The image of the Sun, according to the opinion of the wise Apollonius, is the shape of a standing woman, placed on a chariot drawn by four horses, holding a mirror in her right hand and a staff bound above her breast in her left hand; above her head she has the likeness of a flame. – Picatrix Book II, Chapter 10, Paragraph 22 (Attrell and Porecca, 2019)
This image was interesting to me in that it features the thing I do best (figure drawing) AND one of the things I do worst (animals, especially horses). I also, probably obviously, picked it because I get uncomfortable when an image set I’m working on is so wildly dominated by images of men.
Following a suggestion from @gildedragon on bsky, I have interpreted the “staff bound above her breast” as the charioteer’s whip. His suggestion also gave me the keyword that found me references for the horses: quadriga. If I make another bid at this image, I will probably look to one of the many “helios and his chariot being pulled by four horses” images that have survived in the form of red and black figure vases, and make a super explicitly femme!Helios version to scandalize the astrobros.
As always, you are welcome to download and print this astrological image for your personal magical use. A higher resolution version of this image is available on Patreon. You can also support me and my work on Ko-Fi if, for whatever reason, you don’t like Patreon.
The image of the Sun according to Baphomet is a serpent with the head of a woman, or of a lion, or with a beard, wearing a crown. To her left is a crescent moon; to the right is a shining star. Over her head is the sun; in metal, a citrine.
These images came to me in a vision some weeks ago: sitting quietly at my altar on a Sunday morning, making my usual offerings of fire, frankincense and myrrh, and strong black coffee. Being the first such visions I’ve had in over a year, I was … hesitant to share them. I feared, more than usual, that they were hubris or delusion. They are, after all, somewhat derivative: clearly an elaboration on the iconic image of Chnoubis.
In the weeks following the vision, though, I received further elaboration on the images. They became clearer in my mind, and as I contemplated them, I felt like I was reminded of a certain solar invocation from the Greek Magical Papyri. When I finally sat down to draw them, they came through to the page with a clarity that confirmed I had something substantial.
The moon was waxing, and (though the image did not specifically call for astrological timing) the sun was in Aries, and I decided to strike while the iron was hot. I made another copy of the image – the woman-headed snake, for myself – this time on watercolor paper (my current favorite basis for hand-drawn text and image magic), and inked it in black and gold, and set it aside for the next Tuesday morning (the Solar second hour of the day of Mars being an ideal time for me, personally, to invoke the Sun in Aries).
I did my usual daily ritual in the dawn hour, then showered and donned my ritual garb. I set the image upright on my altar with a candle and brazier, and gathered a vial of Helios oil made by one of my friends during our trance-possession experiments.
When we crossed over into the Hour of the Sun, I performed my usual frame ritual, then sat down to contemplate the image and perform the ritual.
I consecrated the image using PGM XXXVI 211-30 (Betz, p. 274):
Rejoice with me, you who are set over the east wind and the world, for whom all gods serve as bodyguard at your good hour and on your good day you who are the Good Daimon of the world, the crown of the inhabited world, you who rise from the abyss, you who each day rise a young man and set an old man HARPENKNOUPHI BRINTANTENOPHRI BRISSKYLMAS AROUR ZORBOROBA MESINTRIPHI NIPTOUMI KHMOUMMAOPHI I beg you, Lord, do not allow me to be overthrown, to be plotted against, to receive dangerous drugs, to go into exile, to fall upon hard times. Rather, I ask to obtain and receive from you life, health, reputation, wealth, influence, strength, success, charm, favor with all men and all women, victory over all men and all women. Yes, Lord, ABLANATHANALBA AKRAMMAKHAMARI PEPHNA PHOZA PHNEBENNOUNI NAAKHTHIP OUNORBA Accomplish the matter which I want, by means of your power.
I repeated the incantation four times. The first time, I put incense on the charcoal and anointed myself with oil: hands, feet, and head. The second time, I suffumigated the image in the frankincense smoke. The third time I anointed the image with oil: first the sun, then the frame, then the moon, then the star, then the serpent, starting at the tip of her tail and working up to her face. The fourth time, I anointed both the image and myself with oil, again, and called upon the Sun to empower me and the image as the spell describes.
I completed the ritual by sitting and contemplating the image and basking in the power I had conjured. I was immediately filled with a strong sense of calm and vitality, and my partner reported that my energy felt improved. My Chnoubis signet, which had been sitting on a nearby table with my other jewelry but not specifically involved, felt particularly tingly when i put it on, after.
The PGM spell includes no timing; it just says “face the sun”. Based on my results so far, and my personal relationship with Solar powers, the ideal timing for me has been a Solar hour of Day on the day of the Sun, Mars, or Saturn. Because this, like Chnoubis, is obviously a Solar-cthonic image, I imagine people with a different relationship with the Sun than I have will get solid results from a Solar Hour of Night.
I think that I will want to repeat the rite for a few Sundays and see what manifests before calling it an unqualified success, but I am sufficiently pleased with the initial results to share the images and the ritual for you all to experiment with. My only complaint, so far, is that this spell-image combination does seem to exacerbate my tendency to overwork, and I have to be even more disciplined about clocking out at night and taking days off.
High resolution versions of these images can be found at my Patreon, where you will also find all my work before anyone else gets to see it, as well as things that I hold back from more public forums and all my other arts. If you like my work, but don’t like Patreon for whatever valid reason, you can also support me on ko-fi.
Behold, another completed Picatrix image for your mystical contemplation and thaumaturgic application.
The image of Mars, according to the opinion of the wise Apollonius, is the shape of a crowned man holding an inscribed sword in his right hand. – Picatrix Book II, Chapter 10, Paragraph 19 (Attrell and Porecca, 2019)
I chose this image for Mars despite having already used it as the image for my Mars jewelry talismans because I felt like there was more for me to learn from it. For the sword’s inscription, I chose a seal of the archangel Kamael (I chose the version from The Magus because it was the first to fall to hand).
I have also, I think, finally decided on a size format for (most) forthcoming images: 2.75×4.75 inches, 600dpi, which – if you recognize them, will immediately give you a clue about at least one forthcoming application of these cards. That is, for the rest of us (I’ve looked it up, like, fifty fucking times, now), the dimensions of a “standard” tarot card. (I’ve seen too many tarot decks to name a standard without laughing; but that is the size of my magpie decks, which was the deciding factor for me.) With that decision made, I can now begin serious work on developing borders for these images and the cards they will eventually become. Once I’ve developed that border, I’ll go back and reformat and re-release my previous images.
Those of you taking Sara Mastros’ pentacles course may have noticed that my last post did not actually make it to the end of lesson three. I had not, yet, put to use any of the pentacles I had inscribed in by book. Those experiences were weird and interesting enough to deserve a post of their own.
Jupiter Pentacles
My very first pentacles, as it turned out, were made outside the framework of this class. Over the summer, Mastros offered a workshop on using the Hexagram of Ab Ehyeh (second pentacle of Jupiter) for financial gain. I had inscribed but not yet deployed my first Lunar talismans, and decided not to jump ahead to teach my book the Jovial talisman before the class, so I printed the pentacle to inscribe over… which was where I made my first mistake.
I printed the pentacle on the wrong paper. Rather than just roll with it, I reprinted it on the cardstock I had wanted to use … and then I got all up in my head about proper care and disposal about the Hebrew god-names, and decided to punt the problem by consecrating both of them, each to a different professional goal: a particular sales goal, difficult but achievable; and a particular number of Patreon supporters. Both by the end of November.
They didn’t work.
Sales through the end of the summer and were good, but not what I was hoping for in October, and straight tanked in November. I have been delighted to welcome several new patrons, but did not meet my goal. (Writing that sentence, knowing y’all will read it, feels a little weird. Sorry about that.)
It’s possible that they did help. That these two pentacles, along with my other prosperity and financial magic, are what pulled me up out of the pit that was the first half of this year’s sales. But even if so, that’s not a resounding success.
But I didn’t know how those first pentacles would turn out, yet, when I finally sat down to put my first book-pentacles to use.
Preparing and Planning
Sara Mastros strongly suggests The Lunar Lock and Key (the first Lunar pentacle, per Mathers) as a student’s first pentacle, specifically to use it to journey to the underworld. Up to this point, I really had planned to stick as close to the lesson plan as I could. But I couldn’t figure out what would be the … best, most useful, most interesting way for me to employ the pentacle, an unfamiliar magical technology, to go to the underworld, something I am well accustomed to doing on my own.
It’s … a stupid thing to get caught up on. But get caught I did. I stewed on that problem for probably a whole month. Finally, the solution came to me: I would ask the Third Pentacle of the Moon, The Witch’s Teacher.
The Witch’s Teacher
The Witch’s Teacher (the third Lunar pentacle per Mathers) is a more conventional pentacle than the Lunar Lock and Key: round, with clear internal geometry, if with a slightly more obscure versicle. Inscribing it in my Book, as I described previously, went smoothly. Employing it was even more straightforward: I invoked Solomon and wound up the Book according to Mastros’ techniques. I told various powers – Solomon, the Book, the Great Seal, and the pentacle, itself – what I wanted, invoking each in turn, explaining my situation . I asked to be instructed in a vision in circle, in a dream tonight, and/or in visions and revelations later. Anointed a candle with holy oil, then lit it.
I was hit immediately with clairsentient knowledge: the Lunar Lock and key will serve as a guide, showing me where and how to go; it will lead me beyond the brass gates that I have seen in previous visionary trances; it will serve as a passport and a badge of authority; that using the Lunar Lock and Key to journey to the underworld is, itself, a rite of passage.
I thanked the spirits, wound down the book, and began planning my next adventure.
The Lunar Lock and Key
I put the Lunar Lock and Key to use around the middle of October.
Despite – or, more accurately, because of – my familiarity with less structured underworld journeys, I was careful to maintain the ritual and protocols I have developed in my pentacles work so far. I bathed and changed into my ritual whites before the start of the planetary hour. I sat down to meditate with my Book before winding up the ritual proper.
I struggled to stay focused, at first. I did not feel as strong a connection to Solomon as usual during initial invocation. I still didn’t get name or presence from Great Seal, but it definitely opened up and powered up. I didn’t get a strong sense of resonance while invoking the pentacle (further evidence for my theory that I am somehow not tuning in to the right frequency to properly perceive the pentacles), but visualizing using the angel names as the key and “tickling” the lock open (Mastros’ word; those of you who’ve tried your hands at lockpicks might find that metaphor more relatable) did produce a gate through which I was able to move.
I descended through the void, bypassing all my usual routes and landmarks, until I came to a great wall winding through a red desert, and a brazen gate which looked a lot like those that I’ve seen in previous visionary experiences. A glowing blue figure that answered to the name Shioel was waiting for me and led me to a postern gate where we met the spirit of my Book.
Inside the gate was, briefly, a vision of fiery red desert that gave way to a vision of poppy fields and a yellow brick road leading to the Emerald City. Yes, that Emerald City. Sort of. I flew there with Shioel a the spirit of my Book, and we entered the city by a side gate.
Inside the Emerald City was initially a void. Then there was a vision of a throne, which Shioel said was what I expected to see. The vision of the throne exploaded into a vision of light, followed by a series of visions more weird and personal than I care to share at this stage of internet culture enshittification.
At the end of my visionary journey, Shioel told me to return at the dark of the moon and I returned to my body.
The next dark moon turned out to be Samhain. Winding up for and then having to cancel our usual Samhain campout was exhausting and demoralizing, and I almost spent the night stoned in front of the TV. Somehow, though, I rallied enough to sit down in front of my altar to light some offerings and at least meditate for a while, and commune with my familiar spirits. Those few minutes of meditation quickly escalated into an unplanned visionary experience.
Solomon appeared to me, and the spirit of my Book. They admonished me not to use my Solomonic materia for anything but the Solomonic work (I had lit some of the incense as “the best I’ve got” right then), and then cajoled me to conjure up the Lunar Lock and Key and make my planned descent to the underworld.
In the end, I gave in. I called up the pentacle in my mind, invoked the names as best as I could remember them, and opened the portal. With the Book closed on the altar, instead of open before me, it is perhaps unsurprising that this second journey was more like my other underworld journeys than the first descent with the Lunar Lock and Key had been.
I descended first into light and the void, then ascended to the sphere of the Moon, where the spirit of my Book underwent a Lunar initiation much like those that I have been through in my Seven Spheres workings. Then we descended, again, and returned to the Emerald City for another round of visionary experiences weirder than I am prepared to share publicly, including some that were so weird I couldn’t even find words to record them in my most private journal.
Preparing for the Next Stage
For a wide variety of reasons, I’ve fallen off the work since November. I could point to the US presidential election, or to my father’s illness and death, or to my annual Christmas Depression, or any number of things, and that would all be true … but they are more true about why this write-up too me so long. What really broke my ritual streak was the Fall Back shift from Daylight Savings to Standard time: the Third Hour of Night now coincides with my dinner time, making it incredibly difficult for me to fit planetary timing into my regular life, even as a full time artist and magician. This fallow period, though, is by no means an end of my work in Mastros’ course and with the Solomonic pentacles.
I have already learned so much. About the grimoire tradition. About the legendary King Solomon. About the Hebrew language. About making magic books (this is my … third? Fourth?). About bringing my lifetime of witchcraft to ceremonial magic, and incorporating ceremonial paradigms into my witchcraft. I’ve had insights about how to improve my Picatrix talismans. I suspect that I will learn things that will lead me to make pentacle-like talismans using channeled imagery and versicles from extra-Biblical texts (specifically but not exclusively Homeric and Orphic texts).
Having now deviated from my post-per-lesson format, I think it’s fair to warn you that I’ll be deviating further. I am not going to hand-hold you through the whole of Sara Mastros’ pentacles course. That would be rude to her and boring for me and not actually that helpful or interesting to you.
Instead, going forward, I’ll be sharing my most interesting results from my classwork, and from the experiments that classwork inspires.
Working the third lesson of the pentacles course turned into a bit of a slog for me. I think that making the transition from preparing the book to scribing the first pentacles would have been a challenge under any circumstances, but August, and the first weeks of September, were incredibly busy for me on the Sorcerer’s Workbench side of things, and that left me as a bit of a mess.
The third lesson of the class and third chapter of the book are, of course, focused on the pentacles of the Moon. Mastros talks about it at length in the course, and makes her point in the book as well, but on the off chance you, my reader, haven’t been sold on the class, yet, it’s worth a sentence or two here. The Lesser Key of Solomon presents the pentacles in descending Chaldean order, Saturn through the Moon. In fact, most grimoires present planetary subjects in descending order. Mastros reverses this order for three reasons: working up, Moon to Saturn, makes more sense to a modern practitioner than the reverse; the Moon and Mercury include pentacles that teach you magic; and she just likes it better that way. As it happens, I agree with her on all three points.
The third lesson is also where we lay the final layer of the foundation before we begin the true work of the course: teaching pentacles to the book before we begin putting them to use.
Teaching the book is an interesting conceit. I am not just inscribing the pentacles in the book in a way that demonstrates and shores up my understanding of the magical seals; I am teaching them to the book so that the book and the book-spirit can study and internalize them, and then aid Solomon (and the pentacles, themselves) in teaching me their proper use. For all its baroque circularity, it does (for me at least) render the oft-advocated practice of transcribing a grimoire in one’s own hand from “ordeal” into “practical sense”.
Preparing and Planning
Following on July’s adventures, and being swamped in the workshop, I did not prepare or plan for this lesson as meticulously as I did the first two.
Following some omens and oracles from August, I wound up for this next phase of the pentacles by starting another course of Seven Spheres initiations. It had been a while since I’d done that, and I was feeling incredibly low energy, and I was hoping that it would help me. Unfortunately, I apparently read the omens wrong … or something, because I only made it through three spheres before the Sun told me to sit down, slow down, and to not exacerbate my burnout like that. I … had to be told more than once.
To prepare to formally inscribe and consecrate the seals into the book, I re-watched the third lesson video and re-read the passages in the book on each of the pentacles. I figured out my best pronunciations of the names of god, and what meanings I was going to lean on. As I penciled in the seals, the afternoon before inking and consecrating them, I made notes on the facing page, including the name and use of the pentacle, the Hebrew and English spelling of each name, and meanings of each name that I would use. I wrote out the full text of the spell that I would perform, including my Blade, Book, and Candle framing ritual and the invocation of Solomon. Mastros, like many teachers, strongly advocates speaking from the heart; I feel like I do my best work from a script, even if it’s my own.
Inscribing My First Seals
I have, so far, inscribed and consecrated three seals/pentacles in my book. I have penciled in two more, but missed the appropriate planetary hours on the days I intended to ink and consecrate them. (The transition from daylight savings time back to standard usually fucks up my sleep schedule; this year it’s just thrown off my afternoon meditation and evening rites.)
As I mentioned in the last post, I’m just not feeling the volume of energy that Mastros describes in her lessons, or that I expected to feel from such a famous magical technique. Although I have had repeated and powerful contact experiences with both King Solomon, himself, and the spirit of my book of pentacles, the experience of inscribing the pentacles in the books has continued to be anticlimactic.
Like the Great Seal before them, I penciled each pentacle in during the afternoon before I planned to properly inscribe and consecrate it. I chanted the versicle as I inscribed it, and the names of god as I inscribed them, and again as I anointed them all with holy oil. But, like the Great Seal before them, as I inscribed each pentacle in the book, chanting the versicle and names of god, I never felt them “come alive” like Mastros describes. There was just a moment when they were clearly done, and it was time for me to bring the ritual to a close.
The Lunar Lock and Key was the first and hardest of three that I have inscribed so far. The square, instead of circular, geometry, and the uprights that have always struck me as castle pennants, made energetically building the seal difficult and counterintuitive. This was one place where I found Mastros’ instructions to be frustratingly unclear; what seemed to make sense while she was talking/on the page did not make sense in the moment. With that said, it was not so difficult that I couldn’t figure it out, and I’m not at all sure how I would explain the process to someone better than she did.
The Wing of El was, surprisingly, the easiest, though the Witches’ teacher was only marginally more difficult. The geometry is simpler, and their … assembly is more intuitive. Having inscribed these seals, I am much more confident in my ability to proceed further.
Moving at the glacial pace I have through the third lesson, though, I’ve had a lot of time to think, reflect, discuss, and divine about these experiences. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
I continue to have intense contact experiences with Solomon and the book-spirit (who really needs a cute nickname, at this point), even when the pentacle-consecration part of the work.
The book-spirit and the Great Seal feel stronger every time I work with the book.
When I put the pentacles to use (next post), they fucking worked.
So, where does that leave me?
Now, I know (and I think I mentioned before) that part of the problem is that I seem to have lost a lot of energy sensitivity over the last few years. It might be a side effect / natural consequence of taking my magical practice from a place of woven energy and spirit journeys and sigil magic to a more conventional place of spirit conjuration and candle magic and consecrating talismans. It might also be a side effect of the trauma of having been driven out of my community, or the pandemic world. It also might be that I have not yet learned to tune in to the particular frequency of energy (in, like, a radio dial sense not a “high vibes only” sense) at which the pentacles operate.
I think, also, that the layering is a factor. I study the pentacles. I imagine inscribing them in the book. I pencil them in outside of ritual, so that I can get the art part right without worrying about the magic part. At the ordained time, I awaken my temple and invoke Solomon and Sheba and all my other patrons and familiars, I wind up the Great Seal, and finally I ink and consecrate the pentacle in the book. Then I close it all back up and let it ferment. And then, every single day, I make offerings – candles and incense and libations – at the altar where the book lives, feeding it again. Each phase of that work layers in more power. So the energy and effort that at least some of my peers are putting in just in that one planetary hour, I’m spreading out over days or weeks or even months.
And then, possibly the biggest factor, we come back to that middle-ish sentence: “I awaken my temple and invoke Solomon and Sheba and all my other patrons and familiars…” I’m not in this alone. I’ve brought my decades of witchcraft with me. I, personally, am providing at most a tenth of the power going into the pentacles to awaken them. Which is good, because I don’t have the fucking juice that I once did. But I have made friends, and this is part of what I come to them for. It’s the nature of this whole shebang that I can’t see what they’re doing behind the curtain.
Preparing for the Next Stages
The point of studying Solomonic pentacles is not, in fact, to make a magic book, or even to make contact with the spirit of Solomon, Magician-King. The point of studying Solomonic pentacles is to fucking use them. Which is where we run into my biggest obstacle as a student of magic in general and as a Chaote in particular: I am actually not super creative when it comes to applying magical means to specific ends.
Sara Mastros suggests that her students start with the Lunar Lock and Key, using it to journey to the underworld. It may seem stupid, but as a moderately proficient underworld journeyer, I was not really certain how to use the Lock&Key to do what I could do empty handed. But, after weeks and weeks of hemming and hawing, I figured out how to answer that question.
Which is where I’ll take up the next post in a few weeks.
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The first phase of this work – the first chapter of the book; the first lesson of the course – was to gather art supplies, buy or make incense and holy oil, and to make contact with the spirit of Solomon the Magician King. The second phase – the second chapter of the book; the second lesson of the course – was to consecrate and awaken the book that will serve as an ally in the work, and then to inscribe in that book the Great Seal of Solomon that will empower the book and the pentacles that I will begin inscribing in phase three.
This second phase was not as photogenic as the first. Well, I suppose it could have been, if I’d begged, bribed, or bullied Kraken into photographing me in ritual – and now that I say that aloud, so to speak, I may do just that some time later – but so far I’ve followed Mastros’ implied taboo of not showing the book, itself, on camera. She’s shown other pentacles she’s made, and I think maybe once shown the cover of one of her books in the class, but not the open pages.
Making and awaking the book played to my strengths in ways that making and consecrating the materia (while not difficult) did not, and making contact with Solomon did not. I’ve made magic books before, and done well at it. I’ve created/recruited familiar spirits before, to the point where you could fairly describe it as one of my specialties. But I tried to approach the work with an open heart and a beginner’s mind. Overall, I’m really pleased with how everything has come together, so far.
Preparing and Planning
After weeks of gathering materials, and then the physically and magically intense work of making the magical materia that I would use when I truly began the work, I was able to take the weeks of the waning moon off to rest and plan. That, I think, will be the shape of things as I continue this work over the coming year; it has certainly been my experience for the past month, as well.
Waiting for the moon to wane back to New, when I could resume the magical work, I also had time to plan my approach for the next phase, and make a couple decisions that I hadn’t quite made: choosing watchwords for the work, a sort of Solomonic motto to guide my steps and serve as a touchstone, and choosing a name for the book. Each of those decisions were their own unique challenge.
The watchwords were a challenge because I already have … multiple magical names and magical mottos, and am leery of accumulating too many more. After considering a handful – the Delphic maxim “Gnothi Seauton” among them (along with a rabbit-hole search into whether or not that epsilon belongs there [it appears to vary with dialect]) – and then being reminded that Mastros specifically suggests words attributed to Solomon, I chose a phrase from the apocryphal book Wisdom of Solomon: “Honor Wisdom that She may reign forevermore.”
I similarly struggled to choose a name for the book. Divination noped out my first choice, which was more a bad Latin title than a name. In the end, I named my book after a saint and a goddess, which I will not print here for (I hope) obvious reasons.
Finally, although I had made successful contact with Solomon on several occasions, I wanted to sit down and have a … relatively formal conversation with him before I called on him to help me consecrate the book. I don’t really do meals with the dead, it’s not my thing, but I did sit down, call him up, pour us each a couple fine whiskeys and smoke a bowl with him in order to hammer out some details about the work going forward.
It was a good conversation. I got confirmation on the go-ahead to invoke him as a part of the work, to don his crown and mantle. I also got some fun and interesting bits; more personal rules and taboos, like his admonition not to contact him on Saturdays except as part of Saturnian work with the book.
I was told to make, essentially, a saint’s candle with his image on it. And that I would need to make one for Sheba, as well, so I might as well get on that. And that there would be a third such candle by the end of the work, but I couldn’t guess who it was. He also, when I asked permission to make a ring, I was told that would be for later, “as a sign of mastery”. So I guess I’ll do some divination when I’ve entered all the seals into my book.
He also, as I did some yes/no coin divination at the end of the session to confirm that I had heard and understood everything correctly, made abundantly clear that he was going to play word games with me for his own amusement, and that I should phrase my questions more carefully in the future. I’m not particularly looking forward to that, but … Solomonic work is fundamentally Mercurial in many ways.
I started the ritual with at the beginning of Third Hour of Night (Hour of Mercury on the Day of Mercury). Without checking the clock until I was done, I finished my ritual with just four minutes left in the hour.
Consecrating the Book and Tools
Over the course of the week following that session with Solomon, I prepared the book by sitting and meditating with it in the afternoon, trying to fill both it and myself with the power I was going to need to raise for the consecration. I drew out practice pages to map out my lettering.
I penciled in the pages Tuesday and Wednesday the 9th and 10th. Interestingly, during that last afternoon day & hour of Mercury I, felt rather like I could have inked the first pages and named the book aloud right then and called it good. Despite that feeling, I went ahead with plan as written.
There was a storm rolling in as I wound up to do the ritual, so I set out a bowl to collect rainwater to use in the consecration of the cord. The storm didn’t quite hit in time to fill my bowl, but I got enough rainwater to be magically active, which was all I really needed. As the bowl was filling, and as I waited for the appointed hour, I bathed and purified myself and dressed in whites.
I started my ritual, casting my circle and awakening my temple with the Bell, Book, and Blade framing ritual that I talked about so much last year, just a few minutes before the Hour of Mercury, maximizing my time in the Hour for the work of consecration.
I consecrated my book, pen, scarf, and rope in that order. I was originally going to name the book at the same time I consecrated it, but I decided at the last possible moment to shuffle the naming to the end, because that’s what felt right at the time.
Called upon Solomon, Sheba, Baphomet, and all my gods for blessings both before and during the work. I inked the frontispiece and title page, then named the book before those assembled powers.
The book absolutely came to life in my hands, and I took my time bonding with the book, talking to it about my plans for the work and how excited I was to get started.
And then, feeling it was time, I wrapped and bound the book in its consecrated cloth and cord, thanked the various powers I had invoked, and brought the ritual to a close. Though it felt longer before I checked my clock, and everything felt right and proper in the moment, it turned out that the ritual, itself, had only taken about 30 minutes.
Though it all felt good and effective in the moment, I didn’t get the magical fireworks I was hoping for. I felt very little of the rush of power that I’m accustomed to feeling during such rituals, and I had no significant dreams that night or since.
Encountering the Great Seal
The week between consecrating the book and the great seal kind of got away from me. I did spend time practicing drawing the seal, making sure I had the geometry down before I even attempted to pencil it in to the pages of the book, but between my road trip to southern Missouri for a photoshoot, and the various obligations of life and work, I did not spend the time with my book that I should have. Nor
Monday and Tuesday got away from me, so I ended up finalizing my ritual outline just before dinner Wednesday night
Spent the nine o’clock hour cleaning my house and the ritual room … partly because Thursday is trash day in my neighborhood, and partly because that just felt like the right vibe for the last hour before winding up for ritual.
As the week before, jumped into the shower at 10 o’clock and donned whites and familiar rosary and started pre-ritual 10 minutes ahead of the Mercury hour.
I began with my full Bell Book and Blade frame ritual. I invoked Baphomet and lit his candle. I invoked Solomon and Sheba and lit their candles.
Inked seal and names. My Hebrew calligraphy is super shaky, but it did at least turn out pretty. The geometric details of the seal turned out just a little shaky, too, but it all came together well enough, in the end.
The energy work was a little easier than I was afraid it would be, even though the voltage wasn’t quite what I used to be able to pull. Chanting the holy names, they didn’t do any of what I thought they would based on Mastros’ descriptions, more like my experiences with relatively tame barbarous words/names from the PGM. I did not get any weird hallucinations with the geometry (I got more out of some of my practice pieces, actually).
The seal definitely came alive. I asked if it has a name – it does, but it won’t tell me what it is, just yet. Nevertheless, I slathered it in holy oil and whispered sweet nothings to it, as instructed. I poured energy into the seal, into the book, as much as I could, from myself and the candles.
I wound down the ritual when I started losing focus: closing the seal; closing the book; thanking the various assembled powers with a final round of offerings. Without having looked at the clock, I finished the wrap-up 4 minutes into the next planetary hour.
I did not feel as wrecked after the ritual as I was afraid I would; I attribute that to the help I got from my spirit court.
Bonding With My Book
I didn’t do as good a job as I would have liked bonding with my book in the week between naming consecrating, awakening, and naming my book and consecrating the Great Seal, so I made an extra special point of spending time with her in the weeks after the Great Seal. In the last month, I’ve managed to (re)cultivate a halfway regular meditation practice, and I have called on the book to join me in my meditations. She’s shown up a handful of times, now, which has been super cool.
In the book-spirit’s most dramatic appearance, the Great Seal was visible above and behind her, a little like the disk-shaped auras of medieval saints’ icons. It felt both like a separate entity and a part of her, which … makes complete sense.
Preparing for the Next Stage
In both rituals, I was surprised by a lack of “fireworks” strong sensations of energy and movement, apparitions, or various knock-on effects. I’ve done enough magic over the years to know that effective magic can be anticlimactic, but this was … more than that. Honestly, I think that one of the lingering effects of my current stage of burnout and this winter’s awful depression is an intensely decreased capacity to sense magical energy. The meditation practice I mentioned above is helping, a little, but … well, I think I’ve got a long road to walk as far as that goes.
The homework for the class, after all the reading and magic, ends with tracking the moon to prepare for the weeks of Lunar magic to come. That’s easy. I’m already doing that. My crew’s Full and New Moon rituals aren’t Lunar-themed (this last week’s was a group invocation of the Serpent-Faced God, PGM XII 153-60), but we’ve been having them with clockwork regularity for … eight years, now? Nine? I know when the moon is waxing or waning, if not necessarily what sign it’s in.
As you may have heard me brag/complain, already, t’s been a busy month. (I hear it’s been a wild month for a lot of people.) So as I finish this write-up on the day of the New Moon, I’m also trying to fortify myself to start the work of Lesson Three: The Moon, tomorrow. I need to make some logistical decisions: how I’m going to map the first pentacle onto the page; when, having taught the pentacle to the book, I’m going to make time to use it. And also, what I’m going to use it for? No pentacle has only one use, and I already have too many unused magical objects. I’m also considering taking myself through another round of the Seven Spheres work (though I may decide to wait for the Full moon and do the waning cycle
I’m excited to be moving into the meat of the class. The foundational work was both fun and fascinating. I’m looking forward to my first encounter with a pentacle and its names and energies. I’m looking forward to being able, when that first book-pentacle has had a chance to ferment, to making a usable pentacle and seeing how the Lunar Lock and Key (Lunar Pentacle No. 1, which Mastros suggests as the first entry) works.
I’ll be back in three to five weeks to tell you how it went! In the meantime, thank you, as always, for your support, and I hope your own magical experiments are going as well as mine.
“The image of Venus, according to the opinion of the wise Picatrix, is the shape of a woman holding up an apple in her right hand and, in her left, a comb similar to a tablet with these characters written on it: ΟΛΟΙΟΛ. This is her shape.”
Picatrix Book II Chapter 4 Paragraph 27, Trans. Attrell & Porreca (2019)
Drawn and shared with plenty of time for you to prepare before Venus enters Taurus on 4/20.
Use this image as the face of your paper talismans by whatever method you prefer, or to accompany a petition by writing what you want across the face of the image. Hold on to the image for however long feels appropriate, and dispose of it in a similar manner.
“The image of the Sun, according to the opinion of Mercurius, is the shape of a man standing on his feet as though wanting to salute those around him, and he is holding in his left hand a round shield; beneath his feet he has the image of a dragon.”
Picatrix Book II Chapter 4 Paragraph 23, Trans. Attrell & Porreca (2019)
Drawn and shared a little later than I’d hoped, but with a little luck you should be able to use this image to catch at least one of this Sol in Aries season’s elections.
Use this image as the face of your paper talismans by whatever method you prefer, or to accompany a petition by writing what you want across the face of the image. Hold on to the image for however long feels appropriate, and dispose of it in a similar manner.
“The second decan of Cancer is a girl seated on a snake throne, having a beautiful waist. Her body, adorned with jewels, is beautiful, and her garments are of a pale hue. She abounds with politeness and affection.” – Yavana Jataka, Chapter 3 Paragraph 12 (an Indian astrological manual, translator unknown)
Another astrological image from October of 2023 that never made it to the public blog.
I originally drew this image for an election sometime in 2022. It took a while to redo it for public consumption, and then (again) to actually share it publically. There are bits of the linework that I am no longer satisfied with, but I’m trying to err on the side of finishing and sharing things rather than tweaking them obsessively.
Feel free to download and print this image for your own rituals, and to share it with attribution, but please do not use it for any commercial purpose.
“The image of Mercury, according to the opinion of the wise Apollonius, is the shape of a bearded youth holding a dart in his right hand. This is his shape.” Picatrix Book II, Chapter 10, Paragraph 31. (trans. Attrell and Porecca, 2019)
I shared this image with my Patreon supporters back in October, but never publicly due to illness (physical and mental) and exhaustion. I’m still working on perfecting my digital illustrations: finding a balance in between speed and perfection, mastering line weight and movement. It’s really nothing like the pen and pencil work that I’ve done for most of my life.
Please feel free to print this image out to use in your personal rites, but don’t reshare without attribution or use for any commercial purpose.
