Visiting The Relics of Saint Cyprian
A Saint, A Lady, & A Pilgrimage.
Hello, good people of the internet, and welcome to the Redux Series, which is a series that involves me going back to my old blog posts from the last 10 years of my Adventures In Woo Woo blog to see if I still align with them, or if I have anything to add or subtract from them. In the end, I'll collect it all together as a book.
I have spoken in many places about my failed attempts at a working relationship with St. Cyprian and despite my many attempts to form a relationship with him — including my pilgrimage to see his remains in 2017 described below — never seemed to fully click. So much so, that I gave up on the whole idea for the most part, and concentrated on my servitor THE SAINT from the Forty Servants as a very workable replacement.
Each year over on the AIWW Patreon we do the “Days of The Saint” in September where we hijack the dates of the standard St. Cyprian Novena and dedicate it to The Saint instead. This has worked very well, and a number of people consider it the highlight of the year in terms of the repeated group magick rituals & work we do on the Patreon.
Last year I happened to mention to Robert Peter, whose practice is a mixture of witchcraft, folk magic, and Christianity, that I had never had any success with St. Cyprian. As part of his practice, Robert communicates with various entities and a couple of weeks – maybe months – later he sent me a message saying that he had a communication with St. Cyprian about me. He told me that St. Cyprian did want to work with me, but I would need to do a Novena to Our Lady of Sorrows first.
I have to admit I was massively uninterested and dismissive at first. But for some reason, I eventually looked up the official dates of the novena for Our Lady of Sorrows. To my surprise, it ends the day before the Cyrpain novena starts. Our Lady of Sorrows Feast Day is the 15th of September and the “Days of the Saint” starts the 16th.
My first impulse was to think that Peter must have known this and that’s why he suggested it. So I sent him a message and casually asked if he knew the dates of the novena for Our Lady of Sorrows. He was like “Ah, you’ve caught me on the hop, I don’t actually know” and convincingly so. I then told him the dates and he said “Oh, that’s interesting”
And I agreed, that was interesting. It seemed to line up a bit too exactly. Even if it turned out that Peter was pulling one over on me, which I don’t think is the case, it was still enough to do the novena – like, what exactly could I lose by doing it? A bit of time for nine days
And so I did it.
The first Novena went by with nothing of interest to report other than the various days are quite sad in their themes. I have had a lot of struggles with sadness, which I have spoken about on various Vlogs which manifest at times as an overwhelming grief for a dead love done. The issue is that no one in my life fits the bill of this departed soul. But, that’s more a story for another day. I just thought it’s worth noting given the nature of the novena there is an obvious nod or echo to it all.
The second novena also went pretty straightforwardly and coming to the end I was feeling that the whole thing was a bit of a bust.
But I did get a message on the second last day. The message was essentially that “You are approaching me in the wrong way. You want me to be this black, dark magician, but I renounced that and followed Christ. You can approach me in that way, and I will respond”.*
This message was sent via some post or meme on Bluesky that I can no longer find, where someone mentioned that St Cyprian had renounced the Devil and turned to Christ. And when I saw that, I had this sort of quick download that expanded on it.
And it all clicked. Right, I thought, that all makes sense to me, and I now see my “in” with St. Cyprian. I haven’t pursued it much since then, other than acknowledging it, because I am not in a very “Christ” space right now, but I often circle back to him, so I will let my natural rhythm dictate when this new stage of work with St. Cyprian will begin.
I will, of course, update you all when I do.
Finally, I just want to mention the other main player in the piece below which is the demon Anxiety.
I have travelled a fair amount in my days and never really had much anxiety about it until this trip. And subsequent trips were even worse – I had a full-blown panic attack coming through security leaving London not too long after this. Luckily the security guy seemed to see what was happening and got me through. I remember him being very kind, though I am not very sure what he did. The whole world closed in on me very rapidly and I ended up crying in the toilets. All for no apparent reason.
Reading the post below now, I can see that I am being overly harsh and critical of myself in places. While I did, and do, have work to do on my victim/martyr roles, beating myself up about them in the way I did at this time wasn’t helping me. It was more a case of me bullying myself for not being perfect.
Interestingly, after the last St Cyprian novena, I did have another shadow-clearing period similar to what I described below in 2017. It is always hard for me to know what the exact causes of these events are as I do a lot of magic work on myself and pinpointing the exact catalyst is next to impossible. I assume it’s a combination of “all the things”.
Perhaps It was Our Lady of Sorrows, perhaps it was St, Cyprian, perhaps it was my soul, but perhaps both periods mentioned are just me dealing with trying to make sense of Anxiety.
Whatever the cause, the work will continue!
_____
*That’s not to suggest that this is how everyone should approach him or see him. This message was specifically aimed at me.
Romanian Holiday
7th July 2017
So, it is now a few days since I got back from my pilgrimage to Romania to see the relics of Saint Cyprian in Zlatari Church in Bucharest. My “holiday” was extremely stressful – not because anything bad happened or anything close to that, I just felt out of my depth and too far outside my comfort zones to be able to relax and enjoy the experience. Instead, a whole load of shadow stuff got pushed front and centre for me to look at. Meeting Saint Cyprian was going to have a bigger toll on me than I anticipated.
Another reason I found it stressful is that I think I have been trying to do far too much recently, and I was putting way too much pressure on myself to get ALL THE STUFF done. My goal was to get as much “content” for the blog, podcast, Patreon, and Youtube channel as I could, which as I will explain below, meant I ended up not even really being present to the actual experience around me. I ostensibly went on a holiday, but all I could think about was getting videos, podcast, blog posts. I also probably should have turned off all my social media as there was a ton of stuff going on that I probably should have just left at home.
I’m not usually this bad on holidays, I mean, I have travelled a fair bit in my time. I just put far too much pressure on myself, I think, I just couldn’t relax. Also, there was lots of big stuff leading up to this: the release of The Grimoire of The Forty Servants, the new deck designs, getting a smart phone for the first time in years, setting up Patreon, losing weight, not losing weight, getting a new camera (which is a whole other story), and a million other small little things that all seemed to be building towards something. But towards what?
Maybe it’s because I am forty at the end of the month, I mean that has to be a factor in all this. I feel great about turning forty, well I think I do, how can I really be sure what lurks beneath the surface? All I know is that during my four days in Romania all the things became too much for me to handle. But isn’t that what pilgrimages are meant to be all about? Isn’t what you learn about yourself along the way the most important part of the journey? I believe so.
Meeting The Saint
By most accounts, Saint Cyprian wasn’t an actual person- it's most likely that he is an amalgamation of several similar stories. Which of course begs the question: Whose hand is actually in the church? Well, for me, it is Cyprian’s hand, and I think that would still be true for me even if it isn’t actually true. It’s as true as it needs to be.
The first time I went to Zlátari Church to see the relics, I was too concerned about getting photos, getting videos, and getting my goodies (incense, candles and stuff) that when I left the church I realised that I didn’t really remember even being there. I was too concerned with “getting it done” to actually enjoy or even be aware of the scene around me.
In the end, I went back to the Church a number of times. It’s quite central and close to the Old Town, and it was a very useful spot to order Uber from or use as a taxi destination from the Hotel. I did manage to get some nice magick done in the end – I left a written petition for his help and blessing beside his relic (which is his hand BTW) which was great. It felt like a good connection and a mirror to the stuff I do at home. I also got some holy water, candles, incense, and some cloth crosses which I placed on his statue on my altar, I got a new wooden Icon and a number of prayer cards. I also managed to gather some dirt and stones from both the church and the surrounding small gardens which are also now on the altar.
Later on the Friday evening, which was my second trip to the Zlatari Church, I tried to be a bit more present and actually experience the place. I was less hectic mentally and was a lot more settled than the first trip. There were some people there, and they were giving offerings of candles stuck in bread. We asked about this later and our driver told us that it was an offering to the dead, but it was also a way of making “Holy Bread” which you would eat first thing in the morning – it was good for your soul. I might try this as an offering too, as I really like the idea. Also, any excuse to eat bread, eh?
On this visit to the Church, I also wanted to do something that involved introducing The Saint from The Forty Servants to Saint Cyprian. I took some photos of the card beside the relic and touched them together. It seemed quite fitting and a good thing to do. I posted this image on Facebook and people seemed to get a kick out of it. Which was nice.
Oh Look, here’s that Victim Role again…
As for the rest of my time in Bucharest, I basically went on a holiday and forgot to actually have a holiday. This was all about unexplored territory for me, and I didn’t do well. I stressed about every little interaction I would need to have – taxis, checking into the Hotel, buying stuff in shops, eating out etc. I was spending my entire time and energy rehearsing these scenes in my mind. The uncertainty of the situation overwhelmed me and I just couldn’t handle it. Even when I came home and all was done It still took me a few days to unwind. In fact, even now I am not fully back to myself. Things like this feel somewhat physical to me, so it feels a bit like I have been beaten up and still haven’t, as yet, recovered.
This journey really showed me just how much work I have left to do. I let everything defeat me. I let every small incident become another proof and reinforcement of my world views, such as how deliberately frustrating life seems to be on purpose, or even that old chestnut of the world, the universe and everything is purposely out to annoy me personally.
These are ideas I thought I had gotten past from previous shadow and magick work, but obviously, they still have some deep roots within me. My anger, frustration, and lack of ease, all became fully on show, and it all seems to stem from the fact that on a deep level, I don’t feel confident in myself. I don’t feel as good as anybody else, or as worthy or as important. I feel like an intruder in other people’s world. All the insecurity, all the fear, all the anger because I don’t feel I am as good or worthy as other people. I don’t have the skills or confidence within myself, so I externalise it and blame the events or surroundings.
And yet again I noticed myself playing out the victim and the martyr roles that I thought I had left behind. Look how much I am being punished! Look what life is doing to me! I can’t even buy a bottle of wine without the world punishing me! All of this is total bullshit, of course, the problem is me, as. fucking. always.
A Proper Pilgrimage
And this trip to see the hand of Saint Cyprian really was a pilgrimage for me, and I really don’t say that likely. I feel this will echo in my life for a long time to come.
The whole experience has thrown up huge amounts of shadow stuff that I now have no choice but to look at. This is what I wanted. I want to be a better person, a more evolved person and the first step in that is seeing how crap you currently are. All these issues that got brought out into the light on this trip will now be the fuel for the next stage of my magick work. It’s hard seeing how useless and powerless you can be, or the games you play, or the poor excuses you use for your lack of ability, but once you see it you can’t go back – you can’t unsee it. I guess you could ignore it and just carry on as if you don’t see your failings, but that’s not what I want to do. I want to evolve past these limitations, stresses and petty worries.
That’s what magick has always been about for me, and in that sense, this was an exceptionally powerful magick working. I went to see the Saint, and he showed me an awful lot of stuff that I need to deal with. Could you really ask for a better outcome from a pilgrimage? Magick isn’t always pleasant, but no one promised it would be.
(I have talked all about Romania in the latest podcast too, you can hear me rant about it here.)
Until next time…
You can read the rest of the Blog Redux Series here!
And that's it for another AIWW Newsletter, I hope you got something from it. If you'd like to chat about it, you can leave a comment below, or come find me on Bluesky!
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So, until next time,
MAY YOUR BEST DAYS BE AHEAD!
Tommie
My name is Tommie Kelly, and I’m an artist, musician, writer & chaos magician from Ireland. I’m probably best known for creating the magick and divination system, THE FORTY SERVANTS. These periodical newsletters are about my adventures in creativity, spirituality, and magick. Check out my website: Adventures In Woo Woo
Many years ago, after I converted to Catholicism, I heard somewhere about a little ritual to sell a house: you bury a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the yard until the sale goes through, in order, I found out later, to perturb the saint until he he does what you wish, at which time you dig him up so he is OK. My daughter was trying to sell her house on the Delta in Mississippi. The house was across the street from a river where alligators lived, occasionally crawling out to be shooed away with a broom. The tiny town was predominately black, populated by the descendants of slaves; there was voodoo in the air, window frames painted "hoodoo blue." I can't remember who told me about the spell. Was it my daughter? Did she hear about it at work?
Anyway, I told her about it and we did it, the only problem being that she had to move to another state before the house was sold and then she forgot where she buried the little plastic statue of St. Joseph. The house took over a year to sell, was flooded, and required numerous trips to repair. I swore never to bury a statue of St. Joseph again. It was only later I discovered that the ritual was apparently a voodoo spell. (I've become convinced since then that one should make no appeals to spirits except those from one's own ancestral line.) My problem now is that St. Joe, who is the patron of job-hunting too, will have no truck with me no matter how much I pray to him for various relatives to get a better job. I've lit candles, and prayed, but as long as that statue is still in that yard in Mississippi, nothing doing.
I did this novena too, I didn't know the Lady of Sorrows, I asked if you knew any prayer and you said you used the Ave Maria. I had a very difficult problem to solve. But I made the novena to Our Lady of Sorrows more like a leap of faith... But then on the 5th or 6th day. I was helped. And every year I will do this novena as a sign of gratitude. The truth is that Lord Ganesha has always helped me, always taken care of my daughter, always taken care of me. But I already feel ashamed for always asking for help. One of my family members my sister turned against me and made my life hell. But the time has come to defend myself. It's not revenge, it's justice....But she joined a lot of people, some I don't even know who they are, but I'm trying to resolve this. It's been hard, but I never thought about it until recently. I connected the dots and realized why and that she was the one who ruined 5 or 6 years of my life...But I'm not able to protect my wife. I have to find a way...But this reminded me of a post you made a while ago about the magic of the church or the saints...