hiatus.

a witchy side blog. my name is dominic, and i'm a 21yr old butch lesbian canadian witch. this is a sideblog. if you're interested, i offer free tarot readings.

[zhewhoisfate]

Hey norse pagans i have a question. How do you reconcile the idea of honoring ancestors with the fact that our ancestors were really racist and might-is-right?

I kinda wanna fuck around with norse paganism and runes, learn more about my germanic heritage, but i don't fuck with racism and ive heard norse pagans that arent right wing weirdos don't either but i don't really understand it

[zhewhoisfate]

Thanks to the people who answered! I couldn't find anything online like the stuff you guys said, honoring the dead by being better than them, making up for what they left you with, etc, so that was really helpful.

[thorraborinn]

It seems you’ve come to a more comfortable position here already, but to add to some of the responses you’ve gotten so far:

What evidence do you have, other than online recons running their mouths, that heathens have to honor their ancestors?

The pre-Christian Norse believed that people who died continued to exert agency in the world after their death, but this is not the same as something like Roman-style compulsory filial piety. Sometimes Norse recognition of the dead included digging their ancestors up and desecrating their corpses so they couldn’t haunt them anymore.

The idea that heathens were “ancestor worshipers” is a meme that has more to do with modern history of religion and anthropology than it does with the actual sources for heathenry. It’s embedded in a colonial system of categorization of religious culture that assumes a linear progression from primitive animists to scientific rationalist monotheism or atheism. Because pre-Christian Norse people recognized the dead as still being persons, they get filed into the “ancestor worshiper” box. But this linear progression isn’t real.

This isn’t to say that they didn’t worship their ancestors in some way or another, my point is that modern reconstructionist heathenry tends to see flawed modern explanatory models as more real than both the actual sources for heathenry themselves, and our actual lived experiences.

I made a post about ancestor recognition among pre-Christian heathens here with some links that might be useful: https://thorraborinn.tumblr.com/post/170193064238/does-nordic-heathenism-have-any-concept-analogous

[etamina-amata]

How do you personally ward your home? Or protect yourself and space in general

Here’s another one of those answers people won’t necessarily like. My family’s lived in my home since it was built in the 40s. The wards were built into the place, a shoe blocked up in one of the walls, pecan trees planted for immunity, and the boundary wards were drawn before the road was put through. and was deliberately placed between a railroad depot (now gone) and a crossroads. When we moved in after building, we placed a witch bottle. Semi-regularly, each of us, who lives here, adds our blood to the wards to strengthen it and the ties to the ancestors, and when necessary we redo the witch bottle. 

Most of that isn’t accessible for everyone. I do have a post up about how to do a witch bottle, however, which is always the first thing I suggest.

Edit: Witch bottle link HERE

[stonebutch]

HELP TWO DISABLED LESBIANS ESCAPE UNSAFE APARTMENT

[image description: two HEPA filters; the left one is black with cigarette smoke, the right one is new and is a solid white colour. the older HEPA filter is five days old. /end image description]

my girlfriend and i are trying to flee to live with my family across the country. we’re currently in ontario, canada, and we’re trying to get to calgary, alberta, canada.

our current apartment, which we just signed a lease for on the 13th of august, is unsafe for us to live in. we are COVID survivors and our apartment reeks of cigarette smoke. at first, we were under the impression that it was old smoke. we’ve hired cleaners, we’ve cleaned it ourselves, we have 2 HEPA air purifiers, our AC brings air in from outside, and we’ve had our windows open when we can. it still isn’t enough. smoke is regularly flooding our apartment every evening like clockwork and our air purifiers can’t keep up. we have documentation that proves our landlord is illegally not doing anything and is illegally blaming us for being disabled. our lungs are aching, the smoke is permeating our clothes and dishes, and living here is a nightmare.

it’s been seven days since we moved in fully, and our health is already at risk.

we need help. we need help to hire a moving company, to fly us and our two cats, and to help us live while we get settled with my family, who are a part of the working poor and will need help to support us while we get settled. i have a job, but it is barely enough to afford living let alone setting enough aside to get us out of here. my girlfriend is also disabled, and can’t work.

we need about $1000 for a moving company, $800 for a flight, and $500 for our three months of our phone bill. additional costs are there for emergency funds and to feed us, and for vet bills and additional medical costs (we will have to get my girlfriend an inhaler, which may not be covered by my benefits).

we have a gofundme set up which has a full story and i’ll reblog with the link. if you are american, $5 is worth $6.57 in canadian dollars.

please, anything helps.

paypal.me/domclennan

ko-fi.com/butchtarot

[stonebutch]

LINK TO GOFUNDME HERE

[upthewitchypunx]

PBW Witch Shop & Zine Distro

The PBW Witch Shop is a curated selection of witchcraft and magic related zines, books, pin-back buttons, tarot cards and more.

We focus on traditional and folkloric witchcraft, animism, chaos magic, secular witchcraft, magical herbs and plants, queer witchcraft, tarot & Divination, witchcraft & magic in politics, history, culture, and social & racial justice,  and aspects of non-Wiccan forms of witchcraft, magic, and paganism.

Pre-Covid the Portland Button Works primarily made custom pinback button. Selling zines and books was secondary and more of a hobby for me to share things I’d like to read. Right now our business is pivoting to focus on books and zines that people can read in the comfort and safety of their own homes. Some items are from well known witchcraft and occult publisher and some are titles from small publishers with interesting items I don’t see in other shops but I’m excited to elevate.

Not everyone has income to buy books right now, we totally understand that, but I would love it if you were able to reblog this post or share Portland Button Works and PBW Witch Shop with your friends.

If you have been looking for a book about something specific, or if you think something would be a good fit for our catalog, get in touch. We can order almost any book in print, even if it isn’t witchcraft or magic related.

With that being said, here are some categories of items we carry:

Some good books to get you started studying witchcraft:

Grovedaughter Witchery by Bree NicGarran

Making Magic by Briana Saussy

Magical Power for Beginners- How to Raise & Send Energy for Spells That Work by Deborah Lipp

Weave The Liminal by Laura Tempest Zakroff

Some creative books to help build your witch craft practice:

Spellcrafting- Strengthen the Power of your Craft by Creating and Casting Your Own Unique Spells by Arin Murphy-Hiscock

D.I.Y. Magic -a Strange & Whimsical Guide to Creativity by Anthony Alvarado

Psychic Witch- a Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick, & Manifestation by Mat Auryn

Urban Magick by Diana Rajchel

Standing and Not Falling - a Sorcerous Primer in Thirteen Moons by Lee Morgan

Tarot Books

Queering the Tarot by Cassandra Snow

Tarot for Troubled Times by Shaheen Miro & Theresa Reed

Modern Tarot by Michelle Tea

Tarot Decks

Next World Tarot (regular and pocket sized)

Science Tarot

Rider-Waite-Coleman Smith Regular sized and Mini sized

Crow Tarot

Modern Witch Tarot

Cat Tarot

Check out the tarot and divination books in our catalog and also check out tarot and divination decks in our catalog here.

Condensed Chaos by Phil Hine

Advanced Magick for Beginners by Alan Chapman

Chaos Protocols by Gordon White

Hands on Chaos Magic by Andrieh Vitimus 

Liber Null & Psychonaut by Peter Carroll

Other books in the Chaos Magic section

Anthologies: Becoming Dangerous: Witchy Femmes, Queer Conjurers, and Magical Rebels, Bringing Race to the Table: Exploring Racism in the Pagan Community, Shades of Ritual: Minority Voices in Practice

Magical Resistance: Witchcraft Activism by David Salisbury, Magic for the Resistance by Michael Hughes, Revolutionary Witchcraft by Sarah Lyons

Witches and Feminist Perspectives: Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici, Witches, Midwives and Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English , Witches Sluts Feminists by Kristen J. Sollee

Pagan Anti-Capitalism: Pagan Anarchism True to the Earth: Pagain Political Thology by Kadmus, All That is Sacred is Profaned: A Pagan Guide to Marxism by Ryhd Wildermuth, A Pagan Anti-Capitalist Primer

Queer Witchcraft: Witchcraft and the Gay Counter Culture, Sapphomanteion a Lesbian Oracle, Queering the Tarot

Check out the Witchcraft Culture and History and Witchcraft Politics and Resistance sections of our website.

Green Witchcraft: The Green Witch by Arin Murray-Hiscock, Green Witchcraft by Paige Vanderbeck

Plants and Herbs: Under the Witching Tree by Corinne Boyer, Under the Bramble Arch by Corinne Boyer

The Poison Path: Veneficuim: Magic, Witchcraft and the Poison Path by Daniel Schulke, Pharmo/Gnonsis: Plant Teachers and the Poison Path by Dale Pendell , Plants of the Devil by Corinne Boyer

Witchy Crafts: Pestlework: a Book of Magical Powders and Oils by Bree NicGarran, Sew Witchy by Rachel Henderson, Sigil Witchery by Lara Tempest Zakroff

Other books in our Plants, Herbs, and Magical Crafts section

Books on Atheopaganism

Godless Paganism (anthology)

Atheopaganism by Mark Green

Other Pagan Perspectives

Jailbreaking the Goddess: A Radical Revisioning of Feminist Spirituality by Lasara Firefix Allen

The Wakeful World: Anismism, Mind, and the Self in Nature by Emma Restall Orr

Circling the Star by Anthony Rella

All That Is Sacred is Profaned: A Pagan Guide to Marxism by Rhyd Wildermuth

All Other Pagan books

Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways by Gemma Gary

A Deed Without A Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft by Lee Morgan

Crooked Path: An Introduction to Traditional Witchcraft by Keldon

Backwoods Witchcraft by Jake Richards

Besom Stand and Sword A Guide to Traditional Witchcraft the Six-Fold Path the Hidden Landscape by Christopher Orapello & Tara Love Maguire

Southern Cunning: Folkloric Witchcraft in the American South by Aaron Oberon

Folk Witchcraft by

The Flame in the Cauldron by Orion Foxwood

Craft of the Untamed by Roger Horne

Check out the rest of the books in our Traditional & Folkloric Witchcraft Section

What are zines? Small independently made magazine and pamphlets filled with stories and unique ideas that you won’t find from major publishers!

Some topics you will find in zines we carry are Secular Witchcraft, the fantastic Fiddler’s Green Pamphlets and lots of zine on the places where Politics, Paganism, and Witchcraft intersect.

Check out all of our witchy zines here.

Other Stuff

witchy buttons

 magnets and hand mirrors

We carry more than just witchy books.

Here are some of the other titles we carry:

You Were Born For This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance by Chani Nicholas

When Language Runs Dry: An Anthology for People with Chronic Pain and their Allies

What is Gender Nihilism?

Be Gay Do Crime by The Mary Nardini Gang

Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher

You Black Friend by Ben Passmore

Learning Good Consent an Anthology edited by Cindy Crabb

How To Talk To Your Cat about Gun Safety and Abstinence, Drugs, Satanism and Other Dangers that Threaten Their Nine Lives

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Honoring your Ancestors by Mallorie Vaudoise

Do-it-Your Self Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfucking Sad by Adam Gnade

Yes, I’m Flagging: Queer Flagging 101 by Archie Bongiovanni

Full online catalog of books, zines, buttons and more can be found at PortlandButtonWorks.com and the PBW Witch Shop can be found here.

All items are shipped from Portland, Oregon in plain packaging or United States Postal Service Flat Rate envelopes or boxes with the return address as Portland Button Works. We ship daily and most order come with small fun gifts of buttons or magnets.

Thank you so much for supporting your local witch!

[upthewitchypunx]

The Living Altar - an oracle and spell deck for the radical witch

Witches, Witch-hunting, and Women by Silvia Federici

Grimoire Journal by Paige Vanderbeck

Art of War by Sun Tzu

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

[scarletarosa]

Can Wiccans stop calling pagan deities triple goddesses or our death goddesses "crones" because it does nothing but show you don't do any research on these religions.

Hekate is not a triple goddess, she appears in triple form to represent the three-way crossroads and is depicted as a young woman. The Morrighan is not a triple goddess as she actually has four aspects (Badb, Macha, Némain, Féa) and none represent the stages of a person's life, but the Morrighan may choose to appear elderly as a death omen. Kali is not a crone goddess just because she's associated with death and you shouldn't be touching Hinduism unless you wish to convert. The Arabian goddesses Al-Uzza, Al-Lat, and Manat are sisters and none of them are described as being elderly or as a maiden.

So in short, your concept of a triple goddess belongs to Wicca, not paganism, and should be left that way. What you're doing with our cultures is not only ignorant but disrespectful as well, and research is not that difficult to do.

[silentforestgods]

I know this may seem like nit-picking to some and you may be wondering why it even matters, but you have no idea how frustrating and insulting it is to be a pagan looking up information on deities and see Wicca concepts overpowering the true history and background of our goddesses.

Not only is your information not true, but it clouds the real identity of our goddesses and it's basically you trying to make them yours. If you want a Triple Goddess, just worship the one Wicca gave you, but leave our deities be.

[superpowered-autistic-cats]

Can we call this wicca-washing? I see things happen like this with a lot of deities for a lot of different reasons. One of them was a list of deities from open and closed cultures (!!!) and it was talking about them like they were simply correspondences (!!!) and that some people who work with them don’t even see them as real, so you don’t have to either (!!!)

Like there are ways to have your religion and also stay in your lane, there’s nothing wrong with it.

[gone3662-deactivated20210214]

No disrespect. I really wish to understand. How are Zeus and Hera the gods who preside over the bond of marriage, when Zeus has fallen in love with other women countless times? When Zeus clearly is disloyal, unfaithful? When Hera, instead of knowing her worth, being with someone else who deserves her or choosing to be fulfilled in herself alone... would rather live a life of anger and jealousy towards "the other women", not seeing that the problem lies in Zeus and not them? Thank you in advance.

Hi Anon, I’m going to dump abuncha (hyper)links.

Myth is not Cult.  Cultic practices are more important to understanding Ancient Greek Religion than the popular myths everyone reads are.

In cult Zeus and Hera have the epithet Zygios/Zygia. Stealing words from @sisterofiris

“Fun fact: zugon literally means “yoke”, or more figuratively, “bond”. Hera Zygia and Zeus Zygios specifically govern the bond that links married partners together. I mean, you could also view it as “the yoke that subjects Hera to Zeus!! evil oppressive marriage!!” but the yoke is specifically a metaphor for two animals (= couple) yoked together to a cart (= household and family and everything else marriage entails and supports). Also, the fact both Hera and Zeus have the same epithet strengthens the interpretation of it as an equal, strong bond.”

My religion and opinion of the Gods does not rest on the opinions of a few men writing in a patriarchal culture. This question shows the misstep many people take by placing modern morals onto stories written by mortal men in a culture and time very different than our own. Hera and Zeus marriage reflected Ancient Greek marriage and culture.

The stories of one city, or even village, are likely to be different in one location than they are to another. Its how Athena got the epithet “Virgin” in the city of Athens but the epithet “Mother” in the town of Elis.  

Additionally, the stories that survived millenniums for us to translate into modern language are probably a very small fraction of the full number of stories that existed about the Gods across the lands of ancient Greece and the centuries of worship. 

“Instead of knowing her worth being with someone else who deserves her or choosing to be fulfilled in herself alone” 

Two things:

First, it doesn’t matter who the author is, or even whether its cult or myth, that is not how ancient Greece worked; that entire idea would make no sense to them. In fact, the idea of a woman being fulfilled by herself alone with no husband was strange 60 years ago let alone ancient times. 

Second, this line is asked as if the actions and words of Hera written down in Homers works (as an example) are ACTUALLY Hera choosing to be in an “unhappy marriage,” and focusing on living in anger.  When its not Hera doing or saying anything. It is Homer’s writing, his words, his ideas, his story. Hellenic polytheism has no sacred scripture. 

[awaitingasuitablemoniker]

Basic Resources for Brythonic Polytheism (Recon Centred)

Available via Search Engine

Polytheist Community Boards- Brythonic Polytheism (link) https://polytheistcommunity.boards.net/board/24/brythonic-polytheism. This is a forum that has discussions on Brythonic god/esses, daily life as a Brython, and a handy list of god/esses that one can do more research on.

Dun Brython- a website created for the Brythonic community, with the same name on Wordpress. Easily found via a search engine of your choice with keywords ‘Dun Brython’. Dunbrython.org (link: http://www.dunbrython.org/ ) is very useful, and has a calendar, essays on the gods, and other aspects of the faith, such as giants, faerie, and ancestor veneration.

Caer Feddwyd- also easily found via search engine. Dun Brython was planned and submissions were called for on this forum. Also has many conversations still accessible regarding Brythonic polytheism, which encapsulates... a lot. Would spend another week scrolling through here.

Books (Primarily Celtic- Recon, not specificallly Brython-centric)

The Religion of the Ancient Celts, by J.A. MacCulloch- I have the first rate publishers version. Honestly, I need glasses to get through it due to the small font size but it’s indispensable. Chapter titles are fairly accurate to what is covered in that chapter, but pages aren’t numbered.

Pagan Britain (2013), by Ronald Hutton- it’s similar to a textbook, which is good. It’s purely listed for its research value. Fairly advanced writing, the ‘notes’ section alone is 59 pages. I advise reading with either google, a dictionary, or both easily available. I wish I was joking. His Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain (2009) might be a bit more pagan-centric, but I’ve never read that, so I can’t very well advise others to. Note: Ronald Hutton is Big in research on paganism, both ancient and modern-day.

The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W.Y. Evens-Wentz. I like this mainly due to its ‘The Taking of Evidence’ section, which is a section of collected accounts of the Gentry, among other subjects. Ch. 10 is ‘The Testimony of Christianity’, which seems mainly to be a section devoted entirely to connecting polytheist beliefs to Purgatory. It’s from 1911, with a new foreword from 2004, so I mainly ignore ch. 10.

Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend, by Miranda J. Green. Useful for quick reference, although organization might be a bit odd. (Such as searching for Camulus under ‘Mars Camulus’).

Books: Honorable Mentions

I haven’t read, nor do I own either of these, so I can’t really recommend them.

Blood and Mistletoe: The History of Druids in Britain, by Ronald Hutton. This sounds like it might be a bit more pagan-specific, but I’m not sure. However, I would read almost anything by him.

Pagan Celtic Britain, by Anne Ross. A bit outdated, but it seems to be favoured by other Recons, so?? It is said to be very dry, as well.

Honorable Mention: Search Engine

Wikipedia. We all use it, and it’s useful to get a general idea as to where and how a god/dess is attested to.

[jewitchry-deactivated20210721]

I found you through the post on Lilith lol. Just wonder how you feel about all the kabbalah symbols in RWS tarot. I am not Jewish, and I was reading this illewellyn book on RWS tarot for study purposes, and all the tree of life and Kabbalah info just. Slapped me in the face lol. I felt kinda uncomfortable reading it. I always thought it was closed to everyone but Jewish scholars. Reading through what the book has to say, I can’t even imagine understanding Kabbalah without a ton of study lol. 1

This is the next ask they sent in: Like it is so complicated and esoteric. People wouldn’t be able to grasp it after just reading through a section on Kabbalah in a book written by a white person. I am glad the decks I use, despite being based on the RWS, retain very little of the Kabbalah symbolisms they use. I am just personally uncomfortable involving it in my practise. So much cultural appropriation happens in witchcraft, and as a POC, I try my best to avoid that.

Kabbalah IS supposed to be closed to all but scholars. Rabbis are scholars. that is what they are. They are scholars who then teach & guide based on that knowledge. They are NOT holy people, just academics. The academics? our texts, history, traditions, and more. 

Kabbalah is the heart of Judaism. Without a heart, a body cannot function, without a body, a heart is useless.

Here is the reality: Western Europeans were interested, but didn’t want to do the work. They took parts of Kabbalah, think like taking a valve or a chamber or whatever, and put it in a new body comprised of other appropriated religious beliefs. 

In the end, they ended up with Q/Cabalah. 

Because Aleister Crowley is seen as the “father” of western Occultism, a lot of his stolen beliefs became even further diluted and watered down. Look into Gardnerian Wicca. there are diluted down Kabbalistic practices & beliefs because Gardner and Crowley were friends.

[trollkunnig-deactivated20211007]

Heathenry: Honoring Ancestors

Honoring our ancestors is a core pillar in heathenry. When people think of ancestor worship, the task may at first seem daunting. It is hard to know where to begin or how to incorporate ancestor veneration smoothly into your practice. Some people don’t have a great relationship with some of their recently departed ancestors and don’t feel comfortable honoring them.

All of your ancestors made the journey through their lives just so you could end up right here, reading these exact words. All of their hardships and cultural identities pooled together to make you who you are today. While some of us may value family above all, sometimes our families aren’t as close knit as we’d like them to be. You may not know the exact names of the generational line that fell before you, so ancestor worship might be a bit difficult given that you feel you have no direct link to access them and their stories.

Regardless of how much you know of your family, there is no right or wrong way to approach ancestor veneration. The key to the practice is to do so with respect. You do not need to know the name of an ancestor to receive help from them in your daily life. You simply need to thank and honor those that you feel comfortable honoring and allow yourself to build a relationship with them so that they may guide you.

Honoring our ancestors isn’t just honoring their names. Even if your family did not have many tales to tell about those that came before them, you are still able to celebrate your roots through various ways.

Since I include a wide variety of practices within my path, I draw a lot from the folk magic that was passed down to me from my family. If your family’s roots hold particular practices dear to their culture, researching those practices and incorporating them into your own path are a great way to actively honor your folk.

If your family’s culture does not have any type of magical practices you can research, or if you simply don’t wish to include those practices into your path, you can learn mundane aspects of their culture such as their traditions, foods, and way of life. If no knowledge was passed down to you, take what you do know and do more research. Research your roots and immerse yourself in it. Honor your ancestors through actions.

Some people opt to honor their ancestors by displaying the symbols that represent them. Instead of incorporating their culture into your life, you can instead draw inspiration from symbols that represent their triumphs. Let’s say you trace your roots back to the Norsemen themselves. Some opt to honor their ancestors by displaying statues, pictures, or even artifacts of what it means to be Scandinavian. It’s a broader honorary view of what our ancestors were. It is also perfectly acceptable for ancestor worship.

Of course, the final kind of relationship you may have with your ancestors is a close-knit one. Anything you did growing up was surrounded by family and you know all of their stories by heart. Instead of pulling from distant research, you lived through their traditions that they shared with you every time you saw them. By keeping those stories alive and by remembering all that was passed down personally to you from family, you are honoring and keeping their names alive.

Everyone has a different relationship with their lineage. Whether you are close to your ancestors or distant, there is no wrong way to honor them. What is important is that you take the time to do it. To get started, what you can do is make an altar for your ancestors. Pick a sacred spot and place pictures of them, items that remind you of them, things they enjoyed in their waking life, decorations that tell their stories, and so on.

The easiest way to honor your ancestors is to bring honor to your family’s name with your everyday existence. Do things that will make them proud, speak to them, thank them, and respect them, and you will receive their strength in your daily life tenfold.

Sources and Further Reading:

• Ancestors

• The Road to Hel

• Our Troth: Living the Troth

Image Sources:

• Ætt Halfdaning

[thats-howthelightgets-in]

Ok, so I get a lot of shit for calling low level spells weaker or low level, so here's a guide to actually crafting powerful spells.

What you need to know right off the bat is that you're layering powers on each other, and if you draw on more powers, you generally get better results. Now, there is some level of balance to this, as doing too much can muddle the intent of your spell, but the "too much" threshold is going to be something you learn to use intuition to find for yourself.

So, let's begin! Here are components of your spells to layer on top of each other

The most basic, your ingredients: what are the correspondences of your oils, waters, herbs, candles, and stones?

The time you do it: what day are you doing it? What phase is the moon in? Where are the planets? What day of the week are you doing it?

Location: Are you doing it in the woods? Near a river? Can the light of the moon touch you? What cardinal direction are you facing?

Visualization: While I don't believe intent alone is the driving force behind all magical works, that doesn't mean mental pursuits during your spell work are worthless. Visualization can be an incredibly powerful layer in your spells. What does the magic you're controlling look like? What is it doing?

Who you call on: Will you petition deities, spirits, ancestors, or fae for power? How will you do this?

Symbols: What shapes are your stones? Did you use runes or alchemical symbols? Did you make a sigil? How are your symbols incorporated into the spell?

Energy: Where are you getting the power for the spell? Yourself? The earth? A charged crystal? The spirits you petitioned?

Repetition: How many times has this spell or ritual been done before? An old spell has a lot of power behind it due to the sheer amount of times it has been used. Additionally, how many times do you perform an action or speak an incantation in the spell?

Incantation: what are you saying? Are you speaking to an entity or the earth itself? What language is the incantation in? Is the language related to who or what you're petitioning or is it just the language it was first written in?

Numbers: How many ingredients are you using? How many times will you perform an action? How many crystals/flowers/spoonfuls/candles/etc will you use? Numbers have correspondences.

Colors: Colors have correspondences too. What color is your candle? Your ink?

Tools: What tools are you using? How have those tools been powered or charmed? What have you used them for previously? How old are they? What energies power them?

Traditions: What traditions are you using? Where did the correspondences you use come from? If you're mixing traditions, do those traditions mix well? I do some amount of brauchery, and it doesn't play well with other traditions.

Order: What order do you do things in your spell? Which way do you stir? Do you petition spirits before the spell or during it?

And finally: intent and will. Yes, I'm not a fan of this stuff because tumblr sees it as the end all, be all. However, your intent will guide the way the spell goes, and your willpower is going to get you through anything tricky. YOU have to have the power and knowledge to make the spell work. If you're in a place that is specifically yours (like your house) you have sovereignty and your willpower will decide whether or not entities in the area respect that sovereignty. I could talk for a long time on this but I won't because this passage isn't the whole point of the post

To conclude:

Hopefully this illustrates why a cup of tea isn't the greatest spell when it only includes ingredients and maybe some intent. I know I probably didn't get every component you can add to a spell, but hopefully I got most of it.

Hope this helps someone out there!

[eclectic-earth]

I think this is extremely helpful for anyone in the craft

These are great questions and steps to ask yourself as you go through the process of creating OR casting a spell! The basics are SO important. Like @system-witches says above, we are LAYERING the powers and correspondences. Our intention needs to be strong, and focus on the goal clear.

✨🌿🌻🌸

[eclectic-earth]

Reblogging again because this is very important🧝🏼‍♀️

[ozarkhealingtraditions]

272: Nails

Nails have been used in Ozark folk healing and magic in a variety of ways. There’s a belief among Hillfolk that the object that hurt the individual was just as important to the healing process as the medicine put onto the wound. Knife blades, bullets, and nails were often treated with healing salves and plants alongside the puncture or cut itself. Rusty nails were added to tonics to prevent tetanus or to treat illnesses like tuberculosis. Water made from soaking new nails was seen as a sure treatment for anemia and iron deficiencies, and sometimes the sickness itself could be taken off the patient and nailed to a tree. Nails were driven into footprints to deal lethal blows to foes and witches alike. Coffin and gallows nails were carried by Hillfolk as an amulet to ward of certain venereal diseases.

Curing a boil – “One way to cure boils, according to an old neighbor, is to rub a greasy string on a rusty nail and then throw the nail away where it will not be found. Hang the string on the inside of the cabin door, and touch the boil with the string several times a day.” ~Randolph OMF 125

Nail thrust into a bar of soap to prevent tetanus – “Boys in some parts of Arkansas carry the nail home and thrust it into a bar of soap, to the same depth that it was accidentally stuck into the foot; it is not clear exactly why they do this, but it is evidently connected with the idea of preventing rust, which is associated in the hillman’s mind with tetanus, or lockjaw.” ~Randolph OMF 158

In the doorway to protect from witchcraft – “Some of the old-timers drive three nails into the outside of a door, in the form of a triangle, to keep witches away from the cabin; one man told me that the three nails represent the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost and were particularly efficacious in protecting an expectant mother from the powers of evil.” ~Randolph OMF 283

Gallows nails against venereal disease – “Nails taken from a gallows are supposed to protect a man against venereal disease and death by violence. Country blacksmiths used to secure these nails and hammer them out into finger rings. As recently as 1943 there were boys in the Army wearing rings of metal taken from a gallows at Galena, Missouri, where ‘Red’ Jackson was hanged for murder in 1936.” ~Randolph OMF 152

“Nails taken from a gallows are supposed to be effective for warding off venereal disease.” ~Parler FBA III 3492

Nails driven into a witch’s footprint – “Mr. G. H. Pipes told me a witch story, which he had from Grandmaw Bryant of Reeds Spring, Missouri, in the early 1920’s. It seems that some carpenters were building a house, and the work was going very well until a certain old woman walked slowly past. From that moment everything went wrong. The workmen couldn’t hit nails but hammered their thumbs instead. They dropped their tools repeatedly, and one narrowly missed falling off the ridgepole. After two or three days of this, they called in a witch doctor. He found the old woman’s trail in the dirt and drove a big nail into one of her heel prints. As soon as this was done, the carpenters went to work again, and the building was completed with no further difficulty. The old witch had a very sore foot and limped around with a bandage on her heel nearly all winter.” ~Randolph OMF 288

Taking a spell off of a gun – “There is an old story of a famous hunter whose rifle suddenly lost its accuracy. He believed that the weapon was witched by an old woman who lived near his cabin. All smiles, the hunter went to see this woman and borrowed a nail to fasten the heel of his boot, which he said was loose. Returning home, he drove the nail into the stock of his rifle; instantly the spell was broken, and the hunter could shoot as well as ever.” ~Randolph OMF 293-294

Coffin nail to make a gun deadlier – “Some old-timers believe or at least pretend to believe that the man who drives a coffin nail into the butt of his gun will never fail to kill an enemy. The coffin nail must be one which has been used and buried in the ground, of course.” ~Randolph OMF 294

Coffin nails used in ritual against a witch – “There is one case reported from the Cookson Hill country of Oklahoma, just across the Arkansas line, where a prominent citizen died in rather strange circumstances. Some of his backwoods relatives got the idea that a witch was the cause of this man’s death and decided to avenge him in the real old-time tradition. The first step was to secure three nails from the dead man’s coffin; these may be drawn before the coffin is buried in the ground, but not until after the body has been placed in the coffin. The nails must not be replaced by other nails, and the three holes in the wood should be left open. After the funeral the old-timers killed a goat, removed the heart, and thrust the three coffin nails into it. The goat’s heart with the nails in it was then enclosed in a little basket-like cage of wire and suspended out of sight in the big chimney of the dead man’s house. The theory is that, as the goat’s heart shrivels and decays, the witch will sicken and die. If she does not sicken and die, it is regarded as evidence that she was not responsible for the man’s death, after all.” ~Randolph OMF 298-299

Red oak, cherry bark, and nails for a spring tonic – “Take red oak bark and cherry bark and place in a container. Boil down, then add whiskey. Let this boil for a while and drop a handful of rusty nail…The nails…add iron to tonic to build up the blood.” ~Parler FBA II 1361

Nail in tree for bronchitis – “Go outside and drive a nail in a tree the same height that you are. If you outgrow the nail you will outgrow your bronchitis.” ~Parler FBA II 1606

Nail water for gall bladder – “When Mr. Jones was a boy in Fayetteville and had gall bladder trouble or needed iron, their father would gather up a lot of nails, rusty ones preferred, put them in a jug with water, and they would take this like medicine.” ~Parler FBA II 2293

Nail in oak tree for toothache – “If you drive a nail in an oak tree, it will cure your toothache.” ~Parler FBA III 3431

Rusty nail water for tuberculosis – “To cure tuberculosis, soak an old, rusty nail in water until the iron is out and drink this.” ~Parler FBA III 3478

Sources:

Parler, Mary Celestia - Folk Beliefs of Arkansas Randolph, Vance - Ozark Magic and Folklore

[skaldish]

So fun fact: I spell it as “magic” and not “magick” because the latter spelling was popularized by Aleister Crowley who was an anti-Semitic, misogynistic, racist Nazi sympathizer. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[will-o-the-witch]

All of this plus the fact that the distinction just isn’t needed! Nobody is getting confused thinking you’re talking about stage magic any more than a doctor saying you need a cast means you’re going to hire some actors. Besides, the k really just feels self-aggrandizing and “I’m so different,” at least to me.

So yeah, I’m fine leaving “magick” in the past. It’s not relevant or needed and has a nasty background.

[erzuliestyle-blog]

How to access your past lives

By Ellen A. Mogensen with the inspired help of the Guardians of Time

Preparation:

Careful preparation is the key to the success of this exercise.

1> Most people need to do this exercise daily for at least a month before they begin to get anything that is meaningful about their past lives. So you will probably need to have some patience with the process. Yet if you are patient and have a sincere desire to do further past life journeying, you will be successful.

2> Remember to do this process slowly. You must focus on completely relaxing your body and your mind so that images of your past lives can be brought gently into your conscious awareness. Each time you do this exercise you will go ever more deeply into yourself. The deeper you go, the more answers you get.

3> Ask for your Higher Self, your Guides, your Guardian angels, and whatever other servants of the universe you like to be present for the entire session and to keep you safe and protected at all times.

4> Being comfortable is the key. You can lie down (recommended) or sit up. If you opt to sit up, you must be supported and feel fully relaxed and comfortable. Be sure to loosen any restrictive clothing

5> Do this exercise in a peaceful place where you will be completely quiet and undisturbed for the entire session when you are fairly well rested (so you will NOT fall asleep) . This entire exercise should last for NO longer than 45 minutes. Set an alarm or timer to snap you out of it should the session run longer.

6> Pick a special intention for you past life journey. It could be “what I most need to see”, “what I most need to heal”, or “the explanation for my life’s purpose”, “about a past personality”, or “a special need”.

How to Do This Exercise:

1> Take some deep, refreshing breaths until you are totally comfortable and relaxed in whatever position you have chosen (it should take you no more than 3 minutes to get comfortable).

2> Close your eyes and envision a golden white ball of healing light. Send that ball of healing light to each part of your body in turn. Start with your feet, go up your calves, over your knees, along your thighs, through you hips and stomach, along your torso, though your chest and heart, along your shoulders, along your arms, to your hands, back up to your neck, and through your head until you are relaxed.

b> You should be in a place of perfect peace and stillness. Your body should now be filled with beautiful healing light. Take a moment to bask in it: feel it’s warmth and it’s safety.

3> Go inside and connect with your inner vision. On the screen of your mind, imagine a closed door at the bottom of a staircase. See yourself walking to the staircase. See yourself slowly walking down the stairs. When you get to the bottom of the stairs, you will see two things.

b> On the RIGHT side, there is a door with big red letters on it which say “MY PAST LIVES”. Right now, the door is closed. Behind the door is the gateway to your past lives.

4> While you are sitting or lying on the comfortable couch, let the love of the universe surround you. Know that at all times, you are completely safe and protected by all your guides.

b> If you do want to go through the door, rise from the couch and move in front of the door.

5> Before starting your journey back through time, you need to declare the following to the universe. This is absolutely necessary to make sure that your past life journey is a safe and pleasant one.

b> “I will see, hear, and experience everything about my past lives as if I was watching a movie. Just as a movie cannot harm me, my journey through my past lives cannot harm me.”

c> “I am clear on my intention for my past life journey which is…. (what you prepared above).”

6> Open the door. If the door does NOT open, then the universe is telling you to go back to the couch. If you chose to continue, it is your choice. Just consider that it might be for your own good to stop. When you are ready, go inside the “Past Life Room”. Inside this room, you will see two things.

a> On the wall of the “Past Life Room”, there is a WHITE SCREEN with BLINDS over it that is shut and down. b> On either side of the white screen are two buttons: one isGREEN and one is RED . c> On the LEFT, the GREEN button opens the blinds and shows you your past lives. d> On the RIGHT, the RED button closes the blinds and takes to back to the safe, comfy couch.

7> When the blinds go up, you will see an image of yourself in a past life. This will be the past life that you most need to see or the past life that most closely matches your special intention.

b> If you are having difficulty seeing yourself on the Past Life Screen, ask to see the feet of your past life personality. Try to see what it is that you are wearing on your feet. Are they shoes, sandals, boots, or are your feet bare?

c> Once you see your feet, slowly look up to see the rest of you. Once you are in focus, look at yourself on the screen. Take a moment to steady the image, then say “Action!”.

8> Whenever you are ready, press the GREEN button to open the blinds and begin your journey. The first time keep your journey to 20 or 30 minutes. Only go longer once you have had more practice.

9> Whenever you feel your journey has ended or if the alarm goes off, it is time to come back. Reach to your right and press the RED button. You will be back at the comfortable couch. Take a few minutes to rest there. Then get up and walk back up the staircase to where you began your journey.

Like a deep sea diver come back up slowly to the surface of your conscious awareness. You have been to a deep place within you and you must readjust to your normal waking state.

Example: The point of doing this exercise is to delve into your past lives. Unlike a movie, this is always an intensely personal journey that will speak to you on many levels. It will be different for everyone since everyone is unique. When you first start journeying through time, ask to be shown pleasant past life images so you can master the process. I wish you well on your journeys to the inner worlds.

[coldalbion]

Gods as personifications

There’s a post in the #heathen tag where someone responds to an ask about being Asatru while not believing in the gods as literal beings. OP regards the gods as personifications of phenomena, natural and otherwise. Leaving aside the fact that not all Heathens are Asatru They’re of course free to view things as they wish, but their comment that they view Odin as the personification ‘of knowledge’  makes me side-eye the whole notion of gods as personifications. Mostly, I think that’s because when most people discuss personification, they end up being reductionist. It’s the thing I raised in my Gods Of post.

If we go with the OP’s Odin-as-personification-of-knowledge, where do his exploits as necromancer, as sexually and morally ambiguous wanderer, as kingmaker and kingbreaker fit? Wherefore lies the poetry and madness and murder, the terror and the ecstasy?

If Thor is merely the personification of thunder, what of his name as Deep Thinker? What of his role as hallower of brides and hofs?

I’m not trying to police anyone’s beliefs here - just querying the whole conception of ‘personification’ as a ‘reason’ for gods and spirits. If they arise from singular phenomena, whether they be anthropomorphized or not, then why does mythology ascribe personality and multiple facets and roles to these entities? The myths present them as complex, rounded beings - and do so the world over, in many different cultures. As pure personifications, it doesn’t really make sense for them to have these overlaps, does it?

In fact, the more I consider the idea, the more I recall that the Death of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett is probably the best example of the complexity of the issue. An eight foot skeleton with a scythe and robe - yet as the books go on, we find he has hopes, dreams, cares, likes curry and cats. He adopts a daughter.

As a personification, Death soon ceases to be that. He develops a character, or one is shown to us, because of events in the world. He exists independently of what he is supposed to personify. He exists in the world of the books as his own thing, his own identity. What was originally a gag, is revealed to be a rich and complex being.

Now, some might ask if, by saying this, I am not giving ammunition to the idea that gods may have begun  as personifications? I’d argue that this is not the case, precisely because all of the Discworld is fictional. It emerged from the mind of one talented man,

Whereas, the gods and spirits of real-world cultures are just that - there is a definitive real-world component. They have enough effect to have temples and shrines erected for thousands of years.

A disbelief in such things as entities in the world, has only existed en masse for maybe four centuries at a generous guess. Conservatively, as far as records go, we have several thousand years ( and probably much longer than that) where gods and spirits were facts of life.

They were as much a thing as the weather. 

Modern materialist arrogance would have us act as if our ancestors were stupid, savage creatures, benighted by ignorance. Yet for all that supposed ignorant superstition, all that illusion and misperception, the fact is civilisations and empires rose and fell. Humanity prospered.  Human success and survival wasn’t accidental until the so called Enlightenment. On the contrary, it was borne of human ingenuity and skill, of understanding and working with the environment as best we could.

I’m not saying this was down to human belief in gods and spirits, or even the lack thereof. What I am saying is that there is a modern tendency to reduce and grossly simplify the complexity of lived experience - to place the ambiguity and strangeness of life into discrete categories and to manipulate things into new shapes that bear little resemblance to the original experience so as to make them ‘fit’ that box.

The idea that people could live in an ambiguous world seems anathema to moderns - that an existence of both-neither-maybe-all-ness might not be some flight of fancy, but instead, be intensely practical is mindboggling for many people today.

The fact is, there are many complexities which give rise to human perceptions and awarenesses. By definition, gods and spirits are ambiguous - they are weird, strange and different constellations of experience having and being had by humans and other creatures.

What they are, if they are, at all, is strangeness - wyrd. If they exist solely in the human mind, they are still wyrd. And if, as matches my experience and (apparently) thousands of years of human history, they’re in the human mind and outside it too…

Then they’re more than something that can be reduced to one thing, one category, one origin, just like humans. Their complexities, at the very least match our own. We are more than our jobs. More than our names. More than biological offspring of our parents.

If we, as products of cells meeting, of chemical reactions, are capable of all that humans are, then what?

If we reduce the universe to a mere exchange of energy, which it is, does this in any way serve us? Is it useful, or does it serve no other purpose than to produce a sense of superiority, an illusion of control, because we ‘know what it is’?

I am meat and chemicals. A meaningless biological automaton. 

Does this serve, or in such reduction, am I not levelling and concealing much that is helpful, useful and practical?

Am I not ignoring my capacity to bring wonder, joy, rage, laughter, comfort, healing and harm to the world? Isn’t it better for me to acknowledge that I know not what I am, from moment to moment? That I exist as  myriad different images inside the minds of all who read these words? I’m just a bearded frothing madman. Just a guy in his thirties typing away on a website, and yet  there’s a chance these words might catch fire, might stick in someone’s consciousness.   And in doing so, might not I alter the chemical makeup of someone’s body with words, stretching out across the the planet as I stir thought or emotion? In doing that, what category do I belong in? As these words are written, what am I? Perhaps they might be read long after I am dust and bones, or am old and dying? Anything is possible isn’t it?

I’m just a man, and if I’m all that as a man, then what happens when a person encounters a god or a spirit? What happens if the so called personification of knowledge comes upon you and leads you to open your heart to your beloved, or whisper words that aid in healing after a lifetime of abuse?

What happens if the so called personification of thunder drives away your nightmares and surrounds you with a sense of strength and safety, who utters to you without words, the sense that you are loved and protected, because that’s what Thor’s been doing for folk for centuries?

What then, eh?

[chaosheathen]

One of my favorite @coldalbion posts!

[coldalbion]

Thanks mate!

[honorthegods]

🏺📜Masterpost 🏺📜                of  Hellenic  Polytheism  and  Roman  Polytheism  Resources!

This is a fairly new page on my blog and it’s (finally!) ready for viewing and use: https://honorthegods.tumblr.com/masterpost

I’d appreciate anyone with a little time taking a look and sending comments and suggestions for improvements through my Ask box or dm!

[libraford]

Lady said my aura was ‘all wrong.’

[traegorn]

The appropriate response is “It only appears that way if you aren’t aligned with a higher plane.”

[ei-len]

Weirdest comment I ever got from someone trying to push their brand of energy healing on me was that my aura had an “inverse spin” and was rotating in the “wrong” direction.  I just shrugged and was like “well I mean I feel fine?”  IDK if the lady was legit or making shit up, plenty of people’s metaphysical senses translate into words in ways that might not be what everyone would say, or pick up on details that aren’t what everyone would notice, but that’s the first time I’ve ever heard anything about auras having a “spin” that can be “the wrong direction”. She kept insisting something serious must be energetically wrong with me and I was like “ma’am I’m left-handed” and left, because she was uncomfortably pushy about the whole thing and I don’t care for that, legit or not.

[therainshallmakeadoor-deactivat]

One of the reasons why I despise energy work / healing is because I’ve always been told by random fuckers that my aura is « dark, very dark » (or indigo what a clownery) and aggressively dense. This is what you get for refusing free hugs in pagan events smh.

[jbirdoftheriverlands-deactivate]

Same here. I love it when someone is just absolutely wasted on the new age and I’ll pop off something hilarious, being a smart ass, as one does, and 9 times out of 10 the response is “I knew there was something up with your energy the moment I saw your aura.”

When “indigos” go bad, you get witches, apparently.

[libraford]

In truth… I was fixing to put a hex on her if she said one more nasty thing.

The funny part of this is that when we have a nasty customer, Grandpa has to write a report to her manager and head them off at the pass just in case they call corporate or leave a gnarly Yelp. Which means I had to tell her how to spell ‘aura’ and also explain what it was.

[sonneillonv-deactivated20220218]

when that happens to me?  My answer is something like, “You have a lot of learning to do, honey.  That’s not my aura you’re seeing, it’s the shields I put up to get a little privacy from novices like you.”

Reactions to that are always fun.  Especially the ones who sputter about how they aren’t novices.

“You saw my shielding and thought it was my aura.  You’re a novice.”

[libraford]

Oh damn.

[upthewitchypunx]

Love this!

[icelachian]

cleansing my house used to mean gently asking the negative entities to leave and has turned into me walking around my house screaming “PAY RENT OR FUCK OFF” and that seems to be more effective

[teawitch]

There’s a concept of sovereignty that comes into play here. You’ve established the undeniable right to determine who can and cannot be in your space. Once you’ve done that, just about any technique works because it’s not about the technique anymore, it’s about holding the power in yourself.  

[north-of-annwn]

👆🏻 👆🏻 👆🏻 👆🏻

THIS. I’m so glad a more experienced witch than I is lending validity to this concept. Sovereignty is one of the most potent powers in existence in my opinion. It allows us to end curses, banish spirits, and banish anything metaphysical from our space and our person. 

Ultimately this only requires that you CLAIM that sovereignty that is already yours. No fancy spells, no fancy banishing required. Just your will and your acknowledgement of your own sovereignty.