Tag Archives: magic

The Sredni Vashtar Working

If you have not read the short story “Sredni Vashtar” by Saki, you should go do so before continuing. It is not long at all and can be found for free here. The rest of this writing will contain spoilers for it, and also will not make much sense without understanding the story. 

Done? Good. This little gem of a tale, aside from being profoundly affecting, also perfectly illustrates some of the basics of chaos magick. Conradin worships an ordinary polecat-ferret as a God, until he actually becomes one. This is how you make an egregore. 

It should be obvious to anyone who has grasped this, that if belief and worship can deify a ferret, then they can easily also deify a fictional character. In fact, a fictional ferret is in some ways easier to exalt to godhood than a real one, since it is not bound by flesh. 

Much of the work of deification has already been accomplished by the story. The god has been described. His sacred name, Sredni Vashtar, is known to us. His hymn of praise is revealed. His offerings are elaborated– red flowers, red berries, and powdered nutmeg (which has to have been stolen). 

We also know his role. Sredni Vashtar, red of tooth and claw, is an avenger and a destroyer. But he is also a protector of the innocent, and a liberator of the oppressed. 

He is supplicated with the simple words:

“Sredni Vashtar, do one thing for me.” 

Knowing all of this, we know how to invoke him, and also why to do so. 

On the morning of the ritual, I went to a large chain grocery store to obtain red flowers and red berries, and also, the all-important nutmeg. I drew a protective sigil in the air before entering, because I was going to observe Sredni Vashtar’s worship in all its particulars. This is to say that I paid for the flowers and the berries, but the nutmeg, I slipped into the pocket of my overcoat. I had never shoplifted before. It was surprisingly easy. I had no remorse, because the store I targeted is known for union busting and unfair labor practices. 

Home again, I spent hours painting an icon of Sredni Vashtar. Overall, I was satisfied with the product, although the rendering of the blood puddle gave me trouble. I may return to the painting later, but with evening approaching, I had little time left before the ritual. I had to call it done for now, and pray that it would be deemed worthy by Our Ferret-Polecat Lord. 

Night fell, and the congregation assembled. The circle was cast, the candles were lit. I explained that we would be performing a baneful ritual of vengeance. Frater Babalon gave each of us a one-card tarot reading first, checking that it was advisable to go forward with hexing our targets. 

Then I went to kneel before the altar, and he began to read. 

Sitting on the floor listening to a story, it was easy to assume the persona and mindset of Conradin, the ten-year-old boy who is high priest of Sredni Vashtar. At appropriate moments I lit the Great Polecat’s red candle, and scattered the flowers, the berries and the nutmeg before him. I chanted the invocations along with Frater Babalon, saying three times: 

“Sredni Vashtar, do one thing for me.” 

I felt the suspense as Mrs. De Ropp entered the shed. I chanted the hymn of Sredni Vashtar with tears in my eyes, the tears of an unbeliever, the tears of broken faith, feeling just as Conradin felt in his darkest moment. That’s how it is with chaos magick. You always come to a point when you are certain it has not worked. A moment of utter disenchantment always comes just before the spell is proven, unexpectedly, to have been a total success. 

Chills went down my spine when Sredni Vashtar the beautiful emerged from the shed, jaws stained with the blood of the tyrant. Conradin fell to his knees in worship; I was already on my knees, so I clasped my hands in prayer. I felt the power of the god, and also his odd, animal love, his ferocious innocence. I knew in my heart that the invocation was a success. 

When it was done, we encouraged the congregants to celebrate, should they feel so moved, with a feast of buttered toast, the traditional victory meal of Sredni Vashtar’s priests. 

The results of the ritual are pending. As I write this, the red candle is still burning on Sredni Vashtar’s altar. Whether some, or all, or none of our curses will find their targets, we cannot yet know. 

Regardless, I believe that with devoted worship, and with many offerings of red flowers, red berries and pilfered nutmeg, the God can grow strong. After all, I do not know whether other chaos magicians have propitiated him in this way before. Though I am certain he has gained some strength simply through being a somewhat famous literary character, Sredni Vashtar may be yet young in practical Godhood. 

If you are moved by the plight of Conradin and see your child-self in him, if you detest the Mrs. De Ropps of this world, if you see grace in the long, low body of Sredni Vashtar and thrill with awe at his bloodied teeth; if you have been thinking “red thoughts” about injustice and how to fight it; if you need to be freed from something; if you still believe in magic despite all of your suffering, then you too can replicate this ritual. You can make the God stronger. Feed him with your adoration. Anoint his offerings with your tears. And when you have become certain of the target of your hate, when you can identify the boot that is pressing on your back, invoke him with these words:

“Sredni Vashtar, do one thing for me.”

How to Get Started in Satanic Magic

I wanted to create something beginner-friendly for those on the Left Hand Path who are new to magical practice. This is not the only way to get started, but it’s what I did combined with what I wish I had done. Explore, read a lot, think for yourself, and remember that there is no One True Way.

With that caveat out of the way, please enjoy these easy steps towards beginning a diabolical magical practice.

  1. Learn to meditate.

This is both the simplest step, and the hardest step. It’s the first thing you should start to do, and it’s also probably the last thing you’ll ever master. So don’t stress. Meditation is really hard for a lot of people, but people also make it harder than it needs to be.

Start with this: Inhale slowly to a count of four, completely filling your lungs. Hold your breath for a slow count of four. Exhale through your nose to a slow count of four. Repeat. Just try to focus on your breathing. If other thoughts come up, that’s fine, just let them go and keep returning to the breath.

Bonus: Once you’re kinda good at this, start imagining that there’s a second mouth between your eyes exhaling as you exhale through your nose. Your third eye will open pretty quick with that trick.

2. Learn to shield.

Visualize a bubble of light around yourself. The bubble can be any color you want. But it should feel safe, and you should be confident that it is completely impenetrable. Nothing can break through it. Practice doing this when you meditate. Also do it around people and in situations that make you uncomfortable.

Congrats, you have added a basic technique of psychic self-defense to your toolkit.

3. Learn Tarot.

This one can also take awhile to master! But it’s so worth it. The good news is, you can become a functional tarot reader with just one deck and the little guide booklet included with it. Memorizing the meanings of the cards will take time, don’t sweat it. Just read! Read the cards as often as you can.

Try this: pull a “card of the day” for yourself every morning. Write what the card was in a journal. At the end of the day, look at what your card was. Can you tell why you got that card? This practice takes 5-10 minutes per day max and is a great way to become familiar with the cards.

4. Begin dreamwork.

Start a dream journal. Write down your dreams. Never remember your dreams? Don’t worry, you can improve dream recall. As you’re falling asleep, tell yourself, “Tonight, I remember my dreams.” When you wake, write down your dream before you get a chance to forget.

Once you remember your dreams, you can begin playing with dream interpretation. You can find many dream dictionaries online, but what the symbols that occur in your dreams mean may be unique to you. Try making your own dream dictionary!

Bonus: You can even learn lucid dreaming. Here’s how: at various points during the day, ask yourself if you are awake or if you are dreaming. Check by looking for some text nearby, it doesn’t matter what. It could be a cereal box, it could be a street sign, it could be a text from your bae. Read the writing, then look away. Then look back. If the text stays the same, you are most likely awake. If it changes, you just caught yourself dreaming! Congrats, you are now lucid. Since you know you are dreaming, you will find you are able to take control of the dream.

5. Start a Grimoire.

A grimoire or book of shadows is a magical journal. What should you write in it? Well, for starters, dreams, cards of the day, and all that other crap I told you to write down above! Also write down spells you want to try, magical useages of herbs or crystals, lore about gods and demons you want to work with, etc, etc. Most importantly, record the results of any magical work you attempt. This will help you keep track of how well your spells are working.

6. Learn to Banish/Cleanse

You need to be able to remove unwanted energies and entities from your vicinity. There are many simple ways to do this. Smoke-cleansing is very popular. Unless you are indigenous to the continent of America, don’t call it smudging. Consider using something other than sage, too. Incense is great.

You can also banish using sound. Bells are popular for this purpose. If you have a stubborn or cantankerous spirit, feel free to escalate by banging on pots and pans. Praying and chanting have been used as well.

For my money, however, the best way to banish is to learn a banishing ritual. Here’s one I made.

7. Learn to ward.

Banishing and cleansing are good for chasing unfriendlies away temporarily. Shielding is also a temporary protection measure. But eventually, you’ll want to set up permanent protections on your living space.

There are a lot of ways to ward. My favorite way is to make a witch bottle. Obtain a bottle or jar. Fill it with nails, wine, maybe a spring of rosemary–and piss, if you want to go traditional. Seal it, then either bury it near the door or hide it under a bed/in the back of a cupboard/someplace else dark and cool.

You can make witch bottles using other ingredients. You can either research protective ingredients, or let your intuition guide you.

8. Call the Devil

Now you are ready to evoke Lucifer. These are the steps I use.

You might be crying: “Wait a minute, Johnny! I am a baby witch who hardly knows what I’m doing! And you’re telling me to summon SATAN?”

Well, yes. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. If your warding and banishing skills are up to par, you should not be at risk of summoning an unwanted entity by mistake. As for the Devil himself, if you weren’t interested in making friends with him, hopefully you wouldn’t be reading this blog.

One of Satan’s most traditional roles in magic is as Initiator and teacher of magic. As the serpent of Eden, he granted Adam and Eve knowledge of good and evil, and made them equal to God. As the Devil of the Witches, he teaches magic and gives familiar and matches the witch with compatible demons to work with. If you’ve been doing your research, hopefully you already know some of this. Contacting him as a beginner is not as crazy as it sounds. Getting you started on the path is actually a big part of what he does.

Once I established contact with Lucifer was when my practice really started to grow, magically and spiritually. He can teach you magical techniques, help warn you of dangers and problems in your life, grant clarity and insight, give advice, and offer a sense of companionship. He is particularly good at making recommendations about what other demons you might want to consider working which, and which you should avoid.

9. Consider Baptism.

A Satanic Baptism is not mandatory, but it can confer many benefits. It banishes the influence of the Christian God and/or any other deities that you may have worked with before, been raised to worship, or otherwise want gone from your life.

It’s also an initiation, which starts a process of spiritual death and rebirth. If done properly, it should destroy your illusions, challenge any false notions of your identity, and set you on your true spiritual path. People I know who have used this ritual (including myself) typically experience about a year of tumultuous transformation which may include career changes, cross country moves, coming out of the closet, gender transition, ending of toxic relationships, going back to school, and other challenging-but-necessary experiences. At the end, most of us have felt like different and much better versions of ourselves.

The particular baptism also confers a secret name or Godname on the initiate. A secret name is a very handy thing to have. It can make you hard to hex or curse, and help prevent others from getting power over you. You can pray to your secret name, as the name of your Inner God or Higher Self. You can also use it (silently) to command unfriendly entities, much the way that Solomonic magicians used the name of YHWH to command. Basically substitute this name for the Tetragrammaton.

Conclusion

You do not have to follow these 9 steps. As I said before, there are many paths in magick. But this is what I recommend based on my own experience. Hail yourself and good luck.

Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Inverted Pentagram

I made this Satanized version of the classic Golden Dawn LBRP recently and have been sharing it around semi-privately via google doc with some friends. Well, I’ve been getting more requests for it, so I’m putting it out here on my blog.

This is not the only Satanic LBRP around. Feel free to make your own adjustments, however I recommend that you study the Golden Dawn LBRP first and really come to understand why everything is constructed the way it is constructed. It’s like making a substitution in a recipe. You need to understand what the original ingredient contributes before you replace it with something else.

I may make a follow-up post explaining the nerdy occult reasoning behind my version soon.

Without further ado, here it is. Feel free to learn it, practice it, and use it to nuke any unwanted energies and entities in your vicinity.

Ritual:

Begin by facing East.

  1. Make the Klipotic Inverted Cross:

Begin by imagining a ball of darklight just above your head. Clasp your hands as if to pray and imagine drawing the light down through the top of your head and into your hands, so that you can now move it around as you will.

Pronounce “Amen! Forever”

Use your left hand to make the cross. Touch your left hip, drawing the darklight down to it, and say, “glory the”

Touch your right hip, to draw the darklight across your body in a line, and say “and power the”

Touch your belly about two inches below your belly button. Visualise the line flowing down from this point and into your feet, to make the bottom of the inverted cross, and say “and kingdom the”

Touch your forehead, between your eyes. Visualise the darklight flowing up from this point through the crown of your head to connect to the original ball of light, making the top of the cross. Say “is thine for.”

It’s best if you can chant or vibrate the words. Once the inverted cross is complete, keep visualising it on your body.

2. Now begin constructing your inverted pentagrams.

Still facing east, extend your left forefinger and trace an inverted pentagram in the air. Begin from the top left point. Visualize it hanging there, drawn in darklight.

Then draw back your hand, place your finger against your mouth. Explosively pronounce/vibrate the name “Helel,” thrusting your finger forward into the center of your pentagram as you do so.

Turn widdershins to face North. Draw a pentagram as before and vibrate “Samael,” sending the name through the center of the pentagram as before.

Turn to face West. Draw pentagram and place name as before, this time using “Mastema.”

Turn finally to South. Drawn pentagram and place name, using “Azazel.”

3. Now call on the consorts of Samael. 

Return to facing East. Visualize each of the consorts as you call on them.

“Before me, Agrat. Behind me, Naamah. To my left, Eisheth. To my right, Lilith.”

Visualize an inverted pentagram of black flame, in the middle of which you stand, and say,

“For about me flames the pentagram”

Visualize a column of darklight enveloping you, and say,

“And in the column shines the Morningstar.”

4. Repeat inverted cross ritual as before.

5. End ritual with “BE IT SO!” and bring your hands together in a loud clap. Let the darklight explode out, clearing the space around you.