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.

Local Dead? Local Friends.

A few weeks back my fellow Brodepti and I took a field trip. Apart from our regularly planned dinner at a bar to discuss magical things, community stuff, our current work and things about which to be aware we decided we would take a trip to a local cemetery. There are three in the area I want to visit, one because it's near me, one because it has a folk legend associated with a statue that has since been removed, and one to find a relative. Hanging with other magicians seemed the perfect opportunity to check one of the cemetery visits off the list.

My town does not have a lot of cemeteries. In fact, I believe we just have one historical one, with the other more active ones all being in the neighboring city, or in other towns adjacent to us. The one we have though is essentially walking distance from me, maybe about a 10 minute walk, and I pass it multiple times a week just going to and fro. So it seemed like the most reasonable option for creating a relationship with the local dead.

I work with my ancestors quite a bit, but with the exception of my father, none of them lived in my town. Obviously most spirits with whom we interact won't be ones tied to our locality, but our location can be a big factor in our magic. So we should make connections with the local nature spirits, with the land itself on which we reside, and with natural features that are nearby, particularly if they impact us our our communities.

Working with local magic helps in a few ways. It connects the work you're doing to forces already tied to the place where you are likely looking to have your impact manifest. Other people in your area may interact with or be impacted by local spiritual forces even if they aren't aware of it. These spirits might also have concerns related to things around you, or connections giving them greater influence over things around you. If you're dealing with a spirit that means something to the people of your community, like one which is associated with a natural formation, or a folk legend, or the spirit of a local hero or historical figure there is also a significant local awareness that feeds and empowers that spirit within the environment in which you're working.

So, don't overlook your surroundings.

Creating ties to the local cemetery is something I've wanted to do for awhile, and it's something I still have further work to do to deepen. But this was essentially what was involved in my first step.

We went to the cemetery with offerings, and supplies for our work. We went a little before dusk on a weekend, so that while hopefully there wouldn't be a lot of people around, it wouldn't be completely unusual or suspicious if someone happened upon us since it wasn't at night. This particular cemetery is an historical cemetery and so there are no gates or walls, it just sits right along one of the town's most major roads, next to a building run by one of the biggest land developers in the state. So it's not particularly discreet, but it's also somewhere no one really goes these days. We were unlikely to be bothered, still, we chose our time cautiously, and I carried four bay leaves in my pocket, one to hide us in each of the four directions.

When we got there we set to work looking for the oldest grave. The first body buried in a cemetery is that cemetery's equivalent to the first man to die, the ancestor of all ancestors who oversees the passage between life and death and the people who live in the space of the dead, the cemetery. They're basically the head honcho spirit for that location. Now, admittedly, my planning was poor here. I did not look up who it was before hand. One of the other Brodepti decided to contact her town's historical society and they were able to tell her which graves were the oldest in her local cemetery. So I would advise anyone engaging in such an endeavor to start by doing that.

Since we didn't know the grave we were looking for, we searched through row by row, eventually we found a plaque that explained the history of the cemetery, including when the church was built and when they decided to begin using it as a cemetery. Most of the oldest graves were 160 years old, and so many were pretty worn, we settled on a head stone which seemed to be the oldest marked grave. The individual there was laid to rest within the year following the opening of the church, and so she seemed a good candidate for the oldest, and if not the oldest, at least a reasonably respectable contender to a position of importance within the cemetery.

We began by taking snow (in less wintery weather dirt or salt or one of the libations could be used) and making a three-way crossroads on the grave and making prayers to Hekate, and prayers to the gods and goddesses of the land of the dead to grant us access to the spirit of the person laid there, and to join her in receiving the offerings which we would now make.

We then poured out libations of wine, honey, milk, and olive oil on the grave with prayers to strengthen the spirit, stir it to life,to give it sustenance, and to remind it of the pleasant things in the world of the living. We left cakes of grain and fruit to further feed the spirit and asked that we might form an alliance with it and take a small amount of dirt from her grave as a connection to her.

Once we had completed our work with that spirit we took whiskey and more cakes and laid them out in a place towards the center of the patch of graves but in a space where no one was buried and we made an offering to the dead of the cemetery in general and asked for the same friendship with them, and to be allowed to take dirt from the cemetery generally as well.

So in addition to linking to the specific ancestor of the cemetery we linked to the cemetery itself, and had both grave dirt and graveyard dirt to bring home for magical work and for installing in our ancestor altars in order to further feed and develop that connection, and to empower our own dead further by linking them to a local place of power and soil rich with the presence of the dead. 

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The Accuser, The Chariot, and The Magician

Back in April I had a bit of an unnerving day, which involved a bit of magic, and that magic first induced a good bit of panic, and well, frankly, abject terror, eventually more magic made things run smoothly in seemingly miraculous ways. Because obviously, when magic is the thing that made things worse, it's obvious that more magic will make things better? Right? Well...in a lot of cases yes. So I'm going to tell my story, because so far most people who've heard it have thought it was cool, but hopefully it will also illustrate how to simply use magic in situations that arise as well as looking at how more magic can fix magic that isn't necessarily going how you'd hoped.

I, like most Americans, have a car. But, unlike a lot of people, I tend to not think about doing things I need to do for myself or my stuff, or my well being. For example, when I had pneumonia earlier in the year, it took two months of being sick before I went to the doctor because I figured, “I'll get better, and I don't have time to go sit at a doctors office or rest.” I spend a lot of time at work, and then I spend almost full time hours coaching, add to that blogging, other writing projects, the occasional bit of magic, and involvement in the local OTO body and I really don't have much time for me or things related to me. I'm usually pretty focused on the needs of others, or things I perceive as a duty to others and so I often deal with my own life when stuff explodes and forces me to look at it. Hopefully...I'll become more self aware and fix this at some point...anyway, for now, it provides the back drop for this story of magic, nearly crying in bed, more magic, and then success.

So yeah...the car. Well, my car is a 2014. I got it as a birthday present to myself in 2014. It's pretty nice, has navigation, rear cameras, a sun roof the full length of the vehicle, leather interiors...you know, car stuff. But it's a little European car, and it's a slightly larger model of this typically tiny car, but the engine still seems to be made for the tiny version and so it doesn't have a lot of pick up. But apparently it's got a turbo charger...which I didn't know, and those are fragile, and require, well the basic maintenance that normal people usually consider minimal and required.

My oil light was on, and I told myself I'd get to it. Some time passed, and I still told myself I'd get to it, and well the car started telling me to get to it. The pick up felt worse. It felt rough. It was idling poorly. I started to get nervous, and then one Saturday the engine light came on my car which has about 30K miles on it. I was pulling into the lot at work as it came on and thought “crap, I have stuff I have to do this weekend.”

So, I grabbed a bit of paper at my desk and cut it into a square. I drew a hexagram on it and in the hexagram drew the seal of Mars from the Heptameron and then like the seals from the Archidoxes of magic drew the planetary symbols in the points, but ordered such that Mars was crowning the hexagram. I added little crosses to the points like in the Lamen from the Heptameron and then drew a circle around it. I added the God name for Mars as given in the Golden Dawn's correspondences for Gevurah, and wrote the names of Samael, the angel of Mars, Samax who is the king of the aerial spirits ruled by Mars, and Carmax who is one of his ministers amongst the aerial spirits, and amusingly enough is also the name of the place from which I'd purchased my car.

I traced a cross and the sign of Mars above the paper talisman, I prayed the Orphic hymn of Mars and then said a prayer of invocation:

“Holy and Merciful God, Lord of Hosts, hear my prayer and send me a good angel to be my aid in all that I ask. Adonai Tzvot I call upon you to send your angel Samael to assist me, and I ask that Samael bring forth King Samax and his minister Carmax that they may grant my requests.”

I felt the presence of the angel and I explained that my car was having difficulties and asked that he direct the aerial spirits to correct any problem so that I could at least get through the various things I had to do that day and make sure the car remained ok until I took it to the shop, and that I would do so the next day.

After work I went out to my car, drove it, and it drove fine. The warning lights were still on, but all the problems seemed to cease. Still, I was worried, and later in the day thought “perhaps if I put the seal closer to the mechanism that would help. So I parked, put the seal in the glove box instead of on the seat, and went into a store. When I came back out and turned on the car, the engine light was no longer on. I thanked Samael and the spirits, and I felt pretty good. I thought to myself how I should work with Samael more often. Normally in the past when I had need of something Martial I would call on Bartzabel, I guess because of my Thelemic background. It crossed my mind that a week or so earlier I had listened to an episode of Charm the Water where Aaron interviewed Diablito from Ordo Al Ghul and they talked about a warning in Ashen Chassen's Gateways of Light and Shadow against conjuring Samael, because, as the accuser he will come and lay out all of your wrong doing and your failures and he will break you down as you will be defenseless against his accusations because you'll see the truth in them. He essentially holds up a mirror of your flaws and forces you to face them. As this crossed my mind I thought “Well that's clearly not true, Samael is awesome.”

I went home, I posted a big thank you to Samael on my Facebook wall. I went to bed.

So, let's pause for the cause and look at what we'd done so far. First, it was a Saturday, but I called the angel of Mars (Tuesday) for magical help in a pinch. Mars rules over chariots, chariots in the ancient world largely being associated with war and battle. So the modern equivalent of a chariot would be a car, and thus Mars is the planetary ruler that oversees cars and other machines of transportation, but does not directly rule travel.

I didn't want Samael to fix my problem...I wanted Samael, to make Samax, make Carmax fix it. I needed Samael involved because he is essentially the governing agent set over that quadrant of creation, but asking the guy who manages the dealership to come fix my car probably won't do much, instead he'll tell the guy who runs the maintenance division (Samax), to tell the mechanic (Carmax) to do it. Another way to look at it is that Samael is an angel, and they are great at giving advice, telling you how to fix things in your life, initiating various powers into your sphere, and generally motivating big picture movements towards manifestation, but, while they can get hands on stuff done, they're not always focused on hands on manifest stuff, and sub-lunar spirits are better at that because they exist in conjunction with the manifest world. King Samax and Carmax being aerial spirits are spirits who are sub-lunar as in they exist within the earthly sphere instead of existing in the celestial sphere, there are references to aerial, and terrestrial spirits, and occasionally aqueous ones, as “demons” or spirits who exist beneath the celestial realm without being themselves infernal. The Theurgia-Goetia refers to aerial spirits as mixed nature, partaking both of good and evil, seemingly with the intention of saying they are partially of an angelic nature and partially demonic...this sort of blending is great for a comic book, but doesn't really fit into the worldview of the late medieval and early renaissance grimoires that predate the Lemegeton. At that point spirits were spirits and where they resided had to do with how they might be called and how they might serve you when they show up, maybe who they answer to, but not all demons who resided beneath the celestial realm were devils. So, consider the aerial spirits as being easy to access since they reside in the earthly sphere, useful for material needs, again because they reside in the earthly sphere, and somewhat morally ambivalent. They also generally arrive on the winds and should be called directionally and preferably in a space with access to air flow, although in my example, I'm at a desk in an office and it worked fine.

The way I called them was simple and unplanned. I didn't fast, I didn't do any special bathing, or put on special clothes. Those things are nice, especially for an introduction. There are various reasons why those things make it easier for you to experience a spirit. But in this case, I didn't have prior work with Samael and was still able to call on him without a bunch of ritual or special prep. Part of this is that I did not need him to manifest in a way where I could see or hear him, and I did not need to be able to have some visionary experience of him. I just needed his spiritual presence to hear a request and aid with it. So in cases like that you don't need nearly as much to accomplish it. Having worked with spirits in his sphere before, having worked the Abramelin, and having spent a lot of time working with angels in general probably helps. But even if that's not the case for you, angels generally are interested in contact if you're earnestly trying.

The prayer was pretty short and wasn't overtly magical. Part of that is influence from the Olympic spirits who all kind of suggest very simple methods of approaching them in my experience, and that of many other magicians I know. But part of it is also drawn from old medieval Catholic ways of working with angels. In Catholic magic a simple prayer to God to send an angel for assistance is normal and doesn't need circles and signs and stuff. In Forbidden Rites it's even noted that sometimes the method of a simple prayer to send an angel was considered acceptable whereas adding in seals and circles would be what crossed the line into “necromancy” and illicit magic. So the simple prayer method is also well attested. In my example you'll note that “Lord of Hosts” or “Adonai Tzvot” is the only “name of God” that I use (unless you count “Holy and Merciful God”). Lord of Hosts is my preferred go-to God Name because, well, it describes God as I understand God, but also it's the most appropriate name from a Merkavah perspective, which definitely influences me. Interestingly enough it's also one of the small handful of names of God which Abraham the Jew says is permitted to use after one received their Holy Guardian Angel and begins to work The Sacred Magic.

I asked for something pretty direct, and I said what I would do if I got it. A lot of times when working with a spirit you'll do this in terms of “if you get the girl I like to talk to me, I'll pour rose petals on your seal and then burn them for you as an incense.” You present an if/then in terms of an offering. That can be a good way to go. Sometimes, angels want to see you fixing what's going on with you. They want you to be your best self. So sometimes with an angel your if/then can be “hey, give me the assist to get through this and I'll do my part to make it better.” In addition to that I went online and publicly praised the angel's work. This is something we see in ancient graffiti, people would publicly thank gods and spirits who helped them achieve their desires. Spirits seem to like good publicity. Maybe it means more people will talk to them, maybe it strengthens their anchor in the world. I don't know. But lots of magicians find it's part of what their spirits want, the ancients understood it's what spirits want, and in my experience it goes over well with them.

So, now that we've analyzed the magic to this point, lets continue the story...

The next day was Sunday. I was supposed to take the car to the shop, since Saturday, everything ran smoothly. Instead, I slept til like 4pm. Now in my defense, normally I sleep like 3 to 5 hours a night, and usually once a week, maybe once every other week, I get a night where I can actually sleep. This had been my first opportunity at any extended amount of sleep for some time. And maybe I got overzealous about sleeping. In any case, I did not fulfill my end of the bargain. When I woke up I tried to. I drove around to a bunch of mechanics shops but they were all closed. Apparently most of them had no Sunday hours, so doing my part would have been tough even if I'd woken up, I did eventually find one that was open though, but they weren't taking anymore work for the day, so ultimately I still missed the mark.

So I figured “Well, when I get some time off I'll take care of this, the seal seems to be working.”

The next morning I got up, got ready for work, hopped in my car, got on the belt way...and found that I couldn't accelerate above about 20 miles per hour. My car was shooting huge amounts of smoke out the back, and it felt like it was going to fall apart when I tried to accelerate. I saw cars driving up behind me and thought “oh crap, I'm going to die if I don't get off the beltway” so I quickly exited, called my boss, and told her I wouldn't be in, and headed for the nearest mechanic.

I pulled into a repair shop up the street from my house, I asked the guy for an oil change and a tune up. He said it didn't make sense that I'd need a tune up. I explained my problem, and admitted I'd missed an oil change, and he said I should take it to the dealer, because if there's a problem, and he touches it the warranty will be voided. I was like “No, I can't make it to the dealer, I have to bring it to you, I understand I'll have to pay.” So he said he'd do the oil change, and he'd fix a light I'd had out for awhile, and he'd see if that took care of it. He also explained that I was wrong about how frequently I needed oil changes, and that the frequency was twice as often as I'd thought, so I was more negligent than I'd thought.

He seemed like a good guy though, I felt like I was in good hands. So I walked home and left him to it. I came back later, and he was done. He told me how hard changing the light was and showed me cell phone pictures. He was cordial and it seemed like everything was going to be ok. Then he was like “So, you'd f-ed.” He walked me over to my car and explained that I'd burned out the turbo charger because I hadn't taken care of the oil. But...he explained it in vivid detail, with lots of curse words. He explained repeatedly how it was entirely my fault, and no one could help me, and that I'd destroyed my car, and at a minimum it would cost me $8K to fix it, each line pretty much included a refrain of how it was all my fault because I'd “f'ed up”. It was the most surreal customer service experience ever. And that was when I realized I was standing in front of a very real manifestation of the accuser.

He suggested I try the dealership. I drove to the next town, went to where I'd bought the car, the trip was terrifying. It drove better than it did before the oil change, I could force it to about 40mph now, but each acceleration gave a puff of black smoke, and if I pushed passed forty is was constant smoke and rattling. The dealership told me they couldn't see me for two weeks, but maybe another dealership that took their extended warranty could see me sooner. I drove home, the car riding horribly. I went up to my room, and laid down for an hour trying to relax to get rid of some of the stress, but the mechanic's explanation of my fault and the problems it would cause me just kept vividly replaying in my head so I couldn't sleep, and I could feel my heart racing as I edged just outside of panic.

I went back downstairs, and I went to my ancestor altar and made offerings and prayed for help. Then I made essentially the same prayer as before, but this time called on Raphael and Tzadkiel.

Making offerings to my ancestors tends to center me, calm me down, and give me strength. When things are bothering me, and I can smell the incense from their altar I start to calm down. Generally knowing they are there looking out for me and helping me is something that helps make me feel good and feel like I'll get through stuff. This is one of the reasons I heavily advocate that people establish an ancestor relationship. Your ancestors can help you with stuff in your life, and they can also help you navigate the spirit world. They can work directly with the spirits you're calling on and make sure they way they are manifesting things is a way which will help you, and having been human, they'll understand in ways other spirits might not. So they can add strength to what you're doing and also clarity to the work that spirits are doing on your behalf.

A lot of the time it will make sense to do spirit work at your ancestor altar, having already made offerings to your ancestors and having invited their presence. But you can also do ritual with your ancestors and then go to your altar where you do magic or conjurations and work their having asked already for their aid, maybe taking some token with you, or you can do your magic, like I did, and then go to your ancestors afterwards for help, like I did. In my case I just made offerings and then asked for help, but you might also bring some talisman or physical element of the magic you're working and leave it on the altar for them to work on. There are a lot of ways they can be incorporated into your work. We often talk about needing them as spirits involved in our magic, but we rarely talk about how to do that in a practical sense. In my case, these methods I've described are how I actively work with them in working magic.

So in addition to my ancestors, I called on Raphael, for the Sun, and Tzadkiel, for Jupiter. Unlike Samael these are spirits with whom I have a long history of work and familiarity. So it's definitely easier to call them with a more present effect using the simple prayer method. In this case I called them at the same time, which I don't usually do, and I didn't use Orphic hymns or seals. Just a prayer to the Lord of Hosts, and this time especially highlighting his Merciful and Loving nature, and also not just asking for good angels...I asked specifically “send your good AND MERCIFUL” angels. Mercy of course being the opposite of the Judgment inherent in Gevurah.

So, why the Sun? The Sun has kind of a magical reset button effect in some ways, it sets things to order. The Sun and Solar Spirits have a lot of cool interesting effects of their own, but in conjunction with other planetary forces the Sun has the ability to set and direct their motion. This is why the Sun is a general force of healing, it creates balance and draws the forces of the body or soul which are misaligned back into alignment. An important part of work in magical development involves engaging this solar principle and learning to use it to give order to the planetary forces as they manifest in your life. This element is also reflected in the relationship between the Abramelin working and the spirit magic which follows it. So in this case I called upon Raphael to create order and direction so that the Martial force would manifest primarily around getting my car fixed rather than around punishing or judging me for any misdeed. I conjured Tzadkiel to add to this balancing effect, since Tzadkiel in addition to the various Jupiterian powers and the fatherly providence and the kingly fecundity which he brings, he also brings Mercy and therefore could stay Samael's hand and cool the fires of judgment. Tzadkiel could also cause those looking at my situation to look upon me mercifully and lean more in my favor than against it.

So having conjured the spirits I explained what I needed and then continued with the day. I decided I would go get lunch and then make the trip to the other dealership, with the thought that the lunch trip could help me gauge my ability to drive more. When I got back from lunch I got the urge to check the mail. I'd just checked it over the weekend, and usually I don't check it too often unless I'm expecting something because usually it's just junk. But I thought “hey, maybe something in there will help things seem more alright.” So I opened the mail box and the only thing in it was a recall notice for my vehicle. Now it wasn't for the turbo charger, it was for the computer, but the glitch caused the car to be unable to accelerate above certain speeds similar to what mine was doing and it talked about the high level of danger this could potentially cause. I took this as a good sign and brought the recall notice with me.

I went to the dealer, explained my problem, and how I'd taken it to get an oil change today, but I'd misunderstood the frequency and I was late on the oil change, enough so that the new oil already looked bad, and that the oil had burned up the turbo charger so it wouldn't accelerate. Then I showed them the recall notice, and said, while it was a different part, it was the same symptom, and I asked if they could be related. The service station clerk said he'd call to see what the warranty could do, and he led me to the waiting room. About forty minutes later he came out with some paperwork and the keys to a loaner car. Three days later, they'd finished taking apart and reassembling my cars front end, and repairing the problems, and I went and picked it up.

The invoice pleasantly had zeros on the bottom. There was no cost. The first mechanic had suggested that maybe the extended warranty combined with the warranty would help reduce the cost but he insisted that the dealer would probably make me pay part of it. Again his estimate was $8K or higher for the work, and since they had to take apart everything, and it took days of work, a high cost seems likely. But in the end it didn't cost anything.

The car was definitely new enough, and with few enough miles that the warranty should have covered this, but I've seen situations where routine maintenance was done and the owner just couldn't document it and so claims were denied, let alone cases like mine. So I think this is a win for magic. But I think the story is especially helpful because it illustrates how various spirits and magical forces can work together to shape a manifestation. I think it also shows how when we're not careful a manifestation might have parts that we aren't expecting, or might not want to deal with.

I've seen people say that people should only conjure Camael because Samael is essentially the devil, he is poison, the Prince of Rome who God cast into fire for his desire to punish God's favored people. I've seen others say Camael is just a corruption of the name Samael and there is only Samael as the angel of Mars. But Camael seems to be a different name with a different meaning, and people seem to conjure Camael and get successful results from a different sort of presence than the one they get when they conjure Samael. If you look at the history of Jewish angel magic a lot of angel names are basically a random word with God tacked onto it. This isn't even a reductionist statement, it was essentially the concept behind the earliest Jewish forms of angel magic. So Camael also being an angel is pretty reasonable. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't still conjure Samael. Sometimes we need that poison. Sometimes we need to have a mirror held up to show us our flaws and break us down, but we need to know how to then put ourselves back together and what forces we need to draw in to move forward from that experience. Samael may be poison, but he's the poison which is an expression of the divine.

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Do You Have Any Dead People?

I have a friend who occasionally asks me questions about magic. While talking the other night when we got to the subject of conjuration he noted that he didn't really feel he had the position or connections to get heavy into spirit work yet, and so I of course asked “do you have any dead people?” I think a big hurdle for people with ancestor work is needing to have someone die. If you're not brought up in a culture of acknowledging your ancestors, it might be a little foreign to think of if you don't have your own dead people. In any case, he responded with a few questions about necromancy and the religious affiliations of the dead. Now the great thing about him asking questions, is I'm rather fond of him and enjoy talking with him, and so I tend to answer his questions by rambling out short extemporaneous essays...which...sometimes become blog posts. So what follows is me being pretty candid about different elements of different modes of work with the dead, with some of it expanded or clarified. I hope you enjoy it and it's useful to you.

I run a bit beyond the questions, but what kicked if off was essentially this:

“Concerning necromancy, what's your opinion when it comes to dealing with ancestors who in life would be completely opposed to the idea of magic and especially necromancy? Do you think those feelings would continue after death? Or do you think the rite of passing itself would distance them from their worldly dispositions and opinions? Or even simpler they'd have no care for religious matters?”

So there is a bit to unpack there...first...necromancy...and ancestors...and the rights of spirits to have opinions...

If you're working necromancy, it can often be more coercive, but doesn't have to be. So it depends a bit on the spirit and the relationship. If it's a random dead person then their views don't matter so much. If it's an ancestor that you're contacting through more necromantic means then you might use a method familiar to their religious view out of respect and to help maintain the relationship.

To really answer these questions we have to look at the particular sort of relationship we're dealing with. I would distinguish between necromancy -- ancestor work -- ancestor worship

Necromancy is ritual magic where you conjure and empower the dead with life and magical force and request that they perform tasks or provide information you need. Alternatively you can descend to the underworld to speak with them. But necromancy is largely associated with raising the dead because its mode of spirit magic involves bringing them into this world and feeding them with elements to enliven them to bolster their ability to interact with you or perform tasks for you.

A lot of time you'll use gods or spirits to exert authority, such as requesting access from Hades and then commanding that spirit in Hades name, or in a Christian context perhaps using Azazel. Similarly you might make a pact with the dead. You could gain access, feed them, and then ask them to do something with the offer that you might do something else for them or continue feeding them. Reginald Scot gives examples of procuring a pact with a dead person and then sending that now bound dead spirit to fetch and command other spirits for you. All of this falls under necromancy.

Ancestor worship is performing rights to honor the dead, or having meals with them to maintain a relationship so they look out for you and don't fuck shit up for you. A lot of traditional religion and magic recognizes that restless dead can be problematic and so you recognize and make offerings to them to help keep them from messing with you, or maybe to purge out missteps you've engaged in which might bring their ire. This is a sort of pagan version of “cooling the dead,” not so much removing the suffering or torment of purgatory, but soothing the difficulty an impact of being dead and displaced. There is a similar component with ancestors who have gone on to where they need to be. Ancestors want to be part of the family, they don't want to be forgotten, and they want to help their family continue well. But they also don't want you to do stupid shit, or mistreat what they've left behind. Ancestor worship maintains and strengthens the bond between living and dead members of the family so the dead ones stay happy, retain power and influence, and focus on having your back.

In my view ancestor working or ancestral magic is somewhere between ancestor worship and necromancy and has elements of both, but it also drops features from each. For example it isn't coercive like necromancy but it isn't passive like ancestor worship either. It kind of looks like ancestor worship but with a more direct expectation that they will help with specific things you ask for, introduce you to spirits or help keep good relations with you and spirits, assist in your magical work and maybe help guide spirits to outcomes you need. So you build a relationship like in ancestor worship and empower them like in Necromancy and they look out for you like in ancestor worship but they also do specific stuff for you like in Necromancy.

But the interaction differs, at least in my view. Both in terms of methods and the way each one feels as far as the interaction with the spirits.

Like when I work with my dead, I make offerings, set lights, ask Charon to bring them, and thank them for stuff and ask for any help I need. If I want their help in magic I tell them what spirits I'm working with and ask them to help and maybe explain how. Alternatively I might call on them before beginning a conjuration or magical rite and ask for them to assist. Or I might leave a tool or object on their altar and ask for their blessing or empowerment before I use it for magic.

When I do necromancy it's got a more intense flavor. There's libations poured out on the ground, coins thrown into cross roads, chthonic gods called with Orphic hymns, maybe stuff involving blood and meat, or food abandoned in the night. Going to places where people died or where the dead are resting, or other liminal places at liminal times.

If I'm honoring an ancestor for like a birthday or holiday it's kind of like having dinner with them and is pretty laid back, and can also be pretty personal and emotional. There's some prayers and then we eat and I tell them what's new in my life or other family members. We maintain a familial relationship and connection the same way you would with living relatives, you basically visit with them, and keep them feeling like they're part of the living family.

Ancestral magic is kind of the daily traditional household magic, necromancy is intense goetic sorcery, and ancestor worship is visiting the dead for thanksgiving style catching up.

As to the religion thing...if they're Christian none of this will be familiar to them. Except in some traditional folk Catholic contexts, but anyone who is a product of a few generations of life in America as a Christian probably wouldn't die with the expectation that their relatives do this stuff. But once they're on the other side...maybe.

So I don't think it matters because for MOST people I don't think their expectations impact their afterlife. They get their and they find out what's what. At least the part of them that remains as that person continuing on.

If they weren't magical you probably want to talk with them about magic first and make sure they agree to help you with magic before you call on them to help with magic. You could still call on them to look out for you, and help you fix problems in your life. That's a little more of a hit the ground running kind of thing than being like “Hey, Aunt Judy, I know you didn't do magic...but I'm going to make this sweetening jar and I need you to help empower it, and maybe introduce me to a spirit who can help accomplish it's work.” I feel like it's like talking to a living person. You don't want to catch them off guard with a request. But just because it might catch them off guard if it wasn't discussed before that requests like that might happen, doesn't mean that they won't be cool with the request if they know it's coming. Make some offerings, have a conversation with them about the relationship you want, and what kind of help with magic you will want, listen for what they're cool with too, they should be talking back, it should be a conversation. Let them know you'll be working magic and you want them to be a part of it. I think most will be ok with that. Since you talking to them is kind of magic already.

But that said, they keep their opinions and ideas, at least on some level.

Like not 100% but if they were about helping people they still are, if they were about what's yours is yours they still are. Like basic core elements of how they saw things. But family is also important to them and contact and interaction and offerings and physical stuff, because that's what attaches them to our world, so it helps them maintain a piece of that existence. Even if it wasn't stuff that they'd be into when they were alive, the elements of this connection should become important to them now. But their thoughts and feelings and personality should also be similar to what it was in life.

These offerings, and this relationship isn't just important to them though, it should be important to you. It strengthens them to help us. So if you want the relationship to be useful to you this stuff needs to be there.

But yeah, as far as whether or not you need to call them within the context of their religion. Call them under the power of the gods who rule the world of the dead. They live in their kingdom now, whoever where their gods when they were living, the gods of the land of the dead are their gods while they're dead.

Unless it's like a Saint or a Blessed. If you're asking one of them to be in your ancestor court they're specifically empowered by Christian ritual and belief already. So it's like working with a god or mighty dead spirit from a religion, you contact them within that religious context. Part of what you're drawing on is the power associated with their religious role, so call on that within the context of that power. They're built into a different spiritual structure, and you're not working on the personal identity of that individual so much as that identity empowered with a religious iconography and spiritual power fed by a tradition of religious veneration. You're approaching a legend as much as a person.

So Azazel, Azrael, St. Peter, probably St. Christopher, St. Cyprian, St. Benedict, maybe St. Nicholas or some Saint associated with the dead or funeral customs would be the authority or the gate keeper, or assisting spirit to call upon when trying to access the spirit of a Saint or Blessed canon figure to work with in the context of your ancestors.

Otherwise, regular dead people, call them how you'd call them and talk with them about what you'd want and see if they're good with it.

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