#cunningarte

[wytchwyse]

"Intret in eum tam facile quam aqua, tam facile quam oleum ad ossa eius" Magic In The Time Of The Tower.

"The Fourth Pentacle of Saturn.--This Pentacle serveth principally for executing all the experiments and operations of ruin, destruction, and death. And when it is made in full perfection, it serveth also for those Spirits which bring news, when thou invokest them from the side of the South.

p. 68

Editor's Note.--The Hebrew words around the sides of the triangle are from Deut. Vi. 4:--'Hear, O Israel, IHVH ALHINV is IHVH AChD.' The surrounding versicle is from Psalm cix. 18:--'As he clothed himself with cursing like as with a garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.' In the centre of the Pentacle is the mystic letter Yod."-The Key Of Solomon

Note: the pentacles of solomon can be written in any language if writing in Hebrew feels appropriative to you.I like to write mine in latin.  

This Pentacle can be used in a lot of creative ways, you can "activate" it and leave it somewhere hidden to bring destruction and ruin. You can use it in candle magic.  

Dress and prepare a black candle with this pentacle and place a name paper under it and burn it while reciting psalm 109 "the cursing psalm"  you can pair this with the old english cunning tradition of burning parsley (remember to work the spirit of the plant first) and reciting psalm 109.   

Once again you can do any invocation prayers to any of your saturnian spirits, or related spirits to aid your work. if you wish.

Drawing this pentacle you can use walnut ink or an ink made of saturnian herbs like atropa belladonna or Henbane use cation if you make ink from herbal poisons, they can and will hurt you.  

Also similar to my last post working with the 6th pentacle of mars, a good way to activate this pentacle is with a good saturnian incense, reciting psalm 109 and finished with a good saturnian oil.

[wytchwyse]

When The Spirits Squabble: The Witch As A Mediator.

It is often the job of someone who keeps spirits or who lives in service to spirits to mediate between them when they are not sharing space peacefully in your life. Sometimes our spirits have different personalities which can cause discord and upset in the lives of the practitioner. I myself have recently stumbled upon this issue with one of the  spirits I have worked with the longest (Nicnevin) and the newest (Diana).  If you notice a theme here you would be correct, both Witch mothers,keepers of cunning, and mothers of spirits, Fair folk, and Fata etc. 

I keep relationships with these spirits because they help me learn Witchcraft and magic. But what they needed to understand was they had different things to teach me. Nicnevin oversees my study of Scots-Irish Cunning, and Diana, my Italian-American cunning.  I became aware that Nicnevin was blocking interactions between Diana and myself for  feeling a bit neglected, I apologized, and gave offerings and told them my expectations moving forward. And I prayed fervently to them as well as la Madonna. And the situation quickly sorted itself out  after that. 

Normally offerings, fervent prayer, and healthy personal boundaries are enough to sort out this issue UNLESS within your system/tradition there are spirits who canonically don't get along then it would be wise to listen and enshrine them in separate spaces and follow your system/traditions procedures to handle this. So much of the discourse on Spirit work today is just fear mongering, when we could be talking about the responsibility it takes to tend to spirits, And how to troubleshoot effectively without panicking.  

This situation wasn’t dire. It was unpleasant and needed to be corrected in case it escalated. And sure I know of practitioners who had full on poltergeist-like phenomena and curses like Anomalies happening when they let this go for too long, but when you keep up with your spirits check in regularly it's really a non issue. Moral of the story is to tend to your spirits. Also  you do not need to keep a hundred spirits. 

It is better to have a strong relationship with 1 or 5 spirits/ group of spirits than trying to keep all the spirits. Also it is possible to have a working relationship with a spirit like one you don't enshrine in your home but keep in your heart and mind and sometimes give offerings to when you need their help. But if you're new i think wait on relationships like that as it would just be overwhelming and takes you away from your close spirit team.

[wytchwyse]

Working on my own sigil/seal script. inspired by Theban.

[wytchwyse]

Unpopular Occult History Opnion:

I'm convinced that the Cunning Folk were the Witches they fought against. And the Witch was a moral judgment, who was the cunning person and who was the Witch was only determined by the situation and the work they were doing. if you did the curse you were the witch, if you removed it you were the cunning person. However, that cunning person who removed the curse could just as easily curse someone else. As different as the cunning arte supposedly was/is from Witchcraft they are too similar in philosophy and magic to be distinct systems.

(These are just my opnions, crtique me politely)

[wytchwyse]

"The spirits and powers attached to different places demand- and must receive- their own tithe of reverence before Witchcraft can really be safely and reliably performed in a certain place. This is something we will discuss further in a coming chapter; until then, it is enough to know that respect for local spirits and land-based powers is a needful respect, a necessity for Witches to cultivate.

Historical works of Witchcraft that deal directly with the powers of the Land are common. If one has the friendship or alliance of the spirits of the ground or the spirits of the Land in a place, remarkable and potent outcomes can be brought into existence without much effort.

In the dittay written against Andro Man, one of the things he was accused of happened to be a potent Tellurian or Saturnian working in which the local spirit-guardian or spirit-power of a place had a portion of land measured out and devoted to him. It was measured in the form of a square or a rectangle, and four special stones were “charmed” or enchanted, then placed or buried in the four corners of that measure.

This local power was thought of as a “spirit” by Andro Man, but certainly as the Devil by those conducting the proceedings against him. Andro gave the name he called this spirit: the Hynd Knight.

In Scots, Hynd (pronounced “hend”) means “kind” or “gentle”- and the title “knight” is often applied to powerful spiritual beings in certain strains of folklore. The 'Elf Knight' of legend is not only a name given to spirit-beings who fall under the category of elves or faeries; it is a name given to the Devil, as well.

'Hynd Knight' or 'Hynd King' are both titles that could be applied to the Devil or even to beings like Christsonday, alongside any sufficiently powerful spirit-entity."

-Robin Artisson, from "Upon the Rood-Day: The Witchcraft of Christsonday and the Queen of Elphen".

The next course begins on March 11, 2024!"