Category: Witchcraft

The Dark Arts: Curses, Binding, and Coercive Spells @ ConVocation 2020

Posted on by Clifford Hartleigh Low

The Dark Arts: Curses, Binding, and Coercive Spells at ConVocation 2020

 

People have been using magic to harm others since before recorded history, and practitioners have been busy inventing new and more ingenious spells to destroy people, places, and things in virtually every tradition. It’s controversial because it works.

We’ll survey historical methods of cursing, binding, and dominating, and highlight effective methods for the contemporary sorcerer and witch.

Learn how to make a Hoodoo poppet to cause suffering and incapacity, create a modern defixio from a lead sheet to cause illness, burn a black skull candle to drive someone insane, create a wax astrological talisman to foment strife, and more terrifyingly useful techniques.

As the Weird Sisters said, “Double, double toil and trouble.” Let’s get cooking.

I wish to give particular thanks to Chance Sparkhawk and Catherine Grubb for helping recover the audio from this lecture.

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No Trespassing: The Magic of Wards

Posted on by Clifford Hartleigh Low

No Trespassing: The Magic of Wards @ ConVocation 2018

 

Wards are magical defenses that prevent a designated space such as a room, home, or property from injury or trespass by inimical forces, spirits, or persons.

Typically focused upon enchanting liminal spaces such as thresholds, property boundaries, chimneys, weathervanes and foundations, wardings take the primal essence of territoriality and give it metaphysical heft, protecting oneself, family, and pets.

In this class we will explore the themes of the protection of spaces in several long standing magical traditions as well as some innovations, analyze their features, and help you create effective defenses for your personal space that are both powerful and uniquely your own.

(There is some drumming noticeable from a nearby musical performance nearby. My apologies for the distraction.)

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Powerful Petition to Mars

Posted on by Clifford Hartleigh Low

Ascendant ruler applying to trine Mars, with elaborate garb and suffumigations

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What Celestial Petitions Are

A significant part of the tradition Scholastic Image Magic is based upon includes celestial petitions. These are not technically image magic, because talismans are usually not involved. Nor are they properly scholastic, because they go beyond the boundaries of natural magic and invoke spirits directly, albeit ones who govern aspects of the natural world. They are prominently featured in Picatrix, but belong to the tradition of theurgy going back to at least Iamblichus. The more unsavory variations of it can sometimes be classified as necromancy, by the medieval definitions of the term.

Nobody agrees what the nature of the spirits invoked are; some believe them to be angels, others djinn, others demons. Those informed by gnostic thought sometimes believe them to be archons. All agree that they are one of the principal origins of the legends of wish-granting spirits, such as in the story of Aladdin and the djinn. I believe them to be angels, in the sense that they are honorable servants of cosmic order; they are not always benevolent in action, but absolutely serve the greater good.

The celestial petition is a supplicatory appeal for aid in a sphere the hierarchy in question has authority over. The timing is elected, the petitional text is very formal in structure, the suffumigations are very complex, ritual postures are used, and ritualized garb or costume is required. Sacrifices were also traditionally made, though this is seldom practical today. Planetary dieting is of great benefit to petitions, in addition to regimens of meditation and abstinence preceding the ceremony.

Though the type of elections used in celestial petitions differ from those used in the creation of talismans, they have enough similarity that formalized petitional texts are often used in the process of talismanic creation (abbreviated versions may be used if the electional window is brief).

Making talismans is hard work, from the election to their initial usage. Petitions are harder. Active preparation for a petition can sometimes be longer than a week. That is why when I do petitions for clients I usually charge more. To my knowledge I am the only magician commercially offering celestial petitions in the manner described in Picatrix.

Asking a talisman for a wish is effective and can be done many times, but their function is usually passive. Asking powerful governors of large portions of the cosmos for a boon is more effective—if the ritual is performed correctly—and what is asked for is granted in a very active way. An imperfect talisman may work, sometimes with side effects. If sufficiently flawed, they may do nothing, or could even curse the user. However, an imperfect petition may insult the hierarchy and cause the magician’s prompt death. Petitions are high risk, and less forgiving of error.

For me, that makes it all the more exciting.

Electing A Petition to Mars

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To elect a planetary petition, the planet of the hierarchy one is petitioning must be dignified and unafflicted in a way similar familiar to those who make planetary talismans, with some additional requirements and preferences as specified in Picatrix. The planet ruling the Ascendant must make a benevolent applying aspect to the petitioned planet. When possible, the Moon should also be dignified, unafflicted and forming a meaningful connection between the planet of the Ascendant and that of the petitioned planet. Ideally, none of the relevant planetary bodies will be cadent.

In the above election, the ruler of the Ascendant is the Moon, which simplifies a lot. The Ascendant and Moon are significators of the petitioner, and when they are in agreement the working is stronger; when they are the same body there are fewer factors to weigh.

The Moon is slow, but not prohibitively. When the Moon is slow but above twelve degrees of diurnal motion it is ideal for curses and malevolence, and so it is in harmony with at least part of the petition– it is of a destructive or disruptive nature. The Moon has some dignity within Pisces, being of the watery triplicity. The Moon exactly culminates while making a very tight applying trine with Mars. Mars is in domicile towards the end of Scorpio; he is not in the final two degrees of the Sign which could have been a problem. Mars is succedent in the 5th House. Mars is unfortunate in this House, but the other factors supersede this. Saturn is safely past opposition to the Ascendant, but is in the 6th House. The ruler of the Moon’s Sign is itself the Moon, so it cannot be cadent; the beginning will be fulfilled and the end will be fulfilled. The Ascendant ruler is less essentially dignified than the Descendant ruler, but much more accidentally dignified. The largest shortcoming of the election is that Mars neither has the Hour or Day of the election; but Picatrix does not require this.

This is not a perfect election for a petition, but a solidly good one.

The Petition to Mars

When you wish to ask Mars for something, and speak to him and honor him, put him in a good condition as we have said… Dress yourself in red garments, and put a red linen or silk cloth on your head as well as a red skullcap, and hang a sword from your neck, and arm yourself with all the weapons you can carry; and dress yourself in the manner of a soldier or a fighter, and put a bronze ring on your finger. Take a bronze thurible with burning charcoal, in which you should put the following suffumigation. –Picatrix

One of my clients asked for a boon which was of a Martial nature, and so I sought a petitional election. After months of searching, this is the best one I found, and so I got to work.

I already had a cylindrical red chef cap for ritual purposes. It was neither a skullcap nor linen nor silk, but fulfilled the conditions acceptably.

My thurible was iron, which is a suitable substitute as the metal of Mars.

I could not figure out how to hang my sword comfortably from my neck; it’s pretty heavy. Instead I found a pendant online in the shape of a winged sword, in steel—especially appropriate for Mars.

Similarly, I found a bronze ring in the shape of a crow’s skull. Crows are birds of Mars according to both Lilly and Agrippa.

I purchased military-style camouflage print pants in red, and wore a rather spectacular polyester shirt with a flame print.

Finally, I slung a black bowie knife and sheath on a cord about my neck, tucked my hunting rifle under one arm, and held my Smith & Wesson revolver in my right hand. Both were loaded.

I probably looked completely terrifying, which is exactly what you should go for when petitioning the cruel lord of violence and dread.

Take wormwood, aloes, squill, spurge, long pepper, and watercress in equal amounts. Grind them up and mix them with human blood. Make pills of this, which you may set aside for use. When you wish to begin working, put one of them into the thurible, which you have brought with you to a remote place specially set aside for this working. When you have arrived there, stand upright on your feet and speak secretly, boldly, and without any fear, facing the south… As the smoke rises, say the following. –Picatrix

I obtained all of the ingredients, but somehow misplaced the long pepper. Rather than make pills, I mixed the wormwood, aloe, squill, spurge and watercress in a cup and drizzled human blood over them.

At the appointed time, I stood facing south and somberly and loudly intoned the petitional text, rising in volume to a crescendo.

O Mars, you who are an honored lord and are hot and dry, mighty, weighty, firm of heart, spiller of blood and giver of illnesses thereto! You are strong, hardy, acute, daring, shining, agile, and the lord of battles, pains, miseries, wounds, prisons, sorrows, and mixed and separated things, who has no fear or contemplation of anything, sole helper in all your effects and in investigations thereof, strong in calculation and will to conquer and to seek after fortune, cause of lawsuits and battles, doer of evil to the weak and the strong, lover of the sons of battle, vindicator of wicked people and those who do evil in the world. I ask of you and conjure you by your names and your qualities that exist in heaven, and by your slayings, and also by your petitions to the Lord God who placed power and strength in you, gathering them in you and separating them from other planets that you might have strength and power, victory over all and great vigor… –Picatrix

I can’t tell you what the boon was for the client; it’s confidential, and knowledge of the specifics may interfere with their outcomes.

I will say that Mars provides boons in many areas other than violence and misfortune; and while his hierarchy is Malefic, they often do great good. Challenging injustice, obliteration of disease, removing obstacles to love and sex, surgery, alchemy, and vanquishing pestilence are all within the sphere of Mars’ influence.

Mars is a mighty ally and a terrible foe.

Forget neither.

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Prosperity Candle

Posted on by Clifford Hartleigh Low

Powerful Spell for Success in Business and Investments

I recently received a commission for spellwork to advance a client’s investment opportunities in cryptocurrencies, but he could not afford a petition or a talisman. We negotiated a fair price and I got to work.

I particularly enjoy magic where I can incorporate my ongoing fascinations; the blend of African-American Hoodoo and medieval astrological magic has been extremely successful for me in numerous experiments and advanced projects. I wanted to do more for him than what he could get from another conjure doctor. I upscaled some of the ingredients, did a “soft election” for the timing, and added some more Scholastic Image Magic to give it even greater punch.

A “soft election” in my nomenclature is simply one where the most egregious of afflictions to relevant significators are removed, moreso than any attempt to particularly strengthen them. This means the power of the ritual comes from the conjurer and his spiritual helpers rather than the celestial hierarchies, but at least they are not substantial impediments.

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Here we have a fortune on the Ascendant and the Moon applying a tight trine to a benefic and then the Sun. The Moon is extremely fast and the ruler of her Sign is not cadent. The Moon is cadent, however.

Again, our goal here isn’t to do a petition or make a talisman but simply to remove as many afflictions as possible and let the Hoodoo do the heavy lifting.

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Here’s the natal chart of the client printed out, not the chart of the event. This will serve as a very strong personal concern or relic in tandem with the petition paper. I have anonymized the client’s personal information.

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One of the new variations I used in this operation is to write out the petition request on the flat wick as a supplement to the conventional petition paper. It was difficult; next time I’ll use a different kind of pen, but I was pleased by its addition overall.

This is only possible because I used a beeswax sheet for the body of the candle this time. I find that natural materials are better conduits for magic, and while paraffin candles are effective, I will use beeswax occasionally. Beeswax also has a delightful natural scent which is a pleasure in itself; I imagine some of that is passed on to the success of the operation.

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Here’s the petition paper, written out on green card stock and torn into a rough circle. I prefer circular petition papers when possible, in part because of its relevance to Scholastic Image Magic as a perfect repository for spirit. I tend not to use woven lines of text simply because my handwriting is bad but my ability to draw is fairly good. I replace it most often with pictorial depictions of the goal, similar to those sometimes used on talismanic iconography. Here we have a pot of gold with the Bitcoin symbol on it. The clockwise line is just an embellishment dictated by my intuition.

The dish is covered by aluminum foil for cleanup convenience.

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The candle was loaded with herbs at the core, around the flat wick. Alkanet removes money jinxes and generally is good for prosperity, alfalfa is a strong wealth herb, and I included one more special ingredient (trade secret). Three is a fortunate number, and I didn’t want to overload the candle and risk it going out.

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After loading in the herbs next to the wick, I rolled up the beeswax towards me and trimmed the wick at the bottom (where there was no petitional text.)

 

I then added a bit of iron pyrite into the mouth of the candle to give it an even stronger association with gold and riches.

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I anointed the natal chart of the client with Wealthy Way Oil in a quincunx pattern and folded it towards me, placing it below the green petition paper. I then dressed the candle lightly with the same oil. I placed the papers below the saucer and candle, and set the work in motion.

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It burned quickly, albeit with some excess smoke. Good signs so far, and I’m very optimistic about the outcome.

The Byzantium Flyers

Posted on by Clifford Hartleigh Low

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Exotica Noir

I once ran a dance club event called Byzantium at NowBar on Fridays in the West Village of Manhattan. It was my third weekly event, and arguably the best. Unlike the two which preceded it, I used the event as an opportunity to perform magical experiments related to publicity and mental influence of benevolent kinds.

The venue helped define an eclectic but strangely coherent musical style. It had Moroccan lamps, leading me to think we could lean into the Arabian Nights imagery which cropped up in the Goth genre (which generally was one of our major ingredients.) It also had futuristic furniture, tiki torches, and an artificial waterfall. Trip hop, techno, medieval revival, ethereal, shoegazer, industrial, and world music entered the sonic tapestry. The upper level had a lounge and we had poetry readings there at first, then art installations and live bands. It was thoroughly weird and unlike anything that had come before.

Magic was a part of my thinking from the start. I had been ruminating on the Orientalist imagery in Victorian magic, particularly that of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Theosophical Society, and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. The artificiality of the usage of the exotic and the Other fascinated me; the forbidden and the liberational aspects as well. I saw strange parallels between this and the embrace of the Other in alternative cultures, and parallels between the remixing of cultural artifacts to alter consciousness and the blending of styles in contemporary World Dance and World Music. (I am entirely guilty in overthinking club promotion, but I really do think it is an unsung art form.)

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A member of the Golden Dawn was William Butler Yeats, better remembered as a great poet than as a magician. He wrote two poems, “Byzantium” and “Sailing To Byzantium,” which helped inspire the naming of the event. Yeats’ notion of Byzantium was of a distant land of opulence and the exotic, where all cultures blended and anything was possible. It was a fantastic realm somewhat unlike the historic Eastern Roman Empire, yet vastly more alluring and powerful than the reality. I wanted to sail away to Yeats’ Byzantium and bring my friends along for the ride. Every Friday night we embarked upon adventures.

I could wax nostalgic all day about the event and never quite capture its essence, or list all of the amazing people who made it possible. That’s not my point here, though. What is relevant is that while we were doing something innovative, we had a lot going against us.

Friday nights had been a dead night for Goth scene events at the time for several years. The fact that we were not truly a Gothic event only protected us somewhat. Our venue was small and we were in a part of the city most of our patrons visited infrequently. When we debuted, we had only one competing event. A few months later, we had eleven. Twelve events all competing for the same attendees and dollars. It was a swarm hungry for limited resources. Some were actively unfriendly and unprofessional to us. And try as we did, we were losing ground. We had to fight for every single attendee.

My prior two events had also struggled to get traction, and eventually ended. I was an accomplished magician, but had rarely used any magic to give my projects a competitive edge. So when Byzantium debuted, one of the first things I did was enchant the heck out of our flyers. And how I did that requires a bit of personal history.

Rootwork and the Greater Key of Solomon

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Years prior, a magical colleague of mine returned from a trip to New Orleans and began to whisper about something called “rootwork.” It took me a while to realize this was an alternate term for Hoodoo, which I had been practicing in a somewhat bastardized form for many years. I recognized that my knowledge was fragmentary, and so was hungry for every legitimate scrap of knowledge that I could find.

One of the things she told me was that the pentacles of the Greater Key of Solomon could be incorporated into Hoodoo candle magic to great effect. I did not believe her. I knew the grimoire well and the pentacles it described had to be created very precisely, according to the instructions. She urged me to try it her way before dismissing the notion entirely. I respected her, so I suspended my judgment and decided to give it a whirl.

At the time I didn’t know anything about petition papers, but nearly all of the magic shops in Manhattan used pull out candles and dressed them and carved them up, often also adding glitter. Since I couldn’t afford that on a regular basis, I used plain pour-in novena candles bought at dollar stores and supermarkets and used paint markers (mostly gold and silver ones) to carefully replicate the pentacle designs on the glass. I dressed the candles with Hoodoo condition oils and stroked around the paint to prevent them from smearing.

After three or four candles like this, I was convinced and converted. It was impossible for me to ignore how effective the Solomonic pentacles on the candles were. It was so effective that for over a decade it became a quickie solution for magical work. The method certainly wasn’t as potent as full Solomonic pentacles, but it was a lot cheaper and easier, and could be made rapidly as the need arose.

paintmarker

I have made several conclusions from working this hybrid system of Hoodoo and GKOS pentacles. The pentacles of the Greater Key almost certainly precede the grimoire and its elaborate instructions, and are of the kind of power that even if created in imperfect conditions (like using paint markers on the side of a candle) they will still produce diminished but powerful marvels. I sometimes call them shadow effects.

Since then I have used this as a method of evaluating grimoires; if their pentacles or sigils activate a candle in a noticeable way, they’re probably really powerful when made with the full ritual requirements. If nothing happens after several attempts, the system is quite probably weak and ineffective. It saves me the effort of spending a year or two and thousands of dollars working through a grimoire to determine whether it’s magnificent and miraculous or merely a dusty hoax.

The Flyers

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After working through this method for a number of years, I was introduced to the usage of petition papers in Hoodoo, and other grimoires more popular in Hoodoo such as The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses and The Long-Lost Friend. I was slow to make the transition from using paint markers on glass to petition papers of pentacles under candles because I was, frankly, concerned about fire safety. But when Byzantium launched I had an idea of how I could experiment with a variation of this.

One of my long-term goals had been to coax the Goth scene overall away from the centrality of dance clubs and towards a salon culture by way of the literary gothic. I knew that the dance clubs were dying a slow and painful death, and having poetry readings at the event—very much a novelty—inspired me to design the Byzantium flyers as bookmarks. At the top was the Byzantium logo, a scan of some mysterious looking byzantine jewelry edited heavily in Photoshop. The middle plugged the various DJs, bands and musical styles of the week. And at the bottom was my experiment: the Mathers Greater Key of Solomon’s Fifth Pentacle of the Sun. On every flyer.

5thSun

“The fifth pentacle of the Sun. It serveth to invoke those spirits who can transport thee from one place unto another, over a long distance and in short time.”

Mathers notes: “The versicle is from Psalm xci. 11, 12: ‘He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands.'”

So, why did I use that particular pentacle? I suppose I could have used one for gaining wealth, but I was impractical at the time and didn’t see that as a pressing issue. I also wasn’t sure whether this would make the bearer of the flyer wealthy or me. If some of those flyers were in the possession of my rivals, it might even work against me.

What I did want was to ensure that my flyers were distributed far and wide. Getting flyers to as many people as possible back then was key to the survival of an event, and some promoters had been known to track down and destroy flyers of their rivals in the music shops where they most often could be found. Flyer saturation was key to the survival of an event, particularly one in an unfamiliar venue with an odd theme, which Byzantium certainly was.

I also liked the design, I admit. It looked mysterious. I didn’t want people to realize the flyers were actually magical; I wanted people to think I was just being artsy. I didn’t want my competitors to copy my idea. Aesthetics can be important, but they also can conceal one’s methods or intentions in magic.

Magic was my biggest edge over the competition. I’m good at a lot of things, but magic is what I’ve always been best at. When I’ve forgotten this, I’ve always regretted it; when I’ve made mundane aspects of my life magical, they’ve soared.

Things Get Weird, Things Get Wonderful

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Around the time Byzantium began to get hit by the worst of the competition, the magic began to manifest in earnest.

There had been signs of something strange happening earlier on. NowBar was a trans bar on most nights of the week, and was across the street from Meow Mix, a famous lesbian bar. Whenever our financial situation seemed to be in peril, we would unexpectedly get flooded by the regular clientele, but the lesbian bar would also empty out and drink our bar dry. At first I just thought lesbians and transpeople loved our event, but it did seem a little excessive—albeit very welcome.

Then the ancient famous photographer turned up. He worked for a major NYC magazine and his wartime work was spoken of with reverence by many in his field. He was in awe of Byzantium and assured me repeatedly that he’d never seen anything else like it, and that it was something he wanted to preserve for all time. I asked him where he’d heard of my event, and he told me that everyone was talking about it. I inwardly wondered who everyone was, where they were, and what were they saying. Hopefully nice things, right?

They weren’t the only ones talking, however. Our competition multiplied over and over, eventually to utterly absurd levels. A few of them had it in for us– the scene was very cutthroat back then– but most promoters just assumed there was some hidden untapped market that they wanted a slice of. Everyone and their cousin seemed to be opening up a new Friday event. Our attendance started to take a hit, but then strange things started to happen.

byzim_14g

For example, this highly fashionable couple approached me one night at the event with expressions of delight and wonderment. They told me that they were from Switzerland and had flown to America just to come to Byzantium. They had to tell me this several times before I realized they were sincere. I asked where they had heard about Byzantium. They told me that everyone was talking about it, even in Switzerland. Wow. Really? Fascinating.

Then an Asian man approached me at the event and told me he’d picked up a Byzantium flyer in Tokyo. He’d just had to come; it sounded amazing. Someone else found a Byzantium flyer on an airplane, and he changed his vacation plans to get off in New York instead to check it out. Over and over I began to hear about people discovering my fairly small event with a modest budget all around the world, largely through the instrument of my enchanted flyers turning up in the most unexpected of places.

To this day I have no idea how the Byzantium flyers ended up scattered across the world. I have no idea how the buzz about my event went so strangely viral on the eve of the year 2000 AD. But I certainly have strong suspicions of a magical nature.

What I am quite sure of is that the somewhat inexplicable buzz about our event which had spread across the entire world ultimately fed back into local attendance. It kept our struggling event alive for months and months, when everything seemed to be going against our little passion project.

Night Work

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The enchanted flyers weren’t the only magical work (by far) that I integrated into Byzantium, but I still use those today and think of them as trade secrets. The other ones weren’t focused on publicity but making the environment fun, uplifting, and sexy. Considering how many people got laid in the NowBar lavatory and how fondly Byzantium is still spoken of today—all over the world apparently—I think they were pretty darn effective too. If you’ve been to my Green Fairy Parties in California, you’ve seen some of that other sorcery at work.

In spite of my magical and mundane efforts, Byzantium did not last forever. It might have done better if I hadn’t been so keen on lowering the cover charge to allow more people to attend; that gave us very poor financial reserves. The management at the venue expected us to become profitable sooner than we realized. The competition remained somewhat fierce to the end. Perhaps if I had focused on the business end more than the creative end, things would have lasted longer. But they wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting.

It was a very successful event in creative terms and that’s what I really cared about. it was unforgettable and it injected some creativity into a scene which was stagnant. Our staff and regulars had also become a family. When management told us it was to be our final night, the head bartender– hired by the venue management– was so outraged that he quit on the spot. People really loved us, and I’m grateful for it.

Hopefully this little tale can inspire you to experiment magically, to improvise, and find new ways to make your life more magical and marvelous. Magic permeates everything and insinuates itself in the gaps between; this is where your hidden strength dwells.

 

The Age of Black Magic: Step Fourteen

Posted on by Clifford Hartleigh Low

The Invocation of the Abomination in Crimson:

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This project of mine was © January 5th 2010, along with several “lighter” versions. It’s a malefic petition invoking the stellar hierarchy of Algol, with a viable talisman of Algol used as an initiatory token to call upon forces of wrath and punishment upon an enemy.

I wrote this a long time ago, and while my current relationship with the hierarchy of Algol is focused upon healing (and its virtues as a healing star co-ruled by Jupiter are wildly underestimated), I certainly think it is one of the most potent weapons in the SIM practitioner’s arsenal.

When it’s time to show no mercy, it’s time for The Abomination In Crimson.

“O mighty star Algol, I call to you by all your names: flickering Beta Persei, bloody Ras Al Ghul, blinking Rosh ha’Sautaun, terrible Gorgoneion, grisly Fifth Star of the Mausoleum, feared Tseih She: attune this talisman unto me and me unto it, so that I shall plumb all its mysteries, secrets, and wisdom, and master its full and perfect powers, wonders, and miracles, now and forever, whether I wear it or not, from now until the end of time.

“May your light and spirit dwell within it and dwell within me, for me to instantly command.

“Great and powerful star, make your angels, dæmons, and spirits of every kind subject unto me, obedient unto my every will, command and desire. You obediently and piously serve the One Most High, and by His command is your service invoked at this hour.

“So hear my words:

“I kneel before you and seek your favor and patronage; for the few in whom you find favor are saved, uplifted, preserved, and avenged; and all those in whom you find disfavor are swiftly devastated and punished.

“It is said that he who carries your talisman, your emblem of favor, vessel of your spirit and radiant light, is given the supreme power of protection and retaliation, so that all those who seek to harm him are thwarted perfectly; and their machinations, treachery, calumnies, theft, torments, incantations, sendings, witchcraft, bindings, curses, flame, poisons, blades, darts, stones, bludgeons or bullets will all alike turn back upon them and destroy them as they sought to destroy him. Savage star, grant unto me your succor and liberation.

“May their malice reflect upon them as excellently as the perfect mirror reflects light. ‘Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.’ I now ask that you magnify this power so that they are swiftly obliterated by their arrogant devices, and examples be made of them for all time. Seize them with your sharp teeth, and never let them go. Heap multitudes of tortures upon them, and smite them cruelly with a fatal stroke.

“Dismember and mutilate their corpses, and cause their remains to be polluted, desecrated, and shamed. Their dust and ash shall be blown to the four corners of the earth, until nothing of my foes remain but gruesome tales of warning.

“Multiply their spirits’ torments in the lands beneath, too. The wicked cannot escape your gaze; not even in death shall they be spared.

“You pitiless eye of revenge– stare ever deeply upon them.

“Mirror of enmity, I humbly beg that you grant me this power so that I shall be like the beautiful diamond; indestructible, reflective, luminous, and with edges ever sharp. Make me like the poisonous black hellebore; bringer of agony and death to those who would mistake it harmless. May I be more durable than mountain stone, yet supple as the deadly serpent.

“Leering visage, also grant me the virtues of invigorating mugwort; guarded against peril, secure in travel, vigilant, passionate, bold and quick.

“It is said that he who carries your talisman fears no injury to his members, for you keep them whole and safe from harm.

“Your talisman bestows success in petitions and requests made to princes, bosses, leaders, patrons, and any who have power over him; so that they shall quickly grant whatever it is that he asks.

“It bestows the wearer courage, vitality, and magnanimity.

“It grants victory in whatever contests or struggles to which he attempts, through war, gaming, sorcery, or any other thing. For with you, invincible star of destruction, your favored one is bold and mighty, and (subject to the will of the One Most High) nothing whatsoever beneath you can long obstruct his path.

“I beg that you also grant me all of these powers to their fullest perfection, and the wisdom to know how and when to use them.

“O slaughter star, eidolon of horror, eater of the dead, slayer of men, blinking eye of terror and blight, decapitator star, render of flesh, beacon of the tombs, depopulator of civilizations, ever-hungry star, savage patron of monsters, terrible light of doom, implacable bringer of ruin, father of devastation, flame of oblivion, lord of direst woe, luminous face of hate, gore-drinker, you whose gaze upon the waters turns it to poison, strangler star, mighty head of the adversary, hear my prayer and rend my enemies apart, moisten the earth with rivers of their spilt blood. Rejoice in the deaths of men.

“Grant me a portion of all your powers for I seek to be your [vassal, student, son/beloved/bridegroom, and] priest, and may I be a refraction of your invincible, terrible, and eternal light.

“Most supreme executioner in the celestial realms, you neck severer, invincible head taker, great hacker of limbs and seizer of life, man flayer, bone breaker, marrow sucker, gorger on entrails, corpse candle, heart gnawer, ruddy lamp of banes, you whose dripping blood sows vipers, blazing star of murder, torch of the piled up bodies, thirsty blade of vengeance, glint of annihilation, abomination in crimson, watchful dæmon of the void, ancient monster of monsters, you fierce exterminating angel, defender and avenger most puissant to your favored few, please find favor in me and accept my prayer, and go now and send forth your grisly throng and fatal glare to seek out my enemies wherever they may be found, and pierce their hearts with your terrible red rays and make them quake and fall, kill them wherever they may hide, set your gaze upon them in harsh judgement and spare them no pity whatsoever.

“May plagues like the ten of Egypt be at my ten fingertips to command and to curse them with every form of suffering and death, and may my hands throttle the throats of my enemies, and may I tear their heads off with these hands to demonstrate your power and fury, and cast their broken bodies down into cold and leaden death, and may I place their bloody heads on pikes at the gates of the cities in sacrifice and tribute to you, so that all may know of your power, and the consequences of incurring your terrible wrath.

“Burn thy seal upon my heart, upon my breast, upon my body, upon my soul, upon my spirit, upon my deeds, upon my destiny, upon my wrath, upon my fame, and upon my power.

“Grant unto to me the greatest secrets of lethal magics, the sorceries of the greatest and most terrible kind, irresistible and frightful, so I too shall be known as a light of annihilation, forevermore.

“Crown and adorn me with your majesty and gird me with your protection and arm me with your many instruments of obliteration, and all shall say throughout the ages that those who were set against me were destroyed by tortures most vile, and that I strode forth to victory upon their tattered corpses, and that I rejoiced amongst their bones. For you have made me so, potent and fearsome star Algol.

“Star of supreme misfortune, greatest malefic––

“Go forth as a fiend, but to me be an angel.”

The bracketed text regarding initiatory adoption, betrothal, or espousal by Algol and its hierarchy of spirits is only for persons compatible with this concept, and have been given permission by Algol through divination, dream or vision.

Though gender terminology throughout is male, it can be adjusted as appropriate.

Algol’s appetites are beyond all limitations.

The Age of Black Magic: Step Thirteen

Posted on by Clifford Hartleigh Low

Summoning Uncle Joe

In addition to the inclusion of blood relatives on a dedicated altar for ancestors, one may also provide offerings to the spirits of those who you admire or seek to call upon for aid. Saints are only one example of the Mighty Dead who one can call upon for help; calling upon the spirits of mighty magicians like Agrippa, Merlin, King Solomon, and Moses for wisdom and assistance is an ancient tradition.

Settings for Presidents such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are also well-established and useful. Roman emperors and Egyptian pharaohs were deified and venerated. Images of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy hang in many homes for reasons far beyond the sentimental. They are appeals for aid—usually for help in matters related to their authority, fame, tutelage, and skills.

But you can go further than this. And a lot darker.

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Buy a Soviet-era memento of Josef Stalin from eBay, or a similar source. The older, the better; the more closely associated with Stalin or the Communist Party, the better. You want the strongest possible tether to him. A printout will just not cut it.

Place the personal concern in a shot glass on your ancestral altar and feed it curse materials like goofer dust, dead black widows, and other things of death and destruction. The rarer and the more dangerous, the better.

Make a spirit cocktail: any grain alcohol in which has been steeped thirteen cayenne peppers, thirteen guinea peppers and thirteen black peppers. Offer this every week until you are ready to make requests. Feed a dedicated shot glass with this to nourish and compel the spirit into fury and action.

I devised the following incantation for this purpose. You can alter it and improvise, but recite it at least once a week when you make offerings to the spirit of Josef Stalin.

Attend me at this hour of night! I [name] call into the open grave, into that silence profound, and draw forth the terrible and mighty spirit wherever he may be so that he may answer my prayer:

I call upon you, shade of Josef Stalin, by all the rights and privileges I possess. I speak for the humble and the broken that seek your intercession. The world above is in turmoil and only you can set things right. Not even death can temper your vast power. We all conjure you.

Awake in Spring! Awake in Summer! Awake in Fall! Awake in Winter! Awake by day! Awake by night! Rouse yourself from slumber, mighty Stalin, and forge the world anew by your power and your eternal name. The revolution is at hand! Awake, and slumber no more! Sentinel of dread, bringer of cold, hunter of men, seize every enemy of the cause and drag them down to deepest Hell in your iron teeth.

Mighty Stalin, supreme in wrath, arm yourself for war and cloak yourself in judgement; you slew the Nazis, and crushed the exploiters and the wealthy, and punished the many traitors. You tore out the tongues of those who spoke against you, and you made the greedy sup on ashes. Now is your time again.

In life you were an Angel of Death; in death may you live again. May all the lives you took give you power. Rise up from your grave and stretch the shadow of your mighty fist across the world; crush my enemies with your hammer, dismember them with your sickle, and fertilize the soil of the hopeless with red red blood!

I bind you to my command, hurting not me nor mine but diligently those whom we hate and will destroy! (Repeat the concluding binding thirteen times.)

It would be particularly appropriate to direct the wrath of the spirit of Josef Stalin at the Trump Administration and its supporters and enablers. That’s what I’ve been doing, in part.

If this is your goal, you may wish to be more specific about your desires in your incantation. I do advise that you not pull your punches. You don’t call up Uncle Joe for anything but the coldest, most brutal, most heartless of sorceries. Let his worldly acts inspire you. Impress him.

Nevertheless, regardless of your objectives or your personal political beliefs, having a working relationship with the spirit of the man who likely killed more people than any other in human history is highly beneficial to the work of a black magician and necromancer.

The Age of Black Magic: Step Twelve

Posted on by Clifford Hartleigh Low

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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Ménage à Talisman

Posted on by Clifford Hartleigh Low

The Power of Three

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“When the Moon is rising in this mansion by night, fashion a lamina of gold and inscribe in it the figures of two maidens embracing and the figure of a man before them and over the heads of the two maidens, a crown… and pray by the name [of the lord of the mansion that there be love] between you and your women and your maidens, and also that there love be between them, from one to the other; and so it will be.”

So, apparently there’s an ancient SIM talismanic formula for consummating threesomes.

People do not change.

Note to self: I could probably charge a lot of money for these.