I’m beyond thrilled that Key has joined us on this blog! After years of deep friendship between the three of us, plenty of sorcerous collaboration, and a great many late-night Discord calls discussing all manner of philosophy, magic, and jailbreaking our way through various texts, it’s a real joy to collaborate in blogging as well. Spending time together in person this month had been such a boon (the hope is to meet up again soon in the coming months!), and we’re already plotting a whole new host of experiments to try out and materia to make, including some Boxgrove Manual and Book of Oberon fun.

Within a few hours of picking him up at the airport, we had already begun to plan out our first working. We had both been itching to conjure, create, bewitch, and just collaborate together post Key’s licença, and had a great many ideas already in mind, but we both wanted to do something that very night—we were just not yet certain as to what. Our answer dawned on us when, on a trip to the local grocery to pick up extra offerings for each other’s spirits, our gaze landed on the pound cake aisle, and our minds wandered to one of our favourite mutual folk saints.

St. Expedite has been a phenomenal ally to us both. In my case specifically, his repeated swift intercession has earned him a place even in my Eastern Orthodox family’s homes, with various relatives submitting their own petitions to me to offer on their behalf. For Key, he’s formed a powerful component of his ever-increasing court of treasure hunting alchemists. We’ve both experimented with various charms, talismans, and workings received from the hands of the good Saint, and decided it was as good a time as any—that is, right now—to create a powder we had been independently receiving the pieces of the recipe for over some time. While we petition St. Expedite’s intercession in moments of dire need, the intention behind this powder is to have on hand a dust consecrated to his virtues to include in all manner of other workings, made under the auspices of this martyr’s fervent and miraculous hands.

I had been saving a jar of dirt collected on his feast from Our Lady of Guadeloupe Church in New Orleans (complete with some dust and pebbles from his famous statue housed within), that one of our godbrothers in Quimbanda had mailed to me. Initially, I kept thinking that I would use it on his next feast, being this year’s, to finally create this powder. The message both of us received simultaneously was loud and clear—the only “election” when it came to the timing of its creation was now, immediately. While we could certainly put the finishing touches on its consecration, and birth other sets of materia magica from it later on the feast, it was imperative that we work then and there in the spirit of “today”.

The base is fairly simple: cinnamon, basil, rosemary, ginger, hyssop, chamomile, lemongrass, white sage, ground nutmeg, laurel, mint, lavender, honey, rum, red wine, and rose petals—all prayed to and enlivened—formed a potent beginning for a dust dedicated to quickening manifestations and bringing immediate success, especially in matters of wealth and road opening. To this was added a powdered slice of pound cake from an entire loaf offered to the Saint, the aforementioned dirt, a burnt and powdered copy of Psalm 23 from a Bible, the verses of Psalm 77: 14-15 written across five bay leaves that were subsequently enchanted and powdered, and pinches of Spica and Regulus powders (elected by Salt). At one point, one of my spirits manifested, commanding Key to taste the mixture, at which point he immediately divined the final series of elements that were needed (and will naturally remain secret). One decidedly Orthodox ingredient that we included is my very own Thursday Salt from 2021, the famous rye flour and coarse rock salt combination made in many Slavic households on Orthodox Maundy Thursday.

The mixture additionally received drops of Key’s personal St. Expedite oil as well as our good friend Mahigan’s Oil of St. Expedite. We can both highly recommend his work over at Kitchen Toad and were delighted to include his oil alongside Key’s own. I’ve tested both oils thoroughly, and both have ensured that events which were fixed to take place months in the future occurred within a few days or even the same day, cutting down deadlines and bringing shipments to the doors of the small businesses of my family and friends swiftly.

At the time that Key had made his recipe, which included separate consecrations and steps on Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and finally Easter Sunday, he had also divined a mojo hand to compliment the oil with. The bag itself must be made from a red cloth that served as the cape of the Saint’s consecrated statue for a certain period of time, to which is added a series of ingredients including the charmed die, and secured on the outside with a cross formed by a cinnamon stick and a skeleton key. The final product of the powder was added to this hand as well, at which point it was given its name and fully ensouled.

In the spirit of the powder itself, everything had to be consecrated and made immediately, today. Once it was sufficiently prayed over and activated, and its corresponding fixed candle consumed, we scooped it into its mother jar and tossed in a prayer card anointed with both oils. Since then, including this powder in workings, as part of candle-fixing blends, or as components in herbal talismans has ensured for consistently fast manifestation rates.

There are plenty of more St. Expedite-related workings to come, especially as Key and I prepare to create some new goodies for the saint leading up to his feast. In the meanwhile as we work on more materia, consider checking out the following article by our good friend and godbrother Matt Venus of Spiritus Arcanum to learn more about the good saint: [LINK]. If you’re in the mood to make a powder to the saint yourself, consider petitioning him for a similar recipe to be revealed and make it as soon as you’re able in preparation for his feast, or, you can buy a bottle from Mahigan [HERE] for the same purpose (and consider his excellent candles, oils, and rosaries too!).