‘I’m making my own absinthe,’ I told a few friends at a conference in Oulu, Finland this week, ‘and I always use the sacred to the Finns spirit, aka 60 percent Koskenkorva Vodka.’

What I should have said is that I don’t just make absinthe. I ritualize the making of it, so that when I will finally drink it, I will drink the gods.

As tonight the Dark Moon is approaching her conjunction with the Sun, also conjunct the fixed star Algol, I thought that it was a good time to ask for something.

Not many want to approach this star, as it has a way of making heads disappear. In astrological cosmology Algol, Ras al Ghul, or the Demon Star, is the head of the Gorgon Medusa. Perseus decapitated her simply because she was a terrible monster, turning anyone who would gaze onto her into stone.

Of course, Medusa…