Category: Spells & Potions


Small Magick

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November 12, 2021

As we still are in a pandemic, that means some are still stuck at home (many more should have been or the pandemic would be over sooner) so that means there are those who can’t go out and about and fellowship with their covens or other Pagan spaces of worship. Also, there are those who are still in the broom closet (not out as Pagan or a witch to close ones) and still live with the people they are not out to. 

Then there’s the fact that there shouldn’t be any sharing of the utensils, which can be difficult – but not impossible! – to prevent the spread of Covid. Small magick can be helpful in both cases because it is, well, small. Now, for those who are out and out, they live and practice at home as a comfortable solitary, they don’t have to really change much. If at all. But not everyone has that luxury.

Some people have homes that are basically no bigger than a three dimensional postage stamp so doing a big, flourishing ritual or spell simply is out of the question. Shouldn’t limit the practitioner. Even deities who are used to big and fancy (*cough*sun deities*cough*) can be understanding that you won’t have a field of candles or a raging bonfire to celebrate them. 

The name of the game here is intent. That is what drives spellwork. Energy is the vehicle, intent is the driver. Keep up with learning energy movement and manipulation, also. You can get a lot further in a car than you can on a broken down trike. Intent means more than flashy spellwork or fancy movements. Those things mean something but intent is the crux of it all. Even with a little, you can get by as long as there is big intent.

One practice that comes to mind are “Altoid Tin Altars” which are basically small kits that fit inside a Altoid Tin container. This means everything is stripped down and shrunk down – the salt, the matches, the element representatives, etc. Easy to hide and great for keeping everything compact, and to the absolute necessities. Everything is so small and bitsy that magick could be done on the bed (don’t use candles if so – fire hazard), at the table or in the bathroom. I definitely like the bathroom because I can fill the sink full of water and do candle work on the ledge – or in the water since floating candles are real – and if the flames get massive, even on a teeny candle, because I decided to bug a fire deity, I can shove everything into the waiting water as I freak out over why the birthday candle or menorah candle (they’re colorful, handy and my Jewish friends horked them onto me when they had extras) has a flame that grew five times bigger than what should be capable of a candle. 

With magick so small on the physical plane, that means the mental plane is going to need a boost. I strongly recommend meditation for this, it is the best way to strengthen your mind and keep it decent for the long run. Yes, meditation can appear very hard on the first try but that’s Skill Procurement 101 – it is going to be tough at the start. Try not to buy into falsehoods such as “you should be able to get meditation down quick and if you can’t, you’re worthless” or “try drugs!” – those two are big headaches in the Pagan community whenever someone new or very unpracticed comes along. Witchcraft involves building skill. Just put in the work. There are no shortcuts, sorry. If anyone tells you there are, they’re probably selling something. Plus an unfocused mind makes for pretty crappy magick because an unfocused mind means unfocused energy. The mental should be some degree of stronger before going to anything physical so always keep the mental primary. 

Meditation doesn’t have to replicate a zen garden or the woo-woo bs kits that are probably found at Five Below or wherever New Agey bunk is sold. It can be a simple as just learning how to focus deeply on simply counting to five, first forwards (breathing in) and backwards (breathing out). There is also this handy gif below!

 

Stilling your mind can be tough, we don’t live in a world where it’s easy by any stretch of the imagination. There are smartphones, invasive ads, social media. Everything is all about being busy and worrying. One, because anxiety makes it easier for pointless people to sell pointless things to you. Two, being busy is an easy way to be stressed and have pointless people sell pointless things to you. Living in a capitalist society sucks, frankly. 

It is ok to spend 2 to 5 minutes a day. Sometimes that can be frustrating for someone to hear because “those two to five minutes can be used elsewhere!” But in reality, it is 2 to 5 minutes. Go for 60 seconds if 2 to 5 minutes can be tough. Surely you have 60 seconds? 30 seconds? No, you’re not going to quiet your mind in 30 seconds, unless you’re very practiced, but it is still a start for trying to still your mind and focus it. Eventually, you can upgrade to energy manipulation after you learn to keep your mind quiet for long enough. 

This is where the bread and butter of magick work is. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it isn’t super duper easy. That’s what “work” is. 

While getting better at doing mental plane work, there is still small magick that can be done. More like “passive magick” but that’s that. It isn’t as strong or punchy as active magick but it’s something. That could be doing sympathetic magick, which is a form of passive magick, and working with the basic phases of the moon. Doing kitchen magick can be a form of somewhat passive magick, as long as things are kept light and simple. It can be simple as writing notes of intention and throwing them into a candle or plain burning them – be safe with that, by the way. Write on flash paper, which is paper meant to burn away in a flash, so you don’t have to worry about ashes and embers floating about. Do not burn bundles at the same time. One at a time, small at a time. 

Using birthday candles and sand is a popular combo for me. Small, simple, easy clean up. Mark whatever you want on the candles, light them, stick them in the sand and you’re done! You can also pair them with half size incense sticks if you want, I would use the sticks as wands. This way, it keeps everything small and capable. Just keep your pets away from them. Fire hazard. 

No fire? No problem, There is drawing, writing, sigils (with some real research, not just “things found on Instagram”), the list goes on and on. If there is literally no time and no room? Read and research whenever you can, it still propels you forward on your magick practicing journey. Just don’t read and research bunk, try going for accurate historical sources. 

The point of small magick is to keep practicing, even when you don’t always have the space for it. Not everyone has big, lush backyards. Not everyone has a ton of space to make a complete circle, filled to the brim with knicknacks. Not everyone has the finances to have a circle filled to the brim with big knicknacks. But that should not dissolve the practice. Sometimes things have to get a little smaller. 

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Memory and Spellwork

Filed under: Coronavirus/Covid-19, Spells & Potions — Leave a comment
September 3, 2021

I always forget to write these kind of things down. Spellwork is something I definitely need to get better at writing down more because I sometimes have quite forgetful day and can’t remember what spell I casted or if the thing that happened to me had something to do with the spellwork or not. I’ve got a lot on my plate always (I mean, even my posting has reduced) so I can’t always have “what magick did I do” at the forefront of my mind.

I’m sure there are apps that can help keep track of spellwork, just like there are apps that keeps track of periods – because periods are also annoying to keep at the forefront of your mind. Yes, I don’t want to bleed through several layers of clothing but I also don’t feel like doing that much brain work – thanks technology (when not insanely sexist, which is a major problem). Back to spells, I have not looked through any spellwork apps so I have none to recommend but I definitely think that people who engage in spellwork should use something that can help remind them of their practices.

I’m relatively old school when it comes to keeping track of things (outside of periods, I rather reliable new tech – like an app – do the tracking for me) so I use calendars and only recently started using emoji as visual short hand of when I do something. I only started using emojis as visual short hand for when I would be visited during the start of the pandemic so that if I or someone else became infected, I had a handy-dandy reference guide in my phone to pinpoint exactly when I saw them so I could do as accurate a threat assessment as possible. Also, everyone should be getting vaccinated (if possible) and still wearing masks. Thanks to unvaxxed and half vaxxed people who like to play poker with their lives (and others), the Delta variant is really doing some damage. Then there’s the double mutation (when two variants (mutation) kame hame ha together to become one really bad variant – may possibly become variant Epsilon). Back to calendars and emojis, they’re useful. I need to do the same for my spellwork.

Since I don’t do much spellwork regularly (I’m very much the set-and-forget type), it probably wouldn’t be too hard to keep track of what work I have done and for what reason. Spellwork varies by culture, tradition and practitioner, so it is hard to say “Oh by an X amount of days, you will see Z result.” The universe doesn’t work like television shows, sadly. Some changes could be very hard to spot, others are bleedingly obvious. I prefer the bleedingly obvious but the universe prefers trolling. Plus signs can very much differ by culture, tradition and practitioner – oh, and what was casted. For example, I tend to do a lot of candle spells (like I said, I’m very Set-and-Forget) and prefer candles that already have spellwork/intentions casted upon them just so I can light them whenever needed, assuming they are a multi-day candle. That is because they are designed to continually apply themselves until it runs bare, which I then renew by lighting the candle again. It would be helpful to me and my practices if I just wrote down “lit XYZ candle” for whatever day I lit it on, the first day holding the general details of what it was for.

Writing down rituals and spellwork so that you can keep track of it, phenominal idea, I should probably do that more. At least maybe even at all, bare minimum.

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Spellworking and Fellowship During the Pandemic

Filed under: Coronavirus/Covid-19, Pagan Life, Spells & Potions — Leave a comment
August 13, 2021

Ah, yes, we are all still going through the Great Panini of Death. 17 months in and still no end in sight. There is some end in sight, but y’know, anti-vaxxers and misinformation and all that jazz. Despite there being a free vaccine here in the US (the worst affected nation in the world – as in, no one has more cases or deaths than we do), there are still many who do not wish to be fully vaccinated – or plain vaccinated at all. Due to this, that means that now there are stronger variants floating about. Wear a mask, even if you are vaccinated. Primarily wear masks indoor if you are vaccinated but there is more and more research coming out that you can still be a carrier for the virus, and thus get someone else sick. Covid is still pretty asymptomatic (even more so with each passing variant/mutation), Covid is still deadly (even more so with each passing variant/mutation), Covid is still around (even more so now that people are acting as if the Plague is over).

States in the US are stupidly opening up – mainly for money reasons – and some are dropping sensible measures, such as mask requirements, social distancing requirements and vaccine mandates for events & gatherings. Then you have unvaccinated people taking advantage of the current Honor System we have going on about self reporting if one is vaccinated or not. Since there is no visual difference between a vaccinated person or not, it is hard to make a proper distinction between the two. This makes everyone almost of Schrodinger Vaccination status. Are they lying? Are they not? Either way, it’s better to wear masks and not frolic so much together until the Pandemic is finally done for good.

All this to bring up those who are not solitary practitioners of Paganism and/or witchcraft. There are many temples closed, many practicing places closed, etc. And there are some that are open, way open. And then you have the Special Flavor of Anti-Vaxxer: “Nature will heal us all, we do not need vaccines”.

The stupid, it burns.

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this post, I would like to remind everyone, Pagan, Witch, and none-of-the-above, that nature, though wonderous and awe-inspiring, is insanely deadly and has zero problems with killing us all. (Given all the polluting and habitat killing we do ourselves, it really wouldn’t be that bad an idea, if you think about it from nature’s perspective.) The same nature that gives us daisies and cinnamon is the exact same nature that gives us viruses and hurricanes. Same entity. The exact same. And we pray to that exact same entity for luck, mercy and hope. So yeah, the acknowledgement of “Nature can be kind but wowsers, can nature destroy you faster than you were made” is kinda built into Pagan faith and witchcraft practices. Getting a vaccine is not rebuking any part of Paganism, magick, nothing. Science can work hand-in hand with nature (except when Science is trying to kill nature or force nature to fit an artificial lens that is incredibly short sighted). Now, most Pagan I come across has this understood through and through, but then there are the fluffy bunnies, the New Age folks and others who pretty much float around us mainly out of effort to boost their own egos and feel big and powerful. And, of course, very dumb and short sighted Pagan and magick practitioners (note earlier I said “most”, not “all”).

Now, into the meat and potatoes of this post.

Good thing we are all still under the same sky and our practices are nature based. It is entirely possible to just simply coordinate a time and do the rituals apart but together. Yes there are those who prefer to feel the close-by energies of your fellow practitioners but try to focus via the sky, not via tech or anything else. Spirit and energy can work like wind and wind is quite global. This can be very useful, regardless the size of groups. I have even seen things done through virtual reality (there is something called The Illuminati Simulator, where there is the purported claim that [quote site] but it’s totally trash, don’t use) but a ) most people do not have a VR headset b ) I would not really rely on tech to not break mid-rituals. I am used to lights flickering and things of the sort during my spellwork, I am not going to run my risks with an expensive headset. Now, the only traditions I see this possibly running into problems are for ceremonial magick practitioners, because every little thing is poignant and important, even the directions and places that people are standing. That leads to the next part.

If you absolutely have to do the ritual together – and I mean, there is literally no other way, even including the abilities of magick – then try to practice safely. Again, some traditions, it is important to be together. But do it safely. Have one person handle one thing. Nix all communal stuff such as drinking from the same goblet, try pouring into individual cups. Yes, drinking from the same source carries deep meaning, different from it being poured into individual cups, but surely the entities shall understand. This isn’t an expression of a lack of faith that the deities and entities around you cannot keep you safe from a virus, but don’t forget, there are deities of plagues and viruses. Do you think they would not like to pass up a royal opportunity to show out? Not all deities are the Respect-The-Invite-List-Please type. Heck, and this is excluding trickster deities, who also like to mess of things, especially when there is a golden opportunity. Respect those deities and play it smart & safe.

Given how covens are usually small and so are practicing groups – I have yet to see a megachurch equivalent of a Pagan worshipping place – please do try to establish social distancing. For some groups, this will be quite easy because they have to stand at several distant points (usually in a square/equal cross, at five points to represent the pentagram, etc) so hooray, social distancing is built in. I have been in relatively big groups (30+ people in a circle) but they would also practice outside since doing ritual indoors would have been terribly cramped. It is important to space out so not to spread viruses but also in general so people can be comfy, everyone can express themselves, so on and so forth.

Masks are important. I understand deeply that for some, the idea of wearing a surgical mask (not a ritual/traditional mask) or a cloth mask can feel restrictive to the ritual/spellwork or as if speaking through a filter. Again, if you have to wear a ritual mask or traditional mask, you can easily slide a regular mask on underneath. If you absolutely must – as in, there is no alternative, not even magickal – then be at least 12 feet away from everyone on all sides and only outdoors. Rituals like these can get shouty and sometimes blustering when in the passion of the moment. Be smart and be safe and most importantly, be respectful to all entities, including the uninvited ones. Tradition is important and the more ceremonial the ritual, the more restrictive it is. Every little thing is important but there is still at least miniscule room for change. Yes, there is also the idea of “won’t this deity/entity we are performing the ritual for be Not Happy that we’re trying to make room for the pandemic and the related plague deities?” Some deities and entities are very Me Only but if that’s the case, throw in an extra “this is why we’re doing all these precautions” part of the ritual. And make sure to include a “if you don’t like it, please don’t blame us – take it up with the other deity/entity that is totally stealing some of your spotlight” snippet. But still, wear a mask if you can.

Things should already be washed thoroughly for ritual, pre-pandemic. Washing and cleansing are important parts of ritual and practice because of the real and symbolic preparations of getting ready to perform ritual. Please do not be yukkers, wash thoroughly everything that will be interacted with. Wash it with soap, sanitize it with rubbing alcohol, do not just use plain water and call it a day. For commonly touched surfaces, such as staves, shawls and wands, make sanitation part of the ritual. If you’re going to create a cleaning solution meant for rituals, make sure that the cleaning content, usually rubbing alcohol, is 60% or greater. Shoot for 70% as the minimum. Even if it is as dopey looking as dressing up a bottle of hand sanitizer and deeming one person as the Sanitizer Person – I feel like chaos magicians are going to have a field day with that – still, have something in place. Rituals and groups already should have a clean up crew but it is important for everyone to do their part.

The pandemic is probably going to be going on until 2022/2023 at the sheer latest. 2024 for things to look pretty regular again. That means planning for adjustments. Vaccine rollout is slowing down, misinformation is rampant and the virus is steadily making its way through the entire Greek alphabet at record pace. Remember, the UK variant was Variant Alpha, we’re now officially at Delta and most likely going to see Epsilon quite soon – all within the span of roughly a year and some change. (I think if things go to Omega, the last of the Greek Alphabet, that’s going to be quite a kicker. In all the bad ways.) It is important to acknowledge this, even in the midst of practicing magick and/or Paganism with others. I am a solitary practitioner so it’s business as usual for me but for others who are used to practicing with each other, I’m quite sure it has put a dent in their practices.

Last but not least, if there is a Social Gathering Prevention mandate going on, respect it. Do not try to hold a ritual of 70 people when you’re only suppose to have a max of 5. The deities and entities around us are long-lived, they have seen adjustments due to war, oppression and previous plagues. A few changes will be fine.

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Water magick using a bathtub

Filed under: Pagan Life, Spells & Potions — Leave a comment
September 18, 2020

Woo, a post about magick strictly.

Using a bathtub to do water magick is an idea I have not seen much outside of “take herbal baths”, which is a good idea – when done correctly, not everything in nature works well against skin – but I think more can be expanded upon it for other forms of spellwork.

An example I am thinking of is using a bathtub as its own body of water and sitting in it for spellwork, using floating dishes, including floating candles. This is great for those who do not live near accessible bodies of water but still want to do water magick. Plus, not all accessible bodies of water are safe due to the effects of pollution (please reduce, reuse, recycle & treat water ways as important. Also, corporations are the majority reason for water problems) and that can be a problem for those who wants to work within water but cannot.

Working magick in bodies of water is definitely an experience on its own. Plain water is fine, it does not need to be jazzed up somehow with oils and herbal blends. Not to mention, that could be potentially irritating to the skin or, worse, possibly start an oil fire on water. You do not want that. Please do not turn your bathroom into the Boston harbor.

Working among/within water does not require a big bathtub, just a single bathtub. As with any form of magick, please practice appropriate safety. If you want to stand up and do movement in the bathtub, make sure you have grips so you don’t fall. Things will drift, try to keep an eye on them, especially if they are floating candles. And make sure you have absorbent materials so there won’t be a major mess.

More on floating candles. Not only are they pretty but they can be useful to combine different elements. Earthen items such as salt, oils, etc, placed in the candle. Air from the air or incense – or breath! Or steam. There are plenty possibilities to use enable to expand magick work.

Clean up should hopefully be a breeze. Assuming nothing went awry, all materials used in the spell should have stayed in select plates and in their general places. All that should be needed is to remove items first (to prevent unnecessary spills), then yourself, and then drain the tub. What is efficient is that it keeps the spell neat and organized. Water can be chaotic but your spellwork does not have to be.

Using a bathtub is one of several different ways a person can modify their practice to be better suiting for their environment. Not everyone has a bathtub, true, but this can be useful for those who do. Not all magick practice has to be the usual “stand in a circle, say stuff, do stuff, be done”. It can be as varied as the practitioner themselves.

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Techno Witch

Filed under: Pagan Life, Spells & Potions — Leave a comment
September 4, 2020

I work with technology a lot, including virtual reality, and it made me wonder what or how it could pose as some good use for magick and witchcraft.

At the start of being Pagan, many things I did were very offline. I read physical books, went to physical locations such as the library and metaphysical shop, wrote in my physical B.O.S., things like that. If anything, I preferred it that way, things were very much in reach and given the history of magick is very much more so on paper than in bytes, it made better sense to me.

But eventually, technology got better and easier. More and more resources were online, and reliable resources at that. Granted, there is still a lot of bunk and dribble on the internet. Why people like to pick up spells from random corners of the internet is beyond me. If they are easy to get and plain out there for the world to see and, even worse, come with a price tag, it is probably fake. Some witches do indeed do paid spellwork/pay for pray but not to the excessive number that exists on the internet. More on that later, but basically, tech made witchy info collecting easier. It has probably been a while since I have penned in my B.O.S. but, if anything, I have more of a Disk of Shadows (D.O.S.) now. I have particular tumblrs and tags that I follow or curate on my own that are informative and helpful to my works and endeavors. They’re sometimes really hard to find, and sometimes they are not (if you know what to look for). There are more digital groups for Black Pagans and other minorities/poc now than when I started over a decade ago. Due to the internet, there is better access to much better information about non-European cultures that is not filtered through the perspective of a random White academic slathering on a layer of their own personal bias to the details and calling it “correct, accurate and objective information”. People can do their own research and not be blocked by institutions or paywalls.

But there’s still a lot of bunk on the internet. Due to the pop culture sensation of “witchiness” (basically think of anything American Horror Story, The Craft and the Sabrina reboot has pumped out, add some culture-vulturing via “I am a bruerja” and you got it), it makes decent info still rather hard to find. Since books and old texts that may or may not be translated well or correctly are not that popular, it is easier to find people who, frankly, don’t really know much of what they are doing, they just really like sage, cultural appropriation, gothic clothing and perhaps nursing a drug habit. They’re all over Instagram with their filter-laden pictures, offering to cast spells and do divination (usually tarot, because, what else are they going to learn? Cartomancy? Numerology? I Ching? Elective Astrology? Not as popular) but don’t seem to really know much about ethics and the other boring stuff of learning actual, proper witchcraft. It’s easy to blame just about everything on Mercury retrogrades but if that person has never heard of an ephemera before, they probably are also dead wrong about anything retrograde as well. Spells are cool and mysterious (not really), reading and research is … well, how many pop culture witch characters have you seen buzzing around countless books going “I thiiiiiiiiink this is definitely super old school Congolese – liiiiike, way, way, before colonialization. And of course, it’s a half-page passage in an out-of-print book and features a next-to-dead language. So we should either pick a different spell, or start bothering really old people who may or may not remember such a language – assuming the invading White folks did not torch or steal their cultural history – oh wait, it’s sitting in the British museum, with an incorrect placard and everything. Great, now may we have to talk to stuck up, myopic, well-dressed thieves that think they’re not stuck up, narcissistically stupid, or sticky fingered because ‘I have a degree and institutional prejudice is on my side’. You know what? Killmonger had some good ideas. Someone grab some coffee, that is probably the easier option”? Outside of Hermione Granger, not really anyone in witchy pop culture is very “research is good, research is great, research keeps random entities you summoned and can’t get rid of out of your home and life.” So it can make good info hard to break through the ether. Nothing is wrong with liking pop culture depictions of magic – I get a kick out of Doom Patrol’s magnificent depiction of chaos magick – but it is a bit of a problem when people try to base their practice on movie magic. Yes, psionics is real, yes, magic is real but no, it doesn’t look exactly like the tv and movies. If anything, they can be a lot more stressful and annoying.

I think being a technology-based witch, for me, is simply involving technology in your practice. I have thought of the idea of making a virtual space for spellwork and personal practice but then I think about my track record with magick, energy movement and electrical items. VR systems are pricy and I have made electrical items go ka-put. And, again, VR systems are pricy. But others could benefit, especially those who may not have the space or safety to comfortably practice in the real world. You can make whatever you want in the virtual world and it can be your own spot. A digital altar, a digital casting circle, the list goes on and on.

At first, I wasn’t too sure of these things because, well, they are new. No one was using computers for such practices – or any practices – centuries ago. But all technology, no matter how rudimentary, was considered new at one point. All creations were considered new at one point. From the typewriter, to the wheel, to fire itself. Certainly the deities can be understanding of some of these changes. As long as the changes are relatively seamless, especially for some deities. For example, some sun gods probably would not be too keen on the use of cell phone flashlights vs. actual natural light sources, like a flame made from the sun’s rays. I imagine working with water deities would be stress-inducing unless you are very confident in the IP rating of your technology and trickster deities + internet is probably literal trouble if you do not know what you are doing.

Has all my practices gone digital? I don’t think so but I do think a vast majority of it has. It has been the easier option for me but I always bear in mind that it is good to at least have back ups and that not everything worthwhile is on a computer. There is still always going to be a need for physical things. Links die, computers break and sometime technology can over-complicate simple processes. That and not everything is on the internet, not everything has been digitized and some things are simply harder to find digitally because the metadata is not up to snuff or it is plain incorrect. Thus it is good to find a decent balance, even if that balance is majority tech with analog supports.

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Chipping Away at Protection

Filed under: Spells & Potions — Leave a comment
December 6, 2019

Taking away protection from another.

This is an ethical gray area – okay, not that gray, we’re slipping a little into the dark here.

There are (rare, very rare) times when this is okay – such as dealing with a very pesky and nagging issue/person who seems to be impervious to it all. So, it’s time to chip away or take away whatever makes them teflon or turn their teflon into kryptonite because they need to fall and preferably fall away from you.

The other (read: most) times, it’s generally frowned upon and for good reason: everyone thinks they are the hero in their own story, even the villain. Sometimes, you don’t know that it’s you who are the villain in the story, not them. And given the kind of emails I generally get from people who want to dabble simply for revenge – a good chunk seems not to care if they are good or bad, someone slighted them and that someone has to pay. Again, this is why it is frowned upon in general. A lot of people, in my experience, don’t have the proper emotional management that it takes to decide if this is a viable route to go down. All they know is that they are mad and someone made them like that.

No matter what, it is always important to note that life is not always straight forward, good guys lose, bad guys die; good guys become villains, bad guys turn new pages. The roles shift in everyone back and forth. In magick, things are even less straightforward, “occult” means “hidden” for a reason. People want to protect themselves but some think “protection” means “everyone is diminished but me”. Others can believe that someone is harmful to them and really, it’s all in their head but now someone innocent is an unwitting target a la “Tell Tale Heart”. Simply because of underlying ego/self-righteousness and the fact everyone has a personal blindspot of themselves, stuff like this can go south pretty fast.

It is difficult to determine when it is time to do such spellwork. It certainly should not be considered overnight and if you’re new to magick (under two to three years at minimum), it should not even be done at all. Not even considered. I think for practiced witches, it should be in the “Last Ditch Effort” category because, again, there could be a good reason why someone is so difficult to take down. However, then there is sometimes the idea that the person simply is an actual, difficult foe that has way too much armor for the awful that they cause. Improbable but not impossible.

Though difficult to tell, it is not impossible to differentiate whether it is time to act. For one, if the wrong doing is objectively wrong and for good reasons. Not simply, “I don’t like this because it makes me personally feel bad.” Yes, you have some who prefer to play devil’s advocate but there are some clear-cut ideas of wrong doing. Such as murdering someone simply because the skin they were born in, no other reason. Even if you can back that rationale with “well, they might have done something” or “everyone tells me that these people do actually commit wrong”, “One person in this group has indeed committed wrong at one point in history. Everyone else in the world is perfect, me included” or “I have never seen a grand, positive display of this group in anything ever, therefore, I can not believe that this particular one in front of me won’t cause wrong doing”, it still is a biased perspective, not an objective perspective. To know the difference takes time and experience. And even with those two, many still make bad calls.

Either way, it’s a choice never to be taken lightly. If you want to do it, please have at least half a decade of magick under your belt and have some streak of looking at issues in a rational, not emotional, way. Make sure it is the last option of all things, mundane and magickal. Especially mundane. If you want to ask someone else to do it because you don’t have the skill – don’t. Find a different solution and don’t drag others into your problems.

 

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The Arts!: Dawtas of the Moon Vendors/Sellers edition

Filed under: Divination, Pagan Life, Resources & Information, Spells & Potions, The Arts — 5 Comments
November 22, 2019

I had gone to Dawtas of the Moon last month, it was a good experience. These are the vendors I saw. They are all Black Women-owned brands.

Kaleidadope

Created for Black diviners, these are tarot decks that have a very new and fresh feel for them. I have written in the long past that there are little to no decks made for Black practitioners and the one that stands out to me is Lo Scarabeo’s African-American Tarot deck, which sucks beyond comprehension. It’s full name should be “African American Tarot … as envisioned through the White gaze”. What garbage. It’s nice that now, there are decks for Black diviners made by Black diviners. This means decks that are culturally comprehensive and lovely to look at.

Their site shows all their wares, I really like the cd deck the most, it is extremely imaginative. They also sell candles and oils

 

PeaceCrownD

PeaceCrownD sells satin caps designed for big, natural hair and pretty pillows. Check out this Africa-shaped one!

The caps are designed with banded, rugged elastic not to slip off during sleep. The creator also does customs for those with bigger/longer hair, like dreads. They also do custom pillows!

 

 

Elementals/ Oceans and Rivers

Elementals are flower essence infusions meant for personal practice. It is similar to oil practice but also, some can be taken internally so read carefully and check with professionals on what you can and can’t do if you go the internal route.

There is more on the Oceans and Rivers site than there was at Dawtas, including programs to promote proper emotional and mental wellness in Black girls and women.

 

BrujaTarot

BrujaTarot is a diviner that does paid divination (before you go, read the ethics page: it is very fair and justified) and sells bath pours. They come in the variety of Cleansing, Prosperity, Protection and “Road Opener”. Check them out!

Also, her kitty graces the bottle.

I am a sucker for cats, what can I say?

 

Simplymade x Sope

SimplymadexSope sells infused waters for practice, such as rose water, Florida water, lavender water, etc. I really like her Florida water, it is wonderful and smells magnificent! They also carry oil blends, Simply Loved Oil and Simply Happy Oil.

Check out their line, I really recommend it.

 

9Energy Power

I got the resin I talked about in my previous post from her. She carries quite the selection in her store.

Not only but she also sells wooden wall art, which I find very awe-striking and ornate. I like the Oshun one most, the honeycomb effect is stunning.

In addition to resins and wall art, she sells bath pours and specialty candles that function well for spellwork.

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Short Chatter Resin and Spellwork

Filed under: Pagan Life, Spells & Potions — Leave a comment
November 15, 2019

I feel like talking about fire/candle magick. I had just gotten some resin from Dawtas of the Moon (I will be posting the various vendors I saw there in The Arts! next week) and it’s quite nifty. Generally, I don’t do magick with charcoal because I just never tried. I always kept my practice pretty simple so it’s never veered into view for me.

When it comes to magick, I like to use fire. It feels very absolute for me. That, and it is useful. Want to do quick magick? Birthday candles. Talk to someone who has passed on? Jot it down and chuck in flame, done. Make something come into being? Fire of creation. Make something leave being? Fire of destruction. Very versatile.

Also, before I continue, I always like to point out fire safety. For the love of all things, practice fire safety.

  • Have baking soda, soil or sand nearby, especially if you are working with oils
  • Give your flame a 3’x3′ box of room, even if it is a teeny candle. (Some deities and entities like to be flamboyant, they will flambe your home if you give them a chance. Heck, they’ll attempt to flambe your home even if you don’t)
  • Keep animals (especially fuzzy ones) away from flames. This is not television, they will not keep a respectful distance from the flame. Do not fry your pet in effort to imitate what you saw on tv
  • Use fire-safe materials and use them in the way they are supposed to be used. For example, want to put your candle on water? Get a floating candle. Do not stick random candle in water and hope for the best – fire can start on water
  • Using oil? Got a fire? DON’T use water to put it out! Review below gif on what that looks like.

You don’t want this

  • Got an oil fire? Slide (not clap down) a lid over the fire if in a container to cut off oxygen. On a flat surface, place lid over flame. On water? Get baking soda or sand to throw on conflagration

Alright, now we got that out the way.

Fire magick is very one-and-done for me. To use resin seems to be a good fit to expand that. Especially since there are so many kinds of resins. I personally like dragon’s blood (for both its smell and purpose) but never worked with the resin form. It is originally a resin but I always used the oil form. I guess I used to think that resins were difficult to work with because they didn’t look like anything I had ever seen before back when I was first introduced to them years ago.

Now that I have resin, this makes me want to get a hanging censer or something. I definitely see how putting together different resins could really be impacting and simple in spellwork. I always prefer simple. If I wanted complex, I could have became a ceremonial magician.

In short, I think resin my personal practice is a nifty little addition.

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Ask Black Witch: The guy I like is soon to be married but I want him to be with me; can people come back from the dead; writing fiction, need research

Filed under: Ask Black Witch, Relationships and Dating, Spells & Potions — Leave a comment
June 28, 2019

Here is another installation of Ask Black Witch. As I generally say, good questions are appreciated, bad questions are eviscerated. Let’s start!

Hello,
Hope you are doing well today!

I am in need of a love spell to be cast. I can explain you my current situation. It would be really nice of you, if you can help me out in my situation by suggestion, the best suitable solution.
Actually, I have a very good friend of mine. His name is [Person]. He sees me and care for me as a good friend. But recently I deeply fell in love with him. His marriage is recently fixed, on [Date] (that’s very short span of time)
I just want to know, if we both can be together in nearby future, does he have feelings for me, or can I make him love me and propose to me at the earliest. It would really helpful, if he postpones his marriage for few months at least and thinks about his feelings for me and proposes me instead.

Any kind of guidance/ suggestion from you will be very helpful.
It will be really nice of you, If you can do an initial reading to check if my friend can fall in love with me/ does he love me, it will be really helpful.

– Sumitra K

Here’s the thing when I skim my emails: the second I see “I need a ___ spell cast”, I am immediately tossed into a bad mood. Especially if the _____ is a love spell.

Because I have said on this site time and time again my stance on casting for others (I don’t), love spells (don’t bother with them) and when people ask me to pretty much interrupt the free will of others (controlling is a form of abuse, you don’t love this person, it’s more about you than your relationship). And I’m not a Magic 8 ball so when people ask me divination questions, I bristle at that, too.

So you think you got friend-zoned (which isn’t really a real place but for brevity, let’s use the term) because, I take it, you didn’t say anything about your actual feelings back when you could have thrown your pitch. You’re free to tell the guy you have feelings for them, just to get it off your chest, but here’s the thing though:

A) the dude is about to get married (yes, there is the issue of arranged marriages but that’s not what we’re talking about at the moment)

B ) The dude sees you as a friend, not someone to date. Yay, friendship. Take that as something good and move on because he is very, very soon to be off the market – actually, he’s off the market now. Because he’s about to get married

C) Don’t hold your breath, you can easily wind up in a situation where you find out the dude never shared the same feelings as you. Don’t try to sabotage the marriage, get in the way of the marriage or anything that is meddling. Even if the marriage starts to turn sour, that’s not your moment to go in for the kill. Be there as a friend but don’t be there as a friend with ulterior motives. Because that’s not being a friend, that’s being a conniving person. Does it hurt? Yes. But it is what it is.

D ) Even if he did fall in love with you – how can we forget the actual wife-to-be? Cheating is a douchebag thing to do, divorces are tricky. Nothing has an easy route out. The dude is planted, and there are other people (innocent people, the wife-to-be didn’t ask for any of this, either) connected so this issue is pretty much done for unless the dude gets a divorce and is, therefore, back on the market.

Also, there’s the “recently fell in love” part, meaning this isn’t exactly a slow burn thing but could be one-sided love. All in all, it sounds pretty selfish to want to uproot someone else’s life because it doesn’t fall in line with what you want. Love doesn’t work that way.

Not easy to hear but just date other guys.

 

Is it possible to bring my friend back to life? If so can you do it for me or tell me how to do it? If not thank you for your time.

– Kim S.

Again, a spell request. In the world of magick, it is a good saying “It may be improbable, but not impossible.” But bringing someone back is a big and really, really, really, really, really advanced task. Not for noobs. Those difficulties aside, there’s also the ethics which are blithely ignored. The person won’t be back to their same old selves, they would be changed.

Death is sad but it’s better to find a better way to cope.

Howdy ma’am my name is Glenn nice to meet you. Let me start by saying that I am not a writer, but I have been having an undeniable urge to write. I am a strong believer in nature and evolution. I do believe in spirits, I believe all life is connected. My question to you is more like a request. The book I feel I need to write is fictional, but I don’t want it to be unrealistic. My problem is I don’t know enough about witchcraft to know if I go out of bounds. Would you please educate and guide me? Thank you and nice to meet you ma’am. SEMPER FI

– Glenn B

Yay, military speak, because that always makes me, a strongly anti-war person, happy. No shade on the Marines but that could have been left off.

I mention books all over my website, this question could have literally answered itself with a skim of the search bar I have up top. I am also a writer of fiction but even I get a little odd when I see “I need to write this book” as if there is some divine force leading them. Probably because I worked in one of the Incoming divisions at the Library of Congress, where I saw many, many crappy books by people “compelled” to write that I can’t help but to go “oh, great, another one.”

And I have rarely seen good works that focus on witchcraft, especially by folks who know jack all about it. I’ve come across stuff that just sounds over-technical, hard science re-imagined as magick, dull or chock full of gender tropes. Besides, fantasy is supposed to be whatever the writer wants, anyways.

Long story short, this question could have answered itself with a search bar.

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Black Witch on the Alt-Black Podcast

Filed under: AfroPunk/The Establishment, Coming out of the Broom Closet, Pagan Life, Race, Spells & Potions — Leave a comment
November 9, 2018

I was featured earlier this week on a podcast called Alt-Black Podcast! I talked how music got me into my faith, why I think dabbling is annoying, my experience with Afro-Punk and more! Give it a listen! I like that they gave me Baltimore Club bumper music!

 

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