Showing all posts tagged Chaos Magick

In witchcraft

Disorder and a Detour Through Nostalgiaville

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

projectnullSomething about this experiment in Chaos Magick has gotten me thinking about the old days.  Hence the Timeline overhaul and all the post about my teenage years.  I’ll warn you now: there may be more of that coming, though on different subjects.

Aside from continuing my daily banishing, most of my work this week has consisted of the shielding experiments which sent me down memory lane, which I’ll talk about in detail tomorrow.

Friday night, I began another round of mask-making.  In accordance with the season, I was making another Death mask, which I hoped to sell for enough to reup my absinthe supply in time for Samhain.  Sadly, the clay wasn’t quite the right consistency, and shattered as it dried.  Hopefully I will have time to try again sometime this week.

I also fired a shoal of sigils Friday night.  I’m not gonna lie: this was some seriously low-brow shit.  The sort of thing that people get into fights about whether or not it’s beneath a magician’s dignity to do, and which, if approached from the wrong angle, could even be an ethical problem.  Yeah, that’s right: I’m using magic to help me get laid.  Go ahead, judge me.  That’s fair.

Divining before hand, it was almost an unqualified green light.  But … two IMG_5571potential problems came up. In the “coming in” position of the reading was XIII Death, last seen in my monthly reading in the 7th House; a more cautious person might have taken that as a sign not to cast.  Then, 7S “Futility” and I the Magus sat together in the “final outcome” position.  It seems likely that this indicates that, despite my best efforts, success in this arena will constitute a distraction from my school work.

Speaking of distractions from my school work: although the last week has been light enough for me to write this barrage of posts, things are going to get busy again after midterm.  The timeline I established for Project Null was predicated on last semester’s workload.  This semester’s load is much greater, and while I will strive to keep to that original schedule … well, school always has to come first.

Ironically, as I do an increasing amount of magical work every day, my meditation has fallen off completely.  Sadly, time spent staring at people’s auras in the cafeteria or out and about don’t count.

I have been able to remember my dreams upon waking only a few mornings, which is probably largely attributable to the sleeping teas I’ve been relying on for the last two weeks.  The fact that my dream recall has improved since I ran out of valerian tends to confirm this theory.  Most oddly, the night after charging the “get laid” sigil shoal, what do I dream about?  Why, the zombie apocalypse, of course, featuring a number of students from my school that I have never once spoken to.

I live a charmed life, mostly, but a strange one.

My plan for the coming week is to launch another shoal or two of sigils, finish reading Strategic Sorcery, and get back into Liber Null.  I’m also contemplating how to consciously interface my sigil magic with my Web of Influence for improved accuracy and timing.  So far, I’ve begun by tacking my fired sigils up with the maps that have become the visual representation of that web.  I will also continue brainstorming for what, precisely, I want the servitor I’m going to create as a part of this project to do; the general thought right now is bolster my house wards and serve as a guardian/attack dog.

In witchcraft

Project Null: Settling Into the Groove

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

projectnullI have just completed the third week of my Project Null experiment.  Some things have been settling down, others have been rearing their heads.

I’ve been escalating my daily banishing ritual a little bit, and doing better about my meditation, which has had a positive effect on the paranoia.  Perfecting my sleeping tea and being ruthless about bedtime (“ruthless”, because my homework is suffering) have helped with the insomnia and the nightmares.

My patience with various frustrations is at a distinct low point.  A class that I had hoped would be a fun challenge has, so far, turned out to be neither fun nor challenging, and another that should have been a coast-through is giving me trouble because the teacher seems to be suffering from part-timer syndrome.  These are legitimate frustrations.  My desire to set something on fire over them are just a little bit out of proportion.  With that said: I’ve suffered from rage issues for my whole life, so this is nothing new to me.  Stress makes me angry.  This is probably related to the Chaos experiment only insomuch as my meditation practice is making it impossible to deny or sublimate the rage.

Over the course of the week, I pushed a little further in Stephen Mace, restarted reading Hine’s Condensed Chaos, read Carol’s Liber KKK, and re-read Gordon’s Sigils Reboot.

Meditation

For most of the week, my meditation practice was the best it had ever been.  I was making five minutes or more at least once a day.  I wasn’t necessarily having great insights—really, just the Abrasax thing—but my mind was getting less and less unruly.  Then, Thursday, I fell off the horse for no reason.  No meditation Thursday or Friday.

This morning and yesterday, it’s distraction city all over again.  With the noted addition of a distinct buzz at the end of every meditation session, which is interesting and might be good or bad.

Magic

At the beginning of this experiment, I took a bit of a hiatus from active magical practice. I have begun re-incorporating magic into my practice, and the results have been decidedly mixed.  I dove back in to magic head-first Monday, with the Mercury Cazimi election just before dawn followed by the Mass of Chaos B that afternoon to fire off some sigils.  The first was a success; the second, not so much.

I made use of the Mercury election to recharge all my various Mercury talismans and to create a new language-learning talisman.  Although the raw power of that election made it very easy for me to feel the dissonance between my retrograde natal Mercury and the planetary power, the enchantments went well.  I have felt a distinct improvement in my ability to communicate with other humans (except over electronic media, which seems to be suffering an increased confusion, but there are a LOT of confounding factors making that correlation pretty blurry), and my comprehension of Greek and Latin does seem to be improving at a slightly swifter rate.

The Mass of Chaos B sigil launch was a qualified disaster.  I had three desires: to have a lost set of keys returned to me by Thursday, to have an Amazon package that has been waiting in the dock for (I though) no good reason shipped that day, and to find money on the ground.  The keys have still not been returned to me; Amazon has finally deigned to tell me that the reason my package didn’t ship is that The Sorcerer’s Secrets is currently out of stock; and I found a grand total of $0.06 on the ground this week.

So … I think I’m going to back up with my sigils.  Try launch techniques which are a little more traditional.  And hopefully aim my intentions a little better.

Meanwhile, the changes to my morning banishing rites have definitely left me feeling much more powerful.  I’ve yet to see that improved sense of power translate into actual results, though.

Dreaming

The tea I’ve been using to help regulate my sleep schedule has really fucked my dream journaling.  While on the one hand, my dreams have been vivid and interesting, on the other hand, I have been consistently woken up by the alarm which drives whatever I’ve been dreaming out of my head pretty much every time.

Have I mentioned before that dreamwork is not a native talent of mine?

Hopefully, the next batch of dream tea will cause me fewer problems: 2 tbs valerian; 1 tbs each white willow, chamomile; 2 tsp mugwort; 1 tsp spearmint.  I will be brewing does of 1 tbs in 2 cups filtered water.

In witchcraft

Dissonance and Resonance

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

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I have been practicing magic for just shy of sixteen years.  I’ve seen some whack-ass shit—some of it way back in the day, some of it a little more recently.  I even burned out the circuitry in my own brain on one occasion, a psychic injury from which I have only fully recovered in the last two years.  Fuck: I spent the first five or eight years of my magical practice with no other goal than to get some sort of hold on what currently passes for my sanity.  So when Peter Carroll tells me that Chaos Magick can lead to paranoia and obsession and outright madness, my first reaction is, “Been there.  Done that.”

Oops.  Stultus sum.

I have spent the last week struggling with depression and paranoia far out of line with my circumstances.  Also, a round of insomnia which has driven me to work on perfecting my sleeping tea and which has rendered me almost incapable of focusing on my studies.  Small noises in and outside my apartment have sent me into fits, searching for the source.  I have heard things scratching at the doors and walls.  In the moments between sleep and waking, I am haunted by delusions that someone or something is trying to break into the apartment.  My dreams have been haunted by fear, death, and betrayal.

Yes, I have things to be depressed about.  I have abandoned one lover, for a second time, in a far-away city; I have stayed in place as another moves on to bigger and better things.  That these things are inevitable, and the only path to each of us furthering our ambitions, is little consolation: I miss them.  Beyond that, finances are tight.  I didn’t make enough money over the summer, leaving with debt at the beginning and my costs have risen.  I’ve secured a TA position, which will provide me more hours than my post office position last year, but it’s still minimum-wage work-study.

There’s also stress.  I’m studying two dead languages at once, which is a kind of mind fuck.  I’m learning to weave, which is relatively straightforward on the one hand, but hugely time consuming.  And I’m taking an upper-level class outside my field: Gender Studies, as a point of fact, which while somewhat familiar territory as a queer feminist, is rightly known as a field  of particularly difficult-to-read theory.

But these very real factors are not sufficient to account for the degree of madness I’ve been struggling against, or the perfect (if short-lived) efficacy of banishing and/or meditation as a method of managing it.

All this, and I haven’t even performed my initiation in to the Chaos Current, yet, or the Mass of Chaos B for a second time?

Fuck.  Me.  Running.

I just hope that if I do go off the deep end, there’ll be someone left in my life to send in a rescue party.

Meditation

My meditation has been going fabulously.  I have missed only one day this week—Monday—and I have meditated in excess of 30 minutes on two occasions: almost exactly half an hour Tuesday night, before sleep; and a somewhat harder to quantify amount Friday afternoon at the loom, made up of uncounted three to eight minute intervals as I lost myself in the rhythm of the shuttle and reed.

Which is fucking good, because, as I said above, it’s been the front line of defense against the hordes of my internal demons.

Magic

I have been banishing and refining my Q-Cross every day, but done little other active magic this week.  What I have done is dwell upon Chaos Magick, its paradigms, and Project Null.  Having produced the first half-dozen glyphs of my Sacred Alphabet, I must now begin to conceive of how it will grow.  I have also been preparing for Monday morning’s Mercury Cazimi election.

And, of course, as is my custom, I spend Friday night cleaning and smudging my apartment.  I also performed a couple banishings..

The most concrete product of these musings and meditations can be seen in the image at the top: a syncretic chaosphere for Aradia, myself, and anyone else who chooses to join in with Project Null.  An image, a sigil if you will, to help unite and power our efforts. Our own little runoff stream of the Chaos current.

Dream

Although my dreams have been consistently violent, they have only been clear enough to record after waking about every other day.  I’m always vague in the mornings; it’s twice as bad when I actually wake up with the alarm, rather than before, and that is always the case when I have to dose myself in order to sleep.

For the curious: the tea I’ve been drinking has been valerian, mugwort, and white willow at at 2:1:1 ratio.  Last night I added 1/2 part mint and reduced the dose from 4 tsp to 3, which has produced the best results so far.  Mugwort tea gave me nightmares as a teen, too, but almost never since.

In witchcraft

Opening Liber MMM

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

As I described in the launch post for my chaos magic experiment, I am beginning with Liber MMM: mind control, magic, and dreaming*.

Mind Control

Except for the emotional auditing, Peter Carroll’s “mind control” is basically meditation, and I’ve been starting simple with sitting motionless and breathing concentration.  The hardest thing about five minutes a day of meditation isn’t the meditation, itself: it’s sitting down to do it.  So far I’ve been managing about every other day.

I’ve experimented with three different positions to date.  Sitting cross-legged on my bed, with my arms extended and my elbows resting on my knees.  Laying flat on my back on the bed, arms limp at my sides.  And sitting in one of those mini-papasan chairs that they sell for dorm rooms, facing my altar, with my hands in my lap.  I’ve had mixed results with all three.  I have done my meditation in the morning, promptly upon waking, and at night, shortly before going to sleep.  Again, the results have been mixed.

Sitting still for five minutes was, in fact, physically painful the first time I did it as a part of this experiment.  And, for whatever reason, flatly impossible yesterday morning.  I’m not sure why: it’s not like I don’t sit motionless for a lot of my magical workings.  Maybe it’s because I’m not focused on anything in particular.  Ironically, I think this will get easier as I progress, not because of the practice, itself—though that will absolutely help a lot–because shape and object visualization are things I do more often as a part of my visionary practice.

Magic

Coming back to the Sunrise Temple has made it easy to get back into my practice of daily banishing.  For the last week I have begun my day with a banishing pentagram and a Qabalistic Cross.  Except for today, which got off to a fuckered start when I woke from some fairly disturbing nightmares that pretty much threw off my whole morning game.

I have also been working on designing a few sigils, and researching different methods of designing and launching them.  In addition to Liber Null, I have ploughed through most of Frater U.D.’s Practical Sigil Magic, and am delighted to finally have some grasp of AO Spare’s original Alphabet of Desire/Sacred Language.  As someone who has dabbled in conlang, and envies the utility of verbs in inflected languages such as Attic Greek and Classical Latin, I’m really, really, really excited to start developing my own personal magical grammar for complex sigils.  I have some really interesting ideas about how to combine this technique with Hellenistic curse tablets and my own theories of art as an act of magic that I can’t wait to try out.

I have finally designed, but not actually enchanted, a set of talismans to give to my friends and colleagues by which they may offer me magical aid, or call upon me for the same.  Look forward to further reports in that arena, too.

Dreaming

Like meditation, getting back into the habit of keeping a dream journal has been hit-and-miss.  I’m still at a point where, often, I literally cannot remember my dreams even moments after waking.  And then there’s shit like today, where the imagery is so disturbing that I just can’t bring myself to write it down in the first moments of my day.

Magical dreaming has always eluded me, in part because I am so violently dysfunctional upon first waking, and this is going to be a major area of struggle for me, personally.

* – Where’s that third M come from?  “Morpheus”?

In scholarship, witchcraft

Project Null

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Closing one project makes way to begin another.  The next major project in my cue is a study of Chaos Magick.  At Aradia’s suggestion, I have decided to call these experiments Project Null, and tag related blog posts accordingly.  (The Squirrel has pointed out to me that this is somewhat grandios and rediculous, to which I could only respond, “Yes.  And?”

One of the things I learned during the last experiment was that I needed to set more concrete goals.  Here, then, are lists of the sources and resources I am planning to make use of so far.  The reading list will grow longer, and I can only ask for your help with this dear readers: who/what else should I be reading?  Is Frater U.D. worth my time?  Who else was/is iconic and revolutionary in the Chaos Magick movement that I clearly haven’t heard of and simply shouldn’t ignore?

(RE)SOURCES

Carroll, Peter.  Liber Null & Psychonaut.

–. Liber Chaos.

Hine, Phil.  Condensed Chaos.

Mace, Stephen.  Stealing the Fire From Heaven.

Miller, Jason.  Strategic Sorcery.  Blog.

–.  Sorcerer’s Secrets.

Moore, Alan.  Promethea.

Morrison, Grant.  The Invisibles.

–. The Disinformation Speech.

White, Gordon.  Rune Soup.  Blog.

ROADMAP AND GOALS

1) Liber Null.  I’ve gotta start somewhere, and given the contents of my library and Aradia’s, this seems like the best place.  With a little bit of dedication, I should qualify for initiation into the IOT by the time I’m done.

1.1) Liber MMM.  Particularly the meditation and the sigils.  These experiments will continue throughout the project and hopefully beyond.  The first weeks of Project Null will be devoted exclusively to developing a meditation practice—something I’ve never done—and reestablishing my daily banishing practice.

1.1.1) Mind Control.  I will begin by setting aside 5 minutes a day for these mindfulness exercises.  By the end of the year, I want to be capable of minutes of visualization and/or object concentration for 15 or 20 at a stretch three times a week.  This may seem like a low bar.  If it turns out to be, I’ll raise it.

1.1.2) Magic: Banishing and Sigils.  In terms of banishing, I will continue experimenting with daily banishing rituals until I perfect one for my own purposes.  As for sigils, I will begin by firing off at least one shoal of 3-5 sigils every week.  I’m a greedy bastard: there’s at least that much I want in the world. (And if I run out of things I want, I can always start working for others.)

1.1.3) Dreaming.  This art has eluded me for years.  As such I will simply set pursuing it as a goal.  In addition to Carroll, I intend to make use of Frater Acher’s recommendations on the subject.

1.2) Liber Lux, Liber Nox.  Oh, yeah: y’all know I go both ways.  The second and third books of Liber Null are as much theory as practice, and not all of the practice is relevant to me, but I will commit to studying each section and writing about them, and explaining my decisions for those exercises which I choose not to work through.  I intend to have completed my first run through Liber Lux and Liber Nox by the end of October.

1.3) Liber AOM.  This shit is just whak, and much of it irrelevant as someone working reasonably hard to not die any time in the near future.  Still, I’ll spend some time in October and November (assuming I’m on track) exploring these concepts.

2) Psychonaut.  As I work my way through Liber Null, it is my intention to simultaneously work through Psychonaut.  I have already performed the Mass of Chaos, adapting it to dedicate my Chaos altar.  I hope to incorporate the suggestions and contexts provided by Psychonaut to the work of Liber Null.  As such, I intend to post musings on the subjects contained therein, as well as develop my own experiments based on them.  I aim to complete this stage of the work by the end of November.  As with Libri Lux, Nox, and AOM, I will discuss each section, weather it offers me a particular exercise or not.

3. Servitor Creation. The creation and maintenance of servitors is one of the most visible and iconic portions of Chaos Magick. I cannot claim to study the field without at least one experiment in that area. I intend to start with creating a protector-spirit to accompany my house-wards, and to have it “up and running” by the end of November.

4. Analysis and Check-In.  By the end of November, I hope to have made it at least halfway through the above reading list, and added at least as many more to the cue.  From that position of (relatively) greater knowledge, I intend to have a better idea of how to progress specifically.

5. Lovecraftian Magic.  I’ve told you all before about how the first occult book I ever purchased was the “Simon” Necronomicon.  For years I’ve been hearing about Chaos magicians performing invocations of Lovecraftian horrors … hell, once upon a time, it was one of the things that kept me from away from Chaos Magick.  So … now I want to try it.  I don’t know if I’m going to use the Simon or the Donald Tyson version, or play with some weird shit I dig up on the internet.  But there will be Eldrich Horrors.  And I plan to sick them on some senators.

6. Feminism as Chaos Magick.  I first mentioned this project over on G+ and Tumblr.  I want the initiatory essay completed by the end of the semester, and have the project in motion by the beginning of the next semester.

CAVEAT

I’m excited about this project.  I’ve been looking forward to it since the idea first occurred to me.  But I try to be vigilant, and to be wary of my own motivations.  And after a certain amount of soul-searching, I have come to the conclusion that while the ceremonial magic project was good for me, it also gave me a rock-solid excuse to let my personal spiritual practice slide.

When was the last time I encountered Dionysus or his messengers in my journeys?  I have seen Rhea once in the last year.  Even Tsu and ZG don’t show up as often as I’d like.  I’ve thought a lot about the potential implications of conjuring my Natal Genius and Demon, but I haven’t done any magic or divination to explore it.

Project Null has the potential to be the same.  So to help keep myself honest, I’m going to try to post at least once about my personal practice for every two posts about Project Null, not including posts serving double duty.

INVITATION

Aradia and I intend to work through this project together, scheduling our reports to post simultaneously so as to avoid cross-contamination of our experiments.  We cordially invite any interested parties to join in with the Project Null experiment.  If any such parties have blogs of your own, we would love to share the #ProjectNull tag with you.

I can be reached through the comments section of this blog, the ask box at my Tumblr, or even my G+ account.  Aradia can be reached through her blog.

Although I have already begun working with Liber MMM—banishings, motionlessness, and breathing concentration–the official kickoff for the project is Sunday.

Obviously, there must be some uniformity in order for it to really count as a group project: for this first section, that’s working through Liber Null and Psychonaut.  Your own personal goals and interests within that sphere, however, will vary.  Maybe you want to shoot for an hour a day of motionless, thoughtless meditation.  Aradia has no personal interest in Lovecraftian magic.  Some of you (though it breaks my heart to know this) will not care about the Feminism as Chaos Magick project.  As we approach the end of November, we can plot our course for the second “half” of the project together.

This is short notice.  Whatever.  Anyone can joint the project at any time.  If you can’t keep up with the pace we set, or if you think everyone else is moving too slow: go at your own speed.

In witchcraft

My Chaos Altar and Alchemy Lab

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Coming back to the Sunrise Temple with some new plans, I’ve done a bit of rennovation.  Specifically I’ve rebuilt and organized my secondary altars.  It’s a little silly but I’m kinda proud of them.

THE CHAOS ALTAR

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Featuring my mask dedicated to Baphomet.  To the left is a paper skull representing Thatatos, and to the right a glass vial for Eros, to be filled with Venus oil once I’ve perfected a blend.  And, of course, my first Chaosphere: hand drawn with a pencil, compass, and ruler, then inked with a variety of pens.  It’s got a nice kick already.

THE ALCHEMY LAB

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Yes, it’s a glorified spice cabinet.  It’s even right over my stove.  The bottom shelf are the things that might actually go into food.  The next are teas and things that may be brewed as tea.  The third shelf are things that can’t, shouldn’t, or (for whatever reason) won’t be ingested, and the high shelf if full of empty bottles waiting to be filled with fun things.

In scholarship, witchcraft

My “Year” of Ceremonial Study: The View From Month 11 of 12

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

It occurred to me this evening that the year I set aside to study the Western Ceremonial Tradition will come to an end in fewer than thirty days.  I wrote the first post on my experiments a year ago yesterday.

Holy fuck.

It’s been a wild ride.  What started as a vague (almost childish) intention to study “ceremonial magic” has wandered across Chaos Magick, the grimoire traditions, traditional astrology, the qabalah, the Golden Dawn, and quite a few things I don’t even know the proper names of.  I’ve experimented with the Qabalistic Cross and the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.  I’ve conjured my Natal Genius, and am planning to conjure my Natal Demon, as well.  Although I have struggled with my maintaining my visionary practice, I’ve gone on visionary quests to the Temples of Malkuth and Yesod, striven and failed to reach Hod, and visited the Elemental Realms of Earth, Fire, and Water.  I have made Planetary talismans of Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, and Mercury.  I have discovered the Greek Magical Papyri and incorporated the Stele of Jeu into my Lunar devotions at both the Dark and Full moons.  I have discovered the magical value of the Orphic Hymns.  I As my studies progressed, they focused increasingly on Hermeticism and astrological magic, with a bit of grimoire magic on the side.

Shit has been intense.  The rituals have been elaborate, effective, and exhausting.  Although I’ve been fighting it, I’ve been falling into the trap of armchair magicianhood because, as much as I’ve enjoyed a lot of it, there are parts of my nature that I have to fight to do this sort of Work.  And because I’ve been having so much fun getting caught up in the theory that I’ve been loosing track of the practice.  Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not done with the Western Ceremonial Tradition by any stretch of the imagination.  But I think that, when my year is up, I’m going to switch streams.

This coming year is going to be dedicated to Chaos Magick. Stephen Mace and AO Spare. Phil Hine and Peter Carrol. Gordon White and Jason Miller. And probably lots of authors and bloggers that I haven’t even heard of yet. Hopefully some of them ladies.

Lots of things have been pointing me toward Chaos Magick over the last year, anyway.  I mean: y’all have noticed that Gordon White is just too damn cool to ignore, right?  There’s been this whole post-Chaos thing that Jason Miller’s been talking about, though I think Gordon and Skyllaros have the right of that in a lot of ways.  And, even if Chaos Magic really isn’t what he seems to be doing anymore, I’ve picked up a serious torch for Phil Hine.  So … I’ll come back to Agrippa, the Picatrix, and the Corpus Hermeticum sooner rather than later.  Hell, I’m probably going to keep working on planetary talismans and my illustrations of the Picatrix images of the planets even as I change trajectories, because they’re pretty and they make me happy.

Any recommendations?

 

In witchcraft

Early Lessons of My First Forays Into Sigil Magic

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I’ve been experimenting with sigils.

This is partly because Gordon recently wrote the clearest treatise on the subject I’ve ever seen.  There’s also the whole thing where, until I started digging into the Western Ceremonial Tradition, I didn’t really understand how Chaos Magick was distinct from it.  It’s also just an inevitable manifestation of my escalating magical practice, and forays into practical magic.

I haven’t been doing as good a job of keeping notes as I should have, but it’s also only been about ten days since I launched my first shoal.  I’ve been firing them off in accordance with the appropriate planetary days and hours using either appropriately-colored chime candles to help fuel them, or votive candles marked with the planetary glyphs.  I’ve also been experimenting with quick-and-easy circle constructions to help power and focus the sigils.

Here, in no particular order, are some of my first impressions.  Fellow n00bs may find them interesting; more experienced sigil-users may be amused.

1) Holy shit, drawing sigils is FUN.

2) While I’ve generally thought of sigils as quick-and-dirty magic, I think I need to refine my technique.  Quick-and-dirty just isn’t as psychologically satisfying, particularly when I need something more complex (conceptually) than some candle-based healing magic.  Firing them off should be just as much fun as drawing them in the first place.

3) Timing is key: Do not fire off “The Registrar Gives Me What I Need” while simultaneously expecting that registrar to sit on a piece of paperwork for a week.  Even if you don’t need it processed with any alacrity, you may find yourself inconvenienced when your change-of-advisor form gets processed overnight and your old advisor can no longer provide you with the password for class registration.

Besides that temporary inconvenience, however, that sigil seems to have worked out well: my appointment to discuss my transfer with the registrar has been rescheduled (at her behest) for after the Jupiter election.

4) Specifying duration is key: The “I Have Fantastic Sex” sigil was AWESOME … the night I fired it.  It’s been back to business as usual (which, lest my lovers who read this blog take this statement amiss, is still pretty awesome) ever since.

5) Coming up with “Sigils to Fire for Saturday” is not the way to go.  I need to work on my “100 Bad Ideas” list first, sort out the good ideas, and then sort them into planetary correspondences.