Pentacles picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2020
A lot of my magical work, of late, has involved the use of magical tools. In the past, I’ve gone through periods of time where I’ve been very minimalistic in my use of magic tools, but as with anything else, I find it useful to change up my routines, especially if there is justification in making the switch. Over the course of the last year I’ve been working with alchemical substances and pentacles and I thought I’d share an update focused on around how I’m using these tools and how that usage is evolving because of the work I’m doing.
My work with alchemical substances
I’m working with 10 alchemical substance, both dry and wet. The work with these substances is part of the Sphere of Art work and you can find details about how to work with them in R.J. Stewart’s The Sphere of Art 2 (affiliate link). In my case, I’m working with the homeopathic derivations of the substances, but I’ve found these to be quite potent. The initial work with these substances involves elevating them (charging) with the appropriate energies. In my case, I’ve aligned each substance with its correspond Sephiroth, planet, and archangel, through further work, beyond what is initially described in the Sphere of Art 2. This work has been done so that the alchemical substances can mediate those influences within the specific space and time I create for my magical workings.
Doing this work has also served to make the physical space into a magical tool in its own right, as it is increasingly calibrated to each Sephiroth, archangel and planetary energy through the continuous daily work done with it. This has lead to much more intense dreaming in the last year, as well as deeper states of altered consciousness. It has also proven helpful with ongoing practical magical work, because specific influences can be called on as needed without doing a lot of additional work. They are already in the space, ready to be activated if needed.
All of this has been done using the alchemical substances as the medium. Because these substances are already aligned with the specific forces being worked with, through the initial Sphere of Art 2 exercises, its been easy to refine them even further and amplify their ability to mediate the energies. By working with them each day I’ve attuned the space and myself to the specific energies they mediate and used them to also connect those energies with me. This allowed me to work intimately with the planetary and archangelic entities to create the space space that I’m working in.
My magic art work
In conjunction with the alchemical essences I’ve been working with, I’ve also been creating magical art based on the experiential impressions I’ve had of the archangels I’m working with. In some case, I already had the art created from earlier work, but in some cases I’ve developed new work. Regardless, the magical art has been placed into the ritual room and has also served to amplify the influences of the planetary and archangelic forces I’m working with.
I find that art can play a very active role in the environment that its in, as I share in The Magic of Art. It’s not passive, because even the act of observing the art brings an interaction with it that imprints on the consciousness of the person observing the art. Setting up my ritual space with art on the walls and ceilings of the room has been useful because anywhere I look I interact with the spirits and energies I’ve chosen to work with, making them into an intimate part of my daily life, through the simple act of observation.
My ongoing work with Pentacles
A while back I wrote about the initial work I did with planetary pentacles I got from Practical Occult. Since that time I’ve gotten two additional pentacles, the first pentacle of the moon and the third pentacle of the sun. I’ve only gotten the third pentacle very recently, so I don’t have anything to write about it just yet, but in the case of the first pentacle of the moon, I found that I needed to alter its functions a bit, because the aspect of it that unlocks doors is very literal, and I was looking for something a bit more nuanced.
My approach to altering the pentacle of the Moon involved meditating with it and exploring the programming of the pentacle to see if it could be altered. I found that I could change the programming and reapply it toward a different concept of unlocking. Since making the alterations I’ve used it to unlock the perspectives of people that were locked into a specific point of view. I’ve also used it to unlock my own mind in order to stimulate greater creativity. I’m continuing to experiment with it further to see if I can use the pentacle to unlock events or opportunities that would otherwise be locked.
I’ve also continued to working the other two pentacles. I’ve used the Mercury pentacle to facilitate better communication and in some cases win arguments and debates I was having. I’ve continued using the Jupiter pentacle for wealth magic, enhancing the ongoing work I’m doing with the magical wealth art sculptures I’ve created.
I’m also putting the pentacles into specific patterns, such as is included in the picture above, to see how those patterns of placement impact each other. I’m using the holes in the pentacles as part of the pattern placement and for the direction of one planetary energy into another, but this work is very recent and its too early to tell what will come of it.
