Working with Zepar: Love, Affection, and the Room Itself

Who Zepar is in the Goetia

Zepar is a Duke in the Goetia, and the Grimoire Companion gives his office in a short, direct line: he kindles love and draws affection between the sexes. That is the whole of it, and it is enough. Zepar is not a spirit of many offices. He is a spirit of one matter, and that focus is part of what makes working with him clear, if you are clear yourself.

Love and affection are words that cover a great deal of ground, and a working that does not narrow them down will wander. Kindling love can mean warming a bond that has grown cold, drawing affection where there is already regard but little warmth, or opening the way for a meeting that has not yet happened. Each of those is a different petition, and each deserves to be named as such. Before you light anything, write the matter down in one plain sentence. If you cannot, you are not ready yet, and the waiting is part of the work, not a delay in it.

Being specific about what you want is practical, not moralising. A vague wish for love in general tends to produce results you cannot read: a pleasant week, a friendly stranger, a feeling that something shifted, but nothing you can point to and say, this was the matter I named. A specific wish can be observed. It either moves, or it does not, and either answer teaches you something about the working and about your own judgement.

Why incense leads in this work

Incense is often treated as background to a working, and in Zepar work it deserves more attention than that. The incense fills the space where the working happens, and love and affection are, in practice, matters of atmosphere as much as of words. The room you work in, the mood you bring into it, and the state you leave it in all shape how a petition is carried.

When you burn incense for a working of this kind, you are setting the room apart, and you are also setting yourself apart, for the duration of the rite. The smoke rises, the scent fills the space, and the ordinary associations of the room fall away for a time. That change is not imaginary. Anyone who has walked into a room where incense has just been burned knows the difference at once, before a word is spoken.

Incense also does the work of fumigation. Tools, a seal, a candle, or a letter can be passed through the smoke, so that they too are prepared for the working. A seal that has been fumigated has been through the same preparation as the room. That shared preparation is part of what makes the tools of a working feel like a set, rather than a collection of unrelated objects.

Preparation is most of the work

Start with the room. Clear the space you will use, not just physically, but in the sense of setting 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.

Then prepare yourself. Bathe, or at least wash your hands and face, and change into clothes you do not wear for ordinary errands. This is not about looking a certain way for anyone else. It is about marking, for yourself, that this time is set apart. Eat simply beforehand if you can, and avoid starting a working when you are exhausted, drunk, or already agitated. A clear head is a working tool, just as much as incense or oil is.

Next, prepare the words you will use. Do not improvise a whole petition on the spot if you can avoid it. 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 matter at hand.

How the incense is made here

I hand make each batch of incense when you order it, unless a batch has just recently been made. The incenses I make are of a quality that I use them myself for magical work. They work well enough that I use them successfully for spirit work, work for clients, as well as my own spellwork.

That made-to-order point matters. It means the incense has not been sitting, opened and closed, through other people's orders. It is made for your order, and then blessed by me myself before it is sent out. 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. That is about the magical result, not about delivery dates for physical items.

Store incense as you would any working material: dry, closed, and set apart from ordinary household scents. Do not leave it open on a shelf where it picks up other smells, and do not burn it casually, as room scent, if you want it to keep its association with the work. The association is built by use, and casual use builds a different association.

Oil, and why oil and incense go together here

Oil and incense do different jobs in the room. The incense fills the space and sets the atmosphere for the working itself. The oil marks and anoints: the hands, the forehead, or a tool, seal, or candle that will be used in the working. Used together, they cover both the space and the point of contact.

The Zepar oil offered here is hand made in the same way as the other oils I make: from only pure essential oils, roots, and herbs, with no extraneous ingredients or fillers, and no synthetics. Sometimes there is the odd gemstone thrown in as well.

If you are doing a full working, rather than a single burning, use both. Light the incense first and let the room settle, then anoint, deliberately, naming the purpose in your own words. 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 preparing a seal or a candle for later use, you can still fumigate that item in the incense at the time you prepare it, and anoint it then as well.

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, prepare the room and yourself, as above. Second, set out the seal, tool, or candle you will use, and the incense and oil. Third, light the incense and let the space settle. Fourth, anoint, 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. With love workings especially, the record matters, because feelings shift for many reasons, and memory is quick to credit the working for a change that had an ordinary cause, or to miss a change because it did not arrive in the form you pictured.

Working with the seal

Zepar's seal is a working tool in its own right. In practice, a seal can be held in the hand during a working, placed under a candle, anointed with oil, carried with you, worn as a pendant, or shown to the person you have in mind, according to the working and your own system. Each of those uses keeps the seal, and the purpose it carries, present through the work.

If you anoint a seal, do it deliberately, with the purpose named, and let the oil stay on the seal while you work. If you place it under a candle, keep it in place for the whole burning, or for the part of the working your system directs. If you carry it, carry it with intention, and put it away properly when the working is done. A seal treated carelessly between workings loses the association you built in the working itself.

When this is not the right work

Sometimes the right answer is not a spirit working at all. If the situation involves safety, or a matter that belongs in the ordinary world, deal with that matter in the ordinary world first, or at the same time. Ritual work is not a substitute for leaving a dangerous situation, or for the ordinary work of speaking honestly with the person involved, where that is possible and safe.

It is also worth asking, honestly, whether the affection you seek is something that can be kindled by a working, or something that needs a conversation, a change in your own behaviour, or time apart. A working can support a relationship, but it does not replace the ordinary work a relationship requires. Do that work as well. The two kinds of work strengthen each other.

Do not do this work when you are angry in the moment, or heartsick in a way that makes clear thought impossible, if you can avoid it. Strong feeling passes, and a working done in the heat of it 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 tender.

Keeping a record, and knowing when to stop

Keep a short record for each working: date, purpose in one sentence, incense and oil 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.

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. Repetition without reflection is not persistence. It is noise.

Zepar incense, and Zepar oil to go with it

If you are doing spirit work with Zepar, the incense is for the room and the working itself, not for scenting a room casually.

I hand make Zepar incense myself, in small batches when you order, and I bless it myself before it is sent out. It is made for spirit work and spellwork with Zepar, and I use the same kind of incense myself for magical work. 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 incense for that work, this is the one I offer: Zepar Goetia incense, $44 CAD. View the product

I also make the oil to go with it, for anointing in the same work: Zepar Goetia grimoire demon evocation oil, $44 CAD, 1/2 oz bottle. View the product

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