Black Malkin Press

10/08/2024

The very nice folk at Perseus Arcane Academy did an interview with me about all kinds of interesting topics, and it was a joy and a privilege to be able to engage them. I have the link here, and I hope you enjoy it, too! Spiritual Ecology vs. ordinary environmentalism? Animism and folklore? Herbalism? The clash between the Old Ways and modern science? Wolves? Soul Flight? This interview has it all. Controversial? Maybe. Informative? I say so. Please share it around!

Robin Artisson, a writer and teacher on topics of folklore, witchcraft, and spiritual ecology, recently participated in an interview for Perseus Arcane

09/22/2024

Autumn has come! Autumn is welcome!

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Image of Black Phillip and Thomasin by Saje Gary

09/19/2024

"I will be focusing on historical methods and theories of Witchcraft and sorcery, naturally, because I feel like losing too much connection with those things is tantamount to a real loss of both connection and power. I do not subscribe to the school of thought that reduces Witchcraft or sorcery to “simple intention” nor to some idea that some of us (or all of us, even) can just focus on positive visualizations and manifest whatever we want.

Those kinds of ideas have a lot of currency now, and for painfully obvious reasons. I say painfully obvious because only pain could create such wishful thinking. This is escapism, in another one of its many forms. We do live in a painful human social world, and everyone alive today can feel or sense (to some degree, no matter how slight) the deep lacks and the exhausting disconnections that permeate human affairs now.

We cannot wish our way out of this, we cannot visualize our way out of it, there is no simple “secret” that can restore the old vitality and life of things that seeped away as humans got further and further from one another and further from the sacred, underlying forces of the Mythic dimension of the world.

Witchcraft and sorcery (like certain forms of magic, even) draws upon older techniques, understandings, and methods which themselves sometimes stem back from the most ancient places. And when you can find a bridge or a road to a truly ancient place, you might grasp something, or might benefit from something, that was created when the world was alive and vital in ways we today can’t conceive of.

None of this is to suggest that “old” always equals “good”; naturally not; but some old things are powerful things, and we must seek them out. No matter how much we esteem ourselves now, some old things are more powerful than us. We must accord to them a dignity and weight that transcends what modern minds might stray towards in their pain or confusion, or in their weary (but understandable) seeking for belonging and identity."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood-Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen".

All classes registering now at Serpent Hall!

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Image by Sesharin at Deviant Art

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09/14/2024

A message from Robin Artisson:

"This is an announcement I've been waiting a long time to make- and the good day has come! Serpent Hall is welcoming its first guest instructor, and it is my pleasure to introduce him to all of you, and say a bit about what class he will be teaching as one of our Occult Studies/Elective courses.

Mr. Shea Bilé, a scholar (M.A. Philosophy), author, lecturer, musician, ritual performance artist, and devotee of the Left Hand Path for these last 25 years, is joining us in the Fall for his first large-scale online course offering ever. Shea has many other accolades to his name and (I urge you to check out his bio at Serpent Hall), but I'm also honored to counted by him as his friend and spiritual colleague, as well.

On November 7th of this year, Shea's course "The Fire and the Wine: The History, Philosophy, and Rites of Satanism, Luciferianism, and the Left Hand Path" will be starting at Serpent Hall. The course registration is open right now, and will remain open for a week after the course begins.

Traditionally, I talk about his course now and tell you a bit more about him, but I'm going to go off-script and say a few other things first. When I met Shea Bilé, I had only heard that he was some kind of rogue mystic/LHP guy, and when I met him it was the beginning of an impactful relationship, one that helped me to see a broader perspective on certain things.

It really helps that Shea has this charismatic, intelligent, nigh-on fiendish energy about him, which brightens places that he happens to be. I had never thought overly much on Left Hand Path concerns, and I admit I had a less than positive attitude about the whole movement for a long time.

Shea brought a refreshingly real and authentic perspective to all of that. I remember so many moments, before and after we were in our cups, that Shea shared some insight he had gained from an important (and sometimes hard) experience, but what he shared was not just thought-provoking; it was obvious that his spiritual journeys and adventures had delivered him to a place of real wisdom, displayed in how he understood and communicated things.

I also got to stand in ritual experiences with Shea, and that same energy of his filled the room, and set potent tones for everything. I liked Shea for many reasons, but I think the biggest reason was that, even after he was departed back to his home a few hours south of here, things he said while we were all together became things I thought about for days or weeks after. Some things I still do think about. I like impactful, real people.

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The Left Hand Path is a complex spiritual, philosophical, and social movement. People who have studied the history of Western occultism often recognize the iconic founding fathers and mothers of the modern LHP, but its roots go much deeper into history. Some people flinch away from the perceived overt "darkness" of the LHP, but the reality is not what most people expect.

The Left Hand Path has a history that connects it to important persons, powers, ideas, and places. And whether the mainstream of our society likes it or not, the Luciferian underbelly of our history is another chapter of who and what our culture was, what it is, and what it will become. The Left Hand Path has its scholars, its saints, its masters, its jesters, and its luminaries, and this cannot be ignored or buried under the shallowness of modernity.

I have long been something of the cultural heretic myself, in a sometimes profound (and often idiosyncratic) way. What Shea helped me to see was how the well of LHP spiritual heresy and philosophy contained a lot of valuable perspectives and practical achievements, things that give some of its adherents real strength in life. Shea himself is a living example of the kind of strength and energy the Left Hand Path can provide: he has lived a successful and adventurous life, and if the Good Fates be kind, he's got a lot of years left to keep adventuring.

In my Upon the Rood Day course, I go into great detail into the mythical icon of the Serpent. I talk at length about the existence of a theoretical prehistoric God of wisdom and cunning, and how that God may have become reduced, in the Genesis account, to the figure of the sorcerous and subtle serpent of the Garden of Eden. I talk about Witchcraft in connection to the image of the Serpent, and what that might mean for many lost chapters of our history.

It is in the icon of the Serpent that the real spiritual vision of the Left Hand Path "meets" with the historically-dreaded arts of Witchcraft. From the figure of the Wise Serpent, Satan, Shaitan, and the Theological Devil of Western and Eastern Christianity arises, in the most familiar forms that people know (and often dread) today. The Left Hand Path transmission of heretical wisdom-gaining studies and practices is a branch from this same ancient serpentine root. It has philosophical roots that go back centuries; it is not merely the offspring of modern antinomian thinkers or writers.

All genuine Witches, in my view, are spiritually Children of the Old Serpent; Shea Bilé, and LHP stalwarts like him, are another branch of that same Serpent-Wise family, who speak in a different but still compelling language to those able to perceive the different shapes that wisdom might assume.

Even those of us whose interests run more to the Traditional Witchcraft side of history and practice will certainly find a lot of valuable life perspectives and inspiration in what Shea has to share. And he's not just teaching philosophy! Shea is an accomplished ritualist who will be discussing the practical matters of ritual expression.

Shea is now here, at Serpent Hall, to give anyone who attends his fantastic 18-week long lecture series a privileged view into the real spiritual depths of the Left Hand Path. His course is 18 video lectures, 3 live Q&A sessions, with tons of other course-adjacent materials, PDF's, and as always, with this course comes an invitation into the online discussion forums we create to bring students together into a mutually supportive and information-sharing spaces. "The Fire and the Wine" will have its own dedicated spaces for students.

Check out Shea Bilé on Instagram and be watching our usual announcement spaces for more information about his course, and other Serpent Hall news."

09/10/2024

"Some women may get religion, and they're all right, I expect. But for the others, for so many, what can there be but witchcraft? That strikes them as real. Even if other people still find them quite safe and usual, and go on poking with them, they know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are. Even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it's there- ready!

Respectable countrywomen keep their grave-clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, hidden away, and when they want a little comfort they go and look at them, and think that once more, at any rate, they will be worth dressing with care. But the witch keeps her cloak of darkness, her dress embroidered with signs and planets; that's better worth looking at.

And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul- when no one else would give a look at her body even! And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say "Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly worn out."

But you say "Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it."

That's why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life's a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It's not malice, or wickedness- well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that- but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and- what is it?- "blight the genial bed." Of course, given the power, one may go in for that sort of thing, either in self-defense or just out of playfulness.

But it's a poor twopenny housewifely kind of witchcraft, black magic is, and white magic is no better. One doesn't become a witch to run around being harmful, or to run around being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It's to escape all that- to have a life of one's own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day."

-The witch Laura talking to her master the Devil, from the 1926 novel "Lolly Willowes" by Sylvia Townsend Warner

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Image by Brett Manning

See her work at https://www.facebook.com/BrettManningArt

09/06/2024

Serpent Hall has posted its class schedule for this Autumn! For our good folk who have just finished Rood Day's Foundational course, the Advanced course starts just 13 days from now. Also, the Foundational and Full courses (for people who want the deep dive) are beginning soon, too- just head over to Serpent Hall to see the dates. All courses are registering right now.

We have some special news coming very soon, as well- always devoted, as we are, to making the darkening half of any year a great thing as it deserves. Or at least, a great thing for the strange souls that we've made a home for- our community has grown since this time last year, and we hope the very best for all.

07/29/2024

Last night, the next offering of Askion: The Oracle of the Underworld was made available over at Serpent Hall. It is the first course I ever wrote, devoted to the ancient art of divination. It's not just an in-depth study of the ancient art, and the curious metaphysics that can make extraordinary knowledge-gaining possible, but an entire system of divination utilizing the Ephesia Grammata- a special formula of words and symbols- from the PGM scrolls, with a connection to the Hekatean forces.

Those with an interest in such things will find Askion very thrilling and satisfying- and it's available now. Link below; please share this with people you feel may be interested. Registration will be going on until August 18th, and all who sign up will be added to Serpent Hall's common room for students and have access to our Discord classroom, too!

The course is 6 (very extensive) modules, all delivered at once as soon as you register.

07/15/2024

"There are always more (or less) ethical ways to go about obtaining goals. Friendship gaining spells can work (as with most spells) in different ways. You can draw into your own body, soul, and environment the sorts of spiritual forces that are simply conducive to the creation of (and flourishing of) friendships and new, meaningful human bonds. That’s the typical orientation of Solar and Jupiterian friendship workings, and Venusian ones can be oriented around this principle as well.

But then you can also utilize these currents to manipulate the minds of other people into feeling, thinking, and perceiving about you in ways that aren’t necessarily real. From the outside, the outcome might seem much the same: you can get all that support, engagement, attention (even amorous attention) that perhaps you’ve been wanting. But the view from the inside is a bit different.

Enchanting the minds and senses of most people isn’t even difficult, particularly if they are not proficient practitioners of occult arts. After a few years of study and effort in the Incantation Art, one can get very good at such goals with nearly any straightforward effort.

The problem with such workings and their outcomes is simple: if you don’t have the qualities that these enchanted people come to believe are inside you, it will be very difficult to maintain that enchantment for a long period of time. The truth, in this sense, has a way of outing. And it has a way of outing itself (and you) no matter how much work you put into maintaining the enchantment- and all the 'beautiful lies' it can whisper into the minds and souls of other people.

If you were just out for a quick interpersonal (or ego) fix, then perhaps you won’t care much over these things. If you just wanted to manipulate someone else for some other reason, if the working was part of a larger, more elaborate goal you’re working on, then splendid.

But don’t fool yourself into thinking that even Witchcraft can create and maintain “Castles in the Clouds” forever; houses built on deceptive enchantments and sorcerously conjured delusions are never on firm foundations. And they all have expiration dates that come sooner than anyone would want.

It's always a better idea to leave the minds and perceptions of others alone, and work instead on increasing your own entity’s power and qualities, and bringing into your own spiritual and tangible environment the nurturing, healthy, and constructive powers that can make real things. The issue is that those things take more effort and time. Some people aren’t so patient, and then some people are just curious about what this Art can really accomplish.

We are never excused from reality, no matter how powerful or proficient we become at Witchcraft. Illusions can be powerful, but they do not participate in the system of life in such a way that they’ll ever be anything but passing whisps of cloud or mist. Some can persist a little while longer than others, but they are all just mist."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood-Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen."

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Image by Punainen Taiteilija at Deviant Art

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07/14/2024

"The Green Man is most centrally a motif- a figure (almost always a face) carved into certain buildings, most notably churches or temples, a figure or a face which is made from leaves and foliage.

Some Green Man faces look like nothing but complex clusters of leaves and require close inspection to see how the artists intended to disguise or express a face through them; others are very blatant.

There are three general types of Green Man image: a Foliate Head which is covered entirely in leaves; a Disgorging Head that spews leaves and vines or tendrils from its mouth, and a Bloodsucker Head which projects leaves and tendrils from all its facial orifices.

Nearly everyone (except the worst skeptics) who has analyzed the appearance and locations of Green Man motifs has concluded that they must stem back to some kind of Pagan source, and may represent a forest or vegetation spirit of some variety.

The Green Man has grown into its own kind of spiritual motif or presence now, and become associated with other characters from folklore, such as Jack in the Green and others. It was only a matter of time before people began to make the connection that certain Pagan divinities- themselves associated with dying, resurrection, and vegetation- were depicted in ancient times with green skin. Osiris from Egypt is one of the best examples.

But it was John Grigsby who alerted the world to a little-known fact which brought certain deeper ideas to an alarming forefront: some of the Bog Bodies uncovered at Lindow (of men who were almost certainly killed under ritual circumstances, themselves potentially representing a powerful spiritual being connected to the life-force in Nature, and death and regeneration) had their bodies painted with a copper-based pigment before they were killed, and chemical tests on the remains supported the conclusion that at least some of those men may have died with their skin displaying a vivid shade of green."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood-Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen."

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Image by Emily Balivet.

Come, Green Children, and see us at Serpent Hall: class starts in two days!

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07/12/2024

"We are going to study an Art of spirit-conjuring which has features that you’d expect: ritual preparation and a strong effort to bring into your own physical and spiritual proximity a Named Spirit whose name and nature may seem very strange or unfamiliar to you.

We- just like the mages of earlier times- are living in a world of deep paranoia about anything spiritual that doesn’t immediately fall under the aegis of Christianity or show its allegiance to our mainstream spiritual paradigms. From our cultural perspective (as from the perspective of nearly all civilized cultures), the Unseen World is frightening, mysterious, and potentially very dangerous. “Messing with that stuff” is believed by many to be a potential corridor to death or madness.

And with this paranoia comes the desire to protect oneself. Early Modern mages draped endless layers of magical circles, talismans, and devices around themselves to insulate their bodies and souls from the beings they were conjuring. That practice is well known to our history and has greatly shaped how all of us think about spirit-conjuration. It’s also an outgrowth of simple civilized paranoia about spirits, and Christian dread for any spirits that the church doesn’t approve of.

We cannot be who we are if we continue these beliefs and bad habits of culture. We cannot be open to spirits nor sufficiently respectful towards them if we approach them- by default- like evil things that are hungry to harm or destroy us.

Having said that, even our Pagan Ancestors understood that some spirits could be dangerous, and they took their own steps towards ameliorating those potential dangers, without being blatantly terrified or disrespectful. And it is that middle ground that we must re-achieve."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood-Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen"

Our next round of courses begins in four days! We conjure you to appear and consider signing up for a seat.

07/08/2024

"We often think of Witch Sabbats- when we are discussing them as in-person gatherings of Witches- as things that happen inside of Circles, Witch-Rings, or specially-marked-out spaces. And that’s a perfectly fine thing; such in-person meetings could be handled that way.

But historically, the 'Sabbaths' were clearly... events that people traveled to, met others at, and at which they feasted and danced together: more like fairs or parties than merely rituals done within circles. One 17th century confessor described a Sabbat she saw in this way:

“A famous fair of all sorts of things, in which some walk around in their own form, and others are transformed, for some reason, into animals. (She) never saw any of them transform into beasts in her presence, but only certain beasts running through the Sabbath.” (translated from French.)

This account is just one of many which talks about shapeshifting taking place at Sabbats, even the kinds of Sabbats that took place on special fields or meadows, or on mountains linked with Witches in folklore- and at which wide awake, breathing humans were in attendance. In a spectral Sabbat, a sabbat-meeting attended in spectral form or in a somnambulent state, such things would be expected.

The only thing that explains the many strange stories connected to the ‘wide awake’ Sabbat-meetings (which very much did happen in our history) is the presence of the 'Witch Bread', and the consumption of the 'Witch Supper', which can be called by countless other names. And all these names are references to entheogenic substances, most particularly mushrooms."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood-Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen"

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Image by Pacaya

07/06/2024

"This effect of "induced liminality" is already known to all of us. High-intensity events with deep emotional dimensions alter how we think and feel about places. The most obvious example lies in how nearly everyone will avoid (or not want to move into) a house that has seen a pile of murders take place within it, especially if those horrors happened relatively recently. And despite what the minority naysayers might think, there are real metaphysics behind why people feel this way.

Yes, places that have become joined to so much spilled blood and terror are transformed by it. Anything that happens in a place is co-creative with the place; happy homes are almost always the kinds of places that have seen a lot of good bonding, sharing, caring, and love exchanged. Our Ancestors understood well how the spiritual environment of a place (indoors or out) could be altered by bad-shed blood; countless taboos existed in the past governing the building of new homes, or the purifications of already-built ones, based on the occurrences of death or violence in or around those places.

Places have memories; death and injury (just like love and happiness) have the potential to cause bonds to form between souls and the places where they experienced those things; the spiritual forces attracted to those events can lurk around a long time. None of this is crazy or in any way outside of the purview of these (clearly) animistic-in-origin impulses recorded in any society.

So, events that happen in places over time, or even one or two intense-enough events can induce liminality upon a place. There’s reasons why burial grounds and graveyards are always liminal to the deepest degree possible: burial rites and funerary rituals and the connection formed between human remains and a place essentially permeates a ground with spiritual connections to the dead and the ongoing reality of the spaces the dead occupy.

Places where water and earth meet- and even the water itself- are by their nature liminal. The creatures who can move through earth and water with ease are masters of utilizing the liminal gateway point to access either side of it- and thus it is that the frog and toad entities gain their legendary connection with the figure of the Witch: the Witch must, in a way, learn to access the dark waters of the Unseen and learn to hide and float in it, too- before returning to land."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood-Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen".

Our next course begins in 10 days. Toad your way over to us.

07/01/2024

"Of course, the assumption is that certain Great Powers can “lift” a person into Soul Flight at any time they desire, but this is not a common favor in my own experience and that of many who have worked near to me. I certainly believe that ordinary death leads (in most cases) to experiences of soul flight, too, but that’s hardly a practical means of reaching soul flight.

If one does the work to obtain Witching, and succeeds, much transforms about the dream-world of their experience, and that includes any lucid dream states they might obtain. And the Witched soul might want to gain the lucid dream trance for many reasons beyond just hoping for the miracle and bliss of Soul-Flight.

In the lucid dream trance, suffused by the dark force of the Witched Self and the new spectral access one might have to their Empowerers, spiritual allies, and subtle awareness itself, certain acts of Witchcraft can be performed, entirely in that condition, which can be surprising in their effectiveness, and in their power to exert transformative force upon a person."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood-Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen."

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05/01/2024

Glad May Day to all! If you're getting in range of a May Pole, I hope it's especially ribbony; I hope any fires are bright; I hope someone wants to go for a 'stroll in the woods' or a roll in the hay with you; I hope you're happy no matter what.

For our friends in the world down below (no, not _that_ world down below) I hope the Hallowed time you're now embracing is full of its own poetry. All Hail the Queen of the May.

03/10/2024

The next course begins tomorrow, and enrollment continues until March 18. Come get a seat!

"You either already practice Witchcraft, or you are here learning to do it- and either way, you belong to a category of person who has concerns (and sometimes problems) related to even deeper issues than the “ordinary” issues of a human life these days. You have concerns about developing your extraordinary capacities, too. If you are a Witch in the sense I mean, of if you want to be- then you had better have such concerns!

You want to be sighted, or more so; you want to be more aware of the subtle forces that surround us and move about us at every moment of the day or night; you want to have more capacity for incubating divinatory or visionary dreams; you want to have stronger intuition; you want to have more spiritual power, or more protective force connected to you, or many other goals like these.

And the Incantation Art is a profound tool for bringing all these things to pass. We must never forget: the power we really want is never about just developing our own bodies and souls; it is about developing relationships with spiritual beings- and awareness of their world- that will allow us to be taught deeper things by Them. This will allow us to see deeper and deeper reaches of Their world, the Unseen.

A human Witch who never really invests much in such things can still hurl some effective Incantations from this world, and do some effective divinations, and cast other kinds of spells with what I’d call adequate effectiveness. If that’s all a person ever wanted, then that goal is very obtainable with effort and dedication. But the Witches who will move into to stages of realization and attainment that I would associate with true Mastery of this Art will only get there from visions, familiars, alliances, and experiences that come from the Unseen world."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen."

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Image by ViaEstelar on Deviantart

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03/05/2024

A most in-depth revelation of the ancient arts of Witchcraft. Highly accessible, with personal guidance for as long as you desire it. Come and learn.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/E7i7UD1rCcsHCFJS/?mibextid=oFDknk

03/02/2024

"Everything is here, in the stories of Andro and Marion, and certainly in the stories of Isobel Gowdie. All the elements are here which support the valid and real historical persistence of a profound animistic-type spiritual reality, a reality that certain men and women could consciously interact with, and which was seamlessly woven into the landscape and living beings of Britain in Early Modern times.

That same spiritual reality reveals itself in other records across Europe, and you can be certain that it doesn’t stop with the borders of Europe. This is a world-reality, covered up, ignored, denied, and intentionally hidden from us all now, and the people of the world entire.

Here is the Witchcraft of history which skeptics claim was never real, and which they write book after book about, attempting to prove was never real. The churches, for their part, never wanted anyone to think it was real either and spent many centuries denying the reality that was everywhere.

When denial failed, scorn, fear, and violence had to be selectively brought in. What religious zealotry and spiritual imperialism began, the far colder hands of rationalism and “reason” (themselves the wayward children of the Western Christian intellectual tradition) pretty much finished.

Here, in the stories of Andro, Marion, and Isobel (and in so many others) we find the entire corpus, the entire spiritual and aesthetic inventory, of the true Witchcraft that existed in Early Modern Times, which of course must have existed in similar or even deeper forms before the Early Modern period, and which I think still exists now- only it has become greatly dimmed under the astonishingly destructive force of industrial civilization and its ransacking of rural life-ways, and the increasingly world-destroying onrush of technological globalism."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen".

Next cycle begins in ten days! Come to Serpent Hall to sign up!