Agares: an oil for language, return, and settling restlessness

Agares, and why language, return, and stillness belong together

Agares is presented in the Grimoire Companion material as a Duke, with 31 legions, a spirit who teaches all languages and tongues, returns runaways, and stills restlessness. That is a tight, practical set of concerns, and it is worth holding on to it, because it keeps the work honest. If you are working with Agares, you are probably dealing with one of three things: words that are not landing, something or someone that has gone astray, or a restlessness in yourself that will not settle long enough for anything else to be done well.

Those three things are related more often than they first appear. A person who cannot find the right words is often a person who is restless. A household or a project with something missing from it is often a place where communication has already broken down. Agares work, as described here, sits at that crossing point: language, return, and stillness. Before you light anything, or anoint anything, ask which of the three you are actually working on. The answer changes the petition, and it changes what you should be watching for afterwards.

Language, in this context, does not only mean a foreign tongue learned from a book. It means being understood. It means finding the word that says what you mean, in a conversation, in a letter, in a negotiation, or in a ritual petition itself. If you have ever written a petition three times and still felt it missed the point, you know the difference between having words and having language. Agares is presented here as a teacher of that second thing: not vocabulary alone, but the ability to speak and be understood.

Return, and restlessness, stated plainly

Return is equally concrete. A runaway, in the old sense, is someone or something that has left and not come back. In ordinary life that can be a person who has drifted away, an opportunity that slipped, a habit of practice that was dropped, or a part of your own attention that keeps wandering off. Be specific about what has gone, and what return would actually look like. A vague wish for things to come back is hard to read afterwards. A clear statement of what you are calling back, and where you want it to land, is easier to work with and easier to recognise when it happens.

Restlessness is the third piece, and often the one that needs attention first. Restlessness is not the same as energy. Energy has a direction. Restlessness pulls in several directions at once and settles in none of them. If you start a working in that state, the working tends to take on the same shape: scattered, hurried, and hard to close properly. Part of Agares work, then, is the work of settling yourself before you ask for anything else. Anointing, done slowly and deliberately, is a good act for that settling, because it forces you to slow down, to attend to one thing, and to name one purpose, before you go on to anything else.

That settling moment matters especially for language work. If you anoint and immediately rush into speaking, you have carried the restlessness straight into the working. If you anoint, sit, breathe, and let yourself settle before you speak, you have already begun the stilling that the work is about. The oil does not do that for you on its own, but it gives you a physical anchor for it: something to attend to while your attention stops darting. Do not rush from anointing to speaking. Give yourself a moment to notice that you have settled, and give the working a clear beginning, so it can also have a clear end.

How this oil is made here

I hand make all of my own perfumes, colognes and oils from only pure essential oils, roots and herbs. Sometimes there is the odd gemstone thrown in as well. I do not use any extraneous ingredients or fillers, and I do not use any synthetics. It is a blend made for a specific working, from materials chosen for that working, and the difference between a pure blend and a synthetic one is a difference you can smell, and a difference in how the oil behaves on skin, on a seal, and on a candle.

All colognes, perfumes and oils here are in a 1/2 oz bottle, about twice as large as those little health food store essential oil bottles, unless otherwise stated. That size matters in practice. A 1/2 oz bottle is enough for many workings, if you use it deliberately, a drop or two at a time, rather than pouring it freely. It is not a bulk supply, and it is not meant to be used as a daily perfume in large amounts. Use it for the work it was made for, and it will last. Use it carelessly, and it will run out before the work is done, which is a practical lesson as much as a ritual one.

Each batch of oil is hand made when you order, in the same way as the other oils on this site. That made-to-order point means the oil has not been sitting, opened and closed, through other people's orders. It is made for your order, and then blessed by Athena herself before it is sent out. No promise about what it will do for you is made here, only that it is made by hand, for this work, and not mass produced. That wording is about the magical result, not about delivery dates.

Anointing, and what anointing does in a working

Anointing is a way of marking something for a purpose. In practice, that is often done by applying oil deliberately, naming the purpose in your own words, to the thing you are marking: your own hands, if the work is about speaking or acting; a seal, if the work is about calling; a candle, if the work is about holding a petition steady through the working; a petition paper, if the work is about a written request. Anointing is not decoration. It is a physical act that says, this thing, for this purpose, for this time.

That deliberateness is the point. If you anoint everything in sight, quickly, without naming a purpose, you have not marked anything. You have only made things oily. If you anoint one thing, deliberately, with a clear purpose in mind, you have changed how you attend to that thing, and how you attend to the working as a whole. Before you open the bottle, decide what you are anointing, and why, and say that purpose, in your own words, as you do it. That is the whole of the technique, and it is enough.

Oil and incense are often used together in Goetia work, and they do different jobs in the room. The oil marks and anoints. The incense fills the space and sets the atmosphere for the working itself. If you are doing a full working, rather than simply anointing on its own, use both: anoint first, with a clear purpose in mind, then light the incense and let the room settle before you speak your petition. Do not rush from lighting to speaking. Give the room a moment to change, and give yourself a moment to notice that change.

A simple working order, to adapt to your own practice

The following is a general order, not a fixed script. Adapt it to the system you already work in, and to the instructions you already follow for Goetia work. First, prepare the room and yourself: clear the space, bathe or wash, change into clothes you do not wear for ordinary errands, and know what you are going to say before you begin. Second, set out the oil, the incense, and any seal or candle you will use. Third, anoint, deliberately, naming the purpose in your own words. Fourth, light the incense, if you are using it, and let the space settle. Fifth, speak your petition, clearly and once, rather than repeating it until it loses its shape. Sixth, sit quietly for a time and listen. Seventh, close the working properly, in whatever way your practice requires, and put the tools away in their proper place.

Afterwards, write down what you did, when you did it, and what you noticed. Not what you hoped would happen, but what actually happened, in plain language. Note what you anointed, and why, and what you noticed on days when you used the oil compared with days when you did not. That record is what lets you tell, weeks later, whether anything changed, and whether that change had anything to do with the work. Do not repeat the same working endlessly in the hope that repetition alone will force a result. Do the work properly, once, observe, and then decide, calmly, whether a second working, a different approach, or no further working is the right next step. No guaranteed magical result is promised anywhere in this article. That wording is about the work itself, not about delivery dates for physical items.

Care and safety for an oil

Care for an oil is practical. Keep the bottle closed when you are not using it, upright, in a cool place away from direct sunlight and heat, and away from the edge of a table where it can be knocked over. Essential oils are concentrated, and a little goes a long way. Test on a small area of skin first if you have not used a particular blend before, and do not apply oil to broken skin, or near the eyes, or in a way your own practice or your own body tells you is unwise. If you have sensitivities to particular oils or herbs, check the blend, or choose a different form of working, such as fumigation with incense, rather than anointing with oil.

Keep the oil for the work it was made for, and do not lend it out as a general scent. That is not a rule about secrecy for its own sake. It is about keeping the association clean: an oil that has been used for many purposes, by many people, for many matters, carries no single association, and it will not help you focus on the matter in front of you. One oil, one spirit, one kind of work, kept for that work, is a clearer tool than a bottle that has become a general-purpose scent.

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