CHAPTER 7
TEMPLE OF THE DEMON LOVER:
THE DEMONIC RITUALS
The process of delving into the black abyss
is to me the keenest form of fascination.
–h. p. lovecraft
Many things lurk in the outer darkness. From this abyss may emerge any number of challenges, both personal and impersonal, which may adversely affect our magical workings. This is a main reason why many magical systems across the globe engage in some form of ritual cleansing, not just of the participants themselves but also of the ritual area. There are many different types of energies that may be floating around in any particular area. Perhaps the aetheric recordings of past events that have taken place there, or the natural lines of earth energy, may bring influences that can affect our minds and our moods, and therefore our magic. Simple acts such as the burning of herbs or incense or asperging with salt water can clear up a majority of insignificant (yet potentially disruptive) energies, and the Banishing exercise can do more. But there are certain times in which we may perceive that there are perhaps more than simple energies that are present.
There is a type of supposed “Demon” that many of us have already encountered. They are usually called “Shadow Beings” and appear exactly as one might think: like wisps of shadow, scurrying out of sight, just out of the corner of your eye. These are “lower spirits” and not usually a cause for concern, as they are more akin to a form of “astral wildlife,” like a small rodent or a cat. They generally will hang around in the shadows, absorbing ambient energies of various types (most often “base” emotions, such as fear, anger, sexual desire, etc.) They are not “bad,” per se, but they can be disruptive if not taken care of, especially prior to a ritual working, which may actually empower them in a negative way. While the Banishing might be effective against them, certainly, another approach has been brought into the Faery Tradition from our spiritual cousins in the Far East.
This ritual observance is inspired by practices of the Tibetan Bön shamanism tradition and found its way into Faery Tradition via the NightHares line. It is used sometimes as a preliminary rite to high ceremonies such as Grand Sabbats, dedications, or initiations. It is a means to give a “peace offering” to the minor “demons” or other low and obstructing spirits that might otherwise adversely affect the ritual. This gives them an offering along with a magical warning: take this offering and leave in peace, or suffer the wrath of the magician and their deities. What follows is my adaptation.
This is done in two steps. The first is to make the “red bread” and the second will be the offering itself.
EXERCISE: Making the Red Bread
This is a “simple version” using rice. Alternatively, you may wish to bake actual bread with the mustard seed and red coloring and use that instead, as bread will be less messy than the colored rice (as well as potentially more comfortable if you are performing this rite indoors and without shoes).
Items needed:
Dry white rice
Mustard seed
Red food coloring
A ceramic bowl
A baking pan or cookie sheet
Some aluminum foil (for easy clean up)
Begin by lining the baking pan or cookie sheet with the aluminum foil. Open the Way. Now, fill a bowl about half way with the rice. Now add about two tablespoons of mustard seed. Mix together. Now, add a few drops of the food coloring and MIX thoroughly. You will want the color to be reddish, but it need not be “blood red.” Add more as needed but GO SLOW, as it’s easy to add too much color and end up with a bit of a mess. Stir until the color is fairly even.
Pour the rice onto the cookie sheet and spread thinly and evenly. Allow to dry overnight (or you can put it in the oven on a low temperature for several minutes until dry).
EXERCISE: Offering the Red Bread
This is usually done just prior to a larger working. If you are outdoors you may wish to strew the rice on the ground, but if you are indoors it might prove more useful (and less messy) to pour the offering into a bowl or on a dish.
Items needed:
The “red bread”
Some incense for an offering (and incense burner and charcoal, if needed)
An offering bowl or dish (optional)
Open the Way. From your aligned state, breathe in the essence of the Star Goddess as white and black flames and use this wraith force to bless the bread.
Imagine that you can send out a multitude of rays of light, each with a little hook at their end, that radiate out from your alignment and into each and every of the “obstructing spirits.” With a breath, these rays retract and “drag” these spirits together so that they are all in one small area in front of the practitioner. They may appear to the aetheric sight as red, angry spirits, wild and feral-looking.
Hold the red bread in your left hand at waist level while you hold the incense offering in your right. Say:
Demons and spirits that deceive!
By God Herself you must obey.
Do not resist, or suffer our wrath!
Receive this gift and take your leave!
IO EVOHE! So must it be!
With a snap of the fingers, offer up the red bread, throwing it down onto the ground (or alternatively, pouring it on a plate or dish and placing on the floor) while imagining a wave of intense fire and heat radiating outward from your heart center in all directions, repelling all remaining obstructing forces and spirits. The offering has been made, and now your other work may proceed. Dispose of the remains in the way of your choosing after your ritual is complete.
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Having looked deep into the mirror of our own abyss, we have seen what frights and shades lurk there, just out of sight. We have invoked our shadow, and with the help of the Watchers and the Wells at the Ends of the World, we have gazed into different aspects of our greatest fear. But if we were to think that our work is done, we would sadly mistaken. The ego may try to convince us that we have already done our work, but most often this is a trick to dissuade us from going any deeper.
We may find that the fears that arise to our consciousness might not actually represent those deepest fears that are affecting us. Instead they may be smaller, less significant fears that the ego will throw our way in the hopes that we will take the bait and back off from our pressing insistence of getting to the core of that which ails us.
But even smaller fears can be potent ones. When we do this type of work, we may even be able to use our magic in order to combine these smaller fears and issues into a singular force with which we may more easily interact, setting the stage for confrontation, identification of the core issues, and (hopefully) transformation. And so, we again pull from our magical toolbox and engage another of the magicians most potent of tools: the Triangle of Manifestation.
The Triangle is the Holy Trinity in perfect alignment—the three worlds, the Three Souls of Humankind. It is the Divine Twins merged together, becoming a third form. That third form is our aforementioned Winged Serpent, the Blue God, who as the Dian y Glas is our own holy daemon, aka our “higher self,” “deep self,” or “God Soul.” When we are in alignment with our holy daemon, there can be no “evil spirit” that can invade us. The holy daemon forms the triangle that will hold our complex or demon, allowing it to manifest into a form with which we may interact within the black mirror.
Though not often called upon in the Craft in this capacity, this rite will utilize the magic circle not so much as a barrier, but primarily as a means of extraction—to “draw out” our demons (however we are defining that term) and place them under controlled observation in the safety of our Triangle.
This rite aims to safely call into form the embodiment of our shadow that we may observe it. You will wish to perform this rite several times, at least until you are comfortable with its form and effects. This may take some time, perhaps a month or more of consistent workings. My advice would be to perform it at least twice a week for four weeks and then see how you feel about it overall. There is no shame in taking more time to make certain of your own progress.
To mentally prepare for this rite, spend some time meditating on your shadow using the previous tools given. What are the themes that have arisen? What are your fears? Be aware of these as you go into this rite and be prepared to call them up in full emotional detail. You may wish to abstain from certain foods or activities for at least one to two full days prior to this rite.
Items needed:
A meditation pillow
A Star Goddess candle
A bell
A pen and some paper
A cup
A small pitcher of water
An incense burner
Charcoal
Copal resin
Dried lavender flowers
Chalk, tape, sand, or salt to mark on the floor
A black scrying mirror
A small box or jar that can be closed
Using the chalk, tape, sand, or salt, mark out a circle on the floor that is large enough for all of the tools you will be using with you sitting in the center. Outside of this circle, mark a triangle on the floor,47 so that it is oriented pointing away from the circle. In the middle of this triangle place your black scrying mirror so that its concave side faces into the circle. Light the incense charcoal.
Open the Way. Place some copal on the charcoal. Ring the bell nine times, in three groups of three. Feel your connection to the Star Goddess as crystalline-white and ebony-black flames that flow through your holy daemon, through your fetch, and through your talker. See yourself shining with these fires, this wraith force. Use this power to perform the Waters of Purity rite. Now perform the Banishing exercise as given previously.
You may do this next part sitting, facing the triangle, or standing and physically walking the circle’s edge. Focus your awareness on the physical space all around you. With your breath, use wraith force to empower the circle around you and enchant it to become a whirling vortex 48 of divine intelligence. Imagine this vortex is spinning around you at such a high velocity that it appears to be standing still … and you are in the calm central eye of this invisible maelstrom. Use whatever additional methods you feel are appropriate to make the circle feel solid to you, if needed. In this circle, you are “between the worlds,” i.e., outside of space and time.
Invoke the Watchers and the Wells in each direction, east (Star Finder/Arida), south (Shining Flame/Tana), west (Water Maker, Tiamat), north (Black Mother/Verr-Avna), above (Heaven Shiner/Quakoralina), below (Fire-In-The-Earth/Sugma’ad), and center (Guardian of the Gates/the Nameless Name). Feel their presences: The Goddesses of the Wells as the primal, unknowable, maddening mystery that is the elemental powers of the outer darkness, and the Watchers as the focusing lenses that mediate that combined power into your circle, here and now. They each present you with a version of your greatest fear … and the means of championing it.
If you are standing, sit down and face the triangle.
Now, with three deep and conscious breaths, empower the triangle with Blue Fire; see each line being drawn as if by an invisible hand with an exhalation, like a brushstroke of brilliant electric blue light. Feel how this is the true holy trinity: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This is the true symbol and story of the Divine Twins: 1+1=3.
Our Twins are the mystery of manifestation and so they will hold this gate open for us. Begin to call up your complexes … your fears … your guilt and shame. Imagine that these feelings are vibrations of energy that exist within your energy body … or frequencies of consciousness like dissonant notes in an otherwise harmonic symphony. Visually, we might see them as dark, mist-like shadows that exist deep within. Imagine how this darkness within you is drawn to the light. Like moths to flame they take flight … rising up and out of your body like rising smoke. Imagine this smoke exuding out through the pores of your skin, like a dark vapor that is pulled by an unseen centrifugal force to the inner edges of the whirling, glowing circle all around you.
With every slow, deep breath, these energies, blocks, complexes, issues, fears, demons, etc. get caught in the wake of the swirling vortex and begin to spin around you just inside the boundary of your circle. With every breath, they spin a little faster. Faster … faster … FASTER … whirling around you with tremendous speed as your breath remains slow and deep. Imagine that you can hear these dark forces whooshing around you … humming … spinning so fast that it all appears like a single streak of darkness all around you. Merging together as a single force. Allow the speed and the power to build. With every breath, you release more and more of whatever negative energies you have held inside you. Perhaps more than you had previously known. It merges and builds at the edges of your spinning circle … faster … faster … faster!
Maintain this energetic edge for a bit. When you feel it is at its peak, recite the following incantation:
Whirling darkness, screaming shade
Fright and demon, guilt and pain
Shadow of my darkened past
Within the mirror now held fast!
On the last line and with your exhale, channel an opening in the circle/vortex before you and throw the shadow demon into the triangle. Feel this dark force being beamed into the scrying mirror within the triangle where it is securely contained.
Reaffirm your connection to the presences of the Watchers and the Wells, feeling how they are keeping you balanced and in a state of deep Enchantment. Gaze into the mirror. Feel how your demon is trapped within the triangle. Scry and see what images arise in the mirror. Do you see your demon? Look at it. What form does it take? Is it frightening? Let the fear wash over and through you. Is it pitiful? You can have compassion for it without harming yourself. Is it beautiful? What is it distracting you from? Does it refuse to be seen at all? Command it to appear before you. By the power of your three souls aligned, the power of the highest spirit, command it to obey with the charm:
Shade or Demon, come to form
As calm as eye of many storm
Now held to these three things I ask:
Your name, your sign, your face unmasked.
Held within the Daemonic Triangle the shadow demon must obey—at least eventually. It is underneath a sort of spiritual microscope, and now we will observe its behavior. Ask for its name … its true name. How does it respond? Ask again. Do you understand the name? Do you feel it is true? If so, move on to the next step; if not, continue to demand its name, drawing on the powers of the Watchers and the Wells, if necessary.
Now, command it by name to bare its true face. Unmasked, it reveals itself. Does it change? Unmask! Does it change again? Hold tight and fear not! Do not flinch or look away.
Next ask for its sign. This is as much its “theme” as it is a visual image. You may receive an image of a symbol or some sort of sign. Draw this as best you can. You may also treat this as you might automatic writing or drawing, allowing the pen to flow independent of your conscious thought. Or you may be particularly inspired in the creation of a sigil. Draw it on your paper to your satisfaction.
Now, with its name, sign, and form revealed you have power over it. Ask it questions. How long has it been with you? How is it fed? What strengths has it offered you? What payment does it demand? Just allow your imagination to be the medium by which this demon communicates. Try not to judge what you are receiving in the moment.
If your demon has not reveled itself to you, then you are to keep commanding it until it relents. This may take several sessions, so be patient. You may also wish to strengthen your connections to both the Watchers and the Wells outside of this exercise to help give your work here the needed impetus toward success. In this work, allies can make all the difference.
Reaffirming your connection to the Watchers and the Wells, bind it by name to its sigil. Burn copal and waft the smoke over the sigil.
After you have spent at least a few minutes in communion with your demon, reaffirm your soul alignment and place some copal and dried lavender on the charcoal. Offer your shadow demon the following prayer:
Shade or Demon, shadow form,
The winds have calmed the raging storm
A pleasant slumber now for thee
And peace between us ever be.
Waft some of the incense smoke in the direction of the triangle, sending it a sense of compassion and healing. Imagine a beam of divine love from your holy daemon shining into the mirror and triangle. Most likely you will experience the sensation of the demon fading from the mirror. (If not, perform the Banishing rite.) Place the sigil in the jar or box and close it tightly. Keep this out of sight and out of sunlight completely, only bringing it out after sunset, only by candle or moonlight, and only when you are communing with your demon.
Waft some of the smoke over yourself. Ring the bell three times. Perform the Banishing rite and then the Waters of Purity. Take down your circle as you would normally. Record your experiences in your journal.
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This rite serves as the first main component of a series of workings designed to help us get to know our shadow on a more intimate level. We need to learn what its tricks are if we are going to be able to combat them. And confrontation is the only real way to learn how not to give in to our fears. Once we have confronted our shadow demon, and perhaps become more accustomed to its many forms, we can then begin the real work of transformation, for we cannot expect to enter into this relationship and remain unchanged.
As we continue to work with our shadow we must use all of the tools at our disposal in order to champion it. As we sit in its presence, we learn to allow our fear to wash over and through us, holding fast to our practices that keep us on the warrior’s path. We use our magic, divination and ritual, to determine how best to proceed, and then to enact our will. If our demon manifests in one or more particular elements, then we may use the tools of that element to help bring back the balance that we seek.
In addition to using the Devil at the Crossroads spread, we can rely on our journaling practice to assist us in learning where our elemental imbalances lie.
JOURNALING: Elemental Impurities
For this exercise, each night for a week, before going to bed, take about five minutes to make a list of your weaknesses, blocks, and impurities. Mentally go back over your life since your childhood. Think about all the negative experiences you have gone through and how they affected you at the time. Have you carried any of that into your present life? Imagine that every incident you list is being packed away as if in a box.
The next night, repeat this process and see if there are any other incidents that you can think of. If not, review your previous list. If any of those items feel particularly “powerful” go ahead and list them again on today’s list.
Do this for a full seven nights. On the eighth night look at your list and then distill it down. You may find that certain incidents are actually representative of a “theme” and so make a new list that shows those themes and patterns extrapolated from what you wrote the previous week. Now, beside each entry, list whatever element you feel best describes that particular issue. For example, “Quick to anger” might be labeled “Fire,” “too trusting” might be “Water,” and “easily confused” might be “Air.”
Once this is completed, look over your list and see if there is one or more of the elements that stand out more than others. This, along with the Devil at the Crossroads spread will give you a different perspective as to where to look to find allies in dealing with your shadow.
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Once we are aware of which elements in particular are giving us trouble, we can focus our efforts there. In the Korythalia/Bloodrose material, there is a set of specific practices and visualizations that are used in order to get in touch with an elemental shadow demon.
EXERCISE: Shadows of the Elements
This is used in order to call up the impurities or blocks that we have in relation to certain elements. Drawing from our list, choose the element that is giving you the most trouble and “plug in” the appropriate spirits and visualizations into the following formula.
Unlike the previous exercises, in this series the circle cast will be of a standard type, in that it will be used to contain the energy as well as offer protection.
Items needed:
A meditation pillow
A Star Goddess candle
A ritual tool for the chosen element
A bell
A cup
A small pitcher of water
An incense burner
Charcoal
Copal resin
Dried lavender flowers
Chalk, tape, sand, or salt to mark on the floor
A black scrying mirror
Mark the circle on the floor as you did with the Daemonic Triangle exercise. Likewise mark the triangle just outside the circle facing outward, in the direction that corresponds with the element with which you will be working.
Open the Way. Cast the circle. Empower it to be a barrier of protection. Breathe Blue Fire and empower the triangle.
Facing the triangle, invoke the Watcher of the element. Take a moment to feel their presence connecting to the associated glyph in your body. Take as much time as you’d like to get “in tune” with them.
Imagining that you are reaching through the Watcher, invoke the corresponding Well. Feel this goddess’s presence as an overwhelming elemental power, mediated and regulated by the presence of the Watcher; an “interface”—much like how software interacts with hardware—providing a safe way to access a portion of this goddess’s otherwise devastating presence.
Take hold of whatever elemental ritual tool is appropriate for this working, while tapping into the archetypal tool on the astral. Take a moment to feel how your physical tool carries this deeper spirit within it. Hold it out in front of you, between yourself and the mirror in the triangle before you, so that you focus on the tool instead of the mirror. Feel how you wield this tool with skill and with grace.
Figure 18: Elemental Stations of the Body
Reaffirm the alignment of your souls and—drawing from both the Watcher and the Well—call up your blocks … impurities … weaknesses … complexes … your demons. Call them to appear in the mirror before you, using the appropriate visual key:
Air: A glowing yellow eye within an eight-rayed vortex of violet fire.
Fire: A glowing red eye within an eight-rayed vortex of yellow fire.
Water: A glowing blue eye within an eight-rayed vortex of pink fire.
Earth: A glowing green eye within an eight-rayed vortex of black and dark Blue Fire.
Aether: A glowing violet eye within an eight-rayed vortex of intense white and black fire.
Visualize the appropriate key as appearing in the black mirror before you. Notice how you feel about it. This is a doorway into a deeper experience with the shadow demon. Open this door and look inside. What do you see? Command this shadow demon to appear before you in a form that you will understand. Demand its true name. Draw on the Watcher and the Well, as necessary.
Ask the shadow demon what you need to do in order to be free of it. Use your elemental tool to command it to obey. Pay attention to how it responds.
You may be able to command it to dissolve and transform. If so, receive it back through your holy daemon, which will act as a means of protection. If not, burn some copal and lavender and send it peace until next time. Thank the Well and the Watcher and open your circle. Perform the Waters of Purity rite and the Banishing exercise. Repeat this exercise once a week for four weeks for each of the five elements.
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We have done much work to properly locate and identify what our shadow has in store for us. Now we should be intimately familiar with our complexes and our potential demons and have some idea of how we might approach dealing with them. Now comes the part in which we need to make a decision: Can we transform the demon or complex?
To do this we must ask ourselves: Can I have compassion for this? This is a part of ourselves that is twisted, in fear and in pain. It formed, in a sense, to protect us, as misguided as that was. The ideal is to transform and integrate it back into ourselves so that we once again have access to that life force. As long as this shadow demon exists, we are not whole. We seek that wholeness. We seek nothing less than our power.
Only perform this exercise after you have completed working with the elemental powers as with the previous exercise (Shadows of the Elements). This is inspired from a traditional Faery exercise which utilizes solo sex magic as the means to transform and integrate the shadow demon. You may adapt it to suit a nonsexual working if desired.
Items needed:
A meditation pillow
A Star Goddess candle
Three candles, black, red, and white
A bell
The box or jar with the paper sigil of your demon
A cup
A small pitcher of water
An incense burner
Charcoal
Copal resin
Dried lavender flowers
Chalk, tape, sand, or salt to mark on the floor
A black scrying mirror
Mark out the circle and the triangle on the floor as you did for the Daemonic Triangle rite. Place the sigil within the triangle.
Open the Way. Place some copal on the charcoal. Ring the bell nine times, in three groups of three. Feel your connection to the Star Goddess as the crystalline-white and ebony-black flames that flow through you. Use this power to perform the Waters of Purity rite. Now perform the Banishing exercise as given previously.
Empower the circle and the triangle as you did in the Shadows of the Elements exercise, and invoke the Watchers and the Wells.
Call up your demon as was done in that exercise, and allow it to be pulled from your energy body as before. Feel the swirling vortex around you. Focusing on the sigil, command it by name into the triangle/mirror with the incantation previously given, or another of your choosing. Light the black candle. Make a declaration that the demon is now bound and subject to your will. Command it to appear before you in the mirror. Ring the bell three times.
Now, with the image of your demon before you, we will work the transformation.
Reaffirm your soul alignment. Identify with your holy daemon. Allow this part of you to draw from the powers of the Watchers and the Wells. Feel your place in the center of the universe … you are the child of the Mother. You are her lover, sibling, and other half. You are the Twins, combined as One. You are the Blue God, Dian y Glas … and through him: Melek Ta’us. Feel the presence of the Peacock Angel … his body surrounding you, his peacock feather wings your own.
See your demon. See the face it wears before you, and the Peacock Angel’s heart swells with love and compassion. Feel compassion for your demon. Feel for it as you might a wounded child or animal that lashes out. Feel how it is a part of you, though disconnected and distorted. Feel genuine compassion. Fierce compassion. By the light of your daemon, send that love to your demon, shining like a light from the heart of your alignment and into the heart of your demon. Light the white candle and say:
I am the child of the Mother,
I of she, and you of me,
Child, sibling, mirrored-other,
Transform I pray, my demon lover!
Allow the image of the demon to change before you. Continue to send it love and compassion like a light beaming from the alignment in your heart. Like Janet from the ballad, hold fast and worry not … do not allow fear to confuse you. You are here for a purpose. Lovingly but firmly command the demon to assume its authentic form. Command it by its name and by its sign. Draw on the powers of the Watchers and the Wells, as needed.
Be open to whatever actually happens in your experience. Here we must rely on our own psychic skills of observation and discernment. If we are at all proficient in trance work then we will know the difference between an authentic astral/trance experience and a mere flight of the imagination, the meditative equivalent of watching television. The goal is to send love and healing to the demon and provoke it to transform. We may also (again, lovingly but firmly) command it to transform. No matter what disturbing and/or alluring images and emotions may arise during this process, we must not be distracted by them. Look at your demon directly in the eyes and command it into loving submission. It may transform into a beautiful image. Be open to how it feels. Here, in the light of your daemon, it reveals its true intent. If you feel that it is sincerely transforming and submitting, then move on to the next section below. If not, you will want to continue trying. If it still will not effectively submit, then you will want to end the rite as the end of the Daemonic Triangle exercise, by blessing your demon with peace and slumber while wafting the smoke of copal and lavender over its sigil and yourself. Close the circle as normal and try again another day.
If your demon, however, does submit and transform, then call up a sense of erotic passion for your demon, light the red candle and say:
Into our eyes, the light of love
Into our hearts, sweet passion’s flame
Into our kiss, a fevered moment
In our embrace, Her Holy Name!49
Holding the image of your demon before you, and feeling a genuine sense of love and compassion for it in your heart, open yourself sexually to this being.50 Imagine the wings of the Peacock Angel—your wings—stretching out and upward. Facing your demon, looking at it directly in the eyes and feeling that love and passion, use your arms and gesture as if you were hugging your demon, imagining pulling it close and you kiss. Imagine your wings wrapping around your demon lover, pulling it closer. Pull it close … closer … open your heart and pull it inside of you. Feel yourself joining together as a singular being. The lover and the beloved. Two halves of the same love.
Burn the sigil in the flame of the red candle. Take a bit of the resultant ash and put it in your cup and then fill with water. Perform the Waters of Purity rite.
Take down your circle-space as you would normally. Extinguish all but the red candle, which you allow to burn all the way down.
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You may need (or simply wish) to perform this rite more than once with a particular demon. In some cases, the results of this type of working can be both gradual and cumulative. After performing this rite once a week for three weeks, you should have an idea of whether or not it is working for you. If you feel you are achieving results, then continue to work with it until you are able to successfully transform and reclaim the demonic presence. If after six weeks you have still not been able to successfully transform the presence then you will want to shelve it and move on to the next exercise.
Since at this point we have been engaging in a semi-regular practice with our shadow and gotten familiar with several different techniques in dealing with it, we are ready to take our shadow work to the next level.
The Temple of the Demon Lover is—as all hidden temples are—a specific place on the astral that focuses energies and layers of consciousness in a certain way, in this case one that assists in the transformation of one’s demons. The original form of this temple was discovered by BlueRose initiate Puck DeCoyote, who gifted it to our line. While that exact temple is a private space and not suited for those who have yet to undergo certain initiatory experiences, I used this as a point of inspiration and went on a series of journeys to find the keys to a similar type of space that would be better suited to work with the public. Enter the Temple of the Demon Lover.
TRANCE JOURNEY: The Temple of the Demon Lover
This exercise/trance journey should be used after you have familiarized yourself with and effectively performed the Demon Lover exercise at least a few times and journaled your results. This exercise can assist in bringing up deeper complexes from our shadow and moving them into our conscious awareness that might otherwise have gone previously unnoticed.
You may wish to record yourself reading this script so that you can use it as a meditative tool.
Open the Way. Breathe deep. Set your intention to travel into the underworld to seek the Temple of the Demon Lover. Imagine an opening in the ground before you in whatever form you generally use for such workings. Enter this opening and move down into a cavernous space. Feel the air grow cool and damp. Imagine you can hear the echoing drops of water in the distance. You feel yourself moving down and to your right, as if you are spiraling as you move. There is a faint silvery light that has no visible source that just barely illumines the winding path downward.
You come to a large room in the cavern and in the center is a large silver pool. You walk over to look into it. The surface is perfectly still and reflective like a mirror. You see your own reflection, but also something else … what appears to be a dark castle set against a night sky. Breathe deep … and when you are ready, dive into the pool.
Travel through the mirror of the silver pool
in the land below,
to the world above.
The water is cold at first, but then … there is no cold. Then there is no wet. Here is no … sensation … you are floating amongst the stars. The castle before you, made entirely of clear crystal. It sits atop a dark Olympian spire of a mountain; miles and miles of stone steps form a staircase that leads from the abyss below and into the very heart of the castle.
You are drawn to the steps and find yourself now standing upon them. You climb … all the way up until you reach the castle gates.
As you reach the gates, you are greeted by a guardian. Notice how they appear to you. You will be asked a question. Answer correctly and you will be given entrance. If not, you will be turned away and you will need to return later when you are ready.
When you are given the “green light,” the gate will open for you, and you may step inside. The inside of the castle is just as strange as its outside; made entirely of clear crystal, and set against the starry expanse, it appears to be black, with a plethora of stars and galaxies. You follow the hallway which curves to the right, and you are led in a spiral inward, to the heart of the castle when you find an empty room with a single chair in the center. On the floor around the chair is the markings of a circle, a small distance outside of which is marked a triangle pointing outward.
You walk over to the chair and sit down. As you get comfortable, you notice that straight ahead of you, inset into the far wall, are two seated figures, silently watching you. The Faery Queen and King reach out their hand to one another and rise as one. In her free hand, she holds a silver branch. In his, a golden sword. Together they walk from their thrones to stand just outside the circle before you. One of them asks you why you are here … what demon are you here to transform? Provide the answers to what is asked of you.
The Queen releases her brother’s hand and begins to shake her silver branch. The sound is like little silver bells or chimes … a pleasant tinkling sound that purifies the space and awakens the fetch. She then drags the end of the silver branch on the ground behind her as she walks clockwise around your circle. Little silver sparks erupt where her branch drags on the ground. And little sparks ignite into silver flames, as she casts a circle around you with silver fire.
It is the King who steps closer now, pointing his sword directly at your heart. His blade seems to glow with a golden fire, and this flame leaps forward and into your body where it roots out the shadow demon(s) and forces them to the surface. Like a black smoke or vapor they flow from you … little issues and complexes … negative feelings … that bad memory from school … that trauma … that embarrassment … from when you were little … from that early morning last week … they all flow up and out of you and into the space of your circle, streaking around you like dark wraiths.
Take a breath of power. The King swings his golden flaming sword upward, and the shadow demons are caught in its wake, flowing out from the silver circle and into the triangle, which now glows with golden fire.
The Queen knocks her silver branch on the ground three times: THUD! THUD! THUD! And as it is trapped in the triangle before you, you see the shadow demon for what it truly is. The Queen and King begin to walk counterclockwise around the triangle, the King pointing his golden flaming sword into the triangle, and the Queen dragging the silver branch on the ground behind them.
This seems to weaken the shadow demon’s resistance, making it susceptible to suggestion and magical command. Consider that it is a part of you, broken apart and wounded. Open your heart to it even as you command it by name to transform back into the life force from which it came. See if you can make the shadow demon dissolve back into energy. Toward this end, the Queen and King may offer you the use of their magical weapons. What does it feel like to hold the silver branch? Use the silver fire to cleanse, entice, and compel the shadow demon. How about the golden sword? The golden flame transforms, illuminates, and defends. What magic do these tools offer you here? How are they different? How can you use them here? Can you transform your shadow demon? Holding love and compassion in your heart, use either golden sword to slay your shadow demon, or the silver branch to compel it to make love to you … either way, striking at its heart and causing it to burst into an explosion of silver and golden fire.
If you do not feel this occur, just maintain the space and keep trying. It may be that you will need to return at a later date to try again. But once the shadow demon has been transformed into fire, that fire begins to swirl like a cyclone, still trapped within the triangle. The Queen and King gesture toward the triangle and it moves, rotating on the floor so that it points into the circle. Reaffirm your soul alignment and then call this power into your circle … feel this metallic fire swirl around you as you take seven deep breaths, breathing in this flame, reclaiming your power, now freed from its demonic form. Take this power back inside yourself, feeling recharged and complete.
The Queen and King stand before you, each holding their weapon once more. He draws the remaining golden fire from the triangle back into his blade. She walks around the circle counterclockwise, drawing up the silver fire into her branch. They stand before you, again holding hands. They cross their weapons over their bodies so that the two weapons cross each other.
The silver branch and golden sword
Shall lead the way,
Shall mark the word.
Open your heart in gratitude to the Queen and King and they walk backward toward their thrones, still holding each other’s hand. In unison, they sit. And in the blink of an eye, they are gone.
You make your way out from this central space and back to the castle gates. You exit the castle and begin to climb down the stone steps that lead down into the blackness of space. As the darkness swallows even the steps, you find yourself floating in the darkness amongst the stars. You see—off in the distance—a silver mirror and you are drawn toward it. With a breath, you move through the mirror and find yourself emerging in a cavernous room, filled with the smell of damp earth. You follow the path up and to your left, spiraling up … higher … higher … higher … until you emerge here in the middleworld … into your room and into your meditating body. Open your eyes to gaze at the light of the Star Goddess candle. Take seven slow breaths, allowing all of your experiences to come back with you. Take three more breaths and call your power back from the candle. End as you would normally. Record your experiences in your journal.
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There are some demons that will not easily cast aside their identity. Perhaps they have been with us for a very long while, becoming even a trusted friend of sorts. Demons acquired in childhood can often be the most difficult to challenge, as they have become so ingrained in our lives it may be difficult to see where one ends and the other begins. And if we discover that their intent is not so much malicious as it is protective, we can perhaps begin to see the benefits of keeping them around. Maybe now with a few rules in place.
From Demon to Familiar Spirit
If we feel transforming and reintegrating the demon is not a possibility (or we have tried multiple times and failed), then we may “repurpose” the demon by giving it a new task to perform. If we are to have demons, then we must turn them into our allies, our Witches’ familiars. As my good friend and fellow Faery initiate Veedub often said of hers, “Hey! You work for me now!”
We must decide what we would like our demon ally to do for us.
JOURNALING RITE: The Demonic Gift
If you have been working with the previous material in earnest and for the suggested numbers of repetitions, then by now you should not need to physically mark out the circle or triangle unless you wish it. Spend at least five to ten minutes for the journaling portion of this rite. Repeat this entire rite once per week for three weeks.
Items needed:
A Star Goddess candle
Copal resin
An incense burner
Charcoal
Your journal and a pen
A black scrying mirror
Sigil for your shadow demon
Open the Way. As you have done before, cast a circle and empower the triangle, which is placed outside the circle in the direction of your elemental shadow demon, or in the west if no element has been assigned. Place the sigil inside the triangle before the mirror.
Call up your shadow demon by name. Imagine it appearing in the mirror before you. Take some time to connect to it. When you feel ready, begin to ask it questions, writing down the answers much in the style of automatic writing, in which you will simply allow your pen to move on the paper. Ask it how its power might be best put to use to serve you. Remember your alignment and your allies in the Watchers and the Wells.
When you are finished, thank your shadow demon and burn some more copal. End the ritual and you would normally. Perform the Waters of Purity and the Banishing rites.
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This exercise can inspire us toward a practice specifically tailored to redirecting our shadow demon toward behaviors that are in alignment with our own benefit. Toward this end we can employ our divinatory tools to assist us at more clearly mapping out how we should proceed.
Here we will use our skills at divination to assist us in seeing what feeds and sustains our Demon, as well as how we might best engage it toward the reclamation of our power.
Items needed:
A deck of tarot cards with only the major arcana
Open the Way. Remove the Devil card and place it in the center. Shuffle the remaining cards and lay them out according to the diagram.
The Devil is, of course, your Demon. What lies beneath your Demon is its root; it is its origin, but also that which feeds and sustains it. This can give us insight as to how to avoid giving it more of that nourishment and perhaps even learn what might prove to be an effective and more suitable substitute. What lies above the Devil is its branches and fruit; the skills and powers it possesses that can potentially be brought into service, both for left-hand and right-hand workings. The fruit, branches, and the roots can all be an integral part of any pact that you may devise and into which you may enter with your potential demon familiar.
Though the cards are laid out in the order given in the diagram, they are read in the following order:
Figure 19: The Devil’s Tree
3, 2, 4) The roots. Read from left to right, these cards tell a story about how this demon came into existence.
1) The base. What nourishes your demon. This is what your demon needs in order to feed.
5) The trunk. The raw energy that this demon brings into the world.
6, 7) The left-hand branch. Read together, these represent the powers of cursing that this demon can bring.
8, 9) The right-hand branch. These together are the demon’s potentially beneficial powers.
10) The fruit. The culmination. The unification. The advice. The fate. The legacy.
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Once we have an idea as to how to repurpose our shadow demon(s), then we can use our tools to create our own ritual tailor-made toward this end. At this point in your magical practice, you should be more than proficient in the creation of an effective ritual, drawing from the concepts and exercises presented here. Use the basics of the Demonic Triangle rite and, instead of blessing or banishing your shadow demons, compel them to serve you in the specific way that you have discerned to be appropriate. You may wish to devise and use a sigil that aims to do this, perhaps drawn overlaid upon that of your shadow demon, which you can keep in its special box or jar. You will want to develop a relationship with your shadow demon as you would any other type of spirit ally. This will take some time, likely the better part of a year or more as you work in conjunction with the Watchers, the Wells, and your personal ancestors and spirits. Once trust has been established, then you may find that what was once your demon has now become your familiar.
47. For the invocation of hostile beings and energies, the triangle is traditionally placed outside of the circle. If you are summoning using a particular element, then the placement of the triangle would reflect that. Otherwise, you may feel free placing it anywhere outside of the circle that you feel is appropriate or practical.
48. The direction of this vortex should be that associated with “banishing” for your location, counterclockwise for the northern hemisphere, or clockwise for the southern.
49. Adapted from my poem “The Love of Kings,” from my book The Stars Within the Earth.
50. It would be traditional to engage in masturbation for this working, building energy with your pleasure and finally merging with your demon during your orgasm. There may, however, be times in which you will wish to forgo the overt sexual aspect of this working (perhaps in cases where the demon in question is aligned to some aspect of sexuality, for example). In these cases, you should substitute another type of visionary/energetic modality, such as bringing two candle flames together to light a third candle, or pouring two vessels of water into a third. Use your imagination!