How To Witchcraft - Dmitri Sterling's Grimoire

he/him/his || 🏳️‍⚧️ || A place to keep my grimoire from 25+ years of magical and occult study. Eclectic Green Chaos Kitchen Witch, English Folk Witch, Greco-Kemetic sorcerer, and demonolater. My content will always be free; I believe in the accessibility of knowledge, and I love helping people. If any of the stock images I use on this blog happen to be AI, please let me know. I'm genuinely notoriously bad at telling what is and isn't AI, and I'm trying to use real art, real images edited by people, and real photos.

[how-to-witchcraft]

🙋🏻‍♂️ Introduction Post The Full Grimoire + Navigatable Index

⚠️⛔ I post about sex magic, death magic, baneful magic, & other NSFW topics from time to time. ⛔⚠️

✨ My public name is Dmitri Sterling

💫 I am in my 30s

♂️🏳️‍⚧️ I am a trans man

📚 I've been studying witchcraft, magic, & the occult for over 24 years.

📖 I've read 56 books on witchcraft, magic, and the occult, I've spoken with hundreds of other witches & sorcerers over the years, & learned things from their traditions that they've shared with me, too.

📜 I've written my own grimoire. That's what this blog is, a place to hold my grimoire and other magical information.

❓If I don't know the answer to something, I'll research it.

📑 Here is what I've studied. Those marked with ~~ are what I currently practice:

° Initiatory Wicca

° Basic Wicca

° Kabbalah (Very little, no longer interact due to it being a closed practice)

° Left Hand Path

° Hermeticism

° Satanism

° Luciferianism

° General White and Black Magic Practices (fell out due to racist origins of the terms)

° Various types of medieval grimoires

° Goetic Sorcery

° Kemeticism (ancient Egyptian practice

° Hellenism (ancient Greek practice)

° Heathenery (ancient Norse practice)

° Appalachian Folk Magic~~

° Eclectic Witchcraft~~

° Chaos Witchcraft~~

° Kitchen Witchcraft~~

° Green Witchcraft~~

° English Folk Magic~~

° Greco-Kemetic Polytheistic Sorcery~~

° Demonolotry~~

👨🏻‍⚖️ I believe witchcraft is inherently political. I am political; I'm a leftist. If you are conservative or alt-right, please block me. If you aren't for human rights, climate and environmental care, and ending all bigotry, then I don't want you here.

[how-to-witchcraft]

What Should I Use First?

Many a witch starts out wanting to know what to use first, what spell to do first, what ingredients to get first, what tools to get first. What’s most important? What’s most useful? What’s most easy to substitute?

The easy answer? Use what you’ve already got around your living space. Herbs and spices from your cabinets, fasteners, hardware, and fixings from the toolbox, fishing hooks and lures from the tacklebox, sweeping, mopping, and dusting things in a cleansing manner, cooking things. Seriously. Anything can be used in a spell, it’s primarily related to the energetic signature of that thing throughout history and present day cultures, and the symbolism you and your culture sees in that thing.

You do not have to go out and buy things, especially expensive things, in order to have a working witch’s inventory. This isn’t the competition olympics, this is making magic with the world around you, and sure, while luxurious and uncommon items can be great and potent, common everyday items that have been used hundreds of thousands of times over for the same result can be just as potent, if not moreso, than a specialized ingredient.

One of the most primal, intuitive methods of magic involves looking at what a thing represents symbolically to the culture you live in, and going from there. How a red heart symbolizes love, therefore that valentines plushie you got in 2014 with the big red hearts printed on the bottoms of its feet would be totally useful in a love spell, especially one involving comfort (plush aspect), especially if it was given to you by the target of the love spell. How a dagger or sword symbolizes protection, survival, and capability, so that random knife in the kitchen can double as a protective ward on or around your altar, especially if you draw sigils on the blade, or charm it in a spell.

You should use what you have handy first. What is free, available plant life or left behind animal byproduct in your yard or local non-private-property neighborhood grounds. Learn the symbology behind what you already have, research how different practices use that item specifically, and apply the knowledge to the spells you want to do.

And speaking of spells, what spells to do first? The only real starting place I personally think everyone should abide by is cleansing and protection. Start with cleansing and protection. A protective or cleansing meal can made from ingredients that have metaphysical properties or correspondences of protection and cleansing. This is the easiest place to start, because most people have meals to make already in their home. All it takes in this day and age is a little web searching to figure out what something’s good for and what it symbolizes in your culture, if anything. (Most things do.)

After that, the best solid advice I have is to branch out, to ask yourself what you want in life. Are you seeking happiness? Where does that come from? What evokes happiness in you? How could you realistically reasonably attain it? What spells can be done to help you attain it? Once you have the answers of what you want out of life, short term or long term, figuring out what spells to do becomes easier. The only tough decision making for me at that point is prioritizing which order the spells should go in. And if you go in order of necessity, I find it kind of sorts itself out.

[how-to-witchcraft]

How To Witchcraft - A Rational Framework for Personal Magic

How To Witchcraft A Rational Framework for Personal Magic By: Dmitri Sterling Socials: || StrawPage || Tumblr || Reddit || Blogger || S

I am really proud of this. It's not finished yet, but it's navigatable, has my entire grimoire in one spot, and is still being filled out. I feel so organized :D

[how-to-witchcraft]

Enter a Trance

Many practitioners prefer to enter into a trance state before they engage in spell work. This is primarily done to help focus the practitioner, to get them into a mental state where they are more able to experience and interact with the aether, and to help raise energy later on in the pre-spell work. Some people believe that entering into this state is necessary to allow access to your body to ancestors and/or metaphysical entities, that they might help aid in your spell's effect as well. 

Historically, the earliest archeologically supported evidence of humans using a trance state for religious or ritual purposes dates all the way back to the Paleolithic era, around 20,000-30,000 years ago in the form of cave art. This art depicts certain geometric patterns and figures that are commonly associated with modern recorded neurological patterns seen in trance states, especially those that were induced by psychoactive plants, rhythmic movement, and sensory deprivation.

There are different levels of trance, but there is no standard unit to measure them across the board. I will simply be using light trance, medium trance, and heavy trance for my units of measurement.

I define a light trance as something that you can easily snap out of. These usually need quite a lot of concentration to maintain, as loud noises, alarms, or people trying to talk to you may pull you out almost immediately. These sorts of trances can be used best for minimal spell work, hidden from others, or broom closet magic, spells done over the stove, or that are time sensitive. 

I define medium trance as somewhat harder to snap out of. People may talk around you, but you won't hear them unless you're at a pause where your own thoughts and voice are quiet. These take more concentration to enter, but less concentration to maintain. This is, in my opinion, the most useful type of trance to enter into. It's most useful for most spellwork and basic rituals. 

I define heavy trance as almost completely untouchable. Talking, clapping, loud noises, children screaming, alarms, sirens, etc., may not pull a practitioner out of this trance. This trance state is best used for complex rituals, ancient rituals, and spells that call for it, and for emotionally intense spells. It is quite difficult to enter into this trance state due to how intense it is and how sensory encompassing it can be, but once you're in it and there, maintaining it takes little to no effort. The body seemingly just 'goes'. Heavy trance states are often used for intense and heavy spell or ritual work, especially in group or coven settings where the spell is a group effort, or completely alone due to how hard it is to get there and how judgmental and interruptive housemates can be, and by people within many closed indigenous practices in Africa and North America. Some ancient open practices also called for this kind of state, but it wasn't necessary across the board, rather for specific deities and cult rites, such as Dionysian cults from ancient Greece. 

Trance states can be entered into through any number of ways. One of the most common ways is through rhythm and music, using dance, song, and repetitive beats like drums and rattles to achieve trance. Some people use movement, swaying side to side, jumping around, or shaking something. Other practitioners use meditation to enter into trance, some use relaxation techniques that start at one end of the body and work the way up every muscle to the other end of the body. Some use hypnosis, binaural beats, breath work, repetitive chanting, staring into a flame, staring into a crystal or mirror/black mirror, staring into smoke, visualization, or intentional daydreaming.

Some people take psychoactive drugs or plant medicine, and if you're going to go this route, it's important to be respectful of closed plant medicines and practices. Some people refute drug-based trance states, saying that they're simply getting high, and not actually entering trance, but rather just being stoned out of their mind, so any spiritual matters engaged in that state are meaningless or false. Some practitioners claim that only cannabis is a valid drug to use for this, and that other drugs, which cause overt hallucinations, simply can't be trusted. Users of this method claim that spiritual messages or concepts perceived under the influence are in no way dampened or lesser than, merely that the drug helps them to lose inhibitions and fears taught to them by society enough to the point that they can accept what's coming through with more clarity. Many users of this method also claim that naturally occurring drugs and plant medicines are the way to go; some practitioners still use other drugs to achieve trance.

Many practitioners use a combination of methods in order to achieve higher states of trance. A medium trance may be induced for me with music, swaying side to side, shaking a rattle rhythmically, chanting, humming a tone between lines of the chant, staring into a flame, and listening to the tones of bells and chimes all at the same time. It helps immensely for me to partake of cannabis at some point beforehand to help prime my mind for the state I need to be in. I've never achieved heavy trance, and I believe personally that it's easiest to achieve when you're completely alone without the perception of others and in a situation where you can be as loud as you need, or when you're in a large group of others also working hard to achieve trance and also can be as loud as you need to. 

Some practitioners never use trance states, insisting that their magic is quite powerful and effective enough without the extra effort. Other practitioners always use trance, at minimum a light trance, as a before the spell kind of mind and mood setting, a pre-game. Personally, I only use trance when I'm doing a large ritual or working for someone else.

[how-to-witchcraft]

It's a Sign! Or Is It?

Signs are an important part of many practices. They hold divinatory knowledge, guides to what to do, and permission. They can be anything at any time, making them hard to pinpoint and differentiate from coincidence. Some practitioners don't ever look for signs because they are so hard to tell apart. Other practitioners view life to have 0 coincidences and for everything to be a sign or symbol of something else. And there are those that range for every percentage in between.

Some witches feel that any time spent looking for signs is wasted, and that a sign will simply happen upon you. Others say that they should be on the look out, because what if they miss something, especially something obvious? The first group usually responds that they are simply being obsessive and refusing to take accountability and decision making into their own hands. The second group often touts back that they are simply trying to divine things this way, or seeing if their entities of choice have anything to impart upon them.

When it becomes difficult to figure out whether or not something is a sign, there are some good things to remember. Some practitioners believe that when something is a sign, it sticks out. It's usually not something that is so subtle that you look at it and go, 'gee, I wonder if that was a sign'. Usually when something is a sign it is more profound, it feels more like, 'That was definitely a sign'. If you have to ask yourself if it counted or not, it didn't count. Other practitioners cite this as simply untrue, stating that things can be subtle all the time. They also usually cite neurodivergence, anxiety, bipolar, bpd, imposter syndrome, ptsd, and poor self image as valid brain chemistry altering things that can impair whether or not someone views something as overtly or subtly a sign.

I personally view both methods as valid, as sometimes signs will be overt, sometimes they will be subtle, and sometimes you just won't know and have to wait to see the answer. This is especially dependent upon context, upon what the sign is, whether or not you asked for a sign, and how it relates to you.

The following is a list of common signs: animals or plants relating to your entity of choice, animals or plants that are out of place in nature or in someone's yard, especially in your immediate neighborhood, weather anomalies, especially ones that have not been forecasted, animals, especially wild animals, entering your house unprompted, animals that you know who are usually one behavior type acting in a new behavior type with no major visible reasoning like pregnancy or injury, the same image, symbol, artistic representation of an animal or plant, etc., showing up multiple times in a short period, a certain key trigger phrase is said, or something happens X amount of times where X correlates with something else going on in your life. This is by no means an exhaustive or comprehensive list, it is merely the ones that I can think of off the top of my head from what I've seen over the years.

Some practitioners, including me, stress having a healthy boundary set with your sign searching. Even if you believe there is no such thing as coincidences, it is still possible for you to fall victim to obsessive thinking, black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking, and delusion. If you are spending a huge amount of time if not all of your time trying to interpret signs, that in and of itself is a sign that it's time to take a break because you're developing unhealthy thinking patterns.

If you are spending a large chunk of time interpreting signs for celebrities or people who you don't interact with or know personally, especially if those signs are telling you that you're going to be together forever with them or get married or have children or whatever, it may be time to step away and start focusing on the two-way relationships that you have that currently exist. I have seen at least one case where someone thought that a celebrity was going to marry them and interpreted things that a celebrity did in their acting career to be sign after sign that they were going to get married. This was also an active delusion at the time and something that the person now admits was exactly that.

It's important to maintain healthy boundaries with what you're interpreting as signs. It's important to maintain healthy trajectories in life, regardless of what signs you think you're seeing. It's important to not compromise your ethics and morals just because it appears the powers that be are suggesting you might, should, or could.

Signs can be all around us. But that doesn't mean we should follow every one. Just like street signs, metaphysical signs are meant to guide us, to warn us, to help us, and to show us both good and bad things. Not every single sign is inherently good, and they're not inherently bad either. Sometimes a sign is there to keep us away from something, just as much as it may be leading us to something else. It takes discernment and patience to interpret and decide what to do with many signs. Sure, some signs may be instantly obvious about what to do with them, but others may not. It doesn't make you a bad practitioner to take some time and analyze a potential sign, and there are many ways about it.

Some signs have cultural significance, for instance in the wider witchcraft community there is a persistent guide on the number of crows you see vs what it's supposed to mean. I've seen that guide do its rounds online over the years. When a sign is something widely accepted with more rigid cultural symbology, it can be common to overlook it as coincidence if it doesn't align exactly with your idea of what it should be.

When a person has primed their mind to always be on the lookout for signs, it sets them up to perceive signs where there may be none. This is called pattern recognition. The brain is set into a mode where it actively looks for certain patterns in day to day life. The more things the practitioner views as a potential sign, the more patterns the brain is going to register and the more perceived signs it's going to see. This is why some practitioners argue that it's important to not look for signs, but just let them come as they do and to go about your life as normal. Other practitioners argue that if they miss a sign, it could mean missing something important that they're not willing to, for instance the death of a loved one, or that it's time to get a new job, to check the job market today. Personally, I'm on team don't look for signs all the time, it gets unhealthy.

Widespread pattern recognition use can further influence confirmation bias, the idea that because you see what you deem as a sign, it confirms that it is a sign, regardless of any other facet of determination. The existence of your perception of an event inherently confirms your idea that the event is metaphysical in nature. When we fall to this line of thinking, it becomes easy to get lost in our own minds and fall victim to our own internal echo chamber.

It is very easy to get lost in your own thoughts and to consider them signs, because your own thoughts validate themselves. You think them, so they feel right. There is something that a lot of people call a gut feeling about them that is in fact just their own internal confirmation bias. The fact that they are having the thought confirms the thought to themselves. If your sign is confirmed by the mere thought of your sign, it may just be a thought. If your signs only consist of thoughts and the fact that you have the thought is what you think the sign is, it might just be a thought. If you have been actively looking for a sign, for a long time especially when there hasn't been one, and you suddenly start interpreting multiple things as signs of that thing, it might be a thought. If you are seeing a multitude of signs everywhere you go all the time, especially if they are completely unrelated to each other, it could be thoughts.

Some practitioners believe signs are from the universe. Others believe from their deity or deities of choice. Still others think signs come from their spirit guides, and others their spirit team. Even then, others believe that signs come from their own higher consciousness, or their subconscious. Finally, others believe them to be from an unknown, imperceptible force.

[ishtar-and-aphrodite]

witchy question!

if you have an altar, what do you use it for? what does it include?

i have two, one for each of my ladies, and there’s a bunch of things they wanted and places for offerings

[how-to-witchcraft]

I'm really really proud of this setup because it has taken me almost two decades to complete. By all means you do not have to have all of this kind of stuff to do effective witchcraft, I'm just a maximalist with hoarder tendencies so 🤷🏻‍♂️

I have seven altars. Technically space for eight, but the eighth one I count as part of the seventh one because the tables are so close to one another and I use them both when working sometimes.

I have a protection altar whose sole focus is protection of the home and people in the home. One black candle, one white candle, some ingredients that are protective in nature, my war water baneful protection ward, a knife, my protection candle carved with sigil, my protection sticking mix used to go into the sigils, my black salt, my snake skin, storm water from a flooding storm, guardian spider, Protection powder mix, and white protection stones. Malachite, clear courts, amethyst, jet, satin spar, black kyanite, abalone shell, black tourmaline, and protection oil, and a hornet's nest.

I've got a healing altar who's focus is healing the people within the home and anyone whose names that I put there. Lots of amethyst, some satin spa, and some agate, one black candle and white candle. The healing altar is still being built.

Life and death alter, where Life death rebirth an ancestral stuff go. Egyptian book of the dead, fossilized crystallized coral, a chunk of industrial coal slag, a chunk of rock with a bunch of different fossils on it, osteomancy bones, satin spark, lapis lazuli, howlite, one black candle, one white candle, butterfly body, tiny black knife, skull candle, skull yooperlite, jet, and some sort of sound that I don't really know what it is but I felt right to put there.

Love and self love altar, Rose quartz, amethyst, sodalite, pink calcite, homemade perfume, crystal glass Bell, thing of rose petals, statue of Aphrodite, one black candle, one white candle, more ingredients, one giant pink candle, purified water.

Nature altar, petrified wood, tree carvings, tree incense holder, when black candle, one white candle, hornets nest, pine cone, small globe of the earth, snowflake obsidian, aragonite, Jasper of many different types, White calcite, yellow calcite, fossilized coral with a wire tree coming off of it, a tiny wooden knife, my stone fire pit

Money and prosperity, one black candle, one white candle, prosperity mix, other kind of prosperity mix, pine needles, tiny green oil lamp, money blessing incense and silver incense holder, money Bowl, golden egg filled with ingredients from the money Bowl, pouch filled with coins, tiger's eye, green adventuring, topaz, citrine, heat treated amethyst sold as citrine, clear quartz, gold jewelry, used gift cards, jade, clear glass cut like a diamond, malachite, magnetic hematite, laminated four leaf clover, money Tree sigil.

The other one is a working altar (s) or where I do my spells it's mostly empty until I put all my spell stuff there and right now it has four different spells, two on each working altar.

[wyrd-wyrm]

Spicy but

I have a hard time believing that the three fold law is real when we’ve had centuries of abuse happen to minorities. 

The threefold law just feels like prosperity gospel for witchcraft. 

Trying to suggest to me that bad things will happen to bad people on its own because the universe will do it for you just feels kind of privileged. And then to use that idea to suggest that Baneful magic, which historically was used by oppressed people not the oppressors is bad because it does harm, is almost laughable.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of their day and the rest of the week! 

[how-to-witchcraft]

General Information - Asking Nature's Permission

Many beliefs hold nature sacred, even going as far as to personify the idea of all nature into its own deity or primordial force. Many of those beliefs also hold that every rock, tree, flower, vine, animal, or other natural thing has a spirit. This is often referred to as animism.

When one believes nature and/or natural things have spirits, consciousness, or an energetic self, it's common to treat them as their own independent, autonomous entity. This means not doing whatever you want, whenever you want to do the thing. This means asking permission before you harvest, forage, or take something from nature.

It is first and foremost a sign of respect, reverence, and veneration. It's something that many practitioners do because they believe the thing that they're taking deserves to be considered and have its opinion weighed. But therein lies some discourse within the wider community on what methods of identification of consent count, and what is just a witch hearing what they want to hear.

Secondarily, it is also used as a way to follow good foraging rules and take a moment, stop, look at the nature around you, make sure there are other instances of what you're wanting to take if it's something that grows, and only take 20-33% or less of what's there in that one plant. This is considered good form in the foraging community and helps maintain balance with the local ecosystem without destroying precious materials that wildlife depend on.

When asking nature's permission, many practitioners look for a sign. Common ones include a sudden breeze where there was none before, indicating a yes, or the stopping of a breeze suddenly indicating a no. Animal noises nearby escalating, being a yes, animal noises nearby lowering, especially going silent, being a no. Seeing an animal in the distance or nearby, especially if that animal is in any way related to an entity you're picking an offering for, is a huge, glaring yes. Hearing the snapping of twigs and branches suddenly indicates a no. Lightning or thunder nearby is a big no.

Many practitioners cut through all the layers of mystique and use a form of divination to figure out if something is okay to take. The pendulum provides the clearest answers most immediately, but tarot can provide more nuance and context.

There are so many different ways to receive what could be a sign; listing them all would be futile. Those are just some common ones I've seen within the community. But perhaps the most common ways that I see practitioners use are the intuition method, the gut feeling method, or simply the feeling method. Some practitioners differentiate between the intuition/gut feeling method and the feeling method, stating that intuition is something you just know, or something that has built up over time due to exposure and learning, whereas the 'feeling' method is basically saying, 'I feel like it's a yes, so it's a yes'. These practitioners feel that a feeling is little more than telling yourself what you want to hear, no matter the situation, and so it's important to use other external methods to figure out if you have the permission or not.

Some practitioners say they're all three the same thing, all connecting to your internal divine, or your higher self, or your spirit guides, or to the plant itself. It depends on what each individual believes. They say that to diminish the idea of a feeling to 'just a feeling' and somehow less important than a 'gut feeling' or intuition is to sever your connection with your intuition, even if only just a little. Some folks say it severs it quite a lot. They claim it's teaching you to dampen what abilities you may have or be able to cultivate with skepticism and disbelief. For these practitioners, ultimate belief in what you're doing is as important as doing it.

[how-to-witchcraft]

Creations - Witch's Poppet - Protection Spell

A witch's poppet has multiple societal connotations. They can be used for any kind of magic, but most frequently are involved in protection, binding, and love. As I understand it, a poppet in general is a representation of a target, and a witch's poppet is a representation of the witch themselves. Witches usually use poppets representing themselves to protect themselves, bind things like money and happiness, and other such life-enhancing things to themselves, and to find love. The one we're going to focus on today is for protection.

This poppet will serve as a ward. A representation of you, enhanced with your magical or energetic signature, meant to draw in other, potentially dangerous or negative magic and energy thrown your way. These types of energies can come from other witches, people who are angry at you, jealous of you, or worse. They can be sent your way by accident, and without genuine malice in a moment of heightened emotion, which is the most common way these things happen, all the way to being the result of baneful magic cast your way on purpose. 

The poppet's role is to act as a representation of you. It has your energetic signature on and within it; it can act as a public-facing decoy to draw in negative energies toward it. This helps you not have to do as much damage control when these things do happen. It helps bring in those energies and direct them away from you or your loved ones, moving it towards the decoy. 

Most witches keep their witch's poppets stationary, sitting, waiting as a ward for something to happen. Maybe they might put it on a shelf or tuck it away into a drawer. However you decide to keep it, remember that you may need to fiddle with it at a later time, especially when someone directs something your way and the poppet needs to be disposed of or reset. It's important to keep the witch's poppet accessible for this, which is why I would advise against burying it.

Some witches reset their poppet once it's been hit. They cleanse and/or purify it, clean it if applicable, redo the spell, and put it back out for more use. Other witches choose to dispose of the poppet altogether and make an entirely new one. It's up to you how you wish to go about it. 

As you handle every ingredient and fabric of the poppet, visualize or verbalize that the energetic signature from yourself is going into each item. Really put your intent, energy, and gusto into it, say out loud that your energy is going into it, say that it's meant to represent you, tell it that this is an energetic twin of yourself. This is particularly important for something that is supposed to be acting as a decoy for you because it is supposed to exude enough of an energetic signature to trick oncoming spells, rituals, energetic blasts, jealousy-induced misfortune, etc., into aiming for it rather than you. Because of this, some practitioners actively charm something, their clothes, jewelry, or makeup, usually, to dampen their personal energetic signature or residual energy that they leave behind.

Ingredients:

- Fabric, 2 pieces large enough to draw a gingerbread-style figure on it and cut it out, preferably 7x7 inches or larger

- Stuffing, this can be old scraps of fabric, cotton, polyester, rice, dry leaves, dry grass, or anything soft or malleable enough to comfortably keep the poppet's shape

- dried herbs and spices that correspond with protection (Bay leaf crumbles, caraway seeds, powdered cinnamon, dill, rosemary, cloves, salt, basil, fennel seeds, lavender, cumin, garlic powder, and black pepper powder)

- a sewing needle, preferably something made out of iron or steel, as they are inherently protective, but any needle will do

- thread, white, black, blue for protection

- (optional) decorative accessories to make the poppet look and feel more like you. Think yarn for hair, and additional clothing made out of other colors of fabric

Steps:

- Draw a gingerbread humanoid figure on the fabric.

- Cut out the figure

- Turn the pieces wrong side out with the pretty side facing inward between them.

- Sew the pieces together, leaving a space on the top of the head or along the side of the torso unsewn.

- Use the hole to turn the poppet inside out. Use a straw, pencil, pen, or stick if necessary to push the limbs out appropriately.

- Stuff the poppet with your stuffing, leaving a space in the head or torso for more stuff to go inside.

- Stuff the space with your dried herbs and spices.

- Sew the poppet closed.

- Optional - Decorate your poppet to look like you. Sew in things like major scars, beauty marks, moles, birthmarks, hair, drawn tattoos, etc. The more like you it looks, the better. Some practitioners sew on photographs of their own face to the poppet's face.

- Put somewhere safe so that it can sit and act as a ward to attract uninvited things sent your way.

How to Know if it's Caught Something:

Note: this is different for every individual practitioner; these are just the ways I know of. I'm sure there are more ways.

- Poppet falls

- Poppet molds (we use DRY herbs and spices to prevent this)

- Poppet exudes negative energy

- Use divination to ask weekly if it's caught anything negative yet

- Dream about the poppet

What to do When the Poppet Catches Something:

Either throw it away or cleanse it. I want to state that it's important to cleanse it of the negative or unwanted energies, rather than purify it of everything, unless you are willing to redo the part of the spell where you're telling the poppet what it's going to do and imbuing it with energy all over again. If you believe that the poppet has absorbed something quite heavy and hard-hitting, then it may be time to choose purification. 

If you're throwing it away, tossing it into the trash, and sending it on its way to the landfill is perfectly acceptable. If you used 100% natural biodegradable items, burying them somewhere away from your house is also applicable, but be warned, if you don't cleanse it first, you're just sending that negative energy over there. 

[how-to-witchcraft]

Differences - Meditation VS Trance

Meditation and trance both offer something similar: an alteration of mentality. Some practitioners believe that meditation is a form of trance, whereas not all trance is meditation. Other practitioners believe that meditation and trance are two separate things entirely and that they put you into two different headspaces.

Meditation is not necessarily inherently related to magic. It can have correlations with healthy living, finding and maintaining serenity and peace, and learning how to calm down one's body, especially in times of panic or stress. Many practitioners do utilize meditation, however, citing it as a great way to ground and center oneself before the magic, *and* to build or raise energy for the magic.

To ground and center yourself with meditation, it's common to meditate on a clear mind or to meditate on the concept of grounding and centering yourself. Many people use a visualization technique to do this, known as the tree method, where they visualize roots coming from their body and growing into the ground, and branches spreading high into the sky. Other practitioners say that visualization tasks are not meditation, and they are separate things, so this doesn't count as meditation. 

Trance is usually done in magic to build energy, or connect with the aether or divinity. The most common forms of magical trance include ecstatic trance, a high-energy, usually musically inclined kind of trance that builds off of itself to raise energy for a magical working, or dissociative trance. Some practitioners consider dissociative trance to be meditation. Others consider them inherently different, with meditation being more akin to inner peace and calm, and dissociative trance being more like losing yourself completely.

Many people induce trance from music, dancing, rhythmic playing of instruments, especially drums or rattles, chanting, breathing exercises, breathing exercises that sometimes border on hyperventilating (not recommended), rocking, tapping themselves, and more.

A trance State can sometimes be considered more dangerous to put yourself into because there is sometimes a lot of movement involved. When you're putting yourself into an altered mental state, and you're moving around, especially on your feet, it can become easy to hurt yourself or wander off.

There is major discourse in the wider witchcraft community as to whether or not using drugs to induce trance is acceptable or even effective magically. Some practitioners include things like alcohol in their list of drugs, whereas others do not include it because they see it as benign or ritualistically helpful. 

On the one hand, for most modern practitioners in most modern cultures, most drugs are illegal. This has led to a worldwide multi-cultural phenomenon of demonizing everything to do with drugs, unless they are very specific drugs obtained through medical means. This has led to a multitude of practitioners declaring that any and all drugs impair your ability to think, and thus impair your ability to perform magic to any degree. 

On the other hand, the earliest known recorded use of drugs in a religious context dates back between 7,000 and 9,000 years ago in Algerian cave paintings depicting psychoactive mushrooms specifically in theorized religious contexts, as what was depicted was a human figure holding and surrounded by these mushrooms. 

Drugs have been used across cultures across the world historically for religious contexts and trance states for thousands of years. Cannabis, ayahuasca, mushrooms, peyote, and more have been helping people achieve magical and religious states since almost as long as religion has been around. 

Some practitioners argue that when something has been in use in the specific context for so long, declaring it suddenly bad or ineffective to induce trance or to help magically just because governments have declared these drugs illegal, is nothing more than self-serving self-soothing rhetoric meant to coddle their culturally-induced negative disposition towards drugs. They argue that it completely erases millennia of history and valid magical use.

The group against drug use in magic and trance often cites the idea that just because something has been used historically and doesn't mean it's necessarily correct, and that with our modern technology and information, we have learned more about these drugs than our ancestors knew, and that knowing how they affect the brain removes any mysticism or magic from the equation. They claim that this means spiritual experiences while on drugs can be nothing more than brain chemistry and non-magical.

The group advocating for drug use in achieving trance states often claims in counterpoint that knowing how something works scientifically does not stop it from also having magical connotations. One of the most common reasons behind this is alchemical magic and how, despite knowing things about it chemically and scientifically, it doesn't stop the magic from being a part of it, too. 

Some practitioners say that only naturally occurring drugs are okay to use with magic or to induce trance. They say that synthetic drugs harm the body more than help and are more addictive by nature, and that natural drugs offer a more direct line to the metaphysical due to their growing and being in our world on their own. Some practitioners even go as far as to say that natural drugs are gifts from the gods or the universe, specifically to help achieve these mental states.

No matter how you fall in the drug debate, all parties can agree that drugs alter your perception and mentality when you use them. It's merely a matter of your own subjective morality that decides whether or not they can be a useful tool for trance induction. 

I personally fundamentally disagree with the idea that using any drugs to induce trance is inherently bad. I reject this based on literal thousands of years of historical use. I feel that if a person doesn't want to use them, that's fine, but they don't get to dictate whether or not others use drugs to help enter into this altered trance state. 

There is also a discussion to be had about ayahuasca and peyote, cultural appropriation, and foreigners misusing and misrepresenting these drugs when the cultures that cultivate them have asked us to stop partaking and stop the commercialization, drug tourism, and bastardization of their practices.

Either way you look at it, meditation and trance are tools to help you better align with your desired magical outcome. Although some practitioners use the terms interchangeably, they are distinctly their own actions, in my opinion. If you don't use meditation or trance in your practice, I encourage you to at least try it to see if it benefits your desired outcomes, manifestation times, or strengths.

[how-to-witchcraft]

Foundations of Magical Theory - Energetic Signatures

An energetic signature is residual energy that is left behind by anything because of its existence in that space. It might also be described as an energetic fingerprint, a unique imprint left behind. Everything has an energetic fingerprint because everything in physical existence is made of atoms, and atoms are made of energy. There are those things that exist in the aether that are also maintained by energy that are less atomic and more ethereal and maintained by energetic transference. Therefore, everything, whether it's a person, place, thing, entity, or concept, carries an energetic signature. 

The way those signatures are expressed can vary depending on context. For instance, the energetic signature of a building or a room might be heavy and overbearing due to certain circumstances that happened there in its past. In contrast, the energetic signature of a person entering into that building might be buzzing and ecstatic because this is a place that they have studied and wanted to visit for a very long time. 

There can also be a third commingling energetic signature where the two meet, the person's happy, upbeat, and energized signature meeting the building's low, draining, and anxiety-inducing signature, making this separate third signature a conglomeration of the two. 

As expected, when those two energies part, that third energetic signature will dissipate more quickly over time than the signature of the building. Despite that they're both exterior signatures influenced by their surroundings, one had distinctly less energy put into it over time than the other; therefore, it will last less time than the other. 

Anything and everything can influence an energetic signature. In the context of a person, their history, their trauma, there are mental disorders or disabilities, their physical disorders or disabilities, the way society treats them, what their family expects of them, the kind of media they consumed as a child, the kind of mental deconstruction they've been doing as an adult, and so many other factors can influence a person's baseline energetic signature. On top of this, fluctuations in that baseline signature can happen due to more short-term effects such as their mood, what happened to them that day, whether or not they're hungry, upset at someone else, if they've taken that day's medication or forgotten it, etc. 

Literally anything can affect or shift your energetic signature. The degree to which it is affected is based upon a myriad of factors ranging from what kind of material something is made of, cultural perception of all facets of the makeup of that thing, historical use both of that specific thing and of those things throughout history, mood of the individual or people in the area, whether or not something was used in ritual, violence enacted in that area, etc. Outside of these fluctuations, a wider-scale view of a person's baseline energetic signature usually stays mostly the same throughout their life. The longer a certain kind of energy is exposed to something, the longer that thing will exude a similar baseline energetic signature. As you change over time, your energetic signature will also change to reflect who you are and what you do more.

Some people claim to be able to read this energetic signature in the form of feeling their energy, while others claim to be able to read it in the form of seeing their aura. There are still other practitioners who claim that an energetic signature and an aura are completely different from one another, where a signature is feeling-based, and an aura is visually based. Some of those practitioners who say that energetic signatures are feeling-based say that they are physical feeling-based, whereas others say they are emotional feeling-based, and still others say they are gut feeling-based. Overall, it appears to be up to the interpretation of the practitioner.

[how-to-witchcraft]

General Information - Broom Closet Magic

I'm a believer in standing tall and strong within your convictions and your belief, being open about what you believe and do, WHEN YOU CAN! I think that if you're in a relationship with someone, you ought to be able to be honest with them about your beliefs and your level of interaction with magic or witchcraft or whatever it is that you're doing along this path.

That being said, not everyone can do that. There are plenty of situations where people are not safe to share this information, whether it's with their partner(s), their family, their neighbors, their friends, or anyone around them. Usually, their housing, their personal safety, or their closest relationships and things like transportation to their job or any myriad of other things could be affected. When a person's safety and security are part of the equation, it is no longer about being open and standing strong in your beliefs; it is about staying alive, staying housed, staying safe. There are even still plenty of people, usually older single women, being stoned to death and killed, MURDERED all over the world for a mere suspicion of witchcraft. For some, this just isn't as simple as, 'get in a situation where you can practice openly'.

Because there are so many practitioners who live this way and cannot have their practice or their supplies out in the open, there's a term that has erupted in many English-speaking cultures for this exact kind of practice. Broom closet witchcraft.

The term 'broom closet witchcraft' is derived from the term 'being in the closet' from the queer community. Just like how some queer individuals are forced to stay in the closet because of the non-acceptance of their family, friends, and other close individuals, some practitioners are forced to stay in the broom closet because of said non-acceptance.

There are many different ways that broom closet practitioners can do things in secret to ensure their safety. Some carry pocket alters, just a couple of ingredients in an Altoids tin, or a piece of fabric cut in a specific cross formation to allow it to hold items and pictures, and be folded up on itself to be kept in your pocket. This is most often done when a practitioner wants to give offerings to or worship their chosen entity, however it is also pretty common for other practitioners to use a pocket altar when they are sneaking away to do a spell.

On the topic of spells, traditional modern spellcraft can be quite hard when you're practicing from the broom closet. Most spells nowadays call for candles to burn, incense to smoke, or other telltale signs that something less than societally normal is going on. Because of this, some practitioners feel they can't do spells safely, so they just don't.

Other practitioners find ways around it. Instead of spell candles or chime or birthday candles, which would be indicative of witchcraft, they might use smell-good Glade candles to write it off as a room scent. Some people who aren't able to burn a candle at all might use a wax melt and use the correspondences between color and scent while the wax melts.

Some people step away from wax altogether and use other spell methods. Spell jars are really common for broom closet practitioners, when there's a space like a drawer, closet, or under the bed to hide them. Most spell jars are kept to be shaken later and reactivate them; some are buried.

If you have a fear of your belongings being searched or found, more instant spell workings can be useful. Many practitioners use mixes of herbs and spices to sprinkle around the outside of their home or on the ground somewhere to activate them by proximity to the desired outcome. These mixes are biodegradable and blend in with the grass and other little bits on the ground enough to not to be noticed, even by highly astute individuals.

Some practitioners simply can't risk even being found with a handful of spices. In this case, it's pretty normal for someone to use chanting, visualization, verbal petitions, or other methods of magic that leave absolutely no physical trace behind. They may draw sigils in the air with their fingers, use intention-planting techniques such as the witch's handshake [URL], or draw sigils on what they're cleaning with cleaning supplies for cleansing, protection, or whatever they're after.

Many practitioners use kitchen witchery to get around being found out. It's not suspicious or unreasonable to cook for yourself or a family, especially multiple times a day. One of the most common methods that practitioners use to incorporate kitchen witchery into their broom closet practices is to gather together all of the things that they're going to use in a meal, research the ingredients to see what their metaphysical correspondences are, and then do a spell related to the correspondences and feed it to themselves/the family/their targets.

Many practitioners will syncretize their beliefs with a belief of their area, for instance Catholic Folk magic can blend witchcraft with Catholicism in such a way that from an outside perspective it looks like they are simply a practicing Catholic due to the kind of statuary and ingredients they use, or how people who practice Haitian Vodou or Louisiana Voodoo who might be worshiping and petitioning the Lwa by intent, but calling them by the names of Christian saints as a part of keeping themselves safe.

Some practitioners keep the entirety of their information online, in a blogging website such as Tumblr, Blogger, or Live Journal. Others use Discord to keep things organized. Still others use video and picture formats through TikTok and Instagram to keep a record of their practice.

No matter what level of broom closet witchery that you're at, your safety, security, and well-being are of the utmost importance and should be the priority. Especially if you live in a culture where they are still actively hunting down and genuinely incarcerating and/or murdering people for suspicion of Witchcraft alone, or when you're dependent upon mainstream religious or superstitious family members for your needs being met.

[how-to-witchcraft]

Differences - Interaction VS Veneration VS Worship

Interaction with an entity (including but not limited to deities, demons, angels, saints, spirits, ancestors, and more) is often considered a baseline of engagement. If you don't usually give offerings to a deity, but you do for this one spell, that is interacting with them, often referred to as 'working with' them. Though 'working with' takes off sometimes to also mean repeated offerings over time, but without strings, promises, pacts, or emotional ties. Each specific time you interact with that entity, that would be an interaction.

Interactions are more casual, and many practitioners go as far as to refer to the entities that they are working with in these casual settings with nicknames and phrases they would say to their friends. I've seen several practitioners refer to Aphrodite as Girly-Pop, I've seen one practitioner refer to Loki as Bruh, and I'm sure there are more. 

Veneration is a step up, usually involving some sort of reverence or great respect. This is often a good middle ground for people who don't quite want to go as far as outright worshiping an entity but who still want to note their relationship as being more than just a casual interaction. It is more common for people who venerate a deity to use more formal language with them. This is where the promises and pacts usually come into play. Of course, practitioners who are only interacting can also make promises and pacts; it's just less common than it is at the veneration stage. 

This is usually the step where people start building dedicated altars to that entity. Definitely not all practitioners will have a dedicated altar, especially those who are limited on space, but it is more common with people who venerate an entity rather than just interact with it. Titles such as Lord, Lady, King, Prince, whatever is appropriate for that entity, are more commonly used with people who venerate rather than interact.

Worship, on the other hand, tends to come in several distinct flavors. You've got the average kind of worship, these are practitioners who see an entity that they resonate with and they pick that one or claim that entity reached out to them, and they dedicate time and space, usually a modern altar to that entity, they use titles that they feel are appropriate, and they often have symbology of that entity around their home or on their person. Many practitioners in this camp cite unverified personal gnosis as their reality with that entity. Some practitioners believe UPG is valid, others claim it is only valid to you as the individual and should not be spread as information about that entity, and others claim it's invalid altogether. Personally, I'm at the camp that I think it's valid. 

Then there's the reconstructionist camp, or people who try to be as faithful as they can to the way those entities were worshiped in the time period they came from. This is not usually used for worship in the sense of demons, for instance, because they weren't really worshiped when they were first written about, but it is used more for things like Hellenic Polytheism, Kemetic Polytheism, Nordic Polytheism, and so on. These are practitioners who have frequently chosen to educate themselves further about the culture, some going as far as to get degrees in that study. Unfortunately, this also breeds elitism via 'my way is the only right way' beliefs in some circles, disguised as academic integrity and adherence to historical accuracy. There is discourse over whether or not it actually is elitism. 

These are the practitioners who are making their own white linen robes after 3 days of ritual purity with the intent of further ritual purity while they make it, and spending their entire savings on authentic antique bronze tripods and other things to recreate as close as possible to the culture of origin of their beliefs and practices. This is primarily because in reconstructionist circles, accuracy is the most important thing, and in a lot of these ancient religions that they are reconstructing, accuracy to the ingredients and the words you say is actually more important than the intent behind it. 

Then there's the casual worshiper. These are usually people who simultaneously worship and still maintain a casual air with their entity of choice, such as the nicknames mentioned earlier and the way they speak and interact with them. This method has been growing in popularity with the rise of witchtok and witchblr, on TikTok and Tumblr respectively, as some worshipers who do interact with their entities that way post about it, and other worshipers who don't interact with their entities that way use that kind of language to paraphrase when they've said, and either way it usually causes discourse in the comments relating to respect and whether or not one should address an entity that they worship that way.

Then there are extreme worshipers. These are the kinds of people that I grew up with in a Christian family cult. These are the people who believe that to worship accurately, you must do so with the utmost humility, you must put all of your humanity and whole being in faith, and everything into it at any given time when you are called to worship. If it is the day that you have set aside to praise your entity, then you must praise until you are red in the face and sweating and half yelling and jumping around and hooting and hollering and proclaiming, 'in Jesus name, amen'! Many times, this often comes with instructions to humiliate yourself or to prostrate yourself before your entity and grovel and beg for forgiveness for not being as perfect as they made you to be. This can also lead to dangerous self-harm behavior in terms of repentance. These practitioners usually use multiple titles of extreme reverence for their entity: 'the Lord Almighty God, our King who art in heaven, my savior, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega, all that is or ever was', just to name a few from what I grew up with. 

Not all Christianity is like this, not by any means, but extreme worshipers are like this. Some people even go on to do dangerous things in the name of faith, like rattlesnake handling. Some families have the good sense to keep the children away from the rattlesnake handlers while they're actively handling, but there are some families who put the children right in there with them in the name of faith in the conviction of their deity. Extreme worship can go to extreme lengths, and in my experience, is not usually healthy. 

Of course, there are all sorts of worshipers in between who fill just about every nook and cranny of the spectrum from one extreme to another. There are some people who consider themselves very respectful worshipers who have nicknames and a casual nature with their entities. And I'm not saying that TikTok and Tumblr only teach people how to be casual worshipers or trying to equate it with anything inherently negative. Just like any other source of information, anyone can write or create a video about anything they want with any amount of knowledge that they want, just like people do with books, just like people do with blogs and documentaries. There are people who are good at it, and there are people who could do better. It's about gaining multiple perspectives and sifting through the information to find out what resonates, what's good for you as a practitioner, and what doesn't make sense for you.

Whether or not you interact, venerate, or worship, they are all valid ways to engage with an entity. Yes, it is true that some entities like deities in certain religions require certain things, for instance, if you are going to engage with an entity from the ancient Greek pantheon, it is more often than not considered good form to wash yourself before you do to avoid miasma. This is something that many casual practitioners and those who choose interaction-level relationships with their entities might miss because they simply haven't learned about it or been exposed to it. 

Even then, that doesn't necessarily make modern practitioners casual relationships 'wrong', even when they don't necessarily follow ancient rules to a T. There's a lot of contexts surrounding ancient rules, like lack of access to clean bathing water, accessibility to ritual tools being not something everyday people could afford, more infrequent cleaning then than there is now, and so much more that affect how certain things were perceived then. The fact is, the world is mostly cleaner now than it used to be in terms of personal hygiene, house cleanliness, and the like. We don't have to rely on meat to sustain ourselves as much; it's a lot easier than ever before to go vegetarian or vegan, keep from touching blood, or keep clean for ritual purity. We aren't going to be as surrounded by miasmic things like they would have back then.

The times have changed, our understanding of things has changed, and the context surrounding why certain rules were put into place has also changed within our societies. It is therefore logical and reasonable to assume that the way people worship the same entity can also change from ancient times, especially considering that even during ancient times, it changed from one thing to another, especially as the religion grew.

Some practitioners will go through all three methods with their entities. Other practitioners will only be at one method for their entire magical career. I've personally been at all three throughout my life, and I'm sitting at the veneration point right now with two entities. I started and was threatened and blackmailed into extreme worship as a child, and I've worked casually and still do sometimes with some other entities in interactions. It's possible to do multiple of these at once with different entities.

[how-to-witchcraft]

Intuition

Intuition is defined as 'the ability to understand something immediately, something that one knows or considers, likely from instinctive feeling without the need for conscious reasoning'. For a lot of practitioners, it is believed that this means jumping into something, usually a form of divination or spell craft, will go fine if you just 'use your intuition'. I have seen some then go on to define this as something like, 'That feeling that you get where you just know you're right'. This is not a valid feeling to go by in my opinion due to things like anxiety, imposter syndrome, confirmation bias, and other issues that may cloud one's ability to discern them from intuition. Other practitioners argue that this is akin to making things up and seeing how it goes, and treating intuition like a form of divinatory wish-making. A small subsect of the first group fires back that with Chaos Magic, that's exactly what you're doing, and it works well. Other practitioners prefer to dive deeper into the matter before they start relying on their intuition, considering it training their intuition to function like a well-oiled machine; off of structure as a base and branching off once they've learned the basics of something.

I personally subscribe to that last group of people. I like to use my intuition as a tool, something to help me make sense of or add to something that I already have a basis of knowledge for. For instance, if someone comes to me and asks for a tarot reading, and I pull a card for them, if they haven't given me the question they're asking and prefer to keep it to themselves, I'll tell them what that card means in a general sense. This is less using intuition, and more parroting the book meaning of the card. But if they've given me the question, I can then dissect that card's meaning as it relates to the subject and that question specifically, and that is a form of using intuition.

There are some oracle cards that are meant to be jumped into and used as intuition-based from the very beginning. They usually have strong imagery and consistent themes through the cards that are specific enough to the originating culture that they are widely known, but vague enough to give plenty of room for individual interpretation, even in the same reading for different questions. I know there is a 'catch all spell' out there that cites the belief that white candles, rosemary, and clear quartz are all substitutes for every other candle color, herb or spice, and crystal or mineral, therefore it can be a spell for anything from banishment to self love to protection to healing. So there are methods that cater to the idea of intuition-first-based thinking.

Some things can affect whether or not you have a good connection with your intuition. Fostering a good connection with your intuition is imperative if you're going to be using it to inform your practice. That's why it's important, in my opinion, to have a working knowledge of things like trauma, anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome, and how they affect the brain, the mood, and the belief system about the self. It's also important to have a working knowledge of confirmation bias, individual bias, and wishful thinking, and how those play a part as well.

With trauma, certain things like that gut feeling many people attribute to intuition can cause flashbacks, panic attacks, and trigger mood swings. With anxiety issues, feeling your intuition come into play can often lead to things like imposter syndrome if you don't already have it, and can lead to 'what if' mindsets, 'what if I'm wrong', 'what if this sounds stupid', etc. With imposter syndrome, you might use your intuition, then attribute it to something or someone else, literally anything but yourself, because yourself couldn't have possibly done that like that. It had to be spirit, or guides, or ancestors, or anything but the practitioner. It can also lead to anxiety, if it wasn't present before.

With individual bias, using your intuition can look like anything. The sky's the limit, because each individual is unique and has had a completely unique life, and whatever their personal biases are, they can absolutely come out to play when relying on intuition. With confirmation bias, some people will simply say, 'I feel this in my gut, my intuition says it's true, so it is', and even if they are presented with evidence contrary to that belief, they will choose to ignore it and only receive information and evidence that backs up what they already believe. With wishful thinking, intuition can look like hope and 'good feelings' about what you're doing and the future, regardless of results, really. Some practitioners will sit with themselves and try to think positive thoughts and mantras in order to manifest those positive things in their life, and they will say they feel it coming, this is their day, week, month, year. This is really the one, they can feel it in their bones. But without action behind it to manifest, this just falls under wishful thinking for me, and that excitement in their core is usually just that; excitement at the prospect, not necessarily an intuitive gut feeling. There are a lot more things that can effect how you interact with your intuition, but I've listed what I've seen most prevalent in the communities I'm part of.

For me personally, practicing an intuition-first way simply doesn't make sense. I know for some it works, more power to them, but for me, I just can't wrap my head around it. In my experience, I've found that intuition works best when you already know the basic idea of how to do something. Branching off like branches on a tree, the trunk being the basis of knowledge that you have to support all those branches. The bigger the basis of knowledge, the bigger the trunk, the more you can use your intuition, the more branches it can support. If you come into something with absolutely no knowledge of it or how it's traditionally done, and you just start using it however you see fit, all because 'this is how my intuition tells me to use it', more often than not, something gets used wrong, it offends people, or if you believe in them, entities like deities, spirits, and ancestors can get offended, too, it can backfire or hurt you, it can fizzle out into nothing, or if its a divinatory form, it might give you inaccurate results and readings.

When you build a foundation of research, you learn how it was used, how it is currently used by others, and how it can be used. When you learn the nuances of how to use it in different situations, you start building a system instead of just parroting what you see others do. When you build a system, you are able to tailor what you're doing to whatever you need it for quicker than ever before. That is using intuition. That is enhancing your practice with your intuition. That is also the secret to 'just knowing' how to do something. You don't 'just know' because you just know without ever learning it, you know because you've taken the time to learn, to study, to see the different ways different practitioners access something and work with it, you've spoken to different people, you've had questions and gotten them answered. Intuition comes quickest from knowledge and best from experience.

[how-to-witchcraft]

General Information - How to Dispose of Offerings

Let me start by saying that there is no one correct way to dispose of offerings. Different people on different paths dispose of them in different ways. A large part of it has to do with accessibility for certain disposal methods.

In the vast majority of cases, it is appropriate and acceptable to dispose of your offering once it has been received. Some practitioners say that they wait for a certain feeling that they get, for some it's an energetic signature, for others it's an emotional feeling, and they will take that feeling as an indication that the energy from the offering has been consumed by the entity they are offering it to. Other practitioners leave it for a certain amount of time, usually an amount of days that corresponds numerologically with the desired outcome, especially if they're offering is one of reciprocity. Still others will leave it for an amount of days that corresponds numerologically with that entity, if there is such a correspondence.

Some practitioners will leave it until it gets old, it starts to shrivel, or mold starts sprouting, at least if it is organic or something that deteriorates. They will consider that to be an indicator that it has been consumed. There are some cases in which an offering will sit on an altar for an extended period of time because it does not shrivel, mold, or decay at a normal rate. Many practitioners who have this happen consider it to be a sign that their entity is enjoying it for a prolonged period of time. I have even seen some practitioners keep things like apples and other food stuff on their altar for months at a time, just waiting for it to show signs of decay. Many of these practitioners consider the extended decay times to correlate with how much the entity likes that offering; the longer it takes to decay, the more they like it.

If the offering is being left out for a short period of time and it is consumable, it is normal for some practitioners to consume it as a form of disposal. Modernly, this is usually part of a waste not mentality. In Kemeticism, modern practitioners mirror what ancient practitioners did, taking the consumable offering after it is believed the essence has been consumed by the entity, and then passing the offering around the priests and temple staff, or simply to the practitioner and maybe their family in modern times, as a blessed and sacred meal. In Hellenic polytheism, it is also common for the practitioner to consume the offerings as a shared meal with the Gods, though not all Hellenists follow this. The Gods were thought to consume the parts people couldn't eat, bones, fat, aroma, etc; and the people ate the rest. In Nordic Polytheism, it was also normal to eat the animal sacrifices after their blood was used to consecrate altars and people, the sacrificial meat would be shared in communal feasts to strengthen the bond between the community members.

All throughout antiquity, people by and large consumed edible offerings after they were offered to their entities. This was normal and expected. Many modern practitioners follow this route and will consume their offerings. For some reason that I haven't quite figured out yet, though, many modern practitioners refuse to consume their edible offerings because they feel it is disrespectful to the entity to 'take what belongs to the entity for themselves'.

Some consumable offerings, and some other offerings that are capable, are burned as a way to release their essence to the entity. Ancient Greece would burn animal sacrifices and some of their offerings, consumables, spells, etc. Ancient Egyptians primarily burned incense, not food. Consumables and other offerings were burned by ancient Nordic cultures, too. Some modern practitioners refuse to consume offerings as they see it as rude, greedy, or gluttonous, or stealing as it is taking what belongs to the entity.

Buried offerings were used frequently for offerings for the dead in ancient Hellenic, Kemetic, and Nordic Polytheism. They were also, less commonly, buried for deities across all three. In modern times, it is considered good form to bury offerings for Hekate and other cthonic deities, specifically at a crossroads.

Modern practitioners toss biodegradable offerings into moving water as a form of disposal. Ancient Greek practitioners would throw offerings in the rivers, the sea, or sacred springs. Ancient Egyptian practitioners disposed of libations sometimes by pouring them into the Nile. Ancient Norse cultures would dispose of some offerings in rivers, lakes, bogs, and other bodies of water.

Some practitioners only follow the consume, bury, burn methods of offering disposal, seeing those as the only respectful methods. Other practitioners, especially those who don't have access to land to bury things on, pits or safe places to burn things, or are offering non consumables, will instead throw the offerings away once they've been energetically spent.

This has actually caused discourse in the wider theistic witchcraft and pagan communities, as some people see throwing away the offerings once done to be highly disrespectful, equating that entity to no better than trash, and citing that ancient people did NOT throw away offerings into the trash due to their sacred, blessed nature.

Others defend the throw away method, saying that times have changed, access to certain methods of disposal simply aren't feasible for many modern, especially urban or city-based practitioners, and that once an offering has been used, if it's not something reusable like jewelry you wear on honor of that entity or to keep that entity close, that offering has no more use to the entity and is free to be disposed of as necessary. They cite that it isn't about respect or disrespect, it's about necessity, efficiency, and functionality. Especially for practitioners who are in the broom closet.

[how-to-witchcraft]

General Information - Offerings - What and Why?

An offering is something that you give to a deity, other entity, or a primordial force. Most of the time, offerings are meant to be pleasing to the senses, something that smells, looks, sounds, feels, or tastes good. Sometimes offerings can be energetic in nature, which some practitioners consider to be a 'feels good' offering, and other practitioners consider to be a 'feeds the entity' offering. Some practitioners view offerings as something they do regardless of what happens and what the entity may or may not bless them with or bestow upon them. Other practitioners view offerings as reciprocity; I give you something, you give me something. Some people argue this is transactional and reduces deities to mere wish-granting correspondences. Others argue that this is how offerings have worked since at the very least the Greek Magical Papyri, and they are merely copying how it was done back then, after all, if it was good enough for the culture that birthed those deities and mythos, then it should be good enough now.

Traditional ancient Greek offerings include libations of milk, honey, wine, oil, and water, other offerings of honey cakes, fruit, grain, and other things grown by those individuals, animal sacrifices such as oxen, sheep, and goats, or whatever other animals those individuals raised, and incense. Offerings were made primarily to establish a reciprocal relationship with the Gods (I give so that you might give ideology), to gain kharis (favor), and to secure blessings and protection, and to thank the Gods for good fortune.

Traditional ancient Egyptian offerings included libations of water, milk, wine, and beer, other offerings of bread, roasted fowl, beef, onions, garlic, figs, dates, grapes, cucumbers, ox, spells, images, carved offering tables, and votives. Offerings were made primarily to maintain Ma'at, to gain favor from the Gods, and to sustain the ka (soul) of the dead in the afterlife.

Traditional ancient Norse offerings include libations of mead, ale, and wine, other offerings of baked goods, especially bread, meat, cheese, parsley, sage, other herbs grown by the individual, and whatever produce happens to be in season at that point, animal sacrifice including horses, pigs, and goats, precious metals, gold, amber, and jewelry, art, poems, songs, and personal devotional actions. Offerings were burned, buried, left at sacred spots, or consumed. Offerings were made for reciprocal sacrifice (Gift for a gift ideology), maintaining good relationships with the Gods, spirits, and ancestors, and securing favor for fertility, victory, and safety.

Modern offerings include libations of milk, honey, wine, juice, tea, water, oil, other sweet alcohols, coffee, and small portions of whatever drink the practitioner is having at that moment, other offerings of baked goods, especially sweet bread-items, small portions of whatever food the practitioner might be having that day, including but not limited to processed foods, ready-made foods, and fast food, items that the practitioner has grown themselves on their farm or in their garden, items foraged from nearby land, acts of service and charity for devotion, personal energy, spells, rituals, and sometimes, blood, depending on the entity receiving them.

It is generally good form that when you give offerings to a deity, you follow the guildelines of the culture the deity comes from. For instance, offering blood to a Greek deity would be a no-go due to something called 'Miasma', which is basically ritual impurity, pollution, or defilement. Blood is considered ritually impure in this society. Ancient Egyptian society viewed human blood as forbidden, chaotic, defiling, and hateful to divine order. Human blood was considered dark magic, but it also had a place in some ancient texts, describing it as an agent of protection, just not an offering.

If you're going to give an offering, you can do it from a standpoint trying to recreate exactly what that deity's culture would have done, or you can try something modern that never would have been around back then, like Mountain Dew (I hear Loki likes this one, according to many practitioners' UPG [Unverified Personal Gnosis]). It is generally considered in the wider Witchcraft-or-pagan-related worshipping community that if the offering is done in good faith and with pure intention, it should be received just fine, whether or not it's a deity's favorite.

Some modern practitioners view the idea of offerings for reciprocity, give so I can get, give so you can give, etc., to be manipulative, self-serving, and morally wrong at worst, morally ambiguous at best. Let me be clear, this is a strictly modern interpretation based on modern morals. It's not necessarily wrong to believe this, but it is wrong to come down on other practitioners who do give offerings for reciprocity, just because you yourself don't work that way. Historically, this is how it's been done by the masses, and there's nothing wrong with a little give-and-take. That is literally how the happiest communities are built; favors for favors, helping each other when the time comes and it's called for to the best of each individual's ability. It makes sense that this can be how relationships with the divine are also maintained or formed.

[how-to-witchcraft]

I'm so frustrated with this anti-mythic literalism stance right now and how many people are making it out to be bad or stupid if you take the myths at face value for how that deity acts.

If you use the myths to inform any part of your practice, the epithets, the deities domain, what to give them as offerings, relationships they have with other deities or entities, the things that correspond to them, etc , you are already engaging in mythic literalism it is just selective mythicalism.

People like to say that the myths aren't literal, they're just allegories, but then they treat every positive attribute in the myths as literal truth. They ignore the parts that make them uncomfortable by calling them metaphor or slander, but then they turn around and rely on the myths for correspondences, epithets, domains, offerings, and more. Those parts are literal because they're comfortable. Those parts are supposed to be literally what the deities want, have dominion over, and the like. But those other parts, like cheating and implied rape, etc., that's not what the deities are really like, of course not (sarcasm). That's a leftover from Christian conditioning where people were taught to ignore the parts of the Bible that made them uncomfortable and focus only on the nice parts and reinterpret everything else so it doesn't challenge them.

People want their deities to be safe, morally pure. If their deity of choice has done something morally questionable in a myth, that sometimes threatens their sense of spiritual safety, so they sanitize the deity with notions of, 'oh it's just an allegory, oh it's just a metaphor', so they don't have to actually look at those actions as though they were behaviors of a deity. While still turning around and taking other things from the myths quite literally when it is convenient for them.

I just need to state that I'm not saying the myths aren't metaphors or allegories, of course they are, we know this. I am just saying they are also valid information about how a deity acts, what their personality is like, the kinds of behaviors they exibit. If they weren't valid, then the information of the epithets, the things that they like is offerings, literally anything else that you learn from any of the myths, etc, would also not be valid.

People want their pomegranates, their thunder, their flowers, their torches, their epithets, and their symbols, but they don't actually want the social norms of the time, the power dynamics between the deities and sometimes their actual victims, they don't want the uncomfortable parts. So they cherry pick what they want to believe and then call people who are mythic literalists naive or not able to actually understand the nuance and the depth of the situation, while us mythic literalists are over here talking amongst ourselves about all of the nuances and the depths of the myth because we believe they're blueprints of how those deities act and how to interact with them, so we treat them with sincerity and reverence.

Some people confuse mythic literalism with historically real, they think that if you claim mythic literalism you're saying that you believe that Zeus physically descended as a swan. When in reality, all mythic literalism is, is taking the myths as a primary source for the deities personality, acknowledging that the myths reflect how ancient people understood the Gods and how they shape the deities' egregoric identity. These people complain about mythic literalism while misunderstanding what literalism even means in mythic context.

People will say 'oh, the abduction story between Hades and Persephone is just an allegory for the seasons changing'. But then they'll turn around and say that yes, Hekate did help Demeter find her daughter. They'll say Aphrodite and Zeus cheating on their spouses is just an allegory for their fertility and love symbolism, then turn around and say Zeus has dominion over foreigners and hospitality, and Aphrodite was born because Ouranos' genitals were thrown in the ocean. They'll treat pomegranate seeds as literal magic symbolism, they treat Persephone's association with spring as literal, they treat Hades rulership over the dead as literal, they treat the marriage as literal when it suits them. It's only an allegory when the story makes people uncomfortable or when it suits them.

It's inconsistent, it's cherry-picking, it's emotional sanitization, it's emotional editing, it's projection of modern morality onto ancient deities, and it's selective mythic literalism. Yes, when you are saying things like the pomegranates are what Persephone is related to, that Hades actively rules over the underworld, that Aphrodite was born in the sea foam, that is a form of mythic literalism just selective to what you want to accept in your comfort bubble.

People act like they don't actually want the Gods as the Gods are. Instead they want a deity who is soft and gentle and aesthetic and morally perfect and aligned with their modern values because they're easy to worship. They want a mascot. They want a god with no flaws or morally complex actions.

If you are going to reference the myths for things like epithets, domains, correspondences, things like how much Demeter loves Persephone, how much Hera loves Zeus, for ideas on what to give as offerings, if you're going to consult the myths for all of those things, turning around and saying 'well this part of the myth doesn't count because it's just an allegory' is literally cherry picking. That is just what the Christians do when they take one or two verses out of context to back up whatever they're saying and then leave out the rest.

Using the myths as a blueprint for how that deity acts and reacts and what that deity has done in their own religion and and what is effectively the source memory of the egregoric energetic culmination that makes up that deity, is no different than using the myths to find epithets, correspondences, offerings, etc. If people are going to use the myths for anything and declare that part real, they don't get to declare other parts of it 'not real' just because they make them uncomfortable, and they don't want to envision their fave deity acting in that manner. If they are going to treat the epithets, domains, correspondences, offerings, and relationships, listed in the myths as real and literal truth about the deities, they also have to take the other stuff in the myths as literal truth about the deities, too. They don't get to turn around and say 'well this part doesn't count because this part specifically is just an allegory but all the other stuff that I think is true is true'.

The fact is that the myths are the primary sources that we have for deity personality and deity actions. The myths are how the ancient people understood the deities, too, both in allegory senses and literal senses, sometimes both even in the same community. Cherry picking what you want to consider true or literal is cognitive dissonance. If you reference the myths for literally anything about how to interact with a deity or what they like, their epithets that you want to use, or what they rule over, then it makes zero sense to turn around and hate on people who use the myths as a definition of that deities behavior, and it makes zero sense to try to claim that this specific part right here, the controversial one that makes you uncomfortable and makes the deity you like morally flawed or morally ambiguous at best, this part somehow doesn't count.

[togetherwandering]

I'm interested in how you synthesise the understanding of the theoi as amoral/morally complex beings with your view of religion. I've always been under the impression that because these myths were told by people in ancient times, they are told through ancient understanding and morality. So now, when myths are retold, they are being told through modern understanding and morality.

However, we might be looking at different understandings of mythic literalism. I understand mythic literalism to be, quite simply, taking myths to be fact. For Christianity, for example, that might be the belief of creationism/young Earth theory. For Hellenic Polytheism, that may mean believing of Mt Olympus as a physical dwelling of the gods. Would these not be classed as mythic literalism, for you?

[how-to-witchcraft]

Let me define a couple of terms as I use them.

When I say mythic literalism, I am primarily using it as a term to describe taking the myths at face value for how the deity or other entity acts, interacts, and reacts with themselves, other entities, and humans.

What you were describing, the gods literally living on Mount Olympus, in the Christian mythos the world literally only being six thousand years old, Zeus literally turning into a swan; those are what I call a Historical Fact POV of the myths. It is a subsect of mythic literalism absolutely, however it is not the primary subsect of mythic literalism that I see spoken about by self-proclaimed mythic literalists.

I do not subscribe personally to the historic fact POV subsect of mythic literalism. This is because when I see people labeling themselves as mythic literalists and talking about mythic literalism, it is almost always in a way where they are saying, 'this action that the deity took in the myth, so this is how the deity acts, interacts, or reacts with that situation'. In fact, I actually haven't seen a single mythic literalist proclaim that they believed the historical fact POV in any way, I have only seen them talking about using the myths as blueprints and guides for how the deities act, interact, and react.

Case in point, one of the most widely used examples in this argument, Hades kidnapped Persephone, his niece, and tricked her into staying with him and being his for part of the year with pomegranate arils. I see practitioners stating that they don't feel comfortable working with or worshiping Hades because he literally kidnapped and tricked Persephone. That they don't feel comfortable working with or worshipping Zeus or Aphrodite because they consistently cheat on their partners, or because Zeus literally raped others. More often than not these are also people who are victims of cheating and being raped who are saying these things about why they're uncomfortable working with these deities.

And almost every time across the board I see other people come in and saying 'you're taking the myths literally, mythic literalism is bad and you don't understand how to actually worship or engage with this religion'. That is why I have the definition of mythic literalism that I do. I have even seen other practitioners tell these practitioners that they have to worship Zeus because he's basically the father of the pantheon.

Now, why I don't subscribe to the historical fact POV, it's because I follow what I call the 'egregoric entity model'. I believe that all deities across all pantheons in all of the globe are either primordial forces or manmade concepts that are also egregoric entities who have been assigned a name and formed a personality based on all of the worship, energy, offerings, sacrifices, prayer, and other interaction that people have had with them over time. That what has been written as their myth is basically, to borrow the phrase from the DID community, their source material, their source memories.

It is widely accepted that the vast majority of philosophizing about ancient deities from ancient people comes from a very small collection of people in comparison to the wider community. It is also accepted that some people and some mystery cults worshiped these deities in a sense where they believed that the myth about that deity was how that deity actually acted. Of course it is a fact that a lot of our written philosophical information from that time treats them as metaphor and allegory only. It is also a fact that at that time, writing in the collection of information was reserved for specific elite groups who had the privilege and access of written record.

The wider discussion and subsequent framing of mythic literalism as bad and inaccurate is almost always used to shut down people who are uncomfortable worshiping certain deities for how they acted in the myth. In fact that's pretty much the only time that I see other people coming down on self-proclaimed mythic literalists for believing what the myths say about the deities and how they are as individuals. It is almost always used to say that they are worshiping wrong, that they have no basis to believe what they believe, and then those same accusatory people will turn around and use those exact same myths to inform how they practice, but only their version counts because they're just using it for epithets, domains, correspondences, what to offer them, and literally everything else about how to interact with that deity. It's hypocrisy. They are picking and choosing the parts that they want to be literal for themselves and then turning around and telling other people that their parts don't count as literal. And the fact that quite a large chunk of these people being shut down are people who are actively victims of cheating and rape and other things that they're distancing themselves from, is abhorrent. They are actively being told that their discomfort doesn't matter, and in some cases, that they have to worship certain deities whether or not they want to because of their position in the pantheon. I cannot believe that I have actually seen other practitioners telling other practitioners that they have to worship, or at the very least give offerings to Zeus because of his position in the pantheon regardless of how uncomfortable his mythic cheating and his rape makes them, and regardless of the fact that they are survivor.

As for the morality thing. Yes absolutely, the myths were written in the lens of ancient morality and modern morality is vastly different from that. But modern morality is what is influencing and informing some practitioners concepts of the deities and that can't be just thrown to the side because ancient people had a different kind of morality. It can inform how we view and understand the relationship between ancient people and their deities, but that doesn't stop our subjective individual morality and our subjective cultural morality from influencing our information and what we think of those kinds of actions.

If the myths can tell you the rules of how to worship, then the myths can also tell you how that deity acts, interacts, and reacts. It just does not make sense to me to have it one way but not the other.

I'm not saying that people have to worship from a mythic literalist point of view. I am saying that it does not make any sense whatsoever to come down on people who are self-proclaimed mythic literalists, especially when all they're doing is using the myth as a framework for how that deity acts, interacts, and reacts, especially when people who proclaim to be against mythic literalism are also using the myths in a literal sense to inform their practice. Genuinely can't wrap my head around it.