An example of an execration ritual, a procedure to cast out and/or ward off negative energy.
Everyone showed up at our house around 5:00 PM that Saturday, and each person was given a small ceramic pot and a black Sharpie marker. I instructed them to write and/or draw whatever they liked on their pots. Whatever they wrote or drew had to represent negative things that were bothering them and that they wanted to cast out from their lives. It was a silent and solemn twenty minutes as everyone meditated on the demons that were haunting them the most, pouring all that sad and frightening energy into their drawings.
Once everyone had finished decorating their qliphothic pots, I implored them not to touch anyone else’s pot (or to let anyone else touch theirs). We had just created the magical equivalent of bio-hazardous waste products, and it was vital that no one be “infected” by anyone else’s bad vibes.
Then we all went out into the back yard, where Blackwyn and I had prepared a small altar to Set (complete with His statue and a big red lantern). We had also set up a couple of garden tiles on which all of our qliphothic pots could be smashed.
One of our friends brought her 2-year-old daughter, and the little girl had brought her toy pig. As we prepared to recite the opening invocation, the girl approached the altar and stared at Big Red’s statue. We were briefly worried that we’d need to intercede, but she just stood there, quietly and respectfully gazing at the man with the funny animal head. Then she placed her toy pig right beside the statue and said, “That better”—as if she somehow understood that pigs are one of Set’s favorite critters. As the child walked back to her mother, everyone who was present felt a powerful chill, including those who weren’t committed believers.
It was evident that Set was already present, but I invoked Him into our ceremony just the same:
Hail, Son of Nut! You Before Whom the Sky Shakes! Hear us, O Lord of the Wastelands! O Divine Foreigner! O Bringer of Winds! O Savior of the Sun! As You travel the Desert between the Worlds, as You smite the Evil One again and again, look down upon us and straighten our spines! Open our mouths to speak great words of power! We are Your soldiers upon this Earth; put us to Your work!
Now it was time to conjure the Chaos Serpent and kill it together as a tribe—as a constellation brought together by Set from across the Earth:
Torment be upon you,
Apep! You enemy of Set, of all gods and all creatures! The Companions of Set prevail over you, for you are but the filth of unborn pasts! Accursed shell and nothingness, the Typhonian Beast shall rip and tear you asunder, and scatter your meat as confetti to the winds! Taste your death,Apep! Get back and retreat, O enemy of Set! Fall down, be repulsed, get back and retreat! For the Eye of Set is upon you, piercing you like a spear! It is His Army that drives you back with all of our thunder and metal! O vile and vapid corruption, WE CAST YOU BACK INTO NOTHINGNESS!
Then we all took a deep breath…and we chucked our qliphothic pots upon the garden tiles as forcefully as we could, all at the same time.
No one expected the crash of the pots to be as loud as it was; it echoed throughout the neighborhood like a thunderclap. The shards flew more violently than we had anticipated as well, but no one was harmed. We were briefly shaken by the sight and the sound of what we had done, but we also felt a clear and powerful sense of release, like a knotted muscle melting into butter.
Then I brought our spell to a close:
Back, fiend! An end to you! Set has driven thunder and lightning at you! Set has made you to be destroyed, and Set has condemned you to evil! An end, an end to you! Taste your death! An end to you! You will NEVER swallow the dawn! You will NEVER win the night!
Our curse had been cast, and our demons were on the run. The others went inside to decompress from this experience, and Blackwyn and I went to sweep up the debris of the qliphothic pots.
Then, as if on cue, it started to rain.
We decided to leave the qliphothic pots alone, so Big Red could piss on the Chaos Serpent’s corpse for a spell.
