Breaking Up With Bune

Back in 2017, I made a prosperity sachet using the seal of Bune. It was an unorthodox procedure, combining a bit of US folk magic with modern chaos and ceremonial magic, and (of course) my own unique style. Overall, it served me well. I wrote briefly about the positive results in 2019. And as the Sorcerer’s Workbench got me through the pandemic and turned enough profit that I was able to quit my day job at the beginning of this year, the relationship was strong and solid. I was making offerings with every sale, and more offerings at certain sales goals.

Then, toward the beginning of this year, things went sideways.

Back in December, I hit a Deneb Algedi election that provided swift and powerful results. Then in February, I cast two cohorts of Jupiter talismans, and kept two pieces for myself. And after that, sales got real slow.

Initially, I thought one or both of the Jupiter talismans was to blame. The two I had kept for myself had mis-cast – cold shuts that left gaps in the images – and, though they assured me that they wanted to live and to work with me, it was still only my second time casting elected talismans for sale and I was still waist-deep in the same mental health crisis that had led me to quit my day job with only half the savings I’d wanted, and, as such, I lacked confidence in my own perceptions. Additionally, as March waxed into April, one of those talismans was being very explicitly tetchy about working with a demon.

But I had been working with Bune for five years at that point, and – as a relational rather than strictly transactional practitioner – I was not prepared to end that relationship yet. So I contacted a peer – Asphodello of Ward and Weave – to check in. His suggestion – short of severing my relationship with Bune – was to set up separate altars and specific spheres of responsibility. That worked very well in the short term: May was a *very* good month.

But June, July, and August have been real challenges. Weird bank shit. Rude custom inquiries, including two requests to rip off another artist’s work. A shocking lack of interest in my elected Venus talismans. Constant reassurances from my familiar spirits and divinations that things were in the works, but no explanation for why they weren’t manifesting.

In August, I took advantage of some oracular work my coven and I are doing (that I’ll write up some day) to get a more clear perspective on what’s going wrong. The answers I got, in three separate sessions, were “make more offerings”, “make even more offerings, and a new altar”, and “you’re doing the wrong work”.

That last answer was, of course, infuriating. I’m putting in the material work. I’m putting in the spiritual work. If I’m missing something, then what?

So, I went back to the tarot. The divination I did for myself was, of course, unclear except in retrospect. “What should I be working on, instead?” *VIII Adjustment* Contracts and consequences? Dafuq? Clarification, please? *Princess of Cups* Feelings, intuition, and mediumship?

Clearly I wasn’t going to puzzle this out on my own. So, at last, I called my partner in. Aradia is one of the best diviners in our social circle; I should have asked her for help months ago, but I try not to abuse her time and talents.

Our first reading was a basic 10 card Celtic cross. It was lousy with court cards, and overall seemed to agree that everything was fine. The one off card was the 7 of Cups in the crown position, indicating that that was probably where my problem was. But that wasn’t actually a clear answer. Another spread indicated that I needed to change my magical approach. So we looked to the spirits on my prosperity altar: how do things stand with each of them?

The answer came with the first card in the next spread. Bune was the 7 of Cups. We named and inquired about each of the other spirits, too, but he was the only problem. Another draw indicated that it would sort itself out in time, but the solution was to sever the relationship. That left only when: immediately (6 of Disks, “that’ll work”) or when I clean my prosperity altar on Thursday (V the Hierophant, “this is the most correct way”).

So, two days later (an hour or so ago, as I write this; some days ago, as you read this), I did the deed.

Using the same conjuration that I had used to make my initial contact with Bune (found in Jason Miller’s Sorcerer’s Secrets), I called the spirit up and told him that it was time to end our relationship. I apologized for any insult I might have given, any accidental failure to fulfil my end of our contract, and for any number of possible slights. I disassembled the sachet and promised to bury it and the lamen at a crossroads, and to slag the metal seals that I had made for his altar. I made one last round of offerings – coffee, candle, incense – and it was done.

I felt him appear to hear me speak. I more than half expected protests, or promises of better behavior. I did not expect him to fade out so softly that I barely noticed.

Now, having completed the rite to release him and end our contract, I feel a very strange rush of energy. My heart is racing; I’m near tears. It’s more like a panic attack than mania or a meltdown, but it’s not any of those things.

I’m disappointed. I feel a little bit like a failure. Both are slightly silly.

My relationship with Bune was mutually profitable for five years. It fell apart when I started accumulating other financially beneficial spiritual relationships. Mostly, I’m frustrated that I didn’t realize more immediately that it was the demon who likes to be paid in public praise that was not playing well with the other spirits, not vice versa.

I feel the need to make absolutely clear that this story is not a cautionary tale about working with demons. It bears repeating that, despite my hilariously idiosyncratic methods, good guy Bune *delivered*. It might not even have been the other magic that I was doing that broke things: five years might just have been the absolute limit on the life of the mojo bag. Further divination might reveal some useful post-facto analysis. Bune might have also been happy to work with other spirits on the prosperity altar if it had occurred to me to consult him before conjuring them, instead of just piling the altar high with planetary petitions and Jupiter talismans and (more recently) Mercury talismans. But, without question, once it was over it was over. The cards were clear that there was no fixing what was broken.

And so I will end this with a note of final, formal, public praise for Bune, the 26th spirit of the Lesser Key of Solomon. For five good years, you brought me patrons and prosperity. Without you, the Sorcerer’s Workbench would not have been possible. Hail unto you, O Bune.

Prosperity Mojo: Further Work with Bune

In early November, shortly after Jupiter entered Sagittarius, Aradia and I decided that the stars were reasonably well aligned for our working group to do some prosperity magic. But because our working group was getting a little burnt out on charging sigils with Orphic hymns, we decided to go in a slightly different direction: pulling out our collections of scrap fabrics, herbs, loose stones, oils, and whatnot, we decided to make mojo bags.

Having previously worked with Bune (October-November of 2018), I made the spontaneous decision to include the seal I had hand-engraved in brass in the otherwise conventionally Jupiterian prosperity talisman. It sits on my altar and I spritz it with prosperity spray every pay period.

But Bune likes public praise, and I’ve got to hand it to him: he’s delivering. Despite an otherwise slow holiday season at work, every pay check has been above average. My ebook sales bumped, and my Kindle Unlimited pageviews skyrocketed. It’s not a huge amount of money, but it’s workable and sustainable growth.

I keep hearing about how dangerous it is to work with Goetic spirits. How they’ll fuck up your brain and your life. And, don’t get me wrong, there’s some folks in the Lesser Key that I won’t touch with a ten foot pole. And it’s always possible that there’s something unique about my natal chart or my previous magical practice that makes my situation special. But so far, I’ve found Bune to be a reasonable and companionable partner in crime.

Credit Where Credit is Due: Good Guy Bune Delivers

Back in September I performed my first conjuration of a demon from the Lesser Keys of Solomon.  Specifically, I conjured Bune using the ritual in Jason Miller’s Sorcerer’s Secrets.  I offered public praise and a copper seal in exchange for a boost to my monthly income from passive online sources.

September and October saw no action on that front.  I was initially I was concerned — my agreement hadn’t included a formal end or escape clause.  And there was the strange scene where Bune showed up and told me to get out of his way and let him work.

November, December, and January, however, have delivered.  Although Bune wasn’t able to do much through my passive sources — a small KDP boost — I did see a marked increase in real work coming in, both from the dayjob and side projects.  I’ve already sold five copies of the novel I put out at the beginning of the month, and I haven’t even promoted it much because I’m still delivering Kickstarter rewards.

I didn’t get quite the amount I asked for, but in retrospect a 50% boost in my income may have been just too much.  So I have paid Bune his copper seal, and here I offer public praise.

My wealth has increased thanks to Bune!  All hail!

On a related note, hit me up for Bune talismans in copper or silver.

Dabbling in Deomonolatry – Preliminary thoughts

I’ve spoken before on how, in the late 1990s and early 2000s when I began my magical career, conjuring spirits in any way was considered deeply taboo.  Nothing was more taboo than the point where the lingering echoes of the Satanic panic overlapped with Neo-Pagan respectability politics: Crowley’s Goetia(1) and the summoning of demons.  I, of course, confronted this taboo through juvenile art (tragically no longer extant), but I also worked very, very hard to enforce it in the magical circles in which I socialized.

So when Andrieh Vitimus proposed Beginner’s Mind as the theme of this past month’s Do Magick Challenge, the Goetia was one of the first things to come to mind.  I briefly considered devoting the whole month to the grimoire, but given that I was dragging myself out of a deep depression during which I had done relatively little magic, had skipped the research month because where the fuck did August go, anyway?, and would be diving in to the challenge two days late … Yeah.  That just seemed like a bad idea.  Instead I set my sights lower: to conjure a single spirit from the grimoire.  I, perhaps inevitably, chose Bune.  I would conjure him to bring me riches.  On a whim, having made the decision, I engraved his seal in brass.

In a sense, then, my first two weeks of the challenge were spent in preparation for that ritual.  In addition to getting my aura back into fighting shape, I needed to decide which approach to take in the conjuration.  I boiled my potentially unlimited options down to three: to perform the operation as described in the Goetia; to perform an alternate Bune ritual presented by Jason Miller(2); or to perform a ritual of my own design(3).  I turned to divination to help make the decision.  Drawing a card for each of the options, I got XIII Death, 0 The Fool, and 3 Disks “Work” respectively.  I interpreted this to mean that the Miller rite would be my best place to start, that the work would continue freestyle, and that I would eventually conclude with the Legemeton ritual.

On Day 12 of the challenge, at the Day and Hour of Jupiter, I conjured the spirit of Bune using Miller’s rite.  The ritual was very bare bones, so I made a few aesthetic alterations to account for the layout of my temple space — I made and donned the paper talisman of Bune as Miller described, and set the brass talisman in my triangle along with the obsidian sphere I use as a focus in almost all of my rituals.  I then performed the rite as Miller described, and the ritual worked as promised.

The spirit’s appearance was faint, but discernable; although I did not perceive him immediately, he made his presence known before I repeated the call.  I made my request of Bune – a sum of money from a certain source and within a certain time frame – and he (I believe) acquiesced.  I dismissed him and my circle.  I put away the brass seal in the box I bought for it.  I went about my day, flush with the afterglow of successful magic.

On Day 28, Bune appeared to me during my nightly meditations.  He informed me that by putting the brass seal in its box, I had limited his ability to act.  To quote my original notes:

He said that I had left his seal in a box too long to accomplish the task I had asked of him.  In order to procure my cash, he said, he needed his seal placed on my Jupiter altar and a candle lit for him.  I considered saying no, but part of the premise of the Miller invocation I had originally chosen is that you are building a cooperative relationship with the spirits, and that request is well within the boundaries of reasonable established by my other spirit-work.  I assented, and when I was done with my meditation I moved his seal and lit the candle as promised.  As an act of good faith, tomorrow I will put in the order for the copper seal I promised him upon his success.

I have since made good on those promises: the seal has been moved to my Jupiterian money altar, not one but two candles have been lit for him, and the copper seal has been ordered.  We’ll see how things come and go.


1 – Crowley, Aleister, and Hymenaeus Beta, eds. The Goetia: the lesser key of Solomon the King: Lemegeton–Clavicula Salomonis Regis, book one. Translated by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. 2nd ed. York Beach, Me.: Samuel Weiser, 1997. It should, I hope, go without saying that the volume is Crowley’s more by reputation than by fact.

2 – Miller, Jason. The Sorcerer’s Secrets: Strategies in Practical Magick. Pompton Plains, NJ: New Page Books, 2009.  Pages 139-142.

3 – Such a ritual would have probably been based on the conjuration circle shown to me by the spirits of Saturn.  I may yet perform it anyway.