At the last Full Moon, the Lunar Shenanigans Crew and I celebrated our sixth(?) annual Rite of Her Sacred Fires. I honestly can’t remember how this one came to our attention – I think Aradia or Juniper brought it up? (This is the accidental Hekate cult, after all.) But it was definitely in the Before Times; I remember being upset that we weren’t able to do it in 2020.
We wind it up a bit, of course, to make it more our style and more a fit for a group activity. Specifically, one of us developed a Hekatean protection circle that we use, and one of us is really big on making offerings to Hestia before any ritual. Some years we’ve worked really hard to make and divide up parts so that everyone has a role. Some years, like this year, someone takes point and leads the whole thing.
It was kind of a weird year for me, and I appreciated Alvianna’s willingness to run the show. I am (as you know if you’ve read my last post, in particular) having something of a crisis of faith; I don’t even know that I could have led the ritual at all, let alone led it and got something out of it.
But I gave it my all. I went all-out on cleaning the house and building the altar. I gave the ritual my undivided attention (inasmuch as that’s a thing that even exists). I did my very best to come in good faith.
And I did get something out of it. Not as much as I have some previous years, but it … wasn’t nothing. Of course, I fucked up and didn’t write it all down right away, so my recollection is super vague, but … it was something. I almost managed some fire scrying. And the goddess was there, which I … wasn’t at all sure she would be. And the offerings were accepted, which I wasn’t sure they would be. (Yes my arrogant ass thought I could bring the whole thing down for everyone in the room.)
And, of course, I took pictures. Before and after (the daylight ones are before; the burning ones are after). And I’m pretty pleased with how they came out, especially the after images.
At forty-three years of age and art-making, after twenty-seven years of magic and mysticism, I can say for certain that two things are true: much of what we call our “selves” and “personalities” are, in fact, behaviors and habits that can be changed with sufficient effort; and, also, there are parts of ourselves that are innate, the products of fate or consequence, which we cannot change, no matter how we might wish. I have changed and grown a great deal over the course of my life, the (mostly positive) results of a life committed to doing better, to being better, to more positive outcomes. I have done so in ways that others have found enviable … and also terrifying and hateful. At the same time, there are parts of myself that, no matter how badly I or those around me might wish I could change, that seem fixed, utterly immutable.
For as long as I can remember, I have sought out mystic experiences and Mystery, both through sacred connections with the people in my life, and through my magical practices. I began my earliest research at the age of thirteen, and began practicing magic at the age of sixteen. From that day forward, I have had few friends who weren’t fellow travelers on this path, and those who did not share my proclivities had to be prepared to hear about those experiences.
At the same time, many of my earliest memories are of teenage and pre-teen efforts to reconcile the exoteric practices and theologies of late Satanic Panic Middle American Christianity with the actual text of the Bible (inasmuch as even a precocious child could actually understand that book). The clear rules the Bible presented, and the punishments promised for the breaking of those rules, and the clear lack of punishment for the wicked in the modern world, made one thing abundantly clear to my ten- or twelve-year-old self: the God of the Bible was a bully who enforced rules as he saw fit, just like the bullies in my life and the authorities who enabled them. When, a few years later, I learned that other gods existed, it was implicitly obvious to me that they were of the same moral fiber.
In the thirty years since, despite my best efforts, I have been utterly unable to shake that bone-deep conviction.
I say “despite my best efforts”, because I have, in fact, attempted to change that. In the beginning, I tried to believe in and pray to a generic eclectic Wiccan goddess that I could never quite feel or fully believe in, but I could never get past the pervasive (and not particularly theologically sophisticated) “all gods are the God; all goddesses are the Goddess” monism of late-1990s and early 2000s Paganism. Later, in my middle and late twenties, I renewed my efforts to find gods worthy of worship; I couldn’t get past all the rape and warmongering in the mythologies I could get my hands on. My earliest visionary journeys included trips to the upper worlds where I encountered gods that I had tried to worship, with decidedly mixed results.
A more rational person, perhaps, would have given up the pursuit of magic and mysticism years ago. But that just doesn’t seem to be who I am as a person. My earliest magical experiments (besides an obsessive teenage preoccupation with wards, shielding, and other magical protections) were in astral projection and trying to develop my psychic senses. Those experiments ultimately led me to “shamanic” visionary work and to my conjuration experiments and to the trance possession experiments I just wrote about. I wanted to see the parts of the world I couldn’t see. I wanted to experience the larger cosmos. I wanted to communicate with the spirits that I could see and feel but not hear.
I still want all those things.
And so I have persisted.
Rites and rituals and research, escalating experiments both solitary and with my Lunar Shenanigans crew.
I have said before, and I will say again, that the one god with whom I have anything like a “religious” relationship is Dionysus. That one god has answered my prayers with ecstasy and insight. That one god has shown up in my visions consistently, meaningfully, and helpfully. That one god I love in spite of all the other assholes who worship him.
I accidentally started a Hekate cult. The crew has never shared my ambivalence toward divinity, and Hekate just … kept being the right number call for any given Esbat. One ritual led to another led to another led to another until I decided it just seemed polite to buy an idol for our rites. Then came the Hekataeon. Hekate is the one god who gets her own altar in our house, not shared with anyone.
For two, maybe three years, I poured out daily offerings to Baphomet, Aphrodite, Eros, Lucifer, Dionysos, and Hekate. Over the last two summers, I have had intense visionary experiences at my morning prayers: potent divine visitations that left me shaking and crying. I had experiences that I can’t even tell my closest conspirators about, because it’s “monks locked in a tower with nothing but ergot rye bread” levels of crazy. I experimented with deity possession, opening my mind and my body to be ridden by Hekate, Baphomet, and Eros Protogonos, and receiving visions from other deities as my co-conspirators took their own turns in the hot seat.
And then, somehow, it all came crashing down.
In retrospect, I can identify some of the factors that led to my collapse.
Last summer, at the height of certain workings, I learned that a spiritual teacher whose work I had based a great deal of my practice on had stalked a friend-of-a-friend back to her hotel room. On the one hand, what the fuck to I expect of straight white men in positions of authority? Real talk: exactly that; I had been waiting for him to fail in pretty much exactly that way. On the other hand, it hurt me much more than I expected to be proven right, and while I went on and published all the writing I had already queued up, I have not been able to continue that work, and that knowledge has … fundamentally undermined my relationship with the goddess in question.
My failure to make myself a vessel during what proved to be the last meeting of the Possession Club was … deeply hurtful to me. In addition to the obvious and, I think, understandable disappointment, it also hit me in my pride and my self-confidence.
The October eclipse fucked me up good. It amplified everything else that was going on inside and around me. In a very real sense, things didn’t start turning around until the second half of the eclipse-pair hit in April.
Also in October, I got chased out of a local pagan meetup. I thought it was going to be a good group because it was run by two trans men. I honestly thought I was making friends. But it turned out that the group was half Nokean Heathens who expected everyone to just know without being told that speaking Loki’s name aloud was taboo and were not prepared to have that taboo questioned. They were also not prepared to hear any criticism white ancestor worship.
All that, combined with more mundane difficulties in my social circles, the soul-crushing effort of self-promotion on modern social media, my second round of Covid, the ever-rising prevalence of Christofascism and the horrors that the US government is facilitating around the world, and the worst depression of my adult life …
I feel like I have lost all the progress that I have made over the last ten years.
I am back in a place where, despite the mystic impulse that has followed me for literally longer than I can remember, I am blindingly blisteringly angry at the gods and anyone who loves them. That anger is obsessive. It keeps me from my work during the day and keeps me from sleeping at night. It interferes with my ability to do magic, to exist in magical communities.
It took me nearly twenty years, from my first offerings to Dionysus, Hephaestus, and Apollo, back in 2007, through visionary journeys and ecstatic rituals and trance possession, to get to my apotheotic experiences of the summer of 2023. To find myself here, feeling like I’m back where I started, hurts more than I have words for. So now I’m in a place both where I feel like I need to write about it … and can’t write about it.
Part of the problem, is that I don’t know how to talk about the gods and my struggles with them without insulting and alienating my friends and followers who sincerely love them. I feel like even alluding to the anger and alienation I’m feeling is a threat to those relationships. Expounding on those feelings in any detail? Almost impossible.
Part of the problem is that the only way I have ever figured out to do the work I want to do is to just … put that anger and distrust out of mind, and hope that the ecstasy of magic and apotheosis will magically make it go away. Clearly, fucking clearly, that hasn’t happened. Which only reinforces my deep-seated suspicion that antitheism is not just a thing I learned very early in life, but an intrinsic part of who I am as a person, every bit as much as my art.
So here I am.
Hurt. Angry. Afraid. Fighting to reconcile two parts of my nature: the inescapable desire to do magic, to experience Mystery, to seek the gods; and a bone-deep suspicion that the gods are corrupt authorities who should face the gallows alongside their mortal counterparts. I have jokingly described this conflict as a fundamental urge to find God and punch Him in the dick.
Honestly, I don’t know that I’ll ever really be able to fully reconcile those two natures. It’s possible that I don’t even need to. It’s possible that what I really need to wrestle with is the blinding, murderous rage that rises when those two parts of my nature come into friction.
I do know that this will not be the last time I talk about my deep, painful ambivalence towards the gods. And I know that, the deeper I dig into this, the more likely I will be to offend or even hurt my friends and other readers. I promise is that I am doing my best to approach this in good faith, to work my way through this pain without lashing out. I apologize for any pain I cause to you while I work through my own.
From the summer of 2021 to the summer of 2022, the Lunar Shenanigans crew and I ran a year-long cycle of Drawing Down the moon. One by one, each of us took a turn as “Priestess” and “Priest”: serving first as vessel for the nameless lunar goddess and then as invoker, drawing the power of the moon into the next vessel.
In some ways, it was an exercise in frustration. I knew going in that few of us (and I not among them) had extensive experience with deity possession, but not how few had ever even researched the practice. As we set out to write our ritual, the templates we found were extremely heterosexist, with a disturbing emphasis on wombs and penises as prerequisites for the roles. Several members of the group were so disengaged that it felt like they were barely humoring me, and did not put much effort either research or execution.
The project as a whole was a very mixed bag. I felt like I had to re-explain both the theory and the practice every month, and like I did a worse job of it each time. Some of us did very well at it. Others found it very difficult to let the Moon in. I never got the chance to try: on the date that we had appointed as our last, another member came back from sabbatical to put her hat in the ring.
In the wake of that experience, though, came something good. Soon after, one of our members took point on organizing and hosting a trance possession study group. She invited those of us who, successful or otherwise, had shown the most interest in the Drawing Down the Moon project and posed the question: how can we develop this practice into a skill?
We started with one of the very few books we could find on the subject: Lifting the Veil by Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone. The book proved to be a mish-mash of ahistorical garbage, something one would expect from the mid-1990s rather than its actual publication date of 2016. There was a similar amount of cultural appropriation, a surprising amount of weird apologia, and some very weird and creepy jokes about dropping gods into people they knew were not prepared for the experience. But there was also a viable-looking ritual and, lacking much else in the way of templates to work from, we took it and ran with it.
The core of the Farrar/Bone ritual is this:
Establish sacred space. Build an altar for the deity to be invoked. Build a throne for the vessel. The ritual facilitator invokes the deity into the vessel using a guided meditation. An audience comes in and the possessed oracle answers questions and/or issues prophesy.
Which is all solid, except for the weird and heterosexist way Farrar and Bone frame the facilitator as male priest who does all the work, and the vessel as passive priestess who just sits back and lets it happen to her. But we liked the guided meditation and the rest of the framework enough to break it down for parts.
In our reworked version, the facilitator is just that: someone who takes the leadership parts of the ritual so that the vessel can focus on the talking-to-god and talking-as-god parts. As vessel, we take point on building the altar and throne, then sequester ourselves while the facilitator gets the room and the other participants ready. A third member of the group takes point on casting the circle and consecrating the temple. A fourth focuses on taking notes during the rite. The facilitator performs the consecration of the altar and the preliminary invocation of the god, then brings the vessel in for the guided meditation leading them to the underworld where they will meet the god. Once the vessel is possessed and speaking in the voice of the god, the facilitator works the room, directing the participants to ask their questions, and managing the incense and libations. It is the facilitator’s responsibility to make certain that the possessed vessel doesn’t do anything they’ll regret later, and that they are not overwhelmed by the god, then to send the god home when the oracular session is complete, and to guide the vessel back to their body at the end of the rite.
We’ve refined the details a lot over the year and a half that we’ve been doing this work. We had a very tight script for the first round, almost exactly by the book. We changed things up a bit for the second round, based on lessons learned. For the third round, each ritual was idiosyncratic, similar to the others only in outline. We have begun our forth round in similar style.
Round One
Our first round, all four of us called upon the goddess Hekate. It was an obvious choice. We knew her, and she knew us. I had even served as a vessel for her, before. Were we not the Accidental Hekate Cult?
I don’t remember, now, if we drew lots or if I was chosen, but having served as a vessel for Hekate in several previous rituals with the Lunar Shenanigans Crew, and having been inadvertently shut out of the Drawing Down the Moon experiment, I was happy to take the first turn in the hot seat.
I was struggling financially, at the time, and my questions all revolved around the prosperity magic I was doing, and how it could be improved. I, at least, was not taking good notes this round, and can no longer remember much of it clearly. I do remember that some of the answers I got were actionable, but others were not.
Round Two
For the second round, we took on a fifth member. We also took on different gods. One of us invoked Lilith, one the Morrigan, one Helios, and one Prometheus. I invoked Baphomet.
With my financial situation somewhat settled, I struggled to come up with questions to ask. I know that, at the time we conjured the Morrigan, I suspected that someone was flinging some cursework or evil eye my way, but when I asked “who is it”, the answer “you know who, crush him” was … cathartic, but not actually helpful. I did not (and do not) know who was fucking with me. And, as surprising as some may find this, of the three or four candidates that I could think of, at the time, I didn’t want to crush any of them … just be quit of them. I was facilitator for the Helios ritual, and was able to avoid the issue in that ritual. When the time for Lilith came, I admitted that I had nothing to ask for, and accepted the blessing I was offered. In retrospect, that caused as many problems as it fixed.
Preparation for Baphomet came in fits and starts. There were things that I could see clearly – the need to make a horned headdress, for which I cannibalized one I had made previously, and added a black lace veil. Mostly, though, I struggled to make contact with the god until the time came.
I remember parts of my time as Baphomet very clearly. I remember that the god/dess was waiting for me when I sequestered myself to prepare for the trance, and that I could have walked out into the circle, fully possessed, while the others were still casting the circle, and that there was less of me than there could have been by the time the ritual caught up to me. As a result of this, we added “ask if the god is there already” to the ritual before the trance induction.
Round Three
Through a series of schedule conflicts, the third round became a sprint: we conjured Odin and Freya and Persephone, one week after another, only breaking for our Beltane campout before I took on the mantle of Eros Protogonos. (Which, given the amount of magic that I did over Beltane, was no break at all for me.)
This round was more of a challenge for me, personally, than the previous two. Opening with Odin and Freya, we ran face-first into two of my major issues: god-kings in general and the Norse pantheon in particular. I hate god-kings. I do not sacrifice to them, period. I do not honor them. And, after twenty-five-plus years in the neo-Pagan community, I can count on one hand the number of Norse-focused pagans I’ve met who didn’t turn out to be assholes without ethics if not outright fascists. I did my very best to participate in good faith. I failed.
Honestly, coming up on a year later, I don’t remember much except my discomfort. I wish that I had taken better notes. I didn’t want to ask anything of Odin or Freya. I was more focused on my role as facilitator for Alvianna’s channeling of Hermes, but my question was the same as the time before: who is fucking with me? Unfortunately, as facilitator, I could tell that the answer I got came from the vessel, not the god. So, with the signal lost, I brought the ritual to a close.
Our conjuration of Persephone is a notable exception to my struggle to engage with the gods and remember what was said. As I mentioned above, I frequently struggled to come up with favors or questions to ask of these unfamiliar gods. When this round came, though, I finally thought to ask for an image that I could make in jewelry. This is the oft-referenced possession rite that produced the Dread Queen Persephone pendant that I am (still) so very proud of.
Then came my turn in the hot seat. I had chosen to play vessel to Firstborn Eros, the desire at the heart of creation.
Eros Protogonos, Eros Phanes, Eros the Elder, is a god chiefly attested in the Orphic Hymns. His is first-born, self-born, hatched from the golden egg laid by Time, itself. Whether he was the same entity as the better known and hornier Eros, as Aphrodite Urania is the same goddess as her more … distant aspects, is a matter of some philosophical debate. I say he is, but it was Phanes Protogonos that I intended to invoke. As such, I advised my compatriots to ask larger scale questions, not ask the god-in-me for advice about getting laid.
For all my daily offerings, my relationship with Eros was/is not as close as my relationships with Hekate and Baphomet. The “signal” was neither strong nor clear. It was, however, productive, and the god (through me) blessed two of my compatriots with strong visions (that I got no glimpse of). In addition to those visions, and the questions I answered for our fourth compatriot, I consecrated a series of candles for us, each imbued with the Light of Creation. In the aftermath of that ritual, my own candle has become a part of my daily rituals, helping me maintain contact with the light of creation.
Round Four
We started the fourth round in September. The idea was that we would abandon our established script and go fully bespoke for each ritual. That didn’t quite happen.
The first god invoked for the second round was Macha. I was notetaker this round, as our usual notetaker was facilitating for the vessel. I struggled to get into the group headspace, but I did get an image of an eye and a crow and a sheaf of wheat that may yet become a devotional pendent.
Macha was the most standoffish of the gods we have yet summoned. She did not appreciate our freeform format and demanded clear articulation of what would be expected of her, and what she would get in return … but then she ended up going beyond the parameters we set, so … ?
I won’t speak to what answers and blessings she gave others, but I will say that her answer to my request for words of wisdom was not at all helpful.
When I took my turn as vessel for the fourth round, what I really wanted was to have the experience that I had been hoping for but missed out on from the original Drawing Down the Moon cycle that had, in part, inspired the creation of Possession Club in the first place.
My plan was to come up with a seamless and stylish synthesis of the original DDtM ritual, the Possession Club ritual, and the ritual framework that I had been developing for my personal work throughout both projects. Somehow, despite having a clear plan and a perfectly serviceable pile of scripts, I failed to write that ritual and ended up using an only-slightly-modified version of the ritual that I wrote for Eros. Interestingly, what little genuine inspiration I did have came from wearing my moon crown while sitting at the computer.
When it came to actually do the ritual, I thought everything was adequately in hand.
Then we called the goddes and … I failed. I couldn’t let her in. I couldn’t trance deep enough, or I couldn’t open far enough, or … I don’t even know. But I failed, and it really, really hurt my feelings.
On a certain level, we all knew that such a complete failure was always an option. None of us channeled the gods equally well every time. There were points in every possession ritual where the human was answering as much as or more than the god. But this was the first instance of a giant, big-nope, goose-egg, nothing.
We closed down the ritual. Made our final offerings. Had dinner. And we went home.
Unplanned Hiatus
My failure to Draw Down the Moon turned out to be the end of Possession. There are a few reasons for that; some logistical, others emotional.
We had a couple meetings after to talk about what went wrong and what to do differently in the future. Those meetings did not go well, also for a variety of reasons, the details of which are not for public consumption. In retrospect, though, I don’t think that an immediate post-mortem was the way to go.
Then I caught Covid (my second confirmed infection), which took me out for a solid three weeks. Then it was Christmas, the least wonderful time of the year.
We’ve tried to start back up a few times, but illness or bad weather or worse omens have nixed every attempt. Planning meetings met with the same blockages as attempts to schedule the final ritual of round four. When we were finally able to sit down together and discuss the fate of the project, the five of us were in four very different places psychologically, spiritually, and energetically. Ultimately, we decided that it was time to shutter the project.
Speaking personally, I was – and am – still so drained after this winter’s deep, deep depression, that I am struggling to be fully present for any work, even my own. I am also (and there’s a post about this already written and waiting) really struggling with the idea that the gods are worth of love and trust, making continuing this project uniquely difficult. Neither of those are energies to bring to a group project.
I feel bad that one of us never got to do her fourth round. But stepping back was the more honest and good-faith course than ploughing forward.
What I’ve Learned So Far
I’ve learned a lot from these escalating experiments. Some of it is the technical and experiential knowledge that I came for. Some of it is much more logistical and interpersonal.
The first thing I’ve learned is that everyone needs to be on the same page at the beginning of the project. When I orchestrated the year of Drawing Down the Moon, I sincerely believed that everyone else was fully on board. I also thought I knew how much everyone else knew. I was dead fucking wrong on both counts, and that made a lot of messes. When we started up Possession Club, we started off with a shared reading list and enough conversations that we were all in a much more similar place to one another, and the successes of those experiments are largely attributable to that.
The second thing I’ve learned, also a logistical lesson, is to write everything down someplace you can actually find it. Project drift will happen, that’s not only fine it’s inevitable, but it’s good to have a source document to return to as that goes. It also makes it easier to onboard anyone added to the project once it’s in motion.
The magical aspects of what I’ve learned are harder to articulate. I also am not at all sure that they apply to anyone who is not me. But I think the below points are universal enough to be worth sharing.
Alcohol and marijuana facilitate being possessed by Dionysus, but not by anyone else as far as I can tell. At least not for me.
BaneFolk ointments DO facilitate trance possession. Or, at least they were great for Baphomet and seemed helpful for Eros.
Everyone in the room needs to have a compatible idea of who the god is. I think this is one of the places where Drawing Down the Moon went so wrong, both in the initial year of DDtM and last October.
In Conclusion
Finally, I want to come back to a logistical and social lesson that these experiments taught and confirmed, over and over again. This sort of work is only possible when everyone involved is acting in good faith and communicating successfully. Being along for the ride is neither. Not everyone needs to be totally sold out / all in, but everyone does need to be genuinely open to the experience, the process, and the result. Yes, that means me. I know I brought the group down by not discussing my Norse allergies during the planning of round three. I suspect that was a lot of what went wrong with the DDtM experiments that preceded Possession Club.
Although I have framed several moments above as failures, because that’s the only word I know for that feeling, I do not believe that the experiments as a whole were failures. They were experiments. Some of our results were things we wanted; some were things we predicted; some were complete surprises. We learned from them all. As such, the projects, as a whole, were resounding successes.
Post Script: The ritual from Lifting the Veil is worth pillaging. The book, however, is not worth paying for. Steal it. Mock it. Someone, for the love of all that’s holy, write something better.
A few weeks ago, I had the money to buy a book I’ve been looking forward to since I first heard about some time last winter: Sara Mastros’ newest offering, The Sorcery of Solomon: A Guide to the 44 Planetary Pentacles of the Magcian King.
I have been circling Solomonic magic for a little more than a decade now, ever since I began my big deep-dive into the ceremonial side of the western magical tradition. While I have recently joked that it was the appeal Picatrix images that pulled me in other directions, and that’s true to a point, there were other factors, as well: the culture of grimoire purism that dominated a lot of the spaces I found; the explicit Christianity of most Solomonic magic sources; and the lack of quality modern language translations and guidebooks.
So, when Mastros announced her highly focused work on the pentacles, I was super excited. I was doubly excited to get my hands on it while it was actually still new and shiny. Very often I’m not able to buy books until they’ve been in circulation for long enough that there are more hot takes than legit reviews, and that takes a little bit of the fun out of things.
Mastros’ Sorcery of Solomon turned out to be exactly what I was hoping it to be: a work equally of scholarship and sorcery, with a clear grounding in both the source text and hands-on experience, clearly written in modern language with practical advise for the modern reader. It is written as a companion to, expansion on, and elucidation of the pentacles in Samuel Liddel Mathers’ edition of The Key of Solomon, and I’ll be getting my hands on the recent Peterson edition as soon as I can, but Mastros’ book functionally usurps that volume: providing everything that an intermediate magical practitioner might need to begin their work with Solomonic pentacles, with no need for previous experience in the Solomonic tradition.
My very first thought when I got my copy in the mail was, “shit, this is some nice paper”. I don’t know where Weiser’s paperbacks are on the grand scale of print quality, but it feels much nicer than a lot of books I’ve picked up over the last few years.
The book walks the reader through the process of making their own book of pentacles, a sort of personal grimoire that can then be used to perform magic through those pentacles, make pentacle talismans to carry or for others, and ideally learn to make new pentacles of their own. The book is made under the auspices of the spirit of Solomon, himself, and becomes a familiar spirit in its own right.
Each pentacle is reproduced in large, easy to read format, with gorgeous modernized artwork. Mastros discusses Mathers’ original pentacles, what she believes to be either errors or misguided choices, and her corrections and adaptations based on a greater understanding than Mathers’ of the larger talisman tradition and her own experiences. She explains the meaning, likely origin, and use of each element in each pentacle, and speaks briefly about her own experiences with each – those she has used extensively, and those she has disdained. (Unsurprisingly, she does not use the seventh pentacle of Saturn to cause earthquakes, nor does she use the sixth pentacle of the Moon to fuck with the rains.)
The material supplies needed to work this book are delightfully few and relatively inexpensive:
· A large sketchbook, the kind you will actually draw in not a fancy grimoire notebook you’ll be afraid to fuck up. You want this to be large enough to draw your initial pentacle seals at a scale large enough that anything you with to enchant as a talisman can be set within the seal.
· A pen with black ink. Mastros uses Sharpies. I’ll probably use a fancier drawing pen. (Drawing aids like a compass, protractor, and straight edge are also highly recommended.)
· A cloth big enough to wrap the book in when it is not in use. White silk is ideal, but not necessary.
· A blue ribbon long enough to tie the cloth closed.
· Tea light candles. Mastros advocates beeswax for the vibes, better smell, and shorter burning time than standard paraphin tealights.
· Frankincense. There is a more complicated incense recipe if you want it, but frankincense is fine.
· Consecrated oil. There is a fancy holy oil recipe if you want it, but olive oil is fine as long as you pray over it.
Having read the book, I have gone on to enroll in the companion class: a year-long guided walk through the book and its techniques. The next cohort doesn’t officially start for a couple months, so I have been blazing my way through the recordings of the currently-wrapping cohort’s classes while I gather supplies and wait my turn. I can already say that the class is absolutely worth the price. In addition to the benefits of any live course over solitary book study, Mastros’ teaching style is very hands on, and the course gets into a lot of granular, esoteric, and tangential material that couldn’t be squeezed into the book, itself. Also, she’s funny, and shares several of my hottest takes on the current state of scholarship and the magical community, which is super exciting.
I want to be clear: as excited as I am for the class, you can absolutely work straight from the Sorcery of Solomon book without it. I have chosen to enroll in the companion class for a few reasons: firstly, the way the opportunity came to me, it felt like the fulfillment of some of my community-seeking and right-place-right-time magic; secondly, I feel like the initiatory aspect of being taught legitimizes my access to the Solomonic current, generally, and the Hebrew-language pentacles, specifically; thirdly, all those god names are going to go tap-dancing over my biases and my trauma, and I feel like I’m much more likely to succeed in the work if I am doing it in community.
The paperback edition of Sorcery of Solomon clocks in at $20-25, depending on shipping, tax, and your retailer’s margins. Like Mastros, herself, I encourage you to buy from a local bookseller or from bookshop.org rather than supporting Amazon. The companion course is $777.
As I said above, I have not yet begun working the course or the book. Patreon supporters will absolutely get stories of my results; I don’t know yet how much I will end up saying in public.
At long last I present to you the first of this year’s Pride offerings!
I say, “at long last” both because I wanted to have this out two, even three weeks ago, and because I have wanted to make an image of Tiresias since before my first Pride line.
For those of you who don’t know, Tiresias is one of most famous oracles of Greek myth, second only to poor Cassandra. His name is a byword for wisdom and righteousness, and a famed reader of signs and omens. It is he who counsels Cadmus in the Bacchae and Oedipus in Oedipus Rex.
Though I do love him as an initiate of the Dionysiac Mysteries, and as a prophet and diviner, the tale that has made Teresias most dear to my heart is that of his time spent as a woman. Ovid, of course tells the story as a dirty joke, with a punch line about Zeus winning a bet with Hera about who enjoys sex more, but the tale also appears in (pseudo)Apollodorus: how Tiresias came upon two entwined and mating snakes on the road and separated them with his staff and was thereby transformed into a woman, and how some (traditionally seven) years later “restored” his masculinity by separating another pair of mating snakes. (Pseudo Apollodorus’ verseion can be found here, scrolling down just a little to 105; Ovid’s version can be found here.
For my own part, given the assumption (and the account of Apollodorus) that Tiresias gifts of prophesy and divination dated back to his youth among the nymphs of Athena, I take not just the latter transformation but the first as well to be conscious and deliberate choices. That is to say, Tiresias found (or perhaps even sought out) the first pair of snakes in order to spend some years as a woman, and only sought out another pair when it suited her to once more be him. Moreover, in both versions of the story, Tiresias led a full and active life as a woman: whether or not women, generally, have a better time of sex than men, clearly Tiresias had a better time as a woman.
To make this pendant, I looked to Attic red figure pottery for inspiration. I was not able to find any images clearly designated as Tiresias, so instead I chose a generic man with a himation and a staff, and retooled it to my liking. I then reversed the image, removed the beard and changed a visible pectoral for a tit, and soldered the two prototypes back to back.
I am very, very pleased with this image, and may well keep the exemplar for myself.
“The image of Venus, according to the opinion of the wise Picatrix, is the shape of a woman holding up an apple in her right hand and, in her left, a comb similar to a tablet with these characters written on it: ΟΛΟΙΟΛ. This is her shape.”
Picatrix Book II Chapter 4 Paragraph 27, Trans. Attrell & Porreca (2019)
Drawn and shared with plenty of time for you to prepare before Venus enters Taurus on 4/20.
Use this image as the face of your paper talismans by whatever method you prefer, or to accompany a petition by writing what you want across the face of the image. Hold on to the image for however long feels appropriate, and dispose of it in a similar manner.
One of the ways I search for inspiration (and one of the ways I try to market my jewelry) is by producing a handful of annual lines. I dropped my first Pride Line in 2022, my first Samhain line last autumn, and this year I’m presenting my inaugural Beltane Line: seven (7) pieces that bring a vigorous and vital vibe that I hope you all will enjoy.
As part of this line, I am also introducing the first several pieces of what I intend to be a recurring series across seasons. These pieces, which I am calling Wood Wights, are mask-like figures that can be worn as “simple” jewelry or serve as the vessels for magical servitors or even familiar spirits. These mask-like images are meant to represent and resemble forest spirits, and would make ideal vessels for magical servitors or familiar spirits. Although some themes may be repeated – this year’s “forest king” and “forest guardian”, for example, are very likely to see future iterations – no two will bear more than a passing resemblance to one another.
Fascinus no.1 – Pendant or Earring(s)
The fascinus is an ancient apotropaic symbol dating back at least as far as ancient Rome, used as magical protection against disease and the evil eye. Yes, it is a penis with wings.
This fascinus, visually two-dimensional with its wings extending outward, was designed to be worn as earrings, either singly or in pairs, but is also available as a pendant.
This fascinus is very three-dimentional, with the wings rising high above the cock & balls, and was designed to be worn as a pendant or as a bracelet charm, but is also available as an earring or pair of earrings.
A small signet ring featuring an image of a coiled snake with a beard, an ancient Greek image associated with the Agathos Daimon, sometimes contracted to Agathodaimon, a power associated with the health and prosperity of the individual and their household. “Agathos Daimon” translates literally as “good spirit” and may also be understood as “good fortune”.
The specific image was inspired by one found on an ancient coin that I found.
Sterling silver pendant made in the image of a wooden mask with antlers. This image is based on my own visionary experiences of the Witchfather and the Sabbat.
Mask is an inch tall with the antlers bringing the piece to nearly two inches. The pendant has a pair of hidden bails behind the mask.
Originally, I had intended to mold this and make it a recurring design. Unfortunately, now that I’ve cast it up, I don’t think I can get a good mold of it. So this one will be unique, and I’ll make a new Witchfather mask with slightly different geometry at some point in the future. I will be selling this one for $255
Wood Wight no. 1 – Forest King Pend
A tall and noble face like tree bark with staring eyes and crown-like points. This shibuichi pendant has two pairs of hidden bails, ideal for wearing on either a thin chain or for stringing onto a more elaborate necklace. It is almost two inches tall and more than a quarter inch deep.
With a strong shield-like shape and an uncanny three-eyed face, this wood wight is called Forest Guardian. It has a hidden bail suitable for a chain up to 3mm and stands about an inch tall.
“The image of the Sun, according to the opinion of Mercurius, is the shape of a man standing on his feet as though wanting to salute those around him, and he is holding in his left hand a round shield; beneath his feet he has the image of a dragon.”
Picatrix Book II Chapter 4 Paragraph 23, Trans. Attrell & Porreca (2019)
Drawn and shared a little later than I’d hoped, but with a little luck you should be able to use this image to catch at least one of this Sol in Aries season’s elections.
Use this image as the face of your paper talismans by whatever method you prefer, or to accompany a petition by writing what you want across the face of the image. Hold on to the image for however long feels appropriate, and dispose of it in a similar manner.
“The second decan of Cancer is a girl seated on a snake throne, having a beautiful waist. Her body, adorned with jewels, is beautiful, and her garments are of a pale hue. She abounds with politeness and affection.” – Yavana Jataka, Chapter 3 Paragraph 12 (an Indian astrological manual, translator unknown)
Another astrological image from October of 2023 that never made it to the public blog.
I originally drew this image for an election sometime in 2022. It took a while to redo it for public consumption, and then (again) to actually share it publically. There are bits of the linework that I am no longer satisfied with, but I’m trying to err on the side of finishing and sharing things rather than tweaking them obsessively.
Feel free to download and print this image for your own rituals, and to share it with attribution, but please do not use it for any commercial purpose.
“The Third Mansion is Azuraye (that is, the Pleiades) and it is for acquiring every good. When the Moon is in this mansion, make the figure of a seated woman holding her right hand above her head and dressed in clothes.” Picatrix Book 4 Chapter Nine Paragraph 31 (trans. Attrell & Porecca 2021)
Picatrix calls the mansion Azuraye, but it is better known by a name given elsewhere: al Thurayya. I have made this image in silver, on a square ring as the Picatrix describes later, and gotten good results from her. I have long wanted to illustrate it for paper petitions, as well.
