Working with Bathin: Herbs, Stones, and Swift Travel

Who Bathin is, in the Goetia

Bathin is a Duke in the Goetia, with thirty legions. In the Grimoire Companion summary, his office is given plainly: he knows the virtues of herbs and precious stones, and carries the traveller swiftly across distances. Those two strands, knowledge of natural virtues and swift travel, belong together, and it is worth seeing why before you ask for either one alone. A traveller who knows herbs and stones knows what to carry, what to use, and what to avoid, on the road. A person who knows the virtues of natural things, but never travels with that knowledge, has a catalogue, not a practice. Bathin's office joins the two: knowledge that moves, and movement guided by knowledge.

If you are considering work with Bathin, start by asking which strand you actually need, and whether you need them together. Are you preparing for a journey, and do you need to travel swiftly and safely? Are you studying herbs or stones, and do you need to understand their virtues more deeply? Or are you doing both at once, travelling for work that involves herbs, stones, or natural materials? The answer changes the petition, and it changes how you will know, afterwards, whether anything changed. Write it down in one sentence before you begin. Vague work tends to produce vague results, and vague results are hard to read.

Swift travel, in this office, is not only about physical distance. It is also about a journey going smoothly, without the delays, detours, and tangles that turn a short trip into a long ordeal. A journey can be swift in miles and still be slow in trouble, or swift in trouble and still long in miles. Be specific about which swiftness you are asking for, and about the journey itself: where, when, and for what purpose. A petition that names the journey clearly is easier to read afterwards than a petition that asks for travel in general.

Herbs and stones: virtues, not lists

Knowing the virtues of herbs and precious stones is not the same as owning a long list of correspondences. A list tells you that a herb is associated with a planet, a stone with a sign, and leaves it there. A virtue, in the old sense, is what a thing actually does, in practice, when it is used properly: how it acts on the body, on the room, on the working, and on the person who carries it. Learning virtues takes time, observation, and handling, not only reading. You learn a herb by growing it, drying it, smelling it, bathing in it, and noticing what changes, and you learn a stone by carrying it, working with it, and noticing, over weeks, what it does and does not do for you.

That slow learning is the point of Bathin's office, and it is why a working for knowledge of virtues should be paired with actual study and handling. Read about the herb or stone, yes, but also handle it, use it in a bath or a working, and write down what you notice, in plain language, without copying someone else's list into your notebook as if it were your own observation. Your notebook, over time, becomes your own book of virtues, grounded in your practice, rather than a borrowed list that you cannot defend from experience.

Be careful, in ordinary terms, with herbs and stones you do not know well. Some herbs are not safe to take internally, to use on skin, or to burn in a closed room, and some stones are fragile, toxic in dust form, or simply not suited to daily wear. Learn the ordinary safety of a material before you learn its magical virtue, and treat a herb or stone you have not studied as unknown until you have studied it. Magical knowledge does not replace ordinary knowledge about safety. It builds on it.

Travel: preparing the journey, in both worlds

Prepare a journey in the ordinary world first, or at the same time as any working for it. Know your route, your timing, your documents, and your contingencies, and do not leave those to magic to sort out. A working for swift travel supports a well-prepared journey. It does not replace preparation, and a journey begun without preparation, in the hope that a working will cover the gaps, is a journey that will teach you, expensively, why preparation matters.

Prepare the working itself in the same careful way. Clear the space you will use for your own candle lighting, wash, and settle for a few minutes before you begin. Know, in one sentence, the journey you are asking about, and the swiftness you are asking for. Do not begin when you are exhausted, drunk, or already agitated about the journey. A clear head is a working tool, just as much as a candle is. If the journey is urgent and your head is not clear, prepare tonight and work tomorrow, rather than forcing a working through a fog.

Carry something from the working with you on the journey, if your practice includes that: a seal, a stone, a herb preparation you have made properly, kept in its proper place and carried close to you. That carrying keeps the working connected to the journey itself, where the travel actually happens, rather than leaving it behind in the room where it was performed. It also gives you a tangible reminder, on the road, of the purpose you set before you left, when the road itself starts to distract you from it.

What an evocation performed on your behalf means

This evocation is performed for you, on your behalf, by Athena, with a request given to the spirit. It is generally performed in tandem with your own candle lighting at home. That tandem structure matters. You are not simply handing the matter over and waiting. You are doing a small, steady part of the work yourself, at home, while the evocation is performed on your behalf, and that shared structure keeps the working connected to you and to your location, and to the journey you are about to make.

Candles and offerings are given during the evocation, as well as afterwards, on behalf of the working, and it is also good if you do some of this at home as well, to help bring results and magic to you and your location. Offerings and rewards after results start to be seen, and when they are complete, are highly recommended for Goetia work. That is not a formality. In this tradition, an offering given after the work is part of closing the working properly, in gratitude and in recognition, rather than leaving it open-ended.

Keep your own candle lighting simple and steady. Light it at a time you can repeat, in a safe place, with the purpose in mind, and sit with it for a time rather than lighting it and immediately walking away. Do not leave a burning candle unattended. The steadiness of your own small practice, done at home, is what anchors the larger evocation to your daily life, where the journey, the herbs, and the stones actually live.

Preparing your request

Prepare the request before the evocation, in plain language, in one or two sentences. State the herb or stone whose virtues you are asking about, or the journey you are asking about, specifically. Avoid petitions that try to cover every possible outcome, or that ask for general knowledge and general travel at once. A petition that covers none of them well is worse than a narrow petition done properly.

If the request is about a journey, name the journey: where you are going, when, and for what purpose, in your own words, for the working, not for publication. If the request is about herbs or stones, name the material, and what you want to understand about it: its virtue in a particular working, its proper use, or its place in a practice you already follow. Specificity, here, is not bureaucracy. It is how you will know, afterwards, whether the working addressed the matter you actually brought to it.

Afterwards, write down what you asked, when you asked it, and what you noticed, over days and weeks, not just on the night itself. For a journey, notice whether it went swiftly, smoothly, or with the particular difficulties you had feared, and whether those difficulties were the ones you prepared for. For herbs and stones, notice what you learned through handling and use, after the working, that you did not know before it. All of those are information. If nothing changes, that is also information. It may mean the petition was unclear, the timing was wrong, the working was not appropriate, or simply that the situation needs a different approach, in the ordinary world as well as in magic.

Seal work alongside the evocation

If you also work with Bathin's seal, the seal-working guidance given here is the general guidance Athena gives for seals: holding it, putting it under a candle, putting oil on it, carrying it with you, wearing it as a pendant, or showing it to the desired person, specific to this spirit and this purpose. For Bathin, carrying the seal on a journey, or holding it while you study a herb or stone, keeps the purpose close to you in the moment when the knowledge or the travel actually happens, which is where the office is lived out.

Do not treat the seal as a substitute for the preparation the working asks for. A seal carried on a journey you have not prepared for, or held while you study a herb you have not handled safely, will not do the work you actually need done. The seal supports knowledge and swift travel. It does not replace route planning, material safety, or steady study. Keep the seal clean, keep it in its proper place when it is not being carried, and treat it as a working tool rather than as an ornament.

I make no promise about what the evocation, or any seal work alongside it, will do for you, only that the evocation is performed as described, with candles and offerings given during and afterwards, and your own candle lighting at home as part of the working. What follows, in terms of magical result, is yours to observe, not mine to guarantee. That is about the work itself, not about delivery dates for physical items.

Bathin Goetia Demon Evocation

If you want an evocation performed for you, on your behalf, for work with Bathin, for knowledge of the virtues of herbs and precious stones, and for swift travel, this is the working I offer.

It is generally performed in tandem with your own candle lighting at home. I give candles and offerings during the evocation, as well as afterwards, on behalf of the working, and offerings and rewards after results start to be seen, and when they are complete, are highly recommended.

Bathin Goetia Demon Evocation, $216 CAD. View the product

For work with Bathin in your own practice, I also make Goetia bathin Goetia grimoire demon evocation oil, $44 CAD, and Bathin Goetia demon incense, $44 CAD. View the product

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