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How to Learn a New System (of Anything)

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By now, it might be apparent to most of my readers that I’m a student and practitioner of geomancy.  And, while I don’t mean to brag, I also wouldn’t be too far from the truth to say that I’m one of the most experienced geomancers this half of the Mississippi (though, given the dearth of modern geomancers, that’s not a terribly difficult claim to make).  Geomancy is an interesting system that works really well with a lot of Western occult traditions, has been called the little sister of astrology by past occultists, and predates Tarot by centuries.  It’s a pretty nifty system and style of divination, I claim, and is made all the more fascinating by its mythological Hermetic and historical Saharan origins.

However, it’s just one system of divination out there, and there are many.  Western occultists, including most modern ceremonial magicians and neopagans, often use Tarot, astrology, and runes as their first and preferred divination systems, for instance, and that’s to say nothing of the various different kinds of *mancies that have arisen across the world since time immemorial.  Just as in any other system of thought or practice, we tend to be biased towards the first system we learn; speakers of foreign languages tend to retain their native language’s phonology inventory and retain an accent, programmers raised to use one programming paradigm try to fit other paradigms into their own, and so forth.  This is just the same as in magic and divination, but the risk to holding onto our “first taught, always retained” biases is somewhat greater than awkward sentence structure.

Consider a person who really likes using the Elder Futhark as a divination means, and who is then interested in geomancy.  The angular, point-based structure of geomancy may intrigue them, say, and the shapes the points of geomantic figures make when connected may resemble runes to some people.  Naturally, being intimately familiar with the symbology and meanings of the runes of Elder Futhark, the rune diviner will try to relate their cosmos to the 24 runes first before considering the 16 geomantic figures.  However, the mapping is not always clean or consistent; the geomantic figure Amissio has a similar graphical structure to the Futhark rune othala, which may lead one to think that they have similar divinatory meanings.  However, consider what they mean:

  • In geomancy, Amissio refers to loss in all its meanings: things are gone, going away, taken away, stolen, out of reach, missing, misplaced, left behind, waning, subsiding, or decreasing.  It is beneficial in romance (losing one’s heart to another) and in illness (getting rid of a cold instead of catching one), but is generally unfortunate in all other situations (since humanity likes to keep, gain, or increase things instead of the opposite).
  • In the Elder Futhark, Othala refers to ancestral property and all that it entails: inheritance, history, culture, wealth, things of value and importance on a spiritual or sentimental level, safety, increase, and abundance.

Despite the graphical similarities, Amissio and Othala are two entirely different symbols meaning almost the exact opposite meanings; further, Amissio’s inverse figure Acquisitio (Gain) and Othala reversed (or merkstave Othala) also mean almost the exact the opposite things.  After all, geomancy has its origins thousands of miles, hundreds of years, and many cultures away from the birth of runes, with different attributions, uses, and correspondences drawn between their figures and symbols in other systems.

Although drawing correspondences between different systems or styles of thought is often helpful, it can’t be done on such a superficial level.  Moreover, you can’t simply translate things from one system to another without taking into account how they were formed and how they’re actually being used.  For instance, although Mars is often seen as the planet of war, in Mesoamerican cultures, it was Venus that fulfilled the same role due to different circumstances and perceptions on the same exact planet and celestial object.  Whole systems need to be treated as such until they’re learned intimately and deeply enough to be blended when and where appropriate.  This is the big complaint that some traditional astrologers (especially Christopher Warnock) have with people learning their systems when coming from a modern viewpoint, and I agree with them most of the way.

Am I saying you can’t draw connections between disparate systems of knowledge?  Heavens above and hells below, no!  I’m saying that you need to be smart and thoroughly learn a system in its entirety from scratch and first principles before trying to relate it to another system.  Without starting from scratch and learning how a beginner would in that own system, thinking that you know enough of your own to bust headlong into a new, radically different system will only lead to failure.  It’s like the Athenian and Chinese scientists in Richard Garfinkle’s book “Celestial Matters” (which I think should be highly recommended reading for most Western occultists); each is familiar with their own system of elements, medicine, alchemy, and astrology, but when faced with that of another, they find nothing but confusion and difficulty because they haven’t actually bothered to learn how the other system works.  They kept trying to overlay an entirely foreign system of thought with their own, which just doesn’t work.  In much the same way, it’s like trying to understand the Basque language using an English grammar book, or the symbols of geomancy using runic divination.



Prayer of Anointing

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Since I’m in a sharing mood, here’s another prayer I ended up developing in my own practice.  After my morning prayers and meditation, I usually follow it up with an anointing of Abramelin oil (or any other oils I might need that day, e.g. King of Solomon oil for wisdom if I’m doing readings, or Money Drawing oil if I’m going to a show to sell stuff), some prayer, and then follow that up with my daily attuning.  It initially started off just by reading Psalm 23 based on the recommendations of this one anointing oil bottle, but then I started to follow it up with impromptu prayer that, over time, settled into a stable form.  It’s based off another structure of prayer I tend to use, but since this is a little more inclusive and specific, I figured I’d share this one.

While anointing yourself (perhaps on the forehead/lips/chest or on the temples and palms of the hands), recite Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd…”).  When ready, say the following prayer.

Almighty God, creator of all things, lord, king, master, helper, hear me!

As I anoint myself with this oil,
so too anoint my body, soul, spirit, and mind with your grace, mercy, forgiveness, power, strength, wisdom, patience, authority, and light.
As I come before you now and call on your holy name,
help me, o Lord, that I may come to see you, hear you, know you, and be with you,
that I may align my will with yours,
that I may know my True Will,
that I may carry out your Will,
that I may go where I must go, know what I must know, do what I must do, and become what I must be.

Whatever flaws there may be in my body, mend them and help me mend them.
Whatever gaps there may be in my soul, close them and help me close them.
Whatever holes there may be in my spirit, fill them and help me fill them.
Whatever cracks there may be in my mind, seal them and help me seal them.
However I am imperfect, o Lord, make me perfect in my imperfections,
that I may come to see you, hear you, know you, and be with you,
that I may come to walk in your path, at your side, in your footsteps.

Amen.

Follow up with whatever prayers as necessary or desired (I suggest an Our Father and a Glory Be).


De Geomanteia: Puella (draw me like one of your French girls)

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Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Puella

Puella

This is the figure Puella.  In Latin, its name means “Girl”, but is also named “gracious” or “beauty” in some Islamic traditions, as well as “purity”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like a hand-mirror or a vulva.

First, the technical details on this figure.  It’s associated with Venus in direct motion, the astrological sign of Libra, and the sephirah Netzach.  It has the fire, water, and earth lines active and the air line passive, and is overall associated with the element of Water due to its passive and reflective nature.  It is an odd figure with five points, relating to subjective, inner states of the soul and experienced reality rather than objective, independent, or external situations.  It is a stable and entering, showing it to be slow-moving and long-lasting where it appears.  In the body, it signifies the lower back, buttocks, and kidneys.  Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Rubeus, Red, showing that this figure is not superficial, not flighty, not angry.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is Puer, the Boy, showing that this figure is not rash, not outgoing, not adventurous.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is Albus, White, showing that it is similarly calm, introspective, peaceful, and accepting.  It is generally a favorable figure, emphasizing pleasantness, harmony, and balance.  Due to this, however, its influence is fickle and its favor can go in any direction based on what’s around it.  It is especially good in matters of friendship, love, and acceptance; it is unfavorable in matters needing permanence, stability, or constancy.

In my meditations on Puella, I saw myself walking into a massive pyramidal hall, an ancient temple with smooth golden sandstone walls neatly fit together rising up to a square hole in the ceiling, with a light shining down into it illuminating everything the temple with a rich, warm, delicate light.  The whole of the temple was filled with treasures, rich tapestries, delicate statues and figurines, and piles of paintings; it was a temple in the old style, a warehouse and storeroom for all the holy treasures a temenos or church would’ve accrued over the centuries.  At the end of the temple, meandering through a forest of statues and stacks of gold, kneeling down in prayer was a young maiden, dressed in the finest dress, modest but alluring, sweet but experienced.  I approached her, and she looked up at me with the most genuine, kindest, warmest smile I’ve ever seen; she stepped up, took my hand, and walked me around the temple.  It was bliss, even for me who doesn’t go for women, but she told me about how she had been expecting me, preparing all this for me, watching out for my arrival; she told me that she wanted to make sure I was alright.  I told her that I was, and by then, she had led me to the entry of the temple and gently guided me out with the kindest and warmest of farewells.  I left with a smile on my face, both in my mind and in my physical body.

John Collier's "Tannhäuser in the Venusberg"

Now, I’m going to warn you: geomancy, being an older art and an art that incorporates gender binaries in its symbolism, is going to seem a little sexist at times, especially in its presentation of the highest feminine ideal.  That said, bear with me and keep going.  It’s just as bad (or as funny) when we get to Puer, the Boy, later on.

Although geomancy and astrology are separate systems, they borrow liberally from and into each other.  Puella, in this case, is pure Libra, pure Venus, pure Aphrodite in its energy and symbolism.  Puella is beauty, harmony, good company, pleasantness, grace, graciousness, and a good time.  On the other hand, because it’s so focused on pleasing all parties involved, it’s going to try and balance things out with everyone, Puella may help you out one second and pass you up the next.  It’s like Puella’s a good hostess, and can only focus on pleasing everyone equally and harmoniously to make sure everyone’s okay and that everyone’s having a good time.  She doesn’t mean to be conspiratorial or two-faced, but in order to please everyone, she may have to pass someone up to keep up good relations with everyone.  At the very least, though, Puella’s energies are pleasant and beautiful, and usually bring that influence wherever Puella appears.

Elementally, Puella is ruled by Water, showing her acceptance of everyone and everything on a deep, emotional level.  Plus, like Albus, her emotional nature also gives her the ability to reflect on herself and others to allow better relating to others.  Going by her elemental structure, she lacks only Air, leaving fewer active elements (fire and air) than passive (water and earth).  Though it might sound sexist, yes, dear reader, the Woman lacks a brain (air); she feels and is emotional, and receives the thoughts and talks of others to reflect them upon themselves.  She receives, and is a figure of human receptivity; what she lacks (thoughtful communication and human interaction) she waits to receive, though she has the force of will, emotional capacity, and material grounding to live on her own.

Unlike the other Cytherean figure Amissio, Puella is not emotionally upset, and in fact attempts its hardest to prevent that kind of thing from happening.  While Amissio is about loss, Puella is about balance and pleasantness.  While Amissio is focused on material and emotional needs, Puella is focused on communicative and emotional fulfillment.  Amissio and Puella, though they are both ruled by Venus, are ruled by drastically different aspects of the planet.  They both share the fire and water element, Puella has the earth line filled while Amissio does not.  Amissio’s lack of material realization prevents the stability and focus that allows Cytherean energies to act as a balance to smooth things over; Puella, because she is satisfied in all ways except through interaction, is empowered and endowed enough to fulfill that purpose of Venus, which is to make things better for all involved, including oneself.

Incorporating Puella’s energies into one’s life or a given situation is always a good thing, but it’s better to use it to brighten or freshen things up a little instead of using Puella to lay good foundations for things.  Anything that needs a short-term infusion of beauty, grace, good looks, or a strong glamour can benefit from Puella.  However, when it appears in a reading, expect that things will be pleasant though it may not say so; Puella may go your way or it may go another way, like Lady Fortune herself, since it exists to maintain a balance.  Unlike the balance and focus of the Sun and its high-level beauty (the meaning of the word “Tiphareth”, the sephirah of the Sun), Puella is a temporary low-level humane beauty that insists on the here-and-now needs of people.  Once someone has their need fulfilled and Puella has received what they can from someone, Puella moves on and see who else is disturbing the balance with their needs.


How to Learn a New System (without Bias)

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I didn’t expect to write a follow-up to the earlier post so soon, but a quick email exchange on a Hermetic magic mailing list got me thinking, and before long the thinking got me to ranting.  Earlier, I mentioned that you shouldn’t go into one system of symbols expecting a one-to-one matching with another system, like matching geomantic figures to the Elder Futhark, without understanding how each system works internally.  If all you have is the external image of something, you’re omitting the reasoning, rationale, logic, and foundations that give the symbols their meaning, and you end up corroding and misinterpreting the symbols to fit things into an ill-fitting correspondence.  It’s just just trying to jam square pegs into round holes, but more like trying to jam oranges into a keyboard.  You risk trying to match up radically different things unless you figure out what things do on their own.

Well, this email chain was discussing the substitution of one set of forces called upon in a ritual with those more amenable to someone’s own upbringing and pantheon.  To be more specific, in the Trithemius ritual of conjuration, one calls on the Holy Trinity at several points in the ritual.  This is largely because the dude who came up with the ritual was a Christian abbot who practiced Christian Hermetic magic in a predominantly Christian society using a Neoplatonic philosophy that also had a trinitarian aspect in its perception of divinity.  It’s understandable that many people who aren’t raised Christian or who are pagan from birth or by choice don’t feel much of a connection with the Trinity or other similar Abrahamic ideas of divinity; even though I was raised loosely Jewish, I didn’t have much of a faith in God before actually beginning the Work, much less the other two-thirds of the Trinity that I call upon fairly frequently nowadays.

However, the first time I got my hands on the Trithemius ritual, I still did it by the book and called on the Trinity, on Christ, and so forth.  And you know what?  Despite not having a connection to the guys, despite not being Christian or being baptized or being a member of any Christian church, the ritual worked.  The Trinity heard me out and helped me out, despite that I was just some quasi-theist bumbling around with old Renaissance texts, a wand, and a few candles.  Heck, even after finding out about my role as a priest to Hermes and flirting with other deities here and there, I still think Jesus Christ is a pretty cool dude and call on his aid in many of my magic workings, along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.  After all, I do work in the currents of a Christian-leaning Hermetic tradition of magic and philosophy where those forces are strong.

What the email chain was about was that this one person was a polytheist of a different sort and didn’t feel comfortable calling on the Trinity, saying that they had no connection to them whatsoever.  (Whether this was by upbringing as pagan or by choice in willfully excluding themselves from the Trinity is unknown to me, but I digress.)  They just wanted to know how they could get by doing the ritual how they wanted right off the bat without experimenting with the ritual as given to them.  They wanted to know how they could make the ritual better without ever having done it.  To take things to an absurd extreme, they wanted to just up and start off on their own tradition of magic when given only instructions in another that they were unwilling to accept wholly but willing to change however they wanted in order to make things look nicer for them.  Without doing the ritual.  Without seeing what happened when they called on those forces.  Without considering what the changes might do.  Without knowing how the ritual worked from the inside.  Without actually knowing how the system worked internally.

See why I felt that a follow-up post was necessary?  This is exactly what I’m talking about, and is about half of what Draja Mickaharic says in every one of his books on magic: don’t substitute until you’re a master in this shit, because you’re probably going to fuck shit up badly in doing so, even if only in your own understanding and spiritual growth.

This person had said that they saw no reason to use foreign pantheons in order to work their magic.  Really?  Hermeticism was started off by taking every single foreign pantheon there was back in the classical world and blending them together, calling on Moses, Jesus, Iao, Michael, Apollo, and Ra in the same breath.  Cornelius Agrippa, Aleister Crowley, and Stephen Skinner have written correspondence tables that link just about every aspect of Western ceremonial magic to just about every aspect of just about every other system of magic, religion, philosophy, divination, and symbology (and, yes, usually knowing how those systems worked from the inside out before making those correspondences).  It’s pretty much a given that all roads lead to Rome, that all spiritual paths lead to the Divine, that Truth is One but known by many names.  Every system is different, and every system is like a set of tools; one might use one set of tools for one purpose but an entirely different set for another purpose, such as building a house versus building a computer.

Pantheons, philosophies, and the like operate much in the same way for a magician, who looks beyond loyalty to one system of thought and tries to make use of what they have available to figure out what can be done better and more efficaciously.  Working with other systems and becoming familiar and friendly with them and their powers only increases the magician’s repertoire of skills and augments their toolbox so that they’re better equipped with actually doing magic when magic needs doing, sometimes by any means necessary with whomever is willing to listen.  This doesn’t mean that you can’t work with one system you like, but be willing to explore and whore yourself out to magic like how magic whores itself out to the cosmos.  If you try to shelter yourself, you only inhibit yourself.  We all have our preferred ways of doing work, but without learning how other systems and symbols and powers work in the process, we neglect the rest of the cosmos outside our own sphere.  It’s dangerous, especially when some rituals or techniques really can’t afford or allow substitutions just because “ew I have to call on that dude”.

The point of the Great Work is that it isn’t just a Hermetic thing, or a Christian thing, or a Mediterranean thing.  It’s a divine thing.  When you’re doing the Great Work, it doesn’t matter whether you’re monotheist, polytheist, henotheist, pantheist, panentheist, atheist, autotheist, or whatever.  It doesn’t matter whether you speak Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Chinese, German, Kalaallisut, Lojban, or whatever.  It doesn’t matter.  The Great Work is the attempt to get back to the Infinite Light, the Eternal and Endless Source from which all these things came from.  All these distinctions, classifications, and labels we draw and assign things to are ultimately nonexistent and false, but they’re useful tools at any level lower than the Divine Source in order to understand the things that materialized and separated from and into the Endless Light.  When you get There and perform the Great Work, all these things fall away revealing the not-even-oneness but the Oneness that underlies all of reality.  That takes work, though, and you need to get rid of your own biases and self-appointed labels before you can really begin to work towards this goal.


Custom Wandmaking and Commissions

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Given that this is my blog, I feel quite free and enabled to post goddamn whatever the hell I want using as many expletives as my little heart desires.  So, the posts here range from ancient Mediterranean rituals to modern energy work to politics and anywhere in between (especially the in between).  Some of my posts are dedicated to the crafts, tools, and other things I make in the course of the Work, and there’s even multiple pages dedicated to some of the more significant projects I’ve done (check them out under the Crafts menu above, while you’re at it).

I knew it was only a matter of time, but someone recently commissioned them for a custom occult item, a hardwood wand largely following the Trithemius model but with a few design differences and the use of custom ingredients, celestial empowerment, and hard-to-obtain materials to enhance the wand’s power.  Despite some unexpected oddities in the results, I’m pleased overall with the production.  I just hope the owner of the wand says the same!

Rootworker's Wand, front Rootworker's Wand, back Rootworker's Wand, tip Rootworker's Wand, butt

Not a lot of people know that I’m more than happy to take commissions for occult crafts, mostly because I don’t advertise it.  So, let this post be the official announcement that I’m open to take commissions for occult crafts, tools, talismans, and other artefacts of the Great Work.  Depending on the commission and the time, I may not be able to take it up or might refer you to someone with more appropriate skills than mine, but if you have a hankerin’ for some polyphanic productions, send me an email (polyphanes at gmail) and tell me about your ideas.  Once we get the details, design, and circumstances of creation settled down and out of the way, I’ll get you a quote and we can go from there.

I may eventually get an Etsy page or something, like some of my other friends are suggesting, but in the meantime I’m content with making a few things here and there and selling them at the local spirituality store where I also do readings, Sticks and Stones in Fairfax, VA (which you should totally visit at some point if you’re in the area, especially on Sunday afternoons).


Planar Sightseeing

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Part of the recent wand consecration work I was doing involved lots of conjurations, so I took the opportunity to do twelve straight days of conjuration, working with a different angel and force each day (seven days for the seven planets, four for the four elements, and one for my natal genius).  I’ve been lazy these past few months…okay, no, I’ve been lazy the past half year and haven’t done nearly as many conjurations, projects, or things as I should have (remember those conjurations of Orobas and Viagrahel I said I was gonna do eventually?).  So, I decided to take it upon myself to do almost two weeks of conjurations, similar to the recent Gate ordeal that Frater Rufus Opus had everybody do (that I couldn’t due to other obligations at the time).

Each of these conjurations involved calling down the angel associated with that particular force, aligning myself and my sphere with that force, and gaining an initiation deeper into that sphere if the angel thought I was ready for it.  This process of initiation is effectively passing through a Gate, which involved a bit of scrying and actually seeing the plane in question.  I took notes of what each sphere looked like to me, at least in this series of conjurations, and I thought I’d share it with you guys.  Keep in mind that I don’t view these as canonical, objective, or in any way standard for people, and I’ve been shown different places of different spheres based on when I visit them.  In a lot of ways, they’re influenced by Alan Moore’s comic “Promethea” or the images in the Smith-Waite tarot deck of the four Kings, but that’s not always the case.

  • Mercury: A sprawling port city on an island mountainside, set in the middle of an archipelago of other port cities.  Complicated, labyrinthine roads with all manner of shops, cafés, temples, libraries, and workshops in all places, all set next to each other haphazardly.  A park is situated on the top of the mountain overlooking the city and the nearby towns, set in bright orange, yellow, and dark hues.  Buzzing, full of chatter, sprawling, yet always moving and warping.  Lights stream along the rooftops and roads like circuitry.
  • Jupiter: The deepest almost-black blue skies reach upward, turning bright white down at the horizon with a thick layer of clouds beneath.  Stars, pale and small, dot the apex of the sky above.  A tall castle tower made of rough-hewn, ancient stone reaches infinitely high from beneath the clouds.  Cool, calm, proud.  Always atop a stone or castle-esque tower, or looking out from one.  The clouds clear up on command to reveal lush countrysides, nascent towns, glacial rivers, and temperate forests far, far below; eagles fly across the sky.  The sound of wind and crackling from the stars is notable.
  • Venus: A long, long beach, with a dark emerald ocean and light blue-green skies.  Light pale orange or gold sand, smooth and tingly-warm.  Smooth grey stone walls and walkways, neatly fit together without mortar, with bursts of ivy and roses covering patches of a wall.  The wall is only 10′ or so high, but there are occasional cracks and ruined colonnades along the walkways, almost all of which are also covered by ivy and roses.  The water is warm and soft, the sand moist and sinks in easily under one’s feet.  The smell of sweat and floral musk wash along the air with the sounds of soft chatter and waves breaking.
  • Saturn: Infinitely flat fields of white grass below, a sky full of impenetrably black clouds above, with a horizon of a pale white glow.  The grass was wispy, like feathers or mist, and had a quality of stars or luminous dust to them.  No structures, no hills, no variation in the landscape no matter how far one traveled.  Cold, with implications but no sensations of breeze as the grass silently shifted back and forth.  Dark, though not shadowy; though there was no light source, everything could be seen.  Silence dominated, heavy but not oppressive.
  • Sun: Golden-orange fields, like a savanna, still and peaceful.  Silent, just before the dawn, just as things are on the brink of activity and energy, though radiant with it in all ways.  Everything gleams and glistens, every leaf on every bush and brush, every cloud in the sky.  Temples and holy structures stand atop hills, but very widely-spaced out from each other, visible only from a distance.  Walkways are worn into the grass, dry smooth patches of earth between fields of orange-gold grass.  Warm, healthful.  Occasionally wings will beat, occasionally footfalls of cats.  Still, peaceful, strong, rejuvenating, stable.
  • Moon: Silver rocky plains, covered in shadow, but full of wispy, ethereal forms.  A very slight glow emanates from the dust and stones, with promontories and mesas dotting the landscape.  Slight vegetation, pale green or brown, surround barely-tread roads leading off into the distance.  A mixture of humble houses, hastily-assembled huts, and elaborate kingdoms of crystal can be seen on the horizons, though not all of them are as concrete as the stones underneath.  Jagged crystals glimmer in the light shining onto the ground, jutting up from the ground like frozen geysers, while a multitude of stars vividly shine in the pitch black darkness of the sky above.
  • Mars: A rocky, dusty desert, covered in boulders and fumaroles, with jagged mountain ranges and volcanoes in the distance.  Remnants of roads and pathways can be seen across a scarred, pockmarked landscape, with rivers of fire and lava here and there.  An occasional spring or waterfall can be seen, but the water is invariably scalding, acidic, caustic, or otherwise inhospitable to comfortable living.  Fireballs occasionally rain from the cloudy, dark red skies, most of which burn up before reaching the ground, and most of what’s left landing in the fire rivers and lava lakes.  Statues of soldiers bearing shields and swords or of crying eyeless maidens line the few roads that are left.  No structures or vegetation to be found.
  • Fire: A sea of fire with bright blue, clear skies above, with islands of dark, dry, barren earth covered with sulfuric sands.  The air is dry, parched, and desiccating, and all is blisteringly hot.  No clouds in the sky, and the sky has a pale yellow tinge in an otherwise bright October blue.  The ground is dusty and dry, with walkways above the fire leading around pits and clefts, almost like a catwalk or a land bridge.  The fire is infinite in all directions, with the brightest sun shining directly overhead with no shadow being cast anywhere.
  • Air: A temperate forest near the top of a cliff, with a bright blue sky and a shining, glimmering, silvery sun above and a beach with vibrantly white sand below.  Dark, deep blue waters with white wave caps crash gently with a gentle breeze at the base, and a stronger wind blows constantly through the dark, deep green treetops.  Pines, evergreens, and thin deciduous trees dominate, with sandy, pale soil underneath.  Lots of shadows cover the forest floor, and the smell of treesap and ocean accentuate the air’s poppy, sparkling feel.  No structures, but pathways abound between the trees and around the cliff, a dark almost grey stone.  Few “lively” colors, mostly dark or anti-pastel.
  • Water: An endless sea, dark blue-green in color, with a light, almost grey blue-lavender sky above.  White clouds dot the sky, illuminated with no sun.  The water is slow-moving with no whitecaps, though a brisk and cold breeze blows over it.  A simple, flat, grey, unadorned walkway sits right above the water’s edge, dry though appearing from the water itself.  In the distance, ships and floating cities can be seen, though this simple concrete pontoon bridge is much simpler and much smaller.  The water gently laps at the sides of the stone platform, and the water itself is warm.  The platform is a simple dock leading from water back to water on all sides, no vegetation present.
  • Earth: Gold-green skies shine above lush green bushes, leafy and vibrant.  Tall, tropical or temperate trees grow everywhere, thick and plentiful, with the soil below a dark, rich brown.  The soil is soft, though thick and heavy, crumbling apart like powdered sugar in the hands.  Grass, leaves, and roots gently crunch under footfalls, and the air has a warm, pleasant, almost seaside-like breeze.  Small structures dot the landscape, mostly on hills that look over the forests, mostly huts and small stone structures, each holding a small family or resident, sometimes a traveler, sometimes a permanent settlement.  The air smells richly of vegetation and fruit, though with the sharp tang of dust and warm stone.

Review: Richard Webster, “Geomancy For Beginners”

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In my ongoing quest to collect pretty much every published work on geomancy, I picked up one of the newest books on geomantic divination, “Geomancy For Beginners” by Richard Webster recently off Amazon.  It was first printed in early 2011 and published by Llewellyn Publications, with the offical price of US$14.95.  Coming in at 264 pages, it feels a little thick, but that’s due to the book being a standard trade size and the larger-than-normal font with generous spacing.  The text is clear to read, though the formatting of the figures and diagrams could be better.  Given that this is a Llewellyn book and is explicitly marked “for beginners”, I wasn’t expecting radically new insights into the old art of geomantic divination, but I decided to give it a chance.  Being a traditionalist with a streak for heavy texts, I expected a fairly strong new-age flair to the book (it is, after all, published by Llewellyn).  Overall, the book is a passable though fluffy introduction to geomancy, though it really is meant for rank beginners who know nothing of the basics of Western occult symbols.  It has more going against it than for it, unfortunately.

Cover of Richard Webster's "Geomancy for Beginners"

After starting off with a brief history of geomancy (basically Stephen Skinner’s historical writings on geomancy, the entire subject of his “Terrestrial Astrology”, condensed into a few pages), Webster describes geomancy, what it is and what the book is about (divination using the geomantic figures), and what it isn’t (feng shui and similar arts of “living in harmony with the earth”).  He shows the basic method of geomantic divination using the dot-and-sand/paper method, quickly moving to his preferred method of using casting sticks (also called “druid sticks”, four sticks with one dot on one side and two on the other, cast on a cloth to produce a geomantic figure, a fairly modern invention on its own).  He glosses over other methods of generating the figures, then launches into a chapter describing what divination is at a high level and how it works, attempting to use historical references but ending up sounding pretty new-agey.  Why this chapter wasn’t at the start of the book is confusing, since one should probably figure out the value of divination first before coming to grips with an implementation of geomancy.  Webster’s descriptions of the figures is pretty straightforward, though with an emphasis on modern symbols and a few confusing correspondences (e.g. linking the figures to what seems to be random months of the year and body parts, things usually corresponded according to the zodiac sign of the figure).

Through the book, he introduces the basics of geomantic divination through the use of the shield chart and the house chart.  He provides, as most common geomancy texts do, a series of lookup charts and lists that describe at a high, general level what each figure means in each position.  This is not something I’m a fan of, since people often stop bothering to actually meditate and learn the symbols of something at this point and just resort to using the lookup table in divination.  Imagine if someone wrote a book that described at a high level what each of the 78 cards of the Tarot meant in each of the ten positions in the Celtic Cross spread; people would likely use the book as a reference and cease to really think about the cards as windows into a much deeper system.  This is, at least to me, why I like John Michael Greer’s books on the subject, because he offers the reader a good grounding in the foundation of the symbols and then provides the rules to interpret them as the situation requires.  I’m not saying that lookup tables aren’t useful, but the foundation Webster gives isn’t that great to be able to fluidly and completely interpret the symbols of geomancy beyond what he says they mean in a given spot.

However, Webster’s example charts, few though they may be, are well-written and from a personal standpoint.  The author’s examples read almost like journal entries, complete with setting, context, and decent analyses of the charts and for whom they were cast.  Although I think his presentation of geomantic technique reduces some of the most important techniques in favor of offering lookup tables, at least he covers the basics, including things like calculating the Part of Fortune and aspects (which, in my own practice, I barely use in favor of things like perfection and elemental analysis).  I think his presentation of geomantic technique is a little too simplistic, his use of astrological chart interpretation to use the planets and signs based on the figures found in the houses is redundant, and his overall presentation of divinatory meanings to the figures is fairly fluffy and focuses on the positive at the expense of the more difficult.  After his presentation of the basics, Webster offers six more chapters focusing on a different style of geomancy:

  1. Gerard of Cremona’s astrological geomancy, where one throws a dumbed-down astrological horary chart based on geomantic figures, along with his zodiacal attributions to the geomantic figures.  This is more about using geomantic technique to draw up a horary chart without the degrees.  This isn’t a method of geomancy I’m particularly fond of, since it’s really just a kind of makeshift astrology, though I do use Gerard of Cremona’s zodiacal attributions in my own work.
  2. Cornelius Agrippa’s attribution of zodiac signs to the figures and his house allotment technique.  There isn’t a lot of information to really be said here, and I’m unsure why this was its own chapter with as many words as Webster uses.
  3. The Golden Dawn’s use of the planetary spirits (Chashmodai, Sorath, etc.) in ritual divination, house allotment technique, and another set of lookup tables, along with Crowley’s assignment of different query topics to the seven planets.  Again, not a lot of information really to be said here, since he already mentioned the Golden Dawn’s use and incorporation of geomancy into their work at the beginning, and the lookup table is taken right from the Golden Dawn’s text on geomancy and is entirely redundant, seeing how Webster provided his own earlier in the book.  Also, even though he introduces the planetary spirits and tells the reader to use their sigils in rituals, he doesn’t show them or instruct the reader where or how to find them!
  4. What Webster styles “Arthurian divination”, a kind of modern druid-ish (emphasis on the ish) system that uses nine geomantic figures arrayed out in a quartered circle.  This is probably the only innovative thing in the book, though certainly not geomantic in origin and only seems to use geomantic figures in a style of divination that could just as easily use runes, Tarot cards, or whatever.  Though he ascribes the technique to Merlin or Arthurian-derived traditions of magic, this really doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the book except to show how geomantic figures can be employed in non-geomantic occult crafts.  The technique itself is not tied to geomancy, but it’s definitely one to learn and keep in the back of one’s mind for use with other sets of symbols.
  5. What Webster calls “horary geomancy”, which isn’t anything more than a forecast-style of reading for a given timeframe without a specific query.  This did not need its own chapter, and is only 2.5 pages of text and one diagram.  Though forecasts are useful to know how to do, his placing of this here didn’t make sense to me.  The name itself is confusing, since it implied to me something more along the lines of Pestka’s and Schwei’s method of incorporating a horary astrological chart with a geomantic chart for the same time.
  6. Napoleon’s “Book of Fate”, or more accurately, a brief description of what the Book of Fate was and how it enabled geomancy to become a parlor game.  No technique is presented here, just a bit of historical trivia on geomancy and a list of the questions the Book of Fate had a lookup table for (but not the figures or answers for the questions).  I don’t see why this was included or even brought up past the historical references at the start of the book; at least the foregoing chapters had something new to learn.  The Book of Fate was interesting in that it uses geomantic figures with five lines instead of four, giving the system 32 symbols instead of the standard 16, though doesn’t expand the system enough to really make use of them in a proper geomantic-style reading, selecting only one figure.

As I said in the beginning, the book passes for being a standard modern introduction to geomancy.  It’s best suited for people who really have no knowledge of the basics of Western occult symbols, and even then, the book isn’t that great in giving a strong basis with them, either.  Its presentation of information and technique is disjointed, and though it can be useful for people who don’t have much of an attention span to learn geomancy, its extra fluff and needless expanses of words unfortunately take up as much time as it does to learn the symbols and techniques of geomancy itself.  The only really innovative or new thing Webster brings is his chapter on Arthurian divination, but that alone doesn’t justify the rest of the fluff and cruft, especially since it’s not really geomantic.  Though Webster laments the descent of geomancy into divinatory anonymity, his book doesn’t offer much to bring it out of those depths, and doesn’t really inspire the reader to learn more or meditate on this art more than figure out how to correspond the meanings of figures given in different lookup tables.  Though it’s a decent buy for someone who just wants something to learn as an honest-to-goodness beginner to divination, I’d much rather suggest a good book on astrology and a more complete book on geomancy for someone to seriously study this divinatory art.


Heheh, you said “herm”.

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As some of my readers are aware, on the fourth day after the new moon, I do a monthly ritual and adoration to the god Hermes, the traditional day associated with him in ancient Greek religious calendars.  In addition to making an offering of wine, barley, coins, incense, candles, and praise to the dude, I also spend some time in contemplation and conversation with the god, much like I do in angelic conjurations.  This time, Hermes told me to start erecting herms.

This probably requires some explanation, because the word “herm” is probably confusing, especially to people in the furry fandom I’m associated with.  (Also, lulz.)

Herms, in ancient Greek hermai, were quadrangular stone or terracotta posts at the boundaries, crossroads, or entrances to places in ancient Greece and, later, throughout the classical Mediterranean.  They originally had a phallus on them, and later a bust of the god Hermes (or other gods and goddesses, and sometimes distinguished mortals).  Sometimes it was just the head of the god, sometimes the torso and head, but it was something that was partially humanoid.  They were the among the original representations of the god Hermes himself, before he took on a clearly human form, and took on apotropaic and protective purposes.

So, these are the things the god Hermes wants me to start doing: putting up representations of him on crossroads around where I live, like on my daily commute or such.  Now, I’m not about to comission large rectangular columns with a bust of an ancient Greek god and install them around town, since it’s (a) expensive (b) probably illegal.  I have no carving skills to speak of, and my molding skills with clay are, to be exceedingly generous with myself, poor.  However, I do have access to good, business-quality printers, and it’s pretty much a given that most crossroads in urban communities have streetlamps, posts, or other column-like structures at each of the corners.  With that in mind, I plan to make lots of printouts of busts of Hermes and tape, pin, or otherwise affix them to the columns.  Bam, insta-herm.

(Yes, please, laugh.  I can’t help but laugh when I say the word, either.)

So, maybe later this week, maybe later tonight, I’ll go around my local community and start taping these things onto streetlamps and the like to bring Hermes’ attention down to my local environment more than just my altar.  I’m pretty sure this qualifies as a type of pagan glamourbombing, and so invite you, dear readers, to help me out.  All you need to do is print out at least one copy of the following picture, get some tape, and go out to your local crossroads sometime soon and tape on the picture to a post, streetlamp, or column at the crossroads.  If you want, say the Orphic Hymn to Hermes or the shorter Homeric Hymn if you like, but it’s not necessary.  In fact, if you like a different god’s bust more, go find and use that; there are lots of statues of Hermathena, Hermares, and (of course) Hermaphrodite extant as well.  Try it and see what happens; it can’t hurt to have the god of luck, roads, and travel keeping an extra pair of eyes on your commute or holiday travel, after all.

Bust of Hermes

What’s cute about that picture above is that it’s a bust of Hermes wearing the pilos or pileus, the conical Phrygian hat representing freedom and liberty often given to slaves to show their freedom, and this month’s Hermaia ritual coincides with the start of Saturnalia this year, the Roman week-long Dionysian festival of freedom from social trappings and restrictions; the image of Winged Liberty, often mistaken for Hermes on the silver Mercury dime which I’m currently wearing around my neck courtesy of Quadrivium Oils, wears the same cap. 

Iō Hermēs!



De Geomanteia: Via Puncti (follow the yellow brick road)

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Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that?  I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it.  If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity.  With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy).  This week, just to keep things exciting, let’s talk about technique instead of figures.  Specifically, let’s talk about the Via Puncti and variations on it.

In a geomantic chart, the four Mothers generate the four Daughters, pairs of the Mothers and Daughters generate the four Nieces, the four Nieces generate the two Witnesses, and the two Witnesses generate the single Judge.  (I suggest you learn about how to generate a geomantic chart before going further, if you’re new to geomancy.)  In a sense, the Judge is the sum of the chart’s effects, the cumulative answer to the query posed to the geomancer, the complete message to be delivered to the querent.  The rest of the chart, perfection, figure sums, and the like only serve to flesh out the answer, but the Judge is the answer.  It’s as if all the other figures boil down to the Judge, leaving only the pure answer left.  However, there are still traces of the original figures all the way back up to the Mothers and Daughters left in the Judge.  Mathematically, this makes sense; because the number of points in the Mother figures is the same and in a transposed pattern in the Daughter figures, the Judge will always have an even number of points.

Another remnant of the original figures left in the Judge can be seen in the Judge’s active lines.  If a certain elemental line in the Judge is active (i.e. if a given line has a single point), at least one of the Mother or Daughter figures will also have that same line active.  Further, because of how geomantic charts are generated, there will be a chain from the Mothers/Daughters through the Nieces and Witnesses to the Judge that maintains that active line, carrying it all the way down from the top to the bottom.  This connects the resulting Judge to an originating Mother or Daughter, the final answer to an initial cause, and can be seen as showing a root factor in the creation of the Judge or final answer to the query.

When a figure has a certain line active, one and only one of its parent figures must have that line active.  If both of them had it active, then the resulting figure would have that line be passive (odd plus odd or even plus even both yield an even number of points).  If a certain figure has a line being passive, then its parents can either have both odd or both even lines for that specific line; this would cause the path to branch off and can, in some cases, lead to every Mother and Daughter figure being led to (viz. if the first Mother is Populus and the rest of the Mothers all have their fire line passive).

To illustrate this, consider the following chart:

Example Geomantic Tableau

In this chart, Acquisitio is the Judge figure (the solid figure in the center of the bottom row).  Acqusitio has its air and earth lines active.  Focusing on the air line, one and only one of its parents must have its air line active; this is the Right Witness, Rubeus.  Of Rubeus’ parents, the second Niece, Cauda Draconis, has its air line active; of Cauda Draconis’ parents, Conjunctio, the Third Mother, has its air line active.  So, going top to bottom, we have Coniunctio – Cauda Draconis – Rubeus – Acquisitio.

Traditionally, this method of following active points from the Judge to a top-tier figure is called the Via Puncti, or the “Way of the Point”.  In the extant geomantic literature, this is done only for the fire line, the element of will, intent, desire, and goals.  By following the Via Puncti for the fire line, we can ascertain the original or driving cause, desire, or force that’s pushing things through in the situation.  For instance, if the Via Puncti from the Judge in a question dealing about drama in the workplace leads to Puella, one might consider that it’s a woman in some capacity or role that’s the root cause of the drama.  Unlike the Index/Part of Spirit that shows fated or spiritually necessary influences in a chart, or the Part of Fortune that shows resources or help available in acquiring a resolution to an issue, the Via Puncti shows driving causes or forces that are keeping things going.  As a side-technique to fill in the details of a chart, the Via Puncti helps inform the querent about the past more than the future, why things are happening rather than how they will happen.

However, the Via Puncti only leads to a single figure when we focus on a line with a single point.  The literature does say that, when the relevant line in the Judge is passive, the Via Puncti will branch off.  The technique here changes in that we only follow passive points, i.e. when the parents of a figure have both lines passive instead of both active.  For instance, in the above chart, the fire line of Acquisitio is passive.  Both of the Witnesses have passive fire lines, too; however, the first two Nieces that make the Right Witness have their fire lines active, so the right branch of the Via Puncti stops at Rubeus.  On the left, the Via Puncti reaches up to the third and fourth Nieces through the Left Witness, but doesn’t rise to any of the Daughters.  In cases where the Via Puncti branches (or where there is no Via Puncti, if the Judge has a passive line and the Witnesses have active lines both), the chart could be said to either have no root cause or many root causes; I prefer the former interpretation in my geomancing.

Another variant of the Via Puncti, though it hasn’t been discussed except once or twice on geomancy mailing lists, is using other elements in the Via Puncti besides the fire line.  In this case, it’s not so much the root or driving intent of the situation, but other root causes influencing the final answer.  Going by the elements, we’d have up to four potential Viae Punctorum, or Ways of the Points, that show things that might be at the root of an answer to a query:

  • Via Puncti Ignis (Fire line): intents, goals, desires
  • Via Puncti Aeris (Air line): thoughts, ideas, discussions, theories
  • Via Puncti Aquae (Water line): emotions or spiritual issues
  • Via Puncti Terrae (Earth line): things fought over or discussed, material matters weighing heavily on minds

Something to keep in mind when it comes to the Via Puncti is how it relates to the astrological geomantic chart.  Since the Via Puncti can only link up to the Mothers or Daughters (but can branch to anywhere or nowhere if you’re allowing passive lines, but I don’t like this), this leads to one of the first eight houses in the astrological chart (if you’re using the traditional method of allotting figures to the houses, viz. first Mother to the first house, second Mother to the second house, etc.).  The Via Puncti can never, then, lead to houses nine through twelve.  I rationalize this by grouping the first four houses into the “personal houses” (things dealing with the querent’s personal sphere of influence, i.e. one’s own self, finances, local area, and home), the next four houses into the “interpersonal houses” (things dealing with other people that the querent interacts with, i.e. social interaction, service, relationships, others’ belongings), and the last four into the “transpersonal” houses (things affecting people on a grand scale, i.e. religion and philosophy, governments and public welfare, society as a while, and hidden or obscure institutions).  Distinct causes can only be noted when they can be specifically pinned down; thus, root causes of a situation must belong in either the personal sphere or the interpersonal sphere, or houses one through eight.


Meditations on the Caduceus

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From Wikipedia:

The caduceus is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology. The same staff was also borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris, the messenger of Hera. It is a short staff entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. In Roman iconography it was often depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, guide of the dead and protector of merchants, shepherds, gamblers, liars, and thieves.

As a symbolic object it represents Hermes (or the Roman Mercury), and by extension trades, occupations or undertakings associated with the god. In later Antiquity the caduceus provided the basis for the astrological symbol representing the planet Mercury. Thus, through its use in astrology and alchemy, it has come to denote the elemental metal of the same name.

By extension of its association with Mercury and Hermes, the caduceus is also a recognized symbol of commerce and negotiation, two realms in which balanced exchange and reciprocity are recognized as ideals. This association is ancient, and consistent from the Classical period to modern times. The caduceus is also used as a symbol representing printing, again by extension of the attributes of Mercury (in this case associated with writing and eloquence).

The term kerukeion denoted any herald’s staff, not necessarily associated with Hermes in particular.

The Homeric hymn to Hermes relates how Hermes offered his lyre fashioned from a tortoise shell as compensation for the cattle he stole from his half brother Apollo. Apollo in return gave Hermes the caduceus as a gesture of friendship. The association with the serpent thus connects Hermes to Apollo, as later the serpent was associated with Asclepius, the “son of Apollo”. The association of Apollo with the serpent is a continuation of the older Indo-European dragon-slayer motif. Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (1913) pointed out that the serpent as an attribute of both Hermes and Asclepius is a variant of the “pre-historic semi-chthonic serpent hero known at Delphi as Python”, who in classical mythology is slain by Apollo.

One Greek myth of origin of the caduceus is part of the story of Tiresias, who found two snakes copulating and killed the female with his staff. Tiresias was immediately turned into a woman, and so remained until he was able to repeat the act with the male snake seven years later. This staff later came into the possession of the god Hermes, along with its transformative powers.

Another myth suggests that Hermes (or Mercury) saw two serpents entwined in mortal combat. Separating them with his wand he brought about peace between them, and as a result the wand with two serpents came to be seen as a sign of peace.

Caduceus

Hermes, more than any other role he’s known for, is the messenger of the gods.  He works under the authority of Zeus and the other Olympians to deliver messages, words, edicts, and decrees from on high to everywhere else in the cosmos.  Although most gods are thought of as kings, Hermes is explicitly not kingly at all.  Scepters and rods are seen as kingly implements used to rule, but Hermes wields the caduceus in his left hand.  His authority is taken from a higher being, and he’s simply operating under that authority, borrowing it as support instead of using his own authority to rely upon.  He directs with his right hand, doing the actual work of the gods manually, and channels his authority to do so from his left.  As such, Hermes never uses the caduceus as a simple walking stick, only ever holding it in his hands respectfully as a scepter.

The snakes and the wings on the caduceus make this staff quite unique, besides it being held by a god.  Birds and snakes are unusual creatures, able to rise between the worlds: birds fly in the skies, snakes slither on the ground, and both rest and roost in trees, a midpoint between them.  Wings represent the divine, celestial, and ouranic elements that Hermes deals with.   These deal with the words, the divine Logos, that Hermes is in charge of transmitting and communicating with the rest of the world.  These aren’t just simple messages to be relayed, however; Hermes is tasked with both leading the horse to water and making him drink.  On the other hand, the snakes represent the lively, terrestrial, chthonic elements.  These coiled serpents, twisted around the staff like a double-helixed strand of DNA, represent the basest of our natures, the actual inspiring work that soars upward to meet the divine nature coming downward to meet us halfway.  Both are needed to do the work and to form a tool that, much like the god himself, represents and travels between all levels of existence to do the bidding and will of the gods.

Hermes is a guide of spirits and souls, using the caduceus and the ever-present Word from Above to guide and instruct his followers.  The Word will always come, and the Word was always spoken and will always be spoken.  It’s up to Hermes to determine how that Word flows and communicates with the rest of the cosmos, who hears and what acts on that Word.  It’s the flow of this heavenly speech that Hermes is tasked with controlling, hence his job as god of language.  Words are what communicate ideas from person to person, as well as from above to below and below to above.  It’s what defines or frees concepts for us, limits or unties ideas, clarifies or darkens minds.  Hermes, as the god of words, can make words sharper or duller for us, and determine not only how words flow from one source but how a receiver of words takes them.

In that sense, the caduceus is not unlike a pen, with the wings representing ideas from above and the snakes representing the ink from below.  Ideas inform words that result in manifested reality, and just so does manifested reality create words to create new ideas.  As above, so below; from above to below, and to above from below.  Writing out one’s ideas is a way of clarifying those ideas, but it’s also a way of brainstorming new ideas from old words when done properly, and a way of getting lost in mazes of muddled meaning when done improperly.  Like Promethea’s snakes Mike and Mack, one is front, the other back; one is white, the other black; one is one, the other none.  The duality of words heard and spoken, flowing and blocked, understood and misunderstood have to work together in order to do work.

Where does the magician fit in?  Like Hermes, magicians are tasked with understanding their True Will, the Word for their ears alone, and carrying it out.  In order to do this, magicians must travel between worlds and between planes in order to clarify the Word they hear, and use their own words to bring their Word into effect.  The words we use define the reality we make.


They call me “Ol’ Snake-arms”

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I like to consider myself a fairly responsible young male adult (whatever the fuck that means), generally speaking.  I mean, I graduated high school with top marks, went to a good university for computer science and engineering, got a respectable job with the federal government, and am progressing slowly in my quest for cosmic apotheosis and power.  I make a car payment and have finished paying the vast bulk of my nontrivial college loans in two years, and am generally doing well in the world.  Life is good, dear readers.

Of course, because I’ve been such a good student, son, colleague, and laborer, I’m taking a few more liberties with my life than I have before.  For instance, I got my first piercings (all three of them on my ears) about eleven months ago in late January last year, and got my first tattoo back in October.  Well, the thing about me is that I like balance, so I couldn’t just have the one tattoo on just my left arm, so I went ahead and got a second tattoo in a similar style done on my right.  A few weekends ago in November, I got the rod of the healer god Asclepius, the asclepian, on my right.

Caduceus Tattoo Asclepian (Rod of Asclepius) Tattoo Caduceus and Asclepian Comparison

The caduceus (left forearm, two snakes with wings) is the wand of Hermes, and has its origins in the staves used by heralds in ancient Greece.  Mythologically, Hermes was given a golden wand as a magic implement and cowherding crook by Apollo as a symbol of their friendship, but was later merged with the symbol for heralds which was a staff with white ribbons tied on it.  Over time, the ribbons became snakes, wings were added to show Hermes’ divine nature, and the symbol eventually became the astronomical/astrological glyph for the planet Mercury.  The symbol generally refers to commerce, deception, trickery, language, trade, travel, and magic.

The asclepian (right forearm, one snake) is the staff of Asclepius, though its origins are debated.  Asclepius was the founder of medicine in Greek mythology, a son of Apollo, and had such skill that he was able to even revive the dead; since this was against the natural order of things, Zeus had him killed, but established him as the constellation Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, placed near Libra and Scorpio.  A special breed of non-poisonous snake associated with the god and was used in healing rituals, and also were allowed to live and breed in temples to Asclepius.  A related symbol is the nechushtan from Hebrew mythology, the bronzed serpent on a staff that Moses made at the Lord’s direction to heal the Israelites from poison while walking in the desert.

I wanted the tattoos to have a kind of art nouveau, art deco, hieroglyphic look, with the caduceus looking more arcane or stylized and the asclepian more natural and earthy.  The two were always designed as a pair, the caduceus on the left forearm and the aslcepian on the right, and were designed by one of my college friends.  The only modifications I really made to the designs were the size of them so that they’d fit proportionally, but the sun disk (dotted circle with hexagram) on the asclepian was a last-minute change I added myself to the design, since the asclepian looked a little off without it.  The sun disk more closely associates the symbol with the sphere of the Sun, since Apollo is the father of Asclepius, and gives the staff a more ethereal look that I can dig.

In healing the tattoos, I used two balms I made from beeswax, olive oil, and miscellaneous herbs.  I used herbs associated with Mercury for the caduceus, and herbs associated with the Sun for the asclepian.  I rubbed the balms into the tattoo as it was healing (after the initial peeling phase finished) while reciting the Orphic hymns to Hermes and Asclepius, respectively, and holding my planetary talismans of Mercury and the Sun.  I had them introduced to the angels governing those spheres and the gods associated with the symbols, as well, and both Hermes and Asclepius were highly pleased with the work.  They’ve both left a good imprint on my aura and astral self, which I’m totally okay with.  The caduceus has already been gone over once, and shouldn’t need touching up again for a good few years; I’m headed back to Wild Style in a few weeks to get the asclepian touched up, and maybe get something else done (another tattoo? another piercing?).

Also, it’s annoyingly common for people to mix up the two symbols: the asclepian is the proper symbol of medicine, seen on many ambulances, hospitals, and professional health organization logos, though the caduceus is also seen on many commercial health logos and healthcare products.  The caduceus is also used for American military medics, which is more a symbol of their speed of service than the kind of service they do.  Having these tattoos on my forearms is kinda helpful for correcting people; whenever people get them mixed up, I can now clothesline them with the proper arm.


De Geomanteia: Fortuna Minor (going gentle into that good night)

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Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Fortuna Minor

Fortuna Minor

This is the figure Fortuna Minor.  In Latin, its name means “Lesser Fortune”, but is also named “outward fortune” in some Islamic traditions, as well as “coming in of fame” and “outside/apparent help”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like a mountain with a staff atop it, or a procession of people guarding a central figure.

First, the technical details on this figure.  It’s associated with the Sun setting, at nighttime, or in southern declinations, and the astrological signs of Taurus or Leo (depending on whom you ask); due to its solar connections, it’s associated with the sephirah Tiphareth.  It has the fire and air lines active with the water and earth lines passive, and is overall associated with the element of Fire.  It is an even figure with six points, relating to objective situations rather than internal or experential evens.  It is a mobile and exiting figure, showing things to be dynamic, fast-moving, and fleeting in influence.  In the body, it signifies the spine and central to upper back.  Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Fortuna Maior, the Greater Fortune, showing that this figure is not independent, not ultimately successful, not unique.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is also Fortuna Maior, showing that there is no other kind of state between independent success or success dependent on others except those very things.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is itself, showing Forutna Minor to be unique in how it expresses its geomantic symbolism.  It is more favorable than not, showing success but of an unstable, impermanent kind that relies on outside support and shouldn’t itself be relied upon for long.  It is a figure of speed, swiftness, evasion, and escape, and is unfavorable in any matter that requires direct confrontation, slow progress, or long-term determination.

The imagery of the Fortuna figures, both Fortuna Maior and Fortuna Minor, can be best associated with wheels, circles, and cycles.  After all, they’re both ruled by the Sun, which moves in a circle around the sky from its highest daytime zenith to its lowest nighttime nadir, around the heavens from its highest summer northern declination to its lowest winter southern declination, from its hottest and most powerful point in Leo to its square and awkward point in Taurus, the strong sign of the Moon instead.  Fortuna Minor represents the Sun as it falls from its height, whether its setting from noon to midnight, its fall from bright Leo to dark Taurus, or its descent from the northern hemisphere of the sky to the southern hemisphere.  It’s still the Sun at all times, and still gives heat, light, and warmth to the world no matter the hour, day, or season.  However, as the Sun falls in its great cycles, it gets ever weaker, its strength wanes, and can support fewer and fewer people.  To make up for this deficit of solar energy, other people need to rely on other sources of heat and light, until the darkest and longest night of the year when the Sun is at its lowest, and weakest, point.

Falling Off the Wheel of Fortune

Just so does Fortuna Minor refer to success, fortune, and life.  Fortuna Minor is not a bad figure; just as the Sun always provides light and warmth, Fortuna Minor will always intimate success and good results.  However, as the Sun sets and becomes weaker, Fortuna Minor shows that this success and results will slowly become less effacious, less powerful, or less reliable as time goes on.  No matter how good things have been or how good they were looking, time is running out, and that success will run out, too.  Making use of the imagery of the Wheel of Fortune, Fortuna Minor represents the trip from the top to the bottom on the descending side of the Wheel; even though the ascent was slow-going, the descent is fast, and it’s easy to get crushed under the Wheel if you don’t jump off and find other means of success or livelihood to get by.  While you’re on the Wheel, it’s great and life is fantastic, but getting on the Wheel is one thing and falling off quite another.  No matter how much Fortune may favor the brave, Fortune is also fickle.

Just as one can ride the Wheel up to the top and we can rely on the Sun for heat and warmth for the summer and fall harvests, we too can rely on fortune and our inner success for quite some time.  However, as the Wheel falls and the Sun sets, we have to rely on other sources of energy and fortune in order to get by.  Fortuna Minor emphasizes this: it’s success from outside, from things we have to be dependent on, from circumstance and luck.  These are things we can pick up fast and lose just as fast; no matter how much we want to rely on ourselves, we simply aren’t enough to keep things going.  Life is good so long as you have someone to support you, but once you lose that support, you’ll have nothing.  Because of that speed of gaining and losing fortune and support, Fortuna Minor is associated with speed of results and speed of change, good for things that need help now, fantastic for things that need to be lost or escaped from, and excellent for short-term issues.  Because it relies on outside support so much, though, Fortuna Minor is poor for anything that Fortuna Maior would be good at: working independently, matters that take a long time, facing things head-on, going against the current or public opinion, and the like.

Fortuna Minor has the fire and air lines active, both hot elements, with water and earth passive.  Fortuna Minor is all motion, all energy, all light and heat without anything to sustain, contain, or preserve it; without some sort of kindling to keep that flame going or a furnace to keep it safe or sheltered, the fire will simply burn up and out, leaving nothing but the remnants of shadow and heat in the air.  That heat and light that pure air and fire unmixed with water or earth is good for only a short time, then gone.  The rapid movement along with its own heat and light give Fortuna Minor its fiery associations, just as the slow and steady pace of Fortuna Maior give that figure its earthy association.  This is the Sun at its most fiery and fast-paced, the chariot of Apollo in a rush to return to its stable, doing only the minimum it can before heading back into darkness.  This is not the noble, constant, all-benevolent Sun we’re used to, but it’s the Sun in darkness, at nighttime, in winter, the stingy and distant Holly King.  This is why, through its solar associations, the Solar figures  are given to Leo, but sometimes represented with the Sun’s sign of exile Aquarius.

When Fortuna Minor appears in a reading, it’s time to start thinking about wrapping things up in the near future.  Things will be good, but not for long, and with ever less time than you think you may have.  Situations won’t necessarily get worse, but they won’t get any better, either.  Any matter in which you can find support or people to back you up will go well, but if you have to face something alone or against the current, you’re going to have a bad time.  Its use in magic is similar: anything that needs a fast change or needs to be brought to a quick end is favored by this influence.  Falling off the Wheel of Fortune is really just a matter of timing: jump off too soon and you risk not getting all that you can out of a situation, but jump off too late and you risk falling off clumsily or, worse, getting crushed by fate.

Fittingly enough, this De Geomanteia post about the Sun at its weakest comes about on Christmas Day, right after the winter solstice and right before the close of 2012.  I’ll see you on the other side of the New Year, my friends and good readers, so have a merry Christmas, Saturnalia, Yule, Solar ingress into Capricorn, or whatever you may choose to celebrate around this time.  Have a happy end to the year, and enjoy these darkest nights when the Sun is at his lowest and the spirits in our spheres and our cups at their highest!


De Geomanteia: Fortuna Maior (the Sun passes over filth and is not defiled)

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Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Fortuna Maior

Fortuna Maior

This is the figure Fortuna Maior.  In Latin, its name means “Greater Fortune”, but is also named “inward fortune” in some Islamic traditions, as well as “going forth of fame” and “inside/hidden help”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like a tree growing upward, or a river going through a deep mountain valley.

First, the technical details on this figure.  It’s associated with the Sun rising, at daytime, or in northern declinations, and the astrological sign of Aquarius or Leo (depending on whom you ask); due to its solar connections, it’s associated with the sephirah Tiphareth.  It has the air and fire lines passive with the earth and water lines active, and is overall associatd with the element of Earth.  It is an even figure with six points, relating to objective situations rather than internal or experential evens.  It is a stable and entering, showing it to be slow-moving and long-lasting where it appears.  In the body, it is associated with the heart, the circulatory system, and the chest generally.  Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Fortuna Minor, the Lesser Fortune, showing that this figure is not dependent, not temporarily successful, not weak without outside help.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is also Fortuna Minor, showing that there is no other kind of state between independent success or success dependent on others except those very things.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is itself, showing Fortuna Maior to be unique in how it expresses its geomantic symbolism.  It is among the most favorable of all the geomantic figures, showing success coming from within and conquering all things, though it might be slow in coming.  It is a figure of slow growth and sure success, though the path to success may be difficult especially in the beginning; it is a figure of facing adversity and overcoming it, and not by evading or avoiding it.

The imagery of the Fortuna figures, both Fortuna Maior and Fortuna Minor, can be best associated with wheels, circles, and cycles.  After all, they’re both ruled by the Sun, which moves in a circle around the sky from its highest daytime zenith to its lowest nighttime nadir, around the heavens from its highest summer northern declination to its lowest winter southern declination, from its hottest and most powerful point in Leo to its opposite and weakest point in Aquarius.  Fortuna Maior represents the Sun as it rises from the bottom to its height, from midnight to high noon, from bleak blackness to bright light, its ascent from southern declination in the Sky to their northern declination.  It only increases in power, in heat, in light, and even though it may start the process in the darkest time of the year, the Sun will always win.  Fortuna Maior really is the Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun.

Sunrise Salutation

In all ways, Fortuna Maior is the complete opposite of Fortuna Minor, keeping in the theme of success and its different types.  While Fortuna Minor represents fleeting, decreasing, or dependent success, Fortuna Maior represents permanent, lasting, increasing, independent success.  It’s not a figure of easy success, though, since the difficulty of laying the foundations of success are nontrivial.  To use the metaphor of the Wheel of Fortune, Fortuna Maior gives the image of someone starting at the very bottom of the wheel headed to the very top.  However, in order to spin this massive Wheel, one has to really put in the armwork to get the Wheel started, pushing with all their might slowly, slowly, faster, ever faster to get the Wheel of Fortune moving.  Once one’s built up that kind of momentum, it’s a swift and sure ride to the top, but it’s getting to that point that takes time and effort.  This isn’t some minor task, and it wouldn’t be far to call it herculean.  However, just as the toil and labors of Hercules were mythically awesome, so too were his success and permanent station in the heavens.

Fortuna Maior is success through adversity, hardship, and natural strength.  Just as the Sun has to undergo death and a travel in the underworld every night, according to the ancient Egyptians, fighting his way through hordes of undead and tortures, the Sun is always successful and continues to shine again in the morning.  Looking at a larger timeframe, the Sun has to go through the dark time of the year in winter and build himself up again through cold and cloud before summer can arrive.  Christ, the Son of God and Light of the spiritual cosmos, had to go through pain and tortures of his own, both in this life and in the underworld for three days after his death, until he was finally resurrected and took up his rightful everlasting Throne in Heaven.  It’s always darkest before dawn, and once dawn arrives, the Sun has risen and the Sun will be king forever.  The success of Fortuna Maior is phenomenal, but there’s lots of work to be done before one can arrive at that kind of success.  The thing is that all this has to be done on one’s own, by one’s own strength, and by one’s own mettle; not only will outside help not, well, help, but it won’t be available.  On the upside, though, outside help won’t be needed.

The elemental structure of Fortuna Maior has the earth and water lines active, dark and slow elements, as opposed to the more fiery and lucid fire and air lines.  This seems an odd match for this solar Leonine figure, but it’s these two elements that form the material world we live in, with Fire being the most celestial and Air being the most fluid and conversant between the rest.  However, as Fortuna Maior is a stable and entering figure, these work surprisingly well: water plus earth yields fertile harvest (with the proper work), rivers plowing through canyons (with sufficient time), the mixture of materials to form monuments (with the right planning and effort), and the complete foundation of a human’s body and soul before they can arise to higher matters (with experience and meditation).  The Grand Canyon is a good example of this: what were originally high mountains and flat plains were brought to deep gashes and gorges in the Earth, starting with only a simple trickle of water that kept going and going.  The ruling element of Fortuna Maior, Earth, gives the constructive, permanent, lasting force that grows up from the Earth, or the strength that grows out from oneself, to conquer any darkness or trouble.

When Fortuna Maior appears in a reading, get ready for work, but also get ready for assured success.  This is the most beneficial figure in geomantic symbolism, with the blessing of the highest Light shining down on your efforts.  However, it indicates trial and effort to work that blessing out, so don’t expect things to happen fast or with much help from others.  This is a figure of winning the one-hour race with months of training instead of a one-shot steroid, the semester final exam with weeks of study instead of a night of cramming, winning the battle with perseverance and courage instead of evading it entirely.  Anything that requires hard work, strong foundations, nobility, courage, internal strength, and continuous development and progress will benefit from Fortuna Maior, whether in divination or in magic.

Also, Happy New Year!  I figured, after the dour and slow post on Fortuna Minor last week, its uplifting reverse and inverse figure should start off the new year of 2013.  May the blessings of the Sun and Fortuna Maior shine down on you this year, giving you the strength and success to reach up and make the Sun and the cosmos ever brighter and beneficial for all.


Getting Burnt by the Stars, part 1: Get In or Get Out

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The occult arts are no light thing to just pick up, fiddle with, and set aside.  Sure, some things like energy manipulation, astral travel, and other basic skills that are available to everyone, or mostly everyone given a little bit of training.  Divination is a useful skill and can be picked up from a book and a few weeks’ worth of practice, or more depending on the system to be studied.  Talking with spirits, ghosts, angels, and the like can be fairly easily accomplished given a willingness and openness to perceive and talk with them.  Meditation is something everyone should be doing no matter what their professions or hobbies might be, it’s just that useful and applicable.

No, dear reader, the real heart of magic is way up above us, quite literally in the stars themselves.  The seven planets of the old Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks, starting from our worldly plane of the four elements and rising up through the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, past the final barriers out into the sphere of the fixed stars, and thence outward into the unlimited and unending Source of all the light we see as starlight down here.  That’s the magic I’m talking about, and dealing with the different and higher levels of reality, whether internal consciousness or external planes, is difficult, dangerous, and so very, very worth it.

I mean, all our (human, mundane) lives, we’re used to living down here in this world of matter, laws, money, borders, and machines.  We spend most of our time awake and aware of what’s going on within and outside our physical bodies, and we don’t often have the chance to see beyond the material into the higher levels of things.  For one, it’s an institutionalized de facto law that anything besides what’s materially apparent doesn’t exist, no matter how influential it may be; most modern science and the philosophies of New Atheism and scientism reflect this, that only what’s independently, objectively, numerically, repeatedly verifiable can exist and nothing else.  For two, even the old cosmogonies and creation myths that describe a spiritual human entity and its creation also describe how it came to live and be imprisoned down here: the Abrahamic fall from grace, the dharmic creation of karma, the gnostic archons and demiurge, and so on.

All of these myths and stories have the same fact at their cores: humanity is amphibian, living in worlds material and spiritual, but can be so much more if we tried.  Becoming more than just material is the essence of the Great Work, and can be stated in any number of ways.  Any religious or spiritual path with godhood, apotheosis, or reunion with the Source as its goal fulfills the requirements of the Great Work, so by all means, dear reader, pick and choose which path is most suited for you.  Don’t expect any of the paths to be easy, fast, or simple, though, because the word for “work” in Latin, opus, doesn’t have the other meaning of “burden” for no reason.

Living a magical life and carrying out one’s Great Work is hard work.  It takes practice, it takes time, it takes tolls, and it takes sacrifice.  One cannot simply turn lead, moldy fruit, or buckets of urine (handle and all) into the purest gold without a complete upheaval, extreme heat, profound darkness, and constant cleansing.  It’s like that for one’s life, as well.  It may be easy to go “this looks cool” or “let’s try it, it sounds like fun” from an outside perspective, trying out alchemical phases on inanimate objects, but when you try it on yourself, you probably won’t be thinking that for long.

Magic is hard.  The constant practice, vigilance, dedication, and obligation one has to burden oneself with only gets heavier with time and, though one may get used to it, it doesn’t get any easier.  Worldly pleasures, social interaction, and even common livelihoods may often have to take a back seat, even one’s marriages or families, because magic calls one to things higher than any social, institutional, or worldly order.  Sure, “as above, so below” and all, but when you’re stuck seeing things only from below, you miss the bird’s eye view from above and are going to be ignorant to a lot of higher things that make the entire machine of the cosmos function.  It’s going to suck only because you’re not used to being otherworldly.

Magic burns.  Flying up amongst the stars, immersing oneself in their heavenly lights, and incorporating their celestial rays into one’s sphere is blissful, but you’re also dealing with light of the most rarefied, pure kind.  Light that strong, that bright, that close up will burn, and there’s no way around that.  Some people don’t like having their darkest secrets illuminated to themselves and the world, and some people cling too much to old infested huts to let them burn down so as to build newer and better palaces.  You’re going to have to burn things down so as to burn back up as well; only by setting oneself on fire can one be holy and powerful enough to ascend to the highest reaches of the heavens themselves.  It’s going to suck only because you’re used to not being on fire.

Nobody who wasn’t lying ever said that magic was easy, and those who actually live the magic don’t lie about it.  Not everyone was meant for magic, and even if you were meant for it, you’re going to have to change things around to get used to it.  If you don’t want to pay the cost for magic, don’t do it.  If you want to pay the cost and get a huge return on your money, do it and deal with it.  I’ve been burned by the stars before, and although it sucked, it was one of the best experiences of my life.  It’s worth it.  How did I manage to survive being burnt by the stars?  Stay tuned.


Crafts from Christmastime

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This past Christmas was kinda fantastic, you guys.  I took off about two weeks from work in the office, started it off with a low-key party at my boyfriend’s, spent a week in my ancestral hometown at my parents’ house dogsitting for them while they went to Maine to see the rest of the family, then returned to Northern Virginia for a good number of ribald New Year’s ruckuses and riots.  A pretty nice, relaxing, and recharging time; I didn’t do much in the way of ritual or practice, but it was fun all the same.  Now that I’m all recharged and refreshed, especially after that two-week conjuration ordeal I did recently, I’ll get back on my five-week conjuration cycle (and see how long I can maintain that again).

However, just because I wasn’t doing much in the way of practice doesn’t mean I wasn’t busy.  I busted out the woodburner, woodstain and finish, and a bunch of wooden placards and got to work making a whole slew of goodies to sell, some as commissions and some at the local store in Fairfax, Sticks and Stones.  Coming up with names or descriptions for them to sell at the store, making them friendly enough for New Agey-types and small enough to fit on the back of a business card, was about as soul-wrenching and fun as making the things themselves, in my opinion, but here’s what I got done:

  • Tables of Practice.  You know, the summoning circles with the names of the elemental archangelic kings and planetary angelic governors around the triangle with the cross, pentagram, and hexagram.  I use one in my own conjuration work, based off the Trithemius ritual.  I made four of them: two basic ones, one with “Tetragrammaton” around the triangle, and one with the signs of the zodiac on the outside bevel.
  • Divination trays.  These were inspired by my friend Raven Orthaevelve, another occult crafter (whose skill and art far surpasses mine).  They’re large wooden plates to hold runes, stones, crystals, or other small objects used in divination, kinda like the trays used in Ifa (opon Ifa).  The outside could have an abecedarium or some arrangement of symbols, and the inside could be divided up to assist in divination or for art.  I made four of these, each with a different style and script:
    • Runic tray: the Elder Futhark on the outside, with a triquetra on the inside with the names of the three Norns (Nordic Fates), decorated with an eight-spoked wheel and little faces representing the Norns.
    • Greek tray: the Greek alphabet on the outside, with a quartered square and latticework on the inside with the symbols and names of the four traditional elements.
    • Theban tray: the Theban script, also called the Witches’ Runes or Runes of Honorious, on the outside with a pentagram, the five elements, and five holy weapons of the magician’s altar. Definitely my most neopagan-friendly one, ascribing Swords to Fire and Wands to Air instead of vice versa (you know, the ceremonial/correct way) and including the Triple Moon in the center.
    • Hebrew tray: the Celestial Hebrew script on the outside with the hexagram and seven planets on the inside, each with their names written in mundane Hebrew.
  • Sator Square.  An ancient Roman charm that can be read forwards, up, down, or backwards to reveal the same text: SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS, a perfect palindrome and magic square of rank 5.  Used across the Mediterranean and European world for centuries.
  • Wand of Trithemius.  A rod engraved with “AGLA ON TETRAGRAMMATON” with a hexagram, a hexagram with a yod inside, and a cross on one side, and “EGO ALPHA ET OMEGA” on the other.  The standard wand from the Trithemius ritual, except using oak instead of ebony (because I’m not that resourceful).   Nothing too spectacular here.
  • Wand of Homer.  This was fun, and I really liked how it turned out: a wand bearing the Golden Chain of Homer on one side (an alchemical symbol describing the process of manifestation from and reunion with the Divine Source that is the Great Work of the alchemists) and the symbols for salt, mercury, sulfur, and azoth (the four alchemical principles) on the other.  Made of oak as well, I stained it with ebony (though it didn’t take as well as I’d hoped), inlaid it with gold leaf, capped the ends with brass, and set a crystal point on top.  It’s got a different feel than my other wands, and I almost don’t want to get rid of it.
  • Sets of runes and geomantic figures (geomes).  These are small little things, sets of wooden tokens with the Elder Futhark or the geomantic figures on them, for use in divination.  The store’s had a dearth of divination supplies, and apparently runes are in high demand, so I made three sets of those and one of the geomantic figures.  I’m going to borrow Les Cross‘ term for the figures, “geomes”, since that works pretty well and gives it a cooler sound.
Tables of Practice Runic Divining Tray Greek Divining Tray Theban Divining Tray Hebrew Divining Tray Sator Square Wand of Homer, front Wand of Homer, reverse detail Wand of Homer, crystal Trithemius Wand, front Trithemius Wand, reverse Runes and Geomes

Check out the pictures below, also put up on the Crafts page, for closer looks.  If you’re friends with me on Twitter or Facebook (yes, I succumbed and got another account after two and a half years, mutter mutter), you probably saw pictures of the unfinished projects as I made them.  If you’re in the area, consider stopping by Sticks and Stones and making a purchase!  If not, be it known that I take commissions now, so if you’re interested in something like this or something original, send me an email (polyphanes at gmail) and let’s talk about it.  Once we get the details sorted out and the design finalized, I’ll make it, you pay me, I’ll ship it, and you get it.

And the crafting isn’t quite over yet, either; a friend of mine who attended one of my workshops is gifting me an actual Gabon ebony dowel to make into a wand.  I cannot express how grateful and omg excited I am over this thing, not to mention the ebony shavings and sawdust they saved to use in future crafting projects (waste not, want not).  Plus, another two crafts for friends for gifts are in the works, a special type of summoning circle/ritual focus connected to a well-known dreamworld and a special cane with alchemical symbols and a poem in ancient Chinese script (bronze script and oracle bone script).



Getting Burnt by the Stars, part 2: Stop Worrying and Love the Burn

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Last time, I talked about the costs of magic.  It sucks, and it costs, and it will burn everything from your bank account to your soul itself, but magic is worth it.  Magic is the locked gate that keeps higher fulfillment and human realization from most of the world, and magic is the golden key that unlocks the mysteries to attaining them.  It may have a high price, but it has an even higher payoff that makes magic worth it.

Being a magician for only a few years now, but having the success and results of people who’re far older than I am (I credit having good teachers, good friends, and good allies abounding), I’ve learned a few things that helps in minimizing the burn, or at least in maintaining onself through being burned, so as to keep on keeping on.  This works for me, and I can only suggest it as part of a daily practice and regular maintenance in any magician’s life.  Even these steps may suck at times, but they help overall in minimizing the real burn going on from the real magic.

  1. Sanitize.  Keep your entire sphere clean and cleansed, from the basest material components to the highest intellectual and divine ones.  Air out your house, vacuum your carpets, sweep the floorboards, dust the fanblades, wash the car, light the candles, burn the camphor, sprinkle the holy water, clean all the things.  Asperge yourself with holy water or other cleansing agents frequently.  Do regular banishing and force balancing on yourself.  Recleanse and reconsecrate your tools, talismans, and ritual space every so often.  The more astral dirt you accrue by tracking it in from the higher spheres, or the more dust you bring in from inviting higher ups down into your house, the more confused and imbalanced things get down here and up there alike.  Keep yourself, your surroundings, your tools, and your mind clean, cleansed, and clear.
  2. Learn.  You can’t do anything if you don’t know how to do it.  Read any and all books you can get your hands on magic, philosophy, religion, spirituality, mathematics, literature, mythology, archaeology, linguistics, folk traditions, fiction ancient and new, science, engineering, history, economics, crafting, and more.  Take classes in whatever you have an interest in, whether it’s related to magic or not.  Talk with friends about their hobbies, experiences, stories, advice, warnings, hopes, dreams, fears, and desires.  Expanding your mind also expands the potential horizons you can explore, no matter how innocuous or trivial something may seem.  Don’t harbor any biases on what you read, study, or discuss; keep an open mind and admit anything with practical merit.  Go on roadtrips just to see new things.  Walk in big cities to see new faces and fashions.  Read blogs with political opinions opposite yours (but are well-written and reasoned).
  3. Protect.  If you’ve got one foot in the door to get into the mysteries, you also leave the door ajar for ethereal nasties to come at you.  Don’t let them.  Set up barriers, shields, or guards around your house.  Make protective charms, phylacteries, or enchanted trinkets to keep on yourself.  Find out what force you best resonate with and manipulate it to act as a shield around you.  Always keep an eye out for anything awry or ominous.  Create a few magical or ritual weapons to call on or call up when needed.  Create magical oils or incenses to keep out bad things and keep in good things.  Be mindful of barriers, boundaries, and circles that have already been erected.  Don’t go looking for bad stuff just to mess with it for shits and giggles.
  4. Breathe.  Breathing is the source of life down here, and aspiration shares the same root with “inspiriation” and ”spirit”.  By knowing, feeling, and controlling our breath we control our voice level, our speech and diction, our bloodflow, our thought patterns, and ultimately ourselves who are tied into material reality just as we are into spiritual reality.  Breathing is the crux of meditation, and meditation is the crux of knowing yourself, which is the holiest injunction humanity has.  Breathing, just breathing, is magical in and of itself; it’s what animates us, ensouls us, and keeps us alive and living.  Breathing is the foundation of magic, and breathing must be known, understood, and integrated constantly with oneself in order to progress.
  5. Pray.  Humans, powerful as we are, were never meant to be alone in any sense of the word, nor can we make it to our goals on our own.  We need help, and prayer is how we obtain it.  Pray for guidance, for patience, for mercy, for compassion, for humility, for forgiveness, for health, for sight, for knowledge, for wisdom, for authority, for power, for light (and in that order).  Pray the Source, the gods, the angels, the celestials, the elementals, the dead, and each other for their blessings, advice, guidance, alignment, unity, and boons.  Pray to know how to use the blessings and boons given to us to the best of our abilities and for the best result for all of us.  Pray with praise, pray with emotion, pray with silence.  Pray with your entire body, soul, spirit and mind.  Pray every day, pray several times a day.  Pray.
  6. Stay healthy.  Humans are amphibious, both spiritual and physical.  Magic is largely focused on the spiritual, but it always needs to bring the spiritual and astral down into the material and physical.  Be sure you don’t neglect your body, because that’s the primary vehicle you have to work magic, and the one tool you’ll always have with you in the world.  Get enough sleep every night.  Go to bed at the same time every night.  Get enough to eat every day, but no more.  Eat the proper things in the proper amounts.  Shower, wash your hair, brush your hair, brush your teeth, floss your teeth, exfoliate, deodorize.  Get at least half an hour of light physical activity every day.  Expose yourself to the elements once every so often.  Go outside and enjoy the sunlight, moonlight, starlight, wind, mist, clouds, rain, rivers, oceans, dirt, trees, and animals.  ”Healthy” has its roots in the same word as “whole”, and you need to stay whole physically in order to spiritually progress wholesomely.
  7. Get dirty.  Actually go out into the world and remind yourself that you’re still a physical, material being that has physical, material needs.  Everything in moderation, yes, but also including moderation: get sick, get jacked up, get fucked up, get high, get rich, get poor, get happy, get sad, get angry, get lonely, get loved.  We’re human beings to experience human life, after all, and without that experience we’ve ultimately failed at out birth’s purpose.  Getting ourselves meshed in human life, living in the world while not wholly of it, helps keep things in perspective and shows the power of the cleansing, cleaning, Light-bearing work we’re doing.  Plus, getting dirty helps us realize that even the dirt is pure and holy, that nothing is truly separate from the Source from which it came.
  8. Do it.  Complain however much you like or don’t complain at all; magic is going to suck no matter what.  That doesn’t change the fact that you’re a magician to do magic.  Do it.  Do it now.  There’s no other way, time, or place to do it.  Just do it.

The more you burn up, the more of you there is to burn until burning doesn’t need to happen anymore.  Don’t worry about what’s burnt up and gone.  Worry about what you have left to burn and what can still be purified and transmuted into the pure divine essence we really are and should be.

I’m prone to gingivitis, the inflammation of the gums generally from plaque.  Part of it’s my own dietary and hygienic habits, and part of it is my genetics and natural body’s processes.  That doesn’t mean I need to have gingivitis, much less that I should.  How do I keep my gums clean and free from the disease?  More toothbrushing, flossing daily, rinsing with mouthwash, and watching what and when I eat.  Does this all get easier with time?  Nope; it still takes as much time the hundredth day as it did the first, the same spots in my gums still need maintenance, and my food choices are still as obnoxious as ever.  Is the payoff worth it?  Totally; my teeth are whiter, my breath stinks less, my gums bleed less, and my mouth is generally healthier than before.  The payoff here is worth the cost of the daily maintenance, and if (heavens forbid) I ever have to go under for a root canal or other major dental operation, it’ll all go easier before, during, and after due to my lack of gingivitis and better oral care.

Magic works much the same way.  Dealing with the raw forces of creation and the stars is dangerous and you risk not being able to handle the influx of those energies without the proper maintenance.  Laying the foundation of daily practice to stabilize, sanctify, and secure your life goes a long way in dealing with the heavy machinery of the cosmos.  If you don’t have the rest of your house in order, don’t expect good times to result when you invite emissaries and presidents of foreign planes of existence in.  If you have your house and life in order and prepared in the proper way, you’ll still have to go through the paperwork and shopping and security drama, but the emissaries and presidents will be more pleased, more willing, and more able to help you who’ve helped yourself so much without them.  Daily or regular mainteance takes time and effort all in itself, and that’s not even where the real heart of magic lies, but it’s that very same regular maintenance that builds the tower to get to it.


De Geomanteia: Caput Draconis (looking for someone to share in an adventure)

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Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Caput Draconis

Caput Draconis

This is the figure Caput Draconis.  In Latin, its name means “Head of the Dragon”, also the name for the North Node of the Moon, but is also named “inner threshold” in some Islamic traditions, as well as “coming in of fortune” or “stepping inside”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like heading to doorway with a path leading to it.

First, the technical details on this figure.  It’s associated with the North Node of the Moon, the place where the Moon’s orbit around the Earth crosses and rises above the ecliptic of the Sun, or further into the northern celestial sphere; it’s one of the two places where eclipses happen (the other is the South Node of the Moon).  Due to its benefic nature, it’s associated with Venus and Jupiter, and due to its transitory nature, it’s associated with the sign of Virgo.  The closest qabbalistic association that can be drawn, having effects only on the sphere of the Earth, is with Malkuth.  It has the earth, water, and air lines active with only the fire line passive, and is overall associated with the element of Earth.  It is an odd figure with five points, relating to subjective, inner states of the soul and experienced reality rather than objective, independent, or external situations.  It is a stable and entering, showing it to be slow-moving and long-lasting where it appears.  In the body, it is associated with the right arm, when associated with the body at all, but can also be associated with the mouth and sensory organs that take things in.  Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Laetitia, showing that this figure is not fast-moving, not openly successful, not transient.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is Cauda Draconis, showing that this figure is not ceasing, not calamitous, not unfavorable.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is Tristitia, showing that this figure is similarly slow-moving and self-building through adversity.  Caput Draconis is a figure representing beginnings of all kinds, and is open to any possibility.  Like Fortuna Maior, Caput Draconis bodes well for upcoming adventures and undertakings, though with some difficulty at the beginning; it tends to be good with good figures and bad with bad figures, and is unfavorable for ending, closing, or getting rid of a situation.

My meditations on this figure feature mostly the image of being in the cockpit of a racecar, the first time on a track in a race.  Quoth Cake, “reluctantly crouched at the starting line, engines pumping and thumping in time. The green light flashes, the flags go up. churning and burning, they yearn for the cup.”  The race begins and you head on out.  Anyone who’s done any kind of racing knows the fear, the anxiety, the rush that goes along with the training and the seconds just before the race, and how it prepares them for what’s actually to come.  There’s reluctance, unwillingness, and concern about whether there’s enough to go on going, not just in racing but in any ordeal or adventure: starting a new semester at school, starting a new job, starting a new relationship, starting a new phase of one’s life.  In the same moment as those fears arise, though, the process that involves those fears begins, and life goes on.

Hatching-DragonJust as a newborn dragon hatching from its egg, Caput Draconis is all about beginnings, births, newness, and possibility.  Will that dragon be a rampaging wyvern razing the countryside, or will it be a wise solitary hermit once it grows out of its drake stage?  It doesn’t matter at this point, because we haven’t crossed that bridge: it’s still just a hatchling, with all the hopes, dreams, fears, and omens that it brings.  How it’ll be raised, on what it’ll eat, with what it’ll observe will all change what this little lizard will be; sure, dragons have instincts, but as greater creatures nurture also has an effect in addition to nature.  With experience, the drake becomes a dragon, and figures its place out in the world.  Just so, Caput Draconis describes all beginnings, all new things, and all hatching of opportunity and possibility into reality.  Over time, the fear, anxiety, and potential energy will become magnanimity and wisdom or terror and regret, not to mention kinetic energy to accomplish tasks unseen or barely hoped for as yet, but just now, things are just new.  Good things starting off tend to get better, while bad things tend to get worse; still, things can be fixed for the better in their beginning, so Caput Draconis is much more good than bad, often being ranked as among the most fortunate of figures in geomancy.

Unlike Tristitia, seen as a peg nailing and holding things to the ground against their will, Caput Draconis can be seen as the image of a seed being planted in the earth.  Although seeds are elementally ruled by Fire, Caput Draconis has that one element passive, indicating that the process from seed to tree is just beginning: its earthy, material basis is set in the ground; its spiritual, watery nature is beginning to flow; its active, airy nature is beginning to interact with the rest of the world.  However, though it has all the resources available to act, it still needs the input of energy, drive, will, and Fire to become complete.  Because of this stable, slow pace of growth, Caput Draconis is given to the element of Earth as a whole.  Plus, due to its transitory nature, it’s also associated with the mutable earth sign of Virgo, known for being detail-oriented, micromanaging, and resource-gathering to maintain and perfect things from inception to finalization.

When Caput Draconis appears in a reading, it usually indicates things starting off or something new having begun.  Children being born, health improving, a new job, or a new lover are all reasonable things to expect with this figure depending on its placement, and it brings in the influence of Venus and Jupiter to a minor degree.  Though things may be difficult, things also look good at the very outset, and will likely be better when seen all the way through.  It isn’t good to have around when things need to finish, die off, or gotten rid of, but beyond that, Caput Draconis is definitely one of the good figures.  Sneak it into banners, logos, or business cards for startups or new businesses for good luck, or engrave it into the cornerstone of a new building to ensure its future prosperity.  So long as something’s starting off or something is desired to begin, Caput Draconis is a good figure.


Preliminary Ritual Calendar 2013

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Early last year, I devised a five-week conjuration cycle that has me conjure the angels of the seven planets, the angels of the four elements, and my natal genius.  In each conjuration of each of these forces, I’d spend time soaking in the light and power of that particular sphere, reconsecrating and recharging whatever tools or talismans I have, meditating on that force’s symbols, and asking for specific or general advice about where to go or what to do next.   It’s a neat system, although one I didn’t stick to as well as I ought to have.  I did it a couple of times, and recently went through all the angels in consecutive days, which was also a blast and pretty powerful (and what Frater RO and a good number of other guys keep doing just to say they can).

However, a lot can happen for a beginner like me in the space of a year: I’ve gotten in contact with my HGA, I’ve started an involved devotional practice to Hermes, I’ve started doing weekly readings and occasional classes at the local new age shop, and I’ve picked up a few more rituals and works here and there that need to be done every lunar month or so.  Basically, I’ve got work to do, and having a schedule to organize it and put it on my calendar to bug me about it on my phone and all is kinda important now.  So, in effect, I have two interlocking cycles, a 5-week planetary cycle for conjurations and some devotions and a 4-week lunar cycle for other devotions and works.

The five week cycle is mostly the same as before, going through the planetary angels in descending order (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, etc.) on their respective days and hours, with the four elemental angels sometime around midday on the Wednesdays not working with Raphael of Mercury.  This way, I have two or three conjurations a week, which isn’t bad for constant upkeep.  The big change to the conjuration cycle is that I’m not explicitly conjuring my natal genius anymore.  Instead, I plan to perform the Headless Rite with some extra bells and whistles, using the Light from the ritual to hold a conference call between my natal genius, my HGA, and the angel of my occupation (the third of the threefold keeper of man that Agrippa speaks about in his Third Book of Occult Philosophy).

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1 Raphael
(Air)
Tzadqiel
(Jupiter)
2 Kammael
(Mars)
Michael
(Fire)
3 Michael
(Sun)
Auriel
(Earth)
Haniel
(Venus)
4 NG/HGA/AO Raphael
(Mercury)
5 Gabriel
(Moon)
Gabriel
(Water)
Tzaphqiel
(Saturn)

Not shown in the above is the weekly devotional cycle I do as well.  Every morning, I do a set of prayers to the First Father, but on certain days I augment it with more prayers or with prayers to other gods and offerings to spirits, depending on who needs what when:

  • On Sundays, I spend more time in contemplative prayer and repentance, as well as making offerings to the solar-ish healing god Asclepius.  I also like to incorporate the Headless Rite into my normal routine, just to bask in the Light from the ritual as well as touch base with my HGA (who has largely supplanted my natal genius in responsibilities) to make sure I’m doing the right thing and doing it right.
  • On Wednesdays, I make offerings to the spirits of my home and land as well as perform a weekly devotional to Hermes, as well as performing a variation on the Litany to the Holy Archangels written by Michael Seb Lux.  I also like to do divination readings on Wednesdays in an hour of Mercury or of the Moon (my work-from-home days, which gives me a lot of time to work on my Work).
  • On Thursdays, contemplation and an invocation of the forces of Jupiter to fill and bless my life’s work and fortune.  This started out as an instruction from Tzadqiel, the angel of Jupiter, to continue until further notice due to a Jovial issue in my own sphere (Jupiter is badly detrimented in my natal horoscope).  Omitted on weeks I conjure the angel of Jupiter (subsumed into the conjuration of Tzadqiel).
  • On Saturdays, contemplation and an invocation of the forces of Saturn to protect and structure my life’s boundaries.  This is due to Saturn’s oddly dignified nature in my natal horoscope, permitting it to be one of the most favorable forces for me to work with (and to temper the malfunctioning Jovian force being done with the weekly observances).  Omitted on weeks I conjure the angel of Saturn (subsumed into the conjuration of Tzaphqiel).

Just to give myself a break, I’ll probably space each 5-week cycle out by a week, having it be six weeks in total.  This is probably unnecessary and a willingness to be lazy on my part, but it will help me maintain a healthy social and romantic life, not to mention giving me a break to keep tabs and wrap up anything down here that needs wrapping up before more conjurations need doing.

The other cycle is lunar, going by the phases of the Moon.  Only a few things happen with this (so far): the big ones are the Hermaias, my monthly devotionals to Hermes.  Hermes is associated with the fourth day after the new moon, so on that day at dawn I’ll make an offering of food, incense, prayer, and the like to him.  Conversely, though it’s not attested elsewhere, I’m also honoring his chthonic, underworldly aspect on the fourth day before the new moon (as a kind of reversal or switch), where I’ll make offerings to the spirits of the dead and act as psycopomp with Hermes’ help.  I’ll do a ritual for the Full Moon sometime around midnight when it’s full, and do a quick offering and ritual to the stars of the Big Dipper from the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM VII.686) when it’s new.  Beyond that, I don’t do much tied to the lunar cycle, besides divinations for myself and for others.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
New Moon Arktos Ritual House blessing,
general material creation
and consecration
Ouranic Hermaia
First Quarter Moon
Full Moon Full Moon Ritual  
Last Quarter Moon Chthonic Hermaia
(optional)
House banishing

NB: the days are numbered from the lunar phase, so that New Moon 1 is the day of the New Moon, not the first day afterward.  Not shown above are things that need to be tied to both the lunar phase and weekday, since there’s no way to really show that in either chart (yay interlocking cycles being horrible to map out!).  So far, the only big thing I have to worry about with that is maintaining a supply of holy water and consecrated candles, which I constantly go through.  The way I do it, I need to time it to the waxing moon (first two weeks of the lunar month) on a Wednesday in order to get a good effect, and also when Mercury isn’t retrograde.  Also, I like to do a general reconsecration and cleansing of the tools I use most on a Friday during the waxing moon with a mixture of holy water and Florida water.

Speaking of, that brings me to bigger cycles than the above 5-week or 4-week cycle.  As for the planets, I try not to do any big magical works I’m not already familiar with during Mercury retrograde (and forgot to do a Mercury retrograde retrospective last time, sorry guys!), and try not to do any craft construction when Venus is in retrograde.  Though I haven’t noticed a big effect with Venus retrograde on my life, work, or Work (or any other planet past Mercury), Mercury retrograde has made slight differences in communication (shallower) and meditation (deeper), but otherwise hasn’t made a big change in my works.  The relevant dates are:

  • Mercury in retrograde from February 23 to March 17
  • Mercury in retrograde from June 26 to July 20
  • Mercury in retrograde from October 21 to November 10
  • Venus in retrograde from December 28 through January 31, 2014

I want to try doing more with the solar cycle as well, doing something on the solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days of the year, as well as do small devotionals or minor works on important feast days or festivals.  For that, I’ve compiled the following list of important dates for the rest of 2013:

  • Sun midway Aquarius (Imbolc): February 3
  • Purim: February 23
  • Sun ingress Aries (Spring equinox, Ostara): March 20
  • Pesach (Passover): March  25 through April 1
  • Hermaia: April 11
  • Feast of St. Expedite: April 19
  • Northern Lunar Eclipse: April 25
  • Sun midway Taurus (Beltane): May 5
  • Southern Solar Eclipse: May 10
  • Mercuralia: May 15
  • Northern Lunar Eclipse: May 25
  • Sun ingress Cancer (Summer solstice, Litha): June 21
  • Sun midway Leo (Lammas): August 7
  • Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement): September 13
  • Rosh haShanah (Head of the Year): September 16 through September 18
  • Sun ingress Libra (Autumn equinox, Mabon): September 22
  • Michaelmas: September 29
  • Birthday: October 8
  • Southern Lunar Eclipse: October 18
  • All Hallow’s Eve: October 31
  • All Saints’ Day: November 1
  • All Souls’ Day: November 2
  • Northern Solar Eclipse: November 3
  • Sun midway Scorpio (Samhain): November 7
  • Chanukkah: November 27 through December 4
  • Saturnalia: December 17 through December 23
  • Sun ingress Capricorn (Winter solstice, Yule): December 21
  • Christmas: December 25

A few notes on the foregoing list:

  • I’m already using the Sun’s entry into the four cardinal zodiac signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) to mark the solstices and equinoxes, so it makes sense to me to use the Sun’s halfway point in the four fixed zodiac signs (Aquarius, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio) to mark the cross-quarter days instead of the Gregorian calendrical method.  While most other occultists and pagans will use the normal calendrical dating, I’ll stick to my solar dating and tie it to the cycle of the Sun instead.  The dates are fairly close, at least, being off no more than a week from the popular observance of them.
  • The period between All Hallow’s Eve and the astrological Samhain is a big deathy week for me that I’ll probably make a big to-do for the dead (the solar eclipse then helps, too).
  • Similarly, the period between Saturnalia and the winter solstice will be a roughly week-long period of partying and fun.
  • Yes, dear reader, I do count my birthday as a festival, not least because it usually coincides with Columbus Day (a federal holiday, and thus three-day weekend).
  • I’ve also included several Jewish festivals into the list, and I want to try getting into more of them (since I am descended from them, after all, but never really raised it).  Nothing serious, probably focusing mostly on reading and learning, except for the period between Yom Kippur and Rosh haShanah, which will be just a lil’ more strict on the fasting and self-examination.

With this all planned, it’s time to get it copied out onto the calendar and get to Work. Not counting my daily practice, all of the foregoing rituals (conjuration cycle, lunar cycle, and yearly festivals but not including daily practice) amounts to an average of about five hours a week, so even though it sounds complicated and overwhelming, it’s really not.  Expect a course calendar for the stuff I’ll be teaching at the local new age store, Sticks and Stones, in the near future, as well!


Upcoming Classes at Sticks and Stones!

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So Gwen and I were sitting down at Sticks and Stones, the store I do readings and classes at, and talked about our schedules for the first half of 2013, through the end of June.  Once we figured out what I wanted to blab endlessly about, we settled on the following set of courses from now until the end of June.  After all, being one of the few ceremonial magicians and geomancers on the East Coast, I’ve got a lot of experience and knowledge under my belt (though by no means enough) to share around with folks willing enough to hear me out and pay a small-but-reasonable fee, about $30 per class.  With that in mind, here’s my teaching schedule for the first half of 2013.  All the classes will be on Sunday afternoons.

Written 2000 years ago in Egypt, the powerful ritual known as the Headless Rite has been used for exorcism by mages in the Mediterranean, knowledge and conversation of the higher Self by Samuel MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley, and empowerment over harmful forces by countless other magicians.  Join yours truly in discussing the origins, development, and use of this ritual as he shows participants how and where to use the ritual to get the most out of it, both in the physical and the astral.  No prior knowledge is necessary, but a desire for ultimate cosmic power would be appreciated.

  • Geomancy I and II (March 3 and 10, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., $50)

Tired of Tarot?  Pained by pendulums?  Weary of runes?  Want something new and fun, or just a system of divination that makes sense?  Learn geomancy!  This ancient art was second only to astrology for centuries, and known across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for its ease and accuracy of getting answers.  Join a seasoned geomancer, yours truly, as he introduces geomancy back into the occult scene once more.  Learn about its history from desert sands of the Sahara to its modern revival across the world, the sixteen geomantic figures and their meanings, and how to answer any kind of question with geomancy using basic and advanced techniques.

Note that this class is not about feng shui, the I Ching, ley lines, or sacred geography, all of which may be called “geomancy” in other contexts.  Due to the amount of material, this class is broken up into two sessions; attending the first is a requirement for attending the second!  A basic knowledge of astrology and mathematics is suggested but not required.

Ancient Alexandria during the Roman Empire was a melting pot of Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian, Roman, and other influences as far west as Morocco and as far east as India and China.  With those cultures came their gods and goddesses, spiritual beliefs, and magic rituals.  Many of these were preserved in the Greek Magical Papyri, considered to be occult’s version of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Join yours truly as he goes over Hermetic beliefs, practices, and rituals used by magicians from the early Roman Empire in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome.  No previous experience necessary; come on by and learn these ready-to-use rituals!

The Western Mystery Tradition is often seen as dry and boring, barren of the vibrant multitude of spirits, fey, and familiars that many forms of paganism and rural religion have.  Not true!  In fact, this system of occult philosophy is teeming with huge numbers of spirits, many of whom are more than happy to lend a hand.  Join yours truly in learning about the two major kinds of spirits worked with and called upon in the Hermetic tradition, who’s who in the seven planetary families and the four elemental families, how to call upon them, and what they can do for you in your own practice and life.  No prior knowledge is necessary, but a desire for getting chatty with the spirit world would be appreciated.

When you hear about “conjuration”, do you think of pompous magicians in ruined castles wielding swords and hurling imperious threats at misunderstood spirits bound in arcane circles?  Then stop by with yours truly and learn the truth about ceremonial magic’s most famous type of ritual!  Yours truly will go over how conjuration really works, its history and roots in shamanic practices, proper conjuration etiquette, and a complete and easy introduction to conjuring and chatting with angels.  With little more than a circle and a glass of water, you too can start a magical practice with some of the most powerful and easily accessible forces in the cosmos!  Some knowledge of spirits in the Western Mystery Tradition would be appreciated.

Creating magical items of arcane power have always been a high art in magical traditions, ranging from hoodoo-style mojo bags enchanted with oils and herbs to silver discs inscribed with astrological symbols to pull power from the stars.  Although different traditions have different concepts of creating, maintaining, and decommissioning magical items, also called talismans, the process in creating them is often the same.  Join Sam Block as he describes different styles of talismans, how to use them, how to make them, and how to maintain them.  No prior knowledge or experience necessary, though a familiarity with astrology, geomancy, or elemental forces might come in use.

Besides the above, are there any other classes you might want to see me teach?  After all, dear readers, you probably know specific things you’d like to see me blog about more, and helping to teach others helps teach myself as well.  Possibly a class on Hermetic cosmology, magical timing, or similar, but what might you like to see for the latter half of 2013 and years beyond?


De Geomanteia: Cauda Draconis (he ceased his fearless roar)

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Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Cauda Draconis

Cauda Draconis

This is the figure Caput Draconis.  In Latin, its name means “Tail of the Dragon”, also the name for the South Node of the Moon, but is also named “outer threshold” in some Islamic traditions, as well as “going out of fortune” or “stepping outside”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like leaving a home or a trail leading off into the distance.

First, the technical details on this figure.  It’s associated with the South Node of the Moon, the place where the Moon’s orbit around the Earth crosses and sinks below the ecliptic of the Sun, or further into the southern celestial sphere; it’s one of the two places where eclipses happen (the other is the North Node of the Moon).  Due to its malefic nature, it’s associated with Mars and Saturn, and due to its transitory nature, it’s associated with the sign of Sagittarius.  The closest qabbalistic association that can be drawn, having effects only on the sphere of the Earth, is with Malkuth.  It has the fire, air, and water lines active with only the earth line passive, and is overall associated with the element of Fire.  It is an odd figure with five points, relating to subjective, inner states of the soul and experienced reality rather than objective, independent, or external situations.  It is a stable and entering, showing it to be slow-moving and long-lasting where it appears.  In the body, it is associated with the left arm, when associated with the body at all, but can also be associated with the excretory functions of the body.  Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Tristitia, showing that this figure is not slow-moving, not openly sorrowful, not lasting.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is Caput Draconis, showing that this figure is not beginning, not favorable, not open to dealing with possibilities.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is Laetitia, showing that this figure is similarly fast-moving and widely effective though fleeting and ephemeral in nature.  Cauda Draconis is a figure representing endings of all kinds, and shuts the door to anything new happening.  Like Fortuna Minor, Cauda Draconis doesn’t bode too well for upcoming adventures and undertakings, though is good for wrapping things up and getting out of a situation; it tends to be bad with good figures and good with bad figures, and is unfavorable for starting or beginning anything new.

Picture in your mind’s eye, if you will, an ending.  Doesn’t matter to what, dear reader, just picture an ending related to whatever it is you’re doing.  Semester finals, towers falling, turning in a finalized project report, finishing an annual race on a cloudy day at dusk.  Picture the feelings those images bring: relief that it’s over, regret over things done or left undone, a faint hope for a beginning that one doesn’t have time for yet.  Cauda Draconis is one of geomantic figures whose meanings is really simple: it’s an end.  It doesn’t matter to what, dear reader, it’s just an end.  Nothing more can be done or said about it.  But that wouldn’t make for a very interesting blog post, so let’s continue.

Dead Dragon and Soldier

The thing about endings is that they happen.  Everything that has a beginning has an end, and there’s very little in the cosmos that doesn’t have a beginning (really, just One Thing).  Still, people tend to get used to things being around and, you know, not stopping being around.  Things coming to an end usually has a bitter, sour, or just bad taste to it: we don’t want vacations to end, we don’t want to move from our childhood home, we don’t want to break off relationships, we don’t want businesses to sell out when they go south, we don’t want people to die.  Then again, there are things that we do want to end or come to an end: we want to get rid of illnesses, we want to end wars, we want to to leave bad jobs.  Ending something can be both good and bad, but even in the good times, there’s usually some amount of bad (leaving a bad job means, more often than not, a period of unemployment, and ending one war often involves huge battles or leaves resentment on one side ripe to start another).  The stage in the great cycle of things is that an ending is just that: one stage in a cycle.  One thing ends, another thing begins.

While the process of something ending can take a while, the end itself happens in a flash.  There is no sloth or slowness with Cauda Draconis, and this is related to its elemental structure and ruling element of Fire.  There’s no earth in the figure’s structure, nothing to weigh it down, contain it, or give it any lasting form.  It has the instability of Water, the flow of Air, and the volatility of Fire, all things that move, all considered the elements that act on Earth to mold and shape it.  But without Earth, these other three elements fly apart into their own separate spheres.  This explosive nature is what gives Cauda Draconis its association with Fire, and also its astrological correspondence of Sagittarius (being the mutable fire sign).  This is in direct opposition to Caput Draconis, which is much slower and all about the buildup to something, which focuses on Earth and resource-gathering.

One of Cauda Draconis’ names is “outer threshold”, as in the outer stoop of one’s home facing outward.  This is shorthand for the notion of fortune, luck, or opportunity leaving one’s domain, unable or unwilling to enter.  In that case, if one took pairs of active lines from Cauda Draconis (fire, air, water) to make individual geomantic figures, one would have Fortuna Minor (fire and air) indicating that no more can be done on one’s own, Coniunctio (air and water) indicating that a change in direction and decisions are needed, and Amissio (fire and water) indicating that what’s gone is gone and no more can be obtained.  Cauda Draconis is, next to perhaps Via and Rubeus, the most mobile or flighty of all the figures, and it being associated with Fire gives it a disastrous, calamitous force.  Relating it to the malefic planet Saturn, the planet of limitations and definitions that define the end or terminus of something, it’s the kind of boundary that blocks things off from growing, from importing, or from improving.  What you have is what you have, and that’s all there’s going to be.

When Cauda Draconis appears in a reading, get ready for things to wrap up unless you want them wrapped up for you.  Again, the keyword here is ending.  Things are coming to an end one way or another.  If things are good now, prepare for a good dose of BS and nasty crap to deal with before it’s over; if things are awful now, cheer up because they’ll be brought to a sweet close.  In matters of health, Cauda Draconis indicates a change for the worse, and can potentially indicate death if the first and eighth houses indicate similarly in an astrogeomantic chart.  Speaking of the first house, “traditional” lore says that if Cauda Draconis appears in the first house (representing the querent), the chart should immediately be destroyed and the reading abandoned, at least temporarily.  While it’s certainly not the most favorable of omens, it’s nothing that bad; it usually indicates that the querent has already made up their mind and won’t be open to any new ideas or possibilities, in effect rendering the reading worthless instead of sinister.  In magic, Cauda Draconis is fairly malefic and combines the forces of Saturn and Mars, very good for cursework, banishing, or clearing nasty stuff out.


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