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.