Occult systems of knowledge, at least those in European traditions, have a huge affinity for symbols.  For instance, astrology has the stars, the zodiac, the planets, and the aspects; Tarot has its 78-card deck; qabbalah has its sephiroth and paths and names of God and gematria.  Sometimes these symbols in different systems can be corresponded neatly (or not-so-neatly) with each other, much as different metric units can be converted into each other by reducing them down to a particular set of units.  Geomancy, with its sixteen geomantic figures, is no exception, and has connections to the planets, the elements, and so forth.  Nifty figures, them.  You might be interested in reading up about them if you’re so inclined.

Unlike other occult systems of knowledge, however, geomancy doesn’t have a fixed or canonical order for the figures.  Tarot has the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana with their numbered cards and ranks and suits, which can afford some structured ordering, and astrology has the order of the zodiac signs plus the planets in geocentric order from or to the Earth.  Geomancy hasn’t held a specific or meaningful ordering of its own for the figures, which is a little confusing at first.  Sure, there are ways to order the figures, but there is no ordering of them of geomancy’s own design for its own benefit.  Every author seems to prefer their own order in every single text, though it usually borrows at least in part from astrology (either the order of the zodiac signs or the planets associated with the figures).

First, let’s make two terms clear from computer science: sets and lists.  A set is a collection of things with no implication of order, while a list is an ordered collection of things.  There is no notion of “first” or “last” or “next” within a set; something is either a member/included with the set, or excluded from the set.  On the other hand, lists impose an ordering on the things within itself, with there being a first thing, a next thing, and so on until we get to the last thing; every think in a list has an index, its position within the list.  While astrology, Tarot, and the like have lists for their symbols (the numbering of the cards in the deck, the planets from geocentrically furthest to closest to the Earth), geomancy has never really had a fixed list.  It’s more accurate to talk of sets instead of lists for geomancy, at least in its historical development.

Several common methods of ordering the geomantic figures that I’ve seen include:

• Binary ordering, where each geomantic figure is read as a number in binary.  As with the geomantic emblem notation, a line with two dots is represented as 0 and a line with one dot as 1.  Thus, Populus becomes 0000, which in binary is zero; Tristitia becomes 0001, which is 1; Via becomes 1111, which is 16; and so forth.
• Planetary ordering, where each geomantic figure is ordered by its corresponding planet.  This relies on the use of a particular order of the planets; I prefer the traditional Chaldaean order, moon-first (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn).  I set the figures Caput Draconis and Cauda Draconis, ruled by the nodes of the Moon, at the end; for each pair of figures, I put the masculine/active/direct/waxing/rising figure first and the feminine/passive/retrograde/waning/setting figure second (e.g. Populus followed by Via followed by Albus followed by Coniunctio…).
• Zodiacal order, where each geomantic figure is ordered by its corresponding zodiac sign.  This is complicated by there being different zodiacal attributions to the figures, but I tend to stick with Gerard of Cremona’s system (as presented in his “On Astronomical Geomancy”), but I know other geomancers use Agrippa’s system (such as John Michael Greer).  This is further complicated when several figures are assigned to the same sign; some authors (like Gerard of Cremona) simply set them next to each other without care for order, while others (like JMG) place them at the end.
• Emblematic order, where each figure is ordered by its placement in a particular geomantic emblem.  Which of the 256 emblems you pick, however, depends on a particular purpose and other factors.

Personally speaking, I use either the binary ordering or Chaldaean planetary ordering, when I care to order them at all.  Do you guys care about imposing an order on the geomantic figures, or do you care?  Does the notion of a list versus a set of geomantic figures matter in your work?

It’s been a ways in coming, but I’ve finally decided to start offering ebooks, occult services, and commissions through the Digital Ambler.  Yes, you read that right: I’m now offering divination readings, ritual services, consultations, and commissions for crafts and designs, which you can pay for through PayPal over on the new Services page.  Some things are once-off payments, like divination readings or consultations, which can be paid for immediately.  Other things, such as tool crafting or design work, go by the hour and will start after we talk about needs, requirements, and the like; an invoice will be sent once the work is complete.  If you have any questions about these polyphanic services, feel free to email me (polyphanes at gmail) and I’ll try to advise as necessary.  Eventually, I’ll write more ebooks or coursework for the interested practitioner, but I’ll keep that in reserve for now; for now, I’ve written my first ebook “De Grammatomanteia”, a thorough treatment of Greek grammatomancy from a Hermetic perspective involving astrology, qabbalah, and numerology, available for $10 as a PDF.

You also may have noticed, dear reader, that you can now donate to the Digital Ambler through PayPal using the button on the right.  It’s completely up to you whether or how much you donate, or whether you take me up on my services and offerings, but even small amounts help loads (I suggest a simple $5).  If you donate or buy something off my Amazon wishlist, I promise to put in a good word for you and give you a shoutout on my blog for being so awesome and generous.

I write a lot for this blog because I want to, and because it helps get me to do the Work and get my Work out into the world.  I think it’s a good thing to show how my styles of magic and magical living can be done for others, not to mention showcase my own thoughts and rants.  Information, after all, wants to flow and be free.  Still, writing this blog takes up a nontrivial amount of time and effort; the Work is still work that requires resources and research; balancing my occult and mystical Work and studies with my federal and engineering work and errands is no easy task.  With a little help from my generous readers through commissions  consultations, or donations, I could get more Work done, get better tools for better crafting, procure more books and supplies to expand my project scopes, host my own blog independently, move to a better and quieter apartment, and the like.   Every little bit counts, and I hope to make those little bits count for a lot through my Work.

By the by, for you dear readers who signed up for a ritual experiment through Facebook or Twitter but haven’t heard back from me yet about that, I promise you I haven’t forgotten about it.  Things’ve been a lil’ hectic as of late and the project is on hold for now, but I’ll keep you posted of any progress or updates in the future.

As I’ve probably mentioned before around here, the geomantic figures are interesting little symbols in the occult that are composed of four lines, with each line representing one of the four classical elements: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth.  Each line can have either one or two dots, with one dot indicating an active element and two dots indicating a passive element.  Thus, the geomantic figures can be seen as alchemical equations, representing a different blend of forces required to represent or reflect a particular state of the cosmos at any given time.  The top row is given to Fire, the second row to Air, the third row to Water, and the bottom row to Earth, the same order as the perceived “density” as the elements, with Fire being the lightest and Earth being the heaviest.  Nifty things, these geomantic figures.

While the figures are composed of up to four elements, each figure also has a ruling element, which is the element the figure is most strongly associated with.  Generally speaking, the elemental rulership of a figure is indicated by its structure: with the exception of Populus (which has no lines/elements active), the elemental ruler of a geomantic figure is always one of the active elements within those figures.

So, consider the geomantic figures Laetitia, Rubeus, Albus, and Tristitia.  Each of these figures have only one line active with the others passive; Laetitia has only Fire active, Rubeus has only Air active, Albus has only Water active, and Tristitia has only Earth active.  As such, these elements are the rulers of their respective figures, since they’re the only elements active in those figures.  The other figures are assigned in similar way based on their divinatory meaning:

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

Note that Laetitia and Cauda Draconis are converse figures (the reverse of the inverse of the figure), as are Rubeus and Puer, Albus and Puella, and Tristitia and Caput Draconis; these odd pairs are similar in their meanings or temperament, and also preserve the elemental rulership based on their structures.  Amissio and Fortuna Minor are given to Fire due to their temperament, as are the other even figures to their elements.  Populus is the only odd one out, since it has no elements active, but is given to Water with its inverse figure Via.

So far, so good; most of the traditional sources that mention elemental rulers at all (independent of the zodiacal or planetary rulerships) are in agreement.  However, it’s unclear whether each of the four figures within these four groups has another elemental affinity based on a similar system.  After all, we already applied the same system one time to the figures as a whole, so why not apply it to the figures in their elemental groupings?

I got the idea for this based on a reply to Andrew’s comment before, where he was working on a set of geomantic mandalas organized by element.  Ordering the figures by element seems to be a good idea, but he didn’t seem to like any of the arrangements of the figures within their groups.  So, I figured to come up with a subelemental rulership kind of system which could help order the figures.  In effect, we’d have an ordering that goes first by a figure’s primary elemental ruler, then their secondary elemental or subelemental ruler: Fire/Fire, Fire/Air, Fire/Water, Fire/Earth, Air/Fire, and so forth to Earth/Earth.

With that in mind, here’s my schema for assigning elemental and subelemental rulers to the figures:

• Fire
  • Fire: Laetitia.  Pure fire, no other elements involved.
  • Air: Fortuna Minor.  Fire with Air.  The smoothest and most beneficial figure of Fire, which requires communication and interaction with other people.
  • Water: Amissio.  Fire with Water.  The most emotional and volatile of the Fire-ruled figures.
  • Earth: Cauda Draconis.  Fire, Air, and Water without Earth.  although Earth is not present in Cauda Draconis, it is the only reasonable leftover.  Plus, in Hebrew occultism, earth is the element that results from combining fire, air, and water.
• Air
  • Fire: Puer.  Air with Earth and Fire.  Being Martian and associated with Aries in any of the major zodiacal attribution systems, this seems fairly straightforward.
  • Air: Rubeus.  Pure air, no other elements involved.
  • Water: Coniunctio.  Air with Water.  Communication and interaction on all levels, emotional and mental.
  • Earth: Acquisitio.  Air with Earth.  The most grounded and material of the Air figures.
• Water
  • Fire: Puella.  Water with Fire and Earth.  The most outgoing of the Water figures (which isn’t saying much), Puella is the only one that has a will and plan of its own, receptive though it may be.  Plus, its Water/Fire mix mirrors the Fire/Water mix of Amissio, the other Venus-ruled figure.
  • Air: Via.  All elements active.  The most fluid and dynamic of the Water signs, the road is also an image of communication, travel, and trade, which are all airy things.  Plus, it mirrors the Air/Water mix of Coniunctio, often seen as a similar symbol of crossroads and paths.
  • Water: Albus.  Pure water, no other elements involved.
  • Earth: Populus.  No elements active.  Again, just as assigning Populus to Water in the first place, the system breaks down here.  However, being the most stable, fixed, and status-quo-enforcing figure of Water, it makes sense to give it to the slowest and heaviest of the elements, Earth, as a subelemental ruler.
• Earth
  • Fire: Carcer.  Earth with Fire.  Dry, without any ability to communicate or interact with the world, is the image of Carcer, plus the hot-headed anger latent in this figure.
  • Air: Caput Draconis.  Earth with Water and Air.  The only Earth figure with Air, Caput Draconis indicates beginnings, things about to be formed and awaiting a pulse of energy from outside. 
  • Water: Fortuna Maior.  Earth with Water.  The most beneficical and fertile of the figures, Fortuna Maior combines Earth and Water to create long-lasting, though slow-going, change.
  • Earth: Tristitia.  Pure earth, no other elements involved.

So, given the elemental/subelemental rulership of the figures, a strictly elemental based ordering of the figures might look something like this:

1. Laetitia
2. Fortuna Minor
3. Amissio
4. Cauda Draconis
5. Puer
6. Rubeus
7. Coniunctio
8. Acquisitio
9. Puella
10. Via
11. Albus
12. Populus
13. Carcer
14. Caput Draconis
15. Fortuna Maior
16. Tristitia

Of course, this is ultimately a few sprinkles on the icing of the cake of Western geomancy.  An ordering of the figures like this is helpful to maybe learn the figures by mnemonic or to help present them in an orderly fashion, but doesn’t really influence the process of divination or magic much.  However, as far as I can tell, the notion of subelemental rulers of the figures is new, which might help people develop more nuanced notions of how the figures interact and interplay between them in a reading or when deployed in magic or ritual.

I have no shame in admitting that I’m a stickler for being correct, whether it’s understanding the full import or something or getting something right on a technicality (no better lie than a half-truth, after all).  This is especially prominent when it comes to the precise meanings of words, where I go by a combination of looking at a word’s meaning, both prescriptive (what it’s authoritatively supposed to mean), descriptive (how people actually mean it in usage), and historical (how the word developed through etymology).  Past posts of mine have used this technique, especially involving different names for rituals.  After all, if you’re going to wax authoritatively on what something should be called, you should at least have the decency of both doing it right and being right.

Probably the most ill-understood suffix or root in modern magic usage is the word “manteia”, from Greek meaning “sight”.  Manteia referred to, historically, any method of obtaining knowledge or communication via occult means, or divination.  Because Greek shares a trait of agglutinating words onto other words to make a more nuanced concept, the word “manteia” was affixed onto any other word that indicated the method of divination.  Many of these words survive in English or are easily Anglicized: pyromancy for “divination with fire”, geomancy for “divination with earth”, grammatomancy for “divination with letters”, necromancy (originally nekuomancy) with “divination with the dead”.  The prefix to “-mancy” here just denoted the vague notion of how the divination was performed; consider geomancy, which though literally might imply crystals or scrying using patterns of dirt or earth, actually indicates the use of a particular set of figures that were originally drawn in earth or sand.  A more nuanced word isn’t necessary, since words are just labels after all, although I’m sure 15-part words could easily be constructed that would clearly delineate the method of divination within that very word.  For reasons of convenience, this just isn’t done, except for comedic relief.

Of course, the suffix “-mancy” nowadays refers to any number of things that simply aren’t divination.  I consider this partially the fault of a lot of role playing games that try to be fancy with their names, calling the ability to set fire with the mind “pyromancy” or conjuring water elementals “hydromancy”.  This type of naming (which might more appropriately use “-magy” or “-kinesis) is still wrong, though I can’t blame modern gamers alone in this.  Consider that ancient art of necromancy, the ability to commune with the dead.  In order to do such a thing and get knowledge from the dead, one has to first find ways of opening up a channel of communication with the dead and “raise” them, so to speak.  This was recognized in ancient times as it was in medieval, Renaissance, and modern times, and requires no small skill in other magical practices to get started.  Indeed, necromancy was one of the explicitly proscribed arts in the Inquisition and by the Church for centuries (still is, even), but the art as a whole was practiced with the intent and goal of obtaining information from the dead.  The rest of the show was mere gimmickry and ritual for the sake of obtaining information, holy or infernal as it might be.

In fact, a lot of misattribution of magic to “-mancy” can be lead at the feet of people in medieval/Renaissance Europe who didn’t fully grasp the meaning or point of having a divination system named using “-mancy” (or “-mantia” if they were writing in Latin).  Consider my biggest pet peeve with geomancy, which is when people confuse it with feng shui.  The distinction between a divination system using earth-originating symbols and propitious interior/landscape designing is pretty damn big, especially considering the massive theological, philosophical, and cultural gulfs between the two arts.  However, when European missionaries and tourists went to China and Korea and found local holy men or teachers practicing feng shui, they thought they were doing some kind of funky earth magic, and since the missionaries were (at least officially) forbidden from learning actual magic or the distinctions between different magical practices, they thought “geomancy” was a proper word to translate as feng shui because “why not, they sound similar, let’s just go with that”.  And, from that standpoint, modern New Agers thought “geomancy” could also be applied to the study of sacred geography and ley lines, which is also wrong and even more different from the original divinatory art than feng shui was.

If, dear reader, you insist on either using a “-mancy” word to describe a magical practice, make sure it follows these two simple rules: you’re actually referring to a method of divination and not some other kind of magical, sacred, or philosophical practice, and that you’re prefixing “-mancy” with the core tool or method by which you plan to do that divination.  For instance, if you want to use a fancy word to describe Tarot divination, say “cartomancy”, meaning “divination by cards” (which is what Tarot essentially is).  As a rule, the more generic the word you’re using to describe the method, the better; you don’t need to say “taromancy” because that’s stupid and sounds like you’re divining using taro roots instead, especially when people who use other oracle decks or even do old-fashioned playing card divination fit into the same general field and method that you do.  Similarly, if you’re reading runes, you might go with “grammatomancy”, which is broad enough to cover any method of divination that reads letters; if you’re using whole words (in one way or another), you might use “logomancy”; if using books, “bibliomancy”, and so forth.  If there’s another word entirely that better describes your divination system (such as “haruspicy” for reading intestines, or another culturally-appropriate term for a different system like ifa), use that instead.  Also, try to stick to using Greek prefixes or Latinate prefixes with clear Greek origins: say “arithmancy” for divination using numerology instead of “numbermancy” or “digitomancy”.  And be sure the word you’re using actually means something; using “alphamancy” to refer to a method of divination involving the random generation of words from alphabetic tiles is cute but doesn’t actually mean anything, lest you want to use varying positions of the letter A to indicate meaning.

In the end, just be right about what you want to label your shit, because don’t nobody wanna get confused anymore.  Ain’t nobody got time for that.

A devotional prayer I was inspired to write one morning recently.  I ended up using some of the formulas below in my freeform devotional or contemplational prayers to the Almighty Source, but honestly it can be redirected to any god in the right context, if appropriate.  Just thought I’d share.

Blessed are you, who grant good things, in time of hardship and in time of prosperity.
Blessed are you, who guide, lead, protect, and shelter us who follow.
Blessed are you, who illumine, enlighten, empower, and free, light in darkness and darkness in light.
Blessed are you, who as One are All and within whom are All as One.

May every idea be thought for you!
May every word be spoken for you!
May every letter be written for you!
May every emotion be felt for you!
May every motion be moved for you!
May every path be walked for you!
May every action be made for you!

For the first time in months (like, November or something last year), I have no more blog posts scheduled to go up ahead of time.  No more buffer, at least for now, between what I write and when people see it.  Part of that buffer was built up from my geomancy series of posts, and in part also because I didn’t want to overwhelm my dear readers’ RSS feeds with more posts than they might care about.  But, now that the De Geomanteia posts have been finished…just about two months now, and I’ve gotten back to posting other stuff as it comes to mind, I’ve finally run out of that buffer of more posts.  This means that I’ve been writing less as of late, which is true at least for the blog.  I have a few ebooks in the work on geomancy and the geomantic emblems, but those are still in progress.

Why have I been writing less for the blog?  Basically, I’ve been doing less stuff.  Sure, I’ve done a few projects here and there and had a few adventures, but nothing particularly exciting or worthy of its own post (as far as I’d reckon it).  Almost all the stuff on this blog comes about as a result of doing the Work, making adventures, coming up with interesting stories to tell, doing in-depth research, all that good stuff, and lately I’ve been doing less of it.  It’s not that I’ve gotten bored, but that I’ve gotten stuck in a rut or stuck on a plateau (the two are nearly the same concept).  Not gonna lie, it’s difficult for me to actually admit this, so I’m doing it loudly and proudly on my blog to all my readers that, yes, this is in fact a slow point for my practice and I’m not getting much of anything done.  For now, of course.

It’s been about a year since I managed to obtain first contact with my HGA, which has been an exciting and awesome thing to obtain, though not as overwhelming as I’d've thought.  No angelic choirs (besides the ordinary, that is) congratulating me, no life-changing foundation-shaking enlightenment, but still, I’ve had a voice that’s helped guide and nurture me since.  After that, though, my accomplishments and progress have somewhat stalled.  My big goal, especially for 2013, was to begin astral projection, and I sorta postponed most other occult work (like my regular conjuration cycle) on being able to project.  Perhaps needless to say, my progress with astral projection is nowhere near as great as I want it to be, and it’s much more difficult to do and even allot the time for than other work I’ve done in the past.  Add to it some rather pleasing, though adventurous, changes in my life and more stuff to handle in the office, and my work-Work-life balance is shifting around with the Work getting less time than it should.

Astral projection, so I’m told, is the major next step I need to work on.  Without being able to work with the spirits in spiritual realms as a spirit myself, i.e. without the limitations of physicality, I’m not gonna get much of anywhere.  It’s the key I need to work more in-depth with the planets and to start working with the sphere of the fixed stars, where we get the idea of “astral realms” from to begin with.  I’d love to do the full out-of-body experience, but that’s posing a much more difficult task than I anticipated; indeed, even my HGA said that this would be more difficult than coming in contact with the HGA was.  I can manage strong visualizations and so-called “mental projections”, using light trance/meditative states to scry or bilocate elsewhere, which gets the job done, but not as great as I’d like.  And, of course, it being “not good enough” has led me to leave it un-/underutilized, and even though it affords one method to work astrally, I’ve instead done nothing astrally and waiting for something better to happen.

My idea of astral practice involves light meditation beforehand, coupled with about two hours of lying in trance trying to obtain deeper states of trance and, hopefully, the ability to slip out of the body and into the astral.  This is about a three hour thing, all told, and that’s a nontrivial amount of time.  I was going to write these next few sentences justifying why I procrastinate on this, with so many hours already used for this or that, but then I realized I couldn’t say it in any way that wouldn’t read as pathetic.  I’m just gonna say it: I’m lazy and I like to internet, even at the cost of my magical and spiritual practice.  The free time I have every week, even when I spend it at my boyfriend’s house or out with friends, still allows me plenty of time to do magic and spiritual exercises that I’m simply not using in the best way ever.  This has happened before and I know I’ll encounter the problem again in the future, but this is now getting to the point were I’m snapping out of it.

The stuff I want to do is manifold, and I have a hard time figuring out where I want to begin.  This, of course, kinda puts hesitation in me, then indecision, then a lack of action that stalls any more progress, causing me to retreat back to the all-too-welcome arms of the Internet for mindless entertainment until I realize that I need to do more Work.  I was going to type up a list of things I want to work on, but then I decided to make it public and give my own assessment of what I need to work on and why.

• Meditation.  Meditation is the key to most mental disciplines, and indeed is the foundation for trance practice.  If I do better and more meditation, the whole two-hour lying-in-trance thing above becomes more-or-less obsolete, since the meditation itself becomes the trance.  More, deeper, and more serious meditation practice is needed, starting over from the rudimentary basics like how to maintain good posture, a personal weak spot of mine.  Resolution: two 30-minute sessions of meditation a day, once in the morning after waking up and once in the evening before sleep.
• Sight.  It’s definitely a desire to better see/view/communicate with spirits, forces, and spiritual things more than I can.  Granted, I have a good ability to do just that, but I want to be better at it to where I can see histories in places, medical problems in people, and the like.  I want better second sight, better awareness of the spiritual around me.  Despite the warnings of some of my friends (“you can’t turn it off once you have it on”), I can’t say that I’d ever want it turned off.  From clearer visuals in conjurations to seeing weak spots in home defenses, or even things that’d be offensive to my senses, I want and want to work on better sight/vision practices. Resolution: weekly and regular practice and working on a few new tools to help this out.  I’m thinking a special blindfold from a black scarf consecrated for the purpose.
• Exercise.  I admit it, I’ve put on a few extra pounds lately and I’m not doing nearly enough for my physical body.  As much as I’m focusing on the spiritual, I also need to focus on the physical, since it’s the best way to honor the mind and spirit as well.  Besides, as long as I’m human, the body is as much me as anything else.  I know my eating habits and other upkeep are decent (though I could definitely get more sleep), so it’s just a lack of physical activity I need to change.  Scholar though I am, I’m still an animal. Resolution: nightly walks to local parks no less than 60 minutes in duration plus daily stretches and basic stuff.  (If it weren’t for the 10 hours I spend at work and commuting, I’d throw in more dedicated routines and weights and crap, but here I go whining again.)

Even with the above justifications for individual goals, I think a somewhat bigger issue is that I’ve lost my overall reason, the big “why” that drives my Work.  I mean, nobody becomes a monk because they dig the ascetic practices, they do it because they want enlightenment.  What’s my goal, why am I a magician at all trying to obtain the Great Work?  Even now, my old goals of reunion with the Divine and apotheosis seem kinda…empty.  Power’s always nice, but power for me doesn’t seem great on the surface, either (pace, Frater RO).  Security and stability in the world?  A more compelling and concrete reason than just “power”.  Spiritual authority?  Well, duh, but that itself evades the original question.  I’m here to do magic, I know that much, but why?

I guess I have a self-assessment for what I’m doing, but less for why.  I suppose even this is all just theorizing over what can’t be theorized, too.  I suppose the only thing to really do is to just do it, and there’s no better time than now for it, either.  Back to Work, then; I guess I have a date with the HGA for getting me off this rock.

Generating a complete geomantic chart can be a little daunting for people new to the art of geomancy.  I think it’s simple enough to learn, but there’s a fair bit of calculation involved.  It’s definitely more difficult than Tarot, where you just shuffle some cards and lay them out wherever you damn well please, but not as difficult as doing an astrological chart by hand (but then, who does that anymore?). 

Still, there are fewer possible geomantic charts one might get than there are Tarot spreads ((78-10)! or (156-10)!, depending on whether you use reversed cards, and that’s just for the Celtic Cross) or astrological configurations (big big big big number, even if you limit yourself to just the seven traditional planets and whole degrees).  Since the four Mothers essentially define the rest of the chart, and since each Mother can be one of the 16 geomantic figures, there are only 16×16×16×16 = 65536 possible geomantic charts.  Any chart not in this set of charts are invalid and impossible to properly calculate.  How might you determine whether a given geomantic chart is valid?  There are three rules to validate a chart:

The Judge must be an even figure.  It is impossible for a well-formed geomantic chart to have an odd Judge; evenness is often called “impartiality”, and Judges as well as judges must be impartial in deciding a case.  Judge figures must be even due to the formation of the Daughters from the Mothers.  The Daughters make use of the same points from the Mothers, transposed so that they’re arranged in a different direction; thus, the number of points in the Mothers are the same as those in the Daughters.  Any number duplicated yields an even number, and the process of adding figures (or distilling them from the Mothers/Daughters to the Nieces to the Witnesses) preserves this kind of parity.  Thus, the Witnesses must be either both odd or both even, and in either case must add to an even figure.  The Judge is the only figure in the chart where this rule must apply.

At least one figure must be repeated in the chart.  As it turns out, no complete Shield chart with 16 geomantic figures can have all 16 distinct figures; there must be at least one repeated figure in the chart somewhere.  It may be possible that the first 15 figures (Mothers, Daughters, Nieces, Witnesses, and Judge) are distinct, but then the Sentence must of necessity repeat one of the other figures.  Consider that the Judge is formed from the two Witnesses, which themselves are formed from the four Nieces, which are formed from the eight Mothers and Daughters combined.  The Judge has eight separate roots, which may very well be distinct.  However, the Sentence is formed from adding the Judge to the First Mother.  Because the Judge also relies on the First Mother (via the Right Witness and First Niece), you’re essentially adding the First Mother to itself, which yields Populus; Populus, when combined with any other figure, repeats that figure.  Because of this “hidden repetition” in the chart, there’s bound to be at least one figure repeated in the chart somewhere, even if it’s just the Sentence.  That said, there are only 16 charts that have the first 15 figures unique, but that’s a topic for another day.

The inseparable pairs must add to the same figure.  This is an idea picked up from the Madagascan tradition of geomancy of sikidy, and shows the validity of the internal structure of the chart.  The idea here is that certain pairs of figures in the chart must add to the same figure: adding the First Niece to the Judge, the Second Mother to the Sentence, and the Second Niece to the Left Witness all yield the same result.  Similarly, the Left Witness added to the Sentence, the Right Witness to the First Mother, and the Second Niece to the First Mother also yield the same result.  This is because the “units” that add up to any child figure (First and Second Mothers for the First Niece, or all the Mothers and Daughters for the Judge, or all the Mothers and Daughters for the Sentence with the First Mother duplicated) are the same within these groups of inseperables.  Any set of addition of “units” where two figures are repeated cancel each other out, forming Populus; the remaining figures add up to a particular figure that the other inseperables must also add to.

So, as an example, say that we have the following chart, where we have Via, Acquisitio, Coniunctio, and Laetitia as the Mothers.  Carcer, Cauda Draconis, Amissio, and Fortuna Minor are the Daughters; Amissio, Cauda Draconis, Caput Draconis, and Coniunctio are the Nieces; Rubeus and Tristitia are the Witnesses, Acquisitio is the Judge, and Amissio is the Sentence.

The Judge is Acquisitio, which is an even figure, formed from two odd figures; this is good.  There is multiple repetition in the chart (Acquisitio, Coniunctio, Cauda Draconis, and Amissio are all repeated somewhere in the chart), which is also good.  The two sets of inseparables add up the figures as below:

1. First Set (sum of Third and Fourth Mothers with all the Daughters)
   1. First Niece + Judge = Amissio + Acqusitio = Via
   2. Second Mother + Sentence = Acquisitio + Amissio = Via
   3. Second Niece + Left Witness = Cauda Draconis + Tristitia = Via
2. Second Set (sum of the Second, Third, and Fourth Mothers)
   1. Left Witness + Sentence = Tristitia + Amissio = Puella
   2. Right Witness + First Mother = Rubeus + Via = Puella
   3. Second Niece + Second Mother = Cauda Draconis + Acquisitio = Puella

Since the two sets of inseparable pairs add up to the same figures, respectively Via and Puella, this also checks out.  We can now rest assured that our geomantic chart is valid and proper for reading.

Do I do all these checks every time I calculate a geomancy chart?  Lol nope.  When I calculate a geomancy chart by hand (I sometimes use a program I wrote for this to automatically give me all the information I want from a chart), I’ll often just check the parity of the Judge and leave it at that.  Still, learning these rules and how the internal structure of the shield chart works is important to geomancy, since it underlies not only the mechanics of getting the divination system to work but also indicates important spiritual and oracular connections between the otherwise disparate symbols used.

A recent post on the geomancy mailing list Geomantic Campus made me seriously roll my eyes, especially since it’s indicative of a wider problem in a lot of new age circles.  Essentially, the poster had a problem with how negative a lot of the figures were; he noticed that “geomancy doesn’t always give positive readings due to some negative geomantic figures”, and wanted to know what other geomancers were “going to do about it”.   Because it didn’t “sound right” to “just leave [geomancy] as it is”, the poster wanted to know what geomancers might do or innovate to make geomancy more favorable or kind to people instead of being so dour and mean.

My reply?  To be brief, not a damn thing.

Geomancy is a divination system that reports on events through occult means.  Thus, if geomancy gives negative readings, it’s because negative things happen.  Not everything in life is positive, helpful, or beneficial for us: we get sick and injured, we get in trouble, mistakes happen, things get stolen or lost or destroyed, and people can be unlucky.  These are not good things for us; sure, we might try to craft some justification for it happening in the cosmos, but that’s not going to change the fact that shit happens and it sucks.  In our world of existence where both good and bad things happen, I fully expect a functional and useful method of divination to report both good and bad things; for such a system to only report good things certainly doesn’t “sound right” to me, and certainly won’t be as useful when bad things actually do happen.

The names of the figures in geomancy are pretty telling of their meaning: Carcer means “prison” and refers to anything restrictive, isolating, or secure; Tristitia means “sorrow” and refers to depression, lowered vitality, and sadness; Amissio means “loss”, and in every sense of the word.  These are things that happen, these are real events and situations people find themselves in each and every day across the world for as long as there have been days and people to experience them.  Trying to brush the negative things that happen away under the carpet doesn’t really work, since these things are going to suck no matter what.  With divination as a forecasting tool, we can be forewarned about these things that can happen and prepare ourselves to make the most of it, but if shit’s gon’ happen, shit’s gon’ happen.

Plus, mere sugar-coating of the figures isn’t going to do much either.  Geomancy is a very down-to-earth oracle, and is best suited for anything that relies on actual events in the world around us.  Just as there are good things, so too are there bad things; if we make geomancy blind to the bad things that happen, geomancy wouldn’t be useful for us in a world where bad stuff happens.  Trying to pretty up or make the figures nicer, making Carcer out to be a lot less restrictive than it is or Amissio a lot more recuperative than it may be, won’t change the fact that isolation and loss both suck.

Am I against innovation in geomancy at all?  Heavens and hells, no.  I think we should keep trying to figure out more correspondences for the figures where appropriate, mapping them to things that didn’t exist or to mindsets that we now can clearly define and determine that weren’t thought of as distinct in older days; I think finding new techniques or secrets to get more information out of a chart is fantastic; I’d love to see new methods and innovative uses for geomantic figures in magic and talismans.  That said, trying to make the art as a whole some washed-out positive-only easy-bake Geomancy Lite is disrespectful to the art and disrespectful to people with actual problems and turn to divination for help.

Like I said before, this is all indicative of wider problems in a lot of new age, floofy fluffy-bunny, “The Secret”-derived meretricious trash.  Basically, if you think positive, the world is positive.  I call bullshit on that; not to be a pessimist, but bad things happen all the time and there’s not a lot we can do to keep them from happening.  I’m not talking about misplacing your keys or stubbing your toe, but major problems that are part of the human condition: illness, injury, death, famine, war, those kinds of things.  I’d love to live in a world without them, but that’s not this world, and we’re made to deal with them each and every day.  Trying to blow that off and live in some happy-go-lucky wonderland where nothing ever happens is, well, magical thinking, and in no useful way at that.  A lot of modern astrology has undergone this kind of thinking, as anyone familiar with the rants of Christopher Warnock of Renaissance Astrology will be aware of.  Trying to do the same to geomancy would make it a lot less useful in a world where bad things happen, and being willfully ignorant of the bad things that happen in the world is irresponsible and disastrous.

As for other divination systems?  It depends on what exactly they aim to answer.  Geomancy and horary astrology aim to answer crucial questions about everyday life as humans in a human world with human problems, and necessarily must deal with both good and bad subjects.  The ancients didn’t shy away from this; we’ve largely isolated ourselves in the middle class Western world from the harsh realities of life outside our comparatively awesome lifestyle, but that doesn’t change the fact that life has problems.  Other divination systems that rely on more spiritual, ethereal, or vague imagery?  That speaks a different language and can often answer to different problems; I won’t judge them if they can’t say bad things as well as good things.  But when making plans with geomancy, people need to know whether gold is headed towards them or shit in order to make their lives better.

Not much happening as of late; little conjuration work to be done, no big projects.  There have been some business requests made, in terms of readings and design work, which is absolutely fabulous; many thanks to those who have asked for them!  For those who are thinking of them, why not take a chance and spend some of that extra coin lying around?  I could always use the work, after all, and it keeps me busy.  But yeah, beyond the occasional reading and my normal daily practice, not much has been happening.  Which leads to me writing less, at least for my blog, which after all these months feels real weird.  Eh, I guess I needed the break.  Anyway, just a few little things I wanted to note lately.

First, as you may have heard from the rest of the interweb, Jason Miller of Inominandum and Strategic Sorcery fame recently released his newest work, Advanced Planetary Magic, a set of 49 calls to the planets based on pairwise combinations of the seven planets.  You may have heard of it somewhere else in the blogosphere, and I’ll keep my review short: it’s awesome, and I suggest getting yourself a copy of this awesome work.  He describes a system of planetary magic where one uses a particular short invocation or spell for each pair of planets (Luna/Sol, Sol/Luna, Venus/Saturn, etc.), to be used according to a particular situation and in a particular time (planetary hour and planetary day).  Nifty stuff, by any measure.  He’s starting a project called the Crying of Calls 49, where people who have the text are invited to perform 49 consecutive days of prayer, using each one of the biplanetary invocations each day in a particular hour on each day.  The first week starts tomorrow, July 8, with Luna of Luna in an hour of the Moon in the day of the Moon, Luna of Mars on July 9 in an hour of the Moon in the day of Mars, and so forth.  He’s set up a Facebook group for it, but as of this writing the group is still inoperational.  Quick, go get a copy for yourself and join in on the fun!

I’ve recently picked up my prayer beads again and started using them.  I’ve had this dark Indian rosewood mala with red thread for years, bought a long time ago when I was on a strong Buddhist kick, and though I used it for a while with some basic mantras (Avalokitesvara’s and Manjusri’s, to name two), I never really kept up the practice.  The prayer beads have just been languishing in their bag for years, maybe picked up once or twice out of nostalgia, and put back.  I figured I may as well augment my practice by using them again, though picking out the mantra or prayer to be used with them puzzled me slightly.  Then I remembered that I have my own magical motto, “Lautitia Laborum Lucis Laetor” (“I rejoice in the splendor of the works of the Light”), and since it rings pretty deeply with me, I figure I may as well use that as my mantra.  It’s pretty relevant to my own work, and is fairly devotional in and of itself.  I’ve gotten a good buzz from using my motto as a mantra, as I have the Trisagion and my Prayer of Light.  I’ve been experimenting with rhythms and numbers of circuits, and I like the preliminary results so far.  My goal is to do at least one motto circuit per day, twice if I have the time; doing this on the train works well enough, since I sit comfortably far back from the rest of the people in a quiet spot where others can’t easily bother me.

Speaking of daily practice, I’m also considering with toying around with my personal schedule.  Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays I go to work at the office, and I work from home Wednesdays.  On the days I go to the office, I normally get up around 5 a.m., hygeinate myself, do my prayers and meditation and other essential practice, leave around 7, then catch the train to work, then get home around 5 or 6 p.m.  Ideally, this allows me four or five hours of time once I get off work for more practice but…I normally just end up on the computer for the night instead.  Since I’m a morning person, and there is another train that leaves much later than I’m used to that can still get me to work on time, I’m thinking of shifting more practice to the morning, which gives me about two solid hours each day to really focus on my stuff: a half hour for prayers and offerings, a half hour for meditation, a half hour for energy work and other “kinetic” methods of prayer and practice, and another half hour for more meditation or astral work.  This should of course be backed up with more work in the evenings, but shifting more to the earlier part of the day is no bad idea.  I’m a morning person, anyway, so this should definitely help me out more in getting my ass in better magical shape.  I’d be getting home probably around 7 or 8, but that still leaves me enough time most evenings to relax and get at least another round of meditation again, not to mention any planetary work that happens in the evening.  I figure I can handle this fairly well; I’ll try it this coming week as a test round.

Anyway, time to finish tidying up my house and get to my prayers and offerings for the night.  How’s this past Mercury retrograde period been treating you?  Besides some minor holiday traffic, things have been delightful on my end.

I’ve gotten into the habit of praying the Benedicite (“All ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord…”) as part of my morning prayers.  I was originally doing it a while back as part of my “extended prayer” days, like on Sundays or Wednesdays, but since I get a good feel from the prayer and since it goes by fairly quickly, I decided to just throw it into my normal prayer schedule.

For those who are unfamiliar with the prayer, it’s a prayer used in Catholic liturgy and in some Solomonic rituals (which is where I first saw it used in magic).  It basically exalts and exhorts all of creation in the celestial, terrestrial, and humane realms (or as I prefer to call them, the cosmos, universe, and world) to praise the Creator.  It was originally used in the Old Testament (Daniel 3:56-88), sung by the three Jewish youths Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego while being preserved by an angel in a furnace.  The Song of the Three Children became a thanksgiving prayer, rejoicing in all of creation, and I use it partly for that and partly for praise.

I preface the prayer with the Paternoster and complete it with the Gloria Patri.  I build a complex visualization as I pray the Benedicite: at first, I start with just an all-encompassing Light, then as each verse is chanted I add in that image to the overall visualization, first building up the heavens, then the earth, then mankind, recreating in my own mind the entire world that I live, work, and Work in.  At the end, I sort of “release” the visualization into the actual world around me, overlapping the world with my visualization and linking them together.

At the end, I say a little extra, adding on my own exaltations to the Benedicite, exhorting my own self to praise and prayer:

O my Self, bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him forever.
O my Body, …
O my Soul, …
O my Spirit, …
O my Mind, …
O my hands and feet, …
O my comings and goings, …
O my actions and productions, …
O my sight and sense, …
O my blood and humours, …
O my voice and breath, …
O my emotions and feelings, …
O my dreams and visions, …
O my thought and reason, …
O my speech and words, …
O my divine spark, …
O my friends and family, …
O my associates and allies, …
O my colleagues and coworkers, …
O my entire life, sphere, and surroundings, …

I mentioned recently that I got Jason Miller’s excellent Advanced Planetary Magic, which, again, you should totally get, since it’s worth far more than the cost.  It’s a collection of 49 short prayers or invocations to be used during different combinations of the planetary hours and days for different ends (so there’s a Moon/Saturn call to be done in an hour of the Moon on the day of Saturn, a Saturn/Moon call to be done in an hour of Saturn on the day of the Moon, etc.).  As part of his goal to get this magic out in the world and practiced by the masses, Mr. Miller started up a project called The Crying of Calls 49, where people participate by calling out one of the calls each for 49 consecutive days in the proper hour for a given week.  So, the first week is for the Moon calls, the second week for the Mercury calls, and so forth.  I’m posting my results in the Facebook group for the project, but I also thought I’d share my results and experiences with you all as well.    I won’t share what the Calls are or what they’re for, since you should go buy the ebook and find out for yourself, but the astute among you will figure it out.

This past week, Monday 7/8 through Sunday 7/14, we did the calls to the Moon.  Below are my experiences and thoughts:

7/8: Moon/Moon (No original write-up for this one)

Did the Luna/Luna call in the first hour of the Moon at dawn, as part of my morning prayers, but before any other occult or prepwork.  Lit a candle and two sticks of jasmine incense, called on the presence and power of the Moon, then visualized the symbol of the Moon (dark indigo on purple).  I drew out the sigil of the Moon silver on purple, then called out A nine times and the Call nine times.  Afterwards, I inhaled the Lunar sigil and closed out.

Very smooth, relaxed feeling.  Soothing, calming, but also very clear, as if clouds had opened up.  Little else, though; this wasn’t a spectacularly powerful call, but perhaps it was due to the lack of preparation and alignment with the planets beforehand.  Will try to Call the Sevenths and some other prepwork in the future.  Still, that bit of clarity…it’s like opening up in a weird, back-and-top-of-the-head spiritual way, like I’m just a lil’ more aware, a lil’ more out there than just all here.

7/9: Moon/Mars (Combined with a chat with the lovely Rachel Izabella)

Just did the Luna/Mars call, in the second hour of the Moon. Opened up with my version of Calling the Sevenths, lit a candle and some jasmine and pine incense, and prayed the Orphic Hymn of the Moon. I then called for her aid, visualizing her glyph purple on a red background, and visualized drawing the sigil of the Moon, silver on red. I intoned O-A nine times, then cried out the Luna/Mars call nine times as well; afterwards, I inhaled the Lunar sigil and closed out.

Dang, this is like being really pumped up, like a near-dire pep rally before a big battle. I haven’t felt this kind of emotional boiling in a while, much less with this kind of weird clarity and sharpness that doesn’t often accompany it. (If only I had this call back in my Linkin Park days…)  Basically, it’s a rush of emotion but with this weird pointed clarity. I’ve felt similar rushes before, often in no good times (think Rubeus), but this is different. Much different. Like it’s a distinct blending of Mars and Luna, like in a cake that’s been badly blended: it’s overall good, but you can taste the individual ingredients.  The blend of emotion I feel now gave me a kind of rushed, pointed epiphany: self-identification with emotion, and by extension anything, is pretty much BS. Parable of the mirror and that kind of shit.  Distinctly fiery, yet still distinctly emotional.

7/10: Moon/Mercury

Spoke the Luna/Mercury call out loud without any prepwork in the second lunar hour of the day today. Got a light, smooth feeling, but not much else. I redid the call in the third lunar hour, preceding it with a short Calling of the Sevenths, lighting a candle, lighting jasmine and cinnamon incense, praying the Orphic Hymn to the Moon, and visualizing the Moon’s glyph (in purple) and sigil (in silver) on orange. Called out E-A nine times, then did the call nine times. I thanked the powers, “inhaled” the sigil, and closed the ritual.

It’s definitely a smooth and cool influence, much different than the Luna/Mars combination yesterday, and it “blends” a lot better, too. It’s a very lofty, swift feeling, mostly in my head and neck area, but it’s pretty mental, too. Calming without slackness, observant but not detached; I feel like I could easily get into someone’s head and compassionately/intuitively understand and work with them.

7/11: Moon/Jupiter

Performed the Luna/Jove call in the second lunar hour today, with the same setup as last night (short Sevenths-Calling ritual, candle, jasmine and cedar incense burning, Orphic Hymn to the Moon). Pictured the glyph of the Moon in purple on blue, and the sigil of the Moon in silver on blue. The silver didn’t seem to “stick” this time; it seemed tarnished and darkened against the blue, which was interesting. Called out Υ-A nine times, then the Call nine times.

This is definitely a peaceful feeling, strongly and deeply calming. Despite being an eternal caffeine junkie, this almost feels like I’m in an isolation tank; my mind is very calm and steady, but there’s something deeper further down as well that’s not often felt. Despite the “silver” of the sigil being darkened, I’m wondering if that reflects the deeper, darker reaches of this Call, since it still felt appropriate to the night and settings. The forces of the planets don’t seem to “blend” tonight as much as they resonate together; it’s whole and unified, ambient yet pervasive. Still maintains that “clear” feeling I’ve had with the rest of the Lunar calls thus far, too.

7/12: Moon/Venus

Did the Luna/Venus call in the third lunar hour today. Same setup as before: short Sevenths-calling, candle, rose/jasmine incense, Orphic Hymn to the Moon, Moon’s glyph purple on green, Moon’s sigil silver on green, called out H-A nine times, followed by the Call nine times. I also managed to read out the call three times under my breath on the train this morning in the first hour with no prep otherwise.

Very subtle effect this time; it may be due to a headache or fatigue I had at the time of the ritual, but it’s very toned-down in nature. Still, what I do feel is highly pleasant, like a massage running up and down my spine. I got a slight tingle this morning when I read it barely out loud on the train, and noticed that work went smoother and more relaxed than normal; now that I’ve done the ritual proper, I just feel pleasant and cuddly. (This may be to my own astrological influences of Venus and Luna, which are both in Virgo in my chart in house 5, but this is just conjecture on my part.) Still, it does make me wish my boyfriend were here at the moment, but not in any wistful or sad way; it’s like a happy longing, if it can be said that way.

Over the night, I had a fairly in-depth and detailed dream, which was pretty sexual in nature. It was like one long tease for both me and the Other, who was somehow alluring but was “composed” or based off of people I’d find otherwise, well, unfuckable. Hot tubs were also involved, which was awesome.

7/13: Moon/Saturn

Did the Luna/Saturn call tonight in the second lunar hour of the day. Cleansed myself beforehand with holy water, did a full Sevenths-calling ritual, lit a candle and myrrh/jasmine incense, called on the Moon picturing her glyph purple on black, called out the Orphic Hymn to the Moon, then visualized the sigil of the Moon silver on black intoning Ω-A nine times, followed by the Call nine times. Since this is the first one whose target is not me, I dedicated this beforehand to any who would stand in my way or would stand to strike me down.

This is interesting. Once the sigil was drawn (the silver of it took on an ephemeral, misty, cloudy quality this time, though bright all the same), the “mood” changed and gained that familiar, heavy, somber Saturnine feeling to it, but not oppressively so as it has in past purely-Saturn rituals. The Moon gave it that continuing clarity, like a single silver light in the darkness kept only to myself. I felt oddly satisfied, though grimly so, as if I just had to take care of unpleasant business. I’d call this feeling mischievousness if it weren’t for the heaviness of it. It feels like I’m a little extra alert, like I have nightvision or something, and while my own sphere feels calm and guarded, outside it feels like satisfying chaos.  I’d liken this feeling to Santigold’s music video for L.E.S. Artistes.

7/14: Moon/Sun

Did the Luna/Sol call in the first hour today, after my prayers, meditation, weekly banishing, and Sevenths-calling rite. Opened up as normal, lighting a candle with jasmine and frankincense incense, visualized the Moon’s glyph purple on yellow, called upon her and sang the Orphic Hymn to her, then intoned Ι-A nine times followed by the Call nine times, visualizing the Moon’s sigil silver on yellow. Afterward, I inhaled the sigil, as usual. (Hey, at least the ritual setup is easy enough to follow.)

The smell of frankincense and jasmine didn’t really work too great at first, and there was some similar confusion in the feel of the ritual as the sigil was being drawn; once I-A was intoned, things seemed to “align” like at a new or full moon, and it was just a feeling of pure Lux, neither moonlight nor sunlight, neither nighttime nor daytime. I felt this “cycle” reaching down from the heavens down through me, and likewise back up from the earth through me to the heavens, like I was plugged into something much greater. This is definitely a solar effect, and there’s less of the clarity I’ve experienced with the other Luna/* calls (maybe the force of the Sun on his day overpowers that of the Moon in her hour?).

Still, it felt like there was much greater access to the higher realms, and put a good finish on this week of lunar calls that opened up with a call for celestial clarity and astral action (oh god, now I’m alliterating too). Here’s looking forward to the next 42 days and Calls!

I’ve gotten the crafting bug again, which is both a good and bad thing.  It’s good because, honestly, making pretty shit to be used in the Art and Work is kinda awesome, not to mention it gives me a physical reminder of how far I’ve come and what it is I’m trying to do.  That said, it’s also nerve-wracking, because some of these supplies are rare or expensive, and I sometimes only get one chance to get them done right.  I have such a project coming up soon: an ebony wand based on the wand from Trithemius’ Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals.  A good and exceptionally generous friend of mine gave me an ebony dowel perfectly cut to the length of my forearm (elbow to middle finger), which I plan on engraving with the requisite names and symbols from Trithemius plus those of the wand from the Key of Solomon (book II, chapter 8).  Overall, the design will look like this:

Engrave that into a very expensive and rare gaboon ebony dowel with a friend’s flexishaft, inlay the engravings with gesso and 24k gold leaf, mixing the sizing oil with holy oil set atop the tomb of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, and capping the ends with bronze and, who knows, maybe setting a quartz point on one end.  Simple project, right?  (I already want it to be over.)

I’m breaking from the Trithemius instructions in that I’m adding the symbols from the Key of Solomon to the wand and using Hebrew instead of Latin script for the names of God, but I’m also making another change.  The Trithemius wand is to have “AGLA + ON + TETRAGRAMMATON” on one side, and “EGO ALPHA ET OMEGA” on the other.  Instead, I’m using the magical word “AZOTH” in place of that last phrase, because…well, I hate that phrase.  I find it tacky to use Latin with Greek like this, and I think there are better ways to say the same thing.  Besides, I don’t think this phrase is essential to the wand, either; my first wand (which I currently still use) omits it entirely, and I’ve used the word “AZOTH” on similar projects before.  AZOTH is a funny word, because it’s the only time I’ll ever willingly mix up scripts like this: Phoenician, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew:

What does it all mean, dear reader?  Let me explain the letters themselves:

1. ‘Alp, the first letter of the Phoenician script, which was used by traders across the Mediterranean and which was adopted by various tribes and cultures all over the Mediterranean world.  Over time, these adopted scripts were customized and developed in their own ways and became a variety of other scripts, including (but by no means limited to) the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew scripts; this letter became the Latin letter ay, Greek alpha, and Hebrew aleph.  Phonetically represents the glottal stop, but eventually became a placeholder for a vowel or a vowel in its own right for various front-mid and mid-low vowels.  Has its origins in the Proto-Canaanite script derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs for ox.  Numerological symbolism of one and Unity, and stoicheic associations with Air and the Moon.
2. Zee (or Zed, if you’re from the Commonwealth), the final letter of the Latin script.  Has its origins in the Phoenician letter zayin, meaning weapon, by way of Greek zeta.  Was not originally a Latin letter, but was included in the Latin script to write Greek words when a “s” wouldn’t cut it; because of its late appearance and limited use, zee was appended to the end of the Latin alphabet and seen as a generally worthless letter.  Generally represents the voiced sibilant; due to the Latin method of using Roman numerals, zee has no native numerological significance, though modern occultists have attributed it large or final numbers.  In addition to referring to the least or most worthless, zee also indicates finality or totality right down to the most minute or oft-overlooked detail.  Stoicheically associated with Taurus, via Greek, but Cornelius Agrippa assigns zee to Fire; however, since stoicheia was not traditionally done for the Latin script, such correspondences are on shaky ground, though Taurus indicating Earth is the stronger of the two.
3. Omega, the final letter of the Greek script.  Unique among these letters, omega has no direct relationship with any of the Phoenician letters, having derived from an alternate form of omicron, itself derived from `ayin, meaning “eye”; although the ancient Greek name for this letter was merely ō, it was renamed in Byzantine times to omega meaning “big o” (as opposed to omicron, “little o”).  Traditionally it had the phonetic value of the long open-mid back vowel, but is now pronounced like any other o in Greek.  Numerologically it signifies 800, but also “the last” or “the ultimate”; there was originally sampi used for a value of 900, but this ceased being used as an actual letter for writing Greek early on.  Stoicheically associated with Saturn, and thus any sort of final, ultimate boundary.
   
4. Tav, the final letter of the Hebrew script.  A development of the older Phoenician letter with the same name with the form of a cross, meaning a mark, wound, engraving, or cross, it originally had a phonetic value of the voiceless dental stop, what we would call “t”; some dialects of Hebrew use “s”, and in some foreign words it can take on a theta-like sound.  Numerologically, it signifies 400 (the most of any non-specifically-final-form letter), but again with the sense of finality and being rounded-out.  Associated with Saturn in Qabbalah, especially given its associations with the Tarot trump “The World”; these give it similar associations to omega above.

Overall, the word “AZOTH” indicates a totality, a wholeness consisting of a single, unified, unitary, primordial Source of all things, which through transformation and evolution becomes all begotten, made, transitory, and created Manifestations.  In other words, it’s more than just saying “I am the First and the Last”; it’s saying “I am the One and the All”, and “I am the Source and the Creation”.  It represents all of manifested reality that we see Down Here, down from every minor and minuscule speck of dust (zee) to the greatest and most distant of celestial objects (omega) and everything in between crossing the cosmos and universe (tav).  It similarly represents that no matter how different things may seem or appear, everything comes from the self-same One Thing (‘alp), Kether, the Ain Soph Aur, Divinity.

Using a bit of questionable gematria, AZOTH can be given the value 1201: 1 from ‘alp, 800 from omega, 400 from tav, and 0 from zee (since numerology wasn’t traditionally done for Latin letters, and since zee was always seen as worthless or nothing anyway).  This number, although not related to any Greek or Hebrew word I can find with the same value, can also be read as 100 × 12 + 1.  100 = 10², the perfect number multiplied against itself, indicating a multiplicity of perfection and harmony in all directions across the cosmos.  12 is the number of signs in the Zodiac, indicating the primary step in an idea first separating from Kether to the rest of the Tree by means of the sphere of the fixed stars, where the Idea becomes ideated, the Thought is thought.  Thus, 1200 can indicate perfection in every thought, abundance of holiness in every idea, and also that the entire cosmos is reflected in toto in all other parts of the cosmos.  That extra one that makes the number 1201 indicates the Divine Unity that began all this, at once immanent yet transcendent, part of the number yet sticking out.  Using the Zodiac image from before, we have 1200 around the sky forming a complete circle, and a single One in the middle around which all the 1200 revolve and derive their power from.  In other words, All comes from the Source, yet the Source is present in All, just as all light in the solar system comes from the Sun (circle with a point in the middle), or all Light from the Son (God with the earth below, heavens above, and hung on the Cross between them: Alpha, Zee, Omega, Tav).

This word also has very important alchemical meanings, too: similar to the Philosopher’s Stone, azoth is said to be the end goal and purpose of alchemy and the Great Work, a Universal Solvent, an Elixir of Life, the Panacea, and so forth.  Basically, it is pure Mercury, the pure spiritual essence of life and creation, present both within and without all things, the First Substance, transcendent yet immanent in all of the cosmos, universe, and world.  And, fittingly enough, it often takes the caduceus as its symbol.  I’ve even given the word AZOTH its own fitting talismanic design using a hexagram, the Star of Azoth, to be used to represent all the essences both before being split and after being rejoined, pure quintessence and all essences combined.  (Please excuse the use of the Hebrew aleph there, dear reader, for I lack a readily available Phoenician font.)

I mentioned recently that I got Jason Miller’s excellent “”Advanced Planetary Magic”, which, again, you should totally get, since it’s worth far more than the cost.  It’s a collection of 49 short prayers or invocations to be used during different combinations of the planetary hours and days for different ends (so there’s a Moon/Saturn call to be done in an hour of the Moon on the day of Saturn, a Saturn/Moon call to be done in an hour of Saturn on the day of the Moon, etc.).  As part of his goal to get this magic out in the world and practiced by the masses, Mr. Miller started up a project called The Crying of Calls 49, where people participate by calling out one of the calls each for 49 consecutive days in the proper hour for a given week.  So, the first week is for the Moon calls, the second week for the Mercury calls, and so forth.  I’m posting my results in the Facebook group for the project, but I also thought I’d share my results and experiences with you all as well.    I won’t share what the Calls are or what they’re for, since you should go buy the ebook and find out for yourself, but the astute among you will figure it out.

This past week, Monday 7/15 through Sunday 7/21, we did the calls to Mercury.  Below are my experiences and thoughts:

7/15: Mercury/Moon

Didn’t have much time for prep due to being jolted out of trace-practice-turned-nap. Happily, I already had the candle and incense set out and I have the Orphic Hymn to Mercury memorized, so I hopped right on that: lit the candle, lit cinnamon and jasmine incense, invited the powers and presence of Mercury down with the Hymn while visualizing Mercury’s glyph orange on purple, intoned A-E eight times while drawing out Mercury’s sigil a kind of shifting bronze-pewter on purple, then called out the Call eight times. Inhaled the sigil, thanked Mercury, and closed out.

I’m sure I’d've gotten more out of this if I had the time for prep, but being sufficiently out of it works just as well, too. This is a very smooth feeling, like being reassured at a doctor’s office, or a light being shone into a dark hallway to dispel worries; still, reassuring though it is, it’s still making me feel vulnerable, even if just to myself. It’s a comforting light-in-darkness feel, and I’m thinking that the Orphic Hymn to Terrestrial Hermes might have been a better fit. Even though this is a secondarily lunar call, that clarity that last weeks’ calls had is replaced by something a little more active, a little more “buzzy”, a little more circulatory.  Like, not gonna lie, I’m not a terrible fan of this Call.  It feels almost confessorial or apologetic; “wallowing” is too despondent or helpless a word, but it’s close.  That Mercurial buzz helps in linking things together without things getting overwhelming, but it’s still more emotional than logical.

7/16: Mercury/Mars

Did the Mercury/Mars call in the second hour of Mercury today. Opened up with a short Sevenths-calling, lit a candle with some pine and cinnamon incense, then called upon Mercury’s presence with the Orphic hymn, visualizing his glyph orange on red. I called out O-E eight times, drawing out Mercury’s sigil bronze-pewter on red, then made the Call eight times. Closed out as normal, inhaling the sigil.

Unlike last night’s call, this really only keeps that familiar Mercurial “buzzing” (which I expect to be this week’s leitmotif. The incense was sharp, and the sigil visualization seemed sharp as well, as if it was barbed or bladed on its “edges”. I certainly feel a sort of power focused in the head and mind, and my vision’s somewhat…alert, or my head’s somewhat burning (in a non-threatening, entirely subjective way). Alert, wary, decisive, vigilant might all be good words to describe this feeling; combined with this vague sense of plucking strings, as in a web or on puppets, this could definitely be a strategist’s call.

7/17: Mercury/Mercury

Did the Mercury/Mercury call a bit different from the normal setup. I have an altar dedicated to Hermes, with the Qamea of Mercury and a statue of Hermes on it, so I focused my practice there after a full Sevenths-calling ritual. I lit two sticks of incense and a candle and called on Hermes, singing out both Orphic Hymns for him as well as a prayer I wrote him myself. I gave him thanks for being my patron and guide, then called on him to aid me in the ritual at hand for the Planetary Calls; I intoned E eight times, visualizing the sigil of Mercury in bronze on orange, then made the Call eight times. I inhaled the sigil, thanked the god, and closed out.

Man, I miss this kind of buzz; mercurial energy’s one of my favorites. The sigil appeared much more fluid but no less present in my mind, and seemed to flow much more easily when I inhaled it. The buzz off this is like being plugged in to a power outlet, or being connected into a huge network through a dozen or more plugs around the body Matrix-style. My mind isn’t necessarily racing, but it is definitely…bigger, like I have eyes and ears in distant places, monitors or sensors if you will. Circulation-like flows of energy, too, but in the sense of circuits and less water currents.

7/18: Mercury/Jupiter

Made the Mercury/Jupiter call under my breath earlier today in my cubicle in the first hour of Mercury: quietly intoned Y-E eight times while picturing the sigil of Mercury brass on blue, then made the call eight times. Got a good buzz off it for the rest of the day, and I noticed that my requests and emails got through a lot faster than they normally do in the office.

Redid the call once I got home in the second hour of Mercury. Cleansed and performed a full Sevenths-calling ritual, lit a candle with some cinnamon and cedar incense, then called upon Hermes-Mercury with the Orphic Hymns while picturing his glyph orange on blue. I intoned Y-E eight times while visualizing the Mercury sigil brass-on-blue, then made the Call eight times. I inhaled the sigil, thanked Hermes, and ended the ritual.

This is a nice buzz: pleasantly airy and cool around me, like being on a tower (a typical image of Jupiter for me), yet active and energetic at the same time. The sigil of Mercury seemed more like tin- or silver-brass, adorned or embellished like filigree (richness of Jupiter, detail of Mercury?). I feel not unlike a high-class courier or mailman, able to deliver my own messages as well, and that feeling of connectedness from last night’s Mercury/Mercury call feels much more stable instead of buzzing around short-circuiting itself.

7/19: Mercury/Venus

Made the Mercury/Venus call in the first hour of Mercury in the early morning.  I prepared using my normal morning ritual routine including a full Sevenths-calling, lit a candle with cinnamon and rose incense, and called on Mercury using the Orphic Hymn to Hermes (just the celestial one, not the terrestrial one), visualizing his glyph orange on green.  I intoned H-E eight times, visualizing Mercury’s sigil pewter-on-green, then made the call eight times.  I inhaled the sigil, thanked Hermes, and ended the ritual.

Oddly, this time the sigil didn’t inhale properly; I inhaled it at first, but then it kinda “reformed” around me into a kind of frame covering me, which I suppose is fitting for a glamour invocation.  It’s a very peaceful, relaxed feeling, with the buzz of Mercury significantly toned down; it seems like Venus’ influence is stronger here, but they mix together so well it may be hard to tell them apart.  It’s a very slick, easy-going, smooth influence, and feels like I’m wearing a high-quality suit or something (even though I was still in my pajamas this morning).  The day went by, too, and everyone’s mood, sour as they were when the day started, went up steadily around me.

7/20: Mercury/Saturn

Due to an extremely busy day, I only had a brief moment in my car during a trip to IHOP in the early morning hour of Mercury on Saturday for the Mercury/Saturn call. Intoned Ω-E eight times while visualizing the sigil of Mercury pewter on black, then made the call eight times. Felt a similar kind of righteous payback as I did with the Luna/Saturn call, but it was more like a geek’s revenge being played out from behind a computer desk (Mercury’s influence). Breathed in the sigil, but then sent it outwards directed to a general “all who would oppose, block, hinder, or harm me”.

7/21: Mercury/Sun

Same pattern as always: opened up with a quick Sevenths-calling ritual, candle, cinnamon and frankincense incense, Orphic Hymn to Hermes, Mercury glyph orange on yellow, intoned I-E eight times, Mercury sigil bright burnished brass on yellow, made the call eight times, inhaled the sigil, and made thanks to the god.

This is a very still, subtle, almost unnoticeable effect; things just seem very still and quiet.  I recognize this as being one of the hallmarks of the Sun in my work: a perfect, still, immutable clarity in the things around me.  Yet, that little buzz gives everything both a solar brightness and a mercurial edge, all directed inwards, like light shining into a dark server room at the same time the servers are all booting up.  It’s weird, but I feel this strong light shining from deep within me, between the solar plexus and heart chakra, shooting upwards instead of downwards into me from above (as is normal when I work with the Sun).  I like this, but it’s hard to describe in too many words.  Perhaps the wordiness of Mercury is still kept inwards, but from somewhere less accessible than it’d normally be.

It nearly slipped my mind, but chatting with Pallas Renatus recently reminded me that Crucible Convention is coming up soon!  Held on October 26 this year in Somerset, NJ, it’s a convention for mystics, mages, magicians, and occultists of all kinds, traditions, and breeds.  I highly suggest going, especially since they have a new venue this year.  Tickets are $35 for the event and $5 extra for the catered dinner, and as of this writing hotel rooms range from $120 to $300 per night and depending on how fancy you want to get (the suites have bidets!).

Last year was fun, and I’m looking forward to another awesome year this time around.  If you’re interested in going and staying the night (which I highly recommend you do, since events can sometimes last well into the night), let me know and I’ll see if anyone I know going can share a room or arrange one with you.

Also, in case this isn’t quite your magical schtick or you’re on the West Coast, you might be interested in going to Stone and Stang, held earlier in October this year in Simi Valley, CA.  It’s aimed at non-heterosexual men’s spirituality, and I’d probably go if I had the travel budget for it, but perhaps next year.

I know a lot about geomancy.  Not a lot of people do, though that’s very slowly changing.  Just as an experiment in reader involvement with my blog, let’s try something new: ask me questions on geomancy, right down in the comments!  I’ll reply as best I can, given the comment space, but let’s see what questions you all may have.

Just a few things before we begin:

• If you’re curious about the symbols of geomancy, you might do well to look up my posts from the De Geomanteia series I did a while back.  Try reading those and see if those answer your question.
• This is not a place to ask me for readings; if you want one of those, you can always hire me as a reader through my Services page.
• This is specifically for divinatory geomancy as practiced in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.  This is not for the I Ching, feng shui, or Final Fantasy-esque earth-shaking magickqsz.  I’m barely familiar with ifa, so try to steer questions away from that.
• Please don’t ask for full chart interpretations here. General questions about technique and symbolism are awesome, but giving me a full chart and asking me to interpret it for a particular question isn’t.

And with that, have at!  I’ll stop replying to questions one week from today, so get your questions in soon and I’ll answer them as they come in.

I mentioned recently that I got Jason Miller’s excellent “Advanced Planetary Magic”, which, again, you should totally get, since it’s worth far more than the cost.  It’s a collection of 49 short prayers or invocations to be used during different combinations of the planetary hours and days for different ends (so there’s a Moon/Saturn call to be done in an hour of the Moon on the day of Saturn, a Saturn/Moon call to be done in an hour of Saturn on the day of the Moon, etc.).  As part of his goal to get this magic out in the world and practiced by the masses, Mr. Miller started up a project called The Crying of Calls 49, where people participate by calling out one of the calls each for 49 consecutive days in the proper hour for a given week.  So, the first week is for the Moon calls, the second week for the Mercury calls, and so forth.  I’m posting my results in the Facebook group for the project, but I also thought I’d share my results and experiences with you all as well.    I won’t share what the Calls are or what they’re for, since you should go buy the ebook and find out for yourself, but the astute among you will figure it out.

This past week, Monday 7/22 through Sunday 7/28, we did the calls to Venus (whose official adjective is “venereal”, but I prefer “cytherean” instead, because…well, ew).  Below are my experiences and thoughts:

7/22: Venus/Moon 

Performed the call in my cubicle in the first hour of Venus.  Visualized the sigil of Venus copper on purple, intoning A-H seven times, then made the Call eight times quietly, then inhaled the sigil.  I feel fucking awesome, actually; this really feels sensual, way mroe than the Moon/Venus call, like I’m stripping after a night of partying with the smell of someone else’s cologne on me.  The sigil appeared more organic than it usually does, and the purple light around it almost looked velvety; it inhaled down like smooth, heady wine.  I almost feel indecently good in the office.

7/23: Venus/Mars

Did the Venus/Mars call in the very last hour possible, the hour right before dawn on Wednesday. Performed it after my normal morning prayers and a full Sevenths-calling ritual; lit a candle with some rose and pine incense, called on Aphrodite with the Orphic Hymn while visualizing her glyph green on red, then intoned O-H seven times while visualizing her sigil copper on red. Made the Call seven times, then inhaled the sigil and closed out.

This wasn’t too bad a call, but it also felt a little subdued, considering the phrasing and intent of it. It certainly felt direct and potent, but it was almost restrained and polite; perhaps that’s the point, by using congenial charm to conquer. The sigil was equally subtle; the copper blended right in with the red light of Mars, and when I inhaled it it seemed to “attach” to me like a light exoskeleton-based weapon. Maybe it’s due to my already being aligned well with these forces, but it felt comfortable yet empowering all the same. (I wonder what that says about me.)

7/24: Venus/Mercury

Made the Venus/Mercury call in the second hour of Venus, right before the third hour of Mercury at night. Standard operating procedure: short Sevenths-calling, candle, rose and cinnamon incense, called on Aphrodite with the Orphic Hymn while picturing her glyph green on orange, intoned E-H seven times while visualizing her sigil copper on orange, made the Call seven times, inhaled the sigil, and closed out.

I think “calming” is a good word to use for this, but it misses something. “Composing” might be better; it feels similar to the Luna/Mercury call from before. The Venus vibes are very smooth and sensual, and when focused through the buzz of Mercury gives it a very solid, almost structurally nice feel, as if the mental and conducive channels of Mercury are being used by the life force and fluid of Venus to strengthen and make it more “organic”. I’d think this would be certainly good before any counseling or empathic work for this. The sigil seemed fluid yet fiery tonight; easy to inhale, almost like breathing in tentacles of light, and sweet in a way.

7/25: Venus/Jupiter

Performed the Venus/Jupiter call in the second hour of Venus today. Standard operating procedure: short Sevenths-calling, Orphic Hymn with candle and rose/cedar incense, intoned Y-H seven times while visualizing the sigil of Venus copper on blue, made the Call seven times, inhaled the sigil, and closed out (and made a number of other offerings to household, familiar, and divine spirits afterward).

This was a very pleasant, smooth, luxurious feeling; after all, the two benefics combined lead to an awesome time. The overall feeling was cool and smooth, that smoothness coming from Venus and the coolness from airy Jupiter. The sigil had an embossed filigree-like look to it, wrapping around me gently instead of properly inhaling; I swear I heard soft music and a sort of gilded floral pattern in that blue background of the sigil while making the call. Very artsy, very focused on fine beauty and good taste. And yet, things seem a little more reassured, a little more “solid” around me; that’s probably the Jovial influence. Good before a museum outing or some classy show, I suppose.

7/26: Venus/Venus

Made a full adoration of Venus today at dawn after my morning ritual procedure, including meditation and Sevenths-calling. Lit rose incense and a candle, then went full out from there: read the Orphic Hymn seven times, intoned H 49 times, called upon the presence and blessing of Aphrodite and all her spirits (using the short incantation from the Picatrix), then made the Call seven times while picturing her sigil copper on emerald. Inhaled, thanked her, and closed out.

Instead of just picturing the Venus glyph, the whole goddess appeared to me today, emerald beads in her hair like seaweed braids and ocean blue eyes and all. I may be fairly Mercurial in nature, but Venus is the strongest planet and effectively my celestial “Mother”; this felt like a really deep recharge of divine essence for me. Totally washed over, like getting out of a calm ocean, and I feel smoothed out and cooled off, with a very deep sense of feels, like bleeding-heart compassion and love. While she was there, I asked Aphrodite to bless my relationship and my works of art/Art, and she gladly gave it, though suggested I work with her more even though she’s already always around me. This ritual is definitely among the strongest for me so far. Inhaling the sigil at the end was like icing on the cake; it completely merged with me with nearly no effort, and almost burned in my mind it was so bright and vivid. Beautiful in every way.

7/27: Venus/Saturn

Did the Venus/Saturn call today, in the second hour of Venus with the standard operating procedure with rose and myrrh incense.

The keyword for tonight is “toxic”. Seeing the glyph of Venus green on black reminded me instantly of radioactivity or poison signs, and during the Orphic Hymn there was some kind of repeated screeching outside sounding like a horror movie violin track (that lasted only for as long as the Hymn did, interestingly enough). The sigil of Venus copper on black seemed corrosive, too, turning a sickly patina’d green at the edges. The feeling from this was almost scathing, like a woman’s cold, cold stare bearing right into my heart, and it’d be easily frightening if I weren’t the one doing the Call. I had no specific enemies in mind, so I directed it to all who would stand before me, turning all their loved ones, friends, family, colleagues, coworkers, allies, associates, etc. against them. Again, there’s that grim satisfaction from that underlying Saturn current as it was from the Luna/Saturn and Mercury/Saturn calls, but the smoothness and coolness of Venus turned into an icy, slick feeling. Very interesting.

7/28: Venus/Sun

Did the Venus/Sun call tonight in the third hour of Venus. Standard operating procedure, with rose and frankincense incense.

I didn’t get anything as mind-breakingly beautiful as Jason got, but then, I’m tired from a hangover from a party the day before. Still, the call seemed different from the others, and sounded almost…I don’t want to say “broken”, but it didn’t have the same ring or flow to it that the others have had (at least so far). Still, it was pleasant, though the forces of Venus and the Sun don’t seem to mesh very well together; it’s like the heat and stillness of the Sun overpower or conflict with the smoothness and coolness of Venus. Inhaling the sigil (copper on gold) didn’t work tonight; instead, the sigil sorta “dropped”, and I stood upon it instead, and immediately saw the sigil of Venus replicated in every atom of every molecule infinitely around me; now that was cool. They do say that the Universe was founded on the principle of Love, after all. It’s reassuring and joyful in its own quietly awesome way.

I mentioned recently that I got Jason Miller’s excellent “Advanced Planetary Magic”, which, again, you should totally get, since it’s worth far more than the cost.  It’s a collection of 49 short prayers or invocations to be used during different combinations of the planetary hours and days for different ends (so there’s a Moon/Saturn call to be done in an hour of the Moon on the day of Saturn, a Saturn/Moon call to be done in an hour of Saturn on the day of the Moon, etc.).  As part of his goal to get this magic out in the world and practiced by the masses, Mr. Miller started up a project called The Crying of Calls 49, where people participate by calling out one of the calls each for 49 consecutive days in the proper hour for a given week.  So, the first week is for the Moon calls, the second week for the Mercury calls, and so forth.  I’m posting my results in the Facebook group for the project, but I also thought I’d share my results and experiences with you all as well.    I won’t share what the Calls are or what they’re for, since you should go buy the ebook and find out for yourself, but the astute among you will figure it out.

This past week, Monday 7/29 through Sunday 8/4, we did the calls to the Sun.  Below are my experiences and thoughts:

7/29: Sun/Moon 

Made the Sun/Moon call today in the second hour, just before sunset. Standard operating procedure with frankincense and jasmine incense.

I got a beautiful buzz from this one. Unlike the Moon/Sun call, the energies of this one really meshed well and didn’t need to “align” or anything. I’d term this kind of feeling a “soldier’s peace”: resolute and authoritative, but secure and nurturing all the same. There’s no whiff of doubt or confusion in the air, just a pleasant, quiet, deep smirking joy within me. The stillness of the Sun’s energies are much brighter this time, but made softer and with less of a burn than pure solar force due to the Moon’s influence. I can’t speak to the balancing effect of this Call, since I expect that to happen over the course of the next day, but it is very solidifying and centering. Perhaps, instead of the energies clicking into place around me as it was with Moon/Sun, it’s me who’ll be clicking into place with the energies.

7/30: Sun/Mars

Made the Sun/Mars call tonight in the third hour of the Sun, standard operating procedure with pine/frankincense incense.

What memories! I did an intense Sun/Mars working over the course of two weeks back at the start of 2012, and it was a constant energy rush for that entire time. Tonight was like that, but not as intense, but then, it wasn’t as intense a working. Still: forceful, strong, a sort of fuck-all Sonic the Hedgehog-like attitude to everything came over me, and even gave me a much-needed energy boost for getting a crafting project done that same night (though with one or two minor hideable mistakes due to being in a rush). The sigil didn’t inhale as much as it did melt over me; the solar gold sigil of the Sun melted in the flames of Mars, and “bonded” with me as I inhaled it to form a sort of empowering light armor of Light. Excellent stuff, and a good method to combine these forces. Mars and Sun is the only pair of forces I’ve ever worked with combined before, so this being so similar definitely works for me. The solar stillness from before has become definitely more resolved and adamantine, which is awesome to maintain such an awesome Fire.

7/31: Sun/Mercury

Made the Sun/Mercury call tonight in the second hour of the Sun, standard operating procedure with frankincense and cinnamon incense.

“Vajra”, the adamantine lightningbolt of enlightenment, is probably the best single word I have for this feeling. It’s not the bright, slow stillness of the Mercury/Sun call, but much brighter, much stronger, much more forceful externally. The stillness of the Sun is more of a calmness, an equanimity, with a huge buzz and undercurrent of strong Mercurial flow underneath it all, like a self-composed scholar or guru teaching the basics slowly to beginners but inwardly reviewing an infinite number of possible cosmoses. It’s cheerful, but not necessarily joyful; it’s fun, but not for the sake of enjoyment. I feel like my head’s been completely opened, like I’m able to think subtle things just on the outer boundaries of my mind that I wasn’t able to recognize before. I can really dig this prayer, and expect to be one of the ones I pull into frequent use.

8/1: Sun/Jupiter

Made the Sun/Jupiter call in the second hour of the Sun today, standard operating procedure.

This is a much more mild experience than what I was expecting, especially after the Sun/Mercury call yesterday and from my other experiences with the Sun and Jupiter separately. The coolness and richness of Jupiter was certainly present, as was the stillness of the Sun, forming an overall relaxed but posh feel, like a high-class lounge for CEOs and other magnates. Nothing particularly striking, though visualizing the sigil of the Sun today was…interesting. I wouldn’t say “crackling” or “buzzing”, since those are more Mercurial qualities, but “erupting” or “bursting” like lightning; the edges of the sigil seemed electrified and sparking, yet inhaled like satiny oil. A good feel, all the same, though nothing particularly striking.

8/2: Sun/Venus

Made the Sun/Venus call last night, standard operating procedure with rose/frankincense incense.

This was a good feeling, and much smoother than the semi-broken feeling I got from the Venus/Sun call this past Sunday. It was powerful yet relaxed, smooth and light, but it wasn’t focused on me. It was similar to one of the Saturnian curses in that it was a primarily externally-directed call, which makes sense given the purpose. It was like I was at peace, but that peace was reliant and tied up with in the people around and affecting me; a total confluence of agreement and harmony, truly a Cytherean thing. The sigil didn’t seem to inhale properly, much like the Venus/Sun call, but here it seemed to wrap around and link me to the rest of the world outside my sphere. With these kinds of energetic circuits linking me to others I rely on, this call is definitely good for this kind of work.

8/3: Sun/Saturn

Made the Sun/Saturn call tonight in the second hour of the sun, standard operating procedure with frankincense/rose incense.

This was very heavy, and I’m feeling like a cross between wanting to slumber (not just rest, but deeply slumber) and wanting to mourn, but not for the sake of my own self. The sigil seemed formal, the gleaming gold on solemn black, reminiscent of an old tribal funeral mask; when inhaling it, it seemed to turn to dust and “locked” me down to the things that…matter? That’s probably the word I’m looking for; the things that matter, though it’s unspecified what in my image. The feeling I get from this is a sort of hyperstillness between the crystal solar energy and the bleak saturnine energy; it’s not cheerful by any means, nor is it uplifting, but solidifying, sobering, focusing. The stillness seems to be a stillness of time, and my sense of it passing is kinda messed up afterward. This would be good for meditation, certainly, before any deep or serious work like a vigil or a fast.

8/4: Sun/Sun

Made the Sun/Sun call tonight in the third hour of the Sun, standard operating procedure, but saying the Orphic Hymn six times tonight in special honor of the pure Sun ritual.

WOW. This one packed a MAJOR punch of solar force into my sphere. Inhaling the sigil didn’t seem to work tonight; instead, I seemed to be inhaled and completely suffused and engulfed by the huge force of solar Light that the ritual produced, really linking me into the Sun instead of vice versa. While that same stillness and composure is present, it’s been greatly magnified into a kind of bright, new self-contained dynamism present in everything around me; this is a fascinatingly new way to see things, as if the Holy Name itself were revealed to me giving me a new understanding of the deep basis of everything. I feel…good. There’s really no other way to describe it. I feel good. Closing my eyes seems to give me more light to see with than opening them, when even looking at candleflames seems dark. I feel empowered, strengthened, and most importantly “pointed upward”, so to speak, in the right direction.

I mentioned recently that I got Jason Miller’s excellent “Advanced Planetary Magic”, which, again, you should totally get, since it’s worth far more than the cost.  It’s a collection of 49 short prayers or invocations to be used during different combinations of the planetary hours and days for different ends (so there’s a Moon/Saturn call to be done in an hour of the Moon on the day of Saturn, a Saturn/Moon call to be done in an hour of Saturn on the day of the Moon, etc.).  As part of his goal to get this magic out in the world and practiced by the masses, Mr. Miller started up a project called The Crying of Calls 49, where people participate by calling out one of the calls each for 49 consecutive days in the proper hour for a given week.  So, the first week is for the Moon calls, the second week for the Mercury calls, and so forth.  I’m posting my results in the Facebook group for the project, but I also thought I’d share my results and experiences with you all as well.    I won’t share what the Calls are or what they’re for, since you should go buy the ebook and find out for yourself, but the astute among you will figure it out.

This past week, Monday 8/5 through Sunday 8/11, we did the calls to Mars.  Below are my experiences and thoughts:

8/5: Mars/Moon 

Made the Mars/Luna call tonight in the third hour, standard operating procedure with pine and jasmine incense.

This was a subtle effect, and I’m unsure whether that’s due to the midnight hour and vague sleepiness I had or whether it’s the actual force. It was oddly sharpening, though not in any active or boisterous way. The image I got was running along a field with an earthquake, the land shifting and swaying under my feet; I was able to run forward safely, but the land on either side of me was either collapsing or falling under debris, crushing any others on the battlefield. The sigil inhaled easily enough, despite the mental iron of the visualization, possibly due to the lunar influence here; it seemed like the Martian energy is what really got inside me, with the Lunar energy wrapping around me as a shield or barrier. Unlike the Luna/Mars call, which triggered a massive wave of pointed and manageable emotion, this seems like the complete inverse: it’s very deep, very calm, yet still pointed. I’m feeling a bit hot, so the burn of Mars is certainly there.

8/6: Mars/Mars

Made the Mars/Mars call in the first hour of the day today, dawn on Tuesday, after my full morning rituals. Was already feeling pretty empowered, and anointed myself with High John the Conqueror oil, because why not. Standard operating procedure with two sticks of pine incense, but made the Orphic Hymn five times instead of just once.

Nothing particular special or spectacular, but this definitely delivers a good impulse of Martian force. I’m feeling sharp, like a fresh blade: honed, directed, ordered, quick, alive. There’s a general heat around me that I don’t otherwise normally feel, which is weird since I otherwise feel cool (giving off heat to the world). Images in my mind are like they’re set to high-contrast: everything seems white and black, no greys or in-between. That’s something of Mars I’ve noticed in the past: it cuts with the sword into two parts, no halves or gradients, no middle-ground. Unlike the Sun/Sun, Venus/Venus, or other pure Calls so far, this one seems fairly low-key. Then again, that could be due to its direct, get-shit-done intent. The sigil inhaled fairly easily, and the iron image of the sigil definitely seemed to glint and spark in the red light of Mars. I thought I could hear battle and fights while making the call, too. Now to see what office life is going to be like this week…

8/7: Mars/Mercury

Made the Mars/Mercury call tonight in the second hour, standard operating procedure with cinnamon and pine incense.

I like this one, though I’m probably not physically well enough to properly handle this force (bad back pain and dizziness today from a mild hangover). The sharpness and heat of Mars is an interesting, spicy balance to the buzz and quickness of Mercury; I feel like my mind is racing, even when there’s little to think about, and everything seems boring unless I’m actively doing something. It’s kinda like really hyper adderall in that it gives me a strong jolt to focus on something; multitasking and quick thinking on your feet would be greatly benefitted by this call. Still, it gives me an uncomfortable agitated feeling unless I’m actually working on something, and with my mind racing, it’s making time seem like it’s going slower (more time to act and react!).

8/8: Mars/Jupiter

Made the Mars/Jupiter call in the first hour of Mars, standard operating procedure with cedar and pine incense.

This one was subtle: the sharpness of Mars and the coolness of Jupiter seem to balance each other out, even though there was power aplenty in the Call. If anything, it seemed like the power of Jupiter is dominant here; there’s very, very little heat in this call, like standing next to a space heater outside in the dead of winter. Still, it provides a cooling edge to otherwise heated activity, which is a nice contrast. We’ll see how today goes, I suppose; I was hoping for more buzz with this one, since this is a call I can see myself using frequently in the future. I’ll try it again in the other hours of Mars today and see if I can’t get more of a charge out of it.

8/9: Mars/Venus

Made the Mars/Venus call tonight in the second hour of Mars, standard operating procedure with rose/pine incense. I prefaced the call itself with a supplication for it to work with my relationship with my lover, to give it a more specific edge.

Can’t say I got much out of this one, but then, I’m not in the best of health (severe back pain and fever mitigated by heavy doses of ibuprofen); this was similar to the Venus/Mars call, which also felt fairly subdued. I had to “force” things through an intellectual channel in order to process what was going on, but it still works all the same. The primary images that came to my mind were the interplay of the geomantic figures Puer (the Boy, Mars, Aries) and Puella (the Girl, Venus, Libra); definitely appropriate, considering the topic. This seemed to create a balance of extremes within me more than anything else: feminine emotion combined with male aggression, and vice versa. Visualizing the sigil seemed “hot” to the point of glowing a coppery-red, fitting for the combination of forces, and inhaled without a problem. The heat of Mars is there (not great considering my already-existing fever), but the sensuality of Venus is giving it a more pleasurable feeling than it’d otherwise have (hot wax play, anyone?).

8/10: Mars/Saturn

Made the Mars/Saturn call in the very last hour, the final hour of the day of Saturn and the third and last hour of Mars. Standard operating procedure with pine/myrrh incense, though I did a banishing afterward due to other rituals that followed that I didn’t want touched by the violent vibe from this call.

This one…packs a punch. The heat of Mars plus that smug darkness of Saturn lead to a pretty evil-feeling sensation, like I had just authorized a fatal strike on some colony of enemies. I mean, yeah, that is the point, but…well, it’s a good thing I only generalized this to anyone who would stand in my way. If I really wanted to off someone, this is probably the call I’d be using in addition to other heavy work (combining the two malefics, after all). It wasn’t exactly a heavy feeling, but the heat is what really propelled me; even so early in the morning, I was sweating from the call. The sigil, like the other curse-based calls, didn’t exactly imbue itself into my sphere; rather, the iron-on-black Mars sigil seemed to wrap itself around me, form into little quills, spikes, or missiles, and shot out from me outward to places unknown. I don’t expect good things to happen where they land.

8/11: Mars/Sun

Made the Mars/Sol call tonight after offerings to spirits in the second hour of Mars. Standard operating procedure with pine and frankincense incense, with extra thanks afterward for the god’s/planet’s help over these past seven days.

The best way I can describe this feeling is “crystalline fire”. The stillness of the Sun, the golden frozenness of spirit and time, is like an eternal, perfect Light from fire, while the heat, desiccation, and cauterization from Mars is like Fire from light. Combining the two is interesting, and is radically different from the energy rush from the Sol/Mars call, which was like a powerhouse of fiery force jacked into my sphere. This is much more focused, much more on-point, like a laser affecting a part deep within me than a torch burning from all out of me. I feel lighter, in a way, both in terms of weight and illumination; the heat of Mars seems “frozen” around and within me, like both a shield and a central jewel at the heart, and it…well, it kinda hurts, actually, like a strain or a cut. I know there’s a lot of attachments I hold, especially to habits (some of which I specifically named in the ritual buildup to the call), and they seem to give me a bad taste in my mind when I think about them now. Maybe this is the most direct of the calls I’ve done so far. I’ll judge how well it works by seeing how much easier it is to stop those habits I named, I suppose, and brush up on this call fairly often. The sigil visualization seemed to turn to fire first before inhaling, and didn’t quite inhale as much as it did set me on fire in this weird, slow-yet-instant way. Definitely an interesting feeling, and not what I expected.

In the past few posts where I’ve talked about the Crying of Calls 49, I mention a “standard operating procedure” in preparation for the Call.  For the calls, this involves visualizing the sigil of the planet I’m primarily calling on in a certain color combination, intoning the associated Greek vowel, and the like, but it also involves a simple offering ritual that I use for, basically, all my offerings.  This is something that has just grown out of my own offerings repeated over my practice, and I’ve found the framework to be pretty useful.  Below I have the general offering I make, with the associated prayer (written VERY generally and with a lot of blanks).

For this offering, you will need only a few things:

• an unscented candle (a white tealight, or an appropriately-colored candle)
• a stick of incense appropriate to the spirit
• a hymn or poem of praise to the spirit (the Orphic Hymns or Homeric Hymns work wonderfully for this for Hellenic spirits)
• a small cup of wine, drink, or liquid offerings suitable for the spirit

Other offerings are optional, such as flowers, coins, statuettes, trinkets, food, and the like, but are generally appreciated so long as they’re fitting and desired by the spirit.  Similarly, though I’ve only specified small amounts of offerings in the list above, you might also offer a number of candles, many sticks or grains of incense, a whole bottle of wine, or whatever; go all out, or use moderation if you wish.  Although you’ll only need a small clean flat area to make the offering, you can set it up to become a whole altar, decked out with images and symbols of the spirit, a fancy altar cloth, a dedicated censer or offering bowls, and the like.  Go all out if you want, or not if you can’t.

Once you’ve set everything up, light the candle and incense.  Knock on the surface a few times (three generally, or a specific number if one is associated with the spirit), then begin the prayer.  Referring to the spirit as NN.:

O great, strong, and blessed NN., I call upon you!  I, who am (your name), son/daughter/child of (mother’s name), who am (pen names, craft names, etc. you want known to the spirit), who am your supplicant and devotee, call upon you who are NN.!  You are (epithets, titles, or foreign names of the spirit), you are the god/goddess/patron/spirit of (roles, jobs, responsibilities, and patronages of the spirit).  I call upon you here at this place, now at this time, today on this day, that you may hear me, see me, and be with me! 

Come forth, blessed NN., for I have prepared for you these offerings of light, incense, wine, and praise (and whatever else you have prepared in the order to be presented) for you.  Blessed NN., I make to you these offerings freely and joyfully, and I ask that you accept them in the same as symbols of my thanks, love, honor, trust, joy, and respect for you.

Blessed NN., I burn for you this candle that it may burn for your honor, respect, enlightenment, empowerment, and exaltation.  Grant that as this candle burns and casts its light around me, so too cast your light upon me that I may always be guided, lead, and enlightened by your presence.  Grant that as this candle burns and casts its light upon this place through these airs, so too cast your light through me as your medium, conduit, focus, and lens upon the world, that the entire world may come to see you, honor you, glorify you, and praise you and your good works.

Blessed NN., I burn for you this incense, sweet-smelling, fragrant, and pleasing to you, that it may satisfy you, please you, and fortify you.  Grant that as this incense rises up in the air around me, so too fill up my life, sphere, and surroundings with the knowledge and blessing of your essence and divinity.  Grant that as this incense fills up all the spaces in this place, so too fill up my body, soul, spirit, and mind completely with your power and virtue that I may be ever more deeply initiated into your mysteries and presence.

Blessed NN., I give to you this wine, fresh, sweet, and strong, that it may sate you, please you, and cheer you.  Grant that as this wine is poured out for you, so too open me up that I may more freely accept your presence and power in my life.  Grant that as this wine is accepted by your countenance, so too let me be free to partake in your joys, your light, and your essence in this and all places, in this and all times.

Blessed NN., I sing to you an ancient song, dedicated to you once long ago, sung to you now again for your honor, glory, worship, and respect.  Grant that as these words ring out in the air around me, so too may I always carry your praise in my mouth, that all people who come in contact with my words may come to praise you, honor you, glorify you, and respect you and your works.  Grant that as my words are sanctified by your holy power, so too empower my own words and soul, that all I desire, will, intend, and speak may be brought to completion and perfection with your aid and presence in my life.

(At this point, say the hymn or poem to the spirit you’ve chosen.)

Blessed NN., come forth and partake of these offerings I give to you freely and joyfully, for they are yours!  I sacrifice this light, incense, wine, and praise (etc. as above) to you, for you to do as you will!  Be kind to me, blessed NN., that I may continue to praise you; give me your blessing, blessed NN., that I may continue to honor you; help me in my need, blessed NN., that I may continue to respect you!  Grant that in all my works with you, I may come to spread your honor and glory, that you and your great works may be known by all people, that all people may praise you and respect you.

(If desired, add more prayer in here to ask for specific needs or help., following the general format as above.)

Blessed NN., I thank you for your presence, for you have come as I have called and aided me as I have asked.  As you have come in peace, if you so will, so go too in power; stay if you will, go if you will, but know that you shall have a place of honor, respect, and praise here in this place from me, this (whatever title or descriptor you prefer for yourself).  Hail to you, blessed NN., hail to you!

To close, knock on the surface again the same number of times you did before.  Clean up the offerings no less than an hour later, preferably until as long as the candle burns (assuming it’s a tealight or something).

Of course, if it seems that the above prayer is pretty high-minded and general to the point of being fluff, that’s because it’s written to be pretty general, and I tweak it in a lot of ways depending on the exact spirit I’m working with.  For instance, the prayer is written assuming a divine or god-like spirit who has an extant ancient hymn associated with them.  Some spirits I don’t offer wine or liquid to, some I don’t necessarily give them my thanks or my trust, and some spirits I simply make an offering to without asking for anything in return.  That last one is a highly suggested variant, especially when working with spirits for the first time or when one is just getting used to calling on and getting used to their presence. 

As an example of customizing this ritual to something specific, I use this basic framework as part of my monthly Hermaia, a special ritual I do for Hermes on the fourth day of the lunar month.  I offer him four tealights (set over the topaz stones I consecrated during the September 2012 Mercury election), which I light and energetically link up with both the topaz stones and the statue of Hermes I have on my Hermes altar.  I also offer him four sticks of incense (frankincense, cinnamon, sandalwood, and floral musk), a glass of wine, and a glass of barley meal.  I pray both the Orphic Hymn to Hermes as well as the shorter Homeric Hymn to him, and I preface and close the ritual with my own prayer to Hermes.  I list a lot of his titles and jobs as a god, praise him for his involvement with much of my life in specific ways, and call for his help specifically in magic, divination, writing, sacrifice, knowledge, and a lot of other things.

So, when I use the above offering in conjunction with the Crying of Calls 49, the process is really similar.  I knock on the altar with the number qabbalistically associated with the planet, clap the same number of times intoning the associated Greek vowel, and chant “ΙΩ NN.” the same number of times.  I make them an offering of light, incense, and praise, using their associated Orphic Hymn, then call for their help with the ritual and to empower my sphere with their specific power and virtue “commingled, commixed, and completed” with the power of the secondary planet for that specific Call.  I then chant “ΙΩ NN.” again, then intone the vowel combination for the planets the same number of times as before, mentally drawing out the primary planet’s sigil in its appropriate metal against the color of the secondary planet (so, for instance, for the Moon/Saturn call, I’d visualize the sigil of the Moon in silver on black).  Then I’d make the Call that same number of times, mentally inhale the sigil and ambiance I created from the Call, and meditate briefly on the forces conjured in the process.  Then I’d thank the planet’s spirit and close out.

Of course, this is all just what I do, and I’ve read of many other people using the Calls on their own in different ways, and incorporating them in other various rituals, even for purposes not explicitly said in their annotations given by Jason Miller.  If you’re interested, try it out (both with the Calls and without as an independent offering), and see how the spirits react; if you do, lemme know what you think.

Whenever I engage in a conjuration of one of the bigger angels, or chat with a god during a special offering, I end up shooting the shit with them about any number of things: things I’d like to see happen or done in my life, various questions about practice and theory in terms of theurgy and thaumaturgy, and gods-know-what-else.  At the end of these little discussions, but before I wrap it up and dismiss or leave the spirit, I ask this:

Is there anything else at this point you would teach me or tell me?  Is there anything else you would have me learn, know, or do?

Such a simple question, but with such a vast effect.  A good third of the total information I’ve ever gotten from conjurations comes from asking this.  The spirits, after all, often know a lot more than we do and how we relate to them.  Getting their feedback in understanding our roles in the spheres they work in and how we stand in relation to them is invaluable advice, and if you’re not asking this when you engage with spirits you’ve built up a relationship with, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

I started asking this on my own to the angels when I was first getting really involved with the elemental angels “way back when” (all the way back in 2011, baby, all those two long years ago), mostly out of a desire to know what the fuck it was I was actually doing.  I still feel this way often enough, but back then, I was really feeling like I was just blundering and blustering about blindly in the darkness and then suddenly spirits happen.  So, naturally enough, one of the first questions I wanted to know was “why am I doing this?”, and I haven’t really been able to get a satisfactory answer, neither then nor anytime since then.  In other words, why am I practicing magic?  Why am I called for this, why am I doing this?  Ever since I started asking, nearly every spirit who has the purview and interest enough to answer has replied the same: “to do magic”, like it’s my primary and chosen vocation or something.

Well and good, but it’s not specific enough to my tastes and leaves much to be desired.  And yet, it’s problematic for me in another way.  If I’m chosen to do magic, what are the limits of magic?  If my frameworks and theories of magic indicate that its power is basically unlimited (in its own ways according to certain circumstances and conditions), then doesn’t that give me a huge power over the world, myself, and others?  Doesn’t that make me, well, special?  Being chosen by the spirits to do spiritual work certainly isn’t a common calling; with it still being a necessary calling and a needed role to fill, doesn’t that make me extra-needed by creation?  Doesn’t that make me, in some way, a kind of mini-savior?

Barring the natural difference in people due to talent and genius, I believe that one of the defining attributes of humanity is that we don’t necessarily have fixed roles among ourselves.  Every species has its own role to play in the larger scheme of things: predators control populations of other animals, fungi help dissolve and decompose to recycle materials into the biosphere, and the like.  Humans, according to a Hermetic view, help maintain the sephirah of Malkuth, the sphere of existence that meshes the material universe with the spiritual cosmos; humanity can be seen to be this sphere’s “choir of angels”, so to speak, maintaining and working with this sphere as our job as part of the larger creation of things.  However, this role can be endlessly complex, due to the complexity created from humanity’s interaction with both the universe and the cosmos, or what I call the human world.  Among ourselves, we have different roles to play, different jobs to discharge, and different strengths for which we are uniquely suited that only we can fill, a strong indication of one’s True Will or spiritual purpose, where we fit into the larger machine of creation.

Still, seeing what we’re good at, what we ought to discharge in this sphere, and ultimately who we are can be a dangerous thing, and leads to something I often term “special snowflake syndrome”.  According to Urban Dictionary,

A malady affecting a significant portion of the world’s population wherein the afflicted will demand special treatment, conduct themselves with a ludicrous, unfounded sense of entitlement, and generally make the lives of everyone around them that much more miserable.

The danger of this disease is that the sufferers rarely, if ever, know that they have contracted it, and continue about their merry way under the assumption that EVERYONE ELSE is the problem.

(If you ever look at the social justice or otherkin tumblrs, you’ll know what I mean.  If you haven’t read them, never do this.)

Why do people develop this?  It’s because they begin to see who they are, which is a good thing, but get an unfounded sense of vainglory, pride, and self-importance at who they are, which is a bad thing.  They think that because they’re the only ones who can be them and do the things they do, this makes them special or otherwise rare in the world, and end up developing a persecuted savior mindset because why can’t you treat them like the unique holy thing that they are, bawwwwwwwww.  They don’t need to consult others or get external input on what they’re doing or supposed to be doing, because clearly they already know everything they need to know about their special role.  Like a snowflake, they must be unique, and therefore are to be cherished by the masses.  I see this developing in no small number of magical people who suddenly realize “o hej, I can do magickqzs!” and think that they are the biggest shit ever.  Sadly, in the process, they actually do become the biggest shit ever, but not in the sense they desire.

I like to keep myself well-grounded and humble enough to prevent this from happening to me, bordering on self-depreciation and overmodesty.  In fact, it’s why I make a special prayer of humility fairly often to keep myself from getting too carried off in my own delusions of grandeur.  Even if I’m one of the few chosen to do magic, why should I be necessarily praised for essentially just doing my job?  Even if I’m a holy power chosen by the Almighty, why wouldn’t I recognize that same in every other human and entity alive?  Maybe it’s the weirdness and glamour of magic itself that still strikes me as weird, that fascination with this arcane and maligned yet powerful art that can change the course of nations and individuals alike.  But even so, can’t I say the same thing about my computer science skills and my current workplace, where I work with significant economic data used in thousands upon thousands of contracts and analyses daily across my country and the world?  Can’t I say the same thing about the jobs and work of others, too?  Can’t I say the same thing about others generally, too?  Just because I’m chosen for a particular necessary role doesn’t diminish the necessity of other roles or those chosen for them.  Just because I’m helping out the world in my own small way doesn’t make me a savior for the masses, it makes me a small gear in the great machinery of creation.  Just because I’m told to do magic doesn’t make me special, it makes me understand that my minor job in a world of jobs is the best one for me and I’m the best person in a world of people for it.

Yes, I may be a special snowflake, but there are also a lot of snowflakes out there.  It’s only upon microscopic inspection that any one snowflake can be meaningfully differentiated from the others; at any other larger distance, snow is one large undifferentiated mass (barring contaminants, pollution, or dense packs of ice, of course).  Snow falls and is natural, and each flake contributes to the weather; we enjoy the snow, but we don’t necessarily care about or notice any one particular flake.  One snowflake does not make a blizzard and lasts for no time at all on its own.