chaos magick

01
Nov
2015

Mintfalls

Taking a break from my normal schedule, I was asked to write a post about a construct of mine on a forum. They were discussing uses for bottles, and I mentioned one ongoing working I had involving a bottle and was asked to discuss it more.
Around seven or eight years ago I created a construct, Mintfalls, who by their titles is my Genie of Finances and my Guardian of Financial Stability. Their purpose is more around stability and keeping things from getting bad, rather than drawing money or making me wealthy. They’re the stable income and emergency stash rather than the increasing bank balance.
Their creation was fairly simple. I used the standard method of taking a Statement of Intent, and reducing the letters. I was left with some combination resembling Mintfalls, so decided on that name, and made a sigil based on the name using two methods; the popular Chaos Magick letter smash, and the Qamea. As I fed the energy into the sigil I kept “folding” it back in, so rather than letting it go off to accomplish something, I kept drawing it back into the sigil. Eventually this turned into a 3D image of the sigil, the skeleton of the construct, and by putting energy in, eventually this settled into a construct. (For sake of brevity I’m leaving it at that)

The oldest "body" of Mintfalls currently

The oldest “body” of Mintfalls currently

After Mintfalls’s creation I created a bottle to be their vessel, I pick, whenever possible, an orange bottle, and I paint the sigils on the bottle in blue; this is to connect them to the flows of Mercury and Jupiter. The top of the bottle is capped with a blue candle, and some Wealth Drawing Oil is poured in. Their vessel is where I leave my offerings for Mintfalls, which is my spare change, generally any change less than a dollar I have at the end of the day goes to Mintfalls.
While I can make the offerings any time, I often do it weekly now, just tossing the coins around the bottle until it’s time to actually work with them. I give the offerings, coin by coin, with a prayer that has developed over time. Below is the prayer, whenever you see an asterisk (*) that is when I would toss in a coin. I repeat the prayer until I’ve run out of coins.
Hail to thee Mintfalls*
My Genie of Finances*
And Guardian of Financial Stability*
As you feed me * so I feed you *
As I support you * so you support me *
Keep my finances stable, abundant, and ever increasing *
Hail to thee Mintfalls*
My Genie of Finances*
And Guardian of Financial Stability*
As you support me * so I support you *
As I feed you * so you feed me *
Keep my finances stable, abundant, and ever increasing *
(Note the third and fourth lines of both set are mirrored versions of the other verse)
After I’ve run out of coins and finish the prayer I gather my energy in my navel centre, and then in a long slow outbreath pour it into Mintfalls’s bottle.
When a bottle is full I add more Wealth Drawing oil, and light the candle on top until it melts and seals the bottle. (I have to extinguish it before it is done, otherwise the wick and flame can fall into the coins as the wax melts, leaving the bottle top open.)
Part of the construction of Mintfalls included the detailing of the procedure of keeping the bottles. I’m allowed to keep four bottles, being the number of Jupiter. When I start the fifth bottle, the oldest of the bottles is destroyed. That money is either donated, or spent on lottery tickets. With regards to the lottery ticket, it’s not about winning, in fact, in the years I’ve worked with Mintfalls, I don’t think the lottery tickets purchased through them have done more than get a free play, the point is to return their money into the flow of things, specifically to unexpected gains. So while I won’t win the lottery, it does suddenly add to someone else’s wealth, giving so that a return flux is possible. I had asked about putting it into a savings account, as that seems more intuitively appropriate, but I was told at that point the coins are consecrated and need to be moving around fast, not symbolically sitting in a bank.
Another aspect of Mintfalls’s duty is as emergency funding. They know that if times are ever really rough I can destroy the oldest active bottle, in case of emergency break glass I guess. Though I’ve had some close calls, I’ve never had to destroy their form prematurely. When things were really bad, and I would give them their offering, I’d casually mention that if things don’t change soon, I’ll have to break one of their bottles, and it is as if that reminder gets them going again, and things start to pick up.
If I was going to make another construct like Mintfalls, now I feel that I’d add in some Saturn, for stability and form, rather than just Mercury and Jupiter for different aspects of wealth and luck and movement. The problem with a construct like Mintfalls, is it is a lot harder than most to prove they’re doing their job. My finances have been roughly stable, and things have never gotten too bad, despite some close calls. So their “success” is more or less judged on the fact I haven’t financially failed in that time, so while I can’t say they’re a successful construct with complete confidence, I can say I have no reason to believe they’re not unsuccessful at least. They seem to have worked, they’re responsive, and my finances have been more or less stable in their career, so I’m wiling to hedge my bets toward their success.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
05
Feb
2013

Sigil-Fields – Sigils like Onions…or Cakes…


Cakes have layers too.
With the new year I felt inspired to zero-out and restart my Sigil-field, it’s been stagnant for a few months, edging up to a year, and I thought it needed some fresh life. The Sigil-field is something really simplistic in theory, and even simpler in application. It’s based on the Spare theory of repression mixed with the energy model of sigils as modifiers. The Sigil-field uses a more passive method of sigil repression, I’ve termed it Non-Attentive Sigils and you can read about it here but basically it’s the idea that a sigil can be repressed by repeated exposure in a way that doesn’t heavily draw our attention. In the same way we ignore advertisement posters we’ve seen all the time, but they still settle themselves into our brains. (And rereading that post I realize I really need to clean my room)
A Sigil-Field is a canvas that sigils are painted on, repeatedly over each other, slowly absorbing and obscuring each other. As the sigils are submerged by other sigils they’re slowly taken away from consciousness and become part of the underlying pattern of your world. Part of the beauty of the Sigil-field is how one symbol of desire obscures another, but more so how they begin to interconnect as they mix and hide. The idea is by having them on the painting they slowly work their way into your subconscious, like the repression, but in a slow, gradual, gentle way. Then as they are no longer needed, or have thoroughly incorporated themselves into the subconscious they get painted over. All the sigils become one, painted over and mixing with each other.

This is how the Sigil-Field restarted early January

This is how the Sigil-Field started

My Sigil-field is also created with the energy model of sigils in mind as well, that passing energy into or through a sigil strengthens it. To incorporate this, the base layer of my Sigil-field, and any other layer when I feel it needs a top-up, is charged and consecrated with my personal fluids, in the fun way that only ecstatic magickians do. While not very often sometimes I will just place my hands on it and run energy through it, that makes for an interesting experience. I find much like when I’m doing energy healing I start sensing areas in the Sigil-field that are higher in energy, or lower in energy, or blocked, generally centred over a sigil, and I can use that to figure out what is or isn’t working. This isn’t totally required though, as everytime you look at it it gets a little, minuscule amount of energy, which over time builds up. As you spend time painting other sigils over it, that too adds another dosing of energy into the field.
Now because this relies on the Non-Attentive method of sigils you should generally pick goals that are either long term (getting a job when you graduate in a few months or whatever) or a goal that needs to be sustained (release from a chronic health problem, keeping an ex at bay). Finally it should be placed somewhere that you see several times a day. Hang it up like a piece art(e) and it is, mine hangs behind the head of my bed, so I see it from most places in my room, and whenever I’m getting into bed.
sigilfield2
As an example, in a month of change, this is my current Sigil-Field, you can see part of a Goetic seal, and an abstract sigil is nearly completely obscured by another. Part of a mandala, and a script sigil currently are on top, but they too will be buried and become another layer.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
11
Dec
2011

Review: Money Magic – Frater U∴D∴


Money Magic: Mastering Prosperity in its True Element – Frater U∴D∴
Llewellyn. 2011. 221pp. 9780738721279.
Frater U∴D∴ is back with a new book, this time tackling the sticky issue of money magick. It is an odd beast, but while most non-occultists (and a lot of occultists) think of magick in a financial arena there is very little actually devoted to money magick, especially in a practical and overt sense. Enter Frater U∴D∴’s Money Magic. When I’m feeling cynical I say that so few occultists and authors focus on money magick as unlike a lot of magick you can’t get around the hard nature of money. I’m in good company it seems. “[M]oney magic is utterly objectified: either you achieve what you’re conducting a spell for … or you don’t. Thus, there is little room left for fond delusions and facile cop-outs.” (xi)
Right from the beginning he is pulling no punches, money magick, it will work or not work, no dancing around it. The book starts with U∴D∴ making a case for what element money is, and while the answer is that we can’t really simplify anything down too much he makes a very compelling argument for money being Air as opposed to the more traditional Earth. Money isn’t some dead and static component in our lives or society, but it is a living, dynamic being which is better represented by Air than Earth. I actually used Water as the element of money for most of the same reasons U∴D∴ suggests.
A lot of the book is focused not on what most people would consider money magick, but more internal work. Why? Because we are filled with “culturally conditioned psychological blockages that have evolved over the centuries to actually prevent us from making [money magic] work.” (xii) We’re programmed with views on wealth and money that hinder us far more than they help us, and unless we can tackle them we will work for these programmed systems rather than our own benefit. I was very glad to see this current throughout the book, as a frank discussion on why we fail and a practical system to dig us out of our conditioned states is really needed.
The book contains some of the basic material that it seems every book from a big publisher must have these days: ritual creation 101, LBRP, planetary and elemental associations, and the like. Even though the majority of the magick in the book is freeform (as one would expect with Frater U∴D∴) many examples are given in the Hermetic frame work, to help us ceremonialists get our heads around his ideas.
Magick-wise he covers the creation of good luck charms (and their purpose isn’t what you think), deconditioning notions of self-worth and how money flows in our society, sigil magick, and use of planetary forces, specifically how Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn all work together to increase or constrain out finances.
The book is written in Frater U∴D∴’s usual easy to follow and straightforward style. Examples, ideas, and exercises and woven into the book in a way that facilitates understanding of the material, requiring no backtracking unless that’s what the reader wants. Practical magick in concise writing and intelligently tackled. This book will get you thinking about money magick in a new way, and I would highly recommend it, even to people who currently don’t need help in that area, just to get your thinking in a new way.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
28
Sep
2010

Non-Attentive Sigils


Gordon over at Rune Soup recently made an interesting entry regarding sigils, their methodology and the usefulness of forgetting and destroying them; it brought up some new thoughts with me and reaffirmed some old ones.
He touches on an idea for sigils that I’ve used for quite a while and support. I’ve called them non-attentive sigils. The premise is still based on the Spare model of a sigil having two “halves” the symbol and the meaning, and when a symbol and a meaning fall in love and meet in the unconscious fun things happen. Instead of forcibly repressing the sigil, brute forcing it into the unconscious, I sometimes sneak it in by not paying attention to it. I have Crayola Window Writers (which are a very handy magickal tool) they’re colourful markers that write on glass and wash off easily. My bedroom mirror is often home to a few sigils. My mirror is behind my computer so I see the sigils out of the corner of my eye when I’m working, when I brush my hair, do my makeup, check my outfit, or just catch my reflection as I move around. I don’t pay attention to them though; they are simply there, and by constantly being there they slip into my unconscious. Once they are in the mind they function in the same way the forcibly repressed sigils do. Over on Rune Soup this is explained as “low attention processing” as it is used in advertising -which I won’t rehash here, so migrate there if interested- and it was nice to see that this process is something that is observed and used even though it was for none magickal purposes.
I like the repression theory, have had great successes, and I actually enjoy the death posture (the shavasana with your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth blocked version, not tiptoe) but I find they definitely have different applications. With the forcible repression methodology you have strict and quick control over the sigil. Get called for a job interview tomorrow? You don’t have time to hope the sigil will low-attention itself in time, so control the process. Or atavistic magick, you don’t want to use a low attention model there, while I don’t speak from experience I doubt shifting into your reptile brain in public is the best way to impress your date. (Unless that is their thing, and I wouldn’t judge.) It’s better to control the how and when of that atavistic activation, rather than leaving it to a more gradual process. On the other hand effects that need to be sustained I find work great with the non-attentive sigils. If you have a rough relationship with a coworker, a sigil to smooth that over would work well in this way, or for an intense healing purpose, or potentially for some forms of psychological reprogramming. Anything that isn’t a one off “I want cake” potentially works well as a non-attentive sigil, obviously there are exceptions, but that is where the fun of experimenting comes into play.
The new thoughts were encouraged from his open-ended conclusion, and aren’t as expansive.
“On a final note; consider the implications of low attention processing if you surround yourself with imagery and colours you don’t like -be they photos of yourself that you can’t stand, images from previous troubled relationships, even medication you no longer need.” (Rune Soup)
Reading that line had me curiously looking about my room picking out some of the big things in my mind and pondered what symbol-logical information I’m feeding into my brain without realizing it. I think it is interesting to consider that space-as-sigil, that in the repression model, even my surroundings influence my reality. Definitely a “Duh” moment. Psychologically I get space reflecting and influencing moods, but perhaps there is a more subtle effect. For the first time I really grokked the idea that magickians should be clean and organized. A room constantly a mess and in chaos feeds that pattern into the mind, perpetrating it as the normal state, not the control I associate with being a magickian. A room organized, everything in the right place, on the other hand is just like an altar, or universe, and perhaps a mind more conducive to magick. This gives me another model to consider how my life picked up and got organized as I cleaned out my metaphorical and literal closets over the summer and got rid of old stuff that was no longer of use to me, though that process also left the survivors of my culling disorganized about my space. For the last six years my closet door was decorated with trophies from a sport I no longer have interest in (and had given up six years prior), and contained remnants from that time and even earlier. As I cleared them out, things in my life fell into order and some lingering stumbling blocks disappears. I don’t want to confuse cause and effect, as I already have other causes to draw on, but find it is an interesting view to consider and maybe bring into a conscious working.
Perhaps this weekend I should schedule some fall cleaning. Pluto helped me clear out a lot of crude, now I just need to organize what remains.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick