In the last post we talked about the first step in consecrating Solomonic tools and materials: exorcism of any unwanted influences that might be present to start with. But there is a second stage required for a consecration. We need to bring those influences or psychic impressions we do want into the item as well. Nature abhors a vacuum, so in addition to just banishing the existing influences, we want to replace them with something.
Let us look at another couple of quotes from pseudo-Agrippa’s Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy:
And now we come to treat of the Consecrations which, men ought to make upon all instruments and things necessary to be used in this Art: and the vertue of this Consecration most chiefly consists in two things; to wit, in the power of the person consecrating, and by the vertue of the prayer by which the Consecration is made…
…There is used also the invocation of some Divine names, with the consignation of holy Seals, and things of the like sort, which do conduce to sanctification and expiation; such as are the Sprinkling with Holy-Water, Unctions with holy Oyl, and odoriferous Suffumigations appertaining to holy Worship. And therefore in every Consecration there is chiefly used the Benediction and Consecration of Water, Oyl, Fire, and Fumigations, used everywhere with holy Wax-lights or Lamps burning: for without Lights no Sacrament is rightly performed.
There are a couple points worth discussing here. The first is the distinction between the power of the person making the consecration and the prayer of consecration itself. Here it’s worth recognizing the difference in Catholic doctrine between a sacrament and sacramental. A sacrament – something like Baptism or Eucharist – is a religious rite that must be performed by a priest who holds the apostolic succession. Anyone who holds that succession can perform the sacrament, there is no particular belief or lifestyle requirement beyond having the proper initiation. A sacramental, in contrast, derives its power from the piety and moral authority of the person conducting it. The blessing of Holy Water (as well as other things) is considered to be this latter category. A pious and morally upright person, even with no religious training, can conduct an effective blessing. This is the first form of power mentioned in the Fourth Book: the power of the person consecrating. A person with that power need follow no prescribed forms, calling upon higher powers and clearly stating their intent is sufficient to bless an item.
But there is a second form of power, that derived from the prayer itself. This is one of the advantages of using standard forms of blessing – either from religious rites, traditional grimoires, or biblical passages. The more people have used a particular blessing for a particular purpose, and the more that blessing invokes imagery and stories in which large numbers of people have faith, the more that blessing carries its own weight of religious power – irrespective of the power of the person using it.
The other thing worth noting in this passage is the use of other materials in the consecration. We already touched on sprinkling an item with Holy Water as part of the exorcism, the blessing stage can be further strengthened by passing it through the smoke of incense,1 by anointing it with holy oil, or by performing the consecration in the presence of a candle or oil lamp that provides holy light.
So, we know we want to consecrate our item to the powers we will be calling upon later in the ritual. We know we have the option to consecrate them through our own personal power, using any words we like to set our intent, or through standard prayers and commemoration of religious narrative. We know we can strengthen the consecration through holy lights, holy water, holy incense, or holy oil.
Most consecration prayers start with a generic appeal to God to bless the item in question. Let’s look again at the prayers from last post. First the Catholic rite for holy water:
For the Salt:
[begins with the exorcism]… In the name of the Blessed Trinity may you become a saving sign empowered to drive away the enemy. Therefore, we beg you, Lord, our God, to sanctify ☩ and to bless ☩ this creature, salt, thus providing a perfect remedy for all who receive it, one that will permeate their inmost being. We ask this in the name of our lord Jesus Christ, who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.
For the Water:
[begins with the exorcism]… May you be a purified water, empowered to drive afar all power of the enemy, in fact, to root out and banish the enemy himself, along with his fallen angels. We ask this though the power of Jesus Christ, who is coming to judge both the living, and the dead, and the world by fire. Amen.
As well as the next passage from the Heptameron, after the Exorcism of the Fire:
Bless, O Lord, this creature of fire, and sanctifie it, that it may be blessed to set forth the praise of thy holy name, that no hurt may come to the Exorcisers or Spectators: through our Lord Jesus Christ, &c.
There isn’t much to note here other than that the prayers appeal to the powers that will be called on for authority later in the ritual, and ask that they bless and sanctify the item in question. Some consecrations end here, and for a consecration of minor materia (incense or candles, say), this is a perfectly reasonable place to stop. But for tools that you want to play a specific ritual role, you will sometimes see consecrations that continue in one of two ways.
The first way that consecrations continue is in the recitation of Biblical passages that are particularly suited to the purpose of the tool in question. The psalms see a tremendous amount of use for this, in the Solomonic tradition. Reciting a set of appropriate psalms, or a single psalm a number of times, can further set the energetic imprint for a tool. Psalm 23 can be used for general blessing, Psalm 51 for items intended to purify one’s person, Psalm 91 for protective implements, etc. It might also be appropriate to read passages from Genesis, Exodus, or Revelation.
The second direction that consecrations can go is by appending a longer freeform prayer to clarify the intention of the tool. We’ll look at a couple examples used for blessing holy water, and the principle should be easy to extrapolate from there.
The first comes from Rufus Opus’s Red Work course, which he in turn adapted from the Mikros Agiasmos.2
Bless, purify and sanctify this water by your heavenly blessing. Grant it the grace and blessing of the Jordan, and the power to cleanse all defilements, to heal all illnesses, and to drive out evil spirits and their deceits and snares. By the power, action, and grace of the all-holy Spirit, show this water to be for the cleansing of the soul, the calming of passions, the expulsion of all evil, the increase of virtue, the healing of illnesses, the sanctification of homes and of all places, the driving out of all destructive and evil-doing spirits, and the reception of your grace for those who drink this water in faith or receive it or are sprinkled with it.
The second example, also for water, comes from Josephine McCarthy’s Quareia course, in Apprentice Lesson 1 Module 7. It is part of the ritual for a cleansing bath, which also includes some great nondenominational exorcism and blessing passages I’d recommend you check out. The prayer of intention goes as follows:
I exorcise all influences and seeds of evil from the person who will bathe in this bath: I exorcise all demons, parasites, thought-forms, golems, all ghosts, all beings that bring disease, all beings that bring death, all marks of destruction, all marks of death, and all spiritual dirt. And I exorcise from them all magical attacks that have been cast against them: all magical spells, curses and bindings, rituals, visions, beings, and utterances. I cast upon them all the spell chains and I cast them into the outer darkness where they shall trouble not this Servant of God.
Amen, Amen Selah.
In both cases we see a clarification of the purpose of the item, in this case Holy Water, beyond just a generic consecration to God. It crystallizes the intent with which this tool will be used, the role we expect it to play, and the actions we expect it to accomplish.
Similarly, we can bring in particular influences to an item by conducting our consecrations with intentional timing: in certain lunar phases, lunar mansions, or planetary days and hours. I almost always try to conduct my consecrations during a waxing moon, in the planetary day and hour of Mercury – Mercury being a psychopomp, and the patron of both magic and communication, this seems a particularly apt influence to bring to bear on Solomonic ritual works.3
So, let’s recap the consecration process as we’ve outlined it over a couple of posts:
- Start with fresh materials that have never been previously used for some other purpose. (“Virgin” materials in the parlance of the grimoires.)
- Choose an appropriate timing for the consecration. If you’re unsure, the day and hour of Mercury during a waxing moon is almost always appropriate.
- If possible, light a consecrated candle, oil lamp, or some other source of holy light.
- Conduct an exorcism of the item in question, addressing it as a living being and calling upon the powers of the ritual to cast out any malign influences from it. If appropriate, sprinkle the item with holy water.
- Conduct a generic blessing of the item, calling upon the appropriate powers to bless and sanctify it. If desired, fume it with incense or anoint it with ritual oil at this time. (If you can consecrate the incense or the oil beforehand, all the better).
- Optionally, further set the intention of the tool by doing one of the following:
- Recite scripture passages that are relevant to the purpose or usage of the item in question. If you’re unsure where to start, Genesis and Psalms are both great places to look for inspiration. Or
- Create your own freeform prayer that articulates the intention for the tool. What do you want it to do in a ritual? Describe that here in your own words.
And that’s it. At its core, it’s a reasonably straightforward process of clearing unwanted influence from a ritual item, asking those powers you appeal to in ritual to bless it, and setting your own energetic impression on it for how it will be used later on.
Depending on how exhaustive you want to be, and how many tools your operation calls for, the process of acquiring/crafting tools and consecrating them all can take a while. But I would encourage you not to think of this as unnecessary busywork before you get into “the real magic.” Going through the process of preconsecration builds magical momentum; you’re frontloading the work, such that when you actually step into the circle, you have a substantial head start from which to launch your ritual. The conjuration started the moment you began crafting your tools.
This post is part of a series on Solomonic magic. You can find the next post here.
- Frankincense is traditional, as is myrrh, but really any church incense blend is appropriate here. ↩︎
- The Red Work course was some of Rufus Opus’s early work, a precursor to his book Seven Spheres. It’s no longer directly available from him, but he’s authorized Sam Block of Digital Ambler to continue distributing it. ↩︎
- The one exception is if I am consecrating something specifically to bind or confront spirits, in which case a Saturnian or Martial timing is more appropriate. ↩︎