Dearest Karcists! It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since we last announced our St. Nicholas’ Day group working. We were incredibly touched by the success of last year’s St. Nicholas’ Day Candle Service, which allowed Key and I (Sfinga) to raise over $2000 USD for our Cabula as part of a winter fundraiser. This year, we’ve decided to continue in our newfound tradition of December Nikoljdan (the Serbian Orthodox feast of St. Nicholas on the 19th of December) workings and open up this opportunity again into an even more involved community rite. As the winter grows and the days approach the longest night, we intend to take up the banner of Sveti Nikola once more and build on this opportunity to instantiate a yearly tradition of workings by our hands for the community—both in magic and in proceeds.
By donating to this group rite, your name (or the name of a loved one—please contact us if you would like the name to be different from that which appears on the PayPal receipt) will be dressed in two different petitions: a ritual of fortune, levity, and joy from myself, Sfinga, and a ritual for road opening, insight, and wisdom from B. Key. The goals are closely aligned with the previous year’s rite, and they will likely keep these themes going forward throughout the years with some changes determined by divination, albeit the methodologies will vary in the spirit of St. Nicholas’ many traditions. This year, we will be working primarily with by the light of the sorcerous lamp, calling on the saint as both navigator amidst the stormy seas and devil perched on the perilous cliffs.
Key and I will once more draw on our familiarity of St. Nicholas veneration from the Serbian and Dutch folk traditions. Last year’s working was a candle service, and this year candles will only be one part of a greater whole, in which we will construct two complex oil lamps (one for the saint and one for the devil, as is tradition) with each name given directly to the herbal matter within. From these two mothers we will create many daughter-lamps which we will complete the feast with by floating them out into the lake to light the voyage for each named party’s prosperity, success, luck, and cunning insight into future possibilities in the new year. We will also prepare a feast for the saint and all the spirits that walk with him. In addition to a medley of Serbian and Dutch foods, a slava bread will also be prepared, whose crumbs, along with Thursday salt and a prosperity powder, will be added to the daughter-lamps we will float into the waters before midnight. We’re looking to double the offerings and double the effort for this year, and continue the momentum ever forward in love, honour, and gratitude to all the communities that have nourished us and whom we hope to continue nourishing in return!
This time will also mark the beginning of a series of workings on Sveta Varvara (the 17th of December on the Old Calendar for St. Barbara), linking the trinity of successive days of 17th (Varvara), 18th (Sava Osvećeni), and 19th (Nikola) for the growing of Christmas wheat and oracular power. Several charms will grow out of these workings which we will keep you updated on, including an exciting collaboration we’ll be able to speak more on in the new year.
A blog post containing pictures and our reflections on the ritual will go live in the days following the feast so that all who participated may have a record of its completion. The rite will be performed on the 19th of December.
If you would like to submit your name for this working, please use the link below. Subscribers to our Esteemed Initiate tier on Patreon are automatically entered into this rite at a discount as part of their monthly group ritual service.
All proceeds will go directly to our Cabula, as was the case last year, in the spirit of the Winter holidays. As always, we hope that this intersection of our traditions and communities serves you well in your New Year’s petitions and plans, and provides an ample boost to all you seek to grow and harvest in the coming months!
Thank you for participating in this year’s rite! A follow up post will be made available in the coming days.
After many months of prayer, supplication, and consecration, these charms, born of the fiery hands of Sts. George and Vitus, are at last available.
I’ve teased the mention of these for some time both on the podcast and on our official Discord server for our Patreon supporters, but the origin of these vigilant eyes began early in April of this year, when I first began to flesh out the shape of what my yearly offering to St. George would involve. While not always resulting in a public charm to share with the world, this practice has been one that has helped mark the triumph of the spring and summer seasons through the auspices of St. George, Jarilo, and all the spirits that follow under his red banner. This year, the thematic motif elected through divination was that of St. George’s lance, specifically in its capability to blot out that most difficult and tenacious foe: the consuming voyeurism of the evil eye. So when my great friend Vanessa of the illustrious Sword + Scythe informed me that she was working on a charm for St. George’s lance as well, I was absolutely over the moon.
We spent the “George season” of his Catholic to Orthodox feasts workshopping what a collaboration in honour of this mighty saint might look like. Divination revealed that my own charms would require a base of three different powders, each prepared at a different point of the season between Đurđevdan (St. George’s Day) on May 6th and Vidovdan (St. Vitus’ Day) on June 28th—a time period associated with the vanishing of the Pleiades from the night sky so that those seven sisters (or brothers) may consult with the Mothers of the Sun, Moon, and Winds respectively. The first would be a powder of St. George’s lance, born of herbs traditionally harvested on his day for vigour, stamina, potency, and protection, united under the image of his spear to seek out, identify, and neutralize the evil eye. Born, fed, and sealed on his day, this was the same powder I mailed Vanessa to include under each garnet faceted in their gorgeous sterling silver necklace charms.
Slava bread made on Vidovdan presented to my icon corner.
The second was a St. Vitus powder created and fed on Vidovdan from traditional herbs and materia under his watchful gaze, birthed to lend these charms the ability to detect, identify, and anticipate sources of malefica, Evil Eye, intrusive scrying, and magical attack. I offered and prepared a full meal to the saint including fish, projara, ajvar, olives, cheese, a slavski kolač, and many more offerings as part of this work. The kolač itself would become an integral part of the charms to come, as each charm bag includes three dried squares of this bread to represent the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (as well as George, Vitus, and the Mother of the Moon as a folkloric figure invoked in this work).
The third is an anti-evil eye powder to anticipate, nullify, and deflect three traditional sources of the eye: jealousy, awe/admiration, and spite. This formula was born out of several recipes and herb lists I collected across Croatia and Serbia, which were then confirmed and added to through divination. A brief list of some of the most vocal allies that went into its creation include: blackthorn, hawthorn, garlic, red pepper, fulgurite, salt, hyssop, dogwood, wheat, mica from a prominent witch mountain, yew, rosemary, valerian, fur of a black wolf, ground pearl, and much more. Additionally, powders I created with the instructions of my mentors in Balkan witchcraft for the Pleiades, the Mother of the Moon, and the Forest Mother were also included in this dust to further augment its virtues to the task at hand.
Each charm was tied up in cloth with red thread anointed in an anti-evil eye oil, and adorned with a glass nazar bead washed in seven holy waters sourced from sites of power in the Balkans, to watch for gossip, lies, threats, possessiveness (over one’s own work and spirits), and jealousy. I am immensely proud of these and have already given some out as gifts to close friends to test their abilities to great effect. The red threads are tied in a loop so that they may be hung in one’s home, facing the door or a prominent window of one’s choosing, so that their burning eye may blot out the venom of adversaries and intrusions with the might of St. George’s own spear.
The charms writhing beneath my tree of St. George.
Vanessa expertly made their own charms in the spirit of St. George’s immense ability to protect the weak and deliver decisive action in the face of danger. In addition to housing my powder, their charms include garnets that were prayed over on his Catholic feast day, washed with holy water, and placed with a St. George relic medal until they were set into the beautiful lances. I have been wearing mine faithfully in devotion to him and have already noticed its benefit as a protective amulet, especially in its precision and virility.
Vanessa’s photograph of our charms together.
I am immensely proud of our work together as the first of many other collaborations to come! Three dozen are available for sale below. Hang them above your doors and windows, or situate them to watch over where you sleep or work. These are slightly larger charm bags made to be hung in the home, in the car, or wherever the Eye’s consuming gaze watches you most. Vanessa has seven of their excellent charms available on their website available [here].
Sts. George and Vitus’ Charms Against the Evil Eye
One charm bag for voracious, proactive protection against all maladies the Evil Eye may bring. Shipping included.
After a full month of gathering, conjuration, and consecration, I am deeply pleased to unveil a new offering in the holy name of Sveti Haralampije, or St. Charalambos—the beloved saint known in the Serbian folk tradition as the Gospodar Svih Bolesti, or “Lord of All Diseases.” Here is a saint so beloved and revered for his capacity to heal any and all ailments that his very feast, celebrated February 10th or 23rd depending on the calendar, is understood to be a last chance to ward off the Čuma, a spirit of disease and illness sometimes said to be the wrathful form of the folk saint Bibi, who is her kinder, protective face when placated appropriately. The Balkan traditions vary on which saint’s day is the true feast upon which the Čuma is propitiated, with Čumindan being for the majority of Serbia Sveti Atanasije, whose feast at the end of January aligns with one of the most common dates that Bibi herself is honoured. It is during this period, right before Sretenje or Old Candlemas, that various rituals are performed to placate her wrath so that she does not become the “right hand of the Devil” and lay waste upon our settlements in her black-cloaked form as wandering witch.
It was on St. Athanasius’ day that this work began, then, with the preliminary offerings given unto Čuma and Bibi in both guises: shoes so that she may walk freely, a walnut comb so that she may brush her hair, a mirror so that she may see herself, and various sweets that she may refresh herself. According to folk tradition, by showing her this kindness and welcoming her as a house guest, as opposed to denying her entry and sustenance, her wrath is cooled, and she instead enters as an aunt and ally, softened by the hospitality. Much of Balkan folk magic, of course, involves the naming of familial pacts, such that even troublesome spirits are given their valued role within the clan structure. As Čuma is given her kindness, so too is she implored to pass over us and return that kindness by sparing us from her hordes of plague witches.
These blessings were built upon through the important holy day of Sretenje (Candlemas), finally leading into Charalambos’ day proper. The Lord of All Diseases is likewise given as one of the candidate dates of Čumindan in other parts of the Balkans—though more importantly this, for some villages, is the true end of the Wolf Days (the winter season beginning in early November), and the last opportunity to thank and herald the Master of the Wolves. It is on his day that the serpents below begin to burrow their way ever closer to the surface of the light, stirred by Old Candlemas and drawn towards the first Saturday of Great Lent, Todorova Subota or Hroma Subota (Theodore’s Saturday or Lame Saturday), in which Veliki Todor and his todorci riders embark on their nightly procession.
St. Charalambos is particularly notable for having lived to 113 years old. He was brutally martyred despite his age, lacerated with iron hooks and flayed alive, his only response to his torturers being: “Thank you, my brethren, for scraping off the old body and renewing my soul for new and eternal life.” It should come as no surprise, then, that St. Charalambos is deeply linked to serpent power within the folk tradition, as is any saint who was flayed; his ecstasies being inherently intertwined with the healing potency of shedding the skin.
In addition to being a powerful healer, he is also the patron saint of apiaries and beekeepers, precisely because he was able to heal others with honey. A jar of honey was sanctified in his name on his feast, during which he was also honoured with freshly baked bread, and the honey from within was used to mark my front door as well as each icon of him that I possess, in honour of his power and in memory of his pact with Čuma.
It was this bread and honey that laid the groundwork for the charms I created with him. From the period of his feast to Todorova Subota, I continuously prayed to the retinue of wolf and serpent spirits to which he belongs, gathering the necessary herbs and preparing the sorcerous powders that would go within these charms. In addition to propitiating Veliki Todor with sacrifice, I continually kept my shrine to the Master of the Wolves in illumination throughout, reminding him through prayer and offering of the ledger of deeds and boons made good on. Throughout this process, I continually prayed for the petition to be allowed to create a set of charms under his auspices for the healing of disease and the prevention of illness, by way of creating mobile, portable satellites of this pact between the martyr and Čuma for others to benefit from.
When the time finally came to create these, and the requisite omens were revealed, I prepared a set of cotton muslin drawstring bags, suffumigating them with myrrh and anointing them with holy water gathered from a well sacred to St. Charalambos. The bread specially baked for and offered on his feast was divided into equal parts and placed within each bag as a promise of the fulfillment of its magic. Rosemar, thyme, basil, lemon balm, wormwood, broadleaf plantain, eyebright, and many additional herbs picked for their virtues in healing different parts of the body were wrapped around this bread, to which were also divided the full 41 beans used in divination to approve of the recipe and enchantment and a generous helping of specially-made Thursday Salt. In addition to several powders sourced from my own recipes and study, attuned to different deities and fixed stars relevant for this working, I also prepared for each bag one small reflective mirror that was anointed with the honey consecrated on his feast. Each mirror was presented before Čuma, reminding her that whomever carries this bag upon their person has paid her their due and has called her “Aunt”—meaning that as they are family, so too must she treat them kindly and spare them.
To verify that these pacts were confirmed, a specific physical omen was demanded of every single mirror, with no charm being complete without its verified appearance. Key, who was present for the making of these charms, was my secondary witness—we both had to agree that we witnessed the physical manifestation before continuing. The design of these charm bags are intentionally plainer and more subtle than many of my other offerings, so that they may be carried easily on one’s person as an ordinary Christian amulet that one could easily suggest was purchased from a monastery gift shop. My wish is for these to be kept in one’s purse or shoulder bag without any anxiety as to what others would think or feel if they were discovered.
The completed charms before his icon.
Finally, a cumulative offering was given unto Čuma in her guise as Bibi, with candy, mirrors, money, bread, and honey placed before her alongside a walnut comb in memory of her pact. After reciting a lengthy prayer in her honour, she was reminded that each mirror within the charms was given the same honey sweetening her tongue now in St. Charalambos’ cooperation and care, and as such the charms carry, independently of me as their maker, the same blessing and safety my pact with her generates for me. Key and I tied little wooden crosses to each bag using purple thread and oral charms, completing the consecration by extinguishing one beeswax candle’s flame into each cross before relighting it again to instill the spirit fully within. In this way, each cross has already suffered once in the place of its owner—just as we say that lightning does not strike the nettles (“neće grom u koprive” in Serbian, “wo Brennnesseln stehen, schlug der Blitz nicht ein” in German), for nettle already stings as lightning does—so too do many of our rituals involve putting out controlled fire first on the tongue or into the wood of the home so that we are already “bitten” once, and therefore cannot be again by accidents and tempests. Through calling on Christ’s resurrection, each charm was fully imbued and reminded of their pact; that they have already paid their toll to the spirits of disease, and that they have already suffered a blight once. In this way, their conjuration is complete, through the settlement of their virtues and the honouring of their place as wards against all disease and illness, and the swift curing of any aches, pains, and viruses that may come with time.
Carry these on you for protection and to cure ailments. These charms are fully self sufficient and do not need any upkeep, but praying to them, holding them between the hands and above the afflicted area of the body, and anointing the cross with holy oil once a month is always welcome. Pray for continued safety and protection against all blights, in the name of St. Charalambos and Christ Eternal, and walk through the world with renewed confidence and peace.
Twenty of these charms were made under the auspices of St. Charalambos and his retinue, drawing on traditional Balkan folk magical techniques as well as personal innovations through spirit teachings. If you would like to purchase one or more for yourself or a loved one, the link is below and includes shipping. Please allow a week for orders to be fulfilled and shipped to the address provided via PayPal.
All charms have been sold as of March 27, 2025. Thank you so much for your patronage!
O, milosrdni mučeniče, moli se Gospodu za nas, da nas sačuva od gladi i svake bolesti, i da nam podari izobilje plodova zemaljskih, i umnoženje stoke potrebne ljudima i svega što nam je na korist a ponajviše da se udostojimo, molitvama tvojim, Carstva Nebeskog Hrista Boga našega, Kome priliči čast i poklonjenje, sa Bespočetnim Ocem Njegovim i Presvetim Duhom, sada i uvek i u vekove vekova.
As listeners of our podcast may have heard, I recently moved across the country, obtaining a brand new job and home at the beginning of the year. One of the joys of starting anew is the ability to witness first hand all your spirits settling in alongside you, scouting out the unfamiliar landscape, introducing themselves to its land spirits, and charting out the cartography of the many worlds which intersect across it. Since moving, my spirits have been constantly reporting to me their findings, leading me to walk and drive around exploring all manner of churches, crossroads, cemeteries, parks, forests, and trails off the beaten path to discover places of power, materia, and contact points for various beings. As much as I’m still very much putting my roots down, it goes without saying that my spirits have accomplished this far more quickly than I, taking to the new mountainous landscape with ease and excitement.
Yet as I’ve been getting set up, so too have all manner of other spirits been knocking at my newly-Christened door. Our latest episode, Cleansing the Home, was born out of this consideration: how to navigate routine spiritual hygiene for your dwelling space, as well as manage the ambient dead that will inevitably flow through it. With all the witchcraft that I get up to, many of my shrines behave as lighthouses for the dead, while others keep them far at bay, signaling danger and potential, devouring should any come close. As I’ve been constantly engaging with the dead of this new land in my waking and dreaming lives alike, I’ve found myself growing in my arsenal of techniques for how to care for them, nourish them, redirect them, and ultimately ward them away when it becomes necessary.
It is through these experiments that I’ve given birth to these charms. Constructed out of locally foraged grasses and brambles said to stave off the dead, dirts from cemetery gates, cemetery walls, church doors, and monuments dedicated to reclaiming space and territory previously lost, and numerous additional herbal and animal powders mixed into a matrix of black clay, these small, spherical talismans are meant to be carried on the person should one find themselves especially ghost-bothered, or alternatively hung up on a wall or placed on a shelf in the home where poltergeist activity is especially strong. These charms serve to turn away wayward, predatory, and fragmented dead, and to act as a sort of “vacuum”, neutralizing spiritual detritus and astral parasites. In addition to providing this protection, these charms also amplify the ability of your own spirits to manifest in the space left behind, ensuring that it is your allies going bump in the night, not strangers. In this way, these tools benefit your spirits by increasing their reach in your home, while keeping away unwanted visitors who may be lurking in hopes of catching a few crumbs off the plates of your familiars.
One of the charms, resting and receiving empowerment within a serpent-bone prayer rope and a rosary, each carrying prayers for and against the dead.
I’ve produced a larger batch of these and am making them available to sorcerers of every background to gift to their spirits, keep in their homes, or carry with them when out and about. These are especially useful for those prone to getting spirit sicknesses, who are sat upon heavily by the dead in general, or who work in places like hospitals, the funeral industry, or near and around cemeteries and places of frequent accidents. Take them with you to breathe easily in the chaos of it all, and hear your own spirits more clearly without the discordance.
It was a real joy to work on these and test them in real time until they passed every check and balance. I’m especially excited to share them with you all in anticipation of the Vernal Equinox!
All charms in the first batch have been sold out. Thank you!
All orders will ship via USPS with tracking within one week of being placed. Please note that due to the handmade nature of these charms and prevalence of natural materials within, there is some slight variation in size and shape. Thank you for your kind support!
At long last, here is an offering two and a half years in the making, born of discipline, love, veneration, and deep, sorcerous hunger. In the holy names of Saints Cyprian and Justina of Antioch, the magician and exorcist, warlock and virgin, theurge and mystic, the nail of command and the palm of cunning—here are a pair of tools for the discerning karcist following in the legacy of these mightiest of exemplars.
It is no secret that these blessed martyrs are some of my most intimate and long lasting patrons, with much of my personal and professional life being dedicated to the exploration and study of their mysteries. As I am presently wrapping up a crucial project I have undertaken in their honour, it felt right to finally put out into the world a pair of magical fetishes created in reflection and fulfillment of this very journey, from the very pilgrimage Key and I undertook which resulted in us being forever changed on Aphrodite’s shores, to the thousands upon thousands of prayers collected upon each gathering of knowledge and communion. Whether you’re a devoted follower of Sts. Cyprian and Justina looking to establish a deeper relationship with them, or a karcist looking to harness Cyprian’s authority over magic and Justina’s capacity to unmake its very fabric, this pairing is born of their mutual inseparability in power and wisdom. Drawing on my training and initiation into several forms of Balkan folk Orthodox cunning crafts and oral charming traditions, as well as personal study under Orthodox folk practitioners who venerate Sts. Cyprian and Justina, both the prayer rope and the horn charm were crafted with the aim of sharing some of the potent magics that went into all the adventure and training these saints have opened the roads to across my travels.
The Virgin’s Tears Prayer Rope
The prayer rope adorning a charm and consecrated chonta wood staff.
While Cyprian’s appeal among magicians may allow his fame to at times overshadow his counterpart, it is Justina’s power that ultimately vanquished him, her exorcisms that sent back his spirits in the Confessio Cypriani, and by her grace that he came to find his eventual sanctuary within the crimson gash of martyrdom and the gleaming crown of sainthood. The holy pair are ever inseparable within Orthodox iconography, always depicted together side by side in their proselytization; their charms, spells, oil recipes, and prayers tying their fates to each other, his salvation into her dexterous hands, and her mysteries within his sinistral embrace.
This Orthodox style prayer rope was crafted in the aim of venerating the pair through the access point of St. Justina’s all-conquering prayers. An overtly Christian tool, it is designed with the Orthodox prayer rope in mind, albeit with the spacers featuring in such a way that it could be easily adopted to the use of the Catholic rosary. The main beads are howlites, woven between knots of purple (the bishop’s colour), each anointed with holy oil gathered from The Holy Monastery of Saints Cyprian and Justina in Fili, Greece. Large, authentic freshwater pearls—memories of Justina’s purity, vanquishing tears, and a marker of certain Balkan folk Orthodox mysteries relating to her magic—form the spacers, washed in holy water gathered from the font in the Church of Saints Cyprian and Justina in Meniko, Cyprus. Both churches were visited during their Orthodox feast days (on the different old and revised Julian calendars, allowing for them to be attended in the same month), and as such the materia was gathered during their very masses. Each pearl is also nestled between amethysts fed a black rooster on the Catholic feast, empowering them with the sacrifice of martyrdom and a calling out to Cyprian’s famed sorcery. The rope connects through a bone skull, itself anointed in an oil of sorcerous insight, the recipe given to me by a Croatian folk practitioner who works primarily with the two saints, and terminates in a small icon also purchased in Greece.
Woven together under the auspices of the virgin, this prayer rope is consecrated for the binding and elevation of spirits. Consecrated primarily through St. Justina’s purity and power, with flashes of St. Cyprian’s cunning woven throughout in the reddened amethysts, this tool channels the saints in their ability to tame, command, and civilize spirits, as well as in Justina’s capacity to break all enchantments. It is suitable for any and all prayers, including liturgies to the holy pair (as well as any other intercessory spirit, Christian or otherwise), the counting of mantras, and the building of power. It may be draped over candles, activated spell remnants, and the vessels of spirits to impose your petitions, increase the potency of workings, or to break a particular curse, crossed condition, or evil eye over an object belonging to or picture of a victim.
These prayer ropes are especially adept at removing the magic other sorcerers have cast. Simply uttering the Jesus Prayer over each bead, placing it over a glass of water and a white candle anointed with holy oil, and then consuming the water once the candle is burnt is enough to cleanse off most enchantments. If you feel the persistent snag of an evil eye or jealous gaze, or would like additional protection when venturing into the public, you may wrap the prayer rope around your left hand (the traditional way of carrying them when not being used) or wear it over your head as a necklace. When dabbling with infernal spirits, the restless dead, and those beings for whom vampirism is a primary nature, call on St. Justina’s aid and place the rope over your head to bestow her pearlescent caul of protection over you. The clever karcist will find many ways to drape this tool over goetic vessels, the sigils of disagreeable spirits, and dirt and materia collected from places of great violence in order to make their spirits hospitable to their commands.
There are nine available for purchase, either individually or as part of the bundle below.
All prayer ropes have sold out!
The Sorcerer’s Goat Horn Fetish
Twelve horns for the twelve disciples of Christ and the twelve students of the Black School, the thirteenth laid before the feet of St. Cyprian.
Just as the ropes were consecrated primarily through St. Justina, with flashes and empowerments laid by her companion, here their roles exchange in the creation of twelve horn fetishes. Each goat horn is filled with a matrix that has been worked on for three consecutive years of veneration, with the middle year being when the masses were attended in their monasteries in the Mediterranean. While the full list cannot be revealed, a small sample of the materia included are: dirt from three churches dedicated to Cyprian and Justina from three different countries, dirt from nine churches visited over the nine days of the Cyprians (the novena between Cyprian of Carthage and Cyprian of Antioch’s Catholic feasts), dirt from nine cemetery gates, dirt from nine priests, dirt from nine nuns, dirt from nine bishops, dirt from the grave of a dead sorcerer who worked with St. Cyprian in life, black rooster, black cat, black toad, serpent and goat materia, tears collected from their enshrined icons within an Orthodox church dedicated to them, horseshoe nails dipped in oils dedicated to Cyprian’s sorcery, an entire burnt Livro de São Cipriano, the same amethysts and pearls featured on the prayer rope, and much more.
Each portion was prayed over, offered to, and judiciously enchanted over countless nights, receiving a final consecration on Orthodox Epiphany of this year. While the base prayers and manners of conjuration were carried out in a folk Orthodox manner, these horns draw on a wide breath of Cyprianic study across traditions, including the Spanish and Portuguese Ciprianillos, Norwegian prayers from the Svartkonstböcker, and the saint’s presence in my lineage of Quimbanda. With each step requiring multiple passes in divination to be approved, these charms are some of the more complex that I’ve worked on, and it is a true pride and joy to share them. The horn shape and casing of black beeswax, pearl, and nazar beads were taken in inspiration from patuá technology, and while these charms are not themselves patuá strictly, they invoke my training in their creation as a part of my dedication to expressing my care for these saints in all the traditions that I know them in. Just as the amethysts flag Cyprian in the prayer ropes, the Nazars and pearls flag Justina here, always calling one with the other in each incarnation.
These fetishes are exceptionally versatile. Ultimately, they are consecrated for the purpose of opening roads into spiritual and sorcerous initiation—to bring their owners closer to new opportunities of study, meeting with potential mentors across traditions, the opening of roads to hidden opportunities for magical training, and the ability to travel widely in pursuit of wisdom. Inside each horn is a physical testimony to the studies I was able to undertake through the blessing and permission of many mentors across countries and cultural settings. Drawing on the legend of St. Cyprian as the chief exemplar of a Mediterranean sorcerer, who had sampled the offerings of countless mystery schools and lineages, these horns are made in dedication to Cyprian the eternal student of theurgy and thaumaturgy. On their own, even without direct use, they work to expand your network of reliable and competent contacts for the gathering of knowledge, resources, rare materia, affordable travel, and channels of communication. Simply speak your intentions into the open face where the Nazar lies and place it down by a shot of liquor (whiskey, gin, and brandy preferred) and a candle (white, red, or purple preferred if not beeswax) once a month to nourish its passive road opening, or increase it manyfold by making this offering daily and praying.
Additionally, the charms may be placed by your shrine to the saints to empower their presence, held to your mouth like a speaker to command spirits—or relay messages to the minds and dreams of others while enchanting them in ceremony—used as a wand when held point forward, and placed over other workings to empower them ever further under the auspices of St. Cyprian. While their passive benefit already is one which pierces the threads of fate to continually gather initiatory experiences, knowledge, and opportunities to you, the manner in which they may be actively engaged with in sorcery are fairly limitless. The dirt of the sorcerer who once worked with St. Cyprian within the horn acts as the “master” of all the nuns, priests, and bishops within, creating a choir that prays with and for your magical success in all your tasks. Speak into its mouth freely and allow the tears of Cyprian and Justina to shield, bolster, and purify your commands, straightening your wording and hesitation and projecting forth the ultimate authority in your workings. Even if you may swallow your tongue or stutter an utterance, the holy and sorcerous dead within will join you in their ceaseless prayer, maximizing your efforts and bolstering each petition to further compound their manifestation into reality. You do not need to be a devotee of Sts. Cyprian and Justina to work with these horns; they will lend their power to any who possess them—as well as the boldness to carve out a more potent, adventurous, and magically vibrant life.
There are nine available for purchase, each individually or as a part of the bundle below.
The prayer rope and horn together before the saints.
All goat-horns are now sold. Thank you so much for your support!
In the name of the holy martyrs Cyprian and Justina of Antioch, swift helpers of all who approach them, guide us and protect us against all enemies visible and invisible, grant us the power to resist our temptations, and in the hour of our end be our aid and lead us to victory so that we may be honoured and celebrated amongst the saints, unto the ages of ages. Amen.
On behalf of Key and myself, we truly cannot thank you all enough for your overwhelming support of our first foray into providing a group ritual service. With your generous support, we were able to raise over $2000 USD for our Cabula‘s furnace, all while giving back to the wonderful people who listen along to our podcast and follow our various lectures and online offerings.
As promised, we wanted to share a brief recap of the workings as we completed them. On my end, I and a good friend and fellow practitioner of folk Orthodox magic, Maria (recently featured on The Frightful Howls!) put together slava bread, koljivo, red wine, and baklava for Sveti Nikola before one of the several icons I have for him as the patron saint of my patrilineal grandmother’s family. For the over a hundred people who participated in the rite, I prepared one pure beeswax candle for each name, which I wrote across a piece of paper and anointed with holy oil, prosperity oil, and a protection oil specifically made to avert the Evil Eye. Crossing the names with a longform prayer to St. Nicholas in Serbian, I placed it at the bottom of a large, terra-cotta dish and filled it with Thursday Salt, flour, sorcerous powders of prosperity, and multiple kinds of grains to nourish the saint and his horse on their journey to fulfill each spoken and unspoken desire.
Sfinga’s table laid for St. Nicholas.
Each candle was individually anointed with the same combination of oils and placed within the dish, with a separate name spoken over each as they were lit. Maria and I stood vigil over the flames until the last extinguished, scorching the flour mixture until it was the same texture and appearance as the Thursday Salt. We then emptied out the bowl into a cloth bundle, over which we laid the bread and petition, and tied it up to be taken to church. After the mixture heard the mass, a bean divination was performed to elect where it should be buried for the greatest efficiency in manifestation, with the answer generated being by a riverbed. The day after Nikoljdan proper, I carried the bundle to the very same river I had consecrated all my tools for the Tuba Veneris, and let it lie there with an additional helping of rakija, incense, and prayer.
Sfinga’s candles reducing into the powder.
On Key’s end, he prepared a wash of fresh and dried citrus peels, cloves, star anise, cinnamon sticks, bay leaves inscribed with prayers, and allspice berries by boiling them all together, and allowed the aromatics to fumigate the candles used for the rite. This water was then allowed to cool, and mixed with holy water taken from three churches. A portion of this water was then used to wash the items on the shrine, the offerings of fruit, and the candles in the names of each respective donor, while the remaining two portions were divided into glasses and offered after receiving additional prayers and blessings to serve as vessels of refreshment and direction to the spirits inevitably called by the offering.
Key’s table set for St. Nicholas.
Key then hydrated a fireproof basin full of sand with another blend of holy waters from three churches, orange blossom water, and a splash of the herbal wash, then prayed over it a rosary dedicated to St. Nicholas, asking for his intercession. Each candle was then lit, naming each donor while doing so, then placed in the basin after pausing to interpret the omens that emerged from the candle as it pertained to each person’s condition. Appropriate oral formulas or prayers were offered to overcome corresponding blockages, uncross conditions, or wash away other forms of spiritual detritus.
Oats were then offered to provide sustenance to St. Nicholas’ horse, such that it may have the strength to bear each patron forward along their desired path, and the fruit offered before the saint with a prayer that he confer blessings of foresight, clarity, and prosperity on each patron. Incense was also offered to the Saint and the spirits present, and vigil was kept over the candles as further omens for the collective were observed and individual candles were maintained with additional remedies.
The candles burning down, each with their personal petition.
Each successive candle built off of the momentum of the last, eventually feeding into the sensation of the blustering squalls that drive the ships patroned by this saint forward, until the enchantment itself was caught by this wind and carried forth to each recipient.
Once our work was complete, we sent all the proceeds raised by the working to our Cabula, and gave the good Saint one final battery of prayers in thanks for his swift intercession, praising him for his good works and petitioning him once more over to elevate the wealth, prosperity, and luck of all those who submitted their names and the names of their loved ones to our group ritual. We are truly so grateful to each and every one of you who contributed to this first group offering, and look forward to offering more in the future for more good causes!
In honour of the holiday season, and the continual procession of some of the most important feasts and saint days shared in common by all three of our cultural backgrounds and magical services, we’re pleased to announce a special candle service held by Sfinga and B. Key on the Serbian Orthodox slava of Nikoljdan: St. Nicholas’ Day.
Recently on our podcast, The Frightful Howls You May Hear, myself and Key interviewed their Tata in Quimbanda de Angola, Tata Apokan (Jesse Hathaway Diaz), on the ins and outs of initiation, priesthood, and what it means to commit to a lifelong study in an oral tradition, especially in matters of co-creating community alongside elders and spirits alike. This was an exceptionally special episode to the both of our hearts and we’re absolutely delighted to continue having our Tata back on the podcast for many more to come! With the winter season fast approaching, and our temple in need of a new furnace, we wanted to contribute to our Cabula and our beautiful community at The Frightful Howls alike by offering our very first candle service fundraiser, in honour of an important saint at the heart of all of our practices.
By donating to this candle service, you will receive two workings performed on your behalf, or on the behalf of the person you wish to name: a prosperity ritual from myself, Sfinga, steeped in the association of Sveti Nikola as the Gospodar Vukova (Master of the Wolves), drawing on Serbian folk magical techniques, and a road opening and insight ritual from B. Key, drawing on Dutch folk magic and sailing lore. Combined under the auspices of the Serbian Orthodox slava of Nikoljdan on December 19th, both rites will be cast for you to bring fortune, as well as the clarity and vision to acquire and maintain it.
With St. Nicholas being perhaps the most important and celebrated slava in Serbia, it is no surprise that his cult inherited many of the qualities of the pre-Christian Dabog, the chthonic deity of healing, magic, death, wolves, mining, watermills, agriculture, and far more. Just as St. George, St. Michael, St. Sava, and St. Demetrius inherited many of the same qualities of Dabog through the cult of the Master of the Wolves, so too did St. Nicholas most prominently, as explored by the great ethnologist Veselin Čajkanović in his important work O srpskom vrhovnom Bogu. His cult is well-known throughout the Balkans and across its many religions, heralding reflections on divination, prosperity, travel, and seafaring.
It is these aspects that will be highlighted and honoured in my portion of the service. Each donation will allow you to submit your own name or the name of a loved one to the ritual, which will comprise of an offering of koljivo, slava bread, and red wine presented to the saint in the traditional manner of a Krsna slava, and a pure beeswax candle anointed with holy oil, prosperity oil, and protection oil. Each name will be added to the group petition and burned down into ash, which will be added to a charm of Thursday salt, holy bread, dirts from various Orthodox and Catholic churches of St. Nicholas from across the Balkans, and key powders prepared for this purpose. Once completed, the bundle will be taken to a mass for further blessing and then interred safely in one of three potential places of power, as bean divination performed on the feast proper will elect.
Key will draw on his own knowledge of Dutch folk magic and seafaring magics to open the roads to that same prosperity and grant the insight and divinatory ability to capture, retain, and protect the blessings to come in the New Year. Each name will be etched into candles fumigated with and asperged by an aromatic wash of citrus, clove, anise, holy water, world currencies, and other herbs for insight and security of received boons, blessed with prayers and recited formulas for the same purpose. Each candle will be presented to the shrine alongside an offering of citrus fruit to recollect the gold St. Nicholas so famously distributed in order to avert an unlucky future, and various grains associated with prosperity, diversion of misfortune, and a gentle nourishment of the senses, as to match the provisions of his journey by sea and to strengthen his guiding horse before travelling the road ahead. All of the edible components will then be donated to a nearby food bank in his name to continue this charity and distribute this enchantment to the world.
An Instagram post containing pictures and our reflections on the ritual will go live in the days following the feast so that all who participate may have a record of its completion.
All proceeds will go directly to our Cabula. We hope that this intersection of our traditions and communities serves you well in your New Year’s petitions and plans, and provides an ample boost to all you seek to grow and harvest in the coming months!
Our sincerest, heartfelt thanks to everyone who donated to this fundraiser! We not only met but exceeded our initial goal by double! A follow up post on the ritual as it was executed will be posted in the coming days. We’re so grateful to each and every one of you who contributed to this first group offering.
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.
The first and largest of the stones.
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.
The hagstone cairn that is our private Baetyl of the Goddess, looking over the Eyes of Nepherieri.
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.
One Eye among the many.
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.
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. 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, created by B. Key.
$150.00
Oil of Philia
Where there is one, may there be many.
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
The hue of her embrace.
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 famous Stele from the PGM.
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
Sherds gathered from the pilgrimage.
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.
By the red cape of the soldier-martyr, By the red wings of the adversary underfoot, By the red-drenched spear piercing its maw,
The Charms of the Victory-bearer are born, baptized, and bled.
The charms at the foot of a pacted tree.
These potent bundles were first birthed on May 6th, the Orthodox feast of St. George, which this year happened to be the day immediately following Easter. I’ve much joked with friends about how much “longer” Lent felt this year in light of Easter being May 5th, but this too came with its own advantages. That the eve of Đurđevdan (St. George’s Day) was itself Easter provided the perfect folkloric confluence for a number of the key ingredients which went into crafting these sorcerous allies—fleetfooted, valiant, and unrelenting as the martyr himself.
Having collected the necessary herbs either on the eve or at dawn on the feast proper, retrieving each with the appropriate offering left in turn and through the auspices of a bajalica or basma (oral charm) specifically used on St. George’s Day for those very plants themselves, I began the core powder within the first hours of the feast. The shell of first red egg of Easter—a prized ingredient within the Balkan folk tradition—was crumbled and left to soak among the blood clots of an offered rooster, consecrated with the Jesus Prayer and given veneration through Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday all. On the martyr’s day proper, I baked the kravaj or kravajče, a solar bread intended to mimic the wreaths which would crown cattle for protection, the first sacrificial lamb for protection, and the milk buckets that would receive the first milking of St. George’s Day for fertility. Across numerous villages, and most famously recorded in Vrtovac—a village in Serbia that has been much-studied for its detailed St. George’s Day customs of sacrifice and fertility magic—this bread would be wrapped in geranium, sprinkled with salt, and placed by the nearest river as an offering; or alternatively divided up amongst anthills so that the ants themselves may “lock up” the fertility gathered to protect it from negativity and the Evil Eye.
At the same time, bread baked specifically for a saint’s feast is itself a powerful fetish to be used in the creation of charms. I was trained to add a little piece to each charm I make (a ritual bread that was prayed over for many hours was a key component in the Master of the Wolves charms we released last year), and this case was no different. The rest of the kravaj was divided up between spirits, friends, anthills, tree hollows, the dead, and a river, each with a corresponding oral charm spoken over the piece as Thursday Salt was sprinkled over its resting place, tied to its post with white horse’s hair.
As an additional offering to the martyr and the spirits of his entourage, I cooked belmuž—a sheep’s cheese cornmeal porridge—and gave portions to each of my assisting familiars and to the holy saint himself. The banquet was laid over a red cloth that was consecrated as his cape, fumigated in red Orthodox St. George’s incense I brought back with me from my last trip to Greece, and sprinkled with wine, rooster blood, sheep’s milk, and holy water with sprigs of basil and plantain. When the time came to make the charms themselves, it was this cloth that was divided into the 21 squares that would host the cores birthed on his feast.
The feast given unto St. George.
Herbal materia, both freshly gathered and dried from previous corresponding saint feasts, were combined within a vessel along with personal fixed star powders made in my tradition, specific dirts corresponding with the nature of these charms, and the first red egg of Easter, which had itself undergone numerous rituals upon Christ’s rebirth. As the serpents of Aldebaran and Regulus were massaged for their dew, so too were the armies of St. George supplicated, in memory of his eternal triumph over the aždaja and his folkloric allyship with the zmaj. Propitiating the saint and the gods he masks alike, the raw powder was left incubate within the kravaj, veiled by his bloodied cloak against the glare of any stars not pacted to this working.
Finally, once the raw bundles passed their requisite three omens of manifestation—that they were indeed alive and bringing victory unto their bearers—I was given license by my spirits to bind them still. All three of us at With Cunning & Command and The Frightful Howls You May Hear take efficacy and results extremely seriously; nothing we offer to the world can be sold before it has succeeded in its tests of fealty and power. The trials these cores underwent were in line with their intended use: the overcoming of obstacles, the germination of fertility, the destruction of nightmares, the evil eye, and any other such spiritual malady, and the ultimate triumph of their carrier in matters of competition. Be they deployed for the protection of fertility (in matters of one’s own, those of animals and plants, or even those of other magical workings so that they may bear fruit), the defeat of enemies in matters where only one may prevail, or the destruction of jealous gazes, lingering spirits with ill intentions, or stray miasma and malefica brought home underfoot, the Charms of the Victory-bearer are the white-hot flash of the spear, the crack of the celestial whip, the hooves of the thundering hero-steed crushing each viper before it ever slinks across the threshold.
The base mixture includes allies such as basil, linden, geranium, nettle, chamomile, plantain, dandelion, and many other potent herbs collected in the dark such that they cannot be named. Dirts from the graves of 23 soldiers, 23 anthills, and 23 crossroads, as well as dirt from the village Başköy/Potamia where St. George was said to have been born, are combined with powders of Aldebaran and Regulus created in a manner taught to me in my tradition, as well as a more conventional Sun in Aries powder elected by Salt. Serpent bone, St. George incense, white beans from a chart that approved these charms with the most blessed omen of the Three Stars, and many more implements made their way into the bundles, which were then tied with red thread, a piece of carnelian, and a small pocket icon of St. George, finally bound over with white waxed linen thread. Each knot had the appropriate oral charm breathed into it, an offering of air bestowed as the final gift before they were once again perfumed in incense and left to breathe the sunlight for the first time since the feast.
Having received countless prayers, rich offerings, and diligent attention to omens, auguries, and folkloric expressions of St. George’s might in nature, these charms are finally available for purchase. They may be kept in one’s backpack or purse, nestled in their place of work, placed by the hearth or on appropriate shrines, or hung by the main door to your home. Give them a candle (white, red, or beeswax) and a shot of vodka, brandy, or whiskey once a month, preferably on the full moon to keep them refreshed and spry. These are workhorses and soldiers, aggressively targeting areas of weakness and conquering obstacles in your path. If you have an enemy you need to triumph over, or are looking to be the victor selected from among a pool of candidates, place the charm with a lit candle over a copy of your application with your petition written over it in red. Tuck the charm by your pillow or hang it over your bed to protect against nightmares and vampiric spirits, or to assist in conception and sexual virility. Gift the bundle to your protective spirits to act as arms for them, becoming a battery of power for them to wield against disease, poverty, malefica, and loss in the pursuit of securing steadfast agency.
If you’d like to purchase one for yourself, please click the link below. Shipping is included within the price. They will be mailed out within a week of purchase and a tracking code will be e-mailed to the PayPal address used to buy them.
All St. George’s Charms of the Victory-bearer are sold out. Thank you for your patronage!
It is not my hand that cuts these cords, but the hand of St. George upon his holiest day. Amen, amen, amen.
After so much prodding and teasing from dear friends who have been (generously!) boosting my work despite my complete lack of social media, I’ve finally been conjured by the Tetra-instagram-maton to go more public, and also to offer a full spectrum of services.
I’ve been quietly coaching a cohort of mentees in scrying, mediumship, spirit work, and sorcery, stewarding the growth of their abilities to take charge of their own craft and identify and commune with their spirit courts ever more deeply. Now, thanks to the generous support and encouragement of our supporters and listeners, I’m ready to open my books to wider array of clients.
I’m happy to offer divination, spell work services, mentorship, and custom talismans, charms, oils, and wares to suit your needs, informed by spirit augury and confirmed with divination, to better assist the flourishing of your sorcerous agency on your terms. You can find a full list of all my services at our link [HERE]. I’ll be posting more on Instagram over the next little while of my previous work as well as current projects, and debuting some important new collections over the coming months. I’m greatly looking forward to taking in a wider array of clients full time, and building on the great work already accomplished with my current mentees in the cultivation of further freedom and agency through magic.
With Cunning & Command 