Seasonal Spektre Scepters ∴ Haunt Manual
Hauntomantik talismans to conjure new eras of self.
“I’d like to consider my Audiomantic Artifacts, Musick Gris-Gris, as Sceptres (A communion of Spectre and Scepter) as both Vajra and Bell; as most of these are musickal talismen that marry the shades of both.”
Hauntomantik1 talismans, or my magickal vajra2, are the instruments and tools used to conduct rituals to commune with lost eras, forgotten aspects, or future prospects of the self-spektre, have cheekily been termed Spektre Sceptres.3 I’ve largely discussed utilizing these talismanik tools within my DIM SESSIONS, or audiomantik rituals to commune and create musicks, specifically. However, these tools are largely corroded from years of heavy use through the many eras of self, and have long become the supreme antennae to the Spektre (a temporal self within the past) or the Aspektre (a forgotten aspect of self largely within the past).
My personal Spektres throughout the Hauntomancy rituals have doused a wide spektrum of utility: While my Baritone guitar, Ectogasm, acts as the divining rod to unearth the somatick choreography needed to conjure melody, my haunted 70’s rhythm machine, Herbert, acts as a ritual tuning fork, providing rhyme and meter to tenor the timbres, but something not necessarily played, such as my Santisima Muerte bone idol, becomes the avatar of the unseen audience. All this to say, every scepter thus far has been specifically riddled with a role within the rite, but not necessarily performed— and even without the occasional reinvigoration through ritual craft they are forever imbued, haunted, with the resonance of the creative magicks they helped to conjure. The process is the initiation. To imbue such things means to use such things.
But how is one to imbue future artifakts to taut that tether to the prospect of self, the Prospektre? It would be ridiculous that only mining the brain wrinkles for eras and aspects already lived to create anew would ever be the full scope of Hauntomancy. We are in fact creating a future within this magickal paradigm by dancing with the lost, so… what of intentional prospects wholly changed? What do we use then?
These talismans are wielded like long-knives to cut through the mauve zone, and weed the wrinkles of the mind, or like a conductor’s wand: spinning webs of orchestrated movements to conjure a common chord. These are ritual daggers construckting and conducting the musick of the neither-neither sphere, to consort a newfangled harmony between then, now, and maybe.
TEMPORAL SCEPTERS
I recently tracked down a specific watch model I coveted as a kid.
When I was 9 or so years old in Phoenix, Arizona, my family just graduated from the slums of Maryvale to the suburbs of Glendale, and with it came a sort of faint expression of the American dream. Starting everything from scratch again, new home, new town, new faces. When I think of that time, I think of the first excursion to the new mall, a haunted museum 90’s newstalgia now artificed in my mind. Out with my sister and my mother for that day it felt like money wasn’t an amorphous black cloud over our heads: my mother put herself through college and gained a profession, my step-father graduated from our computer graveyard home to a profession within the computer industry. I could finally discern linear progress; hard work and reward I suppose. And that day brought me to a Casio recorder watch: a perfect emblem of then modern tech and sort-of cyberpunk pre-Matrix wild-eye wonder this whole technomancy thing could’ve been. Computers, back when, had given my family a chance. Tech had given us a way. And this watch somehow solidified that wonder. After my mother bought it for me, the dream was personified. How surprised we could afford something new, let alone so futuristic.
But the watch became so much more than an emblem of financial prosperity in my youth, it became the genesis of my obsession with field recording and sampling. With the click of a button you could record mere milliseconds of audio on its crude microphone and set it to alarms. In true Aspektre fashion, I would spend years and years marveling at sequencing the gruff recordings of voice and desk percussion to sequential alarms, or trying to capture my teachers mispronouncing the word epitome as “epi-tome” for sinister reasons known only to me. It was the true genesis of the Aspektre’s Spektre Scepter: A ritual tool utilized to enhance and inspire the prescient creative aspect of myself.
I found the very make and model wildly overpriced on Ebay. And I thought to myself, “What an appropriate Hauntomantik tool that will not only help usher further works within this praxis, but it is also a temporally displaced tether to my past!” How apropos that it was both a time keeper and an instrument— I can’t think of a more symbolic Hauntomantik Spektre Scepter!
However, when it arrived, I found that it was permanently stuck in 1995; unable to change date or time due to a broken button. So utilizing it for a pragmatic purposes was out of the question. And then it dawned on me, holy shit, I was 9 in 1995 when I first obtained it.
This watch is now being utilized to help further the writings of the Hauntomantic works, allowing me a daily exorcism of memory casts when I feel untethered to then. I’ll look down at my Casio Recorder Watch’s displaced time, 1/??/1995, and begin to burrow the brain wrinkles for any parsed quadrant of self displaced then, and allow the memories to build or deconstruct through its guidance.
But it revealed, more so, the need for a culminative ghost, a Prospektre— where is all this going and do I have a say in where it leads? Fittingly the end of the year is approaching, what does the Prospektre of 2025 look like?
What of pragmatic spelunking through creative individuation within specific projects that have an amorphous end within the process of creation? What of free-rhyme and blind-diving? What of Sceptres utilized specifically for the present ASPEKTRE, or aspect of the Self-Spektre, charged to assist in growth, recalibration or even completion of major works? Better yet, what of seasonal sceptres— intentionally haunted talisman casted specifically for an oncoming era of the self-spektre rather than mining the forgotten?
I’m always at the mercy of my hyper-need to ordain and routinize schemata pertaining to the processes I hold dear, and with that I’m experimenting with the Aspektre’s auric energy— the less defined and more emotional— as it relates to a sentiment rather than a time (Spektre) or potential heteronym (Prospektre). Because the present is purely emotional, and to commune with a sentiment of self within the present, well that’s a whole lotta feeling. And I wish to be present, to be enveloped in the mad dash inspiration transfixed within a project’s deep construcktion and craft. And since I have many long-term projekts to consort and console, perhaps more allowance for the art to guide rather than me guiding the art would do my neuroticism some good.
If I was to consort the Prospektre through the Aspektre’s retention to a sort of sentimancy of the moment, to have it bleed into an oncoming era defined by willed intentions not yet sung, I’d need to first surmise what is it that the oncoming era needs to personify. Of course, I define myself through work and processes, so a Gregorian calendar change means little to me unless there is a discography-of-self to show for it. I suppose with pondering the oncoming year means to ponder the multitudes of processes I wish to pursue. After heavy quietus and many aimless walks attempting to reign in focus on just a few of the major works I’ve long toiled with; what needs to end to start anew?
THE PROSPEKTRE OF 2025
The Haunt Manual printed work of my rituals and respective writings (tentatively titled HAUNTOMANCER) could be considered the closest to completion due to the many chapters’ drafts have been posted here, along with the brilliant somatick art Eric Millar has conjured to adorn each chapter of the book, on this very Substack. Although there is much to refine, expound upon and organize with the writing itself, my mind’s eye sees this culminating into an editing and design project on top of extra writing needed to tether it properly. And this can be a trap for the unprepared: futurecasting beyond the next step.
After publishing the Divergent Magick Grimoire I discovered a severe enjoyment of print-design, and the second iteration is currently in the works. This has transferred to the Somatick Arts we are currently publishing via zines, cassette tapes, etc. But not applicable to the Haunt Manual book as it lays now; one’s first book is tangled in the amorphous, one could get caught-up in the laborious computer necessity of designing the printed work, appendices, a lexicon, a custom design language, etc. This is also a heavy computer-integrated prospect, and currently, I’m finding myself less and less motivated by computers— even if it is enjoyable work.
Through heavy calibration of deciding the forthcoming season’s Self-Spektre, I’ve realized just how entangled many Prospektres there are, and with that how much I yearn for focus on the craft of writing itself. Once this season is eclipsed, I can then reform the next stage. But for right now, I need to write.
As someone with hypo-manic generative needs via a multitude of mediums, just writing itself only answers for a part of each day. There is a whole bevvy of other in-progress Prospektres that need casting outside of the Hauntomantik writings, and one major one that not only contends with the culmination of this Hauntomantic Prospektre through true application in art creation itself. And one that has shaped the Hauntomantik Prospektre especially: Audiomancy and Musick.
The Revel Rosz album, Rosz Algol (nee Al Ghul), could have been considered around 70 percent complete earlier this year. Granted, there was still some tracking to do, but I had even sequenced the potential tracklist with in-progress versions to Patreon. However, something has kept me reticent from quick-birthing this album as I have largely done with Dakota Slim albums. I’ve had an intuition that these songs needed continual deconstruction and further exploration, so I came up with the Song Sigil series as a means to release these current versions from the projekt. The first, a single, the second, a song cycle E.P., and both MANY NAMED and KARRAS were slated to adorn the finished album in one version or another. However, I have since forgone the idea that the SONG SIGILS are single versions of tracks on the album. No, the album will be completely different sonickally. I am motivated to further kick against finding a gentle medium between executing the songs live and capturing the performance on the album. I have since redesigned and further developed not only the Dimming Room’s live performance capabilities, but also the Divergent MusickBox (my custom construckted live performance suitcase) to calcify the spectre of this record I’ve always meant to.
NEWFANGLED SPEKTRE SCEPTRES
With the art of writing, thought to script, there are many things standing between you and unadulterated gnoshing at the grey-brain matter through strokes or scribbles. If we look at the tools themselves, pen and paper are forever a more somatic and fruitful expression of the act, however, the process may direct the need to digitize these scribbles if you are formally writing your prose longhand. For me, the pen and notebook are an initiatory step, forever starting there in a clandestine alien scratch to feverishly jot notes and drawings as a means to pre-ordain the mind for focus when I hit the keyboard. And the keyboard and a word processor allows for a backup, consistency, easy flow and QWERTY magicks afforded to us millennial kin that graduated from clunky cubed keys to soft haptic clickity clacks of modern keyboard.
The computer itself is a major harumph with me these days–and considering the distraction engine these nefarious network brains have become is suicidal for focus. So I would think the ability to type freely, and backup work, but be internet-less and distraction free is the optimal scepter for both the HAUNT MANUAL writing and ZOsZObra construktion. But outside of typewriters, which I love, but are hard to travel with, and the 1980s word processors I’m familiar with are largely dead-tech bricks when it comes to file storage, where does one fine a talismanik tool for such a job? A talismanik that has one directive: a traveling ms-dos lite word processing program with a QWERTY aim to cast.
That’s when I found the AlphaSmart Neo. The talismanik device I’ve long waited for that’s been around the whole time I’ve needed one. A full keyboard with USB ability to “send” files through retyping the text in any text editor program. Sure, file back up and transferring needs another laptop, or even a correct adapter with a phone, but discovering the weekly (or so) routine to sip coffee and watch the ghost of your keystrokes reverberate within your home computer is an odd solace I’ve found unto itself.
This very chapter was drafted, warts and all, on the Alphasmart, during a recent trip to LA. But more on that later…
As for musick, the choice was one I’ve long held within the Aspektre of late-night musickal toils. Back in 2006, I released a DAKOTA SLIM album titled, HITHERTO THE AMINALS, an album I largely leave off of the discography due to record label hang-ups and my intense feelings with my vocal performance (far more than others), but one that was created amongst living at the Grandparents’ Ross household as a late teenage mess trying to save money working at The Ribbon Place for a summer before returning to my Portland mess. My scepters at that time were a 60’s Kay electic guitar with poor pickups and a shoddy laptop I was able to learn, run and create the bulk of accompanying original samples and sequences that backed the album. I had never went back to such accompaniment since, not unless I had an Akai MPC I told myself, because of how unreliable laptops were back when. And I could never afford an MPC (and still can’t) so that mouthspell hexed me from diving back into the self-sampling praxis for many years. That is, until, 2017’s CACTUS CROWN.
As with the Casio Watch, I’ve always searched for tools that are both novel and practical. Tools that allow a supremely unique method of creation rather than more bells and whistles. Hardware over software.
In recalibrating my intentions of the Rosz Algol record, as it laid there 70 percent on its way to becoming something, I realized all that I wanted to do was have the untethered freedom to recycle and deconstruct my own recordings to align with the Hauntomantik praxis full-heartedly. The very practice of Hauntomancy began with re-igniting the Spektre of 2017, and with it all the magnanimous temporal discharge that shrouded that quadrant of self. It only makes sense that I would circle back to furthering production methods utilized within the Spektre’s opus, Cactus Crown, while also forgiving and fortifying the Aspektre so heavily charged within the making of my almost 20 year old album, Hitherto The Aminals.
So, the Spektre dissolving my need of computers, the Aspektre echoing with the long-night toils of sample experimentation, and the Prospektre resonating within the utilization of newfangled methods to choreograph anew, I found a laughably affordable MPC. Finally, a compute free, stand-alone hardware-heavy haptic-feedback butto- crunching box of audiomantik experimentations.
HAUNTING THE SPEKTRE-SCEPTER
Imbuing the MPC as a newfangled Spektre Scepter is pretty self-explanatory: having given solace to the past Spektre something it always wanted but never had, the Aspektre the ability to be left free from distraction to roll within the Hauntomantik sample and sequence processes, and construkting the Prospektre of Revel Rosz with largely redefining the debut. Already I have found symbiosis with chopping and screwing my previously recorded drum tracks, or even sampling influential records of my youth (like with Fun Boy 3’s “Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum” viewed below). The Prospektre of Revel Rosz has become more and more corporeal within the Hauntomantik praxis as a whole, and with that, becoming the true generative construkt the Hauntomancy praxis beget:
However, I’ve found the haunting and enlivening of the AlphaSmart Neo processor to be far more illustrative of what a potential Spektre Scepter could be, and will discern a generalized schema for somewhat replicating the potency of future Scepters writ large.
After attaining the Neo, I routinely took it with me and found time to brain vomit through the QWERTY spells whenever a hesitation was allowed throughout the day. And I already felt vindicated through acquiring it for the sheer fact of distraction-free writing alone, but it wasn’t until I took it on an unexpected trip that it truly became a Prospektre Scepter.
My Grandmother Martie passed away at 90 years old this month. Although the inevitable didn’t seem too far from our minds due to her age and health, it was still a shock and brutal grounding exercise all around. I had to travel to Los Angeles again this year for her funeral and decided to bring the Neo with me to test it truly. But what had happened was, in spits of airplane and airBnB writing sessions that drafted this very Haunt Manual chapter, I was instructed to say something at her memorial. So I imbued the Neo with heaviest literary spell of all: a eulogy.
Obviously I do not mean that future Scepters should aim to be charged with something so heavy as a eulogy, but having such a magnanimous memory-sparking hauntomantic exorcise like crafting a eulogy with a new talisman is perhaps the most powerful I’ve come across. For the generalized schema, I would imagine when a talisman is selected to imbue for a Prospektre, the first main creation it should undertake is something heavy and prescient, something honest and form-setting. And having the Neo aid me in the memory dance of an enigmatic figure of my life proved its worth.
It should also be noted that because of the Neo’s need to transfer its writing files to a computer, not having a computer with meant I had to drag this wonderfully gooftastic talisman with me to the lectern as I attempted to read from its small dos-prompt font in front of family I hadn’t seen for ages. It went fine, but I can’t help but also think that having it conduct the somatick act of vocalizing its first true spell, within such serious atmosphere containing my Grandmother’s departed vessel, only imbued with it more truth. And as a writing instrument, especially one chosen to construkt the Prospektre of a written work, imbuing it within the atmosphere of bittersweet truth is a major divinatory process.
To end this chapter, one drafted with the new Spektre Scepter of the Alphasmart Neo, I thought I’d share the true spell that awoken the Hauntomantik praxis within the talisman. This is the eulogy, unedited and fully constructed using the Scepter, written for my Grandmother, who gave a Prospektre life and fixed the familial dramas of the living— even in death.
A EULOGY FOR MARTIE WEINSTEIN
written and unedited with a Spektre-Scepter
Today I’m certain we’re all mired in flashes of memories and stories of Grandma Martie; but more than just memories these are impressions, deep artistic renderings that paint the sinew of such a wonderful person and their tethers to you. In grief we are afforded one beauty, to revel in the memories that our matriarch, Martie, created in each of us. I thought I would take this short time to not only relish in the wonderful family Martie has gifted us Ross’s, but also to talk a little bit about impression itself; about memory itself.
As I walked Venice Beach yesterday I realized something truly beautiful - I realized that every impression left, that in every avatar of Martie in my mind’s eye, Martie radiates a wholly benevolent construct and I marvelled in just how truly rare that it is. That I’ve known Martie as my grandmother since my memory bank was allowed space enough to back things up and as
I cycle through these film cells - whether I conjure up the memories of Martie and I discussing old hollywood celebrities while watching Gene Kelly movies late in her North Hollywood apartment and share in the rapture of that classic movie magic that brought her out here, the memory physically contorts my face into a smile, or when I think of that Kings Road North Hollywood apartment being my bastion of familial connection during my transition out of high school and southern california at 18, my eyes well up in gratitude, or how she would rewrite every restaurant menu in her unapologetic image no matter the cuisine they serve, I laugh. Or how she elicits a benevolent impression so strong that she even speaks through me in an impression of her every time I around a Sizzler restaurant with a (forgive me) “We’ll go to the sizzlah” much to the confusion of whoever may be in my immediate vacinity. The point is that her impression is so strong that she physically changes us when she pops up. That’s incredible.
I won’t pontificate on the spiritual aspects of an afterlife here, there are far better hatted persons to travel that terrain here, but I will say that we do know a literal form exists - it exists within these impressions, these memories, within everyone you touch. It’s an impossible ask, to create nothing but benevolence within the impressions you leave to us, but if Martie taught me anything, it’s that these impressions, be they funny, meaningful, or warming, are gifts that can physically change you when you need it the most. She’s still rewriting menus and watching gene kelly movies in the room I keep for her. And I promise, Martie, I won’t fuck up my relationship with Mary.
R∴K∴R∴
12/21/2024
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