One of the primary inspirations for this blog was the blogging of a cadre of East Coast magicians that included Jason Miller and Rufus Opus. They were determined to do tight magical work seeking real goals and to submit their journaling to mutual review in blog format. While I have used this vehicle to blather on about a variety of things I am always happy when I have some real occult news. Have I said 'Happy New year' yet? Well happy New Year!
On the full moon of January, 2015 my priestess-wife and I
undertook the next in a series of spirit-arte rites based on the patterns
devised for my Book of Summoning. The working was successful on it’s basic level, opening the way for new work
with the Gaelic gods and spirits.
Readers here will know that I have been working for some
while to apply the methods of European magical spirit-arte, as preserved in the
medieval manuals often called grimoires. In these rites my goal is to evoke to
local presence specific servitor spirits (i.e. members of the deity’s ‘court’
or ‘retinue’) who are willing to ally with the magician for future magical
work. The first formal and public application of my efforts was in the Court of
Brigid workings. In what I now consider an ass-backward style I introduced that
work as a daring (or foolish) public festival rite in the summer of 2012,
followed by a personal intensive at home, and further work in spellbinding with
those spirits. It has all been fairly well-journalled here, in reverse Chronological order. The complete account and scripts for the
Court of Brigid work are also available here.
The Red God
I have been slowly devising a suite of rituals using the
same format, focused on the Gaelic deity the Dagda. The Dagda (whose name means “Good God” in the sense of “good at everything”… “Yeah,
I’m good for that…”) is one of the Three Kings of the Tuatha
De Danann, the literary remnant of the Irish gods preserved in the Book of
Invasions. He is called the Druid of the Gods, and Ruadh Rofhessa – the Red One of Secret Knowledge. If you know just one tale of this god, it probably includes the image of him
striding across the land, belly distended with porridge, godly dick dragging
below his tunic. This may be monkish ribaldry, or a reference to Himself in his
fertility aspect. However in my work it has been that Lord of Wisdom, Druid of
the Gods figure that has been the central focus. In that figure I also consider
the Dagda to be the priest of the Sacred Fire, and thus a key figure in the
mysteries of Druidry.
I have chosen to vaguely imitate certain western magic
hierarchic ideas, especially the notion of ‘Chief Ministers’, or ‘Captains’ of
the spirits who serve the god. Thus the mechanics of the rite involve first
invoking the god of the rite in some detail, and abiding in that god’s presence.
The god is then asked to send his ‘Chieftains’ – these are understood as more
specifically realized persons… daimons of the god, certainly, who embody more
specific powers. One might associate this level with ‘archangels’ in a more
Hermetic hierarchy, but I do not draw that link too tightly. I remain
unconvinced of the necessity of this step for the goal of summoning useful
courtiers. However the results of the work with these figures in the Court of
Brigid have been continuing, and so I duplicated it in the Dagda suite.
The Three Chieftains invoked (not evoked) during the rite
were the Harp, the Club, and the Cauldron. The Dagda possesses several mighty magical implements,
including the harp called “Four Cornered Music”, which is said to turn the
wheel of the seasons; the War-Club that slays with one end and restores life
with the other; and the Never-Dry Cauldron, a feasting vessel that serves
everyone their favorite food. These symbols/tools were chosen to represent the
Three Chieftains of the Dagda’s Court, and display is tri-functional nature.
The Harp is the power of the Poet/Mage, the ‘first function’ in an
Indo-European analysis. The Club is the Warrior (second function) power, and
the Cauldron of Feasting represents the third-function Wealth-Producers and
their delightful bounty. So we would
invoke the Chieftains as the Harp, Club and Cauldron, using several poetic
names and references from lore.
Re-riting
As I said, we began the Court of Brigid work with a big
group rite that involved invocation of the primary deity and of the Ministers
of that deity, and then the evocation of specific spirits. From these specific
spirits we receive forms, names, the abilities they bring and what offering
they would prefer. This amounted to rather a big rite, especially in a
gathering environment.
When L. and I decided to recreate the work at home, we divided the original
rite into a suite of three workings. The first rite was/is an ‘Audience’ with
the primary god, in which detailed offerings are given and a very specific
series of blessings sought. The second rite was effectively an evocation of the
Three Ministers, and the third was the evocation of courtiers. We performed the
Court of Brigid triad over three weekend days, a very satisfactory method.
However…
Our schedule for the weekend of the January Full Moon simply
didn’t leave the time open for the three-rite suite, which I had actually
written and typeset some months previously. In a fit of determination we
contemplated various configurations. We had performed a full Audience rite to the Dagda three times over the past year, at events and
at home. We considered jumping in at the Three Chieftains point, considered
trying to fit two full rituals into the time we had. IN the end our choice was
to do the whole deal; we would make the full round of offerings to the god from
the Audience, do the full vision-presence of the Chieftains (though not the
evocation of those beings), and then call for allies from his Court. We would
do this all in a single marathon-ish rite. I prepped prompts for the more
detailed invocations.
The Working
I gotta tell ya, our choice led to the assembling of a lot
of offerings. The initial Audience required nine specific items, then small
things for the Chieftains and a few more for the rest. You can see in the
photos just how much stuff is involved. Of course we were doing this rite
indoors, with a minimal token fire, so stick incense replaced oil offerings in
the Fire, and most things were given into a large offering-bowl.
We set ourselves and ambitious goal to be ready, and missed
it by an hour. That meant we lit the fire just as the sun was setting, so that
was proper. It required about three hours to assemble all the items from our
stash of stones, silver, herbs and spell-components. Fortunately that stash is
pretty deep these days. Being a vegetarian house we had to buy the pork, and
the Big Man was given bacon, which cannot be argued with. While we gave
ourselves little time for formal pre-ritual prayers and prep, the work of
assembling the rite served in its own way.
The rite was framed in a full “High Day’-style ritual order,
which L and I can walk into handily, and expect our awareness to alter into the
proper states. While this rite is as complex as anything we’ve done for the
public, we didn’t have to worry about successful trance induction. The work L
and I had done in my Nine Moons training serves us in our ongoing work.
Invocations
Having performed the Audience rite several times, the
primary invocation of the Dagda was familiar and powerful, producing a clear presence for me. At each stage of
the work we paused for a time to abide in the presence of the spirits. To me
the power of Dagda as the Lord of Wisdom has become very clear, in contrast to the
fertility-buffoon persona that is so often described.
The invocations of the Three Chieftains included a
deliberate visualization of the stylized form of each, with an invocation and
offering. An Irish-language mantra or conjure-charm accompanied each call.
Again, we chose not to evoke specific daimons of these powers. In retrospect I
want to go back and catch that up. However the effect for me was very juicy;
very somatic, energetic and fiery. This is the first time I’ve done an
encounter with a warrior entity this close, and I found the Club-Chieftain fascinating;
more exploration to come. Certainly I have spent more time with the priestly
and feastly aspects of the Big Man.
It is the immediate feeling of power and presence that this “ministers”
phase produces that convinces me of its value. It has only a tenuous
relationship to Northern tradition, though hierarchy was the norm among such
tribes. The increased sense of local presence that this stage of invocation
produced was notable and valuable, and made the next and final step feel
entirely within reach.
We treated both the Dagda Himself and the Three Chieftains
as the ‘Beings of the occasion. We concluded our invocations and offerings to
them, and made a final Prayer of sacrifice, and drew an omen with the ogham
lots.
Our initial intention was to draw a single lot for the omen.
However we received Eamhancoll, which we considered rather equivocal, so we
proceeded to draw two more letters. Those were Óir and Idad and so we took the
omen as good, and proceeded. On a review of the previous Dagda rite journals I
discovered that Eamhancoll was part of the omen at the very first Dagda
Audience rite, so I take that as a Good Thing as well.
Evocations
In the two public Court of Brigid rites L. and I were the
magisters, and the attending circle acted as the seers, mostly on a
one-spirit-per-seer basis. As magisters we were busy managing the interactions,
making offerings, writing down the details, etc. We did no formal receiving of
spirit-data ourselves.
In the private CoB working we had decided to personally evoke spirits that had presented themselves at the two
public rites. We divined a short list of six, and called them to the Fire. Once
again, we did no ‘prospecting’ in the manner of the initial rites. This time,
as we approached the final phase of the long working, we intended to do just
that.
The rite we use takes a great deal of trouble to deepen
trance, focus attention and grant permission to see and understand the spirits.
We had spent some time in silent abiding, first with the Dagda himself and then
with the convoked Chieftains, so even as we manipulated all the little bowls
our trance level remained deep. The final deepening of the rite is the blessing
of the Return Flow vessel with herbs, silver and crystal, and the anointing of
the seers’ eyes with that blessing.
This time I used a formal ‘Seer’s Frame’, a symbolic locale
in which I expected the spirit to appear. The chosen symbol is a ‘triangle of
manifestation, empowered with the ogham letters for Oak, Hazel and Rowan.
Conjuring the triangle was another juicy, trance-supportive moment.
Once the Big Conjuration was made, the impression of a crowd
of waiting spirits was strong for both of us. The “Oath” section requires
spirits to stay or go according to their willingness to sweat the oath, and we
thought that only a few of the initial crowd left at the prompt. We then set to
the business of calling individual spirits.
We had decided to alternate, one of us seeing while the
other wrote down the details, then trading off. This worked well enough, with a
small charm in Irish setting each turn in frame. For me, the early appearances
were snappy and clear, while the last couple took more time for a form to
resolve. We had set ourselves a limit of nine spirits, and ended up with seven.
I must admit that by the end of the two-hour ritual and trancework my knees
were stiff and I was both physically and mentally ready to wrap ‘er up.
I hope you will forgive me for not immediately listing the
seven Courtiers who answered us. The CoB lists were the result of joint group
effort, while this was our personal work. I will probably make them (more)
public, but not until some further processing.
This working was not, in itself, a practical magic rite –
the result we were looking for was the spirit-contact, and that we achieved.
The next step is to test and employ those spirits, as we have done with Brigid’s Court. Watch this space for some practical-magic models and suggestions.
After a final time of abiding in the vision and presence of
the whole array of spirits we closed in an orderly way, with the ‘License to Depart’
to the Courtiers, and thanks to all the Holy Beings. We picked up the dishes
and vessels, and finally had our dinner, grounding in quiet for a while. The
big bowl of mixed offerings we set in a side room overnight. The next morning
it was delivered to our new Nemeton on the hill, and dumped into the Offering
Shaft (which was full to the top with winter rain).
Our intention is for this to be the beginning of a new round
of esoteric work around here. We must take advantage of the winter, indoor
season. We approach Imbolc, the High Day of both Brigid and the Dagda in our
local cult. I feel that we are more prepared than ever to give and get that
blessing. May it be upon you as well, as we await the spring.
