Journey Through The Obsidian Dream

It was my habit for many years to spend the period between Samhain and my birthday looking back at my year, what had happened and how I had grown. I honestly can’t remember exactly when or why I stopped. College, especially my time at Earlham, was probably a factor; I know that the horror of the 2016 election and being chased out of the Heartland Spiritual Alliance cult over the course of that year and the next were the death blows.

From 2008 to 2015 or so, I could honestly say that each passing year had been the best year of my life so far. That has not been true since. Some years were better than the one before, but even so, “better” has often not been “good”. 2019 was a really good year. 2022 had its moments. 2023 and 2024 have had their highlights, but they have also been a really rough ride.

As a whole, 2023 was such a wildly mixed bag. Parts of it were really good. Parts of it were really, really bad.

In the summer of last year, I was at a high point in my magical and mystical practices. I was experiencing divine epiphanies and revelations on a near-daily basis. I got some really good writing done. My partner and I celebrated our birthday by flying to New Orleans with some of our closest friends.

At the same time, I was struggling to maintain some of my most important relationships. I was barely making ends meet as an independent artist. I had some magical experiments go sideways in ways that really fucked me up. By September and October, I was deeply depressed and distressed over (among other things that I will not get into here) my failing eyesight and having been screwed over and then gaslit by an optometrist who fucked up my prescription and tried to blame me for it.

This time last year, I had just come home from a birthday/Samhain trip to New Orleans sick with my second or third round of Covid (second confirmed case, I’m pretty sure I had it at least once more that didn’t present strongly enough to show up on an at-home test but did do its damage to my mind and body), a week of forced bedrest and idleness during which I wrote, watched bad television, slept, and did little or nothing else. That November and December, I went through what may have been the very worst depression of my entire life to date.

The first several months of 2024 were spent crawling out of that depression hole. That climb was made more difficult by poor finances and continuing fallout from the previous year’s depression.

Part of that depression was a crisis of faith, culminating in an anti-theist blog post in May that … seemed to resonate with people, but which also sparked a lot of “are you okay” messages that were nice but not particularly helpful. I am hardly the first mystic to doubt the goodness of the gods, or their worthiness to be worshiped.

I am no longer obsessed by it, but the question of “why should anyone worship gods who answers Nazi prayers?” will really never go away. I know that neopagan circles are rife with fascists, and Hellenic polytheism second only to Heathenry (or third, if you count worship of the gods under their Roman names as separate from the Greek gods). I am not special; if the gods show up for me, why should I assume the gods don’t show up for them?

Every camping trip I have attempted this year has been rained out. Beltane was cancelled in advance on account of the forecast. My random weekend in the woods with my best friend was cut short by incoming torrential rains. Samhain camping was cancelled by forecasts of rain two weekends in a row.

This has been my third year as a fully independent artist. The first half of the year was really rough, in that regard. Since July things have really turned around: I’ve had more consistent sales in August, September, and October than ever before. I’ve released some work that I’m really proud of. I put out new my first Beltane line, my third Pride line, and my second Samhain line … though I might be a little less ambitious that way, next year.

In February, floundering on how to put the final polish on several other projects, I started a new novel draft: Chimaera, the story of the half-dragon daughter of Morgana Iramon and the Avhaar Dragon, and mother of Dano`ar Ashandosaar, one of the great adventurers of my fantasy world. I’m about 40,000 words in to what will probably be a rambling doorstop fantasy, and I’ve gotten a little stuck finishing out the first act, but it’s still been a lot of fun.

In July I took a road trip to do some photography with a friend from the Green Musheen discord server, and another came in from out of town to shoot with me. I did four photoshoots in three weeks, and still havent’ finished processing the fourth, but the results have been incredible.

Despite the depression, and crisis of faith, and occasional struggles to afford incense, candles, and wine, I have maintained my daily ritual practice without interruption for a fourth consecutive year. I am slowly incorporating a daily meditation practice.

Back in May, things lined up to allow me to take Sara Mastros’ class on Solomonic pentacles. I am moving more slowly through the lessons than I would like, but the most consistent message from my guides and divinations has been to slow down, take the time I need, and not exacerbate my burnout by pushing too hard. And, by following that advice, I have slowly made my way back to a place where messages and visions are once more coming through clearly. I still throw up in my mouth whenever I see someone talking about the gods being Good and their actions beyond mortal judgement, but … that has always been the case, and probably always will be.

Now, come November, I am sick on my birthday again – though this seems to be a common cold, not Covid. Last week it was 80 degrees out at a time of year that used to be consistently snowy. The USAmerican people have given me another Trump presidency. I just got word that one of the men who taught me my trade died over the weekend, and of a fatal illness in my family.

2024 has by no means been the best year of my life so far. But, despite everything, I am still doing significantly better than I was this time last year.

Inevitably, as I wind this rambling retrospective to a close, I find myself looking toward next year. I doubt that I will be able to make 2025 the best year of my life, so far, but I’m going to try, against all odds. I am taking my time with everything. I am certain of absolutely nothing, except that things are going to be bad and ugly for the next four years (at a minimum). I think that I am exactly old enough that I will make them murder me instead of going back in the closet as a queer, as a witch, as an artist, as an intellectual (which is a distinctly different vibe from being young enough to make that same decision). I may make some new decisions about what platforms I’m on, but … I’ve been doing that math the whole time.

To all my family, friends, and followers: thank you for accompanying me on this long strange journey. Some of you, I know, have been here in one way or another at least as far back as the first Journey Through the Obsidian Dream blog posts in 2010. Some of you have joined the party more recently. I just can’t say how grateful I am to have such brilliant and supporting peers.

And I do see you as my peers: I am not a guru or wisdom teacher, pontificating from on high. I am a madman, a mystic, a seeker. I speak of my experiences in the hopes of providing guidance for those who follow after me, sure, but also in hopes that those who went before me can see these posts and offer the benefit of their own wisdom. I am not special, but that does not mean I am not unique and valuable. And so are you.

I hope you’re all still here in November of 2025.

Fuck the fascists.

In art

Devotional Images: Luxa Strata as Aphrodite

Satyr Magos11/10/2024

Behold, friends: Luxa Strata as Aphrodite.

Luxa Strata, on the off chance that you don’t recognize the name, is a chaote, artist, magician, and community leader. She is the host of the Lux Occult podcast and runs the Green Musheen Discord server and is knee-deep in a stunning number or related and unrelated magical projecets. You can check her various works out for yourself via her Linktree.

I’m so excited to finally be releasing these images from the third of July’s four photoshoots, the first of the two that I did with Luxa. As you may recall from my last two two, the Lavender Laura images, this adventure started with a post in Luxa’s Green Musheen Discord server, in which I asked for magical collaborators for a few occult-themed photoshoots. Of the themes I suggested, Laura was interested in showing off her “Wizard Rizz” and in conjuring spirits for me to try to capture in some old-school spirit photography. Luxa was also interested in spirit photography, and in embodying Aphrodite in this, my second devotional image shoot for that goddess.

Luxa visited me here in Kansas City in the last week of July, flying in Thursday afternoon and leaving Tuesday morning. The whole week was an adventure in and of itself, including a meet and greet with my Lunar Shenanigans Crew, a trip out to Gaea Retreat Center, a great deal of good food, and a whole lot of absolutely fantastic conversation and comradery.

We shot these images on Friday night, using two sets and four-ish costume changes. As usual, I shot with my trusty Nikon d3200; that night I used my Nikor 18-140 zoom lens. We shot in my home studio which was … just a little warmer than was comfortable, that day, at least for me. The lighting was more of a challenge than it should have been because I had misplaced the stands for my studio lights. I ran out of stamina before Luxa and I ran out of ideas, so I’m a little sad about all the images we could have made, but we also shot enough images – 218 – that editing them down to the final 54 was a more than adequate challenge.

Luxa called the goddess Aphrodite into herself. We opened with Armed Aphrodite, with a red cloak and a gladius for a bit of a Roman vibe, and just got slowly more sensual and less dressed over the course of the shoot.

Overall, I’m very pleased with how the shoot went. Luxa was a delight to work with, and the images came out fantastically. Culling the set was a real challenge. I’m still learning to use my new software (you may remember that I ditched Adobe back in April and started using DXO PhotoLab7 in July), so there’s the frustrating knowledge that these could be better if I were only a little more familiar with my tools, but … that’s the artist’s life in the age of subscription software, I guess.

Luxa, herself, had this to say about the shoot:

“When these pictures were taken, I was going through a transitional period having to do with leaving several toxic relationships. I had joined a magic group which turned out to be incredibly abusive and misogynistic. Although I had escaped that situation, I was still dealing with the heatbreak and other fallout. The experience of posing for these pictures helped me reconnect with something I had been suppressing; a “golden shadow” I’d been hiding away for safety’s sake. It was an important thing to rediscover, and I feel deep gratitude for having had the opportunity to do so. My overall takeaway from the shoot is that the Goddess is real, She is powerful, and She is here; in this world.”

I hope you all enjoy these images as much as we do.

In art, sorcerer's workbench

From the Sorcerer’s Workbench: Samhain Line 2024

Satyr Magos10/10/2024

Behold, friends! The first four designs from my 2024 Samhain line! A saint-style devotional pendant featuring Hekate Trimorphis; Three-Winged Gorgoneion; a Memento Mori skull pendant, and the seal of Belial.

Hekate Trimorphis

Hekate Trimorphis is my fourth Hekate devotional image. This one, based on images found on Roman magical gemstones, is in my oval “saint’s pendant style”. It depicts Hekate with three overlapping bodies: three faces, six arms, six legs, all bound within a single peplos, and holding a whip and torches and daggers. I’ve been planning some version of this image for a while, and I am very proud to be presenting it at last.

I have cast up these exemplars in sterling silver and shibuichi. I will also be making it available in bronze. Probably not brass, though, since I just don’t think it will look good in yellow.

I’ll be selling the silver for 149, the shibuichi for 127, and the bronze for 122.

Three-Winged Gorgoneion

The Three Winged Gorgoneion is based on ancient shield designs. I’m super excited to finally be releasing a second Gorgon image. This one in particular has actually been sitting on my bench waiting to be molded and released for most of the year. I’ve cast up these exemplars in sterling silver (bottom), as a pin, and shibuichi (top), as a pendant, and will also be making it available in brass and bronze, and with rosary fixtures and as a bolo tie.

I’ll be selling the silver for $173, the shibuichi for $140, the brass for $89, and the bronze for $122.

Momento Mori Skull I

Momento Mori: remember that you will die (in Latin). This metal skull pendant is the first of several designs that I’m calling Momento Mori. Again, I’ve cast my exemplars in sterling silver and shibuichi, and I will also be making the pendant available in brass or bronze. The hole through the skull is suitable for a 2-3mm chain, but could be made larger upon request.

This will be available as a pendant or as a solid altar-piece.

I’m selling the silver for $255, the shibuichi for $206, the brass for $156, and the bronze for $190.

Seal of Belial

Finally, least for this first round, is the Seal of Belial from the Lesser Key of Solomon.

“The 68th spirit is called Belial, he is a mighty king and powerfull; he was Created next after Lucifer, & is of his order; he appeareth in ye forme of a Beautiful angel sitting in a Charriot of fire, speaking wth a comly voice, declaring that he fell first & amongst ye worthier & wiser sort which went before Michael & other heavenly angels; his office is to distribute preferments of senatorships, and to cause favour of friends & foes, he giveth Excellent familiars & governeth 80 Legions of spirits.” (from the Peterson translation on Esoteric Archives)

Currently available in silver, as a coin or pendant, for $159 US.

In art, witchcraft

Astrological Images: the Image of Saturn Accordig to Picatrix

Satyr Magos05/10/202425/09/2024

At last, friends, I have delivered unto you another Picatrix Image. Behold the Image of Saturn, according to Picatrix: “a man with a crow-like face and the feet of a camel, sitting upon a throne, with a spear in his right hand and a lance or dart in his left.” Picatrix Book II, Paragraph 11 (Attrell and Porecca, 2019) This is, of course, the same image I chose for my first Saturn talisman design (which I’ve included for comparison).

I penciled the image in my sketchbook, scanned it, and then inked it using Clip Studio Paint, all in essentially one sitting this afternoon. I am particularly proud of the crow-like face, which I think turned out really well.

You are, of course, welcome to use these images in your own planetary magic, but not for commercial purposes.

In art

Spirit Photography I: Conjuring Alkes with Lavender Laura

Satyr Magos07/09/2024

For those who don’t know, spirit photography is an art almost as old as the camera. It purports (with varying degrees of skill and sincerity) to attempt to capture images of spirits on film. Obviously, inevitably, many famous exemplars have been cruel or even criminal hoaxes, and others merely artistic fakes. As a photographer and a magician, I have always wanted to try my hand at it, but while I’m a fine hand at being my own scryer, I’ve never figured out how to be both the conjurer and the photographer. So, finally, I asked for help.

I put out a bat signal on the Green Musheen discord server, run by Luxa Strata of the Lux Occult podcast. Lavender Laura was one of two occultists who volunteered, and it turned out that she lives close enough to me to make a nice roadtrip out of the photoshoot, so I fucked off to southwestern Missouri and spent a lovely weekend with her and her husband. We also did a glamour shoot, the first in what I hope will be a series called Wizard Rizz, but that’s not quite magical enough for this blog.

When it came time to shoot, the division of labor was absolute. The ritual was written and performed by Laura for her own ends. Invoking the Persian Royal Stars for the quarters and the goddess Hekate as intercessor, she called upon the star Alkes for its blessing and aid.

For now, she has this to say about the ritual:

“The humble magician begs to be noticed by the sublime Queen of the Chalice that sits upon the back of Hydra. By the flower scented amphora, a servant of Alkes appears. The blood and perfumed Waters pour down from the empyrean cup and give succour.”

and

“I had been craving an opportunity to grow closer to a celestial spirit and was ecstatic. I felt very dedicated and driven for the ritual and it has only come to mean more to me in the passing days. Looking back at the images I can see that emotion coming forth, and didn’t realize how much I have begun to look like my grandmother.”

The day was hot as shit, and the sun was bright as hell. We waited until the last possible minute to start the ritual, hoping for both some lovely Golden Hour light and a bit of break in the heat. The quickly-fading light made the shoot a bit of a technical challenge; the heat added a degree of physical difficulty, as well.

It was an interesting technical challenge to photograph the ritual without interfering. It was also a little surreal being on the outside of magic that I wasn’t participating in – I am very, very rarely a spectator to others’ work; I’m always either leading or participating. It was fun feeling the power rise, and seeing the spirits respond. But even though I could tell that the ritual was going well, from that perspective, I had no idea if I was managing to capture anything but cool ritual pics.

In the end, I got about a half-dozen images with discernible artifacts, all fairly classic “orbs”. Three appear in the above set; one was in a photo too terrible by every other measure to include; the rest are in a second set, to follow – not quite good enough for this set, or not quite the right vibe, but still too good not to keep and share. It is, of course, possible that these are simple lens flares. But they don’t look like other lens flares I’ve taken, and don’t seem to be in the right place relative to the light sources. I have, of course, edited the photos to make the flares a little more dramatic – they’re still photos – but nothing beyond basic photo development.

If I’m being 100% honest, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get more dramatic apparitions. At the same time, though, I’m over the moon that my first spirit photography experiment was as successful as it was.

As I mentioned above, there are more waves of photos coming from from this session: a second set of the ritual that just didn’t quite fit in the tight drama of the above; and some of just the garden, and of the altar – occult themed still lifes of the kind you all know I love.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, it was an honor and a delight to work with Lavender Laura on this. I am unspeakably grateful for her collaboration and her hospitality. And I very much look forward to collaborating with her, again, in the future.

In witchcraft

Working Sorcery of Solomon: Making My Book of Pentacles

Satyr Magos11/08/202405/08/2024

The first phase of this work – the first chapter of the book; the first lesson of the course – was to gather art supplies, buy or make incense and holy oil, and to make contact with the spirit of Solomon the Magician King. The second phase – the second chapter of the book; the second lesson of the course – was to consecrate and awaken the book that will serve as an ally in the work, and then to inscribe in that book the Great Seal of Solomon that will empower the book and the pentacles that I will begin inscribing in phase three.

This second phase was not as photogenic as the first. Well, I suppose it could have been, if I’d begged, bribed, or bullied Kraken into photographing me in ritual – and now that I say that aloud, so to speak, I may do just that some time later – but so far I’ve followed Mastros’ implied taboo of not showing the book, itself, on camera. She’s shown other pentacles she’s made, and I think maybe once shown the cover of one of her books in the class, but not the open pages.

Making and awaking the book played to my strengths in ways that making and consecrating the materia (while not difficult) did not, and making contact with Solomon did not. I’ve made magic books before, and done well at it. I’ve created/recruited familiar spirits before, to the point where you could fairly describe it as one of my specialties. But I tried to approach the work with an open heart and a beginner’s mind. Overall, I’m really pleased with how everything has come together, so far.

Preparing and Planning

After weeks of gathering materials, and then the physically and magically intense work of making the magical materia that I would use when I truly began the work, I was able to take the weeks of the waning moon off to rest and plan. That, I think, will be the shape of things as I continue this work over the coming year; it has certainly been my experience for the past month, as well.

Waiting for the moon to wane back to New, when I could resume the magical work, I also had time to plan my approach for the next phase, and make a couple decisions that I hadn’t quite made: choosing watchwords for the work, a sort of Solomonic motto to guide my steps and serve as a touchstone, and choosing a name for the book. Each of those decisions were their own unique challenge.

The watchwords were a challenge because I already have … multiple magical names and magical mottos, and am leery of accumulating too many more. After considering a handful – the Delphic maxim “Gnothi Seauton” among them (along with a rabbit-hole search into whether or not that epsilon belongs there [it appears to vary with dialect]) – and then being reminded that Mastros specifically suggests words attributed to Solomon, I chose a phrase from the apocryphal book Wisdom of Solomon: “Honor Wisdom that She may reign forevermore.”

I similarly struggled to choose a name for the book. Divination noped out my first choice, which was more a bad Latin title than a name. In the end, I named my book after a saint and a goddess, which I will not print here for (I hope) obvious reasons.

Finally, although I had made successful contact with Solomon on several occasions, I wanted to sit down and have a … relatively formal conversation with him before I called on him to help me consecrate the book. I don’t really do meals with the dead, it’s not my thing, but I did sit down, call him up, pour us each a couple fine whiskeys and smoke a bowl with him in order to hammer out some details about the work going forward.

It was a good conversation. I got confirmation on the go-ahead to invoke him as a part of the work, to don his crown and mantle. I also got some fun and interesting bits; more personal rules and taboos, like his admonition not to contact him on Saturdays except as part of Saturnian work with the book.

I was told to make, essentially, a saint’s candle with his image on it. And that I would need to make one for Sheba, as well, so I might as well get on that. And that there would be a third such candle by the end of the work, but I couldn’t guess who it was. He also, when I asked permission to make a ring, I was told that would be for later, “as a sign of mastery”. So I guess I’ll do some divination when I’ve entered all the seals into my book.

He also, as I did some yes/no coin divination at the end of the session to confirm that I had heard and understood everything correctly, made abundantly clear that he was going to play word games with me for his own amusement, and that I should phrase my questions more carefully in the future. I’m not particularly looking forward to that, but … Solomonic work is fundamentally Mercurial in many ways.

I started the ritual with at the beginning of Third Hour of Night (Hour of Mercury on the Day of Mercury). Without checking the clock until I was done, I finished my ritual with just four minutes left in the hour.

Consecrating the Book and Tools

Over the course of the week following that session with Solomon, I prepared the book by sitting and meditating with it in the afternoon, trying to fill both it and myself with the power I was going to need to raise for the consecration. I drew out practice pages to map out my lettering.

I penciled in the pages Tuesday and Wednesday the 9^th and 10^th. Interestingly, during that last afternoon day & hour of Mercury I, felt rather like I could have inked the first pages and named the book aloud right then and called it good. Despite that feeling, I went ahead with plan as written.

There was a storm rolling in as I wound up to do the ritual, so I set out a bowl to collect rainwater to use in the consecration of the cord. The storm didn’t quite hit in time to fill my bowl, but I got enough rainwater to be magically active, which was all I really needed. As the bowl was filling, and as I waited for the appointed hour, I bathed and purified myself and dressed in whites.

I started my ritual, casting my circle and awakening my temple with the Bell, Book, and Blade framing ritual that I talked about so much last year, just a few minutes before the Hour of Mercury, maximizing my time in the Hour for the work of consecration.

I consecrated my book, pen, scarf, and rope in that order. I was originally going to name the book at the same time I consecrated it, but I decided at the last possible moment to shuffle the naming to the end, because that’s what felt right at the time.

Called upon Solomon, Sheba, Baphomet, and all my gods for blessings both before and during the work. I inked the frontispiece and title page, then named the book before those assembled powers.

The book absolutely came to life in my hands, and I took my time bonding with the book, talking to it about my plans for the work and how excited I was to get started.

And then, feeling it was time, I wrapped and bound the book in its consecrated cloth and cord, thanked the various powers I had invoked, and brought the ritual to a close. Though it felt longer before I checked my clock, and everything felt right and proper in the moment, it turned out that the ritual, itself, had only taken about 30 minutes.

Though it all felt good and effective in the moment, I didn’t get the magical fireworks I was hoping for. I felt very little of the rush of power that I’m accustomed to feeling during such rituals, and I had no significant dreams that night or since.

Encountering the Great Seal

The week between consecrating the book and the great seal kind of got away from me. I did spend time practicing drawing the seal, making sure I had the geometry down before I even attempted to pencil it in to the pages of the book, but between my road trip to southern Missouri for a photoshoot, and the various obligations of life and work, I did not spend the time with my book that I should have. Nor

Monday and Tuesday got away from me, so I ended up finalizing my ritual outline just before dinner Wednesday night

Spent the nine o’clock hour cleaning my house and the ritual room … partly because Thursday is trash day in my neighborhood, and partly because that just felt like the right vibe for the last hour before winding up for ritual.

As the week before, jumped into the shower at 10 o’clock and donned whites and familiar rosary and started pre-ritual 10 minutes ahead of the Mercury hour.

I began with my full Bell Book and Blade frame ritual. I invoked Baphomet and lit his candle. I invoked Solomon and Sheba and lit their candles.

Inked seal and names. My Hebrew calligraphy is super shaky, but it did at least turn out pretty. The geometric details of the seal turned out just a little shaky, too, but it all came together well enough, in the end.

The energy work was a little easier than I was afraid it would be, even though the voltage wasn’t quite what I used to be able to pull. Chanting the holy names, they didn’t do any of what I thought they would based on Mastros’ descriptions, more like my experiences with relatively tame barbarous words/names from the PGM. I did not get any weird hallucinations with the geometry (I got more out of some of my practice pieces, actually).

The seal definitely came alive. I asked if it has a name – it does, but it won’t tell me what it is, just yet. Nevertheless, I slathered it in holy oil and whispered sweet nothings to it, as instructed. I poured energy into the seal, into the book, as much as I could, from myself and the candles.

I wound down the ritual when I started losing focus: closing the seal; closing the book; thanking the various assembled powers with a final round of offerings. Without having looked at the clock, I finished the wrap-up 4 minutes into the next planetary hour.

I did not feel as wrecked after the ritual as I was afraid I would; I attribute that to the help I got from my spirit court.

Bonding With My Book

I didn’t do as good a job as I would have liked bonding with my book in the week between naming consecrating, awakening, and naming my book and consecrating the Great Seal, so I made an extra special point of spending time with her in the weeks after the Great Seal. In the last month, I’ve managed to (re)cultivate a halfway regular meditation practice, and I have called on the book to join me in my meditations. She’s shown up a handful of times, now, which has been super cool.

In the book-spirit’s most dramatic appearance, the Great Seal was visible above and behind her, a little like the disk-shaped auras of medieval saints’ icons. It felt both like a separate entity and a part of her, which … makes complete sense.

Preparing for the Next Stage

In both rituals, I was surprised by a lack of “fireworks” strong sensations of energy and movement, apparitions, or various knock-on effects. I’ve done enough magic over the years to know that effective magic can be anticlimactic, but this was … more than that. Honestly, I think that one of the lingering effects of my current stage of burnout and this winter’s awful depression is an intensely decreased capacity to sense magical energy. The meditation practice I mentioned above is helping, a little, but … well, I think I’ve got a long road to walk as far as that goes.

The homework for the class, after all the reading and magic, ends with tracking the moon to prepare for the weeks of Lunar magic to come. That’s easy. I’m already doing that. My crew’s Full and New Moon rituals aren’t Lunar-themed (this last week’s was a group invocation of the Serpent-Faced God, PGM XII 153-60), but we’ve been having them with clockwork regularity for … eight years, now? Nine? I know when the moon is waxing or waning, if not necessarily what sign it’s in.

As you may have heard me brag/complain, already, t’s been a busy month. (I hear it’s been a wild month for a lot of people.) So as I finish this write-up on the day of the New Moon, I’m also trying to fortify myself to start the work of Lesson Three: The Moon, tomorrow. I need to make some logistical decisions: how I’m going to map the first pentacle onto the page; when, having taught the pentacle to the book, I’m going to make time to use it. And also, what I’m going to use it for? No pentacle has only one use, and I already have too many unused magical objects. I’m also considering taking myself through another round of the Seven Spheres work (though I may decide to wait for the Full moon and do the waning cycle

I’m excited to be moving into the meat of the class. The foundational work was both fun and fascinating. I’m looking forward to my first encounter with a pentacle and its names and energies. I’m looking forward to being able, when that first book-pentacle has had a chance to ferment, to making a usable pentacle and seeing how the Lunar Lock and Key (Lunar Pentacle No. 1, which Mastros suggests as the first entry) works.

I’ll be back in three to five weeks to tell you how it went! In the meantime, thank you, as always, for your support, and I hope your own magical experiments are going as well as mine.

In witchcraft

Candle Magic Study I: A Ritual Template

Satyr Magos19/07/202418/07/2024

Early in my magical career, when I was but a wee faun, I wasn’t really interested in what we might call results-oriented magic. I was there to see spirits, feel energy, and get high on cosmic power. So I never learned candle magic way back in the day.

I picked up a few things here and there, of course. Bits and pieces from books, stories from my peers. Enough to synthesize with sigil magic and evocation (and with good results) when I started fucking around with those things in the 2010s. but it’s only been in the last couple years that I started trying to make an actual study of it.

And, in the course of that study, I’ve found a stunning dearth of clear and concise instructions for doing candle magic spells. So, of course, I’ve been working on fixing that.

Here is what I have so far, synthesized from a handful of books and dozens of TikTok videos and anecdotes from several friends and a fair bit of experimentation. It’s not complete. Even when it’s complete it won’t be absolute (there are too many conflicting schools of thought). And, of course, it’s written in teaching voice because I am literally teaching myself.

But, with those caveats aside, this seems to be doing it for me. I would love input from anyone with more experience than I have. If you give this method a try, please share your results!

(Patreon supporters who are re-reading this may note some very small editorial changes above and below.)

Candle Magic Spell Template

In advance, prepare a clear statement of intent: name your desire in plain language.

Clean and set up your space.

Clean and prepare yourself.

Cast your circle and enter a magical frame of mind.

Bless, consecrate, and empower any and all material you’ll be using. Pray aloud to whatever god(s) you honor to awaken and enliven the materials for your purpose, including pre-consecrated oils you may be using.

Bless and consecrate your candle, saying aloud what you desire.

If you are dressing your candle, repeat your statement of intent as you do so. Rub the candle tip to base and toward yourself for drawing things to yourself, and to rub the candle base to tip away from yourself for banishing and protection. Rub the candle from the ends to the middle if your intention doesn’t clearly go one way or the other. Dress container candles (tea lights, novenas, &c.) clockwise or counterclockwise along the top.

If you like, you can also write down your desire/statement of intent. Write it once, or write it repeatedly, filling the sheet of paper with an inward spiral of text, then folding it in half toward yourself at least twice, so that it fits neatly under your candle. Or you can sigilize it, and set your candle on top of the sigil. If you are using a container candle, you can write your desire or sigil on the outside (a sharpie or paint pen is going to be your best bet.)

Now, before you light your candle, having clearly and repeatedly articulated your desire, hold the candle in your hand. Picture your desired outcome as already accomplished. Hold the image in your mind as firmly as you can, imagining what success looks and feels and smells and tastes like. As you do so, focus on pouring your energy into both the image and the candle.

Light your candle before your attention starts to slip.

Once you have lit the candle, continue to focus on the image of success. Feel the fire from the candle fueling that image. Know that, when the candle burns down, your success will be set. Focus on that image, on that feeling, on your candle, for as long as you can.

When you can no longer hold your attention in place – ideally, when the candle has burned all the way down – stop pouring attention and energy into the spell. Walk away and think of something else. If you can, leave the completed spell on the altar until the sun has set (or risen), or at least until you feel sufficiently separated from it.

In scholarship, witchcraft

Working Sorcery of Solomon: Opening Gambits

Satyr Magos10/07/202403/07/2024

At the beginning of May, I acquired Sara Mastros’ book Sorcery of Solomon: A Guide to the 44 Planetary Pentacles of the Magician King. Shortly thereafter, I signed up for the “companion” course (scare quotes because the book grew out of the course, not the other way around, and contains a great deal of information that couldn’t be fit into the book) and began accumulating the materials for the work.

The book and the course are not, in fact, the same: the Venn diagram of the information and techniques they contain is near circular, but not quite. Broadly speaking, the class just has more: more background, more details, more exemplars, plus (obviously) direct student-teacher interaction and all the benefits of working with a group. But, because there is only one of me and I am not quite crazy enough to double up all the work (some of which literally can’t be done twice and the rest of which would result in two books of pentacles, which … might be of use as a long-term thing, but which would be absurd to do I am working them simultaneously), I will treat them as if they were, in fact, one and the same.

For reference, the format of the class goes like this: Mastros hosts monthly online meetings where she goes over each of the lessons. The first lesson is history and context and making contact with the spirit of Solomon. The second builds on the first and culminates in the construction of your own personal book of pentacles, from which you will make and empower the pentacles you that will actually use. Seven lessons follow, each focusing on the pentacles attributed a particular planet, starting with the Moon and going up the line to Saturn. Then the class culminates in two lessons synthesizing and building on what you’ve learned in the first nine. Then the cycle repeats. When you join the class, you’re given access to the recorded meetings and their slideshows/notes; the expectation is that you’ll work the back catalog at your own pace, attending classes and discussion groups as they come. Students are also strongly encouraged to find a study / accountability buddy in the class to help keep each other on track with the year-long course, and to keep each other honest and on the rails. The book is structured similarly, but not identically.

I joined in May of 2024, just in time to miss Lesson Nine – Saturn. The next cycle will start in September or (more likely) October, depending on how some things shake for Mastros here in meatspace.

Unlike my Hekataeon series, I don’t intend to break this series into dual posts, with one focusing on the material requirements and one on my experiences. This is because Mastros’ class and book are both better organized and more clearly written than the Hekataeon, and do not require that degree of third-party roadmapping. (Sorry Jack.)

Gathering Materials

I have had to take my time gathering all the materials. Between poverty, having my car out of commission for almost three weeks, and trying to source things locally and used as much as possible, it’s been almost six weeks to gather everything I need to wind up this work. I was actually a bit stressed about that for the first couple of weeks, afraid that I’d embarrass myself in front of the class because I wasn’t ready to jump into everything head first.

Finding a book was more challenge than it should have been: I had a particular style of sketchbook that I wanted but wasn’t able to find in my local art stores at a price that I was willing and able to pay. I was able to find something close enough, though, and that I think I’ll be pleased with. It’s not as large as Mastros’ exemplar – only 8.5×11, not 11×14 – but I think that will be large enough for everything that I’m likely to actually do with this book. I was able to find a tasseled white scarf at a local thrift store, and I had some leftover blue cord from another project that turned out to be the exactly correct size to bind the book.

As a professional artist, I have a variety of compasses, protractors, and straightedges to choose from. I was going to use this project as an excuse to buy a better compass, but have not yet found one to my taste in my budget. I have, for the moment, set a protractor and straight edge aside to live with the book. My quest for a swank compass will continue.

Finding an icon was both more and less complicated. As a small business owner (and, honestly, as someone who just hasn’t kept up with the times), I actually own a decent color printer. So, rather than purchasing an icon from an Etsy dealer or Orthodox supply store, I found an image, printed it, myself, and cannibalized one of the many thriftstore picture frames I picked up while thinking I was going to sell prints of my photography. I now keep the framed icon with my veiled and bound Book.

oil painting of king solomon in gold and blue robes and a gold and red headdress. He faces left and holds a narrow staff in his right hand.

I chose this particular image of Solomon because I thought he looked handsome and majestic in it, the magician king at the height of his power. I also deliberately chose an image in the public domain: https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.76152.html

Then I turned to sourcing materia for the oil and incense. Most of the ingredients are things I either had on hand or needed to restock, anyway, though some of it was a little pricey: the ceylon cinnamon and the cannabis, specifically. I was prepared to start with just frankincense instead of the full Solomonic incense, but things ended up coming together for me to blend and consecrate both oil and incense at the Full Moon / Summer Solstice combination.

The recipes for the oil and incense (which are available in the free-first-lesson-powerpoint [insert link here]) are given in parts rather than specific units. I can see the advantages of that, but also it’s given me a bit of an autistic fit. Ultimately, I chose to measure out the oil and associated materia by weight, and the incense by volume.

Regarding the oil, that may have been the wrong decision. Either I mis-measured something, or botched my math somewhere, because I my initial results came out as absolute used-coffee-grounds sludge. Getting a consistency that I liked ended up tripling the oil, and creating a supply that will probably last me a lifetime even if I’m extra generous with my friends.

The incense, however, turned out fantastic. It was my first time making incense lumps rather than just powder, but other than hating how the sticky honey felt on my hands (autism things), it came together almost exactly as planned. That “almost” is the fact that I chose the size of my “parts” poorly, and ended up with another lifetime supply when that wasn’t really called for.

For those planning to take the course themselves, my advise is this: when choosing your base measurement, think about what’s going to look like fully assembled.

Hacking the Current

I began, as I said, by reading the book. Once I had access to the archived class videos, I immediately binged them, as well. Inevitably, especially on my first pass, not every lesson got my undivided attention. But, each lesson begins with a prayer and a chant invoking Solomon as patron of the work. So, once I’d acquired the sketchbook, veil, and cord, and once I’d chosen and framed my Solomon icon, I made it my habit to sit down with my book and icon, light incense and a candle, and join the chant.

After a few rounds of that – one day, in particular, when I made it through three lessons in a day, each with its own new round of offerings – I could feel the energetic current of the class. I almost want to say that joining asynchronously, as I did, made it easier to feel the current at large, because I could pause the video, light my offerings, and then unpause and focus on the chanting.

Having found the current, I reached out and … joined it, adding my own voice to the chanting, and drawing power from the chanting down into my icon and book.

I did something similar, way back in the day (2014), when I was joining Seven Spheres in Seven Days experiments that preceded the Seven Spheres book.

Courting Solomon and the Mighty Dead

Regular readers may recall that I am deeply uncomfortable with ancestor work of any kind. I am only marginally less uncomfortable with saints and the Mighty Dead. But one of the reasons I took this class was to push my own boundaries, so here we are.

I began courting Solomon as a patron in the work as I described above, making offerings at the beginning of each (recorded) class. I also began including Solomon (and the nascent spirit of the Book, awaiting consecration and awakening) in my morning rituals, which revolve offering incense, a candle, and a cup of coffee to all the gods, powers, patrons, allies, friends, familiar spirits, and anyone else who lives on the altars of my house, in the pages of my sacred books, or comes when I call and aids me in my work.

That bore fruit more quickly than I anticipated. I made direct contact with the spirit of Solomon in the first week of June. He seemed a little confused at where he’d manifested, but also curious, which … same, bruh. In subsequent contact, in which I asked him if there were any particular stipulations that I needed to observe as I approached this work, I have been told: A) Not to contact him on the Sabbath except for Saturnian work; and, B) to approach the work with an open heart.

Obviously, I will continue to develop that relationship. Swift success has saved me from the need of making another infuriating attempt at dream incubation (Mastros’ recommended method for spirit communication when they don’t just show up for morning coffee), but not from some of the specific conversations needed before beginning the work.

I have not yet begun courting the Solomonic lineage of teachers, translators, and preservers. This isn’t a major part of the work, but it is something that Mastros recommends, at least at the beginning. I am, as is probably well know to all at this point, deeply uncomfortable with ancestor work, and for whatever reason approaching the lineage as a whole is psychologically more difficult for me than approaching Solomon, himself.

On the Treatment of Holy Names

The study and creation of Solomonic pentacles brings a new logistical problem to my practice: the disposal of pages on which Hebrew holy names have been written. My usual witchcraft, chaos magick, and neo-hellenistic practices have no particular taboos about written names; some white middle-class fuckery about preserving books, sure, but that’s not quite the same. My general practice is to burn failed experiments, expired materials, and even the remains of successful magic whose need has run its course.

The Hebrew religious, magical, and literary traditions from which the pentacles come, however, have some very strict rules about the creation, use, and destruction of such names – specifically (assuming I’m understanding correctly), any page on which such a name is written becomes a person, and must be mourned and buried accordingly. Synagogues, I have learned, have special repositories for such things. It’s not exactly my theology, but I can wrap my head around the need to see my Book and any consecrated and activated pentacles I have made consigned to such an end. I can come up with ways to make that work.

But I’m having a little more trouble trying to decide what to do with practice pages and dry runs. After reviewing that section in the course material (video Lesson Two: Planets and Craft), I believe that I will collect my practice pages carefully and burn them ceremonially at Samhain, and use that sacred ash to make sacred salt and/or ink. But I think I’m also going to talk to other folks in my class and see what compromises and solutions they’ve come up with.

Preparing For the Next Stage

With the above work done, I am ready to move on to the next phase: consecrating the book as a magical companion and familiar, and inscribing the Great Seal of Solomon from which all the subsequent seals will draw (at least a portion of) their power.

I’ve started assembling all the instructions from the book and videos into a coherent-to-me ritual. My study buddy and I have planned out the dates we intend to consecrate our books, and empower our Great Seals. Mostly, we’re waiting on the waxing moon.

I’m excited to take the next steps in this new (to me) magical adventure.

In art, witchcraft

Rite of Her Sacred Fires: Altar Pics and a Few Thoughts

Satyr Magos06/06/2024

At the last Full Moon, the Lunar Shenanigans Crew and I celebrated our sixth(?) annual Rite of Her Sacred Fires. I honestly can’t remember how this one came to our attention – I think Aradia or Juniper brought it up? (This is the accidental Hekate cult, after all.) But it was definitely in the Before Times; I remember being upset that we weren’t able to do it in 2020.

We wind it up a bit, of course, to make it more our style and more a fit for a group activity. Specifically, one of us developed a Hekatean protection circle that we use, and one of us is really big on making offerings to Hestia before any ritual. Some years we’ve worked really hard to make and divide up parts so that everyone has a role. Some years, like this year, someone takes point and leads the whole thing.

It was kind of a weird year for me, and I appreciated Alvianna’s willingness to run the show. I am (as you know if you’ve read my last post, in particular) having something of a crisis of faith; I don’t even know that I could have led the ritual at all, let alone led it and got something out of it.

But I gave it my all. I went all-out on cleaning the house and building the altar. I gave the ritual my undivided attention (inasmuch as that’s a thing that even exists). I did my very best to come in good faith.

And I did get something out of it. Not as much as I have some previous years, but it … wasn’t nothing. Of course, I fucked up and didn’t write it all down right away, so my recollection is super vague, but … it was something. I almost managed some fire scrying. And the goddess was there, which I … wasn’t at all sure she would be. And the offerings were accepted, which I wasn’t sure they would be. (Yes my arrogant ass thought I could bring the whole thing down for everyone in the room.)

And, of course, I took pictures. Before and after (the daylight ones are before; the burning ones are after). And I’m pretty pleased with how they came out, especially the after images.

In witchcraft

Ambivalent Theism: The Mystic Urge to Find God and Punch Him in the Dick

Satyr Magos29/05/202422/05/2024

At forty-three years of age and art-making, after twenty-seven years of magic and mysticism, I can say for certain that two things are true: much of what we call our “selves” and “personalities” are, in fact, behaviors and habits that can be changed with sufficient effort; and, also, there are parts of ourselves that are innate, the products of fate or consequence, which we cannot change, no matter how we might wish. I have changed and grown a great deal over the course of my life, the (mostly positive) results of a life committed to doing better, to being better, to more positive outcomes. I have done so in ways that others have found enviable … and also terrifying and hateful. At the same time, there are parts of myself that, no matter how badly I or those around me might wish I could change, that seem fixed, utterly immutable.

For as long as I can remember, I have sought out mystic experiences and Mystery, both through sacred connections with the people in my life, and through my magical practices. I began my earliest research at the age of thirteen, and began practicing magic at the age of sixteen. From that day forward, I have had few friends who weren’t fellow travelers on this path, and those who did not share my proclivities had to be prepared to hear about those experiences.

At the same time, many of my earliest memories are of teenage and pre-teen efforts to reconcile the exoteric practices and theologies of late Satanic Panic Middle American Christianity with the actual text of the Bible (inasmuch as even a precocious child could actually understand that book). The clear rules the Bible presented, and the punishments promised for the breaking of those rules, and the clear lack of punishment for the wicked in the modern world, made one thing abundantly clear to my ten- or twelve-year-old self: the God of the Bible was a bully who enforced rules as he saw fit, just like the bullies in my life and the authorities who enabled them. When, a few years later, I learned that other gods existed, it was implicitly obvious to me that they were of the same moral fiber.

In the thirty years since, despite my best efforts, I have been utterly unable to shake that bone-deep conviction.

I say “despite my best efforts”, because I have, in fact, attempted to change that. In the beginning, I tried to believe in and pray to a generic eclectic Wiccan goddess that I could never quite feel or fully believe in, but I could never get past the pervasive (and not particularly theologically sophisticated) “all gods are the God; all goddesses are the Goddess” monism of late-1990s and early 2000s Paganism. Later, in my middle and late twenties, I renewed my efforts to find gods worthy of worship; I couldn’t get past all the rape and warmongering in the mythologies I could get my hands on. My earliest visionary journeys included trips to the upper worlds where I encountered gods that I had tried to worship, with decidedly mixed results.

A more rational person, perhaps, would have given up the pursuit of magic and mysticism years ago. But that just doesn’t seem to be who I am as a person. My earliest magical experiments (besides an obsessive teenage preoccupation with wards, shielding, and other magical protections) were in astral projection and trying to develop my psychic senses. Those experiments ultimately led me to “shamanic” visionary work and to my conjuration experiments and to the trance possession experiments I just wrote about. I wanted to see the parts of the world I couldn’t see. I wanted to experience the larger cosmos. I wanted to communicate with the spirits that I could see and feel but not hear.

I still want all those things.

And so I have persisted.

Rites and rituals and research, escalating experiments both solitary and with my Lunar Shenanigans crew.

I have said before, and I will say again, that the one god with whom I have anything like a “religious” relationship is Dionysus. That one god has answered my prayers with ecstasy and insight. That one god has shown up in my visions consistently, meaningfully, and helpfully. That one god I love in spite of all the other assholes who worship him.

I accidentally started a Hekate cult. The crew has never shared my ambivalence toward divinity, and Hekate just … kept being the right number call for any given Esbat. One ritual led to another led to another led to another until I decided it just seemed polite to buy an idol for our rites. Then came the Hekataeon. Hekate is the one god who gets her own altar in our house, not shared with anyone.

For two, maybe three years, I poured out daily offerings to Baphomet, Aphrodite, Eros, Lucifer, Dionysos, and Hekate. Over the last two summers, I have had intense visionary experiences at my morning prayers: potent divine visitations that left me shaking and crying. I had experiences that I can’t even tell my closest conspirators about, because it’s “monks locked in a tower with nothing but ergot rye bread” levels of crazy. I experimented with deity possession, opening my mind and my body to be ridden by Hekate, Baphomet, and Eros Protogonos, and receiving visions from other deities as my co-conspirators took their own turns in the hot seat.

And then, somehow, it all came crashing down.

In retrospect, I can identify some of the factors that led to my collapse.

Last summer, at the height of certain workings, I learned that a spiritual teacher whose work I had based a great deal of my practice on had stalked a friend-of-a-friend back to her hotel room. On the one hand, what the fuck to I expect of straight white men in positions of authority? Real talk: exactly that; I had been waiting for him to fail in pretty much exactly that way. On the other hand, it hurt me much more than I expected to be proven right, and while I went on and published all the writing I had already queued up, I have not been able to continue that work, and that knowledge has … fundamentally undermined my relationship with the goddess in question.

My failure to make myself a vessel during what proved to be the last meeting of the Possession Club was … deeply hurtful to me. In addition to the obvious and, I think, understandable disappointment, it also hit me in my pride and my self-confidence.

The October eclipse fucked me up good. It amplified everything else that was going on inside and around me. In a very real sense, things didn’t start turning around until the second half of the eclipse-pair hit in April.

Also in October, I got chased out of a local pagan meetup. I thought it was going to be a good group because it was run by two trans men. I honestly thought I was making friends. But it turned out that the group was half Nokean Heathens who expected everyone to just know without being told that speaking Loki’s name aloud was taboo and were not prepared to have that taboo questioned. They were also not prepared to hear any criticism white ancestor worship.

All that, combined with more mundane difficulties in my social circles, the soul-crushing effort of self-promotion on modern social media, my second round of Covid, the ever-rising prevalence of Christofascism and the horrors that the US government is facilitating around the world, and the worst depression of my adult life …

I feel like I have lost all the progress that I have made over the last ten years.

I am back in a place where, despite the mystic impulse that has followed me for literally longer than I can remember, I am blindingly blisteringly angry at the gods and anyone who loves them. That anger is obsessive. It keeps me from my work during the day and keeps me from sleeping at night. It interferes with my ability to do magic, to exist in magical communities.

It took me nearly twenty years, from my first offerings to Dionysus, Hephaestus, and Apollo, back in 2007, through visionary journeys and ecstatic rituals and trance possession, to get to my apotheotic experiences of the summer of 2023. To find myself here, feeling like I’m back where I started, hurts more than I have words for. So now I’m in a place both where I feel like I need to write about it … and can’t write about it.

Part of the problem, is that I don’t know how to talk about the gods and my struggles with them without insulting and alienating my friends and followers who sincerely love them. I feel like even alluding to the anger and alienation I’m feeling is a threat to those relationships. Expounding on those feelings in any detail? Almost impossible.

Part of the problem is that the only way I have ever figured out to do the work I want to do is to just … put that anger and distrust out of mind, and hope that the ecstasy of magic and apotheosis will magically make it go away. Clearly, fucking clearly, that hasn’t happened. Which only reinforces my deep-seated suspicion that antitheism is not just a thing I learned very early in life, but an intrinsic part of who I am as a person, every bit as much as my art.

So here I am.

Hurt. Angry. Afraid. Fighting to reconcile two parts of my nature: the inescapable desire to do magic, to experience Mystery, to seek the gods; and a bone-deep suspicion that the gods are corrupt authorities who should face the gallows alongside their mortal counterparts. I have jokingly described this conflict as a fundamental urge to find God and punch Him in the dick.

Honestly, I don’t know that I’ll ever really be able to fully reconcile those two natures. It’s possible that I don’t even need to. It’s possible that what I really need to wrestle with is the blinding, murderous rage that rises when those two parts of my nature come into friction.

I do know that this will not be the last time I talk about my deep, painful ambivalence towards the gods. And I know that, the deeper I dig into this, the more likely I will be to offend or even hurt my friends and other readers. I promise is that I am doing my best to approach this in good faith, to work my way through this pain without lashing out. I apologize for any pain I cause to you while I work through my own.