A while back on my Instagram feed, I shared photos of my 2020 art study journal. Now here’s the whole thing, though it’s still just a slim and sparse booklet.
I kinda didn’t wanna share this because it’s so, ew, a hot mess, disorganized, and you can even witness my mood changes as my handwriting teeters from neat and meticulous to hasty and illegible.
These hand-painted engravings of healing herbs and garden vegetables are a delight, and I’m sure at least one creative person seeing this will get ideas, download, and do something lovely with these illustrations, so here you go.
They’re from Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737). Below you’ll find a zip file you can download of high-res images from the book. Or view it in the entirety, courtesy of The British Library, Catalogues & Collections.
About the Book:
Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal is notable both for its beautiful illustrations of medicinal plants and for the unusual circumstances of its creation.
[It] contains illustrations and descriptions of plants, their medicinal preparations, and the ailments for which they are used.
The first herbal was written by the Greek physician Dioscorides in the first century AD.
Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Aberdeen in about 1700, but moved to London after she married. She undertook this ambitious project to raise money to pay her husband’s debts and release him from debtors’ prison.
Blackwell’s Herbal was an unprecedented artistic, scientific and commercial enterprise for a woman of her time.
She drew, engraved and coloured the illustrations herself, mostly using plant specimens from the Chelsea Physic Garden.
It was highly praised by leading physicians and apothecaries (makers and sellers of medicines), and made enough money to secure her husband’s freedom, although she later had to sell the copyright as well.
This finely-bound copy of A Curious Herbal is from the collection of King George III, held in the British Library.
British Library 34.I.12 -13
The Angel Tarot and Occult Tarot by Travis McHenry first came out via Kickstarter, and then got picked up for traditional publication by Rockpool, which launched earlier this year. I’ll be covering both in this review.
Continue reading “Angel Tarot and Occult Tarot by Travis McHenry”
Learn a little more about this common ritual tool in traditional Asian folk magic. I’m inviting you to give the ba gua or eight trigrams mirror a try.
This video covers a few pointers on how to use a ba gua mirror to tell whether you’ve been hexed or cursed (a folksy practice that’s interesting to learn about, at the very elast), how a ba gua mirror can amplify your spell-crafting techniques, a simple intention-setting candle spell, how to make your own ba gua mirror if you can’t source one, and how to integrate this one tool and folk practice into what you’re already doing.
Continue reading “Crafting with a Ba Gua Mirror in Traditional Asian Witchcraft”
This is the second module of Western Witchcraft I: Fundamentals and Doctrinal Basis online course provided for free preview. Learn more about that course and how to enroll by clicking here.
VIDEO LECTURE:
DOWNLOAD LECTURE NOTES:
Click here to download the lecture notes (pdf)
WORKBOOK READING:
Chapter 1: The Candidate (pdf)
Continue reading “1: The Candidate [from the online course offering, Western Witchcraft I]”
This is the preliminary module to the Western Witchcraft I: Fundamentals and Doctrinal Basis online course. Learn more about that course and how to enroll by clicking here.
VIDEO LECTURE:
DOWNLOAD LECTURE NOTES:
Click here to download the lecture notes
WORKBOOK READING:
Continue reading “0: Introduction [from the online course offering, Western Witchcraft I]”
WESTERN WITCHCRAFT I:
WITCHCRAFT FUNDAMENTALS
Doctrinal Basis and Theory
Click above link to download pdf
Eliphas Levi, considered one of the most influential occultists in Western ceremonial magic and witchcraft, asks and then answers that question. His answer:
Those are my two objectives for you in this course: (1) to confer to you the knowledge of great secrets, and (2) to endow you with the consciousness of your personal power, to show you the heights that your power can achieve.
At every single point of my work in putting this course together, I thought, how do I facilitate development of the most powerful, most knowledgeable, most versatile, wisest, and most formidable occultist there ever was? How do I show you how to be that person?
And that was the inspiration and the ambition behind this course.
Western Witchcraft I focuses on the doctrinal basis and theoretical fundamentals of transcendental magic. This course is an immersive study of the first 12 chapters in Eliphas Levi’s Doctrine, Part I, of the greater collected work Transcendental Magic: Doctrine and Ritual, and structured like a one semester 400-level university elective.
Be prepared for an intense amount of reading. The video lectures only supplement the reading assignments and are not a replacement for them. In addition to the reading assignments, the weekly practicum, ritual, and energy training is also demanding on your time and your efforts.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
A future course offering, Western Witchcraft II, will advance upon the fundamentals established in this course. Western Witchcraft II will conform to Levi’s Ritual, Part II and delve into spell-crafting, talismans, seals and sigils, spirit conjuring, and the many forms, types, and purposes of ritual in transcendental magic.
By the way, if you’re wondering about my conflation of the terms witchcraft and ceremonial magic, here’s a written newsletter rambling about that: Witchcraft vs. Ceremonial Magic. Read my ramblings on this subject: Click Here
Continue reading “Western Witchcraft I: The Fundamentals and Doctrinal Basis”
A “Seal to Defeat All Foes”? Oh, snap. That sounds badass. We definitely need to give this one a try, right?
You’ll find my write-up of this in one of the back-end appendices of Key of Solomon and Collected Studies on Spirit Conjure. It’s a free e-book download here, and if after checking out the pdf version you realize you want it in physical hard copy paperback, that link will give you instructions on how to order one.
In the pdf, check out p. 505.
I’ve been at work on something, but in the meantime, wanted to come up for air and share this. Because I found it pretty cool, and suspect you might, too.
Well, the above is not it. That’s my own sketch of the Key based on Postel’s text.
Here’s the original illustration from the 1547 publication, Absconditorum Clavis by Guillaume Postel (1510 – 1581).
Postel was a truly fascinating figure and if you’ve got some time, read a biography on him. He also believed in the Eastern esoteric concept of soul dualism, though he framed it differently, i.e., instead of saying “yin and yang” aspects of soul, he said “female and male” aspects of the soul, with one being emotion and the other being intellect. Oh. Wow. Anima and animus, anyone? (Yeah, yeah, I know, not the same…) Nonetheless, bear in mind that Postel pre-dates Carl Jung by some odd 365 years.
Continue reading “Postel’s Key of Things Kept Secret (1547)”
Inna Vinitski’s Seals of Solomon Magic Cards are the perfect companion tool to go along with your copy of the Key of Solomon, or Clavicula Salmonis, which I offer a free download of here. So although this deck does not come with a guidebook, everything you need to know about these seals and now to work with them can be found in that free download. I’m going to be making page references to that free download pdf of Key of Solomon.
I think the single most compelling reason to acquire this deck for your toolkit is to use them as easy, go-to charging plates for your charms, talismans, gemstones, crystals, and other metaphysical knick-knacks. Here, Inna Vinitski has already done the work for you. Once you get these cards, consecrate them and voila! Incredible! A set of tools for planetary magic at your fingertips!
This post will both showcase the Seals of Solomon cards, which I urge you to get if you want to deep-dive into working with the Key of Solomon, and also get into what the Key says about these seals, or pentacles.
To start, let’s try a little something, shall we? Below in the photo of the three magic cards, take a moment to gaze at each one, connecting your third eye (that space just between your brows) with the eye depicted on the card back. For one of these three cards, the tug at that space between your brows will feel stronger, more intense than for the others. Note which of the three cards gives you the strongest intuitive sensation.
Remember it, because we’ll be returning to your card selection later.
Continue reading “Seals of Solomon Magic Cards by Inna Vinitski”
