Where were we?  We’re in the middle of discussing the early modern conjuration ritual The Art of Drawing Spirits Into Crystals (DSIC), attributed to the good abbot of Spanheim, Johannes Trithemius, but which was more likely invented or plagiarized from another more recent source by Francis Barrett in his 1801 work The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer.  Many who are familiar with it either read it directly from Esoteric Archives, came by it through Fr. Rufus Opus (Fr. RO) in either his Red Work series of courses (RWC) or his book Seven Spheres (SS), or came by it through Fr. Ashen Chassan in his book Gateways Through Stone and Circle (Fr. AC and GTSC, respectively).  I’ve been reviewing the tools, techniques, and technology of DSIC for my own purposes as well as to ascertain the general use and style used by other magician in the real world today, and today we can move on to other topics  Last time, we discussed the actual supplies and materials needed to make everything we’d need for the ritual.  If you need a refresher on what we talked about last time, go read the last post!

Since DSIC doesn’t offer a lot in terms of how to actually make, prepare, or consecrate, we need to take some initiative on our own to figure out how not only physically construct the things, but under what magical or astrological conditions and what consecrations need to be performed on each.  For this, we can look to the Heptameron, the Liber Juratus Honorii, the Key of Solomon (especially book II which gives plenty of consecrations for a variety of tools and supplies) and its other variants/sisters/antecedents like the Veritable Key of Solomon, the Secret Grimoire of Turiel (and its near-identical sister text, A Complete Book of Magic Science by Frederick Hockley), the Lemegeton, and elsewhere as needed, in addition to what Agrippa says about consecrations generally like we discussed last time (book IV, chapter 8).  What follows is my recommendations for procuring, making, and consecrating the tools and supplies called for by DSIC.

Note that I’m going to prescribe the same supplies and materials that DSIC does, but if you can’t access them due to scarcity or lack of affordability, either do what you can or make do with what you can.  Likewise, I’m going to focus on the DSIC-style tools, including the pedestal and table; if you want to substitute or use alternatives, try to take the same logic I’m using and apply it as best you can.  Also, I assume some things for granted, that you have (or know how to make or otherwise procure) some basic elements of the Western magical tradition, including holy water, holy oil, church incense, and the basic stuff that isn’t explicitly called for by DSIC but which are such basic, fundamental staples that we all end up using anyway.

Lamens
Based on Agrippa and other texts, we know that all spirits have a planetary affinity, and it’s this planetary affinity that we make use of when designing lamens by putting the name and seal of that planet or the angel presiding over that planet into the central hexagram.  Since the whole design of the lamen comes from Agrippa (book IV, chapter 10), which provides the design and process for making them, we should use that method: make the lamen in the day and hour of that planet when the Moon is increasing (between New and Full).  The lamen can be made of a metal associated with that planet, in fresh unused wax mixed with herbs or oils or dyes appropriate to that planet, or of clean new paper colored appropriately for that planet.  The overall shape of the lamen may be circular or made in a polygon whose number of sides corresponds to the number of that planet.

However, DSIC gives the option to have this always made on a “square plate of silver” in addition to paper; silver makes sense, since silver is the metal of the Moon, and the Moon may be used as a substitute for any other planet since the Moon is the lowest of the planets closest to Earth, receiving and sending all the rays of all the other planets; four makes sense, as well, as it’s the number of four directions and four elements of the world.  However, even if one makes a lamen for any planet in this way, I would still recommend that the planetary day and hour appropriate to the planet of the spirit be used, and not of the Moon, unless the spirit for whom the lamen is made is a lunar spirit.

No matter what, however, the lamen must be made so that it can be worn, hung from the neck so that the lamen itself covers the middle of the chest (about the area of the sternum).  The size should be large enough to be able to both clearly read and write all the names and symbols on it; 3″ or 4″ in diameter, depending on the size of the elements, should be sufficient.  The lamen should either be made to fit in a frame that can be worn as a pendant, or the lamen itself should have a hole or loop at the top for a string, strap, thong, chain, necklace, or other material that can allow it to be worn as such.  Though not required, I recommend the string/chain/etc. be washed in a small amount of holy water at minimum to at least cleanse and purify it.

Either way, create the lamen in the day and hour of the planet that is aligned with the spirit to be conjured while the Moon is increasing; as a rule, and this goes for everything else, if you don’t finish it in the same hour, you can either continue working on it (using the moment of starting the project as the major concern) or set it aside to continue (and maybe finish) for the next possible hour(s) that fulfills the same condition (keeping the whole creation from start to finish locked within the same planetary influences).

No consecration is given for the lamens in DSIC; they’re just to be put on immediately before tracing the circle.  Fr. AC references the Benediction of the Lamen found in the Secret Grimoire of Turiel, but properly speaking, that lamen in that text isn’t the same kind of lamen that we’re using for DSIC; if you want to apply it, go ahead, but I don’t think it’s necessary.  Considering that these lamens are effectively talismans of spirits in and of themselves, in order to properly consecrate them in the usual way, we’d need to first conjure the spirit—but that’s precisely the point of making the lamen in the first place!  This is a chicken-or-the-egg problem here, but Agrippa says that the lamens should be consecrated according to the same principles he usually gives: sprinkle with holy water, anoint with oil, suffumigate with incense, etc.  In that case, in the same timeframe as one makes the lamen, I would do just that: sprinkle it with holy water, anoint it with an appropriate kind of oil for the spirit or planet, suffumigate it in a bit of incense appropriate to that spirit or planet, and offer a prayer to God that the lamen be given the virtues and resonance of that spirit and planet for conjuration, that sort of thing.

Wand
The wand should be made out of ebony, and have written upon it in gold ink (whether directly on the surface or engraved and then filled in) the required names and symbols.  I recommend a custom length of the distance between one’s elbow and tip of the middle finger, but any convenient size (but ideally around 18″) may be used.  The thickness of the wand, according to Fr. AC, should be about the width of your index finger at it’s widest point; I don’t disagree, but use what you can, so long as it feels natural and not too clunky to hold or use.  Although a plain cylindrical rod is shown in DSIC and is the format used by Fr. AC for his wands, I like shaping mine so that there’s a “tip” at one end, either due to the shape of the wand or by attaching some sort of crystal point to it; this is up to you and your tastes, of course.

I can’t find any specific planetary affinity for ebony; it’s a wonderful wood that works with all powers powerfully, but its planetary affinity could be argued in different ways.  Since the wand is the tool of Hermēs, one could argue for an affinity with Mercury; as a scepter, Jupiter; as a replacement for the Solomonic sword, Mars; as a replacement for the Solomonic black-handled knife, and in alignment with its dark and hard properties, Saturn; considering the gold used for inscribing on the wand, the Sun.  Fr. AC suggests Mercury the most, given that the wand is the symbol of the magician and of Hermēs, and how ebony compounds all these natures into a single material; I agree with him, especially as well given that the wand and staff from the Key of Solomon (book II, chapter 8) recommends the first day and hour of Mercury for its making.  In that light, while any planetary time may be used for the creation of the wand, I would be most in agreement with using days and hours of Mercury.

No consecration of this tool is present in DSIC or Agrippa, though as Barrett says for the Heptameron sword in The Magus, and in agreement with general principles from Agrippa, there should be a prayer of consecration said over it.  To this end, I would recommend sprinkling the wand with holy water, anointing it with holy oil (if you’re gilding the wand with gold leaf, you could mix this into the size oil used as adhesive as well), suffumigating it with holy incense (church incense works, or incense compounded of frankincense, benzoin, myrrh, and dragon’s blood).  For such a prayer, we might turn to those of the staff/wand or the sword from the Key of Solomon as mentioned above (again, remember that the DSIC wand is a combination of the Solomonic wand and Solomonic sword!), or another or original such prayer might be recited instead.  For that reason, one might as well use the prayer for the Consecration of the Sword from the Secret Grimoire of Turiel.

Crystal
DSIC only says to “procure of a lapidary” such a crystal, and since most people aren’t expected to have access to raw quartz (or beryl) and the tools to shape and polish it, this makes sense.  However, there’s nothing stopping you if you do.

Given the crystal’s lunar nature, at least according to Agrippa (book I, chapter 7), it would make the most sense to either craft yourself or purchase (and ideally have brought home) the crystal in a day and hour of the Moon while the Moon is increasing.  Increasing, here, would be useful because, as the title of DSIC says, we want to “draw spirits into crystals”, so having a waxing Moon would be helpful for the overall vibe of the crystal.

If desired, as Fr. AC recommends in GTSC, the crystal may be washed ahead of time with a fluid condenser, herbal wash, oil, or other suitably appropriate material conducive to visions and manifestations.  A lunar fluid condenser (wash, etc.) may be used for all rituals, but when dealing with specifically non-lunar or Moon-unaffiliated spirits, substances appropriate to the planet of the spirit may be used instead and washed off after the end of the ritual, preferably with holy water and other mild cleansing substances.

No prior consecration is mentioned in DSIC for the plate, but instead, the crystal is consecrated on-the-fly in the course of the actual DSIC ritual; in addition to this, however, I would also recommend at least an sprinkling of holy water before using it in any way for the first time.

Plate
The plate is to be made of pure gold, if possible.  If pure gold is not available, then use what you can: gold-filled metal, gold leaf, gold paint, shiny brass, or something similar that gives a similar-enough effect, even if not ideal, would still be appropriate.  It being a plate, it should be made as thin as possible without losing stability or strength so as to properly support the weight of the crystal (which, being small, should not be too heavy), but thin enough to allow the crystal to almost completely protrude from both sides.

Due to the solar nature of gold, the plate should be made/purchased and engraved appropriately in a day and hour of the Sun when the Moon is increasing.  Even if you don’t use gold and replace this with something else (engraving the pedestal and applying gold foil, using wood, etc.), this should still be done at such a solar time.

However, because this is of a fundamentally different planetary nature than the (lunar) crystal, I would not recommend setting the crystal into the plate on a day and hour of the Sun necessarily.  Either a day of the Moon and hour of the Sun or a day of the Sun and hour of the Moon while the Moon is increasing would be better, in my mind, or (even more preferred) at the moment of syzygy between the Sun and the Moon (i.e. a New Moon, but not if it’s a solar eclipse).  Doing so would most harmoniously link the illuminating power of the Sun and the materializing power of the Moon.

However, if the crystal is being made to be kept separate from the pedestal, i.e. something disassembled, or using a different format of such tools entirely (e.g. using a different kind of horizontal stand or base for the crystal instead of supporting it vertically), then I would recommend the stand, &c. be made in the day and hour of the Sun with a waxing Moon all the same, and the crystal placed onto the stand at the start of the ritual process itself.

No consecration is mentioned in DSIC for the plate.  However, as the plate is not used separately from the pedestal, I would recommend conscerating this with the pedestal (if at all) once it’s set into place.

Pedestal
The pedestal is to be made from either ebony or ivory, if possible.  As noted in the earlier post, because the crystal size is specified to be pretty small, and given the DSIC illustration, the main face of the pedestal does not need to be large, either.  It should be just large enough to securely hold the plate with the crystal in place.  Following the DSIC illustration, the pedestal plate may be made in the churchhouse-type monstrance shape (as Fr. AC prefers to make them) with the hexagram with central Yod above the crystal, or one may take the Hockley approach from Occult Spells: A Nineteenth Century Grimoire for the more round, sunburst-type monstrance shape.  The pedestal does not need to be elaborate, just something sturdy enough to hold the plate with the crystal aloft.

How high should the pedestal be made?  High enough for the magician and/or scryer to comfortably look at it.  Fr. AC doesn’t seem to make them very tall, but the Hockley illustration seems to make it much taller, probably about 7″ or 8″ from base to top of the plate (including the small cross at the top), assuming a 1.5″ crystal.

As noted before with the wand, ebony’s best choice of planetary affinity may well be Mercury, and the only other instance of ivory I can find on Esoteric Archives besides DSIC is the Clavicle of Solomon, where it’s prescribed as the material for the handle of the white-handled knife (book II, chapter 8), which itself is to be made in the day and hour of Mercury while the Moon is increasing, so whether the pedestal is to be made out of ebony or ivory (or another material entirely), a day and hour of Mercury while the Moon is increasing is a good time to make it.  Alternatively, like when combining the crystal and the plate, one might use a combination of the days and hours of the Sun and Moon, as both these planets rule over the two eyes by which we see, which is the whole purpose of the pedestal.  In addition to those times, I would also recommend making this while the Sun is above the horizon during the daytime; I would argue, further to make this while the Sun is setting (hours 7 through 12) to signify the “drawing down” of spirits into the crystal and triangle.

No consecration is mentioned in DSIC for the pedestal, nor do I personally think one is needed.  However, given the pedestal’s role as a DSIC-equivalent to the Catholic monstrance, one might use the Blessing of a Monstrance or Ostensorium from the Rituale Romanum as a basis for saying such prayers of consecration, in addition to washing it with holy water, anointing it with oil (especially on the engravings on the plate), and suffumigating it with holy incenses like frankincense.  This might be done as one sets the crystal into the plate, if it wasn’t done before the plate was set into the pedestal.

Table
DSIC only tells us what needs to go on the table and the general organization for arranging them, and nothing about its material or size.  Honestly, use whatever material you find comfortable and useful for this: some good sturdy wood is always a good choice (Fr. AC recommends oak, but I don’t think it matters), but polished stone, pure unused wax, clean unused paper or parchment, or any other material will work.  You could even just draw this out in chalk or charcoal if you wanted, but taking inspiration from the Liber Juratus Honorii for the Sigillum Dei Aemeth as well as the use of wax tables from the Ars Almadel of the Lemegeton, wax might be the most ideal and traditional material, but it’s honestly up to you.  I just recommend whatever good, sturdy wood you can find.  Ebony might be ideal to match the ebony pedestal and ebony wand, but it’s not necessary; the most important part of the table is the actual design itself.

As for the size, the table should be made big enough to accommodate all the things that need to be written upon it clearly and neatly, and such that the base of the pedestal (or other stand) for the crystal can fit comfortably within the inner triangle of the table without crossing the lines of the triangle; we want to keep the physical contact of the thing holding the crystal, i.e. the temporary body/vessel of the spirit, as confined as possible within the physical bounds of the triangle.  Plan accordingly based on your pedestal or other stand for the crystal.

As an alternative to making the table using a round piece of wood (or stone, or wax, or whatever), consider that DSIC only ever calls this piece of equipment “the table on which the crystal stands”.  There’s nothing saying that this cannot be an actual table’s surface, such that, if you wanted, you could take an actual table (side table, coffee table, bar table, dinner table, shelf, etc.) and engrave/paint/write the necessary elements directly into/onto that surface.  This is up to you, whether you have the space to dedicate for a permanent DSIC altar or whether you want something smaller, more flexible, and more manageable to move around onto different surfaces as needed.  Because I don’t like the idea of having large pieces of furniture that are hard to move and store and not in constant, active use, I prefer the portable table method, but this is up to you.

Additionally, nothing is said about how permanent the markings need to be.  While it would be best to go the high-quality option of engraving, woodburning, painting, inlaying, or gilding the design onto the table material (whether a portable disc or an actual tabletop’s surface), you could make a temporary one on-the-fly with consecrated chalk or coal.  Heck, if you were in a rush, there’s nothing saying you couldn’t just print out a table onto paper and use that for on-the-fly, gotta-do-this-now conjurations.  It’s not ideal, but it is absolutely an option.

Due to the multiplanetary nature of the table, I don’t think it needs to be made in any one kind of time or day or hour or anything like that, nor can I find any sort of recommended time for other similar devices like the Sigillum Dei Aemeth or the Table of Practice from the Ars Paulina, though the Ars Almadel recommends the days and hours of the Sun.  I don’t think that’s necessary, honestly, but it’s not a bad idea.  Likewise, given that the purpose of the table is to bind spirits given the triangle, one might use days and hours of Saturn (which is also placed over all the other planets) instead.  All that said, regardless of when you might make the table, I do like making things in general while the Moon is waxing, and having the Moon waxing would help to “draw spirits into crystals” just as said before.

No consecration is mentioned in DSIC for the table, nor do I personally think one is needed.  If nothing else, I think a preliminary sprinkling with holy water and a light amount of suffumigation with holy incense of the table would be more than sufficient.

All the same considerations for the table apply if you choose to eschew the separate pedestal and table approach for a combined Table of Practice approach.

Ring of Solomon
Following the example of both the Lemegeton Goetia as well as Barrett’s earlier illustration of magic tools for use with the Heptameron, the ring should be made out of silver and sized appropriately for the little finger of the right hand.  The ring should have on the front (whether the band itself, a bevel, or a gemstone) a hexagram with either a central dot in the center of it (🔯, the classic Seal of Solomon) or, following the inspiration of the DSIC symbols, a central Yod in it. If a gemstone is used, anything of a solar or fiery nature would be ideal, with carnelian or sunstone being most preferred.

The ring should be made while the Moon is increasing, preferably in hours and days of the Sun, or at a suitably appropriate solar election.

Taking the Lemegeton influence a bit further, and in agreement with Fr. AC, if one wishes to have further inscriptions on the ring, then either “Tetragrammaton” or יהוה should be engraved on the inside of the band, with “Michael” and “Anaphexeton” on the outside of the band (or, in Hebrew interpreting “Anaphexeton” as “Tzabaoth”, מיכאל and צבאות).

No consecration is given for the ring in most texts, but if we look at some of older texts (e.g. Testament of Solomon, Veritable Key of Solomon, etc.) as well as what Agrippa says about rings generally, it might be best to consecrate the ring by sprinkling it with holy water, anointing it with holy oil, suffumigating it with frankincense and other solar incenses all in the day and hour of the Sun with the Moon waxing.  The prayer before the exorcism of Astaroth from the Veritable Key of Solomon could be used here for this (translation by Stephen Skinner):

O Lord God who created everything out of nothing, and foresaw them before they existed, and crowned us with honor and glory and set us over the works of your hands, and subjected all things under our feet, all sheep and oxen, and over this most sacred word may you always be blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

Alternatively, the various prayers from the different versions of the Hygromanteia might be used for consecrating the ring, although the rings from that line of Solomonic texts are of a different nature and style.  However, in general, it seems that the ring is consecrated automatically by construction, so beyond sprinkling/anointing/suffumigating, anything more would be up to you.

Incense
DSIC says nothing about the types of incenses to be used, so we can default to whatever blends we want that are in agreement with the planet of the spirit we’re calling upon.  Fr. AC gives a bunch of such lists in GTSC, but you can use whatever you want.  In general, frankincense is always a recommended default if you can’t get anything more specific than that.  Whether you want to use self-igniting incense like sticks or cones, loose incense on self-igniting charcoal, or loose incense on a burning flame is up to you and not really important to the practice of DSIC.

The incense is consecrated on-the-fly in the course of the ritual.  However, I would recommend sprinkling the incense with a very small flick of holy water immediately before reciting their consecration.

Vessel for Incense
Although the DSIC illustration gives a depiction of a stake-like “tripod” that may be held or thrust into the ground, which agrees with the designs given in Turiel and Complete Book of Magic Science, this (a) is unwieldy as most people aren’t going to do many conjurations outside anymore unless you have a specific need for it (b) can’t be put safely on a stable or solid floor (c) is awkward and tiring to hold (d) assumes you’re going to be using loose incense to be burnt on a source of sufficiently high heat enough to melt and burn them.  None of these assumptions are great to make anymore as a necessity, given the types of incense we have easily available to us nowadays and given the fact we tend to do conjurations inside on hard floors, so a different kind of brazier or incense vessel might be better instead.  Use whatever you have that’s convenient: a tripod with fireproof bowl (like what Fr. AC uses), a simple incense brazier, a stick holder, whatever.

No consecration of these is given in DSIC or any related text; incense is consecrated on-the-fly in many Solomonic texts, but that doesn’t seem to apply to the incense.  If the vessel is one made of iron or steel, you could use the consecration of the needle or other iron instruments from the Key of Solomon (book II, chapter 19) in a day and hour of Venus (?!) (or of Jupiter, when the Key of Solomon says to begin making the instruments but not finish them, or of Mercury instead of Venus according to one manuscript) or, more simply than that, a day and hour of Mars.  Mars might be good in general, since the purpose of the incense vessel is to support some sort of combustion to consume the incense.  More generally, you could just sprinkle the vessel with holy water before its initial use.

Candles
DSIC says to use “two holy wax lights”, which mandates two candles over any other source of flame-based illumination (like oil lamps).  Since most people nowadays use candles anyway with oil lamps being far rarer, this is fine and acceptable for modern practice (and is an indication of the relative modernity of DSIC).  If you wanted to be fancy about it, like Fr. AC suggests, you could use pure beeswax for them, but any wax would be fine, so long as the wax was new and fresh and the candles not previously burned for any prior work or need.  I personally recommend white or uncolored plain wax for this for general workings, as it also ties in well with the silver candle holders that are prescribed for their use, with white being both a color of the Moon and appropriate for all works for all planets.  Regardless, two candles should be used and prepared accordingly.

However, as Fr. AC says, you could switch them out for other candles colored appropriately for the planet aligned with the spirit to be conjured, if you want.  Frater AC also suggests that the candles, if to be used specifically for a particular planet, may also be anointed with an appropriate planetary or angelic fluid condenser, or oil, or some other substance to further align the candles to the spirit to be called in the conjuration.  I don’t like that approach, personally, and would rather add a number of smaller candles to surround the table and crystal in a number and color appropriate to that planet, both for extra light and as offerings, and anointing those instead.

Because DSIC says that the candles should be “holy”, this is where consecration for them is mandated, but no consecration is given.  The Key of Solomon gives a reasonable consecration of candles (book II, chapter 12), which is what I base my own consecration method on, to be done in the day and hour of Mercury while the Moon is waxing.

Candle Holders
The holders for the candles should be made of silver or otherwise silver-plated metal; barring that, any similarly high-polish, reflective, smooth candlesticks of a similar appearance would work fine, so long as they can hold the candles upright in a stable and fireproof way.  That’s basically it.

However, the Secret Grimoire of Turiel and Complete Book of Magic Science show similar candlesticks, much taller in height, one of which has the Tetragrammaton engraved on the base in Hebrew (יהוה), the other the name “Saday” in Latin script.  These same names in any combination of script (יהוה and שדי, Tetragrammaton and Shadai, etc.) may be used.

No consecration of these is given in DSIC, Turiel, Hockley, Heptameron, or other Solomonic texts.  However, an initial washing or sprinkling with holy water is recommended before their initial use.

Book of Spirits (Liber Spirituum), Pen, and Ink
We already discussed the nature of the Liber Spirituum, so between the physical description given in DSIC of it being made about 7″ and from pure white, unused, new paper (or vellum, or parchment, or whatever), I would most recommend the consecration process given as the first option by Agrippa (book IV, chapter 9).  Fr. AC gives a more thorough description of this in GTSC, in which he also references the Veritable Key of Solomon and other Solomonica.  Follow those instructions; I don’t need to explain them here, besides that they should be followed.

With such a consecrated Liber Spirituum, it would be ideal to have an appropriately-consecrated pen and ink.  For this, the Key of Solomon once again provides a wonderful consecration, whether to use on its own or use as a base for a derived consecration (book II, chapter 14).  The ink may also be consecrated appropriately, and may either be made general for use with all spirits, or may be made in special ways for each of the seven planets (such that you’d have a Mars ink, a Saturn ink, a Jupiter ink, etc.).  Recipes for these may be found elsewhere.

But, if you’re taking the simpler approach more of a Commentarium Spirituum, a record of conjurations rather than a proper Book of Spirits, then it can just be as simple as a new, unused notebook, or as fancy as a unique custom-bound journal.  Sprinkle it with holy water and flip the pages through some frankincense, if you want.  As for the pen, I recommend that you just use a new ballpoint pen of your liking; you can use the aforementioned Key of Solomon-style consecration if you want, or just do the same sprinkling/suffumigation with incense and be done with it.  Both the notebook and pen would most reasonably be consecrated in days and hours of Mercury while the Moon is increasing, just as the Key of Solomon instructs.  However, even with so little done for them, both this notebook and ballpoint pen are still considered consecrated, so they shouldn’t be used for mundane purposes after they’re consecrated.

Either way, Liber or Commentarium, keep it safe and free from inspection by the eyes of other people that you don’t explicitly trust.

Circle
DSIC doesn’t say what the circle should be drawn upon, with what it should be drawn, or how big it should be drawn.  Obviously, the circle should be on the ground somehow, but depending on your approach and the environment in which you’re working (outside, inside, hard floor, carpet, etc.), you might take a different approach.  You could use a tarp that you paint the circle upon, perhaps using extra bits to temporarily cover the empty quadrant for the spirit information, or paint it on in temporary/washable paint or ink that can later be washed out.

However, if you’re doing this on a hardwood floor or otherwise firm surface, and have the space and means to do so, then according to Agrippa (book IV, chapter 10), you would draw the circle directly on the ground in consecrated coal, though chalk would work as well.  Consecrating writing materials of this sort could be as simple as just sprinkling them with holy water and suffumigating them in frankincense or church incense, though I have my own method of consecrating chalk based on Key of Solomon consecrations for ink and pens that I’d prefer to use.  If you’re doing this outside on soil, then you’d inscribe the circle; given how we don’t have a dagger here for that purpose like what we’d use in the Key of Solomon or other Solomonica, the next best choice available to us if we don’t want to introduce a dagger into the ceremony would be using the wand itself.  This makes sense, especially as the wand is the DSIC replacement for the Solomonic sword, and given how Agrippa says to use the sword to inscribe pentagrams or triangles on the ground, and given how the wand is supposed to at least trace the DSIC circle, this is a natural use for the wand.  If you didn’t want to use the wand, however, then we might introduce a dagger into our DSIC methods, such as that from the Secret Grimoire of Turiel or the black-handled knife from the Key of Solomon (book II, chapter 8).

There are different diameters given in different grimoires; some say 9′ in diameter, others say 9′ in radius (meaning 18′ in diameter!), whatever.  Make the circle large enough for you and your needs, taking into account how much space you have available, whether you have a scryer with you, whether you need a table in the circle with you for supplies, whether you plan on spinning or lying down, etc.

The circle is consecrated in the process of the DSIC ritual by tracing it with the wand with the right hand, presumably (but not explicitly) clockwise, while reciting a short prayer.  Unlike the process described in the Heptameron or in Agrippa, DSIC does not say that one should sprinkle the space with holy water before entering it; I personally like adding in this approach, though it’s not strictly necessary according to DSIC, but one may also sprinkle the whole of the ritual area (both inside the circle and outside it) as a single whole temple space before even the first proper prayer of DSIC is said, reciting either Psalm 51:7 (as in the Heptameron) or 2 Chronicles 16:14-42 (as per Agrippa).

Oof.  I don’t like to make single posts this long (clocking in at around 5900 words!), but I figured this was the best way to get all this out at once in one fell swoop.  We’ll pick up next time on some other concerns leading up to implementing the DSIC ritual.

Where were we?  We’re in the middle of discussing the early modern conjuration ritual The Art of Drawing Spirits Into Crystals (DSIC), attributed to the good abbot of Spanheim, Johannes Trithemius, but which was more likely invented or plagiarized from another more recent source by Francis Barrett in his 1801 work The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer.  Many who are familiar with it either read it directly from Esoteric Archives, came by it through Fr. Rufus Opus (Fr. RO) in either his Red Work series of courses (RWC) or his book Seven Spheres (SS), or came by it through Fr. Ashen Chassan in his book Gateways Through Stone and Circle (Fr. AC and GTSC, respectively).  I’ve been reviewing the tools, techniques, and technology of DSIC for my own purposes as well as to ascertain the general use and style used by other magician in the real world today, and today we can move on to other topics  Last time, we discussed the form and function of the magic circle and its likely Heptameron-based origins.  If you need a refresher on what we talked about last time, go read the last post!

I honestly didn’t mean to make this long, or this wordy, of a series of posts; what I thought I could simply discuss in a single post has (so far!) become eleven posts with about 40,000 words (more like 44,000 if you include all the quotations).  And we haven’t even gotten to the actual ritual part yet of DSIC; we’ve just covered the tools and implements of the ritual!  Holy yikes.  Still, before we get on to the ritual itself, there is one more tool-related thing I wanted to discuss: how to actually create and consecrate (where needed) all the implements of DSIC.

So, at this point, we know what we need, right?  According to DSIC, we need the following tools, supplies, and general bits of equipment:

• crystal ball
• pedestal to support the crystal
• table to support the pedestal (four kings, planetary stuff, organization)
• two “holy wax lights”, i.e. consecrated candles
• two silver candlesticks to support the candles
• a brazier or other form of vessel for incense, as well as incense and a source of combustion for it
• a magic circle
• a wand
• a ring of Solomon
• a lamen for the spirit we’re conjuring (design, filling in)
• a Book of Spirits, with pen and ink

These are all the implements we need according to the text of DSIC.  However, unlike other texts such as the Key of Solomon or Lemegeton, instructions for preparing all the above are badly specified: where specifications are given at all, some are extremely sparse while others are pretty detailed.  We did touch on some of the designs, specifications, and constructions of the above in our earlier DSIC posts, but before we get onto how to actually use all these things, this would be a good time to actually specify what we can, backed up with other sources like what’s in Agrippa’s Fourth Book or other texts.

Okay, so, what do we know from DSIC about the size, materials, and processes used to make everything?  First, let’s remind ourselves once more of our old friend, the DSIC illustration:

We’ve already gone over the designs, inscriptions, and the like for everything in earlier posts, so we can ignore those for this post.  Let’s focus instead on the materials and overall form of the materials as DSIC gives them.  Where I say “engraved” below, this may also be interpreted as “written”, “gilded”, or “inscribed”, depending on the materials to be used.

• Crystal: quartz, about 1.5″ diameter, spherical, as clear as possible.
• Plate: pure gold, size not stated (but likely about 2.3″ diameter based on image), circular (according to image), engraved on the front and back with divine names and symbols.
• Pedestal: ebony or ivory, size not stated,  shaped and engraved like in image.
• Table: materials not stated, size not stated, shape not stated.
• Ring: materials not stated, size not stated, shape not stated (but likely that from The Magus‘ earlier illustration).
• Wand: black ebony, size not stated, shaped and engraved as in image.
• Lamen: materials not stated, size not stated, shape not stated, engraved as in image.
• Circle: materials not stated, size not stated, shaped and engraved as in image.
• Candles: wax, size not stated, must be “holy”
• Candlesticks: silver, size not stated, shaped as in or approximated by image.
• Brazier: materials not stated (though must be fireproof), size not stated, shaped as in image.
• Liber Spirituum: pure white new/unused, vellum or paper, about 7″ long, shape not stated.
• Pen: materials not stated, size not stated, shape not stated.
• Ink: materials not stated.
• Incense: materials not stated.

We don’t have a lot to go on here; DSIC leaves so many of these objects badly specified, if at all, but just says that we need them.  As a result, many people will have different interpretations of what needs to be done and now much work or style needs to go into all these things, as well as taking into consideration availability and cost of some of these tools and implements.  This goes doubly for other things that we might expect to see, based on other Western grimoires or Solomonic literature: robes, crowns, specific types of incense, and the like.  We just don’t have a lot.  We could bring in more things, though it wouldn’t necessarily be “strictly DSIC”, or we could use variants of the things, like using the actual tripod-style vessel for incense that Fr. AC uses instead of the stake-shaped one from the DSIC illustration, , or substituting the specific pedestal from the DSIC illustration with the one we saw from Frederick Hockley’s Occult Spells: A Nineteenth Century Grimoire.

Still, we know enough to get started.  Knowing what the ritual text of DSIC prescribes to use as tools, implements, and supplies is all well and good, but because this is a ritual text we’re discussing, and one that falls more-or-less within the Western grimoire and Solomonic traditions, we can’t talk about tool construction without discussing tool consecration; we can only get but so far if we discuss the purely physical materials involved without discussing how to not just make them but prepare them in a way appropriate for our needs.  Granted, not everything necessarily needs to be made in a magical or spiritual way, but it sure helps if it does.  This is the essence of consecration.

First, what do we mean by consecration?  The word itself literally means “make or declare sacred”, which seems straightforward enough, but how is this thought of from an occult standpoint?  Agrippa goes on at length in his Fourth Book on the topic (book IV, chapter 8), which is pretty well-phrased, in my opinion, so let me just offer a summary of what he says here so as to spare everyone the bother of an unnecessarily long quote:

• All instruments and things used for magic should be consecrated.
• Consecration is achieved through the power of the person performing the consecration and the virtue of the prayer used for consecration.
• The person performing the consecration must live their life in a holy way and must possess the power of sanctification (i.e. consecration), both of which are achieved through “dignification and initiation”, and must also have a strong faith in both.
• The prayer used for consecration must be suitably holy for the purpose, and such holiness may be derived in one of three ways:
  • From one’s own divine inspiration
  • From the power transferred to such a prayer by initiation or ordination into a spiritual tradition
  • From the sanctification and sanctity of calling upon, remembering, or referring to other things that are holy or done in a holy way, and may be related to the thing presently being consecrated.
    • For water: how God placed the Firmament in the “midst of the waters”, how God placed the font of water in Paradise from which came the four holy rivers to water the whole Earth, how God sent forth the flood to destroy the Nephilim, how God manipulated the waters of the Red Sea during the Exodus of the Jews, how Moses drew forth water from a stone, etc.
    • For fire: how God made Fire to be an instrument to execute justice and punishment and vengeance and expiation of sins, how God will command a conflagration to precede him when he judges the world, how God appeared to Moses in the form of a burning bush, etc.
    • For oils and perfumes: how God decreed that the holy anointing oil be made and kept and used, how the name “Christ” itself indicates anointing, how the two divine olive trees produce oil for the lamps that burn continually before the face of God, etc.
    • For candles and lamps: how the altar of God contains a sacred fire for sacrifice, how there are seven lamps that burn before the face of God, etc.
    • For a circle or place: the sanctification of the Throne of God, Mount Sinai, the Tabernacle, of the Covenant, the Holy of Holies, the Temple of Jerusalem, Mount Golgotha, the Temple of Christ, Mount Tabor, etc.
    • For swords: how a sword was divinely and miraculously sent to Judah of the Maccabees, etc.
    • For books, drawings, writings, etc.: how God sanctified the Tablets of the Ten Commandments, how God sanctified the Old and New Testaments, the sanctification of the Law and of Prophets and of Scriptures, the Testament/Book/Knowledge/Wisdom of God, etc.
• Some consecrations make use of divine names, holy seals, sacramentals of the Church, and other apparati of divinity to lead to a general effect of sanctification and atonement.
• Every consecration should make use primarily of consecrated water, oil, fire, and incense.
• Every consecration should be performed in the presence of some source of light, preferably from one or more consecrated candles (literally “holy wax-lights”, note the phrasing!) or lamps.
• Every consecration of things that are profane, polluted, or defiled in any way should be preceded first by an exorcism and atonement in order to make them sufficiently pure so as to better receive the virtue of consecration.
• Every consecration should be followed by a blessing upon the object, with the breath passing the lips (i.e. either spoken aloud or silently so long as breath is flowing).
• Every consecration should be performed with one’s own holiness, authority, license, and need in mind, all performed earnestly and intently.

So much for the general ideas and notions.  In addition to the things to be remembered for a variety of consecrations, Agrippa also gives a few specific rules, too:

• When consecrating a circle or other ritual space, the Prayer of Solomon at the Dedication of the Temple (2 Chronicles 6:14-42) should be recited while sprinkling the area with holy water and burning sacred incense.
• When consecrating instruments and “all other things whatsoever that are serviceable to this Art”, they are to be sprinkled with holy water, suffumigated in sacred incense, anointed with holy oil, sealed “with some holy Sigil”, and blessed with prayer, after having commemorated things that were made or done in a holy way as noted above.

And, moreover, he describes two other methods of consecration in addition to the processes and methods given above:

• “Superstitious” consecration, by which the rite and act of consecration or collection of any sacrament in the Church is transferred to that thing which we would consecrate.
  • This is a little unclear to me, but it seems like when an object either comes in contact with something that has been duly consecrated by someone with the power to do so (e.g. touching a ritual knife with a consecrated Host of the Eucharist).
  • Alternatively, this could be when something is consecrated “by virtue of” some sacrament (e.g. “by the virtue of my baptism, may this dagger be baptized and made holy and fit for divine works”).
• Vows, oblations, and sacrifice also produce a kind of consecration, given that they are representative of a pact or exchange of power and resource between the one who gives and the one who receives.
  • Whenever we dedicate something with intent and purpose, the thing becomes consecrated.
  • Examples include both physical things like incense, oils, rings, and talismans, as well as immaterial things like sigils, prayers, enchantments, pictures, and so forth.

Agrippa mentions at the end of this section in his Fourth Book that many of these topics about consecration are those “of which we have largely spoken in our third book of Occult Philosophy”, and it’s true; book III, chapter 62 basically touches all of the above, but pretty much everything from chapter 54 (“Of cleanness, and how to be observed”) to chapter 64 (“Of certain religious observations, ceremonies, and rites of perfumings, unctions, and the like”) are useful to read here for more information on how to perform these types of ceremonies and works.

But, on top of all that we get from Agrippa’s books (which is good at a high-level but poor for specific implementation), we also can build upon the vast majority of Solomonic and other Western grimoiric/magical literature which contains specific rites, prayers, exorcisms, and benedictions to be used for a variety of the tools called for in DSIC.  In addition to scouring for whatever we could get from the rest of Francis Barrett’s The Magus, of special note to us would be those of the Heptameron, the Liber Juratus Honorii, the Key of Solomon (especially book II which gives plenty of consecrations for a variety of tools and supplies), the Secret Grimoire of Turiel, and to a lesser extent, the Lemegeton, but I’m sure that there are various other texts that we could draw on for what we would need.

That being said, DSIC doesn’t really prescribe consecrations for many of the things that we need in the ritual, or when they do (especially the “two holy wax lights”), no consecration is given.  The way I think of it, there are three reasons for this:

1. Some things are consecrated ahead of time, and DSIC just doesn’t specify them (e.g. the candles).
2. Some things are consecrated “on the fly” in the process of the ritual itself (e.g. the crystal and the circle).
3. Some things are consecrated “automatically”, whether by the natural virtues of the substances and materials from which they are made, or in the process of constructing them by virtue of the things (especially holy names, holy sigils, seals of spirits, etc.) written, inscribed, or engraved upon them.

And, when it comes to your approach to consecration, there are three ways you can go about it:

1. Strict approach: if the text doesn’t say to do something, don’t do it.  Conversely, if the text says to do something, do it.
2. Lenient approach: if the text doesn’t say to do something, you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, but you can bring in influences from other texts if desired.  But, if the text definitely says to do something, do it, at least as best as you can.
3. Free approach: like the lenient approach (if the doesn’t doesn’t specify something, you can do something if you want to anyway), but if the text does say to do something specifically, you can take it or leave it, or substitute with another method or construction instead.

The thing about the free approach, even though the way I phrased it might raise some hackles or elicit some sort of immediate “ugh, newbs” response, is that it’s probably the most common approach by far, at least in some cases, because of how bad a job DSIC does at specifying most things.  Consider the pedestal: most people just omit it and fold the design elements of it into the table to produce a Table of Practice, which doesn’t properly match up with DSIC anyway, but which works all the same, as well as the fact that most people don’t bother with a Liber Spirituum or ring of Solomon.  Additionally, though DSIC (and all its predecessors and contemporaries) was written in a heavily Christian or Abrahamic occcultural sphere, many people tend to omit some of the phrasing or change it so that it’s least starkly Christian, or they’ll replace certain names with others to make more Hermetic or qabbalistic sense (e.g. using the divine name Shaddai El Chai in the conjuration itself instead of “blessed and holy Tetragrammaton” when calling upon spirits of the Moon, since that divine name is used for the sephirah Yesod, associated with the Moon).

If one were to take a grimoire-fundamentalist or grimoire-purist approach, then DSIC might be a disappointing text, because it leaves so much unspecified that goes against so much of what we’re used to in a complete grimoire.  For that reason, the strict approach becomes the least satisfying option to take, with the lenient approach becoming something more like what we see Fr. AC taking in GTSC.  For instance, Fr. AC anoints his crystal with an appropriate fluid condenser, references the “benediction of the lamen” and the invocations for the days of the week from the Secret Grimoire of Turiel (specifically from Frederick Hockley’s A Complete Book of Magic Science) as well as using the weekday prayers from the Heptameron as the oaths for the seven planetary angels,  and gives plenty of tips on preparation, purification, and the like—none of which are found in DSIC, but which Fr. AC finds it beneficial to do regardless so as to fill in the gaps left behind by DSIC.  In this “lenient” approach (“lenient” only in the sense of bringing in more things to DSIC than are strictly present), we’d want to do more consecrations ahead of time than simply relying on on-the-fly consecrations for the few things that are made that way, or than by relying on automatic consecrations alone.

In all fairness, I don’t think the strict approach to DSIC is actually feasible, because DSIC is so high-level and bare-bones of a ritual implementation of conjuration that it really needs outside information and practices to make it more complete.  Yes, you could get by with doing what the ritual text describes and no more or less, but that’d be like reading some of the entries in the Greek Magical Papyri and thinking that those would be complete, too.  Consider the Consecration of the Twelve Faces of Hēlios (PGM IV.1596—1715), which is my ritual implementation of what the PGM gives, which is only a prayer and nothing else; heck, anywhere we see “add/do/perform the usual” means that there are necessarily gaps that would need to be filled in.  I consider the DSIC in a similar light: it’s a great ritual framework for performing conjurations, but it’s a framework and structure that only has some specifications, not all the ones we’d need to have a fully fleshed-out ritual.  That’s where texts like Fr. AC’s GTSC and Fr. RO’s SS come into play, because they offer (more or less) full implementations of DSIC, complete with scripts, descriptions, instructions, processes, and the like.  However, because DSIC specifies so little, any two magician’s implementations of DSIC will most likely differ in some of the details, keeping only what DSIC actually specifies in common between them.

Okay, so, that being said, let’s take a look at the few consecrations provides us.  Of the tools and supplies that the DSIC text prescribes, only three things are to be consecrated on the fly, viz. in the order they appear in the ritual: the crystal used for conjuring the spirit, the magic circle, and the incense.  The crystal is consecrated by laying your hand upon it and praying over it, the circle is consecrated by tracing its boundaries with the wand, and the incense is consecrated by praying over them after it’s been ignited.  That’s pretty much it; we can get into the specific wording of these prayers in a later post, but suffice it here to say that this is all that DSIC provides us.  But, as far as these specific prayers are concerned, it’s clear that the author of DSIC basically took the exorcism/consecration/blessing of the incense from the Heptameron, but the Heptameron differs in the process a bit for the incense, and doesn’t use the same consecration of the circle at all, nor does Heptameron include a consecration for the crystal since the Heptameron doesn’t make use of any scrying medium.  The conjuration of the Ars Paulina from the Lemegeton includes a bit about the crystal, but though there are some similarities between this and what’s in DSIC, it’s not all that comparable.

That DSIC makes use of Heptameron prayers isn’t surprising; after all, we saw how clearly the Heptameron influenced DSIC at least as far as its magic circle design, and as we’ll eventually see, the overall process of the Heptameron can kinda be seen in DSIC, too.  However, it is surprising that DSIC, despite being indebted to Agrippa on so many other accounts, seems to almost ignore Agrippa’s prescriptions and methods of consecration, not even going as far as what the Heptameron does for the magic circle in sprinkling the magic circle or incense with holy water before blessing them.  And, considering that there are some similarities between the stuff in the Secret Grimoire of Turiel (aka Hockley’s A Complete Book of Magic Science), which is most likely roughly contemporaneous with DSIC, there’s plenty of stuff in there that might be considered parallel works, too, especially as Hockley was likely in touch with people who did both DSIC and Turiel stuff.

We don’t have a lot to work on with how little DSIC provides us, whether in terms of construction or consecration.  But we have enough to get started, and we’ll talk about actually making everything next time, and making it all fit for use.