I have always had trouble with the element of Fire.

In the magick method I have used, JMG’s Circles of Power, hereinafter called CoP, I have had the hardest time memorizing — and recalling — the Prayer of the Salamanders.

Immortal, Eternal, Ineffable, and Uncreated Father of All . . . it goes.

The candle of fire never really worked like the others. Come to think of it, the black candle on the altar representing the Pillar of Severity always burned 20% faster than the white for the Pillar of Mercy.

I grant that I have only one planet in fire in my chart, and always attributed my problems to this, but now I see that we Rosicrucians do not work the element of Fire as much as the ATR, who use so many candles and work the Roman Catholic world that has the most candles of all the Christians.

Jews have candles, but only on Shabbat. And only a tiny amount. The other high churches — Episcopal and Lutheran — are sparing with the candles. And Protestants don’t have any at all, but rely on the fire in the body and prayer to do their work, which only works if they do an awful lot of it.

Witches have candles, and I have had good luck with those.

But most landlords don’t like a bunch of candles in the room, and I have problems over that. Hence the boat. Which has more FIRE than WATER associated with it.

I had a problem recently with a situation that I now suspect involves Santeria, and it was after I reconsecrated the Fire Wand, which should have reasonably been allowed to mellow FESTER for a few days before I did anything stupid SLUTLIKE with it. We hear you aren’t that well liked in Thelema. NOT SO MUCH but I endure to the end do Solomonic magick and that is built in to the RUBRIC so COW THIS.

It’s not that everything was wrong. It wasn’t. I got a good message. But I was awkward and committed a faux pas, and the old ones and the gods had to resort to TRICKS to get me to function properly, and I would have been more smooth if I had had a lot more candles going.

LOKI GOT ME FIREABLE so I quit. Note to self: anytime you involve Odin, you are also involving Loki, and that is a bit bumpy at times. (HGA points out that He would have resigned normally after the car was fixed, which happened albeit with some embarrassment.) Whodunnit? says the POWER.

Dion Fortune talks about the red lamp of the Adept suspended above the altar. Now we don’t have that. But we should have a candle going in the temple for the magick. We need more actual FIRE to stand up to the Catholic-based situations coming at us.

THE ABRAMELIN has a magick square wherein the familiar spirit is a flower. That is in response to the Christian work ALSO SANTERO of offering flowers to the gods. When I see ATR demons, they are in the form of flowers.

This says much.