Working with Decarabia: herbs, stones, and the birds of the air

A seal is not a picture of a seal

A seal for Decarabia should be a seal, not a picture of one. That distinction sounds simple, and it is, but it changes how you work with the thing in your hands. A picture can be looked at. A seal can be carried, anointed, fumigated, placed on an altar, and worked with over time. It has weight, it has a surface you can touch, and it stays with you after the working is over, in a way a printed image does not.

That is why the form of a seal matters in traditional Goetia work, and why a seal that is made properly is different from a seal that is merely reproduced. The seal in this article is for traditional Goetia work with Decarabia, as a hand cast seal, in pendant form, 1 inch. It is made to be carried and worked with, not left in a drawer as decoration, and not filed away as a reference image.

Decarabia, and what working with him is for

The Grimoire Companion entry for Decarabia is a naturalist's entry: Decarabia is a Marquis with thirty legions, who teaches the virtues of herbs and precious stones, and who commands the birds of the air. That is a different kind of knowledge from rhetoric or dignities, and it is learned differently.

The virtues of herbs are not learned from a list alone. A virtue, in this older sense, is what a herb does, in the body and in the working, learned by handling it, by growing it, by smelling it, by preparing it, and by observing what follows. A book can name a virtue. Only practice can teach it. The same is true of stones: a stone's virtue is learned by carrying it, by working with it, and by noting, over time, what changes in the work done with it in hand.

Commanding the birds of the air belongs to the same natural knowledge. Birds are watchers, messengers, and omens in the older tradition, and a spirit who commands them is a spirit of the air itself: of messages carried, of signs noticed, of things seen from above that cannot be seen from the ground. A practitioner working with Decarabia should be a watcher too: notice what birds do, where they gather, when they fall silent, and what that silence or gathering coincides with.

That watching is not superstition, and it is not a code to be decoded mechanically. It is attention to the natural world, kept in a record, until patterns emerge that a single day would not show. A seal for Decarabia is carried into that watching: on walks, in gardens, in places where herbs grow and birds are present, not only at an altar indoors. No result of any of these kinds is promised here.

How a lost-wax cast seal is made

The seals offered here are lost wax cast seals of the Daemon Demons of the various grimoires. They are pure metal which is actually cast, starting with a wax version.

In lost-wax casting, the seal is first worked in wax, then cast in metal from that wax form. The wax is lost in the process, which is where the name comes from, and the metal that remains is a solid, cast object, not a printed shell. You can feel that difference when you hold it: a cast seal has weight, it has a surface that shows the hand work, and it does not have the layered texture of a printed object.

That process also explains why a cast seal is made to order, and why it takes time. A seal that is already listed takes about two to three weeks while seals that are not listed, but are under the other option, take eight weeks, because she still has not carved their waxes yet.

Working with the seal

A pendant seal is made to be carried, and carrying it is part of the work, not an afterthought. Hold it in your hand before a working, put it under a candle during the working if your practice calls for that, put oil on it deliberately, carry it with you afterwards, or wear it as a pendant. Each of those uses is a different way of keeping the seal in the work, and each suits a different kind of day: a candle working suits a set evening at the altar, while carrying the seal suits a day when the matter itself will be in front of you.

Showing the seal to the desired person is another traditional use Athena names for seal work in general, and it belongs here with a plain caution about clarity: show it, or carry it, for the purpose you have actually named, not for a vague hope you have not put into words. A smaller seal, at one inch, is made for wearing close and often, rather than for display. That suits Decarabia's work, which is done outdoors and in gardens as much as indoors.

Anointing a seal is a way of marking it for a purpose. In practice, that is often done with a matching oil, applied deliberately, naming the purpose in your own words. Fumigating a seal is the companion practice: passing it through incense smoke, to start a working, and for fumigating the tools and talismans that will be used in it.

Do not use a seal as a substitute for the rest of the working. Carrying a seal and then doing nothing else, with no petition, no attention, and no closing, is not spirit work. The seal supports the work, it does not replace it. If the matter is a herb or a stone, carry the seal when you gather, prepare, or study it, and note what you observe in the same record as the working. If the matter is a message or a sign, carry it on the day you must watch, and write down what you saw before you interpret it.

Keeping a record

Keep a short record for each working: date, purpose in one sentence, seal and any oil or 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. 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. Keep the pendant in a clean, dry place when you are not wearing it, away from other metal objects that could scratch it, and clean it gently with a soft cloth.

Decarabia cast Daemon Demon seal pendant 1 inch

A seal for Decarabia should be a seal, not a picture of one. I make these as lost wax cast seals, cast from a wax version in pure metal, one at a time, and I bless each one myself before it is sent out. This one is Decarabia, as a pendant, 1 inch, made for traditional Goetia work with Decarabia, to be carried and worked with. I make no promise about what it will do for you, only that it is cast by hand, for this work.

Decarabia cast Daemon Demon seal pendant 1 inch, $108.00 CAD. View the product

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