THE CAULDRON OF CALLING

By Inominandum

Preface
 This spell was received during workings with the Goddess Hekate. The Grammarye has its own unique banishings and ritual protocol, but for the purposes of this article the rites may be performed using either a Wiccan-style circle-casting or ceremonial Magick banishing such as the Star Ruby.

The Instruction

 First obtain an iron cauldron or some other suitable vessel.  Paint a white, equal-armed cross and circle at the bottom of the cauldron. Go to a 
crossroads and offer a supper to Hekate.  Ask her to bless the cauldron and the operation you are about to undertake. Gather dirt from the 
crossroads and spread this on the bottom of the cauldron.  Go to the oldest graveyard in your area and pay homage to the dead there. Find the 
oldest man's and oldest woman's graves in the cemetery: these are the lord and lady of the cemetery.  Leave an offering for them and take some 
dirt from their graves, placing it in the cauldron.  Then go and gather some dirt from:

* police station
* bank
* hospital
* court
* beach
* mountain
* train station
* church
* TV and radio stations
* other important areas or landmarks in your area    

Pay homage to the Spirits and energies of each place, this is especially important in natural areas like the Mountains and Beaches, but also for urban areas. Learning the spiritual ecology of urban areas is essential for the modern sorcerer. The idea here is that you are gathering earth that will be magickal links to places in your area. You are setting up a psychic network for the familiar to travel with speed and ease.

Once the dirt has been placed in the cauldron, place a black candle in its center. I say black because this is primarily a Chthonic rite, other colors or multi colored can be used however if you want to attract a familiar for a particular reason. Place four iron nails or spikes in the four quarters of the cauldron.  The dirt acts as a magical link for the familiar to use to affect the physical world and the nails act to ground the spirit's power in this plane.  The candle represents the presence of the familiar itself.

In addition to the above, arrange the following items in the cauldron:



* three daggers or swords to enact wrathful action
* a chain and pair of handcuffs to enact bindings and suppressions
* three horseshoes to enable the spirit to bestow good luck and fortune
* three iron hooks to draw other beings into your sphere of influence
* Mandrake root and other herbs, branches, and oils may be added, especially those sacred to Hekate such as Aconite and those that attract spirits 
like Oak and Thorn branches. 

Other items may be added at the discretion of your imagination and will.  Once the cauldron spirit is in use, it may communicate to you certain other items to add such as more dirt from a particular location to be influenced or particular herbs and roots. Everything, however, should be chosen carefully and have a definite purpose.  It is not O.K. to add things just because you think they're aesthetically pleasing.

Once the cauldron has been properly prepared, take it back to the crossroads either at dusk or midnight.  Cast Circle, generate yourself as God Form, and stir up the winds through some means such as controlled breathing, the scourge, dance, etc.

Burn Dittany of Crete, offer another supper to Hekate and visualize her standing before you in her secret form: having the heads of a horse, dog, and serpent. This visualization is a "throne" for the Dark Goddess herself to occupy. Invoke her presence thusly:

I Invoke thee Hekate Chthonia!
Goddess of roads and crossways, mistress of the Bacchic rites, come here to this place!
You who has dominion over the heavens and earth and underworld, accept these offerings and be fulfilled!
Queen of Graveyards, who dances with the dead and who leads hoards of
restless ghosts through the night be hear now!
You, last of the old ones whom could not be put down by newer gods!
You who teaches the secrets of cunning and sorcery!
Mistress of the Circle of night, come to this sorcerer and send forth a
Familiar Spirit from your charge to reside in this house, which has been prepared for it.
FIAT! FIAT! FIAT!

At this point you should light the candle at the cauldron's center and focus your mind upon its flame.  Burn more Dittany of Crete and open yourself to communication with the familiar spirit that has been placed there.  The familiar can then be ordered to perform acts on your behalf.  So  that the cauldron never be activated by other sorcerers nor the familiar's beneficence bought by someone else's offerings, you should include some sort of verbal or somatic component of your own as part of the spell of summoning.

NOTES:

1. The Name HEKATE is replaced by a secret name in the actual Grimoire, but has been replaced with the more common name for purposes of public consumption.

2. When I sent this in to Behutet, the Editor, Thelesis' Campmaster and I had an interesting exchange.  He suggested that I include it here:

Editor: What are your reservations with sharing it with ceremonial magicians?
Inominandum: Its just kind of witchy. Ceremonial magicians sometimes lack the ability to appreciate anything that isn't in some other language or depends more on feeling and technique than ritual. This is why Bardon never really took off big. It's all exercises and technique rather than step-by-step rituals involving bullshit words.  Also ceremonial magicians feel like they need to control every last thing and COMMAND spirits rather than deal with them. I'm not saying the ability to command isn't needed at times, just not ALL the time. By trying to only allow in what the conscious mind and its limited understanding of how Magick works allows, ceremonial magicians often cut themselves off from the real juice
Editor: My only other question is: should you ask Hekate to send a more particular kind of spirit or do the other parts of the ritual automatically filter out troublemakers?  Does the intent that you create in your own mind with the various accoutrements do the filtering?
Inominandum: You trust Hekate to send an appropriate spirit from her retinue. The spirit is bound to Hekate and you due to your relationship to her.
Editor: I suppose I buy into the old ceremonial Magick objection to mediumship i.e. when you call up spirits, you don't know who's going to answer or what their intentions are.
Inominandum: Ah, I used to buy into that argument as well. The thing is: why do you trust some book to tell you what the spirit's intent is? The truth is that you NEVER know how friendly a spirit is until you come into contact with it.  The advantage of NOT using a grimoire is that you often get a spirit that is local to your area and isn't beholden to anyone but you.  If it causes trouble than you can exorcise it.  The subtle mind has a chance to reach out and get what it needs and what will really do the job, rather than the conscious mind flipping through a book and picking out something that kind of fits the description of what we are looking for.
Different magicians have to work differently because of their abilities.  I have always been able to perceive spirits and communicate with them so working with them is natural for me. It's like actually  making friends yourself rather than relying on a book of people that are supposedly cool.