City Magick: Urban Rituals, Spells and Shamanism - Christopher Penczak 2001
Designing Your Own Rituals
Tools of the Trade
The first tool for spell work is the magick circle. As you learned about reality, rapture, and ritual, you learned the basic structure of a circle. Mark off an area of sacred space and honor the four powers to aid in your work. Now it is time to meld this ritual with the powers of the city.
The circle is one of the most effective ways of making magick. It not only protects, it also puts the participants in touch with sacred space and the vibrations of creation. The energies and powers gathered in this bubbling cauldron work together to manifest your desires. You can do any spell outside the bounds of a circle. Personally, I have found that spells cast in a circle are much more effective.
Cast the circle as described in chapter 2. Visualize the ring of light in a perfect circle, marking the boundary of your space. If you live in a tiny apartment, imagine the ring going through the walls. Make it a comfortable size for you and your equipment. You can cast a circle anywhere, but most people cast it when standing in front of the altar, simply because all their tools are present there. The altar is a place of devotion, but it doubles as your magical workspace.
Next, invite in the powers you wish to aid you, including Gods and Goddesses, totems, guides, or angels. Most start by honoring the four directions and asking a being to anchor and embody the elemental energy. Traditionally, you would ask one of the four archangels, a totem animal, or a deity to stand in the quarters, then ask other beings into the circle, depending on how appropriate they are to your intent. If you are doing a love spell, you might invite Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of love. If you are doing a spell for healing, the Celtic Goddess Brid, a great healer who later was known as St. Bridget, may be appropriate.
With city magick, you can go beyond the traditional standards and invite the beings you have experienced into you sacred space. For those with previous experiences in magick, this does not exclude the right to call in traditional images and beings you have worked with, but it does open the door to city totems, mechanical spirits, and any archetypes you’ve met and worked with in your shamanic travels. You can do magick by calling strictly on only city totems, or only spirits of transport. You can call on the spirits of different neighborhoods and districts in your city. If you are doing magick to help you travel without danger or delay out of the city to your family for the holidays, you can call upon Mercury, the Roman God of travel, or on the archetype spirit form of airplanes. I would call on both, since I like and feel comfortable with both. Such quarter calls and invocations can seem strange at first, but the more intimately you work with the city, the more familiar it all becomes. By combining the modern and the traditional, you create rituals unique to your own experience.
Table 2. Elemental Correspondences for City Magick.
The invitations into your circle can be as prosaic or as simple as you like. You can write out an elaborate ritual, with poetry and scripted verse, or do something completely off the cuff, following what is in your heart and mind at the moment. If you are a good speaker, you may prefer the latter. If you get nervous easily, you may want some type of script, or at least an outline. Modify the guidelines in chapter 2 to suit your own tastes and preferences.
Once the powers are invited into your sacred space, perform your spells. This ensures that you are in the right environment to do your work, your experimentation. Labs have their standard conditions and temperatures, and magick workers have their own standard conditions. Now you must decide on your goal. What do you want the spell do to? What do you want to manifest in your life? Your spell work can be as simple as asking for help and guidance, or reading a petition you’ve written. You can ask in the name of the Universe/God/Goddess/Great Spirit, to grant your desire. It is a good idea to ask that it be “correct and good for you,” and that the spell “harm none,” including yourself. Whatever you put out into the universe, you want to make sure that you are causing no harm, since you don’t want that harm to return to you. For a long time, the majority of my spells were simply petitions that I burned in a cauldron during the ritual.
Another aspect to consider is the Moon phase. In the tradition in which I was trained, a form of witchcraft, the Moon played a very important part. During a waxing Moon, I did spells to bring things toward me. During a waning Moon, I did magick to remove, banish, and cure. You can easily find out the current phase of the Moon by looking at a calendar. To be even more accurate, get an astrological calendar that will tell you the exact time when the Moon becomes Full and New. Once the Moon becomes Full, it starts to wane, and once it becomes the New Moon, it starts to wax. Llewellyn’s Astrological Calendar or Daily Planetary Guide will have all the information you need. Many other traditions pay no attention to the Moon and still have good results, so it all depends on how strongly this silver orb pulls on your own beliefs and abilities.
More complex spells, using ritual tools, plants, minerals, and household items, will be described later in this chapter. So many of them are right under your nose. You never suspected that everyday items could be used for magick, but they can. Everything is magical. Use these tools to inspire your own magical workings. If you desire, follow the instructions carefully while in a magick circle, and experiment. Once you are comfortable, you can mix and match and design your own completely unique spells and rituals. Each bit of information you acquire is like a new color crayon added to your box. Soon you’ll have enough colors to make and do anything you want.
As we walk through the various urban environments surrounding us, our magical tools, our vehicles for intent, become more obvious as we open to the unspoken language all around us. Magick is inherent in everything, including everything in the city. Many tools of the urban mage are not traditional, but are just as powerful nonetheless. Always judge a tool by its results, and not necessarily what it looks like or where you found it.