Embrace Change

Call me Zack, she/her, Lesbian, ‘Green Witch’ sums me up pretty well. Gaelic (mainly Irish) polytheism, Brighid specifically. some Norse polytheism, Animism, Spirit Work, folk magic, bio-regional magic. I have a thing for birds. Emphasis on the importance of forming relationships with your local ecosystems, and aiding in sustainability/conservation efforts

[captain-price-unofficially]

I never see a whole family driving in a cyber truck. It’s always one man all alone.

[plantdogbug]

everyone be nice to the living things we share this world with Now. yes this includes bugs and plants that annoy you. no this does not mean you cant hurt anything ever. but it does mean don’t be cruel about it and don’t say mean things about them.

[plantdogbug]

i really like the framing of living things being our relatives. i like framing us as having relationships with them. with mosquitos. with plants we tend to. with the land we can burn. i want to move in the world in a way that helps every living thing thrive. when i collect seeds i leave some, i take some, and i grab some to disperse nearby. i try to avoid walking on plants that do not tolerate disturbance as well. i pick up litter. i disturb the invasive plants to allow the native plants to grow in a little thicker. i swipe at mosquitos that have landed on me cause that is the relationship we are in. they are beautiful and special and important but i will play my role as Monkey That Does Not Want To Be Bit lol

[plantdogbug]

very often i run into people who insist they love nature and its majesty and its beauty but the way they talk about it is so foreign to how i think and feel about the earth. they own the land. they travel to spectate. they anthropomorphize animals instead of being curious about how they actually live and feel. they speak with disdain about plants and animals that are inconvenient or unpleasant to them. it hurts to see.

[wizardarchetypes]

it's so crazy too bc i'll be like "this phrase/practice is being touted as ancient knowledge with a secret unbroken lineage, but it was quite literally made up in the 20th century. like we can trace it back to its very inception in like 1961." and someone will be like "that can't be true because my grandmother taught it to me." and i'm like yes your grandmother was 20 in 1961.

[wizardarchetypes]

if u get into neopaganism u really have to spend the first like 2 years sorting out all the bullshit and finding out how much of it is either completely made up or outright stolen from other cultures and then go from there. u truly have to experience ego death, academic death, book collection death, and probably 47 other maimings or else you will be stuck believing something some guy said based on nothing in 1987 as your religion. it's harrowing. it's dire.

[wizardarchetypes]

also frustrating is whenever i talk about this i inevitably run into the edgelords like "well it's ALL made up anyway so who cares ha ha ha." do not interact with me.

[sacredlittleember]

land spirits do not have to be dramatic.

sometimes reverence for land starts very simply:

learning the names of local plants. noticing where water gathers. thanking a tree before taking from it. picking up trash. leaving a place better than you found it. sitting quietly long enough to feel the mood of the land.

animism is not always spectacle.

sometimes it is relationship, attention, and care.

[asnowyplover]

bro it sounds like maybe you need a reminder of the glorious interconnectedness of all things?

[bhramarii]

When the sky still felt close enough to touch,

and gods were simply neighbors we carved into stone so we wouldn’t forget them.

(Sun-headed deity, Tamgaly — Kazakhstan)

[crazysodomite]

[elminx]

Witch Tips: Understanding Abundance Magic

Money has to come to you through very specific channels because that is how it works. You can find money, you can make money, you can be given money, you can win money, you can inherit money - I'm sure there are more that I haven't thought of right now.

But abundance is different. Abundance can come from anywhere.

[life-on-our-planet]

eepy mourning dove cupping its wings under its belly for cushion ©Ella

[uququ]

the pagan origins of the fourth of july

[cryptotheism]

Actually that's interesting! Is there a specific source where mages using tomes come from?

While books have associated with magic pretty much since their invention, they were not always an accoutrement to that archetypical Magician. In the 1st century all the mages wrote shit on Steles and Papyri and whatnot.

The book as essential magical paraphernalia probably emerged around the medieval era, where most magical texts were transmitted in a clerical context; i.e. by poorly paid semi-literate church employees. Richard Keichefer proposes that this social class formed a sort of informal underground magical text trade. I have my doubts as to how provable this is. But suffice to say that medieval magic was transferred by being looted from arabs or produced by scribes.

I suspect the book as magical really took off in the printing revolution. Naturally, more magical texts were produced during Gutenbergs little heyday than the rest of history to that point. Culturally though, I think we can actually ascribe a lot of that image of the book-laden Magician in his Library to Shakespeare's Prospero. A character almost surely based on John Dee, who had a similar proclivity for tomes of esoterica.

[foltchaoin]

Made this today in honor of Manannán mac Lir for Midsummer :) made with Scriptorium

[cryptotheism]

Could you briefly clarify what the Ogdoad is? Bunch of conflicting results when I've tried to look into it myself

In the context of the Corpus Hermeticum, the Ogdoad (literally translates as something like eight-ness or eightfold, but in this case it's often translated as The Eighth) refers to the vault of the heavens, and the procession of the constellations. The hermetics believed that the earth is administered by a series of arch-spirits corresponding to the seven classical planets. Beyond these seven celestial spirits is the eighth spiritual realm; the Ogdoad, which corresponds to the zodiac. Beyond the Ogdoad is the Ennead, the ninth rank, or ninth sphere.

You're probably getting conflicting Google results because the eight patron gods of the Egyptian city of Hermopolis are also called The Ogdoad. Because there are eight of them. AND one of the gnostic branches refers to their eight highest-ranking Aeons as "The Ogdoad." Because, you guessed it, there are eight of them.

[cryptotheism]

I know that's right

[cryptotheism]

Contrast this to the work of the ever-influential Church curmudgeon St. Augustine. Who, in City of God XVIII, decries Hermes Trismegistus and his followers as arch-idolaters. In Augustine’s view, It was the wiley Ancestors of the Hermetics who created statues ensouled with demons masquerading as pagan gods. It is this communion with demonically-haunted statues that serves as the source of their tainted pagan wisdom. This is an obvious reference to actual Egyptian religious practices regarding the worship of ensouled statues. Augustine also says that Hermes Trismegistus taught his philosophy in Egypt after Moses, but before the Greeks. It is notable that even to Augustine, the Hermetics were part of an ancient lineage. The mythological ancient-ness of Hermes Trismegistus is essential to their lasting influence. It is common for intellectual traditions –esoteric or otherwise– to claim their presence extends deep into the bedrock of history, that their tradition is the oldest, most ancient, and most venerable. The figure of Trismegistus personifies this claim. What written tradition can be more venerable than the invention of writing itself?

The Corpus Hermeticum in Context, today on Patreon

[cryptotheism]

Even though we know very little about Hermeticism, I think I can conclusively say, it is the first historical evidence of a unified theory of western magic. There are earlier fragmentary texts that demonstrate a magical theory and a praxis, but the Hermetics incorporate it into both religion and philosophy in a novel way. What's frustrating is that we don't really know how. Their writings on sympathies between the stars and herbs and stones are clearly related to their opinions on celestial spirits and sacred names, but we are only seeing part of the puzzle.

[cryptotheism]

I can't say this in scholarly language so I'll say it here:

More than any other occult topic, studying Hermeticism is like edging. The Hermetic Corpus is soo similar to so many other greco-roman religious movements, but the scholarship always zags at the last second.

"You might the Hermetics were low level Egyptian priests, like with Zosimos of Panopolis and the birth of alchemy. It makes sense, they were both occult movements centered around scholars in Roman egypt, But there is no actual evidence. Bitch."

"You might think a lot of the stranger elements of Hermetica are syncretism with Egyptian religion right? All this shit was written in Egypt. It even explicitly claims to come from Egyptian gods. But basically all of the language is greco-judaic. They're Platonists. Bitch."

"Maybe theyre an initatory cult? There's that bit in Ennead Reveals the Odgdoad where the master calls down spirits so the student can see? That seems initatory? But that's just one instance. A lot of the supporting evidence is based on interpretation, and has good arguments against Hermeticism being a literal mystery tradition. It's one argument among many. Bitch."

All that said. It's an incredibly rewarding body of work to study. It reminds me a lot of reading the Enneads, where the underlying ideas become more clear with re-reads. But who has the time?

[stsathyre]

I’ve never seen this name— granted, I’m not actively hunting books either. But heads up.

The casting the wide net, should be the first clue you’re on the road to some bull shit.

[buggywiththefolkmagic]

Ah yes the at best copy pasted info from Wikipedia and at worst ChatGPT nonsense. Ahhhhh.

[wandering-free-and-queer]

Can confirm, as someone who spends a LOT of time researching pagan authors, Mari Silva is one of the (unfortunately many) AI authors out there. "She" has put out dozens of books in four years. Do not buy, do not read.

[creepykuroneko]

The fact that the book claims it can teach you about "jewish magic", brujaria, african american spirituality, and how to be a curandero should automatically be a major red flag to everyone. Besides the fact that there's no way one book can cover all those complex subjects, those are closed practices. There's no way, one person is an expert on all of these subjects.