Against, but still according to

"When 'the above' says 'no': Reasons spells go bust" is an article that's given me quite the headache back when I was writing for Asteria 2. The reason for this is that even though I had a glimpse of the essence of what I was fucking my brains out to explain in words, I couldn't quite put my finger on it and so the image that usually forms in my mind on such occasions was fuzzy. 

Luckily, I appealed to Raziel to help me make sense of that fuzzy image and, because he's such a great guy, he came through big time. When all was done I was very pleased with how the article turned out. Little did I know at the time that somewhere in an old work laid the piece of information that would've made me have an instant epiphany had I came across it while struggling with the article. But I'm uncultured so I had no idea of what that book contained haha.

Until recently! Book III of Liber Astronomiae has a small yet very interesting chapter, Chapter IX. Thanks to my reader Nacho who's got the Spanish translation I came across this two paragraph chapter. In itself, it is quite insignificant and merely discusses things any astrology enthusiast can observe by studying the charts. Its title, however, and one of the phrases it contains represent the very essence of my article.

Power & Energy

Power and energy are very important in magical works. This applies to both the micro and macrocosm. The more power is put behind a working, the better its chances of success. Likewise, the more energy is brought into a working, the better.

As an example from the real world, a WW2 Tiger tank was a formidable weapon. If it had sufficient fuel it could provide devastating results. If fuel was low or non-existent, its efficiency dropped significantly (even in defensive battles). 

Another example comes to mind from Anime, more exactly the Bleach series. The main character of the series is one Ichigo Kurosaki, a teen who ended up fighting the good spiritual fight. I remember other characters of the series speaking of him as having a great spiritual power, meaning he was innately powerful. However, when he was involved in longer lasting battles with powerful opponents his spiritual energy would start to drop at some point because of his immense efforts. The same occurred in the case of his opponents.

April Fool's Trickster

Mercury's first retrograde station of the year will take place on April 1. The Trickster God will indulge us with his shenanigans for (at least) 25 days starting with April Fool's day.

Besides the event generating both personal and social issues throughout this time frame, as well as before and after for a while, it will be completely improper for beneficent magical work involving this planetary force. 

We explained retrogrades in general, as well as Mercury retrograde in particular in Asteria.

Why, you ask...

Today I received an email from someone's I've never been in touch with asking me why I charge "so much" for my services, implying it's too much and basically accusing me of taking advantage of people. This left me speechless for a moment and when I snapped out of it I considered it unnecessary to reply. But I will reply here.

I've been actively involved in the occult for almost ten years now. During this whole time I've encountered many occult service providers, each charging their own prices for their particular services. Every so often I encountered people charging different prices for different types of spells. The reason for this eludes me to this day, since I charge the same price for any demand, regardless of whether it concerns love, money, health, curses and so on. At one time I used to charge an additional $10 to my usual amount for performing Enochian rituals, but later I decided to perform them solely for myself.