N'wraenomicon

I'm still experimenting with the TOA cards. I'm not sure that experimentation ever will (or should) end. These don't feel like the kind of cards one gets so familiar with everything designed into them that one becomes some kind of master of using them. That's not to say mastery cannot be reached, but that it would come from a very different approach than with other decks. I decided to go ahead and try a Past/Present/Future reading and see what I get. The way I've been reading three cards each day is really working. I intend to take some time one day to think about the shape it makes when I follow the written messages that way. But the first time I tried the P/P/F reading, following it that way didn't look like it would work. Following it that way would give me: Past -  With a pandemoniac cachinnation Present -  Beyond the world of man Future -  Fire from Earth can't burn it Growing in hidden evil caves Present - Prehuman vaults of nightmares Past

Working with sigil creation is something I have a passion for. Probably because that's where my hyperlexia, visual arts, and magic come together. As I'm willing to bet is the case for many people in my generation and the generation before us, I was introduced to sigil work through my days of chaos magick. Specifically, my introduction was the Austin Osman Spare method. There are many methods. I've worked with several, and eventually the things I learned evolved into what is "my" method. That doesn't mean I created the method. Many other people, working with many methods, did. It just means it's the method I use. Sometimes, depending on the exact work I'm doing, I do stick with a specific method. My views on what is called magic have changed a lot over the years. I actually kind of dislike the word now. I feel it carries a lot of misunderstandings and assumptions, even within groups of people who identify themselves as being practitioners of various for

Yes, this will look really familiar if you have even basic knowledge of ceremonial occultism. My familiarity with the LBRP is less about the LBRP itself and more about rituals inspred by it. I didn't just change words, though. There are things that may set off some Important Things Are Missing alarms. Those things are important in the systems they belong to. I'm not saying there's no room for improvement here, but this ritual is about getting some similar results. Not all the results, and not for entirely the same reasons, so not done the same way. It's still about clearing and protecting the space.  If you really want to work with it, go ahead. Use it for personal experimentation and practice. Don't publish it anywhere else, and credit N'wrae. Chant the Greek vowels seven times. Α - Ε - Η - Ι - Υ - Ο - Ω The Cardinal Directions Start in the East, working clockwise. Draw a sigil in the air, or give a slight bow, maybe just take in a deep breath before you speak

I've tried many times over the years to engage in dreamwork. It's generally presented as lucid dreaming being a requirement, regardless of what type of work one is doing or for what purpose, and that's the big problem for me. Personal advice from practioners, books on the subject...it always comes back to, "When you become aware that you are dreaming..." That doesn't happen for me. Okay, it does. When I wake up and realize I had been dreaming. Chants, mantras, guided meditations before sleep, stating intent... All those things so many people claim will make this happen! It just doesn't work for me. I've been a bit jealous at times of someone I know who is such a natural lucid dreamer that they were surprised to find out many people work to build it as a skill. This person has no desire to do any kind of dreamwork. It's just an interesting thing to them that they are aware of the dreaming and can shut it off if they have nightmares. Something I lear

I've mentioned my dice a couple of times now.  This is the set I'm using.  Yes, it's a Mythos-themed set. That almost stopped me from buying them. My dice are devoted to a particular deity, and everything about this set was perfect for what I needed except for that Mythos connection. Which wouldn't really matter, except...well, look at mine. That symbol that takes the place of the largest number on each and every piece? Yeah. I don't keep them in the box they came in (though I did keep the box), but that stmbol is always there on each one. But there's a flow to everything that has drawn me toward Yog-Sothothery, so there's a story to this. I started with astragalomancy by using my old set on tabletop rpg dice. I haven't played a game they'd be needed for in, oh...too many years to figure out what number to attach. Those dice have their own story, though, and I've kept them all this time. Getting enough of a grasp on the basics of usin

No, I will not always be writing about these cards. I'm spending time getting familiar with them, and it's been a slow few days with other projects right now because of some physical obstacles. When those two situations are put together...lots of fascination with the cards! As I've said before, the easy thing to do is lay out three cards, read across the tips, then read across the bottoms. The art makes sort of eldritch Rorschach inkblots, so finding out what I see in them each time is interesting. I haven't been doing anything to assign the positions of the cards to specific things. With tarot, I've got lists of things three cards can be for. Past, Present, Future is an obvious one. That's what I'm intending to try with these cards, but I haven't done it yet. Today, I was playing with how I read the written phrases. Doing the "read the tops, read the bottoms" thing here gives me: A dance of strange attraction Some half-imaginary di

I have a specific set of dice I work with for divination. Astragalomancy is still a new skill for me. I'm experimenting with working with the dice in different ways. The past couple of days, I've been combining that with drawing cards. I do the 3 card thing. Then I roll dice to tell me which single card to pull out and reflect on. The dice I use for this are a pair of d10s. Ten-sided, and one is what is known as being for percentages in roleplaying games. The numbers start with 00 and go to 90, always as one of the tens. The other is single digits...1,2,3, etc. So I roll them together, add the numbers, then find the card. Yesterday, I got 20 and 5. Card 25: A dream-infested daemon-city Transdimensional shadows Today, I got 60 and 7. Card 67: Phantasms of drugs or delirium Strange dark rites I was sitting on the edge of the bed when I rolled the dice and didn't have them on a more stable surface. I reached over the grab something and they shifted a bit. When I turned back ar

One of the three cards I pulled today from the Temple of Abzu  deck is card 52. I'm going to be experimenting with different ways to read these cards, but I'm starting with the simple "Pull three. Read across the tops. Read across the bottoms." What was written on the cards isn't what I'm focused on right now, though. I want to look at the art on card 52. None of the cards have art that looks like A Specific Thing. That's interesting to me. My start with divination was tarot. There's a lot of symbolism in the art, and I lean heavily on that. I'm a skilled reader, but I've never been somebody who can give much of an answer if you ask, "Is it bad news if I get these two cards together?" I need to see the cards. I need to see the other cards. I need to see where they sit in relation to each other, and I need to see what's going on with the art. I know the concepts associated with The Magician, but some Magicians put a lit

The first post of a new blog is always one of the most awkward for me to write. The other Most Awkward Post is when a blog is completely closed. I've been an author of many blogs over the years. Some were professional. Some were, and some still are, personal. Some of the personal ones have actually been a little less personal than they looked, all dressed up for "cozy conversational atmosphere". Hell, I was "blogging" when it was still a new term and platforms designed for it didn't exist yet. We had webpages that updates were regularly added to, time and date slapped on, and the whole thing was pretty much a publicly visible journal. I'm middle-aged for a human, but old on the Internet. It doesn't really matter if this first post is awkward, though, because you probably aren't reading it. If you are, the rambly nature of it probably appeals to you and it's not so awkward. I've got a long journey to take with this blog, so I just need a s