Working With EXARP, and Other Enochian Experiments

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enochian

The baseline idea in a bunch of conversations I’ve been having recently is that Enochian isn’t particularly dangerous into and of itself, but rather that it’s the same shopworn path people have fallen into with the folly of magick. Folks want something, they don’t know how to get it, they want it with incredible desperation, and therefor magick. Right? It works. It works really well. They have an incredible, absolutely amazing well of intent and emotion to draw from and the merest flicker from the lens of ritual focuses that into a beam. Like the sun on a bright day, the effects aren’t immediately noticeable, but the sheer amount of power they have behind that focused star causes change in the world.

For some folks, that’s great. They accomplish what they want. The next “spell” or “ritual” they do goes kaput because they didn’t build up the tantric wellspring of desperation or inspiration and they quit or they decide it’s bunk or they believe whatever they want to believe and move along. That’s fine. I sort of get annoyed at the magickal community sometimes for rejecting the idea that not doing magick everyday is somehow an indication of a lack of commitment. There is, at some level, a subset of magicians working on the idea that thaumaturgic goals are all that magick is for and are perfectly adequate to their ends. They do magick to get comfortable, they get comfortable, and until they’re uncomfortable, they’re happy and fine. Unpopular opinion hat on: That’s absolutely a valid application of magick. That model requires unhappiness and desperation and there simply is no magickal power in something which isn’t a fight for a goal or with someone.

Those people also tend to be very comfortable in systems like Thelema, where Crowley says folks should do their own Will. I think that interpretation of Crowley is very narrow, but if its someone’s Will to sit about and get that nice office job and enjoy their family and what they provide I cannot say that this is wrong. If a person believes their true Will is to lay about and eat tacos all day (and I love tacos), and they are happy and have accomplished that, then they are perfectly correct.

I personally don’t enjoy that perspective. I also think there’s a subset of people who want to practice magick because they desire to help the world at large, which is much more complicated task, and because they want to make themselves better. I recently had a moment about a year ago where I looked around and thought, “I’m pretty darn comfortable”. My schedule tends to be erratic and I find myself with little free time between the job, and the gym, and then to further drain that resource I find that my children have progressively more homework and I desire to philosophize with them and discuss the world in their terms and share my own perspectives as an adult. But, finally the Light came on me one day and I realized a few things.

If you’re comfortable, you have an obligation to help. The Enochian forces in their original, not Golden Dawn format inspired labor, and they inspired travel, and they inspired self improvement in a variety of seven liberal arts and sciences. Even in the pagan context, because I still get down with the sublunar forces of nature, the AesiR and the VaniR told myths about how to care for the world, and poetry, and family matters, and charity. Sure it’s great to hear the story about how Thor smashed all the ice giants or how Dee sunk the Spanish Armada, but these are means to ends. Thor didn’t just go hunt ice giants for the hell of it and I’m sure Dee had interesting, lost to time soul searching about what the sinking meant to the world. If he expressed more than passing doubt it has been lost.

I’m thinking at this point in my life, “I am ahead”. I have a comfortable sum in the bank, I have a nice family life, and I have a career (as much as anyone does in corporate America because mergers and acquisitions rarely have any account for which team is let go). However comfortable natures breed complacency, and I thought perhaps I was falling into that trap of the well running dry. Therefor I joined the Freemasons. I knew my grandfather was a mason and he was big into community service, and I was fortunate enough to find some memorabilia from him which wasn’t just war spoils and located his lodge. They still operate today and thankfully I was allowed to join them. At the same time I started contributing code to public projects and have my (professional, real life) name stamped on those projects. I picked them based on their use – the particular database I contributed to runs on low end hardware and is favored in developing countries trying to get their infrastructure off the ground. However, the code feels abstract, and furthermore I had a professional interest in developing that, so I didn’t find it fulfilling enough. It was also easy.

The Masons, on the other hand, emphasized community service and they do so in very “hands on”, earthy ways. We made sandwiches for the local women’s shelter. We made sandwiches again for the homeless shelter. We clean up local parks. We have scheduled a visit to the local Masonic community for the elderly. Ah ha, another trick. We can gain magickal power through selfless community service.

There’s probably a section of readers here going, “Oh but that’s what Christ did, it should have been obvious”. Well that’s the point, that’s how Christ helped his community. It’s how Solomon and Moses helped his community. It’s how Mohamed helped his community. It’s how Dee helped his community. (I believe Dee was humble enough as expressed in his writing that he really did believe he was helping the everyman). The community service banks magickal power based on the gratitude of the people receiving your work.

Lets say your wallet is empty. Can you contribute to the wellbeing of the community if you cannot buy things? Sure. Everyone at the homeless shelter needs help painting the place, or the park could use your help picking up litter. I would tacitly venture that working as a team would be better since you cultivate the gratitude of the people. I ensured I would be meeting the folks who picked up the sandwiches and the lodge worked as a unit to clean up the park, to which the giant bags of trash inspired awe in us all.

But how does this work? Why is this better than, say, being a professional magician who helps people by selling talismans or whatever? For one, I believe selling spells diminishes the operator. I believe that people believe because they’re purchasing a spell or talisman from someone, that they are purchasing a bit of that magicians power. I believe in many cases this sets up a vampiric relationship between people as money usually does. We believe, in the west, that we pay money for something and therefor we are entitled to whatever it is we purchased. This means that if the person believes that the exchange of money is paramount to an entitled amount of power, the magician probably is setting themselves up to be drained. The counter-argument I expect from the magickal community would be that the magician doesn’t get their power from some personal wellspring (this is untrue) but from the virtues of planets or minerals or the composition of materials. While true that these items do possess power into and of themselves, the spell or ritual we operate in doesn’t somehow make us into rocks and trees and so many bones. We draw power into our personal batteries from objects or community service or the pious observation of the heavens and distribute it through rituals much like a car generates electricity from the motion of it’s engine to charge it’s batteries, and draws upon that to exert the effort of starting the car or run the headlights. While it might be community service of a sort to leave your headlights on in a dark country road for the benefit of people, you would probably return to see your car unable to manifest enough of it’s own power. There are folks who can do it, but this is very complicated, and in danger of overdrawing the battery. How do they cut the circuit? When they cut the circuit does the item lose its power? These are complicated questions for later.

Why then is community service in my opinion better? Instead of establishing a relationship of entitlement to the magicians energy battery, it inspires other people to contribute their own energy to an operation. Imagine, if you would, a busker with a guitar. (Read: Me, in college). That person is not selling their energy to the community, they are freely giving their services to the community. People may or may not pay that busker for what they’re offering, but the person with the guitar plays regardless of everyone throwing in their silver or nothing at all. Furthermore that person might then inspire some passerby to pick up a guitar to improve themselves through learning the liberal art of music, or even better, inspire someone else to participate in the same way and bring a drum. Then, through the action of the person playing the drum, the music is enhanced, and therefor the music is better. Perhaps it even gets more tips. “But isn’t this some sort of reverse vampirism?” (the tinfoil hat community asks). Yes, but this is hermeticism, where we understand everything is a two way street and then make moral judgements.

This also means I understand that I’m basically humble-bragging his whole post. I realize I am talking about community service to improve my magickal well of gratitude energy. Therefor there is a third position of action: Selflessness. The daath scenario here is to be neither impressed with community service nor perform it – death, much like the magickal position proposed therein – is merely illusory. If someone prays “I am” as they die, they merely change state. We all know we’re here as individuals, right? If they pray ARARITA as they die, they gain the Kingdom.

Someone asked me about the evocation of EXARP and why it worked for me but didn’t work for them. The best questions are questions which force us to examine failure. The obvious abdication of responsibility is to claim that my rituals are fit for me. That is true. However this isn’t a binary problem – either you’re me or you’re not me and therefor you either wholly subscribe to my life or you differ in my opinions. You should disagree – I prefer you “beat your own path through the jungle”. If I help through the broadcast of this blog I have accomplished a selfless service – I do not make money off this writing and do it merely to organize my thoughts. I believe we share the ideas – I believe we are all sparks of the same divine One Thing and I hope it helps us understand ourselves. Therefor I also believe that the reason why the evocation helped my mother in law and my wife and I in particular was because it was a good mix of desperation, the finest of the magickal wells of power for me, and service, because I gain nothing from helping my mother in law who I believes would love me as a parent does (because she doesn’t know I’m a magician, of course).

Really though I believe that the magical “cutting of the cord” is to tell people exactly whats in the mix. You won’t find whats in coke, or pepsi, or KFC spices simply because to do so would empower you to make your own. Similarly magickal secrecy breeds dependance, and therefor breeds vampirism. Here’s what I want you to do: If you believe you are called to the enochian system, I believe that placing the seal of camara under your foot will produce an effect. Therefor, you should print out the seal – or draw it – and place it under your foot in the day and hour of Sol. You can pray if you’d like.

The only catch?

I want you to reply to this post, or email me, with what the results were. Don’t be afraid to switch feet, or skip the prayer at all. Just be inspired that you have conducted the experiment.

Enochian King – for a New Job

Tags

enochian, heptarchy, philosophy, true will, will

Well, I can write about this now that it finally settled out.

My current job was a six month contract, which is pretty common in the IT world. Either folks get well integrated in the organization and have made a contribution in six months or they’re cut loose for something new. I was told I was making valuable contributions and they loved me and I seemed like an upstanding person (DON’T TELL THEM I’M A WIZARD) and so they wanted to make me an offer.

Well, my boss couldn’t get anything approved, so they extended the contract for one month.

Then my boss said he couldn’t get anything approved, so they extended the contract again another month.

Once I got the notice of extension which includes all the normal paperwork headache of SoW, rate, budget approvals, time sheets, equipment, etc I started looking. I wasn’t going to do this a third time and frankly I felt like they were jerking me around to try to get the project launched so they wouldn’t have to hire me. Being a magician, I started to setup magic to work for me to help.

Day of Sol and Hour of Sol

I put the SDAs out in their normal places in the ritual room and pulled the plug on the electronic claptrap which lives up there. The SDAs always give me a sense of being on top of a rollercoaster when I put them out. Merely looking at them inspires curiosity, but actually working through them inspires awe, even from an academic perspective. I dressed the altar in the enochian colors and made sure I was facing towards the sun. I had a yellow candle illuminating the shrewstone. Opened the temple by normal invoking pentagrams and hexagrams.

A spontaneous idea grabbed me: Frankincense (really, “church blend”) is what I normally use for the enochian work but I also decided to add some pine resin to the mix. Whats a plant which is so solar that it doesn’t even drop it’s leaves in winter? Evergreens, conifers. I added some to the frankincense mix and it really set the mood nicely.

Also off the normal course I decided to open by using calls 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The first call is normal. The other calls open the elemental tables. This in my opinion Just Works in the broad view of the system. Not only does it request physical, manifest changes, but it also is appropriate to the rulership of the Heptarchy and the Tablet of Union. Also frankly at this point I’ve been considering using the names of the tablet of union in place of the archangels in personal practice for enochian work but that’s a different post.

The opening generated a slightly strange, jammed up feeling. Which quickly felt like a coiled spring had just let fly and spiraled out into the universe. I took it as the generation of the solar system for the solar king. I felt connected.

Things were asked for, spirits inquired, all that good stuff. Similar to the post about needing a car, I was very careful to ask for something to fill the requirements, but not a specific job. Afterward my wife asked me “Why didn’t you ask for [that specific job]?” Well, I did go on an interview, I was pretty sure I was going to get an offer. I didn’t know if they would be willing to pay what I was asking for (basically my contracting rate) but I knew my old job really wasn’t willing to come up. However, I don’t know if the new job is a good fit. I would rather deal with my old job at a cut rate than deal with a new job I don’t fit in well at for the rate I was asking for. If I don’t say “Give me job X”, it really leaves it up to things with a broad view of the universe to hook me up. More on this problem in a minute. If I take the new job and I don’t fit in well, it’s likely they’ll fire me in six months and then we’ll have no income at all. So, I ask the spirits to fish me out a job for a comfortable rate I fit in well with rather than say that I want this particular thing over here. To some folks its probably a cop-out, but this is really a matter of faith.

To put it bluntly I strongly believe that it’s possible to say something like, “I want this job over here, for this rate, I want to get along with everyone, and I want it for three years, and I want the offer in two weeks.” The best case is the spirit can’t possibly fulfill that request, either because it’s unlawful by the designs of the One Thing or because there’s a factor unknown to the magician which prevents the spirit from fulfilling that request. At worst the request is fulfilled and because the magician hasn’t taken a broad view of the universe (which includes time), the magician isn’t a good fit for the job and gets fired shortly thereafter. But lets tighten it up and walk though it.

I want this job over here: Do you live near the job? Is the job going to cause problems with your family life? Are there undue contractual requirements like a noncompete which might kill future jobs? Does the company have a terrible reputation? Is the company going to put you on a product or project you don’t want on your resume?

for this rate: This is the easiest to point to for the “bad request” list. Simply – the position might not pay that rate. The company may not be able to come up. The person might overvalue the position. And the worst case is the person might get the job only to be fired when the project slips. Companies can (and do) buy contractors for the chopping block. It sucks. It totally happens.

I want to get along with everyone: Danger, Will Robinson! No-one gets along with everyone. This is really one of those True Will issues. I really strongly suspect that magic when done to people doesn’t really work. Sure the tricks like vanities can be used to maybe make a few pounds drop off but I strongly suspect that one person cannot do magic to change another persons True Will. This is pretty much my standard reply to the random “Send me a love spell” mails I get once a month from teenagers. (How do you even find my blog?) But yeah, forcing people to like other people through magic wears thin quickly, even if they buy into it. There’s simply too much other stuff on the astral that folks bump into which influences them to force everyone on the same page. Trust me, I’ve even heard of groups which tried to get folks to surrender their cellphones into a basket at the door to try to encourage them to get along. It’s sad. Don’t force it.

and I want it for three years: Is the company even going to be there in 3 years? Especially in the world of IT – the Trans-Pacific Partnership passed and we’re all going to be outsourced next week since it has provisions for the treatment, taxation, and tariff of intellectual property.

and I want the offer in two weeks: The final coup-de-grace of stupid. My job couldn’t even get me an offer in two months. Sometimes big corporations just move that slowly.

The more space you give the spirit to work, the better chance of finding something that fits those bare requirements you’re going to have. I don’t see it as embracing mediocrity (which is a frequent criticism of either my truck story or Lon Milo DuQuettes car story) but rather having the faith that if I understand what I need versus what I want, I have a much better chance of finding something. I actually really wanted to keep my existing job. I felt really quite betrayed that the company thought I was too expensive.

A full week ticked by, I got a call back from the new job asking for my salary, which I gave them. They said they wanted to call me back. Doubt set in. In the meantime my job came up on their offer another 10% which was minimizing the shave to 20%. It still wasn’t enough. I frankly was doing trench work and project manager work and I expected at least mid-level trench pay let alone project manager pay. I started to suspect that they wanted to lowball me to get me in so they could “promote” me and give me a token raise for a song. But, before I could really explore that thought, the job I interviewed for called me back to tell me it was no problem. I briefly thought DRAT I SHOULD HAVE ASKED FOR MORE but the whole Sphere of Availability cautions crept up on me and I decided to be thankful instead. Also because this job comes with health insurance and 7 month on Obamacare had really cut me pretty good.

To complicate issues – I’m a huge fan of the idea that strong, legitimate, heartfelt emotions power magic. Crowley got off on sexual exploits. Mathers loved the yolk of authority in a uniform. Bennett was really an aesthetic magician at heart. Myself? Plain, stupid, desperation fueled by pessimism. I am really great at working myself up over the idea that maybe the new place will suck. Maybe the old place just wants to launch the project and fire me. What would life be like for the kids if we had to move? Who would buy the house if they knew how I wired that one outlet? A hundred random things focus themselves into a “pure ray of will unassuaged”. It didn’t surprise me then when, the next day, literally before I could turn in my resignation, my boss said they could come up to the rate I asked for.

I still told him thanks but no thanks. I set the wheels in motion, I’m going to follow through.

 

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Day of Sol, Hour of Jupiter (Aumn-Ra)

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evocation, jobs, Jupiter, Ritual

Oh now I’m in a bit of a pickle. At work, we just bought another large company which does exactly the same thing we do. Normally in tech the acquisitions are such one larger company gobbles up a smaller company and treats the smaller company as a team. That would be great, but this was another top shelf company in the same industry and it pretty much doubled the size of our company. Problem now is, beancounters on both sides are taking a long hard look at everyone. My boss turned in his resignation for the coming months. Another guy who was manager of the next product line over was fired. Folks are giving impassioned, “morale building” speeches, but are conspicuously using the word “resources” instead of “people”. It’s always easier to call it a duplication of “resources”, right?

Going back to tried and true and familiar methods, I got out the Planetary Magick book and started flipping around. The front half the book is a very IIH sort of catalog and experiences thing. The middle of the book covers actual archetypical evocation, and then the end of the book has some fun stuff. Specifically I saw Aumn-Ra as being attributed to Thursday, so I took that and said “wait this is Sunday, why not Augmn-Ra for Sunday, hour of Jupiter?” So I did.

The altar was simply the Table of the Art, with a black crystal ball in it, two white pillars on either side, jupiter candle to backlight the ball (angle is important, I wanted a halo of light and a hint of color), and then the incense thurible in front of it with my last coal in it because we’ve taken to smoking too much hookah here.

Opened the temple OTA style, because it’s the new hotness, except my altar top is being repainted so I just threw the Table of the Art on top of the crossed legs. I then opened by KC, LIRP, Invoking Septagram, and archangels who I visualized facing me in a column of white light. Totally kvlt.

I then read the Denning and Philips work, and chanted the name for 15 minutes while listening to some sweet, sweet tracks some of the OTA folks had shared. I’m getting into chants and mantras.

I was going to drum but the kids were napping so I just opted to keep the party in my head. After about 15 minutes I suddenly had a feeling of the serpent upon my brow, and then before me in my astral sight I had two columns of serpents spring up. We moved down a corridor. It was daylight, and not particularly pleasant but the space was “tall”. The bricks were brilliant white and nicely finished, which gave the impression of “well manicured” but otherwise there weren’t many notable features of this space except for “balanced” work. Two columns, two trees, two fruits on the tree, two tracks on the ground as though for a cart or train. Eventually I came upon an Ibis looking fellow who was holding a scroll and a quill. I was worried this was a false spirit – Aumn-Ra is a different bird altogether and I happen to be re-reading The Divine Pymander. Tested the spirit by signs, and the spirit responded positively, so whatever. I do tend to think these guys use whatever happens to be laying around in your head at the moment to co-opt imagery, so I decided “bird deity” was OK with the signs.

Gave the welcome.

“I would really like to continue working in my current career, can that be done?” Just a small flash of “no” and then quite a bit of “yes” nodding. Typical spirit nonanswer I thought, so I tested it by more signs, and it didn’t seem to respond too much but certainly did not react negatively.

“May I continue working in my current career?” Yes. 

“Will this be profitable and enjoyable for me?” Not initially, but then it will be OK.

“Can you please make it profitable and enjoyable for me?” No/Yes again.

“If this is not possible, please prepare for me a place where I can continue to pay the bills for my family and child.” This can be done.

“But it’s quite painful to change jobs, and it would upset my family.” (This is new, the spirit gave me the impression that prayers for my family are much more potent than prayers for myself). “I would like to, at best, make peace with the higher ups and keep the job even if it’s a bit painful than put my kids through relocation.” I can do this.

“Please safevouch the job for the sake of my family.” (a nod).

Thanked the spirit, offered more incense, and closed the temple OTA style with the KC, LBRP, banishing septagram, and the archangels evoked facing outward.

Edit: My boss just called to have me take a look at an issue literally right when I was finishing this post up. You can’t make this stuff up.

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evocation, gabriel, OTA

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Phergoph Needs a Car

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ceremonial magic, enochian, essential enochian grimoire, John Dee, Ritual

Moloch entirely made me before I even wrote a word about this, I try not to talk about magic “in flight” because I think dwelling on the thing robs it of the purity of it’s intent. If you wouldn’t want to be micromanaged at work, don’t micromanage the spirits beyond the ritual unless it requires a huge course correction.

I need a car. When I say “need” I don’t mean “it would be nice to have”, I mean the 1992 Toyota Camry is now only passing inspection because my mechanic takes pity on me and refuses to shift into OD or start when it’s wet out. I’m a pretty handy guy – but when I say “I’m stumped” and my mechanic says “do you really want to pay me to track this down”… yeah. It has as a conservative estimate about 270,000 miles on it.

Just to put that number in perspective, in the 13 years this car has been on this earth, it didn’t have to be on this earth! It could have driven to the moon, and had another 30,000 miles on the moon to screw around with and do moon stuff. Pretty incredible.

Per the usual problem of “what magic do we use to solve large systems”, I was really torn between the Goetia, who are good at managing the physical plane, and the Enochian magic, which works really well to line up large systems. Since a car dealership is a large system, most of which requires the car pass through several bits of administration before landing in my lap, I opted for the Enochian solution.

I had made that decision right in time for the thread on FB asking “Why not Enochian?” Sometimes I feel like magic works in ridiculously subtle ways. This was one of those times. Sure I happen to be friends on Facebook with Moloch so he can see my wall and my ranting about the car, but he’s not in my head in any meaningful way. We don’t chat back and forth. He’s got a fairly low opinion of the OTA (but like most magicians he has a low opinion of everyone who isn’t himself) so we really don’t talk shop. He’s also very much in the quick-and-dirty-whatever-works camp and while I can respect that, he’s going to see a system like enochian as being largely restrictive. This eventually bore out in the course of the conversation, but it also prompted me to throw together this post instead of keeping a private journal. Anyway. Part of the prodding at me was simply because I have spent so much time fretting over the temple kit that I had really gotten into armchair mode and lost the plot for anything more than the daily devotion to Astarte as part of the OTA curriculum. The spirits say, “You want a horse? GET BACK ON THE HORSE.” Cute.

Checking the Enochian Quick Reference Chart gives us a few tantalizing names:

The Names of the Sixteen Good Angels Skilled and Potent In Mechanical Arts

TNBR and companions	NBRT, BRTN, and RTNB	earth of AIR
MAGL and companions	AGLM, GLMA, and LMAG	earth of WATER
OCNC and companions	CNCO, NCOC, and COCN	earth of EARTH
PSAC and companions	SACP, ACPS, and CPSA	earth of FIRE

Since I don’t want to manufacture a car, I am really just looking for a car which is maximally functional to me, the angels who govern the composition and mixing of metals weren’t attractive. Also why not use the Angels of Transportation? Because they move things around. I don’t want a car literally dropped on my front lawn. After a bit of waffling, I decided that I would accept a car in good mechanical condition regardless of brand and appearance. The conditions for success would be:

1. Has to carry the kids. Can’t be a truck without a back seat. Jump seats are a no-no.
2. Has to be a truck, because I sometimes carry bulky/heavy items (LIKE THE HENGE) and I’m really tired of hanging those out of the back of the van.
3. Has to be in reasonable mechanical condition.
4. Should be four wheel drive. The van has gotten stuck every bad winter and the camry was a total joke and inspired me to walk home a few times last winter. While I don’t much mind it, we live out towards the sticks.

I only later realized that the four qualifications of “good” lined up nicely with the four angels. It wasn’t intentional.

Here is one of the sticky wickets of Enochian philosophy and theology when it comes to the practical application of it – you will notice I did not pick a specific sub-element to work with. Reason being that I’ve started to play with the idea that the four enochian elements are actually the four worlds. Stealing a page from QBL, that gives us something like:

• ATZILUTH – or the Archetypical World – is OIP TEAA PDOCE. “He whose name is unchanged from what it was”. This is Fire. I picked it because the call seems to describe a final, unchanging being.
• BRIAH – the Creative World – is ORO IBAH AOZPI. “He who cries aloud in the place of desolation”. This is Air. I picked it because the “place of desolation” would have required an acknowledgement that there was a place which did not have God in it, therefor it could create a new God…
• YETZIRAH – the Formative World – is MPH ARSL GAIOL. “He who is the 1st true creator, the horned one”. This is Water. This is the demiurge.
• ASSIAH – the Material World – is MOR DIAL HCTGA. “He who burns up iniquity without equal”. This is Earth. These are the Gods of antiquity, or the accusing Gods.

If you said this reads a lot like Plato’s Celestial Hierarchy, you would have a good eye. There’s more Plato in Dee than I previously thought and I’ve been poking around there. That particular current from The Republic may also be responsible for the wife swapping incident.

I’m still a little bit uncomfortable with the assignments, but I feel the language and names are the most important part of the system. If you’ve poked around in the Five Books of Mystery, the use of the language becomes a bit clearer. Most importantly, the system is fundamentally gnostic. We cannot know God. Dee goes to great lengths in the monad to make a body of God, but ultimately, he is describing God in the context of Earthly things. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Dee can only relate to God in a symbolic way which honestly sometimes feels short of the symbols he put to the task. If the system is Gnostic and we cannot know God, than the Place of Desolation is the place God occupies, because how can anything but God occupy the place that God does? This is an argument which would be recognized in Classical Philosophy. On the other hand if we hold that the Monas is actually God and that Dee apprehended the idea, then I would flip the names. It is my personal opinion that The Horned God is a very sexual image, and instead of the reconciliation or the Hermaphroditic union, we’re being handed a God who is only half the puzzle. This would also jive with the Hermetic current, so I feel there’s a strong argument for organizing the work this way. The first true creator, of the earthly realm, is human. God set the stage, if we want to go all biblical with it we can say that God created the world, placed the garden in it, then he made people and people gave the animals names, tilled the earth, and really took things over from there. God steps out. I kept the elemental associations with the names so as not to break other bits of the systems.

“He who’s name is unchanged from what it was” is pretty easy to suss out, anyone can look at a catalog of cars and identify that they are all in fact cars. Maybe the Chicken Qabalah is worth a review here. Also Crowley enters here with arguments about princes and kings if you happen to follow the Thoth tarot. Having worked through this in blog format, I’m leaving the associations how they are.

“He who burns up iniquity without equal”. There’s a lot of really nice imagery in here, but I chose to really go with the idea that the Earth is iniquity by most religions standards. The moment something is created, time itself conspires through the forces of entropy to destroy it. I’m not even talking about manmade things like houses and cities, the sun is literally running out of energy right now as you read this. Big thoughts, but it’s not going away tomorrow, so we’re good.

Given the fact that I need something for material ends, something which is made, and something which is suffering from entropy in the form of mileage and care, the Holy Name I chose to work with was “MOR DIAL HCTGA” (Earth). Going back to the previous chart here, all of the mechanical arts are in the Earth tablet, so really it feels like Earth of Earth (“OCNC”) is the correct thing to be working on. I’m a little surprised too, but thems the ropes. That gives us the top-and-bottom, so we can fill in the rest for the sake of working with the Essential Enochian Grimoire.

Tablet of Union: NANTA (Spirit of Earth)

Secret Holy Name: MOR DIAL HCTGA (Earth)

The Great Kings: ICZHIHAL – “He who Solidifies the Past” (Earth – neat, huh?)

Seniors: LZINOPO – “He who is first in the Deep Waters” (Earth – Moon)

Calvary Cross Angels: ABALPT and ARBIZ – “He who stoops down” (over the engine of your Camry) and “He who’s voice protects”. (Earth of Earth).

Archangels and Kerubim: POCNC – OCNC, CNCO, NCOC, COCN

We’re going to ignore the daemons for the moment. Why Earth-Moon? There’s no Earth-Earth and I’ve always felt like Jupiter is more for the continued operation of business and the affairs it entails, while the moon is really governing purely material manifestation, since material stuff is only temporary.

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OK so I wrote all that about five days ago, got into the argument about neoplatonism, avoided getting baited by Mo and I had planned on actually conducting the ritual today (Sunday – Day of Sol, Hour of Sol) so that King Carmara, who is the “wildcard” in Enochian, could be overseeing the operation. Experience says planning a magical operation causes all hell to break loose if anyone knows you’re planning it, so I kept it real deep under my hat. Still, the camry managed to develop a miss when it was first started, which really sucked in the single-digit temps we’d been having over the first week since I couldn’t drive it until it warmed up. Also started making nasty valve noises. I was getting nervous. After triaging the miss by putting in fresh spark plugs, and adding thinner oil, it was happy enough I felt confident to go car shopping.

A philosophical point – working with the Angelic Language causes stuff to happen. There’s a whole lot of Enochian corpus which is simply “make this book” or “make this chart” and the Angels were trying to deliver it piecemeal because delivering it whole-cloth works the magic. The magic isn’t the ritual, the magic in Enochian is the language. Or the work of producing that product, but the work will involve the language. See what they did there?

If you’re playing to the timeline here, you’ll notice I’m going car shopping before I do the ritual. I have never actually purchased a car from a dealership or traded them in. I much preferred to find that car with 100k miles on it some guy can’t move because he doesn’t have receipts and throw $1k at it. If I get a year out of it, still cheaper than a lease. I would donate the old cars to charity when they blew up and let them keep the scrap money. Mostly this move was inspired to find out the pricepoints on things (I was planning on asking for specific things during the ritual I felt would show up in the price range) and to figure out which dealerships had good stuff. Also the larger car dealerships are over an hour from me since I live in the sticks. I looked at a few cars while I was out and about and found a Mitsubishi Raider I really liked. I did everything but sign the paper for that listing, since I wanted to go home and try to get a loan.

At this point the ritual planned above was off the books and I was going to change it to a “thank you” ritual after signing.

Next day the guy calls me. “Hey Phergoph, I can’t sell you that car.”

“Why?”

“Look, our guys just took a look at it, and it’s really leaking oil out the rear diff”.

“If you guys want to replace the rear diff I’m interested. If you think it’ll work if I do the seals myself I’ll still buy it. A seal kit is only $120” (and literally two days of trying to bang the stupid orbital gears out, having done this before).

“No, this is going to seriously explode in 15k miles, I know you got kids, I will find something else.”

I hung up the phone in a bit of a fog since a salesman literally just gave up a commission for the sake of helping me. That’s a paycheck for that guy, that takes some real balls. Seriously if you’re car shopping, hit up that dealership and ask for Jon, he’s a really nice guy. He didn’t have to do that. Turns out there was a Honda Ridgeline coming into the lot on trade in, but after talking to Jon about that car also, the miles were just way too high. He agreed to keep looking and I thanked him for being really honest.

On Saturday, I happen to be doing very little except reviewing/revising the ritual waiting for the snow to melt and I happen across a listing (no photos) of a Dodge Ram 1500, with the mid-size engine. 81k miles, asking $9k USD. I called the dealership and it was still there. Turns out they couldn’t take pictures because… it was covered in snow. It had been traded in two weeks ago and they just decided to list it now because of the weather. OK fine I’ll come out. Miracle of miracles, the camry started without too much prodding, so I got the kids dressed and buckled them in.

Turns out this truck wasn’t just a Dodge Ram 1500, this was a Dodge Ram 1500, with the Infinity Sound System, with the towing package, with the quad cab, and it had nice tires and the bed cap. The paint was so-so, but they had all the service records. It was also the Laramie trim level so it had a super nice interior. Best bit? Class III towing suspension and hookups. However in the secret center console (under the middle seat) I found… a 7 pin to 3 pin adapter and a Mr Green Lawnmower Sparkplug. What were they towing? A trailer that needed a 3 pin connector (brake lights only) and lawn equipment on that. Someone ordered a top-shelf truck to pull around a lawnmower business. Philosophical question time: Why did the guys who obviously detailed this and put the paper flootmats in miss the sparkplug? The wiring adapter I can see as being “part of the vehicle” but the spark plug is an oily mess and an obvious miss.

Anyway, they offered me $500 for the Camry and we settled up. While I don’t want a car payment, having something which gets my kids around safely (Laramies have extra side impact airbags) and lets me haul around all my work stuff and still gets 20mpg on the highway (keep telling yourself that Phergoph)? That’s a win. Plus payments are under $200 a month, which is manageable and leaves enough in the budget for repairs and other crap.

Here, we have a real temptation, and one I haven’t quite worked out all the details for. If the language is the magic, then do we have to perform the ritual? I’m going to opt for “yes”, I personally feel there’s a trap here for the lazy (Dee) to go fishing or whatever instead of following up with the magic. It also really smacks of “fuck you I got mine”. On the other hand, there’s plenty of places in the Enochian system where the spirits themselves are defined by their labels, so when writing out the ritual nicely on the finest cardstock money can buy, you are literally conjuring up the spirits by the writing of their names. “I create as I speak” and the “breath of God” literally. If that is the case, then the ritual really happened a week ago when I drafted everything and we’re merely on the execution side. This sort of reverse-order thing doesn’t happen to me using the Solomonic system.

Rather than the original plan of petitioning the spirits, I merely called them up and thanked them for their efforts and asked them for their continued efforts in protecting the vehicles, which is always something I worry about anyway which is why 4WD was a requirement to begin with. (As I’m typing this, the internet is being spotty because of a solid inch of ice on everything and we jokingly said the truck was christened).

I suppose that’s how you summon a truck.

EDIT: The ontological argument is a really good listen – http://www.historyofphilosophy.net/anselm-ontological-argument

Astarte Altar

Tags

astarte, baal, crowley, mot, OTA, Vision and Voice

I finished putting together the Astarte altar yesterday. The altar has it’s own dedicated stand about the circumference of a basketball, and it is covered in a green cloth. Behind her are roses in one of those foam cones, to spread out their leaves as a backdrop and give an impression of an arch of roses above her. In front lays roses in bloom, spread over seashells. Finally there’s an offering dish in front of that, which can hold a candle (rose scented) or whatever I deem appropriate. I may also put an oil diffuser in there. The statue itself is one of the classic renditions of Venus, sort of similar to the paintings which put her on a seashell, but she’s holding doves and other bird imagery. It doesn’t photograph well, not as I compare it to my recollection.

It sounds wonderfully mundane to write it out but it is absolutely inspiring in a darkened room. Its fairly rare that I put together some arts and crafts where I can sit there in silence and enjoy the effect, but after the last post on the Heart, I was thoroughly intoxicated if for a moment on the wonderful effect of the light, scent, and flowers. For future efforts I think some rose incense cones would be the way to fly. I’m fairly big on having the incense match the visuals of whatever we’re working with and Astarte is no exception. Roses conjure up romance and love and the scent is significant to us from an early age, so it certainly makes a strong candidate.

I was going to try to post a quote from Crowley, something about silence being the most pure form of worship and I can certainly understand why. The same for (depending on who you ask) the first or last Enochian key being silence. The Key of Silence is that push onto the astral which cannot be expressed or complimented by words, thoughts, or actions. Certainly the initial appreciation of the altar is absolutely a nod towards that key. Dumbfounded and awestruck literally at the experience, it is all encompassing and pure joy.

Trying to google for the quote, I ran into Crowleys Vision and Voice.

Stuff to track down later – 14 is Mot? 12 is Baal? 2 is Astarte Properly? It’s very back of the envelope at the moment but I feel like Crowleys vision of it could be lined up for some neat insights and interests. Specifically 2 speaks to me directly with Thors hammer and references to the archetypes. Again, not OTA cannon, but food for thought.

Magick Class 1

Tags

magic class

I reviewed the Magick Class materials over the phone with the person running the committee and they referred to the ToL as “The Star Trek Thing”.

So, dear readers, please help me crowd source this into an approachable document for someone to pick up who doesn’t know a lick about magick.

The doc is linked to above, I’m thinking this can be reduced into four major parts (the floor work, the angels, the associations, and then putting it together).

People who have mailed me privately asking what drugs I’m on, this is your chance to leave a comment and steer this into an accessible set of materials. The class will likely be taught in the Philadelphia burbs around May.

EXARP for Pax

Tags

aaron leitch, enochian, Essencial Enochian Grimoire, magick, Neo Enochian, weather

I don’t remember how we established that EXARP ruled storms, but past results have been encouraging. Which isn’t to say that we somehow prevented the storm, but I’m not kidding when I say the water got right up to the bottom of the house and no further. Since they’re calling for another 12 inches+ in my area and I am seriously worried about downed trees and my family, it seems like a good idea to see if I can get in touch again. I’ve been pouring over Aaron Leitch’s Enochian Grimoire, and having read it cover to cover twice, I can recommend it with some reservation. The first rule is “Don’t change the rituals as written”. Leitch does in fact change the rituals and presents very little of Dee’s original work in his own hand. That’s fine, he justifies the changes and his justifications are sound. In fact, I really like the fact that instead of fighting through a lot of Dee’s language, he makes up Hyatt style tables. However the downside is that it would have been really useful to have the old SDA next to the new SDA so we could compare. I really can’t fault the work beyond nitpicks. Conspicuously missing is any commentary on Manifest Destiny versus simple prognostication about the new world and retelling of what little we have about Dee working the system. Also the theory that the watchtowers are seasonal is missing. That’s fine, it might be presented in a later book.

Anyway, since I like to mix it up, I figured I would give his neo-enochian ritual a shot and try to feel out what EXARP had to say that way. Consulting the moon says that it’s waxing (increase), lunar day 14 (generally OK depending on who you ask), in Leo, in the 10th mansion (al Sarfah – who makes fair weather). Moon looks good. My local time has Mercury of Mercury in about an hour, which makes things agreeable.

EXARP is the Spirit of Air.

The appropriate Names of God are ORO, IBAH, and AOZPI.

The Solar King is BATAIVA (no H, merciful, not mentioned in the book unfortunately).

The planetary elder of Air (east) today is then AUTOTAR.

Now, since we’re working on storms, we want to talk to the Watery name of the Air watchtower. Therefor the Summoning Name is LLACZA and the Commanding name is PALAM.

The Water of Air Kherubs (note Golden Dawn style) is EYTPA/YTPA, ETPAY/TPAY, EPAYT/PAYT, and EATYP/AYTP. Might as well call up all of them.

Finally the Servient Angels are CTOCO/TOCO, CNHDD/NGDD, CPAAX/PAXX, and CSAIX/SAIX. I’m following the book thus far and each section of the names is also highlighted (or greylighted) in the diagram so you can figure out where he’s talking about. I could throw in my name of the part of the Earth for extra effect. (The Angel of MURICA).

Alright, so the Neo Enochian rituals have a choose-your-own-adventure style step-by-step in the back of the book (pp 249) but it’s not nearly as good as Stenwick’s books where you can just put in a bunch of bookmarks and flip through them while running. The ritual doesn’t actually kick off until pp 279, after a seemingly misplaced set of Coptic Deities. I understand why they’re included, but if I didn’t read The Golden Dawn first and work through that I can see people going “WHY IS MY BOOK FILLED WITH ANIMAL MUMMIES?” He follows the normal traditional GD temple openings which I find sound for the system. I would have moved the chapter back, but for people interested in my choice, I would approach with Horus the Elder.

Open with QC, LIRP, LIRH, and QC. Call 1.

I reign over you, says the God of Justice, in power exalted above the firmaments of wrath: in whose hands the Sun is as a sword and the Moon as a through thrusting fire: which measures your garments in the midst of my vestures, and trussed you together as the palms of my hands: whose seats I garnished with the fire of gathering, and beautified your garments with admiration. To whom I made a law to govern the holy ones and delivered you a rod with the ark of knowledge. Moreover you lifted up your voices and swore obedience and faith to him that lives and triumphs, whose beginning is not, nor end can not be, which shines as a flame in the midst of your palace, and reigns amongst you as the balance of righteousness and truth. Move, therefore, and show yourselves: open the Mysteries of your Creation: Be friendly unto me: for I am the servant of the same your God, the true worshipper of the Highest

Thee, I invoke! Horus the Elder, thou Great God who ruleth in the realm of Air. Be though present with me, and my guardian of my sphere. Keep far removed the evil and unbalanced and bring close the merciful and just. In the three great and secret names of God that rule the east – OH-REE-OH EE-BAH-AH-HA AH-OH-ZEE-PI open the gates of the East and bring to me the holy angel BA-TAI-VAH

It’s not a typo, I would pronounce the wrathful King BA-TAI-VAH-HEY. Also annoying about this particular book is Leitch doesn’t indicate where we’re supposed to be calling the King, etc – he just throws the word “angel” into the book. This is probably an oversight since elsewhere he makes the proper references.

In the three secret and holy names of God born upon the banners of the East, OH-REE-OH EE-BAH-AH-HA AH-OH-ZEE-PI, and by the Sacred Letters of the Tablet of Union EX-AR-RAY-PE, I invoke you Great King of the East, AUTO-TAR – Thou art overseer and protector of the Eastern Quarter, add power and virtues to the Air and Water for this work and send EL-LA-Ch-AH before me

CZ is Ch as in Czech (“check”).

The East is a house of virgins singing praises amongst the flames of first glory wherein the Lord hath opened his mouth: and they are become 28 living dwellings in whom the strength of man rejoices, and they are apparelled with ornaments of brightness such as work wonders on all creatures. Whose Kingdoms and continuance are as the Third and Fourth Strong Towers and places of comfort, The seats of Mercy and Continuance. O you Servants of Mercy: Move, Appear: sing praises unto the Creator and be mighty amongst us. For to this remembrance is given power and our strength waxes strong in our Comforter.

Finally getting down to the Earth…

Oh ye AUTO-TAR, who rulest and govern the infinite realm of Water of Air, who charges your angels to manifest the virtues of your power, hear my call in the exalted name of EL-LA-Ch-AH and send forth EY-TA-PA or YA-TA-PA, and EY-TA-PAY or TA-PAY, or EH-PA-YAT or PAY-AT, and EAY-TY-PA or AY-TA-PA to this temple. In the name of PAH-LAYM, empower these angels and charge him to appear visibly here before me, to speak audibly, and reveal to me their secrets.

And to those who work up on the Earth…

I invoke, summon, and call ye forth, great angels CO-TO-CO or TOCO, and CAN-HA-DAD or NA-GA-DOD, and CI-PA-AX or PAX-IX, and CA-SAY-IX or SAY-IX by the virtue and power of AUTO-TAR, EL-LA-Ch-AH and PAH-LAYM as is written on the Foundations of the World. By the names of God and the Banners of the East – OH-REE-OH EE-BAH-AH-HA AH-OH-ZEE-PI – by the great elemental King BA-TAI-VAH, and the Sacred Letters of E X A R P, I call you from your home and habitations of the Airs and the Waters of the Airs. Appear before me, speak with me, and obey my commands to accomplish my desires!

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The altar was setup with the usual enochian kit, burning sweetwood (cedar for me, but the book suggests applewood) incense, and I opened by QC, LIRP, LIRH, and QC. The Archangels were particularly potent tonight, but no specific visualization came. There was merely an idea of their presence, but there was a clockwise motion which is hard to describe, as though they were swirling among themselves and again into one another.

I followed the ritual as outlined above, although I found myself lapsing into the Dee versions which I had memorized. The version above is re-written into modern english and follows the book. Normally I expect “creepy” as the approach of the spirit (like someone is walking up behind you) but I got flat out electric like sticking my finger in a socket.

Gazing into the crystal was an effect like a thousand points of light, or stars, and they were in the sky. I was surprised, normally I expect strongly elemental effects from this and instead I got the impression I was in the great pyramid. Horus was well above me, a giant statue. AUTOTAR was the throne, LLACZA was the God (dressed as Horus, but responded to LLACZA) and BATAIVA was a central fire. I was going to sit and enjoy this scene a bit since that usually pays off but I was on a mission. A stocky, jar headed, white stone face appeared in the stone, and then I realized it was made up of other angels wearing middle length robes white or very light blue robes. Some of them had cords (gold?) and some were plain like a dress, so I assume male and female. The face looked at me. I acknowledged the right and the need to put down the weather, but I commanded them to have the wind and snow not touch my house. I asked them to avoid my neighbors houses too, since trees are a real hazard here, and go easy on the township since the local schools both suffered a watermain break and the roof of the local church (preschool) was torn off in the last storm. I directed them to put the weather down in the parks near the house. I thanked them in the name of the tetragrammaton and closed the temple.

We’ll see what happens. I’ll be working from home tomorrow and Friday (hopefully) and have plenty of canned goods and gas.

Paganity

Tags

astrology, fixed stars, invocation, low magic

Now that we’ve had huge discussions on Hermeticism, Gnosticism, and Monism, I’d like to remind everyone that’s there’s actually really nice pagan practices there and they don’t conflict with ceremonial magic. I suppose there’s some magicians out there who would say that ceremonial magic is Christianity, but rather I see it the opposite way. Magic isn’t particularly Christian, because Christianity is the observation of nature, with politics bolted on and out-and-out condemns all magic (unless you’re Jesus). So is the Koran, so is the Torah, except they don’t condemn sorcery out of hand, but rather the ends to which sorcery is used. In fact, I would argue that Christianity is the least likely bedfellow of ceremonial magic, because there’s “magical practices” in both Judaism and Islam, but they hardly think of them as magical. Ceremonial magic is most comfortable with Judiasm, because the tanakh clearly separates what is social custom, law, and divine, but works with any of the Big Three because they all follow the format in some form. Once we recognize the separation in the blueprints in each one, we can more easily read the divine inspiration and ignore the spurious social custom. This actually is what shot down my Islamic Gnosticism project – Islam is (in some circles) firmly gnostic already. I had plans to compare it to Dogma and Ritual (Levi) whereby the chapters would correspond to the tarot, and therefor map to an “Islamic tree of life” and… learned that a really good portion of the Koran is simply “correcting” the Bible and Torah on social customs and the events driving the people mentioned. There’s other good stuff in there too – there’s wonderful bits of roundabout reasoning the sort of which I publish under “philosophy” and there’s some extremely illuminating texts on Angels in there. Angels in the Koran are similar to the Angels in the Old Testament which are fundamentally pagan and made up of mineral or animal influences (cross-reference). And, similar to religious operations back through the dawn of man, there’s a lot in the Abrahamic Family which is just out-and-out magic to affect the weather, enchant materials, and so on. Things which we normally think of today as “Harry Potter” sorts of stuff happen in the Abrahamic Faiths. Moses parts the red sea. He has a face-off with the Pharaoh’s magicians and turns staves into snakes. Jonah rides around in a fish. Jesus improves people’s fishing hauls. Mohamed makes rain. We know then, that not only would so-called “pagan” ends to faith be within the realm of doing, not only can people command the elements, but we know that (to steal a term from Judaism) such actions are lawful.

When Gabriel (Jibrial) appears to Mohamed in his “true form” he is a “ball which fills the sky with 600 wings”. The sky is covered “with a green carpet” to welcome him. What Mohamed sees of course is the moon rise through a desert hail storm. However anyone can look at that and see that the Kabalistic correspondences are there, and they are correct. (Also curious, a lot of the color references in the Koran are Empress Scale [Assiah] colors, but those implications are another post). The Bible has smatterings of references all lying around – most of which are bound together in the book of Revelation or Dee’s journals. The older books have an even better storehouse of organization – Aaron’s robe is described in Exodus 28 in the same style the Egyptians used to wear. The implications are that the Hebrews picked up their magic and their views of God from the Egyptians. This isn’t to say if everyone is doing it, that it is right. However it does say “These things have been holy to God since time immemorial”. By Agrippa and such, they are virtuous unto themselves, and if we remember the last post on hermeticism, they can’t somehow be unwholesome.

I went through a phase after reading Secrets of Magickal Grimoires (SPOILER ALERT: CALAMUS IS WEED) where I was like “WHY ARE WE CONSECRATING EVERYTHING?” I even consecrated some ink and bought pens from China to use it with. (You want to have one magical pen consecrated? This is it. It’s like it was designed by magicians, for magicians). If we have items and they posses virtues, how do they become unvirtued? Then I realized – becoming unvirtued isn’t the problem. The problem is that because they posses some spiritual qualities, then simply they can be imbued with spiritual qualities. This goes back to the whole ‘precision of language’ thing Crowley harps on all the time. Per the Artabel, spirits become addicted when they become familiars. It gives us the formula to cause addiction. (Leave out offerings). Objects with spiritual virtues can be impressed with more spiritual virtues. Objects which have inherent virtue always have that virtue in addition to more virtues we can impress upon them. Furthermore, the salt admonishes the water for not being blood (the carrier of life). The salt is pure, the water is pure. Why are we admonishing? Because the sea is not blood, and salt being separated from water should be embarrassed at not being a carrier for life. Go exorcise things and make those rocks feel bad! But also remember to exorcise before touching someone’s rocks, you don’t know where they’ve been.

This works in a variety of ways – we don’t have to particularly look in the Abrahamic texts for prompts, we can look in a variety of other sources also. Given that I also am a closet viking, Asatru and Saxon pagan stuff provides wonderfully fertile ground. Aside of being the house divination method, there are piles of wyrdworking to be had for people who want to read the eddas.

A snake came crawling, it bit a man.
Then Woden took nine glory-twigs,
Smote the serpent so that it flew into nine parts.
There apple brought this pass against poison.
That she nevermore would enter her house.

What are the 9 herbs? Mugwort, betony, lamb cress, grass plantain, chamomile, crab apple, nettle, thyme, and fennel. Aside of making an OK tea and having medicinal properties, these herbs are also assigned by Agrippa to constellations. And, herein is a great secret – to work with them we want to invoke Odin. Face the constellation, stab yourself in the eye (OK not really, but the pain will help) and invoke. Now the inherent virtues of the herbs will be potentiated by the godform they are sacred to. Think of it like a dynometer to a mechanic. You might be able to get interesting stuff out of it, but if you were a mechanic, it would be super useful. If you were Odin… You get the idea. Invoke, and it’ll make the “low magic” stuff work a lot better.

Per Agrippa (yes the table is a mess, there’s room to argue, and there’s no a 1:1 mapping):

Mugwort	Algol – the brightest star in Perseus
Betony	Capella – the brightest star in Auriga
Lamb Cress	Alphecca – brightest star in the North Crown
Grass Plantain	Arcturus – the brightest star in the Oxman
Chamomile	Antares – the brightest star in Scorpius
Crab Apple	Regulus – the brightest star in Leo
Nettle	Alphecca – brightest star in the North Crown
Thyme	Vega – the brightest star in Lyra
Fennel	Pleiades – the cluster in Taurus