Sunday, August 31, 2014

First Decan of Virgo, via Andrew Watt

I missed the opportunity to present this in time for it to be of actual use to people for this morning's dawn ritets, but it may not be too late. I recited these poems aloud and felt their effects, even though it was the lunar hour of the solar day, and the sun may no longer be in the first decan of virgo, technically speaking.

Do check this out, it is quite lovely:

http://andrewbwatt.com/2014/08/28/poemhymn-first-decan-of-virgo/

Saturday, August 30, 2014

The Dukes are Back in Town

While preparing for MNCON*,  a friend and root worker contacted me for some help with her love life. She was having trouble getting the attention of a gent she had her eye on, and couldn't quite make him budge the way she meant him to. She was going to make a spirit pot to Saleos, and she showed me the pots she was using, that she got from Amazon. They were beautiful, perfect for making spirit pots. They were just the right size to put some dirt, herbs and spices, and an engraved seal, and they were ornate enough to appeal to the spirits without being all obviously a magical implement. I loved them at first sight.

Since I was preparing a presentation on making money working with Jupiter and with Bune, I decided to take advantage of the situation. She wanted to make the pot, and have me do the conjure part because that's not her forte. While that was a good idea, I thought I had a better one. So I was like, "Sure, and I'll do you one better, I'll order a few of those pots, make your Saleos pot, conjure him, and I'll set you up to work with him on your problem and other future events. Then I'll make a bunch more Bune pots to show people at MNCON, and to sell on the web!"

I put word to deed, and set about ordering the spirit pots. I also went down to Magus books here in Minneapolis (it's in an area known as Dinkytown; you can't make this poop up), and picked up every single herb ruled by Venus listed in Agrippa. They have an awesome selection of herbs and spices, and several different kinds of kratom for sale. They even had a brick of labdinum just sitting there for me. It's amazing. I got to meet the original owner of the store, and the current owner at MNCON. They were super cool folks, and I plan on doing a lot more socializing and business with them as time goes by.

When the spirit pots arrived, Harper** fell in love with them, and we agreed she should totally make one for herself. She went through the Lemegeton's Goetia and picked a Duke, since Saleos was also a Duke, and Bune was a Duke, and we had just bought all the herbs we needed to make spirit pots for Dukes. One of the herbs that ended up in the spirit pots was actually grown by Harper, for reasons.

The Friday before MNCON, in a Venus hour, Harper and I were making our apologies to our house guests and hitting the garage where the dremel is set up to engrave the copper disks with the appropriate seals to put in our spirit pots. I engraved the Saleos and Bune seals, she engraved the one she wanted, and we were all set. I put some potting soil in the bottom of the spirit pots, to serve as a way to ground and manifest the forces of the spirits we put in the pots, and then added the Venereal herbs: violet, vervain, labdinum, thyme, valerian root, and maidenhair. We didn't have time to consecrate them before the presentation, so I just took the bags of herbs and the finished spirit pot to MNCON to show how to put the stuff together, and I talked through the conjuration of the spirit that went with it.

Anyway, yesterday I conjured up Saleos at lunch time and got him working for my friend's issue. I conjured Saleos back in the day when I was working on my Modern Goetic Grimoire, and when I called him by name and seal, he was pop! right fucking there. It had been a while since I conjured spirits from the Lemegeton, and man, I had forgotten how tasty and juicy and yummy they are to work with. He was present in a heartbeat, and happy and warm and invigorating. I got down to business, consecrated the pot, explained the immediate need and set her up to work with him for clients in the future, and he was all over that. He'd been cooping her out while she researched his seal for a couple weeks, and was digging the energy. Within an hour the guy was asking her out for a weekend of debauchery after ignoring her for two months, apologizing for being distant, and she's telling me all of what's going down as it happens on Facebook, and I'm cracking up.

Later that night, Harper and I conjured up the Duke for her pot, and that was also amazing, and tasty. And now we're working on the Bune pots. Bwahahahaha!

Have I mentioned I love doing magic lately? And man, in terms of instant return on investment, nothing is better than the Lemegeton spirits for that magical crack jones we get. They are awesome.

Table of Practice for Scale
(Table of Practice not Included)
And so it is, ladies and gents, that I am back in the demon magic business. I totally cheated a little yesterday and offered Bune a candle and some whiskey for his help finishing the writing of an essay that will be included in Aaron Letich's upcoming anthology on offerings and spirits. He rocks! And I'm going to be keeping one of the pots for myself, for a while.

But that leaves two, two beautiful consecrated Bune Spirit Pots available for purchase. I'll be selling them for $275 each. They aren't cheap, but I made a lot more money in the time I was working with my spirit pot than that, for sure.

You'll get the pot, the seal, and a copy of the Modern Goetic Grimoire, which includes all the blog posts I ever wrote about Bune and the Spirit Pot.

A Nicer Pic
I'm not taking orders for additional pots right now, because I don't know when I'll have time to make them. Maybe in a month, maybe not, but I'm done selling things I haven't made yet. That always turns out badly in the end.

If you're interested, please email me at salesatrufusopusdotcom.

It's the only way to get them.

But if you've paid attention, all the instruction you need is here in this post to make your own for the cost of expenses, so I don't want to hear any bitching about cost anywhere on the interwebs. Cause I'm working with demons again, motherfuckers.

The Dukes are back in town.

* MNCON, if I didn't mention it, was fucking awesome. You should totally join the OTO and get dues current just for the wine and cheese we had at this thing. So worth it. Scott Stenwick spoke on Enochian, there was a chaos magic couple who did a presentation on sigils using herbs they'd gathered that morning from their forest home. Brother Magog taught on the I Ching, and Sabazius and his lovely wife answered a ton of questions on the Gnostic Mass. Ixel taught us Ebony Anpu's Tesseract Rite, the primary ritual from Hawk and Jackal, from her notes and correspondence with Ebony before he died. Really, amazing things went down.

**Dr. Harper Feist, my partner, seer, priestess, herder of Cats, and all around lovely, lovely woman.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

FUCKING MNCON....

OMG, fucking MNCON...

A good time was had by all. If you get a chance to look at pics, they aren't NEARLY as cool as hanging out in person was. We drank, laughed, learned, drank, ate some cheese, drank some more...

Ok, it was mostly me drinking, but that's because there are pros, and then there are amateurs. and I say "mostly" me drinking because I was totally in the presence of pros.

I spoke on "Gettin' Made and Gettin' Paid", a presentation I'm looking forward to doing again in the future. Basically, it was me and a 12-year-old bottle of The Yamazaki explaining how to do a combination of celestial magic and terrestrial magic (you know, Jupiter AND Bune) to get money quickly and in the long term. I totally secretly made it all about the Great Work, the Summum Bonum, and the awesomeness of Hermetic Magic(k) in general at the same time.

It took a few days, but the hangovers wore off, and we cleaned the house, and we mowed the yard, and I got caught up (mostly) on a writing project with Aaron Leitch we're doing with Nephelim Press, and things are getting back to "as normal as it fucking gets around here."

I super enjoyed all the people we got to hang out with. Having a local lodge to be a part of is great, I highly recommend it. Magi on hand to talk about all the joys of working with the spirits, all the time, is awesome. Jason Miller tried to tell me at Crucible, but would I listen? NO.

He was right. Lodge life is super convenient.

Also: ON HOSPITALITY! After hosting 4 people for the con in a house built for half that number of adult bodies at a time, I'd like to say: THANK YOU FOR BEING AWESOME ABOUT SHIT THAT COULD HAVE SUCKED! Derek and Brandy, Dean and Kelly, we had a great time in spite of no air conditioning and the last really fucking hot and humid weekend we'll likely ever have in Minnesota ever. I wish you would have drank more beer and eaten more cheese, but wow, what? Those are the complaints I have?

Life is good. You're welcome back any time.

I also got to meet and speak with some guy who goes by the name Sabazius. I totally ran into him in an elevator at NOTOCON last year, and cornered him after a gig in a small room to thank him, and I managed to make it super awkward both times. I also met his wife, who is awesome in really awesome ways, but I don't know if it's kosher to talk too much about that, as #yesallwomen includes the female saints of the OTO.

But kings are fair game.

Turns out in real life he's human, and a lot like every other magician I've ever met in the flesh. I'm sure it was projected, but there was a huge Damocles vibe, no matter when I spoke with him. I thoroughly enjoyed all our interactions, but totally didn't want to bug him the way I'd be bugged if anyone interacted with me the way I saw some people interacting with him, if that makes sense. Uneasy is the head that wears the crown, I suppose, but also I suspect it spends a ton of time bored, annoyed, but has-to-be-pleasant-anyway.

Again, I'm probably projecting. If you get a chance to hang out with kings in their own courts, pay attention. I imagine it's like watching Michael Cecchettelli at one of the social gatherings he attends. So fucking weird, you know?

Anyway, good times were had by all. I'm looking forward to travelling around and seeing more people in more places over the coming months, and returning to normal activities here on the blog.

Much love, brothers and sisters!

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Peace of mind... -ish

Ahhh, the kids are back home in Baltimore, I've found a bit of mental peace after a few hectic months, and I'm finally settling into my life here at HFRO HQ-Midwest.

MPLS Sculpture Garden
Donnie Darko Nightmare Fodder
Minneapolis is treating us well, and we're finally settling into new jobs, new home, and new routines. My kids visited me for four weeks, and I must say, wow. Just wow. People with kids have it harder than people without. I had forgotten, somehow. Like I put it out of my mind or something, how very, very hard it is to parent and provide and nurture and entertain all the freaking time without losing your cool and being a douche.

But we survived, intact, and we got a third cat out of the deal. Boots rocks. Huge shout out to Neska and Craig for all their help with the cat situation.

Objects Without Scale are Larger than They  Appear
Hopefully this will be one of the vanishing few posts that are all about obscure RO-personal life things, as I am free now to turn my full attention back to the Work at Hand. This weekend I'll be speaking at MNCON, an OTO-only event at Leaping Laughter Lodge. The audience is about maxed out, but if you are interested in a special presentation on wealth magic by yours truly, AND you're a dues current card carrying member of the OTO, AND you're close to Minneapolis, MN, sign up and we'll try to squeeze you in somewhere. Harper's providing the champagne, and several other things, I'm bringing ice and snacks, and teaching on Jupiter and Bune, Head in the Heavens, Feet in the Hells style Wealth Magics for one and all...

If you're dues current.

*Sigh.* To be honest, I didn't realize it was like that when I signed on to speak. I thought it was open to the public. But the audience is going to be pretty rarified in some circles, so I am totally not complaining.

I'm working on a new manifestation of my Projection Phase, which you'll be seeing more of over the coming weeks. I've still got lots in the head that I'm digitizing and prototyping in preparation for what comes next, after the Big Green Event that Nephilim is rolling out shortly. It's going to be life changing, on a global scale.

For those who can fucking take the goddamned heat.

Anyway, much love motherfuckers.

I'm not dead yet.