Bees!!!

Hello I'm August! Late 20's, he/him/his, queer, white, cancer moon, leo sun. Always learning.

[friend-crow]

True and sincere answer to all of the people who ask, "I have just seen X animal, what does this mean?":

Rejoice, my friend, for this is a most auspicious sign! You have received one of the greatest blessings known to human kind: you live in a world full of creatures! Take comfort and enjoy this divine blessing.

[stuckinapril]

[vitterdotter]

spirits don't have to be your friend. the rock in your backyard doesn't have to behave like a human or be useful to you to deserve respect. there is inherent value in loving the web of spirits that surrounds us without asking what they can do for us.

[artemisonahunt]

A Slovak politician recently said that you can only be a man or a woman because "there were only Adam and Eve in paradise". Then he seemed to realize something and added "and the snake".

So, I would like to publicly announce that from now on, I will be identifying as a snake

[vesse-moricaleo-lusifero]

It blows my mind that people (particularly westerners / USAmericans and UK folks) all see the word "possession" and get the wildest most backwards and weird ideas about it.

They totally disregard the idea that it's a normal and everyday practise for some peoples and traditions and plays an intrinsically intimate role in very normal settings.

Like. It's not what they think it is half of the time. And the other half of the time, people have no idea the work and the way it impacts a vessel. No matter how you spin it, what feels like 80% of people who engage with this subject are disconnected from various facets and qualities that go into it.

tl;dr I wish people took considerations into how they approach subjects instead of subscribing to main stream social and pop culture media. It's an education problem.

[vesse-moricaleo-lusifero]

The reductionism of "Spirit Enter Body" is going to make me lose it.

[vesse-moricaleo-lusifero]

A mildly annoyed except on Possession:

Possession, being an umbrella term, exists in many many traditions. It’s not a simple and spontaneous thing within these traditions. But it also is not a “one Universal experience” either. For different cultural traditions, it means many different things. Shinto experiences a tradition of possession. Afro-diasporic traditions share a variation of possession.

And there’s just many many more to bring up, but these are the biggest examples off of the top of my head.

The west? It treats it like a spontaneous thing. Like being “sensitive” to something automatically translates to possession. That being able to “channel”* (a practise that traditionally requires years of disciplinary training and mentorship), is suddenly possession. It’s not unless you’re approaching it from the appropriately vetted backgrounds, traditions, and belief systems that occupy that particular framework of tradition.

And even then, Channeling is a separate discipline.

*Channeling itself, specifically in traditions where it legitimately exists, requires years of discipline, mentorship, and training. Possession and Channeling are not interchangeable. And that's a common confusion.

In pretty much every tradition where spiritual possession is part of the religious or ritual framework, it is a trained role. Not random. Not spontaneous. Not “oh I’m just sensitive to energy so it happens to me sometimes.”

People who serve as vessels undergo:

Rigorous preparation

Intense disciplinary courses from fasting for weeks or changing entire lifestyle regiments, behavioural discipline, abstinence, and other disciplines of control and balance

Protocols set up between them and their spirit in question

physical and spiritual conditioning which is often grueling, taxing, and exhausting. These conditionings don’t stop. They go on for years and years and years. And they will take up a vessel’s entire lifetime. You don’t just “Get to stop”.,

mentorship / initiation / lineage transmission - all depending on tradition and background.,

Vessels don’t just “get possessed.”

They are taught how to ground, open, host, channel, and close. Possession is a responsibility, not an accident. Nor is it just done willy nilly for clicks on Shit-Tock or for social clout.

Your body? Yeah that doesn't belong to you anymore. That autonomy is gone.

If a tradition incorporates possession, there is always structure: Factors that go into possession are circumstances like oversight. Someone often (but not always) oversees the ritual or ceremony that is taking place. There are safety and exit procedures. The vessels serve a purpose for the spirits in question and/or the community. Not the individual or the ego. When you’re a vessel, rarely it is ever for multiple deities or beings either. (Unless the specific tradition structures it as such. Examples can be in within the spheres of ancestral spirits or specific diaspora).

Pop culture sells the idea of spontaneous possession. Actual traditions teach technique and discipline. That’s the difference. And this is always lacking. And that’s how I know people don’t know what they’re talking about.

I highly doubt the randos on the internet that I see goes from zero to “vessel of a deity” in a week.

If possession were that simple,

everyone with a Shit-Tok altar would be doing it. (Oh wait! They kind of already are! Silly me). 

The seriousness of possession is exactly why it isn’t common.

It takes training, not vibes.

Commitment, not aesthetics.

Discipline, not “sensitivity.”

That’s the reality.

And even if you constructed your own tradition and your own system, I really cannot believe for a second that anyone can go from zero to one hundred with possession with a spirit or a deity in a few months or even a year. 

Why would a rando on the internet somehow get a pass in a skill and practise that requires people from ethnic and traditional practises years and years of lifestyle change, dedication, and discipline without having to do the work?

[stsathyre]

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

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

[buggywiththefolkmagic]

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

[wandering-free-and-queer]

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

[parkchanwoohoo]

Every time I hear people talk about satanic imagery or satanic propaganda I think about that tweet that was like, some people view Satan as a video game villain where he gets stronger the more people worship him

[parkchanwoohoo]

THIS ONE

[cottagepatchouli]

[wiisagi-maiingan]

If you insist on referring to other cultures' spirits and folklore figures as fairies, demons, angels, etc even when you're told that those terms aren't accurate or that those spirits have their own names, then I really just want you to think about why you're only able to conceptualize spirituality and culture through a European and Christian lens.

[starforged-witch]

I love when I see someone saying "oh no tarot cards invite demons in" like yeah maybe I wanna talk to the demons have we considered that option

[water-aesthetics]

Good morning

[theotherhappyplace]

Finished designing my bull angel concept! for my friend's TTRPG

[growing-yet-into-magic]

In regards to research:

Don’t accept witchcraft books for history. Read history texts. 

Don’t accept witchcraft books for mental processes. Read psychology and biological texts. 

Don’t accept witchcraft books for mythology. Don’t accept witchcraft books for religion. Read original texts and papers written researchers credited in their fields. 

Use witchcraft books for witchcraft, and witchcraft alone. That is what they specialize in and what they are published for. If it branches out into a different subject, be suspicious and research the topic later. 

[acorviart]

devourer of falling stars

[acorviart]

this will be available as a postcard print in my shop update tomorrow 👀

[onenicebugperday]

Rosy woodlouse, Androniscus dentiger, Trichoniscidae

Photographed in France by bvcruz

[charnel-grounds]

“Serrandola col braccio a mezza vita con ambo i piè squarcia di forza il flutto. Ella respira ancor. . .”

Gino De' Bini (1856–1918) - Lucifero, 1887

illustration for the poem by Mario Rapisardi

source

[spiralhouseshop]

More stuff back in stock!

Sigil Magic: Fir Writer, Artists, and other Creatives by T. Thorne Coyle

A Witch's Guide to Spellcraft by Althea Sebastiani

Folk Witchcraft: A guide to Lore, Land, and The Familiar Spirit for the Solitary Practitioner by Roger J Horne

Memento Mori: A Collection of Magickal and Mythological Perspectives on Death, Dying, Mortality & Beyond

Sigil Magic: Fir Writer, Artists, and other Creatives by T. Thorne Coyle

A Witch's Guide to Spellcraft by Althea Sebastiani

Folk Witchcraft: A guide to Lore, Land, and The Familiar Spirit for the Solitary Practitioner by Roger J Horne

Memento Mori: A Collection of Magickal and Mythological Perspectives on Death, Dying, Mortality & Beyond

Magical House Protection: The Archeology of Counter-Witchcraft by Brian Hoggard

Weird Walk Zines and the new Weird Walk books!

By Rust of Nail and Prick of Thorn-The Theory and Practice of Effective Home Warding by Althea Sebastiani

Curses, Hexes, & Crossings: A Magician's Guide to Execration Magic by S Connolly

Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape by Jeremy Harte

Magic: A History Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present by Chris Gosden

Pagan Book of the Dead by Claude: Ancestral Visions of the Afterlife and Other Worlds by Claude Lacouteux