MY MAGICAL STUDY

Consecration of my shiny new set of Mars pentacles (day and hour of Mars, plus a waning Moon, which I feel is very helpful for the sort of malefic work these pentacles are used for) plus a little extra spellwork.

Huson’s Mars incense for works of wrath and chastisement smells vile, by the way.

Fabiola by Francis Alÿs

Episode 1 (9.8.19)

Hello everyone! Welcome to my very first audio Q&A!

Part I

Part II

Thanks again to everyone who donated! I hope you enjoy my monthly Q and A's about magic topics as much as I enjoy creating them.

This month's theme is magical mistakes and troubleshooting. I tell you some mistakes I've made, walk a few people through their own, and have a damn good time reading some really weird hate mail. It's a good time.

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My personal favorites are reviews of books about psalm magic that say, “I bought this book based off of the Christian reviews. This book is not for the children of God. The psalms are the word of God, but this book carries a spirit of its own. I mean, look who published it. This book let loose all kinds of demons. My baby kept crying and looking at something that was frightening him to death. It wasn’t a regular cry. This was fear and trembling at its worst. I prayed and asked the Most High to show me if this book was good to have around. I had the most demonic dream ever, showing me that this book isn’t good to have around. I could even feel the negative presence in my home, but kept trying to convince myself that it was ok, because the book was full of psalms. I should have known this book was bad when I saw Satanist, Wiccans, and voodoo workers say how they use it. Just read your Bible and pray for what you want. This book is demonic.“ 

Working with Warrior Saints (Santi Guerrieri)

In a tradition such as Sicilian stregoneria/benedicaria, where working with saints is foundational, specific categories have arisen as to which saint to call upon for any given need. Within Sicily, a land that has been wrought with wars, famine, plague, subjugation and revolution since the first tribes set foot on her volcanic soil, the most prominent of category of saints to be honored is that of the warrior saints. It would seem that in Sicily and amongst Sicilians even the most peaceful of saints can be given a warrior’s edge. These saints are called upon for protection against harm, natural disasters, disease, famine and injustice, they are the quickest to act, demand the greatest respect and for those who are acting unrighteously, the most to be feared.

With protective magic having the greatest emphasis within Sicilian folk religion, each maghi will always have their own band of warriors to fight for them and protect them at a moments notice. These saints are the ones to whom the most attention is given to insure that they will be there when the time comes for swords to be drawn either in defense or in a preemptive strike. While each maghi is unique, there are a few commonly held holy warriors:

- St. Michael the Archangel - St. George the Martyr - Madonna del Soccorso - St. Barbara - St. Paul - St. Sebastian

Each of these saints can be petitioned in similar ways to gain their general protection. Start by lighting a red candle in front of their properly enshrined image, provide them with an offering and the weapon (bound with red ribbon) suitable to the particular saint, properly invoke said saint with a bell and a prayer of protection, and bless yourself with Holy Water. Follow this up with procuring a small token dedicated to that saint with which you will carry around on your person.

I’ll end this post on an important note about working with warrior saints. When choosing a warrior to act in your defense it’s best to choose one that you plan on serving for the rest of your life. While this saint may not specifically become your patron, their acceptance to go to battle on your behalf is a sacred contract. This being said, building a band of warriors is a lifelong process and each spirit is tended to with fervor and vigilant dedication, these are your protectors in all things natural and supernatural, tread lightly and patiently.

I was talking to @coyote-696 and @bodaciousbanshee this earlier, but it bears discussion in an open forum now that I see interest working with saints is getting traction. If this book on stregheria has given me anything to really internalize and share with tumblr, even just 30 pages in--it's that just because a spirit is a saint doesn't mean it's a great beginner spirit for you to try out. Just because a spirit is a saint, or Christian, doesn't mean they're automatically safe and docile and welcoming.

They might be, in a purely religious Christian context. But we are talking about folk magic, not Christian religion. And folk magic has its own very special kind of gnarly and dangerous, whether it's hoodoo or stregheria or Thai luk krok or Cornish cunningcraft. As I have always said on this blog, all real magic incurs risk, and that includes every tradition of real magic out there. Magic high or low, folk magic or learned, is not a trifling affair.

And there are so many saints, and their temperaments vary so widely. Just in this book alone, it talks about how afraid the villagers of the town are of San Donato, the patron of epileptics, as much as they love and revere him. He doesn't just cure the seizures--he brings them on and actively afflicts them to people who have angered God, or angered the Saint. He brings them terrible visions of earthquakes and volcanoes, carrying his own head. Michael protects them but they're terrified of his "infernal anger" and do everything they can to placate him. Do those sound like beginner spirits to you?

It is a good rule of thumb, for any spirit really, saints too though--if they protect someone from something, or can do a certain task, it is safe to assume they can also unleash that thing upon you, and do the opposite of the task they are expected to perform. The entirety of that patronage, positive and negative, is their complete domain.

Practitioners of folk magic know better than to rest their comfort level on the baby-faced, meek looking statues that represent their spirits. If the saints were all loving, people would not pray for their intercession to cause people to die, or bring storms, or separate lovers, or cause financial ruin. And these are all very real things that the saints can do. They are not simply passive, angelic looking dead people. They are the Mighty Dead. In many ways they are extremely powerful and elevated ghosts.

Don't get me wrong. Saints aren't demons--they're not sociopathically malicious and waiting to cause your demise. Generally, theyre easy to please and give good results. But their context varies widely depending upon the tradition in which they are used, and their patronage. In general they are more approachable than a lot of other spirits, but that doesn't mean they can't burn with righteous anger or be completely cool as harbingers of Eternal Rest.

Saints are wonderful and personal and there's a multitude of them that do extremely cool and useful things for magic. I may write a post about choosing a patron saint for your practice soon. But that is another post.

The point of this post, is not to assume Christian spirits are docile and just totally fine with everything based solely on the fact they are Christian. In many cases they are extremely fickle and expect very certain things from their devotees. You won't be able to mix and match them with every magical tradition, especially pagan ones, for instance. If they have been syncretized into something like voodou, brujeria or Qimbanda, they have been fed blood, money, smoke, and drugs, and they know the taste of these things quite well, and enjoy them.

Saints are great--but they're not all built equally as passive pretty folk tales. They are ghosts, they are powerful ancestors. They are sometimes compassionate, sometimes restless, many of them put to death in violence so gruesome and unimaginable we can't even fathom such an end.

It's a two sided coin. And just because a ghost has given themselves to Christ, doesn't mean they've given themselves to you.

Namibia swirl (by Daniel Kordan)