To Work the Hekataeon: Book One: The Call

The first book of the Hekataeon leads the Reader through a series of rituals taking place over two sets of nine days. The first nine days culminate with the Reader’s initiation at midnight on the night of the New Moon. The second nine days culminate on some night while the moon is waxing with the creation of a magical tool and ally called an iynx. Having completed these two rituals, the Reader devotes themselves to Hekate and the work of the Hekataeon, and is awarded the apropriate title of Devotee.

What follows is an inventory of what is needed to complete each of these two nine-day rituals. I have also included notes based on my experience doing these rituals, and countless others, to help you prepare and so that the work can go as smoothly as possible.

I provide these notes, primarily, because in my experience of working the Hekataeon, I sometimes found it difficult to read ahead, as if doing so even for the sake of preparation would somehow ruin the experience. And also, the descriptions of what is needed each day become slightly less precise as one progresses through the work. So, when some of my friends took up the work of the Hekataeon, those of us who had begun the work previously compiled these lists to ease them through.

The Call

Counting backwards inclusively from the night of the new moon, set aside nine days when you can perform a ritual at a liminal hour – ideally dawn, dusk, or midnight. Depending on whether you can leave your altar in place from one day to the next, the speed at which you move and read, and if you do the recommended additional reading at the end of each ritual can take anywhere from fifteen to ninety minutes.

Each chapter presumes that you have read it at least once before sitting down to perform the ritual. You should absolutely do that. Twice would be better.

Each ritual begins with washing your hands. Bring a towel.

Each ritual involves candles, burning paper, and collecting the ashes. Some of the rituals call for pouring the wax into a bowl of salt water. Buy paper that takes ink nicely, and that burns well burns well. Choose a fireproof bowl that is easy to empty. Buy candles that drip nicely. Make certain that your ritual space is sufficiently fire safe.

You will not burn all the way through the candles. Decide in advance if you are going to use the same candles from one ritual to the next, or if you wil discard them at the end of each day, or accumulate them on the altar to illuminate later rituals.

Most of the rituals involve some sort of guided meditation or trance journey, with a heavy emphasis on visualization. If you think you’ll struggle with this, do what preparation you think you’ll need. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using your phone (or computer or old school tape deck) to record yourself reading the chapter aloud for your own benefit.

Each ritual ends with a recommended reading selection from one of four books: The Orphic Hymns, The Homeric Hymns, Proculs, and the Greek Magical Papyri. Some of these passages are available on the internet. Some are not. The Hymn to Selene is PGM IV. 2785-2890. The Hymn to the Waning Moon is PGM IV. 2241-2358.

You will need:

  • Three bowls: one for hand washing, one fireproof, one saltwater proof
  • Cinnamon in an easy to access container (I like a salt cellar)
  • A previously unused pen
  • Paper
  • Matches or a lighter (I prefer a butane torch lighter)
  • White candles (x16, if you are not reusing them one night to the next)
  • Black candles x3
  • Myrrh incense
  • Spring water
  • Salt
  • Yew sprig
  • 6 small, similarly shaped stones (3 light and 3 dark)
  • A small pouch for the stones
  • A bloodletting devise (I recommend a lancet over a knife) or pomegranate juice as a blood substitute

Night One: DE SGILI

The work begins.

  • bowl of water for washing hands
  • cinnamon for washing hands
  • Hekataeon pen paper
  • fireproof bowl
  • one (1) white candle
  • matches or lighter

Reading: Hesiod’s Theogony, lines 411-452. This passage about Hekate, her lineage and her attributes, doesn’t really fit in with the narrative as it has progressed so far, leading some scholars to speculate that Hesiod was a member of a mystery cult centered on Hekate. If you don’t have your own copy (I, unsurprisingly, favor the Athanassakis), this one is available for free from Harvard.

Night Two: DE NATURA

What is the nature of Hekate?

  • bowl of water for washing hands
  • cinnamon for washing hands
  • Hekataeon pen
  • paper
  • fireproof bowl
  • one (1) white candle
  • matches or lighter

Reading: Proclus Hymn to Hekate and Janus. I do not own a copy of any translation to recommend. I found this copy online, which compatriots of mine have vouched for, and which has the bonus of being interlinear for your hardcore nerds like me.

Night Three: DE POTENTIA

What are the powers of Hekate?

  • bowl of water for washing hands
  • cinnamon for washing hands
  • Hekataeon pen
  • paper
  • fireproof bowl
  • one (1) white candle
  • myrrh incense
  • matches or lighter

Reading: Hymn to Selene, PGM IV. 2785-2890. I have found this transcription online. It may contain errors or typos that I have missed.

Night Four: DE FORMA

What is the appearance of Hekate?

  • bowl of water for washing hands
  • cinnamon for washing hands
  • Hekataeon pen
  • paper\fireproof bowl
  • two (2) white candles
  • myrrh incense
  • matches or lighter

Reading: Orphic Hymn to Hekate. It’s likely that a Reader of the Hekataeon already has well-established preference for a particular translation of the Orphic Hymns. Mine varies with the task, and for this I recommend in favor the Athanassakis and adamantly against the freely available Thomas Taylor. Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, that seems to be the only one I can find online.

Night Five: SENSIBUS

A consecration of the self and senses to better perceive the divine.

  • bowl of water for washing hands
  • cinnamon for washing hands
  • Hekataeon pen
  • paper
  • fireproof bowl
  • three (3) white candles
  • myrrh incense
  • matches or lighter

Reading: Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Fair warning: it is long and depressing and any legitimate translation will 100% require a content warning for rape and abuse. I happen to own the Penguin Classics edition and would love a recommendation on a superior translation. I found this version available online courtesy, again, of Harvard.

Night Six: CANTICUM

A consecration song that you will sing as you continue the work. At last you will need the yew sprig that you might have gathered a week ago.

  • bowl of water for washing hands
  • cinnamon for washing hands
  • Hekataeon pen paper
  • fireproof bowl
  • three (3) white candles
  • myrrh incense matches or lighter
  • spring water
  • salt
  • a sprig of yew

Reading: Hymn to the Waning Moon, PGM IV.2241-2358. A potent curse from the Greek Magical Papyri, actually called “Document to the…” in Betz, and “Cry to the…” in Grayle’s other works. Unfortunately, I cannot find a copy online for your convenience.

Night Seven: FATUS

The creation of a divination tool which you will use repeatedly as you continue the work of the Hekataeon. A lesson learned when my own group worked the book: at the end of the night, use some other divination tool to confirm that your stones will speak clearly and truly.

  • bowl of water for washing hands
  • cinnamon for washing hands
  • Hekataeon pen paper
  • fireproof bowl
  • three (3) white candles
  • myrrh incense matches or lighter
  • spring water
  • salt
  • a sprig of yew
  • three black stones
  • three white stones
  • a bag to store them in and read them from

Reading: Orphic Hymn to Artemis. See previous notes on the Orphic Hymns. This was the best I could find online, unfortunately the Taylor translation.

Night Eight: ARBITUM

A night of relatively intense visionary work, culminating in a divination which will determine whether or not you go forward. Note places where your vision deviates from the guided meditation. If you do not get the answer you were hoping for, do further divination, both with the stones and with another tool you have mastered.

  • bowl of water for washing hands
  • cinnamon for washing hands
  • Hekataeon pen paper
  • fireproof bowl
  • three (3) white candles
  • myrrh incense matches or lighter
  • spring water
  • salt
  • a sprig of yew
  • the divination stones that you consecrated last night.

There is no recommended reading for this ritual.

Night Nine: INVOCATIO

Where the previous rituals may have been done at any “liminal hour”, this one calls to be done at midnight. A fast is recommended. The phrase is “eat little, drink only water”, which I think is a good balance. The more of your day that you can set aside to mediate on and prepare for the ritual that you are about to perform, the petter.

  • bowl of water for washing hands
  • cinnamon for washing hands
  • Hekataeon pen paper
  • fireproof bowl
  • three (3) white candles
  • myrrh incense matches or lighter
  • spring water
  • salt
  • a sprig of yew
  • a bloodletting device, or a blood substitute such as pomegranate juice

There is no recommended reading for this ritual.

The Iynx

When the nine nights of The Call are completed, the Devotee – formerly the Reader – makes and ensouls a tool called the “iynx”. No timing is given for the making of the iynx except that it must be buried in one place for three days, submerged under water for a second three days, and then hung in the air for a third three days, and then must be completed on a night of the waxing moon. It is somewhat vague as to whether the completion is done on the ninth night or the tenth. If the Devotee is to make the iynx in the waxing moon immediately following The Call, they have three or four days to rest and gather supplies before beginning.

As described in the Hekataeon, the completed iynx-spirit is embodied in a strapholos: a child’s toy no longer easy to find in the United States, and the (internet) search for which may well bring up more Hekataeon results than material. The strapholos is a disk with two holes drilled near the middle, through which a string is strung, and on which the disk is suspended between two handles. When spun and pulled, the disk makes a whirring, buzzing sound. But the precise geometry is more finicky, and you will want to construct and test your strapholos before ensouling it.

You will need:

  • A glass bottle which you are willing and able to break
  • Candle
  • Saliva
  • Salt water
  • Grave dirt from one who died young
  • Myrrh
  • Charcoal
  • Ash from burnt crossroads sigils from the Call
  • Feather and/or snakeskin
  • Someplace where you can bury the bottle
  • Someplace where you can drown the bottle
  • Someplace where you can hang the bottle
  • A wooden disk which you can carve and/or paint, and which you can put two holes in the middle
  • String
  • Sticks or rods for handles.
  • A name that you will assign to the spirit
  • A form or image that you wish the spirit to appear in
  • A plan for offerings that you will give the spirit in the future, when it does your will

I think that the ideal order of operations is:

  • set out all your materials (on a single fire-safe surface, if possible)
  • light charcoal for myrrh, apply myrrh early so it’s good and smokey when you start
  • light one candle for “flame” component of ritual and a second for wax to seal your jar
  • use jar to cover, snuf, and absorb the candle flame
  • without turning the jar up, then use it to capture the myrrh smoke
  • upturn jar to spit in it and then pour in the salt water, idealy before the myrrh smoke has dispersed
  • add grave dirt
  • add ashes
  • add snake skin and/or feather
  • seal jar

My partner and I are fortunate enough to have a yard to bury the bottle in, and trees from which to hang it. Lacking a pool or local body of water, we drowned ours in a bucket. There is nothing saying that the iynx bottle cannot be buried in a plant potter, or hung from a balcony railing or lantern hook. There is also nothing saying that you have to smash the iynx bottle against the ground (as we read it originally); when we redid the rite, we used a hammer.

I recommend assembling your strapholos as close to the beginning of the rite as possible. This gives you time to test that it works, and to practice with the unconsecrated tool so that, when you are called upon to spin it during the final ritual, you can do so with confidence.

I recommend choosing a name, image, and preferred offering at some point earlier than I did (which is to say, not on the final day). Write them down in advance, somewhere you won’t loose it – in the Hekataeon, itself, if you have to. Make the offering something that you will always have on hand – in my case, frankincense and myrrh.

With these rites complete, the Reader-turned-Devotee is ready to proceed to the second phase: the Book of the White Flame.


If you want to get my posts a week before everyone else, to see the magical experiments that I don’t share with the public, to get first dibs on my elected talismans and fine art jewelry, or just want to support my work, you can do so through patreon. If you’d like to make a one-time donation, or don’t want to deal with all the non-occult content I post on patreon, I also have a ko-fi.

Triangles of the Art: An Idiosyncratic Journey

Discussing tools and techniques in the Hermetic House of Life discord server this month, I’ve been reminded of how much of my work these days – especially the public-facing stuff – is rooted in the art of Drawing Spirits Into Crystals (DSIC). In discussing various elements of my practice, I have discovered that I did not leave as clear a trail in my blog as I had thought. Perhaps I was – for once – “Keeping Silent”. Or perhaps what seemed relevant at the time just isn’t what I want to share in retrospect. Either way, now seems as good a time as any to look back on my journey.

The first books I turned to in my study of the Western ceremonial tradition – these were the days of the great Ceremonial Experiment, as I called it – were guided first by Christoper Penczak and then by Donald Michael Craig. Although I have previously praised Penczak’s Temple of Witchcraft series, when he came to volume 4, Temple of High Magic, he dropped the fucking ball. And, to the chagrin of many in the community, I found DM Craig’s Modern Magic to be equally useless. So I turned to the internet. And on some random ass demonolator’s website, I found clear instructions for a barebones summoning circle.

The design I produced therefrom was simple: a triangle in a circle. The sigil of the spirit to be summoned went in the middle. Around the triangle (and, in my case, around the circle) went the statement of intent in clear script. And, falling back on my eclectic neo-Pagan witchcraft background and some vague notions of what a magic circle should look like, I wrote the names of four elementally-aligned gods, and seals and sigils associated with the moon … because that felt right.

For that first conjuration, I summoned my natal genius. I calculated her name using Agrippa’s formula via Frater Acher’s spreadsheet. (Reverend Erik of Arnemancy fame now hosts a widget that is much easier to use.) I derived her sigil using the Rosy Cross. And I wrote out my statement of intent to know her. My records of the ritual, back in 2012 or so, are unfortunately even more vague than my memories, but I got what I needed out of the ritual: confirmation of the name and sigil, a vision of the spirit, and some notes as to her nature. (You can read my original blog post about it here.) I wasn’t entirely satisfied (though, in retrospect, it went great), so I tried again, to similarly frustrating (but in retrospect phenomenal) results. Dissatisfied as I was, it was some months later before I followed the experiment through and attempted to contact my “evil demon” using that same circle, only this time under the auspices of Solar powers.

Shortly after these experiments, I consecrated my first astrological talisman using an election, ritual, and image provided by Christopher Warnock on his yahoo group, as he was in the habit of doing in those days. My notes don’t say what if any triangle I used for that conjuration, or for the Venus and Sun elections that I remember hitting that spring and summer, but I know that I had been exposed to more conventional circles by the time I began the Spirits of Spirits experiments, and used a synthesis of the two (I know that Aradia and I also conjured the spirits of wormwood and Jack Daniels, but right now I can only find a write up for the initial cannabis experiment.

The idea behind the above synthesis was a cosmogram: planetary powers in the outer circle, elemental powers within. I had not yet twigged to the fact that the four angel names were sanitized replacements for demon names from older grimoires, rulers of the four quarters of the world. Based on my background in eclectic Wicca, I thought they were elementally aligned, and placed gods I was comfortable with instead of angels in those quarters: Iris for air, Hephaistos for fire, Dionysos for water, and Rhea for earth. Though my logic was flawed, it worked well enough at the time.

My notes don’t specifically say, but I think that I was still using that circle when Rufus Opus was running his Seven Spheres in Seven Days events in October/November of 2012. Looking back at my notes, it’s no wonder the planetary magic took over my life the way it did. The call was strong. At the end of my first seven days, the powers of Saturn taught me how to better hijack the current of the project, even though I didn’t have access to the full Gates Rites. At the end of my second round of daily conjurations, the powers of Saturn taught me the triangle of conjuration that became the basis for my planetary work going forward. (And at the end of my third consecutive week of planetary conjurations, I fell flat on my face.)

In the center goes my crystal ball, and/or the glyph of any particular spirit I may be calling under the auspices of those greater planetary powers.

I have been using this double-triangle to ever-increasingly potent effect for just short of ten years now. I have transcribed it into my personal grimoire, once for each planetary section, where it sits beside the relevant lamen and Orphic hymn. Unfortunately, the pages don’t quite sit flat enough to use it as intended, so often what I end up doing is standing the book up and setting the candles and brazier in front of the triangle, but I’ve found that always works just as well, and is almost as aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes corner 5 gets a brazier with incense instead of a candle. And, as you can see, a couple other small details morphed over time.

In the years since, I’ve also developed another variation on the traditional circle, mostly for the purposes of art, but which I have used a few times to good effect, and which I would recommend as an option for someone looking for somethign mostly traditional but a little more glam. The out ring is still the Agrippan planetary characters, which I think are just neat, but the angel and god names in the outer ring have been replaced by seals of the four archangels. I use this circle in my official Mundus Occultus branding, so it is absolutely not available for commercial use, but if you want to print it out and call a spirit into it, that’s what it’s here for. Just shoot me an email to tell me how it works out for you.

Writing this post has taken me weeks longer than I originally anticipated, in part because I had to re-read as many of my old notes as I could find, and partly because I had to re-scan and re-censor several of the above images, and mostly because the last six weeks have been just absolutely bonkers.

I’m glad I finally got through it, though. Looking back over that wild year’s work, thinking on how it has shapped my current work, has been pretty educational. In retrospect, I could have asked for a lot more help during those early conjuration experiments. My excuse is that no one I felt comfortable asking for help had fucked with this kind of work, as far as I knew, but also in retrospect, there were absolutely people who could have at least pointed me in clearer directions. Also, somehow, in my memory, many of these events had shifted from late 2012 to early 2014. Why do I remember the conjuration-induced migraine as happening the week of my college graduation?

I’m also glad to finally have this done because it’s reaffirmed my dedication to my chief point of advice for those looking to start or escalate their magical practice: go forth, fuck around, and find out. The information I needed to do these things more traditionally was hidden behind the paywalls of the few people teaching classes on the subject, and the even more insurmountable barrier of 19th century translations so terrible that even as an in-the-weeds Classical Studies student, I couldn’t fucking hack it. But now, people who know more than I did then but less than they’d like to know before they start can look at this and say, “fuck it, if that lunatic can have results that good with that bullshit, anything I do will work great!”.

So make the tools you want to make. Sing the songs you want to sing. Call the spirits down from the heavens and up from the depths of hell. Do it all with style and audacity. Go forth. Fuck around. Find out.


If you want to get my posts a week before everyone else, to see the magical experiments that I don’t share with the public, to get first dibs on my elected talismans and fine art jewelry, or just want to support my work, you can do so through patreon. If you’d like to make a one-time donation, or don’t want to deal with all the non-occult content I post on patreon, I also have a ko-fi.

Images of Starry Power

I have practiced many kinds of magic over the decades of my magical career. Astrological images in metal are what I am (probably) best known for, at this point, because that is the most marketable combination of my artistic talents and magical aspirations. But talismans of metal and stone are not the only such combination. In the past, I have dabbled in sigil magic, and masks, and talismans made from mixed media and witchcraft, and portraits of spirits – both conjured and constructed. Most recently, I have been experimenting in talismanic images of ink and paint and paper.

My first elected talismans were paper. Back in the fall semester of 2013, as I was fighting with the registrar over what classes and credits from my associate’s degree would and would not count toward my bachelors, I combined what I had managed to learn of spirit conjuration (mostly from Rufus Opus’ blog) with a Jupiter in Pisces election and talismanic image from Christopher Warnock on his then-Yahoo mailing list. I assembled the talisman from a pair of 5×7 note cards, one bearing Warnock’s image (probably by Nigel Jackson), the other bearing seals and sigils of Jupiter, glued together with dandelions and other Jovial maeteria in between them, and suffumigated in the smoke of the same.

That talisman steamrolled over the registrar and her objections to my insignificant (in her eyes) urban community college credits. It, and the other similar talismans that I made that year – Sol, Venus, Mercury Cazimi, maybe one or two others – lasted not the weeks or months generally expected of paper talismans, but for years.

When I had my first chance at a decanic election – Sol in Aries I, back in 2020 – I went that same route. Aradia and I were taking Jack Grayle’s PGM Praxis course, and I believe that we consecrated them using a PGM solar rite. But I used the Picatrix image, and I made it available for others to use on my blog.

I got this election, in fact, who had just discovered Nina Gryphon’s monthly election newsletter, and I suddenly had enough advance notice on most elections to begin planning for them. My two-sided Venus talisman (and my personal Venusian familiar spirit) is the result of these experiments, and ultimately served as the template for the rest of my Picatrix planetary image talismans.

I returned to paper talismans toward the end of 2021, with my first fixed star election: Jupiter on Deneb Algedi. I was up to my eyeballs in burnout, and had neither time nor money to prototype and prep a metal talisman. The results were swift and phenomenal. Likewise, a Solar election early in 2022.

After years of such experiments, frankly, both my home altar and my prosperity altar were getting a little crowded. So, when the opportunity for a pair of Libra decanic talismans (Venus ascending in the first and second face of Cancer) and I wanted to do something less than a metal talisman (which I couldn’t afford to prototype, or fit onto my altar) but more than the paper talismans I had done so far, I turned to my personal grimoire.

Now, flashing back to the beforetimes, I bought myself one of those big leather-bound “journals” for my birthday in 2019. I divided it up into likely sections and started drawing planetary circles of conjuration in it, which became the centerpiece of my first few months of daily rituals. Then it quickly served as a prop in a couple photo shoots (first with Cailin, then with Vanessa). Then became a repository for my favorite pieces from Jack Grayle’s PGM course, and the object of several such rituals, including a Solar consecration aimed at increasing the effecacy of magic done with the book. Then I did a series of portraits of my familiar spirits in it.

It occurred to me to combine the theory behind conjuration circles and the practice of the spirit portraits. I selected a page, drew the image, inked the outlines and colored the scene of the image with water-color pencils, and sigilized my petition. During the window of the election, I wet and blended the watercolors, painted and detailed the figure and the seals and sigils, and consecrated it with the Picatrix Venus prayer and suffumigated it.

It went so well that I repeated it with the second face of Cancer. And then with Regulus. And now, most recently, with Aldebaran. (The images below are, obviously, not photos of the paintings in my personal grimoire. As public as my practice is, that feels like … too much. Instead, they are the practice drawings I did to perfect my design and layout, and then refined to share with my coven, in case they wanted to catch the elections, and now with you for your benefit.)

The images are all still hot to the touch. Each day, after my ritual honoring my household gods and familiar spirits, I turn to one of these images and let it emanate into the world. They all seem to be always active, but whichever is currently visible seems to be most active.

It’s still very early days to speak about material results or longevity, but I think that I’ve sufficiently demonstrated that it’s a technique worth speaking about so that others can try their own experiments with it.

So, if you have a magic book that you work with – a Wiccan Book of Shadows, or a personal grimoire, something that lives in or around your altar and participates in your rites, and you want to fuck around with astrological image magic but aren’t prepared to financially commit to metal talismans, I strongly recommend experimenting with talismanic images in your personal magic book.

From the Sorcerer’s Workbench: The Attic Gorgon

The Attic Gorgon is one of the handful of designs that launched the Sorcerer’s Workbench, and was not only my first design to sell, but my first piece to sell again: first, directly off my body at Paganicon 2019, and then to someone I had met at that event a month or two later. It remains one of my best sellers to this day, and it is one of my favorite designs.

That last is no surprise. I have long been fascinated by the image of Medusa and the gorgons. Looking back, I can’t quite remember an inciting incident, so to speak – my first encounter was almost certainly Wrath of the Titans (1981), but what I remember most from that movie is actually the owl. My own earliest art that I can find on the subject was from around 2008, but by that time I clearly already had a fully internalized image. That image, of course, was most deeply influenced by Renaissance and modern images: a beautiful woman, her face surrounded by coiling serpents, draped in clinging gauze. A lot has changed since those early days, including my Bachelor’s degree in Classical Studies, and while I do still want to do a design based on that more modern image, I knew from the jump that I wanted my first Gorgon talisman to be in the Classical style.

The traditional name for the design is “Gorgoneion” which, to the best of my ability to discern, renders approximately as “Gorgon-image” or “Gorgon-thing”. It is apotropaic: meant to protect by frightening away evil spirits. It was a popular, even ubiquitous, design in the Hellenic world of Classical Greece, seen on temples and shields and pottery and jewelry and … well, you get the idea. When I went to make my own, I looked to a variety of ancient sources, ultimately settling on a particular piece of pottery.  

But with that image in place, we have to ask the question – where does that image come from?

No Greek myth has a single point of origin. Every story is a palimpsest: a mess of layer upon layer upon layer, each written over the other, which has been imperfectly removed from the vellum below. So we, as modern witches, sorcerers, neo-Hellenics, and mythographers, sift through those layers as best we can, picking and choosing the versions that bring us the most meaning.

Medusa and the Gorgons are no exception. When I look at the image of the Gorgoneion, fanged and bearded and serpent-tressed, I do not see the victim Ovid salivated over: raped by Neptune, cursed and transfigured by Minerva, murdered by Perseus. I see the youngest of three monstrous sisters, the lone mortal, daughters of either the sea monsters Keto and Phorkys, or of Keto and the elder Gorgon, Aix who was killed that Zeus might wear their hide as his aegis.

The very title “gorgon” means simply “terrible” or “fierce”. The three Gorgon sisters were Medusa, Sthenno, and Euryale, and our oldest written account of them comes from Hesiod’s Theogony 270 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) : “And to Phorkys (Phorcys) Keto (Ceto) bore … the Gorgones (Gorgons) who, beyond the famous stream of Okeanos (Oceanus), live in the utmost place toward night, by the singing Hesperides : they are Sthenno, Euryale, and Medousa (Medusa), whose fate is a sad one, for she was mortal, but the other two immortal and ageless both alike.”

Homer, a littler earlier than Hesiod, mentions a single “Gorgo” whose head and/or hide are used for the aegis of Zeus and Athena. Hyginus, a 2ndC CE author, reconciles these stories by naming that elder Gorgo Aix and naming them parent of the gorgon sisters. This last is my personal favorite, despite the late date (longtime readers and close friends know how strongly I favor older versions of everything, particularly predating the questionable urge to justify the behavior of gods as good).

The image itself springs onto the just a little before, emerging in its persistent form at the beginning of the 8th Century BCE. Some scholars trace it back to Knossos. A few – sadly, mostly discredited – attempt to trace it back much further, to the mythical neolithic goddess cults. But the image was more detailed, more complex than those earliest stories, and I think that the Gorgoneion is a fair exemplar of the movement from image to ritual to myth.

I will never be fully comfortable with the stories that surround the image of the Gorgoneion. That terrible defensive power, stollen and weaponized by the “civilizing” influence of father gods and heroic men. Ovid’s rape-and-transformation fantasy is only the most vile and explicit expression of that theme. Looking at the image, whether Attic or Renaissance, I see the same terrible beauty and power that drove Second Wave Feminists to invent their own mythologies, empowering Medusa and the gorgons as slandered goddesses, or reframing Athena’s curse as a defense against further injury.

But I return, again and again, to that face: a goddess whose image the gods themselves use to turn away evil. A goddess born of the monsters of the elder world. A goddess whose sisters live on.

I wear my own Gorgoneiai every day. I have one that lives on my keychain. I have another that I hang from the front of my face masks in this age of plague and fools.

Between different metals and fixtures, there are more than a dozen unique variations, but there are two basic designs: one sided, with a textured back; and two sided, with the names Medusa, Sthenno, and Euryale on the back.

Attic Gorgon Sterling Silver Pendant Protection Talisman | Etsy

Attic Gorgon Two-sided Protection Talisman | Etsy

Announcing the Sorcerous Arts Podcast

The Kansas City Sorcerous Arts Collective came together in 2018 to teach hands-on classes and run public rituals. Our public debut was in February of 2019, when we performed our Purification of the Sacred Grove ritual with the Kansas City Witches Meet-Up. We performed the ritual again at Paganicon 2019, taught several workshops also hosted by the KCWMU, and were winding up for our second major public ritual at Paganicon 2020 when the covid-19 pandemic brought all 2020 events to a screeching halt. It took us a while to decide what, if anything, we were going to do with in-person events off the table.

In June, we accepted an invitation to do an online workshop presentation for the Kansas City Witches Meetup Main Event in July. We were so pleased with how that went that we decided that we would, after all, do online events. Moreover, we’d had so much fun that we were going to do a podcast. We began meeting up online (almost) every Sunday in August, and have now recorded an acceptable backlog of episodes, ranging from a return to our July topic of magic in this time of Covid to why the Law of Attraction is bad magic and worse theology.

The Sorcerous Arts Podcast will be a series of informal, kitchen-table discussions on magic as a living practice: theory, experiments, and our actual results (or lack thereof). We’ll talk history, theology, ethics, experience, memes, community … anything that seems relevant at the time. The first episode will drop this Saturday, October 31st, 2020. It will be available through our RSS feed and Spotify, immediately, and hopefully soon through iTunes (Apple makes things hard because they can) and Stitcher and all the other major distributors. (We do our best, but none of us are actually IT people, coders, or competent at social media.)

I hope you’ll join us, and enjoy. See you Saturday.

Picatrix Image of the Moon

This week, after literally years of waffling between planets and images to pursue next, I have finally produced another talismanic image from the Picatrix, following up on the Image of Venus that I produced so many years ago.

“The image of the moon according to the opinion of Picatrix is the form of a man who has the head of a bird, and he holds a stick above him, and he has a tree before him.”

— Picatrix Bk.II Ch.10, p.105, as translated by Greer and Warnock.

As with my Venus talisman, I turned to the grand planetary seal and the Agrippan characters for the reverse.

Although I could probably rationalize it in a variety of ways – a decision to pursue the rest of the talismans in Chaldean order, perhaps, or a fictitious upcoming election (this year sucks, there are no elections – my decision to make an Image of the Moon was ultimately based on the easy availability of the most appropriate metal: silver. By that same logic I should probably do a Solar image next, for all that probably no one will be able to afford the ten pennyweights of 14k gold.

The image I selected was not my absolute favorite. That honor goes to an image described on the preceding page: “… a woman with a beautiful face, with a dragon about your waist, having horns on her head with two snakes encircling them, and with two more snakes entwined around each of her arms, and a dragon above her head and another dragon under her feet, and both these dragons have seven heads.” which is somewhat beyond my current ability to produce a mold positive. But I think that a second bird-headed figure makes a fine follow-up to my Venus talisman, and I know that I need to enjoy the few relatively simple images presented in the Picatrix.

I have already ordered the mold positive of this Image, and will hopefully be able to present the first silver prototype in early August. It will probably end up being priced identically to the Venus — $116 in my Etsy store, assuming that the price of silver does not continue to rise, and will be available in brass and bronze for those who are less concerned with material than image.

Picatrix Images: The First Face of Aries

Picatrix Images: The First Face of Aries

Winding up for my last stellar sorcery experiment, I had a few options available to me. (Spoiler: I chose, “all of the above”.) One of them was to empower talismans bearing the image of the first face of Ares. In the words of the Picatrix:

The first face of Aries is Mars, and there rises in it according to the opinion of the great sages in this science, the image of a black man, with a large and restless body, having red eyes and with an axe in his hand, girded in white cloth, and there is great value in this face. This is a face of strength, high rank and wealth without shame. This is the form.

Picatrix Book II Chapter 11 Paragraph 5, trans. Michael Greer & Christopher Warnock

I crafted the image in time for my own use, but not in time to share with the rest of the world in time to catch that first face this year. My apologies to all. I do, of course, share it in the spirit of camaraderie, for personal magical use only. If you do use the image, please share your results with me for the sake of Science.

Stellar Sorcery: Introductory Experiments

I have been dabbling with old school astrological talismanic magic for a few years now. It started with the Ceremonial Experiment while I was in college, synthesizing what I was picking up from Rufus’ Opus blog with what I could glean from Christopher Warnock’s yahoo mailing list. I produced a handful of well-elected talismans that helped get me through college, and which still sit on my altar today (even though the prevailing wisdom is that talismans of paper and herbs never should have worked in the first place, let alone for so long). In the years since, I’ve produced a variety of talismans and performed an assortment of rituals using my ever-improving understanding of astrological timing and images, with varying degrees of success.

Over the last year or so I have finally deepened my understanding of astrology to the point where I can mostly follow Chris Brennan’s podcast and was delighted to receive his book for Christmas. And I have also, finally, begun to work my way through the Picatrix from cover to cover.

The Picatrix was written in a time and place where magic was understood through the lens of a very limited and limiting spirit model. Obviously, my own understanding an practice of magic is much more syncretic. My spirit modelling draws on Classical, Late Antiquity, Medeival, Rennaisance, and 21st Century shamanic spirit practices. I also work using 20th and 21st energy and spirit models.

I, personally, understand the planetary spheres as magical realms and currents in which spirits live. I believe that it is possible to access those currents directly, without intermediary spirits. I am also finding, through trial and error, that those two approaches are good for very different things. That is to say, that they can produce entirely different genres of error-comedy.

The Picatrix admonishes to have faith that the magic will work, and warns sternly against experimentation. Unfortunately, while I can be good at following directions, “do not experiment” is … not a direction I can follow. So the experiments continue, undaunted by stuffy medieval magicians.

The Framework

Stellar Sorcery, as the modern practice of performing spells and crafting talismans by the use of Medieval and Renaissance astrological timing is coming to be called, is a young discipline wherein the competing schools of thought are all shiny, new, and hot to the touch. The schools of thought within that discipline are too young to be named. One can only cite one’s influences — Christopher Warnock, Kaitlin and Austin Coppock, Clifford Lowe, and so on — and one’s references — the Picatrix, Agrippa, what have you. In case it wasn’t clear, those are mine. They might be ashamed to know it, given how fast and loose I play with the rules.

The components of Stellar Sorcery are deceptively simple:
1) Astrological timing. Certain things are available at certain times.
2) Vocalized prayer and petition. You have to say it out loud. You have to tell the spirits what you want.
3) Physical maeteria. The talismans are vessels for the power/spirits. They must be appropriate (however you define that from your primary sources of choice). They must be made as well as you are able.
4) Fumigation. You seal the deal by holding the talsimanic maeteria in the smoke of your offerings.

You can always add more, but these four things are essential. There’s not a lot that Warnock, Coppock, and Lowe all agree on. These four are it, and my experience so far bears it out.

The experiments I describe below are not the whole of my experience, only the most relevant and best-documented

2012 Jupiter in Sagitarius Talisman

My first semesters of college were a battle against the registrar. She didn’t want to take more credits than she absolutely had to from my declasse community college. At times it felt like she didn’t want to be bothered even looking at my file. I was in her office every week, as polite as I could be, but there wasn’t any traction.

Until, early in my ceremonial experiments, Christopher Warnock offered up this election to his Spiritus Mundi mailing list. Back then he announced elections far enough in advance that you could do something with them, and even offered pdfs with images and prayers. That was a good year for Jupiter, and I hit that election twice: once at dawn, and once at the 3 o’clock second Jupiter hour of that day.

Lacking better maeteria at the time (I was in college, no access to jewelry supplies) I made a paper talisman. I printed the Image of Jupiter that Warnock provided on one note card and various sigils, seals, and characters of Jupiter on the back. I glued the two pages together, sealing Jupiterian herbs and oils in the middle. I called upon the spirits and powers of Jupiter using the Thomas Taylor translation of the Orphic Hymns in the ritual I had cobbled together by following the work Rufus Opus, then blessed the talisman using Warnock’s Picatrix prayer.

I took that talisman with me to the registrar’s office the next day and not only did she finally open my file and finally start looking at my transfer credits, by the end of the semester I had gotten credit for things she swore up and down couldn’t transfer.

2020 Venus in Pisces Talisman

There were a series of semi-questionable Venus elections at the beginning of this year. The Moon and Venus were constantly dodging ill aspects to Mars and Saturn in Capricorn. But I was desperate to try my hand at electioneering and talisman crafting.

I had successfully cast a set of four shibuichi talismans as prototypes and wanted to experiment with casting during an election. A comedy of errors ended up surrounding the attempt to cast the talismans — Alvianna and I had some miscommunications and oversights about what tools I would need to bring from work, then her kiln turned out to be completely unsuitable, and we ultimately decided that casting in her shop was a “later” project. Perhaps a wiser magician would have stopped there, but I did some divination and decided to proceed by blessing the prototypes.

In addition to the relatively basic Stellar Image ritual — prayers, offerings, &c. — I added a component at the end where I asked that the name and sigil of the spirit of each talisman be revealed to me. I also formally consecrated a copper talisman that I had used to tap into the current of the image and been carrying for some time.

My talisman, to date, has produced good results. I have become increasingly inspired and disciplined about creating art. My friends and partners immediately became more physically demonstrative with me. And, by virtue of having their name and sigil, the talismanic spirit has effectively become a fourth familiar spirit (we are currently in search of an appropriate statue for them). I attribute the success of the Eye of Beauty ritual, in part, to my relationship with my familiar.

Reports from my friends who took the shibuichi prototypes have been more mixed. One has not really worn theirs. One has carried theirs to no effect. One described the talisman as heart-opening. One has reported frequent crying. I need to check in for updated reports.

Some observations from the whole of the process:

2020 Sun in Aries Talisman

We got this election from a variety of sources: a co-conspirator in the PGM Praxis group pointed it out first; it was also available in Nina Gryphon’s March election newsletter. We researched the election as thoroughly as we could, finding a couple potential issues with the Moon (according to Picatrix rules that later authors seemed to find excessively restrictive), but went ahead with it anyway.

We selected our prayers by divination, with clear results: 9 cups and 9 disks for the Picatrix prayer, Art and the Devil for the PGM prayer, and the Sun for both.

Aradia mixed a tincture while I scribed the sign of Och on a citrine pendant and three slices of amber that I had cut the night before. Then, together, we made paper talismans, one set bearing a Picatrix Image of the First Face of Aries and another bearing a Renaissance Image of the Sun. Things felt good, but off, until the last minute when I realized that we had not fumigated the talismans. Hastily we threw another lump of frankincense on the charcoal, fumigated everything, repeated the PGM Prayer to Helios a final time, and everything snapped into place. Because we used the whole election window to create and bless the talismans, I have not yet asked for names and sigils for them. I will do that once they’ve had a week to set.

Early Observations and Hypotheses

It’s too early to call anything a conclusion, except that magic is cool and making talismans is fun. I have, however, made some clear observations and have begun formulating some hypotheses.

The skill of the magician is relevant. All your magical skills are relevant, and more skills make a better magician.

Meditation makes it easier to see and hear spirits.

Having good relationships with spirits improves your stellar sorcery. Being beloved of your gods and familiars and allies makes your stellar sorcery stronger, regardless of your arts-and-crafts skills or your ability to find a perfect election. The reverse is probably also true: if you annoy the gods, they’re probably not going to do you any favors.

Better ritual makes for better magic. Elections can be short, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have everything good to go and spend half an hour before the window making offerings to your gods and familiars and getting them and you wound up for the work.

Doing energy work makes you a better vessel and conduit for planetary powers and currents. Just because Medieval and Renaissance writers didn’t know about it doesn’t make it not real or not relevant.

Paper talismans absolutely have a shorter life than talismans made of metal and stone. The once-prevailing wisdom that they are utterly inert, however, is demonstrably false. All things of this earth are mortal: remember how old the universe really is.

Working with a talisman as a spirit-ally seems to improve its efficacy exponentially.

Regarding casting the shibuichi talismans, specifically:

1) The talismans felt inert at the time of casting. Some people have told me that the pouring of the metal is the magically operative moment, but it didn’t feel like it to me. When I broke the talismans off the sprue, however, is another matter: it was like a tiny vortex opening up.

2) I have made a lot of magical jewelry using various schools of thought. Cleaning, filing, and polishing the rough cast in preparation to be enchanted felt like crafting a vessel, as opposed to other talismans I have made using other schools of thought where I could feel the spell coming together as I assembled each component, with everything snapping together as the final pieces went in place.

3) It is entirely possible that if I had been able to either cast the talismans, or pull them from their sprue during the enchanting ceremony, things would have gone even better. With that said, the spirits called did not resist entering the finished vessels and seemed happy at the time. The one I have worked with since seems very happy, except that they want the same honors my other familiar spirits receive, which is reasonable.

Invoking PGM Powers I: Aphrodite, Helios, Selene

As I mentioned recently, I’m taking Jack Grayle’s PGM Praxix: 50 Rites for 50 Nights. Our first two weeks actually covered three rituals: a spell “to win a beautiful woman” by invoking a secret name of Aphrodite; an invocation of Helios for a variety of boons and to “accomplish the matter I want”; and, finally, a prayer to draw the attention of the Moon by names and symbols of both Selene and Hekate

Love Spell: PGM IV 1265-74

Aphrodite’s name which becomes known to no one quickly is NEPHERIERI – this is the name. If you wish to win a woman who is beautiful, be pure for 3 days, make an offering of frankincense, and call upon this name over it. You approach the woman and say it seven times in your soul as you gaze at her, and in this way it will succecd. But do this for 7 days.

Betz 1986, p.62

Not gonna lie: this opening spell gave me pause. Not just because “love spell, what the fuck?” but because the spell calls for the sorcerer to “be pure” for three days and I have strong fucking feelings about purity. But I’m taking a class, and following a system, and that means playing by the rules as written. In addition to eschewing the “obvious” sources of miasma — sex, death, animals, &c. — Jack recommended that we fast. To that end, I reluctantly chose a meatless diet and gave up candy for good measure.

For our execution of the spell, Aradia and I chose the Night and Hour of Venus. We erected a Venus altar, set a playlist, bathed, dressed in white, and dusted ourselves with cinnamon. After doing some divination, we went into the spell with little preamble: burning frankincense and chanting the name over and over and over for about twenty minutes. I got high as hell, and promptly used the whammy on my own damn self, which I repeated over the next days leading up to a photoshoot I had had planned.

That shit more than tingled.

Jack’s research indicates that the name Nepherieri is probably an Egyptian phrase meaning “The Eye of Beauty”, and in addition to trying to counter some of the self-hate one inevitably picks up as a queerdo living among the normies, I used the power of the Eye to fuel a photoshoot that I had scheduled for the following Sunday. It was only my second shoot working with multiple models and I had not worked with either woman before, and I was somewhat nervous. Owing at least in part to the magic, the images we made turned out astoundingly well.

Prayer to Helios: PGM XXVI 211-30

Prayer to Helios: A charm to restrain anger and for victory and for securing favor (none is greater): Say to the sun (Helios) [the prayer] 7 times, and anoint your band with oil and wipe it on your head and face. Now [the prayer] is: “Rejoice with me, you who are set over the cast wind and the world, for whom all the gods serve as bodyguards at your good hour and on your good day, you who are the Good Daimon of the world, the crown of the inhabited world, you who rise from the abyss, you who each day rise a young man and Set an old man, HARPENKNOUPHI BRINTANTENOPHRI BRISSKYLMAS / AROURZORBOROBA MESINTRIPHI NIPTOUMI CHMOUMMAOPHI. I beg you, lord, do not allow me to be overthrown, to be plotted against, to receive dangerous drugs, to go
into exile, to fall upon hard times. Rather, I ask to obtain and receive from you life, health, reputation, wealth, influence, strength, success, charm, favor with all men and all women, victory over all men and all women. Yes, lord, ABLANATHANALBA AKKAMMACHAMARI PEPHNA PHOZA PHNEBENNOUNI NAACHTHIP . . . OUNORBA. Accomplish the matter which I want, by means of your power.”

Ibid. p.274

The solar rite was a return to more familiar territory. My relationship with Solar powers aren’t quite as good as my relationship with Venusian forces, but it’s close, and the prayer had a lot in common with the Picatrix rites that I’ve been fucking with in my spare time.

We had hoped to perform the rite on the Day and Hour of the Sun, but Sunday and Monday were both overcast. Tuesday, however, came through: the skies were clear and provided an Hour of the Sun not long after dawn, before either of us had to go to work. We sat outside in our yard where we could face the sun rising in the east, lit a stick of frankincense, poured a cup of olive oil to use for the anointing, and set forth. We anointed ourselves with oil before every repetition and after the seventh.

I did not get much effect immediately, besides the hypnotic effects of repetition. Within the hour, though, the power began to build, and I went in to Tuesday’s photoshoot full of Authority and produced another round of really solid images.

Prayer to Selene: VII 756-94

Prayer: I call upon you who have all forms and many names, double-horned goddess, Mene, whose form no one knows except him who made the entire world, IAO, the one who shaped [you] into the twenty-eight shapes of the world so that they might complete every figure and distribute breath to every animal and plant, that it might flourish, you who grow from obscurity into light and leave light for darkness” (beginning to leave by waning). And the first companion of your name is silence, the second a popping sound, the third groaning, the fourth hissing, the fifth a cry of joy, the sixth moaning, the seventh barking, the eighth bellowing, the ninth neighing, I the tenth a musical sound, the eleventh a sounding wind, the twelfth a wind-creating sound, the thirteenth a coercive sound, the fourteenth a coercive emanation from perfection. Ox, vulture, bull, beetle, falcon, crab, dog, wolf, serpent, horse, she-goat, asp, goat, he-goat, baboon, cat, lion, leopard, fieldmouse, deer, multiform, virgin, torch, lightning, garland, a herald’s wand, child, key. I have said your signs and symbols of your name so that you might hear me, because I pray to you, mistress of the whole world. Hear me, you, the stable one, the mighty one, APHEIHOEO MINTER OCHAO PIZEPHYDOR CHANTHAK CIiADE ROZO MOCWTHION EOTNEU PHERZON AINDES LACHABOO PITTO RIPHTHAMER ZMOMOCHOLEIE TIEDRANTEIA OISOZOCHAHEDOPHRA” (add the usual).

Ibid, pp.139-40

Jack included this Lunar prayer in the second week because he felt it bore strong parallels to the Helios prayer, and I have to agree. Though the original text includes no ritual instructions, just the prayer, I very much have to agree.

We had been struggling to find a Lunar hour at which Aradia and I were available, so when my D&D game Wednesday night was unexpectedly cancelled, we leapt at the opportunity to do the ritual before midnight. I came home from delivering Alvianna her dinner (she hosts my game, a favor for which I sometimes repay her in food), and went about converting the Venus altar from Friday into a Lunar altar. When the appointed hour came, lit our charcoal, burned myrrh, and began. We recited the prayer three times, anointing ourselves before, between, and after with the Lunar oil that Alvianna (who is also in the class) had made during her own rendition.

The effects were powerful and immediate. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Sleep, I did: deeply if not long. I awoke early Thursday morning and got up immediately to write. And again Friday. And again Saturday.

Aradia and I like the ritual so much that we decided to share it with our pseudo-coven, the Lunar Shenanigans crew, despite the fact that these are the most difficult Vocces Magicae I have ever attempted to pronounce. To that end, I broke out the barbarous words for ease of pronunciation: APH-EI-BO-E-O MIN-TER OKHA-O PI-ZEPH-Y-DOR KHAN-THAR KHA-DER-OZO MOKH-THI-ON E-OT-NEU PHER-ZON A-IN-DES LAKH-AB-O-O PIT-TO RIPH-THA-MER ZMO-MOKH-OL-EI-E TI-ED-RAN-TEI-A O-I-SO-ZO-KHA-BE-DOR-PHRA. Somewhat to my amusement, however, they were more startled by, “the menagerie”.

The second round was, for lack of a better way to describe it, less like sorcery and more like religion. We made a more elaborate ritual of the prayer, which I will write up for a separate post in a bit. The sensations were lighter, cooler, clearer, deeper. We stayed up late talking and laughing, but then went to sleep with little trouble. We slept late but when we woke, got up swiftly.

Cumulation and Synthesis

Inevitably, doing these rituals so close together — Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday — it is impossible to say, precisely, where the effect of one ends and the next begins. I had mostly come down from the Eye of Beauty when we invoked Helios, but I was still riding that high when we called upon the Moon. I didn’t come down from that until the following Sunday morning, when the combination of a bad day in retail and the archonic rite of Daylight Savings Time conspired to bring me back down to earth.

I am disappointed to report that neither the Aphrodite nor Helios invocations did shit to minimize my pre-photoshoot anxiety. Nor did reiterating the prayer to the Moon bring me back to the high that I had been enjoying before the crash, though I will say I feel very good as I finish this write-up the morning after.

I do believe that the rituals did a great deal to minimize my post-socialization anxiety. Episodes that usually last 30-90 minutes were reduced to 10 or 15. Since the Eye of Beauty invocation, I have felt better and more resilient overall, like there is more possibility and potential in the world. I have been both more sensitive to and less vulnerable to magical influences around me.

While I have felt better, and have gotten a lot of writing done, I will say that I have NOT been more focused, overall. Less, if we’re being honest. In particular, my ability to sit down and do my day job has been … hampered. I got a lot of housecleaning done yesterday before our esbat, but I was bouncing all around the house, picking things up, putting them down, moving far from efficiently.

Finally, my initial reaction to the rites was a feeling that they had a lot in common, energetically, with Rufus Opus’ Seven Spheres rites and, as I mentioned above, certain Picatrix prayers. I stand by that analysis. I believe that these prayers/rites/rituals would be good for both planetary initiations and for enchanting talismans. I will put the latter theory to the test as soon as I find a suitable election.

Invoking PGM Powers: Prologue

At the end of February, Aradia and I, along with the rest of the Kansas City Sorcerous Arts Collective, signed up for Jack Grayle’s year-long class on the Greek Magical Papyri: PGM Praxis: 50 Rites for 50 Nights, offered via the Blackthorne School. We, along with seventy-odd others, are following Jack down a rabbit hole I’ve been circling for a while, putting the fragmentary spells of the PGM into practice, and I’m very excited.

PGM Praxis: 50 Rites for 50 Nights | Jack Grayle | The Blackthorne School

It’s worth noting, here at the outset, that while I have been practicing magic since 1996, have attended lots of workshops and have studied a lot of systems, I have never before taken a long-form, externally-directed class. Intense study periods have often coincided with my best blogging periods. On the one hand, I imagine that will be true of this, as well; on the other, there are course materials that I cannot, in good faith, share to those not taking the class.

I have, of course, done some work with the Greek Magical Papyri before. I have been using the Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist (PGM V. 96-172) since Jack Faust introduced me to it back in 2012. I have made more than one pass through the book since, looking for either rites to experiment with (though I never had the nerve / inspiration to do any of the ones that caught my eye) and for inspiration for magical practices for characters in my novels.

But this is a guided tour. With homework. And technical support. And I am very, very excited.

We’re into the third week, now, as I type this. We have done our first three rituals (week two had a two-fer) and are winding up to do our fourth. I’ve spent most of the last two weeks on an escalating high of magical power, more optimistic and resilient than I have been in years. Only the one-two punch of a Bad Day in Retail and the Archonic vampirism of Daylight Savings Time has been able to blunt my ecstasy. There will be more about that in the next post.

My classmates — not just the KCSAC — are starting to open up about their adaptations and experiences, and it’s fucking fascinating. Unfortunately, that’s the last I’ll be able to say about that, though I hope to encourage the rest of the Collective to blog about their experiences, and will share the public posts of any of our classmates who want such attention.

It is, of course, possible that I will be less enthused about things at some point (or points) over the course of the remaining 47 weeks. That’s how things go, sometimes. But right now, I’m really, really stupid excited. And I’m going to hold on to that for as long as I can.

On a technical note: we are, of course, using the University of Chicago Press edition of The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, as edited by Hans Dieter Betz. We are at times augmenting this by use of the Orphic Hymns, for which I usually favor the Apostolos N. Athanassakis edition. I also happen to have a copy of Stephen Skinner’s Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic, which may come in handy.

The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, Volume 1