Tag Archives: magick

Ethical Possession

Or, “How to Channel Demons without Going Off the Deep End and Making a Weird Fucked-Up Cult.”

I never expected channeling to be part of my life and spiritual practice. I was raised “spiritual not religious” in California, which means I spent a lot of time around New Age bullshit. For a time, those experiences drove me to become a hardcore atheist, until other experiences changed my mind and showed me that there are ways to believe without going crazy and spending fifty thousand dollars on crystals, consciousness-raising workshops, fake Tantra gurus and psychic healers.

Still, even after my conversion to Satanism, even after I began practicing magick, channeling made me uneasy. And for good reason– many an abusive cult has begun with a leader claiming the exclusive power to channel otherworldly entities.

And then an awkward thing happened. I met, and fell in love with, an absurdly talented channeler.

Initially I had extreme reservations. I feared I was being conned, that he would try to use his claimed ability to control me or others, or maybe that he was just plain crazy. Over time, however, it became clear that none of those things were happening. I became about ninety percent convinced that the channeling was real, but also one hundred percent convinced that, real or not, it was not merely harmless, but in fact spiritually and emotionally beneficial.

So reader, I married him.

Since then, channeling has become a regular part of Church of the Morningstar services. So far, we haven’t become a weird cult about it. That’s because we have a certain philosophy about channeling, and certain guardrails in place, which prevent channeling from becoming a power play or a source of unhealthy delusion.

Below, I have attempted to lay those safeguards, and this mindset.

This post is not about technique, so I will not be going into the nitty-gritty of how to channel, how to banish, how to ward, or otherwise giving any other magical instruction. This post is primarily about keeping the social consequences of channeling in check.

ONE: Spiritual Safety

I’ll start by saying that channeling demons– that is, becoming voluntarily possessed– is not nearly as dangerous as it sounds, provided you practice basic magical sanitation.

Before you channel, you should have warded your space so that only invited entities can enter. You should have cast a circle. You should have a good number of banishing rituals and techniques in your back pocket, just in case shit goes south.

But I will be honest with you. Shit will rarely go south. For most people, the hard part about channeling isn’t getting the entities to go away– it’s getting them to come in.

And, of course, making sure nobody gets weird about it.

TWO: Maintain Skepticism

Channeling/possession is a spectrum. In my experience, it is rare for a person to be so overwhelmed by an entity’s presence that they lose all control over themselves, black out, and fail to remember any of the experience. Usually, at least part of you will remain home while you channel. You will likely be conscious for the experience. There will just be someone else there doing the talking for you, and you may be surprised by the words coming out of your mouth and the actions performed by your body.

It will feel weird. You will wonder if you are crazy or somehow subconsciously making it up.

And you know what? It’s good to wonder that!

The “crazy” part is surprisingly easy to get out of the way– mental illness is only diagnosed if it causes distress or impairs function. So as long as your channeling experiences are pleasant, beneficial, only happening when you want them to, and not fucking up your life, it technically does not matter if it’s a delusion. It’s still benign.

As far as subconsciously making it up– this is a distinct possibility. My attitude towards it has become “so what?” If it’s all secretly just psychodrama, that doesn’t really matter to me. I still get great advice from demons. I still learn and grow through these experiences. I still get answers from them that I did not know, at least not with my conscious mind. In other words, for me, it’s useful.

The definition of magic in the modern era is pretty much “stuff that seems to work but we can’t prove it in an empirical setting and we aren’t really sure why.” If you are an intellectually honest person and have been practicing for any length of time, you already know that you’ll never be one hundred percent sure. But you keep doing this stuff anyway because it seems to work and it helps you. Channeling and possession are no different.

THREE: Anyone Can Channel

Channeling is a skill. As with any skill, some people also seem to have a natural talent for it. But practice can close the gap between the “naturally” gifted and those who struggled at first.

If anyone tells you that they have a unique magical ability of any kind that nobody else can access, laugh in their face and unsubscribe from their newsletter. If anyone tells you that they have a unique magical ability that they can teach you if you pay them thousands of dollars, that person is a scammer. If somebody tells you that they and they alone have been chosen as a conduit for Satan to speak through, that person is trying to control you by seeming to wield a greater authority. Run away.

You, yes you, can learn to do this. You don’t need to depend on anyone else for your connection to the infernal.

FOUR: Just Because Someone Says They Are Channeling Doesn’t Mean They Are Channeling

Hopefully this needs no explanation. They may say they are channeling, but they may be wrong, or lying. They may be channeling, but accidentally channeling a different entity than the one they meant to channel.

FIVE: The Content Matters More than the Source

The only reason to listen to a “channeled” entity is if it is saying things worth hearing anyway, so let that be your guide. Sometimes the answers you need in your life come from a demon speaking through a possessed human being. Sometimes those answers come from reading a book, or searching your own soul, or overhearing a conversation between strangers in the supermarket. Sometimes the right answer might even come to you by accident from a huckster who is trying to con you. Life is weird like that.

Take what is useful to you and leave the rest, because…

SIX: DEMONS ARE NOT THE BOSS OF YOU

Demons aren’t the boss of you. Satan is not the boss of you. You, yes you, are a living God, and you are not anyone’s servant to command. That includes the Devil, and in my experience, he is always the first to say so.

Just because someone was supposedly channeling Satan doesn’t mean you have to follow their instructions or take their advice. And if the “Satan” they are channeling insists that you must, then that’s not the Devil I know.

SEVEN: The Channeler is Responsible

Channeling is not an excuse for bad behavior. At the end of the day, the channeler is accountable for anything that the channeled entity says or does while borrowing their body.

This is crucial, even if it doesn’t seem fair. In cases of real, total possession, obviously it may be possible that the channeler is completely absent and not at all in control. But the rest of us only have the word of the channeler that this is what happened.

If some fucked up shit happens while somebody is channeling, I encourage you to consider that conduit an unsafe person. In some cases, it may also be wise to consider the alleged entity an unsafe entity. You should perhaps stop hanging out with either of them.

More May Be Revealed

These guidelines are neither foolproof nor perfect. They are a work in progress and just represent the best practices we have figured out so far. But I do feel comfortable saying that if you implement these practices, you are well on the way to making sure channeling cannot be used for authoritarian purposes, and ensuring that nobody goes off the deep end based on channeled content.

The Abyss

A sermon by Pastor Johnny given at Church of the Morningstar on 4/17/2021

This is the legend:

Aleister Crowley and his magical apprentice cum boy toy Victor Neuberg had been wandering through the Sahara desert for weeks. They took strange drugs. They recited prayers and incantations. Neuberg had shaved his head completely except for two bits of hair that he spiked up to look like devil horns. Frequently Crowley led him naked on a leash. They must have presented quite a picture. 

At night, Crowley took out his scrying stone and cried out to the Enochian aethyrs, then peered into each one and narrated what he saw, as Neuberg frantically scribbled notes. This was their procedure.

When they came to the cursed tenth aethyr, their method had to change, for the tenth aethyr was also the abyss, Da’ath. The abyss is the final veil between the lower planes and the realm of the divine, Atziluth. To cross the abyss was the most important and the most dangerous work a magician could undertake, for it would open his eyes to ultimate reality. 

But also, the abyss had a guardian, the duplicitous demon Choronzon.

Crowley and Neuberg drew a magic circle, in which Neuberg took up his position with a ceremonial dagger for self-defense. They also drew a summoning triangle, and slew a dove at each corner. Crowley himself stepped into the triangle, and became inhabited by Choronzon. 

Choronzon distracted Neuberg with nonsensical babble, then kicked sand over the triangle and the circle and attacked. Neuberg was able to subdue Choronzon in a physical struggle. 

The details of what happened next are sketchy. Pages of Crowley’s magical record describing this part of the operation are missing. This is probably because homosexuality was still extremely illegal in Britain at the time. The trial of Oscar Wilde was a recent memory. So what lives on is speculation and legend, and according to that legend, Neuberg sodomized Crowley. 

Remember that this was the 1910s and Crowley was an upper-class British male. He was no stranger by then to passive homosexual intercourse, but apparently the power of transgressing his social and gender roles in this way had not faded. Crowley, demon possessed and anally penetrated, in the midst of the desert night far from anyone else, probably drug addled and definitely high on ceremonial magick, found this experience so intense, so mind-breaking, that he was able to cross the abyss. 

That’s the legend. Reality is more complicated. Acccording to Crowley’s autohagiography, he had been crossing the abyss for months. His entry into this realm of dissolution had actually been triggered by the death of his young daughter and his wife’s subsequent descent into alcoholism. He did not conquer the abyss in a single feverish night of ritual and rough gay sex—the abyss had lived in him for a long, long time.

His story is both striking and cautionary. Crossing the abyss is supposed to be an experience of ego death. Crowley either failed dramatically at this, or else he became a living example of why having an ego is good, actually. Let us not confuse the different senses of “ego” here. We are not talking about pride and conceit, which Crowley certainly retained. We are talking about “ego” in a Freudian or Jungian sense—ego as selfhood, as a mask or container that allows our complicated, multidimensional beings to interact functionally with the world. 

Having encountered the abyss myself, I now think Crowley may have actually succeeded in losing his ego. And it wasn’t a good thing. 

Crowley spoke, in disturbingly racialized-sounding terms, of the “Black Brothers of the Left Hand Path,” a phrase I’d love to never hear again except possibly as a future Zeal & Ardor album title. This “brotherhood” that he so vilified was made up of those who entered the abyss and still retained selfhood. To Crowley, who was unexpectedly right-hand path, this was the ultimate sin. The goal to him was absolute union with everything (combined with the realization that all things, even God itself, were actually nothing). He aimed at a spiritual solipsistic nihilism, and strove to dissolve all boundary between self and other. Since a radical lack of boundaries characterized the rest of his life, by his own standards he may have succeeded. He treated others as poorly as he treated himself, and acted as if their belongings and money were actually his. So much for enlightenment. 

Why am I talking so much about goddamn Aleister Crowley? Because he is one of my teachers—one who teaches me what NOT to do as often as he teaches me what TO do. As much as I craft my Satanism in dialectical opposition to Christianity, I also craft it in dialectical opposition with Crowley. If someone wants to call me a reverse Christian, they better call me a reverse Thelemite too. 

But also, something about the legend of his crossing of the abyss resonated with me. It’s so raw, so visceral, so melodramatic, and so, so, fucking GAY. I recognized my own ritual style in it—though I personally don’t engage in animal sacrifice. That balls to the wall craziness of making the leap, just diving right in the deep end of experience. 

Thelemic rocket scientist and fellow bisexual Jack Parsons was also like that, at his best— his magic was as dangerous and cutting-edge as his work with rocketry and explosives, and he aimed just as high with both. 

That spirit of daring occult experimentation inspires me. In this one sense, I strive to follow in both their footsteps. In some powerful way, my own masculinity feels bound up in this type of esoteric risk-taking. And part of that macho risk-taking is, paradoxically, gender transgression. 

Enough about these others guys. Let’s talk about me. I sit here before you today having recently entered Da’ath myself, along with my lovely fiance Vix. Hi from the abyss! It’s weird in here. 

What the fuck is the abyss? This is a pretty damn esoteric topic that involves knowledge of multiple schools of Kabbalah, and also of the Tree of Klipot. I’m going to try my best to talk about Da’ath in a way that is accessible to as many of you as possible. If you have questions, please feel free to ask me later. 

But also, even if you know all that shit, the abyss is nearly impossible to describe. It has to be experienced to be understood. This is what every magician I know who has reached it has told me. I agree with them. 

As simply as I can put it, Da’ath is a stage that one may reach after many prior stages of initiation. It’s a place where one’s self-conception must be radically challenged. One’s model of reality may also fall apart. It’s a cataclysmic stage of self-growth, of spiritual death and rebirth. That’s one of the things Da’ath is. 

Da’ath means knowledge. It can be seen to represent the plucked fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. According to the serpent of genesis, to eat of it means to become as gods, knowing good and evil. It’s the apple bearing the marks of Eve’s and Adam’s teeth. 

Da’ath is a realm of limitless potential– a place where all things that are unreal and imaginary reside, a chaotic realm of ideas and figments and words without meaning. Everything that doesn’t exist belongs to Da’ath. 

But also, everything that DOES exist may also belong in Da’ath. According to some schools of more traditional Jewish Kabbalah, Da’ath is the container of all the other spheres on the tree of life. 

That sort of makes sense. Everything we experience is experienced through our own thoughts, though knowledge. Without a brain we can’t perceive the universe. So in some ways, Da’ath is the mind. 

On the body, however, Da’ath is most often assigned to the throat. It’s associated with speech and words, whether they make sense or not. Speech and words are also a big part of how we conceptualize existence, and their link to the mind is obvious. Da’ath is verbal.

But Da’ath is a wild, Dionysian manifestation of mind and of words. Da’ath is so crowded with things and ideas and sounds that it doesn’t make sense. It can’t. 

Da’ath is also sometimes conceived of as the hole in Yahweh’s orderly universe that was caused when Lucifer rebelled. Da’ath is the cosmic wind howling in the ears of falling angels and their agonized screams. 

Da’ath is also a desert, a wasteland, a place of spiritual retreat and arduous ordeal and testing. 

And on an emotional and spiritual level, this is where I am now. I don’t know who I will be on the other side. I am willing to be ground down to dust and reconstituted. But I am not willing to do what Crowley would have me do, and relinquish the core particle of what makes me who I am. I am not willing to exist permanently in dissolution. That probably makes me a member of the Brotherhood he so vilified, but since I don’t want any part of what he called the White Lodge, I’m fine with that. 

This process is familiar to me, in some ways. It reminds me of gender transition. You could actually say that I’ve been through many transitions. I realized that I was a man more than a decade ago, but my approach to being a man has been highly experimental. I’ve gone on and off of testosterone repeatedly, and have wildly varied my gender presentation. My gender, like my selfhood, is in a radical state of flux. I sometimes feel that I have been many people and lived many lifetimes within this single incarnation. Yet there remains a kernel of something essential in my identity as in my gender. I am always a man, and I am always myself, no matter how many times I dissolve and am reconstituted. The abyss may be a more intense experience of this dissolution. 

How did I get here? In some ways, I used a similar method to what Crowley used: gender fuckery, sexual transgression, and blurring of selfhood through demonic possession.

The first thing I did was hack off all my hair. It felt necessary. I loved my long hair but I knew I had to relinquish parts of who I have become. Those parts of me may return, the way that hair grows back. Or they may not. It was a ritual sacrifice. 

Then I dressed in drag, a stark contrast to my suddenly more masculine haircut. It was trashy, messy, punk drag— ripped fishnets and a black slip dress and thick dark smudged eyeliner.  

In this outfit, I channeled Choronzon. More accurately, I allowed myself to become possessed. 

Choronzon is not, I think, a demon. He’s certainly not a fallen angel. He’s not even a he, I merely call him that by convenience since I experienced him mainly through my own he-pronouned body. Choronzon is not a personality. He is a conglomeration of incoherent and contradictory ideas and energies, a whirlwind of cosmic garbage and treasure. He is an embodiment of pure chaos, neither creative nor destructive, but infinitely all-encompassing. 

In short, he has no ego. 

When he took possession of me, I lost all control of my body and voice. I drooled, I twitched, I thrashed, I babbled. It was a little like speaking in tongues, but less linguistic. Just repetitive, meaningless syllables. Components of speech, of language, totally unorganized in any way. No cooperation between them. No cooperation between my limbs and my brain. I myself could observe, but I couldn’t do much more. Fortunately Vix was there to wrangle me. I had put on restraints, in preparation for the possession, fearing Choronzon might attack. He didn’t. He didn’t have it together enough to do that. Not even close. The restraints didn’t end up being needed but it was still a good instinct– I was at risk of hurting myself or Vix by simply flailing. 

It was a ritual of sex magick. I do not want to give TMI because I am your pastor. Suffice it to say this: for Crowley, the taboo of bottoming, of being penetrated, was what got him into the abyss. For me, my fear, my chaos, my abject, lies in the active role. I have a huge fear of unleashing violence and toxic masculinity. Choronzon, in me, ending up embodying the most piggish, degraded, phallic sexuality. A masculine sexuality that doesn’t even enjoy itself– that just wants to conquer and penetrate to score points. A mindless, mechanical urge to fuck. 

Chaos and the abyss are often gendered as feminine by male occultists. That’s a bit Jordan Peterson in my mind. They probably gender chaos that way simply because to them, anything not purely male looks female. The abyss is no gender and all genders. I used a chaotic, abject form of masculinity to alienate myself from myself– becoming the thing I fear, the thing that disgusts me, caused me to vacate my being enough that I could experience a total lack of self. 

When I came out of it– when Vix pulled me out of it– I was shaken. I had experienced selflessness and It wasn’t bliss. It wasn’t pure, divine, universal love. There was nothing in me that could love. No me to do the loving. It was more like being an asteroid belt– just a bunch of space rocks smashing aimlessly into each other. A collection of things with no purpose.

I’m very happy to have a self again. 

I am aware that in the abyss, who I think I am may be challenged. I may come out the other side of this as a completely different person. In fact, I hope I do. But the goal, in my opinion, should never be complete loss of ego. How much of one’s personality one needs to shed, quite frankly, depends on the personality in question. I know I am far from perfect. I hope, in this struggle, to become more perfect. I have already agreed to relinquish everything that is not of my higher self, of my inner God. That is my goal, and I will probably fall short. 

And even if I become ground down to that single divine spark, I’m going to have to rebuild an edifice around it, a vessel of personality to navigate the world. 

Egos are like genders. They might ultimately be constructs, but it’s very important to inhabit one that feels reasonably comfortable. They can be fluid, they can change over time. They can also be works of art. A self is a beautiful thing to have. 

This is my message from the abyss today. I hope it spoke to some of you. Ideally I hope it spoke to all of you, and gave everyone at least something to think about.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me in here. I may change radically in ways that all of you can see, or the changes may be far more personal and internal. The only thing I can commit to is not being a dick while I’m in flux. 

Notes on the Lesser Ritual of the Inverted Pentagram

A long time ago, I posted this banishing ritual that I made for my own use. I promised then to explain the occult reasoning behind it. I forgot to do that for… more than a year.

So here, at long last, it is: notes on the Lesser Ritual of the Inverted Pentagram.

Some of this explanation is a little esoteric. Since I don’t have the ability to explain all of Kabbalah and its history of appropriation and misappropriation in this post, you’ll need to do that research yourself. Sorry. I made this as simple as I can.

  1. The Klipotic Inverted Cross

The traditional Golden Dawn Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram begins with a Cabbalistic Cross.

Since crosses are Christian and Kabbalah is Jewish (it’s often spelt Cabbala when Christianized and Qabbalah when western esotericists get into it) that’s kind of wack already.

This Cabalistic Cross is accompanied by questionable Hebrew that more or less translates to, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, amen.”

The points touched on the body while making the cross and saying those words soooort of correspond to sephirot on the Tree of Life. “Atah” corresponds to Keter and the top of the head, “Malkuth” means Kingdom and is linked to the groin (sooooort of), “Gevurah” corresponds to the left shoulder and means severity or judgment, so I guessss that’s kinda like power, and Chesed corresponds to the right shoulder and means… mercy, or lovingkindness? Glory. Let’s pretend it means glory. (Even though there’s another sephira called Hod which means glory and it’s located somewhere else.)

So yeah, the traditional Cabbalistic Cross doesn’t work that well. I realized that a Satanized version would work at least as well– not perfectly, but arguably better.

(If you want a re-Judaized version, someone I know made one and I can send you a copy. It is arguably the most structurally sound, but it’s also RHP as fuck.)

So here’s how the Klipotic Inverted Cross works.

The ending of the Lord’s Prayer is reversed in this Satanized version, of course. The Reversed Lord’s Prayer is believed in folklore to be a way to call the Devil. We’re about to call him a lot during this banishing.

You begin saying “AMEN” as you reach up over your head and symbolically draw down your own inner divine power (from your Neshamah, which is above/around your head, theoretically. Your Neshamah is one of your upper souls in Kabbalah. You have a lot of souls apparently. Like five).

“Forever glory the” is pronounced while touching the left hip. This spot corresponds to the klipa of Samael. The equivalent sephira is Hod, which means… glory.

Next you touch the right hip, while saying “and power the.” The right hip corresponds to the klipa Harab Zereq, which is equivalent to the sephira Netzach, meaning… victory. OK, it doesn’t exactly mean power, but neither does Gevurah.

Saying “and kingdom the” touch the groin, corresponding to the klipa Nahemoth, which corresponds to the sephira Malkuth, which means… Kingdom. (Technically the groin is not Malkuth/Nahemoth but actually is Yesod/Gamaliel. Malkuth/Nahemoth is actually the feet. Oh well.)

Touching the brow, and then stretching the hand high above the head, say “Is thine for!” This corresponds to Thaumiel/Keter, the spheres on top of their respective treees. The sephira Keter is “the crown.” The klipa Thaumiel means “twins of God” and can be interpreted to mean either the duality of Baphomet, or the fact that both Satan and the individual Satanic practitioner share in godhood during the ritual.

Confused yet?

2. Pentagrams!

In the original version of the LBRP, different names of God are cried out while drawing upright pentagrams toward each of the four directions, turning about the circle in a clockwise direction (deosil, as the sun travels).

We go widdershins as we make our inverted pentagrams, and call out different names of Satan. Counter-clockwise is the direction of the Devil. I prefer to do everything widdershins and left-handed in my magic.

A lot as been written about the difference in symbolism between the upright and the inverted pentagram. I’m not going to go into it here, but if you take a look at these two classic diagrams, you’ll start to get the idea:

Facing east, we trace an inverted pentagram and vibrate “Helel!” Helel means “shining one.” It is taken from “Helel Ben Sahar,” a phrase appearing in Isaiah 14:12, which means “shining one, son of the dawn” and which was subsequently translated as “Lucifer, son of the morning.” It’s an epithet for Lucifer as the Morningstar appearing in the East.

Facing North, we trace our inverted pentagram and vibrate “Samael!” Samael is a Hebrew and Kabbalistic name for Satan. It means “blind god” or “venom of god.” In this lore, he is said to come from the North.

Facing West, we make our inverted pentagram and vibrate “Mastema!” Mastema is an epithet for Satan from the Book of Jubilees. It means “hostility.” In this version of the story, Satan falls into the sea. West is generally associated with water and the ocean.

Facing south, we make our inverted pentagram and vibrate “Azazel!” Azazel is the scapegoat who is sent out into the wilderness. I associate him with the desert, and thus with fire and the direction of the South.

3. Calling on the Consorts

The classic right-hand path version of this ritual involves calling on the four archangels. I most emphatically say “fuck those guys.” But I have four good friends too, and they are the four consorts of Lucifer. So I decided to call on them.

Assigning the consorts to directions and elements is… not an exact science. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between the consorts of Satan and the four classical elements. I could have positioned them differently in this ritual, using different logic. But I’ll explain why I did what I did.

Agrat bat Mahlat goes before me, towards the East, because she is the youngest of the consorts and thus best represents the way forward, the future, and the dawn. As the “rooftop dancer,” she also is strongly associated with air (as are many of the others as well, but never-mind).

Na’amah goes behind me and to the West because she is associated with the story of the flood, and thus with water. Also, I trust her to have my back (but that goes for all of them, so, meh).

Eisheth Zenunium goes North and to my left as the consort of Samael known as “The Northern One” and the source of the Left Emanation. North also corresponds to Earth, Eisheth Zenunim is a death goddess among other things, we get buried in the Earth when we die. (She’s honestly more associated with fire than any other element, though. Whoops.)

Lilith the younger goes South and to my right because I associate her with deserts and their fiery winds, and thus the South. (She could easily go with any of the other directions and elements, but, alas, I had to make a choice).

4. Final notes

We then visualize a flaming pentagram on the floor that we are standing in the middle of. The two upper points of the star, pointing forward on either side of our feet, give it the feel of a cockpit somehow. This symbolizes the downward direction and protects you from below. It also gives you the feeling of having drawn a visible circle on the floor, which makes circle casting feel stronger in my opinion.

“In the column shines the Morningstar” is, once again, a call to both Lucifer and to one’s Higher Self simultaneously to invest you with magical power as magician and living God. Repeating the Klipotic cross reinforces this. It also protects you from above and within.

Finally, “BE IT SO!” is what Milton has Satan say when he arrives in Hell, and I like to use it to end my rituals. The loud clap combines sound banishing with the visualization of exploding darklight. Like lightning and thunder, right?

I hope this explanation is helpful and makes sense.

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.

A method to Cleanse and Ward after unsavory people visit your house

chickentea:

Personally, I wait 15 minutes to ensure they haven’t forgotten anything (it’s a long, painful wait, I know. Just bear with it!) and then get straight to work!

First off;

If they ate or drank at your house:

  1. DO NOT save any leftovers from that meal, as it is now connected to them. Use it instead in the compost heap to help further along your garden.
  2. Rinse down the dishes they used with vinegar first, spritz with sage-infused water, then proceed to washing the dishes normally.

And now if they did not eat or drink at your house

  1. Open all doors and windows to air out the house.
  2. Light some incense (honestly any will do at this point your just trying to make sure their scent doesn’t linger)
  3. The couch or chair they were sitting on needs to be thoroughly vacuumed.
  4. After vacuuming the couch or chair, cast a consecrated circle around the object and banish their energy from it.
  5. Lightly mist with moonwater and place energized crystals in a spiral in said area.
  6. Dust the House.
  7. Sweep the floors and collect any trash, immediately taking it out.
  8. Wash down all tabletops and counter surfaces with vinegar.
  9. Wash the floors and walls with a mix of lavender/sage/moonwater.
  10. Vacuum the carpets and rugs.
  11. Smudge.
  12. Squeeze out some garlic juice from 3 cloves of garlic and rub into ground outside of door (3 cloves per door).
  13. Mix lemon juice with a drop of peppermint oil and use it to draw a line on the door frame, both sides; make sure you left no line breaks!
  14. Rub a touch of dogwood oil on the outside doorknob.
  15. Recharge your witch balls!
  16. Air out your dreamcatchers if you have any!

If they sat down on your bed

Ohhhhhh boy oh boy oh boy. Guess who’s about to wash their sheets?

Surprise it’s you!

  1. Wash your sheets.
  2. Wash your comforter.
  3. Wash the pillowcases.
  4. Wash the pillows.
  5. Wash the mattress pad.
  6. Vacuum the mattress.
  7. Mist lightly with moonwater.
  8. Place energized crystals where they sat in a spiral.

Optional; write their name on an egg, take it outside, and crush it beneath your heel.

Can be a curse or just an emotional outlet, either way; it feels pretty good.

“But what if I don’t have all those incenses and oils and moonwater???”

Silly, just air out your house and clean it top to bottom using regular cleaning supplies!

If it helps, you can also say the following;

“Your body left my house, 
Now, your spirits can too.
And by ‘can’ I mean ‘will’,
It’s time for all of you to leave.

You’ve worn out your welcome,
When you never had any at all,
Out the door with you lot,
Away you go, away!

May you never return here!
May you never come back!
I banish you from this threshold!
Now get the fuck outta my house.”

Major Arcana Magick 🎴🔮

lunaesteria:

A list of the Major Arcana and their correspondences to use as an aid in magickal workings.

  • 0 – The Fool
    • new beginnings, adventures, free spirit, creativity 
  • 1 – The Magician
    • enchantment, magickal power, action, energy
  • 2 – The High Priestess
    • intuition, higher thinking, mystery, mysticism 
  • 3 – The Empress
    • wisdom, fertility, beauty
  • 4 – The Emperor
    • authority, structure, foundation
  • 5 – The Hierophant
    • spirituality, religion
  • 6 – The Lovers
    • relationships, union, partnerships, love
  • 7 – The Chariot
    • travel, victory, determination, motivation
  • 8 – Strength
    • strength, courage, motivation, willpower
  • 9 – The Hermit
    • seclusion, isolation, inner self, subconscious mind, introspection
  • 10 – Wheel of Fortune
    • rebirth, cycles, destiny, fate
  • 11 – Justice
    • revenge, justice, law & order, truth
  • 12 – The Hanged Man
    • restriction, sacrifice
  • 13 – Death
    • rebirth, transformation, transition, change
  • 14 – Temperance
    • balance, patience
  • 15 – The Devil
    • hidden desires, material gain, sexuality
  • 16 – The Tower
    • disaster, sudden change, revelation
  • 17 – The Star
    • stellar magick, hope, wishes, serenity, renewal, dreams come true
  • 18 – The Moon
    • lunar magick, illusion, anxiety, subconscious mind
  • 19 – The Sun
    • solar magick, success, positive energy, health
  • 20 – Judgement
    • reflection of self, rebirth, awakening, epiphany
  • 21 – The World
    • completion, accomplishment, achievement, fulfillment 
Image

OK, here’s a tarot spread I made up for talking to Lucifer. 

It’s an inverted cross, because bite me, that’s why. 

  1. Who are you to me?
  2. Who am I to you?
  3. When did you enter my life?
  4. What must I learn?
  5. What can I give you?
  6. Anything else?

I did a whole ritual to accompany this. I cleared the kitchen table and set up two chairs, one for me and one for the devil. I lit my homemade Lucifer prayer candle, and some frankincense (because if Jesus can have nice things Lucifer can too, dammit). I put on my moldavite pendant, and some Ruth White on the stereo. Then I sat down and invited Lucifer to come sit with me. I shared a piece of fruit with him, because Eden/knowledge/you know the story. Then I shuffled the cards and commenced the reading.

You don’t have to do a whole song and dance like that, but I do recommend you take some steps to consciously invite Lucifer to the reading and make him comfortable. Make sure you are making yourself comfortable too, and avoid “sucking up” excessively. Your mileage may vary, but I find he hates it when I place him too far above me. Be a little egalitarian about it. Invite him to your table like a friend, and behave as a generous host. 

I’m not going to share my results because that’s between me and the devil. Please feel free to use this spread if you like, and alter it to suit your needs. Obviously it could be adapted to talk to many other deities, although the inverted cross shape might not be your jam in that case.  

Astral Guide: Starter Pack

driftwood-in-the-sun:

winkingwyvern:

Astral traveling has been a part of my path since the first day I started and has only grown. I am able to meet and speak with the spirits and gods I work with, do spell work, do healing, and a large amount of other work in the astral. I worked almost every night before bed, unknowingly to me at first, to get where I am at now. I was going to make a long “how to” on astral travel, but simplicity is better. If you have any questions or need me to elaborate on anything, please don’t be hesitant to send me an ask. I could write ten pages to better explain how I work in the astral but no one will read that, so asking for me to elaborate is definitely fine with me!

Before you start:

  • Astral traveling does not equal astral projection.
  • In astral projection you fully leave your body but while astral traveling you do not.
  • In astral projection you view everything with crystal clear imagery but while astral traveling you do not.
  • Have you ever done a guided meditation? Did you know you were pretty much astrally traveling? In fact, if you have never astrally traveled before, try out a guided meditation so you can get an idea of what you should be “seeing” in your mind’s eye. The next step will be to drop the guided meditation and do it for yourself.
  • First, learn how to visualize. If you can’t visualize, you can’t travel in the astral. There are no ways around it. This website is the most clear and concise way to learn how to visualize. The level three exercise there is what you will need to learn how to do in order to travel in the astral. If you have a hard time visualizing, start at the level one exercise. Once you have learned how to visualize, try the exercise below.

Easy starter method for dipping your toes into astral traveling:

  1. Make sure you are comfortable and in a room where you will not be distracted
  2. Set up the protection you need around you
  3. Ask any spirits you want to accompany you to do so
  4. Think of what you want to do in the astral. If you want to meet a spirit, specify that. If you just want to explore, you don’t have to think about what you want to do and you can just enjoy exploring. 
  5. Get on YouTube and look up “forest sounds”. Find one you like and put it on with headphones.
  6. Close your eyes, ground, center, breathe – do whatever you do to get into a meditative state.
  7. Now start to imagine that you’re in a forest. The sounds you are hearing from the video are the sounds the forest is making.
  8. Walk around and explore. As you continue, stop forcing your imagination to see where you’re going and start letting your mind’s eye truly start viewing where you are at on it’s own. If you wanted to meet a spirit there, ask it to meet you there. Don’t worry if you don’t end up seeing the spirit you want to meet there. Sometimes they will be around just through a feeling and will want to let you explore the astral on your own without visually distracting you.
  9. When you feel you’re done, thank any spirits that were involved with the process (if they were) and wiggle your fingers and toes. Open your eyes and head off to eat or drink something to ground yourself.

Yes, that’s literally it. It is truly that simple. Get used to visualization and get used to wandering around a space in the astral you have created. For instance, the forest you were just in within that exercise is yours. These are the foundations you need to learn and get comfortable with. Soon you can visit places that truly exist in the astral, rather than creations of your own.

What can you do in the astral?

You can create a sanctuary, visit with spirits, heal your own energy – the amount of things you can do is unlimited. Do you want to do a spell in the astral? Craft the ingredients out of the energy around you. Yes, this seriously works! Spells done in the astral are just as potent (if not more potent, if you know what you’re doing) than spells we do on our physical plane. The most important thing is to not doubt what you are doing and have true intent. I have done some heavy spell work in the astral that worked extremely well to gain results on our physical realm. The exciting thing about doing spells in the astral is that you can actually have your spirit companions or gods visually next to you to aid you. You can also craft up offerings and altar spaces for your gods and spirit companions there.

You are not limited while you are in the astral. You can take on any form you want in the astral (this is called your vehicle). You can surround yourself with the elements and weather you want in the astral. Do you need it to be storming while you do a spell? You can make it storm. The stronger your visualization skills are, the more you can do. That’s why you have to work at it often. Within your own created space, you can allow spirits to visit. You can ward your sanctuary and allow your spiritual guides and friends to visit. There are no limits! Just be smart about it.

Useful links to further illustrate what I’m talking about:

Tips and extras:

  • Don’t doubt what you see
  • Work at it everyday
  • Make use of herbs of crystals that will aid in visualization 
  • Always set up protection beforehand
  • Also set up protection around your sanctuary if you build one
  • Ask your gods or any spirits you trust to guide you as you travel
  • Don’t limit yourself to what you can do there

When traveling outside of a space you created yourself (aka the whole wide world of the astral), tread carefully and be smart.

You remember cats, i talked about this spiritual bilocation thing?
Yeah. Here it is right there in the definitions of this post. Astral travel vs astral projection.
Fuck yes.
This post makes me so happy.

Simple Sigil Casting Template

Here’s a little sigil casting spell template I just worked out. I’m a newb witch so I don’t know how y’all experienced folks will feel about it. It’s not exactly the most original thing in the world, but what I like about it is its adaptability. You could do pretty much anything with this format. 

NEED:

  • Pre-charged sigil on small piece of paper
  • Bowl, fireproof, maybe in a color that corresponds to your intent in your mind
  • Lighter/matches/way to make fire
  • Herbs relevant to your spell, also taglocks and anything else you want to add.

This is a good spell to do OUTSIDE. You will be burning shit and scattering ashes.

1. Before doing any of this you need to design and charge your sigil and have it ready on a little piece of paper.

2. Roll the sigil paper loosely into a little tube, maybe with dry herbs inside, if desired. Taglock could also be rolled inside. Take time to think about the importance of each ingredient in your spell as you add it! 

3. Place the little sigil roll in the bottom of the bowl. I guess you could tie a thread or ribbon around it if you’re fancy like that, but it burns better if you keep it loose. 

4. Add other herbs and components one at a time, visualizing the intended effect of each in your spell. It’s nice to add powder/granular substances that can’t be rolled up easily this way– salt or pepper, for example– or liquids. 

5. Swirl the ingredients and sigil roll around the bottom of the bowl. I like to do this in a clockwise direction for “benign” spells and counter-clockwise for more “malevolent” spells. But do whatever the fuck you want. While you do this, visualize what you want to happen with your spell. If you like to chant or recite something, this is a good time to do so. I just silently visualize instead of making up clever rhymes. Your paper sigil roll should eventually be pretty coated in the ingredients at the bottom of the bowl. They don’t have to stick to it, but the entire outside of the sigil roll should have pretty much touched them at some point. 

6. Light that shit up! Use caution, of course. You’re playing with fire. As it burns, imagine the effects of your spell being unleashed on the world. 

7. When the sigil roll and herbs/materials inside it have been entirely reduced to ashes and there is no sign of anything actually burning anymore, scatter the ashes to the wind. 

8. Please cleanse yourself and your bowl afterwards, you sweet silly goober, especially if cursing. I like to use smoke cleansing on myself. For the bowl, I feel like a good scrubbing with soap and water will do– especially if you scrub circularly in the OPPOSITE direction that you swirled your ingredients around (clockwise if you went counter-clockwise while casting the spell, and vice versa.)

9. ?????

10. PROFIT! 

Shield yourself!

chaos-and-magic-deactivated:

We’ll talk about energy shields in this article, why? Because they’re important in your magic work. You can’t just start to do magic or witchcraft without protecting yourself against “things” out there. And no, I’m not being paranoid.

Basic shield – first of all, create basic shield. This isn’t a matter of a ritual, but matter of your willpower – as everything in magic is, anyway. 

The key to using your willpower is imagination and your will, of course. 

Prepare an energy source. Are you used to use the power of elements? The power of nature? The power of sun? Try to connect with it. Ask it for the energy you’ll need for your shield. 

Now let’s get to shield making: start with simply picture of YOU in your mind. Picture yourself as best as you are able to – basically try to see yourself, feel yourself with closed eyes. Now re-connect with the energy source you chose and use the energy of it – imagine yourself pulling out, drawing out or sucking out the energy you’ll use and picture it covering the space around your body. Make it seem you’re inside of this egg made of energy, that will protect you. And this is important – while you’re creating the egg, think about what the egg is supposed to do – protect you. Nothing evil, nothing bad, nothing that would hurt you won’t enter the eggshell you’re creating. Take your time, this can’t be done in 10 seconds 🙂 

Once you feel satisfied with your eggshield, make sure there is no hole (basically imagine it being perfectly content). Disconnect yourself from the energy source and once again imagine your shield being perfectly sealed. 

This kind of basic shield requires weekly check ups and occasional fix. 

Two simple ways to improve your shield

Camouflage – you can use the energy of your surroundings and cover the outer layer of your eggshield with it so no one (people who are able to “see”, other magic workers) could tell you have one.

Mirror – you can add a “mirror” layer to your shield that would deflect everything bad sending towards you. 

Enjoy 🙂