Working with Ipos: courage, wit, and the bath before speaking

Ipos, and the work of being bold and clear

Ipos is an Earl in the Grimoire Companion material, with courage, eloquence, and familiars among his concerns. The Companion entry states his office in a compact, memorable way: he makes the practitioner witty, bold, and daring, and he grants loyal familiars. Those qualities are not separate gifts that happen to share a name. They describe a single kind of person in a single kind of situation: someone who needs to speak clearly, act boldly, and do so with a steadiness that does not collapse the moment the conversation gets difficult. Wit, in this sense, is not about being clever for its own sake. It is about finding the right words, at the right moment, when the easy words would be vague, evasive, or untrue.

Courage, in Ipos work, is also more specific than it sounds. It is not the absence of fear, and it is not recklessness. It is the ability to say the thing that needs to be said, and to do the thing that needs to be done, when both feel uncomfortable. A bath for Ipos work is a preparation for that kind of courage, because a bath gives you a bounded time in which to sit with the question before you speak it aloud. What, exactly, do you need to say? To whom? And what will you do if the answer is not the one you hoped for? Those are questions that are easier to face in water, with the herbs and the quiet around you, than in the middle of a conversation that is already going wrong.

Eloquence belongs here for the same reason it belongs in other spirit work, but with a sharper edge. In Ipos work, eloquence is not about sounding impressive. It is about being understood, and about not hiding behind clever words when a plain word would be more honest. A witty, bold, and daring practitioner, as the Companion describes Ipos as making the practitioner, is not someone who talks more. It is someone who talks more truly, and who can hold a position without either retreating into vagueness or advancing into bluster. Before you do any work in this area, write the matter down in one clear sentence, and read it back to see whether it says what you actually mean.

What a magick bath is for

A magick bath, as Athena describes these baths, is made from only pure roots, herbs, and sometimes essential oils, with no synthetics used. That is not a detail about luxury. It is a detail about attention. A bath made from real plant material smells, feels, and behaves differently from a scented product made to imitate it, and the difference is noticeable when you are actually in the water. You are not being asked to admire the bath. You are being asked to use it as a working space: a place where the body is washed, the attention is gathered, and the ordinary business of the day is set aside for a defined period, before a working that will ask for courage and clarity.

You add the bath to a pot of water, approximately one litre or so. If you pour everything in, including the bits of herbs, you 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 best to take each bath each day for three days in a row. That three-day shape gives the work a rhythm that a single bath does not have. The first day is often about noticing what you actually brought into the water with you, including the fear or the evasion you have not yet named. The second day is often about the petition itself, stated more clearly than it was the first time. The third day is often about closing: what you will say, what you will do, and what you will leave in the water.

Do not treat the bath as a substitute for the working that follows it, and do not treat it as a shortcut around preparation. A bath prepares the practitioner. It does not replace a petition, a seal, incense, or oil, and it does not replace the ordinary-world steps that courage usually requires: a conversation, a decision, a letter written and sent. If the boldness you are seeking involves another person, the bath is the place to get clear about what you will say to that person, and what you will do if they disagree, not a place to hide from the conversation itself. Write the words down after the bath, while they are still fresh, and read them back the next morning before you use them.

Familiars, and the loyalty in the Companion entry

The Companion entry also says that Ipos grants loyal familiars, and that part of the office deserves a careful word, because familiars are easily misunderstood. A familiar, in this tradition, is not a pet, a decoration, or a general helper to be ordered about. Loyalty, in the Companion wording, is the quality that defines the familiar: a loyal familiar is one that stays with the work, and with the practitioner, through the ordinary difficulties of practice, not only through the dramatic moments. That loyalty is not something to be demanded. It is something to be earned by the same qualities Ipos is described as fostering in the practitioner: wit, boldness, and daring, used honestly and consistently, rather than only when they are convenient.

If you are working with familiars in this sense, the bath is a useful place to ask a harder question than the obvious one. The obvious question is what a familiar could do for you. The harder question is what kind of practitioner you would need to be in order to be worthy of loyalty in return. A practitioner who is vague, evasive, or unwilling to speak plainly will not hold a loyal working relationship for long, with a spirit or with a person. A practitioner who is witty in the sense of clear, bold in the sense of honest, and daring in the sense of willing to act on what they have understood, is a practitioner with whom a working relationship can actually be built. That is not a moral judgement. It is a practical observation about how working relationships, of any kind, actually hold together.

Be specific about what you want, in the sense that matters here: not a list of demands, but a clear picture of the courage and clarity you are working towards, and the situation in which they will be tested. Reflection about being specific about what you want is part of good practice, because vague work tends to produce vague results, and vague results are hard to read afterwards. If you cannot state, in one clear sentence, what you need to say and do, you are not ready to anoint anything yet. Write it down, leave it overnight, and come back to see if it still reads true. That pause is part of the work, not a delay in it.

Incense alongside the bath, and keeping a record

A bath is often the first step in a longer working, not the whole working. Incense does a different job in the room from a bath, and it reinforces the bath when it is used with the same clear purpose. The bath prepares the practitioner. The incense fills the space and sets the atmosphere for the working itself. If you are doing a full Ipos working after the three baths, 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. The Ipos incense offered here is hand made in small batches when you order, unless a batch has just recently been made, and it is of a quality that Athena uses herself for magical work, for spirit work, work for clients, as well as her own spellwork.

Keep a record across the three days, in plain language. Note the date, the purpose in one sentence, what you did in the bath, and what you noticed afterwards, over days and weeks, not only on the night itself. For Ipos work, that record is especially useful for tracking courage and eloquence: did you speak more clearly afterwards, did you say the thing you had been avoiding, did a conversation go differently because you were clearer, bolder, or more honest in it? 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.

No promise is made here about what the bath or the incense will do for you in terms of magical result. That wording is about the magical result of the work itself, not about delivery dates for physical items. The bath is made by hand, for this work, and not mass produced, and it is blessed by Athena herself before it is sent out, as the other tools on this site are. What follows from the practice is yours to observe, not mine to guarantee. If the matter is a legal, safety, or medical matter, deal with that matter in the ordinary world first, or at the same time. Ritual work is not a substitute for sound advice, for honest communication, or for leaving a dangerous situation.

Ipos Goetia bath

A bath for Ipos work should be a bath made for that work, not a general scented soak.

I make these baths myself from only pure roots, herbs, and sometimes essential oils, with no synthetics used. This one is Ipos, for a magick bath for work with Ipos, used as described above: added to a pot of water, approximately one litre or so, strained if you pour in the herb pieces, and best taken each day for three days in a row. I make no promise about what it will do for you in terms of magical result, only that it is made by hand, for this work. That wording is about magical result, not about delivery dates.

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

I also make the incense to go with it, for the same work: Ipos Goetia incense, $44 CAD. View the product

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