Towards the end of last year, I visited some friends up in New England, one of whom is a Tata Quimbanda, or a Quimbandero priest.  It was fascinating to see how he worked, and the tradition of Quimbanda (about which I knew next to nothing beforehand) suddenly struck me as something potentially useful and interesting; I’ve since been reading about it and getting started in my own little layman way to build a relationship with the spirits I’ve been recommended to work with, my personal Exu and Pomba Gira and a few other spirits that go along with them.  This was all found out by means of a consulta, basically a Quimbanda check-up that determines what’s going on.  From what I noticed, they use the same divination system as in Palo or in Santeria with four shells, chamalongos, so I was able to keep up with what was going on despite the frequent use of Kikongo and Portuguese in prayers.  Thing was, pretty much every answer came up the same, the one that means “ask again”.  Usually when this happens, it means that there’s a lot of resistance or blockages in the situation, and the consulta was finished with the tata going “baths baths baths baths baths baths baths”.

So, clearly, I needed a bath.  Lots of them, actually.

According to the consulta, I have a bit of an infestation of kiumbas, which can be thought of as spiritual leeches or obsessive manes from the Roman tradition.  This happens, largely, when one isn’t cleaning off properly over a period of time and you get so spiritually icky that the ick starts to coalesce and latch onto you, or when you get into a dirty situation and don’t clean off immediately to get rid of the dirt.  And, truth be told, I haven’t been banishing a lot lately; I’ve been taking a daily ablution before the gods as all I usually need with the very occasional angelic banishing ritual I picked up from Fr. Rufus Opus years ago.  I do make a habit of washing off with a few things, like Florida water, after visiting graveyards or hospitals (which I’ve recently found out is a rule I should be following regardless), but beyond that, I generally don’t do a lot of deep and thorough cleansing.  I thought I didn’t need to, and I was wrong.

The tata had said that this is actually a common thing with a lot of ceremonial magicians as a part of the work we do.  Our main line of working involves working with spirits in different planes, notably conjuring spirits below (demons and shades) and spirits above (angels and planetaries), as well as spirits of this plane (elementals).  Kiumbas don’t necessarily belong to souls of the dead, but of any plane and of any type; they’re like aggregations of ick, and every plane has its own kind of ick.  Crossing the planes, calling down various forces, and the like brings down a lot more than just the spirit we’ve called, I’ve come to find, and over time they stick without proper banishing and cleansing, and calling down those same forces to get rid of the stuff they’re familiar with sometimes doesn’t do as thorough a job as they’re held to do.  They get rid of most of it, but not all of it.

And, honestly, I’ve noticed that since my jaunt to nine different graveyards in one night without properly cleaning off afterwards, several spiritual parties, a few workings here and there, and the like done clustered together last year, my practice and life has generally gotten “stuck”.  Problems were slow and subtle, but getting bigger without my conscious knowledge of it.  I found myself having less and less time for practice and more and more time for vain, petty shit.  At one point, a small detail blew up into almost a nervous breakdown for me, opening up a Pandora’s box of emotional baggage I thought I had chained and buried years ago.  So…yeah, I probably needed a bath to fix all that shit up.

To that end, I was recommended to start taking lots of spiritual baths and to keep taking them periodically.  Honestly, this is something I should have been doing all along, but before this consulta I had only taken one or two spiritual baths since I started practicing the occult back in 2011.  So, starting at the beginning of January, I dusted off my notes and combined mine with the herbs and recommendations from the tata, and begun a series of baths that will last me through the rest of January and which I’ll do at least once a month from here on out.

The manner of a spiritual bath I use involves repeated immersions in consecrated water designed to cleanse your body and spirit in combination with praying the Seven Penitential Psalms.  The whole process takes an hour to do at most, so be sure you can have that amount of time alone to yourself without being disturbed.

• A tub full of hot water
• A glass of holy water
• A consecrated candle
• A Bible (preferably a cheap one)
• Holy oil or Abramelin oil
• A clean white or lightly-colored towel
• Clean white clothes
• Optionally, some Florida water or Kölnisch Wasser and/or Van Van oil
• Optionally, holy incense like frankincense
• Optionally, an herbal wash prepared in a large bowl

The procedure:

1. Before drawing the bath, take a shower first.  Be thorough and wash every part of your body, including the anus and feet.  Use shampoo, soap, body wash, or whatever you prefer, but be thorough.  Dry off as normal, preferably with an older towel or another cloth that isn’t the white towel.
2. Draw the tub full of hot water.  While it’s filling, brush and floss your teeth, clean out your ears, and whatever personal hygiene activities you normally do.  If you choose, add in a few drops of Van Van oil and a small amount of Florida water or Kölnisch Wasser into the tub as it fills.  Also, if you want to finish the bath with an herbal wash, prepare it now in a bowl set aside with hot water.
3. Set the candle somewhere above the tub in the bathroom.  Light it and consecrate the flame.  If you choose, light some incense and do the same.
4. Take the glass of holy water (a shotglass will suffice) and pray over the water, pouring the holy water into the tub in a cross formation.  Pray the Our Father, Glory Be, and Hail Mary over the tub of water.
5. Step into the tub and begin soaking in it.  Let your skin get used to the heat first before continuing.
6. Immerse yourself completely in the water.  If you’re big and have a small tub, this may take several repositionings of the body and at least one dunk of the head.
7. Pray the Asperges Me.  Before crossing yourself, take a handful of water so that you wash yourself with the tubwater as you cross yourself.
8. Say slowly and firmly the first Penitential Psalm (Ps. 6) from the heart.  Use the copy of the Bible, but be sure not to drop it or get it wet in the water.
9. Pray the Our Father, Glory Be, and Hail Mary.  Like before, before crossing yourself, take a handful of water so that you wash yourself with the tubwater as you cross yourself.
10. Silently recount why you’re taking this bath: whatever transgressions you have done, whatever bad situations you have found yourself in, the problems in your life that have arisen, all the spiritual ick on your body, soul, spirit and mind.  Let them go into the water, dissolving into nothing while leaving you and your sphere clean.
11. Repeat steps 7 through 10 for each of the other Pentitential Psalms (Pss. 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143).
12. Stand up and begin draining the tub.  Pray from the heart that you be clean and cleansed in body, soul, spirit, and mind and freed from all pain, plague, poison, illness, injury, infirmity, death, disease, and defilement, and that you be made pure and perfect despite of and because of your imperfections.
13. If you chose to make an herbal wash, get the bowl and pray over it that it accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish with it (cleansing, empowerment, defense, etc.).  Pour it over your head slowly so that some liquid runs down the front of your body and some runs down the back, repeating the prayer the whole time.  With your hands, wash yourself from top to bottom with the wash, not forgetting the more sensitive and hard-to-reach parts of your body.
14. Air dry from the bath.  Take the white towel and put it on the ground, in front of a fan or heater is ideal, and sit on it until you’re sufficiently air-dried.  If you can’t afford the time for this, dry off with the towel from the neck down, leaving the head to air-dry.
15. Put on the clean, white clothes.  Take the holy oil and cross yourself on the forehead and back of the neck, praying Psalm 23.  This “seals in” the effect of the bath and insulates yourself a bit from external things until the effects of the bath are completely settled into your sphere.

That’s basically my procedure for taking a spiritual bath.  Yes, it’s a little long, and I do get a little faint from spending that much time in a hottub constantly praying and reimmersing myself, but it works.  The mental clarity and stability I have afterwards is hard to obtain in other ways, and it’s such a dramatic shift that for the first few baths I felt physically like shit but mentally awesome and brilliant.  Be careful if you have any medical condition that prevents you from spending so much time in a hot bath; adjust the heat if you need to.

In the last post, I described my method of a general spiritual bath for purification and the removal of spiritual impurities, and in the process used the term “omiero”, which has caused a minor stir online for some people.  Let me talk about this term here, and if you’ve used it or seen it used in the past and you’re not an initiate in Santeria, then please read this.

I first encountered the term “omiero” in a post by Aaron Leitch, one of the better-known ceremonial magicians of our time.  In that post of his, he described the method of making a blood substitute for Solomonic workings for those who are unwilling or unable to obtain blood from animals for the use in certain rituals, like the consecration of the black-handled knife which calls for the blood of a black cat.  Sometimes, getting blood from animals can be a problem for one reason or another, and many people (“especially those of American WASP heritage”) disprefer the use of blood generally in ritual.  I’m not one of those people, but I know of many who are.  To get around these problems and still continue on with Solomonic ritual as traditionally as possible, Leitch talks about making a substitute using water, herbs, and prayer.  He calls this a “Solomonic ‘omiero'”:

Omiero is a liquid used in Santerian traditions, whenever an Orisha (or  god) is born into a new vessel.  (These vessels are urns, filled with consecrated items, that become the center-pieces of altars to the Orishas.)  The Orisha will quite literally live inside the vessel, and offerings and sacrifices will be made to him or her upon the altar.  However, the Orisha’s very first meal is not blood at all – it is omiero.  Because of this, omiero can be considered even more potent (in its way) than blood.

Of course, the secrets of making true omiero are a closely guarded secret. I only know it involves the ripping and tearing of sacred herbs and plants beneath running water, so that a green-tinted water is collected. And there are mystical songs that must be sung during its preparation.

Meanwhile, the concept of herbally-infused holy water is not unheard of outside of these mystery religions. We can especially find it within the practice of Hoodoo – a folk practice that originated in the American south, and was itself heavily influenced by the ATRs. In this case, the process is much simplified – usually involving little more than steeping sacred herbs in water to produce a “tea” or extracting the scent of a plant and infusing it into water (such as the very popular Florida Water – which is named for its sweet floral scent, not for the US state).

He goes on to describe how one might make such a “Solomonic omiero” with the praying of psalms and the like, which is indeed a useful substitute for ritual magic.  After all, it’s basically the same thing I did for my rituals when I can’t get blood from a certain animal.  After getting involved with several African diasporic traditions, including Palo and Santeria, I’ve encountered the term “omiero” in a proper context, though I’ve also seen this same term used in ceremonial magic and other Western traditions since.  Since it seems to be part of the lingo, I used this term in my last post to describe an herbal wash one might use after or during the process of a spiritual bath.

I’ve since amended my post to remove the term “omiero” because, in short, I was wrong to use it.

The same Tata Quimbanda I mentioned is also a Santero, an initiate in Santeria, and I noticed shortly after my post that he started a discussion on Facebook about what an omiero really is.  After reading that discussion and talking with several other Santero friends of mine, I’ve since learned that what Aaron Leitch describes as an “omiero” is no such thing.  The term is strictly relegated to the practices of Santeria and Ocha, pretty much, and it is something far more than an herbal wash or herbal water.  Even with the praying of psalms or other incantations, it’s not an omiero unless it’s done in a Santeria manner.  To call something a “Solomonic omiero” is crossing the streams too much to be correct, and it’d be like saying something is a “Tibetan rosary” (the rosary being relegated to Catholic practices) or a “European shaman” (shaman being relegated to Central Asian religions).  Yeah, you might get your point across, but it’s not a proper use of the term.

What I was describing was an herbal wash or an herbal water: water with herbs crushed into it, perhaps with prayers said over it as one might do with many things in many traditions.  An omiero isn’t just that: the process of making an omiero and the precise nature and uses of it are oathbound knowledge kept by initiates in Santeria, but it’s made in a specific manner that isn’t found outside Santeria.  Plus, while an omiero can be used as a bath for some purposes, that’s not what it’s usually made for, and can be described as a type of “amniotic fluid” for the orisha in Santeria rituals.  If you’re not an initiate in Santeria, you’re pretty much guaranteed to not know how to make an omiero and are not supposed to use it on your own.

I admit I was wrong to use this term, and I’d like to correct the use of this term in the broader occult blogosphere, much as Kalagni over at Blue Flame Magick did with the term “tulpa” (if you think you know how this term works, think again and read Kalagni’s post).  It pays to be correct, guys.  Appropriating this term isn’t really doing yourself, your work, or the original tradition it came from any favors.

Note: this post was written a few months ago during a bit of a chaotic period in my life.  I was angry and hurt, as were several others around me, and I don’t consider that to be the best time to write, so I shelved the post.  However, I wanted to get the message out, and I figured I may as well post it now that I’ve cooled off, because this is something I want people to know.

When you become good enough at magic, spirituality, or whatever, you will often get the urge to spread what you’ve learned and done.  Not everyone, granted; not everyone has a parenting instinct, and not everyone is meant to be a parent physically or spiritually.  That’s fine.  But some people are meant to do just that.  Some people are meant to initiate others, to guide others, to teach others, and depending on one’s own spiritual tradition and practice, that urge can be realized into action in different ways.  Some people start online classes while others write books, while still others will spiritually adopt people into a godfamily of sorts, making them part of their spiritual house.

This is not something to be taken lightly.  People who give birth to real children make that relationship for life.  People who initiate people into being their godchildren make a lifetime bond of another kind, one that can’t be reneged upon.

Yes, I’ve heard the arguments that a mother eagle will, once its chicks are old enough, push them out of the nest so that they can fly off and do their own thing.  Eagles, after all, don’t permit freeloaders.  Wolves, too, once they grow old enough will eventually split off from their litter and form their own pack or form part of a small one, but usually leaving to make their own if they’re strong enough.  Many animals need that time on their own to develop and become independent, strong, and fierce to the point of beautifully savage.

We are not birds.
We are not dogs.
We are humans.

Human.  Fucking.  Beings.

Animals might survive on their own in the wild.  Humans do not.  Humans build families, houses, tribes.  We move together.  We fight together.  We watch each other’s backs.  We trust each other.  If everything fails, then we either die together or we split up to make new tribes.  What we don’t do is kick someone out to make them do better on their own.  We do better by being better together.  If we fight, we fight together; if we fight amongst ourselves, we work it out.  The Bedouin, one of the world’s most famous nomadic tribes, encapsulates this all: I against my brother, my brothers and I against my cousins, my cousins and I against strangers.  You uphold the sanctity, power, protection, and preservation of your in-group (house, clan, coven, order, whatever) against all others.  That’s how this shit works.  When you have a follower or godchild, you support them forever unless they leave on their own for their reasons or unless they are directly attacking you; that bond, however strained, cannot be broken.  You do not decide to rescind support for someone you spiritually get involved with like that.  You coach them, you teach them, you instruct them, you chew them out, you bitch them out, you smack them, but you do not forsake them.

If you have a problem with that, then you shouldn’t bother supporting others.  If you can’t uphold that, then you’re not ready to support others.  Be careful and be absolutely sure of yourself when you take on the responsibility of having a follower or godchild.  Once you make that commitment, you can’t go back on it.  If you turn your back on your spiritual family, you have more problems than just earning my ire or losing my respect.

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 January 2015.

“rufus opus phone number” — Please don’t stalk my instructor.  Nobody likes an unbidden phone call from some random person.  I don’t know it and chances are you shouldn’t know it.

“alternative to isopsephy egyptian” — Alas, this isn’t possible.  Isopsephy is the Greek term for gematria, which is a method of numerology that corresponds individual letters of a writing system to individual numbers.  In this way, we can treat whole words or sentences as mathematical or numerical objects, using numerology to divine alternative or occult meanings from them beyond what the words themselves say.  However, this is only possible if there exists a mapping between letters and numbers.  Some writing systems that do this include Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Amharic.  However, many writing systems do not, and Egyptian writing (I assume hieroglyphs) is in this category.  For one, Egyptian hieroglyphs don’t use “letters”, where each symbol represents a distinct sound devoid of independent meaning; rather, they used a complicated system of ideographs and semanto-phonetic symbols to represent ideas and sounds-paired-with-meaning, while they used a separate set of glyphs for numbers, and never the twain had met.  Thus, there doesn’t exist a method of numerology involving Egyptian hieroglyphs in the same ways as Greek isopsephy or Hebrew gematria.

“how to clean oshun eleke” — If you have to ask, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.  Find your local santero/santera, or go to your padrino/madrina, and have them do it for you.  Next time, be sure to take more care in wearing your elekes.

“favorable fields generated by orgone on growing cannabis” — You’re considering wasting precious grow-space for weed by trying to add in congealed robot vomit?  How gullible of a hippy are you?

“instant huge cock satan” — It never ceases to surprise me how many people are literally willing to sell their soul or make deals with the Devil for a bigger dick.  There’s really no good and safe way to increase penis size; pills and the like are bunk, and training like jelqing or penis pumps can potentially be overdone and leave your dick literally burst.  If we have such a hard time with this using utterly physical means, how much more so with spiritual ones?  Be content with what you have, guys.  Trust me, if you know how to use it, that’s the best thing.  It doesn’t take much to feel full or have a good time.

“what liquor do you use to conjure spirits” — Depends on the spirit.  Tradition can dictate a lot: Hellenists use wine for some of the theoi, many Caribbean traditions use rum, Brazilian ones use cachaça, Shinto ones use sake, and so forth.  The keyword here is “spirit”, as in any alcoholic volatile beverage; most spirits won’t turn them down!  That said, ask the spirit directly.  Every god, spirit, ancestor, and the like have their own preferences above and beyond what tradition may dictate; while I offer red wine to Hermes, I’ve heard of some people getting a preference for wine coolers.  If you knew that your late great-grandfather loved scotch, pour him a glass of Glenfiddich once in a while.  If a particular culture hero was famous for owning a brewery, try offering them a glass of beer that they were known to make or love.  Ask them, and use your intuition.

“is bornless rite necessary” — Depends on what you need it for, but the Bornless Rite (or Headless Rite, Liber Samekh, Stele of Ieu the Hieroglyphist, etc.) isn’t necessary in the same way as any other ritual isn’t necessary.  It really does help, though, especially in the fields of exorcism and gaining contact with the Holy Guardian Angel.  If you want to achieve either of these things, then the Headless Rite is awesome.  It’s by no means the only way to do them, but it’s a good one.  Give it a try; you could do much worse.

“occult offerings workplace” — This is an awesome idea, and one I use.  The general rule, no matter what kind of job or office/work environment you may have, is BE DISCREET.  By all means, use all the pomp and circumstance you may want when you’re at home or in a secluded grove in the forest or cliff on a mountain, but in an office, factory, restaurant, or clinic, you don’t have that luxury.  Consider memorizing a prayer and muttering it under your breath while looking at a particular innocuous devotional object you may have (a peacock paperweight for Hera, a soldier action figure for Ares, an obsidian necklace for Tezcatlipoca, etc.).  If you have a desk or locker, consider using a secluded corner that won’t draw much attention and set an equally-innocuous figurine there as a focus and a glass or mug of water, coffee, tea, or juice out for them.  If you can’t afford this, use a break to go to the bathroom, out back on the porch, or outside to a crossroads and make a quick, quiet, and short offering there.  Not everyone has the ability to do that, though, so modify your method to suit your circumstances.

“greek dicks” — I know there’s a trend to “go Greek” in a lot of ways, what with this cultural openness encouraging Greek yoghurt and buttsex and Hellenism and all sorts of stuff.  Mediterranean stuff and things are hot!  That said, have you also considered fantasizing about Turkish oil wrestling?  Because I certainly do.

“very large dicks” — Not just large dicks, but very large dicks!  Honestly, this is just lazy searching; using the word “very” is lazy writing, anyway.  To wit, I quote John Keating from the movie Dead Poets Society:

So avoid using the word “very” because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys—to woo women—and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.

“god hermes pray protection from rape” — …are you aware of the corpus of Greek mythos at all?  While I know certain things aren’t culturally translatable from 2500 years ago to today, the Greek gods tended to do whatever they want or whomever they want and whenever they want.  This includes forcing themselves upon any number of mortals, men and women alike, sometimes to great ends and sometimes to awful ones.  Hermes doesn’t really operate in the same way as his brother Apollo or father Zeus and isn’t one to have very many sexual exploits of his own, but he’s better at setting up clandestine affairs and lovers in secrecy and shadow.  While he can be called upon for escape and protection, like with Europa from Hera, this is more from wrath and less from rape.  Then again, Hermes is a god of many things and is a microcosm unto himself, so if you want a way out of anything, definitely give it a try.

“dee’s enochian demons killing symbols” — As far as I’ve read of Dee, he never had any such symbol.  Medieval and Renaissance occult works don’t usually describe the killing of demons, usually only going so far as to say they can be bound but not killed.  The implication is that demons are immortal and unable to be wounded by mortal means.  However, there are some symbols that are related to Solomonic designs that can maim or kill demons, but that’s another topic entirely.

So, when do we conjure the Olympic Spirits?  I mentioned a while back about working with the Olympic Spirits in a slightly more Greekish framework, and I haven’t forgotten about it or my Arbatel aspirations generally.  The Arbatel makes it simple and says (III.21) that we’re to conjure them at the first hour of the day ruled by the same planet as the spirit itself; in other words, the first planetary hour of its planetary day.  Thus, Aratron, the Olympic Spirit of Saturn, is to be conjured at sunrise on Saturday, Bethor at sunrise on Thursday, and so forth.  The conjuration should not last longer than an hour, though it’s unclear whether the Arbatel means an hour of 60 minutes or when the planetary hour itself is over (which could be as short as 45 minutes in the winter or 75 minutes in the summer, give or take depending on where you live).

First, prepare yourself for the conjuration.  Starting one week before the conjuration, begin a progressive fast, giving up one thing every day culminating in a complete fast from everything but water for 24 hours before the ritual.  Each one of these days, say the general prayer (II.14) at sunrise and at sunset:

O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator and Maker of all things visible and invisible; I, though unworthy, by thy assistance call upon thee, through thy only begotten Son Jesus Christ our Lord, that thou wilt give unto me thy holy Spirit, to direct me in thy truth unto all good.  Amen.

Because I earnestly desire perfectly to know the Arts of this life and such things as are necessary for us, who are so overwhelmed in darkness, and polluted with infinite humane opinions, that I of my own power can attain to no knowledge in them, unless thou teach it me.  Grant me therefore one of thy spirits, who may teach me those things which thou wouldest have me to know and learn, to thy praise and glory, and the profit of our neighbour. Give me also an apt and teachable heart, that I may easily understand those things which thou shalt teach me, and may hide them in my understanding, that I may bring them forth as out of thy inexhaustible treasures, to all necessary uses. Give me grace, that I may use such thy gifts humbly, with fear and trembling, through our Lord Jesus Christ, with thy holy Spirit.  Amen.

Prepare the conjuration area at dawn just before sunrise on the day of the conjuration with the usual purification, cleansing, suffumigation, dressing up with the appropriate colors and scenery, and the like.  Strictly speaking, no conjuration supplies are needed for this operation, since this is a fairly high-magic religious way to do a conjuration, but I find it helpful to have the basics: a scrying medium e.g. crystal ball, incense appropriate to the planet of the Olympic Spirit, and the seal of the Olympic Spirit to be conjured (like those I mentioned last time).  The seal may be worn across the chest as a lamen, placed under the scrying medium, or both.  It’s also been suggested to prepare some votive offerings of clean water, wine, good oil, and the like befitting one’s tradition.  The direction one should face, and thus the direction of the conjuration altar setup, should be oriented to one of the four cardinal directions according to what it is that one wishes to learn from the Olympic Spirit (IV.24, 27):

• East: “wisdom”, i.e. the “greater secrets” like curing of all diseases by magic, longevity, obedience of spirits, knowledge of God, living a proper life, etc.
• South: “strength”, i.e. the “mean secrets” like alchemy, mathematics, engineering, medicine, writing, etc.
• West: “cultivation”, i.e. the “lesser secrets” like increasing wealth, gaining honor, to excel in battle, to become learned, becoming fortunate in business, etc.
• North: “a more rigid life”, which the text does not elaborate on but which Peterson says are matters of cursing, damage, and destruction, which the text did not see fit to publish

Generally, for initiations and coming to know the Olympic Spirit, I’d recommend facing the east for the conjuration, at least for the first conjuration.  Subsequent conjurations can be performed in other directions once this big first initiation into contact is accomplished.

For the altar, should you choose to set one up, set an empty table with your preferred scrying medium in the middle, one white candle on the far side of the scrying medium from you, and a censer or incense burner between you and the scrying medium.  Smaller candles may be set around the scrying medium, either colored appropriately or in a certain number appropriate to the planetary sphere, either in a qabbalistic framework or in some number associated with the Olympic Spirit themselves.  Any offerings you might wish to make can be placed off to the side at the start, but might be best placed to either side of the scrying medium once offered.

At sunrise, light the candle, or all the candles if you have smaller ones but starting with the one white candle.  Light the incense.  Begin with any preliminary prayers of your own choosing, as well as the general prayer from before.  When ready, recite the prayer of conjuration.  As an example, let’s say we’re conjuring Och, the Olympic Spirit associated with the Sun:

Omnipotent and eternal God, who hast ordained the whole creation for thy praise and glory, and for the salvation of man, I beseech thee that thou wouldst send thy Spirit Och of the solar order, who shall inform and teach me those things which I shall ask of him. Nevertheless not my will be done, but thine, through Jesus Christ thy only begotten Son, our Lord. Amen.

Let the spirit arrive, repeating the prayer as necessary until a presence is discerned.  Once the spirit is known to be the one called for, welcome the spirit both into your conjuration and into your life, and offer it what you have prepared.  Begin conversing with the spirit, asking them what you will.  However, keep a timer present to keep track of time that you do not go over into the next hour of the day.  When the conjuration ritual is finished, thank the spirit for its help.  Recite the prayer of dismissal:

Forasmuch as thou camest in peace, and quietly, and hast answered unto my petitions; I give thanks unto God, in whose Name thou camest: and now thou mayest depart in peace unto thy orders; and return to me again when I shall call thee by thy name, or by thy order, or by thy office, which is granted from the Creator.  Amen.

Close the ritual with meditation, note-taking, and other prayers as you see fit.  Extinguish the primary candle; if any others are burning, let them burn out as an offering to the spirit.  Remove all remains from the ritual (incense ash, tealight tins, wine or water poured out) once everything has been extinguished on its own.

After that, that’s it.  You did it!  In the future, you may wish to cut back on the offerings chosen and, if you’re so comfortable with the spirit and they with you, to extend the length of the conjuration session or to forego any scrying medium whatsoever, although the preparatory prayers should be kept.

Recently, I’ve been getting more requests for consultations, which I’m happy to do for people.  (Yes, I charge, and you can find my rates on my Services page.)  Normally, people book a consultation for the purpose of an extended divination reading, where I do as many questions as time will allow and talk them through problems or offer advice as the situation calls for it.  However, a few consultations lately haven’t been anything of the sort, and fall under a type of consultory category that I personally love to do: ritual advice.  This is where, essentially, you ask me questions about practice, methodology, technique, or philosophy when it comes to magic and the occult, and I share with you my experiences, research, and the like, kind of like a 1-on-1 tutoring session.  I personally love doing this, since I typically learn as much from people as they learn from me, and we’re both better off for it.

However, I’ve also noticed that I’m seeing an uptick in the number of people who are new to magic and the occult asking for advice, like people who are in Fr. Rufus Opus’ new Seven Spheres classwork who want another view or advice from one of his other students.  Some are just studying on their own and want to know where to go or how they might accomplish something with a bare minimum of resources, while others are just wondering where to begin at all.  This is awesome and flattering, because even though I don’t consider myself a teacher (I’m still pretty damn new to this all myself as it is), I’d love to share my own experiences and lessons (sometimes learned the hard way) so that others don’t have to bungle things or get a slow start when they can hit the ground running.

For people who are utterly new to the occult, seeing all this stuff about grimoires and conjuration and sacrifice and Greek/Hebrew/Latin/Sanskrit/Egyptian terms and whatnot can be downright pants-shittingly frightening, not to mention bewildering.  I know that, when I first started, I was a little overwhelmed myself trying to figure out where to begin or what texts to read (assuming I could read them at all in modern English), but also what it is I should be doing to start.  That’s a crucial thing for a magician, and the line that divides an armchair magician from a practicing magician: what is it that you’re doing?  It’s all very well to rattle off the history of a particular incantation or memorize all the variations of the seals and designs from the Lemegeton Goetia, but if you’re not putting them to use, why are you doing this at all?  Magic should, in my opinion, be more than just a hobby of curiosity, but something that mixes a good way of living with a method of helping yourself and others in this world and all others.

Still, there’s a lot to do, and there’s always more to do even when you think you’ve done what you need.  So, if I had to suggest some basic practices that anyone interested in practicing magic or any spiritual way of life, what might I suggest?  Three things, all of which are pretty simple but which are endlessly profound and rewarding.

1: Learn two forms of divination.
You can’t figure out shit if you don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t always mean by talking with spirits.  Divination is an excellent way to get your foot in the door with magic; it’s how I got started, and this is my view on the subject.  Back in the day, I considered myself only a diviner and a seer, because I didn’t want to get involved with all that magic stuff.  I just wanted to see what was going on and help others make good decisions with new information they couldn’t get on their own; actually changing that stuff was out of my scope, as I considered it.  Then again, one thing led to the next, and I found myself researching what the planets and elements could be used for instead of just what they meant in astrology or Tarot, and the transition was so subtle that I became a magician without even really recognizing it.  Divination was the gateway drug for me, and it makes sense, because it helped inform me every step of the way, and still does as a matter of fact.

Now, I say that you should learn two forms of divination, if only to increase your skill set and to broaden your horizons.  These can be any two, but I recommend two different forms: a simple one that focuses on yes/no answers, and a complex one that can describe a whole situation at length and help provide detail as well as judgment.  The complex one is considerably easier to find in modern use: Tarot, runes, geomancy, astrology, I Ching, grammatomancy, astragalomancy, and the like are all good examples of what I mean by “complex divination”.  The easier one is more like child’s play and some diviners find it beneath them to just focus on yes/no queries, but at the same time, this is a vital skill to figure out.  Sure, you could use one divination system for both purposes, but I find it better to have two methods that complement each other.

Add to it, there’s an added benefit to learning two forms of divination like this.  The complex divination method you choose is excellent for understanding a whole system or situation when you need the guidance and detail that such a divination system can provide.  The simple divination method can be used for this, too, if a simple answer will suffice, but the real purpose I suggest the simple method is for communicating with spirits and discerning their will.  Having a yes/no method of divination, like chamalongos or coin tosses, is amazing to figure out how to proceed with offerings or rituals involving a particular spirit in conjunction with actually listening to them and getting the proper feeling of action.

2: Learn psychometry.
Psychometry literally means “measuring souls”, but it’s basically a fancy way to describe getting the “feel” or “vibe” off something.  It’s one of the first distinctly magical practices I picked up from my sister years ago while I was in college, a few years before actually getting into Hermetic stuff, since she’s more attuned to it than I am, but it’s turned out to be a valuable skill and one of the ones I recommend beginners to pick up ASAP.  Although the notion of reading the energy off objects seems simple and underneath some people, it’s one of the most vital skills a magician can develop, since it can be used in so many instances and is far more applicable than mere objects alone.  The point here is that you’re not just getting the impressions, charges, memories, and the like off of objects, but that you’re actually measuring the soul-stuff of a thing, and it doesn’t have to be tangible; in other words, you’re learning to sense magic itself.

The process of psychometry is simple: focus on a particular object, and figure out what it “feels” like.  How do you perceive the stuff in the object?  That’s really basically it; it’s no more complicated than touching something or coming into contact with it and getting information of the color, weight, temperature, or texture of an object, except that it doesn’t rely on the physical senses.  My sister’s advice for psychometry made a distinct impression on me and guides me to this day, not only in matters of psychometry but in pretty much all magical endeavors: “it feels like you’re making it up, but you’re not”.  The information pretty much pops up in your head, and to a less discerning mind, it would feel just like normal thoughts arising and coming and going.  The thing is, though, that these thoughts aren’t yours; they’re no more “your” thoughts than the sensation of your keyboard or phone in your hand is “your” sensation.  This is information, energy, spirit, presence, whatever that is simply coming in contact with your own sense abilities; there’s not much active practice to go with this, just like how seeing or hearing isn’t an active process but merely light or sound entering into your eyes or ears.

Now, once you get the hang of getting the feel or vibe off a particular object, it’s not a hard leap in any sense to go from small hand-held things to bigger things.  The size of the thing ultimately doesn’t matter, but what does matter is the power inside the thing.  (That’s what he said.)  The more something has been carried around, used, loved, or hated, the more power increases in the thing.  Animate things, like people and animals, naturally have a strong power in themselves, and one can detect how they feel or what they know but also how energy and power flows through and within them.  That said, I would recommend the following general process to practice learning psychometry:

• Small objects (pebbles, jewelry, cell phones, writing utensils)
• Large objects (cooking utensils, computers, cars, machines)
• Places (graves, buildings, fields, forests, mountains)
• People and animals

Not everyone will get the same type of vibe off an object.  My sister gets emotions and physical states (angry, happy, caffeinated, sweaty, etc.) off of objects, especially worn objects, but I get memories and impressions of place or use.  Some people will find that they get impressions or vibes in the form of colors or images, while others get sounds, yet others get temperature, and others just get pure thoughts or verbal statements arising in the mind.  This is important to recognize, since how you get impressions and sensations the best indicates how you best perceive magical presence and energy.  Not everyone will “see” stuff; I myself don’t have a strong psychic visual sense, but my psychic taste and smell are excellent, and I get the same information as others would but delivered in a different way.  I just have to translate them into the same ideas that others might get in a different “language”.

Just as it’s not a big leap to go from small inanimate objects to larger animate ones, it’s also not a big leap to go from tangible things to spiritual entities.  This is why psychometry is vital: the ability to perceive information spiritually is what we use to sense and detect spiritual presence, energetic flows, and the like.  If you can’t detect the presence of a spirit in conjuration, why bother calling them up?  If you can’t get a feel for where a strong place of power is, why bother tracking ley lines?  The ability of spiritual/energetic perception is vital for anyone who works with spirits/energy, since if you can’t perceive what’s going on, you won’t be able to react to it.

3: Meditate.
This is big, and even though I’ve listed it here last, it really should be first and foremost in everybody’s lives, and not just magicians.  Jason Miller, Rufus Opus, and any number of magicians, occultists, priests, monks, and spiritualists have gone on at length about the importance of meditation, so I won’t describe the nuances or details here, nor will I talk too much at length about why it’s so important.  But I will say this: meditation is the art and practice of understanding and working with your own mind.  If you don’t understand how your mind works, and if you don’t know how to react to your own mind’s actions (especially the involuntary ones), you won’t know how to best use your mind.  Seeing how your mind is literally the place where everything happens for you, if you don’t have a basic grasp of how to work with your mind, you won’t be getting far in anything.

Meditation is basically mental exercise.  I’m not talking about strengthening the logical faculties with puzzles or the emotional ones with empathy, but strengthening how your mind itself acts underneath any other action.  The mind is crucial to everything we do.  Writing a novel?  You’ll want to organize your thoughts and focus on the story.  Coding a program?  You’ll need to form a clear design and take into account abstract and obscure exceptions.  Working in retail?  Keep your cool with people and don’t try to let them influence you when it’s your job to influence them.  Running a marathon?  Don’t let your body dissuade you from completing your goal with pessimism despite it being within your body’s ability.  Literally everything we do, from thinking to planning to seeing to hearing to wanting to getting to creating and beyond, takes place in the mind.  If your mind isn’t strong, you don’t have a strong foundation to build great things.

There are so many ways to meditate and any number of traditions have ten score more methods to do so, but I’m a fan of the simplest and most bare-bones way:

1. Sit comfortably.  Wear relaxing, non-constrictive clothing and sit in a way that allows you to maintain focus without getting sleepy or sore.
2. Observe your mind.  Just watch how thoughts come up and do their thing, but let them go on their own.  Let those random thoughts arise and fall without getting attached to them or following any train of thought.  If you realize you’re following a thought, become aware of it and let it go.
3. Continue for a reasonable length of time.  If you’re just starting out, try five minutes.  Work your way up from there.
4. Repeat daily.  You don’t need a lot of time for this, but I recommend it in the morning when you first get up before you even look at your phone.  If you want, try twice or more a day, but always regularly at least once.

You might get bored.  You might get distracted.  You might get worried or angry or sad or any number of things.  Good; let that happen and keep going.  I’m going to warn you: even the Dalai Lama sucks at meditation, and even the Buddha and the Christ themselves kept meditating because there was always more to do.  The thoughts that arise will, eventually, begin to slow down and relax until they stop arising entirely, even if it’s just for a split-second, and that’s awesome.  Over more time, those periods of thoughtlessness will continue longer and longer.  Over more time, those periods of thoughtlessness will themselves pass away into something deeper.

The more you meditate, the healthier you’ll be, both mentally and physically; you’ll be able to focus more, have a better grip of your emotions, direct your thoughts better, develop more complex thoughts more easily, manage your body and its voluntary and involuntary actions, remember more things that happen to you, and so much more.  Add to it, the spiritual benefits aren’t to be neglected, especially for magicians; with meditation, you’ll be able to understand what “your” thoughts are versus “something else’s” thoughts, which is crucial when spirits communicate with you (because there’s going to be a mental part of this, and if you can’t discern what they’re saying from what you say to yourself, you’re not going to get very far).  You’ll be able to discern what a thought is from a perception from an idea from a want from a need from a physical lust from an emotional attachment from a logical prerogative from a spiritual command.  You’ll be able to work with spirits better and develop other spiritual and psychic powers that you’ve only heard legends and myths about.  All from just sitting down and shutting up.

So what are you waiting for?  Go do your thing.  Experiment with what you like, read history, study techniques, talk with other occultists, take notes and journal entries, make a plan for what you want to accomplish, develop some crafting skills in a medium that catches your eye.  Conjure spirits, sacrifice to the gods, appease your ancestors, take an astral journey, go into the underworld, open your mind with entheogens, prophesy in the name of your patron, heal with energy and prayer.  For the sake of the gods, of the cosmos, and of your own self, just get to it!

The style of magic I’m known for, western Renaissance Hermetic magic which is sometimes known generally as ceremonial magic, is often called complex, flashy, glamorous, and outright gaudy at times.  You don’t have to look hard to see why; between the magic circles, planetary hours, intricate talismans, hard-to-obtain tools, and the like, Hermetic magic can often seem dauntingly hard.  Looking back at the literature, though, it’s plain to see that this was a matter of intentional design.  It’s true that, a few hundred years ago, most people who did magic were wealthy and had copious spare time, a luxury in and of itself, and could afford the square footage in their homes to allow for massive conjuration chambers and gilded wands and shit.  Renaissance and medieval grimoire magic was, by and large, not intended for the masses.  Even the study of astrology itself was considered something akin to receiving a four-year academic undergraduate degree, right down to the costs involved (which is one of the reasons that geomancy was considered to be the “poor man’s astrology”, given that it was considerably easier to learn and apply).  Heck, looking at some of my colleague’s tools and works, even I pale at the thought of the cost and labor involved to make some of these things.

It doesn’t have to be like this, though.  Yes, if you go by the book and are a strict traditionalist or grimoire fundamentalist, you’re going to be paying more than a few pretty pennies for all the supplies and tools you need.  That said, I claim that none of that is strictly necessary, and that you can get as good results in a similar way without breaking your bank, if you’re even rich enough to have a savings account.  Considering the recession we find our world plunged into, and considering the more than likely chance that we’re permanently on our way out of an era of prosperity, it might be a good idea to visit the topic of how to do magic with as little cost as we can manage, and free whenever possible.  The first thing I want to talk about is on the material goods, tools, and supplies that we use in magic, and although I’m writing this from a Hermeticist’s point of view, you can likely apply this to most other styles of magic, as well.

Now, I will say that I speak from a place of privilege here.  I have a good, stable job with a decent income that is more than the US average household income, even after considering the debts I have for student loans and a car payment.  I come from a middle-class family that has never had to really tighten their belts in order to make ends meet.  As a whole, we haven’t had extreme medical issues or other problems that have caused us extreme financial duress (though, as we get older, that may change).  Although I wouldn’t consider us “rich”, we’re certainly not poor.  I have never been homeless nor required financial aid to get food or bills paid.  I have never been imprisoned or otherwise cut off from supplies and tools generally that would prevent me from operating in the way I choose to operate as a magician.  That said, I know the value of minimalism in magic, having done some work myself, and I’ve been able to cut through a lot of the crap and see what’s really necessary, what can be substituted, and the like.

Be aware that magic has always been the means of last resort for many people across many cultures and eras.  Yes, there have always been the priests and the shamans and the medicine men who make this their first and foremost vocation, but most people who do magic don’t do it for the spiritual benefits or for the calling of some god or another; they usually resort to magic because they’ve tried everything else and nothing else seems to work.  They use whatever they have on hand, scavenge, or find in their nearby environment to get stuff done through occult means when material means fall short.  They resort to symbolic links, puns on brand names, personal history, superstition, and their grandparents’ stories to guide their magic.  Over time, what these people have found that works is typically codified and standardized into a “system of magic” or a “tradition”, though replete with regional or personal variations.  At its core, yes, magic is the art and science of causing changes in accordance with will, but let’s face it, most people have used magic for getting laid and getting paid.  We typically use magic for ends in this world because we need to make ends meet and often need that extra push to do so, whether our ends involve survival or gratification.

To that end, there are three places I’d recommend you get your supplies from:

• Go outside.  No matter where you live, there are going to be stones, plants, and dirts available to you that not only ties you to the land around you and gives you a place to lay down roots and a foundation, but there are also things of power that you can obtain for use in your own work.  Large or unusual stones, rock crystal, solid branches or wooden sticks, medicinal herbs, aromatic leaves, and the like can all be obtained literally for free from harvesting them yourself.  It helps if you have a guide to plants and herbs and do a bit of research on what kinds of trees or stones your area contains.  Graveyards, crossroads, judicial buildings, schools, jails, train stations, and other specialized locations can provide you with dirt that is a powerful instrument and supply in its own right.  If you know where to look and if you know how to use something, you may never have to actually buy a damn thing.  Just be aware that it’s always polite to give something back to the land, be it a bit of your drink or a few pennies, so that the spirits around you don’t consider yourself stealing from them.
• Most places in the US, where I live, have dollar stores where every item in there is sold for US$1.00.  These places are veritable gold mines for magicians on a budget, and they typically have such a wide selection of tools, supplies, and wares that you may not need to shop elsewhere very often.  Bags of tealights, decorations, offering glasses, candleholders, salt, spices, paint, and most common household supplies you’d need should probably be bought here.  Yeah, the quality isn’t great, but we’re not going for quality here when the alternative is doing without entirely.
• Thrift stores or charity stores are places where people get rid of their old items and stuff which are then resold at a low price.  Not only can you get good deals on high-quality stuff (I got a large polished granite circle for a Table of Practice for $5 once), but given that these are things that people have already owned, used, and loved, you can often find trinkets, jewelry, and charms that have already been enchanted, blessed, or otherwise bespookened if you have eyes to see them.  Add to it, you can often find rare and other unusual stuff at thrift stores, like funerary urns (not all of which have been properly cleaned out), silk scarves, authentic African statuary, and so forth, which can really be valuable in practice.

If you have a bit more money to spend, you’d do well to shop at two other places:

• A craft store, like a Michaels or AC Moore, can provide you with lots of supplies that, on their own, don’t necessarily seem magical but can be of great use in magic, especially when you get around to making your own tools.  Wooden plaques, clay, sinew and thread, semiprecious stones, and the like are easily available from here, though depending on price you may want to forego some of the fancier stuff and just resort to simple crafts you fashion yourself.
• A hardware store, like a Home Depot or Ace Hardware, can provide you with more industrial-strength stuff as well as some of the harder-to-find household goods, like beeswax or copper piping.  You can often find some things in bulk as well as rare brands that aren’t usually sold commonly anymore.

So much for places to procure your parcels.  However, there is something on the topic of magical supplies and tools that I want to bring up, and this is more fully explained by the House of Orpheus in one of their blog posts.  Although he talks about the use of spiritual perfumes and the use of perfumes generally in spiritual works, I think this is something that can be applied to pretty much anything.  The gist of the post is that there’s a fairly recent trend in magic where we say that oil/perfume/powder X does magical thing Y, and this isn’t exactly a historical thing.  Rather, people used certain things because of the associations they could make with it:

…Royal Crown hair pomade for example was used to anoint ones hair in such a way that they carried the influence of a king about them. Like equals like… Even house hold items like red devil lye drain cleaner was used to protect the home from evil and the “devils” out there in their many forms. Red devil lye cleaner was not made for magic, it was made for cleaning drains! However the most fascinating thing is… It became and still is used today for magic.

…What made these perfumes magic wasn’t the pharmacist or large factory making them today… It was the imagination and magical sensibility. As well as traditional knowledge of the practitioners of folk magic. A sweet smell might sweeten someone to you. A dominating odor may help you dominate someone, the shape of the plant going into the perfume and its qualities all shaping and being shaped by the magical symbolic systems of understanding of many cultures. This is what helped them make these perfumes magical and what placed them in a magical context of use today.

So, to that end, don’t despair if you can’t get your botanica’s expensive line of Fiery Wall of Protection Oil or Flying Oil, because in all likelihood those oils are, for lack of a better term, snake oil, a little bit of glycol with some artificial scent and color applied to them.  You can do that much on your own for a lot cheaper, and you can make it a lot better with not a lot of effort.  Always ask yourself “what can I use this thing for” rather than “what does this do”: what a stick “does” is grow leaves from itself, but it can be used as a wand; what Kölnisch Wasser “does” is smell nice, but it can be used for purification; what salt “does” is make food taste more like itself, but it can be used for protection as well as absorption of energies.  Of course, if you ask five different magicians what a particular thing can be used for, don’t be surprised if you get fifty different answers.  What one person sees as protective, another person sees as offensive and another as sweetening.  Let your own associations, stories, imagination, and education guide you in determining the best use for a particular thing or stuff in a given working.

Looking around my house and temple, I note that I have a few pricey things, namely statues and a singular stick of ebony that I did a bit of working on, which themselves form the bulk of the cost of my temple (not counting the furniture).  However, more than 80% of the stuff I have and use accounts for maybe 20% of the cost I’ve put into it all.  Offering vessels for gods were gotten at thrift stores for $1 to $3 each; cloth for decorating shrines were from thrift stores and stores going out of business for 50¢ to $2 each.  Most of the wooden plaques and boards I’ve used for making pentacles, talismans, and magic squares cost maybe $3 to $10 each, and a pack of paint markers and polyurethane finish cost another $10 total.  The candleholders I have are a combination of brass fixtures from thrift stores ($2 each), IKEA glass holders (50¢ each), and seashells and flat stones (free from outside).  The pile of railroad spikes I use for Hephaistos as well as for several workings were all free, obtained by literally going to my local railway and picking them up by the bagful.  In lieu of statues, several of the spirits I work with are enshrined within stones, some of which were obtained from outside and some I got for cheap from a rock-dealing friend of mine.  The decorations I use for some of my shrines are a combination of seasonal goods from the dollar store and things on discount from the craft store.

Besides, none of this touches on the notion of just stealing things you’d otherwise have to buy.  That’s all I have to say about that (just be smart about it, don’t get caught, and don’t piss people off).

Now that we’ve gone over where to get stuff and an idea of what it costs for this stuff, let’s talk about the difference between making stuff to use and buying stuff to use as-is.  As a rule, what you can’t buy, make it yourself, and you should always try making something yourself before going about buying it.  This goes for everything, from wands and Tables of Practice to anointing oil and talismans.  Always try making something yourself before having someone else do it, because in the process of making it yourself you get the Idea of it cemented in your sphere.  This is something Fr. Rufus Opus calls “kinetic meditation”, but which I like to call “contemplative exercise”.  It’s one thing to just look at and intellectually understand the layout of the Circle of Art from the Lemegeton Goetia, but it’s quite another to have actually gotten your paint and canvas, painstakingly drawn out every line, and painted on every letter of every divine name onto it.  This sort of activity is beyond price and value, since it instills into your own being something that cannot be obtained from just buying it from someone else.

To that end, always attempt to make a tool yourself first.  Consider the Table of Practice from the Trithemian conjuration ritual, the summoning circle I use in my own work.  Yes, I do make them for others, but if someone asks first, I always tell them that they should make it themselves first, even if it’s just printing out a copy and tracing it with pencil on paper, with sharpie on cardstock, or with chalk on concrete.  The mere act of drawing the Table out is the essential act of bringing it into existence.  Yes, the quality may not be as good, and the quality of magical operations done with something like that may or may not take a hit, but the fact is that you have done it and you have made yourself a tool you can use more cheaply and much faster than you would have otherwise.  Need a wand?  Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on an appropriately-sized ebony dowel engraved and gilded and capped with silver, get a stick you like the feel of from a park and scratch holy names onto it with a fork, or just use your index finger.  Need a Circle of Art?  Instead of shopping around for a heavy-duty canvas sheet with enchanted paint, get an old bedsheet and some ballpoint pens or permanent markers.  Need a scrying medium?  Instead of buying “good clear pellucid crystal of the bigness of a small orange” or an obsidian mirror, get a clear glass of clean water.  Need incense?  Instead of trying to scrounge pocket change together for the finest quality olibanum, get a scented candle or a free perfume sample from your department store cosmetics counter.  Need a magical oil?  Instead of going to your botanica and shelling out for what usually isn’t worth the cost, heat up some olive oil or Crisco in a pot with some herbs, spices, and dirt available to you.  Need candles?  Instead of going to the Yankee Candle Co. shop or even your local dollar store, make yourself a cheap oil lamp (and learn how to use it).

If your need is great enough, whatever you have on hand will work.
There is no tool you need that you cannot make or obtain for free.
Everything and anything can be used for a magical end if you know how to use it.
There is nothing so specialized or specific that it can only be used for magic.

Now, I know that I have a lot of friends and colleagues who have done magic for the cost of a few pennies, if even that, and who have lived through hard times on their own.  By all means, please leave your own comments and fill in the gaps I know I’ve left in this post; I have never been under the duress that some of my own contacts have, and I welcome people to poke holes in what assumptions I’ve made or to give their own advice for getting supplies, tools, and the like when money is something they can’t afford to spend.  Try to keep it limited to the topic of this post, though; I’ll be writing a few more posts on how to apply tools and supplies in shrines, works, and the like in the near future.

The last post I wrote on doing magic “broke but not cheap”, which is to say doing magic for as little a cost as possible, focused on magical goods and supplies, like oils and tools and the like.  This is what many people consider to be the most expensive part of doing magic, and in general it can be, but there are other topics on doing magic on a budget that I want to touch on as well.  For instance, say you have all your supplies and you’re an active magician.  Where do you put your things together?  If you take a devotional practice, how do you house your gods or spirits you work with?  Is it possible to build a temple on the cheap?

This next bit on doing magic for cheap is how to organize and put your stuff together, and this is where I find a good distinction that the Anomalous Thracian made a bit ago between an altar and a shrine.  Simply put, a shrine is where a deity or spirit lives, and an altar is a place where one does workings.  Consider how we say that some god is “enshrined” here, but never “enaltared”.  Some of us blur the lines between altars and shrines, and some of us keep them completely separate.  As an example, I have shrines to a few of the Greek gods, and I make offerings and the like of wine, incense, candles, and prayer at their shrines.  Then again, I’ll also occasionally do a working there and leave someone’s picture or a statue or something with one of the gods at their shrine.  However, I also have my ceremonial magic altar, or my Table of Manifestation as Fr. Rufus Opus calls it, which has no gods enshrined on it but has my magical tools and a space to do stuff like conjure spirits or focus a particular force into an object.  That said, this distinction is largely meant for the priests and vocational magicians among us; for most people, myself included, this distinction can be a little artificial and not always helpful.

And yes, it’s spelled “altar” (with an a).  Never “alter” (with an e).  Please, for the love of Hermes Logios, get your spelling right.

Now, this next part may get me into some hot water, but I claim that it is never necessary to build a permanent shrine or altar.  The gods and spirits we work with, being incorporeal, do not require a material home, since they usually already have one of their own in the heavens, hells, or in their own neck of the woods.  The powers we work with do not require a single fixed location in order to be summoned and manipulated.  Material places may be fixed, but spirits do not have to be.  Thus, if you cannot afford the time or space to build and maintain a shrine to a deity, or do enough magic to require the need for a permanently-built (and therefore continuously-active) altar, then you are under no obligation to do either.  That being said, it is extraordinarily helpful to do just those things.  No, they’re not necessary; yes, they are awesome to have.

Building a shrine or altar is not just a matter of money, but it’s also a matter of space, which is in many ways tied up with money.  Consider the magicians who employ the Lemegeton Goetia or the Clavicula Solomonis and do everything by the book.  The Circle of Art is required to be 9′ in radius, or 18′ in diameter, along with a bit more space on one side to house a 3′ equilateral Triangle of Art with a bit of space between the Circle and the Triangle.  This means that we’d need to have a minimum working space of 18′ × 22′, or a room that’s about 400 square feet.  This is a nontrivial size, and some of us are lucky to live in studios with that much space including the kitchen and bathroom.  When you add in the notion of having a smaller Tables of Manifestation and other shrines to deities and spirits, the total space required to maintain all this can be overwhelming.  Some of us are lucky to live in a large enough house on our own with a spacious basement or living room that we can use for magic without disturbances, but most of us aren’t.  We have to deal with smaller spaces or other people living with us, and that latter bit causes a whole slew of other problems.

As a whole, especially in the United States where I live, people have never before lived in bigger houses than what we live in nowadays.  What we consider to be studio apartments and small houses were, by and large, the standard for most people for decades and centuries leading up to our own, leading me to believe yet again that the style of magic described in many Renaissance and medieval grimoires really was intended for the wealthy and magistral among us.  Being able to afford such a mansion (and yes, McMansions qualify) is simply not in the financial reach of most people, whether in the US or abroad, and so we have to make do with substantially smaller places.  Happily, it’s not hard to do powerful work with powerful spirits in a small space, and one needs a large space much less than one needs a full set of ebony and 24k gold tools for their altar.

Let’s first consider someone who has neither space nor money to make a permanent shrine to a spirit or deity or saint, but still wants to work with them.  There are several ways they might go about doing this, as I reckon it:

• Find a clear and quiet space to sit or stand.  Pray.  Reach out to them, let them come, and simply talk with them.  You don’t need a shrine at all to just make contact.
• Build a temporary shrine on a table or shelf or against the wall on the floor.  Clean the area first, then place an image of the spirit (a statue if you can build one or afford to buy one, or a drawn-out or printed-out picture of them) along with votive gifts (if available).  Things like a cloth to cover a shrine with, tiny baubles or statuettes of animals associated with the spirit, and the like can all be placed to help give the spirit a “throne” to sit on, if you will, and these can all be stored safely and respectfully when not in use.  A small glass can be used to pour offerings into, and a candle and incense can be burned as a sacrifice.  Pray in the presence of the shrine and invite them to take their seat there, talk with them, and so forth.  When you’re done, invite them to stay if they will or go if they will, being the spirit that they are.  When the candle and incense have burnt out, respectfully dispose of anything perishable and pack the shrine away respectfully in a shoebox or something to hold everything in.
• Build a portable shrine.  You can find guides to this for a dime a dozen on building miniature shrines out of Altoids tins or other small boxes or containers, which can often be better than building a temporary shrine that you repeatedly put up and take down again.

When making a shrine, you don’t need to go all out.  Household shrines have, historically, been minimalist and tiny, with often little more than a statue and a candle burning in front of it, but even these have palpable power radiating off them when worked and venerated appropriately.  Elaborately decorated and embellished shrines full of baubles and artifacts and rarities are pretty much for those who can afford them, and are sometimes more for the person who maintains them rather than the spirit who’s enshrined there.  Intricate statues and works of art to represent the spirits are nice, but you often don’t need to go that far.  A simple printout of a historical statue or mural of the spirit or deity, perhaps suspended from thread or put into a picture frame, is more than sufficient; unusual pieces of wood or stone that have a particular feel on them can also work well as focal points of veneration for the spirit.  Likewise, any of the votive offerings, gifts, and decorations you want to give them would be better made or harvested yourself rather than bought, much as with any tool or talisman you’d make from before.  The difference here is, instead of creating something for the sake of kinetic meditation or contemplative exercise, you’re giving and dedicating something to the spirit that you yourself are making or supplying, which some find to be a more personal, intimate, and powerful type of offering.  Just be aware that what you offer is no longer yours but belongs to the spirit; if you want it back, you should ask and make sure that you have their blessing to do so.  If you dedicate to a spirit something like a tool, use it only with their permission and blessing.

Add to it, you only need to build a shrine to those spirits whom you really want to live with you and with whom you really want to work with pretty much constantly.  If you’re just calling a spirit a few times a year, you don’t need to build a shrine to them.  If you’re working with a spirit on a weekly or daily basis, you should probably consider building a shrine to them.  When you build a shrine, you’re making a commitment to that spirit to maintain it and maintain them.  It’s generally better to not build a shrine than to build one if you don’t have the time to give them the upkeep and veneration they deserve.  When in doubt, don’t build a shrine.  If you want to build a shrine, or if a spirit demands it, see what space you have available.  You don’t need some elaborate shadowbox when a corner of a bookshelf can suffice; I’ve seen some of my colleagues have shrines lining the floors of their hallways or have a dozen spirits on a single desk shelf, and their shit works all the same.

Also, when you’re building and maintaining a shrine, you need to keep in mind that you need to work with the spirit to maintain it.  It’s silly if the spirit you’re building the shrine for ignores it or doesn’t even respond when you go to it, and it’s as silly if you keep giving them things they don’t want or, conversely, ignore their requests for certain things and designs that they keep making.  If the spirit demands flowers, and flowers are in your ability and budget to obtain, don’t deny them that!  If they demand something that you can’t afford or procure, tell them that they’re requesting something you can’t get and they either need to help with getting it, provide for it themselves, or retract their request.  Building a shrine is building a relationship, and a relationship is a two-way street of compromise and cooperation.  Work with the spirit you have enshrined, but make sure they work with you, as well.  If you find that things simply aren’t working, respectfully tell them that you want to break this relationship and disassemble their shrine; they can determine what becomes of the stuff that has accumulated in their shrine, but beyond that, disassemble their shrine and go back to a more basic way of working with them.  This doesn’t mean you failed, it just means it wasn’t working, and that’s okay.

Anyway, I digress; so much for shrines and houses for spirits.  What about altars, though?  Well, an altar is one type of “working area” that isn’t necessarily connected to a particular spirit, and I’ll use the more generalized concept here because it can apply to more than one tradition.  In that sense, then, use whatever available surface you can so long as it won’t be disturbed by another person.  If you’re doing a one-off working for a particular end, use the kitchen floor or a coffee table.  If you’re doing repeated workings for a particular end, or have gotten used to doing a set of related workings on a frequent basis, consider setting aside a corner of a room or a particular surface to keep the required tools and patterns and supplies present; the top of an armoire or a desk or a side table will work well for this.  If you can’t afford the space or money for the furniture, keep all the tools and required things stored together when not in use, and when you’re ready to use them, ritually clean off a particular surface available to you and set everything out in a planned, regular manner.

Likewise, just as one doesn’t need elaborate and embellished altars, it’s quite possible to downsize some of the larger works described in grimoires and spellbooks of old while still getting good results.  I have never once found a need for a full 18′ diameter circle when my 6′ diameter circle is more than sufficient, and even then I use it only rarely; my own temple room is hardly sufficient for even that, and I do well enough by confining my conjuration work to a 4′ × 4′ space, big enough for me to sit in with a Table of Practice and a few candles.

Just like before when I mentioned that you can get the vast majority of your supplies and tools from going outside, I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on the topic of going outside for shrines and working areas.  Thus, if there’s anything you can do by going outside, do it outside.  Gods of the wild, of the forest, of the untouched and untamed places are always better encountered in their own turf rather than setting up some neat and clean shrine inside, and you’d be better of contacting spirits of forests, lakes, rivers, and mountains by going up to their homes rather than taking some of them back with you and contacting them from the convenience of your own chair.  Going out to a crossroads and talking with the spirits of the crossroads is basically going to a naturally-made shrine for them, and one that’s more powerful and much cheaper than simply building one in your own home.  Of course, there’s the bit about privacy and convenience that you’d be gaining from having them in your own home, but giving these things up as a sacrifice is a sacrifice all the same.

Likewise, if you can find a clearing or field outside that is generally desolate and unsupervised, you’d do well to do some larger workings out there (with the approval of spirits who reside there, of course) rather than trying to cram things you can’t downsize into your own home.  If any friends own a backyard, especially with a privacy fence, see if you can do something there that they won’t turn you down for.  The only issue here is privacy, which you might not always get, and which can sometimes get you in trouble for trespassing (and worse, if you live in a rather conservative place fearful of witches and non-Christian religions).  Then again, what’s a little magic without a bit of risk?  If your need is great enough, this kind of thing will seem trivial.

Again, I speak from a position of privilege here; I’ve never been so poor as to live in such a tiny place where I couldn’t do my magic, and I’ve been good to my spirits and building them shrines (oftentimes on the more elaborate end than not) because I’ve had the time, space, and resources to do so.  Some of my friends have lived in much tinier places, sometimes in a mobile home or sometimes homeless while still maintaining contact with their gods and spirits.  Like last time, I would greatly appreciate it if others who have lived through some of these things and who have built or maintained shrines on a budget or done workings in a particular space when money and space are sparse could comment below and offer their thoughts and fill in any holes I’ve left.

So, in the last two posts, I’ve described how to get by on the cheap stuff and the free stuff in order to set yourself up as a magician.  The important thing to remember is to make do with what you have, which sounds daunting for some of us who have grown up in a magical culture or occulture that insists on having gold-plated wands or elaborate temple spaces in order to forge strong connections with the gods or saints or what-have-you.  It’s all bullshit, of course; you can ask any kitchen witch or folk healer who lives out in dismal poverty, especially considered by urban first-world standards, and they can show you worlds of power stronger and more palpable than the most elaborately-decorated churchlike temple space.  Sure, the goods and finery do help, and I’m not saying they’re worthless (far from it!), but do you need any of the fine stuff in order to get your shit done?  Hell no.  Historically speaking, magic as a whole has been done by the outcasts, the impoverished, the traitors, the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, and because of those people magic has been given a bad place in the minds of people as something evil, against the order of things, and subversive.  Well, of course it is, if you push people out of the normal modes of power and empowerment, but what else would you expect?

Many people find themselves turning to magic when nothing else works.  This includes people who have run out of unemployment benefits, those who have been cast out of hearth and home, those who have racked up unimaginable amounts of debt, those whose health prevents them from working outside the home, and the like.  In these and in many other cases, we find people whose resources are constrained to pretty much what they have to survive on and little else, with anything else being considered a luxury item.  Hoodoo, most PGM stuff, and endless traditions of folk magic come out of these situations, and though they’re romanticized nowadays, they have always retained an air of the gritty, the gruesome, and the grounded because it reflects the people and the circumstances that these traditions have come out of.  Most of the fancy shit comes with institutionalization and adoption of magical methods by the well-off and powerful, and isn’t strictly necessary since the magic itself works with a lot less than is tacked on over time.

Bearing that in mind, how do we actually implement magical ritual on a tight budget?  Again, use what you have, and what you don’t have, remember that saying from your grandmother: “use it up and wear it out, make it do or do without”.  That applies as well to household activities as it does to magical ones, and considering that household activities were often inseparable from magical ones in nearly every culture but our modern materialist one, it makes sense.  Consider the house as your kosmos, your own personal microcosm where everything you are is represented by where you live and what you have in it in order to live.  Seen in that light, there is nothing in your house that doesn’t have a spiritual significance.  Plateware and eating utensils, for instance, can be used as mere tools or as symbols of nourishment, as well as staples like bread or rice or beans or meat.  Towels and soap represent cleanliness, scissors and knives separation and cutting things off, candles and lightbulbs as sources of enlightenment, clothes as “skins” or context-setters, insect repellents as demonifuges or exorcist tools, and the like.  Everything is both a tool and a symbol, and should be viewed as such.  You don’t need to have a separate set of ritual knives if all you have is your Cutco knife set you got on discount from a high school friend, though you may want to clean them off both before and after ritual use.

Honestly, it’s hard for me to talk about doing work and ritual on a budget because the types of works and rituals you might do are as varied as you can think of, and no two people will downsize and be resourceful on a budget in the same way.  Generally, do what works best for you with what you have.  Say you want to conjure an angel in the way I and Fr. Rufus Opus or Fr. Ashen Chassan do it.  For that, you need a few things for the ritual: a Table of Practice, a wand, a scrying medium, a lamen of the spirit, and candles; incense, altar cloth, decorations, drink offerings, robes, and the like are nonessential but help.  Let’s say we can’t afford the nonessential stuff, and we don’t have the money for buying a Table of Practice or woodburning one, much less getting a good crystal ball.  What can we do?  Draw out the Table of Practice in marker on a piece of cardboard or paper; that’s your summoning circle.  Get a glass of water or a small stand-up mirror; that’s your scrying medium.  Get a wooden stick from outside, a clean (un)sharpened pencil, and a matchstick for your wand, or just use your index finger of your dominant hand.  Draw out the lamen design on a piece of paper and hang it from your neck with a bit of thread or a shoestring.  Boom, you have everything you need for an angelic summoning ritual.  Hell, once you make contact, you might save the lamen and save it as a portable shrine-talisman all on its own for future contact if the angel agrees to it.

You can use the same sort of simplification to most rituals for similar contact, if you still know the ritual and the ritual setup; the materials help, and the finer the materials the smoother (not necessarily finer) the connection, but the materials are there to help you, not to do the work for you.  If you can’t afford the ritual supplies and the regalia and the finery, that does not mean you can’t do the magic.  It just means you can’t use them, and you’re not worse off for it.  What you put into the ritual will come back to help you, and the more you put into it the more you’ll get back out, but if you can’t drop thousands of dollars on supplies, that doesn’t mean you’re up Styx creek without a paddle.  It just means you’re going to need to be absolutely earnest in what you are trying to ritual up and making contact with the spirit you want to talk with.

Don’t have pure essential oils to consecrate a talisman?  Use a bit of Crisco melted and heated with kitchen spices that smell about right.  Don’t have eight orange candles with wicks spun by a virgin?  Use some tealights you’ve colored after you’ve taken a shower and haven’t had sex for a day.  Don’t have ritual cakes made with frankincense and pure eggs laid by a pure white hen?  Use simple bits of white bread rolled up into balls with an intent of offering them.  Don’t have the space or privacy to make a full offering shrine that has to remain set up for a week?  Use a corner of a room that isn’t entered except by you, or use a drawer you empty out and keep it shut when not in use.  Don’t have a full set of linen robes embroidered with red silk?  Get a set of clean white scrubs or white undergarments drawn on with red ballpoint pen.  Can’t afford to get the blood of a white gosling in winter?  Use feathers from a white goose found on the ground soaked in cheap red wine, or a bottle of red wine or beer with a goose on the label.  Can’t find the herbs to make holy water?  Get an empty plastic bottle and get some from your local church.  Can’t afford to keep fresh flowers on an altar?  Get cheap fake ones and keep them on an altar until you can afford real ones.  Can’t scrounge up the cash to get a knife made and engraved at the right time with holy names and symbols?  Take a butterknife and scratch in the symbols with another knife at the right time.

If you make the effort of doing the ritual as close as you can to what’s prescribed with what you have, you’ll be fine.  You might need to make up for certain things with more earnesty, more focus, more concentration, more meditation, more singing, or more motion, but you’ll be able to get your work done without necessarily having to spend much on it.  Remember that you have plenty of cheap and free resources to make do with what you have or getting by on just a little.

When doing your own ritual work that doesn’t come from a book, let your intuition, spiritual contact, and resourcefulness guide you.  This is where magic really shines and develops on its own; the best magic is done in a time of need with what you have, even if all you have is a few words, some tablesalt, and only enough space to move your arms around a bit.  The traditions of magic we have (Hermetic grimoire, hoodoo, Daoist, Eastern Europe folk, grannymagic, etc.) are inherently incomplete, just as our encyclopedias and how-to guides; they provide a snapshot of things that can be done, but they are not complete systems in and of themselves.  Studying a tradition of magic inculcates a methodology to making things work in an occult manner; it does not provide you with all the answers to all possible situations, but it provides a framework to approach them and work with and within them.  Once you know how things are done generally within a system, you can extrapolate based on what you’ve learned to make rituals for things that have never before been written about or conceived.  If you can read between the lines and see why the system works the way it does, you can “hack” into the system, simplify it or substitute within it to make the same effects happen with different or fewer materials, and start developing new approaches using the same underlying logic.

Magic works when we need it.  When we need it, there is nothing that can stop us.  Money, materials, regalia, and the like are ultimately, well, immaterial to the function of magic so long as we know how to use what we have.  That, however, comes with experience, but so long as you keep trying your hand at this stuff, that experience will come one way or another.  Experience, intelligence, and wisdom come before all else, and if you have those, you have the richest and rarest resources of all.

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 February 2015.

“saturn%25252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252525252bsabbath” — Oh really, now?  I’m not sure why you’re using the % sign so much in that query (%25 is a common way to represent the % sign itself in some encodings), but…I mean, Saturn is in a little bit of everything, Hermetically speaking, so yes, you could represent how closely something is associated with Saturn as a percentage?  I guess?

“where does wiccan writing come from” — You likely mean the Theban alphabet.  This script was adopted at some point by people in Wicca, though I’m not sure when or why.  It was given as a magical writing system for the Roman script by Agrippa (book III, chapter 29), and we find this same script appear in Johann Trithemius’s Polygraphia, which makes sense as Trithemius was Agrippa’s mentor.  However, this script predates Trithemius, originating in alchemical cipher scripts of medieval and Renaissance Europe.  Trithemius claims that it started with Honorius of Thebes (yes, the same one after whom the Sworn Book of Honorius is named after) “as given by Pietro d’Abano”, though d’Abano gives no such reference.  There are some theories that the Theban writing system was loosely based on Georgian script or Ethiopian script, though these still seem far-fetched to my mind.

“hermetic how consecrate a orisha” — You don’t.  End of.  Orisha are not part of the Hermetic tradition; they’re part of the African diasporic religions that originate in Yoruba culture and mixed with European Christian saint veneration and American indigenous traditions, like Cuban (Santeria) or Brazilian (Candomble).  If you want to consecrate a vessel for an orisha, you’ll need to be part of those traditions, which keep those methods and tools as secret mysteries one has to be initiated into.  If you want to approach an orisha on your own, you can do that in a way not unlike calling a Greek or Roman god or a planetary power, but you’d do best to approach them in the way they’re traditionally called.  Go to your local botanica or ile to ask more.  Besides, the Hermetic tradition is jam-packed with spirits of all kinds, types, names, and histories all their own.  It’s a complete system and framework for approaching the cosmos, and even though it can incorporate or understand other traditions from within itself, there really is no need to borrow so liberally from other traditions just because you want an exotic flavor in your own work.

“what happens when you summon hermes” — I wouldn’t know, since I don’t make it a habit to summon or conjure gods.  I invoke them and call upon them and invite them to be with me or to help me, but I don’t conjure them in the way I conjure an angel.  That seems presumptuous of me, especially since Hermes is usually pretty busy and comes at his leisure and choice rather than my forceful summons.

“what spirit should be my first conjuration?” — Personally, I suggest a spirit close to you.  Land spirits of places you frequent often, such as a park or an office building, or even your own home, are fantastic.  Ancestor spirits and people from whom you’re descended are also easy to come in contact with, and being their progeny, you already have an in with them that makes for an easy contact.  If you want to go with angels, I suggest Uriel, not just because Uriel was the first angel I went with, but because Uriel is the angelic king associated with Earth, and thus the angel closest to humanity and the world we live in.  The important thing is to not reach too far, but to pick something easy and relatively safe for conjuration so that you begin to get the feel for what feels right in a context like that.

“how to position candles when conjuring a seal” — I’m not sure about the positioning, but I’m rather more intrigued by your attempt to call forth marine mammals into being with magic.  Seals can be a very good source of fragrance and fuel materials, to be sure.

“was pope gregory or psuedo dionys first wirh archangel names” — Neither, actually.  There are references to seven archangels, and archangels generally, that predate Pope Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysus the Areopagite by centuries.  We find Michael in the Book of Daniel and Raphael in the Book of Tobit, and we find more extensive archangel names in the Books of Enoch, all of which were written long before the births of Greg or P.-D.

“wiccan language” — You mean English?

“summoning ghost rituals aaaaaaaaaa” — Dude, it’s not that scary.  Relax.

“sigils greek gods” — The Greek gods don’t really have seals or sigils of their own; they simply weren’t worked with like that, and the use of seals is very much a later thing.  We find the use of barbarous words of power and celestial characters in magical writings from the PGM, sure, but nothing like a “seal” like what’s given in the Lemegeton Goetia.  Rather, the Greek gods were usually called upon and prayed to, perhaps using a statue or other sacred image of them as a focus.

“occultic gay love bonding” — I’m game for it; I’m always for using magic for getting laid and getting paid, and all the better if you live happily ever after.  Thing is, since most people are straight, most magic is, too.  Doesn’t mean that queer/gay/trans/agender magic is wrong or trivial, though, though it is hard to come by.  There’s one spell from olden times I know of specifically for male-male love, but that’s about it.  Generally speaking, any romance or love spell you can think of will work as well for same-sex or agendered relationships as it would for different-sex relationships.  However, if that ritual uses very gendered elements (one partner has High John the Conqueror root and one partner has Queen Elizabeth root, or there’s some combination of a phallus and vagina candle), you may want to change those as desired for the proper effect.

“kybalion is male focused” — Ugh.  The Kybalion is hardly focused at all, and among modern texts, it’s basically swill.  If your only issue with the Kybalion is that it tends to focus on men or masculinity (I guess?), then you need to get out more or read more texts, because there are many more problems in the Kybalion than just that.

Not too long ago, I read on one of my friends’ Facebook walls a particular quote that I find profound and worthy of committing to memory:

Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead…Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.  All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.  Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.
G.K. Chesterton, “Orthodoxy”

After the past few posts about how to downsize magic on a budget to what you can manage, it’s probably easy to think that I’m cheering for doing away with tradition and institutionalized forms of magic in occulture in favor of an easier, cheaper route.  Don’t think that I’m supporting this; I mentioned throughout these same posts that, when possible, doing things by the book is important and worth the effort and cost, and if you can afford to do something fancier, you should.  If you can’t but really still need to do something, and if you know the logic and framework of the system you’re trying to change well enough, then doing things in a faster, cheaper, or more streamlined way can also work to more-or-less the same ends, especially if you’re willing to make up for the difference in cost with more ritual work or if you can rely on already-established spiritual contacts.

Not too long ago, I was recently initiated into a religion that places a huge amount of emphasis on tradition.  Not just ritual protocols and songs, though those are hugely important, but even the small things like how to ask questions, how to treat certain ritual objects on a weekly basis, and the like.  Even the smallest details are often the hinge upon which something is done, and changing these things wantonly is a huge no-no against the people and household who initiated me.  While eventually I might be able to experiment and listen to the spirits with whom we work and find ways that work better for me, those times are yet far off and I have much to learn, and there’s no guarantee I can or should find my own way to work.

However, our tradition is just that, our own, and even closely-associated houses within the same overarching religion might have vastly different ways of doing particular things.  Does this make them wrong?  No!  As with most cultures and religions, there is no centralized or centrally-managed “correct” way to do things.  Variations are to be expected based on location, time period, and evolution within those contexts, and it’s natural to assume that what I consider right, another might consider wrong.  Is that alright?  Of course!  Just because I do something differently doesn’t make either of us wrong, so long as we’re following the traditions and working within them as we should.  That our traditions differ doesn’t mean one tradition has to be changed to suit the other.  It just means that our traditions are different and that we respect our own traditions’ validity, and respect the power of other people to maintain their own traditions.

There’s a big push in occulture, and there has been a while, based on postmodernism, Discordianism, and chaos magic theory that we can do anything we want to do and change anything we want because it’s us who’s doing the work and all that’s really powering our magic is, ultimately, us.  I find that notion half-cute and half-obscene.  For one, no, we’re not alone in the cosmos; that kind of solipsistic thinking is insulting to the others who do, in fact, exist regardless of what we think of them, be they spirit or man, alive or dead.  For another, thinking that we can do whatever the hell we want and being right in how we’re doing it regardless disregards the logic, framework, and methodology that has been built up in the traditions passed down to us, and to disregard that or, worse, to cherrypick from them

The word “tradition” literally means “that which is handed down to us”.  We call a lot of things “traditions” when, in reality, they’re no such thing; it was “tradition” at my university to streak the libraries during finals, when it was really just a meme done by one or two generations of students and people wanted to show how edgy or ballsy they were.  That’s not a tradition.  A tradition is something that has been handed down to you as a whole unit from another person, who themselves received it from another person, and so forth until a particular person had a particular revelation that needed to be passed on.  The person who gives that tradition to you is, essentially, an initiator, and you are their initiate in that tradition.  In maintaining that tradition that was given to you, you show your initiator and all their initiators respect for continuing that work, the contracts they made, the sacrifices they paid for, and living their own lives to pass that tradition on.  Thus, what Chesterton said above about tradition makes this poignantly clear to me: regardless of heeding what innovations we ourselves or others make, tradition is heeding the innovations of our ancestors and those who came before us.

Now, I’m not always a stickler for tradition.  It can on occasion be a good move to break from tradition and do things differently, and not everything that’s been passed down is always a good thing.  Sometimes our morals dictate that times have changed and so too should the things we do; sometimes changing climates, famine, war, migration, and the like prevent us from doing things the way things have been done in the past.  Sometimes our ancestors operated on inexact or incomplete knowledge and we honestly have better ways to do things now that couldn’t be done in the past.  A particular story comes to mind about how certain things are passed on that no longer need to be heeded:

A young woman is preparing a pot roast while her friend looks on.  She cuts off both ends of the roast, prepares it and puts it in the pan.  “Why do you cut off the ends?” her friend asks.  “I don’t know”, she replies.  “My mother always did it that way and I learned how to cook it from her”.

Her friend’s question made her curious about her pot roast preparation.  During her next visit home, she asked her mother, “How do you cook a pot roast?”  Her mother proceeded to explain and added, “You cut off both ends, prepare it and put it in the pot and then in the oven”.  “Why do you cut off the ends?” the daughter asked.  Baffled, the mother offered, “That’s how my mother did it and I learned it from her!”

Her daughter’s inquiry made the mother think more about the pot roast preparation.  When she next visited her mother in the nursing home, she asked, “Mom, how do you cook a pot roast?”  The mother slowly answered, thinking between sentences.  “Well, you prepare it with spices, cut off both ends and put it in the pot”.  The mother asked, “But why do you cut off the ends?”  The grandmother’s eyes sparkled as she remembered.  “Well, the roasts were always bigger than the pot that we had back then.  I had to cut off the ends to fit it into the pot that I owned.”

Just because a tradition declares a certain method to be valid within that tradition doesn’t mean that tradition is infallible.  It just means that that’s how the tradition has codified something; should the code need to change for a good reason while keeping the tradition intact, then there’s no reason that the tradition shouldn’t be changed, though the original method and new way should both be kept in mind.  After all, the original method was made for a reason.

When learning magic or any sort of old art, it behooves us to learn the traditional way of doing things first.  I’m no fan of reading a ritual in a book and changing it outright to suit our own needs, especially without taking the time to see why that particular ritual was written that particular way in that particular book.  This is especially true when we consider a book to be a compendium of traditions with dozens, maybe hundreds of initiators’ teachings present within it, and all their cumulative experience in a particular act present in a codified, static form; the ritual is written that way for a reason, and we should strive to follow that ritual as it is presented to us before we go changing it around because we feel like we’re in the right to so do.  Hint: you’re not.  You might be in the right if you try the ritual and can change parts of it without changing the result or the effect, all while maintaining the integrity of the tradition you’re essentially buying into by following the book, but you’re not in the right to disregard parts of it outright and cherrypick the parts you like because you feel you’re important like that.

If you like, consider a tradition a “canonical” form of a particular body of knowledge and actions against which other acts can be compared.  If something follows the tradition closely or to the letter, we can call that thing traditional.  If that something changes a few things without changing the overall flow, feel, or structure, then we might call that thing an innovation within the tradition.  If that thing changes much to affect the flow and structure, even it reaches towards the same ends, then it’s no longer traditional nor does it belong in that tradition.  While none of these three things are “wrong” when trying to accomplish a particular goal, if we’re initiated into a particular tradition, we need to be very careful about what we show to others as part of that tradition.

Ultimately, in our lives and especially in our Work, we need to be concerned with what works and with what works best, but we also need to be mindful of what’s worked for those who have gone before us and what is known to work for others.  What works best for us might work only for us based on our own work, and this sort of thing inherently cannot become traditional though it may fit within an overall tradition.  What can be passed on should be passed on, generally speaking, and what’s been passed down to us should be passed down to others whenever possible, even if we no longer use it.  Even if it’s just for memory’s and veneration’s sake, tradition is valuable and can help others innovate on their own.

This is one of the reasons why I wrote those posts on doing magic cheaply on a budget.  Sure, anyone can whip up a ritual with a candle or a stick and get magic accomplished; that’s not the point.  Many people are used to working within traditions with access to rare, obscure, or precious items, and depending on where we are in our lives or what’s going on around us, we may not have the ability to carry out those traditions with the resources and tools we have available to us.  This doesn’t mean we can’t do our work that we’re used to, but it means we have to work within those traditions we’ve been taught in a way that maintains faithfulness to them while being aware of our limitations and own context.  Traditions aren’t necessarily fixed things, though it’s nice to keep them as fixed as we can.  Thus, within the Solomonic tradition, if we live in a place where hazel doesn’t grow, we can’t rightly make our wands from a wood we can’t obtain, so we need to find a wood that is available that works as well as hazel might.  If we’re too poor to make lamens from gold, we need to find another material that we can obtain.  We can still be traditional even if we’re unable to do as we were taught.

Most people spend their time in two places: at home or at work.  Not everyone, of course; some of us aren’t employed, and some of us work out of our own homes.  Sadly, the number of people in unemployment is rising and will likely continue to rise for quite some time, and I personally hope to see more and more people working home-based jobs for crafting, machining, and engineering as time goes on, but in our society it’s still common and the norm for people to work outside of their home in some sort of environment like an office, a factory, a restaurant, a store, or some other place that provides goods or services to our larger society.  Add to it, many people who are employed tend to work long hours, not including commuting to and from work which itself might be nontrivial.

Of the people who work outside the home, a smaller number of people do magic.  Myself, for instance: I’m fortunate enough to be employed in a sit-down office environment (which is still a surprise to me and my family), and I’m also a Hermetic magician (which may come as a surprise to some of you).  The problem for magicians like you and me is that the things we do typically takes a fair bit of time, and when considered alongside time commitments for work, we typically have to compromise our practices or overlap certain things to maintain both our spiritual development as well as our regularly-scheduled income.  For instance, for myself, my commute is about an hour and a half one way, plus seven to eight hours in the office; that’s ten hours out of my day that I’m not at home, and sometimes I work longer than just eight hours, though sometimes I work less, and sometimes I work for longer hours at home so I don’t have to work as long at the office.  That’s just my situation, too; I know some people with longer commutes and who also work longer hours on a more frequent basis than I do, so while my situation might seem icky, I know for a fact I don’t have it that bad.

Then again, a good amount of magic is in discretion, secrecy, and hiding things in plain sight.  Sure, we might be in a public space, perhaps surrounded by people, but that’s no reason to say that we can’t use our time out of the house to do magic or keep up our practice.  Of course, depending on where you work, not all types of practices will be available to you; performing meditation throughout the day at a desk won’t be possible if you’re working on a standing factory line, for instance, nor could you chant mantras repeatedly if you’ve got to do customer service throughout the day.  That said, there’s still plenty of opportunity to keep up your practices during the workday with good success and good secrecy.

That last bit is important: you want to be discreet and secret about this.  Many places across the US and the world generally frown on magical practices, and you may be subject to no small amount of discrimination if you’re found out to be one who does magic.  You might be ridiculed, barred from promotion, demoted, fired, or worse, depending on the type of people around you and their own beliefs, so any way you can keep your practice on the down low is a good way.  That is, of course, if you choose to do magic at all in the workplace; given how easy it can be, however, it’s not that hard to do.

I won’t be elaborate and give you details on conjuring angels or demons in the broom closet, but here are some things you might consider:

• Any place where you have a modicum of privacy and time can be used for magic.  If you drive to work, use your car on your breaks.  Use empty conference rooms or neglected spaces, but nothing too suspicious like a broom closet.
• If you get a break of any substantial length, take a walk to a nearby park.  Explore your surroundings for abandoned buildings or other desolate (but reasonably safe) places.
• If you have a desk, set up one of the corners as a modest and incognito shrine; if you’re bold, go ahead and use statues or other explicit representations of your gods, but stick to the more innocuous things like attributes or abstract images.
• If you want to tie your magic closer to your work without having much of your magic in your workplace, use things like business cards, dirt or dust or rocks from your office, and the like at home to do workings there from afar.  Similarly, take a bit of dirt, stone, or other part of where you live/do your Work to where you work and make that link from the other side.  Even better, do both!
• If you have someone you want to lay a trick on, use whatever you can discreetly in the office or workplace to do so.  Any leftover pairs of shoes, cups or drinking-bottles, doorknob handles to offices, the threshold of their cubicles, their keyboards and pens, and all the like are fair game so long as it’s not suspicious for you to be hovering or touching these things without them present.
• Protection in the office is huge; given all the politics and backstabbing and gossip, you want to keep yourself safe magically.  Use a protective oil on your desk or office walls to block out things, and reanoint these surfaces every month or season.  Set out a glass of water weekly to “collect” the ick passing around you in the office, and clean yourself off every morning into the glass.  Set out a Rose of Jericho to keep the spiritual airs clean and to also bring prosperity.  Lay out a line of salt leading into your cubicle or office.  Wear protective charms under your clothing when possible/safe to do so.
• Set out a small mirror where you can to act as a means of communication or scrying with spirits.  Similarly, those ornate blown-glass paperweights can do the same.
• If you’re more of a technologically-minded mage and have access to a computer, don’t forget that using hard disk or server space can be a fascinating and subtle way to spread magical influence.  I’ve done this by storing a massive text file consisting of prayers on several server arrays; as the had drives spin, they generate those prayers an unimaginably huge number of times not unlike Buddhist prayer wheels.
• If you’re not bound to a particular uniform, try to color some of your clothes according to the planetary colors on different days of the week to align yourself to different overall workings or bring those planets’ influences into your office.  In my informal clothes, I wear a bandanna of a particular color in my back pocket (purple for Monday, red for Tuesday, etc.); on more formal days, I’ll wear a tie of that color.  Bonus: consider using Kalagni’s correspondence of tie knots with planets!
• Most workplaces don’t let you have fire, but consider using an essential oil diffuser instead to spread particular smells around a place for a given effect.  If you move around a lot, consider wearing them (safely) on your own person or anointing a particular bit of fabric with them.
• If you insist on having a set of magical tools in your office, keep them innocuous.  For instance, for the elemental weapons, you might consider a shaved pencil, a letter-opener, a coffee mug, and a CD your wand, sword, cup, and coin.  Use small coins consecrated to different gods or planets as their token talismans.  Use printouts as altar cloths, if you insist.
• Never forget the importance of astral magic.  If you have the ability to doze off, you have the ability to go astral even for a short while (or do a half-projection using the mental faculties).
• If you have downtime and aren’t using it for ritual or doing activity, always see if you can read and study, instead.  Hell, I’ve done more than half my occult research in my office between projects and on breaks, to say nothing of my occult writing and planning!

Got any other ideas you’d care to share?  Feel free to post them in the comments!

Not that long ago, I was asked a simple question: if I were stranded on a desert island and could only have three occult books to keep with me, which ones would that be?  Hoo boy.  Asking this to most Western magicians, bookhoarders that we are, is a tough question.  Asking this to one who wants to build up his own library?  You’re just being cruel.

So, just to get it out of the way, there are two books I think every magician should have: a handbook and a recordbook.  The former keeps all their notes, sigils, symbol information, rituals, prayers, and the like that they find useful in their practice.  The latter acts as their journal, reading log, dream record, ritual notebook, liber spirituum, and so forth.  While the two can be combined, I prefer to keep them separate (and I keep a separate divination book from my ritual book, but that’s just me).  These two things are as vital as one can get for a magician, since it keeps a written, permanent record of their work and activities over time.  That said, with enough practice, much of these things can be committed to memory; of the nearly-full moleskine journal I have for my ritual handbook, I need to look at it for only a handful of prayers at this point since I’ve done so much of it over time that I’ve gotten all my daily practice and regular ritual stuff memorized.

That said, those don’t count for this question; I can always write and keep records on many surfaces, and memorize enough aplenty, but those are for things I come across and invent and perform.  If I had to pick three books, grimoires, reference books, or the like to take with me on a stranded, perhaps life-long exiled island, what would those three books be?

One of the easiest ways I like to think of things, given my earthy Virgoan tendencies, is to decide on negative criteria, or “what qualities am I not looking for?”.  It’s a fascinating way to learn more about something or another person, and it’s a good way to get a conversation started on a first date.  In terms of books I’d not want to bring, I know that I wouldn’t want anything on geomancy (at this point I’m left to innovating or starting over in another tradition), astrology (I can plot and figure out the stars on my own with a bit of trial and error), or…honestly, most magical topics.  Books of prayers, spirits, saints, rituals, and the like are good things to have on hand and familiarize oneself with, and I’ll be the first to claim that I could always do this more, but even at the risk of reinventing the wheel, what I need to do I can learn to do on my own.  After all, necessity is the best teacher, and on a stranded desert island, necessity would be the order of the day.

For me?  I’d pick these three books:

1. A good book of herbs and plants.  Besides the obvious guide to what’s safe/medicinal/psychotropic and what’s not, the other benefit to this would help expand my knowledge and help me understand how to work with these things on both a material level as well as a spiritual one.
2. A good book of stones, crystals, and soils.  See #1.  Add to it, knowing what minerals are present in an area can also suggest the safety of planting, water drinking, and building.
3. A good book of animals, fauna, and insects.  See #1.  Add to it, knowing how an animal acts and where it lives can also help learn how to work with, tame, hunt, or avoid them, as well as what plants are likely in an area.

Why these?  Because, honestly, I’m simply ignorant of these things.  Angels, astrology, divination, mathematics, programming, designing, prayers, religion, these are all nice things to learn about, and I daresay I’ve learned a small smattering of each.  That said, for my own self, I’d pick books on the natural world that can guide me and help me survive and, based on how I react to certain things, help me grow spiritually.  In working with the things around me, I can work with the spirits around me and help them, and help myself be helped by them.  Perhaps, if I weren’t so ignorant and underlearned on these things, I’d pick different books.  For myself, these things as a survival guide would be paramount.  I’d gladly go with pragmatism over spirituality; after all, I can’t be a very good magician if I’m dead (post-death magic excepted).

So, what about you?  If you had to pick three books to keep with you on a deserted island, what would they be?  Also, if you know of good examples of the above I chose that aren’t written by Scott Cunningham, what would you suggest?

So, recently, I’ve been teaching geomancy in one-on-one classes with a friend.  (No, I don’t plan to do this very often, and if I do, I won’t be taking on more than one student at a time.  I’m still pretty new to this.)  He’s already very bright and skilled with other forms of divination, and his aptitude for logic and theory lend itself very well to the study of my favorite divinatory art.  He brings up lots of questions that give me pause to think them over, answering based on the theories of geomancy developed in the literature as well as in my own practice, and there’s plenty to talk about between his and my use of the art.  However, I’ve noticed something in the course of our discussions, and the discussions I’ve had with others, that I think should be said very explicitly.

In Western (or European) geomancy, we often divide the geomantic reading into two charts: the Shield Chart (the “constructive” chart with 16 “houses” for the Mothers, Daughters, Nieces, and Court) and the House Chart (the astrological chart with 12 houses).  Much of Western geomancy is devoted to the interpretation of the geomantic figures in the astrological House Chart, and somewhat less to the interpretation of the figures in the Shield Chart, usually focusing on the combinations of Witnesses and Judges.  Heck, even in my own posts on this blog, I’ve talked more about perfection and how to use the 12 houses of a geomantic House Chart to answer queries.  To be fair, the process of understanding the Court figures isn’t that hard, and it’s easy to extrapolate any number of ways to interpret them once you understand the gist of that.  It makes sense that more would be written about the more complicated and involved methods of interpretation, but this should not be misinterpreted that the Court figures are less important than the House Chart methods.

So, without further ado, let me make my point very clear:

The Court figures (Witnesses, Judge, and Sentence) form the answer to the query.  The Court says what will happen.  Everything else in the chart, in both the Shield Chart and the House Chart, describe the details of how things happen.  Thus, the Court always come first and provide the heart of the answer to any and all geomantic queries, and of the Court, the Judge figure is the most important.  Everything else should be interpreted in light of the Judge figure.

I find it incredibly confusing that someone would disregard the Judge and the rest of the Court, skipping ahead to the House Chart before even considering what the Court figures mean.  I consider it bad form to ask a query, construct the Shield Chart, then immediately look at the House Chart to find perfection or what-have-you to get a “yes” or “no” answer.  The Court, and the Judge especially, always provide the answer to the query, and more than that, the context within which the entire rest of the chart must fit.  All the other information one can obtain out of a geomantic chart—speed of resolution, perfection, quality of being, actors and actions, and everything else—is ultimately meaningless without a context to make sense of them.  The Court gives you that context and describes what will happen regarding the query put to geomancy.  Everything else just gives details and is, essentially, unnecessary for interpretation.

After all, the Shield Chart and House Chart aren’t really different charts.  The House Chart is just a reorganization of the Mothers, Daughters, and Nieces in the Shield Chart into a more cyclical presentation rather than a procedural or additive presentation that the Shield Chart encourages.  Of the latter, we have the triad system (First Mother + Second Mother = First Niece, etc.), which is composed of four triads of figures; these same twelve figures are those used in the House Chart.  However, it bears remembering that these same twelve figures, whether laid out procedurally in the Shield Chart or cyclically in the House Chart, boil down to the Witnesses, Judge, and Sentence.  Thus, the Court figures encapsulate everything that has gone before, and really provide both the overall answer and the heart of the matter within itself.

Quick example.  Consider a query where someone wants to know whether they’ll be able to find a lost object.  The Judge is Amissio, and the House Chart perfects.  If you just look at the House Chart, then yes, you would say that the querent would find their lost object and all will be well (despite the fact that perfection and favorability are two different things that cannot be answered with one technique).  However, Amissio is the Judge, which indicates loss.  Beginning geomancers would be befuddled at this, thinking that the Judge is saying one thing and the House Chart says another, and would consider the chart too confusing to interpret.  However, remember that the Judge is the ultimate answer here and provides context for everything else.  Thus, ultimately, the querent will not have all they hope for, but depending on the rest of the details, we could extrapolate several interpretations of this combination of Judge and Houses:

• The original item will not be recovered, but a replacement can be obtained.
• The item will be recovered, but damaged to the point of worthlessness.
• The item will be recovered, but at an overall loss of time, money, or resources to the querent.
• The item was never lost, but the item will be of no use or otherwise accessible to the querent.

Note how, in these interpretations, the central idea of “loss” is present in all of them, none of them good for the querent’s original query.  However, there’s still some manner of recovery or possession that fit into the Judge’s context of loss which doesn’t ultimately change the answer to the query.  Yes, it may take some creativity and intuition to figure out how to put together seemingly-conflicting contexts and details, but that’s part of the art and skill of a geomancer that must be practiced and honed in order to properly use geomantic divination.

So, remember kids: always, always, always look at the Court first in a geomantic chart.  Those figures there will tell you what’s going on and what will happen.  Everything else just fills in the details, but it’s the Court that set up the answer.

Western geomancy, as a whole, can often be described as astrological.  This isn’t to say that geomancy comes from astrology or vice versa (although some authors might disagree, like Cornelius Agrippa), but that many of the techniques described by Western geomantic texts are heavily influenced by astrological techniques: the use of the 12 houses, perfection, planetary and zodiacal affinities, the Parts of Spirit and Fortune, and the like.  The use of astrologesque techniques in geomancy have sometimes led geomancy to be called “astrology’s little sister” (since it can easily look like a shortened or abbreviated form of astrology) or “poor man’s astrology” (since it didn’t take nearly as much education or expertise to learn geomancy).  For people who want to get away from astrology, it can sometimes be irksome that there appears to be so much of it in what should be the divination system that counters it (reading the stars versus divining the earth, if we want to take things literally).

That said, geomancy is still its own tradition and has its own strengths and techniques that are quite isolated from anything astrological.  This is fortunate for people who want to bring geomancy back to its roots in Western geomancy, or for people who want to get the astrology out of geomancy.  It’s unfortunate, however, in that virtually all Western geomantic texts, all the focus is on astrological techniques with maybe a bit of lip service paid to the techniques that we might find in the Shield Chart.  The Shield Chart, I might remind you, looks like this:

I assume you, dear reader, already understand the gist of how to make a geomancy chart, so the above diagram shouldn’t be too surprising.  We have the four Mothers in the upper right, the four Daughters in the upper left, the Nieces formed from pairs of the Mothers or Daughters, the Witnesses formed from pairs of the Nieces, and the Judge formed from the Witnesses.  The Sentence, which isn’t pictured in the above image, would be formed from the Judge and First Mother.  This is how geomantic charts are formed in European geomancy as they are in Arabic geomancy and in many forms of Indian and African geomancy; the form really doesn’t change.  Once you get the four Mother figures, you already have the other 12 figures implicit within them; the Shield Chart is just the full expansion of those figures to make all sixteen figures explicit.

The problem, however, in using the Shield Chart is that most people just…don’t.  As I mentioned before, probably the most important part of a geomantic reading can be found only by use of the Shield Chart, which is the four figures of the Court: Right Witness, Left Witness, Judge, and Sentence.  Of these, the Judge is the most important figure which is the answer.  I’m not kidding or being obtuse here; the Judge really does answer the query, but in a very high-level, broad, context-setting way.  The entire rest of the chart was developed for a reason, and that’s to give the details to fill in the gaps and clarify the blurriness that the Judge leaves behind.  However, many geomancers (I flinch to say “most” even though that’s probably the case) tend to skip the Court and the Judge and go right to the House Chart, which reorganizes the Mothers, Daughters, and Nieces into the 12 houses of an astrological horoscope.  To be fair, this is an excellent way to do geomantic readings, but it’s far from the only way.  After all, there are more ways to read the Shield Chart than for the Court alone.

One such method of reading the Shield Chart is one I first learned from John Michael Greer in his Art and Practice of Geomancy.  He calls this technique “reading the triplicities”, based on the name that Robert Fludd gave it, but I prefer the term “triads” to prevent confusion with astrological triplicities.  Essentially, we inspect four groups of three figures, each group of figures termed a triad:

1. First Triad: First Mother + Second Mother = First Niece
2. Second Triad: Third Mother + Fourth Mother = Second Niece
3. Third Triad: First Daughter + Second Daughter = Third Niece
4. Fourth Triad: Third Daughter + Fourth Daughter = Fourth Niece

The astute student will recognize that the triads are nothing more than pairs of figures that add up to a third, much in the same way that the Witnesses add up to the Judge.  John Michael Greer describes how each triad may be read to get a solid overview of a particular situation described by a geomantic chart:

1. First Triad: the querent’s current self, circumstances, and nature.
2. Second Triad: the current situation inquired about.
3. Third Triad: places and surroundings of the querent, including the people and activities involved there.
4. Fourth Triad: people involved with the querent’s life, including their friends, colleagues, coworkers, and the interplay of the relationships among them.

The manner of reading a triad is done in much the same way the Court is read:

• Interactive reading: Right parent + Left parent = Child.  How things interact based on the querent’s side of things (right) when faced with the quesited’s side of things (left), or how things known (right) interact with things unknown (left).
• Temporal reading: Right parent → Child  → Left parent.  How things proceed from the past leading up to the present (right), the present situation (child), and the future leading on from the present situation (left).

However, the only other source I can find regarding the triads (or, to use the older term, triplicities) comes from Robert Fludd in his Fasciculus Geomanticus.  He describes what these things are in book III, chapter 4:

De Triplicitatibus ſeu de dijudicatione quæſtionis per Triplicitates, hoc eſt, per tres figuras ſimul ſine ſpecificatione alicujus figura.

Prima Triplicitas ſignificat petitorem, & totam locorum circumſtantiam, ſcilicet complexionem quantitatem, cogitationem, mores, ſubſtantiam, virtutes, quae Triplicitatis illius figura denotat, prout demonſtratur in exemplo ſequenti, ubi homo est magniloquus, multarum divitiarum & complexionis frigidæ ac ſiccæ.

Secunda Triplicitas ſignificat omne illud, quod prima, excepto eo ſolo, quod prima denotat principium rerum, & ſecunda fortunas earum.

Tertia Triplicitas ſignificat qualitatem loci, ubi homines frequentant, videlicet an ſit magnus vel parvus, pulcher vel deformis, & ſic in cæteris, ſecundum figuras, quæ ibi reperiuntur: Significat etiam damnum loci, item, qualis ſit homo, an bonus vel malus, audax vel timidus.

Quarta Triplicitas significat fortunam & staturis amicorum, & principaliores curiæ, ac homines officiarios.

In English, according to my rough translation:

On the Triplicities, or on the decision of the question by the Triplicities, which is by three figures at the same time without the particular mention of another figure.

The first Triplicity signifies the querent and all of the circumstances of [their] place, as one may know the complexion, magnitude, thoughts, mores, substance, virtues which of this Triplicity the figure denotes, just as is demonstrated in the following example, where a man is boastful, greatly rich, and of a cold and dry complexion.

The second Triplicity signifies all that the first does, with the sole exception that the first denotes the principle of the thing, and the second its fortune.

The third Triplicity signifies the quality of the place where people frequent, as one may see whether one be great or small, beautiful or deformed, and so forth, according to the figures that are found there. It also signifies damage of the place, likewise what sort of person it may be, whether good or evil, brave or timid.

The fourth Triplicity signifies the fortune and stature of friends, and principals of the court, and officers.

This is certainly a different take on the triads than what John Michael Greer has in his book, and I wonder where JMG got his information on the triads from, because Fludd seems to have a different way of interpreting them.  That said, you can kinda see how JMG got to his interpretation from Fludd’s.  Annoyingly, however, despite the nearly 650 pages of information in Fludd’s masterwork of geomancy, all I can find on the triads is simply this one page of information.  Like I said, the bulk of Western geomantic lore focuses on the use of the House Chart, and Fludd is no exception.

Still, at least the triads give us something to work with so that we have some way of interpreting the Mothers, Daughters, and Nieces in the chart besides the Via Puncti (which is a very good way to interpret other aspects of the Shield Chart).  Between the condition of the querent (First Triad), condition of the quesited (Second Triad), the place of the query (Third Triad), and the people involved in the query (Fourth Triad), we have about as much information as we’d get from the House Chart but presented in a different way.  This will help us base further techniques of interpreting the Shield Chart later, as I have a few ideas I want to flesh out in the meantime in how we might expand on the Shield Chart itself apart from the House Chart.

Also, there’s something I want to warn you, dear reader.  Now that we know what the “houses” of the Shield Chart are associated with (such as the First Mother with the condition of the querent), it might be thought that we can draw associations between the Shield Chart houses with the House Chart houses, such that Shield Chart houses 7, 8, and 12 (Fourth Triad) relate to the seventh, eighth, and twelfth houses of the House Chart.  While this might be a useful meditation exercise, be aware that there are multiple ways of assigning the figures from the Shield Chart to the House Chart.  I tend to stick with the straightforward traditional way (First Mother to first house, Second Mother to second house, etc.), but there are at least two other ways I’ve seen it done: the “esoteric” way (assign the Mothers to the cardinal houses clockwise starting in house I, Daughters to succedent houses starting in house II, and Nieces to cadent houses starting in house III) and the Golden Dawn way (same as esoteric but starting in house X/XI/XII).  So, maybe this line of inquiry and meditation might not be the most useful thing to rely upon, especially since the whole point of this is to keep the astrological geomancy techniques separate from the geomantic geomancy techniques.

It occurs to me that I talk a fair bit about geomancy, and on occasion have briefly described the factual history of the art.  Geomancy, as it is understood by scholars and historians, has no pinpointed origin as yet; the best we can guess at is that the art was developed roughly around 900 CE likely in the northeast Saharan region of Africa.  It was likely innovated by migrant tribes, perhaps merchants from further east or by Tuaregs or other Bedouin-esque peoples, as a form of divination that connected with simple mathematics.  It got caught up in Arabic trade routes that synced up with the expansion of Islam, and spread pretty much all over from there: west to Morocco, southwest to Nigera where it became ifá, south to Madagascar where it became sikidy, and east to Palestine and Arabia where it became raml, and even further to India where it became ramalashastra.  When medieval Europe began its academic discovery and recovery that we call the Renaissance, around 1100 CE, it began to import academic, spiritual, alchemical, and divinatory texts from the Arabic world from two directions: from western Morocco into Spain where this new art was called “geomancia”, and from eastern Palestine and Turkey into Greece where it was called “rabolion”.  From these two fonts came a new river of geomantic knowledge that spread quickly throughout the rest of Europe within the span of a hundred years or so.  From there, it quickly became one of the foremost spiritual arts of Europe and maintained its place for another six hundred years, only beginning to fade and go underground with the coming of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution.  As older texts began to be rediscovered yet again, many parts of the Western mystery tradition became reintegrated into modern practice, geomancy with them, and here we are today.

While it’s nice for an academic, it’s hollow as a spiritual story to tell.  Happily, many of the older geomantic works, especially in the Arabic tradition but with no small number of European texts joining in, give us a spiritual origin story for geomancy, usually originating with Adam, Enoch, Idris, Daniel, or Hermes Trismegistus and usually from the angel Gabriel.  So, on this day, the fourth day of the tenth lunar month that is the yearly Hermaia, as an offering to Hermes celebrating his joy and work in our world, I figure I’d share my retelling of the spiritual origin of geomancy.  What follows isn’t exactly original, but it’s not exactly a rehash, either.  Have a seat and pour yourself and Hermes a drink, dear reader, and let me tell you a tale.

May the Muses smile on me and help me share this story well.

As was his custom, he was sitting outside under his favorite tree during the height of the Sun’s path through the skies.  Not part of the local priesthood but taught some two week’s sojourn north along the Nile, the man with the thin neck and long nose wore his usual habit of loose-fitting white robes to keep himself cool during the summer heat.  His tree was on the barren outskirts of an old city, a sacred one dedicated to the Eight who made and rule the world, the scribe-god Thoth foremost among them, but although the man was well-acquainted with the local festivals and religion, he was more focused on divinity itself rather than that of any particular temple.

Alas, the day when the man would see the one who calls himself Shepherd of Men would be still far off, but the man hoped every day that that day would be this one.  On that day, he would begin to be called Thrice-Great by countless students.  For now, he just bears the name Hermes as some foreign god does, as yet unaware of his own divine nature but more attuned to the ebb and flow of power and life in the world than most.

It was under his favorite tree that the man would look at the distant roads and marketplaces, too far off to hear but kept in eyesight by the harsh light of the Sun.  The tree was hardy, able to survive in rough winds as well as in parched earth, and had the benefit of offering good shade to the man especially when the Sun’s heat would be otherwise unbearable.  Almost nobody came out this way to bother him, far off as the tree was without a nearby road, which gave the man good time and space to think.  When he could, the man would meditate, contemplating whatever mystery snagged his intellect on any given day, but being human, he would sometimes suffer hunger or thirst or lust.  Not seeing these as bad things but not wanting to indulge in them, the man would keep himself distracted by reciting prayers, analyzing interesting rocks, gazing at the stars, and conversing with the rare passer-by when one happened to wander out this way for grazing or travel to the next market.  Anything he could learn, he figured, would help him eventually; even if he couldn’t yet directly know God, he could always know more about the creations and creatures around him.

It was on one such day that the man was slightly more perturbed than he usually was by worldly concerns.  He had family, and although he cared for them as much as a solitary philosopher could, he wasn’t always in the best contact with them.  One of his sons had a propensity for spiritual development as much as he did, but his other children were better suited to buying and selling.  One such son of his traveled far and wide, well out of the Black Land, and it was a rare day indeed that the man ever got word from him.  Whether it was a fear of having an empty nest or having grass-is-greener syndrome from seeing a successful youth exploring the world, the man was more distracted than usual in the shade and couldn’t fully focus on his usual contemplation.  Thought leaped to thought as he went from his son to his children to his own fatherhood to his own father to his own home.  It didn’t help that he felt like he should only be a part of this world without being of the world, but his worries kept overriding that spiritual calling.

Resorting to habit, the man looked around him and noticed the wind calmer than it should be for this time of year, the land quieter than it had been this week, the Sun brighter than he thought it could ever be.  Nothing around him to take his mind off his son, the man resorted to the earth underneath him and grasped a handful of the loose, sandy dirt under his knees and held it.  He felt the grit, the dryness, the coolness, the crumbliness of the dirt, feeling this handful of soil as if his palm was all he had of sense.  Curious, he tossed it away from him into the air, noting how the particles of dirt traveled through the air in near-perfect arcs, the gleam and glimmer of pulverized crystal and silica shining bright once it crossed the threshold of shade into the realm of light, the smell of dry barely-fertile dirt filling the air.  He began to cough and his eyes began to water as some of the dirt suddenly flew back into his face from a strong wind that came out of nowhere.  That wind caught him off-guard, and the pain in his dusty lungs snapped him back to the present and the place where he sat.

Once he could see clearly again, he wiped off the cough-spittle from his mouth and looked around him.  The dirt he threw covered the ground, smoothed out by the wind, leaving him with a blank space before him that nearly begged to have something, anything, upon it.  Feeling somewhat out of himself from the cough, like he had just awoken from a nap, he leaned forward and dipped his fingers into the flat earth before him.  A dot here, a mark there, a trailing line from letting his arm rest before pulling it back.  He recalled some of his education as a child in being taught simple numbers and parts of numbers, and from that memory, treated some of the marks he made as mathematical forms.  He heard that, once, some teacher visiting from the far north across the Sea, the only non-Egyptian who had ever been taught by the priesthood of home, was saying something like numbers were life and all was number, but this man never really understood that kind of thing.  Numbers were numbers and couldn’t eat or fight or mate, just like the lines and marks he was making before him on the dirt.

Another wind came up, this time from the opposite direction.  Again surprised, the man looked around himself; the sky was unchanged, the Sun barely moved, no storms on the horizon.  There should’ve been no cause for this wind, considering the time of year; this meteorological puzzle would have eaten at his mind more, but he glanced down and saw that the land before him was smoothed out by the wind again, as if the marks he had made were never made at all.  Frowning, he began to consider the benefit of just going home and returning to housekeeping if going outside was going to be so uncooperative.  Another spasm shot through his lungs from the dust he inhaled, making him cough again.

“Hey there.”

The man jumped.  Opening his eyes, wiping tears from his face with a dusty hand, he looked around and saw someone standing a few yards off from him under the light of the Sun.  The man saw a placid face atop loose robes of white and blue, nearly blending into the sky and sand behind him.  Unsure if it was a trick of the tears in his eyes and the light of the Sun, Hermes blinked several times before letting his eyes fix on the stranger.  No sound of approach, no previous call to him, unusually-colored clothes, coming from the direct direction as the noontime Sun?  This was something stranger than Hermes was used to for an average day under his tree.

Seeing confusion flicker across Hermes’ face, the stranger gave an apologetic smile and slowly took a few steps towards the shade. “Sorry for giving you a scare.  I was going to my father’s house, and was curious to see what someone was doing under this lonely tree.”

Hermes, taking comfort in the stranger’s voice that had an odd lilting quality to it, smiled back and waved away the apology.  “No worries.  I think a lot here.  You just gave me a bit of a startle, no worries.”

The stranger looked around and smirked. “I take it you don’t get much company out this way.  Mind if I join you?  The Sun is bright today.”

“Of course, of course!  I don’t deny anyone the pleasure of shade here.  Come, have a seat.”  Hermes waved the stranger over, emitting one last, small cough before the stranger could begin another conversation.

“Thank you.” The stranger entered the shade and sat down gracefully a few paces from Hermes.  Hermes didn’t notice that the stranger’s footsteps weren’t marking the ground, but was still looking around, still half-wondering where that last wind came from.  As the stranger sat down, Hermes opened his mouth to begin his usual niceties to greet passers-by when he caught the stranger’s eyes looking directly into his own.  Hermes stopped short of making any kind of utterance; the piercing quality of the stranger’s eyes seemed like pure fire, and his skin seemed to glow from something more than the Sun’s heat.

The stranger took this opportunity of awe and silence from Hermes and leaned forward curiously.  “Before I surprised you, I noticed you were drawing in the sand.  I take it you’ve studied letters?”  Hermes nodded, confusion mixing with his awe.  The stranger smiled enthusiastically.  “Good!  It always gladdens me to find another soul schooled in that art.  Mind if I ask what you were writing?”

Hermes snapped to his senses and shook himself out of his awestruck confusion.  “Ah, er, nothing, really.  Not letters, more like numbers.  I was clearing my mind and letting my hands do their own thing.”  Hermes grinned with some embarrassment, wiggling his fingers as if to show they thought on their own.

The stranger let out a casual scoff.  “Come now.  Surely one studied such as yourself should know that all forms are valuable.  After all, sometimes the most true meaning can come from pure accident.”  Hermes nodded with a shrug, not sure what the stranger was getting at but feeling something nagging at his mind in that general, vague sentiment. “If it’s not too presumptuous of me, I noticed an interesting thing from afar.  Would you show me some of the marks you made?”  The stranger tilted his head coyly, but Hermes didn’t catch what the stranger was getting at.

“Er…okay.  It wasn’t much, just a few dots in a row like this.”  Hermes leaned forward and made four small dots in the sand, one atop each other in a stack.  “I recognize this as a particular way to write a particular number, but little else.  Like I said, I was just idly clearing my mind.”

The stranger looked down and chewed his lip thoughtfully before glancing up.  “True, but numbers are true, too.  Simple though it might look, I know of this symbol as an omen.  Look at it this way; if you link the dots here”—Gabriel made a light cut down the row of dots in the dirt—”you get a straight, long line, like a road.  Roads are powerful, long though they may be, and the longer, the better.  Don’t you agree?”  Hermes let the stranger’s words sink in a bit, looking down at the dots and looking up again.  “Absolutely,” Hermes replied, “and it’s true that the more one travels, the more one changes.  It’s a lonely path, but then, what journey isn’t truly taken alone?”

The stranger gave a broad smile, teeth glimmering like pearls even in the shade of the tree.  “You speak wisdom beyond your years, sir.  What’s your name?”

Hermes sat up and extended his hand toward the stranger in friendship.  “I’m Hermes.  I live in the town over there,” giving a nod towards the marketplace too far to be heard.  “And you, my friend?”

The stranger clasped Hermes’ hand and nodded.  “An honor, Hermes.  I am called Gabriel.”

Hermes cocked his head and gave Gabriel a puzzled look. “A strong name, Gabriel, and a rare one.  You’re from Canaan, aren’t you?  I haven’t met someone with one of those names before, though I’ve heard of similar names before.”

Gabriel shrugged and looked down evasively.  “It’s not exactly my homeland, but yes, my tribe is settled there.”  Gabriel looked up beyond the eaves of the tree towards the north, then back to Hermes.  “But the road I walk is long, which is why this symbol you cast”—he motioned to the dots on the ground—”caught my eye.  Would you want to know more of the truth of this symbol?”  Always eager for more knowledge and more to contemplate, Hermes nodded and tilted his hand towards Gabriel, beckoning him to continue.  And continue Gabriel did for quite some time, expounding to Hermes this symbol that Gabriel called the Road, and how to find this symbol as a result of multiple marks being made and crossed off two by two.

At the end of Gabriel’s discourse on the letter, Hermes noted a queer thing.  They must have been talking for at least an hour, and Hermes was unusually tired and mentally overstimulated from learning about this character, but the Sun was still in the same position it was before Gabriel had arrived, as if it was suspended and watching Gabriel teach as Hermes himself did.  Gabriel, noticing that Hermes was exhausted from the lesson, smiled and stood up, ignoring the dust that clung to his robes.  “I see that I’ve talked your ear off, and probably ruined your day with my chatter.  I should probably get on with my day, Hermes, and let you do the same, but I’m glad you’ve let me share this with you.”  Hermes shook his head with a grateful smile.  “No, I’m glad you’ve shared this with me!  I appreciate it, and honored by it.  If you’ve stayed too long, then I apologize for keeping you too long.”

Hermes began to climb to his feet to see Gabriel off, but Gabriel dismissively waved Hermes back down.  “Don’t bother, don’t bother.  If you like, I can visit again tomorrow and tell you more.  There were other symbols I saw you drawing; those have meaning, too, much like the Road does.  Would it bother you too much to visit you again?”  Hermes, sensing an unusual opportunity that seemed unusual on an already unusual day, felt that this was one to seize.  “Of course!  You know where to find me, my friend.  I’ll see you again.”  Gabriel nodded and gave a slight bow, then walked off into the desert away from the Sun.

The man looked towards Gabriel as he left, glancing at the symbol for the Road before glancing back up.  Hermes let out a yelp; Gabriel was nowhere to be found, despite the land around being fairly clear and there being no footprints to mark Gabriel’s coming or going.  Now he was certain; this stranger named Gabriel was no ordinary man, just as this day was no ordinary day, and this symbol was no ordinary symbol.  Hermes leaned back on the tree, running his dusty fingers through his hair in perplexion, spending  several hours more in quiet contemplation of this figure, turning over Gabriel’s lesson over and over again in his head, digesting all that the stranger had taught him.  As the Sun lowered to the western lands, Hermes left his mental exploration and decided to call it a day, feeling renewed and grown in this new knowledge.  Hermes got up and headed to his home in the city, leaving his marks in the dirt.

The Sun set, the stars rose, the stars set, and the Sun rose once more.

After the Sun began its ascent to the heavens, as was his custom, Hermes went back to his tree, seeing his marks on the ground from the day before the same as he left it.  He sat back down as he normally would, and let his mind wander before settling on higher thoughts.  As the morning slowly turned to afternoon, Hermes, his eyes closed in meditation, began to drift into a light sleep, when a breezy rustling through the leaves above him roused him from his nap.  He looked around and found, yet again, the ground before him blank from the wind.  The moment Hermes noticed his marks on the ground erased, Hermes looked up to find Gabriel approaching once more from the south.

Hermes gave the strange not-quite-a-stranger a wave, and Gabriel responded in kind, raising his hand in a friendly salute as he approached the tree.  “Well, you’re actually here!  And if you’re here to learn, then I’m here to teach, if you’re ready for it.” “Of course, my friend,” Hermes said with a grin, waving Gabriel over, “I’d like to see what these other symbols you mentioned were.”  Gabriel took his seat once more by Hermes, and repeated the same process as the day before.  Again, Gabriel asked Hermes to draw a symbol, and again, Gabriel expounded the meaning of the symbol to Hermes; again, the Sun stood  still in the heights of heaven, and again, Hermes became worn out from learning all that Gabriel taught; again, Gabriel offered to teach Hermes more, and again, Hermes agreed to meet with Gabriel to learn more; again, Hermes noted the unusual vanishing of Gabriel, and again, Hermes went home looking forward to the next lesson.

For fourteen more days, Hermes and Gabriel continued in the same way, learning all the other figures.  On the sixteenth day, Gabriel told Hermes that these were all the figures that Gabriel could teach: the Road, the People, the Union, the Prison, the Greater Fortune, the Lesser Fortune, the Dragon’s Head, the Dragon’s Tail, the Girl, the Boy, Red, White, Joy, Sorrow, Loss, Gain.  Gabriel told Hermes how the first four figures could be combined from their tops and their bottoms to form the other twelve, and how each figure reflects a different story on its own.  His lesson complete, Gabriel shrugged, saying that this was all that he could offer Hermes in the ways of symbols and their lore, but that this was also just the beginning of their true meaning and purpose.  Hermes, entranced by these symbols and stories, asked Gabriel to return to teach the rest, and Gabriel accepted.

For the next sixteen days, Gabriel taught Hermes how each figure reflects the four elements that compose all of creation as well as how they relate to the stars both wandering and fixed that determine how all things wax, wane, and transform.

For another sixteen days, Gabriel taught Hermes the secrets of combining these figures two by two and transforming them by inverting and reverting and converting them into other figures, and how all these methods change and add to the meanings of individual figures.

For yet another sixteen days, Gabriel taught Hermes how to use the meanings of the figures, the elemental and planetary and stellar correspondences, the combinations, and the transformations in answering all sorts of questions, imparting to Hermes the art of divination to reveal all mysteries of this world and all things upon it.

At the end of these 64 days, Hermes found himself exhausted, utterly and completely exhausted, from having so much taught to him in so short a time, but he felt a new wellspring of knowledge beginning to flow inside himself.  Gabriel knew he was wearing Hermes thin, and after his final lesson where he revealed the deepest secrets of this art, Gabriel took from his robes a flask, uncorked it, and took a swig from it.  The teacher passed the flask to Hermes, who gladly took it with both hands; Hermes was unaccustomed to drinking or eating during the day, but Hermes found himself more than parched and in need of something to quench his thirst.  Hermes drank from the flask from the same spout Gabriel did, and found it filled with the clearest, coolest water.  It refreshed Hermes, sure, but once he took the spout from his lips and breathed in, he felt filled with a truly newfound power.  All these days of learning, all of Gabriel’s lessons seemed to immediately snap together like well-built masonry, forming within himself a beautiful temple of the finest knowledge.  Figures shone like priceless jewels, transformations linked the figures like silver filigree across altars, truths and wisdom rose up like the smoke of rarest olibanum—

“I thought you might need a drink after this last lesson,” Gabriel said with a warm smile.  “It’s no easy thing to learn all this, but you’ve done admirably, and I am proud to be able to share with you what I have.”

Hermes snapped out of his reverie and, realizing he was stuck holding the flask in the air as he stared off into space, hastily gave it back to Gabriel, blushing at both his own clumsiness and at the praise Gabriel gave him.  Gabriel took the flask from Hermes’ hands and put it back in his robe with a chuckle before continuing.  “You’re smarter than you look.  You know I’m no ordinary man, and this no ordinary art.”  Hermes, calming down from his embarrassment, nodded; “I know.  With your name, I know not only who you are but what you are and where you come from, and it’s certainly not Canaan.”

Gabriel chuckled.  “Bingo.  I know you and have known you, Hermes, and I am glad you finally know me, too.”  He looked down at the patch of dirt where he taught his art to Hermes, then looked back at Hermes with a contented smile.  “I learned this art from my Father, and it was entrusted to me to help me in my job as His messenger.  And now I entrust this art to you, Hermes, as your brother.”  Hermes looked deeply at Gabriel, not only seeing that fire in Gabriel’s eyes but joining it with his own, and nodded his assent.  “And as I have received this art from you, Gabriel”, Hermes responded, “I am your brother.”  Gabriel smiled and, looking once more towards the northern sky and then down at their patch of dirt, stood up and brushed the dust and dirt off from his robes.  “You’ve learned much, but you cannot master what you cannot name,” Gabriel said as he wiped his hands clean.  “We have no word for this art where I’m from.  What will you call it?”

Hermes stared at Gabriel thoughtfully, then looked down at the patch of ground in front of him that contained all his marks.  He drew out all sixteen figures together, contemplating each point and line as he did.  He gazed at the dirt for a long time, and as the Sun began to touch the horizon, he finally he looked up at Gabriel, his teacher’s profile illuminated in the ruddy gold glow of the evening Sun.  “This is an art to know all that happens in and upon the world.  This is an art born from the Earth, not just with earth or water but all the elements of this world.  I call it ‘geomancy’, to see with the Earth.”  Gabriel grinned as the wind began to pick up, blowing his robes behind his back majestically towards the sky.  “Then I have taught you geomancy, Hermes, and you are the first geomancer of this world.  May this art serve you well, and may you serve the world well by it.”

Hermes nodded and smiled, wiping the patch of earth before him clean before the wind could do it for him this time.  “I hope that I may, brother.”  Gabriel nodded in reply and extended his hand to Hermes, which Hermes took in his own.  The teacher lifted his student up and, after measuring him with his eyes, embraced Hermes in the love only brothers have.  After a time, Gabriel let go of Hermes and turned away, heading for the last time towards the north with the Sun setting on his left and the Moon rising on his right.  Hermes kept his eyes fixed on Gabriel’s back as he walked off, but another gust of wind blew Gabriel’s robes up like wings as it blew more dust into Hermes’ eyes; by the time Hermes could clear his eyes, there was nobody around, with neither the figures of geomancy nor the footsteps of angels to mark what happened.

Sitting back down by his tree, Hermes mulled over his time with Gabriel, all of the things he learned, and all of the things he might yet learn.  A quiet breeze blew, kicking up a bit of dust around Hermes but without irritating his lungs again.  Staring at the ground marked with the sixteen geomantic figures, he rubbed his fingers together, noticing the fine grit of dust and sand caught between the grooves of his digits.  In the last sliver of light of the Sun, Hermes got up and walked home, taking more time than he normally would to carefully settle down in all his newfound knowledge and skill.  Finishing his journey well after nightfall, he paused outside the threshold of his house and looked around, seeing an empty patch of fallow ground to the side of his house.  In the light of the Moon, now high in the sky, Hermes cast his first chart to see how his traveling merchant son was doing.  Hermes smiled; he would never again be worried by being out of touch.

Days, weeks, months, years passed.  Hermes practiced his art of geomancy, but went back to his tree every day and, once his mind calmed down from the mania of having a new method of understanding the world, went back to his habit of meditating and contemplating divine mysteries.  However, the man no longer doodled mindlessly in the sand, but used geomancy to explore that which he had trouble understanding.  One day, he finally became great, greater, greatest among men, beholding the Shepherd of Men and understanding the source and purpose of all things.  Finally, he began to teach; he no longer worried for his children, leaving them to their own devices, except for his son Tat whom he taught as a successor to his wisdom.  As Hermes Trismegistus traveled, he taught arts and skills of all kinds, reserving some for particular students and others for other students, but he kept geomancy a secret, not finding one apt enough in his travels yet to learn it from him.

Inspired by whispers of white and blue in his heart to teach geomancy to one who would do both him and his art well, Hermes Trismegistus traveled to the east, and gave the entirety of the art of geomancy to the one named Tumtum.  Tumtum learned it and traveled west, giving it to the one named az-Zanati.  Az-Zanati learned it and gave it to the Arabs.  The Arabs learned it and gave it to the Europeans.

The ancients learned it and gave it to us.

And now I, having learned it, give it to you.

ΧΑΙΡΕ ΕΡΜΗ ΤΡΙΣΜΕΓΙΣΤΕ
ΧΑΙΡΕ ΕΡΜΗ ΓΕΩΜΑΝΤΙΚΕ
ΧΑΙΡΕ ΕΡΜΗ ΑΙΓΥΠΤΙΑΚΕ
ΧΑΙΡΕ ΕΡΜΗ ΑΓΓΕΛΕ ΑΓΓΕΛΩΝ
ΧΑΙΡΕ ΧΑΙΡΕ ΧΑΙΡΕ ΧΑΙΡΕ ΕΡΜΗ

In the last post on technique, I went over a technique that’s mostly been underdeveloped and underused in Western geomancy, the technique of reading the triads in the Shield Chart, which is basically an expansion of the same technique used to read the Witnesses and Judge applied to the Mothers, Daughters, and their resulting Nieces.  This is a way to get more detail out of the Shield Chart and not let those other 12 figures outside the Court go to waste.  However, between the triads and the Via Puncti, those are pretty much the only methods we have in Western geomancy to read the first 12 figures in the Shield Chart, which is kind of a shame.  Then again, given the West’s focus on astrology and bringing astrology into everything, this shouldn’t be surprised; the field of astrological geomancy and the use of the House Chart is well-explored and has numerous techniques developed to read it.

Geomancy would already be dead if it couldn’t be expanded upon or revitalized with new techniques, and there’s nothing stopping us from trying out new ways to read a geomantic chart so long as these things fit with the general theory and framework of geomancy.  Since the House Chart already has plenty of techniques while the Shield Chart has a dearth of them, let’s try working on the Shield Chart techniques.

First things first: what do we call the “houses” of the Shield Chart?  I personally dislike the word “house” for them, even though I know that’s the term used, but it leads to easy confusion with the houses House Chart, especially given that there are multiple ways to assign the figures from the Shield Chart to the houses of the House Chart.  We could use the term “field” to describe the places where we put the Mothers, Daughters, Nieces, and Court.  After all, houses are built upon fields, right?  Thus, the first field is the place of the First Mother, second field to the Second Mother, and so forth to the sixteenth field to the Sentence.  Alternatively, and perhaps more preferably, we could use the other way of calling them “the first figure”, “the second figure”, and so forth to “the sixteenth figure”.  It’s this latter method I’ll be using the former to describe the individual places of the figures in the Shield Chart; besides, fields and shields go hand-in-hand if you know your heraldry.

So, let’s say we want to inspect the figures of the Shield Chart.  We know we can inspect them in triads, where we look at two parent figures and the child figure they add up to, but we don’t have a way of interpreting the fields on their own just yet.  While figuring out the significations of each field in the chart is a complicated task that rings a bit too strongly of the houses in the House Chart, we can start with something simpler by classifying the fields in other ways.  Probably the way that comes to mind first is using the four elements in ways that fit very closely with other geomantic techniques.  We’d go about this pretty straightforwardly: assign the first field to Fire, the second to Air, the third to Water, the fourth to Earth, and repeat the cycle from there.  Thus:

1. Field I (First Mother): Fire
2. Field II (Second Mother): Air
3. Field III (Third Mother): Water
4. Field IV (Fourth Mother): Earth
5. Field V (First Daughter): Fire
6. Field VI (Second Daughter): Air
7. Field VII (Third Daughter): Water
8. Field VIII (Fourth Daughter): Earth
9. Field IX (First Niece): Fire
10. Field X (Second Niece): Air
11. Field XI (Third Niece): Water
12. Field XII (Fourth Niece): Earth
13. Field XIII (Right Witness): Fire
14. Field XIV (Left Witness): Air
15. Field XV (Judge): Water
16. Field XVI (Sentence): Earth

Or, presented in a more tabular format:

This is a method I dimly recall being used in at least some forms of Arabic geomancy (raml), but it’s not hard to see the logic being pretty simple to arrive at.  After all, we assign each of the four rows of each figure to the four elements in the same way, and there are instances of the same logic being used independently by Western geomancers, such as John Case in his 1697 work “The Angelical Guide” (book III, chapter 4).  While this kind of assignment of the elements to the fields of the Shield Chart is pretty straightforward, the real task comes in figuring out what we can do with this kind of thing.

For one, in any given Shield Chart, we can guess that a figure is well-placed in a field that agrees with its own element.  So, for instance, Laetitia (a figure of Fire) present in the fifth field as the First Daughter (a place of Fire) is much stronger than it’d be in the seventh field as the Third Daughter (a place of Water).  In case you’ve forgotten your elements for the figures:

• Fire: Laetitia, Cauda Draconis, Fortuna Minor, Amissio
• Air: Rubeus, Puer, Coniunctio, Acquisitio
• Water: Albus, Puella, Via, Populus
• Earth: Tristitia, Caput Draconis, Carcer, Fortuna Maior

Generally, what kinds of effects could we assume from the combination of elements from the figure and the field it’s found in?  First, we need to remember that an element in the classical sense is composed of two qualities, heat (hot/cold) and moisture (moist/dry):

So, we know that Fire and Air share the same heat but different moisture, Fire and Earth share the same moisture but different heat, and Fire and Water share nothing at all in common.  Given this, we can venture the following general schema:

• Elements of figure and field completely agree: (e.g. Fire and Fire) The figure is empowered and strengthened in a way that allows it to express its nature more completely and forcefully.
• Elements of figure and field agree in heat and disagree in moisture: (e.g. Fire and Air) The figure is complemented and aided in a rounded way to have aid, but is transformed in the process so that goals and intent change over time to compensate.
• Elements of figure and field agree in moisture and disagree in heat: (e.g. Fire and Earth) The figure is balanced and stabilized leading to stagnation and cessation of action, but with the potential for future growth that must be unlocked or initiated by an outside force.
• Elements of figure and field completely disagree: (e.g. Fire and Water) The figure is undone and harmed so as to be weak and powerless, being made to act unwillingly and become something it does not want to be.

Of course, this could be refined by taking the actual elements themselves into account instead of just noting whether their qualities differ or agree, and this should definitely be modified by taking the actual figures themselves into account and whether they’re a parent or a child of another figure.  Thus, although a Fire figure in a Fire field will be benefitted in many of the same ways as a Water figure in a Water field, how that figure will be empowered will change by virtue of the element itself as well as what that element is.  Laetitia as the First Mother (Fire figure and Fire field) will be amply empowered by self-assurance and optimism of one’s own being, while Rubeus as the Second Mother (Air figure and Air field) will be empowered by encouraging lots of activity and discussion in ways that aren’t actually destructive but more of inducing healthy change, like rapid exploration.

In this way, we can get an overall idea of how good or bad a situation is, or how restrained or freely it can become, based on inspecting each of the figures in each of their fields and how the elements of both compare.  If a majority of the figures are in fields that they agree elementally with, then we know that the situation as a whole will be filled with power, freedom, direct activity, and declarations of self.  If a majority of the figures are in fields they disagree with, then much of the situation will be troubled by restraint, red tape, paperwork, coercion, and general weakness.

This technique can be combined with the Via Puncti not only to determine the four root causes of a situation, but also to expand on what exactly is going on with them to cause an issue.  For instance, if in a reading to determine who will win a court case, the Via Puncti Ignis (indicating the root drive or cause) points to Laetitia as the Third Mother, we know that Laetitia is a figure of Fire in a field of Water, indicating that Laetitia here is severely damaged by its placement and cannot act according to how it wants to act.  Thus, we can surmise that the core of the issue is that the court case was started by someone impinging on the rights of happiness and freedom of someone else, and continuing to act freely or joyfully caused problems that led to the court case.

Another way we can use this technique of measuring the elements of fields versus figures can be used in triad interpretation.  Consider the fact that the child figure of any two parents not only shows the result of two parties interacting but also the current state of affairs in a given matter; further, it’s written in endless geomantic texts that the expression of a child figure is modified based on its parents, and vice versa.  If we consider the elements of the Niece figures in their proper fields, we can get another level of interpretation on how that particular triad is evolving.  If the Niece is strengthened in its field, it empowers its parents and makes the whole Triad more favorable or easier to deal with; if the Niece is weakened, it debilitates the triad and makes it harder to deal with.  Thus, consider two examples for the First Triad:

1. Say we have the figures Fortuna Minor (First Mother), Coniunctio (Second Mother), and Amissio (First Niece).  We know that the elements of the Mothers agree with their fields (Fire figure in Fire field, Air figure in Air field) but that the element of the Niece disagrees with its field (Water figure in Fire field).  In this case, because the Niece is so impeded elementally, it shows that the interaction of its Mothers really isn’t nearly as good as it’d seem; we might say that the querent was doing more-or-less fine, but having to deal with interaction and communicating to people is actually causing them more issues than its worth, causing them to lose their fortune instead of just cutting losses.  Fortuna Minor isn’t a bad figure, and it’s always better to cut your losses, but it can be tricky to deal with, and when handled badly, you not only lose what you can afford but you lose what you want to keep.  Thus, because the Niece here is so debilitated elementally, it holds back the otherwise powerful significations of its Mothers.
2. Say we have the figures Fortuna Minor (First Mother), Albus (Second Mother), and Cauda Draconis (First Niece).  Fortuna Minor as First Mother is a good placement (Fire figure in Fire field), that Albus as Second Mother isn’t horrible (Water figure in Air field), and that Cauda Draconis as First Niece is also a good placement (Fire figure in Fire field).  Normally, this combination of figures would indicate some sort of calamity or accident befalling the querent leading them to become distant, detached, and removed from activity, but Cauda Draconis is well-suited to being here, turning its normally horrible indication to something easier to deal with.  Thus, we might surmise that the querent was gearing down from fast-paced activity, finally and capably brought things to a reasonable end, and can now rest on their laurels and act as a mentor if they act at all.  Because the Niece is so empowered and ennobled here, it empowers and benefits the normally awkward or painful indications of its Mothers and its Triad generally.

In fact, when we look at the Triads generally, we can mark each triad by the Niece involved in each.  Going by the same right-to-left association of fields with the elements, we can do the same with the four Triads: the First Triad can be given the elemental quality of Fire, the Second Triad to Air, the Third Triad to Water, and the Fourth Triad to Earth; these are the same elemental significations of the fields of the Nieces involved in each Triad.  Thus, we can not only interpret Triads elementally now, but can also see how certain figures would be better off in a particular situation based on how well the element of a figure agrees with its triad as well as its field.

On that note, could we do a similar kind of elemental association of the Court?  The Court, after all, is just another triad, but it’s not one of the four triads that Robert Fludd talks about (or invented?).  Well, if you consider all steps of addition in the Shield Chart to be a Triad, then if we go right-to-left and top-to-bottom, then we have eight triads total:

1. First Triad: First Mother + Second Mother = First Niece
2. Second Triad: Third Mother + Fourth Mother = Second Niece
3. Third Triad: First Daughter + Second Daughter = Third Niece
4. Fourth Triad: Third Daughter + Fourth Daughter = Fourth Niece
5. Fifth Triad: First Niece + Second Niece = Right Witness
6. Sixth Triad: Third Niece + Fourth Niece = Left Witness
7. Seventh Triad: Right Witness + Left Witness = Judge
8. Eighth Triad: Judge + First Mother = Sentence

Thus, if the first four triads are assigned to the elements in the usual order, we can do the same for the latter four triads: Fifth Triad to Fire, Sixth Triad to Air, Seventh Triad to Water, and Eighth Triad to Earth.  However, these “extra” or “minor” triads are of considerably less importance in terms of being “triads” than the first four, as the Court should be thought of as a little removed from the details and actors and focused more on overall action and results.  Still, the interpretation of these extra triads-qua-triads could be something for other geomancers to try out and see if they get any more useful information that couldn’t be obtained from the four triads and the Court.

Probably the most confusing thing about the Shield Chart in geomancy that people go right to the House Chart for is that, with the House Chart, we have clear delineations of what figure applies to what part of a situation.  For instance, the first house is about the querent, the second house about wealth, the third house about siblings and neighbors, the fourth house about the home, and so forth.  Thus, if we know what the query is about, we know what house we’d want to inspect right off the bat (and if you don’t, think about the query some more before you draw up a chart).  The Court, of course, will answer the query, but it can be hard to see exactly how the Court applies to the situation if it’s so broad.  This is, perhaps, one of the failings of the Shield Chart when it’s not used properly, in that we don’t immediately know how to clarify the broad, though correct, meaning of the Judge and Witnesses.  After all, if those were really the only figures we’d need, then we’d likely do as well with generating two figures and making a third rather than generating four Mothers and making another twelve.

So, if we want to use the individual houses (or fields, as I put it in the last post) of the Shield Chart, then how do we do that?  We’d need some sort of system to assign meanings to each of the twelve fields, rather than generalized meanings relating to groups of three figures or assigning elemental correspondences to each of them.  Honestly, while it might be in some traditions of geomancy that each of the twelve fields of the Mothers, Daughters, and Nieces have meanings independent of the House Chart houses, especially in non-European and non-Arabic styles of geomancy,  I think it’s best to just use the same meanings for both.  After all, the tradition of doing this very thing, even using Shield Charts without the House Chart, extends very far back in Western geomancy; Cattan, Fludd, and other geomancers of yore have all considered the houses of the House Chart as identical to or overlapping significantly with the fields of the Shield Chart.

After all, consider: when we draw up a House Chart for a geomantic reading based on the Shield Chart, we’re not actually making anything new.  We’re taking the same figures in the same order and dropping them into a circular arrangement (House Chart) instead of a binary tree structure (Shield Chart).  As I’ve said before, whatever information you get from the House Chart can be gotten from the Shield Chart, because they’re the same chart presented in different ways.  It’s not that Cattan or Fludd thought of these two styles of chart as different with overlapping meanings, but that there was no difference in meaning at all.

So, what are the meanings of the twelve houses?  You can pick up pretty much any book on astrology and find the same meanings for the 12 houses of the House Chart as you can the 12 fields of the Shield Chart, though I recommend using a traditional text from before the 1800s on what those things are (modern astrologers tend to add in some weird changes that neither I nor traditional astrologers agree with).  I was considering translating another section of Robert Fludd’s Fasciculus Geomanticus (book III, chapter 5) for his meanings of the houses, but they’re pretty much exactly what you expect.  Because this is such common knowledge and so easily accessible, I’ll save my time and yours by foregoing another recitation of the same list here.

Of course, there’s a bit of an issue here.  I’ve mentioned before that there are multiple ways of allotting the figures from the Shield Chart to the House Chart.  I know specifically of three ways to do this:

1. The traditional way is to simply go through the Mothers, Daughters, and Nieces from right to left and allot them to the houses of the House Chart in order.  Thus, the First Mother is given to house I, the Second Mother to house II, the Third Mother to house III, the Fourth Mother to house IV, the First Daughter to house V, and so forth until we get to the Fourth Daughter to house XII.  This is the most traditional and most common way of assigning the figures to the houses, and is seen in all geomantic works prior to the Golden Dawn.  This is also the way I draw up my charts.
2. The Golden Dawn way is based on the importance of the houses in the House Chart, dividing them into the cardinal (strongest; I, IV, VII, X), succedent (middling; II, V, VIII, XI), and cadent houses (weakest; III, VI, IX, XII).  Because Aries is often associated in modern times to house I, this means that Capricorn is given to house X.  Capricorn, being the earthiest of the signs, was thought to resonate most closely with geomancy, and thus being the strongest house for starting geomantic studies.  Thus, the Mothers, being considered the strongest of the figures, are given to the cardinal houses starting in house X and proceeding clockwise (First Mother to X, Second Mother to I, Third Mother to IV, Fourth Mother to VII).  The Daughters, coming after the Mothers, are given to the succedent houses starting in house XI and going clockwise.  The Nieces, coming last as combinations of Mothers or Daughters, are given to the cadent houses starting in house XII and going clockwise.
3. The esoteric way is a variant of the Golden Dawn way, and likely came before it and used by other modern or early modern occultist groups.  Again, this manner allots the Mothers to the cardinal houses, Daughters to the succedent ones, and Nieces to the cadent ones, but we start with houses I, II, and III, respectively, and go clockwise from there.

In all honesty, I claim that any of these three systems work for someone who chooses to use them.  The difference, as I see it, is much the same as what kind of house division system you use in astrology; some prefer Placidus, some Porphyry, some Koch, some Regiomontanus, some equal house, and so forth.  All their results are pretty much the same, though how they arrive tends to differ in the details.  Likewise, if you find that you resonate most with a particular house system, then go ahead and use it; I can’t fault you for using what works.

However, I will say that the Golden Dawn and esoteric methods of allotting the figures from the Shield Chart to the House Chart don’t jive with me very well, and seem to be very late hacks to morph geomancy to a particular ideology that doesn’t always work.  Plus, these newer methods have been around for one or two hundred years, while the traditional method has been with us for at least nine hundred.  Add to it, the traditional method preserves the connection between the meanings of the fields of the Shield Chart with those of the houses of the House Chart; the other methods mess with that severely, since a figure as the Second Mother (field II) no longer relates to the wealth or possessions of the querent but, in the Golden Dawn system, then becomes the condition and well-being of the querent itself (house I in the Golden Dawn system).

As a result, I claim that the Golden Dawn, esoteric, and other ways of allotting the figures from the Shield Chart to the House Chart are suboptimal for use in geomancy.  I’m holding myself back from calling them “wrong”, but I don’t think they mesh well with the rest of geomantic technique and seem to be innovations with an agenda, and I would suggest that geomancers stick to the standard traditional manner.  Not only is it cleaner and simpler, but it preserves an integral link between the Shield Chart and House Chart that allows them to be truly in sync with each other rather than shuffling them up for purely pseudo-astrological considerations.

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 March 2015.

“yes and no divination” — Easily one of the easiest and most important forms of divination you can do.  Drawing one of two different stones from a bag, flipping four coins or four shells, rolling dice to get an odd or even answer, and any number of ways can be done to get a yes or no answer from a spirit.  Personally, I find the Chinese system of jiaobei particularly elegant.

“symbols that summon spirits” — Offhand, I don’t know of a symbol that by itself has the power to summon spirits generally, but the one symbol you need for best results is the symbol of the specific spirit itself that you’re trying to summon.  The idea goes that the symbol is a physical “form” or circuit for the spirit, a type of “body”, so wherever the symbol is drawn, the spirit is already there at least in some form.  The rest of the ritual uses that symbol as a basis to bring the spirit more into being for a proper summoning.

“greek sigil magick” — Sigils weren’t that big in ancient and classical Greek styles of magic as far as we can tell; according to extant magical texts, the celestial letters, sigils, seals, and the like came about from Alexandrian magic (think PGM), and weren’t native to Greece.  Rather, instead of combining letters together into a single glyph, Greeks used isopsephy (Greek gematria) to condense words into a single “symbol”, that symbol being a number.  This has the added benefit of linking any number of words together that share the same number through isopsephy; this would be akin to two different words or phrases turned into the same sigil, provided they were reduced to the same set of letters and arranged in the same way, but would be much harder to achieve in letter-based sigil magic.

“st cyprian and justina medal” — While prayer medals of St. Cyprian of Antioch can be found, they’re not that common, and it’s sometimes easy to mix up his medal with that of St. Cyprian of Carthage (though he doesn’t really mind and both work).  However, I’ve never heard or found a prayer medal to both St. Cyprian and St. Justina, or even to St. Justina.  I’d love to find one!

“geomantic representation of numbers and alphabet” — Ugh, this is one of the things that Western geomancy disappoints me with.  I have not yet found any good way to divine letters or numbers with the geomantic figures, and it’s not for lack of trying.  I’m working on another scheme to assign the geomantic figures to the letters of the Greek alphabet (which I find to be easiest to work with), but it’s still in development and hasn’t been tested yet.  Western geomancy has techniques to divine numbers and letters based on Robert Fludd, Christopher Cattan, and John Heydon, but I’ve used all these methods and found none of them to be worth the effort.  Either it can’t be done and people who say they do it are either lucky or liars, or it can be done and the systems we have from Fludd, Cattan, and Heydon simply aren’t the ones we should be using.  I have some theoretical and linguistic issues with the notion of assigning letters to the figures (which language? which dialect? what pronunciation?) that still should be figured out, too.

“what are the planetary hours of the 1-12a.m and p.m?” — That’s not how planetary hours work.  Planetary hours are divisions of daylight and nighttime and don’t follow clock hours.  They’re based on the time of sunrise and the day of the week you’re currently on, so there’s a bit of calculation that goes along with it.

“olympic arbatel enns occult” — I’m honestly not sure where the word “enn” comes from.  As I understand it, it’s like a mantra or an incantation used in conjuring a spirit, a sort of expanded name or verbal seal one can use to catch a spirit’s attention, and I’ve seen it used for the goetic spirits of the Lemegeton.  That said, I’m not aware of any such things for the Olympic spirits; the Arbatel has a pretty simple and clear format for conjuring the Olympic spirits, and they don’t involve enns or incantations or mantras of any sort beyond a short and direct prayer to God asking for the presence of the spirit.

“mix anoited oil.and.florida.water to banish.evil” — I suppose you could, though most oil I know of doesn’t dissolve in Florida water particularly well.  Rather, anointing oil doesn’t really banish evil as much as it does inculcate goodness; Florida water helps to dispel or loosen darkness on a thing and “brighten” it, but may not be enough on its own to properly banish or exorcise evil.  Try keeping them separate and used for separate stages of the process.

“christian rituals to summon angels” — You mean, like, prayer?  Or pretty much the entirety of the Western Hermetic tradition dating from the late classical period?

“why should amblers keep to the path?” — Good question!  Tell me where you’re going and how much fun you want to have, and I’ll tell you whether there’s a path to stick to.

“geomancy gpod days to pray ancestors in 2015″ — Honestly, any and all days are good to call on your ancestors.  I can’t think of one that isn’t, generally speaking; any and every day you’re alive is a testament to what your ancestors have done for you—give you life through their own lives through the ages—and you don’t need any system of divination to tell you that.  Still, I suppose you could throw a chart to determine whether a particular day is especially good or ill for ancestor veneration, or use some sort of geomantic astrology to find when the Moon should be in a certain sign or mansion, but beyond that, just pray to them and you’ll be fine.

“can you use vegetable oil in oil lamps” — I mean, you can, but ew.  Vegetable oil doesn’t tend to burn very clean and leaves not only an oily smell but an oily feel in the air.  Stick to pure olive oil.

“which arcangel to pray for improvement in oratory skilks” — As far as the Christian archangels go, I would consider Gabriel to be helpful, since Gabriel is the famous herald and foremost messenger of God.  After all, he was the one who announced to Mary what was going to happen, and there’s the apocryphal horn of Gabriel to call everyone to attention on Judgment Day.  Raphael would be helpful in a more medical method, such as removing speech pathology issues, but Gabriel would probably be best for actually learning how to deliver a message clearly and communicatively.  Planetary magic would suggest Raphael of Mercury and Michael of the Sun, and their elemental counterparts Raphael of Air and Michael of Fire, though Gabriel of the Moon (or of Water) would be good for that human touch in speech that hooks everyone into believing what you have to say.

“orgone radiatior” — While I’ve heard of orgone accumulators (to gather and store orgone) and accelerators (to push and direct the flow of orgone), I’ve never really heard of an orgone radiator which, I assume, would emanate and radiate orgone.  I mean, I have, and those would be living bodies.  Orgone is an ambient, pervasive force that’s generated from living corporeal entities; in that sense, your own body is a radiator.  Thinking of this in terms of a machine you could build, I dunno; the thought’s never really occurred to me, and I don’t know whether there’s a need for this considering the ambient, pervasive sources of orgone already present in the environment literally everywhere.

“how to create talism of desease in geomantic figures” — Probably the same as any other talisman for disease, involving curses, conjuration of baneful spirits, using astrologically harmful times, and the like.  For incorporation of geomancy, I’d recommend applying the figures Cauda Draconis or Rubeus combined with the figures that govern the parts of the body you’d like to injure, then using the resulting talisman in a suitably earthy way: sneaking the item into their belongings, burying it where they frequently visit or walk over, somehow dissolving it and sneaking it into their food or drink, and the like.  Fun times!

“how do i locate my phone using geomancy” — (11 hits?  Really?) Lost item and recovery charts are one of the things I find geomancy to really excel at, and the process is simple.  Phones, being a possession you own, are ruled by house II.  See whether this figure moves around in the chart, and see what the figure itself is to determine its condition and for clues as to where it will be.  Be wary of the Judge, however, in case the phone is actually lost or destroyed for good.

Geomantic figures mean a lot of things; after all, we only have these 16 symbols to represent the entire rest of the universe, or, as a Taoist might call it, the “ten-thousand things”.  This is no easy task, and trying to figure out exactly how to read a particular geomantic figure in a reading is where real skill and intuition come into play.  It’s no easy thing to determine whether we should interpret Puer as just that, a young boy, or a weapon of some kind, or an angry person, or head trauma or headaches, or other things depending on where we find it in a chart, what’s around it, what figures generated it, and so forth.

Enter the use of correspondence tables.  Every Western magician loves these things, which simply link a set of things with another set of things.  Think of Liber 777 or Stephen Skinner’s Complete Magician’s Tables or Agrippa’s tables of Scales; those are classic examples of correspondence tables, but they don’t always have to be so expansive or universal.  One-off correspondences, like the figures to the planets or the figures to the elements, are pretty common and usually all we need.

One such correspondence that many geomancers find useful is that which links the geomantic figures to the signs of the Zodiac.  However, there are two such systems I know of, which confuses a lot of geomancers who are unsure of which to pick or when they work with another geomancer who uses another system.

• The planetary method (or Agrippan method) assigns the zodiac signs to the figures based on the planet and mobility of the figure.  Thus, the lunar figures (Via and Populus) are given to the lunar sign (Cancer), and the solar figures (Fortuna Major and Fortuna Minor) are given to the solar sign (Leo).  For the other planet/figures, the mobile figure is given to the nocturnal/feminine sign and the stable figure to the diurnal/masculine sign; thus, Puella (stable Venus) is given to Libra (diurnal Venus) and Amissio (mobile Venus) is given to Taurus (nocturnal Venus).  This system doesn’t work as well for Mars (both of whose figures are mobile) and Saturn (both of whose figures are stable), but we can say that Puer is more stable that Rubeus and Amissio more stable than Carcer.  Caput Draconis and Cauda Draconis are analyzed more in terms of their elements and both considered astrologically (not geomantically) mobile, and given to the mutable signs of their proper elements.
• The method of Gerard of Cremona is found in his work “On Astronomical Geomancy”, which is more of a way to draw up a horary astrological chart without respect for the actual heavens themselves in case one cannot observe them or get to an ephemeris at the moment.  He lists his own way to correspond the figures to the signs, but there’s no immediately apparent way to figure out the association.

Thus, the geomantic figures are associated with the signs of the Zodiac in the following ways according to their methods:

As you can see, dear reader, there’s not much overlap between these two lists, so it can be assumed that any overlap is coincidental.

In my early days, I ran tests comparing the same set of charts but differing in how I assigned the zodiac signs to the figures, and found out that although the planetary method is neat and clean and logical, it was Gerard of Cremona’s method that worked better and had more power in it.  This was good to know, and I’ve been using Gerard of Cremona’s method ever since, but it was also kinda frustrating since I couldn’t see any rhyme or reason behind it.

The other day, I was puzzled by how Gerard of Cremona got his zodiacal correspondences for the geomantic figures, so I started plotting out how the Zodiac signs might relate to the figures.  I tried pretty much everything I could think of: looking at the planetary domicile, exaltation, and triplicity didn’t get me anywhere, and trying to compare the signs with their associated houses (Aries with house I, Taurus with house II, etc.) and using the planetary joys of each house didn’t work, either.  Comparing the individual figures with their geomantic element and mobility/stability with the element and quality of the sign (cardinal, fixed, mutable) didn’t get me anywhere.  I was stuck, and started thinking along different lines: either Gerard of Cremona was using another source of information, or he made it up himself.  If it were that latter, I’d be frustrated since I’d have to backtrack and either backwards-engineer it or leave it at experience and UPG that happens to work, and I don’t like doing that.

Gerard of Cremona wrote in the late medieval period, roughly around the 12th century, which is close to when geomancy was introduced into Europe through Spain.  Geomancy was, before Europe, an Arabian art, and I remembered that there is at least one method of associating the geomantic figures with an important part of Arabian magic and astrology: the lunar mansions, also called the Mansions of the Moon.  I recall this system from the Picatrix as well as Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy (book II, chapter 33), and also that it was more important in early European Renaissance magic than it was later on.  On a hunch, I decided to start investigating the geomantic correspondences to the lunar mansions.

Unfortunately, there’s pretty much nothing in my disposal on the lunar mansions in the geomantic literature I know of, but there was something I recall reading.  Some of you might be aware of a Arabic geomantic calculating machine, an image of which circulates around the geomantic blogosphere every so often.  Back in college, I found an analysis of this machine by Emilie Savage-Smith and Marion B. Smith in their 1980 publication “Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century Divinatory Device”, and I recall that a section of the text dealt with that large dial in the middle of the machine.  Turns out, that dial links the geomantic figures with the lunar mansions!

However, I honestly couldn’t make heads-or-tails of that dial, and neither could Savage-Smith nor Smith; it dealt with “rising” and “setting” mansions that were out of season but arranged in a way that wasn’t temporal but geometrical according to the figures themselves.  Add to it, the set of lunar mansions associated with the figures here was incomplete and didn’t match what Gerard of Cremona had at all.  However, a footnote in their work gave me another lead, this time to an early European geomantic work associated with Hugo Sanctallensis, the manuscript of which is still extant.  A similar manuscript from around the same time period, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale MS Lat. 7354, was reproduced in Paul Tannery’s chapter on geomancy “Le Rabolion” in his Mémoires Scientifiques (vol. 4).  In that text, Tannery gives the relevant section of the manuscript that, lo and behold, associates the 16 geomantic figures with 21 of the lunar mansions:

(NB: I used the standard Latin names for the figures and Agrippa’s names for the lunar mansions, as opposed to the names given in the manuscript.  Corresponding the mansion names in the manuscript to those of Agrippa, and thus their associated geomantic figures, is tentative in some cases, but the order is the same.)

So now we have a system of 21 of the 28 lunar mansions populated by the geomantic figures.  It’d be nice to have a complete system, but I’m not sure one survives in the literature, and one isn’t given by Tannery.  All the same, however, we have our way to figure out Gerard of Cremona’s method of assigning the zodiac signs to the geomantic figures.  Each sign of the Zodiac is 30° of the ecliptic, but each mansion of the Moon is 12°51’26”, so there’s a bit of overlap between one zodiac sign and several lunar mansions.  As a rule, for every “season” of three zodiac figures (Aries to Gemini, Cancer to Virgo, Libra to Sagittarius, Capricorn to Pisces), we have seven lunar mansions divided evenly among them.  If we compare how each sign of the Zodiac and their corresponding geomantic figure(s) match up with the lunar mansions and their figures from Tannery, we get a pretty neat match:

If you compare the figures for the zodiac signs, in the majority of cases you see the same figures at least once in a lunar mansion that overlaps that particular sign.  There are a few exceptions to this rule, however:

• Fortuna Maior and Fortuna Minor are reversed between Gerard of Cremona’s zodiacal system and Tannery’s mansion system, as are Puer and Puella.  I’m pretty sure this is a scribal error, but where exactly it might have occurred (with Gerard of Cremona or before him, in a corrupt copy of Gerard of Cremona, or in Tannery’s manuscript) is hard to tell.
• Populus, being given to mansion XX present in Sagittarius, is assigned to Capricorn.  If we strictly follow the system above, we get two geomantic figures for Sagittarius and none for Capricorn.  To ensure a complete zodiacal assignment, we bump Populus down a few notches and assign it to Capricorn.

And there you have it!  Now we understand the basis for understanding Gerard of Cremona’s supposedly random system of corresponding the signs of the Zodiac to the geomantic figures, and it turns out that it was based on the lunar mansions and their correspondences to the geomantic figures.  This solves a long-standing problem for me, but it also raises a new one: since we (probably) don’t have an extant complete system of corresponding the lunar mansions to the geomantic figures, how do we fill in the blanks?  In this system, we’re missing geomantic figures for mansions VII, XI, XII, XVIII, XXII, XXIII, and XIV (or, if you prefer, Aldirah, Azobra, Acarfa, Alcalb, Caadaldeba, Caadebolach, Caadacohot, and Caadalhacbia).  All of the geomantic figures are already present, and we know that some figures can cover more than one mansion, so it might be possible that some of the figures should be expanded to cover more than the mansion they already have, e.g. Rubeus covering mansion VI (Athaya), which it already does, in addition to VII (Aldirah), which is currently unassigned.

This is probably a problem best left for another day, but perhaps some more research into the lunar mansions and some experimentation would be useful.  If an Arabic source listing the geomantic figures in a similar way to the lunar mansions could be found, that’d be excellent, but I’m not holding my breath for that kind of discovery anytime soon.