#on magic

[terrorignitis]

The soul, like the moon, is never lost—only shadowed.

Jakob Böhme | 1575-1624

[grubarchived]

i think 'stay outraged' and other things of that nature are more of a magical activism goal than a material one. an idea of ritual upset or mourning or fury as an end in itself. which is fine as far as magic goes but should be categorized separately from more material goals

[ominous-faechild]

An additional thing about (@ominous-faechild original; do not steal /lhj) runic magic within my writing!

Styluses are essentially the world's early version of wands. They're made to draw runes, but require surfaces to draw on. They always encase—or utilize as the writing utensil—a conduit (an object containing pure magic, ready for use by anyone). After the invention of wands, styluses are often used as "baby's first wand", so to speak.

In other words: styluses become the giant pencil you give a toddler budding wizard for them to begin to learn runic.

For perhaps predictable reasons, artists are often recruited as wizards. Dyscalculia and dyslexia (although not named in-universe) are known to be a particular struggle for budding wizards, however.

Hugo “Cricket” Tinoco from Waves of Misfortune is an example of both. He was sponsored by the Minoguan government to join a runic academy thanks to being a skilled artist, but was eventually forced to drop out due to struggles “recreating” the runes.

(He's got some combination of the two.)

Wands aren't too dissimilar from the tool in Marvel's Doctor Strange that allows them to write in midair. They often resemble the stereotypical image of a wand, and serve as what's essentially a magic pencil that can write in midair.

However, twist: oftentimes, wizards will etch their most-commonly-used spells spells into the sides of their wands. With that, they can then later filter magic through those runes and quickly, easily, and frequently re-use their preferred spells.

Similarly, many more advanced wizards carry around staves—which are essentially larger wands—with larger conduit cores and many, many, many more runic sigils littered across their casing.

While this may seem to (and does, in fact) simplify the art of spellcrafting, there is a risk to relying on previously-etched runes: the caster has to remember where they've put each, or learn to distinguish between them by feel.

Considering the fact that they're often etched as small as possible both to fit more and to keep a possible enemy from seeing what spells you have at the ready... it is very dangerous, indeed, to rely on pre-etched spells. The practice is highly advised against except for master practitioners with several years of experience... and practice.

"Getting a new wand" is also highly frowned upon in this case, because if the caster fails to put their runes in the exact same spots...

Well.

Some "problems" can emerge.

(unlike last time, i've got this pretty solidified in my mind. i just wanted to share because, again, i thought y'all'd find this cool)

[petaltexturedskies]

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

Roald Dahl

[wild-moon-and-sun]

for those of you who cleanse with sound

do you have a phone or tablet that you can use to set an alarm? try using an alarm tone to cleanse!

set an alarm to go off as many times a day as you like. choose a sound you want to cleanse with to use as your alarm tone (preferably something you find calming, like a small bell chime or a bird song.)

for me, i have a clock chime alarm on my phone that rings every hour on the hour. i prefer to let the alarm ring all the way through at least once, but you can let it repeat as many times as feels right to you.

happy cleansing!

[shadowfae]

And ugh, thanks for the reminder about why i blocked NH even though my mind has changed on reality shifting. Quit trying to police communities you know fucking nothing about jackass

NH is... They’re good at doing research, yeah. And if a spell goes wrong they’re pretty good at troubleshooting. And they’re good if you’re thieving book recommendations to read later. But every take they’ve ever had towards fiction or any sort of new age spirituality is so utterly shit it’s not even funny.

Like, someone jokingly said they reality-shifted to a universe of NH’s novel (Amber Skies, haven’t read it) and NH took really badly to it. Had someone done that to me, I’d go “good help me and my mate write this thing”. They cannot understand, for whatever reason, that fiction and reality aren’t so cut and dry. Which is frankly ridiculous considering how I’ve always found mortal magic to work.

That and the rampant misogyny they keep spewing out. I doubt they realize it, but when you’re advocating for minorities, you shouldn’t shit on slightly-less-oppressed minorities while you’re at it. They shit on the Snapewives so much just for being weird when it’s really, really obvious that they did what they did because the culture at the time did not allow them to have control over any part of their sex lives. You know, a major reason why fic is so prevalent and why AO3 exists.

But the Snapewives were never doing anything wrong. They were just weird. Which I think makes NH’s balls stronger than fucking steel to be criticizing them the way they do. Like, we get it, you enjoy jacking off to making fun of women being weird while claiming to be an ally.

They also shit on otherkin and fictionkin a lot, not always in words but the implication is obvious. If they really wanted, I could clear that up, but you know, why bother doing research if it isn’t an anon telling you you’re wrong? (They also shit on DID systems until they were screamed at by their followers, because reading anything about it is too hard. They’ll read Agrippa and all sorts of occult books and not bother to read some intro psychiatry articles, I guess?)

Actually, that brings us back to starseeds. Starseeds are ‘clearly’ only existent as a concept because parents couldn’t handle neurodivergent kids, but DID systems are all make-believe? Talk about balls of steel.

Every time someone brings up indigo children and starseeds, I think back to that one poor sap who wasn’t actually the Native American (forgive me I don’t remember which tribe) W-creature-that-I-won’t-name but was actually the bastardized version of it in media and didn’t know what to call it. They weren’t a true W-creature, they were the sensationalized version. Almost every single starseed / indigo child I’ve ever met was basically that. The concept of both were hippie-parents not dealing with their neurodivergent kids (and I don’t want to get into hippies because honestly I only know the negative stereotypes, but the concept seems cool enough?), but that doesn’t mean people can’t honestly identify deeply and inherently with the concepts.

There was also the opinion NH shared about being an empath and they were very bluntly “That’s a trauma response, I won’t spiritualize that” and while that’s cool to have as a personal opinion, it is deeply fucking rude to tell an empath that they can’t spiritualize their own empath capabilities. I mean, it seems to me that if you are an empath doing witchcraft, you should be figuring out what that means for you in your practice specifically because it’s a magnet for energy and you have to know how to account for that. My ADHD-adjacent mess (as I’m still not sure exactly what it is) is probably the only thing that made me capable of understanding the Chaotic hivemind I spent several years in. It may not have stemmed from spirituality, but it’s sure as hell a part of it.

NH is very insistent on things being clear-cut and in boxes, unable to mix. And as someone who sees things in a thousand shades of gray and colours, that is so bullshit it’s not even funny.

I’ll follow them to steal book recommendations, and when they shit on otherkin I’ll correct them in the notes knowing they’ll never see it, but someone browsing the notes might. I don’t expect to change their mind, and I don’t care to. But I will admit, having opinions around that I disagree with so vehemently makes my own opinions stronger and easier to defend, because I understand them that much better.

[scarlet--wiccan]

hello! I found you blog just by chance, & in your pinned post that talks about wicca, I did want to ask: I'm a white person who's interested in the ways of witchy stuff (like protection spell jars, tarot reading, stuff like that), but didn't know if much of it came from wicca itself. I don't have any interest in the latter (& after reading about its problems you've outlined, even more so), so is there ways to distinguish yourself from it to others? thank you!!

Hello! So, I’m sorry if this is what you’re looking for, but I’m not going to use this blog as a space to share witchcraft resources, techniques, or any kind of advice on magical practice. That’s not the purpose of this page, and it’s not the type of material that I want to have crossing over with material about, like, Romani history and representation. I just want get that out of the way and set a clear boundary. 

So, right off the bat, I think you are on a pretty good track because it sounds like you’re focusing on the “craft” side of witchcraft, rather than ceremony, ritual or religion. Wiccan influence is all over the literature, and it’s all over the occult industry, but you can sidestep a lot of that if you just avoid anyone that’s trying to sell you spirituality. Invest your time in learning individual skills, like your tarot or your jars, and build your own system out of that. I like making stuff that can be used as charms or wards or physical spell loci. You can learn those mechanical skills on your own, and you can measure your results more easily when you’re doing and making concrete things. 

If you’re looking for more expressly magical information, I recommend looking at historical sources. I find that it is more rewarding to learn about how people in different times and places thought about magic and spirituality, than it is to buy a book that will tell you in absolute terms what magic is and how it functions. I often recommend people to start with sources that are relevant to their own culture and heritage, if they’re able.

If you’re worried about getting lumped in with Wiccans or accidentally participating in the legacies of racism and colonialism that inform modern (white, american) witch culture... well, the easiest solution is to just be a vocally, proactively anti-racist person. If you are learning about, interrogating, and fighting against racism in all the other spaces you occupy, you can do it here too. If you do the work and speak on it, people will know what you’re about, and hopefully, they’ll learn something.