Showing all posts by Satyr Magos

In witchcraft

Lunar Journeys I

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

In light of my my recent conclusions regarding my study of ceremonial and planetary magics, it occurred to me that with the Full Moon so close (the dark and lonely hours of Wednesday night, or the dismal pre-dawn hours of Thursday morning, depending on how you experience 4am EST), this week’s Day and Hour of the Moon would be a particularly auspicious for some of Lunar Work.

So, as the hour of the Moon approached, I rebuilt my Yesod altar and ground a lunar incense of calamus, eucalyptus, and myrrh (the only Lunar herbs I happened to have around the house).  Since Gustav Holst didn’t deign to write a suite for Luna or Sol, I turned to my usual Michael Harner drumming for music to guide my trance.  When my circle was cast, I administered my flying potion(1) and donned my visionary mask.

I dropped into full trance almost immediately, appearing in the Garden of Malkuth.  For a rarity, I found the Otherworld cast in night— it’s almost always daylight in my spiritual journeys—with a full and glowing moon overhead.  I called to the moon, and rose up to meet it.  Passing through the silver disk in the sky like a portal, I found myself first flying through a vibrant purple haze, which parted to reveal the rolling mists I have always heard the astral plane described as.  I set myself to find the Palace of the Moon (in retrospect, this was ridiculously vague), and flew through the mists.  After a while I found myself not flying, but swimming through the mist, and then through night-dark waters.  I swam up to the shore of a small island, cast in shadows under another full moon and clear night sky.  A temple rose in the middle of the island, open to the air and consisting of little more than nine great free-standing columns, but I walked around the island before ascending.  The beach was sandy, the rise covered in greenery and large rocks and bits of fallen masonry.

When I ascended to the temple, I found two figures there: a beautiful naked man, laying still but tumescent on a slab, and a woman in pale robes standing over him.  Neither moved at all, even when I approached.  Like most of the other figures I have encountered when travelling UP rather than DOWN, there was a hollow, static quality about them.

So I descended the stairs and set my sights on the moon above.  Strangely, I had difficulty flying.  I had to conjure a wind to lean into, like I did when I first learned to fly in my dreams almost ten years ago.  Finally airborne, I flew upward into the moon.   This time, rather than flying through a portal, it was like a window or a door: passing through I found a new void, full of points of light linked by lines of power, but when I turned around I could see the temple and the two figures far below me, as if I were looking out of one space and into another.

When when my back was turned, I suddenly felt something tugging me, as if by a cord.  I turned to look, and a vast spirit was pulling me “upwards”.  In retrospect it was foolhardy, but my instinct was to trust this entity (spirit? god?)—I thought it might be the god who called to me from the sky on the the night of my Dedication(2).  I don’t know if it could read my mind, or if it was just amused at the world in general, but it pulled me up to itself through a “hole” between spaces much like the one I had just passed through, then flung me further “upward” into a vast and empty void.

The second void was very much like the one from which I had just been thrown, only it felt much larger.  The star-like points of light were more distant and the threads between them were gossamer-fine.  No sooner did I think to myself “Whoa!  I wonder if this is where the Masters of Outer Darkness(3) live?”, then I saw a shimmer in the distance, and soon a lion-headed serpent appeared.  I was nervous, but “sat” cross-legged and waited for the creature to make a move.  It approached, as did more of its kind, and began circling me… at which point I really wasn’t sure what I ought to do if they did prove hostile, and the same entity which had thrown me out into that deeper void in the first place pulled me back “down” in the same manner.

Back in the lesser void, I could feel a disturbance of some sort back in the waking world.  Having accomplished what I’d intended—locating the Palace of the Moon and exploring the Realm of Yesod/Luna—I returned to my body.

1 A lungful of (100% legal) blue sage this evening, instead of my usual absinthe.  I was suffering from the delusion that I might do more homework after my trip.

2 Which, pawing through my archives for a link, I still haven’t written about.  Fuck me running.

3 Ever read Michael Harner?  p. 7 of the Harper paperback 3rd Ed.

In witchcraft

Further Explorations in Planetary Magicks: a Prelude

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Though I only posted about it yesterday, I actually finished out my Abramelin Oil last Wednesday.  After doing so, I finally sat back down to re-evaluate the High Witchcraft system I had been working with when I started it.  The experience was kind of interesting: Penczak’s system looks even more like a watered-down version of the Golden Dawn than it did when I first realized how little of the Western Ceremonial Tradition the GD actually represented; past Yesod (where Penczak introduces the Circulation of the Body of Light and Abramelin Oil), the exercises become increasingly useless outside the GD framework; and, of course, Penczak mentions the existence of the Goetia but cautions against actually using it, and never delves into spirit evocation—a practice which, from where I sit at least, seems fundamental to the Western Ceremonial Tradition as a whole.  Finally, the book culminates with the Bornless Ritual: the Crowley/GD version of the Stele of Jeu rite I have already begun performing with some success.

The more experienced magicians and ceremonialists who read this blog are laughing right now: “Of course I’m going to be disappointed by Christopher Penczak’s overview of High Magick: he makes his living writing 100-level fluffy-bunny bullshit by the ton.”  To which I can only reply, yes, but the tech in the last three books was solid once you ran it through the fluffy bullshit filter.  And I had to start somewhere, or I wouldn’t have even known what questions to ask to get me as far as I have. 

And, despite all my bitching, there are still aspects to the book which will remain useful to me: the altar constructions and the visionary journeys to the sephiroth/planitary realms.

As you all can tell from the tag—or, as you would be able to tell, if I had finished to re-tagging all my posts when I moved from blogger—I like building and rebuilding my altar.  I find myself wishing that I’d thought to photojournal my altar pace from my earliest practice.  I’ve had some good ones over the years.  And maintaining a separate, second altar for individual magical operations and experiments has made it much easier to keep my primary, increasingly devotional, altar from getting too cluttered.

The visionary journeys fit my style.  I am, after all, a shamanic witch—these ceremonial studies are doing wonders for my toolkit, and have introduced me to all sorts of fascinating areas of study and badass awesome people, but they’ll never be my primary focus.  And I’ll be much more comfortable conjuring spirits after I’ve gone and visited their places of power.  And following the Sephiroth up the Qabalistic/GD Tree of Life gives me an order of operations.

I have already completed (in terms of this project) my study of Malkuth/Earth.  As of last night I have begun my journeywork related to Yesod/the Moon.  If that goes as smoothly as it has begun, in the next week or two I’ll move on to Hod/Mercury.  And so on.

In the mean time, I will continue to escalate my practical magic practice.  Currently on the drawing board are that appeal to justice I mentioned, improving my Mercurial talisman that’s been helping me with my Greek, a Lunar talisman to help me maintain a regular sleep schedule and remember my dreams, and a Saturn talisman to help me manage my time better.

And somewhere along the line, I’m going to get over my strange idea that it’s somehow cheating, win the Favor of Kings and learn to fight dirty.

In witchcraft

Abramelin Oil

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Back in November, when I was still on track with my work through Penczak’s Temple of High Witchcraft, I started a batch of Abramelin Oil.  I finally got around to distilling it.  As described previously, I used Aaron Leitch’s technique, and about 3.5 oz total dry materia.

IMG_5052

Mixed with 1.6 oz olive oil (a hair short of the 2:1 ratio the recipe called for, but I’d rather it a little strong over a little weak), it’s still a pretty amazing shade of red.  Below was my net result, which turned out pretty awesome:

IMG_5053

I’ve thrown the Dead Head back in the cabinet to try to extract whatever’s left, and will add that in a month or two once I’m content I’ve gotten out all the essential oil that I can.

In the mean time this will make a pretty awesome offering and dedication oil.

In Uncategorized

A Short Rant On Theft and Sharing

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Every producer of intellectual property has some concern that their work will be stolen.  This morning, I was confronted with a reminder that many people on the internet have no respect whatsoever for the work people like me (and, I think, most if not all of my readers) do:

The Theft; The Fallout.

In the resulting conversations on a friend’s facebook account, I’ve seen a couple people talk about pulling everything they’ve ever written from the interwebs, and mourn for the “good old days” when the Craft was private and “the Grimoires were sacred and secret in the right way”.  I do, in fact, remember those days: the days when all I had access to was whatever 100-level bullshit I could find at the library or the local bookstore, with no access to community and no way of vetting sources before shelling out what little money I had.  When I thought I was going batshit crazy because none of the books I’ve ever read dared to get into the visceral experience of magic, or cop to how terrifying it is to be in the presence of a god for the first time … even one who likes you.

Having my work–which, here, amounts to a bit of artwork, a little research, and a lot of very personal stories–is something that concerns me.  But not so much that I’m going to quit.  I need the community this forum gives me access to, and I know that somewhere out there is some neophite like I was who needs someone else’s account of madness to ground them out and help give them context for the experiences that don’t ever seem to get put into print.

So, to all the fuckers: yes, I put my work out here to be seen.  Not to be stolen.

If anyone wants to use my work in their own, they’ve only to ask.  But please: fucking ask.

In art, witchcraft

Aeschylus’ Aid In Appealing for Justice

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

For reasons which I will not delve into here, I have had appeals to justice on my mind.  I could, of course, go the Curse Tablet route—the tablets found at Bath were almost exclusively appeals for justice(1)—but the only good site for deposition nearby that I’m aware of is the Quaker graveyard by the school, and I’m not sure that I want to go down that road just yet: appealing to the dead could get me something much closer to revenge than to justice.

Which leaves me needing to compose a spell of some other sort.  A prayer, a statement of intent, an image, perhaps a sigil or three.  And poetry.  Poetry is always good for magic.  But for those of us, like myself, to whom poetry does not come naturally, it is often useful to seek inspiration in the poetry of others, or even to outright plagiarize.

By coincidence, I have been reading Aeschylus’ Orestia(2).  And I have to say: if you are seeking justice or revenge, The Libation Bearers is a good place to go looking for poetry on the subjects of justice and revenge:

There has been wrong done.  I ask for right. / Here me, Earth.  Hear me grandeurs of Darkness

–Aeschylus Libation Bearers, 398-9

Tell me that’s not the good shit.

Almighty Destinies, by the will / of Zeus let these things / be done, in the turning of Justice / … The spirit of Right / cries out aloud and extracts atonement / due: … Who acts, shall endure.  So speaks the voice of age-old wisdom.

–Ibid, 306-8, 310-14

Yeah.  That’s the good shit.  And if you’re in more a mood for bloody vengeance than fair justice, just add back in the lines I’ve omitted.

My plan is to take these lines, and maybe a few like them, and write them on one side of a page as a prayer.  On the obverse will be images of the persons involved (the internet is handy that way), along with sigils pointed at having my appeal heard fairly.  The end result will be the sort of thing I can leave on my altar with a spell candle while the issue is in play, then torch or bury upon resolution.

One more for the road:

O gods, be just in what you bring to pass.

Hear then, you blessed ones under the ground, / and answer these prayers with strength on our side.

–Ibid. 462, 476-7

1—Magic of Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome.  Which I have returned to the library and therefore cannot cite properly.

2—Aescylus I.  Ed. David Grene, Trans Richmond Lattimore.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1953).

EDIT: Because I cannot be trusted to talk and type at the same time, I originally attributed these passages to the Eumenides rather than the Libation Bearers.  That was incorrect.

In art, scholarship

Sappho Fragment

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Diehl 94 / Voigt 168b / Cox 48 (Source for the original Greek)

Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα

καὶ Πληίαδες· μέσαι δὲ νύκτες,

παρὰ δ᾽ ἔρχετ᾽ ὤρα·

ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω

The Moon has set

and the Seven Stars;

it is the middle of the night,

and the hour is passing;

but I sleep alone.

The translation is mine, albeit with a great deal of help from my professor and the rest of the class. I have done my best to achieve a balance between a literal translation and maintaining a sense of the poetry.  The “hour” (ὤρα) of which Sappho speaks conveys a strong implication of “opportunity”, much as it can in some English usages.

In witchcraft

I Think I’ve Found the “Reset” Button On My Aura

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Fair Warning: In this post I’m going to talk about some of the “woo” that a lot of serious magicians don’t seem to like to talk about, but which I’m pretty sure they all practice on account of… well… their magic works.  Some of this sounds hokey, I know: if someone’s got better language to describe these things, I’d love to hear it.

Like many of you, I imagine, my earliest training in magic revolved around various chakra meditations.  I imagined that I was discovering these features of my energetic body, exercising them like mortal muscles.  I worked diligently to strengthen them, all on the assumption that the Eastern traditions from which they were “adopted” had knowledge of the subtle bodies that Western traditions had just somehow missed.  Now I’m not so sure.

“Forget everything you were told about chakras.”  Was it Peter Carroll or Phil Hine who told me that?  I don’t have those sources at hand to look it up.

The last public Beltane ritual I attended featured a number of children (before they were sent off to finish their own ritual while we grown ups poured some wine and finished our own).  The ritual leader pointed to them, and their as-yet-undifferentiated auras, and her belief that it was because, as children, they had not yet learned to compartmentalize their lives: that they did everything with the whole of their beings.  The auras I could see … the explanation, however, seemed unlikely.

I have already mentioned that my ceremonial experiments have been moving things around: a Malkuth node below my feet, my Crown (Kether) chakra rising a little further above my head, Geburah and Binah nodes forming at my shoulders, and my lowest three chakras fading almost to nothing.  I have been working to counteract these trends—or, at the very least, the untenable side effects.  Since beginning my work with the Stele of Jeu, all of my chakras—except for my Crown and Heart, which have been maintained by my Yoga practice—have been fading,  leaving my aura largely undifferentiated except for a dense corona at the edge.  Interestingly, this is having none of the undesirable consequences of some of my previous experiments—unless the insomnia, which seems to have passed, was related.  All this leads me to conclude that much of what I have taken for granted about my aura—seven chakras, various layers, and what have you—are not natural features but molds we train ourselves to fit within.  The magic we practice shapes our “energetic bodies”, much as our experiences physically altar our brains… except more so.

What does this mean in practical terms?  I don’t know yet, other than the obvious: I’ve lost another round of Everything You Know Is Wrong (I actually kind of love loosing that game; it means the universe it still interesting, and also that my experiments aren’t suffering from confirmation bias.).  It certainly means that, if I continue this path and my familiar energy nodes are replaced by something new and different, certain exercises I have used for years will be less efficacious.  As long as the benefits of jamming this Reset Button continue to be more positive than negative (and so long as none of the side effects are things I’m just not willing to deal with, “objective” measurements be damned), I’ll keep the course and see how things turn out.

In witchcraft

My Name Is A Heart Encircled By A Serpent

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I have now performed the rite of the Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist three times as a part of my lunar rites.  It has been, without question, one of the most powerful magical operations I have ever performed.

The first time, at the last Dark Moon, the sheer power of it got me so high that I forgot to take down my circle; I had strange visions and nightmares that night, and when I did to Yoga the next day, I walked out feeling like a god.

The second time, at the Full Moon, was less dramatic; I was high, but not disorientingly so, and I could feel the magic moving out into my Web of Influence.  Although there may have been other factors—stress from too heavy a course-load, conflicts with a professor, and a sorting out some issues with my lover, among other things—I hardly got one good night of rest out of three for the next two weeks.  My patience with any sort of bullshit vanished altogether, and my temper was entirely out of control.  These symptoms faded over the early-semester break, but did not disappear entirely until the next Dark Moon, when I performed the ritual again.

The third time, again at the Dark of the Moon, was less dramatic still.  I think I need to linger more over the voces magicae and Barbarous Words.  My patience has returned, some, and my temper faded; more importantly, though, my will to act has been charged.

Though I feel that the results so far have been extremely positive—excepting the insomnia, which may or may not be related—I am still struggling to understand the precise affects of the ritual.  Jack Faust argues—and convincingly—that it is somehow related to the ἀγαθός δαίμων (agathos daimon).  Crowley’s Liber Semekh was derived from a less complete version of this ritual, known as the London Papyrus 46(1), thus linking it to the tradition of modern Western Ceremonial Magic and the pursuit of Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.

The ritual, which reads as an exorcism of sorts—“…deliver him, ____, from the daimon which restrains him…”(2)—is thick with interesting syncretism.  The magician identifies himself as Moses, and with the line of the prophets of Israel.  He also identifies himself a the “Messenger of the Pharaoh Osoronnophris (a cult-name for Osiris).  Osoronnophris and IAO (a Graeco-Egyptian name for YHVH) are both evoked (or perhaps invoked), and the ritual culminates with a particularly interesting and graphic image and imperative: “My name is a heart encircled by a serpent, come forth and follow.”(3)

Now, bear with me a moment as I seem to change subjects:

Over the last several weeks, I have also been using a variation of DuQuette’s Ganesha banishing/invocation to start my day and to open my rites.  Not feeling sufficient personal resonance with Ganesha, however, I have substituted a deity that I can subsume myself in utterly: Eros the Elder.  When I perform this banishing/invocation, it gets me high.  Really, really high, actually.  And the sensation is interestingly similar to what I’ve felt while performing the rite of the Stele of Jeu.  And, if you didn’t follow that link I just gave you, you missed this image:

image

A heart encircled by a serpent, perhaps?

Now, before anyone jumps me: I’m not drawing any conclusions.  Maybe I just don’t have enough experience invoking transcendent powers to tell them apart in the heat of the moment.  (The temptation to make a sexual analogy here is almost overwhelming.)  But it’s interesting, and I’d love to hear thoughts from anyone else who’s tried either ritual.

Regardless, things in my life are already starting to move around.  I can’t see the effects, yet, but I can feel them.  Temper, patience, and will to act as noted above.  More people going out of their way to get my attention—both people I already knew and people I’ve never even seen, let alone spoken to.  And some really, really strange and interesting things are starting to happen to my aura, which deserve a post all their own.

Further details as they come.

1—As described by Hymanaeus Beta in his foreword and footnotes to the Illustrated Second Edition of The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King. Weiser: York Beach Main (1995).

2—Betz, Hans Dieter.  The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation: Including the Demotic Spells.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1986) PGM V.124-5.

3—Ibid. 155-6

In witchcraft

I Think I May Be Dead

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I’d like to say I don’t quite know what happened to the last two or three weeks, but I do: stress, sleep deprivation, and school.  I’ve been sick all semester, to one degree or another, and  since the Full Moon my insomnia and temper have been so far out of control that I’ve been starting to wonder if I’ve been hexed.  I know, I know: that almost never happens.  And I’ve been checking my aura, performing banishing’s, and even trying the good Master Balthazar’s water trick, all with no signs of any attack.  So it’s probably “just” stress.  Probably.

I’m sure y’all know: stress and sleep deprivation make for a nasty downward spiral.  So nasty, in this case, that instead of just dropping a class with an abusive professor, or even filing a report, I’ve been deliberating dropping a curse tablet on him, instead.  (My school is so conveniently situated next to / on top of a grave yard … though I suspect the Quaker dead might not be very helpful in this regard.)  Don’t worry, I haven’t done it.  I know this impulse to scorch the earth and salt it is a product of that same stress and insomnia; it’s instructive in illustrating the degree, though.

This past weekend was Early Semester Break.  I got caught up on my sleep (mostly; it takes more than a few good nights to completely make up for two solid weeks of not sleeping), but I’m still sick.  (Hack.  Phlegm.)  My temper is still out of control.  Everything makes me angry.

Still, my experiments continue.  I have been performing DuQuette’s banishing/invocation in the mornings instead of the pentagram rite, to interesting effect.  I have twice more performed the rite of the Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist—at the Full Moon and the Dark.  My journeys to the Underworld and my Inner Temple have been … peculiar but, I think, productive.  I have completed the first round of Deb’s New Year, New You project, and am looking forward to continuing with the project.  My monthly Tarot reading looks good … except on my professional and social fronts.  And I have completed the first draft of my Personal Manifesto of Sacred Sexuality.

Posts with actual thought will be coming soon.  Also, site maintenance.  Lots of it.