Here’s just a brief update on two webinar courses coming up here in the second half of October 2019, offered once more through those fine chaps at Wolf & Goat.
The first is my Foundation Course: A Goetia of the Four Kings, my first course specifically dedicated to exploring the early modern nigromantic conjuration of unclean spirits. This course will explore a critically undervalued component of goetia - the principle Four Kings of the cardinal directions. Goetia has been a significant part of my magical work for many years, and I continue to deepen it with divination, experiment, and historical research. I finally feel ready to share some of this work in this course.
The Four Kings are not merely senior spirits of the cardinal directions, although they certainly do orient the practitioner at the crossroads of conjuration. They provide a vital means of organising the rogues' galleries of the mass of devilish spirits of the European grimoire traditions. Crucially, appealing to the authority of Oriens, Paymon, Amaymon, and Egyn when conjuring less senior spirits lends stability, coherence, and efficacy to such workings. The Four Regents become a vital part of navigating the bureaucracies of Hell as envisioned in the nigromantic practices of pre-moderrn goetia. Yet since their deliberate exclusion from the spirit catalogue of Johannes Weyer - a deliberate endeavour on the part of the demonologist to hamstring the very system he was criticising - they are given considerably less attention in modern occult thought or magical practice.
This course seeks to help practitioners of a variety of experiences and abilities find their way back to these Regents of European grimoiric conjuration, restoring a pivotal layer of demonic hierarchy and returning a potent set of ruling spirits to the circles of karcists, demonologists, and nigromancers today. We will examine the Four's appearances in a variety of grimoires - including the Folger Book of Magic, the Book of Dannel, the Excellent Book, and many other manuscript rites and operations. We will discuss their alternative names and assigned cardinal directionality, as well as meeting a few of their most significant messengers, 'sub-kings', and ministers. We will also further explicate early modern connections between the Four Kings and the Sorcerer Saint Cyprian, patron of grimoires and nigromantic magic. Those who study this course will be provided with indispensable working methodologies for directing and dealing with so-called 'unclean spirits' and in performing works of grimoire magic.
The course - which consists of three two-hour webinar sessions packed with analyses of their heraldry, conjurations, and operations - will also include a free hour-long one-to-one consultation to ensure that students can incorporate these teachings of the Four Kings into their own practice. This Foundation course will also be a pre-requisite for future classes and courses on early modern goetia and nigromancy.
For more information, or to signup, follow this here link right here.
My second webinar series, beginning Tuesday 29th October is a new cycle of my Advanced Geomancy course The Earth Shall Hold Them Close. This is a course teaching the ways by which geomancy may investigate matters related to both ancestral spirits and restless dead. Having run it once before, I have a couple of testimonials I’d love to share which offer a little more detail on what previous students have got out of it.
“In this Advanced Geomancy course, the clever Dr. Cummins shines a lanterns’ glow on the necromantic potential buried below the surface of our dearly beloved earthy oracle. Whether you’re knocking on the doors of the Fourth House, Genitor, to check in on the blessed ones who came before or you are investigating the Eighth House, Mors, because you’ve got a bad case of somebody not going gently into that good night, The Earth Shall Hold Them Close provides you the terrestrial foundations to bridge the gap between this world and the next. By elevation or exorcism, geomancy isn’t just limited to a form of divination, but a potent means of spiritual communication and spellcraft for both mediumship and malefica alike. Dr. Cummins acts as a psychopomp, gently guiding you into the liminal space between spiritual investigation and spirit contact, and providing you with workings, advice, and inspiration for whatever conditions you may inherit from the other side. Geomancy and tending to my ancestors are two essential pillars of my personal spirituality and magical practice, and The Earth Shall Hold Them Close not only allowed one lamp to cast light on the shadow of the other, it subtly rearranged the way I engage with worlds here and beyond. Al acts as guardian cunning man passing on the albus-white wisdom of the past to help re-enchant and reconnect us to the spiritus mundi of our present. Highly recommended.” - Justin Cassatt
“This course on geomancy and the Dead was instrumental in advancing my studies of the art, acquiring a deeper appreciation, and furthering my understanding of its implications for practice. Al’s expertise in history, humoural theory, ritual, and folk magic lent a great deal to weaving together various threads of esoteric knowledge that are only fairly recently beginning to find their homes once again in each other. The importance of the Dead is something that Al and others have striven before now to restore to their proper place of consideration. This course is a prime example of how one might apply that scholarship in a very accessible and practice way. If I can only say one thing, it is that I consider it a privilege to study with Al and am deeply grateful for what he has taught me and shared in these courses. You would do yourself a solid favor in continuing study with Al. There is deep wisdom, knowledge, and medicine in his offering and I can’t recommend it enough without giving away his invaluable teachings.” - Mr B Fox.
This course comes with a free hour-long one-to-one session of private coaching to integrate it into one’s very personal practice of ancestor veneration and wider spiritwork. You are not required to have significant background experience in working with ancestors, and this can be a great place to start attending to one’s dead more fully. As an Advanced Geomancy class, this typically requires students to have taken my Geomancy Foundation course. But if you haven’t taken that already and really want to get on this, please drop me a line and we’ll see what we can do...
Anyone interested in knowing more about these courses, or hoping to set up a payment plan (which I’m happy to do!), should email me at consultantsorcerer [at] gmail.com for a chat about such things. I would dearly love you all to be able to take these courses and engage with the important information and techniques therein.
Merry Hallowstide, every one of us.