Active, And Passive Sigil Activation

How to Become an Occultist:

An easy (?) step-by-step guide.

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD?

There's no easy step-by-step guide to the occult; someday I'd like to write a course on it for my patreon, or maybe a book. But for now, I'll give the short version:

I’m just going to say upfront, research is the enduring and eternal step. You can’t become an occultist without doing research, and you’re never going to stop doing research. I have a list of pdfs of classic occult texts and grimoires here, and a recommended reading list here.

Step 1: Pick a tradition, practice, or subfield.

The first step is to know what you’re signing up for. Western esotericism is a large field with lots of different subsets. Here’s just a few of them:

Witchcraft: A broad umbrella term that covers everything from historical folk magic, to Wicca and its offshoots, to modern WitchTok folk magic, and beyond. “Witchcraft” has become something of a general term for pop-occultism in recent years, and it’s what people tend to see first. Witchcraft seems more folk-magic-focused than some of the other fields, but that’s not universally true. Modern witchcraft is almost the melting pot of the Western occult tradition, so, if you’re able to find good reading material, it’s a good place to start.

Wicca: Wicca is an neopagan religion founded in 1951 by Gerald Gardner. Wiccans worship a God and a Goddess, practice magic, and call themselves witches. The ritual structure of Wicca is largely inspired by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (see below), but it also takes inspiration from folk magic, witchlore, early anthropology, and a bunch of other things from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Wicca is probably the best-known occult religion, and it’s mostly responsible for the association between witchcraft and paganism in pop culture.

Ceremonial Magic: Ritual magic or “high magic,” mostly codified in the Renaissance era by grimoires like The Lesser Key of Solomon. This kind of magic is characterized by the evocation and binding (summoning) of spirits — angels, demons, “olympic spirits,” and so forth. One can theoretically command these spirits to do one’s bidding. Modern magicians who work with demons typically fall into two camps: traditional Solomonic magicians who believe that the demons need to be bound and controlled, and demonolators who worship and work with the demons the way witches might work with pagan deities. Also in this subfield is planetary magic, rituals that exploit the powers or influences of the planets by using the tools associated with each one and doing rituals at particular times on particular days, etc. Enochian magic, a system of communicating and working with angels developed by John Dee and Edward Kelley, also falls into this category.

Folk magic: Folk magic or “low magic” is a catch-all term for magic practiced by average people to solve everyday problems. This is your healing magic, love magic, apotropaic (protection) magic, luck charms, spells to find lost objects, curses, etc. etc. Almost every culture has their own local form of folk magic, but there are also some ideas and techniques that are consistent across most of them (e.g. “like attracts like”). There’s also considerable overlap between folk and ceremonial magic; sometimes the only real difference is the social class of the practitioner.

Hermeticism: A system of philosophy based on the Corpus Hermeticum, a set of ancient Greco-Egyptian philosophical dialogues about the nature of the universe. It’s a short but dense text, not the simplest introduction to occult philosophy, but still worth reading because of how influential it was. It’s the loose basis of a nineteeth-century occult society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which is the great-grandfather of most modern occult societies (including Wicca). The HOGD was concerned with a lot more than classic Hermeticism; they also practiced ceremonial magic, astrology, alchemy, and mysticism. Golden Dawn liturgy is so common in modern occultism that you should probably look into it, whether you plan on practicing it or not.

Alchemy: A historical practice that is at once science, philosophy, art, and poetry, alchemy is a thing unto itself. The short version is that alchemy is early chemistry. Alchemists’ attempts at understanding how matter worked was understood to be a philosophical study of the nature of existence, on both a physical and spiritual level. That’s why the goal of alchemy is called the Philosopher’s Stone. The Philosopher’s Stone is allegedly a perfect substance, crystallized divinity, that is able to physically and spiritually perfect anything it comes in contact with. Alchemy is very complicated and hard to understand without diving deep into it, but some alchemical imagery and maxims (“as above, so below”, solve et coagula) have made their way into the general Western esoteric sphere.

Thelema: A religion developed by Aleister Crowley in the early twentieth century. It combines Golden Dawn material with a lot of Crowley’s own personal philosophy and general edginess. Its core tenant is “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” which means that one should always follow the guidance of what Thelemites call the “True Will,” the divine intention of one’s Higher Self. Its most important foundational text is a short, cryptic… poem, I guess?… written by Crowley, called The Book of the Law.

Chaos Magic: When Thelema meets postmodernism, you get Chaos Magic. Chaos Magic is more of a philosophical approach to the study of magic than a particular practice. It does away with the pomp and trappings of ceremonial magic and cuts right down to the basics, the magician’s relationship with their subconscious mind. That makes it very straightforward, but also difficult, because you can’t rely on any of those more complex tools. Chaos magicians (or “chaotes”) interpret belief as just another tool, so, they aim to pick up and put down different beliefs and traditions at will, based on whatever suits them in the current moment. The only specific practice associated with chaos magic is sigils, a symbol or other abstract representation of one’s desire that one uses to cast a spell. Chaotes tend to be deliberately haphazard — they have a “fuck the rules, do what you want” kind of attitude.

Satanism: The best-known of the spookier, edgier, “left-hand path” occult traditions. There’s two main varieties of Satanism, atheistic and theistic. The Church of Satan or LaVeyan Satanism (after its founder) is atheistic. It uses Satan kind of like a mascot for their beliefs of self-indulgence and free will. Although they don’t believe in any gods, they do practice magic; it’s mainly Golden Dawn material with an edgy “black mass”-style twist (like invoking demons, using a naked woman as the altar, etc.) The Satanic Temple is also atheistic, and it’s not really an occult society. It’s more a political activist group that fights for religious freedom in the United States. Theistic Satanists believe that Satan is an actual entity, and usually believe that he’s a positive being that represents free will and enlightenment. Some are demonolators, meaning they evoke and work with the demons of traditional ceremonial grimoires as though they’re gods (some believe that they literally are gods). The majority of Satanists are pretty chill. Very few believe that they worship literally evil entities.

That’s just scratching the surface, and keep in mind that this is all in the realm of Western esotericism. It’s a huge field. I recommend having an idea of what you want to study going in, because it’s a lot of material, and it’s easier to find good sources if you know what you want to focus on. Speaking from my own experience, I wish I knew what my options were going in.

Step 2: Learn a divination method.

Every occultist needs some kind of divination method. There are potentially thousands, but I’ll give you some of the big ones:

Cartomancy is card reading. There's lots of different kinds of cards: tarot cards, oracle cards, Lenormand cards, you can even use normal playing cards. It's a super common and super popular method. Tarot is definitely the most popular system. This method is easy to learn and very accessible.

Cleromancy is divination by lot, or casting objects onto the ground — dice, sticks, bones, stones, etc. — and reading the random pattern they make. There's lots of different types. This method is very old and very common. One of the more popular methods nowadays is casting runestones, which use Norse letters.

Scrying is gazing into a blank object until you see visions projected onto/into it. The object can be a crystal ball, a black mirror, a bowl of water, even a dark window or a blank wall (though that's not particularly mystical). Scrying is often used to see spirits in ritual magic. I can't scry worth a damn, so I can't tell you more than that. It's worth trying if you're a visual person, though.

A pendulum is a stone or other heavy object on a chain. You can use it to answer yes/no questions. Lots of crystal shops sell fancy pendulums, but you could just use a pendant. You say to the pendulum, "show me my yes" and "show me my no." Usually the "yes" is going around in a circle and "no" is going back and forth, or vice-versa. Pendulums are fun, but not super reliable because you can influence them easily. I wouldn't interpret any answer a pendulum gives you as final.

Oneiromancy is dream interpretation, and it’s another ancient method that’s used all over the world. I don't have significant dreams very often, though, despite my best efforts. With the abundance of other methods, I don't recommend relying solely on this one.

Automatic writing or “free-association writing” is my personal preferred method. It’s writing a question, and then writing whatever comes to mind as the answer, regardless of whether it makes sense. This technique is very, very effective for me, and has triggered full-on mystical experiences more than once.

Astrology is also a type of divination that involves interpreting the position of the stars and planets on the 2D plane of the sky to learn about the future and/or about specific people. It’s a much more complicated system than horoscope apps make it look. Practically a necessity for planetary magic, but in this century, you can be a wizard without being an astrologer. It’s good to have at least a foundational knowledge of it.

Different methods are useful for different things. Automatic writing and scrying are good for talking to spirits. Astrology is pretty useless for talking to gods, but is a good way of determining the outcome of your spells and the various influences upon your life at a given point. Cartomancy and cleromancy can be used for either, with some benefits and drawbacks. I recommend playing around with different methods to find one that works for you.

Step 3: Develop basic magical skills.

In addition to divination, you’re going to need some other basic skills. The most important one is meditation — if you don’t know how to meditate, learn. Meditation doesn’t have to mean sitting still. I definitely can’t sit still; I meditate by pacing back and forth. Anything you can do to lull yourself into a trance state can work, even singing in the shower.

You’ll also have to practice visualization, imagining your magic as though it were something tangible. For example, a lot of ritual formats will begin by asking you to imagine a white circle of light around yourself, or imagining taking each of the four elements into your body. Next is energy work — manipulating these imaginary forces and seeing how they affect your body, your emotions, other people, and the external environment.

You’ll also have to learn the basics of how to conduct a ritual, and gather your basic tools (which don’t have to be fancy or expensive). Rituals can feel awkward and silly at first, but that changes with practice. The basic point of a ritual (“supernatural” stuff aside) is to create the conditions to put yourself in a particular state of mind.

Finally, magic requires a lot of introspection and self-awareness. You have to really know what you want, not just what you think you want. And when your magic is successful, you have to have the humility to not have it go to your head (or else you’ll be afflicted with the dreaded “Magus-itis”). And that’s without going into the fact that ritual can drag up some intense stuff. Work through your shit, do your Shadow work. It’s hard, but it pays off in the long run.

Step 4: Practice a simple ritual.

Once you have some basic skills, it’s time to try your first ritual! You’re not going to want to try anything that’s labor-intensive or life-changing. Save the demon-summoning and stuff until later. The first ritual you do will probably be a banishing — a simple spell that’s intended to clear the space of any spiritual crap. Ideally, it should be used before and after every rite. Even if you don’t believe in evil spirits or “negative energy” or anything like that, a banishing is like the magical equivalent of turning it off and back on again. It’s a systems reboot. It wipes the slate clean. You’re gonna want to know how to do that, so you can 1. know what a space feels like when it’s free of influences, and 2. put down whatever you call up. It’s a good first thing to learn because it’s so essential, and also because it’s almost guaranteed to have no major repercussions.

The standard banishing ritual in the Western esoteric tradition is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP), which is from the Golden Dawn tradition. It consists of intoning or “vibrating” the names of God and invoking the angels of the four directions. If that’s too Abrahamic for you, there are plenty of other variants that use different divine names. The Wiccan “circle casting” is essentially the same thing, trimmed down a bit. If the LBRP doesn’t appeal to you, there’s plenty of other banishing rites out there.

The first full ritual I did was actually a simple variant of the Wiccan “Drawing Down the Moon” invocation. I remember really feeling something the first time I did it, and that was enough to convince me that I wanted to continue.

And there you have it, a step-by-step guide to becoming an occultist, as simple as I can make it. Keep it simple to start, take your time, do your research. Whether you want anything specific out of occultism, you want to satisfy your curiosity, or you just like the idea of being a wizard, it’s fun to study magic.

Broke Boy Guide to Altar Offerings

Hey! Are you broke but still wanna offer something up to the gods? Don't worry! (So am i) So here's a guide of things that are either free, low cost or that you probably already own to slap onto those altars. Mind you: These are mainly modern offerings that I attribute to these different classification of gods. I'll likely update as time goes on with other classifications :)

General Offerings to Deities:

random flowers from outside

random sticks from outside

hand written letters/prayers

plushies of the animals they're connected to

raw/cooked meats as "sacrifices"

drawn symbols

Art/Creative Deities:

symbol painted bottle caps

pens/pencils/markers

old sketchbooks

stickers/prints

origami

comic books

figurines

Death Deities:

bones or meat from your meals

dirt from a dead plant

dying flowers

skull imagery

coins or other gifts for those passing

photo/belongings of your late loved ones

Familial/Household/Protector of Children Deities:

photobooth photos

jewelry gifted from family

baby teeth from your children

breast milk

old baby shoes

framed photo of family

cookies/bread

homecooked meals

Fire Deities:

birthday candles

charcoal discs

burnt herbs

alcohol

incense

tobacco

matchbox/lighter

Healing Deities:

your current medications

bandaids

water

skincare

vitamin gummies

spell jar in an empty pill bottle

Knowledge/Wisdom Deities:

old books & textbooks

pens/pencils

mini chess pieces

written down philosophical quotes

good test scores/report cards/degrees

Love/Lust Deities:

origami 3D hearts

chapsticks

unused makeup

love letters to deities

love letters about S/O or crush

current perfume/cologne

current lotions

apples

Nature Deities:

plants dedicated to them

herbal tea packets

feathers

milk

fruits/vegetables

spells using recycled materials (toilet paper rolls, etc.)

bread

acorns

Sea Deities:

beach sand

shells

sea water

tiny sea animal figurines

shared fish dinners

makeshift spell jar using a shell

Trickster Deities:

laffy taffy joke wrappers

cards against humanity packs

other comedy card games

gentle curse

the most convenient way for me to stir up a little trouble for someone who needs a little push in the right direction:

- grab a small jar (or large, it doesn’t matter)

- fill it a quarter way with vinegar

- add any type of brutal pepper and salt

- write out a person’s full name on a scrap of paper

- drop the paper into the jar while stating the intentions

- seal the jar with either a lid or cloth and string

this way the person of interest drowns in their own negative energy until they learn from their mistakes

Tarot Tips

Care and Keeping of Your Cards

Bonding: Carry with you, spend time with each card, meditate with them, do an interview spread, understand your deck's strengths and weaknesses.

Cleansing: Use crystals, sun/moon light, sage/smudging, meditation, salt, and reset shuffles to cleanse and charge your deck.

Respect: Store cards in a cloth, box, or bag in a safe place. Respect and listen to your cards, learn their language, feel their soul.

Birth/Soul Cards

Your birth card represents who you are and what you entered this life to learn. It can be determined by adding together all the digits of your birth date (the same as calculating your life path number in numerology).

Example: June 17, 1994(06/17/1994)- 0+6+1+7+1+9+9+4=37, 3+7=10 making the birth card the Wheel of Fortune.

Yes or No Questions

Yes cards:

• Any card not listed below

No cards:

• The Moon

• The Tower

• The Devil

• Death

• 5 of Pentacles

• 5, 7, and 8 of Cups

• 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and Knight of Swords

Neutral/maybe cards:

• The Hanged Man

• The Hermit

• 4 of Cups

• 4 of Swords

Exceptions:

• 2 of Swords/10 of Wands- the answer is not yet known

• 5 and 7 of Wands- the answer is yes, but you must fight for your prize

*Always look at the card's meaning for more context.

Two Card Pulls

• Do/don't

• Life/death

• Problem/solution

• Now/later

• Logic/emotion

• Yes/no

• Internal/external

• Past/future

• Growth/stagnation

• Love/hate

• Found/lost

• Flaws/strengths

• Dark/light

• Conscious/subconscious

• Stay/leave

• Give/take

• Creation/destruction

Three Card Spreads

• Past/present/future

• Mind/body/spirit

• Stop/start/continue

• Problem/lesson/advice

• You/them/the relationship

• Opportunity/challenge/outcome

• You/path/potential

Divination Tricks

For a situation that is not going your way: Find the Wheel of Fortune in your deck, the two cards on either side of it may present a solution to your problem.

To bring money: Pull the 1st, 5th, 10th, 20th, and 50th cards in your deck. They will tell you how to increase your wealth.

To find the root of a romantic conflict: Find the Lovers, the cards on either side are issues affecting the relationship.

To heal from sadness: Find the Moon and the Sun, the cards in between are the steps you must take.

To look to the near future: Find your birth/soul card, the first card underneath it is what's coming soon.

To know what you must do to care for yourself: Look for the Empress and consider the card behind her.

To find the cause of stagnation: Look for the Hanged Man, the card under him is what's holding you back, the card in front of him shows how to overcome it.

To help stop a conflict: Find the 5 of Wands, the card behind it will reveal the solution.

ambiguous mental illness ❌️

my curse #MyCurse ✅️

i cannot say it enough: RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP RESEARCH IS WORSHIP

research your ancestors, research your gods, research the land you come from, listen to the stories told by your family, your community, your elders and take notes. research research research.

A very basic tarot spread that overview many areas in ones life.

Advice for if your practice is feeling stressful or unfulfilling (that isn't 'just stop practicing')

Before you expand: long text post!

I think it's interesting that the first line of advice stressed and unhappy practitioners often receive is 'stop practicing! take a break,' because besides a breather this doesn't actually do anything. When a person is done with that break they're still going to have the same stressful, unfulfilling practice they did before.

Stop practicing is useful advice for someone who is about to deep-fry their brain in uncontrolled Witch Fire. It's useful advice for someone who experiences unexplainable catastrophe every time they engage in magic.

I'm not sure it's useful advice for people who want to practice and are actively seeking help figuring out how.

So here are some ideas. Feel free to add your own.

If your practice has too much of a time load:

Scrape over-engineered ritual. Examine ritual formats. Are you spending a majority of your practice time engaging in elaborate ritual? Where can that be paired down?

Swap ritual for enchantments. If ritual performs an action (laying a compass), can you substitute for that ritual action by making enchanted objects that take less time to activate (enchanted compass altar cloth)?

Minimize ingredients. If you regularly perform spells that require lengthy enchantment of ingredients, can you use fewer ingredients to achieve the same results? If you're using more than 3 correspondences for any spell, is this because you are wise in your own ways, or because you just feel that more is merrier?

Mash rituals together. Do you have a string of rituals, even small ones, that you perform one after the other? Is it possible to reorganize these so they're all done at once, in the same ritual? For example, setting out an offering to the gods, a different offering for the ancestors, another for helper spirits, etc. Can you combine these all into one single offering?

Check for over-tending. Is it possible that you're repeating magical acts, like feeding wards and cleansing, more often than you need to? Did you arrive at this schedule through trial and error, or did you just guess this is how often you should do them?

Check for your own levelup: spell maintenance. If it's been a while since you re-evaluated your ritual/offering/maintenance schedule, your increase in skills may mean you need to do these tasks less often to achieve the same result.

Check for your own levelup: techniques and routines. Some techniques, like carefully entering trance, grounding, and centering, are like training wheels that wear ruts into our paths of magic. As we improve in skill, old rituals and techniques that have been carefully couched in these helpful devices may become ingrained in us so that we can perform them in almost any state of mind, much faster and easier than we could before. Experiment with any technique you've been doing for a while and see if you still need to perform time-consuming meditative or focusing techniques before you can perform the skill.

Be reasonable with your own goals. I find most 'laywitches' give themselves daily and weekly schedules that would put actual cloistered monks to shame. Did your spirits tell you they expect daily offerings, or did you decide on that an run with it? Where are you overcompensating and overexerting in your path when nobody, including yourself, asked you to?

If your practice has too much of a work load:

Much of the advice of the prior section applies. Also,

Just work less. Are you putting in 100% effort when 20% or 30% would do? Are you treating every act of magic like a performance review that will control the outcome of your magical career? I'm not being sarcastic; an actual solution to your path being too much work is to just put in less effort. If you've never tried this you may be shocked at how effective magic can be when you're only doing what needs to be done.

Find simpler, more reasonable stuff. Find new techniques, and spell and ritual formats that are paired down to fit the amount of effort that's reasonable to exert for any given magical act. If you can't work with correspondences without a lengthy act of activation, find a way to cast simple spells that doesn't rely on correspondences.

Limit research and prep. Ask yourself how much research you reasonably need to get started on any given project. Remember that a huge amount of a witch's education is experiential; you will probably never know enough until you've already done it three or four times.

Be goal-oriented; prioritize actions. Ask yourself if you've set arbitrary workloads before you can get started with anything, such as forcing yourself to write artistic grimoire pages before you're allowed to perform a ritual you're interested in.

Learn skills to help prioritize actions. If your practice is consumed by acts of upkeep such as cleansing and empowering objects, focus on learning energy sensing so you can reasonably determine whether or not an object actually needs to be cleansed or empowered.

Administrate your own practice - what can go on the back burner? Make a list of all your active ongoing projects and maintenance, including upkeep of energy batteries, spells that require maintenance, and situations you want to change and are casting spells on. Prioritize them; see which ones you can set aside.

Restructure your projects to minimize maintenance. Consolidate spells and projects where possible. For example, if you have multiple protection spells for many people that require upkeep, condense them all onto a protection altar so you can feed and tend to them all at once.

Work in batch and bulk. See where you can do batch work to lighten your load. You can bulk enchant candles and incense, instead of enchanting incense every time you do a ritual. You can enchant oils, waters, and incense to feed your spells, taking time out of upkeep.

Levelup your charging and maintenance skills. Learn energy work to attach energy tethers to batteries and other important projects so they're able to drink from the wellspring you attach them to, and stay charged.

Scrape routines that don't serve you. Examine any daily routines. Are you doing them because they're helping you, or because you feel like you're supposed to be doing something every day? See if you can replace more intensive daily routines with something less tiring, like a prayer to your path itself.

If your practice feels too silly:

You have a right to privacy. Cocooning is valid. It's fine to take steps to limit who can see and potentially judge your practice. You can keep things to yourself until you're ready.

Tend to your emotional wellness. Self-therapy, in any form you feel comfortable with, can help mitigate the inner eye of judgement.

Reduce your beliefs to palatable doses. Believing in magic for only the duration of your work is perfectly fine. You don't have to 'believe-believe' 24/7. If you're not ready to integrate the belief of magic and spirits into your baseline worldview, don't - you can agree to buy in to those beliefs only while you practice techniques and cast spells, and then put them away the rest of the time.

Scrape stuff you really can't get past. Ask yourself what about your practice feels silly. Are there trappings - like altars, ritual movements, and speaking aloud - that you don't like? Change them. Is the idea that religious faith itself is a bit cringe? Self-therapy (or you know, the regular kind) may be assistive.

Ask for help modifying your process.Is there something very specific about a ritual or technique that you just can't get past, but you don't know how to change it? Research and see what other substitute rituals are available. Ask others and see if they can help you brainstorm.

Embrace the silliness. It's not going anywhere. Believing in your practice and holding it dear and sacred is not the same as being ✨super serious gravitas✨ all the time. There are lots of things about witchcraft, and the acts of the witch, that are silly and make you realize you're doing something ridiculous. I came out here at 2 am after it's been raining to climb down a slippery riverbed to get a branch of a tree that I think is talking to me?? Because some medieval guy said Tuesday is the planet Mars and I think trees talk to me?! Ridiculous. Yet I still love it dearly in a sacred place in my heart. It can be silly and glorious at the same time.

Cast a wider net. See if you're barking up the wrong tree. Traditional Witchcraft, folk magic, lodge magic, chaos magic, eclectic neopaganism... these things are not interchangeable. If you've never explored different traditions, why not give it a go? You might find another path that feels a lot more natural to you. A lot of people fall into a certain path just because they don't know what else they could be doing!

If your practice feels unfulfilling:

What are you doing to bring yourself fulfillment? Why did you get into witchcraft? Make a list of your top 5 reasons (if you have that many). Which techniques, spells, and rituals are you regularly performing are designed to deliver these desires to you? If one of your goals of practicing witchcraft is to 'feel connected,' how often are you performing acts where the only goal is to make you feel connected?

Grow your path deliberately in the direction of your needs. What do you wish you had in your life right now? Is it the feeling of being loved? Inner peace? Feeling like nature is alive and watching you? Look for what techniques and rituals in your practice will bring these things to you. If there are none, find or develop them.

Ask for help and share your feelings. If you work with gods and spirits, do you regularly tell them how you feel about your practice and ask them for help finding fulfillment?

Find contentment in the process. It's vital to find joy in the process. If you have regular routines or upkeep you need to do, how can you modify it so that process in and of itself is satisfying to you? Try considering the visceral element of witchcraft: the words, scents, sounds, moods, and thoughts that you want to experience in your present moment. Witchcraft is experiential: a great deal of the experience you create in the tidepools of routine is under your control.

Contemplate the larger purpose. Some witches do have magical chores and responsibilities they can't or shouldn't shirk. If this is true of you, and you can't modify those routines, try refocusing on why you're doing them and the importance they hold in your path. See if you can find balance elsewhere in your practice that feels rejuvenating; sort of a 'work-play' balance of your own craft.

Set short-term goals you can celebrate. Are you undertaking a lot of 'workout routines' that are designed to basically make you magically buff, or get good at a particular skill, but you're doing them with no endgoal? Try creating short-term goals that excite your sense of wonder or accomplishment. Like, practicing tarot until you can read the Celtic Cross, or practicing energy work until you can make a four-element layered energy shield. Build goalposts for yourself, both in the short and long-term, and celebrate your successes.

Scrape routines you're not doing for any good reason. Are your regular practices things you're doing because they fill you with mystery and wonder, or because you're just pretty sure that's the kind of thing witches do? If you're bored or unfulfilled by a particular routine, consider stopping it altogether, especially if you can't think of any short-term goals that it's helping you work towards. Think about the reasons you got into witchcraft: what practices would help you fulfill those reasons, while also feeling good to practice?

Seek out a likeminded community. A good working group of friends can be invaluable. My close group of witch friends, whom I've been hanging out with for years, started as a Tumblr post asking if anyone wanted to make a small server to study witchcraft. Reach out and see who's out there to study with, talk to, and practice with. It can be loads of fun to do short-term study and practice challenges with friends, and a great way to get feedback and support.

Evaluate your spiritual relationships. Although it can be painful and challenging, sometimes we enter into our paths working with gods and spirits that after some time, we need to move on from. Is it possible your path has become stagnant because you don't want to keep working with a god or spirit that your path has been built around? It may be time to see how you can move on.

When 'take a break' might be helpful advice to heal your practice:

Of course, YMMV :)

'Taking a break' doesn't mean stop being a witch, stop believing in magic, or stop 100% of your practice. It can also mean putting a lot of projects on the back burner, switching to bare-minimum (or below minimum) maintenance, and squashing regular routines.

I'm talking specifically about taking a break in the interest of your own practice - not the conditions under which someone is ""allowed"" to stop practicing witchcraft.

Take a break to rest and let your seeds germinate. 'Fallow periods,' when you have no desire or motivation to practice witchcraft, and when it seems like there's nothing for you to do, are normal. Some witches experience this cyclically, perhaps during certain seasons or when predictable life conditions are met. There's no need to force yourself to practice when it's just not flowing. The snow on your mountaintops needs to melt to replenish your waterways, bestie. There's nothing wrong with you, the sun just isn't out yet.

When you're hitting yourself with a hammer. When something in your practice is triggering or harming you, and stopping will have no consequences, then stopping your practice for a while is probably a good idea. Use the downtime to seek healing or reformat your practice.

To open your life up for necessary work. Not every witch can out-path every problem. Consider taking a break when the problem is something you will have time and energy to work on if not for your regular magical practice.

When you're about to deep-fry your brain with Witch Fire. Consider taking a break when the problem with your practice is that you are practicing too often - such as fatigue due to excessive spellwork, divinatory obsession, trouble staying out of the spirit world (compulsive astral travel), or focus on spirits/magic/the spirit worlds are starting to erode your home, school, or work life.

To let the ripples settle. When you've done so much magic or ritual work that your life is a boat on a stormy sea, and you just need to batten down the hatches for a while and let things settle.

about me!

my name’s kit

pronouns he/it, i’m trans and queer

disabled and mentally ill

this is my witchcraft sideblog, i will only be posting about witchcraft. this blog will function as a place to compile all the information i come across and will want to reference later on

i’m a beginner witch. i currently mostly practice sigils, herb magick, divination and some spellwork

i worship lord lucifer and king asmodeus (and nature in a non-theistic way)

my main blog is @endless-tsundoku

Please read this if you practice witchcraft, especially if you're a baby witch

Everyone says "do your research!" and absolutely, but this does not just apply to making sure you're using the right crystals in the right places or not being disrespectful towards whatever forces you're working with. Do your research in the most logical, practical, basic sense so that you don't accidentally hurt (or kill - yes, some of these mistakes can be literally deadly) yourself, your pets or children, your plants, the environment you're working in, etc.. I don't just want to scream at baby witches but use some common sense. You're working with chemicals here, not just energy.

- Salt is one of the most popular things to use for cleansing rituals. Putting it on soil will destroy it. Drinking it won't kill you, but there's a reason they say not to drink salt water no matter how thirsty you are. In small amounts you'll become dehydrated. In large amounts you'll get sick and likely start vomiting.

- Not all essential oils are safe for skin use, or for inhalation in terms of children or pets.

- Not everything is safe to burn. Again, remember that you are inhaling this when you burn it.

- Not safety related, but water can harm certain crystals. And sunlight. And salt. Research your crystals.

- Herbs can and do have side effects. We often talk about the medicinal benefits, but just like there's medicine you shouldn't combine, don't combine certain herbs or medications.

- Know what chemicals you're working with and what shouldn't mix. I recently saw someone create a hex jar with bleach and urine and go "Why is it doing that?" Because that's chloramine gas and it can kill you.

- Don't attempt to bring anything into nature that could risk the safety of what lives there. Something as simple as a lit piece of paper can start a forest fire. Leaving an offering? Make sure it won't kill any animals that eat it.

(This isn't chemistry related, but I also recently, as in today, saw someone ask about cleansing a route they regularly hike on. Let's reframe this: Would you consider it rude to go into someone's home as a guest, decide you enjoy being there, and then attempt to cleanse it of the owners? Yes. Because it is rude. And you're sure to really piss off anything that's living there. And aside from that, it's useless to attempt. Whatever is living there is a lot more powerful than your smoke - you're outnumbered and overpowered.)

- All this goes to say, if you do not know for damn sure that something is safe for you and everything around you to burn, ingest, inhale, or in any way combine, don't do it.