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Reviewing the Trithemian Conjuration: “Thy Little Book” and Oaths of Spirits

June 7, 2019 By in creative, link, materia, occult Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

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 talked about some more of the simpler parts of DSIC, namely the nature of the candles and the incense holder to be used for the rite. If you need a refresher on what we talked about last time, go read the last post!!

Last time, we left off with a sly, snide comment about how the specific form and placement of the incense holder seems to be pretty variable, with not a lot of people seeming to stick to the exact specifications of DSIC; I noted that it’s an underutilized and underemphasized part of DSIC. But that pales in comparison to today’s topic, for which there’s no design shown in the DSIC illustration (so I don’t need to mar your eyes with that picture again), but which is given a surprisingly detailed description in the DSIC text (as far as anything in it can be considered detailed). In the ritual, at the point of having put incense in the brazier (or otherwise lit incense using whatever kind and vessel you have) and just before the conjuration proper, DSIC instructs us to do this:

…take out thy little book, which must be made about seven inches long, of pure white virgin vellum or paper, likewise pen and ink must be ready to write down the name, character, and office, likewise the seal or image of whatever spirit may appear (for this I must tell you that it does not happen that the same spirit you call will always appear, for you must try the spirit to know whether he be a pure or impure being, and this thou shalt easily know by a firm and undoubted faith in God.)

So we have “thy little book”, which is given the following specifications:

  • A book roughly 7″ tall (though no specification is given as to width or number of pages)
  • Pure white virgin (i.e. new and unused) vellum or paper

Additionally, we’re to have pen and ink ready to go at our disposal. The purpose of this book is so that we can write down the name of the spirit we’re conjuring, their character or characters (seal, sigil, etc.), their office, and “the seal or image of whatever spirit may appear”.

What DSIC is describing here is none other than a Book of Spirits, or in Latin, Liber Spirituum. This is described at length in Agrippa’s Fourth Book (book IV, chapter 9) to the point where I hesitate even quoting sections from it here, because Agrippa goes on at length about it. Though I strongly encourage you to just….read Agrippa, here’s a very brief summary of the points of what Agrippa is saying:

  • A Liber Spirituum is to be made, consecrated, and used for the conjuration of specifically evil spirits.
  • Made of pure, clean, new, unused paper (aka “virgin paper”)
  • Any pair of pages, left and right, are to be used for a single spirit
    • On the left-hand page is drawn the image (depiction, visualization, etc.) of the spirit
    • On the right-hand page is drawn the oath of the spirit that uses its name, “dignity” (office), and “place” (origin, role, function, etc.), underneath which is the seal of the spirit
    • Additional information, such as appropriate places, times, hours, planets, and the like for the spirit, should also be noted as discovered or agreed upon
  • Adorned with “Registers and Seals”, e.g. ribbon bookmarks containing glyphs representing the spirit
    • This helps the magician open up the book to any specific spirit as needed at a moment’s notice
    • This also helps prevent the book being opened up to any unwanted or undesired spirit that might harm the magician or those around them
  • This book should be considered and kept as a sacred object, lest it “lose its virtue with pollution and profanation”

If this makes it sound like something out of a movie, then you’re getting the right idea. The Liber Spirituum is essentially a magician’s own personal compendium of spirits, something far more sorcerous than a mere Book of Shadows. The book itself is essentially a rolodex of and cellphone for calling the spirits a magician has conjured, containing the contracts and oaths that he has made the spirits swear by so that they might remain loyal and truthful to the magician, with all necessary information so make future conjurations easier and swifter. Agrippa gives two ways to consecrate such a book:

  1. Whenever a new spirit is conjured for the first time to the magic circle of the magician, the spirit is to be bound into a triangle outside the circle. (This is pretty basic Solomonic stuff a la the Lemegeton Goetia.) With that spirit in the triangle, the magician calls upon the spirit to give their oath and bond to the magician, which is then recorded and consecrated in the book.
  2. Make the book the same way as specified above, but at the end of the book, write the different invocations, oaths, conjurations, bindings, and other prayers as one might use in rituals (like those in the Lemegeton Goetia, Heptameron, or other Solomonic texts) “wherewith every spirit may be bound”. This book then should then be “bound between two Tables or Lamens”, meaning that special lamens (not like the angelic lamens we discussed before, but more like the classic Solomonic lamens like the Pentagram of Solomon or Hexagram of Solomon) should be placed, engraved, or attached to the front cover and back cover, and on the inside covers as well (same or different). The spirits to be contained in the book are to be conjured with the oaths and prayers written in it to the circle “within the space of three days”. This book is then wrapped up in clean linen and buried securely (!) in the middle of the circle and covered, with the circle then being destroyed. The spirits called upon are then given license to depart. Three days later, the magician returns to that spot, makes a new circle, dig up the book, and without opening it, calling upon all those same spirits earlier called upon.

Agrippa says that the first way is preferred, since even though the second method is easier and of “much efficacy to produce every effect, except that in opening this book the spirit do not always come visible”. This suggests that the first method, though probably more laborious to conjure each and every spirit one by one separately and get their separate oaths written and sealed up in the book, gives more power and potency to the book itself.

As to how to use the book? Agrippa further continues that whenever the magician wants to work with one of the spirits with which they have an oath in their Liber Spirituum, all they need to do is open the book directly to that spirit’s entry (using the bookmark “Register”, not opening up to any other page), invoke the spirit by their oath they gave along with their name and seal, and simply go from there, giving license to depart to the spirit when you’re done with them. This effectively gives the magician a way to work more expeditiously and easier with the spirit, as once they have such an oath and bond with them, “without a Circle these Spirits may be called to appear, according to the way which is above delivered about the consecration of a book” (book IV, chapter 14).

So, what’s the purpose of the Liber Spirituum? When we work with spirits, we ask, oblige, compel, or force them to give us an oath and bond of theirs, complete with their name, office, role, appropriate times/materials/etc., and depiction, upon which we can rely to ensure their continued support and assistance at a later time. In doing so, we essentially enter into a formal relationship with the spirit, where the full formality of a complete conjuration ritual with circle and candle and incense and the like aren’t strictly necessary (unless deemed so depending on the nature of the oath to be made by the spirit and the nature of the danger of said spirit). Agrippa makes it clear that we only open the book when we need to, and then only to the select pages related to the spirit; the mere act of opening the book is a conjuration unto itself, which is why we need to use “Registers” or bookmarks to make sure we only open up to the right pages that we need and no other.

Now, of course, DSIC doesn’t really get into any of this except in the briefest of manners. It does say a bit more in the ritual text about how such a book should be used once a spirit is conjured and confirmed to be present:

Here let him swear, then write down his seal or character in thy book, and against it, his office and times to be called, through God’s name; also write down any thing he may teach thee, or any responses he may make to thy questions or interrogations, concerning life or death, arts or sciences, or any other thing…

However, DSIC leaves out all the spiritual powers of such a book that Agrippa takes pains to describe for us. As a result, many modern users of DSIC simply interpret this as little more than a notebook-like catalog of spirits, who they are and what their information is and the like, turning it into more of a record of works than a Liber Spirituum with real power and potency like what Agrippa describes. To be sure, Fr. RO doesn’t take this sort of approach at all in RWC, nor does he say anything about books or pens or ink or anything like this, though he does recommend taking notes after or during conjurations for our own recordkeeping (whether it’s in RWC, SS, his blog, or the old mailing list for RWC, I forget). For my part, I have two notebooks I use: one, which is really more of a binder than anything, holds laminated pockets for each separate lamen I use for conjuring different spirits, and the other is a spiral-bound notebook that I use to record the conversations I have with the angels, headed at the top of each entry with the name and seal of the spirit I’m conjuring, the date of the conjuration, any other information about the conjuration (Moon phase, planetary transits, weather, illness, etc.), and the details of the conjuration itself, what we discussed, and the like. I feel like this is a fairly common approach for those who write anything about their conjurations at all, just to keep a record of what was done, when, and with whom.

And then, of course, there’s Fr. AC, who dedicates a vast chunk of his GTSC chapter on the tools of DSIC to the Liber Spirituum. He goes into fantastic depth about how his process of making and consecrating one, its role in both the real practice and popular conceptions of magic, though he largely keeps to Agrippa’s design and process, even going into detail about the specific materials he used and his own experiences of using (or misusing) such a book. Going through Fr. AC’s blogs, I was able to dig up two posts in which he showed off two versions of his own Liber Spirituum, with the newer one bound in brown leather and the older one in black cloth:

Honestly, I don’t know what or even where to begin quoting Fr. AC on this, because he devotes a full eleven pages to GTSC to this topic. It’s a fascinating read, and he really goes to extreme lengths to make it abundantly clear how to make, consecrate, and use such a tool. Towards the end of GTSC, as well, he gives an example page from his own Liber Spirituum with his own selection for the oath used for the conjuration of Cassiel, the angel of Saturn, and a full account of a conjuration with the angel.

However…there’s something that really bothers me about the use of such a book with DSIC (besides the fact that it seems like a lot of work compared to similar practices, like the Heptameron, that don’t call for such a thing at all). While DSIC is literally titled “Drawing Spirits Into Crystals”, the text appears to be focused most on the conjuration of angels. Yes, it can be used for other spirits (as implied in some of the options given in the ritual text), but by and large, the ritual is focused on angelic conjuration, and indeed, this is largely the main purpose for DSIC in modern usage. If we consider this in light of what Agrippa is describing, well…Agrippa describes two kinds of conjurations, of good spirits and of evil spirits, and angels fall among the good spirits. And, in the chapters of the Fourth Book that involve such conjurations of good spirits, there is no mention at all of books, oaths, bonds, or the like. It’s only in the context of the conjuration of evil spirits are such things used or mentioned, and even Donald Tyson in his analysis of the Fourth Book agrees: “The Book of Spirits is a book used by goetic magicians to compel the obedience of evil spirits.” (He also gives a much more lucid and clear explanation of the construction, consecration, and use of the Liber Spirituum, which I also encourage those who are interested to read.)

While I’m not saying that a Liber Spirituum can’t be used for “good spirits” like angels, I do question whether it’s necessary or even encouraged to do so. By the nature of them being “good spirits”, Agrippa suggests that it’s not necessary (perhaps not even possible) to get them to swear oaths of this manner, probably because of their angelic and divine nature that transcends anything we mortal humans might make them do. It’s only when we deal with “evil spirits”, such as demons, devils, or any terrestrial, chthonic, or otherwise sublunary non-angelic spirit that we might want to use a Liber Spirituum in the sense of how Agrippa describes one. I question Fr. AC’s logic here when he uses a Liber Spirituum for angelic spirits; again, not that he can’t, but perhaps that he shouldn’t. Besides, the oath he gives for the angel Cassiel of Saturn is no more than the Heptameron conjuration for this angel, right down to the use of the final “&c.”, which I find an odd choice for such an oath.

However, backing Fr. AC up, the Magus includes an illustration of “a specimen of the Book of Spirits to be made of virgin Vellum”, which includes a depiction of the angel Cassiel complete with the Latin Heptameron conjuration, again right down to the use of the final “&c.”. So, while I find Fr. AC’s use of this approach to be odd, he is drawing precisely from the source materials itself; while I may not like it, I cannot say that he’s doing things wrong. Yet, at the same time, notice those two weird pentagram-like shapes on the illustration of Cassiel. These are the “penetrate” (“penetrans”) and “broken” (“fracta”) characters from Agripppa (book IV, chapter 4), which details the various characters of specifically evil spirits.

That the angel of Saturn might be considered an “evil spirit” is…honestly startling. Likewise, the whole illustration is plucked almost verbatim from the following chapter in Agrippa’s Fourth Book, the specific chapter on descriptions of spirits which technically all pertain to evil spirits. Putting aside the possibility that an angel of a malefic planet might be considered “evil” by nature of the planet, it seems like Barrett draws no distinction between angels (which I would presume to be “good spirits” according to Agrippa) and “evil spirits”, which kinda makes sense given how DSIC itself seems to conflate many of the aspects of Agrippa’s descriptions of conjurations of “good spirits” and those of “evil spirits”. So it could well be that DSIC is well and truly recommending us to use a Liber Spirituum for the angels in this light; this would make a lot of the confusion between Agrippa’s different methods, as well as our idea that the seven angels on the table should be put in the same ring as the four Kings, make much more sense, if it weren’t for the fact that making planetary angels (or any type of angels) into “evil spirits” still makes little to no sense to my mind.

Now, at least if you’re using DSIC for non-angelic conjuration, then yes, by all means, having a properly consecrated Liber Spirituum can be a great boon! Especially so, when you consider the plus of not necessarily having to go through a full conjuration process for spirits once you’ve already obtained their oath written in such a book. But even then, is it necessary? I would still say no. For one, DSIC doesn’t suggest any miraculous or spiritual powers to “thy little book” or that it can be used in such a way, but more importantly than that, there’s the penultimate prayer of the DSIC process, the license to depart. Note the bold section:

Thou great and mighty spirit, inasmuch as thou camest in peace and in the name of the ever blessed and righteous Trinity, so in this name thou mayest depart, and return to us when we call thee in his name to whom every knee doth bow down. Fare thee well, Michael; peace be between us, through our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Part of that license to depart is essentially a condition: “in the name of God go, and in the name of God, return to me when I call upon you again when I call on you in the name of God”. We’re essentially getting an underhanded agreement out of the spirit we’re telling to go, sending them on the way out and getting their promise in the process that we can just call on them “when we call [them] in [God’s] name” and, boom, they’ll appear. This is actually really sly when you think about it: we’re telling them to go and, if they take that option, that in doing so they’ve already signed the EULA to come back when we call on them. By virtue of the spirit leaving, they’ve already agreed to it, even if they’re already heading out the door. The dismissal and ensuing absence of the spirit has, effectively, become their signature.

Of course, what happens if the spirit doesn’t leave? Well, that’s where DSIC has nothing written about what to do, and we’d resort to the usual Solomonic literature like the Lemegeton Goetia or the Heptameron or the Bond of Solomon for exorcisms, threats, and the like, but so long as we limit ourselves to good spirits, we really shouldn’t have a problem. We can touch on this topic later when we get into the ritual process of DSIC (which…yikes, it’s been so long since having started this post series and we’re still not there?!), but for now, suffice it to say that I don’t think we need a physical object for the spirit to swear by when they can simply swear by them leaving the conjuration ritual area.

Now, there is the simple fact that DSIC is saying that we need to use a book for writing information about the spirit in. Sure! That makes total sense to me; nobody is going to argue with the benefit of taking down notes from our conjuration rituals, and admittedly, DSIC makes this book sound an awful lot like the Liber Spirituum of Agrippa, and by extension according to Fr. AC, similar books of spirits in other goetic grimoires and Solomonic literature. But it doesn’t necessitate such a book being used in that way; after all, it says “let him swear, then write down his seal…”, not “let him swear upon his seal”. After all, in the ritual text of DSIC, the “swearing” going on here is nothing more than the authentication of the spirit, that they really are who they say they are. That’s it, that’s all. DSIC, instead, says that the book should be used to “write down any thing he may teach thee, or any responses he may make to thy questions or interrogations, concerning life or death, arts or sciences, or any other thing”. It really does seem like the book for DSIC is less a Liber Spirituum and more just a Commentarium Spirituum, a notebook of records of conjurations.

In my view? You can use a proper Liber Spirituum if you want to for angelic or other “good spirits”, but I don’t consider it necessary, and depending on your cosmological and theological perspective, doing so may not even be recommended. But, if you’re going for a more goetic approach for using DSIC, then you may want to consider a proper Liber Spirituum to give you the extra edge, even though it, again, may not necessary depending on your specific goetic background and methodology.

But…well, now that I think about it, the same logic above about using goetic tools for non-goetic conjuration of angels in the sense of mixing up “evil spirit” methods with “good spirit” targets can be applied to the wand and the ring just as much to the Liber Spirituum. Remember that Agrippa doesn’t mention a wand at all in his Fourth Book, but instead the use of a sword with which one may threaten, impel, and force spirits to swear oaths or behave, which fits in well with Lemegeton- and Key of Solomon-type goetia; ditto for the ring, which is to preserve the safety and health of the magician by further reinforcing their divinely-granted authority and protection. Yet, if DSIC is focused on angelic works…then why? Just as Agrippa doesn’t reference the use of a Liber Spirituum when working with good spirits, he likewise doesn’t reference wands (or swords) or rings with them, either, simply just prayer (book IV, chapter 10), basically in a way like what the Arbatel suggests (which itself was presented in the same volume as the Fourth Book):

But in the end of these days, on the last day, you shall fast more strictly: and fasting on the day following, at the rising of the sun, you may enter into the holy place, using the ceremonies before spoken of, first by sprinkling your self, then with making a perfume, you shall sign your self with holy oil in the forehead, and anoint your eyes; using prayer in all these Consecrations. Then you shall open the holy Lamen, and pray before the altar upon your knees, as said above: and then an invocation being made to the Angels, they will appear unto you, which you desire; which you shall entertain with a benign and chaste communication, and license them to depart.

In that sense, if we’re just sticking to the seven planetary angels (or angels generally, or any entity in the “good spirit” class), then just as there’s (as I argue) no need for a Liber Spirituum, there’d be equally no need for a wand or ring, because these are more goetic tools that aren’t as suited for working with “good spirits” as they would be for “evil spirits”. There’s nothing saying you can’t use them, of course, but I feel like the argument isn’t strong enough for saying that you have to use them. If you’re going for demonic, “goetic”, or other entities in the “evil spirits” category, then yes, you should use the wand (or sword, or both) as well as the ring, but I think bringing them into angelic conjurations doesn’t actually do much.

I mean, consider: what are you, pitiful and God-reliant mortal that you are, going to do when Michael comes down in conjuration to some demand of yours and says “lol nah, fuk u“? Are you going to imperil Michael himself with your wand to step back and away from the crystal? Are you going to try binding the angel into a badly-made triangle and make him swear an oath to you that would supersede the very will of God that he embodies and exists to fulfill? Are you going to use your dinky ring of Solomon, engraved with Michael’s very own name, to protect yourself from the very same entity himself? Would that ring even do anything against him to hold him back? I would say that such an approach would be among the most laughable of circumstances if it weren’t for the horrifiyingly hubristic danger of trying to antagonize such powerfully divine and divinely powerful entities when they refuse to bow to your whims, bowing instead only to the whims of God. The approach would be different for working with the Lemegeton Goetia crowd, to be sure, but then, those wouldn’t be classed into Agrippa’s “good spirits”.

The only thing I can think of that might argue for the use of the wand and the ring in DSIC isn’t to work with and defend yourself from the spirit you’re conjuring directly, but from other spirits. After all, when engaging with the spiritual world…

…you may end up with a lot more clawing at your door than just the thing you called. That is, after all, why we trace the circle with the wand, to keep ourselves safe from malign spiritual influences, especially if we get a deceiving spirit instead of the one we called, and for the same reason why we wear the ring. But, heck, even the use of the magic circle itself isn’t called for by Agrippa for the conjuration of “good spirits” in a way that would line up with DSIC. It’s like DSIC keeps mashing up two main sources, one of which is clearly Agrippa’s Fourth Book non-Solomonic methods and the other something clearly far more explicitly and detailedly Solomonic, but DSIC doesn’t appear to be doing a great job at sorting this all out and making the mashup clean. It works as it is, to be sure, but perhaps it could work better if it were rethought and tweaked a bit.

Okay, enough on this topic. Just one more post about the design and purpose of the tools we use in DSIC, the magic circle, which will come up next, and then we can finally get into implementing some of this stuff above and beyond just talking about their roles, functions, and forms.

Reviewing the Trithemian Conjuration: The Wand and the Ring

May 31, 2019 By in creative, link, materia, occult Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

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 wrapped up the design of the lamen, noting how to fill in the circles and with what names or seals you might need.  If you need a refresher on what we talked about last time, go read the last post!

Okay, so now we’ve reviewed some of the biggest things we know we need: the crystal, the pedestal and the table (or, if you combine them, the Table of Practice) and the lamen.  If only those were the only things we needed to discuss, but alas!  There are still even more things!  While we won’t get into all of them today, we can knock out a few of them in a single post, because there’s not that much to say about them—whether because they’re so straightforward or because whether there’s just not much written about them.

First, let’s talk about the wand.  We know we need a wand, because DSIC says so:

…take your black ebony wand, with the gilt characters on it and trace the circle…

And that’s the only instance in the ritual text of DSIC for using the wand.  There’s no description given in the text, but the illustration that accompanies DSIC gives us one:

The wand is the large stick on the left, a long thin cylindrical rod with the divine names “Agla On Tetragrammaton”, with a hexagram between “Agla” and “On”, a hexagram with a central Yod in it (like as depicted on the pedestal as well as described for the gold disc for the pedestal) between “On” and “Tetragrammaton”, and another cross after “Tetragrammaton”.  This depiction is also accompanied by the caption:

The Magic Wand to be used in Invocations by the Chrystal.  Write or engrave on the other side “Ego Alpha et Omega”.

So we know that there needs to be two sets of writings on the wand, which (as stated by the text) should be made of ebony with “gilt characters”, meaning that we need to use gold for all the inscriptions; you can just use gold ink or gold paint, or if you want to go the extra mile, engrave the ebony shaft and use actual gold leaf to gild it.

That’s basically it.  Fr AC, as usual, sticks to the design of this pretty exactly: a simple, straight, unembellished ebony rod with the characters applied in gold paint.  Nothing really that special to note, though I will note that the design of the wand he gives in GTSC omits the central Yod in the second hexagram, even if he includes it on the wands he makes and includes the mark in a separate diagram just before the completed wand design image.  A graphical oversight, I assume; the wand clearly should have the Yod mark (or, as Fr. AC claims, the Daleth mark) in the middle hexagram, as he makes on his actual wands.

However, instead of writing the phrase “Ego Alpha et Omega” in Latin as DSIC indicates, Fr. AC writes “Εγο το Αλφα και το Ω”, since he “decided to use the phrase and alphabet used in the Greek language for ‘I am the Alpha and Omega,’ as it seemed to be appropriate and stayed within the original context”.  Though he says that “end result turned out quite well”, there’s an unfortunate error in his design; as with the linguistic errors he made on on his version of the table, there’s a typo in the Greek here, too.  This phrase is taken from Revelations 22:13, which in Greek starts “Εγω το Αλφα και το Ω” (“Ἐγὼ τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ Ὦ” using polytonic Greek), using an ōmega instead of omikron for the first word.  Despite the minor though unfortunate typo (especially using such expensive materials as gold and ebony), I don’t disagree with using the original Greek phrase here, though some might find it weird to mix Greek script on one side and Latin script on the other.

Anyway, back to the wand design.  Fr. RO basically takes this same design and approach, but in RWC, he omits the reverse side of the wand; he doesn’t include “Ego Alpha et Omega” on the wand, just the three divine names with the three symbols.  He fixes this approach in SS, where he gives the three divine names with the three symbols on one side, and the phrase “Ego Sum Alpha et Omega” on the back; basically the same thing, with the word “sum” (“I am”) elided in the original statement.   Fr. RO also makes a note in SS: “Note that you don’t have to use a wand; you can also use your index finger, the finger of Jupiter”.  And that’s actually a really interesting point to make, because it taps into some of the symbolism of the wand: depending on your approach, it can be seen as a conductor’s baton, the caduceus of Hermēs/Mercurius, a drumstick to beat the sacred drum of the shaman, or a king’s scepter.  Fr. RO typically has a very Jovian-minded approach to his style of Hermetic magic that focuses much on kingship and royalty, but I don’t disagree with it: the wand is our symbol of divinely-entrusted Power.

For myself?  I originally used a simple version, made of no more than a carved pine dowel I got from Michael’s with just the front half of the inscriptions (since I was working from RWC at the time), which I then carved at the tip and stained and finished off with polyurethane, but I eventually made myself something much nicer from ebony, gold, silver, and quartz.  I described my approach to my wand on the craft page I made for it, documenting how I made it and my own design.  It’s not a close fit with DSIC, but it is based on it; I incorporated the symbols for the wand from the Key of Solomon, rewrote the divine names in Hebrew (אגלא, ון, יהוה), and replaced “Ego Alpha et Omega” with the word AZOTH.  No, it’s not by-the-book DSIC, but it fulfills all the same requirements and needs, and throws in a bit of traditional Solomonica as well.  (And, depending on your line of thinking, the symbols from the Key of Solomon can sometimes be read as highly distorted, devolved, and degraded Hebrew script for many of the same things we’d engrave anyway.)

However, looking at the three symbols on the wand, something does cross my mind.  We know that the illustrator for DSIC loves hexagrams: they’re present on the lamen (which, to be fair, is according to Agrippa’s specifications), they’re present in the magic circle (which we’ll get to in a later post), they’re present on the gold disc for the pedestal, and they’re present on the pedestal stand itself.  And now we see them on the wand, as well, but…I think it’s important to pick up on the fact that there are three separate symbols here on the wand, and the only time we see another set of three symbols is on the front side of the gold plate for the pedestal that has the pentagram, hexagram with central Yod, and cross with the name Tetragrammaton.  It occurs to me that the first symbol on the wand, the hexagram between “Agla” and “On”, might have been intended to be a pentagram and not a hexagram to match with the same symbols on the gold disc that supports the crystal, and that it’s a hexagram could have been a mistake on the part of the illustrator for DSIC.

It’s not clear, and Agrippa’s Fourth Book doesn’t describe the use of a wand at all, and this is the only instance of a wand described or used in the entirety of The Magus, as well.  It’s not clear where DSIC incorporated the wand from, and I’m not sure.  The closest thing I can think of, if not texts like the Key of Solomon itself, is a small description from the Liber Juratus Honorii, the Sworn Book of Honorius (LHJ):

But the wand should have four sides. On one side should be written “Adonay”; on the second side “Sabaoth”; on the third, “Hiskiros”; on the fourth “Emanuel”. On the middle of the wand make the pentagonal figure of Solomon, and where the wand is held, a cross, and thus it will be prepared for sacred and wonderful works.

If you think about it, this is kinda sorta like what DSIC has, if you squint a bit and cross your eyes.  But I do think that it’s significant to note the two symbols on the wand that LJH does describe: a pentagram “on the middle of the wand” and a cross “where the wand is held”.  If you reckon “where the wand is held” to be the bottom end of the wand according to the DSIC illustration, then we get a match with where the cross is placed on the DSIC wand.  The middle symbol of the DSIC wand is the hexagram with central Yod in it, but if you swap that with the blank hexagram and reinterpret the “figure of Solomon” to be a pentagram instead of a hexagram, then you’d end up with a modified form of the DSIC wand with a hexagram with central Yod in it, a pentagram, and a cross—the same set of symbols in the same order that DSIC gives for the gold plate inscription.

I dunno.  I think there’s a semi-convincing argument to be made there, but it’s inconclusive either way.  Looking at the Key of Solomon isn’t really helpful, as the wand described in that doesn’t match with any of this above, though Joseph H. Peterson of Esoteric Archives has the note for this section on their entry for the Key of Solomon:

The staff and wand seem to be interchangeable in book 2 chapter 7. See footnote 4. I believe these characters are nothing more than corrupted versions of the Hebrew characters “AGLA + VN + IHVH” found in Trithemius. Scot’s magical texts have “Tetragrammaton + Adonay + Agla + Craton” on the wand. The staff and wand are conspicuously absent from the list of instruments in the Hebrew Key of Solomon as well as Ad. 36674.

How long should the wand be?  No description is given anywhere.  My default preference is the length from your elbow to the tip of your middle finger, fully extended in a straight line.  I find that to be a comfortable length, but it’s up to you.  Joseph H. Peterson has an article up on grimoiric wand lore over at Esoteric Archives, but even then, there’s not much.  Thesaurus Spirituum says one cubit (about 18″), Le Grand Grimoire says 19.5″, and some versions of the Key of Solomon say 24″.  So, pick something in the 20″-ish range and you’ll be good; it just so happens that the average person’s elbow-to-middle-fingertip distance happens to be in that same range, depending on your body’s proportions, so that might be the best standard to measure by, especially if you’re exceptionally tall or exceptionally short.  That said, I’ve seen some people use much shorter wands than this, sometimes even shorter than 12″, so there’s certainly room for variance.  As for thickness, perhaps as thick as your index finger at the knuckle, something with substance but nothing too unwieldy.

Now, all that being said, this assumes that the wand is held by the end with the cross symbol on it, such that the DSIC image shows the wand “pointed up”.  However, looking back through the old mailing list archives of Fr. RO’s RWC Yahoo! Groups, I find (almost seven years after the fact) that Fr. RO uses the wand with the cross-symbol end being the “point”; this is the original interpretation I used, as shown by my first wand.  In other words, the base of the wand starts at the start of the text “Agla…” and finishes with “…Tetragrammaton ✠” at the “point”; when I went to Hebrew script for my ebony wand, I kept Agla close to the base and the Tetragrammaton closer to the tip.  So, really, the DSIC illustration would seem to most conventionally be interpreted to have the wand shown “pointed down”; I think this makes the most sense, since we hold the wand where the text starts, and as the of the divine names text “continues” our reach, it shows the flow of both semantic meaning as well as power from our hands.  Others, however, found that it doesn’t matter for them, since the wand as shown has no actual “point” to it, so it may be used either way as a general rod of power.  Fr. AC doesn’t say which way the wand should be held, though the old promo video for GTSC at the 4:31 mark shows Fr. AC holding the wand in a similar way, with “Agla…” closer to the base and “…Tetragrammaton ✠” at the point.  Based on all this, we should hold the wand from the “Agla…” side, regardless whether we write the names in Latin script or in Hebrew script.

So much for the wand, but I do want to make one more note here: though Agrippa in his Fourth Book doesn’t really describe the use of a wand, he does describe the use of a sword for use in conjurations, mostly when performing conjurations of evil spirits (book IV, chapter 12)

And after all the courses are finished, then cease a little; and if any Spirit shall appear, let the Invocant turn himself towards the Spirit, and courteously receive him, and earnestly entreating him, let him first require his name, and if he be called by any other name; and then proceeding further, let him ask him whatsoever he will: and if in any thing the Spirit shall shew himself obstinate or lying, let him be bound by convenient conjurations: and if you doubt of any lie, make without the Circle with the consecrated Sword, the figure of a triangle or Pentagram, and compel the Spirit to enter into it; and if thou receive any promise which thou would have to be confirmed with an Oath, let him stretch the sword out of the Circle, and swear the Spirit, by laying his hand upon the Sword.

What Agrippa is describing here falls much more in line with classic Solomonic literature of using a sword to impel and threaten spirits, in this case using a consecrated sword to draw a triangle or pentagram into which the spirit is forced to enter so as to compel it to speak truth, making it swear oaths of loyalty and truth upon the sword.  As an implement of iron, the classic material for the bane of spirits generally and evil spirits especially, this makes sense, and recalls similar uses for daggers and other blades in texts such as the Key of Solomon.  However, DSIC doesn’t mention their use at all, suggesting a different origin or lineage of conjuration than the Key of Solomon or Lemegeton Goetia.  Still, it can make sense to think of the wand the wand as a replacement for the Solomonic sword, especially given their similar uses in Agrippa and elsewhere.  This, however, runs counter to what Fr. AC says about the wand in GTSC:

The wand is meant to be a representation of divine authority and command.  As such, it should be treated with the upmost [sic] respect and dignity at all times.  This is not and was never meant to be only a “director of the magician’s will.”  This is also not a “blasting rod” in which to threaten and subdue spirits with either.  It is wielded as an active symbol of holy diplomacy and ambassadorship.  When you invoke holy Archangels with this wand, you are doing so with the assumption of divine inspiration and permission.

Now…do we really need a wand?  Personally, in light of the absence of any other Solomonic-type tool of conjuration, I would say that we should.  But, if not, as Fr. RO suggests, using the forefinger, the “finger of Jupiter”, can work in some cases.  It won’t work for the proper Solomonic purpose of threatening impelling spirits (Mars, properly speaking, doesn’t have a finger associated to it, but the middle finger, given to Saturn, might work instead).  Will a non-DSIC wand work?  I think so, yes.  It’d be best to make it according to spec here, but I don’t think that it’s that important in the long run; a wand with some sort of holy names, or imbued with holiness somehow, is sufficient.

However, an argument can be made that, if all you’re using DSIC for is “good spirits”, then you probably wouldn’t need a wand at all; after all, Agrippa doesn’t mention the use of any such tool or implement in either of his conjuration methods for “good spirits” (either his prayer-based theurgic method or his ecstatic trance method), and even in his conjuration of “evil spirits”, he only uses a sword in certain circumstances.  If it weren’t for the single DSIC instruction of tracing the circle out with the wand (which is such a waste of an exquisite and exotic tool, made of ebony and gold as it is!), I would personally say that you wouldn’t need the wand unless you really wanted one.  It’s not like you can exactly boss angels around, nor can you impress them as being an emissary of the power of God when that’s exactly their own role.

What about the ring?  We can assume that this is basically a Ring of Solomon, but as far as DSIC is concerned, what exactly should we be looking for or aiming at?  Like the wand, DSIC only mentions it once:

Then taking your ring and pentacle, put the ring on the little finger of your right hand…

But, unlike the wand, DSIC doesn’t give a description of what the ring should look like.  Agrippa’s Fourth Book isn’t of much help here, either; there are only a handful of instances of the word.  Here are the relevant passages, with the important parts in bold text:

It is to be known also, that Vows, Oblations, and Sacrifice, have the power of consecration, as much real as personal; and they are as it were certain covenants and conventions between those names with which they are made, and us who make them, strongly cleaving to our desire and wished effect: As, when we dedicate, offer, and sacrifice, with certain names or things; as, Fumigations, Unctions, Rings, Images, Looking-glasses; and things less material, as Deities, Sigils, Pentacles, Enchantments, Orations, Pictures, and Scriptures: of which we have largely spoken in our third book of Occult Philosophy. (book IV, chapter 8)

But he that is willing always and readily to receive the Oracles of a Dream, let him make unto himself a Ring of the Sun or of Saturn for this purpose. There is also an Image to be made, of excellent efficacy and power to work this effect; which being put under his head when he goes to sleep, doth effectually give true dreams of anything whatsoever the mine has before determined or consulted on. The Tables of Numbers do likewise confer to receive an Oracle, being duly formed under their own Constellations. And these things you may know in the third book of Occult Philosophy. … Now he that knows how to compose those things which we have now spoken of, he shall receive the most true Oracles of dreams. And this he shall do; observe those things which in the second book of Occult Philosophy are directed concerning this thing. He that is desirous therefore to receive an Oracle, let him abstain from supper and from drink, and be otherwise well disposed, his brain being free from turbulent vapors; let him also have his bed-chamber fair and clean, exorcised and consecrated if he will; then let him perfume the same with some convenient fumigation; and let him anoint his temples with some unguent efficacious hereunto, and put a ring upon his finger, of the things above spoken of: let him take either some image, or holy table, or holy paper, and place the same under his head: then having made a devout prayer, let him go unto his bed, and meditating upon that thing which he desires to know, let him so sleep; for so shall he receive a most certain and undoubted oracle by a dream, when the Moon goes through that sign which was in the ninth House of his nativity, and also when she goes through the sign of the ninth House of the Revolution of his nativity; and when she is in the ninth sign from the sign of perfection. And this is the way and means whereby we may obtain all Sciences and Arts whatsoever, suddenly and perfectly, with a true Illumination of our understanding; although all inferior familiar Spirits whatsoever do conduce to this effect; and sometimes also evil Spirits sensibly informing us Intrinsically or Extrinsically. (book IV, chapter 11)

But when we do intend to execute any effect by evil Spirits, when an Apparition is not needful; then that is to be done, by making and forming that thing which is to be unto us as an instrument, or subject of the experiment it self; as, whether it be an Image, or a Ring, or a Writing, or any Character, Candle, or Sacrifice, or any thing of the like sort; then the name of the Spirit is to be written therein, with his Character, according to the exigency of the experiment, either by writing it with some blood, or otherwise using a perfume agreeable to the Spirit. Oftentimes also making Prayers and Orations to God and the good Angels before we invoce the evil Spirit, conjuring him by the divine power. (book IV, chapter 14)

None of these really seem to apply to DSIC.  The first passage kinda touches on the consecration of various things, but it’s nothing specific to conjuration, just of consecrated items in general.  The second passage deals with oracles and divination through dreams, and though it specifies a ring to be made for the Sun or Saturn, there’s nothing specific about that.  The third passage talks about dealing with evil spirits, but more in the case of working with them in a non-conjuration framework, such as through talismanic works.  So Agrippa doesn’t seem to help us at all for matters about the ring.  There’s exceedingly little in The Magus about it, too, and nothing specific for conjuration; there’s nothing in LHJ or other texts like the Heptameron, either, about rings.

My only guess is that the ring is an import from Solomonic literature like the Lemegeton Goetia (LG).  From that, we get the following design (first from Esoteric Archive’s version, the second from Mather’s later redrawing):

The older version on Esoteric Archives gives a short description:

This Ring is to be held before the face of the Exorcist to preserve him from The stinking fumes of spirits &c.

Mathers gives a more fuller explanation for the ring that I like:

THIS is the Form of the Magic Ring, or rather Disc, of Solomon, the figure whereof is to be made in gold or silver. It is to be held before the face of the exorcist to preserve him from the stinking sulphurous fumes and flaming breath of the Evil Spirits.

I bring up both designs here to point out something interesting: both rings have the three names “Tetragrammaton”, “Anaphexeton”/”Anaphaxeton”, and “Michael” on them, though Mathers describes this more as a disc, while the older version seems a little…funkier.  I think what the older version is showing is that “Anaphexeton” and “Michael” should be on the outside of the ring, and “Tetragrammaton” on the inside.  (As for the word “Anaphaxeton”, Enoch Bowen of The Occult and Magick blog put up a post some years ago about this word, and how he describes it as related to the more common divine name “Tzabaoth”, related to the heavenly hosts, and this would make sense with the inclusion of the name “Michael”, being their prince and commander.)  This design makes more sense than Mather’s design as a disc, but I suppose either would work.

As for the purpose of this ring?  LG mentions the use of a ring when interacting with certain spirits (using Mathers’ much more readable version for these quotes):

  • Beleth: “And thou must have always a Silver Ring on the middle finger of the left hand held against thy face, as they do yet before  Amaymon. “
  • Berith: “Thou must make use of a Ring in calling him forth, as is before spoken of regarding Beleth.”
  • Astaroth: “Thou must in no wise let him approach too near unto thee, lest he do thee damage by his Noisome Breath. Wherefore the Magician must hold the Magical Ring near his face, and that will defend him.”

The one big difference in use between the ring of LG and the ring of DSIC, namely which finger and hand to wear it on (DSIC says the pinky/little finger of the right hand, LG the middle finger of left hand), but I think the basic idea here is clear: it’s for the protection of the magician from poison.  Silver, after all, is well-known and has long been acclaimed to detect poisons by turning black, and is seen also as a way of nullifying poisons, hence why LG says to wear it before the face in order to preserve the magician from damage from the “noisome breath” (i.e. toxic, noxious, poisonous, deadly, or otherwise unpleasant fumes, smoke, gas, breath, or similar emission from the presence of the spirit).  This would seem, however, to contradict Mathers’ description that the ring could be made of gold when silver is clearly being relied upon here.

Now, Fr. RO doesn’t describe the use of a ring in his RWC or SS, but he does use a lead (!) ring (which he says works as well as gold or silver) based on Mather’s version in the form of a disc.  Moreover, he says that he uses this and other similar tools (the pentagram and hexagram seals of Solomon, basically other protective lamens from Solomonic literature) when conjuring one of the spirits for the first time, though he also says that he has “never had a spirit manifest in a stinking toxic cloud”.

In GTSC, Fr. AC does bring up the ring, but he makes the same conclusions I do: there’s nothing in DSIC to guide us except that we need to wear one on the little finger of our right hand.  However, Fr. AC does bring up something to my attention I missed: The Magus does, in fact, give an illustration of a magic ring, just not where we expected!  On page 106 (part II, chapter 18), there’s an illustration of a number of things: a few pentagrams and other geometric diagrams, an illustration of a sword, and, indeed, a magic ring!  (I blame bad digitizations from Google Books on why I didn’t spot this earlier.)

The ring given in this image is pretty simple: a simple band, with a bevel/jewel that has upon it a hexagram with a single dot (perhaps a precursor to the hexagram with central Yod we see elsewhere?).  This is a very, very simple form of the “seal of Solomon”, but it works for our needs, to be sure.  Fr. AC describes his implementation, where he found just such a ring, and goes more into the materials and uses for it, though he also takes the approach of the old-style LG and engraves “Michael” and “Anaphexiton [sic]” on the outside and “Tetragrammaton” on the inside.  This is basically my own approach, too, as I showed when I had my own ring of Solomon made for me some years back (using Hebrew instead of Latin, and replacing “Anaphaxeton” (or however you want to spell it) with “Tzabaoth” in Hebrew; there’s a hexagram with central dot engraved on the band underneath the sunstone.

To quote a bit of Fr. AC on the purpose of the ring:

The magical ring is a shield of protection and banner of obedience to all spiritual forces.  The ring is a perfect symbol of divine unity and the impenetrable armor of God.  To the spirit, there is no transgressing past this unified symbol of divine completeness.  It is recommended that the ring you use be brand new and used only for this operation.

Also, one more note about that picture from The Magus: the sword in that image bears striking resemblance to the wand from DSIC, even though this is from Barrett’s version of the Heptameron.  Barrett describes this specifically on page 110:

…and let the operator himself carry the sword, over which should be said a prayer of consecration: and on the middle of the sword on one side let there be engraven Agla †, and on the other side, † On † Tetragrammaton †.

Fr. AC mistakenly interprets this to be a wand and not a sword, despite the text clearly saying that it’s a sword as well as the caption saying so as well.  Knowing that this is a sword and not a wand, we can pick up how closely Barrett (and the author of DSIC, if separate people) may have considered the DSIC wand to be to the sword here; in my mind, this weakens Fr. AC’s view that the wand is not a “blasting rod”, since it can and should be used as one should the need arise.  After all, many of the tools in magical practice are not necessarily used for one thing and one thing only, nor do they act as symbols that mean one thing and one thing only.  While that might be the case if you’re working from the Key of Solomon that has over a dozen separate implements, DSIC has so far fewer, and as we can see, the wand in DSIC is a distillation of both the Solomonic wand as well as the Solomonic sword, and thus can be used for either of the two in practice and in symbolism.

On that note, let’s call it a day for now.  We’ll pick up next time on two more relatively minor (but still important) parts of the DSIC toolset: the candles and the incense brazier.

Search Term Shoot Back, September 2015

September 30, 2015 By in internet, link, occult Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

I get a lot of hits on my blog from across the realm of the Internet, many of which are from links on Facebook, Twitter, or RSS readers.  To you guys who follow me: thank you!  You give me many happies.  However, I also get a huge number of new visitors daily to my blog from people who search around the Internet for various search terms.  As part of a monthly project, here are some short replies to some of the search terms people have used to arrive here at the Digital Ambler.  This focuses on some search terms that caught my eye during the month of September 2015.

“what are the corresponding planet of each mansion of the moon” — In the system I learned it (I’m unsure if there are others), there are 28 lunar mansions that cover the 360° of the Zodiac.  The first lunar mansion starts at 0° Aries, and is given to the Sun.  From there, the lunar mansions are given to the planets in the weekday order: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.  Since there are 28 mansions and 7 planets, this cycle repeats four times, so that the Sun begins at the same zodiacal position that the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) do.

Planetary attributions of the Lunar Mansions

“the seven days conjuration” — A conjuration done over seven days, a period where you do seven conjurations in seven days, what?  Be a little more specific.  There are works like Pietro d’Abano’s Heptameron, literally meaning “a period of seven days”, referring to the planetary conjurations one can best perform on each of the seven days of the week; we find a similar text in the Munich Manual.  Alternatively, you could do the usual conjuration ritual, such as Trithemius’ rite, and conjure each of the seven planetary angels on your own across the seven days of the week; this is the basis for Fr. Rufus Opus’ Seven Spheres book, and his occasional project Seven Spheres in Seven Days.  It can get a little rough, especially with a crazy mundane schedule, but it’s worth it.

“which month,day and hour is the spirit of jupiter” — It…this doesn’t, I can’t.  Unless you’re talking about a particular zeitgeist, the spirit of Jupiter abides as long as the planet and its planetary sphere does, so…yeah.  The spirit of Jupiter can always be contacted regardless of the time, but there are some times that are better than others, and for this we use the system of planetary days and hours.  For instance, the planetary day of Jupiter is Thursday, and there are planetary hours of Jupiter scattered regularly throughout the week, so if you can get something set up on a planetary day and hour of Jupiter, it’ll be all the better.  As for months, this gets a little less regular.  Our system of months tracks the procession of the Sun through the Zodiac, more or less, but we don’t care about the Sun as much as we care about Jupiter, so we’d like to know when Jupiter is particularly strong in the Zodiac.  This can get into a whole talk about electional astrology, which is beyond the scope of this entry, but suffice it to say that you should check an ephemeris and read up on William Lilly’s books to figure out when Jupiter itself will be powerful.

“can you give back eleke” — First off, I don’t know why I keep getting hits on Santeria stuff on this blog, as it’s hardly ever germane to the usual stuff that goes on.  But…so, from what I gather, receiving your elekes is a ritual available to anyone with a godparent in Santeria, and is one of the important steps one takes in the process of initiation into the priesthood.  These are like your formal introductions to the orisha of those elekes, and…I have a hard time understanding why you’d want to give them back.  They’re yours, and yours alone.  Giving them back or intentionally losing them seems, to my mind, like a massive slap in the face to the orisha to whom you’ve been introduced.  If you didn’t want elekes, unless you were only a child without agency when you received them, then you shouldn’t have gone through the ritual to get them, but…I mean, hey, it’s your life.  They won’t interfere with anything, but if you don’t even want that much, go ahead.

“hermeticism homosexuality” — Bear in mind that the idea of homosexuality (yes, the mere concept of it) is recent, dating back only to the 1800s.  There is nothing ancient about homosexuality as a concept, and while we may read homosexuality into older works or storied relationships, it is folly to think that ancient peoples may have thought of themselves as inherently preferring one sex/gender to the other.  Sexuality was something that one did, not what one was (much like the guys who claim straightness but keep hooking up with dudes on Craigslist, no homo).  As a philosophy or branch of occult fields, there is nothing prohibiting or encouraging homosexuality in Hermeticism; depending on the context, homosexuality can be as much a hindrance or a help as much as heterosexuality is, and both same-gender sex as well as different-gender sex have their place.  Are they interchangeable?  I’m not convinced one way or the other on that, but I can’t see why they wouldn’t necessarily be, even though they may have different mechanics physically and spiritually.

“hermetic laws on gender and transgender people” — Like with the above search term, there’s no real connection or law that connects the occult philosophy of Hermeticism to things like gender, especially modern notions of gender that go beyond the simple gender binary that has stuck around humanity for thousands of years.  And no, although the Kybalion talks about the “laws of polarity” or gender or whatnot, that shoddy text is distinctly not Hermetic, and should not be considered as such for this topic.  For everything I’ve seen that matters in Hermetic magic, what gender you identify as does not matter, nor does the sex your body has.  If a specific item or body part is called for from a particular sex of a human, animal, or plant, I think it’s better to use that particular sex rather than think that the sexes are completely interchangeable; just as straight sex and gay sex have different powers, so too (as I see it) do male and female bodies.  Still, from the perspective of who can or can’t do magic, gender has no role to play in it.

“mercury as a cock with a human head” — Usually, in the Mediterranean, we find humanoid bodies with animal heads, like those of Egypt.  The Greeks tended to frown on these zoocephalic gods, preferring their strictly anthrophomorphic gods like Apollo or Serapis.  However, even with some of the more bizarre gods, like the human-torsoed cock-headed snake-legged Abrasax, we tend to find that the body is human and the head is animalian.  I know of no representation of a rooster with a human head as a representation of Mercury or Hermes, but perhaps you mean a phallus?  In which case, the word you’re thinking of is “herm“.

“massive cock painting” — I prefer photographs, myself, and I prefer GIFs more than those.  There’s a whole subreddit for that, too, you know!  I’d link to it, except that I’m writing this post at work, and….yeah.

“fuck a golem jod he vau he” — Please don’t fuck a golem.  The only way to turn a golem off is to kill it, at which point you turn sexy-divine lithokinesis into necrogeophilia, and that gets really weird.

“is using corse salt for protection godly or not?” — Well, you won’t find circles of salt described in the Bible, to be sure, but then, neither will you find lots of what the Catholic Church does, either.  That said, the Church uses salt in its consecration of holy water, as there’s some virtue in salt that helps to sanctify or cleanse stuff spiritually.  Plus, it has lots of use dating back hundreds of years, if not millennia, as a means of protection from spiritual harm.  It’s up to you to judge how godly that may be, but I’m on the side that it’s quite alright to do so.

“what happens if i summon spirits good” — You did it!  You summoned a spirit.  Congratulations!  Now, I hope you thought this part out, but…why did you summon a spirit?  To what end?  Anyone can pick up a phone and call a number; what’re you going to talk about?  What will you ask for?  That’s the real part of summoning that nobody seems to think about ahead of time, and the whole point of the act.  Why bother establishing contact with a spirit if you have nothing to talk about?

“symbols on solomons wand” — In book II, chapter 8 of the Key of Solomon, we find described the method to create the Wand and Staff, which involves inscribing the symbols from the Key onto the wand in the day and hour of Mercury.  Joseph Peterson on his Esoteric Archives gives a lot of Hermetic wand lore, and in his notes on the Key of Solomon, he believes that the symbols from the Key are nothing more than corrupted Hebrew for “AGLA + ON + TETRAGRAMMATON”, the same names used on the wand in Trithemius’ ritual of conjuration.  I used both the Solomonic symbols and the Trithemian names on my own personal Wand of Art, and while I’m not entirely convinced that they’re supposed to be the same thing, they do have similar feels to their power.

Ebony Wand Design

“bath soap by geomancy figure spell” — While geomancy and magic get along great, I’m less sure about things like herbs and physical supplies used with the geomantic figures; the most I’ve seen geomantic figures used in magic is by turning the figures into a sigil that can be used to augment other works.  However, by using the elemental, planetary, and zodiacal attributions to the geomantic figures, we can get a reasonably good idea of the herbs and materials needed to make a soap or wash for each figure, such that if we wanted to be empowered by the figure of Puer, we’d make a soap using warming, spicy, woody, Martian herbs and inscribe the figure or a sigil of the figure into the soap before using it in the shower.  I suppose it could be done reasonably well this way.

“names of all seven archangels including rose” — I’m not sure what set of archangels includes the name “Rose”, unless you’re a diehard Whovian who has a special place in their cosmology for the 10th Doctor’s companion.  For me, the seven archangels of the Orthodox tradition are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Barachiel, Jehudiel, and Sealtiel.

“items to put on a sagiterian prayer alter” — Please note that you put things on an altar, but change them when you alter them.  This misspelling never fails to get on my nerves.  As to the actual search term, the idea of setting up an altar or shrine to a constellation is…unusual, though not entirely out of reason.  Normally, when worship of celestial bodies is called for, it’s directed to the seven planets, hardly ever to the fixed stars, and much less any particular constellation of the Zodiac (notable exceptions being stars like the Behenian stars, the Pleiades, and so forth).  I suppose, if you wanted to set up a particular shrine to honor the constellation and god of Sagittarius in a standard modern Western fashion, you could use colors associated with the qabbalistic path of Samekh (= Temperance = Sagittarius), which are blue, yellow, green, and dark vivid blue; Jupiterian symbols and effects, such as a scepter, a battle-crown, bay and palm leaves, and so forth; symbols that relate directly to the sign, such as statues of centaurs and bows and arrows, and things that relate to the goddess Artemis; etc.  Setting it up facing the north-north west would be appropriate, or setting it up to face the east and working with it when the sign Sagittarius rises.  Making offerings in sets of 6 is appropriate, as the letter Samekh has the gematria value of 60.

At last, a true and beautiful Wand of Art!

October 13, 2013 By in creative, materia, occult Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I’ve done it.  I have my Wand.  A true, 24k gold-gilded, silver-capped, quartz-set ebony Wand of Art.

Wand of Art

And yes, for those who are interested, I wrote about how I constructed and consecrated it, from the design to the angels, and you can read the whole thing here if you want.  (You totally should, especially if you’re interested in seeing the process I used to make and consecrate it.)  I’m calling it my Wand of Art, because I don’t think I’ll ever need another wand after this, unless it’s for some extraordinarily specific purpose.  After putting the hours and labor into this project, with the help of some very generous friends of mine, there’s no way I can not use this wand.  My deepest thanks go to Raven Orthaevelve and Sr. Satelle. for their extraordinary generosity and patience with this project.  I couldn’t have done it without these guys for putting up with my incessant questions, nor for helping me out nontrivially with supplies.

Now, some of you may mention, “But polyphanes, don’t you have two other wands?”  Why, yes, I do!  I have the fire wand I made back in 2011 as a fire-specific wand, and my original wand that I made for my Table of Practice at the beginning of this journey.  The ebony Wand, though, replaces both of them.  The fire wand is dedicated to a friend of mine for use in his Work, while the other wand…I haven’t yet decided what to do with it just yet.  I may keep it to sell or as a gift, or as a “travel wand” just in case.  We’ll see, I suppose.  I’m certainly not opposed to selling or passing on my own ritual tools, especially the ones I made in my magical infancy, but if that’s the case, I prefer that people use them to start with, make better ones, and pass the old ones on to others as I would.