An Anniversary, A Book, and a World of Spirits

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge I haven’t blogged much over the passed year. That is because I was writing a book, _Living Spirits: A Guide to Magic in a World of Spirits_ that book is now complete and is available. So hopefully I’ll be blogging more soon. If you’ve enjoyed my blog in the past you’ll probably enjoy the book, so please order a copy. If you want more info, this post is actually going to talk about it a bit.

The late December/early January has presented the anniversaries of some cool posts.

Last January included a very popular post on faeries, and how the experience of work with the fair folk compares to taking opiates and having orgasms. We also explored the exploration of grave yards and alliances with the local dead.

December of 2017 we looked at the Catholic traditions surrounding the Three Kings in preparation for Epiphany, which occurred yesterday. We also explored the ongoing nature of the experience of Knowledge and Conversation, as opposed to the idea of doing it to check a box.

January 2017 also looked at the Holy Guardian Angel, with a very popular post about sex and the Abramelin retreat.

But our big January Anniversary was January 5^th 2017. That was when we posted the first post in our Beginning Conjuration series, an 8-part series introducing ways to interact with several types of spirits. The series was conceptualized as a sort of free mini-e-book serialized over 8 posts.

The topics presented were:

Recommended Books

Devotion

Scrying

Elementals

Intermediary Spirits

Angels and Demons

The Dead

The Fair Folk

People seemed to like the series. Some comments as people reposted it included:

“Comprehensive, and all around excellent, thematically linked series of blog posts on the subject of spirit conjuring by BJ Swayne. Enjoy.” – C. Degraffenreid

and

“Over the recent days, BJ Swayne has been making available a series of introduction to conjure magick posts that make the fundamentals of "DOING MAGICK" and "doing magick right" available to folks just getting into this thing, from the perspective of someone who gets it, whose done it, and who has reaped the rewards. He's one of my favorite magicians, and he's just giving this stuff away.” – Fr. Rufus Opus

The series was pretty cool, if I’m allowed to say that myself.

So cool that I thought, “I should expand this, tie it together more, flesh it out into something more workable and complete, people can read the short form for free and if they like it, an expanded form will be available to buy as a book.”

I ended up, accidentally, beginning the expansion January 5^th 2018, the anniversary of the release of the first post. December 25^th 2018 I published it as _Living Spirits: A Guide to Magic in a World of Spirits_.

So you might think “So you’re book is your blog posts?” Well, no it isn’t. I revised and expanded seven of the original eight posts as part of the project, significantly expanded, and added more ritual instructions. I also wrote a ton of new material, additional chapters, and four appendices for practical work.

The original project was about 25 typed pages, which would have been about a 40 page book. The final project was a book of over 350 pages.

Here is the table of contents. You can compare it to the list of the original 8 topics and also see if it sounds like stuff you’d find interesting.

I A Spirit Haunted World ........................................................................................11

II What Is Conjuration? ...........................................................................................17

III An Historical View of Conjuration .....................................................................21

IV Solomonic Magic: It’s History and Nature .........................................................33

V Devotion ................................................................................................................47

A Devotional Ritual: Installing an Image .................................................................53

VI Scrying ..................................................................................................................56

VII Ancestors ............................................................................................................61

VIII Elementals .........................................................................................................79

Conjuring the Elemental Spirits ...........................................................................85

IX Nature Spirits .......................................................................................................86

X Preparation, Charism, and Intermediary Spirits ..................................................96

XI The Holy Guardian Angel ............................................................................... 109

XII The Four Kings ............................................................................................... 119

A Conjuration for Asking Kings of the Cardinal Directions to Send a Spirit . 134

XIII Hekate ............................................................................................................ 139

Deipnon ............................................................................................................. 156

A Tiresian Necromancy of Hekate Based on the 1st Century Description by Statius ................................................................................................................. 161

XIV Angels and Demons ...................................................................................... 171

XV Aerial Spirits .................................................................................................... 184

Conjuration of King Arcan ................................................................................ 195

XVI The Olympic Spirits ...................................................................................... 198

XVII The Dead ..................................................................................................... 207

XVIII Fairies .......................................................................................................... 217

XIX Tying It All Together .................................................................................... 225

Offerings ............................................................................................................. 230

Spaces ................................................................................................................. 233

Not All Spirits are Good .................................................................................... 235

Protection ........................................................................................................... 236  First Appendix: Grimoire Spells ............................................................................ 239

Love Spell ........................................................................................................... 250

Money Spell ........................................................................................................ 253

Elimination Spell ................................................................................................ 256

Second Appendix: The Pentacles of Solomon...................................................... 259

Consecration of the Fifth Pentacle of Luna ....................................................... 265

Consecration of the Fifth Pentacle of Mercury ................................................. 270

Consecration of the Fifth Pentacle of Venus ..................................................... 275

Consecration of the Third Pentacle of Sol ........................................................ 281

Consecration of the Sixth Pentacle of Mars ...................................................... 287

Consecration of the Second Pentacle of Jupiter ................................................ 292

Consecration of the Fourth Pentacle of Saturn ................................................. 298

Third Appendix: Southern Conjure: A Practical Look at Spiritous Sorcery ....... 304

Petition papers .................................................................................................... 310

Powders and Oils ................................................................................................ 313

Candles ................................................................................................................ 318

Mojo Hands ........................................................................................................ 320

Sweetening Jars ................................................................................................... 322

Fourth Appendix: Two Group Rituals................................................................... 328

By Lamp and Water ........................................................................................... 329

A Feast for the Dead .......................................................................................... 346

Summation .......................................................................................................... 363

So maybe this wasn’t the most exciting return to blogging, but hopefully the trip down memory lane showed you some cool posts you may have missed and will enjoy.

If the book looks cool…please show support and buy a copy!

You can also follow the blog at Glory of the Stars on Facebook

You can follow announcements about the book at Living Spirits: A Guide to Magicin a World of Spirits, on Facebook

And you can hang out with lots of cool people and chat about magic in our Facebook group Living Spirits

New cool topical blog posts coming soon.