Folk magick and Saints - Musings

After offering some advice on working with a saint to a friend I started musing. As I have been busy lately, I thought I post this little tidbit.

Orthodox Christianity has a very interesting definition of what a Saint is.

The 3 main things needed for canonisation are

1 Person had to be a pious Christian with knowledge of the mystery of God (gnosis anyone?)

2 Person needs to have perfomed miracles through God / died a martyr and in death or after death a sign should be exhibited

3 After death, there needs to be proof that the person is still around (in heaven) and continues to interceede on the behalf of the faithfull. This includes continuing to heal or causing signs to appear around the relics.

The more theology oriented of you might be aware that there have been revisions in the catholic church about which saints are encouraged to be petitoned, and which ones aren't.

To make a long story short, this is due to the fact that some of the saints popularly venerated were not saints at all. These were sometimes local deities or spirit beings that received a saintly covering by the locals who venerated them, and sometimes they were something else entirely.

For example, St Expedite was a statue of a saint that arrived at a nunnery. On the box it said Expedite, and since usually, statues of saints had the name of the saint written n the box, the nuns believed it to be the name of the saint.

Is Expedite a spiritual entity that took up residence in the statue and was worked with? Probably something along those lines, yes.

In reality a saint can be a

1 canonised ex-human as per the rules of sainthood,

2 an entity that was converted to a saintlyness by the locals who venerated it

3 an entity that took up residence in a consecrated image/statue.

4 a semi-mythical entity that was part of the older religion and still canonised such as the three saints Mikel, Gbriel, Rpal, and, or, entities that were created and have no historical link. The less pious of us might here think of the Madonna or Joseph...

However, all the requirements set out above should still be in effect. The "Saints" are ok with working in some form of christian context, they handle church trappings well, they have to continue to perform miracles/intercede.

No wonder that saints were so popular that the churchfathers were worried that Christianity would, as they said, degenerate into idolatry and saint worship, instead of veneration.

Today we have saints added in the orthodox churches who comply with the rules set out above. we have semi-divine ex-humans, artifically created myth personae, entities from older religions, canonised, entities that have entered folk veneration and accidental, newly created entities.

I don't want to be rude to anyone now, but doesn't this remind you of religion all over the world?

Some Lwa are dead ex-humans. Some have become lwa of the dead. You have egyptian godforms used by ritual magicians, sigils in grimoires written by people who never did a second of ritual magick, yet the sigils have living entities in them.

The reason people use saints is because they WORK. They do what is on the tin. St. Cajetano helps people in unemployment as that is what he did in life and still does, that is why he is a saint. St. Nikolas helps sailors and prostitutes and children.

Working with a saint is really as close to western spirit magick as you can get. It involves aspects of necromancy, angelology, and astral work. However you do not even need any skills whatsoever in order to work with the saints. They have fairly clear likes dislikes, have been worked with for centuries and are reliable to just do what they usually did, for a price.

In hermeticism there is a technique for an immortal body that you can transfer your mind indo once the body is dead. The same concept exists in certain strains of Buddism tantra and even in jewish kabbalah. If you're a man, over 35 and want to learn kabbalah, go to a tomb in a jewish cemetary belonging to a kabbalist and meditate on the tombstone and then note your dreams.

if some saints do not work anymore, does that mean they have passed on or are they just not interested in helping in that specific instance? (as, based on their job description as saints they do need to work)

I think that a saint should do his or her job, and if not suffer the consequences of no poundcakes, no money given to charity and no prayers of the poor! :)

So any saint reading this, thanks for your hard work, please keep it up.

Time

We expect everything to happen immediately, or not happen at all. When someone hasn't developed those sixpack abs in 2 weeks, they stop exercising. You only have black belt? I thought you've been doing this stuff since you were six!

:)

We are used to everything being at the other end of our screens. Today, it is cheaper to fly from Germany to Austria then to take the train. Why? Because its only 45 minutes. Sure the actual flight is 20, then the rest is taxi and circulating due to airflight traffic controll, then we don't even count the check in etc. Still people choose the low-cost flights.

Culture has led us to believe that everything that is worth having is worth having immediately, or to forever aspire too, but never attain.

This is extremely unconstructive, especially for those seeking the solution of the great secret or bettering themselves through the use of magick.

No single ritual will turn you around from an abusive self-centered short tempered asshole into a saint.

Working with a system that has a spiritual purpose will always entail psychological changes as well. Now, these changes will not be as effective as real psychotherapy, because it is not the purpose of any system.

Now, lets assume you work with Venus in its transcendent form. You contemplate the meaning of 'Love', you are in contact with venereal entities like the Archangel Hanael and Hathoor. You call upon the forces of venus mediated by gods, or try and access it through natural magick. I wonder how much you can surround yourself with fresh flowers and imagery suggetsive of love in its carnal and transcendental imagery before you actually succeed. What next?

Will you still be able to hate you neighbour? Will you have a problem with self-sacrifice?

By contemplating what is outside and how the universe works we are to understand and comprehend our own nature. Most people are just incapable of seeing their own errors.

This is why a process takes time. It is meant to take time, but you are always meant to work towards it.

My favourite example is the Abramelin operation. I've heard the most idiotic comments about this Grimoire and its effects.

Most commonly people assume that the purpose of the operation is to get in contact with your Holy guardian angel, then to evoke the demons of hell to bind them to you.

Well....

This is why some people believe that this can be achieved in 2 months. "Hey, I reached my knowledge and conversation in 2 weeks!" and Some people believe that It is impossible, it should come at the end of a lifetime of work.

Both these camps are wrong, mainly because they missunderstand the spirit of the text and have very little to go on except for the written text.

What the Abramelin Operation actually is meant to do that I am allowed to say:

1 To get you permanently changed so you may be a worthy vessel for the contact with an angelic entity

2 To allow the solar consciousness (using the correct terminology here) to manifest as a result of the working and the advice from your Angel

3 To allow contact the most dark "demonic entities" and have them also be apart of your world.

Now, why can't this be done after 2 weeks and Why is this operation (and simillar ones such as the Arcana Arcanorum and the work of the Elus Cohen) at the end of systems instead of the beginning?

A You need to have the correct worldview to actually have whatever symbolism the "abramelin operation" or its other high degree relatives synthesised and made into your Paradigm, in the correct, non Kaos Magick use of the term.

B You need to be a skilled magician (priest, memfis mizraim initiate) enough to be able to pull off the operation and not just delude yourself

C The operation needs you to have a fully evolved Lunar Consciousness present. This takes 5-10 years of work to develop. (Being a deacon in catholic church and attending every mass and living as a Christian fully counts, as do the outer orders)

D You need the time to prepare yourself for this change, the you NEED to fullfill the need for absolute ISOLATION. You CANNOT perform the Abramelin in your house with your significant other. you hae to get away ALONE to be fully and utterlt ALONE and not part of the everyday world. This means you Have to have about a months of vacation away, alone planned in. You cannot CHANGE if you are with the person who know you the most and is constantly expecting you to confirm to their expectations. Sorry.

This also means that you need to have the quality of life where this is doable. If you sincerely need the operations and you have Lunar consciousness then God/the Universe and You will together be able to pull this off.

E There is more to the Knowledge and Conversation then being able to speak to a Solar angelic entity. If you give me 3 days I can give you a contact with your angel and you'll be able to speak to it and it will reply. This is not the K and C of the HGA. This is a contact with the HGA, which I urge EVERYONE to seek as nothing will be able to guide you better and inspire you more then your solar angel. But this is not that of which the Abramelin and other transformative systems speak of.

Let that which takes time take its time. But do not be lazy. Nothing is stopping you from starting to develop a relationship with your Saints, God(s) your angel. You do not need any operation to talk to your angel. You do not need an abramelin operation in 20 years to talk to it NOW. To ask for advice in dreams and just speaking to it.

But Give Caesar what is Ceasars and God what is Gods.

You can be a good fighter but you will not have a black belt, its not quite the same. It shouldn't stop you from competing though.

The Abramelin, the Arcana Arcanorum etc take time. They are meant to. They are also meant to be at the end of a period of the development of the lunar self.

So, think of the difference between John Doe reading the Abramelin 1995 or a Devout orthodox jewish man receiving it after 15 years of being a man and able to lead a prayer and you will bet my point.