Cleansing Spiritual Bath Recipe

Over the last couple years, my partner Aradia and I have found it necessary to develop a recipe for a cleansing spiritual bath. It’s the sort of thing we need a little too often to buy pre-packaged (and we’re pretty intense DiY types, anyway), but we couldn’t find a recipe we liked online. Plus, most of the recipes we didn’t like were all attached to places selling something and/or choked with popup ads. So, surprising no-one, we made our own.

Almost all of my herbalism and plant magic, I learned from Aradia. She is, as I may have mentioned before, a huge fan of the practice of recipes based on 3, 7, or 13 ingredients, with a strong preference for 13 on the basis of “more is better”. I initially wrote a 7 ingredient recipe, and when the time came for the next round, she had six more things to add. Together, we combined of what (few and partial) traditional recipes we could find online and supplemented them with Scott Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (we grew up in the 90s). The final recipe (below) leans heavily on things that we like to keep in the house, regardless, so you’ll probably have many of them already on hand, as well. The measurements are idealized and more useful when making big batches, but they give you somewhere to start. A volume of each equal to a teabag or a cigarette will do the trick.

Ingredients:

  • black salt – 5 grams
  • fennel – 3 grams
  • basil – 1 gram
  • rue – 1 gram
  • lavender – 1 gram
  • thyme – 1 gram
  • benzoin – 1 gram
  • copal – 1 gram
  • bayleaf – 1 leaf
  • tobacco – 1 cigarette
  • anise – 1 star
  • peppermint – 1 tea bag
  • chamomile – 1 tea bag

Instructions:

Measure the ingredients into a reusable teabag for use or storage.

When making multiple doses simultaneously, you’ll find it convenient to put the single-unit ingredients (cigarette, teabag, anise star, bayleaf) directly into the bag, then mix the remaining ingredients together in a bowl or mortar for consistent distribution and texture.

Store the baggies in a cool dry place if you’re not using them immediately. (I store mine in the same tote where I store the raw ingredients.)

When used, place bag of ingredients in a heat resistant container – a pyrex measuring cup, a metal pot or bowl, or whatever other vessel seems appropriate – with a mouth big enough to ladle the liquid back out of. Pour boiling water over the bag of ingredients and steep until no longer scalding but still warm.

Ritual:

This is my ritual. Yours will necessarily be your own.

I assemble the ingredients in the kitchen or my workroom. 

When I am ready to use them, I bring them and a large bowl and a kettle of boiling water to my altar, where I make offerings of incense and candles and pray over them, asking my gods and familiar spirits to bless and consecrate the materials that they may cleans and purify me. Then I pour the boiling water over the ingredients and let them steep for 20-40 minutes, depending on where my heat sensitivity is at that particular day. This produces about a half gallon of bath.

When the bath is cooled enough, it take it in to my shower with me. I ladle the bath over my head, down my back, down my chest, down each arm, down each leg, and repeat until I have used the whole volume. As I do so, I pray extemporaneously to be washed clean and purified.

Once I have poured the bath over myself, one ladle full at a time, I sleuce it off of my body, always away from my head/heart. Then I take a mundane shower, again always scrubbing down my body and limbs, away from my head/heart. (This last step is an idiosyncrasy and a favor to the people I live with who have a sense of smell.)

If I am feeling particularly benighted, I will spend the steeping time in prayer and/or meditation, including performing the Stele of Jeu. If I am feeling well and truly fucked, I may follow up the bath with another Stele of Jeu and/or an application of uncrossing oil or even a full uncrossing candle ritual.

purifying bath steeping on my altar

Use:

While I’m usually a big proponent of Chaos Magick and the benefits of fucking around in order to find out, after many years of finding out I have come down firmly on the side of “traditionalists are not wrong about maintaining a regular purification practice”. It is no more world-hating or puritanical to tell you to take your spiritual hygiene seriously than it is to tell you to wash your dick and your asshole. (Because we all know that it’s cismen who are the problem here, right?) Days or weeks of vegetarianism and/or sexual abstinence? I remain unconvinced. Regular baths, fumigations, or other spiritual purification rituals? I’ve switched teams and am now a full advocate.

So, in a more ideal world, I would be doing some version of this ritual somewhere between “every time the Moon is New” to “every Saturday” and following up with a sound-cleansing and fumigation of the house.

In the real world, I struggle to maintain the parts of my ritual practice between “daily offerings” and “enchantment as needed”. So in practice I end up doing cleansing baths in batches as I’m crawling out of depression holes and then maybe regularly for a week or three after. In fact, even as I write this I am winding up just such binge of spiritual purification. As such, I tend to make the baths in big batches, reducing the barrier of entry from “find where I hid the ingredients from myself” to “boil water and grab the bag”.

Road-opening Ritual for Clearing Obstacles and Creating Opportunities

Today I offer a second ritual meant to clear obstacles and create opportunities. My last post was a ritual specifically designed for someone working within the idiosyncratic framework of the Bell, Book, and Blade. This one is similar, but more universal: intended for anyone who practices witchcraft at an altar.

I have recently come to understand that the common name for this sort of ritual – “road opener” – has its origins in Santeria and Hoodoo, as does nearly everything modern witchcraft knows about candle magic. The component parts of the ritual below come to me by various and circuitous means, including the instructions of my familiar spirits, and I promise that, in the future, I will write about or provide references to the deeper history of rituals such as these.

As with my cleansing bath recipe, I am writing and publishing this in large part because, when I needed inspiration for my own first road-opening rituals, I found far more professional spell-slingers selling services than I found ritual scripts that I could pillage for inspiration, and too many of those scripts I did find various Psalms. So, being the change I want to see in the world, here is a road-opening ritual which I hope that other modern neo-Pagan witches will find useful and inspiring.

Preparation

Timing

The good time for this ritual would be in the first days after the full moon, or the last days before the new. A day and hour of Mercury, or Saturn, would also be good. An ideal time would combine both lunar phase and astrological day and hour: the Wednesday or Saturday immediately following the Full Moon or immediately preceding the New.

But needs like this do not always arise at the opportune moment. Strike while the iron is hot.

Supplies

  • Bowl and/or holder (something firesafe to hold the candle and other materia)
  • Cencer or brazier with appropriate charcoal (for burning some of the myrrh and abre camino)
  • Sand or salt (as a base and heat-sink)
  • Candle (red, orange, black, or white according to your taste or tradition)
  • Abre camino root
  • Myrrh
  • Dirt from a crossroads (next to a highway or cemetery is great, but where your driveway meets the road will work just fine)
  • A stick or cone of incense.
  • Oil for the candle (road opener oil is great, olive oil consecrated just for the ritual is also fine)
  • Pin, needle, small knife, or candle scribe

The Altar

You will need a flat space with room for all the materia, relatively firesafe, and which can be left out (at a minimum) for the time it takes the candle to burn.

Arrange your materials in a way that feels easy and holy and powerful to you, and where you can reach them all without knocking anything over. In particular, set them up so that you can suffumigate each component as you go.

The Ritual

Opening

Cleanse and purify yourself and your space in accordance with your traditions.

Cast your circle in accordance with your traditions, but emphasizing especially the powers of the quarters and the crossroads nature of the circle: the place where the worlds meet, be they mortal and divine; above, below, and between; however you arrange your cosmos.

Body

Stand or sit at your altar.

Take up your incense. In the name of the powers you honor, consecrate then light the incense. “O you creature of earth and fire, I call upon you to cleanse, purify, and empower these materials to aid in my work, to create opportunities for me and remove the obstacles that stand in my way, to open the roads, to make clear the ways.”

Take up your brazier or censer. Light your charcoal in the brazier, and suffumigate them together in the smoke of the incense. In the name of the powers you honor, bless and consecrate the brazier: “O you creature of fire, smoking brazier, I call upon you to serve as emisary, delivering my offerings to the gods, so that together we may create opportunities, remove obstacles, open the roads, and make clear the ways.

Pick up the empty bowl and suffumigate it in the smoke of the incense. In the name of the powers you honor, bless and consecrate the bowl: “O you creature of earth, brazen bowl, I call upon you to serve as vessel for my work, that together we may create opportunities, remove obstacles, open the roads, and make clear the ways.”

Pick up your salt (or sand) and suffumigate it in the smoke of the incense. In the name of the powers you honor, bless and consecrate the salt: “O you creature of earth, pure and potent salt, I call upon you to serve as a strong foundation for my work, that together we may create opportunities, remove obstacles, open the roads, and make clear the ways.” Cover the bottom of the bowl in salt.

Pick up your crossroads dirt and suffumigate it in the smoke of the incense. In the name of the powers you honor, bless and consecrate the dirt: “O you creature of earth, you earth of a place which is no place, I call upon you to bridge the gap between this place and all others, that together we may create opportunities, remove obstacles, open the roads, and make clear the ways.” Cover the salt with graveyard dirt.

Pick up your abre camino root and suffumigate it in the smoke of the incense. In the name of the powers you honor, bless and consecrate the root: “O you creature of earth, I call upon you to serve as symbol and agent of my need, that together we may create opportunities, remove obstacles, open the roads, and make clear the ways.” Sprinkle a good quantity of the root on top of the dirt and salt, leaving enough to burn throughout the ritual.

Pick up your myrrh and suffumigate it in the smoke of the incense. In the name of the powers you honor, bless and consecrate the myrrh: “O you creature of earth, I call upon you to bring divine power, that together we may create opportunities, remove obstacles, open the roads, and make clear the ways.” Sprinkle a good quantity of myrrh on top of the dirt and salt, leaving enough to burn throughout the ritual.

Pick up your oil and suffumigate it in the smoke of the incense. In the name of the powers you honor, bless and consecrate the oil: “O you creature of water, I call upon you to bring divine power, that together we may create opportunities, remove obstacles, open the roads, and make clear the ways.” Set the oil aside for the moment.

Pick up your candle and suffumigate it in the smoke of the incense. In the name of the powers you honor, bless and consecrate the candle: “O you creature of fire, I call upon you to serve as a the focus and agent for my work, that together we may create opportunities, remove obstacles, open the roads, and make clear the ways.””Hail Hekate, hail Hermes, hail unto you gods of the roads and the crossroads, of the below and the above, of the wide ways and of the secret ones also.” Keep your candle in hand.

Measure a bit of the myrrh and the abre camino root onto the brazier. Keep the smoke as thick as you can stand throughout the ritual.

Inscribe your candle with a crossroads sigil and/or a sigil representing your needs, then anoint your candle with the oil. Embue the candle with your power and your need. As you do so, invoke the powers you honor:

I call upon you gods and powers of the croassroads!

I call upon you keepers of the wide roads and the secret paths!

Open the roads before me and make clear the ways!

Remove the obstacles that stand between me and my desires and my ambitions!

Open the roads, make clear the ways!

Open the roads, make clear the ways!

Open the roads, make clear the ways!

Repeat the prayer at least three times. If there is a specific path you want opened, name it. If there is a specific obstacle you want removed, name it.

Closing

When the ritual is done, you will feel it. If you can, walk away from your altar without looking back, and do not clear away the detritus until the sun has set (if you performed the rite during the day) or risen (if you performed the rite at night).

Dispose of the materia by burning or burial, ideally at a crossroads, leaving three dimes as offerings.


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.

Book, Bell, and Blade: A Road Opening Ritual

This post is part of a series, though it need not be read in whole or in order. You can read the first post here. You can find the rest of the posts here.


There are times when the ways seem closed, when you feel that all your efforts are blocked, your vision obscured. You may know what is holding you back, but can see no clear way around, over, or through. Or you may not know what it is that stands between you and your desires and ambitions.

At those times, kneel before your altar and open your book to the appointed pages.

Road Opening / Crossroads Pages

The first time you do this rite, you will need to create your pages. The pages that you use to commune with your familiar spirits will suffice until you perfect your design.

At the center, draw your magic circle: the place where all worlds meet, this is the greatest of all crossroads. To each side, make a place for a candle. Within the magic circle, draw a crossroads sigil where your brazier can be set above it.

Preparations

Collect two candles – red or orange or white or black or whatever color is called for in the traditions of your origin. Collect oil to consecrate your candles – road opener or abramelin or whatever you can consecrate in the moment. Collect charcoal for your brazier and herbs associated with the work: abre camino root, herbs and resins of the Moon or of Mercury or of Saturn, or sacred to Hermes or Hekate, or to the gods on whom you will call.

Set up the space where you will do the ritual: your home altar, a crossroads in the forest, the onramp of an empty highway, the room of the conference hotel where you are struggling to make connections. Set up a candle on each page of the book, just outside the circle you have drawn, and set up your brazier in the center of the circle. Light your charcoal before you begin.

The ideal timing of this ritual is the shortly before the new moon on a day of Mercury or Saturn in an hour of Saturn or Mercury. The first day of a calendar month is also good, as is the 31st of December.

The Opening

Wash your hands with cinnamon.

Ring your bell to the four quarters to purify your space.

Draw your blade in a circle around your space to cast the circle and define or affirm the temple.

Light a candle to illuminate the temple.

Burn incense to consecrate the temple.

Make your offerings to the keepers of the quarters and the dwellers on the threshold, to the gods and spirits of the land, to your guides and allies and familiar spirits.

Stop and take a deep breath. Wait for your charcoal to be ready, focusing on gathering your power as you do.

The Invocation

Put the road opening herbs on the charcoal. Keep the smoke as thick as you can throughout the ritual.

Anoint your candles with oil. As you do so, focus on imbuing each candle with power. Pray in your own words if you can find them. If you cannot, something like the following will suffice: “I consecrate this candle to open the roads and illuminate the paths to my ambition.” or “Open the roads before me; make clear the ways.”

Call to your gods of the crossroads, to the psychopomps and saviors to whom you make offerings.

Hail unto you O you Keepers of the Quarters and Dwellers on the Threshold!

Hail unto you O Hekate; Hail unto you O Hermes; Hail unto you O Hermekate,

Hail unto you, O you gods of roads and crossroads, of the highways and the byways and the hidden places in between!

I call upon you gods and powers, friends and allies, guides and familiars. Open the roads before me and make clear the ways! Remove the obstacles that stand between me and my desires and my ambitions!

Redouble the road opening incense and light the candles.

Repeat the prayer at least three times. If there is a specific path you want opened, name it. If there is a specific obstacle you want removed, name it.

Open the roads, make clear the ways!

Open the roads, make clear the ways!

Open the roads, make clear the ways!

The Closing

When you are exhausted, when the candles burn low, or when you feel that the work is done, stop and sit quietly for a moment. Be open to omens and visions. Throw one last round of incense on the charcoal and thank the gods, your allies, your friends and familiars. Close the circle in accordance with your tradition. Turn your back on your altar and walk away. Do not clear away the detritus until the sun has set (if you performed the rite during the day) or risen (if you performed the rite at night).


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.

Book, Bell, and Blade: Adding Pages

This post is part of a series, though it need not be read in whole or in order. You can read the first post here. You can find the rest of the posts here.


The first pages of your book obviously and inevitably represent a highly idealized vision of your practice. For me that was the Stele of Jeu, followed by a triangle of art for each of the seven traditional planets. What followed were a handful of rituals that I had done and more that I wanted to do: the prayer for a vision from the Serpent-Faced God(dess), aTyphonic Initiation, a pair of scrying spells, and a handful of herb-gathering rituals, all from the Greek Magical Papyri.

No matter how settled you are in your practice when you begin the work of the Book, Bell, and Blade, no matter how confident you are in your organization of those first pages, a time will come when you need to add more. If you have anticipated the particular need that arises – as I anticipated that I would need room for new circles and other images beyond my initial planetary circles – so much the better. Eventually, a need will arise for which you have not prepared. For me, most recently, that has been road-opening magic.

I’ve done road openers a few times over the years, of course. (We all have, haven’t we?) But my familiars recently informed me that I should be doing it more often – specifically, at the beginning of each calendar month. For the first round (July), I got my Lunar Shenanigans Crew involved, and we devoted a whole moon ritual to removing obstacles and making opportunities for ourselves. The second round (August), I brought my Book to bear, using the same pages as I use for my daily offerings. It was very free-form, but it was also very effective. I wish that I’d taken better notes.

For this month (September), I sat down and added a new pair of pages for the work, which I will be doing … if not literally every month, probably more than not. I started with the pair of circles on the outside (each around one of the burn marks from my altar fire at the beginning of the year, and the Circle of Art/Triangle of Conjuration just a little up from center for a nice visual balance. I wanted to cover the page in seals and sigils, but in that moment I wasn’t sure what was called for.

After the ritual (which gets its own post), I was given a crossroads sigil to add to the circle.

It’s simple -bordering on bitch basic – but that’s alright. A crossroads sigil probably should be simple. I also suspect that I will add to it after future rituals. I also suspect that I will be adding other seals and sigils in and around the Circle of Art (itself a crossroads of sorts): keys and torches of Hekate; Hermes’ messenger wand; the road-opening sigil from Aidan Wachter’s Weaving Fate; some weird shit I chanel in the moment.

I don’t know, exactly, what I will next be adding to my Book. There are a few candidates, half-formed visions of rituals that I need to flesh out and then write down. Protection sigils. A consecration spell. The care and feeding of a Third Lunar Mansion talisman. But I know that, in time, a new need will arise, and I will have the tools to fulfill it.


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.

A Group Ritual for Clarifying Visions

Over the last couple months, several of my friends and I were struggling with divination. We were getting answers, but they weren’t making sense. So, for the last dark moon esbat (we try to celebrate on the last day before the new moon, which I recognize is a very 21st century sort of timing, but I like it) I wrote a ritual that I hoped would help us all out.

Like some rituals we’ve done before, each of us took a turn as the passive center of attention while the rest of our group worked on their behalf. In this instance, we each took a turn articulating our question that we were struggling with, then sat and waited while the others performed their divinations.

The writeup below is nearly identical to the outline that I provided for my ritual crew. I have changed the pronouns (we -> you), and turned some of the outline into complete sentences, but have left most of the idiosyncrasies intact for your amusement. Honestly, I feel like too many people idealize their ritual scripts when sharing them, and while I definitely do that sometimes, too – because the high dramatic language is entertaining to write as well as read – that’s not the vibe I’ve chosen for this particular post.

For our vision oil, I added a few drops of Quadrivium’s Revel Oil to a jojoba base. You could use anything, including plain olive oil or baby oil. Just be sure it’s skin safe and/or cosmetic grade, particularly if you intend to anoint your eyelids.

The clarity of the oracular chorus will wax and wane. Ideally, each oracle will be on their own wave and each suppliant will have enough oracles on point to have their question answered, but it’s very likely that the first suppliant will get the weakest answers.

Dark Moon Shenanigans Clarity of Vision Ritual

n-1. Pre-prep

Dinner & touch base. (Our lunar rituals always start with dinner. Your group rituals should, too, unless you’re fasting for a reason.)

Confirm that each of you have a set of divination tools and a question that you haven’t been able to answer for yourselves.

Decide on order of divinations in advance. This will save you stress and chaos in the ritual. The order in which you are seated is perfectly adequate.

0. Preperation

Finish setting up temple room, and make sure there are seats for everyone plus the “hot seat”. (Because, between making dinner and cleaning house, I can’t get this done before people arrive. Kudos if you can.) Ideally, everyone will be within arm’s reach of the altar.

Finish setting up the altar. (I drew an ouroboros on a mirror and put the vision oil in the center between two candles.)

Start playlist (I have been using a generic witchcraft music playlist for most of my workings for the last month.)

Exit temple room for purification.

I. Opening

Purification and procession into temple room. Everyone washes their hands in cinnamon and lustral waters. Have a towel handy.

With everyone standing around the altar, invoke your oracular gods and spirits (let people freeverse for a minute), and make offerings of incense and whatever else your tradition demands.

Mix and consecrate your vision oil, telling it “each of us shall approach you and offer up a secret; in return you shall grant all of us clear visions with which to answer our compatriots’ questions.”

Everyone takes their seat.

II. Body

The first suppliant kneels before the altar, whispers a secret truth to the oracular oil, and takes the hot seat.

The oracular chorus anoints themselves with vision oil.

The suppliant speaks briefly on their troubles and asks their question.

The oracular chorus performs their divinations singly and together, answering the suppliant’s question. Tarot. Runes. Scrying. Whatever.

The suppliant thanks chorus, and the gods and spirits, then steps down from the hot seat and purifies themselves before (re)joining the chorus.

Next suppliant steps out of chorus and everyone repeats above steps until everyone has had their turn in the hot seat.

III. Closing

After last suppliant has purified themselves, oracular chorus kneels around vessel of vision oil.

Everyone thanks the oracular gods and spirits for their aid.

Final offerings are made.


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.

Book, Bell, and Blade: Keepers of the Quarters and Dwellers on the Threshold

In my magical youth I was taught to call the quarters by element: Fire and Water, Earth and Air. There was some … disagreement as to which came from which direction. I quickly learned that, though some people would protest when you didn’t do it their way, every element would answer from every direction. I even learned – for the joy of argument – to invent a rationale for every possible attribution.

As my magical education improved, I learned that before modern witches called elements to watch the edges of their circles, others had called upon archangels. There was not much better agreement of which archangel ruled each direction than there was which element, but one could see certain similarities between the two, and how the one had clearly grown out of the other.

And then I learned that before certain magicians, too “pure” (or too afraid) to sully their circles with anything less, called angels to watch over their rites, their predecessors had called upon four demon kings. And these kings had no elemental associations – though that did come later. No, they were rulers of the sublunary world, each believed to have dominion over certain regions of the earth. One – Oriens – did not even have a proper name, just a foreign word for “East”.

From there, it seems clear to me how the evolution had happened: how we came from demon-kings to elemental gates. And, at every step of the path, it all worked. And, because it all works, tracing the lineages is a matter of academic passion, and I will leave you to do so if and only if it amuses you.

Today, I still sometimes call upon the elements for certain rituals. For others, I call upon certain stars which relate to the directions relative to where I stand. But, for the most part, I simply call upon those who keep the quarters without names:

“Hail unto you, O you keepers of the quarters and dwellers on the threshold.”

I cannot tell you who it is that rules the quarters in the part of the world (both physical or magical) where I have erected my temple. I have, once or twice, called upon them to reveal themselves to me. I have seen hints of faces – human, animal, other – but nothing clear. Not yet. Some day soon, it will be time to call upon them one by one, learn their names and their seals.

The dwellers on the threshold are more mysterious. It was a Theosophist who first wrote of the Guardian of the Threshold. I think that I read of it – of them – in some work of the Golden Dawn.

They are best known for hovering at the edge of the circle, and for looming in the face of the practitioner as they prepare to step into the unknown. They are the spiritual embodiment of the question, “Are you ready?” And when you tell them, “yes, I am ready”, and they believe you, they step aside.

There are those who say that the question they pose is, “Are you afraid?” And to the fearful and unready, those questions are the same. But fear can be rational. Fear can by holy. You can be ready and still be afraid.

I call on these powers at the start of each day because I … feel that it is appropriate.

I do not know, precisely, who they are. I know that I have had visions in which Lucifer has claimed the title of Dweller on the Threshold (the image of which I have included above). But I suspect that he is not the only one to bear that title.

Beyond Lucifer, himself, I have as yet made no effort to contact these powers more directly. Perhaps I will, some day, but – for the moment, at least – that does not seem to be their role. For now, I acknowledge their place and their power: the edge of the circle, keeping me from stepping out into unknowns for which I, on some level, know that I am not ready.


Thank you for reading Journey Through the Obsidian Dream.

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, 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.

Working the Hekataeon: Book Two: White Flame

Coming to the Book of White Flame after The Call was a bit of a shock. Every move in the first book had come with a ritual: the first nine nights were strictly prescribed, and if the second nine were a little more of a waiting game, there was a chant to go with each stage of the iynx ritual. The Book of White Flame is more of a litany culminating in a ritual. Aradia and I needed more structure than that.

Our solution was to bring the general ritual format of The Call forward. That was four years ago, now, so of course my memories of the details are a little vague. But I remember that each night when we sat down to do the work, we washed our hands with lustral waters and cinnamon, lit a candle and incense, and sang the consecration song. We then drew two versions of the sigil: one on a small slip of paper that we burned at the end of the ritual, as with the crossroads sigil in The Call; and one in a notebook which we mediated on and colored over as we tried to memorize the sigil and its uses.

Throughout the month, I gathered supplies to make our Ladders. I was broke as shit, then, and had to cheep out: using thinner wire and much thinner chain than was ideal. But I was able to cast up silver talismans for use as the central “coin”, some of the first exemplars of my Eye and Six Hands devotional talisman. In the last days of the sigil-study, I brough Aradia and Chirotus (who was working the Hekataeon at the same time) together and showed them how to string the beads on wire to form the chain.

In preparation for the rite, we made a special trip out to a sacred site where we knew that we could find a honey locust tree with exceptionally savage thorns. We took garlic from our farm share for our cloves, and raided our stash of local honey that I had originally purchased to make into mead.

When we had finished our study of the sigils, and the moon waxed to full, Aradia and I went to Alvianna’s property, where we could perform the ritual at a crossroads without fear of attracting police attentions. We had made arrangements in advance, so that we could come, and do what prep needed to be done there, without breaking the silence that preceds the ritual.

The consecration was an ordeal. Keeping silent for the hours preceding the ritual. Kneeling on the concrete. Holding the ladder in our mouths while we performed the ritual. Releasing the ladder slowly when the time came, not just vomiting it out.

There’s a lot I don’t remember about the night. Partly, that’s because it was almost four years ago, now. Partly that’s because I was so deeply entranced. What I do remember is that the Ladder felt alive and powerful almost immediately, and that the garlic cloves all sprouted while we were performing our rituals.

Then I went on an epic road trip. In the midst of searching for appropriate skulls with which to begin the Book of the Red Blade, we lost track of the work. I even forgot the names I had given to both my (original) iynx and my Ladder, and lost wherever I had written them down.

Then, one day in 2020, while I was doing my daily work with my other familiar spirits, the name – or, at least A name – of my Ladder came back to me. I began working with it more extensively. And, like all my familiars, what the spirit wanted was not just offerings but work to do. So, when something was not clearly in the purview of one of my other familiars, or when I wanted Hekate’s backing for a thing, I turned to the Ladder spirit and rite. It also offered its services in other means: speciffically, it offered to aid my work with Aidan Wachter’s Black Book, as I was struggling to resume that after having stopped and started. As such, it has become a familiar spirit somewhat greater in scope and intimacy than it was intended to be, and – as I am finally incorporating the Black Book into habitual ritual practice, I am working with my Ladder spirit almost daily.

As such, I can call my Hekate’s Ladder my greatest success with the work of the Hekataeon so far.


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.

To Work the Hekataeon: Book Two: White Flame

The second book of the Hekataeon is a month-long study of the epithets of Hekate, each with an associated sigil and ritual with the Devotee is now authorised and empowered to use. Once that month of study has been completed, the Devotee constructs and, on a night of the full mooon, ensouls a second ally: a set of prayer beads called Hekate’s Ladder. At the end of this work, the Devotee is awarded the title of Adept.

The Book of White Flame

The Book of White flame does not give any guidance for how to approach the study of the twenty-seven sigils.

When we did the work, Aradia and I pulled forward the ritual frame from The Call: each night we sat down to do the work, washed our hands with lustral waters and cinnamon, lit a candle and incense, and sang the consecration song. We then drew two versions of the sigil: one on a small slip of paper that we burned at the end of the ritual, as with the crossroads sigil in The Call; and one in a notebook which we mediated on and colored over as we tried to memorize the sigil and its uses.

Several of our compatriots who have joined us in the work combined their study of the epithets with their construction of the ladder: adding a bead each night as they mediated on the relevant sigil.

Hekate’s Ladder

Constructing your Hekate’s Ladder requires a few tools in addition to its raw materials. You will need:

  • two pairs of flat plyers – I prefer chain-nose for this task, but that’s extra finnicky of me
  • one pair of round nose or round-flat plyers
  • one pair of end-cutter plyers
  • 28-36 inches of wire (depending on how finely you work and what size of beads you choose
  • one standard strand of beads – I recommend 8mm in size
  • 6 rattlesnake vertebrae – I recommend 8mm to 12mm in size (these are increasingly difficult to come by)
  • one bell flower between 20mm and 30mm (you fill find these most easily by searching for “tassel caps”)
  • one key (antiques are stylish but not required)

The materials for the ritual are much simpler:

  • three cloves of garlic
  • three thorns large enough to pierce a clove of garlic
  • sandalwood incense (cones or powder and a charcoal briquette)
  • honey
  • spring water
  • a crossroads where you can work uninterrupted and with dirt to which you can pin the cloves of garlic
  • your assembled Hekate’s Ladder

As you chose and gather your materials, always keep in mind that they are going into your mouth. They are going to be in your mouth for longer than you think. It’s going to be weird. It may be gross. It’s going to be more of a challenge than you anticipate. Make sure they’re small enough to go into your mouth, but still big enough to work with.

The Ladder is consecrated on “a night of the full moon” (a phrase I usually take to meen “the night when the sun-moon oposition is perfected, the night before, and the night after”.), with no more speciffic timing given. It would be very easy to plan one’s progression through the Book of White Flame so that they consecrate their ladder on the twenty-ninth night, but it is also not necessary.

Even more than in constructing the iynx, you must plan ahead for this ritual: chose a time and a place where you can work without interruption and without speaking aloud. Figure out how you are going to fit the Ladder in your mouth and hold it there while you do the ritual. It is harder than it sounds like. If you have any taste/texture aversions, this will almost certainly set them off.

The consecration of your Hekate’s Ladder is an ordeal rite.

It is also, even more explicitly than the iynx, a birth. Sit with that for a while before hand and decide how much you want to lean into that metaphor. Even if the answer is “none”, the Ladder and its spirit are still a living, named entity that you and Hekate have made together.

On Acquiring the Materials

Barebones sets of jeweler’s or craft plyers can be found at almost any craft store or big box retailer. Nicer tools exist, but unless you’re going into professional jewelry there is no need to pay $25-$50 per plyer when you could pay $10-$20 for a set that contains all you need and more.

The bead sizes that I recommend are a compromise between “large enough to hold and work with easily, both during construction and use” and “small enough to fit in your mouth when you consecrate the piece”. The same logic should apply to your choice of key. Etsy is probably your best source of beads, if you know how to tell fake from real by the listing. If you can’t tell, I recommend finding a jeweler you trust, not going to a bead or craft store.

The example photo in the Hekataeon looks like unbleached rattlesnake vertebrae and bleached “generic” (read: bovine) bone. I use bleached rattlesnake vertebrae and black volanic rock beads for most of my Ladders, but have used a wide assortment of other materials to good effect. At the time of this writing, genuine rattlesnake vertebrae of a reasonable size are very difficult to find. As the text suggests that even a rope of knots would be a suitable substitute if the Devotee is unable to construct the ladder as written, any bead substitution would be acceptable.

If you would like to be able to wear your Hekate’s Ladder as a necklace, unless you have an extremely small head and neck, you will need to add at least four inches of spacer beads and probably a clasp.

I sell Hekate devotional talismans and cast replicas of rattlesnake vertebrae suitable for this work, as well as fully constructed but un-consecrated Ladders, at The Sorcerer’s Workbench.


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.

Working the Hekataeon: A Cacaphony of Gods

There are seven gods who receive daily offerings in my house. (Though I only speak of six with any regularity, there is also the Serpent Faced God of PGM XII 153-60.) As I have said before, I have no impulse toward exclusive worship – not henotheism, not monotheism, not even monism – so I had no notion of suspending those offerings when I sat down to resume the work of the Hekataeon. But it had been my intention to devote my active attention to Hekate alone. The gods, it seemed, had other plans.

In retrospect, this should not have come as a surprise.

Over the last two years, in particular, there have been times when my morning rituals have evoked intense visionary experiences. The visions that resulted in the triptych images of Baphomet, and the vision of Lucifer as the Dweller on the Threshold, were the most significant that I ever felt comfortable relating publicly. They were not, by any means, the most intense. I could feel the hands of the gods upon me, see their faces before my eyes, smell their headdy, uncanny musk.

But it seemed that I never had more than two or three visions of one god before other gods began appearing, as well. Already struggling to deal with the implications of the first visions, the addition of other powers to that mix was inevitably more than I could handle. I retreated from the experiences, and all the gods fell silent.

My friends who were raised with more religion than I was laugh at me when I wonder aloud if having been raised in a different environment would have better prepared me for these experiences. But I think they underestimate how alienated my upbringing was from divinity. In the same way I was raised vaguely aware that queer people existed, but with a strong implication that they were all far away and that I would never meet one, I was raised in a place where religion was just a social control mechanism, where people of strong convictions and intense experiences were alien and threatening. As a child, they were snake-handlers and madmen on television; as a teen, they were still that, and they were also Pat Robertson and the 700 Club: people who wanted me dead for being effeminate, for playing D&D, and for dabbling in witchcraft.

My earliest epiphanies were always of singular divinities, always months apart. They were also largely spontaneous: the presence of a god intruding on what had been intended to be some other sort of mystical experience. One of the earliest such was Rhea/Kybele appearing to demand I bring my then-friend Pasiphae to her. (I still wonder, sometimes, if that contact ever happened, or if Pasiphae’s commitment to a faceless generic Goddess was impenetrable to the real divine.)

Now, working my way through the first and then the second nine days of the Hekataeon, I am once more blessed/plagued by a cacophony of divinity. Baphomet shows me new faces every two or three days, revealing how the trinity/triptych aspects I have been shown unfold into seven (and nine) planetary epiphanies. Their Lunar aspect has much in common with the White Lady, and Saturnian Baphomet shares much with The Man in Black. Their Solar manifestation is Akephelos (Headless), and caries the Light of Creation, Phanes, like Eros. I have glimpsed their Martial aspect, bull-headed, armed and armored, which I so far call Korebantes, and that bull-headed vision gave way to another: a starry, mystical, Neptunian which I have (for lack of a better name so far) dubbed Asterion.

Aphrodite has blessed the photoshoot I did in her honor. Eros and Lucifer and Dionysos all loom large at their altars. My familiar spirits have begun speaking again on the regular, giving me practical advice for how to achieve my goals.

On days three and four and five and six of The Call, this was … unsettling. Distracting. Dissonant.

But, speaking with my compatriots at our regular New Moon Esbat, as we had all concluded our first round of The Call, those with more experience than I with the gods assured me that this was common. So, too, have a handful of people around the internet when I spoke of this problem. “Problem.”

So, even as I find the experience unsettling, I am reassured. As alien as this experience is to my upbringing and my expectations, it appears to be … typical. (As hurtful as that word is to us mystics and madmen.)

And so, as uncomfortable as it is, and as hard as it makes things from one day to the next, I am going to try to sit with that discomfort. To try to find the symphony in the cacophony.

After all, am I not a mystic? Am I not here for gnosis of the gods and the cosmos? Did I not tell Hekate, herself, that I am here to see where the road will take me? Did I not seek out each of these gods, too, even as I have sought out Hekate? Did I not seek out some of them – Dionysos, Baphomet – even before her?

This is the work. This is what I have come here to do. I have taken the names that I have taken. Each day I repeat them, both assertion and demand: I am [That Seer of Antiquity], I am [The Satyr Who Is a Magician], I am [The Sacred Companion]. I will live up to those ambitions. I will live up to those expectations.

When the gods speak, I will strive to listen.


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.

Working the Hekataeon: Book One: The Call

Aradia and I began our work with the Hekataeon early in 2019. My notes, unfortunately, do not say exactly when. We made quick work of The Call, but then botched the timing for making our iynxes and had to wait for the next waxing moon. I know, in retrospect, that I was already falling apart at that point, and so it is little surprise that my memory of those months is … vague.

What I remember most clearly from those first days is a sense of dis-ease at the notion of pledging myself to a single god. I rejected monotheism thirty years ago. For all that I love Dionysos above all other gods, henotheism has never been on the table. I expected to be rejected outright, and was surprised when Aradia and I were both given immediate signs to perform the devotion ritual and construct our iynxes.

I remember that I was absolutely confident in my ability to construct the strapholos with nothing more than a poorly exposed photograph and a childhood memory for guidance. I remember being extremely frustrated that the result, however pretty, neither spun nor buzzed the way I expected. I remember that the tiny jelly jar I chose to incubate my iynx in was much, much harder to break than I anticipated. I remember struggling to name the spirit, and to remember the name I had given it (I was even worse at journaling then than I am, now.) I remember feeling, from very early on, that I had failed at that portion of the work. I put the iynx in a drawer and never used it.

In the years since then, many of our friends have acquired their own copies of the Hekataeon. Some began the work and faltered. Others made it to the end of The Call and stopped there. One or two made it as far as we had, and faltered at the same place: the beginning of The Book of the Red Blade, searching for a horse skull or reasonable substitute.

At the beginning of this June, when the Moon was right and when we had managed to carve out space in our schedules, we began (re)working the book as a group – each of us alone in our own temples, but together in spirit. Aradia, Alvianna, and I put together the materials lists and links to the recommended readings that grew into my first post in the To Work the Hekataeon series.

As before, Aradia and I took turns leading the ritual: starting the fires, leading the chants, reading the guided meditations and the recommended readings aloud. Because she still works a day job, I took point on most of the logistical preparations: designing and building the altar, making changes one night to the next to accommodate what had and hadn’t worked quite right, and what needed to change to follow the evolving ritual.

This time, though, I found the work to be a struggle … but not in the ways that I might have anticipated, if I had anticipated any trouble at all.

My ritual practices have grown a lot since I first attempted this work. I have a daily devotional practice which includes Hekate, who has her own altar – the largest of any one god in our house. We didn’t need to make a pre-ritual shopping trip: our basic stores covered everything we needed and more. I am a full time artist and witch, now: setting time aside for the ritual was no challenge whatsoever. My spirit-sight, and my ability to hear spirits and gods, has improved exponentially. I could sense Hekate there every night. I could feel the spirits of my stones awaken, grow, and change as we re-consecrated them on the seventh night, and when we put them to use on the eighth (and ninth, but that’s coming in a bit).

I understand, now, as I didn’t then, how to ancient (and modern but with different trauma than me) polytheists saw no dissonance or contradiction in addressing each god as the greatest, ultimate, and supreme creator and savior. I understand now, on a level that I didn’t then, how initiation into multiple mysteries is no infidelity. The comparison is irreverent, but it works the same as “every cat is best cat”. Or, to be irreverent in a different way, the way you engage in certain activities with one lover does not preclude in engaging in other activities with another lover.

On the fourth night, though, my religious trauma kicked in hard. I don’t know what it was about that rite, in particular, that brought it on. For that matter, I don’t know why it didn’t come up sooner. Something about the text for that night took me back to the place I was in my early teens: angry that powers out there existed, demanding our love and devotion, but offering so little protection in return. The conscious dissonance wasn’t there the next nights, but I also didn’t sleep right again until after the New Moon had come and the rites had been completed.

I struggled with the passages about finding yourself worthy in ways that I had not struggled before. What even is “worth” in a mortal sense, let alone a divine one? And, what do you mean “what do I want out of this work”? I want to know what comes from it!

I struggled with the way that, even as I sat down to do this certain work with this one god, it seemed that other gods who have had little to say to me, lately, seemed to show up in ways that they have not in weeks or months or years. I have no impulse toward hennotheism or monotheism or even monism, despite its popularity in circles I frequent, but it seemed strage that this was the time the gods chose to speak. (I will have more to say on this in a future post.)

On Night Eight (ARBITUM), I asked for permission to resume the work of the Hekataeon. I was told no. This both came as a complete surprise to me – Kraken and I had been discussing the possibility just that afternoon – and hurt my feelings more than I would have guessed had I been asked. I don’t remember exactly how I phrased the question, or the questions that followed, but the conclusion was that I was to do a ritual of penance and absolution, for which I turned to one of the sigils in the Book of White Flame: Thea Deinos. I considered doing further divination, but decided against until I had completed that penance.

At dusk on the ninth night, what would have been INVOCATIO, I began by performing the ritual same opening ritual I had done for the last eight nights: i washed my hands with lustral waters and scrubbed them with cinnamon. I burned myrrh and asperged the space. I drew the crossroads sigil and lit three candles. Then I drew the Thea Deinos sigil on my brow, my throat, and my heart. I took the pose of terror and spoke aloud to the goddess. I apologized for abandoning the work. I apologized for whatever I had done to offend her. I spoke of my frustration with the very notion of worth. I spoke of my desire to learn what lay down the path, to experience Mystery for its own sake.

When I was done, I washed my hands again. I scrubbed them with cinnamon. I went back to the rite of the ARBITUM. This time, when I asked permission to resume the work, I was given the black stone of yes. This time, I had follow-up questions prepared. Yes, I could remake my iynx. No I could not follow along with my companions who were proceeding for the first time. Emphatically no (two white stones) I should not hold back for any stragglers. Yes, I could wait for them before beginning the Book of the Red Blade, but also, yes, it would be better for me and the work if I were to go ahead on my own.

And so, when the time came, I held a funeral for my first iynx. I apologized for my failures in constructing the strapholos, and for failing to continue the work, or honor the spirit properly. I apologized to Hekate for the same, and released the spirit into her care. Maybe the funeral wasn’t necessary. I had doubts both before and during. But I had received permission and committed to the course, and for all my doubts, all that I felt as I watched over the funeral pyre was relief.

When the funeral was complete, I walked away to give the ashes time to cool. Then I came back and set up a workbench altar on which to construct my new iynx. Based on a … feeling that had been with me from when I first decided to hold a funeral for my first iynx, I included a pinch of its ashes in the making of the new, after the ashes of the sigils and before the snakeskin and feather.

Performing the funeral for my first iynx, I dubbed the spirit “child of Hekate”. In assembling the new one, it dawned on me – from the component spit – it could as reasonably be considered my child, as well. That is certainly not the relationship that I have felt with any of my other familiar spirits, but I am going to try to hold onto that thought and act accordingly as I continue the work of growing this new soul. No, I don’t know what this might mean or imply. Maybe someday I will. Maybe I wont. And maybe it’s just a delusion.

With so little ritual framework for the burial, exhumation, and re-burial of the iynx, I struggled a little to really invest myself in each stage. Burrying it, initially, felt significant. Drowning it did not. Nor, despite my best efforts to focus my attention, did hanging it. In fact, my first sense that I had performed the ritual correctly, was during my morning ritual on the final day, when I planned to complete the rite at midnight: sitting at my altar, I could feel the potential of the spirit hovering at the edge of my circle. Even so, I felt nothing from the bottle.

It was only during the final ritual, after I had named the spirit and assigned it a form, when I began to spin the strapholos that I finally felt the spirit manifest and ensoul itself in the tool. The Hekataeon tells you to wake yourself in the middle of the night and record your dreams of your iynx. I barely slept, and had no dreams to record. But that’s typical for me, and the lack of prophetic dreams is neither signal nor noise. I felt the iynx quicken in my hands. I know it lives and will serve me.

And now, with my new iynx born and ensouled within my new strapholos, I am ready to skip forward and resume the work that I abandoned in 2019: The Book of the Red Blade. My devotion to Hekate and the Hekataeon is renewed. My familiars – who now number 14, with the completion of the iynx – tell me that I am on the right path. I look forward to continuing to send you these notes from the spiritual wilderness.


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.