Subtle Witchcraft

For when black cats and broomsticks are a little too flashy. Subtle, they/themBuy Tarot Readings and More

[thesubtlewitch]

A Re-Introduction of Sorts

Hello all! It's been a hot minute. I've been rebloging witchy content here and there, but I've been neglecting this blog a little bit. Grad school ended up being a lot more emotionally intense than I anticipated, and I didn't really have much extra time/energy for my craft, or posting. Now that I've graduated and am in a much healthier environment, I really want to get back into making some original content and being a part of the witchy community again.

I'm getting the feeling that the focus of this blog is going to shift a little bit. I created this blog when I was 15 and my parents were still very much getting used to the idea of me deciding that I wasn't a catholic anymore. I was sharing a bedroom, and I also just cared waaaay more about what people thought of me. Now that I'm an adult with a lot more freedom and confidence, I'm a lot less interested in being secretive about my craft. That's not to say that I'm no longer going to be posting low-key witchcraft content, but it's definitely no longer solely what I'm interested in posting. (And I'm keeping the blog name for sure. Subtle has kind of become my occult identity and I'm a fan of it.)

All of that being said, I would love suggestions of good witchy blogs to follow! A lot of my go-to tumblrs from back in the day have sadly deleted or moved on to different content. I would love to get to know who's kicking around the scene these days.

(Also!! I use they/them pronouns now! I realized how long it had been since I updated when I saw that my blog still had she/her lmao)

~Subtle

[witches-bottle-deactivated20241]

Various Tips

Use an item to hold excess spiritual energy after rituals. It serves to make a good reservoir for other rituals. A tip I also learnt is to put the excess energy into the altar and it empowers the altar a greater deal. Of course, energy raised during curses isn't put into the altar but maybe a second item which can then be used in future curses.

Have a pot nearby with some dirt that you've consecrated with the four elements. Then you have a place near your altar that you can bury items in to charge, especially placing them under the moon for a while. A second pot can also be consecrated during the Deipnon and dedicated towards the Holy Dead, which then can become a relatively good substitute for graveyard dirt.

On that note, here's a fun bit from 'Tools of Avernus' by S. Aldarnay on a simple item called the Orcus Casket which can be used to charge items with the energy of the Underworld, or Hades rather. A wooden box is taken and filled some or all of the following: grave dirt, powdered bone (a nice chicken bone may also be buried in the grave and then left for a few nights before being dug up with a prayer and ground up), yew wood shavings (cypress could also be well and good) and baneful or poisonous herbs and plants. You could then probably place it back in the Death-Dirt for another lunar cycle, saying prayers to the Mistress over it for that time before digging it back up and using it to charge items for necromancy.

[windvexer]

I love witchcraft because you will be laboring under an intense problem for 10 years (what to do with excess ritual energy) and then blorbo from the dashboard will, over a year ago and unbeknownst to you, be like "put the energy in the altar! :)" and then you find out about it fourteen months later from a random reblog, and God as my witness I would have never figured that tip out on my own, while I am simultaneously over here trying to figure out good ways to regularly provide energy to my altars.

[friend-crow]

People talk about how urban witchcraft can be hard because you have no access to nature, which I don't agree with. There are animals and plants everywhere, even though people tend to scorn the ones that thrive in an urban environment. Like yeah it would be nice to have easy access to some woods, but you've got weeds, you've got rats and raccoons -- you can make do.

The real problem with urban witchcraft is the lack of damn privacy. I can't even get ecstatic around a bonfire because my neighbors are ten feet away and I still have to face them every day.

[mamaangiwine]

It's okay to be aesthetically inclined in your practice, but it is important to remember that aesthetics are not history and to remain flexible when you're being confronted with actual historical research. It's okay to be inspired, but to take care that you're not shaping your identity around historical misconceptions and romantic notions.

I mention this because inflexibility on this topic is what nazis and other white supremacists prey on in pagan and occult circles.

Nazis do not care about historical accuracy; in fact they loathe it as a cruel force that would take away their participation in a larger, grander narrative. They view it as a plot to strip them of their supposed birthright.

If you find yourself clinging to a false narrative for the sake of purpose, and go searching for info that makes it "true", please keep in mind that Nazis will always tell you they have the "answers".

One of the hardest parts of this path, no matter the tradition, is having to accept when we are wrong. Especially when we thought we had all the answers. In that way, we are not just reconciling with history but with ourselves.

[windvexer]

Witches don't owe you mundanity, actually.

Discussions about "mundane before magic" are important. I'm not against them.

When I was working full time, for half of the year I woke up before sunrise, worked all day indoors, and drove home after sunset. Being able to experience the weather felt like a truly magical event. Feeling the sun on my skin felt like a kiss from the gods.

And it's very handy for there to be awareness that, no, Apollo wasn't calling to me to be a devotee because the one day I was really stressed in December the clouds broke and it was sunny in the outdoor seating area.

Clouds just move sometimes.

But I am against people's need to come into conversations which are specifically about real magic that is happening, and say, "hold on! What if it's not happening, though? Rule out mundane first!"

It's actually fine for witches to have conversations that assume the reality of magic without people needing to barge in and say, "wait! What if this isn't magic at all?"

These conversations are not inherently unsafe or irrational.

The people participating in them are not automatically mentally ill or in need of medical treatment.

"Mundane before magical" is not a talisman that needs to be hung on conversations before they can be rational and useful.

It is not up to you to decide the route other practitioners want to take in order to explore their own experiences.

Sound bites about "ruling out mundane" aren't helpful if people do not understand how to practically apply that advice.

People are not obligated to trot out a list of their mundane discernment techniques before they make a magical post about magic in the magical community, and declining to do so does not mean that they failed to take those steps.

For heaven's sake. If you cannot comfortably exist around magical conversations without assuming that everyone else is engaging in irrational thinking, you are the problem.

Conversations about developing discernment of mundanity itself are very good and healthy.

But these talking points do not belong in every single conversation. Much less in personal posts where a person is just sharing cute photos of spells they did!

Look, practitioners do not owe you mundanity.

Practitioners do not owe you an explanation of the mundane shit they've done in conjunction with a spell.

Practitioners do not owe you an explanation of the mental health counseling they've received as part of their spiritual journey.

Practitioners are not obligated to tack on lip-service "mundane first :3" disclaimers onto posts that are clearly discussing the reality of magic within their own paradigm.

Magical practitioners do not owe you mundanity.

Please, make your own posts about mundanity discernment. Do research, ask practitioners, make well-rounded masterposts. Share and reblog these posts. Link them when appropriate. Be a part of the conversation that highlights these important issues and discernment skills. Contribute resources when people ask for help with their magical discernment.

But don't think that walking into any random post and asking OP why they assumed they had a magical experience is helpful in the slightest.

[windvexer]

banishing (how to do it)

yeah this is like all UPG but it works good for me, take what you will and leave the rest behind.

if your response to this is "but most people never ever have to deal with unwanted spirit problems so you're probably wrong if you think it's a spirit! do shadow work and touch grass!" please let me invite you to just not interact with this post at all.

Don't cleanse. Like please don't, why do people do this??

"I am confident an unwanted spirit is in my home and I cleansed but nothing happened."

Okay, an unwanted guest is in your home and you did a bit of vacuuming and washing the dishes, so why are they still there??

Why WOULDN'T they be there?! It's nicer now??? It's better for them to stay?!?!?!

"I want to break up with my boyfriend so I did his laundry but he's still texting me :/"

Cleansing =/= banishing and cleansing should be saved for cleaning up after an unwanted spirit after they are banished, which again, is not accomplished by cleansing.

Stop raising wards that trap the spirit inside.

"I cleansed and put up a protection but that only made the problem worse!"

Yes you did a wash up and locked the spirit inside with you, of course it's pissed off. It's trapped.

If you feel the need for immediate protection when dealing with a spirit problem, craft an amulet that serves as a personal protection for you. NOT one that seals off the entrances to your home.

Once the spirit problem is taken care of and you are confident its presence has been removed, feel free to raise up those wards sky high.

Also, if you are heavy-handed with the warding, spirits can sometimes just get trapped inside regardless. Learn how to temporarily "switch off" wards when you need to so things can leave.

Put your fucking foot down and tell the spirit to leave.

This will solve a surprising number of unwanted spirit problems. Not all of them, and come on, please stop telling people they never need to learn actual banishing skills just because telling spirits to leave works most of the time.

But you gotta do it. And I mean you don't have to be an asshole about it. You don't have to jump right into screaming in the spirit's general direction and threatening all such harm on it.

And there's plenty of good reasons to start with this step, especially if you want to be a spirit worker, but that's neither here nor there. Just tell them to leave.

Go to an area where you think the spirit is, or go where its private and speak with the intent that the spirit will hear you.

(You may also sign or write; would generally not recommend doing this operation entirely mentally)

"Hey, Dude. I know you're here, and I want you to know that you must leave. It is no longer an option for you to stay. I request that you leave immediately, and I request that you do not come back to this place. Leave now and we part ways in peace."

Do not go belly up and beg the spirit. It benefits you to behave with authority and dignity.

DO NOT try to "soften the blow" by twisting your words into something that is no longer a demand that the spirit depart. "Hey, if it's okay with you, I'm hoping you'll leave soon, or as soon as you're able... I don't feel comfortable with you here, and I'd prefer if you went." Great, now the spirit knows how you feel. So what?

Banish the spirit (or human, or whatever).

Presumably we're at this step because the prior step ("bro, seriously just leave and never come back") did not work.

Obtain correspondences heavily associated with banishing, use them to enchant a candle, burn the candle.

Can't use a candle? Try a simmer pot.

No fire at all, including incense? Try a floor wash (test carpets to ensure there will not be staining).

Can't burn things or clean the house? Try a sigil you visualize being imprinted on all the walls of your home.

Can't visualize? Consecrate something to represent the spirit, drop it in a jar of water along with banishing correspondences, swirl it around like a whirlpool, chant about the spirit being washed away.

No waterproof containers? Consecrate something to represent the spirit, stand on the edge of your property, throw it off the edge of the property.

You get my drift -- do magic. Do magic. Do magic that banishes. Use magic specifically to banish. Not to cleanse the vibrations or whatever. Specifically magic intended to yeet a spirit.

At this point, do not try to ignore the problem or keep talking it out. Do not just try to meditate or whatever. Do magic. Do magic that banishes.

Here's a banishing spell if you need it:

Basil, cloves, red pepper

Candle (ideally, red)

Paper and ink

Small offering

Draw the planetary seal of mars and the planetary square on a piece of paper, ideally in red. Dress a candle in oil (*burning your house down is an effective way to banish a spirit but perhaps too heavy-handed; dress with care) and include either one or three dried, powdered herbal correspondences to it.

Dedicate the candle to Mars. ("Planet Mars, someone on the internet told me you'd help me if I asked - I'm asking now. I give this candle to you. It belongs to you now.")

Put the candle near the paper.

Evoke Mars. ("Planet Mars, where your symbol exists so you exist. Where your planetary square exists, so do you exist. The space has been made welcoming to you through the presence of these Martian correspondences.") The martian correspondences are the basil/cloves/peppers, btw ("I ask you to bring your attention now to me. I ask you to dwell fully in this space.")

Read the Orphic hymn to Ares if you'd like a little extra elbow grease behind your evocation.

Petition Mars. ("So please get rid of this spirit, it seriously sucks so bad.")

Offer payment. ("In exchange for this help I know you will provide, I give you this candle and also this [small offering].")

Seal the deal. No, you do not need to be able to receive psychic confirmation from a planet or whatever, but do not proceed if you feel any gut-level bad feelings or suddenly get a ton of anxiety. If that happens, be like, "Mars, buddy, never mind - I get a bad feeling about this, so I'm noping out. Thanks for listening while you did. Leave in peace."

But if you feel fine about moving ahead, just be like, "now I give you Mars this offering, and I light your candle, with full and total assuredness that this spirit will be permanently banished from my space, my life, and my home."

[Light the candle, give the offering]

Cleanse

The spirit should be gone before you put up wards

Residual ickyness can make you feel the spirit is still nearby even if its been banished

Cleanse your space and see if the symptoms of the spirit return.

If symptoms return, the spirit has not been banished.

If they don't return,

Put up wards.

Ya got haunted because ya didn't have a fence up to stop random cows from wandering into the garden of your life and trampling all your hard work. Put up the wards.

Oh, but maybe the banishment didn't work, in which case:

Mitigate symptoms.

I mean yeah, maybe try at least a few more types of magical banishing, call in a priest even. But!

Not every spirit can be banished. That's just the long and short of it.

As humans we have the capacity to intertwine our lives, intentionally or otherwise, with forces that cannot be immediately removed from our presence.

Like if the grand spirit of a forest hates all humans and you build a house in the forest, you're not going to be able to banish the forest from the forest, you feel me?

Sometimes, banishing isn't the solution.

As rare as it is, it happens. Make personal protections, use mirror or other illusory wards to hide from its attention, make reparations if possible, avoid attracting attention, and get on with your life.

[friend-crow]

[corvidae-witch-deactivated20230]

some tarot tips i've collected over the years

- when shuffling, pay attention to the cards that fall out of the deck. sometimes they have a special message for you.

- questions aren't always necessary when reading. letting the cards tell you what they need to helps to develop your intuition, and the relationship between you and your deck (or the spirit you are working with, depending on how you divine information).

- when reading with multiple cards (i.e. as a spread), try and string the cards together rather than interpreting them by their individual meanings:

recurring suits, themes, symbols, and numbers

proportions of suits and uprights vs. reversals

position of the cards (e.g. if people are present in the cards, where are they looking?)

colours of the cards (e.g. do any of the cards stand out more than the rest?)

- although each card has a core meaning, different decks with different art could emanate different "flavours" of the core meaning.

- draw a clarifying card if something confuses you, but try not to draw any more than two cards per reading.

[windvexer]

my tarot deck tells me what i want to hear instead of the truth. do i put it in time-out or something?

Generally I would suspect this to be more of a user error, but I recommend various forms of troubleshooting.

Cleanse the deck (spreading all the cards out in a big pile and putting the deck back in its original order works well, or any method you prefer)

Examine rituals you use surrounding readings (do you shuffle a certain amount of times? Pray to an entity? Set intent?) and modify, discard, or create entirely new ones

Review any spellwork related to protection, secrets, truth, and visibility, and see if your own magic is blocking you

Examine your personal beliefs about where the answers from tarot come from (from you? From the deck? From 'The Universe'? From a discrete entity?) and attempt to link to a different source for answers. Linking to a different source may be done through rituals that surround your readings.

Stop all divination for a period of time as a reset for yourself.

Charge or feed your deck.

Tarot can sometimes malfunction like this for various reasons (this list is not comprehensive):

You are attempting to read on questions you have no actual ability to read, so the deck is basically blue-screening.

You already know or have been provided the answers you seek, so the deck is declining to restate them.

You are reading multiple times on the same questions, which - like a clone of a clone - begins to produce weird results.

You are trying to use tarot as a substitute for critical thinking or personal decision-making (instead of a tool to facilitate them) and whatever spiritual powers exist in your life are preventing this from happening.

You are trying to obtain esoteric answers about your spiritual path, entities, or other arcane topics which are simply unavailable to you and will not be revealed through simple divination.

You are trying to read on a person or situation which is protected from divinatory prying.

The deck is correct and the cards contain the truth, but you can't see past your reflection in them.

Best of luck in getting it sorted.

[will-o-the-witch]

Witch Tip #5

95% of the time, you do not need a massive list of every plant ever alongside a list of buzzword correspondences. You can get by in most things with five or six well-selected, easily-accessible local plants and herbs that you know intimately and spend the time learnng about in-depth. 

[cryptotheism]

"we have made the tarot deck easier to use by simplifying the imagery!" Girl the deck is easier to use the MORE complex the symbology is. The images are esoteric roadmaps that explain what the cards mean. Simplifying the imagery makes them LESS accessible and HARDER to use.

[windvexer]

hey chicken! any good tips on cursing someone?

I got a few for ya' in the old grab bag of henpeckery.

Listed in no particular order.

One is generally advised to not curse another magical practitioner, especially one who Knows What They're Doing. But if hands must be thrown, ensure you have more than a couple wards up to break malefica - and if this person is in your friend group, under no circumstances can you accept gifts or food from them (and destroy anything they have given you). Do, however, try to give them gifts and pre-cursed foods.

Giving someone a cursed object or cursed food is an excellent way to get the job done. There's something very fairy-like in the way magic can work: by accepting the gift, they accept the curse, and it circumvents many natural defenses.

Perhaps more than any other form of magic, it does to pre-divine on the matter to see what outcome will occur. I highly encourage this when the cursing is done as a form of self-defense, because sometimes some forms of malefic magic can be fuel on the fire of abusive situations. However, even a practitioner of slight power can cause serious harm with a curse - perhaps more damage than intended. It's really just best to measure twice, as it were.

As with many spells, create for yourself a little indicator that the spell has worked. For example, wear one of those brittle hematite rings. If it breaks, the spell has become manifest. This is especially lovely if the person to be cursed is outside of your social circle and you don't have access to see if your manifestation worked.

Cleverness is all well and good, as is poetic justice. A witch does well to keep in mind, however, that their natural strengths may neither be clever nor poetic, and sometimes you've got to just make due with the tools you have in your toolbox.

When casting spells on yourself or your household, targeting isn't much of an issue. You're right there, the magic is right there, and voila. However, when working on a third party - especially one that doesn't live with you - targeting becomes relevant. If gifting an object or food to your target won't work, consider doing what you can to bring your curse into their presence by whatever physical means are safe and possible. If you can't do this, see if you can obtain something of theirs to work over by use of a poppet or some other sympathetic magic. If none of this is possible, try to make a thoughtform or employ a spirit to deliver your spell (or attack them outright), but this will be hard unless you know where they live. In other words: your spell has to get to them somehow. Figuring out how to make it happen is half the job.

Depending on how the magic is worked, it is beneficent to cleanse both yourself and your casting area after the work is done. If a spell must be kept ongoing and close at hand, cover it with a black cloth (or t-shirt, or whatever) and keep it out of view to avoid having your own space polluted with unwanted energies.

If you need a specific outcome for your own wellbeing, consider employing as many spells as you require to obtain that outcome. E.g. one for binding a tongue, another for getting that person fired, another to calm gossip in the workplace, and so on.

Pay extremely little mind to people with moral admonitions, but keep their scoldings filed away. In a few months or years, in moments of reflection, ask yourself whether or not they were right.

If for no other spell, this time, write down precisely what you do. If for no other reason than to cackle maniacally as you see exactly how each little ingredient of your spell plays out in their lives.

[libraford]

A spell of personal reflection

You will need: a room and yourself.

Directions:

Go sit in a corner

Think about what you’ve done. 

[libraford]

Nice to see this post is still thriving in 2022.

[thewoodbine-deactivated20241020]

Witchcraft is often far too concerned with sanitization.

"Cleanse your tools weekly!" "Never buy anything second-hand or bring a gift into your home without purifying its energy!" "Your tools won't work if they've sat too long!"

No wonder your craft has the vibrational tone of a department store. I'm looking for that kind of magic that has a ༄ؘ ۪۪۫۫ ▹patina◃ ۪۪۫۫ ༄ؘ

[windvexer]

Wise Chicken, how did you learn all this stuff?

Hello; you have gotten my name backwards, but it is no matter.

I spent time with people who already knew what they were doing. I read some books, probably not enough. I practiced. Practiced, practiced, practiced.

Practiced all kinds of things. I believed a lot of what people told me. Have to do energy work to be a witch? Okay, I did that. Have to learn cleansing and protections first? Okay, I did that too. It was stupid advice. I learned energy work, protection, and cleansing.

Didn't want to be caught by my parents, cast a spell to remain hidden. Disastrous results. Got help, learned a lot. Fixed it, learned a lot.

Experience, experience. Something in my room scared the dog. I told it to leave, and it did. Experience. Something in my room scared me, I told it to leave. It didn't. So then I tried something else. And something else. And something else.

Fucked around, found out. Bored of energy work, went to spirit work. Then astralling. Then channeling. Then new spirits, new places. I see something shiny in magic and I want it. I go and get it.

Now the trick of it is,

I usually do not get it.

But by the time I stop and look around I'm always in someplace new. Then I find my way back to somewhere half-way decent. The only true talent I have for witchcraft is looking around and saying, "well, this won't do."

What to learn? What path to walk? What road is best?

No path to walk. That's not how it works.

Path is not chosen. It is the story you tell yourself about where you've already been. Look behind you and let narrative unfold. That's the only thing path ever is. Maybe, if your story matches someone else's, your road maps might be much the same. Maybe you can learn about your future from their past.

But none of that is practice. None of that is experience.

Do things. Fix what you did. Embrace the absurd, seek the impossible. Chase after the shiny like a beady-eyed chicken stampeding after an iridescent beetle.

And at all times, mind your dreams.

[thefiresontheheight]

one of the funniest parts of this website is there are people really trying to practice wizardry on here and also people roleplaying as wizards on here and they constantly interact with each other

[elminx]

Real talk here:

Yes, some witches curse and hex.

But also: if you don't know a witch who has a reason to be out to get you, you probably don't need to worry about it.

The things that could increase your chances of being cursed or hexed:

knowing a number of witches in real life (people are much more likely to get mad and stay mad at people they actually know)

doing something really shitty to a witch

having a LARGE follower count on social media that's focused on witchcraft (follower count in the thousands at least)

I assume most of the people reading this don't fit any of these criteria. Congrats, you (probably) don't need to worry about it.

[jasper-pagan-witch]

I think we would be able to handle at least a small portion of this whole "correspondences and substitutions thing" (most of which relies on folklore, historical use, and cultural context) if we started using the word "connotation" to describe a specific sort of influence that an ingredient has in a spell.

Basically, we should be like pretentious wine tasters.