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On the Uses of Astrological Images

Author Satyr MagosPosted on 1 Comment

A great deal of my output over the last … several years has been illustrations of the astrological images described in the Picatrix, Agrippa, and a few other ancient sources. I have made digital images meant to be printed out or reproduced on paper, and metal images meant to be worn as jewelry or used as altar pieces. Experienced astro-magicians already know their conventional uses, and can intuit or invent new ones. But my target audience is my peers: witches and chaotes, most of whom have certainly heard of the Picatrix but who may not yet have gotten knee-deep in the astrological magical tradition. And it’s past time I gave that audience a little more to work with.

The conventional (perhaps even intended) use of most of these images is to engrave them on gemstones and enchant them as talismans during carefully selected astrological moments. These consecrated talismans are then worn in jewelry, particularly rings and necklaces. This is, as I will describe below, far from their only use.

But, first, this brings us to a necessary digression about terminology. To many in the astromagic community, the word “talisman” is exclusively reserved for astrological images created and consecrated within the narrow time window of an ideal astrological configuration called an election. I appreciate where they’re coming from, to a point, but that’s just literally not what the word talisman means; it always has been and always will be broader than that. I do my best to walk a narrow road of compromise between specialist and lay language, but I know that I cannot please everyone. Throughout this post, I use the word “talisman” to mean the object (paper, pendant, coin, whatever) bearing the astrological image and which has been or will be used in magic.

These are by no means the only uses to which the astrological images of the Picatrix, Agrippa, and other grimoires and manuals can be put. They are, rather, the uses to which I have put them and seen them put.

Attunement

The first use of these images, for me, is in the making of them. Studying the descriptions of the images in the Picatrix (and other sources) and then producing them on paper and digitally inking them helps attune me to the stars and planets they depict. Producing the images establishes relationships where I do not already have one and deepens the relationships where I have already established contact.

I have, at times, been more and less meticulous about starting or finishing my images in appropriate planetary days and hours. I have not found that it makes a significant difference, possibly because I am not attempting to influence the material world in any way.

This differs significantly from other uses of astrological images in that, unless you’ve decided to build a more elaborate ritual structure around your drawing and contemplation than I have, there really isn’t a suffumigation. You’re not trying to create a vessel that you are immediately filling with a spirit, but rather trying to reach the power behind the image so that they’ll take your calls in future rituals.

This is, of course, an off-label use in the eyes of astromagia purists.

Those wishing to more closely attune and ingratiate themselves to the planetary powers behind the images, but lacking the skills, time, or other resources to make the images for themselves, will find contemplating these images to be a more than adequate alternative. This, of course, segues nicely into the second off-label use of the astrological images: idolatry.

Icons and Idols

My theory, based on my experiences and those shared with me by other eclectic mystics and magicians making use of astrological images, is that these images were and are portraits of spirits. Horns and animal heads and birds’ feet, all common motifs in the Picatrix images, have connotated divinity and immortality in the art of the Mediterranean and Near East for millennia. Images of Mercury and Venus, in particular, sound remarkably like descriptions of the gods for which the planets are named. One person I know sees Herakles in the lion-headed image of Jupiter, and I can find no rational argument against that understanding. As such, these images make fantastic icons and idols for planetary magic and worship of all kinds.

This, too, is generally considered off-label by purists.

Materia Magica

Astrological images are ideal materia magica for use in all kinds of rituals, with or without other astrological considerations.

You can use metal images in mojo bags and other cloth talismans: tied up inside a small cloth square, or hung outside the bag on the same cloth that ties it closed. Paper images could go inside such bags. The images, themselves, could even be painted or embroidered onto the cloth.

You can incorporate astrological images into your candle magic. I have Mercury and Jupiter talismans in the silver bowl where I burn prosperity candles, along with the salt and rice and tea leaves and quartz and citrine and cinnamon. (The salt is a little rough on the bronze talismans, so they have to be cleaned periodically.) You can also use the image as a table of practice, printing or drawing it large enough to set up your candle magic altar on top of.

Petitions

Another excellent (and relatively conventional) use for astrological images is as a petition. Draw or print an image on paper or cardstock (I like 4×6 and 5×8 inch note cards for this). Astrologer and astromage Nina Gryphon says to write your petition across the face and chest of the image when enchanting for good, and across the back of the image when enchanting for evil; I believe this is from the Picatrix, but I can’t find the citation at the time of this writing.

A petition is an excellent way to take advantage of a mediocre or very short astrological election. It also combines well with less rigorous timing methods (just planetary day & hour), with candle magic, and with planetary invocations. I imagine that they would also combine well with hoodoo petition techniques.

Astrological image petitions do not seem to work well with Chaos Magick style sigils, at least not for me. My experience is that whole words, or better yet full sentences, work better.

Talismans

The iconic use of astrological images is the making of long-lasting talismans that bring the blessings and power of the planets to bear on the owner’s life as a whole. I say “owner”, here, rather than “magician”, because the iconic use of astrological talismans (at least in the 21st century) is as something that the magician makes for the benefit of a client. Talismans can be carried, worn, or left on your altar, but my experience is that they work best when worn or carried at least semi-regularly.

Paper Talismans

Printed or hand-drawn astrological images can be consecrated and enchanted as paper talismans. A paper talisman is different from a petition chiefly in duration and specificity. Where a petition is a more specific short-term enchantment, the effects of a paper talisman are broader and longer lasting.

Paper talismans are where I got my start in astromagic, and I think that they’re a great place to begin your experiments with proper astrological elections, as well. I have a write-up of my paper talisman technique here. When I make one, now, I really emphasize the part of a Picatrix invocation where I ask the planet and the powers to fill the talisman with pneuma, rather than (a) spirit.

Metal Talismans

Metal talismans with astrological images can be consecrated and enchanted as permanent homes for lifelong spirit allies, or they can be used as materia in other kinds of magic. Like paper talismans, they can be used as icons and idols – as a coin or hung over other images on your altar, or strung into prayer beads, or worn as religious jewelry.

Because I am a magical jeweler running my own casting studio full time, the majority of my personal metal talismans are cast and consecrated during astrological elections, then cleaned and polished during subsequent planetary hours. When performing the ritual, I ask the planet and the powers to send down spirits to fill the talismans, spirits who will serve whoever carries them and who will manifest the planet’s will in the world. As I’m cleaning and polishing the talisman, I introduce myself and ask it for its name and specialty. Thereafter, the talismans live on my altar when I’m not wearing them, along with my other familiar spirits, and I wear them in certain other rituals.

Consecrating Astrological Images

The most traditional use of astrological images is to create and consecrate them as talismans at an astrologically opportune moment. Whatever else you are doing with the image, getting that traditional timing right is never wrong. If you are not going to work up a full astrological election, I do recommend working in the appropriate planetary day and hour and phase of the moon.

Whether or not you are employing astrological timing, the other through-line across all uses of astrological images is suffumigation. Incense offerings are made throughout the consecration of the astrological image, and at the culmination of the ritual, the image is moved through the smoke to awaken and empower it.

There are basically three steps to empowering astrological images: creating or collecting the image, consecrating it, and then using it in ritual. My experience is that you can combine the first two steps or the last two steps, but that trying to do all three in a single sitting/ritual will spread your attention and energy too thin and probably take longer than the election window (even if you’re just using just planetary days & hours). Generally speaking, for permanent metal talismans, I will cast and consecrate them in a carefully elected astrological moment, then work with the resulting spirit-ally in later rituals; for all other uses, I’ll prepare the image in advance then consecrate and deploy it in a single ritual.

For those who like to have a pre-written template/example ritual, here is mine. In the meantime, I can say from personal experience that they work excellently in conjunction with Seven Spheres style planetary conjurations and initiations, and with candle magic, whether metal or paper. I have also had good results consecrating them using PGM rituals.

In witchcraft

Reflecting On Five Years of Daily Ritual

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Reflecting On Five Years of Daily Ritual

The arrival of August marks five years of my daily ritual practice.

My streak began in 2020 with what (to the best of my knowledge) proved to be the last of Andrieh Vitimus’ periodic Do-Magick Challenges. The idea was to enchant for a series of concrete things; I took that as an opportunity to work more closely with my familiar spirits, invoking them to fulfill my desires. I can’t find back the spreadsheet with my enchantments and their results, but I think that my success rate was something like 20%; most significantly, I remember being gifted cake (yum) and green rocks (a baggie of malachite pieces that I still haven’t used up). Whatever I failed to manifest, however, I more than made up in the establishment of my longest-running streak of daily ritual.

I honestly don’t remember what the ritual looked like at the very beginning. I might be able to find my old notes back, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of journalling, back then, despite it being a key part the challenge. I do remember that I originally tried launching a sigil every night before bed, but quickly found that I had run out of brains by the time I’d made it there (a problem that has plagued my Solomonic pentacle experiments this past year, as well).

I’m really, really not a morning person. It sometimes takes me thirty, even sixty minutes to force myself to get out of bed after I wake up. But, by the end of that first month, it was very clear that “first thing when I got up” was the only place I could fit a recurring ritual into my life.

Again, I don’t remember exactly what my ritual was when I started, but I do know that by the end of that first month it had already crystalized around a practice that I had actually started back in college: pouring libations of coffee for my spirit court and having my first cup with them at my altar.

The ritual has grown and changed and collapsed and regrown at least a dozen times over the last five years. At times, it has involved a full formal circle casting with blades and bells and calls to the quarters. For a while, it included a daily tarot spread. There was a time when I was pouring out individual libations into little espresso cups and shot glasses, one for each god and spirit on every altar in every room of my house, and lighting a candle to go with every one of them. Since the summer of 2021, I’ve gotten pretty good about journaling my daily ritual, if not necessarily any of the other things I want to be keeping track of. At the very top of my game, I even managed to supplement my morning offerings with ten or even twenty minutes of sitting meditation in the afternoon. Other times, all I could manage was to pour myself a cup of coffee, light a candle and incense, and call it good.

Only one thing has remained constant over these five years. To this day, “coffee with my spirit court” remains the heart of my daily ritual. Still, for all the changes and variations that have come and gone, that continuity feels really, really good. With all the chaos in the world since Covid landed, I can’t begin to imagine how unhinged I’d be without this stabilizing practice.

Right now, my morning ritual starts with making coffee in a French press. While the grounds steep, I clean up the previous day’s offerings and gather the candles and incense (and sometimes other materia) and set out my coffee cup for that day’s ritual, and take note of the planetary day and hour, the position of the sun, how much and how well I slept, and record any dreams that I can recall, and (when needed) fill out the previous day’s diary entry.

When the coffee is ready, I purify myself with cinnamon and invoke Baphomet to bless the candles, incense, and coffee. I make my offerings under my motto and magical names, and then greet my spirit court by name. Then, finally, I sit in quiet contemplation, praying for aid and listening for any guidance I might receive.

I use a meditation app to time things. I used a different one for years, but when I finally paid for it, that didn’t actually make the ads go away, so fuck them. Now I use InsightTimer, which lets me set a bell for each stage of my ritual: ten minutes while the coffee steeps; six minutes to make my offerings and invocations; and, finally, five minutes to sit in quiet contemplation.

Some days, I follow up my quiet contemplation with a bit of candle magic. At a minimum, I do an uncrossing and cursebreaking ritual every Saturday and healing magic every Sunday.

Uncross my conditions, turn away the Evil Eye, break every curse that has been laid upon me. May the work of ignorance be undone, may the work of jealousy be undone, may the work of malice be undone, may the work of my enemies be undone. The work of ignorance is undone, the work of jealousy is undone, the work of malice is undone, the work of my enemies is undone.

Heal me. Heal me. Heal me. Heal my flesh that I may live and thrive. Heal my heart that I may better love and be loved and participate in community. Heal my mind that I may see and think clearly, and act in my own best interest. Heal my soul that I may approach the altars and the gods in good faith and with an open heart.

Some weeks I do one of those candles every single day. Other weeks, I add other magics to the morning ritual. Road openers. Fiery walls of protection. Whatever life calls for.

My daily ritual will continue to evolve. It will change as I change and my needs change. Honestly, even now I feel a need to change it up fairly significantly, but I don’t yet know what I want to change it to. We’ll see what inspiration brings when it finally strikes.

Other occultists sometimes push daily ritual as an ideal of praxis. For myself, I think regular practice is much more important than the specific frequency. I post pictures of my altar every morning because it’s fun, and gives me something “witchy” to share when my practice isn’t producing good stories, but I don’t talk about it much because it often feels like bragging.

Daily ritual works for me, very much to my own surprise. It works better than weekly or monthly rituals because it doesn’t require me to keep track of anything. Sure, there are a few details that change with the day of the week, but that’s not the same, at least not for me. I get up, I clean the altar and turn the page in my magic book, and drink a cup of coffee with my spirit-court.

Then, and only then, I figure out what day it is and what I need to do. Then I get to work and forget what day it is, what time it is, what’s going on in the world. Which is why afternoon mediation and Thursday prosperity altar and Venus Night and all the other less-regular rituals that I want to do never manage to reach the level of consistency that I’ve managed with my morning ritual. I’m trying to change that, trying to get more consistent with other things. But I’m not there, yet. And that’s okay.

So I’m going to take this moment and be proud of my accomplishment. Five years of daily ritual, ever-evolving in slow motion to suit my needs.

Hail unto you gods and powers, patrons and allies, friends and familiars. Hail unto all you who live on the altars of my house and in the pages of my sacred books. Come to the feasts that I lay before you. Hail! Hail! Hail!

In art, scholarship, witchcraft

First Complete Set of Picatrix Images

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I began this series of Picatrix planetary images back in February of 2023 with the (now very rough looking) image of mercury according to Apollonius. With the completion of the image of the Moon according to Mercurius, back at the end of May, I finally have finally completed a full set. I present them as such, here, for the first time.

I plan to eventually release them as a “booster pack” of tarot-sized cards through DriveThruGames. I may also make them available as transparent stickers to slap on novena candles, or even as larger prints, if there’s any interest in that. First I need to re-do the Mercury and Venus images to better match the others, stylistically (my digital illustration skills have improved a lot over the last couple years). Then I need to settle on a frame. And then I need to design a back. And then I either need to have a couple really good sales months, or look into crowdfunding… assuming its even still legal to publish shit like this, by the time I’ve done all that, what with the swiftly-escalating fascism.

I’m still experimenting with frames. Of the handful of designs I’ve done up, so far, I like this simple geometry best. Part of me really wants a more elaborate Art Nouveau or Arabesque pattern, but that’s a little outside my design wheelhouse and I haven’t yet found one I like that I’m certain is in the public domain.

I have no idea what to do about a back design. Something minimalist and easy to write over for petition / paper talisman purposes? Something pentacle-tacular and extra witchy? One of my Baphomet devotional images? One of my occult art photographs? (I am definitely open to suggestions, here.)

I’m only a few images away from a complete second set, too: another Moon, for which I already have two sketches to choose from; another Jupiter and Venus, both already sketched; another Mars; another Mercury. Then I’ll be on to fixed stars and lunar mansions. Maybe I’ll even do all the decans, eventually.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these.

In art

Image of the Moon According to Mercurius

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

The image of the Moon, according to the opinion of Mercurius, is the shape of a woman with a beautiful face, encircled by a dragon, with horns on her head, encircled by two snakes (on her head there are two snakes and on each arm a snake is entwined); above her head there is one dragon and another beneath her feet; each of these dragons has seven heads.

Picatrix Bk II, Ch 10, Para 35. (Attrell & Porecca, 2019)

At long last, I have completed a Picatrix Image of the Moon. In doing no, I now have one complete set of Picatrix planetary images. (And, because I’ve already doubled up on a few planets, I’m already about half way to a second complete set.)

I can’t textually justify my decision to escalate the Picatrix description of a woman with horns to a faun/satyr. That was just where the vibes took me. I will probably go back, eventually, and make a less naked and more human version. But that day is not today.

In art, witchcraft

Beltane 2025

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

My crew and I celebrated Beltane at the end of April. I’ve been struggling to find something to say about it ever since.

It was a great weekend, overall. The air was cool and the sky was overcast. I took several cameras and made some fun photos. Good times were hand, despite the rain that came Saturday night, and the failure of my sleeping mat. But only half of us made it out, and it was not a particularly dramatic year, ritually speaking.

With the first of May landing in the middle of the week, we did a bit of divination to determine whether the weekend before or after would be better for us. Some weeks later, too late to change folks PTO, we learned that our usual spot was booked for an event we wanted no part of, leading us to try an alternate location: Oak Spirit Sanctuary, in central Missouri. Most of us had heard of OSS before, some time over the years, but we’d never gotten around to checking it out, so we were excited for the excuse/opportunity to try someplace new.

OSS is about twice as far from KC as Gaea Retreat Center, and my partner and I hit the road at just the wrong time, so the drive out was a bit of a slog (the way folks drive on I-70 is … questionable, sometimes). But we arrived safely and in plenty of time to set up and chill out before the sun set. The site is a bit smaller and less developed than Gaea, but that made it easier to find each other without already knowing where we were going. We did a bit of exploring, Saurday morning, and got to meet a couple members of the Board of Directors while they were working to get the site ready for their official Beltane festivities the following weekend. They were super hospitable, which was really nice, telling us about a handful of groups that use the land and explicitly inviting us to use the main ritual circle if we wanted. Then, that evening, they made a point of letting us know when they left, and that we had the land to ourselves.

We had our traditional Fuck You Fire on Friday night, burning off the ends of old spells then purging ourselves of winter and our frustrations as we threw expired herbs and other materia into the fire. For whatever reason, we didn’t quite muster the catharsis of some other years, but that’s not unprecedented: we’ve found other ways to vent our spleens, this spring.

Saturday night, we accepted our hosts’ invitation to use the main ritual circle and renewed our vows as Black Goat Brides. It was my turn, again, to lead the ritual, which I haven’t done in … several years. My companions assure me that I did well, but I still feel that I struggled to rise to the occasion. Still, it was good to renew our vows: we weren’t able to do so at either Beltane or Samhain, last year, due to weather and scheduling conflicts and other drama.

Saturday night’s rain ran into Sunday morning, but cleared in time for us to pack up our camp (however sopping) and get back on the road in time for lunch.

It was good to get out into the woods, again. It was good to celebrate Beltane again, especially after missing last year. And it was essential to make sure that all of our equipment was in working order for next month’s big road trip. But, as with so many of our adventures, lately, I feel like I had more fun than my companions, which always leaves me feeling a little weird.

Because I was ritual leader, and because an incoming storm led us to tear down the altar earlier than I would have liked, I didn’t take any photos of the altar. Fortunately, Kraken was kind enough to get some pictures of the altar while I was winding myself up. The images below are from Friday and Saturday afternoon, and from Friday night’s fire, shot with my d5600 using a Nikon 18-300mm zoom lens and my Tamron 150-600mm telephoto lens, and with my Z6 and my Nikon 24-300mm zoom.

The overcast was perfect for photography. I wish that any of my companions had brought fun clothes, or that any of us (myself included) had felt photogenic enough to do portraiture or something more elaborate.

I still haven’t gotten geotagging to work. Hopefully I’ll figure that out before the road trip. I’d really like to be able to plot this adventure’s photos

In art

Picatrix Image of the Sun According to Apollonius

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

The image of the Sun, according to the opinion of the wise Apollonius, is the shape of a standing woman, placed on a chariot drawn by four horses, holding a mirror in her right hand and a staff bound above her breast in her left hand; above her head she has the likeness of a flame. – Picatrix Book II, Chapter 10, Paragraph 22 (Attrell and Porecca, 2019)

This image was interesting to me in that it features the thing I do best (figure drawing) AND one of the things I do worst (animals, especially horses). I also, probably obviously, picked it because I get uncomfortable when an image set I’m working on is so wildly dominated by images of men.

Following a suggestion from @gildedragon on bsky, I have interpreted the “staff bound above her breast” as the charioteer’s whip. His suggestion also gave me the keyword that found me references for the horses: quadriga. If I make another bid at this image, I will probably look to one of the many “helios and his chariot being pulled by four horses” images that have survived in the form of red and black figure vases, and make a super explicitly femme!Helios version to scandalize the astrobros.

As always, you are welcome to download and print this astrological image for your personal magical use. A higher resolution version of this image is available on Patreon. You can also support me and my work on Ko-Fi if, for whatever reason, you don’t like Patreon.

In art, witchcraft

Experimental Magic: Image of the Sun According to Baphomet

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

The image of the Sun according to Baphomet is a serpent with the head of a woman, or of a lion, or with a beard, wearing a crown. To her left is a crescent moon; to the right is a shining star. Over her head is the sun; in metal, a citrine.

These images came to me in a vision some weeks ago: sitting quietly at my altar on a Sunday morning, making my usual offerings of fire, frankincense and myrrh, and strong black coffee. Being the first such visions I’ve had in over a year, I was … hesitant to share them. I feared, more than usual, that they were hubris or delusion. They are, after all, somewhat derivative: clearly an elaboration on the iconic image of Chnoubis.

In the weeks following the vision, though, I received further elaboration on the images. They became clearer in my mind, and as I contemplated them, I felt like I was reminded of a certain solar invocation from the Greek Magical Papyri. When I finally sat down to draw them, they came through to the page with a clarity that confirmed I had something substantial.

The moon was waxing, and (though the image did not specifically call for astrological timing) the sun was in Aries, and I decided to strike while the iron was hot. I made another copy of the image – the woman-headed snake, for myself – this time on watercolor paper (my current favorite basis for hand-drawn text and image magic), and inked it in black and gold, and set it aside for the next Tuesday morning (the Solar second hour of the day of Mars being an ideal time for me, personally, to invoke the Sun in Aries).

I did my usual daily ritual in the dawn hour, then showered and donned my ritual garb. I set the image upright on my altar with a candle and brazier, and gathered a vial of Helios oil made by one of my friends during our trance-possession experiments.

When we crossed over into the Hour of the Sun, I performed my usual frame ritual, then sat down to contemplate the image and perform the ritual.

I consecrated the image using PGM XXXVI 211-30 (Betz, p. 274):

Rejoice with me, you who are set over the east wind and the world, for whom all gods serve as bodyguard 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
AROUR ZORBOROBA MESINTRIPHI NIPTOUMI KHMOUMMAOPHI
I beg you, Lord, do not allow me to be overthrown, to be plotted against, to receive dangerous drugs, to go 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 AKRAMMAKHAMARI PEPHNA
PHOZA PHNEBENNOUNI NAAKHTHIP OUNORBA
Accomplish the matter which I want, by means of your power.

I repeated the incantation four times. The first time, I put incense on the charcoal and anointed myself with oil: hands, feet, and head. The second time, I suffumigated the image in the frankincense smoke. The third time I anointed the image with oil: first the sun, then the frame, then the moon, then the star, then the serpent, starting at the tip of her tail and working up to her face. The fourth time, I anointed both the image and myself with oil, again, and called upon the Sun to empower me and the image as the spell describes.

I completed the ritual by sitting and contemplating the image and basking in the power I had conjured. I was immediately filled with a strong sense of calm and vitality, and my partner reported that my energy felt improved. My Chnoubis signet, which had been sitting on a nearby table with my other jewelry but not specifically involved, felt particularly tingly when i put it on, after.

The PGM spell includes no timing; it just says “face the sun”. Based on my results so far, and my personal relationship with Solar powers, the ideal timing for me has been a Solar hour of Day on the day of the Sun, Mars, or Saturn. Because this, like Chnoubis, is obviously a Solar-cthonic image, I imagine people with a different relationship with the Sun than I have will get solid results from a Solar Hour of Night.

I think that I will want to repeat the rite for a few Sundays and see what manifests before calling it an unqualified success, but I am sufficiently pleased with the initial results to share the images and the ritual for you all to experiment with. My only complaint, so far, is that this spell-image combination does seem to exacerbate my tendency to overwork, and I have to be even more disciplined about clocking out at night and taking days off.

High resolution versions of these images can be found at my Patreon, where you will also find all my work before anyone else gets to see it, as well as things that I hold back from more public forums and all my other arts. If you like my work, but don’t like Patreon for whatever valid reason, you can also support me on ko-fi.

In witchcraft

Gnosis or Delusion (My Persistent Fear)

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I have practiced magic for nearly three decades. I have been pouring out daily libations and burning offerings for my small, eccentric pantheon and my spirit court for four and a half years, now. I have been writing publicly about my rites and the experiences they have engendered since 2010. I am, at this point, a professional mystic as much as an artist of any stripe. I should be elated that when I sit in silence before my altar, sometimes I have visions.

But the thing that I have always feared most in life – more than pain, more than death, more than humiliation and betrayal – is being locked away in an asylum. (People keep telling me that’s a thing that doesn’t happen anymore. Somehow, that doesn’t help.) And so every vision I have, every divine epiphany, every moment of clairsentience, is followed immediately by fear and doubt.

Is it so strange that, after years of prayers and offerings – to say nothing of more vigorous invocations – the gods or their messengers might appear to me? Is it less mad to claim I was comforted by a messenger of Aphrodite than the goddess, herself? Why do those epiphanies seem more suspect than the spirit journeys that I used to write about regularly? Why are they harder to talk about than the visions of the cosmos I have been granted?

Some of it, I think, is the changing world. It’s a more hostile place, now, than when I started this blog. Some of it is just that I’m older, now, and more deeply wounded.

Grifters and con artists abound. I know, now, as I did not, ten and fifteen years ago, that many of the people claiming to be mystics and magicians and visionaries are liars and thieves. I know, now, how sincere seekers can be subjugated by cult leaders and other abusers.

Worse, I have seen magicians that I admired, whose work I have benefited from, whose work has become foundational to my own, crawl up their own asses to die. I have seen good teachers fall prey to prosperity gospels and other unjust theologies. I have seen others turn to fascism and white supremacy. I have seen friends and colleagues lose confidence in their works, doubt their insights, and retreat into mundane diversions and, ultimately, disappear from the public sphere. I have seen peers become convinced that the salvation of the world is their responsibility, alone; that the taboos and strictures the spirit world has applied to them must be obeyed by all. I have seen countless members of my community fall victim to conspiracy theories and taken in by cults. Any of them could have been me. It could still be me.

How do you discern between gnosis and hubris and delusion? How do you know which visions to share, and which are for you alone? More pointedly, how do I discern? How do I know?

I know, at least, that I am reporting my visions in good faith. I am not trying to start a cult, or grift anyone out of their life savings. All I want is to share what I’ve seen and done with my peers, to encourage them to share their own works and visions, that we can all benefit. (And, sure, sell some jewelry and some novels, but on the basis of their artistic merits not my spiritual authority.) But all anyone else has is my word.

I also know, as much as I seem to overshare, how very much I hold back. I have had experiences that made me doubt whether “reality” is even a thing that exists. I have had experiences that leave me shaking in fear that I have devoted the last thirty years to wallowing in my own madness, that I should be locked up for my own good and for the good of society.

I have seen and done things that cannot be explained by anything I’ve read, that fly in the face of the conclusions I’ve drawn from my other experiences. I have done things that people more experienced and respected than I am assure everyone are impossible. Conversely, things that should have worked didn’t. Magic works in practice, not in theory.

Some days, some years, I can sit comfortably with those dissonances.

Some days, some years, I can’t.

How much of what I have seen is real? How much is the product of madness, of drugs, of cruel trickster spirits and mortal charlatans? How much of what I’ve said is true? How much is the best approximation I can manage, an artist’s sincere attempt to convey the ineffable? How much is the rambling of a madman?

If I don’t know, how can you?

—–

I began writing this in September of 2023, after a particularly intense visionary experience in a season of intense visionary experiences, possibly the high point of my magical and mystical career to date. No more than a month later, I was plummeting into one of the deepest depressions that I can remember, lasting well into 2024.

I finished writing this in April of 2025, on the far side of that depression, following a wildly different series of visionary experiences. These more recent visions have been, on the one hand, much less intense than anything from the summer and fall of ’23; on the other hand, they have been significantly more actionable.

The question of “did i just imagine all of this” has haunted me from the very beginning, even as a teenage dabbler in the 1990s. Although there are days, weeks, even months where it weighs less heavily than others, I suspect that question will haunt me forever. As uncomfortable as that often is, I don’t know that it’s a wholly bad thing. Self-doubt can cripple us, yes, but it can also keep us honest.

The questions of what to share, and how, and when, will dog my steps for as long as I am participating in public Paganism. That won’t be forever: some day I’ll die or retire. In the meantime, though, I would rather grapple with these issues semi-publicly rather than present myself as some sort of infallible expert.

I am an artist, not an authority.

All things wax and wane. My madness and my magic are no exceptions. Lately, rather than the rise and the fall, I’ve been thinking on the turning points; the apex and the nadir. My practice and I, I think, are on the rise right now. That will not last forever. What was it about the autumn of 2023 that led me to crash out so hard? What was it about the last year that has made staying in the work despite that fall so much easier than some falls before?

I still have my doubts, my fears, my wounds. And yet, I persist. And, for the foreseeable future, I will continue to do so.

If I were writing a different article/essay/blog post/whatever, this would be the part where I tell you how you, too, can recover from depression and burnout; how you can overcome and confront your fears; how you can defeat the Dweller on the Threshold. I have no such wisdom in me, today. I know only that I have stumbled and carried on. You have, too, at some point. We will both do so again.

Finally, though the through line may not be clear to everyone, this post is very much of a piece with this one from last May.

In art, witchcraft

Picatrix Image of Mars According to Apollonius

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Behold, another completed Picatrix image for your mystical contemplation and thaumaturgic application.

The image of Mars, according to the opinion of the wise Apollonius, is the shape of a crowned man holding an inscribed sword in his right hand. – Picatrix Book II, Chapter 10, Paragraph 19 (Attrell and Porecca, 2019)

I chose this image for Mars despite having already used it as the image for my Mars jewelry talismans because I felt like there was more for me to learn from it. For the sword’s inscription, I chose a seal of the archangel Kamael (I chose the version from The Magus because it was the first to fall to hand).

I have also, I think, finally decided on a size format for (most) forthcoming images: 2.75×4.75 inches, 600dpi, which – if you recognize them, will immediately give you a clue about at least one forthcoming application of these cards. That is, for the rest of us (I’ve looked it up, like, fifty fucking times, now), the dimensions of a “standard” tarot card. (I’ve seen too many tarot decks to name a standard without laughing; but that is the size of my magpie decks, which was the deciding factor for me.) With that decision made, I can now begin serious work on developing borders for these images and the cards they will eventually become. Once I’ve developed that border, I’ll go back and reformat and re-release my previous images.

A high resolution version of this image (and an alternate version with some lurid red) is available on my Patreon.

In art, witchcraft

Astrological Image: Jupiter Acording to Mercurius

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Behold, friends, the latest in my ongoing series of astrologial images for study, contemplation, and enchantment.

The image of Jupiter, according to the opinion of Mercurius, is the shape of a man covered in a single linen cloth, riding upon a dragon, holding a lance or a dart in his hand.

-Picatrix Book II, Chapter 10, Paragraph 17 (Attrell and Porecca, 2019)

Some of you may recall, I shared the pencils of this image back at the beginning of September. I’m pleased to now share the digitally inked version.

This is my third attempt to work within a frame to make the images a little more artistically sophisticated (see also this Saturn  and the Third Lunar Mansion), and I’m really pleased with the results so far. Eventually, as I develop my visual language through this and other projects, I plan to go back to add Art Nouveau and Arabesque frames to those that don’t have them.

Almost a dozen images into this series, I honestly feel like I’m making deeper connections to the planets and powers these images represent, and confirming (at least in my own mind) my long-held assertion that the images hold power of their own, which can be tapped outside the narrow constraints of Medeival and Renaissance astrological timing techniques.

You can find a higher resolution version of this image up on my Patreon, as well as links to collections of higher resolution astrological images. As a patreon supporter, you’ll get to see everything I do before anyone else, and a lot of things that I don’t share publically. If you’d like to support my work but don’t like Patreon for whatever reason, please consider dropping a tip in my jar at Ko-Fi.