Working with Buer: a bath for healers, before the work

Buer, and what working with him is for

Buer is a President in the Goetia, and the Grimoire Companion entry for him gives two things together: he teaches philosophy, logic, and the virtues of herbs, and he heals infirmities of the body. That is a learned spirit and a healing spirit, at the same time, and the combination matters. Philosophy and logic are disciplines of clear thinking. The virtues of herbs are knowledge of what plants do, learned properly rather than guessed. Healing, in this entry, sits alongside that learning, not apart from it.

That recommendation is the heart of this article. It is not a recommendation to everyone, for everything. It is a recommendation to healers, for healing work. If you are a healer, or if you are doing healing work for others, that framing may be the reason Buer comes up for you at all. If you are not a healer, and you have no connection to healing work, ask yourself plainly whether Buer is the right focus for your working, or whether you are reaching for a name because it is familiar, rather than because it fits the work you actually need to do.

Nothing in this article promises a medical result, and nothing here should be read as medical advice or as a substitute for medical care. Healing work in this context means ritual and spiritual work, done by a practitioner, alongside ordinary medical care where that care is needed, not instead of it. If you, or someone you are working for, needs medical attention, get that attention first, in the ordinary world. A bath, a working, and a record are not a treatment, and they should never be presented as one.

Why a bath, and why before healing work

A magick bath is not an ordinary bath with a nicer scent. It is a preparation, done deliberately, before a working, to mark the practitioner as set apart for that working. That series structure is important. A bath taken once, hurriedly, on the night of a working, is a different thing from a bath taken over three days, as a preparation that builds.

Three days gives the preparation time to do its work, in the ordinary sense as well as in the ritual sense. On the first day, you are still carrying the ordinary week with you. On the second day, the routine of the bath itself starts to mark the time as different. On the third day, the working is no longer something you are about to do. It is something you have been preparing for, day by day, and your mind has had time to settle on the healing work you are actually about to do, and on the person or people it concerns.

For healers, that settling matters in a particular way. Healing work, even ritual healing work, carries weight. You are attending to someone else's difficulty, and you are doing it with a clear head or not at all. A bath taken over three days is a way of putting down the rest of your week, day by day, so that when you come to the working, you are present for the person and the work, rather than still carrying the last client, the last errand, or the last worry. That presence is not a side effect of the bath. For healing work, it is a large part of the preparation itself.

What is in the bath

That is the whole material statement in the source used here, and this article does not add to it. It does not name a specific root, herb, or oil for Buer, because the source does not name one, and inventing an ingredient list for a spirit's bath would be inventing a correspondence, not reporting one.

What can be said, without guessing, is that the bath is made from real plant materials, not from synthetic scent, and that it is one of only a small sample of the magick baths carried on this site. That invitation matters for a practitioner with a specific need, because a bath made for a general purpose is not always the bath for a specific working, and asking is better than forcing a general bath to fit a specific question.

For Buer work, the plant point has a particular resonance, because Buer's Grimoire Companion entry includes teaching the virtues of herbs. A bath made from real roots and herbs, prepared by hand, is not only a preparation for healing work. It is itself a reminder of the herbal knowledge that sits at the centre of Buer's domain. You will notice the materials when you prepare the pot, you will notice them again when you strain the bath, and you will notice them again in the working that follows. That noticing is part of the preparation, not a distraction from it.

How to take the bath

Add the bath to a pot of water, approximately a litre or so. If you pour everything in, including the bits of herbs, use either a strainer to get the chunks out after your bath, or one of those fish tank nets, or a bird catching net. It is worth taking seriously, because a bath that leaves your tub clogged, or your skin covered in herb fragments, is a distraction you do not need before healing work.

That three-day series is the rhythm for these baths, and it should be planned for, not squeezed in. Choose three days when you can actually take the bath each day, in quiet, without rushing, and when the healing work that follows will not be crowded by other obligations. A three-day preparation that is interrupted, hurried, or done while you are already exhausted will not give you the settling that the series is meant to give.

Take the bath deliberately, not as a quick wash before you go out. Wash, pour, or immerse as your practice directs, with the purpose in mind, and with the healing work you are about to do held clearly, not chattered over. Then dry, dress in clothes you do not wear for ordinary errands if the working follows directly, and move into the working itself without filling the time between bath and working with ordinary noise. The bath is a threshold. Treat the time after it as part of the working, not as a break from it.

Preparing the room and yourself, after the bath

Preparation does not end with the bath. It continues with the room and with yourself, in the same way as for any Goetia working. Clear the space you will use, physically, 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 for this working, so the place itself starts to carry the association.

Set out what you will need before you begin: the seal or tool if your practice calls for one, the incense and oil if you are using them, and a candle or candles placed where they will not be knocked. Fumbling for a tool after the working has begun breaks the very attention the bath was meant to build. 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 healing work at hand, and to the person it concerns.

Avoid starting a working when you are exhausted, drunk, or already agitated, if you can avoid it. A clear head is a working tool, just as much as a bath, a seal, or incense is. For healing work in particular, agitation is an obstacle, because a healer who is agitated will bring that agitation into the working, and into the presence of the person they are working for. The bath, taken over three days, is meant to help with exactly that. Do not undo its work by rushing the working itself.

Incense to go with the bath

A bath is preparation, not the whole working, and it pairs naturally with incense in a full Buer working. The incense fills the space and sets the atmosphere for the working itself, and it can also be used to fumigate a tool or seal for the working, to start a working, and for fumigating the tools and talismans that will be used in it. Buer has a matching incense, for spirit work and spellwork with Buer, at the same price as the bath, and it is the companion to the bath if you work with both.

If you are doing a full working, rather than only taking the bath, use the bath as preparation, 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. If you are only taking the bath to prepare for healing work done in another form, that is also a legitimate use: the bath prepares the practitioner, whatever form the working itself takes, as long as the preparation is deliberate and the working that follows is clear.

Buer's earlier seal article on this site also notes the return favour in Athena's Buer wording for evocation work: if Buer does help you, do not forget to return the favour, by volunteering, by doing some healing yourself, or by a donation. It is worth knowing, though, because it frames Buer work, in Athena's presentation, not as a one-way request, but as a working that carries a return with it. For a healer, that framing is familiar: healing work is given, and it is also returned, in service, in care, and in attention to others.

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, take the bath each day for three days, as above, with the healing work held clearly. Second, on the day of the working, prepare the room and yourself. Third, set out the seal, tool, incense, and any other items you will use. Fourth, fumigate or anoint, if your practice calls for it, deliberately, naming the purpose in your own words. Fifth, speak your petition, clearly and once, rather than repeating it until it loses its shape. Sixth, sit quietly for a time and listen, rather than filling every moment with more words. 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. That record is what lets you tell, weeks later, whether anything changed, and whether that change had anything to do with the work. For healing work, that record should be kept with care, and with respect for the privacy of any person you worked for. Note what you did, and what you observed, in plain language, without turning another person's difficulty into a story for others.

What not to do

Do not use the bath as a substitute for the working itself, or for ordinary medical care. Taking a bath and then doing nothing else, with no petition, no attention, and no closing, is not spirit work. It is a bath. And taking a bath for healing work, and then advising someone to forgo medical care, or forgoing it yourself where it is needed, is not healing work at all. It is neglect, and it should not be dressed up as ritual. Get medical attention first, in the ordinary world, where medical attention is needed, and let ritual work sit alongside it, not instead of it.

Do not strain the bath carelessly, and do not pour herb material down a drain that will clog without thinking about it. A bath that ends in a plumbing problem is a bath that ends in ordinary-world distraction, right before the working it was meant to prepare you for.

If you have sensitivities to particular herbs or essential oils, test carefully, or choose a different form of preparation. If the bath irritates your skin, that is information, not a test of dedication. Stop, rinse, and reconsider how, and how much, you use. A preparation that harms the body does not prepare the body for healing work.

Keeping a record, and knowing when to stop

Keep a short record for each working: date, purpose in one sentence, bath and any incense used, what you did, and what you noticed afterwards, over days and weeks, not just on the night itself. 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, including ordinary care.

Do not repeat the same working endlessly in the hope that repetition alone will force a result, and do not take bath after bath in the hope that preparation alone will do the work. Do the preparation properly, do the working 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.

Buer Goetia bath

A bath before healing work is preparation, not decoration. It marks the practitioner as set apart, over three days, for work that should be done with a clear head and a steady presence.

I make these baths from only 100 percent pure roots, herbs, and sometimes essential oils, with no synthetics, and I bless them myself before they are sent out. I make no promise about what it will do for you, and no medical result is promised here, only that it is made by hand, for this work.

If you want the bath for that work, this is the one I offer: Buer Goetia bath, $44 CAD. View the product

For a full working, the companion for the same work is: Buer Goetia incense, $44 CAD. View the product

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