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@werekin
Imagine how absolutely baffled a Roman soldier from like 0 AD would be upon being transported suddenly to a very Christian rural midwestern town and seeing crosses everyfuckingwhere
He’d draw a lot of somewhat incorrect conclusions about our culture very quickly
"This town is full of very very small criminals...."
I was going to say “weird and arbitrary things are marked with the threat of execution” but yours is funnier
why do you think it's so common for writers to insert themselves into their stories?
I don't know.
alright i am readyto catch it
toss me the object and i will catch it because im peepared
here you go little buddy
Nothing will ever be as funny to me as doctor who from the masters pov. Your best friend wanders into the woods and befriends a group of squirrels. He decides he will protect that specific tree with his life, even at the cost of your own species. You are the last two humans in the world. You once again try to burn down that fucking tree
op i am howling
how dare you hide this in the tags!
Also one time you tricked the squirrels into electing you Squirrel President.
Lil concept for intermediate or beginner+ witches
If you've already cast for everything you need in the short to mid-term and you're looking for avenues of practice:
Look ahead and find a very strong astrological election for any desired operation (wealth, social standing, healing, psychism, defenses, etc.). If you need ideas, consider upgrading current enchanted objects or getting permission to cast on a mundane friend.
Dedicate your spare research time to building or modifying an ideal spell for your operation. Especially consider aligning stone, spirit, and herbal allies to the planetary elections you've chosen.
Spend time doing divination as you lead up to this election. Cast small spells to clear the way and prepare conditions for your working.
Seriously, spend several weeks preparing for a single spell. Feel it inside and out. Know why, how, when, where. Still do any other spells you need in the moment... just keep this one in the works.
When the time comes, pour your heart into it. Cast the everliving fuck out of that spell. Let it be The Event that consumes your week, or your month.
Let your research, divination, and development help you grow. Let your casting show you your power. And enjoy the fruits of your labor.
scars in fiction: I got this trying to save my lover from an assassin- but tragically, I was too late. now I carry the mark of my failure with me always, and I can never forget~
scars in real life: so I was trying to open macaroni sauce with a paring knife
Tell me how you got your scars in the tags
some elements of spellwork distinguishing animist or spirit-based approaches from the energetic and psychological – a laughably basic and woefully incomplete list:
waking: most especially relevant for dried herbs or other preserved material. rouse what lies dormant with breath and touch and whisper.
speaking (or writing, etc): ask for assistance, don’t demand it. give praise, throw in some epithets. make deals, discuss terms and conditions. say thank you. say what you mean.
listening: now shut up for a bit. anticipate communication. words, song snippets, images, colours, feelings, whatever. look out for a “no” and be ready to honour it–it may hit hard in the chest or the guts. we have two-way streets here.
giving: praise, prayers, food, drink, candles, incense, crafts, all the usual suspects and more… reciprocity is key, no one likes a perpetual taker. some situations call for altruism, others for hard-nosed contracts, others for a secret third thing.
feeding: giving again, but specifically to maintain or revive longer workings. remember what the dormouse said…
sourcing: the perfect is the enemy of the good, but it makes a difference. grow, make, forage (responsibly) as much as possible. listen & give when sourcing things from the earth. shop ethically, re-use, thrift.
paring down: if it seems like a lot to go through for everything you want to include in your spell, then good. depth before breadth. use fewer herbs/stones/whatever that you know well, and that really need to be there. god i hate 12-ingredient spell jar recipes with #babywitch stuck on them. yes i will probably stick #babywitch on this. sue me.
to me these follow logically from the premise that plants, stones, bones, bits & bobs have spirit, not just energy. because that implies that their power must be given, it isn’t just there to be channelled (energetic model) or derived from the practitioner’s mental associations (psychological model). i claim nothing of reality and little of truth, but this premise has served me well.
just in case: the writing style is a little conceit that i use in many of my personal notes, which this was originally. obviously “in my opinion/experience/practice” etc.
I am TELLING YOU if you have spent months, years, around the same trees, land, etc., they WILL recognize you and reach out to you or not mind if you reach out to them. You don’t need to know anything about them.
A tree in the forest behind my parents house I’ve never spoken to before reached out - I never would’ve expected it. I don’t know what kind of tree it is. But of course this tree knows me. This tree has known me since I was six.
Trust me. This land knows you. These plants know you. They want to speak with you.
"My advice:
For a moment, take humans out of the picture. Let’s say humans never existed. Because this isn’t Christianity- this wasn’t all created for us because we’re some tragically bipolar deity’s children.
So no humans. And Existence is this big… swirling ocean… of different forces. And, per animism, they have some degree of sentience. Some are working with each other, some are in a kind of hermetic polarized pair (hot and cold), some are in contention (like the Greek gods vying and scheming against each other). We call those big sentient forces gods.
And there are, also per animism, smaller consciousnesses. For example, this ONE river has a spirit that’s a kind of child of the spirit of “all rivers everywhere”. The spirit River, with a capital R.
So here’s the thing.
Let’s say you’re The Spirit of Shenandoah Forest. And you’ve got this complicated situation on your hands. And you reach out to the various spirits of the forest for help, but they all basically say “I can’t do all that, all I know how to do is (their domain) stuff!” So, crap. Where can you find a being that’s not dedicated to being a specific thing like a tree, or a river, or a hill? Because they just know how to be a river or whatever.
Boom. Humans.
Humans’ domain, if you think about it, is changing things. We change one energy into another. We change trees into buildings. We change dreams into music. We change food into poop. We change loose energy into magic. We change poverty into prosperity. We ourselves change youth into age. And we ourselves are so changeable too- if you plunk a penguin in the desert, it dies. You plunk humans in the desert and they adapt and thrive. We are “changers”.
So it’s my own personal perspective that us humans are kinda like “outside agents” in Existence. We’re the “Wild Draw 4 card”. And when gods/spirits need that flexibility, we’re what they reach out to. We’re kinda their jack-of-all-trades.
So how bananas is it to pretend you can pick ONE force out there as “your thing”. Or one god as “your god”. That’s like your Craftsman multitool saying “sorry, but from now on, I’m only going to be a pair of pliers. I’ve got all these other tools here, but you can just suck it up and twist in that screw with your fingernail or something, because I’m not doing it. I’ve decided it’s not my thing.” And they get mad, and we get smited, and all kinds of havoc goes down. The myths and legends are full of those situations. And it greatly cheapens our value to the gods and spirits.
I think it’s MUCH better to ask yourself “so what do I believe in? What do I want to see more successful, and healthier in Existence?” And maybe the answer is love, or truth, or learning, or brotherhood. Hell, maybe it’s warfare and violence. But once you’ve set your sights on a personal goal, you can then say “okay, so what gods and spirits are also working to further this domain?” and look for ways to leverage your flexibility and multitasking to help them. Then you’re not just this mopey little bitch asking for a handout all the time, you’re a useful ally who is on the same team.
I was recently part of a really outstanding ritual for Lughnasadh, and my role was to raise a crossroads and establish a ritual gateway to the underworld for a kind of guided meditation ritual. And when I got started, I said “Hekate, I’m about to make a crossroads and a liminal space that involves death and necromantic energies. I think that all of that aligns with you and yours. If it pleases you, then I invite you to come and work with me as I do this”. And the…. Vibrancy of that power, and its result, was just so so much more than it ever used to be when I’d whine to the gods about what I wanted them to do for me.
So that’s my advice. Don’t “pick a god”. It’s dumb. Think about what’s important to you, find allies, and work to support what you believe in with flexibility and dynamism."
- My friend Chris Chaney
find some stuff to do magic about (feat. practicing sorcery is fun and good)
Do you want to do magic? Yes. Do you know what to do magic on? Maybe not. Here is a post for that. Take what you like and leave the rest behind.
Confront your learned helplessness face on because I'll bet money that there's a shit ton of stuff in your life you'd change if you hadn't trained yourself to pave it over just to make your highway of life a little less bumpy.
Let me tell you something I believe. I believe that most all of us have been trained to think that:
wanting things to go well,
wanting to be happy,
wanting little joys and pleasures in life,
and wanting not to be aggravated by the small things
somehow makes us weak, lacking, immature, or insecure,
or even worse,
that putting up with bullshit is somehow automatically makes us a better person, as if we've all got a cosmic thermometer that won't ding "good person!" until we've had it up to here with bullshit and then still force ourselves to grin and bear it.
"If I do magic to shorten the Starbucks drive-through doesn't that make me impatient? I don't want to use magic as spiritual bypassing in order to avoid my flaws."
Well then. Far be it from me to decry the kratophany of Prometheus getting his liver pecked out by eagles every day, manifest in your sacred sacrifice of having your minutes pecked out of your day, one by one, as you wait in line.
Make a list. Keep it with you. On paper, on your phone. Doesn't matter. It's a list of things you'd like to change. Little fleeting things that rear their head only for a second or so before our industrial-powered steamrollers smash it into the ground. Big things that you stew over day to day.
No problem is too petty. No splinter in your side is too insignificant. Betty at the office blows her nose every day at 8:15am and if you have to hear it one more time you are going to burn the building down? Put it on the list.
Do you have to leave 20 minutes early for work on Thursdays because a freight train blocks the freeway for five minutes and your city backs up like Betty's nose? What is magic going to do, rearrange the city's entire traffic patterns? Maybe so. Who cares. That's magic's problem, not yours. Put it on the list.
Have your eye on quite a cute designer bag? Does it cost your monthly rent? Put it on the list.
Learn to stare your life in the eye again with the verv of someone who has just found a reality-warping gun with unlimited ammunition. Game night gets cancelled too often? You never remember to use your pizza coupons? You can never remember to get ginger ale at the store? Put it on the list.
Feed yourself what ails you like a crab going absolutely bonkers in a plankton-filled tank.
just do some of that normal "witchy" stuff, why not
Protections: Not only for spirits and stuff!
Against unwanted solicitors
Against your room mate's creepy partner coming over
Against debt collectors finding your new phone number
Against surprise quizzes in your course
Against nightmares
And from time to time a sorcerer does like a good house ward. Experiment with yours, why not? Waiting until you're under attack to learn how to put up protections is like waiting until you're drowning to learn swimming. Sure, the sheer adrenaline-fueled terror might get you somewhere - or it might get in the way.
You don't normally use altars? Build one, why not. Build secret ones in shoe boxes. Experiment with altars and compound magic.
Perhaps you'd like a mini spellcasting kit to go? I don't know if making one counts as doing magic, but it's fun to make them.
Why not develop and prepare an oil or incense blend that must steep for a few months before it's ready? You don't need it now, right? So that means it's prime time to make things that are supposed to "mature" before use.
And hey, what's the deal with cleansing? A lot of people make fun of it now. Some people say it's important and necessary. Why not get really into cleansing and develop your own take? Practice gentle cleansing, nuclear cleansing, cleansing with pure energy and cleansing with candles, cleansing with cleaning products and cleansing with joy.
casting a spell right now is not the same thing as activating it right now and you can still gain a lot of experience in magic without releasing spells into the wild
I think that a lot of people think of spells as I light the candle and the spell is activated and it goes and does the thing, so if there is no Thing right now, then I can't cast the spell,
whereas if you reframed it as I am creating a spell-creachur that will hibernate in this little vessel until I spill it out into the world,
you may actually find that there are dozens of spells for you to actively develop, experiment with, cast, learn from, and passively benefit from - without necessarily needing any of them right now.
And the benefit is, if you don't actually need it right now, that takes a ton of pressure off of you. If you're not acting out of desperation, experimentation can be very fun indeed.
What about the most intense jaw-breakingly stupid strong protective amulet you've ever conceived of? Make it, why not. Make five prototypes on your journey to the strongest danged protection amulet this side of social media.
Who cares if you don't need them? Maybe some day you'll meet someone who does. Or, you know, magic is fun and doing it is its own reward.
What about a talisman for dreamwork and astral travel? Make something that reeks so intensely of the moon that it launches people out of their bodies just by walking past it.
Decide to perfect the most dazzling money-drawing candle spell. Make that your thing. You don't need cash right now? No worries; donate it to charity.
Have fun. Experiment. Made something that came through a little too hard and now it's causing problems? What a wonderful opportunity to learn how to disassemble a spell vessel.
Make yourself a cabinet full of enchantments. Learn how to contain the energy radiating off of all those enchantments. Realize you need more space and learn to combine multiple similar enchantments into one vessel.
make trusting friends who will let you cast on them.
(self explanatory)
Using tarot to read on magical events in your own practice: quick theory, new card meanings, and spread ideas
this post is OC based on my personal tarot practice; the examples given are hypothetical for the sake of this post.
Well-meaning guy: "If you think that event was a bad omen, why not read tarot to clarify?"
Person who learned tarot from popular online resources and introspection-focused art decks: "I drew the 6/Cups, so I guess my ward falling off the wall is about my inner child?"
Tarot meanings change and evolve over time. Historical meanings are often not the same, or even contrary to, modern meanings. (Consider, 6/Pentacles: the French present moment was misinterpreted to mean presents, gifts).
By acknowledging that many modern meanings available for tarot cards are modern interpretations for modern concerns, many of which have fuckall to do with witchcraft, we can also acknowledge that we can apply our own sets of meanings to tarot to achieve personal interpretations in pursuit of personal goals.
I call this concept symbol sets, and you can apply your own symbol sets to certain tarot readings in order to rapidly obtain information about magical events in your life.
Symbol sets can be swapped out for each reading. You can intend to operate on your "normal meanings" for a typical reading, and then intend to operate with "magical omen meanings" for another reading.
There are no such things as universal tarot card meanings; there are some traditional meanings, some historical meanings, and many modern meanings. Adjust what each card means to you to your heart's delight.
The more symbol sets I've developed and practiced with, the more versatile and accurate my tarot reading has become. Working with custom symbol sets might be the single biggest leap in my reading ability in 16 years of practice. At least, it feels that way!
Quick n' Dirty Symbol Set for Magical Omens, Appropriate for Everyday Use
1. Apply general portents to each suit which matches your magical practice.
Here is one set that could be suitable to troubleshooting potentially magic events:
Swords, or Air: Misfortune, betrayal, malefica, ill-intent, adversity, due to harmful (even if unintentional) spirit action, pointless or wasted effort. Sometimes, banishing, binding and hexes.
Wands, or Fire: A lot of power, excessive power, due to your own actions, uncontained energy, something you did was very much overdone. Sometimes, protection and empowerment.
Pentacles, or Earth: Mundane, physical and normal reasons, an everyday occurrence, mundane but natural growth and change. Sometimes, unlocking and unblocking.
Cups, or Water: Blessings, magic working as intended (even if unexpectedly), the normal course of magical events, magical growth and change. Sometimes, cleansing and purifying.
Major Arcana: Guiding spirits and gods; their behaviors, guidance, or messages.
A spirit worker might like to add an additional layer of complexity, which modifies the prior set:
Court Cards: The actions of another being, such as a practitioner, god, or spirit, whether they acted intentionally to bring about the event or not.
(Further breakdown, as an example: Swords courts are beings intentionally acting badly; Wands courts are the most important spirits of your path; Pentacles courts are mundane folk or spirits unrelated to your path; Water courts are other practitioners, or spirits related to your path without being in your "inner court.")
Interpret any card drawn within these principles. Here are a few random examples. Let's say, a money spell has failed to produce results, and we'd like to know why.
5/Cups [disappointment, failure]: This is the normal course of magical events; the spell wasn't cast well, and so nothing is happening.
9/Wands [determination, boundaries]: A lot of energy was raised, but incorrectly targeted or released; the energy is cooped up.
Judgment [judgment]: An important spirit in your path wants you to deal with what you have been avoiding, and will interfere with your magic until you face them.
Spread Ideas
"What's going on with that thing?" | 3 cards
Card 1: The source or cause
Card 2: The current state of affairs
Card 3: Suggested action
Example; the money jar doesn't work: Card 1, King/Swords: The source of failure was the person in the discord server who promised to curse you for not feeling the same way about Destiel as they did. Card 2, Page/Pentacles: The current state of affairs is that as a symptom of the curse, an unaware person or spirit is blocking the prosperity you seek. Card 3, Queen/Cups: Ask a benevolent spirit or helpful practitioner friend to assist you in unblocking the situation.
Determining responsibility | 2 cards
Card 1: Why this thing happened
Card 2: Why it didn't happen; one thing that wasn't the cause at all
Example; the ward fell off the wall: Card 1, 10/Pentacles: This happened because of random happenstance in the home; it was not a magical event. Card 2, Ace/Swords: This action was unrelated to malefica or bad spirits or things like that.
Foresight Before Acting | 4 cards
Card 1: The current state of affairs
Card 2: The outcome of your intended plan of action
Card 3: Recommended plan of action
Card 4: The outcome of the recommended plan
Example; the spirits did not seem to appear during a spirit petition spell: Card 1, 3/Wands: Sufficient energy was raised to attract the attention of spirits, but they may not have been properly called to action. Card 2, 6/Swords: Your plan to call the spirits back and re-cast the spell is a fruitless attempt at a transition into a new plan. Card 3, Empress: Communicate with your primary goddess or powerful spirit of the earth and obtain input and guidance. Card 4, Magician: This plan will result in obtaining important magical information about this type of summoning spell you are trying to achieve.
spirit houses: a container spell for your spirit vessel needs
In honor of realizing how much easier spirit boxes have made my life, here's a full moon post about spirit boxes 101.
A spirit box (maybe it has a bunch of other names; I don't know of any others) is a box which functions as both a house and a vessel for a spirit.
Spirit houses in and of themselves have historical precedence.
Trial records contain references to demon familiars living in glass or leather bottles; crystals; baskets; boxes; earthenware pots lined with wool kept under the stairs or by the hearth; under borders of 'green herbs' in the garden and under the roots or in the hollows of trees. Wilby, Emma. Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits (2005), 77
In the text above, many containers and locations are referenced. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to talk about boxes in this post. In this post, spirit box and spirit house are synonymous.
Why use a container-based spirit house?
I use 'em because I ran out of altar space. It's not even like my "inner keep" is chock full of spirits. It's just that sometimes, spirits don't like to have room mates and keeping everyone happy can require a lot of space.
For me, I have a lot of objects dedicated to my spirits. Using a non-container vessel (such as a quartz crystal) doesn't solve my space needs, because then I'd have a bunch of devoted objects and a vessel crystal to deal with.
It helps because the spaces devoted to each spirit are clearly delineated. This makes some stuff like psychic communication less confusing (more on this later).
I have a belief that spirits can literally enjoy objects placed within their home. Filling a spirit box with comfortable, lovely things actually allows the spirit to enter this space and enjoy their gifts.
Giving offerings and other interactions are simplified. No spoons for an offering ritual? Leave a gift on or in the container and it belongs to the spirit now (not in if the object will rot and need to be disposed of!!! we all know we'll forget about it). Did the spirit really piss you off? Put a black cloth (or t-shirt) over the container and move it to the back of your closet. No ritual or spell required.
(Also, re-arranging and moving them around is a heck of a lot easier than open altar spaces)
They also function as spirit vessels, btw
You want to meditate, commune, work with, or give instructions to the spirit? Easy peasy - the spirit house functions as a spirit vessel. Touch it or interact with it to also interact with the spirit.
Make them by 1) finding a container and 2) giving it to the spirit
Cleanse it if you want. Definitely try to make sure it's clean. Some beliefs might dictate that air gaps are required for the spirit to move in and out of the vessel (so, no sealed jars).
Then, give it to the spirit. A ritual or spell is fine if you want to do one. Otherwise, get into the zone where you feel close to the spirit (as close as reasonably possible in the moment; no need to feel like you're having a numinous experience just to get the job done).
When you're in you're zone (or like, just sitting in your room calling to the spirit a few times), announce (internally or externally) that you're giving the container to the spirit.
And yeah, how about that! That's all it takes.
Maybe frontload the process with a few gifts, though
An empty, plain balsa wood box isn't too impressive. I mean, an opportunity to imprint on a physical vessel and come ever-closer to our physical world is a gift in and of itself. But it's still an empty container.
Try popping some gifts in that bad boy at the same time as you dedicate it to the spirit.
Ideas for initial gifts:
Something soft and comfy for the spirit to sleep on (soft fabric pad will do; good chance to put your crochet skills to use!)
Something interesting or valuable (coins, miniature figurines, neat beads, etc)
An energy offering (candles; incense; food or beverages; your own energy; most disposable offerings should be left on or near the vessel, not inside of it)
Stuff they'd personally like
Things that are sentimental to you, which you gift to the spirit as a form of your personal reverence towards them
In the future, you can add and remove gifts. I'd definitely double-check with the spirit before removing anything at all, but you can.
You can also do magic with it
Ask the spirit to charge and enchant an object, and place the object in the spirit house for a full moon cycle (or longer, or less; the spirit should be able to tell you).
Include spirit petitions asking them to do tasks, or house rules to follow, etc.
The spirit houses make an ideal way to commune with spirits, especially as opposed to shared altar spaces.
You can literally pick up and move a spirit box into the area where you're doing divination. Or, touch it and use a pendulum or practice psychism (or hold it while you're meditating).
I personally just find this convenient.
Consider being open to developing them over time
You don't need to wait to devote a spirit box to a spirit until it's fully decorated, you have tons of objects to fill it up, etc.
The spirit box can grow and change to reflect your relationship with that spirit.
Spirits can and will ask for things, ask for the container to be modified in some way, and so on. Watching the collection of devotional items grow is a beautiful thing.
After all, it's not like spirits will like everything you want to give them. It might be a waste of time to agonize over collecting offerings before you've even gotten feedback on the initial spirit house itself!
Do your best to be open to input from the spirit about what kind of home it wants and what kind of things it wants.
A few more witchy notes:
If the spirit box is for a familiar, strive to include a portion of the physical species of the familiar (acorns for an Oak familiar; bobcat skull for a Bobcat familiar, etc).
Soil can make a very suitable "bed" for chthonic, dead, and certain earthen spirits - ask them about it, but it's definitely an option.
If your spirit has no original body on earth (e.g. it is a grandmother dollie and isn't associated with any living spirit), make a body for it (like, make a poppet) and keep the body in the house.
The spirit box, in and of itself, gives the spirit a greater foothold in this world. So don't take this step if you're not ready for it.
Feed your spirits often with earthly substances to give them power in this world
When you and the spirit have a falling out
If the relationship is done, try to act with honor if possible. Announce (as ritualistically as possible, is my recommendation) that the spirit is no longer welcome to use this container as a home, and that you will strike any spirit from using it.
Take the things out. Really wouldn't recommend taking back gifts, so only give gifts that you're happy with never having back. But dispose of them properly. E.g. if you've given a lot of coins as offerings, bury them so the spirit can still have them.
Nuke the container's energies, Announce that your permission for the container to be used as a Vessel are Revoked, and get rid of the container.
Yeah, it's UPG, but this is also my post, so -- cleansing and re-using some objects is fine for some magic. "This is a physical object that I gave to a spirit so it can have a foot-hold in this world and affect my physical reality, but now we're not friends any more and I want to use the jar for my prosperity spell" is not a great situation.
Strive to only use containers and gifts for spirits that you are willing to never, ever reclaim.
(Big asterisk on this for practitioners worth their salt; but for beginners, I don't recommend risking it)
(the "container spell" in the title is a bit tongue-in-cheek but I thought it was funny so I'm keeping it; I guess this all counts as a spell, sort of, so it's probably fine)
I really don't think animism is that easy of a worldview to adopt, actually, either that or I'm just bad at it
Shortly after embracing the animism worldview, and this is a true story, I had a meltdown over whether or not my soup spoon was mad at me for not asking it for permission to eat my lunch.
Witchcraft and spirituality are supposed to make you empowered, you say? Nonsense, I say. Try being paralyzed over your increasingly soggy bowl of cereal because you're too exhausted to perform spirit work to request permission from cutlery. That's real witchcraft.
And if I asked the spoon for permission, what did that say about my treatment of the bowl? Of the milk?
I think people treat animism sort of as paganism lite, like you get all the mysticism and wonder of everything being alive, without actually having to like pick a pantheon and research specific gods and spirits. Sort of like easy magic - all you gotta do is believe.
I'd actually like to propose that adopting a worldview that everything might be alive is in fact terrifying and requires a lot of forethought, integration, and personal development in order to internalize in a way that makes your life better instead of worse.
And after several years of soul-searching, experience, and a heaping dose of UPG, I've come to the following conclusions that has helped animism move away from a destructive force in my life and into a stable platform that inspires harmony and communication.
Here are my thoughts on it. Take what you will and leave the rest behind.
No, not everything is alive.
The reasons why I believe this is a whole metaphysical discussion, but no. Not everything is alive. Plastic sporks mass-produced in a factory are inert hunks of matter. There is no point in that process where the spork gains a soul.
(Mass-produced tarot decks, runes, wands, pendulums, spirit boards, etc., roll off the factory line with about as much soul as a spork does, by the way)
In fact, not even lovingly hand-crafted things are automatically "alive," not even lovingly hand-crafted magical tools.
It actually takes a lot of work to imbue life into an object, so much work that it's not easy to have happen on accident.
This ain't a post on how to alive an object, but suffice to say if you've really set your heart on it, it's not that complicated.
It's just also not really that easy to do on accident.
You can use your magical bell, wand, tarot deck, etc., for years, and they will simply never become alive.
Spiritual life doesn't "just happen" just because you interact with something a lot and involve it in a lot of energy working or magic or whatever.
You are not in a perpetual mating dance with your magical tools. They are not in a state of permanent ovulation. You are not the spirit of divine fertility. You're not going to accidentally put a soul into your tools.
Objects can appear to gain personalities and aliveness, but that doesn't mean they're actually alive or sentient.
I'm not sure if this is necessarily discussed enough, but an energy reader's (/spirit talker, same thing really) personal beliefs play a huge role in how they personally perceive the energies and spirits they're interacting with.
For example
If I tell you, "spirits are not real, even things which appear to be spirits are just complex layers of energy that, like a computer program, can mimic life," (and you believe me)
There is a really heckin good chance that even if a fully-formed spirit being approaches you and says, "hey, I'm the spirit of that tree over there," you'll just say, wow, this pattern of nonliving energy has a call-and-response inquiry style; I can ask it questions and due to its friendship-oriented programming, it will give me responses back. Neat!
Or, on the other hand,
If I tell you, "spirits are incredibly real, in fact literally all energy is just a spirit in one form or another, and every object and living thing and area and concept you can imagine has a spirit within it," (and you believe me)
There is a really good chance that even if you encounter a very typical, mundane, and nonliving energy pattern , you will say, wow, this is a very precious and smol spirit, its favorite color is red and it likes being taken care of. It's alive in every meaningful sense of the word!
When, in reality, you are anthropomorphizing a nonliving object and reframing this has warm, cozy vibrations into "this object has preferences and needs," which is exactly how we get to having a panic attack over forgetting to ask your spoon for permission to eat cereal.
Which is all to say, just because objects you regularly use may gain unique energy signatures and repeatedly respond the same way under the same circumstances does not mean they are alive, any more than a baseball bat making a loud sound when it hits a baseball means that the baseball bat is alive and yelling.
Even if things are alive, it doesn't make them complex or self-aware
I just don't know how to step this out because it seems incredibly self-evident, but people really are out here acting like just because something is imbued with spiritual life it gives them the depth and mental complexity of a very advanced brain, like a pig or a dolphin or a 45yo human from Fresno, California.
You can, through willful magical action, imbue life into a tool. But that doesn't spontaneously create a self-aware, fully-formed being with a human-like mind.
Spiritual life can be as simple as a single-celled spiritual organism that eats one kind of energy and poops out another kind. Just because it's alive doesn't mean it's psychologically complex and emotionally advanced.
Even if it's complex and self-aware, that doesn't mean it has human concerns or needs
So the problem comes when people decide that all life must in some form or another reflect their own personal understanding of the human condition, so if something gains sufficient complexity it must mean it's essentially human.
Which is how we get to, "now that I've ensouled my tarot deck it will feel taken advantage of unless I take it out on a friends date and watch a movie with it, because it's a complete human trapped in a deck of cards. My tarot deck prefers Film Noir and fruit-palate desserts, and needs me to be a good listener."
(Protip: spirits can take many forms. Just because a spirit appears to you as a human doesn't necessarily mean it is human)
And because people really do believe stuff like that, they then get to, "oh my god, I wasn't performing mindfulness enough while I took my tarot deck out to the park, it's offended at my inattention and that's why my readings aren't working,"
Because there's nothing better than your spirituality making you feel like you're the problem friend desperately seeking approval from a group of cool kids who could take you or leave you.
If your animism makes you feel like you have to prove yourself to inanimate objects, it might be helpful to reconsider your worldviews.
The idea that anything could be alive is not the same as everything is alive, and even if everything is alive, the spectrum of aliveness shifts greatly from a single nonsentient repeating pattern, to bona-fide biological organisms.
Animism can be a wonderful worldview that encourages us to consider that the world around us is imbued with life. But that doesn't mean that your socks have opinions about your feet.
(inb4 "but this isn't what historical animism is, real animism was agreed to by our ancestors in a prehistoric Zoom call and there's only one right way to do it!")
The idea of companion spirits is so exciting to me. Margaret sounds incredibly helpful. How do you go about conjuring them? Is it something you're able to do for other people? I'd love to have a spirit friend hanging around.
I would like to point out that as far as I'm aware, "spirit companions" refers to a relatively specific niche of spirit work as a whole. When someone says the phrase spirit companion, they are typically referring to a type of spirit work revolving around the actions of a human conjurer who is able usually able to astral travel.
The conjurer is the person whom, through acts of magic or traversing the infinite astral, meets various spirits and forms contacts or compacts with them. These compacts usually revolve around establishing a point of communication so the spirit and conjurer can contact each other at will. This point of communication is often a physical vessel, but is not always a physical vessel. (The vessel, when physical, is akin to a spirit house dedicated to that spirit alone - it allows them to enter our world through an object, and make it much easier to call on them if you possess the object - but they can leave it any time and refuse to respond to calls.)
There is an entire industry of professional conjurers who perform the services of meeting, contracting with, and "delivering" spirits to clients. My friend who helped me meet Margaret was not a professional conjurer, but the concept is much the same: she traversed to the Stephen King extended universe, met a byrus worm, established a contract with her, and helped her reach me.
NOW, the reason I say all of that is in order to say this:
Spirit companions, astral travel, conjurers, and spirit shops are absolutely not the only way to meet spirits, and the entire process is absolutely unnecessary for many people.
You can go outside and meet spirits right now. You can do an exercise to build an astral temple and go meet beings within your own custom little worlds. You can create servitors and interact with them.
You can ask a god to assign you a spiritual helper. You can get a stuffed animal and start treating it as a living being until it develops into one. You can write a hypersigil and use it to create a servitor.
You can learn to travel to sabbat on full moons and ask the Goat-Footed God to give you a familiar in exchange for a favor he will cash in on some wind-seared night when the world has been gray for far too many days in a row.
You can pray and ask for a spirit of such-and-such type to appear. You can paint sigils on a bottle and, after claiming power over all living beings, command a spirit to appear therein and be your friend.
You can discover the nature of your fetch-beast or hag-self.
You can do many things, some of them better ideas than others.
Choose an area of spirit-work that makes you feel fascinated and research it. It's a good idea to focus on learning how to interact with spirits early on, as this is a process which can be very difficult for some people.
Hello! You have mentioned not developing the ability to communicate with spirits until your 20s and how this is a skill for beginners to develop, not rely on other mediums or psychics. As someone who is starting spirit work but has a really hard time communicating with them (I have heard maybe 2 sentences in deep meditation that I was certain didn't come from my head) how do you recommend developing this ability? I know practice but if I don't practice the right technique I might just get nowhere and become stagnant. I am experienced with tarot but not for using it like that, and I feel like it's too broad of a tool right now for it. Do I just keep meditating? I also don't remember my dreams very clearly.
Another thing, how do you vet your spirits? And if they become aggressive, do you have a method of protection you prefer? I have some basic banishing rituals but while I haven't had negative experience and I don't want to be afraid to practice, I would like to be more confident in knowing that I can banish troublesome spirits if I need to.
I think it's fine to rely on mediums and psychics when wanted or needed, but that in general people think this skill is somehow "off limits" until they're "advanced" so they require themselves to rely on others, which is unnecessary.
I am not convinced meditation is a good method to practice psychism. I think practicing psychism is the best method for practicing psychism. I think meditation can be good for other things, but I don't really get how meditating could make someone able to see or hear spirits.
Remembering dreams is useful if you can and there are many secular techniques available for attempting to improve dream recall, but you don't have to remember your dreams to be a spirit worker.
I have many posts on trying to develop psychism:
Spirit work master post
Divination master post
I do not vet my spirits because I do not currently work within a system that requires spirits to be vetted.
It sounds like you're working within the 'infinite astral' praxis where you seek out whatever type of spirit you like (e.g.... a cloud forest pearl dragon, let's say), then with the understanding that you two are strangers slowly get to know it over time until the point where you trust each other enough to be room mates, and so on.
If this is the case then I really recommend you keep careful, careful records of all communications and never allow the spirit to twist their words. And then, it just takes a lot of time and a lot of observing their behavior. For example people will "vet" spirits, and the spirit will say, "to prove you can trust me I'll make sure your crush texts you back." But the crush never texts, so the spirit will then say, "no, I meant your true crush!" And the person will say, hey, this spirit knows me better than I know myself and they want me to end up with my soul mate, of course they're trustworthy!
Which is silly.
My preferred method of protection for all spirit working is to craft a physical amulet with strongly inherent spirit-warding properties - typically iron nails, but many other amulets will do - and enchant it, and carry it with me at all times.
I highly recommend that you create any such amulet ahead of time. In the middle of spiritual attack is a shit time to realize you have zero wards. It's the equivalent of inviting a lot of strangers into your home and waiting for them to start throwing plates before you realize you don't have any locks on the doors.
Learning to banish before learning to call on and work with spirits is a bit of a chicken or the egg situation. Make sure you have things on hand to perform your banishing rituals at a moment's notice and take care of situations as they arise. You'll be fine.
9 times out of 10, just telling them to leave works great.
Don't worry about practicing the "wrong" technique. It's not an RPG skill tree where you have to spend character points and get locked in to your choices. You can practice a different technique every day. You can practice a technique for a week, a different technique for two weeks, and then go back to the first one. Find a technique which seems exciting, mysterious, or powerful to you, and try it until you're over it. Then try a different one.
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.
Advice for a city witch who rents a single room in an apt with flatmates. Want to try spirit work but I have no place to do that other than my bedroom. Is there a safe way to invite spirits to interact in my personal space? No private outside spots, no balcony.
Hm. Many safe ways.
At a minimum I suggest 2 things.
The first is to basically get warded. Ward you apartment as a whole in one way that prevents unwanted spirit entry (good to be mindful of spirits that may already live there, such as people's personal yet unknown spirits, or house spirits).
Ward your bedroom in another way that allows spirit entry at your personal discretion.
The other thing is to get very good at house rules.
I don't see it talked about too much any more, but house rules are basically, well, the rules that spirits must follow while in your home.
The rules may dictate how spirits treat you, how the spirits may treat each other, and how they may expect to be treated.
In the curious and wonderful world of magic, having clear-cut rules "set in stone" functions sort of as a ward or protection in and of itself.
Consider the following house rules
Invitations are temporary. When we are done talking, you must leave my apartment and not come back unless you are invited again.
While you are here, you cannot disrupt any of my flat mates, pets, or other spirits I have invited.
Invitations to communicate are not promises to help you or provide you with services.
Offerings and gifts given are as tokens of gratitude and do not constitute payment or creation of contracts, unless explicitly stated.
And so on.
Many spirit workers I think do not use house rules. I certainly do not any more. But they are handy when a person seeks to both A) start working with a lot of strange and unknown spirits, and B) seek to retain a high amount of authority and control as the human practitioner.
