hunter

male | bi | gnostic christian | st. cyprian devotee | grimoire tradition and folk magic

[coyote-696]

Hey, filling a fog machine with holy water, then conjuring an angel (while following all the other proper steps) good idea to make the space even more “pure” or waste of time?

Oh my god please do it

[hunters-animus]

i want to do this now

[this-super-piece-of-shit]

[property-is-theft-deactivated20]

Me

[thedesertgod-deactivated2020013]

A Word On Saints and Magic

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.

That's all.

[micahulrichdraws]

Pull my finger. Some pictures from my not cursed art zine! You can check it out and help support my art stuff here!

[thedesertgod-deactivated2020013]

I can’t stress enough how much damage Raven Grimassi has done to stregheria. It really is shameful. How offensive it is to completely erase a rich tradition with both pagan and Christian magic because it’s “easier” and more palatable to spoonfeed Wicca to people. Then claiming “Italian Americans have historically incorporated Wicca into their ways” as an excuse for blending the two which is also a steaming crock. While there may be Italian Americans today that practice Wicca, literally no Italian American from the turn of the century, during the busiest period of migration from the Old Country, doing folk practices like breaking the malocchio and magical novenas, would have claimed to be Wiccan. Firstly because it didn’t fucking exist then, and secondly because even folk healers in Italy would never describe themselves as anything but devoutly Roman Catholic. Then rebranding stregheria, a magical practice, as if it’s a religion…which is obviously done to make it easier to separate it from Catholicism and graft it into Wicca; neutering it of a large part of its efficacy and ethnic background. And the nerve to call it a “reconstruction” of a tradition when it resembles literally nothing from its origin point…!

One of his academic defenders (who auspiciously just happens to be an initiate of Gardnerian Wicca) claimed Grimassi “never claimed to be reconstructing the practices of actual Italian American practitioners”, but boy ever if Grimassi himself wasn’t lazy as fuck or completely disingenuous by omission to possibly correct that notion.

Basically, fuck Raven Grimassi you melted garbage bag ass looking dead motherfucker.

[solomonmagus]

As an italian i must say FUCK YOU RAVEN GRIMASSI!!!

[trollkatt]

THIS!

[hunters-animus]

I’m Back (Temporarily)

Hey y’all. It’s been a while since I’ve been on Tumblr. I’m happy to be back, but I think I might make a new account to clear the clutter. I’m not an occultist publicly anymore since I was... unceremoniously thrust from the community. However, my new account will be more committed to politics, as well as spirituality.

Shoot me a message or something if you want to chat. It’s been a while and I truly did miss you all.

[hymnsofheresy]

indigenous religions need to be acknowledged and treated with respect and so do indigenous sacred lands.

[hymnsofheresy]

fun fact: just because something isn’t sacred to you doesn’t mean it isn’t sacred!

[opulentdoll]

This is a hymn of heresy… if you’re a true Catholic you know the only true religion is Catholicism. It is a sin against the faith to believe otherwise.

[hymnsofheresy]

I’m fucking protestant…

[secifosseluce]

@traditionalhomemaking oi sister, Catholicism preaches decency, kindness and compassion, what about that? 

not to mention that the literal Vicar of Christ has given a formal apology to the indigenous people the faith has hurt (repeatedly and with intention, for centuries) and encouraged them to practice their traditions within Catholicism and to take charge of their roots. here is jan 28, 2019, Pope Francis I, an Argentinian man may I add, himself speaking about young indigenous people retaking back their cultural practices & traditions:

“Return to your culture of origins,” he said. “Take charge of your roots, because from your roots comes the strength to make things grow, flourish and bear fruit. (…) A poet once said that ‘everything that blooms from a tree comes from that which is underground,’ the roots. But roots that grow toward the future, projected toward the future. This is your challenge today.”

if you’re in the faith for the aesthetic, this nice pleasant image of the American Tradition Family that doesn’t speak to anyone but American (white) people and a tiny handful of other privileged communities, then good for you, but don’t spit on other people’s religions –  you don’t get to talk about sins against the faith if you don’t place the well-being, the self-agency, and the dignity of other people before the comfort of your beliefs. 

[opulentdoll]

I understand what you’re saying but Francis is an antipope & anti catholic who is leading the prophesied end times counter church. I pray all of you find the true faith, that is traditional Catholicism. God bless.

[secifosseluce]

so you say you’re catholic…but you refuse papal rule? ma’am -

[hymnsofheresy]

@traditionalhomemaking OH WOW! hello fellow protestant ✨✨✨ i don’t accept papal authority either! we have so much in common already :)

[queerkeitcoven]

ברוך שהחינו וקימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה / Blessed is the One who has enlivened us, sustained us, and brought us to this moment. 

Not much more to say at the moment except acknowledge the overflowing gratitude to all the mentors, colleagues, scholars, activists, lovers, and friends who contributed to making this book possible. Looking forward to sharing it with all of you! If you’d like to bring me to your community to share the stories of A Rainbow Thread, please get in touch!

ORDER NOW: A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969

[darkhei-noam]

So, um, I wrote a book! And it exists! And, if you’re so inclined, you can order it at the link above. If you’re interested in reading about any of the following: biblical ancestors switching genders; a same-sex hook-up in a medieval synagogue; a gender-bending Sephardi runaway in colonial Canada; a queer Pre-Raphaelite midrash on the Song of Songs; Yiddish-speaking lesbians on the Lower East Side… This might be the book for you.

[c0nt8ct-deactivated20211225]

It’s nice that anarchism has gotten more popular recently, even if the circumstances are shit. At the same time, there are lots of folks who don’t know what anarchists think or what they do. Actions say more than any definition, so here’s a very short list of things anarchists have been up to:

Anarchists everywhere have been on the front-lines against the resurgence of fascism. According to Mark Bray: “In the United States, most [antifascists] have been anarchist or antiauthoritarian since the emergence of modern antifa under the name Anti-Racist Action (ARA) in the late eighties.” Anarchists have played big roles in protests against Donald Trump and the alt-right, primarily through monitoring and doxxing, but confronting them directly when necessary. The same is true across Europe, with some anarchists in Greece even killing neo-Nazis.

Throughout Europe (but especially Greece), anarchists are providing shelter and care for migrants, as well as organizing social services like healthcare that would normally be done by the state.

Anarchist volunteers have been fighting Daesh in northern Syria for several years. They have been defending the Kurdish region of Rojava, a revolutionary experiment dedicated to gender equality, ethnic & cultural diversity, secularism, and moving beyond capitalism and the state.

Where medicine is expensive and constrained by intellectual property, anarchist biohackers like those in the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective have been hard at work teaching people how to make their own medicines. On a related note, anarchists and feminists have also hosted conferences in Pittsburgh about queering biotechnology, which included biohackers like Four Thieves as well as a few people behind open-source estrogen, a project “for cis and trans women to take greater control over their bodies by creating their own birth control, gender transition, or menopause symptom alleviation hormone replacement therapies, sans institutional gatekeepers.”

Anarchists with C4SS are currently doing a fundraiser to help start queer self-defense groups in Brazil, in the wake of Bolsonaro’s election and the violence that has been unleashed against queer people.

Speaking of Brazil, anarchists there are pushing for greater representation for women in mathematics — a traditionally male-dominated field. 

During the year-long blackout in Puerto Rico, anarchists organized a self-managed solar power grid in Mariana, restoring power two months ahead before the government reached them. Among the things the grid powered was a communal kitchen, a laundromat, and an office. The idea spread across the country.

Anarchists and other radicals in North Carolina organized disaster relief after Hurricane Florence struck, arriving ahead of NGOs and the government. They were even able to coordinate aircraft and fly supplies in.

Anarchists and other radicals helped organize relief for people displaced by the wildfires in California last year, aiding 100 people. They set up two big tents, both of which contained pillows, books, chairs, etc.

Back in 2017, anarchists in Portland took it upon themselves to fill in potholes that were caused by bad weather. To quote one participant: “We aren’t asking permission, because these are our streets. They belong to the people of Portland, and the people of Portland will fix them.”

In Indonesia, anarcho-syndicalists have formed a union to fight Uber. The union has at least 6,000 members, is organized horizontally, and there are no dues to pay.

I’m sure I’m leaving out a lot more, but hopefully some of this stuff will inspire you.

[hunters-animus]

saw this last night and i had to show it off. i love Teresa of Avilla so much, so i needed to snap a pic. and, i mean, who doesnt love icons?

[babycandlewitch]

A Mars Ritual ♂️

The table is fashioned after the 2nd pentacle of Mars for healing

🔥🍷🏛

Solomonic angel magic for the construction of a pentacle and some conjure elements for a healing talisman to follow in the hour of Mars.

💊🗡🕯

[coyote-696]

Scaling up the pentacle to work as a ritual space/circle was such a clever idea

[aur-ochs]

I find the idea that planetary work requires angels to be really annoying. Planets are objectively existing parts of nature, and most magical workers don't need lists of angels, intelligences, spirits & god-names just to work with fire magic. Would you happen to have any leads on a more Neoplatonist approach to the heavenly 7? I'm finding myself less than principled enough in the Solomonic workflow.

“I find the way you do magic annoying and unnecessary, give me resources for different ways” lol that’s definitely how you get people to do things for you, good job

[coyote-696]

“i don’t like neoplatonic planetary magick, can you recommend me neoplatonic planetary magick”

l m a o

[honuofhawaii]

This is a vase I’ve been working on. The body was thrown and the neck and rim were built up with coils. The carving is Ancient Greek and is from book 18 of the Iliad lines 1-50. So far I have probably spent 14 hours on it 10 of which were just carving the Greek. The scene tells of Achille’s grief when he learns of Patroclus’s death. 

[elucubrare]

@aeide-thea

[deerhoofandrabbitsfoot-deactiva]

Why… why does this exist?

[hunters-animus]

that is an excellent question and one that i don't have an answer to 😂

[left-reminders]

[equikage]

when sypha said ‘i serve no demon and do no evil’ i thought the alternative was something like serving god and doing good but with magic and i was like ok but turns out there is a third option which is ‘i serve literally no one and i do what i want and god can eat my entire ass’

[thedeedwithaname]

Wanted to dip my toes in ceremonial magic and grimoire trad so I picked up seven spheres by RO but I have some problems. Like okay, he gives you a (way too general overview of the ritual per se) but he doesn't say what you are supposed to during them apart from consecration of talismans (that part didn't ring too well either). Questions? Contemplation? Talking about the superbowl? You have anything to say about that? Thanks and nice blog btw

Eyy, thanks for the ask (and glad you like the blog haha).

So first of all, good choice for an introduction to Grimoire Trad. Although RO has made some imo questionable decisions in his works, 7S really stands up in terms of tech. 

As to what to do with the system, one can start to gain a lot more insight by looking back to the source material for the vast majority of the Grimoire in question, which is The Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals by Johannes Trithemius.

In this, JT states that, once the spirit is in the crystal through whatever cajoling you have to do to get it there, “Here let him swear, then write down his seal or character in thy book, and against it, his office and times to be called, through God’s name; also write down any thing he may teach thee, or any responses he may make to thy questions or interrogations, concerning life or death, arts or sciences, or any other thing…”

So the main goal of the OG is to derive information from the spirit itself, which you seem to have picked up on in your ask. The scope of this is a little weird to understand at first, but more and more ideas will come to you with comfort in the system. One key insight with practice is that the ability to enter dialogue with a spirit really opens the door to whatever you want to do so long as it’s under the office of said spirit.

IIRC one of the first spirits conjured in 7S is that of Jupiter, Sachiel. Looking into the lore of this spirit from other closely related systems, we see that he has recognized functions and offices. Specifically, in the Greater Key of Solomon, that, “The days and hours of Jupiter are proper for obtaining honours, acquiring riches; contracting friendships, preserving health; and arriving at all that thou canst desire”, in addition to Sachiel being the ruler of this day and hour. Since the spirits rule over the day and hour and are the mechanism for these operations, it follows that they have the office to bring about these changes. So an example goal may be, once Sachiel or one of his representatives is drawn into the crystal, to ask them for a quick spell or other ritual with which to draw some cash. Maybe this will take the form of a ritual to bless a talisman as RO mentions, or maybe it’ll be the consecration formula of an oil or a quick prayer to say. What it ultimately looks like is between you and Sachiel, but hopefully you get the drift and see how this can be expanded upon for other uses. Feel free to attempt bargaining with the spirits, often you’ll be surprised what you can get for some candles and incense burnt in their name or spreading a seal around. 

I also wrote a little bit about systems closely related to that outlined in Seven Spheres a while back [here], in which I expand a little further on possible uses and link to a bunch of resources at the end that you may find helpful while working the book. 

Thanks very much for this ask, and in the words of JHP, Happy Conjuring. 

[lincoln-douglas-pleb]

if you like the DSIC system, i would definitely recommend Gateways Through Stone and Circle by Fr. Ashen Chassan