#group magic

[willowofthehearth]

Autumn Pie Summoning Ritual : Sept 1-7

It's back! (actually I've kept up doing this even while not on here, but anyways)

Let's summon Autumn with Pie!

The idea is, we get a bunch of folks baking pies with the intention of bringing on the cooler weather. Any pie will do, at any level of skill! Sweet or savoury, entirely from scratch or using various purchased bits. There is no judgment, only fun, group magic, and delicious food.

As always I'd like to share my favourite pie crust recipe that I use every single time I make a pie, any pie. Veg, fruit, meat, whatever... it works.

As shown in the picture above I have oft used a cast iron frying pan for pies. Gives a great crust, no soggy bottoms here! Recently I was gifted some Emile Henry pie plates, mini and reg size, and they work wonderfully as well. So this recipe truly works with what you got.

If folks want to share their fav pie recipes I've turned submissions on, and you can also send in thru asks.

I'll be baking my pie feast on Sept 6th, but we've spread the ritual out over a week to accommodate as many people as possible!

[ome-magical-ramblings]

Invitation for Olympic Working with Hagith, Growth from Decay.

The following ritual is to be done on Friday(Venus Day) on Venus hour(any of the 3/4 venus hours on friday), this is a continuation of practices and Arbatel experiments I been doing lately with other friends and participants so there's the assumption that this is an asynchronous group working(?) and you're more than welcome to share your input and your experiences with it! Before this ritual there was a contact with Aratron and the forces of Saturn so there's definitely a "Flow" coming from that ritual and planetary energies into this one.

Things that you need for this ritual:

7 glasses of water.(Water)

7 pieces of pitta/tanoor/Barbari/rigag bread, or whichever fresh and cheap bakery bread you can get as offering. (Earth Pentacle)

4 candles(Fire/Spirit)

rose incense sticks(Air)

Seal of Hagith(and all other olympic spirits)

Altar Table

This ritual is going to be done on 6th February, prepare by having Aphorism 14 and 21 ready for conjuring/contacting Hagith. Do put the the glasses of water and the pitta bread nearest to you and the incense and candle opposite to them, you can organize the table based on directions of elements to help you if it makes it easier to work with that. The Table itself would have the following arrangement:

Once you light up the inner 3 candles(The father, Son, Holy spirit) you would read Aphorism 14 of Arbatel afterwards. Following that you would light up the rightmost candle and the incense then reading Aphorism 21.

When you do call on Hagith I recommend 5-15 minutes of silence/waiting if possible, even if you can't meditate that well you can set up a timer and lay on the ground and let the influence of Hagith wash over you and merge with you. Now The offering part and this might be a bit weird for you to do. You will offer each bread and water, take a bite of the bread for each planet and a sip from each cup THEN say the following: "I Offer my (planetary) weakness and defect unto you Hagith and (planetary spirit) that it may die and be transformed by your virtues"

you're gonna be taking a total of 7 bread bites and 7 water sips, no need to rush it and you can meditate it and think for a bit before each offering of defect/weakness you have. After finishing you would be taking the stance of blessing, standing be straight and with two hands outward and in the priestly blessing sign. Start by blessing the room, bless the spirits that arrived, bless the light, the water, bless the spirits that came to visit and watch, bless the animal outside, bless your pets, just let the energy you just generated "go forth", let it connect back into the world. You can use Numbers 6:22-27 for a blessing format or just bless from the heart whatever come to you speak it forth.

End by Aphorism 21's dismissal for the spirit(Hagith) and then just sit down for a good 5-10 minutes to absorb everything that just happened before you start wrapping up. What do you do with the remaining bread? welp...you ate from it now and you would shred it to pieces and can feed it to wild birds, the water you can also leave it in a bowl outside for wild animals to drink from.

Go forth and let nature take away what's afflicting you from you, and let it merge back unto nature. The world will bless you with new "parts" and heal you.

[lets-go-every-witchway]

Roots of Your Craft - Day 30

Yeah, I’m a day late posting the last day... my brother stayed with me over the weekend, so yesterday was spent hungover on the sofa playing Diablo III co-op all day! Anyway, here we are with the last day of this challenge :)

What do you think of practicing magic in a group setting? What about practicing alone? Why?

For me personally, I can’t imagine performing group magic. At the moment my craft feels so private that, even if I knew other witches and they wanted to collaborate, I think I’d feel quite uncomfortable about it. Partly because I think there’d always be an element of comparing your craft to another’s, and even if it wasn’t spoken out loud I’d be anxious of being judged for my way of practicing. 

I’m sure this would be very different if you’d been raised with witchcraft or another magical tradition. Being surrounded by family and family friends who part of a magical tradition from the moment you’re born would probably make group magic feel more natural. I do understand why new witches would be drawn to a coven - having people who can teach you rather than face the rather daunting task of a heap of solo research, having their support to make sure things don’t go wrong... I’m sure it’s very comforting for a lot of people.

I, however, enjoy practicing alone and discovering my own ways of doing things. I’ve always enjoyed my own company and working out how I can do things on my own... I don’t really like relying on others (bit of a character flaw, I know). When it comes to witchcraft, it’s not something that was around me growing up. I know of one girl I went to school with who became a Pagan Wiccan, but she’s not a close friend and I haven’t spoken to her in about 15 years! It never used to feel accessible to me, and a lot of the people around me are not the kind who would either understand or be interested. So witchcraft for me has always been quite a private interest (in terms of taking it seriously - my family know I’ve always been a bit enamoured with the idea of magic, but they think of it in more of a Harry Potter sense). I tend to feel more powerful when I’m on my own, so practicing alone is an important part of my craft.

[echoaeviternus]

Group Magic

A few weeks ago Vivec and I were feeling restless so we decided to do a group ritual to help me find my magical path or forte. Lilly is very good with energy work, Demian’s great at divination, and Vivec tends to practice a very active and protective type of magic. I, however, am still finding my footing, partly because I haven’t been practicing for very long and partly because I haven’t been immediately drawn to any of the schools of magic I’ve encountered. So Vivec, Lilly, Demian, Gryps, and I went into the canyon to do some sort of ritual (we hadn’t planned much, though Vivec had some ideas). We wanted to do it beneath the theater building, but we could’t get across the stream and an air compressor turned on every few minutes, which was startling. We moved to the island instead. Lilly lit candles behind each of us, casting a circle, and three in the middle. Vivec created a servitor “from the echoes of her old servitor,” and placed it behind me for protection, which made me feel much safer (I was initally worried about something coming up behind me). Lilly drew up energy for the group and then Demian lead me on a visualization that began at a fork in the road, with about twelve different paths. At this point both Demian and I were nervous and unsure that we would be able to make the ritual work. As they lead me down the path I was drawn to, however, we both became more confident. The path had a red light about it, with thorny vines. I reached a clearing at the end of the path with a small lake made of quicksilver. I felt like I should go to sleep there, or look into the water. They seemed to be analogous actions. A white, semitransparent robed figure floated down towards me from the sky and I felt there was a mutual desire for connection. Demian lead me out of the clearing into the metaphorical ether and back to myself, we grounded, and then blew out the candles. When we discussed it later, others mentioned a large and earthy presence at the beginning of the ritual that may have been the spirit of the canyon. It left, however, and a white robed figure that seemed to be a corporeal version of what I had seen appeared. I didn’t notice, but everyone else did. I’ve drawn from this experience that I should look into witchcraft involving dreams, spirits, and/or water. I’m not sure what this means for me yet.

[hexenwildling]

5.How do you (or would you) feel about doing magic with other people? What kinds of magic would you feel comfortable doing in groups, and what kinds would make you uncomfortable?

Group magic is odd for me. The only times I have successfully engaged in ritual with other people is 1. sex magic with the manbeast. and 2. Spontaneous rites with my mountain-witch sisters (Ari and Gail).

The worst experience I had was last year. I had joined up with a local pagan group who met to discuss things. Sometimes we did a guided meditation but the one time a group member wanted to do a wiccan ritual it just felt so ... odd. It was kind of fun but we had to recite all this stuff from a piece of paper and move very spcifically in certain directions and give our magical name etc. Overall it just felt forced and I didn't feel much power in it since the majority of the group were non-wiccan and all kind of just confused the whole time.

I think having a loose idea of what should happen during the ritual but then allowing people to bring their own creativity to it is very effective.

Namely what I did with my mountain-witch girls was very spontaneous. We weren't planning rituals it just sometimes happened. Chanting, making little towers of mud and offering stones to the spring where we got our water. Walking down a mountain path in the dark of night using the energies of the land to guide us without stumbling. Staying up for 24 hours to watch the turning of the earth. etc.

Group sex rites would be pretty rad but I imagine it could easily have it's goals confused in the mayhem.

The ones that would be most comfortable in groups would be sauna rituals, ancestor veneration where no one has to be uncomfortable with unfamiliar gods being invoked, offering things up to the fae and alfar or elements.

The most uncomfortable group rites would be very strictly ordered that calls upon angels or demons, or even gods that I have no relationship with. Sex rites where only two people have sex and everyone else watches. Rites involving entheogens or blood magic with people I don't know/love. Rites where you have to give your magic name and a kiss.