I did Huffington Post yesterday about Paganism in regards to sex and sexuality. To be frank, it was a pretty crappy experience given that despite the fact I explicitly asked for a diverse panel, I still wound up being the only minority there (hate that) and I barely got any airtime at that. Due to that, I’m not really sure I wanna post the link because I barely showed in it and it really wasn’t what I thought it would be, to be frank. I thought I would be talking in general about the concept of sex and sexuality in Paganism and probably give an opinion about 50 Shades of Gray and how Paganism have a take on BDSM, so on and so forth. Not some near hyperfocus on polyamory and the Great Rite.  And I have nooooooo idea how Valentine’s came from Lupercalia. I was told of St. Valentine and that was it. This is almost like when the Boondocks had that super mental depiction of the Pagan history of Christmas, y’know, the wildly inaccurate version. Valentine’s wasn’t even associated with romance until Chaucer in 14th century. With these thoughts in mind, I’m just not gonna post the link because I definitely didn’t like the experience so I don’t see much point in promoting it.

Without fail, people write to me asking for spellwork, usually asking specifically for “black magick” because the fact they couldn’t read my site for longer than the title shows the illiteracy and idiocy these people bear. Pro tip: When writing to me, research is your best friend. Otherwise, I’m just going to be snarky because, hey, not like I’ve got anything better to do when dealing with the seemingly intellectually incapacitated. Thanks to the internet and the invention of search engines (including the one on my website), the average person has little to no excuse for not being at least marginally informed before talking to me.

The thing is, I strongly dislike being asked to do stuff with the assumption that I’ll do them. For instance, I just had a person who wanted some “black magic” to help a friend with a physical ailment that rendered them to a child-like mental capacity after an episode. Already, I’m not too keen to help because as I’ll say a million times – I don’t practice black magick (well, what is considered “black magick” since magick, much like electricity is neutral). I ask about what the doctor says and the person completely sidesteps that pretty important question and gets into begging mode and said that she was recommended to my site by someone else. Too bad that recommending person forgot to explicitly tell her to read my site so she knew exactly what to ask for and why the site is called Black Witch. (Free hint: it has something to do with my race. Shocking, I know.) Since even her most rudimentary schooling failed her (they still do teach investigative skills, critical thinking and research skills in school, right? I know the American education system is horrendous but wow.), I explained that even if I was the spell-casting-for-others type (I’m not.), she wouldn’t be advanced enough handle any spellwork/witchy stuff that would be useful to her situation. At all. And she still didn’t explain why she thought I did black magick exclusively despite me never saying that I have.

Person gets upset and says the classic: I know more about magick than you think and maybe you’re not a real witch.

Yep, every emo kiddo who doesn’t get what they want says this without fail or pause. Firstly, if she knew anything about magick, she would have known that usually “Black magick” is in reference to causing harm. Which, if she’s being honest about her request, that she wants her friend to return back to normal, then asking specifically for “black magick” isn’t exactly what she wants, is it? More importantly, she had no clue to that witchcraft comes with various branches, it’s not all muttering stuff at a stick of incense and a candle. Like, herbology. Since friend has a physical ailment, not a mental or psychosomatic ailment, it needs a more physical branch of witchcraft. Balance is everything: Physical/tangible problems should be met with physical/tangible solutions, metaphysical (which means “beyond/transcends the physical”, mind you) problems should be met with metaphysical solutions. It would have been very different if the person just emailed and said something along the lines of “My friend went through [abc issue] and now she [has reduced mental capacity]. I don’t know but I think herbs or some potion would help. Do you have any suggestion?” That would have shown a) a cursory knowledge of witchcraft b) exactly what the potential solution could be but still foggy on the details thus why asking. Notice the lack of mention of whatever color magick, therefore the lack of me wanting to snark. Because, hey, here’s an honest question. I don’t expect Ph. D-level questions but I do expect people do their homework before parking their letters into my inbox. At least I could give say, “sounds like you need an herbologist, here are the cautions of doing it all by yourself and here’s how to find an herbologist and how to talk to the doctor and family about it.”

A reduced mental capacity that resulted from a physical ailments would need the herbology branch of witchcraft…which is why I initially asked what the doctor said about the friend’s condition in the first response. There’s no way in hades I’m pointing this person to herbs or whatever for her to play doctor/herbologist by herself because she could potentially kill said friend. Nature is not a loving creature nor is inherently safe. Eat nightshade or hemlock if you don’t believe me. To be a great herbologist, you have to know biology, chemistry, biochem, modern medicine, botany. They have to know as much as a doctor does and herbal uses on top of that. That’s years of training because which is crucial for something like the person asked about because a reduced mental capacity refers to a cerebral condition. This is way beyond taking ginger or lavender to soothe an achy stomach or rose hips for cramps. A condition like this means that something is damaged inside the brain and thus needs to heal, which takes time and due diligence, regardless of whatever method taken because everything from the affected person’s diet to what med they’re taking, age, weight and more counts. Crucial information that the person decided to acutely sidestep because she didn’t know that medicine has roots in potions and herbology.

It’s remarkably annoying when dealing with random people who feel they have to put on an act. I really don’t care what Llewelyn books you read or if you bought the mini tarot kit from Barnes and Nobles, if you don’t talk like you have sense, I’m probably not going to be the most helpful or kindest person you’ve met this week by far. As I say a million times over: Do your research. With the internet, you have practically no excuse – there’s even a search engine on my website. Research why I refer to myself as “Black Witch” (that’s not really “research” as “gleaning from the glaringly obvious from the subtitle of ‘life from the Black Pagan perspective’ and the picture in the About Me section”), my general stances on whatever you’re about to ask me about to see if it’s even worth penning to me, make sure that your writing skills are somewhere beyond “drunkly made ransom note” and “pre-school grammar knowledge”.  So know your facts because I’m not going to care otherwise. But I will be snippy.

Next week is The Arts!:

– There She Is!
– Skip
– Power Rangers (Parody short film)

The week after that is Ask Black Witch. Send in your questions! Good questions are appreciated, bad questions are eviscerated!