The first major construction project following the Ice Age was a fortified structure that was simultaneously a temple, a workshop, an art gallery, a community meeting place, and a seat of government. It was built from stone over the course of many generations, and when it was eventually abandoned, no other people on Earth made anything remotely ( Read more... )

If one could distill a single theme from The Faculty of Abrac regarding the Goetia spirits, it is that their identities and characteristics were deliberately constructed by the writers of the grimoires. They were not found in the wild or scried in a crystal ball and catalogued like Amazonian wildlife, but were constructed so as to represent certain ( Read more... )

#69 Decarabia

Christmas has evolved over the years, and in the Days of Yore there were no Hallmark movies. Instead there were Christmas pageants, elaborate and immersive plays put on by trade guilds during the holiday season. About five hundred years ago, one such pageant became known as the Coventry Pageant, famous for its inclusion of a ( Read more... )

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"How do you determine which spirit falls under which cardinal ruler?" You can look up references in comparable texts, offering hints for a few of them. You can cram them into an astrological format, which is simple to do but fails to add any meaningful data. You can even conjure them individually and see what happens, which I have done, and this ( Read more... )

A longtime reader has noticed my interest in the Tarot, and so we now take a detour from the Art of Solomon to share some thoughts on the Tarot and readings. This subject has been done to death in so many places, but maybe I can say a few things that aren’t ordinarily said.


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As has been said many times, this journal is not meant to be instructive and I have no intention of teaching anything related to demonology to anyone, but rather the reader will see what I do and take it as an example for better or worse.

Nobody makes or sells a complete catalogue of “Authentic Goetia Demon Seals.” I repeat: nobody. A few people do ( Read more... )

If you are looking for a budget-friendly approach to ceremonial magic but would rather have something authentic than a make-it-up-as-you-go approach, stretch your brain with “Elucidation of Necromancy” by Joseph Peterson.

When you hear the term ceremonial magic, do you associate it with magic circles, pentacles, summoned spirits, and clouds of ( Read more... )

I was asked to make this available for sharing. Here you go!

The Almadel, like the rest of the Magical Art of Solomon, is a patchwork quilt representing a thousand year struggle for theological dominance made from threads connecting Jews, Christians, Romans, and others now long forgotten. It is a means of getting in touch with the divine without ( Read more... )

The old mythologies are full of awesome monsters and action heroes, so it's no surprise that children who learned to read from those tales end up being bored half to death by church. Almost every scene of mythic art has all the appeal of a Game of Thrones episode: swords, dragons, magic, and boobs. Along comes the inevitable Bible picture book, and ( Read more... )