SUBLUNAR SPACE - ritual

Sublunar Sublimity

2025-06-23T15:30:00+02:00

In this essay, I want to unpack the personal gnosis that emerged from my initiation into the sphere of the Moon in early 2021 — partly to make sense of the waves this experience set in motion over the past few years, and partly to share my notes with others who may find echoes of their own path. The insights that surfaced don't immediately align neatly with the Moon's typical associations, and I believe they offer a perspective worth exploring.

Lunatic Fringe

When I did my lunar initiation I lived in a house that was basically a row of caves carved into the basalt rock in the arid and rural volcanic slopes in the South of Tenerife. Sleeping in a cave gives you a very different quality and depth of sleep and in my case resulted in very vivid dreams.

During that time I was researching and practicing the Gateway Experience¹ developed by the Monroe Institute through a series of guided audio sessions called Hemi-Sync Tapes that helps practitioners enter altered states of consciousness through a technique using binaural beats to synchronize brain hemispheres. The tapes aim to facilitate out-of-body experiences, deep meditation, enhanced focus, and exploration of non-physical realms by progressively training the mind to enter expanded states of awareness. Every day I tried to get into an altered state by following the guided meditations on the first tape, with varying and overall unsatisfactory results.

Part of the reason why I wanted to initiate into the sphere of the moon at this point was the expectation of improving my research experience. I remembered reading that this initiation had helped other seekers improve their clairvoyant faculties, scrying abilities, and general intuitive skills.

What unfolded instead was a mirror turned inward, revealing a completely hidden terrain I didn't yet have a name for.

I performed the initiation ritual in something of a rush, with only about 15 minutes of preparation after a stressful morning running errands across half the island and just before a friend was due to visit. For suffumigation, I chose the local herb incienso (Artemisia canariensis), which grows abundantly in this part of the island and whose scent helped calm me. What stood out and had not occurred with any of the other Seven Spheres except Helios was a vivid inner image: an angelic being, seated in a contemplative pose, holding a long staff in one hand, with a large cape, shawl, or flowing fabric billowing behind him in the wind.

A few hours after my ritual, I had more friends over for barbecue and beers. Normally I slip easily into the role of the attentive host, managing the atmosphere and keeping things flowing. But something had shifted. My attention turned inward — or rather, toward one person in particular, let's call her M. I became acutely aware of M.'s rising discomfort, not just observing it but feeling it with an unfamiliar intensity. I couldn't perform my usual role. It was as if the ritual had altered my consciousness.

M., with her sun, and ascendant in Cancer, quite literally embodies lunar energy. That evening, it felt like I was seeing the world through her eyes — emotionally attuned, sensitive to atmosphere, and unwilling to override what felt wrong. When she unexpectedly ended the night by asking everyone to go home — calmly, and clearly — I was stunned. It completely broke the flow of social expectations, but it also felt right and necessary.

A memory surfaced: years ago, during a loud and boozy birthday dinner with a former partner's family, I had suddenly quietly disassociated, then got up and walked straight out into the night, completely overwhelmed. I hadn't thought of that moment in years, but now it returned with new clarity.

After sharing this with M. in the conversations that followed, we began speaking more openly about how we move through the world — about forgetfulness, fractured attention, procrastination, sensory overwhelm.

In the following weeks, I found myself diving into a series of rabbit holes — reading, researching, listening, watching — anything that could help me make sense of what was stirring inside me. Each discovery peeled back another layer of my past. I began revisiting old memories, moments I had long tucked away or brushed off, and saw them in an entirely new light. What once seemed like personal failings or quirks, of which some I had learned to mask, now began to take on a different shape — patterns, signs, clues that had been there all my life without me realizing it.

What had begun as an external initiation was becoming an inward unveiling. Maybe this wasn't just empathy. Maybe it was recognition of something completely new. I started to suspect that I have what the world of mental health professionals calls "ADHD", perhaps even with traces of "Autism".

I have struggled in the last years with associating the intense transformation of my self-perception with the Lunar initiation because of the lack of classic lunar archetypes. It initially felt coincidental and totally unrelated. Instead of unlocking psychic abilities or dream visions in the way I had hoped for, it seemed to draw me into something far subtler — into the realm of perception itself.

That's when I turned to astrology.

Drawing Down the Moon

In Hellenistic astrology, the Moon is closely related to sleep, dreams, and the imaginal realm — acting as a mirror or mediator and the ruler of the dream-state, which is fluid, symbolic, and emotionally charged.

The Greek Titan goddess Selene (Luna) embodies the orb of the moon and its constant change. She is the sister of the sun, Helios and the dawn, Eos. Her great love is the beautiful human shepherd prince Endymion who was granted eternal youth and immortality by Zeus and placed in a state of eternal slumber. His heavenly bride consorts with him every night.²

It is important to understand that being the planet closest to Earth the ancients also saw the Moon as much more tied with one's physical incarnation and physical body as opposed to one's mental or spiritual body. It governs moisture, change, and rhythm — all qualities tied to biological cycles.

This primal physicality is reflected in another lunar goddess often syncretized with Selene: Artemis, embodying the skill of hunting, wild animals, and the hostility of wilderness itself. She is an independent free woman who does not need any partner and is one of the three Greek goddesses over whom Aphrodite has no power. Surrounded by her nymphs she delights in hunting and punishes harshly those who cross her.³

The Moon represents the hardcoded unconscious assumptions we've carried since the beginning — deeply rooted attitudes absorbed from our parents, inherited instinctual tendencies, and, most significantly, psychological patterns shaped by our earliest childhood experiences, both nurturing and wounding.

The action of the Moon tends to be unconscious. Either it is part of the structure of the self that has not been examined (though it influences our thinking and perception every minute of the day), or it relates to experiences that were very early, even prenatal, and which are therefore not conscious.⁶

In my chart, these aspects are amplified by the Moon being placed in her domicile in Cancer and in the fourth house — the Hypogeion, or "under the earth." This position anchors her influence deep in the foundations of life: ancestry, home, and inner identity.

Being the lowest of the celestial spheres the Moon is also seen as a transmitter of images from the divine or astral realms above to the human soul in the sublunar realms below.

This aspect of existing in and being able to pass through different realms is best personified by the third great Hellenic Moon goddess Hecate, associated with crossroads, night, magic, witchcraft, and the underworld. She is also often syncretized with Selene, especially in Helleno-Kemetic magical texts.

Hecate is widely accepted as a goddess of the fringes, ambivalent and polymorphous in essence, evading conventional boundaries and clear definition. She is generally represented as three-formed, triple-bodied, or triple-faced, having one head of a dog, one of a serpent, and one of a horse. In other representations, her animal heads include those of a cow and a boar. Hecate is associated with borders, thresholds, crossroads, the 'between' and, by extension, realms outside or beyond the world of the living.⁴

The astrological associations of the Moon are informed by the mythological narratives of the goddesses embodied by the planet. Studying them helped me contextualize my initiatory experience with lunar archetypes and better understand their relation to a way of being in the world that is commonly labeled as 'neurodivergent'.

Masks of Selene

Regina nemorum, sola quae montes colis et una solis montibus coleris dea, conuerte tristes ominum in melius minas. O magna siluas inter et lucos dea, clarumque caeli sidus et noctis decus, cuius relucet mundus alterna uice, Hecate triformis, en ades coeptis fauens.⁷

Though often rather seen as a tale of desire and longing, the myth of Selene and Endymion also speaks to the discovery of love, beauty, and meaning in quiet presence, receptive stillness, and the liminal space of dreams and inward journeys. It resonates with my life-long tendency to introversion, quietly indulging in and getting a lot of joy out of my own weird special interests.

The goddess Artemis embodies a refusal to conform to social norms of affection, gender roles, or civility. Her fierceness and autonomy resonate with my own experiences of emotional intensity that defies domestication. I have always had a strong urge for autonomy and fierce resistance to normative social rules, often to my disadvantage but always with a strong inner feeling of satisfaction.

Her dominion over crossroads, thresholds, and liminal spaces makes Hecate the most potent archetype for neurodivergent experience. Her triple form not only alludes to the concept of masking⁵ but resists categorization and reflects a consciousness that is multifaceted, paradoxical, and attuned to multiple realities at once. As a goddess of liminality she dwells at the edges of normative perception, navigating unseen paths, and inhabiting states that are neither one thing nor another.

In many ways, I recognize myself in this archetype. I adapt easily to changing environments and enjoy moving fluidly between different social circles. I either daydream or hyperfocus. I am drawn to cutting edge novelty, yet desperately haunted by overwhelming nostalgia, often drifting between realms — caught in the tides of past and future. My fascination with liminal spaces and fringe ideas now finds full expression in the weird magical journey I'm walking today.

All three lunar goddesses clearly resonate with different aspects of neurodivergence — one through introversion and fluid states of consciousness, the other through non-normative sovereignty and instinct, and the third through liminality, and a polymorphous identity.

Looking back, I see now that the Moon initiation absolutely nailed it.

Lunar Landing

My newly awakened Lunar awareness didn't give me the clarity I thought I was seeking — it gave me something subtler, and ultimately more profound: a new way of seeing.

What I once labeled as weakness or failure now feels more like a shifting tide — the ebb and flow of focus, energy, connection, and presence. Traits I had spent years trying to correct or conceal now appear as signatures of lunar archetypes: sensitivity to mood, to memory, to atmosphere; a porousness to the inner and outer worlds alike.

This new awareness doesn't erase the past, but it allows me to feel it differently — to inhabit it with more softness and more nuance. It also won't change the future. This isn't resolution — the Moon doesn't resolve. It constantly moves, reflects, transforms.

But it provides light in the darkness — enough to navigate by.

CIA Document: Document and Analysis of the Gateway Process ↩
Information about Selene on theoi.com ↩
Information about Artemis on theoi.com ↩
Information about Hecate on theoi.com ↩
Article on Masking by the UK's National Autistic Society ↩
Hand, Robert. Horoscope symbols. Schiffer+ ORM, 1997. pg. 52 ↩
"O queen of the groves (Artemis), thou who in solitude lovest thy mountain-haunts, and who upon the solitary mountains art alone held holy, change for the better these dark, ill-omened threats. O great goddess of the woods and groves, bright orb of heaven (Selene), glory of the night, by whose changing beams the universe shines clear, O three-formed Hecate, lo, thou art at hand, favouring our undertaking." Seneca, Phaedra 406 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy C1st A.D.) ↩

Call of the Siren

2025-06-11T19:30:00+02:00

From the banks of a canal in Berlin where I first gave offerings to an unseen current, through Tenerife's black-lava crucible where I was broken and re-forged, to the fragrant slopes of Mount Carmel I now roam, this essay tries to make sense of the occult aspects of migration. It pulls on the threads of personal metamorphosis, aquatic star goddesses who kept surfacing along the way, and the realization that landscape can replace ritual.

The Other Lady

In retrospect I can't help but acknowledge that my relocation two years ago feels like it was a logical continuation of some kind of magical pilgrimage. What had started as a devotional routine to the river spirit of Berlin years ago has in fact been a slow and steady accumulation of Saturnian forces that eventually culminated in taking the pandemic as a doorway out of a stale life. Following the lure of the dark god I took my family and journeyed to Tenerife just to have my continental ego shattered on his black lava anvil in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Ore smelted under the watchful eyes of various divine feminine hypostases, and forged into a more brittle yet purer neurodivergent me.

Saturn's syncretized Phoenician form of Baal-Hammon is physically present on every inch of the Canarian isle itself, from the black cliffs across the pine forests to the bleak volcanic mountain tops. His female consort Tanit materializes as the local divine mother, the Virgin of Candelaria, with whom I had formed a relationship throughout the years that could be described as 'disorganized attachment'¹: a deep desire for connection, yet at the same time, fearing it. The Blessed Virgin of Candelaria has accompanied me as a protective spirit since my introduction to her in 2018 and especially during my three year ritual journey of planetary self-initiation.

Looking back at that time of living on Tenerife I find it compelling that the other great Mother Mary that is fiercely venerated by the locals, especially in the town Puerto de la Cruz I lived in for two years — is La Virgen del Carmen, Stella Maris — the star of the sea, protectress of seafarers and fishermen². Just like with La Virgen de la Candelaria, her local cult carries undercurrents that feel deeply pagan.

Every year on Tuesday before her feast day on the 16th of July her statue is taken out of the local shrine at the church of Matriz de Nuestra Señora de la Peña de Francia and carried to the port in a procession. Sweets and chocolate are distributed among the tens of thousands of spectators who came to attend from across the Canary islands and beyond. The brotherhood of fishermen and sailors chant "La Salve Marinera"³ and the icon is carried out into the ocean on a boat and sometimes accompanied by other decorated vessels. She is then returned to the land and brought back to her shrine in another large procession that ends with fireworks.

Both the ritual of her death and rebirth like return from the sea and her association with the 'Star of the Sea' strongly resonate with the star and sea imagery of an older goddess with vast popularity: Aphrodite/Venus. The goddess born from the foam of the sea⁴, Aphrodite also bears the title of Ourania (Οὐρανία = heavenly) or "Queen of Heaven", and is associated with "spiritual love". It is mirrored in the symbol most strongly associated with Our Lady of Mount Carmel: the brown scapular⁵, a wearable devotional item signifying spiritual commitment. To top it off, both are strongly associated with the "morning star"⁶ — one manifests as the bright planet Venus, the other is venerated as "Stella Maris" — the star of the sea.

Chasing the Star

In late 2021 I briefly lived in shared house in the town of La Orotava just above Puerto de la Cruz. It was here in this room that I felt compelled to perform my initiation into the planetary mysteries of Venus. One of the reasons for this was the very curious coincidence that my furnished room had a large tapestry above the bed: a very unique artistic rendition⁷ of the 17th Major Arcana Tarot card "The Star"⁸. It shows a nude woman emerging out of a body of water that is up to her waist, raising both hands up in a praising gesture towards a radiant star surrounded by constellations. In the water in front of her is a pink lotus flower. Among some magical symbols next to her is the astrological symbol of Venus. It was the most venusian version of the Star card I had ever come across. As a bonus it has the number 80 on it which I immediately interpreted as matching my birth year.

In most Tarot decks the depicted star on the Star card has eight points. This calls into mind a very old iconic Mesopotamian symbol: the eight pointed Star of Ishtar⁹ specifically associated with the planet Venus.

In scholarly circles it is widely believed¹⁰¹¹ that Aphrodite is a later syncretic form of this exact same ancient Near Eastern goddess Ishtar (also known as Astarte, ʿAttart, or Innana). They share many syncretisms, even more so in her popular form as Aphrodite Pandemos (Πάνδημος = common to all the people), namely sexuality, procreation, beauty, and sensual pleasures (aspects that Our Lady of Mount Carmel is clearly missing for very uniquely Catholic reasons 😹).

What Astarte does have very much in common with our Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel though, is her geographic place of origin: the Levant. The earliest record of Astarte is from the 3rd millennium BC kingdom of Ebla¹² southwest of today's Syrian city of Aleppo. Although her cult spread across Syria, Canaan, Cyprus, coastal Palestine and even parts of Egypt, the major centers of her worship during the Iron Age were the Phoenician city-states of Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos (all in today's Lebanon).

Our Lady of Mount Carmel was conceived as the "Lady of the Place" by Christian hermits who lived on the Carmel hills in the North of Israel and later formed the Carmelite Order and the Stella Maris Monastery¹³ overlooking the city of Haifa. It was on this same hill that according to scripture the Abrahamic prophet and wizard Elijah¹⁴ had dwelled in a cave and famously challenged and defeated the local prophets of Ba'al and Astarte in a magical battle. The Bible doesn't explicitly mention Astarte in this context but instead another related goddess:

Now summon all Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel, along with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table.²³

Often falsely conflated with Astarte the other great Levantine goddess Asherah¹⁵ is more of a primordial mother of the gods and a nature and fertility goddess, but with deep connections to the sea as her son is Yam, the sea itself and her epithet is "Lady of the Sea". Her cult was widespread throughout ancient Israel and there are even controversial traces of her being considered the consort of the Hebrew god YHVH¹⁶ himself. Our Lady of Mount Carmel obviously also syncretizes many of Asherah's aspects which ties her even stronger to the sacred geography of the mountain range.

One of the surprising results of my Venus ritual had been an immediate and growing appreciation of someone I did not expect at all in such a Hermetic framework: Jesus Christ. I was puzzled by it back then, but now, after unraveling all the above mentioned intertwined threads of the divine feminine it makes a lot of sense: channeling Venus in my local Canarian context at the time inevitably resonated with the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel in all of her syncretic aspects.

But the surprise connection runs even deeper. The morning star is not only the celestial body of Aphrodite and Astarte, but also one of the self-designations Jesus uses:

I am the root, the descendant of David — the bright morning star.²⁴

This Venusian current runs even earlier into the Christian story than most of us realize. According to some astronomical studies¹⁷, the Star of Bethlehem itself may have been the bright heliacal rising of Venus precisely on the day of the Jewish New Year (the day ancient Israel and Mesopotamia celebrated the enthronement of the king). This celestial occurrence matches the moment of September 1st, 2 BCE at 4:30 a.m. local time in Bethlehem. If this reading holds any truth, it means that Venus not only marks the Christ's spiritual identity but also quite literally signaled his earthly arrival.

Meet me on Mount Carmel

Looking back I see my Venus initiation the pivot point of my personal process of transformation and physical relocation. It was at this moment that the forces of Saturn passed the baton of my destiny on to Venusian ones. In the same way I had followed the former from Berlin to the Canary island of Tenerife I would now follow the latter from her remote Canarian shrine to her original stomping grounds: Mount Carmel.

That's exactly where my family and I moved to in early 2023: a small rural village situated on the actual Carmel mountain range just south of Haifa — into a half abandoned house of my wife's long deceased grandparents. The area is much greener, quieter and more provincial than the hectic urban center of the country where most people live. Most of Israel's Arab citizens live up here¹⁸ and coexistence is a daily lived reality. Of course that doesn't mean it's easy and chill, but those terms don't apply to the Middle East anyway.

I have begun to love Haifa. It's a weird and confusing place with neighborhoods sprinkled among hilltops, glued to the side of the mountain, tucked into canyons and valleys and crammed between the steep cliffs and the sea. It's easy to get lost and navigating the ups and downs constantly messes up your internal map of the place. The tragic normality of ongoing missile or drone incursion threats led to a semi-permanent jamming of the GPS signal in various neighborhoods¹⁹, so in many places the internal map and analog navigation is all you have. Getting lost is a feature of the place. Wherever I go I encounter Orthodox Jews, Christian Arabs, Druze, Ahmadi Arabs, Ba'hais, secular Russians, American expats, punks, drunks, surfers, hippies, and hipsters that work in IT. It's a crazy, exhausting, beautiful mix.

It is telling that one of Haifa's neighborhoods right by the sea that is frequented by surfers has the name Bat Galim²⁰ ("daughter of the waves") and that a certain beach in Kyriat Yam in the city's north is repeatedly haunted by mermaid sightings²¹ ²². This is sea goddess territory.

I remember a few months back I finally visited the Stella Maris monastery, excited to form a relationship with the famous Lady of this place but then found that I was not really able to vibe with her despite (or maybe because of?) the meaning-laden holiness of this landscape. I felt weirdly disconnected, not really able to relate. It just felt a bit awkward. What was happening? Probably oversaturation.

Magical Materialism

What I mostly enjoy is my new hermit life with long walks alone on the vast and empty sand beaches, through the olive groves near our village, or the wild bushland and forests of the Carmel. It has become my daily spiritual practice and self-care routine. It amuses me now that in the very secular Berlin I used to have a fairly regular ritual habit with daily planetary prayers and monthly headless rites but since I am here in the literal "Holy Land" — one of the most excessively religious places in the world — my need for any kind of ritual habit has completely faded.

On some days when I am out and about and I feel that my mind wanders off too far into the realms of mundane monkey anxieties I resort to cycling my favorite mantra borrowed from the Hesychasts that always manages to pull me back into the present:

Kyrie Iesou Christe, eleison me

(Reciting the beginning up to the comma inhaling, and the end exhaling.)

I feel like I lost my need to shift to an imaginal ceremonial mindset to fulfill my own spiritual yearnings. It feels like pretentious cosplay to me now. Oversaturation. I remember that some mystical traditions — Gnostic, Sufi, and Eastern Orthodox among them — suggest that the true original sin was not disobedience, but distraction: the moment humanity fell out of direct presence and into fragmentation of attention. Rather than a single act, the Fall is seen as a loss of unified awareness of the Divine, a collapse into mental chatter and separation. As a neurodivergent, this is a topic I am painfully aware of.

Each morning the Carmel wind reminds me that geography can be liturgy. The thyme-scented air and the dusty light are my incense. Drifting through landscape is prayer. You just have to pay attention.

Here I wear no scapular but the salt on my skin, and it is enough.

The pilgrimage continues where it began: a body besides water. Each wave on the beach of Carmel is the same murky Berlin current, the same Atlantic surge on black lava cliffs — the siren never stopped luring me "home" — only changed shoreline.

Attachment Project Blog article on Avoidant Attachment Style ↩
Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Wikipedia ↩
The hymn "La Salve Marinera" with lyrics and translation ↩
Aphrodite's birth myth on Theoi ↩
Info on the Brown Scapular from Sisters of Carmel ↩
Wikipedia article on the planet Venus in different cultures ↩
Full Samiramay Tarot Deck (digital) on Vera Petruk's page ↩
Weird Studies podcast episode on The Star card ↩
Star of Ishtar Wikipedia article ↩
Info on Ištar and Aphrodite at the Melammu Project ↩
Sugimoto, David T. Transformation of a Goddess: Ishtar-Astarte-Aphrodite. Vol. 263. Academic Press/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014. Archive ↩
Archi, Alfonso. Ebla and its archives: Texts, history, and society. de Gruyter, 2015. ↩
Official Website of the Stella Maris monastery ↩
Mary and Elijah on the Carmelites website ↩
The Goddess Asherah: Queen of Heaven, Mother of Creation by Deanna Riddick on Medium ↩
Smith, Mark S. "God male and female in the Old Testament: Yahweh and his “Asherah”." Theological Studies 48.2 (1987): 333-340. ↩
The Star of Bethlehem from an astronomical and astrological perspective by Dieter Koch, Astrodienst ↩
Arab citizens of Israel Wikipedia article ↩
Why GPS can't find you in Haifa — article on GLOBES ↩
Wikipedia page of Bat Galim ↩
Jerusalem Post article from August 11, 2009 about mermaid sightings ↩
ynet article NBC: Kiryat Yam mermaid might be real from April 5, 2010 ↩
1 Kings 18:19 ↩
Revelation 22:16 ↩

Dark Night of the Soul

2023-07-10T19:30:00+02:00

This is the most difficult article I've written so far. I have less mental capacities to write than I used to and so much has happened since we set sails to our escape journey at the end of 2020. Little did I know that it would turn into a real odyssey.

I have written extensively about some of my experiences of planetary self-initiation in the past but I have come to realize that the further I progessed through the spheres the more meaningful and personal they became. It feels almost inappropriate to make all the details public here, due to their very personal nature and because they coincided with a difficult period of depression and crisis that took quite some time and effort to get out of. But I will try to briefly touch on them because they might actually be the most important magical experiences of my life.

The last time I had been through a similar personal upheaval and depression was over a decade ago around the time of my Saturn Return (while being completely ignorant of that concept). Back then I managed to shed several layers of self-perceived expectations and societal pressure that had kept my authentic self in confinement and came out of it feeling more like a grownup than before.

This time it was different. Not only in terms of the darkness and confusion I had to push through, as well as the mind-blowing levels of self-realization, but especially due to the magnitude of traumatizing fallout that directly influenced my immediate family. It's one thing to live through a period of depression by yourself, but when you are embedded in a family unit and have responsibilities as a spouse and parent, it is impossible to protect your loved ones from getting hurt.

Thus Spoke the Goddesses

Past planetary initiations had taught me about my relationship with my parents and the need for personal sovereignty (Jupiter), about the temporality of life and nonlinearity of time (Saturn), the art of war and listening to my instincts (Mars). They were all mind-blowing and exciting. In contrast, the initiations of the feminine planets I went through while living on the Canary Island of Tenerife turned out to be deeply soul shattering.

I had been especially looking forward to my Lunar initiation ritual, naively hoping it would help me get more lucid dreams or better psychic skills. Instead, the luminary goddess made me realize that significant parts of my past life had been a self-deceptive lie and that I actually tick all the boxes of an ADHD diagnosis while leaning heavily into the Autism spectrum. How's that for a surprise?

Facing Venus was something I had been scared of ever since starting the 7 spheres cycle, mainly due to the frightening experiences my mage friend Aaron of Charm the Water had gone through but I had to eventually do it and the ritual timing coincided with a very difficult relationship crisis. With equal intensity to her lunar kin the goddess of love and beauty made me ask myself very uncomfortable questions about my interpersonal experiences and abilities that both directly tied into my newly discovered neurodiversity. On the upside - and very weird for a pagan goddess - my venusian initiation resulted in a sudden felt sense of closeness to - wait for it - I still can't really comprehend it: Jesus Christ.

Into the Abyss

So here I was, displaced on a volcanic saturnian island in the middle of the Atlantic. Grappling with mental health issues, questioning my whole past life, having lost my career and general faith in humanity during a raging pandemic, having no friends and a shattered marriage apparently wasn't enough: I conducted Covid-19 during a short trip to Romania and infected my family when I returned. It hit us hard. My wife the hardest. I don't know how we all managed to not lose our minds completely and I really have problems recalling memories of that time. It was grim.

Three months after having officially recovered from Covid-19 I almost drowned from attempting to swim in the sea. My physical condition was at its worst ever, I could barely breathe and it all really bummed me out. When Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February 2022 it was the cherry on the despair cake and I lost it. I drifted off into a serious depression of which I barely recall anything besides fractions of images. I was suffering heavy post-Covid symptoms, overwhelming fatigue, a brainfog so intense I was unable to read or write properly.

In the months that followed, my wife - who miraculously hadn't left me - somehow managed to drag us all off the island and we spent several weeks traveling. We met my parents on their holidays on the neighbor island of Fuerteventura, we also traveled all our former homes, reconnecting with family and friends and it felt like collecting long forgotten shards of my soul.

Tikkun Atzmi

I wandered the endless white beaches of Fuerteventura, drowning in nostalgia from childhood vacation memories, reliving the bliss of those magical times, letting months of stuck tears flow.

I walked the streets of Berlin with a never before encountered intense sense of placeness. I ritually visited every house and neighborhood I had lived in for the past 20 years. I was overwhelmed by forgotten memories, almost breaking down on several occasions, finding myself crying, finally integrating grief and loss of past failed relationships and old friends.

I wandered through the forests around my hometown, in awe of the intensity of how much 'home' this place felt, reconnecting with my parents and friends from teenage times. We ended up spending several weeks in Heidelberg and I couldn't shake the feeling that immersing myself in this ancestral place contributed a lot to my recovery. I finished the seven Spheres with Mercury at his temple on the same mountain I had started the planetary journey three years earlier.

It was during that time that we decided to close this weird liminal chapter of our life and leave Tenerife for good. What had started as a hopeful and optimistic escape had turned out to be a dark underworld journey in the middle of a tropical paradise. And like every heroes journey it felt crucial to finish it properly and to return home. But what does 'home' even mean when you are a mixed background family? This had been one of our primary discussions in the last two years: where is our home? Where do we want to live? Where is our 'Ithaka' to return to?

We stayed on the island for just a few more weeks, wrapping up our life there and eventuall left the same way we had arrived - by land and sea - like Odysseus.

We arrived back in our old home of Berlin and rediscovered all of our belongings we had left behind two years before. Everything felt eerily familiar yet foreign and distant. In an almost manic tour de force we managed to get rid of the majority of our stuff, renovate the old flat and sublet it to a friend of ours - all within a month - and we took off to open a new chapter in a new place - yet another chapter of uncertainty but with ancestral ties: my wife's homeland, the holy land, Israel.

Solve et Coagula

I am still in the midst of an ongoing and probably never-ending process of re-framing and integrating my own past, re-adjusting my life to my newly realized neurodiversity and attempting to put it all into context. It's been a wild ride so far. My (also neurodiverse) wife and I have managed to reconcile and rebuild trust and are working through a ton of past baggage, both individual and common. Meanwhile I got the diagnosis of a liver condition resulting in raised cholesterole levels that might be the result of genetic disposition and long-covid. I take medication for that and since doing so I have been feeling much better physically. Also my brainfog has lifted to the point where I can read books again and write a few paragraphs of text. Overall I am hopeful and positive about the future and despite the intensity of dark experiences during the last two years I am grateful and in awe about the deep transformations I am going through. Jung called the process 'individuation', alchemists called it 'Magnum Opus', the 'Great Work' and now I know that 'great' refers to the incomprehensible heaviness of the 'work', the sacrifices and traumas one can endure on the way to a more authentic self.

I thank the planetary spirits, the gods and the theotokos for heeding my calls and pushing me through this magical adventure, the labyrinth of self-discovery that without proper divine help has the potential to merely become what's commonly referred to as 'midlife crisis'.

Restless Liburnian Spirits

2020-08-21T21:00:00+02:00

On the Croatian island of Pag, four years ago today was my serpent dream that I often refer to as my "switch" event that broke my materialist mindset. Retrospectively I have to admit it already had started a bit before that, but nevertheless it is safe to say that this day played a central role in my magical coming of age.

In summary it was a nightmare turned lucid, a dream nested within a dream, with a fuzzy threshold to wake reality, out-of-body elements and most importantly it had a meaningful symbolic climax: I was shown a shield emblazoned with a vivid red serpent on fire, staring at me.

This serpent has haunted me for weeks and inspired many in-depth research rabbit holes into at that point rather unknown fields of occult knowledge. I started practicing kundalini yoga, meditation, got eventually hooked on the western esoteric traditions and especially their Helleno-Kemetic sources.

On this same day a year later I found myself standing on the highest mountain of the island of Pag, reciting my first Headless Rite, Greek hymns to Agathosdaimon and invoking the Four Kings and initiating myself from freshman armchair magician to fully operand sorcerer.

Fast forward yet another year, again on Pag, I obsessively hunted down the remains of an altar in honor of the local pagan serpentine goddess Heia, syncretized with the Roman goddess Bona Dea.

My job at a local electronic music festival reoccurred annually, so last year at the same time I was also on Pag. I celebrated my magical anniversary and revisited some of my favorite places, but most importantly I made real-life contact with a woman who used to work at the local archeological museum. I had already emailed her the year before, asking for help in my research on the altar.

I visited her in her garden and she was happy to give me a lot of hints what other interesting places to visit on the island. Unfortunately it was the second last day of my stay so I only managed to visit one of them: a newly discovered ruin of a church on a nearby hill.

After I had left Pag we stayed in touch and things got a bit weird. She turned out to be a spiritually minded, magically interested and quirky witch type lady with shadow people and ghost encounters and I felt comfortable enough to disclose my whole magical journey that was so intimately connected to this island. She seemed genuinely excited about it and had some very interesting things to say about the house I had had my serpent dream at three years before:

Several years ago the owner of the house, who runs a construction company, took a few fine stone ornaments from a wall next to the smaller church here in town. The entire square was an enormous basilica with water well, inside walls and so on. Behind the church a famous reliqary from the 4th century was found and some other precious and rare findings. On the right of the basilica there was a graveyard. Now, there were some wild building interventions around those walls and this guy took away some tombstones!! I remember wanting those stones here in our museum but he secretly took them away in the dark of the night and under protection of our local sheriff mayor so I couldn't do anything but alert the Conservation institute. But they also didn't do anything.

This blew my mind. The construction tycoon had stolen sacred stone ornaments from a graveyard and used them to decorate the house he rented out to tourists and in which I stayed every year. The same house I woke up in when I had my weird dream!

One of the main features of the local archeological museum is the entrance to an underground Roman acqueduct entirely carved in stone by hand and over 1 kilometer long with an average width of 60 centimeters. The lady had another story to share that stuck with me:

I used to close the museum and go into the aqueduct as far as I could. The air begins to get fouler the deeper you go inside. It was always interesting to go forward but getting back was kind of creepy. It alway felt as if a Roman cohort was breathing down my neck!

It inspired me to think that maybe the football-armored zombies from my dream might actually have been Roman soldiers misinterpreted by my subconscious.

Anyway, Pag is surely haunted. I am sad that due to the Corona restrictions my annually recurring job got cancelled for this year. This is the first in seven years I can't be there. It would have been nice to celebrate my magical anniversary and to catch up with my new friend and listen to some more of her stories. Coincidentally (or not) she wrote me this week inviting me and my family to come visit, but unfortunately that collides with our plans for this year.

So visiting an ancient and enchanted olive grove from antiquity and hearing the story about the local priest with stigmata who could bilocate will have to wait until some other day.

I will be back for sure. Maybe next year? Just the gods know.

Helleno-Kemetic Magic: Phylakterion

2019-09-06T20:00:00+02:00

Second of a series of articles about my careful attempt to recreate a generic framework of Helleno-Kemetic magic. For an introduction and overview check out this article

Phylakterion

φῠλᾰκτήρῐον • (phulaktḗrion) n (genitive φῠλᾰκτηρῐ́ου); fortified, guarded outpost, garrison; safeguard, protection, amulet; phylactery

Coming Full Circle

Despite widespread claims that the circle of protection - a fundamental element of post-medieval Western Magic - has its origins in ancient Kemet, there is not really much evidence for it. In "Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic" Dr. Stephen Skinner hypothesized that the earliest form of the circle in ancient Kemet may have been inscribed upon the ground in the form of the ouroboros, the snake biting its own tail. To be honest, this claim seems nothing more than a poke in the dark. Instead, the roots of drawn protective circles are more likely to be found in ancient Mesopotamia (Zisurrû).

The sages of Kemet did not draw circles on the temple floors, but used the practice of ceremonial circumambulation for all kinds of purposes throughout the millennia. The Kemetic word pẖr means encircling but also enchanting or controlling.

Egyptian calls a particular type of circumambulation as 'search for Osiris' in which at the time of winter Solstice the image of a cow was carried seven times round the temple, giving the reason that the Sun in the winter arrives at the winter Solstice only after seven months and by observing this type of circumambulation they make the Sun favourable to them. [1]

In "The mechanics of ancient Egyptian magical practice" Robert Ritner writes:

Comparable rituals of circumambulation comprise both public, cultic ceremonies and private, "magical" ones. In particular, the royal coronation ritual included such a "procession about the desert" and a "circumambulation of the walls" to delimit the "sacred space" of the kingdom, [...] Cultic encirclement appears as well in the Ptolemaic ritual of "Protecting the House" of the sacred falcon venerated in Edfu, involving the surrounding of the temple by torches and the "bedchamber" of the god by tamarisk twigs. Nuances of encircling are elaborated within the accompanying recitation to include allusions to the coronation "encirclement as boundary," to the ouroboros "encirclement as protection," and to the simple "going around" as an enactment of free, unhindered movement. [2]

Magical Armor

What the data does show in abundance is the importance of protective phylactery in Helleno-Kemetic magic: wearable charms and amulets to ward off daimōnic influences. These usually involve the inscription of barbarous names of deities, various configurations of vowel sequences or palindromes, as well as magical symbols usually written with a bronze stylus onto hieratic papyrus or precious metals, such as gold, silver, tin, or lead - usually corresponding with the purpose of the phylactery and the daimōnes involved.

When creating papyrus phylacteries, I like to experiment. I fold them into little objects, enclose them in containers, even considered baking them into clay. One of my favourite protective amulets that has served me well is the hundred-lettered name of god (see below) inscribed onto a strip of tin foil, sprinkled with holy water, rolled up and stuck into a tiny glass bottle together with some Mugwort flowers.

Here is a selection of a few phylacteries that work well for the general purpose of protection:

The Greatest Name of God

I am he who has presented myself to you, and you have given me as a gift the knowledge of your most great name, of which the number is 9999 (PGM II. 127f)

There are two "great names" that according to Greek isopsephy add up to the value of 9999. [3] According to philologist Reinhold Merkelbach they were probably "greatest" in a practical mathematical sense: in a system of memorizing and calculating numbers well known throughout the 4th century Roman empire by means of finger counting: Computus digitorum. The three left fingers of the left hand were used for the units, the other two for the decimals. Thumb and index finger of the right hand for the hundreds and the three rightmost fingers for the thousands. So the largest number to be displayed with this method was 9999. [4]

The most commonly known of the two "great names" that is also present on numerous gems and in various misspelled variations in papyri of the Anastasi Handbooks is:

χαβραχ φνεσχηρ φιχρο φνυρω φωχω βωχ

The other one appears in PGM IV. 2430 and is attributed to a sage named Epaphroditus:

φρη ανωι φωρχω φυυυυ ρορψις οροχωωι

Write the formula on a new sheet of papyrus.

The Hundred-Lettered Name of God

Inscribe on a gold leaf:

αθηζε φωι ααα δαιαγθι θηοβις φιαθ θαμβραμι αβραωθ χθολχιλ θοε οελχωθ θιοωημχ χοομχ σαησι ισαχχοη ιερουθρα οοοοο αιωαι (PGM IV. 1214ff)

The Chief Name of Typhon

Onto a silver leaf inscribe this name of 100 letters with a bronze stylus, and wear it strung on a thong from the hide of an ass.

αχχωρ αχχωρ αχαχαχ πτουμι χαχχω χαραχωχ χαπτουμη χωραχαραχωχ απτουμι μηχωχαπτου χαραχπτου χαχχω χαραχω πτεναχωχευ (PGM IV. 239ff)

For a detailed discussion on this amulet, check Leonardo Drakon's archived post.

(phylactery by Leonardo Drakon)

Chnoumis Amulet

The scribe's artistic skills are questionable, but from the context it becomes clear that his squiggles are supposed to be a lion-headed ouroboros. Also the magical characteres he uses in the text do not match the drawing. According to philologist Raquel Martín Hernández the formula to be written into it is also flawed [5], because he apparently got confused with the two ιαεω bits and messed up the palindrome he intended to write:

κμηφις χφυρις ιαεω ιαω αεη ιαω οω αιων ιαεω βαφρενε μουνοθιλαρικριφι αευ εαιφιρκιρα λιθανυομενεερφαβωεαι. [5]

The formula to be written around the ouroboros has quite a lot of lacunae and is unfortunately lost. I freehandedly fixed it and it seems to work. It is important though that the words are to be written in a counter-clockwise manner.

Here is my artistic interpretation of the phylactery including the whole palindrome and all characteres and a photo of the latest version I drew on papyrus. It has served me well! Replace the first NN with your name and the second NN with the name of your mother.

Coptic Magic Squares

A 6th or 7th century Coptic phylactery that synchronicity threw into my lap has the cryptic name P.CyYBR inv. 1792. For a discussion of the original content of the papyrus, check this great article.

Use the SATOR and ALPHA-LEŌN magic square on papyrus. Optionally add the Coptic names of the Three Magi and/or the psalms below.

Σ Α Τ Ο Ρ
Α Ρ Ε Π Ο
Τ Ε Ν Ε Τ
Ο Π Ε Ρ Α
Ρ Ο Τ Α Σ

Α Λ Φ Α
Λ Ε Ω Ν
Φ Ω Ν Η
Α Ν Η Ρ

Μελχιωρ, Θαδδιας, Βαθηζωρα

(Melchiōr, Thaddias, Bathēzōra)

Λύχνος τοῖς ποσί μου ὁ νόμος σου καὶ φῶς ταῖς τρίβοις μου

(Psalm 118-105: Your word is the lamp of my feet, oh Lord, and the light of my way)

ἐπὶ ἀσπίδα καὶ βασιλίσκον ἐπιβήσῃ καὶ καταπατήσεις λέοντα καὶ δράκοντα

(Psalm 90-13Thou shalt tread on the asp and basilisk: and thou shalt trample on the lion and dragon)

Consecration

My go-to consecration ritual for all kinds of charms and phylactery is a shortened version of PGM XII. 201-69.

It first calls upon a multitude of fate related gods. The translation of this spell in the Betz anthology [8] is incomplete, Preisendanz interpreted them as the three stations of the sun [6], because of the transcription as ´γ ηλιοι ανοχ μανε βαυχυχ meaning "three suns" and three assumed voces magicae "Anoch, Mane, Baychych" being their magical names. Merkelbach & Totti follow this interpretation [7]. I don't think they are right though.

First of all, the word ανοχ is an often used voce magica and in Coptic means "I am" derived from Egyptian ink, the word μανε could be a Greek transcription from Egyptian mnw mostly meaning "monument" or "image of", and βαυχυχ like the more commonly used βαινχωωωχ equals the Egyptian phrase b3 n kkw or "Ba of Darkness", an epithet of the primordial god. So the whole string of voces magicae could simply mean "I am an image of the Ba of Darkness".

Second, the wording of the invocation of the gods rather suits the Decans than the solar stations. They are called as assistants for the consecration.

In the next step the mage self-identifies as a number of divine Kemetic forces to compell the Decans to help and then calls upon the great god to consecrate the object.

Preparing the Altar

Making a pit in a holy place open to the sky, or if you have none in a clean, sanctified tomb looking toward the east, and making over the pit an altar of wood from fruit trees, [...] burn all sorts of incense. Then, standing by the pit, look to the east and, pouring on a libation of wine, honey, milk, and saffron, and holding over the smoke, while you pray, the [object to be consecrated], say:

Calling the Decans

I invoke and beseech the consecration
O gods of the heavens,
O gods under the earth,
O gods in the middle place, circling the three suns,
Anoch Mane Baykhukh,
who come forth from the womb day by day.
O masters of all the living and the dead,
O heedful in many necessities of gods and men.
O concealers of things now seen,
O directors of the Nemeseis who spend every hour with you,
O senders of Fate who travels around the whole world,
O commanders of the rulers,
O exalters of the abased,
O revealers of the hidden,
O guides of the winds,
O arousers of the waves,
O bringers of fire,
O creators and benefactors of every race,
O nourishers of every race,
O lords and controllers of kings, come, benevolent, for the purpose which I call you for, as benevolent assistants in this rite for my benefit.

I am a plant named Baïs;
I am an outflow of blood from the tomb of the great One between the palm trees;
I am the Pistis found in men, and am he who declares the holy names, who is always alike, who came forth from the abyss.
I am Sokrates who came forth from the eye of the sun.
I am the god whom no one sees or rashly names.
I am the sacred bird, Phoinix.
I am Krates the holy, called Marmarauōth.
I am Helios who showed forth light.
I am Aphrodite called Typhi.
I am the holy sender of winds.
I am Kronos who showed forth light.
I am Mother of gods, called Heaven.
I am Osiris, called water.
I am Isis, called dew.
I am Ēsenephys, called spring.
I am the image resembling the true images.
I am Souchos who appears as a crocodile.
Therefore, I beseech you, come as my helpers, for I am about to call on the hidden and ineffable name, the forefather of gods, overseer and lord of all.

Calling the Lord

Come to me, you from the four winds, god, ruler of all, who have breathed spirits into men for life, master of the good things in the world. Hear me, lord, whose hidden name is ineffable. The daimōnes, hearing it, are terrified — the name Barbareich Arsemphemphrōth — and from hearing it the sun, the earth, roll over; Hades, hearing it, is shaken; rivers, sea, lakes, springs, hearing it, are frozen; rocks, hearing it, are split. Heaven is your head; ether, body; earth, feet; and the water around you, ocean, O Agathos Daimōn. You are lord, the begetter and nourisher and increaser of all. [...]

By your power the elements exist and all things come into being, the route of sun and moon, of night and dawn—all things in air and earth and water and the breath of fire. Yours is the eternal processional way of heaven, in which your seven-lettered name is established for the harmony of the seven sounds of the planets which utter their voices according to the 28 forms of the moon. Yours are the beneficent effluxes of the stars, daimōnes and fortunes and fates. [...] Hear me and complete for me this operation so that I may wear this power in every place, in every time, without being smitten or afflicted, so as to be preserved intact from every danger while I wear this power. Yea, lord, for to you, the god in heaven, all things are subject, and none of the daimōnes or spirits will oppose me because I have called on your great name for the consecration.

And again I call upon you,
according to Egyptians, Phnōeai Iabōk;
according to Jews, Adōnaie Sabaōth;
according to Greeks, Pantōn Mōnarchos Basileus;
according to the high priests, "hidden, invisible, overseer of all";
according to Parthians, Ouertō, master of all.
Consecrate and empower this object for me, for the entire and glorious time of my life.

(based on the PGM XII. 201-69 translation by Morton Smith [8] edited with information found in [7] and [9] and consultations with Λαζαρίδης from the foot of mount Olympos)

Sources

Sudhi, Padma. "An Encyclopaedic Study on Circumambulation." Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 65.1/4 (1984): 205-226.
Ritner, Robert Kriech. The mechanics of ancient Egyptian magical practice. Chicago: Oriental institute of the University of Chicago, 1993.
Fideler, David. Jesus Christ, sun of God: ancient cosmology and early Christian symbolism. Quest Books, 1993.
Merkelbach, Reinhold "Die Zahl 9999 in der Magie und der Computus digitorum." Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (1986): 305-308.
Hernández, Raquel Martìn. Reading magical drawings in the Greek Magical Papyri. na, 2010.
Preisendanz, Karl, and Albert Henrichs, eds. Papyri graecae magicae. Die griechischen Zauberpapyri. Vol. 2. Walter de Gruyter, 2001.
Merkelbach, Reinhold. Abrasax: Ausgewählte Papyri Religiösen und Magischen Inhalts: Gebete. Springer-Verlag, 2013.
Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. The Greek magical papyri in translation, including the Demotic spells. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Daniel, Robert W. Daniel Robert W. Two Greek Magical Papyri in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden: A Photographic Edition of J 384 and 395 (= PGM XII and XIII). Vol. 19. Springer-Verlag, 2013.

Helleno-Kemetic Magic: Katharsis

2019-08-13T19:19:00+02:00

First of a series of articles about my careful attempt to recreate a generic framework of Helleno-Kemetic magic. For an introduction and overview check out this article

Katharsis

κᾰ́θᾰρσῐς • (kátharsis) f (genitive κᾰθᾰ́ρσεως); cleansing, purification (in a moral/spiritual sense)

These you are going to make completely [near] the lamp, robed and refraining from all unclean things and from all eating of fish and from all sexual intercourse, so that you may bring the god into the greatest desire toward you. (PGM I. 289-292)

It's Mages who do the "Science and Art of influencing change to occur in conformity with Will" [1] as opposed to everyday people, right? The first step out of the profane starts with purification. This achievement obviously has different qualitative levels that one can unlock and they involve:

physical hygiene
ritual baths
perfumes
anointing oils
abstinence from sex
abstinence from consumption of meat or other types of "unclean" food
white and purified ritual attire

The rule of thumb is: The more you can add the better. My absolute minimum of purification is doing a ritualized quick wash and using anointing oil.

This is required to set yourself apart from the other humans in order for yourself to feel sufficiently "privileged" to do the sorcerous work and for daimōnes to pay attention to you. If your operation involves an attempt to make a daimōn manifest physically, according to magically operand scholars who have successfully achieved this type of work this is even more important than for other operations.

But let's be realistic: life always gets in the way! Not only for us but probably also for Mediterranean mages living the exciting urban life in the hip metropolises. So when celibacy is a challenge or showers are not always spontaneously available it's best to have methods handy that do work even in acute needs of magic: spells!

Purification does not primarily involve the physical body, but more importantly the soul. Traditions of outer and inner purification were present in Kemetic, Hellenic, and Jewish cultures.

Although he lived much later than the era of magic discussed here, I want to quote the medieval Moroccan kabbalist Avraham ben Eli'ezer Ha-Levi, because he described beautifully what I am talking about in a work called "Maʾamar Ha-Yihud":

If a person merits aligning all his limbs with the supernal world and purifying and sanctifying them, and making every joint of his limbs a chair and dwelling place for the joints of the supreme Chariot, he will draw the light from the joints of the supernal Chariot to the lower Chariot and the human body will be a holy Temple [...] the person becomes sapphiric as his organs, internal, and external, are a chair and dwelling place for the supernal entities ... and then the influx and lights will descend and he will move in them ... such a person is called a holy man of God. [2]

Imagine your goal to "become sapphiric" and you will intuitively know what to do. When I do magical operations I usually follow my intuition about what level of katharsis to aim for in relation to the operation and its goal. So let's get to praxis:

Apotheosis of the Elemental Body

A famous and widely discussed text from the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris is PGM IV.475-834, mostly known under the misnomer "Mithras Liturgy". Academy has interpreted it as an initiatory ritual to gain "immortality", the permanent transformation of the status of the ritualist, whether into the formal status of a priest or as an initiate of some kind of mystery cult. Yet the text specifically mentions "immortalization" procedures that last only a day and that can be undertaken up to three times a year. Doesn't sound like a permanent initiation, does it? Thankfully, a scholar named Radcliffe G. Edmonds III came to the same conclusion and debunked the common misconception of this ritual [2]. He writes:

This text is better understood, not as an initiation ritual that brings the performer to a new status, but rather as a ritual that temporarily purifies him for a brief meeting with a god. [...] Such rituals of purification or sanctification are common in the religions of the Graeco-Roman world, and they range in complexity from simple lustrations to elaborate practices of abstinence and purification. The greater the sanctity and the more significant the contact between mortal worshipper and the divine, the more complex the ritual must be, but scholars have often failed to see some of these most elaborate rituals of sanctification as part of the same spectrum of purification rituals, classifying them instead with initiation rituals. [3]

The ritual is quite lengthy and for most magical purposes we don't really need to shake hands with Mithras-Helios and gain immortality. It is sufficient enough to purify our meatsuit by means of invocation in a way the Neteru and daimōnes we want to interact with won't be too appalled by our appearance. Alchemically our body is made up of the four elements fire, air, water, and earth. How these elements and our physical body are interconnected with our soul is beautifully explained in a conversation between Horus and his mother Isis in one of the Hermetic Stobaeus fragments:

"What is our body's composition, mother?" Horus asked. Isis: "It is the assembly and blend of the four elements. From this blend and assembly, a vapor is exuded. This vapor wraps itself round the soul and runs through the body. To both – I mean body and soul – it bestows its own quality. In this way, arise the different variations that occur in souls and bodies. [4]

For the purpose of purifying our body on an alchemical level, the first part of the Mithras Liturgy suffices:

The magician must first replace all of the mortal elements of his (or her) body, leaving behind the perishable nature of mortals in the corruptible mortal realm. The magician invokes the archai, the primal elements or originary nature, of his being, going through air (pneuma), fire, water, and earth. [...] Each of these mortal elements must be replaced with immortal elements – immortal water, immortal fire, immortal spirit. [3]

There are various translations of the "Mithras Liturgy" out there. I prefer the version by the controversial "UR Group" around Julius Evola, because it puts an emphasis on practical application rather than precise translation:

First origin of my origin, AEĒIOYO; Beginning of my beginning, PPP OOO PhR; Spirit of the spirit, of the first breath in me, M M M;

Fire, that God has given in the mixture of the mixtures in me, first fire in the fire of me ĒYĒIAEĒ; Water of the water in me, first Water of the water in me, O O O A A A E E E;

First earthly essence of the earthly essence in me, YĒYŌĒ; Perfect Body of me—born of N. (name) of N. (mother)—that the honored Arm and incorruptible Right Hand have formed in the dark and transparent world, inanimate body that was animated, YĒI AYI EYŌIE!

If you deem it right, though I am still held back by my inferior nature, allow me to attain the Immortal Birth, so that, having overcome the incessant need that holds me in its terrible grip, I may contemplate the immortal Principle

through the immortal Breath ANChREPhrēNESYPhIRINCh, through immortal Water ERONOYIPARAKOYNETh, through the Earth and the Air EIOAĒPSENABŌTh;

so that I may be reborn to the intelligence KRAOCHAXRO; so that I may give to myself a new beginning and breathe in me the Holy Breath, NECHTHEN APO TOY NECHTHINARPIĒTH; so that I may contemplate the abyss of the East, the horrible Water, NYŌ THEGŌ ECHŌ OYOCHIECHŌA and the vivifying Ether spread all around me may hear me, ARNOMÈTHPH,

[...]

This is what I, N. (name), born of N. (mother), want according to the unshakable order of God, EYĒYIAEĒIAŌEIANIYAIIEŌ.

[S]ince it would not be possible for me, a mere mortal, to rise together with the golden effulgence of immortal splendor, I command to you ŌĒY AEŌ ĒYA EŌĒ YAE ŌIAE. Be still, O mortal nature destined to perish, and allow me to go beyond the inexorable, hard-pressing need. For I am the Son, I breathe MOYOPROCHŌ PRŌA, I am MOY PRŌPSYCHON PRŌE, I am! [5]

Exorcism of Restraining Daimōnes

An additional method of purification that also exorcises spirits attached to your subtle body that restrain you and hold you back from your full potential (sounds almost like a Scientology ad, right?) is the good old "Stele of Jeu" aka. "The Headless Rite" and in particular the exorcism part that comes before the divine ascent. Here is a shortened version suited for our needs of purification:

I summon you, Headless One, who created earth and heaven, who created night and day, you who created light and darkness. You are OSOR-ONNŌPHRIS whom none has ever seen. You are IABAS! You are IAPŌS! You have distinguished the just and the unjust. You have made female and male. You have revealed seed and fruits. You have made men love each other and hate each other. I am Moses your prophet to whom you have transmitted your mysteries celebrated by Israel. You have revealed the moist and the dry and all nourishment. Hear me!

I am the messenger of Pharaoh OSOR-ONNŌPHRIS. This is your true name which has been handed down to the prophets of Israel. Hear me! ARBATHIAŌ REIBET ATHELEBERSĒTH ARA BLATHA ALBEU EBENPHCHI CHITASGOĒ IB AŌTH IAŌ Hearken to me and turn back this daimōn!

I call upon you, terrible and unseen god, dwelling in empty space: AROGOGOROBRAŌ SOCHU MODORIŌ PHALARCHAŌ OOO

Holy Headless One! Deliver me, NN., from the daimōnes that restrain me: RUBRIAŌ MARI ŌDAM BAABNA BAŌTH ASS ADŌNAI APHNIAŌ ITHŌLĒTH ABRASAX AĒOŌY

Strong Headless One! Deliver me, NN., from the daimōnes that restrain me: MA BARRAIŌ IOĒL KOTHA ATHORĒBALŌ ABRAŌTH

Deliver me, NN.: AŌTH ABAŌTH BASYM ISAK SABAŌTH IAŌ

For more commentary and interpretation of this specific spell check out my other posts on the topic.

I will get into the topic of pronunciation and usage of the barbarous names and vowel sequences in a later post. Stay tuned.

Bibliography

Jason Miller's modification of Aleister Crowley's famous definition of magic. Published in his book "Elements of Spellcrafting"
"Ma'amar Ha-Yihud" in Amnon Gross (ed.), "Nevuʾat Ha-Yeled" (Tel Aviv, 2005), pg.162, found in Garb, Jonathan. Shamanic trance in modern Kabbalah. University of Chicago Press, 2011. pg. 37f
Edmonds III, Radcliffe. "There and Back Again: Temporary Immortality in the Mithras Liturgy." (2014): 185.
Stobaeus 26:13 in Litwa, M. David. Hermetica II: The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in an English Translation with Notes and Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Evola, Julius, and Ur Group. Introduction to Magic: Rituals and Practical Techniques for the Magus. Simon and Schuster, 2018.

A Path of Helleno-Kemetic Magic

2019-08-12T15:00:00+02:00

This article introduces a series of articles about my own default methods of magic based on spells and ritual outlines found in Graeco-Egyptian and Coptic magical papyri. I carefully attempt a recreation of a generic framework to apply to various magical operations for fun, efficacy and doing the Great Work.

Thebes Calling

Throughout the last years I have dipped my toes into different systems of ceremonial magic in search for some tried and tested protocol I could use for getting myself into the right headspace for the Great Work, as well as to boost my practical enchantments for better results. I tried very casual formulas for simple sigil magic or divination, boiled down grimoire protocols (e.g. Seven Spheres). I experienced failures with ceremonial frameworks which I half-assed because of the lack of tools (Harleianus MS 5596 / Hygromanteia) and found ones that I didn't even attempt to try because of the same reason (Key of Solomon derivatives).

Most of the post-medieval grimoire systems feel too elaborate for the magic I am doing, which is mainly sigil-work, divination, uncrossing-, way-opening- or binding-spells, ancestor-work and such. Due to safety concerns and the lack of tools and time I am not interested in working with Goetic entities or bullying spirits into physical manifestation. I am quite allergic against overly structured Victorian lodge magic like the Golden Dawn systems or their Thelemic spin-offs because of their fetish of shoe-horning everything into never-ending tables of correspondences. I totally acknowledge their importance in "Western Magic" - it just ain't my cup of tea.

On the other hand some of the more casual systems (Seven Spheres, various chaos magic frameworks) did not seem to get me into a satisfying headspace that made me feel sufficiently sorcerous. I guess I am less of a "technical magician" and more in search of a general ritual experiences that bristles with sparks of mysticism and weirdness. The only flavor of Western Magic that has been able to consistently fulfill this craving for me while also delivering satisfying results is the "Helleno-Kemetic" (or "Graeco-Egyptian" for a more Roman imperialist term) approach preserved in the papyrus collection often referred to as the "Anastasi Handbooks", "Thebes Cache" or more popularly "Papyri Graeco Magicae" (PGM).

I very much resonate with mashing up hoi polloi "folk magic" and unemployed temple priest thaumaturgy from the dusty back-alleys of Thebes with an unabashed syncretism of various branches of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian esoteric systems that even makes post-modern Chaos Magic look orthodox and I very much like the mind-bending use of barbarous names and vowel chants that was en vogue back then.

The body of work that documents this flavor of magic is a mess of torn papyrus scrolls written in Greek, Demotic, and Coptic found in a hidden cache in Thebes. On the majority of papyri unfortunately there is no detailed information about the requirements and protocols of the ritual framework the mages used to make their spells work - besides occasional footnotes to "do the usual". On the upside, this style of magic seems to not have required complicated tools - not even a circle. I like! But then there are of course animal sacrifices...

Retrofitted Rites

In the last decades several attempts have been made to reconstruct working ritual frameworks for Helleno-Kemetic magic. Noteworthy books on the topic are Stephen E. Flowers' "Hermetic Magic" and Tony Mierzwicki's "Graeco Egyptian Magick", as well as "The Book of Abrasax" by Michael Cecchetelli. Flowers' book is great for learning more about the cosmology behind the magic (at least as assumed by the author) and it has an extensive praxis part which is mainly a collection of PGM spells thrown together as if they were a grimore. Cecchetelli did a much better job at curating and modifying useful spells from the Anastasi Handbooks. Mierzwicki's book is a ritual framework for self-initiation into the planetary spheres based on prayers found in the PGM but with extensive commentary. Another work mentioning - although lacking praxis, containing some wild assumptions and focusing more on the Anastasi Handbooks' content, history and their place in the timeline of Western Magic is Stephen Skinner's "Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic". A great new book that I haven't finished reading yet but is the most scholarly satisfying one for cultural context and an overview of techniques of Helleno-Kemetic magic is "Drawing Down the Moon" by Radcliffe G. G. Edmonds III.

The in my opinion best attempt of re-creating a practical Helleno-Kemetic ritual framework I came across has been brought to us by the great Polyphanes aka. Sam Block, who published it for free on his blog Digital Ambler with the usual galore of commentary.

While all of these works are helpful and worth checking out, it bothers me a bit that most authors seem to suppose the existence of ritual frameworks in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt akin to post-medieval grimoire or quote-unquote "Hermetic" frameworks, like in Golden Dawn magic. What I mean by that is an elaborate protocol of ritual attire and tools, a circle of the art, delineation of temple space, opening and closing formulae, consecration of implement, banishing, invocation and evocation, and so on. There is no doubt that all of these have important functions in established Western systems of magic and I also understand that initiated or learned magicians default to looking for such methods because they work in the systems they have studied and mastered - yet to my knowledge there is no evidence in the source material or historic record that really justifes a need of retrofitting such protocols into the syncretic Helleno-Kemetic-Roman era forms of magic.

Brick by Brick

Having no affiliation with any magical order and not having followed any established magical path or school, I did not have a default ritual structure to work with when approaching the glorious mess of the Greek Magical Papyri. I jumped right in and did many experiments in which either nothing happened or my mind got fucked and I ended up physically destroyed and sick in bed.

Trial and error that was more painful than expected in my experimental naivety. In retrospect it was a mistake and a blessing at the same time. On one hand I could have avoided getting hurt by forces I did not comprehend, but on the other hand I learned important lessons in the most natural way I have taught my stubborn self almost everything else in my life so far: by experience of making mistakes and trying to avoid them in the future. Step by step, I find myself building a ritual framework from scratch that works for me for most operations.

I was asked a few times to share what I actually do, so I decided to write a few articles about it which I will publish here in the next weeks.

I tried to divide and structure the content into five topics, that - from my own experience - are absolutely crucial for Helleno-Kemetic magic, at least from my own personal viewpoint at the time of publication. I gave them catchy Greek titles, because why not? Not all of the listed parts are needed for every operation, but help staying safe and getting predictable results. This article is the introduction to a series of upcoming posts where I will outline each topic in detail, share techniques and spells with commentary and provide plenty of quotes from sources I base my assumptions on. Since all of my practical magic is and will always be work-in-progress the contents will change and be updated regularly. Here is the list of topics that will also serve as a Table of Content once the articles will be released.

Elements of Helleno-Kemetic Magic

κάθαρσις (Katharsis) - Purification
φυλακτήριον (Phylakterion) - Protection
θεωρία (Theoria) - Altered States of Consciousness
κροῦμα (Krouma) - Knocking on Heaven's Door
συστάσεις (Systaseis) - Daimōnic Teamwork

Dawn of the Dead

2019-02-13T19:40:00+01:00

Death Cycles

At my morning walks along the canal this last week it has already become apparent that the winter is slowly fading and the sun is growing in strength. Nevertheless the all encompassing greyness and hardly visible but relentless February rain is just occasionally broken apart by blue sky and sunlight. From Capricorn to Aquarius, Saturn rules this time of the year and it seems appropriate. Before All Saints and All Souls got shifted towards the end of the year, the ancient Romans celebrated Parentalia during mid February - starting today and lasting for nine days of remembering and communing with the spirits of the dead ancestors.

To me it feels like a nice framing of time to connect with the dead in November and then again in February - almost like two twilight moments like dusk and dawn with the winter solstice at its darkest midpoint. It is the twilight between the world of the living and the world of the dead, liminal periods where the two realms bleed into each other and where it seems more easy and appropriate to have interactions between the two.

Magician and blogger BJ Swain has a brilliant chapter about ancestor work in his highly recommended book "Living Spirits". He touches on concepts and beliefs from the Kongo and how traditions there understand and conceptualize life and death. I found it very enlightening because it ties in with what I wrote in the previous paragraph about the worlds of life and death mirroring the daily and yearly solar cycle and puts in words what I could only describe as a feeling until now: the Dikènga cosmogram. It serves as a fundamental law of the universe and is especially suited to describe a cyclic relationship between the living and the dead. It also struck me as heavily resonating with ancient Egyptian cosmology:

Coded as a cross, a quartered circle or diamond, a seashell spiral, or a special cross with solar emblems at each ending - the sign of the four moments of the sun is the Kongo emblem of spiritual continuity and renaissance par excellence. [...] The horizontal line indicates the divide between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It also indicates the divide between night and day. The circles at each quarter point can indicate the sun, or they can indicate moments in the life and death cycle. This cycle is characterized not simply by each step feeding the next step until we return to where we begin, but also by the idea that life and death reflect each other. So when we are born into the world of the living we die from the world of the dead and vice versa. When the Sun is at noon in the world of the living it is midnight in the world of the dead. We do not simply exist in a step by step cycle but in a symbiotic reflection, where what occurs for us is coordinated with what occurs for them, and what occurs for them predicts what occurs for us and so forth. [1]

I dove deeper into the fascinating Dikènga rabbit-hole and found this description of the concept as a whole:

the stage known as Musoni is the stage of the conception of ideas, human beings, and ail things conceivable. Musoni corresponds to when the sun is at midnight and is represented by a yellow color. Although the sun has set and therefore cannot be seen directly by the observer, it is understood to still exist. Similarly, when a person dies, he/she is understood to still exist in the same fundamental way as the human being is conceived of as ntângu a môyo 'a living sun' (Fu-Kiau 1994: 26).' By the same token, matter is not created or destroyed - it simply changes form. [...] After Musoni, the next stage is Kola, illustrated in Black, which represents birth, sunrise, and [...] the beginning of the story. Next, Tukula, associated with the color red, represents the sun at noon. It corresponds to the highest point in a person’s life [...]. The next stage is Luvèmba, shown in a grey color. This represents sunset. This is the stage of the transformation that occurs when a person passes on. However, in the Afrikan worldview, this is not truly the end. Indeed, Fu-Kiau asserts that “Dying is not an end. Dying for the Kongo is just going on vacation” (Fu-Kiau 2001b). The underlying concept is articulated in the proverb "tufwanga mu soba — we die in order to undergo change" (Fu-Kiau 1994: 27) Luvèmba is where the story comes to its closing formula but continues to exist in other forms. [2]

Croissants, Coins, and Crows

The Romans celebrated Parentalia not only at home but visited the family tombs in the liminal space just outside of the cities to commune with their ancestors and bring them offerings of flower-garlands, wheat, salt, wine-soaked bread and violets. I really resonate with this practice and especially during these periods of the year really would like to do similar rites. But today not many of us still live in the same place where our ancestors were buried and we do not have a ritual space to be near to their physical remains. For me it is the same. I live around 700km away from my grandparents graves and I only have very few chances to "visit them."

But I discovered a magical solution to the problem - or it was rather Saturn who sent a cold black spark of inspiration that led me to a solution. But first let's rewind a bit...

It was during a visit in my hometown around Christmas two years ago. I was on the way to visit my sister at her home to have breakfast together. Before, I wanted to buy some croissants and other delicacies at a French bakery around the corner of where she lives. Upon entering I checked my wallet to see if I had enough cash. In my usual early morning pre-breakfast clumsiness I managed to drop a handful of coins on the street right in front of the bakery. Mumbling curses I managed to pick most of them up and realized that among them were also three Chinese coins that I occasionally used for I Ching divination. There were only two of them on the pavement and I crawled around looking for the third one. Then I saw the gully...

Pointing my phone's flashlight into the shaft while dodging confused customers who tried to enter the bakery I spotted the lost coin. It was lying on a layer of rotten leaves that had clogged the shaft, just a few centimeters below the gully's opening. The slots on the lid were too narrow to put my finger through so I decided to try again on my way back after breakfast.

Two hours later I returned, confident of victory, armed with a magnet, a string, and a coat hanger made of wire. The first blowback was to find out that the damn coin did not stick to the magnet, so I tried it with the coat hanger. I got more frowns and suspicious looks from bakery customers and owner, crawling around on the floor poking around in the gully.

Eventually...instead of managing to stick the end of the wire through the coin's square hole, I poked a hole into the layer of leaves and the coin dropped right through it and disappeared in the darkness.

I chuckled when I looked up, still on my knees - because the bakery's entrance had a little black iron crow as decoration of their doorstep - and they had dressed it with a red scarf and a Santa hat for the Christmas season. It seemed to mock me - I guess I deserved it.

Graveyeard Wormholes

I don't remember if it was on the same day or a day after, but in the afternoon I walked through my favourite cemetery that I use as a shortcut on my way from my parents house to the inner city. Some of my relatives from my mother's side are buried there, so I decided to visit their grave. When I walked past the beautiful crematorium building in the middle of the cemetery that was built in the late 1900s and looks like an antique temple I was suddenly struck with an insight and a plan:

Today was Saturday, the day of Saturn. The crow in front of the bakery: a Saturnian animal. It all suddenly made sense to me now and I instantly knew what to do: I remembered that had wanted to collect earth from my ancestors graves for some time already and I also remembered that in the African American Hoodoo Rootwork tradition you offer coins to the spirits in exchange for graveyard dirt. In this particular moment these two thoughts developed into a magical idea...

I walked to the crematorium because I remembered the beautiful mosaic of a skull and a sand clock it has on the floor of the front gable. I placed my remaining Chinese coins on the mosaic, recited the Orphic hymn to Kronos and did an impromptu request to Saturn to cleanse the coins of all previous influences. Then I asked him to aid me in fusing all of my Chinese coins together to one etherically interconnected network of magical tokens that by themselves should act as portals to exchange magical energies with each other across the network. I waited for a moment and recollected the coins.

After I went to the grave of my grandparents and uncle, recited a requiem prayer and asked for permission to take some dirt. I placed one of the freshly created Saturnian portal coins into the earth and told my ancestors that through this object we will be connected with each other beyond space and time.

A few days later I did the same at the grave of my father's parents on a different cemetery and also at the grave of our old neighbors who were close to my heart because they were also like grandparents to me when I was a child.

Back home in Berlin I placed all the collected earth from the graves into a beautiful glass container and put another of the Saturnian coins on top of it. This acts as a proxy or portal to the physical graves of my ancestors and when I want to give offerings to them I pour libations over the coin or wave it through incense smoke and imagine how the offering's energies travel across the etheric network and reach their graves. I also imagine the portals to be open for exchange and meditate on this image while communing with my ancestors spirits.

Feel free to use this idea yourself and see if it helps you to be closer to your ancestors if you whish so. It certainly helps me. I can also imagine that instead of coins you could use a rock or other item broken into pieces or make up a batch of tokens with the same sigil on it.

Spirit Communion

The general protocol that I have currently settled with for my own practice of communing with my ancestors is mainly based on the ritual outlined in this highly recommended Sphere & Sundry article, but also heavily inspired by a Shinto ritual that I love for its powerful minimalism. I combined the two and I work with Tehuti as psychopomp, because I already had a relationship with this god through my Tarot practice.

The full protocol is suitable for first contact or special occasions and can be easily simplified for more casual subsequent communication. The calls to the ancestors in the ritual outlined below are a spin-off from a general prayer to the ancestors that I wrote a while ago and which I frequently use in other ritual settings:

You ancestors who came before me. I call you. Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons. All you, from whose community I came forth, whose blood flows through my veins, whose traces and memories I carry within me. With deep compassion, I think of your sufferings and your pains, through which you had to go on your life's path. With gratitude and love I think of your struggles, your dreams, your achievements, your courage and your strength. May your blessing and guidance bring out the best in me, for the benefit of all, whom I may meet in this life. Amen.

Full Ritual

Preliminaries

Ritual bath
Anoint with oil
Light candles
Light general incense (Frankincense)
Place a bowl of Natron or Butsudan ash powder in the center of the altar

Orphic Hymns

I prefer to do this rite during planetary hours that combine the hour and day of Mercury and Saturn. Hour of Mercury on Saturdays or hour of Saturn on Wednesdays. I start with the Orphic hymn of whoever rules the day, then the one of whoever rules the hour. For Mercury I use the hymn to Hermes Chthonios. You can find different versions of the Orphic Hymns. The recent translation by Patrick Dunn flow very well in English. Or use the free ones you can find here. For best pronunciation in Greek check Susan Chang's amazing video. Light Storax / Benzoin incense before you start. One for Mercury, one for Saturn.

Prayer to Tehuti

Burn some Egyptian papyrus or Kyphi incense and give an offering of Natron.
Pray the Hymn to Tehuti down to "Who enters duat, knows those in it"
Call to Tehuti:

Tehuti, I call you! Thrice greatest Tehuti, scribe of Ra, Silver Aton, leader of souls in the hereafter. I invoke you in your great, divine names: ALIPS, THABLIPS, STSILIPS, GAGARPAOTHAR, THANASIMA, QHAH, ORTHOMENKHROÔN, BALSA, ALABAKHABEL [4], Come to me here and now to this place that will serve as a meeting place for myself and my ancestors, guardians, and leaders who now dwell in the afterlife, whose blood runs through me, and all whose spirits have helped shape me.

Thrice greatest Tehuti, I humbly ask you to aid me as a messenger and as a light for those I seek. Open the veil between this world and the hereafter. Find my ancestors and make sure they receive my words, gifts and intentions.

Thrice greatest Tehuti, accept these offerings of smoke, light, water, food and wine. Accept them in gratitude for your help, and please spread them to the dead I call and invite them to attend and see to it that no uninvited intruder comes to this place.

Be praised, oh Thrice greatest Tehuti, forecaster of the future, notary of Ra!

Peret kheru ta, heneket, khau kau apedu, khut nebet noferet wabet ankhet netjer im. [5]

Offerings to the Dead

Place all offerings on the table, smudge them with incense.
Place a lit stick of incense into the bowl of Natron, a bit to the rear right of its center. This is for all women in your bloodline.

I call you: mothers and grandmothers, sisters and cousins, daughters and granddaughters. All you women, from whose community I came forth, whose blood flows through my veins, whose traces and memories I carry within me. With deep compassion, I think of your sufferings and your pains, through which you had to go on your life's path. With gratitude and love I think of your struggles, your dreams, your achievements, your courage and your strength. Come to this altar in your honor and accept my offerings, giving thanks for the sacrifices you made for our family. Accept these gifts, along with my gratitude and love.

Place another lit stick of incense into the bowl of Natron, a bit to the rear left of its center. This is for all men in your bloodline.

I call you: fathers and grandfathers, brothers and cousins, sons and grandsons. All you men, from whose community I came forth, whose blood flows through my veins, whose traces and memories I carry within me. With deep compassion, I think of your sufferings and your pains, through which you had to go on your life's path. With gratitude and love I think of your struggles, your dreams, your achievements, your courage and your strength. Come to this altar in your honor and accept my offerings, giving thanks for the sacrifices you made for our family. Accept these gifts, along with my gratitude and love.

Place a third lit stick of incense into the bowl of Natron, a bit to the front of its center, so all three sticks shape a triangle. This is for the lost and forgotten ones of your bloodline and the ones who are not genetically related to you, yet important.

I call you: all you forgotten dead, you unborn dead, you who died as children. I also call you, all you friends and acquaintances, and all those who have stood with and helped my family and me, whose influences and benevolence I carry within me. Come also to this altar in your honor and accept my offerings, giving thanks for the sacrifices you made for our family. Accept these gifts, along with my gratitude and love.

(Optionally, call the mighty dead.

I call you: you inspiring ancestors, you artists and magicians, poets and thinkers, you role models who have given your lifeblood for the benefit of all, you mighty forefathers, who have made this world a better one before your transition to the next world. With gratitude and love I think of your struggles, your dreams, your achievements, your courage and your strength. They live in me and flow through my veins, they inspire my existence and from them I draw strength. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Accept these gifts, along with my gratitude and love.)

If it is the first time you do this ritual, I recommend to say something about the collected earth and the Saturnian tokens:

Dear grandparents and dear uncle (or whose graves are connected with each other through the token network), through this earth and through the tokens, which are consecrated by Saturn and connected to each other beyond distance, I can always be close to your graves. All of you other ancestors, I ask you to acknowledge this earth as symbol also for the earth of your graves and to recognize the network of tokens also as a symbol of our inseparable connection.

Play music, commune with the present spirits, have a party, do whatever you want to do.

Closing the Space

Thank you all, my ancestors who have appeared. May your blessing and guidance bring out the best in me, for the benefit of all, whom I may meet in this life. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hereby grant you a license to depart. Return to your resting places and do not stay in this house. But come back soon when I call you. My love and gratitude are always with you!

Thrice greatest Tehuti, make sure that all the souls called here today find their way and return to their resting places and close the veil again between this world and the hereafter. This ritual is closed.

Requiem

O Lord, grant all eternal rest. And let eternal light shine on each of them. May the souls of the ancestors rest in peace through Your mercy. Amen

Family Troubles

I know that it can be difficult to connect with the own dead relatives, be it because some of them have been abusive towards members of the family and caused traumata and grief, or because they would not have agreed with their descendants life-style, beliefs, sexuality, identification, etc. or vice versa. You can find important thoughts about these issues in the linked Sphere & Sundry article above or in BJ Swain's book, and many other places, but my own are as follows:

First of all nobody has to talk to the ancestors, there are other ways of getting help from the dead. A good example would be working with the "Lost Souls" in "purgatory", as I recently heard and read about in this great article by Agostino Taumaturgo or in the pure Shinto way. You can also tie Catholicism and pagan Roman rites together and do a kind of Parentalia Novena.

An important point that made a huge difference for me was involving a psychopomp in aiding to make contact with the dead. You can ask them to filter out unwanted ancestors, either by explicitly naming them or by asking him to not let the ones come who are not comfortable supporting your current life, or something along those lines. You can also ask them specifically to invite only your magically operand ancestors, or the artists among them, or the queer ones, and so on. Use them as a bouncer to your party.

Incarnations

Coming back to the "Saturnian coins": I came across an article on Gnome School that had a quote from a book by Henry Rogers about very intriguing objects that I can very well imagine being used for such an "etheric network":

From the period 8500-3000 OLD, a large number of artefacts known as tokens have been found. There are small clay objects of simple geometric shapes: spheres, cones, tetrahydra, cylinders, disks, lens-shaped disks, etc. tokens of this period are known as plain tokens. They are associated with the beginnings of agriculture [and] were used for record keeping… some have been found stored inside sealed, hollow clay balls forming envelopes around the tokens… these envelopes represented a way of safegaurding the record of the contract. If there was a disagreement, the envelope could be broken, and the evidence of the tokens would be inside. [3]

This magical network concept lends itself also to many other potential magical applications. Some research revealed that it is apparently also nothing really new. The famous DKMU "Ellis" aka. "Linking Sigil" and Chaos Magick 101's Sigil Matrix followed a similar line of thought. My plan is to further explore this technology of linking talismanic tokens to each other.

(1) Swain, BJ. Living Spirits: A Guide to Magic in a World of Spirits. Independently published. 2018
(2) Kambon, Ọbádélé. "Akan Ananse stories, Yorùbá Ìjàpá tales, and the Dikènga theory: worldview and structure." Contemporary Journal of African Studies 4.2 (2017): 1-36.
(3) Rogers, Henry. Writing systems: A linguistic approach. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
(4) translation from demotic spells with secret names of Tehuti from Louvre E 3229 papyrus (Betz PDM lxi. 63-78 and PDM Suppl. 149—62) found in: Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. The Greek magical papyri in translation, including the Demotic spells. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1996. pg. 288 and 328.
(5) Common Egyptian offering formula. It translates to: "A voice offering of bread, beer, a thousand of beef and fowl, and every good and pure thing on which a god lives"

Interrogating the Ibis

2018-10-30T22:30:00+01:00

This article is about my preferred Tarot deck and reading method and the consecration ritual I constructed for it based on Egyptian hymns and Demotic spells to Tehuti (Thoth).

Épiphanie

In May of last year I was on holidays in a remote town in the Provence with my extended family for a few days. Before that my wife, daughter and I spent three days in the beautiful city of Marseille. Besides visiting the black madonna called Notre Dame de Confession in the ancient Abbaye St. Victor the other occult sightseeing spot I wanted to visit was the old Camoin House. It is the building where in 1760 Nicolas Conver established his cardmaking factory and engraved his famous Tarot de Marseille, the mother of most modern Tarot decks.

The winter before, I had been obsessing about the question which Tarot deck to use for divination. I had no experience with Tarot and after some research I had bought the beautiful Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck which I really loved for aesthetic reasons and because Smith-Waite decks are apparently recommended for beginners. Unfortunately it did not really resonate so much with me after trying giving it a try for a few months. The detailed imagery of the minor arcana seemed sometimes a bit too detailed and confusing to me and results were too ambiguous. So I was looking for alternatives. I did not like any of the Smith-Waite derivatives and I also found Crowley's deck very unappealing. The final contestants were the Camoin Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille deck, the Sola Busca from Scarlet Imprint, and the Hermetic Tarot and I could not really decide on one.

My question was answered in an uncanny way on the day we walked through the lovely district of Noailles in Marseille, a lively area with a lot of North African expats. We strolled through the Rue d'Aubagne, a lively small street with a lot of cafés and small shops, mostly selling goods and delicacies from the Maghreb. We approached a small intersection and suddenly I was overwhelmed by a strange "epiphanic" feeling of clarity. It was as if the time stood still for a moment and everything went quiet, just to continue normally after a short glimpse. It was uplifting and strange at the same time.

I checked the map to see where we were, because I knew that the old Camoin House was supposed to be in this very street. I discovered that we were standing right in front of it: Number 8! I was excited! Today it looks like a normal residential house and hosts a (delicious) Tunisian restaurant on the ground floor. Nothing points to the history of this building. I immediately knew that this strange moment was a clear hint which direction to take in my Tarot deck quest.

The Open Reading

After I had jumped down the Tarot de Marseille rabbit-hole and read Jodorowsky's excellent book, I soon realized that Camoin and Jodo had altered the original Conver design and had added more little occult details into it. I did not like that approach and wanted something more genuine.

Luckily, during my research I stumbled over a great little Tarot book that resonated a lot with me. It was the work of Israeli physicist and philosopher Yoav Ben-Dov who had studied Tarot and psychomagic with Jodorowsky in Paris and subsequently created his own method of reading the Tarot which ironically seems to be the complete opposite of Jodorowsky's very esoteric system:

The open reading is my way of reading the Tarot. In a nutshell, it is based on the three following points. First, a Tarot card does not have a fixed meaning which can be learned in advance. Rather, the meaning emerges from what we can see in the card. Second, the function of each position in a spread is also not fixed. Rather, it depends on the card combination. Third, we don't start by interpreting each card separately. Instead, we first try to see the whole picture.

This concept resonated very much with my idea of how divination is meant to work. He had also created a very clear and clean reproduction of the original Conver Tarot deck that looked gorgeous and immediately became my top-pick. I bought Ben-Dov's ebook on Amazon, but had to wait a couple of months until the deck became available again after having been sold out. In the meantime I downloaded the free digital version and could already enjoy the design.

Although the minor arcana cards can be a bit difficult to interpret, I resonated much more with the CBD Tarot de Marseille than with the Smith-Waite deck. Because my past attempts of reading the cards had been so ambiguous I decided that before using this new deck I would need to properly consecrate it, hoping to improve the clarity of the message.

The Beaked Scribe

An Egyptian god I have wanted to connect with for quite some time was Tehuti, most commonly known as Thoth. If you don't know much about him here is some basic information about Tehuti from the excellent Henadology website:

[Tehuti] is the God of learning and of wisdom, depicted as an ibis-headed man, as an ibis, or, less often, as a baboon (in this form generally with a lunar crescent on his head), and frequently holding the brush and palette of a scribe, since the wisdom of which he is the master is in particular that contained in sacred texts. [Tehuti] has also strong lunar associations, to the extent of being often identified with the moon itself [...], but more systematically [Tehuti] is the God responsible for healing the wedjat, the Eye of Horus, after it was injured by Seth, and since the wedjat‘s regeneration is embodied in the waxing lunar cycle, [Tehuti] is the God who restores the light of the moon. [...] [Tehuti]'s identification with the moon probably also involves an idea known to many cultures, namely that the moon, as the nocturnal sun, symbolizes the powers of the human intelligence to supplement that which nature provides and as an intermediary between the divine and mortal realms. [Tehuti] is not only the embodiment of wisdom, but also its advocate in the world: [...] [Tehuti] is also a peacemaker who reconciles Horus and Seth and who pacifies the wrathful Goddesses, especially Sekhmet. [...]

[Tehuti] facilitates the exchange across the border between the human and divine realms in his function as lord of sacred texts. [...] Re empowers [Tehuti] by a series of formulae linked to [Tehuti]'s diverse forms—the ibis, the moon, and the baboon. First, Re grants him the authority to send forth the other Gods through spells and invocations and to check their actions in turn, this power corresponding to the ibis. Next Re bids him to “encompass the two heavens with thy beauty and thy light,” this corresponding to the moon. Finally, Re charges him with traversing the lands of the Ha-nebu, the ‘Northern Lords', a vague term for the islands of the Aegean [...], perhaps implying a circuit around the Mediterranean and thus through many foreign lands—a hymn to [Tehuti] states that he “made different the tongue of one country from another,” (Bleeker 1973, 140); this last power corresponds to the baboon.

Besides being the founder of the words of speech including magical words, he also was the demiurge who created the world through utterance. He has knowledge of true names of all creation, he has the power to heal and he's a god of justice. As a lunar god he presides over the passing of time and length of every human's life. He doesn't necessarily rule over, but at least has knowledge of all fate. Therefore he also presides over divination and prophecy.

I thought it would be a great way to start a relationship with Tehuti by dedicating my new deck to him and consecrating it by his name in a proper ritual.

Invoking the Ibis

The Greeks identified Tehuti with the divine messenger and trickster god Hermes, ruler over trade, heraldry, merchants, commerce, roads, sports, and travel. The god of boundaries and the transgression of boundaries, patron of herdsmen, thieves, graves, and heralds. Like Tehuti Hermes is described as moving freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, and was the conductor of souls into the afterlife.

Hermes is also the son of Zeus and Zeus is the only god who knows the affairs of men, all that the Moirai (Fates) give them, and all that is not destined for them. Zeus is also the only god not affected by the decisions of the Moirai, but obeyed by them.

So a suitable planetary timing for the consecration would be the hour of Mercury on a Wednesday or Thursday. I was especially paranoid about negative spiritual residue on the cards due the production process they went through. So my choice of day was Saturday because I've had some good experiences working with Kronos/Saturn to wipe and purify items.

Also it seems very fitting to Tehuti that the hour of Mercury is followed by the hour of Luna, I imagine him dwelling right on the edge of the two. I timed the consecration in a way so it would start at the end of Mercury's hour and be done in the beginning of Luna's.

I start all of my rituals with the acknowledgement of the planetary rulers by reciting a planetary prayer from the Hygromanteia and the matching Orphic Hymn. When the rite is heavily Egyptian, like this one, I put more weight to that paradigm by acknowledging the ruling Decan.

In more complex workings I also usually banish or add the Stele of Jeu as a preliminary rite, I align myself with the Axis Mundi, and so on, but this ritual is just a consecration of a deck of Tarot cards and already polyphanic enough... You could probably skip the whole beginning and just do the hymn to Tehuti and the actual consecration, but this is what I did, so I am faithfully laying it out here:

Acknowledge the Planetary Rulers

Planetary prayer of the day.
Orphic hymn to the planet of the day.
Planetary prayer of the hour.
Orphic hymn to the planet of the hour.

Use whatever set of planetary prayers you like. I took the ones from the Hygromanteia but you might as well apply the ones from the Book of Oberon, Munich Manual, whatever you prefer to work with...

You can find different versions of the Orphic Hymns. The very recent translation by Patrick Dunn flow very well in English. Or use the free ones you can find here.

Acknowledge the Decans

The Egyptians venerated and feared the baktiu (Decans), gods ruling over time and fate, signified by stars near the ecliptic that were observed to measure slices of time and to determine which decan ruled over them. I will get deeper into this topic in a series of future posts.

For now, let's acknowledge them in this working with this hymn to the Decans found at the temple of Esna, combined with an Egyptian offering formula. To find the appropriate name of the current Decan, find out the sidereal Zodiac degree you are currently in and use the table below.

(If this whole section raises too many questions and doubts, skip it. I am just adding it here, because that's what I use for "doing the usual".)

Sign	Degree	Decan
Cancer	0° - 9.9°	Wart
Cancer	10° - 19.9°	Pehwi Heri
Cancer	20° - 29.9°	Kenmet
Leo	0° - 9.9°	Khery Kheped Kenmet
Leo	10° - 19.9°	Hat Djat
Leo	20° - 29.9°	Djat
Virgo	0° - 9.9°	Pechwi Djat
Virgo	10° - 19.9°	Djmat Heret Kheret
Virgo	20° - 29.9°	Wushahti
Libra	0° - 9.9°	Bekahti
Libra	10° - 19.9°	Ipdjes
Libra	20° - 29.9°	Sebshessen
Scorpio	0° - 9.9°	Tepi-Ah Hentet
Scorpio	10° - 19.9°	Heriyib Wiah
Scorpio	20° - 29.9°	Septi Henwi
Sagittarius	0° - 9.9°	Seshmu
Sagittarius	10° - 19.9°	Sah Seshmu
Sagittarius	20° - 29.9°	Kenmu
Capricorn	0° - 9.9°	Tepi-Ah Semed
Capricorn	10° - 19.9°	Pa-Sebah Whati
Capricorn	20° - 29.9°	Semed
Aquarius	0° - 9.9°	Seret
Aquarius	10° - 19.9°	Sah Seret
Aquarius	20° - 29.9°	Tepi-Ah Akhwi
Pisces	0° - 9.9°	Akhwi
Pisces	10° - 19.9°	Tepi-Ah Bahwi
Pisces	20° - 29.9°	Bahwi
Aries	0° - 9.9°	Khentu Heru
Aries	10° - 19.9°	Khentu Kheru
Aries	20° - 29.9°	Ked
Taurus	0° - 9.9°	Sah Ked
Taurus	10° - 19.9°	Khau
Taurus	20° - 29.9°	Aret
Gemini	0° - 9.9°	Remen Heri
Gemini	10° - 19.9°	Tjes Ark
Gemini	20° - 29.9°	Remen Kheri

Hymn to the Decans

Reverence to you, living gods, workers in the necropolis, who shine next to the disk in the evening, who recognize the hours when you come forth from the east, who announce what happens, who keep alive and kill the rebels at their wish, who shine in the sky and shoot the two countries with flames, everybody trembles when you come forth, who the star-watchers observe in your times! Greetings, children of Re, who appear at his setting, Ennead of the primeval, when you circulate daily in your orbit, living souls of the gods, daily, when you come out of the eye of Re, Messengers in the cities and districts, who shoot arrows from your mouths at the one they see from afar, the six stars and shining ones, daily, who save their Lord from every evil thing, from the shooting of the Star Gods on this day, this month, this year, in each of your hours to this day, [come, benevolent, for which I call you, as benevolent assistants in this rite for my benefit.] (1)

I call you, ruling Decan of this decade in the sign of [CURRENT ZODIAC SIGN], the one who shines on the whole inhabited and uninhabited world. I call upon you, by your name of [DECAN NAME], glorious one, of kind heart and power supreme, to bless this operation. As you cross the skies, look down to me favourably and accept my offering for your appeasing (2): Peret kheru ta, heneket, khau kau apedu, khut nebet noferet wabet ankhet netjer im. (3)

Hymn to Tehuti

Hail to you, Moon, [Tehuti],
Bull in Khmun, dweller in Hesret,
Who makes way for the gods!
Who knows the secrets,
Who records their expression,
Who distinguishes one speech from another,
Who is judge of everyone.
Keen-faced in the Ship-of-millions,
Courier of mankind,
Who knows a man by his utterance,
Who makes the deed rise against the doer.
Who contents Re,
Advises the Sole Lord,
Lets him know whatever happens;
At dawn he summons in heaven,
And forgets not yesterday's report.

Who makes safe the night-bark
Makes tranquil the day-bark,
With arms outstretched in the bow of the ship.
Pure-faced when he takes the stern-rope,
As the day-bark rejoices in the night-bark's joy,
At the feast of crossing the sky.
Who fells the fiend,
Sunders western lightland.
The Ennead in the night-bark worships [Tehuti],
They say to him: “Hail, [Son of] Re,
Praised of Re whom the gods applaud!”
They repeat what your ka wishes,
As you make way for the place of the bark,
As you act against the fiend:
You cut off his head, you break his ba,
You cast his corpse into the fire,
You are the god who slaughters him.

Nothing is done without your knowing,
Great one, son of a Great one, who came from her limbs,
Champion of Harakhti,
Wise friend in On,
Who makes the place of the gods,
Who knows the secrets,
Expounds their words.

Let us give praise to [Tehuti],
Straight plummet in the scales,
Who repulses evil,
Who accepts him who leans not on crime.
The vizier who settles cases,
Who changes turmoil to peace;
The scribe of the mat who keeps the book,
Who punishes crime,
Who accepts the submissive.
Who is sound of arm,
Wise among the ennead,
Who relates what was forgotten.
Counselor to him who errs,
Who remembers the fleeting moment,
Who reports the hour of the night,
Whose words endure forever,
Who enters duat, knows those in it, (4)

Hermes, lord of the world, who're in the heart,
O circle of Selene, spherical
And square, the founder of the words of speech,
Pleader of justice's cause, garbed in a mantle,
With winged sandals, turning airy course
Beneath earth's depths, who hold the spirit's reins,
O eye of Helios, O mighty one,
Founder of full-voiced speech, who with your lamps
Give joy to those beneath earth's depths, to mortals
Who've finished life. The prophet of events
And Dream divine you're said to be, who send
Forth oracles by day and night; you cure
All pains of mortals with your healing cares. (5)

Consecration

Light some suitable incense for cleansing, like Styrax Benzoin, Frankincense or Sage. Open the deck of cards and shuffle them in the incense smoke. Let the smoke purify the cards thoroughly while reciting the following:

Hither, O blessed one, O mighty son
Of Memory, who brings full mental powers,
In your own form both graciously appear
And graciously [consecrate these cards for me],
A pious man, [NAME], son of [YOUR MOTHER'S NAME]
That I may comprehend you by your skills
Of prophecy, by your own wond'rous deeds.
I ask you, lord, be gracious to me and [cleanse
These cards from all past influences,
([With the purifying powers of Kronos,])
And graciously consecrate these cards for me.] (5)
When I call to you, O [Tehuti], the hearing-ear,
Who listens to everything,
In your names which are great, which are divine,
ALIPS, THABLIPS, STSILIPS,
GAGARPAOTHAR, THANASIMA, QHAH,
ORTHOMENKHROÔN, BALSA, ALABAKHABEL,
HEFKAE, HEPKA, HEBIKE, NEKHEPKAI
Without deceit prophesy to me [through these cards,
At any place and any time come to me and tell me,
An answer to everything, truly, without falsehood therein]. (6)

Sources

(1) Inscription from the temple of Esna translated by me into English from the German translation I found in Alexandra von Lieven's "Der Himmel über Esna: eine Fallstudie zur religiösen Astronomie in Ägypten am Beispiel der kosmologischen Decken-und Architravinschriften im Tempel von Esna" in Vol. 64. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000. Page 43.
(2) borrowed bits from Julio Ody's essay on his attempt to work Paul Huson's Mastering Witchcraft Vassago operation
(3) Common Egyptian offering formula. It translates to: "A voice offering of bread, beer, a thousand of beef and fowl, and every good and pure thing on which a god lives"
(4) Adoration of Thoth, inscribed on a statue of Haremhab, a royal scribe and general of the army under Tutankhamun.
(5) from PGM V. 370-446 in Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. The Greek magical papyri in translation, including the Demotic spells. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1996. pg. 108.
(6) translation from demotic spells with secret names of Tehuti from Louvre E 3229 papyrus (Betz PDM lxi. 63-78 and PDM Suppl. 149—62) found in (5) pg. 288 and 328.

Consulting the Book of Tehuti

Everytime I have a need to consult with Tehuti through the Tarot, I take the deck out of its box and shuffle the cards. While I am doing that I envision the Ibis-headed god shuffling the cards through me and I speak the following invocation:

I call to you, O Tehuti, In your names which are great, which are divine, ALIPS, THABLIPS, STSILIPS, GAGARPAOTHAR, THANASIMA, QHAH, ORTHOMENKHROÔN, BALSA, ALABAKHABEL, HEFKAE, HEPKA, HEBIKE, NEKHEPKAI, Show me the truth by these cards.

Then I speak out the desired way of consulting with him: the number of cards to be used and if they are more than one I define what their positions represent. For example:

"Using one card, answer my following question..."
"Using two cards, representing the two choices I have concerning ... tell me what to expect"
"Using three cards, representing from left to right: the past, the present, and the future, answer me concerning..."

After, I shuffle a bit more until I have the feeling that I need to stop and lay the agreed number of cards down in front of me. I interpret them intuitively using Ben-Dov's Open Reading method.

In addition I check the common interpretations found in the usually frowned upon little white book that comes with the deck and treat it like a "second layer" on top of my initial intuitive interpretation to see the bigger picture.

Skype with the Scribe

After the ambiguous experiences I had had before, using the Smith-Waite deck, consulting this Tehuti consecrated CBD Tarot feels like a crystal-clear, Dolby Surround, Full-HD, video-conference uplink directly to the Ibis-headed god. So far I've always had mind-blowing readings with very straight-forward answers. But I have to admit that I only read for myself and not for others. I will still have to try that out. After initial doubts I know fully trust my Tarot and almost treat it like an intimate companion. It travels with me most of the time. Sounds cheesy? Yeah it does! I didn't expect such a strong link to happen at all, it just did.

Tehuti rules over prophecy in general, so you can use the above ritual also to consecrate other divination tools. I am looking forward to apply an adapted version of the ritual to a set of four Japanese 100¥ coins I recently found and use them in the way Sam Block laid out his Four Coin Divination of Hermes.

Flogging a Dead God

2018-10-23T13:41:00+02:00

Version 1.2 (29/10/2018)

In my last article on the Headless Rite I drew some conclusions about its function according to my understanding after several months of practice. I mentioned that I stopped believing in the Headless One being a specific deity or spirit, but that it is the headlessness itself as a symbol that seems to matter as a core aspect of the ritual.

In this article I would like to elaborate on what I meant by that. In addition I want to attempt a deep dive into the powerful symbols found in the ritual and polyphanize the meanings of headlessness, having sight in one's feet and the name of a heart entwined by a serpent.

The Stele of Jeu was written by an Egyptian mage who lived in Roman ruled Thebes that had already witnessed centuries of assimilation and intertwining influences from Greek, Jewish, Persian and other cultures and religions. He lived in a different era and cultural background than us. Obviously he had a different set of symbols than I would intuitively understand as a German occultist from 21st century post-modern Europe. So how can we attempt to unlock the symbols in the PGM?

The other day I had an insight. It was about the Egyptian myth in which Set and Horus were fighting for the throne after Set had killed Osiris. Set gouged out Horus's left eye, which is said to represent the moon, while his right eye is the sun. In one variant of the story the eye was then restored by Thoth. My vision was this: Horus is our mind and his right eye represents clear and rational solar perception and his left eye irrational and intuitive lunar perception. Set took this sense from us. But who is he? Our confusing desires that want full control over our soul? Our fears? In any case, he blinded us in a way where we are forced to rely on the logical analysis of things to not lose control. Here comes Thoth, symbolizing both, intelligence and reason, but also magical enlightenment. With these powers he heals the broken left eye of lunar intuition! It means we can actually regain what we have lost in order to perceive fully.

Let's intelligently apply reasoning and magic to patch over the flawed intuition and to understand the symbols that lie in front of us. But at the same time we need to be cautiously aware of what Schwaller de Lubicz called "mentality of complexity":

Our exoteric evolution, through the Greek metaphysical phases, leading currently to an exclusive rationalism, has given us, owing to the necessity for analysis, a "mentality of complexity" which today prevents us from seeing simply. (1)

How does that work? I found it helpful to rationally analyze the information in front of me while keeping my intuitive faculties open and active and allowing my mind to have free associations, detect patterns and correspondences, evoke emotional reactions and spontaneous ideas.

Let's apply that method to jailbreak the meaning of the Stele of Jeu aka. The Headless Rite. By "reasoning" and "analysis" I mean applying methods of careful comparison of details and learning about the cultural background of the symbols' origin.

Let's start simple and intuitively: just from mere hunch, the symbol of "being without a head" immediately evokes different ideas. In a frightening way it reminds us of the loss of the "ego" or "sense of self", or of losing "control". On the other hand - as known from different methods of meditation and from the Buddhist tradition it can also be something to strive for, to "calm the mind" or "transcend the ego". In magical practice one of the fundamental skills is to overcome the ever analytical mind and reach an altered state of consciousness or mode of trance in order to tap into the powers that lie beyond. Whatever the goal may be called: ayin, samadhi, gnosis, there seems to be a symbol that fits all of them: to become headless.

Headless Rites

Let's compare! This image is such a strong symbol that it can be found everywhere. Throughout human history, spiritual decapitation or full dismemberment have been central to shaman-like initiations around the world. To offered one's head or body to the spirits to be replaced or upgraded to a new divine one with more magical powers. Following are a few examples found in Mircea Eliade's tome on "Shamanism".

(Note: I am using the term 'shaman' in this article, fully aware of the controversy around it. I am not claiming that Siberian shamans are the same as 'medicine men' from Borneo or Tibetan Buddhist monks. I use it to describe the conceptualization of trance-like states of consciousness as means of initiation among differenct cultural practices that can be described as "shaman-like".)

According to North Siberian Yakut shamanhood, spirits carry the initiate's soul to the underworld and imprison it in a house for three years. They behead him, and set aside the head, so the initiate is forced to watch his dismemberment with his own eyes. Them they cut him into small pieces, which are then distributed to the spirits of the various diseases to empower him with the ability to cure. (2)

The blacksmith then [...] forged his head and taught him how to read the letters that are inside it. He changed his eyes; and that is why, when he shamanizes, he does not see with his bodily eyes but with these mystical eyes. He pierced his ears, making him able to understand the language of plants. Then the candidate found himself on the summit of a mountain, and finally he woke in the yurt, among his family. Now he can sing and shamanize indefinitely, without ever growing tired. (2)

Among the Dyak of Borneo shaman-like initiation requires three different ceremonies. In the second one, the initiated elders take the neophyte to a room shut off by curtains...

And there, as they assert, they cut his head open, take out his brains, wash and restore them, to give him a clear mind to penetrate into the mysteries of evil spirits, and the intricacies of disease; they insert gold dust into his eyes to give him keenness and strength of sight powerful enough to see the soul wherever it may have wandered; they plant barbed hooks on the tips of his fingers to enable him to seize the soul and hold it fast; and lastly they pierce his heart with an arrow to make him tender-hearted, and full of sympathy with the sick and suffering. (3)

About the Tibetan Tantric chöd rite ethnologist R. Bleichsteiner wrote in his book "The Yellow Church":

To the sound of the drum made of human skulls and of the thighbone trumpet, the dance is begun and the spirits are invited to come and feast. The power of meditation evokes a goddess brandishing a naked sword; she springs at the head of the sacrificer, decapitates him, and hacks him to pieces; then the demons and wild beasts rush on the still quivering fragments, eat the flesh, and drink the blood. (4)

Also in the initiatory cult of Mithraism, the symbolic headlessness played an important role:

The degree of solider (Miles) was given to those who taken up the spiritual battle against the ego (nafs), the struggle with lower self. During the rite the neophyte is crowned while in bondage of the material world, he is given the kingdom of this world, but he rejects the crown and once his binds were cut, he removes the crown saying: "Mithra is my only crown". The removing of crown also symbolises an attempt to remove the head (intellect) itself, allowing Mithra to be the guide [...] (5)

Becoming Osiris

So, how does all relate to our "Headless One"? Do ancient forms of "shamanhood" have anything to do with the complex metaphysical universe of Ancient Egypt or the spiritual melting pot of Alexandria that birthed the type of ritual practice described in the PGM? To me it does, and apparently some people that - unlike me - are scholarly educated in these topics have also drawn parallels between "shamanic" initiation and Ancient Egyptian religious practice or at least pointed to traces of the former in the latter.

German Egyptologist Sabine Neureiter published a paper with the thesis that "shamanic" practices from Neolithic times must have survived into the collective memory of Pharaonic Egypt. Clear traces can be found in the Egyptian cosmology of a threefold world (heavens/earth/netherworld), the prominent death cult (mummification and resurrection), and many of the texts on magic and medicine.

The philosopher Jeremy Naydler, who specializes in the religious life of ancient cultures, wrote several books on the "shamanic" mysteries that can be found in the pyramid- and the coffin-texts. His works predate Neureiter's paper so they obviously don't feature her research but his conclusions are the same.

Since he features as a main character in our ritual, let's take a look at Osiris. He was the primeval fertility god, killed and dismembered by his brother Set, resurrected by his sister and consort, Isis, and became father of the eternal god-king Horus. He symbolized death and rebirth - of the land and its inhabitants, on a material and spiritual level. His myth is the core of all of Egypt's metaphysics. Egyptian gods were not inconceivable and distant deities that required to be worshipped and appeased. They rather represented archetype-like divine principles - "states of soul" - that humans pass through.

Perhaps the classic example of human identification with divinity in ancient Egypt is the way in which people became united with the god Osiris. This was a pious wish in New Kingdom Egypt, for all who passed over to the otherworld. Osiris was the god who died in this life to be born anew in the otherworld. It was a pious wish, but it was also a necessity if one was to undergo the transformational experiences involved. And so we often see people portrayed as Osiris, and we read their names in The Book of the Dead conjoined to that of Osiris. This same Osiris, it should be said, governed the cycles of death and regeneration throughout the natural world. (6)

[Osiris] presides over and facilitates this rite of passage from one mode of existence or awareness to another. As "an Osiris", a person is able to enter into and come out of the otherworld. Their consciousness is liberated from the limitations that normally restrict it in this life. (6)

The framework of the Stele of Jeu ritual is built around the Osiris myth. He is invoke by his name as "Osor-Onnophris" and in his role of an ancient creator god, but he is also called "headless one", thus invoked in his dismembered, magical, "shamanic" state.

It was part of the fate of Osiris to be dismembered, and this included his decapitation. Decapitation should be understood as an essential phase in the Osirian process that led to the revirilization and "solar resurrection" of both the god and the king. (7)

[...] the condition of headlessness and the restoration of the head were important initiatory experiences within the Egyptian Sed festival "secret rites". This is not to suggest that Niuserre was literally undergoing a shamanic initiation, but rather that the initiatory experiences he was undergoing have clear shamanic parallels. The text describing Niuserre’s “secret rites” indicates that the restoration of his head corresponds to his rebirth as a god, that is to his rebirth as one who—like a shaman—is as much at home in the spirit world as in the world of the living. (8)

Dismemberment of the Symbolic Body

The symbolic attitude of ancient knowledge cultivated the intellect to the extent of perceiving all of the phenomena of nature itself as a symbolic writing revealing the forces and laws governing the energetic and even spiritual aspects of our universe. (9)

To the symbolic mindset of the Egyptians, every single subject and object had a meaning but was also made up of smaller things that had meaning by themselves. This was especially the case with the human body:

Just as the gods were present in the landscape — in desert, river, plant, and animal — so they could become present in the members of the human psychophysical organism, in hair, face, eyes, and hands. By drawing the gods in, in this way, a greater sense of self-integration was achieved. The degree to which people could claim their inner experiences as their own was necessarily compromised, and this meant that the overall experience of unitary self-consciousness was far more attenuated and fragile than it is today. In the process of initiation it was broken down altogether in order to rebuild it more strongly. The important initiatory idea of physical dismemberment becomes comprehensible when it is seen as the only way of describing the experience of catastrophic psychic fragmentation. To a consciousness for which the parts of the body were all psychically charged, the mutilation of the body undergone by Osiris was the prototype of psychic fragmentation that must have been experienced by the initiate in a psychophysical way. This psychic fragmentation was precipitated as a prelude to the initiates reidentifying with a new psychic centre that transcended the “distributed psyche.” The reintegration of the body must have involved coming to a new relationship with one’s “members,” a relationship in which “possession” of the parts by the person was frequently emphasized:

You have your heart, O Osiris;
You have your legs, O Osiris;
You have your arms, O Osiris;
So too my heart is my own;
My legs are my own;
My arms are my own.
A stairway to the sky is set up for me
That I may ascend on it to the sky;
I ascend on the smoke of the great censing. (10)

What is the Head?

Besides its importance in "shamanic" and Egyptian initiation, we need to dive a bit deeper into what "the head" actually meant symbolically to the Egyptians in order to fully unlock the symbol of headlessness:

Of all the parts of the body, it was the head that seems to have corresponded most to the whole person as an individualized being. Hieroglyphically the head shown on its own could represent the whole person (or equally the whole god or animal). The legend that the head of Osiris was buried at Abydos was one and the same with the claim of Abydos to be the burial place of the whole god. Since the head bears our individual facial features, it most naturally symbolized the whole person and was—of all parts of the body—least prone to being invested with the kind of psychic autonomy that we find attributed to other members or organs. It is significant that the ancient Egyptians represented the ba (the soul of a person freed from the body) as a bird with a human head. The head would have the individualized features of the person to whom the ba belongs. (11)

In the Greek original the headless one was called Akephalos. It has been argued whether the Greek word for head κεφαλή (kephalé) might also mean "source" or "origin" in certain contexts, especially in the translation of parts of the New Testament from Greek sources. Regarding the "Stele of Jeu" this also must have been a question, because we are left with the famous "Bornless One" Mathers and Crowley had used in their versions of the ritual ("Liber Samekh"). I am quite certain that κεφαλή means "head" in this context, first because that's the literal meaning and second, because we are talking about a god and a demon - a person - so it just seems way more obvious that akephalos refers to person without head, not a person without origin. But nevertheless, I know it's Greek but the Egyptians loved puns and double meanings in magical formulas, so keep this other meaning in mind as well - it may help to fully grasp the ritual.

Egyptian and Jewish Gods

What does a headless god represent outside the context of the meaning-heavy myth of Osiris? What is left of Osiris without his individualized features, without his ba? The simplest way to understand this is actually part of the text: "you are Osor-onnophris whom none has ever seen". The Egyptian God-king Osiris is turned into an "invisible god" and given more names: Iabas and Iapôs, which are allegedly Samaritian enunciations of "the One" god the Jews called YHVH.

I have read claims that the author(s) of the PGM wanted to "spice up" their spells with some foreign sounding voces magicae and concepts from new and "exotic" esoteric sources and appropriated Jewish magic and religious ideas into their spells. But to be honest, that sounds like a quite lazy explanation and I am sure there is much more to it.

In "Future of the Ancient World" Jeremy Naydler wrote an excellent chapter on the fundamental difference between Jewish and Greco-Egyptian metaphysics:

in ancient Egyptian spiritual life there existed two levels of self-consciousness. On the more “mundane” level, people experienced their psychological processes as originating from, and as tied up with, the activity of the gods. They would thus identify their psychological processes less as their own and more as arising from the gods, with whom they felt the necessity to relate themselves. Beyond this, at a higher level, there existed the possibility of mastering the gods and achieving an experience of union with the divine creative source from whom all the gods derived their power. But in order to achieve such a union with Ra, or Atum-Ra—“to look upon his face” as the Book of the Dead expresses it—a person had to come to experience the polycentric consciousness as involving an inner fragmentation or dismemberment of the soul. This “Osiris” experience was the necessary prelude to the reconstitution of the soul about a single divine center. (12)

For the Israelite, by contrast, at the level of ordinary awareness, the activity of the gods was constantly negated in the psyche. The soul was no longer an arena in which the gods were seen as actively giving rise to psychic events. Whatever occurred therein was ultimately to be claimed by a person as belonging to him or herself alone. At the same time, the “liberated” personality referred more and more to moral and legal exhortations and prohibitions as a way of maintaining a relationship to the divine, now conceived as the One God Yahweh. But unlike Ra, Yahweh was not a god that any human being could become identified with, in the sense that the ancient Egyptian initiate might identify with Ra. Yahweh was a god unlike any other god in that it was not possible to become united with him. Except for the prophets through whom Yahweh spoke, no Israelite would dare to say “I am Yahweh” as an ancient Egyptian—in an exalted state of consciousness—might say, “I am Ra.” And yet Yahweh’s absence was curiously and uniquely present in the still depths of the human soul, demanding an allegiance, which was to be forged in a specifically moral way.
[...] It is a new voice that can be heard coming out of Israel. It is as if the god of the Israelites had in some uncertain way made common ground with what was noblest in the human spirit. And this god, despite his forbidding persona, was at the same time felt to be a “personal God.” He was both far away yet also strangely close to hand. And it is this closeness, this intimacy of Yahw*eh and the human spirit, that distinguishes the Israelite from the ancient Egyptian (or Mesopotamian or Canaanite) relationship to the divine. (12)

Judaism did not reject the possibility of "union with God," so much as it feared and cautioned against the potentially devastating consequences of such an encounter on the functioning ego.

Then God spoke all these words [and] . . . all the people shook with fear at the peals of thunder and the lightening flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the smoking mountain [i.e., their face-to-face encounter with Yahweh]; and they kept their distance. 'Speak to us yourself,' they said to Moses, 'and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we shall die' . . . So the people kept their distance while Moses approached the dark cloud where God was.
-- (Exodus 20:18-21)

Applied Systasis

Besides the Jews who saw such an idea as a strictly forbidden heresy and the (Neo-)Platonists who strived for experience of union with "the One" through an ecstatic ascent from the physical realm, there was also another strange sect in town whose followers had been secretly obsessing about this exact topic: the Gnostics!

In "Abrasax II" Merkelbach and Totti already acknowledged that it was probably no coincidence the ritual was called "Stele of Jeu" - in analogy to a contemporary work of magical technology among Gnostic initiates called the "Books of Jeu" (13). These were a complex and very technical collection of chapters in which Jesus teaches the apostles how to "crucify the world", which saves from the archons of this aeon, and about bringing the word of the Father down to earth and raising the minds of men to heaven. This is accompanied by endless numbers of magical launch code sequences, secret names, sigils and diagrams of the path up through god's emanations to the godhead.

Keeping all of these discussed points in mind, it seems to me that the Stele of Jeu tries to attempt no less than applying the well practiced Pagan magical technology of "Systasis" (union and identification with a god) to the distant and ineffable, yet personal Jewish god-form of YHVH!

In the beginning of the ritual he is addressed as Osiris, but headless: As an incomprehensible god without individualized features, as a creator god who from an Egyptian point of view exists in the magical state beyond inner fragmentation or dismemberment, reconstituted with a single, divine soul. Here the other meaning of "head" as "source" also fits: a god without a source, a self begotten, primordial one. In the following step it becomes more clear as one identifies as Moses in his role as an initiated prophet who has experienced direct contact with Yahweh, who had been chosen to mediate between human and divine. This role is associated to being a "messenger of the Pharaoh Osor-onnophis". It seems like Osiris serves as proxy gateway to reach the godhead.

As I have already laid out in "Towards the Godhead" in my Akephalos Redux article, what follows next in the ladder of ascent are potent calls to the supreme god using magical barbarous names, and a process of cleansing and purification through self-exorcism of restraining demons. Eventually one reaches the highest level of abstraction where words are transcended beyond vibrations of the seven divine vowels to the level of pure resonance, the unified field of consciousness.

See? The Headless One is actually a quite approachable archetypical symbol if we allow our immediate intuitive ideas to roam freely and try to match them with historical and anthropological data!

More Symbols

The central part of the Stele of Jeu ritual comes after the adoration of the headless god and purification of the self. The ritualist identifies with being a "a headless daimon" with sight in his feet and a flaming mouth and bearing the name of "a heart girt with a serpent". In the same way we looked at the meaning of "head" through the lens of Egyptian symbolism to unlock the meaning of "headlessness", let's do the same about the other quite powerful images in the ritual:

Sight in the Feet

Much has been speculated about the peculiar phrase "I am a headless daimon with sight in my feet". As already mentioned in my article Preisendanz' Headless God Armand L. Delatte identified the headless demon with the god Bes and referred to some depictions of that deity with serpent- or jackal-heads, but Karl Preisendanz found this insufficient and argued that instead it could refer to a practice that could be found on images of beheaded captives in Egypt who had their heads between their feet. He backed his argument by referring to the Egyptian custom of Akroteriasmos, the dismemberment of a body before embalmment and mummification where the head is usually put between the feet to make it impossible for the dead to wake up and pick it up again. In his Typhonian interpretation of the "Headless One" Jake Stratton Kent sees in this expression a reference to a form of priestly foot-wear bearing an Anubis head on the upper part of the foot.

The data is already contradicting enough, so why not throw in another interesting information to make it even more complicated: the Greek word for "sight", ὄρασιν (horasis) also seems to be the name of a bird appearing in a Hellenistic Greek version of a legend about the Egyptian goddess Tefnut's quarrel with her father, the sun god Re, which led to her departing from Egypt to Ethiopia in the form of a cat. Horasis here is probably the Greek form of the name of an Egyptian deity who, portrayed as a bird, symbolised good sight. (pBritMus 274, fr. 9a, col VI, l. 7). (14) So, there could also be the possibility that "Horasis next to my feet" refers to Isis or Nephthys who in their form of two birds guard the dead Osiris.

Besides speculation there is no way to find the answer from the data we have, so let's look at the original text and try a more direct and simple way:

The whole phrase "headless god with sight in the feet" and some of the following lines of this divine self-description in the Stele of Jeu appears as a much longer, second person address with minor variations in three other Magical Papyri. In PGM VII 222ff and PGM VIII 64ff, as well as pOxy XXXVI 2753, fr. E, D, C (aka. Betz PGM CII 1ff):

I call upon you, the headless god, having your face beside your feet, the one who hurls lightning and thunders; you are the one whose mouth is continually full of fire, the one placed over Necessity. I call upon you, the god placed over Necessity, Iaeō Sabaōth Adōnai Zabarbathiaō; you are the one lying on a coffin of myrrh, having resin and asphalt as an elbow cushion. You arc not a daimon, but the blood of the two falcons by the head of Osiris, chattering and keeping watch.
(PGM VIII 64ff) (15)

I suspect that "headless daimon with sight in the feet" might just have been a commonly used epithet of Osiris in magical spells and the reason to use it in the Stele of Jeu was because of the obviously corresponding symbolic connection of headless Osiris with the invisible god. It is interesting that in the Stele of Jeu many parts of the invocation are omitted. Especially because the omitted parts are the ones that identify the invoked god more clearly as Osiris than the parts that were adopted. To me this is another hint that in the Stele of Jeu Osiris serves as a proxy god deprived of all his individualized features to represent the invisible god of the Jews.

Nevertheless I looked into the symbolic meaning of "feet" to the Egyptians. Unfortunately I could not find anything specifically Egypt related, but I dug up an interesting text on the symbolic meaning of hands and feet from rock art to the Quran in North Africa and Arabia that proved to be quite useful.

Associated with the ancient stone cult of Arabia and North Africa, the foot and the hand became the mark of the Creator. Feet and sandals engraved on rocks, said Cervicek (1986, 96), represented the “striding of the deity” and marked the sacredness of the place. Nowhere is the spirituality of rocks and footprints as dramatically illustrated as in the recently-excavated temple of Ain Dara, Syria. There, two giant footprints, each three feet long, were delicately carved in the limestone slabs covering the temple portico. A single left footprint is carved on an adjoining slab at the threshold of the antechamber, while a single right footprint is carved on the threshold from the antechamber to the main hall. A prototype of a Canaanite temple, with feet proceeding through its three sections towards the “holy of holy,” (16)

The text also reveals that sandals signified sovereign power and regal potency in Egypt and that for example in Egyptian wedding ceremonies sandals were exchanged: the father gave the groom his daughter's sandal to indicate that she was now under the groom's care. Also sandals were used as offerings to the dead. In all these cases the sandals are symbols themselves: of the feet of the owner.

Besides transmitted knowledge through rock art and lore from the past, the language itself has some great hints about the underlying symbolism as we can see here:

Thanks to the generous pliancy of the Arabic language, with a small phonemic shift, a lowly word such as qdm ("foot") is transmuted through the semantic canopies of this language into Muqaddam, one of the ninetynine Most Beautiful Names of Allah. [...] Another small phonetic shift and qidam "eternity" is born. And what an awesome word! So significant is this kindred term of the foot that it forms the ontological core of the Divine transcendence in Islam. (17)

If we carefully put the puzzle pieces together we can conclude that feet probably symbolize the manifestation of influence and authority on earth ("footprint"). Feet of a deity manifest the divine will and power on earth. What has been "imprinted" is established for eternity.

From the feet let's go to the eyes to unlock the meaning of "sight":

Intuitively I can think of a few meanings of "eyes": they are often used synonymous to "the soul" or windows to and from the soul. In Alchemy, the eye is a commonly used symbol. It usually represents a desire to hold to a vision for the future. The eye is also commonly a symbol of 'keeping an eye' on that which is important.

In Ancient Egypt the eye was probably one of the most complicated symbols. There are several myths featuring storylines around eyes (Wadjet, Eye of Re, Eye of Horus, etc.) and to cover all of them would probably easily fill a whole book. Fortunately Wim van den Dungen from Sofiatopia already did all the work for us about the meaning of Eyes in Egyptian mythology, so I will quote from his page:

To grasp the meaning of the Eye, two registers can be invoked. However, in Egyptian pre-rational thought, these levels are often confused, whereas there is a semantic bridge between both registers:

the Eye is a cosmogonic goddess, symbol of reunification and divine kingship : this is the Single Eye of the Supreme, Self-created High God of before creation, namely Atum. This Eye is also called the "Eye of Re" and the "Eye of Horus" (the Elder), associated with the right hand side, the summer and the Sun. Its mythical activity (like that of the autocreation of Atum and the family drama of Osiris) took place in the "first time", the so-called "zep tepy" ("zp tpy") or "Urzeit".

the Eye is an anthropological symbol of restoration and popular wellness : this is the Restored Eye of Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, the "Wedjat" ("wDAt" : hale or uninjured), associated with the left hand side, the winter and the Moon. Because Thoth played an important role in its myth, it is also called the "Eye of Thoth".

I also found some paragraphs in Jeremy Naydler's books that are even a bit more on point:

The eye, as source of vision, was also source of inner strength. It was here that a person’s courage, or lack of it, resided. [...] For the ancient Egyptians, the eye had both psychic and magical properties, which meant that reference to the eye was reference to specific attributes that the eye intrinsically possessed. The fact that human beings have eyes meant that the properties attributed to the eye could then be utilized by human beings. But the eye was regarded as an entity in its own right, existing virtually as an independent spiritual archetype. As such, it was personified as the sacred wedjat eye, a potent symbol or divine creative and destructive power that was often employed in a protective capacity in ancient Egyptian religious art. It is sometimes depicted winged or, with an arm so as to emphasize its independent status. (18)

mythologically the Eye of Horus is torn out by Seth in their battle for supremacy over Egypt. This act plunges the night sky into darkness, for the Eye of Horus, cosmically understood, is the moon—the heavenly body that illumines the night. It is Thoth who finds the eye shattered into fragments and, having reassembled them, causes the moon to reappear after its short period of invisibility. In so doing, Thoth restores harmony and wholeness both macrocosmically and microcosmically.21 On the microcosmic level the restoration of the eye signifies the consolidation of spiritual power in the king. (19)

So, boiling them all down to a generalized definition: to the Egyptians the eye symbolized a focused spiritual vision and a divine power that unifies and heals whatever it sees divided and injured.

Given that the Greek term Horasis in the original text means "sight" or "vision" and does not refer to a bird, if we combine the meaning of the eyes and the feet, having "sight in ones feet" could be symbolically jailbroken to mean: manifesting the divine will with a clear and healing spiritual vision on earth and establishing it for eternity.

Bam!!

The Heart Girt With a Serpent

At the end of the Stele of Jeu the ritualist proclaims that his name is a "heart girt with a serpent" - a very powerful image! Let's break it down.

My spontaneous ideas about the heart are: unconditional love and affection, intuition and emotions, the sacred, irrational but fundamental knowledge...

How did the Egyptians conceptualize the heart?

Physically higher than the belly, the heart was also psychologically higher. It was regarded as the spiritual centre of a person, the place where a person would come closest to his or her ka (or vital spirit). (20)

But the heart was also a place of reflection, of contemplation, of memory, and of intention, a "listening place" where one might come to a deeper level of understanding of, and harmony with, life (maat). The true wishes of the heart are mediated by reflection and attuned to maat, unlike the impulses stemming from the belly. (20)

For, as the organ in the body most associated with the spiritual self, the heart was essentially pure. It was therefore considered necessary to protect the heart from corrupting influences or tendencies. We thus find admonitions to “conceal” or to “seal” the heart. This idea of the essential purity of the heart is linked to that of the heart as the source of a person’s being. [...] The heart, then, was a part of oneself that ultimately could not be identified with any of the desires, decisions, or actions that were out of tune with maat. The heart was the incorruptible core of a person, and thus detached enough from all that was mundane in them to stand as witness against them. (20)

So, in contrast to the head symbolizing the individualized ego of a person, the heart symbolized the incorruptible spiritual core and links the human back to the celestial gods.

For the condition of soul that Horus represents is that of Osiris reborn, and equally of Ra grounded - in other words the celestial self that has become incarnate. Horus, to the ancient Egyptians, was the earthly image of Ra: the radiant source of light physically embodied. And the place where Horus came to reside in the initiate’s psychophysical organism was the heart. (21)

As below, so above - so what is the incorruptible spiritual core of a god? In his role as the creator-god, Ptah Tatenen, it is said that he is the father of the gods:

Tatenen, the oldest of them all.
He gave birth to himself by himself
before any becoming became.
And when his becoming became,
he made the world
from the thoughts in his heart (22)

We can conclude that in the context of our ritual the heart might represent the incorruptible core of creative power and love of the godhead. But why is it entwined by a serpent?

My immediate associations with serpents are "dragons", "primeval kingship" and "unpredictable danger", as well as ideas that come from my Christian cultural background: sin and deception. In contrast, there are serpents aplenty in Egyptian symbolism, as they were also part of everyday life in the area. So, of course my own associations are useless for analysis.

In order to understand what the core symbolic meaning of serpents in Egypt were, is it helps to take a look at one of the Egyptian myths of cosmogenesis: the birth of the primeval god Atum:

In the Beginning, there exists only Nun, the dark and abyssal waters that stretch everywhere to infinity. There is no distinction of any one form from another within this primordial ocean; there is only a pervasive formlessness that amounts to nothingness, as all things merge together in this great sea of Nun. One has to imagine a quality of existence that is prior to space and time, up and down, before and after. Nothing lies outside anything else, for everything is intrinsic to every other thing; hence, there are no separate things. Here there is a primordial unity, of which it is impossible to speak save in terms of negatives. And yet the image of water conveys the positive notion of Nun as the source of life. Nun, though nothing in itself, nevertheless contains everything that is to be. Nun is the whole diverse and varied universe existing in a state of potentiality.
This primordial condition to which the name of Nun is given was sometimes pictured as a great serpent. But already, the image of the serpent of many coils must be seen as a first manifestation of something from out of the ocean of potentiality. This serpent is called Nehebkau, which means “Provider of Life-Energies.” In the Pyramid Texts, Nehebkau says:
I am the Outflow of the Primeval Flood [Nun],
the one who emerges from the waters.
I am Nehebkau, the serpent of many coils.
Nehebkau has a similar ambivalence to Nun, in that the snake’s coils both entrap the life energies of all existence in a state of unrealized potentiality, and at the same time provide a secure home, a protective embrace from which these life energies can flow forth. Within the coils of the serpent, and also swimming within the waters of Nun, resides a creative principle that is the spark of life; it alone can release the life-energies held in potential within Nun. (23)

The serpent was thought of as having the most primeval of forms, and hence was the creature closest to the conditions that prevailed in the beginning of time. The eight famous ancient Egyptian primeval gods - or "Ogdoad" - were named after the different qualities of the unmanifest: formlessness, or chaos, darkness, or obscurity, unendingness, or limitlessness, and the hidden, or unmanifest. They were depicted as four serpents and four frogs.

Also the Egyptian Decans, deities residing in asterisms that rule over fate (like our Zodiac signs) were often depicted as serpents, sometimes winged or with arms and legs. They were considered unpredictable, potentially dangerous or benevolent.

I think we can make a quite safe statement that the coiled up serpent symbolized "ultimate potentiality".

The "heart girt with a serpent" also bears a striking analogy to the Orphic "cosmic egg", a powerful alchemical symbol that Frater Acher analyzed quite well in his latest book "Holy Daimon":

Phanes, the Orphic primeval deity of new life hatched from an egg with a serpent wound about it, has been called the ‘Revealer’; and indeed new wisdom awaits us by learning more about this mystical image. [...] let’s take a moment to meditate on the body of the serpent. Can you see the polarity here? The painful and deeply personal dilemma of the snake? At every moment the serpent has to make a decision. Should it continue to incubate the egg with the warmth of its coiled body, or should it tighten its muscles just a little more and break its fragile shell? The snake’s immediate desire is to break it: serpents love devouring fresh eggs. Yet it can choose to resist this desire, even though this means resisting its every instinct. Instead of breaking the egg, it can choose to turn its body into a tool of generation and creation. (24)

Having unlocked the meaning of "heart" and "serpent" the god-name in the Stele of Jeu is a very powerful one: the incorruptible core of creative power of the godhead in a state of ultimate potentiality.

Although we should to be very careful with comparisons between fundamentally different cultures, I can't stop seeing the striking similarities of the symbology we unlocked with the Kundalini serpent from Tantric Hinduism:

the Shakti coiled round Shiva, making one point (Bindu) with it, is Kundalini Shakti. This word comes from the word Kundala or "a coil", "a bangle". She is spoken of as coiled, because She is likened to a serpent (Bhujangi), which, when resting and sleeping, lies coiled; and because the nature of Her power is spiraline, manifesting itself as such in the worlds — the spheroids or "eggs of Brahma" (Brahmanda), and in their circular or revolving orbits and in other ways. [...] In other words, this Kundali Shakti is that which, when it moves to manifest itself, appears at the universe. To say that it is "coiled" is to say that it is at rest—that is, in the form of static potential energy. This Shakti coiled round the Supreme Shiva is called Mahakundall ("The great coiled power"), to distinguish it from the same power which exists in individual bodies, and which is called Kundalini.
Kundali Shakti in individual bodies is power at rest, or the static centre round which every from of existence as moving power revolves. In the universe there is always in and behind every form of activity a static background. The one Consciousness is polarized into static (Shiva) and kinetic (Shakti) aspects for the purpose of "creation". This Yoga is the resolution of this duality into unity again. (25)

Resurrection

Gluing all the dismembered and thoroughly studied pieces back together we end up with this potent meaning of the ritual's core lines:

I am an unperceivable daimon with a single, divine soul. From my incorruptible divine core and with unpredictable potentiality I manifest my will with a clear spiritual vision with every single step securing it for eternity.

It's quite deep, but far from the poetic formulation of the original symbols, right? That's the magic of symbolic language.

Conclusion

The Stele of Jeu is a quite universal spell and the involved headlessness enables boundless possibilities: stripping away the individual features from the god puts him in the magical state of unlimited potentiality: If you want the Headless One to be Osiris/Typhon/Bes/YHVH/Ketu/..., he becomes Osiris/Typhon/Bes/YHVH/Ketu/... A headless god stripped of individualization seems to become whatever head is being put upon him through the intent of the performer. In my experimental performance of the rite to conquer Shai-Hulud I became the Headless Serpent Wrangler.

If you made it all the way to down here, congratulations and thank you! This post may have been a bit confusing as it is actually three articles crammed together into one, covering the topics of a technique for intuitive analysis of symbols, sam-blocking the meaning of The Headless One, and analyzing other powerful symbols in this spell. I decided to keep them all together because in this way it reflects my flow of consciousness while researching. I know of at least one regular reader who told me a main reason they like my blog is that it reflects my thought process, so I'll keep it that way.

What? I forgot something? Ah you mean the symbolic meaning of "having a flaming mouth"? Well, consider that homework! ;)

Thanks to Ricardo for valuable feedback and to Aaron for motivation and to the spirits of Düsseldorf for reassurance and inspiration.

on the terms of "sam-blocking" and "polyphanizing":

(1) De Lubicz, RA Schwaller. Symbol and the Symbolic: Ancient Egypt, Science, and the Evolution of Consciousness. Aware Journalism, 1981. p.82.
(2) Doniger, Wendy, Eliade Mircea, and Willard R. Trask. "With a Foreword by Wendy Doniger; Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy." (2004). p. 42.
(3) H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, I, 280-81 (found in (2)).
(4) Bleichsteiner, Robert. L'eglise jaune. Payot, 1937. pg. 222 (found in (2)).
(5) The Cult of Mithras - An Ancient Rite
(6) Naydler, Jeremy. The future of the ancient world: Essays on the history of consciousness. Simon and Schuster, 2009. Chapter 6: Gods and Humans.
(7) Naydler, Jeremy. Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt. Inner Traditions Bear & Company. Kindle Edition. The West Wall (Utts. 254–60). Utt. 254.
(8) see (7). The Fifteen West-to-South-Wall Texts (Utts. 254–58, 260–63, 267–72).
(9) see (1). pg. 9.
(10) Naydler, Jeremy. Temple of the cosmos: The ancient Egyptian experience of the sacred. Inner Traditions/Bear & Co, 1996. Chapter 8: The Soul Incarnate. Transcending the Distributed Psyche.
(11) see (10). Chapter 8: The Soul Incarnate. Body and Soul.
(12) see (6). Chapter 11: The Judaic Path to Monotheism.
(13) Merkelbach R., Totti M. (1991) Eine Selbstoffenbarung des Obersten Gottes. In: Merkelbach R., Totti M. (eds) Abrasax. Papyrologica Coloniensia, vol 17/2. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden
(14) Arnott, W. Geoffrey. Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z. Routledge, 2007.
(15) Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. The Greek magical papyri in translation, including the Demotic spells. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1996. pg. 147.
(16) Achrati, Ahmed. "Hand and foot symbolisms: From rock art to the Qur'ān." Arabica 50.4 (2003): 464-500. pg. 487.
(17) see (15). pg. 494.
(18) see (11).
(19) see (8). Part 4: Anointing with the Seven Holy Oils (Utts. 72–78, 79, 81).
(20) see (11).
(21) see (6). Chapter 11: Christ and the Gods. The Gods and the Psyche.
(22) see (6). Chapter 6: On the Divinity of the Gods. God and the Gods.
(23) see (10). Chapter 3: Myths of Cosmogenesis. Heliopolis.
(24) Frater Acher. Holy Daimon. Scarlet Imprint. 2018.
(25) Avalon, Arthur. The Serpent Power. Ganesh & Co. Madras. 1950. p.35-36

Altar of the Serpent Goddess

2018-08-25T19:30:00+02:00

Yet again, this year I returned to the rocky island of Pag to do the same job as in the last years. I was quite excited to come back to celebrate my two year serpent dream anniversary and one incredible year of invincibility. Before my trip I started doing a bit of research about the antiquity of Pag with the intention of finding some kind of mythological or historical thread to pull on in order to tip my hat to an older spirit of place in the course of ritually celebrating my magical birthday.

Well, I had barely touched the first thread I could find and a whole spaghetti bowl of delicious mess of myth and enchantment landed in my lap!

Serpent Goddess

I found out that in pre-Roman times the island of Pag was inhabited by a tribe of the Illyrian people called "Liburnians" that lived along the Adriatic sea and was well known for their seafaring skills.

At the more spiritual level Illyrians were certainly much taken with the force of spells or the evil eye. Pliny’s story that there were among Illyrians those ‘who could gaze with the evil eye, cast a spell and even kill someone’ is repeated in the following century by Aldus Gellius in his compendium of table-talk among Roman intellectuals. (1)

Not much is known about their pantheon, mostly because it consisted mainly of very regional deities with changing names, almost all of them female! The only mention of names of their deities are from Roman Empire period monuments, some with interpretatio Romana.

there are two main features associated with Liburnian deities: the absolute predominance of female gods, and the lack of iconographic expression. It is as if Liburnian deities did not have an anthropomorphic character (2)

But besides plenty of depictions of a prominent solar cult in the North of Liburnia there is one other powerful symbol that is found on altars and other votive objects dedicated to their female deities:

The most significant indigenous symbol in Illyria-Dalmatia is the serpent. [...] Although the serpent is often considered a male symbol of chthonic character, the presence of the serpents in the cultic iconography related to the Illyrian female goddess should not be underestimated. (3)

Wow! Goddesses in the shape of serpents! I knew I was on the right track...

I dug deeper into finding some more information on the mentioned Roman monuments to see whether something related to Pag would come up. And it did...

A fully preserved sacrificial altar dedicated to a Liburnian deity was actually found on the island, erected by the Roman noblewoman Calpurnia in honor of the local goddess Heia syncretized with the Roman goddess Bona Dea!

I couldn't believe this series of synchronicities with my own serpentine obsession and my quite fresh connection to The Mother Goddess, all tying in with the place where all of this started! It might be connected to having just finished another novena to Our Lady of Candelaria ending on her feast day a week before...it felt like I was being directed to something.

Journey to Cissa

Anyways, excited about all my findings I travelled to Pag - mainly for my job - but now I even ended up with a mission for my magical anniversary: to acknowledge and to thank the local goddess Heia and the spirits of this place.

In the last years I always had rented a scooter to explore the island but this time my work schedule was tighter so I didn't find the time to do that and the range of accessible places to do a ritual was quite limited.

I remembered an old ruin near the villge of Caska reachable by foot in under an hour. Coincidentally the same village is also the location of most of the findings of Roman architecture and objects. Back in the days, the island of Pag was called Cissa or Gissa after this exact Roman settlement of the same name.

Caska itself is a very tiny village and is mainly consisting of tourist apartment houses along a road to the town of Metajna. According to the tourist brochure (4) several Roman artefacts were discovered there as well as a necropolis next to the sea. The ruins above the town are actually of a Roman fortress from Byzantine times that hosted a church dedicated to the patron of Pag: St. George (aha, the serpent slayer!).

Perfect! I planned to do a little hike to Caska to check out the necropolis and some excavations and to do a small ritual inside the old church of St. George.

I found it a bit confusing why there are not more remains of ancient Cissa itself if it was apparently such an important Roman outpost that gave the whole island its name. I found the answer in the same tourist guide (4): apparently the city had disappeared!

Inspired by the multitude of archaeological finds along the coastline and in the shallow waters of the cove, legends about the dramatic sinking of the famous and rich city of Kisa were passed down orally in the Novalja area for centuries. The most frequently told story was about two sisters, the good sister Bona and the evil sister Mala, and about the angel sent by God to find one good human being among the evil, corrupt population of Kisa. The angel found Bona and ordered her to flee the city, which forever disappeared into the sea in a terrible earthquake as she fled.

In the second version of the legend, the good sister with her beautiful, healthy children lived in dire poverty, while the evil sister with her pale, sickly children swam in a sea of riches. When the good sister asked her evil sister for help one day, she was rudely refused. God was greatly angered and in retribution sank the entire city, sheltering the good sister and her children on the hill top Sv. Juraj (St. George) beforehand. (4)

On Tuesday the 21st of August - my magic anniversary - I left Novalja around two in the afternoon and walked along the little road to Caska and up the hill to the Byzantine ruins. In contrast to my last year's self-initiation I wanted to keep it simple this time, but to honour my personal tradition of new beginnings happening on this island I also planned to try something new: shamanic journeying!

I sat down in the middle of the church remains, gave some offerings of spring-water, frankincense and mugwort from back home to my regulars, the genii loci and my ancestors and was grateful for being back on Pag. Then I plugged into my iPod and played the classic Michael Harner journeying drumming track. I closed my eyes and off I went...

...it was my first attempt of consciously visiting the underworld and unfortunately it didn't really work out. I was in a deep meditative state where I couldn't feel my body anymore and all kinds of thoughts and ideas meandered through my consciousness but it wasn't a journey. But it was all fine, I didn't have any expectations.

...half an hour later I opened my eyes and right in front of my face was a shiny black giant cicada humming around a small purple flower that grew in one of the cracks of the ancient rocks. My first thought was "oh a scarab!". It was a beautiful moment.

I walked down to Caska and along the rocky beach to a small watchtower that had been used by tuna-fishermen for centuries. I also found the remains of the "necropolis" which was a bit odd because it was right at the beach next to countless half-naked young people listening to loud music, getting sunburnt and sleeping off their hangovers from the hard party nights on this party island. I continued back to Novalja taking a small detour through one of the few beautiful pine forests.

Augusta Triumphalis

On the next day I felt a bit anxious and disappointed. Not only did my journeying attempt not really work out, but also the contrast between a rich and spiritual Roman past and today's hyper-mundane tourism-for-profit reality everywhere on the island left me a bit depressed. This did not feel like a proper anniversary at all! I needed to do something else!

The moment this thought had formed in my head I knew immediately what my goal was: to find the altar to the local serpentine goddess Heia!

I opened my laptop and connected to the awfully slow internet the tourist apartment provided and went through my sources again: what was this altar all about, who was this noblewoman Calpurnia and where in Cissa/Caska did she live?

Located somewhere in the Caska area was the estate of the well-known Roman senatorial family Calpurnii Pisones, which is indicated by the ruins of three sacrificial altars erected by Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, Roman Consul in the year 1 B.C., and the granddaughter of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, Roman Consul in 23 B.C. When Calpurnia lived in Caska, her family was experiencing difficult times: in 19 B.C. her uncle was accused of murdering the young and favorite Germanicus (the nephew of the emperor Tiberius and brother of the emperor Claudius), which ended in his suicide during the court procedure in 20 B.C. Calpurnia’s father also committed suicide in 24 B.C., during rigged court proceedings for supposedly insulting the emperor. After this the family’s situation stabilized and things turned for the better. (4)

Very exciting! A haunted, decadent, Roman city that sunk after a haunted and probably decadent, Roman senatorial family had lived there!

One interesting aspect of this specific altar is that it is dedicated to the local Liburnian goddess Heia (Eia, Heja, Eja) syncretized with the Roman women-only mystery cult goddess Bona Dea whose real name was secret but assumed to be Fauna, the shy and secretive wife of Faunus. It is intriguing because Faunus and Pan are tightly connected to the god Silvanus (also Dionysus/Sabazius) who was also prominently venerated throughout Illyria. Plus, Bona Dea is usually depicted with a serpent wrapped around her arm (Asclepius connection of healing) and surrounded by serpents. Her temples were known to have hosted numerous living serpents (5). It makes a lot of sense to see her as interpretatio Romana of a local Liburnian goddess Heia.

I went through several sources on Roman votive monuments and Liburnian deities that had lists of altars and other artifacts found along the Adriatic coast to find out more about the specific altar, especially about it's current location.

One Croatian list noted the altar was found in Caska/Gramače and is stored at the Stomorica collection in Novalja, another one (5) claimed that the altar was found in a "vinyard of doctor R. Palčič" in Caska and the tourist catalog (4) only said it was "found in Gramače", which is a completely different village than Caska.

I concluded that it was probably not anymore where it was found, so most likely it must be at the aforementioned Stomorica collection, a small museum of Roman artefacts in the city center of Novalja. I went there straightaway. It was just a 10 minutes walk but closed when I arrived, so I went to the small cathedral instead and also took a look at some ancient mosaics around the corner. On the way back to my apartment I noticed the museum was open now (the church visit had paid off!). It was one room with shards of Roman pottery, some gravestones and rusty coins and pieces of different altars. I asked the lady at the entrance if she could tell me where I could find the "large Calpurnia altar" and she looked at me as if I had just ordered a Hamburger and fries. She did not know anything aside from selling tickets and postcards, so I left disappointed.

Back home I sent an email to the museum asking for more information about the altar, without expecting to ever get an answer. Then I looked into my sources again. If it's not in the local museum, perhaps it is still where it was found? I spent a few hours scanning the satellite view of Google maps, comparing them to archeological sketches from other sources, and virtually driving along Google Street View, peeking into peoples virtual gardens. I started getting a bit obsessed about this mission (what Mars retrograde energies can do to an person with ascendant Mars and martian personal daimon!) Must. Find. It.

I decided to do this detective work in a more logical and structured way and thought about just taking the handful of clear information I had at hand and see what to conclude from them:

a hand-drawn sketch of the altar itself
the dimensions of the altar
found in either Caska or Gramače
a few blurry photos from the tourist catalog that show a rock that might be the altar

The rock that can be seen on the photos looks a lot like the hand-drawn sketch and the photos also show an architectural structure right next to the rock, an L-shaped wall with a hole/window. In the background you can see the sea and some reddish roofs of modern houses.

It must be in a town or next to at least two houses
It must be on a clearing where the sea is visible
It must be either near Caska or Gramače

I took another tour across and over the island via Google maps, scanning for small L-shaped structures in close proximity to houses. After an hour of doing that I gave up. It was pointless.

I went back to staring at the photos. I suddenly remembered the incredible crowdsourced forensics work of bellingcat and how they could locate objects from photos based on the background landscape. Let's try this again, Mars whispered into my ear.

I looked at the photo backgrounds again, beyond the bushes and houses. I noticed the hillscape you can see beyond the sea. From Pag you can see the hills on the mainland on one side and a few more islands on the other side. Also it has long stretching coves and bays on the island itself, so it should be possible to find a place with this view.

I jumped back into the virtual Google car and drove up to Gramače first, trying to find a spot where you can see the sea from the road. I looked south-west but aside from a small island on the horizon there was no such view in this direction. I looked down the other side towards the mainland. It looked a bit like on the photo but not really. The mountains were much higher.

Then it suddenly struck me: The hill on the left side of the photo could actually be Sveti Vid, the highest mountain on the island of Pag which I had climbed for my initiation ritual last year and the lower bits on the right could be the beaches of Zrće! In that case it must be taken in or near Caska.

I "drove" to Caska and peeked towards the sea. Yess, very possible!.

The next day I walked to Caska again. The landscape from the photos was burned into my brain in all pixelated details so I was able to compare it in real-time walking the main road of Caska. I peeked up and down, left and right, trying to find hints of white rock walls near houses with similar roof-shapes as on the photos. I felt like Indiana Jones.

Then I saw it! Down very close to the beach, behind a field of very dry looking vines. There was a wall that had a hole in it. I walked down towards it and noticed that it was located in a private garden next to a very modern looking house. It's too late now to respect properties, Mars whispered. So I jumped into it and there it was! A beautiful white limestone altar, exactly the shape of the one from the sketch!

(Coordinates: 44.550010, 14.919650)

I felt a moment of joy and peace, sat down, offered again frankincense, spring water and mugwort from home and did a stuttery impromptu prayer of gratitude and devotion, and reciting the inscription of the altar:

Bonae Deae Dominae Heiae Augustae Triumphali terrae marisque Dominatrici Conservatrici mentiumque bonarum ac remediorum Potenti Deae Bene Iudicanti

(Bona Dea Domina Heia Augusta Triumphalis, the Mistress of land and sea, the Protectress, the Mistress of wisdom and medicine, the Goddess of right judgement)

This felt right. This felt good. I was satisfied. Mission accomplished. Something clicked. It almost felt like a cycle was over, an open circle closed, or a spiral turned once. I still need to find out what this actually means.

Update 28/08/2018

I was surprised to find an email in my inbox - from the director of the local museum in Novalja herself, confirming that the altar is located in a private garden in Caska and clearing up the confusion about Gramače. Apparently "gramače" is a Croatian name for a certain stone formation found in this area, but in publications it apparently got confused with the settlement of the same name north of Novalja. She also said she will send me a brochure of epigraphic monuments on the island and that there are some new things showing up:

The first inhabited part of the island is the hill Košljun, close to Caska and on the way to ferry. There you could still found interesting parts of pottery, mosaics on the floor of what seems to be a small church, graves, remnants of the fortress wall and much more. Actually it is being explored as we speak. The archaeologists usually come before and after the tourist season and they are there right now.

(1) Wilkes, John. The Illyrians. Wiley-Blackwell, 1995.

(2) Matijašić, Robert. "The iconography of indigenous cults in northern Liburnia." Akti VIII. međunarodnog kolokvija o problemima rimskog provincijalnog umjetničkog stvaralaštva. Goledn Marketing, Tehnička knjiga, 2005.

(3) Prusac, Marina. "Hybrid Deities in South Dalmatia."

(4) Caska Cove Brochure

(5) Brouwer, Hendrik HJ. Bona Dea. Vol. 127. Brill, 1989.

Sphere of Horus

2018-05-06T18:00:00+02:00

(Version 1.1 - 07/05/2018)

Horus the Saviour

Ever since he knocked on my door I have wanted to integrate Horus more into my ritual practice than the adorations he already receives on an irregular basis. I am currently involved in a year long exploration of the Egyptian Decans (not the Rune Soup Decan Walk), specifically in their final Egyptian forms during the Ptolemaic era (more details about this will come in a future post). The Decan of a few weeks ago (♓3) was symbolized as Heru-pa-khered / Harpocrates (Horus the Child) in his common depiction as a nude youngster seated on a lotus flower wearing a side-lock and holding a finger to his mouth.

In my research about him I discovered that magical stelae of Horus in this form called "cippi" were erected in public places such as the forecourts of temples. His image is often surmounted by a head of the god Bes, and he is grasping snakes, scorpions, and other dangerous wild animals in his hands to signify his dominance over these symbols of mortal danger. They appear to have been used typically by pouring water over them which was collected at the bottom and drunk for protection and healing.

An ancient Egyptian spell to be spoken over such a cippus can be found in Borghout's spell collection (1):

An adoration of Horus, to glorify him, To say on the water and on the land. Words spoken by Thoth, the saviour of this god:
Hail to you. God, son of a god! Hail to you, heir, son of an heir! Hail to you, bull, son of a bull, whom the divine cow bore.
Hail to you, Horuss, who came forth from Osiris, whom the goddess Isis bore. I have spoken in your name, I have recited with your magic, I have spoken with your spells, I have conjured with your conjurations, which your heart has devised — they are your sorcery — which have come forth from your mouth, which your father Geb has entrusted to you, which your mother Nut has given to you, which you have been taught by the Majesty of the Foremost One of Letopolis in order to ensure your protection, to renew your safeguarding, to close the mouth of any reptile which is in heaven, which is in the earth, which is in the water, to keep the people alive, to propitiate the gods, to glorify Re with your hymns.
Come quickly to me on this day like the one did for you who handles the steering oar of the divine bark. May you drive away for me all lions on the desert plateau, all crocodiles in the river, all biting snakes in their holes! May you render them for me like pebbles on the desert hills, like potsherds of a jar along the street. May you exorcize for me the pulsating poison that is in all the limbs of this man who is suffering. Take care not to be negligent when you speak about it!
See, it will come for you when you are coming for it, with your words directed against it. See, your name is involved therein on this day! I have created the awe for you through your magic — and you have grown in prestige through your magic spells — to keep alive those who suffer from an oppressed throat.
Praise is given to you by mankind; righteousness is adored in your appearance. All the gods are invoked in your likeness.
See, your name is invoked on this day: 'I am Horus the Saviour who ensures protection for you'.
(J. F. Borghouts, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts, Brill - Leiden, 1978, Spell 123)

Having such protective and healing properties, wouldn't Harpocrates be predestined for protective magic such as banishing? Yes! So, let's do it...

The Sphere of Horus

Most of my spellwork is PGM influenced, so naturally I don't do much elaborate ritualized banishing and use mainly phylactery talismans for protection. But since some nasty experiences in my recent past that I attribute to negative spiritual influence, I have become more paranoid about better protection. The LBRP or it's thelemic derivatives don't really feel fitting in my workings.

My favourite banishing rite has always been Jason Miller's excellent “Sphere of Heka” from his poweful book "Protection and Reversal Magic" (2).

Inspired by Harpocrates the Saviour I took the opportunity and modified Jason's ritual to make it even more Greco-Egyptian than it already was. I dubbed it Sphere of Horus.

This version uses Greek instead of Latin and invokes different guardians of the cardinal directions.

Many thanks to my Facebook buddy and fellow mage Lazaridés at the foot of mount Olympos for the invaluable translation work!

Part 1: Conjuring the Column

Begin by standing and facing east. Imagine that you are at the very center of the universe. Take a deep inhalation and imagine that above you, emanating from the highest heavens descends a column on pure white light. This light enters the crown of your head and passes through you, down into the ground. This white light has the qualities of purification and centering. Exhale and intone the following:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Iέρακος Κάθοδος	Ierakos Kathodos	The descent of the falcon

Take another deep inhalation and imagine that a reddish colored light from beneath you rises through the column and passes through you upwards. Whereas the white light was purifying, this light is vitalizing. Exhale and intone the following:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Οφεως 'Ανοδος	Opheōs Anodos	The ascent of the serpent

Inhale again and feel the two energies entering into you from above and below. Exhale and feel the two energies flow throughout your body, impregnating every cell of your being with their power. Feel your connection between earth and sky, underworld and heavens.

With your right hand. point at your third eye and intone: I (eeh).
Move your right hand over your heart and open your hand so that your palm faces your chest and intone: A (ah).
Most your hand lower over your genitals and turn the palm upwards, connecting the thumb and forefinger. Intone: Ω (oh).

This portion of the rite grounds, centers, purifies, and empowers you so that you are in a proper position to exercise authority over the forces that you wish to banish. The Falcon and the Serpent are universal symbols of chthonic and ouranic forces. By conjuring the column you take in the totality of all that is, above and below. After the column, you invoke the divine by the ancient formula of IAΩ.

Part 2: Delineating the Boundaries

Still standing within the column, pronounce to the powers that be:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Eκάς, εκάς εστέ βέβηλοι!	Hekas, hekas este bebeloi	Afar, afar, all the profane!

Make a fist with your left hand and place it against your chest over your heart, cover it with your right hand and apply about five pounds of pressure there and imagine that the force that you summoned forth from the column begins to concentrate at the heart. Imagine that this power, drawn by the physical pressure and force of will, takes the shape of a gray sphere about the size of a baseball. Visualize this until you have it very clear in your mind. Release the pressure, and in one motion step forward with your left foot and throw your arms outward in what is called the Sign of the Enterer. As you make this sign, see the sphere at your heart grow. As it grows and spreads, it pushes back all malefic forces and harmful spirits. It grows past your body and continues until it stops where you wish to make the boundary, forming a wall of grayish astral force. Intone:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Kύκλον Κατάσχω!	Kyklon Katas-chō	I seize the circle!

Take your wand or knife of the art in your hand, and extend your arm straight out. The tip of the tool (or your finger, when working without tools) should touch the edge of the circle that you want to make. If you have extended the circle past the walls of the room that you are in, then you can simply point towards the edge. Pivot, or walk the edge of your circle and intone the following:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Καθιερώ και ευλογώ τούτο τον κύκλο, ότι ασπίς μου έστηκε , φυλλάτειν με και άπαντες εν το κύκλο τιαύτον , απο παντός πονηρού, εις το όνομα της Μεγάλου και Αητήττου Ἥλιου Αρποκράτου! Ψοϊ φνουθι νινθηρ!	Kathierō kai eylogō touto ton kyklo, oti aspis mou estēke, phyllatein me kai apantes en to kyklo tiauton, apo pantos ponērou, eis to onoma tēs Megalou kai Aētēttou Heliou Harpokratou! Psoi Phnouti Ninthēr!	I consecrate and bless this circle, that it may shield and protect me and all inside against all evil in the name of the most powerful and invincible Helios Harpocrates! [Egyptian:] Fate, the god of the gods

Consider that this sphere is an invisible and impenetrable fortress surrounding you, keeping out all harmful forces and spirits of ill-intent.

Part 3: Invoking the Guardians

The last section of the ritual invokes the four winds as guardians to the four comers of our sphere.

Face East and visualize Henkhisesui standing at the eastern edge of the circle facing the center. The Egyptian east wind, Henkhisesui, sometimes occurs in anthropomorphic shape, and has a ram’s head, but he is occasionally figured as a winged beetle with the head of a ram. Make the gesture of conjuring and invoke:

Phonetic	Translation
Orkizo Henkhisesui!	I conjure Henkhisesui!

Face South and visualize Shehbui standing at the southern edge of the circle facing the center. The Egyptian South wind Shehbui, is represented as a man with a lion’s head, and wings. Make the gesture of conjuring and invoke:

Phonetic	Translation
Orkizo Shehbui!	I conjure Shebui!

Face West and visualize Hutjaiwi standing at the western edge of the circle facing the center. The Egyptian West wind, Hutjaiwi, has a serpent's head on the body of a winged man. Make the gesture of conjuring and invoke:

Phonetic	Translation
Orkizo Hutjaiwi!	I conjure Hutjaiwi!

Face North and visualize Qebui standing at the northern edge of the circle facing the center. The Egyptian North wind was called Qebui, and is pictured as a four-headed ram with wings. Make the gesture of conjuring and invoke:

Phonetic	Translation
Orkizo Qebui!	I conjure Qebui!

Face East and imagine all four guardians in their corners protecting the circle. Intone the following:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Προ μου Henkhisesui, οπισω μου Hutjaiwi, επι δεξια Shehbui, επαριστερα Qebui.	Pro mou Henkhisesui, opisō mou Hutjaiwi, epi dexia Shehbui, eparistera Qebui.	Before me Henkhisesui, behind me Hutjaiwi, to my right Shehbui, to my left Qebui.

Of course you may also use the Greek Anemoi wind spirits instead:

Greek	Phonetic	Direction
Ευρο!	Euro	East
Νότο	Noto	South
Ζέφυρο	Zephyro	West
Βορέα	Borea	North

Part 4: Closing

Take a single deep breath and bring your hands together in front of your heart is if you are praying. Intone:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Eκάς, εκάς οι βέβηλοι, εις το όνομα του Παντοδυνάμου Φρη Σαβαωθ Αβρασαξ ΙΑΩ!	Hekas, hekas oi bebēloi, eis to onoma tou Pantodynamou Phrē Sabaōth Abrasax IAŌ!	Away, away o profane, in the name of the most powerful Phrē Sabaoth Abrasax IAO!

Confirmation

I wrote Jason Miller and told him about this variant of his banishing ritual and he loved it and encouraged me to publish it!

I have successfully used the Sphere of Horus to remove potentially harmful spiritual residue after having to apply Gordon's Hoodoo Hex to an obnoxious neighbor. First I wasn't completely sure if it worked but then my cat walked into the room, let himself fall on his side, stretching all paws out and gave me his usual blinky look of total relaxation. I fully trust his judgement! He might be a really bad hunter, but he usually seems to be quite aware of things from the other side.

Here is the Sphere of Horus as a Google document for nicer print layout, also including Jason's original descending dove and Hekate

(1) Borghouts, Joris Frans, ed. Ancient Egyptian magical texts. Vol. 9. Brill, 1978.

(2) Miller, Jason, Protection and Reversal Magick. New Page Books; 1 edition, 2006.

Ophiouchos

2018-02-22T18:00:00+01:00

or Conquering Shai-Hulud

(Version 1.2 - 29/10/2018)

Last week's New Moon has been a very special occasion for me.

Having Followed a suggestion by my occultist pen-pal Len W. to perform the Stele of Jeu rite on New Moon every month (the night sky is headless), this last one marked the half-year anniversary since I started on the day of the Great American Eclipse last summer - my self initiation.

This last one was an eclipse too. To me it felt like a turning point or "levelling up". Besides the semi-anniversary aspect, it has been the most powerful performance of this ritual ever, with lasting effects.

Inspired by Spiro' report I have wanted to perform the ritual in demotic Greek for quite some time now, as that's the language it was originally composed in. I finally got around to doing that and I have to say that despite my stumbling over the words and pronounciation of this unfamiliar language it felt very poetic and emotionally gripping.

As if that were not enough of a challenge I also worked up the courage to modify the Headless Rite to give it a darker and potentially more dangerous twist - just to see how it would effect the outcome. I have been fascinated by ancient myths around solar eclipses about the sun being devoured by dragons or serpents like in Egyptian and Slavic skylore.

During a solar eclipse that always occur on New Moon for obvious astronomical reasons, it's not only the night sky that is headless, but also the day sky on the other side of the globe! This occasion seemed auspicious to try to approach the dark and slithering ancient dragon in its attempt to swallow the sun right at its climax and divert some of it's indomitable serpentine energy into myself.

I remembered a very powerful Greek prayer to the old snake from a ritual by the German magical order of Fraternitas Saturni and I incorporated it into the Headless Rite after the part of self-exorcism and divine ascension. This is the Call to the Serpent:

ho ophis, ho archaios
ho drakon, ho megas
ho en kai ho on kai ho zon
eis tous ainonas ton ainonon
meta tou pneumato sou!

It translates roughly to the following:

The primeval serpent
the great dragon
who was and who is
and who lives through the aeons of aeons
He is with your spirit!

I like to start many of my rituals with orphic hymns to the planetary gods of the hour and the day, so for this one I chose the hymn to Phanes, the Protogonos, as it suits the occasion and ritual perfectly.

Here is the full ritual in phonetic Greek, followed by my personal report, which I recommend skipping to avoid spoilers if you want to try it out yourself :)

Akephalos Ophiouchos Ritual

Preparation

Wait until the climax of the eclipse has been reached to catch the moon's waxing energy alongside the serpentine power.

Light Myrrh incense as an offering to Phanes, anoint yourself with some holy oil, wear the papyrus strip with the six names and the auspicious sign as described in the Stele of Jeu. Meditate until you feel ready. Face towards the celestial North and recite the words:

Orphic Hymn to Protogonos

Protogonon kaleo diphyé, megan, aitheroplagkton,
ôiogené, chryseaisin agallomenon pterygessi,
tayroboan, genesin makaron thnetôn t' anthropon,
sperma polymneston, polyorgion, Érikepaion,
arreton, kryphion roizetora, pamphaes ernos,
osson os skotoessan apemayrosas omichlen
pante dinetheis pterygon ripais kata kosmon
lampron agon phaos agnon, aph' ou se Phaneta kiklesko
éde Priepon anakta kai Antaygen elikopon.
alla, makar, polymeti, polyspore, baine gegethôs
es teletén agian polypoikilon orgiophantais.

Stele of Jeu With Call to the Serpent

Se kalō, ton akephalon,
ton ktisanta gēn kai ouranon,
ton ktisanta nykta kai ēmeran,
se ton ktisanta phōs kai skotos.
Sy ei Osoronnōphris, on oudeis eide pōpote.
Sy ei Iabas! Sy ei Iapōs!
Sy diekrinas to dikaion kai to adikon.
Sy epoiēsas thēly kai arren.
Sy edeixas sporan kai kaprous.
Sy epoiēsas tous anthrōpous allēlophilein kai allēlomisein.
Egō eimi Mousēs o prophētēs sou,
ō paredōkas ta mysteria sou ta synteloumena Israēl.

Sy edeixas ygron kai chēron kai pasan trophēn.
Epakouson mou! Egō eimi aggelos tou Phaprō Osoronnōphris.
Touto estin sou to onoma to alēthinon to paradidomenon tois prophētais Israēl.
Epakouson mou.
Arbathiaō reibet athelebersēth ara blatha albeth ebenphchi chitasgoē ibaōth iaō

Eisakouson moth kai apostrepson to daimonion touto.
Epikaloumai se, ton en tō kenō pneymati deinon kai aoraton theon.
Arogogorobraō sochou modoriō phalarchaō ooo

Agie Akephale! Apallaxon ton deina apo tou synechontos ayton daimonos.
Roubriaō mari ōdam baabnabaōth ass adōnai aphniaō ithōlēth abrasach aēōōy
Ischyre Akephale! Apallaxon ton deina apo tou synechontos ayton daimonos.
Mabarraiō ioēl kotha athorēbalō abraōth Apallaxon ton deina.
Aōth abraōth basym isak sabaōth iaō

outos estin o kyrios tōn theōn.
outos estin o kyrios tēs oikoumenēs.
outos estin on oi anemoi phobountai.
outos estin o poiēsas phōnēs prostagmati eaytou panta.
Kyrie! Basiley! Dynasta! Boēthe! Sōson psychēn.
Ieou pyr iou pyr iaōt iaēō ioou abrasach sabriam oo yy ey oo yy adōnaie
Ēdē, ēdē, eyaggelos tou theou.
Anlala lai gaia apa diachanna choryn

(center yourself in the universe, omnipresent in all eons)

(call to the serpent:)

ho ophis, ho archaios
ho drakon, ho megas
ho en kai ho on kai ho zon
eis tous ainonas ton ainonon
meta tou pneumato mou!

(continue Headless Rite:)

Egō eimi o Akephalos Daimōn, en tois posin echōn tēn orasin.
Egō eimi o Ischyros, o echōn to pyr to athanaton.
Egō eimi ē Alētheia, o misōn adikēmata ginesthai en tō kosmō.
Egō eimi o astraptōn kai brontōn.
Egō eimi ou estin o idrōs ombros epipiptōn epi tēn gēn ina ocheyē.
Egō eimi ou to stoma kaietai di’ olou.
Egō eimi gennōn kai apogennōn.
Egō eimi ē Charis tou Aiōnos.
Onoma moi kardia periezōsmenē ophin.
Exelthe kai akolouthēson.

(the divine vowels:)

Aié aiôi éôiaé aé iô ôé aiéoueuôai eai uo iaô iôé oau aeé uôuô

(call to the serpent again:)

ho ophis, ho archaios
ho drakon, ho megas
ho en kai ho on kai ho zon
eis tous ainonas ton ainonon
meta tou pneumato mou!

(the six names, greatest name that adds to 9999:)

Chabrach phneschér phichro phnurô phôchô bôch

(subject to me all daimons...:)

Ypotaxon moi panta ta daimonia, ina moi ē ypekoos pas daimōn ouranios kai aitherios kai epigeios kai ypogeios kai chersaios kai enydros kai pasa epipompē kai mastix ē theou. Kai estai soi ta daiamonia panta ypekoa. Estin de to agathon zōdion·

(meditate until you feel ready to leave)

Personal Report

I usually do most of my rituals outside in a park nearby at my favourite quiet spot.

It was slightly snowing when I left the house walked towards my "temple". I already started breathing deeply and in a slow rhythm to prepare mentally.

After arriving I did the planetary prayer to Zeus and closed my eyes for a brief meditation. Right after that I followed a gut feeling and walked away from my usual spot to a more secluded one as I somehow didn't feel enough "privacy".

Closer to the naked branches of some wintery trees I felt more secure and I lit my Myrrh incense stick and put on the papyrus crown I usually use for the Headless Rite. Facing North, after some minutes of quiet breathing I started reciting the Hymn to Protogonos. It felt strange to not do it in my mother language, but powerful.

I continued with the Stele of Jeu text but couldn't help but feel like there was someone nearby. I read the words slowly, trying to get into a rhythm and to pronounce everything correctly. After the first paragraph I turned around to see if someone was there. Nothing. The usual paranoia. I continued.

I visualized myself growing slowly as I spoke the words. The Earth became smaller and smaller under my feet. As I gazed upwards into the dark sky I had a vision of a black serpentine body moving amorphously like seeing it deep under a surface of water. Although I looked up, it felt like the movement was far below me. It was a sense of loss of orientation.

As I continued to recite the text, I imagined myself floating downwards towards the pile of slithering scales. I myself was gigantic. I could see the entire universe. But I realized the draconian creature under me was much, much bigger. I felt a hint of fear, but pushed it away and I was approaching the part of the barbarous words and self-exorcism, so I put a lot of effort into sounding authoritative.

There it was again, the feeling of being watched! I recited the powerful call to the serpent and saw myself floating towards it again, sinking down - now it did not seem as gigantic as before. I felt courageous and I resisted the urge to turn around again in paranoia and I spontaneously started turning slowly around my own axis, tracing a spiral around myself with the incense stick.

I created a whirling vortex around me, circling around the Northern celestial pole above me, and around the serpent below me. The flux pulled the snake up in a kind of dancing motion. It spiralled around me creating a gigantic tunnel of energy and I was in its center, controlling the rotation. I have never had such strong images during a ritual and such a physical feeling of energy flowing through my body.

When I spoke the "subject to me all daimons..." formula the vortex slowly faded from my mind's vision and I was back in the park. It started snowing more heavily and I felt high like on cocaine. Pumped with energy I had the urge to flex all my muscles at once very strongly up to the point where I felt a strain in my neck. I focussed on my breath to calm down a bit, stuck the incense stick into the ground and stared at its glowing tip for a while.

On the way home I felt very high and I could hear my heart pumping. I envisioned having slit shaped reptilian pupils and it made me smile. I turned my phone back on from flight mode and received a text message.

It was Ricardo, a fellow mage friend who knew that I was out to do the ritual. I expected him to ask how it went, but instead I read:

He wrote me that he had meditated like every evening and because he knew I was out for the rite, he had spontaneously tried to visualise remotely watching me performing it. I was speechless when he continued to tell me that he had a blurry vision of slowly approaching me from behind, seeing me wearing a crown and holding a stick in my hand, being surrounded by a vortex of energy. He came closer and tried to touch my shoulder when suddenly he felt a surge of energy pushing him back, completely losing me out of sight. He even talked about my location, which wasn't exactly where I had been but only around 150 meters away from where I had done the ritual. He did not know beforehand which park I would go to. I was shocked!

I could hardly sleep that night, it felt as if I had had too much coffee. Until today, a whole week later I feel pumped with physical energy and very mindful of my presence in the here and now, almost like when microdosing psychedelics.

One negative outcome of the performance is that my ego seems overly boosted. I lack my usual humbleness and feel almost a bit arrogant from time to time and my patience level is lower than usual. I feel distant waves of aggression lurking under the surface. But I am aware of the differences and it's all under control.

Overall I must say it has been an amazing experience.

The next morning images from the movie "Dune" came into my mind, of the main protagonist Paul Atreides running towards the giant sandworm called Shai-Hulud to climb and ride it. See for yourself :)

Akephalos Redux

2018-02-22T11:00:00+01:00

(Version 2.3 - 28/10/2018)

After half a year of monthly practice of the Stele of Jeu in different variations I have come to a different understanding of it than when I started. Before beginning to practice the routine I spent several months researching every single bit about this ritual and about the Headless One, which proved quite fruitful in terms of grasping and executing the ritual and the deities addressed.

In this post I am briefly revisiting my path with the Headless One, summing up some points of my research and laying out my own conclusions. It will most probably be updated in the future.

Headlessness

In his amazing book about the history of spirits and their interaction with humankind - "Star.Ships" - Gordon White talks about "headlessness" being a very ancient spiritual concept, possibly from as far back as the Paleolithic. In his chapter "Part VIII. The Mirror of Heaven" he writes:

Ritual dismemberment remains a dominant motif in many initiatory traditions to this day and may ultimately date back to the very beginning of the formation of the Laurasian storyline (and perhaps earlier) where the universe is created from the dismembered parts of a giant monster or ancient god. It is quite possibly a very early conceptualisation of the microcosm/ macrocosm connection of the ‘unified human’ with all of Creation. The most potent visual is, of course, the removal and then return of the head, a seat of power recognised in magic and sorcery for tens of millennia, which is – I posit – reflected in the faceless (headless) T- shaped pillars of Göbekli Tepe and, of course, the ‘headless hunter’ that is Orion itself. From an Egyptian ritual perspective, when Osiris is headless, he is in the Underworld. The restoration of his head corresponds with his restoration to the Living world thanks to the magic of Isis/ Sirius. (1)

The Aghori Vimalananda about the symbolism of headlessness in Tantric magic:

When I am finished with the number of offerings I have planned to make, at the very end of my homa, I put a coconut into the fire. The coconut represents the worshipper’s head, with its three eyes. Also, it is full of water, just as the head is full of blood, cerebrospinal fluid and glandular secretions. When I offer the coconut I offer my entire consciousness to the fire with a request that it be transmuted into a divine consciousness. I offer my own head to get a divine head. Then I bow to the fire and request my deity to return to His or Her home, and my homa is completed. Then I sit by the fire for a while, after I am finished, and commune with it.

Akephalos in the Greek Magical Papyri

"Akephalos" seems to be one of the most controversial deities that appears in the Greek Magical Papyri. He has been identified as quite opposite demons and deities by academia and operative magi. Roughly, the interpretations can be broken down to two different directions: one is the "Typhonian" camp, the other one the "Osirian" camp.

In academia the former is represented most prominently by Armand L. Delatte, who claimed to have identified the headless one as being the Egyptian god of the desert, Seth, syncretized with the Greek monstrous demon Typhon (2). The German classical philologist Richard Wünsch follwed this interpretation in his work "Sethian curse tablets of Rome." In magical circles, besides Mathers, The Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley and the OTO, the prominent contemporary occultist and magician Jake Stratton-Kent delivers more diverse arguments in his booklet "The Headless One" (3) than the other mentioned authors, but comes to the same conclusion.

First to challenge this interpretation academically seems to have been Karl Preisendanz, another translator of the PGM, who argued against Delatte and Wünsch in his monograph "Akephalos - The Headless God" (4) (which I summarized here). He argues that the headless god could not be any other than the dismembered and resurrected Egyptian god of the underworld, Osiris. More contemporary scholars of this camp are Reinhold Merkelbach and Maria Totti, who found more supportive evidence of the Osirian character in their "Abrasax" collection of PGM spells (5) through parallels in the phrasing to the Isis Mysteries.

Both camps also introduce the Egyptian protector spirit Bes as a witness of their interpretation. Bes is often depicted as a lion rearing up on his hind legs, or as a hairy demon with his face on his chest, which one could interpret as "having no head" with a lot of imagination if one really wants to. The former camp syncretizes this demon with Typhon, the latter underlines his role as the protector of Osiris.

In my eyes both ways are completely useless attempts that prove nothing. I've seen many depictions of Bes, and in none of them he appeared even close to being "headless". He was one of the most commonly worshipped spirits by royal as well as common families in Egypt and able to help establish relationships with every other spirit, so it is to no surprise that he appears in many occasions in Greco Egyptian spells, but I doubt any close connection to Akephalos.

(Photo: Statues of Bes in the Neues Museum Berlin)

If I had to choose between the two camps, I would lean more towards the Osirian one, simply because their arguments seem more consistent to me. And in relation to the "Headless Rite" it makes more sense to ritually identify with the god of the underworld in order to gain control over the world of spirits. Oh and yes, Osiris is literally called by his name in the ritual.

But to be honest, the more I am practicing the Headless Rite the less I believe the Headless One to be one specific deity or spirit, but an archetype of headlessness itself, with all the symbolism and interpretations it evokes, from loss of orientation to transcendence.

(Update: in a newer article I dive deeper into this topic)

PGM VII and VIII

In PGM VII 222ff I don't believe Bes has anything to do with headlessness. Yes, he is being conjured and even called "headless one", but I agree with Preisendanz that this is probably an erroneous version of the same spell in PGM VIII 64ff, where Bes is conjured, but with the help of Osiris.

The Berlin Papyrus

PGM II aka. the Berlin Papyrus features this famous drawing of a headless person with the seven sacred vowels written over his chest. The Typhonian camp likes to see "snake heads" coming out of his shoulders as a proof of the Typhonian character of this Akephalos. The Osirian Preisendanz claims that the seven vowels and the magic words "Damnameneus" and "Semesilam" that are written next to the drawing, as well as the scarab drawing on the previous column and the spell itself hint towards a solar deity, a syncretized Helios-Osiris.

I think both are over-interpretations of this drawing, because when you read the instructions of the spell this drawing is a part of, it says to "make a lampwick out of a piece of cloth taken from one who has died violently" and the provided image is to be drawn onto this piece of cloth. In the Greek orginal the term "one who has died violently" is "βιαιος". Usually, the spirits of the dead who died violently (βιαιοθανατοι) are considered very powerful. I support Franz Dornseiff in his quite pragmatic explanation that the drawn headless figure is simply a sketch of a decapitated "βιαιος" (6). Also Merkelbach/Totti lean towards this interpretation (5).

Another possible interpretation is that the depicted headless god is the Egyptian Decan deity "Kenmu" who is most commonly pictured as having no head or his head hidden behind a disk shaped object. Kenmu's Greek name is "Komme" and in lines 117 until 124 the spell calls upon "Kommes" several times, the whole ritual might even be an attempt to bind the Decan god and one of the ways to achieve this is by drawing his picture.

(Photo: The Decan Kenmu, image on the ceiling of the Hypostile Hall of Dendera)

Akephalos in the Stele of Jeu

In the "Headless Rite" aka. "Stele of Jeu" it is Osiris who is summoned as "the headless one" and "the beautiful Osiris". He is being identified and syncretised with the Jewish desert demon / creator god YHVH. In his forms as Osiris-Ra, and Osiris-Aion he also hints towards the demon Abrasax and the declaration of his name being a "heart girt by a serpent" clearly points to the primordial god Phanes and his other later synthesized mutations as Aion and Mithras.

The descriptions in the praises of the text clearly point to Osiris who had put the newly created world into an order of harmonious opposites together with Isis. It also fits the creation process in Genesis.

I tried to find the meanings of the barbarous names used in the rite. Some of them are Hebrew (e.g. αρβαθιαω = Arbah Iao = "four of god") voces magicae, some are strings of sacred vowels (e.g. αηωωυ), some sound Egyptiany (e.g. σοχοu) but for most of them I was not able to determine a meaning.

Number Crunching

It is interesting that by adding the isopsephic values of all subsequent words in the strings of barbarous names and then reducing them ("rule of nine") to single digit numbers, most of them result in 1 or 4.

αρβαθιαω ρειβετ αθελεβερσηθ αρα βλαθα αλβεu εβενφχι χιτασγοη ιβαωθ ιαω (5905 reduced to 1)
αρογογοροβραω σοχοu μοδοριω φαλαρχαω οοο (5737 reduced to 4)
ροuβριαω μαρι ωδαμ βααβναβαωθ ασσ αδωναι αφνιαω ιθωληθ αβρασαξ αηωωυ (8887 reduce to 4)
μαβαρριαω ιεηλ κοθα αθορηβαλω αβραωθ (3142 reduce to 1, also when adding up the ordial values gematrically, they reduce from 289 to 1)
αωθ αβαωθ βασυμ ισακ σαβαωθ ιαω (4321 reduce to 1)
ιεοu πυρ ιοu πυρ ιαωτ ιαηω ιοοu αβρασαξ σαβριαμ οο υυ ευ οο υυ αδωναιε (7490 reduce to 2)
ανλαλα λαι γαια απα διαχαννα χορυν (2188 reduce to 1)

For completion here the revived vowels and six names too:

αιη αιωι ηωιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευωαι εαι υο ιαω ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω (9999 reduce to 9)
χαβραχ φνεσχηρ φιχρο φνυρω φωχω βωχ (9999 reduce to 9, also when adding up the ordial values gematrically, they reduce from 486 to 9)

Towards the Godhead

After regular practice, my own understanding of the Stele of Jeu ritual is that it follows a quite transcendental logic and seems to describe an almost Gnostic ascension of the own self towards the Godhead through stages of self-identification with different spiritual forms up to the highest being of the universe.

One begins as a human being humbly praying to Osiris, praising his divine achievements and immediately syncretizing him with the Jewish god YHVH as Iabas and Iapôs in the usual pagan way of accepting the gods as gods beyond belief-systems.
On the second step the practitioner identifies as an enlightened human, having achieved Gnosis, having become a prophet: Moses as well as a Messenger of Pharaoh Osiris.
The third step is a more potent address to the supreme god by using a row of secret barbarous names, to really get his attention. Embedded in more similar subsequent calls is a request to exorcise restraining demons, which is applied to oneself. It's a process of cleansing and purification embedded in magic language of the ancient gods.
After being cleared of all demons, in step four one identifies as being an angel of god, taking the form of an invincible, eternal, headless daimon.
The velocity of the ascent now increases rapidly, as in step five one becomes the truth itself, with clear moral views, one becomes the thundering and lightning wielding Zeus as well as the terrifying and unpredictable god of creation and destruction - raging with a flaming mouth, Yahweh!
In the next step the image becomes blurrier and more abstract. No more identifications with anthropomorphic deities, but a rise up to the level of the symbolic, the Favor of the Aion, your own name having become ineffable and only to be understood as an image: a heart encircled by a serpent.
The seventh and final level of ascension to the godhead becomes completely inexpressible and can only be attempted to be described beyond human imagination, by the largest possible magical number of 9,999 expressed in voces magicae and the vibrations of the divine sounds of the seven vowels. Images are transcended to the level of pure resonance, the unified field of consciousness.

The ascent is completed and one demands the subjugation of all daimons. From such a perspective that literally includes everything, even gods.

(Update: in a newer article I dive deeper into this topic)

(Photo: Phanes Protogonos, surrounded by the Zodiac)

Aligning the Temple

In the beginning I used to draw a circle, do a banishing routine and face the direction of Orion while doing this ritual. In his book Chaos Protocols Gordon White suggested this direction and he elaborates on it connecting to the millennia old tradition of honouring the Headless Hunter in the sky in Star.Ships:

Straddling the modern and supremely ancient world, the Headless Rite is an invocation of an asterism that led tribes across the globe for tens of millennia, that had ‘headless’ star temples raised in honour of it and its consort where hunters would feast, take drugs and learn the skills of grain cultivation, that became associated with stellar immortality (and still grain) to such an extent that great stone maps of it were built upon the earth. In a transparently shamanic survival, alignment with this asterism conferred kingship over the realm of the spirits. So potent was the initiatory power of headlessness – to have one’s head in another realm – that it has survived into two of the three great religions of the Near East in the form of John the Baptist, who ‘initiates’ Christ and thus brings that same promise of victory over death back down to earth. (1)

After several executions I found myself more drawn to the Egyptian parts in it and faced the consort and sister of Orion, Isis, in her form as Sothis or the star Sirius.

But once I had worked out the six names to be used according to the PGM, I started following the orientation in the original text towards North. The difference in power to this ritual was very much noticable and I continued facing this direction until today.

As I understand the ritual today I assert that North is the only logical direction on your ascent up. And it's not the magnetic North, it's the celestial North. The visible turning point of the axis mundi, the heart girt by a serpent (the constellation Draco revolves around the polar star).

Having experienced the potency of this proceeding I also completely stopped drawing a circle and banishing. It just doesn't fit. I visualize myself and my changing divine position in the universe during each of the seven steps and as the universe revolves around me while I rise up it becomes the magic circle. As I grow in divine potency after my self-exorcism, there's nothing left to banish.

I am certain that it is quite a risky ritual that needs to be followed through until the end once started. I think there might be unpredictable consequences if one doesn't complete it or skips parts in it. Sometimes it happens that I stumble pronouncing the barbarous names correctly and to be on the safe side, I usually repeat the whole sentence until it feels right.

(Continued in a newer article)

(1) White, Gordon, "Star.Ships: A Prehistory of the Spirits", Scarlet Imprint (VIII. The Mirror of Heaven, X. Children of the Mother of Heaven)

(2) Delatte, Armand L., ""Études sur la magie grecque. V. Akephalos Theos", Bulletin de correspondance hellénique Année 1914 Volume 38 Numéro 1 pp. 189-249

(3) Stratton-Kent, Jake, "The Headless One. A Guide to the Underworld.", Hadean Press, Published in June, 2012. 28 pages.

(4) Preisendanz, Karl, "Akephalos. Der kopflose Gott", Beihefte zum Alten Orient 8 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1926)

(5) Reinhold Merkelbach, Maria Totti, "Abrasax: Ausgewählte Papyri religiösen und magischen Inhalts", Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia, 1991)

(6) Dornseiff, Franz, "Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie"

(7) Robert E. Svoboda, AghoraII: Kundalini, Brotherhood of Life Publishing, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Routines in Theurgy

2017-11-28T20:00:00+01:00

As an almost full-time father of a now one year old child my spare time for enchantment is quite limited. The only thing I manage to routinely do is a daily adoration of the day's ruling planetary spirit. I have formed a habit of doing early morning walks with my daughter through a lovely park nearby and mostly they happen around sunrise. The park has a small hill at one end of it that I have chosen as my temple for the daily visits. Since June of this year I've visited the hill almost every day and recited the daily Planetary Prayer from the Hygromanteia. (My daughter started to say "Amen" right when it's appropriate, in sync with me, it's freaky!)

The other routine I have is a monthly run of the Stele of Jeu aka Headless Rite around every New Moon when the illumination is just after 0% and it just starts waxing again. It feels like a great starting point for the upcoming month's endeavors, and so far it has served me well. I also try to do this on the same hill, depending on the time of the day and how much privacy I will potentially have up there.

I started to dislike the commanding tone of the Planetary Prayers and how the planets are being subdued in the name of god and I switched to the Orphic Hymns two week ago. It makes a huge difference for me! I feel more connected to the planets than before, and I have the feeling that I am being increasingly noticed by them too.

Especially in the last two weeks since the last New Moon some things have happened that seem like "results" without me even having specifically asked for them. I got four freelance job offers within a couple of days after months of really almost nothing going on, also my relationship has improved, my general mood too.

Yesterday, after having finished my hymn to Selene and closed the widdershins circumambulation of the temple mound, on the way down I found a little yellow children's torch. Instant synchronicity! Just the night before, in bed I had read one of Uncle Chuckie's e-books on Psionics in which he talks about how he's always had a problem with having to imagine a beam of light coming out of his magic wand when using it in ritual and eventually ditching it for a torchlight. This idea resonated with me and I intended to imitate it one day, turned around in bed and fell asleep. And the next morning I find one on my temple mound! Well, here's my new wand! And its brand is "Brainstorm Ltd" (online research revealed that it's actually a toy photo projector that projects images up to one meter wide onto walls and ceilings!) I was puzzled by my find and on the way home through the park my daughter pointed to something on a park-bench. I looked and it was a kids drawing block, soaking wet from rain. I picked it up and opened it and on the first page someone had written "Each takes what he needs" and drawn a heart below it.

Alright then, thanks universe!

Tail of the Dragon

2017-09-01T19:30:00+02:00

I returned to the Croatian island of Pag for a job - exactly one year after my serpent dream that sent me on this journey of enchantment. I was very excited, because I had decided to celebrate this anniversary with a series of self initiation rituals during the New Moon that was also a solar eclipse. In the weeks prior to this trip I had researched, translated and practiced a number of magical texts and constructed two rituals to be done. One in the waning phase of the New Moon, the other one in the waxing phase.

Monday

I chose the hour of Mercury on the day of the Moon as the beginning of the ritual and it's end in the following hour of the Moon. The location was to be the highest elevation point on the island, a hill called Sveti Vid (Saint Vitus) with a small church ruin on the top and a cement pillar next to it, marking the summit.

After approximately 20 hours of fasting and a short ritual shower at home I took a rented scooter to Kolan, the village next to the hill, and hiked for around an hour ascending across rocky desert and under burning hot August sun until I reached the summit. I encountered a large group of German teenagers and several tourists up there and I patiently waited until they finally left and had descended far enough for me to have enough privacy for my ritual.

First I drew the seals of the Four Kings to the corresponding sides of the pillar, lit a stick of frankincense in front of the wooden virgin Mary statue inside the abandoned chapel and then I circled the whole summit area clockwise, drawing an "astral" circle around it while simply banishing by repeatedly chanting "Hekas, Hekas, Este Bebeloi!"

Then I did a consecration spell for this created circular temple and to the spirit of fire (incense) and opened the ritual with planetary prayers to the Moon and to Mercury and then followed up by reciting the Orphic hymns to Selene (moon), Helios (sun) and Protogonos (connects to the Headless One quite nicely).

Now came the main part: the Headless Rite (Gordon White's Chaos Protocols version). I lit another stick of incense and as the six names to be spoken towards North I used the Ephesia Grammata, as they seemed more powerful to me than the classic choice of names and due to their meaning that seemed fitting to this day of the solar eclipse. I transitioned directly into the invocation of the Four Kings with offerings of rum and pieces of my burek lunch to the corresponding directions.

At this point I took a break and wandered around in silence and contemplation. I felt the sun burning from above and wind in my hair and was filled with a feeling of excitement and empowerment. There was a small bird of prey circling around the summit. I like to think it was a swift.

I closed with praises and thanks ("license of departure") addressed to each of the Four Kings and to whatever spirits present and sat down in the shade on the northern side of the chapel to enjoy my lunch.

The descend was more difficult than expected, because the sun was shining directly into my face and I was overwhelmed by a feeling of exhaustion. When I arrived back home I noticed my face and especially nose were quite sunburnt.

Tuesday

This time I did another hike into a small valley that I had already discovered the year before. Today I was a bit smarter than yesterday and wore a linen shirt as a kufiya over my head to have better protection from the sun. In the beautiful valley I chose a distinguished rock formation as my temple, climbed it, lit a stick of frankincense and did a very simple consecration and banishing spell. As this ritual was meant to take place in honour of Mars, the ruler of my zodiac sun sign as well as of the day and hour of my birth I chose also the hour of Mars on this Martian day.

I opened with the planetary prayer to Mars and two Orphic hymns to Ares and then proceeded with the lengthy but very powerful instruction for recitation of the heptagram (PGM XIII, 762ff), followed up by the Headless Rite, again using the Ephesia Grammata as the six names formula. After some moments of meditation I left the temple space without any closure and hiked back to the road where my scooter was waiting.

Thursday

I have this job on Pag every year, so I've had the chance in the past to explore the island thoroughly. My favorite spot is a very rocky desert area in the northeast and I went hiking there a few times. Last year I wanted to find out more about this area and I researched a bit online. I was utterly terrified to find out that this exact spot used to be the site of a concentration camp during the time Croatia was a Nazi puppet state ruled by the fascist revolutionary organisation "Ustaše". A couple of thousand Jews, Serbs and antifascists have been murdered there and thrown into the sea or buried under the rocks. The most appaling part about this is that there is not a single sign or piece of information about this on the island itself, nobody wants to talk about it or simply denies it has ever happened. This has caused me several sleepless nights throughout the last year and I wanted to visit the dead on this visit to spend some time with them in contemplation and remembrance.

To reach the area where the "Slana" camp used to be you have to take a boat across Pag bay or hike for one to two hours from the village of Metajna across undeveloped rocky wasteland. I did the latter and in the August heat this was a quite demanding task. When I had eventually made it to Slana bay, I walked by a handful of tourists on the beach who had arrived by boat, enjoying themselves while giving me a strange look, obviously surprised to see me arrive on foot covered in my kufiya. I continued uphill to the valley where the camps used to be.

Someone had erected a wooden cross near the site, without any sign. I don't remember having seen it last year. I walked up to it and lit an incense stick, poured a bit of the spring water I had brought as an offering near the base of the cross and spontaneously recited the Lord's Prayer (something I haven't uttered since my confirmation in early teenage years) in honour of the Serbs and antifascists who had been murdered here.

A bit downhill from the cross, I could see a little thorny tree sticking out of the dry rocks. I walked towards it and it was some kind of thistle, maybe half a meter high. It made me smile - such a rugged and courageous plant. It seemed very appropriate as a symbol of life in all this barren rocky wasteland with it's hidden history of torture and death, so I decided to sit down next to it. I said a prayer for the ancestors and mighty dead and added some impromptu things I wanted to say. I emptied the remaining spring water at the base of the bush, as an offering to all the Jews who had suffered and been killed here and I put one of those "eternal" candles used on cemeteries next to it in memory of all the victims of this valley.

Usually there is a lot of wind blowing through the valley carrying all kinds of sounds with it, of jet-skis and the techno party-boats, bird- and sheep-sounds. But the moment after I prayed next to the thorny bush, the whole valley suddenly seemed to have become dead silent for a couple of endless seconds. It gave me shivers and I had the strange feeling of being "watched".

The hike back to Metajna went faster than expected and I drove back home, completely exhausted.

UPG Notes:

Besides feeling "empowered" and "magicky" during the rituals on Monday and Tuesday I didn't have any direct "results" from doing them. Actually, I didn't even expect any, since my work in Croatia was in the context of a multiday electronic music event each night from 11 until 6 followed by short and not too good stretches of almost dreamless sleep, which is not really the best mental or "spiritual" condition to be in. In addition I didn't feel fully comfortable doing the ritual on top of Sveti Vid mountain, because I was constantly paranoid that tourists might pop up any second.

One thing I noticed though, already from Monday evening on throughout the whole week was that people suddenly seemed way more "courteous" towards me than usual. I consider myself a relatively shy person that likes to be more in the background of things, so I noticed it quite immediately that my "popularity" was higher than usual. Not sure if that's just a psychological side-effect of feeling more "empowered" or of the rituals themselves.

The most spiritually intense moment of this trip was that very quiet and dense moment at Slana bay after my offerings and prayer.

I will patiently wait and see if there will be any events or experiences that I can trace back to these rituals. Solar eclipses are supposed to have an astrological "afterglow" of around 6 months, so I am not in a hurry.

Gebete und Segenssprüche

2017-08-30T20:00:00+02:00

Version 2, 26.8.2018

Hier eine wachsende Sammlung einfacher Sprüche und Gebete

Weihung des Tempels

Im Namen des Nous, dieser Tempel sei für unseren Schutz geweiht, Bei der Kraft des Logos, dieser Tempel sei für unsere Vollendung geschützt, In Sophias Willen, dieser Tempel sei für unser Werk vollendet. IAO AOI OIA AIO IOA OAI

(hier gefunden)

Weihung des Feuers

(bzw. Segnung des Weihrauches, beim entzünden gesprochen)

Ich beschwöre dich, du Geschöpf des Feuers, bei ihm, der alle Dinge im Himmel, auf der Erde und im Meer und an jedem anderen Ort erschaffen hat, dass du gleich alle gespensterischen Wirkungen von dir entfernest und uns in Nichts schaden könnest. Oh Herr, segne dieses Geschöpf des Feuers, und heilige es, dass es gesegnet sei, und dass es diesen Ort mit der Macht und Tugend seines Duftes erfülle, damit weder der Feind, noch jegliches Geist diesen Ort betrete. Amen

(aus Cyprian's Höllenzwang)

Opferformel

Den Göttinnen und Göttern, Engeln und Geistern, ganz besonders NN, sowie den Hütern dieses Ortes, an dem ich wohne, opfere ich Respekt.

Meinen Ahnen, Beschützern und Verbündeten, insbesondere NN opfere ich tief empfundene Dankbarkeit.

Allen Wesen des Himmels, des Landes, der Unterwelt; allen Lebewesen in allen Richtungen, ganz besonders denjenigen, die auf, über und unter der Erde hausen, opfere ich Lebenskraft und Nahrung.

Allen Wesen, in deren Schuld ich stehe, und die ich durch Irrtum oder Unwissenheit verärgert habe, opfere ich mein Flehen um Vergebung.

(aus Jason Miller's Elements of Spellcrafting)

Reisegebet

Himmlischer Vater, schütze mich auf meiner Reise, damit ich das Ziel glücklich erreiche und lass mich auf dieser Reise Dir näher kommen. Steh allen bei, die in diesen Tagen unterwegs sind und gewähre Deinen Schutz auch denen, die daheim bleiben. Der heilige Engel Raphael geleite uns auf diesem Weg, dass wir wohlbehalten in Frieden und Freude heimkehren. Amen

Lizenz zum Abgang

O großer und mächtiger Geist NN, ich danke Dir für Deine Anwesenheit. Du bist gekommen, wie ich angerufen habe, und halfst mir, wie ich gebeten habe. Wie du in Frieden gekommen bist, und im Namen des allseits gesegneten und gerechten Tetragrammaton, so darfst du in diesem Namen abreisen und zu mir zurückkehren, wenn ich dich in seinem Namen anrufe, vor dem jeder niederkniet. Lebewohl, NN; Friede sei zwischen uns, hier und überall, jetzt und immer, um des Allmächtigen willen. Amen.

Lebt wohl, Geister des Nordens, Alte der Erde. Ich danke euch für eure Anwesenheit. Bis zum nächsten Mal, Mächtige, geht in Frieden mit Kraft.

Lebt wohl, Geister des Westens, Alte der Erde. Ich danke euch für eure Anwesenheit. Bis zum nächsten Mal, Mächtige, geht in Frieden mit Kraft.

Lebt wohl, Geister des Südens, Alte der Erde. Ich danke euch für eure Anwesenheit. Bis zum nächsten Mal, Mächtige, geht in Frieden mit Kraft.

Lebt wohl, Geister des Ostens, Alte der Erde. Ich danke euch für eure Anwesenheit. Bis zum nächsten Mal, Mächtige, geht in Frieden mit Kraft.

(inspiriert von hier)

Die Vier Könige

2017-08-30T19:00:00+02:00

Anrufung der Vier Könige der Himmelsrichtungen. Normalerweise werden diese in solomonischen Ritualen angerufen, um sie zu binden und durch ihre Autorität an niedere Dämonen zu kommen. Daher sind die Formulierungen in der Regel autoritär und befehlend. Das Besondere bei dieser Version aus dem Clavicula Salomonis (Kapitel XI, Colorno Manuskripte, Könige MS 288) (englische Version online) ist die respektvolle Anrede, was mir persönlich besser gefällt. Gefunden habe ich die Anrufung in Gordon White's Chaos Protocols, wo er sie in Kombination mit dem Headless Rite als Selbstinitiation vorschlägt.

Ich rufe die vier Könige der vier Ecken der Erde. Edelste und älteste Geister, seid jetzt bei mir.

Oh östlicher Oriens, schillerndster, herausragendster König, der über die östlichen Regionen herrscht und gebietet, dessen Reich mit der Gründung der Welt begann und das bis zum Ende aller Dinge fortbestehen wird. Ich beschwöre und rufe dich, in den höchsten und heiligsen Namen Gottes: zeige dich hier, bekleidet mit deiner ganzen Macht. Oriens, ich beschwöre dich bei der Tugend und der Macht des Schöpfers und bei der Tugend der Tugenden.

Oh du, Paymon, herrlichster König, der mächtige Hoheitsgewalt über die westlichen Regionen des Himmels hat. Ich beschwöre und rufe dich, in den höchsten und heiligsten Namen Gottes: zeige dich hier, bekleidet mit deiner ganzen Macht. Paymon, ich beschwöre dich bei der Tugend und der Macht des Schöpfers und bei der Tugend der Tugenden.

Oh du, Egym, stärkster König, dessen mächtiges Reich in die kalten Regionen des Nordens reicht. Ich beschwöre und rufe dich, bei den höchsten und heiligsten Namen Gottes: zeige dich hier, bekleidet mit deiner ganzen Macht. Ariton, ich beschwöre dich bei der Tugend und der Macht des Schöpfers und bei der Tugend der Tugenden.

Oh du Amaymon, edelster König, Herrscher der südlichen Reiche. Ich beschwöre und rufe dich, bei den höchsten und heiligsten Namen Gottes: zeige dich hier, bekleidet mit deiner ganzen Macht. Amaymon, ich beschwöre dich bei der Tugend und der Macht des Schöpfers und bei der Tugend der Tugenden.

Ich rufe euch mit aller Macht, und ich bete zu euch mit der Autorität des Einen, der sprach und der alles erschaffen hat, und der mit einem einzigen Wort die Welt gebahr und dem alle Geschöpfe gehorchen. Beim Sitz seiner Majestät, bei dem er die Zeitalter vor dem ewigen Zeitalter erschaffen hat, der mit den vier Buchstaben beschrieben ist: Jod, He, Vau, He, und bei allen Talismanen und ihren Tugenden und bei den großartigen und heiligen Namen des Schöpfers , edelste Könige, bitte ich um eure Hilfe und euren Segen. Im heiligsten Namen Adonai, dessen Tugend keinen Anfang hat und kein Ende haben wird. So sei es.

The Six Names

2017-08-19T21:00:00+02:00

Updated version 4.0

During my work on a functional version of the Stele of Jeu for ritual use based on the German translation by Preisendanz¹ and his monograph Akephalos - The Headless God² I hit a massive roadblock.

The ritual requires a formula of 6 names to be written on a parchment and recited facing north. But it surprised me to find no actual mention of these names in the text.

Isaac's Sabaoth

According to what I have seen in books, articles, and online discussions, all modern practitioners use the following voces magicae as the required formula:

AŌTH ABRAŌTH BASYM ISAK SABAŌTH IAŌ

This seems to work well enough for modern chaos magicians. But in the original PGM text there is no indication whatsoever that above words are the formula to be used. These six words are merely the only row of six subsequent voces magicae to be found in this spell³.

On top of that, above transliteration has a typo. It's supposed to be ABAOTH and not ABRAOTH. An observant reader has pointed out in the comments that both, this typo and this choice of six names, are most likely traceable to the book Hermetic Magic: The Postmodern Papyrus of Abaris by S. E. Flowers⁴.

I checked the sources and found that when the spell was first published⁵ in 1852 by Charles Goodwin it did not contain any transliterations of barbarous names. And as preliminary invocation in The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King⁶ by Aleister Crowley the spell neither had this typo, nor any special meaning attributed to these six words. But then again, Crowley was also quite liberal in his translation and adaptation of the spell.

So back to the original source. If you'd want to be persnickety like Preisendanz, who interpreted BASYM⁷ not as a name but as the Aramaic word "ba'shem" or "in the name of", it would only leave five names, wouldn't it?

According to the work "Abrasax" by Reinhold Merkelbach and Maria Totti⁸ from 1991 which includes a number of PGM spells with commentary, AOTH and likely also ABAOTH are shorter forms of SABAOTH. This means that the string of "barbarous names" reads as:

(SAB)AŌTH, (S)ABAŌTH, in the name of ISAAC('s) SABAŌTH-IAŌ

The Orphic Formula

In Betz' Greek Magical Papyri in Translation⁹ you can find a footnote regarding the six names:

The term ὄνομα apparently refers to a formula containing a number of magical words.

At this point in my research, I considered the possibility that the original author of the papyrus was referring to a formula so obvious and well known to magi at the time that simply mentioning "the six names" would have been enough for the reader to understand what was meant. What supports this idea is the fact that throughout the PGM, some voces magicae that are commonly used are just noted down as "do the usual" or as abbreviations, e.g. "ABERAMEN (formula)" in PGM IV, 182 actually refers to the palindrome:

ABERAMENThŌOULERThEXANAXEThRELUOŌThNEMAREBA

(See also Leonardo Drakon's awesome post on this)

But what could be the well known "six names"? One of the most famous magical hexagrammata of the time that can be found on numerous talismans and in other protective magical contexts in dozens of places between Egypt and Sicily are the Ephesia Grammata, also called Orphic formula. This terminology can also be found in PGM VII, 452:

But if you cause [the plate] to be buried or [sunk in] river or land or sea or stream or coffin or in a well, write the Orphic formula, saying, "ASKEI KAI TASKEI" and, taking a black thread, make 365 knots, ...

The six names of the "Ephesia Grammata" are:

ASKION KATASKION LIX TETRAX DAMNAMENEUS AISION

I highly recommend the awesome paper The Ephesia Grammata: Logos Orphaikos or Apolline Alexima pharmaka? by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III. and this great post over at the Hekate Covenant on a different version of the Ephesa Grammata that is being used in the PGM.

While the orphic formula is indeed a powerful choice that would make much more sense to use instead of the widespread Isaac Sabaoth one discussed above, this is not the end of the story...

Scarab Hunt

The German Preisendanz translation¹ has a very interesting footnote regarding the "6 names". It claims that the original papyrus contains an annotation about the missing formula! Betz had merely hinted at this. The Preisendanz footnote says:

"On the upper edge of the column is written the (damaged) name ...AIE AIŌI EYIAE AEI ŌŌE AIEOYEYŌ... [and that] the formula is 49 letters long and has a value of 9999 ... reference to a different spell about resurrection of a scarab that has the same name with 49 letters."

(damaged note on the edge of the London Papyrus 46 aka. PGM V)

I also asked my friend Spiro who knows Greek to take a look at it and he interprets the annotation as something along the line of :

αιη αιωι ηυιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευω ... ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω. And this is what the revived words of the scarab call for.

I found some spells in the same papyrus that involve a scarab: PGM V 213-303 which is neither about a resurrection of the beetle, nor does it have any voces magicae in it. Another one is PGM VII, 505-28 which features the 48 letter long magical name "AŌ SATHREN ABRASAX IAŌAI AEŌ ĒŌA ŌAĒ IAO IĒO EY AĒ EY IE IAŌAI", but isn't about resurrecting the bug. The only spell about actually reviving a scarab in the PGM is number IV, 475-829 but it only contains very short barbarous names.

But eventually I found something:

PGM II. 64-183 features a drawing of a scarab at the bottom edge. The described ritual is an "alternative procedure" of a conjuration of Apollon-Helios for wisdom and blessing. Especially when you look at the original papyrus (Berlin P. 5026) you will find it in the third column on the bottom.

And guess what image is drawn right next to this column? A HEADLESS figure! The same one that Jake Stratton-Kent used on his little "Headless One" chapbook.

In the middle of the column above the scarab (PGM II. 127) it is written:

I am he, NN, who have presented myself to you, and you have given me as a gift the knowledge of your most great name, of which the number is 9999: IĒ IE IA IAĒ IAE IEY IĒA IŌA IEY IĒI ĒIA EA EĒ ĒE ŌĒ ĒŌ EĒE EEĒ ĒEE AAŌ ŌEA EAŌ ŌI ŌE ĒŌ EĒ EAE III OOO YYY ŌŌŌ IY EY OY ĒEA IĒEA EAE EIA IAIE IĒA IOY IŌE IOY IĒ IĒ IĒ IĒIE;

Sounds familiar? Of course it does! Vowels!

Is this the formula the author was referring to in the scribbled note regarding the scarab?

Perhaps the annotation on the Stele of Jeu papyrus was done hastily. The author might have remembered that the name to be used was "on that scarab whatever page", that it enumerates to 9999 and consists of something along the line of "...AIE AIŌI EYIAE AEI ŌŌE AIEOYEYO...".

I threw the Greek letters from Preisendanz transcript into an isopsephy (Greek gematria) calculator but they add up to 15446. Weird...did I miss something?

When I cross-checked Kieren Barry's "Greek Qabalah"¹⁰ for the correct isophsephic values I stumbled upon the solution by coincidence.

There it was! I found it on page 96:

A talisman that features an image of Harpocrates (Horus) seated on a lotus flower surrounded by triads of adoring animals; on its reverse, the formula:

χαβραχ φνεσχηρ φιχρο φνυρω φωχω βωχ

A magical formula apparently known as "The Great Name" which gematrically adds up to 9999!

And it was there all the time!

This exact formula is written shortly AFTER the above mentioned vowels in the middle of the column with the scarab on it! It is mis-spelled and the whitespace is off, and due to the typo it actually doesn't add to 9999 but only 8139

χαβραχ φλιεσ κηρφι νυρω φωχω βωχ

According to footnote 39 in Betz⁹:

The spacing of this formula has been changed to conform to the spacing of the same formula found elsewhere in the PGM (see I. 141—42; III. 77—78, 151-52 , etc.)

the editor also erroneously "fixed" it to:

CHABRACH PHLIESKĒR PHIKRO PHINYRŌ PHŌCHŌBŌCH

Instead, the correct formula of the six names that add up to 9999 that the scribe hastily (or purposefully?) mis-spelled are actually supposed to be written like this:

χαβραχ φνεσχηρ φιχρο φνυρω φωχω βωχ

CHABRACH PHNESCHĒR PHICHRO PHNYRŌ PHŌCHŌ BŌCH

BINGO!

Chimeric Splicing

Now, the perfectionist in me wondered: what about the vowels from the annotation?

I remembered that in Merkelbach/Totti's Abrasax⁸ the authors offer a slightly different take on the annotation:

On the upper edge an annotation; First a series of vowels, then: These are (in total) 49 letters; the sum of the calculation is 9999.

No mention of a scarab here. According to the authors, it's the vowels that are supposed to add up to 9999.

Sure...let's do this...

Minus whatever vowels got lost from the torn corner of the papyrus we still have 39 vowels that add up to a gematric value of 8291. That leaves us with ten missing vowels that need to add up to 1708 to reach the required 9999.

I spent over an hour trying to splice the missing vowels into the ones we already have - and I failed!

It was just impossible to create an isopsephy value of 1708 with just 10 vowels and possible values of 1, 5, 8, 10, 70, 400, 800 without deleting any of the letters that we already have. Aaarrgh!

So I went full OCD and looked back at the original papyrus and deciphered the handwritten letters myself. I noticed that the first ypsilon (in ĒYIAĒ) seems to have been actually quite a guess by Preisendanz. More than half of the letter is missing at the top. It could totally also be another letter the scribe does not necessarily write in the full line height, for example a miniscule omega.

So I tried again with ĒŌIAĒ in the series of vowels instead of ĒYIAĒ:

αιη αιωι ηωιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευω ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω

This leaves us with a value of 8691 and 1308 missing. Back to the splicing table. Eventually I got it!

If we add 1 omega, 1 ypsilon, 1 omicron, 3 iotas, 1 epsilon, and 3 alphas to get from 39 letters to the required 49 we reach an isopsephy sum of 9999!

To put these new letters into a meaningful combination I tried for quite a while to make them adhere to the following rules:

they need to sound nicely and in tune with the existing vowels when vibrating the whole series
be made up of realistic vowel combinations that already exist in the PGM, and
hypothetically fit into the empty space of the missing papyrus corner.

I eventually succeeded! Here is the chimerically spliced vowel series of the annotation:

αιη αιωι ηωιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευωαι εαι υο ιαω ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω (9999)

and a photoshopped version of the papyrus itself:

Conclusion

Unfortunately the London Papyrus 46 with the annotation is torn on the edge, so we will never know what it really said but the reference to the scarab papyrus makes sense. Dfinitely more so than repeating the completely randomly chosen "AŌTH ABAŌTH BASYM ISAK SABAŌTH IAŌ" formula.

So, why not use the magically resurrected 49 vowels of the annotation in addition to the famous greatest name that both enumerate to 9999:

AIĒ AIŌI ĒŌIAĒ AĒ IŌ ŌĒ AIĒOYEYŌAI EAI YO IAŌ IŌĒ OAY AEĒ YŌYŌ

CHABRACH PHNESCHĒR PHICHRO PHNYRŌ PHŌCHŌ BŌCH

I guess the only solution to the missing formula is the magic solution: take it, use it, experiment with it, and see where it will take you!

Preisendanz, Karl, "Papyri graecae magicae", Band 1 (Leipzig, 1928) ↩↩
Preisendanz, Karl, "Akephalos. Der kopflose Gott", Beihefte zum Alten Orient 8 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1926) ↩
Someone on /r/occult had an interesting dissection of the 6 word name AŌTH ABRAŌTH BASYM ISAK SABAŌTH IAŌ. ↩
Flowers, Stephen E. "Hermetic Magic: The Postmodern Papyrus of Abaris." Maine: Red Wheel/Weiser, 1995. Archive Copy ↩
Goodwin, Charles Wycliffe, ed. Fragment of a Græco-Egyptian Work Upon Magic: From a Papyrus in the British Museum. No. 2. Deighton, 1852. Archive Copy ↩
Crowley, Aleister, and Solomon (King of Israel.). Goetia. First Impressions, 1904. Archive Copy ↩
בְּשֵׁם, [b'shem] derived from בְּ־ in; by and שֵׁם name. ↩
Reinhold Merkelbach, Maria Totti, "Abrasax: Ausgewählte Papyri religiösen und magischen Inhalts", Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia, 1991 ↩↩
Betz, ed. by Hans Dieter (1992). "The Greek magical papyri in translation including the Demotic spells" (2nd ed.). Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. ↩↩
Kieren Barry, "The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetical Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World", 1999 by Red Wheel Weiser ↩

Die Stele des Ieû

2017-08-15T19:30:00+02:00

Graeco-ägyptisches Exorzimus Ritual aus den Griechischen Zauberpapyri (PGM V 96-173), auch "Headless Rite" oder "Bornless Rite" genannt, von Aleister Crowley in modifizierter Form "Liber Samekh". Der hier abgedruckte Text basiert auf der deutschen Übersetzung von Karl Preisendanz (1)(2). Die "Voces Magicae" wurden aus der englischen Übersetzung von Hans Dieter Betz (bzw. D. E. Aune) (3) ergänzt und ein paar Fehler korrigiert bzw. umformuliert.

Dank auch an Spiro from Triple Snake für Hilfestellung beim Verständnis des altgriechischen Originals.

(Version 1.3 / 29.10.2018)

"Dich rufe ich, den Kopflosen, der geschaffen hat Erde und Himmel, der geschaffen hat Nacht und Tag, dich, der geschaffen hat Licht und Finsternis; du bist OSOR-ONNÔPHRIS (4), den keiner je gesehen.

Du bist IABAS, Du bist IAPÔS, Du hast geschieden das Rechte und das Unrechte, Du hast geschaffen das Weibliche und das Männliche, Du hast gezeigt Saat und Früchte, Du hast gemacht, daß die Menschen einander lieben und hassen. Du hast gezeigt das Feuchte und das Trockene und alle Nahrung.

Ich bin Moses, Dein Prophet, dem Du Deine Geheimnisse mitgeteilt hast, vollzogen von Israel, Erhöre mich!

Ich bin der Bote dieses Pharaos, des OSOR-ONNÔPHRIS (4). Das ist Dein wahrhafter Name, der den Propheten Israels überliefert wurde. Erhöre mich, ARBATHIAÔ REIBET ATHELEBERSÊTH ARA BLATHA ALBEU EBENPHCHI CHITASGOÊ IBAÔTH IAÔ

Erhöre mich und banne diesen Dämon. Ich rufe Dich an, den gewaltigen und unsichtbaren Gott in der Leere des Nichts, AROGOGOROBRAÔ SOCHOU MODORIÔ PHALARCHAÔ OOO. Heiliger Kopfloser, befreiet den NN vom Dämon, von dem er besessen ist, ROUBRIAÔ MARI ODAM BAABNABAÔTH ASS ADÔNAI APHNIAÔ ITHÔLÊTH ABRASAX AEOOY; Mächtiger Kopfloser, befreiet den NN vom Dämon, von dem er besessen ist, MABARRAIO IOEL KOTHA ATHOREBALO ABRAOTH, befreiet den NN, AOTH ABAOTH BASYM ISAK SABAOTH IAO.

Er ist der Herr der Götter, er ist der Herr der bewohnten Welt, er ist es, den die Winde fürchten, er ist es, der durch Befehl seiner Stimme alles geschaffen hat.

Herr, König, Mächtiger, Helfer! Rette die Seele IEOU PYR IOU PYR IAOT IAEO IOOU ABRASAX SABRIAM OO YY EY OO YY ADONAIE, sofort, sofort!

Ich bin ein Bote des Gottes ANLALA LAI GAIA APA DIACHANNA CHORYN. Ich bin der kopflose Dämon, das Augenlicht an den Füßen, der Starke, das unsterbliche Feuer. Ich bin die Wahrheit, ich bin, der es hasst, daß Unrecht geschieht in der Welt. Ich bin, der blitzt und donnert. Ich bin, dessen Schweiß der Regen ist, der auf die Erde fällt, damit er sie befruchte; ich bin es, dessen Mund ganz und gar flammt; ich bin, der erzeugt und vernichtet; ich bin die Gnade des Aion; mein Name ist ein Herz, umwunden von einer Schlange. Komm heraus und begleite mich!"

Schreib die Formel 1) auf ein neues Papyrus und spann es von deiner einen Schläfe zur anderen. In Richtung Norden blickend lies die 6 Namen und sprich:

"Unterwirf mir alle kleinen Dämonen, sodass mir untertan ist jeder Dämon im Himmel und in der Luft und auf der Erde und unter der Erde und auf dem Festland und im Wasser, und auch jeder gegen mich ausgesandte Geist und jede von einem Gott herrührende Geissel."

und alle Daimonen werden dir untertan sein.

Das glückbringende Zeichen ist :>

Die sechs Namen: Chabrach phneschér phichro phnurô phôchô bôch

1) siehe hierzu mein Artikel "The Six Names"

Aié aiôi éôiaé aé iô ôé aiéoueuôai eai uo iaô iôé oau aeé uôuô

Griechische Aussprache

Aié aiôi éôiaé aé iô ôé aiéoueuôai eai uo iaô iôé oau aeé uôuô

Chabrach phneschér phichro phnurô phôchô bôch

(1) Preisendanz, Karl, "Papyri graecae magicae", Band 1 (Leipzig, 1928)

(2) Preisendanz, Karl, "Akephalos. Der kopflose Gott", Beihefte zum Alten Orient 8 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1926)

(3) Betz, ed. by Hans Dieter (1992). "The Greek magical papyri in translation including the Demotic spells" (2nd ed.). Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

(4) oder auch "der gute Osiris"