occult art – Teufelskunst

Mabon / Autumn Blessing Incense

Mabon / Autumn Equinox 2023

New sigil and new incense for the season!

This incense blend is dedicated to seasonal feast day of Mabon, September feast days and the Autumn equinox in particular. It is part of the Teufelskunst “wheel of the year” incense series and is dedicated to the second of the harvest festivals (the first being Lughnasadh and the third being Samhain). It is all about the rituals of autumn, for example the celebration of the Autumn Equinox and blot rituals / harvest blessing and sacrificial rituals. It smells earthy, warm and sweet, but also resinous. It unifies dark and light aspects. It contains aromatic and warming ingredients, such as cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, precious saffron, storax bark and vetiver root. The resins in this fiery blend are powerful protective agents, such as dragon’s blood, dark copal and pine resin. Sweet myrrh, oakmoss and sticky labdanum in turn revere the scents of autumn and bind the herbs. Fragrant herbs such as mugwort and mullein complete this special composition. Lastly, freshly gathered nettle is included as a reference to the goddesses of spinning and weaving, but also enhances the protective qualities of this magical Mabon blend.

The sigil adorning the blend has been desgined especially for Mabon (read more in my next post).

The incense comes in 30 ml paper bags and is now available in the shop!

In other news, I’ve been switching to paper bags!

I made new designs for them, especially for the qliphotic blends. Step by step I am also re-doing the feast day sigils. It’s a pile of work, but ultimately it will be easier to simply print and fill these than cleansing, labeling and packing up glass jars, which also always meant more packing waste. Also, the production of the silver foil labels wasn’t particularly environmental friendly either. So…

These are meant to be smelled and burnt.

I may still do special editions in glass jars every once in a blue moon. I have in fact been gifted a big pile of small miron violet glass jars…

But for now, it’s paper bags! How do you like them?

September 16, 2023

Posted In: Ritual, News & Site Updates, Incense, Feast Days

Tags: sigil art, ritual, mabon, incense, autumn, autumn equinox, maponos, sigils, blot harvest, occult art, dark season, corn moon, ritual incense, papercraft, incense blends, feast days

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Artist Takeover #1: Emry Kamahi Tahatai Kereru

For the coming 7 days the Teufelskunst Instagram and Facebook page will be filled with works by the talented Emery Kereru from New Zealand.

Emery is the first artist to hijack Teufelskunst. Read on why…

“Emry Kamahi Tahatai Kereru is a lifelong devotee of the black art from the Mot Valley, New Zealand. His works serve as record of a soul’s descent into perdition, through the arts bequeathed by fallen angels. He favours steel-point illustration as a medium, for its precision and control. Through symbolism he hopes to grasp the language of the divine and the mysteries of the Great Work. By realistic as possible illustrations of baneful witching herbs he has tried to capture the natural forms that carry a trace of their inmost essence. Faith is the basis of all he does, and he strives for as great a distance as possible from ego driven occultism and the empty regurgitation of familiar images and forms, disconnected from rooted contextual meaning. These works are true reflections of a lived experience beyond expression.”

Asked for his signature, Emry sent me this magic quare:

@e.m.s.a.r.t.s would you be willing to explain to my followers, how you went about constructing it?

E: “The magic square came to me during a period of intense prayer bathing in the river and fasting. It cyphers and rectifies my own name + arts mission into a Latin verse based on Revelation 21:8. EX MORTEM SECUNDUM ASCENSURA REVELATIO TEMPLUM SATHANAE, in seven descending columns, across the bottom line it reads simply A + O, which represents Spirit as the beginning and end of all, and the goal of the Great Work. The raising of the Temple, in a metaphoric sense, by the Sons of Fire, in 49 letters is 7×7, the Lord’s Prayer recited sevenfold and also 4 + 9 = 13, the bloodline of Lucifer. The weeds of the field are pulled up and burned in the fire, second death, which is perdition of the soul upon the descent of seven steps, to dedicate oneself to the spiritual work through the Devil’s pact.

The signification is that works are undertaken as an exercise of devotion and self rectification with approval of spirit.

So these works shown here are actually drawn on the blank pages from the beginning and end of bibles stolen from Christians. At the time I was hitchhiking to town once every week or two and living on about $20 a week mostly eating potatoes or weeds foraged off the land.

So I would hitch a ride to town, steal a Bible, buy a bottle of wine and a packet of lambs hearts and a few other small items. The rest of the books was used as firelighters for ritual fires of Cypress, Laurel even Yew or other specific woods.

The pages marked with the witching herbs are wordless, before Genesis and after Revelation. The rest is torn up and burned in the fire. The series is entirely symbolic and every work is prayed over with offerings to the plant spirits. Each took about three full days outside.”

The next image shows an impression from an exhibition of Emrys botanical drawings. It was this that caught my attention. I had known Emry from before, though only through e-mail contact. He was one of the first to order poison garden seeds from me. Nevermind he was in New Zealand…

Years later he sent me drawings he had done of various plants. It was just a glimpse, but it was clear, that he was serious about drawing and it looked good, meaning, professional. So I followed his steps in art and mixed media over the past 3 years. And it is with joy, that I now present to you this first small retrospective.

1 week, 9 posts. Watch out and enjoy the stories that come with each…

October 9, 2020

Posted In: Art

Tags: drawing, international artists, features, hijack, takeover, instagram, facebook, artists, emry kereru, interview, emsarts, occult art, steel-point, art

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Seed Boxes 2019

The past months were spent crafting and filling another row of Teufelskunst seed boxes. This year’s regular series included again a variety of new and old witch herb classics, while the recent “Black Flowers” edition, which was finalized this week, holds again a little treasury of extravagant, black or near black flowering plants as well as some vegetables with black fruits. Below are a few impressions of the final boxes. All remaining black flowers boxes will be shipped on the 15th of July. Please watch your email inboxes (and spam folders) for shipping notifications.

Black Flowers Seed Boxes, edition of 11, July 2019

July 13, 2019

Posted In: Herbs & Seeds

Tags: greater seed sowing seal, sigillum major, pyrography, black flowers, gothic garden, seeds, seed boxes, woodwork, limited editions, occult art, wooden boxes

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Samhain Celebration 2018

This year’s art dealers: Ybenhain, Black Arts of Mine and Teufelskunst

The art dealers

The third Samhain Celebration combined again both finest black metal as well as exclusive hand-made art fitting to the event. Ybenhain offered resin jewelry and items all made of bizarre forest finds, from crazy colored beetles, weird spiders to plenty of animal teeth, combined with flora and fauna from the forest ground and trees. You can check them out at the Ybenhain Instagram. In contrast, Black Arts of mine creates all things from metal. He contributed the etched copper pendants and pins with the Samhain Harvest Seal for the event. Besides that there were some pieces that drew my attention, such as the precision work on a copper hendecagram pendant (see below). There was also a weird metal chest with a fly engraving, housing a steel cased vial filled with a dozen dead flies. You can view the works in all their morbid glory on the Black Arts of Mine Instagram. Last but not least, I brought with me new art editions as well as an ever growing assortment of incense blends.

Samhain Harvest Seal 2018, collab between Teufelskunst, House of Inkantation and Black Arts of Mine

Etched copper amulet by Black Arts of Mine

My table: limited edition box sets of ‘*Regina Bombina*‘ ink drawings and ‘*Rauhnächte*‘ ritual kits

The bands

The other part of the evening, and a reason for people to travel as far as from the States, were the bands. I could not check out all of them, but at least caught a few snapshots of Turia, the Mosaic feat. Schwadorf set and Fyrnask. I would love to hear about your first impression of seeing Turia live and realizing a female is doing those ghoulish voces…

Moved by special performance of Mosaic and Schwadorf (Empyrium)

The Stage

Signature feature and fundament for the evening’s special atmosphere appreciated so much by the audience is the stage set, annually adorned with reeds, ivy, chestnut garlands, corn dolls, carved skulls and this year’s corn sun. Connecting it all since three years is the Seal of the Harvest in the back, which I once designed for the event.

Initiating the Samhain magic

The Samhain Celebration in Gotha is one of those rare occasions where I can show presence with my work and art and meet people that are on a similar wavelength. It is a unique combination of art, tradition, music and spirit, which both is highly satisfying for the performers as well as the audience. Making it all possible are the people of The House of Inkantation, Eisenwald and a handful of helpers.

Making it all possible: C. + M. Falkenstein + crew

October 31, 2018

Posted In: Events

Tags: mosaic, stage art, schwadorf, house of inkantation, empyrium, samhain, black arts of mine, black metal, occult art, ybenhain, art, eisenwald, harvest Seal, stage design, samhain celebration, seal of the harvest, events, harvest sigil, gotha, fyrnask, the londoner english pub, turia

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Wooden Seed Boxes #31-36

In follow to the wonderful feedback and many emails received after the last boxes had been sold, I spent the past weeks crafting and researching what would become the content of the next row of wooden seed boxes, these being numbers 31-36.

This time my focus was drawn towards magical herbs, which can be found on a blooming summer meadow and are traditionally used on the summer solstice. Many of these herbs are sown in April and May, hence the timing. Some annuals, such as poppies, you may be able to harvest already this summer, if sown now.

Besides this I wanted to include some new venific herbs, to accompany the well-known nightshades and popular poison plants. In my search my attention was drawn to the spurge, more precisely the caper spurge (Euphorbia lathyris). Earlier I had been asked for spurge to use in a martial incense recipe and had trouble finding the right type. By chance I came across references pointing to the caper spurge with its poisonous milky sap, prominent size and auspicious shape. The plant seems to have been well known in Germany. It would be planted near one’s home as a protection against curses and it was used to break the spells of other witches. It was also thought to ward of moles and is hence also known as mole plant in English language.

Besides this I included the wild relative of the candle larkspur, named field or rocket larkspur (Consolida regalis), with its lovely deep blue flowers. The flowers are used in protection spells and the herb is planted to protect the home, similar to the closely related delphinium. The rocket larkspur is unfortunately in decline due to intensified agriculture. Another reason, to include it here.

A threatened herb with strong healing attributes is the lovely centaury (Centaurium erythraea). It has been attributed a plethora of benific properties and is rare to find in the wild these days. I am thus happy to have found a supplier of seeds for this rare healing herb. Another old and perhaps forgotten about healing herb of antiquity, which is now experiencing a renaissance is the wood betony (Stachys officinalis). Likewise the motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) was a popular healing herb in medieval times until interest in the plant declined. It makes for a nice background plant with other purple and pink flowering herbs and interesting addition to the ‘witch’s garden’.

In selecting the herbs I also paid attention to the 13 plants described in Harold Roth’s book “The Witching Herbs” (signed copies available here) and thus included seeds for each.

Altogether there are now seeds for over 50 different sorcerous benific and venific herbs contained in one box. The box itself is pyrographed stained and varnished by hand. The sigil on the box is the “Sigillum Major” or “Greater Sowing Seal”. It includes references to the work with plants, crossroad symbolism etc. and is also used as the official logo for Teufelskunst. The sigil inside the box is called “Sigillum Minor” or “Lesser Sowing Seal” and is an abbreviated form of the former, traceable in one stroke of a line. Each box is numbered on the bottom.

Printed sowing instructions in tabular form are included with each box. For detailed information on each herb please visit my plant blog.

Update: The boxes are sold. You can still e-mail me for the complete list of seeds contained in this series at info@teufelskunst.com. I will work on 4 more boxes this spring to round up the number before the summer solstice. Than that’s it for a while.

April 20, 2017

Posted In: Herbs & Seeds

Tags: box set, pyrography, seed boxes, sigilum major, boxes, benific herbs, occult art, venific herbs, wooden boxes, wooden seed boxes, seeds, sorcerous herbs, witch herbs, witch garden, sowing, greater seed sowing seal

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