Spells from the Spirits

In my opinion, which probably doesn’t amount to much, being a magician requires only two things:

• figuring out what to do
• doing it

What?  You want something more?  Gosh, you’re so needy.

Being a magician means that you do magic.  Magic isn’t that hard to do, and there are thousands of books on the topic anywhere you look.  Hell, this is probably one of the few times in the history of magic that we’ll ever be able to have so much information including the crap and cruft (especially the crap and cruft) available for cheap or free, instantly or locally.  So long as you have the will and reason to do it, magic will easily follow.  Of course, this itself often necessitates knowing how to do a working, ritual, or spell.  Sometimes you can pick this up from a fluffy book on neopaganism from the Barnes and Noble, sometimes from translating Latin or Coptic from ancient manuscripts, and sometimes from the higher powers themselves as revealed wisdom.

Probably one of the most direct ways to work magic with spirits is, well, to work with the spirits.  Instead of just summoning one of the big angels or gods and giving them a charge to carry out, I went a step further and asked each elemental king and planetary governor for a familiar spirit from their respective spheres, building myself up a nice posse of spirits respective of all the forces I work with.  I asked for an ally, friend, mentor, and assistant harmonious and compatible with my temperature and nature, which yielded anything from a black jaguar from Mercury to a Wraeththu partier from Venus to a sexy scaley biker from Fire, which is kinda awesome.  I got their seals and names, asked how they’re doing and what they like to do, and got their agreement to work with me as I needed them and for them to call on me when they need me; it’ll be a mutual agreement between us.  Calling on them helps me out when I need to work with a particular force, much better than just trying to manipulate forces directly alone.

Although plenty of rituals and spells can be devised from first principles, looking up tables of correspondences and piecing together qabbalistic symbols to form a complete ritual script and structure, sometimes the best sources for magical workings is from magic itself and the spirits that make it happen.  Here are a few spells and tricks I’ve learned in my time so far as a magician from sources that aren’t written down.  I’ve gotten these little workings as revealed tricks from nonphysical entities themselves, and they work well enough in my experience.  In some cases, they were originally once-off acts that I ended up repeating and “fixing” down, which turns a spontaneous act into a set ritual.

To Heal with Water (Egyn): rub the infected, diseased, or wounded part of the body with cool, clean water fit for drinking with your dominant hand.  Say “ARABŌTH ZYGAL NINDIANA MENĒ” as you rub it.

To Come to Know A Place (Amaymon): take a handful of powder from a place (dirt, dust, snow, salt, sand, etc.) and make a circle counterclockwise around you from the south.  Facing south between the center of the circle and the edge of the circle, draw with your hand or with more powder a pentagram with an upside down T in the space between the upper left and top points of the pentagram, and a proper T in the space between the lower right and upper right points.  Stand within the circle and observe, as in a watchtower or post.

Orison for Dreams (Gabriel): Repeat the following before going to sleep.

Gabriel, o Gabriel, hear my call
Angel of truth, sender of knowledge all
God’s strength, water and moon’s blessed king
To me in my dreams lend your gracious wing.
Guard me in my sleep, keep me from nightmare’s dread
Help me my dreams recall and their dim paths tread
I walk now into deep sleep’s foggy mist
Me now over my dreams with control assist.

For Sexual Prowess (Kammael): Rub oneself with a talisman of Mars while saying an invocation to the planet or its spirits and eat something spicy before engaging in sex with someone.  For passion, dominance, strength, and pleasure.

For Light (HGA): Say this prayer.

For sending spirits on (Hermes): Use this symbol to open a portal or gate, and direct the spirits into it.

Of course, there are plenty of other things I do that are technically received from the spirits, but aren’t properly spells or rituals.  They’re more spontaneous, inspired actions, done according to the context, need, and intent of a particular time and location.  Saying an extemporaneous prayer or energetically linking the four directions at a crossroads or mixing in some dirt in incense during a forest ritual because the spirits suggest it or because it “feels right” is actually fairly common;  it’s not because of what I think, but because I’m led or guided to do it.  Still, a few set spells aren’t too bad to work with.

Ancient Words of Power for the Directions

After all this time, I’m finally getting around to reading Michael Cecchetelli’s excellent text the Book of Abrasax, however slowly that might be.  I’m still just getting into the material, but it’s already off to a good start, especially since he starts off with a ritual I already use frequently: the Calling of the Sevenths, also called the heptagram or heptasphere rite.  I use this daily in my morning ritual schema, as well as whenever I need a quick rebalancing and recharging.  What’s interesting is that Cecchetelli adds in a bit after the intonation of the vowels by calling on four barbarous words of power in a manner reminiscent of the LBRP.  It’s interesting, and I like the effect.  It also reminded me of Stephen Flowers’ Hermetic Magic, where he also introduces the heptagram ritual along with a calling of the quarters, but using different words of power and introducing divine images or godforms to associate with the words.  It’s interesting stuff, and I don’t know why I wasn’t using this before.  (Flowers also used these same words to form the working circle of the magus, as shown on the book’s cover).

Flowers’ work is based on the Greek Magical Papyri (specifically here II.104ff, XII.87ff), which forms the basis for the associations of the names and images with the cardinal directions.  Cecchetelli uses a different set of names for the cardinal directions but doesn’t include the images, and I don’t know off the top of my head where he got his associations of the names with the directions from.  Neither text offers associations of names with the depths, the heights, or the center, even though both authors incorporate the names into the heptagram/heptasphere ritual which make use of these three directions.  In my own experiments, I combined these two sets of names by using Flowers’ attribution of the names to the cardinal directions and used the two other names from Cecchetelli’s list for the vertical dimension (with the spelling corrected to conform with the most commonly seen forms of the words).

With all that in mind, my resulting list of associations between names, directions, planets, vowels, and images becomes this:

1. East: ΕΡΒΗΘ (ERBĒTH).  A winged dragon with a crown of clouds rising above the horizon.
2. North: ΣΕΣΕΓΓΕΝΒΑΡΦΑΡΑΓΓΗΣ (SESENGENBARPHARANGĒS).  An infant child sitting atop a blossoming lotus.
3. West: ΑΒΛΑΝΑΘΑΝΑΛΒΑ (ABLANATHANALBA).  A crocodile with the tail of a snake arising from the waters.
4. South: ΛΕΡΘΕΞΑΝΑΞ (LERTHEXANAX).  A falcon with its wings stretching out to their full wingspan.
5. Down: ΔΑΜΝΑΜΕΝΕΥΣ (DAMNAMENEUS).  A young maiden looking forward with a torch in her left hand and a spear in her right.
6. Up: ΑΚΡΑΜΜΑΧΑΜΑΡΕΙ (AKRAMMAKHAMAREI).  An old man looking downward with a ring of keys in his right hand and a staff in his left.

Although the divine images for the cardinal directions came from the PGM via Flowers, no images were given for ΔΑΜΝΑΜΕΝΕΥΣ or ΑΚΡΑΜΜΑΧΑΜΑΡΕΙ; these I came up with based on what was revealed to be after asking the names and the spiritual entities associated with them.  They seem to work well for me, though admittedly aren’t traditional and are influenced by their planetary associations.  I prefer Flowers’ attributions of the names to the directions over Cecchetelli’s mostly because I can find more extant texts with the same or similar words and directions.

Though there are six names given above, there are seven points of the heptagram ritual; the point missing from the above list is the center point.  I reserve this point for my own HGA, using his name as a word of power in its own right and focusing on his appearance as he appears to me.  You might do the same, or reserve it for your patron/matron deity, other agathodaimonic entity, or your own divine Self using your craft name (a la the Headless Rite‘s “I am thy prophet Moses/Ankh-Af-Na-Khonsu…”).

When used with the heptagram ritual, the words of power essentially correspond to calling the quarters or the Watchtowers, but in a non-angelic or early Hermetic manner.  Although Flowers and Cecchetelli both keep themselves to the four cardinal directions, I like the added use of the third dimension plus my own HGA being with me (once that connection is forged, any method to keep that connection open or make it stronger helps).  So, to call the respective directions using these names, I’d probably go with a structure like the following, visualizing the proper divine image for each name:

ΕΡΒΗΘ, take thy place before me!
ΑΒΛΑΝΑΘΑΝΑΛΒΑ, take thy place behind me!
ΛΕΡΘΕΞΑΝΑΞ, take thy place at my right!
ΣΕΣΕΓΓΕΝΒΑΡΦΑΡΑΓΓΗΣ, take thy place at my left!
ΑΚΡΑΜΜΑΧΑΜΑΡΕΙ, take thy place in the heights!
ΔΑΜΝΑΜΕΝΕΥΣ, take thy place in the depths!
(name of HGA), take thy place with me, now and at all times, here and in all places!

Of course, I wanted to do a bit of research in what these names mean, if they mean anything at all.  In a lot of cases when it comes to these barbarous words of power, there is no etymology to be found, though interesting conjectures might be made or results found through gematria and isopsephy.  ΕΡΒΗΘ is part of a frequently-seen Setian formula in the PGM, usually in damaging or harmful contexts; ΑΒΛΑΝΑΘΑΝΑΛΒΑ and ΣΕΣΕΓΓΕΝΒΑΡΦΑΡΑΓΓΗΣ are very common words used all throughout the PGM though with no known origin besides a possible Hebrew or Aramaic etymology, but often used for beneficial purposes.  ΛΕΡΘΕΞΑΝΑΞ is part of a much longer word known as the Aberamen formula, itself a palindrome which contains the name of Thoth.  ΔΑΜΝΑΜΕΝΕΥΣ is known to be one of the six Ephesia Grammata, hypothesized to refer to the Sun since ancient times, but has also been seen in the PGM for love and luck.  ΑΚΡΑΜΜΑΧΑΜΑΡΕΙ is a word I’ve come to know as a Semitic phrase translated to “cast off the nets”, as in any boundaries or bindings that would prevent a ritual from working.  Beyond this, unfortunately, my research skills don’t turn up much.

As for the images, those are a bit easier, given that we know already to look at Greco-Egyptian symbolism.  Serpents are often seen as forces of great power, especially that of vital or creative essence; being both of the earth (crawling) and of the sky (flying), the flying serpent is not unlike the image of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, with whom ΕΡΒΗΘ shares some similarities.  Falcons are solar symbols, and is known to be the countenance of the Egyptian god Horus or Ra, depending on the timeframe.  Crocodiles are seen as gateways to the underworld and an animal of Set, countering the lighter images of the winged serpent and falcon.  The lotus is, much as in Eastern symbolism, an image of purity and eternity, and combined with the image of the infant symbolizes divinity being born into the world (the North is the Egyptian direction of holiness and immortality).  The images of the keyring and staff as well as of the torch and spear are a little more modern, to me, since they were things I “tuned into”, and so don’t have clear Egyptian correspondences.  The keyring and staff suggest the power over freedom (unlocking and locking as well as barring from and supporting one), while the torch and spear suggest active force (illumination, flammability, battle, direction).

Regardless of their occult meaning, the words work, which is the important thing.  For those who already do or have experience with the LBRP or calling the quarters/Watchtowers, you already know more or less what to expect with this.  When I use the calls of the names after the heptagram rite, I end up feeling distinct presences at the directions, kinda like guardians or gatekeepers, neither wrathful nor peaceful.  I like it, and it makes me feel safer and more powerful all at once.  It’s probably something I should’ve been doing in some form by this point, but I’ll also probably tweak and change it as needed until I come up with something a little more stable and fixed.  Using all six names isn’t strictly necessary; the four cardinal directions alone will suffice, using either Flowers’ or Cecchetelli’s associations of the names to the directions, but I prefer to use all six.  Using that extra third dimension helps me establish a magical zone or operant field, much as using the Qabbalistic Cross, “parting of the veil”, L(B/I)R(P/H), or what-have-you.

The Geomantic Emblems and their Rulerships

Last time I brought up the geomantic emblems (previously called geomantic superfigures, 256 16-line “figures” that each contain all 16 geomantic figures within themselves), I described a few bits about the elemental representation and force within each figure.  In the process, I described a method where each geomantic emblem can be elementally analyzed and given an “elemental essential” rulership, by taking the “pure elemental” lines, and also how to split up the emblems into four figures to give them an entire geomantic chart as background.  However, I also mentioned that all 256 emblems could be reduced to a set of 16 by rotating them around; in other words, there are 16 sets of 16 topologically equivalent geomantic emblems.  16 is a significant number in geomancy, as my astute readers may have noticed, and I brought up how tempting and tantalizing it would be to assign a set of rulerships that correspond these 16 sets of geomantic emblems to the 16 figures of geomancy.  I didn’t have the method done just then, but I’ve finally come up with a way to link the two sets of symbols.  The correspondences are, using the list from last time:

1. Laetitia: 1000010011010111
2. Carcer: 1000010011110101
3. Fortuna Minor: 1000010100110111
4. Puer: 1000010100111101
5. Acquisitio: 1000010110011110
6. Populus: 1000010110100111
7. Coniunctio: 1000010111100110
8. Albus: 1000010111101001
9. Tristitia: 1000011001011110
10. Rubeus: 1000011010010111
11. Amissio: 1000011010111100
12. Puella: 1000011011110010
13. Fortuna Maior: 1000011110010110
14. Caput Draconis: 1000011110100101
15. Cauda Draconis: 1000011110101100
16. Via: 1000011110110010

How did I go about finding these correspondences?  A lot of math, hand-wringing, and sangria, that’s for sure.  If, dear reader, you’re interested in finding out how I corresponded the figures to the emblems, please continue after the break, but I’m going to warn you.  This post is long and at times tedious, and is full of binary mathematics and lots of 1s and 0s.  This post is only for the hardcore geomancy geeks like me out there, and it helps to have a solid footing in computer science, basic/low-level programming exercises, and binary/discrete mathematics.  Even I’m kinda shocked by how lengthy and pointlessly in-depth this post is, if that’s any indication of what you’re in for.  If you want to stop reading now, I forgive you and completely understand.  If you want to find out why I allocated the above emblems and their rotated variants to the figures like I did above, read on.  Either way, expect another post in the near future on how to use these emblems, their geomantic rulership, and elemental analyses in magic and divination!

Geomantic Superfigures (Emblems) Revisited

A while back, I mentioned something about geomantic superfigures, which has recently become another focus of mine.  The De Geomanteia posts I’m doing are awesome for getting me to revisit old topics in geomancy, and I feel like the superfigures (I should a devise better name than that, perhaps “geomantic emblems”?) are something to be worked on a little more.  In a nutshell, geomantic superfigures are 19-row figures that, if you take any four consecutive rows, yields one of the 16 geomantic figures, and all 16 selections of four consecutive rows yield all sixteen geomantic figures exactly once.  They’re basically microcosms of the universe represented geomantically.  I suggest reading the old post above on the geomantic superfigures to get an idea of what they are.  There are 256 different geomantic superfigures, which is significant since 256 = 16².

I developed the idea for geomantic superfigures emblems a while ago as an exercise in combining a particular problem from computer science algorithms and DNA sequencing with geomancy, and though it seems useful, I never really developed a use for it, and so the idea and the list of 256 emblems just sat there gathering dust.  Recently on the Geomantic Campus mailing list, the geomancer prunesquallori picked up the idea and did some more analysis on it, and came up with a few awesome observations:

1. Each geomantic emblem has 19 lines, but the last three lines must always be the same as the first three lines, i.e. line 1 = line 17, line 2 = line 18, line 3 = line 19).
2. Because of the repetition of lines, we can reduce the size of the geomantic emblem to 16 lines without losing any information.  This is a far more appealing number than 19, geomantically speaking.
3. One can rotate the 16-line emblems line by line, i.e. old line 1 becomes new line 16, old line 2 becoming new line 1, … old line 16 becoming new line 15.  This, when combined with the above, will yield another valid geomantic emblem.
4. Each emblem can be rotated a total of 16 times, which produces a cycle.  Because there are 256 emblems, each of which can be rotated into or is rotated from another 16 emblems, we can reduce the 256 emblems to 16 if we ignore what position we begin at.

Consider the geomantic emblem from the last post, which we described as the binary string 0000100110101111000.  This figure contains, taking successive groups of four consecutive bits (0 represents a passive line and 1 an active line), the geomantic figures Populus, Tristitia, Albus, Rubeus, Carcer, Fortuna Maior, Coniunctio, Puer, Amissio, Acquisitio, Puella, Caput Draconis, Via, Cauda Draconis, Fortuna Minor, and Laetitia.  However, notice that the last three binary digits and the first three are the same; we can reduce the figure in size to the emblem 0000100110101111.  We can take for granted that the last three bits are going to be 000 since the first three are 000, so we leave them unwritten.  If we rotate the emblem by two bits to the right, we get 1100001001101011 in 16-bit form, or 1100001001101011110 in 19-bit form, which is another valid geomantic emblem.  This geomantic emblem contains, in order, the geomantic figures Fortuna Minor, Laetitia, Populus, Tristitia, Albus, Rubeus, Carcer, Fortuna Major, Conjunctio, Puer, Amissio, Acquisitio, Puella, Caput Draconis, Via, and Cauda Draconis.

Knowing that we can break down the emblems into 16-bit strings, or 16-line emblems, makes interpreting and using them a good bit easier.  For a simple elemental interpretation of the emblems, consider that a normal 4-row geomantic figure has one row for each of the four elements fire, air, water, and earth from top to bottom.  If we magnify the geomantic emblems into four groups of four rows, the first set of four rows can be assigned to fire as a whole, the second set to air, the third set to water, and the fourth set to earth.  Within these sets, we assign each individual row to an element as we would normally, so the first row of a set is assigned to fire, the second to air, and so forth.  By using this scheme, we can interpret the geomantic emblem as having whole geomantic figures representing how a particular element manifests.

Moreover, in using this scheme, we then can have lines that represent a particular element within a particular element.  The fire row of the fire quartet of lines would be “fire of fire”, or pure fire; the air row of the fire quartet would be “air of fire”, the interactive or mobile force of fire.  The system would continue so there’d be sixteen combinations: fire of fire, air of fire, water of fire, earth of fire, fire of air, air of air, and all the way down to earth of earth at the bottom.  By seeing how the interplay of elements works within the elements themselves, we can get a deeper understanding of the emblem they appear in.  Conversely, if we take the pure elemental lines out of the emblem and combine them, we can get a geomantic figure that can capture the essence of the emblem.  In this manner, there would be 16 emblems per geomantic figure.

As an example, consider the emblem 0000100110101111 from above.  Breaking it down into four groups of four lines, we have Populus (0000), Carcer (1001), Amissio (1010), and Via (1111).  Populus represents the force of fire in the emblem, Carcer the force of air, Amissio the force of water, and Via the force of earth.  If we took the pure elemental lines (fire of fire, line 1; air of air, line 6; water of water, line 11; earth of earth, line 16), we get the figure Tristitia (0001).   If we look at the emblem 1100001001101011, we have Fortuna Minor (1100) for the force of fire, Albus for the force of air (0010), Coniunctio for the force of water (0110), and Puella for the force of earth (1011).  Taking the pure elemental lines, we get the figure Puella (1011).  Fortuna Minor in this emblem would be especially powerful, since it’s a figure ruled by fire appearing as the force of fire in the emblem.

Also, consider that in having a 16-row emblem, we have the same number of rows required to develop a full geomantic chart, which can also help elaborate or expand on the nature of the sequence of figures that combine to form a geomantic emblem.  Given the emblem 1100001001101011, using Fortuna Minor, Albus, Coniunctio, and Puella for the four Mother figures, we find that the Judge is Coniunctio, the Sentence is Amissio, the Via Puncti doesn’t lead anywhere, the sum of the chart is 94, the Part of Fortune is in house 10, and the Part of Spirit is in house 2.  The rest of the chart I leave for the reader to derive, but interpreting this chart could yield even more information on a particular geomantic emblem that would help in unfolding its meaning or core.

Going back a bit, I mentioned above that there are 16 cycles of emblems, where if you rotate a particular emblem 15 times in succession you get another valid emblem.  Repeating this for all 16 emblems yields 256 total emblems.  Starting from an arbitrary point, the 16 16-bit cycles are:

1. 1000010011010111
2. 1000010011110101
3. 1000010100110111
4. 1000010100111101
5. 1000010110011110
6. 1000010110100111
7. 1000010111100110
8. 1000010111101001
9. 1000011001011110
10. 1000011010010111
11. 1000011010111100
12. 1000011011110010
13. 1000011110010110
14. 1000011110100101
15. 1000011110101100
16. 1000011110110010

Keep in mind that, because emblems can be cycled, you could all start these so that they start with the part of the emblem that goes 1111 and still have valid emblems.  It’s probably better to picture them as rings or bands instead of strings to emphasize their cyclic nature.  They’re presented above so that they start with 10001 for convenience.

Since there are 16 cycles, each of which can produce 16 emblems, I figured that there would be a way to link each cycle to one of the 16 geomantic figures, affording yet another way to classify the emblems but in a helpful non-elemental manner.  This would help in picking out specific emblems from the set of 256, such as by saying “the emblem in the Albus cycle beginning with Puella”.   However, doing this is tricky, since the cycles are independent of starting point, and so using arbitrary lines in the emblem is about as good as labeling two otherwise identical spheres A and B based on where you happened to touch them first.  A lot of the methods I first tried  made use of assigning a “start point” somehow, which defeated the whole purpose.  Other methods I tried allocated multiple emblems to a given figure but skipped over others entirely, which was also unhelpful.

However, in the end, a method of allocating the sixteen emblematic cycles to the sixteen figures of geomancy was found!  How, might you ask?  With a lot of work and structural analysis, that’s for damn sure.  Stay tuned to see what that method is and what the sixteen emblematic cycles are corresponded with.