Monday, December 5, 2011

The Trick

Years ago when I first started to practice the Occult, I learned a lot from some simple chapbooks by Anna Riva especially where making Gris-Gris bags were concerned. These bags were comprisd of roots, herbs, stones, metals, medallions, feathers, animal parts, bones, coins, nails, dung, you name it, there’s a use for it in a bag.

Gris-Gris is French for gray-gray and these bags typically made of (but not limited to) cloth usually of flannel due to its availability & inexpensiveness in the deep south back in the slave days. Gris-Gris goes by other names such as Juju, Toby, Mojo Hand or simply Mojo, Charm Bag or Trick bag. In the Tennessee area, these were referred to as a Nations Sack.

The bag is in a manner of speaking a spell whereby all of its components are gathered together & then the bag is created for the client using the items gathered. The items are added after having been prayed over, inserted and then the bag is sewn up tight. It then goes through a process of empowerment whereby the practitioner has certain prayers to say over it, blessings to give & the Spirit of the bag is awakened to do Its job.

There’s a time honored tradition of adding relics belonging to the individual the bag is made to represent. Thus if the trick is made for you, then you add a few strangs of your hair or finger nail parings or if it is for someone else, you add THEIR hair & so on. This is done to tune the bag to the person it is supposed to affect. Thus if you wish to make a protection bag for your son or daughter, then you add something like a couple of hairs from their head to the bag.

Essentially a bag is a portable, 24/7 acting spell that never shuts off. Why? Because a Spirit takes up residence in the bag which then powers it. In a way, the bag is a microcosmic universe for the Spirit to dwell in and the relic is the tuning ingredient that the Spirit uses to target the person with.

Some people simply write a name on a piece of paper 9 times & put that in the bag. While that is an old Hoodoo method I can assure you it is nowhere near as effective as hair, nail parings (or even dead skin from the person) is. Relics taken from the body of the person the bag is intended for have that esoteric link to make them really effective.

When we think of these tools, we usually think of old Spiritual practitioners or Root Doctors who practiced thse arts in days long past such as Dr. John, Dr. Yah, Senite Dede and of course Marie Laveau herself. The height of these practices was in the early 1800's in Southern Louisiana.

A friend of mine, Clifford Hartleigh Low, turned me onto the fact that Agrippa refers to these bags as ‘Suspensions’ in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, book 1, chapter 46. They’re suspended around the neck of the individual and Agrippa gives several suggestions for making one such as for leadership which is made by using Solar (planetary) associations made with Bay Laurel leaves wrapped in a lion’s hide or that of a bag of yellow silk.

Here’s one direct from Agrippa: “Also it is said, that if a woman take a needle, and beray it with dung, and then wrap it up in earth, in which the carkass (carcass) of a man was buryed [buried], and shall carry it about her in a cloth which was used at the funerall, that no man shall be able to ly [have sex] with her as long as she hath it about her.” (Quoted direct from www.esotericarchives.com)

Clifford suggests that this means Graveyard Dirt, a needle, and dung you then put in a bag made out of black mourning garments. I took the cloth to mean a burial shroud which is what they used in the old days but today it could be to use material that the corpse was actually buried with. Of course that means to get these garments, you have to dig up the grave and disturb the dead - not a wise idea. This is one of those rare times when substituting simple black cloth for the original ingredient would be acceptable.

The problem with Agrippa is that often his translations into English are poor or as Clifford suggests, “Agrippa had a very circuitous manner of writing” and without a doubt that has a lot to do with the translations of his mammoth work. Thus you have to use your noggin when reading Agrippa and remember that it was written in a day & age where English was spelled differently and some words would have to be substituted with what was used then to make sense.

So we can see that the idea of suspending a corded pouch around one’s neck is not just the province of the Hoodoo folk from the Deep South. This sort of Sorcery was well known in Medieval times and used by the Magicians of the day. They referred to it as ‘Natural Philosophy’ which has to do with the Occult & Spiritual nature of the world around us. Think of Natural Philosophy as the Hoodoo of the Medieval Magicians.

When we look at the lore Agrippa collated for his Suspensions, we know that it comes from such things as crystals & stones, trees & plants, fish & shells and so on. These were typically categorized according to things like the Four Humours, the Four Elements, the Seven Celestial Planets and so on.

It seems that Tricks weren’t lost on the Old Dead Guys like Agrippa though they and their surviving instructions are overly worried about Planetary alignments via Astrology. Lovely. Problem with that is some planets like Jupiter may not have a favorable alignment for more than a year or two! That’s a pain! Old time Spiritualists simply make the bag as needed for the client at the time it is needed.

While this is not intended to be a how-to article, realize that modern day practitioners can bypass these Astrological restrictions by thoroughly consecrating the cloth bag itself, each item to be put into the bag, then the finished bag. Then you simply summon the Spirit of the bag, instruct it on its duties and that's it.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Annual Ancestor Time

For those of you who want to either kick off the beginning of your new relationship with your Ancestors OR for those who are looking for a simple way to make them happy, try today since it is Saturday, closest day to Samhain, All Souls day & Day of the Dead.

The Shrine Itself

Use a box, crate, card table, buffet, shelf or wherever you have space handy. It's a shrine, not a working altar. Drape it with a plain white cloth. You can use black if need be but white is the traditional color of the Dead.

The Offerings

Give your Ancestors their favorite foods, coffee, hard liquor, wine, beer/ale, cigars/cigarettes &/or smoking pipes (w/pouch of tobacco), candy, flowers (white carnations or Lilly's work well), non tap water (spring, rain), photographs of newly deceased family members, trinkets (favored lighters, combs, brushes, whatever) and so on. Just present the items to the Four Cardinal Points with a plain white tea light candle.

Interacting With Your Ancestral Shrine

Simply sit and talk with your Ancestors. Tell them what's going on in your life. Read them news articles from the paper. Inform them of what's going on in the world today. Tell them of your achievements (however small or insignificant they may seem) as well as your losses or failures. Tell them of your future plans, ideas, inspirations.

Feel free to tell your Ancestors to come to you in your dreams and talk with you anytime they feel moved to do so. Remember, this is about building (&/or maintaining) a relationship with your Ancestors more so than it is to do any sort of working.

But I Didn’t Like My Family When They Were Alive

Really? Well no one said that your family has to be on par with the Waltons for you to form a strong bond with them, did they? Family is family. We can choose our friends but not who we’re born into, right? When you’re dealt lemons, make lemonade.

When I tell folks to make amends with their Ancestors - parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, siblings, all I usually hear is whining, resentment & downright anger at this notion.

“My aunt Judy was a horrible person while alive! Why should she give a rat’s ass about me after she’s dead?”

First off she will because Death changes people. It’s not final nor is it true entropy. Our souls & Spirits live on. There’s time to think, process & figure out our mistakes in life. Secondly, your other Ancestors will encourage her to make amends with you so you have to try to big about it & do the same in return.

There's a foolish misconception that some McWiccans & CM's have been passing around for years that if Uncle Joe was a rotten turd while alive, then he is so once he's dead. Says who?

Death is a time of CHANGE and that's not just a physical change but also mental one as well. Hello? It changes ones perspective. A lot of people leave this world feeling self-righteous but once over on the other side, they want to make amends so they can rest or move on. Give them the chance to do so.

If you notice, this is also about helping YOU change not just helping Cousin Abe to rest. It’s a symbiotic opportunity to mend things between you. Yes I know many family members may have done heinous things. Okay if you are unable to forgive them, then that is your choice.

I understand that you may have been sexual raped by a family member(s) and yes that would be very difficult to forgive. Okay do not place that family member onto your Ancestral Shrine. Reserve their space for other Ancestors who are worthy.

But I’m Adopted!

So what? Consider yourself fortunate because you now have not one but TWO lines of Ancestors who care about you!

Your adopted family’s ancestors would care for you. Why? Well you have been ‘adopted’ which means in this instance brought into the family. You’re now one of them and they will fight for you just as if you were a blood relative. Doubt me? Try it. See for yourself. Put photos of your adopted family’s ancestors on your shrine.

Then you also have your blood relatives that you don’t know BUT they know you! How? You carry their blood, their very DNA in your veins & body. They know who you are, where you are & who you’re with.

The way to make contact with them is simply to say something like, “Ancestors! I do not know who you are because I was adopted and therefore do not know your names. Please come & tell me who you are in my dreams so that I can know you!”

Then pay attention to your dreams. Eventually you’ll see images of people - possibly old photographs or someone in your dreams who walks up to you and tells you stories. That’s an Ancestor trying to communicate with you. No need for Lucid Dreaming here but more pay attention to your dreams & write them down upon waking. Eventually you’ll get better at remember them & then can spend time talking with your Ancestors.

In Summary

You want to have a relationship with your Ancestors because they are both your first & last line of defense against attacks, bad magic, mean Spirits and they can go to bat for you to the Spirits defending you when others want to persecute you for petty reasons.

Feed them. Give them liquids to drink. Give them what they liked in life. Coffee, tea, milk, pop, hard liquor, wine, beer, water - whatever. You don’t have to light up the cigar or cigarettes just put them on the shrine next to the photograph of whoever liked to smoke.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

HOODOO Part 2

The other day I got an email from an individual who asked, “Brother Moloch, what makes a Hoodoo Trick effective?” To answer that, I had to say: Repetition.

Repetition by far is the single most important component to a Hoodoo practitioner that can be done. Repetition is important because it creates a path to the goal that does not deviate. Further it also shows the Spirits what it is you want by doing the same Trick daily such as a candle spell.

Of course a root bag is not made over & over again but when doing a spell for say a job promotion you will take time to burn the candle(s), recite the Psalms or prayers and the other factors (such as light the altar candles, light the incense, and so on).

Many folks say all you need do is ONE working & that should be sufficient. Well in some cases that does the trick, literally, but not for each and every practitioner nor every time the same spell is called upon. Once in a while when things are looking your way and you light the candles, like magic you got your desire almost instantaneously. The next time you may do the exact same spell it could take you several tries before your spell comes to fruition.

Other Factors Which Can Affect A Hoodoo Spell:

It should go without saying that a practitioner should have some knowledge of calming their mind, relaxing their body and other Metaphysical practices. But really are these practices truly Metaphysical?

We know that distractions have plagued people in the past. Consider what Jesus said in Matthew 6:6 “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

Thus one thing Jesus is saying here which is get rid of the distractions. By closet I don’t believe He meant a literal clothes closet but rather a special place to pray. If that’s your bedroom, okay; if the basement, fine; if the bathroom, so be it. But find a place you can be alone, lock the door then do your thing.

Prayer is essential in Hoodoo as it is a focusing of the mind onto a single thought. “God, help me pass my test this Monday! I’ve been studying for it for the past six weeks and I need to pass it!” Have you calmed your mind & stilled your heart? Have you pushed aside the rest of your daily to-do list so you can focus on your prayer?

Dr. Larry Dossey has a book that I highly recommend for people to read; it’s called Healing Words: The Power of Prayer & the Practice of Medicine. This is a great book for anyone wanting to study prayer more in depth as well as work more on their health and vitality. What you read about regarding prayer in here is easily transferable to the practice of Hoodoo, Sorcery, MagicK or any sort of Metaphysical discipline.

So aside from prayer, what else makes Hoodoo strong? Your mind set. What’s nagging at you most? Mom? Kids? Bill collectors? All of the above? Then it’s time to invoke the power of the Spirits with some simple candle practice. Obtain a simple white, jar candle; a bottle of Holy oil; some Meditation incense; picture of a Saint or Jesus (whichever you feel most comfortable with).

Find a spot in your home (garage or tool shed) where you can be alone without texting, calls, alarms, TV, radio and etc. Set the candle on the floor if you must. Light it. Light the incense cone/stick. Hold the incense & walk three times clockwise around the perimeter. Recite the traditional Catholic “Our Father” prayer.

Sit down. Anoint your temples & breast bone with the Holy oil. Again, recite the “Our Father” prayer. Take several deep breaths in through your nose and let them out slowly through your mouth. Relax as much as you are able to in your environment. Focus on the candle’s light. Just see it and nothing else. Close your eyes.

Now pray. If you prefer a standardized prayer, Catholic prayer books offer a wide variety of rote prayers which you can use & then when finished, speak aloud your desire at the end. In this instance you wish to have a clear mind so you can grasp what is going on in your life & fix it.

What you say is not as important as HOW you say it. Pour yourself into the prayer. Fill yourself with emotion. Is it regret? Anger? Sadness? Hope? What? Use it or lose it!

You may be sitting there going, “Yeah Moloch like I’m gonna cry over this situation!” and I say if it’s bothering you enough to do some old fashioned Sorcery, then uncork the bottle & let out all that emotion. If you feel like crying, DO SO! If you’re doing a spell, then do it right and that means emotion should be a large part of it.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

HOODOO

Hoodoo - it’s all the rage these days and with good reason. It’s just folk magic charms, incantations, prayers, and other folk lore from American Black culture from days long past and today many people are trying to use to supplement their other Spiritual/Magical practices with.

For instance McWiccans do not teach anything about Cursing or Hexing, so what’s a newbie to do when they’re bullied by some asshole? They turn to Hoodoo. Also Ceremonial MagicKians (CM) such as Golden Dawn or Thelema don’t teach (let alone advocate) the use of Curses & Hexes either so they too turn to Hoodoo for help.

Western Occultism is rife with Karmic horse shit with inept practitioners who simply couldn’t Hex their way out of a wet paper bag. Thus, Hoodoo comes to the rescue....

The problem with Westerners is that our minds are such that we tend to want structure to learn from and there is no true structure to Hoodoo. Typically it was taught from parent to child, neighbor to friend or more likely a technique or prayer was learned then shared from someone else. There are no true ‘Hoodoo rituals or ceremonies’ because of the lack of structure. Most of the time in the elder days someone would learn a quick prayer or a trick to somehow fix a situation that needed it. If no tricks or techniques were known, they’d go visit a Root Doctor.

Most (not all) of your old time Hoodoos did not call themselves ‘Hoodoo’ nor label themselves as such. Sure some did because they were looking to attract business but the majority of your old time, black Hoodoo practitioners labeled themselves ‘Spiritualist’ and did ‘Spiritual Work’ not Hoodoo. These are important distinctions that middle class, white Occultists are ignorant of. If you spend time talking to an old, black, Spiritual Worker, they will gladly set you straight on this fact.

Today, everyone and their brother call themselves Hoodoo. I find it humorous that 24 years ago when I was beginning to investigate the Occult, I could not find anyone involved in Witchcraft (let alone Hoodoo or RootWork!) Today they bump into you at the grocery store, coffee shop or laundry mat. Literally! And the funny thing is that they all tend to be white. Sort of like in the 80's when American Indian spirituality was at its peak, all you heard was talk about medicine cards, shamanism, what tribe was someone descended from, how many 16ths someone was American Indian, and so on. Who were the purveyors of this American Indian lore? Yup, white middle class folks.

Regardless I’ve always preferred RootWork-Conjure Sorcery to Hoodoo because RootWork has more to do with the herb and plant lore of folk magic; Conjure is about what it says: conjuring spirits. Hoodoo by contrast tends to be more about charms like lucky hands, rabbits/alligator/chicken foot, Catholic Saint’s medallions, candles, prayers, and other stuff. Most people tend to lump them all together under the blanket term Hoodoo but that’s like lumping Golden Dawn, Thelema, Builders of the Adytum, Society of Light, and other paths under Ceremonial MagicK - they’re all CM of course but each has its own ways, means, methods and protocols to observe. Aside from being fruit, they're not a true apples to apples comparison.

Many people put a lot of faith in a collection of books called Hoodoo, Conjuration, Witchcraft, Rootwork by Harry Middleton Hyatt. It is a five volume set which contains the transcripted interviews of hundreds of black folks from the South, about Hoodoo in their culture. In the early 20th century, Hyatt (an Anglican minister) took it upon himself to interview these black folks about their cultural beliefs and practices they referred to as Hoodoo. What he found was a huge amount of information. Some of it is worthwhile, other info is absolute garbage. Really it is four volumes of info with the fifth volume being an index to the other four.

Much of what the books offer in the way of spells or Tricks as they’re referred to in Hoodoo, are not viable today. Why? Well the lore is from a time and era when black folks were dirt poor, often living in hovels with outhouses, no indoor plumbing nor any of the modern conveniences like washers/dryers. It was easier to sneak into someone's home and hide a Trick to cause them harm. Or one may have been able to obtain dirty, unwashed clothing this way to use to put the jinx on them. Sometimes, things like human waste from chamber pots was stolen so that could be used in a Trick. Today that is all but impossible to obtain with modern housing & neighborhoods with crime watches and so forth. If you’re stupid enough to get caught, now you have to explain it to the judge why you were skulking in your enemy’s backyard.

So aside from being a historic look into the past of black Americans, these books are difficult if not impossible to put to use. Still people pay handsome sums of money to have them on their shelves with some booksellers charging ridiculous prices to the fools crazy enough to part with the money for them! $6,500 for the 5 volume set? That amount can do a lot more for you than a five volume set of books can! In some African Traditional Religious (ATR) groups, you could get initiated for that amount.

Now what’s really interesting is how many people are adapting Spirits from either Yoruban culture (Santeria, Ifa) or out of the Fon culture (Haitian Vodu, NOLA Voodoo) to fill in the missing info in Hoodoo. Most ATR do not recommend doing that since many of these Orisha's & LWA's need to be approached respectfully rather than trying to be used as CM's & McWiccans are wont to do. These are not archetypes to call upon for your Four Quarters of your circle or to be placed on your Tree of Life.

Hoodoo tends to use a lot of prayers from the Catholic church. The reason for this is that there are Saints for everything and each has prayers attributed to Them. Plus you can find the so-called 7 day jar candles (really burns only 5 days) at botanicas & grocery stores. Combine this with the plethora of metaphysical oils Hoodoo uses as well as incense, powders, sprays, colognes, perfumes, and so on and you have a very workable system for handling day to day problems that your McWiccan & CM paths do not.

If you look around on the Net, you’ll soon see what I’m talking about with magazines and sites devoted to Hoodoo, Conjure and RootWork. Spirits like Elegba, Elleggua, Eshu, Papa Legba are stirred up to open the gateway when in fact a generic opening of the gateway is sufficient. These people talk about leaving offerings at places like crossroads and cemeteries when they don’t know anything about the Spirit they’re trying to rouse. Same can be said for collecting Graveyard Dirt. One simply does not walz into a cemetery, find the oldest male or female grave, drop 3 pennies, take dirt and walz out - unless you want to take the chance of pissing off the Master & Mistress of the cemetery. (It's your choice)

But I’m not here to forewarn anyone. If you burn your fingers, not my problem. Nor will I say, “Told you so” like some would. Rather my suggestion is to use Hoodoo for things you need like job promotions, getting a job, selling a house, getting a neighbor to move, shutting the mouth of an asshole at work, and so on. CM are usually so focused on their inner planes work that they often neglect to teach their students anything practical to help them with their day-to-day lives. As if no CM's ever lose their job, eh? So is it any wonder that CM’s resort to Hoodoo? (If truth be told many of them use Wiccan spells for the same thing)

For Hoodoo to really work well for you, it’s suggested that you get rid of your pretenses about religion - especially any animosity you harbor towards Judeo-Xianity (re: Christianity) because there are Angels, Saints, prayers, Psalms, Biblical passages & so on that are used in Hoodoo, RootWork-Conjure Sorcery. If you have a real aversion to all things Xian, then you may want to leave Hoodoo alone & work with Wicca or other forms Sorcery.

Realize that most Spiritual Workers revere the Xian Bible as a talisman. In the Hyatt books, some passages from informants (which is what Hyatt called the interviewees) about the Bible tell of its power and how it comforts a person as soon as you read a passage from it. Let's face it, south of the Mason-Dixon line, you run into a LOT of folks who are reared in backwoods country church settings. Xian faith is strong there. Hoodoo is both revered & feared by many.

Back in the old days, before abolitionists came to the forefront, the religion was Xianity and the biggest sect of Xianity was Catholicism. It was (still is) considered to be THE Magical version of Xianity with its plethora of prayers, Saints, Spirits, Angels, litanies, creeds, and various incantations. There are other reasons I’m not allowed to go into but suffice to say old Catholic churches radiate power that the average Baptist church is wholly unaware of. Trust me when I say if an old Hoodoo Trick requires dirt from a church, do not get it from anywhere but a Catholic church.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Miracle of the New Avatar Power Part 3

This is my third and final installment for the Miracle of the New Avatar Power book written by the late Geoff Gray-Cobb. I was going to let the second installment be the last but I felt compelled to discuss this fantastic modern grimoire just a bit further.

One of the things Gray-Cobb included in his grimoire was the ‘Magic Mentor’. This was the author's attempt at bringing a NPE[1] into the waking consciousness of the practitioner. The method is simple yet many modern ceremonial magicKians would sneer at the simplicity believing that creating a NPE like that to be too easy.

Why shouldn’t it be? Frankly, according to the ARS (African Religious Systems), making a spirit actually is more complicated than that, however for purposes of just using Inner World Magic, it works well. Most ARS practitioners know that the spirits created/found on inner plane contacts as preached by organizations like the Golden Dawn to be too simplistic. However for the use of bouncing ideas off someone, this works well enough for our purposes.

There is an affinity here to the Max Freedom Long's Huna system’s Aumakua (re: Ow-mah-koo-ah) or the Higher Self. Long claimed that the Aumakua was simply there and it was already plugged into the all of everything or what he termed the Poe Aumakua (re: Poe-ay-Ow-mah-koo-ah) which Long likened to Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious.

Gray-Cobb gives ideas on how to use the Magic Mentor and primarily focuses on using it to instruct yourself in Magic. You can use it to help you attain things, do some metaphysical things and so on. To me, this is a lot like my own Thralls where I create these artificial NPE’s to do whatever it is I desire them to do. It is just that Gray-Cobb's Magic Mentor is more complex than a Thrall is.

Central Pillar Ritual

By learning this ritual, Gray-Cobb next gives you a method of how to procure more out of life by invoking planetary intelligences, colors and sounds all through using the Central Pillar Rite.

Frankly, he could have gotten this idea from Israel Regardie’s The Art of True Healing where Regardie suggests using the Middle Pillar ritual with king and queen scale colors via the Golden Dawn to either receive or send energies which also would help you bring items or send assistance to someone else.

Does the Magic Mentor work? Yes it does! Why? It is an artificial construct you give life to then order it to become intelligent by commanding it to go find _ and learn _ then discuss _ with you. Some may think of this as an imaginary friend and is it? Yes and much more than that since It is capable of performing Magic for you.

While not necessary, you can give this Magic Mentor a candle as an offering on a regular basis[2] and tell It that you wish for It to go and learn greater Magic so that It can teach this greater Magic to you. Think of the Magic Mentor as sort of a squire to your knighthood if you will.

Gray-Cobb even tells you how to use a pendulum to communicate with Spirits. I was taught how to do that by the late Enid Hoffman and the late Ron Parshley back in the late 1980's. Using a pendulum to communicate with Spirits is natural and not too much different than using a planchette and Ouija board. You ask the question, wait while being still then allow the pendulum to move of its own accord over a letter/number wheel. Simple. Elegant. Works.

Testing Your NAP

In chapter 5, Gray-Cobb does something very few Metaphysical authors ever do: he teaches you how to test whether your NAP power!

He starts the chapter off talking about using NAP to guess cards, he quickly moves into testing NAP as a way to build self-confidence in that you know it works. Some of the tests he gives are:

Mail Box

Letter Contents

Telephone Caller

News Headline

Playing Card

He gives you a total of 15 tests in all. He gives you some idea of how the test should work and then you put your NAP to the test. You may not guess accurately right away but over time you should develop the ability to guess accurately.

The Radio State test goes something like: you tune your radio to your favorite station then shut it off. Relax. Allow your NAP to bathe you in power and then try to guess the song that will be playing when you turn the radio on.

The better you become is in direct proportion to how often you practice. Each test is a fun challenge and while little more than parlor games, still they do work, allowing you to build self-confidence while strengthening your Occult powers.

In closing I'd like to suggest you try NAP if you have not yet. It's a fun grimoire that offers the earnest practitioner a LOT for the time and effort invested. It is just as powerful as the Key of Solomon is. If you want wealth, riches, mind power, love, sex, influencing others and getting your way in life, this is a great modern grimoire to start with.

----------------------
Footnotes: 
[1] Non-Physical Entity
[2] My method of using a purple candle with Power oil on it should suffice; barring that, try a plain white candle dressed with Holy oil.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Miracle of the New Avatar Power Part 2

For a number of years, I used NAP as it was laid out in the book. Did the rituals precisely the way you’re supposed to and frankly the Central Pillar Rite was no big deal since I’d worked with the Middle Pillar Exercise by Regardie for a number years on my own. I found the CPR to be acceptable and worthwhile to perform as laid out in NAP calling on the various energy personalities.

How I got to summoning more than one Spirit for a project came as a result of my Candle Magic days. I was always a big fan of the involved candle workings as outline by practitioners like Henri Gamache, Buckland and even ol’ Anna Riva. Those rituals, if you study them, are based on using different colored candles with various anointed oils for different aspects of your ritual. Sometimes you want darkness to go away or an astral candle for you and an astral candle for each person involved in your problem.

Upon reflection, one day I realized that very few problems are really all that simplistic. The idea was not to make sorcerous matters complex and it’s foolish to try and attack a problem that has multiple variables to it with old fashioned thinking that a simple dart will hit the target. This is a reason why I think old time candle spells such as those using a single colored candle often fail for people. Their desire is such that there are a lot of factors to overcome.

In the older grimoires, Spirits are often listed with something like one to five specialties. That’s not to say that a Spirit that has one thing attributed to it, such as Marchosias who is a ‘strong fighter’ but that being a strong fighter is Marchosias’ strong point. He can do many other things than simply fight but when it comes to whooping ass, that is His specialty.

Some of the NAP spirits seem to be pigeonholed as well such as Nitika’s specialty is wealth; Elubatel’s is success; and so on. Thus when I was out of work, between apartments and just about broke, I decided an injection of old fashioned sorcery was in store here. Staying at my buddy’s house put me in a bind because I could not set up an altar, burn candles and such. Why? Well for one his wife was an “Attitude Born Again” (meaning she never went to church nor practiced her faith but perish forbid if anyone else had a differing opinion because her attitude changed and she was a ‘Born Again Xian’!) Another problem was my buddy and his family had pets that roamed the house and leaving unattended candles burning was a definite fire hazard.

I opted for using NAP since it did not require any sort of altar, candles, oils or anything other a clear goal and the time to practice.  I needed a job fast and this job couldn't simply be one where I was just earning a check but rather it had to be one where I was getting benefits along with commissions, bonuses and the like. I wanted to be completely out of the financial hole so I decided on calling Elubatel first since I needed SUCCESS at getting employed again.

Thus on a Thursday evening after an intense hot shower, I performed the NAP relaxation ritual to get my mind and body relaxed. (Being tense only stymies your magical abilities) Then I performed the Central Pillar Rite, the Circulation ritual and then the Fountain ritual as laid out in the book and in that order. The relaxation ritual took me about seven minutes to do and the rituals after took me less than five minutes to complete.

Then slowly, clearly I read the incantation for Success which summoned Elubatel. In fact I read it three times in all. Then using my pendulum, I checked to see if the Spirit arrived. Once I was certain Elubatel was there, I spent a few minutes telling Him about my plight, how I got to where I was and my game plan to bring myself out of the depths of despair. I said I needed a job with X, Y & Z which needed to be local, obtainable and who wanted me. I also told Elubatel I may need some help with the hiring process since most likely the place would have tests to pass.

I dismissed Elubatel after I thanked Him for His visit. I promised that once I had my own place, I’d burn a candle in His honor and tell others about Him. Then I decided to summon Nitika (the same way as I did Elubatel) to help me with keeping me financially afloat while I was going through  the job search and hiring process. Nitika was also informed that I would need help negotiating my new salary requirements so as to not leave money on the table. I too promised Nitika the same as I did for Elubatel. Then I shut myself down.

Within three weeks, after many tests, interviews and the like I was employed, on my way to a training center where I was going to be taught the equivalent of a university level course in advertising crammed into just a few short weeks of training. Though the Spirits were there helping me along the way. Mind you this was eight weeks of paid training, full benefits package, some perks and a generous commission structure. The spirits really came through for me!

[One of the reasons many practitioners fail at summoning Spirits is that they’re confused believing they need to do all sorts of shenanigans like memorize everything (though some key parts such as the Incantations to be used are helpful.)  Also, a lot of practitioners desire to physically SEE the Spirits to confirm that they’re not playing make believe. What I usually tell Novices is to suspend belief for a moment then act as if the Spirits actually arrived, standing there (which They actually are even if you cannot see nor feel Them) then simply talk to the Spirits. Tell Them what troubles you and be humble enough in asking for help.]

The first week while job hunting, I was getting all sorts of road blocks from employers with crap like “We prefer people with a bachelor’s degree” and other such nonsense (for a typical, commissioned sales position!) So by adding the General Purpose Invocation the second week, I began to notice these stumbling blocks were being removed.

During the second week of my NAP experiment, I continued to finish with the General Purpose Invocation after the Success and Money Incantations asking the Spirits IAO Petahyah and Opiel for their assistance. This turned out to be an opportunity to have them help me weed through the unfortunate circumstances that often barred me from becoming employed with a desirable company. Such things could be an interviewer doesn't like your hair color, your weight, the style of your clothes, you don’t have a bachelor’s degree or some such thing.

By the third week, I finally got a solid lead with a company selling advertising that paid in the range I desired, was close to home, had paid training, salary plus commission, bonuses, perks and company paid half the benefits. (Impressive. Now to get hired!)

So I summoned Elubatel and told Him of the position, who I would interview with and the like. Later that night, I got a dream from Elubatel telling me to send out thank you cards. Well, in business you don’t send thank you cards for an interview BUT you CAN send a thank you letter. So I typed one up and took it with me. Upon leaving the interview, I asked the manager for one of his business cards and addressed the letter to him, typed up the envelope then mailed it that night at the post office. Needless to say he was impressed and later told me that I was the ONLY ONE out of the one-hundred and three who interviewed for the eight positions to be filled, to send a thank you letter! (Again the Spirits came through for me.)

In the meantime, Nitika saw to it that I was getting money from all sorts of weird and uncanny occurrences such as in one of my books, I found a book that I had used a $50 bill as a bookmark and totally forgot about it begin there. In a couple of other odd instances, one of my relative's friend's needed some skip tracing work done on some of his bad debt receivables; another acquaintance of his paid me to teach him how to better sell for his business. Money was coming steadily to me but nothing like I really wanted. Still Nitika was working overtime helping me stay afloat.

The spirits were really kicking ass for me! I had a great job, was making great money, out of debt, the future looked brighter than ever all thanks to working with Elubatel, Nitika, IAO Petahyah and Opiel.

What did this teach me? That summoning spirits does NOT have to be overly complex and complicated. Yes there are things you must do however with talent you can get spirits to do a lot for you especially spirits like this. I would hazard a guess that the spirits from books like this one, Mannings and Malak's have probably had more exposure to the public than classical grimoires.

I say this because Medieval grimoires were aimed at a certain audience which did not have a large group and even in subsequent years, can we really say that there’s been millions or even thousands of karcists who have summoned these NPE’s?

However Malak's, Manning's and Grey-Cobb's books were aimed at a mainstream, more general metaphysical, new age audience with thousands of copies of these books sold. Plus, some people who worked with these modern grimoire Spirits first eventually went on to study the older Medieval texts.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

The Miracle of New Avatar Power

When asked which grimoire a budding Sorcerer should learn and use, more often than not people will point to the Goetia, the first book of the Lemegeton. The reason for this is twofold:

First there is a LOT of material (most of it absolute garbage) written on the Goetia and how to use it. Much of it is contradictory with some groups advocating worshiping the Demons listed in there to oddball temples using their pseudo-Masonic material as a background for the workings.

Second, most lodge magicKians believe it is the most practical of the Medieval grimoires. This too is inaccurate and a misnomer. Frankly, the Clavicles of Solomon tend to be more practical with the seals being made for all things under the nature of the planets. If you want to know how to use the planets in a practical sense, check out Agrippa's "Three Books of Occult Philosophy" which you can read online free at the Twilight Grotto website.

The truth is that these Medieval grimoires offer some help for those who spend hours upon hours of study and if your heart is definitely focused on working with them, then get a copy of Aaron Leitch's "Secrets of the Magical Grimoires" and read through that before you attempt to work the grimoires let alone trying to follow instructions from some website where the owenr may (or most likely) may not know what s/he is talking about.

In the last forty years, there has come to light a few modern grimiores that are pared down (but never watered down) versions of grimoires listing spirits and how to work with them. These books are NOT complicated compared to the Medieval grimoires. Now many people will look at the two and say, "Well obviously the Medieval ones are real because they're old and also because they're complex" which is utter rubbish. So age and complexity is proof that something works in Sorcery? For real?

As a practitioner since 1987, I can tell you that I have worked with grimoires old and new, ancient and modern, complex and simple. And the end result has been? They all work if you know how to make them work.




Enter a little known grimoire from the 1970's that I was first turned onto by my friend Ray at a psychic study group back in the 1980's in Dunedin, FL. My teacher, Ron Parshley, had a copy in his vast library of books and he loaned it to me to study. This book was fascinating because it listed spirits such as Nitika who could give you wealth or Elubatel who could help with success or Gadiel to protect you from evil or Kadriel to help you uncover secret knowledge and so forth.

To give you a better understanding of what 'The Miracle of New Avatar Power' (or NAP for short) can do for you, we should discuss some of the things people have told me about their use of it as well as how I've come to where I have with using it as well...

Right after I got involved in the Occult in the late months of 1987, my brother told me about an old friend of ours named 'Jay' who performed a chant from some book and got money. It seems Jay found a book on the occult, chanted the chant for money then later that week, a city police officer rear ended Jay's car. Jay got $500 in damages (and this was the mid-1970's!) I had my brother call Jay, and we spoke on the phone. Jay told me it was some book like 'The Voltar Powers' and he had trouble remembering it since it had been about fifteen years since he'd read it. He told me he no longer had it because he got rid of it right after all this went down with the cop. When I asked Jay why, he said 'it scared him' presumably it had more to do with the fact that it actually worked and like many, if something is found to actually work, FEAR is the automatic response.

I searched the used bookstores far and wide for a copy of 'The Voltarr Powers' but none such existed. Later, when I met Ray at a psychic study group in Dunedin, FL, he told me about a book of practical magic that involved summoning spirits and it was called 'The Miracle of the New Avatar Power'. At the time, the only book I could find that was even close to this was Al G. Manning's "Miracle of the New Ishtar Power' which had a similar title to NAP so I also thought that Ray had the title mixed up as well (like Jay had) because Ray told me he no longer had a copy of it. I obtained a copy of Manning's book and thought I had found THE book Jay told me about. So I investigated Manning's book right, left, upside, downside forward and backward.

To my delight, Manning's book worked very well though the spirits in there were personal creations aka Thralls that Manning had made and named them after ancient Sumerian and Egyptian deities such as Ra, Bast, Osiris, Thoth, Isis, Nergal, Marduk and of course, Ishtar. Manning's book is a fully, self-contained system that works. I will write more on it later but for now, suffice to say I was delighted later to discover that NAP actually existed and when I spoke with Jay recently, he confirmed that NAP was indeed the book he had found and used.

My first copy of NAP came from a friend of mine and he sent me a bound photocopy of it to experiment with. I was pleased to note that the system is rather simplistic yet not exactly aura based like many of the 70's occult manuals were from the Parker Publishing group. Most of these books were about priming your chakras and channeling that energy into X. Some actually worked with the planets and a few with the Four Elements but most seemed to go along with the seven chakra system of magical development.

I worked with NAP for quite some time, experimenting with the exercises and listing of spirits with their chants. My results were quite fascinating. I discovered that it was best to use several of the spirits together such as to bring me monetary success, I'd invoke Nitika and Elubatel and then ask them to work together in harmony to bring X amount of money to me. Usually such bounties of cash came in the way of new leads in sales or more often than not, referrals from my existing customer base. Once in a while, I'd get a request to help someone magically and they'd give me a nice donation for my efforts.

Here is the NAP ritual that you are supposed to complete (at least once) and as you can plainly see it is a relaxation exercise.

Quietly read the words aloud, listening to what you are saying. Read slowly and carefully, pausing between sentences, and stopping for about three seconds wherever you find three periods (...) in the text. It should take you a full four minutes to read the words aloud from beginning to end.

* "I am beginning the New Avatar Power Ritual. I call on the Inner Planes to witness. I state my purpose thus: ANKAR YOD HAY VAW HAY. I begin to wind down, to let go and be rid of all the tensions of my body. To let my muscles relax, unwind and let go. The tensions are beginning to drain from my body. Soon, a gradual heaviness will start to weigh down my thighs, my arms, my hands, my feet, my legs, my body. My muscles unwind and let go. All my muscles are relaxing, unwinding and relaxing. Very soon I shall feel the unwinding, the letting go. Unwinding and letting go. Unwinding, letting go. Unwinding, letting go. Deeper and deeper... letting go... unwinding and letting go. The tensions drain from my muscles and they will soon become loose, letting go, relaxing and unwinding. Noises round abut me will drift into the background. I shall feel the relaxing, the letting go, the unwinding. Breathing easily and deeply. Easily and deeply. Unwinding and letting go... drifting into the peace and serenity of complete relaxation. And as my body unwinds and relaxes, so I enter the peace and quiet, where only these words have meaning, and nothing else disturbs me. Letting go... unwinding... letting go...unwinding... relax... relax...let go...let go...let go...relax...relax...relax...let go...let go...let go. I call on Thee, Mighty Arzel, who stands in the East, to assiste me in this and all my ventures. I know now that my New Avatar Power is flooding to the surface. * I now close my eyes gently."

Now sit quietly for about two minutes, letting your mind wander as it will, and then open your eyes.

From this point in the Ritual you always begin to perform a spell or other piece of magical working. For easy reference, think of the point where you open your eyes again as "Point A" in the Ritual. I shall be referring to Point A later in this book.

The instructions will say: "Carry out the New Avatar Power Ritual to Point A" and this tells you that you should prepare for the Ritual and say or listen to the words as explained from the initial instructions up to this point.

Also, for the sake of simplicity, from now on I will refer to the New Avatar Power by its initials-NAP. Wherever y ou find "NAP" in the text, you will understand that this refers to New Avatar Power.

Notes On The NAP Ritual

1. If you own a tape recorder, you can make a tape of the above Ritual words, between the asterisks, from * to * After recording the words, let the tape run silently for a further 10 minutes, so that when you replay the tape, the Ritual words are followed by 10 minutes of silence.

Then instead of reading the words to yourself each day, you can start the tape recording speaking to you as you sit in the dim. In that event, you can dispense with the reading lamp shining over your shoulder, and you can listen to the whole of this part of the Ritual with your eyes closed. You will, however, need the lamp later for reading spells.

When the tape reaches the Words of Power "ANKAR YOD HAY VAW HAY" (which, like all other Words of Power in this book, is pronounced exactly as it is spelled), say the Words aloud, and near the ned of the tape, begin sayign th words aloud from "I call on Thee..." through to Point A of the Ritual.

2. You should carry out the Ritual daily for best results; 15 minutes is the maximum you need for the Ritual and the magical workings that follow it. Try to make yourslef a present of that daily quarter-hour -- it will be the most stupendously valuable present you have ever given yourself. If your day is really packed tight with things to do, set your alarm clock for 15 minutes earlier, so that your first action of the day is to carry out your New Avatar Power Ritual and a magical working.


Thus begins the work to perform before you begin to work with NAP. After this there are a couple of other simple, easy rites you're supposed to use. These are:

1. Central Pillar Ritual
2. New Avatar Power Circular Ritual
3. New Avatar Fountain Ritual

When you read the Central Pillar Ritual, you quickly discover it is the old Middle Pillar Ritual of the Golden Dawn (or at least the late Israel Regardie). The power circular ritual is nothing more than swirlign the energy from Malkuth to Kether & back down again or from your feet to the top of your head & back down again. Finally the Fountain Ritual is about bringing that energy from your Malkuth shooting up through your body out of the top of your head like a water fountain. The idea here is to learn to channel energy throughout your body & then get it active by moving it around.

After this, then you can use the various incantations such as the following for Nitika:


"In the Power of the Names EH-HEH-YEH, YEH-HO-VO-EL-OH-HEEM, and YEH-HO-VO-AH-VAY-DAH-AHS I place this Invocation with Thee, NEE-TEE-KAH, Genius of Wealth. Know that I require and command Thee to bring me gold. Thou has dominion over wealth and Thou shalt bring this very instant to shape the future such that money shall come to me, enough and to spare, by the powers of these Words and Invocation. Be Thou ruled by me in the Names SHAH-DYE-ELL-KYE and AH-DOE-NYE-HA-AH-RETZ. So mote it be."


[I have taken the liberty of giving you the phonetic pronunciations of the names]

Once you have spoken the incantation aloud, you simply tell the Spirit what it is you desire. I often repeat these incantations three times and vibrate the names as Israel Regardie suggested you do. This seemed to impact the ritual in a much stronger way thus I stuck to what works.

To dismiss, I'd simply thank the Spirit in a normal, everyday language sort of way & offer to give them a candle, some food & drink at a specified later time. (Unpaid Spirits can cause all sorts of havoc in your life and yes many of the Spirits will NOT say anything about payment)

Next blod I'll discuss more about this modern grimoire.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Originator

I was perusing my books at www.LuLu.com where and noticed that one of the reviewers, diongwi, 

where s/he stated the following for Pragmatic Magics:
                                        "I think it's a great book especially when starting out. 
                                         Yes, a lot of info he puts in there you can find
                                         elsewhere but definitely not in one place so easily."

The problem, of course, is that this information is found today practically everywhere but WHO & WHERE did you think it came from??? Pragmatic Magics was originally published in 1993 and back then you could not find this information anywhere. Hello??? But yeah today every half-assed website has liberally taken material from it, put it up & now they call it their own OR the dirty bastards join my Yahoo Groups, steal it without permission from me, & re-post it on their own groups or publish it in a book. Then they have the unmitigated gall to not cite me or my group yet the fuckers want me to buy a copy & give them a favorable review. Oy!

And s/he is incorrect about this being a great book for 'starting out'. Pragmatic Magics is actually an intermediate level book. Yes every piece of shit Occult book has ripped it off for what I've put in there & called it a 101 book but in truth 101 books are watered down far more than what Pragmatic Magics is. At least they should be. The best 101 book you'll find is The Basics of Metaphysical Empowerment and that was written in a watered down way so anyone could understand it.

This is like Enochian material - of which I am very limited in practical use - but at one time, there existed only the Golden Dawn, Crowley, LaVey & the Scheulers material on the subject. You couldn't get the original Dee manuscripts unless you paid an unholy sum to a used book seller for a poorly edited copy from the 80's by some short run British press. Then came the late 90's and someone got the bright idea to re-do the Dee manuscripts & put them out there & you had more than one person doing that & things evolved until you get what is available today.

At one time, there was a company called Acorn Press who did a shit job of publishing the grimoires but they did it. Such grimoires like the Grimoirium Verum were difficult to locate yet Acorn did it. When I joined the International Guild Of Sorcery (re: IGOS) it's goal was to locate Occult information & help folks obtain it for a fee. IGOS' directors got a bright idea of not only translating the French grimoires but also offering the original French edition as the latter half of the book so that the Occult scholar who could read French could evaluate the translation for him/her self.

We started doing that with all of our grimoies and the boys at one press caught on and copied that idea. Okay no biggie but we were the first to do that & on a mass scale. I know there are many old time Occultists who were grateful for the IGOS editions since they were high quality & inexpensive (originally most of them sold for $20 each in hard bound) which put them into a lot of eager hands.

With the Internet, it is easy to be a Johnny-Come-Lately & claim you've been doing X for Y amount of time but the truth is still there for anyone wanting to dig for it. Problem is few care about truth - they just pay lip service to it. 

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Bealtaine Season, Weather & Neighborhood Prosyletizers

Bealtaine. One of my favorite pagan holidays. Why? Well since the early 90's, I've made it a tradition to go & hang out with my local Druid friends in the greater Cleveland area at the Metro Parks for this annual celebration. Usually I try to write a song to share with the Spirits or bring an offering and this year I'm thinking a good bottle of dark rum for the Spirits is just what the Witch Doctor ordered! They have been very good to me thus far this year & so I've decided to get them a fifth & bring it to the ritual. Yes, yes, yes I could easily give it to the Spirits at home and with that said however the ADF Druids are one of the only pagan organizations whose rituals I validate as legit.

The ADF Druids invoke a Gate Keeper, the Ancestors, the Land Wights, the Shining Ones & they even make an offering to the Out Dwellers to leave the ritual alone. Not exactly Haitain Vodu but damn good for a mainstream Pagan system if you ask me. Miles ahead of the McWiccan ritual. Bealtaine is usually lovely weather but this year, Mother Earth is showing us that She has not finished with the chilly weather as of yet so when we normally just meet in an open air pavilion, we shall be meeting in the enclosed lodge nearby where it is heated & no worries about rain.

Most Witches love Samhain due to the way the earth changes for the time of year, the folklore associated with it & of course the All Hallows Eve candy drives the little goblins go out on in urban & suburban neighborhoods. While I like this one as well, there's something to be said for Bealtaine as well! Prior to Bealtaine (May 1st) we have April 30 aka Walpurgisnacht (pronounced: voll-purge-iss-nockt) when witches in Germany would fly on their brooms to meet up at the Brocken. So Bealtaine too is a very mystical time of the year and I like it.

As I sit here typing this, it is 73 degrees outside but the wind is blowing so much that it does not feel 73 - more like 65 or lower. In the Sun light, it is fine but in a shade you get chilly. I'm not a big believer in this misnomer of 'Global Warming' but I DO believe in 'Global Climate Changes' that is going on. Yeah I know people keep referring to it as Global Warming but it's okay people still want to use a 'k' at the end of magic to be different as well.

What makes me chuckle the most with the whole Global Warming Crowd is the complaining about things like chemtrails, HAARP, and other man-made things that they believe is causing this massive planet to change its weather patterns. My opinion is that the Earth herself goes through changes ever so many years (be they hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands) and we just happen to be in the midst of a change. What to do? Nothing we can do. We haven't colonized the Moon let alone any other planets so relocating is out of the question. Thus all we can do is batten down the hatches & ride it out!

Do you get religious people coming to your door to proselytize their beliefs? Even in areas where door-to-door soliciting is illegal & only made legal by obtaining a permit for peddling, religious peeps ignore that & think it's okay to knock on your door & tell  you about the word of Jesus. I find this position silly today because back in the days when the New Testament was being written, the only way to spread word of anything was by foot or hoof or boat. Today we have far reaching global communications that allow for us to get anything we want.

Got a question about the Apostles? There's websites online that will answer all your questions. Want to read the bible but don't want to buy one? All of them are online in every language. Have questions about Xianity? You can stop at any church, call any pastor in the phone book or look online & find out any number of answers to the question(s) you have for them. In truth, there is no need for religions to proselytize - except to put pressure on you in person. It's a known fact that looking someone in the eye, belly to belly, causes pressure on the person you are trying to subjugate to your way of thinking.

It's easy: make them think you're nuts & they will never darken your door again. How you ask? Tell them something goofy, like I do, such as "I worship the Great Blue Turnip of Planet X-103! I'm a lowly Radish and aspire to be a High Rutabega in His Heavenly Garden!" When they say stuff like, "Amen!" I say, "Praise Celery!"

Last people to stop by to try to get me to go to church were a couple of little old men from the local Baptist church. They didn't know WHAT to think of me. ;) They offered me a bible tract & so I had them wait a moment, ran to the fridge & got them a stalk of celery and told them to eat it & meditating on the Great Blue Turnip! Again the deer in the headlights stare....

Needless to say, it's worked well for me. I no longer have the JW's, Mormons, Baptists or Church of God peeps knocking on my door. They'll knock on my neighbor's door but they steer clear of me. ;)

Monday, March 28, 2011

Ceremonial Magic Fads: Necromancy

I have noticed that the CM (Ceremonial MagicK) community has often pointed their finger at the New Age community and jeered at them for being to faddish. The idea that New Agers glom onto this fad, that fad & the latest fad. Often, there is truth to these accusations since most New Agers do not know the history nor cultural settings of things like fire walking, Chakra Power centers, Crystals, Feng Shui and so on. However, the CM community is equally as bad....

Since my joining the on-line community in January 1997, I have noticed an ever growing number of CM’s ‘adopting’ (as they are wont to say it) methods, techniques & such the say New Agers have done with their own interests. Such things as Hoodoo, RootWork, Candle Magic, Root Bags, Vodu, and lately, Necromancy.

While it does not hurt to involve some things such as giving offerings to Spirits in Evocations, even though the bibles of such things (re: the grimoires) do not mention it, too many CM’s want to copy how things are done in the African Traditional Religions and then claim it as something they’ve been doing for years.

I actually had an ATR teacher, an Obeah man from South Florida who was well versed in both Obeah & CM who suggested I do this & that. Some of that I shared with various Yahoo Groups over the years and amazing how many of those techniques & ideas wound up in people’s books, blogs & on their websites as their own.

Still the idea of paying one of the 72 from the Goetia for work performed was an idea that many traditional CM’s thought was stupid. Their attitude was if it’s not written in the bibles (re: the grimoires), then it’s not in the plan. I gave candles, oils, incense, food & liquor to any Spirit I summoned be they from the Goetia to the Grimoirium Verum to the Le Dragon Rouge as a matter of course. Now it’s a household thing.

But that alone is not enough. Then we had the CM’s who felt it’s necessary to go & become ATR. One had to go & become a Babalawo, several Houngans and Mambos in Vodu and a number of them were Palero’s. It’s like there was this massive push to join the ATR & find SOMEONE, ANYone to teach them African Traditional Magic. Funny though that a number of them opted for the typical people who bounce around out there on the Web as a Mambo or some of the loudmouths in the Yahoo Group’s ATR lists posing as Houngans or Paleros. (But that’s another rant all its own)

NOW it seems everyone & their brother in CM are claiming they know how to practice Necromancy. Um excuse me Since when? Just because you find a few scant references to it in Egyptian & Greek sources? Or you have learned (through yours truly) in Yahoo Groups how to salute your Ancestors & set up an Ancestral shrine? LoL Were it that simple & easy. Those are just the first steps and not the end all to working with the Dead.

Yes there are some Paleros out there who brag on lists about how to do Palo (a big no-no I might add) but in truth, what you’re doing with the Dead is playing a game, not practicing Necromancy. The Dead are dangerous and just because you can summon & command attention from Raum, Orobas, Seere, Dantalion, Bael & a few others, does not mean you’re going to have a simple run of it working with the Dead. If it were simple, everyone would be doing it.

Necromancy is another art all together. While it is a great idea to have some skills in the area of evocation & summoning Spirits, that’s not everything. The Dead do not have to listen to you. Why? You have no Spiritual Authority!

Oh sure, Jesus said you can exorcize evil Spirits in his name, so what? He was talking Demons, not Joe Sixpack who died six months ago in prison after being repeatedly raped in the shower. That Joe Sixpack is far more dangerous than any of the Goetia. Jesus never said anything about dealing with the Dead; he was talking about higher Spiritual beings such as Demons, not Daimons or Daemons or the Dead. Trying to exorcize a Guede (one of the Dead) in Jesus’ name is fun to watch. The Spirit gets agitated & typically leaves only because most humans are stupid & won’t listen. BUT the Dead guy always comes back unless He is dealt with by someone with real, valid Spiritual authority.

Now even with valid Spiritual authority, trying to exorcize a house or a Spirit from someone is a very dangerous situation. LBRP’s do not work on them; Hexagram rituals do not work on them; telling them to get out does not work on them; threatening them in Jesus the Christ’s name does not work on them; none of that jive you’ve been taught to believe works.

It takes Spiritual authority, knowledge & skill to remove them from a house or out of someone and there is the danger that the exorcist doing it may have the Spirit try & jump on him/her! Your little Hoodoo tricks won’t work with them and you may end up pissing the Geude off even more - much like morons do when they try to exorcize the Spirit in the name of Jesus or Yahweh.

Necromancy is a tricky business & it takes a sense of professionalism & know how to deal with these entities. Sure many of the Dead are no longer around here - they’ve moved on. Okay, so what of it? There are plenty who have unfinished business & are ready to tear someone a new asshole. I’ve seen guys who are well experienced in evocations try to force a rogue Geude who is all pissed off, in the name of Bune or Lucifer which is as silly as trying to get the Spirit to obey & behave in the name of Jesus.

Yes there is a lot to read out there on Necromancy as many scholars uncover old Greek & Roman methods but what those scholars are NOT telling you is that even if you know a technique, and you have no Spiritual authority behind you, why should the Spirit listen to you at all? What’s in it for them?