Cyprians Oil

Cyprians Oil from Wolf and Goat, along with Cyprians Book and Rosary.

TODAY is St Cyprians feast day (not yesterday 🙂, and Cyprian inspired me to write a bit about Oil. Perhaps more than any other Saint, Cyprian is associated with the use of oil in his magic. The recipes for his oil are many and varied – ranging anywhere from basic Chrysm to pretty intense mixes of blood and bone. But before we talk oil, lets talk Genesis…

We all know the story of Adam and Eve, and if you look at it through the lens of fundamentalism, it’s pretty fucking troubling. God creates a garden in Armenia and tells the first man and woman that they can eat whatever they want except for a tree that is forbidden because it gives knowledge. It really begs the question: what the fuck did you THINK was gonna happen? If I put my twins in a room of toys and tell them they can play with anything BUT the big shiny red one that will give them knowledge, its gonna be like 2 minutes till they play with it once I close the door. Its a total set-up by someone who is obviously kind of a prick.

So we have the Gnostic interpretation, where the Prick that made the garden and then planted a tree no-one should eat from in it isn’t god at all, but a Demiurge. God sends the Serpent to tell Adam and Eve that the apple will give them knowledge, and hey that being they are calling God is a prick anyway, so go for it… This sets up a scenario where the world is evil and the creator is evil, and only through Gnosis can we escape. We are all Snake Plisskin in this scenario except its not just New York we are escaping from, but the whole material world.

But there is another interpretation: a Mystical One. We have to remember that the forbidden fruit did not just convey knowledge, but knowledge of good and evil.  In other words, it conveyed Dualistic and mechanistic thinking. We no longer perceive things as they are, but are forever caught in a cycle of attachment or rejection. Maybe you think I am being overly Buddhist or imprinting ideas of modern mindfulness to this, but I’m not. Maximus the Confessor wrote: “The Tree of Good and Evil would be the body’s power of sensation, which is clearly the seat of mindless impulses“.  In my last post, I referenced how even Origen warned of not taking the scriptures literally and that “And who is so silly to imagine that God, like a husband-man, planted a garden un Eden eastward, and put in it a tree of life, which could be seen and felt”. We are not escaping to heaven in this mystic interpretation. but realizing heaven is here by recapturing what Adam lost, the ability to “delight” in creation by accepting it as is – Eden, after all, literally means delight”. The ability to do this is bound up in that other Tree in Eden – the Tree of Life.

The Tree of life represents a state living in wisdom and as the Angels do. It is the Oil given by Tree of Life that the Holy Oil of the first temple was said to represent, and why the eyes of the Priests were anointed with it. The Holy Oil, along with the Ark and the Aarons Rod and other items from the Holy of Holies were lost by the time of Christ, and the Oil became of primary significance in Christianity, precisely because it represented the promise of the Tree of Life and a reversal of the Fall.

So what does this have to do with St Cyprian? Everything.

The Oil of St Cyprian is the Oil that made him Priest and Bishop. A Sorcerer hunting power, amazed at the power faith and baptism conferred upon Justina, went seeking not just that Baptism by Water, or the Communion by Blood, but the Anointing through Oil. I can relate. I took Holy Orders for much the same reasons. The powers of the magician are rooted in the same powers possessed by the Priest. The ability to give rites that guide souls through the afterlife is the same that can call them back and question them. The power that exorcises demons is the same power that constrains them and compells them. The healing of the sick and the remittance of sin shares providence with the power to harm and condemn. Of course sometimes the Sorcerer seeking power finds grace and wisdom along the way and a life of power seeking can become a life of service giving. For me at least there is no separation anymore and Cyprian represents this.

As I mentioned there are MANY recipies for Cyprians Oil, but most of them have echos of either the Holy Oil described in Exodus or the Gifts of the Magi, which some texts like the Book of Jubilees claim were taken from the cave under Golgotha where the body of Adam lie, guarded by Melchizedek. Calamus, Cypress, Orris Root, Frankincense, Myrrh, Cinnamon, Bethroot,  and in one recipe I was taught – Gold Tincture stabilized with Benzoin, are all ingredients that I have seen pop up in different formulas. When you use Cyprians Oil to anoint a demons seal, or relic of the deceased, or even a Talisman, you are tapping into the power of the Tree of Life, that oil which was for the the light and of the light.  One of Cyprians many powers is the power to anoint volatile spirits and tame them, not through force, but through transmitting light through the oil. Perhaps this is to “transcendental” for a lot of modern Cyprianistas but it is traditional and important. It is part of why Cyprian makes such a good partner to Michael in Amparos and Amulets – its like good cop and bad cop working together.

So, on this, his feast day, spare a moment to consider what precisely is happening when you open that bottle of Cyprian Oil.

You might also check out the new book on Cyprian from Rubedo Press.