A collection of things worth tracing by hand.

Over the past several months I've been building out a small library of tracing workbooks — sacred texts and sigils you copy, slowly, with a pen or brush, one line at a time. Some of it comes from Japan: Shinto purification prayers, a Buddhist sutra of just forty-two characters, ancient scripts written in spirals. Some of it comes from further west: the seventy-two sigils of the Goetia, angels of the Shem HaMephorash, sacred geometry.

Different traditions, different centuries, but the practice underneath them is the same. You're not memorizing anything. You're not trying to get it right. You're just following a shape that someone else drew a long time ago, slowly enough to actually pay attention to it — which turns out to be harder, and more worth doing, than it sounds.

I put together a small site with all of it in one place, if you want to look through it: 30 and 100-repetition editions, organized by tradition, each one with a bit of background on where it comes from and what it's traditionally said to offer.

Trace the sigil of Paimon.

Among the seventy-two spirits of the Goetia, Paimon is traditionally named a King — crowned, riding a camel, his arrival announced by a procession of attendants sounding trumpets and cymbals. He isn't remembered for force. He's remembered for what he's said to know: all arts, all sciences, the kind of knowledge others have to come and ask for.

Tracing his sigil isn't a shortcut to knowledge. But the slow, repeated act of following his shape with a pen — thirty or a hundred times — is a way of sitting with a question long enough to actually think about it, instead of just reacting to it.

Sigil tracing sheet, 30 & 100-repetition editions, link below. 🕯️

30tracing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H8KTSZT4

Today we are being encouraged to embrace our psychic abilities and direct them towards our hidden goals. Our demon friends have our backs, they delight in the exposure of our enemies, given the chance they will turn any secret nefarious dealings to our advantage. Still yourself, meditate, and rally your spirit troops behind you. Yahnoo just in case ;).

Sagan's Sorcery 🔥🖋️

“The 71 spirit is called Dantalion, he is a great & Mighty duke appearing in ye forme of a Man wth many faces, all like men & women, & a Booke in his right hand; his office is to Teach all arts and siences to anyone, and to declare ye secreet Councelles of anyone, for he knoweth ye Thoughts of all men and women, and can change them at his will, he can cause love and shew (by vision) ye true similitude of anyone lett them be in wt place or part of ye world they will, he governeth 36 Legions of spirits his seal is This, wch is to be worne as a Lamin.”

“The 38th spirit is called Halphas he is a great Earle and appeareth in ye forme of a stock dove, and speaketh wth a hoarse voyce; his office is to build up Towers & to furnish them wth ammunition and weapons, and to send men of warre to places appointed; he ruleth 26 Legions of spirits; his seal is Thus to be made, & worne as a Lamen &c.”

- Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, The Lesser Key of Solomon, Detailing the Ceremonial Art of Commanding Spirits Both Good and Evil

- Editor: Joseph H. Peterson

DM me for a reading, details below 🃏✨

Drew some sketches based on this idea of him being in Kirby's Dream Land 3 some months ago.

Photo by Travis Stone

What’s in a name? Or, in the case of DC-based Goetia, what’s in a subgenre identifier? If one is to believe promo chatter and Bandcamp tags, Goetia is a straight-up death metal band. All the semiotics check out: the band’s name is also (and primarily) the title of a section of an ancient grimoire, taxonomizing the 72 demons King Solomon is alleged to have harnessed to build the Temple of Jerusalem (that’s the “Ars Goetia” of the Clavicula Salomonis Regis, if you must know…). Song titles are almost comically on the nose: the title track, “Lanterns of the Dead,” “Bestial Tomb” and so on. The music? It casts a different sort of spell.