Journey Through The Obsidian Dream

Coming to the Book of White Flame after The Call was a bit of a shock. Every move in the first book had come with a ritual: the first nine nights were strictly prescribed, and if the second nine were a little more of a waiting game, there was a chant to go with each stage of the iynx ritual. The Book of White Flame is more of a litany culminating in a ritual. Aradia and I needed more structure than that.

Our solution was to bring the general ritual format of The Call forward. That was four years ago, now, so of course my memories of the details are a little vague. But I remember that each night when we sat down to do the work, we washed our hands with lustral waters and cinnamon, lit a candle and incense, and sang the consecration song. We then drew two versions of the sigil: one on a small slip of paper that we burned at the end of the ritual, as with the crossroads sigil in The Call; and one in a notebook which we mediated on and colored over as we tried to memorize the sigil and its uses.

Throughout the month, I gathered supplies to make our Ladders. I was broke as shit, then, and had to cheep out: using thinner wire and much thinner chain than was ideal. But I was able to cast up silver talismans for use as the central “coin”, some of the first exemplars of my Eye and Six Hands devotional talisman. In the last days of the sigil-study, I brough Aradia and Chirotus (who was working the Hekataeon at the same time) together and showed them how to string the beads on wire to form the chain.

In preparation for the rite, we made a special trip out to a sacred site where we knew that we could find a honey locust tree with exceptionally savage thorns. We took garlic from our farm share for our cloves, and raided our stash of local honey that I had originally purchased to make into mead.

When we had finished our study of the sigils, and the moon waxed to full, Aradia and I went to Alvianna’s property, where we could perform the ritual at a crossroads without fear of attracting police attentions. We had made arrangements in advance, so that we could come, and do what prep needed to be done there, without breaking the silence that preceds the ritual.

The consecration was an ordeal. Keeping silent for the hours preceding the ritual. Kneeling on the concrete. Holding the ladder in our mouths while we performed the ritual. Releasing the ladder slowly when the time came, not just vomiting it out.

There’s a lot I don’t remember about the night. Partly, that’s because it was almost four years ago, now. Partly that’s because I was so deeply entranced. What I do remember is that the Ladder felt alive and powerful almost immediately, and that the garlic cloves all sprouted while we were performing our rituals.

Then I went on an epic road trip. In the midst of searching for appropriate skulls with which to begin the Book of the Red Blade, we lost track of the work. I even forgot the names I had given to both my (original) iynx and my Ladder, and lost wherever I had written them down.

Then, one day in 2020, while I was doing my daily work with my other familiar spirits, the name – or, at least A name – of my Ladder came back to me. I began working with it more extensively. And, like all my familiars, what the spirit wanted was not just offerings but work to do. So, when something was not clearly in the purview of one of my other familiars, or when I wanted Hekate’s backing for a thing, I turned to the Ladder spirit and rite. It also offered its services in other means: speciffically, it offered to aid my work with Aidan Wachter’s Black Book, as I was struggling to resume that after having stopped and started. As such, it has become a familiar spirit somewhat greater in scope and intimacy than it was intended to be, and – as I am finally incorporating the Black Book into habitual ritual practice, I am working with my Ladder spirit almost daily.

As such, I can call my Hekate’s Ladder my greatest success with the work of the Hekataeon so far.

If you want to get my posts a week before everyone else, to see the magical experiments that I don’t share with the public, to get first dibs on my elected talismans and fine art jewelry, or just want to support my work, you can do so through patreon. If you’d like to make a one-time donation, or don’t want to deal with all the non-occult content I post on patreon, I also have a ko-fi.

In witchcraft

To Work the Hekataeon: Book Two: White Flame

Satyr Magos22/07/202319/09/2023

The second book of the Hekataeon is a month-long study of the epithets of Hekate, each with an associated sigil and ritual with the Devotee is now authorised and empowered to use. Once that month of study has been completed, the Devotee constructs and, on a night of the full mooon, ensouls a second ally: a set of prayer beads called Hekate’s Ladder. At the end of this work, the Devotee is awarded the title of Adept.

The Book of White Flame

The Book of White flame does not give any guidance for how to approach the study of the twenty-seven sigils.

When we did the work, Aradia and I pulled forward the ritual frame from The Call: each night we sat down to do the work, washed our hands with lustral waters and cinnamon, lit a candle and incense, and sang the consecration song. We then drew two versions of the sigil: one on a small slip of paper that we burned at the end of the ritual, as with the crossroads sigil in The Call; and one in a notebook which we mediated on and colored over as we tried to memorize the sigil and its uses.

Several of our compatriots who have joined us in the work combined their study of the epithets with their construction of the ladder: adding a bead each night as they mediated on the relevant sigil.

Hekate’s Ladder

Constructing your Hekate’s Ladder requires a few tools in addition to its raw materials. You will need:

two pairs of flat plyers – I prefer chain-nose for this task, but that’s extra finnicky of me
one pair of round nose or round-flat plyers
one pair of end-cutter plyers
28-36 inches of wire (depending on how finely you work and what size of beads you choose
one standard strand of beads – I recommend 8mm in size
6 rattlesnake vertebrae – I recommend 8mm to 12mm in size (these are increasingly difficult to come by)
one bell flower between 20mm and 30mm (you fill find these most easily by searching for “tassel caps”)
one key (antiques are stylish but not required)

The materials for the ritual are much simpler:

three cloves of garlic
three thorns large enough to pierce a clove of garlic
sandalwood incense (cones or powder and a charcoal briquette)
honey
spring water
a crossroads where you can work uninterrupted and with dirt to which you can pin the cloves of garlic
your assembled Hekate’s Ladder

As you chose and gather your materials, always keep in mind that they are going into your mouth. They are going to be in your mouth for longer than you think. It’s going to be weird. It may be gross. It’s going to be more of a challenge than you anticipate. Make sure they’re small enough to go into your mouth, but still big enough to work with.

The Ladder is consecrated on “a night of the full moon” (a phrase I usually take to meen “the night when the sun-moon oposition is perfected, the night before, and the night after”.), with no more speciffic timing given. It would be very easy to plan one’s progression through the Book of White Flame so that they consecrate their ladder on the twenty-ninth night, but it is also not necessary.

Even more than in constructing the iynx, you must plan ahead for this ritual: chose a time and a place where you can work without interruption and without speaking aloud. Figure out how you are going to fit the Ladder in your mouth and hold it there while you do the ritual. It is harder than it sounds like. If you have any taste/texture aversions, this will almost certainly set them off.

The consecration of your Hekate’s Ladder is an ordeal rite.

It is also, even more explicitly than the iynx, a birth. Sit with that for a while before hand and decide how much you want to lean into that metaphor. Even if the answer is “none”, the Ladder and its spirit are still a living, named entity that you and Hekate have made together.

On Acquiring the Materials

Barebones sets of jeweler’s or craft plyers can be found at almost any craft store or big box retailer. Nicer tools exist, but unless you’re going into professional jewelry there is no need to pay $25-$50 per plyer when you could pay $10-$20 for a set that contains all you need and more.

The bead sizes that I recommend are a compromise between “large enough to hold and work with easily, both during construction and use” and “small enough to fit in your mouth when you consecrate the piece”. The same logic should apply to your choice of key. Etsy is probably your best source of beads, if you know how to tell fake from real by the listing. If you can’t tell, I recommend finding a jeweler you trust, not going to a bead or craft store.

The example photo in the Hekataeon looks like unbleached rattlesnake vertebrae and bleached “generic” (read: bovine) bone. I use bleached rattlesnake vertebrae and black volanic rock beads for most of my Ladders, but have used a wide assortment of other materials to good effect. At the time of this writing, genuine rattlesnake vertebrae of a reasonable size are very difficult to find. As the text suggests that even a rope of knots would be a suitable substitute if the Devotee is unable to construct the ladder as written, any bead substitution would be acceptable.

If you would like to be able to wear your Hekate’s Ladder as a necklace, unless you have an extremely small head and neck, you will need to add at least four inches of spacer beads and probably a clasp.

I sell Hekate devotional talismans and cast replicas of rattlesnake vertebrae suitable for this work, as well as fully constructed but un-consecrated Ladders, at The Sorcerer’s Workbench.

In witchcraft

Working the Hekataeon: A Cacaphony of Gods

Satyr Magos18/07/202319/09/2023

There are seven gods who receive daily offerings in my house. (Though I only speak of six with any regularity, there is also the Serpent Faced God of PGM XII 153-60.) As I have said before, I have no impulse toward exclusive worship – not henotheism, not monotheism, not even monism – so I had no notion of suspending those offerings when I sat down to resume the work of the Hekataeon. But it had been my intention to devote my active attention to Hekate alone. The gods, it seemed, had other plans.

In retrospect, this should not have come as a surprise.

Over the last two years, in particular, there have been times when my morning rituals have evoked intense visionary experiences. The visions that resulted in the triptych images of Baphomet, and the vision of Lucifer as the Dweller on the Threshold, were the most significant that I ever felt comfortable relating publicly. They were not, by any means, the most intense. I could feel the hands of the gods upon me, see their faces before my eyes, smell their headdy, uncanny musk.

But it seemed that I never had more than two or three visions of one god before other gods began appearing, as well. Already struggling to deal with the implications of the first visions, the addition of other powers to that mix was inevitably more than I could handle. I retreated from the experiences, and all the gods fell silent.

My friends who were raised with more religion than I was laugh at me when I wonder aloud if having been raised in a different environment would have better prepared me for these experiences. But I think they underestimate how alienated my upbringing was from divinity. In the same way I was raised vaguely aware that queer people existed, but with a strong implication that they were all far away and that I would never meet one, I was raised in a place where religion was just a social control mechanism, where people of strong convictions and intense experiences were alien and threatening. As a child, they were snake-handlers and madmen on television; as a teen, they were still that, and they were also Pat Robertson and the 700 Club: people who wanted me dead for being effeminate, for playing D&D, and for dabbling in witchcraft.

My earliest epiphanies were always of singular divinities, always months apart. They were also largely spontaneous: the presence of a god intruding on what had been intended to be some other sort of mystical experience. One of the earliest such was Rhea/Kybele appearing to demand I bring my then-friend Pasiphae to her. (I still wonder, sometimes, if that contact ever happened, or if Pasiphae’s commitment to a faceless generic Goddess was impenetrable to the real divine.)

Now, working my way through the first and then the second nine days of the Hekataeon, I am once more blessed/plagued by a cacophony of divinity. Baphomet shows me new faces every two or three days, revealing how the trinity/triptych aspects I have been shown unfold into seven (and nine) planetary epiphanies. Their Lunar aspect has much in common with the White Lady, and Saturnian Baphomet shares much with The Man in Black. Their Solar manifestation is Akephelos (Headless), and caries the Light of Creation, Phanes, like Eros. I have glimpsed their Martial aspect, bull-headed, armed and armored, which I so far call Korebantes, and that bull-headed vision gave way to another: a starry, mystical, Neptunian which I have (for lack of a better name so far) dubbed Asterion.

Aphrodite has blessed the photoshoot I did in her honor. Eros and Lucifer and Dionysos all loom large at their altars. My familiar spirits have begun speaking again on the regular, giving me practical advice for how to achieve my goals.

On days three and four and five and six of The Call, this was … unsettling. Distracting. Dissonant.

But, speaking with my compatriots at our regular New Moon Esbat, as we had all concluded our first round of The Call, those with more experience than I with the gods assured me that this was common. So, too, have a handful of people around the internet when I spoke of this problem. “Problem.”

So, even as I find the experience unsettling, I am reassured. As alien as this experience is to my upbringing and my expectations, it appears to be … typical. (As hurtful as that word is to us mystics and madmen.)

And so, as uncomfortable as it is, and as hard as it makes things from one day to the next, I am going to try to sit with that discomfort. To try to find the symphony in the cacophony.

After all, am I not a mystic? Am I not here for gnosis of the gods and the cosmos? Did I not tell Hekate, herself, that I am here to see where the road will take me? Did I not seek out each of these gods, too, even as I have sought out Hekate? Did I not seek out some of them – Dionysos, Baphomet – even before her?

This is the work. This is what I have come here to do. I have taken the names that I have taken. Each day I repeat them, both assertion and demand: I am [That Seer of Antiquity], I am [The Satyr Who Is a Magician], I am [The Sacred Companion]. I will live up to those ambitions. I will live up to those expectations.

When the gods speak, I will strive to listen.

In witchcraft

Working the Hekataeon: Book One: The Call

Satyr Magos14/07/202319/09/20232 Comments

Aradia and I began our work with the Hekataeon early in 2019. My notes, unfortunately, do not say exactly when. We made quick work of The Call, but then botched the timing for making our iynxes and had to wait for the next waxing moon. I know, in retrospect, that I was already falling apart at that point, and so it is little surprise that my memory of those months is … vague.

What I remember most clearly from those first days is a sense of dis-ease at the notion of pledging myself to a single god. I rejected monotheism thirty years ago. For all that I love Dionysos above all other gods, henotheism has never been on the table. I expected to be rejected outright, and was surprised when Aradia and I were both given immediate signs to perform the devotion ritual and construct our iynxes.

I remember that I was absolutely confident in my ability to construct the strapholos with nothing more than a poorly exposed photograph and a childhood memory for guidance. I remember being extremely frustrated that the result, however pretty, neither spun nor buzzed the way I expected. I remember that the tiny jelly jar I chose to incubate my iynx in was much, much harder to break than I anticipated. I remember struggling to name the spirit, and to remember the name I had given it (I was even worse at journaling then than I am, now.) I remember feeling, from very early on, that I had failed at that portion of the work. I put the iynx in a drawer and never used it.

In the years since then, many of our friends have acquired their own copies of the Hekataeon. Some began the work and faltered. Others made it to the end of The Call and stopped there. One or two made it as far as we had, and faltered at the same place: the beginning of The Book of the Red Blade, searching for a horse skull or reasonable substitute.

At the beginning of this June, when the Moon was right and when we had managed to carve out space in our schedules, we began (re)working the book as a group – each of us alone in our own temples, but together in spirit. Aradia, Alvianna, and I put together the materials lists and links to the recommended readings that grew into my first post in the To Work the Hekataeon series.

As before, Aradia and I took turns leading the ritual: starting the fires, leading the chants, reading the guided meditations and the recommended readings aloud. Because she still works a day job, I took point on most of the logistical preparations: designing and building the altar, making changes one night to the next to accommodate what had and hadn’t worked quite right, and what needed to change to follow the evolving ritual.

This time, though, I found the work to be a struggle … but not in the ways that I might have anticipated, if I had anticipated any trouble at all.

My ritual practices have grown a lot since I first attempted this work. I have a daily devotional practice which includes Hekate, who has her own altar – the largest of any one god in our house. We didn’t need to make a pre-ritual shopping trip: our basic stores covered everything we needed and more. I am a full time artist and witch, now: setting time aside for the ritual was no challenge whatsoever. My spirit-sight, and my ability to hear spirits and gods, has improved exponentially. I could sense Hekate there every night. I could feel the spirits of my stones awaken, grow, and change as we re-consecrated them on the seventh night, and when we put them to use on the eighth (and ninth, but that’s coming in a bit).

I understand, now, as I didn’t then, how to ancient (and modern but with different trauma than me) polytheists saw no dissonance or contradiction in addressing each god as the greatest, ultimate, and supreme creator and savior. I understand now, on a level that I didn’t then, how initiation into multiple mysteries is no infidelity. The comparison is irreverent, but it works the same as “every cat is best cat”. Or, to be irreverent in a different way, the way you engage in certain activities with one lover does not preclude in engaging in other activities with another lover.

On the fourth night, though, my religious trauma kicked in hard. I don’t know what it was about that rite, in particular, that brought it on. For that matter, I don’t know why it didn’t come up sooner. Something about the text for that night took me back to the place I was in my early teens: angry that powers out there existed, demanding our love and devotion, but offering so little protection in return. The conscious dissonance wasn’t there the next nights, but I also didn’t sleep right again until after the New Moon had come and the rites had been completed.

I struggled with the passages about finding yourself worthy in ways that I had not struggled before. What even is “worth” in a mortal sense, let alone a divine one? And, what do you mean “what do I want out of this work”? I want to know what comes from it!

I struggled with the way that, even as I sat down to do this certain work with this one god, it seemed that other gods who have had little to say to me, lately, seemed to show up in ways that they have not in weeks or months or years. I have no impulse toward hennotheism or monotheism or even monism, despite its popularity in circles I frequent, but it seemed strage that this was the time the gods chose to speak. (I will have more to say on this in a future post.)

On Night Eight (ARBITUM), I asked for permission to resume the work of the Hekataeon. I was told no. This both came as a complete surprise to me – Kraken and I had been discussing the possibility just that afternoon – and hurt my feelings more than I would have guessed had I been asked. I don’t remember exactly how I phrased the question, or the questions that followed, but the conclusion was that I was to do a ritual of penance and absolution, for which I turned to one of the sigils in the Book of White Flame: Thea Deinos. I considered doing further divination, but decided against until I had completed that penance.

At dusk on the ninth night, what would have been INVOCATIO, I began by performing the ritual same opening ritual I had done for the last eight nights: i washed my hands with lustral waters and scrubbed them with cinnamon. I burned myrrh and asperged the space. I drew the crossroads sigil and lit three candles. Then I drew the Thea Deinos sigil on my brow, my throat, and my heart. I took the pose of terror and spoke aloud to the goddess. I apologized for abandoning the work. I apologized for whatever I had done to offend her. I spoke of my frustration with the very notion of worth. I spoke of my desire to learn what lay down the path, to experience Mystery for its own sake.

When I was done, I washed my hands again. I scrubbed them with cinnamon. I went back to the rite of the ARBITUM. This time, when I asked permission to resume the work, I was given the black stone of yes. This time, I had follow-up questions prepared. Yes, I could remake my iynx. No I could not follow along with my companions who were proceeding for the first time. Emphatically no (two white stones) I should not hold back for any stragglers. Yes, I could wait for them before beginning the Book of the Red Blade, but also, yes, it would be better for me and the work if I were to go ahead on my own.

And so, when the time came, I held a funeral for my first iynx. I apologized for my failures in constructing the strapholos, and for failing to continue the work, or honor the spirit properly. I apologized to Hekate for the same, and released the spirit into her care. Maybe the funeral wasn’t necessary. I had doubts both before and during. But I had received permission and committed to the course, and for all my doubts, all that I felt as I watched over the funeral pyre was relief.

When the funeral was complete, I walked away to give the ashes time to cool. Then I came back and set up a workbench altar on which to construct my new iynx. Based on a … feeling that had been with me from when I first decided to hold a funeral for my first iynx, I included a pinch of its ashes in the making of the new, after the ashes of the sigils and before the snakeskin and feather.

Performing the funeral for my first iynx, I dubbed the spirit “child of Hekate”. In assembling the new one, it dawned on me – from the component spit – it could as reasonably be considered my child, as well. That is certainly not the relationship that I have felt with any of my other familiar spirits, but I am going to try to hold onto that thought and act accordingly as I continue the work of growing this new soul. No, I don’t know what this might mean or imply. Maybe someday I will. Maybe I wont. And maybe it’s just a delusion.

With so little ritual framework for the burial, exhumation, and re-burial of the iynx, I struggled a little to really invest myself in each stage. Burrying it, initially, felt significant. Drowning it did not. Nor, despite my best efforts to focus my attention, did hanging it. In fact, my first sense that I had performed the ritual correctly, was during my morning ritual on the final day, when I planned to complete the rite at midnight: sitting at my altar, I could feel the potential of the spirit hovering at the edge of my circle. Even so, I felt nothing from the bottle.

It was only during the final ritual, after I had named the spirit and assigned it a form, when I began to spin the strapholos that I finally felt the spirit manifest and ensoul itself in the tool. The Hekataeon tells you to wake yourself in the middle of the night and record your dreams of your iynx. I barely slept, and had no dreams to record. But that’s typical for me, and the lack of prophetic dreams is neither signal nor noise. I felt the iynx quicken in my hands. I know it lives and will serve me.

And now, with my new iynx born and ensouled within my new strapholos, I am ready to skip forward and resume the work that I abandoned in 2019: The Book of the Red Blade. My devotion to Hekate and the Hekataeon is renewed. My familiars – who now number 14, with the completion of the iynx – tell me that I am on the right path. I look forward to continuing to send you these notes from the spiritual wilderness.

In scholarship, witchcraft

To Work the Hekataeon: Book One: The Call

Satyr Magos10/07/202319/09/2023

The first book of the Hekataeon leads the Reader through a series of rituals taking place over two sets of nine days. The first nine days culminate with the Reader’s initiation at midnight on the night of the New Moon. The second nine days culminate on some night while the moon is waxing with the creation of a magical tool and ally called an iynx. Having completed these two rituals, the Reader devotes themselves to Hekate and the work of the Hekataeon, and is awarded the apropriate title of Devotee.

What follows is an inventory of what is needed to complete each of these two nine-day rituals. I have also included notes based on my experience doing these rituals, and countless others, to help you prepare and so that the work can go as smoothly as possible.

I provide these notes, primarily, because in my experience of working the Hekataeon, I sometimes found it difficult to read ahead, as if doing so even for the sake of preparation would somehow ruin the experience. And also, the descriptions of what is needed each day become slightly less precise as one progresses through the work. So, when some of my friends took up the work of the Hekataeon, those of us who had begun the work previously compiled these lists to ease them through.

The Call

Counting backwards inclusively from the night of the new moon, set aside nine days when you can perform a ritual at a liminal hour – ideally dawn, dusk, or midnight. Depending on whether you can leave your altar in place from one day to the next, the speed at which you move and read, and if you do the recommended additional reading at the end of each ritual can take anywhere from fifteen to ninety minutes.

Each chapter presumes that you have read it at least once before sitting down to perform the ritual. You should absolutely do that. Twice would be better.

Each ritual begins with washing your hands. Bring a towel.

Each ritual involves candles, burning paper, and collecting the ashes. Some of the rituals call for pouring the wax into a bowl of salt water. Buy paper that takes ink nicely, and that burns well burns well. Choose a fireproof bowl that is easy to empty. Buy candles that drip nicely. Make certain that your ritual space is sufficiently fire safe.

You will not burn all the way through the candles. Decide in advance if you are going to use the same candles from one ritual to the next, or if you wil discard them at the end of each day, or accumulate them on the altar to illuminate later rituals.

Most of the rituals involve some sort of guided meditation or trance journey, with a heavy emphasis on visualization. If you think you’ll struggle with this, do what preparation you think you’ll need. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using your phone (or computer or old school tape deck) to record yourself reading the chapter aloud for your own benefit.

Each ritual ends with a recommended reading selection from one of four books: The Orphic Hymns, The Homeric Hymns, Proculs, and the Greek Magical Papyri. Some of these passages are available on the internet. Some are not. The Hymn to Selene is PGM IV. 2785-2890. The Hymn to the Waning Moon is PGM IV. 2241-2358.

You will need:

Three bowls: one for hand washing, one fireproof, one saltwater proof
Cinnamon in an easy to access container (I like a salt cellar)
A previously unused pen
Paper
Matches or a lighter (I prefer a butane torch lighter)
White candles (x16, if you are not reusing them one night to the next)
Black candles x3
Myrrh incense
Spring water
Salt
Yew sprig
6 small, similarly shaped stones (3 light and 3 dark)
A small pouch for the stones
A bloodletting devise (I recommend a lancet over a knife) or pomegranate juice as a blood substitute

Night One: DE SGILI

The work begins.

bowl of water for washing hands
cinnamon for washing hands
Hekataeon pen paper
fireproof bowl
one (1) white candle
matches or lighter

Reading: Hesiod’s Theogony, lines 411-452. This passage about Hekate, her lineage and her attributes, doesn’t really fit in with the narrative as it has progressed so far, leading some scholars to speculate that Hesiod was a member of a mystery cult centered on Hekate. If you don’t have your own copy (I, unsurprisingly, favor the Athanassakis), this one is available for free from Harvard.

Night Two: DE NATURA

What is the nature of Hekate?

bowl of water for washing hands
cinnamon for washing hands
Hekataeon pen
paper
fireproof bowl
one (1) white candle
matches or lighter

Reading: Proclus Hymn to Hekate and Janus. I do not own a copy of any translation to recommend. I found this copy online, which compatriots of mine have vouched for, and which has the bonus of being interlinear for your hardcore nerds like me.

Night Three: DE POTENTIA

What are the powers of Hekate?

bowl of water for washing hands
cinnamon for washing hands
Hekataeon pen
paper
fireproof bowl
one (1) white candle
myrrh incense
matches or lighter

Reading: Hymn to Selene, PGM IV. 2785-2890. I have found this transcription online. It may contain errors or typos that I have missed.

Night Four: DE FORMA

What is the appearance of Hekate?

bowl of water for washing hands
cinnamon for washing hands
Hekataeon pen
paper\fireproof bowl
two (2) white candles
myrrh incense
matches or lighter

Reading: Orphic Hymn to Hekate. It’s likely that a Reader of the Hekataeon already has well-established preference for a particular translation of the Orphic Hymns. Mine varies with the task, and for this I recommend in favor the Athanassakis and adamantly against the freely available Thomas Taylor. Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, that seems to be the only one I can find online.

Night Five: SENSIBUS

A consecration of the self and senses to better perceive the divine.

bowl of water for washing hands
cinnamon for washing hands
Hekataeon pen
paper
fireproof bowl
three (3) white candles
myrrh incense
matches or lighter

Reading: Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Fair warning: it is long and depressing and any legitimate translation will 100% require a content warning for rape and abuse. I happen to own the Penguin Classics edition and would love a recommendation on a superior translation. I found this version available online courtesy, again, of Harvard.

Night Six: CANTICUM

A consecration song that you will sing as you continue the work. At last you will need the yew sprig that you might have gathered a week ago.

bowl of water for washing hands
cinnamon for washing hands
Hekataeon pen paper
fireproof bowl
three (3) white candles
myrrh incense matches or lighter
spring water
salt
a sprig of yew

Reading: Hymn to the Waning Moon, PGM IV.2241-2358. A potent curse from the Greek Magical Papyri, actually called “Document to the…” in Betz, and “Cry to the…” in Grayle’s other works. Unfortunately, I cannot find a copy online for your convenience.

Night Seven: FATUS

The creation of a divination tool which you will use repeatedly as you continue the work of the Hekataeon. A lesson learned when my own group worked the book: at the end of the night, use some other divination tool to confirm that your stones will speak clearly and truly.

bowl of water for washing hands
cinnamon for washing hands
Hekataeon pen paper
fireproof bowl
three (3) white candles
myrrh incense matches or lighter
spring water
salt
a sprig of yew
three black stones
three white stones
a bag to store them in and read them from

Reading: Orphic Hymn to Artemis. See previous notes on the Orphic Hymns. This was the best I could find online, unfortunately the Taylor translation.

Night Eight: ARBITUM

A night of relatively intense visionary work, culminating in a divination which will determine whether or not you go forward. Note places where your vision deviates from the guided meditation. If you do not get the answer you were hoping for, do further divination, both with the stones and with another tool you have mastered.

bowl of water for washing hands
cinnamon for washing hands
Hekataeon pen paper
fireproof bowl
three (3) white candles
myrrh incense matches or lighter
spring water
salt
a sprig of yew
the divination stones that you consecrated last night.

There is no recommended reading for this ritual.

Night Nine: INVOCATIO

Where the previous rituals may have been done at any “liminal hour”, this one calls to be done at midnight. A fast is recommended. The phrase is “eat little, drink only water”, which I think is a good balance. The more of your day that you can set aside to mediate on and prepare for the ritual that you are about to perform, the petter.

bowl of water for washing hands
cinnamon for washing hands
Hekataeon pen paper
fireproof bowl
three (3) white candles
myrrh incense matches or lighter
spring water
salt
a sprig of yew
a bloodletting device, or a blood substitute such as pomegranate juice

There is no recommended reading for this ritual.

The Iynx

When the nine nights of The Call are completed, the Devotee – formerly the Reader – makes and ensouls a tool called the “iynx”. No timing is given for the making of the iynx except that it must be buried in one place for three days, submerged under water for a second three days, and then hung in the air for a third three days, and then must be completed on a night of the waxing moon. It is somewhat vague as to whether the completion is done on the ninth night or the tenth. If the Devotee is to make the iynx in the waxing moon immediately following The Call, they have three or four days to rest and gather supplies before beginning.

As described in the Hekataeon, the completed iynx-spirit is embodied in a strapholos: a child’s toy no longer easy to find in the United States, and the (internet) search for which may well bring up more Hekataeon results than material. The strapholos is a disk with two holes drilled near the middle, through which a string is strung, and on which the disk is suspended between two handles. When spun and pulled, the disk makes a whirring, buzzing sound. But the precise geometry is more finicky, and you will want to construct and test your strapholos before ensouling it.

You will need:

A glass bottle which you are willing and able to break
Candle
Saliva
Salt water
Grave dirt from one who died young
Myrrh
Charcoal
Ash from burnt crossroads sigils from the Call
Feather and/or snakeskin
Someplace where you can bury the bottle
Someplace where you can drown the bottle
Someplace where you can hang the bottle
A wooden disk which you can carve and/or paint, and which you can put two holes in the middle
String
Sticks or rods for handles.
A name that you will assign to the spirit
A form or image that you wish the spirit to appear in
A plan for offerings that you will give the spirit in the future, when it does your will

I think that the ideal order of operations is:

set out all your materials (on a single fire-safe surface, if possible)
light charcoal for myrrh, apply myrrh early so it’s good and smokey when you start
light one candle for “flame” component of ritual and a second for wax to seal your jar
use jar to cover, snuf, and absorb the candle flame
without turning the jar up, then use it to capture the myrrh smoke
upturn jar to spit in it and then pour in the salt water, idealy before the myrrh smoke has dispersed
add grave dirt
add ashes
add snake skin and/or feather
seal jar

My partner and I are fortunate enough to have a yard to bury the bottle in, and trees from which to hang it. Lacking a pool or local body of water, we drowned ours in a bucket. There is nothing saying that the iynx bottle cannot be buried in a plant potter, or hung from a balcony railing or lantern hook. There is also nothing saying that you have to smash the iynx bottle against the ground (as we read it originally); when we redid the rite, we used a hammer.

I recommend assembling your strapholos as close to the beginning of the rite as possible. This gives you time to test that it works, and to practice with the unconsecrated tool so that, when you are called upon to spin it during the final ritual, you can do so with confidence.

I recommend choosing a name, image, and preferred offering at some point earlier than I did (which is to say, not on the final day). Write them down in advance, somewhere you won’t loose it – in the Hekataeon, itself, if you have to. Make the offering something that you will always have on hand – in my case, frankincense and myrrh.

With these rites complete, the Reader-turned-Devotee is ready to proceed to the second phase: the Book of the White Flame.

In Uncategorized

Why Do I Get So Personal?

Satyr Magos05/07/202319/09/2023

In the golden age of the pagan blogosphere, sharing images of personal altars and details of personal practices were staples of the genre. In the decade or so since, though, these things seem to have fallen out of fashion. And yet I persist. Why?

Why am I so open and personal in this blog and on my social media? Why do I share altar photos? Why do I share personal devotional artwork? Why do I talk about my daily tarot readings, and my struggles to believe in any goodness in any god? Aren’t I trying to establish my credentials as a Wize Mystic and Professional Wizard? Aren’t I trying to sell jewelry? Aren’t I working my way up to selling classes and apprenticeships?

Yes. Yes, I am.

I think it’s worth noting, first and foremost, that these things haven’t actually fallen so far out of fashion as it might first appear. No, those few of us who continue to maintain longform writing platforms don’t seem to include so much of that content “on main” (to use the tumblr and twitter phrase), but many do continue to do so on their social media pages. On Instagram, it can be your entire brand.

I post about my personal daily practice – my offerings and my tarot readings and the visions and strange thoughts that sometimes accompany them – partly for the sake of having something to say. I do this for a living, now. The Great and Terrible Algorithm demands a steady stream of content. And the altars and cards that accompany my morning ritual are much more interesting than the coffee at the heart of it, or whatever carbohydrate disaster I make myself for breakfast, after.

But I also do it because it is the place where I am the least authoritative. Every day is a struggle to get up, to remember my dreams long enough to write them down. Every day is a struggle to stand before my gods, step past the anti-theism that partly appears to be a part of my nature and partly appears to be the clearest manifestation of the religious trauma I bring forward from my upbringing in Christofascist Amerikkka. (This anti-theism will get a post [or series of posts] of its own, as soon as I can come up with something more articulate than screaming-possum-aaaaaa.jpg) Every day is a struggle to lay out my cards, to study their meanings writ large, and come up with an interpretation that makes sense on the scale of “one day only” and which makes sense in context of the day that I have planned.

I am a competent witch and magician. I am a professional-grade artist and sorcerer. I am a veritable library of magical knowledge that I will never find time to put into use. But, contrary to what some influencer-esque personalities would generally have you believe, “competent” and “professional” are not “all-knowing” or “unerring”. At this point in my life and my work, spirits almost always come when I call. But that’s still only “almost always”, and it doesn’t mean that I always understand what the spirits are trying to tell me, or that they even often tell me what I want to hear.

I like telling stories of my successes as much as anybody else. But success stories don’t always sound like it. Every astrological image I make that resonates with the people who see it is a magical success. Every jewelry design that began with a vision is a story of magical success. Every piece of art that I sell is a story of my artistic and magical success. Every collection of astrological talismans that I list for sale is not just one but a whole collection of magical success stories. Shit, every day that my right-wing neighbors don’t burn down my rainbow-flag-waving house or report me to the city because I haven’t gotten to my lawn, yet, is a story of the successful effects of my protection magic.

At the same time, telling stories only of my successes feels dishonest, disingenuous. All of my peers now that we all struggle with some parts of our practice. I, for one, think less of any witch or magician who doesn’t speak as openly about their struggles as their successes. I mean, if you never fail, were you really trying that hard?

So I talk about the daily struggles to maintain my streak of daily offerings. I talk about my struggles to do divination for myself. I talk about the magical rituals that went wrong. I talk about my struggles to trust, let alone honor, the divine.

In doing so, I hope to be an inspiration to my peers, and to those who were in the position that I was in five or ten or fifteen or twenty years ago: full of inborn talent and researched facts, and desperately unable to figure out how to combine those two things into actual magic. Struggling to step up and put my skills and talents to use for the betterment of my community. At a loss as to how to take the things I’d seen, and the things I’d done, and double-down on them in a way that produced new revelations.

I also hope to model a different kind of expertise. Social media so often wants us to be self-proclaimed experts and elders, to claim titles and honors which may or may not be rightfully ours, to refuse to engage with material that we are still learning or struggling with, to treat everyone we meet as a potential student or customer (or, worse, a potential mark), all in the name of branding. Hot takes get more clicks than nuanced discussion. Wild accusations will always go farther than reasoned responses.

I can’t fight the algorithm, or the demons of human nature that it appeals to. All I can do is … well, this. Talk about the work. And talk about myself. And talk about my work as openly and honestly as possible. To do the artist’s work of being vulnerable in public. And to do the mystic’s work of travelling into the darkness and coming back with shining fragments of Mystery to share.

In witchcraft

On the Development of My Daily Ritual

Satyr Magos03/07/202323/06/2023

In August, I will celebrate three years of unbroken daily practice. The book, bell, and blade posts that you’ve been enjoying for the last couple weeks are, in part, the result of that work.

I did not have a regular practice when I bought the book. It was November of 2019: my partner and I had finished the first sections of the Hekataeon in June, then went on a road trip in July, and never really got back to it; our work with the Shenanigans Crew was about to go through the usual chaos of the holiday season; and in the first weeks of 2020, the majority of my time and attention was focused on getting ready to present at Paganicon in March. Then the plague came, and lockdown happened, and all our plans were cancelled. Aradia and I started the PGM course. In fact, it was not the book, itself, that jumpstarted my daily practice, it was a Do Magic Challenge.

For those of you who don’t remember them, Do Magic Challenges were about what they said on the tin: Andrieh Vitimus would issue a magical challenge and you had a month to develop goals and methods in line with the provided parameters. In this case, the challenge was to enchant for concrete goals. For whatever reason, I chose to launch a series of thirty sigils, one each day, and see how many manifested. (If I recall correctly, I think I had around a 20% success rate, which … could be better. But given how random some of them were – I am given cake; someone gifts me green stones – it’s still much more than pure chance.) But halfway through the challenge, some things came up.

On a whim, I had roped my familiar spirits into the thing. After all, wasn’t achieving magical ends the whole point of attracting familiar spirits? Hadn’t they been telling me that I should be asking more of them? But at a certain point, my familiars came back to me and pointed out that they were happy to help, but a lot of the sigils I was firing off were things that didn’t actually matter to me, and that was not really what they were there for. But they liked the daily attention, and the daily ritual was good for me. So, when the Do Magic Challenge was over, I kept up the daily practice.

It is, perhaps, no surprise that, lacking any inspiration otherwise, I began doing daily planetary rituals. Each morning I would turn the book to the pages appropriate planetary hymn and triangle, and I would make offerings of incense and a candle and some coffee. I aimed for the hour as well as the day, but I have never been a morning person, and I did not – and do not – believe that devotional prayers need be timed as precisely as that. The planets – and the book that has become so central to my work with them – are literally always there.

After a few months, though, that did get repetitive. And it wasn’t a perfect fit for the real objective of the daily ritual, which was deepening my relationships with my familiar spirits – then limited to Tsu, ZG, and SKM, and my Venus and Mars and Sun talismans.

I don’t remember the exact stages that I went through, now. I know that I kept the planetary pages as a part of my ritual for a long time. I know that it was around the end of October, or the beginning of November, that I first drew an entirely new triangle of art, this one surrounded by the names of those familiar spirits, because I had gone travelling and left all the other accoutrements or my practice at home. But I don’t think that became the focus of my daily ritual until sometime after my March 2021 trip to Anne and Abel van Meter state park, where I started doing portraits of my various familiars in the pages behind that triangle.

I also don’t remember, exactly, at what point I started including in the gods in my daily rituals. The biggest point, as I moved past the Do Magic Challenge, was to improve my relationships with my familiar spirits. But certain divine altars were in the same room, and at a certain point it just started to feel … pointedly rude to exclude those gods from the daily offerings. And then, once those gods were joining me for my first cup of coffee, it seemed rude to exclude the god conspicuously absent from that room: Hekate, whose altar lives in the portion of the house where we do the most magic.

And then at the beginning of 2022, I started doing a LOT of money magic, particularly focusing around my new Jupiterian familiars, and daily offerings grew to include that altar.

I used to try to keep my focus on maybe one familiar and one god each day, obviously based on a (ham-fisted, in the case of several gods) planetary scheme. Aphrodite get offerings on Friday, obviously, but all the gods in that altar room are vaguely Venusian. And how do I decide whether Hekate or Baphomet (or even Lucifer, if I’m not honoring him on Venus’ day) is better suited to Wednesday or Saturday? I did eventually work out a system, and it made … mostly sense. But as the rest of my work just gets weirder and weirder, that Chaldean cycle just makes less and less sense for my personal practice.

These days, especially these last two weeks, as I resume the work of the Hekataeon, I just sit at my altar and see who answers. My familiars are mostly astrological talisman spirits, so they get honors on their obvious days, and I’ve worked out Saturday as the day for my natal spirits, and Monday as the day for Tsu, who doesn’t really fit into a planetary scheme. And I still do my best to honor them all at Venus Hour on Venus Day, but ….

Mostly I just sit, and listen, and see who has something to say. And that can get a little crowded, some times.

The latest change has been an order of operations. For a long time, I did all my offerings in the one room, sat and drank my first cup of coffee with those gods and spirits. Then I would make a few notes in my journal, then went out to the back room to make the rest of my offerings, having a second (small) cup of coffee with those altars, and finally came back to do my daily tarot spread. As of the last week, I’m pouring all my offerings in both rooms before sitting down and drinking that first cup of coffee. It’s a small change, but it feels right.

I’m very proud of my three-year streak. But I know that it will end. Even more absolutely, I know that it will change. Each day is a little different than every other. There are days I forget the epithets, or even the prayers that go with each god/dess. There are days I forget to wash my hands with cinnamon before I begin. There are days when I can’t face myself to do the work of soul alignment, or when I try but can’t get in tune with myself or with the stars whose fire I carry within me. And, periodically, the gods and spirits that I sit down to drink coffee with each morning, have opinions about what I should do, instead, going forward.

In art, witchcraft

Book, Bell, and Blade: A Daily Ritual

Satyr Magos30/06/202319/09/2023

This post is part of a series, though it need not be read in whole or in order. You can read the first post here. You can find the rest of the posts here.

To do the work of the Book, the Bell, and the Blade, does not strictly require a daily practice. But each use of the tools makes them stronger, just as each prayer offered brings us closer to the gods, and each spell cast makes us stronger and more competent magicians. And so I kindly, and with compassion, and with understanding of how difficult a daily anything can be, suggest that you make the attempt to do some daily work with the book.

The ritual that follows is the result of nearly three years of slow evolution and refinement. It did not come all at once, and there was absolutely a period of trial and error. Fuck it, let’s be honest: the trial and the error continue to this day. Your ritual will be different. Your ritual will serve your needs. This one, which you may adopt, adapt, or discard, as needed, is mine.

I begin by writing in my journal: the mundane day and date, the planetary day and hour, the position of the sun and the moon. How much and how well I slept. What little I remember of my dreams.

I clean the detritus of the previous day’s offerings, and start the coffee that will be today’s. I pray: “Hail unto you, o Baphomet, bless and consecrate (these candles, this incense, this coffee), that it may be fit offerings.”

I stand facing my altar. I scrub my hands with a pinch of cinnamon, then scrub them through my hair. I say, “Let me be cleansed and purified for the work, and energized for the day to come.”

I take up the bell and ring it over the altar, and then in each of the four directions, including a second chime over the altar. I say: “By this bell, let the space be cleansed and purified.”

I take up the knife and thrust it into the air, pointing past my altar to the edge of the property, and draw the blade through the air as I turn, casting the circle over the land. I say, “By this blade I cast the circle and affirm the temple.”

I light a candle on the altar. I say, “By this fire, I illuminate the temple.”

I light a stick of incense from that candle, and with that incense I draw an invoking pentagram in each of the four directions. As I turn, I say, “By this incense I bless and consecrate the temple.” Then I stand the incense in its bowl on the altar.

And so the temple is awakened and consecrated. I stand there, and bask in the holiness that I have awakened. When I am ready, I attune myself, body and soul, grounding and centering and awakening.

I light a second stick of incense. I gesture with it over the altar, drawing a crossroads and a circle in the air before me. I say, “Hail unto you, o you keepkers of the quarters and dwellers on the threshold.”

I turn away from the altar, toward the world beyond, and repeat the gesture. I say, “Hail unto you, o you gods and spirits of the house and of the land.”

I turn back toward the altar and gesture so that the smoke swirls widely. I say, “Hail unto you o you gods and powers who come when we call and aid us in our work. Hail unto you o you guides and allies, friends and familiars. Hail unto you, all you who live on the altars of this house, and in the pages of this sacred book.”

I place the incense upright in its bowl. Then I light an offering candle in the bowl for that. Then I pour the libations in their bowl.

From here, I honor my familiar spirits – Tsu, my natal spirits, and the spirits of my planetary talismans, each on their proper day. And then, with my familiars in attendance, I pour offerings and make my daily prayers to each of the gods who live on shrines in my home.

“Hail unto you o Baphomet, Thanateros, Infinitely Flowering God. We pray you, stoke the light of your gnostic fire within each of us. Stoke the light of your gnostic fire within those that we love. Stoke the light of your gnostic fire in the peoples of the world.”

“Hail unto you o Aphrodite, Nepherieri, Beloved and Man-Loving. We pray you, love us. Make us beloved of gods and mortals. Open our hearts so that we may love and know that we are loved.”

“Hail unto you o Eros, Phanes, Protogonos. We pray you, may your light of creation shine within us. May the wind of your wings clear away all that obscures. May we be granted all that we desire.”

“Hail unto you o Lucifer, Morning Star, Peacock Angel. We pray you, share with us your secret knowledge. Help us to throw off the chains of our oppression. Help us to stand tall in the face of the heavens.”

“Hail unto you o Dionysos, Zagreus, Eleuthereus. We pray you, save us. Free us. Fill us with your divine ecstasy.”

“Hail unto you o Hekate, Queen of Night, Mother of All Witches. We pray you, may your crossroads always be open to us. May your torches always light our ways. May we always have the keys to the doors which bar us passage.”

Then I pour coffee for myself, anouncing myself by each of my names: “I am –“

And I sit. I wait. I drink my coffee. Having called upon my familiar spirits, and my gods, each in turn, I listen for what they may teach or offer me. I try to discern what is the true voice of warning, and what is merely my own anxieties. I try to discern what is divinely inspired, what is the work of my own sacred creativity, and what is a mere intrusive thought. I hope for visions, and remain vigilant against mere fantasy.

When my focus breaks, or I finish my coffee, I turn to my journal and write down what I have felt and what I have seen and what I have heard – often only “no clear messsages”.

Then I pull out my cards and divine the character of my day. When I have made my notes, the ritual is complete, and I go in search of breakfast.

In art, witchcraft

Book, Bell, and Blade: On Dedication and Consecration

Satyr Magos27/06/202319/09/2023

This post is part of a series, though it need not be read in whole or in order. You can read the first post here. You can find the rest of the posts here.

The work of the Book, the Bell, and the Blade is a work of becoming. You begin where you are, and you work your way forward.

The tools, not knowing where they come from, may need to be cleansed. Do this in the traditions from which you come, but note that none of these tools will thank you for being exposed to salt water. Turn, perhaps, to cinnamon or smoke or sound or song.

In this same vein, as a part of the daily ritual, you will cleanse yourself with cinnamon or smoke or song. But we will come to that in due time.

Neither you nor your tools need be consecrated to the work in order to begin it. Lay the book and bell and blade and whatever else you bring upon whatever you wish to use as your altar. Then announce yourself to the world and begin.

You may begin by formally dedicating yourself, if you so choose. Speak your name aloud, and your intention. Consecrate yourself with holy oil and the smoke of frankincense. But then begin, immediately. Do not wait.

You may then consecrate your tools, as you wish, according to the traditions that raised you. Or they, the knife in particular, may already be consecrated when you begin. But this is not important to the work. Your tools and their spirits will grow, be shaped, and awakened, by the work, itself, just as you will be.

If it is important to you to consecrate all your tools at the very beginning and yet lack for words, I offer you these, based on my own. Turn to the weirdest and most hypercosmic deity of your pantheon, and pray to them as you will later pray over your offerings:

“Hail unto you o Baphomet, I pray you: bless and consecrate [this book, this knife, this bell] that it may be fit for the work to come.”

For my own part, I finally consecrated my Book some months into the work, using the Solar consecration PGM IV. 1596-1715 (p. 68-9 in Betz), to empower all magic done with it.

In art, witchcraft

Book, Bell, and Blade: The First Pages

Satyr Magos24/06/202319/09/2023

This post is part of a series, though it need not be read in whole or in order. You can read the first post here. You can find the rest of the posts here.

You have found your book. You love your book. You have, on the frontispiece or just behind it, written something – anything – to begin the book and begin to make it a beautiful tool that you will use, not a useless treasure you will horde.

Now, it is time to scribe the true first real pages.

Here, I will speak less of what you should do and more of what I have done.

I bought my book as a birthday present for myself in November of 2019. I had been walking by it (or, more accurately, a series of identical books that passed through) as I came in to and left the New Age store where I was working for several years. I pined after the pretty leatherbound journals, especially the really big ones, but that year I made a pact with myself that I would only buy it if I were actually going to use it, and if I were actually going to use it that meant I had to know, from the jump, that I was going to fuck it up along the way.

The purpose of my book was – is – to serve as a cord to bind my art, my witchcraft, and my astrological magic together. On the fourth and fifth pages, just behind Mirrors and Veils and Proclus, I copied the Stele of Jeu, a ritual which I was re-integrating into my practice at the time, and which I have performed more than any other ritual inscribed into my book since.

Then I picked out several sections of the book and made chapter pages for each of the seven traditional planets, taking up less than half of the book but relatively in the middle, because it was already my plan to draw Triangles of Art in each of those sections, pre-marked with the relevant planetary and Olympic spirit sigils and Orphic hymns, and while I wanted the planetary work to take up less than half of the book, I wanted to give each planetary section room to grow, and for the book to lay relatively flat when I did so.

Then I took a class on the Greek Magical Papyri, and began transcribing spells from that collection into the book. I decided that divination went at the front, and certain other things went at the back. I added a section for work with the fixed stars and constellations.

Then, almost a year after I had begun my book, I added the pages that eventually became the new focus of my daily practice. I was travelling, away from my altar, and wanted something to focus my daily offerings to my familiar spirits. I drew a triangle, and transcribed the seals of each of my familiars onto it. At first, I only used that page when I was travelling. But as my talisman creation provided me with more and more familiars, those offerings overtook my planetary practice.

So, as you begin filling in your pages, consider first what parts of your practice you wish to emphasize and double-down on as you begin the work of the Book, Bell, and Blade.