~

~ starting witchcraft studies anew after a long break ~ this is a sideblog for reblogs, I don't see the reason to create a standalone witchblr yet

[miseria-fortes-viros]

your weird obsession with moral purity is degrading your critical thinking skills and poisoning your ability to empathize with other people btw

[void-milf]

fyi the point of fucking up your data patterns isnt to avoid suspicion. it’s to make EVERYONE suspicious. same logic as the bloc, pals.  protect your comrades, be suspicious. ESPECIALLY if you aren’t doing anything likely to get you arrested.

[void-milf]

the state is less omniscient and significantly more incompetent than you’d think. overextend their resources at every possible opportunity.  make them cry wolf repeatedly. run their data analysis agents fucking ragged.  and strike. attack.

[37womenwieldingknives]

YES i’m a postgrad statistics researcher and i can tell you that the state honestly has NO IDEA what to do with the data it collects, it has an obsession with big data but it’s almost impossible to work with in practice. the traditional statistical approaches that are used can’t be scaled up, the adapted approaches are substantially weakened, and the machine learning approaches have the same problems and often tell them nothing. data scientists are only just coming around to these issues too, most still just push on with it anyway - incompetence is the word. above all this though, like you say, the biggest issue for the state is at the point of data collection. they will NEVER get anything useful if they’re collecting shitty messy data. they will eventually figure out that the real solution is working how to collect accurate and meaningful data, we should make it as difficult as possible for them to do that

[afraidofamericans]

This makes me think that we need WAAAY more apps that generate junk data

[queeranarchism]

Apps that generate junk data? tell me moooore.

[anarchopuppy]

Ooh I know this one!

Ad Nauseum is an adblocker that stores the ads it blocks and continuously generates fake clicks, fucking with analytics and costing the ad companies money

TrackMeNot automatically does randomly generated searches on a variety of search engines to obscure your real searches and fuck with analytics, and you can set it up to work with anything that has a search bar (including facebook, twitter, amazon, youtube, etc)

WhatCampaign replaces analytics parameters in links with the string “FuckOff”. I thought there was a similar extension that used random strings, but I can’t seem to find it

Privacy Possum is a fork of Privacy Badger with a focus on costing tracking companies as much money as possible, and idk if my limited tech knowledge is enough to understand what it does but the description does say it falsifies some data so that’s good enough for me

@afraidofamericans

[mayflower-gal]

Boy it SURE would be a SHAME if this were SPREAD AROUND for everyone TO SEE

[approaching-the-scrungularity-d]

Against the Crackling Legion.

[creature-wizard]

On telling the difference between a thoughtform and a "real" spirit

You may have encountered people claiming that a lot of the spirits people run into are actually thoughtforms. In essence, a thoughtform is supposed to be a kind of artificially-made spirit, kind of like an imaginary friend with actual autonomy and agency. You may have heard people saying that it's very important to know the difference between thoughtforms and real spirits, and you may have been left utterly clueless as to how you might do such a thing. You may have been given some impression that there's some special knowledge or technique that you just weren't told about. I have good and/or bad news for you, depending on how you look at it: there really isn't one. People have all kinds of different methods they use for spiritual discernment, and a lot of the time it comes down to "does the spirit confirm the belief system I already subscribe to?" This one's been around for ages, as shown in 1 John 4:1-3. (Not that Christians have all stuck to it - they've been accusing each other of following false spirits over all kinds of doctrinal differences since the earliest days of Christianity.) New Agers often claim that true messages from Spirit will uplift you and make you feel good, but considering how often those messages affirm dangerous pseudoscience and racist pseudohistory, I think we can see where this method has flaws. Some modern pagans take the approach that spirits should behave in ways that align with old myths. The problem here is, which old myths? Mythology has always been evolving and changing, and varied between regions and social strata. Most of the stuff we have is what wealthy people decided to write down. Another issue is that most of us just don't understand historical perspectives as well as we think we do, so we frequently measure our experiences against a past that never actually was. Sometimes people try to compare their experiences against old magical manuals (EG, Renaissance books for summoning demons) but fail to realize just how much of the information in them is incredibly questionable. Books like these often contain pseudohistory (often by way of people projecting their own beliefs onto the past), mangled to even fake Hebrew, and all kinds of stuff that falls apart under any serious scholarly examination. These books often expect us to believe that Satan was just always in command of all these demonic dukes and princes with their legions of demons beneath them, but the reality is that this is a concept that evolved gradually, and every point of change can easily be connected to what was going on in the time and place it emerged in. Sometimes people compare their experiences against what other people are currently experiencing, but this only tells you what kind of experiences are common. It doesn't actually confirm the origins of an entity. Personally, I don't think "is this a real spirit or a thoughtform?" is a particularly useful question to ask, because there's just no surefire method of vetting a entity's origins. I think it's more useful to take a practical approach: Are you benefiting from this relationship? Are you being treated fairly? Are you minding cultural boundaries? Are you making sure you aren't getting swept into pseudohistory or something? I think as long as the answer to these questions is "yes," the rest really doesn't matter.

[silkravensssssss]

Is there a reason why you can't just ask the spirit or use some divination method like tarot to get the answer? Idk, asking seems like the obvious solution to me..

[creature-wizard]

@a-witch-named-crow hit the nail on the head earlier. You can use any means you like to ask questions, but it doesn't follow that you're going to get true or accurate answers; and if you dig around far enough you can find reasons to consider any entity suspect, including the ones that people who consider themselves experienced, serious practitioners work with. Which means that fretting over whether a spirit is "real" or not is ultimately kind of a fool's errand, and it's more important to focus on what your relationship with said spirit is doing for you.

[iseneri-sources]

What is the difference between a thoughtform and a certified spirit(TM)? If you establish a contact with them, and are pretty sure you didn't just imagined the whole thing, then what's the difference? Is it because a thoughtform could be more limited to it's creator's beliefs or the purpose they've been created with? But.. wouldn't certified spirits(TM) also have they're own opinions and agenda?

[approaching-the-scrungularity-d]

I've discovered something exciting about the way my magic functions! For context, my current belief system incorporates both animism and microcosmic thinking. Sort of like this : "everything has a spirit, and even though spirits are projections of my unconscious mind, that's okay because I am the universe staring at it's reflection and choosing to be whole."

So every tool of mine has an entity attached, usually molded and awakened by me- similar to the creation of a thoughtform. And in order to benefit from their aid, I feed them. What hit me today, and inspired this post, was the method by which I feed each of them. The enchanted cup that drives away headaches, sour stomachs, anxiety, etc, has a tiny cat-spirit that drinks the cream I put in the tea; her reward for hunting down these ailments is to eat them like the vermin they are. The shrine to the entity of Knowledge I work with is laden with to-be-read books, which I read out of as part of its sacrifices- and its benefits include helping me to learn and more easily comprehend what I read.

The amulet that houses a glamour-weaving demonic eye is fed by compliments given while wearing it.

In other words, what charges the magic is directly benefitted by the magic itself- so doing a better job means getting more out of the deal, for both me and the tool-spirits in question. My process is basically creating intentionally self-fulfilling prophecies and waiting. This is the kind of tech thing that I think @windvexer and @creature-wizard would go crazy for, so adding mentions just in case.

[creature-wizard]

I love it! :3

[creature-wizard]

Someone once asked me how I use psychology in my witchcraft, and I never got around to answering it. So I figured I should do that.

The basic answer is that I ask myself, "does this take advantage of something we know about how the human mind works; or might it have psychologically unhealthy consequences?"

For example, I remember reading somewhere that washing up can make people feel as if they've been emotionally or spiritually cleansed. So if someone asks how they can move past a bad point in their life, I'm probably going to recommend some kind of bath or shower ritual.

I also know that our subconscious minds process information and often come to fairly reasonable conclusions without our even realizing it. So if someone's having difficulty making a choice even after doing the best possible research they can, or where there's just no objectively "best" choice, I might suggest using a pendulum to sort it out.

I know that the brain tends to internalize repeated information, so I'm down with healthy affirmations.

I know that people respond to symbols, both consciously and subconsciously. So if someone wanted to feel more confident, I see no reason why creating a spell jar full of things associated with confidence wouldn't provide some benefit if they kept it in a visible place.

I know that energy healing practices can at the very least help people relax. While I would never, ever suggest that someone pays huge amounts of money or uses energy healing in place of evidence-based medicine (never use anything to replace evidence-based medicine), I'm down for using the techniques on yourself or on your friends, or watching ASMR reiki videos on YouTube.

And on the other hand, I don't really put much stock in spells or practices that target an unaware third party. For example, I don't think death or misfortune curses are especially likely to work. I also think that in some cases, they might just reinforce a fixation on revenge that actually hinders the caster's path to emotional healing and finding healthy coping mechanisms.

So yeah, that about sums up how I view magic though a psychological paradigm - I ask myself how a technique might take advantage of something we know about the human mind, and whether it might have psychologically unhealthy consequences.

[creature-wizard]

Trump meets every qualification for being the antichrist

Tell me you've never actually read the Bible without telling me you've never actually read the Bible.

[iseneri-sources]

but damn it's so hard to read the whole Bible. I've tried to. respect.

[breelandwalker]

For my fellow fibre arts witches, if you're starting to get the Annual Cold Weather Fidget, that driving urge to reach for hooks and needles and that big bin of spools and fabric lurking in your closet....

If you feel like Doing A Witchcraft, you can work some witchy into whatever you're making. Weaving, crocheting, knitting, nalbinding, stitching, embroidery, and knotwork can all carry magic and serve as a vehicle for creating spells, sigils, talismans, or enchanted wearables.

Am I saying you can put a spell into that pair of socks you're knitting? That scarf you've been working on? That pile of granny squares waiting to become a blanket? That cross-stitch piece you've been meaning to finish?

ABSOLUTELY.

There are even books on knot magic, witchy crochet and knitting patterns, and beautifully spooky cross-stitch and embroidery pieces. (And lots more downloadable patterns exist on etsy and fibre arts forums!) Perfect for chilling with your favorite hot beverage and current binge-watch while you keep your hands from getting bored.

Go forth and have fun with it!

[breelandwalker]

Bringing this back bc I took my own advice and I've got a stack of willow-pattern granny squares and some brand new neatly-darned elbow patches to show for it.

Btw if you want to add something special to your stitch witch tool kit, I suggest ethically-sourced bone or horn needles. They're usually handmade and you can find them in specialty craft stores or on etsy, typically carried by indigenous crafters or people who specialize in nalbinding. They're a big large for delicate work or embroidery, but apart from my blessed set of darners, I've found few things better for stitching up poppets or charm bags.

And of course, you can always bless your own storebought metal, wood, or plastic tools or your bins of yarn and cloth. No rules saying you can't. 😊🧶

[breelandwalker]

I have discovered books of vintage crochet patterns using cotton warp thread and now I am quietly bemoaning the fact that lace tablecloths and doilies are out of fashion and practicality.

But I bet I could make a really fabulous altar cloth.....

[windvexer]

Speaking generally, but when it comes to witchcraft,

if you don't have the ability to analyze what gods and/or spirits tell you,

and then make your own decisions,

you should probably not be working with gods and/or spirits.

If you don't feel comfortable saying "no," you should probably not be working with gods and/or spirits.

[windvexer]

There might be some categories of entities that will just literally never ever ask you to do something bad or even suggest you do something that makes you feel uncomfortable,

but in my experience,

even benevolent gods and spirits will ask you to do stuff that makes you uncomfortable

or ask to talk about things that are triggering or deeply unsettling for you

or ask you to explore topics of interest you're not interested in

or as you to get involved with personal work you're not ready for

It doesn't mean they're bad.

It means they're treating you like an adult who has the right to think about things and say "yes" or "no."

[windvexer]

If you approach these relationships with a master/servant mindset where you interpret suggestions and requests as orders,

and where you do not believe you will be safe/okay if you say no,

or where you do not believe you are allowed to say "no,"

you're probably gunna have a real bad time.

[windvexer]

On what I'm going to call "peer positioning" in witchcraft, and the scary empowerment it can bring you

I think a lot of people who get into witchcraft have a problem with being able to see themselves as peers & equals to the powers they cultivate around them.

I see this most often discussed when it comes to gods. "Just because your god asks you for something doesn't mean you need to do it!" Etc. I think we've all heard that.

But today my thoughts are on the tarot, and how some people seem to treat tarot readings as "the truth" or "the answer" that then must be followed, even if they (the living, breathing, human practitioner) don't really agree or don't really want to do that.

I'm really big on the analogy of a witch as a monarch, and the concept of various powers (like gods, spirits, tools, and spells) being counselors in the throne room.

In this context, it's easier to adopt the mindset that all of these powers have their own personalities, abilities, and goals - and that they can & will provide conflicting information when you ask for advice. (Especially ancestors - so opinionated!)

Imagine Captain Picard sitting in the meeting room with Geordi, Riker, and the rest of the space nerds.

Captain Picard is like, "the power core is failing and the away team is stranded on the planet. I think we should use the nebula to hide until the Gromflomites stop searching for us." And then Geordi is like, "but Captain, the engines would never make it! We have to go rescue the away team immediately!" And Captain Picard is like, "damn... Wow. I really wanted to go to the nebula, I thought it was the best choice :/ but if you're saying we literally don't have to worry about the Gromflomites..." Then Riker is like, "Captain, no. Geordi isn't saying the Gromflomites aren't a problem, he's just expressing his top concerns as Chief Engineer." And then Picard is all, "oh, so... this is conflicting information? Did that mean I did a bad reading on Geordi, or that negative spirits are stopping me from being able to communicate? Is Riker possibly a trickster?"

If you're captain of the ship, monarch of the kingdom, (etc.), then it might be important to ask yourself:

Am asking for input from my counsel of allied powers, and then making choices for myself?

Or, have I inadvertently signed over my decision-making process to these powers?

And I think it all kind of comes back to "peer positioning," or, witches being able to develop a spiritual framework within which they are equals to the powers around them.

Since beginning practicing witchcraft in earnest, I have often demanded a course of direction. Instead of asking, "how do I accomplish this?" I would ask, "what do I do?"

And the answer was the same every time, deeply infuriating, but also very scary: "Do whatever you think is best."

I think that's the problem of being the captain of the ship. Once your counselors are done giving their input, you are the one who has to make the final call.

Lately I've really been on a kick about witchcraft as a path of empowerment, and I think that viewing spiritual input as just that - input - is a vital part of the process.

Even if you are a true-blue believer in the magical power of tarot, tarot is still just one counselor sitting in your throne room.

Even if you have tutelary spirits, guardians and guides, gods and angels, providing blessings and support - they are not sitting at the head of the table.

You are.

I think that a framework of allied powers as peers and equals is relatively basic, and does have its flaws. But I also think it can be helpful in a variety of ways:

It can provide a system of understanding why allied powers can give conflicting advice, or even seemingly bad advice that doesn't align with our personal desires.

It can provide a tool for processing spiritual input.

It helps restore a sense of personal authority to a practitioner.

It can help a practitioner reclaim control of a path that's grown a mind of its own.

It aids in practicing that most oppressive of skills - liberated autonomy.

I just think it's something to consider. At the end of the day, most of us have probably got to make our own calls.

[I'm making this post because in the past few months I've been helping witches consult the tarot, and they've been giving feedback like, "so this is what I should do, right?" or, "what is it telling me to do?"

I can basically see the huge reblogs where people are explaining that a period of time where they signed complete personal autonomy over to their god was the most empowering and spiritually electric time in their lives,

and I want you to know, I'm not speaking about vows and oaths made to entities that gives them control over your life. I'm talking about situations where witches put down their autonomy so they can have both hands free to shuffle tarot.]

[tonystarkspenis]

realest thing i have seen in a while

[breelandwalker]

Hi! I’m very new to witchcraft (as in i’ve only been seriously looking into it in the last week or so new) and my family are strong christians. they are very against magick and related stuff bc they believe that its part of the devils realm and that people can get possessed and other things if they get involved in witchcraft. I’m not religious myself but growing up around that mindset has made me a bit paranoid about starting witchcraft. I’m not planning on working too much with spirits or the dead at all so I’m not at risk of being ’possessed’ or anything bad am i?

thank you! :D

Good news! Practicing witchcraft does not guarantee, invite, or increase your risk of possession of any kind. Also, if you don't wish to do spirit work, there's no rule that says you have to. And witchcraft, contrary to what some might tell you, is not in opposition to Christian belief, as evidenced by the numerous folk magic traditions that blend Christian prayer and Bible verses with spells and charms.

Furthermore, spells are not horrendously dangerous and explosive things likely to singe off your eyebrows and ruin your life if not performed EXACTLY right, with all the precise trappings of timing and components and procedure pertaining thereto. In reality, spells don't often work in an immediately noticeable fashion, and spells that fail tend to fizzle into nothing rather than blowing up in your face. Yes, even the baneful ones.

One lesson that I like to teach to newer witches is that the spirit world, and indeed the universe at large, is not waiting to pounce on our mistakes and enact horrific consequences. There is no army of malicious imps waiting for you to say or do just the wrong thing so that they can rush in to steal the baby and put a glam rock Goblin King in your window to do some spooky-ooky contact juggling.

Learning magical protection methods is a first step that many witches recommend, but it's not because witchcraft is inherently dangerous. It's more because the techniques used in protection magic (i.e. visualization, grounding & centering, learning to harness your own energy, attaching spells to objects, etc) make excellent building blocks for a basic understanding of magical mechanics. Not to mention that the first thing you should learn with any new hobby or activity is how to do it safely.

This idea of looming danger is a product of leftover guilt and "sin" complexes from the faith systems that many of us were raised with, as well as plenty of scare tactics employed by conservative media over the years that have filtered into popular culture. This last should come as little surprise, considering the number of tv shows and movies where anything related to witchcraft immediately defaults to the demonic and results in problems that only Christian belief and ritual can cure.

The world of witchcraft is peopled with...well, people. Most of us spend our time dealing with everyday life, trying to find time for research and hobbies (and sleep), and swearing luridly when we discover we've missed the full moon AGAIN and just when we had a lovely jar of water to put out for charging. Witches are a colorful and widely varied lot and there are as many ways to be a witch as there are witches in the world.

And to the best of my knowledge, the only practice that is likely to get you haunted or possessed is quite literally calling spirits and demons to haunt or possess you. And even then, it's not a guarantee.

So forge on bravely and fear not! And may I suggest checking out Episodes 4 and 12 of my podcast Hex Positive. These deal with advice for beginner witches and tips for practicing in stealth mode.

Hope this helps!

[breelandwalker]

A brief masterpost of some of my advice posts for beginner witches and the episodes of my podcast dealing with the same. (There is UPG here,

[windvexer]

Potentially you gotta stop making all those substitutions to the spells, witch bestie.

If you're trying to learn magic and have chosen to do so through other people's published instructional manuals, and the magic isn't working, consider asking yourself if you are actually following the rituals provided.

I've been speaking with multiple people lately who are all struggling with the same thing, so perhaps a post on this topic is germane.

Unless you understand the tradition you're working with and why certain things have certain meanings, you probably do not have the background required to make effective substitutions.

Working within someone else's established tradition is not the same as working within your personal eclectic path.

Imagine you go into a working group which is super into bioregional practice and they've developed elaborate rituals which always work for them.

They give you a purification ritual which calls for a red apple, wild-harvested cotton, and local mulberries to be worked over during a full moon.

They do not tell you why each of these things is included. They just give you the list.

We're going to substitute a store-bought cotton ball, obviously, and what to do about the mulberries? We can google "mulberry correspondences," find out they're related to "healing" which is the closest thing we can figure has anything to do with a purification ritual, then pretty much figure that since chamomile is associated with sleep and purification, and sleep is a Lunar thing, right, that we can just use a sleepytime chamomile tea bag, and there you have it!

What the working group has failed to tell you is that this entire ritual is based on local mythology where the cotton wight fell in love with the mulberry dryad and they got married under the full moon by sharing an apple, and the entire ritual isn't based on sympathetic container magic, but is a heirophany which recreates the marriage of local sacred spirits, each of whom has sworn to heal and purify those who honor their love.

A heck of a lot of witchcraft authors do not break down why every single step is taken.

And if you apply contemporary witch-lite logic to everything ("cotton is white so I'm going to relate that to color correspondences and substitute a white candle for purity"), you can end up immediately canceling out a spell.

Not understanding or connecting with certain spell/ritual steps is not a good reason to change them.

You had mulberries once as a kid and they gave you stomach cramps and now you personally associate them with hexing and sickness, so even though there is a ripe mulberry tree outside, you are going to go get a container of blackberries instead, which you personally associate with purification, and -

(You get the drift)

The spell calls for making a paper box, within which you hide the wild cotton and mulberry. Then, at a crossroads at the full moon, you unfold the box to reveal its contents, and offer an apple to the correspondences.

Which would mean we'd have to learn how to make a paper box (fun!) but also like, why this unfolding thing? Nothing I've read so far in my witchcraft books has explained the magical meaning behind opening a paper box. This is basically a container spell, right? I'll just use a glass jar.

(The plant spirits who informed the local coven about this spellwork specified an opaque, degradable container)

If you're using other people's work, you're more or less sacrificing yourself to the reality that they probably are not explaining everything to you, and that your assumptions about what makes that magic tick could be so far off base that even your most educated guesses will fall short.

Yeah, using other people's traditions can mean you don't have what's required to do everything, and that's kind of just the way it is.

I'm not trying to be Mr. Just Go And Buy Stuff You Moneybags, but I guess I am being Mr. If You Can't Do It Then You Can't Do it.

And no, I'm not saying that it's impossible to figure out substitutions.

I'm specifically referring to a situation where a practitioner is trying to figure out magic, hasn't been able to make strides, and then it turns out they've been radically modifying and altering spells from specific traditions to a point where the spell is obviously functionally DOA.

At one point I was learning some slightly advanced bit of coding. I downloaded a set of files from a code library and installed them on my website.

The thing was, at that point in my education, I had enough experience to basically understand what was going on with each file. So, I edited them as I went, modifying them to my custom specifications.

Wouldn't you know it! When I launched the code it was broken. DOA, if you will.

I went back to the code library, and the top comment was,

INSTALL THE FILES AND MAKE SURE THEY WORK BEFORE YOU TRY TO CHANGE THEM. Everyone keeps changing things before they even test launch it and then they come back here and complain that the code is broken. IT ISN'T BROKEN.

[windvexer]

I respect and appreciate the specific paradigm of contemporary magical practice that is very focused on being highly adaptable and low spoons.

I'm not a high energy person myself. My own personal practice has been influenced for the better by spending time in spaces where spells amount to, "this spell has 9 ingredients, but only the salt and water are required."

Breaking magic down to its core components like this and truly examining what is and is not necessary for each individual practitioner is something that I think is cool as fuck and has a ton of value.

This paradigm seems to come packaged with certain values, like:

Intent (and therefore willpower because apparently they're the same thing) is one of the most important components you can have in a spell

Your personal beliefs, associations, and vibes are the most important aspects to any working

It only needs to make sense to you

You should freely drop or modify any aspect of any spell which doesn't work for you

And to be clear, I think a lot of that is pretty badass. But I think it should also be understood that this paradigm is not core magic. This is not a basic, universal understanding of how to effectively integrate with all kinds of magical paths, right?

It isn't a theory set that you can equally apply to all kinds of magic and produce effective results.

(All that being said? I think this paradigm is most effective when used for examining and processing magical belief towards certain ends, and isn't that useful for producing strong sorcerous results, but - that's just me)

Anyway, I think that from time to time it's useful to mention that this specific take towards magic isn't the end-all be-all. It doesn't apply to a lot of traditions and practices. Its beliefs aren't universal. It isn't the most metaphysically true or correct way of interfacing with magic.

If you try to use this belief set to chew on other traditions of magic where few or none of the listed assumptions are true, you might end up making very little progress.

[skaldish]

Hello! Im reaserching anamism and i have a question (since so far I haven’t gotten a clear awnser yet) but-

If anamism is the belief that everything (animals, plants, rocks, occasionally tech, etc) has some level of spirit or sentience then- is there some limit to what can have ‘sentience’? By that i mean- i know a house plant can have a spirit of sorts but, dose a soda can or a pair of socks also have a spirit of some kind?/g /gq /srs

Also- is it possible for something to gain a ‘spirit’, by that i mean would a children’s stuffed animal have a spirit after years of being that child’s comfort item. (I’ve heard people say their childhood toys have spirits, which is why im asking)

-♎️

"The belief everything has a soul or a spirit," is...kind of a misidentification of what Animism is, actually.

Here's how I explained it in another ask:

Most definitions of Animism you’ll find online go something like this: “Animism is the belief that everything has a soul or vital essence to it.” This is often extrapolated to mean: “Animism is the belief that everything has human-like sentience.” But this is all based on how “animism” and “souls” are understood from a Christian point of view, and what Animism looks like from a Christian perspective is not going to give you much insight into how it functions. A more accurate definition of Animism goes something like this: Animism is any paradigm that acknowledges the interconnected nature of all things, and that all things were, are, and will continue to be defined in relation to each other. Everything both seen and unseen is part of the same ecosystem. The “everything has a soul” bit is a rough interpretation of how Animistic paradigms don’t view “the spiritual” and “the mundane” as separate things, but rather as phenomena occurring within the same ecosystem [...] Any lines drawn between “the spiritual” and “the mundane” are purely interpretive, because like anything in any ecosystem, removing one collapses the whole. Whether or not this begets “everything having a soul” sort of just depends on how you want to draw those lines, and how you define the concept of “soul” or “vital essence.”

So ultimately I can't really say for sure. My own theories about the soul are still pretty up in the air, and they're not cohesive enough to be legible if I try putting them on paper.

There's a high chance I'll put it into a post once I figure it out, though.

[skaldish]

Y’all have no idea how badly I just want to gush about the esoterics involved in my practice. I’m ready to explode.

[skaldish]

I’ll tell you this much: Anyone worth their salt won’t talk about higher-level mystical crap, not because they want to be a pretentious exclusionary jackass, but because they don’t want to frontload you. That’ll screw you up worse than your own mistakes ever could.

I’ve been trying to think of a roadmap though, because this shit’s dope as hell and there’s no reason why a process can’t exist.

[skaldish]

Because for lack of best practices, I anticipate y’all would have to gather the same prerequisite knowledge that I needed, and go through processes similar to the one I went through, which was as follows:

First, you need an undying curiosity for learning the secrets of the universe.

Second, you need to learn the basics of different scientific fields. You need to understand the scientific process, know what it’s for, know how to apply it, and understand why its important. Through this, you need to learn that the universe is a great big unknown, and despite this, there’s a solution for everything, and if there isn’t, there will be.

Third, you need to find joy in the act of creative expression. Play will keep you human.

Fourth, you need to seek answers to this question, for yourself: “What happens after we die?”

Fifth, you need to explore a number of different religious/spiritual paradigms and consider (from their perspectives) different ways people think about the world. You need to learn to entertain ideas without accepting them.

Sixth, you need to challenge and deconstruct your preconceived notions of good and evil, on ALL cognitive levels, from your conscious mind to the farthest-flung reaches of your subconscious. You also need to identify and deconstruct magical thinking, and understand that wanting something really badly, or believing in it really really hard, will not make your desires come true. This is a deconstruction of programming and conditioning, and it will be a years’-long process.

Seventh, you need to let yourself be wrong. Let more experienced people challenge your spiritual discernment process, so you can refine your methods, examine your biases, and identify what you may have overlooked. At no point on your journey will you will ever, ever, ever stop being a student, so learn to be an effective one. Additionally, learn to recognize a good teacher from unqualified ones, from predators, and from grifters. (People can and do use spirituality as a way to traffic teens and young adults.) A good teacher will give you effective tools to find the answers, but very little in the way of the answers themselves. Follow is rule of thumb: “If it’s too good to be true, it is.”

Eight, you need to differentiate who you truly are from who you think you are, from who you want to be, from who you think you need to be, from who you pretend to be, from who you were forced to be, from who everyone else says you should be, and from who you’re not. You also need to different what you actually value (as in, the principles you find valuable) from what you think you should value, from what you learned to value to avoid punishment, and from the values you think you need to have in order to be a proper [insert thing here]. Take your time to muster the courage to choose yourself over a narrative of yourself, but take it.

Ninth, you need to answer the call coming from inside the house. You need to go into the labyrinth of the mind and pass through that great dark wall of the unknown. If you don’t have the tools you need to do this safely, find them. But understand the process will not be comfortable.

…

Keep in mind this is illustrative, not comprehensive. Everyone starts from a different point on the map, so the arc of realizations will be different. And unfortunately, I can’t account for all possibilities. I don’t have that data.

The good news is you don’t need to go through all this just to do magic, or to have working relationships with deities and spirits, or to even understand esoteric things. This is just an instance of “Zan’s sad because he wants to infodump and ideate about all the weird esoteric shit, but can’t because he’s new at this and doesn’t want to frontload anyone.”

[quasi-normalcy]

You can get a lot of mileage out of acting all smug and pretending that it's obvious when someone asks you to explain something. This is why you should always assume that when someone does this, they're full of shit.

[cryptotheism]

If there is one thing I have learned about people who are genuinely experts on something, it's that they love to explain shit to people who are interested.

[breelandwalker]

Okay top ten most recommended books (aside from your own :p witches better have those already!!) For witches of any level of experience!

Well, the only books that I can 100% recommend are my own, because I can vouch for all the content, see? (For anyone interested, the rundown is here.) But the following are the books from my personal library that I’ve found most useful over the years. (These are in no particular order.)

Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (Cunningham) - THE book on magical plant correspondences. Wicca-flavored and slightly antiquated (published in the 1980s), but still relevant and very well-researched. The Works Cited and Recommended Reading pages are worth a look all on their own.

The Complete Guide to Herbal Medicines (Fetrow & Avila) - If you’re going to work with plants in your craft, you NEED to have a practical reference book. This one is the best I’ve found so far. It’s well-organized, easy to use, and reads like a physician’s desk reference. Which, in a practical medical herb book, is what you want.

Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells (Illes) - Affectionately dubbed “The Big Guns” in my personal lexicon. Some problematic material (largely pulling from vodou and hoodoo as if all their practices are universal), but an excellent resource for learning about various magical methods from a wider range of cultures and countries than most books contain. Helpfully alphabetized by subject, but I still recommend using index tabs for quick reference.

Grimoire for the Green Witch (Moura) - The “Other Guns.” An excellent reference for correspondences and basic spellwriting components. Not really organized, and there’s no table of contents or index, so DEFINITELY use index tabs for this one. It’s not as comprehensive as Llewellyn’s big book on correspondences, but the smaller size makes it a little less daunting to leaf through.

The Real Witches’ Garden (West) - One of my very first books on green witchcraft, and one I still refer to. Includes practical information as well as magical correspondences.

The Real Witches’ Book of Spells and Rituals (West) - Like Illes’ “Big Guns,” a good reference for various kinds of spells at a basic-to-intermediate level. This is the spellbook on which I cut my witchy teeth back in the day.

Spell Crafts (Cunningham & Harrington) - For any witch who wants to make charms or trinkets as part of their practice, or has a crafty artistic side. Lots of basic tutorials that can be adapted to future projects.

The Black Toad (Gary) - A fascinating look at the classical components of English witchcraft traditions. Details the hows and whys behind many charms that we find in frequent use today (i.e. witch bottles).

Cottage Witchery (Dugan) - A short, simple primer for magics that can be done around the home. Wicca-flavored and focused on traditional methods, with a charming conversational style that influenced my own writing later on.

Utterly Wicked (Morrison) - The first book I ever read that presented baneful magic in a practical fashion. Emphasizes personal responsibility and introduces some interesting modern techniques for using everyday items in curses.

Keep in mind that NONE of these books are perfect, and critical reading is required for everything. But if I had to put together a stack of ten books from my collection that I absolutely cannot do without, the first ones I’d replace if lost, these would be the ones. :)