Via Solis Capricorn Elixir Rite - Year Nine

Today's post is a full script for the Capricorn Elixir Rite that we will be performing tomorrow, December 23rd, at the Leaping Laughter Ritual Workshop. We will starting around 8 PM.

0. The Temple

The ritual space is set up with an altar table in the center. The bell chime, banishing dagger, and invoking wand are placed on the altar. In the center of the altar is placed a cup of wine for creating the elixir, within the Table of Art corresponding to Capricorn.

The sign Capricorn is attributed to the powers of "The Witches' Sabbath so-called" and "the Evil Eye." The latter is a general form of cursing cast by line of sight, but keep in mind that as Capricorn rules the Evil Eye, this sign can be employed both to cast such curses and protect you from them. Seeing as the "Witches' Sabbath" is not a real magical operation, but rather an invention of Medieval witch hunters (as the "so-called" likely acknowledges) it requires some explanation.

According to the imagination of witch hunters, the Witches' Sabbath was a ritual in which witches copulated with the Devil in order to obtain magical powers. So in the context of real magical operations we are talking about sex magick in various forms, whether symbolic or actual. Liber A'ash vel Capricorni Pneumatici, for example, is attributed to this sign and describes in (only slightly) veiled symbolic language a sex magick technique similar to Spare's well-known sigilization method. The Great Rite in the Wiccan tradition would be another example.

In addition, one of the magical weapons attributed to Capricorn is "the secret force" which is a reference to internal energies such as kundalini, whether employed in sex magick operations or otherwise. So another application for Capricorn would be to develop and/or strengthen those energies by magical means. It is important to keep in mind that "sex magick" such does not necessarily involve having sex, but rather working with the union of energetic polarities - which can be accomplished by many different means.

The Via Solis Elixir Rites were written by Michele Montserrat in 2010 for the Comselh Ananael magical working group.

I. Opening

All stand surrounding the altar. Officiant inhales fully, placing the banishing dagger at his or her lips. The air is then expelled as the dagger is swept backwards.

Officiant: Bahlasti! Ompehda!

Officiant then performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. All rotate accordingly.

Officiant: We take refuge in Nuit, the blue-lidded daughter of sunset, the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky, as we issue the call to the awakened nature of all beings, for every man and every woman is a star.

All: MAKAShANaH

Officiant: We take refuge in Hadit, the secret flame that burns in every heart of man and in the core of every star, as we issue the call to our own awakened natures, arousing the coiled serpent about to spring.

All: ABRAHADABRA

Officiant: We take refuge in Heru-Ra-Ha, who wields the wand of double power, the wand of the force of Coph Nia, but whose left hand is empty for he has crushed an universe and naught remains, as we unite our awakened natures with those of all beings everywhere and everywhen, dissolving all obstacles and healing all suffering.

All: AUMGN

Officiant: For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

All: All is pure and present are and has always been so, for existence is pure joy; all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass and done; but there is that which remains. To this realization we commit ourselves – pure and total presence. So mote it be.

Bell chime.

Auto-Talismanic Ritual for 2025

We will be performing the Auto-Talismanic Ritual for the 2025 Winter Solstice this Friday evening, December 19th. Doors open at 6:30 with the ritual to begin around 7 PM.

0. The Temple

The temple is set up with an altar in the center, on which sits the Table of Art. A pitcher filled with wine or juice is placed in the center of the Table. The banishing dagger, invoking wand, and bell chime are placed on the altar. Magus wears white and Sophia wears black. Throughout the ritual, Sophia and Magus face each other across the altar, moving appropriately throughout the various ceremonial forms.

I. Opening

As each person enters the temple, they are handed a glass filled with salt water. Once all are present, Magus takes up the banishing dagger and performs the Star Ruby up to the final Qabalistic Cross.

Sophia: We take refuge in Nuit, the blue-lidded daughter of sunset, the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky, as we issue the call to the awakened nature of all beings, for every man and every woman is a star.

All: MAKAShANAH.

Magus: We take refuge in Hadit, the secret flame that burns in every heart of man and in the core of every star, as we issue the call to our own awakened natures, arousing the coiled serpent about to spring.

All: ABRAHADHABRA.

Sophia: We take refuge in Heru-Ra-Ha, who wields the wand of double power, the wand of the force of Coph Nia, but whose left hand is empty for he has crushed an universe and naught remains, as we unite our awakened natures with those of all beings everywhere and everywhen, dissolving all obstacles and healing all suffering.

All: AUMGN.

Magus: For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

Sophia:: All is pure and present and has always been so, for existence is pure joy; all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass and are done; but there is that which remains. To this realization we commit ourselves – pure and total presence.

All: So mote it be.

Via Solis Sagittarius Elixir Rite - Year Nine

Today's Magick Monday post is a full script for the Sagittarius Elixir Rite that we will be performing tomorrow, Tuesday December 9th, at the ritual workshop. We will be starting the ritual around 8 PM.

0. The Temple

The ritual space is set up with an altar table in the center. The bell chime, banishing dagger, and invoking wand are placed on the altar. In the center of the altar is placed a cup of wine for creating the elixir, within the Table of Art corresponding to Sagittarius. The sign Sagittarius is attributed to the power of “Transmutations." It is also the only sign attributed to a vision, the "Vision of Universal Peacock." This vision is a significant step in alchemical processes. Transmutation is a general power with many applications, since in a sense all magical operations represent attempts to transmute or transform some aspect of yourself, the external world, or both. So any intent along those lines would be in harmony with the power of the sign. The Via Solis Elixir Rites were written by Michele Montserrat in 2010 for the Comselh Ananael magical working group.

I. Opening

All stand surrounding the altar. Officiant inhales fully, placing the banishing dagger at his or her lips. The air is then expelled as the dagger is swept backwards.

Officiant: Bahlasti! Ompehda!

Officiant then performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. All rotate accordingly.

Officiant: We take refuge in Nuit, the blue-lidded daughter of sunset, the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky, as we issue the call to the awakened nature of all beings, for every man and every woman is a star.

All: MAKAShANaH

Officiant: We take refuge in Hadit, the secret flame that burns in every heart of man and in the core of every star, as we issue the call to our own awakened natures, arousing the coiled serpent about to spring.

All: ABRAHADABRA

Officiant: We take refuge in Heru-Ra-Ha, who wields the wand of double power, the wand of the force of Coph Nia, but whose left hand is empty for he has crushed an universe and naught remains, as we unite our awakened natures with those of all beings everywhere and everywhen, dissolving all obstacles and healing all suffering.

All: AUMGN

Officiant: For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

All: All is pure and present are and has always been so, for existence is pure joy; all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass and done; but there is that which remains. To this realization we commit ourselves – pure and total presence. So mote it be.

Magick Without Fears Hermetic Podcast Interview

This afternoon I sat down for an interview with Frater RC at the Magick Without Fears Hermetic Podcast. We discussed my latest Enochian book, Mastering the Thirty Aires and a number of other topics related to magick and mysticism. I had a great time as always, and go check out the Magick Without Fears Hermetic Podcast. Frater RC has plenty of great guests discussing fascinating topics surrounding the theory and practice of modern esotericism and magick.

Review - Modern Hermeticism by Erich and Alannah Brown

I originally met Frater Barrabbas back in 1999 when he was living in Minneapolis and coming around to Leaping Laughter OTO events. At that time he shared with me an unpublished manuscript detailing the system he had developed for his Order of the Gnostic Star entitled The Pyramid of Powers. The system drew elements from the Golden Dawn, Thelema, and Alexandrian Wicca, and represented a unique system of magick in its own right that was meaningfully different from its antecedents.

The Pyramid of Powers system was eventually reworked from that original manuscript and published as The Disciple's Guide to Ritual Magick and Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick, both currently available from Crossed Crow Books. While the Disciple's Guide is targeted at beginners, it still is an introduiction to a complex system of magick that may or may not make sense to rank beginniners without any background in magical workings. What the system still really needed was a sort of Modern Magick for the Gnostic Star system that would work for students who were just starting out.

I provide all this background because Modern Hermeticism appears to be exactly that book. It covers the system in a series of simple steps that build on each other, and thus makes it more accessible and approachable. Even so, it covers a lot of material, from the Qabalistic Cross up the full Pyramid of Powers ritual, which is not exactly analogous to anything in Golden Dawn/Thelema or Wicca. It also has a section on Enochian magick, which is explained in simple and straightforward language.

I don't personally practice the Gnostic Star system, so there are some points that I approach differently in my own work. The Enochian system, for example, is original but heavily employs the Golden Dawn arrangement of the system. As such, my approach based on Dee diary attributions is very different. Still, the Golden Dawn Enochian system and its variants are employed by many modern magicians who report good results with it. The system does not employ the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram to open and close magical fields the way I do, but instead uses some original ritual forms to accomplish the same objective.

The book also includes a lot of Jungian material, which I criticize often, but it seems like that's currently the case whenever any book on magick touches on psychology. It should be noted that while psychoanalysis is based on an entirely inaccurate model of the mind and brain, Jung's work on mysticism in particular is pretty good regardless. During his life he sought out mystical experiences and writes about them from a firsthand perspective in works such as The Red Book. This likely explains its popularity in esoteric spaces.

I do very much appreciate the lack of "spelling" (pronouncing YHVH as YOD HEH VAV HEH when vibrating) in their rendition of the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, which is a bad instruction that gets repeated all over the place. Also, the material on working with the godhead and invoking godforms is excellent and gives great instructions for doing invocations. Finally, this is exactly the sort of thing that modern magicians should be doing - developing their own ritual forms and applications, and then subjecting them to peer review through publication.

If you are a fan of Frater Barrabbas' work, or just interested in seeing another way in which traditional ceremonial forms can be modified and worked with, check out Modern Hermeticism. It covers the material with impressive clarity without sacrificing any of the Gnostic Star system's depth and complexity. Even if you don't wind up working with the system, it also contains a lot of good advice that is applicable to magick in general and should benefit any practitioner.

Kim Davis Loses Forever

Poor Oppressed Christian icon Kim Davis has been rejected by the Supreme Court. Her bid to overturn same-sex marriage in the United States was declined by the heavily right-wing court, which leaves the appeals court decision against her bid in place. This was her last chance to appeal, so she now owes hundreds of thousands in judgements and legal fees. She has officially lost her case.

An appeal of a verdict against controversial former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, which also took aim at a 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage throughout the country, will not be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court.The decision was issued Nov. 10 in an order list from the high court. No reason for the denial was included in the two-sentence ruling.

Davis, who drew international attention to her Northeastern Kentucky community 10 years ago when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, had called on the court to strike down a 2023 court verdict that found she owed $100,000 to a couple who she had denied a license in 2015. Her attorneys with Liberty Counsel had also pushed for the Supreme Court to use her case to overturn the Obergefell decision.

Davis is a cautionary tale about how far these extremists will go. She originally argued that due to her religious beliefs she should be exempted from having to personally sign off on same-sex marriage paperwork. At the time I didn't have a problem with that as long as same-sex marriages were approved in as timely and efficient a manner as opposite-sex ones. Multiple people without objections worked in Davis' office, so it was clearly possible. But I should have known better and I'll cop to that.

Via Solis Scorpio Elixir Rite - Year Nine

Today's Magick Monday post is a full script for the Scorpio Elixir Rite that we will be performing tomorrow, Tuesday November 11th, at the Ritual Workshop. We will be starting around 8 PM.

0. The Temple

The ritual space is set up with an altar table in the center. The bell chime, banishing dagger, and invoking wand are placed on the altar. In the center of the altar is placed a cup of wine for creating the elixir, within the Table of Art corresponding to Scorpio. The sign Scorpio is attributed to the power of “Necromancy." Note that this refers to work with the spirits of the dead, including ancestors, rather than magick involving dead things such as body parts and so forth. The Via Solis Elixir Rites were written by Michele Montserrat in 2010 for the Comselh Ananael magical working group.

I. Opening

All stand surrounding the altar. Officiant inhales fully, placing the banishing dagger at his or her lips. The air is then expelled as the dagger is swept backwards.

Officiant: Bahlasti! Ompehda!

Officiant then performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. All rotate accordingly.

Officiant: We take refuge in Nuit, the blue-lidded daughter of sunset, the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky, as we issue the call to the awakened nature of all beings, for every man and every woman is a star.

All: MAKAShANaH

Officiant: We take refuge in Hadit, the secret flame that burns in every heart of man and in the core of every star, as we issue the call to our own awakened natures, arousing the coiled serpent about to spring.

All: ABRAHADABRA

Officiant: We take refuge in Heru-Ra-Ha, who wields the wand of double power, the wand of the force of Coph Nia, but whose left hand is empty for he has crushed an universe and naught remains, as we unite our awakened natures with those of all beings everywhere and everywhen, dissolving all obstacles and healing all suffering.

All: AUMGN

Officiant: For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

All: All is pure and present are and has always been so, for existence is pure joy; all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass and done; but there is that which remains. To this realization we commit ourselves – pure and total presence. So mote it be.

Review - Glamour of the Spheres by G Antra

Glamor magick is usually thought of a niche discipline that involves projecting illusions into the minds of others in various situations. Whether to improve your overall general charisma, or to make yourself more attractive as a romantic relationship partner, the parameters of this art are limited to such circumstances. But this is false reductionism. Glamor magick is the magick of perception, and perception is the foundation of how we experience the world. As such, this art has many further applications that usually go unexplored.

Glamour of the Spheres by G Antra opens up the world of glamor magick to its full potential. G has presented on the subject at Leaping Laughter Lodge's Grimoire Bazaar in Minneapolis and the Babalon Rising festival in southern Indiana, and has considerable expertise in the field - along with an experimental, scientific approach to the work that I find many practitioners lack. It does no good to merely speculate on the effects of rituals, since as we all should know many "pretty patterns" in magick just don't work when subjected to real-world conditions. Emprical testing is essential, and as I have previously written I wish more practitioners would test their personal work like this and make it available for peer review.

Glamour of the Spheres mixes glamor magick with planetary magick, a refreshing combination that I have not previously come across. It covers the basics of planetary work, the attributions and powers of the planets, and glamor rituals for each of the planets. These are not limited to presence and appearance. For example, the "Lips of Mercury" spell that can be performed using lipstick or lip balm facilitates communication and helps each word that passes your lips be better understood and carry deeper meaning. This is perception, too, and goes far beyond mere surface attraction.

All these rituals are constructed using a system of energy work that I was exposed to when I first attended the Babalon Rising festival back in 2023. It focuses on energy going out from your projecting hand and returning to your receiving hand, which is an idea found in many systems of energy work. What's different, though, is how this energy work is integrated into the rituals themselves. A simple example would be holding your petition to the spirit (the energy you are sending out) in your projecting hand while you hold a talisman (which will receive the energy) in your receiving hand as you perform the ritual.

This is a very simplistic example and the rituals in the book make use of this technique in more involved ways. Having experimented with variations on this method over the last several years, I can confidently say that it has improved the effectiveness of my Qigong energy practice to a substantial degree. The traditional model of accumulating and then discharging Qi becomes far more effective when projecting/receiving becomes a more dynamic, flow-based process, like the difference between a static spark and an electric circuit. My practice did previously include application of some flow-based methods, but the version outlined in Glamour of the Spheres makes the process more explicit and deliberate.

For all these reasons I highly recommend Glamour of the Spheres. It is a fresh and expansive approach to a subject that is rarely covered in much depth, and even if you are a person like me who does not generally wear makeup or use cosmetics, the techniques can be adapted for rituals involving personal care products, articles of clothing, or even more traditional planetary talismans carried on your person. Pick up your copy today!

G Antra's Linktree can be found here covering Twitch, Instagram, Threads, and many other social media outlets.