Tag Archives: occult

BOOK REVIEW – Claves Intelligentiarum by David Rankine

24 Friday Jan 2025

Posted by in Magic, occultism, Starlore

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BOOK REVIEW – Claves Intelligentiarum by David Rankine

(Note for Transparency – I received a copy of Claves Intelligentiarum to review, what follows is my honest review.)

Book cover of Claves Intelligentiarum by David Rankine - dark blue starry background with pale blue frame with swirly border for title.

It’s no secret that my magic tends towards the unscripted, intuitive, grab-the-threads-of-wyrd-and-weave-the-world-anew style, and I heavily encourage direct contact over relying on book learning when it comes to meeting spirits. I’m a pagan, through and through, and my magical roots are in ecstatic, experiential, embodied Craft.

But I’ve done my share of exploring Grimoires, and continue to do so.

There’s a power in words passed down, in techniques that have been honed and worn into the fabric of the Universe through repetition and time.

And there are definitely spirits who fully expect “the proper protocol”, and most appreciate the care and attention involved.

Following a step-by-step process also means you’re not laying down the circuitry anew every time you do magic (which is why so many Pagan groups have their favourite ritual structures!)…

But so many of the classic Grimoires don’t actually explain what circuitry you’re meant to use! Or where they do there are gaps in the process which you’re expected to know stuff already, and when you match them with other texts you get different instructions.

David Rankine’s Claves Intelligentiarum is different.

Rankine takes the reader step-by-step through the process of Conjuration within his tried and tested methodology, and explains the reasoning as he goes.

He outlines where he’s made changes to the traditional process, and why, and where he hasn’t changed things a reader like myself might be tempted to alter. Like including a consecration script for contact lenses, and adding the modern practice of visualisation during circle casting, but keeping the Abrahamic Holy Names instead of swapping them out for a Pagan audience.

This book is a practical guide to conjuring Planetary Intelligences – a particular class of spirit connected to the planets, who he tells us arose first within the Christian lineage of Grimoires.

By placing these spirits in the context of their earliest named relationship with magicians and presenting a clear framework for meeting and working with them, Rankine takes the guesswork out of calling the right number and setting up your first date, as it were.

This is not a book of theory, this is a book to be used.

And it is a brilliant introduction to conjurations in general, though I’d suggest you’ll get more out of it if you have at least some basic magical experience first.

In Claves Intelligentiarum Rankine is thorough, clear, and comprehensive. If the only book you had was this one you would have everything you needed to conjure the Planetary Intelligences… and having done so, not only would you have a team of spirit connections to cover almost any practical magic, but you’d know how to construct a framework for Conjurations of other spirits within the Grimoire tradition, and fill in the gaps.

I love that Rankine acknowledges that many of us work with other spirits that we might not wish to banish from our home or working space before a ritual which calls for such an opening. He then gives a script I’ve not seen anywhere else, a “License to Remain”. Gems like this show he has not just done the extensive research which is a hallmark of his work, nor “merely” pieced together a framework from a patchwork of sources (a mammoth task in itself!) but that he has actively thought through the implications and impact of the process with care, tested it, and made sure to include everything we might need to know to perform a conjuration with success.

Read this book if you want to work with the Planetary Intelligences, if you want a look behind the curtain at the mechanics of a conjuration, or if you want to learn from an expert who genuinely, wholeheartedly, knows that magic is real because he lives it.

Speaking of which, David Rankine will be teaching Conjuration at a weekend retreat at The Visible College in South West England in April 2025.

It’ll be intensive, hands on, and comprehensive.

Conjuration is, ideally, a team sport so it’s a brilliant opportunity to take the instructions off the page and get deep into the practice.

I’ll be there. Come and See.

Conjuration Retreat with David Rankine

Buy Claves Intelligentiarum by David Rankine here.

Star Club – Making Magicians – Occult Training in the UK

Star Club logo - a geometric image with stars, runes, moons, and the motto "societas astris"

Star Club is a syncretic training program and modern magical order co-founded by myself and Sef Salem of The Visible College, rooted in the hermetic tradition and incorporating multiple magical threads into an experiential, hands on, group magical experience. Come and See.

Our next cycle starts in February and there are just a couple of spaces left!

Occult Con Reflections – On Necromancy

09 Monday Dec 2024

Posted by in Events, Magic, Reflections

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Part of a series of posts inspired by the South Wales Occult Conference in Cardiff on 2nd November 2024 – find the first post and index here.

It wouldn’t be a conference on death in the occult without at least one talk on, well, talking to the dead. Enter Dr Al Cummings. On video.

Poetically titled “Black Arts and Cunning Crafts”, Al’s talk was thick with information about Early Modern cunning folk practices and beliefs on speaking with the dead and enlisting their aid in supernatural endeavours.

Here, nowadays, we tend to be a bit skittish around the dead but that’s actually quite unusual for human beings throughout history and around the world. As Dr Al pointed out, of all the spirits dead humans are most likely to be invested in human life, and our ancestors even more so.

One of the factors which interrupted this relationship, we were told, was the fact that Christian orthodoxy held that the dead couldn’t return from the otherworld until Judgement Day, and as Judgement Day hasn’t happened yet the souls that Necromancers spoke to must be from Purgatory… except the Protestant reformation did away with Purgatory for political reasons. So who were these ghosts?

The devil? Catholic spirits? Demons pretending to care?

Whatever people were supposed to believe, and however the dead were supposed to behave, Necromancers and Ghosts continued to not only communicate with each other but to help each other.

Perhaps, Necromantic practice says, the Dead dwell beside us, “not restless but retired” and if so they likely have a lot of time on their hands. If they’re still interested in the things they were when alive, why wouldn’t they want to keep doing those things?

Dr Al shared stories and magical charms used in these practices, but one particularly interesting ritual included instructions for “Spectral Grimoire Delivery” – acquiring a book of magic with the help of the dead.

Specifically, someone who you make a deal with on their deathbed.

A deal that binds them after death to come when you call.

They are then sent to find a courier spirit to bring you a book of magic from the Elemental Kings, specifically a book of magic that you can use.

I find it fascinating that this ritual included them giving you their “christendom” – why? Because they’d lose it in the process? As a bargaining chip? Or because they can’t do the job if they are Christened? – and then you return it afterward, but retain the agreement that they’ll come when called.

The whole process suggests that you could find someone willing to do this task for you, which reminds me of the dead folk who turn up in a Spiritualist Church to prove that there is life after death to their congregants, and the promises others make to visit their loved ones.

We don’t stop wanting to be involved in community just because we died.

Dr Al mentioned the connection between the dead and the fertility and wellbeing of the community, and it is to our detriment that we’ve forgotten this as a culture.

There is a slow movement to bring more Ancestor Veneration within pagan spaces, though we’re often clumsy with it because it is both so simple, in many ways, and so complex in others.

To reconnect with our helpful dead many of us have to shift a fundamental understanding of the universe and the processes of life and death. To remember that Saturn’s sickle is not the end of existence, but rather the end of a chapter and we remain in community together.

The land of the dead, like the land of the Fair Folk, is not elsewhere but here. Our land, bleeding into planes of existence that we can’t quite see with our earthly eyes, but that are still here.

And if we ask really nicely, perhaps they’ll bring us wonders, and magic books, that are normally just out of reach.

Did you know that if you travel into faeryland you’re as likely to find the dead as you are to find the fae? The two are very closely connected, as you’ll find in Folktales, Faeries, & Spirits…

Cover of Folktales, Faeries, and Spirits book

One powerful way to build relationship with the spirits of your land is through the stories and folklore local to you. Folktales, Faeries,& Spirits is a guidebook to how you can find those tales and unpick the clues within.

Folktales, Faeries, and Spirits – a practical guide to working with faeries and the spirits of nature, by Halo Quin

Buy Folktales, Faeries, & Spirits here

Occult Con Reflections – Immortality

28 Thursday Nov 2024

Posted by in Magic, Philosophy, Reflections, Storytelling

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Part of a series of posts inspired by the South Wales Occult Conference in Cardiff on 2nd November 2024 – find the first post and index here.

Starting off with the question:

“Who here is immortal?”

Was certainly a fun move for this talk by Sorita D’Este.

A dozen or so people put their hands up, including myself and the entirety of our Star Club contingent (I’m told). If I’m honest, my first thought was:

“Which part of me are you asking?”

Because actually the answer depends, but my intuitive response was completely without doubt.

Some essential part of me, the part of me that wanted to answer the question, is immortal. Don’t ask me to explain any deeper though!

The talk itself was actually exploring some of the ways in which people have historically sought immortality, and what it might mean.

From the possibility of becoming a god, reincarnation, eternal afterlives, and ghosts as astral immortality…

Through to the concept of physical immortality through meditation, or potions and preservatives…

Immortality has been a topic that has fascinated humans for a long time.

A glimpse of my conference notes

One form of immortality that feels the most possible to attain through our actions and choices is that of being remembered, and this feeds into the concept of the Mighty Dead – famous dead humans who seem to like interacting with the living, perhaps to continue being remembered! (Saints, heroes, ancient Kings and Queens…).

This is a form often mentioned in myth and legend, and one powerful curse is “may your name be forgotten”, suggesting that this is a really important piece for many of us. To be remembered is to live on in people’s hearts and minds in some way. In that famous epic Gilgamesh learned this lesson. His quest for immortality led to the realisation that he would live on through his deeds, the things he built, and as long as people spoke his name.

I know this doesn’t sound like the kind of immortality that most of us think of, its far from the eternal unchanging nature of the movie screen vampire, or the ever-living sorceress. But it is a truth that our bodies return to the Earth eventually. And even if reincarnation, or an eternal afterlife, are true, there is still something in the self-that-I-am-now that cannot survive that. The loss of this body, of this set of relationships and experiences, must be an ending of some kind. Being remembered as we are now is a way in which the self that we are lives on, as we are.

This connection between immortality and memory is so enduring, and fascinating to me.

In many pagan traditions, as in some queer spaces like the Trans Day of Remembrance events, we have begun saying the names of our dead so that they are remembered, so that they live on in our communities, and so that they are fed. It is an old practice, and a powerful one.

I do sometimes wonder, who will speak my name when I am gone? Do you know who might speak yours?

Sorita outlined several examples of people becoming gods, or gaining a cult following, or having their names immortalised. But one utterly delightful process of apotheosis (becoming divine) that she shared from inscriptions on gravestones was that which outlined how certain individuals who were aligned with specific deities of the Earth, Underworld, or Land, would be described as physically becoming that deity when their body was buried.

The buried body still has life, and feeds life, and becomes one with the living earth, the body of the goddess that they belong to. The main example given was Hekate. (If you know Sorita’s work that will be no surprise!)

So perhaps the physicists have one key to practical immortality – energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed. If the Platonists were right and Hekate is the Living Soul of the Earth, then when our bodies are buried the life that they are becomes part of the life of the immortal being that is Hekate.

Our memories live on, immortal in the memories of those who come after us.

Our bodies return to the body of the Divine.

Our spirits, well, I’ve dreamed enough and journeyed enough to know that our spirits may well have adventures once this life comes to an end.

So perhaps it doesn’t matter which part of me you ask… or whether you ask the religious, the storytellers, or the physicists… I really am immortal.

But… I do really quite like it here so I’m in no rush to discover what that’s like!

Your Turn: Are you immortal? What does it mean to you? Share your story in the comments below!

Storytelling is a wonderful way to honour those that have come before and support their immortal memory… and it is an act of magic in itself. In January 2025 I have a new book coming on Storytelling for Magic – both how to use storytelling in magic and ritual, and how to learn the bardic skills for storytelling to use in other parts of your magic… And have fun!

Cover: Storytelling For Magic by Halo Quin - Bardic Skills & Ritual Craft for Witches and Pagans - text over image of a cloaked figure in warm colours, moving through wintery trees with a bird flying overhead
Order Storytelling for Magic Here*

*Affiliate link for UK folk. Also available wherever you buy your books!

Storytelling for Magic

Learn the bardic art of storytelling to craft rituals, empower your magic, and enchant your life.

In this book are the keys to bringing the gifts of the ancient magic-weavers, the storytellers, into your life. The Bards of old wove magic with their words. Through myth and legend, history and inspiration, they shaped the world around them. Just like them, you can connect with the magic of storytelling to create powerful change.

Join professional performer, ritualist, bard, and witch Halo Quin, and discover how to use your voice in magic, how to unravel the secrets of stories, how to craft your own rituals to bring the power of myths and folk tales into your life, and how to find, learn, and tell stories to enchant the world inside and outside the circle.

Out 28th January 2025

Storytelling for Magic is from Moon Books, at Collective Ink Publishing – order direct here.

Occult Con Reflections – On Initiation into a Modern Magical Order

22 Friday Nov 2024

Posted by in Events, Magic, Reflections

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Part of a series of posts inspired by the South Wales Occult Conference in Cardiff on 2nd November 2024 – find the first post and index here.

As I shared previously, at the conference I teamed up with my friend Sef from The Visible College to speak on our joint project – Star Club.

Star Club is a syncretic magical training program rooted in the Western esoteric tradition, blending ceremonial and ecstatic pagan practices to give students the opportunity to develop themselves and their skills as magicians. We teach a bit, discuss a bit, and then apply it in group ritual to get results.

Of course, once we completed the first training cycle something else emerged with a life of its own. A new modern magical order (to quote Dr Bob Plimer), complete with initiation for those that want to be a part of it… and further support and training for our members, because we never stop learning!

At the Conference we talked specifically about initiation and it’s impact on individuals and the order itself. How initiation occurs as part of the process of becoming…

Sef and myself, with a PowerPoint!

Initiation is a funny thing.

It can be a change initiated within you.

It can be a new chapter begun.

It can be an initiation into a tradition or order – which can be like joining a club, being adopted, or getting married.

So what happens in initiation for a modern magical order?

Initiation is by definition a beginning, but when something new begins, the old dies.

Within Star Club we designed the whole training cycle as a process which supports the transformation of self, and the initiations themselves are a part of that.

In the final session of the training cycle our final group working is our version of the ritual known as “The Headless Rite”, developed from the “Greek Magical Papyri”, which acts as an initiation of completion and integration. And then, after the cycle is complete, practitioners are invited to initiate into the order itself and we come back together for a big ritual…

The first is an initiation of internal change, the second is an initiation of becoming part of something larger than yourself.

But what is always worth remembering is that when a new person joins a group, that person is changed in relationship, and the group is also changed. It now has something that it didn’t have before.

Initiation doesn’t just change the individual… It changes the order, the magic of the club.

And as magicians, witches, pagans, and company, we know that “as above, so below” – all parts partake of each other – and thus changing ourselves, and changing the order, also changes the world.

Your Turn:

What are your stories of initiation, whether explicitly magical or spontaneously occurring, that you can share publicly? When have you stepped through a gateway, or finished a chapter, and found that it wasn’t just you that had changed but the world around you changed too?

I’d love to hear your stories in the comments below. (Or you can join the conversation in The Enchanted Academy here!)

Our mission at Star Club? To share multidisciplinary magic that gets results and changes the world.

We have in-person training cycles each year in Bristol, and if you have a group who want to learn, we can often travel to you! Or you can join our online membership to access our solo practitioner program and bonus talks and materials.

Join Star Club