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On tonight’s episode of Strange Dominions, Octavian and guest host Luke Bell interview the esteemed author and magician, David Rankine. David tells us all about how he wrote and researched for the Grimoire Encyclopedias, The grimoires contained, Fairies in the grimoires and so much more.
where you can buy your own copies of The Grimoire Encyclopedias https://www.hadeanpress.com/shop-books/p/grimoire-encyclopaedia-vol-1
https://www.hadeanpress.com/shop-books/p/grimoire-encyclopaedia-vol-2
David’s website: https://www.davidrankine.com/
https://gmail.com. you can hear the rest of this episode on our Patreon.
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Episode artwork Luciana Nedelea Artworks
Logo by Rotting Reign
Hello and welcome to another episode of strange dominions podcast I am your host Octavian Graves tonight we have a very very special episode one that I have been really excited to record pretty much all year honestly once I heard about the project I really could not
Wait to get him on and interview him so tonight that’s right I and special guest host Luke Bell are interviewing David Ranken about his new series The grimoire encyclopedia volumes 1 and two we speak on the methods of finding all of the grimoires included some of the experiences that went into creating
The grimoire encyclopedia and then we just sort of Riff and talk about grimoire magic demons fairies and some of David’s own experiences and how they relate to Luke’s as always if you’ve seen something strange or unusual such as a crypted spirit or UFO please get in
Touch with us as we would love to have you on the show we are again doing a lot of guest interviews and witness interviews especially witness interviews we really really want people who’ve seen weird things well as for right now I’m your host and this is strange dominions here is the Episode all right we are here with with Luke Bell teacher and magician and the wonderful and esteemed David Rankin David welcome to the show we are very excited to have you thanks very much for having me it’s a pleasure to be here absolutely so I’ve been thinking about
This interview a lot and how I was going to go about it and the one thing that I kind of got stuck on was sort of an introduction to you about us and and what we’re about and uh you know we’ve been doing the show now for almost 2
Years and uh central theme of the show really is how magic and the Paranormal work and how they intermingle and how they connect but the bigger thing about this show is it reaches out to the kind of person that they just don’t get those kind of flashy results or those phenoma
That they hear about all the time and they can’t quite tap into that sort of really Supernatural aspect of magic but they keep trying and I’ve been probably more honest than I’d like to about my trials and tribulations and magic and things like that but the reason why I
Got so into grimoire magic specifically is because Luke here was my first and really only true Mentor in the art and he was the only person that whenever I spoke to about magic most people would just say oh well I can’t really tell you about that I can’t there aren’t any
Really instructions you just kind of have to figure it out you’re on your own and Luke was the first person to tell me that there’s a system that if you follow the rules and you do exactly as you’re supposed to then you will get the result
That you are looking for and so that is how you know I ended up doing all this research and and all these shows on grimoire magic and I think this really hits on why these grimoire encyclopedias are so valuable because they really go beyond what most books do on the subject
And I just want to thank you so much for writing these because I think they’re going to be valuable to many many musicians for their entire lives at least I hope yeah I mean that’s my hope too you know I when I put them together it was really trying to put something
Out there that would be good as a resource for people putting information together but also sign posting where they can go to find out more on any particular grimoire as well you know there’s a lot of people out there doing really good work and I wanted to
Highlight the work that’s being done by so many magicians now that to encourage people to go and see what is going on um you know if you want this particular grimoire then you go you can see oh there’s such and such a book by so and
So and that and and this book by another person I’ll go and you know read these books and find out more and you know so people can get a better grasp before they sort of dive into that grimoire as it were absolutely and it really speaks
For itself at how valuable it is so the first real question I have for you is what methods did you use to compile all these GMS and and find them and really dig into the individual history of each of them initially I started off with the
Bir or so which I mentioned in the introduction I’d written a little bit about for an old friend back in 2010 and I started make making a list of all the grimo I thought should be in there and as I was think the list was getting bigger
And bigger and I decided that 100 was a good place to stop or it could just go on forever and some of those were you know there’s a couple of titles that I’d never heard of before that I found during the research and I’ve been fortunate that in the past for many
Years I worked self-employed I was like writing books I was editing and proof reading other people’s books and so I literally spent a good few years of my life in the British Library five days a week in the books and manuscripts collections going to other places like the welcome the
Bodon in Oxford and other places you know tracking down manuscripts so it’s just a process that unfolded over the years over many years and by the time I sort had the idea that I should get this book written there was already a huge amount of stuff in place for me to draw
On and sort of bring together and work on to create the book definitely worst places to be spending years of your life than the British Library trolling through these manuscripts I think he yeah funly enough because we’re talking about the whole thing of the intersexual magic and the Paranormal I I
Used to go there Monday to Friday every week and I was living in West London and I’d get the the tube into King’s cross and then five minute walk to the bu SL before when it opened at 10:00 and one morning I I had my laptop in its bag and
I was opening the front door to leave and a voice said to me don’t go today it was like one of the spirits I work with and I was like okay went back I went back in set my laptop back up put the radio on and that was the day of the
11-11 bombings and the train that got bombed was the one that I would have been on the timing of that is the train that the time that I would always got off at King’s cross on that line so I probably would have been on that train
That got bombed if that my spirit hadn’t said don’t go today though a good example of how the spirits you work with can watch out for you it was the the the picky Dilly line I think wasn’t it if memory serves that the that and that yeah that goes straight through King’s
Cross and prankers that’s incredible although that does speak to a bigger subject there David as to where and I’ve certainly had this in my own research over the years where the spirits that you work with start to point you towards things that that will Aid in your
Practice and things that you could find useful and easier ways to call them their their history they do seem to have this very kind of like tutory some of them anyway element to them if you if you’ve worked closely with them have you ever found that absolutely I mean
There’s Spirits you develop a relationship it’s you know there’s a definite um symbiotic relationship there it’s you know it’s akin to a friendship in a lot of respects and that that mutual respect in the way that you engage with the spirit does like you say you can make the process a lot simpler
This is I was talking about this the other day about how whilst you have this big preparation to do your initial conjuration to a spirit once you’ve actually developed a relationship with it the contact methods can be a lot simpler and quicker you don’t have to do
A whole like you know week preparation and big circle and conguration necessarily you know you it can become a much simpler process of working with Spirits because that familiarity is there with without a doubt and and you know if I could ask you you feel free to not answer this
David because I know some people would rather not whenever I’ve I’ve conjured a spirit and they’ve been bonded and they’ve one of the things that you’re always advised to ask is a another method of calling them that doesn’t involve all of the pump and Circumstance of a full solomonic operation and I’ve
Quite often found that those things have come across when I’ve got that information as being very sounding very kind of cunning folky very folk magicky lighting a a candle with certain herbs and certain oils on on under a certain phase of the Moon Under a certain day
Things things like that and I wonder what your view is on the idea of cunning folk magic being a Continuum of the solomonic tradition in that these methods could have been passed down orally from Master to student through the through witches and cunning Folk and they kind of just lost the Inception of
That Spirit contact which was the solomonic tradition CU quite often people see a a duality between folk magic and what some people call High magic and I wonder where you you kind of stand on that point okay this is one that takes us in quite a few branches
Here I mean as you know I’ve written more than one book about cunning cunning folk and books of practice and yeah I think the key thing with cunning folk is they had to do magic that worked is that was how they got paid they wanted stuff that worked and their books Ted to
Record the things that worked repeatedly for them you know the coming man’s book will often have next to Little Things prar M it is proven you know that’s yeah this is a good one and so from that perspective they were using definitely stuff from the Grims but also like you
Say simpler folk magic and I think absolutely would have a situation where they would develop relationships with the spirits which went enabled simpler contact of the sort you described you know what you were saying parallels very much some of the contact methods I’ve been given so interesting I would
Definitely agree with you on that and further to that there is all so if you are teaching somebody that it’s possible to introduce somebody to a spirit that you have that familiarity with let’s say you know in a sense they do become like familiar spirits they are spirits that
You are familiar with that the contact could be passed on to somebody that you train so the same simpler methods could be used without necessarily needing that initial complex conjuration it’s like the same way as if you and I were met at an event and a mutual friend might say
David this is Luke Luke this is David and introduce us and that was just like a simple introduction but from there the contact can develop it’s you know I think a similar thing can be true there’s something as you say I think has largely been lost you know cunning folk
Were effective practicing magicians if they weren’t effective they gave it up and did other jobs and there are records of people doing that as well but if they were good at what they did then those are the ones whose books of practice obviously tend to be the most
Interesting because if that stuff was working well for them there’s a good chance that you know you can practice it and get it to work for you as well well absolutely and I you know I heard um Stephen Skinner give a very good example on the I think he was on the glitch
Bottle and Dr Skinner was was talking about his experiences living in Asia and just the the universality of magic there and its kind of wider acceptance without the cynical materialism that the post-industrial Western world has and he he said I think he described it as the
The the BOS and The Magicians in that part of the world will will say that if they are if they are to kind of screw people over for of a better term and not get them the results that they want they they’re breaking their rice bow they’re destroying their opportunity to feed
Their family so it’s they would rather just give a refund on someone who didn’t get the result from the the the working that they were supposed to do which I I found to be very like a very pragmatic approach to something that people don’t often view as particularly
Practical yeah I mean that’s very true it’s very interesting talking to Stephen about this stuff because that whole Eastern thing likewise with the spirits you know that AO or a sorer in that part of the world you has like a book of spirits they’re only the spirits they’ve
Actually worked with that they have the connections with they don’t list stuff that’s not part of their practice and I think that’s what people forget about a lot of things like the cunning books and practice and even to an extent the grimo the reason why the grimo are fragmentary
Is because often people were recording things they needed to remember stuff they knew off paat they didn’t necessarily need to put in the grimoire so you know there’s often chunks missing that you think oh well this grimoire is incomplete it doesn’t tell you how to do this or that well that’s because the
Person who wrote it knew how to do this and that and didn’t feel they needed to record it they’re recording things like Spirit lists or other stuff that they might not you know absolutely remember and so want to sort of have it recorded so that they can refer to it at any time
For sure have you further to that point have you have you found in your practice that there have been obviously no need to name them but particular spirits that have have acted in a lot more of an ambassadorial way to introduce you to other spirits that could potentially
Help you with certain things that maybe weren’t within their office I have although some of that is not strictly speaking with in grimo but we in another tradition that I practice but yes and this takes us into another sort of interesting area where a spirit introduces you to a spirit that you
Don’t find in any of the books yes they’re not list there’s no this is this Spirit who does this and this whose name is this it’s a name you know you look it up and it’s like well can’t find this one anywhere but you know they they seem to be quite
Effective with what they do and they’re have they’re fine with having a relationship in some ways I find those spirits to be really interesting and actually exciting to engage with because it’s like it’s really unfamiliar territory when you’re working with a spirit that’s not one that there’s any
Record of so you don’t know who if they’ve worked with people people before even or who they’ve worked with but you’re developing a relationship with this Spirit based on that introduction from a spirit who you’ve worked with and trusted so you know you’re assuming okay let’s see where this goes that’s so
Interesting that you’ve had that that experience I’ve had something similar specifically when working the goisha I found that the the chief Spirits you have the 72 that everybody knows they they it seems that they they seem to have servile spirits that work beneath them as well and and the the further you
Get down the hierarchy the more specialized each one of those Spirits becomes a certain area of the the overall office I don’t know if if that’s anything similar to what you’ve experienced but that that has been my experience with working some with some of the the goisha spirits in the past
Absolutely and not just with Goa with others as well I mean the major Spirits new gmws usually have a whole load of sort of spirits under them who it’s like it’s in the business isn’t it if you’ve got like a a company your spirit in your
G in the gisha other grimo will often be kind of like the president of the company and then they’ve got ranks of people beneath working for them and as you go down the tasks do become more more specialized from your top layers of management tend to be telling people
What to do your lower levels of management the ones doing all the different tasks that make the business run it’s the same sort of principle very interesting fascina it’s always nice to hear these things coming from an experienced magician such as yourself that where it kind of really validates
Things that that that you’ve experience in the past I like when there’s those uh those crossovers when everybody’s had a very similar similar experience to another it’s uh always quite a fun thing to hear yeah absolutely I mean I really enjoy talking with people and finding about their experiences particularly if
It’s like they’re working with Grimes that I’ve not really got experience of to sort of see how that compares as well because often it can be some little thing that somebody says gives you that light bulb moment for ha yeah that’s something else that I could add in or try
I love that cross fertilization that comes when you sort of get ping magicians together talking about stuff absolutely and I think that’s the kind of one of the the cruxes of grimo Maric research maybe you know and obviously that has its its implications on on Practical Magic itself as well is the
The detective that you have to be in order to whenever whenever people have asked me where to begin when practicing magic the only advice I’ve ever given them is read as many grimo as you possibly can because there’s not any of them that are that are fully and truly
Complete and if you’re you know you can read the the goisha and then read the book of Oberon and then read the the grimo and verum and there are little pieces in there that you’ll find in some and not in others and it it’s interesting to kind of go I wonder if I
If I add this into my practice when I’m when I’m doing a Goa operation this thing that I found in the book of obon what happens then and and quite often I’ve found that it augments it in a very effective way and that’s I I think that
That really which is a nice book end to that is one of the really fantastic things about the utility of the the grimoire encyclopedia is that it’s all in one place and I’m I imagine it’s going to save a lot of people a lot of time and frankly
Agony I mean I hope so when I was writing the practice chapter I actually kind of wrote at the end because I thought I really want to put something in the personal flavor of how I like to do stuff so you know and that thing
Exact you say I try and make the point that hism most of was a fragmentary I’m a great believer in being competent and fluid in the mechanics of a system before you change it but at the same time because it’s fragmentary I wouldn’t take something out you can totally enhance it by adding
Stuff in like you said so for example the blessing or consecration of the scrier is not something you’re going to find in pretty much any of the Grim bar you know bar the original place but I do that for all of them because for me it adds to the ritual and so there’s
Elements that I add in regardless of which of the grimoires it is because for me they add to the magical momentum they increased the chance of success of it going you know all according to plan and how you wanted to couldn’t agree more and and the similar thing I I took from
Obviously there’s a little more of a direct lineage when when working with like the uchad darium or the the Hep tamaron and it’s its almost direct descendant being the the goish especially with some of the the con and you do see flavors of this in the
The the Goa of Dr rud with the the 72 corresponding thating Angels but call to the the angel of the day on the day that you are practicing doing the invocation of to the angel of the day I found has been incredibly helpful in ensuring a higher rate of success in in Conjuring
The the more thonic Spirits because it’s a step that’s kind of missed out in the Goa but it’s it’s very present in the heparan yeah I mean I mean as time went by it became quite simplified you see this you know the style of like you say the heptaminol lucidum there was earlier
Very swanbook much more heavily Angelic magic through to the much more demonic French stuff a few hundred years later it’s been paired back and simplified a lot and both work you know it’s like you are getting a different flavor with the the choices you make on sort of what
Style of brimo you want to work with for sure and then does seem that I inan correct me if I’m wrong it does seem that there are some things that just universally make whatever Spirit you’re working with make an operation more effective presumably the same goes with
The the consecration of the the scrier as well yeah absolutely I mean there’s like a you’ll have your basic checklist of all the things that you want to you know that need to be done you know the consecrations your circle and the preparation was like a whole and I tried
To give that as a sequence of for me what I feel are all things that are good to have there in that practice chapter so that for people coming to who didn’t have much experience or any maybe experience of conjuration hopefully they would find that helpful you know that’s
Like based on my sort 40 plus years of doing grimo magic I was trying to put in like the hints and tips of things that I find work really well or they just aren’t recorded because you’re not going to pick up medieval grimoire and it say
To you oh whenever you see a cross in the text you should make the sign of the cross as you’re saying the conjuration or to activate your magic circle you need to do this it’s not just an inert thing on the ground you know there’s things which aren’t there that people do
Need to know yeah and that’s again incredibly useful and I think you’ve you you’ve helped a whole generation of fledgling magicians by by actually putting that stuff down because it is such a I know when I when I started 15 or so years ago it was it it was such
Just a swamp of information and there’s so the problem is there’s so much bad information out there as well right and there’s still very much that very Victorian hangover of like psychological magic being a thing and you know the idea of demons being part of the subconscious or Angels being part of the
Subconscious and that you know you’re supposed to view these things in the astral and you can project a circle with your mind and all of that kind of stuff and for those people that are looking for the kind of results that that people like us are looking for and the kind of
Results that that the authors of these grimo were getting that’s probably not going to cut the mustard no not at all Crowley did nobody any favors with his initial comments on the goisha and you know like he was a bit enamored of Freud at the time I think
And this idea that that they’re psychological and parts of the psyche someone says that to me that’s kind of ends the conversation really well if you think that there’s not really any point in us talking about this because I know from direct experience that these Spirits have their own unique being
Separate from me they are not a part of me unless you get into the whole concept that we’re all a part of a greater whole which is not really relevant from the point of view of doing a guration no no it’s a much larger um philosophical
Discussion to have isn’t it but the it’s funny you say that actually I lent a friend of mine a copy of the the goish recently and it was the mother’s Edition and it has the the forward by Croley in it he says so where should I start
Reading from I said we can probably just skip that whole for because it’s going to give you a lot of bad ideas that that that aren’t going to be very helpful to you if if this is something you want to actually practically use yeah I mean Mar’s again it’s like a
Two-edged sword he did these translations which were so important in opening things up you know like the key of Solomon he transcribed the Gera he did that incomplete French abelan he did the Grim armadel but it’s like reason he never picked the best copies of the manuscripts you know like the album ell
Know he did that incomplete French version there’s like much more extensive the original German texts and it’s funny because by the time Crowley was doing the abelon he was in contact with people like in Germany who knew about the full abelon yeah I mean I was quite surprised
When I was doing the research you I thought there were a few copies I didn’t realize there was like more than a dozen different AB melon manuscripts scattered around you know it’s like but crazy the number of copies of Manus some of the manuscripts I was Finding when I was
Doing the research for the book you know it’s like blew my mind it’s like well there’s never one there and there’s oh there’s never two there oh my God it was just and that’s something else I was trying to do is like make put all the information if someone wants to focus on
A particular grimoire they can find out where all the sources are as well and go back I’m a great believer in going back to source as much as possible yeah and and people like yourself and Dr Skinner and particularly well Joe Peterson as well I’ve done such
A great service to everyone by I mean I spend so much time on Joe Peterson’s website just looking at the the sources that he’s managed to find because like you say if you’re looking to do something properly you got to go back to the back to where it came from right yeah
Absolutely and I mean Joe I kind of sort of joke about like Joe being like if there was one like the modern patron saint of the Grim was because he’s done so much for you know the grimor community and his scholarship is so excellent that you know any book he puts
Out you know you want to buy course but it’s also a really good example of there’s a very positive fraternity amongst G magicians in that there’s been times where a couple of times for example when Steven I doing Taris and fery that took us ages to work
Out as a cipher manuscript and there was various different magical languages there bits that were in contracted reversed Latin and stuff and there was like one I think magical symbol we couldn’t work out and I contacted Joe and he was able to say oh yeah such and
Such and he incredibly helpful to people serious practicians talk to each other and share stuff and that’s something you don’t see in some of the magical Traditions but I think there is much more of a sense of well I’m happy to share because anything that expands the tradition is good of course yeah
Absolutely when you were looking through the all of the I imagine you went through myriad manuscripts and books when you were writing the encyclopedia David did you come across any manuscripts that maybe things you you hadn’t that hadn’t really been in your orbit before that you kind that kind of
Set a fire off and you said well you know I’d really like to work this grimoire and I haven’t were there any any examples of that at all there there’s a couple in there that I was like I hadn’t seen before and at least one of them hasn’t been sort of actually
Published yet so that’s something that maybe I would like to get around to in the future but it’s all a case of time and certainly there’s stuff in it I think the it’s in English and Old English and Latin and the writing is not great so it’s going to take a while to
Transcribe and translate that one but there’s some bits in there that I was thinking yeah I would like to give that a go but because I’m working on a book at the moment and then after that I’d kind of like to do volume three of the Grim encyclopedia and then maybe I’ll
Get to that other goar because you know there’s a lot of stuff that I think could be added in to to further expand what I put in the first two volumes of it you know the plan wasn’t that that was the end that was like sort of
Getting what i’ done up to that stage out there and I want there’s more things that I want to add in to expand it further to make it more of a corpus of material for people I mean that’s that’s that brings up an interesting question where does this end David you know like
Like you say with such a large Corpus of material out there you could be doing volumes until your last day of of the Grim Ro encyclopedia surely is there is there like a a finite point that you have or do you plan for this to be like
A living project that just carries on the deeper you go to to to your research I I think more like a living project it’s something I intend to continue on with for many years like I say I know what I’m going to put in volume 3 I’ve
Got some thoughts what I could put in a later volume after that I mean there’s already for example 20 or so grimo I’d like to put chapters in in volume 3 as well as some completely new sections of stuff that I think would add to things for people and some point further down
The line Second Edition so I can add in all the other things that have been published since or any new stuff that’s come out regarding the ones that were already in there so yeah this I kind of see this as being my my magnumopus and
My life’s work to from here on to the with the grimo encyclopedia there’s quite a few other books I’ll want to write as well in between but the Grim encyclopedia is going to be think the sort of dominating them my life here onwards from the point of view of my
Writing well I mean that makes me ecstatic to hear obviously it’s a lot of work for yourself but I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that there’s there’s plenty of people out there that are really really happy to hear that that’s great that’s great news Octavian I’m
Really sorry I feel like I kind of derailed your your your line of not at all this has been very valuable just for me listening so no please keep going yeah I mean i’ kind reach the end of my my line of inquiry there kind of handing
Off to you for a second yeah well so the next question I had one of the co-hosts that I was going to have on was uh an astrologer friend of mine and so I wanted to ask you about astrology and how you felt about astrology in the grimoire and if it’s important
Throughout the entire history or if it has there’s certain aspects of the grimoire history where astrology is more prominent and less so in others I think astrology is one of the really important aspects of the Grims absolutely but not just the astrology of like you know the
12 signs and seven planets that people would think of but also the 36 decans which kind of you hars back to ancient Egypt where you had like um gods and Spirits for each of the 36 decans and you see that carrying through the Mansions of the Moon the 28 Mansions of
The Moon which we see coming into the grimo um sort of Arabic magic but the Arabs got it from the Greeks who got it from India so mions of the Moon originally are an Indian concept that sort of comes in and that’s something I mentioned in
In a footnote I think in the Grim encyclopedia that things like the Indian influence into the grimo is something that’s still not really been touched upon and needs more work but from the point of view of a lot of the spirits do have particular connections to planets astrological signs deckin Etc so they
Working with appropriate timings again greatly increases your that are relevant or that spirit will greatly increase your chance of having a successful conjuration and encounter with that Spirit and the astrology is there having pretty much all the way through there’s places where it’s seems to fade away but that’s more
Individual Grims I think than periods of time it’s something that’s kind of there throughout the whole grimoire period from you know from sort of 12th century on absolutely agree and um bounce off of that kind of go into like um the seven classical planets and you know the
Spirits that are assigned to each one one thing I found really interesting a grimma that I’m very interested in is the arbitel is it kind of instructs you to look at your own astrological chart and see what your dominating planet is and work with the spirit of uh that
Planet and so for me my sun sign is Scorpio and going from the classical seven planets that would be Mars but my conundrum has always been that I don’t exhibit any Marshal attributes in my personality or life or I have no interest in many Marshall things I have
No interest in becoming a police officer or in the military I was curious about when either for you or just in your opinion do you find that working with spirits that are in the the planetary alignment of your of you know your astrological Suns sign or something like
That do you find that there is a stronger Bond or does it really not matter I think that there can be an easier Affinity but that doesn’t mean that should be the way you should go I’m grad you B up the Olympic Spirits because this kind of touches on something would
Be further on in the questions I think which is I think the Olympic spirits and the planter intelligences are the best spirits to start working with when you do the Grim because they tend to be a the most amable and B the conjuration process for them is simpler than for example goetic
Conjuration and definitely I don’t think it’s an essential I mean I’m a Leo so you’d go okay solar um so you know you’re going to pick your solar spirits to work with but my child actually has a lot of mercury and other stuff in it so
And I tend to be more drawn to Mercurial Spirits so I think you can work with any I think that this just a natural sort of leg up as it were working with the ones that you have that Affinity with from your child absolutely and I would definitely
Agree with you because while I don’t really have many Marshal attributes in my personality or or my outlook on life I definitely have an interest in Mercurial things and things like that as well as solar things so that would definitely be my area of Interest as well so I think it’s important that
People don’t get hung up on I can only work with you know the spirits that are my natural Affinity like that because often the ones that aren’t your natural Affinity are the ones that you might develop more valuable relationships with many i w say many decades but it’s a few
Decades ago now when I studied astrology the person who taught me when we sort of doing casting charts said never consider the things like squares and what have you there negative aspect effect squares or positions their challenges to be overcome and they often show you like
There is a weakness that you need to work on so from that perspective I think having a spirit that might not be the one that you would natur be drawn to by your chart you might end up getting a lot more from working with that Spirit very interesting very interested to know
Your thoughts on because obviously there there’s huge amounts of emphasis in a lot of the grimo on on the phases of the moon and uh favorable days do Conjuration within them specifically the the the goisha I I will keep going back to that as a frame of reference because
It’s the one I’m personally most familiar with but the the the goisha talks about performing these operations usually within the the waxing of the Moon I have personally found that whilst I’ve had plenty of contacts with Spirits during those phases I’ve also had some really quite visceral contacts with
Spirits during the waning and and dark moons as well which is kind of antithetical to what the war instructs and later down the line I was actually talking to to adley Nichols and he informed me that there within the Suma Sacra Magicka there are there are also
Favorable days in the waxing moon and the dark moon for for conjuration as well how important have you found Luna Cycles to be in your personal practice I think going back to what we were saying earlier the waxing does tend to lend itself more and so you’re adding more to
The momentum but once the contact is there I think you know any phase of the moon can work for you and it’s a case of all the other factors that you factoring as well you know in the same way as I’m a great lover of planetary hours for example and using appropriate hours
Where possible but you know if you’re doing a conjuration often the conjuration is going to last longer than the planetary hour itself but for me what’s important there is that if pation starts in the planetary hour even if it runs over into the next planetary hour know we have to accept that timings
Aren’t always going to be perfect or as you want and sometimes you need to do stuff at particular times and it might not be the optimum time so you try and optimize everything else around it so yeah I think the the Luna is certainly important at the beginning but as your
Contact with the spirit waxes it becomes easier to work with it when the Moon is waning interesting so so you you think that the the significance of that I don’t want to put words in your mouth but the significance of that is more for the initial contact of the spirit than
It is the the ongoing maintenance of that relationship yeah I think that’s more factor for that big initial contact introduction very interesting thank you I appreciate appreciate your thoughts on that one of the things that we’ve been talking a lot about is relationships with spirits and one of my questions was
About the bond of spirits but I feel like a more accurate question would be as I’ve been working in this show and and talking to contemporaries within the occult Community the subject of spirit bindings is a very hot topic and a very controversial topic and I feel like a
Lot of that has to do with people not quite understanding what we’re talking about in terms of solomonic magic and The Binding of spirits and I’m curious David what your opinion is on that and and why that is such a Hot Topic and if there’s a easier if there’s a better way
To explain it to people so that we understand that when we say binding of spirits we’re not saying that we say a bunch of words and then chains come up and that spirit is then held in place in pain and Agony yeah I mean the nature of
The triangle that the pistol or the murin kind of ss I think rather than binding constraining might be a better word because as you say I mean I have never had to do I mean when I haven’t done gotic stuff for a long time I’ve been working in other G grimo in more
Recent years but I did do a lot of gotic stuff in the past I never once had to do the cursed stuff that’s in the goisha for example I’ve never had to do that side of things so that constraint is more setting up an environment that you
Can have a contact with them in so it’s not a hostile thing it’s not a domination thing it’s actually part of the setup process you know that they here manifest in that Crystal or that mirror and you can can think of it if you’re going the idea of like a full
Manifestation of a spirit you know is incredibly rare people think oh yeah spirits in the smoke and all that that doesn’t really tend to happen very you know like it’s not to say that Spirits don’t manifest I have seen Spirits manifest I’ve done for example conjuration for H grantia of one of the
Demons of the day where you call on the planetry God then the angel of the day and the dean of the day and it manifest in the fire and there was a humanoid shape in the fire and the dozen or so people there quite a few of them were
Rather freaked out but if you’re using that Crystal or mirror in a triangle or a circle whichever it may be or even a pentagram depending on what type of spirit you’re doing the conjuration for you are creating a Gateway an interface between you and them it’s almost like a
Magical Zoom call in a sense like we’re doing now because if you’re trying to get it to manifest into this realm the Grom was often say they can only stay for an hour then they’re going to go they’re uncomfortable it’s not their natural place to be like to fish out of
Water it’s going to start to drown quite quickly um likewise the spirits become some of the spirits become uncomfortable in our realm whereas if you are communicating through that Gateway that Crystal of that mirror you can have a contact an engagement that lasts much more than an hour if it’s required
Because they’re quite comfortable in their realm you know sitting at home as we are in our Circle you know like I said like using that analogy a zoom call so yeah I think bond is a loaded term and people do tend to misrepresent it and also sometimes people confuse bond with PA
Which is a whole different thing entirely absolutely yeah so yeah for me it’s it’s not a you’re not a bonding of the spirit it’s a constraining the environment so that it’s a suitable interface between you and the spirit that you’re Conjuring and to further that do you feel that the like the the
Spirit contract do you feel that’s necessary for any Spirit you work with or other spirits that you know really don’t need that and you can sort of sort of take them at their word or do you feel that it really is something that’s necessary with any kind of spiritual
Interaction I have personal Spirits there was not a big Spirit contract with and I do not feel that it is an essential I think it depends on the to the spirits with some I think you do have to be careful and have almost that legal terminology because they might not
On initial contact be that positive or helpful and so can know you’re setting boundaries to prevent harm you know because at the end of the day they’re not all sweetness and light so even the spirit that is initially hostile may become more positive and you can develop
A good relationship with when it sees that the encounters are done with respect and that they’re not one-sided and there’s a given take there in the relationship that’s an interesting point there David as well and it’s said it’s one that I think a lot of people Overlook at the start of their magical
Practice is that that Spirits like anything else have personalities and Natures that are maybe wider and wider umbrella personalities for certain types of spirits you know I think everybody goes back to the passage that that am amus wrote about where he was very likely describing demons at the time in
In their Mysteries and and you know angels can be said to have certain things that are Universal to all of them but further to that they there are individual personalities that each of them have depending on their their associations and characteristics the thing I wanted to ask you about was
Since obviously when you look at books like particularly the 72 Spirits in in the goisha you look at them and say well these are all categorized as demons and that they’re Unholy and unclean spirits they’re Fallen Angels but when you actually start working with them and you
Actually have contact more to the point with some of them you start to realize that there are fairly blaring differences in the way that a lot of them behave do you feel that the the list of those 72 there are calling them demons is maybe just an arbitrary
Umbrella term because it would seem that there is it’s possible that there are demigods fairies I I certainly think some of them are are definitely what most people would consider to be demons and bth and malas are two that spring immediately to mind from from personal experience but do you feel that there
Are maybe other types of entities that have just been lumped into that that Spirit register yeah I would totally agree with you on that Luke that there are some which are far more benevolent pretty much from the word go that you can devel a a positive relationship with and
I mean one of those Spirits I worked with and I hadn’t actually done that much with but I went and um somebody did some unfortunate things against myself and um the spirit went and well screwed them over quite badly without me asking then came back said oh by the way I’ve
Done this and I said oh thank you very much um would say something you’d like me to do in return that’s within the boundaries of what’s reasonable and we kind of our relationship developed from there but that Spirit acted independently without me asking it which was interesting and without me having a
Really strong relationship with it so yeah the fact that the spirits can do have this independent existence and may have their own agendas desires and plans is something that we shouldn’t forget when we’re working with them because essentially if they develop a positively relationship with us then we will be as
They are assisting us to further our goals so we are assisting them to further their own that is crazy because i’ I’ve had an almost identical experience with a spirit from from the goisha that did something very very similar maybe a little more enthusiastic than I would have liked the this
Person’s Fortune to be but I think you have to remember that what what a spirit considers to be an inconvenience to a human is very different than what a human considers to be an inconvenience to a human but all that is to say the person was fine at the end of it they
Were just in a little bit of a bad way for quite some time but this particular Spirit I’m talking about is one that is if you actually read their description in the Lesser key their office is very nasty and could be considered evil but I’ve found them to be such a a
Benevolent and very amiable entity which is really strange that it kind of betray the office that they look over whereas I think I I mentioned another spirit before whose office is to do with inflaming love between two people and that is that possibly one of the scariest things I’ve ever encountered
It’s so strange how the two can be so dichotomous yeah absolutely I find it fascinating that those things we have to remember are not gospel you know we don’t can’t read the grimo take it as absolute truth we follow the practices but those descriptions that are written
By that person with Spirit def that Spirit as or give the totality of that Spirit sure yeah it’s a really good point and and also as well you know I would imagine that there is to some degree a level of how you approach that spirit and and you personally your
Personal interactions and maintenance of that relationship would will probably change the way that they respond to you just like any other kind of interpersonal interaction that you might have so there a reliant being completely reliant on somebody else’s experience there is is in parts to that right yeah
I mean interestingly this spirit in question I won’t say which one but it was it’s one of the crow Spirits let’s say that the time my partner of the time and I I had found a baby crow on my doorstep and we took it in we hand Reed
The Crow told it to fly and then released it back and it went and I think reconnected with the rest of the the crows that lived in the sort of trees near by but at the time I did think I I couldn’t help but think I wonder if this
Spirit which has this of crow Affinity from the description of how he appears saw me choosing to sing seeing that baby crow and going I’m going to I mean I’ve always loved crows I’m going to sort of like rear you and make sure you’re good and healthy can go back out
To the wild whereas a lot of people might have just left it to die or done some you know not taken care of a crow and so that’s thought okay this person is showing that they care about crows so I’m going to do this for them I also
Have a very big Affinity to Crow I actually have one I had a similar experience with not rearing one but I had one that used to to visit me quite frequently when I lived back in England we have a lot of them in the Pacific Northwest of Canada which is where I
Live now but I had a similar experience with something I hope you don’t mind me me me sharing if that’s okay I have a I have incredible Arachnophobia I am terrified of spider but I after a particular contact with a certain spirit I would see spiders everywhere and anyone that was
Pertaining to the situation with which I’d asked their assistance started to see spiders everywhere and I thought this was really strange and I thought it could be a coincidence and then I recommended working with this Spirit to a friend of mine in a completely different part of the continent and I I
Said to her let let me know what what happens when you do and she did the conjuration and she got the result that she wanted and she called me the next day and she said just out of curiosity when you work with this Spirit would
Spiders did they did they come up at all and my jaw just completely hit the floor because there is there was nothing in the grimoire that that said anything about spiders having any kind of Correspondence to this particular spirit and I found that so so strange that
Someone else had had that experience and it happened a number of times after that to the point where I to my great horror I can no longer kill a spider have just release it outside of the house but interestingly enough Ian who was supposed to be be who I’m kind of
Filling in for today with Octavian we went down a little bit of a rabbit hole and found that there could be a link between this goisha spirit and deity from the ancient Greek pantheon that does have a very very solid link with spiders and so it was just it was such
An interesting little um little rabbit hole to go down but also interesting that it seems that some of these Spirits have a fondness for certain creatures or certain things in nature that they they seem to have some dominion over yeah absolutely and you know the cids you
Know your crows Ravens magpies Etc are very intelligent birds that I think it’s not at all surprising that U there would be that connect you know Spirit connection so heavily and other Spirits as well you know with other types of creatures I’m just referring to cids because they are particular their
Passion of mine I love Rosen place and you you see that their correspond just I mean theyve they’ve been part of the the very kind of Pop Culture view of magic and magicians but there’s there’s always that they’re they’re such ominous creatures and they’re so mysterious right that they they’ve had their their
Place beside magicians for time and Memorial I think even if you look at other cultures you know that specifically the indigenous American culture there’s the crows and ravens have such a high place in their their cosmology and their their proximity to the spirit world yeah absolutely and I mean hugan immun
In in the north you can go you know the Morgan Etc in the Irish we can go all over the place with that one but too much tangent there yeah for sure before I uh mention my my story and and how my biggest observation is how
Much of uh Magic sort of rides the wave within nature to get things done we’re at an hour do you guys want to keep going or is is a good place to stop I just want to make sure everyone’s schedule is not conflicting well I’m happy to go for at least another half
Hour I’m really enjoying the conversation and it seems it’ be a shame to cut it off now as am I Luke oh no I’m absolutely fine all I’ve got to do is really mundane stuff that I’m honestly trying to uh procrastinate my way out of
At the moment so this is a very very happy alternative to that I’m I’m very much enjoying myself perfect well so as Luke knows and and the listeners know my matron goddess is aate who who originally I had no real knowledge of when I was really getting into magic my
Area of Interest was the the Norse pagan gods cuz I I have uh some Heritage within that realm but when I would re attempt to reach out to them I really got no response and then funny enough during uh Luke’s original run of online solomonic classes was where I did the
First headless right and that night I had this very strange dream with aate and then I start experiencing all these synchronicities with her and you know now I’m full-fledged devote of her but a couple months ago back I guess August I was at a Crossroads that I’ve had a
Numerous amount of strange occurrences at while doing offerings and things like that and I was out there doing an offering and I just sort of asked basically I know you’re there but if you could just give me sort of a more concrete sign that’d be really great and
As soon as I laid down that offering this Crossroads is in a very very residential area not very wooded at all but all of a sudden from behind me I just hear something very very large running at me and out of the darkness comes the biggest buck I’ve ever seen
I’m in Maryland we don’t have elk here but I mean it really that’s how big this thing really was and it came up to about 4T in front of me and then veered off into the into the brush and scared the absolute Daylights out of me but uh it
Was probably the most confirming experience I’ve ever had as far as things listening and responding when asked yeah I mean heck is like uh she’s very good for that you can see I mean I have a a big fondness for hecky you know one of the books I wrote hecky Lial
Rights one of my favorites one of my uh my standard going to for any kind of uh historical information for her um because um back in the early 80s the first magical Lodge I was in uh there was somebody else asked if I could do a
A ritual with them for eity when I was like 18 at the time and I said sure we went out in the in the night walked down to the country saw a shooting star saw a second shooting star so our third shooting star like okay time to stop and
Then we looked and realized we’re just come to threeway Crossroads then he started like reciting the orthic hymns and things the idea was you know I was going to of it be the squ or I said um hexi kind of rose out of the ground and possessed me so the first
Spirit possession I ever experienced was being possessed by hexi it was kind of this blew my head somewhat and you my friend asked various questions which she answered and he was very happy about the what she told him and the instructions she gave him so since then she’s always
Been there in some way when I did the Ritual from the high groman I mentioned that was on a Monday where in the high command you would work with Selen you know there like go yeah of course I felt there was enough of um cross fertilization of seleni and hecy
That instead I would call on hecy so I called on hecy and then but people who might not be famili hran here there’s a an angel and a demon for every hour of every day of the week so it’s 144 of them then I called on the plant of the
Hour and then the plant R demon of the hour and boom that demon came in space I I say manifested in the fire and there’s this humanoid flame shape in the fire and I think a lot of that was down to the fact that hecy was the the deity
That I had first called on to be sort of overseeing and to you know the her power was the power behind what was going on for that conjuration but yeah hecky and the way she has risen in the last 20 years is her her influence she’s become
One of the sort of I think most significant of the ancient deities in sort of modern paganism absolutely and that brings me to a really a good point and something I wanted to ask you about there’s a lot of ideas about the goisha spirits or just grimor Spirits
Originally being pagan gods and then demoted by Christianity into these demons that we summon and one I don’t know you know Jack ra who’s a friend of both Luke and I in the show he just put out his new edition of uh hian and he has things in there for basically using
Hkat to work with goetic spirits and I’m curious what your opinion is on sort of diverting from the traditional judeo-christian system in favor of a more Pagan style to contact these sublunar and cathic Spirits I mean I certainly think it’s you know a valid way to do it you know
Jake stranton Kent was really pioneered that a lot with his you know Joseph here and his other books you know he did amazing work there and books like high grantia do show that that is a valid way of doing things if you have the experience and it’s the right Spirits I
Think it’s a perfectly valid way to go I mean the whole wimo period you know it’s that thing of magic takes on the religion and the technology of the age and it was largely Christian age but it’s roots are from a pagan time you know the stuff that’s in the grimo so I
Think it is perfectly valid and I mean if you’re working he Hermes Hades for example is a a really good Triad of deities to work with for the sort of work with some you know some of the grimo spirits absolutely who I’m very passionate about like hecky yeah as am I
So yeah absolutely I think I think it is valid but I think people coming into it new it’s better start within the framework that’s there with the grimo and when they have more experience then start you know shifting over to that if it’s their preference with working with those other gods and
Goddesses yes absolutely I absolutely agree and that’s something that when I was getting into grimo war stuff I had a lot of people who questioned my authenticity with it just because they knew that throughout my entire life I’ve been highly critical of the monotheistic systems I come from a what I would call
A culturally Jewish family but the religion was just not there or talked about and things like that and it took me about a couple weeks to Grapple with that but I was able to overcome that and find a lot of beauty within the judeo-christian system when it comes to
Grimo and Magic specifically so I definitely think that if you’re going to be getting into this it’s good to start from what is written and then kind of expand out with experience yeah and I think a lot of people are sort of leaning in that direction and you know
People who are experienced there are some people who are now writing more about that and going particularly back more to the goz and you know the ancient Greek practices um where obviously there was no Christian Theology and it was dirties like hecy so I think that’s one
Of the areas we’re going to see Grim practice expand a lot more in coming years well it’s it’s interesting as well isn’t it David because like I mean there’s actual precedent for that as well right like the Greek magical papy and the the H grantia they sit on that very interesting intersection between
The what was at the time the Fairly New judeo-christian Faith and gnosticism and hermeticism and and on top of that the the incorporation of all of the old gods as well and and it begs the question in magical practice as as to you know whether two things can be true at the
Same time because it seems like we all take a fairly like objective view on the the existence of these spirits that they are indeed real and that they’re not figments of the imagination or or areas of the psychology like Crowley might have suggested so it begs a lot of very
Interesting questions about about these things but particularly with HEC as you say there’s huge precedent to her being the driving force behind lesser Spirits just some of the rights within the the Greek magical papy of her essentially encouraging and galvanizing spirits of the Dead to go and find you a lover or
To inflame somebody with for you you know these these things are fairly normal so you would think that if you extrapolate that idea that that could definitely be used as a a driving force behind a goetic operation absolutely and I mean interesting you know Steve sav’s
Most recent book um um the true and secret patology you know it’s like a German gmir 17th century I think and interesting at the beginning of that there’s like a Latin hecy prayer and that’s for dealing with treasure spirits and that book just just arrived for me
And I’m really really enjoying it and I’m very excited to have him on the show to talk about it yeah I mean it’s a great book I mean Steve contacted me and asked my op like we went over the translation of the Latin together and you know bounced it backwards and
Forwards to try and come up with the best version and he was like showing me the text when he was working on it and I said asked him this has to go into the grimo encyclopedia because when he first contacted me about it that was a grimo I
Hadn’t seen before we were talking about you know stuff that was new to me and I was like Steve I love this can I put it in you know obviously you’ll be credited appropriately and stuff but I would really like to make this one of the 100
Titles and he was like yeah of course and there’s some really exciting material in it and a good example of the diversity of the grimo as well and so said I just want to jump back to that the PGM that the sorcerer or Sorcerers whose materials in the PGM is sort of
Like earlier cunning folk they’re doing the magic with spirits that work yes like you know they don’t worried about which panin it’s from if they can get results with that spirit it’s like you know it’s much more of an Eclectic practical attitude to these things yeah
I’ll work with you if you can get me the results that’s fine by me that’s just yeah and it’s it’s crazy how like that was it’s always been one of the most interesting I think it’s I mean it’s such a pedestrian thing for me to say because it’s so blaringly obvious to
Anyone that’s been in involved in in Practical Magic but the the importance of the PGM and just it’s how interesting it is as a as a document reading through it and and seeing that it is just the working notes of a magician which is essentially what any cunning man’s
Grimoire or cunning woman’s grimo would have been is just the you know it doesn’t really matter what your your faith or your Creed is it’s you know well it turns out Anubis can do this for me so I’m going to keep going back to him you know because I need to get paid
So I love that pragmatism and that that practicality around magic and I love that the how that just reinforces what true magic is supposed to be you know in in causing physical invisible change by the intervention of spiritual creatures yeah absolutely I mean you mentioned Anubis Anubis is my Patron dirty and
Another example there you know in ancient Egypt Anubis basically is in charge of the spirits in the Underworld he’s got thousands of spirits under him so yeah another very good option for working with Spirits very interesting if I might I’d like to just pivot the line of inquiry ever so slightly because I
Recently listened to listened to and relistened to on numerous occasions your interview on what magic is this for their Fistful of fairies series and the F folk are my most recent I would I would say interest but definitely bordering on Obsession and Octavian and I recently recorded an episode for this
Very same show on specifically on on the Fay and would you be happy to to talk a little bit about your experiences with them and how that relates to their nature compared to other Spirits yeah sure anything in particular or well yeah I so I mean I remember a particular
Story that you told about performing the the Lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram in a in in the forest and encountered by a very disgruntled fairy queen was your was your int when you were going out to do that operation was your intention to to contact the faery
No not at all really interesting yeah no I was just planning on doing a rich SL in the woods and that was when I leared that several important lessons number one being the pentagram ritual is totally an indoor ritual because it’s the equivalent of you know you’re just
Basically blasting the space out getting rid of any Spirit that’s there so it’s kind of like the equivalent of going into somebody’s home pointing a gun at the them saying sod off if you go into the and then somebody’s got a bigger gun and they go
No you sod off and that was that fairy queen nothing I did could touch it I was literally paralyzed from the head down I was just thinking I am in deep crap now racking my brain what do you do tocate fairies and while she was just sort of
Like hovering there sort of sang and recited poems for half an hour before she then sort of get like little nod and then I wasn’t paralyzed anymore and just drifted off and I was just like good reminder there’s always things out there that are a lot bigger and stronger than
You are and it’s a good idea not to piss them off that also inspired me to come up with something which you know sometimes something seems so obvious and you think why hasn’t it been done until it gets done and but because I do like the pentagram mital it’s something that
Was part you know I used to do daily for many many years I thought about you have the license to depart you know the end of a conjuration so then I I created the license to remain that you do before something like The Penton ritual where
You give license to remain to any spirit that lives in or has been invited into the place where you’re doing that pentagram ritual how on Earth has that not been done before that’s a really good point I’d never I would never have even thought of that that’s incredible
That’s such a cool thing to hear spe I mean this is just to be completely transparent here this is very much a selfish line of inquiry here because I am head first in in the fairy world at the moment and I found that their their
Proximity to us to be seems to be so much more how can I put this they just see they just seem to be so much closer to us than than perhaps demons and and and angels are and it’s very unlikely that you’re going to stumble through somewhere and encounter a demon but I
Live on at essentially at the foothills of a a a mountain range and spend a lot of time in the forest and it’s not uncommon to come across some very strange things out in the woods or hear singing voices in the middle of the night and and things things like that
And I was talking to a friend of mine back in in she she lives in Scotland and she’s a she’s a cunning woman herself and and has had various experiences with with what she believes to be the faith folk and she said if you want to start
Well the the premise to the story actually was that I started having a dream about what I thought to be a fairy woman me a flute and teaching me a song and I called her about that and she said that what she would advise to do is to
Go out into the woods every day and play this song on a flute and see what happens and so that’s what I’ve been doing for the past week or so and I don’t know what the the end goal of that is but the being really interested in
The book of obon at the moment and contact with the fa folk it seems to be um that maybe that’s the the starting point I don’t know or maybe I’m I’m just wasting my time that’s also possible I would absolutely go along what she said personally I would add to that that
Whenever I went out and played the song I there’s classic foods to give them and I would lay out a little Feast for her as offerings to facilitate that contact as well it’s good advice and so so that’s the I mean that’s the other thing that’s why I’m working on an an offering
Table at the moment to take out as you say it’s it I think one of the a lot of the things that are prescribed like finely cooked chickens and bread and sweet things and good wine but it it can’t be left on the floor it has to be
Put on a table if I’m not mistaken yeah I mean on the table and then I mean at the end it can then after you go you you can you on the floor for the animals and things to eat because the end of the day the offerings you know are there to go
Back into nature and the those sort of fairy nature Spirits have much more immediatey to us like you say in angels and demons they are much more contactable for that reason and we also have to be extremely careful for that reason because they can be incredibly powerful and you there’s like
That’s where you know studying your fairy law and like knowing the things to avoid doing when encountering them is always a good thing you know not saying thank you example is a one wearing a hackstone is always a good plan as well to avoid being glamoured you know
There’s so many little things there I mean I do find the Fairy stuff fascinating and I’ve had a number of fairy encounters I’ve seen people being fairy Le I’ve seen a fairy gate on a couple of occasions I was really tempted to go through one time but it’s not long
After the birth of my son back 15 16 years ago and the fact that he was back at home was the thing that stopped me otherwise I would have gone for it seeing what was on the other side but wow that incredible I’ve heard that also because I I think you’re absolutely
Right I think reading a lot of the the old fairy folk stories and fairy tales as they’re called is is actually strangely a really useful resource for finding out information that maybe isn’t included in in the grimo and you there are obviously a lot of cautionary tales
With the fairies and like you say not saying thank you and also not saying I’m sorry as one that I came across as well that you’re supposed to just beg their pardon for something and not not actually say the word sorry to them but I think even things that people don’t
Consider to be like the pi Piper of Hamlin I’ve always considered that to be a very fairy thing for someone to do if someone Rene is on a deal to just you know lead their children off by by music into the mountains that’s a very um a very fairy thing to do but
It’s it does like the way what you said earlier on about the goetic full manifestations of of demons for example being quite rare and also a very difficult thing to achieve it can take a number of hours for for that to occur it does seem from what I’ve heard again I’m
Going from a friend of mine and a couple of my own experiences with the F that that they are a lot more more likely to actually just appear and seem very very Caporal comparative to to Angels and Demons is that something that you you’ve no just as well David yeah absolutely
And also having the power to do things like affect the localized weather around you you know they are much have a lot more control of the environment that you know you are in when you’re out there with them and so you are not in the dominant position generally with them so
Yeah it’s good to know as much as you can about their rules and ways of doing things and being respectful I’ve seen somebody be disrespectful and they got severely um Trashed by the forest they came out of that for they were fairy L we they’ve been told as many years ago
Group I as him we were working at a site that was known to be a dark fairy site and the member of the group who lived nearby said look don’t take any you know this is thing sometimes help with fairies and iron they really don’t like it everybody did a check beforehand no
Iron no clothes had Zips and even bras with bra Clips in no iron the one guy insisted on taking his dagger and they were not happy they we heard we all went off and did things and we were sort of regathering and then we heard the fairy mimicking our name our voices calling
Him from other parts of the woods leading him off and we could see like green lights like balls of light in amongst the trees and when he did eventually managed to escape from the woods to us he literally every tree branch had whacked him in the face he’
Tripped over so many tree roots he was covered in cuts and bruises because he had disrespected them in their place and that’s just an example of you know he went through an hour or so of hell trying to get get out because he had disrespected one of their rules well I
Mean and that’s just that’s an incredible story but you know that it sounds honestly like he got off quite Lightly for that you know like in in the woods near where I live there are there are grizzly bears and there are wolves and there are coyotes and things like
That if the faery wanted to teach you a lesson they could do so in a very very very nasty nasty way in the untameable kind of like mountainous areas you know and and I wonder just going back to the the concept we were talking about about times and augmenting rituals it’s kind
Of a twofold question that I’ve got for you David when whenever you’ve done fairy workings before have they tended to to be from like the fulga manuscript from the the book of Oberon and and things that are very focused on that or have you used other rituals that you
Found useful and respectful to to contact them because I don’t know that I would personally like to try and bind a fairy in the same way that I would a goisha spirit yeah I know it was before I’d encountered the book of on and yeah it was definitely um a lot more
Respectful without any attempt to to bind them yeah absolutely so it was was kind of like a ritual that you guys had written specifically to to contact the fairies I’m guessing then yeah it was sort of drawing on things from sort of classical sort of stories and from grimo
Things from you like working with the um the Seven Sisters For example where we had their names and we sort of We call we of would call call but not in a way that was demanding right it was requesting like an invitation more than a come to the feast please right gotcha
Yeah I think that’s probably the wiser approach to take with them for sure and I wondered with with regards to timing and things there’s the big thing in the in fairy law is the the changing of the courts between the cely and the uncy court right that sa specifically seems
To denote a time in which those two courts change and Bel yeah and and belain of course yeah and there is a reputation for the The uncy Who rule over the latter part of the fall and the the winter leading up to Spring being a little more prickly than the spring and summertime
Courts of fairies the cely court have you ever have you ever found that to be the case would you think it unwise possibly to attempt contact with the fairies during the darker months I think my experience I’d say they’re quicker to take offense but that’s the main distinction um apart
From that I’ve actually probably had more contact with uncy than cely oh interesting because I have gone in very carefully and politely I have not had problems other people who I’ve been in a group with those times have not showed the same respect and not just that one instance
There been other times and have had problems so yeah they are I think quicker to definitely quicker to take offense you know they have a similar magnitude and so I’ve always been more drawn to sort of dark stuff than light stuff you know it’s I think a lot of us
To get into magicar so from that point of view obviously the unseed are kind of fascinating for sure and i’ I’ve also heard that they’re they’re more and again I’m going on advice from someone I trust greatly but who has had more experience than I on the subject I’ve
I’ve had a few encounters during ritual with with fery that have been really quite visceral in that the results that I had I had asked them for and and exchanged an offering for came so quickly rapidly and and with such unmistakable force that there was no
Question that it was them that did it and I’ve heard that the uncy court seemed to have a reputation for just getting things done very very quickly yeah I would agree with that absolutely they’re not quite all the bells and whistles in the same way as the cely
Court I think they’re very much more it’s get it done no messing which is you hope you know what you wanted yeah exactly because it’s coming one way or another that’s fast I really appreciate your Insight on that David it’s it’s really really interesting to talk to somebody who’s had because the
The fairy have been such a strange part of magic everybody very much focuses on the angels and the the the demons and the the necromantic spirits but they’ve been so present in magic for so long and yet they’re so so spoken of so little I find maybe up until now I think they’re
Making a little more of a Vogue these days but would you agree would you think that’s a fair statement yeah I think that’s a fair statement I just hope that more people who are getting interest in them now will look at you know the the right sources and treat them with the
Right respect and not think of them as some sort of like fluffy Victorian flower fairy you know yeah it’s quite it’s a mistake you might only make once I think yeah I remember back in 2020 when the pandemic was still a friend of mine and uh we used to perform rituals
And rights together quite a lot we we did so in the clearing of the woods nearby us and we didn’t see anything other than a kind of vague Shadow humanoid Shadow wandering around the circle but did hear a very very distinct voice and very androgynous didn’t didn’t
Quite couldn’t quite tell if it was male or female we didn’t realize at the time but there was there was a really tragic Spate of people committing suicide in that particular woods and this this particular fairy she voiced her disgust at that being a thing she was quite
Unhappy about that and we’d asked her for something and she delivered it very quick something very material delivered it very very quickly but then we proceeded to be chased out of the woods by a pack of rabid coyotes for a good few kilometers which was a really hair raising experience so that it’s
Interesting how it seemed that her patience was kind of at it wits end with the humankind at the time see what I mean wow this is weird and that was our interview with with David ranan amazing guest really fun to talk to really knowledgeable and very very well spoken
Cannot wait to have him on again really really enjoyed talking to him more guests to come more content to come going to try and do some more on-site shows but with that this is strange dominions but as for now that’s tonight and we will see you again on the strange dominions goodbye He All