Happy Feast of St Camilla everyone! On this feastday which brings the May to a close, we invite you to join us in discussing the life and spiritual reflections of St Camilla Battista da Varano; visionary, nun, and eventual abbess of the Order of Poor Clares. We consider her biography and writings and of course her visions – of Christ, of cherubim, and of her own soul separated from her earthly body to dwell closer to God.
In this especially vison-centered episode, we also invite you to reflect on the prodigious offices, monstrous omens, and home-brew chimeras of the demon of the Grimorium Verum, Segal; as well as the change-making potenties and world-turning tidal eddies of the Exu of Quimbanda, Seu Gira Mundo.
We (finally!) wander through the wayfaring gardens and sidewalk sproutings of Mugwort, exploring its folk etymologies, its medicines and neurotoxins – for dream, for women, for flavouring food and drink, and for protection against insects, wild animals and harmful spirits - as well as the fiery applications of its moxibustion.
We celebrate the variously-hued virtues of the mineral Opal, and its patronages of clear-edged healthy sight and the invisibilities that fog and obscure the actions of thieves.
Conjuring our thematic through-thread into sharper and more comely focus, our type of magic for this episode is, appropriately enough, Scrying; by which we discuss shifting trends in occult philosophy to consider mediumship, evocation, and knowledge-at-a-distance as not only internal processes but conversations with spirits and deepening engagement with our spiritual landscapes and ecologies.
Our geomantic figure of the episode is the road-opening Via, Watery Lunary figure of movement – whether of information or the feet on the path – and its mysteries of activation, foresight, and navigating the mysterious.
In amongst all these world-turning tides of fate and manifesting fields of vision, our Arcanum is of course The Wheel of Fortune; and we reflect on its changing historical emphases, its stoic cyclical depictions of the turning wheel of the world, and its iconography of alchemical theurgy as well as the material realities it may advise upon in readings.
Finally, our dead magician is the vastly influential L.W. Delaurence of the Delaurence, Scott, & Co. publishing company; purveyor of pirated grimoires, charms and talismans of alleged “Hindoo spiritism”, and renowned spiritual supplier to a host of African-American conjure doctors and working folk; offering some thoughts on his life and legal troubles, as well as the substantial lasting legendary impact of his catalogue in Caribbean and West African folk magic and culture.
From our wayfaring rambles and reflections to yours, we wish you a an excellent and clarifying Camillamas!