The Book as a Talisman
In the occult world a book is not just a book. It's an object that performs the symbolic actions of a magician's intent. In this sense the book is a performative speech act whose function is to make words evoke both physical and mental manifestations. Making words do anything beyond their culturally consecrated value is a tall order, as most use words for their dictation value. For instance, declaring that you want to be a university professor, or score the 7-figure sum for your business, is very likely not the kind of wish that's original in its verbal manifestation – more like, 'oh, the competition did that? Me too, I want the same.' This is called acting on dictations.
When words become interesting is when they are the expression of a direct, rather than dictated transmission. Words have power in this directness. Who can achieve it? Almost no one. Although most people like to think of themselves as being direct, the reality is different. Almost no one is direct because of fear of offense. No one offers you their true thoughts because of their fear of offending. The inverse is also true. No one is really interested in straight talk, because of the fear of taking offense. If you're the lazy kind, you'd rather be validated in your laziness through some euphemisms, rather than have someone point to the consequences of your laziness. You'd rather be called 'neuro-divergent' than lazy, or a 'creative genius' who can sit with procrastinations because of a 'strong will' to 'rebel against the patriarchy.' But think about what makes the desire for flattery powerful. It's magic. It's the magic of words. When they say that words are powerful, they are not even kidding. So people go around maintaining a straight face in the face of the not straight.
But now think also about the magic in the direct transmission, the kind that has no other agenda than to illuminate. Where flattery operates with clichés that people want to hear, illumination operates with truths that are not popular. Now some would say that illumination, then, must be the inverse of magic, truth being the inverse of enchantment or the ‘special belief’ that everyone seeks as a means to self-empowerment. But where flattery goes a long way with the shallow thinkers, illumination empowers through the kind of clarity that's hard to argue with, clarity being the currency that the shallow thinkers lack.
I see a talismanic book participating in illumination, the kind that is devoid of personal agenda simply because, as far as illumination is concerned, there is no self behind it to either take or give offense. A book that makes a direct transmission has star power. It's a talisman. The word talisman is connected to the stars, as it means drawing down the power of the celestial forces either through natural materia (gems, herbs, incense), astrological timing (moon cycles, direct and retrograde planets), or magical names (of deities, or speech acts such as abracadabra). Just as the sun, the closest star in our galaxy, makes a directly felt transmission of power independently of what we like or dislike, a book as a talisman is invested in the same. After it says what it needs to say, it then also says: ‘take it or leave it.’ These are obvious principles that have guided centuries of grimoire writing, or the writing of magic books that often rely on the transmission of personal gnosis.
A passage from Tarot for Romeo and Juliet, October 2021.
A passage from Andromalius, Take Two: Goetic Stories, October 2022.
The book as a talisman can also be accompanied by another talismanic object that participates in lending words the performative and perlocutionary magic of the stars. If an object is invested with the intent to go beyond dictations, it will effect the highest magic for whoever holds it in their hands. This includes the grimoires that were written as commercial pulp fictions whose sole aim is to enchant through the creation of the highest illusions.
Running sheets for the Andromalius book.
Map and the Devil with sigils for the Andromalius book.
When is a talisman more than itself?
But let us further ask here: what is a talisman even beyond the expectation that it channels star power with view, for instance, to protect, gain success, or influence an outcome? In my own practice, all my magic rests on using a very sharp method or system and a very sharp exit into the void. The method is arbitrary. The void is not. What I appreciate in the method that I use – from Graeco-Egyptian magic via Giordano Bruno to Austin Osman Spare, all arbitrary systems of thought and imagination – is sharpness. I insist on sharpness, as that is the distinguishing factor between the talismanic book that enchants through fetishization, that is, through tactile power, and the one that enchants through justice, that is, through mental awareness. Both are valid in responses to magical artefacts, the fetish and justice, though whereas the fetish appeals to greed, or the insatiable desire, justice appeals to seeing things as they are, which ultimately amounts to the eradication of all desire in its illusory manifestation.
What I appreciate about entering the void is plain common sense. It is a known fact that the magicians of old operated and manipulated with formlessness. You want something done, you must first detach from your obsession with it, for what is there to cling to? Forms conjured to the mind as solid stuff? 'Get over yourself,' the magicians of old would say and they would be right too, if they laughed at the idea that any form could be grasped in any way. When I try to wrap my head around the premise and conditions for performing magic, I’m in awe of the human imagination that figured out emptiness before quantum physics came along to prove that the more you zoom in on things the more you find nothing there. So how do we work with the void? As far as I'm concerned, what I do in this ‘space’ is work with raising the level of my awareness about the possibility of getting done whatever needs getting done.
Magic is not about the situation in which I create financial success for myself or others, conjuring a new man or woman in people’s lives, or generally ‘fixing it’ for people. Rather, it is about raising the level of our perception of what is unmeasurable and therefore possible. This is the power of the formless.
If you've tried crafting talismans or sigils, you wouldn’t be amazed at how precisely this enchantment works, because you'd know everything there is to know about the symbolic nature of language and how it connects to forms that go beyond mere situated beliefs. That’s all there is to it. There’s only you and the language you're competent at speaking, in the process knowing as well about the nature of language and its shifting signifiers. Just as the world doesn’t exist without your particular perception of it, reality doesn't exist without a calibrated measure of creating it in whatever image you fancy. The catch, however, is that you must know this, not just pretend that you do. You can test this knowledge against your desire. Ask yourself when was the last time you fell for empty words, hyperbolic speech that boosts your ego, or the 'secret' that speaks to your 'soul' uncovering its 'useful shadows.'
Running sheets for the book on Andromalius · October 2022
The beauty of Andromalius · October 2022
Take your pick
I could go on, but let’s save the discussion above for later. Meanwhile, if you never thought about entering the void before, try doing it by being selective. Pick a talismanic book that makes direct transmissions of the straightforward kind, the kind that bypasses even the desire to get enlightened, as you might enjoy discovering what it means to mould the human imagination at high voltage level. Or try discovering how to love a good speech act; try learning to love saying, 'it's done,' about some magic that places your intention in an analogy or on a par with the image of what you want to achieve. How clear is that image in your head? If it’s not clear, adjust your metaphors. I just did this myself in connection with the crafting of some powerful talismanic art. Let me illustrate through words and images.
The X marks the spot. Magic map for the Andromalius book.
Andromalius seal over an old map.
Stages of magic
First, suspend your disbelief, as belief in anything is not something I operate with. Now read on. On September 23, 2022 I performed the first in a series of stages of magic towards the launching of my new book on Andromalius, the 72nd demon in the Goetia. Mercury was cazimi, that is to say, Mercury was with the King, in the bosom of the Sun. This is a most auspicious place to be for a planet. Whatever petition you make to the planet that's close enough to the sun without being burnt, chances are that your wish will be granted. The Moon was also applying to a tight conjunction with the fixed star Regulus, a star that enhances the authority of occult interests, and gives great power, honor, wealth and independence to all who petition.
My election took place on the west coast of Denmark where I live. This means that at the time of the conjunction in Mercury’s own hour, Mercury and the Sun were in the 12th house, the house of demons. What is Andromalius? A demon. Mercury was petitioned to grant its powers of enchantment, transactional wit, and swift communication to Andromalius’ domain, which is to find treasures, deliver goods in transit, and also locate thieves and punish them. All excellent and very useful functions. All tied to the book.
The talismanic art intended to accompany the book on Andromalius – 72 old maps and 72 unique cards of the Devil – was done and consecrated in this window; an intense labor that could only be achieved by the grace of calligraphy. Black and indigo ink was applied to the surface of 72 large vintage maps published by the Danish power house Gyldendal in 1948 alongside with oil chalk and iron dust. As the chief function of the demon Andromalius is to find treasure, the idea with the sigilized maps is to enable the bearer of this talisman to find treasure. Nothing more, nothing less.
As each map is unique, the calligraphic X that marks the spot further carries a bibliomantic significance. A quick close-up look at the image on the right below discloses the word Gitana, Gypsy, where the brush landed by chance on the map featuring the South of Spain, parts of North Africa, and Gibraltar. The collector in possession of this talisman must think of the connection between what Andromalius does under conjuration as a matter of expectation and how this may relate to the geography of the place on the map. What kind of treasure can manifest out of this connection between word, image, and location?
Those who receive the book and the magic that is made for it, can expect a manifestation of all of the above. With the map you find treasures. With the Devil you make pacts. One such pact could aim for the power to enchant. With style. Without style, no magic. Cultivating a style requires courage, so the line of benefits from making a pact has just stretched. Courage is a conqueror. Conquests bring new territories with them, and with new territories there’s new treasures to be found. On the intangible level, yet one that can be felt on the physical plane, just imagine the significance of being able to conquer fear. My Devil talisman has all these ideas embedded in it. As the book on Andromalius charts precisely such territories, proposing that the magician is a stylist par excellence, creating an extended connection to maps and enchanters seemed obvious for the creation of a talismanic object.
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Last year about the same time in October I did a similar thing with my book Tarot for Romeo and Juliet. I resurrected a dead love through just the right speech acts, and then offered the book with additional talismans in the form of painted icons, cards, perfumed sigils, and love spells. I used Shakespeare’s immortal characters, Romeo and Juliet, to enact the means of getting to know the heart of another. Not a small ambition, given that in this world of dictations and masks, no one knows the heart of man.
This book is a romp of encounters that mainly take place at the cartomancy table, where we meet Werner Herzog’s films, Klaus Kinski’s acting, Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, and professors of Psychology, Renaissance, and Religious Studies. In this book Juliet drives a sports car without crashing, and Romeo commits harakiri, Japanese style, while reading tomes such as Thinking with Demons. As a talisman this book is not just an homage to the love whose image exceeds even that of the imagination – both in its sublime and sorrowful manifestations – but a performance of the very meaning of infinite passion.
Beyond belief
As to why you'd 'believe' in the efficacy of any of this, that is, the book as a talisman performing magic, let's just say that handling a talisman is no different than handling your best dress when you wear it in order to seduce someone, score the job you're after, or indulge in your own fancies. Insofar as the self is forever a performance, not the thing itself, so are all the acts the performative self engages with. But some of these acts are more real than others, simply because they're the result of true illumination rather than enforced subtle, and not so subtle, dictations.
If a talisman participates in more, such as finding a treasure, a new love, or lost items, then why not use it? Perhaps the magician who created it knew how to tread the void and thus present you with what is precisely unmeasurable and therefore possible.
