Frater Barrabbas Author Literary Tour - Part 5 - Spirit Conjuring For Witches

 

After getting my book on the Qabalah published there was a bit of a lull in my literary activities. It was a time for writing a lot of articles on my blog, a media boon shown to me by my mentor Taylor Elwood, developing some new magical approaches and attending pagan conventions. A new convention started in Minneapolis called Paganicon that I attended, and I also attended Pantheacon one last time. It was a busy period for me, overall, and I hadn’t had the opportunity of trying to figure out what I wanted to work on for a new manuscript. I had some ideas that I was kicking around, but nothing really firm or focused.

It was during this interlude that I got more involved with my Witchcraft community, and I was examining my own history and path as a Witch and a ritual magician. One topic that was all the rage at the time was medieval and Renaissance grimoires. Quite a number of newly translated grimoires became available to the public, many appearing for the first time in print. While this area of magical practice had become something of a major focus for ceremonial magicians, I had already developed several different ways of performing this kind of magic back in the 1980's in conjunction with my particular methodology for working planetary and elemental magic. I felt a certain disdain for the emphasis on Christianity or Jewish monotheism that seemed to be the core spiritual perspective for these newly published grimoires. I felt that the cultures of the 16th and 17th centuries that had produced these grimoires was so far removed from us today as to make their approach to magic and religion to be antiquated at best, and somewhat superstitious and ridiculous at worst.

While the baseline for magic and western occultism was established by the writings of Agrippa and Paracelsus in the 15th to 16th century, and followed by a number of others, it was the occultists of the 19th and early 20th century who had brought these ideas and practices into the modern age. The older teachings had their relevance in the continuity of ideas from that period to the present. Just as I would find the writings of Blavatsky or Dion Fortune to be dated and even a bit anachronistic, the writings of Agrippa, Paracelsus, Dee, Ficino, and Pico Mirandola were even more dated and immersed in a cultural context that no longer existed. To take any grimoire as originally written and to practice it would require the individual to also reconstruct the cultural beliefs and practices of that time, which by now is nearly impossible. Even the grimoire purists had to pull together various practices, both antique and modern, along with a very modern perspective on magic in order to make these books useful and viable, although they would downplay or even deny that activity.

Since I was a very modern practitioner of ritual magic and had developed my magical technology out of modern practices and extended by my own experimentation, I felt that this approach was the best one for modern Pagans and Witches. So, after banging around some ideas in my head for a while, I came upon the idea of writing a book for Witches and Pagans on how to use the magical tech that they already had, with a few extensions and additions, to practice a form of classical evocation that would fit within the practices of modern Witchcraft. I asked the acquisitions editor for Llewellyn what she thought of such an idea for a book, and she was quite interested and said to send her a table of contents, a pitch for the book and a sample and she would give it some serious consideration. So, that was how the book “Spirit Conjuring for Witches” was born. I wanted to give to my community something very valuable and missing from their current practices. I set to work on this project in the spring of 2015, sent in my author questionnaire with the pitch, table of contents and a couple of sample chapters and I proceeded to work on this latest book project. I completed this work and presented to the publishers in early 2016, and it came out in print in early 2017.

This book, like the previous one, required me to do some extensive research. My research project was to examine the history of witchcraft and determine the reports and nature of the familiar spirit in both antiquity and the middle ages. My main thrust in the book was to equate the familiar spirit with the modern concept of the higher-self or inner deity. It is my belief that there is an inner deity in all humankind, existing in various stages of conscious awareness. When it is recognized and actively celebrated, it acts as a liaison between the domain of spirit and the host’s human consciousness. I proposed that it was an important component for performing evocations within a Witchcraft context, representing an integral connection with the Witchcraft practices of antiquity. Once that tool was defined and developed, along with the correct attitude and mind-set necessary to enter the spirit world, then the Witch followed the five classical steps for conjuring a spirit. Those steps are purification, invocation, constraining, binding and releasing. These steps are likely the same as those practiced by the great Witches of antiquity, although the cultural context and proper mind-set are completely modern.

None of these practices are explained in any Book of Shadows that I have ever seen, either private or public. The base-line practices of Witchcraft today typically are rites that are performed by a coven or small group. A single Witch practicing her craft and engaging with the Deities and the Spirit World seemed to be something that the witches of legend or fairy tales would have been able to do. My book placed the practice of Witchcraft magic back into the context of the individual practicing alone and without the need or desire for a coven or group. It is a powerful method of magic for the solitary Witch, which I believe is much more like the Witchcraft of tomorrow than what might be found today.    

The book included a few bon mots, mostly because I wanted some feedback and support from the community for what I was about to place into the hands of the Witchcraft community. Yet here is the advertisement found on the back of the book helping folks to figure out if they would want to buy this book.

The greatest witches of legend and folklore practiced their craft through spirit conjuration and by employing a familiar spirit. Now, centuries later, these arts can be acquired
and mastered by modern witches. Join witch and ritual magician Frater Barrabbas as he shares a system of witchcraft-based magic developed to safely perform invocations and evocations; travel in the spirit world; create a spirit pact; and construct your own rituals for spirit conjuring. Exploring history, folktales, myths, and personal experiences, Spirit Conjuring for Witches shows how to magically develop human-to-spirit relationships and ultimately master both the spirit and material worlds.

It is brief but to the point. This book provides the first of the missing lore that is not found in the Book of Shadows, and it represents a complete methodology that requires practice and a disciplined approach to make it work optimally well for the practitioner. There is so much packed into this tome that I cannot but fully recommend this book to my fellow Witches, Pagans and ritual magicians. If you haven’t read any of my books then this should be the one that you should read to start your own version of my literary journey. You will be skipping three books to get to this point, but the magical technology that it will bequeath to you will be extremely beneficial. There have been over 6,000 copies currently sold, so it must be pertinent in order to be so popular.

Some of the topics, aside from the spirit guide or familiar, that I present in this book gives the reader everything that she or he would need to engage in performing spirit conjuring. I have written extensively in this book about the godhead assumption rite and developing your own personal godhead votive cult, which is central to the spiritual activities of evocation. If you don’t develop a relationship with the deity within then there is little possibility of optimizing your experience with other spirits. I also discuss the classification of spirits, how to see into their world, and how to communicate with spirits. These techniques border on the paranormal abilities typical of those who are sensitive to such phenomena; but for those who do not have this capability I also discuss the use of dice or knucklebones, which is a tried and true mechanism for communicating with spirits or even deities. I also introduce to those who have not read any of my previous books the rituals of the rose-ankh vortex, the double gateway of the west (underworld) and east (ascension), and the methods for developing a spirit shrine and offering table and how and when to use them.

In the appendices I have produced lists of angels, demons and other spirits, and a guide for engaging with the grimoires within a Witchcraft context. Everything that a Witch needs to know regarding spirit conjuration is in this book. To my knowledge, I have omitted nothing and it is a good example of a comprehensive exposition of this kind of craft, which is something that I have built into all of my books. I don’t want people to accept what I am writing based on either trust or faith. Instead, I am inviting my readers to take the rituals and concepts and use them to find out for themselves whether these practices that I have outlined actually work. The proof in the pudding is in the eating, an old adage that is quite appropriate for my writings. If you want to know something then assemble the necessary components, practice the forms and then plan and execute magical workings. While I can only write about these topics and how I have engaged with them in the magic circle, it is up to my readers to go out and try them and see for themselves if what I have written is true.

My whole approach to writing books is to inspire others to experiment, develop, invent and create their own personal magic. Every magician, witch or goetes from the beginning of human consciousness has had to build their own methodology to work magic. If you can’t get beyond the stage of using rituals and spells written in books then you will never be able to develop yourself as a magical practitioner. You have to own your magic, and you can only do that when you learn to write your own rituals and develop your abilities through repetition and continued practice. There is an element of discipline involved in developing an expertise in the practice of ritual magic. There is also a need for openness, curiosity, inspired imagination, creativity and experimentation. It is part of the practical necessity for being able to own the magic that you are working.

The modern Book of Shadows for Witches has many areas that are lacking, much of it would be associated with a complete cultural immersion that a folk tradition would already possess. However, in the area of the practice of magic, there are three areas that are typically omitted in the traditional practices of Witchcraft magic. The first is spirit conjuring using a familiar spirit, which this book covers quite well. The second missing practice are the rites of using magical energies, such as elementals, and the advanced techniques associated with them, such as the vortex, pylon, invoking pentagram, and the techniques of resonance. The third missing practice are the rites of celestial magic, which is the making of talismans and working planetary magic. There is also a fourth missing practice, although it is implied and loosely covered in some of the rites of modern Witchcraft and the Book of Shadows, but these techniques, based on sacramental theurgy, need to be expanded and fully documented in order for the rites of a fully magical and pagan-engaged Witchcraft to be developed. These have been, and are, for the most part, my objectives in writing the “For Witches” series of book.

My purpose in writing the “For Witches” series is to fill in the missing lore for the magical practices allotted to modern traditional Witchcraft so that it can fully engage with all of the more advanced attributes of that magical faith. To be a fully realized Witch is to also be a fully capable ritual magician. These two roles are one and the same, since Witchcraft in terms of how I define it, is a magical religion. The two systems, religion and magic, are joined together and practiced as one tradition.

Frater Barrabbas

New Book - Spirit Conjuring for Witches

Now that I have more or less recovered from my eye surgery, I can finally get back to the business of writing articles in my blog. I have been absent since late December, and quite a lot has been going on since then, both from the standpoint of the occult, politics and my life situation. Hopefully, I will have time to write up on these and many other topics in the weeks to come. Not being able to read for more than a week, and not being able to perform much in the way of extracurricular writing (outside of work) has been quite difficult for me to manage and quietly accommodate. I love to read and write, but for nearly a month I had to keep my writing to a minimum to give my eyes a chance to fully recover, and not subject them overly to eye strain. Now that I have passed that period of recovery, I can fully pursue my writing tasks.

After the holidays, and in the middle January, my book project, “Spirit Conjuring for Witches: Magical Evocation Simplified” was at long last published. I got my printed copies around that time, and the book was released a week or so later, well before the February 8 launch date. I have been quite pleased with the book so far, and so have others who have read it and posted reviews. You can find this book on Amazon here.

The user named Jeannot left a very helpful and good review on Amazon, and it was the very first review. Here is what she had to say:

“Let's start off with a basic preliminary statement: this book is not for beginning magical practitioners in the way of providing magical tech; in that sense, it is geared more for intermediate practitioners. That said, this book is excellent at giving beginners goals to aspire to.

Frater Barrabbas does a fascinating and excellent job of reintegrating the concept of the witch's familiar into modern practice, putting it in a modern context with roots going back beyond Medieval and Early Modern European incarnations of the spirit helper. He relates it to the "head gods" of African Traditional Religions (ATRs) and the various spirit helpers of the PGM, or Greek Magical Papyri. For those who are willing to put in the work, I'm sure this book will provide much fruit.

This book stands with the work of Gordon White, Jake Stratton-Kent, and Peter Grey. Frater Barrabbas provides a witchcraft that is vital, active, and local, capable of functioning in the witch's immediate environment.”

Being compared to Gordon White, Jake Stratton-Kent or Peter Grey is quite complimentary, although I consider them to be authors who have written books quite beyond what I set out to do with this book. I guess the most important question that one might have about this book has less to do with the material within than for the motivation for me to write it. Why did I write this book? Is it yet another book proposing that Witches adopt the practices and methodologies of the Ceremonial Magician? Well, the answer to that is no, it was not my intention to sell the techniques and methodologies in use by either ceremonial magicians or traditional practitioners of magic as found in the old grimoires. This book was written by a Witch, practicing ritual magic, for other Witches who would wish to also practice this kind of magic. It was not written for either ceremonial magicians nor was it written for the traditional magicians who utilize the old grimoires.

What I am proposing in this book is a system of magic that is distinctly Witchcraft based and not outside of what might be considered the magical practices of that modern tradition. I wrote this book for modern Witches and Wiccans, and my purpose was to introduce to them the practices and techniques already inherent in their traditions to formally summon and manifest spirits. My aim was to help Witches adopt the spirit model of magic and fully develop it as a mainstay of their tradition. It is my hope that this book will start a new wave of Witchcraft magic that will stay abreast of other cutting edge magical traditions. I wanted Witches to expand beyond thaumaturgy and using the simple constructs of the energy model of magic to reach their true potential as magical practitioners, emulating the capabilities and legendary deeds of the mythic Witches of folklore and antiquity. However, I wanted them to use the features and components of their existing traditional modern lore to accomplish this end.

As an observer of modern Witchcraft and Wicca magic, I have noted that these traditions relied too much on one or two models of magic, and that the spirit model was only partially active in these magical practices. One of the reasons that I gave for this lack of a formal system of performing an invocation or an evocation is that such rites and techniques are not to be found in the traditional Book of Shadows, as witnessed by my own Gardnerian third generation BoS. While it is true that old Gerald, to a lesser extent, and Alex Sanders, to a greater extent, practiced grimoire based magic, none of that lore was ever formalized to become part of the tradition of Witchcraft. The closest thing that I have found so far that approached a grimoire based magical type of working was the Vassago goetic demon evocation and scrying session found in the book “Mastering Witchcraft,” and no where else it is so plainly promoted. I had once thought that Paul Huson’s book would have become the basis or the foundation for a deeper form of magical workings, but if it did, that fact was not absorbed into the tradition and passed on. It remained, like the grimoire workings of old Gerald and Alex, an outlier to the practice of modern Witchcraft.

Needless to say, the book “Mastering Witchcraft” and others like it didn’t propose a comprehensive and formal system of invocation and evocation, so the spirit model of magic was never really a part of traditional modern Witchcraft. It never really caught on, probably because in order to be adopted, it would have required some rather major changes to the practice and celebration of Witchcraft. As a system of magic, the spirit model doesn’t lend itself easily to coven based magic. For instance, if a coven were to perform a goetic evocation then only one individual would actually do the work and the others would function as helpers or just witnesses. Since everyone who practices magic has different capabilities, it is possible that while the leader performing the rite would be in full possession of her skills and abilities as a Witch, others might not get as much out of the rite. Being able to translate and assimilate spirit contact is something that has to be learned and mastered over time with lots of experiences. Certainly, it wouldn’t be a good idea to expose newly initiated or uninitiated members of the coven to this kind of working, so it would be something to which only a more experienced or mature group should be exposed. That is because the key to controlling and mastering the encounter with spirits is the active godhead assumption, and without this mechanism to guide and protect the practitioner, spirit conjuring could be considered a hazardous operation.

Perhaps one of the most important contributions that my book makes is to equate the familiar spirit of antiquity with the modern day godhead assumption of practical magic. That this practice found its way into the BTW and Wiccan traditions as a major liturgical rite from a basic exercise in the Golden Dawn system of magic shouldn’t be too surprising. What is surprising is that such a liturgical rite in Witchcraft has an ancient pedigree going back into antiquity, as the Greek Magical Papyri has amply shown. It was an important and pivotal rite in antiquity, where a magician sought and achieved a spirit mediator to assist in his magical workings. Those who practiced magic in antiquity, and even more recently as the 16th and 17th centuries believed that human nature, without the aid of a spirit helper or some other supernatural assistance, was quite helpless, defenseless against spirits and deities and incapable of producing magical or miraculous effects. It was only in the 19th century that the belief in the power of untapped human potential became an important theme in magic and occultism. That theme went on to produce the energy model of magic, and it supplanted many of the other systems of magic until the last twenty years or so. We who practice magic now realize that a greater capability lies in the use of all of the models of magic simultaneously, but in the traditions of Witchcraft, formal adoption of the spirit model still lags the other techniques.

Making the godhead assumption, called the "Draw" in Wiccan-speak, into a personal ritual of self-empowerment seems like a profanation of the liturgical nature of this rite. However, it isn’t a profanation, it is an obvious magical expansion of a mechanism that is used to facilitate communion with the covenstead godhead to one that elevates the individual, temporarily, to the level of an earth-bound and incarnated deity. Performing this rite continually over time will dramatically impact and affect the consciousness of the practitioner, transforming and empowering them over the long course of a magical practice. Additionally, such a rite is more suited to working alone or with only the most intimate group, since the celebrant is sharing something that is extremely personal and private, so that it remains detached from any kind of egoic corruption. There is nothing quite like the ego trip of someone who forces his or her group to engage in worshiping them as they assume the simulacrum of some godhead. Godhead assumption must be balanced with a great deal of humility and service to the deity so that it doesn’t regress into a form of unearned ego-based self glorification. 

Another mechanism that has to be altered is the covenstead magical circle and the invested dual deities and dread lords of the four quarters that ward and protect what transpires within it. Certainly, in order to take full advantage of working within a magic circle that represents the boundary of all that is sacred and spiritual, a Witch has to deliberately thwart the inherent protective measures that such a mechanism provides. Opening up the magic circle to the whole of the spirit world (instead of the covenstead protected simulacrum) is an important first step, since by crossing the circle watchtowers, making therein a cross-roads, will open that sacred space to everything that is within the spirit world. Someone who deliberately performs this act must first adopt a personal godhead assumption in order to protect themselves from negative, hostile or callous neutral spiritual encounters.

Anyway, these topics and many others are discussed in detail in my book. These are not new ideas, because I have written about them previously, but now I have collected them altogether into a single, concise book. I think that you will find this book to be useful and hopefully, it will have an impact on the greater world of Modern Witchcraft.

Frater Barrabbas

Some minor errors found in the current edition.

After carefully reading over my copy of the book, I have found a few errors in the book, particularly Appendix 2, p. 234. The actual date of the Grimoirum Verum is likely to be the early 1600's, and not the 1500's as I had written. According to Joseph Peterson, the direct precursor to the Grimiorum Verum was a book entitled "Clavicula Solomonis De Secretis" and the extent copy of this book is a Polish Leipzig version dated around 1620's. It is likely that the Grimoirum Verum was produced not long after that time, but it still predated the Goetia, probably by a couple of decades. While I had submitted edits that would have corrected these dates, for some reason that didn't get installed, perhaps because they might have been confusing to the editor who had recourse to my emails but not to me directly. Anyway, this is minor point, but I felt the need to clarify in this article. I am sure that there are probably other inaccuracies, but overall, I feel that the editing and writing for this book is one of the best that I, in combination with the Llewellyn team, have produced so far.   

Holidays and Calends 2015

Here we are, nearly at the end of the year and I have posted very few blog articles this autumn. You might be wondering why that is so, since I have been quite prolific in the past. In fact there are quite a few articles already in this blog covering a wide variety of subjects, which is probably what folks are avidly reading. I know this is true because the number of pages-read counter is still moderately high even when I haven’t posted for a while.

Winter is here, although it doesn’t either feel like a full blown Minnesota winter just yet. There is just a dusting of snow on the ground and the weather has been too warm for most of the month. We have gotten rain and a bit of sleet instead of a foot or two of snow. I don’t mind the mild weather, but it certainly puts a damper on the festive spirit that usually accompanies a white Winter Solstice. Parties are starting up this weekend and I have most of next week off from work. I have been working too many hours and not spending enough time on other stuff, unfortunately. There is too much to do in the coming days, both domestically and also magically. Because of my busy schedule much of this work has been left until now to complete.

[Of course, nature loves irony, since before I could post this article the snow has come and winter is now snow-bound, icy and normal.]

What I have been doing with my time outside of my job is writing another book. I submitted the manuscript to Llewellyn on the first day of this month so I wouldn’t have to work on it during the holidays. The irony is that I have to begin the revisions to this manuscript and produce a new version with corrections by February. No good deed goes unpunished, right? The book project is tentatively entitled “Spirit Conjuring For Witches” and my premise for writing it is that Witches and Pagans need to embrace the Spirit Model of magic and become formally engaged with the art of summoning spirits in order to really function like the legendary witches of the past.

Perhaps the most startling proposition that I am promoting is that I believe it is best to have some kind of supernatural intermediary to perform this work. Unlike the popular belief in familiar spirits as animal pets or merely as servitors that perform the will of the witch or magician like some automata, it is my opinion that the spiritual intermediary is actually the self as deity, or the inner deity. Some might call this the higher self. Others might compare or equate this entity with the Holy Guardian angel. However, I see it as the equivalent of the Hindu Atman, the godhead that resides in each and every person. Not everyone will agree with this interpretation, and there are as many opinions as individuals, with only some in solid agreement. This is a counter intuitive perspective, since most practitioners of western magic believe that the lone individual or the small group has the innate power to completely change their destiny - there is no real need for any kind of supernatural assistant, or is there?

What has propelled the art of magic for the last couple of hundred years is the optimistic belief that human nature alone, either by some kind of greater reservoir of psychic power or the undaunted human will, can be the source of miracles and the magical bending of reality to suit one’s interests. However, the existential curse of post-modernism has shown that modern humanity has little or no power, and that the individual can no more change the flux and flow of human destiny than he or she can change the weather. We see our modern history as the product of individual achievement, even though that achievement was more due to fortune and probability than actual individual genius. The world has always been blind and deaf to the anger, heartbreak or entreaties of the individual, but it is the masses either randomly or orchestrated by a cacophony of unforeseen events that moves mountains.

While I tentatively agree with the existential perspective concerning the powerlessness of the individual, I also possess the optimistic viewpoint that each of us contains within us a deity, and that godhead, connected and indivisible as it is with the One, gives everyone the potential to transform themselves and therefore, change the world. Of course this assumes that one can become fully aware of that divinity residing within one. In my opinion it is through that internal divinity that we have the ability to know God in an intimate manner, and to see the world through the “eyes of spirit.” It is through this frame of reference that I wrote my book, and it is what I am promoting as a way for witches and pagans to adopt a more spirit-based model of magic.

As I continue working on this book and pushing it to the more perfected version that will be published, I find that all my assumptions about the components of this process of summoning spirits are thoroughly tested. Writing a book is probably even more of a mechanism for fully learning a subject than just practicing and performing it as a regular discipline. There is nothing that forces a greater degree of objectivity from a teacher or author than attempting to either teach or publish a book about a given topic, since the feedback from such efforts are more valuable than the end-product itself.

Frater Barrabbas