Journey Through The Obsidian Dream

This morning began with my second performance of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. The performance was less smooth, somehow, than yesterday’s – I kept almost forgetting small steps, like the Sign of Silence or the line connecting one completed pentagram to the one I was about to start – but no less effective. Actually more so, as I could feel the Archangels start to respond.

More to the point, I could feel the gods on my altar start to get jealous. They want daily attention, too.

Which is in no way an unreasonable request.

I apologized to them when I was done, did my daily tarot at the altar, and lit them a stick of incense because that was the best sacrifice I had on hand. And now I have an interesting dilema on my hands: how to perform daily devotionals to gods who haven’t quite gotten around to telling me what they want from me.

Now, this problem does not come entirely from the realms of things unforseen. As a modern neoPagan, I had some concerns about invoking the Archangels of the God of Abraham in front of the same altar where I worship Dionysos, Hephaistos, Raea, and the Nameless; more to the point, as someone who’s been shit on by the world made by the worshipers of the God of Abraham, I have some strange reluctance and insecurities related to anything that might smack of that worship, and a closeted fear that my gods might not be able to help me if I piss that one off and he decides to shit on me. Now, as Jack Faust rightly points out – albeit in a somewhat problematic attack on Star Foster, but what can you really say to someone who admits outright to being a condescending ass? – my paleoPagan predecessors didn’t see things that way.

My gods don’t give a flying fuck that I’m invoking Archangels, per se. They couldn’t have cared less about the last month I spent daily performing the Quabalistic Cross, except perhaps liking that it made my offerings extra tasty/potent. They also don’t care that, once I’ve gotten a handle on what I’m supposed to be doing, I might well replace those Archangels with them.

They care that I invoked four Archangels into the Sunrise Temple two mornings in a row, and didn’t make them offerings of equal or greater value. Which, again, is totally fair.

The problem lies in that the (neo)Pagan sources I have the easiest access to are lazy hippies who seem to see daily devotion as patriarchal oppression. Unfortunately, I’m way too early in my studies of the Classics to have much knowledge of what ancient cultus practice entailed (not that I have any intention of reproducing it, but it’s damn good place to look for inspiration). Now, I can – and will – turn to my copy of the Homeric Hymns and see what clues those can provide me. I can – and, again, will – make underworld journeys to see if they’ll actually tell me what they’d like. Until those tactics pan out, however, I’m stuck with good, old fashioned, incesne-and-candles-and-prayer ass-kissing.

So mote it be. @_@

In Uncategorized

Approaching the Garden

Satyr Magos16/09/2011

As of today, I have completed the first month of my year dedicated to the study of ceremonial magic. For thirty-one days now, I have performed the Qabalistic Cross upon waking and before working any other magic (well, except that one day I overslept and had to come back home to do it at noon; rough morning, that). I have performed Penczak’s Ascending the Spheres meditation a half-dozen times over the course of the last week, have prepared space in my Inner Temple, and have built my altar of Malkuth.

After a month of performing the Qabalistic Cross, often more than once in a day, I have mastered it to the degree that I can perform it’s invocation silently – tuning to each of the arms of the Q-Cross the same way I tune to the Elements when I cast my circles. It has made some lasting changes to my aura, not all of which I yet fully understand, but so far they seem all to the better. The ritual has helped me keep my course as the time my coursework demands and the toll of my seasonal allergies tear away at the hours of sleep available in any given night. At a school that strongly encourages people to overcommit themselves, to give more than they have, it is helping me maintain my proper position at the center of my own universe.

There is still a great deal to learn from the ritual, of course, and I will try further variants and modifications as the months pass. But I am ready to move on.

I am ready to immerse myself in Malkuth – the Kingdom, or the Garden as Pecnzak also calls it, though I wonder at that translation. I have familiarized myself with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram as much as one can without actually performing it. I will perform it daily at least for the full month, probably for the rest of the year. I will perform it in its full and original glory, Archangels and all, for at least a week before experimenting with the common Wiccan variant. I have a quart of Full Moon water left after starting my mead, and look forward to using that to make Holy Water. I may also use up the rest of my Dark Moon water for a different batch – I wonder if it will turn out different. I look forward to exploring the Elemental Realms of Earth as a part of this process, and exploring a new paradigm of the elements.

I approach Malkuth at dawn. So mote it be.

In hedonism, witchcraft

Honor to Dionysos from the Sunrise Temple

Satyr Magos16/09/2011

I finally started my first batches of mead and wine, here in Sunrise, IN.

The mead is a variant on the “Ancient Orange” recipe, which I will reproduce here because there just can’t bee too many copies of mead recipes on the Internet. The wine was my most basic Spiced Apple Cider wine.

Satyr Magos’ Ancient Orange Mead

4.5 cups local honey (~3.5lbs)

1 stick cinnamon

2 whole cloves

1 whole large navel

1 pkt bread yeast

~3/4 gallon of water blessed at the full moon (oh, yeah: I went there)

I warmed the honey in an equal volume of water, though the recipe didn’t call for it. I find it makes it much easier to get into the bottle without a mess. While that was coming to temperature, I sliced the orange and put it, the cinammon, and the cloves in the bottle. I then poured the hone-water through a funnel into the carboy, added the yeast, and filled the carboy most of the way with water – being certain to leave enough room for froth and sturm und drang – and mixed it by shaking vigorously. I stuffed in the airlock and will call it “done” when it clears … hopefully in time for my birthday in the time of the Prince of Swords.

Satyr Magos Apple Cider Wine

1 gal. apple cider

1 stick cinnamon

3 whole cloves

1 pk Lavlin DC47 wine yeast

Pour one glass of cider and drink it. Add the spices and the yeast. Shake vigorously and add airlock. Set aside for as long as you can stand to wait, though I recommend at least a year.

I’ll add nutmeg and a few other things as I get my ands on them.

In Uncategorized

Sept Full Moon Reading

Satyr Magos15/09/2011

It was an intense Esbat – easily the most magickal work I’ve done solo since I left Lawrence, possibly the most ever. I should write about all that. But my mind has been turned to the future:

HOUSE

CARD

GENERAL MEANING

INTERPERETATION

1^st – Self, Viewpoint

the window through which you and the world view one another

Princess of Swords

clarity & mental renewal; restlessness and quarrelsome behavior

conflict & clarification

The Princess of Swords is a fairly natural outlook for someone in school, and the quarrelsome angle totally fits me all day long.

2^nd – Finances, Income

communication, neighbors, short distance travel

Prince of Wands

new momentum, initiative, and enthusiasm

readiness for action; taking risks; renewal

My financial aid doesn’t quite cover my housing, so a change in my financial situation is welcome news. It looks like I’ll need to go out on a limb to take advantage of this, but I’m prepared for that.

3^rd – Daily Experiences

immediate influences

6 Disks – “Success”

increase, gain, favorable synergy, welcome developments

encourages taking advantage of situations as they present themselves

It looks like life will continue to improve over the course of the month, so long as I don’t turn down opportunities as they come my way.

4^th – Home-place

family, land, roots

Queen of Swords

clr – 4 S – “Truce”

The Queen of Swords being a very odd card for the 4^th House, I asked for clarification … and was given the Four of Swords. I can only take this to mean that I must be discerning in the balance I achieve between rest and work, and in the battles I pick.

5^th – Fun / Pleasure

children, hobbies, lovers

VII the Chariot

thirst for adventure, boldness

new relationship, making a leap forward

I’m starting to get restless – even if I didn’t just know that, it’s there in the 1^st House – and, fortunately, it looks like there’s going to be things to do and people to see (and very likely, hopefully, vice versa).

6^th – Work

illness, duty, routine

3 Swords – “Sorrow”

clr – 9 C – “Happiness”

bad news, heartbreak

miscalculation, not passing an exam

bliss, meaningful experience, enjoyment of work

This clarification turned into more of a contradiction. I can only infer that, in my enjoyment of my studies and residence life, I may loose track of my priorities and fuck something up but good.

Or, maybe everything will go well except that no amount of scientific medicine or magical healing will clear up this sinus hell.

7^th – Partnership

associations, spouse

6 Cups – “Pleasure”

reawakening spirits, emotional recovery, well-being

blossoming feeling; sensual pleasure; sexual fulfillment

This is interesting in the way that it agrees with the 5^th House, which usually speaks more to short-term lovers, as opposed to the “marriage” ideas associated with this House.

This is doubly interesting in that I’m explicitly looking for … not “casual”, because it’s never that for me, but certainly nonexclusive.

8^th – Taboo / Crisis

sex, death, taxes, loans

rebirth and renewal

3 Disks – “Works”

the process of transforming ideas to reality; slow progress and consolidation

encourages cementing that which has already been achieved

This seems to expand on the opportunities presented in the 2^nd House. I need to keep my irons in the fire and work them slowly, but methodically.

9^th – Higher Perception

journey, movement

IV the Emperor

willingness to take responsibility; security and leadership

structure, order, and realistic thinking

The Emperor is not a card I generally associate with anything spiritual, but it makes sense in light of the fact that I will be beginning my month of Malkuth-work in two days.

10^th – Recognition

career, ambition, status

Queen of Cups

sensuality, devotion

spiritual tasks and artistic inspiration

I am going to be more recognized for my creative and magical works this moon. I should really send out some of my stories again.

11^th – Friendships

groups, social activities

I the Magus

activity, resolution, will power, concentration, mastery

attraction, taking the first step, accepting oneself and others

Returning again to themes seen in the 5^th and 7^th Houses, this will be a busy month for my social calendar.

12^th – Secrets & Fears

hopes, ambitions

V the Heirophant

search for truth, experience of meaning, expansion of consciousness

search for meaning; self-examination

The Heirophant is a card I rarely associate with anything good, but I must keep in mind that Crowley’s Heirophant of the Age of Aquarius (Horus) is not the Pope of the Age of Pisces. This, too, may refer to my experiments in ceremonial magick. Or possibly to my desire to set myself up as an occult spiritual leader here on campus.

+2 – Current Position /

Outside Influences

Prince of Cups /

5 Swords – “Defeat”

The Prince of Cups is my card, so to see him at the center here is no surprise. That lies in the 5 of Swords – a card which seems to belie the otherwise overwhelmingly positive reading. Will I be betrayed this month? Forced to eat crow repeatedly? Will this be the manifestation of the “Sorrow” seen in the 6^th House?

THEMES

Me / You

– 1^st, 7^th

Princess of Swords &

6 of Cups

I will be intellectual, cantankerous, and my usual self. They will be sensual and inexplicably drawn to me.

From Where To Where

– 4^th, 10^th

Queen of Swords to

Queen of Cups

While the Queen of Swords makes little sense to me on her own in the 4^th House, as a part of this pair she makes perfect sense. Evolving events will help me move from the hard, more distant, cerebral, and cold parts of my personality to the more fluid, more intuitive and intimate, warm expressions.

Fire

– 1^st, 5^th, 9^th

temperament and self-development

Prince of Swords

VII the Chariot

IV the Emperor

The Prince of Swords cannot stand up to the combined might of the Emperor and the Chariot – two of the most fiery Trumps in the deck. I’m going places, and I’m going full-tilt-boogie. Passion will overrule intellect.

Earth

– 2^nd, 6^th, 10^th

home, money and work

Prince of Wands

3 Swords & 9 Cups

Queen of Cups

There is no earth in my Earth Trine. That never bodes well, despite otherwise auspicious indications in that direction.

Air

– 3^rd, 7^th, 11^th

ideas, contacts, and conversation

6 Disks – “Success”

6 Cups – “Pleasure”

I the Magus

Earth, water, and the Magus – it’s going to be a very Epicurean month, and I’m going to love it.

Water

– 4^th, 8^th, 12^th

intuition, yearnings, and moods

Queen of Swords

3 Disks

V the Heirophant

Although there is a Queen here, she is the Queen of Air. My Watery nature will, for this month at least, largely be dominated by the other elements.

Underlying Theme

XIX the Sun

Over all, I think things are going to do damn fucking well.

The takeaway here is opportunity: in particular, the opportunity to secure my rent money, and the opportunity to get laid. This is welcome news.

In witchcraft

Conjuring a Home

Satyr Magos11/09/2011

Back in June, when I had just been accepted into my new college and thought I was going to be living in the dorms, I wanted to be very sure that was going to turn out well. As a 30-year-old male, a wayout-of-the-Closet bisexual witch with certain nudist tendencies and a manner of costume that has been mistaken for cross-dressing, I thought that my best bet for a good dorm experience would be to have a room to myself.

So I cast a spell.

Now, let me preface this by saying: practical magic is somewhat new to me. I have generally devoted my psychic energies to, well, spiritual and psychic pursuits. Mostly, in fact, I’ve devoted my energy to getting better than just a finger-hold on sanity, and to Warding my home-space (which is largely part of the same). When it comes to manifesting things, I’ve relied on my Web.

A single-room in a good dorm where I’d feel safe, though, seemed a rather high order for that – especially since I wouldn’t actually be moving for another eight weeks. I’d never experimented with sigil magic before, but I’ve I’ve done a bit of candle magic. So I decided to use a large candle as the “firing mechanism”, so to speak, for the sigil – and back it all up with a boost from the sort of old-fashioned raise-a-circle magic they taught me in Witchcraft. Aradia helped, of course.

Although I’m getting better at it, I’m not always the best at keeping a journal. I don’t recall the exact date and time – it was the full moon in June, but I cant say which day of the moon. Nor did I record exactly how I phrased the spell before condensing it to a sigil. I think it was “SAFE HOME SINGLE DORM ROOM”. I do remember chanting “Safe home dorm room / single room dorm room”.

The sigil and the candle, after “firing”.

In the most direct sense, the spell either didn’t work … or it backfired. Not only am I not living I a single room, I’m not living in the dorms. Or even on campus. I’m living in a one-bedroom college-owned housing unit, legally a separate entity from the school.

But here’s the catch: single rooms for freshmen don’t exist, and not many transfers get them. The dormitory to which most of the transfers were assigned may not have single rooms at all. Also … I don’t think, now that I’ve been in dorms again for the first time in ten or twelve years, that such an environment could ever be “safe” for me at this stage in my life.

“Safe home” and “single dorm room” may have been incompatible parameters.

I didn’t get what I wanted. But I did get what I need: a safe home, where I can set up my altar and an alchemy lab and even continue brewing my mead. An easy walk from campus, but too far for post flavors of random visiting. Far enough that campus security is a total non-issue. With neighbors who like to party quietly and mind their own business.

So … did the spell work or not?

In witchcraft

My Web of Influence and Fortune

Satyr Magos10/09/2011

One hesitates to speak of good fortune – it’s taboo. One is simultaneously afraid of being named a braggart, and of having one’s luck evaporate. Be that as it may: I have long lived a charmed life. Being in the right place at the right time is pretty much my story. I have achieved this (inasmuch as it is an achievement, rather than a blessing) through two things: listening to my instincts, and my web of influence.

Growing up in Lawrence, I walked everywhere. As a young magician (though that word implies more intention and structure than I ever had going on), I practiced magic everywhere I walked – spinning webs, lobbing energy spheres, or even just playing around with subtle trance states. Over time – years, literally – I became increasingly attuned to those places where I spent the most time. If something interesting was going on somewhere I frequented – I knew, and I would show up just in time.

This was before the days of cell phones: if you wanted to meet someone somewhere, you had to call them in advance and hope they happened to be around, or make use of a pay phone (if there was one) when you got there. My magical friends – Kat, Lyra, James … I use your real names here in the hope that you recognize these stories and contact me – rarely had to call me. They would just show up, and there I would be. Thirty minutes later, if I wasn’t waiting for them when they arrived.

I came to call this knowledge of time and place my Web, and anchored it to a number of tools that lived on my altar (my Orb, in particular, if you recall it from the Story of Tsu). When I wanted or needed something, I fed that need into the web – no ritual, no ceremony, just focus – and it usually manifested sooner rather than later. When I moved out of my parents’ house into my first apartment, I moved it with me. I moved it again and again, as I moved around Lawrence.

When I moved to St. Louis, it was a little more complicated. For one thing, the move was so frantic that I forgot to take down the house wards before I left. For another, I was homeless for the first ten weeks – it’s hard to set up a power-center while living out of your car and sleeping on your buddy’s couch. (Not saying that it can’t be done: I’m sure many of you out there are up to the task. But it was very hard for me.) When I finally got my apartment, I still had to make another three or four trips back to KC to get my things, including key components of my altar. Nor was my life in St.L ever really stable: unemployment, temp jobs, and the batshit crazy jewelers I worked for there; friendships falling apart, an ill-chosen romance, and isolation.

Still, I did my best: laying down lines of power as I searched for jobs, marking trails as I did what partying I could. As wrong as so many things went, they still went very well in many regards. I had my choice of lovers, though I can’t say I made the best choices. I never went hungry or got into any real trouble. Despite my initial successes, it took about a year before things really started moving in my favor … and by that time it was too late. Too many things had already down the shitter. That said, I got out of my lease without a problem and found a safe place to land.

Kansas City – where I landed – was a little easier: being closer to Lawrence, where too much of my energy was still invested, things didn’t have quite so far to stretch. I had an easier time getting jobs, making friends, and even started going to school. All of which made it easier to lay down roots and get more of the same. Again, though, it took about a year for things to really get rolling – for last-minute decisions and gut-felt impulses to star putting me where I needed to be; to get that feeling of “I need to be a Missie’s tonight”. It was a series of fairly wild coincidences led Aradia and I to being in the same place and time at the right moments – little, if anything, in my life has turned out quite that well.

Now that I’ve moved again, it’s time to build a new annex to my web. Hopefully, between my more sophisticated witchcraft, my more focused intention, and my larval ceremonial practice, it won’t take a whole year to get the web established. I’ve already started the process. I’m making interesting friends. Let’s see how it goes, shall we?

In witchcraft

Earth and Water, Flesh and Blood

Satyr Magos04/09/2011

I have been here in Sunrise, IN for almost three weeks now. For all that it doesn’t look any different from the places I come from, the landscape still feels alien to me. I don’t quite belong here, yet.

Originally, I intended to bond with the land slowly – as naturally and organically as possible. The problem with that approach, though, is that I won’t belong here until I have bonded to the land. I won’t feel safe. Not at school or in town or anywhere but in the power-center I’ve set up in my apartment. That realization came to me slowly, over the course of the last week. So I set about planning how to spin my web here more deliberately.

Last night the sky was full of heat-lightning. The moon was waxing and gibbous; it was the hour of Mars. There was a school “rave” party scheduled on the lawn, and a thunderstorm rolling slowly in. I did Earth Breathing as I walked from my apartment to the center of campus, where I cast a circle in the great open lawn and called upon the Elements and the Quarters to make me a part of the land and it a part of me, “so long as I am relevant to the school” (which, as a college student, is as long as I am either a student and/or contributing alum). I released the circle, promptly made friends with a bunch of potheads, and later attracted the attention of the first serious-seeming witch I’ve yet to meet on campus.

Once the power-high wore off, I slept well and deeply and had vivid, school-related dreams.

This morning, I continued my practice of Earth Breathing on the way to and around the school, cementing and deepening the bond. I already feel more like I belong here. I’m more comfortable, more focused. I will now be better able to do the work I came here to do.

In witchcraft

There’s No Way To Tell This Story Without Looking Like a Moron or Possibly a Lunatic

Satyr Magos01/09/2011

For almost two years now, I’ve been working closely with a spirit I call Tsu (as in “A Boy Named ~”). You’ve seen her mentioned here once or twice. Only in passing, though, because she’s something of a long story. You see … I think I may have made her.

The story actually begins back in high school. Yeah. I don’t know how many of you out there started practicing magic that young; but I know that those of you who did probably have your own set of “what the fuck was I thinking” stories, too. Some of them might even start the same way: Like most young dabblers in the arts of magic, I suffered a certain paranoia. I didn’t necessarily think that anyone or anything in particular was out to get me. But they might be! If not today, than some day!

Like drawing and writing, I have a natural talent for shielding and warding, but that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to be sure that I was safe. So I made myself a bindrune (a sigil, if you will), took a secret Name, and – I have no idea where this part come from – hid a piece of my soul inside a stone. This might have actually been the beginning of some interesting Work, if I’d had any idea what to do with it. But, again, I was young and dumb and (even more so than today) unclear on the benefits of the whole “Keep Silent” thing.

The stone – I called it my “Orb” (keep in mind, I was seventeen) – quickly became more of a liability than a boon. So I took the Work I’d done with the stone and moved it from the half-inch bloodstone sphere I’d started with to something no one would threaten to swallow, and which couldn’t be quite so easily misplaced: a gray granite sphere. Not long after, the Work somehow moved again – at the time I blamed an unknown wandering trickster spirit; in retrospect, I’m still not really sure what happened – from the granite to an obsidian sphere I had brought with me to show off.

If I’d been a more clever lad, I’d have ended the experiment then and there. In my mind at the time, though, Name, rune, and stone were linked and, having been made, could not be unmade. Besides, everything else had gone so smashingly! What else could go wrong?

For the next several years, the Orb – in its final incarnation as the obsidian sphere – was the centerpiece of all my magical work. I used it to raise power; I used it to ground and ccenter; I brought it with me to every spell and ritual I participated in, and sometimes carried it around just because.

I think I was twenty-two when I decided I needed to retrieve that sliver of soul from the Orb, and unbound it with a spontaneous bloodletting at a pubic Beltane ritual. (Of course that went over well – why do you ask?) A year or two later, I decided it was time to put it back. Only to reclaim the hidden fragment again, after another year or two.

Meanwhile and even after the final retrieval, the obsidian sphere remained a central part of my magical practice. in particular, I used it to ground and purify my excess energy after rituals, and as a place to release and launder my unwanted rage and lust and whathaveyou. I fed the energy in as a thread, winding it tighter and tighter. There really seemed to be no end to the amount of power the obsidian sphere could store.

Fast forward a few more years to my working group in Kansas City. whether or not you could touch the Orb had become a somewhat juvenile test of how badass a magician or witch I met was. Some people began to report that they could feel it watching them. Then, one day, something inside the sphere “woke up” and started talking to us.

It particularly liked to come out when the working group was over and discussing magic. Of course I started talking to it; it seemed like the polite thing to do. It helped me with the elemental and visionary work I was practicing at the time. When I underwent my initiation, it asked that I give it a name. So I did – Tsu is the abbreviated version. It started complaining about the flavor of energy I was dumping into the sphere – which did and does remain one of my favorite tools – so I gave it a home in a tchotchke … a medusa statue I got on special when I purchased my Dionysos idol.

At which point things got even a little stranger. Previously, Tsu had been amorphous: formless, or a vague humanoid shimmer, or (once, when it followed me to work at the mall) appearing in the form of a small Chinese dragon. (Why, yes: sometimes, though not often, I do actually see spirits.) Once housed in the medusa statue, “it” took the form of “she” and has appeared as the gorgon ever since. She has taken up residence in my Inner Temple / House of Memory, and served as a guide on several occasions. She disappears from time to time; most notably she was largely absent from HPF until very recently, when she asked me to make her a sigil/seal.

So, of course, I did.

Although I occasionally refer to her as a guide, she says she technically isn’t one – or, more accurately, that she wasn’t at the time I asked. When I asked if she were my HGA she straight up laughed at me.

I tell you this story now, somewhat apprehensive. Several witches to whom I’ve spoken seemed outright frightened by the story. Others have merely been puzzled. Neither reaction has been particularly helpful to me.

Did I make Tsu? Do spirits often come into being spontaneously in crystals used as batteries? Did some strange spirit leave her there, in some larval state, to feed and grow? Am I just batshit crazy? Seriously: What? The? Fuck?

In witchcraft

Pentagram Ward

Satyr Magos30/08/2011

Warding circles are used to define and protect a space for a variety of reasons. Witches and magicians use them to protect our homes from unfriendly spirits and mortals. We also use them to define and preserve our ritual areas between formal rites.

The pentagram ward is the rite I found, so long ago, misrepresented as the Lesser Banishing of the Pentagram. They are admittedly similar, but the Lesser Banishing is a ceremonial rite, requiring a ceremonial magician’s tools and formal incantations. My pentagram ward is somewhat simpler.

The pentagram – with or without a circle around it – is a symbol of elemental power, representing the microsm. Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. A ward drawn with such a glyph draws power both from the idea of the pentagram and from the elemental energies of the physical and astral planes.

A warding circle begins, as do all rites, with grounding and centering. Breathe.

Face forward and focus your will. Using one’s tool of choice – knife, wand, sword, hand, eye – draw a pentacle in the air in front of you; fill it with enough power that it glows before your eyes and stays where you put it.

Focus your will on the rightmost point of that pentacle in the air and turn 90 degrees to your right, drawing a quarter-circle line as you go. At the edge of the line you have just drawn, cut another pentacle in the air and fill it with your will as you did the first.

Repeat this process twice more, drawing a total of four pentacles in the air, one in each of the four directions: before, right, behind, and left. The left circle being charged, complete the greater circle with a final quarter-turn. Feel the circle snap closed, feel it fill with power.

Your ward is complete. It’s simple. Magicians might even scoff. But it does the trick under most circumstances, and it makes an excellent framework upon which to hang more sophisticated protections.

In witchcraft

Inner Temple

Satyr Magos29/08/2011

I have long called this technique the “House of Memory”. Some call it the Inner Temple. Some build a palace, others a city, still others a cave. Although I call it a house, mine is in fact a castle. Many of my friends have built or found glades, mountains, and forests in the weird recesses of their minds. As I speak to more and more witches in my life, I have come to understand that what I once thought was a a unique exercise in visualization, projection, and memory (possibly of my own invention) is, in fact, something that many of us have done deliberately, unconsciously, or even in a previous life. Despite – or perhaps because of – this intuitive prevalence, I find little mention of this technique in books or even on the internet.

Some of my readers, I’m sure, have been long familiar with this and similar techniques. If you’ve built one already, what do you use it for?

Finding or Creating a House of Memory

Begin by entering a meditative trance: relax the body, relax the mind, and drift off into the Void (or the astral or wherever it is you go when you trance). Once in a trance-state, focus on a room. From the floor to the ceiling, make it around yourself… as if you were looking at it through your own eyes, actually standing inside the room. It is best to make it simple, so that it is easier to visualize it as the same every time. Build every aspect of that room; be sure to include a door, if you are going to have more rooms than the first. Make every important detail… in fact, every detail you can cram into the visualization… paradoxically, remember to keep it simple so that you can recall it exactly as it was. If there are bookshelves, include them. Keep them empty for now, you can add to them later.

Once you have completed building your first room, look at it. Walk around inside the room, observing and trying to memorize every detail. The texture, the smell, the color – maybe even the taste. Don’t be worried if you don’t get it quite the same every time, that’s natural; there will be some parts, quite likely, that will be different every time you’re there. Once you have the room solidly in your memory, leave (preferably by the door, if there is one) it helps maintain the “reality” of the construct.

Come back. After a while—a few hours, a day or two, even a week—come back to your house of memory, trying to rebuild it in your head as accurately as you can. Simply the act of rebuilding it will stretch your “mental muscles” and improve your memory as well as your skill at visualization. Repeat this step until you are confidant in your ability to recreate—or, rather, return to—the room each time.

If you are planning on adding further rooms or areas to your House of Memory, begin doing so now, before the “permanence” is too well established. Depending on your personality, a certain amount of transience can be good.

Begin filling your house of memory. However you wish to file the information is up to you… some use scraps of paper in bottles. I use books. One might wish to create a filing cabinet or indexing system of some sort.

Return to your house of memory often.

Maintain it… simply sit and think (meditating upon the house, then sitting down inside and meditating there is a method of reaching deep levels of relaxation and meditation), file information… dust the shelves. Without putting effort into the House, it will eventually fade out.

Through this construct, which exists in both our own minds and as a place in the astral realms, we develop the foundational skills needed for more complex visualizations, for astral projections, and for shamanic journeys. Further, we can, with practice, bring others to our Houses of Memory or seek our theirs in dreams and journeys.

The House of Memory is a real place in the more subtle corners of reality, and rituals performed here can be as effective as those performed in material reality.

Practitioners inclined to visionary work, underworld journeys, and the like can use the house of memory as an Inner Temple – a place to connect with the divine, to meet guides and powers, and as a starting point for exploration of the inner worlds. Teachers can bring their students to their own inner spaces to help instruct them. There are probably uses for the house of memory / inner temple that I have never imagined.