I don’t normally post on here but i’d like to more! Hi im Robin, a pagan of 7 years and a student of druidry for 3 years. I’ll hopefully be posting some of my recent spells/workings, research, and UPG/diary entries. Follow along if you’re interested! :D
Currently I have to follow back from my main blog (asinsnide for anyone interested in Library stuff, politics, DnD, and other fandom shitposts) but i’ll be commenting/interacting on here’
Super excited to meet more people who work with Lugh, Brighid, Cerridwen or really follow any witchy/pagan path! I’m always down to learn something new!
Here’s me and some witchy pics from the last few months!
Y’all I’m being so serious when I say this: go to the library for witchcraft reasons.
You can usually find books on witchcraft, yes, but there’s also field guides on local foraging and wildlife, cookbooks, books that teach you how to craft and DIY, books about environmental protection and stewardship, books on how to use herbs medicinally, books about other religions, cultures, and spiritual practices. My favorite local library even has a seed swapping program and fantastic resources to research your own family history!
Not that witchcraft is a performance but there is a lot of joy to be found in successfully lobbying your library to order/borrow occult books. It's a subversive joy that I think isn't quite tapped into enough.
Etsy athames and dubious railroad spikes are out. Attempting to balance out the religious section of your local library with witchcraft, occult, and demonic texts are in.
As a witch and a librarian, PLEASE request things from the library. If they don't have it and don't want to purchase it for the library for whatever reason (hopefully nothing to do with the librarian's personal bias and more about community interest or budget), they will order it from another library through inter library loan! If they can't fulfill your request, at the very least you are adding to their statistics, so they can ask for more money in the next year! More money = greater likelihood that they'll just buy whatever niche thing you're looking for in the future.
Plus there's nothing better than reading a witchcraft book, realizing what you're reading is kinda horseshit, then just getting to return it with no harm done to your wallet and another tally added to their circulation statistics.
Smacking the liminal space like a vending machine that trapped your snack.
Let’s be real: “energy work” sounds fake until your spine does the death note shiver in the wrong place and you just know someone's watching.
Most of the time, the explanation is just:
“Raise your vibration and channel the universal flow into your body.” Or whatever new age mad libs is trending this week.
Okay. Cool. But what does that actually mean?
Like, am I supposed to hum at a crystal until I unlock god mode? Is this a vibes-only event? Where’s the tutorial? Who decided the universal flow gets admin access to my nervous system, anyway?
Witchcraft, when it’s not being held hostage by ⟣aesthetic⟢, doesn’t need a sparkly light show or a fog machine you panic-bought on Etsy (though, respect to the fog).
It needs presence. Pattern recognition.
It needs you to stop dissociating long enough to clock that your left eyelid twitches every time the moon is in scorpio.
Your body? That’s your first divinatory tool. Not the crystal, not the candle, not the mystic orb you bought during a depressive episode at 2㏂
It’s you. It’s always been you. Congrats, you’re a living barometer now. Welcome to the club.
In other words: you already feel this stuff. You just didn’t realize the universe keeps sneaking in patch notes.
That chill crawling up your spine before a storm, like you’re the main character in a gothic novel with too many feelings.
The static in your joints when someone walks in with rage in their eyes and the air goes full boss battle.
That split-second silence before a ritual starts, when the room is holding its breath and you’re pretty sure the walls are listening.
Energy isn’t some mysterious glittery dust you can only see if you squint hard enough into the light.
It’s the shift.
The resonance.
The psychic Wi-Fi signal flickering in and out of your meat antenna.
You don’t have to see the wave to feel the ripple. You’re already in the field.
⚤ How Energy Feels in the Body (Somatic Spell-Sensing)
Before you start trying to manifest a glowing anime aura, maybe start with what’s already happening in your body.
Across cultures, witches, healers, and mystics all clock the same stuff:
goosebumps or chills with no temperature drop
heat in your palms, chest, spine, or forehead
internal pulsing or vibrations
air pressure shifts, like the room just went 👀
spontaneous sighing or breath drop
trembling, fluttering, heart pounding
blur or tunnel vision
flashes of memory, color, or internal cinema
random emotional download: tears, laughter, unhinged euphoria, mysterious grief (classic)
You don’t need to create energy.
You just need to notice it. Radical, I know.
Your body is not confused. It’s been screaming “something’s happening” this whole time. You’ve just been gaslighting it with basic logic and caffeine.
⚛︎ Scientific thread: The autonomic nervous system (especially via vagal tone) responds to shifts in breath, focus, emotion, and intent. Polyvagal theory (Porges, 2011) explains why grounding rituals affect felt safety and energy perception.
Your witchy feelings are just nervous system jazz. It’s fine. The universe is improvising.
⚙︎ Three Core Operations: Ground, Raise, Release
All energy work moves through these three phases:
grounding, raising, releasing.
This is the spine of spellcasting, healing, and ritual work.
Yes, it’s a cycle. No, you can’t skip steps. This isn’t microwave magic. Because you are the microwave.
Grounding is not just about “roots into the earth.”
It’s about discharging mental static, collecting your awareness, and returning to a present, anchored state.
In modern terms, grounding = nervous system regulation.
In magical terms, it’s opening the body as a conduit.
You are the ethernet cable now. Congratulations.
You ground to:
release emotional excess
prepare the vessel for energy (yes you are the vessel, sorry)
stabilize attention
establish energetic clarity
connect to a larger force (earth, ancestors, gods, memory, or that one mossy rock you keep side-eyeing)
✧ Signs you’re grounded:
breathing slows
mind stops spiraling or at the very least stops screaminphysical sensations return (oh hello feet, didn’t know you were still there)
emotional charge lessens
you feel heavier, rooted, or still like a haunted tree that’s finally found its chill
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Grounding through breath, pressure, or sensation activates the parasympathetic nervous system (especially vagus nerve pathways) creating feelings of calm, clarity, and embodiment (Levine, Porges, van der Kolk).
Screaming into a moss pillow is, in fact, a valid therapeutic technique. 10/10, would recommend.
✦ Simple grounding techniques:
sit cross-legged and press your palms to the ground
clench fists, then slowly release (rage compression: it’s like emotional bubble wrap)
inhale for 4, exhale for 8
hum a low tone and feel the vibration (you are the tuning fork now)
place a stone or object in each hand and feel the weight (instant wizard upgrade)
trace a spiral on your leg or chest with a finger (yes, this is magic, no, you don’t need a wand or a Hogwarts letter)
✦ Neurodivergent/ADHD accessible tips:
pace slowly while naming colors or objects around you (“red chair, cursed mug, very judgmental bookshelf…”)
hold something cold (metal, ice) to snap back into the body (shock yourself back into witch mode, like a magical defibrillator)
use rhythmic rocking, swaying, or drumming. Movement grounds (bounce like your life depends on it, because it kind of does)
whisper grounding phrases out loud: “Here. Now. I’m back in my body.” Bonus points if you sound like a dramatic movie trailer.
⚒︎ 2. RAISING — Building Charge & Shaping Intensity
Raising energy isn’t about “summoning power.”
It’s about amplifying sensation, focus, breath, and emotion until the body and mind reach a peak state.
You are not a Tesla coil. You are a sentient tuning fork riding a feelings spike straight into the void.
You’re not generating power. You’re creating a resonant state. The body hums, the air goes electric, and your attention sharpens like a feral bard who just rolled a nat 20 and is about to seduce the universe.
Ways to raise energy:
repetitive chanting or singing (bonus if it’s in a language only your ancestors and that one raccoon understand)
rhythmic breathing
spinning, dancing, stomping, clapping
breathwork: inhale-hold-exhale in patterns (aka witch cardio)
sensory layering: scent + sound + motion (this is your sensory soup, season to taste and stir with intention)
emotional invocation (rage, joy, grief, awe)
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Rhythmic entrainment creates synchronization across systems, brainwaves, heart rate, breath. Trance states (theta wave dominance) are neurologically primed for magic, visualization, and suggestibility (Bourguignon, 1973).
The science says: your weird little drum circle is actually hacking your nervous system.
✦ Signs energy is raised:
body temperature spikes (you have become one with the microwaved burrito of your will)
tingling or humming in limbs
spontaneous emotion (laughing, crying, screaming into a candle, or all three at once)
“buzz” in the hands or chest
a felt sense of pressure or power
✦ Neurodivergent/ADHD accessible tips:
use audio: drums, layered vocals, heartbeat tempo (yes, it’s a vibe track, yes, it’s spellwork, and yes, you can put it on repeat)
stim with beads, fidgets, or textured tools (fidget = focus wand)
combine movement with voice: rock and hum, walk and chant
use a visual counter (beads, marks) to track rhythm and stay engaged (unlock that spellcasting hyperfocus mode)
🜚 3. RELEASING — Sending It Off Cleanly
Energy raised but not released just loops around like a playlist on repeat.
Like a spell with separation anxiety. Or a raccoon trapped in your emotional HVAC system, chewing on the wires.
You may feel foggy, anxious, disoriented, or like you left the cosmic stove on.
Releasing is not about “letting go emotionally.”
It’s completing the circuit.
The exhale. The click. The signal sent. The cosmic send button, pressed with intent.
Pressing "send" on the cosmic email and walking away before you obsessively reread it 10 times.
Release forms:
blowing out a candle
snapping fingers or clapping
burning paper or thread
dropping an object into water
walking away without looking back (no you can’t check if it’s working, that ruins it)
speaking final words (“It is done.” “Go.” “Fly.”)
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Completion rituals mirror closure mechanisms in the nervous system. They help return the body to a resting state and resolve emotional tension (Porges, Polyvagal Theory).
Basically your nervous system needs a “thank you for coming to my TED Talk” moment.
✦ Neurodivergent/ADHD accessible tips:
use a sharp motion (clap, stomp, drop something)
make a release phrase part of the rhythm: “Out it goes.” “Leave.” “Let.”
visualize the energy leaving a specific body part (yeet the vibe, full send)
pair release with a sensory shift: turn off music, blow air on your hands, wash them (ritual ended. exit stage left.)
⚛︎ Energy ≠ Electricity, But Physics Still Helps
No, this isn’t about volts. It’s about motion. Sorry, Nikola Tesla.
Here’s how physics helps us talk about magic without fluff:
Resonance — energy moves best when two things vibrate together
Oscillation — energy pulses in waves; it builds and collapses
Fields — energy doesn’t float in space; it moves through fields: physical, emotional, psychic
Conductivity — not all materials transmit energy equally
Collapse — in quantum mechanics, observing a pattern finalizes its form
What this means in practice:
You’re not generating energy like some crusty old wall outlet. You’re not even getting paid for it.
You’re tuning into the cosmic group chat and hoping the universe doesn’t leave you on read. Again.
You don’t push. You just slap the metaphysical jukebox and pray the right song plays.
And if the vibes are right? The universe hits you back with a very specific ringtone.
☿ 3-Minute Ritual: Sensory-Friendly Energy Work
(for when your witchcraft is running on 3% battery and the charger is in another dimension)
♨︎ This is for you if you:
are overwhelmed
have the executive function of a Victorian ghost haunting a to-do list
can't hold a thought for more than 2.3 seconds (and that’s on a good day)
see "visualize a glowing orb" and immediately blue-screen
need spells with physical buttons and a “skip intro” option
✧ Minimal ritual. Maximum effect. ADHD and dissociation tested. Witch-approved.
✧ Minute 1: GROUND
Sit or lie down. Press your hands to your chest or thighs.
Inhale deeply. Exhale with a sigh.
Say: “Here. Now. I arrive.”
✧ Minute 2: RAISE
Play a short rhythm or hum softly.
Rock side to side or tap your fingers to the beat.
Imagine heat or light building in your hands or heart.
✧ Minute 3: RELEASE
Exhale sharply and flick your fingers.
Drop or toss a small object (stone, thread, matchstick).
Say: “It is done. Go.”
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Energy work doesn’t have to be a three-act opera with costume changes and dramatic lighting.
It just has to show up, make eye contact with the universe, and mean it.
You’re not auditioning for Charmed. You’re just flipping a cosmic light switch with your whole chest and hoping the fuse holds.
❣︎ Final Thought
Energy work is not about “feeling magic.”
It’s about listening to your body until the pattern changes.
The work is not flashy.
It’s quiet. Subtle. Sensory. The kind of magic that sneaks up on you in the grocery store.
And if you pay attention?
The whole world starts ringing back.
Part Ⅲ of Occult Mechanics 𝟷𝟶𝟷
✍︎ Further Reading & Sources
✧ Somatic & Nervous System Studies
Stephen Porges. The Polyvagal Theory
Bessel van der Kolk. The Body Keeps the Score
Peter Levine. Waking the Tiger
Stanley Rosenberg. Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve
✧ Ritual, Trance, and Embodied Practice
Erika Bourguignon. Religion, Altered States of Consciousness, and Social Change
Starhawk. The Spiral Dance
Victor Turner. The Ritual Process
Ronald Grimes. The Craft of Ritual Studies
✧ Cognitive Science & Symbolic Logic
Lakoff & Johnson. Metaphors We Live By
Newberg & d’Aquili. Why God Won’t Go Away
Wilson, M. (2002). Six Views of Embodied Cognition
❦ Intent Is Not Everything: The Architecture of a Spell
You don’t build a fire by yelling “burn.” (or maybe you do?)
So let’s talk about why some spells flop. It's not because your desire was weak. Not because the moon was in the wrong position. But because you built a magical toaster and forgot to plug it in.
You can have a brilliant, spicy spark of intent, but if it has nowhere to go? No structure to hold it, no current to carry it, no ritual act to release it? That energy just... sits there. Fog in your chest. Static in your bones. Sometimes it loops. Sometimes it leaks. Sometimes it just becomes ✧vibe soup.✧
This isn’t about perfection. Or control. Or doing it “right.” It’s about structure and the subtle architecture that lets magic move.
Let’s break it down.
⚙︎ The Functional Parts of a Spell
⚘ 1. INTENT — The Internal Spark
This is the raw juice. The emotional voltage. The psychic heat. It’s not just what you want, it’s what you’re willing to make room for. Not a wish. A directive.
Intent is clearest when it’s emotionally honest and not trying to control everything like a micro-managing Virgo sun.
Bad intent ≠ evil intent. It usually just means the signal is fuzzy, performative, or split. You say “I want clarity,” but your gut is screaming “abandon ship.” That’s a short circuit.
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Functional EEG studies show intent activates motor planning centers before action begins (Libet, 1985). Translation: the brain literally starts prepping for action the moment will is engaged. Magic agrees.
Ask: What am I actually calling for? Not with my mouth, but with my will?
➴ 2. FOCUS — The Conscious Thread
Focus is what holds the circuit together. Lose it, and your spell turns into an energetic sneeze.
It’s not just about “concentrating.” It’s about staying present enough that the energy doesn’t leak out your ears. Focus is somatic. Breath. Trance. Motion. The ritual nervous system.
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Sustained attention boosts neural connectivity (Posner & Rothbart, 2007). Theta waves (4–8 Hz), accessed in trance or deep meditation, = peak spellcasting state. High suggestibility, low inner critic, good vibes.
Ask: Can I stay with the energy long enough to deliver it?
⚒︎ 3. ACTION — The Ritual Anchor
Action is what makes the spell real. It’s not a metaphor. It’s a physical interface.
Whether it’s lighting a candle, chanting, drawing sigils, or screaming into a jar. A ritual action anchors intent in time and space.
The body becomes the spell’s delivery system. It’s not just theater, it’s sensorial confirmation that “something has changed.”
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Embodied cognition says movement affects belief. Intentional gestures create somatic markers (Wilson, 2002). You literally move your body into belief.
Ask: What is my body doing to tell the world this spell is happening?
❀ 4. CORRESPONDENCE — Symbolic Resonance
This is how your spell speaks the universe’s language.
Correspondences (herbs, colors, crystals, numbers) aren’t just ✧aesthetic choices✧. They are the semantic tags of the ritual world.
But they’re not universal. What’s “attraction” in one system might be “banishing” in another. Magic is contextual. Meaning is coded.
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Lakoff & Johnson (1980) argue that cognition is metaphor-driven. When you use red for desire, you’re engaging neural circuits that associate red with heat, passion, and activation.
Ask: Do my symbols clarify the spell, or confuse it?
⌛︎ 5. TIMING — The Temporal Current
Spells don’t exist in a vacuum. They drop into a world that’s already moving.
Timing can mean:
Moon phases
Planetary hours
Your own emotional weather
Ancestor holidays
“This just feels right”
Right spell, wrong time? It fizzles. Or misfires. Or just ghosts you completely.
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Chronobiology says our bodies respond to time cycles (Refinetti, 2006). Mood, immunity, cognition—they’re all tide-sensitive. Why wouldn’t magic be?
Ask: What larger rhythm is this spell stepping into?
❂ 6. MEDIUM — The Elemental Channel
Magic needs a conduit. An element. A field. A medium to move through.
Is it fire? Smoke? Water? Ink? Your body? A blog post? A bone? A USB drive?
Medium decides how the energy moves, and where it lands. Wrong medium = muffled signal. It’s like trying to cast a glamour using baking soda.
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Energy always moves through something. Different materials conduct energy differently. Even placebo effects rely on the “medium” of meaning and context (Benedetti, 2012).
Ask: Where is this spell going? And can the medium carry it?
🜸 7. RELEASE — The Letting Go
No spell works if you cling to it like it’s your ex. You have to let it go.
Release is the exit point. The click. The exhale. The hand off the steering wheel. Without release, the spell loops. It stalls. It paces in your aura like a ghost waiting to be dismissed.
⚛︎ Scientific thread: Polyvagal theory says we need closure to reset our nervous system (Porges, 2011). The same might apply to magic: unresolved intention = energetic static.
Ask: Have I released this? Or am I still haunting it?
The Spell as a Functional Circuit
Visualize it like this:
If any part of the circuit is broken, the spell may misfire, stall, or just sit in your chest like ghost soup.
This is basically the magical version of a pre-flight safety check.
Magic Is Not Wishful Thinking. It’s Systemic.
A spell is not a vibe. It’s not ✧aesthetic ✧. It’s not a Pinterest board with herbs.
It is a functional symbolic system designed to influence reality. Neurologically, emotionally, energetically, maybe even physically.
It works when it’s built to move energy. When the circuit is whole. When the fire has a place to go.
A spell isn’t just a spark in the dark.
It’s the structure that carries that spark into the world. And lets it burn clean.
Part Ⅱ of Occult Mechanics 𝟷𝟶𝟷
✍︎ Further Reading & Sources
✧ Magic & Culture
Frazer, J.G. The Golden Bough (Sympathetic and contagious magic)
Tambiah, Stanley. The Magical Power of Words
Betz, Hans D. (ed). The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation
✧ Science of Mind & Body
Porges, Stephen. The Polyvagal Theory
Libet, Benjamin. “Unconscious Cerebral Initiative and the Role of Conscious Will.”
Wilson, M. (2002). "Six Views of Embodied Cognition." Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Benedetti, F. Placebo Effects: Understanding the Mechanisms
To get out of the habit of thinking of the Norse or Irish gods as being "gods of" stuff, try to think about what their occupations are instead.
Are they a chief or a king of something? Are they a protector of humanity? Are they skilled at magic and therefore could be considered a wizard, mage, or magician? Are they a warrior? Are they an entertainer? Are they a teacher?
And if you want to play this on advanced mode: Don't try to define the gods' occupations according to what they do in their myths. Think about what they do in relation to us and our societies right here and now, and in relation to the real world.
Celtic Reconstructionism: Theology, Cosmology, and What CR Actually Believes
Celtic Reconstructionism (CR) is a polytheistic, animistic religious movement grounded in pre-Christian Celtic sources. If this is your first time here, start with the basics and then the history.
For readers coming from Wicca or eclectic neo-paganism, the structural differences are significant. CR is working from a different theology, not just a different set of deity names.
Polytheism: The Gods Are Real and Distinct
Where much of Wicca and eclectic neo-paganism works within a soft polytheist framework (“all gods are one god” and “all goddesses are one goddess”), CR holds that the gods are genuinely distinct.1
CR is a form of hard polytheism, specifically grounded in the polytheist traditions of the Celtic nations (Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland, and Wales). The gods are individual beings with distinct personalities, histories, and domains, not aspects of a universal deity or archetypes of the collective unconscious.
The Jungian framing popular in some pagan circles (gods as psychological archetypes, projections of the collective unconscious rather than external beings) is also not a CR position. The exact metaphysical nature of that existence isn’t dogmatically defined; the movement doesn’t require practitioners to hold identical positions on what, precisely, a deity is. What it does require is engaging with them as distinct individuals rather than as symbols.
CR is also animist. The land, rivers, trees, and other natural features have spiritual presence. Specific hills, rivers, and wells are named in the Irish sources as home to specific spirits or deities: the Boyne to Bóann, the Shannon to Sionann. Scholar Marie-Louise Sjoestedt, writing in Celtic Gods and Heroes, observed that the Irish medieval mythographers described the ancient gods as prehistoric tribes who “still dwell there invisibly present, side by side with the human inhabitants.”2
The Maiden/Mother/Crone Problem
If you’ve spent time in any pagan space, you’ve encountered the triple goddess: Maiden, Mother, Crone. It’s ubiquitous in contemporary paganism.
The framework comes from Robert Graves’s The White Goddess, published in 1948. Graves was a poet and mythographer, not a scholar of Celtic religion. The Maiden/Mother/Crone model imposes a specific meaning (female divine power organized around reproductive lifecycle stages) that the Irish and other Celtic sources don’t support.
Celtic goddesses do appear in triple form, but these are functional groupings, not age-based progressions. Brigit appears in the sources as three sisters: one of poetry, one of healing, one of smithcraft. Sjoestedt says the triple Brigit is “adored by poets, smiths and leeches,” three domains of skill, not three life stages. The Morrígan similarly appears as a triple figure whose aspects relate to battle, fate, and sovereignty. Sjoestedt identifies the trio as the Badb, the Morrígan, and Nemain (or Macha, depending on the source), figures differentiated by how they manifest on the battlefield and in relation to fate, not by age or fertility status.2
Graves’s model ties female divine power to the reproductive cycle in a way the actual sources don’t. A goddess in Irish tradition is categorized by what she does and where she holds power: her domain and function, not her age or life stage.
Three Realms: Land, Sea, and Sky
CR’s cosmology, its understanding of how the universe is structured, is built around three realms, not the four elements or four directions familiar from other pagan traditions.
In Old Irish:
Nem: sky (niv) Talam: land (TAH-lum) Muir: sea (mwir)
Swearing by sky, land, and sea was a standard way of invoking the whole of existence, the complete structure of the world, not three symbolic categories. Erynn Rowan Laurie describes this directly in A Circle of Stones: “It is upon this division, rather than the traditional western four elements of earth, air, fire and water, that the ancient Celts based their concept of the universe. Oaths were sworn by land, sea and sky. All things lived within the circle.”3
The four-element, four-direction ritual framework in Western neopaganism descends from ceremonial magic, specifically the Hermetic tradition as transmitted through the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the late nineteenth century.
Connecting the three realms, in Laurie’s framework, is fire. Specifically imbas (IM-us), the fire of poetic inspiration. Fire is the presence of the gods and the link between humanity and the divine.3 The imbas tradition in Irish mythology names a specific form of inspired vision sought by poets and seers. It involves altered states and deliberate withdrawal from the mundane world, and it gives the cosmological concept direct ritual application.
The three realms give CR practitioners a working map of who they are in relationship with: the gods, the spirits of the land (including the Aos Sí), and the ancestors. These aren’t rigid categories. A deity like Manannán straddles sea and Otherworld; the Tuatha Dé Danann, after their retreat into the sídhe, became the spirits of the land they once ruled. The realms orient the practitioner, not constrain the beings.
The three-part structure operates alongside a second, fivefold layer of sacred geography. Ireland was traditionally divided into five provinces (Connacht, Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Meath at the centre), each carrying not just a directional orientation but a conceptual quality: learning in the west, battle in the north, prosperity in the east, music in the south, and kingship at the centre.4 Archaeologist J. P. Mallory describes this system as a “cultural cosmology, a way of partitioning the world” rather than a straightforward political map. The provincial capitals (Rathcroghan, Navan Fort, Knockaulin, Cashel, Tara) functioned as ceremonial centres whose Iron Age origins predate the medieval literary accounts by centuries.4 The three realms and the five provinces aren’t competing frameworks; one structures the cosmos vertically, the other structures the land horizontally, with Tara at the sacred centre.
The Otherworld
The Irish Otherworld, An Saol Eile (“the other world/life”), is not an afterlife in the Christian sense. It’s a parallel realm that coexists with the mortal world, accessible at certain places and times. It appears under multiple names in the sources: Tír na nÓg (Land of the Young), Mag Mell (Plain of Delight), Tech Duinn (the House of Donn, where the dead gather), Tír fo Thuinn (Land Under the Sea). These aren’t synonyms for a single unified realm; they name different regions of an unseen geography.3
The Otherworld coexists with the mortal world, accessible at certain thresholds rather than located at a remove from it. Access points to these other realms include the sídhe mounds, caves, lakes, and the western sea. Liminal times, especially Samhain and Bealtaine, thin the boundary between worlds.
In the Lebor Gabála Érenn (Book of Invasions), the Tuatha Dé Danann don’t leave Ireland after their defeat by the Milesians. They withdraw into it, retreating into the sídhe mounds, the hills, and the rivers. This is why the Aos Sí (the fairy folk) and the gods are related concepts in Irish tradition: the gods became the spirits of the land. Sjoestedt describes the Irish mythographers presenting the ancient gods as beings who still dwell invisibly present beside the human inhabitants.3
The relationship between the dead and the Otherworld is complex in the sources, and CR doesn’t flatten it. Irish cosmology offers no single unified afterlife, and CR doesn’t impose one.
Ritual Structure: What CR Practice Actually Looks Like
Circle-casting and quarter-calling framework comes from late nineteenth-century ceremonial magic, specifically the Golden Dawn tradition, and was absorbed into Wicca through Gerald Gardner’s development of that religion in the 1940s and 1950s.
CR ritual centers on prayer, offering, and hospitality. Daily devotional practice is weighted more heavily than periodic elaborate ritual. In practice, this usually means a home altar: a cloth, a candle, images or symbols of the deity or ancestors being honored, a bowl for offerings, kept and tended regularly.
Offerings are simple: milk, ale, mead, hazelnuts, wine, apples, oats, butter, pork. All are well-attested in the mythology and folklore as preferred by gods and spirits.3 Nothing needs to be sourced from a specialty shop. Regular, modest practice carries more weight than an elaborate occasional ritual that rarely happens.
Reciprocity is the underlying concept. Offerings are expressions of ongoing relationship, not transactions. Flaithiúlacht (FLAH-hyoo-lacht), meaning hospitality, is both a social virtue and a ritual one in Irish tradition. Laurie puts it plainly: “In the Celtic world, hospitality is a sacred duty.”3
Ethics: Where CR Draws Its Moral Framework
CR ethics come from Celtic primary sources, not the Wiccan Rede. The primary texts for Irish CR are the Triads of Ireland (Tríada Éireann), a medieval collection of wisdom sayings covering kingship, personal conduct, and social obligation; the Instructions of Cormac Mac Airt (Tecosca Cormaic), advice attributed to the legendary king on truth-telling and right behavior; and Brehon law (Fénechas, “law of the freemen”), the pre-Norman Irish legal system, restorative rather than punitive and focused on compensation and the repair of social harm.5
Three concepts from these sources appear throughout CR practice:
Fír (feer): truth, meaning not simply honesty but alignment between words and reality at a structural level. Oath-breaking and false witness were among the most serious violations in Irish tradition. The concept runs through law, mythology, and the ethics of kingship: a king who spoke falsehood was believed to cause physical harm to the land itself.
Enech (EN-akh): literally “face,” meaning honor or social standing. Your enech is your reputation as maintained through right action, damaged by lying, cowardice, or failure to meet your obligations. The related legal concept, lóg n-enech (logue n-EN-akh), is the “honor price,” a person’s assessed social value under Brehon law, which determined the scale of compensation owed when they were wronged. In early Irish law, enech and “face” were the same word; to shame someone was to make them red in the face, synonymous with an offense against their honor.6
Flaithiúlacht: hospitality, introduced above as a ritual virtue and equally an ethical obligation. The CR FAQ describes CR ethics as a “virtue theoretic ethical system,” meaning positive guidelines for behavior rather than a list of prohibitions.1 Hospitality is one of those positive obligations.
All three concepts are embedded in a specific historical and cultural context, developed within a society that treated the social and spiritual worlds as continuous with each other. A CR practitioner engaging with them is engaging with a real historical ethical system.
Related Reading
CR sits inside a wider ecosystem of Celtic tradition. These pieces offer practical entry points into the Irish practices and folk beliefs that surround the theology:
The Evil Eye in Irish Folklore: how folk belief in the evil eye operated alongside formal religion, and the folk cures that responded to it.
Bealtaine: Irish May Day Traditions: one of the liminal thresholds named above, with the seasonal observances that grew around it.
St. Brigid’s Day Crosses: the continuity between Brigit as pre-Christian goddess and Brigid as saint, expressed through a surviving folk practice.
How to Read Ogham Divination: the Irish tree alphabet as a ritual and divinatory system that fits the CR framework.
Irish New Year Folk Magic: Lá Coille: seasonal folk observance drawn from Irish sources.
The New Moon in Irish Folklore: how lunar observances entered Irish folk practice.
The next article in this series will cover the gods themselves: who the Tuatha Dé Danann are, what the sources actually say about them, and how CR practitioners relate to specific deities today.
CR FAQ ↩︎ ↩︎
Celtic Gods and Heroes by Marie-Louise Sjoestedt ↩︎ ↩︎
A Circle of Stones: Journeys and Meditations for Modern Celts by Erynn Rowan Laurie ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Match magic is a versatile and easy sort of spellcrafting. Unfortunately, fire is a necessity so this is not for people who can’t light matches.
The basic concept of match magic is that the matchstick is charged with intent. Then, the match is burned to release the intent so the magic can go do its work. As the match burns, watch the flame to divine the success or manifestation of the spell.
1. Getting prepared
The only thing you really need are wooden matches. Lighters do not work for this particular kind of thing because the main focus is on charging and burning the wood, not the fire itself. I can find a box of 250 large wooden matches for a dollar here.
When you hold a lit match, the match cannot burn all the way down (or you will really burn your fingers!) This may lead you to feel like the entire spell has not been released. There are three solutions I have found and perhaps one will resonate with you depending on your beliefs:
a. Mark a line on the match with a pencil, and put the intent only on the burning end. When the flame reaches the pencil mark, blow it out. All the intent will be released without your fingers being burned.
b. After the match is lit, carefully and firmly grasp one end with a pair of tweezers. This will allow the entirety of the match to burn, releasing all the intent.
c. Recognize that the bit of unburnt match left over works to ‘ground’ the magic in your life, helping keep the intent attached to the physical plane as it goes about and does its work in the ethereal or astral.
If you choose, you may watch the match burn down in order to divine the success of the spell, or the path it will take during manifestation. The shape of the charcoal may also give you a clue as to the success of the magic. However, in order to read the omens in the flame, you should have a good understanding of what a regular, mundane match looks like when it burns. Get your box of matches and decide on a few things:
Will you be holding all your matches perfectly horizontal, or vertical, or in some other fashion?
Will you be holding the match with your fingers or some other tool?
How long will you allow each match to burn?
Ensure that you are wherever you are likely to do your match spells most often (it may be over an altar, or for me, my desk). Turn off any fans in the area, close windows, and generally reduce any drafts as much as possible.
When you have an idea of how you want the little ritual to go, light about ten uncharged matches in your working area and carefully observe how they burn. Note how high the flames tend to go, how quickly the flames move along the match, in what way the wood curls when it is burned, et cetera. Carefully save these burned matches (you could also take a photo) and use them as a control group to compare against your magical matches. You may or may not notice a distinct difference between how your plain matches compare with your magical ones; my magical matches tend to burn in a corkscrew shape and the flames often reach much higher.
2. Understanding the nature of match magic
Match magic is not a big kickass sort of spell. It can be powerful and forceful, but it is more like a paintball gun than a cannon. The wood itself can only hold so much energy, and the energy is released quickly instead of through a long, steady burn. This is really more like quick fix-it Band-aid magic than anything else. Here is what I have found match magic to be appropriate for:
Motivation
“Get me through the day/this class/this meeting”
Quick fix for anxiety, although only for a short amount of time
A nudge for someone to do something
Gaining focus for a task ahead
Because the matches burn so quickly, they are also appropriate for on-the-go devotionals or to add quick power to an existing spell. Many of us will leave tea lights on an altar to empower something; if you cannot leave a tea light burning, charging and burning a match may be a sufficient substitution.
Here is one paradigm explanation for how match magic “works”: Wood is good at holding magical intent and charge. The physical item is also excellent as a focus point. As you gather power, you can store it in the match. When you intuit that you have collected enough energy for the magical task at hand, use your magical willpower to imprint your intent on the raw energy. After you ‘stamp’ your intent in to the energy, the match is now a self contained charm. However, we want the magic to move ahead of us and around us in order blaze the trail for our success. When the match is lit, the energy is rapidly released and goes on its merry way.
The fire in this spell is transformative; full of changes. It transforms our intent in to reality; it releases contained energy in to flowing energy; it converts one situation in to another.
3. Charging the matches
Do not bother using your own energy for this kind of spell; you can actually get the energy within the match quite dense, and you may end up draining yourself. Instead, call upon an external energy. If you ground with a root system, you can call upon the powers of the earth to work for you. If you can gather energy from the space around you, do that - you can also use energy stored in crystals, or whatever other method you typically use for raising spell-energy.
In this spell, your energy is the wheel, not the clay - call upon energy from something else and use your magical reservoir to shape it.
Before you begin, ensure you have a simple statement of intent. The statement is probably better off being positive instead of negative. Here are some examples:
POSITIVE:
I will get all of my homework done today
Laura will skip class today
That dog will be silent today
NEGATIVE:
I will not be sleepy
My bills will not come in the mail today
John will not call me today
Hold a single match in your hand (marked with a pencil if that is how you prefer to do it). Call energy to you and direct it in to the match. At first the energy may be very thin and in a cloud around the matchstick. Compress the energy down until it is all contained within the wood. Draw up and compress more and more energy until you feel you have gotten enough. The matchstick may seem to be glowing very brightly, if you can ‘see’ energy, and if you can feel energy the matchstick may make your skin feel quite weird. Using your magical will, keep the energy within the matchstick contained. Simultaneously use your will to stamp your statement of intent in to the energy, forming it and molding it so it is programmed to your will. If you don’t get what I mean, just imagine that the matchstick is full of all this raw, smooth energy. Then mentally shout at it until you intuit that the energy is programmed.
After this, you may wish to do a sealing action (“so mote it be”). Then immediately light the match and hold it in the same way you did during your practice runs. Watch the match burn and see if you can determine how the spell will go. Blow the match out when it is time and keep or discard the charcoal and leftover wood however it feels right to you.
If you wish, call appropriate and relevant energies instead of just using whatever. Air energy is appropriate for focus and mindfulness, while Mars energy is appropriate for acts of aggression.
Because the spell is released with fire it will by nature be quick to take effect and quick to burn out. Keep that in mind while writing up your spells.
I’ve been building a little browser-based digital grimoire / webgrimoire for my site, and it’s finally at the point where I want to let other people try it.
https://shrine404.neocities.org/grimoire
It’s still in beta, so im basically just asking people to poke around, play with it, and tell me what works, what feels clunky, and what you’d want added.
It's not a productivity app so don't go in expecting that. I wanted it to feel personal, decorative, a little old-web, a little devotional lol..
I worked really hard on this so if you can give me feedback and maybe reblog I'd be so happy. Again it is FREEEEE.
What it can do right now:
☾ create entries for different sections like spells, materia / correspondences, dreams, lore, links, journals, divination / omens, and more
☾ has an altar / webshrine area where you can make little devotional pages with things like:
shrine images
candles
offerings
blinkies / extra shrine images
shrine frames / styles
relics / decorative bits
“now playing” style details
guestbook / shrine personality features
☾ has a practitioner / about area so you can personalize it with your own path, signs, beliefs, deities, tools, icon, etc.
☾ includes writing tools so entries can be more than just plain text — invocation blocks, prayer cards, omen / warning boxes, poetry formatting, ritual steps, foldaway notes, dividers, and other little text charms
☾ lets entries link to each other, so it can work more like a tiny personal web or wiki instead of just isolated notes
☾ has optional ritual metadata / seals for entries, but they can also be turned off if they don’t fit the page
☾ has backup / export options all grouped together, including a full HTML export option
☾ has different palette / theme options in settings, including lighter and darker modes for readability / vibe
☾ has a header image option and other little personalization settings
A few important notes before using it:
𖹭 it is still a beta
there may still be bugs, odd save issues, awkward layout moments, or parts that need smoothing out
𖹭 it currently saves in your browser storage
so if you use it a lot, please export backups regularly
𖹭 it’s meant to be a little expressive and decorative
so some features lean more “digital shrine / personal archive / weird old web object” than “minimal serious app”
If you try it, I’d especially love feedback on:
✴︎ anything confusing or unintuitive
✴︎ bugs / things not saving properly
✴︎ sections or features you wish existed
✴︎ readability / accessibility issues
✴︎ whether the altar / shrine side feels fun enough
✴︎ whether the writing tools feel useful or too much
✴︎ anything that feels especially charming, broken, annoying, inspiring, messy, or missing
Basically: if you use it and have thoughts, I want them.
This is my weird little beta grimoire child and I’m trying to make it genuinely beautiful and fun to use, not just functional.
Also, if you like strange personal websites / old web things / occult tools / shrine pages / browser toys, you may enjoy it just for that alone.
Hear me out. What if coaster with planetary sigils or squares to use daily for your beverage, swapping them depending on either the day or whatever intent you want more of that day
Bothers me when the distinction between Witch and Wizard is drawn according to gender. The Witch/Wizard distinction is one of class. Wizards live in towers and have cursed artifacts. Witches live in shacks and have crooked teeth.
Both witches and wizards can be evil, of course. But when a witch is evil they turn you into a frog. When a wizard is evil they try to tear a hole in reality or raise an undead army. You don't see witches doing that shit because they're working class.
The witch is looked down upon because they are competition to the hierarchical work of wizardry; they present an alternative to state monopoly on magic.
Absolutely. Witches perform folk magic--you'd never catch a wizard getting overly preoccupied with practical magic like soothing ulcers or curing the flu, but witches are always brewing up stuff for those kinds of reasons.
Magic is like programming. When it's seen as practical and tedious, it's "women's work." When it's seen as academic and intellectual, you get a huge salary and an audience with the king.
"so why aren't there female wizards" because of sexism, duh. Women have been shut out of magical academia the same way they have been shut out of so many other kinds of academia.
Maleficent was absolutely an evil wizard. She has a castle. She has a staff. She shouts "FOOLS" in an especially wizardly way.
Mad Madam Mim was every bit as magical as Merlin, but she didn't have ambitions of--or access to--power. She's a witch.
Another distinction is that witches work with, and draw a substantial amount of their power, from nature, while wizards specialize in a sort of magical science that doesn't rely on and frequently flies in the face of nature.
Witches have respect for and rely on the land, life, and history around them, while wizards do almost exactly the opposite, treating nature and life as mere subjects for experimentation, and and frequently trying to "outdo" or "overcome" them (as well as history).
On the scale of vibes, witches are more akin to druids, priestesses, and creatures of folklore, and wizards are like the magical equivalent of mad scientists and sleep deprived university students surviving off chemical concoctions to keep them awake until their next breakthrough. One is inexorably tied to nature and tradition, and the other is trying their best to completely ignore and move past them.
Wizards are somewhat obsessed with being remembered for something, discovering something, gaining fame, gaining power, etc. Witches are content to stay in their lane and will frequently punish those who start getting a little too big for their britches.
How I sense and perceive spirits: the browser analogy
I write because I love to share ❧ My beliefs are not universal, universally good, or universally helpful ❧ This post is full of my personal beliefs, practices, and UPG ❧ Take from it what you will and leave the rest behind ☙
There seems to be a misconception about spirit work that all spirit-workers physically see spirits.
It's been my experience from several years spent in witchcraft and spiritworking groups that such people are actually a small minority.
This leads to confusion from some about how they are supposed to be perceiving spirits. This is what I experience. I hope it will be a helpful description to anyone trying to figure out some of the ways they can perceive the spirit world.
In this extended analogy:
RAM is how much processing power I have in my noggin
Data is how much metaphysical energy I can work with before my circuits get fried
Batteries are my overall energy for my entire self :)
Let's jump in to computer brain time!
My spiritual or psychic perception takes place within a certain tab in my mind-browser. This "tab" might also be called a mindset or headspace.
I open my psychic tab (not great to have it loaded and running 24/7 IMO)
I enter the URL of the spirit, energy, or space I'm trying to perceive
I wait for the URL to connect and load
My tab renders the information into a format I can understand
This process may be very quick on good days (less than a second) or take a long time and hardly come through on bad days - like how a website loads for 5 minutes and finally comes through as jumbled text without the CSS.
I believe the challenge for beginners therefore is learning their own system settings to figure out how to open this tab, and then developing their RAM and data caps so they can run it more often.
Everyone's psychism tab processes and renders information differently.
The information that fills my psychism tab is often visual and spatial. Some people's tabs get filled with scents, audio files, or are populated with their own memories or mashups of familiar media. Everyone is different.
When the URL loads for me, my tab is going to usually show me a visual rendering that indicates location, size, and appearance.
Sometimes my tab is an augmented reality page that copies what my face-eyes are seeing, and spatially overlays a spirit ("it's over there in that corner").
Sometimes I will see the appearance of a spirit like a .JPG or animated .GIF, and there is no augmented reality portion.
Sometimes it's a .txt file that says "SPIRIT NEAR"
Sometimes it's a .bat file that starts playing a snippet of a song or or a scene from a show.
It can be lots of things for me :)
All the tabs I have open take up a chunk of my RAM.
If I'm having trouble loading my psychic tab, closing some of the other tabs first is helpful.
Sadly, some of them are run by the system admin and as an end-user I'm not allowed to close them ^-^;;
And it can take a really long time to close them.
If I can only run my psychic tab and almost no other ones, that is going to create an immense connection. But I rarely do that.
You know how if you go to a website and they're using a typeface you don't have, your browser replaces it with one of your system defaults?
Well I get that too!
If I'm trying to connect to a URL and a portion of it can't be loaded into my tab, it will be defaulted to the nearest rendering I already have in my cache.
For example, there is a certain type of spooky spirit common in my town. I see them as being very similar to Gengar pokemon. Now they don't all actually look like that. Gengar is just their default icon. If I have a lot of tabs open and suddenly my psychic tab populates with a .JPG of a Gengar, I know that this type of spirit is nearby.
If I want to switch focus to that tab and refresh, in a few moments its actual, individual appearance should load. Maybe even an augmented reality so I can see where it's located. This takes more effort and energy, of course, so I might not do it at all (especially if I need to recharge my batteries, or if I'm close to my data cap).
Taking the time to individually load spirits and energies is very informative and helpful.
It installs a greater variety of icons into my system, so as time goes on my default icons become more nuanced and informative, meaning I get more information with less effort in the moment.
Sometimes, I neither have the RAM/data available to process a URL, nor will I have a suitable default icon stored in my cache.
When this occurs my brain does a neat trick: it leaves the browser cache folder and goes into the entire hard drive of my system to find the closest matching substitute.
99% of the time, this substitute is a character or archetype from the media I consume (which makes me very, very interested in the power of storytelling). But it can really be anything.
Psychic Tab: *ping! Picture cannot be loaded*
Me: ??? *tabs over*
Psychic Tab: Auto-Generated Picture ID: A memory of when you were ?eight?, ?standing? in front of a tree. You ?thought? the tree was a ?person/alive/friend? and you wanted to be ?its friend/a tree?.
Me: "Ahh, perhaps a nature spirit wants to be my friend."
My psychic tab updates depending on the actions I take.
Suppose I see the Gengar icon and I take a banishing action:
If I've got lots of RAM and data left, my tab might update in realtime.
If I'm low on RAM or data, I might have to hit the refresh button myself. I should see a difference in what the Gengar icon is doing; it should change poses, or have a different expression, or be turned around to walk away, etc.
My psychic tab doesn't exist in a vacuum.
It's going to bleed over into my emotions tab, my analytics tab, my vibe check tab, my historical records tab, and so on.
So it's not just me relying on the psychic tab for everything. I might switch back and forth a lot to double-check information in lots of various ways.
Huge protip for beginners!: Learn how to close your psychic tab :)
All tabs take up processing power. All tabs have side-effects (for better or worse). Keeping your psychic senses open 24/7 is not only draining, but it can have serious side-effects and overall really limit your ability to effectively deal with what's going on in your other tabs.
(To extend this analogy, constructed mindscapes where you commune with external spirits are like chatrooms, which I'm mentioning because I think it's cute way to think about things ^-^)
