Planetary Spells & Rituals
Page 15
Mars
Zodiacal rulership: Aries (and Scorpio, classical astrology)
Color association: Red
Sephira: Geburah
Number: 5
Day: Tuesday
Archetypes: Horned God, Warrior God/dess, Protectorate
Themes: Aggression, war, manifestation, inspiration, boundaries, lust, anger, energy, motivation, passion, sexuality, vitality, protection
Blood magick is a subject that even some Witches scowl at. The thought of bleeding oneself for magick seems somehow forebidding and negative. However, I think many of these views are cultural (blood is seen as impure in the West) and may not be entirely realistic.
Though I cover this subject in depth in my first book, Goth Craft, I’ll review a few points here. Blood is extremely powerful because it’s directly attuned to a person. No other substance flows the length of our entire body; its very energetic essence is linked to a person and can serve as a magickal tool like no other. There is immense power in blood and other bodily secretions.
Shamans and indigenous cultures have long made use of blood. To cut oneself, even for reasons of depression (please note that self-mutilation is not healthy), is very primal. It’s visceral and sensory. Intelligently utilizing one’s blood in magick links us to our tribal, primal self, and helps us not fear our body’s essence. Dangers associated with drawing blood can be done away with if approached with sterility, caution, and awareness.
Blood is DNA. Our DNA is sacred, connecting us to each other at a base, human level. Many say that memories of human history are stored within the genetic structure, being passed on through generations. Memories of the soul and of past lives can be accessed through blood magick; one can get visions of human history by meditating on the Mysteries of Blood; a person can extract the energy of their genetic lineage at the drop of a hat—er, the prick of a pin. The spiritual use of blood is vast, and is an indispensable tool for any magickal practitioner.
Contagious magick follows the Law of Contagion: that one’s essence (be it through blood, hair, fingernails, and so on) is directly linked to the person from which it came. Many spells in this book utilize the Law of Contagion in one form or another. Because of the strict link to the person whose essence is contained, drawing one’s own blood for ritual purposes should only be used for personal workings. Blood binds whatever it touches to the person who shed it. One of the most appropriate blood magick workings is to enchant one’s own magickal tools, which will be explored here.
The planet Mars rules blood and iron, thus the spell’s placement here. Mars was originally a god of protection and fertility. He later became chthonic (aligned with death and the Underworld), and was even later aligned as a god of war. Not all his archetypal aspects are aggressive; I believe he would appreciate us doing magick with him that is not strictly related to war. When you experiment with blood magick, ensure safety and act with discretionary intelligence.
Stepping Back & Further Application
When drawing blood, note your intention. If you’re cutting yourself frequently due to depression—even if it’s masquerading as ritualistic cutting—strive to stop; such behavior is severely unhealthy and counterproductive to healing. I believe that when you cut your skin, the cells respond to your intention. If your intention is ritualistic and self-transformative, the body will aid in the process. Understand your emotional state when approaching any sort of ritual work, blood-involved or not.
Blood magick should not be performed on a constant basis. To do so would lessen its power. Such an act should be reserved for intense personal workings, such as the empowerment of ritual tools. Drawing blood has plenty of risks and dangers, all of which must be considered before performing a ritual with blood.
One needn’t shed much blood when performing blood magick. Just enough to be visible is plenty. In this spell, you’ll be diluting your blood, which means no more than a few drops is necessary. Personally, I like to regularly dilute a few drops of my blood with dragon’s blood ink and paint the edges of my Tarot cards or Book of Shadows with it—something you may wish to incorporate in the following ritual.
As another precaution, don’t use an extremely sharp tool to draw your blood—this can be dangerous. I highly recommend sterile lancets that are designed for diabetic testing. Wash your “skin to be pricked” before the ritual. If using a blade or a shard of porcelain or glass, keep bandages nearby. Don’t allow the cut or prick to get an infection, and don’t cut on a vein or artery. Be smart when drawing blood.
Supplies
• a white candle
• any ritual tools, divinatory tools, or personally protective charms you’d like to enchant or re-empower
• a round incense-burning charcoal disk and sand in a dish or censor
• an incense mixture of dragon’s blood resin and caraway seeds
• about 1 cup of lemon juice
• a chalice of purified, spring, or holy water
• a dish of salt or dirt
• a sterile lancet or other pricking device
• tobacco (in the form of either an all-natural cigarette to be smoked or loose tobacco to be burned)
• an herb or herbs to specifically empower tools (optional; see Notes)
Notes
• You can empower any ritual tools with this ritual, from a wand or athamé to a Book of Shadows or a pack of Tarot cards. The only requirement is that the tool(s) be used by you alone.
• Suggestions for additional herbs to use when empowering specific tools include the following: use a tea “wash” of mugwort to charge scrying mirrors and crystal balls, use hemlock juice (deadly poisonous—use gloves and wash the tool after) to empower any blades, or burn cedar to empower wands with its smoke.
Procedure
Begin by casting a circle, calling the quarters, chanting, or raising energy as you normally would, performing protective exercises, and altering your consciousness. Clear your mind, bring focus to your breath, and meditate for at least a few minutes. When ready, begin the spell.
Light the white candle and situate the tools in front of you. Fire up the charcoal and, when embered, place a pinch of the dragon’s blood and caraway incense atop. Run every tool through its smoke. As you are doing so, declare the following with each:
I empower this tool with this creature of air.
Next, place the lemon juice on each item, rubbing it all over each one. Say with each:
I empower this tool with this creature of earth.
Wash the juice off your hands with some of the chalice water. Run each tool through the candle flame and say with each:
I empower this tool with this creature of water.
Place salt or dirt on each item, covering each briefly. With each, say:
I empower this tool with this creature of fire.
Situate the items in front of you. Blur your eyes and envision the items glowing with pristine white. Take some time to accurately hone this visualization.
Prick your finger with the lancet or other pricking device, drawing a few drops of blood (ideally 5 drops). Let this blood drip directly into the chalice of pure water. When done, stir the blood into the water.
Rub each tool all over with this water. Declare each time:
I empower this tool with the deepest essence of my being.
Put a bit of tobacco on the charcoal and run each tool through its smoke. (Or, if smoking an all-natural, chemical-free cigarette, blow a puff of smoke on each item.). Afterward, declare:
Mars! Mars! Mars! Mars! Mars!
Heed my call! These tools are enchanted in the name of swift rebirth and the pulsing magickal Will! Bound to me, these are made sacred in your name!
Charge your tools by any additional method you life (see Notes). Put the items around you and take a few
minutes envisioning them glowing red. Declare:
These items are empowered with the glory of the elements, the gods, and myself. Linked to my soul, cleansed and enchanted, these tools are consecrated with the light of the cosmos and are bound to my soul. So mote it be.
Close the circle as you normally would, thanking Mars for his patronage.
Now we get to what is probably the most baneful spell in this book. Let me first refer the reader to the “Stepping Back” section following this description—heed well the warnings of cursing. This spell is designed only to harm a person who is legitimately and literally threatening to the practitioner. The caster must take responsibility for their actions and for anything that could result from the working.
This working draws on the ancient practice of utilizing defixiones. Defixiones are the most ancient form of written “petition” spells we know of. A defixio is an ancient form of spellcraft wherein the caster inscribes various symbols, sigils, divine names, and magickal words (voces magicæ) onto (typically) lead tablets. The word defixio is Latin for “bound or fixed down.” Hundreds of lead defixiones, or “curse tablets” as they are commonly called, have been found buried throughout the Mediterranean area, proving the existence of magickal practice in the ancient world. Most were written in Greek, some in Latin, and date back to between the fifth century bce to the third century ce. Lead is alchemically associated with the energy of Mars, which carries vibrations of war and vindication. While this may have been an influential factor, lead was actually an inexpensive substance in the ancient Mediterranean world and this is speculated to be the main reason the metal was mainly used in these workings as opposed to other metals. The tablets were folded up and often nailed shut to complete the spell before burying it. Some were also accompanied by clay or metal dollies, some with nails shoved through them, in makeshift lead coffin effigies to amplify the spells. Virtually no ancient defixiones were aimed at actually killing the victim; the spells were almost always used to bind or conquer the person for one reason or another, or to attract an unwilling lover to the caster.
New defixiones are turning up regularly at all sorts of Mediterranean sites. Through translation of the tablets, anthropologists have been able to decipher elements of ancient Greco-Roman and Egyptian religions, which were not by any means all love and light.
The tablets have been mostly found in old gravesites (and sometimes in wells). Graveyards were seen as necropolises, or “cities of the dead.” Practitioners would drop their completed spell tablets into graves through offering pipes. One end of the pipe was above ground while the other funneled to the body underground. Family members and loved ones would leave offerings of food, herbs, alcohol, and precious items to the deceased. Spell casters would drop their defixiones in these pipes in order to contact and employ restless spirits of the dead (called nekydaimones) and specific chthonic deities. Leaving defixiones in the graves of those who died suddenly or untimely was preferred simply because of the harsh energy. The spirits of these people actually remained closely connected to the Earth plane and were much easier to control and manipulate to do the biddings of the caster. Black magick indeed!
Stepping Back & Further Application
It can be tempting, especially in youth, to curse other people. Ninety-nine percent of the time, there is not a valid reason to curse another person, even in cases of extreme frustration and hardship. If you have a tendency to get worked up or easily upset by occurrences in life, counteract your negativity by cultivating compassion instead. Turn to cursing only as a final outlet.
When you get the urge to curse someone, it’s advisable to wait a few days before deciding to actually go through with it. Most of the time, such a thing is unnecessary and only perpetuates a cycle of negativity.
Cursing is absolutely a last-ditch effort, and should be used only under the most dire circumstances—only for self-protection against a person who is threatening your well-being. “Well-being” implies your health and safety—not your ego. Don’t curse just to “see if it works,” nor because you are simply annoyed by or disagree with someone, or just because they’re being a wicked bitch.
If your life is truly in danger from another person (or if this person is brutalizing or is on the edge of seriously harming someone else), please follow up legally as well. Talk to people, call the police and protective services, and take all the physical-plane measures you can to stop this activity.
While I can go on and on about the ins and outs of cursing (and have done to some extent in Shadow Magick Compendium), I’ll stop here and get on with it, hoping that readers will approach a heavy cursing ritual with extreme caution and intelligence—or not at all.
Supplies
• newspaper
• a bowl of water
• about 3 pounds of artist’s sculpting clay (ideally air-dry “play clay”—this must be all-natural; not Play-Doh™!)
• the “essence” of the other person (see Notes)
• carving instruments to inscribe the clay (a knife, burin, pins, etc.)
• 9 pennies
• a small amount of white wine
Notes
• The “essence” of a person, also called ousia, is anything that carries their energy pattern, including DNA (such as hair, fingernail clippings, and excretions), or has come in contact by the person (this is the Law of Contagion, and can include a person’s possession, footprint, handwriting, and so forth). A person’s essence can also be tapped into by creating a picture or poppet of the person, or by simply writing their name and focusing on them.
• The Greek Gnostic mantra of IAΩ (eye-aye-oh), which is Iota-
Alpha-Omega, represents the Demiurge (the power of creation) and has numerous correspondences. Its usage here is to petition the power of the Universe.
Procedure
Begin by casting a circle, calling the quarters, chanting, or raising energy as you normally would, performing protective exercises, and altering your consciousness. Clear your mind, bring focus to your breath, and meditate for at least a few minutes. When ready, begin the spell.
Place the newspaper on the floor and the bowl of water next to it. Put the clay on the newspaper and start rolling it around. Smush the clay, knead it, and warm it up with friction. Put some water on your hands to soften it.
Place the “essence” of the person in the clay and knead it around in there. (If you’re using a piece of paper or cloth to represent the assailant, you should instead make two tablets and seal the item in between the pieces like a sandwich.) As you are working the clay, envision the person you are working against. See them surrounded by blackness. See their hands and feet tied and bound, unable to cause harm. See them struggling to move but finding themselves unable. Continue to visualize and work the clay for at least a few minutes.
When the clay is malleable, soft, and enchanted, place it on the newspaper and flatten it into a rectangular shape. An ideal size is 10×10 inches.
Use the carving knife to cut off the sides of the clay to form a soft, flat clay tablet. When the tablet is a desirable size, pick up your carving tool. In the middle of the tablet, draw an image of the person you’re cursing. When you have gotten it as detailed as possible, write their name across the middle of the image and draw a deep X through both the name and the image.
On the top left corner of the tablet, carve:
PERĪCULUM
PERĪCULU
PERĪCUL
PERĪCU
PERĪC
PERĪ
PER
PE
P
Draw an inverted triangle around the words. On the top right corner of the tablet, carve:
EXITIUM
EXITIU
EXITI
EXIT
EXI
EX
E
<
br /> Again, draw an inverted triangle around the words. Finally, in the middle of the bottom of the tablet, carve:
TIMEŌ
TIME
TIM
TI
T
Surround this in an inverted triangle. On the right and left bottoms of the tablet, carve IAΩ.
On the remainder of the tablet, carve these symbols five times each in random places all over the tablet: an inverted pentagram, a circle with an X through it, a down-pointing arrow, a lightning bolt, and a widdershins spiral. When finished, glare at the piece with a spiteful eye and forcefully say:
PERĪCULUM! EXITIUM! TIMEŌ! [NAME]! ARUR! CURSÈD BE!
Feel the pain of your sting! Drown in the chaos of your torment!
Drink your own poison!
PERĪCULUM! EXITIUM! TIMEŌ! [NAME]! ARUR! CURSÈD BE!
ABRAKALA! ABRAKALA! ABRAKALA! ABRAKALA! ABRAKALA!
Take some deep breaths. Calm and center your energy. When grounded, thank the spirits and close the circle as you normally would, leaving the tablet exposed to the air.
Come back to the tablet precisely 25 hours (1 day and 1 hour) later. The tablet should be considerably dry at this point. Remove it from the newspaper and carefully take it, along with the pennies and wine, to the cemetery.
When you reach the cemetery gates, leave the pennies and wine as an offering. Tell the spirits you are entering for magickal purposes and mean them no harm. Slowly walk to a far area of the graveyard—ideally a crossroads—and stand still. Take deep breaths in, gather your energy, and finally smash the tablet to bits. Stomp on it if necessary. Make sure that pieces fly everywhere and the tablet is destroyed. Seal the spell by saying:
PERĪCULUM! EXITIUM! TIMEŌ! [NAME]! ARUR! CURSÈD BE!
And so it is.
Because one of Mars’ properties is extreme protection, we’ll be taking advantage of this planetary power for this spell.
This bottle is one of the most potent nonherbal protection spells a person can create. Mars is aligned with iron, which is why iron nails are specifically required for the spell. Most nails these days are made of stainless steel, so you may have to do some digging. If nothing else, one giant rusty railroad spike can work for the purpose intended (these are often found at pawn shops, for example). If worse comes to worst, get your iron from a different source—the most important thing is that the item you have is made of iron.