Showing all posts tagged Greek Magical Papyri

In witchcraft

Visions of the Serpent-faced God

Author Satyr MagosPosted on 2 Comments

The first time I performed the ritual – PGM XII. 153-60, Spell for a divine revelation – it was a part of Jack Grayle’s PGM course, Fifty Rites in Fifty Nights, back in 2020. It’s a short ritual, near perfectly complete, with little suggested framing or preparation.

I bathed, dusted my hands and hair with cinnamon. I sat, terrified, but summoned the courage to begin. I intoned the name IAO three times, growing in size and confidence as I did so. I called out the great name, stumbling over the Vocces Magicae. The serpent-faced god appeared.

I asked them, “How do i thrive as an artist in these times?”

They came upon me from behind. Held me. Came in through my left eye, then my right. I began to cry. The god moved in to my mouth.

I said. “I am to look, to feel, to speak. Have i understood you?”

“Yes,” the serpent faced god told me.

I thanked them, made the offering of serpent skin.

And they departed.

It was one of the most intense visionary experiences of my life.

I have performed the ritual a number of times since. For a while, it was fully incorporated into my dark moon rites. With each invocation, the vision of the serpent-faced god grew more and more feminine. I was told that the ouroboros image which has so long fascinated me, which I have tattooed on my flesh, was her image.

In 2020, visions I received revolved around the theme of “see, feel, and speak”. I don’t know how well I succeeded at following that imperative, but I did my best.

In 2021 a new theme arose: a vision of a thunderstorm storm in the desert, of long road west and a mesa rising out of the plain. I took this fairly literally: that I needed to fuck off into the desert, a physical and spiritual retreat.

For Samhain 2022,I was finally able to make that pilgrimage. My partner and I and our ritual crew took a road trip to Black Mesa, Oklahoma, where we spent four nights under the clearest, darkest skies that I have ever seen. (I have been a few places that boasted skies as dark or darker, but every time I brought storms west with me, and could not see the sky.) The Milky Way flowed directly over our heads. The Great Bear hovered on the western horizon each night, and Jupiter rose in the east.

I performed my ritual at dusk of the last night, offering wine and incense. The vision that came to me was faint but clear. I could see the serpent-faced god in all her glory. She was potent and ancient and primordial, of the earth and all that lies below it. Her message was clear, too: the time has come for me to resume my underworld journeys, because that is where I will find her. And I am to seek out a serpent priestess, whatever that means, and to make one if I cannot find one.

I thanked her for the vision, and for her patience – it took me more than a year to find her in the desert – and then I returned to my revelry.

This trip healed something in me that was broken. I slept better than any of my companions every night. Back in the world, I am more rested than any or all of them. I feel better than I have in years.

Hail to the serpent faced god. I hope that I can hear what she has to teach. I hope, too, that it is wisdom that I can share.

In witchcraft

PGM Shenanigans: Pray to the Moon

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

This past Sunday, Aradia and I took one of the rituals from the class we’re taking on the Greek Magical Papyri and adapted it into an esbat rite for our Lunar Shenanigans crew. The results were very well received, and good times were had by all, so I thought I’d share it here.

The core conceit, of course, is the prayer PGM VII 756-94, which is presented essentially without context. To this we added an anointing oil, such as seen in the Helios ritual we had also done as a part of Jack Grayle’s PGM Praxis course. To maximize the benefits of the oil, we mixed it by a consensus process: several Shenanigans members bringing oils and maeteria to contribute to my and Aradia’s collection, and deciding in the moment which to add and which to not, and then blessing the oil and the altar with the Orphic Hymn to Selene. We used the Thomas Taylor translation of the Hymn, presented below with a few alterations, because I did not have time to transcribe the Dunn or Athanassakis translations, which I would otherwise prefer, and because Taylor is in the public domain.

Looking at the PGM prayer, itself, you will see that I have broken the barbarous words / magical names / Vocces Magicae out into single-sound chunks. That’s because they’re the hardest VM I have ever tried to pronounce, and I wasn’t going to send my friends in without preparation.

Reports from within my inner circle so far, particularly those of us in the PGM class, have found that the ritual produces increased energy, sometimes insomnia, immediately, followed by a surprising amount of pep come dawn for the next several days.

Outline

  1. Preparation
    1. Erect a temple space, ideally before your group arrives, with an inner and outer portion
    2. In the outer temple space, set up options for purification. Possible options include
      1. Fumigation (sage, sulfer, storax, whatever)
      2. Wash hands and face in lustral waters (my blend is salt, Florida water, and tap water)
      3. Dust hands with cinnamon (as described in Hekataeon and elsewhere)
    3. Process into the empty temple space
  2. Consecrate Temple and Tools
    1. As a group, build or rebuild the altar for the Lunar powers you will invoke, including candles for each of your Lunar gods (in our case, Selene and Hekate
    2. Set up a scrying medium
    3. Blend your anointing oil as a group
    4. Pour wine offering to Moon
    5. Bless oil and candles with Orphic Hymn to Selene (and/or Hekate to taste)
  3. Adapted and Expanded PGM VII 756-94
    1. Pour wine offering
    2. Light candles
    3. Suffumigations of myrrh (and other lunar incense?)
    4. Anoint hands, face, head with lunar oil
    5. Chant prayer
    6. Repeat 4, 5 twice (three times total)
    7. Final anointing with lunar oil
    8. Water scrying
    9. Thank goddess(es) for their attendance
    10. Final wine offering
  4. Poscript
    1. Drink copious amounts of wine
    2. Tarot & other divination for yourself and your friends

ORPHIC HYMN TO SELENE

Hear, goddess queen, diffusing silver light,

Bull-horned and wandering through the gloom of night. 

With stars surrounded, and with circuit wide

Night’s torch extending, through the heavens you ride:

Female and male with borrowed rays you shine,

And now full-orbed, now tending to decline.

Mother of ages, fruit-producing moon,

Whose amber orb makes night’s reflected noon:

Lover of horses, splendid, queen of night,

All-seeing power bedecked with starry light.

Lover of vigilance, the foe of strife,

In peace rejoicing, and a prudent life:

Fair lamp of night, its ornament and friend,

Who gives to nature’s works their destined end.

Queen of the stars, all-wise Artemis hail!

Decked with a graceful robe and shining veil;

Come, blessed goddess, prudent, starry, bright,

Come luner lamp with chaste and splendid light,

Shine on these sacred rites with prosperous rays,

And please accept your suppliant’s mystic praise.

PGM VII 756-94

I call upon you, who have all forms and many names, double-horned goddess MENE, whose form no one knows

(except him who made the entire world, IAO The one who shaped you into the twenty-eight shapes of the world So that you might complete every figure and distribute breath to every animal and plant, That it might flourish);

you who wax from obscurity into light, and wane from light into darkness.

And the first companion of your name is silence,

The second a popping sound,

The third a groaning,

The fourth hissing,

The fifth a cry of joy,

The sixth moaning,

The seventh barking,

The eight bellowing,

The ninth neighing,

The tenth a musical sound,

The eleventh a sounding wind,

The twelfth a wind-creating sound,

The thirteenth a coercive sound,

The fourteenth a coercive emanation from perfection.

Ox! Vulture! Bull! Beetle! Falcon! Crab! Dog! Wolf! Serpent! Horse! She-Goat!

Asp! He-Goat! Baboon! Cat! Lion! Leopard! Fieldmouse! Deer!

Multiform, virgin, torch, lightning, garland, a herald’s wand, child, key:

I have said your signs and symbols of your name so that you might hear me,

Because I pray to you, Mistress of the whole world.

Hear me, you, the Stable One, the Mighty One:

APH-EI-BO-E-O MIN-TER OKHA-O PI-ZEPH-Y-DOR KHAN-THAR KHA-DER-OZO

MOKH-THI-ON E-OT-NEU PHER-ZON A-IN-DES LAKH-AB-O-O PIT-TO RIPH-THA-MER

ZMO-MOKH-OL-EI-E TI-ED-RAN-TEI-A O-I-SO-ZO-KHA-BE-DOR-PHRA

In scholarship, witchcraft

Invoking PGM Powers: Prologue

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

At the end of February, Aradia and I, along with the rest of the Kansas City Sorcerous Arts Collective, signed up for Jack Grayle’s year-long class on the Greek Magical Papyri: PGM Praxis: 50 Rites for 50 Nights, offered via the Blackthorne School. We, along with seventy-odd others, are following Jack down a rabbit hole I’ve been circling for a while, putting the fragmentary spells of the PGM into practice, and I’m very excited.

PGM Praxis: 50 Rites for 50 Nights | Jack Grayle | The Blackthorne School

It’s worth noting, here at the outset, that while I have been practicing magic since 1996, have attended lots of workshops and have studied a lot of systems, I have never before taken a long-form, externally-directed class. Intense study periods have often coincided with my best blogging periods. On the one hand, I imagine that will be true of this, as well; on the other, there are course materials that I cannot, in good faith, share to those not taking the class.

I have, of course, done some work with the Greek Magical Papyri before. I have been using the Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist (PGM V. 96-172) since Jack Faust introduced me to it back in 2012. I have made more than one pass through the book since, looking for either rites to experiment with (though I never had the nerve / inspiration to do any of the ones that caught my eye) and for inspiration for magical practices for characters in my novels.

But this is a guided tour. With homework. And technical support. And I am very, very excited.

We’re into the third week, now, as I type this. We have done our first three rituals (week two had a two-fer) and are winding up to do our fourth. I’ve spent most of the last two weeks on an escalating high of magical power, more optimistic and resilient than I have been in years. Only the one-two punch of a Bad Day in Retail and the Archonic vampirism of Daylight Savings Time has been able to blunt my ecstasy. There will be more about that in the next post.

My classmates — not just the KCSAC — are starting to open up about their adaptations and experiences, and it’s fucking fascinating. Unfortunately, that’s the last I’ll be able to say about that, though I hope to encourage the rest of the Collective to blog about their experiences, and will share the public posts of any of our classmates who want such attention.

It is, of course, possible that I will be less enthused about things at some point (or points) over the course of the remaining 47 weeks. That’s how things go, sometimes. But right now, I’m really, really stupid excited. And I’m going to hold on to that for as long as I can.

On a technical note: we are, of course, using the University of Chicago Press edition of The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, as edited by Hans Dieter Betz. We are at times augmenting this by use of the Orphic Hymns, for which I usually favor the Apostolos N. Athanassakis edition. I also happen to have a copy of Stephen Skinner’s Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic, which may come in handy.

The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, Volume 1
In scholarship, witchcraft

Thoughts on the Stele of Jeu

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

As I mentioned in my previous post, the more I perform the Stele of Jeu rite, the more subtle the effects seem to be.  Given some of the more extravagant warnings I’ve heard regarding this ritual, this interests me a great deal, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last couple days.

Image May Be Unrelated -- Stone carving of Nike and a warrior offering an egg to a snake.
Image May Be Unrelated (From Wikimedia Commons)

One of the first sources to warn me about the Stele of Jeu was, of all things, Crowley’s Goetia[1], which refers to the rite as the London Papyrus.  According to the editor, the rite (before Crowley made his changes that ultimately produced Liber Semekh) was passed around in Golden Dawn circles as a last-ditch banishing/exorcism rite, to be performed with utmost caution and formality lest one permanently haunt the place where it was performed.  The next was from the gentleman who was kind enough to work me up to my first experiment with the ritual.  His warning, in addition to the above should one go through with a clearly botched performance, related the possibility of one’s life getting broken apart in order to be put back together in a better shape.

My own experience with the ritual, while powerful and transformative, has never quite lived up to the earth-shattering hype.  A commenter on my early experiments reported even less dramatic results.

After some rumination, I’ve come up with a theory.  You see, I’ve actually heard very similar stories about other rituals: the Abramelin Operation, for example; most other methods of contacting one’s HGA/Supernal Assistant; the use of moldavite for the first time.  The common theme in many (though not all) of these stories is that when people whose lives are already fucked do major-fix-magic, their lives get more fucked before they get better.

The GD source who provided the initial warning—with no disrespect intended to modern initiates of those orders—was clearly terrified of dealing with the spirit world in any situation where they did not have absolute control of the circumstances and proceedings.  The source of the second warning tells stories about the Stele of Jeu in ways that sound a lot like it was a part of his formative experiences with magic—which is to say, probably before he got his life in order.

Meanwhile, my commenter complaining of insignificant results has (to the best of my ability to determine from the stories he tells; he may feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken) had his shit together for quite a while.  College done, good job, college loans in order, sophisticated magical practice, already talks with his HGA so often that he complains about not having much to talk about.  There’s nothing there for the Stele of Jeu to fix, let alone break.

When I first performed the Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist, my life was already largely in order.  I’ve already been through my Saturn Return.  I’ve already left the job I’d come to hate for higher education in order to pursue a new calling.  I have a regular magical practice that was pretty much at the top if its game.  My biggest problem is the psychic scars left over from all the shit I fucked up when I was a wee faun of a mage.  And, boy howdy, has it ever fixed that shit—but that deserves a post all on its own.

Now, all this evidence is anecdotal.  I’ve only been performing this ritual regularly for about four months now.  I’ve also been having a really hard time doing more than a preliminary study of its history, interpretations, and various effects.  I know that the Order of the Hollow Ones, Jason Miller, and probably countless other groups each have their own variations on the rite (to say nothing of Crowley’s, obviously).  But Jack Faust is one of the very few people I’ve seen talk about the ritual and its effects publically at all; one of the few others can be found at practicaltheurgy.com, but s/he appears to be defunct[2].  The silence of the scholastic community is even more deafening: I’ve only found one or two books which even refer to the rite, outside the PGM itself, and I have not had the opportunity to read them.

Thoughts?

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

2 – Discounting, for my purposes, allusions to the ritual solely as it relates to the Bornless Rite and attainment of Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, which is clearly not what the PGM ritual is about.

In witchcraft

My Name Is A Heart Encircled By A Serpent

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

image

A heart encircled by a serpent, perhaps?

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

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

Further details as they come.

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

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

3—Ibid. 155-6

In witchcraft

Dark Moon 2/2: the Stele of Jeu

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Sunday night I tried something that would have terrified younger versions of myself.  The rite in question, of course, is the Stele of Jeu, from which Aleister Crowley derived the Preliminary Invocation of the Goetia and, later, Liber Semekh.

I had been thinking about doing the ritual for a while.  It had been suggested to me that the astrology for starting this sort of project was ideal (although, re-reading that post this morning, it seems much more immediate and less “the astrological current of the coming weeks”.  Oh, well.  It got me going.), it was just a question of which of the various versions of such a rite.  Finally, the Stele came across my field of vision one too many times to ignore.  A colleague whom I admire was willing to hook me up with a copy of Hans Dieter Betz’s beautiful tome, as well as to give me a bit of preliminary advice.

The evening was set aside for nothing but this: I had done my house-cleansing the night before; I would do my monthly tarot the following night.  I broke out all the stops… including that oft-advocated practice which I have historically disdained: the preliminary divination.IMG_5026The 9S there at the end made me nervous, but the Aeon more than made up for it.  It was go time.

Proceeding with the ritual, I opened with my Pentagram Rite.  I cast a full, formal circle, and made offerings to all my gods and allies.  I drew a circle in salt, and cast another circle within it.  I read through the ritual a final time once I had sealed myself within the salt circle, and felt a presence watching and waiting.  I almost got the impression it was waiting to see if I would fuck up.

Lacking the formula and the six names to which the Stele referred (PGM V.156-60), I omitted them, but I still began with the preliminary invocation which appears at the end of the letter (165-70).  Beginning the ritual, the sensation of something watching over my shoulder grew stronger.  Not trusting myself to memorize so many voces magicae and barbarous words, I read the rite directly from my printout[1].

I had been warned to stop if any poltergeist phenomena occurred, and there were a few moments when the Indiana wind gave me a scare, but the ritual went off without a hitch.  The watching presence disappeared somewhere through the middle of the ritual, and nothing seemed to happen at first.

Then the first wave of power hit me.

The only thing I can compare the experience to is the sort of top-notch, sticky-green, creeper weed that I haven’t had since I left Larryville.  It was slow at first: a sort of spiritual bliss, a sense of fullness and euphoria.  I just basked in it for a while before I decided to clean up after the ritual.  Which was when it started to become apparent just how potent the ritual had been.

I ended up closing/cleaning up in three separate stages, because I kept forgetting what all needed to be done.  There was a particularly interesting surge of power when I broke the salt circle.  I could barely operate my phone to text my friends and let them know that, no, I hadn’t botched the ritual and that a rescue party would not be needed.  (What, you don’t take such precautions when trying something that new?)

The waves of euphoria kept getting stronger, and after a while I could barely walk.  I tried to journal about it, but it was all so surreal that (as you can see) words couldn’t quite convey it.  I remember thinking “nothing has moved my insides around this much since my initiation”.

When I laid down, though, the mood shifted.  I was confronted with violent images I can only call visions.  A close friend being run over by bus then getting up and boarding the bus.  A man in a business suit whose head exploded into a snarling wolf’s maw.  There were others—countless others—but only those first two were with me when I woke, after a night of strange and similarly violent dreams.  Despite that, I was still high on the ritual.

In fact, I was high until noon the next day.  I still feel like my aura’s been “inflated”, and I don’t think that the godhood I felt coming out of yoga yesterday morning was, well, just the yoga.  People who never had a spare glance for me last semester suddenly remember my name.

I can’t wait to do it again.

Up next: Dark Moon 3/3: Tarot and Splat

[1] I’m a very post-modern magician in my own way.  Besides, better to loose a little power by reading the text from a page than to mangle the incantation, or to accidentally summon or anger someone by practicing it aloud outside the Circle.

Betz, Hans Dieter. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation Including the Demotic Spells. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.

In witchcraft

Ceremonial Studies: Refining My Intent

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

When I set myself to the study of the Western Ceremonial tradition it was largely an intellectual exercise.  Yes, I expected to be a more competent and powerful witch/magician by the end of it, but I’d already learned the rudiments of sigils from Chaos magic (which I had largely understood as a subset of the ceremonial tradition, though I now know better) and I didn’t imagine that there would be much that would actually stick with me after the experiments were done.  After five months of study, I have come to understand just how little of what I thought I knew about the ceremonial tradition has any basis in reality.  Conversely, I have found that my chief concern was fairly well founded: I am fundamentally incompatible with some of the powers it deals with, though not in the ways I had imagined.  I have also come to recognize what the ceremonial tradition has to offer me personally: access to planetary Powers.

Various manuals of witchcraft that I have read in the course of my life have come with huge tables of plants, rocks, scents, colors, and their planetary correspondences.  But the rationale of those correspondences has never really been explained, nor why the attributions and uses of those correspondences varies so radically from the mythologies and portfolios of the divinities for which the planets have been named.  My explorations of ceremonial magic have helped me to understand (for example) why it is that Mars, the planet, has so little to do with Mars, the Roman god of war and the citizen-soldier.

More interestingly, particularly from my perspective as a visionary/shamanic witch looking to delve into that most forbidden of arts known as the evocation of spirits, I have learned of the multitudinous hosts and legions of spirits who make up those planetary Powers.  Even if, having acquired some skill at conjuration, I decide that it’s not for me, the names and sigils—phone numbers, as Frater Acher describes them (and I need that book)—will still be useful in seeking out contacts by other means.

Despite my best intentions, I am still having difficulty translating my theoretical studies into actual praxis.  This is partly a matter of trying to convert certain patterns into ones I understand, partly a matter of struggling to overcome inertia after having fallen off the horse (so to speak) of daily practice.

I want to begin seeking that thing known as “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel” (or, you know, something along those lines, since I don’t quite buy the “guardian angel” part), but I have not yet settled on a particular ritual to that end.  The Stele of Jeu?  The Bornless Rite?  Liber Samekh?  (Sure, they’re all variations on the same tune, but I still need to choose one.)  Or some other ritual I haven’t found yet, aimed at the same goal?  Right now I’m leaning heavily toward the Stele of Jeu.  Very heavily.

When I resume pursing the planetary forces themselves, do I continue with the quasi-Golden Dawn route of Penczak’s High Temple?  Do I buy RO’s Gate Rites (I’ve been tempted for a while)?  Do I go whole-hog and dig into Abremelin?  Frustratingly, a lot of these questions would be a lot easier if I were Christian, or at very least if I weren’t energetically incompatible with the Archangels.  I really need to get my hands on a copy of the PGM—both translated and not.

I’ll say this much, though: by the time I’m done, there will be a neo-Pagan grimoire for sale somewhere.  I can’t be the only one struggling with some of these issues.  And maybe, as I continue, I’ll find that someone else has already done this.  Maybe I can use their work, maybe I can build on it, and maybe I’ll blow them out of the water.  There’s only one way to find out.

A research paper is no stronger than its thesis.  Until now, I had been doing no more and no less than preliminary exploration.  Now I have more specific aims—my theses, to continue the metaphor:  to get in touch with the Planetary forces, Powers, “elementals” (for lack of a better word) and spirits; to craft rites which fit within a neo-Pagan conceptual framework; and to make those experiments available to the public.