As I mentioned recently, I’m taking Jack Grayle’s PGM Praxix: 50 Rites for 50 Nights. Our first two weeks actually covered three rituals: a spell “to win a beautiful woman” by invoking a secret name of Aphrodite; an invocation of Helios for a variety of boons and to “accomplish the matter I want”; and, finally, a prayer to draw the attention of the Moon by names and symbols of both Selene and Hekate
Love Spell: PGM IV 1265-74
Aphrodite’s name which becomes known to no one quickly is NEPHERIERI – this is the name. If you wish to win a woman who is beautiful, be pure for 3 days, make an offering of frankincense, and call upon this name over it. You approach the woman and say it seven times in your soul as you gaze at her, and in this way it will succecd. But do this for 7 days.
Betz 1986, p.62
Not gonna lie: this opening spell gave me pause. Not just because “love spell, what the fuck?” but because the spell calls for the sorcerer to “be pure” for three days and I have strong fucking feelings about purity. But I’m taking a class, and following a system, and that means playing by the rules as written. In addition to eschewing the “obvious” sources of miasma — sex, death, animals, &c. — Jack recommended that we fast. To that end, I reluctantly chose a meatless diet and gave up candy for good measure.
For our execution of the spell, Aradia and I chose the Night and Hour of Venus. We erected a Venus altar, set a playlist, bathed, dressed in white, and dusted ourselves with cinnamon. After doing some divination, we went into the spell with little preamble: burning frankincense and chanting the name over and over and over for about twenty minutes. I got high as hell, and promptly used the whammy on my own damn self, which I repeated over the next days leading up to a photoshoot I had had planned.
That shit more than tingled.
Jack’s research indicates that the name Nepherieri is probably an Egyptian phrase meaning “The Eye of Beauty”, and in addition to trying to counter some of the self-hate one inevitably picks up as a queerdo living among the normies, I used the power of the Eye to fuel a photoshoot that I had scheduled for the following Sunday. It was only my second shoot working with multiple models and I had not worked with either woman before, and I was somewhat nervous. Owing at least in part to the magic, the images we made turned out astoundingly well.
Prayer to Helios: PGM XXVI 211-30
Prayer to Helios: A charm to restrain anger and for victory and for securing favor (none is greater): Say to the sun (Helios) [the prayer] 7 times, and anoint your band with oil and wipe it on your head and face. Now [the prayer] is: “Rejoice with me, you who are set over the cast wind and the world, for whom all the gods serve as bodyguards at your good hour and on your good day, you who are the Good Daimon of the world, the crown of the inhabited world, you who rise from the abyss, you who each day rise a young man and Set an old man, HARPENKNOUPHI BRINTANTENOPHRI BRISSKYLMAS / AROURZORBOROBA MESINTRIPHI NIPTOUMI CHMOUMMAOPHI. I beg you, lord, do not allow me to be overthrown, to be plotted against, to receive dangerous drugs, to go
Ibid. p.274
into exile, to fall upon hard times. Rather, I ask to obtain and receive from you life, health, reputation, wealth, influence, strength, success, charm, favor with all men and all women, victory over all men and all women. Yes, lord, ABLANATHANALBA AKKAMMACHAMARI PEPHNA PHOZA PHNEBENNOUNI NAACHTHIP . . . OUNORBA. Accomplish the matter which I want, by means of your power.”
The solar rite was a return to more familiar territory. My relationship with Solar powers aren’t quite as good as my relationship with Venusian forces, but it’s close, and the prayer had a lot in common with the Picatrix rites that I’ve been fucking with in my spare time.
We had hoped to perform the rite on the Day and Hour of the Sun, but Sunday and Monday were both overcast. Tuesday, however, came through: the skies were clear and provided an Hour of the Sun not long after dawn, before either of us had to go to work. We sat outside in our yard where we could face the sun rising in the east, lit a stick of frankincense, poured a cup of olive oil to use for the anointing, and set forth. We anointed ourselves with oil before every repetition and after the seventh.
I did not get much effect immediately, besides the hypnotic effects of repetition. Within the hour, though, the power began to build, and I went in to Tuesday’s photoshoot full of Authority and produced another round of really solid images.
Prayer to Selene: VII 756-94
Prayer: I call upon you who have all forms and many names, double-horned goddess, Mene, whose form no one knows except him who made the entire world, IAO, the one who shaped [you] into the twenty-eight shapes of the world so that they might complete every figure and distribute breath to every animal and plant, that it might flourish, you who grow from obscurity into light and leave light for darkness” (beginning to leave by waning). And the first companion of your name is silence, the second a popping sound, the third groaning, the fourth hissing, the fifth a cry of joy, the sixth moaning, the seventh barking, the eighth bellowing, the ninth neighing, I the tenth a musical sound, the eleventh a sounding wind, the twelfth a wind-creating sound, the thirteenth a coercive sound, the fourteenth a coercive emanation from perfection. Ox, vulture, bull, beetle, falcon, crab, dog, wolf, serpent, horse, she-goat, asp, goat, he-goat, baboon, cat, lion, leopard, fieldmouse, deer, multiform, virgin, torch, lightning, garland, a herald’s wand, child, key. I have said your signs and symbols of your name so that you might hear me, because I pray to you, mistress of the whole world. Hear me, you, the stable one, the mighty one, APHEIHOEO MINTER OCHAO PIZEPHYDOR CHANTHAK CIiADE ROZO MOCWTHION EOTNEU PHERZON AINDES LACHABOO PITTO RIPHTHAMER ZMOMOCHOLEIE TIEDRANTEIA OISOZOCHAHEDOPHRA” (add the usual).
Ibid, pp.139-40
Jack included this Lunar prayer in the second week because he felt it bore strong parallels to the Helios prayer, and I have to agree. Though the original text includes no ritual instructions, just the prayer, I very much have to agree.
We had been struggling to find a Lunar hour at which Aradia and I were available, so when my D&D game Wednesday night was unexpectedly cancelled, we leapt at the opportunity to do the ritual before midnight. I came home from delivering Alvianna her dinner (she hosts my game, a favor for which I sometimes repay her in food), and went about converting the Venus altar from Friday into a Lunar altar. When the appointed hour came, lit our charcoal, burned myrrh, and began. We recited the prayer three times, anointing ourselves before, between, and after with the Lunar oil that Alvianna (who is also in the class) had made during her own rendition.
The effects were powerful and immediate. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Sleep, I did: deeply if not long. I awoke early Thursday morning and got up immediately to write. And again Friday. And again Saturday.
Aradia and I like the ritual so much that we decided to share it with our pseudo-coven, the Lunar Shenanigans crew, despite the fact that these are the most difficult Vocces Magicae I have ever attempted to pronounce. To that end, I broke out the barbarous words for ease of pronunciation: APH-EI-BO-E-O MIN-TER OKHA-O PI-ZEPH-Y-DOR KHAN-THAR KHA-DER-OZO MOKH-THI-ON E-OT-NEU PHER-ZON A-IN-DES LAKH-AB-O-O PIT-TO RIPH-THA-MER ZMO-MOKH-OL-EI-E TI-ED-RAN-TEI-A O-I-SO-ZO-KHA-BE-DOR-PHRA. Somewhat to my amusement, however, they were more startled by, “the menagerie”.
The second round was, for lack of a better way to describe it, less like sorcery and more like religion. We made a more elaborate ritual of the prayer, which I will write up for a separate post in a bit. The sensations were lighter, cooler, clearer, deeper. We stayed up late talking and laughing, but then went to sleep with little trouble. We slept late but when we woke, got up swiftly.
Cumulation and Synthesis
Inevitably, doing these rituals so close together — Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday — it is impossible to say, precisely, where the effect of one ends and the next begins. I had mostly come down from the Eye of Beauty when we invoked Helios, but I was still riding that high when we called upon the Moon. I didn’t come down from that until the following Sunday morning, when the combination of a bad day in retail and the archonic rite of Daylight Savings Time conspired to bring me back down to earth.
I am disappointed to report that neither the Aphrodite nor Helios invocations did shit to minimize my pre-photoshoot anxiety. Nor did reiterating the prayer to the Moon bring me back to the high that I had been enjoying before the crash, though I will say I feel very good as I finish this write-up the morning after.
I do believe that the rituals did a great deal to minimize my post-socialization anxiety. Episodes that usually last 30-90 minutes were reduced to 10 or 15. Since the Eye of Beauty invocation, I have felt better and more resilient overall, like there is more possibility and potential in the world. I have been both more sensitive to and less vulnerable to magical influences around me.
While I have felt better, and have gotten a lot of writing done, I will say that I have NOT been more focused, overall. Less, if we’re being honest. In particular, my ability to sit down and do my day job has been … hampered. I got a lot of housecleaning done yesterday before our esbat, but I was bouncing all around the house, picking things up, putting them down, moving far from efficiently.
Finally, my initial reaction to the rites was a feeling that they had a lot in common, energetically, with Rufus Opus’ Seven Spheres rites and, as I mentioned above, certain Picatrix prayers. I stand by that analysis. I believe that these prayers/rites/rituals would be good for both planetary initiations and for enchanting talismans. I will put the latter theory to the test as soon as I find a suitable election.