Classicist Apostolos Athanassakis recently released a new edition of his English translations of the Orphic hymns—previously released in the 1970s and, to the best of my ability to determine, the first new translation since Thomas Taylor’s in 1792. I’ve been going over the hymns and notes for the last month, and using the hymns in my rituals for the last two weeks. I must admit, that I’ve been rather surprised by the results.
Firstly, the Athanassakis translation is every bit as different from the Taylor as I would have imagined: no anachronistic rhyming couplets, no 18th century euphemisms or evasions, no substitutions of Roman names for Greek. Because Classical scholarship has come a long way in the last two hundred years, I do not hesitate to assert that the translations are more accurate for reasons other than the brutal mangling needed to turn Koine iambic hexameter into English rhyming couplets. And, to my delight, my own translation of the Hymn to Phanes ends up looking pretty solid.
For worship of the Hellenic gods, the new translation is by far superior: epithets are better preserved, and Athanassakis pointedly maintained what he felt to be the religious feel of the texts. Dionysus, Phanes/Eros, Hermes, and Aphrodite have all responded well in my private rites.
For in/evocation of the Planetary powers, however, and to my extreme surprise, I have found the Taylor translations to yield much better results. This is partly because, however I may despise them aesthetically, rhyming couplets make great magic. This may also be partly because the Taylor translations have been so thoroughly incorporated into the Hermetic tradition, and thus provide better access to that magical current. Further, the actual textual differences between the texts(coincidentally or otherwise) align the Taylor translation more closely with the Planetary powers than with the divine mythology.
Thus, while I must strongly advocate that any Hellenic-flavored neo-Pagan invest in the Athanassakis translation, as well as anyone with a scholarly interest in the hymns, ceremonial magicians have no need to do so.
Since coming back to Indiana for the Spring semester, I have fired a shoal of sigils every week. The idea is that doing practical, results-oriented magic on a regular basis will, a) improve my mad magic skilz in a practice-makes-perfect sort of way; b) force me to be more creative with my sigil-making and sigil-launching techniques lest boredom undo my Will; c) proivide me with raw data for deterring which desires and which techniques go well together; and, finally, d) result in improved efficacy of any technique I might employ, as the universe becomes accustomed to bending to my will.
So far, the project has been going well. My “target” is a shoal of three to six sigils every Sunday morning, as part of my regular offering schedule. So far I have not actually made that target: half my launches have been Sunday afternoon or evening, the other half on Monday nights. Still: that’s progress.
The first week’s sigils were all aimed at personal outcomes: memory and discipline. The second were social: still trying to engineer myself a new lover here in Indiana. (High standards, highly specific notions of consent, a complicated life story, and an overabundance of undesirable near-misses make that more difficult than it might otherwise be.). The third were aimed at memory and discipline again: being where and when I say I’ll be, and getting my assignments done on time. The first two sets were done in what has become my most frequently employed method: drawing the sigils on a notecard and chanting “It is my will” at them until they get fuzzy. The third week was done using a freshly-consecrated mirror as a launching platform. That seemed to work very well, actually.
This week’s Work, however, had a different target which required an entirely different approach. My parents are embroiled in an inheritance dispute. Frankly, I should have intervened months ago, but it’s an adequately messy situation that, without any real brilliant inspiration as to how to intervene, I was more than a little afraid of collateral damage. Having been struck by a bit of that much-needed inspiration, though, what you see to the right are sigils drawn with planetary Kamea and empowered at the appropriate planetary hours this past Sunday. Basically, I dropped Saturn and Jupiter on the matter, by the logic that the two celestial god-kings were the best way to bring a legal dispute to a close.
Results, so far, have been mixed. My social and discipline sigils have been slow to manifest. Perhaps my chaos sigilization technique needs work. Perhaps it’s my launch technique. Or maybe I just need a bigger lever to fight my own nature. This Sunday’s planetary sigils, however, have already manifested: the situation has shifted from the lawyer saying “they should sign the paperwork soon” to the bank saying “the check is in the mail”.
The Ptolemaic geocentric model of the Universe according to the Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer Bartolomeu Velho (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have just completed three consecutive weeks of daily planetary conjurations, two of those weeks overlapping with the two phases of Rufus Opus’ Seven Sphere in Seven Days challenge. The results included several visions of the Planetary realms and a ridiculous boost in personal power, and culminated in the ability evoke planetary forces at will … and my first magic-induced migraine since I recovered from my blown a gasket eight years ago. Ultimately, it seems to have served as an initiatory culmination of last year’s ceremonial study.
When Rufus Opus made his challenge, I was already on my third day of planetary rituals prompted by my spirit-allies. Although that first Jupiter conjuration was relativity weak, things escalated quickly. I could see the group current flowing across the sky as I did my work, and I bathed in it. I caught glimpses of the Planetary Realms of the Sun, Mars and Mercury—powers I had not touched so successfully or so formally, if at all. I received ritual instructions from Saturn, and built on my relationship with the powers of the Moon.
The group took a break between Phases I and II of the work, but I continued in between: making my first foray into the Planetary realm of Venus and receiving further instructions on how to perform my conjurations even better—most significantly an upgrade for my Circle of Art and Triangle of Conjuration.
When Phase II began, I was rewarded with a powerful Solar initiatory experience—less than apotheosis, but more than dismemberment. Then the tone changed radically. Although I was able to make contact with each of the Planetary powers in turn, the effects felt anticlimactic after the visionary drama of the week before. I could certainly still feel each planet’s influence—in fact, I could feel it continuing to build throughout the day, particularly as the First Hour of Day passed from the Eastern time zone into Centeral, and as the Third Hour of Night came around. It was at this point that I found the discussion group on facebook to be particularly helpful, as others were able to point out technical differences between Phase I and II that I had not been able to perceive, and to confirm that I was not alone in this particular manifestation of effects They also reminded me that, within the Hermetic frame, the planetary powers are not so much places or forces (as I usually concieve them) but refracted lights emanating from God. RO, in particular, suggested that I take some time to look inward at the changes going on within my sphere; doing so revealed that, by Thursday evening, I had tapped into far more planetary power than I had realized.
Saturday, though, I went over the cliff. My final ritual left me filled with black light and white light. I bumped up against the edge of something, the limit of Saturn, and when I came back to my body full of that bi-colored light, I saw a six-winged figure looming over the current. Things have been quiet on the board and in those corners of the blogosphere since the project finished, and I think that whatever I caught a glimpse of (Iophiel?) might have borked some brains that got a better look.
As usual, I had performed my rites at the First Hour. Within a few hours, my head started to hurt. I thought it was psychic feedback from lunch on campus: things were a little strange over the weekend in the wake of a tragic accident involving several students. Come the Eighth Hour, though, the pain had escalated to the point where I could no longer function well enough to run the errands necessary for my birthday party. Fortunately, Aradia—in town for the party—was driving and able to get me home, where I promptly collapsed into bed with a full-blown migraine headache.
Ninety minutes later, I felt up to taking some painkillers, and was finally coherent enough to put two and two together: the psychic weather—no matter how nasty a college campus can be—was not enough to lay me out like that. It was Saturn that had pushed me over the edge from “magicially manic” to “magical migraine”. Looking to my aura, I concluded that it was too densely packed: I separated out the planetary power—not wanting to ground it altogether—and pushed it out to the edges. That felt better, so I pushed the edges out further. The further I pushed, the better I felt. When my aura was bigger than campus and the surrounding college-owned student ghetto, the pain was finally manageable. It finally disappeared about the time I pushed out to the city limits. That sort of “coverage” is unsustainable, of course, but the pain did not return as my aura deflated over the course of the evening.
The final Saturn ritual brought with it a sense of finality. Whatever it is that my spirit friends wanted me to get out of daily planetary rites … I’ve gotten. I can now channel planetary power at will, just as I can elemental power, though I’m still struggling with the personal consequences of hot-and-cold-running-Venus (just as a for instance), and half a week later, I’m still struggling to maintain my aura at a reasonable level. There have been no new migraines, but my energy level has been up and down like an EKG and requires too-frequent “maintenance”.
Clearly I had some unfinished business with the planetary powers that I began working with during the ceremonial experiment. That’s been fixed: I have now received my first initiation in the seven Planetary Powers, complete with dissolution, crippling agony, and even some ἱερῳ ἀναμιγνομενος. And I’ve also just been handed a brutal reminder of what happens when I let my magical practice get too high-octane.
So I’m taking a short hiatus from magic: doing just enough to keep from setting off the cold-turkey migraine. My Dark Moon rites have so far been minimal. I’m going to get back into more “pure” Chaos Magic pretty soon here, but I am definitely not fucking around with any more Hermetics until Mercury goes direct again.
But, before I fall further down the NaNoWriMo rabbit hole for a few days, I want to thank Rufus Opus and everyone in the Seven Spheres In Seven Days working group for the opportunity and the camaraderie. It was a mad ride, y’all, and I’m glad I didn’t do it alone. I know that I would have gotten even more out of it if I could afford RO’s Gates Rites (and I am not for a moment questioning that the years of practice that went into developing those rituals is worth $12 a pop: I just don’t have the scratch), or if I were capable of believing in the Ptolmaic/Hermetic cosmology as the Truth, not just aTruth. In the end, though, I got enough: initiated into Hermetics with a Solar immolation and Saturnian icepick to the brainpan.
On Sunday, the fifth of November, I cast my first curse. In the Hour of Saturn, I called upon the forces of Saturn to empower a sigil aimed at securing Todd Akin’s defeat in Missouri, and asked them to see to it that the election brought Todd Akin’s political career to an end. While the latter point has yet to be seen, Clair McCaskil took the congressional seat last night.
The following hour, that of Jupiter, I called upon the forces of Jupiter to empower a sigil aimed at securing the presidential election for Barrak Obama. He won the presidency by an electoral landslide: 332 to 206.
Obviously, I cannot claim sole responsibility for these events. But I think that myself and those others enchanting for these outcomes definitely had an influence.
The inspiration for these rites came to me as I was performing my weekend devotions, after my very successful invocation of the Sun. I drew up the sigils, drafted them onto note cards and duplicated them on my maps (the state and world maps, respectively), and waited for the appropriate hour. At that hour, I painted the appropriate sigil, and called on the Planetary Powers using the Circle of Art I had drawn up the day before. I then chanted “it is my will” over the sigil and lit a candle. Upon so charging the sigils, I lit them in the candle, burned them in my cauldron, and pushed the energy out into the world through the sigils on the maps.
My first political enchantment and my first curse all in one. And plans to Hot-Foot Powder a professor I hate, but who teaches a class required for my major.
Yeah, this is my brain on Chaos Magic.
Much like the one time I stole from an employer, there’s a certain cold liberation in giving up the moral high ground. When you can never again make a claim to ethical purity, you have more freedom to decide what standards you want to live up to.
I describe myself as a “witch” in part because of the ambiguity of it. A witch is neither good nor evil, but somewhere in the middle … or both, simultaneously. And yet I hold myself to these insane ideals of ethical absolutism.
Don’t I keep saying that anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for?
RO is always going on about how magicians are beyond ethics, beyond good and evil, because we can see further down the chains of events than mere mortals. On the one hand, this sounds like a lovely monotheist cop-out: “god is on my side, motherfuckers!” On the other hand, my Scorpio shadows whisper, “You do know you know better than they do. Do what must be done.”
I can’t decide if I feel dirty or powerful. Maybe a little bit of both.
I actually haven’t done today’s full Seven Spheres invocation: just my own morning planetary work. But the Lunar influence was strong with me this morning, and I hammered out a set of seven planetary invocations this morning over breakfast. Below is the first of them, which I won’t actually get to until next Sunday (obviously), but I look forward to performing the Lunar version this evening. Also obviously, this builds upon the Saturnine instruction I received over the last two weeks.
INVOCATION: PETTITION FOR ACCESS TO THE SUN BY WAY OF THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL
Build your altar and your Circle of Art as instructed by Saturn.
Perform the Titan’s Cross
Perform the Invocation Rite of the Pentagram
Kneel before the altar and light the first candle and fumigation.
Read the Orphic Hymn to the Moon
Light the candles on the Circle of Art and pour a libation
“I call upon you, O Archangel Michael whose sphere is the Sun,
You do not know me: I am Tieresias of the Obsidian Dream,
and I call upon you in the tradition of magicians dating back to Moses,
and in the name of Rufus Opus and the Seven Spheres Group.
By this seal I invoke you, and by the secret names of God
which have been handed down to me and which are inscribed there on.
That I might most fully participate in the rites Seven Spheres Group,
I ask that you lead me to the Gates of the Sun, and vouchsafe me entry.
Permit me a glimpse of Iophiel, he of the eighth sphere.
As I mentioned a bit ago, I’ve been participating in Rufus Opus mad (awesome) experiment Seven Spheres in Seven Days. Although the group has officially been on hiatus since the completion of Wednesday’s ritual, I have been continuing with daily invocations in accordance with the imperative laid upon me by my spirit-allies before RO posted his challenge. Also, the part where it’s just been too awesome to quit.
Because of the particular way in which Phase One of the Seven Sphres in Seven Days project cut across my own planetary practice, it has comprised two weeks of daily rituals for me. The whole series of rites have been mind-blowing, but yesterday’s Venus ritual and this morning’s Saturn rite were particularly impressive.
I had not attempted to reach the Sphere of Venus before this week. I did not make it so far up the Ladder of the Heavens before my patience with the phallic paradigms of my year dedicated to the study of Hermeticism came to an end.
The cold front that hit last week has robbed me of much (read: all) of my morning spunk and verve. It was all I could do to achieve consciousness in time for the dawn Hour of Venus. I printed and cut out the seals and talismans of the planet and its daimones; half-conscious, my work was sloppy, and will need to be redone more elegantly. Still, lighting candle and incense, reciting the Orphic Hymn to Aphrodite (8: the Natural Law of Harmony), and visualizing the planetary seal, I was granted a vision of the Realm. A verdant green landscape opened up before me, which I unfortunately had to leave leave quickly, as I did not have time for intense journeywork before class.
Unlike last Friday, when the lingering influence of Venus made it almost impossible to think over the maniacal screaming of my libido, my lust—though great—was secondary to an overwhelming sense of peace. My customary misanthropy, although far from silent, lost much of its bitter edge, and people who have been cold to me in the past warmed to my presence.
Last week’s Saturn ritual provided me a template to apply to my planetary conjurations which would provide me with better access to the Seven Spheres in Seven Days group current, which you can see in some of the images to the left. The conjuration employed the Talisman and Grand Seal at the center of the triangle formed by the seals of the Olympic spirit and planetary spirit and intelligence, and the lamen of the planetary angel on the altar. With all these things in place, candle and incense lit, Orphic hymn read and libation poured, I asked the angels of the planets to lead me to their planetary realms.
This morning’s ritual provided me with further and clearer instructions for my planetary magic: a double triangle, with the inner triangle pointing toward me, with the angelic lamen at the near point and candles on the back two; the outer triangle having the sigils of the Olypic spirit, the Spirit, and the Intelligence of the planet in the configuration I have been using so far, and the Grand Seal of the planet in the middle as I have been doing.
The images to the left, obviously, are a photojournal of my daily altars. Unfortunately, some technical difficulties with my phone and data uploading to both the internet and the computer ate more than half my photos. Below is the Circle of Art as provided to me by the forces of Saturn this morning.
I would love any input that the more traditional ceremonial magic who read my blog might have on this evolving aspect of my practice.
There is a theory which argues that “complaints” of being busy is actually a distinctly modern form of bragging. I don’t think that’s always the case, but it definitely is, here. Since my last full moon post, I have suffered a problem that probably every magical blogger is happy to have: I have been too busy doing magic to write about it.
I did two more nights of full moon magic after the first. The results were … not what I expected, but solid. Sunday night I went on a second visionary journey, and Monday I performed a series of offerings and fired a shoal of sigils.
The Seven Spheres in Seven Days group-work has gotten spectacular results. I’ve had time in the last two days to implement the instructions presented to me during my Saturn rite, brining my rituals that much closer to the ideal form of the Gates Rites. As such, I have completed my first Mars ritual and my most successful Mercury ritual to date. I’m very, very excited to start the second week tomorrow.
Last night, tonight, and tomorrow will be dedicated to Samhain. Last night’s visionary work was … potent, if not fruitful, and I did my divination for the coming year. Tonight will be offerings and a Bacchanal. Tomorrow will be more visionary work.
I will tell all these stories in good time, but ….
Tomorrow is also the start of National Novel Writing Month, which will devour every moment of my spare time. Accordingly, posts of substance may see a sharp decrease. Conversely, however, I’m going to try dabbling in hypersigils—my NaNo is going to be a combination pseudo-grimoire in the tradition of the Simonomicon, a magical narrative in the tradition of the Invisibles, and a weed-and-absinthe soaked memoire—and the results (both creative and material) may appear here.
Since I escalated my devotional/spirit-work practice by incorporating Jason Miller’s Rite of General Offering and getting back on top of my meditation practice, the spirits who hang around my life have had a lot to say to me. “Do this with your altar.” “Do that.” “That looks like a tasty offering.” Nothing mind-blowing, but definitely more than I used to get. My astral “hearing” is still pretty sketchy—everything comes to me as a sort of knowing, rather than something my language-centers process—but it’s getting better. Most interesting and timely of the various instructions I have received was the Sunday-morning admonition to add a daily component to my seasonal altar.
I did so faithfully Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It was pretty neat, the talismans that made up most of my daily altar definitely got a boost, and Wednessday my memory and linguistic abilities were through the fucking roof.
Thursday, though, was a perfect storm of insomnia, oversleeping, and discouragement. It was the second night that week that my sleep was insufficient and marked by bizarre dreams that I could not remember in the morning. I came across RO’s fabulous challenge/invitation … and was (oddly, in retrospect) so bummed that I hadn’t seen it the day before that A) spaced out that there were going to be more Jupiter hours that day, and B) almost gave up on the daily planetary magic altogether. Which is silly in all sorts of ways. I should have taken it as encouragement/an omen to get back on track, with everyone else doing the deal. I don’t have the Gates Rites (and missed the part about how to go about it without them in the second post), but fuck: I’d already been told to do the damn thing.
Then something happened that neverhappens: the clue phone rang AGAIN. Literally, this time. My friend Sthenno, whom I had thought I had somehow offended when she stopped returning my calls over the summer, called me up out of the blue, thirty minutes short of the (Nightly) Hour of Jupiter, to ask if I were doing the RO rites. “I am, now,” I said.
The ritual got me high. It was amazing. Even the election when I first charged my Jupiter talisman wasn’t that awesome in terms of visceral experience.
Friday morning I was back on track. Again, the ritual—consisting of no more than the arrangement of my altar, the lighting of a candle and stick of incense, and the pouring of a libation—got me super high … which was a bit of a problem, as I used the dawn Hour, and had to go to class. What was even more of a problem was the potent influence of Venus. Prior to that invocation, I had almost managed to put a lid on my haven’t-been-fucked-in-two-months libido. Ooops, there’s that out the window: all day Friday I was too horny to think. And I dropped a Venusian glamour bomb on some poor fellow students in the English office outside my Latin class, because I was too high on Venusian power not to pore breathe it into the atmosphere around me.
Despite the fact that I still hadn’t found the for-non-Gates-Rites-participants instructions, I was definitely tapped into the current. I could feel it. Can feel it still, for that matter.
Saturday morning, I was a little nervous about. I didn’t get to Saturnine work in last year’s ceremonial experiment, but I know that Saturn in Scorpio is fucking with many of my dearest loves in a pretty hardcore fashion. And while the ritual got me high, it definitely wasn’t the kind of fun the previous two rituals had produced. As a matter of fact, I was pretty reserved for the rest of the day, despite my attempt to turn a party I went to into a Bacchanal. But that was later: something much more interesting happened first. I didn’t just tap into the current of the ritual group: I saw it, stretching across the sky in a dark rainbow moving west to east. And it showed me what I need to do to tap into the current and participate more fully.
Let me say that again: the magical current Rufus Opus has set up for these weeks of planetary invocations showed me how to make more effective use of itself.
Unfortunately, because of homework and my Full Moon obligations (night two of three will start as soon as I finish this post), I was not able to fully implement the instructions I was given. At this point in the week, I will probably not do so before Thursday starts the second week cycle (for the sake of symmetry). But I have the Circles I’m going to use for the invocations. They’ve been stamped in my brain.
This morning was not quite as impressive, but damn that Solar high was nice. And today has been super, super productive in its wake.
This week’s rituals have definitely helped me level out some of the instability I’ve incurred by my interaction with the Chaos Current. In turn, I feel absolutely certain that without my Chaos Magick work I would not have gotten as much out of these planetary rites as I have. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to see the current of the workgroup the way I have.
For clarity’s sake: all my rites have been at the dawn hour, excepting the Jupiter Rite which I did at an hour of night. They have involved the construction of a mini-altar consisting mostly of talismans charged on previous occasions, the recitation of the appropriate Orphic Hymn from my Book of Art (which is picking up quite a charge of its own), and offerings of candle, port, and sandalwood incense. The summoning circle I was shown and the contemplation of the Seal will be added Thursday … hopefully I’ll have time to actually make those in the near future.
So let’s take that lesson to heart, folks: when the spirits talk, listen. Don’t be my fool ass and make them call you back twice. And if they actually bother to do so, be fucking grateful.
I have just completed the third week of my Project Null experiment. Some things have been settling down, others have been rearing their heads.
I’ve been escalating my daily banishing ritual a little bit, and doing better about my meditation, which has had a positive effect on the paranoia. Perfecting my sleeping tea and being ruthless about bedtime (“ruthless”, because my homework is suffering) have helped with the insomnia and the nightmares.
My patience with various frustrations is at a distinct low point. A class that I had hoped would be a fun challenge has, so far, turned out to be neither fun nor challenging, and another that should have been a coast-through is giving me trouble because the teacher seems to be suffering from part-timer syndrome. These are legitimate frustrations. My desire to set something on fire over them are just a little bit out of proportion. With that said: I’ve suffered from rage issues for my whole life, so this is nothing new to me. Stress makes me angry. This is probably related to the Chaos experiment only insomuch as my meditation practice is making it impossible to deny or sublimate the rage.
Over the course of the week, I pushed a little further in Stephen Mace, restarted reading Hine’s Condensed Chaos, read Carol’s Liber KKK, and re-read Gordon’s Sigils Reboot.
Meditation
For most of the week, my meditation practice was the best it had ever been. I was making five minutes or more at least once a day. I wasn’t necessarily having great insights—really, just the Abrasax thing—but my mind was getting less and less unruly. Then, Thursday, I fell off the horse for no reason. No meditation Thursday or Friday.
This morning and yesterday, it’s distraction city all over again. With the noted addition of a distinct buzz at the end of every meditation session, which is interesting and might be good or bad.
Magic
At the beginning of this experiment, I took a bit of a hiatus from active magical practice. I have begun re-incorporating magic into my practice, and the results have been decidedly mixed. I dove back in to magic head-first Monday, with the Mercury Cazimi election just before dawn followed by the Mass of Chaos B that afternoon to fire off some sigils. The first was a success; the second, not so much.
I made use of the Mercury election to recharge all my various Mercury talismans and to create a new language-learning talisman. Although the raw power of that election made it very easy for me to feel the dissonance between my retrograde natal Mercury and the planetary power, the enchantments went well. I have felt a distinct improvement in my ability to communicate with other humans (except over electronic media, which seems to be suffering an increased confusion, but there are a LOT of confounding factors making that correlation pretty blurry), and my comprehension of Greek and Latin does seem to be improving at a slightly swifter rate.
The Mass of Chaos B sigil launch was a qualified disaster. I had three desires: to have a lost set of keys returned to me by Thursday, to have an Amazon package that has been waiting in the dock for (I though) no good reason shipped that day, and to find money on the ground. The keys have still not been returned to me; Amazon has finally deigned to tell me that the reason my package didn’t ship is that The Sorcerer’s Secrets is currently out of stock; and I found a grand total of $0.06 on the ground this week.
So … I think I’m going to back up with my sigils. Try launch techniques which are a little more traditional. And hopefully aim my intentions a little better.
Meanwhile, the changes to my morning banishing rites have definitely left me feeling much more powerful. I’ve yet to see that improved sense of power translate into actual results, though.
Dreaming
The tea I’ve been using to help regulate my sleep schedule has really fucked my dream journaling. While on the one hand, my dreams have been vivid and interesting, on the other hand, I have been consistently woken up by the alarm which drives whatever I’ve been dreaming out of my head pretty much every time.
Have I mentioned before that dreamwork is not a native talent of mine?
Hopefully, the next batch of dream tea will cause me fewer problems: 2 tbs valerian; 1 tbs each white willow, chamomile; 2 tsp mugwort; 1 tsp spearmint. I will be brewing does of 1 tbs in 2 cups filtered water.
As you may note by looking to the right, I am a member of Christopher Warnock’s Spiritus Mundi mailing list. I’m not very active—I don’t know enough about traditional astrology to participate(1)—but I do like to take advantage of the elections he and his students are kind enough to share. Many of the folks on the Spiritus Mundi group, like myself, are too poor to create talismans of precious metals. So there’s a lot of talk about paper talismans. So much so, in fact, that Mr. Warnock has recently posted a page on the history and construction of paper talismans.
The prevailing wisdom on the mailing list is that paper talismans are good for 90 days. My own experience has been radically different: although my Jupiter talisman, made back in April, did require a bit of a boost over the summer, it is still going strong.
So as I gear up for Monday morning’s Mercury election (the last Hour of Night, just before dawn), I thought I would share the process that is working so well for me.
I start with two unlined notecards. I mark one as the front and one as the back: if I’m going to print them off (which I have done in the past) I’ll prepare everything the day before in an openoffice document(2); this weekend, as I’m out of printer ink and money, I’ll be hand-drawing them in pencil to be inked and colored at the electional moment. If I don’t already have an appropriate planetary incense on hand, I’ll gather the herbs and resins for that, as well, also to be mixed at the time of the election. Finally you need glue; I prefer rubber cement.
With your cards and images prepped, either digitally or by hand, you wait until the appropriate hour as taught in electional astrology, then print or ink the images. Write your legal and magical names on the backs of the cards—that is, what will be the “inside”. Blend or grab your incense that you will use to suffumigate the talisman. Trace the edge of one of the cards with your glue and sprinkle the incense blend inside it. Place the other card on top, make sure it seals all the way around. Suffumigate and incant as the ritual calls for. I also tend to finalize the concecration with a drop of Abramelin oil.
This is how I produce paper talismans that are still effective almost six months out. Checking and recharging these talismans is becoming a part of my Full Moon rites, along with my active sigils.
1 – I am, in fact, the exact kind of learn-at-my-own-pace system-hacker he despises. My saving grace is probably that I keep my damn mouth shut instead of demanding that he pontificate at my convenience.
2 – I’ll assume you know how to format the pages and everything yourselves to make that work. If not, there are message boards for that.
