Working with Gremory: hidden things, and a bath taken over three days
Hidden things, past, present, and future
Gremory is a Duke in the Goetia, and the Grimoire Companion entry for her joins three subjects that, together, make a single kind of work: she discovers hidden treasures, tells past, present, and future, and procures love. Read slowly, those three phrases describe a working that is about seeing clearly, rather than about forcing a matter.
Hidden treasures, in the old language, are not only gold buried in the ground, though the phrase includes that image. A hidden treasure can be a fact that has been overlooked, a document that has been misfiled, a talent that has not been used, a connection between two matters that no one has yet noticed, or a resource that is already in your hands, and that you have not yet recognised as a resource. Discovering a hidden treasure, in practice, often means looking again, carefully, at what is already there, with a question in mind, and with notes kept.
Telling past, present, and future is the companion art to that discovery. A matter that is hidden is often hidden because its past has been forgotten, its present has been misdescribed, or its future has been assumed without evidence. A working that asks about past, present, and future, in order, is therefore a working that asks for a whole story, not for a single answer, and a whole story is harder to fit to a hope, and easier to test, than a single dramatic revelation.
Love, the third phrase, belongs in the same frame. Love, in Gremory's entry, is procured, which in old language means brought about, or obtained, through the working, and it is best read alongside the other two phrases: love that is seen clearly, in its past, its present, and its possible future, and love whose hidden obstacles, and hidden resources, have been looked at honestly, rather than wished away.
Why a bath, before a working
A bath before a working is preparation, not indulgence, and it is worth saying so plainly, because the two are easily confused. An ordinary bath washes the body. A magick bath, taken before a working, washes the day off the practitioner: the errands, the arguments, the noise of ordinary business. You step out of one state and into another, and the water is the threshold between them.
That threshold matters most when the working itself is a matter of seeing clearly, rather than a matter of force. A practitioner who arrives at a working still carrying the day will bring the day into the working, and will spend the first part of it trying to settle. A bath taken deliberately, with the purpose named beforehand, does much of that settling in advance, so that the working can begin where it should begin.
A bath also has a practical advantage for hidden-things work. Hidden things are often hidden because the practitioner is too close to them, too hurried, or too certain about what he already thinks. A bath forces a pause. It takes time, it requires attention to the body, and it gives the mind a period in which it is not solving, not arguing, and not rehearsing. In that pause, a matter can sometimes be seen from a new angle, without any dramatic intervention at all.
Being specific about what is hidden
Before any Gremory working, be specific about what you want to discover, in your own words, and in one clear sentence. Reflection about being specific about what you want is not a formality. It is how you tell, afterwards, whether anything was actually discovered, and whether that discovery had anything to do with the work.
Write the sentence down. Name the hidden matter, as concretely as you can: which treasure, which fact, which past, which present, which future, which love. Then name what you will do yourself, in ordinary terms, to look for it: which records you will check, which people you will speak to, which places you will look, which conversations you will have. A petition that asks for a hidden treasure to be revealed, while naming no place to look, and no action to take, is not a petition. It is a wish, and wishes are hard to read afterwards, because any outcome, or no outcome, can be fitted to them.
Be honest, too, about whether you actually want the hidden thing to be found. Some hidden things, once found, change a matter in ways that cannot be undone. A past that is told plainly may not be the past you hoped for. A future that is told plainly may require a decision you would rather postpone. If you are not prepared for a plain answer, say so to yourself now, rather than discovering it after a working has begun to move a matter forward.
If you cannot state the matter in one sentence, leave it overnight and come back to it. That pause is part of the work, not a delay in it.
How the Gremory bath is made, and how it is used
We only use 100% pure roots, herbs and sometimes essential oils. No synthetics are used.
To use any of our 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, about the strainer or the net, is not a trivial aside. It is how a bath made of real roots and herbs is actually used, without leaving a bath full of chunks, and without blocking a drain, and it is worth following as written, rather than improvising a shortcut.
It is best to take each bath each day for 3 days in a row. That three-day rhythm is the core of the practice, and it is worth understanding why it matters. A single bath is a single threshold. Three baths, on three consecutive days, are a preparation repeated, and repetition is itself part of what the practice teaches. The first day clears the day. The second day settles the practitioner into the working. The third day carries the working forward, with a record kept across all three days, so that changes can be compared, day by day, rather than remembered vaguely afterwards.
Take the bath at a time you can keep, on all three days, and keep that time as steady as you can. A rhythm that is kept is a rhythm that can be read. A rhythm that changes every day, for convenience, cannot be read, because you cannot tell whether a change came from the working, or from the change in time, in place, or in mood.
Preparation, beyond the bath itself
Preparation for a Gremory working is preparation for seeing, and it starts before the first bath. Clear the space you will use for the working itself, and set it aside for this purpose. Gather what you need before you begin, so you are not hunting for a book, a seal, or a tool halfway through. Know what you are going to say, in your own words, before you begin, and know what you are not going to say.
Do not begin 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, oil, or incense is, and a working done in the heat of a feeling often reads, afterwards, as something you wish you had phrased differently. Wait until you can state the matter calmly, even if the matter itself is deeply felt.
Keep a notebook ready, for the three days, and for the working that follows them. Hidden things are discovered in notes, as often as in workings: in a fact written down on day one, and recognised on day three, as the missing piece; in a past event noted plainly, and a present fact noted beside it, that together make a future clearer. A working without a notebook is a working whose discoveries will be forgotten, or distorted, by the time they are needed.
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. Do not treat a general article as a substitute for proper teaching in the system.
First, write your one-sentence matter down, and name what you will do yourself, in ordinary terms, to look for the hidden thing. Second, take the bath on day one, at your kept time, with the purpose named beforehand, and write down what you noticed afterwards, in plain language. Third, repeat on day two, and on day three, keeping the same time, and the same record, so the three days can be compared. Fourth, prepare the room and yourself for the working itself, and set out the seal, tool, or candle you will use. Fifth, speak your petition, clearly and once, rather than repeating it until it loses its shape, asking, in order, about past, present, and future, as your practice teaches. 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, keep the record going, over days and weeks, not just on the night of the working. Note what was discovered, when it was discovered, and whether it was discovered in the working, in ordinary looking, or in the comparison of notes across the three days. That distinction matters, because it tells you where your seeing actually happens, and where it needs more practice.
Ordinary looking, alongside ritual looking
Hidden things are often found by ordinary looking, done carefully, after a working has cleared the mind for it. Check the records. Re-read the letters. Look again at the place, the document, or the relationship, with the question in mind, and with notes in hand. A working that asks for a hidden treasure, and then does no looking, is working against itself.
The same is true of love, in Gremory's entry. If the working concerns a person you know, speak to that person, in the ordinary world, as the matter requires, honestly and directly, at a time when a conversation can actually be heard. If it concerns a love that is already sound, tend to it in ordinary ways as well: time together, attention, keeping promises small enough to keep. Ritual and ordinary action should point the same way, or neither will carry much weight.
It is also worth asking, honestly, whether the hidden thing is a fact, a person, a pattern, or a longing for a past that cannot be recovered. The answer changes the petition, and it changes what you should be looking for, and why. A working aimed at a fact when the real matter is a pattern will find facts, and miss the pattern entirely.
Keeping a record, and knowing when to stop
Keep a short record for each working: date, purpose in one sentence, bath days kept, what you did, and what you noticed afterwards, over days and weeks, not just on the night itself. If nothing is discovered, that is also information. It may mean the question was unclear, the looking was too broad, the timing was wrong, or simply that the matter needs a different approach, in the ordinary world as well as in ritual.
Do not repeat the same working endlessly in the hope that repetition alone will force a revelation. Do the work properly, once, over three days, observe, look in the ordinary world as the matter requires, and then decide, calmly, whether a second working, a different question, or no further working is the right next step. Repetition without reflection is not persistence. It is noise, and in hidden-things work, noise is easily mistaken for a sign, when it is really only anxiety, repeated.
Gremory bath
If you are doing work with Gremory, the bath is for preparation over three days, not for show.
I make Gremory baths from 100% pure roots, herbs, and sometimes essential oils, with no synthetics, to be added to a pot of water, approximately 1 litre or so, and taken each day for 3 days in a row, for work with Gremory, for hidden treasures, past, present, and future, and love, in the Companion's words. I make no promise about what it will do for you, only that it is made by hand, for this work, and not mass produced.
If you want the bath for that work, this is the one I offer: Gremory Goetia bath, $44 CAD. View the product
Gremory also has a matching oil and a matching incense, both at $44 CAD, for spirit work with Gremory, for anointing and fumigating where your practice calls for it.
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