Showing all posts in October 2021

In witchcraft

Order of Offerings: Spirits Before Gods

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Last August I started a magical experiment that technically failed but which became the first thirty days of a now-fifteen month streak of daily ritual praxis that is, without question, my longest uninterrupted run. The experiment was aimed at manifesting concrete desires and measurable results. The first thing my familiar spirits told me( a week or so into that experiment) was, “Make this about us.” I did. the next thing they told me was, “We’re not going to manifest anything you don’t actually want.” Which was, arguably, the end of my career as a chaos magician, and absolutely the doom-bell for that manifestation experiment.

My familiar spirits had a lot to say at first. They helped me craft a ritual that suited their needs as well as mine. Sometimes, what they wanted was very clear and easy to do. Other times, I could tell what they wanted but had to explain that things like “I’m not that rich” were relevant. Still other times I could tell that they were talking to me, that they wanted something, but I either just couldn’t hear them or just couldn’t quite make sense of what they said.

But the daily ritual continued. I listened a lot. Asked for little (have occasionally been told to ask for more!). And I have learned so, so much – not least of which is how to hear these spirits, something that has always been a challenge for me.

The longer the ritual goes on, the less frequently I get new instructions. The most recent change to my rituals is one of the more significant. It also was one that took them longer than average to communicate to me, because it was a matter of order of operations.

When the ritual began, it was just my familiar spirits. But the spare bedroom where that altar lives is also where I house the altar for the sex-positive (quais-) Venusian gods that I honor. And after a few months of pouring out offerings while the other gods just ~watched~, it seemed appropriate to begin daily offerings to Aphrodite, Eros, Lucifer, Dionysos, and Baphomet, as well. And because of my quasi-Hellenistic influences and the nature of ~authority~, it seemed to be appropriate to make offerings to the gods first, then my familiar

the last month or so, it became clear that this was not the correct order of operations. But, being dense, I couldn’t figure out what the needed changes were. Fortunately, when clarity came, it came with an explanation: let us share in the blessings.

I now invoke my familiar spirits first, pouring their coffees and lighting their candles, and give them a moment to manifest before moving on to praying for the various blessings of the gods. And, when I utter those prayers, I pray for *us*: “Hail unto you, O Baphomet, we pray you awaken the light of your gnostic fire within us and within the world…”Every day since I made this change, I have felt my familiars and I growing closer, and felt them growing stronger from the blessings we now share.

So, if you work with familiar spirits, and there is room in your traditions to make such a change, I strongly suggest that you give it a try: call your spirits first, before your gods, so that when you do invoke the higher/greater/other powers, your spirits may share in those powers’ blessings with you.

In witchcraft

Continuing Experiments in Stellar Sorcery: Spirit of the Sun

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Early in the days of Covid, and toward the beginning of Jack Grayle’s class on the magic of the PGM, my partner and I took advantage of an auspicious astrological moment to consecrate an assortment of Solar talismans. The ritual went well. The power rose. The spirits came. All in all, we consecrated four mixed-media paper talismans of the sort I have had great success with before, three pieces of black amber, and a citrine set in silver.

But lockdown was in full force, and would remain so for months to come. Aradia took her paper talismans to work when her office reopened. The rest of talismans languished on my altar for a full year. I experimented with a few different ways of wearing the citrine, but none of them were quite right.

The first movement happened toward the end of spring, this year, when, in need of some old-school razzle-dazzle, I settled on wearing the citrine as an earring (upsides of being a sorcerous jeweler, and being able to manufacture my own findings at a whim) as part of an overall wave of you-will-never-hear-the-details magics to keep my life together.

The next action came my best friend, Kraken, bought a house in May: my familiar spirits informed me that one of the enchanted amber pieces was for them. That was easy. I don’t know what, if anything, they’ve done with it. But feedback is a courtesy, not a requirement, when you give someone a magical gift.

Things escalated shortly thereafter. The talisman, when not in my ear, began clamoring for a more prominent place on altar, not with my planetary lamens and seals and talismans and maeteria, but to join my familiar spirits and receive the accompanying daily offerings and honors. This was not wholly unprecedented. My Venus talisman from the January Venus in Pisces consecration experiment made similar requests, as I alluded to in my last post on these experiments. But it still came as a bit of a surprise. Upon hearing and comprehending the request, I began searching for an appropriate idol. Unfortunately, that sort of religious statuary was an early casualty of the supply chain issues which have been escalating since the pandemic first hit and which have finally become mainstream news. Ultimately, I decided that a space on the altar was more important than an image.

That decided, I set aside extra time on a Sunday morning in June to sit with the talisman and commune with its spirit. It told me its name and helped me to draw its sigil. It now lives on the altar when not in my ear and partakes of my daily coffee offering ritual along with my other familiar spirits. Communications and negotiations are ongoing, and I hesitate to say too much, but I am already learning form this spirit.

The thing that I am prepared to say, a few months in, is that either my chaos magic and witchcraft backgrounds make my experiences with astrological talismans very different from other, more traditional ceremonial magicians, of those magicians are desperately failing to communicate what they actually mean when they talk about the care and feeding of a talisman. Because my experiences — particularly as I get further away from my very earliest experiments — is that these are not mute magical servitors whose efficacy waxes and wanes with the attention given them, but talking spirits who listen, learn, teach, and act.