Norse Animism Is Based On The Notion That We Can Socialize With The World And That The World Socializes

Hi Chicken! I really enjoyed reading your post about spirit shops. It also raised smt that I've been kind of struggling with for a while-- the discernment thing. Everyone in here is constantly talking about this, but it's always in nebulous terms and I'm like wtf do I do?? And have become rather worried and turned off by spirit interactions and trying to have any bc I'm so worried that I'll get something wrong, that I'll be trying to talk to some "higher"(in the god sense) being but something else will respond, and since for now I feel pretty spirit blind I feel overwhelmed. This also applies to when thinking about going to the astral or meditation, you know, to meet spirit guardians and such (as you are speaking about in your recent post). Sorry if I'm making a big deal out of something small. Thank you so much for your posts, I'm enjoying them a lot ❤️

Hi!

It is not making too big of a deal. It's not a small thing.

A great deal of modern rhetoric on spirit communication is dominated by the concept that there are so many evil, malicious, or liar spirits out there desperate and waiting to glomp on to any wayward practitioner, so before a person can ever be safe working with spirits, they need to learn X, Y, and Z magics.

Where do you learn this magic, if you aren't able to commune with spirit teachers?

Why, you have to rely on more experienced people, probably the same ones telling you its not safe for you to explore on your own :)

My number 1 suggestion for you is to stop listening to people who are saying those things. Whether or not they realize it, creating anxiety in learners causes those learners to flock to them for help and rely even more on their words.

It's a toxic, self-fulling loop.

If someone is telling you that all these spirits are so dangerous and it's so easy for you to be tricked, what does that tell you about them? It tells you that THEY work with dangerous spirits and THEY are at danger of being tricked, AND they are so inexperienced that they do not understand their dynamic is not universal and other people walk different paths.

This long post I recently made talking about the astral summoning praxis talks about the danger of people within this belief system projecting their beliefs outwards.

How fucked up is it that some of these people have projected their beliefs to the point where it is dangerous to talk to gods totally unrelated to their system? They are literally gatekeeping Hellenic, Kemetic, Norse, etc., gods, because their unrelated spirits in unrelated systems have all these rules, so obviously Hekate and Isis need to be approached the same way a conjurer approaches a trithorkian glitter salamander they met in the astral.

It's absolutely ridiculous, and I'm sorry you've been dragged into this culture of fear. People out here are literally making you afraid to meditate. That's fucked up.

So, as far as actionable steps go:

1. Throw out the astral. I mean absolutely just drop it. You do not need to astral travel to meet spirit guides. Let go of every single concept of the astral. Decide for yourself, "maybe astral travel is for me later on, but right now I have so much baggage about it that I need to let it go."

2. Throw out the concept that all these spirits are somewhere far away in nebulous realms. Some are, yeah. Let's not work with them. Let's find our family here on Earth. Our siblings in the land, our parents in the solar system, our cousins in the sea and sky. They have physical bodies on earth: the trees, the stones, the grains of sand. We have physical bodies here on earth. We're all family. Family first, maybe getting to know astral strangers later :)

3. Practice spirit communication with stuff around you, not in the astral. Avoid disassociating or leaving your body. Stay fully within your body, talk to spirits around you (no astral, no meditation).

4. Discernment is literally just having psychic senses that are clear enough so that you can understand what is going on around you in the ethereal/metaphysical layers of reality. Discernment is not a concept limited to spirit work. For example, energy workers discern whether or not they have created a shield. Spellcasters discern whether or not they have properly raised energy. If you want to improve your psychic senses, try an exercise like this one. Other activities, such as "vibe checking" enchanted objects with friends (can be done with photos online), attempting aura readings, all divination, energy work, and spellcasting will help improve your psychic senses over time.

5. "Tricksters" are not coming through in the place of gods. Some people out here are doing really stupid shit and setting themselves up for complete failure when it comes to divine communication, and then turn around and act like we're all in danger. We're not. No need to set up an altar. No need to do fancy devotionals. Siddown and pray. "Jesus Christ, I need to talk to you today. Tumblr is out here spreading lies again." Or you know like, "Athena, I need to talk to you today. I've heard you got the good vibes, I'd love to get in on that."

6. Getting something wrong isn't a big deal. If you're just wanting to pray to your ancestors and receive advice from guides, it's not a big deal. There isn't some little incidental mistake you can make that is going to make you possessed by a demon. There are not hoards of evil spirits straining, clawing to get through to you. There just aren't. The world is not evil like some people think it is. You are not prey. You are not a future victim. You are not a tiny little weak person trapped in an isolated cabin with evil spirits piling up around you like snow in a blizzard, and there's only one path to safety.

You are a person surrounded by friends and family, in a warm house with a crackling fire, you are sitting on the rug before the fire, they are watching you with loving smiles, your eyes are squeezed shut and you're holding your knees to your chest, and they are so ready for you to open your eyes and join them at the dinner table -

Whenever you are ready.

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Ancestor Veneration

In the occult discords I frequent I periodically see questions from new practitioners who want to start spirit work and have been directed to start with their ancestors, but they’re in a bind because like many young folk today they don’t have such a great relationship with their family. For their own reasons they don’t know their family history and either feel disconnected from previous generations or don’t want to connect to their bloodline. Over the years my personal ancestor veneration has taken shape in a way that I think might be helpful or of interest to people who want to strike up a relationship with their ancestors, but don’t have a great one with their living or recently deceased family.

Types of ancestors:

Beloved Dead: These are my known/recently deceased spirits, people I have known in life who have passed on. Not always technically ancestors, because these spirits aren’t aren’t necessarily related to me, or in my direct line of descent. The only requirement is that I knew them in life, as well as in death.

Ancestors: My actual forebearers, the people I’m directly descended from. I know many of their names because my family tree is very well researched, but I never met them in life. This also includes the ancestors whose names I don’t know but are still in that familial line, those spirits I refer to as “unnamed ancestors” or “unnamed forbearers”.

Cultural Ancestors: This by far the largest category, because there is no upper limit to the number of sub categories I can squeeze in there, none of which rely on actual blood ties. It has my ethno-cultural ancestors, the Irish people who came before me, the Italian people who came before me, the Norwegian people who came before me… etc. But it also has the ancestors of the things I choose to identify my self as: The disabled people who have come before me, the witches who have come before me, the Sailors, the Dancers, the Musicians, the Storytellers, etc. Everyone in this category connects me to some kind of cultural history that exists outside of my bloodline.

Who To Call On and When?

For me calling on my ancestors is a lot like calling on a deity. I petion them/ dedicate my actions to them, when I’m doing something that’s in their realm of influence. For instance: Say I’m cooking a traditional Italian meal, I would call on my Italian cultural ancestors, and they would get some of the meal as an offering in repayment. I would also probably call on the individual spirit of my grandmother, one of my beloved dead, since she was the one who taught me Italian cooking, and it’s quite likely her recipe I’m using.

I also have specific days set aside for my most frequently called upon groups Christmas Eve was always big with the Italian side of the family, and I still celebrate it the traditional way, so that’s become a day for my Italian cultural ancestors. St Patricks Day is for my Irish cultural ancestors. St. Lucia Day is for my Norwegian ancestors. I’ve set aside Talk Like a Pirate Day to venerate all of the sailors, fishermen, and wayfinders who have gone before me, and

Why Approach Ancestor Work/Worship/Veneration like this?

I feel like this approach gives me, and perhaps others, the most flexibility and the most options to approach ancestor work on terms that work for me. Have a great relationship with the family you’ve interacted with, but uncomfortable with the actions of your ancestors a few generations back? Interact only with your Beloved Dead and your Cultural Ancestors. Want nothing to do with your biological family, but still want to do ancestor work? Create a spiritual found family by working only with Cultural Ancestors. This way of thinking about those who loved what we love before us could be applied to any interest or personal identity that a person holds dear. However you choose to define yourself you can can use to draw a connection to people who also defined themselves that way in the past.

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Magics for Curse-Breaking

Updated: November 12th, 2017

Are You Cursed?

[Have I Been Cursed?]

[How to Tell if You’ve Been Cursed]

[I’m Afraid That I’ve Been Hexed]

[Knowing if You Are Under a Curse/Have Been Cursed]

[So You Think You’ve Been Cursed]

[So You Think You’ve Been Cursed?]

Protection from Curses

[Curse Removal / Protection]

[A Hearth Witch’s Defense, Part Two - Protecting Yourself & Your Hearth From Curses]

[Protection and Return to Sender Jar]

[Protection from Curses]

[Protection Jar Against Binding and Hexes]

[Protective Measures Against Common Hexes or Curses]

[Three Little Empresses: Curse Protection Poppets]

[To Ward Off Curses]

Decoys

(a decoy acts as a “substitute” for you, which the curse will be redirected to instead of harming you; the decoy can then be cleansed or destroyed to remove the curse from it; sometimes you don’t get a choice and the decoy gets destroyed, and you have to make a new one if you still desire its protection)

[Anti-Curse Poppet]

[Black Hole Decoy]

[Creating a Decoy for Protection Purposes]

[Curse Decoy]

[Decoy Poppet]

[Diversion Jar]

[Negativity / Bad Luck / Curse Absorbing Decoy Poppet]

[Sea Witch’s Scapegoat]

[Spell: Witch Bottle]

[The Spook’s Decoy]

[Substitute Spell]

[Witch Bottle]

To Break a Curse

[Antidote: Hexed Objects; Removal Powder]

[“Black as Night” Curse Removal Body Scrub]

[Blackthorn Reversing Spell]

[Break a Curse Candle Spell]

[Break a Curse Spell]

[Break a Spell Cast Against You]

[Breaking a Curse]

[For Breaking a Curse]

[Burning Bridges Spell]

[Buster Poultice Recipe]

[Curse Breaker Cleansing] (cw: sigil)

[Curse Breaking Hand Washing/Bath]

[A Curse-Breaking, Purifying, and Protective Witch Jar] (tw: music autoplay)

[Curse Removal & Reversal]

[Curse Removing Wash]

[To Destroy a Curse]

[The Healing Pool: A Cursebreaker]

[Hex and Curse Breaking]

[Hex-Breaker Candle]

[Hexbreaker Powder]

[Lemon Uncrossing]

[Lift a Curse]

[Mild & Spicy Cursebreaker Powders]

[Multipurpose “Curse Removing” Wash]

[To Remove a Curse]

[Remove a Hex, Reverse a Jinx]

[Removing Hexes and Curses]

[Rid Yourself of a Curse]

[Smoke Out the Curse]

[Thu'um Magix: Disarm]

[Unbinding Spell]

To Send a Curse Back

[Anti-Curse Powder]

[Calcifer’s Bargain - A Spell to Reverse a Curse/Hex Placed on You]

[Charm - Curse/Spell Breaking]

[To Counter a Curse]

[Curse Breaking Shampoo]

[Curse-Reverse]

[Curseturner Powder]

[“Drown the Witch” Reversing Spell]

[Engraved Hourglass Nebula Curse Return Spell]

[Flame Wheel]

[Lemon Curse Breaker]

[Major Arcana Spells - Lady Justice - Return to Sender]

[Mirror Counter-Curse]

[Mirror, Mirror (Reversal)]

[Reflect Away Harm (Curse Reversal)]

[Return to Sender]

[Return to Sender / Banish Negativity Spell]

[Return to Sender Candle Spell]

[Return to Sender Spell] 

[Reverse a Curse]

[Sealed with a C(urse)]

[Simple Hex/Curse Reversal]

[A Simple “Reverse the Curse” Spell]

[Spell: Return to Sender]

[A Spell to Counter Another’s Magick]

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Hearth Magic

Lately I have been very fascinated with fire cooking, and the potential for spellwork using the fire, pan and food itself. The advantage here is the consumption of the spell; you can put people under your control, empower them, weaken them, heal them, by having them literally put the magic inside them and carry it around with them so you dont have to snoop around hunting for taglocks for malefic curses or have the disadvantage of somebody needing to carry a protective charm on them which they may be likely to lose.

I was heavily inspired by a post made by @/qedavathegrey detailing the practical similarities between witchery and cooking. I cook frequently over a fire so I was wondering if I could lay a trick over bread or pastries using fire. So anyway:

First you need to know how to cook over a fire. I dont fuck with charcoal briquettes! And a lot of potency from the spell can come from the type of wood you use. For example:

Apple or sugar maple wood for love workings

Mulberry wood for spells intended to make others obey you

Cedar wood for ancestor work

Oak wood for jovian and abundance work

Pine wood for protection and empowerment/healing anxiety

And so on. In these types of spells I would use fires from materials that are as natural as possible. In some places "living fire" or fire that you started by rubbing two sticks together is very powerful in spellwork. I don't know about you but I am absolutely not able to start a fire by doing that, so if you cannot start the fire like so I would at least breath on it to stoke the fire. While making the fire you can also raise a lot of energy -- it's a pain in the ass so making a fire while pissed off can't hurt for a curse.

Also if you don't have a bunch of different types of firewood at your disposal, you can also add things to the existing fire to help it power the spell. For example, herbs, objects and things such as written psalms, sigils, tarot cards and playing cards can be thrown in. One possible method for herbs close with water could be to gather the herbs, wet them, and put them into tinfoil with holes poked in it so that it is constantly steaming as the fire is burning. (this also keeps bugs away. :) Around the area that you are starting the fire, you could also draw a circle in the dirt for extra protection during the spell. The whole idea is to enchant the fire so that whatever you cook with it will also be tricked.

When you're actually cooking the food, it takes a little while to adjust to using a fire so i would give it a few tries. I always use my cast iron cauldron, and you ALWAYS cook over the coals unless you're like boiling water or something. Don't fall for the cute little larpy pictures of people cooking over the high flames! You'll end up with half of your food burnt to shit, half of it ice cold and ALL of your pan completely black and charred.

Also you don't really want the coals to touch the bottom. Because it will burn. It just gets way too hot. My cauldron has little legs to keep it high up but if yours doesn't you'll want to suspend it from a chain or prop it up between 3 rocks, maybe a little metal grill.

If you're cooking soup or frying something you just need coals on the bottom, but if you're making bread or cake you'll want to actually preheat the cauldron like it's an oven, and shovel coals on the lid too. My bread keeps getting burnt on the bottom so maybe put more coals on the top. Bread holds up pretty well to cooking over a fire actually, in my opinion because it's wild and temperamental just like that fire.

And, once you're done cooking, if you laid a malefic curse over the food you can also save the salt used to clean the cast iron for future curses. :)

Anyway here are a few possibilities!

Blessing/Protection Strawberry Pie (for safety and ease at sea)

Start a fire from pine wood. Into the fire, put herbs St John's Wort, Angelica root, Hawthorn, Blackberry thorns etc you favorite combination of empowerment and luck herbs with "fuck off" herbs. To tailor it for protection at sea i will also be adding psalm 64 and swallow feathers.

It's for one person so we'd be making a mini tart, let's say strawberry rhubarb because of strawberries being sweet and lucky. You could also use blackberry for its protection. Or any medley of berries. Into the tart you can also slip some powdered/tinctured st johns wort, chamomile, etc lucky or soothing EDIBLE herbs. maybe not too much to change the flavor? but funny tasting witch tarts seem to be part of the charm LOL

So to cook a small tart you'll need a small pie tin, and you'd need to preheat the oven itself to about 350 fahrenheit. Maybe lift it off the bottom so it won't burn. You can blind bake the pie crust if you want. Its small so i would put the pie crust in with the filling, brush with egg and sprinkle some sugar, and cook for 15 minutes.

When it's done, you can whisper psalm 64 over it or what corresponds with your intention, and whoever eats it will be protected.

Otnovo --

Good Old Fashioned Love Spell Bread

This one is folksy and not a hundred percent ethical but it's just for educational purposes and I'm not your mom so. Make a fire from apple wood or maple wood. To this fire add sunflower petals, apple peels, orange peels, rose petals and ferns.

In the bread, if you can, mash in a (whole, fresh) mole heart in the liquid, maybe make it a beer bread to mask the meat flavor, or maybe make it stuffed bread and mix the mole heart with spiced pork or chicken, it's all up to you! If you don't have mole meat just lying around you can add coriander to the bread and similar love herbs and spices (take care that it doesnt taste like shit)

Preheat the oven by shoveling coals underneath but mostly on the lid and let it be for 15 minutes. It should be about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the bread in, cook it for 20 minutes, and give to the person you are interested in.

Those two were examples so let me know how they work if you do them, obviously this method heavily depends on what you have accessible to you so just use what you got! Happy spellwork :)

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Witch Tip: Get to Know Your Spell Ingredients

Get to know your spell ingredients. Just because one ingredient is good for money doesn't mean it's a good fit for you.

There are a lot of parts to getting to know an ingredient.

You can research its functionality if it has an herbal use whether medicinal or culinary - the classifications of herbals help a lot in understanding a component's working in your spell, ie - how it will do what you want it to do. A warming herb has a different effect than a cooling herb, for example. An herb that drys out the body can also be used to dry out a situation. A purgative can be used to clear things.

You can research the historic uses of the spell ingredients - I would look at both medical and magical uses here. Though we have debunked a lot of old medicinal uses and I by no means mean to suggest that you use herbs by their old medical uses, these practices give an idea of the nature of the plant. Over time, particular cultures develop an understanding of specific planets and if you are respectful, you may be able to tap into this shared knowledge.

You can hold and interact with the ingredient. This is a must for me before I will use anything in my spell work. I am an animist - I believe that all objects (both inanimate and animate) have a spirit - both their own individual spirit and a connection to the great over-arching spirit of their class. For instance, the basil plants in my garden are three things: each is its own individual basil plant, also a combined Basil spirit that is growing in my garden, and a piece of the spirit of Sweet Basil as a whole. When learning to work with the energy of a spell ingredient, I need to know how it feels. How it interacts with my energy. Is it calming? Does touching it make me go buzz buzz. How does it smell? How does it taste (if its safe to consume, of course)?

You can grow/harvest/gather/mine that ingredient yourself. This only furthers your knowledge of this ingredient. Did you see it when it was a tiny seedling? Did you plant it in the ground? Did you spend hours in the woods looking for the perfect specimen or find a field full on your walk home from work one day? Sure, the seashell you picked up on the beach may not be as perfect as the one you can buy online but you have already established a personal connection with that shell by choosing to take it home.

There are so many more ways. You can write/photograph/draw your object. You can meditate with it. You can potentially communicate with it through dreams or other means of divination. You can experiment with using this spell ingredient by doing your usual spell work with it in addition or substitution to something that you normally use - did it make a difference? How did working with that ingredient change your magic?

Take notes on the different ingredients you use and become the scientist in your own witchy life.

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not gonna lie kudzu has shot up to the top of my list of favorite plants so fast. she's such a bad bitch.

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Cleansing Carpet Refresher Powder

Many witches incorporate physically cleaning their space as part of how they cleanse the energy of their space, but most tips out there involve sweeping or adding ingredients to mop water or to surface cleansers. But I have carpets! (and simply vacuuming just didn’t feel like enough).

So, my ingredients are for cleansing, healing, and peace: 

Rose 

Lavender 

Rosemary 

Pink Salt 

Bay Leaf 

Chamomile 

Eucalyptus 

Cinnamon

Fine Salt 

I ground that up in my food processor, but a mortar and pestle works really well too! I just had too much shoulder pain to mess with that lol 

Then I added that to baking soda and cornstarch, which help to eliminate odors and lift stains/grease/grossness. I wish I had the measurements but I just poured it in until it seemed right… 

Mixed it up really well and ended up with something like that ^ then I added oils with similar properties (here I will specify that the oils I use are herbal infused oils that I get from a small mompop Indian market, not essential oils). Just a couple drops of each, or else the powder will clump up too much: 

Lemon oil 

Peppermint oil  

Rosemary oil 

Lemongrass oil 

Lavender oil 

Eucalyptus oil

Mix all of that up, and then spread it over your carpet. I tried poking holes in the lid of my jar, but that didn’t spread as easily as using my hands. Lightly tossing it to spread it over the carpet also allowed me to be more involved in my intent. Leave the powder on your carpet for about an hour, and then vacuum it up! 

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Grimoire Tips

Just some things I've done that have helped me out tremendously with my own.

Cross-reference everything and anything before adding it in with pen. I usually aim for between four and six sources at least.

Table of contents! Number your pages and start a table of contents on the first one. Make sure you reserve the first few pages to continue it.

Print out charts to paste in. I have the wheel of the year in mine! It was so much easier than drawing it.

If you have trouble remembering what a specific plant looks like, and if it's available near you, press-dry a leaf or stem and paste it next to its information.

Sources! Write down where you found the information! If you have further questions that your book isn't answering yet, go to the source!

Cleanse your book when it feels heavy. Not physically heavy - you understand what I mean.

Keep crystals on top of it. Depending on what you keep on it, the qualities of the crystals will keep the book feeling fresh and light.

Don't just copy paragraphs and information straight from your sources. Paraphrase things in your own words so that it's easier for you to keep them in your head. Yes, having a book to reference is great, but it's also great to study it so you don't have to use it every time you have a question!

Share. Sharing grimoires with others can be massively beneficial to everyone involved, especially if you're swapping information. Seeing from other perspectives is always a good idea.

Just a few tricks and tips! As always, do your research, be safe, and blessed be.

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I made a Winter Syrup to beat the January blahs

Every January, as we scurry off to the grocery store to buy pounds upon pounds of citrus fruit, we joke in my household that we must have scurvy.  I have multitudes citrus-forward cocktails that are designed to fight of the mid-winter ennui - lemon-drop martinis and whiskey sours - we’ve even experimented with putting clementine juice into drinks!

So when I found a recipe online for a Vitamin C heavy syrup that doesn’t HAVE to be served in alcohol form - I was pretty excited.   Better yet, it called for using evergreen needles which (if you’ve been following along) is completely in line with my study of Eastern White Pine that I have decided to undertake this month.

Serendipity is funny things: along with evergreen needles, the major vitamin C contributor in this recipe is rose-hips and I happen to have dried a bunch from Rosa Rugosa that I harvested at the beach in September that have been waiting for the perfect project.   Because I’m an overly ambitious kitchen witch (who also has a partner that loves food) - I had everything else needed for this recipe all set to go.

The crafting was surprisingly simple - its just a simple syrup - something that I’ve made dozens of times out of all sorts of ingredients.  You just want to leave the “tea” part of the mixture on the stove for a long time - we’re talking hours.

In the end I used Eastern White Pine and Rosa Rugosa rose hips for the vitamin C; cardamon, cinnamon and allspice for flavoring, a knob of ginger for its anti-inflammatory properties; lemon balm for its calming effect, and orange and calendula for sunshine energy.   For a sugar, I used raw local honey which is my go-to for most things.

So far, I’ve been loving having this in my life.  I’ve been adding some to my turmeric and ginger tea every day - it adds a nice earthy/herbal/woodsy taste but isn’t overpowering.   I will absolutely make this again and look forward to experimenting with different flavors/added intentions in my syrup.

Ko-Fi / Insta / Blog

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Witches of Tumblr, what are your go to books about herbs/plants/flowers?

Yesterday I learned my backyard is home to purple ground ivy and its place within herbal witchcraft and herbal medicine was fascinating so I want to continue this journey. Obviously I know a few herbs and plants that are good for certain things but I really want to educate myself deeply!

I was looking into the Green Witch but really all and any suggestions are welcome for a beginner such as myself.

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