Cavern, fire and ink

  When I first opened Manticore’s Den years back, I had a small Etsy shop where I worked alongside my mother to offer custom dresses for Santísima Muerte. Every statue is different, every figure carved in its own way, so each client would send measurements and my mother would bring the dress to life by hand. That service wasn’t just sewing — it was spirit-led. My practices were deepening, and I was forming alliances with spirits along the way. Santísima Muerte is one of those forces I don’t speak about often, but the relationship has always been there. I used to talk with my mother about my ventures into the occult, and it was Santísima herself who sparked an image in my mother’s mind: the vision of a dress. That first dress was beautiful, unique, alive. After that, friends who worked with Santísima began asking for their own. Each dress followed the same rhythm: contemplation, vision, creation. My mother always started with her personal statue, dressing it as the model, and from...

As most of you know my base knowledge is conjure as it’s taught to me by mama Starr from Old Style Conjure.     Recently I visited Texas, family and friends, I got a private class with mama on doll making which refreshed my mind and got me on the mood to go back to basics so to speak. With a renewed spirit, I felt inspired to work on traditional amulets and began working on these mojos aimed to be a crown of success. One of course can find multiple styles and colors on the web, but I wanted to keep things as they were taught to me, so I began working with my patron spirits after a couple of offerings, formulating a recipe for the mixture load and ways of empowering these amulets. Soon enough, I found myself hand stitching and praying each bag getting them all ready to make a batch of mojos, activating herbal elements to be added to the mixture and a collection of oils and powders added as well. With completion of crafting these bags, I took multiple days of working daily over ...

(Blessings the takruts) Last year I began working on another fusion project, one intended to bring together conjure, Thai sorcery, elemental and planetary magic for the purpose of making a takrut amulet of attraction in matters of love/ lust, enhancing personal charm, good luck, protection, and capable of boosting chances of success for reaching a desired goal. (Baphomet blessings) Takrut. A takrut is basically a spell inscribed in a sheet of metal material such a copper or brass (or in other cases of animal skin, paper, etc), they can be found in areas such as Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. I became familiar with this type of amulet through Thai sorcery and have a personal collection of them either custom pieces given to me by Ajarn Apichai, or others I’ve collected.  Taking all I’ve learned while working with them, I began getting inspired and began constructing the bones of what would become the next fusion of my work. (Personal takrut.) Ideas began flowing after sitting down with...

++++English at the top/ Español después de la parte de inglés++++  Tattooing, a practice that can be found nearly anywher nowadays, widely spreading and catching up with the changes our social world is undergoing, its been along side of us since the beginning of humanity and continues to evolve rapidly offering many styles and approaches to special types of tattooing.  The rituals of tattooing. Tattooing, in my opinion, is a living practice, it changes depending on teachings from tattooer to apprentice, evolving with the artist to accommodate their style and better fit their expression of their art and abilities. unaware of the rituals already undergoing on its practice to the mundane eyes, let's step a little closer to see the rituals already being part of everyday tattooing for both, client and tattooist. Through the 12 years of experience I have as a tattooist, I've heard clients talk about their personal choice of "when to get tattooed", some only get tattooed at ...

Earlier this year, I found myself putting together ideas with my good friend ajarn Wutkongmon, I had talked to him about my spiritual practices and he shared some of his way of working and we found out we have very similar ways of approaching our spiritual workings, so much that our animal symbolism are similar within our practices. Keeping this in mind, and seeing his work, I wanted to blend our work into a few projects which draws power from both practices to work well with people who are interested on working with such items. Blessed coins. These coins were designed by me, I put together the design of a rooster with a spear hiding within it’s tail. Surrounded with sigil working aimed to protect against enemies known and unknown, to send back hurtful gossip to its sender, part of the magic of this rooster is that it can help as an alerter of situations not good for you, or to bring awareness and keep an eye on things (people, situations, etc.) closely. On the back of the coin is a sp...

  Manticore's Den continues to grow, not only in size and magical products, but with collaborations between Thai sorcery by Ajarn Wutkongmon (I call him Ajarn"Wu") and myself (Gary Noriyuki) and my arsenal of magical inventions rooted in a mixture of the practices I study such as Conjure and elemental sorcery. It's been an adventure full of many hours of conversation between Ajarn and myself in order to begin understanding the way we worked things magically and our approaches to spiritual work, charm and amulet making happen to be similar, with this in mind we began talking about potential collaborations and quickly these have began their journey into reality. while our secret projects are on the works, here is a small interview for you to see what Ajarn has to say. Interview with Ajarn Wutkongmon. You have an artistic touch for the all the amulets you make, has art been always part of your life?   Ajarn Wu: yes, since I was a child, I remember always ...

  A month after collaborating. It’s been a fun time to work in collaboration with Lady malandra  on the giveaway “Blast of confidence”, and enough time for me to try first hand the shower set and provide with a review. Shower me with confidence! When I first received this shower set, I felt in love with the feeling it emanates.  What a way to make a shower experience a magical one, in this busy world we live in, sometimes there’s no time to make full on spiritual baths, well this is where this shower set shines at.   Providing with the ability to clear the energy picked up during the day, dispose the bad and enhance that confidence needed to push forward in your plans. I noticed right away an extra spark of energy and through the week as I worked with this shower set, I noticed that mental focus was enhanced, I could smell the fragrance of the shower set and it would remind me of such an awesome refreshing feeling and would then re-light my fire of confidence, even m...

(Español abajo de la sección en ingles)   It's been a bit since I last made a post, some projects had to be set back on the releases to be able to be tested. Now, aligned with a new release date for online availability at the Etsy store ManticoresDenConjure , on March 28th, 2021.  I'd also like to announce I'm partnering up with Cydney of Lady Malandra  on our giveaway themed "Blast of Confidence," in which I'm providing a project (that's been kept in secret) was put to the test (by hand picked subjects) and was provided very successful feedback after its use.  Blast of Confidence   giveaway is put together under the idea that we are all beings who are born with confidence, but, vulnerability and opinions of others sometimes might hurt our fire. While our confidence is hurt, we must remember to tend to ourselves; to stoking and refreshing that fire with a glamour and bath magick with  a couple  of 21st century applications. Photo by...