Anousen Leonte - Cat Magick: Summoning the Spirit of Bast through Sigil Magick

by Anousen Leonte

Copyright 2013

other works by the author:

Gnostic Magick

Sigil Magick: the Basics

Evocation Through Sigil Magick

Scrying Without Tears

The Art of Magickal Fasting

Introduction

This work is a small manual for evoking Bast through sigil magick. Bast or Bastet is an ancient Spirit known to the Egyptian people and which was symbolized with the body of a woman and the head of a cat. As many are well aware, the Egyptians treated cats as sacred animals and mummified them in a manner quite similar to humans. Bastet was the Goddess of Cats or the "Cat Goddess", and was a very benevolent Goddess whose worshiped spanned over a thousand years in different forms. Other forms of her name were Beset, Ubastis and Bubastis, and the Greeks believed she was a form of Isis.

The name Bast or Bastet derives from the old Egyptian word bas which meant a vase or jar. In Egypt, these were often used to contain medicines and perfumes, so the dual notion of healing and beautifying are present in the idea of the goddess Bastet. In Egyptian esotericawhich was later appropriated by the Greeks in different formsboth healing and beauty have specifically feminine or goddess-oriented aspects to them. Some depictions of Bastet have the head of a lion which represents a purely Solar energy, whereas other times she has the head of a smaller, feral or domesticated cat which demonstrates a Lunar aspect to her also. As a lion she is a warrior goddess, conquering over evil, while as a cat she is more of a patron goddess, granting health, fertility and well-being. One of the few myths that has survived to the present day about Bastet is that she was the daughter of the Sun God Ra. Ra was in continual war with the evil serpent-God Apep, and every night they would fight. As Ra got older, however, his daughter Bast fought on his behalf, tracking down Apep one night and killing him for good. Another legendrecorded by the Greeksrecords it that when Typhon (Apep, Apophis) made war against the Gods, Apollo (Ra) attacked him by transforming into a vulture, Hermes (Thoth, Tahuti) by transforming into an Ibis, and Isis (Bastet) by transforming into a catthe trinity of which was enough to kill Typhon permanently. The Greeks also believed she corresponded perfectly to their own Goddess Diana, and claimed the Egyptians appealed to her for the safety and well being of pregnant women in particular. Her particular symbol was a sistrum which is a type of rattle:

Interestingly, in keeping with her connection with Ra, Bast or Bastet is primarily a Solar Goddess and was considered a form of the Sun. Esoterically, the Sun represents inward energy expanding outward, and is associated with the powers of creation, manifestation, projection, lucidity, presence, influence and stimulation, as well as the attributes of radiance, virility (or fertility), rulership, omnipresence and glamor. According to the Greek Hermetic mysteries, every Solar God or Goddess is simultaneously all the powers of the planets. This later was misconceived to be Monotheism when the Pharoah Akhenaten forbade the worship of any God or Goddess but Aten, the Sun. Later this was picked up by Moses who was trained by Egyptian priests who were still partisans of Akhenaten, and so developed the worship of Adonai (Aten) in the Abrahamic tradition. As the Sun is the center of the solar system, all the planets derive their energy from it. Deriving their energy from it, their power and influence, also, is derived. Bastet, being a solar Goddess, actually has powers over all the planets and may be accessed as such.

In this brief manual, I have given eight forms of Bastet; one primary form and then seven forms which correspond to each of the planets. I have also given two sigils each for the different forms. I recommend trying both and seeing which one works best for you, but there is no meaning to the sigil itself. Feel free to make your own sigils after trying these out. Or not. Even though you will be successful using the methods I've given here, the real purpose of a book like this is to also inspire you to venture off into crafting your own rituals and systems as you become more accomplished and proficient at Spirit summoningbut, the bottom line is always whatever works.

Cats are, of course, a recurring theme in magickal lore. Of all animals, the three most common magickally oriented animals are the cat, the serpent and the toad. The cat is specifically a feminine energy, whereas the snake is masculine and the toad is hermaphroditic. For Egyptians, cats were almost purely benevolent and positive animals, and magickally they were associated with white magick. As cats were kept by people for companionship and to kill vermin, the cat represents magick in its positive sense of strengthening and giving peace to one's soul as well as protecting the magician from harm. It is associated with health, the home, fertility, the spirit and law. The serpent, in contrast, was not kept as a pet, and was revered as something with the power over life and death, as well as resurrection. It, therefore, is associated with conflict, foreign lands, asceticism, the body and lawlessnessat least in a negative sense. The toad, in contrast to both, is the middle, in that it is neither a beneficial or harmful animal to humans. It represents commerce or learning, the city, knowledge, the mind and communication.

This isn't quite as cut and dry as I've made it out to be, but this is the predominant trend in much of pre-Christian magickal interpretation. Later, all three were demonized.

How to Conduct a Simplified Ritual

Magick is not nearly as hard as it is often portrayed, and there are a great deal of misconceptions about magick. One of my first introductions to magickal evocation, for example, was the Goetic spirits of the Key of Solomon. Ritually, everything was very dramatic and difficult to do, involving special substances, Latin prayers, a triangle, banishings, licenses to depart, etc. It was only when I was introduced to the Olympicks that I saw that summoning could be comparatively easier from a material point of viewat least, if the Spirit in question was not exclusively evil. The Goetics are by far the most popular of Solomonic Spirits to evoke, but they are not the only Spirits. And experiments in Chaos Magick taught me also that one could summon Spirits from a variety of sources through sigilizing their names and constructing rituals around them. For more information on this, I have written another book entitled "Evocation through Sigil Magick" which goes into this in a little more detail.

To perform a simple summoning ritual for any spirit, I recommend having these items:

An altar

A painted, white or black picture frame to hold the sigil

Various white or black candle holders

Colored candles

Colored lamps (seven for each of the primary planets)

A rosary or set of beads

Incense

The Altar

An altar can be anything from a small table to your own construction. I recommend utilizing bricks, painted black. Lay a cloth over the bottom part, but allow a brick or two to actually hold the sigil frame in place.

The Sigil