To Ask the Familiar For An Agent.

This is imported from my small, practical book "Pagan Spells", which also contains a rite for making alliance with a Familiar Spirit.

In many cases, when you have a specific need for magic, it can be answered by asking your allies for aid. The Ancestral Teacher can convey many things to and for you, and the Familiar can be your herald or your guardian. But no spirit has every power. If your Familiar should be of the Wise, then martial tasks are not best suited to it, if it is of stone then it might not work the weather. Yet the Familiar is a spirit, free in the realm of spirits, and it can be asked to find a proper agent among the spirits to do as you wish.

            For those with a developed relationship with their allies this can be as simple as an inner conversation, the spirit called by will alone. In moments of immediate need, the simple charms in the calling section of this work can bring the Familiar quickly, without formal ritual. For newer students, it is well to set this request into a ritual format. Even for the experienced, we find that our calling and speaking with spirits takes on a repetitive, ritualized tone. In my opinion that is simply the spirits’ way of communicating with mortals.

            In this simple charm you will need only a simple fire-offering for the Kindreds, and whatever offering has been customary between you and your Familiar. If you are regularly offering to your allies at your shrine, you can simply ask them for aid in honor of your relationship. If you have something more serious or unusual a special offering is best. When in doubt, make the offering.

           

The Work:

• Find your basic trance, and attune to the Two Powers

• Offer to the Fire, Well & Tree, saying:

Mother of All, Let this Well be blessed.

First Father, kindle magic in this Fire.

Let this Tree be the Crossroads of All Worlds,

That the Sacred Grove may be established.

• Sprinkle all from the Well, and cense from the Fire, saying:

By the might of the Waters

and the Light of the Fire,

this Grove is made whole and holy.

• Make an offering into the Fire, and say:

Keeper of Gates, aid me to open the Ways.

• With your work hand, make a welcoming triskel (in to out, deisil) over the Fire, saying:

By Land, Sky and Sea;

By Gods, Dead & Sidhe;

By Fire, Well & Tree;

Let the Gate be open!

• Turn once deasil, saying:

So the Way is opened and this place is claimed. Let no ill or harm come to me and mine, and Wisdom, Love and Power flow to me through this gate. So be it!

• A short invocation to the Kindreds, with a simple offering, can be done if this is being done formally at the shrine:

Gods and Dead and Mighty Sidhe

Powers of Land and Sky and Sea

A gift I give, from me to thee

Come and lend your aid to me.

• Prepare the Offering and envision the Familiar, calling to it both with your voice, if possible, and aloud in your mind, saying perhaps:

O spirit (spirit’s name) O Noble One

I call to you by Well and Fire and Tree

Draw near, and come in peace, I bid you now,

Take you this gift, O (spirit) come to me!

• When you feel the presence of the spirit, greet it with a flow of love and welcome in your heart, asking it your boon, saying perhaps:

Welcome (spirit), to my fire in peace. I would ask a boon.

Can you send a spirit, O (spirit)

Can you send a spirit?

I would work my will, whether you are sent or you can send a spirit.

To: (state intention clearly and specifically)

Do this for me and I will give to you due offering.

This can be repeated, often three times. After each repetition, open your Inner Eye to the Familiar, and seek a response, conversing as is useful. Can the Familiar find an agent? What are your specific needs? – include a time-based deadline if you need to. If you like, use a simple divination to see whether your visions are true. After three repetitions, you may spend some time communing with the Familiar, perhaps meeting the agent that is found for the task, perhaps not.

• When you know that the work will be done, thank the Familiar, saying something like:

Depart now, my friend, O (spirit’s name), and remember your oath, complete the charge I have given you, with harm to none, and come again at the proper time, or whenever I might call you, and I will make to you due offering.

• A Short Closing

Let bound be bound and wound be wound;

Thus all is done, and done, and well done,

And thus I end what was begun.

Make a banishing spiral (out to in, tuathal) over the Fire, saying:

The sacred center has held well,

Now, by Tree and Fire and Well,

Let this gate be closed!

To the Three Holy Kindreds I give my thanks.

To the Keeper of Gates I give my thanks.

To the Mother of All I give my thanks.

Let wisdom, love and power kindle in all beings

The rite is ended!

The Court of the Dagda; First Working

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.

Demons & Daemons

Animism & Dualism

I've seen some discussion in Blog-land this week on the topic of ‘daemons’, and on how that relates to the idea of ‘demons’. I find the Hellenic category daemon to be a useful way of understanding the general category of ‘spirits’ in a Pagan sense. I've written a bit on the topic already, here.

In that sense, I understand Hellenic ‘daimons’ (or daemons – I probably won’t be consistent) to be spirits of almost every type, up to and including the Olympians themselves and down to the smallest pool-sprite or Cloacinian imp. In Hellenic religion these were understood as servants, messengers or persons of the gods, or as active on their own. Members of the mortal Dead might become daimons. One important function of daemones was to carry sacrifices to the gods themselves, and to return with their blessing. These spirits became associated with the rites and tools of domestic and civic cults – the ‘familiars’ of the sacrificers, the ‘genii’ – which means, at base, ‘family spirits’.

In the Hellenic sense a satyr is a daimon, if not a very noble
one. The depiction of daemones with animals characteristics,
including wings and/or horns, is quite traditional;.

In any animist or spiritist system it will be plain that not all spirits are safe, easy or friendly. The Greeks distinguished between eudaimones and kakodaimones – ‘pretty’ spirits and ‘shitty’ spirits, rather literally. Yes, Virginia, there are fairies in the dung… The spirits of rot and decay, so mandatory for the management of a forest floor, become less welcome in human habitation. If there is a daimon in the waterfall, or in the corn, there is surely one in cholera or crib-death as well. Some parts of lovely and holy nature will just plain kill yer butt – the spirits of those parts are often thought of as ‘wrathful’ or even as ‘demons’ in the Hollywood sense. In traditional cultures it is often the task of priests and magicians to manage them.

Then there is the issue of moral dualism. I do not believe that there is a spiritual battle between Good and Evil. The spirits are not lining up into skins versus… other people’s skins… Just like mortals, the spirits go about their business- waterfalls fall water, cholera eats and kills, etc. It does make simple sense for mortals to divide our categories between spirits who benefit us and spirits who might harm us. We do as much with animals, plants and landscapes. However many dangerous, powerful things make good allies, even gods.

Which brings us to operative magic in a traditional European model. The usual powering agencies behind the magic of the Greek Papyri are the daemones, whether of the gods invoked in the rite, or sometimes in general, and sometimes as categories of the Dead. These spirits are tasked with the usual goals of love-spells, revenge, legal cases and sports-betting.

As the Hellenic moral sense became more restrictive (or refined, as you like) theorists began to assert that some daemones became ‘base’ in their desires and inclinations. They hung around boxing-matches, low sport and Underworld sacrifices. As they became base so the mortals they influenced became more inclined to vicious behavior. These spirits became the servants of low sorcerers, essentially thug-spooks for hire. This was not all so much based upon a matter of ‘sin’ as it was on the idea that wallowing in dung makes one stink. (Back to kakodaemones…). Magicians (especially theurgists) proposed that virtuous living supported contact with wiser, calmer, spirits long before Christian dualism developed its spirit hierarchies.

I remain interested in how the Book of Enoch’s notion of ‘fallen angels’ got wrapped up in all of this. Of course we see there the same pattern – divine beings attracted by earthly delights. The separation of the spiritual from the material seems to have been trending in 1 ce or so. One Hellenic notion of the origin of the daemones is that they are the souls of the humans of the Golden Age, ennobled by the gods to act as guardians and aids for mortals. Throw in the jealousy of the God of Sinai, and those noble spirits, children of the first days, become rebellious angels. To the Hellenes and other Indo-European Pagans, the siring of children by mighty spirits with mortal women was neither improper nor unclean. The spirits of such children often became mighty daimones.

As the classical era ends, Paganism slowly becomes illegal in the Roman Empire. Pagan rites are transferred from the public temples to private chapels and living-rooms. In these reduced circumstances we may have the beginnings of ‘high magic’, and certainly of later theurgy. It is from rites of this sort combined with the low magic of the Greek Papyri that the magic of the grimoires is thought to spring, long and winding though the trail from 700 to 1700 may be.

As Christian myth and spiritology became the norm among scholastics (and so among magicians) the baser daemons were reckoned part of the Enemy’s legions and called ‘demons’, while better daemons were assigned to heavenly quires to become ‘angels’ – messengers – of ‘God’. The whole War In Heaven myth is applied, God’s Kingdom opposed to the World, the Flesh and the Devil. The material world being part of the unholy triad of primal Christian thought any spirit not immediately part of the angelic hosts was a ‘demon’ – a subject of the Prince of This World. So elementals, ‘fairies’ even the worldly end of the spiritual hierarchy were considered ‘demons', i.e. fallen angels and/or servants of 'Satan'.

Among magicians, who were always influenced by but other than orthodoxy, the spiritual hierarchy of, say, any given planet began at an archangel (or a ‘god’ in earlier and later material), descending through layers of servitor spirits. The very lowest layer of those servitor spirits – the actual workers of the magician’s team – were often called ‘demons’. In one of the classical model of spirit-arte demons are commanded by the magician through the agency of the names of the proper angels. In this way the sovereignty of the system’s ‘God’ is preserved, while putting power into the magician’s hands.

We arrive at the era of the famous grimoires with lists of spirits that are known to serve magicians. Some of them seem to be reflections of specific ancient gods, others are more obscure. Some actually do things like slay and coerce, but many create gardens or teach mathematics. If one reads the list of ‘demons’ in, e.g. the Goetia of the Lesser Key one hardly gets the impression of seething evil, disease and revolt. My favorite mythic-style guess is that those spirits began as daemons serving the Gods at the sacrifices, and continued to answer the calls of magicians over the centuries. After all, some sources say that spirits change their names every 40 years…

For many modern magicians approaching the daemones by the names remembered in the early-modern grimoires is a matter of practicality and mechanics. Most grimoire rites involve no diabolism, no worship of Christian mythic figures such as Satan and Lucifer. Rather the piety and focus of the magician allow him to deal with the spirits. The very latest revisions have added a respectful relationship of alliance with these daemones, which seems reasonable to me.

My own opinion is that we can safely discard the whole separation of spirits into ‘angels and demons’. If one prefers to consider spirits who function specifically as ‘messengers’ of a god to be angels, that’s linguistically sensible. There isn’t really much use for ‘demon’ unless one uses it as shorthand for ‘wrathful, dangerous or predatory spirit’. I didn’t mention the idea of spirits who deliberately set themselves against humankind as our enemies, because I’m unsure that such things exist. Of course madness and malice might occur in all classes of intelligent beings, one must assume.

Once again the depiction of daemons (or
'demons' of the later grimoires) is often as
chimeras - a combination of multiple animal
and/or human elements.

To address the question of 'dangers', I can begin by dismissing the idea of there being a danger to my 'salvation' by dismissing the need for salvation. I ain't in that. Most dangers of dealing with the spirits remembered as grimoire demons seem to be the same as dealing with any powerful spirit - to insult or ll-use the spirit can result in a wrathful response. I reject the notion that there is a kind of spirit that makes its business to mislead or destroy humans, and I especially reject the idea that such spirits (should I be wrong about them existing) would brave the protection of magicians to pretend to serve mortals. Since I do not believe there are two opposing moral teams in the spirit-world I don't think there's a danger of choosing the wrong team. 

The original Hellenic analysis may have some merit. Success in human life depends on the cultivation of certain social virtues - moderation, communality, honesty. Nature does not share these virtues widely, and many spirits do not, either. Many noble and useful spirits are no more concerned with human morality than is a plow-horse. The magician is advised, wisely, so work rites that attract spirits of wisdom and sense. Again, if one reads Solomon's Goetia many of those spirits seem to fit the bill. The discernment of early-modern spiritology seems, from my perspective, to have been badly clouded by the 'angels and demons' mythology of the day.

As someone concerned with Celtic and Germanic magic I have no real resonance with the spirit-lists of the early-modern grimoires. I gave some thought to attempting to work with them inside our Druidic fire-sacrifice ritual form. In the end I took the route of prospecting for new spirits. I have no dog in the fight over whether the spirits of the Lesser Key (or of other goetic grimoires) are more dangerous than useful. However, useful things are often dangerous, and I would never advise magicians to play things entirely safe.

My Books; A Self-Review for Buyers

Gifting at the solstice season is an old and honorable custom, stretching back into Pagan time, along with drinking and feasting. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, whatever our religious inclinations, the solstice season is a time for enjoying friends and kin, and sharing the bounty that the year has brought. Here at the always-annoying initial descent of winter I am already looking forward to Yule morning, when the light begins to grow again.

Regular readers will know that I write books and sell them. I’ve done this a long time, though I have yet to have a main-stream publication. (The truth is I’m only a little motivated. The advantages of self-publishing continue to appeal to me. ) As a result I am sometimes asked how to approach my material in an orderly way, or, “what to read first”. In an effort to reduce the retyping of the answer to that question I’ll try to put the important stuff in order here.

If you are looking to read my books, you are hoping to learn about a practical approach to modern Celtic-style religion and magic. I freely refer to what I do as Pagan, though my material is radically different from much of modern Pagan practice. I begin with a reconstructionist’s concern for the original and reliably authentic lore of the Celts, especially the Gaels. To that I add a modern mage’s willingness to reframe, reinvent and experiment. In general I am more concerned with occultism and sorcery than with religion, mainly just as my personal inclination. However all my magical work is framed inside the Pagan religious model in which I work. Blog readers will know my opinion about the intimate connection between religion and magic.

Had I been interested in fame as an occultist, I’d have been an eclectic. Instead I have hitched my wagon to the specific ritual format and cosmology devised within ADF’s Druidry. Fortunately that format has come to be more in tune with trends (and/or contributed to them) in modern magic over the last decades. The modern interest in real work with spirits based on offering, divination and blessing fits very nicely (imhhaa opinion) with the work that I’ve devised. Readers used to working in a post-Wiccan or post-Masonic ritual style will find plenty in the material that can be adapted for their own work.

Prologue:

1: ADF’s Dedicant Path: The 150 page book that comes with one’s first year of ADF membership provides a simple introduction to the symbol system and ritual forms used in the rest of my work. I wrote most of the material, and edited the most recent edition. Even if one is uncertain about ADF as a primary Pagan path the material in our training, and the community of support, is valuable for those interested in non-Wiccan modern Pagan directions.

The Dedicant materials are available only with a one-year ADF membership. Note that all the following are available at my Lulu shop, except for SFHW, which is available at Amazon from ADF Publishing.

  

Top Tier:

2: Sacred Fire, Holy Well, A Druid’s Grimoire. This was the first formal writing I did about

our Druidic system. The core material began as a pamphlet for our local Grove in 1991. By the end of the 90s it had grown into the 300 page item it is now. In truth, all the themes of my later work are present here. If there’s a fault in the book it is that the rites were written to be performed for and by medium to large groups. The seasonal rites are based on our local Grove rites, where we readily have a half-dozen voices available, and the magical rites are written for myself and a partner to work for a fairly large group. The rites have been criticized as unworkable by solitaries, and that may be true.

However I continue to get good reviews from readers who find the book useful for developing a personal practice. It is a multi-category compendium with an introduction, at least, to the whole shootin’ - match.

 3: The Book of Nine Moons. This is a formal system of weekly exercises intended to provide initiation in magical skills and alliances over nine months.  It begins with a program of daily prayer and offering, and works its way into a fully consecrated home shrine and tools, practical magic and spellcraft and the work of gaining familiar spirits. It is specifically written for solitary performance. It includes no seasonal rites, focusing on personal hearth-cult and magical work.

It is, according to students who have attempted it, an intense and challenging program. I based the model on the kind of work that we expected of ourselves back when I was running a training coven. It may be that the pace is too brisk for someone working the system at home alone. I do (still) plan on expanding it into a slower-paced set of trainings, but that has been slow to happen. Those who have completed some basic familiarization with Druidic ritual (say, the Dedicant’s work) will find more of the more advanced material in one place in this book than anywhere else.

Having run a few students through the Nine Moons work I realized that much of the material might be of interest to folks not involved in Our Druidry. I decided that two of the primary teachings of the system ought to be broken out an offered to more general readers, apart from a rigorous general training. Those are the spirit-arte material, and the teachings on trace and vision-work.

 4: The Book of Summoning.  This book presents a systematic approach to gaining the aid and friendship of the spirits (especially non-deific spirits) and beginning to employ them in magic. It begins with a summary explanation of our Druidic ritual form, proceeds with a suite of rites intended to ‘introduce’ the magician to the spirits, and then proceeds to the work of making alliances.

This book contains my final-to-date efforts to apply principles of classic magical spirit work as found in the grimoires to a polytheist, alliance-based model. The rites have been tested by several magicians now to good effect, and I’m confident offering the material. I expect the system to be especially useful for those working to gain primary familiar allies among the Dead and the Landwights.

 5: The Book of Visions. Again using material lifted from the Nine Moons system, this book brings together the exercises for energy-work and vision-trance into a set of progressive exercises. This includes an invention of which I am fairly proud, the Nineteen Working. The working is a sit-down energy, meditation and visualization pattern based in a modern understanding of Celtic Pagan symbols.  It offers both an opportunity for mystical insight, and an important level of understanding and authority for spirit work.

The focus of the book’s vision-work is the construction and use of an Inner Nemeton – a visualized temple and workspace that serves as an arrival and departure point for further vision. This is presented in some detail, in a series of scripted trances. Also provided are exercises intended to allow an approach to the personal Higher Genius, here conceived in a Pagan way.

Let me say this plainly – I don’t recommend buying both the Book of Nine Moons and the two “Books of…”. There is some new material in each of the latter (more in the Book of Summoning) but they mainly reframe material from the full system. The two later books are more modular, easier to adapt to a personal a la carte practice. The Book of Nine Moons is a complete system.

Second Tier

6: The Court of Brigid Grimoire. This is a complete ritual suite for approaching the

goddess Brigid, meeting her primary ‘ministers’ or ‘angels’ or ‘daemons’ and working with the servant spirits of her ‘court’. It is based entirely on the methods presented in the Book of Summoning (and to some degree in Sacred Fire, Holy Well). It could be worked directly from the text by a new student, but some study of the underlying system will certainly reduce confusion.

 7: Draiocht;  A Celtic Sorcery Primer.  As titled, this is a simple introduction to the system, along with a collection of deity invocations, spells and trances. If you want a walk-through of the kind of magic this is, this could be the book for you.

 8: Beginning Practical Magic. This old monograph began life as a transcription of a day-long workshop on spellbinding and practical work. It remains chatty in tone, but it also still sells widely, especially in e-book. The advice and teaching has been rewritten in Sacred Fire, Holy Well.

 9: Spirit Talk; Seedling of Pagan Theologies. Articles on Pagan theologies originally published on this blog.

 10: The Book of the Dragon. What can I say; I wrote this in 1982 or so, in a first attempt

to synthesize my art. It is Wiccan in ritual form, but contains attempts at new work combining shamanistic methods with ritual magic. Very primitive by my current standards, but the art is fairly cool.

Me Having Fun

11: The Fire and Well Spellbook. This was me having fun with typesetting. It is all the ritual material from Sacred Fire, Holy Well arranged in a pretty type-face. Buy the hardback if you want something romantic for your wizard’s library.

12: Blank Books and Journals. (buggy-whips and sealing-wax on the left…). Keep an eye out, I put different ones up. Also see lots of them at my Tabula Rasa shop. 

13: Liber Spirituum. The grimoire tradition of magic includes the idea of a Book of Spirits – a personal book in which one collects the names, sigils and ‘signatures’ of the spirits with whom one has made pacts. This is my typeset of one for myself. The decoration is Celtic, but it would work for any spirit-arte collection.

And…

The Dwale of Afagddu. My small effort at a Cthulhu Mythos tome begins with a weird tale of ancient Wales, telling the secret story behind Cerridwen’s brewing. It then provides a grimoires of mythos rites. It walks a line between actually performable and why bother, but it includes a variety of fake-evil sorcerous Cthulhu art by me.

I write because I like writing, and because I hope that my words and ideas may be of value to other modern Pagans and occultists. I do my own typesetting and art, and enjoy making a book an expression of magic. May my readers be blessed by the work.

The Book of Visions - A Manual of Pagan Meditation & Trance

Done at last! This is the meditation and trance material from the Nine Moons training system arranged in a simple order for general work. (Buy it here.) Please heed my warning: if you bought the Book of Nine Moons, you have all (90+%) of this material. Soonish that book will be withdrawn from general distribution to be made available to ADF Dedicants. However nearly all the material and more is available in this book along with the Book of Summoning.

This completes my long writing project of developing a system of Pagan magical training. The experiments in implementing the system are ongoing, and the Nine Moons may be due for a redesign. But completing this will free me up for the next wave including the The Novel.

Here's the back matter from the Book of Visions:

The Druid’s Peace & the Sorcerer’s Eye

The practice of magical arts requires a mind trained in the ability to produce altered states of awareness at will. Whether we refer to devotional ecstasies, silent meditation, shamanic vision or the second sight, the skills of trance and meditation are central to spiritual practice and practical magic. Magical work is supported by the ability to calm the heart and mind, to work with the energies of the Inner World, and to see and journey among the spirits.

The Book of Visions provides clear lessons in the skills of meditation and vision. It is focused on methods that directly support ritual magic and religion, avoiding theoretical discussion in favor of direct instruction. The methods are presented in a series that can serve as progressive lessons, but the many exercises and scripts can also stand alone. Presented within a Pagan Druidic framework, the methods presented are easily adaptable to other Pagan systems.

The lessons include:

• Meditation – Finding Your Peace; simple instruction in basic meditation.

• The Two Powers; Working magic with the powers of Underworld and Heavens

• The Threshold Realm, & the Vision Journey; opening the Inner Eye, and traveling toward the Otherworld.

• The Inner Grove; creating a personal place of power.

• The Nineteen Working: full instruction in a spiritual practiced based firmly on Gaelic lore.

Ian Corrigan has been learning and teaching in the Pagan community for over 30 years. He is an Archdruid Emeritus and a Senior Priest of Ar nDraiocht Fein (ADF) and worked with Isaac Bonewits in the creation of that Pagan Druidic system. He is the author of Sacred Fire, Holy Well; A Druid’s Grimoire as well as The Book of Summoning, and is currently developing the Nine Moons system of Pagan magical training.

Pagan Spirit Arte in Outline

I have been working to develop ritual methods of spirit-contact in a Gaelic or northern mythic system, using both lore from northern folkways and the outlines passed from classical Greece and Rome in the grimoires. The result, so far, is The Book of Summoning. I’m sure that it isn’t Gaelic enough for hard reconstructionists, but it is probably too Gaelic to be workable by folks focused on other mythic systems without changes. I’ve had a couple of requests for notes on how the system might be reworked for other cultural models, so here we go with some. I dunno how focused this will be, though it is getting more than one draft.

1: The Pagan magical approach centers on the interaction between humans and spirits. While ‘energy work’ models appear in some Pagan systems, it is much more common for magicians to accomplish our work by making alliances and arrangements with specific spirit beings.
A: Animism: The magician often works with very down-to-earth spirits, those indwelling plants and stones, streams and hills and trees.
B: The Dead: The spirits of the Ancestors and, more broadly, of the human Dead are central to classical (and probably Indo-European) magical methods.
C: The Gods: Classical magic is often (even usually) performed under the patronage or presidency of one or more spirits of the class called ‘deities’. These are conceived to be cosmic spirits of high power and wisdom, and specifically those who have been the friends and allies of mortals over the centuries. Some systems tend to put all magical work under a ‘God of Magic’, but special works under specific other gods are also common.

One of the primary tasks in approaching the spirit magic of a culture is to determine their categories of spirits, and understand the local and culturally unique ideas surrounding them. While those working an IE system can probably deal with the Druidic Three Kindreds of Gods, Dead and Wights I don’t know how well that transposes to a Semitic or Central Asian model. Also, the category of ‘Wights’ opens out into a vast mythological scape, from little plant dudes to mighty daemons of the stars.

In practice it can be quite difficult to discern the Landwights from the Dead. For much practical magic these categories become conflated as ‘the Spirits’. Again, specific cultures will parse this in different ways, and knowing those specifics will allow the mage to customize the poetry and words of calling.

2: Several basic principles underlie all spirit-arte:
A: Reciprocity: The relationship between mortals and the spirits is one of give-and-take. The magician makes offerings and gains the aid of spirits, spirits aid mortals and gain the benefit of offerings. This applies from the smallest herb-imp to the gods themselves.
Here folkloric methods are very valuable. Approaching the Spirits in the ways of their ancestors will only make them more likely to answer.
B: Hierarchy: The spirits are arranged by type, and are each and all part of a moving, flowing pattern in which the greater drives the lesser and the lesser executes the will of the greater. Therefore the magician makes alliances with mighty powers, such as the gods, and by the gods meets the kings and queens of spirits, and by the sovereigns meets the knights and laborers of the Courts of Spirits.
C: Authority: The magician is able to deal safely with the Spirits by developing a degree of personal strength, and thus of personal authority. This is of two kinds – personal power, derived from the talents deeds and skills of the magician, and borrowed power, gained by alliance with mighty beings.

It is also true to say that some types of spirit-magic work with humility. The householder who needs to work a trick may be more likely to pray humbly, or cajole with gifts, than to command by authority. The system I've written, however is written for the Druid, a high-status priest with authority among the spirits. Your juju may vary.

3: There are several basic practices that seem nearly universal in Pagan spirit-arte:
A: Sacrifice: The mystery of sacrifice is the giving of honor and offering to the spirits, and the receiving of aid and blessing in return. Every culture will have traditional methods of accomplishing this work. The magician must carefully create a model of personal sacrifice that she is fully competent at. It is proper to say that the spirit-arte mage must be able to function as a priest of his chosen system.
B: Entrancement: Whether deliberate or unstated, when the spirits speak, consciousness is, and has been, altered. It is good for the magician to be able to alter awareness at will, the better to allow the voice and form of the spirits to appear.
C: Alliance: The magician makes primary alliances with a short list of specific spirits, often beginning with a god, but including a variety of spirits. Cultural models will indicate what kinds of spirits commonly ally with magicians.

4: Several basic preparations precede formal work:
A: The Magician’s Shrine: A temple, glade, room, corner, dresser-top etc. is set aside, according to the magician’s resources, to be used as the site of magical work. This is equipped with all the symbols and vessels needed to work a full sacrifice in its tradition.

Incidentally, please note that I’m describing a ‘high magic’ paradigm here. I’m aware that some folkloric spirit-arte manages without the trappings of temple and tools – mostly. However, folkloric systems usually rely on being able to snag bits from existing religious systems – holy water, candles, talismans, sneaking objects into saint’s-day masses, etc. As Pagans we have no such luck, and so, where the old instructions say ‘attend mass’ or ‘have a Mass of the Holy Ghost said’, we must be prepared to work our own sacrifice, and get our own blessing. Thus, we need a temple and the skills of a ritual priest.
B: Personal Tools of Power. In many European cultures these are especially a wand or scepter or, more recently, a sword or dagger. The notion here is a tool that represents the personal power – or indwelling divinity, if you like – of the mage. The form of these will be determined by the culture at hand.

C: Consecration and Activation Rites: All these things are properly blessed. Of course devising proper blessing and purification rites per culture-of-choice is an important preliminary work.

5: The magician develops personal power through preliminary rites.
A: Purifications and Empowerments: A round of preliminary rites, including work to cleanse the magician of ill, and improve peace and luck.
B: Regular worship of the Gods & Spirits: a steady round of offerings, seeking basic blessing and empowerment. A round of seasonal or calendrical rites, attuning the magician to the land, (or stars, or saints, or whatever external cosmic power) is also worthwhile.
C: Creation of a Talisman of Protection: The most immediate of the direct protections.
D: Initial Convocation and Attunement Rites: In the system I'm writing for the spirits are called in general as the Dead and the Landwights. Various ethnicities will have various categories. In any case specific ‘Audience’ rites should be devised, to introduce the mage to the spirits en masse. These will take the form of a formal sacrifice to the category (i.e. the Dead or the Sidhe, or whatever cultural terms make sense), with the intention of inducing the vision and voice of the convoked collective of those spirits. The mage seeks an Audience, in which the spirits see him and he sees the spirits.

6: The Magician makes alliances with specific ally spirits. Here the choices should be closely matched to the system in which the mage works. For Northerners alliances with the Dead and the Landwights seem completely proper. However, those broad categories have so many subsets and specific types that I found myself spending a chapter parsing them in my book. Research into cultural specifics is mandatory here. The goal is to find spirits that are partial to human alliance, while being powerful enough to be of help.
A: Outline of a Conjuring Rite
• Establishment of Space; including preliminary purifications and protections
• Engagement with the Otherworld – or with personal power and authority as the system conceives it.
• Sacrifice to the God Proper to the Work. In initial alliance rites it is advisable to place the work under the presidency of a deity. In most cultures a God of Magicians will be the proper choice, or a psychopomp or perhaps the traditional ‘King’ of a class of spirits, such as Freyr for the Alfar.
• Calling to the Host of Spirits. The Spirits are convoked as in the Audience rites, and the mage proclaims willingness to make alliance. The Book of Summoning gives a method for ‘thinning the crowd’, asking those unwilling to depart. Offerings given, but also promised.
• Calling the Ally. The mage converses with the spirits (by rising in vision, in the book’s system) and an ally becomes available. If all goes well, the magician learns a name, a proper offering and a bit about the Ally’s nature.

• Binding and Charging the Ally. The binding is by oath, binding upon both the mage and the spirit. The charge details the conditions under which the mage will call the spirit and how the spirit will respond.

7: Working With the Spirits. With the alliance(s) made the mage takes up maintenance work, devising a regular offering that keeps him in conversation with the allies, and allows the development of further alliances, and one-shot spirit workings as well.

To summarize:
1: Know your system – the Gods and categories of Spirits, the nature of magical power and the ways of acquiring it, the forms of ritual worship and magic.
2: Gather your power – Purify the body and mind, focus your intention and gain the general blessing and goodwill of the Gods and Spirits.
3: Call the Spirits – make a place for them, offer them gifts and benefit, and deal with them in honor and trust.

I hope that is of some use to those who want to rework my Pagan Spirit Arte models for non-Celtic systems. May you be blessed in the work.

My Work with the Spirits

It's not my habit to brag about my magical work, or really to expose much of my personal practice here on el bloggo. However, I felt an urge to do a 'journal entry' and maybe a bit of self-introduction and history. If there's a lesson, it's that 35 years of intermittent effort can produce a result every bit as good as ten years of focused training...

I’ve been a working magician, in various ways, for some 35 years, not counting stupid teen experiments. In that time I’ve worked as a priest and invocator, as a designer and leader of group theurgic rituals, as a diviner (more so early, less so more recently), and as a spellbinder. Most of my spellwork over the years has concerned financial need and general protection and blessing, occasional uncrossings, and of course the general year-blessings of the round of Pagan holidays. Most of my theurgic, or spiritual development, work has focused on relating to the presence of the divine in the persons of the many gods, and on visionary and symbolic work intended to organize and empower my own souls. Again, much of that work has been organized by the eightfold Neopagan calendar.

I have always understood magic to involve the alliance with spirits, whatever other sort of work I might have been doing. I have worked with ‘impersonal energies’ regularly throughout my life, and still consider the ability to stand wrapped in the Fire and Water important to magic. However my work has slowly but surely led me to the understanding that traditional magic in the west has always been about alliance with other beings - about pacts with the spirits. In recent months I’ve begun to teach simple summary workshops on the topic at festivals, based on my own Pagan Druidic perspective informed by other recent research and development, such as Jake Stratton-Kent’s approach.

So I thought that I would write about my work over the years. This is for my own sake as much as yours, because memory gets long, and I may as well get used to keeping it as I get older.

Working With Gods
Early Pagan Witchcraft was very focused on the Gods, however they might understand them. I began doing ritual out of Mastering Witchcraft, with its focus on the gods as powerful spirits whose power can be called on with the right calls. In the fashion of the time (for those who had no feel for Christianity) I became more religiously Witchy over the years. I was never really a Lady-and-Lord dualist, though. The traditional system in which I eventually worked had a specific constellation of deities, and I always viewed that as our particular ‘witch-cult’, not the sum total of the Gods.

Working with the gods meant learning invocation, and I learned from classical magic and theurgy. My mentors led me through both elemental and planetary self-empowerment rites, but at the same time we were working with the mythic forms of Gaelic lore. While I learned method from the former it was the latter that really captured my attention.

I have been applying theurgic and ceremonial methods to the invocation of the Gaelic gods and spirits for many years. To those who see a confusion is that, I assert that Grimoire magic holds a lineage of magical *practice forms* that are traceable Pagan in origin. While we may need to replace nearly all the mythic content of the grimoires, we can be confident that the ritual and invocatory skills taught in them are not very different from those practiced by a temple priest in Pagan Greece.

Using those skills I became the worshipper of several powerful deities of the Gaelic cultural complex. Lady Brighid remains the patron of our house, who once saved us from fire, and has inspired my work and weal these many years. Dagda Mor, especially as the Ruadh Rofessa (red lord of secret knowledge) and Manannan Mac Lir aid me as well. Being a fairly literal polytheist, I treat these as some among many. Our local year-cult honors a regular round of the deities, so that folks aren’t left honoring only the powers closest to them, but work in balance with the cycles.

While I don’t really petition the gods for specific works or favors much anymore, I do continue their worship. I feel that the blessing gained from this sort of regular attunement to the divine is a primary source of my authority (or whatever) among the spirits. With a goddess at my back I am armed in my armor and armed, as they say.

I experienced a major switch in my path at one point, completely discarding a previous ritual system for a new one. The good news for me is that I didn’t have to change my deities at all. The scholastic level of the old coven meshed nicely with the new form. So, I’ve been working with my central contacts for a long while.

1980s Shamanism
I had experimented with ‘rising in spirit vision’ and ‘pathworking’ in the Golden Dawn style early in my experiments. When Michael Harner published “Way of the Shaman” (the beginning of practical shamanism among western mages) in 1980 it looked like familiar stuff (pun unintended, but kept for the sake of not skippin’ ‘em). At the time I was working in a rigorous Witchcraft system looking for ways to move from ceremonial magic tropes to equally-powerful folkloric tropes. Shamanism was a great angle, and I used it in connection with deliberate summoning rites to make alliances with allies that I still work with today.

My alliances are with a Familiar/guide among what seem to be the Landwights, and a Teaching spirit from among the Dead. They have remained consistent, though unfolding, through all my work. Of course my own level of devotion, piety and/or diligence has varied widely in that time. Fortunately my commitment to the regular work of Pagan season mysteries means that I’m never too long between ritual occasions.

It was those early experiments that led to public alliance-rites done at a dozen or so festivals over several years. Those efforts have developed into a set of formal summoning-and-alliance rites. The results have convinced me that shamanic-style, vision-based evocation can have powerful and lasting results. While special-effects are always welcome in magic I find the ability to rise in vision and speak with the spirits to be entirely effective.

Gods, Dead & Sidhe
My big change of system was to move from a Western Magic/Witchcraft cosmos and ritual form into a new system of ‘Druidry’ based on research into ancient Euro-Pagan ritual forms (ADF, specifically). This meant abandoning the ‘four elements’ for a “Land/Sea/Sky & central Fire” cosmos. The designers of that system, of which I was eventually one, may have gone too far, early on, in tracking the baby and bathwater in what was kept and what discarded. There turn out to be fine Hellenic reasons for drawing a circle around a sacrifice ground, for instance. However the results have been very effective, with rites that resemble Indic yajna and puja rather than Masonry or the Mass. Those forms have been in use for the past 25 years in local congregations around N America.

The change made a huge difference, in time, to my work with the spirits in a Pagan Magic context. Our Druidic ritual is based on welcoming the Gods and Spirits in three classes – the Gods, the Dead and the Landwights, or Sidhe. We know these are permeable categories, but we use them as a simple way to be thorough in our offerings and honorings. What it meant for me is that I began to regularly make offerings, and lead offering rites, to the spirits. I’m here to tell you that if you do that sincerely, the spirits will answer.

For me that answering was mediated by my allies; first by the Goddess Brighid, whose inspiration is a fire unquenched. I also have been instructed, I think, by my Teacher among the Dead. What I’ve asked is how to work magical ritual for moderns using Druidic models and notions, and while the material I’ve produced has been somewhat idiosyncratic I think it could have a wider application for Pagans. The results are available in my newest book “The Book of Summoning”.

In the last couple of years, as I have felt this sense of inward tuition reach a fairly high mark, I have been working a formal set of empowerment and attunement rites that have bumped up my practice. In the course of formal rites to and with the Dead and the Landwights I have made two specific new alliances that are working well for me, while maintaining my long original pacts.

My Work Now
As I have become more intimate with my Familiars, I find myself less likely to ‘pray’ to the gods for an outcome, and more likely to ask an ally to aid me with it. I have developed a formula for asking the Familiar to find a spirit who can aid in a specific works. Thus far my results with this have been pretty good, including weather effects, household management and protection. My relationship with the Ancestral Teacher has progressed – where before the figure was shadowy and concealed, I now know name and form, and am in more direct conversation. Through the Teacher I am also developing contacts with what I see as spirits of those who served as priests and magicians in old times – druids, if you will. All of that continues to feed my stream of inspiration, one of my core goals.

Assuming that I get what I ask for, look to see more song-writing from me in coming times.

My work with the Gods continues. Led by my inspiration I am looking at what it would mean to work with daemones of the Gaelic gods. In an ongoing effort to work in the spirit model, it seems to me that ‘rays’ of ‘force’ from the god/desses can profitably be replaced by ‘legions’ of spirits.

This summer is busy. Do I say that every summer? Yes. Nevertheless, we mean to begin work on deepening our connection with local wights here on the land we keep. This should involve several formal evocations using the system I’ve worked. Expect news here as that occurs.

From a personal standpoint I have greatly enjoyed moving my magic practice from energy work toward spirit arte. Paganism teaches relationship, between people, between humans and the land, between humans and the spirits. Impersonal energies cannot respond to relationship. In the common world we have changed from depending on one another for our daily support to depending on machines. Rather than keep relationship with a servant or employer, rather than knowing the teller at the bank-window, we rely on impersonal devices to do our will at will. It seems to me that we might want to avoid making that happen in our spiritual and magical work as well.