Working with Andrealphus: Geometry, Astronomy, and the Bath

Who Andrealphus is in the Goetia

Andrealphus is a Marquis in the Goetia, and the Grimoire Companion gives his offices in a line that is unusually precise: he teaches geometry and astronomy to perfection, and grants transformation. Precision is the theme here. Geometry is the study of measure, proportion, and form. Astronomy, in the old sense, is the study of the heavens in their order, their cycles, and their measure. Transformation, in that company, is not vague change. It is change that follows a pattern, that can be measured, and that holds its shape.

That precision is worth carrying into a working with Andrealphus. A petition that is vague, or that asks for change without naming what will change, or how you will know, does not fit this spirit's offices well. A petition that names the form you want, the measure by which you will judge it, and the time over which you will observe it, fits them better. Be specific about what you want, in plain words, before you begin. Reflection about being specific is practical advice here, because a working aimed at transformation in general will wander, and a working aimed at a particular, measurable change has something to hold onto.

Teaching to perfection is also worth pausing over. Perfection, in this context, does not mean instant mastery, or a gift that requires no study. It means teaching that goes all the way, that does not leave gaps, and that expects the student to do the work of learning. A practitioner who asks Andrealphus for teaching, and then does not study, has not understood the bargain. The teaching is offered. The learning is still yours to do.

Why a bath, and why three days

A magick bath is a different kind of preparation from anointing or fumigation, and the difference is physical. Anointing marks a point: the hands, the forehead, a tool. Fumigation fills a room. A bath immerses the whole body. You step into it, you sit in it, and you come out of it changed in the most literal, bodily sense: clean, warm, and set apart from the day you were in before you stepped in.

That bodily quality is why baths are used as preparation for spirit work, and as a working in their own right. Preparation in Goetia work is not decoration. It is how you get yourself into a state where you can listen, speak clearly, and notice what changes. A bath does that work through the body, not only through the mind. It slows you down, it warms you, and it gives you time, alone with the water and the herbs, to settle into the purpose of the working before you speak a word of it.

The instruction for these baths is to take each bath each day for three days in a row. Three days is a pattern, not a single event. A single bath can clean and settle you for a night. Three baths, on three days, build a rhythm, and rhythm is part of how a working takes hold. It also gives you three chances to notice what is changing, and to refine, in your own mind, what you are actually asking for. Do not treat the three days as a chore to be rushed through. Treat them as the working itself, spread over time.

How the bath is made and used

We only use 100% pure roots, herbs, and sometimes essential oils in these baths. No synthetics are used. That matters in the same way it matters for oils and incenses: a bath made from real plant materials, in a small batch, carries a different weight in the working than a bath made from synthetic scent. You will notice the difference when you open it, when you pour it into the water, and when you step into the bath itself.

To use any of these baths, you simply add them to a pot of water, approximately 1 litre or so. If you do pour everything in, including the bits of herbs, just use either a strainer to get the chunks out after your bath, or one of those fish tank nets, or a bird catching net. That practical detail is worth following literally. Herbs in bathwater are pleasant while you soak, and a nuisance in the drain afterwards, and a working that ends with a blocked drain, or with herbs scattered across the bathroom floor, ends badly, whatever the rite itself achieved. Prepare for the practical part as carefully as for the ritual part.

Take the bath as preparation, and as a time to settle. Do not rush it. Sit in the water, breathe, and let the purpose of the working come to mind in its own time, rather than forcing a petition while you are still thinking about the day's business. If words come, speak them quietly, or hold them in mind for the rite that follows. If no words come, that too is information. Sit with it, and see what comes on the second or third day.

Geometry and astronomy in practice

Geometry and astronomy, as offices, can sound abstract, and it is worth grounding them in ordinary practice. Geometry, in a working life, is the habit of measure: of drawing a circle correctly, of setting out a space in proportion, of noticing when a form is right and when it is off. A practitioner who cannot draw a straight line, or set out a circle, will struggle with the more formal parts of Goetia work, whatever spirit they call. Andrealphus's teaching, in that sense, begins with the hands, not with the stars.

Astronomy, in the old sense, is the habit of observing cycles: the moon, the seasons, the times of day and night when a working is done. A practitioner who keeps a record of when workings are done, and under what conditions, is already practising a form of astronomy, even if they never look through a telescope. The record, kept over months, shows patterns that a single night cannot: which times suit which workings, which seasons suit which purposes, and how your own attention changes through the year.

Transformation, in this company, is change that follows a pattern and holds its shape. It is not a sudden, dramatic break, followed by a return to the old shape a week later. It is a change in form: a habit reshaped, a study begun and continued, a way of working that is different, measurably, from the way you worked before. If you ask for transformation, name the form. What will be different, in a way you can point to, a month from now? If you cannot answer that, you have not yet named the transformation.

Preparation beyond the bath

The bath is preparation, but it is not the whole preparation. Clear the space you will use for any rite that follows, and set it aside for this purpose. Put away the things that pull your attention elsewhere. If you have a regular working space, use it. If you do not, choose one place and use it consistently, so the place itself starts to carry the association.

Prepare the words you will use, as well. Do not improvise a whole petition on the spot if you can avoid it. Know what you are going to say, in your own words, and know what you are not going to say. A petition that tries to cover every possible outcome usually covers none of them well. Keep it direct, keep it honest, and keep it to the matter at hand. If the matter is a study, name the study. If it is a transformation, name the form.

Avoid starting a working when you are exhausted, drunk, or already agitated. A clear head is a working tool, just as much as a bath or a seal is. The bath itself helps with that, which is one reason it is taken before the rite, not after, and on three days, not one: it gives you time to arrive at clarity, rather than demanding clarity at once.

Working with the seal

Andrealphus's seal is a working tool in its own right. In practice, a seal can be held in the hand during a working, placed under a candle, anointed with oil, carried with you, worn as a pendant, or shown to the person you have in mind, according to the working and your own system. Each of those uses keeps the seal, and the purpose it carries, present through the work.

For a bath working, the seal has a particular use. You might set the seal out where you can see it while you bathe, or hold it before you step into the water, as a way of naming the purpose of the three days. You might place it under a candle for the rite that follows the bath, so that the bath and the rite are linked by the same tool. Let your system, and your own judgement, guide the detail, and keep the seal set apart, in its proper place, between workings.

If you anoint a seal, do it deliberately, with the purpose named, and let the oil stay on the seal while you work. Andrealphus oil and Andrealphus incense are both offered for this work, and they are made in the same hand-made way as the other Goetia oils and incenses here. A bath, an anointing, and a fumigation, used together, cover the body, the point of contact, and the room, and that completeness is part of a thorough preparation.

When this is not the right work

Sometimes the right answer is not a spirit working at all. If the situation is a legal matter, a safety matter, or a medical matter, deal with that matter in the ordinary world first, or at the same time. Ritual work is not a substitute for a lawyer, a doctor, or for leaving a dangerous situation. A bath, however well made, does not treat an illness, and a working for transformation does not replace medical care, or the ordinary work of changing a habit with help where help is needed.

It is also worth asking, honestly, whether the study or transformation you seek is something you have actually begun, in ordinary terms. A working for teaching, without study, is a wish. A working for transformation, without any change in daily practice, is a wish. Do the ordinary work as well: open the book, draw the circle, keep the record, change the habit. The two kinds of work strengthen each other, and either one alone is thinner than both together.

Keeping a record, and knowing when to stop

Keep a short record for each working, and for each set of three baths: date, purpose in one sentence, bath and any oil or incense used, what you did, and what you noticed afterwards, over days and weeks, not just on the night itself. With study and transformation especially, the record matters, because both are matters of slow change over time, not of a single dramatic night, and memory is quick to reshape a slow change into something grander than it was, or to miss it altogether.

If nothing changes, that is also information. It may mean the petition was unclear, the timing was wrong, the work was not appropriate, or simply that the situation needs a different approach. 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. Repetition without reflection is not persistence. It is noise.

Andrealphus Goetia bath

If you are doing work with Andrealphus, the bath is for preparation over three days, not for a single hurried soak.

These baths use only 100% pure roots, herbs, and sometimes essential oils, with no synthetics. To use one, add it to a pot of water, approximately 1 litre or so, strain out the herb pieces afterwards, and take each bath each day for 3 days in a row. I make no promise about the magical result of the bath, only that it is made from pure materials, for this work, and not mass produced.

Andrealphus Goetia bath, $44 CAD. View the product

For the same work, I also offer Andrealphus Goetia incense, $44 CAD, and Andrealphus Goetia grimoire demon evocation oil, $44 CAD.

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