A World Less Magical

I was meeting with a college friend last week for lunch. He and I hadn't seen each other for a few years even though we had been super tight even for a few years after college, seeing each other at least once a week for a few years after graduating. We were talking a lot about research into family trees, and genetic tests. Eventually discussing changing perceptions of race and family make up led to a conversation about changes in worldview between generations and of course that turned towards the pace of modern materialism and the lack of belief.

 

My friend is an evangelical Christian. He's very committed to it, and his weekly Bible study schedule was actually what ended up throwing off our routine hanging out as we hit our thirties. Even with his fairly conservative evangelicalism, our conversation included him congratulating me on my Black Crozier award (we had not hung out since before I won that) and the success of my occult books. We couldn't be friends without me accepting his Evangelicalism and him accepting my Pagan-Catholic-Sorcerous-Witchcraft-and-Dionysianism. So, talking about how much magic is in the world isn't a shocking or unusual topic, and honestly, is a topic which should be intensely important for Christians too.

 

I talked about how when we were kids we learned folk tales in school, and knew the various folk heroes of Americana. We learned folk elements of holidays and some basic folk beliefs as if they were normal parts of knowledge. This was a core part of the fun of elementary education. Some of us got more exposure to this from our parents and our home lives, and for those of us that did, the folk knowledge that was part of public culture probably stuck a little more. It was still something that was there on some level for most people.

 

We have anthropologists and sociologists finally exploring that folklore is not a past thing, but a continually developing thing. Rather than noble savages and peasantry being the source of folk memory, there are now collections of experiences with the spirit world, and folk knowledge as it impacts modern people with modern lives. There are books and studies countering the idea that materialism killed the spiritual awareness and folk beliefs of that European and North American cultures are somehow more fixed in materialism and rationalism than other cultures.

 

In my own experience, and the anecdotal experience of many magicians, most people believe in magic or the supernatural when faced with the opportunity for it to exist. They may deny it generally, but still choose safety when it could present some risk, or seek its help in small ways when it is opportune. A friend once told me that his atheist girlfriend appreciated me praying for her because she thought it helped her situation. In school, friends who were Catholic and friends who didn't believe in anything would turn to me as the magic kid for things they didn't feel right praying for or asking for otherwise.

 

At minimum the average person has retained a belief in possibility, even when that generally is at odds with how they would consider themselves.

I think some of this is changing though. As I failed to understand how to use the table top card reader, displaying my backwards hermit magician status, I bemoaned the death of folk knowledge and magical awareness amongst young people.

 

I work with college students, and also with children and teenagers. So I get to see a lot of what they think and what they're aware of. Unlike most teachers and coaches, I work with the kids year round, and will have some of them with me from the age of 9 or 10 up through 18 or longer. So I get to the point where they can talk about a lot of what interests them and how they see things. They also like to try and get me to kill time by setting up trivia games.

 

I have found that as elementary curricula focus more on STEM, and on computer skills there is less room for other things. Kids get a lot less folk knowledge and local history and folk culture. Some of it is probably still there but there is so much else for them to cover as the pace of education accelerates that it doesn't sink in so much

 

Add to that more activities for kids, and parents keeping activities and hobbies for themselves, as well as keeping up with increase homework as schools try to prepare students for the world loads of higher education by overloading them in lower school...parents probably find less time to sit in fields and talk about why the leaves tremble or what magics certain flowers and things floating in the air might hold.

 

As kids no longer have the wonder of the world woven into their nascent awareness, the world becomes less magical.

 

You might say that the world is what it is, and kids will have the opportunity to find it later if that's what they want. I think we mostly know, if we're honest with ourselves, that it usually doesn't work that way even if we like the idea of it working that way. It's easier to say "this might be our there" and have someone decide they don't care about it and ignore it than it is to say nothing and someone to spontaneously look for something they had no idea existed.

 

Even when people know something exists, like various unusual sports and hobbies, the common impulse of those with some passing interest, even some people with a keen interest is to say "well, I don't know how to find that, it's never been anywhere I've seen." In the religious sphere, lots of people decide they don't believe in God, because they don't believe in the God they've been shown, and don't realize that what they do believe in might exist in some other faith because they don't know other options exist.

 

Some people will be raised in a world of gray cubicles, and find the cracks that let the light shine in, and realize they can break through those cracks. It won't be the norm.

 

Still, the world is the world. It will always have its magic and wonder even if people don't pay attention. Right?

 

In some ways, yes, the fundamental reality of what is won't change. Our ability to engage it will.

 

I don't believe in consensus reality, or that the collective acceptance of a concept reshapes the objective realness of the world. I do believe that our interactions with the spirit world our shaped by our interactions with the world around us and with the spirits in the world around us. I believe this applies to our individual interactions and our interactions as a group.

 

If we are unkind to the spaces of spirits, or to the spirits themselves, guardians who see us as part of the environment they guard and assist will become monsters who see us as interlopers. We can see this evolution throughout folklore and faery stories.

 

More than that, many spirits need the physical world to engage with the spirits and spirit world, or to provide things that break down the barriers of awareness and interaction between those places in order to more fully engage us and engage this world. This is a common element of many magical and religious traditions.

 

Some elements of engagement include offerings, some include ritual acts, and some are simply engaging awareness and interaction as if they spirit is present with us.

 

Living in a world where that engagement is always present and where the awareness of the imminent presence of the spiritual is ubiquitous shapes our capacity and the capacity of the spirits. This isn't so much a matter of belief changing the world, but a question of whether closing our blinds impacts how easily we know what's happening outside of our windows.

 

I spent 12 years working in an area where most people believed in magic, and wore magical amulets and used words and signs to keep away the evil eye and other negative magical impulses. It was an interesting difference in awareness. I wasn't part of the community and didn't live in the community, so I didn't get to fully engage the difference. There was still something perceptible to it.

 

I've heard stories from people who have visited or lived in places where magic is a general living part of the culture. The consensus seems to be that in those spaces spirit interaction is more common, more visceral, more perceptible and often more effective. Spaces where the average person believes in magic and spirits, and needs their intervention in their lives, and routinely engages that awareness are spaces where magic takes on a different character.

 

Many of us have recognized that but I'm not sure we internalize what it means for the world, or what we as magicians should be doing in light of that reality.

 

I made a new friend last night. He was talking about his difficulties making himself study in light of other things he deals with, and I commiserated. He asked about me studying, and I explained that I had research I was doing for a writing project, and that I was currently researching the Faery Queen and her evolution from the Sibyls of Greece through Arthurian Legend into magical texts and practices and how that connected to various pieces of folklore in different parts of the world. He thought it was super cool. Later in the night, another friend talked about taking an extra trip because he didn't want to drive with too many people in his car since cops patrolled the area where he'd be driving. I told him I would offer him a bay leaf so he could drive without being seen, but that I didn't have any with me. The new friend was super confused, the other friend acknowledged appreciating that I would have offered and kind of skirted around addressing the confusion. So I explained why bay leafs relate to invisibility and hiding things.

 

It was all pretty matter of fact and no explanation was given. The world just included the possibility of magic as if it was a normal thing.

 

In situations where it's appropriate I try to be this person. A relatively normal person, who doesn't seem like anything bizarre. A normal person who might answer questions about magic or answer non-magical questions with magical answers, as fluidly as a non-magical answer might be given. Not in a showy or weird way, in places where it's appropriate or would be as normal as anything else.

 

I hate the internet trend of saying "normalize" things. It frequently involves stuff where the goal isn't to make something normal, but rather to make it comfortable and unstigmatized. Part of me wants to say that we should normalize magic, but that isn't really the goal either. Magic shouldn't ever be normal because magic needs to be visceral and kinetic. Magic should be present and a visible part of the world.

 

Obviously, care has to be taken as far as context. Some people are people who you probably don't need to be a magician in front of. Others might be people where it's ok. Sometimes keeping magic present in the world doesn't have to involve you being magic. All situations are different.

 

At the very least, avoiding a world less magical is a thing we should consider.

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Funny Cause It's True

Three days ago I had a Facebook memory pop up of sharing a post from Jason Miller's blog two years ago, titled “ABC Always Be Conjuring.” The post was a joke, he was parodying a speech from the Movie Glengarry Glen Ross, you should read it (and Jason's blog in general) if you haven't.

I almost re-posted the memory, not because the post is funny (which it is), but because the basic sentiment is true and useful...and is one I think people, myself included, don't always get or follow through on.

The speech was originally a hard push for super aggressive sales people, the parody sets it up as an inspirational redress of nascent sorcerers calling them to a life of constant committed conjuring and spirit work. On the surface it's goofy, it's a fun joke, but, the basic message “always be conjuring” can actually inspire a useful view point.

Magic isn't a band-aid, it's not a quick fix or a cure all. Magic, at it's core, is based on understanding fundamental elements of the structures behind existence and how we use those to accomplish the changes we desire. With that in mind shouldn't magic be part of the structure of our lives? Doing a little magic here or there, or even having a developed magical practice but only using it when we need to solve magic issues is not making it part of the structure of our lives. Using it as a fail safe or last effort is making it an accessory that we hang on the scaffolding of our personal structures. Even if we're not saving it for dire situations, if we're putting it on a pedestal and not fluidly weaving it into what we do, and who we are, then it's still just something that decorates us rather than something which supports us.

Doing magic takes time and effort. Sometimes we don't want to put in that time and effort. Sometimes we've spent the day at work, we've dealt with whatever our evening tasks are – whether it's a second job, school, a family, an activity, and we're just tired. Or maybe we don't have the stuff we need and won't be ready in the right hour. Or we don't have a temple space and our room is a mess and we don't feel magical. Maybe, tonight you have a headache or need to wash your hair. Maybe we can come up with a dozen or so reasons not to do magic.

Then maybe we need something, and it's important and...we still don't do magic. We're not in the habit. There are probably other solutions. It's not something we need to use magic for anyway. We're not sure which method would be best.

Then maybe we need more stuff, maybe the situation gets more difficult, and now magic makes a lot more sense. Maybe we need a solution and magic seems like the only way to make a solution tenable.

Why be in that situation? It doesn't just make magic more difficult because the goal is more difficult, it leaves you in the wrong mental state to even approach problem solving, let alone magical problem solving. You're definitely not in a mental state where it's going to be easy to approach magic. And all those things you've taught yourself to use to avoid magic are still going to be there on top of whatever other stress you have.

If you're a magician, do magic. Not just meditation, not just spiritual maintenance, or lesser banishing rituals or whatever daily or weekly exercises you might have. Most of that isn't magic. Do magic.

I myself have this problem. When I was really young and mostly doing witchcraft and NeoPagan magic I used magic all the time for stuff. As an older teenager into young adult years this continued. But eventually I kind of got this idea that you need to measure yourself against things you don't affect by magic, and that sometimes you should knuckle down and suffer through things without magic to build character. Neither idea really makes sense. What you create with magic is as real as what you create with anything else. Magic is, in a way, the same as any other effort. Don't make it so special that specialness becomes a reason not to do it.

Now that I'm a full grown adult the problem is less that magic is too special to use, or that the reality touched by magic is different from reality untouched by magic. It's that I go to work for 8 hours, get about an hour to have dinner, and then coach a sport for five hours during which much of my time is spent running around and drilling sword techniques into middle and high school boys and then when they're done I get to do it again with college kids until I'm sweaty gross and tired when I get home at midnight.

I'm sure a lot of you have some sort of similar experience...just...with fewer swords, maybe less sweat. More likely fixing dinner for your kids and putting them to bed, after trying to figure out how to do homework in subjects you haven't looked at since you were their age, or working a second job, or whatever.

But if you're reading my blog I'm assuming magic is something that's important to you, or that calls to you. I assume you either consider yourself a magician or you want to be a magician. So you need to do magic, and like I said before, magic, not magical aerobics.

Call spirits regularly, work with them.

I work with my ancestors at least weekly, often more than once a week. I don't have a regular schedule for conjurations though. Recently when I was out to dinner with the Brodepti we all talked about how we don't do magic much – but all of us had conjured a spirit for something within the preceding week. In our minds if we weren't back in our Abramelin retreat schedules with hours of prayer and ritual a day we weren't doing enough magic. Maybe we aren't, but maybe you don't need to always be on that kind of schedule. You won't always be conjuring...but, conjure often, and conjure even when you don't need things.

You should use your routine prayers as meditations. This helps you learn them but also helps draw the forces they call into your life. Each day finding a time to say the planetary prayer for the day, or the orphic hymn, or a prayer associated with a god or spirit you work with is a useful technique. This shouldn't be where it stops though.

Call the spirits.

If you know them and they know you it's easier to call them and easier to work with them. If you work with one a lot ask it to give you a familiar spirit, or a special sign and name by which to easily call it.

Everyone these days talks about building a relationship with the spirits. You can't do this if you only call spirits when you need something.

That said, only give them something when you're asking for something. Don't give them offerings with pronouncements of your loyalty and dedication and how you're ready to honor them. Most spirits we're calling in magic aren't gods, and acting like they are can skew the relationship especially when you eventually really need something.

Asking to get to know them is still asking for something in return for your offering.

Run through the spirits of the planets, or the elementals, call your ancestors, introduce yourself to your backyard's nature spirits, see if your house has a household spirit, or ask the local spirits to help you attract one. Call on these spirits and ask them to teach you about them, the things they do, the things that interest them and the ways in which they work with the things that interest them.

Build a rapport. Get to know them, get them to know you.

Ask them to help in general ways with your life.

When you find small specific things that maybe don't seem like they need magic, ask for help with those things. When you want something that maybe doesn't need magic, ask for it.

Work a structure in your life that is built with magic woven into it. Build a structure where you have a working relationship with the spirits you need and keep that relationship actively involved in building your life.

Be good at adulting.

Never exercising and always eating junk food won't make you healthy. Never paying bills won't help you have the things you need. Not finishing tasks at work won't help you keep your job. Not doing magic won't make magic part of your life.

If you use magic to better things when things aren't bad, and to solve problems while they're small it will help you avoid bigger problems becoming potentially catastrophic ones. Same as mundane attention will. If you want to do magic make it part of this process of attention to the things you need in your life. If it's worked in already then you need less ritual, you need less preparation, you need less time, and the pathways the spirits need to manifest things are already well trodden and established from your routine work with them.

Always be conjuring.

It's something I'm not as good about as I should be. But it's something I'm going to be more mindful of. Hopefully it's something you'll be more mindful of too if you aren't already.

If you enjoyed this please like us on Facebook and please share this post and our Facebook page. If you want to connect and you like spirits and talking with other magicians who work with spirits please join in with our Facebook group, Living Spirits. And since we were referencing Jason's blog today...go pick up a copy of his newest book The Elements of Spellcrafting. 

Ritual Drama and Missing the Boat

When I was a teenager I was preparing to run my first group ritual. I was probably 15 or 16, I'd been doing rituals on my own, formally from books for about 4 or 5 years at that point, but being more or less a kid I hadn't had a team to work with. There was no Scooby Gang ala Buffy and unlike Scott McCall I wasn't alpha of a supernatural pack (yet), despite how much TV makes it look like high school is one supernatural group play date after another. 

Around my sophomore year of high school I began expanding my group of Pagan and magic curious friends and we lived in a magical world of hormone soaked epicness complete with our own little magical adventures. We eventually decided to unofficially become "Pagan Youth Group" and have special outings for magic kids only...mostly hanging at the mall and witch shops. And our first official unofficial outing was going to include a Celtic Reconstructionist Bealtain ritual which I was writing. 

Proud of my first attempt at a group ritual I sent the script to Ceisiwr Serith (author of Pagan Family, A Book of Pagan Prayer, and a few other titles) to get his feedback. In that feedback he gave me some really important advice "Remember this isn't a Protestant service, you don't need to give a sermon to try and teach a congregation." Ritual isn't preaching, it isn't Sunday school it doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be just a verbal recounting of a religion's ideals or history or mythos. 

Cei's advice on this (as with many things he taught me) has stuck with me such that here I am 20 years later recalling that first attempt and his guidance. 

On the other end of the spectrum, as an adult I recall one of my early experiences of group ritual magic in which a magician in the local community exclaimed during practice - with an attempt at dramatic gravitas: "remember, this. Is. THEATER!"

I recall being wholly unimpressed. 

Now, as I write this, I've been working in a group for 17 years, I've been an ordained priest for 7 years, I ran the Pagan student Union at my college for 5 years, so I have a lot of experience writing group rituals, doing well established group rituals, and being in or watching people's original group rituals. 

I have seen and been in several clumsy rituals, even a couple of my attempts have been clumsy. Group rituals are tough sometimes because you have to balance having an effective ritual with satisfying the group's desire to enjoy the ritual, to feel like they got to participate, to feel entertained. 

These goals often don't serve each other. 

You get a lot of people who toss in a Eucharist or burning an intention or putting a personal item on the altar as easy ways to include people. Sometimes these elements make sense sometimes they're a little forced but typically they're an attempt to keep the magic there while managing group needs. 

You also get people who essentially produce very overdetermined plays which don't do anything operatively in terms of magic or spirituality...they just present ritualized drama, they engage in theater, they maybe beat you over the head with a message.

Things like that aren't magic, they aren't ritual, and they're in the bargain basement bins in terms of religion. 

If your ritual acts don't do anything, if they are just a show, if they are just communicating an idea, they aren't magic and I'd argue might only barely be ritual if at all. 

Now you can easily cite academic books which equate ritual and drama and look at ritual as psychology. But these books are generally written by secular researchers looking to explain human behavior in a secular context. There is a lot of useful stuff magicians and Pagans can take from the academic press but an ethnographic bias or contextualizing religious practice to fit secular concepts are not elements which help us. 

We can cite the relationship between theater and religion in Greece...clearly with that in mind, ritual plays can be magical religious rituals. Right?

Maybe. 

I've definitely done rituals which involve elements of drama and theater, but the point is always to create a real magical impact. Spiritual forces are engaged and applied to accomplish something. There is a goal beyond a message. Theatrical elements can be tools used by a magician, but they must be used towards a magical purpose. Your actions and words, your costume, your space, these can contribute to theater and to magic even simultaneously. But the theater shouldn't replace the magic. 

If we're doing mystery plays we're not doing a play with a clever twist to reflect upon, we're confronting spiritual powers that change us through directly experiencing them.

I was thinking about all this as I was showering this morning. I was thinking about rituals and communities. It made me think of a ritual I read recently by a pretty secular Thelemic author. Putting aside culturally insensitivity problems in it the ritual is basically a series of quasi-history speeches. Nothing really happens. It is literally a pageant. 

To me that's sad. Killing the experience of the mysteries, deadening the fires at the core of magical practice in favor of a sort of psychological Protestantism is the work of "The Great Sorcery" the aim of the Black Brotherhood. It moves us to a complacent and distracted place where we get mired like a fool with our "one one one". 

So remember, ritual isn't Sunday school, magic isn't Protestantism.

Beginning Conjuration and Spirit Magic pt 6: Angels and Demons

Presenting part 6 of 8 of our series on Conjuration and Spirit magic for beginners. Today we'll talk about what most people think of when we think conjuration, the act of conjuring angels and demons. Last week we posted a series of book recommendations and information on setting up a devotional practice to develop support in the spirit world. Monday we introduced scrying, Tuesday conjuring the elementals, yesterday we talked about intermediary and crossroads spirits. So please like us on Facebook, and share the post with your friends so that can enjoy it as well.  

Beginning Conjuration and Spirit Magic pt 6: Angels and Demons

We've discussed in the last few posts working with devotional relationships with spirits, intermediary and crossroads spirits, and elemental spirits. Most people when they think about conjuring spirits are expecting to conjure demons, maybe angels. The most famous text for summoning spirits in modern magic is probably the Goetia of Solomon which is largely a collection of demon descriptions and seals. If we look at medieval and renaissance books of magic however we find that that is a pretty incomplete picture. The Goetia of Solomon is part of the Lemegeton which through its various books treats subjects including demons, angels of the zodiac, angels of the hours of the day, and aerial spirits who are of a mixed nature...or...spirits who exist in the elemental world being neither angels nor demons. Dr. Rudd presents a variety of different types of spirits beyond angels and demons in his work, the Folger Manuscript, and Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft address conjuring faeries, Scott also discusses conjuring the dead. Various grimoires deal with an array of spirits, but we're going to start with angels and demons in this post and then look to the dead and then to faeries in the next two.

In the middle ages conjuration of angels was not always a form of necromancy or illicit magic. To be clear necromancy in medieval magic did not necessarily refer to conjuring the dead but to nigromancy or black magic. Any magic outside of the bounds of of legal activities for good church folks was interchangeably referred to as such. Natural magic was not necessarily against the rules because it dealt with features which were viewed as being within God's control, or his structuring of nature. Applying the magical faculties which God wrote into the plants, stones, and natural phenomena of the world, and the powers he gave to the creatures he made to tend to them, which possibly included faeries or angels depending upon the thoughts of the time. We often think of angels as expressly celestial but Dionysius the Areopagite in his Celestial Hierarchy divided the hierarchy of angels into two prior to dividing out the hierarchy of Seraphim, Cherubim, and the rest. There are angels who are purely celestial and serve at the throne of God exclusively, and angels which act in the world to perform the divine will.

So to work with angels whom God has set to act in the world could at times be viewed as a natural act, working within rather than subverting the natural order of the world as God has set it forth. With this in mind angels could be called through simple prayers without the need of seals and signs, protective circles and magical hours and the tools and trappings of the ceremonial magician. According to Kieckhefer in Forbidden Rites allowing magical trappings to creep into work with angels when otherwise simple prayers would do might lead to suspicion of necromancy.

We don't see a lot of magical books which treat angels in this fashion though. The Arbatel is probably the closest as it is essentially just a prayer that calls the Olympic spirits, but seals are still given and the angels are explained in a magical context. The Abramelin dispenses with a lot of the trappings of ceremonial magic and criticizes them thoroughly, instead insisting that prayer, reflection, and purifications are all that are needed to call an angel. Once you've called the angel you can use the angel to call demons and those demons can then be commanded by a series of magical squares. This is reminiscent of some early Jewish magical descriptions, but they're not quite in the realm of licit angel magic. The closest example that a modern person might see would be something like the prayers referencing the Guardian Angel, or St. Michael in things like the Roman Ritual or the Raccolta. We see something more practical and personal in prayer candles dealing with these same angels in the Catholic prayer candles.

These can be used with other various magical practices that we might associate with sorcery or hoodoo to draw the influence or added benefit of working with angels. But say we want something that is a little more directly in line with conjuration and ceremonial magic, or perhaps we want something that creates a more direct contact with the angels or spirits with whom we wish to work. The Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals which was presented by Francis Barrett in The Magus and credited to John of Trittenheim – the Abbot of Sponheim who possessed at one point one of the greatest libraries amongst the clerics of Europe and who wrote other works related to magic and is credited as an influence on Agrippa and Paracelsus (John Von T was pretty awesome if you can't tell); is an excellent and simple means of conjuring spirits which is basically a method of working with angels by way of prayer combined with a few simple tools, essentially a table and a scrying device.

The magician sets up his table, places upon it his scrying device, and during the appropriate planetary hour makes a few prayers. Once the angel arrives, he questions the angel to confirm its identity and learn whatever he needs to learn, and then perhaps asks for the angel to accomplish his task. The description in Trithemius gets more detailed around the specifics, but you could keep it pretty simple and still make the method work. Reginald Scott for instance gives instructions for drawing a spirit into a crystal with very minimal instruction. In fact in Scott's version there are two prayers and a crystal and nothing else. Otherwise in the text he notes some seals which must be used for all conjurations and one may assume they are involved. Ebeneezer Sibley notes the use of the same seals in his work which also involves crystallomancy. But that's not really a big coincidence, he would have likely been influenced by Scott and other texts of the same literary current. Further, texts referencing crystallomancy having overlap isn't a big deal because most spirit work involves crystallomancy traditionally. Even the Lemegeton treats it as if one should assume the use of a crystal or other scrying device. The ubiquity of this would, to me, suggest some special efficacy that crystals and glass and other similar scrying devices have which makes it easier for spirits to manifest. So the scrying tool is an important part of this system, but successes of contemporary practitioners demonstrates that while a crystal is recommended and a glass vessel is common, a bowl of water can work as well.

The magician's table is another significant part of Trithemius's system. The table has three concentric circles, with a triangle in the center. The outer ring is planetary and the inner ring is elemental. In the outer ring are the seven planetary angels and their seals in the inner ring are the four terrestrial kings we mentioned in yesterday's post. I tend to think of the table as being an array designed to focus the forces of manifestation which allows for the formation of the nexus space needed to interact with spirits. Circles are symbols of infinity, and triangles are symbols of manifestation and interaction. The seven angels rule the forces which orchestrate creation, the four kings rule the elements which form the world of creation and its substance. The kings specifically allow the influence of spiritual forces into the world.

The sphere itself sits in a holder which has the name of the four archangels who rule the directions. This again connects to manifesting forces into the world. Years ago Rufus Opus used to call his table of practice a “manifestation engine.” This nick-name wasn't inaccurate. The overall structure of the tools given in Trithemius are thoroughly arranged for the purpose of manifesting spiritual forces. Some magicians have noted that the use of the four kings on the table allows the table to be used for manifesting both angelic and demonic forces. This is a reasonable assertion since the four kings represent a central point in an axis of forces.

Again, even though Trithemius's system has tools designed to make the system work, I've worked with angels without the table using similar crystallomancy techniques and have had success. But I've also found that Trithemius's tools keep the visionary experience focused and centered spatially. I've known other magician's who've done it with an unmarked table and a bowl of water. Tools have power, tools create certain effect, but there are lots of ways to work. You can use different approaches and the results will differ, but that doesn't mean you won't get results just because you aren't using precisely the system.

I find the results I get when working with the Greater Key, or the results I get from the Heptameron, or when working with the Merkavah are different from those I get when working with Trithemius. Not that one type of result is better or worse for practical work, but rather that the way spirits interact differs based on the way they are called or the way we attempt to interact with them.

You could work with both angels and demons, and perhaps other kinds of spirits, using the method given in Trithemius's Arte of DrawingSpirits into Crystals. There are several spirits which illustrate that some elements of our categorizing spirits on one side of a line or another is a bit nebulous and not necessarily an absolute divide. Some methods in grimoires look like they're clearly designed for demons but people use them for angels, or for aerial spirits, and they still get results. So as a means for getting started I recommend working with Trithemius. You can use it regardless of the type of spirit. The books listed in part 1 of this series will provide you with detailed and more robust rituals structures for conjuring spirits. These books will also give you catalogues of spirits and their seals.

So, for conjuring angels and demons, while we don't need to get too thorough with dividing methods we should keep in mind which spirits we're dealing with and what roles their characteristics and personalities play in determining how we interact with them. For some spirits you might want a more controlled method with a little more space between you and the spirit. Working with a spirit through crystallomancy can be pretty intimate. Cordoning off the spirit in a triangle can make for an interaction which retains some more distinction and space between the conjurer and the spirit. Angels might not need to be bound and constricted by divine names, demons might need to be managed with the help of an angel. Your apprehension of these spirits and their natures will determine to some degree what measures you think are necessary or not necessary. Several skilled magicians who work with spirits, and recognize the spirits as real, have different perspectives on how we should treat and how we should understand the spirits.

In my experience, the difficulty people have with angels is that they want you to fix things in your life. They will help you but they want to position their aid in a way which propels you forward or they want you to take some of their advice along with their help. They are also good for conveying power, conveying information, and teaching things, and they can accomplish manifesting stuff in the world, but it's not necessarily always their main focus. Demons can get stuff done. They can create powerful manifest changes in the world, and they don't care much about fixing you. Sometimes they might want you to focus on enjoying yourself or what you want. When left unchecked though they can be chaotic and destructive, and will continue pushing at whatever task they're working on even if it pushes it too an extreme, particularly if that extreme breaks things down or serves other things the demon does. Some of this is also dependent upon the demon. Several spirit catalogues suggests that not all “infernal” demons come about in the same way, not all of them behave in the same way either. So you'll want to consider the individual spirit somewhat as well, where they call in the hierarchy, what their description tells you about them.

Angels can be a good place to start to get comfortable. The Olympic Spirits as described in the Arbatel in particular are a good place to start. Sometime in the next few months we'll be running a series in this blog focused on them in addition to releasing a pretty thorough examination of them in William Blake Lodge's publication Heaven and Hell. For now you can get the Arte of Drawing Spirits into Crystals and further descriptions of how to use the text at my site on grimoiric magic.

For comparison, here are the instructions for crystallomancy from Reginald Scott:

No instructions are given aside from the conjurations. But one can assume that a table is set with a scrying device. The device should be consecrated to its purpose. Preliminary prayers made to align you with the powers by which you will conjure the spirit. Your temple or altar should be set based on whatever structure is suited to your style of work. Personally I would set a candle for each element and one for the divine presence, perhaps also one for the spirit summoned, and I would set incense as well.

Scott gives these two prayers as his full description of how to summon a spirit into a crystal.

“I do conjure you N. by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy-Ghost, who is the beginning and the ending, the first and the last, and by the latter day of judgment, that you N. do appear, in this crystal stone, or any other instrument, at my pleasure, to me and to my fellow, gently and beautifully, in fair form of a boy of twelve years of age, without hurt or damage of any of our bodies or souls; and certainly to inform and to shew me, without any guile or craft, all that we do desire or demand of you to know, by the virtue of him, who shall come to judge the quick and the dead, and the world by fire, Amen.”

“Also I conjure and exorcise you N. by the sacrament of the altar, and by the substance thereof, by the wisdom of Christ, by the sea, and by his virtue, by the earth, & by all things that are above the earth, and by their virtues, by the and the by by and and by their virtues, by the apostles, martyrs, confessors, and the virgins and widows, and the chaste, and by all saints of men or of women, and innocents, and by their virtues, by all the angels and archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, virtues, cherubim, and seraphim, and by their virtues, & by the holy names of God, Tetragrammaton, El, Ousion, Agla, and by all the other holy names of God, and by their virtues, by the circumcision, passion, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the heavens of our lady the virgin, and by the joy which she had when she saw her son rise from death to life, that thou N. do appear in this crystal stone, or in any other instrument, at my pleasure, to me and to my fellow, gently, and beautifully, and visibly, in fair form of a child of twelve years of age, without hurt or damage of any of our bodies or souls, and truly to inform and show unto me & to my fellows, without fraud or guile, all things according to your oath and promise to me, whatsoever I shall demand or desire of you, without any hindrance or tarrying, and this conjuration be read of me three times, upon pain of eternal condemnation, to the last day of judgment: Fiat, fiat, fiat, Amen.”

Beginning Conjuration and Spirit Magic pt 4: Elementals

Presenting part 4 of 8 of our series on Conjuration and Spirit magic for beginners. Today we'll talk about conjuring the elementals. Last week we posted the a series of book recommendations and information on setting up a devotional practice to develop support in the spirit world. Yesterday we introduced scrying. Today we'll look at the elementals before moving on tomorrow to intermediary and crossroads spirits. So please like us on Facebook, and share the post with your friends so that can enjoy it as well.

Beginning Conjuration and Spirit Magic pt 4: Elementals

So now we get to our first phase of conjuration, the elemental spirits as defined by Paracelsus. A lot of people think of these elementals as being a part of Golden Dawn magic, or as coming from Eliphas Levi. There spirits are a big part of the GD system and post GD systems. The most common approach to their use is based on a chapter in Levi's Transcendental Magic (Ritual and Dogma of High Magic), that chapter being The Conjuration of the Four. Some people recognize that The Comte de Gablais by De Villars provides an earlier source. But in a slightly earlier and less readily available work, we will find their original description comes from Paracelsus. We don't find them in the Grimoires, but there may be similar spirits, or classes of spirits, or related spirits in the grimoires. Paracelsus as a source at least ties them into the same time and network of people collecting together the magical knowledge that informed the previous generations who produced the early medieval grimoires. Paracelsus also gave us the initial introduction to the Olympic spirits, described a generation later in the Arbatel. But honestly, where their original descriptions comes from doesn't matter so much as the fact that they are very accessible, and that they are good workers.

The elemental spirits, in my experience, and by most accounts, are relatively simple uncomplicated spirits. They are very function based in terms of ordering and carrying out the functions of their elemental realms. They don't have much of an agenda. Some agenda is implied in Comte de Gablais but I don't see any real sign of this in them aside from the fact that they seem happy to work with and help humans who work with them. Being elemental they are very physically concerned and are very much about clear real world manifestations. But the manifestations are often very simple, sometimes small, and very literal in their nature.

Two stories about work with Gnomes.

Recently I did a simple invocation of the Gnomes to help smooth out some monetary flow and deal with a handful of issues that people were bringing to me. I basically just asked for some money. The next morning I went out to my car to head to work and found a $50 dollar bill stuck in my door. I thought “what the fuck, how did that get there...oh, gnomes! Gnomes are awesome.”

A friend once told me about doing the conjuration of the Gnomes and then going out to a bar. While at the bar he was sitting there and suddenly the crowd of people parted like the red sea. A scruffy dirty man in a blue hoodie drawn over his head and sticking up to a point stood at the other end of the opening and walked up and hugged him and said “Hello Brother!” Then the creature turned and walked back into the crowd and it closed around him. A moment later the crowd opened again and the man walked up to him again and he poured coins and candy cigarettes and similar little things into my friend's hands and smiled warmly and said “here brother” and then turned and walked back into the crowd which closed around him and he was gone. My friend was convinced that this was a manifestation of the gnomes. To me it seems pretty probable.

The elementals don't really open you up to the same kind of life changing psyche shifting disruptions that often come with other spirits. They don't have a need to either fix your life (angels) or destroy order (demons) and so they're a pretty stable, easy to deal with relatively safe spirit to start with. They're still not precisely safe. Nothing in magic is exactly. It's still possible to experience an impure magnetism or obsession with a particular elemental force. It's possible to approach these forces incorrectly and create problems. It's also possible to conjure them and apply them incorrectly in ways that are destructive. If you invoke fire, be prepared to deal with fire. Crowley's Liber Librae, which is really just a Golden Dawn knowledge lecture repackaged, is essential to consider when thinking about how to approach the elementals in a balanced fashion. This balance is necessary. The balance is what the elementals are looking for when they deal with you, it's what makes them want to help you, because it helps you stand in a position where for them, you can be an ally who links them to the Lord, which is central to their call towards service.

Because of this ease of cozying up to the elementals in a relatively safe fashion they're a good place to start. When I was a Philosophus and was given to working on early experiments of conjuration, elementals, articifial elementals, and servitors were the teeth cutting entities I was pointed to for exploring that magic. For that reason, and the simplicity of working with them, they'll be the first spirits we look at.

The Conjuration of the Four by Levi will provide the basic framework you need for approaching work with the elementals. Essentially, these are the things to remember. The elementals desire to create orderly manifestation of the forces of their particular elemental worlds because this is what the Lord has dictated for them. Now the Lord here is not necessarily Jesus Christ, or God the Father, but rather the NeoPlatonic Demiurgos, the extension of the One and the Good who orders time and space into creation and diverse manifest pieces. From a Hermetic perspective we can look at this Lord like the Logos or the shining extension of the force of creation beloved by the spirits of order and creation who willingly serve that force out of their love for the beauty of the divine source. This is the perspective of the elementals. That said, the elementals don't necessarily have a clear apprehension of what order and creation are, they just do what they're told by the particular expression of the Light which is present for them. As the magician you fulfill two roles in this interaction. You invoke the Lord so that you can stand as his lieutenant or as his image for the elementals to gather around you and do service for you, and simultaneously you worship the Lord while standing in the perspective of the elementals so that they rejoice at your unity with them and they feel bonded to helping you.

What does it mean to stand with them? LITERALLY STAND WITH THEM. So if you're calling the sylphs you don't stand in the west and look east and call them from the east like you would a spirit who comes from the east typically. You stand in the east, and face the altar (now to your west) and you say the prayer of the sylphs, which is not a conjuration of them, but is rather the prayer that the sylphs utter in honor of the Lord. The sylphs gather with you for the prayer and feel bonded and aligned to you as one of them, but as one of them who is in the image of the creator and who possesses the complete soul which they do not, but which they desire to be close to. You give them joy and hope. When you say the prayer, try to feel like you're part of the community of these elemental spirits, try to feel the joy and love they feel in working for their creator. It's pretty uplifting to feel this and creates a pretty healthy and beneficial relationship with these spirits. Once you feel that community you can ask the spirits for what you want, and instruct them to go off to do their work toward that end.

It's really about that simple. I would recommend for whichever elemental you're calling you should have some material representation of their element. Incense, a candle, a bowl of water, or a crystal are simple easily obtained material representations of these particular elements. Representations of the platonic solid associated with the element, or of other spirits or powers related to the element can add to harmonizing the vibration of your space to that of the elemental. You can call the elementals in a larger magical ritual or evocation ritual so that the elemental spirits can assist with whatever magic is being done by you or by whatever other higher spirit you're calling. Or you can do a ritual simply to call the elementals and ask them for help.

My approach goes like this.

Conjuring the Elemental Spirits

Place upon your altar five candles, one for the Divine Presence, and one for each element. Place upon your altar the material representation of the element and any symbols for that elemental world. Light the five candles.

Raise your hands and look upward and say:

Holy art Thou Lord of the Universe

Holy art Thou Whom Nature Hath Not Formed
Holy art Thou Vast and Mighty One
Lord of Light and of Darkness

Face east and in each quarter trace a downward pointed triangle saying as you move through the quarters:

First then the priest of fire must sprinkle the lustral water of the loud resounding sea, hear now the voice of fire.

Returning east and following in each quarter trace an upward pointed triangle saying as you move through the quarters

Then when all the phantoms have vanished, you will see that holy and formless fire, that darts and flashes through the hidden depths of the universe.

Step to the quarter associated with the elemental spirits being conjured and earnestly pray the prayer appropriate to those elementals.

When you feel the presence of the elementals explain clearly what you desire and ask them to go make it occur.