SETTING UP IN FORMAL MAGIC

 

Setting up a temple as a working space can be simple or elaborate. I have used whole rooms, and once a nightclub. I have also set up tiny altars behind doors where they were virtually invisible to flatmates who did not know what I was up to. 

You may have fun finding things that feel like magic to you. Your space might become more built up over time. But as Terry Pratchett’s wonderful witch Granny Weatherwax says, any girl can be a witch with a lot of magical paraphernalia. It takes a really good witch to do magic with an egg and an apple corer. This seems to be true, as after a while ritual becomes more internalized and less generally noisy in the head.

Consider this. The very first emperors of China were considered to have divine powers, and they needed to throw their weight about in order to keep the divine stuff working for the land and their subjects. Every year, they needed to ride the boundaries of the empire in person, to the North, South, East and West, to keep in the favour of the gods and to keep the people in line. Over time, the empire became bigger, and riding its boundaries became impractical. And thus one of the great discoveries of the Axial Age came out of practical need. At some point the ritual of riding the boundaries became internalised. The emperor no longer needed to ride to the North, South, East and West. He could stand in a room, and simply turn to face the four directions. His mind was doing the magical work. Magic was beginning to become psychological.

We might do the same. We might have tools to represent things. It would be great to have a real snake or stag or star, but we manage just fine with a statue of one. Make tools yourself if you can. My wand is badly made because craft of the physical type is not my forte, but I put blood, hair, runes, my magical name, a copper bangle belonging to my dead father, and my own carved wood into it. However, if I lost my wand, I would use something else. People who are incarcerated manage with no tools at all. Damien Echols, of the West Memphis Three, was wrongly imprisoned for murder in his teens during the Satanic Panic in the 1990’s. Damien practiced High Magick in his cell for hours a day with nothing but books and his mind. Be thoughtful and cherish what you use, consecrate things regularly with moonlight or natural running water or by burying in salt. But in the end, it is all about You.

Set up an altar where you have some privacy. Take out the smoke alarm if you need to, just temporarily. Altars in nature add extra heft, I think. If you have a special place, go there.

I tend to the traditional, with the cardinal points and the elements represented. Air, fire, earth and water. I get water from places I consider magickal, such as high country streams. You can also put a bowl of water out overnight during a full moon in order to consecrate it. I use rye or oats for the earth element; salt is traditional but it is not good for the earth. (Remember your history, how the Romans salted the land when they conquered Carthage so that nothing could grow there). I seldom do circle work, but when I do I make the circle with alcohol, grains or consecrated water.

Offerings to the powers you work with are important to me. It is a gift for a gift. Some beings like alcohol as an offering, and you can make this appropriate. For example, you can use mead for the Norse goddesses and whiskey for Celtic goddesses. Absinthe is a great symbol for poison or anything green and nasty. Port, being sweet and sticky, is a good Red Goddess/Babalon form of alcohol. You can drink some, or just use it on an altar or as a libation. If you are not able to drink alcohol, substitute with rich cordial or juice. Use candles that are an appropriate colour, like green for Arachne or red for Lilith. With regard to incense, Dragon’s Blood is great for almost anything but it is good to consider the culture you are playing in. Myrrh and Frankincense for Egyptian or Coptic deities for example, rose or jasmine for the sex goddesses. I don't use a lot of music, but I have used drumming tracks, rattles and bells. For recorded music, I find it best not to be too literal but evoking an atmosphere is best. For truly Satanic rituals, I really recommend Beherit's second album Drawing Down the Moon. In short, try to line up all the senses in the direction of the power or deity you wish to work with.  In the end, it is up to you and you will find your way. 

Here are two examples of formal magic that were my own work:

THE COURT HOUSE WORKINGS

This was a piece of magic aimed at making a friend invisible from the criminal justice system. It had a definite Chaos Magic flavour. My friend made four sigils with their intent on them, expressed in four different ways, and charged the sigils with the ashes of burnt money, semen, vodka and blood. We then buried them at the north, south, east and west sides of the court house, Speaking to powers that governed those cardinal points as we went. When my friend went to the court house to change bail address, the officer could not find them in the system and consequently their curfew ended as well, by default. We were jubilant. It had worked in the most literal way! Unfortunately this friend went on to be a dick about it and committed a further offence, so it goes to show that the best magic is not worth anything if you undermine yourself. Magic is for real life. 

ROBIGALIA CEREMONY

Robigo was a Roman deity of grain rust or mildew. Robigalia was a festival in Rome involving a procession and animal sacrifice. I hadn't actually read anything about that festival, but I was intrigued by the idea of a deity of mildew. I am interested in dead energy. There must be thousands of powers, deities and wights who were once known to human people. Some of them are known only in a fragment of text. One of the rituals I did that had a great influence on me, was with the deity Baktiotha, who was a kind of star deity known to the Egyptians and related to the Christ child. Baktiotha is known only in fragment of recently discovered text. When you work with dead energy, you are bringing it back into the human world in a manner that is entirely yours. You have no idea what it will teach you, and you need to be a bit careful of what it might bring back with it. Robigo was dead energy in that way. Robigo also hearkened back to a genuinely animistic deep history, a spirit of small but significant things, a spirit who hinted of ruin, but who also might just tell me something about harvest and grain and bread and beer and the cooling of the seasons. I prepared an altar the colour of waving wheat, and put on it things a deity of mildew might like. Three different grains, beer, consecrated water, some berries. I wrote a ceremony and Spoke to Robigo respectfully, and drank some of the beer. 

As always, blessings on you, gentle reader.