Talk about busy.

So, late last week, I conjured Michael the King of Fire again (as I referenced in my last post regarding the elemental familiar, which I’ll get to in a bit).  Got in contact with him successfully and all, which was great; fire’s a trippy element to work with when in its pure spiritual form, as I’ve found out.  It’s a complete lack of borders, finding that you feel immobile because you’re already everywhere at once, that kind of thing.  Pretty neat feeling, and suitable for what I’ve been reading and working with fire for.  I got Michael to bring to me Oriens, the prince of Fire, and this time around he agreed to initiate me into his mysteries and knowledge of manifesting fire.  He was congenial at first, but got progressively nastier and angrier (as was my original expectation of the dude) once I asked him about initiation.  He tried to dissuade me at first, saying that I’d have little time to goof off or be lazy due to the work I’d do, I’d risk getting burned, and so forth.  I was undeterred, and kept asking.  He acquiesced, and instead of that familiar pulling-in-embrace feel, I felt something like a coil of flame wrap around me and saturate me.  Oriens said something like “I’m his now” or something like that, which in retrospect was really kinda creepy.  I did ask to be initiated under his wing, after all, so whatev.  Michael didn’t express any worries.

Also, I asked Michael to be introduced to an elemental being of fire I might work with as a personal spirit or familiar.  I was introduced to a pretty cool dude who, apparently, likes to take the opportunity to make out with me (good kisser and flirter, so I don’t mind too much).  I suppose it goes without saying that he’s hot.

It’s a good thing I was able to do that last fire initiation when I did, because I began my work of consecrating my set of planetary talismans shortly afterward.  My original plan was to call up each of the seven planetary angels (for the first time, no less!) and ask them to consecrate, dedicate, etc. the talisman to be a manifestation of the power of their planet.  So I got my working altar set up to conjure Michael complete with a yellow tablecloth, got out my two-piece Table of Practice, lit a charcoal for the resin incense, performed the conjuration and…nothing happened.  No response, no sensation felt.  Feh.  Next Sunday it is, then.  Maybe I should try calling up Michael during a diurnal hour of the Sun?  We’ll see how that works.

The Unlikely Mage mentioned how he’s consecrating his talismans for the same sort of altar by saying the Orphic Hymn over a talisman while suffumigating it in incense over a period of several days (six for the Sun, nine for the Moon, etc.).  I’ve decided to use both approaches: talking to the planetary angel as well as saying the Orphic Hymn and Picatrix invocation of the planet over the talismans.  I’ll be pipelining the process to do anywhere from two to six consecrations a day, lighting a candle and incense and invoking the planets in their proper planetary hours.  However, UM’s approach and mine differ somewhat, since he’s using a set of normal candles, while all I have are white tealights.  So I got out the paint markers and got busy for the next week or two of offerings.

Yeah.  All in all, from September 4th through the 17th, I’ll have burned about 72 tealights (the image above lacks five, three of which were already burned on the 4th and two of which were already on my altar for the 5th), not including any others I may burn for genii locorum.  The white candles are offerings to my natal genius, the colored candles with symbols and seals written around the tin and are votive offerings to the planets, and all the rest will be used for the talisman consecrations.  There’s an extra stack of black candles for non-Saturday offerings to Saturn from the 11th through the 16th in preparation for a Saturn talisman election consecration I’m doing on the 17th.  Whatever.  I like fire and good-smelling things.  It’s a really good thing I stocked up on these sorts of cheap candles, because I cleared out half of my remaining supply by amassing all those for the next two weeks.

I guess Oriens wasn’t kidding when he said he’d put me to work with fire.

Although the conjuration with Michael on Sunday didn’t lead anywhere, I’ve had better results with Gabriel, Kammael (hoo boy), and Raphael.  Gabriel and Raphael were very faint, and I got mostly impressions and faint sensations instead of words or thoughts.  I felt the talisman become more…I dunno.  Numenous, I suppose.  It felt weightier and darkly glowier or something during their consecrations with the angels.

Kammael, though.  Dude.  What a strong reaction from him; not only did I get actual words from him, but I got clear images and everything.  It may have been my recent work with fire that helped this conjuration out, because it was amazing.  Kammael, in addition to consecrating the talisman I showed him, also showed me what the sphere of Mars and its power and energy were like.  It was like a combination of the best sex ever and being burned at the stake.  Later, as I was giving the leave to depart, Kammael was like “No you don’t, I’m not done with you yet“.  From there he showed me more of that Martian power, took me on a (somewhat forced) march through a similar landscape, and told me he’d be helping me with getting parts of my act together for more of the Work to come.

And I thought I was the one doing the conjuring.  Huh.

So, I’ve got a number more consecrations to do and a few more angels to conjure in the coming days.  I’ll need to make another trip to Ikea soon to get some more, though I don’t anticipate having to use this many candles in so short a time for a while. By the by, if you’re interested in seeing any of my altar setups (including my Table of Manifestation, now pretty much complete!), check out the Rituals page.  I’ve thrown up some pictures of altars I’ve constructed or set up for general or specific purpose.