It has come to my attention that a very strange idea is spreading in modern occultism. Because I just don’t have the time or the mental energy to endure most occult groups on Facebook, or WitchTok, or wherever else today’s witchipoos and chaotes hang out, this one flew under my radar! Apparently, according to this theory, you can’t get your Talisman wet – especially with Holy Water! – as it will destroy the Talisman’s effectiveness.
Say what now?
So that threw me for a loop. At first I didn’t even believe this was a thing – but I was shown a heartbreakingly large number of screenshots of occult “experts” saying exactly that. And I can only say this is a perfect example of “I can see how you totally misconstrued what you learned here…” So, if you don’t mind, I’ll put my response on the record – just in case anyone is interested in what I think…
If you have an object with a chthonic spirit attached to it, they are not likely going to enjoy being splashed with holy water. It could even drive them away – at least temporarily. (We’re talking just getting some holy water on it here, not performing a full-on exorcism.)
On the other hand, anything associated with the celestial (or above) can be splashed with all the holy water you want. You can regularly bless and consecrate it.
Just getting something “wet” with regular water isn’t going to do a thing. You can use fresh and running water in cleansings, of course – but, again, we’re talking about just getting the object wet here. And, finally:
NOTE: all of the above applies to objects that won’t be damaged by water! What makes a talisman lose power is damage, yellowing, rust, tarnish, dirt, stains, etc. If it’s something that can be cleaned off, restoring the talisman to pristine condition, its power will kick back up again. (Yes you can even repaint, touch up, etc – so long as everything is consecrated and magical timing is observed. No reason to let your statues become drab!) Damage that cannot be repaired/undone lessens its power permanently.
Of course, this doesn’t even scratch the surface of how different types of Holy, Herbal, Fresh, and other Waters are used in occult practice! But I hope this has at least provided some perspective on the “never get your Talismans wet” nonsense.
Beautiful rainbow-color Mercury Talisman on parchment. (CAN be damaged by water!)
Consecration of Holy Water, according to the Key of Solomon the King, performed on the Day and Hour of Mercury, during a Waxing Moon. Fr. Aaron Leitch.
Herbal washes and waters are among the most popular tools used in traditional forms of shamanism and folk magick around the world. They have existed for as long as humans have known how to make herbal teas, but their uses go far beyond medicinal beverages. In fact, they are exceptionally powerful tools in any witch‘s arsenal—it might just be easier to list the ways in which herbal waters cannot be used than to list all of their diverse applications. Visit any botanica (shops that cater to African and Caribbean Traditions, such as Santeria, Voodoo, and Hoodoo) and you will typically find several shelves fully stocked with herbal washes for as many purposes as you can imagine.
Yet, for some unfathomable reason, they have been slow to work their way into modern forms of witchcraft. Perhaps this is due to the less-than-amicable relationship between most indigenous folk traditions and modern Neopaganism. In past decades, some aspects of the older systems (such as their focus on the dead and underworld, and their use of animal sacrifice) made many Neopagans uncomfortable. As a result, many things—even very useful things—that originate in those traditions were overlooked by Western practitioners.
Today’s witches and ritual magicians are much more open to magical items that might be found on shelves next to skulls and coffin nails. However, some of these, like herbal washes, are new and mysterious to modern students, who are often unsure exactly how they are intended to be used.
I have just updated my page on how to make Herbal Holy Waters specific to the Planetary forces. And, along with that, I thought you might like to see some photos from my most recent efforts to make some. 🙂 These were taken during the last waxing moon, on the days/hours of Luna and Jupiter respectively.
The following two pictures show the plants I gathered for the process. On Monday I gathered nine plants sacred to the Moon: Jasmine, Honeysuckle, Water Lily (inc. Lotus), Juniper, Geranium (Citronella), Willow (Bottle-brush), Spearmint, Aloe, and a couple of other Succulents:
Nine plants sacred to Luna.
On Thursday I gathered four plants sacred to Jupiter: Cedar, Pine, Bay Laurel, and Honeysuckle:
Four plants sacred to Jupiter.
In each case, my wife and I went out to find these plants in our own hometown. This ensures they are fresh and intimately connected with our own genus loci (local spirits). Then, on the proper planetary hour, I lit a candle of the appropriate color and submerged the green plants into a gallon of pure spring water:
Lunar Plants in Spring Water – before ripping and tearing.
Then, as my daughter or wife held the Bible open for me, I proceeded to read the Psalms I had chosen for the ritual. (I used four Psalms for Jupiter, and nine for Luna.) While I chanted, I proceeded to rip and tear the plants with my bear hands in the water – slowly but surely turning the water opaque with the “blood” of the plants:
Lunar Water just before straining. Notice how dark the water has become.
Jupiter Water just before straining. Not every plant results in dark green color – but the water here is still opaque.
Once I simply could not tear or squeeze the plants any further, and the water had become dark, I added in several ounces of Solomonic Holy Water; for an extra blessed kick. 😉 I then allowed the results to sit for some time until the candles had completely burned out. Finally, I poured the finished herbal waters into gallon jugs for storing in the refrigerator. The final picture below is of the finished product as it appears on my Doc Solomon’s website. (The middle bottle is the Lunar Water, and the right-hand bottle is the Jupiter.)
The finished product.
If you are interested in the page at Doc Solomon’s where I am currently selling these Herbal Waters, just click here and enjoy! 🙂
We specialize in the creation of obscure and unique ritual tools and ingredients for traditional Solomonic and grimoire workings. We carry holy water, maiden-spun thread, hazel and oak wands, aspergillums, ritual knives, herbal-infused blood substitutes, talismans, parchment, beeswax and beeswax candles, holy oil, incense, and much more.
Everything we sell is made according to the exacting instructions required by the grimoires (Key of Solomon the King, the Book of Abramelin, etc) – all materials, timing, consecrations, ritual protocols and proscriptions are meticulously observed in the creation of our ritual items.
Hand-Crafted Ritual Tools and Items
The grimoires are infamous for requiring rare, obscure and hard to obtain items: such as thread hand-spun by a young maiden, ritual tools blessed by a priest, rare herbs and incenses, objects made from specific metals and other materials, rare virgin woods etc. They also require meticulous rituals and consecrations during the time of their making – extending from exactly how and when the materials are gathered to exactly how and when the tools are constructed. Some tools can only be made at certain times of the year, and others require rituals extending over several days or even weeks. We follow all of these requirements to the letter, and we provide a certificate of authenticity with every ritual tool.
Please Note: Some grimoiric tools require specific timing, rare materials, or lengthy rituals in their creation. In these cases, we do not carry a large stock of pre-made items. Instead, we make your ritual tool upon order. And, depending on your requirements and our resources, we will consider special orders upon request. Please be aware that there may be a waiting period while we do our work, though we will stay in touch with you throughout the process. Also, some especially rare items may result in limited availability of some tools.
All of our items are made, blessed and/or consecrated by Fr. Aaron Leitch, an ordained Gnostic priest of the Ecclesia Beatae Mariae Angelorum. Most of the fine art-work is done by Carrie Leitch, a Deacon of the same Church. Wood and metal-working done by Jon Zuilkowski
Father Aaron Leitch and Deacon Carrie Leitch
What is a Grimoire?
Grimoire is a French word meaning “grammar” or “basic instruction book.” It refers especially to a genre of occult texts and spellbooks from medieval and renaissance Europe that combined Church liturgy and ritual with exorcism, witchcraft and folk magick. A great number of them focus specifically upon the evocation of spiritual entities through whom spells can be cast and from whom magickal secrets can be learned. These books represent the culmination of the Western Occult Tradition up to that time, preserving the last remnants of the Old Magick before the rise of the quasi-Masonic Magickal Lodges of the nineteenth century.
What is Solomonic Magick?
Most of the old grimoires are attributed to Biblical heroes such as Moses, Noah, Enoch and King Solomon. (Though this is merely legend, as the grimoires were written thousands of years after these Biblical figures lived.) Without question, it is the Solomonic grimoires that have had the greatest impact on the Western Tradition. Today, even grimoires attributed to other figures are considered part of the overall “Solomonic” tradition. Books like the Key of Solomon the King, The Lemegeton (including The Goetia, Pauline Arts, The Almadel of Solomon and more), The Heptameron, Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, Liber Juratis, John Dee’s Enochian Diaries, The Magus, The Grand Grimoire and Grimoirum Verum (to name only a few of hundreds of such texts) are all considered sub-sets of the Solomonic tradition.
The Key of Solomon provides instructions for the creation of holy water. (See Book 2, chapter 11 of the Mathers edition.) It is consecrated on the day and hour of Mercury, making it well suited to the Mercurial focus of that grimoire. It can also be used anywhere generic holy water is called for in a spell.
Another option is to simply obtain holy water from a local Church. In fact, there is quite an elaborate tradition surrounding such water. We see it here and there in the grimoires – such as the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, which calls for Three Kings holy water (or water used during an Epiphany Mass on January 6th, Three Kings Day). However, we can find much more of this kind of thing in Afro-Caribbean and Catholic influenced traditions such as Palo, Voodoo, Hoodoo, Curandero, etc.
The following information was posted to the EvocationalMagics yahoo group by Aghor Pir. It is compiled from various systems of Palo (Monte, Mayombe, Kimbisa, etc.)
Every once in a while, the subject of ritual blood use is raised among those who study the Old Magicks. Blood and sacrifice were fairly common in both religion and magick until relatively recently in history. I discuss the subject in depth in chapter four of “Secrets of the Magickal Grimoires”, if you want to read about my take on the subject.
Today, however, many modern practitioners (especially those of American WASP heritage) have sensibilities that preclude the use of blood in ritual. Perhaps this will change, if our Great Western Civilization eventually collapses and we are again forced to raise and slaughter our own food. But until then, some of us would rather not engage in the practice.
We can take heart, though. Even ancient traditions that regularly make use of blood and sacrifice – such as the ATRs (Santeria, Palo, etc), the medieval grimoires and various forms of conjure and folk magick- also include paths and methods that do not require blood. From what I have seen, no one looks down upon those paths nor upon their adherents for their choice. That’s great, because it gives us avenues to explore the Old Magicks without the use of blood, and still learn how to do things right.
Omiero is a liquid used in Santerian traditions, whenever an Orisha (or god) is born into a new vessel. (These vessels are urns, filled with consecrated items, that become the center-pieces of altars to the Orishas.) The Orisha will quite literally live inside the vessel, and offerings and sacrifices will be made to him or her upon the altar. However, the Orisha’s very first meal is not blood at all – it is omiero. Because of this, omiero can be considered even more potent (in its way) than blood.
Of course, the secrets of making true omiero are a closely guarded secret. I only know it involves the ripping and tearing of sacred herbs and plants beneath running water, so that a green-tinted water is collected. And there are mystical songs that must be sung during its preparation.
Meanwhile, the concept of herbally-infused holy water is not unheard of outside of these mystery religions. We can especially find it within the practice of Hoodoo – a folk practice that originated in the American south, and was itself heavily influenced by the ATRs. In this case, the process is much simplified – usually involving little more than steeping sacred herbs in water to produce a “tea” or extracting the scent of a plant and infusing it into water (such as the very popular Florida Water – which is named for its sweet floral scent, not for the US state).
Drawing from the concepts of omiero and herbal holy waters, we can use a similar method to produce a blood substitute for our own magick. Below, I will outline a method of making a kind of holy water based upon the omiero concept (note: this is not the recipe for true omiero as used in the ATRs), which I have incorporated into a Solomonic framework.
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Solomonic Herbal Holy Water (UPDATED)
NOTE: If you want to see pictures of this process in action, click here.
For this you will need Holy Water, the Bible, plants and herbs gathered (as much as possible) locally by hand, and (for this example) a gallon of fresh spring water. Yes, it needs to be fresh water from a spring.
1) First make or obtain a few ounces of Holy Water- either as outlined in the Key of Solomon, or obtained from a Church, etc. In any case you will need about sixteen ounces of lightly salted consecrated water (a bit less is fine), if you are making a gallon of the finished herbal water. Avoid Holy Waters that contain rose or other herbs.
2) Find several Psalms or other Scripture that relate to the Force/Angel/Spirit you are working with. (Try to find a number of Psalms based upon the number sacred to the entity. Six Psalms for solar entities, eight for mercurial, etc.) My primary source for these is always “Use of the Psalms”- often found appended to the “6th and 7th Books of Moses.” Another good source is called the “Book of Gold”, recently published by Avalonia Publishing. Also, don’t hesitate to sit down with an online Bible and search the Psalms and other Scripture for keywords that relate to your needs.
3) Gather some fresh plants that relate to the Force/Angel/Spirit. (You don’t want woods or resins or roots – look for leafy green plants!) Scott Cunningham wrote some good source material for this kind of thing. See “Incenses, Oils and Brews.” Again, gather a number of plants based upon the number sacred to the entity in question.
4) Prepare your ritual space, and yourself, as you normally would for magickal work. It is best to perform this work on the proper Day and Hour according to the table of Solomonic hours.
5) During said Hour, put the spring water into a large bowl. Take some of the plant material in hand, and begin to sing/recite the Psalms as you immerse the plants into the Water and begin to rip and tear at the plant material. For tougher plants, you can make use of a knife to tear the material – use your White-Hilted Knife for this if you have one.
Keep going until the plants just can’t be ripped, torn, squeezed or pressed any further, and you finally run out of plant material. In a best-case scenario, the water should have turned a very dark green. (Not all plants will result in deep dark green water, and it will likely take some practice to know how much plant material you’ll need in each case. Give yourself time to perfect your recipes.)
6) Strain out the destroyed plant remnants. Then take the pure Holy Water and make a small prayer of your intent as you add it into the bowl.
I like to store this away in refridgeration, since it involves plant material. I use it as needed for sacrifice/offering. You can use it in place of blood anytime it is called for in a spell. You can also use it any time you create a spirit pot – not only as a first offering to the spirit, but also to wash every object you will place into its vessel.
Ananael (The Secrets of Wisdom) 