Witch Thoughts

🧹

[intuwise]

Scrying is moving through these tags again this week, a few people posting their first mirror and water readings. And the most common how-to you find stops at gaze into the surface and wait, which is exactly why people sit for twenty minutes, see nothing, and decide they cannot do it. The technique that matters is in the parts nobody mentions.

Start with the gaze, because this is where most of it goes wrong. You are not staring. A hard stare fights you, your eyes water, you blink, you reset, and you never settle. What you want is a soft, slightly unfocused gaze that looks through the surface rather than at it, the way your eyes drift past a window to the street beyond the glass. The surface should lose its hard edge and go a little vague.

Then the surface starts to change, and beginners almost always misread what happens next. Within a few minutes it tends to cloud, go smoky, darken, or seem to breathe. People take that as their eyes playing tricks, snap back to a sharp focus to check, and that ends it. The clouding is the doorway, not a glitch. Part of it is simply your vision softening on a featureless field, and that softening is the exact state you are trying to reach. Let it fog over and keep your attention loose inside the fog.

It also helps to know what a vision is actually like, because the expectation is the thing that blinds you. It is almost never a clear picture floating in the glass. It is shifting shapes, a color that was not there a second ago, a shadow moving against the grain, a face that assembles for a moment and dissolves. Sometimes it is not visual at all, just a feeling, a word in the mind, or a flat knowing. If you are holding out for a sharp image, you will look straight past the real signal, which tends to be quiet and partial.

A lot of what people call a block is really the setup. Work in low light with a single candle placed behind you or off to the side, never throwing a bright reflection straight into the surface. Use a black mirror or a dark bowl of water set on a dark cloth. Sit so you cannot see your own face clearly in the surface, because a sharp reflection of yourself locks your eyes at the glass instead of through it. Fix the light and the angle and half the I cannot scry problem tends to disappear.

On patience, the honest number is that most people need somewhere between five and twenty sessions before a first real impression. The early sittings where nothing happened are not failures. They are you teaching your eyes and your attention to hold the soft state without bailing out the moment it gets strange. Ten quiet minutes a few times a week will take you further than one heroic hour.

There is a discernment line worth holding too. Not everything you see is a message. Floaters, the afterimage of the candle, the surface graying out, that is ordinary eye behavior and it is the doorway, not the content. The scried material is what comes through that state, the shape that carries meaning, the word, the pull toward something. You learn the difference by keeping a log and only trusting what recurs or genuinely lands.

When you break the gaze, write it down immediately, before your mind tidies it into a tidy story. Do not interpret in the chair. Scrying hands you raw, half-formed material, and the meaning comes later, on the page, with a little distance. The skill was never seeing harder. It is letting the surface go soft and staying in the room while it does.

[windvexer]

Then of course, spells can also be towards this conceptual Creature: a spell to banish what harms my Creature of Prosperity, a spell to heal samesuch Creature, a spell to crown this Creature with glory.

A common problem: "how can I cast the spell to acquire X if I can't see how it could possibly manifest?"

But you do not need to necessarily have insight in this manner. instead it could be:

Blessing the Creature to bring it great fortune

Luck spell on the Creature

Relationship spell to help the Creature meet good friends

Binding spell to draw the Creature towards specified things

Protection spell to mitigate the Creature stumbling or getting hurt

And there's no need to try and think about how money magic could manifest for the concept of prosperity itself, because that's just ridiculous.

You could for example have a Creature of Prosperity and then, once the altar is made, cast a prosperity spell for your Creature to bring prosperity to your prosperity.

You can do these things, no one will stop you. Not even the police.

[windvexer]

highly dependent on cosmology(?) but I would generally advise against setting up an altar to manage a part of your life and then forgetting about it, which is the magical equivalent of putting a wild horse in a corral and forgetting to feed it.

Correct, you did not need to feed it before. And yet behold, it is now starving.

You know?

Like yes, a domesticated horse can have wildly better health, longevity, safety, etc. But you also have to feed it. And you did not have to feed it while it was roaming free.

[windvexer]

Which in and of itself is a fine approach to altar building: "what if my [protection/prosperity/small business/relationships/etc] were a Creature that I was kidnapping and domesticating?"

Safe corral (protection for that thing)

Veterinary care (healing for that thing)

Home care (washing, polishing, and mending that thing)

Feedstock (energizing and feeding that thing)

Enrichment (drawing in new experiences that make the thing happier and healthier)

Getting rid of snakes (banishing things harmful to the thing)

Cute outfit for that thing (altar aesthetics matter and I don't mind saying it)

In such a style, any given altar should have a representation of the Creature and then protection for it, things to uplift it and help it to thrive, care and healing, very good source of nutrition for it to feed on, and depending on need some surrounding work put into the environment (getting rid of snakes) so that your thing is highly protected, as befitting such a cherished Creature.

You can indeed reach much greater heights of wellness and success with a domesticated thing, but then that requires all the care that homesteaders are already familiar with. And I think it's likely that to corral a Creature and then neglect puts you much worse off, because the Creature is of course ultimately something from your life important to you, that you are seeking to take direct control over.

So in some cases, it is much better to never try to enshrine the Creature at all. And in other cases, very powerful magic, and easy to be had.

[windvexer]

Poll for witches

This is for anyone who self-identifies as a witch. This poll is about assumptions or social pressure about the role of creative spellcrafting in witchcraft.

"Spells" can also broadly refer to magical techniques meant to have an effect on yourself or the world.

This refers to how you practice a large majority of the time; vote with your heart.

When I need to cast a spell...

I never re-use spells, I come up with a new one for everything

I will re-use spells but I always individualize them

I will re-use spells and sometimes individualize them

I will re-use spells but rarely or never individualize them

Thanks to memory issues, everything I do is for the first time

This doesn't apply to my practice/other

Voting ended onJul 4

Reblog to give a unicorn horn to an angel puppy

[windvexer]

Once again in defense of witchcraft being not dangerous and fucking fine to do

I am pretty sure that some witches buy into worldviews that actively frame their own magic as inherently dangerous and unbalanced.

And I think that might be what's going on, at least some of the time, when witches eschew preventive cleansing and protection.

I think that we live in an active magical ecosystem where a lot of things are happening all the time, and almost none of those things have anything to do with us.

But somehow protection magic has developed a cringy veneer, as if in order to need it you'd have to think you're a main character who's being actively targeted by evil witches and spirits.

It seems that some witches have gotten the impression that in order to be well-balanced, they've got to believe that wolves don't exist. Neither do storms, diseases, accidents, or the unscrupulous.

Cleansing has gotten the same bad rap, I feel. Inasmuch as cleansing is removing unwanted energy, a lot of witches seem to live in a world where all energy is perfectly good and natural (but they're not love-and-light witches, how could you accuse of such a thing), and not only that, but all cleansing completely strips something of every possible energy. A cleansing can destroy the utility or value of magical objects.

Just like sweeping your floor automatically destroys the floorboards, underlayment, and foundations of your house, leaving nothing but dirt and crumbled plumbing.

So protection is unnecessary for normal people, and cleansing is at best destructive. (I'd be terrified to see the curses of many witches, given how powerfully withering their most basic cleansings are.)

But it's all well and good, and this part I actually do not mean sarcastically at all - it's all well and good, because keeping up a cleansing and protection routine actually takes a decent amount of time and energy.

Depending on your methods it can get pretty streamlined. But you're still putting something on your plate - ten minutes here, five minutes there. And it can kind of get away from you.

I mean, if you start teaching yourself how to cleanse unwanted energies, then I expect by and large you're going to end up able to sense and identify unwanted energies. And then you'll start finding more magic you could be doing to deal with more problems you've learned to identify.

But it does go on: then maybe you'll get a bit overwhelmed cleansing the home, so you'd rather make a protection for the home to just keep unwanted energy out. And then that takes maintenance. And then you find a better way to do things.

And you end up doing plenty of magic.

And, if you believe that certain types of energy can accumulate around a person and make problems, and sending that energy away is therefore is helpful; and if you believe that preventative magic can stop bad things from happening; then a regular cleansing and protection routine will help things get better and go better.

I'm not saying that everyone should do preventive and maintenance magic all the time. I'm not saying that people should believe in things the same way I believe in them.

What I am saying is, hey.

Isn't it kind of weird that some witches seem to have worldviews that frame their a lot of their own magic as inherently dangerous and unbalanced?

Isn't it also kind of weird how many witches say they wish they could be doing more magic?

But no, not that kind of magic. There's no problem to chase, and that kind of prevention isn't for them, they're not a main character. No, not that kind of magic, it's at high risk of being destructive. No, not that kind of magic, that would constitute stealing from others. No, not that kind of magic, that's unethical. No, not that kind of magic, it might have unintended consequences. Also, it's unethical. Also, it's cheating.

I kind of have a conspiracy theory, okay. It's that many witches who start out eschewing spiritual hygiene (like, cleansing and protection routines) do so because they want to establish that the magical ecosystem around them isn't inherently dangerous or bad. They don't want to be the kinds of witches who think all this magic stuff is dangerous.

And I agree with that. The magical world around us isn't inherently dangerous or bad. Not any more dangerous than the mundane world around us.

But I do think a lot of witches do view their own magic as dangerous and bad. Sometimes that badness is because magic is seen as inherently destructive (like cleansing that destroy, money spells that kill and maim relatives, and job spells that strip free will from hiring managers).

At other times, the badness stems from scrupulosity: that using magic itself is inherently immoral. Protection is bad because using it demonstrates self-centeredness and egotism. Money spells are bad because you're stealing (or cheating). Binding spells are bad because you're putting your needs before others. Conjuring anything at all - from a new friend to a lucky break - may be a bit selfish, I mean, can you imagine someone who could do magic just conjuring things for themselves, instead of only helping others?

And then witches wonder how they're meant to engage in their path, when there's hardly any magic that a moral, well-balanced person would ever do.

Well, anyway. I haven't got a proper ending. Thanks for listening to my essay. I hope you're all having a nice November so far.

[rosecoloredtarot]

Troubleshooting Your Tarot Deck

I read a bunch of people for unnecessarily cleansing their decks but didn’t actually provide any alternatives! So I wanted to describe some of the ways I troubleshoot my tarot decks. Please, please, please feel free to add on.

Sleep on it. Literally. My favorite way of working through some wonky readings is to sleep with my deck under my pillow. I like to do it for 3 nights but you can really go as long as you want. You may have some pretty crazy dreams, but I like to think that means it’s working.

Change things up. If you’re dealing with repetitive answers, change how you approach it. Whether that means changing your spread, your question, your shuffling technique or a secret fourth thing.

Put the bitch down. I have found that doing readings too often can muddle them together (well, I’ve had trouble with reading for myself too frequently. Multiple people in a day is fine, but draining). Taking a break of even just a couple days can make all the difference.

Make an offering. Your tarot deck has a spirit too! Appreciate what it does for you and give it a gift. It could be a symbolic offering, like food, alcohol or some incense, or a new case to live in.

Give it a recharge. It might be acting funky because it’s tapped out. Use whichever is your preferred charging method. I like moonlight and sunlight (ironically, they are also cleansing methods, but it’s all about intention at that point).

Ask it what’s up. If you ask your deck why it’s acting out, it may just tell you what’s going on. Maybe it wants one of the other solutions, maybe it wants something else.

If none of those things work, then I’ll cleanse my deck. Sometimes it’s as simple as a smoke cleansing, sometimes it is reorder the deck and let it sit in salt for a week, it just depends on the situation.

[deadspitfaedm]

I see a lot of posts about clever 'solutions' to having to draw out complex or oranate symbols, sigils, squares, and so on. I'd offer, for myself, the act of physically writing or drawing them is the refining of the working. It's the honing in, its the energy (literal) of the effort, its the inconvenience that is the work. The purpose of the thing aside from the final result is also the building of it.

[windvexer]

So you're getting cookie-cutter, generic spirit messages despite what seems like valid contact experiences

As a follow-up to this post.

This follow-up in particular is very path-based, but my practice isn't horribly unique and so maybe it's a useful rumination for others. (Very TradCraft flavored, do with it as you like)

All of the ideas in the first post are based on the assumption that the spirits you've contacted are patient, insightful, knowledgeable, honest, and willing to work with you to help you accurately receive their messages.

In many cases that just isn't true at all! So what if you're pretty sure you're having valid experiences - but you can't get past a plateau of seemingly shallow encounters where nothing much is gained?

Here are my thoughts, troubleshooting FAQ style:

Even when helpful spirits are called, they need time to get to know you

Spirits are not omnipotent, they need to get their information much in the same way we do: via observation, experience, and exchange.

When meeting new spirits you haven't had a chance to build a strong relationship with, if you get answers that seem kind of obvious and expected to you, there's a chance that the spirit:

Hasn't had time to think about it

Doesn't have enough context to give you any additional insight

Doesn't feel like they owe you a lot of their energy to help you out

If a spirit just met you for the first time, or you've had a few short meditation sessions where almost no information is shared, how are they supposed to know you well enough to give personalized guidance?

I believe people are particularly susceptible to this when they're working with a rotating roster of spirits that are supposed to be the good spirits of their practice, but never end up building a close relationship with any of them.

If you think this may be a problem for you, see if there's an opportunity to delve into a close relationship with one spirit who can act as your helper and guide to establish deeper relationships with important allies.

The spirit actually does not know

A helpful spirit may be called for, but an unhelpful spirit may appear for any number of reasons, such as:

The practitioner put no magical technology in place (primarily wards) to limit who is actually able to respond to the call

The intended spirits arrived, but the practitioner wrongly assumed they would have helpful information

The helpful spirit did arrive, but they don't have the information on hand: they have to go get it and bring it back to you

In such a case, depending on the benevolence of the spirit and how much they care about you, answers to your questions can range widely from not answering at all, giving you generic advice, telling you what you want to hear, or outright deceiving you (perhaps either as a lark, or because they sense offerings may be coughed up).

In this sense, cookie-cutter or "I just heard what I expected to hear" messages can be a result of the spirit not having anything deeper to say. It might not matter how much context you share; they just don't know how to help you (or they don't want to help you).

If you're not making space in the meeting to hash out the logistics (did the right spirit arrive, can they actually help and under what circumstances, etc), then in my opinion it's unrealistic to expect the spirit to stop the meeting and tell you information you never asked for. I mean, how is the spirit supposed to know they weren't who you really wanted to talk to?

If you open up encounters by immediately asking your discussion questions and you're getting a lot of generic answers, a solution might be to ensure there's space at the beginning of encounters to ensure that the spirit is actually equipped to help you and is willing to do so, and then confirm under what conditions that help will be provided.

You're asking generic questions

Downvote me if you must, but you can ask "how can I be a kinder person" to ChatGPT and get some solid output.

What's the point in asking that question to the spirits you know? Do you think they're going to say something ChatGPT won't?

Perhaps a hot take, but if you want specific answers that reveal something about the nature of the spirit, then you're going to have to be vulnerable and reveal your real problems, needs, and desires.

If you want help with problems, bring your problems to the table!

If you want generic, cookie-cutter answers, then ask generic, cookie-cutter questions.

If you want personalized guidance, ask questions about your specific circumstances. But I think also very importantly, ask the spirits what they would do.

I think a counter-problem to this is that it can really highlight when the spirit you've called has nothing to say. Just because spirits are powerful, wise, and knowledgeable doesn't mean they necessarily have an opinion on that, or special insight into that kind of situation.

The spirit does know/could help, but they know you're just screwing around

Have you ever asked for advice from a spirit, completely ignored the advice you received, and then went back a bit later and asked for the same advice?

(If we count tarot cards as being spirits then I think the percentage of witches that have done this can be rounded to 100!)

I believe that the spirits will eventually lose respect for mutual interactions when it's clear that the practitioner is just coming around to get their fortune cookie of the week and has no intention of actually ever letting the encounters impact their life.

I think it's a decent rule of thumb to not ask the spirits for advice unless you're prepared to actually sit down and confront the advice you're given.

I'm not saying all spirit messages should be accepted and integrated - far from it! But if it's not worthy of a good think, if the advice literally has zero impact on you at all - then what's the point?

Even if you sit down and say, "I've thought about it and I don't want to take that advice because [I'm not ready/I don't want to go in that direction/I disagree with the philosophy/I think it will go badly]," then at least that spirit interaction has helped you grow in some way or another. It was a stepping stone that got you to process an idea, at least!

But if you're taking spirit advice and it just fades into the background, you don't accept it or reject it, maybe it just kinds of sits on your shoulders with a vague aura of guilt that you'll get around to it, a background anxiety that you're not sure it was real contact so maybe it's best not to interact with the message at all...

Why should the spirits keep offering you genuine advice when they see it's going straight into the garbage can?

I'm sure people don't intend disrespect when this happens. I don't intend disrespect when I do this. But I believe that at the end of the day, it is indeed disrespectful. The spirits can be deeply patient and forgiving, but I also think it's unreasonable to expect them to participate in a cycle where their time and energy goes into a void.

[magickfromscratch]

Here's a really simple magical act that I have found to be ridiculously effective.

On one side of one sheet of paper, write out your boundaries with the spirit world.

Examples include:

I do not consent to any "spiritual lessons" which have not been explicitly discussed with me.

I am not "up for grabs" by random deities passing by. There is no relationship unless I consent to it. I work with the following deities...

I do not require any additional suffering, and I do not consent to it; life is hard enough, thank you very much.

If you want to "help," maybe get me more money. If you want to hurt, may I recommend one of our country's billionaires?

My spiritual goals are x, y, and z.

I came to this reality to X, and not to Y.

Add any terms you like, just stick to one page, and keep it legible.

Then just stick it into your wallet and forget about it. I have a wallet phone case, and some people believe that the phone is a magical object. When off, it's a black mirror. When on, it is full of electricity (bottled lightning). And it is definitely a portal of a kind. But I think just having it on your person all the time is sufficient. When spirits approach, point to the paper. If need be, take it out and read it (doing this before entering a magical gathering is also helpful).

[windvexer]

An argument against using the unexpectedness of spirit messages as the metric of their validity

[I use "spirit" to also include gods and all entities]

Over the years I have heard something along these lines, many times:

"I know this spirit contact was valid because I wasn't expecting to hear any of it." "It seemed like a valid message, but it was what I expected to hear. So it must have been just my brain projecting my desires." "I don't believe it was a real message because it was what I thought they would say."

I don't think that using the unexpectedness of messages to judge their validity is a good idea. While it may be something useful to take into account, I think that should usually be a very small account, if anything. Here are my thoughts about that:

1. You're just not incompetent enough (common sense style)

In order for you to never accurately anticipate spirit contact experiences, this would require:

Zero insight into your current circumstances

Zero insight into conventional wisdom or common sense regarding your discussion questions

Zero understanding about the nature of the spirit; you would have no idea that Aphrodite would be likely to give a loving message, or that Mint would tell you it's good for money magic

But most importantly, I believe this would require:

A total inability for you to come up with actual good, helpful, and best-practices solutions for your own problems

And let's face it, my dudes. None of us are that incompetent!

Because if you can roll up to a spirit discussion with questions like:

"How do I get over my ex?"

"What are cloves good for in magic?"

"What should I study next in my practice?"

Then the valid answers from the spirits are very likely to be things you can TOTALLY anticipate, like:

"Invest time into hobbies and love into good friendships"

"Protection and attaining luxuries"

"Ancestor work"

"Ah," you perhaps say, "but I have been feeling guilty this entire time for not getting into ancestor work, so surely this is a projection of my guilty mind!"

But perhaps you feel guilty for not engaging in it because you know this is something you need to be doing, and so the spirits are confirming that your suspicions are correct: this is what you should be doing.

Just about any one can come up with the association of protection (fiery warm!) and money magic (expensive spices; luxurious holiday treats) from clove. You see what I mean?

Surface level spirit contact is likely to give surface-level answers. These surface-level answers are likely already available to you.

That doesn't make the encounter invalid, but it does make many encounters relatively predictable.

2. The deeper spirit relationships get, the more you are soaked in that current, and the more you will understand on your own without having to be told

You may say, very well! Surface-level encounters may be easily predictable, but what happens when you get in deep with a tribe of spirits? Surely they will be telling you things that blow your socks off, things you could never have guessed before.

Perhaps so, but also, maybe not.

If you start working closely with certain gods and spirits, their power will tend to infuse your life. If you're calling spirits into your space, giving them places in your home, eating and praying with them, taking their advice and applying it in your life, and working with them to attain magical goals, then sooner or later your life will become saturated with those currents.

The power is not separate from the wisdom. The spells are not separate from the power. The communion is not separate from the spells. Your life is not separate from the communion. The power is not separate from your life. It goes around and around like that.

When you work with the power, you feel the teaching inside of it, even if you have to find the vocabulary words yourself. When you live with the spirits, you feel their opinions, even if you have to find the actions and behaviors yourself.

So when you call the spirits and ask, "okay, what is the real use for clove; the most true and best use," and they tell you what you've really been suspecting all along - then that may just be a pretty good indication that you are a part of the family, and you picked it up along the way - whether you knew it or not.

3. You're already magical enough (wizard style)

Almost never have I met someone who claimed to have power, who did not have at least some power.

I have met many, many more people who have claimed to have little or no power, when in my opinion they certainly did have more than they thought. They were just lost in the maze of invalidating everything according to rules of thumb, like, "my intuition told me oranges can heal, and a spirit told me that too, so the spirit contact was invalid and probably my intuition too, I must have just read it somewhere if I'm so sure of it."

Magic is great. Lots of potential tools in the grab bag, like:

Precognition (you kind of know what people are going to say before they say it)

Intuition (you kind of just know things)

Psychism (you kind of receive external messages, even without requesting them)

I believe all people are inherently energy-sensing and energy-using. To me, people who are not sorcerers are just living a magically sedentary lifestyle! When you start living a mildly to moderately magical life, I believe that you start gaining an intuition about these things.

On average, humans can see sights, taste flavors, smell scents, and feel energies. When you smell a strawberry pie and you intuit that it's very rewarding to eat, this is much the same as wondering what herb to use in a "banish my ex" spell and reaching for the Old Bay with a sense that it will be very rewarding to employ.

There's no starting from zero! Even beginner witches start out having lived a lifetime of energy sensing. And with a little practice, magical insight can be gained by leaps and bounds.

And with even a little magical insight, like, "hey, isn't it weird that I usually have approximate knowledge of what people are going to say?" then there is very little opportunity to be taken completely off guard by the contents of spirit conversations.

A little power is easily had, and a little power is all you need to see around a lot of nearby corners. And the more time you spend trying to convince yourself that you're starting at zero, the more time you'll be stuck at level 3 or 4 or wherever you actually started at.

[awitchnamedjuniper]

Kitchen Witchery: Peach Pudding

Two sweet treats I can eat my weight in: banana pudding and peach cobbler. This dessert combines some of my favorite things about both. It's sweet, yummy, and definitely a comfort food I could easily make on repeat.

On the witchy side of things, it's good packed with ingredients like peaches, cream, and cinnamon, which are great for enhancing workings that revolve around love, joy, and comfort.

Ingredients

2 cans sliced California Cling Peaches, drained

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups cold milk

1 package instant vanilla pudding mix

14oz can sweetened condensed milk

16oz container frozen whipped topping, thawed-reserve 1 cup for topping

1 package vanilla wafers

Directions

In a medium bowl, add the peaches, cinnamon, and vanilla. Combine and mash the peaches with a fork. Set aside.

Place milk and pudding mix in a large bowl; beat with a whisk for about 2 minutes. Whisk in condensed milk until smooth. Fold in the whipped topping.

Arrange a layer of wafers in the bottom of a casserole dish. Top with a layer of pudding mixture and then a layer of the mashed peaches; repeat layers until all ingredients are used.

Spread the 1 cup of the reserved whipped topping on top and chill pudding in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.

[Photo credit to Roman Biernacki]

[fernthewhimsical]

I was thinking about making a rainbow spread based on the pride flag colours, but Interrobang Tarot beat me to it! Not only that, it's part of a free e-book with seven queer inspired spreads! Go check it out

[cultusquercus]

I advise that you do meta magic. Not in dnd but like actually.

Do magic that helps you to do more magic.

Do magic that gets you motivated to do all of the other magic you've been meaning to do.

Do magic that gives you that extra burst of energy and ability to ignore your pain for long enough to do magic more often.

Do magic that creates a shortcut into doing other magic.

Do meta magic.

[carbon-heart]

Really getting burnt out on compass laying/circle casting tech. I'm sure different things work for different people, but it's just not working for me as well as other techniques of power raising and spirit calling. I've been trying different ways of tapping the power that already exists in the land (as opposed to calling it from Elsewhere), as well as using a bullroarer made from scraps I got from a woodworking class way back when.

I guess this should be a lesson to me that what is formulaic in a lot of trad craft books is not always best for an individual.

[ioqayin]

Can you expand more on what you mean here? Do you mean the methods for drawing up a circle with quarter calls, and different materia used to draw the circle?

I'd love to hear of other methods :3

[carbon-heart]

Specifically, what I'm getting burnt out on is the various permutations of casting a circle and calling on elemental powers, associated with various points on a compass. I find that the lowercase-t traditional/folkloric methods work better for me (as opposed to the very Wiccan-influenced "calling of the watchtowers"), but it still seems like an unnecessary step in many workings.

Of course, there are many methods of raising and calling power that don't involve cardinal directions at all. The bullroarer mentioned above, for example, is calling on the spirits that are already present in the land-- I'm not necessarily building roads to fetch them from the Other. (That's my interpretation, anyway.) I do like the tech and concept of compass-laying, I just need to find a way to make it interesting for me.

Also, I've heard tell of laying visible rings of flour, oats or other materia to delineate a circle, but I've never done that. That just seems like a real pain to clean up.

[ioqayin]

I find in my personal work it's much easier and more expedient to call up all the spirits at the same time, but when I'm working in a group in order to help focus everyone I go to each direction and call the spirits.

I find that a lot of the methods for circle casting/compass laying are written with a group in mind. There are too many moving parts of one person!

The bullroarer is an excellent way to call up spirits. I also enjoy whistling, drumming, and singing up the spirits.

I have used chalk and flour to lay the circle. I also have a cord that when laid out makes up a 9ft circle. It fires my imagination! But again, most of these methods seem to written for a group, and it's much easier to clean up after ritual with many hands.

[waning-knives]

Bit of a ramble about languages for magic. Never mind the Latin and Greek and dubiously appropriative Hebrew, that's not what this is about (or, well, it might be i guess, sort of)

But anyway, most magic resources I've seen have been in and for English, with English incantations and all. (Which is usually fine, I take them more as inspiration than performing them as written anyway, but…)

The problems with English are: one, it's not my native language, so speaking it when I'm alone feels fake and unnatural - English is the language of media, the internet and playing pretend, not anything real. And two, it's not the native language of where I live, either. And I don't know if whatever spirits and energies live here understand one language better than another, or if language is just the interface on my end, but using English here feels another order of magnitude weirder than using it in an English-dominant region.

The/my native language is fine if I'm just, like, talking to things regular-like with no fancy. 'Please protect this house ' or whatever. And maybe one or two traditional things, and i could get a bit more out of fairy tales, if there were ever a time when they'd apply. But I'm not great at designing them, and if i ever need a pre-made incantation my options are severely limited. Might have to give in and buy a more local book sometime, maybe?

Anyway. I'm not going to use Greek or Latin or Hebrew. BUT.

I have been learning toki pona recently. For unrelated reasons.

And i tried it out in a magic context a few times. Mostly as a translation exercise.

And i am amazed at how well it works. It's enough of a language that you can express almost anything with it, but simple enough that... you know that thing where you're talking at your ritual for a while and it takes like four goes before you find the Right words and can move on? That doesn't happen in toki pona. There aren't any extra words to sort through except the right ones.

Also it has a pictogram-y writing system that's fairly intuitive, so the meanings are much closer the symbols than, for example, English. Which has obvious uses.

Like, this isn't why toki pona was invented, but if i were going to invent a language for magic (and I were any good at conlanging), it'd end up pretty similar.

Anyone else use anything not English in magic?

[windvexer]

versatile tarot spreads: crown and branches (5 cards)

This post is part of a short series on "tarot spreads which require you to bring your own questions to the table."

Another one of my own design, not very original but one I cooked up when I first learned tarot and never lost it.

This spread is very good for a general overview of any situation at hand.

The first two cards are a pair.

The first card is the "crown" and shows the most major, important, and/or obvious information in a situation. If no specific question is provided, this card functions as a signifier.

The second card is the "roots" shows hidden and/or subtle influences which are very important, but perhaps not as evident, and should not be ignored.

The last three cards are a triad (or, the "branches"). They show specific details about the subject at hand. This triad may function as a beginning/middle/end timeline, as three highly interlinked cards, or as three mostly independent details. Let intuition guide, or before the spread is drawn, specify what type of detail is desired.

The positioning of the cards here begins to matter very much. The triad floats in-between the first pair of card, allowing them to equally be influenced by either the crown (card 1) or the roots (card 2) of the situation.

Consider how your reading might change if, instead of a straight line, the triad is arranged in a triangle.

Or, if instead of being placed top to bottom, the pair is placed side-by side - or if the crown card is placed above of the triad, while the roots card is placed below it.

A more simple version can be obtained by removing card two, the root - which eliminates subtext, but also the amount of information you need to sort through.

[elminx]

Since I have seen a lot of posts about correspondences in witchcraft going around again, I wanted to stop for a minute and talk about how correspondences work and why you might want to make sure that you understand the correspondences you are using in your own craft.

This is likely an oversimplification, but I think that we can break down correspondences into three main categories:

Cultural Correspondences - these are often heavily steeped in the mythology and folklore of a particular region. They are often but not always correspondences of items found in that region. This is where correspondences become the most varied because, despite what you may have read in Those Bad Witchcraft Books, culture is not universal. A great example of this is that most Western cultures associate the color black with Death and Mourning but a lot of non-Western cultures have the same association with the color white. It stands to reason that this type of correspondence will work the best for you if you are sticking as close to the correspondences of the bioregion that you grew up in as possible (1) and that they will be most effective when used magically on somebody else from that bioregion (2).

Material Correspondences - these correspondences are based on the physical properties of the item in question. Some plants are edible, some medicinal, and some poisonous. Things with thorns can hurt you when you touch them. Quartz has high levels of electric conductivity. The idea here is that if Rosemary repels insects, it can be used in a banishment spell to repel that unwanted "insect" from your life. These are, in my opinion, the immutable correspondences - the item you are using will ALWAYS carry its physical characteristics with it into your magic. Spicy peppers will always be Hot and Burning, so-called "Weeds" will always grow tenaciously, and Sugar will always be Sweet. It is worth keeping in mind here that when using plants, the part of the plant may affect whether it carries that correspondence. Sometimes only one part of the plant carries a particular property - consider the difference between the sweet scent of rose petals that we use in love spells versus the sharp thorn that would be better used for protection. 3. Sympathetic Correspondences - The base concept behind sympathy is that two things that are alike in some way share a connection with one another that can be harnessed magically. The more alike that two things are, the deeper the connection. There are many ways that this is used in magic. A lot of herbal correspondences involve sympathy through the Doctrine of Signatures. This is the thought process that anything shaped like an ear can be used to affect ears/hearing magically. The Doctrine of Signatures gets rolled in a little bit with Cultural Correspondences as it is heavily rooted in Western herbalism, but it deserves a mention on its own. Another way that sympathetic magic makes its way into correspondences is the idea that an object from a particular place carries some of the energy of that place which can be harvested for magical intent. You see this in the use of bank dirt in money spells or cemetery dirt in baneful magic. This is also where Holy water, moon water, and stormwater come into play - here we are assuming that something that has been done to the water (being blessed by a priest, charged in the moon, or collected during a storm) carries an inherent energy that can be then transferred to your spell. Depending on your viewpoint, you may or may not agree with the concepts of sympathetic magic.

And that's the whole point of this. Witchcraft, as a whole, isn't the sort of path where you are supposed to proceed based entirely on blind faith. If you're flipping to a certain page in Scott Cunningham's infamous Green Book and finding the first money herb you come across to use in a spell, you are probably doing yourself a disservice. I suggest that you look closer. Not only will the physical correspondence change how your spell manifests (I've written about this before) but you may find that you don't even BELIEVE or AGREE with that correspondence at all. And maybe that's not important to you (but if that's true, why are you even reading this?). But I suggest that it should be. That understanding of a correspondence deepens your connection with the energy of the item you are looking to use. Moreover, exploring it further may give you all sorts of juicy ideas for spellwork to augment that energy.

Do you like my work? You can support me by tipping me on Kofi or purchasing an astrology report written just for you.

[breelandwalker]

Reblogging for this excellent listing of context in correspondences (and not least because it's likely at least in part referencing some of my own material).

Looking into the What and Why of correspondences is both an excellent critical thinking exercise and a good way to get a better idea of both the history of witchcraft and how magical systems work. Also, let me highlight this quote, because it sums up the matter rather elegantly:

And maybe that's not important to you (but if that's true, why are you even reading this?). But I suggest that it should be.

It absolutely SHOULD matter to you why we believe the things we believe about witchcraft and magic and where those ideas come from. Exploring and understanding those nuances is part of building a solid practice and should absolutely be part of your educational lineup.