TEUFELSKUNST Occult Art Blog
TEUFELSKUNST
Occult Art Blog

Wheel of the Year

As this year’s circle is about to come to a closure, and with Samhain approaching, I felt inspired to write a summary of my research on the wheel of the year.

The wheel of the year is based on the nature observations of our ancestors. It follows natural cycles* and fixed times, such as the solstices and equinoxes, which devide the annual circle into four quarters. Together they form a solar cross, in which the four arms mark the four seasons – spring, summer, autumn, winter (which are characteristic for Europe, as it was once covered in rainforests resulting in a relatively stable climate). This solar cross can be devided further into four lunar cross-quarter events: Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain. These in-between times were considered magical and as doorways to and for the spirits. They fall on the respective full moon of the months of February, May, August and November. For convenience today it is usually on the 1st of these months, when official celebrations of these liminal times take place. The magician may utilize both the full and the new moon, and partake in social activities on the fixed dates.

The celebrations surrounding the solstices are sometimes helt over the cause of 12 sacred nights. The Celts considered Samhain as the beginning of the new year. In Norse religion it is the dark half of the year when the motion of the annual wheel slows down and finally stands still on the winter solstice. It then takes the strength of the golden boar Gullinborsti, who by the end of the Rauhnächte slowly sets the wheel of the year into motion again.

The appearance of the sun cross in Bronze Age religions coincided with the introduction of the spoked wheel. As part of the solar chariot it replaced the solar barge. This sun wheel bears resemblance to the medicine wheel petroforms of native American people as well as the dharmachakra of Indian religions. In his books W.D. Storl refers to it as the European Medicine wheel and links it to our sylvan Celtic origins.

The first appearance of spoked wheels dates to 2000 BCE: Caucasian horsepeople, who travelled with spoked-wheel war chariots deep into the Greek peninsula, joined the mediterranean peoples living there and eventually helped form classical Greece. Celtic people enhanced the spoked wheel with an iron rim in 1000 BCE. Likely, spoked wheels were introduced to China from the West between 2000-1500 BCE.

The horse-drawn chariot, horses and wheels played a special part in Germanic and Slavic divination rituals (hippomancy). They believed their deity rode on the horse or drove the chariot and gave answer through the horses’ behaviour. For example Slavic people would let a blindfolded horse walk in a circle divided by wooden spokes or speersand it was observed whether it stepped on one. The sacred horses (often white, seldom black) were kept seperately.

Apart from being a milestone in the development of humans, the spoked wheel also has connections to deities of weaving and spinning, such as Frau Holle (Dame Hulda), who is the embodiment of an ancient omnipotent earth goddess. Her symbol is the spinning wheel, her sacred herbs and trees open up the realm to the world of the spirits all year round.

©Teufelskunst 2025

October 17, 2025

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

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Imbolc Box

->lasered with the image of the Spring Goddess riding on a bear and embracing the sun, carrying distaff / besom, torch and seed, accompanied by rich illustrations of flowers and folkloristic motives referencing not only Imbolc traditions, but also other festivals of February, such as Lupercalia, Perchtenläufe and Fastnacht

-> perfect for storing smaller sacred objects such as paper sigils, stones, crystals, amulets, spells, candles etc.

-> made of birch wood (sacred to Brigid), measures ca. 14 cm x 12,5 cm x 2,5 cm and comes including:

  • Imbolc incense
  • blessed white cloth
  • 3 beeswax candles
  • pressed lenten rose flowers
  • paper birch bark, for drawing spells upon
  • tumbled stones: purple-yellow ametrine, rutilated quartz (venus hair quartz), moss and tree agate
  • witch hazel phytograph (nature print 1 of 4)

3 of 4 available, shipping now

February 28, 2025

Posted In: Boxes, Feast Days, Ritual

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Winter Boxes

These boxes are made during the dark stormy winter days and nights that bridge the old and the new year. They are lasered with the sigil of Winter (Sacred Deer) and the sigil of Frau Holle. Each box is filled with sympathetic materials evocative of the wild hunt of winter and its goddess Frau Holle.

These boxes are perfect for storing smaller sacred objects such as paper sigils, stones, crystals, amulets, spells, candles etc. and can for example be placed beside or under the bed for inspired dreaming. The boxes measure ca. 14 cm x 12,5 cm x 3 cm and come including:

Holle Box

  • ❄️ Holle Incense
  • ❄️ phytograph with Holle sigil, hand-drawn on the backside
  • ❄️ Birch bark, for drawing spells upon
  • ❄️ Snowflake obisidian, Turmaline quartz, rare Charoit pendant stone

Wild Hunt of Winter Box

  • ❄️ Winter Incense
  • ❄️ phytograph with Sacred Deer sigil, hand-drawn on the backside, imbued with bone white, antler dust and ashes
  • ❄️ Birch bark, for drawing spells upon
  • ❄️ Clear rock crystal, tree agate, dark blue hawk’s-eye

In addition, the boxes are accompanied by my respective essays on the Wild Hunt of Winter/ the Haunted Hunter and Frau Holle/Mother Winter.

3 available of each, shipping now

January 11, 2025

Posted In: Boxes, Feast Days, Ritual

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Winter Solstice Incense

This blend for the winter solstice smells like a walk through the winter forest – resinous, coniferous and aerial. It contains a number of precious resins such as high grade Hojari frankincense, sandarak resin, spruce resin and baltic amber. White birch bark and chaga mushroom evoke the self-restoring powers of nature, ash leaf, metasequoia and yew needles bring forth the circling life energies of above and below, holly, juniper, mistletoe and wormwood call forth the protective spirits, mugwort and labrador tea open the third eye. Oakmoss, resinous white fir cone scales, pine, fire and spruce needles all add up to an evergreen winter blend, perfect for lighting up and guiding through the twelve longest nights of the year.

Available here.

December 8, 2024

Posted In: Incense, Feast Days, Ritual

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Frau Holle, Old Mother Frost…

Beginning of this year I started a journey with a goddess I had always known from legend and fairy tales but never actually approached ritually. A simple request, whether my Rauhnächte incense could also be used for honoring her, lead me to change my perspective. Eventually I spent the whole year researching and gathering herbs that connect to her essence and bring out her different light and dark aspects to finally compose an incense which evokes the obscure deity in her wholeness.

Lacking any image representing her I also designed a new sigil for her, who…

  • resides on a white mountain top, at the depth of a well, in the clouds or in hell
  • is the goddess of spinning and weaving, winter and death, childbirth and vegetation
  • contains the souls of the unborn and stillborn in her well, grants fertility and receives the souls of the dying
  • governs legions of elves and gnomes, presides over witchcraft and the sending of nightmares
  • sends snow and hail, rain and frost over the land and leads the wild hunt
  • visits earth during the twelve coldest nights, blesses the diligent and punishes the indolent
  • appears as a beautiful virgin of the dawn, fertile mother of man at day, devil’s sorcerous grandmother at night
  • is the companion of the green-man during spring and summer and the spouse of Wode, the hunter, during the dark half of the year

She is known as Percht(a), Berchta and Bertha in upper Germany (who may have Celtic roots), Holle or Holda, holde Frau, Frau Venus in Middle Germany, Frau Herke/Harke or Gercke, Frau Gode/Gaude, in lower Germany, Murawa (a night demon in Saxony) and Spillaholle in Silesia. All these names are present throughout different parts of Germany and are expressions of an older omnipotent goddess.

In Bohemia she is also simply known as Frau Holle, a small and ugly old woman, who carries a batch of stinging nettles. During the twelve cold nights of winter (twelve yule nights) she visits earth and looks into the homes, to see, if the spinners have finished their work or are still spinning. The latter she punishes by beating them with the nettles. But those who have finished their spinning are blessed with a single nettle twig left in the home that protects the house from misfortune for the whole coming year.

A Silesian rhyme about the Spillaholle goes:

Spinnt, Kinderlein, spinnt,
Die Spillalutsche kommt;
Sie guckt zu allen Löchlein rein,
Ob das Strähnlein wird bald fertig sein.

Spin, little children, spin,
The Spillalutsche comes;
She peeks through all the little gaps,
If the little strand will be finished soon.

Spillaholle occurs as an especially cruel and mean version of Frau Holle, since she kills the children, that she has caught spinning at night. She also scares people to death. She is accompanied by wood sprites, a tomcat and a goat.

Holle Incense 2023

November 26, 2023

Posted In: Art, Ritual

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

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Dried Mandrake Roots

Upon request, I am offering here some dried mandrake roots, which I have grown and harvested over the past years. For reference, the leave is ca 12 cm long. These roots are talismans. They are not meant to be made into incense. They can be oiled and/or fed with traditional offerings, such as red wine, milk and honey, herbal essences, bread, incense or tobacco smoke, coins, stones etc. If you purchase one, you agree to stay in touch about your work with the root. I am happy to give you guidance and set up a ritual practice with you based on your personal magical background.

Pricing from top left to bottom right:

93 € top left – sold
prices for the 2 small roots are negotiable (they are suitable to wear in a glass amulet with other herbs – a custom amulet can be made for you) – sold
83 € top second from right
111 € top right – sold
88 € bottom left – sold
center – sold
108 € bottom second from right – sold
131 € bottom right – reserved

Handdrawn mandrake root phytographs can be purchased along with the roots and start at 100 € per phytograph. If you commission a phytograph together with the root I will give 10% discount.

August 23, 2023

Posted In: Mandrake Project, Herbs & Seeds, Ritual

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“Dead Astronaut” is aLive

It’s wonderful to be receiving such feedback! Remember last year`s mandrake post about “Alien Monstress” and “Crippled Astronaut”? Well, who would have guessed that! First photo shows a recent post by obviously blessed and knowledgable David ‘Mr. Mandrake’ Simmons. Second photo is of the same root about a year ago and third is of my ink portrait, now framed and adorning D. Simmon’s wall. Thanks David!

In memoriam H.H. Ewers

July 17, 2023

Posted In: Ritual, Garden, Pflanzenkunst, Mandrake Project, Herbs & Seeds, Art

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