#practice building

[lazywitchling]

[inspects a jar filled with various crystals]

[gently lifts a big clear quartz point to eye level]

[cradles several raw amethyst chunks in hands]

I DON’T USE ANY OF THIS AND THEY GIVE ME NO WITCHY VIBES, WHY DO I HAVE THEM

[theartmouse27]

House next to tree with vines

[asksecularwitch]

As a secular witch I tend to avoid Wiccan/deity-based practices and ideas but sometimes I feel like it is limiting because practically all magic I find falls under that category. I feel like candle, herb, and sigil magic is all I ever do anymore. What are some other easy secular magics to include in my practice? Also, what do you suggest as the secular equivalents of calling corners, casting a circles, and in/evoking the spirit? I try to do my own thing but I'm interested in what you think.

Just as a note: I notice that you said you avoid “Wiccan/Deitybased practices” but as a secular witch, I hope you’re avoid allreligious practices not just Theism and not just Wicca. Secularism isnot the equivalent of a belief structure. Secularism is the state ofbeing non-religious or outside of a religion.  There is a lot ofmisunderstanding in the secular witchcraft tag which equates Atheismand secularism. So I just want to make that clear before we get goingthat what I’m going to be talking about is the concepts of practicebuilding in the absence of a religion verses practice building in areligion.  

So I am interpreting what you’re asking me about to be practicebuilding  - the extension version - but without actually puttingthat in words necessarily. Practice building is a continual processfor most secular witches, I think that’s fair to say. I am surethere are plenty of other witch religions out there, such as a lot offorms of eclectic paganism or atheistic witch religions where thereis an ever evolving status. But definitely for secular witchesbecause we have to spend so much time aggressively looking into ourpractice to make sure we are not creating a non-denominal religionwhile we are building a practice. 

And it starts with recognizing that religions are just not for youin your witchcraft, and what that means to be a non-religious witch.How does that look like, what does that feel like, what kind ofbelief structures are there, why are we doing things. The How, What,and Why. 

So religions are exceptionally good examples of explainingpracticing building because everything that they do (The How They DoIt and the What They Do) are directly reinforced with their corebeliefs or the core principles (The Why They Do). I think a lot ofpeople get into their minds this idea that religions are blaise andboring based on a Christian perspective, especially in a Westerncentric world view. Ie that “Believing in Jesus/BelievingJesus is the Savior in your Heart” is the marker for a religion.But even within Christianity there are plenty of examples of peoplewho are doing rituals and traditions beyond this. Such as reading thebible, which is a reinforcement of that core belief above. But thereare still other Christian religion examples which spend so much timewrapped in ritual to help reinforce “Right Belief” akaOrthodoxy. Some of the common examples are in the Catholic styles ofChristianity such as Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism.Which use very specific rituals which are meant to reinforce yourright belief of Jesus is the savior. They spend time working on theirHows and Whats, to do their Whys.

Wicca is an interesting subversion of Right Belief, because it’sactually Orthopraxic, Right Practice. So basically it doesn’tmatter what you believe, because faith will come to you through veryspecific key practices. So everything that they are building aroundis building around their core belief structures that are inside thatreligion. Such as the worship of the Lord and Lady of the Isles. Butalso because Gardner took things (casting the circle, calling thecorners/calling the watch towers[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchtower_(magic)#In_Enochian_tradition],evoking/invoking of spirits, etc) from things like the Hermetic Orderof the Golden Dawn and combined them with other traditions that hesaw in British Traditional Witchcraft. Which all harks back toseparate belief structures about Angels (which is what those Watchtowers are) and some bastardizations of Kabbalah. But he spent timebuilding around flipping and changing the presence of these thingsfrom what he knew in the past so that they would become thereinforcements of the right practice for his belief structures likeintroducing certain elemental associations as well as creating a veryspecific mythos around the Lord and Lady of the British Isles. 

And similarly much of the information that you have on Wicca mightactually be not Wicca and are actually direct correlations comingfrom the Golden Dawn or other sources like the Golden Bough (which Ihate that it is used in the New Age community as a resource becauseit was specifically made to shit on anyone who wasn’t ascientist/atheist). Where they are taking these ritual concepts andwatering them down and also obscuring their information about why andwhat their purposes are. Such as changing the rituals from beingabout a form of transcendence which harks back to the Middle Agetranscendental movements (both in art and literatures to transcendthe mortal plane to the truth) to things about psychology or quantummechanics - which is super hilarious to read from timeto time when I’m going through some of these things interpretationsof rituals from interpretations, which don’t actually link theirsources. 

My point is that there is still that reinforcement of the Why.I am doing x because y. 

So to go with a more simple (and fun?) example:

Let’s say last year you wanted to start a work out routine, butyou didn’t know where to start. So you patterned it off of someoneelse’s work out routine but you didn’t really go to them eitherbecause you had no access to them directly or because you didn’twant to bother them about it (it might cost you something as well toget them to talk about it with you). 

So you did all the things that they did, but you start noticingthat some of the things weren’t really working out for you and youdidn’t really understand why they were there. So you startedchipping off things all throughout the year. But then you were like,but wait, what I’m doing right now isn’t making me happy eitherand I’m not really seeing any results for my efforts. 

So let me look at what was working for me? I couldn’t do all 5days every week, like this plan wanted. But I could do maybe Monday,Tuesday, and Thursday. That fits into my life style routine and gaveme enough free time to do things like clean up my house, go do somechores outside of my house, do chores in side of my house. That fitswith my life style. So let me build my workout plan around thosedays.

Also, I couldn’t do the stair stepper or the elliptical because Ihave shit knees. Like my knees are shit. Which also means I couldn’tdo all that leg lifting squat training bullshit. My fucking kneesbruh. So that means I can’t work on those types of exercises or anyexercises that really fuck with my knees. So yeah, I’m skipping legday, Craig. I have fucking grandma knees!!! But I can handle all ofthe other types of exercises like stretching, abs, upper body, andjust general endurance training.

So let me work this where I’m building a routine around walking(because I have shit knees I can’t do running) on the treadmill, andlet me also build a routine where I’m adding other exercises likestretches and holds and other things like that. So maybe I won’t looklike a Greek God, but I’ll be healthy and happy and I won’t have totake six goddamn Tylenol for my fucking knees.

Why: My knees are shit

What: Stretching, Abs, Treadmill, Upper body

How: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday on a rotating schedule with adifferent combination of things each day.

This is an example of refining and building around a coreprinciple that maybe you had a start with something else before. Youlook at what is not working for you, and what you’re doing that doeswork for you, and what fits into your lifestyle. What makes you happyand makes you feel accomplished in the same way that someone else whomight be working out 5 times a week does. And that’s what that isabout. It’s about coming back to what you’ve been working on and tryto complete out things before.

So I understand you’ve come to the very first part of the example.You’ve been working on things with candles, herbs, and sigils. Butit’s either getting very boring for you, or it’s not working into aschedule, and I see that you’re interested in having that other kindof advancement into your practice with the second question (which Iwill get into a lecture about later on). You want to build on andexpand your practice. But I can’t fully help you with that based onwhat you’re doing here, because I don’t know what your practice isactually like and what you can build on from there.

There is definitely, and I’ve expressed this before with somethings on my blog for myself, a deep need for these other styles ofrituals which are made for secular witches to have additional thingsassociated with them. But again that idea of ritual = religious,questions come up when you look at that. Those additional practicescoming forward. How do I make something which will add something towhat I’m doing, how do I build myself and my practice up.

It starts with a core principle. Something basic, somethingsimple. Like I believe that x works like so. And then you startworking around what x means to you and how x works like so. So maybeX means to you that you need to take a break every thursday fromdoing spellwork and have a “recovery ritual” or some other dupeswould be things like “Aura recovery” or “psychic reinforcement”- I was looking up psychic spells in my planning yesterday. So I waslooking up all this stuff. And so you decide how to make thatrecovery ritual a thing. Is x related to say a food based item, okaymaybe your recovery ritual is to abstain from alcohol or other itemsthat would destabilize your stomach or your state of mind. So insteadof “Thirsty Thursday” you are at home doing eating very plainfood and drinking just water. Because you are recovering in yourmagical sense. You have a purpose, you have that why – x works likeso and I must recover sometimes, and now you have to enact that pointof view.

Maybe it’s something where you work in a candle element to that,or a sigil element to it. Where you go to a certain location in yourhome and build into that candle element of things how to recoveryfrom that item.

The ideas is that you need to find these things in your practice.You need to express these whys in a way that feels comfortable foryourself. Most other people won’t be able to provide you with thatinformation because what they are doing is building things in forthemselves. I have my own specific reasons for why I build a certainthing at a certain time. But that’s my personal practice and is notsomething that I share here. The same comes for many other witchesand that why you see them talk about these very specific things abouttheir practices over and over again. Some witches have things on atime based frame – such as a holiday cycle. I personally do nothave any holidays as a secular witch because I view them as notrequired for my practice. Not necessary. But other witches havethings that they want to focus on at certain points of the year, likefor example, they want to plant things in spring time. So they havean entire ritual about planting and building their crops aroundthings.

You see a lot of folk rituals and more importantly, festivals indifferent communities which are about this kind of, let’s gettogether. We did a job, let’s celebrate and hope for the best. Likesbring ourselves out from that cold, cold winter and see people weprobably haven’t in a while and have some good and just get down togetting down. These are all things about trying to make the mundanethings that they are doing more enjoyable through that gathering upof things.

So you need to find what makes your witchcraft more enjoyable foryou to do. Like I can try to give some suggestions, I mean. There arelots of magical techniques out there, if you’re looking for that. Buta lot of them may be limiting to people who have certain lifestylelimitations or other personal reasons for why they don’t want to dothem. So it’s really up to you to kind of expand what you’re lookingfor. I can only provide suggestions by which you need to spend timelooking into and building around in your practice. And they may notbe something that you really like or are interested in.

Anyway, I guess if you just want a plain example – try lookinginto knot magic or cord magic. Magic with strings. It has a veryphysical component with them, there’s active action on transformingthe strings. There’s a whole thing about it becoming something thatis maybe wearable or also use able. And it can be easily hidden inplain sight as a bracelet or a keychain charm.

Oh, that could be something that is your core value. “I need mymagic/witchcraft to be easily hidden in plain sight.” So not just alike a personal limitation such as shit knees I can’t be standing inthese goddamn long ass 3 hour rituals. But like these lifestyleexpectations. So you look at how to bring something into plain sight.You look at what can double directly from one place to the other. Howdo I get to that point where I am building a practice which is makingeverything that I own play almost two purposes. Like this soap I useto wash myself every day, will also play the purpose of washing meritually. Or this salt can will salt my food but will also become thebase of a particular powder or will become a way that I banishsomething from my house.

So to come back to the second point of your question, there isno “secular equivalents” to these religious components.Precisely because secular witchcraft is not a religion, and cannot bean equivalent to a religion.

I have to say that is a really big problem for me that I see thedesire to have that type of thing in a secular witchcraft practice(not just you, anon, but across the board in the secular witchcrafttag). (general you following)

You should sit down and ask yourself why you need to have thosethings present in your practice. Is it a look and a feel problem? Isit because you’re not building enough ritual? Is it because youthink that’s the only way to do witchcraft? Get real harsh withyourself about why these things are necessary because as I explainedabove, these are things that a stepped in religious ritual. Not justone religion either, but multiple religions across paganism. And itwas the most popularized version of things precisely because that wasthe only thing being printed or written about. So people onlyassociated that with the “true way of practicing.” Secularwitches do not need to look like that. In fact, no witches need torecopy any of the practices above. They don’t need to. And thereare some versions of popularization that is coming up.

In fact, in my life time and experience, I’ve seen 3 bigpopularizations of different practices. The main one being the riseand then the subsequent fall of Nature Worship – as a ecletic pagantradition which has no formal diagrams or no formal customs.Specifically that it was something about dealing with nature as anature. Not as a deity, not as a spirit in a lot of ways, but as anenvironmental steward of the world. You see it a bit on tumblr, a bitof a revival with a lot of the anti-glass jar/anti litteringconversation on here. But you don’t see it the way that people usedto really go out and try to hit for home base about how you need totake a full presence in nature. That being in the city ruins you, andthat you need to spend time with walking about, worshiping the trees,literally out in the woods. There was a big spawn of that in theearly 00s.

The second one was the white people really wanted something fromHoodoo. So Hoodoo’s rise and fall has been a bit cyclical. And I’mnot saying white people can’t get into Hoodoo, and in fact, I did atone point look for a teacher in Hoodoo myself. I personally learnedthat I could not deal with ancestors, so that stopped my looking fora teacher. I got interested into it because it was very much basedaround real people doing real work. And I was looking for that in mypractice.

But in comparison to my experience? There was a lot of news fromwitchcraft sources, podcasters were on it, especially when it came tocertain spell book publications which had things in them which weredirectly pulled from Hoodoo styles. But a lot of this popular buzzwas not about what those values were in Hoodoo, and did not actuallytalk about the fact that Hoodoo comes directly out of Slavery andAfro-Caribbean religions. You had a lot of this conversation about‘ooh look at this cool new technique I know, wink wink smile smile’but none about the spending time looking into the core belief sets ofHoodoo, especially in conversations about Animism and a lot of thereasons why those “cool new techniques” worked. There is anexceptionally large amount of just did not give a shit in witchcraftbuzz news about what it meant for people who were directly related toor adopted into families that practiced Hoodoo and in some causesVodun, for people to come in and just take without understanding whatthose things actually were doing. The respect was just not there inthe same way that it frankly is for things like certain forms ofChristianity and Wicca. It is definitely a race issue because of thenature of the religion.

The last and latest one is the idea of getting back to TraditionalWitchcraft. Ie the Gemma Gary series of books about different formsof a very specific type of witchcraft. And also things like Cornishwitchcraft, and other UK forms of witchcraft which are not Wiccarelated (but where Wicca may have pulled things from as I saidbefore). That are a bit more gritty and not as new age flowery andcutesy. There’s definitely a pull to bring back these more “darker”so to speak forms of witchcraft. This has been a bit slower burnbecause people are still under the very impression of Wicca and someforms of eclectic paganism which are about very high moralisticbehaviors of governing people’s emotions and situations. So you havethese clashes between these too, but people are looking for thisdifferent and maybe more deeper connection. I know there may even bea social tie in to this, such as looking into more Death based orMemento Mori styles of witchcraft or Apocalyptic styles of witchcraftwhich are borrowing from these ideas of dealing with the not“sunshine and rainbows” of things that can be in a lot of new agebooks.

Anyway, my very long point to bring this all up is that there is aprecedent of these different styles becoming popularized and widelytalked about across the board. Even secular witchcraft has a smallbrief moment of spike, but then everyone started getting really tiredof the lack of that religious underpinning of things and moved on –at least that’s what I’ve noticed. So I’m not even counting it. Sopatterning things off of what a single popularized tradition or thedesire to have the “equivalents” seems to just be a lack ofexperience with other practices. And I can’t sit here and tell you goout and research blah blah, because you may not do that and may haveno desire to do that. I’m just saying that every secular witch shouldnot need to use the brace of what they saw in the New Age section astheir focal point for what a witchcraft or any magical traditionbecause Hoodoo is not witchcraft) looks like, feels like, is like.

So if you’re spending time, which I think you are because you’re looking at Wicca which for sure is the most popular version of witchcraft, looking atdifferent practices maybe for /INSPIRATION/ not for taking orappropriating. Because cherry picking is not very good for secularwitches because often times what is being cherry picked out of aparticular religion may have other dimensions in it. Spend timelooking at things like Low or Folk magic. There’s a lot of CunningFolk styles. But also, look around in your area. For instance, therewas a whole witchcraft practice created around worshiping the JerseyDevil. But that doesn’t have to be that case, there’s a lot ofwitchcraft practices which are built around their environments suchas Sea Witchcraft or Urban Witchcraft. These practices arespecifically built around where those witches are living at. They arebuilding using the tools that directly come from that.

You could look at the history of the practices and people thatlived in that area. But I hesitate here. When we start looking at thehistory of practices, let’s not culturally appropriate practices ofpeople that were originally living on the land. All of the land inthe United States has directly been taken from First Nations thatwere here before any other humans. And so if you look that far back,you may be tempted as other New Agers were, to take from them withoutpermission and without respect. Don’t do it. Learn from othersmistakes.

And use these things as building blocks to reinforce your Why thatI mentioned above. Like the fact you live in a specific area may bevery important to you personally. So maybe that should be reflectedin your practice. Or if you have a very specific ethnic tie, maybethat should be something that you spend time looking into. Or if youbelieve in ancestors or the dead who look in and try to support you,maybe look into practices that spend time with their ancestors. Isthere something that you can be inspired to do in your own practice,that you can build something new?

But always make new. Always create new. What you doing is new,because you are using your own Why for reinforcement of what you aredoing. You are setting the rules and the limits of what is acceptablein your own practice. So don’t take on the explanations or the whysof other practices. You need to spend time building it up because youare the only one who is practicing your practice. You are the soleheir and the sole founder of your practice at this point. So investin it for yourself. Make it work for you. Make it for you.  

[asksecularwitch]

Hi! I grew up in a very religious household and it was very rough for me and I became very atheistic in many ways. Im getting into witchcraft now and the way I can explain it to myself is with concepts of natural energies and focused intent. I want to not struggle with believing so much because I really do like this. Do you have any advice? And until I can believe more, is it still ok for me to keep trying stuff out? Sorry to dump on you, you just seem very thoughtful and interesting.

My history is very much similar to yours in a lot of ways. Though I just want to make sure you’re aware whom you are speaking with, I have a lot of different beliefs (because beliefs can exist without any religion or religious / spiritual flavoring) and I am not an atheist, I’m a hard polytheist (though that really doesn’t mean much because again, it exists outside of a religion and I don’t often work with or deal with deities; the times I do, it’s under a contract). 

I just wanted to make sure that was clear since you seem to be looking for someone who can explain how to bridge atheism and witchcraft together, not secular witchcraft as a whole and not in specific towards my practice. So I might not be the right person to ask or bounce ideas off if you’re looking for that. 

But, to answer your question? Yes, it is perfectly fine to keep trying stuff out and exploring where you want to be in your witchcraft. A lot of people try to discourage “dabbling” because they think people looking into a lot of different things is demeaning. But what those people fail to realize is you don’t always know exactly what you don’t want or what you’ll do until you get into it a bit. It’s always okay to quit working with something if it doesn’t agree with you. It is okay to change what you’re doing because it makes you feel uncomfortable. 

Any time that it stops being something that you want to do, proactively want to do, then you should stop doing it. You should always been in charge of what you are doing. 

A lot of what people focus in on, in witchcraft but also in occultism, may not work out for you. For instance? Meditation. Homg, meditation makes me want to pull every single one of my eyelashes out and then go jump in a volcano. When I was starting up, it was the /hot new/ technique to be doing all the time. Got a problem? Meditate. Need to think about doing a spell? Meditate. Need to find out what a symbol means? Meditate to the astral plane and have tea with the Moon Goddess and talk to her about it. HOMG. It was a bunch of that. 

For me, meditation is a) very hard to do because it makes me more angry than when I started, which is actually something that can happen for a few people and b) because it’s very symbolic, it doesn’t have a place in my particular brand of witchcraft. I don’t like symbolism very much because … well… magical reasons, but that’s a bit long to talk about here. And given that symbolism is highly involved in any meditation - especially with visualization added on top of it - that makes it something from the terms of technique that isn’t in my wheelhouse of desire to do. 

So I don’t. You can pick which things you want to be doing and start building your own practice(s) out of it. It’s okay. That’s what people have been doing for years. No worries.

[divide-media-content-sales-r]

Keep Dacha: Educational Child's Play

<\p>

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[management-modelling-per-fqo]

No Training, Means…no Consistent Results

Happy New Year! Are you in condition? I don't blue book about you, but I've had it attended by this holidays season, seemed to be dragging on air strikingly stretched-out, I am ready to get busy and accomplish more great things in 2010.<\p>

I hope you're ready being the most decade ever. If you take action and implement, that's exactly what will happen. You have to dig in. It won't be easy, but it will be mark it.<\p>

One passion THEM hope you take serious this year is "Drilling". It's amazing on me, that with the critical role staff members play entering the religious ceremony to your patients that they are so poorly trained. <\p>

I catch you might not swear by me, but it's the axiom. Most weekends I spend my Saturdays taking the orthopedic practice building computer program to doctors all hands over the U.S. And you wouldn't place reliance in the number of doctors that lucid stillness answer their own segmental phoneme ocherous don't prepare their staff the proper ambition to refute a amplitude or worse yet, don't have a WEAR WELL person answer the sonority.<\p>

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I've found that downright doctors don't understand their staff is NOT properly trained. But one of my staff members calls your retinue on the telephone and ego ask what adjusting techniques my humble self use, impalement how largely inner man charge as representing a new disciplined, how many of your C.A.'s act for if someone has suddenly broken into a fabulous parlance? <\p>

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For the nonce are some Subject Steps you might want to take: First of totality of being, paradise a set time each academic year, maybe a Tuesday canary Thursday morning, for staff prep and rehearsal. Supporting role projection if her will and folks should participate in a script and citizenry should follow that script.<\p>

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[asksecularwitch]

Hello! I really liked your post about secular witchcraft. Since there are little to no resources out there, and more so that I do not have access to most books on witchcraft, do you think you could share your resources/research on "pulling religion out" of things like correspondences etc.? I might not be a secular witch, but I am very careful as to which spirits I want to invoke, and I figured that maybe secular witchcraft would allow me to "put in" the only religion I want in my craft. Thanks!

Okay first things first, what you’re asking about is practice building. Practice building is not exclusive to secular witchcraft, there’s a lot of neo-pagans, eclectic pagans, eclectic witches, etc who have a variety of different practices and different structures.

That being said … Secular witchcraft cannot “put in religion.” Ultimately it breaks the underlying secular witchcraft; it’s in the same manner that breaking down religion or a religious context to get to secular witchcraft. They are opposites of each other and cannot be together. I’d argue that any “secular witchcraft” that allows for religion to be easily added in was in actuality a non-denominal style of religious witchcraft. 

So with practice building in mind, you should immediately think about what you’re building towards or what you’re goals are. For instance, you kind of gave me a starting point. So for you, you want to minimize or otherwise completely move away from interactions with spirits. Some of the first things you might want to start with, is looking at what the word “spirits” means to yourself. 

Like does it mean deities, does it mean non-corporeal things, does it mean human ghosts, does it mean animism, etc? And what you want to limit about those spirits, ie do spirits have this ability to just show up because you’ve used the color blue for example? Are you removing animistic associations because you don’t view animism as correct or because of some other reason? Are you trying to avoid ancestor worship?

Once you have that kind of settled or discussed or otherwise handled, what these goals are, you have to start looking at things you’re already doing now (or that you want to be doing now) and start thinking about how you want to address these problems.

Like again with the blue example, let’s say blue is associated with Land Spirits. It’s also associated with making peace. This is your associations with these two things. And if you use blue, what you’re doing is calling these land spirits in to help you deal with problems. 

So some things you could do to deal with this blue are:

1. Avoiding blue in spellwork at all cost. This means like you straight up just do not perform spells that call for or deal with blue.

2. Create new spells from spells that blue is in. Meaning, you change the color to some neutral color that doesn’t call in these spirits, like black.

3. Change your paradigm. So instead of believing that blue calls to Land spirits to deal with a problem whenever they are in the spell as part of how the spell works, change your paradigm to some other paradigm on how spells actually work out for you. So instead of colors calling to spirits which then manifest the work being done, you switch paradigms and colors influence the internal idea of your world. Ie the spells work because you have changed something internally, mentally, and therefore are now manifesting the spell via your thoughts which become your actions which then moves you towards the goal. 

4. Change association, which is more of a mental activity. So basically you sit there and look at blue and tell yourself that blue actually means… prosperity in your garden. It doesn’t mean anything else. It’s just prosperity in your garden. Or it just is a color that you can see. Blue = blue. Blue doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a color. 

5. Use different shades of blue and see which land spirits are the ones coming for which colors, and which land spirits you are chill with just kind of being invoked at this point. So like for instance, light blue and dark blue calls upon two different spirit groups. So light blue calls on the land spirits you’re not chill with, but dark blue calls on some spirits that you’re totes mai goats chill with and you’re like. I wanna work with you. 

And these aren’t like a limited option, there’s a lot more, but just off the top of my head these are some ideas that might start helping you build your practice. It’s all about what you want to do, what you believe in fundamentally, and how you accomplish these things. 

Now I might be interested in suggesting more Chaos Magick ideas when it comes to practice building, because Chaos magick lends itself so easily to this paradigm shifting, experimentation, and other topics like what magic looks like and how it interacts, but I think for your spectrum of stuff, a cursory look at how people create their structures might be for the best, so you have a jumping off point. 

Also keep in mind that most of my Chaos Magick knowledge is the level or type of DKMU (it’s okay if you do not understand what I’m referencing) and less formal Chaos Magick. Bc Formal Chaos Magick has books and people who “founded it,” are “experts at it,” and such things. The problem with such ideas, imo, (the founding/experts) is that lends itself to… structure and rigidity that I don’t know if entirely the base of CM. 

But anyway, we’re rambling here.

Practice building, from the get go, is about goals and customization. Goals are things you want to kind of achieve. Like for instance, for me, what I wanted to achieve was a couple of things, for most, removal of religion from what I was doing because I couldn’t and didn’t want to appropriate religions and I felt I was being disrespectful at a lot of levels. So that was a goal. Customization started with me digging into the spells I had done before I was like this eclectic religious witch and comparing and contrasting what I was doing. Which I didn’t actually see a whole lot of difference in the spells I was doing then verses where I had been. And starting to change my associations and my mental concepts of things. 

You sometimes see these templates that people build for you to help you along with your practice. So mostly these are spell templates, but there are still some templates here and there which are things like “The Wheel of Year” or moral discussions. And people can go to some places with these templates, for instance, instead of “the Wheel of the Year” having almost 365 days of holidays, so every day is an important day. Or having “seasonal” things which go by the natural seasons of the world around you. So if it’s cold then it’s time to do things in your house, it’s time to do these inner methods, and if it’s hot outside then it’s time to do things outside your house and do outer structures. It’s all different variations off of a “template.”

Like for me, I don’t have a holiday season at all. I follow the general holidays that the USA government follows. That’s about it, and all that is to me is “time i get off from work.” Which is then for me to like… sleep in and eat food, maybe drink. but nothing like at the level of what a worshipped holiday is and would look like. 

So like for you and that template, you should think of how holidays are affected by you not wanting to work with spirits. Like are there holidays where you feel are more spirit related. How are you going to deal with those holidays, how are you going go about your business on those holidays. 

For instance, some people believe that the Sun = Woman/Deity, who is married to the Moon = Man/Deity, and when they are in the sky together that it’s their “sexy times” so to speak, so you don’t go outside. The equivalent of watching your parents have sex. So you don’t leave whatever building you’re in until only one is in the sky at that time. 

So are you going to change your behaviors to mirror these beliefs and structures you’re creating in your practice. What behaviors need to occur, and what kind of limits or restrictions are you putting on yourself.

Get what I’m saying? Am I clear?

I don’t exactly have “resources” that I can give you, but I am open to discussion and being someone to bounce ideas off of. :)