Applied magical practice: Goetic Evocations

...in which Frater Pera stops being a poser and gets serious about actually DOING magic shit

It recently came to my attention that people actually read this blog.

When I started Codex A back on WordPress, I did it with the intention of it being a sort of magic journal of the classic variety, the type that magicians are expected to keep. You can see it in some of the early posts, where I specify shit like planetary positions, phases of the moon, times of the day, etc. I have a couple of physical journals, filled cover to cover with thoughts, observations, sigils, etc, but for whatever reason, it’s just way easier for me to sort shit out and type it out in a content editor like this one. So, here we are. I also thought that maybe down the road, someone might stumble on to my articles and find them useful and that this was quite unlikely to happen if I just kept a low profile and didn’t advertise. Google is quite the machine, though. People will find you if you write about topics and people that other people are interested in and if your content registers by Google bots’ criteria as “relevant”.

After following up on my little Jareth Tempest tantrum and discovering that people were discussing my articles about the AoO in places like Studio Arcanis and, ugh, Become A Living God, I found myself a bit flattered. One of the Studio Arcanis mods said that I was smart and that my articles were funny but also that my AoO warning article was “breathless scare mongering” and “pure unverified personal gnosis” and honestly, I am at a loss to come up with a rebuttal for those remarks. I am aware of my regular indulgence of hyperbole and editorial. Studio Arcanis is, in my opinion, the best occult forum out there. Its users are seriously on the ball and the discussion is some of the realest shit in online occult circles. For them to say that I know my shit, that comes to me as high praise. And being that people are actually reading this, I suppose that I should stop cultivating petty beefs with shitty authors and write about actual magic.

For what it’s worth, I still don’t know if anyone has become a living god yet but these days EA Koetting is looking less like the avatar of divinity and more like the singer in one of those minor league LA cock rock bands from the 80’s that never broke through but did gain a ton of weight from alcoholism and his forum mods look like they play bass in a nu-metal band that has a bigger budget for contact lenses and wallet chains than amps.

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A few years ago, after my initial overtures toward regular chaos magick practice went sideways, I joined an initiatory order of minor reputation with the goal of being an apprentice to a master. My interest in the occult always trended toward the Hermetic current because I’m a gigantic dork and my favorite comic book character is Doctor Strange (Real talk: HPB’s Secret Doctrine is basically IRL Doctor Strange). I wrote about my experiences with them a bit in past articles and why I eventually drifted away.

Theurgy and work with spirits turned out to be my forte and I probably wouldn’t have arrived there without Poke Runyon’s OTA even though moving through the grades in that outfit was a pain in the ass for anyone who didn’t live within driving distance of a temple. I also came to have serious doubts about either Runyon’s intentions for that group’s practice or his understanding of the cult of Ba’al and Astarte and how they align with how a lot of lesser informed people connect them to modern Satanic ritual practice. I’ll likely write about that in greater detail one day. Here’s a taste: Levantine cultures and Carthage loved child sacrifice.

Having bailed on the OTA and put the emphasis on gnosticism and Freemasonry’s Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis and Misraim, I’ve been in a bit of a holding pattern for longer than I’d like to admit. I’m also experiencing a bit of cash flow problem, IRL, and for all the indictments of “get rich with magic” that I’ve made, I can’t help but admit that demons are really pretty good at solving that sort of problem.

So here goes nothing.

I cut a triangle out of the leftover poplar boards that I used to build my altar and for as long as that project has been documented here I’ve had that triangle sitting in the basement, doing nothing in particular but reminding me that I never seem to finish what I start whenever I go down to do laundry. I’ve been spending so much time trying to nail down an aesthetic for my temple that isn’t bare cement foundation walls that I’ve just let this thing sit around, this thing which I could be putting to actual use. So I got out my paints and made peace with the fact that I fucking hate painting and finished the project. It’s not the greatest triangle of art out there, and as much as I dislike the process of painting, I think it looks mighty fine. Now I just need to do a little studying on the process of Goetic evocations.

I’m a former student of Poke Runyon and I love his writing on magic. In my opinion, he’s one of the greatest living magicians and a real solid resource on all things Solomonic. But his operations require some stuff that I just don’t have. You need a mirror in his system. Ever actually think about buying a mirror? They’re way more expensive that you might expect. I was fucking shocked, dude. You can also use polished obsidian, which can be bought for fairly short money but once you get up to the diameters that I’d require, the price jumps significantly. The other alternative is to use my crystal ball. I love it, but it’s perfectly suited for the centerpiece of my altar and not for placing on a triangle some distance away from me. I may as well focus my attention on a magic eye painting. I needed to look elsewhere for options and I found Steve Savedow.

There’s a lot of books about evocation out there and most of them are hot July garbage. The occult publishing world is 90% low-effort shitposting but the Amazon page for this book, Goetic Evocation: The Magician’s Workbook vol. 2 has a really funny review on it.

Yes. Poke “Frater Thabion” Runyon chimed in to say that even though Savedow negs him on the back of the book’s jacket, they’ve since made up and it’s all good. But also, Runyon’s opinion has serious cachet.

Savedow’s thesis is pretty bold shit: The OTA’s method might bring the demon to apparition in a mirror but fuck that, quite frankly. My method will bring an actual god damn demon into your temple. Like, one that you can see standing there and talk to.

Being that I am hungry for adventure and would also like to conjure an actual fucking demon for the mere sake of doing such a thing, this is perfect for me. Runyon explaining that this method is dangerous and hard as nails also brings it all home since danger is my middle name and I always seem to insist on taking the most difficult, perilous road to success in basically everything I do, whether I know I’m doing it or not. Savedow’s voice is also very Frater Pera. All that fear-mongering and UPG I’m accused of dropping? This dude has it in spades. The introduction is basically a dire warning to fools who meddle. You will go insane. You may even die. If you’re not prepared both in body and spirit, trouble lies ahead. I expected him, like most of these guys, to explain the importance of doing yoga to get your mind and spirit buffed but he instead blows my mind by recommending that I study karate!

Oh, brother. We are going to have some fun with this one.