Amulets by Merlin's Blog

The Court Jester is a strange little devil.
Should anyone but the little fellow
say unkind things to the king,
they would be missing appendages.
So why does the Jester continue to keep his head?

The Devil Amulet

He is a liar,
a scoundrel,
very uncomplimentary
and sometimes
he even tells the truth
at very inconvenient moments.
Should the King have a bright idea,
it is the Jester that shoots it down.
If the king says something stupid,
it is the jester that corrects him,
yet still he lives.

In the Book of Job,
God is in his heaven
and the Devil is sitting at his left hand.
“Check out that guy Job down there” he tells God.
“He really doesn’t honor you;
only out of habit does he make his sacrifices.”
Through persuasion,
the Devil convinces God to let him test his faith.
His land and wealth is stripped of him,
his wives and children are gone
and he is alone in the desert
covered with boils.
In the end of it,
God recognizes Job’s faith
and all is restored.

The Devil in both cases is testing the individual;
this corresponds with the influence
of the sea goat Capricorn
who is always testing the waters,
unsure of anything.
In the Native American folklore,
we find Coyote,
a totem of the tester
who also has a great sense of humor
and indeed here is the key:
Humor is the tool that sets you free.

The Hebrew letter Ayin is associated with the Devil Card:
the Eye.
As Heh (the Emperor) is attributed to the Window
(the influence of perception)
Ayin is the Eye itself.
It is both the physical Eye
(the acceptance of the illusion of matter)
and the inner eye (the recognition of what actually is).

In a nightclub we can find a comedian who is doing a “stand up” routine.
The entire time he is talking he is speaking in half-truth
and innuendo however the audience listens to him and laughs,
not taking his lies seriously at all.
This devil is funny because there is an association
between his lies and the lives of the audience.
They too have similar problems
and are able to see it through the eyes of another
and recognize the humor in their own lives.

In this testing,
this twisting of the truth to reveal it’s depth
we find where that trap lies:
believing the lie.
Urban legends, tall tales, terror-vision;
all become traps where people can get caught up
in the language rather than the story,
the fashion rather than the substance.
One can get entangled by the illusion
and think that what they are seeing is real.
By seeing through the illusion of the jest,
one perceives the greater reality.
But if you want to know the truth you have to be open to it,
no matter what it is.

In designing this amulet I chose the five point star.
It symbolizes (amongst other things) Ideal Man (human rather than male-ness).
Each of the points represents an element,
the fifth on the top point being of Spirit representing its balance and influence.
I reflected the image:
the mirrored star is a reflection of the truth.
On the star pointing up I have inscribed the classic triangles,
in the reflected image I used Hebrew letters,
representing an interpretation of those elements.
In the middle of the two stars:
a hand holding a torch thrust downward, gutting smoke;
the light is cloaked:
the truth is obscured.
The Letter Ayin placed over the hand representing how the Eye
may be directed to see many facets of reality.

The Devil Amulet would be an amulet for writers,
comics, filmmakers, anyone who creates fiction,
images or media that can inspire, reveal the truth or test one’s metal.
This is for the trickster,
the joker or the teller of tales.
It is an amulet representing Humor,
the telling of stories and the practical joker.
It is also for the scientist:
one who tests theories, weighs ideas for their merit.
It is for the Editor,
one who looks to stories and weighs the validity of their meaning and truth.