I haven’t spoken publicly my talisman construction & consecration process in detail before now for a variety of reasons, most of which are just abusing the thesaurus to avoid admitting to my insecurities. Most of the others in my field are professional astrologers, or work very closely with one. Many teach classes or write books on magic. I’ve taught some workshops, and I had a short stint in local Pagan leadership – if you don’t already know it, that’s a story for another time – but all my magical writing is here on this blog. But someone asked for details in a forum where I had posted a link to my most recently elected and consecrated talismans, and I’m not here to be mysterious about my process. Answering a couple questions over there quickly led to a longer-form answer here.
There are, obviously, two parallel and interacting parts of my process: the jewelry and the sorcery.
On the jewelry side, the core of my process is lost wax casting. I was raised in a casting studio, and that’s even though I’m only just now getting a real handle on wax carving, that’s always been my go-to process for design and production. I suspect that someone with a background in, say, hand engraving, or etching, would find that applying sorcery to those techniques would serve them better than learning to cast just for the sake of talisman making.
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@satyrmagos/video/7138499729222241582" data-video-id="7138499729222241582" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;" > <section> <a target="_blank" title="@satyrmagos" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@satyrmagos?refer=embed">@satyrmagos</a> <p>i am the Sorcerer's Workbench. i make talismanic, devotional, and art jewelry in silver, shibuichi, brass, and bronze</p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - iluvart - ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-iluvart-6882633195850844929?refer=embed">♬ original sound - iluvart - ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>On the sorcery side, I am an autistic eclectic witch who has made a special interest of the grimoire tradition, but whose every ritual is informed by their previous decades of spiritual work. I am not a purist in anything. Moreover, I am unconvinced that most talisman recipes can be performed as-written: the jewelry part will always take much, much longer than the astrological window available, even without the ritual part. All my pieces are the result of years of art and magical training, both formal and informal, and more years of trial and error.
The jewelry and the sorcery come together, before I even begin thinking about a specific election, with the magical nature of my studio. Every day I consecrate my home, including the studio below my altar room, as a temple for the gods I worship and the magical work I do, and make offerings to those gods and my familiar spirits. Every time I descend to my studio, I light a candle and incense as offerings to the gods and powers that aid me in my work, the planets that I call, and the spirits who dwell there waiting for good homes.
The process of making a consecrated talisman begins with finding a viable election. I get mine from a few sources, but mostly from Nina Gryphon’s monthly election newsletter. After vetting the election to make certain that it’s as valid in Kansas City, MO, as it is in Los Angeles, CA, I then sit down with my tarot cards and divine whether any given election is suitable for: a) a personal petition; b) a personal paper talisman; c) metal talismans for myself and my coven; or, d) metal talismans for customers. I don’t always understand why a particular election might not be a good candidate for me and my customers, but this is spiritual work as well as material and we do divination for a reason.
Having determined that an election is suitable for metal talismans, I make up the waxes and invest them the day before the election, timed so that they’ll be ready to cast when the time comes. Once the flask is in the kiln, I rearrange my workspace into an altar where I will perform the consecration. I only do one flask per election, because getting the metal up to flow temperature takes too long to pour and have it really still be at the peak of the electional window.
A little more than an hour before the election, I turn on the electric crucible that melts the metal, and I begin my preparatory rituals. I shower, and I purify myself with cinnamon. I make offerings for my familiar spirits, my personal gods, and the gods and spirits of the workshop, who will all work together to bring the best possible spirits into the talismans. I consecrate all the maeteria, specifically both the incense I will be offering and the metal that will become the talismans. Some of the details vary from ritual to ritual, depending on when the election is relative to my daily purifications and offerings and the instructions provided to me by my familiar spirits, but those variations are minutiae.
About fifteen to twenty minutes before the election (depending on the kind of metal and the weight), I start melting the metal and begin suffumigating the studio and invoking the spirits. I alternate between the Orphic hymn to the relevant planet and the appropriate Picatrix invocation. The timing, here, is honestly the hardest part: if left too long, the metal will boil and the final cast will be pourus; if not left long enough, it won’t flow and there will be cold shuts.
In the minutes before the election’s peak, when the metal is at temperature, i suffumigate the flask of molten metal, pour into the waiting flask, then suffumigate the cooling flask – this is the point at which I can feel the spirits enter the talismans. I time this process so that I make my final Picatrix invocation before or as I pour, and then my final hymn after. I am, of course, always trying to complete my consecration at the precise minute of the election, when the relevant planets are precisely conjunct the ascendant or midheaven. But I also know for a fact that modern timekeeping was invented for trains, and ancient astrologers must necessarily have been working with wider and wooblier windows of time.
Once the pieces are cast, I get as much of the plaster off of them as I can before the window has closed (i strongly prefer ascending elections for this reason) and store the talismans in a planetary altar box until the next appropriate hour to clean them up as jewelry.
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@satyrmagos/video/7133267092798836010" data-video-id="7133267092798836010" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;" > <section> <a target="_blank" title="@satyrmagos" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@satyrmagos?refer=embed">@satyrmagos</a> <p>the aftermath of some work for myself and my coven</p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ Howl's Moving Castle - Merry-Go-Round of Life - Vitamin String Quartet" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/Howl's-Moving-Castle-Merry-Go-Round-of-Life-6702010411413145602?refer=embed">♬ Howl's Moving Castle - Merry-Go-Round of Life - Vitamin String Quartet</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>While cleaning and polishing each piece, I get a name and sigil and specialty from it, which whoever it goes to can use to make initial contact.
When each piece is done, it goes into an envelope with a bit of the incense used to consecrate it. That envelope goes into the planetary altar box, where it lives until i find it a home.