Venus On High

October 23, 2026October 23, 2026 ~ Sfinga ~ Leave a comment

We have spent a lot of time pondering the curiosity of just how many of the most creative and life-changing undertakings in our lives all began with Venus. From the very inception of this website, with my appreciation for and desire to work the Libellus Veneri Nigro Sacer, or Tuba Veneris, to the sheer command and force with which an encounter with Aphrodite changed so much of my spiritual life, it is the Venusian impulse, whether in love, fertility, beauty, war, agriculture, trade, seafaring—and of course, in witchcraft among all the innumerable other fields—that has been a continual driving force of evolution, growth, expansion, and refinement. And it is now to her service we once again turn, this time not to expand upon a deeply personal experience of a specific instantiation of a goddess, but to take up the creative mantle alongside some of our dearest friends in contemplation of the greater cross-cultural and cross-temporal expressions of “Venus”.

The roots of this collection were born from many months of conversation with some of our closest friends and colleagues: Dr. Al Cummins, Jackson Walker of Haus of Ophidious, and our Tata in Quimbanda, Jesse Hathaway Diaz. Our desire was to offer a collaboration in honour of the many manners in which Venus—whether localized in a specific goddess, exalted as a planetary power, or flattened to merely an amorous force over and above her myriad other patronages—has been understood by sorcerers and witches across time. As we worked on our individual creations, we also shared materia amongst each other, circulating powders, oils, and gemstones between our hands such that a little of each of our creative force and dedication is present in each other’s. Additionally, we recorded a Frightful Howls episode all together, the first ever panel style episode featuring five speakers, which will premiere during tonight’s Venus cazimi. This post will be updated with its link during that very window!

It is our great joy and pleasure to, now more than two years after our Foam-born Aphrodite collection, unveil our newest offerings in service to that same impulse. We will be writing here in the third person together, as while we have our own individual contributions to the collection, we worked on each piece collectively and shared in both materia and labour.

The Pigment of Venus II

Key’s half of our effort emerged out of his ever-growing adoration of the Cypriot goddess. The guiding star of his inquiry begins and ends with an alchemical mirror of our Lady’s birth. This is the same pigment that sold out so quickly in the Foam-born Aphrodite collection, being a copper-based cerulean as vivid as the shores of her birth. He laboured extensively over its purity, spending hours washing and sanctifying the pigment itself, including with the natron produced as a by-product of its synthesis, recovered and given life anew. Even through the chemical reaction, as well as the many days it took to wash and dry it, Key continually prayed over the vats, worked only under candlelight offered to Aphrodite, and conducted his work only during Venus hours. This is the heart of his devotion to the goddess, who has so captured his alchemist’s heart in pursuit of her famed Cypriot mysteries. It was, after all, precisely in Paphos that she was so celebrated amidst the copper refineries, the perfumeries, and the temples overlooking the Mediterranean shores.

Each purchase comes with a 1/2 oz jar of the fully enchanted pigment. A little goes a long way—it can be mixed with carrier oils to form an oil paint, or used alone as a dust or with other adhesives to colour entire surfaces. As the pigment is our goddess born in foam, it carries the same vital Veriditas to any surface it is applied to. Use to paint statues, mark boundaries, and draw sigils of any Venusian impulse. Add to charms for protection, love, wealth in commerce and trade, and victory over competition. Its uses are limited only by one’s creativity, for it stirs her presence strongly and immediately. Consider anointing the eyes of statues with its cerulean command to summon forth the gaze of the goddess, or to anoint other charms in service to her familiars and daimones.

The Door, Aphrodite

These have been a long labour of love from Key’s hands, originating from a playful consideration of the “Amulet to protect the entrance of a house from vermin” translated in Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith’s Ancient Christian Magic collection. Evoking an image of fairy doors, these charms are made from Paulownia timber (being notably resilient to decay), infused with Key’s pigment and his personal Oil of Nepherieri. A fed hagstone, which had drank of seven pure white doves, rests tied at its door as its knocker, which, when rung, will mutually announce your arrival at the threshold of spirit, whose answer in turn will be to feast at your table. This is a portal in honour of Venus as the womb of possibility, the door which awaits its knock, the vaginal cleaving of encounter and the ingress of spirit into matter. Its threshold is coated in a copper-laden wax, enchanted to ease the passage of notoriously elusive spirits under Venus’ purview to arrive before you, ready for communication and compact. The threshold also contains a plug of each of our collaborators’ Venus powders (see Sfinga’s Shells of the Six Servants for more information on this matrix!) which Key loaded into the door by drilling a small hole on the side. Braided around its inner gate is a rope of weeping willow, anointed and ensorcelled through the serpents of Aphrodite’s gardens to create a lush oasis under its branches to welcome all who would step within. Additionally, three drops of wax infused with the essence of our work with Nepherieri dot the front, sealing the enchantments and its pacts in the trifold expressions of Aphrodite as Queen of Love, Queen of Life, and Queen of Magic.

These doors may be placed into a tree on your property, alongside a wall of your choice, or into any surface you divine on and see fit for this work. While these charms are ideal for those who have already developed significant pacts with their local land spirits, they may also be used to jumpstart such pacts for those who have recently relocated. Each door comes with a small charge to be buried on the property. The charge itself is based in soap, which will gradually melt and fuse into the land that you’re on, linking your door to a pre-existing web of spirit doors and pathways within Aphrodite’s realm. Once installed, these doors are not meant to be moved, so please divine ahead of time where they should rest. Should the need arise to move out, please feel free to reach out to Key personally for a second charge tailored to your situation via divination and consultation, which will then be sent to you at only the cost of shipping to reforge the same pact.

The uses of these doors are myriad. These are essentially tools for the spirits of Venus’ purview to continually passively bless and occupy your land with their grace. They are more worked passively than actively—once installed, they will naturally draw the various attendants, daimones, and spirits of place into the network of Venusian congress, bringing passive boons of luck, fertility, love, beauty, agricultural success (including flourishing gardens!) and oracular dreams. These are meant to form of a locus where offerings can be made in invitation, facilitating spirits that would otherwise take far more supplication to appear. Simply by knocking upon its frame with the fed hagstone, praying in your own words for what you wish, and opening the door, you may invite congress with legions of attendants and direct them as a group to your needs. The example door pictured above has a small copper Idol of Pomos in place of where you would place any stone or knowable point of congress between you and your land spirits. This could be as simple as a pebble you find yourself attracted to, or a a pre-existing figurine or statue you wish to serve as intercessor. Petitions may be read aloud or burned to ash and tucked behind the door, such that after you have made your offerings and thanked the spirits within, its closing may be understood to be its issuance, dismissing the hordes of whispering voices and setting them through their many pathways into manifestation.

Ultimately, these charms are meant for witches who work animistically with their lands and who wish to conjoin the earth upon which they reside with the well-worn walkways of Venus’ gardens, connecting them to become one node among the myriad blooming paths. The tree that you install this on will inform the character that the spirits who pass through will take on.

Seven are available for purchase and will be shipped along with the soap charge to bury into your earth.

The Seals of Venus from the Tuba Veneris

Sfinga’s contribution is sourced from her many forays and continued fascination with the Libellus Veneri Nigro Sacer, or “The Consecrated Little Book of the Black Venus”—also known as the Tuba Veneris. Over the past seven years of working the grimoire and its spirits regularly, she has been continually updating her own “little book” with her investigations, experiences, and understandings of the six spirits it features under the command of Anael. Many readers have reached out with their own experiences, as well as their questions, concerns, and frustrations over the narrow timing of the construction and consecration of the grimoire’s prized tools, being the Seal and Horn of Venus. We completely understand how difficult it is to finish engraving everything (and burying them at a river!) in just two nocturnal Venus hours on the one Friday new moon of the entire year, and even more so the frustration of having to wait another year entirely to finish whatever is incomplete the following year.

It is with this in mind that Sfinga created a set of fully consecrated Seals of Venus, completed to the exact specifications of the grimoire. These were engraved, perfumed, and consecrated fully within the two nocturnal Venus hours of the last Friday new moon, then buried at a river overnight and recovered during the first nocturnal Venus hour of the Saturday following. Her aim was to produce a fully consecrated set of Seals—the very control mechanism by which the spirits are called and compelled into obedience—such that anyone wishing to engage with this work would be able to save a significant amount of time during the next Friday new moon finishing the rest of the tools.

In Teresa Burns and Nancy Turner’s translation of the text, the instructions given for the Seal are as follows:

The first thing we need for our Negromantic work is the Seal of Venus, which is to be made in the following way: One takes a Piece of new Copper ore and from it makes a Plate the size of the figure drawn below; one must cut this [Plate] according to the number appropriate for the Planets, that is, with six Angles: the Character should be engraved using a new and pure iron or steel instrument on the day [of Venus] in the third or tenth hour of night, counted from the time the [sun] sets. If the span of one hour is not sufficient, one must wait until the next hour, i.e. the tenth hour, since work is only permitted in the hours of Venus (we emphasize again) on the new moon, which is why, if one cannot complete the Seal during one night of [Venus] in the two prescribed hours, one must wait in the same way until the next new moon. After it is finished, one consecrates the Seal with smoke on the same day and in the same hour of [Venus].

Let the Consecration be done with these Materials: Verbane, Myrtle, and Musk.

Afterwards one wraps it in new linen and buries it likewise at the aforementioned time of the day of the New Moon, at night next to a flowing body of water, then unburies it on the following night at the hour of [Venus], and preserves it for the opportunity of the work.
Translation by Teresa Burns and Nancy Turner

These are the exact procedures which these Seals, here on offer, underwent, including being engraved with a completely new and previously unused engraving pen purchased just for this project. After being retrieved from the river during the nocturnal Venus hour of Saturday night, Sfinga presented the Seals to her household shrine of the Cypriot Aphrodite, who has, over the last three years, come to increasingly influence her work with the Tuba Veneris, and performed an additional blessing and consecration over them to not only function as the controlling mechanisms of the grimoire itself, but as talismans directly funnelling the virtues of Venus into all they are applied to. They may be used to begin your own work with the Tuba Veneris as well as to empower other Venusian works you are engaged in. Simply layer them over other talismans, enchantments, and any materia being consecrated, or wrap them all in the same linen, leaving them bundled from the first Venus hour of a Friday morning to the last at night, with a green candle burning nearby, in order to bring forth Anael’s presence and power into anything you do. These serve as excellent batteries of power in addition to their multivalent uses within the grimoire itself.

Sixteen are made available for the karcists interested in working the grimoire proper, as well as the witches more interested in taking its power for themselves.

The Shells of the Six Servants

While the Seals themselves are fully made to the specifications of the grimoire, these next offerings are an outpouring of Sfinga’s work with its spirits, drawn on her on personal experiences and pacts she has forged with them over the last seven years. Much like the Wards of the Wisest Healer, these charms are made in walnut shells split apart in the day and hour of Venus. From their inception, being presented to the six spirits of the Tuba Veneris, they were worked alongside their direct intercession, whose voices were called through Sfinga’s own Horn in order breathe their enchantments and weave them within the fabric of the shells. Each walnut was presented to Sfinga and Key’s joint shrine to the Cypriot Aphrodite, as well as perfumed in Key’s Star of Aphrodite Incense within the Circle of the Tuba Veneris. Each walnut is filled with a complex load of materia, including Sfinga’s personal powder to Aphrodite, Key’s Star of Aphrodite incense, Tata Apokan’s powder of Venus, and Jackson’s Venus Rising in Pisces powder. Freshwater pearls, which were (in addition to other materia featured in this collection) fed seven pure white doves lie at the heart of each walnut, nestled into rose petals upon which seven different pairs of lovers had lain over in union.

The materia list that has gone into these is extensive, including sheep, goat, rabbit, dove, white coral, rose, apple, jasmine, hibiscus, damiana, rosehip, lady’s mantle, myrtle, red clover, linden (and linden honey), red storax, sumatran benzoin, copper carbonate, and far more. Finally, these walnuts were caked in Key’s pigment and sealed in a matte varnish.

These may be carried with you in a small pouch or kept on your person to bring the favour of Anael and her servants. These are charms of pure Venusian fortune and luck, bringing beauty, admiration, appreciation, and victory in competitions, disputes, and battles. Whisper to them what graces and favours you need and carry them with you to allow for Anael’s legions to compliment your own and significantly empower the potency of your own spiritual court in bringing you these favours. When we tested these in the wild, we found them to be remarkable at being lightweight, easy to carry tokens of pure Venusian virtue, radiating from within their shells the whispers of myriad celestial choirs eager to advise, guide, and empower your graces. Roll them in your hands and rattle the pearl within to call them to your service and grant you significant boosts in charm, admiration, and fortune before interviews, dates, negotiations, uncomfortable meetings, or flirtatious encounters.

Fourteen are available and will come with a complimentary drawstring pouch to be carried within.

The Stygian Sojourner’s Earthenware Thrones

One vessel amidst the shells of Aphrodite’s shrine.

Finally, Sfinga has prepared a limited set of only three vessels in direct pact with the familiars of Venus themselves. These are one of a kind vessels, each fully enspirited with their own familiars that come with names, preferences, and manners of working to be revealed only to their new keepers. Held in unglazed terracotta pottery, these clay bowls are painted with the seals of Anael in the Venus hour and day and rubbed in Key’s copper carbonate pigment to enliven its flesh. Inside is an exceptionally complex load held within a terracotta clay matrix which was painstakingly created in layers, each being wrapped in real copper leaf. In addition to the same powders featured in the walnut charms above, each of these vessels contains a full dosage of Sfinga’s personal Balkan folk magical oil for Danica, the morning star of Venus, as understood to be a kind of dragon-power itself through that star’s marriage to the earth.

Here is Venus as She-Dragon, having fallen to the very Earth to marry its flesh! Each clay load essentially contains its own “mother oil” of this recipe, being fully contained without other pacts and allegiances to a source other than itself. Pressed into its heart is a hagstone birthed with seven doves through the holes of her own hagstone cairn sourced from the beach where Aphrodite herself was said to be born in Cyprus, its spirit pulled through each successive stone as the rays of the seven planets under the domination and dominion of Venus’ creative fecundity. The feet and feathers of these doves were divided between these vessels in pairs, with the seventh remaining on Sfinga’s shrine, in order to link them fully to the Mistress who Bore Them.

The inside of these vessels cannot be photographed for the public, but will be shared via email in private with their new keepers, in addition to the unique names of the celestial daimones that inhabit them. These spirits are intercessor and nymph, though unlike those nymphs once offered via the Eyes of Nepherieri, these spirits take their graces from the work of Tuba Veneris as nocturnal familiars suited to witches interested in both the celestial and subterranean sojourns of our Lady.

Only three of these are available. These are versatile familiars ready to guide their witch companions through celestial and subterranean worlds alike, and teach them of the mysteries of the Dark Venus far beyond the grimoire of their origin. Their keepers will be emailed photographs of their complex cores, as well as the true names of their new spirit companions and instructions for care.

All our offerings will ship in two weeks, as the two of us will be away shortly for ritual observances. We will be packaging and shipping everything out the first week of November.

We thank you so much for your kind support and excitement for all of our work with Our Lady of Laughter. Please stay tuned for tonight’s cazimi for a special treat on behalf of all five of us taking part in this collaboration! This page will be updated with a link to a special episode of Frightful Howls once it is live during the cazimi proper. In the meanwhile, please check the beautiful offerings our dear friends have created:

The Pact
Haus of Ophidious
Dr. Al Cummins’ Artful Bracelet of Puella and Heart-Healing Bracelet of Amissio

May all your loves be reborn in the fires of their becoming.

Aphrodite’s Charms of Reconciliation and Communion

May 23, 2025July 30, 2026 ~ Sfinga ~ Leave a comment

We mentioned that in light of the incredible success of our St. Nicholas’ Day Candle Service, as part of a fundraiser for our Cabula, that we would continue to occasionally release sorcerous goods as a way to raise funds for the communities we cherish, and the time has once again come! This time, we’re far from alone—in addition to Key and my (Sfinga’s) efforts, we’re joined by our talented and wonderful friends, some of whom you might have heard on the podcast before, and others whom we hope to have on in the future! In collaboration with Gari Noriyuki of Manticore’s Den, Mahigan Saint-Pierre of Kitchen Toad, Sarah Jezebel of Lovi Artes, Austin Fuller of Bane X Bramble, and Jackson Walker of Haus of Ophidious, the two of us are contributing our own work in service of our Foam-born Lady and our beloved temple. Our fundraiser’s mission statement holds:

In honour of our Cabula Mavile Kitula kia Njila, the seven of us have come together to present a bounty of offerings born of devotion towards spirit and community alike. Crafted in cooperation with spirit and in service to our Cabula, we are excited to share a collection of charms, devotional items, candles, perfume, and oils made to better serve the bonds between you and your spirits, while contributing their proceeds to the temple that nourishes our own.

What follows are two offerings, one from Sfinga and one from Key, crafted through communion of our patroness Aphrodite in all that She has revealed and taught over the last year and a half since our experience with Her, with the focus of Her providence turned from love of friendship to love of community. In cherishing bonds with spiritual siblings, friends, spirits, and elders alike, we present two charms to facilitate the growth of intimate bonds and trust between you and your multivalent kin as well, with all proceeds going to our Cabula directly.

Aphrodite’s Charms of Reconciliation

These charms, nestled in leather drawstrings bags for convenient and inconspicuous use, are built over a tripartite powder recipe I had received in my work with Aphrodite. I’ve called these “Charms of Reconciliation” as their chief purpose is to smooth over misunderstandings, confusion, ill-formed and clumsy statements, and serious offences between their holders and spirits. The offerings Key and I put out for our initial Foam-born Aphrodite collection were grounded in Agape, Eros, and Philia, with a special focus on the latter in its exaltation of friendship and comradery. This charm too is an extension of this, focusing on the hard work of friendship in its repair, and in fostering the skills necessary to mend and soothe what was bruised, especially with offended and neglected spirit bonds, in a greater commitment to integrity and care.

We’ve discussed many times on the podcast how careful one must be with their wording around spirits, and how different spirits qualify what counts as a “promise” in highly divergent ways. The base of this charm is built for the purposes of not only protecting against the anger and ire of offended spirits, but on channelling the grace of Aphrodite to awaken sympathy, understanding, and a psychic vantage of a more prosperous future through the cultivation of grace, forgiveness, and greater growth and care. Each charm contains three powders placed under the guidance of three stellar patrons: one of reconciliation and friendship through Venus in Pisces, one of excellent communication and wit through Mercury in Gemini, as well as one of psychic perception and seership through the Pleiades. In this way, the groundwork and trust built through better communication and pact-making can be further enhanced through the growth of seership and scrying, which will enable their owners to continue to negotiate and work together with their spirits with increased accuracy.

Additionally, each charm contains a fully consecrated copy of PGM X. 24–35, one of the “charms to restrain anger” which also works against “enemies, accusers, brigands, phobias, and nightmares”. This charm was written with consecrated ink on genuine papyrus and rolled tightly over a cinnamon stick previously included in an offering to Aphrodite, then bound tight in consecrated cord that was anointed in Key’s Oil of Nepherieri. This papyrus was enchanted not only for the resolution of these conflicts, but to motivate spirits to your side in order to assist you in remediating others, and in protecting you from slander and misunderstandings that could harm your reputation.

Ultimately, these are discreet charms born of love and a desire for deeper communion with spirits and communities alike. Each one has a genuine hagstone tied to it, specifically chosen from a batch of ones I keep on reserve because they were gifts, to not only allow slander, misunderstandings, gossip, and ill intentions to slip through the hole and be directed away from you, but also to carry forth that torch of friendship and generosity into the charm. The hagstones were washed in waters I had brought back from Aphrodite’s temple in Cyprus, as well as wine that had rehydrated the powder of doves given unto the goddess.

Their design is intentionally discreet, so that you can carry them with you to new places to ensure smoother communion with local spirits, receive favours and boons from spirits wherever you go, have an easier time communicating with new friends and beings, foster better community between yourself and others, and cement better pacts in the making. Carry yours with you to confer their blessings or keep them in your home and working spaces to cultivate their benefit for all your shrines. Hold them on your person when conjuring new spirits, or suspend them from your belt when working magic outdoors. Keep them by your bed for protection from nightmares and an easier time communing with spirits in your dreams. All that is needed is to whisper into the hagstone to ask for increased psychic ability and ease of conversation with spirits before sleeping, though they can also be suspended over the bed or placed under the pillow for the same ends.

All charms have sold as of May 23, 2025. Thank you!

Aphrodite’s Charms of Communion

Key’s contribution is a similarly discreet charm, being easily carried as a keychain or affixed to a bag or backpack. Created out of seven copper lamellas each engraved with the seven Greek vowels arranged in an acrostic, this charm was blessed through multiple weeks of conjuration and enchantment with the nymphs and daimons of Aphrodite to bring their bearers closer to compatible communities, mentors, and friends in whichever spiritual and vocational pursuits they desire. Be they training in a particular tradition or gaining favour in an industry for work, these copper talismans, as they jingle and chime, will stir forth the Venusian spirits of the airs to you and facilitate a smoother flow of social opportunities for lasting friendships and connections. Enchanted as the chimes of the very same nymphs we worked with in our Foam-born collection, these are easy to carry tools that can be divined with through sortilege, bound to keyrings and everyday wear, and hung in the wind to bring forth powerful new spiritual allies. They attract good spirits and favourable connections simply by their presence, so daily use through handling them is recommended. The affixed beads were similarly anointed in Key’s Oil of Philia and Oil of Nepherieri, boosting their potency.

Burn incense over them and jingle them together like bells while praying to draw your desired communities to you. Carry them with you to increase the chances of overhearing the right reference, meeting the right person who can introduce you to the right friend, or coming across the right post on social media. Use them to call new, friendly spirits to your side, and combine with Sfinga’s charm for ease of creating and maintaining pacts.

All charms have sold as of May 23, 2025. Thank you!

All purchases will be shipped out within two weeks of purchase.

We thank you so much for your support and appreciation! It is our honour and pleasure to benefit the wonderful sorcerers who patron our wares and listen to our podcast in their own journeys in magic, while also nourishing the temple that trains us to better move through the world as warriors and healers. Laroyê!

Foam-born Aphrodite

May 26, 2024July 30, 2026 ~ Sfinga ~ 2 Comments

To say that this has been a long time in the making would be a perilous understatement. Key and I have teased and hinted at this undertaking for over half a year, at various points ruminating on if it was the right time or not to release our offerings into the world, and at each turn being rejected swiftly in divination. The spirits that have guided our hands and hearts have continually asked for more—the Venusian increase, the love-struck outpouring, the tremendous and awe-inspiring chorus of muses lilting in heart-song—reminding us to never shy or shrink away from the importance of our toiling. What began as a decision born of serendipitous chance had, after all, become a sacred pilgrimage; and what we brought back from those shores was an experience that fundamentally reconstituted us at our cores.

For our thirtieth episode of The Frightful Howls You May Hear, Salt interviews Key and I about what it was like travel to the Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia—the single most holy site of Aphrodite in the world, being a place of pilgrimage for countless cultures across centuries—as well as the Petra tou Romiou or “Aphrodite’s Rock,” being the place of her legendary birth within the foam. Even as we could only share but a fraction of the full experience—the rest being subject to the taboos of secrecy placed upon us by the spirits we encountered—we were utterly delighted to at last unveil a portion of what made this pilgrimage so special. Far from a simple touristic joust, our experience of the Heavenly Queen transformed us beyond every measure, elated us to tears, humbled us to our knees, and pacted us to a worship that will endure for the rest of our days. While Key and I are no strangers to visiting sacred sites and places of power—having spent the last several years being ready travel companions as best friends across countries—we have never hesitated once over the past six months to declare to ourselves and others that this was the single most illuminating and transformative experience across all our adventures.

The Baetyl of Aphrodite: the aniconic site of her cultic worship in Paphos.

The blessed rain that purified us, the hymns we sang at her Sanctuary, the museum guard witnessing the manifestation of the Goddess through the light of the clouds parting and celebrating with us that “She had come,” the voices we heard within the airs swirling her Baetyl, the second physical manifestation at the beach, and everything that occurred in between—all this, to our capability under the necessity of secrecy and privacy as directed by spirits, we go into at various points throughout the episode. If you’re interested in hearing us attempt to even begin to grasp at the significance of what this was for us, we kindly invite you to give the episode a listen. It contains our usual mischief and humour as we process a story we’ve told many friends and ritual elders over the past half year, but also a lot of vulnerability at the humbling manifestations that we bore witness to, and the deep sense of honour and privilege we feel in being able to share a portion of this experience with our kind listeners and supporters.

Aphrodite’s Rock, illuminated by the sun. We took this photograph after having collected our seventh hagstone.

Those on our Patreon (and especially our Patreon’s new Discord server) have seen plenty of hints and previews over the past little while of the collection Key and I have been toiling over ceaselessly since we returned to our homes last year. Every Friday of every month since the mid-fall, he and I have given of ourselves our fullest effort to a series of offerings to share with the world a distillation of that experience. One of our many agreements we forged with the spirit intercessors and intermediaries we encountered was to share the love of our friendship, love of this experience, love for this Goddess, and Love as the force which binds all together as the rapturous intrusion and fermentation of reality; that while some aspects must be kept sub rosa by necessity and by design, the nature of beauty and love is to unfold as the rose does. These violent blossoms must yet germinate their delights within the maws of desire, enfleshed in promise and fulfilled in need.

While the frenzied touch of the Goddess of Love and Beauty kept us restless, pushing us onward to continue perfecting formulas and negotiating pacts, the spirits that guided us throughout this journey (including those who returned home with us from those shores) kept a steady beat to our toiling. The three of us—Salt, Key, and I all—have intimately shared with each other the aspects of the most transformative and incredible spirit-experiences we’ve encountered across our traditions and the stories of our lives, especially as we’ve deepened the immense friendship between us. Yet so rarely are even a portion of these stories allowed to be public in any capacity. At the same time, it also struck us as only appropriate that, in cultivating this burgeoning veneration of Aphrodite in light of all that She had wrought for us on this journey—so suddenly and remarkably cleaving into our lives and reaching into the pits of our natures to wrestle forth our deepest desires to the forefront—it was only appropriate that we allow for some of that vulnerability to be shared beyond words, even beyond writing: but in offerings of the spiritual essence itself.

This was always our heartfelt desire with this Foam-born Aphrodite collection, named in tribute to She who made it possible. While we will certainly create many more offerings in the future with respect to Aphrodite, the spirits of the Tuba Veneris, the angel Anael, and all the powers under the All and Many that is Venus Herself, this gathering here is made both limited and special in the truest senses of the words through the pilgrimage and its theophanies. Key was in charge of the majority of the creations and carried out his work with the diligence and attention to detail of a master artisan. My chief role was to bring about the circumstances that would allow a troupe of Venusian daimones to become bonded to a series of hagstones as their desired vessels, such that some of the very nymphs in service to the Goddess may become familiars to those most in need of their service and companionship.

The view of the beach and Aphrodite’s Rock from atop the slope.

Locals we spoke to in Paphos continually emphasized that when Aphrodite arose, fully-formed, from the foam of the sea, she was carried to the coast by myriad nymph beings that guided her from her rock to the beach. We continued to find stones in the shape of slippers amidst the waters as we swam, which a number of locals told us were the “shoes” of these spirits. After making our offerings, singing to the Goddess, saluting the many spirits of shorelines and beaches we already hold pacts with, and completing the end of our pilgrimage by swimming three times around the Rock itself (said to grant blessings of long-life, beauty, and love upon all who embark on this venture), we fell into deep trance, encountering some of these spirits that guided us back towards the beach as we swam.

What awaited us at the coast was, without exaggeration, as startling as the sight of the clouds parting to the light of a woman’s form before us and the guard in the Sanctuary. Once we returned to where we had left our offerings under the large boulder on the edge, we were approached by an otherworldly beautiful woman with dark, curly hair and a splendorous garnet-red dress. This was one of those encounters which no description could do justice. Everything about her appearance, gait, composure, and ominous gaze—penetrating yet distant, awe-inspiring yet familiar, ferocious yet docile—left the both of us so speechless we were unable to even muster a polite greeting. Her bare feet appeared to effortlessly glide across the pebbles, undisturbed by their rough edges, until she was just a step away from embracing me. My voice was so caught in my throat that I could not even manage the simplest utterance. Instead, she suddenly grasped my hand and impressed in it a stone—the same deep garnet-red as her dress. She did not respond to my breathless attempts to thank her in Greek and in English, physically vanishing around the bend of the stones as Key and I attempted to follow her. Only upon closer inspection later did I realize that its shape physically resembles the coastline from the Sanctuary to the beach itself.

It was after this encounter that Key and I collected the seven smooth, flat hagstones that would become our own “Baetyl”. While there are no shortage of excellent statues of Aphrodite across Cyprus’ many beautiful shops, we were so moved by the aniconic representation of the Goddess at her Sanctuary that as soon as we found seven (and no more, at that, than her sacred number) hagstones, we knew that this would be our shared representation of Her for the rest of our days. Even their holes perfectly overlap each other, allowing water to flow freely through the cairn. Throughout our pacing along the beach, the nymphs that guided us continually inoculated us with their designs; that some wished to accompany us as daimones and intercessory oracles for the Goddess and her pact, while others sought to pass through our hands and into the company of others still.

We took this charge sincerely and with extreme conviction. Even on our breathless ride back to the capital where we were staying, Key and I could not help ourselves but begin to urgently brainstorm how to begin to share some of this bounty with other devotees and sorcerers as we had been directed to.

In our bags I had carried with us a number of hagstones we had collected from our journey. Cyprus was not our first destination, nor would it be our last during this month of travel, and while our reasons for going together were more for work than for pleasure, after this crucial point we began to finally grasp back towards the hands of the spirits that had guided us along the way, with the serpents’ eggs of these holed stones being vital points of germination on the path. The spirits tasked us with bathing the set they had selected from amongst the whole within the very waters between the boulder and the Rock as the first of many steps which would come to dominate my own life over the next half year; a love letter written in wooing desire to bring those same delicate feet over countless many shores home.

The Eyes of Nepherieri

It is no exaggeration for me to say that I spent every Friday toiling over these since I returned home. I had such designs in my own mind for how the shape they could take. The spirits insisted that the hagstones had to be their true seats, outlining for me an entire regimen of how to enliven them as their hearts. In my eagerness, I imagined charm bags wrapped in animal skins and adorned with feathers and beads, only to be swiftly redirected in divination and in dream alike to what they unveiled and insisted upon: prayer ropes. The more I attempted to negotiate the aesthetics I had in mind, the more they insisted upon simple luxury: garnets the colour of the stone the woman gave me (and the colour the hagstones themselves would turn after consecration), mother of pearl in honour of the shell protecting Aphrodite’s feet, and carnelian for her fire, her light, her sighs, her kisses. Seven by seven, her number, and the number which continually revealed itself to us along each stretch of our pilgrimage. Firm in the weight of the beads yet light in their manipulation—these spirits wish to be prayed with to the Goddess, to send each intonation of vowels, each gasp of joy, each tear of grief and longing, each prayer for liberation and recognition in the arms and gaze of Another through their circuit and back through the hole that is the womb of possibility. To be wrapped around the wrist and pressed into the palm, to have yearnings hissed through the gaps and folded directly over spells, to be draped over statues, candles, and workings to empower them with not only the bonds they will forge with their eventual keepers, but everything we were able to pour of ourselves from our experience into their grasps.

Deceptively simple as their designs ended up being, the process of ensouling these fetish-vessels was anything but. Named the Eyes of Nepherieri in tribute to the secret name given in PGM IV. 1265–74, to be intoned internally seven times in order to instill love in another, they were the sole focus of my spiritual labours every Friday for the last two seasons.

It is difficult for me to even begin to illustrate how much effort went into their consecration. With many details having to be kept private for the sake of the spirits involved, what I can reveal is that they received such attention and reverence that they consumed a full calendar month’s worth of continuous effort. They were fed white doves, sat within the blood within a copper vessel until they were dyed red, then macerated in additional red wine, sorcerous oils capturing a Venus Rising in Pisces election that Salt had procured for us, tears shed during declarations of love, dirts collected from famous lovers who were buried together as well as serpent holes within the Sanctuary, and pomegranate seeds collected from the pilgrimage. Each had to be hung upon the branches of seven different trees, all divined upon and associated with the worlds of nymphs, faery beings, and otherworldly passage, and buried under seven different holy mounds and mountains chosen for their own historic importance to the same across the Balkans, Mediterranean, and North America. Each tree and place of power was placated with regular offerings, and, once the stones were retrieved, presented with a communal meal which was then also shared with those in need.

Their final gasping breath of life was given to them through a commingling of sea water collected from Aphrodite’s beach and holy spring water from a mountain dedicated to St. Petka, each poured through the seven hagstones of the main cairn and into their individual mouths. As the water passed through the gates, it was impressed upon me a notion I was all too familiar with from my own work with the Libellus Veneri Nigro Sacer: that the Queen of All claims ultimate victory over every planet and every sphere. Just as light travels from Saturn to Luna to Terra, so Venus claims her rulership over all of germination, placing herself as regent of every sphere of the chain of being. I am genuinely proud of these and feel so humbled and moved that I am able to share them with those who would claim them. Their spirits have passed every “check” of manifestation, ability, and fealty I have asked of them with flying colours, giving unto me individual nicknames that I will provide with those who will take them in; their true names will be revealed only directly from spirit to sorcerer once they are in their destined hands. They will be sent nestled within red velvet pouches filled with rose petals and bits of the Venus Rising in Pisces powder I crafted with Salt’s erudite election, along with instructions sent electronically on how to care for them and work with these incredible allies.

Forty-nine garnets by forty-nine prayers, kissing the womb that unites them.

If you are interested in welcoming one of these unparalleled spirits into your court, I ask that you divine first with whatever method is most appropriate—even a simple nature augury—to see if this would be welcomed by your spirits. They are priced similarly to astrologically elected talismanic jewelry on the advice of many kind astrologer-magicians, not only a reflection of the work that went into ensouling them, but also because the experience they capture beyond the translation of a pact between daimon and sorcerer is not one that we can reproduce in any meaningful way again, even if we ever find the time and ability to embark on a similar pilgrimage in the future. Our dear friend Sasha Ravitch had this to say in our Patreon Discord recently, which touched Key and I profoundly to have our efforts be witnessed so nakedly by another seer and companion of the Others:

One of the things I am struck by is how nothing like this series, nor any item in this series, has ever existed before, nor will ever exist again. It cannot be replicated – not just the creation of the materia and the devotions, but also the literal pilgrimage, the literal appearance of the goddess, the availability at the site of the materia that was to be collected and utilized. This surpasses any astrological magical Venus election. It bypasses all need for those boundaries or rules because the Goddess herself gave her flesh to the work.
Sasha Ravitch

If one of these nymphs calls to you, it would be my sincerest honour to assist you in facilitating this pact. May their gentle hands and fleet-footed gait empower you to the fullest experiences of a relationship with the Goddess Herself, and enchant every relationship and expression of love henceforth.

All Eyes of Nepherieri are sold out! Thank you for your patronage!

The Oil of Nepherieri

The Oil receiving its final consecration.

This is Key’s flagship offering for our bounty, an oil he has described on numerous occasions as an attempt to create a liquid personification of the blessings he bore witness to at Her holy site. Structured around historically attested offerings to Aphrodite, this oil also draws additional inspiration from Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, especially Book One, Chapter 28: What things are under the power of Venus, and are called Venereal.

Built off a foundation of apples and pomegranates gathered from her Sanctuary in Paphos, then dried, reduced to powder, and infused (some hot and some cold depending on the need of the spirits), this oil is itself a living spirit. It may be spoken to, prayed with, and used in any manner as befits the Queen on High. Its birth required immense attention and care, from the ways in which each herbal ally was freshly harvested by hand and by copper, to how each rose and myrtle bush was offered to and sung with. A powder made of the white doves given to the Goddess was added alongside countless other ingredients which must remain unnamed. The vessel of this oil was treated with just as much care as the contents, joining body and spirit in the sighs of incarnation and the joy of life. It was clothed with red and affixed with stones gathered from the temple as a calling to Aphrodite as Kythere (“the red one”), as attested in PGM IV. 2891–2942, and as Kythira; a purported birthplace of the goddess or alternative destination the nymphs carried her to in her most heavenly form. The red cloth itself was extensively consecrated, having seven feasts laid upon it and seven forms of love graced into its folds before it was ready to wrap the mother bottle in its embrace. Countless votive acts were performed to the bottle to ensure it was prepared to contain the essence of Key’s reflection upon his own devotion and experience at the temple.

The bottle you receive should be enshrined and treated as a cultic object of its own. It will be wrapped in its own cloth and act as its own mother bottle, an offering of the liquid form of the Goddess’ blessing. Use it in any manner of working you can imagine, to cultivate Her presence, to anoint your body and the bodies of others, to give unto spirits and to forge their pacts under Her gaze. This is not an oil designed only for the usual reasons of love, sex, beauty, fertility, and so on—there are incredible astrological elections and traditional recipes and formulas across the traditions we are initiated and trained in that can produce oils that work brilliantly for these goals instead. Rather, it is an offering of the Goddess unto the Goddess, forging a relationship between user and spirit directly. Include it in your own fetish vessels and add it to ropes that will tie together the pacts you will forge with even the most capricious of spirits. If you would like to use it for the everyday needs of sorcery and conjure, we recommend that you add seven drops to olive oil you pray Her hymns over to create a new mother bottle specifically for more regular engagement with practical magic.

Oil of Nepherieri

1 fluid ounce / 30 milliliter amber glass dropper bottle, draped in red cloth and secured as a devotional object of ritual use. Price includes shipping. Created by B. Key.

$220.00

Balm of Eros

Tins poured in submission and in domination.

The first of a trinity of offerings Key created in honour of the three most famous forms of love: Eros, Agape, and Philia. The Balm of Eros uses the Oil of Nepherieri as its main oil base, to which were added rose petals and thorns alike, lavender, red clover, damiana, kava, ashwagandha, skullcap, vanilla, a small portion of the dove powder, and dyer’s alkanet to turn the beeswax pink. There is a dream-like, opium haze to its kiss, liberating inhibitions and indulging the smooth, passionate glide of stripping silk, unveiled prowess, coy submission, and lurid command.

Having received extensive consecration and laboratory testing, these balms may be used to strengthen sexual and romantic bonds through mutual anointing over the skin, enhance the sensitivity of skin to touch, allow for more pleasurable and physical experiences with spirit lovers, heal minor cuts and bruises incurred through rougher, passionate play, and much more. They are also especially designed to make the clients of sex workers more docile, pliable, obedient to directions, and swifter to part with money.

Balm of Eros is sold out! Thank you for your patronage!

Tincture of Agape

A small vial of the tincture, gold as honey.

A gift unto the gods, this tincture was crafted with a number of coalescing goals in mind: to instill a benevolent blessing of overwhelming purity and the sensation of divine presence, to improve the intellect, to heighten spirit communion, and to make oneself friendly to spirits (especially those that are the least friendly of all) chief among them. Many herbal pacts were forged on behalf of this tincture, including hand-foraged motherwort as the base, hyssop, lemon balm, lavender, and more. Each individual vial was blessed with a mouse’s paw—taken from one acquired by a spirit at a three-way crossroad—to be as the gentle hand which removes the needle from the lion’s paw, ensuring that one’s humanity has a less abrasive effect to those spirits to whom we smell foully towards, and securing immediate communion between what was once stranger to become now beloved friend. In this way, this is also an incredible ally in repairing broken pacts, frayed bonds, and in allowing forgiveness to give way to lasting harmony.

In creating this tincture, we were both reminded of how deeply it is that love and beauty and the delights of this Goddess—so profoundly worshipped and so deeply called out to even to this day in her many forms and faces—is quite literally the force which makes all the stars in the sky shine and the world itself rotate on its axis, yet it is tragically what we often feel most guilty about claiming for ourselves and owning our own desires for. Our spirits have reminded us that our relationship to being seen and held by love’s embrace—romantic, platonic, or otherwise—is as necessary as breathing, yet so often we are taught it is something to fight for to become worthy of. This tincture is also an offering unto the mysteries of healing, rectification, and right alignment with the reception of love into one’s life, and that perilous and frightening as that journey may be, we never truly walk it alone.

While Key is proud of all of his offerings, this one holds a special place in his retinue for how potent its effects were upon testing. Even the very motherwort that was freshly wild harvested for this tincture was found through the assistance of the Eye of Nepherieri’s nymphs, who led Key directly through a bath of newly-blooming blue flowers into a grove pregnant with the herb. Deploy to approach the distant, to bridge gaps of understanding, to forge new bonds in impossible circumstances, and to urge ephemeral and cautious spirits rush to be present in communion.

Tincture of Agape

1 fluid ounce / 30 millilitre amber glass dropper bottle, crafted with utmost devotion. Price includes shipping. Created by B. Key.

$150.00

Oil of Philia

The Oil of Friendship was born of a desire to strengthen all forms of platonic love. This oil is especially adept at finding new friends and colleagues, repairing familial problems and rifts to create peaceful homes, bring like-minded people into your fold to become fast and immediate friends, and protect existing agreements between parties. The oil is heavily strained and kept as sterile as the olive oil in one’s kitchen, especially that a drop may be incorporated in cooking without anyone being the wiser. Rub on the body, add to food, anoint on mirrors, and use in any way directed by your spirits to find, keep, stoke, and promote lasting harmony and exhilarating, adventurous, flourishing love among found and originating family alike.

For the majority of this oil’s consecration, it was not a fluid that was being addressed, but an empty bottle; slowly filled with words, sighs, blessings, incense smoke, and washed with seven veils of enchanted waters. Expressions of gratitude and love to friends were whispered daily for half a year into its mouth, perfumed with incense and bathed in elected and captured stellar milk. Once the oil was added, the effect was immediate and undeniable, setting instantly into the cushion of affection laid within.

Oil of Philia is sold out! Thank you for your patronage!

Star of Aphrodite Incense

An offering among offerings, to Her on High.

This is an incense which Key laboured over for months until he managed to achieve a smell identical to the fragrance we caught at the Sanctuary. When the Goddess appeared before us, this was the scent which permeated the temple. The smell it releases is utterly remarkable; rich and lofty, sensuous and spellbinding, lurid and elevated. The recipe draws heavily on PGM IV. 2891–2942, the Love spell of attraction which includes an “offering to the star of Aphrodite” composed of white dove’s blood and fat, untreated myrrh, and parched wormwood. Many other floral and herbal notes were added to this base until the scent was exact.

Use to manifest spirits tangibly, to call down divinities, to ensure intercessory spirits transmit your prayers to the ears of the Gods, to procure folkloric love, and call to the Mysteries.

Star of Aphrodite Incense is sold out! Thank you for your patronage!

Pigment of Venus

A pigment born of the kiss of copper, in honour of the relationship between the Goddess and this most sacred metal which harvested all the herbs of the collection. Key’s love of alchemy and his own background as a chemist led him to create a pigment replicating the colour of the waters themselves. Combine with oil to create a paint for sigils, seals, decorating statues, inscribing walls and pieces of art, and folding into the cracks of broken items to restore them anew.

Pigment of Venus is sold out! Thank you for your patronage!

Stele of Aphrodite

The Stele of Aphrodite from PGM VII. 215–18, for friendship, favour, and success. These were cut from tin-plated steel and engraved with a bronze stylus, then reinforced with an engraving tool. They are sturdier than regular tin and can be placed within a wallet for easy carrying. These are a more affordable choice of talisman for everyday wear and use. In addition to following the PGM faithfully, these have been consecrated using the Star of Aphrodite incense, Venus Rising in Pisces incense, and left under the care of the Eyes of Nepherieri for additional potency. They have been tested extensively and have generated luck, fortune, wealth, soothed anger, courted deeper friendship, and propelled forward a feeling of control and peace within the turbulence of changing fortunes, that luck ever be by one’s side.

Beyond carrying them in wallets or on one’s person, they can be put in the bottom of boxes and jars as the core to prosperity vessels, given to spirits that preside over your luck/fortune/money, placed over petitions or under them with a candle burning over the top to nurture the arrival of soul-mate like friends, tied up in string to business cards so that they can persuade a boss or hiring manager to adore you without becoming too obsessed or attached, and far more. We highly encourage experimentation with these as they are a truly “super-charged” version of this reliable charm!

All Steles of Aphrodite are sold out. Thank you for your patronage!

Shields of the Sanctuary

This famous and much-loved charm from PGM XXXVI. 256–64 protects against nightmares, spiritual assailants, curses/malefica, and physical harm. It is recommended that you hide these within your home or bury them somewhere on your property. What makes these amulets special beyond its usual formulation is that they are born of three-sided pot sherds gathered from crossroads that we found along the pilgrimage route around the Sanctuary. There are an incredibly limited amount of only seven sherds, each of which will be inscribed with your name in myrrh ink, consecrated before our shrines, perfumed in the Star of Aphrodite incense, and anointed with the Oil of Nepherieri. As such, these are especially precious and will be custom made for each individual client. If you claim one of these, please include in your notes if you would like your name to be different from the one on your purchase receipt.

All Shields of the Sanctuary are sold out. Thank you for your patronage!

None of the recipes and items will ever be in stock again once they are out, as they required the unique combination of the pilgrimage and its blessings to craft. Key and I were privileged to see many ancient temples and cultic sites across Dalmatia and the Mediterranean, including in Greece itself along our dealings. It would be our privilege and hope to be able to embark on such a journey again one day, immeasurably so with Salt in our company as well when our busy schedules afford it. Yet it was specifically in Paphos that an experience of this magnitude bore itself to us. We would not dare suppose that anything similar might happen again if and when we next find ourselves on those incredible shores. It is the unique confluence of the witnessing of the Goddess, the blessings with unfolded, physical manifestations of the path, and omens which hounded us at every turn that led to this limited collection, born of our deepest devotions. It would be our utmost honour and privilege to share our love and the love of this work and its spirits with you.

All prices include shipping. If purchasing multiple items, please note that each will ship from the individual who had created them, so you will receive two packages if acquiring offerings from Sfinga and B. Key together. Please allow for seven business days to ship your orders, as each undergoes an additional blessing before being sent.

May the heavenly, illustrious, laughter-loving Queen illuminate futures of loves untold, of passion thought only to exist in stories, and of fulfilled desire for companionship to be born of true perception. As She crests over the horizon, may your fulfilment surge to meet Her.