☆

formerly witchoftheshire

[purplemagician]

introduction

⭒ my helpol blog (which is basically my main) is @apollonaegletes, youll find a more detailed intro on there! ill also follow from there

⭒ my name is Crow, im 22, uranic, ace, and genderfluid. im okay with any pronouns

⭒ ive been a magician (what i prefer to be called rather than a witch) for around five years, mainly focused on using witchcraft with my religion and divination

⭒ im new to pop culture witchcraft, and that's what this blog will be focused on. itll have general magic stuff too, but mainly pop culture witchcraft/paganism stuff

⭒ posts i make will be tagged with "crow caws"

[apollonaegletes]

changing my name to Crow so posts made by me will be tagged with "crow caws" now

[banebite-deactivated20230414]

Neuro-Divergent Practitioners

Some tips for your craft

Meditation doesn't always require sitting still and silent. Try dancing meditation, drumming, rocking, or walking meditation.

Keep a book of chaos or little notebook on you to capture those ideas or thoughts you might forget later on.

You don't need to have everything you see in your grimoire, only study what you find useful and fun for your practice.

Keep rituals and spell work short and effective.

Try not to fixate on astrology alignments, moon cycles, or esoteric correspondences for spell work. They may help but they aren't essential.

While visualization and gnosis are great for spell work, the aren't always a viable option, don't feel like you need to do them.

Always write down what was done directly after spell work to prevent forgetting any details.

Taking breaks is okay, you don't need to be practicing all the time to be a practitioner.

Organize your tools and supplies in a way where they are easily visible and labeled if necessary.

Background noise or music during rituals perfectly okay.

If you tend to forget to blow out candles try switching to electric ones or a salt lamp, candles aren't required for workings.

Try making recipes for oils, teas, incense, etc. in bulk.

Keep calming tea or bath salts on hand for those difficult days.

Try using different colored pens or highlighters to organize information in your BOS/grimoire.

Try keeping recipe cards for food, oils, teas, incense, incantations, or even short rituals in a box at your altar for quick referencing.

Try sticking to offerings that won't easily spoil or wilt, like stones, candles, statues, oil, and incense.

[evilios]

🔮 Absolutely random, assorted facts from my experience with Tarot:

You can set rules with your deck. Don’t like reversed cards? Don’t pull them. Don’t interpret them. Request not to get them. Don’t care about the position of the card and want only its meaning? Ask for it.

You can pull confirmation cards. If you are working with a companion, you can set up their personal confirmation card. If you’re working with the deck and the general universe, you can pick a feel-good card (or a rare card if you want) and request it whenever you want to get a vibecheck.

You can repull. If it feels weird, it probably is weird. If you keep pulling the same card all over again, it’s probably correct. But if you pulled one weird one that just doesn’t seem like it belongs, repull. Your deck - your rules.

You don’t need to sweat too much over “official meanings”. So what if the Tower means “something bad”? If it means something positive for you, go with your feelings first. Each practitioner will have their own associations with the cards. I for one quite like the Tower, but I genuinely hate getting the High Priestess. It’s individual.

You don’t need to work with a specific Deity, spirit, or daemon. The cards are powerful tools without any additional presence.

You can assign a deck to a particular entity. I have four decks, out of which three belong to (a) companion(s) of mine. This is completely individual and fully relies on who you want to touch your cards.

You can confuse the cards. When the reading starts to feel like it just reiterates your feelings, it probably is. Or you worded your question badly and the cards don’t know what to tell you. Or you already know the answer. Or maybe something else.

You might be turning your spread into multiple spreads. If your session with tarot can be broken into a number of smaller sessions, you are probably overworking yourself. It helps to step back and think whether or not your multi-card spread turned into a multitude of smaller spreads. Is that why nothing is making sense?

You might be told to read cards some other time. Bias, moods, instability, or the cards just being not in the good state - all of these can affect whether they agree to work with you in the first place. I’ve had decks that stayed “silent” for months on and decks that were willing to work with me every day. It depends.

P. S. One more time: this is just my experience. It is not universal.

[jacethewitch]

✨ Connect with Your Tarot Deck ✨

Sleep with your deck under your pillow

Draw a few cards every morning and/or every night

Show off your deck to friends! Surround it with positive energy

Shuffle your deck while doing other things, like watching TV

Meditate with your deck

Avoid dropping or throwing or physically neglecting your deck

Name your deck

Use a “Get to Know Your Deck” tarot spread! There are plenty on Tumblr

Do lots of readings - with tarot spreads or intuitively 

Find your own, more nuanced, meanings for certain cards that are based on the art from your deck

Bonus: Get readings from other people and experience other decks’ personalities! 

[knightofhylia]

Updated Hylian Sigils sheet!

The font for the hylian script is like super fancy, so I tried to mimic more of what it would look like written with a pen instead of scribed by a sheikah monk. So essentially hylian comic sans font lol

Feel free to use!! Tag me if you do I’d love to see what y’all make!

[evilios]

It is completely possible to draw the “wrong” Tarot card.

If when doing readings you’ve ever felt like the card you pulled was “off”, felt “empty”, or that you should’ve taken the one next to it, I want to tell you that you are probably right.

I’ve pulled “blank” cards before - cards that have no meaning and got thrown at me by accident. I’ve pulled “wrong” cards before - ones that needed to be flipped over or repulled.

Tarot is intuitive art, not a slot machine, and if your intuition tells you to retake, repull, redo - feel free to follow it. Don’t be “ashamed” to take the card you genuinely feel is more correct for the question you’re asking. No one is watching you with a camera ready to point out that the mighty Tarot reader got the wrong one. It’s okay, just get the one you feel is right, and don’t worry so much. There’s no universal guide to Tarot.

P. S. Please, don’t use this post as a universal guide. I’m speaking from my experience, it’s subjective - and made for those who relate to my experience.

[purplemagician]

i feel like i saw a post before about having pokemon as your familiar but i cant find it now. does anyone have any resources on it?

[caduceussky-deactivated20240830]

maybe @jasper-pagan-witch can help out?

[jasper-pagan-witch]

*blinks a few times* I've got a thing or two.

First is my tag talking about my own PokeFamiliar, Witchy the Charmander.

Next is this post by @pokemonpaganism talking about working with Pokemon spirits.

And finally, I had to really dig to find this post, but it's suggesting that you can look at the sixth house in your chart (if Western astrology appeals to you, of course) as an indication of what Pokemon you might work well with.

[purplemagician]

i feel like i saw a post before about having pokemon as your familiar but i cant find it now. does anyone have any resources on it?

[book-of-whispers]

Jsyk just because you see a bunch of witches doing a thing, doesn't mean you need to as well. Crystals don't interest you? Okay cool. Not into herbs? That's fine. Celestial movements not your thing? Mine either.

[hagoftheholler]

How to Read Playing Cards: Introduction

Playing cards have been used for divination purposes for centuries. They are a discreet method of divination because most people would assume you have them for their intended use: playing games. Playing cards can be a good way to introduce yourself to divination if you are in the broom closet or if you find tarot cards overwhelming. That being said, there are a few things I'd like to talk about regarding playing cards.

Do tarot cards and playing cards have the same meanings?

Whatever you have been told about tarot cards and playing cards being similar, get that out of your system now. Tarot cards are a 78 card system split between the major arcana and minor arcana, and then the minor arcana being further split between the four suits. Standard playing cards have 54 cards split between four suits and then the two jokers. Even the suits are different because while tarot cards have the king, queen, knight and page cards, playing cards have the king, queen and jack cards. You can immediately observe that these are two very different card systems, and thus they should be treated differently.

Can I use the card's imagery to read them?

If you want a playing card deck with imagery, that's fine. There are a few out there that have art depicted on the cards, but most don't or only have art on the kings, queens and jacks. This can make your experiences with playing cards tricky if you prefer having imagery to help interpret the cards, but that doesn't mean it won't work for you. Get yourself a journal and document the card meanings (next posts will be talking about the individual card meanings and then some). This will help you in the long run.

Who do so many books and articles have different interpretations to the cards?

I don't have a concrete answer for this one. I think part of it has to do with the fact that most playing cards lack imagery to keep a theme, and part of it is because individuals are taught how to read the cards differently. Many families have their own ways of reading playing cards, but there are usually similarities among them. That doesn't mean the books and articles are invalid- it just means you're going to have to put in the work to determine what works for you.

Can I deconstruct the gendered interpretations of the kings, queens and jacks?

Yes, you can. Most interpretations say that the kings are men, queens are women and jacks can be either. Some will also say that kings and queens are older people (think 40+ years old) and jacks are younger people. Personally, I usually describe the kings as people who are generally masculine-presenting, queens as people who are generally feminine-presenting and jacks... well... can be either depending in the individual reading. If that doesn't work for you then that's okay. You can figure out your own interpretations for the kings, queens and jacks as you go.

Can all playing card decks be read the same?

Personally, I don't think so. I use the standard French-suited playing cards, but there are other types of playing cards (such as the Italian-suited deck or the Spanish-suited deck) that have a bit of a different structure to them. If you plan on using anything other than the French-suited deck then my posts may not be for you.

If you have any questions regarding using playing cards for divination, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.

[forever-learning-witch]

The 8 schools of the Arcane

Welcome to the first lesson of D&D witchcraft. Yes all of this is for our pop culture witches who love D&D. So there are 8 schools of the arcane in D&D. The eight schools of arcane magic are abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, and transmutation. I will discuss a little about each and provide modern examples. 

So Abjuration deals with spells of protection, blocking, and banishing. It can be as simple as warding your house, banishing a spirit from your home, banishing negative energy, or making protection spells on yourself or your items. 

Conjuration are spells that bring creatures or materials to the caster. These are usually your spirit workers that help connect someone with a spirit worker. Also more with astral work in my opinion. 

Divination are spells that reveal information. This one is my personal favorite. This includes tarot, oracle cards, runes, scrying, palm reading, and so many other tools. So basically it revealing information or things in the future and This is a broad school outside of D&D

Enchantment are spells that imbue the recipient with some property or grant the caster power over another being. I would say like hexes, curses or luck spells can be used. This is a grey area in magic as it can be both helpful and baneful magic. So you can do a self love spell for someone else. I don’t believe in having absolute control over someone.

Evocation are spells that manipulate energy or create something from nothing. Kitchen witches I say are evocation masters. They can literally make a meal from nothing. Also people who do elemental magic as their craft so fire magic, water magic etc. 

Illusion are spells that alter perception or create false images. The common one is glamour magic or putting on makeup. Since makeup can alter one perception also types of warding can be illusion based if you know how to spin it.

Necromancy are spells that manipulate, create, or destroy life or life force. I personally don’t do a lot of necromancy. However I can see it being used in cursing in extreme circumstances. Also it can be a good thing like energy linking so you share your energy with another person.

Finally is transmutation which are spells that transform the recipient physically or change its properties in a more subtle way. Glamour magic can fall under this one as well considering you are changing looks. Like trying a new color or getting a haircut. Also working on goals such as losing weight and using spells to motivate I personally think that counts. 

[herboire]

Creative Writing Tarot Spread

Writers block bogging you down? Use this 7-card spread to help jumpstart your creativity! This prompt can help you generate a very basic storyline.

First, pull a character card! Decide for yourself what this means: will your character carry the traits of the positive meanings of this card? Will your character’s conflicts be brought about by the card’s negative meanings? Will your character look like the figure depicted on the card? Will they wield the item depicted on the card? (Note: if your story has multiple main characters, you may wish to pull a card for each)

Next, pull the plot cards! Pull a card for the beginning of your story, a card for the middle, and a card for the end. Again, let yourself decide what this means. Do these cards describe your character’s emotional state(s) as the story progresses? Do these cards describe internal or external conflicts? Do these cards represent other characters your MC will meet along the way?

Finally, pull your meat cards! These cards are the “meat” of your story. Pull one card for the main or most important setting of your story, one card for the main conflict, and one card for the resolution of that conflict.

Have fun with it! Remember that these cards are just tools, and this spread is simply to kickstart your brain. If you get halfway through the spread and come up with something on your own, or if you start writing and realize your plot is deviating from what the cards gave you, don’t stress about it! You write for yourself, not for the cards. Thank them for their help and continue on with your own imagination.

Deck pictured here: The Essential Tarot by Chloé Zarka Grinsnir

[jasper-pagan-witch]

Pop Culture Deities & Spirits: Common Questions

Image description: A screenshot of a comment left by Runa from @serpentandthreads that says "What are the theories to explain pop culture deities and spirits? What qualifies as a deity in pop culture magic/religions? How does one go about forming their personal craft based on pop culture magic, when it is so new and has little resources?" End image description.

These are all such wonderful questions, Runa! So you'll have to forgive me for breaking these down bit by bit!

What are the theories to explain pop culture deities and spirits?

There are many! On account of not knowing them all myself, I'll just cover two - the egregore theory and my own theory.

Egregore Theory

To quote Wikipedia for a simple definition, an egregore is "an occult concept representing a certain non-physical entity that arises from the collective thoughts of a distinct group of people." Historically, this referred to the watchers of Enochian traditions, but I'm not getting into that because I'm not part of any Enochian tradition.

In recent times, the term also refers to figures such as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny - they're very easy to know about and run into (in the United States at least), and they have very simple jobs that they do for particular reasons.

So in this theory, the worship of a pop culture deity or spirit by multiple people would bring it into creation, especially if you count any worship in the source the deity or spirit comes from.

I've actually known people who wanted to work with a lesser-known pop culture spirit, so they started out by building up worship and offerings first to either bring the spirit into existence or to help them form a bit in our world. (Though out of respect for everyone's privacy, I'm not gonna name any of the people or pop culture entities involved in that.) It was fascinating to observe from an outside perspective.

My Theory

As I so lovingly and eloquently stated in the past, my theory for how this works is that magic and the universe and shit are already so goddamn weird. Another way I phrase it is "you can't prove that any of this is real, you can only prove the impact it has on the lives of you and other physical people", which also applies to questions about why appropriation is bad.

My craft runs on experimentation first and foremost, not what other people say is or is not possible. My little wizard heart continues my experiments and compares them to other experiences I've had.

If I reach out to Azura and get a response back, then clearly Azura exists in some meaningful way. Through experiments like these, I've come to find out that Azura has a similar energy to "historical" deities I worship, such as Athena and Aphrodite, so I've felt comfortable continuing my worship.

(Quick side note: I use "historical" to mean "deities not from a form of pop culture", such as the Greek, Norse, Egyptian, and Roman pantheons. We'll discuss this further down.)

My theory really is "fuck around and find out".

What qualifies as a deity in pop culture magic/religions?

This one greatly depends on the person and practice.

You have people who believe that any figure from pop culture can count as a pop culture deity. (While I was writing this, I found a post discussing Eevee as a pop culture deity.) You have people like me, who have a different idea of what a deity is and use "non-physical entity" as the catch-all term. Ultimately, the answer to this question is highly personal.

To me, "deity" has a particular connotation. If an entity is worshiped as a deity or deity-adjacent figure (the Aedra and Daedra, Legendary/Mythical Pokemon, et cetera) in the source, I’d consider that to be deity work.

If I were working with, say, Son Goku, I'd consider that spirit work or hero worship, because even though he has a Super Saiyan Shark-Jumping Bullshit- I mean, a Super Saiyan God mode, he's not worshiped as a god in the Dragon Ball series, and that's the primary difference for me. I actually mention in my post about Vadrok that I see Legendary MTG critters like him and Alesha to be spirits that you can holler at, not deities.

How does one go about forming their personal craft based on pop culture magic, when it is so new and has little resources?

This is an even more complicated answer because no two pop culture practices are going to look the same, even when drawing from the same source. For the low bar example, let's use me and @kaosmage aka Faust aka the @strixhaven-biblioplex for Magic: The Gathering-inspired spell work. We both draw from the cards of the game as inspiration for spells.

I take a more card-first approach, often using the card, its pictures and symbols, and its effects as the basis of a spell. For example, look at my Cradle of Safety spell, where I take inspiration from the presence of the feathers and heron medallion in the art to call on Sigarda (long story, look at the Innistrad lore, good luck) and incorporate the usage of feathers into the spell proper.

Faust takes on a card-inspired approach, as seen in his Curse of Clinging Webs spell. Sure, he's got the spider webs in there, but he doesn't have cheap Halloween spider decorations in there too (which is probably for the best because you can only get those between August and October from most retailers and he posted the spell in January). It's probably a good thing that he has significantly more chill than I do.

What was I talking about again? Oh, right, forming one's pop culture side of their craft. The great thing about pop culture magic and paganism is that it can blend almost seamlessly with almost any other practice because you can draw as little or as much inspiration from pop culture as you want. Find something you love, something that inspires you, and work from there using the same methods you'd use for non-pop culture magic.

Just want to loop the Streets of New Capenna OST during a ritual? Sure! Want to get a Daedric Artifact replica to put on your altar? Why not! Need a spirit pal or familiar and run into a Charmander? I've been there! Want to dedicate the next four years of your life to the study of pop culture magic and how it varies between different people? That means you're me and we must fight at dawn for the right to keep our names.

My advice? Just give it a shot. Only you can figure out what works in your craft.

Bonus section: Jasper babbles about "historical" deities and how pop culture is older than it looks.

Something that's always skinned my potatoes upside-down is how people treat pop culture paganism as something "harmful" but then those very same people turn around and worship Aradia, Eostre, and even Mesperyian, all of whom were made up for fake documentaries (Aradia), assumed to exist based on the name of something else (Eostre), or made up for a mythology writing assignment for class (Mesperyian). Does this mean they don't exist? No! But they're not "ancient goddesses". They're just a slightly older version of pop culture paganism (except for Mesperyian, who's one of the younger versions).

There are also historical deities who have fallen to the wayside, such as Cernunnos. We have little to no idea of what his deal was, which unfortunately left us to pick up the pieces later and have to work twice as hard to figure this mess out. So we're working on very little historical information and a pop culture understanding of this deity's "thing" - a god of wealth in the time of 14 CE Gaul has a very different understanding of what can be done and what is usually asked for do than a god of wealth worshiped in 2022 CE Missouri.

Anyway, that was my dive into "pop culture paganism isn't as new as people think it is so please stop being a dick about it to random pop culture pagans on Tumblr, thank you". I hope you enjoyed this bonus section, because this is a problem that comes up a lot in pop culture paganism discussions.

[the-clumsywitch]

If Herbs & Other Items Aren't Necessary To Practice, Then Why Do We Use Them?

If you've ever questioned this it would make total sense, this is a message commonly preached in the witchy community and one that I believe to be true to a degree. But practicing without tools is not for everyone, some people just aren't comfortable with the idea of practicing with zero tools and I rarely see witches outside of those that practice chaos magick do this. Items such as herbs, candles, incense, etc. are used to enhance a spell, power can be drawn from that tool, meaning not only is your power being used for the spell. But you have the added energy of whatever you're using, for instance if your doing a calming spell and you use a corresponding herb. You are not only adding your intention and energy into it but you are also adding that of the herb. Other times, like in the case of candle magick, the item itself is the basis of the spell. This is not me telling you what to practice with or that you can't practice if you don't have access to certain things. This is just me explaining why despite constantly saying you don't need anything to practice why there are witches & warlocks (for anyone that uses that title) that still use items in their craft. If you are one of those people that doesn't like to use anything in their practice, then by all means, carry on. If you are someone that is an absolute maximalist in their practice, also, carry on. Tailor make your practice to your abilities, finances, geographic location, etc. All ways of practicing are valid, whether with a ton of store bought items, or with things you've collected here, there, and everywhere, and all the ways in between.

- Erika, The Clumsy Witch

[stagkingswife]

Ancestor Veneration

In the occult discords I frequent I periodically see questions from new practitioners who want to start spirit work and have been directed to start with their ancestors, but they’re in a bind because like many young folk today they don’t have such a great relationship with their family. For their own reasons they don’t know their family history and either feel disconnected from previous generations or don’t want to connect to their bloodline. Over the years my personal ancestor veneration has taken shape in a way that I think might be helpful or of interest to people who want to strike up a relationship with their ancestors, but don’t have a great one with their living or recently deceased family.

Types of ancestors:

Beloved Dead: These are my known/recently deceased spirits, people I have known in life who have passed on. Not always technically ancestors, because these spirits aren’t aren’t necessarily related to me, or in my direct line of descent. The only requirement is that I knew them in life, as well as in death.

Ancestors: My actual forebearers, the people I’m directly descended from. I know many of their names because my family tree is very well researched, but I never met them in life. This also includes the ancestors whose names I don’t know but are still in that familial line, those spirits I refer to as “unnamed ancestors” or “unnamed forbearers”.

Cultural Ancestors: This by far the largest category, because there is no upper limit to the number of sub categories I can squeeze in there, none of which rely on actual blood ties. It has my ethno-cultural ancestors, the Irish people who came before me, the Italian people who came before me, the Norwegian people who came before me… etc. But it also has the ancestors of the things I choose to identify my self as: The disabled people who have come before me, the witches who have come before me, the Sailors, the Dancers, the Musicians, the Storytellers, etc. Everyone in this category connects me to some kind of cultural history that exists outside of my bloodline.

Who To Call On and When?

For me calling on my ancestors is a lot like calling on a deity. I petion them/ dedicate my actions to them, when I’m doing something that’s in their realm of influence. For instance: Say I’m cooking a traditional Italian meal, I would call on my Italian cultural ancestors, and they would get some of the meal as an offering in repayment. I would also probably call on the individual spirit of my grandmother, one of my beloved dead, since she was the one who taught me Italian cooking, and it’s quite likely her recipe I’m using.

I also have specific days set aside for my most frequently called upon groups Christmas Eve was always big with the Italian side of the family, and I still celebrate it the traditional way, so that’s become a day for my Italian cultural ancestors. St Patricks Day is for my Irish cultural ancestors. St. Lucia Day is for my Norwegian ancestors. I’ve set aside Talk Like a Pirate Day to venerate all of the sailors, fishermen, and wayfinders who have gone before me, and

Why Approach Ancestor Work/Worship/Veneration like this?

I feel like this approach gives me, and perhaps others, the most flexibility and the most options to approach ancestor work on terms that work for me. Have a great relationship with the family you’ve interacted with, but uncomfortable with the actions of your ancestors a few generations back? Interact only with your Beloved Dead and your Cultural Ancestors. Want nothing to do with your biological family, but still want to do ancestor work? Create a spiritual found family by working only with Cultural Ancestors. This way of thinking about those who loved what we love before us could be applied to any interest or personal identity that a person holds dear. However you choose to define yourself you can can use to draw a connection to people who also defined themselves that way in the past.

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[creature-wizard]

If generations of practitioners got on just fine without crystals and candles, so can you. Don’t feel discouraged if getting the shiniest, prettiest “witch tools” isn’t feasible for you.