The article talks about ‘movement’ as alternative word for ‘exercise’, but I don’t know if that’s entirely nessisary. I think the key thing I personally took away was something I think I’ve been feeling for years. The gym is a fucking boring place.

When I think about it. It makes sense. I’ve already dealing with repetitive boring tedium all day sitting on my ass for 8 hours plus. Why do I subject myself to MORE boring tedium after work? It may be in the name of ‘exercise’ and ‘fitness’ and all that jazz, but when I absolutely DREAD going, and feel like I’m dragging myself off to be shot in the head. It isn’t really positive, and I’m paying for this privilege?

People say they feel great after the gym, invigorated, and all that. Generally I just want to get done as absolutely fast as I can to leave. It stinks. Its dusty and hard to breathe, I have to fight to get on the machines I need to do my little hamster routine. I had more fun walking my dog through the woods for two hours than I ever have next to the sweaty creepy guy at the gym on the elliptical machine. Every minute I’m in there I’m just “Ah! Get it over with!!” Of course when you go with people, you are also at the mercy of whatever their workout is, so even if you are done, they may not be. Let the standing around awkwardly commence.

I have this love hate relationship with physical activity. I’m not a fit person. I never have been overtly fit, although I have been more fit at some time than others, although I’ve never been fit on account of ‘going to the gym’. The only time I’ve been ‘fit’ was as a result of my lifestyle or job. For about three months I carried books door to door in various locations around Downtown vancouver. I hoofed it many KMs a day in high heels with a huge backpack stuffed with books. I did this for something on the order of 8-9 hours a day. In three months, I was pretty svelt. I also had a nervous breakdown and was in writhing pain in my hips, as I already suffer hip displacement, you can no doubt guess that this little activity absolutely ruined my hips. And then there’s the other part. Since I was 13, I lived in a place heated by a wood burning stove. From the age of 13 to 25ish, I hauled wood, every day, without fail from the back woods of the acreage I lived on. A lot of wood. We did a lot of yard work. I remember this one summer that I worked with my family on clearing and deforesting a portion of the yard, we worked from 9 am to 5pm every day, doing nothing but hauling wood, branches, and debris. Again, another summer I was built like a brick house.

However, I do not find yard work to be fun in the least. I hate gardening. I hate lawn mowing, and I can’t grow anything to save my life. Even my fiance has forbade me to have plants. I don’t like walking around delivering books.. I did it because I had to. Much like the gym. I do it because I have to. Not because I want to.

At the gym, its boring as fuck, but I know I’m not going to hurt myself if I stick to my little routine and don’t deviate too much. Its safe.. safe and boring as the grave. But if I try to play sports, even Frisbee in the summer, there’s a good chance of me pulling something (hip or shoulder) as I have done many times, although admittedly its much less boring and a lot more fun. Although living in a place where it rains 90% of the time, there’s not a lot of opportunity for outdoor sports unless you like being wet. Being wet is only acceptable to me in a swimming pool. And while I like swimming, its expensive to travel and fighting for lanes or even a few cubic meters of space in a public pool is not my idea of fun. I loved swimming in lakes and even the ocean when I’ve had the chance, but its… very cold to do so here save perhaps a month out of the year, and I don’t own wetsuits, nor could I afford them. Or scuba lessons, or any of that jazz. I like to ski, but my left leg is often too swollen to fit my boots and the cost of getting up a mountain (if there’s snow) and the time is challenging. Skiing really is a rich person’s sport, and I’m dirty poor.

I’ve never really liked or been good at any of the usual sports. Basketball, I’m too short and my shoulder’s buggered. Baseball, I can’t throw worth a damn and catching really isn’t that active unless you happen to be on first base. I remember playing outfield so I could stand there and not do anything in gym class. I can’t run due to my hips. I can walk forever, but its really not challenging where I live now to walk around the area. I used to walk through forests and up mountain trails. Too many people, too flat, too much pavement, and challenging walks are too far away to do on a daily basis. I’d have to drive there and drive back… and the gym is closer. Not to mention, you only get to walk on a single trail. There’s no variety. Honestly, you can probably name a sport, and I’ll tell you why I don’t do it. Maybe its excuse making but if … movement is supposed to be fun, and its highly individual, then why the fuck don’t I have SOMETHING I enjoy that’s physical?

The thing I’ve found the most fun (at least recently) is Dance Dance Revolution. A video game, sadly enough, although its got that physical ‘dance’ component. Its the one thing that I can do that’s aerobic and gets me sweating that I can do for hours and it feels like only a very short time. Sadly, i can’t do it because the people I live with get annoyed because the only place I can play is in the living room. I’ve pondered getting up at 6am to DDR, but the neighbors might shoot me. Ah, the joys of townhouse living, namely sharing walls.

Admittedly, I’ve got the attention span of a hyperactive nat when it comes to physical activity. I don’t do ‘routine’ well, and its an exercise in futility to make me ‘enjoy’ the gym, or any sort of ‘regular’ activity. In my own little world, if I didn’t have anyone else to accommodate, I would probably do whatever came into my little head. Maybe I’d do yoga one day, play wii fit the next, dick around with an exercise ball the day after that, DDR whenever I felt like for as long as I felt like. But, I don’t. With people around you that want routine, that either can’t, don’t want to, or find it annoying what you are doing or laugh openly at your spontaneous need to dance while cooking, its hard to find ways to be creatively active and not be ridiculed, or find ways to include others in that without it becoming regular and monotonous.

I’m not sure of “movement” is really the best term for being active (as suggested by the article), considering I ‘move’ to the bathroom. I ‘move’ from the office to my car. I ‘move’ from the couch to the bathroom, and its not the kind of ‘movement’ that really the article wanted to emphasize. I think activity is a better word to be honest. We need vigorous activity. Not ‘exercise’, but activity. Brain activity, physical activity, social activity, spiritual activity, and other sorts of activity. We need to be active in more than just one way at a time. I’m mentally active at work, but I sit on my ass. I’m physically active at the gym, but my brain flatlines. We need cross stimulating activities in our daily lives to make us feel less… well dead inside. And I’m not talking about activities like world of warcraft… unless of course you’ve created a LARP group that is having mock sword fights and running around in heavy armor for the sake of having fun. That’s pretty heavy physical activity to swing a sword and run around in armor… Oh, did I say LARP? Shit, my geek is showing. Sorry guys.

Originally written by Kevin Kelly, the 1000 true fans theory states in a nutshell that if you want to make a living off your creative genious on the internet, you need to cultivate “1000 true fans”. A true fan being defined as someone who is so zealous about your work, they’d buy everything 10 times over, even your belly button lint if it was sold on Ebay. Basically someone who truely is ‘fanatical’ about what you are doing. This post turned out to be a pretty hot topic across many blogs, which even prompted further posts, against, defending, and comparing to similar theories, even some temperance from reality of doing it. Go ahead, read it, come back. You’ll need to know what I’m talking about for the rest of this post.

Although the vast majority of the examples and applications have been to music, its been put to other creative diciplines, from writing, to painting, to comics, to business. But I have to say, personally, as a webcomic artist, it intrigues me.

This is not to say I think this is the be all and and end all solution to the age old dilemma ‘how do I make money with my webcomic’, but rather a bridge. A goal to get from your day job to making your living on the web by providing direction and a target number.

The nice thing about this theory is that it sounds easy and friendly. Initially reading it, I caught myself going ‘1000? that sounds doable’, especially on the internet right? I mean there’s millions of people on the internet. Finding and keeping 1000 people around who worship your stuff shouldn’t be too hard just on odds alone. But as I thought about it, and did some math in my head (although admittedly I suck in math.. so take it as you will), it became a little more… shall we say, challenging?

I’m only talking webcomics in this post, to be clear, my numbers are based on my experience in webcomics and being involved in the webcomic community.

A ‘True fan’ according to the principle, is someone who is SO crazy about your stuff, they will buy ANYTHING you put out. In the terms of a webcomic, they own every shirt, even book, ever button, the UNDERWEAR, win art auctions regularly enough you know their screen name, donate regularly, and hassle their friends to buy your stuff. They are the sort of fan that asks ‘when do I pay?’ when you are still talking about a hypothetical product. I’ll tell you right now, these people are RARE. Rare enough that when you’ve got one, you will come to know them as good friends or on the flipside someone you dread but smile for because they help pay your bills. At any rate, these people are your bread and butter, and collecting them is quite a challenge, because they have a pretty high upkeep, and there are all sorts of challenges involved in paying that upkeep. These people, at most are only going to make up maybe 1% of your total fanbase.

Now, with every true fan, comes a gaggle of what I like to call  just ‘fans’. People who like your work enough to follow it regularly, have probably saved every comic to their hard drive, and maybe have bought one thing here or there from your store, or are very patiently waiting for a product offering they feel is actually worth money. They participate in forums, polls, comment on your comics, etc. Overall they like you, they might follow your work for years, but they aren’t yet paying customers. Or at least not regularly paying customers.  These people aren’t a huge group either, but there are more of them. Say 5% of your fanbase.

Out side of THAT level, there is what I like to call ‘casual fans’. These are people who like your stuff enough to follow it, to read it, maybe not regularly, but they like what they see. You figure on their entertainment radar, but they are just not invested in you for whatever reason. They are the sort of fan that might check back every month, or couple of months, and read through whatever you’ve posted, or maybe even as little as once a year. They might not even remember the author’s name, or only sort of vaguely recall the actual work. But they remember they liked it.  However, you still have the foot in the door, in that they know your work, and they might like it, but something is holding them back from moving ‘inward’ towards being a ‘fan’. They are pretty much everyone else.

On the very outskirts of your ‘circle of influence’ as it were, there’s the rest of the whole damn internet and planet, just waiting for you to tap.

This basically boils the 1000 fans theory down to the general consensus that, of ANY fan base, only about 1% is going to reliably spend money on something. And of that only a percentage again is going to buy everything you do. Its a really tiny number, and its REALLY freaking hard to get exact numbers of fans over the internet. You can get a clue, but never really know every life you’ve touched.

Here’s an actual example of the above math:

With comic rank, I get an idea of how many readers I have for my comic, Brymstone. My highest number was about 1400 or so. With that number, the amount that are ‘fans’ that might spend money is 70.  The amount of people who probably WOULD spend money is approximately 14.  If I was making a sales projection for  merchandise this would tell me ‘don’t make a lot of it’.

You know, this type of math makes things more depressing. However, this does provide me with a sort of target number, and working in the marketing industry, I really like target numbers.

In terms of a webcomic, this generally means steady traffic of numbers in the 100,000s on a daily basis. If you are getting over 100,000 uniques a day (or better), the chances of you actually having 1000 true fans in the mix, is pretty good. And even if your true fans are a little scarce, the ability to ‘convert’ from the fans to true fans, is better the more fans and casual fans you have. But you do have to work on that whole ‘conversion’ process. Matthew Ebel is champion at this. You have to make people CARE about not only the work, but you as a person as well. People help people they like, and your true fans, you have to treat them like friends. Good friends. Special friends. Personal friends.

This is a very important part of this theory. It is based a lot on new media making this possible through facebook, twitter, blogging, whatever. These people have to feel close to you to spend money 0n you. Cultivating these fans is like growing a garden, they must be tended lovingly, gently, and often with frequent nutruring of webcomicy (in our case) goodness. You can’t let them forget, and you can’t disappoint them too much, or they will cease to be true fans.

This is sort of part of the catch 22 of this. It takes a lot of time and effort to cultivate these fans. How do you find time for this if one of the secondary key points to this theory of success is creating new content? And as often as humanly possible.

Let’s face it. Content is king. The way people come to your site, the whole REASON they come is your content. Be it writing, comics, music, or whatever, the people come when you update. So in order to keep people coming, to keep their interest high, and nuture the want to buy shit from you, there has to be a regular stream of content flowing out of your website. Not only THAT, but a regular stream of merchandise too. If you want to keep the true fans spending, you have to keep coming up with new things to spend stuff on! No one wants 12 of the same shirt. Also, not every thing you make is going to be consumer gold. You’re going to have a lot of misses to your hits, so you have to be prolific. If you look at those who are succeeding in this theory, the are, for the most part, extremely prolific. We’re talking weekly content here people. AT THE VERY LEAST.

For webcomics, this isn’t entirely bad news. We are kind of used to putting out on a weekly, bi-weekly, or tri-weekly basis, some people are daily, or 5x a week. The more you update, the more people come back, the more your stuff gets known. In my experience, anything less than 1X a week, and you’ll be struggling. Regularity is also a huge key for the webcomic industry, you need to hit those update days if you are serious about growing your fanbase.

Although that’s not obviously the ONLY thing you need to do, as Robert Rich points out in his letter to Kevin Kelly, you can’t limit yourself to only fishing in one pond for fans. You can’t pander to one group forever, or even one set of tastes forever or you are setting yourself up for a sort of creative suicide. For webcomics, a lot of creators don’t reach past existing webcomic readers, cannibalizing over and over otherwebcomic’s audiences. The comics that really succeed have to bridge the gaps between subcultures, and into untapped markets. Webcomic creators that see opportunity in non-webcomic places and seize that are the ones who usually blaze their way to some kind of quazi success. Daily funny type comics tend to do this more easily that serial manga, which is probably why one sees more success with the daily. I’ll write more on that bitch later.

But on a whole, the theory, if you can wrangle and convert 1000 people into being true fans, you can make money. Maybe not enough to make a luxurious living, but a living. And obviously once you’ve got the first 1000, you have to continue adding and converting, because ultimate people on the internet have attention spans that are about the equivalent to that of a ferret with ADD on speed and drowning in coffee.

Anyway, I’ve been making webcomics for years, I started way back in the beginning before webcomics were a big deal. Back when the idea was still novel, and having your own website was all the rage. Today, it has evolved into a highly competitive content industry where people can actually making a LIVING doing it. But how do you get started? This is my first in a series of posts about making webcomics.

Contrary to popular belief, making a webcomic really isn’t hard. The essence of the thing is make some sequential art and post it on the internet. With services like DrunkDuck and SmackJeeves, its dead fucking easy. You don’t even need to know HTML or anything. Sign up for a service, click upload, upload comic jpg, and voila, instant webcomic.

However, making a GOOD webcomic that’s going to stand out in today’s increasingly crowded webcomic landscape is a completely different question. And with the wealth of increasingly awesome comics out there, unlike just a scant five years ago, you really have to kick up your game and have a plan if you want to get noticed.

As a potentially aspiring webcomic creator, you may be wondering, if you want to put your best foot forward, how the heck do you get started?

Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

In the case of webcomics, and indeed anything you intend to go anywhere with, its best to have a plan. If you are going to start a business, you start with a Business Plan. If you were going to make a movie, you’d start with a script at the very least. When you plan a trip, you get out a road map. Making a comic is no different. You should have a plan. At the very least, a script or summary with a direction you want to go.

If you are just sort of futzing around with the idea, you may be interested in making money at this point, but just publishing for exposure or for the love of sharing your stories/art. This is a different goal than making a marketable webcomic you can make a living off of. Both require different sorts of planning. One is less involved than the other, but both so require some thought. Lets address the more hobbiest aspect of the craft, and we’ll worry about the heavy stuff where money is involved a little later. After all, if you can’t handle webcomics at a hobby level, you probably won’t make it at the money level.

At this point, when you’ve decided to make a webcomic, you need to consider a few more basic parameters:

Format - Is this going to be a strip type comic or a serial manga?  Both have their own challenges associated with writing and production.

Medium – Digital or traditional? Color or black and white? These factors will affect how you make your comic and how you get it on the internet.

Frequency - how often can you produce a completed page? This becomes important when you decide how often you can update.

Place – Do you want to put it on a domain you already own as a subdomain? Do you want it to have its own domain and hosting? or do you want to be a part of a free site? or a free site with your own scripts? This will affect how people find you, and how you can advertise your site and what sorts of promotional tools you can use and access. Your technical knowledge of the internet, php, html, rss, and other interesting techie acronyms will be tested here. Can you even design a website?

How long? – How long do you want to be doing this? Is it a one shot deal?  A single story with 30? 50? 200 pages? Is it an ongoing strip with no real beginning or end? Is it a finite story with multiple books? Is a series of short stories? Deciding how long or short your story is gives you the ability figure out timelines. If this is your first webcomic, I tend to suggest a shorter format before working on your opus, as it seems 98% of long form webcomics are never finished. I’d say less than 50% live past 50 pages.

Artist or Writer? - Usually, most people who do webcomics are one or the other. Not to say that if you are an artist you can’t become a writer or vice versa, but knowing your strengths lets you also address your weaknesses. If you can’t draw, but write well, you will probably have no trouble coming up with a story, although you may run into trouble turning it into a comic script, as you really have to cut down your words. The other problem you will probably have is actually creating visuals. You are going to have to learn to draw, hire an artist, use a program, or create some kind of crutch to get by. Artists learning to write can produce the visuals, but their stories are often not that well thought out, crude, and not always well executed. Since a lot of the draw of a comic hinges on the story, the artist would benefit taking the time to properly develop their story and script (and have it proofread & revised a few times by actual writers) before setting to creating visuals.

Recruit help – Even the most seasoned, awesome, amazing webcomic creators need a little help from their friends from time to time. Most become involved with the webcomic communities online in some way or another. Be it advice on plot, to help with webdesign, to artistic tips and tricks in photoshop, there’s lots of help to be had to anyone who asks. Places like the drunkduck forums are a good place to start if you are new. I’ll update this area with more resources as I track them down. But the long and short is, if you need help, don’t be afraid to use google and ask. Most creators are happy to share advice or point you to people who can help.

Equipment – You will need some actual STUFF to make comics. If you are working traditionally, you’ll at least need access to a scanner to get things into the computer. Many creators start with a pen and paper, and then scan it in and add text and such later. I’ll cover artistic process in detail in the next article. Some artists prefer an entirely digital route using an input device such as a Wacom tablet. Many use programs to aid this, including some such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and MangaStudio. Others use free programs such as GIMP or Pixia. I’ll work on providing a more complete list in another article.

Once you’ve made the above decisions, acquired equipment and connections, and you’ve got yourself a script in hand, its time to actually start making comics. Unfortunately, this takes time and work. I highly suggest that you make a buffer of comics before you consider putting them online. I use a guideline of 30 comics before debut, but you could probably start with 10, but I wouldn’t launch a comic site with anything less. Doing 30 comics gives you a good chance to get to know your own work speed, and to do refinements. Once its up, its up, and people see it. If you make a spelling mistake or need to change it, its easier to do it BEFORE you’ve launched to the world. (although the nice thing about the web is you CAN change it, as opposed to dead tree format, where you can’t.)

( I will update and flesh some areas out more as I get more articles written. )

And with 2010, I’m sweeping out the old, and turning over the new. A new leaf that is.. well sorta. Read on, as if you are an old time Shadowsden patron, this is going to affect you. If you are here mostly because you like what I do artistically, then you might be pleased.

I’ve decided that I am no longer going to offer spiritual content on this site. After over 12 years of being involved in it, I’ve decided I’m tired of most of the BS that goes on. While the site is still here I’m changing its focus back to a personal website for me, showcasing my current interests and projects, such as my art, webcomic stuff, tutorials, photoshop stuff, creative writing, roleplaying resources/worldbuilding, and other random shit that might come into my brain.

You might ask ‘ but why Myst? Why give up after you’ve been running this site for so long?”

Well,  not only has it been half assed for many years, and practically barren for at least the last like.. 3 years. But I realized that there was more content I COULD be putting here, if I wasn’t chained to the old spiritual stuff. And I also realized that I don’t really have an interest in sharing that much anymore, I’m quite happy these days to keep my spiritual stuff mostly private. Oh I may still post the occasional musing on dreams or tarot card drawings, but for the most part, I think I’m largely done. I’m kind of sick of paying for hosting for a site that was dying for the most part anyway. Most of the people I really cared about have slipped quietly into the night on this side of their lives anyway, and the people I know I still have conversations with.. well.. that isn’t going to change. The forums still are up if you were a part of them, but you may notice a few missing forums. That area will get overhauled in time, right now I’m going to focus on creating new content. Probably to start with a lot of crap on webcomics and art, and then move on from there.
Anyway, here’s to 2010. Huzzah.

Transformation Rituals

The rituals listed here were gathered from various sources around the net, credited as they have been found. I do not make any claims to the effectivness of these rituals or validation in their claims to bestow the abilities of the werewolf.

The following rituals were found on the Werewolf Page.

Ritual #1
Drawing a circle from seven to nine feet in radius, in the center of which a wood fire is kindled- The wood selected being black poplar, pine or larch never ash. A fumigation in an iron vessel, heated over the fire, is then made out of a mixture of any four or five of the following substances:
Note: The substances involved in this ritual have been withheld by The Werewolf Page because of the harm that may caused by obtaining and/or ingesting them.

As soon as the vessel is placed over the fire so that it can heat, the person ho would invoke the spirit that can bestow upon him the property of metamorphosing into a wolf kneels within the circle, and prays a preliminary impromptu prayer. He then resorts to an incantation.

“Hail, Hail, Hail, great wolf spirit, Hail!
A boon I ask thee, mighty shade.
Within this circle I have made.
Make me a werewolf strong and bold.
The terror alike of young and old.
Grant me a figure tall and spare;
The speed of the elk, the claws of the bear;
The poison of snakes, the wit of the fox;
The stealth of the wolf, the strength of the ox;
The jaws of the tiger, the teeth of the shark;
The eyes of a cat that sees in the dark;
Make me climb like a monkey, scent like a dog;
Swim like a fish, and eat like a hog.
Haste, Haste, Haste, lonely spirit, Haste!
Here, wan and drear, magic spell making,
Findest thou me – shaking, quaking.
Softly fan me as I lie.
And thy mystic touch apply.
Touch apply, and I swear that when I die,
When I die, I will serve thee evermore,
Evermore, in grey wolf land, cold and raw.”

The incantation concluded, the supplicant then kisses the ground three times, and advances to the fire, takes off the iron vessel, and whirling it smoking round his head, cries out;

“Make me a werewolf! Make me a xxx-eater!
Make me a werewolf! Make me a xxxxx-eater!
Make me a werewolf! Make me a xxxxx-eater!
I pine for blood! xxxxx blood!
Give it to me! Give it to me tonight!
Great Wolf Spirit! Give it to me, and heart, body, and soul, I am yours!”

The trees begin to rustle, and the wind begins to moan, and out of the sudden darkness that envelops everything glows the tall, cylindrical, pillar-like phantom of the Unknown, seven or eight feet in height. It sometimes develops further, and assumes the form of a tall, thin monstrosity, half human and half animal, grey and nude, with very long legs and arms, and the feet and claws of a wolf, but surrounded with the hair of a women, that falls about its bare shoulders in yellow ringlets. It has wolf’s ears and a wolf’s mouth. Its aquiline nose and pale eyes are fashioned like those of a human being, but animated with an expression too diabolically malignant to proceed from anything but the super-physical. It seldom ever speaks, but either utters some extraordinary noise-a prolonged howl that seems to proceed from the bowels of the earth, a piercing, harrowing whine, or a low laugh of hellish glee, any of which sounds may be taken for its assent to the favour asked. It only remains visible for a minute at the most, and then disappears with startling abruptness. The supplicant is now a werewolf. He undergoes his first metamorphoses into wolf form the following evening at sunset, reassuming his human shape at dawn; and so on, day after day, till his death, when he may once more metamorphose either from man form or wolf form, or vice versa, his corpse retaining which ever form assumed at the moment of death. As far as I know from this process once a werewolf always a werewolf is an inviolable rule.

Ritual #2
Make a magic circle on the ground, at twelve o’clock, on a night on a night when the moon is full (one of about seven feet in diameter is most appropriate) in the center of the circle, a wood fire, heating thereon an iron vessel containing one pint of clear spring water, and any seven of the following substances;
Note: The substances involved in this ritual have been withheld by The Werewolf Page because of the harm that may caused by obtaining and/or ingesting them.

Whilst the mixture is heating, the experimenter prostrates himself in front of the fire and prays to the Great Spirit of the Unknown to confer on him the property of metamorphosing, nocturnally, into a werewolf. His prayers take no one particular form, but are quite extempore; though he usually adds to them some such recognized incantation as:

“Come, spirit so powerful! come, spirit so dread.
From the home of the werewolf, the home of the dead.
Come, Give me thy blessing! come, lend me thine ear!
Oh spirit of darkness! oh spirit so drear!
Come, mighty phantom! come, great Unknown!
Come from thy dwelling so gloomy and lone.
Come, I beseech thee; depart from thy lair.
And body and soul shall be thine, I declare.
Haste, Haste, Haste, horrid spirit, Haste!
Speed, Speed, Speed, scaring spirit, speed!
Fast, Fast, Fast, fateful spirit, fast!”

He then makes the following formal declaration:

“I (insert name) offer to thee, Great spirit of the Unknown, this night of (insert date) my body and soul, on condition that thou grantest me, from this night to the hour of my death, the power of metamorphosing, nocturnally, into a wolf. I beg, I pray, I implore thee-Thee, unparalleled Phantom of Darkness, to make me a werewolf, a werewolf”!

And striking the ground three times with his forehead, he gets up. As soon as the concoction in the vessel is boiling, he dips a cup into it, and sprinkles the contents on the ground, repeating the action until he has sprinkled the whole interior of the circle. Then he kneels on the ground close to the fire, and in a loud voice cries out:

“Come, oh Come!”

And, if he is fortunate, a phantom manifests itself over the fire. Sometimes the phantom is indefinite – a cylindrical, luminous, pillar-like thing, about seven feet in height, having no discernible features: sometimes it assumes a definite shape, and appears either as a monstrous hooded figure with a death’s hood, or as a sub-human, sub-animal type of elemental. Whatever form the Unknown adopts, it is invariably terrifying. It never speaks, but indicates its assent by stretching out an arm, or what serves as an arm, and then disappears. It never remains visible for more than half a minute. As soon as it vanishes, the supplicant, who is always half mad with terror, springs from the ground and rushes home, or anywhere to get again within the reach of human beings. By the morning, however, all his fears have departed; and at sunset he creeps off into the forest, or into some equally secluded spot, to experience, for the first time, the extraordinary sensations of metamorphosing into a wolf, or, perhaps, a semi-wolf, i.e., a creature half man and half wolf; for the degree of metamorphosis varies according to locality. Though it is at sunset that the change most usually takes place the transmutation back to man generally occurring at dawn.

Ritual#3
There are conditions of mind essential to those who would successfully practice these rites. It is necessary that the person desirous of acquiring the property of lycanthropy should be in earnest and a believer in those super-physical powers whose favor he is about to ask. Such an individual must betake himself to a spot remote from the haunts of men. The powers to be petitioned are not to be found promiscuously anywhere. They favour only such waste and solitary places as the deserts, woods, and mountain tops. The locality chosen, the candidate must next select a night when the moon is new and strong. He must then choose a perfectly level piece of ground, and on it at midnight, he must mark, either with chalk or string, a circle of not less than seven feet in radius, and within this, and from the same center, another circle of three feet in radius. Then in the center of this inner circle he must kindle a fire, and over the fire place an iron tripod containing an iron vessel of water. As soon as the water begins to boil the would be lycanthropist must throw into it handfuls of any three of the following substances:
Note: The substances involved in this ritual have been withheld by The Werewolf Page because of the harm that may caused by obtaining and/or ingesting them.

While repeating the following incantation:

“Spirits from the deep, who never sleep, be kind to me.
Spirits from the grave, without a soul to save , be kind to me.
Spirits of the trees, that grow upon the leas, be kind to me.
Spirits of the air, foul and black, not fair, be kind to me.
Spirits of the dead, that glide with noiseless tread, be kind to me
Spirits of heat and fire, destruction in your ire, be kind to me.
Spirits of cold and ice, phantoms of crime and vice, be kind to me.
Wolves, Vampires, Satyrs, Ghosts!
Elect of all the devilish hosts!
I pray you send hither, send hither, send hither
The great grey shape that makes men shiver!
Shiver, shiver, shiver!
Come, come, come!”

The supplicant then takes off his vest and shirt and smears his body with the magic salve. Then he binds round his loins a girdle made of wolf’s skin, and kneeling down within the circumference of the first circle, waits for the advent of the Unknown. When the fire burns blue and quickly dies out. The Unknown is about to manifest itself; if it does not actually appear it will make its presence felt. The spirit advent may be; a deep unnatural silence immediately proceeding it sometimes, sometimes crashes and bangs, groaning and shrieking, herald its approach. When it remains invisible its presence is indicated and accompanied by a sensation of abnormal cold and the most acute terror. It is sometimes visible in the guise of a huntsman sometimes in the form of a monstrosity, partly man and partly beast, and sometimes it is ill defined and only partially materialized. To what order of spirits it belongs is, of course purely a matter of conjecture. It is some malevolent, super-physical, creative power, such as, participated largely in the creation of theirs and other planets. It is not the Devil. It is difficult to say to what extent. The Unknown is believed to be powerful by those who approach it for the purpose of acquiring the gift of lycanthropy; it is not ascribed to be any supreme power, but is regarded as merely a local spirit, the spirit of some particular wilderness or forest.

Regarding the New Moon, psychic influences are demonstrated by the position of the planets. For instance, at new moon, cusp of seventh house, and conjoined with Saturn in opposition to Jupiter, sinister super-physical presence’s are much in evidence on the earth.

Lycanthropous Water Ceremony
A Norwegian or Swedish peasant when he wishes to become a werewolf, kneels by the side of a lycanthropous stream at midnight, having chosen a night when the moon is in the full, incants these words:

“Tis night! Tis night! and the moon shines white over pine and snow capped hill. The shadows stray through burn and brae and dance in the sparkling rill.”
Tis night! Tis night! and the devils light casts glimmering beams around. The maras dance, the nisses prance on the flower enameled ground.”
Tis night! Tis night! and the the werewolf’s might makes man and nature shiver.
Yet its fierce grey head and stealthy tread are nought to thee, oh river!
River, River, River
Oh water strong, that swirls along I prithee a werewolf make me.
Of all things dear, my soul, I swear, In death shall not forsake thee.”

The supplicant then strikes the banks of the river three times with his forehead; then dips his head into the river thrice, at each dip gulping down a mouthful of the water.

Concludes ceremony, he has become a werewolf, and twenty-four hours later will undergo the first metamorphosis.

Lycanthropous water is said, by those who dwell near to it, to differ from other water in subtle details only, detail that would, in all probability, escape the notice of all who were not connoisseurs of the superphysical. A strange, faint odour, comparable with nothing, distinguishes lycanthropous water; there is a lurid sparkle in it, stongly suggestive of some peculiar, individual life; the noise it makes, as it rushes along, so closely resembles the muttering and whispering of human voices as to be often mistaken for them; whilst at night it sometimes utters piercing screams, and howls, and groans in such a manner as to terrify all who pass near it. Dogs and horses, in particular, are susceptible to its influence and they exhibit the greatest signs of terror of the mere sound of it.
(Thanks to Wolfgang)

Lycanthropous Flowers
Pluck and wear after sunset, and on a night when the moon is full. Lycanthropous flowers, no less than lycanthropous water, possess properties peculiar to themselves; properties which are, probably, only discernible to those who are well acquainted with them. Their scent is described as faint and subtly suggestive of death, whilst their sap is rather offensively white and sticky. In appearance they are much the same as other flowers, and are usually white and yellow.
(Thanks to Wolfgang)

This ritual was found in this Dark Corner. I believe it actually is pertaining to vampires becoming werewolves…but it might be of interest..

The Rite of the Werewolf

-Mental Lycanthropy and the summoning of Shadows -

The altar can be either within a home or in the woods. Upon the altar should rest bones of the dead and two black candles and two red candles, above the Wamphyri – Varcolaci Pentagram (A Sigil of the Black Order of the Dragon). With your mind draw one circle anti-clockwise that it might fit a man within.

“From the will of that which is Satan I call the Demonic powers of the Wolf
Shadows demons I call to thee! One spirit shall rise through this circle -
One chosen of the Demonic hordes I evocate thee to bring forth the Gray Beast which makes all tremble, by my will and will to power I will become WEREWOLF! Phantoms of Darkness I now invocate thee -
they likeness is to be within and through my Vampyric Will I implement the power of Satan.”

With your mind focus upon the transformation. Feel each muscle as it stretches, grows stronger, more beastlike. Rough gray hair grows through the skin as the flesh itself turns ghost white and the face blackens. The bones stretch and begin to form a beast between a man and wolf. The face warps into a long snout which holds many razor sharp fangs. The fingers stretch and fold into Talons, cruel to the flesh they Shred.. Feel now the pleasure of the Werewolf, go out into the night and taste the pleasures of the Will.

SO IT IS DONE

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From ‘Strange Monsters and Madmen’ by Warren Smith. 1969,

Ritual for a Werewolf

“A werewolf is the legendary man-beast with the alleged ability to instantly transform itself into a killer animal. This murderous metamorphosis is supposed to occur at midnight, preferably in the deepest reaches of some dark forest. Legends claim the transformed wolfman is then driven by a lusting, carniverous appetite. Medieval manuscripts have disclosed the rituals used by the ancients to call the dark powers of werewolfdom.
The supplicant must select a level piece of ground and wait until the light of a new moon burns brightly. At midnight, a seven foot circle is chalked on the earth with a three-foot circle inscribed inside. At the exact center of the two circles, at a spot marked with a white “X” , The candidate lights a black candle. Arrangements completed, the supplicant who seeks the evil powers of werewolfery must chant:

‘Spirits of the dead, with souls of lead, hear me.
‘Spirits of the grave, you Devil’s slaves, hear me.
‘Spirits of the air, from the wolves’ lair, hear me.
‘Spirits of the Devil, with deeds so evil, hear me.
‘Spirits of hell’s fire, angry with ire, hear me.
‘Wolves, vampires, ghosts and ghouls,
‘Make me one of your evil tools.
‘Send me yon, send me hither,
‘In a shape to make men quiver!
‘Shiver, shiver, shiver!
‘Come, Werewolves, come!

Chant completed, the applicant must crouch inside the circle to undergo the terrible transformation. The change should start when the candle flame burns blue. The old manuscripts usually ended their descriptions of the ritual by stating, ‘the reader must beware calling up the powers of darkness because the werewolf is always killed by a silver stake, or a silver bullet!.’”

Other things that could make you a werewolf in mythology includes:

1. Being bitten by a werewolf
2. Eating a wolf’s brain
3. Eating the meat of a sheep that has been killed by a wolf
4. Drinking from the paw print of a wolf; or drink out of a pool of water that a wolf frequents.
5. Tasting human flesh
6. Eating roasted wolf flesh
7. Wearing or smelling of wolfbane
8. Wearing a garment made of a wolf pelt
9. Wearing a belt made of the skin of an executed criminal.