, since I think I just write more than the rest of his students, but he claims that I’m one of the minority of his students who took his courses and ran with it, not only developing my own style of magic but also implementing them in the way he envisioned his students to do so: to rule your life like a King.  No, I’m not going to wax poetically and jovially about how awesome it is to do conjurations of the planetary angels, rise through the seven spheres, or scarlet women.  He does that enough on his own.

I’m going to make explicit something he doesn’t always say: rulership sucks ass.

It’s not that being king (or queen, or gender-unspecific ruler) of your life is a bad thing.  Far from it, really!  It’s one of the best things you can do, and I’d argue something that every capable human being should attempt at all points in their lives.  He makes it clear, especially in his most recent book, that it really is up to you to make your life how you best can make it.  He’s not rehashing The Secret or new age tripe like that, either.  He’s not saying that if you put out positive vibes you’ll get positive returns; he’s not saying that you should be pious and chaste and virtuous like a meek and mild lamb.  He tells you to get off your ass, find your problems, and deal with them as a ruler does their kingdom.  In the process, you understand more about yourself; you understand more about what makes you, your environment, your enemies, your allies, and your world tick; you understand more about God and the gods and the heavens and the hells; you understand how to work with spirits and powers and forces beyond imagination.  With this knowledge, you get power; with this power, you get results.  That’s it in a nutshell, but it encapsulates everything.

The problem is, however, that not everything is going to agree with you or accept you.  Not everything is easy.  Not everything is kind.  Kingdoms have problems.  The world has problems.  Human life has problems.  You have problems, dear reader, and trying to lie about that fact is shameful.  The first step to overcoming your problems is to admit you have them.

That’s one of the most painful parts about this whole magic and theurgy business.  You have to not only confront your problems, but work with them in a way that resolves them.  You are forced to shove your nose into your own shit time and time again, perhaps realizing that, yes, this is indeed some shit, and that you really should try better or fix things so that there’s less shit next time around (and yes, there will be a next time).  You have to conjure up your own demons, not just the elemental demonic princes or the kings of Hell, but the ones lodged inside your own psyche, and debate with them, wrestle with them, sometimes get pinned down by them in the hopes of kicking them out of the conjuration circle once and for all.  You have to contend with the fact that, sometimes, life is not going to give you what you think you need in order to succeed, and you have to make do with your own lack of preparedness and readiness in order to progress.  You have to deal with your problems any way you can, and often enough, your problems aren’t easy to deal with.

Rulership is about choices.  Every (and I do mean every) choice you make, even avoidance of making choices, changes everything.  Sometimes you make a choice without thinking, either due to instinctive habit or conditioning from birth.  Sometimes you make a choice with incomplete knowledge.  Sometimes you make a choice with all the best knowledge and hopes in the world and everything still turns to shit.  Every choice you make results in a benefit you obtain, a cost you pay for, and accountability that you must be responsible for.  While all of us like the benefits, and a few of us are okay with paying the costs, it’s rare for people to willingly take responsibility for their actions, reactions, emotions, thoughts, and words.

That, however, is the crux of rulership: taking responsibility for yourself, both in the choices you’ve made and those you are going to make.  It truly is the cross that the ruler bears, because when you’re a ruler of your kingdom, everything that happens is going to be traced back to you in some way, shape, or form.

A king (or queen, ruler, tigron, whatever) manages their kingdom.  They manage the defenses and the boundaries, the laws and the public welfare, the discipline and strength, the identity and the pride, the harvest and the wealth, the communication and the transport, the security and the love of the whole kingdom.  Yes, they often don’t do it alone, and have guards, patrols, magistrates, legislature, generals, captains, overseers, messengers, and community leaders help take that burden off their shoulders somewhat, but all authority is derived from the king, and so all decisions made in the name of the king are made, effectively, by the king.  Thus, all choices are traced back to the king, and if there’s a problem anywhere in this chain of manifestation from king to pleb, it’s the king’s fault for not managing things properly.  If there’s a problem with the land, water, air, travelers, traders, or invaders, then it’s not necessarily the king’s fault for those, but however the king reacts to them and manages them as they pop up in his kingdom will be.

In the system of Hermetic magic that Fr. RO teaches, he gives you all the tools, education, and experiences you need to know what the chains of manifestation are, who to contact for help, who manages what, where things come from, and how to put your own plans into action.  He prepares you, effectively, for becoming king of your own life.  He does not take responsibility for you, however, and he can only help so much if you have problems of your own.  His real help lies in teaching you how to solve your own problems, as well as solving those that crop up in your life without your agreement, because this shit happens and it’s up to us to learn how to deal with them the best way we can with the best means we have available to us.  It is this education that surpasses any ritual, any tool construction, any talisman consecration; it is this that is the real meat and bones of Hermeticism.  Everything else is garnish or flatware.

Fr. RO may call it kingship.  I call it true humanity.  Same diff, really, I just don’t like to sugarcoat (whiskeysoak?) things as much as he does.

Life has shitty problems of many kinds.  We may be born into shitty circumstances.  We may have shitty bodies.  We may have shitty emotional imbalances.  We may have shitty job opportunities.  We may live during a time of shitty politics and shittier warfare.  We may have shitty plagues infesting and killing off our already shitty cities.  We make shitty choices.  We make (not have) shitty reactions.  We make shitty comments.  We make shitty alliances.  We make shitty food and drink selections.  Some of this shit that happens to us is not our fault.  Some of it is.  Regardless, we are not the first generation to have to deal with all this shit.  We’re the most recent, which means that every generation before us has had to deal with this same shit over and over and over again.  And you know what’s awesome?  Humanity has lived through it all, and now it’s our turn.  What makes us magicians and kings and true humans different, however, is that we can make the best of it instead of just enduring it all.  That’s the big thing that few people recognize: a magician’s job isn’t just to live through all this shit, but to adjust to it, fix it, and make this shit less shitty for ourselves and, if you’re up to it, those who come after us

One of the upshots to all this is that you don’t have to go it alone.  You know that one new age greeting, “the light in me recognizes the light in you”? That’s actually a thing, people.  Kings recognize each other.  We see other rulers, and other potential rulers, in the people around us.  We understand what they’re going through, because we’ve already done the work that they’re doing or are about to do.  We know what they go through.  They know what we go through.  We help each other out.  Just as any smart-minded kings, we make alliances, coalitions, treaties, and agreements with other kings.  We build networks of support, even just as friends who do their own things individually but who come together in a time of need.  When problems get too big for any one king, other kings step in to shoulder the burden.  It’s part of that whole chain of manifestation thing, but on a broader level.  It’s okay to ask for help.  If you need it, ask.  It’s better to be humble and ask for help than proud and dead when it comes to rulership, because people can’t depend on a dead king.  Your life can’t be excellent when you’re dead, because you by definition have no life.

Every tool, every ritual, every seal, every tincture, every spirit you make use of should always be used to help you rule your own kingdom.  Every magical implementation and technique should be geared for your own use to solve your own problems.  It’s rarely easy, of course, but that’s why we do this.  If it were easy, we wouldn’t be talking about this, RO wouldn’t have put a book out on it, and we’d all be already in Heaven.

Life sucks.  Rulership sucks.  But rulership, done rightly, can make life suck a lot less, and that’s what makes rulership worth it.  It’s what makes theurgy worth it.  It’s what makes magic worth it.  It’s what makes life worth it.  Nobody promised you an easy life; nobody promised Obama an easy nation; nobody promised Octavian an easy empire.  It may be hard to be a ruler over your own life, but it sure beats the hell out of being subject to your own life.

I try to be an avid reader in my copious spare time, and I don’t mean with my ever-expanding RSS feed that aggregates occult, religious, pagan, current event, and the occasional comic blog.  My living room at home could always use more bookshelves, and of the three people in my house, I’m the one supplying over 95% of the books, because of course magicians have books.  Not all of them are on astrology, divination, conjuration, Hermeticism, or goetia, though.  I have a strong penchant for works of the realm of pure imagination, which is to say fiction books.

One of my favorite fiction books ever, and one I highly recommend anyone interested in the brand of magic I pursue, is Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle.  It appears to be out of print, but you can still find plenty of good used copies anywhere online.  Basically, the premise of the book is this: what if the world we lived in obeyed Aristotelian physics, the cosmos was geocentric with actual crystalline spheres of the planets nesting around us, and history took a drastically different turn during the reign of Alexander the Great that continued the supremacy of Athens and Sparta across the Western world for another millennium?  It’s a fantastic exercise in exploring an alternative reality and an alternative history all at once, told in the style of a first-person Homeric epic.  Besides its good story and good world-building (of which Richard Garfinkle is an expert, I claim), this is one of the essential books any Hermeticist should read at least once.

However, it’s not all about alchemy and astrology and celestial navigation, since the empire of the Delian League isn’t the only contender for world domination.  There’s also the Middle Kingdom, which some of you may recognize as a translation of 中國, referring to China, and they have their own notions of how the world works that doesn’t obey the laws of Aristotle and the alchemists.  The Delian League can’t for the life of them figure out how Middler technology works with its weird energy flows, nor can the Middle Kingdom figure out the senselessness of Delian alchemy and science.  This goes right down to some of their fundamental notions of science and philosophy that shape their entire worldview, such as the connection between science and medicine.  The Athenian Academic Aias, at one point, interrogates the rural Middler Dr. Zi about what Aias perceives to be highly advanced Middler spy communication technology:

“Why does an ordinary doctor know about this?” I asked.

“Medicine is the foundation of science.” he said in the same mechanical way I might recite Aristotle’s laws of motion.

I had seen that sentence in several texts on Taoist science but had never believed they meant it.  To our science, medicine was an offshoot of zeology, the study of life, and anthropology, the study of man.  No Academic could believe that such a minor offshoot subject could be the cornerstone from which an understanding of the world could be built. (page 158)

Later, after some fairly big conflict in the story, Aias interrogates the Taoist scientist Phan, sent on a death mission to kill Aias and sabotage his mission, about how Phan can know so much about medicine:

“Are you a doctor?” I said, recalling Dr. Zi’s peculiar claim of a connection between the whole of Middler science and their medicine.

Phan’s face wrinkled in contempt. “Certainly not.”

“Then how will you cure him?”

He switched to ‘Ellenic. “I know medicine.”

“But you said you weren’t a doctor,” I said in ‘Unan.

Phan’s black eyes lit with a sudden understanding. “A doctor only knows medicine.  A scientist must go beyond that simple beginning.  Medicine is the foundation stone of alchemy, and alchemy the foundation stone of science.” (page 256)

I see this kind of fundamental difficulty in trying to understand different occult systems replete throughout modern occulture.  We take certain fundamental axioms as truly universal and, worse, for granted based on the system we find our intellectual “home” in, and when we try to apply them to other systems that don’t share those axioms, we run into wall after wall after insurmountable wall.  Trying to apply a Celtic understanding of the world, for instance, to Egyptian metaphysics tries to combine two radically different systems that are based upon different rules and develop them differently into two radically different cosmologies.  It’s not impossible to truly learn a different system, as I’ve mentioned before several times over, but it’s hard, because we essentially have to unlearn everything and start from the ground up in a totally new land that we’re unfamiliar with.  It’s especially hard because we’re always tempted to bring a little of what we’re used to to this new land, and it often has no place right out of the box.

That said, I’ve found an easier way to go about learning a new system, and Aias describes how he became the first Academic from the Delian League to ever understand Middler science:

“We seem to be having a language problem,” I said to Phan.  “Let us start from first principles.  You know the atomic theory, of course.”

“I have seen that phrase in your books, but I have never understood it.”

“Atomic theory says that everything in the terrestrial world is made of minute pieces of earth, air, fire, and water. The material properties of an object can be changed by modifying the amount of each element it contains.”

Phan shook is head. “Anything can be in a state of earth, air, fire, water, or wood,” he said. “The ten thousand things are changed into one another by the natural flow of transformation.”

We continued to argue about basics for half an hour.  I explained that matter and form were fundamental to the behavior of objects.  He declared them to be accidents, saying that the flow and transformation of things lay at the heart of all science.  At the end of that time we had found no common ground, but we were both very thirsty… (page 250)

“I need to know more about your science,” I said to Phan.

“Tell me how to teach you,” he said.  There was a quiet glow in his dark eyes and something lay on his shoulders that made his seventy-year-old frame look younger and stronger. “If you can learn to learn, then perhaps I can as well.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I need to know your science, also,” he said, and his eyes grew brighter. “But where do we begin?”

“At the weakest point in the barrier between us,” I said.  “The walls of theory are too high; let us start with practice.  Show me your equipment.  Pretend that I am not a scientist. Pretend that I am some ignorant bureaucrat who wants an explanation of your work so he can make out reports.”

The old man smiled and bowed. “Will you do the same for me?”

“Of course.”

Over the next week, Phan and I gave each other basic introductions to the paraphernalia of our sciences.  I showed him how we used rare and dense air to create forced motion, and he showed me how gold, silver, and cinnabar placed along Xi flow could modify or control natural motion. Slowly, the dark cavern in my heart began to grow bright with a second vision of the universe, one of change and flow instead of matter and form. And as the light of practical work grew from a flickering candle to a solar beacon, it illuminated the bewildering Taoist texts I had studied over the years but had gained nothing from. (page 299)

We don’t call it the Study.

We don’t call it the Theory.

We don’t call it the Lesson.

We call it the Work, because we have to make it work.  Theory, study, and lessons aren’t enough; they’re all well and good in the abstract, but unless you can pull those things down and apply them in the real world, they get locked up in an isolated ivory tower, and they lock you up with it.

In my experience, the best way to understand how a different tradition works is to go out and see what it does.  Not what it believes or what it claims to exist, but actually what it does.  It’s the Work, the hands-on practical use and application of the tradition, that shows what it does and how it does it.  I mean, consider what the ancestors of our ancestors were doing when they first stumbled upon this stuff.  They had no preexisting theories, no cosmologies; they had the land around them and shit happening because of unseen forces.  They acted in a certain way, and the unseen forces and the land reacted in a certain manner.  It was only after they started codifying and assembling what they learned did the theories come around, and based on what each tribe of ancestors thought was most important (warmth from snow, harvesting enough fish, protection from tornadoes, warding off plague, etc.), they would have focused on different things to do, and thus the theories they developed would have been different.

Thus far in my occult life, I’ve come in contact with Santería, Palo, Quimbanda, Aztec and Mayan stuff, Celtic stuff (both neopagan and reconstructionist), Ásatrú, Thelema, esoteric Judaism, and so many other traditions both modern and ancestral.  No, they’re not all compatible to practice side-by-side.  No, they don’t agree on why the world works or what a particular entity is or whether a particular thing is ruled by a class of spirits.  No, they don’t all think the same things are important.  And you know what?  That’s all entirely okay, because what they all do is manage the bullshit we have in life.  They all manage to achieve particular ends using a particular set of techniques, and that’s what we see first and that’s what we continue with when we learn a new system.  Just because they have different and often-conflicting ways to describe the cosmos doesn’t mean they’re not internally coherent within their own individual traditions.

Forget the theory and cosmology and cosmogony; all that will come with time.  If you never saw something fall to the ground, why would you believe gravity to exist?  If you never had to undergo a shortage of healthy and safe food, why would you believe food poisoning or famine in another country to exist?  Humans have to see to believe, and we like hands-on stuff the best to drive the strongest points home.  Once we figure out what can happen, we can eventually puzzle out why it happens based on what we know and the hypotheses and explanations we devise that we can put to further testing.

But even then, it all comes down to Work, and when explaining your work, never start with “why”.  Ask “what” or “how”.  What are the tools you use?  How would you describe the effect a particular tool has when used in a particular way?  What are the forces you call upon?  What are their names?  How do they interrelate and interact?  How do you gain confirmation that something works?  How do you gain information about something you don’t know yet?  What do you need to achieve a particular end?

Remember: without work, you’re not doing the Work.  See the work that others do to understand their Work.

2014 has been an awesome year for many reasons.  Yeah, parts of it sucked, because life sucks.  Most of it rocked, because life rocks.  It’s a thing, you know?  This whole humanity deal we have going on?  You know what I’m talking about.

Well, I can definitely say that I’ve written more for this blog, as well as a number of ebooks (another cool thing I started doing this past year!) than I ever envisioned.  Between grammatomancy, Saint Cyprian, angel works, and mathesis, it’s been an awesome year, but now it’s time for a break.  Since I’m going on a few weeks’ vacation from work, I may as well take a vacation from writing as well, so this will be a temporary parting of ways until the New Year.  After all, I should give my fingers and wrists a rest from the keyboard and put them to other worthwhile ends.  Similarly, dear reader, I hope you can take these last few days of 2014 for yourself, exploring your own mysteries, magic, and methods to make your life better in every which way possible.

For now, I’m out.  I’ll be back after the ball drops, maybe a bit later depending on how hungover I am.

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 December 2014.  (Yes, I know that I’m currently on vacation, but I can’t pass up this fun post.)

“instant satan posses my huge cock” — I mean, I’ve seen multiple porn comics with this as the plotline, but it’s generally not the best of things.  Either your cock starts devouring others (cockvore), starts turning others into a bigger cock as you fuck them (cock transformation), or becomes a nuisance when it never goes flaccid (demonic Viagra).  There are other ways you can have a good time, believe me.

“hallucinogens used with burning candles” — No hallucinogen requires candles, strictly speaking; you just intake them in the proper way, although depending on the culture there may be some ritual involved that can call for candles.  That said, once you begin your fantastic fun trip, remember: cars, guns, and fire are all real things and they will actually hurt you.  Respect them and have fun!

“view big black cock dick images on twetter images” — I don’t host those on my Twitter account, and I have no afterdark account with more racy content to speak of.  I regret that I cannot oblige those requests, but I’m sure there are other Twitter accounts that can help.  You might try Reddit, though; /r/MassiveCock might satisfy your needs, if I hear correctly.

“planetary days and hours calculator for gambling?” — Planetary hour calculators are a dime a dozen online and I don’t provide one, so keep searching for those.  That said, times of Venus are especially good for gambling, in my opinion; Venus has her joy in the fifth house of astrology and geomancy, the house that presides over gambling and all speculative interests, and in the ancient Roman game of knucklebones or tali one of the best throws possible was the iactis Veneris, the throw of Venus.  In my opinion, go with the Golden Girl of Gambling, Venus, but also invoke Fortuna, too!

“what is + talisman of wisdom key of solomon pentacle seal pendant hermetic enochian kabbalah” — So, basically, you’re asking about the bulk of commonly known Renaissance Hermetic stuff?  Here, lemme do you a favor: go to Esoteric Archives and just read, since a good chunk of pretty much this entire search query is already there in full for free.

“very cocks congolais” —

“16 geomantic symbols and their deities name” — This is actually a pretty interesting idea that I haven’t gotten around to yet, associating each of the 16 geomantic figures with different deities.  I know something very similar is done with the 16 odu in Ifa, and the Chain of Saint Michael (a southern Italian variant of geomancy) assigns each of the figures to a different Catholic saint, and some forms of Arabic geomancy associate the figures with different patriarchs of Islam.  I’m sure other regional traditions assigns each of the figures to a different deity in their own cultures, but Western geomancy by and large doesn’t do this.  The closest thing I can think of is to take the zodiac sign associated with the figure (depending on which zodiacal attribution system you prefer, since there are several) and use Cornelius Agrippa’s Scale of Twelve (book II, chapter 14) to associate each zodiac sign with one of the 12 Olympians.  Alternatively, you might just go with the planetary divinities associated with the geomantic figure, as might be done in Jyotish (Hindu) astrology, where Caput Draconis is associated with Rahu and Cauda Draconis with Ketu.  Sixteen isn’t that popular a number in most Western systems of mythology or theology, so this would take some thinking, but it’s possible all the same.

“fiery wall of protection makes people be nice to you” — That’s not generally the point of Fiery Wall of Protection oil; it’s to keep the bad stuff at bay with force, not to make people approach you sweetly.  I use cinnamon and red sandalwood in my recipe, both of which can be associated with Venus for sweetening and love magic, but in this context they take on a much more fiery and defensive tone that make them herbs of glorious soldiers than pretty women.

“myst drinking game” — YES.  I’ve been looking for one for years, until I gave up and just made up my own.  I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who’s been looking for the existence of such a thing.

“which greek god rules labradorite” — As far as I know, no Greek god has come forth to own this particular mineral.  It’s only fairly recently discovered to the West in about the 1800s, and even then mostly in the far north of Northern America (though there are some good deposits in Finland and northern Russia, as well).  Given its associations with rainbows, it might be given to Eos (Dawn), Iris (Rainbow), or other celestial divinities of the northern hemisphere, but these are all pretty big stretches for me.

“geomancy to determine career” — Look at the 10th house.  That’s really about it.  The figure can tell you how a particular career will go (if you’re asking about one in particular), or the type of career you’ll have (if not).

“geomancy and bagua compared” — This is one thing that always peeves me off as a Western geomancer.  Despite their superficial similarities, geomancy as developed in northern Africa and spread across the Western, African, and Middle Eastern world is pretty much guaranteed to have no common origins or shared meaning with the Chinese I Ching, which predates geomancy by over a thousand years.  I Ching makes use of eight trigrams (binary figures of three lines) or 64 hexagrams (binary figures of six lines), while geomancy makes use of 16 tetragrams (binary figures of four lines), but the superficial similarities stop there.  The bagua in particular is the set of eight trigrams arranged in a particular pattern to demonstrate an ideal flow of qi or energy.

“saint michael elekes color” — The usual disclaimer here applies where I make mention that I’m not crowned in Ocha and have no formal ties to Santeria.  That said, it’s hard for me to get any reliable information about which orisha is most closely associated with Saint Michael (or San Miguel in Spanish).  Some sources associate him with Ogun (black and green, the blacksmith-warrior), Chango (white and red, the lightning-axe king of orisha), or even Eleggua (black and red, the road-opener).  What elekes I can find for Saint Michael are red and green in color, which is unusual since these would be the Golden Dawn colors for the element of Fire with which Michael is associated, even though red and green elekes are often given to the Nigerian tradition of Orunla (the diviner god of Ifa) or sometimes to a specific avatar of Oshun (the river goddess of wealth and sexuality, but here a fierce and sometimes sadistic hunter).  Because of this disparity of information, I’d recommend talking to your local Santero/a and asking them, but be aware that no two Santeros may have the same answer based on their own house’s tradition.

“do u need a ritual to conjure a demon” — It depends on what you consider a ritual.  For some people, a ritual can be a full-blown Solomonic affair with circles, robes, candles, incense, a week or more of preliminary prayers and baths, all culminating in a conjuration.  For others, it could be no more than clearing the mind and calling out to the spirit by their name.  Some people just naturally attract these types of forces to them, some people attract them to themselves because of the work they do (e.g. in graveyards, with those who are dying, in war-torn areas), so it might not take much to bring out such a spirit.  Sometimes a spirit can take residence in a particular place, and all you need to do is walk into their domain and call out to them.  You’ll note that I’m not calling them “demons” here, because what you consider a demon could easily be a personal spirit or something assigned to you based on your tradition and perception.  So, yes, you do need ritual to conjure a demon, but the ritual could be nearly nothing compared to what you might expect.

So this is it, the final post of 2014!  We’ll be back next week with new posts, so I hope you guys have an excellent New Year’s without too bad a hangover on the first day of 2015!

2014 has come and gone, and now we’re in 2015.  Awesome!  I hope your hangovers have worn off by now.  While we’re currently regretting our poor life choices from poured drinks from a few nights ago, we may as well review some of our goals and actions from last year.  So, how was last year?  Fucking rad, really, and busy.  Really busy.  Some of the highlights from 2014 include:

• Probably most notably, I ended up starting on a new theurgical method called mathesis.
• I gave my first talk at an occult conference to my occult peers!
• I was on the air giving readings and talking about geomancy and things!
• I attended a conference on Hermes/Mercury at the University of Virginia (posts one, two, and three).
• I began working with Saint Cyprian of Antioch, patron saint of magicians and necromancers, and held a large party in his honor on his feast day, as well as raising $1000 for the Malala Fund in honor of the good saint.
• I started selling ritual jewelry, published several ebooks, and have begun taking other commissions on my Etsy shop.
• I began a devotional practice to the seven archangels.
• I began practices to several more Greek gods that I’ve invited into my home, notably Aphrodite, Hephaistos, Hestia, and Apollon.
• I moved to a new house with the love of my life and good friend, which helped me with building a new temple as well as amplify my occult practice.
• I began studying astragalomancy and the work of the Arbatel.
• I completed a month-long Psalm 119 working (with more side-effects than anticipated).
• I somehow managed to keep sane and hold down a standard office job to fund my odd hobbies and so much wine.
• I got involved in the usual spats and drama common to nearly all magicians.

If you recall the prospective from last year, I had several goals I wanted to achieve.  How did I do?

1. Get more physically active.  Moderately successful.  I’ve been sticking to Shin-Shin Toitsu Aikido at the local Ki Society dojo for the better part of the year, with a month away here and there to take care of family, moving, and the like.  Plus, I’ve recently gotten re-enamored by the mobile game Ingress, which encourages walking and outdoor exploration.  That said, as my waistline can attest, that hasn’t really done much for my weight or body fat percentage, so I’m not doing something quite right yet.  Still, it’s an improvement, and I was able to make it to Fifth Kyu (the first graded rank) in the style of aikido I practice this year already.
2. Conjure the angels of the fixed stars.  Not successful.  I barely made the conjuration time for Malkhidael, the angel presiding over the sphere of Aries, and pretty much dropped that off from there.  I didn’t exactly need to do this, but it would’ve been nice.  I had too much else going on, and conjuration generally has been at the back of my mind as I’ve gotten involved in other projects.
3. Buy and move into a new house.  Sorta done!  Unfortunately, I simply don’t have the resources at this time to outright buy a house.  Instead, my housemates and I moved into a house that we’re renting, but the place is so remote and the landlord so detached that, for all intents and purposes, we own the place.  Moving was a pain, especially with the now-apocryphal stories of guinea hens and U-Haul issues, but we’re well-situated and love where we live.
4. Start working with Saint Cyprian of Antioch.  As I’m sure a number of my posts from 2014 can attest, this has been wildly successful.  Not only have I started to work with the good saint of magicians, but I’ve written two ebooks on him, written a chaplet and litany in his honor, held a huge feast day party for him, held a fundraising drive in his name, and have been generally empowered and blessed by his presence and aid in my life.  Still have so much more to do and to involve him with, but this is no bad start, indeed.
5. Start working with my ancestors more.  I’ve started to maintain an ancestor altar containing a few trinkets and ashes of print-out copies of photos of my ancestors, and have gotten into a groove of making regular offerings to them as well as involving them in regular conversation and chats.  I haven’t put them to work yet, but then, I may as well get to know them again slowly.
6. Translate more Latin.  I didn’t do any Latin translation this year.  This was low priority, anyway, but those books won’t translate themselves and nobody else is doing it, either.
7. More trance work.  Besides some light scrying here and there, yeah, nope.  Whoopsie.  I really do need to get my ass in gear with this, but it takes time that I simply don’t have without going on a dangerously low amount of sleep (which doesn’t help anything).

Now that we’re in the start of 2015, what are my plans?

1. Get more physically active and drop some goddamn weight.  I’ve stayed at my current weight, which is about 50lbs too many, for a year now.  There’s no reason for me to stay at this weight.  I will lose those 50lbs and will keep them off from now on.  The idea is simple: daily walks and exercise, regular aikido practice (which I desperately need to get back into after having fallen out of practice for several months), and watching my food and drink intake.  Magically, all the planets can play a part: Mars for discipline, Saturn for helping to keep myself to a minimum when needed, Jupiter for being gracious and having only necessary wealth in terms of food, Mercury for managing my health and metabolism, Sun for managing stamina and health, and so forth.  But, really, at the heart of it is just watching what I put in my face and what I do with my body.
2. Begin working with the demons from the Lemegeton.  This has been something on the docket for a long time now, but I’ve never really gotten around to it.  The approach I plan to use is that of Fr. Rufus Opus’ Modern Goetic Grimoire, a Lemegeton-spinning of the Trithemian conjuration ritual, and the tools and approach are generally the same to those in his Modern Angelic Grimoire, with the changes well-known and highlighted.  The first demon I’d like to work with is Orobas, specifically suggested to me as a beginner-mode spirit who can help with getting introduced to the rest of the spirits, but there’ll be plenty of work for them anyway.
3. Undertake the Arbatel conjuration of the Olympick Spirits.  I’ve got the seals done and the text learned, so now it’s just a matter of going forth and conjuring the Olympick spirits.  I’ll finish planning my approach in the coming weeks, and it’ll be interesting to see how this complements or conflicts with my previous conjurations of the planets and their angels and what the angelic alliances I’ve built up to this point can contribute.  I like Fr. Acher’s approach of seeing these conjurations as initiations into the spheres, which is the point of Fr. Rufus Opus’ Gates rituals, but done in a different way.
4. Study and prepare for baptism within the Apostolic Johannite Church.  Yes, this is a thing that I’ve figured would help buff out my practices with Saint Cyprian of Antioch, the seven archangels, and a variety of other spirits I work with.  No, this doesn’t mean I’m giving up my Hellenic or mathetic practices.  Yes, I believe that these different spiritual traditions can, if not dovetail in a completely complementary way, buff each other out.  I have my reasons.
5. Begin learning and working with spirits within the tradition of Quimbanda.  During my vacation at the end of 2014, I got a consulta from a Tata Quimbanda which was fascinating and gave me no end of things to work on, and also gave me information on my personal and working Exus and Pomba Gira.  I plan to begin building relationships with these spirits, and something about the tradition snagged me and I have an eye on initiation, though that’ll be a ways off.  First things first: begin understanding this tradition at the direction of my tata friend.  My work with Saint Cyprian, who plays a huge role in Quimbanda, can also help, and I’ve resituated my altar of Saint Cyprian on top of a small cabinet which will house my Exus and Pomba Gira.
6. Continue developing the study of mathesis.  This is going to be a life’s work, so long as I can keep doing it.  This will involve lots of research into Platonic and Neoplatonic occultism done back in the day, as well as whatever Pythagorean information I can get my hands on.  This is probably going to end up as a more meditative and contemplative practice than hands-on occult conjuration, but that might be for the best.  It may have applicable uses elsewhere and would dovetail nicely with other Hellenic practices, to be sure, but that’s not all entirely up for me to decide.

With that, let’s start talking about dates, times, calendars, cycles, holidays, festivals, and other chronological phenomena!  You can find the whole post after the jump, or you can jump to the individual sections you’re interested in with these links:

1. Grammatēmerologion, the lunisolar grammatomantic ritual calendar
2. Weekday cycle
3. Astronomical and astrological phenomena
4. Movable festivals and holidays
5. Festivals and holidays fixed to the Gregorian calendar

One of the big changes I made to my ritual life was the invention of the Γραμματημερολογιον Grammatēmerologion, the lunisolar grammatomantic ritual calendar, by which I assign every day of the lunar month to one of the Greek letters, with three days leftover as unlettered days.  By using the associations of the Greek letters to their stoicheia of the elements, planets, and zodiac, I organize my routine monthly offerings to the gods as well as my regular rituals based on the lunar date.  Of course, I don’t make offerings to all the gods listed below, but I at least acknowledge some of them on their day as part of my mathesis work, and I make the list fairly complete with some of the bigger names in Greek mythology for the convenience of others.  Some gods are associated with more than one day, especially those days whose letters are associated with the elements.  I also have a few other practices here and there, as noted in the last Ritual column, based on my own stuff that doesn’t belong to mathesis or Hellenic practice or whatever.

A few notes on the lunar month according to the Greek letters:

• I mark my ritual days as starting from sunrise, while the traditional Attic scheme marks them as starting from the previous day’s sunset.  Thus, my calendar is approximately one day early compared to those who follow the calendar of the reconstructionist Hellenismos, a la Hellenion.  Different poleis or city-states across ancient Greece had different reckoning systems, so there’s no one way to figure out a “Greek calendar” or “Greek start of the day”.
• The Noumenia is properly the first day after the New Moon, when the Moon can first be seen in the late evening sky just after syzygy.
• Although I’ve marked the Full Moon as belonging to the 15th day of the lunar calendar, in reality it might be a day earlier or later.  The Full Moon ritual, Saint Expedite offering, and Cosmic Guardian offering offering are all tied to the Full Moon, so those rituals will move along with the exact date of the Full Moon.
• Some months have 30 days (full months) while others have 29 days (hollow months); the Hene kai Nea, or last day of the lunar month that marks the actual New Moon, is linked to a few rituals, and much as with the Full Moon and its rituals, these rituals move with the actual lunar phenomenon.  In a hollow month, the last day becomes Sampi and there is no unlettered day.
• Unlettered days are marked with a dash, and have no feast nor rituals planned (except in an emergency or with a good astrological election, of course).  Instead, I focus these days on physical care and upkeep of my house, temple, and self with chores and dishes and laundry and stuff.

If we consider the greater grammatēmerological system that attributes the letters of the Greek alphabet to the lunar months and the years themselves, we note that the year 2015 CE marks the end of the hollow (12-month) sixth year and the passage into the hollow (12-month) seventh year of the 69th 38-year grammatēmerological (dual Metonic) cycle, starting from an epoch date of June 29, 576 BCE, the first time the summer solstice coincided with the Noumenia after the Athenian Reform of Solon, as well as coinciding with a total solar eclipse on that same day.  Cycle 69 began on June 22, 2009, and will continue through the first New Moon after the summer solstice in the year 2047.  We enter January 1, 2015 with the day letter Ι, the month letter Τ, and the year letter Δ.  The Noumenia, the first day of the lunar months reckoned as the first sunrise after the New Moon, of each successive month are as follows:

• January 21: Noumenia of hollow month Υ (8), year Δ (6) in cycle number 69 (2628 years after the epoch)
• February 19: Noumenia of full month Φ (9), year Δ (6) in cycle number 69 (2628 years after the epoch)
• March 21: Noumenia of hollow month Χ (10), year Δ (6) in cycle number 69 (2628 years after the epoch)
• April 19: Noumenia of full month Ψ (11), year Δ (6) in cycle number 69 (2628 years after the epoch)
• May 19: Noumenia of hollow month Ω (12), year Δ (6) in cycle number 69 (2628 years after the epoch)
• June 17: Noumenia of full month Α (1), year Ε (7) in cycle number 69 (2629 years after the epoch)
• July 16: Noumenia of hollow month Β (2), year Ε (7) in cycle number 69 (2629 years after the epoch)
• August 14: Noumenia of full month Γ (3), year Ε (7) in cycle number 69 (2629 years after the epoch)
• September 14: Noumenia of hollow month Δ (4), year Ε (7) in cycle number 69 (2629 years after the epoch)
• October 13: Noumenia of full month Ε (5), year Ε (7) in cycle number 69 (2629 years after the epoch)
• November 12: Noumenia of hollow month Ζ (6), year Ε (7) in cycle number 69 (2629 years after the epoch)
• December 12: Noumenia of full month Η (7), year Ε (7) in cycle number 69 (2629 years after the epoch)

Except in the special cases of intercalary months (the thirteenth month in a full year), there will always be a day in every month when the letter of the day and the letter of the month are the same.  Similarly, except in full years of 13 months, there will be a day when the letters of the day, month, and year are the same.  These days are powerful and special days where the force of the letter has extra strength, making it a special day for all forces, gods, and spirits associated with that letter.  Special days when the letters of the day and month (μεγαλημερα megalēmera, “great day”), or the letters of the day, month, and year (μεγιστημερα megistēmera, “greatest day”) are the same.  In 2015, there are 12 megalēmerai and one megistēmera:

• Τ (day and month): January 13
• Υ (day and month): February 13
• Φ (day and month): March 15
• Χ (day and month): April 15
• Ψ (day and month): May 15
• Ω (day and month): June 15
• Α (day and month): June 17
• Β (day and month): July 17
• Γ (day and month): August 17
• Δ (day and month): September 17
• Ε (day, month, year): October 17
• Ζ (day and month): November 18
• Η (day and month): December 18

In the past, I’ve been going by a 5-week conjuration cycle of the seven planetary angels and four elemental archangels.  However, I didn’t keep up with it, and at this point my mathesis work and other, more regular daily rituals are slowly replacing the need for conjurations.  That isn’t to say I’ve turned my back on them, of course, but I don’t usually do the full shebang anymore without a solid need.  Instead, I tone it down to a daily invocation of the planets and forces, and I fold that into my normal weekly offering schedule based on the day of the week.  There are a few other rituals here and there I do on a more-or-less weekly basis, but they generally follow a regular schedule:

Of course, no schedule observing the stars could be complete without a list of planetary retrograde dates. Below are all the retrograde dates for Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury that take place sometime during 2015. Of these, only Venus and Mercury are of any real importance, but still.

• Saturn retrograde from March 14 through August 1
• Jupiter retrograde from December 8 2014 through April 8 2015
• Venus retrograde from July 25 through September 6
• Mercury retrograde from January 21 through February 11
• Mercury retrograde from May 19 through June 11
• Mercury retrograde from September 17 through October 9

Other astrological and astronomical phenomena:

• Sun ingress Aquarius: January 20
• Sun midway Aquarius (Imbolc): February 4
• Sun ingress Pisces: February 18
• Sun ingress Aries (Ostara, spring equinox): March 20
• Sun ingress Taurus: April 20
• Sun midway Taurus (Beltane): May 5
• Sun ingress Gemini: May 21
• Sun ingress Cancer (Litha, summer solstice): June 21
• Sun ingress Leo: July 24
• Sun midway Leo (Lammas): August 7
• Sun ingress Virgo: August 23
• Sun ingress Libra (Mabon, fall equinox): September 23
• Sun ingress Scorpio: October 23
• Sun midway Scorpio (Samhain): November 7
• Sun ingress Sagittarius: November 22
• Sun ingress Capricorn (Yule, winter solstice): December 22
• New Moon, second of winter: January 20
• New Moon, third of winter: February 18
• New Moon, fourth of winter: March 20 (barely a blue moon, just hours before the spring equinox!)
• New Moon, first of spring: April 18
• New Moon, second of spring: May 18
• New Moon, third of spring: June 16
• New Moon, first of summer: July 15
• New Moon, second of summer: August 14
• New Moon, third of summer: September 13
• New Moon, first of autumn: October 12
• New Moon, second of autumn: November 11
• New Moon, third of autumn: December 11
• Perihelion: January 3
• Aphelion: July 6
• Southern solar eclipse: March 20
• Northern lunar eclipse: April 4
• Northern solar eclipse: September 13
• Southern lunar eclipse: September 28

I’m already using the Sun’s entry into the four cardinal zodiac signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) to mark the solstices and equinoxes, so it makes sense to me to use the Sun’s halfway point in the four fixed zodiac signs (Aquarius, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio) to mark the cross-quarter days instead of the Gregorian calendrical method.  While most other occultists and pagans will use the normal calendrical dating, I’ll stick to my solar dating and tie it to the cycle of the Sun instead.  The dates are fairly close, at least, being off no more than a week from the popular observance of them.  The calendar dates of these cross-quarter days are the 1st of the month the astrological date occurs in (thus May 1st for Beltane).

Festivals and holidays whose dates move around:

• Hermaia: March 24
• Asklepeia: February 26
• Dionysia: February 28 through March 5
• Protokhronia: July 16
• Aphrodisia: July 19
• Nemeseia: September 18
• Chanukah: December 6 through December 14

Notes on the moveable festivals:

• Hermaia (Hermes’ festival) takes place on the fourth day of the tenth lunar month after the summer solstice
• Aphrodisia (Aphrodite’s festival) takes place on the fourth day of the first lunar month after the summer solstice
• Dionysia (Dionysos’ greater festival, a.k.a. Anthesteria) takes place on the 10th through 15th days of the third lunar month after the winter solstice
• Asklepeia (Asclepios’ festival) takes place on the eighth day of the third lunar month after the winter solstice
• Nemeseia (feast to propitiate the dead) takes place on the fifth day of the third lunar month after the summer solstice
• Protokhronia (lunar new year according to the old Greek reckoning) takes place on the first Noumenia after the summer solstice
• Chanukah lasts for eight days starting with the 25th day of Kislev, the ninth month of the ecclesiastical year according to the Hebrew lunisolar calendar (it’s the only Jewish festival I celebrate due to my family)

Other festivals and holidays whose dates don’t move around, i.e. fixed to specific dates on the Gregorian calendar, with the more important ones for my own practice in bold:

• Feast of Benjamin Franklin: January 17
• Feast of the Archangel Gabriel: March 24
• Veneralia: April 1
• Feast of Saint Isidore of Seville: April 4
• Feast of Saint Expedite: April 19
• Feast of Mary, Queen of Heaven: May 1
• Mercuralia: May 15
• Feast of Alan Turing: June 7
• Feast of the Archangel Uriel: June 21
• Feast of Saint Benedict: July 11
• Feast of Santissima Muerte: August 15
• Feast of the Prophet Samuel: August 20
• Feast of Saint Cyprian of Carthage: September 16
• Days of the Cyprians: September 17 through September 25
• Feast of Saint Cyprian of Antioch: September 26
• Festival of Venus Genetrix: September 26
• Feast of the Angels: September 29
• All Hallow’s Eve: October 31
• All Saints’ Day: November 1
• All Souls’ Day: November 2
• Feast of Saint Lazarus: December 16
• Feast of the Archangel Raphael: December 22
• Christmas: December 25

With that, let’s get 2015 rolling!

About this time last year, I had the notion of doing a discounted special for yearly geomantic readings covering people’s lives in 2014.  I got a goodly amount of attention and business from that and it gives me a fairly good chance to bust out the divination and vision oils and burn through a bunch of people’s futures in a single sitting, the rush of which is something I enjoy.  Add to it, I’ve gotten several requests from various people recently asking if I’d be doing them again, but of course I’ve been on vacation for the past few weeks and have been luxuriously enjoying time off and away from the world.  So, I won’t disappoint; let’s do this again, shall we?

This time, I’m using Etsy to set up my divination readings, both for my regular readings and the yearly readings special.  For the time being, unless I have a good reason to, I’ll stick to using Etsy and not PayPal as my divination reading business medium, so be sure to get an Etsy account and follow my shop!

So, the rules are pretty much the same as last year, folks.  You pay me US$20.00, and I’ll draw up a geomantic chart and interpretation for your coming year!  This offer is good through 11:59 PM EST January 30, 2015, so if you’re interested, you only have a limited time to get in on the reading special!  Just be sure you’re looking at the right divination listing.  I’ll try to keep the turnaround time to a minimum, but expect a few days to a week depending on the influx for me to get through all these.  (Bear in mind that I maintain a full-time office job with a lengthy commute.)

What are you waiting for?  Head over to my Etsy page and get a 2015 Yearly Geomancy Reading!