Anti's Digital Grimoire

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

[punissuer]

ID / TL;DW: young Black man explains the history of voodoo dolls: they originated in England, where Black people where prohibited from learning to read or write, to help witches keep track of what ailed their patients. Eg., person goes to witch and laments headache, they treat their headache and make a small doll (called "poppet"), trying to represent them as good as possible, stick a needle in its head and put it up a shelf. When they return next week, the witch takes their poppet and asks about their headache. If it's gone, they remove the needle, otherwise they know they have to treat a rather persistent headache.

[tartrazeen]

I'm just gonna freeze-frame this for everybody:

[vitterdotter]

no more divine feminine/masculine as repackaged gender roles, no more crystals to cure cancer, no more higher self instead of looking at yourself, no more starseeds, no more fear mongering around protection magic, no more calling toxicity "energy vampirism", no more applying new age terms to folk practices, no more anthropomorphizing spirits, no more

[buriedpentacles]

Reminder that if you're asking spirits to help you with something long-term (i.e. protecting your home, bringing in job opportunities etc) it can be good practice to have an agreement on "rest" and "finished" commands. I.e.

"When I tell you that it is time to sleep, return to your vessel and rest until I ask you to continue again."

"When I tell you that your work is done, I will thank you with an offering and our relationship is completed so you may leave my space."

Signed, someone who forgot to do this and had an unhappy spirit asking where their offerings where because I forgot to say that I now *had* job and didn't need them bringing me more!

[buriedpentacles]

I don't have ADHD, I'm autistic which might be why this system of pre determined "rules" work for me haha!! Here's some ideas that might work a bit better:

- I keep the "code words" written down next to the spirit vessel! This means I can always see them

- My "code words" are very similar for all spirits, they all carry the same gist and vibe so I don't have to remember unique codes for each spirit

- I set alarms and calendar events for giving offerings! And because I tend to leave most offerings on my altar I can see if any are due replacing

- I have quite good intuition and clairsenses so often they will tell me if I've forgotten something or want something

But remember that you don't have to do this at all! Spirit work is a relationship, which means that you can figure out what works for you and the spirit!! If set 'code words' like this don't work for you, then don't use them! You know what works for you and your relationships, so just be honest with spirits amd figure out what works for you both!

If any witches/spirit workers DO have ADHD and want to add anything, please do!!!!!

@inthiscrazylifeilive please let me know if you want tag removed - just wanted to reply to Ur tags!! :)

[windvexer]

I have ADHD and I find that:

A) such code words and predetermined agreements are useful B) I will not remember to do them

I personally instead set conditions ahead of time along side a code-word, like this (to borrow original example; my changes are in bold green):

"Your work is to bring me a job. Your work is done when I have legally signed with a new employer and my first day is scheduled. When I tell you that your work is done, I will thank you with an offering and our relationship is completed so you may leave my space. Or, when you see that your work is done, come back and claim this offering I leave now in anticipation of your future service."

Payment plan: 1) Leave a nonperishable offering now, with terms that the spirit can't take it until the work is complete. At some future time, bury/compost/release offerings and direct them into the spirit world to whomever they belong (I will have forgotten who they are for) 2) Perform semi-regular general offerings to many spirits and spells, a part of which is set aside specifically for spirits who have debt owed to them. E.g., "I call first to my gods and ancestors to take their portion. Next I call to any spirits whom I owe payment and debt, and invite them to take their portion and be fulfilled. (etc.)" You can arrange with spirits that any final payments will be fulfilled at this time.

The only trick is making sure you actually do semi-regular general offerings. Once a month will suffice I find and the ritual can be pretty pared down.

[windvexer]

Story for another time but I also think it's really wise to have a "stop/rest/cancel" condition to quickly indicate to spirits to release their influence over a situation, even if your spell hasn't manifested yet.

Sometimes you realize part way through that you do not want what you asked for. Or the consequences will be too high. Plans change, etc.

Poorly: "When I tell you come home, stop your work as long as the spell is already on it's way to manifestation."

Preferable: "When I tell you come home, stop your work even if the work is incomplete. Quickly return to me, even if you must leave things undone."

[witchkitch]

🌾🌕 Harvest Moon Spiral Vegetable Tart

1 cup Flour (abundance, prosperity, grounding) ⅓ cup Vegan Butter (healing, peace, protection) 2 tablespoons Water (use full moon water for an extra boost~) Salt (cleansing, protection, banishment) ½ cup Pumpkin Puree (protection, warding, longevity, luck, love) 2 Eggplants (manifestation, prosperity, protection, health) 4 Carrots (healing, dispels illusion) half a small Cabbage (luck, abundance, manifestation, protection) 2 cups Greens of your choice (abundance, healing, protection, growth) 2 tablespoons Olive Oil (healing, peace, protection) Pepper (banishment, protection, warding) Balsamic Vinegar (protection, banishment)

(vegetarian.vegan)🥄🥄

[prokopetz]

I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old "the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power" route, but it's almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.

Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.

It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.

[prokopetz]

It wasn't just the hoity-toity ritual magic stuff, either. Popular media often frames a fundamental opposition between the Church and practitioners of the Old Ways™, but on the ground, any given medieval European community's foremost practitioner of traditional folk magic was likely to be the village priest. And again, they very much were not supposed to be doing this. There were some very pointed letters going around reminding people to cut that shit out, not that we're naming any names, Jeremy, and no, "if you invoke the saints first it's fine" is not going to fly with the bishop.

[prokopetz]

I feel like a lot of folks in the notes are missing a critical piece of context here because they're not clear on what the Church's official position toward magic actually was during the Medieval period.

In brief, the idea that magic is a. real and b. Satanic was not the party line for the greater part of the Middle Ages. Obviously the particulars varied both regionally and over time, but for the most part, the official position of the Church was that there is no power but God's and magic is fake. The Church's principal objection to the practices of divination, spirit-binding, etc. was that they were fraudulent, not that they imperilled one's soul. Sometimes this was even carried to the point that accusations of witchcraft would result in the accuser getting in trouble rather than the accused; after all, if your neighbour is pretending to do wizard shit, that's fraud, but if you actually believe your neighbour is capable of wizard shit, that's heresy!

The hardline "magic is the work of Satan" stance that most folks are thinking of when they think of magic and the Church wasn't particularly widespread until very late in the Medieval period, and is really more characteristic of the post-Reformation era – which adds an extra layer of hilarity to the aforementioned local clergy doing wizard shit, because from the perspective of their superiors, the problem was less "oh no, our priests are consorting with Satan" and more "god fucking damn it, our priests keep scamming people with this wizard shit".

[redsparrow12]

The Catholic Church, desperately penning their 500th letter to local clergy:

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP TELLING PEOPLE MAGIC IS REAL

[prokopetz]

The really funny part is that, by all accounts, some of the priests involved didn't even want to be doing wizard shit. Allegedly, they more or less got pressured into it by their congregations, who expected wizard shit of them and wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

[qqueenofhades]

I've been summoned by @artielu to vet this post, and I'm happy to confirm that it is, in fact, fairly accurate and does represent many of the ways in which medieval people did (and did not) think about gender, witchcraft, religion, magic, and practice. I've written quite a bit on this topic before, probably back when I was teaching a class on magic and the supernatural in the Middle Ages, but it's been a while.

The boring stereotypical Bad Middle Ages take is that medieval people were all howling misogynists and thus were burning Female Witches (and also midwives, out of an idea that medieval people saw all female-led intellectual practice as inherently bad, which is also uh, questionable) at the stake left and right. As I have carped about many times, Witch Trials (TM) as most people think of them were decidedly an early modern invention. The idea of witchcraft as both a) real and b) specifically and evilly female was also in fact a very late medieval invention; it was most explicitly codified in the infamous Malleus maleficarum of 1485. However its author, Heinrich Kramer, was already a raging misogynist and had been chased out of his parish the year before when for some reason, people got tired of him randomly accusing their wives and daughters of witchcraft. The Malleus is well known as a "witch hunting handbook," but people then tend to generalize its late 15th-century conclusions, written by one tiresome misogynist, as completely representative of The Middle Ages Everywhere. The Malleus also contains some anti-sodomitic polemicals, so there are just a whole stew of gender, queer, and other anxieties being represented here in a late medieval context. See i.e.:

Bailey, M. D., ‘From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions of Magic in the Middle Ages’, Speculum, 76 (2001), 960-90.

Bailey, M.D., ‘The feminization of magic and the emerging idea of the female witch in the late Middle Ages’, Essays in Medieval Studies 19 (2002), 120-134

Broedel, H.P., 'To preserve the manly form from so vile a crime: ecclesiastical anti-sodomitic rhetoric and the gendering of witchcraft in the Malleus Maleficarum', Essays in Medieval Studies 19 (2002), 136-148

Broedel, H.P., The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003)

Harley, D. ‘Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch’, Social History of Medicine, 3 (1990), 1-26

Katajala-Peltomaa, S. ‘A good wife? Demonic Possession and Discourses of Gender in Late Medieval Culture’, in Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by M.G. Muravyeva and R.M. Tovio (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), pp. 73-88

Stephens, W., ‘Witches who steal penises: impotence and illusion in the Malleus Maleficarum’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 28 (1998), 495-529

It's true that some of the most dedicated practitioners of ritual magic, and scholars and conservationists of magical texts, were monks, churchmen, and other religious figures. Some of them started from the position that God possessed the only supernatural power and any claim of other magic was wrong, but many others did believe that magical power was accessible from a variety of sources, even as this interacted uneasily with related notions of heresy, religion, blasphemy, and (demonic) sin. This represented the complex and shifting interaction between institutional Catholic and traditional/folk magic beliefs, which were never fully assimilated or "erased." It was in fact also popular among laypeople, as magical amulets or charms were highly valued for their supposedly protective capacities. Magic and ritual magic was also widely used in medicine and yes, for sex (people have always been people etc. etc.). See i.e.:

Bailey, M. D., Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy and Reform in the Later Middle Ages (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2003)

Boureau, A., Satan the Heretic: The Birth of Demonology in the Medieval West, trans. by Teresa Lavender Fagan (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2006)

Collins, D., ed., Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West (New York, NY and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)

Fanger, C., ed. Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (Stroud: Sutton, 1998)

Flint, V. I. J., The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)

Kieckhefer, R., Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Kieckhefer, R. ‘Erotic Magic in Medieval Europe’, in Sex in the Middle Ages, ed. by J. Salisbury (London and New York, NY: Garland, 1991), 30-55

Olsan, L.T., ‘Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice’, Social History of Medicine, 16 (2003), 343-66

Page, S. Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2013)

Rider, C. ‘Danger, stupidity and infidelity: magic and discipline in John Bromyard’s Summa for Preachers’, Studies in Church History, 43 (2007), 191-20

I could go on with quite a bit more, but the point is: there is an extensive scholarly literature on this topic, and any depiction of magical and supernatural beliefs in the Middle Ages, especially in popular media, is often the laziest imaginable shorthand for "they all hated women, thought they were witches, and burned anyone who didn't believe in the all-powerful Catholic church." Yet again, this also does vary by time period, as The Middle Ages are not one single undifferentiated block. A twelfth-century author is far more likely to scoff at the credulous fools who think magic is real or can actually compare to the power of God, whereas the early-modern authors, influenced by Kramer, will do far more of the stereotypical "witchcraft is a particularly female-gendered thing and also real, satanic, and evil." And yes, many medieval magic practitioners and enthusiasts were a) monks and the church and b) regular people, because it occupied a complex place in their belief system and was by no means simply evil. This doesn't mean that they were "more" or "less" enlightened according to the also-wildly-erroneous Scale of Perceived Human Progress, but just that they were complicated, stereotypes are stupid, and my kingdom for one (1) single nuanced, thoughtful, or remotely accurate depiction of this in medieval-themed media. The end.

[publishinggoblin]

The Goblin's Oracle Dice's final edition is coming to Backerkit on May 1st, but what exactly are the oracle dice? Let's take a look at what's in the set, and how the dice work! (Dice readings at the 6 minute mark!)

And when you're sold on them, join us over on Backerkit as we get ready for launch day, May 1st!

[queenlua]

Everyone who plays around with Tarot cards long enough winds up with a “bad” card that they love. I just barely persuaded my husband not to get the Ten of Swords tattooed on his body; traditionally, it shows a corpse with ten swords stuck in their body and means “utter ruin,” but he thought that if it took ten swords to kill you, then you must have put up a pretty good fight.

honestly this is the most badass ten of swords interpretation i've ever heard.  i'm stealing this

[darrengrave]

Being into the occult is really hard when you've done actual research because 99% of it in any western tradition is "white guy made it up/stole that from a different complicated system of occult philosophy (from a closed or semi closed culture of course) without any key context"

[windvexer]

Simple Spells for Spooky Season

///

Nᴏᴘᴇ Oᴜᴛ Sᴘᴇʟʟ - A reversal spell to undo magic you now regret 🎃

Cɪɴɴᴀᴍᴏɴ Tᴇᴀ ᴏʀ Cᴏғғᴇᴇ ᴏғ Vɪᴄᴛᴏʀʏ - A whimsical warm beverage spell where you get to eat god!💀

///

thought it would be fun to make some proper spooky spells. will they be spooky? will they be proper?

who knows, but I'll put them on the internet regardless

More spells on their way... maybe! 🐓

[dogattheparty]

happy it sucks saturday

[angelspearlheart]

Latest obsession: pocket shrine/altars

[cryptotheism]

Jabir introduces two new important concepts: Sophic Mercury, and Sophic Sulfur. (Sophic means “of the philosophers.”) Every physical thing has a Sophic Mercury and a Sophic Sulfur that can be extracted from it. You get sophic mercury by fermenting something. You get sophic sulfur by distilling something down to its essential oil.“

Let us play alchemist for a moment. Let’s say you have a rose, and you want to extract its sophic mercury. You would seal it in a vessel to ferment down to a spirit. (As in an alcoholic spirit.) The fluid left over would be some form of ethyl alcohol, but the alchemists would call it something like “spirit of rose” or “sophic mercury.” If you want to extract some sophic sulfur of rose, you would put the flower in an oil still, and distill it down to rose essential oil. 

But hey, that sophic mercury seems real similar to other plant sophic mercuries. If you reduce down any flower, you’re probably gonna end up with some sort of ethyl alcohol. Arab alchemists noticed this, and thought “well then, this spirit must be a shared, common essence to all plants. What we have here is a jar of plant-ness.” The same thing happened for essential oils. Arab alchemists noticed “well hey, this rose juice still smells quite strongly of rose. This essence must be a distilled form of rose-ness.”

To Arab alchemists, sophic mercury was what made substances similar, and sophic sulfur was what made substances unique. Theoretically, you could mix-and-match mercuries and sulfurs to “breed” new substances. (Mercury is often referred to as feminine, and sulfur as masculine.) 

(Learned readers may be expecting a discussion of sophic salt here, but that doesn’t show up until Paracelsus. Give it a few centuries.)

The Jabirian Corpus and Arab Alchemy, today on patreon

[cryptotheism]

This picture activates my Uhm Akahully Autism.

Goetic seals are specifically constructed so the first letter of the name is aligned to the top, so when it's inscribed on the ground, it points towards cardinal north, the direction of dominion and navigation.

By aligning the first letter to the west, the direction of frontiers, ambiguity, and rebirth, you are improperly constructing the seal. Fake Goetia Fan.

[cryptotheism]

Also it wouldn't spell out "SAGNALA" either. The kerning of the letters in the seals is important. They need to form a regular polygon. That goes back to the neopythagorean elements in goetic magic.

[comparativetarot]

The Tower. Art by Teagan Michael Turner, from the Journey Tarot Deck.

The one awakening The potentiator of the spirit Cosmic force: Mars The Tower is ethos struck by the purest form of energy. The seeker sees a flash of what is beyond, it destroys all prior fundamental beliefs. Phrase: To move forward you must be willing to start over. Revelation Upheaval New Paradigm

[cryptotheism]

Thoughts on Tulpas?

Really interesting concept, magically speaking.

Ever heard of French tacos? They're heavily inspired by north African cuisine, but for some damn reason, they're called tacos. They are not tacos. A taco is a single, small, corn tortilla, cooked directly on a grill, often topped with meat, specific sorts of melty Mexican cheese, raw or pickled onions, cilantro, salsa, lime juice, etc. They are small dishes, street food, where you are supposed to order two or three.

Whereas a French Taco is closer to a shwarma wrap made wih tortillas and cooked in a panini press. They are large, filling, affairs, stuffed with two types of meat, rich-as-fuck French cheeses, sauteed or grilled vegetables, and rich-as-fuck French sauces (including an east-asian inspired sesame based sauce called "samurai sauce").

They're damn good, but they are certainly not tacos.

Basically, in 1905, a theosophist named Annie Besant traveled to Tibet and studied with Vajrayana monks. She came back to the West talking about "Sprul-pa" and "nirmanakaya" and "emanation bodies" all of which are fascinating theological concepts, but concepts that don't really work outside of specific branches of esoteric Buddhist theology. So, the idea of the "Tulpa" was interpreted through a specifically western esoteric lense, to fit theosophist western esoteric metaphysics.

They're damn cool, but they're certainly not an authentic Tibetan Buddhist concept. But that's okay. Mexican tacos are dope. French tacos are dope. Just don't mistake French tacos for Mexican tacos, and for the love of God don't consider French tacos to be "Authentic Mexican cuisine."

[will-o-the-witch]

A Deep Room Cleanse

The state of my room is extremely important to me. It’s a direct reflection of my mental health, so when it’s messy, my energy levels are low and I just feel yucky. There’s no way I’m getting any kind of work done, magical or mundane. When it feels good and clean to be in, it’s a lot easier to deal with my symptoms and be productive. You don’t have to do every step every time of course, but each step has helped me so I figured a list like this might help someone. 

Change the lighting. Use natural sources of light (like pulling back the curtains and letting the sun in) over artificial ones. If you have salt lamps to turn on, those are still very nice. If you need artificial light to keep it from being too dark, try to prioritize light bulbs you like the color of, and ones that don’t whistle quietly when they’re on.

Change the airflow. Open a window, if you can. Often our rooms feel yucky because the air is stale. Get some fresh air moving. If it’s too cold, it’s okay to only keep it open for a few minutes or put on a coat while you work because you’re stubborn like me.

Change the sound. Put on your favorite cleansing music. Let it soak into the room. I tend to go or ambient spa stuff, or playlists that sound built for a rainy day. (Note: the music that helps you cleanse the best may not be the same as what you like the most. The playlist should keep you focused/uplifted while you work and reflect the vibes you want your room to have.)

Change the smell. Take out the trash, maybe refresh the sheets on your bed. Light a scented candle, some incense, heat up some oil, something to make your room smell distinctly different from the mucky-feeling room from before. (If your method of choice is something short like a room spray, I actually like doing it at the very end.)

Actually clean and organize. Nothing junks up the energy of a room more quicker than actual junk. Organize everything as much as you can (this might mean finally gutting your closet, even if you can close the door and hide it.) Wipe down any surfaces that need it, get everything fresh and functional again. Do some laundry while you work. If you have clothes or trinkets that are just collecting dust, extra points for purging them! 

 Cleanse any sacred spaces by themselves. A lot of us have altars or shrines in our rooms. A sacred space can also be just an extra important area of your room, like a reading nook.  Make sure to give them extra attention! You don’t need to wipe the board energetically (and probably shouldn’t), but taking a little extra time to clean surfaces, straighten up, and make sure everything feels okay on them goes a long way.

Cleanse in your regular way. Bust out the herb bundles, the bells, the ribbons, the broom, whatever you usually do to cleanse a space! The room is SUPER primed for it now, most of the negative energy probably already feels removed if not broken down. A good once-over with your favorite cleansing method should finish it off nicely. 

Refresh any wards or protections. Self explanatory. If you maintain energy borders in your room, now is a good time to check in on them and zhoosh them if needed. Keep the space clean for longer! 

Practice self-care. Take a shower, a nap, eat some food, whatever you need. You’ve put in a lot of work and you deserve it.