Featured Presenter Announcement

I am honored to announce that I will be a Featured Presenter at ConVocation 2023, taking place over the weekend of February 23rd in Michigan. I invite you all to attend.

ConVocation is one of my favorite events. It is the largest and longest running magic-related convention in America by a fairly large margin, and the attendance generally hovers around a thousand. It is one of several initiatives of MEC, the Magical Education Council; and the staff leading both the con and the organization have earned my affection and loyalty over the decade and change that I’ve known them. I am proud to be their friend, supporter, and in recent instances unofficial helper.

I’ve been given a special status of Featured Presenter this year (and in a few prior) in recognition of my special contributions to the magical community at large and of Michigan’s in particular,; as well as my effectiveness as a magician and lecturer. Only a select few of the many lecturers, entertainers and ritualists at ConVocation ever get to be Featured Presenters — and so this is one of the greatest honors a practitioner of the arcane can receive in America today. I am grateful to again be considered so worthy.

Now for the fun part: I am also known for throwing parties in many different social contexts. My parties at ConVocation are salons where the most elite of magical practitioners meet with their most intelligent and devoted of fans. Absinthe is rare, Fireball is almost mandatory, and always expect the unexpected. But I promise the next ones will be extra special treats. We surely need to blow off a little steam after such a long absence from our friends.

In the meantime, I am making preparations for my lectures, which will be announced separately so they can be shared with the specific communities that may have interest. ConVocation has always been a social space where controversial topics are broached with responsibility but without fear. After a gap of time rendered necessary by the pandemic, I wish to make up for lost time with quality over quantity. The lectures I have planned will be truly unforgettable.

The Age of Black Magic: Step Twelve

Shrine of the White Lady

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Introduction

Opiate addiction is an epidemic across America today. It’s destroyed many thousands of lives and often ended them. It’s thrown people into poverty, wrecked families, and corrupted countless souls. This is a terrible thing.

For some of us, it can also sometimes be a wonderful thing. Because this thing is also a her. And she is beautiful.

Many people were swayed by the Trump campaign with (entirely hollow) promises to provide treatment for addicts. Some of our opposition are themselves addicts. This vulnerability gives us wonderful opportunities for torment and slaughter.

One of the spookier gods I have worshipped over the years is The White Lady—the goddess of drug addiction and fatal overdose. By making sacrifices upon her altar, my enemies are ensnared by her seductions and annihilated in slow, humiliating, and agonizing ways. She seduces, she enslaves, she devours. She has no pity. If the grave has a mouth, she is its kiss.

And she really can’t wait to get to know you.

Background

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In the early 1990s I made contact with a pantheon of modern dark gods, and developed a magical system based upon it with two colleagues. We named it The Black Sun, or The Hallowed Circle Writ in Shadow. The pantheon had a supreme Queen and a number of Princesses who were her daughters, and an assortment of lesser divinities who were mostly representations of the things people feared or desired the most; or in some instances, both. The things which held the most power over people today.

Long before Neil Gaiman published American Gods, we three were inspired by Harlan Ellison’s The Whimper of Whipped Dogs and T.E.D.Klein’s Nadelman’s God to create an apocalyptic tribal paganism that leaned into complex sexual initiations and curses. Long before Clive Barker film Nightbreed and the term Otherkin was coined, we redefined magical practice as an inherently non-human phenomenon and sought to explore the limits of esoteric transhuman anatomy. Our ultimate objective was to produce radical magical effects, like transformations of matter and other suspensions of apparent natural law.

It was very powerful, but incredibly dangerous. We had some shocking successes with our experiments, some of which we regretted. The three of us moved on to other things, independently and amicably. Nothing we did was ever published or shared widely. Perhaps file all of this under the scary, crazy shit I was doing just after college.

One of the parts I was reluctant to abandon was my devotionary and practical work with The White Lady. She’s just too interesting and helpful.

Safety First

In case you were wondering, I don’t indulge in opioids or any other addictive drugs. The White Lady is quite predatory and it is important to make sure she doesn’t confuse you with lunch. If you plan on working with her, it might be a good idea for you to be fairly straight edge for a while—to the maximal possible extent. (And in spite of her name, she really does govern all addictive substances.)

It is actually possible to work with her to help break one’s addictions; you can siphon the willpower out of your curse targets and use it to nourish your own… but that’s not our main goal here.

In order to work with her somewhat safely, you have to self-initiate into The Black Sun System.

Simplified Self-Initiation Into the Black Sun System

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Put three metal bowls on the floor. Put bones in one, seawater and a few drops of blood in the second, and raw pork and honey in the third. Light a black candle.

Draw a pentagram on the palm of your right hand with a red marker and a pentagram on your left hand with a black marker. Strip naked before the altar and sit on the floor. Place your left hand on your head and right hand below your feet.

Offer all that is between your hands to the Queen of All Darkness. Renounce your humanity, and implore her to be adopted by one of the Three Princesses of the Hollow in the Heart of the World. You will be visited by them in dreams and visions.

Once you do this, you can set up your shrine.

Building The Shrine

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Draw a picture of a beautiful maiden with long white hair and holding a thin red dagger in one hand and a fruit in the other. She has a Mona Lisa smile. Her eyes are black. Sometimes she is accompanied by a serpent or dragon. A Black Sun hangs in the sky like a wound in Heaven. She stands in an endless cemetery; leave the stones blank for now but leave room for names to possibly add later.

This is the icon for your Saint.

Her altar cloth is white. On it place a large apothecary jar, and fill it with things associated with addictions: razor blades, hypodermic needles, scorched spoons, even obituary clippings, and then fill it to the top with a mixture of white sugar, candies and rat poison. Right below the top of the jar, put thirteen fish hooks. To the right of the jar, place a white plate for offerings.

Do not situate this altar near where you sleep. Seriously. Always avert your gaze from the image when making offerings. She gets inside your head if you let her. You don’t want that. She’s really charming, in all the worst ways.

Make offerings to her on Thursdays or Fridays. The best offerings are fish sprinkled with or rolled in confectioner’s sugar.

She Is Always Full Of Need

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Once you’ve cultivated a good relationship with her, you can baptize fish offerings with the names of your targets and gradually fill in names on the tombstones. If she gives permission, you can feast with her too.

I know this may seem a bit callous and gruesome, but there are beings far more disturbing than The White Lady in the Black Sun material. Maybe I’ll go into that later.

This first sample is free.

Just to get you hooked.

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What If?

This may date me a bit, but do you remember those “What If?” comic books?

“What if Superman was evil?” “What if the Fantastic Four were cavemen?” “What if Dr.Doom was a particularly vicious poodle?”

There’s too much of that thinking in magical theory, and has been for quite a while.

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The Dying Book

dyingbookThis is a relic of the Black Sun Project era.

A Dying Book was a riff off the Jewish notion that God writes the names of all who are to survive the coming year during the high holidays. The idea that an inversion of this might be turned into a magical object comes from a Robert Bloch story, “The Pin” where a miniature scythe is used to prick telephone book entries, bestowing doom. It’s a fine story, but one which has been plagiarized many times.

My version– which failed utterly I must confess– was to create a magical notebook filled with vast amounts of malign power, and then enter the names of various enemies by a quill dipped in blood.

Clever idea, but not all clever ideas are useful. The sticky pages stuck together and absolutely no one died. But the poem which served as a preface has some nice bits. It probably deserved a bit more editing, perhaps.

This was probably written around 1995, plus or minus.

Red Hand/Black Hand Method

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This is another relic of the Black Sun Project era. Though the colors aren’t appropriate, I called this the Red Hand/Black Hand method. It keyed powers to each finger of the right and left hand, the positive finger of onehand pairing with a method of harm on the oppositional finger.

  •  Thumb: Inspiration, Suicide.
  • Forefinger: Wisdom, Contagion.
  • Middle: Prowess, Violence.
  • Ringfinger: Fitness, Wasting.
  • Pinkie: Skill, Accident.

At least as far as I can reconstruct.

Tempestarii and Magonians

New terms; tempestarii and magonians. Relevant to people who have enjoyed my Weather & Storm Magic class and video.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempestarii

In medieval lore, Tempestarii were magicians, specifically weather-makers, dwelling amongst the common people, who possessed the power to raise or prevent storms at will. For this reason, anyone reputed as a weather-maker was the subject of respect, fear, and hatred in rural areas. One bishop, Agobard of Lyons, writing in 815 on the subject of the irreligious beliefs of his flock, complained that villagers resented paying tithes to the church, but freely paid a form of insurance against storms to village tempestarii; but, it was also noted, whenever a supposed weather-maker failed to prevent a storm, he or she would generally suffer the wrath of the populace, being victimised or killed.

Agobard of Lyons also referenced a related belief amongst his parishioners—a belief that tempestarii were in league with a mythical race of cloud-dwellers who came from a land named ‘Magonia’ (“Land of Magic”, “Land of Thieves”). The Magonians were supposed to sail the skies in storm clouds; they would then pay Frankish tempestarii to summon up storms over farmlands, during which the Magonians could swoop down and steal the corn from the fields. On the particular occasion which prompted Agobard to write, several supposed Magonians had been taken prisoner by irate villagers shortly after a bad storm; the Bishop had been forced to intervene and debate with the villagers in order to save the prisoners’ lives.

Storm raising

During the witch hunts the belief in witches who could raise storms was not limited to the Tempestarii. Depending on a witch’s preference, they were believed to cause tempests, hailstorms, and lightning. Witches struck homes and crops alike, sank ships, killed men and animals, and it was believed they took great delight in the process. Church authorities gave credence to the belief by stating that God permitted the Devil and witches to perform these acts as punishment for the wickedness of the world.
Since ancient times around the world, the ability to control elements—including the raising of storms and causing rain—has been attributed to magicians, shamans, sorcerers, and witches. As early as 700 A.D., the Catholic Church prosecuted sorcerers for causing storms.

The most famous storm believed to be caused by witches was recorded in 1591 during the North Berwick Witch Trials. John Fian and his alleged coven of witches were accused of raising a sea storm to drown James VI and Queen Anne on their way from Denmark.

Remedies against tempestarii

The Catholic Church prohibited superstitious remedies against witchcraft such as storm raising because the remedies themselves were of pagan origin. Prayer, sacraments, and the invocation of the name of God were prescribed instead with the belief that a person who had strong faith in God, kept the commandments, and revered the rites of the Church would be immune from storms and tempests raised by malicious witches.

Because many peasants were reluctant to give up their supersitions as being false, the church also sanctioned remedies like the ringing of church bells, believed to drive storm devils away, and placing charms made from flowers consecrated on Palm Sunday in the crop fields. It was believed that if a storm did strike after the charm was placed, the owner’s crops would be protected even if the surrounding land and crops were destroyed.