Mercury in Nutmeg: Gold Edition

June 29, 2026 ~ B. Key ~ Leave a comment

It is hard to imagine that this is the sixth release of my take on the Mercury in Nutmeg luck talismans, and moreover the fifth year in a row that I’ve offered them for public sale. Over the past half decade, I’ve been experimenting with my fascination and love for these beautiful and reliable charms across the board, programming them for different purposes and at times dedicating them to different spirits. I initially encountered them within the genre of magical books known as the Black and White Magic of Marie Laveau as “The Best Gambling Hand (Toby)” and worked them extensively for fast luck, fortune, gambling, and other such currents. My initial runs of them have focused largely on these properties, crafted under the auspices of St. Expedite, who has been an enduring foundation for their creation. Now, I’m especially excited to release a brand new instantiation of the Mercury in Nutmegs, intended to compliment the previous ones while also working beautifully on their own: the Gold Edition.

This is a new innovation on the Mercury in Nutmeg charm, born of mastery, sovereignty, and riches of treasure hunting. I was especially inspired by the alchemical natures of mercury and gold, as well as the many legends I’ve encountered across American and Mexican folklore of mercury being used to hunt for gold in treasure hunting expeditions, with the substance seen as inherently seeking out gold like a magnet. Those who have followed my work for the last few years know I have a special affinity for magical treasure hunting across spiritual traditions. I am excited to finally marry my love of treasure hunting, alchemy, and the nutmeg charms in one form, blessed once more at the hands of St. Expedite, as well as several of my most trusted spirits in all these arts.

The “Toby” from *The Genuine Black and White Magic of Marie Laveau*.

The Gold edition is born from the same base of Indian nutmeg filled with mercury and sealed with wax, such that when physically shaken you can feel the liquid metal moving within. In addition to the usual properties of bringing luck and fortune to their bearers, these are especially fine tuned to remove ambient misfortune and convert it into fortune, alchemizing base substances into gold. Those who tested the prototypes described them as “toothier”, possessing a more aggressive ability to hunt down and convert malaise, an absence of passion, motivation, and willpower, as well as evil eye into sources of luck. They are called upon to convert any time the names of their owners are spoken of negatively into blessings, such that even idle gossip and jealousy can become a fuel for victory and mastery.

These nutmegs were laid on a bed of genuine, ethically-sourced lion skin fur to provide them with additional solar glory and mastery. They were fully enchanted and enlivened within yesterday’s Sunday solar hour, which also happened to be the Serbian Orthodox feast of Vidovdan so renowned for cultivating psychic sight and discernment. Sfinga actively assisted me in their construction, praying different bajalice (oral charms) over them as they lay at the feet of the saint. Upon nutmeg and lion skin were added the materia of black cat, five finger grass, a drop of every Expedite oil from my Saint of Many Colours collection (drawn from a personal not-for-sale Rainbow Oil), High John the Conqueror root, real gold flakes, and more. Each is bound in gold-coloured fabric resembling its innards and tied with gold thread.

This edition works beautifully with any previous incarnation of my Mercury in Nutmegs, ensuring that all fortune drawn is also protected from and also fed by the envy of others in recognition. These charms passively consume and convert maledictions, and as such they are especially fruitful when carried on the person to events, presentations, work meetings, and any area in which you expect to confront the projections and misconceptions of others. With their vigilant feline protection and alchemical mastery, they proudly proclaim “let them talk!”, devouring each ill thought and utterance into a newfound source of power for the cultivation of fortune and authority. While these are excellent allies to anyone down on their luck, they are also phenomenal for those already well-grounded, as they magnify the protection and success of other surrounding blessings and charms present in one’s life.

The nutmegs may be carried alone or together, or kept in the workplace, by the home office, or in one’s purse or everyday carry bag for maximum effect. They may be given whiskey, brandy, or dark rum along with tobacco and candles of the colour of their cloths in thanks. Additionally, they may be used and manipulated by your spirits as tools for their own arsenal, and similarly may be kept on their person at their shrines to passively boost them.

Only 11 are available for sale, and it is unlikely that I will make this specific edition again for some years. Each year, these charms have sold out within 24 to 48 hours of release, and it is always an absolute delight to hear back from everyone about how they feel and respond to their unique energies and courts.

All nutmegs will be shipped within seven business days of purchase. My thanks go out to each and every one of you for your patronage and support of my work. May they bring you success beyond your wildest dreams.

The Devil in the Details: A Familiar of Tomorrow

June 24, 2026June 27, 2026 ~ B. Key ~ Leave a comment

They prick and preen at the fraying edges of memory, ripping out threads of vigour like worms. They darken the eyes of perception with their wings, bringing shadows to even the most illuminated foregrounds. They steal the most vital and precious of treasures, time itself, and retreat them into their nests of delays.

They are the Familiars of Tomorrow: the Devils in the Details.

In my Saint of Many Colours collection for St. Expedite, I teased that an additional “CRAS” themed addition would be coming, ever so thematically, “later”, and that time has finally come. These are individual familiars from within the retinue of the Crow Devil of Tomorrow under the Holy Martyr’s foot, contracted to become familiars to witches, sorcerers, karcists, and any manner of worker in need of a more malefic ally. These are not for the faint of heart, being little devils that bring destruction, delay, procrastination, and forgetfulness to enemies. They may be set over pictures of rivals, business competition, or others requiring domination to ensure they forget important deadlines, dates, and obligations, to corrupt divination results and blur the truth within them, to ensure one delays and neglects their own spiritual hygiene, protection, and offerings, and to break oaths and promises through neglect. These are primarily malefic spirits, best suited to aid those in need of humbling enemies and preventing them from having power over them. If you are in need of a superior at work to forget your mistakes and overlook them, a parent-in-law to no longer wish to visit and prefer the laziness of solitude, or a rival to lose their creativity and passion for productivity, these familiars will happily assist for a small price.

Much as with my and Sfinga’s earlier experimentations with the Crow Devil of Tomorrow as companion, adversary, and subjugated familiar of our holy martyr, every piece of this fetish charm, from conception to construction, was fraught with delays. The necessary ingredients and materia came slowly into my hands, resisting swift accumulation. The spirits themselves, each bound to their own vessels, continually followed me as I birthed their forms, stalking me whenever I was out gathering the materia as crows. While they continually tested me, as is their nature, I carried with myself a cloak of red fabric fed a rooster on the feast of St. Expedite as an emblem of the holy martyr’s mantle, at times tying it to my leg to trample over their influence, and at other times wearing it on my arm to brace myself for their handling.

In time, as the full recipe revealed itself to me, I was able to come across the final pieces necessary with their assistance. Their cores are made with a medley of ingredients sourced from the very same origins as Sfinga’s CRAS powder, with a head made from a devil pod that I foraged by hand at a lonely lighthouse where St. Expedite and his crows were propitiated. They are each crowned with a crow’s foot, embedded within black wax from candles dressed and lit in his name. The entire fetish bundle is wrapped tight in layers of black cloth and thread over clay in which the powder matrix is incorporated. Embedded within the clay beneath the thread are twelve guinea pepper seeds to bring heat and aggression, as well as six match sticks with their heads pointing outwards, which threaten to light themselves on the seeds should any misfortune come to their keepers. Additionally, together they form a clock of twelve sections, each having been prayed over to bring delays and misfortune to enemies.

Each familiar also comes with a set of three dice which were washed, fumigated, and perfumed during the feast of St. Expedite this year, as well as having been generously anointed with my Blue Oil of divination. You may use any three dice oracle of your choosing to speak with these spirits (a great example of which can be found on our good friend Matthew Venus’ blog); simply print off the instructions or rules of the chosen oracle and place it under a black candle lit to the fetish to allow them to memorize and understand its structure. The dice may be used to speak with them, as well as to ensure St. Expedite’s control over them is maintained even if you do not have an active St. Expedite practice.

The dice washed on St. Expedite’s feast.

When your fetish charm arrives, burn myrrh incense and inform your spirits that a new familiar is joining your home. Fumigate it in front of the shrine of your primary spirits and give your crow devil a name of your choosing that it will respond to from now on. Etch the name into a black candle and burn it before it. After it finishes burning, you may commune with the spirit any time by etching the name again into another black candle and rolling your dice in front of it while the flame is still burning. The familiars may be fed offerings of black candles, food just past its expiration (or “best before”) date that had been forgotten, any sort of sticky licorice candy, and anything shiny that corvids would enjoy (coins, broken jewelry, gemstones and beads), as well as broken or stopped watches.

It is my hope that these familiars find their new sorcerer companions and serve them well as rogues and spies. You do not need to have a practice with St. Expedite to work with them; they are consecrated under pacts with him to obey their keepers and not bring harm to them. However, if you do have a shrine to the saint, keeping these by his feet would be an auspicious placement. Otherwise, they may be placed near windows to fly freely and bring messages to you when not in active use. To set them upon a target, simply print off their photo, mark them up as a petition, and place it under the fetish while burning a black candle with their name inscribed before them. Additionally, you may knot the name of your victim nine times into red thread which you then wrap around the claw to further bind them to your familiar as its target.

May you always reign today while your enemies delay until tomorrow.

Only five are available. All familiars will be shipped out within seven business days of purchase.

Aphrodite’s Perfumed Attendant

June 10, 2026 ~ B. Key ~ Leave a comment

She went to Kypros, to Paphos, where her precinct is and fragrant altar, and passed into her sweet-smelling temple.
Homer, Hymn 5 to Aphrodite

This charm has been a work in progress for close to a year now, an offering in dedication to the Foam-born Queen whose hand has guided so much of my life over the past several years. Many of you who became keepers of the Venusian nymphs that Sfinga created a series of talismanic homes for in the shapes of the Eyes of Nepherieri have kept in touch with us over the past two years, updating us on your experiences with these incredible spirits we met on the shores of Aphrodite’s birth in Cyprus. It has been a true pleasure hearing each and every update, how these beings have helped you find the love of friends, lovers, spirits, and art, how they have become some of your closest familiars and spiritual allies, and how they have continue to teach you in dreams. Even though I was not responsible for their enchantment, I was privy to much of their process, and have continued to work with mine ever since.

Since that time, other spirits we have met on our travels, or who came to us directly via other patrons and relationships we have, have stepped forward to the both of us, asking to be given shape, form, and sustenance, so that they too may find their new sorcerers and homes. One of the most prominent that I have been working with over the past year has been a daimon or attendant spirit of Aphrodite who requested her one unique, one-of-one embodiment. Each step of this process was guided directly by her whim, from the ways in which her vessel was procured, to the sacrifices that gave her embodiment and form, and the bonds and pacts she had forged for me along the way, proving the tenacity of her will and the fire of her spirit.

The shape she chose for herself was that of a vintage perfume bottle. After much searching, she vetoed almost every potential construction I suggested, until she at last led me on a rather whimsical journey to a gorgeous antique store in which it laid, alone, at the literal feet of a larger statue of a fully moss green Venus de Milo that I also ended up purchasing independently. This bottle was ritually cleansed in waters sourced from mountains, churches, and fonts sacred to St. Petka directly by Sfinga, who is an ardent devotee of the saint. Its inside was smoked in my personal blend of incense for Aphrodite, as well as powders and dusts of Venus in Pisces.

In keeping with her vessel, her arcana is deeply entwined with scent, perfume, and subtler things carried on the soft winds of Spring and in the warm breath of a lover. Each step of her construction was similarly fragrant, with dozens of different blended incenses and scented oils burned in offering, the smoke of each captured in her bottle for her later use. I then created a sort of nest for her within her vessel, using the downy feathers from two pure white doves which had been given as offerings, again layering them with fragrant materials. I then purified, enlivened, and installed the core of the vessel, itself a bundle of of precious stones and herbal materia, the vitality of seven white doves, and my own personal Oil of Nepherieri, Oil of Philia, and Tincture of Agape. I constructed additional talismanic bundles enveloped in rose petals, each programmed to a particular function linked to the arcana of the spirit and added to the vessel. Finally, when approved by divination, I put the final seal on construction with lace used in a wedding and pinned it closed with a feather from one of the doves utilized.

Well before her vessel’s completion, the nymph herself revealed a wonderfully contagious energy, full of sweetness, levity, and deeply-felt joy whenever called. Across the months I spent with her, I tested her abilities, cunning, and efficacy as a working spirit extensively, and noted her unbounded ability to change the mood of a space along with the people and spirits in it was a great balm to the soul. Call on her presence with scent in the form of perfume or incense, keeping in mind that the quality of the scent will change and program her manifestation with almost kaleidoscopic intensity. I also find that she regularly distributed her offerings to other spirits nearby, both those enshrined in the home and those in the land, emphasizing a communal harmony born through lightness, play, and the pleasure of the sensorium. For those who cant easily burn incense or use strong scents in the home, contracting this spirit to tend to altars as a sort of elevated shabti on your behalf in exchange for perfumes or diverse forms of flavorful and fragrant food and drink offerings is an ideal workaround. She has a strong ability to cut through miasma and the lingering heaviness encountered in places of the dead, and to lift the spirits of the dead in need of council and resolution.

I will provide the individual who decides to become this Nymph’s guardian with additional specific information about this spirit, including the names and methods by which to call her, offerings and workings from her arcana for love, friendship, social harmony, enchantment, and even subjugation which I tested and found effective shortly after her construction, and records of the visions I had of the spirit throughout her vessel’s construction that reveal more of her personality and ways of working. My intention with providing full instructions on how to work with her, make offerings, and experience her personality is to ensure that the pact with this spirit transfers fully over to their new keeper, such that she may become a key spirit in their court and integrate in the promotion of the health and harmony of their other spirits.

Before purchasing at the link below, I ask that you please perform your own divination to see if this spirit is right for you and your court. I have a deep love and fondness for her and I only ask that she goes to the right person who will care for and appreciate her and her vast skills.

A Saint of Many Colours

May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 ~ B. Key ~ Leave a comment

St. Espidee is a saint of many colors, see […] Dat mean he wo’ many colors in his garments – many colors on his garments. Dat why yo’ use many diff’rent lights – red, yellah, green, blue. Each day he gits a diff’rent color light fo’ nine days. An’ each time yo’ light a light in front of dat lamp, yo’ ring dat bell an’ yo’ make dat wish…
Nahnee, the “Boss of Algiers”, as recorded in Harry Middleton Hyatt‘s Hoodoo Conjuration Witchcraft & Rootwork Volume 2

Blessed Beltane! Following the April whirlwind of St. Expedite’s feast day, a full-mooned Walpurgisnacht, and the corresponding third anniversary of The Frightful Howls You May Hear, the 2026 annual St. Expedite launch is upon us. In honor and devotion to our saint of many colours, and inspired by the multi-faceted view presented by the Boss of Algiers, I prepared six oils in his name, and revitalized the three primary.

This collection is a labour of love and adoration for this saint, and a desire to express his multitudes across conjure. Each oil was nourished and worked over the period of the last month to ensure that the colours expressed within their rainbow are clear and visible, using only natural ingredients and materia. My original three oils were further revitalized and nourished, and the other six were crafted at the feet of the saint using traditional hoodoo formulas as their bases, empowered by the light of the martyr to bring about swiftness and expediency in each of their actions. For example, the Blue Oil, built atop a traditional recipe for Psychic Oil, is tailored to smooth over the natural pauses and stutters of the medium, erasing the “ums”, and “ahhs” that can distract from a clear reading, in addition to its usual effect of increasing psychic clarity. The Purple Oil, being an Expedite-themed version of Dream Oil, brings dream recall to the user with swiftness and clarity, and can also be used to promote lucid dreaming. Seven star anise seed pods may be dressed with this oil and hung in a witch’s ladder above the bed to create a powerful charm for dream recall, clarity, and manipulation.

Even the ingredients that went into each oil (and charm!) were sourced under the light of the saint’s cross. I solicited and carried his blessing with me each time I set out to hunt my treasures, ensuring that I captured the cherry blossoms right at peak bloom for the Pink Oil, acquiring the coffee grounds used across the launch from specialty roasters and sourcing them based on their tasting notes and origin (from countries that have a known veneration to the saint), and acquiring each St. Expedite medallion in person as opposed to buying them online. The medals themselves I sourced from a craft store that has a dish out of various saint medals on display. I picked them clean and anointed them immediately with one of the oils I was working on to claim them for myself, and worked them diligently to transform them into the keychain charms you see below. I’m especially fond of these discreet little charms that can be worn as a pendant or placed on one’s keychain for protection against the evil eye. I wrapped heart-shaped red nazar beads behind simple keys to always watch over their wearers, and bound the medals over them so that the saint protects their back. I have a great fondness for knotwork and macramé in all its forms, and the red thread that binds these was itself prayed over in each stage of unwinding, measurement, cutting, and binding.

The three charms you see below were all made as hands of the saint. I keep a trinity of them on my own shrine, as does Sfinga, who generously tested them and worked them until we were both satisfied with their results. The purple and red Armour of Expedite is a joint collaboration between her and I, and feature a genuine four-leaf clover in each, as well as pieces of the pound cake Sfinga baked on his feast, the yeast having been risen with holy water collected from Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel in New Orleans on his feast many years ago, where his famous statue lies. I’m so delighted to release this collection in deep devotion to this incredible worker of miracles. Here is a spirit who has been fundamental in my own adventures, ever challenging me to move a little faster, bet a little higher, retreat a little wiser, and drink a little deeper of the passion, virility, risk, fun, and pure “magic” of life itself. I hope these gifts bring you as many delights as there are colours of this incredible saint’s mantle.

The products herein are made in limited quantity and offered on a first-come, first-serve basis as curios only. Please allow up to one week from the time of purchase for me to package and ship each order. Shipping is included in the cost of each item, and an email with tracking information will be sent automatically to the address associated with the PayPal account used at purchase. Oils are sold as 1 fl. oz. (30 mL) volumes in amber glass dropper bottles.

In addition to this suite of oils, I also prepared a handful of complimentary charms, including a protection charm in collaboration with Sfinga!

The next edition of my Mercury in Nutmeg charms are, at the time of writing, undergoing their final consecrations. Please keep your eye out for a post dedicated to these charms, as availability will be limited! Also, a CRAS-themed parallel to this collection will be coming ”Later”…

Thank you, St. Expedite, for guiding my hands.

An Oil According to Their Deeds

March 4, 2026 ~ B. Key ~ Leave a comment

Give them according to their deeds…:
In the wake of Episode 74 of the Frightful Howls, I composed this formula to meet the needs of this month’s first community ritual for invisibility from adversaries. Following the ritual, in dialogue with the spirits involved and with the spirit of the oil itself, we came to the decision to release this to the public to better facilitate the goal of granting additional forms of protection through concealment to those in need.

…And according to the wickedness of their endeavours:
The composition of the oil began with the sun and ended with the moon, each drawn down through sympathetic herbs and resins such that the eclipse of the solar powder with the lunar grants the same power of occlusion to those who wield the oil. I used fennel to “steal” any remaining fire from the solar materia, and conjured it to redirect the light and heat of attention, prying eyes, and inquisitive minds away from the bearer. A mixture of seeds was added in an uncountable sum to introduce confusion and redirection through delay, in addition to serpent sheds, that the bearer may shed away old guises and take up new ones at a moment’s notice. To further enliven and empower the quiet beast that is this oil, I constructed multiple distinct talismanic cores as “organs” to form the body of the spirit within: a written copy of Psalm 28:4 atop a petition and pact sealed with wax, specific shells and animal materia, resins collected from lucky and auspicious trees, and bundles composed of cloth and herb containing traditional formulas for law-keep-away work (including my personal law-keep-away powder) in the American folkloric context to grant distinct protective, evasive, and deceptive functions and frayed threads from old charm bags to unravel plots and magic against you like old cloth.

Give them after the work of their hands…:
Additional consecrations were completed on the oil under the dual lights of the recent eclipsed blood moon and the concurrent selenelion, at which time the now-pronounced redness of the oil was captured and augmented. I then brought the primary bottle of the oil with me to a place of conflict, a place of unjust law enforcement activity, a visible place, and a cursed place, and again tested the spirit’s ability to protect, to obfuscate, to distract, to hide, and to enact revenge. Each of the tests was passed with flying colors.

…Render to them their desert:
This oil’s functions are diverse, ranging from protection and invisibility to retributive and even vampiric functions, each use dependent on the creativity and interaction of the conjurer. As something slightly more enlivened than other oils I’ve produced, I suggest spending time contemplating the oil in various forms – on a candle, in a lamp, on petitions, on photos, on your hands, and in the environment to tease out mysteries and uses. The spirit of this oil is one responsive to need, and is hungry to right what it sees as wrongs. I suggest using the oil somewhat regularly, so that it does not get bored. It can be fed with a neutral carrier oil to extend its life, although I recommend not stretching it further if the scent of cinnamon is no longer detectable in your original bottle.

Each order includes 1 fluid ounce (30 mL) amber glass dropper bottle of the Oil According to Their Deeds. Shipping included. Please allow for up to a week from the time of your order for me to ship via the USPS.

5th Pentacles of Mars on Lion

December 31, 2025 ~ B. Key ~ Leave a comment

In continuing my experiments with Lion, I’ve been asked about one particular item more than any other – the belt. The lion skin belt itself is one of the most impressive, and thereby most elusive, instruments of art from the Lemegeton’s Goetia, which calls for the magus to prepare “The other materials [are] a scepter or sword; a miter or cap, a long white Robe of Linen, with shoes and other Clothes for the purpose also a girdle of Lyons skin 3 Inches broad, with all the names about it as is about the uttermost round Circle” (Peterson, 2025). Similar variations of the belt are found in other proto-Lemegetons such as Sloane 3824, and in Scot’s Experiment of Bealphares. Skinner, in his Techniques of Solomonic Magic, suggests that in each case, wearing lion is both to convey authority to the magician and to provoke fear and obedience in the spirits (for if the magician can have dominance and triumph over a lion, they can have the same dominance and triumph over a spirit). Due to the lack of abundant lion skin for what are hopefully obvious ethical and environmental reasons, many solomonic magicians substitute, or more commonly entirely omit, this garmet. This implement aims to bring the magician closer to the letter of the text, with an eye toward tested practical efficacy.

Enhancing the inherent virtues of the lion within the circle is the The 5th pentacle of Mars, which “…is terrible unto the demons, and at its sight and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its presence“, with its verse being Psalm 91, verse 13: Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. With lion, serpent, and spirit alike subjugated in the same manner as suggested by Skinner. In practice, both in my own experiments and in those of other Goetic magicians who I’ve compared notes with over the years, this pentacle serves as the ideal substitute for the belt in whole. Its hold on infernal spirits is jarring in its efficacy, as the grimoire describes, especially those lower in the infernal hierarchies. The use of lion is both prescribed, and for the aforementioned reasons, serves as an added layer of correspondence and sympathy in the performance of the art of Goetia.

I consecrated these pentacles in the usual manner described by the Greater Key, working only within the days and hours of Mars with blessed ink and consecrated tools. I performed additional consecrations and layered enchantments for personal power, subjugation of spirits, and subversion of entrenched powers in subsequent days and times, and finally sealing the enchantment before additional Angels and planetary spirits of Mars atop a tablet inscribed with the first pentacle of Mars.

The pentacles themselves are warm to the touch and have a tangible “buzzy” feeling, radiating their virtue if left exposed. Through this quality, I noticed a decrease in phenomena in spaces where this pentacle was left, in addition to prompting an exodus of astral larvae and other ambient parasitic spirits. In testing these pentacles, to say they were strongly repulsive to the infernal hordes conjured is an understatement – I have not encountered a tool so effective at demanding obedience and stripping infernal spirits of their ministers and attendants as when this was revealed within the circle.

5 pentacles are available as of 30 December 2025 in honor of Mars, and they will not be restocked once sold due to the rarity of the material. We wish you all a happy new year!

St. Nicholas’ Day 2025 Group Rite: For Luck, Joy, and Insight (Recap)

December 28, 2025 ~ Sfinga ~ Leave a comment

Once again, Key and I are so incredibly grateful for your generous support of our Nikoljdan community ritual. We were once again able to raise $2000 for our Cabula through the combined efforts of our Esteemed Initiate tier on Patreon and those who contributed directly through the blog. Thank you all so very much!

Here’s a brief recap of the workings as we completed them. Key and I began by throwing a small slava for Sveti Nikola in my home, inviting friends and family to visit and participate. From the early morning, we were up and baking bread, cooking sarma, preparing the fish, and baking Dutch pepernoten cookies. We prepared a small selection of traditional slava cakes and biscuits, as well as an apple strudel, and created small plates containing servings of each dish for the ancestors, protector spirits, land spirits, and spirits of the door and threshold. Having lit the slava candle, we offered prayers, veneration, and oral charms unto St. Nicholas as wayfarer of the paths to fortune, stability, and prosperity.

Just a couple days prior, on the 17th of December, I also celebrated Sveta Varvara (St. Barbara). As per tradition, I sowed wheat seeds to grow my Christmas wheat that I will trim on January 7th, and cooked a traditional meal of grains called a varica. This year, I opted for a sweeter version, consisting of wheat, corn, barley, honey, chopped walnuts, sliced walnuts, and raisins. “Varvarica vari a Savica ladi a Nikolica kusa” (Barbara cooks, Sava cools, Nikola tastes) is a saying encompassing the practices of this trinity of days, cooking the varica on Barbara, cooling it in the fridge for a full day during Sabbas the Sanctified, and finally consuming it with your family on Nicholas’ day. Several sorcerous projects were begun on her feast, and the varica, having been blessed for fertility and prosperity, was served on Nikoljdan and enjoyed by all present.

The lamps prepared and presented. The left-handed lamp manifested the omen we were looking for: the buildup of soot along its rim.

Once our guests had returned home, we set off to do our work on behalf of all patrons and named parties. Key and I prepared two oil lamps of St. Nicholas, one for the saint in his right-handed guise, and another for him as Devil, as Veles, as Master of the Wolves.

The right-handed lamp was built in several stages: for the first stage, the vessel of the lamp itself was prepared with an herbal wash, smoked out with incense, and lit on fire with some Florida water. Next, a little bit of the oil went in along with a wooden cross that was carved and blessed for the day, as well as crumbs from the slava bread baked that day and the full petition of names. Following this, we added our base of resins, including several kinds of Orthodox incense blends as well as frankincense, myrrh, Three Kings, and more. Key then took the grave dirt of nine different bishops to confer the blessings of those spirits unto the work. He also expressed some of the orange oil, harvested directly from the oranges we prepared as daughter-lamps, through a flame in order to consecrate it as the descent of the Holy Spirit into the lamp. Key then added a gold coin into the lamp as well as much more orange peel to code it for money, and then finished the lamp with a crown of rosemary.

For the left-handed lamp, every ingredient that went into the base was covered in charcoal and ash to “blacken” it with soot. The lamp itself was built over a black Joker card, specifically one chosen because it depicted the Joker riding a horse. This image coded the work both to the lore of the black Joker as a devil in a deck of playing cards, as well as calling upon his steed, which for our purposes also includes St. Nicholas’ boat. Additionally, in much of Dutch folklore surrounding St. Nicholas, the saint is depicted as riding a horse, or at least travelling alongside one. After each ingredient was added, pieces of coal were also put into the lamp, as well as pieces of tobacco from a cigar that fumigated the lamp, myrrh, and dirt gathered from the graves of 21 soldiers. Key then shotgunned a cigar into the lamp, shaking the vessel until the smoke infused into the oil, turning it grey. Sulphur, gunpowder, vetiver, and a final gold coin completed the work, built over the volatility and explosive nature of its ingredients, and handled carefully to bust open blocks, open roads, and ignite the raw power of luck in each named party’s life.

A pinch of the materia from both lamps, along with crumbs from the slava bread, then went into eight orange lamps which which were ritually born of their parents, and distributed to different crossroads to safely burn amidst the winter snow. A final pair of orange lamps, the youngest twins of the nest, were then taken to a nearby lake and left to float along the surface, carrying out the petitions crafted into the arms of the watery spirits that accompany St. Nicholas in both Balkan and Dutch lore. We completed the rite by offering one final battery of prayers to the saint, praising him for his potency and once more requesting that he open the roads to luck, fortune, prosperity, wealth, and new opportunities and horizons for everyone named. We are so grateful to each and every one of you who contributed! All proceeds from the rite are reserved for our Cabula as part of the charity of this working.

Srećan Nikoljdan!

Sts. Cyprian and Justina’s Charms of Exorcistic Power

October 24, 2025April 18, 2026 ~ Sfinga ~ Leave a comment

On the Eastern Orthodox feast of Saints Cyprian and Justina of Antioch, most holy and most powerful intercessors, a clutch of charms in honour of their exorcistic abilities and prowess were born.

I had been intending on making a set of these charms for the two saints inspired by Orthodox folk traditions, drawing from my training in different forms of saint veneration, folk magic, and oral charming in Western Serbia. After my last release for the holy pair, I wanted to make some amulets in their honour that would not only be more affordable, but whose proceeds would also be donated directly back to the teachers and sources of Cyprianic magic that have informed my practice across the traditions I have training in, named and unnamed, acknowledged and hidden. In divining on their ingredients, consecration, and nature, it became quickly apparent that I was to incorporate techniques and lore I learned across their Balkan traditions, most notably Serbian, Greek, and Cypriot. As such, I invited my good friend Maria of Green Dragon Healer to join me in their construction, and lend her Greek herbal training to the various recipes I had picked up on them in my travels.

Koljivo, freshly-baked bread, incense, wine, and prayer offered before the saints.

On the 15th of October, I used holy water I collected from a font dedicated to Sts. Cyprian and Justina on their feast in Meniko, Cyprus to bake a bread that was prayed over, charmed, and ensorcelled to grow with particular virtues necessary for the work. Maria brought over a koljivo she made and ornamented with powdered sugar and almond slices to present in offering alongside red wine, spring water, and black Orthodox St. Cyprian incense used for exorcism. We joined in offering a litany of traditional prayers sourced from various Akathists to the holy pair, and fumigated both the forty-one beans that would be used in finalizing the recipe as well as the purple cloth that would serve as their skin and surface of divination. Once set, we laid out the cloth in a large square and cast the beans before the saint, receiving the omen necessary to proceed with the original divined materia list immediately without modification.

Cutting half the bread into twenty-one small squares, we anointed each piece with a trinity of oils—one of Cyprian, one of Justina, and one of a mitigating stellar force that became known to us in the divination to carry forth the energy of Cyprian’s magician disciples and Justina’s pious nuns. Enlivening them once more as the fulfillment of the pact of each individual amulet, we layered all other herbs and materia over these squares, including pieces of incense, herbs associated with Cyprian and Justina across the Balkans, and various mineral and animal ingredients, finally dividing the forty-one beans that approved of the formula between them all. Each amulet bag was then tied up with purple thread, over which was layered white hemp cord that holds together a real freshwater pearl and a small hagstone each.

Each hagstone was dragged through dirt, blood, milk, and holy water, the serpent which passed through the hole of its egg vivified from the vespers of his first Orthodox feast on the second of October to the day of the fifteenth, with both the revised and the old Julian calendars being honoured together. Through the amulets, dragon and pearl are married once more, each hagstone being bound to a freshwater pearl anointed with holy water, holy oil, and tears from the icons of Cyprian and Justina in their name. Pearls are especially sacred to St. Justina, and as the holy water and holy oil themselves were either gathered or purchased from monasteries and churches bearing their names on their feast days, so too were the pearls enlivened in honour of the temporal and spatial dimensions of their veneration and faith.

These charms were then prayed over extensively across traditions. Over nine days, Maria recited daily exorcistic prayers intended for lay use from the Greek Orthodox tradition, empowering them to keep away evil spirits, restless dead, vampires, and all manner of malefica. During that same period, I offered a Serbian Orthodox prayer for protection against witchcraft and the familiars and servants of other sorcerers, including those sent to spy in spiritual voyeurism. Finally, they were programmed to benefit their owners in empowering the communicative abilities and oracular manifestations of friendly, allied spirits, thereby acting not only as wards against those unwanted but also granting Cyprian’s saintly cloak of authority and magical prowess to those spirits who follow their sorcerer as closely and dutifully as his own disciples.

The students of Cyprian and the nuns of Justina were supplicated throughout this process, lending their hands and vows to the trinity of bread, pearl, and hagstone to affirm that these charms will continue to empower the ability of their owners to receive recipes, workings, and instructions for the cultivation of different spiritual activities directly through them. Hold in your hands as you meditate with your spirits or place it on a shrine that you wish to communicate better with or boost the powers of. Cleanse your body with it by wiping it down each limb and under the toes to rid yourself of malefica. Carry on your person to neutralize prying eyes and ill intents. Place at the feet of Sts. Cyprian and Justina in prayer and then move by your bedside to incubate magical instructions in dreams. When divining on recipes with your spirits, hold this charm in your hand or have it by your divinatory tools in order to hear the spirits more clearly. Anoint on Saturdays with an oil of St. Cyprian, a holy oil, or an oil of rosemary to keep fresh and empowered.

To Hold a Spirit Up – St. Christopher’s Charm Bundles for Spirit Manifestation

September 6, 2025September 6, 2025 ~ B. Key ~ Leave a comment

A few years back, I wrote a post about about a matrix of herbs and powders that came together to better presence St. Expedite and those spirits that dance in his blazing footfalls in a particular loci of devotion. The everlasting quest to help my spirits meet me somewhere in between this world and the next by finding ways to ensoul, manifest, and anchor them in this world that they may have more ingress and presence, and resulting experiments, lead me to making this new set of charms. In technique a spiritual companion piece to the charm bundles affixed to Christopher’s Protection Chaplets for Travelers, these bundles draw from the life of our beloved dog-saint, in which he bore the entire world upon his shoulder (in the form of the Christ-Child). It follows that if he can uplift, make safe, and most importantly make manifest the world, he can do so with anything therein. In lifting up spirits all the same, he provides both a gentle hand elevating and aiding the manifestation of our allied spirits, bringing closer those distant and forgotten, and, as needed, a mechanism of control against unruly, wild spirits.

Like most of my charms made at the foot of St. Christopher (and one might argue like the saint himself!), they are simple in construction, but blessed through labour and repetition. Each bag contains an herbal blend, with plants selected to share breath with spirits to rouse their presence and increase their strength, pacify disagreements among those they encounter, send roots and stems and seeds into other worlds to secure and germinate the means of ingress, and to mediate and nullify imbalances that need to be navigated in the environs of the spirit. Like following a long and desolate path, each component was selected to navigate obstacles and hindrances without being so heavy or distracting as to over-encumber the bearer. Tobacco, Sage, and Dittany of Crete feature heavily, with celandine, mullein, and many members of the mint family mediating.

Each plant was called forth to the table of his catholic feast, and united under the celebratory banner of the dog-saint, with an exhortation of his virtuous qualities delivered over corresponding herbs. Candles lit for the saint and each of these allies were used to apply a small drop of beeswax on the reverse of each metal, to deliver their fire and seal the initial enchantment. Following their initial consecration, they were continuously prayed over, offered to, and further empowered through charm and incantation, until they satisfactorily eased the production of spirit phenomena (being sustained and visual or auditory, beyond the usual capabilities of the distant and forgotten spirits contracted to test the charms).

I suggest affixing this charm to the leg of an altar table or shrine, or keeping it beneath a table of practice during use, that they may participate in, and themselves osmose the virtues to bear up spirits. The bundles can also be given to spirits to use as toolboxes, with each component potentially easing the burdens to travel between their world and ours. I encourage communion with your own spirits at the locus of the charm to determine further idiosyncratic uses, as the composition is meant to be a kaleidoscope through which these encounters are had.

10 charm bundles from this set are available for sale, with shipping included.

Mercury in Nutmeg, Fifth Edition

July 9, 2025July 11, 2025 ~ B. Key ~ Leave a comment

The long-awaited Mercury in Nutmeg charms are available once again! I have deeply enjoyed experimenting with this rich-in-folklore talisman over the last few years, itself embodying a synthesis of herb and metal that always fascinates and delivers secrets of each. As was discussed in [previous] [posts], the technique of drilling a hole in a whole nutmeg, adding mercury, and sealing it with wax was once a favourite of gamblers and those looking for a fast change in luck and circumstance. Having fallen out of fashion due to the dangers inherent to mercury as a material, I set about finding ways to make this magic safely available again, through the use of more intricate wax seals and better containment within the layers of flannel, with this edition developing on the lessons learned and techniques honed through five prior batches.

As such, these talismans for all manner of luck-enhancement can be petitioned with your desires in mind in order to bring about expedient and radical changes in fortune, luck, finances, and all manner of ever-winding fates. The buzz of the talisman helps the bearer remain awake and focused, with an inspired drive toward grabbing life by the reins. This year’s form of the talisman is much closer its folkloric counterparts in more ways than its past counterparts: a green flannel mojo hand containing the nutmeg itself alongside various luck and money drawing herbs and dressed in oils for the same, with the ever-flowing mercury contained such that its physical movement is much more tangible than previous versions.

This particular edition, through the gracious guidance and help of Sfinga, also contains a Balkan folk magical “boost” for psychic strength and discernment of the ever-shifting lines of fate and fortuna, following omens interpreted, offerings made, prayers given, charms uttered, and magic woven on Vidovdan this year. While specifics must remain veiled, St. Vitas, being the foremost patron saint of Sight, was called upon to bless the mercury as mirror, harkening to its use in telescopes in order to grant the bearer the ability and faculties to gaze into the most distant horizons and beyond.

This edition is limited to 21 charms (many already spoken for), so be sure to get one fast!

All charms are sold as of the 11th of July. Thank you so much for your patronage!