A Fishing Failure
Jul. 27th, 2024 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lostianvsA Fishing Failure
Background
I was inspired by this passage in Picatrix concerning the construction of an image to catch a fish.
The conventional way to make this image involves waiting for the second face of Pisces, Luna, and Mercury to be coincident with the Ascendant. However, I have had some success applying these elections in a non-standard way. While investigating natural magic, I learned to recognize the subtle signs of hidden forces lurking in the material world. By the end of Book I of Agrippa, I learned that these hidden forces are indeed the 7 classical "planets" or what Agrippa calls the 7 governors of the world. I keep this quote from Giordano Bruno in mind when working with the planets:
It seems there is an additional hidden layer beyond even the "planets" themselves. So far, I've been testing whether this hidden layer beyond the planets transcends time and thus can be accessed through other media such as space or materials. In this case, the ingredients required are the second face of Pisces (ruled by Jupiter), Luna, and Mercury (in Exile/Fall in Pisces). These ingredients give me the sense of a minnow trap. Jupiter is the lure, Luna and Pisces are the water, and Mercury in Fall is the trap.
Execution
Normally, I would enlist the help of plant spirits to aid a working, but this time I chose to work only with the spirits of these characters and my previously constructed natural magic talismans of Cultivation, Illumination, and Discretion. I made the paper script with the appropriate symbols and arranged the talismans around it. I called upon their power to imbue the script with the intention to catch fish. I then took the script to a particular place along a river.
Result
It didn't work, or at least, not in the way I intended. On the first day, I waited for a few minutes after depositing the paper script with the instructions to bring fish to this particular spot. After a few minutes, I saw a fish jump out of the water, but just outside the region I had specified (it didn't count). I decided to come back the next day. Perhaps the effect needed more time.
The next day, I spotted a person fishing along the banks just outside the region I had specified. Opposite the fisherman, I saw another fish jump out of the water, again, just outside the region I had specified. It was as if the fish were avoiding the trap and gloating about it!
My conclusion is that I had invested too much focus on the trap and not enough on the lure. Granted this was an experiment. Were I starving and in dire need of fish, I would likely negotiate directly with the spirit of the river or the fish themselves. I'd also use an actual fishing pole, hook, and bait. Overall I think this spell has promise and just needs the addition of some magical basics to get it working. There are of course many things one might try to catch with such a spell.
Ianvs
Background
I was inspired by this passage in Picatrix concerning the construction of an image to catch a fish.
"An Image to catch a fish. ...make an image in the form of a fish, and cast it with the second face of Pisces rising, and the Moon and Mercury rising, and make it in the hour of the Moon. ...throw [the image] in the river where you wish to have fish..."
-- Greer, J. M., & Warnock, C. (2011). The Complete Picatrix: The Occult Classic of Astrological Magic Liber Atratus Edition: The Classic Medieval Handbook of Astrological Magic. Page 44.
-- Greer, J. M., & Warnock, C. (2011). The Complete Picatrix: The Occult Classic of Astrological Magic Liber Atratus Edition: The Classic Medieval Handbook of Astrological Magic. Page 44.
The conventional way to make this image involves waiting for the second face of Pisces, Luna, and Mercury to be coincident with the Ascendant. However, I have had some success applying these elections in a non-standard way. While investigating natural magic, I learned to recognize the subtle signs of hidden forces lurking in the material world. By the end of Book I of Agrippa, I learned that these hidden forces are indeed the 7 classical "planets" or what Agrippa calls the 7 governors of the world. I keep this quote from Giordano Bruno in mind when working with the planets:
As for the practice of observing the planets in their orbits, and the various aspects which arise from their relative movement, it is missing the point; the physical stars and planets correspond to what we are talking about in name only, and it is from this misunderstanding that popular confusion has arisen. And perhaps deliberately; perhaps this confusion was engendered to conceal the truth from the common people, so it would remain the possession of the wise while others stumble and grope in the dark.
-- Bruno, G. (2022). De Rerum Principiis et Elementis et Causis. In De Magia. Translated by Paul Summers Young (p. 353). Black Letter Press. Germany.
It seems there is an additional hidden layer beyond even the "planets" themselves. So far, I've been testing whether this hidden layer beyond the planets transcends time and thus can be accessed through other media such as space or materials. In this case, the ingredients required are the second face of Pisces (ruled by Jupiter), Luna, and Mercury (in Exile/Fall in Pisces). These ingredients give me the sense of a minnow trap. Jupiter is the lure, Luna and Pisces are the water, and Mercury in Fall is the trap.
Execution
Normally, I would enlist the help of plant spirits to aid a working, but this time I chose to work only with the spirits of these characters and my previously constructed natural magic talismans of Cultivation, Illumination, and Discretion. I made the paper script with the appropriate symbols and arranged the talismans around it. I called upon their power to imbue the script with the intention to catch fish. I then took the script to a particular place along a river.
Result
It didn't work, or at least, not in the way I intended. On the first day, I waited for a few minutes after depositing the paper script with the instructions to bring fish to this particular spot. After a few minutes, I saw a fish jump out of the water, but just outside the region I had specified (it didn't count). I decided to come back the next day. Perhaps the effect needed more time.
The next day, I spotted a person fishing along the banks just outside the region I had specified. Opposite the fisherman, I saw another fish jump out of the water, again, just outside the region I had specified. It was as if the fish were avoiding the trap and gloating about it!
My conclusion is that I had invested too much focus on the trap and not enough on the lure. Granted this was an experiment. Were I starving and in dire need of fish, I would likely negotiate directly with the spirit of the river or the fish themselves. I'd also use an actual fishing pole, hook, and bait. Overall I think this spell has promise and just needs the addition of some magical basics to get it working. There are of course many things one might try to catch with such a spell.
Ianvs