Veneficium: Magic, Witchcraft and the Poison Path

176 Pages·2012·3.61 MB·English

And the serpent is riding
over the voice of the
raven, the Other God, to
his spouse, magic, the
poison of death, in which
Samael, the Other God,
becomes complete.
T I Q Q U N E I Z O H A R
Veneficium
Magic, Witchcraft, and the Poison Path
Daniel A. Schulke
T H R E E H A N D S P R E S S
2 0 1 2
I P S E V E N E N A B I B A S
© Copyright 2012 Daniel A. Schulke, all rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written
permission from the Publisher.
'The Path Envenom'd', and "Ihe Matter of Man' were first
published in The Cauldron.
'Infernal Vapours' and 'Leaves of Hekat' were adapted from
papers composed for the California Institute of Integral
Studies, 2000.
This book concerns dimesnions of personal research into
plants which maybe illegal in some areas, or present severe
health risks or danger to the human organism. Neither the
author nor the publisher are responsible for the
inappropriate, unprofessional, criminal or ill-fated misuse
of such plants. Let the wise reader and the fool beware.
Three Hands Press
www.threehandspress.com
Cover Art: Dust jacket image 'Sacred Heart', frontispiece
and preface images, and cover stamp of cloth edition by
Benjamin Vierling, © Copyright 2011 , 2012 by Benjamin
Vierling.
Jacket Design: BobEames
Illustrative Production: James Dunk
Veneficium
Preface 9
The Path Envenom'd 15
Purity, Contamination, and the Magical Virgin 2 7
The Corporeal Laboratory 39
Leaves of Hekat 5 3
The Mater of Man 69
The Witches'Super 79
Infernal Vapors 103
Eden's Body 129
The Devil's Chrism 145
Glosary 164
Bibliography 170
Preface
In 1994, in consideration of seven years' formal study of
rit ual magic and ethnopharmacology, I began to assemble a
book of experiments and operations in the arena of
psychotropic sorcery entitled Hypnotikon. Its pages held
precise materia magica, first hand descriptions of obscure
psychoactive sacraments, records of the magical practice and
expansion of the sensorium into realms beyond my previous
knowledge. Also present were detailed reports of ritual
operations, performed in solitude; with lodges of varying
si /.es and magical aims, and also as part of a dyad with a single
partner. In some instances I was also allowed access to closed
societies as a guest or participant observer, or permitted to
record material from informants possessing unique and
specialist knowledge.
Alongside this pursuit of the Mysticism Botanick, my
practical studies of herbalism, folk magic, and agriculture
complimented this magical tutelage. A deeper passage into
l he endarkened bower of the wildwood became a source of
direct understanding: time spent at length in the wilderness
served as a clarifying lens for beholding emergent patterning
of the work, and as a 'divine emptiness' apart from the
1111 positions of humanity. This vastness was, nonetheless, an
Otherworld densely populated with allies, enemies and
1 ricksters, oppressive spirits, voices, storms, telluric powers,
(rials, injury, death, revelations and above all the ethereal
majesty of the eldritch race of Faerie. It was largely through
these solitary encounters that Hypnotikon assumed clarity
and purpose, and grew into a living and dynamic form.
I lowever, the primary motivation for compiling this work
was that it serve as a primary resource for my own spiritual
development, a record of learning, its essential nature being
private. The thesis of Veneficium, being a small but potent cup
drawn from the vernal well of the Hypnotikon, is thus a
convergence of perspectives I have had for some time: that
of the herbalist and the natural magician in congress with
poison.
Poison is a glyph for magical power itself: complex,
concentrated, liberated in the hands of the elect, and
disastrous in the hands of the fool. Its very nature is
transmutative, changing all it touches, the maker and
breaker of laws, policies, and epidemiological systems. It
encompasses what industrialized society conceives as 'drugs',
being both the therapeutic agents of medicine, as well as the
sanctioned or banned ministers of pleasure and con-
sciousness alteration. Poison also embraces the toxin:
destroyer and mutilator of flesh, whether weaponized in the
arsenal of soldier or farmer, or lurking in the environment:
the scorpion's engorged tail or the industrial pollutant
silently pervading the water table. All of these venom clades,
for good and ill, penetrate magic and sorcery on manifold
levels, and imply a spiritual discipline of magical toxicology,
1
which in recent times has been called "Hie Poison Path'.
Such a path necessarily implies a confrontation with
power, but also its effigies, and how these manifest according
to the skill of the practitioner. Strewn with thorns, cobbles,
and false diversions, the Poison Path offers its own retinue
of spirit-guardians to slay or liberate. Poor judgment,
irresponsibility, delusion and ego serve as the great enemies,
and in any encounter with poison they must be transmuted
or bound long in advance.
The intersection of magic, mysticism, and poison has
naturally assumed some concretized and limited shapes in
our present era, mostly negative. Perhaps the most
important of these has, without sufficient self-examination,
been called drug culture', presented as a legacy of the
I. Pendell, Dale. Pharmako/Poeia, Pharmako/Dynamis, Pharmako/Gnosis. Similar
terminology has been present in 19th and 20th century witch cults, namely the term
"The Way of Poison'.
i ultural revolutions of the 1960s. In the 1990s psychonaut
1 ulture began to publicly redefine itself as 'Entheogenic',
stressing ethnology, human-plant congress, art, science,
religion, and popular culture.
Typical of this exotery is an insufficiently-explored
dualism which has haunted the approach of the seeker, that
which divides usage of drugs into 'sacred' or 'profane'
purposes. At one side of the ideological bifurcation one
encounters the hardened arena of the Mystic, devotee, or
magician whose approach is one of idealized sacrality in the
I .ice of the Gods of Poison. In this stance, of which there are
myriad variations, an implicit morality suggests (or preaches)
1l1.it the legitimate use of consciousness-expanding drugs
lies in the realm of the spirit. Common to this approach is
1 he idea of mindfulness, purpose, and direction, as well as
1 he usage as adjunctive to non-pharmacological approaches.
At the other side, which might be called the arena of the
I .ilnrrtine, is the idea that drugs are to be used for pleasure,
soc ializing, and the sensorial pursuits of the body. To some
<i|>crating within this rubric, the 'spirit approach' is a waste
ol prime vintage which otherwise might be enjoyed by the
«clehrant, an unnecessary imposition of the mental
«• instruct of spirit upon the body.
Hoth approaches possess unique teachings, and examples
ol the uses and abuses of these stances. The Dionysian
quittance, which transects these philosophical zones, reminds
ns that the experience common to both is the generation of
r« stasy, inducing a state of being 'beyond oneself.'
Witchcraft, ever transfigured by the magic of need, makes
use of both 'sacred' and 'profane' venefic states without
adopting these socially-derived boundaries.
111 consideration of the vast and ancient vaults of power
poison encompasses, both 'sacred' and 'profane' positions
die ultimately moral or religious ones, and in particularly
|Htinted examples, can be considered an unconscious
theological debate about the nature of God. Neither approach
considers, for example, the use of poison for achieving work
or maximizing productivity (as with stimulants or neurohy-
pophysial hormones), mental coercion of others (as with
the Haitian zambi powder or sodium pentothal), infliction
of pain or physical harassment (as with Toxicodendron diver-
silobum). To these we may add poison's use for destroying
malignancy of the flesh (as with anti-cancer compounds
such as vincristine derived from Catharanthus roseus), building
immunity, inducing insanity or, indeed, treating it. Outside
this limiting rubric also lies the usage of poison as a weapon,
either in the arsenals of man or the Armies of Nature. All of
these approaches proffer a spiritual dimension which may
lead to great insights, wisdom, and evolution of the soul.
The alternate, shadow-way is also ever-present. These are
what I have called the philosophical poisons or Astral Venom:
the energies, entities or states of being which, though not
primarily induced chemically, are nonetheless toxic to mind,
spirit and body. As an incarnate being, the first poison is
often the attempted destruction of the soul, and where this
insidious corruption has gained purchase, it may present
considerable challenges to any spiritual practice. Thus, a part
of the work of the Adept is in realigning or re-forging such
psychic artifacts in a shape which serves the practitioner,
rather than vampirizes power from the Self. Among the
retinue of Astral Posions we may also encounter such spirit-
toxins in the black heart of the curse, unrequited love,
unexamined motive, and the blight of foisted political
ideology. In fact it is a truism that the world, as much as it
presents a garden of earthly delights, also presents a
concentrated and many-tiered stew of poisons.
Unequivocal admonitions are essential to them who seek
after the nigrescent grail, affirmed by the seal of the death's
head upon the forbidden bottle. Upon this path I have